Clubbing Baby Seals and Other Things That Are Typically Frowned Upon...

So, I ran into this little music video while I was surfing on YouTube. I typically watch video game movies or comedy videos on YouTube, so I get recommendations all the time for stuff that I usually just ignore. However, this particular video caught my eye a couple of days ago and, needless to say, I had to click on it:

Stephen Lynch is a singing comedian, and I do remember hearing a few of his songs a couple of years back. This particular song I didn't remember at all, so it was fun both as a fan of comedy and as a semester student of Satan (trademarked phrase of mine, by the way) to see how, in such a short video, what the big images of Satan are in the 2000s.

Remembering our class discussion on the differences between Milton's Satan and Mephistopheles, I thought it was interesting that this video seems to lean much to the latter in its comic portrayal of the Devil. I also find it fascinating that a few of the political values of the republican party have been placed into Satan's mouth by the opposing party (and vice versa), keeping the spirit of demonization alive and well in this modern age. Lynch also describes Satan in a very Bacchus/Pan-like way with "little devil horns and a little goatee... and little cloven hooves that make it kinda hard to ski."

I also wonder if perhaps the beginning of Satan loving to make deals and best people in contests stem from Faust and the clever, trickster nature of the character in that work. Perhaps it was only with joining the charismatic and intelligent Satan in Milton's epic with the comic Mephistopheles in Faust that eventually gives birth to the idea of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster": A character that is both inhumanly intelligent and evilly tricky.

Anyway, just a quick blog post about a video I saw the other day that YouTube recommended to me. The Devil just seems to be everywhere these days.