[1203] Same Page

It’s 3 AM and I’m home from day 2 of the Limestone Comedy Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Earlier today, I was at St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Schererville where I was a pallbearer for my 45 year old cousin’s funeral. It was close to 3 AM that I arrived to the area driving up the night before, and after a viewing, church service, burial, and lunch, I made the drive back, finding myself exhausted and briefly/uncontrollably drifting lanes just before the Lafayette exit I was looking to pull over on to take a nap.

 

For what my decision to buy a VVIIPP badge for the 3-day event might’ve suggested would be a flatly “fun” weekend packed with “comedy,” my cousin’s death being the most obvious wrench in my expectations is not even what’s mostly on my mind. I learned more about him from his obituary and eulogy than I had ever heard/remembered family talking about. As a basic human, it’s sad when people die and I’m not coldly dismissive of what my aunt is going through or anyone else in my family. Especially because I’ve gotten older, I just don’t play along anymore than I have to.

 

I suppose, again, we arrive at the notion of “playing along.” To be sure, I will never “forgive” nor “forget” the horrible things my family have done to both my dad and step-mom, grandmother, or myself. These are thieves. These are liars. These are greedy, insecure, and angry children who, as recently testified to in my cousin’s death, are willing to let those in their orbit suffer for their lack of accountability. My dad is 1 of 4. They all got the same parents, and he managed to be the only one who didn’t find a way to mock the examples my grandparents were trying to set.

 

At the same time, as I can already sense this is sounding incredibly judgmental or callous, I don’t pretend that anyone is anything less than an animal first. I had this moment as they were lowering the lid to my cousin’s coffin where I just looked around the room and felt this lightness about the terrible and inhumane or exploitative shit the people in my family have done. There was a useful narrowing of focus and forced perspective as the sickly mouse-like face of my cousin descended into his coffin and I looked at the congregates hold back tears or stare just past where he laid.

 

There’s a certain poetry to the idea that I go straight from comedy festival to burial and then right back to festival. There’s a certain highlight that I, in spite of my best effort, would find myself flirting with death on the highway. You really do want to believe something about the bigger picture. I couldn’t escape the thought that the reason we have this whole lengthy procession is to distract us from the responsibility that is begged in thinking death is the end. What if my aunt simply failed her son? What if she’s continuing to fail her remaining one who is struggling deeply with alcoholism? Now now, fuck all that noise, we’re gonna hang out soon in heaven!

 

The comedy festival is feeling feeble. There’s plenty of funny people, but I’ve never felt more like an afterthought in buying the highest-tier badge for something. Maybe the System of a Down “VIP” tickets once, but this is right there for considerably less money. You don’t feel the energy. You don’t get the sense the ones who have been doing it for…12 years…have figured out the rhythm. Did you know I get reserved seats right up front for shows that haven’t sold 1/5th of the room? If 30 or 40 people got invited to it, why am I seeing the same hosts and features multiple times? It’s very first or second year energy. They told me my badge would look the "coolest." It’s the exact same badge as the VIP.

 

I’m exhausted by what feels like perpetual unreality. My family isn’t real. The competence and “love” of comedy by whomever organized Limestone isn’t either. It’s so many people playing along with some idea of what they think the thing “should” be. At lunch, my surviving alcoholic cousin and I get along in a weird way. His energy and my fluid acceptance of it did not match the pleasantries vibe at the table. He shakes. You thought he was going to drop each bowl of food as it was passed around. I recognized how important it was to him that he wasn’t babied as he still managed to serve himself without spilling or breaking anything. He’s dealing with real shit, including recently diagnosed cirrhosis of the liver. I gather he clocks me as someone willing to meet him where he’s at.

 

The comedy festival is interesting if only because it’s a majority female comics, and younger people than me. It’s like this weird little microchasm into the broader fucked up world of lonely fascist men steering us to Handmaid’s Tale-opia. Tonight was karaoke, and by 1:30AM, when the songs were done, it was 30 girls in mom jeans and 90s dad sneakers talking too-enthusiastically to each other as people like me I assume felt reasonable in not even thinking about hitting on any of them. Tomorrow, we can get brunch with the comics. From what I’ve gathered, they’re mostly comfortable talking/working within their fellow comic cohort and marketing themselves or playing friendly with the locals wasn’t quite explicated in their contracts. I don’t blame them.

 

When I first started writing this I felt this desire to get on the same page. I was going to just list the things I “individually” felt and thought “everyone” could kind of support or understand. Instead, I’ll take one thing, like sneezing and saying bless you, to illustrate my frustration. I think we need to be saying “bless you.” I don’t think it has anything to do with religion. I don’t think you’re remotely sane if you find it offensive. At least half the times I sneeze, I don’t get a bless you. Every time I hear a sneeze, I say bless you. We need things like that to save us from the individualized algorithms. We need social norms back. 30 funny creative women should not be meandering about a bar in a college town during a festival because they can’t trust any man because “toxic” is all they’ve known and men are no longer being properly socialized.

 

The ideals live and die with each of us. My grandparents set examples. They died with 3 out of 4 of their children. To me, that says you need to work 4 times as hard as you might assume initially to maintain whatever it is someone was showing you is worth maintaining. You think you worship Carlin, Pryor, Williams, and Chappelle? Create something, in 12 fucking years, someone like them would want to play at. Stop “doing comedy business” and seek and celebrate those with the message. If you want family, don’t perform and pretend like mine, hold the line of standards and respect for yourself and what you contribute to the pot of wellbeing.

 

I think there’s like 5 separate blogs in here, but I had to say something. I have to say something because, whether it’s 40 comedians or 3 days or acquaintances who only see each other at deaths, no one else is saying what needs to be said or what I need to hear to suggest we’ll ever find each other again.

