You know what a premise is right? Here's one!
The theistic premise. I put it to you that:
1. God is infinite (this covers -potent, -present, -scient, all that omni- busines)
2. God is eternal (this covers prior-to-reality existence)
3. God loves me.
This, I put it to you, is the theistic premise. It is in accord with Orthodox Christian theology, which includes of course all your Roman Rite, Byzantine Rite, Russian Orthodox and Thousand Island Orthodox (but not Ranch Orthodox).
It is in accord with mainstream Protestant Christianity sects and denominations, including the ones you may have heard of such as Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, 7th Day Adventist, Methodist, Pentecostal and so on.
It is in accord with Mormonism and with the Witness of Jehovah - at least, according to the official representatives of these two religions, who have been sent around to tell me so.
It is in accord with Islam.
It is in accord with Judaism (in its organized denominations as a religion, I mean).
I say it's the theistic premise, because I characterize it as the strongest formulation of God's attributes that would be accepted by all but the most fringe branches of theism. In fact, I don't think there's a single point of any major consequence, impact or importance that you can add to those 3.
There could be some quibbles, of course, even with those three - but mainstream theism sees them satisfactorily resolved. Point 3 might be a stumbling block for some. Some people seem to distract themselves from the issue with accusations of what hypothetical members of this or that specific religion might have to say about that: about God loving me. Some people will say "Well, a person of Religion X, or Religion Y, or Religion Z would claim that God HATES you Joe! because blah blah blah."
But in practice, any actual person of Relgions X, Y, or Z that they can produce always affirms point 3 in principle, and declines to speak for God's proposed hatred of me, specifically.
Which is a wise move. Because not quite universal enough to make a point 4, yet very very strong and prevalent nonetheless, would be this point: God is the judge of my soul, and you are not.
A lot of people claim to have a problem with religion. In my experience, what they usually have a problem with are its inessential aspects: the ways in which people use faith to bludgeon others with their own judgment, which is in fact not God's judgment. The ways in which people use faith as a "wall of answers" between them and any need to examine self, reality, or where the two intersect. The ways in which people use faith wrongly.
I have that problem with religion, too: a problem with its misuse. I also have a problem with people saying they have a problem with religion, and it turns out the only problem they have is that religion is not being followed. They object to the behavior of people - leaders and followers, but humans - who are acting against their own religion's core, stated, public tenets. That's like blaming the Geneva Convention for not being followed.
Whenever I have a conversation with a theist or an atheist about God, sometimes it is helpful and refreshing to break it down to the most basic level of: what precisely we are talking about. Are we talking about God? Are we talking about the aspects of God that pretty much all theists agree on?
Or are we talking about the bull shit that certain fragile, insecure, childish human beings spew at each other, and then say it's God's fault, God backs them up, God hates you too, God absolves me of this bull shit which I myself can neither defend nor understand?
Usually the answer is "B." But those "A" conversations can be pretty cool too.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Only Way To Prove Me Wrong
The only way to prove me wrong today is to hand me what I need to be right tomorrow.
Reality does take a day to sink in, or so. Sometimes.
Reality does take a day to sink in, or so. Sometimes.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Hey, It's Bruce Springsteen!
Bruce Springsteen is a good guy. I met him one time, he was on MTV, I was watching - he was like "Hey, man! How are you - listen to this song I wrote." I was like "Hey Mr. Springsteen holy shit!" and he was kind of like, "Bruce or Boss, please - I ain't your mister!" Which, I had a good laugh on that - it was so him, and down-to-earth.
Albeit please note, he didn't say that - he was just kind of like that. That was what he was like.
A certain twinkle in the eye and tug of the corner of the mouth to indicate that characteristic humor and humility of his, and to give me as if to know, "step off on the 'mister' bit and no need to 'sir' me, either!" So I was like, "Bruce it is, boss! I've never been the hugest fan of your music (possible overosmosis from being from Jersey) but you always seemed like a real decent dude, and I've been happy to wish you the best and to see success come to you."
I'm not sure how he took that, he was pretty focused on that song. I think he was just like, he seemed like "Hey man that's cool, but how about this song I'm playing right now." And he had a point: it was a good one! Not brand new, it was sort of middle-late classic period Bruce. It was from that Human Town Lucky Touch double album era. I believe the name of this song was "Shut Up and Listen to This Song (Now Buddy)."
Huh. Maybe this whole thing was a dream. Now I'm starting to think it was a dream - I just looked up and there's no song like that on either one of those double albums.
Ahhh, it was probably Tunnel of Love.
Albeit please note, he didn't say that - he was just kind of like that. That was what he was like.
A certain twinkle in the eye and tug of the corner of the mouth to indicate that characteristic humor and humility of his, and to give me as if to know, "step off on the 'mister' bit and no need to 'sir' me, either!" So I was like, "Bruce it is, boss! I've never been the hugest fan of your music (possible overosmosis from being from Jersey) but you always seemed like a real decent dude, and I've been happy to wish you the best and to see success come to you."
I'm not sure how he took that, he was pretty focused on that song. I think he was just like, he seemed like "Hey man that's cool, but how about this song I'm playing right now." And he had a point: it was a good one! Not brand new, it was sort of middle-late classic period Bruce. It was from that Human Town Lucky Touch double album era. I believe the name of this song was "Shut Up and Listen to This Song (Now Buddy)."
Huh. Maybe this whole thing was a dream. Now I'm starting to think it was a dream - I just looked up and there's no song like that on either one of those double albums.
Ahhh, it was probably Tunnel of Love.
