Joe's Hole
The Bittersweet Satirical Site for the Bittersweet Satirical Mind
Joe Hunter
A Long-Awaited Update
Wherein nothing really happens.
August 6, 2005
I've spent the past six months in a meditative self-exile contemplating the inner workings of the universe and the cosmic implications of the soul, as I tend to do when there's, say, nothing on TV, and I've still got nothing to say.
The Weekend Hodge-Podge, Vol. II, Ed. 1
In this edition, Joe parodies the Bible. Briefly.
February 6, 2005
A quick note:
I am trying something new here today. There are several
small points that I may cover, each separated by an
admittedly irrelevant segue--just because I thought segues
would be more fun than abrupt topic changes. The result,
you will find, may astonish you to an extreme hitherto
unprecedented and perhaps only to be spoken of in myth and
lore hereafter.
Transition
Act I, in which John finds Nancy eating spoon-fulls of
pretzel salt
JOHN: [Befuddled.] What's that you're eating there,
Nancy?
NANCY: Pretzel salt. Want some?
JOHN: Oh Nance, you're killing yourself. [Several
seconds pass.] Yeah, I'll have
some.
Chirpchirpchirpchirpchirp go all the little birdies.
I want to write an influential pamphlet on the sleep cycle I
have adopted as of the past several months, but the
entire schedule can be summed up in the phrase "I sleep
when I want to," and thus would make for an historically
short piece of literature. This schedule is the reason I am
awake at 6:35 in the morning, not because I am a
metaphoric early bird, but because I have yet to feel the
calming hand of sleep gently push down on my eyelids. I
live my life one two-hour nap at a time.
January 2005 saw over a 100% increase in traffic to
Joe's Hole from December 2004. As January
brought about the
more-than-a-quarter-year-without-an-update mark, it is
only logical for me to assume that a production curve of
my updates versus time approaches zero, a curve on the
same axis of my site hits will approach infinity, making me
just about the most influential person in contemporary
society. I plan on putting Yahoo! out of business
by May and retiring off my ad sales profits by the end of
the year.
With the new year (at this point, the 37-day-old year, I
suppose), I feel the need for a change in format to occur.
I may take an idea from influential and
award-winning science fiction author Orson Scott
Card and review everything I see or experience; I may
post humorous anecdotes about my escapades around
campus and my interactions with my peers and superiors; I
may write short stories and serial novels and plays and
build up something of a portfolio; I may do all three. The
problem with my current format is that it allows for the
production of one update every several months basically
discussing how I have nothing to discuss--and, as such,
have nothing to post on my humble website.
I'm not saying that that will necessarily change. It's a
nice dream, though.
Transition
"Am I going to be all right?"
"Don't talk like that. You're already all right. You're alive,
aren't you?"
"Alive in mind, but my spirit is--"
"Shh. No more words."
"But I--"
"Shh." [Seconds pass.] "That's good."
"But I really have to go to the bathroom."
In recent weeks, I have begun reading an exorbitant
amount of what some might consider literature just
for the sheer pleasure of doing so--a prospect which I
had not so much as considered for the better part of high
school. But this is college, and college is the time for
experimentation. (Most people experiment with drugs. I
experiment with the post-modern classics. It's really all
the same.) My most recent rendezvous with literature is
Anthony Burgess's so-proclaimed masterpiece A
Clockwork Orange, which I contend is, quite probably,
the most ridiculous book ever written. I have never seen
the movie (though a world of pretentious English
major-types have implied that, as one might expect, the
book is better anyway), so the whole "random imported
faux-Russian slang" deal caught me a bit off-guard. Once
I got past that, O my brothers, I was able to appreciate
the beauty and aesthetics of, say, raping 10-year-old girls
and beating old ladies with metal statuettes relatively
unhindered. As such, life was good.
This sojourn into such gloriously exalted prose has led to
something of a sense of futility. My university's library has
available, by its own assertion, "over 4,000,000 catalogued
volumes, 4,200,000 microforms, 1,000,000 documents,
550,000 maps and images, and 20,000 computer data
sets"--which, at least from my relatively ignorant
perspective, seems awfully commendable. However, of
those millions of books to choose from, how is one to
determine what is worth his time and what isn't? It's a
shame to realize that I won't be able to get to everything
I would like to.
