A couple years ago while enjoying one of the Harry Potter novels at Bertonlino's Espresso Bar, a lady condescended to submit her opinion to me that I was only reading the book because of all the hype. And then again this week a coworker incredulously expressed, "Not you too" when she saw me going to break with the first volume of the Twilight series, and when I asked her to clarify her objection to my reading selection it boiled down to all the accompanying hype. In neither case had either lady read the books they were denigrating.
So here's my point and it will only take a moment as I'm not feeling particularly diatribal or haranguish. Hype may cause everyone to listen to the same music or to watch the same TV show, but when it comes to everyone reading the same books... hype can't do that so easily and I'll tell you why. It takes five minutes to listen to a song. It takes less than an hour to watch a TV episode. But when it comes to reading a book it takes about twenty hours. If you break that up into 45 minutes sessions with three sessions every two days... well it would take roughly three weeks to read a book unless you were engrossed in a "page-turner" in which case you could finish it off much sooner. But still the far greater investment of time should be obvious. Add to that the disinclination of many people to read anything at all. Maybe they're too busy or maybe too distracted or maybe too lazy, but whatever the reason, you don't have to look far before you find someone who will admit unequivocally they do not read.
In order for a book to be widely circulated and widely read, the author has to produce something irresistible. It may not be on par with Faulkner or Joyce for literary genius (thank God), but they can tell a story in such a way that the overwhelming majority of readers will be undeniably riveted. Otherwise all the marketing and hoopla and gushing critical reviews in the world will provoke about as much attention as you pay to your neighborhood philharmonic that you didn't even know exists. When it comes to successful fiction, hype is not enough.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Martyrdom in the Garden of Eden
My scars have the prettiest names
The softest smiles
The sweetest lilting laughter
The loveliest dreams
Though broken and shattered
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Abomination of Nonconformity
I'm tired of the presupposition that I must be unhappy because I'm not in a relationship. I was talking to a female friend who's excited about her wedding coming up next year and I told her she's lucky to have someone with whom she can be happy because in general I don't think people really belong in relationships. Is that a crazy thing to say? Humor me for a moment and see how many couples you can think of off the top of your head whose relationships you can actually admire. I can think of about four. On the other hand I notice dozens of people cheating on each other, lying to each other, and otherwise attempting to project an impression upon the world of contentedness that I find tragically dubious. I've spent most of my life being single and yes I am always keeping an eye out for a lady that would make a good companion for me, but I seriously appreciate that I'm probably happier alone than most people who have someone. Today I spent about 19 minutes on the phone with a friend, but other than that I was completely free by which I mean that no one who knows me had any idea where I was or what I was doing... and very likely tomorrow will be the same. It may sound terrifying to be so isolated, but sometimes it's preferrable to checking in with a significant other hundreds of times each week especially the two constituents of the couple are no longer mutually fascinated.
And then I think, okay... but if two people really love each other... they would enjoy that constant link between each other of knowing what the other is doing at any given moment even with miles between them. But again... I'm not so sure I can suspend my skepticism in this matter. Of course infatuated lovers can't get enough of each other, but that stage doesn't last forever. Except for a very few lucky star-crossed sweethearts that love each other effortlessly for their whole lives. Those are so rare. I'd sure love to follow their example, but I just don't believe wishing for that kind of magic makes it come to fruition.
First how am I going to find a girl that I find irresistible when my standards are so insanely unrealistic. Briefly, she needs to be gorgeous and genius and creative and hilarious and kind and passionate about me. So how often do I run into someone like that? Okay, honestly? Never. I mean I'm probably always going to be in love with about four girls from past. I'll always be enchanted with them, but aside from them having almost completely forgotten about ever having known me... they really didn't have the first idea of what true love is about.
And secondly... even if I found her... that doesn't automatically transform me into the kind of person that can handle a relationship. I'm morose and lazy and jaded and goofy and exhausting. And I have an utterly dismal history when it comes to not being single.
But that's kind of my point. I'm probably not relationship material, but that's okay because I'm not in a relationship. I only wish more people would experiment with being single so that it could be perceived as a more acceptable approach to life instead of an unfortunate destiny to be avoideed at any expense. Why should miserable victims of societal conformity feel sorry for me because I'm alone?
And then I think, okay... but if two people really love each other... they would enjoy that constant link between each other of knowing what the other is doing at any given moment even with miles between them. But again... I'm not so sure I can suspend my skepticism in this matter. Of course infatuated lovers can't get enough of each other, but that stage doesn't last forever. Except for a very few lucky star-crossed sweethearts that love each other effortlessly for their whole lives. Those are so rare. I'd sure love to follow their example, but I just don't believe wishing for that kind of magic makes it come to fruition.
First how am I going to find a girl that I find irresistible when my standards are so insanely unrealistic. Briefly, she needs to be gorgeous and genius and creative and hilarious and kind and passionate about me. So how often do I run into someone like that? Okay, honestly? Never. I mean I'm probably always going to be in love with about four girls from past. I'll always be enchanted with them, but aside from them having almost completely forgotten about ever having known me... they really didn't have the first idea of what true love is about.
And secondly... even if I found her... that doesn't automatically transform me into the kind of person that can handle a relationship. I'm morose and lazy and jaded and goofy and exhausting. And I have an utterly dismal history when it comes to not being single.
But that's kind of my point. I'm probably not relationship material, but that's okay because I'm not in a relationship. I only wish more people would experiment with being single so that it could be perceived as a more acceptable approach to life instead of an unfortunate destiny to be avoideed at any expense. Why should miserable victims of societal conformity feel sorry for me because I'm alone?
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
FBI Most Wanted (Someone told me I'm funny)
Last night this girl got close to me and started undressing and I was like... Hey... I want to be honest with you... it's been a long time since I've done this and I'm basically nervous. She said, don't worry honey, it's like riding a bicycle. And I was like... You see what I mean? I definitely don't remember that. Do I need to do some peddling or something?
They say hindsight is 20/20. Seems to me it's when you're looking at someone's ass.
A fun thing to say on a first date with a girl is how much you enjoy getting to that point in a relationship when you're so comfortable with each other that you can enjoy silence.... when neither one of you has to be saying anything. Then when she starts to agree, go... shhh... quiet time!
I've been shopping online for an Audi. My last five girlfriends were all innies.
If I have twins... a girl and a boy, I'm naming them Cinderella and Cindefella.
Someone offered me a Werthers Original, I was like you could save money with Werther's Unoriginals. They taste the same.
I wasted a month of my life in Egypt looking for a town called Bumfuck.
Do you think kids teased Dick Van Dyke when he was a kid?
Have you ever noticed that usually when someone begins a statement by saying, "There's no question about that" they immediately proceed to answer a question about that?
I'm driving. You're in the backseat. You know where I'm going. I don't. I say, Which way do I turn? You say Left. I want to make sure so I say Left? And you say Right.
I love it when I tell someone my birthday is in January and they're like Really!! Oh my God, my sister's birthday is in January too and her boyfriend and his mother were both born in February! And his dad and I are both March babies! And my grandfather and my mother were both born in November. But my Uncle Tobias is the only one in the family that was born in August. Everyone else was born in a cold month... either Winter or Fall or way early Spring!
God forbid we be born on the same day. There are like 365 days in a year, typically... and only 6.75 billion people so the odds against two people being born on the same day... TWO people!!! It just boggles the mind... it really really does.
I fucking hate cheating. No way I would ever cheat on anyone. Most number of girlfriends I've ever had at one time is ONE! Maybe two... at the most.... okay usually two but that doesn't count because they never know about each other. And honestly even if they did it still wouldn't count because I never have any real feelings for them. Like I tell them I have feelings for them because you have to do that to get them to spread their legs, right, but it's never true... so that doesn't count, you see what I mean?
Seriously, my idea of the perfect romantic evening is me and a girl.... okay.... I haven't worked out the details yet, but I think that's a pretty good start.
Masturbating is kind of like going to church. I mean in either case I'm practicing for something that's probably never going to happen.
I have this cologne by Gucci. It's called Gucci. They're working on a fragrance for infants called Gucci Gucci Goo.
I'm writing a self help book. It's called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all Starting to Piss me Off!
I was born on the 29th day of the month and at the time my dad was 29. So 29 years later when I turned 29 on the 29th I bet $29 on a horse wearing the number 29 and you know what? It would have been cool if I'd won.
