Amazing News Story!!

There was a short news brief in the NY Times today that described a 50-50 divorce to the extreme. A man in Germany measured his house, then proceeded to cut it in half with a chain saw. When he was done with that, he picked his house up with a forklift and drove away. HOLY CRAP THAT IS FUNNY!!! The man's comment was that he was "just taking his due."

If you hate masturbation then you hate hands!!

I was watching a news program that was talking about the growth of Muslims in Europe. A Scotish Muslim leader was on T.V. saying that he is sad about the Muslims of South Western Asia hating Europe. He explained that for him, Europe is his homeland and "if you hate my homeland then you hate me". STOP SAYING SHIT LIKE THIS!!! It's too easy to use language like that. It can be used by any dumb asshole. It takes no level of creativity and it doesn't get a point across. The guy could have said something like, "Europe is my homeland and I am proud of that. For people to hate Europe as a whole is saddening for me because these people who say this are my brothers in faith, and it's not my continent that is doing harm to them, but the ideology of the modern west." To me, it's a sign of a simple (or dishonest) mind in people who use rhetoric like that.

I'd imagine that members of PETA might not agree with the use of cow leather for wallets. With the same logic that this man used, a cow might say, "if you hate leather wallets then you hate me". It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. First of all, in this case, it's better for the cow that people don't like leather wallets...that's ovbvious, I know. Second, PETA would hate the leather wallet because of what it stands for. In the same way, the Muslims of South Western Asia probably just hate the "western ideology" of Europe, not necessarily everything or everyone in it.

The other part, is that any statement like this carries with it at least a little bit of hypocrisy. It's just a matter of exploring the claim and who's making it in order find the hypocrisy. This same rationale President Bush used at the beginning of the war on terror. The President laid down the doctrine 'if you're not with us, you're against us' as a basis for all policy domestic and abroad. He said at one point that any states that harbors terrorists are terrorists themselves. Here's the hypocrisy... a man named Luis Posada and another named Orlando Bosch are well known terrorists among the conflict with past few decades of conflict with Latin America. They were both involved with a bombing of a passenger plane that killed 73 people, among other attrocities in Central and South America. Orlando Bosch, by request of Jeb Bush was granted a presidential pardon by George H.W. Bush. Luis Posada, who has been officially convicted in more than one country of terrorist acts, is being held in a U.S. jail for an immegration violation. Despite the request of one country, I believe Columbia, in which he was responsible for many deaths, we continue to hold him essentially granting him asylum. As further display of hypocrisy, the U.S. House of Representatives will be deciding soon on a piece of legislation that states what the U.S. will only begin to consider relations with Cuba if they release William Morales who was involved in some of the same activities as Bosch and Posada.

Here's the point. Be better than people who use this kinds of rhetoric and logic. Do this by stating the real problem and not by using feelings of nationalism, patriotism, or loyalty of any kind to manipulate other ignorant people!!!

I LOVE FAMILY GUY!!!

WOW!!! Quote of the night from Family Guy.
Scene: Two incredibly butch dikes walk in to a sperm clinic.

Dike 1:
"Me and my partner want to have a baby, and we want an applicator that looks like Jodie Foster's nuckles."

Marketing for Christ - I'm sure he wont mind

I remember this scene from the bible where Jesus goes into the temple and turns over a bunch of tables and drives out all the vendors. I'm no pastor or theologian but I'm pretty sure at least one of the points of that story is that God doesn't want people making ass loads of money by using his name. So I went to Borders today and took a picture of some books by Lee Strobel that are titled A Case for Creation, A Case for Christ, A Case for Faith, and even A Case for Easter!!! Sure, these books may have some great info and insights, but if that's not a marketing device I don't know what is. Man what a douche bag. This seems to happen a lot now days among Christian writers. Click here for another example...If you scroll down enough you'll realize that you can get two books because they're "better together" for the low low price of only $20.78. I think it's retarded. That's it.

