I'm scared as a Dog but I've got a new song, and I want y'all to sing along....

Between watching David Lynch's Lost Highway, and having a cold, I've hallucinated into clarity all my lust and adulterous feelings. It's emptiness--it's all sadness balled up into a few quick glances and dreams of arreolas and waking up next to one another in the hope of feeling not-so-lonely anymore...

Lust is a loneliness vessel, carrying through the deep and dark all the loneliness we only want to admit subconsciously with glances and thoughts and plans of love and hard-ons and cervices. It is inner-and-outer loneliness contained within our eyes and minds.

But when the story's over, you're still lonely. When the story's completed, you've come back around to tell yourself that you're still alone, you've circled out in front of your face, and back in through the left-ear, with the same old story: you're lonely and adulterous until you've found her.

Her is the one that will finally see that apparition that circles out of your right ear, and she will grab it and consume it, and drag you into her, and you will grab hers and consume it with all your life. And your two adulterous and longing and lonely souls will be one forever.

That's why I'm still a virgin. Why I'm holding off until I marry. I'm only going to go the distance with Her that has my soul within her belly. And when I have hers within my belly. And we are content like wolves...

Comedians

This was the obvious choice to do a mere 5 minutes after my singer choices... Notes on my favorite comedians...

Dave Attell - The grossest and most comedically bigoted person you ever hear grace the stage. His style of shock-humor never ceases to make people laugh in spite of their predispositions of "This is against everything I'm supposed to laugh at, that I believe in..." He will offend you, and then he will make you laugh.

Mitch Hedberg - The King of Wry. His delivery was very deadpan and his jokes about the microbial workings of life were often so true and grounded in common sense that they couldn't help but be funny because you realize the truth that was hidden underneath the whole time. But the bastard had to die. Hooray drugs!

Stephen Colbert - His satire of the hated-Right-Wing of politics is so dead-on that, even though he doesn't do much standup, he deserves to be on this list. His speech at the White House Correspondents' dinner was done Standing Up, so he counts.

Demetri Martin - A new favorite that, like Mitch Hedberg, points out the microbial truths in life, but does it sometimes to guitar and glockenspiel or accompanied by a sketch pad. Very creative and very funny.

People that didn't make the list for going mainstream and suddenly turning to crap: Dane Cook; People that didn't make the list for being far too esoteric: George Lopez.

Singers

A few thoughts on some of my favorite singers...

Bob Dylan - He's versatile, first off. Between Highway 61, Nashville Skyline and Modern Times, his voice has drastically changed. That's pretty cool that he can go with the flow of his life and accomodate his music.

Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate & The Fire Theft) - It's weird, his voice is very intoxicating. It's hypnotic and beckoning. I've had times where I HAVE to listen to SDRE or The Fire Theft because I heard something similar to him or his guest appearance on the new mewithoutYou CD, and suddenly, my soul beckons to hear his flowing emotion...

Sufjan Stevens - He sings and he plays the freakin' oboe. That's all you need to know. He's a very talented musician who can write a song about anything and make it sound interesting.

Aaron Weiss (mewithoutYou) - Between [A-->B] Life and Brother, Sister, his voice has softened and become more emotional to reveal his soul. As Bob Dylan's voice accomodates music, the music accomodates Weiss' voice. He can't sing well, but he can convey emotion and write very very poetic songs, so he's up there.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala - So, okay. Amputechture absolutely sucks. Now that that's clear, he's a decent singer who tries too hard sometimes, both musically and ideologically, and who can enlighten you if you try and find out the meanings of some of his songs.

--

So there's only four. Honorable mentions that were knocked off because of their lacking song-writing abilities: Claudio Sanchez (Coheed and Cambria), Davey Havoc (AFI); artists left off for trying to swim in the Mississippi River with clothes on: Jeff Buckley.

A little while back I wrote an essay entitled "The Difference," that highlighted the difference between being Christ-like and being a Christian.

I'll admit, that essay failed you the reader.

It didn't offer the solution, it only implied it.

Here's the solution: We must bridge the gap between the pious and the profane, to accept and realize we are all one, that we are all the same. We are one body (Romans 12), and we are all Saints (Ephesians 1). Love one another. And bridge the gap between striving to be Christ-like and being a Christian. Too many Christians take it lightly.

So Stop Taking it Lightly. Seek God with all your heart. That's the only solution. Then there will be no need for sections of the Church when we are all one body (1 Cor. 12), for we all do our part.

I am your mouth, you are my ear.

Plowing

Existence is based solely on your state of mind.

I do not exist for I am merely a facsimile, a mere bastard copy of God in a human body, caught up within my stupid, idiot sin.

How it is and how it will be

In talking recently with an ex-girlfriend who exuded most of the qualities of a woman I would want to marry (that's all I'm in it for now), I realized something: I've narrowed the pool to damn near puddle. Consider this: I want a girl who's a virgin, who doesn't drink doesn't smoke, is a Christian, takes God seriously. And I'm 18. That's two things: How am I going to find a virgin, even now, unless she's a conservative, pious, bitch. That's what I'm going to end up marrying, what I think is now a pious and conservative bitch.

I'm as liberal and extremist as they come, and I'm going to seemingly be chained to the right in some sort of circular haze.

But wait, Evan, if you exist, then she must exist!

Oh hell, I'm fucked.

I was once the wine.

In my Eng. 101 class we had to read Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran," which discussed a group of female students who met in a secret classroom to discuss literature in a setting where the can shed their head-coverings and their inhibitions.

In the class, we started to discuss all the freedoms of Americans, and that got me wondering: What is worse, the blatant atrocities of the then Islamic Republic of Iran, or the subversive prejudice hate-and-fear tactics of the American government?

I mean, sure, they're openly persecuted, by the police state and the Islamic Legalism, but not by the people. In America the hate is drilled into the people by the media and suddenly it's no longer the government but the people that are the assholes, the prejudiced. The government plants the seed and it germinates into 1940's German lynchings and Japanese internment camps to perhaps protect them from the hatred of the average American. I can imagine that the average American woman, since "That Fateful Day," has had their level of hatred to both Middle-Easterns and Muslims. But an average Iranian woman hates the government, and they just force it upon their people.

Well? What would you rather have?

Just to pass the time....

I recommend you go out and get the new mewithoutYou CD, if not for the lyrics, than for the music...

It's amazing.

"I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my Mom but who's closer to my age."

Vicarious Atonement

I pray that all things I've said and will say are of You, oh God, oh Father. Keep me whole, keep me as your saint, keep me from blasphemy. I want to teach your message of unity and love, not a worldly partisan view--of vicarious atonement through our prayers and through Christ. As Paul said, all things are from You and through You and to You--and, thus, unity it is. Religion means nothing, You means everything.

May yours be the glory forever, Amen.

Being Christ-like doesn't ordane you Christian, it ordanes you as a better person, seeking better life. Anyone of any religion can attain enlightenment, and, since all things are through God, a man can attain enlightened saint-hood via any religion, any road.

Why does only one religion have to be right?

Will you carry me across the sea....?

John 14:6 was God, whom Jesus is part and parcel of. It was God saying, "No one gets to God but through God." If we ca believe in a trinity, why can't we believe in a polynity? Jesus's death was the final atonement, the final sacrifice, the final need for any sort of enlightenment. Prophesy will still remain, but new religions will pass away. I need to find biblical evidence for that one.

Religious boundaries make sense in the context of human life. We cannot fathom something without boudnaries. We write in paragraphs, end our sentences with periods. We live in countries and are afraid of supposed aliens.

Thus, closed religious thought follows suit to all we live.

But doesn't God transcend all we live...?

I hate to come back to inclusionistic thinking, but that's how it goes, I guess...

Volume 1 a huge success! Gearing up for Winter!