I wonder how Christmas got its name. I wonder if maybe in the Nativity ~ Mary was having a hard time during labor and if Joseph maybe tried to encourage her by saying hold on there Mary, I can see its head... it's coming... and then she said sarcastically, So's Christmas!
I prefer saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. That way I don't offend anyone who hasn't accepted Jesus as their savior. You and I both know they're going to hell, why rub salt in their wounds.? You know... this time tomorrow Satan will be snacking on their scrawny deep fried little heathen ass, so where do I get off alluding to like the only chance they have of avoiding the perpetual blistering incinerator of scorching white nuclear annihilation that yawns before them?
I have a bumper sticker that says WTFWJD?
I have a photogenic memory. Can't remember shit, but looks nice in a frame.
I love when I'm looking for a movie at Blockbuster and I can't find it so I ask for help and the clerk comes and looks in the same place I just fucking looked. I'm like... what are the chances that I forgot that D comes after C in the alphabet?
Not saying I'm a genius but I went to a few schools that Einstein never even heard of.
I read in a scientific journal that you can tell about a person's sexuality according to their chocolate preferences. Like if a guy is into white chocolate, he will be attracted to women with fair complexions. Or if he's into dark chocolate... darker women. Personally I love milk chocolate... uhhh so.... Lactating women I guess?
Chocolate, incidentally, influenced me to be an atheist. I said hi to my friend, Mae, one evening and she was eating chocolate and when she smiled at me I thought... would a loving God make chocolate and poop look the same? Reiminds me of that Disney Movie where Winnie the Pooh finds the Honey Bucket at the concert... not a pretty sight.
Does jelly come from a jelly bean?
When I'm drawing a blank it doesn't take long.
Sometimes I'll take two pieces of bread and put them together and eat them. It's like a sloppy joe without all the mess.
For a long time I thought I might be a superhero, but I couldn't identify my weakness. You know how Superman has his kryptonite and then I figured it out... for me it's porn.
I have three prosthetics. One on each arm and then... well I can't tell you about the other one.
Bi-polar people shouldn't bitch. You know how they go through these drastic swings up and down? Well I've been diagnosed as south polar... just one long drawn out down.
I was going to cancel cable, but really couldn't live without my Oxygen Network.
The elements irritate me... obviously C is for Cookie, but how do you get K for Potassium?
I have another bumber sticker. It says If you can read this, whoopdie freakin' do!
I think it's nice when you're all smiles, but you can't go anywhere without legs.
I tried to breed a horse with a lizard, but customs won't let you into the country with a mare~iguana.
I always thought paintballing sounded like a weird fetish...I didn't even know they were using guns.
I bought one of those books on tape, but it was a coloring book... so kind of boring.
They test me at work for drug abuse... which is dumb... everyone knows I'm nothing but kind to drugs... always giving them a place to stay when they're on the run or whatever.
I hate when a step ladder tries to take the place of your real ladder.
I think it's great when you're at work and you're sweeping the floor or shining the windows and some lady says, You can come clean my house. When is that ever realistic?
They say hindsight is 20/20. Seems to me it's when you're looking at someone's ass.
A fun thing to say on a first date with a girl is how much you enjoy getting to that point in a relationship when you're so comfortable with each other that you can enjoy silence.... when neither one of you has to be saying anything. Then when she starts to agree, go... shhh... quiet time!
I've been shopping online for an Audi. My last five girlfriends were all innies.
If I have twins... a girl and a boy, I'm naming them Cinderella and Cindefella.
Someone offered me a Werthers Original, I was like you could save money with Werther's Unoriginals. They taste the same.
I wasted a month of my life in Egypt looking for a town called Bumfuck.
Do you think kids teased Dick Van Dyke when he was a kid?
Have you ever noticed that usually when someone begins a statement by saying, "There's no question about that" they immediately proceed to answer a question about that?
I'm driving. You're in the backseat. You know where I'm going. I don't. I say, Which way do I turn? You say Left. I want to make sure so I say Left? And you say Right.
I love it when I tell someone my birthday is in January and they're like Really!! Oh my God, my sister's birthday is in January too and her boyfriend and his mother were both born in February! And his dad and I are both March babies! And my grandfather and my mother were both born in November. But my Uncle Tobias is the only one in the family that was born in August. Everyone else was born in a cold month... either Winter or Fall or way early Spring!
God forbid we be born on the same day. There are like 365 days in a year, typically... and only 6.75 billion people so the odds against two people being born on the same day... TWO people!!! It just boggles the mind... it really really does.
I fucking hate cheating. No way I would ever cheat on anyone. Most number of girlfriends I've ever had at one time is ONE! Maybe two... at the most.... okay usually two but that doesn't count because they never know about each other. And honestly even if they did it still wouldn't count because I never have any real feelings for them. Like I tell them I have feelings for them because you have to do that to get them to spread their legs, right, but it's never true... so that doesn't count, you see what I mean?
Seriously, my idea of the perfect romantic evening is me and a girl.... okay.... I haven't worked out the details yet, but I think that's a pretty good start.
Masturbating is kind of like going to church. I mean in either case I'm practicing for something that's probably never going to happen.
I have this cologne by Gucci. It's called Gucci. They're working on a fragrance for infants called Gucci Gucci Goo.
I'm writing a self help book. It's called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all Starting to Piss me Off!
I was born on the 29th day of the month and at the time my dad was 29. So 29 years later when I turned 29 on the 29th I bet $29 on a horse wearing the number 29 and you know what? It would have been cool if I'd won.
I wonder how Christmas got its name. I wonder if maybe in the Nativity ~ Mary was having a hard time during labor and if Joseph maybe tried to encourage her by saying hold on there Mary, I can see its head... it's coming... and then she said sarcastically, So's Christmas!
I prefer saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. That way I don't offend anyone who hasn't accepted Jesus as their savior. You and I both know they're going to hell, why rub salt in their wounds.? You know... this time tomorrow Satan will be snacking on their scrawny deep fried little heathen ass, so where do I get off alluding to like the only chance they have of avoiding the perpetual blistering incinerator of scorching white nuclear annihilation that yawns before them?
I have a bumper sticker that says WTFWJD?
I have a photogenic memory. Can't remember shit, but looks nice in a frame.
I love when I'm looking for a movie at Blockbuster and I can't find it so I ask for help and the clerk comes and looks in the same place I just fucking looked. I'm like... what are the chances that I forgot that D comes after C in the alphabet?
Not saying I'm a genius but I went to a few schools that Einstein never even heard of.
I read in a scientific journal that you can tell about a person's sexuality according to their chocolate preferences. Like if a guy is into white chocolate, he will be attracted to women with fair complexions. Or if he's into dark chocolate... darker women. Personally I love milk chocolate... uhhh so.... Lactating women I guess?
Chocolate, incidentally, influenced me to be an atheist. I said hi to my friend, Mae, one evening and she was eating chocolate and when she smiled at me I thought... would a loving God make chocolate and poop look the same? Reiminds me of that Disney Movie where Winnie the Pooh finds the Honey Bucket at the concert... not a pretty sight.
Does jelly come from a jelly bean?
When I'm drawing a blank it doesn't take long.
Sometimes I'll take two pieces of bread and put them together and eat them. It's like a sloppy joe without all the mess.
For a long time I thought I might be a superhero, but I couldn't identify my weakness. You know how Superman has his kryptonite and then I figured it out... for me it's porn.
I have three prosthetics. One on each arm and then... well I can't tell you about the other one.
Bi-polar people shouldn't bitch. You know how they go through these drastic swings up and down? Well I've been diagnosed as south polar... just one long drawn out down.
I was going to cancel cable, but really couldn't live without my Oxygen Network.
The elements irritate me... obviously C is for Cookie, but how do you get K for Potassium?
I have another bumber sticker. It says If you can read this, whoopdie freakin' do!
I think it's nice when you're all smiles, but you can't go anywhere without legs.
I tried to breed a horse with a lizard, but customs won't let you into the country with a mare~iguana.
I always thought paintballing sounded like a weird fetish...I didn't even know they were using guns.
I bought one of those books on tape, but it was a coloring book... so kind of boring.
They test me at work for drug abuse... which is dumb... everyone knows I'm nothing but kind to drugs... always giving them a place to stay when they're on the run or whatever.
I hate when a step ladder tries to take the place of your real ladder.