Yes. I believe you could.
If you tell a "yo mama" joke to a famous world-class cellist could you call it a "Yo Yo Yo Ma Mama Joke"?
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Roy, Jan and Todd in: "Again With The Euphemisms"
Jan: "Well, they're the parents. They're doing all of the raising and all of the parenting, they're the parents. I don't like the term 'biological parents' - it feels to me like it's some kind of dig that undercuts parents who adopt."
Roy: "Yes, but the child is also yours, right? I mean - you are the biological parents. What do you two use to describe that?"
Todd: "Cockfather and pussymom."
Jan: "Yep."
Roy: "That's what you call yourselves? You are the...?"
Todd and Jan: "...cockfather and pussymom."
Jan: "He's the cockfather."
Todd: "Yeah."
Roy: "Well wait a minute. What does that make the kid?"
Jan: "Well...an embryo, initially."
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Ask A Question, Get An Answer #1: "How Do You Have So Many Words?"
Okay. This isn't some program I conceived of and then put into practice, per se. It's more something I figured out after-the-fact, sussing out my own operating methods, my habitual and instinctive modes. But wow - either way, it totally works.
1. I think about what I mean all the time, because it's kind of cool sometimes to do (plus it puts me to sleep like a baby at night). I notice some weird edge of opinion sticking out: it doesn't fit? Or does it? SMASH! Poke. Wiggle, pry loose? Pull out, examine, turn to the light, rotate. Slide back in, at a new or perhaps reconfigured angle! Or even: (gasp) discard. People: be absolutely ruthless with your opinions. You owe them no loyalty. Their job is to serve you, in your effort to make the world work within your head.
2. I mean the CRAP out of what I mean. I mean with great force and eager earnestness, I mean with great fluidity where reality suddenly presents a new course, through which what I mean must flow. For areas where I have no particular ideas in mind - they are usually very interesting, and I am all over them with curiosity and interest! For many things I will hold several ideas in my head and not yet have a means to decide between the two or three. This is called "skepticism." A useful tool: but don't let it rule you.
3. I read a shitload of good writing, which puts a shitload of fuck-all top notch words and a whole range of different ways of expressing them at my fingertips. A lot of the time, if you were say psychopathically attuned to what I'm a-doin'...I have occasionally had people call me on it, on whether I've just been reading Tolkien or Poe. People: there is only one piece of meaningful advice for anyone who wants to learn to write in English: read masterfully-written English. Always keep a very good dictionary hard by as you read. Always look up any word you do not totally get. Worried that will break your flow? Look the word up. Learn it. Then skip two pages pack and proceed forward from there. Don't be such a wuss! A good book's hold on you is not so fragile as all of that. But the main thing you are reading for is not to catch the words, but the music. Take it in, assimilate it. The more you steep in it, the more will seep into you.
For God's sake, though, tone it down a little on the way out! Assimilate, don't regurgitate. Use the best of available palettes and styles to hone your own voice. Don't be some stupid-prose-trick artist doing impressions, or boring everyone to shocked silence with grandstanding stunts. Leave that to me. Leave that shit to the stereotypical "artist" doing it "for himself or herself" i.e. a self-involved jerkbag who could care less about how he comes off to the reader. Don't aspire to that! Be more than that, please.
And while we're talking about what not to aspire to: allow me to lay it out. Don't be a novelist. Don't be a humorist. Don't be a stylist. Don't be an artist.
Don't even be an author. Be something better than these. Be a writer.
There is no higher calling for a creator than that. But then, I'm biased. I'm an oil painter.
So anyway, that''s it! Between #1, #2 and #3, I have a ready supply of sentiments I feel passionately about, and a wide array of words in which to give them form. Anybody can do it! It's not necessary that they come off like some kind of ASS HOLE. That's just my style - but others will benefit by couching their words in their own. Still. However you execute, this same basic program will work a trick for you too!
Think about what you mean. Mean it as hard as you can.
Those two will give you things to say.
And read great writing. As much as you can. Steep in it.
That will give you good ways to say whatever you have.
1. I think about what I mean all the time, because it's kind of cool sometimes to do (plus it puts me to sleep like a baby at night). I notice some weird edge of opinion sticking out: it doesn't fit? Or does it? SMASH! Poke. Wiggle, pry loose? Pull out, examine, turn to the light, rotate. Slide back in, at a new or perhaps reconfigured angle! Or even: (gasp) discard. People: be absolutely ruthless with your opinions. You owe them no loyalty. Their job is to serve you, in your effort to make the world work within your head.
2. I mean the CRAP out of what I mean. I mean with great force and eager earnestness, I mean with great fluidity where reality suddenly presents a new course, through which what I mean must flow. For areas where I have no particular ideas in mind - they are usually very interesting, and I am all over them with curiosity and interest! For many things I will hold several ideas in my head and not yet have a means to decide between the two or three. This is called "skepticism." A useful tool: but don't let it rule you.
3. I read a shitload of good writing, which puts a shitload of fuck-all top notch words and a whole range of different ways of expressing them at my fingertips. A lot of the time, if you were say psychopathically attuned to what I'm a-doin'...I have occasionally had people call me on it, on whether I've just been reading Tolkien or Poe. People: there is only one piece of meaningful advice for anyone who wants to learn to write in English: read masterfully-written English. Always keep a very good dictionary hard by as you read. Always look up any word you do not totally get. Worried that will break your flow? Look the word up. Learn it. Then skip two pages pack and proceed forward from there. Don't be such a wuss! A good book's hold on you is not so fragile as all of that. But the main thing you are reading for is not to catch the words, but the music. Take it in, assimilate it. The more you steep in it, the more will seep into you.
