I am a skeptic. While I dislike pigeonholing myself with such an effusive label, the true definition of the word is a fair characterization. Many people misunderstand the meaning and assume that a skeptic is someone that instantly rejects everything, and believes nothing. That is descriptive if a Nihilist, not a skeptic. The word itself comes from “skeptikos” in Greek, meaning “thoughtful or reflective.”

I think, therefore I am.

Charlene Dorcy is not a skeptic. Charlene is willing to accept anything anyone says as truth without evidence, either clinical or otherwise, to support their claims. Charlene believes in “natural medicine,” herbal cures, homeopathic treatments, reiki healing, psychic touch, “intuitive medicine” and who knows what else. Charlene is a moron, or rather, was a moron. These days, Charlene is something else.

Normally, your run of the mill moron, into tea therapy and chakra alignment and getting needles put into their skin, is not a real danger to anyone but themselves. They spend millions collectively to buy pills filled with water, pay unqualified people to jab them with steel, “crack” their bones and wave their hands around their aura going “woo-woo” and all it proves is that they’re assholes that are easily impressed and more easily relieved of their money. But Charlene is a beast of a different color.

Charlene is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. Her doctors prescribed a cocktail of anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medications to control her violent hallucinatory tendencies, and allow her to live as close to a ”normal” life as someone with such a disability could. This was not good enough for Charlene. Charlene believed that “natural” medicine had the answer she needed. After all, the people who sell these callogen pills filled with grass, claim on their websites to cure what ails me and guarantee no side effects, right?

The “woo-woo” crowd strikes again.

Charlene stopped taking the medicine prescribed by the trained and educated healthcare professionals in favor of several “herbal cures” manufactured by Chinese kelp farmers with third grade educations. I only wish the consequences were as amusing as he stupidity.

In June of 2004, four years after abandoning the medication she’d been prescribed, Charlene took her two young daughters, Brittney and Jessica, age 2 and 4 respectively, to the bottom of the rock quarry in Pinchot National Forest in Washington State, and murdered them with a hunting rifle. Yesterday, she was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to a paltry 63 years in prison for the deaths of her own children.



During the court session, Charlene delivered a rambling and unfocused speech to the courtroom, never mentioning her children, but lambasting anyone that might judge her for her crimes. In her words, “Unless you’re vegetarian, every time you eat meat, you’re a murderer.”

…
An open letter to Charlene Dorcy and the hippies of the Pacific Northwest,

You worthless, murderous, psychotic, pathetic, evil, twisted hippy fuck. Even without a scrap of faith in the myth of extra-worldy justice, I find great solace and comfort imagining you slowly roasting in hell, screaming in agonizing pain, in the company of the demonic hordes and their blunt and rusty tools of eternal torture. You should be publicly flayed, doused in salt, flayed again, tarred, feathered, toothed, drawn and quartered.

And you, you hippy fucks, this is what you have begat. A woman who feels more remorse for the death of chickens and cows than the brutal and senseless murders of her own young children, a death she herself wreaked upon them with an old rifle at the bottom of a filthy rock quarry. A woman whose acceptance of your comfortable distrust for “western medicine” and embrace of your ridiculous claims of “natural health” and “herbal purity” came at the cost of two beautiful and innocent lives.




You miserable, worthless, asinine, self-important, “can you pass the organic, non-gmo, macrobiotic, homeopathic soybeans” pieces of shit. You and your monstrous ilk care more for fish and birds than for men and women. Your quaint faith in the claims of charlatans is exposed as fashionable idiocy. Your lives are exposed as privileged hypocrisy, and you have blood on your hands.

It happens again and again, the questions comes to “what harm can it do?”

The “woo-woo” crowd strikes again, but this time they’ve shown us how dangerous they really are. They care more about your cat than they do about you. They care more about “feelings” than results.

But after all, what harm can it do?

Well, we’re gettin’ international up in this bitch!

While recently scanning the stats for On The Rocks, I noticed that not only are we achieving higher visits than ever, our international audience has nearly doubled!

That’s right, two!

Someone from Cincinatti, OH found his way here with the Yahoo search term, “hummer driving republicans.” Someone from San Francisco, CA ended up at this site while searching Google for “nude naked Malcolm in the middle reese hair.” A neighbor to the north, landed his sick, Canadian ass at On The Rocks searching Yahoo for, “frankie muniz shirtless.”



My favorite however, is the guy from York, England who logged onto the site with the search term, “anally retarded fucking idiots.” Number three on Google.

On The Rocks, a progressive blog.

My older brother used to do things to me. No, not in that “show me on the doll where he touched you,” kind of way, the sort of cruel jokes you would play on a sibling that seem way over the top at the time, but you just know you’ll remember with fondness in the coming years, as you gaze lovingly at the scars, both physical and psychological. The first thing I can remember really setting the tone for my childhood was the fishing lure. I had the top bunk; my youngest brother had the bottom, and the oldest, a.k.a. Torquemada, had his own room across the hall. While it was generally an “every man for himself” war fought on several fronts, occasionally the oldest would call a truce with one of us if he needed to accomplish a particularly devious prank. He had commissioned the malleable youngest for this endeavor.