I think it's great when you're at work and you're sweeping the floor or shining the windows and some lady says, You can come clean my house. When is that ever realistic?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Prolific Contempt
There can be no doubt I'm writing fewer blogs lately. One problem with that is that when I finally get around to writing a new one, I have way too much to say, so I want to write more of a book right now than a blog, but I haven't the time. I want to rush it so I can take a shower and drop into my favorite restaurant for some Thai dinner before heading to work.What got me thinking about this newest blog is a movie based on Silas Marner, a short classic by George Elliot. I read the book some time in the past year, but only got around to watching the movie yesterday.
A Synopsis Which Will Spoil the Ending For You
Silas is a lonely weaver who prefers to be left alone. Through hard work he gradually collects a fortune but one day a rich man's son, having squandered a lot of money entrusted to him, wanders into Marner's cottage while the weaver is away and discovers the lonely man's fortune and steals it. The thief disappears, so his brother inherits their father's fortune... but this brother is not without blemish either, for he has a daughter he doesn't want anyone to know about because the mother is an opium addict of poor reputation. He's relieved when the mother dies from illness which frees him up to marry the woman he longs for. The little girl is then discovered by Marner the weaver and he adopts her. She becomes to him more precious than the fortune he lost. At the end of the book the body of the thief brother is discovered in a swamp less than a mile from Marner's cottage along with the gold he'd stolen. The money is given back to the weaver. By this time the little girl has blossomed into a happy beautiful young woman and her true father wishes to assume the role that biologically has been his all along. So he comes to visit Marner trying to persuade him to relinquish the daughter.So I watched the movie and I'm thinking how insane is it that this rich man would come over to the cottage and begin by apologizing on behalf of his brother for the theft of the weaver's fortune many years prior and then promptly endeavors to steal a much greater fortune, the lovely daughter!
But despicable as it was, I had to admit it didn't seem unrealistic. That's because lately I find myself particularly aware of how despicable people, in general, can be. Just an example, yesterday while approaching the parking garage where I work I stopped for two pedestrians crossing the street, a man and a woman. It seemed to me they were intentionally walking as slow as humanly possible. This kind of thing makes my vision go red and even white hot... for all the world like the planet belonged to them and it was my special privilege to have the pleasure of waiting for them to get the bloody fuck out of my way.
Now, there was a time when I could overlook anyone's faults just by reminding myself of the hell it seems each person has to endure at one point or another in their lives. Life isn't easy for any of us, I used to think, and so I would feel a brotherly compassion for virtually everyone. Shall I blame it on the aging process that I am no longer so understanding? Is that a part of growing older that I reach this point where I think, no, it hasn't got anything to do with your rotten childhood that you treat people the way you do, it's merely that you utterly suck!
I know people that seem to maintain a more even keel... like this one fellow, Chris that I play volleyball with at the YMCA. I don't know him real well, but I'm so irritable when I play because the egos out there exacerbate my equanimity righteously. I hate how people will critique my performance after every play. I mean in volleyball you make mistakes all the time... everyone does... I mean one team or the other is going to come up on the short end of every play so I'm like do we really want to articulate whose fault it is each and every time? To put this in perspective... I'm going on about 200 hours of volleyball with these people and I still haven't critiqued anyone after any single play. Certainly I've thought to myself on countless occasions "Gee, would it kill you to take at least one step toward making a play there?" but I don't say anything because... what the hell good does it do? Anyway... Chris plays with the same stupid cast of characters just about as frequently as I do and I notice how it doesn't seem to get to him. He has a way of shrugging it off... you know... not sweating the small stuff... and you know... I admire his style and maybe I'm learning from it too... hopefully.
But still I wonder if others have noticed this about growing older... that you lose a little of your inclination to give people a little slack and you begin to see assholes as assholes instead of people who are probably having a bad day.I'm opposed to making the aging process any easier than it already is. Like Sophia Loren, I believe if you feel aches and pains and soreness in your joints when you get up out of your seat, you have to just spring up like a kid anyway because once you surrender to that feeling of getting old, that's precisely when you get old. So... carrying that to my attitude... I think I'm going to have to fight that disgust with people that I've been cultivating. I'm going to have to.... groan.... be nice to people I can't stand.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Celebrty Cluster Death
There's a saying that celebrities die in three's. This week it was Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. Pondering death. Pondering life. When we were kids, we didn't have TV so I never watched Charlie's Angels and didn't really know much about Farrah Fawcett, but my older brother was in love with her. Likewise when Michael Jackson took over the music scene in the early 80's I didn't have access to MTV and didn't know anything about his music. I understood that kids were dressing like him (including the wearing of only one glove). Ed McMahon I was a little more acquainted with in the mid 80's as I was secretly confiscating a miniature black and white TV each night and bringing it into my room and watching late night programming as deep into the morning as I could manage to stay awake. Can't say that I ever found him very entertaining, but there he was every night chatting with Johnny Carson.
Not only have they all left us in the time it takes to recover from last weekend's decadence, but I notice I'm getting used to this sort of thing. When you're a kid most of the celebrities that are old enough to pass away are too old for you to have ever heard of; not so when you grow up. When Jimmy Stewart died one day after Robert Mitchum in 1997, I was devastated. And when Princess Diana and Mother Theresa checked died only five days apart, I was shocked, but after a while you get a little desensitized. This is kind of what people do eventually... you know... when it's not living that they're doing anymore... when it's the alternative.
Yesterday at work I referred to one of my co-workers as Ms. Brinkley. I was just teasing her because her first name is Christy, but the joke was lost inasmuch as she'd never heard of the world famous pioneer of super-modeling, and she began questioning our other co-workers in pursuit of an explanation. A minute later she pounced on me with the discovery that Christy Brinkley is old! How could I have referred to her as an old person? In my signature smartass fashion I reasoned with her, "By far most of the people that have ever been born are dead now - compared to them, Christy is still a baby."
I just wanted to write a blog tonight, you know, during this blink of an eye during which, amazingly, I happen to share Christy Brinkley's statistically defiant status among the living.
Not only have they all left us in the time it takes to recover from last weekend's decadence, but I notice I'm getting used to this sort of thing. When you're a kid most of the celebrities that are old enough to pass away are too old for you to have ever heard of; not so when you grow up. When Jimmy Stewart died one day after Robert Mitchum in 1997, I was devastated. And when Princess Diana and Mother Theresa checked died only five days apart, I was shocked, but after a while you get a little desensitized. This is kind of what people do eventually... you know... when it's not living that they're doing anymore... when it's the alternative.
Yesterday at work I referred to one of my co-workers as Ms. Brinkley. I was just teasing her because her first name is Christy, but the joke was lost inasmuch as she'd never heard of the world famous pioneer of super-modeling, and she began questioning our other co-workers in pursuit of an explanation. A minute later she pounced on me with the discovery that Christy Brinkley is old! How could I have referred to her as an old person? In my signature smartass fashion I reasoned with her, "By far most of the people that have ever been born are dead now - compared to them, Christy is still a baby."
I just wanted to write a blog tonight, you know, during this blink of an eye during which, amazingly, I happen to share Christy Brinkley's statistically defiant status among the living.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Letterman Larger Than Life
This week a feud has developed between David Letterman and Sarah Palin because of jokes he made on his show about her and her family's visit to NY. One of the jokes disparaged her by indicating that she's trying to look like a slutty airline attendant, but the real transgression was when he said that the Yankees 3rd baseman, Alex Rodriguez, got her daughter knocked up during the 7th inning of a game. Not very funny. He didn't say which daughter but Piper was the one that went to the game with Sarah and she's only 14 years old, so the Palin family and their supporters were indignant and have attempted to rake Letterman over the coals for his perverted sense of humor.
So I'm a little torn here because I really like David Letterman's sense of humor. I think he's the king of sarcastic hilarity. He can make me laugh with just a facial expression. Hell, I boycotted Jay Leno for his entire tenure on the Tonight Show exclusively because he was given the throne vacated by Johnny Carson when I felt Letterman was more deserving. Leno was never in the same universe with Letterman when it comes to being funny.
And I don't like Sarah Palin. For all the accolades she collects as an accomplished governor in Alaska, all I saw from her on the campaign trail last year was a rabid little attack dog foaming at the mouth with derision for Barrack Obama, and it seemed to me that if I looked at her for more than two consecutive seconds, I could actually watch her head expanding with all the national popularity.
No excuses, though. Letterman should say he's sorry.