Bad Words

I scared myself yesterday. I'll preface it with this: I was in deep thought about a conversation I had with a roommate of mine. The conversation was of a political nature and it had to do with war. I was absolutely dumbfounded that he would not or could not begin to accept the possibility of a nation not using violence...he believes that in order to keep things going economically and politically speaking, violent things have to happen. Quoting from a Zinn book here, "In 1972, the general who was head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command told an interviewer, "I've been asked often about my moral scruples if I had to send the planes out with hydrogen bombs. My answer is always the same. I would be concerned only with my professional responsibility.'" This man leaves no room for moral judgement in is line of work.

I was having such a hard time accepting that some people are incapable of contemplating a world that isn't run by greed, capitalism, and war. The thought crossed my mind "it's easy for me to make decisions about things like this because my own fundamental values are simply that I don't have any loyalty to the government or any authority figure other than Christ." WHOA, there it is!! That word fundamental. I know it's not necessarily a negative word, but i've never associated that word with my own beliefs. Just like when the word popped into my mind yesterday, I'm speechless. I can't come up with any words to describe how that scared me. This is a wierd feeling. Well, at least I'm not the militant type.

PACIFISM...A CONVERSATION FOR FRIENDS

There's an old man, an old folk singer/political activist named U. Utah Phillips. He was an enlisted soldier in the Korean War who became an opponent to war in general. More often than not, I don't sympathize with enlisted men who complain about the battles they were in and the friends they lost, only because I figure if you're dumb enough to enlist you have to man up to the consequences you brought on yourself.

After the war, Utah spent years as a drunken vagabond traveling on trains throughout the country trying to forget as best he could the things that happened in the war. After years of this he finally settled down in a recovery house in SLC founded by Joe Hill, the old legend from the Catholic Workers Movement. This man's name was Edmond Hennessey as I remember the story going. He was one of the old Catholic/Anarchist/Pacifist men sprouting from the ministry of Dorthy Day (or however you spell her name).

Utah, being a drunk with violent tendencies and all that jive, was confronted by Edmond one day. Edmond said something to the effect of, "You need to be a pacifist"

"What's a pacisfist," says Utah.

"Well, it's kinda like being an alcoholic. You have to sit down with people who will really listen and instead of saying 'my name's Chuck, I'm and alcoholic', you say, 'I'm Chuck, and I admit and accept that I have a capacity for violence'."

If we claim to be pacifists, we need to be able to sit down and admit our violent tendencies, no matter how small they are. We need to get ourselves to a place where we at least realize that even killing an ant may have the possibility to make some species of life bitter at humanity, thus making the circle of "KARMA" keep rotating. It's not easy, as far as I know, only Jesus has been able to do it, but instead of copping out and being defeated by it, we can try. I suppose that's step one...TO GENUINELY CARE!!

Hiding The Sun

I wrote this poem during a period when I wasn't drinking. I was actually drunk when I wrote it. I was talking on the phone with someone who thought that I was sober when I wrote it. Ironic I suppose. Whatever, suck my balls!!

I know the truth
I know that you'd pay any price to have it
I know you'd choose
Who'd be the one to have
The one to hold on to
The lies you keep so close
And hold as their your own
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
You Crumbling
But I know the truth

I've seen it too
I've seen it in your eyes but I can't help it
I've seen in you
Things that you tried to hid
The things that keep you
Down in a place no one can find
You hold it as your own
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
You shuddering
But I've seen it too

I hide it too
I hide the sun so I can make sense of it
I hide for you
The things you bring to light
The things that kill you too
And I've never been so cold
But when I'm here all alone
Nobody knows
Nobody hears
Me whispering
'Cause I hide it too

Faith in your government?

I had a friend mention today that one of his most recent struggles is putting faith in our government, that he has trouble trusting our leaders because it seems like all they do now days is lie. For some reason this struck me as an incredibly ignorant statement. But all too often is expressed in one way or another. The reason it seems so dumb to me is that he feels as though he is supposed to have faith in our government. For some reason I've never been a person that felt like I am obligated to be loyal to things. I never cared about my school colors or mascot or alma mater, from the time I was young I thought that the idea of enlistingin the armed servicves was a ridiculous idea, and from the beginning of my interest in politics I've never felt that I should support someone just because they are republican or democrat.

