Zeus does not understand contraception

March 2, 2011 9:32 AM

so the moral of the story is
always wear a condom
because otherwise
you are going to have to resort to an impromptu skull c-section
with a shovel

Myths Retold.

The Birth of Athena
The Founding of Rome
Thor and Mjolnir
Faust
John Henry
The Mabinogion

. . . and the rest.

posted by KathrynT (50 comments total)

and a pig herder later adopts them maybe thinking
hey who couldn't use some wolf suckled demigod twins
to help out with the old pig farm
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:37 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'LL COUNT THEM
OH LOOK FORTY THIEVES
THAT IS A LOT OF THIEVES
posted by The Whelk at 9:40 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

AND THEN DUNKADUNK WAS LIKE "WHOA SHIT IM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LAUGHING THAT LOUD IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY".
posted by dunkadunc at 9:43 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

but anyway Cuchulainn sees this fucking tilty bridge
and he is like no problem i can handle this
but it turns out nope
no he can't handle this
he tries three times and comes back with thirty one flavors of failure
until finally he is like AAAA FUCK THIS
and SALMON LEAPS ACROSS THE BRIDGE IN A FURIOUS RAGE
I wish I could draw you a picture of this
because it's basically the best thing ever in my mind

*hugs KathrynT*
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

This guy and Kate Beaton must make babies for posterity.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:47 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Can I self publish these for kindle?
posted by pearlybob at 9:53 AM on March 2, 2011

These are funnier than they have any right to be. May have to bookmark this site...
posted by caution live frogs at 9:55 AM on March 2, 2011

So one day Loki
who is the god of being a needless prick
all the time
to everybody

This might be the best explanation of Norse myth, ever.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:09 AM on March 2, 2011 [20 favorites]

Wow. The Arthurian ones are awesome. I've been on an Arthurian kick lately and I must say this is better than BBC Merlin and the Mists of Avalon COMBINED.
posted by NoraReed at 10:37 AM on March 2, 2011

From the Faustus one:
YOU COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR
I DON'T KNOW
TWENTY FIVE YEARS?!
HOW ABOUT 30 OR SO?
WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?
DID YOU LOOK UP THE BLUE BOOK VALUE OF YOUR SOUL IN ADVANCE?
THERE IS NO EXCUSE

This is the line that got me in trouble, from the John Henry one:
I AM NOT EVEN ONE EIGHTEENTH GREEK GUYS
WHY DO I KNOW ALL THESE GREEK MYTHS

Dunkadunc, for me it's more like 'oh shit, librarylis this is a library and your boss just walked over to your office and said WTF is wrong with you, you're laughing way too loud and this is LIBRARY.' Oops.
posted by librarylis at 10:47 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

NOW JOHN HENRY WAS A STEEL-DRIVIN' MAN
do you guys know what that means
that means that he was a dude who worked on a railroad
and his job
was to KILL MOUNTAINS
posted by euphorb at 10:52 AM on March 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

You all realise it's not just choppy sentences, right? It's poetry. The poetry of AWESOME.
posted by Hogshead at 10:59 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

so he calls up loki like OH FUCK LOKI SOLVE MY PROBLEMS
and loki is like what why
and Odin is like REMEMBER HOW WE HAVE AN OATH OF KINSHIP
THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT I SAY?
and Loki is like oh yeah
i guess that's a thing we did
why the fuck did we do that
and Odin is like DOESN'T MATTER STALL THAT GIANT

*dies and is dead at this explanation of her favorite norse myth ever*

This page is priceless. THANK YOU for linking us!
posted by palabradot at 10:59 AM on March 2, 2011

But really the joke is still on Hephaestus because his wife is boning another man right in front of him and even the best blacksmith cannot repair a broken relationship

The end

:(
posted by charred husk at 11:01 AM on March 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Let me be the first (and, probably the only) person to state that reducing everything to the lowest level of civility is not the direction that will make our world a better place. But, hey, whatever turns you on. :-\
posted by tomswift at 11:12 AM on March 2, 2011

This guy is channeling Andy Samberg to the MAX.

Not that I'm complaining.
posted by tmt at 11:19 AM on March 2, 2011

I hate to really nitpick things, but I'm not really sure about this whole business of referring to the Mayan figure as Quetzalcoatl. Yes, there are connections between the figures, but seriously, maybe the Mayan version had multiple names, but I don't think that was really one of them since it was Nahuatl and while there may be some loanwords that's not the same thing as wide usage--

Plus, definitely needs moar jaguars.

But I'm kind of tickled that it's not all totally Eurocentric.
posted by gracedissolved at 11:20 AM on March 2, 2011

tomswift: "Let me be the first (and, probably the only) person to state that reducing everything to the lowest level of civility is not the direction that will make our world a better place."