So I'm a little torn here because I really like David Letterman's sense of humor. I think he's the king of sarcastic hilarity. He can make me laugh with just a facial expression. Hell, I boycotted Jay Leno for his entire tenure on the Tonight Show exclusively because he was given the throne vacated by Johnny Carson when I felt Letterman was more deserving. Leno was never in the same universe with Letterman when it comes to being funny.
And I don't like Sarah Palin. For all the accolades she collects as an accomplished governor in Alaska, all I saw from her on the campaign trail last year was a rabid little attack dog foaming at the mouth with derision for Barrack Obama, and it seemed to me that if I looked at her for more than two consecutive seconds, I could actually watch her head expanding with all the national popularity.
No excuses, though. Letterman should say he's sorry.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Confessions of a Hardcore Bibliophile
For me the mere sight of an old leatherbound book connotes inspiring appreciation for knowledge. When I'm watching a scene in a movie that has a personal library in the background with antique books on the shelves, I find I suddenly can't wait for the movie to end so I can rush home and start reading books and hopefully furthering my ambition to one day become a literary genius.
When I was a younger and (hard to believe) lazier fellow, I would sometimes acquire books with the intention to read them, but easily grew weary if the narration dragged for a page too many. And the book would find its way onto a shelf there to reside perpetually with anywhere from 20 to 400 pages forever unread. Then another book would catch my eye and the process would commence once more until little mountains of unfinished readings piled up around me. Occasionally, in the course of straightening up my living quarters, I would relocate one such book or another and a dull pang of guilt would reverbrate through me as I recalled how I'd always meant to get back to it and complete the reading I'd begun however many months previous.
I guess it was during my college years that I developed a stronger resolve about such things and determined to finish reading books I'd begun no matter how unsatisfying. And happily I pounce on every opportunity to show off to people the bookcases in my living room in which I have arranged, however neurotically, collectible editions of all the books I've ever read in the very sequence in which I read them.
Nevertheless, it still happens sometimes that my literary appetite gets unrealistic and I try to read more than one book at a time. And some of them, while I know they are not eternally abandoned, do get neglected for tragically extended durations with the result that I can now profess to be reading all of the following somewhat simultaneously (numbers in parentheses indicate how many pages I've read so far):
There Will Be Dragons ~ John Ringo (80 pages)
The Idiot ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky (10 pages)
The Stupidest Angel ~ Christopher Moore (130 pages)
Walden ~ Henry David Thoreau (125 pages)
Tobacco Road ~ Erskine Caldwell (7 pages)
Ghost Writer ~ John Harwood (212 pages)
The Spear ~ Luis De Wohl (18 pages)
Xenocide ~ Orson Scott Card (98 pages)
The Acts of King Arthur ~ John Steinbeck (216 pages)
Frankly, I didn't realize the list was getting so formidable until I compiled it here for the purpose of writing this blog, and it occurs to me blatantly how necessary it is for me now to buckle down and do some marathon reading. Which is a good thing because I've been babying myself with inmoderate intellectual idleness lately and it's really time to fulfill the promise of supreme nerdiness that I have always been blessed with as my destiny.
When I was a younger and (hard to believe) lazier fellow, I would sometimes acquire books with the intention to read them, but easily grew weary if the narration dragged for a page too many. And the book would find its way onto a shelf there to reside perpetually with anywhere from 20 to 400 pages forever unread. Then another book would catch my eye and the process would commence once more until little mountains of unfinished readings piled up around me. Occasionally, in the course of straightening up my living quarters, I would relocate one such book or another and a dull pang of guilt would reverbrate through me as I recalled how I'd always meant to get back to it and complete the reading I'd begun however many months previous.
I guess it was during my college years that I developed a stronger resolve about such things and determined to finish reading books I'd begun no matter how unsatisfying. And happily I pounce on every opportunity to show off to people the bookcases in my living room in which I have arranged, however neurotically, collectible editions of all the books I've ever read in the very sequence in which I read them.
Nevertheless, it still happens sometimes that my literary appetite gets unrealistic and I try to read more than one book at a time. And some of them, while I know they are not eternally abandoned, do get neglected for tragically extended durations with the result that I can now profess to be reading all of the following somewhat simultaneously (numbers in parentheses indicate how many pages I've read so far):
There Will Be Dragons ~ John Ringo (80 pages)
The Idiot ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky (10 pages)
The Stupidest Angel ~ Christopher Moore (130 pages)
Walden ~ Henry David Thoreau (125 pages)
Tobacco Road ~ Erskine Caldwell (7 pages)
Ghost Writer ~ John Harwood (212 pages)
The Spear ~ Luis De Wohl (18 pages)
Xenocide ~ Orson Scott Card (98 pages)
The Acts of King Arthur ~ John Steinbeck (216 pages)
Frankly, I didn't realize the list was getting so formidable until I compiled it here for the purpose of writing this blog, and it occurs to me blatantly how necessary it is for me now to buckle down and do some marathon reading. Which is a good thing because I've been babying myself with inmoderate intellectual idleness lately and it's really time to fulfill the promise of supreme nerdiness that I have always been blessed with as my destiny.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Does God Have Hormones?
I guess it began at prayer meeting when I was only four years old. My father would condescend to keep the kids in the church entertained while the adults discussed more sobering nuances of the scriptures. He would conduct Bible quizzes and he got a little repetitious from one week to the next so that I began to memorize the answers. He would ask "Who was the first younger brother?" and I would think... gee... seems like every time he asks that one, the answer is Abel. So I would blurt out the correct response and I liked the expressions on people's faces as they turned to look at the little four year old Bible whiz.
So at the early age of seven, I opened my Bible to the first page and began reading. I was determined to read the whole thing and enjoyed plenty of encouragement along the way from older people who seemed to approve of my youthful dedication to God's word. I finished the Old Testament while recovering from Chicken Pox when I was 12. Sometimes I would petition my father for permission to visit the neighbors so that I could watch NFL games on their TV. He would gravely observe that if I would spend as much time reading the Bible as watching football, I would have a better understanding of God's will than many adults. Dutifully I would follow his advice and read for three hours before kickoff.
The next year I lived with my mother in the Smoky Mountains and would often wander up into the hills after school and sit down and read and pray with the breeze whipping through the grass serving to represent the Holy Spirit. It was as close to God as I could get. I finally finished reading the Bible from cover to cover when I was 14.
The next year my older brother pronounced a disturbing opinion to me. He suggested that the Song of Solomon was not necessarily inspired by God. If you've read this portion of the Bible you know it's basically a romantic poem in which Solomon gets pretty mushy about how delicious he finds every curve and contour of his lover (forgetting I presume the other 2000 women whose responsibility it was to sexually pleasure him and make as many children as possible).But I refused and resented this notion of my brother's.
You can't just arbitrarily point to one part of the Bible and say this part isn't inspired by God. If you do that, I argued, someone else can come along and point to another part that they don't happen to relish, and say the same thing. Hey... you know the verse in Exodus that says thou shalt not commit adultery? Well, I think maybe that was added by some scribe who was worried about the way his wife had been ogling the plumber. See how that could spin out of control?
Yeah... maybe God didn't have anything to do with that passage about turning the other cheek. I think maybe that was just some pansy inserting his own ideology in there because he was tired of people ridiculing him for his lack of gonads.I reminded my brother how it says in II Timothy 3:16 that
And I was thoroughly perplexed when this failed to pesuade him. My stance was that you have to accept the entire word of God as being literal and infallible or you may as well discard the entire volume inasmuch as it would defy credulity to ascribe to any man the wisdom to go through the book and sort out what God agrees with and what is irrelevant. No, I persisted, God would not let anything imperfect into a book upon which rested mankind's best hope of getting to know his maker and his salvation. If God wants us to understand vividly just how hot Solomon was for his concubine of the moment 2995 years ago, then it must be of the utmost spiritual significance. And trust me, somewhere someone is making the most earnest argument to this effect, replete with symbolism about how Solomon represents Christ and the concubine represents the Church and her twin breasts signify the alpha and the omega while the erection is obvious code for the resurrection.
Ah... how black and white the world was then. I reminisce rather often back to that fraternal discussion because you see, it was a different time for me. Since then my older sister became an atheist. And then my little brother. And then I did too. The older brother who was able to hold onto the Biblical baby while simultaneously throwing out the bath water was the last holdout, but four years after our conversation about Solomon's virility, he too acknowledged a lack of faith in God's existence. But beyond a rejection of religion, I've relinquished my proclivity for seeing the world and its issues with such rigid perception.