Mark Twain, in the midst of high political tension due to a war in the Philipenes, was called unpatriotic because he, as merely a writer, an artist, felt that it was okay to speak out against the war and against the government. He replied by saying something to the effect of: Loyalty to one's country does not mean loyalty to it's institutions. The country is the eternal thing, the living thing, the substantial thing. The country is the people and what they stand for. The institutions are simply clothing. Clothing can be tattered and worn by harsh conditions, it can cease to protect us from the winter cold, from disease, and from death. To have worship rags, to have loyalty for rags, is a loyalty of unreason.

I like that. It's simple point made on a rather complex issue. I read a quote at my office the other day by C.W. Ceram that said, "Genius is the ability to reduce complicated to the simple." Good job Mark Twain.

Angel in the outfield

When I was in elementary school tetherball was the most popular sport to play during recess. Kids would stand in line the entire lunch recess just to play one round of tether ball. At one point there was a formal tetherball tournament organized.


I was in the group of kids that didn't like tether ball. There were two reasons i didn't like it:1) I've always had bad circulation so when it got cold hitting the ball would hurt my hands. 2) I couldn't even it a baseball off of a tee in teeball. The bat ball coordination was just not there.


Ok, while this tournament was going on the group that didn't like tetherball played different games. On the last day of the tournament the big game was down to Angel Cornejo and Corey Frank. It was the most intense game I ever halfway paid attention to. The only part I really paid attention to was after the game was over. Angel has risen victorious, then the entire school (that was out on recess at that point), excluding the group of us who didn't play the sport, chased Angel around the school field.


Just imagine a giant fat mexican kid being chased by about 70 small skinny white kids. To this day, me and the friends who still remember this don't know why they chased him around. They didn't beat him up, they didn't hoist him on their soldiers, they didn't even dogpile. The way it ended was that the bell rang and everyone had to freeze until the yard duty ladies blew their whistles. I feel like I re-live that scene in my head everyday and it never makes sense. I think maybe this is what is keeping me from greatness. Can you offer any suggestions to help me in my life quest?

Siren Song of the Counter Culture

So here I sit, Monday night waiting to go to dinner with a friend. I've been watching C-SPAN2 for about 4 hours now, and finally come across something that is interesting. It's a presentation by the National Institute on Drugs and Alcohol on the current drug and alcohol usage trends among the population as a whole, but mainly focusing on youth. They're reporting that the decline in usage among kids who were surveyed four years ago is on average 40%. So why I wonder, are many kids deciding not to use drugs anymore and many choosing to never try drugs.
I have a few thories: 1) Kids have begun to use drugs at such and early age, that the age at which it becomes a problem and they realize they need to stop (or are forced into a situation where stopping is not an option) is in the high school years 2) The most recent pop-culture superstars, who come from a genre that historically has been associated with drugs and the stereotypical "rock'n'roll" scene, are now the main supporters of the "straight edge" (no drugs/alcohol/tobacco use) movement sweeping our young people. I'd like to think that the latter is the only true of the two, but the sad part is that both are probably equally true. Unfortuantely I think these are pretty much the only two options that there are...there are a few other theories I'm sure, dealing with national drug control policies and such, which may be somewhat effective, but the one we can for sure rule out is that parents are making a difference. For the most part, parents in the U.S.A. and probably all the other elite countries of the world are worthless. They're too busy buying shit and looking fancy to give a rip about their kids.
So, option one. The first time I smoked weed was in the 6th grade. The first time I did any hard drugs was in the 6th grade. I got expelled from school and arrested in the 7th grade for selling pot. At this time, other than the small handful of "bad kids" at school, I was one of the only kids at school who did drugs. Nobody liked me because of all this. In high school, when I didn't do that stuff as much, it seemed like the cool thing to do. Most kids in the school smoked weed, did drugs, drank, etc, etc. Now that I work with junior high kids, I notice the increasing amount of interest in drugs and alcohol at their age, along with the alarming number of kids who have tried or currently use drugs or smoke weed. I think kids are being exposed to these things at such a young age (those reasons take up a whole new essay) that they get hooked early. Often times in high school, kids are in recovery. On this report i was watching, it said that 12% of folks age 18-25 are recovering alchololic/addicts. What I'm concluding, is that the reason for the decrease in the use of drugs among young people is that we're becoming addicted earlier thus recovering earlier...no more drug/alcohol use.
Now, the one that I like. This one is less disturbing. In the 1970's punk rock was born. In the 1980's punk rock took on an image of extreme drug use, partying, and reckless behavior. In that same decade metal arose and had developed the same image. Finally, in the late 90's and early 21st century, the two genres have merged. Bands like, My Chemical Romance, Atreyu, Trice, and countless other who have become our youth's idols, are promoting and living the straight edge lifestyle. You see all those kids who dress in black, paint blood streaming from their eyes, and wear makeup...yeah, those are the kids who like these bands. Here's the thing, these kids don't just dress and listen to these guys, they think they are God. These kids will do anything that these guys do. Of course there are always exceptions, but by and large these kids are following they're straight edge and anti-sexist ways.
I just think it's rad that something that only a generation ago was considered satanic and problematic has now evolved into something that is beneficial for our kids today. Kids are getting and staying off drugs because of loud angry music. I think it's a sign of a generation that even though we seem stupid and irresponsible, we're learning. And no thanks to all those fuckin parents out there working their six figure jobs who didn't want these kids in the first place. Alright, I'm done...stick that in your smoke pipe and peace it.

