All's Well That Ends Poorly..

Well that was fun..

Now that the year of ZachsCast fiasco has come and gone, and it's like when DC Comics did that whole "52/A YearLater" thing and a year later everybody was like, "meh," I wonder if I should drag my sorry butt back over here and just pick up where I left off..?

For anyone who doesn't know, which is pretty much everybody, this past year since Groundhog Day of 2010 I was working with a buddy creating a website called ZachsCast where I did audio blogs and linked to youtube vids and occasionally even posted text like I'm doing now. The idea was to take what I'd been doing here and expand it. See if there was an audience for my unique brand of idiocy. I trudged along as best I could, with sputters and restarts, until Feb 3rd of this year. About four days ago. The last recording I made was that day. I uploaded it without a hitch. Several hours later, the website went down. Not with a bang or even a whimper.

As it turns out, in cyberspace, no one can hear you fail.

All the work I did for the past year is gone. I can't get any of it back. That's what I get for partnering with a guy who disappeared three months into the project. Seemed like a good idea at the time. How was I to know? I still have copies of the audio files, but I have no place to put them online, and even if I did, they have bumper music in them that I don't own, so I guess if those ever see the light of day again, the guy in question could sue me. I can't afford getting sued. If I ever win the lottery, I still won't be able to afford being sued. So it's like all the work of the past year never existed. It never happened.

No great loss. I think three ppl may have noticed what I was doing over there. That more than anything is probably why my partner fled. Like when rats leave a sinking ship. I told the guy up front I ain't doing this to be famous or make money. I pretty much do it cuz I can't not do it, and if I happen to get an audience along the way that's gravy. I've been online in one form or another for over fifteen years. I can't stop now.

Back last May I thought about doing a music project at ZachsCast where I'd critique and showcase some of my favorite local artists. I got their permission to include their music in the podcast, but I never actually got around to finishing that project. I was in production. Got some early taping down, but didn't upload any of their material. I didn't like how it was shaping up in early passes, and at about that time I was beginning to smell something rotten in Denmark regarding the situation or my partner's lack of details regarding his motives for helping me or future plans, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't tell what was wrong, and his lack of communication has left me in the dark. I could just sense something was off. In hindsight I'm glad. I don't understand the legalities very well, but if I end up regretting what happened in 2010 with the podcast, I don't want to drag anyone I love down with me. So all's well that ends well, I suppose.

Audio wise I still have cinch. You can find me there. I also have my twitter page, facebook, vyou, youtube, tumblr, and a few other places here and there. I'm not going away. I'm just downsizing. It was nice to have somebody who believed in me for awhile, or at least pretended to believe in me, but maybe that's not what I need. Like a crazy old man on a street corner shouting from a megaphone, maybe all I need is some time, some space, and my own unique brand of crazy.

It's curious that this Blogger site is still here. I've gone to other places over the years but somehow I always wind up back here. I can remember many years ago I met the Blogger team in Austin and I thought I'd be welcomed with open arms. That was a sobering experience. The response was anywhere from "who are you" to "omg you suck get away from me." Good times.

Turns out I suck. *shrug* I guess they haven't noticed me in this small corner of their great empire, scratching at the dirt. I'm not bothering anybody. I'll leave them alone. I hope they'll leave me alone.

I think I still have that Blogger shirt around here somewhere. They were giving out free ones. It never really fit me, but beggars can't be choosers.

What is ZachsCast?

What is ZachsCast? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out.

In a nutshell it's an abbreviation for what I've dubbed my new ongoing project: ZachsMind's Intermittent Podcast. I mean, let's face it. I'm all over the web. I'm here, over at YouTube, I tinker on Twitter and Facebook. For the time being, I'm trying to put everything under one umbrella, and that umbrella is named ZachsCast. At least once a week I hope to put something out there for your enjoyment. These are slices of my brain that I'll serve up to you with watermelon, raisins & yogurt. Goes really good with orange juice. I might still come over here every now and then, but at the moment I kinda doubt it. Cuz if I can post something here I can post it there too. So come check out my new home! =)

What will I be talking about? Well pretty much everything I been talking about over here, but instead of just typing, you'll actually hear me talking. Sometimes I'll be talking to myself and sometimes I'll be talking with friends about television, religion, politics, current events, music, movies, the Internet, or just whatever happens to suit my interests at the time. I'm very excited about this new direction and I welcome you to join me as I answer for myself the question What Is ZachsCast anyway?

Thanks for reading, and pretty soon, thanks for listening!

Griffin and Pacific

"You wanna sell me some Vicadin?"

"Excuse me?"

I turn around and see a middle aged guy at the curb. I had seen him in my periphery walking towards me as the light changed but I was heading towards the donut shop and really didn't wanna be bothered by complete strangers. Like, ever. Even when I need to know the time, I don't wanna start a conversation I just wanna know the time. I especially don't wanna be bothered by anyone wanting me to sell them drugs. I'm now about four limping steps off the curb aka in the middle of one of the busiest streets of downtown Dallas. Fortunately, this ain't rush hour. It's about nine pm in the evening on a Saturday night.

"You use a cane. That tells me you got Vicadin."

I glanced down and back up, "sorry to disappoint but I just use OTCs. I'm not Dr. House." I continue walking with a nervous laugh. The light of the white walking stick figure just turned into the blinking red hand gesture saying people without canes should start running and people with canes should prepare to be run over by a bus.

I don't really need the cane anymore, but it helps on the longer walks when I'm out of breath to help me keep going. Like an extra leg. Both my ankles are still tender from the beating I've been giving them the past several months. I sprained my right ankle and pulled a muscle or two on the lower left leg. Been nursing them back to health the past several weeks. Also, the cane scares off would be attacking dogs in my neighborhood. I don't really need the cane, but it's become a thing of comfort. I kinda like having it around.

"Of course you ain't Dr. House he's a fictional fucking character." His response sounds like it was intended to be good natured, but there's also a frustration in his voice. Methinks he might have just run out of Vicadin himself, tho he has no cane.

I'm trying to be good natured about this too, but the guy's now following me down the crosswalk, in much the same way I recall myself in my youth following the occasional beautiful woman who just tried nicely to reject me, and is about to meanly tell me to bug off.

At my regular limping pace I continue making my way to the other side of the street. I see him in my periphery on my left. He's half following me, but obviously he's heading towards the liquor store while I'm still aiming for the donut shop. My beer is already in my backpack. I bought it at the last bus stop so I wouldn't have to visit both the beer store and the donut shop here while waiting for the next bus. In hindsight this was a good thing because I do not think I woulda wanted to continue the small talk that follows with this stranger as we both shared a liquor store.

"Besides, " I add for no apparent reason other than small talk as the two of us begin to gravitate away from one another like celestial bodies on different orbital trajectories, "my problem's just my ankles. House is missing a thigh muscle."

"Yeah but House doesn't make his own prescriptions for Vicadin."

"He did in season three."

He glances away and shrugs. I laugh to myself. As I enter the donut shop I find myself marveling at what a weird exchange that was with a complete stranger. Even if I could get Vicadin I wouldn't sell it on the streets of Dallas. The place is crawling with cops. It was rather silly of that guy to go up to complete strangers and try to buy a fix. Guess he was desperate.

I'm kind of torn with the new direction my life seems to have taken as of late. I can't remember being without a car after college. It had become something I just took for granted was always there. I've always heard the phrase "driving is a privilege and not a right" but only this year have I been forced with the sobering reality of what that phrase means. I'm forced to agree Thomas Jefferson didn't include "car" in the definition of "pursuit of happiness." However, I swear if he were alive today a ride in a Lamborghini would make him add an amendment to the Constitution. Finances and other pressing matters have made me still having a car an impossibility, so now I function at the whimsy of public transportation, and Dallas Area RAPID Transit is poorly labeled.

Still, I am forced to interact with complete strangers that for the past twenty years or so I've been able to instead just drive past and never acknowledge. I'm sure this is good for my psyche or something. I no longer believe in souls, so I know it's not any good for that. Maybe someday I'll meet enough people and have "real life experiences" that I can then write about and turn into a book and make millions of dollars. Until then, it's sixty-five dollars for a monthly bus pass. I'm still waiting for the December card to show up in my mail.

After I was done in the donut shop (apple fritters and chocolate milk rule) I'm heading towards the bus stop and another complete stranger turns to me with pamphlets in his hand. I glance down and see the word "HELL" in big red letters and that's all I need to know.

"Would you like one?" He asks with a toothy grin and big doll-like eyes that make me think Stepford Wives all the sudden.

I muster up the most compassionate and pitiful face I can muster which probably came off more as just tired. I also fought the urge to roll my eyes at him. "There is no god," I said as simply and matter of factly as I could.

"Of course there is!"

"I'm sorry. I checked. He ain't there."

"Prove to me there's no god," he says with this false bravado I hear echoed in the back of my mind as memories of me twenty years ago, which chills me to the bone. Or was that the November wind that gusted up from between skyscrapers? I'll blame the wind.

"See that's the thing," I said with less false but more pompous bravado, "I don't have to prove a thing. I no longer believe." I pointed at him with the hand holding my bag of donuts, since the other hand was holding my cane, which was holding up the rest of me. "It is incumbent on the believer to prove there is a god."

"I can give you five reasons-" Oh this one's been coached. He can count the reasons he knows off the top of his head.