If you mean how he's relating the myths, it isn't necessarily that he is stripping the civility out of them, he using the proper modern language to match the complete lack of civility that was there in the first place. Myths can be BRUTAL.
posted by charred husk at 11:22 AM on March 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

This is completely cracking my shit up and must be added to my newsfeed.

Also, the moral of Romulus and Remus:

The moral of the story is if you are a murderous horny demigod
raised on the milk of fucking wolves
you are a badass motherfucker
not afraid of a little state-sponsored rape
to secure your timeless legacy
because no woman will ever again
walk down the streets of Rome
without being leered at
to this very day.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:25 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Athena is weaving a tapestry about how mortals should shut the fuck up
and show some respect
and Arachne is making a tapestry about the gods
basically being dicks
and fucking around
so essentially
they are having a rap battle
with STRING

"A rap battle with STRING" is my new favorite phrase.
posted by axiom at 11:33 AM on March 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

I've been enjoying this blog for some time, and kicking myself now for not posting it to metafilter. It's gold! /hipster

That said. I have such an internal sense of his rhythm and tone in my head that watching his videos and hearing how he actually sounds quite freaked me out. He speaks much much more quickly than I'd have imagined.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:45 AM on March 2, 2011

I'm looking forward to more of his biblical myths. God spends a lot of the OT being a dick on very thin pretense.

"Hey, Job, do you love me? Cool. I just destroyed everyone and everything you ever loved. Oh, also, you now have boils."
posted by KGMoney at 11:58 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Alright so love right

we already know it makes people do some pretty wild shit
but who could have suspected
that the wildest shit of all
would be done by a couple of thirteen year olds
with ready access to swords and poison
oh that's right
EVERYBODY

Oh god, yes. If Shakespeare had been like this, maybe I would have actually read it instead of just cheating with Cliff's Notes.

This blog has made my life significantly better. Or at least my afternoon.
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 12:23 PM on March 2, 2011

oh my god people are staring
at my library laughter
i wish i was a brilliant poet
posted by prefpara at 12:33 PM on March 2, 2011

I did Classics at university and I LOVE THIS. This guy manages to get right to the heart of the characters and story. I think I have a new favourite blog to make me laugh out loud.

From How the Trojan War got Started
"they hit him up and are like "hey how would you like to potentially incur the wrath of two of the three most powerful female beings in the universe?" and Paris goes "do i get to see tits?"
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 12:42 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dave: Narrate.
posted by Drexen at 12:55 PM on March 2, 2011

SEE PEOPLE
SEE HOW THIS STORY IS NOT ABOUT PEOPLE BEING SMART

...

so obviously Psyche dies
but Cupid is like dammit mom what the fuck
I'm telling Zeus
and Zeus is like FUCK THIS
EVERYBODY IS CONSTELLATIONS NOW
posted by catlet at 1:50 PM on March 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh man, I've been waiting for this to get posted here! I went to college with this guy (we weren't close, but we had friends in common, so I felt like it was tripping uncomfortably close to the self-link rules.) He's seriously one of the best storytellers I've ever met--as in, can take a completely mundane story about running errands or what have you and turn it into something that has an entire room of people dropping their conversations to listen and laugh.
posted by kagredon at 1:54 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

i think maybe this story predates problem solving skills
maybe that was something that had to be invented
like the alphabet and thongs and dynamite


YES
This is like Badass of the Week or some Cracked writers. So awesome
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 1:57 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

(P.S. He also raps about non-mythological things and one of those mutual friends made a video for a film class. I'm in it for about one frame, so now I guess I'll forever be trying to explain to employers why I appeared in a video called "I'm Really Good At Sex.)
posted by kagredon at 1:57 PM on March 2, 2011

...like someone gave acid to a random number generator and hit it with a shovel...

omg this is seriously some of the funniest shit I've ever read. I'm having to struggle not to hyperventilate at my desk. THANK YOU
posted by lonefrontranger at 3:29 PM on March 2, 2011

Hilarious. Bookmarked. Thank you.
posted by Quietgal at 4:19 PM on March 2, 2011

ZEUS COMES DOWNSTAIRS AND HE GOES "DANGER POINT!! YOU LEFT THE OVEN ON."
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:49 PM on March 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I absolutely love this site, and can't believe it hasn't been posted before. I found that after reading a metric ton of it, my internal monologue picked up the same cadence for a while, and that was really unsettling.