Our summers were spent sleeping late and trying to quietly avoid yard work, and on this particular morning, I must certainly have had visions of Optimus Prime dancing in my eight-year-old head as I slept soundly, in spite of the sun blazing through the curtains. He stole into my room and placed a jelly-like fishing lure on the exposed flesh of my inner thigh, sans hook, I’m glad to report, and fastened it with a few pieces of scotch tape. Normally, if one were to awaken with a plastic worm cello-taped to your leg, you probably wouldn’t scream like you’d found a horse’s head or anything, but my brother, the devious little bastard he was, saw much more promise in the artificial leech. I was shaken into consciousness, roused by the motion and my brother’s screams of, “Wake up! You’ve got a leech on your leg!” and promptly began to scream like a little girl at a tarantula convention. In my half-asleep stupor, I began to try to kick it off with my foot, being completely unwilling to touch it with my hands, all the time huffing and squealing. I must have been kicking and jumping more than I had intended, because my gyrations promptly launched me over the retainer bar and smack on my ass, four feet below. Of course, my loving siblings are also down on the floor at this point, only they were rolling around clutching their sides and trying not to swallow their tongues.



The routine was for him to break into the bathroom as I was filling the tub, snatch me up in all my nude glory, and throw me out the front door, an act punctuated with the comically loud click of the door’s lock. Perhaps once or twice a month, I found myself naked, sitting on the front porch, waiting for my brother to get bored of my humiliation and let me back in the house, warning of the consequences should I tell our parents, shaking his fist at me, middle knuckle raised in the painful “pig knuckle,” already responsible for countless bruises on my young body.

I wasn’t the only victim of this insipid abuse, as the youngest often found himself in the crosshairs when it was decided I’d had enough. Although, I must admit a certain disappointment in the ingenuity of the torment exacted on the youngest, as he usually simply found himself locked in the dryer for a few hours, sometimes even quietly napping there. I got the A material.

The “Summer of Pain,” as I’ve come to remember it, reached a pinnacle of abuse one day as, once again, I sat waiting for the tub to fill, expecting him to burst through either of the indefensible entrances to the bathroom. As a precaution, I would keep my underwear on almost until the moment I slipped into the water, trying to cling to the little dignity I had left. As expected he opened the door, swatted away my feeble attempts at self-defense, lifted me under his arm, and made way to the front door. This time, however, he continued into the yard and around to the back. A sense of dread began to build, and I knew there was something particularly devious in mind for me, causing me to fight even harder, but to no avail. As we turned the corner, I saw, near a decaying pile of lumber and the remnants of our father’s failed attempts at gardening, a crudely fashioned cross made from desiccated pieces of wood. Certainly, this did not bode well, but I was so perplexed, and fatigued from my previous escape attempts, I could not raise a finger in my own defense. I was roughly placed against the cross and brutally lashed there with nylon rope around my ankles, wrists and neck. He double checked the bindings, smiled at me evilly, and returned to the house with a spring in his hoof.

There I was, stiffly tied to a splintery cross, clad only my BVDs, in the middle of the Louisiana June. It sucked. It sucked a lot.

I was abandoned there for, as best I can remember, close to three hours. The uniquely flat landscape of Louisiana allows one to see for miles on a clear day, and as soon as my brother saw our mother’s car returning home, he exploded out of the back door and sprinted the distance to my pre-teen Golgotha, snatched me under his arm, sprinted back into the house, and dumped me into a tub of freezing cold water.

To this day, I can’t imagine why he did any of that stuff. Even when I ask him, I never get anything other than “I don’t know,” or “It seemed like it would be fun.” That’s good enough for me, though. I don’t carry any permanent scars, except for a few from the chicken pox he gave me; I have yet to prove that was intentional. I do, however, have this wealth of memories, most involving me being semi-naked in the front lawn or baking under the midday sun like that guy in Shogun when the Jappos bury him up to his neck and let the ants pick at him for a few days.

I got him back once, though. I don’t remember the circumstances well, but I was just getting out of the tub, with a towel wrapped around me. Somehow I managed to corner him, drop the towel and urinate all over him. He still claims that was worse than anything he ever did to me.

You be the judge.

Last Friday night, I went to see a rapper named MC Chris. He's one of my favorites, and if you haven't heard it, his album "Life's a Bitch and I'm Her Pimp" is available to freely download from his website. If you like good hip-hop, good humor, Star Wars, or any combination of the above, I highly recommend his music. At the show, I got his new record "Eating's not Cheating" (which is conspicuously unsigned...) and I'm enjoying it immensely.

The show was in a moderately large venue, the same place I’d seen Mr. Quintron and Miss Pussycat a few months earlier, and was sold out at five hundred people. The room was less oppressive than the other times I’d been there because due to Mc Chris’s extreme asthma, there was no smoking allowed in the venue. When you hear his voice you’ll understand. And yes, he is a full-grown man.

MC Chris walked onto the stage with a Rebel Alliance t-shirt and a wireless mic, DJ Fewell plugged in his Powerbook and a wonderful show commenced. The crowd was in motion and MC Chris’s high-pitched rhymes were in full effect. He even graced us with “I Want Candy” from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For those not in the know, MC Chris does the voice for MC P Pants (you know, the eight-foot spider with the diaper and the hairnet) on Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

At one point during the show, those four Rebels I’d consumed (Czech beer, not to be confused with the alliance) had made the rounds and were ready for deploy. I really couldn’t hold it, so I quickly made my way to the men’s room. I stepped to the urinal, and as I was draining the snake, I couldn’t help but notice the guy at the next station. He was about 5’5’’, maybe 110 pounds and was dressed like Jon Bon Jovi. His pants were so tight, you could almost make out the numbers on the credit card he had in his back pocket, and his medium-length, and carefully disheveled hair was dyed blue-black. He looked ridiculous.