By popular demand, work has started on Winter and All, 2006! That's the new issue to come out in the Winter of We are all Serial Killers!

We've had great feedback! It's a hit! They love us!

Air1's Response

Dear Friend,

We appreciate the time you took to share your perspective with us. I'll
pass on your message to Programming.

May God bless you in a special way today.

Laurie Davidson
Correspondence Assistant to Programming

--

I wonder if programming will send me something...?

Message sent to Air1, regarding my previous essay.

In 2004, I was an avid listener to Air1, absorbing all its messages, all its factions, all of its often-conservative push and lean and pull.

The drug-related testimonies really dug into me like a dull blade, creating a gash that was tattered around the edges and orange with contempt--Can we not have God without the drugs? Are we allowed a Christ which we are led to without the negative influence shoving us into his loving arms? Why didn't I ever hear that?

I stopped listening, though, around December, 2004. The station has become a joke since then--turn it on to hear the same old songs from 2004, with a marginal chance of hearing something new.

Your music's message has grown stagnant: A homogenous faith that is naught but what one person believes it to be. One view, one mind, one God. But the one God can be interpreted an infinite amount of ways. He is God, we are human. And my faith has grown away from Air1, from your message--not because it's blasphemy, but because it's stale.

You may choose to retort with the fact that bands have yet to release a new album in a few years (Like Barlow Girl). But then I also bring up FM Static's song "Crazy Mary" which was just recently played this morning [9\26\06 2:00 AM], according to your recent plays list. It was played despite the fact that there are 12 new songs from their Album "Critically Ashamed" to be played.

Sure, other radio stations have repetition, but at least it's indicative of what's current, what's new. There's an ebb and flow to Christianity, there's an ebb and flow to music, there's relativity to everything...

Except, seemingly, Air1, who stubbornly stays put with their old songs and their same-old message. Yes, Jesus died on the cross. Yes, I want a faith like that, to see the dead rise, etcetera. But what about the effects of faith on life? What about the struggles, the doubts of the infallibility, what about the trite, collective, "I'm sorrys" that often come with lulls in Christians as they all, in conjunction, realize their faults, and have their doubts.

Where are your doubts, Air1?

--

They apparently get 5000 emails a month, so I may have to wait awhile for a response. But I'll definitely post their response once I receive it. And I will get one... Unlike the emails I sent to Ray Comfort, the renowned Christian Evangelist. I had so many questions, that only he could answer, because those were his beliefs, and yet he never responded to me. But if I do get a response, I'll make damn sure to post that one too.

No response, no feedback, no discussion--just one person, on his soap box, speechifying, expecting everyone in the arena to be in agreeance... When most are in grievance.

No big Church.

The Truth Belongs to God, the mistakes were Mine

It's been said that there are often moments in our life where all our thought, all our energy is suddenly transmuted down the channel towards our soul. All the thickets of education pushed away, and drifting down and into ourselves we go...

On Broadway and 19th, SSE of Dodger Stadium.

Los Angeles. 2006.

A small Mexican Restaurant, hailed by my father and escalated to greatness. With a yellow and red patio, and a small kitchen, we were contextually misplaced--far too white.
We order, we wait. We take pictures, we feel like tourists. The small parking lot is splayed with farm-animal murals. Cows, chickens, pigs.

Carnitas Burrito.

The horse is fast. 17 to one.

In this dinginess, in this bum-sorrow of half-way poverty, I see it: my soul. Sifting down the cement LA River, I see myself, within myself... I see the empty beds: drought and sorrow. I see the small weeds, shooting through the walls, I see the movies filming with lights and smoke and tenacity just about the Ten Freeway.

Dingy, and dank, and the burrito is delicious.

Out of the gate, the trumpet is sounding the Charge.
I bite in and see all this for seconds, and it disappears--everything disappears into meat and beans and rice and rivers of dreams deferred and controlled and winding South through the city's organic landscape on trial for depravity.

So trivial, so lost!

Drifting down, drifting down, I am caught up in the current--going down Moses towards the bathing woman who will adopt and love me. A wife, a lover, a home, a finale.

Oh Caveat of Gambling against all those odds to see within!

1\5th to the Commonwealth, and the Rest to the Track!

In Southern California, and across the nation, there is a Christian radio station poignantly called "Air1 Radio." They are a radio-station run by the donations of customers (who probably feel that they can tithe to this corporation instead of their local church), and one that has brought up a point to me concerning Christian culture.
In 2004, I listened to this radio station with vigor, trying to be a good Christian boy. Sure, some of the songs got old, but I figured it would change, and it was not like it was the only radio station. However, by the end of that year, when I had realized that all the music was not very good, and that it all had the same homogenous faith in Jesus message (but faith is relative to the person, ye naysayers!), I stopped listening to this station. It got old, plain and simple. It got to be overbearing, bland, and downright silly. I took them out of my programmed radio stations, and have not listened to them much since.
What has happened though, is that, now, two years later, I can change to that station at any given time and, 9 times out of 10, hear one of the same songs I heard in 2004, as if there need not be new music since there is not a new bible, not a new message, not a new struggle--one faith under God. With songs that have been playing out their welcome for two years, with the same ideals being passed around, with the same voices being heard and new ideas not being acknowledged, the problem has pronounced itself:
There is stagnancy in the Christian church. The waves have stopped crashing against the sand, the undercurrent of thought has slowed to breaking.
Our faith is supposed to be living, it is supposed to be growing as we ask and seek and knock. The only reason Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians is because their faith was growing, not because their faith had grown and plateaued. It is true, yes, that faith does often plateau, but it is still supposed to be that we are to escape this mesa, and turn it back into a mountain.
But how are we to turn flat into angled when all life reflects society?
I guess it's time to call them out on this type of bullshit. No movement, no current, no waves, no truth.

Lost in the Rain in Juarez, and it's Eastertime, too.

There should be no need for bumperstickers of WWJD, no bracelets, nothing to pronounce your faith. No ticket stubs from new FoxFaith movies soon to be debuting. Christian faith is supposed to be the inside glowing out from every pore of your body, not an adornment on your body or on your car...

All those crosses, all those shirts, all those John 3:16 posters, all those amusements that loudly proclaim that "I have Jesus, and, if you did too, you could legitimately wear this kind-of-badass T-Shirt," all those things are just a ploy for the piety that the Bible calls us against. We're supposed to be humble like Jesus Christ, as Christians who are supposed to be Christ-like--humble even in the way we represent our faith. What starts as a whisper, often gains steam and becomes movement, but a shout often echoes off the canyons and dies away, much like a fad, much like The Passion of the Christ.

Syllogistic Reasoning for the Existence of God

If love is real, and if God is love*, then God is real.

*1 John 4:8

Success!

The first issue (of hopefully many) of We are all Serial Killers has been released for $5.99. Available through Lulu.com, the topics covered in this issue include politics and leftist theosophy (as well as premature ejaculation for all you lovers out there!)

The cover image is below!

I know the title is bleak, but it's true. If all sins are equal, then we have all committed murder: murder of people's dreams, murder of people's hearts, etc. We all kill though we are all called to love. We all are running from something (serial killers from the police, from our "dreams deferred"), and now you can no longer run from BUYING THE FIRST ISSUE!

A Certain Type of Madness

On the day that I write this essay, August 24, 2006, the United States of America is currently involved in a non-war: Operation Iraqi Freedom. We have been involved in this war for three and a half years and suddenly all the proponents are tiring. They were expecting a short war--since that is what operation insinuates: that whatever we doing under that euphemism will be quick, to the point, and we will have ejaculated, far removed and asleep by 2006.
But that has not been the case.

The case is that we are stuck in the mire, fighting for our own American freedom. Or at least that's what many supporters of the war--ahem, operation--have stated. We are fighting for all our liberties because these terrorists can take them away, we are fighting for Nationalist convictions.