I decided to cut him off at the pass. "Anecdotal evidence doesn't count," I said flatly.

He went to say something but it got stuck in his Adam's apple. I turned away and continued down my path having left him silent and frozen on his own.

Several minutes later I'm sitting at the bus stop and that same dude who wanted Vicadin walks up to the bus stop and announces loudly to the handful of us that are all busy trying to ignore each other, "ROSA PARKS everybody! Let's give a hand to Rosa Parks! Let's give it up for Rosa Parks everybody." He's clapping his hands loudly and a couple others join in. I just look at the back of his head and he continues walking past us and against the light. No traffic this late so there's little danger of him getting run over, but I chuckle to myself as I see a policeman carefully following the guy about twenty paces behind him. They both saunter on into the night. I'm sure that guy's story is much more interesting than mine, but this ain't his blog, so you're stuck with me.

I'm a maniacal cane-wielding ex-Christian with a bag of donuts, a backpack of beer, and a monthly bus pass. I take off my hat when I pass Rosa Parks in honor of what she represents to me, but I don't applaud her cuz she's a fucking statue. I lord over the intersection of Griffin and Pacific and all the West End. You may never see me, but that doesn't mean I'm not there. I'll take away your gods and make you pray for Vicadin. Don't cross me.

A Little Late

So I'm reading the Dallas Observer, which is a free publication available offline at every other street corner or eating establishment in downtown. Online, you can go to DallasObserver.com for five seconds, shrug and say I'm right, then surf on. So anyway, I'm reading Jim Schutze's latest article, "The Power of the Table" which is yet another tired attempt by Schutze to be as cool about demonizing local politics as Laura Miller was fifteen years ago. She used to be in the D.O. as often as he is now, and she used to shake her fists at City Hall and tell the people of Dallas why we should be outraged this week. Then she became a member of City Council and later Mayor herself and completely failed to exorcise the demons out of the Dallas City Council. Some might argue that she became a demon herself, but I digress. What I just did there may appear mildly ironic to you later on. I think I'm using that word right.

Whatever. Laura Miller used to write for the Dallas Observer, then she put her money where her mouth is and ran for Mayor, she came and went and according to Jim Schutze, City Hall is still just as evil as it ever was. I guess this is why they give the Dallas Observer away. I wouldn't pay to be told this. I already know. In fact, I find it amusing that I'm currently criticizing the D.O. in much the same way the D.O. criticizes City Hall, Belo Corp, DART, state government, and pretty much everything in Texas that's not hot & spicy or fried. Frankly, the D.O. food critics are not critical enough in my not so humble opinion, but this is why they get paid the big bucks and I can't even give my words away. Who would pay to be told this?

Anyway, so I'm reading Jim Schutze's article as I said before, and he's plodding along eloquently about how some guy I don't know who is named Don Hill has the power to postpone deals between land developers and "buzzing people" who are "friends" of Hill. I'm reading along for the ride, wondering when Schutze is going to get to the point of why I should give a shit about any of this, and for the record I don't. I quit voting some time after Nine Eleven and before Sarah Palin. My voice is less effective than Laura Miller was at fighting City Hall. Schutze makes a good case but at this point I'm reading to pass the time and not be enlightened. It's either this or flip to the back of the Dallas Observer and read the classifieds where lonely desperate people try to shack up with each other. That's always good for a laugh. In his plodding eloquency, Schutze begins illustrating why whatever he's talking about matters by tellling me a story about something that happened five years ago. Newspapers usually stick to things that happened within the past week or so, but the Dallas Observer is, well, let's say "special."

Schutze introduces a character in this true-life narrative drama as "The Late Lynn Flint Shaw." That's curious of him. So okay, not only did this story he's weaving happen before 'teabag' stopped being a euphemism for lewdness & turned into a nomenclature for nonsense, but one of the key players in his drama is already dead. I hate it when stories do this. You already know how it's going to end. In death. How tragic.

Am I suddenly intrigued? Well, yes, but not for the reasons Schutze has been trying to manipulate me into caring about, because he continues on talking about Don Hill and some other guy completely named John Tatum. A couple paragraphs later, Schutze happens to mention while continuing to detail something about John Tatum trying to turn DART property into a museum, that The Late Lynn Flint Shaw "died in March of last year in an apparent murder-suicide with her husband."

Erk! SLAM ON THE BRAKES! Schutze keeps right on going but I feel like I just hit a speed bump the size of a DART bus. I get whiplash looking back at that previous statement as Schutze continues pressing onward about This Other Thing. Something I don't care about. At all. Even though I ride DART every day, the property that was supposed to be a museum by now is on Corinth Street. I've lived in Dallas since before Mississippi ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, but I don't know where Corinth Street is.

This dead lady interests me though. A dead lady who 'apparently' died by killing herself and her husband, or maybe her husband killed her and then himself - I DON'T KNOW - why don't I know? CUZ JIM SCHUTZE JUST SKIPS THAT as unimportant to the point he's trying to make and continues putting Dallas to sleep w/politicians who use their power to put off developers until they cave to whims of special interests.

That's politics as usual. How is this news? That's NOT news. That's dog bites man. The Late Lynn Flint Shaw isn't quite man bites dog because as I find out later it's also old news, but it's slightly more interesting than Schutze moaning about how the Don Hills of the world generate red tape to wrap up the John Tatums of the world because they won't hire friends of The Late Lynn Flint Shaws of the world. Anyone, and I MEAN anyone, who tries to be a politician does so with alterior motives. I KNOW this to be true. This is why I stopped voting.

You may have looked at John McCain and Barack Obama and seen two dramatically different choices. I saw Coke & Pepsi. You may look at Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison who are both currently running for governor of Texas and see two dramatically different choices. I see The New Coke & Coke Classic, only both have been left out in the sun opened and have gone warm and flat. I don't wanna drink any of that. Most recently I've turned to V-8 even tho it's too salty, cuz I'm too lazy to ride a bus to the Farmer's Market every day and get something that might actually be good for me. ...weren't we talking about politics? Well, the metaphor still works so I went with it.

Why did I stop voting? ALL politicians are corrupt. Even and especially the ones who claim not to be. Even and especially the ones who put themselves into a position where they have friends buzzing around developers who want to get something from the gov't. If we really wanted uncorrupt people in office who would get things done, gov't positions would be a random draft, like jury duty. People who didn't want the job would be dragged to an appointed office, given crap to get done, and they'd get it done as fast as possible so they could say they did their duty and go back home to watch Oprah. We don't do that. We like our politicians dirty and corrupt and greedy little bastards. Otherwise, we'd do something about it. Or, like me, we'd give up because the only way to stop this corruption at this point is through a major revolution, and I'm allergic to bullets, so I ain't gonna start one.

But this, right here, is why the media has a problem with its audience. Jim Schutze wants to talk about political corruption. Again. And he thinks he's taken this tired and worn out topic and dressed it up with a new paint job and some decals and he's gonna try to sell it to his audience again. What pops off the page for my eyes? A lady offing herself and her hubby for no immediately forseeable reason whatsoever. That's a mystery to me. That's actually almost interesting. Not political corruption, which I've heard before. How many times can you see the same old card trick over and over? But if Penn & Teller threaten to shoot each other with bullets that are written on by people in the audience, hell that just never gets old does it?

This is why conventional media (unlike unconventional media like the D.O. which as I said before is "special") puts death and destruction front and center in news reports. They tally the dead in headlines where people can see them, and throw out the boring details that make us change the channel. Jim Schutze does what I believe Kevin Pollak might refer to as "burying the lead." He focuses on what he finds interesting, and hides what his audience might actually find interesting.

I went ahead and read the rest of the article. Yes of course this is a terrible thing for a politician to do. People in power positions have friends who want things from the businesses that want politicians to just do their damn jobs without all this wheel greasing and project tabling. It's disgusting and unethical and amoral and horrendous and I'm sure they'll all be smited by their respective deities and burn in whatever hell they deem to believe exists. More importantly this all leads to expensive litigation that the taxpayer will no doubt end up footing the bill for, and is the real reason why everything from potholes to skyscrapers take forever to get done, unless some troll who is blocking the proverbial bridge gets paid to step aside.

The Late Lynn Flint Shaw is only mentioned once more, to remind us that she was one of the trolls. Shaw wanted John Tatum to 'hire' one of her people as a 'consultant' on his project. Tatum didn't do that, so Shaw, then chairman of DART, stopped him cold.

Then, for some reason Schutze fails to explain, Shaw and her husband killed each other a couple years after this happened. Apparently the two events are completely unrelated, which is why Schutze didn't bother spending precious copy inches explaining to me why. Besides, it happened so long ago. Why even mention it?

I've thought about Googling The Late Lynn Flint Shaw and putting the pieces of her sordid drama together for my own edification, but I wrote this instead and now that I'm almost done, I really don't think I care about some complete stranger offing herself and her husband. I mean, why does it matter to me? Why should it? Why do I want to get my facts straight when it serves me no personal satisfaction at all, and won't put food on my table or help me brave the bus line to work tomorrow. Sure, she was the chairman of DART before I started using it, but maybe I should find out how insane and corrupt the current DART chairman is. Maybe that would be slightly more useful to my current situation, given that I'm at DART's mercy when it comes to getting around in this city. Frankly, I don't even know the names of my favorite bus drivers. So why would I bother to figure out who's running the gig?