I’m trying to finish my business and get back to the show when another guy walks into the bathroom and makes for the stall. He takes one look at the little rock star and says in this great, bellowing, drunken frat-boy tone, “How long it take you to squeeze into those jeans, Stamos?”

My first assumption was that this frat- guy was a friend of mini-Stamos here and was just giving him a hard time, but mini-Stamos turned to me with this perplexed look on his face and I realize that he was waiting for me to acknowledge this frat- guy as one of my friends. I’m fighting the urge to laugh at this point, which is made worse but the fact that the frat-guy is now in the stall, peeing very loudly and making noises like “aaaaahhh” and “oooooooooh.”

Drunk people are funny.

I don't wanna sound gay or nothin', but I think unicorns are totally sweet.

In 1796, the heyday of bloodletting and leeches as medical panaceas, a Saxon doctor named Samuel Hahnemann developed a theory as ridiculous and far-fetched as Greedo shooting first. He postulated that, in order to restore the balance of the body’s delicate “humors,” one should utilize the principle of “like cures like.” For example, in the case of a high fever, instead of fighting the body’s natural mechanism to heat up when fighting disease, one should work with the body’s “humors” and make the patient even warmer. Keep in mind, this is the same period in history when malaria was assumed to be caused either by the “bad airs” of sub-tropical regions or casual exposure to “dark-skinned savages.”

Unfortunately, unlike bloodletting, leech therapy and the model of “internal humors,” Dr. Hahnemann’s theories were not thrown onto the dung heap of history where they belonged. Like any good snake-oil salesman, the good doctor found some anti-establishment squish-head hippies, too lazy to come up with any good ideas themselves, to preach his mystical and “holistic” approach to health and made a bunch of money without ever having to prove a damned thing.

Welcome to the world of “homeopathic medicine.”

Another principle behind homeopathic medicine is called “the theory if infinitesimals.” According to this theory, applied under the concept of “like cures like,” the more you dilute a specific drug or treatment, the more potent it becomes. This theory is executed to the most extreme of degrees resulting in solutions that are diluted with distilled water one part per hundred million and up, to the point where there are no longer any identifiable molecules of the original solution present in the water. You read that last sentence correctly. It’s the water.

Both of the aforementioned “spread buttocks, insert head” concepts combine to form the basis for homeopathy. Over the counter homeopathic “sleep-aids” list caffeine as one of the “active ingredients.” Any buck-toothed loon, even your average naturopath, can tell you caffeine is a stimulant and won’t help your insomnia one whit. Ah, but “like cures like,” remember? So, we must administer a solution that contains a chemical that would create the same symptoms as you are experiencing, in order to cure your insomnia. But the secret is, we’re going to dilute the chemical in distilled water to such a degree that you would need to consume SIXTEEN SWIMMING POOLS FULL OF PILLS IN ORDER TO INGEST ONE MOLECULE OF THE MIRACULOUS HEALING ELIXIR.

Every year, the International Skeptics Society hosts a “mass suicide” where the participants consume hundred of these “sleeping pills” en masse, thousands more by the end of the cocktail party. I’ve heard stories about these parties, and if there’s one thing these people aren’t, it’s tired.

If you believe in homeopathic medicine, you are a moron. In that statement, you can also substitute the words “homeopathic medicine” with “fairies,” “leprechauns,” “unicorns,” or “Pat Roberts.” You should have your driver’s license and right to vote taken away immediately. You should have all sharp objects in your home confiscated, protective rubber nipples glued to all dangerous corners of furniture in the house and those annoying child-proof cabinet springs placed under the sink. You can’t be trusted.




Homeopathic remedies are sold over the counter in the United States, not because the Food and Drug Administration has tested and approved these gullibility supplements, but since there is almost literally NOTHING in the damned things, the FDA can’t exactly disapprove. The Wikipedia entry on homeopathy reads, “Homeopathic remedies have their own imprints that, unlike conventional drugs, do not have to identify their active ingredients on the grounds that they have few or no active ingredients.”

A few years ago, someone with a sense of humor, and perhaps a bit too much time on his hands, concocted this chain email that made the rounds of the inboxes of the nation’s paranoid mothers. I found it rather amusing and emailed it to a few people to get their reactions. I have to admit, I was disappointed that only one person instantly realized it was a gag, but at least none of them took it seriously. Mostly what I got was, “Is this a joke?” Yes, it’s a joke. The joke, however, is if the principles of homeopathy actually worked, this would be one unforseen consequence. I’d also be putting a bit more water in my blended scotch. While chatting over the unmitigated idiocy of the subject with my brother, he made a good point when he asked, “But Scott, didn’t you think, at one time, that Zicam, a popular homeopathic treatment, would cure your cold?” Why yes, I did. And there was also a time when I thought babies were made when a man urinated into a woman’s vagina. It’s amazing how we get to change our minds after a little research and critical analysis.