A conviction that is often perceived as a religion.

It takes a nation, makes it sovereign, as a god, as an idol and compels its citizens to believe in its cause, be it strong as in the 1940's or weak as in our times. Nationalism is the true religion of a nation, making it to be supreme over all people, all laws, all decisions, all wills, all life.

The moment in our history when this type of National Sovereignty was the most evident was when, in 2001, the Patriot Act was passed which was, admittedly, a good move for the nation during a time of crisis, to keep the terrorists down via terrorism, but not a good move for the individual citizen since it collapsed many aspects of our rights for a period of time. At this point, Congress and the Senate had a lapse and forgot that each person matters just as much as national security--this was the reason why the Bill of Rights was created: to protect the individual rights before the state's protection, before the state’s rights.

When the Constitution was created, the emphasis because our Founding Fathers had come from backgrounds of monarchal oppression and saw how it destroyed the citizens and the individuals.

Nationalism does this same thing: it creates a godhead for everyone to worship, much like a metaphysical emperor. In that manner, then, nationalism is nothing but regressing back to the tyrannical days of the dictator and forgetting all we know about democracy.

In that vain, we come to religion. In Christianity, one of the underlying principles is the inerrancy of both the Bible and God--that both are without errors and holistically perfect--and nationalism and patriotism hold this same philosophy: that the government can do no wrong, that the nation can do no wrong, that everything done in Washington D.C. is completely God-bred and God-given.

What this point of view fails to realize is that the nation is nothing but a group of individuals comprised to think of the best for the soil and for its people, two different subjects. And since it is individuals coming together, there is always room for the human element, the human error, the accident.

Everything is for a reason, but an accident must create the purpose first.

Nationalists believe that the Nation, as in this group in Washington D.C., is without any sort of human error, any sort of fault--inerrant. As a result, religion must be removed from politics.

Now, it is obvious that secularity is an aspect of communism, but it is also one aspect that worked; without religion, there is no bias, no prejudice, no guilt about WWJD. Without religion in the government, there would be a furthering of stem-cell research and we would not begin to be surpassed by Singapore and China in this now-vital aspect of science.

There would be abortion, the allowance for the woman to say, "It's my vagina, let me make the decision."

But, even without religion, we would have ethics, and, apparently, ethics tells us that this is murder, that killing a second-trimester child is murder, that the child has no decision and therefore should not be allowed when in all reality, to flip the tables, a parent has no choice concerning whether or not their child will commit suicide. So should suicide be outlawed?

What if a woman wants to abort her baby at home with a wire coat-hangar and claim still-birth, Is that illegal? It's her vagina, her choice.

With a secular government, we would more and more be furthering the individual's rights because we would not be conscious of any sort of command by God in the Congress, which in and of itself, is absurd. God has no part in politics. He was on both sides of World War II, remember?

And if God is all about the individual, the personal relationships, should not politics be the same way, especially if it is constantly emulating God himself and sovereignty...? If God is all about the individual, why have we killed between 40 and 45,000 civilian Militiamen in Iraq?
In perspective, the only thing any sort of Middle Eastern terrorist has done recently (failed attacks and deserved shootings aside) is kill 3,000 in New York on September 11 of 2001, the most in any recent terrorist attack. 3,000 people and two collapsed buildings reminiscent of Henry Cameron's Dana Tower are the reason for the United States and its Affiliate companies killing in Iraq while only a meager 2,692 Americans have been killed. Therefore, taking the minimum of 40,000 Iraqis, we have a 37,000 death deficit. We have killed 37,000 more than anyone has in that region, 40,000 more than any Iraqi killed on "that fateful day." And, on top of that, almost 3,000 volunteers have died serving the country. The death tolls do not match up, and neither does the reason for being there:

No WMD's;

No act of God;

No Holy War;

No loss of freedom because of them.

All this nationalism has created an American Government’s pet project to spread its influence into that region of the world so that they can wear Tommy Hilfiger jeans and eat McDonald's hamburgers.

Just a capitalistic need hindered by a heavily unbalanced death count. Death for profit! Death to Capitalism!

(But if not capitalism, then what? If not greed and business and white-collar crime and scandal, then what? Communism failed. Fascism failed. Dictatorial systems failed. All other systems have failed. We cannot completely revamp John Locke. Perhaps we could tone it down, and vamp up another New Deal with Socialistic Programs to help the poor since when the poor get money they have to spend it somewhere. And then, in turn, we will continue the capitalistic attack on this Earth but with better intentions. But I digress.)

So, then, it must be the American Government that has removed our liberties that we are fighting to keep. Ahhh, yes—you knew we would reach this point: The Patriot Act: the most controversial legislation passed since Roe v. Wade was gaveled. Free-range, warrant-free wiretaps and record searches all done in secrecy.

Searching and wiretapping and stalking because of the fear of subversion.

Removing our liberties because it is war time, which is nothing new... But removing our liberties during an Operation that is built around protecting our liberties?

Oh my how paradoxical it all becomes!

...But not paradoxical all at the same time since it wouldn’t be paradoxical if we acknowledged, openly, that we were fighting for entrepreneurial gain in the region. If we finally admitted that it were for OPEC or for Coca-Cola or for Burger King, I would finally be okay with this war.

But, like the beginning of the Civil War, our president has to hide behind false idioms and reasons because not every Northerner wanted to free the slaves. Not every American wants the country at war.

Why can't the President just state Operation Iraqi Freedom is for the abolition of slavery?
Oh, wait. That is why we brought down Saddam Hussein...or was it paternal vindication...or was it oil...or was it corporate...or was it terrorists...or was it...

These Next Few Years

Currently pursuing this life plan:

Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy with the emphasis in Religious Studies

MA in Theology

Make Children\Procreate

Doctorate in Theology.

Make Money.


The Christian Existentialist's dream is quickly becoming a reality.

Kierkegaard, you're gonna have a run for your money.

What new mystery is this?

First in a month

Here I sit,

at a computer that is brand new,

one which I barely know...

Off to college!

Had to get one!

Oh bullshit,

it's a computer I don't really need,

and I know that... paper would have

and always has

sufficed.

But then again,

I'm a horrible

or

ga

ni

zer

and so maybe this can help me

make that

grade

that everyone

has their butt-cheeks squeezed taut over.

I'm not sure, though,

maybe I should have waited a week to determine the workload,

taken a day off?

no, not this early in the semester,

although this is when it’d be the simplest.

Get a syllabus,

do the work,

fuck'em.

Use Mordecai

(Maybe he shoulda been named ICHIRO!!! since it's branded Japanese.)

and live.

Get to seminary,

make some cash money

anally raping people out of theirs

at a consumer electronics store...

And finally reading the Fucking Sound and the Fury

Oh Faulkner.

Faulkner it all indeed.

...and I shake the Dirt from my Sandals...

Here's an interesting article my friend sent me-- I didn't write it. The guy who did (and credit is definitely due) is at the bottom--Robert Jensen.

There's a link at the end of one of the paragraphs (this one:http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2). Don't overlook it. It will shock you as well.

There is no freedom in war.


***

ZNet Commentary
Constraining history/controlling knowledge August 14, 2006
By Robert Jensen

One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.

By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.

Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.

So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed." That factual history, the law states, shall be viewed as "knowable, teachable and testable."

Florida's lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of U.S. history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on "the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy"), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

The fundamental fallacy of the law is in the underlying assumption that "factual" and "constructed" are mutually exclusive in the study of history. There certainly are many facts about history that are widely, and sometimes even unanimously, agreed upon. But how we arrange those facts into a narrative to describe and explain history is clearly a construction, an interpretation. That's the task of historians -- to assess factual assertions about the past, weave them together in a coherent narrative, and construct an explanation of how and why things happened.

