Lead by example

So many people are shady. So many people are delusional. And me, why I'm a fucking loud mouth and I just want to call them all out on their bullshit. If we don't, doesn't that make us all accomplices? It's not like they're murderers. It's just exploitative. Someone may come along and not know any better. My mouth has gotten me in trouble lots of times. I'm in an ass kissing business. You just have to smile and pretend that everyone is your friend. That shit is hard for me. I'm in this business because I'm passionate and I've never been any good at kissing ass. I'll give you my unfiltered opinion whether you want it or not, but so much shady shit goes on that I'd use up all my energy and still end up with a bunch of enemies in the end. So, I'll just keep my head down and try to work and try to get the fuck out of this town. 

   I've heard people sometimes get the impression of me that I'm full of myself. Bullshit. I think I suck, but I absolutely love what I do. I will always be working on myself. I will always be improving my craft and I would never presume to tell you how to improve yours. 

   Just lead by example. Just put your fucking head down and work and if you're so badass then it'll be obvious to us and we'll follow you.

Armageddon, Satan and the Cringe

We should be so lucky. To have it all end at once. To have some ancient prophecy come true and blink us out of existence  No, it will be a slow motion apocalypse. The world itself will not cease to be, but everything that healthy, sane people love will be choked out, divided up, pre-packaged and bastardized. We've been handed a system that, the only way it can continue is to keep growing, the only way for it to keep growing is for us to consume. We're living longer, but less healthy. We're all going insane. No, the world will continue, but we'll go the way of the Mayans. We'd get off lucky if we blew up in a nuclear war or solar flares cooked us like Kenny Roger's rotisserie chickens. Then, we could blame someone or something else. The way it'll go down, we can only blame ourselves.

   We've been through this before. Remember Y2K? We all thought it was going to go down then. My friends and I sure did. I mean, we had all the Neurosis albums. Our acid riddled minds thought we could tell the future, thought we had uncovered some long hidden secrets of the universe. Man, the acid flowed in those days. I'd argue with any old hippy that the real LSD boom was in the mid 90's. It was all innocent fun at first. If you could scrape together $5 for one hit in the 8th grade then your night was figured out for you. At first we'd laugh, and look at the colors and the sounds. Then we started to discuss, to break it down. It was like walls were being leveled and there was a whole part of the world that we had never noticed before. Some people never got past the "look at the pretty colors" stage. Me, my mind went deep into it. Some people could put on a movie and just chill. Me, I'd come up with a theory that Starship Troopers was some weird white power propaganda and it freaked me out.

   We started freaking out when "the Cringe" happened. That's what we called it, "the Cringe". In hindsight, I think it came in to our group with certain people, or maybe it was inevitable, but the Cringe was the darkness that found it's way in to our little group. What was once fun and laughy and positive became dark and evil. It was around that time that we started joking about Satan a lot. I mean, we didn't even believe in Satan  but you should have seen the looks on people's faces when you were trying to walk down the hall in school and you can't get through all the bobble-heads so you'd just flash them the devil horns and say "Satan is your lord" or some shit like that. People were terrified. We just thought it was hilarious, how superstitious they all were. To me, it was the same as telling someone "Santa Claus is your master". Stupid shit, right? But we all wore black shit and drew pentagrams on stuff and it was all a big joke. I remember when one of us said "what if just by joking about it, we really are worshiping Satan? I mean, what if this is how you do it"? I remember when my friend, who would later become a Christian, first mentioned Jesus. He flipped out on some acid and was wigging out because we were making devil signs. We just laughed at him. It was all a joke, right?

   But things became dark, and we became angry. I became filled with anxiety all the time and when we tripped we started freaking out. I remember having the fear that I would never come back to normal. I remember feeling like I could fall off the earth, just go flipping off into madness with nothing to hold me down. We stopped learning things. It became destructive.

New Years eve, Y2K was the second to last time I ever took a hallucinogen. We had all camped out at the property, because that would be the perfect place to ride out Armageddon  The Property was my friend's family's land and it is my favorite spot on the earth. Of all the natural wonders I've seen in my life: Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Yosemite, Glacier National Park, Zion, The Badlands, etc....and this little 160 acre plot of land in northeast Arkansas is the most beautiful place on earth to me. In the foothills of the Ozarks, full of rocky red clay dirt....there's a creek and a pond and a cliff. My friends and I would ride dirt bikes and shoot guns, wade in the creek, catching crawdads and baiting our hooks with them to catch the little red eyed rock bass out of there. We'd drink all day long there. We shot our first movie there, Many Evil with a VHS camcorder and a handful of rubber masks and old man hats. We'd drive my Toyota station wagon through the trails with people hanging on to the bike rack. I wrecked the 3 wheeler there and tore my nut sack open and cracked my pelvis. Yeah, if when I died, i could go to my favorite time and place for all eternity, it would be those times at the property  It was wild, there were no other people there and we could do whatever we wanted.

