Got Bile?

Way back in 1996 or 1997 - I can't remember which - I finally discovered the joy of the internet via a high-speed connection. (Translated: I finally got a job.)

Shortly after I did so, I learned the joy of using this high-speed connection instead of doing actual work. It was also shortly thereafter that I realized I better learn how to simultaneously work and browse the web or I was going to get sacked.

During that time, I stumbled upon The Bile Chronicles (bile.com) while entering random domains for fun. It was the funniest damn thing I'd ever seen (at least to that point) on the web.

It wasn't too long after that the site disappeared. I decided recently to try and find any trace of it, and lo and behold, some kind soul has archived it and it's still freaking hilarious. I'll share a few samples with you, then you have to go visit it for yourself.

From "Hollywood in Ribbons":

Every time I have the misfortune of channel surfing past a Hollywood awards show I am reminded of how much I hate the "cause" mentality. Of course I'm talking about those ubiquitous red ribbons--those sensitivity swastikas the Hollywood blackshirts always have emblazoned on their award show tunics every time they lockstep up to the podium.

This ribbon cause suffers from the ridiculous assumption that tinsel town can actually take a moral stand on something. Ho'wood is the modern day Sodom and Gamorrah. They can't tell right from wrong to save their lives, so what makes this left-coast congregation of Jimmy Swaggarts presume that they can go on tv and lecture the rest of us about morality? Ribbons are a product of the typical style-over-substance, maximum PR/minimum effort mentality with which they approach everything. The remedy to society's ills do not lie in fashion accessories.

From "The Reverend Michael Stipe":

Michael Stipe said this once during a radio interview when a listener asked him how he could be more politically active. I don't believe he meant this answer as a joke...

Of course this all begs the question "why the hell are you asking a rock star for advice on anything?" The rock star is among the most damnable leprous philistines in the world. Yet just because he knows a few chords and can carry a tune you view him as some omniscent sage doling out solomonesque wafers of wisdom to the faithful.

And all the while you sycophantic idol-worshipers kneel before him with your mouths agape in comunion-like awe.The only thing lower than a rock star is a person whose life is so adrift that he looks to a rock star for direction.

To recap, food and politics have nothing to do with each other--unless, of course, we're talking about hunger strikes. Now there's a cause I'd like to see the Reverend Stipe get involved with.

And from "Tibetians Just Wanna Have Fun":

{AN EXCERPT FROM THE MTV COVERAGE OF THE TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERT}

I don't know what's more pathetic-that he's trying to appear concerned about an issue he obviously knows nothing about, or that he considers dancing a basic human right. However, I DO know that today's "weekend activists" make the 90's look like an even bigger joke than the 60's and I know who to blame--MTV.

In 1981, when MTV first spewed forth it's cathode ray seed into the nation's womb it conceived hundreds of thousands of bastard-mutant chromosomally-challenged offspring like the cretin you see above. Since then, MTV (this country's most notorious deadbeat dad) has instilled in its unholy brood a philosophy similar to that of its broadcasting. All of life's little problems can be solved within a five minute video and nothing deserves more attention than the time it takes to watch an MTV special on THE NEXT NEW HIP THING.

The artist & author was Kevin Turner - a very talented writer/artist who moved on to a career as a freelance artist/animator somewhere in California. I remember writing him at the time and asking if there were any new articles on the horizon, to which he replied that he no longer had the bile necessary to produce it. And a damn shame.

And there's plenty bile more where these samples came from. Go check it out!