For example, it's a fact that Europeans began coming in significant numbers to North America in the 17th century. Were they peaceful settlers or aggressive invaders? That's interpretation, a construction of the facts into a narrative with an argument for one particular way to understand those facts.

It's also a fact that once those Europeans came, the indigenous people died in large numbers. Was that an act of genocide? Whatever one's answer, it will be an interpretation, a construction of the facts to support or reject that conclusion.

In contemporary history, has U.S. intervention in the Middle East been aimed at supporting democracy or controlling the region's crucial energy resources? Would anyone in a free society want students to be taught that there is only one way to construct an answer to that question?

Speaking of contemporary history, what about the fact that before the 2000 presidential election, Florida's Republican secretary of state removed 57,700 names from the voter rolls, supposedly because they were convicted felons and not eligible to vote. It's a fact that at least 90 percent were not criminals -- but were African American. It's a fact that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic. What conclusion will historians construct from those facts about how and why that happened?http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

In other words, history is always constructed, no matter how much Florida's elected representatives might resist the notion. The real question is: How effectively can one defend one's construction? If Florida legislators felt the need to write a law to eliminate the possibility of that question even being asked, perhaps it says something about their faith in their own view and ability to defend it.

One of the bedrock claims of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment -- two movements that, to date, have not been repealed by the Florida Legislature -- is that no interpretation or theory is beyond challenge. The evidence and logic on which all knowledge claims are based must be transparent, open to examination. We must be able to understand and critique the basis for any particular construction of knowledge, which requires that we understand how knowledge is constructed.

Except in Florida.

But as tempting as it is to ridicule, we should not spend too much time poking fun at this one state, because the law represents a yearning one can find across the United States. Americans look out at a wider world in which more and more people reject the idea of the United States as always right, always better, always moral. As the gap between how Americans see themselves and how the world sees us grows, the instinct for many is to eliminate intellectual challenges at home: "We can't control what the rest of the world thinks, but we can make sure our kids aren't exposed to such nonsense."

The irony is that such a law is precisely what one would expect in a totalitarian society, where governments claim the right to declare certain things to be true, no matter what the debates over evidence and interpretation. The preferred adjective in the United States for this is "Stalinist," a system to which U.S. policymakers were opposed during the Cold War. At least, that's what I learned in history class.

People assume that these kinds of buffoonish actions are rooted in the arrogance and ignorance of Americans, and there certainly are excesses of both in the United States.

But the Florida law -- and the more widespread political mindset it reflects -- also has its roots in fear. A track record of relatively successful domination around the world seems to have produced in Americans a fear of any lessening of that dominance. Although U.S. military power is unparalleled in world history, we can't completely dictate the shape of the world or the course of events. Rather than examining the complexity of the world and expanding the scope of one's inquiry, the instinct of some is to narrow the inquiry and assert as much control as possible to avoid difficult and potentially painful challenges to orthodoxy.

Is history "knowable, teachable and testable"? Certainly people can work hard to know -- to develop interpretations of processes and events in history and to understand competing interpretations. We can teach about those views. And students can be tested on their understanding of conflicting constructions of history.

But the real test is whether Americans can come to terms with not only the grand triumphs but also the profound failures of our history. At stake in that test is not just a grade in a class, but our collective future.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org/. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .

The Philosophy of Comedy

We are in a room, taking a test. The first question on the fourth page, the first page of opinion-based questions (completely optional, so as to get a random sampling of those that are taking this test… We'll call it the XMAS exam), is thus:

Choose the MOST offensive sentence, (a), (b), or (c)

A) "that dumb nigger is just as stupid as any old kike. they're running this fucking place."

B) "you dumb cunt, where did you learn to fucking write like that? who the fucking hell taught you that kind of gutter language? my god are you a pussy or what!"

C) "god is dead."

To some it may have been A, the most racially offensive of the three; or B, the one with the most "foul language;" or C, the one that proclaims the death of one’s religious head. The point is that swearing is different to different people, more offensive to some than others, and other words more offensive to some than others.

I believe that swearing is a merely contextual pact between a person and his fellow man—the understanding that to some nigger may be offensive, to some spic, to some fuck, to some cunt, to some faggot. Not all offensive words are offensive to all people at any given time. For example, I'm not offended by any of the words in this essay.

But as it goes, because of color, derogatory terms like Gook or Spic or Slant-eye, or cracker or nigger or Jew may be offensive; because of stature, midget may be offensive; because of orientation, Faggot or Homo or Gay or Fag-boy or Nancy-boy may be offensive; to some, because of up bringing, shut up and stupid and Satan and liberal and democrat may be offensive; to a government official, Marxist or communist or sadist may be offensive.

Now were you offended by all those words? If you were, then you need grief counseling, because one word should not affect your entire day, that is just absurd. Sentences, sure, they can be offensive, but one word? "I hate you," has more weight than "I" "hate" and "you" alone, just as "fuck off" has more weight that "fuck" has alone or the phrase "go away" even. The only exceptions to this rule are the words in answer (A), derogatory words. I'm completely willing to allow anyone to go ape-shit on a racist—you have my blessing.

Another thought is in comedy--that great enigma where a person can get up on a stage and say anything they want. There are comedians who stake their career on the racially offensive like Carlos Mencia, who has had jokes about Holy Wars and Arabs owning 7-11's and the like; there are those like Dane Cook who stake their career on the stupidity of people; or even Dave Attell who stoops for laughs by utilizing the cultural sexual awkwardness when he talks about romantic masturbation and Glade Plugins making a bathroom smell like "Lemons and Assholes." The entire comedic philosophy is to "know your audience," that is: not all jokes will work with all audiences, that some audiences are more sensitive than others; and that's what I believe Paul was calling us to do in Ephesians 4:29 when he stated, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." According to their needs is the middle phrase, those words that are beneficiary. And, often, said curse words are not helpful but merely passing words to give time for thinking. Thus, the only universal curse words, for now, are derogatory terms, but even those are relative--we could list all the words for all the races in all the languages in all the world, and even then it wouldn’t cover sign language. Therefore, there is no universal derogatory statement either, only that which is known and used by regions and hemispheres.

Curse words are those four-letter English words that are supposed to be deplorable to all of American society. You know the ones. You know how they're used (ie: fuck the fucking fucker), and are these either beneficiary or derogatory or negative in any way? No. They're just cultural words that are inserted for fucking emphasis, or to describe the way some bitch was acting, or how God should damn something, or to insinuate rough copulation, or how shit's on your front porch, on fire or to describe a woman's vagina or how much of a cunt someone is or pussy or twat or dick.

Then why do we have an Federal Communications Commission that fines tens of thousands of dollars for what is offensive? It is a panel of presumable white, upper-class males who can only think of what they wouldn't say in front of children or in front of their friends on the golf course. But in all reality, should this decision be in the hands of a panel of government workers? Or should it be in the hands of the parents, the pastors, the congregation, the self? Although I am under the impression that all humanity is too stupid to know their face from their ass (myself included, I get them confused all too often), I still think that there need not be any social restraint--control their money, sure, tax them out the ass, but don’t tell then what they can and cannot watch! I mean, how many people really care about a TV-MA rating when it’s truly the advertisers that control the entire situation? On HBO, an additional-pay-channel, they can have a TV-MA show like "Carnivàle" and show full frontal nudity on a weekly basis, but a TV-MA show on basic cable like "South Park" dare not even say "fuck" even though they could show vaginas with that rating--why don’t they? because the advertisers would not support a show that people would consider pornographic--because the advertisers control the line. And on channels like ShoTime and HBO and Starz, there are no advertisers, and thus no line.

The FCC is bullshit.