We sat around the fire in the woods to wait out the end of the world. At about 11 pm, someone offered me some mushrooms. Now, I know there's some hippies that are all :"Mushrooms won't make you freak out, brah". Shut up, hippy. Even the Native American Shamans that would use hallucinogens as a spiritual guide would eventually lose their minds if they used it too much. And we were full in to the Cringe at that point. Things were dark. In the last few years we had lost Jason B, who snorted up a bunch of blow and ate a ten strip of acid and did a head dive out of a 3rd floor window, and Mike, who rumor has it had eaten some mushrooms the day he hung himself. We, as a group were freaking the fuck out. And boy did I freak the fuck out. The world did end in my mind. I had to go inside and lie on the bed and I spent the whole night twisting and roiling and sweating out madness. I saw the Apocalypse play out on the ceiling. I saw Jack booted storm troopers marching. "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever" kind of shit. I saw fire and chaos, and I thought it would never end. And sometime in the blue light of dawn I fell asleep.

Needless to say, the world didn't end. Like I said, we'll never get off that easy. We're going to be around for awhile. We might as well start figuring out how to right this sinking ship.

I only took a hallucinogen one more time, but that's another story. Sometimes i feel remnants of the Cringe. Sometimes I get chemical shiver reminders. Sometimes I get stuck in the patterns in walls. Sometimes I see red lightning pulsing through everything. but i did learn a lot from it. Once in a blue moon I'll hear some young kid talk about LSD and my spit gets all thick and I can instantly recall that taste, like a metallic slug. I wouldn't eat that shit now if you paid me, but if someone were to ask me if THEY should eat it or not, I couldn't tell them yes or no. While i did retain some sort of knowledge (it's nature I'll have to get in to another time) I've also seen people run out into traffic naked, people smush bananas all over themselves,  people eat cigarette butts out of ashtrays and people with no shred of humanity in their eyes...just reduced to beasts.

I think that it took all that exploring for me to realize how powerful the mind is. The mind can create a reality that is so insulated from the truth. We used to talk about how heaven and hell are states of mind. Once Jason B. told me that he thought that hell was when you were broken off from the source and just spinning around in your own mind. But what is the source? The source is the thing that will not allow the world to end. The source is the thing that binds us all together. The source is what separates us from the animals. When they say that we were "made in the image of our creator" they mean that we are creators ourselves, and that means we have the possibility to create ourselves out of the mess we've made. The possibilities are endless  It's great to be alive.

Merry fucking Christmas

The other day I had to drop $700 bucks on my truck. I work so I can pay for my truck so I can drive to work so I can pay for my truck. Happy Holidays? What holiday? What am I celebrating? You want me to buy shit for people? Cant. I hate my job. I've lived my life with the delusion that I was supposed to do something more. I've chased the things I was passionate about because I believed that was what was right.
 I believed in purpose and destiny.
   I will celebrate my own personal god. My god's name is "Fuck you, work harder". All I want is to leave this town. I want an opportunity to be able to work at the things I'm passionate about. Fuck you, work harder. Earlier this week someone bought me half a tank of gas. Today I had to cash in my change jar on my lunch break at the Wal Mart in Cordova. In there with the dregs of humanity. It was 9 dollars. I bought a loaf of generic white bread, a jar of generic peanut butter and a jar of generic jelly. I sat in my truck in the Wal Mart parking lot, making sandwiches with a flimsy plastic fork. This jelly says "may contain traces of milk, eggs, anchovies  peanuts, wheat and soy". Why is all this shit in my jelly? At the beginning of the week I was eating Value Time bologna on Value time bread. I feel weak, but I've forced myself to go to the gym every day. I've forced myself to go running. Fuck you, work harder.
   My job is an endurance test. How many hours can you stand doing something you hate? People suggest I get a second job. Work at a restaurant or something. They suggest I work weekends. Fuck you, work harder. They suggest I'm not doing enough. A few weeks ago I got sick after a 4 day stint of late night film shoots and out of town shows. Shows where people just stared at us like cows chewing their cud. All the effort we've put in to writing songs and being honest? Fuck you, work harder.
   I look around and I see liars winning. I see people being phony and succeeding. That's what the world is teaching us, to lie and steal and be insincere, and if you try and be real? fuck you. work harder.
   I'm not sad about it. I'm pissed. I'll grind myself down with two middle fingers in the air. I expect nothing anymore. I understand what was fairy tales now. You may lose. You may try all your life, fighting uphill and gain nothing while someone with a pretty face may waltz through whistling and hit the jackpot. Life is not fair. There is no god. There is no justice.
I've got friends calling me right now, wanting me to meet them at the bar. I wish I could. I love you guys, but my gas tank is on E, and somehow I've got to make it to work tomorrow.
I'm hoping 2013 will be the year I never have to cash in my change jar. It will definitely be the year I get the fuck out of here. I love you, Memphis but I've used up whatever opportunity you had.
   Sometimes when I have to go to Home Depot at 8am I look at all the burnt out old dudes I see in there. Tired, dirty, leathery skin from burning in the sun all day. You can tell they slept off a 12 pack. Sometimes I ask myself "how far away from being one of those dudes am I?"  I'm determined not to be. Sometimes I make the joke "I should've gone to college". To do what? What else could I have done but stayed true to my nature? I am not wired to be a business man. I am not wired to be a doctor, or a lawyer. I am wired to be creative. I couldn't sell my soul if I tried. I could never be fake.
   In your world, I'm qualified for labor jobs. I'm qualified to paint your house and fix your gutters. But I took that and I got to travel far and wide playing music. I've had experiences some of you will never have. I've only ever wanted the same things, ever since I was a kid and would act out plays for my grandma or make fake bands with my best friend in 3rd grade before we even knew how to play instruments  That shit makes me feel alive and always have and I've chased it and will continue to do so.
   What more can I sacrifice to get the fuck out of here? For a year I've lived above the studio. No shower, no kitchen, no hot water, bands practicing below me and terrible fucking rap music being recorded on the other side of the wall at all hours. I did it to save money. What more can I sacrifice? Fuck you, work harder. I don't spend my money on clothes or dumb shit. How much more of a minimalist can I be? Fuck you, work harder.
   So all of you with reason to celebrate, here's to you. All of you with rad lives and disposable incomes have a drink for me. Don't ask me to buy you shit. Fuck your holiday and fuck your baby jesus. Your holiday is interrupting me paying tribute to my god whose name is Fuck you, work harder. That's what I call him because that's the only answer I've ever gotten to a prayer. In my times of weakness, when I appeal to the sky for a bit of strength or a bit of help all i hear is "fuck you. work harder". and so i will. It's my new mantra, the only words I've ever heard from god.