For God's sake, though, tone it down a little on the way out! Assimilate, don't regurgitate. Use the best of available palettes and styles to hone your own voice. Don't be some stupid-prose-trick artist doing impressions, or boring everyone to shocked silence with grandstanding stunts. Leave that to me. Leave that shit to the stereotypical "artist" doing it "for himself or herself" i.e. a self-involved jerkbag who could care less about how he comes off to the reader. Don't aspire to that! Be more than that, please.
And while we're talking about what not to aspire to: allow me to lay it out. Don't be a novelist. Don't be a humorist. Don't be a stylist. Don't be an artist.
Don't even be an author. Be something better than these. Be a writer.
There is no higher calling for a creator than that. But then, I'm biased. I'm an oil painter.
So anyway, that''s it! Between #1, #2 and #3, I have a ready supply of sentiments I feel passionately about, and a wide array of words in which to give them form. Anybody can do it! It's not necessary that they come off like some kind of ASS HOLE. That's just my style - but others will benefit by couching their words in their own. Still. However you execute, this same basic program will work a trick for you too!
Think about what you mean. Mean it as hard as you can.
Those two will give you things to say.
And read great writing. As much as you can. Steep in it.
That will give you good ways to say whatever you have.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Like Little Lambs, Safe From Harm
Enjoy it while you can - I wish
I could have held my tongue.
When you're in love, the world moves with you.
When you're in luck,
you carry it with you.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
On-Time Concert Reviews #4: Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Tuesday, February 28th Rio Theater Santa Cruz, CA
First, let me say: I came into this show with a wrong idea. Ladysmith Black Mambazo? I don't know what a Mambazo is, but to me "Ladysmith Black Mambazo" sounds like "the Black Men of Mambazo who Shape Ladies to their Will" like a goldsmith shapes gold to his will, or a silversmith shapes silver. And you guys know, I'm a feminist! A hard, cruel feminist, so I'm like "Ladysmith Black Mambazo don't you DARE marginalize and diminish my comrades in the solidarity of the oppressed (from across the gender divide true, yet united in the cause of opposing the aforementioned oppression!) by saying as if to say 'oh yes, the ladies, we shape them to our will as if they were pliant and heated base and precious metals, quickened to near liquidity in the forge of our hot harmonies and hammering rhythms which they dig so much,'" - that sort of attitude is abhorrent to me! That sort of implication, as if the "ladies" are but material to be "smithed" upon one's tools, except it turns out - guys, I was wrong about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I came in there with a wrong idea, and they opened my eyes to that in this show.
Apparently, "Ladysmith" is just a town in South Africa near where they're all from. The guy mentioned that in passing, then it all kind of came clear for me: the trail of oppression. Probably the town was named by some damn white people, always with the patriarchy, trying to smith them ladies to their will, naming towns, et cetera. Many and multifarious are the tools of the oppressor! But let me tell you, this Ladysmith Black Mambazo outfit, they seized that seemingly-oppressive sobriquet and reclaimed it, and repurposed it, subverted it such that in so doing, they robbed it of its power or maybe, just its bad power. And filled it back up with a better power.
You have to admit, it's a pretty kickass band name. It has a ring to it!
This is a perfect example of why I say: #1, always go into a concert with an open mind. You got to give a band a chance to shine, and to blow you away and your preconceptions as well and maybe - if you're lucky! To enlighten you some. Some "consciousness-raising," - which they sure did for me! And #2, never turn down a free show somebody invites you to, unless of course you had prior plans.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, man. I tell you, having now seen them first-hand, whatever ladies they get I am sure it's consensual, and well-deserved. And I'm sure the act itself is a mutual celebration of the fullness of each other's totality and being and stuff, because you could just tell with these guys, how they shake it. They give good value! And all I did was see them perform songs. They strut their stuff let me tell you! I love a showboat. If you've got it then you got to strut.
Anyway, that goes to show maybe a little lesson for you readers as well! Not all feminists are prudes you know. It's not necessary to oppose oppression and fight patriarchy by denying the natural totality of one's own being.
Takes a hell of a band to put on a hell of a show to teach a dude like me a lesson like that, although, okay I guess I kind of knew that already in spades but fuck - some lessons are worth relearning.
As many times as it takes.
Thank you for tonight's lesson, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
First, let me say: I came into this show with a wrong idea. Ladysmith Black Mambazo? I don't know what a Mambazo is, but to me "Ladysmith Black Mambazo" sounds like "the Black Men of Mambazo who Shape Ladies to their Will" like a goldsmith shapes gold to his will, or a silversmith shapes silver. And you guys know, I'm a feminist! A hard, cruel feminist, so I'm like "Ladysmith Black Mambazo don't you DARE marginalize and diminish my comrades in the solidarity of the oppressed (from across the gender divide true, yet united in the cause of opposing the aforementioned oppression!) by saying as if to say 'oh yes, the ladies, we shape them to our will as if they were pliant and heated base and precious metals, quickened to near liquidity in the forge of our hot harmonies and hammering rhythms which they dig so much,'" - that sort of attitude is abhorrent to me! That sort of implication, as if the "ladies" are but material to be "smithed" upon one's tools, except it turns out - guys, I was wrong about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I came in there with a wrong idea, and they opened my eyes to that in this show.
