and then he goes boom again
and there is some land
but this is still pretty lame because what is the point of being able to do this kind of shit
if there is no one around to get freaked out by how cool it is?
Now, this may sound pretty familiar so far
but here’s where it gets crazy:
Quetzalcoatl’s master plan for getting worshippers
is to invent JAGUARS.
And then he’s like “WHOA, JAGUARS LOOK, I JUST FUCKING MADE YOU.
PRETTY NEAT, HUH?”
And the jaguars are all “Rarrrr, we are jaguars.
We can’t talk or be impressed.”
So Quetzalcoatl is like “Aww, fuck you guys.
I’m gonna make some way more awesome creatures
and they are going to worship me
and you are going to be their SLAVES.”
So he gets some dirt
and he makes dirt-people
but the dirt-people really suck
because first of all, they are made out of dirt
second of all, they only speak gibberish
and third of all, they dissolve in water
so Quetzalcoatl figures that even if they COULD worship him
he would get pretty embarrassed
so he kills all of them by dumping water on them
and then he calls these two other dudes
Xmucane and Xpiacoc
who have names that sound like prescription drugs
designed to treat nasal congestion and erectile dysfunction respectively
and he’s like “Hey, is it a good idea for me to make people out of wood?”
And they say “Yeah, go for it.”
So he makes people out of wood
like a whole bunch of wooden robots, basically
and they can speak and walk around
and they don’t dissolve in water
but they are TREMENDOUS assholes.
One might even say they have a STICK up their asses.
Get it? Get it?
Aw, screw you guys.
Anyway, they totally forget to worship Quetzalcoatl even a little bit
and he’s getting pretty pissed at this point
because he has seriously made EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS
and no one is giving him ANY CREDIT
so he kind of freaks out a little
and causes fire to rain from the sky
and burns everything to cinders
and then makes all of the wood-people’s cookware come alive and kill them
and all the animals move into their houses and eat them
even though they are made of wood and totally not tasty
and meanwhile Quetzalcoatl makes a bunch of ACTUALLY delicious people out of tortillas
and those people are supposedly us
and as soon as Quetzalcoatl gets bored he is going to make us into burritos
and then feed us to jaguars or whatever
and this story was apparently plausible enough
to freak out THE ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD ALL THE WAY THROUGH 2012.
But anyway, everyone lives happily ever after
except the wood-people
who get chased into the woods and turned into monkeys.
So the moral of the story is
never set fire to a monkey
because it is made out of wood
and you will start a forest fire.
HUNAHPÚ AND XBALANQUÉ: ULTIMATE BALLERS
So there are these two dudes
Hun Hunapú and Vucub Hunapú.
They are twins, or at least brothers.
Anyway, they piss off the gods of the underworld with their constant ball playing.
Yes, that is right
they play sports SO HARD
that it upsets MAYAN SATAN.
Anyway, the gods summon them down to the underworld
(which is called Xibalbá
because no Mayan story is complete
without about six thousand proper nouns beginning with the letter “X”)
and the gods are all “Hey, guys we heard you like ball playing
GET IT?
WE HEARD.
BECAUSE YOU ARE SO LOUD.”
And the twins are like “What of it?”
And the gods are like “Well if you like ball games so much
how about you play ball with us
FOR YOUR LIIIIVES?!?!”
And the twins are like “This sounds like THE ULTIMATE RUSH.”
Now, if this was a Greek myth
the twins would use some kind of mad skill or insane trickery to beat the gods.
But this is a Mayan myth.
The dudes get killed before the game even starts for smoking a cigar the wrong way
and then they get decapitated and buried under the ball court
except for Hun’s head which they put that on a calabash tree for some reason.
This turns out to be a bad idea
because some chick named Xquic walks by
and Hun spits in her hand
and he is such a true man that this causes her to get pregnant and she gives birth to TWINS.
Fellas
think you’re hot shit because your penis is one and a half inch longer than the national average?
try impregnating a random chick in her hand
with your saliva
from a tree
on which someone has deposited YOUR SEVERED HEAD.
Wait, wait, I went and read it again
it wasn’t even his head
it was just his skull.
Skulls don’t even MAKE saliva
so . . . I guess when he still had skin and stuff he just collected a big glob of spit in there
and he HELD IT.
WAITING.
I want that shit on one of those posters that says “HANG IN THERE.”