Homeopathic “medicine” accounts for over $200 million in sales each year, not because it works, and not because people actually believe this tripe, but because most people have no idea what the fuck heomeopathy is. It just gets jumbled in with all the other nonsense, holistic, natural, herbal, stick-tea and dirt pie “remedies” that people love just because savages with no shoes on the other side of the globe have been doing it for a few thousand years for lack of penicillin.

The greatest rule of the Hippocratic Oath is “Above all, do no harm.” This is a fundamental concept to modern medical treatment because it accepts the fact that something that holds the potential to cure, carries potential to do great harm. Treatments like homeopathy are called “alternative” because they are built on the crux that there are no side effects, no ill-efects, and cannot possibly do harm to the patient. This is a violation of basic logic because to wield the ability change something for the better, inheirently harbors the ability to change for the worse.

Next time you feel inclined to waste some of your hard-earned money on a homeopathic cure in the drug store, walk two aisles over and get yourself a gallon of distilled water. It’s the same stuff and it’s a whole lot cheaper.

[This message has been brought to you by the Distilled Water Manufacturers of America.]

Darth Vader has a blog, and it's really funny. For a few more Star Wars-induced chuckles, I whole-heartedly recommend this short film by Imitation Milk.

My favorite part is, "Warn you, we tried. Now, screwed, we all will be."

I suck at basketball, I always have. My feet are terrible, my dribble is lackluster and I’m fairly certain I have issues with depth perception. My lay ups are lousy and my jump shots definitely leave something to be desired. However, I don’t lose sleep over that fact that I suck at basketball, or that I don’t “gotz no mad skillz.” I still play basketball, I just don’t feel bad about losing because, while I enjoy the game, basketball is simply not my thing. I also don’t hold anything against the people that beat me at basketball simply because they’re faster, taller, or have functional depth perception.

Debating is no different than playing basketball, or tennis, or golf, or rummy, or Judo, or stock car racing: if you’re no good at it, stop playing. If you don’t want to stop playing, get better. If you don’t intend on getting better, don’t get pissed off when you lose.

Let’s debate the best rock n’ roll band in history. Let’s discuss which period of time was most influential on modern art theory. Let’s talk PCs vs. Macs.

Let’s intelligently and thoughtfully disagree on politics. That’s right, that’s all I’m asking. Let’s discuss our differing opinions on responsibility of government, rule of law, social engineering, taxation, the pros and cons of representative republicanism, and whatever else you have in mind. Let’s just talk, but don’t get pissed off at me when I soundly smoke your sorry, whiney, commie ass. I don’t whine when I lose at basketball, you don’t get to whine when you lose the debate.

Understandably, someone getting soundly smoked in the realm of politics and philosophy is different than getting their asses handed to them on the basketball court. If I lose at one-on-one, I don’t have to face the reality that my deepest held beliefs might be wrong, or face the possibility of abandoning all I hold dear and true. I just have to come to grips with the fact that no pair of shoes is going to fix my alley-oop. But on the other side, much like I suck at basketball, there are more than a few people out there that suck at debating. Frankly, most of these sniveling pinkos can’t carry a cohesive thought in that filthy canvas bag they use to transport over-priced, “organic” vegetables.

Then why, oh why, do they feel the need to constantly challenge me to proverbial rounds of basketball?

I’m not saying there are no talented debaters on that side of the aisle, I’m just saying they don’t live in Portland. At a cocktail party, I overheard someone call someone else a fascist. When I asked the offending person what they thought the word “fascist” meant, they said it was a Czech word for “Nazi.” I was once told that all Americans should be Democrats because the Democrat party founded our "Democracy." I know a girl that thought both blacks and women achieved the right to vote with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and she’s currently taking a college course on minority rights. I once had someone tell me, in the same sitting, that the human soul’s existence had been unequivocally proven mathematically (though he couldn’t remember how) and that god “had” to exist because of Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover” theory.

There is perhaps no subject of debate more contentious than philosophy, and no more heated area of philosophy than that involving god. Brahma, Jehovah, Zues, Odin, Buddha, The Unmoved Mover, Mario, Luigi, call “him” whatever you want, there will always be believers, and there will always be detractors. By way of adding my own unimportant opinion to the debate, I’ve discovered an excellent source of information in the infinite void of the Internet. It’s a resource so well researched and brimming with common sense, it’s almost impossible not to sway to the author’s way of thinking. It’s thought provoking, intuitive, and cuts directly to the core of the discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Official God FAQ.

To you, my loyal readers, whom I’ve culled to a select group of none this last year, I ask this: chill the fuck out. Not only should you be able to provide sound evidence of your contentions, you should be able to discuss god, politics, cars, movies and footwear without breaking down and crying. News flash: no matter what you think, there’s someone else in the world that feels differently, and that person is not necessarily an idiot, an asshole or a combination of the two. If you can’t discuss your opinions with people that disagree with you, maybe you should stay off the court.

I tell you what, next time we play basketball and you trounce my ass, I won’t take my ball home.

Time and time again, the most common stonewall I reach when debating the value of "alternative healthcare" with those idealist of thought and squish of head, is the colloquial phrase "what harm can it do?"

This harm.

The true danger of these "healing methods" lies not in the sugar pills, or the needles, or the stick tea, or the candles, or the stench of the burning rosemary. The true danger lies in the inherent negligence. The impossible claims made by the quacks and charlatans that sustain themselves with such nonsense, make prey of desperate people, who neglect the legitimate medicine or procedures that could save their lives. These crimes are made all the more heinous when the victim is a child who is not capable of making these decisions on her own.

