Monday, November 25, 2002
Countless dozens (twelves) have marveled at the way all of the great Pharaohs and other self-important assholes of ancient Egypt, not to mention their monuments like the Sphinx, the Cooney and the Guggenheim, all look exactly like Michael Jackson. Few have followed their ass-scratching curiosity into the realm of arduous academic research, and I can’t blame them because that’s some dry shit. But for those few who have, the reward has been a startling revelation.

Michael Jackson has always existed.

Through all cultures and all times over the course of human history there has been only one constant: Michael Jackson. Okay, and bacon. Everybody loves bacon, no lie. So two constants, but one is more surprising than the other.

No one can be quite sure where the King of Pop came from, as he predates even the earliest recorded history and can be found in the mythology of most world cultures. Historians agree that a crash-landing space egg is as reasonable an explanation as any.

Nowhere is Jackson’s influence more evident than in the culture of ancient Egypt. When the great Pharaoh Titencouple built the Sphinx, the model was no other than the gloved one himself. Jackson convinced the Pharaoh to build the Sphinx by saying it would make him live forever, but through a neat linguistic trick Mike failed to clarify that he meant he, himself, and not the Pharaoh, who would die three years later in the crotch of an elephant.

Through some kind of voodoo shenanigans that can only be explained using a detailed diorama and action figures, Jackson designed the Sphinx as a kind of supernatural Dorian Gray portrait who’s magical powers kept the singer impervious to the ravages of time. It worked like a charm, though when the dog-loving warlord Mameluke shot off the Sphinx’s nose during a drunken bender in the 1300’s, Jackson began to lose the nasal portion of his magical protection. Eventually this lead to the unsightly implosion of his shnozz, an unfortunate side-effect of marrying one’s fate to that of a stationary monument in asshole country.

In the 20th century, acid rain began to deface the Sphinx further, wreaking more havoc on Jackson’s visage and driving him to more and more paranoid attempts to stave off the effects of aging. Sleeping in a giant vacuum-sealed Pringles container made for good press in the tabloids, but eventually proved to be of little help. A Sphinx haircut would come later, though some would argue that he went too far with it and ended up looking more like a character from Big Trouble in Little China than the Sphinx.

Some may bring up the well-known footage of a young Jackson rumpshaking his way through Motown hits in the early 70’s as evidence of his normal human lifecycle. Few realize that this footage is from, amazingly, 7840 B.C.. Check out the cord on Jermaine Jackson’s bass guitar. Looks suspiciously like a braid of camel hair, doesn’t it? Jackson has proved that he’s nothing if not adept at predicting cultural trends ahead of time, only few have realized just how far ahead. Once again in pop music, everything old is new again.

Some might wonder what to make of this discovery, to panic wildly and fling one’s ass out an open window, or to shrug apathetically and help oneself to another helping of chicken fried steak. I believe the correct approach is mild curiosity. While it would be easy and understandable for one to succumb to an intense bout of the heebie-jeebies, it’s important to realize that if Jackson had the power to destroy the world, he surely would have done so after HIStory sold like Cancer McNuggets a few years back. He may hold some bizarre powers we have yet to discover, but whatever happens we know that over in Egypt we’ve always got him by the man-headed lion balls. And personally, you can keep your immortality if it means that any yahoo out there with a rocket launcher can blow your sandy bits back to Cairo any time he pleases.

Cancer’s for Pussies: How Smoking Started
The aristocracy of Europe became models for the “modern” enlightened smoker. Catherine the Great even signed the first exclusive endorsement contract for Ragamuffin Cigarettes which included posting her severed head smoking with a smile over the slogan “Aaaah… flavor country!” painted on a fence.

Your Mama Invented Television
The time had come for television, and no one knew this better than President Roosevelt. He wasted no time shining the big, lightbulb-shaped searchlight into the sky, signaling for all of the inventors to come out of their basements and backyard sheds and insane asylums and come to their country’s aid.

Susan Be Anachronism: The Dollar Coin Story
Originally only available in the west or localized flood areas, the dollar coin became novel because you could bite it and pretend to know a lot about money, even if you were a dipshit.

You've Got to Be Shitting Me: The Story of the Sundial
In medieval times, it was believed that one could tell time by throwing rocks at a calf. If the calf was unaffected by being hit with the rocks, it was nighttime. If the calf became agitated, it was noted that the time was daytime. If the calf was hit in the head and died instantly, it was exactly noon, and time for sandwiches.

Pop Goes the Wiesel: The History of Soda
Wiesel responded by buying a gigantic sack of empty beer bottles from a local orphanage, then filling them all with cole slaw. He was almost there. Realizing that this in no way addressed his soda-selling needs, Wiesel dumped out all of the cole slaw and filled the bottles with his sizzling new beverage instead.