muck’mak’er n.
One who creates and perpetuates misconduct in public life.

Muckmakers is a blog dedicated to exposing the lies, hypocrisy, and greed of the politicians, businessmen, religious leaders, and other public figures that make our lives so much more difficult than they really need to be. Highlighting the scandals you may have missed, we tear down archaic, groundless, and simple-minded ways of thinking with hard facts, informed opinions, and an irreverent dash of cynical humor; replacing the fluff and bullshit with truth on which we all can establish change.

Whereas many other “political” blogs will only go so far, Muckmakers isn’t afraid to say what you’ve always been thinking, but were afraid to admit. And with a regular webcomic, podcast, golden toilet awards, and other exclusive features, we always deliver a unique blogging experience that stands out from the rest of the pack.

Debut: July 2008
Address: www.muckmakers.com

Most award ceremonies are held with the intention of praising people for their outstanding accomplishments…ours are a bit different. The Muckmaker Awards is an annual article on Muckmakers where we dishonor the worst people, organizations, businesses, and ideologies of the past year. For the last twelve months (and probably longer), these scumbags have been flushing our planet directly down the toilet, so we award them the golden toilet trophy as a reminder of their hard work and dedication to our misery. The Muckmaker Award is given to one candidate (or a group, when applicable) in each of the following 10 categories:

Worst Newcomer
Worst Pundit
Worst Blog
Worst News Source
Worst Corporation
Worst Religious Leader
Worst Religion
Worst Politician
Worst Businessman
Worst Muckmaker

In the 2010 edition, we included a podcast version of the awards for those too lazy to read it, which you can download right here or on the podcast page. You can also check out last year’s awards here.

Debut: January 2009
Address: www.muckmakers.com/awards

Defrocked is a satirical comic strip about a priest who continually molests an altar boy and gets away with it. While that may not sound like the most pleasant premise for a comic, the idea behind it is to lampoon the Catholic Church (and Christianity in general) and their ridiculous beliefs and policies. The underlying meaning behind many of the comics is to show how utterly absurd it is to support an organization that fosters and protects pedophiles while simultaneously chastising others over issues of morality. The priest knows what a horrible individual he truly is, yet he continues unabated because he is confident that his position will protect him. The altar boy acts as a voice of wit and reason, but his cries for decency consistently fall on deaf ears. The humor is admittedly dark and often offensive, but it is meant as a harsh wakeup call to those who still support organized religion and its ethically devoid leaders.

The comic uses just two pieces of free clipart from some random Christian websites and is usually in black and white, although color is sometimes used to emphasize a particular gag. It is a regular feature on Muckmakers, as it fits the theme of the site pretty well, and usually appears on a bi-weekly basis.

Debut: October 2008
Address: www.muckmakers.com/comic

The Muckmakers Podcast is a supplement to our blog of the same name. We both host each episode and discuss issues that have come up in our posts, such as gay marriage, atheism, abortion, the media, and anything else that gives us an excuse to exercise our boisterous opinions. The format is pretty laid back and we only write out a short outline of some of the points we’d like to cover throughout the program before we begin – otherwise, it’s all impromptu, which means we end up making a lot of nasty jokes that we just don’t bother editing out.

Each show feels more like an entertaining conversation than a rigorous discussion and they run about 40-50 minutes or so. Every episode is available for download in mp3 format for absolutely free and new episodes are recorded every 3-4 weeks. And for the curious, the opening and closing theme is a song called “Black Death” by our friends in The Reigning Toads.

Debut: February 2009
Address: www.muckmakers.com/podcast

Impudent. Impious. Brusque. Unrelenting. Profane. And that’s where the complements end.

My name is Rich Howells and I’m a freelance writer and the co-founder of TTL. This is my online portfolio, which contains a diverse collection of my articles, essays, poems, and short stories that represent my professional work for newspapers, books, and magazines as well as my private work that I’m debuting to the public for the first time.

In addition, the site is home to several ongoing columns. Musings is my personal blog that keeps my family, friends, and readers aware of what I’m up to and where my head is at. Hardly Clerkin’ is about my part time job as a video store clerk, where my love of movies meets my undying hatred for humanity. And Spoken Word is a series of bits and rants that I hope to eventually turn into my own spoken word show. Audio samples and videos will eventually be available for that one.

So please check out my stuff and leave me some feedback.

Debut: August 2008
Address: www.richhowells.net

Bill Hicks was a stand-up comedian and spoken word artist who challenged his audience to think for themselves and reject mediocrity in everything that they see and do. He destroyed celebrities, politicians, religions, pop culture, the government, and the bullshit of the American way with his controversial dark humor and cynicism, but before he could take the world by storm, he died in 1994 from pancreatic cancer at the age of only 32.

As he’s always been an influence on our work, we whipped up this little site as a tribute to the late, great humorist. These videos span his entire career and include rare appearances and interviews as well as clips from his comedy specials.

Debut: February 2009
Address: www.billhicksvideos.com

Viddy Vids is a collection of various eye-opening videos from around the web that are guaranteed to expand your mind, make you think, educate you on compelling topics, make you laugh, entertain you with something different, or all of the above. Think of it as a “bonus site” we tossed in there to highlight some of our influences and plug a few of our favorite artists.

Debut: September 2008
Address: www.viddyvids.com