See the reaction of James Randi (of the James Randi Institute).
See the follow-up here.

Why is it that everyone that’s been to Burning Man always says it started to suck, or got too big, or too corporate, immediately after the last time they attended?

If fuel efficiency, not fashion, is really the singular reason behind their purchase, why is the Toyota Prius, with its goofy, futuristic stylings, outselling the Honda Civic Hybrid, which looks identical to the conventional Civic, two to one?

If a tree fell in the woods, and then got right back up again, would the squirrels freak out?

Why is it when a human face emerges from two dots and a line :) it’s cute chat speak, but when a human face emerges from a crusty salt stain, it’s the miraculous work of God Almighty?

Why does the Post Office open an hour after I start my workday, close the minute I get off work, and still complain to the budget committee about dwindling usage, shrinking income and the need to raise postal rates?

Why do hippies and busybodies constantly complain that Americans don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and then try to push for %100 “organic” farming’s %40 yield compared to conventional methods?

Why do some people revile the pharmaceutical industry, the most heavily regulated and controlled industry in the world, but celebrate the herbal supplement and “alternative medicine” industry that not only doesn’t have to prove that Ginko Biloba makes you any smarter, they don’t even have to prove that there’s any actual Ginko Biloba in the fucking bottle?

Why do hippies and busybodies march in the streets, sit in traffic lanes, and throw jars of peanut butter at police officers, and expect Mr. John Q. Public, who’s stuck in the traffic jam they caused, to pull the lever for their philosophy in the voting booth?

Why do men have nipples?

If Daylight Savings Time was introduced to counteract the daylight-sapping effect of our season changes, wouldn’t Arizona, which does not participate, be several years behind the rest of us by now?

Does anyone believe a statement that has the words “fresh,” “pastry,” and “7-11” in it?

Does cheese float? If so, even Swiss?

I am an indefatigable optimist. Ever since I began engaging in regular sexual intercourse, discovered single-malt Scotch whiskey, and most recently, embarked on the joy of home ownership, I find my sunny disposition, sunnier by the tumbler, easier to maintain. This sanguinity is even better complemented by my equally positive opinion of the human race; people are not stupid. People are fundamentally good and will generally act and make decisions in a manner that promote the health and well being of their families and loved ones, and by extension, all people. People make mistakes, certainly, especially in large groups, but so do you and I. Especially you.

I like the human race; the way it functions, the way it came to be and the way people think. I love the inventions and innovations that have made humanity what it is today, and what it will be tomorrow. I even respect the conflicts that dot our history as a species, both violent and not, because conflict is a fundamental aspect of humanity and you have to take the good with the bad.

I am not a “believer.” I still, however, have great respect for those that see the hand (or hands) of higher powers at work in their lives and in our history. Religion is also something fundamental to the human experience, and basic to our foundation as humans and citizens.

Watch the evening news, and when you’re told of a crowd of football hooligans setting a stadium in Wilfordshire ablaze, think of the billions of people worldwide that didn’t riot that day. When you finish reading about the winners the annual Darwin awards, cursing the human race for being horn-swaggling cricker-croakers, think about all the folks that didn’t use a burning match to try and smoke a wayward rodent out of their colon. Regular people (read: smart people) don’t make the evening news or those clever emails that circle the globe. Headlines don’t read, “Local Man Decides Against Extended Warranty,” or, “Area Woman Makes Fifteenth Mortgage Payment on Time… Details on Page Three.”

People are not stupid, that being said, there is a huge contingent of people out there that want to prove me wrong. Take, for example, “Our Lady of the Underpass”. In case you haven’t heard this one, a crack in the Chicago underpass, stained with years worth of rain, road salt and debris, has, in the squinted eyes of a precious few, come to resemble the image of the Virgin Mary.



Holy fucking shit, you have GOT to be kidding me. It’s a fucking crack in a fucking underpass, you dumb pieces of shit. These people are placing candles, flowers, prostrating themselves for forgiveness, and shedding tears of joy while touching the thing.

Okay, why not use my own logic and think about all the people that aren’t praying to a salt stain? BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING IDIOTS! Sure, the Virgin Mary in the grilled, cheese, that shit was funny. And certainly, worshipping a salt stain is no different from bowing down before a terra cotta statue of a man with four arms and the head of an elephant, or some guy pinned to a piece of pine, but seriously, IT’S A STAIN IN AN UNDERPASS, NOT THE SHROUD OF FUCKING TURIN.



Another group of brain-donors made headlines this week when they claimed to find a box full of cash buried in their backyard. The cash itself added up to about $2,000, but since the bills were all printed between 1910 and 1922, the value of these bills on the collector’s market topped $100,000. The article came complete with pictures of these chowder heads from Methuen, MA, dancing in front of the news crews like a bunch of Kansas City faggots. And now they’re under arrest. Turns out these Mass-holes are roofers and found this cash in the gutter of farmhouse they were hired to re-shingle. Lesson: WHEN YOU STEAL A BUNCH OF MONEY, DON’T TELL THE MEDIA, YOU STUPID ASSHOLES!!