Apparently, "Ladysmith" is just a town in South Africa near where they're all from. The guy mentioned that in passing, then it all kind of came clear for me: the trail of oppression. Probably the town was named by some damn white people, always with the patriarchy, trying to smith them ladies to their will, naming towns, et cetera. Many and multifarious are the tools of the oppressor! But let me tell you, this Ladysmith Black Mambazo outfit, they seized that seemingly-oppressive sobriquet and reclaimed it, and repurposed it, subverted it such that in so doing, they robbed it of its power or maybe, just its bad power. And filled it back up with a better power.
You have to admit, it's a pretty kickass band name. It has a ring to it!
This is a perfect example of why I say: #1, always go into a concert with an open mind. You got to give a band a chance to shine, and to blow you away and your preconceptions as well and maybe - if you're lucky! To enlighten you some. Some "consciousness-raising," - which they sure did for me! And #2, never turn down a free show somebody invites you to, unless of course you had prior plans.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, man. I tell you, having now seen them first-hand, whatever ladies they get I am sure it's consensual, and well-deserved. And I'm sure the act itself is a mutual celebration of the fullness of each other's totality and being and stuff, because you could just tell with these guys, how they shake it. They give good value! And all I did was see them perform songs. They strut their stuff let me tell you! I love a showboat. If you've got it then you got to strut.
Anyway, that goes to show maybe a little lesson for you readers as well! Not all feminists are prudes you know. It's not necessary to oppose oppression and fight patriarchy by denying the natural totality of one's own being.
Takes a hell of a band to put on a hell of a show to teach a dude like me a lesson like that, although, okay I guess I kind of knew that already in spades but fuck - some lessons are worth relearning.
As many times as it takes.
Thank you for tonight's lesson, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Actual Exchanges #14: yup, it takes guts
A: Why do you always eviscerate yourself?
me: Because I've got GUTS.
A: It doesn't take guts to...
A: ...you asshole.
me: Because I've got GUTS.
A: It doesn't take guts to...
A: ...you asshole.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday theology God blog post: actual rant tangent, best as I can recall!
"?!?! Hell what? Are you - ? What do you even... ...!
Do I strike you as someone who is afraid of punishment?
Look, hey, I'm not saying I'm above or immune to it! If there's punishment coming, I expect it and I expect it to be just. I do not expect to find it just. I expect it will be just. Or what does trust mean to you?
It, judgment, will not be coming directly - as punishment and reward have not been and are not doled out upon me, in this life. When the full extent of the judgment upon me is made clear to me (oh, not to say I haven't got my own wistful suspicions along those lines already! Let those be. They're idle speculations, and I do not act on them. I'm not the judge either, after all), I will take what's judged. I will take what is judged by the singular, non-incompetent judge of me - in all of existence, we all have precisely 1 of those. Which...no offense, you ain't mine. And if punishment it is, then punishment it shall be. And I will take my punishment, not like a man, but like a child.
I will do what I can to understand it. It may not make sense to me. I will know whether it does once I am given full and definite knowledge of what it is - the judgment upon me (a subject again, upon which I have strong suspicions, but concerning which I quite literally "suspend judgment").
But to be afraid of punishment? To be afraid of punishment from one you know and love, and who knows and loves you, and who you know to be the only possible non-incompetent judge of you, in all of existence - to fear punishment from one who is not only all of that, but who even beyond that: is someone you know to be perfect in judgment and mercy.
To be afraid of judgment in those conditions seems...bizarre. It sounds, frankly, like you either must have fatal doubts as to the judge, or if you doubt not the judge, than you must have grave doubts as to the one judged. As to yourself. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I trust the mercy of he who is. To me, for me to fear judgment would be for me to have indulged too far my morbidly-hypothetical imagination's taste for incomprehensibly worse-than-worst case cases.
Which is fine! No worries, indulging a bit of morbid and curious silliness. That phantasm vanishes in a flash when you relax and settle back: into trust. There's precious little I will trust more than I trust God's mercy and judgment. And that means: if punishment comes, I will trust it to be justice.
Augustine put things a funny way, which I think was wrong, actually. A false dichotomy. He said (and this part's true enough!) that none of us deserved salvation. Sure. How could we? What could we in ourselves do to deserve, earn, be entitled to salvation? No action that we take in this cosmos is sufficient to create that deserved extra-cosmic, beyond-eternal place for ourselves. But the absence of deserved salvation does not imply we have therefore earned punishment.
Augustine made no bones about the fact that each of us was so intrinsically wretched that we did indeed deserve hell. Yet salvation is a completely different thing from punishment. They are not opposites on any sensible scale. Paradise is not the unavoidable consequence of not being tortured, and though we may say pleasure and pain are opposites, it is not an either/or dichotomy where you must either have one, or you shall have deserved the other. Poppycock, sir. Why, when one is in torture and imprisonment, merely to be released would seem the diametrical opposite - a paradise, just to be set free. Yet salvation is far more than that. Salvation - which I would define as the postmortem continuation of one's individuality in the bliss of perfect oneness with God - "
Then I kind of stopped. Got this real faraway look and forgot where I was going with that. Because what an awesome definition of salvation! So idiotically clinical and precise. I could define that ALL DAY, and just sit there listening to the world through those echoes.
Point is, no offense to St. Augustine, but I think he went a little heavier on the pronouncements-of-judgment side than he was truly entitled to go. He damned us all, which was not his call, and then he deigned to allow God to make such exemptions as God chose. Mighty white of you, Auggie!
I might have to have a word with him about it later. HE WAS AN AMAZING DUDE, though. Somebody made a case that he invented the autobiography, in our modern sense of a book whose subject is one's self - and not simply an account of things done or witnessed.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Okay. Apologies for the Poem. It Won't Happen Again.