Then you have to take into account that people are more sensitive to nigger than faggot, and why is that? Aren't they both on the same level--the same offense? If someone is born gay, and someone is also born black, then aren’t they of the same caliber of offense? There seems to be too much fucking emphasis on those tired colloquialisms that we don't take time to emphasize and teach about all racism--sure, I knew nigger was bad, but what about spic and faggot and gook? They're as obscure as discussing foreplay during the sex talk. Too awkward, let him figure it out on his own. The little cunt probably won't learn it until he at least 13. Then it's engrained, then it's cultural, then everything uncool is homosexual, then everything cowardly is vaginal, then everything tough and mean is phallic...

According to my needs as a writer, the common anachronism for the cocksucker with too much gall and too much self-loathing, I am supposed to point these things out. Not all swearing is bad, you know, just that which, if you adhere to Paul’s aphorism, does not uplift.

So, then, you've just gotta know your audience. And you're mine.

Little Miss Sunshine Review (Spoilers ho)

Last month, I went to see an Inconvenient Truth (another movie I can recommend, and not just because I'm some socialist cunt), which carried the trailer for Little Miss Sunshine. I was psyched to see it from the moment I heard Olive, the little girl, say that Steve Carrell's falling in love with a boy was "silly". I was hooked and, aside from the threat of global warming, it was all I thought about after the movie.

And so, hearing that it had opened this past Friday in Los Angeles (Wide release August 18th, about 600 theaters), I decided to drive the fifty miles into Hollywood to see it at the Arclight, quite possibly the best theater I've ever been too--totally worth the extra dollar-fifty to not see any cheesy advertisements or hear shitty music before the movie (take note AMCs and Regals). The ushers began to walk away, and then one went to the front and announced, personally, the whole "Silence your goddam cell phones" instead of the Cingular sponsored message on screen or those cheesy faux movie scenes that are "ruined" by a cell phone in the audience. Quaint, yes, but the whole personal touch of someone requesting it made me want to shut the fuck up that much more.

The trailers were forgettable, nothing about The Fountain, and I was too psyched about the movie at hand.

Then the movie began. 105 minutes of pure dark-comedy in its greatest form. Abigail Breslin, who plays Olive, performed wonderfully, as did Steve Carrell as a homosexual uncle who tried to commit suicide, but not about his own homosexuality--his whole explanation of his situation is rather sad but you can't help but laugh. The way in which this movie played out, not doping up on heavy subplots about morality and the acceptance of homosexuality or silence because of Nietzche or some shit about another girl that MUST be beaten, was a wonderful execution--all that was expected to dredge the movie was relinquished.

When Grandpa dies, and they sneak him out the window and stuff it into the trunk--that was gold. I was laughing my ass off along with everyone in the theater, then how they had to push the car to get it going out of there because they didn't have time to get a new clutch. Pure, unadulterated laughs.

When it all ties into when Olive dedicates her final performance to her grandpa, and when the announcer asks her, "And where is your dad now? Is he in the audience?" and she emphatically, happily replies (as if it's normal), "He's in our trunk." It was quite possibly one of the most contextually funny things I have ever heard.

Everything played off well, and I can't really think of anything that was done wrong. That's honesty. I've held off on writing this review so I could try and find something wrong with it. Nothing. Greg Kinnear played well as the determined asshole father who turns around and propels the movie with reason to why he's doing it.

Much better than the last Sunshine film I saw...that one with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey...

I guess it's simple: Get your ass to a showing of Little Miss Sunshine. (10\10)

mewithoutyou

and mewithoutYou at Cornerstone 2006, performing a new song, possibly their best yet:

Gentlemen

I had a justifiably inclusionistic (a term for a movement that acknowledges and accepts all known viewpoints pertaining to the origin and purpose of mankind, unless proven false by the scientific method) thought yesterday, and I figured I'd share it with you guys, at least you guys who are opened minded. If buddhists think that all people are part of God, and if Christ is God, then doesn't that mean that all Buddhists have Christ within them? If Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and he is within all Christians and Buddhists, then isn't Buddhism and Christianity the same save the reincarnation aspect? Perhaps we believe in the same deity and no one is willing to pronounce it?

Deeper, if all "enlightened (accepted Christ)" Christians are Saints, as it says in the New Testament (Ephesians 1:1), and if all enlightened Buddhists are then called Buddhas (working through meditation, investigation, and spiritual cultivation--much like all Christians go through before they accept Christ (Matthew 7:7-8)--are all Saints Buddhas and Buddhas Saints in God's eyes?

Is there justification for Christian reincarnation if all will have the chance to see God's salvation (Isaiah 40:5)? What patience must abound in the life of a tree of a thousand years!

With Love,

The Kiosk in my Temple is Shaped like Rosalynn Carter

I thought this was interesting. Pithy statements concerning how I feel about these subjects:

History: Events and Perspectives melding together to offer a caveat against what our future could become.

Organized Religion: The clitoris of modern society: that which stimulates and quickens our connection with God.

Marriage: The greatest form of linkage between two people; to be revered by-and available for all (yes, even the homosexuals.)

Sex: The carnal admittance the marriage bond.

Society: The allowance to deny who we really are.

Animals: God's creatures to be both eaten and cared for.

Earth: The whipping boy for life's capital gains; the bitch to GDP.

Economy: An easily manipulated facade that tells us where the money isn't.

Government: A necessary evil (oh how trite)

Global Warming: A trend caused by Economy, Earth, and Government.

Movies: Entertainment and..or education. To be good, you must entertain; to be cinema, you must educate.

Standardized Tests: Milk can be homogenized to remove bacteria; Public and Private Education cannot.

Music: All sound aleatoric, improvised, and composed.

Money: The justification for our actions.

God: The deity which knows..sees..thinks..contains all.

Dodgers' Baseball: Common ground that allows for actual conversation with my father.

Cynicism: Negativity grounded in Reality.

Holy War: Oxymoron; bullshit.

Love: Enigmatic reasoning into and out of what we think about another person; both a suffering and a blessing.

Amontillado!--I have my doubts

Art is completely selfish for me. I will never make movies for Production Houses or the MPAA. I will never write poetry or books for Publishing Houses. It is selfish. It is for me and my God. For me as release and for my God as praise for as vulgar as it gets, he will know it's all for Him.

Olmedo Saenz eats children

I was told just recently that I'm never at my worst in these blogs? Then my thinking kicked in: what is my worst? When I'm cynical and negative and passive and critically unaclaimed? No, that's every day. I spent most of my day at the beach quietly because I knew that anything that spilled forth would have been negative fodder strictly because the ocean water made me want to gag with fits of remorse. Hate hate hate. But, then again, Ernest Hemingway said it best, as observed, "Happiness in an intelligent person is the rarest thing I know." and Woody Allen to said, "To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness." We're basically fucked.

Weight. All this weight of all the epiphanies and all the truths that are always so covered up by our fucking insecurities. I'm laying it all out:
I'm an embarrassed, tired, dissonant, young man who has only live an overture to a life to come. And that life, too, will end close enough to the beginning. And then maybe I'll come back as a tree to live for two thousand years in forest only to be cut short by the logger's of tomorrow. Or I'll go to heaven...
"There's your karma, ripe as peaches."

The Dodgers lost tonight in the 14th against the Cardinals (3-2). Odalis Perez was allowed to pitch against Pujols. Bad decision, seriously very bad. Lost the game. What a wretch is that? Here's to a Padres' loss tomorrow.

With love.

Father--Yes, son?--I want to kill you.

People will drift in and out of your life. It's up to you to drag the outs back in and to push the ins out. Otherwise, all will drift.

And so I sit with a dirty feeling in the pit of my stomach--that feeling of loneliness that has often become ubiquitous of late. It's coupled with the recent realization that those which I met in High School are not the end-all be-all at all. I still have a solid 80 years of my life depending on medical discoveries, and I know that I will find new friends, have new relationships, become something new.