So yeah, Xquic gives birth to twins
they are called Hunahpú and Xbalanqué
and these two guys are alive for like five minutes
before they discover their dad’s ball-playing gear
and start playing ball SO GODDAMN HARD
that they piss off the underworld AGAIN
and THEY get summoned down there
and the gods are like “Hey
you may have noticed that severed head hanging from that tree by your house.
That was the last dude who kept us awake with his ball playing.
That was also your dad, FYI.
Why the hell do you guys even like playing ball this much?
Okay, look, do you want to play ball for your lives?”
and the twins are like “THE ULTIMATE RUSH.”
So they play ball
and see, if this was a Roman myth
or maybe like a Norse myth
these guys would totally have won and avenged their father(s)
but like I said, Mayans are assholes
so the gods win again
and they kill the twins and bury them under the ball court.
But there is a TWIST
because it turns out the twins are IMMORTAL SOMEHOW
so they dig themselves up and sneak away
and they come up with a crafty plan
which is to come directly back to the underworld, dressed as traveling performers
and the gods are like “SWEEEET”
because it is boring in Xibalbá without the constant noise of ball playing.
So Hunahpú and Xbalanqué put on a fantastic show full of amazing feats.
Maybe they even do an asto
nishing magic trick
where they make their names easier to fucking type.
But anyway, for the finale
one of them cuts off the other’s head and then puts it back on without any problems.
So all the gods are like “AAAAWESOME!
DO ME DO ME DO ME.”
And the twins are like “Sure, okay.”
And just go and chop off the gods’ heads without any resistance whatsoever
because that is how slick they are
and then they go dig up their dads and resurrect them
and none of them ever forget how lucky they are
to be able to use their DICKS to get women pregnant.
So the moral of the story
is to ball so hard
mothafuckas wanna murder you and bury you under the ball court.
ZIPACNA AND THE FOUR HUNDRED BOYS
No, this is not the title of a hard-core Mayan gangbang porno.
This is an honest-to-goodness myth from the Popol Vuh
that just HAPPENS to have four hundred boys in it.
Let’s do this:
So Zipacna is the son of this guy named Seven Macaw
who is basically a rogue sun god who hangs out on Earth and causes problems.
Zipacna is responsible for making all the mountains
and he has a bro named Earthquake who is responsible for
PUPPIES.
Wait, no, it’s earthquakes.
Sorry, I read that wrong.
Look, none of that is really that important
except to establish that Zipacna is the sort of dude who CAUSES MOUNTAINS.
So Zipacna is taking a bath in the river one day
and these four hundred boys waltz by
carrying a big tree they just chopped down to make their house with.
They had to chop down a big tree, you see because there are four hundred of them.
They are having some trouble, though
because I guess their eyes were bigger than their biceps.
They are just dropping this tree all over the place
and Zipacna sees them and he’s like “Dudes let me help you with that.”
And then he just picks up the tree all by himself and takes it to the boys’ crib-in-progress
and doesn’t even ask for a tip or anything.
Zipacna is a pretty nice dude.
He is the only one.
’Cause see, then what happens
is the four hundred boys have a meeting
and they’re all like “Guys
Zipacna just did us a major solid.
How should we reward him for his altruism?
Oh
how about WITH MURDER?
Seriously, we cannot have any really strong dudes running around being stronger than us.
We have an inferiority complex!
Or rather
we have FOUR HUNDRED INFERIORITY COMPLEXES.”
So they come up with this brilliant plan
which is that they call up Zipacna and they’re like “Hey, man
thanks for all your help with that big log
but we have another problem now
we need a really big hole for some reason.
We need you to come dig us a really big hole and then stay in it while we bury you alive.
Okay?”
And Zipacna is like “Anything I can do to help.”
But Zipacna is too crafty for their clever ploy!
I mean he digs the hole, sure
but he also digs a special SIDE HOLE to hide in when the four hundred boys try to bury him.
Actually they don’t even try to bury him
they just try to drop a big-ass log down the hole and crush him
which is dumb, because he just lifted one of those for them
and that is why they wanted to kill him in the first place.
But either way, it doesn’t matter because Zipacna is safe in his side hole.
So the boys are all up on the surface celebrating their dumb plan
but then they’re like “Wait!
If Zipacna was really dead we would have heard his death cry just now!”
And Zipacna is like “Oh, uh . . .
Owwww, I’m dead now.”
And the boys are like “PERFECT.
But WAIT!
