is you should always do a background check on all your potential roommates.
HINDU
No culture before or since
has so flawlessly combined the disparate realms
of brutal murder
and epic dance battles
as did the ancient Hindus
which I suppose makes sense coming from the nation that gave us Bollywood.
People in Hindu myths are ready to cut a rug at the drop of a hat
and they are also ready to cut other things
and in fact, maybe the reason that the hat dropped in the first place
was that someone cut off the head it was resting on
and then ate it
because that’s how the Hindu gods roll
but it is not all decapitation and bump ’n’ grind, my friends
Hindu mythology gets up to some seriously cosmic shit as well.
Observe:
THE HINDUS LIKE TO CHOP DUDES UP
So back in the days before there was stuff and things there was a dude.
Just this one dude, as far as the eye could see
spanning the entire breadth of the universe, plus like ten extra feet for good measure.
His name
was the Dude
but not the Dude from The Big Lebowski.
This is a significantly Bigger Lebowski we are talking about here.
This is a Lebowski as Big as the entirety of creation.
He is so big that he exists at all times both before and after his birth
and like a quarter of his body is made up of all the animals ever
and the other three-fourths is all the gods
and he actually gives birth to a dude named Virj
who then gives birth to HIM.
WHAT.
So obviously the gods get tired of trying to conceptualize this universal dude
and they’re like “Screw this, let’s sacrifice him.”
So they tie him down and cut him up
and just start flinging pieces of his body ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE
and all the giblets start turning into things
like all the tasty clarified butter they boil off him turns into ANIMALS
even though I thought animals were already a quarter of his body.
I guess a quarter of his body was butter?
Fatty.
Anyway, the gods are pretty much making up ceremonies as they go along
so those kind of get written down and preserved for all eternity.
Also, I gotta hand it to these gods
it takes some serious effort/cojones
to kill and butcher someting that is 75 percent COMPOSED OF YOU.
But anyway, his mouths become priests
and his arms become nobles
and his thighs become the general rabble
and his feet become the slaves.
His brain turns into the moon and his eyeballs are the sun
and the sky comes out of his ears and the ground forms under his peasant feet
and the gods make sure to start a whole assload of fires
because if you’re gonna butcher the universe it might as well also be on fire
and those fires turn into the IDEAL SOCIAL ORDER somehow.
No one mentions what happens to the Dude’s dong or his chest actually.
My guess is that some creeper god stole that shit and built himself a pan-galactic RealDoll.
So the moral of the story
is next time you are getting sexed up
just remember that both you and your honey are made out of the same dude
so basically
everybody is gay.
SHIVA CANNOT BE STOPPED
Okay, so there is this dude Brahma, right?
He is the creator of everything.
So one day
he takes his mind
and makes a hot chick come out of it.
This hot chick is his daughter.
But as soon as he pops out this brainbaby
Brahma is like “OH DAMN.
I WANT TO DO THINGS TO THAT
THAT HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN INVENTED YET.
GOOD THING I AM THE CREATOR
AND CAN INVENT THOSE THINGS RIGHT AWAY.”
And then he goes ahead and gives himself THREE EXTRA HEADS
so he can check out his daughter from all angles
thus causing the world to get divided into four directions
because the creator suddenly desires something that is outside himself.
BUT ENOUGH SPIRITUALITY.
BACK TO TITS AND BAD DECISIONS.
Okay, so Brahma’s daughter gets wind of all this exquisite voyeurism going down
and she gets pretty embarrassed
and since she can’t stop being hot
she decides to stop being on Earth instead
and she goes up to heaven.
So now Brahma is like “AUGH.
I WANT TO CONTINUE TO LOOK AT TITS
BUT MY HEADS ONLY LOOK DOWN.
LOOKS LIKE I NEED ANOTHER HEAD.”
See this is the thing about being the creator.
You do not consider options such as
oh, I don’t know
moving your neck.
NO.
You grow an extra fucking head
looking STRAIGHT UP
and then you send it shooting toward heaven
all like “NOM NOM NOM, TITS TIME.”
So at this point
Brahma’s daughter is up in heaven
like “What am I going to do about this encroaching molester head?”
and this is when Shiva steps up to the plate
like “THAT IS ENOUGH BULLSHIT, BRAHMA.”
Then he chops off Brahma’s head
USING ONLY HIS THUMBNAIL.
But instead of a hearty thank-you
and maybe some victory poontang
Shiva gets Brahma’s gross skull stuck to his hand
and he is like “AW BALLS.
