The Mysterious Stranger

If ever there was a consummate symbol of American badassery, it surely would be Sergeant Slaughter, the mega-chinned, pencil-thin moustachioed warrior of the wrestling ring who defended our nation's pride against the ferocious Iron Sheik, a man whose lust for power was only outweighed by his lust for ham slabs and troughs of Keystone. Your slovenly appearance and belch-like voice inspired millions of headstrong Americans to remain ever vigilant against the looming menace of villainous ethnic caricatures. Bless you. Sir.

Good old-fashioned, family racism.

But since not every person would consider this to be the most astute choice, I will have to settle for my number two. A man who, like the noble Sergeant, embodied the gruff and commanding presence of the American persona. A man who, like the Sergeant, constantly wrestled with despicable iterations of American racism and xenophobia.  But unlike the Sergeant, this man preferred vegetarianism to a diet of Muscle Milk and Slim Jims. And, unlike his violent counterpart, he could actually write. More than his own name. Truly astonishing, I say.


Who was this uncommonly brilliant virtuoso of American letters? Why, none other than Samuel Langhorne Clemens, himself. Aka Mark Twain, to the uninitiated *judgmental huff*. Aka Thorstein von Hemmerschmidt (He was big in Germany). Aka Longhorn Cummins (He may or may not have dabbled in the pornographic arts for a brief period...also in Germany).

Got 99 prollems, but a bitch ain't one.

But I digress.


Anyway, Mark Twain was one of those rare individuals who, as we say in the exclusive circles of literary intelligentsia, "fuckin' got it." If such a designation remains elusive to most, let me clarify. Mark Twain = Big Brain Super Awesome Smart-time OMGg WHAAAA???!!!!!111


This dude was working at a printing press by age 12. He educated himself in public libraries. He was a riverboat captain. A gold-miner. A journalist. A parapsychologist. A sandwich. A travel guide. An inventor (Among his credits: A history-based trivia game and an improvement on suspenders). A close friend of Nikola Tesla's. A feminist. A novelist. A viral video star. An American Idol finalist...Well, you get the idea. Ever seen the classic film, A Kid in King Arthur's Court starring Kate Winslet and Daniel Craig? No? How about The Prince and the Pauper with Michael and Minnifred Mouse? Yeah. Twain totally wrote that shiz. For reals.

Godfather, eat your heart out.

But what's really outstanding about the man with the Ned Flanders stache is the fact that he remained, for many years, an outspoken critic of religious hypocrisy and institutional idiocy. He was, above all things, a man who knew how to blow smoke up the collective, gaping asshole of organized dogmatism. Now you know why he liked cigars so damn much. But he never touched Cubans. Because he wasn't a bloody communist. Like you.


In fact, Mr. Twain's final project, a work twenty years in the making that still remained unfinished at the time of his death was a scathing critique of mankind's bogus subscription to blind theological doctrines. It was called, appropriately enough, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug. Get it? Like Joseph Smith's magical hat? Or Mohammed's talking cave of wonders? Or Buddha's spirit tree? Or Christianity's dusty, old assemblage of pseudo-historical r-r-r-remixes of unoriginal cultural fairy tales? Yeah. Super fuckin' hilarious, if you ask me.


I would like to share with you a passage from said work. It is truly a slam-dunk on behalf of all skeptically minded promoters of levelheaded reason and logical thought. Without further ado, the impeccable words of Samuel Longhorn Cummins:

"Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane - like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell - mouths mercy and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!"

Like I said. Bad. Ass.