[991] I'm So Sick

Before I let my brain get too woken up…

It’s safe to say that I live in a fairly perpetual state of disorientation. It isn’t that I don’t have a direction or ideas of the directions I want to go. I feel like I’m trapped. I’ve written about how often I feel “stuck.” Whether I’m citing the practical limitations around a budget or physical limitations of my body, I find myself envious of those who appear to be moving freely about the world. I don’t mean celebrities or rich people. I mean the people who conceived of, built, and began operating the new hospital in town, and every new building on campus between me graduating and today. I mean Jonny Kim who’s the viral Navy Seal, doctor, astronaut by the age of 37.

So much of my self-conception was fueled, innocently enough I’m sure, by my time in school. I don’t think I was particularly “exceptionally” smart, but doing well in school kept me safe, got me praise, money, and like a lot of kids in my era I was told I could grow up to be whatever I wanted. When I “turned it on,” there was little I couldn’t understand or get an A, and when the psychological gains of doing so began to wane, I settled for As and Bs and still way more often than anyone should think about the circumstances for the 4 Cs I got in college.

I was told often, well before I had any concept of what it meant, that I was a “leader.” I don’t know if my parents were just trying to reframe my general obstinate posture or if they recognized a capacity I would later use for the party house and entrepreneurship. Either way, it is deep in my core conception of myself that I don’t just follow along. I don’t “just believe” things. I don’t deny myself a differing view or the opportunity to put my voice to it.

I’m shaped by dozens of formative phrases and incidents of my life. I’m perhaps moved to discuss them because I recently watched Dave Chappelle talk in 2020 about his history and contract issues. He was also full of confidence and potential that was recognized early. He’s at the point in his career where he’s functionally transcending his medium and giving more Carlin-esc speeches-necessary, wise, and still funny-speeches verses doing sets. He was stuck too, in his contract, and then parlayed his fame and love for him into a credible threat and escape.

I make a lot of superficial movement in the world. At bottom, it reduces to spending money. I have money to spend-ish, when I do, it allows me access to the city, parking, venue, restaurants, and less-than-cultivated or prettied-up  picture and video montages of what I’ve been up to. I get a third of the way through any project before the rain starts, budget dries up, heat cranks, or time gets crunchy. It’s become easier over time to notice more psychological gratification in taking an extended lunch or settling in for a show and Candy Crush. Things that started out as pacifying go-go-go anxiety and stress turned into “enjoy it now while you have it.”

I find myself reflexively comparing myself to people like Jonny Kim. Whether or not I’m actually capable of being, or have any genuine desire to be, anything like him. In the least disingenuous way I can say it, fuck the military lol. I still hold respect for doctors, but perhaps ones in different countries who haven’t been co-opted by our corrupt and ignorant system. And I can barely ride several roller coasters back-to-back without feeling pukey, let alone pass the tests NASA requires. Do I want to be like Jonny Kim? No. I want to own myself to the degree of analogous effort and distinction. I want the story of doing so to be a compelling and persistently meaningful personal narrative that helps drive my behavior and focus.

The amount of sacrifice is under-appreciated when it comes to being “high-achieving” or “exceptional.” You don’t do a lot of other things because there’s always a new nuance to incorporate or responsibility to rise to. It doesn’t mean you can’t have, say, a family or hobbies, but it does mean you’re probably feeling like they don’t get the attention you’d like or they might require. It means you now have plugged into the “advance the species” project more than “prioritize me and my life” one. Consciously or unconsciously, you have to believe we can “advance” at all. You have to remain steadfast in your dedication to “helping people.” You have a driving faith-claim that as a source of inspiration and demonstration “things” or “the world” will inch forward and be better overall.

Perhaps this is where I don’t have faith. I appreciate Charlamagne tha God’s recent discussion with Stephen Colbert. He’s persistently that matter-of-fact voice about the chaos and ever-analyzing his in-the-moment experience that only those with the same kind of anxiety can appreciate. We’re on the precipice of losing the country. He gets it. I get it. Noam Chomsky gets it. Historians and some of the more inflammatory voices of commentators and observers do too.

We don’t have people in power who represent us. I’ve watched the country, not just “struggle,” but defy notions of accountability and growth. I don’t make more money each year. I don’t find new friends with more time and opportunities. I find myself escalating my indulgent side. I find myself “wishing” for someone to give me a call to finally release me from my mockery of obligations. I don’t feel as though I have the power to lead myself out of the largest context and consequences.

I can spend a year of my life making phone calls and sending emails and waiting and waiting and waiting and I still can’t find a way to do literally the job I’m doing, but for myself? That’s a beyond-broken system. It’s defying the essence of self-determination, value, and individuality. Then each step you take to “fight back” becomes another self-defeating mockery. How do I discard my observations about addicts and addiction and then with a straight-face tell other professionals, “We don’t take insurance?” Every practice that doesn’t started with taking insurance, and after filtering through hundreds found their reliable self-payers, and closed the door to Medicaid. How do you “speed up” an office that loses your paperwork, an agency that lies to you or has an axe to grind, or follow ever-differing instructions from people not qualified to offer them?

But that’s just my smallest sliver of experience. What if you’re a Florida teacher being told someone observing your classroom for 12 hours is tantamount to your time in school, debt, and professional experience? What if you’re the half of the country or minority group watching the systematic obliteration of your rights? What if you’re a fat kid being told there’s nothing to see or worry about, just keep eating and loving yourself and things will turn out alright? What if you’re a kid with a bullet-proof backpack? What if your small sliver of experience is equally exhausted, desperate, confused, and unable to lead a kind of life that doesn’t suggest futile and pointless struggle as the raging fire dictates the context?