One picture

One picture. All it takes is one picture to ruin my day. From it I imagine a downward look of smug disdain. I'm no longer even worth stepping on. Indifference is a much greater insult than hate. It's been so long now. How long will it still haunt me? I feel as though I may never bounce back. I don't trust anyone anymore, the universe has no inherent meaning. It's like you were a creature meant only to destroy. Someone posted an article about narcissists last night. It made me feel better because you're so fucking textbook. But it gives you an excuse. It says you are that way because of a childhood trauma, that you stopped developing emotionally at that age. That would make you an emotional 12 year old if any of your story is true. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now? I don't. You're still an asshole. I try so hard to be self aware. To get to the root of my own neuroses. No one had it easy. The world has tried to make up for whatever wrong done to you a thousandfold but you swat it away like flies and stew in your self made misery. You take no responsibility for the destruction you wrought in my life. You killed whatever thread of faith I may have had. Now the whole world is manipulative madmen to me, just waiting to stick the knife in. You said you were sorry, but your indifference tells the true story. Is it because I know you're a liar and you'd rather watch me burn than come clean? My curiosity still eats at me. I'd give anything to know the real truth.

Mystical shit, Value Time weeks and Hobo shit

I wish I had a laptop. Then I could write more. I'd sit at the coffee shop like those other assholes. I have so many options of other things to do at my house. I have a to do list 8 miles wide. Albums to record, songs to write, 4 or 5 unfinished movie scripts on my desktop, clean, work out....
I swear I'll never have enough lifetimes to do it all.
but i guess that's not fully honest. I don't write this as much anymore because something has significantly changed in me. In the past year I turned a huge corner in my mind and when i look back I can no longer see the person i once was. Age was never anything but a number to me before, but turning 35 has really clocked me like a lowhanging branch. I've always been introspective, but i used to be able to find some source of strength within, some thread of optimism. The subject of my writings has usually reverted back to the spiritual. My conflict between what I was taught all my life and what I was feeling. Although I always claimed to not have faith, I realized that I did the whole time. I was in total denial. I was a kid who secretly believed in Santa Claus.
   You see, I always thought about things with a mystical slant. I had this belief, because I felt different than other people that I WAS different, special in fact. I believed in the fairy tale, that if you wanted something bad enough you could will it to be so. I believed in destiny. I've had a series of inexplicable events in my life. Prophetic dreams, near death escapes and unimaginable coincidences that made me believe that there was something else going on here, that my friends and I somehow knew something that most people didn't know, that we were being edged down a path that had meaning.
   I don't believe that anymore. I realized that I might push my whole life and fail. Well, I guess that depends on your view of success or failure, but if I die poor, alone and mad, I will personally consider it a failure.
   It's a Hollywood idea that through perseverance and pluck everyone wins in the end, makes enough money, gets the girl and everyone high fives.
   Do I still have hope? Yes. I realize that anything can happen. I might inherit a sandwich empire from a long lost relative and live in a mansion made of sanwiches, boobs and hundred dollar bills.
   Then again i might get some sort of cancer at any minute and have to have someone wipe my ass for me while i waste away in agony. The chances of the latter happening are far greater. Please be prepared to bring me my pistol.
   Yes, I'm cynical, but it doesn't make it less true, does it?
   I guess things seem meaningless to me now, and It seems that we're all mad.
   I don't believe in inherent goodness anymore, just inherent randomness.
A bloom of opportunity springs up in your path and you ride it and flourish until a random wave of events throws you aside and smashes you with an impersonal violence.
   Yet we attach meaning to life's rewards and pitfalls, still clinging to the ideas of benevolent or vengeful gods.
   I never took certain falls in life as personal. Like death for instance. I've understood for a while that death, while sad is inevitable as sunsets and there's no sense in letting it destroy you. A god that took death away would also take meaning away.
   But cruelty, well that's a chosen evil. And humans are cruel creatures.
And mad. It seems everyone I know has varying degrees of madness. Some greater than others. Some thing they cannot see. I know I have my own, and I've been trying to dig for it and pull it out by it's root for all my life.
   I know pathological liars. I know people that every day is the worst day of their lives. I know people who constantly sabotage their own success. I know people afraid of nature. I know people that are emotional adolescents and will be for their entire lives. I know people that cling to unhealthy relationships out of a desperate fear of being alone. I know the paranoid. I know addicts.
   and on some level and at some point I am one or all of these things.
And I love people that are these things.
   But who on earth can we look up to anymore? Who can be a spiritual authority? If you say Jesus, I'll slap you. I mean here and now and incontrovertible.
We're all broken. We always have been. My friends and I used to be like a shattered windshield  You ever try to kick a shattered windshield out? It's hard as fuck. We were broken but we held together. Now we're all just broken bits of glass scattered about.

