I heard there was a secret chord...

I'm a few days late with this, but it's been a busy weekend. And you don't even read this thing anyway, so shut up, you.

I have had the pleasure of being within spitting distance of three of my personal heroes in my life. (In terms of famous-type people. I have plenty of everyday heroes I see regularly. Hello there, you peoples. You're alright by me.) The first was ten years ago, when I saw George Carlin in Atlantic City just a few months before 9/11. A friend and I drove the four hours from Worcester and got sit in the third row and see him do a bit on the end of the world that he wouldn't do again until years later, when we all finally realized that entropy and gallows humor were still funny, terrorism be damned.

The second was in 2008, when my wife and I saw Tom Waits at a club in Dallas during his "Glitter and Doom" tour. Another four hour trip. The place was miserable, hot, and the lack of any actual seating meant we were pressed up against the stage by a crush of bodies the entire night, but it was amazing nonetheless. And the third was Friday at the Paramount Theater in Austin (this time driving only a little over three hours) when we saw Tim Minchin.

I stumbled on Tim's unique brand of madness via The Friendly Atheist, where a commenter had posted a link to "If You Open Your Mind Too Much, Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)." I knew then that this weird Aussie with crazy hair and no shoes was someone worth some serious attention. I got hold of everything I could one way or another (illegal downloading is wrong, kids. You wouldn't download a pizza, would you? Actually, I totally would. That'd be some serious Back to the Future II shit, right there.) over the course of a few weeks, turned my wife and a few others on to him, and slowly developed a tiny obsession. Very few people espouse the worldview I hold in such a clever, thoughtful and razor-sharp way. Even fewer can do it while making me laugh.

We got decent enough seats, at first, a few weeks ago. It was a relatively small venue, so there'd be no "bad" seats, per se, so I was ridiculously excited. Then my amazing velp (Vaginally Endowed Life Partner, for those of you who don't share my quirky passions) surprised me with 2nd row center seats that the theater had just happened to release on the day she checked their site on a whim. Fate? Not bloody likely. But an awesome stroke of luck nonetheless. And so, I was left practically turgid with antici...pation. This also left us with a couple of extra tickets, which we gave to some friends we'd been visiting. They'd never heard of Tim before, but after one song we'd got two more converts. This reinforces what I've been saying to you people all along: You should like the things that I like, because they're good. And the things you like are terrible. Stop that.

After a drink at a trendy Japanese restaurant (one of Austin's main natural resources, apparently, bested only by hipsters. Coincidence? I dunno. Post hoc ergo propter hoc might be in play there, but it's really hard to ignore.) across the way from the theater (we found out shortly after that Tim had most likely been there only moments before we were. I've gotta work on my stalking skills. Apparently, I'm a bit rusty), we shuffled in. The seats were better than I'd hoped for, and Tim came out with a couple of "Oh hey, guys. Didn't know you were here. Well, best get to my piano," sort of head nods, and went immediately into "Rock and Roll Nerd." Things went a bit fuzzy for me after that. There were so many of my favorites, for sure. Getting to hear "Storm" performed live may be one of the highlights of my year. Before I knew it, more than two hours had passed.

I'd heard and knew every lyric for every song beforehand ("Obsession," remember? Check your DSM IV.), but I still laughed genuinely until it hurt. He looked a bit exhausted at the start (simply an affectation or not, I don't know, but it seemed genuine), but he still played his heart out and rocked our fucking asses. And, in Texas no less, (Austin's still Texas, no matter what they like to tell you there) he sang "Thank You God," and "The Pope Song." Short of a sing-a-long to "I Love Jesus," I couldn't have asked for more.


He ended with two encores (three, if you count "Second Encore"). The first was "White Wine in the Sun," one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever, and one that hits particularly close to someone who now lives thousands of miles from home. Absolutely amazing, and I'm not too proud to admit I teared up a bit. But the best, for me, was yet to come.


The last song of the evening was a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Already one of my favorites and one that my wife and I danced to at our wedding (the Jeff Buckley version, which was the one Tim did), this sent us completely over the moon. One of my fellow attendees put it best outside of the theater shortly after, saying something like "Only Tim could get a room full of a thousand atheists to sing along to "Hallelujah." During our harmonizing, Tim remarked "Oh, that's delicious." As one of my fellow "angry-feeters" put it, "Why yes, Tim. Yes it was." 

So you wanna live in paradise?

I'm seeing Tim Minchin in Austin tomorrow. And my amazing wife has procured 2nd row seats. I really don't have much else to say. This is the most fantastic news I've had in awhile. A full, gushing report is sure to follow.

And the gods go begging here...

It's certainly been awhile since my last post, and for that I apologize, both to anyone that reads this blog o' mine (there can't be many, certainly, but there may be one or two. I'll call you guys Daves. Sorry, Daves.) and to myself, for a writer must write to be called a writer. Otherwise, (s)he's just one of those overly touchy intellectual types that enjoys nothing more than correcting the use of "your" and "you're" on cork board notices and sleeping on the couch after using the word "actually" one too many times in the presence of his or her spouse. Anyway, off to the races we go, firing on all cylinders, and mixing our metaphors like so much jell-o pudding!*


I promise, dear readers, that I'm not intentionally using this medium solely as a sounding board for my confusion with and dislike of religion, however much to the contrary it may seem these days. I want to tell you all about the wonderful book or movie or cartoon show I'm currently super into (I plan on filling PAGES, --or...rows or columns...however one gauges space on these things--just on the awesomeness of  H. Jon Benjamin -fellow Worcesterite and irreverent mad genius-  and Archer some time soon, I promise), or rant unintelligibly for far too long on just why the Ninja Turtles were better than Thundercats (hint: read the titles. Seriously, they're NINJA. TURTLES. That is all. For now.), or why it is pancakes are almost always better in memories than at breakfast, I really really do. But...well, I live in Texas these days, and even here in Houston where it's relatively hip and progressive, there are lots more churches than, say, museums or record stores ("Same thing," I hear you say. Shut up, you kids. With your damn...Pac-Man.) or cool dive bars. By a terrifyingly wide margin. So, I'm exposed to a lot more of that good, old fashioned "My God can beat up your God" religion than I care to be, and it tends to steam my broccoli something fierce a lot of the time. So, here we go again...

I work in some aspect of the service industry (let us leave it at that for fear of prying eyes), and a week or two ago, a semi-regular customer of mine came in. As I'm helping said gentleman, who really seems to be a genuinely nice dude as far as I can tell, he notices my wedding ring. He asks me how long I've been married, striking up small-talk while waiting, near as I can figure. I tell him, and we chat for a bit. Erelong (that's right, I said it), he gets a little personal, and I get a little cagey, honestly thinking he may be hitting on me (I'm a good-looking, personable, slightly fey kind of guy, it's happened before). He then proceeds to ask me, "So, are you a Christian?"

Now, I've been asked this question many times before in many different situations, and it's always uncomfortable. But I'm a lot more at peace with and proud of my theological choices than I used to be, so I don't hesitate anymore; "No, I'm not," I say. "I was raised nominally Christian, but I haven't been one in any sense for a long time." (or something along those lines. I really don't talk that poofy during idle chatter, I swear.) Dude then says "Please don't be offended," (Here it comes, I think), "but would you mind if I prayed to God and asked him to bless your marriage? I feel like I'm being called to do so." Threw me a curve ball with that one; when people ask if they can pray for me, it's usually to fix my funny walk. But, as I've said before, I don't mind being prayed for so much as being prayed at. And I told him so, to which he replied "I hear ya. Most people who think they know God don't really know anything." I agreed with him 100% on that one. So basically, I said "Knock yourself out, man. It's no skin off my nose." And he did, right there in a commercial setting, he asked God to bless my wife and I. I thanked him for the kind words and he went on his way. And that, I thought, was the end of that. Of course, by now I ought to know better.

Today, the gentleman comes in again, and I greet him, and we chat a bit once again, and he asks how life's treating me and how my wife is doing. Now, under normal, polite small talk rules, this is a perfectly nice thing to ask, but I know and he knows that he really isn't interested in how we're doing simply to be nice; he wants vindication of his prayer. And as much as I don't believe in curses or bad juju, and as much as the twisted little place inside me thinks it'd be hilarious to say "We're not so good, dude. My wife recently died in a circus-related accident and I just found out that I have advanced syphilis. The smell was terrible in both situations," on the minuscule chance there may be something to it, I don't want to bring down that kind of fury on us. So, I settle for "We're great, man, thanks for asking!" To which he replies --with the kind of self-satisfied smirk I reserve for when I get less than half the questions on an episode of Jeopardy wrong-- "I had a feeling. That's great to hear." I should have let it go there. But something in me has to get the last word in these types of encounters, even if it's just LITERALLY the last word, and even if that word is "Garbledina." (if you have to ask, it's better that you don't know). So, I said "Thanks for the good thoughts!" with a tone of finality and turned to go about my business. He then said "You're welcome, of course..." pause for effect..."but its more than that."

Of course I sussed out what he was implying. I'm an expert at reading people, after all. I'm like Tim Roth in Lie to Me. (or so I assume. That show seems just...just awful.) That, and it was about as subtle as a drunken frat boy asking a co-ed what she's interested in while he's actively trying to remove her bra. "It's more than that. (read: GOD IS SO AWESOME, ISN'T IT GREAT THAT HE ANSWERED MY PRAYER AND MADE YOUR LIFE SO AWESOME? YOU SHOULD AGREE WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!!)" Give or take a few exclamation points, for sure. And it's that implication, one I've heard quite often, that gets my goat (And it was my last goat, man! What if I need that goat for...strategic goat purposes?! I know its a misquote, but I can't think of one with sheep.).

Of course our lives aren't better because we've put in the effort, it seems to say. Things aren't going well because I work long hours to ensure we can pay our bills and have nice things and my wife didn't get an awesome new job because she's an intelligent, creative person who impressed her interviewers; who spent years learning her craft and who operates regularly on levels I can't even begin to understand. No, that's just silly. It's because some people made mumbled requests to an ill-defined creator who, as luck would have it, is the right one to ask out of literally THOUSANDS that have come before and since. Duh.

