Mr. Paul Maul

One of the advantages of working in the field of self-help is that I come across all kinds of freaks interesting people who have a passport to the other world. One such woman is Madame Olga Kazurinsky, a medium I met at a convention one year when we were both looking for impressionable people potential clients to join us on the journey of self-discovery.

Now that Steven Spielberg’s new movie about Abraham Lincoln has arrived, a new fascination with this great historical figure has arrived with it. And so I asked Madame Olga to communicate with the spirit of the rail splitter, and see how he feels about the dramatic treatment of him in popular culture. Here follows a transcript of her brief but pithy conversation with Honest Abe.

Madame Olga: Mr. President, are all the tall tales about you true?

Abraham Lincoln: Yes. I was, in fact, born in the log cabin that I built with my own two hands.

M.O.: Fascinating. How do you feel about the new Steven Spielberg movie depicting your attempts to unite a divided country?

A.L.: Well, I am a fairly enlightened person, having been against slavery at a very volatile time, but I just don’t get how these British actors keep getting cast to play Americans. It’s downright disturbing to me that Daniel Day Lewis can do a better American accent than an American.

M.O.: That is unsettling.

A.L.: Tommy Lee Jones is all right, but that wig would have been laughed out of Ford’s Theater.

M.O.: Which reminds me, now that you are in the afterlife, have you gained some perspective on the oft-told joke “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

A.L.: Oh, my yes. I think it’s hysterical. Of course up here in heaven we are all cut ups. I get in plenty of digs on Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.

M.O.: How do you feel about the current state of the Republican Party?

A.L.: Well, let me put it this way: riding a humpback mule is a whole lot like riding a swayback mule upside down.

M.O.: What does that even mean?

A.L.: I’m not sure, but I know you people count on me for a certain amount of homespun wisdom.

M.O.: What did you think of the casting of Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln?

A.L.: I liked it! I really, really liked it! But seriously, if my beloved had been that attractive, we probably would have stayed in bed instead of going to see ‘Our American Cousin,’ if you know what I mean.

M.O.: I feel my connection to the afterlife fading. Is there anything you would like to add?

A.L.: Yes. I know Steven Spielberg did all this research and everybody’s talking about how historically accurate he has made the feel of the times. But the stupid idiot left out the vampire hunting. That was one of the most awesome times of my life. And here he just wants to make some kind of timeless statement about a divided Congress. That’s all well and good, but you folks are entitled to see me kick some undead butt. If zombies were around then, I would have cleaved them in twain with my axe as well.

M.O.: Thank you, Mr. President.

A.L.: Don’t mention it. Oh, and if you can hook me up with Oliver Stone, I might like to see what he’d do with me.

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here. Or on Funny or Die!

The long election cycle is over, and all the bitter divisiveness can finally end. For 20 minutes. In any case, let’s take a deep breath, contemplate the outcome and get back to using our effectiveness as empow-WOW-ered individuals. And, since rhymes make everything better, use this self-help limerick to put the last few months of mind-boggling campaigning in perspective.

SELF-HELP LIMERICK OF THE WEEK

The president has been elected

But no matter which one you selected

You must sleep, stuff your face

And eliminate waste

‘Til they put you in the ground as directed.

 

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here. Or on Funny or Die!

In a move certain to raise the ire of voters on both sides of the political divide, Mr. Paul Maul, motivational speaker and figurehead of the newly-formed “Empow-WOW-erment Party” has called for a nationwide legalization of feelings.

Maul’s battle cry comes up against the almost 250-year ban on feelings in American culture; a culture long afraid that encouraging the outward expression of painful, or joyous, or, in fact, any kind of emotion could turn the whole country gay.  And while some maintain there has been a tacit understanding that women are allowed to get giddy or, for example, weep with anguish, there is no denying that such displays only lead to sphincter-tightening awkwardness no one should have to deal with.

“Shove it Upwards!” author and Empow-WOW-erment Party leader Maul.