That’s the heart of my restless and distracted soul. I’m not okay. “Things” aren’t good. I feel threatened. I feel sick. I feel immense hatred. And no amount of good books or TV shows are going to make me forget. No amount of skill I demonstrate on an instrument is going to put out the fire. No nerding-out on the history or rounding-out the context is going to erase the ever-present threat stabbing away at any remote confidence I have for our collective survival and understanding of what’s going on. We are not built for it. Individuals can cut paths that peacock a certain respect or intelligence, but “we” don’t exist and the animal that is human is as dumb and annoying as my cat resting on my armchair staring at me, expectant, selfish, ignorant of its motivations and mine.

I’m not okay. “It’s” not okay. “Things” aren’t okay. “We’re” not a thing. The country, if not literally a good portion of the world is on fire. I’m over here doing what? Haphazardly “counseling” those instinctively dosing themselves into oblivion to help cope with the pain? Because being numb with rotten teeth is preferable to medical debt and a big smile as they come to destroy what you’ve worked for or love? We’re not brave enough to even SPEAK!

We won’t even speak. We won’t talk about the big and obvious fucked up things. We won’t do it, ever. Not just for years, but ever. We won’t talk about how we’ve fucked up. We won’t talk about what it will actually take in actual work to change something today, right now, let alone in 10 years. The only people talking are the psychopaths, just as miserable and small and pathetic as we are, but with more fluid motion to exercise their greed and disdain for existence. And we won’t call them greedy and disdainful, we’ll celebrate how much they’ve “earned” and “innovated.” It is forever opposite-day in the mind of the damned. No story will sweep in and account for the deliberate ignorance or sacrifice itself on our behalf.

“Everybody knows there’s a party at the end of the world.”

The fact that I have this perspective and don’t know what it “means” is of ongoing concern. Do I pack up and leave the country? Do I power through my home projects? Do I double-down on the party? Do I make a more concerted effort to recruit and bolster physical or financial defenses? Right now, by default, I’m just playing along by ear. Things certainly “look” normal, as they have in every society the day before shit went crazy. We’re already crazy. It’s already happening, and has been, and we never talk about it. We never share anything but a meme. We don’t vote, we don’t fight unless it’s with a Russian bot, and we don’t really feel more than an overall foreboding that’s best not explored.

The vast majority of the world informing my experience is on some level suicidal. I have a friend actively disengaged from the larger political and historical context and conversation. I can’t blame her. I have professional connections that, even in places of power and relative comfort, can’t or won’t organize or find a momentum of sustained prosperity. I’ve been offering no-rent and creative expression for 3 or 4 years now, and not a single person has been able to enjoy or play with that for longer than a year without the greater anxiety or unaddressed nature of our problems winning the day.

The communication gets resented. The trust never exists. The real work and sacrifice go unacknowledged. The concept of how or why to connect reduced to social media pageantry or compulsion of your genes and cultural expectations. When I talk about being “alone,” it’s that singular lines of blogs like these would occasionally show up on the tongues of those I felt closest to after they were ridiculously drunk. Then, hush. Then, race away and get very busy before turning defensive and angry.

I will never forget when one of my friends said, “I think it’s going to have to be for Trump, man” when we were discussing politics and who to vote for before he was elected. This friend was intelligent, kind-hearted, and just an outsized positive presence on any occasion, but he fell under the spell of the malaise and inarticulate fog. He was, of course, busy and a professional and comes from a “normal” middle-to-upper-middle class background with an extended family and series of things on his mind a million miles away from the word “fascism,” which he’s perfectly capable of understanding intellectually.

But “we” aren’t wise enough to contend with how we aren’t intellectual. We don’t make the time to develop robust systems for determining what information is going to be used in service to our decision making. We watch people like me struggle endlessly to determine inches of movement, and figure it’s a lot easier to plug into the streams of consciousness that already presume to have figured something out. We’ll suicidally sacrifice ourselves with proud demonstrations of how little we appreciate what we’re actually worth. It’s routine. It’s normal. It’s, “Trump, I guess” because he “seems” to resemble the anger and confusion you haven’t been practicing putting better words to.

Barring a black swan event of currently inconceivable means, it’s not getting better. I might have a year or two to escape the country. I might have enough money to buy my way into a graduate program or immigrate to the country somewhere with a home-rehab immigration system. That fucking sucks. That’s fucking despicable. That’s something I’m talking about now, 1 or 2 years early, so when you’re mock “horrified” that coked-out Don Jr. is burning a 10-year-old who had an abortion at the stake in primetime (how “hyperbolic” can I get when the standard is already mass child slaughter?) I don’t fall under your spell.

Purely as an automatic predilection for survival, I complain about clenching my jaw or simple logistics.  I act like there’s a greater nobility or efficacy in attending to day-to-day details. The effort needs to be spent fighting or speaking to the problems dictating my greatest context, but who am I speaking to? What am I fighting against? Should I punch my friend until he comes to his senses? I can’t really help myself from continuing to scream into the silent abyss. Is this how I’ve transformed my conception of “the fight” into a series of indulgences and doing “regular” jobs? I do those jobs just long enough to flirt with getting fired as the microcosm demonstrations of our larger failures of leadership and imagination become too much to bear.

I can’t look away. More importantly, I don’t wish to. I don’t wish I’d stop talking, I wish someone would talk back. I wish I could trust anything about anyone that didn’t reduce to self-protection or indulgence. I can’t. I’m fighting to thrive in a world built on so many lies and confusions to do much of anything but pull out and run is going to feel like a futile mockery. It’s going to keep me as isolated and alone as it’s proven thus far. I can stay angry, or pretend hopeful, or I can make a better escape plan. I can engage the mockery with the ambivalence or play that seem to compete with my best notions of how I’ve conducted myself in the past. I need to start saving.

[440] S.T.Y.L.E.

The theme is style. Fair warning, it’s from several disparate seemingly random instances of thought which have provoked the theme. Settle in for a bit of exploration.