Fox News keeps their audiences glued to the boob toob with constant reports of dirty dealings and carnage and mayhem. Anything that might make their audiences feel superior to complete strangers of questionable morals and character. Anything that will keep their audiences glued to that screen through the next set of commercials. This isn't news. This is catering to the lowest common denominator. This is giving the people what they want and not what they need. This is unethical and wrong and all kinds of shit. Know what I do to combat that? I don't watch Fox News. Not much more I could do than that. Vote? Rebel? I might as well start praying again, like that ever did any good.

I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. That's how I like my news. Maybe Jim Schutze should try to be more like Jon Stewart and less like Laura Miller.

Surrounded

Yeah I know. I really should stick to blogging about unimportant stuff like my opinions regarding television shows and movies. I might get back to that. However, this is weighing heavy on me and this is where I leave bits of brain so I can find them later, if I ever want them again. This piece of brain is getting pretty big. It's probably a metaphorical tumor. Paging Dr. House.

Again I state for the record, and I simply cannot emphasize this enough, I am an atheist now not by choice but by default. I have been born again again. Or maybe I'm dead again. I'm not sure how that metaphor worked the first time around. Anyway, I saw the light and it turned out to be a trick of the light, and was never there.

Not long ago a (now fellow I suppose) atheist said he was surprised to learn I was taking this so badly. When he found out there was no god it was like a weight had been lifted, and he was very happy about it. I'm reacting to it the same way I reacted when I learned there was no Santa Claus. I was pretty pissed off back then too. My own parents deceived me. Hell, THE WHOLE WORLD IS IN ON THAT LIE. There's a Father Christmas of some sort in practically every country on the planet. We still lie to children about that even today. If you're reading this and you have kids, you probably help perpetuate that lie, and you don't think there's any harm in it. You're probably right, but even if it's a little white lie - IT'S A LITTLE WHITE LIE THAT THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY HELPS TO PERPETUATE. which is a pretty big little white lie.

And now I learn there's no god. Never was. It's a lie. A lie that the vast majority of humanity still accepts as a given, like assuming magicians can pull rabbits out of hats or take quarters out of ears, or assuming a rain dancer can make it rain.

If I could choose to go back and take the blue pill, like Cipher in the Matrix thought he could do, I would. I really don't want to care if I'm in the Matrix. I liked it before. But I can't go back. I can't. The genie won't go back in the bottle. Once the kid realizes Santa Claus can't work in every shopping mall on the planet simultaneously, there's no going back.

There's simply no proof that there is a god. Up until now I've assumed the burden of proof is on the nonbeliever but it's not. If someone tells the police that their house was robbed, the cops are gonna wanna check the house for stolen goods, forced entry, fingerprints, etc. They're not just gonna assume the guy's telling the truth. They could, because why would someone bother to lie about having been robbed?

...see what I just did there?

We can take for granted that the guy wouldn't steal from his own home, but there are reasons why someone would make that up. Insurance for example. Or even if he didn't steal from his own house, he doesn't know who did, so the cops have to investigate and gain knowledge into the crime so they can suss out who did. Detectives don't solve crimes by taking presumptions for granted. If they did, they'd be called Presumptionists. They're detectives. They DETECT.

All 'evidence' that there is, was, or might be someday a deity is simply anecdotal or inconclusive. Deductive reasoning demands such inconclusive evidence be corroborated with solid facts. Knowledge IS power, and religion feeds on ignorance.

Now that I see this truth for what it is, I'm frankly stymied that religion still holds such a firm grip on humanity. I mean, I'm really not that bright, and if I can figure it out, why hasn't the rest of the planet? But they haven't. Humanity has been on this kick about believing in things that aren't there for millenia, with no end in sight. Why? Cuz if you look at history, every few hundred years or so the people who do believe band together with weapons and KILL ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM. And sometimes they kill each other over discrepancies in each other's figments. And let's face it, they're overdue for a genocide. Haven't had one on a Spanish Inquisition kind of scale in awhile.

When I was taking The Christian God for granted and assuming he was there cuz everyone and my mom said he was, it didn't look remotely scary, cuz when the next Crusade was gonna go down, I felt relatively safe that they wouldn't be pointing pointy sticks in my direction. Now, I'm not so sure about that. I'm a heretic. I'm a blasphemer. I'm a nonbeliever. And as any diehard zealot will tell you, if you're not with God, you must be working for The Other Guy.

Of course the irony of this is if I can't believe in God anymore, it means there's no Satan either, and never was. John Lennon once asked me to imagine there's no heaven, and assured me it was easy if I just tried. I scoffed at that back when I was a kid. Now I wish he'd take it back, because it IS easy if you try. Too damned easy, if you ask me. It also means there's no hell below us as John was quick to point out, and above us is only sky. I made the tactical error that no believer should ever make if they want to continue believing: I looked up.


So if there's no God, Devil, Heaven or Hell, then there's no sin either. There's choices people make and every action has consequences. So do inactions for that matter. In fact, every exhalaton of breath affects the world around you, even if in ways you can't easily measure with just your senses. The bacteria crawling around on your skin are more real than a grey haired old coot in robes on a throne of clouds, but you can't see them any more than you can see him. So how do we know they're there? Science. Get me a microscope and I can prove to you there's animals crawling on your skin. Thus far, science hasn't found a microscope that susses out gods.

And there's a lot of scientists who are also still believers, so believe me there's still a lot of people out there actively trying to figure out a way to prove that there is a god. It's just that we haven't found anything yet, and the more we look the less places we have to check. Maybe he's on one of those planets out there. I'm no longer holding my breath on that one.

But the point is there ARE scientists out there, people far smarter than me, who still believe. Beyond all common sense or reason, they still think there's a god. They still go to church. They still pray. They still tithe. They still read the Good Book. And I'm not necessarily knocking the book, I mean it's full of holes and contradictions but what great work of fictitious literature doesn't? So very smart people still assume God exists. Now, either all of them are wrong, or I am. That's kinda creepy.

Cuz it's not just scientists. It's politicians, and sanitation workers, and bus drivers and coworkers and friends and family members and grocery clerks and waitresses and doctors and lawyers and firemen and dog walkers and complete strangers at bus stops - literally billions of people on this planet, despite the overwhelming evidence that there is not a god AND the overwhelming lack of evidence that there is, still insist there's a god. These billions of people disagree with one another over just who what where when why and how god is, but they do all agree on a monotheistic deity that likes them personally and roots for their respective favorite sports teams.

Except of course for those who don't. The polytheistic believers for example, or the many variant forms of nonbelievers such as myself, but comparatively speaking we're outnumbered worldwide by the Catholics alone. So let's focus on the real threat.

Let's say you and I are standing in front of an object, and we both utilize all our senses to determine what it is. I look at it. I touch it. I listen for sound and hear nothing. I may even put the tip of my tongue to it or take a whiff inches away from it. I come to the conclusion that it is a fire hydrant. You do the same. Utilizing your masterful talent at conquering your own senses, you observe the object before us and come to a similar conclusion. It is a fire hydrant. On that, we both agree.

Now we compare notes about what kind of fire hydrant. I observe that it is painted grey. You observe that it is painted red. We argue over this briefly and each come to the rational determination that the other person must be crazy. It doesn't occur to me that perhaps I am suddenly color blind. It doesn't occur to you that perhaps you are wearing rose colored glasses. I simply see a grey fire hydrant and you see a red one. We eventually realize we must agree to disagree.

Now it also doesn't occur to either of us to check to see if this object that appears to be a fire hydrant actually has the capacity to put out a fire. Neither of us are firemen. We don't have the necessary tools to open her up and let her rip. For all we know, this fire hydrant has no water inside it, but we both just take for granted that if a fire ever erupted on this spot, firemen would come along open her up and let her rip. We call it a fire hydrant because that's what it looks like, and when I say fire hydrant and when you say fire hydrant, we both assume the other person knows what that phrase means.

What if it can't put out a fire? What if for some reason it doesn't work? Maybe the plumbing in this area is damaged. Maybe the object was made to look like a fire hydrant but is really just there for decoration, or as a prank to piss off firemen. We have no way of knowing. We're taking a lot of stuff for granted here, predominantly cuz it's just a silly fire hydrant and I don't know why we even care about it still.

This is how I'm seeing this whole god thing. No one is bothering to check to see if there's a god, except for people like me who do and find out he doesn't exist. Then we go back and tell other people and they look at us like we're mad. Well did you look everywhere? Maybe you missed a spot. Well okay you go check with me, or find out for yourself then report back. Oh I don't need to do that. I already know there is a god. I don't have to go looking for him. Well actually, you do. It's kinda stupid not to. You're assuming there's a god without any proof.

What is faith? It's the belief in something without proof. It's accepting as a given something that isn't true, because you don't know if it is true and you don't know if it isn't, and you decide to assume it is true just to be on the safe side, cuz what if you think it's not true and it is? Then you'd be in a pickle wouldn't you?

Every now and then at a bus stop downtown there's this sweet lady who walks around with big signs hanging off her shoulders and her back. They don't say The End Is Near. Worse. They say something to the effect that God wants to free people from sin and let Jesus save them. She walks around with a big smile on her face handing out little booklets, and people who already agree with her take these little booklets from her hand and with big smiles on their faces go on about their day with this silly booklet in their hand telling them what they already know about what they already believe. I never actually see any of them read this booklet. They just thank her and take it and walk away and go on about their lives with this really big smile on their faces. It's eerie.