Obviously, these jerks are the exception. Most people wouldn’t steal the money, and the ones that would, would probably keep photos of themselves doing the “running man” with wads of cash stuffed in their shirts, out of the papers. Obviously, most people aren’t flocking to the underpass of I-94 to worship a wad of salt crust. Obviously, most people aren’t that stupid.

In the exercise of logic and critical thinking, a common tool used is the “logical syllogism.” An example is: All bachelors are men and all bachelors are unmarried, therefore all unmarried men are bachelors. Another variation would be; Most women are drivers, most drivers are bad, therefore most women are bad drivers.

Thesis: Most people aren’t stupid, and most people aren’t from Methuen, MA, therefore most people from Methuen, MA are stupid.

***Editor's note: I would like to give myself mad props for inadvertently making two (count 'em, two) references to "Blazing Saddles" in this pathetic blog. "Of course, you'll have the good taste not to mention we spoke."***

I despise labels. To apply a label to someone is to pigeonhole him or her, bind him or her with associations that usually aren’t legitimate, and ultimately discredit everything they think, say and do. Labels are a hindrance to free and open debate, a sophomoric strategy of the intellectually challenged, and a personal pet peeve. Ironically, the broader the term’s definition, the more conjecture arises to discredit and vilify that group by it’s polar opposite. No two groups are guiltier of this infantile behavior than the two major parties in the United States, Democrats and Republicans. All Democrats are sniveling, Europe-worshipping, Birkenstock-wearing, incense-burning, broccoli-eating, limp-wristed, commie Pinko, peacenik pacifists and all Republicans are money-grubbing, gun-toting, Hummer-driving, animal-slaughtering, cigar-smoking, mayonnaise-sandwich-eating, oil tycoon brown shirts. To pretend that one side of the aisle is more responsible for the paltry state of public and reasonable idea exchange is idiocy. I don’t need to point out the half-truths and misinformation employed by all members of the political process, we all got our fill running up to the second day November.

Labels function as mental crutches, very similar to the verbal crutches “uh” and “like” that are slowly destroying the art of oratory. These knob goblins that say “like” upwards of thirteen times in a single sentence, do it not because they’re stupid, it’s just easier. By saying “uh,” “like,” and “umm,” they afford themselves precious seconds of mental machinations in order to communicate a semi-cohesive thought. If they didn’t employ those verbal crutches every few seconds, they’d actually have to think while they were speaking, and if the label-goblins stopped using broad sweeping qualifiers, they’d actually have to evaluate someone by what they say and do, not by what they wish to be perceived.

There are obviously some labels that fall outside this spectrum. Calling someone an American is not label in the sense I am referring; it is a description of that person’s county of origin, or a notation of where they spent their burgeoning youth. (As a side note, something that is utterly unique to America is the ability of someone, anyone, to become an American.) Referring to someone as a diabetic is a factual representation of the current state of that person’s health, while calling someone an asshole is pure conjecture and can, perhaps, only be proven with photos of that asshole anally raping your mother while pouring sugar in your gas tank. The labels that really suck are political, lifestyle related, sometimes combinations of the two, and sometimes just plain nonsense.

Perhaps the most insidious form of labeling, in that reprehensible sort of way, is a self-applied label. I actually know someone who calls himself a “radical transportationalist.” Right now, you’re probably crossing your eyes, chewing your lip and rubbing your earlobe in deep thought as to what the fuck a “radical transportationalist” might be. Let me explain, he doesn’t own a car. He doesn’t just not own a car; he also doesn’t own a scooter, or a motorcycle or any nature of motorized transportation. We presume this also includes motorboats, commuter trains, jets, cruise liners, commercial airliners, tugboats, submarines, and spacecraft. That’s right, this guy feels so isolated by the %62 of Americans that own cars, he’s chosen to apply to himself, but none of the other %38, the term “radical transportationalist.” If the simple act of not owning something makes one “radical,” I guess that would make me a “radical Playstation-alist.” A condition, by the way, can be remedied quite easily by your generous donations.

Self-applied labels seem epidemic here in Portland. A close friend of mine, recently transplanted, was telling me about all the new and interesting people she was meeting here in the Pacific Northwest. I suppose, in an effort to make her explanations more concise, she began to pepper her speech with words like “animal friend,” “world-centric” and the ubiquitous “poly-amorous.” She then, as if in response to my quietly gritted teeth, said, “It seems everyone needs some kind of label to get along out here.”

Why can’t I just be Scott? You can obviously apply labels like drinker, video-game player, employer of poor sentence structure, the list is virtually endless, but please don’t tell me I need to be something new and exciting. Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.

My obviously limitless feelings of discontent came to something of a head only a few short days ago. During introductions, I overheard someone call themselves a “pseudo-vegan.” In case you didn’t know, a Vegan is a foul-smelling, humanoid creature from the Vega star-system, particularly adept at waving hand-written signs, chaining themselves to inanimate objects and speaking to non-Vegans like they’re Tralaxian lizard snot.

Kidding.

A vegan, as defined by Webster’s dictionary is “a vegetarian who eats plant products only, especially one who uses no products derived from animals, as fur or leather.” In an effort to be fair, and acknowledge that the definition is open to moderate interpretation, the British Vegan Society defines veganism as “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, including humans and the environment.”