The past, the things I attached meaning to 20 or 10 years ago suddenly don't mean shit anymore. Now is all that matters, and now I don't have any of the things I thought I'd have. Now I have what I call "Value Time weeks". 20 bucks for groceries the whole week. Value Time bologna on Value Time wheat bread, no condiments. Value Time coffee, black. Ramen Noodles cooked in the microwave with a scoop of Peanut Butter (crunchy of course. and NOT value time. What, am I a heathen? but try it, it's delicious). I look around and realize I don't own shit. That everything I have was given or handed down. Computer, TV  couch, bed, record player, lamps, furniture. I have no attachments to these things. I am unfettered and poised like a drawn back arrow ready to let fly. At any moment I could fit the only physical things in this world I give a shit about, fit them in my truck and just go. And I would, but for money. I'm working towards it, but I can only save money at the speed of tectonic plates and the cash i need to set me free from this town might as well be a million dollars.
  
 I don't have a spouse or children like most of my friends do. I don't own anything. I don't have any of the things that society deems as success. I've been in some movies, I've written and played on some songs. Gone on some tours. I've had "experiences". intangibles. Experiences don't keep you full, warm or sane.
   But I've been rowing for shore my whole life. I don't just burn the candle at both ends, I put a blow torch to the whole thing at once. I work my full time job and then get home to my 24/ 7 job. I don't watch TV or go to bars all that much. I'm in the lab, trying to breathe life into this monster in my head. and I go through these cycles of furiously pushing and exhaustion. when can i coast? Just for a second?
   And I know i couldn't possibly push any harder. This thing's going to have to meet me halfway or not at all. It's made me cynical. I don't want to get old. I don't want to get stuck.

And i look back and try to think about what I could have done differently. I've stayed true to who I am wired to be. I couldn't have done better in school, because I hated it with every fabric of my being. My mind, body and soul rebelled at every turn. I felt stifled, neutered. I thought by pursuing the things I was passionate about that I was fulfilling my destiny, that I was MADE to be the way that I am and that to do anything else would be an insult to GOD. If we KNOW ourselves then we will know what GOD wants us to do, and therefore we MUST succeed. 

   This fairy tale notion was the most naive thing I ever thought, and has gotten me in the most trouble. 
Wow, this situation is so serendipitous that it must be DESTINY! I can't possibly fail because this is ordained by the creator and therefore TRUTH! Then when life pulls the rug out from under me, it's devastating. How could this go wrong? I've always done what I thought was right? Am I being punished?

I don't write as much as i used to because I don't want to create anything negative. Even these words I write now are not optimistic, they are not cheerful or inspiring. I just haven't wanted to add to the collective madness.

The other day I was walking my dog, going to the same place we walk 3 times a day. Up on the hill, in the tall grass I'm closer to the sky and up there I talk out loud. I ask for things. I carry on conversations with my enemies and friends. I guess the walking and talking is just working them out, but part of me imagines that up there, there is a better chance of them broadcasting to the ether, and that something will hear. On my walk the other day, some hobo had taken a shit right in my path, and wiped their ass with a sock. Just left it there for anyone to step in. 
I don't want to be a hobo shitting in people's paths. I would have gone off the path so that no one would see or smell or step in my shit.
I try my hardest to never have to lie. I try to not ask people for things. I try not to waste anyone's time. I try not to say things I don't mean, to make promises I can't keep and to think through my options before I act.
But so many people aren't self aware. Are we supposed feel sorry for them because they are sick or hate them because they are assholes?
If any of us are unaccountable, all of us are unaccountable. We all have excuses. We've all been subject to cruelty.
And it's back to cruelty. How many don't know that they're hurting you or just don't give a fuck that they're hurting you.
Was that hobo out of his mind because of the cards life dealt him, or did he just not give a fuck if you stepped in his shit or not?
Was he the center of the universe in his own mind?
And I hear a lot of talk about forgiveness, but how do you forgive people that aren't sorry? That won't admit that they are wrong and will continue shitting on yours or anyone else s path?
And does it matter? There's no universal force balancing the books. Sometimes the shitters win. Sometimes, no matter how cool you try to be, people will try to get their dump on your Keds.
and I'm supposed to be thankful this season. Who do I thank? We're all in this together, shitting on and wiping each other's asses. There's no them versus us. I'm insane because we're all insane.
No one wins. We all just get by until we don't. What's there to say about that?