 

But Maul says only by embracing these stigmas can we transcend them. “For too long, this country has been silently condoning a ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ attitude toward people who convey what they are feeling,” said Maul.  “I can’t tell you how many of my friends have been afraid to reveal to those close to them that they are experiencing human emotion, whether it be over something small and insignificant like a death or a divorce, or something much bigger, such as the feelings of emptiness awakened by watching an episode of Mad Men.”

Maul, author of the self-help eBook Shove It Upwards!, maintains that there is a conspiracy against feelings in the United States, in which people attempting to process their emotions in public are  ostracized and even kept from advancing in their careers.   To support this point of view, Maul cites such benchmarks of ridicule as Howard Dean’s scream, the guy who lost it while narrating the crash of the Hindenburg and John Boehner turning on the waterworks like a little girl that time.

“Conversely,” says Maul, “those who are stiff and stoic, sometimes to the point of being unfeeling zombies, become models of the American way of life.  Just look at Rick Perry. Or Martha Stewart.”

Maul’s move to legalize feelings has ignited controversy among political purists, many of whom point out that the only reason a provision to forbid feelings was not included in America’s constitution was that the founding fathers ran out of ink.  “They were going to put the anti-feelings stuff in,” said a Tea Party organizer who asked that his name, Edgar Beecham, not be included, “but everyone was tired.  Alexander Hamilton ended up pulling the short straw and nobody had the balls to ask Alexander Hamilton to run out for more ink, so that was the end of that.”  When asked to reflect upon the irony of men who wore powdered wigs and yet feared self-expression, the anonymous Mr. Beecham refused comment.

“I want to live in a world,” concludes Paul Maul, “where everyone will be allowed to have an outpouring of emotion, even if they really overdo it to the point where you want to punch them in the face.  In fact, my ballot initiative contains a punch-in-the-face option, which I deliberately included to appease those who may want to punch someone in the face for taking the whole expression of feelings thing to an annoying extreme.”

It remains to be seen how successful Paul Maul will be in legalizing feelings in the United States.  However, if marijuana is legalized first, it will be a moot point.

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As a fake self-help professional, I am always concerned with making sure every citizen comes to a sense of his or her own empow-WOW-erment. And it is no secret that the Democrats, frequently criticized for not playing hardball when Republicans lash out at them, have been lacking in the empow-WOW-erment department. Of course, self-worth cannot be achieved overnight. It must arrive over time and in stages. With that in mind, I have a good first step for Democrats to take. Those interested in getting Barack Obama re-elected need to step up and sink to the level of their detractors. And a good way to begin doing that is to start saying Mitt Romney is not an American citizen.

After all, what do we really know about this man Mitt Romney except for the raft of so-called “facts” accessible on the so-called “Internet” and the so-called “public record?” Have you ever noticed that there is nothing out there about the fact that Mitt Romney was probably actually born out of wedlock, the illegitimate son of a defrocked nun who fled a convent in Paraguay after her torrid affair with a local sheep’s bladder canteen salesman scandalized the community? This is pretty much what I heard might be the case, and I believe it because I really want you disempowered Democrats to have a good foundation on which to claim that Mitt Romney was not born here.

And, so, anyway, what happened was Romney’s dad, who, by the way was born in Mexico (red flag or what, people?) and was this big automobile manufacturing tycoon in Michigan, was visiting Paraguay to try to set up an assembly plant there and he bought a sheep’s bladder canteen from a local vendor who told him the horrible, sordid story of how he could not afford to support the little baby he had with a disgraced nun and if George Romney would just take the baby off his hands he would throw the kid in no charge with the sheep’s bladder canteen.

Well, George brought that poor little baby—born as he was in mortal sin and the filth of illicit relations and do we really want a man like that holding the highest office in the land, I ask you—home to Michigan and raised him as his own.