Comedians come to mind initially. For the longest time I’ve flirted with the idea of wanting to do comedy, but don’t feel like I like my style. That is, I can crack a joke, but I never seem to be able to hold a room for a prolonged story. I don’t just want to be a smart-ass. I don’t just want to fill in the blanks mad-libs style of how many jokes are structured. Add to this that I already have outstanding comedians talking about the things I’d like to talk about. Much as I wouldn’t want to “flirt” at being something like a doctor, I feel it disrespectful and unrepresentative of the appreciation I have for comedy if I didn’t have a voice and deep seeded desire to express myself in that medium. As well, the market is oversaturated even with comedians I like.

Decisions are made in service to how you’ll approach comedy. George Carlin considered himself a writer more than comedian, so his sets are long diatribes if not speeches with maybe a joke tagging along here and there. Richard Pryor dug in deep and mined his personal crazy life. Bill Hicks was practically a radical preacher. It’s hard to think he sat down and had each of his screams or exasperations meticulously timed out like Norm Macdonald who stuck to a script for years. Perhaps it’s a runoff of a certain level of fame, but eventually people get referred to as “legendary” or “groundbreaking” or some status that escalates their quirks and style to somewhere almost unreachable.

I tend to enjoy comedians where they feel like they’re just in a conversation. They relate their life and perspective the same way on stage as they would around a dinner table. Some interview I watched, a comedian said something to the effect of “Sure, everyone wants to kill on stage. The real goal though is to be the funniest one in the parking lot after the show.” That person’s got something special. This is not to belittle preparation or rehearsal, but the idea of “being a comedian” versus “doing comedy” sticks out to me. I think when you hear stories of working for years, travelling, being lonely, being poor, then finally getting a break, you almost feel guilty if you genuinely care about comedy and didn’t put in your dues if you got famous from Youtube or Last Comic Standing. Like Dane Cook working the internet before it became cool.

I suppose I’m concerned about style because I’m concerned about identity. Speaking to my previous blog’s theme, how much of your identity is perhaps a meticulously laid out plan with certain benchmarks and goals, and when are shooting from the hip? I met an overly-enthusiastic gentleman who inserted himself into my crowd which decided to read at a Borders once. He was forcing it, having come off of being a fat introverted guy who found Buddhism and made himself choose differently. Eventually he seemed to mellow out a bit and it flowed more naturally. It’s that, what if he never mellowed? Or, what if the same forces that compelled him to be fat were the same ones that pushed him the other direction? How do you speak to the underlying identity when it’s wrapped too far in positive psychology or quasi-religious dogma?

An identity is a fragile thing to me. I can look at my own just to speak to that. For a long period I was an angsty awkward high school kid, more on the confident asshole side, but no less lacking much direction or perspective. I was THE person you could learn any aspect to the religion/science “debate” for years. All I cared about was learning every possible angle I could of that problem. When that died down and got boring I was in college, but I didn’t drink; a fairly loud statement of identity for that environment. I got into a relationship as something of an experiment, tired of being a loner in my dorm most of freshman year. Now I was the asshole with one of the only cute girls willing to exist around the computers and computing dorm crowd. The next year I start drinking and create a party house. I become someone random kids yell out to as I walk to class.

Year by year little decisions to shift between loner and popular, regularly laid or not, alcohol and drugs or sober. I remember when I couldn’t imagine getting a tattoo or pierced, had no idea why people would bother with such things. My only tattoo so far takes up a large portion of my back and my eyebrow is so subtle and fitting people I’ve known for years forget it’s there while they’re talking to me. Even this year of being boring is a kind of shift from the hyper-stressed and obsessive approach I take when doing things in business. It gets unbearably frustrating to run head first into walls over and over again so I veered off.

It’s important to me then to make sure I know what underwrites my behavior. Why I’m always popular and a loner. Why I always want to be shit faced or could stand to never drink again. What is it that’s going to allow me to be interesting again when I’m done watching every movie and tv show in existence? I think it’s an insistence on using a medium to relate verses hiding behind it as an identity. I’ll watch a thousand movies and not care about losing on trivia night. I need to crack jokes even if they’ll make you cry. “I” am only ever here when I’m acknowledging and manipulating the moment presumably impacting and seeking feedback from you.

How “I” relate to comedy is in the moment. I could see my comment to a heckler being funnier than 5 crafted minutes. How “I” relate to alcohol is in getting peeks at who I think you’d like to be more of when you’re sober. “I” relate to communicating by attempting to speak as deliberately as possible despite knowing every second is someone’s opportunity to run my words into a different direction. I wanted to impress upon my friends to keep their “I” while they were going through grad school as or as all the problems of our current economic situation beared down on them. I worry about cliches and cultural tides. I worry about singular played-out boring identities taken up matter-of-factly as relationships to friends or nuance degrades.

It’s something that I think happens when you’re not paying attention as you get older. Things aren’t shocking anymore. You can get the gist. You’ve spent enough time rehearsing aspects of your personality they’re “well-enough,” independent of whether they are in fact well or enough. You’ve spent so much time getting so many impressions that every new one serves to whittle you down. I can feel it in my “acceptance,” wrong word, of watching daytime talk shows or being unable to throw a glass through the window at whatever crazy beckoning of a nuclear holocaust comment some Fox News asshole said today. The bullshit feels so normal or old-hat, it practically registers as “correct.”

And is that where I want myself to go? Do I want to accept the superficial and detrimental conversations from the brain-trusts on The View about police violence? Do I want the gleaming smiles and endless clapping of morons for the free blender they’re getting after the show? Do I want to accept the Lindsey Grahams and Ted Cruzes as “genuine opposition” or “the other side” as the natural course of American politics? Fuck no! Shit’s crazy! Shit should always piss you off. Shit should be thrown out and ridiculed and passionately debunked because when it’s not, the “normalcy” of that bullshit sends shockwaves through our lives.