Is there a point? No. You can attach whatever meaning you want to an insignificant event. You can turn hobo shit in to a biblical omen in your mind. The truth is, we shit and we step in shit. We win and we lose. We become famous actors and we paint houses for a living. You'd think that this would be getting the big picture, but i will still worry, I will still stress, I will still strive. Because that's what I'm wired to do.
I will also not give up.

Drifting Away

I do this really weird thing when I'm going through tough times. I do it because it was pounded in to my head at such a young age. I do it because I'd like to believe it has value. I do it because sometimes it's the only thing left to do, and I do it because I guess it can't hurt. Or can it? Sometimes I pray.

   I think it's a throwback to the days when we felt we had to appease God, and then we would be rewarded. Instead of blood sacrifices, we shower praise on a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient being and hope that if we are good enough or worthy enough it will grant us what we want. I've never understood that. The story goes supposedly that it created us and gave us free will and wants us to love it as it loves us. My question has always been: If it is all knowing, complete and all encompassing, why does it have a void that needs to be filled with our love? How can it need or want for anything? A need or want would suggest that it is not complete, not all encompassing and not all powerful. If that is the case, would that make it not god? Also, if something is complete, then it is no longer growing. Anything that is no longer growing is either dead or never was alive. Can there be consciousness without life?

I've never understood why people praise god in thanks for things, yet when bad things happen or we lose something that we love we just shrug our shoulders and say "It's all part of God's plan". I think it's a dangerous idea that I have fallen into before that, when things go my way, when everything seems to happen right and effortlessly and coincidentally that it must be destiny, or God is rewarding me for something. You see, that way of thinking plays into our egos. It plays in to the idea that we are special, or have done something good, or that god has a plan for us because I'm me and I'm important to this world. Then, when something goes wrong, or you lose something you loved you feel that you were not good enough or did something wrong or are being punished. Bad Religion wrote a great song about this called "only rain". Sometimes you feel like it's raining on you because of something you've done.

Rain fell like judgment across my windowpane.
Said it fell like judgment, but it was only rain.

In truth, the universe treats chicken shit and chicken salad exactly the same in the end.

I like when people praise god for things. Like when you sit down at dinner and you thank god for food. The truth is, the universe is working against you every day. The truth is, some poor farmer is busting his ass every day to make ends meet or some underpaid immigrant is working in the field for not enough money or some ecosystem is being spoiled to grow the crop, the earth is being poisoned by the pesticides that made it possible and monsanto is getting rich off all of us and owning our asses. The truth is, you bust your ass every day at a job you hate just to be able to buy that food. But, hey thanks God! No, to me, the world is working against us at all times and everything we can be thankful for is through our own struggle.

"Dude you're being a Negatron! You should be thank god you weren't born in a third world country!"

Ok, well I'm sure all those people who are suffering just for being born in a third world country pray every day for what they need. Why are their prayers not granted? Is my soul somehow more worthy than theirs? Did I do something good in a past life to deserve to not be born in to that? Is God racist and favorable to Americans? We have to realize that many of the luxuries we enjoy were bought with the suffering of others, and I'm sure those people prayed in the midst of their suffering. I'm sure that children born in war zones pray for safety and deliverance. I'm sure victims of genocides prayed for help.

"oh, they weren't praying to the right God".

I thought there was only one.

"Well they're heathens who don't believe in Jesus".

Oh. Gotcha.

I think what is really the cruel joke is that, the better you are, the kinder you are, the more you sacrifice yourself for others, the more the world will destroy you. In fact, it's a given. Jesus, MLK, Malcolm X and Gandhi were all killed for their work. The truth is, the better you are, the more you will be hated and that, is a cruel, cruel joke.

In fact, sometimes the people that I have been kindest to have been the most cruel and taken advantage of me the most.

Not that I will stop. The basis of my spiritual beliefs do not rely on God at all. I can sit and speculate on whether or not God exists for eternity and ask it for a sign so that I can anchor my faith on it and I will be talking to the ceiling for the rest of my life. Apparently, it is not as important to sway me as it is to convince some wedding attendees 2000 years ago with a vulgar display of alcohol creation. I mean, I just need a little help with my depression is all, I'm not asking for some element to be transmogrified.

Anyways, my point is that you can ask for the invisible guy in the sky to bestow mercy, love and compassion on you and it'll be like waiting for your sandwich at kwik check. However, you have the ability to create mercy, love and compassion in the world and bestow it on others, perhaps answering a prayer of theirs.

It's sorta like the DIY ethic i learned from punk rock. You can sit around forever and wait for some record label to discover you and some booking agent to book your shows or you can put out your own records and book your own shows. You have to be the things you want to see in the world, in spite of the world.

But sometimes I need a break. Sometimes I need a boost. I want to believe in the fairy tale, but as life has gone on all the fairy tales have been shattered for me. I've lost faith in everything we're supposed to believe in. The family unit, relationships, authority and God. I wish I could believe in them, but instead I'm just watching the world go crazy around me and perhaps I'm going crazy too. I don't know. It's so much easier to see other people's insanity. Tell me if I've lost my mind. It seems to me that insanity is the rule, and sanity the exception now.

"Dude, you should thank god for your friends and family"

Fuck that. I work to maintain my friendships and family relations

"you should be thankful for your health"

Or what? Is God going to cause me to get old one day and get cancer and die an agonizing death?