If someone believes in fairies, or monsters, or zombies, or thinks he's Napoleon, we lock them away. Yet billions of people on this planet are under a delusion that there's a man in the sky who knows all and sees all and has a personal plan just for you but he's not letting you in on it and if you do any number of things wrong he's laid out your life like a mine field and will blow you up if you do wrong, but he loves you.

All around me are delusional people, and if I were to point out their delusion, they'd look at me like I was the one that's crazy. BILLIONS of people. ALL OVER the planet. Making decisions that sometimes affect me, with this illusion that they got a little cherub w/wings floating over their shoulder pointing the way for them.

This time last year I may still have been one of the deluded. Now, all the sudden, I feel like I'm Ben in Night of the Living Dead. I'm surrounded, there's no escape, and I think they're coming for me, Barbra.

Sudden

I've been trying to piece together for myself at what point did I become an atheist? It's not like I woke up one morning and realized hey I'm an atheist, and yet at the same time, it kinda is. Not too recently I just realized that not only am I an atheist, but I have been one for some time and I didn't really realize it. I was trying to NOT be an atheist for the longest time. I was desperately clinging for years to the idea of a deity, long after it just stopped making sense.

Why did it stop making sense? I was born a Christian, into a Baptist family. I was raised by a woman who still strongly believes in the Trinity, and has personal anecdotal evidence to support her beliefs. Practically since birth I've heard stories from my mom about how during times of stress in her life she has heard her god speak to her. She has seen Him in out of the body experiences and dream-like moments of premonition. You can laugh all you want, but my own mother told me she met Jesus Christ. My own mother admitted to seeing the ghosts of recently departed people visiting their own funeral. These events were very real to me from childhood, because my own mother told me they happened, and I had no reason nor desire to ever question my own mother. My entire life, I have been strongly motivated to take everything and anything else I've ever learned, and make it relate to my mother's anecdotal evidence of there being a deity. If it didn't make sense, my mom trumped pretty much everything else, and for the longest time I never even thought about this. I never questioned it. No matter what else goes on, there's a God. Cuz Mom said there was. The alternative that my mother was either lying to me or delusional, was simply an unthinkable direction to allow my brain to go.

It's never sudden, but it's always sudden.

One of my favorite atheists, and a favorite long before I realized I was one myself, is Joss Whedon. He made a little TV series called Buffy The Vampire Slayer. One of the many episodes of that series written by Joss Whedon is called The Body. Quick summary for the uninitiated: Buffy is a vampire slayer who had saved her mother countless times from vampires and zombies and ghosts and monsters and even another vampire slayer. However, in season five Buffy found her mother fighting cancer, and cancer is something at which a vampire slayer is completely and utterly powerless. It's kinda hard to use a wooden stake against cancer. But Buffy's mom went into remission and everybody thought she beat it. Then one day Buffy comes home and Joyce is on the couch with her eyes wide open, and she's never getting up again.

So Buffy finds herself at the hospital later that same day, and the rest of her friends have all run off on various errands because after a loss like this everyone feels like they have to go do something to be useful or whatever, and Buffy's just sitting there in the waiting room and her friend Tara is sitting next to her. Tara had lost her own mother not long before this happened, and seemed to have come to terms with it. Tara and Buffy sit there alone for a quiet moment and Tara tries to think of something to say to comfort her friend. What comes out of her mouth has haunted me for years: "It's never sudden, but it's always sudden." They knew Buffy's Mom was sick, and had been fighting cancer all season, so her mortality wasn't sudden, but then they thought she was okay. So when she died from complications of cancer recovery, it was sudden. It's possible for something to be both sudden and not sudden.

I'd experienced that myself about when this episode of Buffy came out. My dad died in October of 1998 and this show was first broadcast in February of 2001, so dad's slowly failing health and then quick decline were still fresh in my mind when I saw The Body. I was right there with Tara when she said that to Buffy.

So from birth I was a Christian but around college (or was it high school? Actually I think as early as junior high) I found myself questioning first the Baptist denomination. It seemed petty for example to not allow dancing. Also, though I attended many different Baptist churches, they all seemed full of people more interested in showing off what they'd purchased that week than in exploring their spiritual awareness. Attending church seemed to just be something traditional to do and didn't have any actual meaning behind it. So as soon as I was old enough to not HAVE to go, I stopped going. I still considered myself a Christian, but prided myself in not being religious.

In the past ten or fifteen years I've thought of myself more as a Deist than a Christian. I still held as best as I can to Christian structure because it was like a security blanket, but I was painfully aware the god I believed in could actually go by the name of Jehovah, Yahweh or Allah as easily as "God." In fact, my impression of a god had to wear many hats. I refused to accept that any one denomination or religious doctrine was more or less right than any others. The more I learned about other beliefs, the more I found there were commonalities and well as contrasts, and that these different elements seemed as much byproducts of cultural evolution as anything. No one really knows who or what God is. There's a lot of guesswork going on.

And just who wrote The Bible? Men who were presumably inspired by God, and we are not to question the lack of credentials of these people. In fact whether it be a shaman or a pope or a televangelist, the only criteria that appears to be necessary to be a Man of God, is to have enough self-confidence to go around demanding people acknowledge you as such. Well, that and you have to be able to talk a good game.

Throughout history, religions are run by a select group of usually men with resources and connections and money, and they tell other people how to live their lives. Things they don't want the masses to do with wanton abandon are called sins and followers are told to deny the urges of the flesh with a promise of spiritual riches after life is over. Meanwhile, the lofty rich leaders wear expensive clothes and make grandiose temples to honor their god. Oftentimes throughout history, these rich and powerful leaders of religions are eventually discovered to also fall from grace but are often forgiven even if they eventually lose their power, only to be replaced by new leaders who promise to do better. It's a creepy viscous cycle.

These sins are more often than not connected to things that are deeply ingrained in "the flesh." Some of the advice makes perfect sense. Thou Shalt Not Kill is just good advice no matter how you look at it. However, then the religious leaders find caveats even for that 'sin.' For example, anyone who disagrees with the tenets of a given religion can be killed during a Holy War. Killing in self-defense is perfectly acceptable, and these leaders will say that their god told them to tell their followers to go kill anyone who disagrees with them, as they are heathen and do not enjoy the love of the One True God. There's a lot of One True Gods by the way. Almost as many as there are sports teams. So I knew all this stuff and more and yet still I found myself clinging to these beliefs that fit me worse than a T-Shirt from fifth grade.

So at what point did I lose faith? Or rather, at what point did I realize that faith is belief in something that can't be proven, and therefore makes no fricken sense whatsoever?

This past March I had an operation. My first. No big deal. It was a private big deal for me but objectively speaking it was a routine operation. I had an umbilical hernia which was the byproduct of poor exercise and overeating. My own damn fault. And the operation itself was standard and routine. I have never been given any reason to believe I should have had an out of the body experience or a near death experience. There was no moment while on the operating table where I flatlined.

Or so far as I know. I mean. I wouldn't know. I wasn't exactly there at the time it happened. I remember cracking jokes in the operating room, asking the doctor to please get this golf ball out of my belly button. Just take a golf club and whack it. Whatever it takes. I was in good spirits. I felt I was in good hands. Capable intelligent people whose careers revolve around doing this kinda stuff every day. I felt good, considering my gut was killing me. The anesthesiologist asked me to count backward from one hundred. I don't remember actually counting.

I don't remember anything. When you sleep, and then you wake up, there's still a sense that something was there between the going to sleep and the waking up. You may not remember any dreams or anything but there's a sense that time has passed. It's very vague but it's there, and we take it for granted.

I remember becoming conscious and it was very dark, later I realized it was cuz I was too weak to open my eyelids. I felt a sharp needle in my wrist and I didn't want it there, so I remember feeling my left arm reaching over to pull something out of my right arm, and I remember being restrained. Then I went to sleep. And then I woke up in a recovery room and pushed a button asking for vicadin. From the point of the needle in my arm to the point of the vicadin, that was normal sleep. That felt normal. However, the point before that between the operation itself and becoming conscious realizing there was a needle in my arm I didn't want there, that wasn't normal. That is Missing Time.

As I was being restrained from pulling the needle out of my arm, I recall being mildly surprised to be alive. There was no out of the body experience during my operation. There was no recollection of conversations that happened elsewhere in the hospital. I was not visited by family and friends who have passed away. I didn't get to shake Jesus' hand and marvel at the scars on his hands and wrists. I didn't get told I can't stay in heaven because it's not my time yet and I need to go back. There was none of that. I can tell myself it was just the anesthesia. That I wasn't supposed to remember anything because they just used strong drugs and there was no life after death moment for me because I wasn't anywhere near dying. However, if there were a god in the sky somewhere, it woulda been nice if he at least popped in at this point in my life and said hello. After all, he's on a first name basis with my Mom.

What I experienced can only be described as oblivion. There was nothing. When I actually die, that's what's going to be there. Nothing. And I won't have any emotional response to that because there simply will be no 'me' to have any kind of response to about that. At all. And that's the way it is. That's the way it's always been. One can choose to believe all they want but that doesn't change what actually is. There's subjective perception of reality, and then there's reality. You can believe in leprechans and aliens and the Bermuda Triangle and Bigfoot and unicorns and the Loch Ness monster and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri coming to feed on your brains. Believe in whatever you want all you want. If such things actually exist, it's not because you believed in them. There's no correlation between believing in a god and one actually being there for you when you have a golf ball stuck in your navel.