But it’s not always as blatant as someone saying something tantamount to “fuck women, black people, or peace.” People roll their identity into hobbies, relationships, and jobs just as easily. The consequences even harder to follow because the minute to minute rationalization is supposed to speak to some goal down the line. I think we need to stop. I think we need reflection. I think we need to feel the pace of time more deeply. I think we should yearn for more of the unfamiliar and remind ourselves of who was around when we were crafting the best versions of ourselves. It’s the difference between survival and living, between being friendly and having friends, and whether you’re “doing comedy” or a comedian.

I see how easy it is to get trapped. I see the sadness creep up when you realize you literally have nothing else to talk about. You no longer are forming the shared memories. You’re not approaching things from any angle other than the one that takes your mind off your current stress inducing thought. The identity is handed to you by the fearful and comfortable that came before. It’s a false security. It’s a lonely island. It’s a black hole sucking all the interesting bits that used to hang off you. An identity is about awareness. It’s a fight to keep yourself right here working with all the forces trying to shape it. Keep working.

[417] Talk Down To Me

I'm plagued by a thought that the whole of existence rests on contradiction. Alone, this sentence sounds ridiculous and I'm hopefully going to make it less so as I carry on.

The image that comes to mind is Oprah.If her face doesn't exist somewhere on a brand of tampons, I'd be surprised. She's a wave of influence about really almost anything.But she's a kind of bat shit. Because she's doing what she's doing in the name of charity or happiness though, the people who ended up screwed on their taxes by claiming their “free” car stories are generally ignored.

It's' a a language of wide-eyed wonder and motivation that tends to placate what's actually happening. I never see the kind of enthusiasm and push genuinely without this shiny veneer. A beautiful new city gets built on the backs of slaves. A fervent political movement seeks to “protect our values” and “promises it's not racist.” A handicapped baby is god's plan to teach me patience and understanding.

I just read an old piece of mine echoing George Carlin sentiments. Carlin will never be Oprah. He can be insanely more reliable and correct than Oprah could dream of, but he won't take on godlike status outside of the cynical comic culture. Hell, it was Robin Williams who took on the larger than life position, and maybe take a moment to think about what we did to that conversation.

It makes me immediately turned off to things that are “flowery,”“metaphysical,” “cheesy analogy about awareness, being awake,or how goddamn beautiful and exciting everything is.” It seems like such a deliberate act. And yet never will you find more energy and praise than when it's done at full throttle. It's a religious energy.“Righteousness” justified, even if it's only done so by tricking your perception.

You can state the facts of our complicated existence and it can still never be magic. I'm more water than meat, more space than water, more bacteria than human cells, and have had experiences I may never find the right words to (on or off acid). But because you're not speaking about what people want to believe you're never going garner the same kind of support. We “hoped”for “change” with Obama, but we weren't specific about what things were supposed to change into. Don't read too far into some political ideology. The point is the language and preying on perception verses reality.

Maybe it's “forbidden love.” Boundless, all-forgiving, let alone so consequentially obvious! Yet speaking to every level of drama and strife that often stand as some of the worst experiences in your life. Calling it a naive endorphin rush is no fun.

I'm fairly tired of hippie guru bullshitters trying to intellectualize via not-that-modern metaphysics or beautify steaming piles of shit. I don't consider the exercise worthwhile, honest, or helpful. And the idea that it's only after people “meditate” and “reflect” on those “lessons” and “truth” from hence springing motivation and enlightenment is sickening.

[371] We Don't Care

“We don't care” seems to cover the hundreds of different “bad things” I could point to that undermine any hope I have for the future. Professor X believes we need to believe in and ignite the hope that can forever invigorate the human spirit. Of course, when that hope leads to the end of most life on the planet, he gets to go back in time and try something else.

VICE is always a huge impact on my thoughts. It's just the worst examples we as a species set in life and how explicitly bad we are at even admitting to them, let alone pretending to fix them. “Mini” disasters all over the globe that span across every level of humanity. In some regard, to even report on these issues, and to feel an empathetic sickness in watching it, we're stuck “caring.” But, what it seems to do for me more is justify a very George Carlin-esc fuck it all it doesn't matter kind of sense.

We pretend radiation isn't a thing. We pretend we have more than one planet. We pretend that cultures are equal morally. We pretend to care about sacrifice or health. We pretend to care about war. We pretend to care about kids getting educated or honesty in reporting. We pretend to be outraged by scandals and racism.

Of course, when I say “we,” I mean progressive moral elites, and from my small window of the U.S. Bill Maher recently stated that you can't really be upset that someone didn't evolve on the same moral time line in the way you have. If they want to be racist or homophobic, that's just their opinion you have to choke down if you believe in free speech. We slut-shame people like that by every once in a while fining them or giving them a bad name in the press. We write about their toxic influence on modernity in books they'll never read. We mock them on shows they don't watch. We pretend that it's a worthwhile opinion nonetheless because we refuse the factual fuck-ups they're allowed to make in service to that opinion.

And it's because we don't care. We have our own lives. We need to take care of our kids. We need to stimulate our expansive and impressive knowledge banks. I'm not on the shores of where the next super storm hits because of course, I already knew that when you fuck with the planet it fucks back. They kind of got what they deserved. The VA can't get through records? Haven't you heard how abysmally wrong war is? What do I care if you blew your legs off and now struggle to get help for PTSD? What are you, an idiot? Shit blows up over there! Or did you hear the ocean is running out of fish? Ahh, I never liked sushi anyway and I have big plans for my porch garden.

I can't imagine what other kind of internal dialogue these people could be having. If it was “I need to learn more about this to enact change” you might see all of their hard work and reporting translating into something changing. You can literally find any kind of “just as correct” article arguing on behalf of compelling and creating leaders as you can find “everyone do something small.” No one knows. They can't know, so they can't care. And what they can know, only serves to justify how much more “reasonable” they'd be in not caring.