Let me now address the generality of people who try to convert me (or anyone else, for that matter) with these sorts of arguments: I am not an atheist by choice. At least, not in the sense of "I think I'll wear flannel today and also not believe in god." (I won't do either of these things for the same reason, incidentally: They just don't look good on me.) It is the end result of a process spanning much of my life. I believed for a long time, I truly did. I even thought about being a priest for awhile, I was that committed to it. But somewhere along the way, I started thinking truly critically about the whole thing. And at every turn, it just didn't make sense to me anymore. It became a tattered flag that was waved around by people (many of them lovely, caring individuals) who couldn't see how many holes it had in it. And it fell apart when I tried to grab it again. And I did try, again and again (I still have some accoutrement from my Wiccan phase, my last silly venture into the supernatural. Meh, I like incense well enough.). Eventually, I realized there was nothing left of it for me and I found meaning elsewhere. All around me, strangely enough. The world and the universe it lives in are as fucking awesome as they ever were, only now I don't thank a god for it all, I'm just amazed at how insanely lucky I am, how lucky we all are, that things came together just so. And I want to figure out as much of how that happened as I can, because it's fascinating, and because it led to me sitting here typing this, and it led to the beer I'm going to have in a moment, and the Jaffa Cake I'll enjoy with it. And the wife I'll fall asleep with, and the corned beef we'll have on St. Paddy's day, and so on and so on...It's the coolest mystery of all, only it's not the "moves in mysterious ways" kind of mystery. It's more like Cosmic Clue; you can figure it out if you've got the right evidence ("The Gravitational Singularity did it in the Planck Epoch with the Big Bang!"). So, to sum up, generality of bible-thumpers: I'm an atheist because I have to be, in order to be true to my own brain. You won't change my mind any more than I'll change yours. So please, stop trying and let's just enjoy all this awesome stuff together.

As a little post-script, since I know I come off really harsh on religion and the religious a lot of the time, I'd like to say (yet again) that I have absolutely nothing against people of faith. Many of you I know very well, many of you I like, some of you I love very much. You are my friends and family and sometimes that really cool old guy I saw at Target one day, the one rocking a fedora and a flame-tipped cane who is more bad ass than I can ever hope to be. I enjoy laughing with you, arguing with you, and generally just being alive at the same time you are. I take the religious as I take anyone else: one by one, and based on their actions. And most of you are just fine by me.

Incidentally, today's title is a lyric from Tom Waits' "Hoist That Rag." It's a wonderful meditation on the realities of being a soldier, but I think the title of the song and the specific lyric tie in nicely with my "tattered flag" metaphor of a few paragraphs ago. I know they say that if you have to explain it, you didn't do it right, but give me a break, I'm proud of it.


*For the record, I love serial commas almost as much as pudding. Both lend a sense of civility to any occasion, both are delicious, and you should relish any opportunity to put either one wherever you possibly can. Especially  Even your pants.

We're just f**king monkeys in shoes...

Despite much of this rambling, silly, dark and twisted space of mine giving evidence to the contrary, I'm a big fan of the human race. Admittedly, we are, at least physically, far from the most interesting animals on the planet. Sharks have all those rows of teeth, for example. I've just got the one row, and it doesn't even deal with jerky all that well.Tigers, zebras, moths, and loads of other kinds of animals have natural camouflage so perfect, you'd swear it had to be fake, while I could never seem to last more than five minutes into a game of hide-and-seek.  I've seen a horse relieve itself (with both a wee and a two-sie) quite comfortably while running at full speed. If you find me pooping while sprinting, it's a safe bet I'm anything BUT comfortable. It means I'm either being chased by a maniac or have recently made a very regrettable decision on where to have lunch. Even cats have a third eyelid, a fact of which I am happily ignorant most of the time, because eeew. And yes, I do realize that many, many animals have this trait, and we primates are the freaks for lacking it, but one of the benefits of being a dominant life form with the ability to communicate via language is that we get to decide what's gross. More to the point, I get to decide, since I'm better than you.

All the stuff I learned from Animal Planet aside, we humans are still pretty kick ass. We have the aforementioned language skills, so we can speak to one another of the wonders of the world, beauty, truth, and the disgusting, painfully sexual things we're going to do with each other's more attractive siblings and/or parents. We can write stuff like books and greeting cards and scrawl said disgusting, painfully sexual things on men's room walls. We have opposable thumbs (so do most primates, by the way), so we can hold tools and build neat things like houses, pianos, coat racks, chainsaws,  theater sets, skateboard ramps, burning crosses, and so on.

We are, each of us, full of incredible potential from the moment we realize that the world around us reacts to our presence, and that realization arms us with the knowledge that we can do stuff.

And we are aware of our own fragility on a level no other animal quite seems to reach. And that makes us both wonderful and terrible. It causes us to be cruel and kind, both of which are fascinating, one of which is sad (except the kid from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That dude was kind AND sad.). For a lot of reasons, it is this awareness which makes us the most uniquely interesting creatures on this planet to me. Even more than platypi (though not by much. They're ducks covered in fur with tails like beavers and they lay eggs and are STILL mammals! Because fuck you, that's why.)

Yet, despite all the potential and all the fantastic abilities we possess, we mustn't forget our humble origins. We share a common ancestor with apes and monkeys some brief few million years ago, and with all mammals some few dozen million more before that. Go back a little further, and we magnificent creatures of the land were all fish-thingies with screwed up flippers that happened to be good for getting out of the water for short periods, away from other fish-thingies that wanted to eat us, up onto land where we could fornicate like crazy with all the other weird-flippered proto-fish-thingies. On and on, back to the first set of molecules that smashed itself together in just such a way, creating the first proteins, laying the groundwork for all that DNA we enjoy so much.

Look even a little closely at ourselves, and it's really not hard to spot the places we've come from. We wear clothes like peacocks wear feathers. We groom ourselves  like cats (well, some of us do; I personally haven't shaved in days.)  and fight like dogs over territory. We want to be warm and full, comfortable and safe. And we want to hump like crazy, just like every other living thing in existence (my asexually reproducing homies excepted, of course. Rock on, you funky amoeba. Err...Amoebas. Amoebee?). And really, it's that which makes us so goddamn rock. We can build a skyscraper, fly to space, make long distance telephone calls, write poems, tell great drunk stories, etc. etc. etc, and we still...well, we still just want to eat and sleep and have a place to call our own, so we can survive long enough to, you know, hump like crazy. We're just as connected to our furry brethren as they are to each other, and to us. In the words of someone who put it better than I just did, well before I did it, "We're just fucking monkeys in shoes."



Fuck I love boobs, though...

Whoa....somebody's comin'...somebody's comin'! or Baby: The other other white meat!

I was reading a post on one of my favorite blogs, Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist earlier today, on the Freedom From Religion Foundation's recent billboard campaign in Florida. I wholeheartedly support the effort, as I am completely for the separation of church and state as well as the desire to let other non-believers know that they are not alone. There are a shit-ton of us, and we'll gladly stand right beside you, or even allow you to buy us a beer.

As I've said many times before, I completely support the right of the individual to believe or not believe whatever they please. I've recently converted to Pastafarianism myself, not out of any real conviction that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (sauce and cheese be upon Him) actually exists, but rather because it makes just as much sense as any other religion. And at least, with the FSM, you get to eat really well, drink a lot of beer and dress up like a pirate instead of going to church: Three of the biggest goals in my life down in one move. And, on the off chance that Our Noodly Lord (basil and garlic be upon Him) does exist, I get to go to the Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory in the sky. It's a better version of Pascal's Wager...you know, because of the beer and strippers. That combination makes anything better. (Seriously, think of ANYTHING at all off the top of your head. Now add beer and strippers. See?!)  But I'm off topic yet again. Point: individuals can have any religion they want, but the U.S. government, by design, cannot make or pass any law that endorses or decries any of them and therefore must act in a secular fashion for the common good. So, good on ya, FFRF. Keep it up.

Now, on to the real meat of this piece. (heh. Meat. Piece. I will NEVER tire of dick jokes.) In wanting to read a little more on subject of the FFRF's billboards, I clicked through to a story on Tampa Bay Online  covering it. It seemed a little biased against the FFRF, but nothing too extreme and that's really par for the course, so no surprise there. Toward the end of the article, however, a quote brought up something that's been bugging me awhile:

"David Clarke, a Tampa psychologist and author of several Christian books, says he supports the right to post these billboards but 'feels sorrow' for the sponsors at the same time. "Without God," he said, "life is meaningless and there can't be any real morality.'"

 I really don't have a problem with religious folks feeling sorrow that I haven't embraced a (or more specifically their) god. Nor do I have too much of a problem being prayed for (I used to, but generally the sentiment comes from the heart. It's pointless, but harmless all in all. I do, however have a BIG problem being prayed at, which happens far more often.). I suppose if I truly felt that everyone who didn't believe the same way I did wasn't going to the Beer Volcano, I'd be sad about it, too. The thing that has really cottaged my cheese for a long time, even before I fully let go of the idea of God, however, is Clarke's last sentence: "Without God," he said, "life is meaningless and there can't be any real morality.'" Fundies have been claiming the moral high ground since forever, so there's no real shock to it, but I'm going to offer yet another counter argument, if only because this dude is supposedly a psychologist and should know better.

Clarke and others of his ilk argue that religion (around these parts that means Christianity, but really, the sentiment is pretty interchangeable across the Big Three) is necessary because God lays out the way we ought to live. Through the bible, humanity is given its moral compass, and without believing that there's a god to please, a heaven to aspire to and a hell to avoid, we'd all just go around stabbing each other, raping anything that moved, and eating babies. And that's just asinine.

Morality isn't a religious mandate, it's a biological one. We come from a long line of social creatures. Long before we built cities to live in, we still lived in groups. Over the long millenia to get us where we are, our morality has evolved. We ought to treat others well because we're all connected as a species, and its the best chance we have of surviving and thriving. We all have the same basic desires (with a few kinks thrown in here and there according to personal tastes): food, shelter, love, happiness, etc. It really doesn't take a divine revelation to tell us what's good and what's not. It's the Golden Rule at its simplest: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That was around long before the idea of Jesus (they just kinda shoehorned it in there. Gives the J-man a little more philosophical heft.), and with any luck it'll be around long after it, too.