THIS IS MY JERKIN’-IT HAND”
And he transforms into Bhairava
aka THE SHIVA OF ULTIMATE RAGE
and he is like “HERE IS WHAT I AM GOING TO DO:
I AM GOING TO WRECK SOME SHIT
AND THEN I AM GOING TO WRECK SOME SHIT.”
And Brahma is like “Oh no you are not, son.
You are going to get banished all the way on out of here that is what you are going to do
and then you are going to roam around the land as a mad beggar
until you get arbitrarily forgiven.”
So this is exactly what Shiva does
until one day he stumbles upon a group of sages
all sitting around praying the bajeezus out of themselves
and Shiva rolls up
like “HEY HEY, OOGA-BOOGA CRAZY HOMELESS GUY HERE, WHAT’S UP?”
And the sages are like “What.”
And the sages’ wives are like “OH MAN, I WANNA TAP THAT LIKE A KEG O’ BONERS.”
and they all go dance the crazy wango-bango tango with Shiva
and the sages are like “WHAT.”
So obviously they send a tiger after Shiva
and Shiva responds by TAKING OFF THE TIGER’S SKIN
and WEARING IT AS A SKIRT.
So then they send a poisonous snake after Shiva
and Shiva picks up the snake
and WEARS IT AS A GODDAMN NECKLACE.
So then they send an evil dwarf after Shiva
rightly assuming that there is probably no way for Shiva to wear a dwarf.
(That’s right,
guys.
They have fuckable gold in India too.)
But Shiva just sort of kicks the dwarf over
stands on his face
and takes his club.
Then he turns around like “COME ON, HOT BITCHES.
FOLLOW ME INTO THE FOREST.”
So they do
and then Shiva (aka Bhairava, remember)
goes to Vishnu’s crib
like “Hey, Vishnu, lemme in”
and Vishnu’s bouncer is like “Who are you? You’re not on the list.”
And Bhairava is like “I AM THE GUY WHO IS STABBING YOU TO DEATH WITH A TRIDENT.”
And then Vishnu jumps out of the back room like “OH SNAP
I WILL SHOOT BLOOD OUT OF MY FACE AT YOU UNTIL YOU GO AWAY.”
And Bhairava fills Brahma’s sticky skull with Vishnu’s blood
like “THANKS, SUCKER.
I WAS JUST DROPPING BY TO ASK IF I COULD BORROW A CUP OF YOUR BLOOD.”
And then he dances off into the forest
carrying the doorkeeper’s body and a skull full of blood.
He dances all over everywhere
until he gets to the holy city Varanasi
at which point he is pardoned for his crimes
and gets to go back to heaven
. . . ?
So I guess the moral of the story
is if you are ever indicted for murder
your best bet
is to do more murders
and then fill the skulls of your victims
with the blood from your other victims
and maybe stage an impromptu dance party with some women you stole
and eventually people will realize that you can’t be stopped
and you can go to heaven.
Excuse me while I go convert to Hinduism.
ANYTHING KALI CAN DO, SHIVA CAN DO BETTER
So we’ve established that Shiva’s a badass
but it turns out that his main job
is to make sure his wife Kali
who is the goddess of having a thousand furious arms covered in knives and murder
doesn’t get too shitfaced off all the blood she drinks and destroy the world
like this one time
where he lies in front of her on the battlefield
or this other time
when he turns into a baby
like “WAH WAH, TITS PLEASE”
and Kali is overcome by MOTHERING INSTINCTS.
But there is one particular instance of Shiva handling Kali’s shit
that is particularly fantastic:
Okay, so this story begins like all stories about Kali:
Kali just killed a bunch of dudes.
Probably they were demons
but really, who knows?
Anyway, to celebrate
Kali takes up residence in a nearby forest with a bunch of her asshole friends
and starts terrorizing the countryside
stabbing the villagers
then stabbing their stab wounds
then stabbing the blood in their stab wounds
on and on, till the break of dawn
and then after the break of dawn too.
So finally one of the villagers
who is sick of getting stabbed every day
and is also a follower of Shiva
comes running up to Shiva like “HEY, SHIVA
CAN YOU HANDLE THIS SHIT FOR US?
WE REALLY NEED THIS SHIT HANDLED.”
and Shiva is like “Dude, can’t you see I am busy ripping tigers in half or something?”
And the dude is like “KALI IS STABBING EVERYONE.
SHE MIGHT DESTROY THE WORLD EVEN, WHO KNOWS?”
And Shiva is like “Okay, my schedule just cleared up.”
So Shiva shows up in the forest
and Kali is like “HEY, DICKFACE.”
And Shiva is like “Hey, Kali.
We’ve talked about this.
You need to stop stabbing all the time.