And last night, as I sat alone at the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 1201 showing, which was mostly teenagers and early-20's college-kid-can't-let-goes, I realized how much this detachment has taught to be an independent person... I don't have to put on pretensions for the sake of pretensions. I can be esoteric and okay with it because I know that I won't always be the same as they or even we... I don't have to wear my hair long with the mild flip while wearing the tight shirts and pants, accompanied by a girl. I don't have to always talk. I can just observe. I can feel the world so close as miles away--a detachment created for the sake of self-epiphany--to realize that the best is always yet, and the best as of late will be the worst as of 2016.

Fuck pretensions, is what I'm trying to say. Fuck trying to pull the outs back in... The drift upon the tide is what creates a person--or at least this person.

Maybe this stems from feeling like "the forgotten friend," the one never called back, the one that drifted out and wasn't pulled back in? And the wonder is that I'm okay with that. I'm okay with accepting the fact that large groups depress me, that modern Christians depress me, that people depress me. And this depression is naught but a blessing.

For so close is all so far away.

--
As always,
with love.

So Think me Naive

Metered Destruction of this Good Earth

I

If the Earth you chance to see

from a craft of cement and aluminum

You will view the key

of all the problems

As ants in the universe

we see the urban sprawl

as greatness though perverse

but the truth is that we crawl

II

Have we already reached our

apotheosis?

We suffer

in this the Oil Age,

Dissonant,

moving,

we have turned Eden east

and stated We desert you.

Cain was the ephemeral microcosm prophesy,

a progeny, a prodigy

the young devil that models

todays greatness

the backstabbers accelerando.

Oh if only tomorrows greatness

could warn

todays weakness

Why Cant it just be fixed?

theyd ask.

Weakness replies,

Were tricked! but fixing this Earth

is a daunting task.

III

Oh Mother!

Mother of Green and blue and brown and gray!

Mother of the air!

Mother of the sea!

Mother how have we forsaken you!

We fuck you in our factories,

push you up upon steel

and tear open your mussels

your cavities,

your labia folds,

and force our members in,

our Cain refineries,

our smog,

we ram into you with no desire

no desire but sin.

We fuck you dead as road kill

upon our highways,

driving you blind,

planting our asphalt,

cutting you face,

scarring you forever,

spewing carbon into your atmosphere,

leaving our seminal dust

upon your dying bushes

We fuck you from our lounge chairs

sucking out your energy

for a nominal fee

We fuck you, we fuck you,

but we never love you,

never send you flowers,

never apologize.

Mother Earth,

you are your childs Bitch,

raped and fucked so Freudian.

Oedipus would be proud,

Father time wont stop us because hes afraid,

and Father God is awaiting apocalypse

and now

IV

Flesh is not forever

and we are eating out alive,

sucking the color out of the ice.

This third planet will be the first to go

for the gas giants will whirl

and protrude,

expand,

explode out of haiku cocoons.

For the 1^st convector

will heat us and keep us

away its odd

time signature

melodica songs.

And the moon,

in a turn ironic,

will no longer be refuse,

but take in refuse

when sticks and stones

when human bones

chew apart war after war

and we knock knock knock on Saturns door.

There will always be a planet for us,

for in far off quantum Andromeda

lies the next populous victim.

V

We must love Mother Earth

the third planet,

for in its dying fatigue,

there is mirth,

theres debt,

there is need.

--

With love.

After this my Lungs'll be so fucked up!

In English class this past year, David Chernin posed the question to me, asking about poetry, of "Why can't a tree just be a goddam tree?" And I never had a viable reason why a tree just couldn't be a tree. It seemed possible since, y'know, a tree itself is great what with its cycles and its leaves and its life and its trunk and the trauma of the chainsaw; however, I finally have the reason why a tree isn't just a tree to poets.

I don't like the term poet, as an aside, it sounds too coffee-house cliche. But whatever. I have no choice. So, poets often deal in terms of those ineffable things in life--those things which cannot be described, cannot be made known by any language, except the language of imagery. A poet may see a tree in Winter and see the accumulation of his life: dead-for-now, threadbare, and either surrounded by dead grass or snow or mud or what you will. Any person can see these things in life, any person can think in similes.

Any person can think on a higher level, can understand themselves better, all they have to do is look out their goddam window. And that's why a tree isn't just a tree, David.

--
A Tangent: Go see An Inconvenient Truth. It's not as leftist, crazy, as you'd think it'd be...

Or boring, what with Al Gore being the lead and all. I absolutely loved it.
Go See it at the AMC Ontario Mills. It's playing there. But not the Victoria Gardens... It's under the little "AMC Select." Definitely worth watching. It even has some sweet previews.

--

Love,
Evan

An Observation

Today, I was sitting on our patio in the backyard that looks south towards the rest of Rancho. You can't see that, though, because of all the trees. Big trees, some Eucalyptus, some unknown, some Pine, you get the idea. Anyway, as I was sitting there, watching all this, there was an eastern breeze which is typical now this time of year.

The trees were swaying with the breeze, and birds were chirping and all that sappy stuff. But what I noticed was that everything taller than a blade of grass and less dense than a bush, trees and tall things and fruit, y'know, sways with the wind, sways with give and take of the wind, with non-resistance to the breeze.

But my house did not. It was stagnant, with no sway, no give, just stagnancy. No movement and no give to the greatness of the earth around, nothing. Just rigid, blatent, stubbornness.

I'm not a tree. I'm a house.

With Love.

I'm No Sort of Fabric.

I'm out $110.09. I'm going public with the whole book thing. Prelude to Postscript, formerly The Purple Calligrapher's Angeles Step is the title and that's the link. Uhm, it's different from TPCAS in that it has a different last poem, some extra revisions and an added poem I wrote entitled Shades of Blues. I italicized it because it's more like a novella. Goddam. It's this poem that was going to be a book, but I lost interest in it the moment the tassle went from left to right. It's about HS. and all the shit-crap I got my whore-ass into.

I spent 110.09 in order to get an ISBN and a barcode and to be put into databases used by Barnes and Nobles and Borders and Amazon. I have a copy in the mail which is so that I can revise anything that needs revising, and then from there I push. Push with self promotion. Things like putting a sign up on Posterboards in that Outdoor Sporting Store near Circuit City, putting posters up around the city, that kind of thing.

This is the first step in the long journey to me winning the Nobel Prize. That's my ultimate goal: to be put into the league of Hemingway and Steinbeck and TS Eliot and Faulkner and Beckett--or at least to be nominated and lose like F. Scott and Twain (who beat Mark Motherfucking Twain?!). I want to be that good, I hope to humbly place myself into the writing community as that blasphemous Christian with the religious undertones yet the harsh overtones. That kind of thing. But who knows, life is so phlegmatic and writing is so liquid that it could shift and shape any plastic bottle or glass vile I am in at that time, allowing my soul to echo in even the darkest caverns of the soul.

Fuck fuck fuck. Here's to hoping, here's to wishing, here's to Prelude to Postscript.

With love.

I'm just so close to my menstrual cycle that I could scream!

"After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs." - Annie Hall, 1977

So, okay. Self-mutilation comes in all forms, not just cuts--it comes in the form of relationships and bad decisions and trying to impress someone and all that neo-classical bullshit they call life.

Right now, though, the mutilation comes in the form of coping--coming to grips with the fact that no one wants to hire me and that it'll probably be another five to ten years before I even get considered for publication. I've applied at nine seperate places, some multiple times, and I haven't been hired yet. I'm probably doing something wrong, or I don't care enough. One of the two. It's probably the latter. I'll be honest, I just don't give a fuck about working a part time job, serving the wealthier-than-thou disillusioned peasants who of course need either the young or the mexican to do everything for them so as to feel like they are the ones caught in this caste of systematic "never-getting-anywhere-but-Rancho" thought process.