To quote Penn Jillette: "Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around."


I live a life without god, and it is devoid of neither morality nor meaning. I aspire to kindness, though I may fail here and there. I treat people well. I give to charity. I help my brothers and my nieces with their homework. I've helped feed and clothe those less fortunate than me. I make my friends laugh. I do these things not so that I can be rewarded after I'm dead (though I will take a couple of bucks now, if you're giving it away), but because it makes me happy to do so. (It's not completely selfless, to be honest, since I enjoy the feeling it gives me to help someone out, and since I would hope someone would do the same for me if I needed it) I have never raped or murdered; I don't intentionally harm people at all. The last thing I ever stole was when I was a kid, and I felt terrible about it for a long time, even then not because I felt God would be angry at me, but because I stole something that belonged to someone else. The wrongness of the act was instinctual, not simply because I felt as though I would get in trouble. (Though I did, in the end. God's got nothing on my mom when she's pissed. I owe a lot more of my morality to her than to any god, that's for sure.)

So, that takes care of the morality. As for meaning: I have a lot of joy in my life. There are people I love and who love me. I have a wife I depend on and who depends on me. I have beer, cheesy midnight movies, Tom Waits music, Martin Scorcese, stand-up comedy, sunsets, glacial caves, romance, bromance, Shakespeare, Vonnegut, birthday parties, etc. etc. etc. Most importantly, I have the consequences of my actions, both good and bad, and I'd much rather make people smile. All that is enough for me. I don't need heaven, and wouldn't want it. It wouldn't be heaven if there's a hell, it would be unbearable. And if you think otherwise: fuck you, you selfish prick. :)

I don't want to say that I'm better than religious folks because of all this, that would be unfair. I'm better than some and not as good as others, the same as anyone else. There are plenty of believers that have had an amazing positive impact on just my own life; to discount them would be unthinkable. My point is we shouldn't be good because we want some big payoff from the cosmic slot machine; we should do what Aristotle, Santa and Bill Murray have told us to do all along: Be good, for goodness' sake.

And so, I leave you with a reading from the Loose Canon, one of the holiest books of Pastafarianism. Specifically, from the Random Number of Not Commandments, Suggestions:

"2. Thou ought not do stuff thou already knowest is wrong, like killing, lying, cheating, stealing, etc. Dost thou really need these carved into a rock?"

May your sauce be forever warm. RAmen.

Stop being a faggot and let gay people get married already!

I figured I should weigh in on the recent awesomeness of California's Prop 8 being overturned. It's a shame it passed in the first place, but it's great that its death has brought so much attention to how stupid it was. I caught a few minutes of a rant that our good friend and fear-mongering Christ Crusader Pat Robertson threw out just awhile after the news broke, and he said, with his usual aplomb:

"The homosexuals want to destroy the church and they want to destroy marriage...it doesn't matter how sacred an institution is and how important it is to society, as long as there can be a confirmation that this lifestyle is acceptable."

Ok...now I get to rant a little. (It's been too long...let me just get on my ranting shoes here and dance a...well, a sad, awkward little jig since not only am I white and have no rhythm, but I'm a spastic diplegic and my legs don't work so good to begin with. Still, I try, dammit.) Let's take just this little snippet of Mr. Robertson's ideology and work with it on its own, shall we? (If we took the whole damn thing, I'd pull a Scanners and no one wants to clean brains and hair off stucco.) He says, firstly, that homosexuals want to destroy the church. Some do, I'm sure. I'm a straight, married man and I want to destroy the church. A lot.

Let me qualify that last statement: I have a problem with religion as an idea, sure. After a lot of self-searching, I just couldn't rectify the stories with reality anymore. It requires that you accept something as fact based on absolutely no quantifiable evidence, and it's got a lot of crazy ass stories that are just, when you get right down to it, silly. However, I am a firm believer in individual rights, and one of those is the right to believe whatever crazy ass thing you want (or the right not to), so long as your belief does no harm to anyone other than yourself. You or I can harm ourselves all we want. I smoke and drink, and I know these things can harm me, but I don't force others to do the same.

And this is where religion as an institution comes in. Imagine no religion, as one of the better Beatles once said. Would we still have war? Absolutely, we're animals, after all, and animals fight for territory and survival. That's one of the nastier aspects of evolution, but it's an observable fact. Can't blame that all on religion. But would we have terrorism, most of which is largely based on fanatical religious beliefs? Probably not. No fanaticism, no fanatics. Wars would be a lot more honest, I can tell you that: "My dick's bigger than yours! BAM! Dead."  Would we still have child molestation? Sadly, yes. Psychological aberrations are not the sole realm of the faithful, and I'm sure plenty of people have touched kids without god telling them it was ok. But would we have the powerful shuffling them around like some twisted Find the Pedophile shell game; or worse, outright denying that the perpetrators did anything wrong? Nope. No church, no parishes to ship them to. We'd have to deal with the family and friends of said criminals and nothing more. And pedophiles, once they're exposed, tend to lose friends fast.  I'm not going to go into the denial of positions authority to women, but suffice to say that the argument there is not in religion's favor, either.

So, that's why I want to destroy the church. I'm not going to take any steps to do so beyond pointing out the inherent goofiness and hatefulness of it all, because it's not my place to tell anyone what to believe, nor do I want that job. And so, we come to Robertson's argument about gay people wanting to destroy the institution of marriage. This one's really easy to refute: If they wanted to destroy marriage, why the hell would they be fighting so hard to get married? They'd do like that creepy guy you went to college with: Bang a whole lot of anonymous strangers and spend their 30's dating people ten years to young for them, all the while calling you stupid for wanting to settle down. And I'm sure some of them are, the same as some straight folks do. Funny, how if you take any group of people and stack 'em up against any other group, you find a lot of the same kinds of people. I wonder what that could mean. But I digress. Gay folks want to get married for the same reasons that straight folks do: TAX BREAKS! And, you know, love. Making a commitment like that to someone you love and being recognized for that commitment by the country that you live in is a powerful thing, and they just want the right to it the same as any of us. Trust me, as a married man I can attest to the fact that life is a whole lot easier when someone's got your back.



So, gay people obviously have no problem with the sanctity of marriage. And as to the sacredness of it, or of the church, I'm not sure to which Robertson is referring (I can guess, though), that's a meaningless word in terms of legal governance. Sacredness implies holiness which implies religion, which can not be endorsed by the government of this country in any form. What's sacred to me may not be sacred to you and vice versa. And it probably isn't, at least not to the point of ticking every box the whole way down.

The only reason to deny homosexuals the same rights as anyone else is bigotry, pure and simple, and the judge who made the ruling pretty much said just that:

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."

Boom. Suck on that, Pat Robertson. Perhaps if the bible weren't so dead set against oral sex, he wouldn't hate gay people quite so much. I sense a little green-eyed monster on your shoulder, Pat. And he's in a sequined thong, dancing to "It's Rainin' Men"  and he's FABULOUS. (Damn right, that's a Pat-Robertson-needs-a-blowjob joke. Doing a post about gay marriage and not having a joke about fellatio is like having a rainbow with no pot of gold. Man that was a good simile.)

Conclusion: Pat Robertson is an ass. But he can say and believe whatever he pleases. He can hate gays and think they're causing earthquakes and ruining marriage and all other kinds of crazy shit. That's the beauty of the United States constitution. Another beautiful part of it: The whole separation of church and state thing. So, while you can personally believe with all your heart that we're all going to hell for eating meat on a Friday, you cannot pass any legislation prohibiting any other person from grilling up a steak before Full House starts. (It used to be on Fridays. Remember T.G.I.F? Man, those were some terrible shows.) And you cannot, despite your fervent, deep-held religious convictions, enforce any law denying gay people any right that everyone else enjoys. At least not in  Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.
 Yeah, I know, it's not much, but it's a start. I'm from Massachusetts (Go Sox!), so that makes me proud. But I live in Texas, and I realize that gay marriage won't be legal here until they're forced to make it so. Hopefully rather sooner than later, but we'll see.

And today's title comes from both myself and Louis C.K. We both grew up in Massachusetts, and I'm sure he used many of the same words I did when growing up. We called each other "faggot" and "queer" (or to be more specific, "quare"), but we had no idea what it meant. We didn't know what gay was. There was no hate behind the word. To quote Louis, "You called someone a faggot because they were being a faggot. If I saw two gay guys blowing each other, I wouldn't call them faggots, unless one of them was being a faggot, like "People from Phoenix are Phoenicians....Hey, quit being a faggot and suck that dick!" I hope we come to a place in my lifetime when that word has as little venom behind it as it did when I was seven.

I leave you with a quote from John Adams, 2nd president and one of the people most instrumental in forming the union we now live in: “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion." Ooooh. Burn.

But I can't stop eating peanuts...

Lost has been over for about a month now. It's a bummer, since my Tuesday nights were pretty much built around it (that's not sad, damn it. It's Tuesday. What do you do on Tuesday nights? Yeah, thought so. And occasionally, I get to do it on a Tuesday night, so, you know, nyah nyah.). But, for better or worse, the creative team behind it got to end things on their own terms, and I was reasonably satisfied. I may have had a few problems with the final season leading into it, and the end had more saccharine than substance, perhaps, but it was still better than a lot of stories out there. My thanks to the talent both in front of and behind the camera for one hell of a fun ride.

The end of Lost has left my TV-time kind of up in the air. I watch a lot of movies and read a book or two a week; I'm not really big on television for the most part, though, beyond The Simpsons and an occasional Law and Order: SVU marathon. I watch a few shows semi-regularly, but there's nothing that I pursue with the damn near religious fervor with which I devoured Lost every week. But I've come to an interesting realization lately, given a mind now clear of the Smoke Monster: Television is damn good again.