Gold Dome

So I finally decided today to go to a church that I've meant for a long time to visit. It's the orthodox christian church in B-Lo. First things first, I get there right as the service is supposed to start and there are only four other cars there. The friend who I was supposed to meet there, one of the regular attenders, wasn't there yet. I stood outside for a few minutes and waited for him to show up. As I stood there, I kept seeing people walk out of this door on the side up the building, look in the window to the sanctuary, then walk around back and go up a set of stairs to and alternate entrance. Now, my assumption is that everything at this church is symbolic of something...every action, every word spoken, everything. If you don't do these things by the book, their God will strike you down with lightning. While I don't agree with religious traditions, I don't want to be disrespectful to what these folks do. So, I'm way confused at this point as so why these people are going through another entrance. I thought maybe only the priest and deacons or something were allowed to walk through the front doors...only people chosen by God. So finally, my friend shows up and says, "I gotta do this candle holding thing, I'll see you after the service." Now, not only do I not know what is going on, but my guide just ditched me. Fortunately his little brother walks around the corner and shows me in through the front doors.
Now I come to the conclusion that it's not only divine people who get to walk through the doors. When I got inside, I heard a very bland, monotone voice, half singing half speaking words that seemed to be english, but were so fast and echoey that you couldn't make them out. As soon as he got done with a sentence, a choir of people would recite some other thing. It turns out, all those people walking to that back door were in the choir...now, I'm a little more at ease. The first thing I do is try to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, do I sit or stand? Do I pretend like I know what the choir is singing and try to hum along with them? Am I supposed to be praying? Some people are sitting, some are standing maybe the people standing have already done something like a traditional prayer to allow them to stand, but then again maybe the people sitting have done something to allow them to sit. I chose to sit because I figured if sitting was wrong, someone would correct me and I'd know what to do. I also chose not to pretend like I knew what in the world was going on. But I did pray really quick just for God to let me meet some people and learn something about this church that made me a little less skeptical. I had a funny feeling that these people might actually be human beings underneath all that religious bull shit so I wanted to give them a chance.
Finally my friends mom walks in and hands me a guide to the litergy. I haven't ever heard of a litergy before so I assumed it was just this written ceremony they do every service. I thumbed through it to figure out where we were and tried to follow along. They didn't go through the litergy page by page, they would skip around a little bit. Also, every now and then what the people were singing didn't come from the litergy booklet at all, it came from a second hymn book that I later found. It was hard to figure out where to look, because all the people who were there knew this service like the back of their hand so i couldn't just look at someone else's book to see what page they were on.*
Finally I stopped looking around and looked forward to see three men in fancy robes with their backs to the congregation huddling around a shrine of sorts. As I was reading the litergy, I noticed notes of what these men up front were doing. They were reciting little prayers and every few minuites, the one in the middle would hand something to the guys on the side and they would kiss his hand, kiss the thing, pick it up kiss it again and hand it off to someone else who as far as I knew, with all the kissing and what not, took it in the back room and fucked the shit out of it.
The little men up front started taking turns facing the congregation and singing something that would get a reply song. At one point as the congregation went into a hymn, the priest, Father Andrew came out began talking to all the paintings of saints on the walls. The look of pure boredom** on his face mixed with his noiseless talking made him look like one the the craziest guys I've ever seen. Words can't even describe how insane this guy looked...it was as if some demon was about to pop out of his mouth and swallow the whole church.