"Well, that's going to happen anyways"

Exactly. What happens if I don't believe? I'll never get my hopes up for special magic to be bestowed upon me? Maybe god will eventually take everything I love from me? All my relationships will fail? Myself and all my loved ones will get sick and die? Everything that is sacred in the world will get destroyed by cheesy, greedy motherfuckers? I'll have to toil every day for the rest of my life?

Oh yeah. All that's going to happen anyways.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy life and am happy to experience the good and bad. Any experience beats non-experience. I'm just not going to ask the ceiling for good luck anymore. I'll create my own, thanks....

I think I summed it up best in the song Drifting Away:

Betrayed by the things that I can't accept

A riddle that I must not get

For if perfection is complete

Then God, he must be dead

Take this from my hands

I'll collapse beneath the weight

Of things I'll never become

The guilt from what I'll never be

Is our only hope to clean the slate?

Or will patience and time still erase

Greed and envy from our eyes

Our regrets and our wasted time

Take this from my hands

Maybe this is not my fate 

To know what can never be known

To have even one ounce of faith

To have even one ounce of faith

Sometimes I envy the man who's got blind faith

Other times I want to laugh in his face

But he has an anchor upon which to weigh

His fears before he drifts away

But I have no solace for my soul

I can't believe what I can't hold (what I can't conceive)

They say that faith is truly blind

Well why the fuck did god give us eyes?

Faith's not enough

The ship's going down

It always been

The time is now

It always is

And never when

And never then

It's always been

How to not make your kid love Jesus

 

     I awake on a Sunday morning. I am 7 years old. The sun is shining through my window. It is a beautiful spring day. The possibilities are endless.
Suddenly the door bursts open "wake up, you little shit. get ready for church".
"But Mum, it's a perfect day. I was wondering if I could just go play in the woods with my friends".
"You ungrateful little retard. Jesus and the troops died for your sins so that those woods could be there. You need to fucking worship. If you do not, you shall be cast into hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Does that sound like party time to you? Do you want to gnash your teeth?"
"Well, no, but I've been thinking about this verse that I learned in Sunday School. I believe it's in Matthew, Chapter 18: "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Seeing as how I already am a child, perhaps you and Dad have a few things you can learn from me. I've also found this creek I want to explore. It's in the middle of the woods and it's teeming with life, evidence of God's goodness. There are fish and frogs and snakes, and my friends and I wonder at the beauty and complexity of the universe, and we dream our 7 year old dreams and talk about what we want to do with our lives that will have the most meaning". 
   "You worthless turd. Do what I say or I will gnash your teeth for you. Get dressed in your Sunday best and then brush your un-gnashed teeth".
"It's rather warm today. Do I have to wear trousers and a shirt and tie? Perhaps I could wear shorts and a t-shirt".
"What are you a fucking idiot? God will not love you if you're running around looking like a poor person. Plus, the Joneses will be there. Do you want the Joneses and God to think that we're poor?"
"But didn't Jesus say in Luke, chapter 6: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"?
"If you keep smarting off to me your father is going to take a belt to you and I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap."
   There was nothing I could do. These people would not listen to reason.


   We piled in to the family Mercedes and drove to the church. I was sweating in my long pants, shirt and tie. I started to think that maybe Jesus hates me. We filed in to the building and took our seats on the uncomfortable pews. I looked around at the building. The structure was impressive, with the high ceilings, stained glass windows and all the icons, but to me, it was a paltry substitute for the forest, which God himself created. To me, everything created by man seemed tainted. My heart knew purity when I saw it. I thought about the underpaid laborers that constructed this building, and all the poor people that might have been fed with the money that it cost, or how many homeless people this building could sleep.
The priest started talking. He seemed a bitter, unhappy man, but apparently he was my go- between to God. He was also apparently related to Charlie Brown's teacher. He recited words I had heard hundreds of times by then. All memorized, and said without conviction. I was uninspired to say the least.
At some point they asked for money, and a collection plate was passed around. My dad clears his throat loudly as he drops a bill in to the plate, just to make sure everyone noticed.


   Later on that day I finally made it to the woods. In the silence, surrounded by the glory of creation, I felt an energy surge through me and a oneness with all things. I thought about how each consciousness is the center of it's own universe and how when we die, our matter and energy will be dispersed into all things: into the earth, into food for bacteria and fungus and bugs and about how nothing created will ever be extinguished, only changing forms so that in a million years, the universe will still know I existed.


    The next morning, Monday. I am awaken from a deep sleep by the door slamming open and the light being turned on. 
"Get up. You have to go to school".
"But, Dear Parent, I was hoping that today I might not go. I was thinking about how short life truly is and I feel the need to live it to the fullest, as if it were my only day on earth. I don't think I would attend school on my only day".
"Shut the fuck up, you waste of sperm. You're going to be a loser and a homeless person with that attitude. You'll never get a good job, and when you grow up you will not be able to afford a fancy, whites only religious school like you go to, but your children will have to fraternize with black people".
This logic was so retarded I didn't have the strength to argue. I got up and fumbled in my closet for my uniform.
"But I like black people. They invented being cool. They even invented the word cool. And why do I have to wear this uniform?"
"It's training. One day, you're going to have a high paying job where you have to put on a shirt and tie every day, so you better get used to it.You're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a banker. What, do you want to have some shit labor job and live in a trailer park?"
"Wasn't Jesus a carpenter? and where would this trailer be? Somewhere with a nice climate? perhaps the mountains or the ocean? I could be happy with that."
"Shut up, you piss ant. You are going to get rich or die trying".
"But didn't Jesus say that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get in to heaven?"
"That's it. I'm getting the soap and washing your mouth out".