Uhm, I guess when the water is boiled, and the harmful bacteria is eradicated (maybe that shit that came out was high school), I'll be okay. We'll see. I'm just not gonna worry. I opened a savings account today. So that's okay too.

And I've still got God who himself said, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." No. Wait. That's not the detestable thing we're talking about--not worrying, that's detestable since to worry is to be human and to not worry about shit is caustic. However, the other Testament does state, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"

So, yea! Who of you, by worrying can add a single hour to their life?

Love is all I've got to give.

Honest to a Fault

So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, June 14th. The day which the class of 2006 graduates from Los Osos High School. And I sit and wonder, "Was it all me? or was it all God?"

I know the answer, that it was all God, because I don't think that I could have connected with such amazing people without him. I don't think my memories would be as sweet. I don't think I'd be as nostalgic right now. I probably would be able to sleep past 5:45. But it's like I'm a child going somewhere exciting. I can't sleep.

Nostalgic, terrified, and horribly morose, I rise to face this day so epochal and triumphant in my life. Milestone #1 of my adult life. It all starts today when it all ends, when everything that I know ends, everything I understand ends. It's staggering to think that perhaps the best years of my life are to come and are not behind. However, the best years of my 18 years of life have definitely been the last four. And it's all because of you guys--

You, who lifted me up, supported me as Social Atlas's, tireless pulling my world when I was down. You, whom I learned so much from. You, who molded and shaped the blunt edges of a man to come, a man to be. I am a reflection of every single g-ddam one of you. And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful I never succumbed to anger or hate or hermitage, passing up all that being sociable has offered me. I enjoyed laughing and joking and eating and dancing with you guys.

And now it's all over. And that's good. It never grew old and it was about to. It never grew out of my hands, and it was about to.

So it's over. And that I am happy for. I can go on to live my next 60 years of life with the sweetest memories of just who you all are.

And when we walk away from Grad Night unto the greatness of new life, carrying the weight of then-life, I will think of you and how you were bigger than me in my own life.

"never thought this day would come
you threw the bricks that built this wall
amantillado! at the top of your lungs.
and i cant hear you anymore"

Goodbye to all I love!

Sphinx of Aluminum

I've figured out why we're so fucked up. It's that when we get what our id desires, our ego wants our desires to happen faster. And our basic needs? Shelter, warmth, food.

Fast food is ruining our lives. We can walk into a warm shelter and satisfy our hunger in 10-15 minutes for a minimal price. Suddenly, we're satisfied. And we want want want to the point of non-contention, never satisfied. Our ego suddenly bursts with the thoughts of "same day delivery" and email and contact and reaching out with no lag. Seeking without really wanting, just seeking more and more for the sake of masking our boredome, for the sake of hiding the fact that we aren't supposed to satisfy the id in ten to fifteen minutes.

Fast food has tricked us into gluttony, tricked us into upsized combos and upsized desirous wants--I guess you could say that fast food causes many rapists to do what they do since they aren't willing to wade through a courtship to possibly get sex. They want it now now now, and they'll take it however they want. Same with pedophiles. Can't wait for the child to grow up. Take it now. Within ten to fifteen minutes.

There's still no justification for beastiality. No matter how much money it brings.

She'll never Stay as long as you still run

Is there a difference between Christian and Christ-like? I would think so even though Christian is supposed to mean Christ-like. But most Christians as of late succumb to darkness and non-camaraderie, non-brotherhood which Christ called us unto--to love God and one anothers above all else.

And so I must wonder, why aren't Christians often following their definition? Is it because it's just word? Because just the word does not define just the beliefs? Are we as Christians overly judgemental about people who swear or masturbate or are sick..tired..POOR..dirty..minority..lost (I am guilty of all.)? Do we treat others as we wish to be treated?

Or are we too bored with the Bible, God's patient timing, in our world of instant communication, instant answers, drive-thrus and countless, needless, medications? Are we drugged into a comatose state that allows us to just lay in bed, as Aaron mentioned in his blog posting from June 3rd, and allow the world to pass us by, when if you were to look out your window and see perhaps a tree and all the life it--oh. right. Out your window is a Wal Mart. Out your window is a billboard. Your window is a television.


If we were to just immerse ourselves in God's life, God's creation instead of the concrete malpractice of the suburbs, we could see and feel and think and know just what it is to be alive--just what it is to be loved by a God who created the infinite amount of stars and who loves little, finite, us.

Or are we waiting for God to come to us. For God to reach out and grab us. That only brings us so close for seeking is what will bring you closer--asking will bring you into his wings.

Let's go down to river to pray.

In Your World my Feet are Out of Step

So okay. This one's about God. He hasn't come up in awhile and that saddens me. Mostly because I haven't had any revelatory thought involving him for almost two years--until last night.

The lead singer of the band MewithoutYou was giving a sermon at Cornerstone 2005 () and in it he mentioned concerning the word God--that the G- Ah and the Duh are merely sounds that are the truest humanizing of a God we cannot understand. For in those three letters, there is no subtext, pretext or context that is wide enough, deep enough, tall enough, to describe who..what..why God is. And God is our greatest attempt for the word invokes revelry in something bigger. It invokes the thought that we aren't alone, that God is there. This is why I've come to the conclusion that the only true swear word is God for utilizing it incorrectly blasphemes all that it meagerly represents. The truth, though, is that no word however long or short can describe God in a box. We can say God is great, yes. But the truth is that God is. He just is. God is___. I mean, the word God enough is evocative enough to left the sentence a fragment, the tail end grammatically skinned away for trial and error in our seeking for what's beyond the is and inside the God.

John 6: 53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.'" Think about this. The Catholics take this literally with the Eucharist and that whole ministry which those not Confirmed cannot take part in (right? I could be wrong and that's okay too.) and the Christians do with occasional communion. However, think of the bread--his flesh. Jesus (Another word unable to fathom the God of man of God) is within us all and we are all within him. The terror is that the bread, the flesh, is made of wheat, that which we are, crushed and risen--much as in life we crushed, having tragedy and demise and morose sorrow carve out a hole for Joy and the joy of Christ God to fill. We are crushed and risen together, in heat and fire, and then given to be broken again in remembrance of just who God is. Dust to dust.
And the grapes, just as that, we are each one grape to be crushed underfoot in order to leave the juices--his blood--to ferment in waiting for us to become exactly what the blood of Christ is--his lifeline. We are to eat his flesh and drink his blood--eat each other in camaraderie, as one in the body of Christ, and drink each other as in camaraderie against all things sectionalized.

This brings us to the bureaucracy of Christ--the sects, the hierarchy of churches--and how it has pushed us away from the truth of God. John 9 is the story of a man born blind and made to see by Christ. The Pharisees, in this story, are the antagonists, the bad guys. However, in their day, they were revered as those that knew the most, thought the most, had their shit most together. However, this beggar, born blind into a leper's life of melancholy, is now the greatest witness to his friends about the power of God, the power of the Son of Man.
The leaders, those in suits and screaming at television cameras and congregations of thousands, reaching out and "healing" have created this bureaucracy, this rift, in God, forcing them to a life in Christ with the sole purpose of bringing others to the Cause--though our ultimate purpose is first to love God and second to love others, the rest should fall into place--and suddenly, we wonder why this world is torn.
Sometimes, it's those that don't have their shit together, their clothes on straight, they hair done nicely and their bible written upon, that have their shit together... For outer image does not reflect that which is inside. As MTV's show "Diary" states, "You think you know. But you have no idea." You got that right.