I can tell myself it was the moment of oblivion that suddenly turned me atheist. I can tell myself that. I can perhaps even believe it. Unfortunately, there's evidence supporting another explanation. Before I went into the operating room, a sweet lady visited me in while I waited for surgery. She was a priest and she had the papers I'd requested. The ones you sign telling people that after you become a vegetable and can't talk or think for yourself and there's no hope of ever being cognizant again it's okay to pull the plug. Those papers. So I signed them and she and I had a nice little talk and before she left she asked me if I wanted her to pray over me before going into surgery. I thanked her for the offer but said no. I honestly didn't think a complete stranger praying over me was going to make a bit of difference.

So I stopped believing before I stopped believing. It's never sudden, but it's always sudden.

Police Statuary

Last week I was walking downtown Dallas towards the Rosa Parks Memorial because I had to catch a bus. The first thing I noticed were the cop cars. The second thing I noticed were rainbow flags and picket signs but I don't recall being able to read what they said. To be honest, I was more concerned about the cop cars. Two of them were parked where my bus was going to be in ten minutes. I walked over to one of the cops and asked him politely if this demonstration was stopping the busses or if they were going to stop somewhere else. He glanced back at the cars and gave a sort of noncommittal answer. I continued on to my bus stop and looked around.

There were about a dozen people standing around Rosa Parks' statue. I couldn't tell what they were demonstrating about. Based on the rainbow colors in the banners and signs they'd already taken down, my first thought was towards the Rainbow Coalition, which has roots in the Black Civil Rights movement but was later usurped by homosexuals. I should point out that I don't recall a single black person among the demonstrators. They were all white. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't understand why a bunch of white gay people would be encircled around Rosa Parks. I'm sure there's a reasonable answer. I didn't care. I was waiting for my bus.

I believe in the right to free speech, but these individuals didn't seem to be speaking. They were just milling about. I soon realized that whatever it was they had been doing, they had already finished, and were just kinda packing up and comparing notes. The police were not 'in force' but they weren't sparse either. I'd guess there were about two demonstrators per cop. Some time later, on the Internet, I found myself reading a message board in which some nameless faceless somebody accused America of being a Police State. That phrase brought me back to this moment.

Standing there in the Dallas August sun, looking at the smiling face of Rosa Parks, permanently captured in bronze, smiling at whomever passes by regardless of race color creed or sexual orientation - a newly adopted hostess to downtown Dallas, surrounded by a bunch of white folk using her to underline whatever message they had, and those individuals surrounded by police. Surrounding the police? Well... Dallas. Us. All of us.

Walking up to the plaza and witnessing the aftermath of this little spectacle (one that no doubt the participants believe have somehow paved the way for resolutions towards whatever message they spouted that day but objectively speaking was a complete waste of their time and taxpayer dollars) one might have inferred that this is a police state. People gather together in public to make a statement and are immediately flanked by police officers. That causes one to pause and think that maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and we do live in a police state.

But if you looked at the demonstrators you'd realize these are not the people that could potentially cause trouble. Gay people standing in the middle of Dallas speaking their minds would tend to cause other nongay people to get angry. The demonstrators were mostly thin and frail and looked like they'd never eaten a hamburger in their lives. They're not a threat. However, if what they had to say pissed off someone who was not thin or frail and whose diet consisted of meat and beer and pharmaceuticals, then there might be trouble. The police were not there to stop the demonstrators from speaking. They were there to protect the demonstrators from people like me who would much rather catch a bus than listen to weirdoes carrying signs and banners in the middle of the Dallas August sun. I personally had no interest in accosting the demonstrators, but if I had such an impetus, I'd be the one hogtied on the ground; not them.

Police state? Who is policing whom? The cops weren't there to start a war. They were there to keep the peace. Sometimes that means meeting resistance with equal force. Sometimes that just means standing there and looking like statues themselves. Police state? Only someone who has never actually lived in a real police state would imagine that America is one currently. I'm not saying we're twelve to midnight, but at least in the small arena of the Rosa Parks Plaza, we're far from the End of the World.

I Married And Divorced Janeane Garofalo

My reputation for stupidity precedes me. I don't know if this is actual irony or just the kind of irony that Alanis Morrissette sings about, but I wrote the following not five days ago. It's now the following Thursday, and I just happened upon my ex-wife on Facebook. So there is an outside chance she will eventually read this. I say 'outside chance' in that it's better than the odds of my winning the lottery, but not by much. I just apologized to her for having been an asshat several years ago. She doesn't seem to remember it. I should probably delete this entry, considering it's more recent evidence of my asshattery. However, I'm too much of an idiot to clean up my blog anticipating possible company. Besides, she knows how much I used to adore Janeane Garofalo. Hopefully she'll take it as a backhanded compliment.

There was a time when I was so hot for Janeane Garofalo and woulda done anything to breathe her air. She was my dream girl. When other guys in high school and college were drooling over Cindy Crawford or Uma Thurman or Elle MacPherson, I was starry-eyed for Janeane Garofalo.

Then I dated. Then I got married. Then I got divorced. Then I just stopped trying to get girls to like me at all. Many years have gone by and I have stopped trying. Every rare now and again a woman throws herself at me, but I stopped throwing myself at them. Women suck at catching you if you throw yourself at them. I gave up. If it happens it happens and if it don't it don't. More often than not, even if she's interested, it don't work anymore cuz I suck at catching too.

Janeane Garofalo's got fibromyalgia? My ex-wife had fibromyalgia. She's addicted to pain pills? My ex was poppin' pills. Janeane's an alcoholic? Garofalo is playing w/computers & doesn't know what the hell she's talking about? Garofalo & my ex-wife could be frickin sisters.

Thank God Janeane Garofalo would never give me the time of day. Feels like I dodged a bullet. In hindsight, when my ex-wife asked me to marry her, I shoulda told her no, then suggested she go find Janeane Garofalo. Woulda saved me a decade of heartache. Those two were made for each other. The sad thing is, it's a decade later and I'm still talking about my ex-wife. That's just sad.

And lying about her too, cuz let's be fair. She knew at least as much about computers as I do. She's not an alcoholic. It's just that in the third paragraph above, it wasn't as funny that my ex-wife and Janeane Garofalo only have two things in common. So I had to add a couple. Three's the magic number in comedy, but I went for four cuz I never know when to just go for three. I had to elaborate a little bit. Stretch the truth. Bill Cosby would do it when he went for the funny. There's no harm in it. Janeane Garofalo would appreciate that as a comedienne if she ever read this. She's not going to ever read this. I'm just pointing out that I got down the mechanics of comedy even if I'm not actually funny.

My ex-wife's never gonna see this. She hasn't spoken to me in years. As far as she's concerned, I'm dead, and she's probably better off pretending that. I don't know why I should give a shit if she found out I was out and out lying about who she was and whether or not she was just like Janeane Garofalo.

Now the two of them have a lot of boring things in common that just didn't make sense in the third paragraph cuz these aren't funny. They both have dark hair. My ex would pretend to be a redhead but it came out of a bottle. She was really a brunette just like Janeane Garofalo, who pretended to be a bleach blonde for awhile, probably for the same stupid vain reasons. They both have brown eyes. They both think they're fat when they're really not. They're both petite. They both have tattoos. They both like dogs. They're both funny ...occasionally. From a physical perspective they both turn me on. From an intellectual perspective they both turn me on. From an emotional and psychological perspective they both scare the mother fucking shit out of me. My ex-wife was pagan while Janeane Garofalo is an atheist, but nobody's perfect.

For all intents and purposes, I married Janeane Garofalo. Then Janeane Garofalo divorced me.

I didn't realize it when I was married. I just figured it out just now. Had I KNOWN when I was married that for all intents and purposes the woman I was married to was as Janeane Garofalo-ey as I was ever gonna get, maybe I woulda tried harder to not let her divorce me.. Nah. We were driving each other crazy.

I think if fate had ever allowed me to meet Janeane Garofalo for real, and ask Janeane Garofalo on a date, and she said yes (which would have happened before I got struck by lightning three times but right after I won the Powerball without ever having bought a ticket) we would have driven each other crazy, and Janeane Garofalo would hate me and never speak to me again. But Janeane Garofalo will never speak to me now, so the same effect has occurred without my having to be bogged down by the cause or the consequences.

I mean, Janeane Garofalo doesn't know me, so she doesn't hate me. But if she did know me, I guarantee you, she'd hate me. There are some certainties in the universe that are unmistakable. The way things are now, I'll never meet Janeane Garofalo. I'll never speak to her. She'll never get to know me. She'll never hate me. That's pretty awesome, if you stop to think about it. I avoided a lot of pain, and got the same result.

Of course sexually she would have rocked my world, and I would have left her disappointed. I'm never going to find that out for sure, but let's just assume the best possible scenario, and then look at harsh reality.

I'm gonna die miserable and alone, but at least I won't die with a high maintenence woman screaming at me until I have a coronary because I forgot to take Buttons and Marmaduke out for walkies again, and why the hell while I was out didn't I refill her prescription of vicadoodles?

All things being equal, I came out ahead.