By which I mean that I rather frequently shrug my shoulders with the realization that there are not so many good guys and bad guys as I used to think. There's just a whole lot of people. And it always comes back to how you look at a thing.
Hitler. What if he'd frozen to death because of his nurse's negligence when he was only an infant? Is there anyone, who having learned of such an incident, would not view it as a pitiable tragedy?
Or consider the plot in the movie Crash where a cop, infused with racist bigotry, is sexually and spitefully molesting a black suspect in front of her husband. At that point you're just sick with the despicability of what you're watching, but then later this same cop is the first on the scene of a car accident and heroically saves the life of the same woman he'd violated earlier. Hmm... what to make of that! My inclination to rip his fucking head off had I been witness to his earlier transgression, wouldn't have done the woman much good, had it deprived her eventual rescuer of his life.
Politically I look at the wars we wage against terrorism. How much propaganda is our support based upon? How much corruption. Does torture save lives? Is it really torture? How much torture do we not know about? Are we really the good guys? Which side has killed the most innocent lives? And how many of those innocent lives were destined to grow up and become the next Hitler?
Yes I sometimes miss my simple childhood when it was all crystal clear black and white.
So at the early age of seven, I opened my Bible to the first page and began reading. I was determined to read the whole thing and enjoyed plenty of encouragement along the way from older people who seemed to approve of my youthful dedication to God's word. I finished the Old Testament while recovering from Chicken Pox when I was 12. Sometimes I would petition my father for permission to visit the neighbors so that I could watch NFL games on their TV. He would gravely observe that if I would spend as much time reading the Bible as watching football, I would have a better understanding of God's will than many adults. Dutifully I would follow his advice and read for three hours before kickoff.
The next year I lived with my mother in the Smoky Mountains and would often wander up into the hills after school and sit down and read and pray with the breeze whipping through the grass serving to represent the Holy Spirit. It was as close to God as I could get. I finally finished reading the Bible from cover to cover when I was 14.
The next year my older brother pronounced a disturbing opinion to me. He suggested that the Song of Solomon was not necessarily inspired by God. If you've read this portion of the Bible you know it's basically a romantic poem in which Solomon gets pretty mushy about how delicious he finds every curve and contour of his lover (forgetting I presume the other 2000 women whose responsibility it was to sexually pleasure him and make as many children as possible).But I refused and resented this notion of my brother's.
You can't just arbitrarily point to one part of the Bible and say this part isn't inspired by God. If you do that, I argued, someone else can come along and point to another part that they don't happen to relish, and say the same thing. Hey... you know the verse in Exodus that says thou shalt not commit adultery? Well, I think maybe that was added by some scribe who was worried about the way his wife had been ogling the plumber. See how that could spin out of control?
Yeah... maybe God didn't have anything to do with that passage about turning the other cheek. I think maybe that was just some pansy inserting his own ideology in there because he was tired of people ridiculing him for his lack of gonads.I reminded my brother how it says in II Timothy 3:16 that
All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness.
And I was thoroughly perplexed when this failed to pesuade him. My stance was that you have to accept the entire word of God as being literal and infallible or you may as well discard the entire volume inasmuch as it would defy credulity to ascribe to any man the wisdom to go through the book and sort out what God agrees with and what is irrelevant. No, I persisted, God would not let anything imperfect into a book upon which rested mankind's best hope of getting to know his maker and his salvation. If God wants us to understand vividly just how hot Solomon was for his concubine of the moment 2995 years ago, then it must be of the utmost spiritual significance. And trust me, somewhere someone is making the most earnest argument to this effect, replete with symbolism about how Solomon represents Christ and the concubine represents the Church and her twin breasts signify the alpha and the omega while the erection is obvious code for the resurrection.
Ah... how black and white the world was then. I reminisce rather often back to that fraternal discussion because you see, it was a different time for me. Since then my older sister became an atheist. And then my little brother. And then I did too. The older brother who was able to hold onto the Biblical baby while simultaneously throwing out the bath water was the last holdout, but four years after our conversation about Solomon's virility, he too acknowledged a lack of faith in God's existence. But beyond a rejection of religion, I've relinquished my proclivity for seeing the world and its issues with such rigid perception.
By which I mean that I rather frequently shrug my shoulders with the realization that there are not so many good guys and bad guys as I used to think. There's just a whole lot of people. And it always comes back to how you look at a thing.
Hitler. What if he'd frozen to death because of his nurse's negligence when he was only an infant? Is there anyone, who having learned of such an incident, would not view it as a pitiable tragedy?
Or consider the plot in the movie Crash where a cop, infused with racist bigotry, is sexually and spitefully molesting a black suspect in front of her husband. At that point you're just sick with the despicability of what you're watching, but then later this same cop is the first on the scene of a car accident and heroically saves the life of the same woman he'd violated earlier. Hmm... what to make of that! My inclination to rip his fucking head off had I been witness to his earlier transgression, wouldn't have done the woman much good, had it deprived her eventual rescuer of his life.
Politically I look at the wars we wage against terrorism. How much propaganda is our support based upon? How much corruption. Does torture save lives? Is it really torture? How much torture do we not know about? Are we really the good guys? Which side has killed the most innocent lives? And how many of those innocent lives were destined to grow up and become the next Hitler?
Yes I sometimes miss my simple childhood when it was all crystal clear black and white.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
153 Days
In November I wrote a blog about my determination to quit gambling. That was 153 day ago which breaks my old record (set last summer) for abstinence by one day! Economically I have benefitted immensely from putting my money into my checking accounts instead of into the bottomless pit of my habit.
But it would be dishonest of me to say I'm out of the woods. In fact breaking this record may be the single most motivating factor to my achievement. I know at any given moment that I can set a new mark. The first very successful effort was when I was dating my last girlfriend. When she found out how serious my addiction is, she cried, and because I so much wanted to make her happy, I managed to stay away from casinos for 86 days and could possibly have extended that quite a lot if our relationship had not imploded and subsequently launched me into escape mode. Then the next year, much more for myself and in an effort to improve my life (with the help of some incredible encouragement from my friend Alyssa) I set the mark at 142 days.
So my best efforts at breaking the habit look like this:
2006 86 days
2007 142 days
2008 152 days
2009 153 days
Which to look at, causes me a great deal of pride because I know so many people that suffer from the same affliction and they can't really go a week without it, nor do they very often bother to try.
It's not the same as breaking the habit. Let me not fool myself on that point, but what makes me happy is to see an indication here of something quite like self~discipline.
I believe a person's character has to change in order to really conquer gambling and I'm not much closer to this than I was 153 days ago. But I am richer.
But it would be dishonest of me to say I'm out of the woods. In fact breaking this record may be the single most motivating factor to my achievement. I know at any given moment that I can set a new mark. The first very successful effort was when I was dating my last girlfriend. When she found out how serious my addiction is, she cried, and because I so much wanted to make her happy, I managed to stay away from casinos for 86 days and could possibly have extended that quite a lot if our relationship had not imploded and subsequently launched me into escape mode. Then the next year, much more for myself and in an effort to improve my life (with the help of some incredible encouragement from my friend Alyssa) I set the mark at 142 days.
So my best efforts at breaking the habit look like this:
2006 86 days
2007 142 days
2008 152 days
2009 153 days
Which to look at, causes me a great deal of pride because I know so many people that suffer from the same affliction and they can't really go a week without it, nor do they very often bother to try.
It's not the same as breaking the habit. Let me not fool myself on that point, but what makes me happy is to see an indication here of something quite like self~discipline.
I believe a person's character has to change in order to really conquer gambling and I'm not much closer to this than I was 153 days ago. But I am richer.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
My Pathetic Fantasy
I seem to remember reading a comic book once about a couple guys who survived a nuclear apocalypse by confining themselves to an underground shelter with about a dozen gorgeous babes. How convenient, I thought, while rolling my eyes.
But my imagination isn't much better. Not much more sophisticated, I'm afraid. It's occurred to me recently that there's a 20 year class reunion coming up not long from now. Forever I've assumed I would skip it, but now that it's on the horizon, I'm having the most pathetic daydreams of how I will impress everyone I went to high school with.
Oh I will show them how much they underestimated me! That's why I'll be doing pushups today and running a few miles... you know so that I can finally add the 15 pounds of muscle I've been anticipating since I was eight years old.