I can see how if I'd just come back from martini time, I can see I might accidentally post a poem on the regular, NON-POEM BLOG. But it seems a bit thin to make that mistake when you're only heading out toward martini time. Alcohol doesn't intoxicate in the contemplation!
Anyway. Apologies for that shit. Poetry does NOT belong on here.
It belongs: on here.
Those of you sick fucks who like poetry or worse/better yet, think you can write that shit, I don't advise you to hit my "random poem" button too many times. Poetry's a nice catchall for failed songs for me, and that's all it is. It's not my goal as a poet to make your jaw hang increasingly open, your eyes sting from not blinking and leave you after fifty or so in a row ready to chuck it in, shut your machine down and turn away slouching off to lie down crumpled up fetally on the couch, never to bother again. Keep going, yours is as good as mine on some scale!
What you have to understand is, people say everything's relative, all values are subjective and there are no absolutes. No reason for you to put value judgments on your shit just because of mine.
Anyway. Apologies for that shit. Poetry does NOT belong on here.
It belongs: on here.
Those of you sick fucks who like poetry or worse/better yet, think you can write that shit, I don't advise you to hit my "random poem" button too many times. Poetry's a nice catchall for failed songs for me, and that's all it is. It's not my goal as a poet to make your jaw hang increasingly open, your eyes sting from not blinking and leave you after fifty or so in a row ready to chuck it in, shut your machine down and turn away slouching off to lie down crumpled up fetally on the couch, never to bother again. Keep going, yours is as good as mine on some scale!
What you have to understand is, people say everything's relative, all values are subjective and there are no absolutes. No reason for you to put value judgments on your shit just because of mine.
invisible hour
it's time to sip a sweetly sick and bitter cold clear triangle
that's held upright on stem of glass, with stick of wood
through olive hole
straight through the red pimento man "hey!
there's a little guy in here!"
have 1 more? Yes, I can
for sure, I think
it's getting cool in here
that's held upright on stem of glass, with stick of wood
through olive hole
straight through the red pimento man "hey!
there's a little guy in here!"
have 1 more? Yes, I can
for sure, I think
it's getting cool in here
Noir, Huh?
That big, raw-handed man was nobody's idea of a detective. His long-chinned jutting jaw, ever-so-slightly concave in the sides like a squeezed horse-shoe, led him from point to point through every case on a path that had less to do with investigation than with blind hunch, bluff, and gall - barely mitigated by a certain honeyed insouciance. Yet as often as he plunged in without a prayer's worth of evidence or probable cause, there was no denying his improbable knack for accusing the right person, and his talent for bulling that person into the wrong place and wrong time, a tight and inconvenient corner where he could break them down at his leisure with always a convenient witness at hand, to witness the big reveal. This is the story of how he got that way.
Little Johnny Creuss, they used to call him. But the "little" was somebody's idea of a funny joke. Even then at the age of oh, say, two months old, he was a big little man, a happy big baby, and his feet were like hams. Big hams with little piggy toes! Aw, look at de little hams. Aw, look at de little hams! Those aren't little hams, those are big hams! Those aren't little hams, those are big hams.
Anyway, I guess he got kicked around in school a little, fell in with a tough crowd, fell out with the tough crowd and had to forge his way right straight through and against them, won the pissing contest, lost interest in the academic questions, dropped out, learned some vital survival skills in a series of weird jobs ("weird," not to say "odd"), noticed with a dull shock of awareness that he was a grown-up now and had better get down to some business, failed at it, fell accidentally into the shamus game trying to help out a no-good dame he knew and in the process, discovered a lucky streak that hasn't quit on him since.
Aw, look it the dimples he's still got. Aw look it the dimples he's still got!
Little Johnny Creuss, they used to call him. But the "little" was somebody's idea of a funny joke. Even then at the age of oh, say, two months old, he was a big little man, a happy big baby, and his feet were like hams. Big hams with little piggy toes! Aw, look at de little hams. Aw, look at de little hams! Those aren't little hams, those are big hams! Those aren't little hams, those are big hams.
Anyway, I guess he got kicked around in school a little, fell in with a tough crowd, fell out with the tough crowd and had to forge his way right straight through and against them, won the pissing contest, lost interest in the academic questions, dropped out, learned some vital survival skills in a series of weird jobs ("weird," not to say "odd"), noticed with a dull shock of awareness that he was a grown-up now and had better get down to some business, failed at it, fell accidentally into the shamus game trying to help out a no-good dame he knew and in the process, discovered a lucky streak that hasn't quit on him since.
Aw, look it the dimples he's still got. Aw look it the dimples he's still got!
Your Direction Is Nowhere
But here.
Wow: most useful You-Tube Comment Ever?
Verse C F quickly to G Then Back To C
Where is your direction? Am C F
Chorus: G Am F
Thanks, HaveYaMetMickyC!
Come back, Chief.
Wow: most useful You-Tube Comment Ever?
Verse C F quickly to G Then Back To C
Where is your direction? Am C F
Chorus: G Am F
Thanks, HaveYaMetMickyC!
Come back, Chief.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Dear World,
Please sing this song to me, I will call your bluff. Hoo boy do I.
I love my labels. I love that all of those labels were right in there waiting!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Hey, Am I About To Get Put On A Watch List?
In the U.S., the right to privacy is not an enumerated right. It's presumed to come in under Big #9 of the first 10 amendments ("The Bill Of Rights").