David Carradine Found Hanged in Bangkok Hotel Room

[Added June 6th: Okay let's just forget this entire article. You can read it if you want, but nobody knows what the fuck happened to Carradine and really we shouldn't give a shit. He lived a great life, gave the world some memorable moments on the little and big screen, was loved by family, friends, complete strangers, probably did his share of bad shit but who gives a crap? How he died will no doubt become as much a mystery to people as are parts of his life. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that I looked at his death and my first knee-jerk reaction was to think of myself - but I have said this before and will no doubt say it again - the mourning process is not for the dead. It's for the living. I find it a very irrational act, and until my father passed away about a decade ago now, making death entirely and painfully real to me, I used to find other people mourning to be sometimes laughable and other times disgusting. There are some people on this planet who are offended when you use profanity or appear in public naked. They react with disdain and dismay and try to look away or they make a scene about how horrible that is and that one should be more respectful of others and not be so impolite. That's how I used to feel in regards to people mourning. They're wearing their emotions out like they just regurgitated their intestines and put them on display. Really I used to find it that revolting and could only laugh at the absurdity. Then my father passed away, and I understood why we have to express those emotions and put them on display and share them with others who feel as bad as we do that we'll never know that person in our lives anymore. It's a wholly selfish act and I still find something offensive about it, but just as with all things that offend somebody, they're a part of human nature and we should not shirk from it. So here I leave myself and my pathetic selfish process of mourning for a complete stranger here for anyone who dares to see. Here I also hope to leave it behind and move on to something less maudlin and morbid. I only hope I can.]

[Added June 5th: What follows is a bunch of pretentious, self-centered shit. Tread lightly be you afeared of insensitivity in the face of tragedy. I'd remove it if it weren't for the fact that after a night of sleep, glancing over what I'd wrote, I find it endlessly funny to laugh at myself, at my own expense. Besides someone recently accused me of censoring my YouTube videos and I'm like "what? I don't edit my YouTube videos enough." Really. They suck. So anyway, don't take the following remotely seriously, cuz I don't. In fact, stop taking any of my shit seriously, cuz I don't. Even when I do, I don't really. I'm a toon. Really.

Also as a disclaimer, I wrote the following before the prevailing theory became that Carradine accidently killed himself masterbating while experiencing auto-erotic asphyxiation. Which I must admit pisses me off even more. Did he never hear of having a spotter? You don't do it by yourself inside a closet that's fucking stupid. You have someone there who can tell when you start turning blue. I mean really. Don't they teach these things in school? Oh that's right they don't. Why? Because puritannical fundamentalist conservatives would rather censor the proliferation of information so people kill themselves not knowing how to do it, as opposed to making sure everyone is properly educated on how to safely commit sinful acts that make the baby Jesus cry.]

...

I should stop there. Three little dots. There really aren't words. This is stupid.

...

I got a lot of shit to say but I - I should really not.

...

I mean, I don't know the man.

...

I should really stop right here.

...

I call myself a survivor. I never actually tied the cord around my neck. I never actually stuck the barrel of the gun in my mouth. I never actually put the razor to my wrist, but I did learn that you cut long ways down the arm cuz otherwise the doctor is gonna laugh at you and I knew that when I was gonna do it, I wanted it to be clean. I wanted there to be no turning back. I wanted it to be painless and fast and final. I didn't wanna wake up in a hospital room twelve hours later only to find after having failed everything else in my life that I couldn't even fucking DIE right.

...

I was seventeen.

...

It was over a girl. Fucking stupid, right?

...

No. What woulda been stupid was if I'd a done it.

...

And believe me. That wasn't the last time I considered it. However, I came to a point where I realized that was cheating. It was a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and how dare I look at the entirety of the universe that gave me life and tell it I'd had enough. That I wasn't thankful. That I didn't have to clean the plate placed before me on the table of Life.

...

So suicide is not an option for me any longer. I closed that door, padlocked it, put a chair up against the knob and surrounded it with barbed wire fences and attack dogs and then I built a brick wall around the building inside which that door stood. Then I demolished the city block where that building stood. Then I quarantined that city, seceeded that state from the union and nuked that country. Cuz when you kill yourself, you are a failure. Everything else up until your death is success, even what you perceive to be failure. Cuz you learn something from those failures. Usually you learn not to do it that way again. However, you learn nothing from killing yourself. You're just dead.

...

Carradine? CAINE? BILL!?

...

How? Surely, that man was smarter than me. Surely he understood better than me what the universe has to offer and how rare and precious this gift of life is and you should take what's given you and even if you're just existing even if you're just watching cars rust you're doing more than feeding worms.

...

Maybe it was an accident.

...

Maybe he was in a lot of pain.

...

Maybe there's tens of millions of variables I have no capacity to fathom. Maybe his death was completely sound and logical and he gets a free pass, because of who he is.

...

I really shoulda never started this.

...

It wasn't like the man couldn't get work. I have heard horror stories about famous people in their prime who grew old, penniless, friendless, and forgotten in some old folks home. Carradine was not wasting away his senior citizenship pining for the fjords. The man was filming on location when it happened. Bangkok, Thailand! He was still courted by producers and casting directors and stars and he could still pick and choose his projects. Seventy-two years young, as they say. Maybe there are some lives that are better than the one he lived, but out of around seven billion people living today, I'd be hard pressed to count those living better off than him on my fingers and toes.

...

But then it's all subjective. I mean I doubt Oprah Winfrey could just jet to Bangkok Thailand if she wants because as rich as she is, she's still got contractual obligations. She's kinda rooted to her spot, so long as she's producing her show and running her company. Carradine, however, was a free spirit. Nothing really tied him down if he didn't want it tying him down. If she thinks about it, I bet Oprah Winfrey would find herself easily admiring David Carradine's life. It's all subjective.

...

I really should not hit the Publish Post button. I really should just shut the fuck up and let the man die in peace. Maybe he did have his own obligations tying him down. Shit I couldn't possibly know. Shit that would make me scream and curl up in a fetal position if it were in my life. Maybe his demons were ten thousand times worse than mine, which would be easy to do cuz my demons are all tiny.

...

I mean I can't walk a mile in that man's shoes. I can't know what happened or how or why. I can't judge. I can't ...damn!

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If he DID.

...

IF he did.

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If HE did...

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I was born into a world in which we were going to the Moon. Now, forty years later, I'm living in a world in which a man like that could come to the conclusion that suicide is a choice.

...

David Carradine looked at the entirety of this universe and stared it straight in the face, after over seventy years of success and failure and love and loss and ups and downs and ins and outs and pains and gains and he looked at what the entirety of the universe had served him on his plate and he ate full well of that provided, but then with a few bites still left on his plate, he pushed the plate away from him, stood from the table, and told the universe he was full.

...

Is this what I'm to take from this? That there's a point when you get to say you're done? Seventy-two years is a long time. Maybe he was right to call it quits? You don't have to clean your plate, is that the lesson he's leaving behind? Well hell, why don't we all just put on palm flower lifeclocks and die when we're thirty?

...

Maybe David Carradine is right. Maybe we should all get to choose when and how we die.

...

Why live to portray Bill? Wasn't Caine enough? Why not quit forty years ago if life has no value? Why didn't he stop before his hair went grey? Or before walking started getting a little tougher than it used to be? Why didn't he stop living the first time he realized he couldn't do stunt work the way he used to? Why not quit when he realized things didn't taste as good as they once did? Why not give up at the first sign of inconvenience?

...

Maybe he had recieved news from a doctor or other source that he had cancer or AIDS or otherwise only had a few months to live and they weren't going to be pleasant months from his prediction, and he decided to just end it now while he still had the capability in himself physically to opt to do it himself. While he still had the faculties about him to take fate into his own hands.

...

How did he know there wasn't another wonderful experience just around the corner? Why stop where he did? What difference does it make? How could a man with Carradine's life look at what was immediately before him and go, "It don't get better than this. I better stop now."

...

I used to think Kevorkian had the right idea. If you are facing a life debilitating disease that doesn't kill you, but just makes you wish you were dead, you should have the right to decide how and when you die. I thought I still think that.

...

This though. This came out of left field for me. I don't know if I believe that anymore. I don't know if I ever really believed it. Analytically it makes sense. Why suffer just to cling to a little more life? Just to maybe get to see another sunset? But in pain?

...

I shouldn't have even started. I don't know what the fuck I'm sayin'. I don't know the guy. I got no place - FUCK! CARRADINE! FUCKING CARRADINE!?? HIM!?? OF ALL PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET? DAVID CARRADINE KILLS HIMSELF? FUCK!

...

I don't even know him. It's not like he's the first celebrity to die. It's not like he's the first man to kill himself. It's not like I have any leg to stand on in judging a man loved all over the planet for doing what he loved to do. Heck, I'm even superimposing my opinions in that last sentence. Maybe he didn't love what he did. Maybe he was indifferent to where life put him. I have no way of knowing.

...

But if Carradine can put two and two together and get five.

...

I just can't wrap my mind around this.

...

Fuck.

...

May whatever you believed in bless you and keep you, man.

...

Marketing the Geek

Okay this is kinda cringeworthy.