On the other side of the coin (let's call it tails),
reading tends to be one of those intellectual, scholarly
things to do, much like debating politics and eating tofu
and all those other things that I have developed an
irrational disgust towards. A few weeks ago I had to bite
my tongue in order to keep myself from asserting, much
like one of the aforementioned pretentious English
major-types, that anything on the New York Times Best
Sellers list was innately one step above garbage,
contributing only to the degeneration of Occidental
culture. If somebody else had said that to me I would
have politely nodded and politely told him to quit his
incessant buffoonery.
Coming from a guy who wants to be a writer, I encourage
anyone reading this not to bother too much with books,
because the world's got enough fools and English majors.
But I repeat myself.
Transition
She sat with her hands folded neatly across her lap,
waiting for her name to be called. Her mind wandering,
she considered what she had made of herself, what
impressions she had left, what lives she had changed. She
thought about the nature of reality and about whether
God had heard her prayers and about her inevitable death.
Ultimately, she just wanted assurance that her existence
led, at least indirectly, to some sort of significant end.
The door slammed, and she was suddenly awoken from her
reverie to the sight of a portly man in a black
overcoat.
"This isn't the men's room," he observed.
And he was right.
Reciprocal to my sudden urge to raise my awareness of
great literature is my inability, due to time constraints, to
accomplish much of what used to be done during my free
time. This means that I am horribly out of the loop as far
as modern cinema goes, that my intake of new music has
decreased dramatically, and that my reign as the resident
video game nerd has effectively ended. However, finances
factor into all of these changes as well.
The one facet of media that I have used more since
college began is television. Since I was 13 years old or so,
I have not bothered with TV, considering it a waste of my
precious time and energy. However, due to very easy
access to my TV, being as it is on my desk right next to
my computer and my homework, I have been known to flip
it on during times of boredom.
Suddenly, it seems, ABC--the network I least
respected when last I checked--is doing very well for itself, sporting such
shows as Lost (which is good, if monstrously
trendy), Boston Legal (which is always a
riot--incidentally, now I am interested in watching The
Practice), and Desperate Housewives (er, not
that I watch that, of course). The general consensus is
that NBC hasn't been the same since Seinfeld, and
the fact that I've found nothing worth watching on it
backs up that theory. CBS is stuck in a rut with a new
CSI spin-off coming out every week--although they
did recently make a daring move from a crime drama about
forensics to a crime drama about mathematics (aptly, yet
relatively inanely, entitled Numb3rs [sic]). Fox gets
some respect from me--and always has, really--for being
willing to take risks on the more risque series. However, I
am sick of The Simpsons and American Idol.
As of right now, the network's only saving grace, in my
eyes, is 24--which might just be my favorite
show--and the prospect of a long-awaited fourth season
of Family Guy (the funniest cartoon ever to be quoted too much and
ruined by overexposure) in
May.
On the topic of television, I am writing this article early
morning on Super Bowl Sunday and have yet to mention
the Super Bowl at all. I, like most sensible people, though
by no means a sports analyst, am predicting that the
Patriots will beat the Eagles. I'm usually right about these
things. And, of course, after the Super Bowl is the series
premier of Seth Macfarlene's (creator of Family
Guy) new cartoon American Dad, which looks to
be just like FG only with a talking fish instead of a
talking dog.
Transition
12) And He said unto them, "Go
forth unto thine nations and bring the news of My word,
for it is the word of grace and of power;
13) "And those virtuous in spirit shall
be taken to My kingdom,
14) "And if I get any calls while I am
out, they shall take adequate messages." Thus
spake the Lord.
--(Sic 2:12-14)
A few nights ago, due to my first major sports injury (or
due to a knife fight or due to saving a bus full of orphans
from a gun-weilding maniac, depending on which story I
tell), I had the opportunity to spend the night in the
emergency room. In actuality, the injury (which was
ultimately caused by a concrete basketball court) was not
nearly as severe as it really should have been. Sure, I got
5 stitches, but that's only going to make for an even
less-impressive scar.
