Atheists in AA, Conversations with a Real-Life ‘Tim Apple’ and the Flat-Earther Scheme to Sell You Some Goddamned T-Shirts

Gotta hand it to those Flat-Earth truthers, because just when I thought they couldn’t get any dumber, they go and do something like this… and TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES!

Sure, they know next to nothing about physics, gravity, tides or even science in general — and often go out of their way to prove their own harebrained ideas wrong — but damn if they don’t know a thing or two about supply and demand and the power of the almighty dollar. Seriously, give these guys some fucking credit. Plus, dudes’ got some design chops, too — just look at the T-shirts they’re trying to sell you:

HELL YES.

Moral of the story: Don’t judge a book by its cover, because while it may look like it was written in crayon by someone who failed to get their G.E.D., inside it might be a master class in how to run a successful e-commerce enterprise.

Must Read

“How Atheists in AA Climb the Twelve Steps Without a ‘Higher Power’”
A We Agnostics of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting isn’t much different than your run-of-the-mill AA meeting: Attendees drink bad coffee, share stories and work the Twelve Steps. But there are no prayers in atheist AA. No mentions of the power of miracles, either. In their stead are the Responsibility Declaration, and “more rational, reasoned scientific thinking.” Obviously, you don’t need to believe in God to attend these meetings, but people of faith are always welcome, too. All you really need is a desire to quit drinking. READ MORE

Directing in the Dark

In 2011, Joseph M. Monks did something no filmmaker had ever done before. No, Monks wasn’t making history by churning out yet another indie horror film — that’s been done to death. What was special about his indie horror film, The Bunker, was that it was going to be the first ever directed by a blind person: Monks himself.

Though The Bunker never really got covered by the mainstream media, the story of Monks’ perseverance lives on. Isabelle Kohn recently spoke to him about the experience of losing his sight halfway through life, and how you make a movie without the one thing every director before him has relied on — their eyes.

Will the Real Tim Apple Please Stand Up?

Many chortles were had this week when President Trump referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple,” as a man with the intellect of a cane toad is wont to do:

It’s just so good.

As such, “Tim Apple” dominated the newscycle for a few days, and even Cook got in on the action, when he changed his Twitter handle to “Tim ?.” Yet, it’s hard not to wonder how a gaffe like this changes things for the real Tim Apples of the world. So we reached out to one. And Tim Apple, the MAGA-supporting window-blinds salesman and part-time Santa Claus from Michigan, is loving every minute of it.

From the ‘I Watched a Flat-Earth Documentary, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt’ Dept.

When Miles Klee took one for the team and watched the Netflix Flat-Earth documentary Behind the Curve, it wasn’t these kooks’ ludicrous beliefs that made his jaw hit the floor, nor was it how the doc actually implores us normies to try to seriously engage with Flat Earthers. No, what amazed him was that every truther interviewed appeared to have a closet’s worth of Flat-Earth T-shirts.

Naturally, he’s now convinced that the Flat-Earth cause is more like a fandom-based e-commerce scheme than a collaborative investigation, and frankly, he makes a great case.

Reality Still Bites

Twenty-five years ago, the seminal rom-com Reality Bites, a movie about the love lives of aimless Gen-Xers, leapt into our hearts forever. Looking back, however, doesn’t do the film any favors. In fact, it’s hard not to conclude that every dude in the movie — especially Ethan Hawke as fuccboi philosophy bro, Troy, and Ben Stiller as the yuppie douche, Michael — are total chodes, to use the parlance of the time. The only thing to do then is to try to determine who chodes harder.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Love will make you do crazy things. Or, rather, love will make you overlook the absolutely crazy things your significant other will do to you. Case in point: These three guys, whose loves begged, borrowed and stole in an effort to take them for everything they’ve got.

‘Healthy’ Fast Food, Ranked

This makes me so angry. Ian Lecklitner asked a senior dietitian at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to help him rank fast food “healthy” items — from potentially healthy to “your definition of healthy is fucked” — and now I can never again order my favorite meal at In-N-Out: A Double-Double, Protein Style.

I believe this sums up my reaction nicely:

Bed of Nightmares

Brian VanHooker was kind enough to drop this history of the Murphy bed I never knew I needed, and I’m eternally grateful. Did you know that the Murphy bed was invented back in 1911 by William Lawrence Murphy — i.e., the horniest man in America at the time — to get around the impropriety of having a female guest in a man’s bedroom, all so he could bang one out with an opera singer? Or that people have actually died in failed attempts to operate a Murphy bed? I’m hooked, and you should be, too.

Spider Dick

Whatever you do, do not allow a Brazilian wandering spider to bite your dick. Besides hurting like the Dickens (heh heh, Dickens), envenomation comes with a nasty side effect: A four-hour boner.

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Jeff Gross

Jeff Gross is MEL’s senior editor for social media and content marketing. His daily ICYMI column, which chronicles all things meta on the site, is the quickest way to catch up on MEL, and the funniest thing you’ll read all day. Follow him on Twitter.