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SHC

At a fancy dress party, with a whiskey in hand,
surrounded by those I once trusted,
I decided to shake up the soirée a bit,
and I spontaneously human combusted.
I shouted, "Flame On!" as I burst out alight,
and ran out across the dance floor,
screaming, "Burn, all you fuckers, burn!" and "Hahahaha!"
as I made my way out to the door.
Bits of me, flaming, dropped down on the grass,
other bits rose into the air,
my skin and flesh melted, the heat was intense,
the first thing to go was my hair.
Hissing and bubbling, I dashed away from the fling,
charring my way to my car.
And I drove home and still cooking, sat down in my yard,
to observe the bright burning of stars.
Cops came the next day, and the firemen, too,
I was well and truly quite busted,
but that's the well-worth it price that you pay,
when you've spontaneously human combusted.

"What is Scientology?" Part 1

Last year, at a library sale, I bought this book for six dollars.  The book was printed in 1993, features no credited author, and comes up on Amazon as having been written by "The Church of Scientology International."  (ALL of the Amazon editorial stuff and reviews are very gung-ho pro Scientology, big surprise.  I'm sure their spin machine is consistently active.) It's a huge book.  It's the size and shape of a hardback phone directory, has more than 700 pages, and weighs in excess of 10 pounds, easy.  I could kill a man with this book.  Unless he was running.  You wouldn't want to run far with this heavy bastard under your arm.  You'd get winded, and then have no interest in killing.  Which would be a shame, especially if you were chasing a glassy-eyed Scientologist.

It's glossy, and since it's ca. 1993, it's laid out much like reading a men's magazine from that period, specifically, Playboy.  Big photo spreads, little bit of side column text, side column alternating from left to right as you flip through.  Huge color-enhanced shots of L.Ron.  It's a very strange experience, especially when you consider mine came with a cover letter.  The letter is addressed to the station manager of WATL, Channel 36 out of Atlanta, GA, and comes from The (then) President of the Church of Scientology International, the improbably named Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch.  Primarily, it seems as though this prohibitively massive tome which mocks the portability of other books, be they works of faith or otherwise, was meant to "fill the void" of information about Scientology since what was available at the time was "fragmentary or inaccurate."  In short, this unwieldy motherfucker was their press packet, and that's how it reads.

There's an initial focus on the millions of followers and pictures of their real estate holdings, most of which are generic office blocks with "Scientology" emblazoned in backlit channel letters, ten feet high, on the side.  This is followed by a short history of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, whose backstory is like something out of a myth with war heroism, bringing truth to native peoples, travels and travails, mystic shamen, anecdotal weirdness, and borrowed stories.  It reads like H. Rider Haggard, and it probably is.  After this, the real strangeness begins to get pretty thick, with contradictory information, attacks on most other global religions, philosophies and mental health & medical disciplines.  I saw my first picture of an E-Meter today.  I also found out that equilateral triangles are not equilateral triangles, that the mind makes pictures that have mass and that the mass of the brain changes when you think about certain things, no one is ever truly unconscious, moods can be measured on decimal scale, and sex is only a survival mechanism, there to ensure the continuation of the race.  Hmmm.

It has everything a baby religion needs.  A mythic charismatic, an influential and powerful "other" to demonize, a world to save, a new & better path, renaming and simplifying of basic extant concepts to make them seem new and esoteric, theatrical bullshit, and a hugely and needlessly complicated text that is necessary to full understanding of the thing itself.

Further bulletins as I make my way through this.  In the meantime...

Millions of Words a Day

Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that she "misspoke" when she recently claimed that she traveled to Bosnia in 1996, and ducked sniper fire between the airplane on the tarmac and her wheeled transport.  As it turns out, there was no sniper fire, and the most dangerous thing on the tarmac - aside from an eight year old girl - was her political future, being trod upon by the facts.  She went on to characterize this particular bit of fluffy obfuscation as a "blip," since she says "a lot of things, millions of words a day" and so obviously, you can't expect ALL of them to be true.

As you can imagine, I have any number of problems with this whole thing.