Oh and I'm finally going to get published. Yeah... I just figured it out in a lovely moment's epiphany... see... I'll write something every day... Just anything. I'm sure it will be great stuff and ummm... everyone that went to Madison Academy in the late 80's will read every word and have nothing else to talk about at the reunion.
And about the wet dream that will be holding my arm... wait... maybe there should be two wet dreams... one on each arm... well I could easily hire a couple escorts with all the money I'll be making from my breakthrough writings. And I'll hire them a few days prior to the big event so I can coach them on how to appear as though they've known me and loved me for several months already.
I might have to create a band so that everyone will be looking for me and then suddenly realize I'm the lead vocalist in the night's entertainment. . . performing all my favorite songs that, coincidentally, will suddenly be everyone else's favorite songs too!
Then there's that one special girl that rejected me. Ummm... I need her husband to be especially boring that night... maybe he can get drunk and throw up on himself. That would be so thoughtful of him. Hmmm... how ethical would it be to lace his beverages with ascerbic acids?
And of course I can just rent the Ferrari. That's the easy part.
God in Heaven, it takes a long time to grow up.
But my imagination isn't much better. Not much more sophisticated, I'm afraid. It's occurred to me recently that there's a 20 year class reunion coming up not long from now. Forever I've assumed I would skip it, but now that it's on the horizon, I'm having the most pathetic daydreams of how I will impress everyone I went to high school with.
Oh I will show them how much they underestimated me! That's why I'll be doing pushups today and running a few miles... you know so that I can finally add the 15 pounds of muscle I've been anticipating since I was eight years old.
Oh and I'm finally going to get published. Yeah... I just figured it out in a lovely moment's epiphany... see... I'll write something every day... Just anything. I'm sure it will be great stuff and ummm... everyone that went to Madison Academy in the late 80's will read every word and have nothing else to talk about at the reunion.
And about the wet dream that will be holding my arm... wait... maybe there should be two wet dreams... one on each arm... well I could easily hire a couple escorts with all the money I'll be making from my breakthrough writings. And I'll hire them a few days prior to the big event so I can coach them on how to appear as though they've known me and loved me for several months already.
I might have to create a band so that everyone will be looking for me and then suddenly realize I'm the lead vocalist in the night's entertainment. . . performing all my favorite songs that, coincidentally, will suddenly be everyone else's favorite songs too!
Then there's that one special girl that rejected me. Ummm... I need her husband to be especially boring that night... maybe he can get drunk and throw up on himself. That would be so thoughtful of him. Hmmm... how ethical would it be to lace his beverages with ascerbic acids?
And of course I can just rent the Ferrari. That's the easy part.
God in Heaven, it takes a long time to grow up.
Friday, April 17, 2009
A Treatise on Kindness
Recently I opened my journal to write about the kindest people I know. I sat there brainstorming a for a while. I thought of my older brother. He's always been capable of remarkable selflessness. I have seen him command immense popularity by showing interest in the least popular of the people he meets. I think of my mother who relentlessly instilled in her children the habit of thinking of others. There was no greater transgression than that of being inconsiderate. Whenever she found us feeling sorry for ourselves she would say the best way to feel better is to find someone else who is unhappy and do something to cheer them up. This was a lesson that took me many many years to learn and even now too many days and weeks go by at a time without me pondering it as much as I should, but I thank my mother for teaching us this divine wisdom even if I was slow to grasp it. I think of Con Arnold, a friend of our family that passed away a few years ago. When my mother had to move to a new house in 1996, while her husband was incarcerated, it was a monumental task, but out of nowhere Con showed up with nearly a dozen fellows from our church and several trucks and the moving was finished almost quicker than you could blink. And he was that way with everyone. Always working behind the scenes to help people out in an almost magical way without ever the least interest in taking credit for anything. I think of Marianne where I've worked for nearly six years now. When I was still a very new employee, she was the first person to talk to me and ask me about myself. I'll never forget the gratitude that swept over me as I felt like a real person instead of just the newest idiot that didn't know what he was doing. And often I've tried to follow her example with many of the several hundred new workers that have been hired since then.
When measuring kindness, it seems to me there are about four different classifications. There is the kindness you show your dearest friends. This variety I practically dismiss because it's so basic and natural. But the other three intigue me.
The kindness you show to people you know but are not close to. The next time you hear someone at work talking about their father being sick or their sister getting divorced, try this. Ask for names. Find out their father's name or their sister's name. Then the next time you see them ask about their loved ones by name. It can really amaze people. If you say "Did Laura get the information she needed from her lawyer?" it will make them feel as though you have really taken a genuine interest. You will have automatically separated yourself from all the uncaring masses of people that otherwise surround us.
The kindness you show to people you really don't know. One time my former fiancee and I had just arrived in the parking lot of a shopping mall and a foreign man approached us asking for directions. We knew the street he was talking about, but when we tried to advise him how to get there, it was obvious he was becoming hopelessly confused. We decided to go there ourselves with him following in his car behind us. It only took maybe 25 minutes of our day, but it made us feel like angels to have helped someone out that we didn't know. I'm sorry to say that's nearly the last example I can think of for having done something like that, and it was just about five years ago so I really need to brush up on such things.
Then there is the kindness you show to people you can't stand. This one gets a little biblical and I advise caution with this one. I used to think it was a great experiment to make a project out of someone you dislike intensely and to see what positive effect you can have on them by being very nice. The problem is you might still despise them anyway and when you eventually cease your experiment, it kind of makes you look flaky and disingenuous.
Maybe you've noticed this too, that even the kindest people can get pissed off sometimes. I guess I don't really know anyone who's a perfect saint. But you never know when someone might be sitting down to write in their journal and brainstorming about the kindest people they know... how would you like to be on their list?
When measuring kindness, it seems to me there are about four different classifications. There is the kindness you show your dearest friends. This variety I practically dismiss because it's so basic and natural. But the other three intigue me.
The kindness you show to people you know but are not close to. The next time you hear someone at work talking about their father being sick or their sister getting divorced, try this. Ask for names. Find out their father's name or their sister's name. Then the next time you see them ask about their loved ones by name. It can really amaze people. If you say "Did Laura get the information she needed from her lawyer?" it will make them feel as though you have really taken a genuine interest. You will have automatically separated yourself from all the uncaring masses of people that otherwise surround us.
The kindness you show to people you really don't know. One time my former fiancee and I had just arrived in the parking lot of a shopping mall and a foreign man approached us asking for directions. We knew the street he was talking about, but when we tried to advise him how to get there, it was obvious he was becoming hopelessly confused. We decided to go there ourselves with him following in his car behind us. It only took maybe 25 minutes of our day, but it made us feel like angels to have helped someone out that we didn't know. I'm sorry to say that's nearly the last example I can think of for having done something like that, and it was just about five years ago so I really need to brush up on such things.
Then there is the kindness you show to people you can't stand. This one gets a little biblical and I advise caution with this one. I used to think it was a great experiment to make a project out of someone you dislike intensely and to see what positive effect you can have on them by being very nice. The problem is you might still despise them anyway and when you eventually cease your experiment, it kind of makes you look flaky and disingenuous.
Maybe you've noticed this too, that even the kindest people can get pissed off sometimes. I guess I don't really know anyone who's a perfect saint. But you never know when someone might be sitting down to write in their journal and brainstorming about the kindest people they know... how would you like to be on their list?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
How I Became an Atheist
Twenty~one years ago today I became an atheist. Ironically, I was praying. Walking back and forth in the yard behind the condominium in which my family lived, I offering silent supplications to God and attempting to evaluate my faith in him when (not for the first time) it occurred to me he may not exist. For some few moments I resisted contemplation of this nefarious notion, and that was the clincher. For whatever reason, I am not the sort of person that can suppress my own thoughts. If I feel like contemplating something, I'm going to allow myself the freedom to contemplate it. And all the training and conditioning and schooling and indoctrinating and inculcating of my childhood could not withstand or endure the impulse to ponder the possibility that there is no God. To the contrary, I resented what I perceived as a brainwashing environment condusive to bypassing rational thought. Had I been a better behaved sheep, I would instinctively have put my wandering mind on hold and placed my faith blindly and resolutely in God.
The Old Testament Abraham is honored for doing just that. Tradition says God told him to sacrifice the life of his beloved son, Isaac. And the venerated patriarch was going to do it. He had his son bound with rope and set upon an altar and was prepared to personally execute him with a knife when God announced that his faith was sufficiently proven and the sacrifice would be not be necessary after all.