[Of course, the fact both Mr. Wheaton and myself are having difficulty conveying our respectively similar but deceptively different messages, while marketing dweebs usurp the word 'geek' for their own twisted ends, their relative ease at conveying that usurpation upon an unsuspecting public lends credence to their inevitable success and our inevitable failure at preserving the true nature of geekiness. Why? Cuz Wheaton and myself are not marketing dweebs. We're geeks! We don't know how to properly convey our message, but marketing dweebs do. Irony, thou art a cruel mistress.]

I'm not saying Wil Wheaton is cringeworthy, or his words. I mean what he's talking about. I mean they are creeping me out, because they are claiming to be geeks and they wear a geek banner like wolves in sheep's clothing, but they're partying in the henhouse and we true geeks are powerless to stop them.

I guess I've kinda noticed this happening over the years and since I don't believe in active activism personally (I'm sure it works for you whoever you are it's just not my thing) I never wanted to do anything about it, but I take umbrage at the blatant misuse of words when done with malice or greed in mind. Even and especially if people 'mean well' they almost always mean well for themselves and their 'kind' and I don't take kindly to that at all. However, again I'm not into actively trying to stop people from being stupid so I usually try to let this kinda crap slide.

It's like Bill Maher when he called his old ABC tv series "Politically Incorrect." He did that on purpose, cuz he noticed a lot of jackoffs, assholes, and scumbags using the phrase "Politically Correct" as if it gave them the right to be jackoffs, assholes, and scumbags to anyone with whom they disagreed. And it didn't. And they did it anyway. And Bill Maher didn't respond by egging their houses or setting their carports on fire. He responded by making a tv series he called "Politically Incorrect" and then voicing off about issues that mattered to him and pissed off the "Politically Correct" people. Of course, they responded by getting him fired for saying that maybe flying planes into buildings isn't an act of cowardice. Still, I digress.

People take words and try to change their meaning to suit their own needs, and then they accuse people who use those words in other ways (like the way they were originally intended) of being wrong, because they're "taking it back" which is impossible by the way cuz it was never theirs in the first place so they can't take back anything but there ya go.

In this case I'm speaking of the word "geek" or to be more specific, the current trendy intention of furthering and perpetuating Geek Advancement as if it were saving baby seals or protecting the environment from soda cans and Styrofoam cups.

It didn't use to be a badge of honor. It was a word that meant you were a social outcast. It meant you were different. Special. Touched. It usually meant you were smarter than the person calling you a geek, but rarely in a way that indicated you felt that automatically gave you power over said stupid person calling you a geek. If the word "geek" were prefaced with the phrase "pencil neck" chances are the one name calling was about to stick the one being called a pencil neck geek into a nearby gym locker. One-sided violence would ensue. Being a geek was not a good thing.

Nonetheless, as I grew up I took a personal pride in being called a geek. I didn't belong among those who called me a geek, nor did I want to be among them. They were jackoffs and assholes and scumbags. Call me what you want, just leave me alone. Or beat the crap out of me and THEN leave me alone. I wanna get back to reading Encyclopedia Brown.

And believe me, I EARNED THAT. I deserve to be called a geek. It's my personal badge of honor. You don't go through elementary school with a six foot sissy bar on the back of your bicycle, a backpack with a "kick me" sign taped to it, and regularly bruised and beaten face and chest, and NOT get to walk into adulthood with the right to consider yourself a motherfucking geek.

That was then. This is now.

There was a time when the word "geek" meant a person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy. That was it! All the rest of what it means to be a geek was gravy. Essentially you had a red A on your blouse. You were a social outcast. You didn't belong. The details were unimportant. Geeks were not all alike. That's the point. They were different from anybody else. That didn't ever make them like each other. Some geeks were considered so smart as to be able to calculate and ponder theoretical physics equations in their head. Some geeks were known for biting the heads off live chickens or swallowing flaming swords. There's a varied wide spectrum of geeks and none of them belong under some commercially manufactured banner! There's pish posh marketing types out there who are trying to "take back the geek" and use the phrase to represent something that they think will unite others to their cause. They use the word geek like it's a rallying cry. Like it's a way to band like-minded souls together towards a common goal. They want to put "geek" on T-Shirts and lunchboxes and baseball caps and convince people that not only should they strive to be a geek, if they don't buy into the manufactured pop culture surrounding said geekdom, they won't be geekworthy. Screw that!

Wil Wheaton said:

It's like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me, and want to be part of our culture, but couldn't tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs. In other words, they haven't earned it, but they're wrapping themselves in our flag because their PR people told them to.

In some ways I agree with Mr. Wheaton, and in some ways I don't. Even here, Wheaton is defining the word geek for himself. I don't know the difference between Slackware and Debian. I know what Slackware is. I don't know what Debian is. Automatically, in Wheaton's eyes, that means I'm not a geek. I know when he says d8 and d10 he's talking about dice - and not the d6'ers used for Yahtzee. My D8 and D4 often gathered dust because I prefer gaming systems that focus on percentile dice (2d10) because you can make one table that can work for anything, thus freeing up the rules for actual roleplay (as opposed to ruleplay which I believe D&D 2nd ed devolved into w/later revisions). I don't know how to use a vi or an emac. So as far as Wheaton is concerned, I don't qualify. I'm not a geek in his eyes, when in reality I'm just not his kind of geek. I'm my kind of geek. I'm sure I could put together my own list of geeky things that I can do that he can't.

That's silly. That's absurd. That's my point.

There's no one kind of geek - nor should there be. There's no qualifying quantifier. The day there is, the word "geek" will cease to serve its purpose, and will start to have concrete and specific meaning that delineates its kind, thus defeating the purpose of its existence as a word for those who don't fit a mold - because it will have one. Not only do I disagree with Wheaton, I'm forced to take it a step further. Nothing personal Mr. Wheaton, but we geeks have no culture. Even after the commercial marketing jackoffs and assholes and scumbags brainwash us all into thinking we do, we don't. We never did. We never will. I wasn't aware being a geek meant I had to function under your flag, or that I exist under anyone's banner beyond my own lack of one. I live as a geek of one. I have no banner. Being a geek doesn't mean I get to go to geek meetings with other geeks and we have geek hoedowns and geek pot luck dinners. I don't have a geek membership card. I don't pay dues. I paid my dues already. I got the scars to prove it.

Those people trying to usurp the word for their own selfish and greedy ends; no they haven't earned it. Neither have I earned sitting with Mr. Wheaton and breaking bread with him over being a geek. That's not what being a geek is about. Being a geek has never been about banding together and joining forces against the established 'cool people.' That only happens in movies like Revenge of the Nerds. The people they got to play the geeks in those movies? They were Hollywood celebrities. Present company accepted, Mr. Wheaton: they weren't geeks.

Being a geek is a private thing. We don't (usually) compare notes. I'm not more of a geek than you because I know more about certain scifi movies. You're not more of a geek than me cuz you can program in C++ and I cannot. Being a geek is not relative and it's not absolute, and there's not any place somewhere where you can go to find your Geek Quotient. ...Okay there's not a REAL place to go find your Geek Quotient. BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT THESE BOZOS WANT TO DO TO THE WORD! They want to quanitize it and package it and pigeon-hole it and turn it into something trendy and cool and socially acceptable.

The whole idea behind being a geek is that one is NOT socially acceptable, and that's the way I like it! No I haven't read Lord of the Rings from cover to cover. There are some who believe one cannot call oneself a geek unless they have. I happen to find Tolkien pedantic, cumbersome, flagrantly captivated by trivial minutiae when he should be focusing on storytelling, and less interesting to read than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Now, when I was a kid, I DID read entire volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I doubt many geeks today could boast that! That's entirely the point though; being a geek is not something that can be absolutely defined. Nor should it be, and anyone going around trying to do so should be shoved into a gym locker.

I don't want to hear Jeff Foxworthy going around saying, "if your license plate on your car says 13375p34 you might be a pencil-neck geek" cuz it's not like being a redneck or a greenback or a bluejay or a cheesehead or anything else. Being a member of The Geek Brigade means by definition you are among the non-joiners. IF you're trying to join something, that's being social, and essentially in that instant you stop being a geek. Instead, you become one of them. And you're welcome to it.

Throughout the history of mankind, nongeeks have been trying to prove to geeks that it's better to snicker amongst one another and point fingers at the ones not like them and laugh and say how much better they are then the nonjoiners. Guess what? You've always been wrong, and you will continue to be wrong. You may rob us of the word geek and put it on your blazers and cheerleading outfits. That won't change the fact that you're still cool, and we still suck.

You heard me!

Go on back to your carpools and your soccer practice and your three martini lunches! Some of us will play MMORPGs (and know what that means), some of us will code a program that takes data from Excel spreadsheets for conversion into Powerpoint presentations, some of us will dissect the sentence structure of Stephen Wright jokes in an endless and futile search to understand modern humor, some of us will blog, some of us will tweet, some of us will write in our online diary, some of us will surf the Web, some of us will tweet blog blip and surf all at the same time, some of us will determine the effectiveness of different store bought sweeteners and determine which is least likely to cause cancer in rats, some of us will make a scale replica of the Lincoln Memorial using popsicle sticks and crazy glue, some of us will read Ayn Rand again after having finished off some Zelazny, some of us will run off with the carnival barkers and the circus freaks, some of us will dream in binary, some of us will invent a new filing system for the last ten years of saved emails, some of us will torrent executables in violation of alleged copyright infringement because data is impervious to delineated restrictions placed upon it by lesser-evolved ape-descended lifeforms, and some of us will translate Shakespeare into its original Klingon. None of us will be like one another and none of us will be you.