You know, not if you're speaking in percentages. If we're talking parts of the whole, the good stuff is like the two Wonka bars that Charlie got to open during the contest, and the thousands that all the other kids in his class plowed through like greasy, irritating, inexplicably multinational locusts (seriously, were they in England or America or what? The Buckets were American, but all Charlie's teachers seemed to be British, that Slugworth guy was clearly Heinrich Himmler without the moustache, the architecture looked post-Chernobyl Soviet, and Willy Wonka...well, he was Gene Wilder, and that's just awesome.) is, say, anything with Jim Belushi. Most of the stuff on the...like...300 channels (son of a bitch, cable had 60 channels when I was kid and that was impressive. And my parents only had like 4. And no internet. It's a wonder I wasn't brought up by wolves.) I get on my overpriced digital cable package is still dreck at best and has made me actively dummer (see, I misspelled "dumber." Fact.)  at worst (anything on MTV -with the exception of one show that I'll get to in a minute, any and all network sitcoms, America's Next Top Whatever, you get the picture), but there are a few really awesome shows out there. Shows that are smart, funny, disturbing, deliciously creamy and filled with nougat. Here are a few I've been catching up with lately, and why I've allowed them to rot my brain and ruin my eyes (according to my grandmother, anyway. Nana was a swell lady who'd do anything for us grandkids, but dang,  if it wasn't The Commish, she didn't want anything to do with it). You may enjoy them as well.

Dexter.  I can't say enough good things about Dexter. It's funny, creepy, tense, gross, thrilling, weird, and other adjectives as well. I read and enjoyed the first book in the series by Jeff Lindsay (the first season of the show is more or less the plot of the first novel) a few years ago, but I didn't really give the show a shot until recently. I watched the first four seasons over the course of a week or two, and now I can't fucking wait for the season premiere. Michael C. Hall rocked the house on Six Feet Under with his subdued portrayal of David, a character you could just feel waiting to explode at any given moment, but Dexter Morgan is a role he absolutely owns. A serial killer with severe sociopathy is a character that would be almost impossible to like, but Hall has us rooting for this guy every step of the way. And season four's Big Bad, a seemingly loving, suburban father whose killer exploits hold a cracked mirror to Dexter's own (or maybe it's the other way around) gives us John Lithgow in what may be the finest performance of his career. I know the dude was the bad guy in Buckaroo Bonzai, and that's fantastic in its own right, but Lithgow is absolutely chilling as Trinity here. Way to hit the mark, Dick Solomon. (heh. Dick. Whew, I didn't think I was going to be able to fit one in this post. Heh. Fit one in. Two for two!) Also, you get to see Julie Benz's boobies a couple of times. So, you know, that's pretty great, too.

Mad Men. This is a show I watched a few times on the first go around, and while I dug it, it didn't really hook me. I picked up the first two seasons super cheap when my store closed down, so I gave it another watch. This show is fantastic, full of macho bravura and old school femme fatales  from a cast of characters as twisted and dysfunctional as anyone on the Sopranos, and steeped in a history close enough to our own time for us to be able to recognize the things that would shape the late-20th and early-21st centuries emerge and begin to take hold. It's like the first Back to the Future, if they showed you all the fucking that you totally knew was going on behind those damn hoop skirts.  Also, it made me not hate Vincent Kartheiser. Well, yeah, I still do, but I hate his character, which you're supposed to. So, mission accomplished, Angel's kid. Back when he was on Angel, his character was so damned whiny, I wanted to actively make the actor's life uncomfortable. Not in a legally culpable way, mind you. Just, you know, give the dude a wet willy on the bus or shit in his mailbox or something. And two words: Don Draper. That is all.

MTV gets one prop from me for Warren the Ape. I loved Greg the Bunny for the month it was actually on, I bought the series on DVD and still watch it pretty regularly, and the IFC film parodies with Greg are hilarious, so thank you, MTV, for bringing back my favorite degenerate-ego maniacal-drunken-sex addicted-Shakespeare-quoting-helmet-wearing monkey puppet. Also, since it's on basic cable this time, they've been able to bring back some of the edginess and raunchiness that made the original shorts so damn funny. Watch it, please, so it'll stick around for more than 12 episodes this time. Also, I miss Tardy Turtle. Fox has the rights to him, and some bastard stole the puppet, so we'll probably never see him again. Crayons do indeed taste like purple. Bonne chance, my special green friend. >squeak<.

Also, Comedy Central has become my new hero for two separate reasons: 1. Tosh.0, a show which, while basically a youtube comments section with a few less "lolz fag"s, is one of the damned funniest half hours I've seen in a while. 2. They brought Futurama back last week! And not in the uncomfortable, kinda funny but still mostly unsettling direct to video movie format it's been rocking lately, but in an honest to crap, weekly half hour format. And it's funny again!  WHOOOOOO!!!!  I've been a Futurama fan since it came out a decade ago, and it wasn't fair that it got shafted, shuffled around, and basically just buried by Fox time and again. On its best days, Futurama rivals The Simpsons  in its prime for sheer funny per ounce, and on its worst, it's still got an alcoholic robot with a taste for hookers and a freaky, kinda Jewish lobster monster whose abject loserish-ness  makes me feel better about that one time I threw half a meatball sub away, changed my mind half an hour later, pulled it out of the trash, microwaved it and ate it since, come on, man it was pretty well wrapped up and it was still totally good, shut up.

There are a few other shows on tap for me, too. I'm finally getting into Breaking Bad, which is excellent (did you know that the dad from Malcolm in the Middle, who is the main character on Breaking Bad, was also in two episodes of the Power Rangers? And not the hip, flashy Power Rangers they've got now, but the cheesy, freaked out, unsettlingly Japanese Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. True story, man. That makes him OK by me), and I'm also working my way through some stuff I always meant to watch but never got around to, like Deadwood and The Tudors. Bottom line: I'll never be Lost again, and that makes my eyes rain (Simple Jack! Goddamn I love me some Tropic Thunder), but there are some really talented folks telling some really great stories on the idiot box these days. Television as a medium is slowly, sometimes painfully, but finally beginning to reach the level of art form that until now (save a few notable exceptions) had been reserved for film. Hell, one of the last episodes of Lost was even directed by Mario Van Peebles. That's right, Mario Van Peebles  as in Solo. That shiver you felt just now was your brain having an orgy of awesome with the rest of your body.

Today's title, by the way, comes from a quote by Orson Welles: "I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."  Orson Welles was a huge dude, so to be fair, you could probably change "peanuts" to "cake" or "honey glazed ham" or "fistfuls of cookie dough" or "whole goats, raw." and the sentiment would be the same.


Rosebud out.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...

I've been ruminating a lot lately on the subject of religion; in my case, specifically the absence of religion. I was raised, as I've said, in the grand New England tradition of lapsed Catholicism. We went to mass for the Big Four occasions: weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter. And every now and again when someone had a baby and wanted to recreate the best scene from The Godfather with a christening, we'd put on our suits and wake up early. But even as a young child, it was clear to me that the ritual was always more important than any actual meaning behind it: We stood when the father said this, we knelt when he said that, and we sang the same songs at the same time every mass. And we shook hands, and put money in the basket. And thus began my lifelong pondering of exactly why it was that I not only had to get up early on Christmas (which I was going to do anyway, c'mon, I was a kid) but why I had to put on my nice clothes and sit in an admittedly cool-as-hell looking building for a couple of hours before I got to open any presents. And why it was that some people did the same thing every Sunday, most of the time without getting presents at all.

To this, or some variation of it, my grandmother would reply because God sent his son to earth to die for our sins and  because of this...original sin...manger...Baby Jesus, etc. As soon as I was old enough to think critically on at least a basic level, say 4 or 5, and continuing for the better part of two decades after that, I had one thought kept drifting through my head whenever I considered such a thing:

"I didn't ask anyone to do that. I just got here. And they NAILED him to a big "T" for it? Damn." That's a hell of a lot of pressure for a kid to cope with.


These days, I approach the subject of god in much the same way that one of my heroes, the late great George Carlin did. George turned his criticism toward just about everything sacred in the world during his long career, and Joe bless him for it. He, along with many other great comics, helped people (myself included) to realize the fun and the silliness inherent in being human. The ways in which we take ourselves seriously can be very funny.One of George's favorite things to skewer was religion, and how it really made no sense at all.

When The Onion asked a bunch of celebrities the big question, "Is there a God?" back in 2000, George responded with this:

"No. No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability. It's certainly not a judgmental entity. It's certainly not paternalistic and all these qualities that have been attributed to God. It's probably a dispassionate... That's why I say, "Suppose He doesn't give a shit? Suppose there is a God but He just doesn't give a shit?" That's the kind of thing that might be at work."

After many years of reflection, study and searching of my conscience, I have to come to a similar conclusion myself. It's why I refer to myself as an "agnostic at best,"; not to suggest that being agnostic is the absolute best thing I can be, but that since I allow for the possibility of, as George put it, an "organizing intelligence," most would call me such, and that's about as far into it as I'm willing to go. There may have been something that racked the balls (Heh. Racked the balls. Dick joke achieved.) and hit the cue, but it doesn't have any money riding on the game. You know what? I'm really proud of that metaphor. It's going in my Big Book of How to Explain Stuff Using Words That Are Usually Used for Other Stuff. Now if I could figure out a metaphor for that title, I'll be golden.

Penn Jillette, in his web series Penn Says gives an interesting answer to the "atheist vs. agnostic" debate, suggesting that "agnostic" answers the epistemological side of it, that is whether it can be known if there's a god, and "atheist" answers the belief side, whether or not one believes there is. So, you can call me an agnostic atheist, or an atheist agnostic, or you can just call me Keith. Or Superfly. Yeah, call me Superfly. Awesome.

I've brought all this up for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I've just recently come to terms with it on an emotional as well as intellectual level. I've made peace with it (for the most part, anyway)  in my own mind, and that's brought a sense of relief to me that is new and exciting, and I want to talk about it. And in exploring that, a few things from my childhood come to mind that get the ol' rant-engines purring.

I've mentioned it before, but I was born with cerebral palsy. Spastic diplegia, to put a finer point on it. My brain doesn't control my musculature quite right, and as such every muscle in my body is, to a greater or lesser extent, constantly in a "spastic," or tense state. I can't straighten my legs all the way, I walk with a limp, and my equilibrium is shot all to hell. My handwriting also sucks, but no one writes by hand anymore, so that's really not much of an issue. Being a disabled person, I invariably hear a certain phrase from people whenever I bring up my condition. It's a phrase most of the disabled community knows all too well: "God made you special for a reason."