So what, then, is a “pseudo vegan?” Why, a vegan that will occasionally partake in fish, that’s what. “Well, wouldn’t that make them NOT a vegan?” you have just asked your computer monitor. “Why, yes, it would,” it politely answers back. If she’s not a vegan, why would she even use the word “vegan” in describing herself? You can’t be a little bit pregnant. You can’t be “sort of” diabetic. You can’t be a “pseudo-vegan” any more than you can be a “quasi”-pitcher for the New York Yankees; either you are or you aren’t. You sure can be “most of an asshole,” though.

She then went on to lament the fact that there was no other way to describe herself, even saying that “they” should “come up” with a better word for her to use. Why can’t she just be her? Even if she were a vegan, or a lesbian, or a car mechanic, or a weekend swimming coach at the YMCA, or a lover of post WWII European cinema, why would she coose to be defined by it?

Labels are dumb, but not as dumb as the folks that use them, either applying them to others (for perceived good or bad) or even more mindlessly applying them to themselves for no other reason than convenience. The moral of this sordid tale is very similar to soemthiong you may have been told by Lady Jane, or Duke, or Quickkick at the end of an episode of “G.I. Joe.” Be yourelf, be comfortable with yourself, and don’t feel the need to label yourself to justify your thoughts and actions or to feel included in something bigger than yourself. If you and I feel differently about a certain matter, you don’t need to call me a fascist any more than I need to call you a commie, it does nothing to further the debate and makes us incapable of agreeing to disagree. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

O my god, I need sun. Now.

The first year I lived here in Puddletown, the effect of the sunless winter was negligible. I had been warned about its ill effects, but after the bloodless and desperate winters I’d experienced in the Northeast, I figured the Willamette Valley would be a piece of cake. Last year, it was. This year, I’m ready to claw through the wall for some solar warmth. It’s like my fingers and toes never get completely warm. I feel like that nemesis of Superman’s who would curl up into a fetal position every time the sun went behind a cloud.

There was a Saturday Night Live gag commercial (they were always my favorite) where Chris Farley has a cold, and complains to his wife. She recommends the latest breakthrough in cold-fighting technology, Hibernol. She hands him a five-gallon bucket of this green stuff and he guzzles down. It’s supposed to cold cock you (damn that’s some fine-ass malt licker) all winter long, so by the time you woke up, not only was your cold gone, so was the winter.

I want that stuff so bad right now I can taste it.

Without ultra-violet radiation, I find myself less motivated than ever. “Not you, Scott! How could you be even LESS motivated than usual?!” you’re probably asking yourself. I haven’t brushed behind my bottom teeth for weeks. I had uncooked rice and a raw potato for dinner last night. I’m lucky if I can bring myself to wipe every OTHER time I go. It’s getting bad.

Most people don’t know that humans need the sun to survive. Sure, we need it to grow stuff and to tell time, and to charge that huge bank of hippie solar cells to gather enough energy to heat a cup of stick-tea, but exposure to sunlight on our skin allows our bodies to metabolize vitamin D, a very important nutrient. This nutrient is provided by many of the things we eat, and is also fortified in breads and dairy products, but without sunlight, vitamin D is not “bioavailable” (absorbable). Experiancing a vitamin D deficiency, a person can develop depression, psychosis and eventually psychotic dementia. The native Alaskans (Eskimos, Inuits, whatever you wanna call ‘em) describe a common occurrence called Pibloktok (pih-blok-tok). Because the winters are so harsh, and the long cycles of sunless days, occasionally someone would just simply lose their minds. These episodes would play out almost identically person to person, generation to generation. The individual in question would throw open the entrance to their tent, and begin running around the village like their ass was on fire, screaming like a banshee. They would then, in a fit of dementia, tear off all their oily seal-clothes and charge around, waving their hands and yelling. The really neat thing however, is that the villagers are supposed to completely ignore it, and pretend it’s not happening. The assumption is that some wily demon had possessed their fellow villager, and if we ignore it, it’ll just go away.

So, just a notice to all you non-Inuits, if you see me running down the street stark naked, screaming like little girl and waving my arms around, pretend I’m not there.

He walked onto the road at eleven A.M., on the first of April. He had three cans of soup, an extra pair of jeans, a tattered copy of The Old Man and the Sea and the Swiss Army knife his grandfather had given him on his twelfth birthday. He’d learned how to make a bow from the limb of a chicken tree, that day, but he and his brother could never perfect a single arrow. They would always careen off target by yards, no matter what kind of wood they’d used, now how they labored to straighten its shaft. This escapade made him doubt very much the stories he’d loved as a child, of hordes of Indian braves raining arrows upon the advancing cavalry.

He planned on walking, but planned on no particular destination. He remembered a scene from a movie he’d seen years ago, but with no whiskey pint close at hand, he snatched an empty Pepsi bottle from the side of the road, and spun it on that thin yellow line that marked the lanes, like a little girl’s sleepover game.

South is where it pointed. South, he thought. South sounds nice. As he took the first step towards the closest thing to a destination he’d had in years, he smiled and tucked his thumbs under the straps of his backpack. He thought about the photos he’d seen of the home in Key West where Ernest Hemingway lived with his army of six-toed cats. He thought about the plantation houses that Walker Percy wrote of, he thought of Camino Real and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Hemingway stuck with him, however. The sour-faced, bearded man that had seen war and death and true human putridity, and wrote words of beauty and faith and hope, even if they were thickly veiled with the dank of human malfeasance. Drinking Cuba Libras and fishing for marlin, much the old man himself, both in love and desperately afraid of the sea from which he’d made his life.