I was recently told to “let it go” when relating my experience with wasting time and money in school to a friend who'd asked. This came from a drunk older woman kind of under her breath as we were at a wedding table. This sentiment always seems to be the champion idea of people I find most hopeless. If I was broken down crying and pounding the table because of what transpired during school, I could see for a second what she might be speaking to. But even recalling and explaining something that happened, to someone that asked, was regarded as the opportune moment to be old-titty-slapped-with-wisdom about what I should no longer consider a problem.

But her's seems like the popular sentiment. It doesn't really matter what it is, eventually people find it “wise” to say and behave like it doesn't matter. Now, I'm all for existential crisis discussions, but I'm not for this kind of hopeless and dismissive sort of “fuck you” to a legitimate concern that, regardless of your opinion of it, had and continues to have consequences. She has a kid ushering the wedding after all, who I'm sure she wants to waste money on and hear about how his degree and time meant nothing.

Surely we learn to alleviate systemic problems and develop better ways to talk about things we choose to be collective amnesiacs about...right? What were we even talking about? Meh, it doesn't matter.

We're saved and condemned by how stupid we are. We can write off genuine potentially life-ending problems as mere accounting errors. Then, we're dumb enough to convince ourselves that things will be okay. Then, we develop entire philosophies and institutions to sometimes even physically condition us to never think differently! We'll sing and dance as we circle the drain, and no one will be the wiser, if we have anything to say about it.

You can justify putting out a shitty product because of “market forces and profit.” You can justify killing people, for any reason, because of “sand niggers,” or wait, I think we still keep it polite and roll to “Islamist extremists” and threats to “freedom.” You can justify throwing endless amounts of money at something you want to change if only to come to the lucid realization that “it's all about PR after all!” For good measure, why not justify a habit of denial and contradiction because “those beliefs bring them comfort!”

Did you know I read a book once on the difference between Sunni and Shia? Don't ask me to define it this precise moment, but dammit, I was so much smarter than the simple war mongers in the White House. At least for a day or two. Oh the attitude that the intellectuals or technology can save us anymore than the screaming lunatics. What undermines them all is a bad theory of human possibilities. Well, bad in that it probably doesn't genuinely assume most of us will have to die off before we see any “major leaps forward.”

“There are only 2 things you can do wrong on the path to truth, not starting, and not following it until the end.”

The truth, as far as it seems to me right now, is that little points of triumph and pride don't outweigh the amount of horrible things happening every second of every day. “We the people” aren't that. We're a bunch of animals running wild. Often, it seems, we have to be extremely lucky to even get people in our own goddamn families that care about us in any real, let alone constructive, way. We don't do things until we're forced. Until we feel threatened right to our faces. We talk about the brink, we calculate the destruction, we'll always plunge right over the cliff.

I need to find a way to brace for impact, or, you know, “just let it go.”

[332] Cynics, Save The World

There’s utility in being a cynic. You don’t have to waste time playing pretend with the other children. When you’re government is fucked, it’s easy to recognize that it’s not in fact a democracy and there is little hope. When you see how we handle foreign relationships, you don’t have to guess that the impacts will be many and lingering. Before we get too far, it may help to have George Carlin in your head as much of this is written after a morning spent contemplating his prescriptions.

There is little I disagree with when it comes to Carlin. I don’t think we’re going to last. I think we’re addicted to things we don’t need that don’t work and don’t matter. I think this is a circus where the “happiest” amongst us look on in sheer wonder and awe at the kind of display you couldn’t ask for if you tried. He observes and reports, much of his act is memorization feats essentially word for word the astounding dialogue of our times. I think we’re infinitely selfish, in the bad way, and it’s all about squeezing whatever little satisfaction we can out of everything and everyone, consequences be damned. I think it’s every bit as bad as he states if not worse and we are in the throes of our inevitable demise.

Yet, I’m unable to detach. Maybe it’s because of my age or my wide-eyed naïve ideals. Maybe my definition of “hope” is so small and penetrated that a goal becomes so modest it’s barely a goal worth having. Sure, I want to let go and ride it out and watch, but I think in particular with me, it would have dramatically destructive consequences. Carlin can let go and feel like he needs to talk. I’d let go and start saying “I don’t see a reason not to.” But we’ve known for some time how and why I keep myself in check.

I want to believe there is a not so hidden genius in his method and advice to just detach. There’s still some level of irony in not caring about anything “but.” It’s a psychological necessity sometimes, sure, but it’s not the only, or necessarily the best means by which people are happy or found some level of contentedness. I think he knew that and that’s why he kept getting on stage. I also think he knows that when you reach rock bottom you start to figure things out in a different way. Whether you need to drop off and not care or vehemently disagree with him, you’re still going to end up in a more thoughtful and attentive place, exercising that brain he believed we’ve all taken for granted.

But let’s go back to being cynical. Only when you cut out the bullshit are you capable of identifying and addressing a situation for what it is. If you call it a problem, you’ll know better how to fix it. If you call it a shit show, you’ll know better where you want to sit. You’ll never catch me seriously wondering what a god thinks about my sex habits or the Reese’s I stole from Wal-Mart. I think you can easily assume that, but more-so, I’d be completely useless to you. I wouldn’t even accidentally come across something “new” or insightful or ever make an awesome metaphor again. You didn’t come here for bullshit…usually.