If Zipacna is really dead
then a bunch of ants will probably show up the day after tomorrow to eat his tasty corpse.
Let’s wait for that to happen so we can make sure he’s really dead.”
So Zipacna just chops off all his hair and bites off all his fingernails
and when the ants show up
he just gives all his hair and fingernails to the ants
and they all scamper all over the place carrying his body stuff
because I guess ants think hair is delicious?
Reason number a million not to be an ant.
Anyway, then the boys are TOTALLY CONVINCED.
So obviously they all go get trashed to celebrate their totally bogus victory
and meanwhile Zipacna tunnels out of his hole
and then he crushes all four hundred boys inside the house he helped them build.
So the moral of the story
is that I don’t care what your mom says
biting your fingernails may just save your life.
JUDEO-CHRISTIAN
So here’s a religion you may have heard of.
In fact, I am willing to bet that nine out of ten of you
when you hear the word “religion”
think of this one first.
But did you know
that this popular high-school jock of religions
is JUST AS SUPREMELY MESSED UP as all the other ones?
Yeah, no foolin’.
And it’s even crazier
because what masquerades as a single holy book
is actually more like a short-story collection by like a million crazy desert dudes!
I’m mainly gonna focus on the Old Testament in this section
because the Old Testament God gets up to some seriously brutal shit
but the New Testament
(the one with Jesus in it and stuff)
is messed up in a whole other way.
OKAY, ENOUGH TALK
LET THE FIASCOS BEGIN!
GOD MAKES A LOT OF STUFF
Okay so God, right?
No, I didn’t leave out any letters up there.
That is not a typo.
No, see, in this pantheon
THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.
I KNOW.
PRETTY LAME.
But anyway, this God guy is facing a problem that you should be pretty familiar with at this point.
The problem is that there is water AND NOTHING ELSE.
ALSO IT’S SUPER DARK.
So BAM, he invents light, day one
and then he misses the dark part so he invents night too
and then he’s like “Oh, looks like it’s nighttime.
Better go to sleep.”
DAY TWO:
God basically just makes a big divider right in the middle of the water
and all the water below the line is earth
and all the water above the line is heaven.
(This is why angels are traditionally depicted wearing scuba gear.)
Day three is when God finally gets around to inventing dry land.
Seriously?
It took Ra like all of thirty seconds
to invent dry land AND HIMSELF.
Is this just not something that occurred to God until he had two ni
ghts to sleep on it?
Oh, and he makes plants too.
On day four God invents the sun and the moon and the stars
which begs the question
WHERE WAS THE LIGHT COMING FROM BEFORE?
And then he’s like “Oh shit, the moon.
Better go to sleep.”
This dude needs an awful lot of sleep for an omnipotent dude
which may explain why wars happen.
So on day five, God invents animals.
ESPECIALLY WHALES.
The Bible is very specific on this point.
By day six, God is pretty pleased.
He’s like “Wow, this is awesome.
How can I ruin it?”
So he invents mankind
and also cows
because he forgot about cows.
Then he gets real hammered to celebrate
and he passes out on Saturday
and doesn’t wake up until MONDAY.
In fact he sleeps through Sunday SO HARD
that NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO WORK ON SUNDAY EVER AGAIN.
That is a true power nap.
So when he finally wakes up
he makes this garden called the Garden of Eden
and he puts the guy he made in there
and the man (whose name is Adam) is like “God, I’m bored.”
and God is like “Ooh, I know a great game we can play.
It’s called name all the animals.
Ready? Go.”
So Adam falls for this transparent ruse to get him to do God’s work for him
and he names all the animals
but then he gets done doing that and he is like “Still bored, God.”
And God is like “Okay, I got this.”
And BAM
knocks him out and steals one of his ribs.
This is some straight-up Tijuana shit is what this is.
So Adam wakes up in a bathtub full of ice
like “Whaaaat happened?”
and God is like “Look, dude, I made you a chick.
She is made of your rib, so she might be kinda dumb
I tried just making one out of clay, like how I made you
but she was harboring all these problematic delusions of equality
so I had to find a workaround
anyway, she’s totally hot, so don’t worry about it.
Oh, by the way, I should warn you guys
you can totally eat from any tree in the garden
EXCEPT FOR THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
THAT ONE OVER THERE
THE TOTALLY UNGUARDED ONE WITH THE DELICIOUS-LOOKING APPLES”
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology Page 9