The first time I heard it, it came from the best of places and with the best of intentions, from my mother. I was at the age when kids start to notice differences amongst themselves and can be very cruel to one another about them, and it was her way of saying "Fuck those little bastards, you're gonna show 'em." (She also said exactly that more than once, but if you're five, you can't say that in school, so I always had the God thing to fall back on) I was grateful to hear that. I'm still grateful when it comes from her. At that age, it was comforting. I was special. I was part of a grand design.

Now, some 20+ years later, I still hear that phrase, or some variation of it, on a regular basis: at work from customers, from passersby engaged in polite conversation, or from the weird Jesus pamphlet lady at Wal-Mart that I swear has to be following me around. One of the many differences between five year old me and 28 year old me, though, is that 28 year old me is sick and tired of it. As, I suspect, many of us are. It's upsetting and offensive, whether or not the intentions of the speaker are good. The cold truth of it is that I got a raw deal when I was born. I was born far too early, there were complications, I was deprived of oxygen for too long, and my brain was damaged. That sucks. But it's the way it happened. But I'm not bitter about it anymore. Not like I was when I bought into the old sky cake dodge (thanks for that one, Patton!). I was pissed about it then: God made me special? What the hell for? He needed someone who can't walk a straight line, ride a bike, and can't really swim that great? He needed someone to get stared at by damn near everyone he walks by? Hell of a grand design there, chief.

Once I was able to accept the reality of it, I was able to deal with it in a much healthier way. I was able to look back and see that my parents never let my condition keep me down. They insisted, my mother doubly so, that I could do damn near anything I wanted to. And I saw my friends that never let it color the things we did beyond "Hey, you walk kinda funny. That's cool, let's go play Mario." I played soccer and baseball as a child, I ran around in the woods, got dirty, got hurt, tore shit up, and was generally a healthy, happy, pain in the ass little kid. And I continue to be pretty much the same to this day. And I am thankful for it.

And now I think of that phrase again, and of some of the other kids I've met throughout my life. The kids who had CP ten times worse than I do, awesome kids who couldn't walk at all and sometimes could barely speak. Or the kids I met in the children's ward at the hospital during one of my many surgeries, kids who had barely got to live and were already dying. And I think of all the kids who are beaten down, who haven't eaten in days or who lose limbs in wars they can't understand. As George said, "If there is a god, he's at least incompetent."

"God made you special." and "God help those poor kids." It's all bull. Write a letter or start an argument, or donate a buck to UNICEF , United Cerebral Palsy , the American Cancer Society or any other charity that actually does help. Tell a kid a joke and make him laugh. You won't be interfering with God's Plan. There is no sky cake and there is no God. The universe is an infinite wonder, and we're an amazing blue speck in the vastness of it all. We are special, however. We are wondrous creatures. We can ask questions and build things, and write stories and sing songs. We're all here together, and we have a responsibility to make the best of this life.



P.S. : I promise my next post will be funnier.

This is the business we have chosen...

I'm a writer. Not professionally; not really, anyway. I've made probably a couple hundred bucks in the last ten years based directly on something I've written and a good portion of that was made writing freshman comp. term papers for the math majors in college. (Cheating is wrong, kids, but dammit, daddy's crippling addiction to fruit-by-the-foot is not going to pay for itself. By-the-foot has no meaning when you're blowing through 2 or 3 furlongs of strawberry kiwi in a weekend, your IKEA coffee table looking like an accountant's wet dream --the paper stuff it came on looks like adding machine tape, keep up, here-- Remember, kids, Bubble Tape is a gateway drug!) Wow, I sure do love the parenthetical asides...anyway, I'm a writer. Crafting words into something interesting, thought-provoking, funny, or downright unsettling is what I'm good at. It's what I want to do for a living when I grow up.


That last sentence is something that has given me pause lately. I've been unemployed for a few weeks now, and I wouldn't recommend it. I'm bored as hell most of the time, and I've got no money spend, which is what I usually do when I'm bored.  I've had a lot of time to think these days, though, which can be a good thing. I'm looking down the barrel of 30, and though the trigger hasn't been pulled quite yet, the hammer is sure  as hell cocked. (Heh. Cocked. Dick joke quota met; moving on...) And it occurs to me that I've already grown up. I pay bills, I shower semi-regularly without someone having to force it on me, I'm married and looking forward to having kids soon, and I LIKE eating vegetables. I became what society would term a functioning adult sometime in the last few years without realizing it. And that's cool.

Paying bills aside, being a grown up is working out well for me. I dig married life; it's really cool knowing you've got someone to love that loves you back and that, to throw in an obligatory nerd metaphor, you've added a Sexy Elf Mage to your party that has a lot of attributes your Dark Paladin Thief or whatever doesn't have. It's also nice to know that if they want to leave your party, it's going to cost them a shitload of mana...or whatever. Listen, I'm not good at RPGs but I couldn't make a Ghostbusters reference here and make it work. I tried saying that it's like when the Ghostbusters added Winston Zeddemore to the team, but then I realized that I'd be comparing my wife to Ernie Hudson, and that brought up a lot of feelings I don't know how to deal with. Point: being married is cool and my wife is awesome and way hotter than Ernie Hudson.

And I can't wait to read Alice in Wonderland to my kids, to teach them to read it themselves and fill them with the things they'll need to take on the world, and a lot of other things just for funsies; Like a working knowledge of Batman's utility belt, or why a land shark is man's greatest enemy. (if you have to ask why, you're already dead. I'm sorry. Candygram.)

But realizing my adulthood is also a very sobering thing. I'm a grown up, but I'm not writing for a living. To be honest, I'm not writing much at all these days. And that's something I intend to change right now. I may have to be a salesman (something I'm very good at, to my surprise) to pay the bills, but I'm going to be a writer by trade from here on out. A trade, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary (I love the internet. Makes citations so damn easy.) is "a personal occupation, esp a craft requiring skill." Well goddamn it, writing is my trade, and I intend to show it. I'm going to pimp this damn blog for all it's worth (or you know, I'm actually going to show it to people other than my wife. Hi, sweetie.), I'm going to actually work on the projects I've been tossing around in my brain the past couple of years, and I'm going to continue to hone my craft until my prose is so razor sharp, it'll cut you up so bad. I may not get paid for it again for a long while, but if my time as an exhibitionist at the bus station has taught me anything it's this: Exposure is the first step to pepper spray success. Sure, sometimes you're Moe Greene and you get a bullet in the eye, but that dude built Las Vegas.

You can look forward to some interesting bits and pieces here in the coming days and weeks. I'll continue to post my mad ravings as always, but I'll also be posting some of the stuff I'm working on. I've got the wheels spinning now, so jump on, kids, we're taking this fucker all the way to Fresno!

Meat is murder; Tasty, Tasty Murder

For those of you who have missed my angry, rambling insanity style of writing lately, I intend to be back on top form with this one. As you may know, the titles of my posts usually relate in some backwards, barely coherent and yet slyly clever way, to the content of said posts. This one is no different. It is not, as may seem at first glance, about my status as a raging carnivore. I love meat, everyone knows that. It's not news. It's delicious, full of protein, and it reminds me that, despite my status as a relatively unknown shouter of obscenities on the internet, I am actually on top of the food chain. This post is not about delicious cows. It is instead about sacred ones.

I realize I'm a little late to the party on this one, but the whole South Park/Mohammad controversy really had me steaming. You all know what it was about by now, so I'm not going to rehash the details. Suffice to say, it had me sincerely cheesed off.

I'm not going to direct anger at Comedy Central. They pussied out, for sure, but not arbitrarily. There are a lot of talented people that work for them, and they all have families and friends and other people they don't want beheaded or blown up. I'm sure if I were in that position, I'd back off, too. Live to fight another day, I dig. Instead, I'm going to direct my sweet, rich hatred where it belongs: at the groups who think that their sacred cows give them the right to deprive anyone else of the feeling of safety.

Coleman, the butler in the Dan Aykroyd/Eddie Murphy film Trading Places (well worth watching, simply for the genius scene of Dan Aykroyd in a filthy Santa suit, eating a salmon whole while picking nylon fake beard threads out of it. The best moments in life really are the little moments.) says toward the end of the film, while disguised as a Catholic priest, "I always say religion's a fine thing, taken in moderation." I tend to agree with this opinion. I have nothing against religion in and of itself.  I may be, as I've said many times before, an agnostic at best who finds the whole practice a little silly on a personal level, but I respect the right of an individual to believe whatever they please. In many cases, religion allows an individual to connect with a certain side of himself (or herself, let's be equal here), giving him or her the opportunity to explore the deeper philosophical bits and pieces of the human existence, a practice which I am most definitely for. It helps fill a void, I get that, and sometimes I even envy it.

Me? I tend to get my philosophy from other sources. I believe that when I die, I'm going to go to the Island from Lost and kick it with some polar bears and crack a few cold ones with the Smoke Monster. "But K-Dawg," you may say, "Lost is fictional. It's a story made up by some guys in a room some place. It's not even real!" To which I will reply, knowingly, "Exactly."

Point:  Just because you believe it's sacred doesn't mean I have to. We can still be friends.

You can believe in Jesus, or Buddha, or Mohammad, or Brahma or whatever you please, and I can believe in The Island. If it helps us ponder the mysteries of humanity and the inner workings of the cosmos, excellent. Hell, even if it just gives us something to do once a week, there's nothing wrong with that either.

And you have every right to think that I'm silly for believing a TV show is real, and for wanting to go there when I die, and I have every right to believe that you're silly for believing the stories that you believe. We're all still here together; we just don't have to hang out on Sundays.

These extremist groups continue to threaten and provoke because we back down every time. The best defense against jack holes like this isn’t more retaliatory threats, which is something I've seen a lot of in the little research I did for this piece--violence does indeed beget violence, after all-- it’s not letting them silence us. Everyone has a right to their belief system, or to the lack of one. Believe in your sacred cows, shine on you crazy diamond. I don’t have to believe in them, too, and I DON'T have to treat them with kid gloves. And you can take offense at that; it's a perfectly normal human response. But the moment you threaten violence against me and others who don’t believe what you do, you lose the right to be treated fairly and with respect. And the fact that these threats in particular were made by a group in America makes it doubly so; it's a place where we pride ourselves so much on our citizens' right to free speech, we put it right at the top of the damn Bill that lays the big ones out.