Compared to Abraham, I have no faith at all. But (and here's a point I can only hope to make), I declare myself morally superior to him anyway. Of all the ridiculous stupid disgusting and pathetic things I've ever done, nothing comes close to weighing on my conscience as heavily as would the shame of knowing I had tried to kill my son just because God asked me to. That variety of faith is not something to be proud of.
And neither would I sacrifice the potential of my intellect. I would not constrict my own cognitive ability to evaluate the likelihood of God's existence. The very reflex of feeling guilty because I was entertaining forbidden thoughts motivated me to rebel that much more. There dawned on me an intoxicating hunger for thinking on my own and rejecting anything I was expected to swallow like a good little boy just because I was baptized under deluge upon deluge of religious stories and sermons and songs for as far back as I could remember.That was March 12th, 1988. I decided I'd rather go to hell for doubting God's existence than go to heaven and endorse a God that uses hell as a punishment against those who have doubts.
Today I believe God was created by man and not the other way around. And that this is the only life we have... very nearly the only world we have... Wherefore I sense a tremendous pressure to accomplish as much as possible in the short time allocated. Pressure to do more than I feel like doing... to do more than I'm very likely to do and I often berate myself for personal failures and relentless procrastinations. But I have this one consolation... that 21 years ago I made a decision to rely more upon the integrity of my own mind than upon the regurgitated presuppositional proselytizing of an ageless superstition. I might not ever write the book I dream of writing. And I may never find the right woman with whom to enjoy a romantic relationship... but I know my mind is free to think according to its inclinations and so shall it remain as long as it's able to think at all.
The Old Testament Abraham is honored for doing just that. Tradition says God told him to sacrifice the life of his beloved son, Isaac. And the venerated patriarch was going to do it. He had his son bound with rope and set upon an altar and was prepared to personally execute him with a knife when God announced that his faith was sufficiently proven and the sacrifice would be not be necessary after all.
Compared to Abraham, I have no faith at all. But (and here's a point I can only hope to make), I declare myself morally superior to him anyway. Of all the ridiculous stupid disgusting and pathetic things I've ever done, nothing comes close to weighing on my conscience as heavily as would the shame of knowing I had tried to kill my son just because God asked me to. That variety of faith is not something to be proud of.
And neither would I sacrifice the potential of my intellect. I would not constrict my own cognitive ability to evaluate the likelihood of God's existence. The very reflex of feeling guilty because I was entertaining forbidden thoughts motivated me to rebel that much more. There dawned on me an intoxicating hunger for thinking on my own and rejecting anything I was expected to swallow like a good little boy just because I was baptized under deluge upon deluge of religious stories and sermons and songs for as far back as I could remember.That was March 12th, 1988. I decided I'd rather go to hell for doubting God's existence than go to heaven and endorse a God that uses hell as a punishment against those who have doubts.
Today I believe God was created by man and not the other way around. And that this is the only life we have... very nearly the only world we have... Wherefore I sense a tremendous pressure to accomplish as much as possible in the short time allocated. Pressure to do more than I feel like doing... to do more than I'm very likely to do and I often berate myself for personal failures and relentless procrastinations. But I have this one consolation... that 21 years ago I made a decision to rely more upon the integrity of my own mind than upon the regurgitated presuppositional proselytizing of an ageless superstition. I might not ever write the book I dream of writing. And I may never find the right woman with whom to enjoy a romantic relationship... but I know my mind is free to think according to its inclinations and so shall it remain as long as it's able to think at all.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Cracking the 100 ~ Phase One
Recently while shopping at Borders I picked up The Greatest Movies Ever, a book that ranks the top 101 films of all time. Now I'd like to say I'm a huge movie fanatic, but that would mean different things to different people, so I'll try to be more specific: my library features 637 films sequenced in chronological order according to subject matter. So it came as a bit of a shock to me that the fourth film listed in the book was one I had never seen before, namely Sunset Boulevard. There were so many films I hadn't seen, in fact, that my revulsion for ignorance motivated a project. First I made my own list of the best movies. That took about two weeks to accomplish because I wanted to get it right. Now begins the second part which is to watch about twenty movies that appear often on such lists, but that I have not yet seen. After completing this task I will commence the third and final step in the project which consists of revising my list and incorporating whatsoever discoveries I may chance to make in the second phase.
I've made comments next to each entry and in several instances alluded to significant soundtracks because I think they are often integral to the greatness of a film. Here is my list as it stands now:
I've made comments next to each entry and in several instances alluded to significant soundtracks because I think they are often integral to the greatness of a film. Here is my list as it stands now:
- Unforgiven ~ proselytizing for two hours how unglorious westerns really are before finishing with the most glorious ending ever.
- Gone With The Wind ~ Scarlett O'Hara was my first love. Hard to believe this film was made 70 years ago. Gorgeous soundtrack.
- Blade Runner ~ My favorite Sci-Fi movie. Rich with symbolism. What if you could meet your maker? What if you could assassinate your maker? Vangelis soundtrack makes it unforgettable.
- Life is Beautiful ~ The miraculously perfect fusion of comedy with sadness. Soundtrack is must-have.
- Forrest Gump ~ Intellectually challenged character who becomes a football star, ping pong champion, war hero, chivalrous lover, and noble father leaving me with no excuse for dreams unrealized.
- There Will Be Blood ~ Daniel Day Lewis in one of the greatest performances ever. Lost Best Picture Award to a movie you won't see on this list.
- Cinderella Man ~My favorite sports movie.
- Unbreakable ~ My favorite super hero movie in which Bruce Willis must be convinced of his unique abilities and destiny.
- Gladiator ~ A gripping story of revenge waged in ancient times against a twisted tyrant.
- True Romance ~ Watch it for the showdown between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, but the rest of the movie is superb too.
- Groundhog Day ~ Lesson to be learned on how sweet life can be when you stop being a jerk.
- Star Trek II, III, and IV ~ When I was a child, I'm afraid my reverence for Spock utterly eclipsed my reverence for God.
- To Kill a Mockingbird ~ The inspiring integrity of Atticus. A movie unlike any other for the mood it creates and sustains.
- Godfather Trilogy ~ Notice the way the appearance of fruit consistently precedes death. The music will linger with you long after the closing credits ascend the screen.
- Casablanca ~ Replete with majestic dialogue and beautiful mucical score.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ~ Saw it on VHS when I was about 12 and the phone rang just before final showdown. While movie was on pause my brothers and I argued for nearly an hour about who would kill who. Incredible music by Morricone.
- Enchanted ~ Fairytale Princess reminds us it's okay to have faith.... in people, in dreams, in love, in life.
- Troy ~ Very cool battle scenes and an inspired translation of Homer's Iliad to film without too much silliness with the pantheon of gods.
- Truman Show ~ Another parable on what you might say if you ever bumped into your maker.
- Sideways ~ Made me feel smart just watching it. Working at several levels and ultimately suggesting you should be true to yourself and while you're at it, you may as well go ahead and conquer your fears.
- Braveheart ~ Beautiful how he humiliates the bad guys pay for killing his love. They pay with blood. Lots of it.
- Rounders ~ The movie about Texas Holdem. Matt Damon's character is a card playing genius.
- Far and Away ~ My favorite Tom Cruise movie. A great adventure transcending continents and feelings.
- Blood of Heroes ~ Little known but perfectly produced dystopian portrayal of underdogs who won't quit.
- Goodwill Hunting ~ Matt Damon's character is a genius (again). This time he's tough as nails too and doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone. He's simply unimpressed.
- Life of Brian ~ Easily the funniest movie ever made. And it scores a few points too about how ridiculous religion can be.
- Princess Bride ~ When you're a kid you love stories and this is the best one.
- Love Actually ~ Tons of laughs that leave you appreciating how boring life would be without that warm mushy stuff we tend to classify as love.
- Equilibrium ~ This guy can (and, more to the point, does) kick ass.
- Girl in a Cafe ~ In which life is too damned precious to keep your mouth shut.
- Sling Blade ~ Carl?
- Long Hot Summer ~ Don Johnson, Cybill Sheperd, Jason Robards. This 1980-something made for TV movie still hasn't been released on DVD.
- Last Samurai ~ My second favorite Tom Cruise movie. There's a great great great action sequence in which the hero replays what he just did in his head... killing three assassins in about three seconds without having a weapon.
- Untamed Heart ~ Illustrating how it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.
- Scarface ~ Al Pacino is riveting as the bad ass Cuban. Wicked soundtrack.