That's a very funny Amendment, by the way! If you haven't ever perused it, you should look it up. Guaranteed giddy grin material. At least, for me it is - every dang time! You can read it, and read it again, and think about it for several minutes straight, and just shake your head and grin - if you're of a certain mindset. It is a masterpiece of understatement. The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States raises the obvious to performance art - and centuries before Marcel DuChamp, thank you very much.
Wouldn't that have been awesome if Marcel DuChamp had been a legislator? And born about centuries earlier? And a rebel American - part of the Continental Congress? Well if he had been, he would have written the Ninth Amendment. (What cheek there, by the way - "Continental" Congress! Did you catch that? The party line on manifest destiny is that it didn't start really grinding and whirling its scythes and gears until Jacksonian times or so, but bullshit I assure you: Jefferson, Madison, Franklin. Okay, Washington could have given a shit, but everyone else on that shit-stripe of land was already convinced they owned it all plus everything Westward! Fuckers)
(Well, come on - they did fuck. They must have! Or whence the Daughters of the American Revolution, elsewise? No insult to patriotism, there. Fuckers)
Where was I? The Right to Privacy, so-called. Well, let's look at it on the face of things. Let's examine it on merit.
I put it to you: hard would it be indeed, the job of the government which undertook to show sufficient cause to deprive or infringe upon the privacy of a constituency of free citizens. Hard going. Very easy, on the other hand, to say "well we have not specifically granted you that right." But so what?
I support violence. Bloodshed. And revolution, in one case and one case only: the case of a government which denies citizens their due human rights without being able to show just and sufficient cause. And shut your yaps, ye Libertarians! Just and sufficient cause, in any actual and literal case of real people and actual actions that comes before you, is the easiest, plainest thing in the world to show. It ain't hard. You lay it right out, and any 12 people picked at random will agree with you. That's the definition.
That's how you know.
Human rights are not granted at a government's leisure and discretion. They are denied at a government's peril.
You'd consider me a reasonable person, wouldn't you?
That's a very funny Amendment, by the way! If you haven't ever perused it, you should look it up. Guaranteed giddy grin material. At least, for me it is - every dang time! You can read it, and read it again, and think about it for several minutes straight, and just shake your head and grin - if you're of a certain mindset. It is a masterpiece of understatement. The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States raises the obvious to performance art - and centuries before Marcel DuChamp, thank you very much.
Wouldn't that have been awesome if Marcel DuChamp had been a legislator? And born about centuries earlier? And a rebel American - part of the Continental Congress? Well if he had been, he would have written the Ninth Amendment. (What cheek there, by the way - "Continental" Congress! Did you catch that? The party line on manifest destiny is that it didn't start really grinding and whirling its scythes and gears until Jacksonian times or so, but bullshit I assure you: Jefferson, Madison, Franklin. Okay, Washington could have given a shit, but everyone else on that shit-stripe of land was already convinced they owned it all plus everything Westward! Fuckers)
(Well, come on - they did fuck. They must have! Or whence the Daughters of the American Revolution, elsewise? No insult to patriotism, there. Fuckers)
Where was I? The Right to Privacy, so-called. Well, let's look at it on the face of things. Let's examine it on merit.
I put it to you: hard would it be indeed, the job of the government which undertook to show sufficient cause to deprive or infringe upon the privacy of a constituency of free citizens. Hard going. Very easy, on the other hand, to say "well we have not specifically granted you that right." But so what?
I support violence. Bloodshed. And revolution, in one case and one case only: the case of a government which denies citizens their due human rights without being able to show just and sufficient cause. And shut your yaps, ye Libertarians! Just and sufficient cause, in any actual and literal case of real people and actual actions that comes before you, is the easiest, plainest thing in the world to show. It ain't hard. You lay it right out, and any 12 people picked at random will agree with you. That's the definition.
That's how you know.
Human rights are not granted at a government's leisure and discretion. They are denied at a government's peril.
You'd consider me a reasonable person, wouldn't you?
Your Writing Sucks, Pt. 2.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
You Know What? I Don't Like The Smiths, After All.
I just realized, after all these years thinking I liked or even possibly, loved the Smiths: I don't. I don't like the Smiths. The Smiths were a bunch of effete Brit artiste wannabe rockabilly hillbillies. You know what I do like?
I like Morrissey. And he got better, later.
I like Johnny Marr. And he got way better, later.
And I love How Soon Is Now. That song did not come from Earth.
I like Morrissey. And he got better, later.
I like Johnny Marr. And he got way better, later.
And I love How Soon Is Now. That song did not come from Earth.
Your Writing Sucks.
I'd really love to come across somebody who would just come right up to me and say: "I write better than you, man!" That would put the jolts in my juices! I would be like "Pal, how well do you FIGHT!???"
Naw, I wouldn't be like that at all. I would be like, GIVE ME YOUR MATERIAL!! IT IS FOR MY EYES
That would be awesome. And I don't understand why nobody has yet done it? People don't seem shy about telling me that I write better than they do. What can I do with that? "Thanks!" But nobody ever comes across with the reverse assertion, and I'm practically begging for it. Practically begging to be taken down a peg. Is it just that people don't brag like that?
WELL THEY SHOULD!
The fact that they don't betrays a real problem with our nation's priorities. And by "our nation", I include the various other nations who would be somewhat rankled to be lumped in with ours, but who let's face it, are running all of their go-to cultural apps on pretty much the same OS platform. I don't think any of us really instills in our peoples the requisite amount of brag about one's scholastic facility - not in any of the various "school-larnin'" tricks and skills! And this is why we fail. This is why we are the WORST-EDUCATED SOCIETY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. If that statement is wrong, blame my educators; I never did care for history. Or statistics. They could have made me care, had they been sufficiently brilliant.