   I got to school, in my shirt and tie, mouth tasting of Ivory. I take my seat amongst the children of the privileged. This is a classroom that would have made Hitler smile. Not a hint of racial diversity. The bell rang. The teacher says: "stand up you little fucktards and pledge alliegence to this flag". I raise my hand.
"can I be excused from pledging alliegence?"
"Why the fuck for?"
"Well, I'm no theologian, but from my understanding of the teachings of Jesus, he wanted us love everyone as we love ourselves, and I think he would view nationalism as a hindrance to true unity. I don't think we need to draw up petty divisions between ourselves, but to rather celebrate our oneness and the fact that we are all God's children".
All the kids started laughing at me. Todd, the most popular kid in class wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at my head. All the girls looked at him approvingly. The girls never looked at me. Maybe Jesus didn't love me.
"If you do not stand up and salute this flag that Jesus and the troops died for then you will have to sit out recess for the rest of the year".
I stood up, defeated. Tina, the cutest girl in school snickered at my Kmart shoes.
"Make no mistake. Jesus was an American", said Ms. Teacher.


   Immediately after we had to go to church again. What the fuck? I just went yesterday. But that's what happens when you attend a private religious school. At least now I had my friend to sit next to.
   My friend and I spent the entire service trying to suppress our laughter. We had boundless energy. We were fidgety. We were 7. There was this old woman who attended church every day and sat in the back. The poor thing had a problem and always burped and farted loudly. It echoed amongst the cavernous sanctuary. It was nearly impossible for my seven year old self to contain my laughter. I tried so hard. A laugh escaped me so hard that i blew snot on the back of Tina, sitting right in front of me. She'll never fuck me now. I look over to see Ms. Teacher glaring at me. Looks like I'd be sitting out recess after all.


   Today was a special day. We would have our first confession. What the fuck? I'm seven! Seven year olds don't sin. The only thing a seven year old does wrong is mock shitty behavior they've learned from their parents and teachers. They line us all up to take turns going in to the little booth and spilling our guts. I don't know what to say. I'm a child. I'm inherently good. I start sweating. I see Todd come out of the booth from behind the curtain, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. I bet his sins were awesome. Tina bats her eyelashes at him as he goes to say his penance. I'm racking my brain. I always thought that being a kid got you a "get out of jail free" card. The line is getting shorter. I have to poop. until finally. It's my turn.
I shyly part the curtain and enter the little booth. There's no turning back now. The priest on the other side says: "Hello my child". I gulp. here goes: 
"Forgive me father for I have sinned".
"Yes, my son, what are your sins"?
"Well...you see, me and my neighbor Tony were playing war with my Star Wars figures. We were using Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain as our bases. We explained this by saying that all these characters in the Star Wars universe were transplanted to the land of Eternia by the Beyonder, the God-like entity that made all the Marvel Super heroes and villains fight it out on a strange planet in the Secret Wars mini series. You know, the one where Spider Man got his black costume. Anyways, the Star Wars guys find themselves on Eternia and He Man and everyone are gone. Maybe it's many years after they've died or maybe the Beyonder sent all the He Man guys to fight it out on the Death Star. I don't know, we didnt think too hard in to it. My point is, we were hiding all of our guys preparing for war with each other and we promised each other we wouldnt look while we hid our guys. I looked. I totally saw Tony stick Grand Moff Tarkin in an upper level of Castle Greyskull, thus giving me the advantage. But don't they say, "All's fair in love and war"?
I hear the priest sigh and he just says: "Say 3 Our Fathers and 3 Hail Marys and an Apostles Creed".
   Wait, that's it? I can just go and pretend to say some prayers? Man, this is cool! My parents need to learn a thing or two from this guy.
"Thanks"!, I say and head out of the booth, walking a few inches taller. As I pass Tina, I do that thing where you lick your index finger and little finger and smooth your eyebrows down with one hand. She laughs at me. It's ok. Jesus loves me and I'm forgiven.


   Later on, in class. Ms. Teacher asks us what our favorite story from the bible is. My hand shoots up immediately. 
"I like the story of Lot and his family"
"ooh that's a good one. Lot and his family were allowed to escape from the wicked city of Sodom before it was destroyed by God because Lot was a righteous man. They were told that they couldn't look back at the city, but Lot's wife disobeyed and was turned into a pillar of salt".

He doesn't look that drunk to me

"Yeah, but i like the other part. The next part is like the Empire Strikes Back as compared to Episode IV. They hid in a cave and Lot's daughters were all worried since their mom was dead that there would be no male heir in the family to carry on the family name. So they got their dad drunk and totally boned him. Even though it's a gross incest story, it makes my boner tingle a little bit, but most importantly it is a record of the only time in history that a woman had to get a man drunk in order to have sex with him...not to mention a 3 way. Usually it's the other way around, I understand. I just think its weird that if God knows everything, then he would have known that he was sending them away from a whole city of butt fuckers, only to have a drunken family incest creampie party.