Monotheists and Polytheists alike should not be torn, but brought together in the true thought that God is so unfathomable that you may be right, I may be right, they might be right, we might be right. God is so inherently beyond our comprehension that perhaps it is that each philosophy of East, West, and Central is merely another interpretation, another side of the stratagem that is God. For no one is left out.

--
I am blind.

Blood on the Median like a Boat Without Oars

The detriment and sacrament of the Septuagint and the vile Torah! Torah! cry of the sweet graey skies of the lesser tomorrow.

With 13 days of High School left, I have to wonder whether or not I'm sad to be leaving or sad to be going... I wonder if I am afraid of life and what it holds for me and how I have to find a job and all that shit... I want to just write but I know that just writing will find me as a failure in the eyes of everyone--a hobo that lives with his parents and doesn't work. Appeasement, that's what it is--and oh how I've learned of that term!--and how I have to practice is to get anywhere in this facade we call Life and all its virulent consequential denials. To make money, you gotta have money. Vicious cycle.

Speaking of my writing, I've been re-formatting and retitling The Purple Calligrapher's Angeles Step in an attempt to get it ready for the next step which is to self-publish and mass produce. The new service I'll be using allows for my book to be sold at Barnes and Noble and Amazon and Borders et al, giving it an ISBN number and perhaps a chance for everyone who says they're going to buy my book to actually buy my book (except for you Max, you rule. And you'll get a free copy of the remade version for buying my book the first, albeit shitty, time around...)

So it takes money to make money and henceforth I need a motherfucking job.

nothing ever changes
except your scenery arrangements
in the affectionate hands of horsepower assault
you best keep your pants on, boy
behind the armor of fault
homeless makeshift triggers
you'll never walk again, you'll never walk again
-At the Drive-in - Shaking Hand Incision

I suppose we make plans in order to give us some sort of truth in our life, make it seems not so trivial or meaningless... We make plans to break plans, we are birthed to die. We are we Are. I believe that things are changing and will change, dear Brethren, and at the helm will be great new thoughts and ideas create by you and they and me and we. So strike forth and live with vigor!

Trashing Days

There's no such thing as proper grammar. There's no such thing as proper art. Books that tell you how to write are fallacies that try and homogenize vision, try and create a western block novel, trudging from plot point to climax to anti-climax, so as to dredge the human mind of all creativity.

We've all used MS Word, right? The little squiggly green lines. "Verb Usage" Fragment, consider revising." All those bullshit remarks that make it seem like you've made a mistake. Maybe they'd be correct if it were an academic paper, for then I can understand some sort of homogeny since you want a good grade.

The red lines tell you that you've spelled something incorrectly. So what if I make up words? Religiousity, Humanal, absurdism are all non-words that need to be words to me because they work better. Bending rules for art is not a sin, it's merely creating your own voice in a crowded world of shouting children so malnourished.

I'm so small, I can barely be seen! how can this great love be inside of me?

I don't need, I want.

I have all I need, dear friends and children of the God above, minions of the devil below. I have the food and water and clothing and warmth and all that necessitates.

I want, now. I want better food and water and clothing and warmth. I want the brand names and the Dasanis and the delicacies, the warmth that fires my bones. I want a passionate love. I want to become all that I am. I want to be as gritty as possible. I seek and evagelize for this Great God Above, the King of Kings who hath created both reverent and contemporary, created all living things both trees and cities--both living wars and living peaces.

I want I want I want. And to suppress this want in shameless humility, to hide my face naught from those that cower at the thought of not showering on the day-to-day in order to save water, to save energy, to save this good earth; to hide my thoughts naught from those that cower away from guilt and humanistic abysmal thought that is so so so intrinsic. I want to save the world since I need no longer. Birds of the air do not worry and we mustn't either. To worry about our Graces and whether we are dubutantes of society will kill all that is worth living for, all the bedrock which we live upon.

I have no great call nor commission--I have nothing save my wants above my needs. My head above my knees which can't seem to make it past my ankles...

One step inside

Materialism is the plight of the masses--the apotheosis of Americana. We as First World Children are bred to consume and to have two cars in every garage and be able to have water flowing through our pipes and electricity flowing through our houses. What some villages have in the ones and twosies we have by the millions.

I first realized this when I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, where a missionary family moves to the Congo and their American lifestyle and the American things they brought dissipate. We are gifted by profit and chain stores and cursed by the same sword. Our consumerism seems to have a takehold on us, and it has since Post-WWII. It seems as if we cannot remedy this since it is so engrained in our thinking. The hippies tried to fight it and I am trying to fight it now. One less shirt I buy is one more statement--one less brand I wear is one more statement. Maybe this is why I felt so ashamed when I got my new car--since I knew there were others out there who had no such luck, no such mind for such a thing.
For some aberrant reason, this may sound pious, or condescending, but it's the truth... For America to prosper it needs to regress, allow for clothes to fade and assimilate to our bodies. Allow for our materialism and our Television and our technology to not sink into our thinking or allow us to stop thinking... To not allow their plights and their spelling and grammar checks to be superimposed upon our writings... we as a nation, as a generation, as friends, must rise up against that which makes us American--that which makes us inhuman.

Prelude to Postscript

I hate people--at least now. Judgemental and vile , at least I only have one more month. I'm going to become a hermit, a recluse because I can't stand a lot of things. The drinking? Oh Christ, make them afraid. The gossip?

Frankly, I was expecting to come unto this creator and be blessed by the muse of God but I have been torn towards virulence. An opiate to satiate the copulation--you've broken my heart.

I want God. I want fear. I want life. I want stability. I'm funny and loud, yes, but the ballast has been offset and my boat is tipping aft.

I'll leave it to Bob Dylan:

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name

I just want away. To swim away.

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name

"If you paddle away you know we'll find, and put, you back in this vesicle colony of mute vernacular. No dramatic means of fencing against this solitary sickness as it precipitates gun flare shots firing into the armpit of this mecharest home. Because when it rains, you know it poors." -The Mongrel Tarants

Watch the Sunrise from the bottom of the Sea

So, okay, I just watched the movie Crash. So, obviously, this post is going to be about racism.

I don't understand the tension, seriously. I don't understand the stereotypes, the lies that supposedly ring true to a lot of people. For instance, that black people don't like country. Sure, I've never met one but I really do not doubt there are those out there who do. Our Asians that can drive. I am the living antithesis of this statement. I can't drive, I must be Asian. It's such bullshit that we have to suffer through. No one likes no one. And tension can become hyperbolic on screen, but the truth is that everyone hates everyone. We all have those intrinsic biases, don't we? I mean, think about it. What is the first thing when I say "immigrant?" Korean? Thai? Chinese? Fillipino? No. You, me, we, think Mexican. Because that's more prominent. And all Mexicans, then, must be immigrants. 11-12 million of them are illegal. Grant them amnesty! The race of Honkies that settled upon this land so long ago were illegal immigrants. And what did the Native Americans do? They taught us how to grow corn. So what did we do? We killed them. And then put the purpetrator on our $20 bill. What the fuck? And we say we have any right to keep these people out? They have every right to take on this land as we did then.

Oh but Evan the times have changed. Have they really? The World's a Little Warmer but no one ever changes. Nothing ever changes except for scenery arrangements. It took a war to gain this land from the Mexicans and I'm supposed to say no to them trying to reclaim the land that once was theres?

This is why I am a racist. Because white people suck. I am racist against the white people that think the Confederate flag is a symbol of Heritage. I am racist against the pseudo-all-American that will "never forget" and is thus hating upon those that are even remotely Arab. "Since when did Persian become Arab?"

It's absurd.

I understand that Racism is a touchy subject, but I know that I'm a cracker. I know that I'm a honky. I know that we are human. I know that we all have introspective lenses. So look within yourself and wonder what you've done to create this problem. And what you can do to fix it. Paul Haggis made a movie. What are you going to do about it?