On the plus side, it turns out there's no shortage of good
puns relating to cracking one's head open. "I've got a
splitting headache" was a personal favorite of mine, as
was the always-well received rebuttal "you're so funny
you've left me in stitches." So yeah, a pint or so of blood
was lost, but the laughs and memories gained more than
make up for it. And for a time, my forehead sort of bled in
the shape of a "J," and in the end I think that's what is
truly important.
Transition
Transition indecipherable, article will be
terminated.
And so ends another experimental update. I hope you will
find yourself, after being given due time to digest what
you have just read, somewhat enlightened, perhaps a little
bit more whole, or even a scintilla confused and angry.
Heaven knows I would be. Ha ha ha. But I digress. All told, this article just barely passes the 1800-word mark,
making it officially the longest document I have written
and not turned in for a grade in a very, very long time. Until
next time...
This is Joe Hunter signing off.
Kiss Me, I'm Sophisticated
October 8, 2004
Okay, you know what I hate?
More than Hula Hoops?
More than Mini-Coopers?
More than Simple Plan?
Not much.
That said, though, "elitism" ranks pretty high on my
list.
The term corresponds to the school of thought whereby a
bunch of pretentious so-and-sos with revolutionary new
outlooks on the world situation sit around and grope
each other while they watch the lesser individuals
mindlessly meander further and further into ignorance.
I'm talking about the people who walk around all day
carrying a copy of the New Yorker or some
equally pretentious periodical that sings to the
masses"my love of the arts is only equalled by my ego."
I'm talking about the people who only liked Green Day
before it was cool to like Green Day, and take every
opportunity to make sure you know that, you sheep.I'm
talking about the people who are better than you,
smarter than you, and, above all, more enlightened than
you.
Slowly but surely, I'm becoming one of those
people.
I know, I know. I regret it and despise myself for it,
but it's impossible to combat. It's college life, I'm
sure. I refuse to believe that it's my fault.
Of course, my pretentious periodical is the New York
Times (which, as it comes out daily, technically
isn't a periodical--and by virtue of knowing that
distinction I have proven my point all the more), but
hear me out! Liberal rag that it is (thus sayeth
Daniel Okrent, the Times' Public Editor), a
subscription was required by the Powers that Be.
However, while most people are reading the
independent florida alligator [sic on the
capitalization], I am catching up on stock quotes and
international affairs.
Beyond this, I am also becoming everything I loath by
developing unconventional opinions and tastes. For
example, Shakespeare was perhaps the most overrated
writer in history (half of me is an English major--I
can say that and pretend like I have authority). The
man couldn't even conjugate a verb correctly. Along
the same lines, though, I'm all about the
existentialism (and I was all about the existentialism
before it was cool to be all about the existentialism).
I am developing a perhaps unnatural appreciation for
the artsier and more experimental works in the fine
arts, yeilding pretentiousness + 10.
More and more I find myself turning on the classical
music station and letting all its dulcet melodies fill
my car, smiling at others condescendingly as I point
out that it is Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's
Kamarinskaya, undoubtedly his most magnificent
composition (even though it's as boring as Citizen
Kane [which is an amazing work of cinema, mindyou])
and most certainly something you've never heard of.
That's right. I'm supersaturated with culture.
Come to think of it, the whole subcategory of "music
elitist" in and of itself could be an entire year's
worth of updates (that is to say, it could comprise an
update or two). Luckily enough, snobbish foreign
electronica and vainglorious underground garage bands
are still cogently (and therefore oxymoronically)
unappealing to me, so I can be sure that the cold
dagger of college social life has yet to pierce my
otherwise-warm soul completely. This revelation
provides satisfactory appeasement. Maybe there's still
a bit of time before I have to hate myself.
I think it would have been better if I had ended this
article after the first five lines. The parallel
structure, I think, is quite poetic.
The Weekend Hodge-Podge
July 30, 2004
Apparently, according to the Geocities site statistics page,
if you search Google for
"Underage Sex," a link to Joe's Hole shows up. This was
not planned, of course, but as it's bringing in new traffic, I have just
one thing to say:
I'd subsequently like to welcome the new audience to my humble
website, where family values are still in tact and Full House never
existed.