- Pulp Fiction ~ Not one unquotable line in the entire script.
- Napoleon Dynamite ~ One of a handful of comedies on this list. Utterly unique. Makes you thank God you're not in high school anymore. Makes you sad that some people never outgrow those years.
- Dodge Ball ~ Clever and creative comedy. Ben Stiller wants so much to be tough and somehow fails to realize that's he's consistently about three galaxies away from success.
- Regarding Henry ~ Warms your heart to see an asshole accidentally learning how to be a person again.
- Scent of a Woman ~ Should be watched on Thanksgiving Day. Pacino's character is blind in a couple of ways. Doesn't stop him from smacking people down... and sometimes they deserve it.
- Underworld Trilogy ~ Sexy gothic vampire movies with irresistible dark wet sinister ambience and thrilling action. The third and best is set in medieval times.
- Rocky I, II, III, V, VI ~ Had to omit the fourth installment because of the goofy speech Rocky makes to the Russian audience after defeating their champion.
- Ivanhoe ~ Referring to the 1982 TV movie starring Sam Neil as the primary villain. A gorgeous depiction of heraldry and chivalry.
- Desperado ~ Full throttle entertainment greatly accentuated with Salma Hayek's global warming.
- The Black Stallion ~ Inspiringly and artistically done. The main character, Alex, seems so quiet and introverted as though at his young age, he's learned already to live on a more enlightened plane where articulation is rendered primitive.
- Shenandoah ~ Watch it for the advice James Steward gives his future son-in-law about how sometimes women will cry and you won't know why they're crying but it doesn't matter. Just hold them.
- Leon - The Professional ~ This hero is tough as nails, but somehow a little girl finds a place in his heart.
- It's a Wonderful Life ~ James Stewart at his best. Nothing wrong with movies that make you strive to be a better person.
- Arsenic and Old Lace ~ Cary Grant at his unrivaled best. The look on his face will crack you up several moments before he opens his mouth to say something.
- Harvey ~ Watch this movie every New Year's Eve with a couple of your dearest friends and plenty of White Russians. Takes a few years but eventually you'll find out how it ends.
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy ~ Well done adaptation of the classic fantasy series. Could do without all the hobbit frolicking toward the end.
- Philadelphia Story ~ Watch if for the dialogue between Cary Grant and a drunk James Stewart.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ~ A showdown between one good man and an entire government of greed and corruption. Not based on a true story, but who knows... maybe someday.
- Mask ~ Exciting and hilarious. The first movie I ever saw Cameron Diaz in and it was love at first sight.
- At Play in the Fields of the Lord ~ Not yet on DVD. Sweeping South American epic in which pretty much every pretension is stripped naked.
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ~ The sixth film on this list featuring James Stewart. Plus John Wayne.
- High Noon ~ The most classic of all westerns. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and an Academy Award winning soundtrack.
- Apocalypto ~ This is the kind of movie that grabs you and takes you for a ride at an accelerated velocity and never sets you down until you see the end credits.
- The Graduate ~ I know it's not a comedy, but sometimes I have to laugh at the way the characters are so incapable of connecting with each other. Soundtrack = Greatest Hits by Simon and Garfunkel.
- A Knight's Tale ~ A fun movie with some surprisingly touching moments.
- Shane ~ Pretty deep story in which a gun slinger tries to retire while the bad guys won't let him. It doesn't hurt my appreciation for this movie that I was named after the main character.
- Planet of the Apes ~ Possilby the greatest cinematic surprise ending of all time. Watch for thunder in the sky when the astronauts are first exploring the planet... I swear you can see the face of an angry ape illuminated in the clouds.
- The Crucible ~ A cautionary tale against hysteria based on my favorite play.
- Moonstruck ~ I watch the scene over and over again where Nicholas Cage demands of Cher "What am I, a monument to justice? I lost my hand! I lost my hand!" Riveting hilarity.
- Pride and Prejudice ~ One of Hollywood's most successful adaptations of a classic.
- Lean on Me ~ In which Morgan Freeman endears himself to movie audiences forever.
- Cousins ~ Unforgettable moment as an altercation escalates in the movie's climax when Ted Danson explains "I'm trying to make some chicken salad out of some chicken shit."
- Training Day ~ Possibly Denzel Washington's greatest performance. As close as you can get to L.A. without actually going to L.A.
- Count of Monte Cristo ~ Hollywood took this immense classic and said Alexandre Dumas wrote a good story, but we can do better.
- Frankie and Johnny ~ In which a cook and a waitress remind us that you don't have to be a prince and a princess to create your own hot steamy passionate romance.
- Titanic ~ No one compares it to Gone With the Wind anymore, thank God, but still a good movie.
- Patriot ~ During which I realized I had already seen every facial expression Mel Gibson is capable of (and there are only two), but still a gripping story and well produced.
- Searching for Bobby Fischer ~ As you support this little boy's quest to dominate the chess world, he's busy cultivating something far more important, his soul.
- Somewhere in Time ~ A little silly... a little sappy... but when I first saw it more than twenty years ago... I didn't want it to ever end. Was I madly in love with Jane Seymour? Yes. Heart melting soundtrack.
- El Cid ~ In which I fell in love with Sophia Loren at the moment when her character relinquishes her quest for vengeance against the man who killed her father. An epic film.
- The Ten Commandments ~ In which every line is delivered as though it were going to be the final line in the movie, and yet somehow it works. Majestic soundtrack.
- Ben Hur ~ Apparently this is the Charlton Heston part of my list.
- Legends of the Fall ~ In which Brad Pitt defines himself as a man with a wild savage beast raging inside.
- Batman Begins ~ Better than the more highly acclaimed Dark Knight which is poorly written. Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman all in one film!
- Superman Returns ~ In which I realized that I myself have what it takes to be a superhero minus the looks and the physique and the ability to fly and the incredible strength and the dedication to all that is good, but at least I know how to lose the girl I love. I can do that.
- 10,000 B.C. ~ Similar to Apocalypto, but with magic and fantastic beasts.
- Independence Day ~ Exciting fun and patriotic!
- A Time to Kill ~ Not sure how realistic it was to have KKK in hand to hand combat with good guys outside the courthouse, but otherwise a great movie with great performances.
- A Few Good Men ~ You know how sometimes you're flipping through channels and you come to a movie and you just can't flip to another channel no matter how many times you've seen it?
- Bourne Trilogy ~ Exceptional fighting sequences. Bourne is about as cool as an action figure can get.
- Last of the Mohicans ~ I like the very old black and white version too, but this one is superb and beautiful.
- Gettysburg ~ A movie about one battle. You'll feel like you were there except you won't have three hundred bullets in you.
- Davy Crockett ~ This movie instilled in me a dream of ending my life gloriously while killing incredible numbers of enemy soldiers with a couple of pistols and a Bowie knife.
- Masada ~ Epic showdown between zealots and the entire Roman empire. Peter O'Toole is amazing.
- Matrix ~ Could have been so much better, but Laurence Fishburn's corny speech meant to inspire the good guys before the climactic battle made me gag. And the plot got so convoluted... no one can honestly say they knew what was going on.
- King Kong ~ Newest version seems like three different movies. First they find Kong. Then there's the Jurassic Park adventure with Kong versus Dinosaurs. Then there's Kong in NY.
- Liar, Liar ~ Jim Carey's best comedy.
- My Cousin Vinny ~ Marisa Tomei is delectable and the scene in the cell when Vinny is mistaken for a horny inmate will slay you with laughter.
- Karate Kid I & II ~ The first film features one of the greatest kicks to the head in all of film history. The second takes us to Japan where Daniel falls in love with an unforgettably sweet innocent beautiful girl. Third and fourth installments were painfully stupid.
- Dream a Little Dream ~ Almost forgotten movie from the 80's with Jason Robards, an adorable Meredith Salinger, and the two Cory's. Winning soundtrack.
- Saving Private Ryan ~ Opening assault on D-Day brought to life... giving my generation a glimpse of why their generation is so revered.
- Children of Men ~ Has a tendency to make you jump out of your seat at the least expected moments.
- A Simple Plan ~ The lady in the seat in front of me got up and left the theater in disgust. But I like movies that make you ask yourself what you would do.
- Bambi ~ Sweetest animation ever made. Watch it for Thumper's charming perspective on life. Outstanding music.
- I, Robot ~ One of those rare instances in which the film is at least twenty times better than the book.
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