Oh, I hate to blame the educational system, but the problem is once again: right square in our schools. This lack of brag all starts there. We need to find some way to get kids to prize these talents, to primp and preen themselves upon them in a competitive way, just amongst themselves, daily and instinctively - just as they do with athleticism, romance, money, video games or so many other things! Why in hell should they NOT brag about scholastic aptitude? So many other things of far less importance are touted to the hilt - by those with anything to tout. Have the scholastically apt nothing to tout?
Oh, sure, sure, up in their little study groups, meeting up in the school library, they may let loose with a hushed "boo yah - yer FACE" or two. But you don't see jocks, socialites, rich kids doing that. Damn if they're going to hush themselves up in public and only flaunt their stuff to each other in little esoteric cliques of mutual enthusiasts. No. They flaunt it to the world. They know they have something important to be competitive about, and they flaunt it IN YOUR FACE. Athleticism, social and romantic success, and money - these things are important, and worth bragging about anyplace.
The ability to think is not. Not important. Not worth bragging about. Because you don't brag. Q.E. mother fucking D. This insecurity about the worth of study or intelligence is the only reason you don't see the brag. It isn't because schoolsmart kids are more mature! Get real: within their narrow cliques of enthusiasts, they brag to each other in code, and they reassure each other: "we're better than the morons. Our narrow concerns are better than the vulgar concerns of the mob."
Bullshit, Horatio. Because the mob would eat your smart stuff up if you'd brag and strut about it a bit. You're not better: you're just a wuss, and the mob can tell full well that you don't think you've got anything to show 'em. Anything worth showing them. Because you're better than them? No. Touchdown kings are better than the mob. Dollar champs are better than the mob. Sex symbols are better than the mob. You're just pretentious and kidding yourself, and you're not as smart as you pretend to be either. 30-50% of the mob is smarter than you, and you have nothing to show them.
Picture a world where anyone who wants to can be better than the mob, and lionized by the mob, based on proving it and flaunting smarts. Where smarts and learning are worth bragging about. Don't say the mob can't appreciate such things, that it exceeds their capabilities - the mob appreciates a WINNER, they don't give a crap about the incomprehensible game plan diagram or underlying facts! The mob can't catch a touchdown pass, any more than they can solve Fermat's Ding-Dong, but they love to see somebody run it dowwwwwwn to the other guy in a convincing and breathtaking way. How many people who watched the "apple" scene in Good Will Hunting were all like, "HAHA! YEAH! Matt Damon was SO RIGHT in his historical analysis!"
No. Please. Don't be a moron. People were like "HAHA! YEAH! Matt Damon made the other guy look like a DORK!" Incapable of comprehending - please. They took it 100% as granted that he STUFFED that guy, with strong basis. They don't need comprehension - just one look at the other guy's face! He got RULED. Comprehension means zap. It's competition that puts butts in seats and hearts in throats, and scholastics has just as much potential as anything in those stakes - if you thought it was worth bragging about. Potential for a grandstanding showoff to put on a great show? Hell yeah. Or potential for that same hot-dogger to CRASH, BURN AND FUMBLE? Even more entertaining! There are risks, and there is excitement, when there is something worth risking: pride in what you do and know. Showing the other (or the world) who boss is. The world of smarts has plenty there to ante up, and it's nothing the mob can't comprehend - the mob will eat it up, if only you would be so kind as to "brang it."
It's time that smarts got brang. It's time to take it to it. It's time to level up.
If our nation is going to rise up and take its place among the kinds of places I'd like to see it become, where stuff like this happens - then all kids need to straighten up their spines a bit, hold their heads proud and get a glint in their eye to match the chip on their shoulder where it counts. Every kid with the least propensity for athletics is encouraged to strut, and to playfully test themselves against their peers. Every kid with a propensity for academic flair ought to be encouraged to do the same. Every kid ought to be encouraged to have a strong sense of pride in their powers of performance - as whatever level they possess! - such that reading, writing, art, mathematics, history and every other higher subject - until erudition in general becomes fodder and grist with which to clobber and/or dethrone one's rivals in the pecking order!
THINK WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO THEM, if kids actually gave a shit! Bragging is an evil, some say, but it's a bellwether as well. Because when something is cool to give a shit about...that's when you start to see some brag. The kids would really take to it, if the teachers would do their job, and get 'em to care.
"You call that a syllogism, Bernadette?"
"NICE MATH, BRIAN."
"Okay, you can't claim to be ambidextrous with penmanship like that. I'd say both hands are off."
"Buddy, I could drop a sonnet on you that will have you writing your own elegy!!"
It has to start at that kid brag level, one-upmanship. But once you can instill that hey-this-too-is-brag-worthy perception across the student body, the admiration for that, next thing you know you're breeding superstars out of people who might never otherwise have signed up.
Naw, I wouldn't be like that at all. I would be like, GIVE ME YOUR MATERIAL!! IT IS FOR MY EYES
That would be awesome. And I don't understand why nobody has yet done it? People don't seem shy about telling me that I write better than they do. What can I do with that? "Thanks!" But nobody ever comes across with the reverse assertion, and I'm practically begging for it. Practically begging to be taken down a peg. Is it just that people don't brag like that?
WELL THEY SHOULD!