Freedom of speech means just that: You can say what you want, and I can say what I want, even if we're both full of crap. You can disagree, you can debate, you can argue, but you can not threaten. Period. And the moment we give in to a threat of that nature, we give up a little bit of that freedom. It's kind of like erosion: One day, you got a nice piece of beachfront property, a nice little bungalow with a nice wooden deck off the back. It's great to sit out there and feel the summer breeze and drink some lemonade or a little rum punch and just generally enjoy the hell out of being alive. You lose an inch or two a year, big deal, man, it's just an inch or two. Then, before you know it, you're on the news with a sad, confused look, your kick-ass Ray-Bans having left a tan line around your face that makes you look like a doofus, and damn it, no one looks good in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops,what the hell were you thinking? And the video of your house falling into the ocean is on youtube with a jillion hits, right behind that one where they try to blow up the whale and Moby Dick rains fiery death from above with chunks of his fat whale ass.

Damn, that shit was funny. In both instances, and in the one above--you know, free speech. Pay attention. No, stop looking up the whale video. You've seen it nine times already. Did you not even come close to getting the point of this...you know what, screw it.--Point:  hindsight is 20/20.


And to my Hindu friends: I'm not picking on you more than anyone else, I promise. I admire your people, your rich history, and your Mahatmas (means "great souls", apparently. Thanks, Wikipedia!)... and I love your curry. Sacred cow is just a great term. And if any of you guys wants to go for a hamburger with me, I totally won't narc on you. We're cool, bro.

Queequeg out, bitches.




(Seriously, no one got that reference? I know no one even read the book in high school, but shit, man, even the Cliffs Notes has the list of characters in it. Read a book, goddamn it!)

The Internet Killed the Video Store...

In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far. Oh-ah-oh-oh-a-oh...and so on.


So, I'm in my 2nd full day of unemployment, which sucks. For those of you who don't know, which, since no one reads this blog o' mine anyway, is no one, since I know, so...So, this is for the parts of me that don't know, like my spleen, who very likely does not know, since he's a bit of a layabout and doesn't really contribute anything worthwhile to the conversation. Yeah, you heard me, Frank. (My spleen's name is Frank. My gallbladder is named Jeff, by the way, and my liver is John Wayne, because he's a fuckin' hoss, that's why.) Anyway, up 'til this past Monday, I ran a video store for a national chain that, while it shall remain nameless, is probably easy enough to guess, since it's the one going out of business; Though the other guys are probably not far behind...


The video store is a thing of the past, as many have said, and we have the internet to blame. Web-based rental programs, digital delivery, on-demand programming, etc. I oughta be pissed, but I'm not. Looking for a new job sucks, and it's something I haven't had to do in years. And the current unemployment rate makes the market unkind to everyone and especially unkind to the disabled (even the ones who can kick your ass. Bring it on, man, I'll cut you! I swear to god, I'll cut you!), but the writing was on the wall long before the wall got knocked down. And the writing said "Boobs," but that's because I was the one who wrote it there.


It's evolution of the marketplace, pure and simple. Can't get mad about progress, man, otherwise you're grandpa bitching about kids on his lawn and their damned music. And if Back to the Future has taught us anything, it's that you can't be your own grandpa. And that we don't need roads. And that the Cubs will one day win the World Series. And that Marty, you gotta come back with me! Man, that was an educational piece of cinema right there.


My point, insofar as I have a point, is that this sort of thing has always happened. New technology, new methods of delivery, new means of production, or whatever, have always come along and put their predecessors out to pasture. The automobile put the horse and carriage people out of business. The gun relegated the sword people to traditionalists and hobbyists. The wheel put the Drag Heavy Shit Really Far people down. And the fire guys moved the Eat Our Food Raw and Freeze to Death Consortium out of the way. It happens. 


Convenience is a big motivating factor in what products and services succeed these days. Netflix and On-Demand have that in spades: Push a button on the TV remote, and bam, you got your Avatar or Sherlock Holmes in no time. Stop watching porn for a minute and move that arrow to the other open tab in your web browser and click a button and bam, the entire third season of Full House is on its way to your door. Why you were watching porn and then immediately decided you needed the entire third season of Full House is between you and God, but yes, you should be ashamed.


Redbox is a little less convenient, but they were smart about it: Eliminate the overhead (they just have a minimal stock and repair staff for any given area), and stick these damn things where people are going anyway. They're mainly outside grocery stores, convenience stores, and McDonald's. And if I know the American populace, on any given day, they're either going to need to buy gas, groceries, or a Quarter fucking Pounder with goddamn Cheese. (sorry, I felt that my usual obscenity requirements were lacking with this post. Had to level it out before I started punching pictures of unicorns.) Smart. I'm not a big fan of Redbox personally, since I'm an indie movie nerd, but they did it smart, and good for them. And good for the VOD folks and the gang over at Netflix, who I will be signing up with very soon. You can't beat their selection, I have to admit. Any place you can rent Casablanca, Lucio Fulci's Zombi, and episodes of Fawlty Towers in one place is pretty damned impressive.


I've been hearing a lot about digital delivery replacing physical discs entirely lately, too. It may be the way of the future, but I don't see packaged media disappearing any time soon, honestly. It's for the same reason that book stores are still around in an increasingly paperless world. There are too many old school geeks out there, like me, who love to brag about the size of their dicks collections. There's something satisfying about having a big ol' floor to ceiling bookcase full of the literary classics. So, too, is there something satisfying about having one full of DVDs or shiny new blu-rays (Those little blue cases are so goddamn cute, I could stab the pope!) 


Maybe the reason is some form of penis envy, but I'm not that Freudian. I like to be able to see and touch and feel and taste what I spend my money on; be it a book, movie, barely legal Asian prostitute, or 2 and a half keys of the finest Bolivian marching powder on God's green earth. (I can't feel my teeth, but I can see through time. It does not end well for any of you, by the way.) I'm not old-fashioned in many things, but with a physical manifestation of the financial transaction in front of me, I feel like I maybe got a little closer to my money's worth. And if not, at least I can make a kick ass bunch of tiny frisbees.


Plus, no one pays for downloads, dude. What is this, 1995? (If you laughed along with that, then you are also the reason I am unemployed, and should immediately send me 10 dollars).

Your Lucky Numbers Are: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42; or Instant Dharma's Gonna Get You...

OK, let's get it right out in the open from the get-go. I'm an unabashed Lost fan. As anyone who knows my taste in movies and literature and such can tell you, I really enjoy a good mind fuck, (I also enjoy it if it involves my mind in only the very limited sense. Like screaming "Wheee!" over and over again quietly to myself during sex.) and for the past 6 years, Lost has provided that weekly Scanners moment of head-splody goodness I need to keep from killing everyone in the world. Yes, it very often becomes a victim of its own grandeur and yes, most of us that have stuck with it are pretty much obliged to watch to the end whether we like it or not, but despite its problems, it's still managed to swallow my soul.

I'm a nerd, to be sure, but very rarely do I succumb to the desire to really let go. Case in point: Star Trek. I loved the 2009 movie. It was one of those rare fusions of action and sci-fi that really got both parts right. (J.J. Abrams, the film's director is also one of the creators of Lost, by the way) And who doesn't love Patrick Stewart? Before he was hamming it up with hilarious results on Family Guy and American Dad (Watching one of this generations finest Shakespearean thespians as an animated version of himself hold two bowling balls to his chest and proclaim "Look, I've got girl boobs!" is one of the crowning achievements of my television watching career.) he was Captain Something Something Picard on Star Trek. And then he was Professor Goddamn X. You want to talk about handi-capable? The dude's in a wheelchair for sure, but he can kick your ass out through your mouth with the power of his mind. He doesn't need the parking space closest to the store. He can make the store come to HIM. WITH HIS MIND. Read the Americans With Disabilities Act a little closer, man. It's not there to make our lives easier at all. It's actually a cleverly worded piece of legislation enacted to restrain dudes like Professor X and me from just straight up murdering all you normals and then sleeping with your wives. The fine print really screwed us on that one. Lesson one: always read what you sign. Caveat Emptor, man.

Anyway, my wife talked me into watching some of the original Star Trek series, which is something I've always resisted. Don't get me wrong, I love Shatner. It's probably going to be mentioned at my funeral: "That guy in the coffin sure did love Shatner," they'll say. And then, hopefully add, "I wish he didn't owe me so much money." The man has become a comedic genius completely by accident, and it's all thanks to Star Trek. But I never felt nerdy enough to really get into a 60's sci-fi series with cardboard sets and evil twin goatees. But my wife controls the boobies, and the boobies control me, so I gave it a go. And you know, I really enjoyed it after all. A little heavy handed with the allegory, perhaps, but over all it's campy fun at its best. There's even an episode with a gangster planet, where everybody looks and talks exactly like Virgil Solozzo from The Godfather if he had brain damage. Now that's a very fine piece of tiramisu if there ever was one.

What was I talking about? Cake? Wait...right. Point is, I'm able to enjoy Star Trek here and there, but I'll never put on a costume and go to a convention. Why? Two reasons, really: Against all odds, I'm allowed to have sex somewhat regularly, which I'm pretty sure gets you thrown to the Rancor or something at those things (yes, I know that's Star Wars, and yes, I know it's sad that I know that), and I can enjoy something without letting it take over my existence. Nerd heresy to be sure, but I've been able to enjoy a smattering of science fiction here and there as a side dish to my main courses of Shakespeare and Dickens and whatever author is printed in Playboy this month.