And this is the story no one is telling. But you, Democrats who need to step up the fight, could tell it! Play hardball. Get on the Romney birther bandwagon! Demand to see his birth certificate! Put it in people’s minds that Mitt is a foreigner who has no right to be our Commander in Chief!  It shouldn’t take more than a few little dropped hints on Meet the Press, or getting Nancy Pelosi to post something about it on Twitter or something. After that, the rest of us ordinary citizens will run with untruths and hammer them home until they seem real.  This technique has worked for your competition for years now, and you would be foolish not to claim it for your own.

Oh, and one more thing. All the so-called “legitimate” sources list Mitt Romney as a “Mormon.” Well, it turns out this is a long-standing typographical error, and that Mitt Romney is actually a “woman.”  Get on it, liberal media.

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here. Or on Funny or Die!

The presidential race is heating up, and by all reports, that heat is a dead one. Wait, that didn’t come out quite right. Actually, maybe it did. In any case, America will never regain its place at the top of the heap if we don’t start taking a self-help approach to our governance. With that in mind, here is the audio book version of the Top Ten Promises of the Empow-WOW-erment party!

Click on the graphic above, use the embedded player below, or subscribe and download free on iTunes!

Don’t forget, you can get all the written–or spoken–wisdom you need right here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Both candidates are telling us they have the answers, but it’s pretty easy to see that all the problems in the world stem from a lack of self-examination. So here is my ten-step plan to reform politics in America once and for all. Won’t you join me in tapping into your truths, whatever that means?.

TOP TEN PROMISES OF MR. PAUL MAUL’S  EMPOW-WOW-ERMENT PARTY

1. I will begin each day by talking to the economy and making sure it realizes how important it is to all of us.  Soon, the economy will develop a better sense of self-worth and pass that worth onto the American people in the form of new jobs.
2. Constitution to be replaced with copies of “The Secret.”
3. As long as they can provide a convincing written explanation of what is wrong with them, homosexuals will be allowed to marry.
4. As part of my five-year plan to reduce stress in everyday life, I will institute the death penalty for taking more than ten items through the ten items or less line.
5. I will continue to allow tax cuts for the rich as long as the rich promise to learn more about sharing.
6. I will balance the budget by making sure to put a Libra in charge of the budget.
7. I will replace the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools with the Pledge of Empow-WOW-erment (full text below).
8. I will impose severe tax penalties on anyone who makes another comic book movie. 
9. I will end our dependence on foreign oil with the power of my mind alone by using law of attraction principles as outlined in the new Constitution (see #2).
10. Finally, I will pay no attention to the constant, nagging critical voice in my head that keeps saying the first nine promises are ridiculous.  By refusing to embrace any negativity, I will be able to implement all the steps in this political platform no matter what anybody thinks. So even if everything goes right down the shitter, I will be remembered as someone with the strength of my convictions.  And that’s how it works, people.

Thank you for your support.

THE PLEDGE OF EMPOW-WOW-ERMENT

I pledge allegiance to myself

And occasionally to Deepak Chopra

And to my development

For which I stand

One person

Fully realized

With inner strength

And awesomeness

For all

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.Enjoy more self-help posts, lists and pseudo-wisdom by clicking here!

 

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So, big deal, the United States of America got downgraded.

Now they know how I felt on prom night.

Are you hearing this, Paula Slavin?

Oh, wait.

That was degraded.

            My bad.

 

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Why, there’s all sorts of Paul Maul self-help lunacy. Check out some more!

 

 

The time has come for a self-help titan to throw his hat in the ring for admission to the highest office in the land. And if the past thirty or so years has been any indication, that office has been high for a good percentage of them.

But no longer.

Now at last there is an independent candidate for President of the United States who knows what America wants. And what America wants is to finally know what it wants. And what is that, that it wants? It wants an America free of want. That’s what it wants. There. If that isn’t an example of the kind of mind f*ck speech writing that has made this country great, I don’t know what is.

My background as a motivational speaker makes me the perfect leader of a nation. You need a president who can send your low self-esteem packing. You need a president who can put our country on the road to enlightenment.  You need a president who is not afraid to get in touch with his emotions. Well, some of them. The ones that are not too fey.