First off, there's the idea that visiting a place like Kosovo and being shot at counts as "foreign policy experience."  Secondly, unless "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" is really off the hook at the Clinton household, there's no way Hillary took Chelsea into a warzone.  And if she did, I think that's a judgment call worth looking at.  We know it wasn't, because fucking Sinbad wasn't scared.  Sheryl Crow wasn't either, but then, she's a badass.  All of this is meant to tie into Hillary's mouth being attached to the head leading to the neck joined with the shoulder from whence hangs the arm that leads to the hand you want picking up the damn red phone at 3am, and presumably, lying to you about it's foreign policy experience, and in actuality, none of it means anything at all.  But wait - floating in the sewer of meaninglessness, held above the rising tide of effluvia by a chunk of drivel is this gem, the one that really stuck in my craw, this bullshit about her spouting off millions of words a day, and then having the unmitigated gall to tie that to the quality of the words themselves.

According to Oxford, there are only (roughly) a quarter of a million words in the English language in the first place.  The front page of this blog has about 5,000 words on it at any given point.  And yes, I know she means repeated words, and perhaps she's even being hyperbolic.  I still don't buy it.  Granted, Hillary talks all day to people, but do you really think she says more words in a day than say, a 911 dispatcher?  What about a receptionist for a large corporation or big office?  What about a teacher, professor, newscaster or DJ?  A film director, policeman or cab driver?  Bartender?  Air traffic controller, auctioneer?  Surely, some of you have jobs where you end up talking most of the day.  And that's not even counting what you say to your wife and kids, cell nonsense, family phone calls, people on the street, acquaintances, and service workers during an average day.  I'm just not seeing it - yes, politicos on the trail run their mouths incessantly, but if you've perked up your ears to America's din lately, you'll realize that a lot of other people do, too.  Hillary's not special.

I also didn't realize that you could run out of facts by talking a lot.  Basically, Hillary's behavior should serve as a warning: Beware being excessively chatty - you could accidentally slip up and lie.

Fuck China

Are you guys kidding or what?

The People's Daily, a Communist newspaper in China, spoke out against US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Dalai Lama on Sunday, accusing them of whipping up unrest and scheming to hijack the forthcoming Beijing Olympics for their own ends, which here means, "working for a free, self-determined Tibet."  The People's Daily (to which I'm canceling my home subscription even as we speak), goes on to exhort people to crush the Tibetan independence movement, and lays all the responsibility for the death and destruction during the recent riots at the feet of the rioters, who should presumably roll over and spread docile cheeks silently for the Chinese government, and accept what's coming to them, rather than agitating for anything with the appearance of freedom and preservation of their own culture. 

Yeah, you stupid Tibetans.  Stop rocking the big shiny Olympics boat, you big killjoys.  Why can't you just enjoy watching the pretty Greek actress with the rest of the world?  You already ran off Steven Spielberg, and the Chinese have a thing they're trying to do here.  It involves a lot of image burnishing and lies - it's complicated, and you guys who use the blunt fist of riots and social protest couldn't possibly understand.

Seriously though - how strong is your position, really, when you're threatened by a bald pacifist monk and a California liberal?  These are the people you're lashing out at, Chinese guys.  Makes it look pretty one-sided.  And is the argument here any more complex than "we want Tibet?"  The other argument seems to be a weird far Eastern version of White Man's Burden, where these regions need China, and are better off under Chinese rule.  That's not how self-determination is supposed to work, you red commie bastards.  (I always wanted to say that.)  Empires end, and Tibet + Taiwan might just be the first part of that equation for the Chinese.

Especially if you keep shipping out killer lead toys & poison toothpaste & death-laden pet food.

Kinison on the Resurrection

"I read the Bible, I'm pretty fascinated by the life of Christ...it's a pretty good trick to pull off; come back from the dead and not scare the hell out of everybody, huh?  Jesus was the only guy that ever did that, Jesus was the only guy that ever came out of the fucking grave after being dead for three days and people didn't go 'Oh-OH-OHHHHHH!  THE DEAD LIV- THE DEAD FUCKING LIIIVVE!! OHMI-RRRRROOOOOAARR!!  OH - KILL IT, KILL IT!' Yeah, anybody else, man, anybody else, people freak; Jesus comes out, 'Hey.  It's Jesus! Hey, you're a little dusty, there, arentcha, let's wipe some of that off!  God - whatja, ride with the top down, eh?'"