Because I haven’t just sat on my rose-colored glasses and effectively threw them into a wood chipper, I feel a sense of overall clarity even when attempting to explain my confusion. At the very least, I’m not making it up. I’m not sad or pissed off for no reason and likewise for when something feels genuinely hopeful. Carlin talked of a phrase “when you scratch a cynic you see a jaded idealist.” I think an intrinsic property of being an idealist is an inability to let go of the ideas you think will actually work. No real idealist gives up because they are painfully stuck with a brain full of ideals. It’s a burden and work. When it gets to be too much it seems to be a passive aggressive taking of the reigns to describe how you’re going to just sit back and watch it burn.

Carlin stated that he doesn’t even know if he’d be the same kind of person if he started his career today. With the kinds of technology and rapidly changing environment, who’s to say his perspective wouldn’t have been carried a little farther. When you saw something as a 20 year old in 1960 is not how I saw something as a 20 year old because I got to see what you saw when I was 15, plus 50 more examples and how and whether potential solutions played out all over the world. I can’t so easily set into “this is how it works” when I know how to change it and change it quickly.

I think it’s the cynic that knows how people think. They know what to say to make people think. They know what you feel when your thoughts take you places, and they know how you avoid them and what it would take to make you unable to avoid them. I think people recognize that they need to be saved and can’t do it themselves because they don’t have the correct language or attitude. They’re too stressed, they’re too afraid, they’re at the end of not just one horrible decision that has created a hole where adopting an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude isn’t enough. I think people say save me and the cynic says you aren’t worthy. You are the problem. You are what you’re afraid of. And who’s admitting that? Not without a smile and laugh, that is.

We will live and die by our superstitions, our allegiances to branding and the status quo. And we’ll do it slowly using soft language and remaining “decent enough” until our time runs out. This is convention and it’s why I hate convention. It’s why I’m always asking why and asking YOU why and wanting to know more. You may not care about the consequences or want the short term fix, but I’m compelled to call-out a junkie.

The nicest way I can put it is that I want the species to last for me and mine. It’s sheer ego. I want my kids happy and healthy. I want my friends recognized and admired for what they are. I want the big human middle finger staring in the empty abyss of space for as long as I can, and I want to know that it’s mine. As far as I know, I’m the only kind of thing on this planet that can appreciate what it’s flipping off. Anyone else along for the ride is just circumstance. “They” can’t be fixed, nor is “the world” broken. It’s every intention, good or bad, and if you want yours to last, that's what needs to be accounted for.

[109] The Problem Of Dr. Eeeeeviiiiiiil

Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 8:31am

I wish I had every news story, documentary, debate, and youtube video about religion, faith, the bible, the quoran, Jesus, Greek mythology, and science, just so I could splice together every staggeringly important instant that is diminished when reduced to mere words. What instances am I referring to? The question I
have to ask for you (usually) is in reference to the many "this will seal the deal" one-liners and one-paragraphers that the faithful believe put a nice finishing bow on whatever they are trying to sell. These are the times when shoddy low-blow remarks are made against the rabid atheists they are debating. These are
the times when the expert "accidentally" makes a side argument and seemingly random statement that has literally nothing to do with the argument at hand. I want to compile all the clips of people saying, "I believe the bible, Quaran, meaning of jihad, Jesus, faith, and God stand for peace and love." Every earnest and heartfelt witness's account paralleled by the Imam preaching almost word for word about his holy book.

It never fails when I watch someone as articulate and specific as Sam Harris "debating" some Christian theologian or Rabbi, how often the conversation goes from a deliberate digression about faith and rules of conversation, to book critiques and character attacks, and no, not from Sam. Wouldn't you know that right
after I watch this I go into a documentary about the Quaran where its followers and leaders are saying THE EXACT SAME THING about their book and their god. There isn't much to be said here that can't be seen in the documentary and mini "debate" so if you want the links just ask.

I don't know if it's just the newest trend of those defending faith and the bible, but I feel that am too often hearing about "The Problem of Evil." As most of you know, we are evil because we are separated from God, and only by either assimilating or alienating our neighbors will things be okay. Now that fact
aside I simply have to talk myself empty until I can wrap my head around how bloodied their psyches have become.First, the basic and obvious logistics. The idea of being separated from the being that is everywhere at all times and created everything from his will, is just, wow. Second, the idea that evil somehow comes from a lack of belief or connection to the admittedly unseen, not fully understandable, and dare I
mention evil as fuck god of the old testament, is again just, wow. As with their definition of god, these people have as many varying ideas and thoughts about what 'evil' in fact is. They don't want to get specific, because the second they think being gay is as evil and murder, they are only speaking to a selective audience. When there are specific orders from the bible or Quaran to commit, what are obviously evil tasks, the last thing
the believer should say is "The bible/quaran talks about love and peace and Jesus." This selective reading only speaks to the laziness and dishonesty of people who reference their holy books for ANY "spiritual" viewpoint, not just the peaceful one. Alas, there is a difference from quoting the bible to back up your
beliefs about the bible, and quoting to illustrate the types of passages that incite hatred or will influence a followers. This is a fact very few seem to understand. Random thought, I'd like to take a poll to see if people even know Jesus appears in the Quaran.

I'm gonna take a stab at where I think "evil"(as they define it) comes from, and you tell me what you think. I think we should get the obvious fact out of the way; some people simply aren't mentally sound and do all sorts of weird and negative shit because of kangaroos. I think people are, in general, absolutely dominated by their emotions. Anger and happiness (dare I mention love and the rest) are not thought to be things which are controlled, they are just "part of life" as most cliches that misunderstand people go. I think that some people murder because they are instantly filled with some emotion, maybe jealousy over a cheating wife, and as the courts sometimes word it, are "temporarily insane" and unaware of their actions. I find those definitions hard to swallow, but the fact that they even exist, and are successfully used to get people off the hook, show how universally serious the idea "emotions just happen," and are somehow independent of us, is taken. I think people steal, well I know people steal for practical reasons like selling what they get to pay for school. They steal because of the rush that interrupts an otherwise tedious life and simply to have things they want. I think people hate because its necessary. Many many things people do and say need to be hated and fought against. This idea that we're all stemming from the perfect branch of eternal love naively denies the utility of our "sinful and evil" actions.

