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.