Then Lost happened. I resisted it for a long time. Years, even. But then my wife borrowed the first three seasons on DVD from my brother-in-law. (side note: I'm sensing a pattern here. Either my wife likes nerdy things as much as I do or she's making sure that, if there were ever the remotest desire for adultery in my mind, no one would sleep with me because all of my tools of seduction would involve either William Shatner or the Smoke Monster. Or both. Yeah, that's hot. Wait...shit.) At first, I liked the show well enough. Interesting take on the Robinson Crusoe/desert island thing. Cool flashback stuff. I wonder what else is on. Then came the Others. And the Smoke Monster. And the Hatch. And the Numbers. The goddamn numbers. The title of this post will tell you what they are, but not what they mean because I don't know what they mean. And I doubt that I ever will. Even if, during the series finale in 3 months time, the creators of the show pull a Zack Morris "Time Out," come on screen and say "Hey everybody, here's exactly what the numbers mean. Sorry we fucked with your head for so long. Time in!" I think my brain would refuse whatever explanation was offered. There's no way it can live up to the hype I've built in my own mind. Even if they're really part of the mathematical formula for chocolate pudding forever and free blow job robots. (Bad Robot! heh. Saucy Robot, maybe.)
I've spent too much time postulating and reading theories other fans have come up with regarding the numbers, the smoke monster, Fake Locke, Desmond and time travel/alternate realities, Jacob and the Man In Black, etc. etc. that my brain will literally shut down at whatever reasoning the writers have come up with. Even if it makes perfect sense. Even if it's poetic and beautiful and brings tears to my eyes like no work of fiction has ever done since My Girl (He was just trying to get her ring back because he loved her! And then she tried to put his glasses back on when he was dead...because...because...he can't see without his glasses! BWAHHHH!!!! I LOVE YOU MACAULAY CULKIN!), I don't think I could ever accept it. This show has become my Star Trek. And all because it started out as a story of adventure and survival, and they added in the crazy drop by drop, until the sci-fi center of my brain was tripping so much balls that I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. (A very strange expression, I've always felt. It seems easy enough to do both. After all, if something were happening that would cause you to have to choose between the two, you'd probably have already done both before you realized it.)

Here's to you, creators of Lost, for sneaking a science fiction series up on us so stealthily that we were well into our secret man crushes on Sawyer before we even questioned why the fuck there was time travel on a show about a plane crash.

But, basically, if I've sold my soul for anything less than a Ferrari and unlimited water slides, you're going to read about me in the paper the next morning. I'll have done something unspeakable either to or with a polar bear. Either way, it's on your heads.

Ben Linus out like a motherfucker.

Where my Pocky's at?!?

I've accepted that, by simple virtue of geography (I live in Texas, after all. Houston, mind you, but still Texas), I'm bound to run into some seriously, SERIOUSLY intensely Christian people at least a couple of times a week. It's just gonna happen. And it did, yet again, when a gentlemen decided to recite what was essentially a summary of the Book of Revelations at me. I was raised Catholic, and Catholic in the time-honored, New England lackadaisical tradition. As a people, we're not too big on the fire and brimstone stuff. I'm a heathen these days, but even as a kid, Hell was always a pretty vague concept; Something that happened, you know, over there. To those weirdo Christians. The ones with the tents. That, and we had confession, so we were pretty much guaranteed to avoid Hell entirely, so long as we renounced our evil ways on our deathbeds (a tactic I still plan on employing, just in case.).

However, there are a lot of serious Evangelical folks around these parts (Jerry Falwell and such); so, in the interest of getting to know my neighbors, I decided to familiarize myself with the End of Days the best way I knew how: By reading the Wikipedia entry on the Left Behind series of books. Fitting, as I view anything Kirk Cameron is involved in to be the inspired Word of God. (Seriously. On Growing Pains, his best friend's name was Boner. Boner. This was the mid-80's, and here we had a family friendly sitcom on prime-time that got away with saying "Boner" an average of 19 times an episode. Now that's either God or the devil, and either way, you better respect that fuckin' autoritah.)

Now that I have what may be accurately described as an intense and thorough knowledge of the Book of Revelations, I posit this question, in all seriousness, to those Evangelical Christians among us:

"The fuck?"

Now, I'm a skeptic and an agnostic at best, but I'm willing to accept that I don't know or understand everything in the universe. I'm even willing to accept the possibility of some form of Creative force that has operated or is operating within it. I mean, all this stuff is here, so it's not completely gonzo to consider. But this John cat, and by extension those who view his brand of crazy as something that even begins to approach the house that plausible rents for two weeks out of every summer, are fuckin' SURE of it. And they're sure they're sure. And they're sure they know EXACTLY how this merry-go-round is gonna come to a screeching halt, and which one of us poor fuckers is gonna lose his damn ice cream cone in the process.

I mean....the fuck? They can tell you exactly how and where Jesus is going to be coming back, holding a flaming sword and riding a my little pony of light and wasting all the bad, unbelieving, probably brown people, and how they're going to have carte blanche in the sweet ass luxury box in the new heaven and new earth. They can tell you exacly which mound of dirt in France on which the J-Dizzle is going to set up his house for the ultimate episode of Cribs.

You know...they just can't tell you which particular millennia...but seriously...any year now. It's a' comin'. Get your shit packed.

It's all a little presumptious, really. To think that we are not only the chosen species on this planet, but in the entire fucking universe full of a spajillion other planets, some of which are bound to have life on them that look WAY cooler than us in Ray-Bans.

Me, I prefer a little mystery. The way I figure it, we're all gonna find out one way or another what happens. May as well be surprised. It's like riding a roller coaster that may or may not be on fire...only you're blindfolded. But the ride to the top of the biggest hill is like a hundred years long. And you get to have beer and cheesecake along the way. And maybe you're like me, and you marry a pretty girl who's funny and weird and puts up with your shit, and then you get to ride together (I scream like a little girl on roller coasters, so it's nice to have someone who actually is a girl to blame it on); maybe you have a couple of kids. Maybe you invent something that makes life for other people just a little weirder and more interesting. Maybe you write a play or a book that a few people enjoy. Maybe you come up with the idea for Lost and make me stick with the damn show for 5 fucking years because I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE GODDAMN SMOKE MONSTER IS!

And you don't know if when you get to the top of the hill if you're going to hit a bunch of clouds, or like 47 big-titty virgins or a bowl of chocolate pudding or what. But fuck it....you still got beer and cheesecake, so you came out ahead. Just put your arms up and go "WHEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!"

But hey...If we are headed for a full-on, biblical, capital A-pocalypse, it's not all bad. As Patton Oswalt, my brother from another mother says:

"Here's the good news: in the afterlife, like in Heaven you'll be in the fuckin' VIP section of eternity! Cause everyone up there is like 'Hey, how'd you die?' And they're like 'Bus accident,' and 'How'd you die?' And they're like 'Fire ants.' Then they go 'How'd you die, man?' 'How'd I die? In the fuckin' apocalypse! Oh my God, it was awesome! I'm in the velvet rope section of eternity! You should've fuckin' been there man, fuckin' volcanoes came out of the ground and spewed menstrural blood into the sky, and then it formed into Avril Lavigne's face, and she recited the 'Good Will Hunting' screenplay, then the words turned into sentient razors and they bored into your flesh, George Bush was president and mediocrity held sway!'"

Sprinkle some fries on those cupcakes, fuckers.

You can pour Him over ice cream for a nice parfait...

I'd like to share with you a revelation I had while shopping at a hobby store with my wife recently: The world is fucking weird. And it's really, really funny.

Let me elaborate. In his 1999 album Mule Variations, the insanely talented Tom Waits included a track called "Chocolate Jesus." It's a sparse, gravelly, bluesy, funny little song about the titular candy product and it's one of my favorite songs of all time. When asked what brought about the inspiration for such a song, Tom related a story about a business venture his father-in-law had told him about, sort of a Christian version of the Lifesaver called, appropriately, Testamints. The idea was that they'd have these little breath mints that have a cross on one side and a bible verse on the other. You know, for those Sundays on the go...or maybe for when you're having both a spiritual crisis and a double order of garlic bread. Either way, you're saved and ready to hit the town in, like, literally 45 seconds. Good deal. According to Tom himself:

"So we just kind of took it a step further. You got your Testamints. What about your Chocolate Jesus? Melts in your mouth, not your hand. It is kind of direct. Drink this in remembrance of me. Someone might think it's blasphemous, but it's actually kind of a grassroots spirituality."

Tom Waits being the kind of weird, elusive smoke-being that he is, I always figured the whole thing was just another story to add a little extra madness and mystery to things. Tom does that sort of thing a lot, though there's usually at least a grain of truth to it all. Take for example the story he told about Sarah Bernhardt, famous French stage actress. As the story went, Sarah had her right leg amputated later in life and ended up performing Shakespeare in a little bar in the middle of nowhere. Strapped for cash, she supposedly sold her severed leg to famous circus entrepreneur and human/walrus hybrid P.T. Barnum, who then exhibited it in a number of traveling sideshows. The gag is that she was one of the most famous actresses in history, and at the end of her career, her leg was pulling in more money each night then she was.

Funny, yes. Twisted, yes. Weird as hell, oh yeah. True? Well, actually, kind of. Sarah Bernhardt injured her right knee pretty badly leaping from the stage at the end of a production in 1905. The leg didn't heal properly and over the years, infections took their toll and gangrene set in. She had the leg removed in 1915 and proceeded to have a pretty successful, albeit one-legged decade appearing in and even producing many more stage productions until her death in 1923. There were rumors a showman had offered to buy her leg, but she'd turned him down. Since P.T. Barnum died in 1891, and especially given his Houdini-like debunking of mediums and seances and speaking to the dead and the like, if he really had made the offer, it would have been even more super-awesome.

Undoubtedly, Tom heard the rumor someplace or another and decided to spin it into a twisted joke/weird ass anecdote to add to his oddball mythos during live performances. It worked, of course.

Given the evidence presented above, it should have come as no surprise to me when I saw, in the gumrack at the checkout counter of Hobby Lobby, the awesome sight of this:














God bless you crazy-ass Christians and your All-American enterprising spirit. I shit you not, dear readers, this is a really, really real thing. They have a whole range of products: Bible Verses Buttermints, Tangy Tarts Scripture Candy; even personalized Bible Verse Hershey Bars! That last one should come as a boon to all you passive aggressive homophobes out there. Too shy to attend a rally holding a "God Hates Queers!" picket sign while wearing a Budweiser beer hat? Just order up some fun-sized Hershey's Krackle with Leviticus 20:13 printed on them and hand them out to all the kids dressed up kind of faggy on Halloween! Here you go, Sparkly-Twilight-Vampire-Kid, here's a Mr. Goodbar for you...oh, and also little light reading material:

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

Burn in hell! :) Oh, lordy, but I do love dressing up for pretends!