After a while I figured out that we were about to take communion. Three boys in white robes(one of which was holding a really tall cross) followed by the men in the fancy robes began to walk around the church. everybody walked to the edge of the pews as is they were getting ready to follow out behind them. I was stoked that we were going on a field trip. Then, I saw a lady bend down, touch Father Andrew's robe, kiss her hand and do the father, son, holy spirit cross on the chest*** thing. Then a small girl ran up and did the same thing. People kept doing this as if they were getting some holy healing power from his robe, like that bleeding lady in the bible. It seemed to me that these people thought the robe the priest was wearing was dipped in a holy sauce and kept in God's personal closet. Seems like a little to large a pedestal this priest guy is put on.
After the service, my friends mom walked me around the sanctuary and introduced me to the deacons and priests, they all offered to have a sit down question/answer time with me if I wanted to. Then we went into a room where there was good and drinks and lots of people standing around talking. I was the guest of the day, everyone wanted a chance to talk to me. The only person in that room who didn't talk to me was a man who stared at me when I first walked in and occasionally turned around and stared at me during the service, and each time he did this I made eye contact with him and held it until he looked away. I'm not sure why he was staring at me, but I didn't like it, so I figured I'd piss him off in a sort of passive agressive way by not backing down. I think he's an asshole. Eventually one of the priests came up to me and kept asking questions trying to figure out what I thought of their religion. Finally I started asking him questions like, where does the whole relationship with God and Jesus thing come into play? Who wrote the litergy and why do they think it's important to hold strictly to it since it came from hand of a man, not God? It felt like I was talking to one of those Jahovahs witness people who basically just recite some bullshit they memorized out of the pamphlet.
It seemed like everyone who talked to me was like this, except for one lady who was telling me about her daughter coming home from Young Life (and outreach organization I work with) asking questions comparing our protestant views versus her Orthodox views on God. She said that the girl was in San Diego at a protestant college then joked that they dissowned her only two weeks ago. She seemed to see right through me, it was like she knew exactly what I was thinking about here church...that they thought they were right about everything and didn't accept any other view. She made me feel a little bit better that there was some humanity to these people.


* When people recite things year after year, especially things of this length, there is no way they think about them anymore. That they think about the importance of what they are really saying. At least that's how it seems to me. Maybe that's just a cop out, maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to have to remember anything.

** As I looked around the church, I noticed a few things about the physical appearance of everybody. First of all, all of the age groups looked exactly the same...the old men were fat and wore glasses, the old women looked like dykes, all of the young adult types looked really pissed off and kind of creepy, all of the high school kids didn't give a rip, and all of the kids just wanted to be kids. Second, everyone looked bored out of their mind. Even the priests. It's like they were doing all of this in a zombie like state. Third, every person over the age of about 18 looked very tired, dark around the eyes, and that part just underneath the eyes is all puffy.

*** Everytime the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" were uttered, the whole congregation would do that cross thing on their chest. It seemed to happen every two minutes or so. Sometimes folks would do it for what seems to me some completley random reason. It's as if this is one of the ways they convince everyone that they are a good follower of Christ.


There's a lot I'm leaving out I'm sure, but I plan on attending a few more times so can add more later.

This is gay

I think blogs are stupid but a friend reccommended I get one...I didn't spell reccomend right. Dammit, there we go again. Curse you Mike, curse you!!!