Back to the mundane, though, I am leaving home in two weeks in
hopes of becoming a famous punk-rocker-slash-skateboarder or
maybe a British pop sensation. Should that fall through I will go to
college (or university, as they call it every except America [God
bless the U.S.A.]), where every day is as eventful and hilarious as a
prime time feel-good sitcom and every night is as full of fun and
excitement as the 1960s. Some possible plans for my college life
are listed below:
Major in communications and become an evil conservative media
tycoon bent on ruling the world through propaganda and hidden
violence, thereby initiating several sequences in which mass
casualties are caused by Britain's top secret agent.
Major in English and spend several decades slowly going insane
because of sleep and food depravation, ultimately ending in "just
another suicide among starving artists looking for attention."
Major in nanotechnology in attempts to beat the rush and cash
in on the technological revolution right around the corner, only to
remember that maths and sciences are not my forte and
subsequently fail out of college to serve your hamburgers (because
hey, someone's got to do it).
Major in weed and minor in beer. Alternately, major in fun and
minor in partying.
Just skip the middle man and never go to college, move into the
forest, and make friends with the woodland creatures until rumors
are spread about a possible relation to the yeti, at which point I
terrorize some kids, as in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps
series.
Double major in philosophy and music in a vain attempt to
become the world's most useless person (excluding the
elderly).
Either path I choose will be made more difficult by my newfound
incapability to focus on one thing for more than a few minutes
(which is, incidentally, a major factor in my recent extended
absences from writing and updating). However, I don't have to
worry about anything related to anything for another two weeks,
and I am going to take the fullest advantage of that situation and
free my mind of any semblance of intelligent or insightful
thought.
Maybe doubly so.
Yeah. That sounds nice.
From the Middle of the Pacific
July 15, 2004
Paul Newsprocket from Cleveland, OH, says, "100 updates in 100 days starting on the Ides of March? You failed, buddy. You failed."
I'm glad you brought that up, Paul Newsprocket from Cleveland, OH. I promised 100 updates in 100 days--that much is true. I never said 100 updates in 100 consecutive days or anything that would suggest such. 100 updates will eventually be placed on this website on 100 particular days. Trust me.
As of right now, I am taking a break from exploring the wonders of Oahu, Hawaii, 6000 miles from home. There will, no doubt, be an update or two when I get home based on my adventures (and boy have I had some adventures!). Of course, maybe it will go the way of my Chicago trip and my New York trip and not be documented in any legible format. We will see either way.
More updates coming soon enough. Don't get your knickers twisted.
the c.j. hunter collection
May 16, 2004
The following is a set of three poems that I attempted to write in traditional e.e. cummings style. The results, I find, are both fascinating and terrifying.
untitled
dep
r(no
ww
hos
l
     a
         
  ugh
i
ng)es
si
on
c.j. hunter
"who (are you) he asked her"
who (are you) he asked her
nothing she told her(self)
said he what he asked
her she replied in words
no one i spoke through
her she said to him
no one (at all not even me
or she) without embrace
kiss i spoke through
her she sang thus (again)
no one without kiss
was she to he
c.j. hunter
"introspection keeps me"
introspection keeps me
(through and through without
anyone to talk to or to
         hear
me
         
         
         
         
          
         
         
    when
i      need)
awake all through
the night (to)
and well
(be heard)
into      the
         
         
         
      morning
c.j. hunter
What "Record of the Year" Grammy Winner Are You?
March 20, 2004
Two.
It Starts
March 15, 2004
The Ides of March are come.
Ay, ... but they are not past.
We can all learn a valuable lesson from our good friend Julius Caesar--namely, that you die violently if you're an arrogant prick. This makes sense, because it has been proven through various charts and diagrams that every message ever sent through literature ultimately translates to death, or something variant thereof.
One.
Just You Wait
March 3, 2004
I am planning 100 updates in 100 days. Seriously. Starting, I don't know, on the Ides of March or so. But for now a haiku will have to do!
I see it flutter
Wondrous as the pouring rain
Gentle butterfly.
This Update Has No Title
December 31, 2003
It is getting to be a bit late, so naturally I feel inspired to write. Another year's
experiences have left me with the realization that yes, a lot can happen
in a year. If, by some quirk in the space-time continuum, some
continuous time loop through disfigured time and what-have-you, I
was able to go back to this time last
December and tell myself all the things I would have seen and done
come present day, I would call myself a bloody liar. Thinking about it
is somewhat depressing. I sort of miss the
old days when I played in the mud and rode my bike and not too much
changed from one Christmas to the next.