Anyone interested in checking these wonderful little mouthfuls of insanity can visit the following link:

Testamints Products Page

If any of you order anything from them for a less-than-ironic purpose...please stay away from me. Especially in the grocery store. I swear, I can't go to Wal-Mart at 11:50 at night without being accosted by some preachy middle-aged lady in a cardigan with a bad hair cut, thrusting some pamphlet at me, telling me that Jesus can heal me, and that they'll pray for me. For those of you who don't know, I have cerebral palsy and as a result, I walk with a distinctive, limping gait. Look up spastic diplegia on Wikipedia. It's actually pretty informative. Also, if you've got some extra dough, donate a few bucks to United Cerebral Palsy, or maybe buy one of their neat little "Life Without Limits" wristbands. They're a little upbeat for my taste, but they do lots of good work for lots of different people. And they're a crapload more effective and caring than a pamphlet from Jesus at Wal-Mart.

Now that I think of it...I suppose getting accosted with candy is better than getting accosted with a pamphlet. Candy is candy, after all and Chocolate Jesus is bound to taste about the same as the Cadbury Bunny, when you get right down to it. Still, the 5 minutes it took me to fend off the Jesus lady and throw away her pamphlet right in front of her so that she cries a little means that it's now 11:57pm, the beer cooler is all the way at the back of the store, and they stop selling beer at midnight...as discussed above, I don't walk so fast. So there's no way I'm making it all the way across a Super Wal-Mart in 3 minutes. Especially not loaded up with delicious, refreshing (hell, some nights downright sexually exciting) ice-cold Corona.

So much for "Drink this in memory of me." Thanks, Jesus.

Also, and somehow this is even more awesome, I saw a big chocolate cross in the Easter candy clearance bin the other day. Seriously, three, five years tops, they're GONNA add the little guy to it.

Number one in the hood, G.

Remember a couple of years ago, when Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters came out? Wasn't that great? Didn't we all enjoy its zany hilariousness? I sure did. Anthropomorphic food products are inherently hilarious, and when you add about eight pounds of crystal meth, the hits just keep on hittin'. (Honestly, I love the show. It's surreal brilliance at its finest.

And remember, shortly before said film was released, when a bunch of Lite-Brites with pictures of cartoon characters flipping you off shut down a major American city for several hours? Yeah, that was great.

For those of you who don't know, Turner Broadcasting hired a bunch of advertising weirdos to do some guerrilla marketing in anticipation of the film. They created magnetic, light up LED boards with pictures of the Mooninites that other weirdo types were hired to place here and there in "hip areas" in and around Boston and a number of other cities.

They were up for several weeks. No doubt, a few people with off-beat senses of humor like myself, saw them, recognized them and had a chuckle. Most probably thought they were just some weird grafitti and thought nothing of it. One guy thought it was a bomb. AND THE WHOLE GODDAMN CITY FREAKED THE SHIT OUT. The police shut down traffic all over, called in the bomb squads and made it a whole theatrical production. And even after Turner Broadcasting called them and said "Hey, our bad. It was just this goofy idea we had. Totally our fault, but they're not dangerous at all," it took the city several hours to believe them.

I've only got a couple of minutes before work, so I'm going to keep this one short and sweet:

On behalf of the entire population of Massachusetts, I would like to definitively state that we are not all retarded. We know that cartoon characters aren't bombs. Thank you. Good night, and good luck.

Merry Christmas, Emporium!

I realize it's been awhile since I've updated this thing (or "Hulked Out," as I'd like to call it if a certain harshly-worded cease-and-desist letter from Marvel Comics Group didn't prevent me from saying that, and if a certain harshly-worded warrant for my arrest didn't prevent me from painting myself green and running around downtown wearing nothing but the tattered remains of my pants), but I've been stewing about something today that I feel bears ranting about by me, the 9 millionth person to mention it: Banks. (No, not Carlton Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That guy was delightful. The money kind of banks.) Specifically I'd like to say this: "Hey banks, suck a bag of dicks! (Thank you, Louis C.K). Also, congress can go ahead and suck a bag, too. And the Senate...big bag for those guys over there.

Let's delve a little deeper (not into the bag of dicks, eww). So, in addition to the current clusterfuck of joblessness, houselessness, and general unhappiness and stress-induced-diarrhea...ness of the American populace at large, it seems banks are failing left, right and center. So, today, the White House (the people inside it, not the house itself...but a talking house would be AWESOME) announced it's plan to try and stem the bleeding, to keep the banks going, and basically keep us all from reenacting that one scene from It's A Wonderful Life where it turns out that the money is actually in Joe's house and Fred's house and etc. (See? My titles are ALWAYS relevant. Today's was a line from said movie. And George Bailey ran a savings & loan. Suck it, bitches.) Basically, the gub'mint is going to pony up a bunch of dough to private investors, so they'll buy up all these so-called toxic assets the banks have, given that there's very little risk involved with the government-backed cash. Worst case scenario, the investors lose a little cabbage and the government absorbs the majority of the hit, and they're already so far in the hole, they're hitting egg rolls, so fuck it (digging to China, kids, keep up here). Best case, the plan actually works, and the government and investors split the profits . These "toxic assets" are mostly bad mortgages and real estate fuck-ups and etc. (The fact that these are still even considered "assets" shows you just how screwed we really are) that are really really hard to sell to anyone ever, let alone in a market as thin and desperate as the one the country's in. Allowing the investors such a low risk opportunity will hopefully generate enough cash flow to keep the banks going, and will kick start the "Horray! We're Not Starving to Death This Week!" Bonanza and box social. (God help me, I love a good box social). The problem is, in order to do that, the government's gonna have to spend a lot more on these bunk loans then they're actually worth, which even then may not be enough to get the investors' dicks hard enough to start buying, and we're all screwed just a little harder than when we started.

Mind, this is all in order to keep the banks intact as-is. Management structure, business model, etc. etc. just chuggin' along like the fuckin' broke-down Pinto that got us into this pit of despair in the first place.

The other, better option is temporary nationalization. The goverment takes control of the banks, absorbs their losses, restructures things, fixes up the books and, once everything's viable again, re-privatizes them. Basically, the government says "Ok, banks, you drove drunk and wrecked the car, so you're grounded. And we're taking the car, fixing it up, and driving it around ourselves for a couple of weeks to teach you a lesson. Oh yeah, and suck a bag of dicks." Sounds like a viable, even intelligent option. Mention the word "nationalization," however and damn near everyone loses their shit. The phrase "Commie Pinko fuck!" is thrown around a lot. "Socialism!" is a popular one too. The fear is twofold. One: The government will like having the banks and won't give them up, and pretty soon it's 1984. (The book, not the year. I'm pretty sure they can't make 1984 happen again. Besides...you know...Rick Astley again. And Oingo Boingo. And Bananarama. Then, eventually, Quiet Riot. I can't handle that a second time.) Two: The government is no good at running banks and will fuck it up.

But....

NO ONE involved in the economic recovery plan favors permanent nationalization. It's a temporary measure to help construct a permanent solution. They're even taking to calling it "pre-privatization" in an effort to soften it up enough for the GOP and all the scared little bunnies to swallow the pill without having it wrapped in cheese. Or, maybe that is the cheese...and it's dogs, not bunnies that like...fuck, bad metaphor. Bail!


And...

If the last couple of years have proven anything, it's that BANKS DON'T KNOW HOW TO RUN BANKS! "Yeah, keep grinding that transmission, Junior. That's the way. No, the smoke is normal. Yup, the fire, too. What? It fell out? Well, let's put a shiny new tranny in that fucker and try again! Where's my Johnnie Walker?!?"

I get what the administration is trying to do. They're trying to gain as much support as they can by taking the least drastic measures they can see being effective. Nationalization is kind of Orwellian in scope, at least a little, and it understandably frightens people. Here's the thing: The problem got so big, so fast, that nothing but a drastic measure will provide effective enough relief. FACT: Even if no bail out or government assisted loans or anything else were done, the economy would evenually right itself. Most major economic theorists will tell you this, and the concept is supported by the principles of Game Theory (read A Beautiful Mind, you'll get the gist). Things will even out and reach some level of normalcy without any out of the ordinary intervention at all. Eventually. Say, five years time. Maybe ten.

But if the goal is to minimize the suffering of the American people, and the people around the world, then the aim is to right this fuckin' apple cart tout suite, Captain, not wait til the raccoons get at it, then get more apples from the apple trees that eventually grow from the seeds the raccoons poop out. (Now THAT'S a fuckin' metaphor!) We need results as soon as possible, and the only remotely assured way to do that is by the DRASTIC , SCARY ACTION of nationalization. FOR A LITTLE WHILE. The government logically has more resources at its disposal than private businesses, regardless of how large they may be, and can provide more immediate and guaranteed relief. It's going to happen anyway, why not just make it happen before there are two or three more failed attempts at making everyone happy? Socialism be damned, if our 401k's are gonna get better, this is how it's gonna go down. Marx my words. Oops. I mean mark....OR DID I?!?!?!?!?!


In the interest of full disclosure, I will make it known that I am, in spirit, a socialist. I'm also not a fucking moron, so I realize that Socialism very rarely exists without the sacrifice of too many individual freedoms, and as such, cannot stand. I firmly believe that, while not perfect, that the American Republic is a pretty damn good form of government at heart, and I believe enough in the resilience of the American people to say that eventually, we're going to be fine. But I also believe that we can't trust the businesses that have failed time and time again and expect them to succeed with the same way of doing things, and worse, the same fuckwits at the top who stuck it in and broke it off in the first place. Let's just bite the fucking bullet on this one, do what needs to be done to get things back on track, and then, let's all get piss drunk and sing Dropkick Murphys' songs until we vomit freedom.

Also...man, there were a lot of dick references in today's post.....Meh. Politics, I guess.