Squidbag Easter Posts:  2007, 2006, 2005, complete with typos.

Happy Secret Giant Rabbit Christian Man-Deity Miracle Zombie Pagan Sex Ritual Renewal Planting Hidden Eggs Big Hat Chocolate Church Basket Day.  I know, I know - it's so commercial now, but it'll always be  Secret Giant Rabbit Christian Man-Deity Miracle Zombie Pagan Sex Ritual Renewal Planting Hidden Eggs Big Hat Chocolate Church Basket Day to me.  I'm old fashioned that way, I suppose.

Spring '08

Massive Attack's Hymn of The Big Wheel (Thanks, EP.)

Spring is here. 

I can tell by reading my calendar, but how boring. Who sits around reading calendars, of all things, when it's so damned nice out?  I can really tell because the trees outside my apartments have suddenly gussied themselves up like there's a tree party this weekend and have also started dropping millions of tiny bits of themselves all over my car every time the wind passes through, no matter how gently, on it's little wind errands, dropping off British nannies, bringing change, transporting the smell of someone's joint miles and miles away, just to make you wonder.  I can also tell because the small creek that runs under the bridge is a small creek no longer - it's a big creek, and before it calmed down, was so swollen with fresh rainwater and rushing with such speed that it looked like weak coffee with somewhere to go.

The spring is here because we can open the back doors to the shop and leave them open all day, thus to better hear Madison's clarion song of bum mumbling and ambulance sirens, one or the other every ten minutes or so.  Releasing our ink and chemical fumes into the open air, we trade them for the smells of grass and rain and wind and flowers, and something fresher than just us recycling the same air all day long.  Sorry, rest of the Earth - you got dicked on that trade.  I notice that my propensity to drive carelessly is increased in the Springtime; the sun's on my face, my windows are down, my shades are on, and the wind whips my hair around my head as I listen to mix tapes (you remember tapes?) that I made eleven years ago now for a party many people said was the best they'd ever attended.

I like the Spring, for all the obvious reasons, and for something more - it's a bridge season.  Autumn is still my favorite, but the transitional seasons, where things are in a state of flux and the temperature is not so all of one thing, not so extreme all the time - those are the best.  Why I spent so much of my life in Florida & Wisconsin is a question I ask during these seasons.  Mostly, though, I wonder why this doesn't last longer; why we can't have wind and sun and driving rain and overcast skies that dissolve into warm sunshine by 6 in the afternoon with the sun still out on your drive home...

Inhale.  Spring.

"It Was Worth It."

Today at the Pentagon, George Dubya Monkeyface is saying that the Iraq War, which turns five years old today, was all worth it.  It.  Worth all the blood and lives and sanity and money and political capitol and squandered international goodwill and human rights lost forever.

Of course he thinks that, because he is not an Iraqi.  Dubya has not died, like the countless number of Iraqi citizens lost to his war.  Dubya himself has not, in the past five years, lost a child, a parent, a friend, a spouse, or half the people he knows to this war.  He has not been robbed of basic human freedoms.  He has not had his government destabilized, his country's sovereignty compromised, or his society splintered into civil war.  Dubya thinks it was all worth it because he has power in his house 24 hours a day, no curfews, no interruption in his life.  He thinks it was all worth it because he didn't spend yesterday mourning and weeping over the coffin of his dead father while Dick Cheney lied to his face.  He has not been outraged by his fellows being thrown into prison, tortured, photographed and sexually degraded.  He does not have to stop for checkpoints when he travels around, and does not have to worry about being blown up by a mad bomber while he's at worship or out food shopping.  So you can see how Dubya'd think it might be worth it.