2003 was terrible and I am glad to see it go. 2004 will be the same,
except by the end of it I indend to be addicted to nicotine and underage
binge drinking, to own and operate my own adult-oriented animation
ring, and to have developed at least two (but no more than seven)
super powers by means of radiation poisoning, alien abduction, and
having my DNA tested (and altered) by some nefariously evil doctor
(preferably with some sort of wise-cracking animal sidekick with a
razor-sharp wit and a keen love of the arts and languages).
That failing, I will probably just go for a world record. Something
involving pudding, I would like to think, would be right up my alley, or
suspending myself above a pit of moray eels and cow urine by my
teeth for a very, very long time.
Boy do I love Pez® (and smooth transitions between paragraphs have
never been my forte). It's one of those things that I tend to forget
about for months and months at a time--then by some miracle I wind
up with a pack. The dispenser means nothing to me. I'm pretty sure
Pez® reminds me of Flintstones® vitamins, but I can't really remember
anything about Flintstones® vitamins except that they exist (and
honestly I'm surprised I remember that much). If anyone can eat too
much Pez® in one day, I did. I am not proud, but I will not run from the
truth my whole life. That's how people wind up selling insurance and
buying motorcycles and riding them out of the American dream and into
brick walls. Brick walls of reality.
 |
| I was ready for the city--but was the city
ready for me? | I just got home
from New York City a few days ago. In my seventeen and five-sixths
years, I have seen exactly two "big" cities (the other being Chicago),
and both have been within the past two months. I initially planned on
writing some sort of epic based on my travels--and I still plan on doing
that, but, well, I've got a list a mile long of things I have planned on
writing that have never so much as been started (though the Chicago
portion has, technically, been started).
Come to think of it, I will be surprised if I finish this update.
On a related note, late last night, an idea popped in to my head, one
that could have potentially been turned in to an amazing essay or
editorial, one that might have opened up a new school of philosophical
thinking or spiritual enlightenment, one that may have evolved into a
sort of panacea for the ills of society. I decided, being the
humanitarian I am, that I would be the one to write about it, to
introduce these new outlooks to the world. I had acquired an idea and
a form of divine motivation and inspiration simultaneously--a rare
occasion, to be sure--and by God, I was going to take advantage of the
opportunity.
That lasted nearly the whole of five minutes.
 |
| I wonder if she's still alive?
| As of right now, whatever idea I had is lost to
me. I can only hope, for the common good, that it was nothing too
revolutionary. Actually, had it been, it would just be another step
towards singularity and the surpassing of human intelligence by
technology, as in the popular Terminator series (which is summed up
fairly succinctly in the next paragraph). In retrospect, it probably
wasn't all that great, but the prospect of having something worthwhile
to write about and not knowing what it was is still enough to irritate
the brain for a while, much like Fran Drescher irritates everything else.
Note: Most of this was written just after I had seen the movie. The end
may be a little sketchy.
JOHN: I know the world is ending soon and its fate rests on
my shoulders, boo hoo, I'm going to be whiny and annoying about it
throughout this entire movie. [Falls off motorcycle.]
[A naked woman wandering around]
T-X: I like your car. [Takes car.] I like your gun.
[Takes gun.]
[A bar.]
T-101: Take off your clothes.
GAY GUY: Talk to the hand.
T-101: [He does.]
JOHN: Time to binge on animal drugs!
[He does.]
KATE: I'm so happy in life, living in blissful ignorance.
[Recieves a phone call.] Oh no, sick animals. Time to leave
my happy life forever. I love animals.
[At the animal clinic...]
KATE: Time to point out the obvious: someone has been here.
JOHN: It was me. Don't call the cops or I will shoot you with
a paintball gun.
KATE: You just spayed yourself. Now to lock you in a
cage!
JOHN: ...Okay. [She does.]
KATE: You know, we practically had sex in 8th grade. My
God, I hate you. My God, I love you. My God, I can't make up my
mind.
[Enter T-X]
T-X: Die, Kate. Wait, you're not Kate. Die anyway.
[Enter T-101]
T-101: I wonder what trite and clichéd catch phrases will
come out of our encounters?