The fact that they don't betrays a real problem with our nation's priorities. And by "our nation", I include the various other nations who would be somewhat rankled to be lumped in with ours, but who let's face it, are running all of their go-to cultural apps on pretty much the same OS platform. I don't think any of us really instills in our peoples the requisite amount of brag about one's scholastic facility - not in any of the various "school-larnin'" tricks and skills! And this is why we fail. This is why we are the WORST-EDUCATED SOCIETY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. If that statement is wrong, blame my educators; I never did care for history. Or statistics. They could have made me care, had they been sufficiently brilliant.
Oh, I hate to blame the educational system, but the problem is once again: right square in our schools. This lack of brag all starts there. We need to find some way to get kids to prize these talents, to primp and preen themselves upon them in a competitive way, just amongst themselves, daily and instinctively - just as they do with athleticism, romance, money, video games or so many other things! Why in hell should they NOT brag about scholastic aptitude? So many other things of far less importance are touted to the hilt - by those with anything to tout. Have the scholastically apt nothing to tout?
Oh, sure, sure, up in their little study groups, meeting up in the school library, they may let loose with a hushed "boo yah - yer FACE" or two. But you don't see jocks, socialites, rich kids doing that. Damn if they're going to hush themselves up in public and only flaunt their stuff to each other in little esoteric cliques of mutual enthusiasts. No. They flaunt it to the world. They know they have something important to be competitive about, and they flaunt it IN YOUR FACE. Athleticism, social and romantic success, and money - these things are important, and worth bragging about anyplace.
The ability to think is not. Not important. Not worth bragging about. Because you don't brag. Q.E. mother fucking D. This insecurity about the worth of study or intelligence is the only reason you don't see the brag. It isn't because schoolsmart kids are more mature! Get real: within their narrow cliques of enthusiasts, they brag to each other in code, and they reassure each other: "we're better than the morons. Our narrow concerns are better than the vulgar concerns of the mob."
Bullshit, Horatio. Because the mob would eat your smart stuff up if you'd brag and strut about it a bit. You're not better: you're just a wuss, and the mob can tell full well that you don't think you've got anything to show 'em. Anything worth showing them. Because you're better than them? No. Touchdown kings are better than the mob. Dollar champs are better than the mob. Sex symbols are better than the mob. You're just pretentious and kidding yourself, and you're not as smart as you pretend to be either. 30-50% of the mob is smarter than you, and you have nothing to show them.
Picture a world where anyone who wants to can be better than the mob, and lionized by the mob, based on proving it and flaunting smarts. Where smarts and learning are worth bragging about. Don't say the mob can't appreciate such things, that it exceeds their capabilities - the mob appreciates a WINNER, they don't give a crap about the incomprehensible game plan diagram or underlying facts! The mob can't catch a touchdown pass, any more than they can solve Fermat's Ding-Dong, but they love to see somebody run it dowwwwwwn to the other guy in a convincing and breathtaking way. How many people who watched the "apple" scene in Good Will Hunting were all like, "HAHA! YEAH! Matt Damon was SO RIGHT in his historical analysis!"
No. Please. Don't be a moron. People were like "HAHA! YEAH! Matt Damon made the other guy look like a DORK!" Incapable of comprehending - please. They took it 100% as granted that he STUFFED that guy, with strong basis. They don't need comprehension - just one look at the other guy's face! He got RULED. Comprehension means zap. It's competition that puts butts in seats and hearts in throats, and scholastics has just as much potential as anything in those stakes - if you thought it was worth bragging about. Potential for a grandstanding showoff to put on a great show? Hell yeah. Or potential for that same hot-dogger to CRASH, BURN AND FUMBLE? Even more entertaining! There are risks, and there is excitement, when there is something worth risking: pride in what you do and know. Showing the other (or the world) who boss is. The world of smarts has plenty there to ante up, and it's nothing the mob can't comprehend - the mob will eat it up, if only you would be so kind as to "brang it."
It's time that smarts got brang. It's time to take it to it. It's time to level up.
If our nation is going to rise up and take its place among the kinds of places I'd like to see it become, where stuff like this happens - then all kids need to straighten up their spines a bit, hold their heads proud and get a glint in their eye to match the chip on their shoulder where it counts. Every kid with the least propensity for athletics is encouraged to strut, and to playfully test themselves against their peers. Every kid with a propensity for academic flair ought to be encouraged to do the same. Every kid ought to be encouraged to have a strong sense of pride in their powers of performance - as whatever level they possess! - such that reading, writing, art, mathematics, history and every other higher subject - until erudition in general becomes fodder and grist with which to clobber and/or dethrone one's rivals in the pecking order!
THINK WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO THEM, if kids actually gave a shit! Bragging is an evil, some say, but it's a bellwether as well. Because when something is cool to give a shit about...that's when you start to see some brag. The kids would really take to it, if the teachers would do their job, and get 'em to care.
"You call that a syllogism, Bernadette?"
"NICE MATH, BRIAN."
"Okay, you can't claim to be ambidextrous with penmanship like that. I'd say both hands are off."
"Buddy, I could drop a sonnet on you that will have you writing your own elegy!!"
It has to start at that kid brag level, one-upmanship. But once you can instill that hey-this-too-is-brag-worthy perception across the student body, the admiration for that, next thing you know you're breeding superstars out of people who might never otherwise have signed up.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Ever Notice How You Hardly Ever See Depeche Mode Fans Anymore?
They used to be everywhere. And you could always tell!
I think...maybe they have learned to blend in.
I think...maybe they have learned to blend in.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Play Chess? Why, Yes I Do.
In practice, I find I can beat anybody at chess.
By kicking them in the balls.
By kicking them in the balls.
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