Also, Dubya thinks that it's all worth it because he is not an American soldier.  He is not one of the 4000 dead, or one of the legions trapped in an interminable, hostile environment, stuck in endless rotations of duty that continue to be relentlessly extended until the mind and wherewithal of these dedicated people finally snaps.  He gets to spend every day with his family if he wants to.  He does not have to worry about snipers, roadside bombs, IEDs, or sectarian violence that seems random and senseless to him.  Dubya thinks it's worth it because he has all his limbs, both eyes, full mental function (for him) and is not suffering from shell shock, depression, divorce, alienation, separation anxiety, or worse.  He is not a female soldier, the endless target of sexual harassment.  He is not subjected to the multiplicity of indignities and inconveniences that the average soldier deals with on a constant basis.  So you can maybe see how he'd think it's worth it.

Dubya likely thinks it's worth it because he's not the family of a lost, dead or debilitated soldier.  He has not known the endless, numbing, shocking, horrifying, crippling pain of losing a child, sibling, spouse or family member or friend to the meat grinder that is the Iraq war.  He does not have the agonizing pain in his chest where a loved one used to be, or the empty feeling of meaninglessness that accompanies severe, unyielding loss.

The American people will have dumped something like 1 trillion dollars into the Iraq War by the time it comes to whatever conclusion it comes to, but Dubya thinks it's worth it, because it's not his money, his future.  He's rich, so future shortfalls won't bother him - after all, it was worth it.  And nobody foisted a gross, disastrous lie off on him about WMDs and fake connections with 9/11, so he doesn't feel the betrayal most Americans feel.  So to Dubya, it was all worth it.

And the legacy that he leaves, of deep distrust, confusion, destabilization, violence, and global animosity towards the US - it was worth it.  His country didn't get wrecked, as far as he can tell, and he's not out a dime, no deaths in his world, no real consequences of war visited upon him...so it was all worth it.  The blood and the madness and chaos and the lies and betrayal, the hate and the vengeance and the ignorance and death and sheer evil to have sprung out of his actions was all worth it.

And so I leave you with a poem, in honor of the President and the First Day of Spring:

Flowers are budding and
rain falls on the Earth,
birds chirp and take wing,
a cycle renews itself -
Fuck George W. Bush.

The Monster Race

No other group of creatures on the planet aspires to monsterism quite like we do.  Higher brain function would seem to bring with it not only the need to kill and degrade one's fellows, but also creative ways to accomplish and justify it.  We don't even hide it very well most of the time; we spit venom at one another, exploit each other's faults and foibles, encourage non-thinking pack behavior, alienate and exclude the different, prey on the weak and old, and destroy the other, the odd, the any not-like-us.  The effort expended in not doing these things, it seems, is simply too much for some of the herd.  Not lost your pointless faith in humanity yet?

Well, let's start with recent testimony in the war crimes trial of former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor.  Charles, as you may know deposed and tortured to death the former President of Liberia, taking the country for himself.  When putting down subsequent problems with people, he encouraged his soldiers to eat them, as they were no longer humans anyway.  He also ordered a pregnant woman buried alive.  This would suitably frighten anyone who might seek to oppose him.  Charles is a killer, a megalomaniac, and a rotten fuck for a human being.  But wait, there's more.  Christian Wackjob Pat Robertson (whose death was called for on this blog over 2 years ago, now) diverted money to Charles (who used it for buying diamonds and weapons), lied to his followers and told them it for aid in Rwanda, and excoriated the President by accusing him of bringing down a Christian Liberian President in favor of Muslim rebels when Monkeyface ordered the Cannibal to step down.

I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to work for the 700 Club or the Christian Broadcasting company Pat started.  They must flinch every time the fucker opens his mouth, waiting for the next drop of poison to vomit out and wreck decency.  Oh - and if your name is 'Marion,' and you don't think that's masculine enough, 'Pat' isn't much of a step up.  'John Wayne' sounds better.  You hypocritical bit of filth, you.