You need four to eight years of EMPOW-WOW-ERMENT!  That’s what you need!

Here are the top ten reasons Mr. Paul Maul is the candidate you have been waiting for.

1. I can provide conclusive proof that I was born.
2. I will reduce our dependence on foreign oil by putting the word ‘green’ next to a whole lot more things than it is next to now.
3. I will require each session of Congress to begin with a group hug.
4. I will not allow people to get all in your face about how amazing their iPhones are.
5. I will pay teachers as much as movie stars and movie stars as much as teachers, then sit back and wait for Charlie Sheen to be the only celebrity left.
6. If those controlling the top one percent of the nation’s wealth want tax breaks, they must submit to a three-day motivational seminar in which a crazy person with a headset microphone paces back and forth on a stage to the accompaniment of a generic rock anthem.
7. I will destroy the power of influential lobbyists by giving them all guns.
8. I believe in a woman’s right to choose how she feels about gay marriage.
9. I believe every American has the right to own a home that they can default on.
   
10. I await the day when I can tell the Tea Party to suck it.

And there are so many more that will go into effect the day I take the oval office by storm.  The time is now.  Oprah, Dr. Phil, Deepak, Wayne Dyer and that other guy are not going to step up to this. But I am.

Vote Mr. Paul Maul in 2012. It’s belief you can change in.

 

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Now you can actually hear the revolutionary political platform of Mr. Paul Maul’s Empow-WOW-erment Party read with commitment, vigor and sphincter-tightening straightforwardness by Mr. Paul Maul himself!

In this time of election-based upheaval, listen to these stirring words and then ask yourself: which fictional motivational speaker delivers for you when all the others fail?  Which faux self-help powerhouse has got your back?  None other than Mr. Paul Maul, that’s who.  And even if you don’t vote for me, make sure you get out there and write in somebody other than the rest of those jerks.

Top Ten Promises of the Empow-WOW-erment Party! Read by Mr. Paul Maul

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Those of you who saw my brief sports-related message of healing on my Facebook and Twitter pages yesterday will perceive that the teachable self-help moment contained in an old sports rivalry was not something I could confine to 140 characters…hence this post.

It was half-time at Tuesday night’s Lakers/Celtics match up when I got into a conversation with a Los Angeles native who spoke of the long-standing animosity between the two teams.  The guy had been around long enough to remember the many straight championship wins the Celts racked up against the Lakers in the 1960′s, and it was for this reason that he declared, “I hate the fucking Celtics!”

The implication of this outburst, of course, is that the fucking Celtics are so roundly hated because they beat the Lakers. The Celtics did not maim the Lakers.  The Celtics did not run over the Lakers with an armored tank.  The Celtics did not bind the Lakers at their wrists and ankles and stretch them out naked in Death Valley to eventually have their eyes pecked out by carrion.  The Celtics simply scored more points in a game whose entire reason for existence revolves around who scores the most points.

And for this, they are hated.  What, would we prefer that the rivals of our favorite sports teams simply let our side win?  Not very sportsmanlike, and not bloody likely.

In most other fields, consistent top placers are revered.  Plaques are handed out to killer salespeople willy-nilly and you don’t hear a lot about them being hated on.  Do people go around saying they hate Bill Gates?  Or that they hate Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire just because it won some Academy Awards?  These are all winners, folks who have reached the pinnacle of what currently passes for success in our universe, and it would be counter-productive to hate them. Yet, the winner-as-role-model paradigm gets tossed aside like a relationship at college when it comes to a basketball team based in another city whose prime directive is to win, just like the team from your city.

So go Lakers!  And go Celtics!  Hatred, as with all negative emotions, is rooted in fear.  In this case, it is the fear of admitting that sometimes people we would rather not see succeed actually do succeed. And instead of giving them their well-deserved props, we find it easier to hate them for having the temerity to actually do what they set out to do.  The only other people who incur this much irrational wrath and vitriol are our elected officials.  The thing is, though, they deserve it. Fuckers.