"No Digs for Satan"

(19:05:43 CDT)

"No Digs for Satan"

I got some sort of Kroger advertisement in the mail, today, and it had a coupon for something called "Tornados": cheap tortilla-wrapped refined faux-food bits designed as an on-the-go meal. The microwavable burrito for the jetset generation, I suppose. I shook my head, since microwavable burritos are only tolerable when they are not tolerable at all, making a chic microwavable burrito is equivalent to making smooth sandpaper, and proclaimed "No Digs for Satan" before casting it aside.

I say that phrase kind of often: "No digs for satan". Today is the first time that it really struck me as odd. I did a Google search for it and found nothing. I figured I would give the history of the phrase. At least as it refers to me.

When I first came to Huntsville, there was an alt-newspaper. Pretty much identical to Valley Planet except it was edgier, tended to be even more alt, and would be downright insulting in places. Maybe it was an early version of Valley Planet? I don't think so. This would have been 1998. I know there was one with a name like Rave for awhile, maybe that was it? Cannot recall. To give you an idea of the sociological underpinnings of the thing, one of the first issues I read included an article about why the institutionalization (crikeys, that's a long word) of Christmas is an affront to Jews. Lot's of articles about non-conservative issues. Rather than an obit, they had something like a "What Circle of Hell?" (or very similarly titled) feature and brought out all the bad things the person had accomplished. Phil Hartman's wife was sentenced to "below".

They did media and specifically music reviews and such. It was because of that alt-paper that I tried out Tori Amos's Choir Girl Hotel. The most memorable thing I ever read in that paper was a review for the Teletubbies album. They described it as the elevator music for Hell (they had a lot of hell) and talked about how terrifying the song about Dipsy's hat was. Then, when it came to giving the score portion of the review, they didn't. Seems like they used to give albums from one to four frogs. Or something weird. But instead of giving it half a frog or whatever it was that said "this is utter crap" they had, instead, the words "No digs for Satan". And I laughed and laughted at that.

So, now, whenever I hear some bad idea or some company tries to trick me into a good deal that is not good for me at all, or anything along that lines, my primary response is "No digs for Satan". My anti-actuary chant. My stand against bad capitalism and even poorer marketing.

To me, it was such an iconic phrase. Now everyone else can know where I got it from.

Si Vales, Valeo

PS: For those curious to hear the album that was reviewed, you can sample it on AmazonMP3.com

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