The Chinese government is and has been doing a great job of acting less than human for some time now.  Of course, no one in China will be able to read anything I'm about to say, due to strict censorship controls on all Internet content.  According to Beijing, who I suppose got the Olympics because they're such a strong trading partner for everyone, as long you don't mind a little lead or death, and in spite of their rampant human rights abuses, not the least of which is holding onto Tibet, eroding the culture, and forcing out the country's spiritual leader.  The latest uprisings and their crackdown are classic examples of what the human race will do when pushed into desperate situations, and the language on both sides of the issue borders on ridiculous in terms of it's irresponsibility.  It took China almost 48 hours to even admit that there was an uprising.  It's like going hunting with Dick Cheney.

Who tried, one last gasping, embarrassing, overshadowed by a glut of violence time again today to tie the events of 9/11 to our invasion of Iraq (where was Pat Robertson when Saddam had to step down?) once again using the fractured, tortured, twisted logic that seems to imply that when Iraq's inner turmoil is quelled, there will be no staging area for terrorists who seek to make an attack on the US.  By that logic, it seems that we should be staging invasions in Saudi Arabia at bare minimum, if not also every other predominantly Muslim nation on the planet, Canada and Mexico.

We can't love anyone else, because we hate each other.  Today, Obama had to put down comments his own pastor made on race, and this is 2008.  Why aren't we over this shit yet?  Where do those filled with this kind of hatred draw the line?  When learning about the violence in Rwanda initially, I was stunned to find out that people often had to ask others for an ID card identifying them at Tutsi or Hutu before hacking them to death with machetes.  How do you not decide you hate someone until you check their ID?  And how is skin color, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else any different than that?  Why hate and mistreat based on any of these otherwise bullshit differences?

Naive.  I know.  Especially when there are so many good, valid reasons to hate motherfuckers, like the ones I've just mentioned.  That's why I've elected just to hold everyone in contempt until further notice.  Fuck everyone.

There. How's that for a mood swing?

Whoville, Springtime, Work, Justice

Max & I spent the day together on this, the first day of his Spring Break.  He went to work with me.  Whenever I take Max with me to work, I am an inadequate boss, as I seem to be a dad first and foremost when it is applicable.  So I don't do this very often, but on this particular occasion, he asked.  Days in advance.  So, he went.  He got up this morning, dressed in non-school-approved, non-uniform attire, and came in with me.  We imagined in the car, and then he peeled aluminum blanks and made a rider sign at work.  We lunched at McFood, and climbed around on the Playland thing together.  The afternoon was filled with computer and Leapster time.  We got home, quickly snacked, and went back out to see Horton Hears a Who, which we both loved.

As the end credits rolled, someone started making shadow puppets.  Max asked if we could do that, too.

ME: Nah.  It's kind of...not nice.

MAX: Why?

ME: It's no big deal, but it's because there's people like me who like to read the credits, and some dopey kid in the back with his jerky hands in front of the screen - makes it hard to see.

MAX (stands up and turns around in his seat, loudly): HEY!  COULD YOU STOP DOING THAT, PLEASE?  MY DAD LIKES TO READ THE CREDITS! (to me) They sat down.

ME: Thanks for standing up for me, Max.

MAX: You're welcome.

For those of you who quietly wished that someday, I would have a child just like me; Well, you got your wish.  I couldn't be more pleased.  Afterwards, we also had to get some justice on a reluctant candy machine.  Then we came home, played with cars, ate lasagna, and read The Gooch Machine.  Not bad for a Monday and a Catholic holiday.

Flair!

So I'm going to take this opportunity to admit that I'm addicted to Facebook's Flair application.  That's my flair board, right there.  As soon as I got a button from someone, I started making buttons for this thing.  If I'm on the phone with you, and you sense that I might not be paying the strictest attention, I am likely making these silly things.  Anyway, the sole purpose of this entry is show off my flair board, which looks a little like my interior locker doors in high school, or the bumpers of my cars. 

First person to correctly identify ALL buttons in the comments field will one a two-year course in underwater wolverine husbandry from the University of Hackensack, just off the turnpike in the beautiful Garden State, and my eternal respect.  Anything to get you people commenting again.  Oh, and congratulations to Lyla for being the 1700th comment during the current drought of comments.  Finally, I think you can steal any of these buttons you like off my Facebook page.

Have a nice weekend.