So the moral of the story

is next time you are picking an object to worship
a good question to ask yourself is
would a dog eat this?
if the answer is yes then you need to do some thinking
posted by you're a kitty! at 10:03 PM on March 2, 2011

AND I’M ALL LIKE “DANGER POINT?”
posted by hototogisu at 11:24 PM on March 2, 2011

To me, this feels like various myths as told by Dave Secretary. Which is another way to say I like it.
posted by mysterpigg at 7:30 AM on March 3, 2011

which many other people seemed to have picked up on, but without the name drop...
posted by mysterpigg at 7:32 AM on March 3, 2011

Oh hey, looks like he noticed us noticing him. On the front page of the site today is,
"Hey metafilter what's up
I see you like myths"

Hi dude!
posted by librarylis at 8:26 AM on March 3, 2011

but then there is another problem
because one of his cows totally runs away
and swims across the ocean
and invents italy

Oh man that is the worst

I want to copy and paste a zillion excerpts into a zillion comments but that would be wrong.

This is the best.
posted by little cow make small moo at 9:21 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Love love love love love this site. And I agree, he does seem to have a knack for distilling these stories into the bare elements.

I haven't watched any of the videos, but reading it very much reminds me of the old Neill Cumpston reviews on Ain't it Cool News.

(note: Neill was actually Patton Oswalt. Shame he stopped doing it once he was 'outed') =(
posted by indiebass at 10:50 AM on March 3, 2011

His style is so infectious
it gets all up in your head and you walk around in the world
having non-adventures that are AWESOME because everything is talking to you in HIS VOICE
so I went to buy a shirt
because I got paid and I like shirts so hey
And I saw this shirt with a pattern that was like
I AM MINDFUCKING YOU WITH MY PATTERN
And I was like woah there shirt
I do not consent to this
and the shirt was saying
JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME FUCK YOUR MIND THROUGH YOUR EYES
And totally buy me because I am even on sale
DISCOUNT MINDRAPE
HOW CAN YOU SAY NO TO THIS
And the shirt was making some headway with me there
because sales to me are like gold to a gold-raping dwarf
which is to say
WOAH I WANT ME SOME HOT SALE ACTION
WITH A MINDRAPE BONUS AT 20% OFF
But I said to the shirt
HOLD UP THERE SHIRT
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOU
Those shapes and shit are completely unflattering
and would minimize the appearance of my boobs
You must understand that my boobs are fantastic
no shirt touches these boobs unless it makes them even more awesome
like so awesome that if I take them out in public
the motherfucking army gets called out
not because my boobs are dangerous but because they are SO FUCKING AWESOME
that they are afraid the army would be royally pissed to miss out
on the superlative tit action
and would use their army powers to destroy them
for not informing them about the breast cornucopia
And the shirt was like damn
I have been a fool
Go along your boobtastic way
while I throw myself on the ground to be trampled
for daring to offend your magnificent rack
And the moral of the story is
shirts that make your boobs look small can go fuck themselves.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 4:08 PM on March 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Thank you so much for linking back to this, because I forgot about it and got to go back and check it out. And found this gem in his retelling of Celtic myth, and the description of the hero Cuchullain's "warp spasm," a state he gets into when he is in battle --

IF SALVADOR DALI AND MAGRITE GANG RAPED STEPHEN KING
AND STEPHEN KING HAD A BABY
WHICH H.P. LOVECRAFT THEN ATE
AND SHAT INTO A VAT OF RADIOACTIVE HATE LOCATED IN THE SKULL OF OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME
THE RESULT WOULD BE SLIGHTLY LESS TERRIFYING THAN WHAT CUCHULAINN IS DOING HERE

LOVE. THIS.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:57 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

hey specialagentwebb, where did you get that pdf?
posted by prefpara at 11:08 AM on March 22, 2011

prefpara: "hey specialagentwebb, where did you get that pdf?"

I put it together myself because I wanted to read the myths offline. Probably should have labeled it as a self-link.
posted by specialagentwebb at 11:12 AM on March 22, 2011

The guy who writes this blog is actually in the process of putting his work together in a for-sale, booklike way, so it troubles me that your PDF is sort of a free substitute for that.
posted by prefpara at 11:30 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I had no idea that he was working on that. I'll ask the mods to remove my link right away.
posted by specialagentwebb at 11:35 AM on March 22, 2011

That is super cool. You make my heart smile.
posted by prefpara at 11:57 AM on March 22, 2011

Nixed!
posted by cortex at 12:20 PM on March 22, 2011

I CAN'T STOP LOVING THIS BLOG
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:44 PM on March 22, 2011

The guy who writes this blog is actually in the process of putting his work together in a for-sale, booklike way, so it troubles me that your PDF is sort of a free substitute for that.

That's awesome news; I'd been planning to try to throw together an e-book version for my own consumption and was going to email him a copy in case he wanted to do exactly that.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2011 [1 favorite]