Distorted View of Importance

The following was originally part of an email to a friend, but after typing in a trance for ten minutes, I blinked and realized what I typed no longer made sense in her email. I decided to put it here instead. She was talking about how we were blowing the Swine Flu epidemic out of proportion when there's other diseases that kill more per year and have been around longer. I agree with her, but that started me off on a tangent that after reading it I was like, "this has nothing to do with what she was talking about." Still, I like what I was saying. So I'm putting it here in hopes that someday I'll find a better place to use it.

Oh I completely agree with you that here in America we have a very distorted view of what's important. For example, so many people want to give to charities that help children starving on the other side of the planet, but we have a homeless problem here in America that needs to be addressed more fervently. The problem is appearances. A crazy guy in his forties wearing rags doesn't illicit the same kind of concern and sympathy as a toothless crying baby in Tanzania with flies buzzing around her. However, that baby probably has a better support system around her than the poor old man does. I personally have a slightly more vested interest in the crazy guy in his forties, cuz take away my home and my car and my job and my paycheck, and that's all I am. A crazy middle-aged guy in rags. It is selfish selflessness that makes me think we here in America have a very distorted view of what's important.

I'm beginning to think a worldwide refocus of priorities is necessary. I just wish if we ever get that New World Order crap that some want and others fear, that THAT is what would be addressed. It's SO not. I guess that makes me one of the ones who doesn't want the NWO. Cuz I don't trust human beings. However, what we NEED as humanity is not either socialism or capitalism but what some may incorrectly perceive as a bit of both.

Some things need to be addressed in the common market. I used to think EVERYTHING needed to be addressed through capitalism. However, without a redistribution of wealth, eventually everything goes topheavy somewhere, and that develops caste systems based on economic well-being. When you corner the market on something, you don't easily let go of your grip. It's king of the hill. The toughest kid's gonna eventually take a stand and the only way to keep the possession of that hill from turning into a dictatorship of the playground, is if the rest of the playground bands together. There's some things we shouldn't have to fight over. Everyone deserves a piece of that hill. No one should be dismissed from the playground.

Every human being on this planet should be given Universal Rights. Those rights are built around necessities for physical and psychological well being. The right to live, to be happy, and to be unrestrained. This won't happen, but this is what we need and so long as we don't assure this for every single member of society, we're a worthless species.

I'd like for us to at least start with a Universal Agreement to food, drink, shelter, and function. All humans should be allowed to exist unencumbered by worries over those basic four things. That way, when it comes to combating in the marketplace for everything else, we all start on an equal level. Everyone needs shelter. Not everyone needs an entertainment center. However, not everyone can buy what you want to sell, if we don't all have a place to keep it. So it benefits capitalism, if all consumers' most basic needs are managed outside of capitalism.

If a charity isn't focusing on one of those big four, preferably in the community that a philanthropist is using his money, then that philanthropist needs to seriously reconsider how and why he is spending charity funds on something more frivolous outside his own neighborhood.

The problem with my mindset here is that some believe it to be unamerican. I know it. Which is why we'll never see it happen. One cannot force their will upon others. Well... you can, but no one's gonna invite you to parties if you do that. Unless of course you force them to invite you to their parties. No, the answer is not coercion or force, but education. We're not well-enough informed to make wise decisions about how to improve our community or our world.

The way I see it, most people look at the argument of capitalism vs socialism as if it were an either/or situation. It's not. One can have socialized medicine, but leave other things open to the marketplace. That's not unamerican. That's making sure all Americans can function - can have their inalienable rights of life, liberty, and happiness without being encumbered by the weight of oppressive poverty and starvation and ill-health.

A person watches a commercial on TV that tells them about how horrible it is on the other side of the world for poor children and that person's heart reaches out to them. We all want to be the one to save their lives and make the world a better place. However, that commercial only tells one side of the story. We don't see what's behind that camera - only what the camera wants us to see.

Why doesn't the camera man give the kid a Snickers bar? Why are those children in poverty? Who is causing this? How can they be stopped? Or is there more to the story that leads one to believe a sack of rice is not going to solve the problem, but getting world leaders to settle their differences and focus on what's really important, WILL solve the problem? Provided those bastards can get their heads out of their asses long enough to realize what they've been doing all these years is precisely what's making those kids starve.

A person doesn't get to see commercials on TV about the poverty and starvation happening right under their noses, sometimes just a few houses down from their own. Nobody makes those commercials, cuz there's no money in it.

Maybe it feels better to anonymously give a few dollars a week to war torn provinces on the other side of the planet than it does to cook a homemade meal for people shuddering in the cold wind on the other side of town. How does that help us though? How does helping someone in India help me in America? I'm never even gonna meet that guy over there. Ideally it'd be great to help everyone everywhere on the planet, but shouldn't we start closer to home, and then help others elsewhere after our own home is in order?

But who am I to talk right? I don't frequent homeless shelters. I don't give, cuz I don't have a lot. I don't even know how to cook. I sure don't put my money where my mouth is, but then I don't have a lot of money. I'm constantly reminded that I'm often a paycheck away from being one of those middle aged men in rags wandering the street corners panhandling. Maybe my problem is I don't watch TV commercials about Indonesia or Ethiopia. I'm too frighteningly close to the images staring me back in the face.

This is about when I blinked out of my reverie and my own breath got caught in my throat. I tell you what, if I actually had any money to give, I'd probably start here with the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance. So if what I just typed affected you at all, please send them a little something if you can afford it. Or better yet, find the homeless shelter in your area, give to them, and tell them Zach sent you. So maybe when everything is stripped from me, and all I am is a crazy person without a roof over my head, I'll have a place to go. And you to thank.

Reasons Why My Girlfriend Thinks I'm Gay

1. I don't enjoy sports.
   
2. When I was a kid, I had a sissy bar on the back of my bicycle. Bullies used to pull on it and throw me off my bike.
   
3. I'm not interested in cars. I can't even fix them. I can barely fix a flat tire.
4. I'm not any good with tools.
   
5. I play with dolls. I call them puppets but she calls them dolls.
   
6. I'm homophobic, which she says is an obvious give-away.
   
7. I used to be into theater back in college, and still have a very strong interest in most things theatrical. This is apparently an area that has been usurped by the homosexual community, so my interest in it automatically makes her think I'm gay.
   
8. I like show tunes. Notably anything from A Chorus Line, Cats, Fiddler On The Roof, Grease, Spamalot, West Side Story, Avenue Q, Wicked, and Chess' One Night In Bangkok by Murray Head. However, I draw the line at Rent.
   
9. I enjoy the music of Mandy Patinkin, Brent Spiner, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Billy Joel, but I draw the line at Boy George.
   
10. I enjoy the music of Bernadette Peters, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, and Cher, but I draw the line at Celine Dion.
11. Women I tend to be attracted to are invariably semi-butch lesbians. Famous examples include Laurie Anderson, Janeane Garofalo, Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Ethridge, Sara Gilbert, Janis Joplin, Lucy Liu, Michelle Rodriguez, Jamie Lee Curtis, and The Indigo Girls. However, I draw the line at Margaret Cho.. just this side of Margaret Cho. I mean I think she's hot but anyone beyond her is too much.
    
12. I'm self-conscious about the idea of watching Brokeback Mountain, but I have no problem watching Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire dance together.
    
13. Not that I am gay, but I would rather tell my mom I'm gay, then tell her I'm an atheist.
    
14. I haven't had sex with anyone of any gender since the summer before Nine Eleven, and I'm very okay with this.
    
15. My girlfriend is located in Kentucky and I am not, and I am very okay with this.
    
16. My girlfriend is dating another man and I am not, and I am very okay with this.
17. I have no problem at crying. I don't cry often, but if it happens I welcome it. As I get older, my eyes tend to dry up anyway, so I think it's therapeutic and healthy to cry whenever possible. Saves me money on Visine.
    
18. I have to qualify whether or not its okay to cry by writing an entire paragraph about it.
19. Objectively I'm aware that it's wrong to think being gay is wrong, but due to a southern Baptist upbringing and a lifetime of heterosexual presumptions, gay men creep me the hell out. I do enjoy the company of lesbians, but I'm painfully aware it's mostly because I want to fuck them. All this makes my girlfriend think I'm gay.
    
20. Also, I think this list is FAB-ulous!
    

Wow..

How long has this been here and I'd completely forgot about it? I used to have my own domain; zachsmind.com. That's gone. Long story. Not worth dwelling on. Let's see if I can start using this as a place to leave pieces of brain so that in theory I can find them later. I lost all the brain parts I'd left behind on the web before. Perhaps they're somewhere in Web Archives. It's probably for the best that they're gone altogether. I don't recall having left anything substantial. I'd been doing the Online Diary thing since September of 1997 when my wife said she wanted a divorce. A lot has happened since then, but none of it really significant in the grand scheme of things. After having poured my heart and soul into that previous attempt at a website for close to a decade, I now have absolutely nothing to show for it. I used to think I had so much to say, but the older I get the more I know I know nothing, and the less I feel I have to offer humanity. I feel small and insignificant and I think I always was that, but it's one thing to be that, and it's quite another to know.

Ants don't know how insignificant they are. Moreover, they don't care. Perhaps they're better off.