This right here?
This is what is known as too much stabbing.”
And Kali is like “NEVER STOP STABBING.”
And Shiva is like “That is in fact the opposite of what I said.
All right, this is going nowhere.
How about this:
We have a dance contest
and when I utterly hand you your shit in the contest
you agree to stop stabbing for a while?”
And Kali is like “OH BITCH YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET SERVED.”
So they drag out the boom box
spread out the cardboard
dust off their dopest moves
AND PROCEED TO BUST THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE TEAR-AWAY PANTS.
These moves they are busting?
Guys:
They are ludicrous moves.
Like, remember the dance contest in Pulp Fiction?
This was nothing like that.
John Travolta is terrible at doing the twist.
This is way better.
But finally, Shiva busts out the ULTIMATE MOVE:
THE TANDAVA DANCE
which is just basically a super-energetic dance
and I guess Kali is so tired from stabbing
that she cannot match his dance moves
and so she reluctantly agrees to stop murdering for a couple days and go home.
AND THUS BOLLYWOOD WAS BORN.
So the moral of the story
is that we could end all wars forever
if we just weaponized THE POWER OF DANCE.
GANESH IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF AN UNPLANNED PREGNANCY
So Shiva is married to Kali, right?
WRONG.
Well yes, Shiva is married to Kali
but as it turns out
Shiva is ALSO married to this other chick Parvati
who is a gentle goddess of life and stuff.
BUT
as it turns out
Parvati and Kali
ARE THE SAME PERSON
WHOA, SNAP, PLOT TWIST.
Yeah, apparently she can transform between sweet loving life goddess
and unspeakable hurricane of death
for ANY REASON
at ANY TIME.
This is what is known as an exciting marriage.
Anyway, in this story Parvati is busy being Parvati
which is good news for everybody
except for Shiva
because now all the time Kali would have spent murdering and busting sweet dance moves
Parvati spends thinking about having babies
and Shiva is not ready to be a father.
I mean he kind of created the entire universe
but he does NOT want to be tied down, okay?
So Parvati gets sick of bugging him to have a baby with her
and she’s like “Wait a second . . .
I’m a goddess . . .
Having babies in unconventional ways is what we DO.”
So she just goes ahead and makes a baby all by herself
and she names him Ganesh
and then goes to take a shower and tells Ganesh to guard the door
because apparently her sole motivation behind having kids
is to make sure no one sees any naked boobs while she is washing up.
IT WOULD HAVE PROBABLY BEEN SIMPLER TO JUST LOCK THE DOOR, PARVATI.
CHILDREN ARE A SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY.
And of course this is the exact moment that Shiva decides to come along
and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither of these people should have
kids
because he sees the shower house where his wife is showering
and he’s like “Oh man
what a perfect opportunity for steamy shower sex!”
So he just marches on over there
except instead of getting inside
he gets some impudent baby blocking his path
and Shiva is like “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”
And Ganesh is like “No, dude. I’m a baby.”
And Shiva is like “WELL THEN
YOU CAN CALL ME
THE GUY WHO JUST CHOPPED OFF YOUR HEAD JUST NOW.
ZING.”
And OF COURSE
this is the moment that Parvati chooses to finish her shower
and she comes sauntering out of the shower house
and sees her husband standing over her dead baby
and she’s like “SHIVAAAA
YOU BRING MY BABY BACK TO LIFE OR ELSE.”
And Shiva is like “Or else what?”
And Parvati’s like “Or else I’m gonna turn into Kali
and you’re gonna have to chase me down and dance me into submission again.”
And Shiva is like “Hmm. Good point.”
So Shiva sends out some of his dudes
to go grab the first head they find
and bring it back to him
and I guess he has pretty dumb servants
because they come back with the head of an ELEPHANT
and Shiva is like “Guys
I feel like it would have been easier to just decapitate a baby
rather than a full-grown elephant
and also you should have figured out from context clues what I meant.
But whatever, I guess I’ll make it work.”
So he just glues this elephant head onto the dead baby
and that somehow causes it to come back to life
and that is why Ganesh has an elephant head now
and also why he is the god of wisdom
which is bad news for Shiva
because an elephant
NEVER FORGETS.
So the moral of the story
is that you shouldn’t worry if you accidentally kill your baby
just kill another baby and glue pieces of it to the first baby until it comes back to life.
Works every time
or at least
this one time.
JAPANESE
ARE YOU READY FOR DISTENDED RACCOON TESTICLES?
NO?
WELL, YOU BETTER GET READY QUICK
BECAUSE JAPAN JUST CALLED
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology Page 11