Naturally, we need to have sex to perpetuate our species, but sex before marriage is a sin, so obviously it's time to draw your own conclusion. Naturally, we observe many animal species to engage in homosexual behavior, in fact, I have gay incestual dogs that hump each either every day, but obviously the abomination of humans stands to reason. What else do these people find evil.... um,... actually I can't really think of any other main issue aside from perhaps believing in a different sky daddy or being an atheist.

Care to hear what I think evil is? I think it is evil to subscribe to any belief that tells you to deny your worth as a human being. I think it is evil to act as if logical argument and deductive reasoning should be debased in light of your faith. I think it is evil to oppress women, which to both lesser and obvious greater extents, both Islam and Christianity do. I think it is evil to not show people how brilliant and exciting science and history are. I think it is evil to feel as if controlling and exploiting anybody but yourself becomes your drive in life. I still feel up in the air about the circumstances under which to kill people, because in my view on life, where there would be one person killed, there would be confusion and shock, although admittedly I feel prepared to decapitate people like Dinesh D'Souza when such a glaring ludicrousy is touted. I don't outright denounce "stealing," and I'm already prepared for when this will get taken out of context, because in my view exists a, potentially, free society, and I understand the motivations and circumstances.(These last two sentences could fuel a blog of their own, but they're here anyway.)

In truth, I like George Carlin's take on things, "Don't kill me, and don't take my shit." There is a simple direction we could all consciously and actively pursue in life. We are so quick to point to the "facts of life" and meager understanding as humans to excuse our seemingly never ending problems. People don't feel like they have control because their focus is on controlling things, ::ehem:: like gods, which are indefinitely beyond their control. Change your focus, and change your life. When those who keep asking god to change the evil and the lives of the believers finally understand they are at the wheel, they will find themselves finally putting an end to their grand Problem.

[100] Killer Times Dawg...Killer

Monday, June 23, 2008 at 9:10am

I have this feeling going on, and I think its stemming from a couple different things, so I’m just going to write until I’m not writing anymore.

I’m reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and all I can say is it is the most amazing book I’ve ever read. I can’t fully put into words what goes on in my head as I read though this book, just this overwhelming sense of awe that someone can portray so beautifully ideas I thought were either dead and ill construed, or lost amidst the infuriating simpleton facade fueling baneful existence. Obviously I’m ordering anybody who reads this to read the book as well. Non-negotiable.

George Carlin just died. This I find crappy because I rather enjoyed his standup and basically agreed with everything he’s ever said. He was a role model for speaking out about the ludicrousness exhibited in religion, and a purveyor of simple and direct talk. I still am in the middle of When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops. It’s funny because I spend a lot of time thinking about death. I already know I won’t cry when my family starts to go. I get this worried feeling not about death, but about what people are missing out on before they die. I don’t mean sight-seeing or grand accomplishments. I mean a sort of mindset. Well, not even a sort, just The mindset. I hate to sound redundant bringing up the theme of excuses, but it feels appropriate. When someone denies themselves the opportunity to think or do something because of some formality or taboo, they’ve denied what defines the human spirit. Be it the confluence of billions of years of evolution or the imposition of some divine thing, recognizing and affirming the “I” has been the non-stop force spearheading every advancement. I’ve been saying for a while that I think people should be more selfish, if only to be more honest. That’s one of the things I love so much about The Fountainhead. Simply put ideas than I can ramble about are unraveled and expressed masterfully.

I just watched a little clip from Fox News, if you can call it that, about some new faith healer. Why? Why are we beleaguered with such drivel. I swear I’m waiting for the hour long special about the pink giraffe some news anchors daughter put on the fridge all by herself. They had some other woman on there saying in so many words that she didn’t want to offend the preacher, but there are so many people who’ve been shown to be frauds in the past that she was still going to remain skeptical until the medical records became forthcoming. This is a bigger problem for me than the wasted time airing the preacher. Why do you feel the need to say that you don’t mean to offend someone you know, I know, and everyone with common sense of faith knows, is full of shit? Why take two minutes amidst your bullshit formality and cordialness to say that you’re a Christian and you have faith, but you’re not that crazy. When you say you believe in the power of faith, you just mean to the extent that it makes coincidence feel like they were meant to be. The power of god is so strong that you bumped into that cute guy at the coffee shop, but healing a broken arm is just way out of His league. I think if the news was dedicated to reporting every new or hardworking organization dedicated to advancing human knowledge and welfare, it would inspire and enlighten people to do the same. How about some news about CERN or specific debates and discussions about upcoming presidential policies. All you hear are fabricated conversations and puddle skipping stories about lost dogs or how to lose weight.

I’m sick of being bored all the time. I can’t find the right kind of people who can appreciate what it is to have fun. Simply being around people you refer to as friends, is not fun. Hanging out at White Castle creating an extremely random and hysterical scenario involving Black Castle, GRAW 2, and gold window frames….well you had to be there. It’s when you can make times that your laughing so hard that you can’t breathe you know you’re having fun. This is perhaps why I’ve never been drawn towards the whole alcohol and drug scene. I literally have so much more fun in remaining coherent while I stumble upon a laughable character or exciting situation. Though the new and exciting experiences are not forthcoming at the moment, I remain a firm believer that there is always something worthwhile you can be doing that doesn’t involve slow suicide. I think it’s bread into society that simply being involved in social activities, no matter what they are, sends out how friend worthy you really are. Everyone look at me I’m fitting in. That’s another thing I love so much about this book. It shows that person to the extreme and parallels it with struggle of genuine will. Bah, I’m sure there’s more to say, but this started off random and is ending prematurely anyway.