Needless to say I was sent to the principal. He seemed to take joy in the fact that he was going to paddle me. Sick mother fucker. He had a paddle all ready by his desk. I asked him if I could just say a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys instead, but he refused. He wasn't going to miss out on his sick pleasure. And as he whacked an innocent 7 year old on his tender backside with a huge piece of wood, I prayed anyways. I didn't pray for deliverance from this pain and humiliation though. I simply asked God:
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Anti-social networking and the End of the World

Shawn told me i was being dramatic when i disabled my facebook profile. I was actually trying to escape drama, you see. I had recently been in a situation where I had to look at facebook all the time. It totally bummed me out. It's invaluable as a networking tool for someone who is in a business like I am, but lately I've been thinking a lot about communication and i'm constantly confronted with the idea that maybe this is as much as a hindrance to communication as it has value.
   I've been trying to recover myself lately. Trying to get on a more natural rhythm. To appreciate all the things I do have instead of those which i don't. I desire real communication with my friends. but when I get on Facebook or twitter, all i see are random songs, silly political cartoons that just perfectly back up your opinion on X or kickstarter pleas for money. It's not even original thoughts most of the time, just snippets of stuff culled from the interweb....sometimes funny, sometimes enraging.
I know, you're saying "you don't have to look at it if you don't like it", but like i said I have to use it as a networking tool.
   Real communication relies so much on subtext and body language. The other day I sat with Anthony on his porch enjoying a perfect spring day. We talked, i mean really got real with each other, drank beers and whiskey and when i left I felt stronger, as if i had done something constructive. Not once did he show me a picture of his cat, tell me what he was making for dinner, ask me for money or try to sway my opinion on a political matter. Now, i know I've posted plenty of shit on Facebook before. I understand I am a hypocrite. I've never claimed to be anything more.
   Often times we allow it to influence our emotions. I've got friends who may have polar opposite political views from me, and when they post some shit i deem ignorant, it enrages me. There was this one guy in particular. He would post the most deplorable right wing hate shit. i deleted his ass so i wouldn't have to look at it and i had no respect for him....until one day i ended up at his house....i saw the way he interacted with his family and the love he had for them. and i gained that respect back. all this shit is surface level, and i guess i'm trying to get below the surface. It's easy to swim in the shallow end, after all.
I've had grown men get butthurt when i didn't message them back in time, or i didn't accept their friend request or i deleted them which has now become the most insulting thing you can do to someone, worse than pissing on their mom. Some dude i never talked to in high school wanted to talk shit to me and tell me i thought i was too cool because I didn't accept his friend request. The truth is, if i see you out at a bar, i'll talk to anyone, but i really don't need to know every mundane detail of your life and you don't need to know mine and you've just proven yourself to be a whiny little bitch and I don't care anyways.

    The other day, when i got back on Facebook from my little break, i posted something to the effect of what I'm saying now. That it was such a nice break, that i was back begrudgingly, that i was going to do some deleting and that i don't care about pictures of cats, what you had for dinner or your kickstarter campaign. One of my "friends" got so offended by that, proclaimed i was "too cool" for Facebook and deleted me. I would like to thank her now.
Because the truth is, I've had a rough couple of months. I've been forced to take stock and try to find what makes me happy. And I desire real, honest, deep communication with the people i care about. I want to sit on your porch and drink beers and listen to the world and know what makes you tic. I don't want to miss real life while i have my head buried in my phone just to hear how stoked you are about the Grizz game. Facebook is not real life. it's a sham. a cheap imitation.

During the time I didn't look at it I would wake up with my thoughts, and go through the day without being bombarded by useless information. It's the same reason I don't watch TV. All that stuff effects you emotionally whether you want to be conscious of it or not, and I'd rather focus on what's really important.
   I also feel it may make us take each other for granted. If we are always a click away we may be tempted not to reach out to each other in an honest and meaningful way.

I've been trying to get on a natural rhythm with the earth. Since i moved to the studio, i have to walk my dog 3 times a day and every day I walk to the End of the World.
The End of The World, as I heard some kids call it back in the day, is this big hill right in the center of midtown. It's where, once upon a time they had this horrible plan to cut I-40 right through the heart of midtown. When i was younger, there used to be these bridges on the hill that just stopped....unfinished interstate ramps and you could sit on the edge of them and dangle your feet off and look west at the city skyline. We used to ride Gabriel's go cart up there back in high school. Now the bridges are gone and all that's left is a grassy plateau one block long and one block wide. As I walk there every day i notice the grass growing a little more each time, i see the little scrub trees trying to establish themselves. I see a hawk often, perched on one of these low trees. At night it's significantly cooler up there and i can look up at the moon and look down at all the houses and at the Sears building and it's beautiful and quiet up there. I watch my dog as he flops through the brush, legs and tail and ears and tongue all working independently of one another as if he has no control over any of them. I sit on this scar on the earth. a bad idea unfinished. The wrong road, begun but never fully traveled and I watch as nature embraces the scar and utilizes it for life. and i ask it, whatever it is to take my scars and use them for the sake of life.