[They fight. T-101 throws KATE in a truck and JOHN drives
away.]
T-X: It's a good thing I can defy all logic and control cars
without manually pushing down the gas peddle. Now to hijack a crane
and smash things with it, leading to a veritable cornucopia of overdone
unnecessary (and impossible) explosions!
T-101: [Wrecks the crane and the T-X, then finds JOHN
and KATE.]
[Hours pass. Driving in the desert.]
JOHN: Even though I've been told a thousand times before in
the prequel, why me? What makes me so important?
KATE: [from the trunk: knock knock knock.]
[T-101 opens a door]
KATE: Let me out!
T-101: Get back in your cage and shut up. [Closes the
door.] Now for snacks.
[Inside convenience store.]
T-101: Talk to the hand.
AUDIENCE: [Doesn't laugh.]
[Then some other stuff happens that I can't really remember
because it's been a long time since I saw the movie. In the end,
though, the robots win and 3 billion people die. I hope I didn't ruin it
for anyone.]
In conclusion, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a good
movie and you should do everything in your power to disregard that
because it was a lie. I have no idea where the rest of this article was
going, and I feel it necessary to end it as soon as I possibly can.
The Holiday Winds are Blowing In
November 10, 2003
My bowl of Cocoa Pebbles looks surprisingly like some alien landscape the way the milk has coagulated around the individual pieces unfortunate enough to be stuck submerged and those not damned to this inopportune fate climb upwards towards the outer rim. The once-pristine white milk, over time, has become sullied and soiled by the impurities that lie underneath its surface; and yet it lies stagnant and unrippled from my bird's-eye view. I wonder whether the liquid would evaporate before eroding those majestic, rolling mountains around the universe's circumference to dust and pebble? Back to what they were before I created the veritable heavens and earth out of little more than a whim and a pinching feeling in my gut? I wonder whether some single-celled amoeba might flagellate around deep underneath the surface just waiting for the day when it can crawl out of the shining seas, sprout legs, and inhabit the plains and mountains? I am far too hungry to wait and find out. Let's hope God doesn't feel the same way about Earth.
But that's all beside the point.
It's another Florida evening: the current temperature is 69 degrees. It's easy for any experienced Floridian to tell that it's November, and, by such definition, nearly Christmastime. Despite the cool weather taking longer and longer to reach CenFla and the Fake South each year, one can practically smell the overflow of farm-grown pine trees and distant fires blazing (and I don't mean in California). It's the time of year when turkeys and shoppers alike lose their heads; when we, as Americans, celebrate receiving gifts of food and survival in exchange for death and disease by doing what Americans do best: eating until we're sick and then having desert; when, no matter how old you are, your eyes get that holiday glaze over them (the young looking forward to gifts, the old to cataracts). The concentration of holidays is high, and blood pressure is even higher.
Nights like these are breeding grounds for inspiration. Whenever anyone says something like that, I always wonder what inspiration looks like, and why nobody farms it. There's got to be a big market in that, similar to the one for inspiration's alternative, marijuana (which, so I've been told, is the staple crop of Hawaii). But I digress...
I have spent this evening listening to classical music and little else. Stuff I never even knew existed until tonight. It makes me wonder whether there was ever an underground classical counterculture--something that Mozart broke through and turned mainstream or something. I have always said that Mozart was the Kurt Cobain of his time (they were both the most influential musicians of their respective generations, they were both flat-out strange, and they both died young), and that would be just one more parallel in their lives. Also, if you can get through all the German in the classic Falco hit "Amadeus," you will find out that Mozart was the original punk superstar. Maybe Beethoven would be a better comparison to Cobain, though. Who am I to say?
All of it is going through my head right now, along with essays and plot summaries that aren't getting done despite being due some time ago. Yup, it's one of those nights. How am I to focus on work when I slept away the majority of my day? It doesn't matter, though. It's almost Thanksgiving, which means Christmas is almost almost in the aire. It's my last holiday extravaganza as a legal child, and doggonnit, I'm going to enjoy it one way or another. Then I'll be 18 and only the Law can tell me what to do anyway. I am so rebellious.
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All content on this page is copyright 2000-2004 (Hey! A new copyright date!) Joe Hunter, all rights reserved.
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