He never thought of himself as a hitchhiker, and never thought he’d bring himself to it, but as the Jeep Wrangler approached, he felt his thumb extending outward and a smile crossing his face as it slowed and stopped. The girl driving was no more than twenty-three, pretty and sandy-blonde. She asked if he needed a ride and giggled at the obviousness of the answer. He opened the canvas passenger door with the wrinkled plastic window, and threw his backpack in the rear seat as he settled into the dusty bucket seat. She yanked the Jeep into first gear and gunned the engine with a jolt, sending them careening down the warm country lane.

The marvelous thing is that’s it’s painless. The first words of The Snows of Kilimanjaro echoed in his head as he heard her speak. She never took her eyes off the road, she rather gazed at it intensely as she described her journey. She had asked his name, but never waited for the answer. She simply went off on a tear about her husband, her best friend, and the duffel bag next to his that comprised all of her worldly possessions. She spoke of sex and deceit, the way Hemingway would have, as if they were inseparable; two sides of a well-worn coin. She apologized and asked where he was going. As far as you’ll take me, he said. She looked in his eyes for the first time and smiled.

He couldn’t get the word “homecoming” out of his head. As he drove the familiar country roads and wooded lanes, a trip he’d made countless times when he was dating Melissa Frederickson at the state college, he contemplated its significance. He thought about the photos he’d seen when their boys came home from the European theatre, and the parade of heroes they’d had down Main St. His grandfather returned with a paralyzed arm and the admiration of every man woman and child in that town. He thought about the homecoming of Marshall Dickson, after he’d quarterbacked the high school team to the state championships, but splintered his knee in the fourth quarter, you’d never have known the Gents of Jefferson High hadn’t won, except for Marshall with the casted and elevated knee, waving from a red convertible.
He thought about the homecomings his town had seen, and wondered how his would be. He hadn’t seen Main St. since his first Congressional run, the last speech he’d made before the citizens soundly agreed to charge him as their representative in Washington. He’d won that seat twice since then, and hadn’t shadowed Main St. in almost ten years. He gripped the steering wheel as he tore through the turns, took his foot off the gas when he noticed he was driving too fast, and then he smiled. He remembered that Melissa Frederickson was the Homecoming Queen their senior year in high school, the year that he’d lost his virginity with Brittany Mathers, and the year his grandfather had died. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his tweed jacket, trying to focus on the empty, blurry rural route.
He knew he wasn’t worthy of the memories he possessed; his life in that town was too wholesome to have been his own. Perhaps, it was someone else’s life he was remembering. He didn’t know how they would receive him when he finally got there, fearing and expecting the worst. He was prepared to fly through town, sign the papers, collect his father’s irreplaceable items, and leave. Perhaps he didn’t even have to eat while he was there, but his stomach was already rumbling at the thought of one of Mel’s pasties. For the first time in a very long time, he was afraid.
His station wagon took the final turn and blew up the leaves around the sign that Gil Mason had built in 1932, the hand-carved wooden sign that swung from rusted chains and had the names of hundreds of young lovers carved inconspicuously into the base. The sign that reads, “Welcome to Milton, Make Yourself at Home.” The tears were coming now; he sniffled and scolded himself for being the blithering fool he’d always thought himself to be. He pulled the car to the side and fished around the floor of the car for a tissue. He blew and wiped, like an old woman at a funeral, and giggled at himself. His eyes cleared and focused and he stopped to look at a splotch of color not ten yards in front of the car. He turned on the wipers to scrape away the drizzle that had begun to fall and saw a sign hand painted onto a piece of lumber, nailed to a stake driven into the shoulder of the highway. In deft script, it read, “Welcome Home Chuck.”

I saw a great commercial a few years back. It was a public service announcement by the government of Singapore, picturing a young, nubile Singaporean woman walking the streets, being visually assaulted by man after man. As she walks by, you see a guy in a business suit pause in the middle of a phone conversation and stare wistfully. She passes a construction site, and the banging and clanging ceases momentarily as each guy in those nifty navy-blue overalls stops to trace her curves with his eyes. The escapade proceeds for the better part of a minute featuring crossing guards, street-booth chefs and cab drivers all gaping at her pleasing shape. The commercial ends with the phrase, “If women paid as much attention to their breasts as men do, we would have beaten breast cancer by now.”

There have been many scholars (mostly men, oddly) that have attempted to put a reason behind the male’s obsession with those jiggly fun-bags that the fairer sex has attached to their rib cage. Freud thought it was Oedipal, in that the breast-mindedness is supposed to be a throwback to our early stages of development when we received passive comfort as we were nursed by our mothers. Masters and Johnson take another perspective with their simple contention that breasts are the most easily identifiable zones of arousal, in that erect nipples and full, swollen breasts betray the same level of sexual excitement as a “full-on robot chubby.”

Funnily enough, and very much off the point, there are many cultures where breasts are viewed as being about as erogenous as an elbow. Carolyn Latteier, in Breasts: the Women's Perspective on an American Obsession, says that when anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler "told women in Mali that Americans think breasts are sexually arousing, they were horrified," and amused: "'You mean men act like babies,' they shrieked, collapsing in laughter."

In any case, we like boobies. I know this thesis is not going to get me that doctorate in behavioral science from MIT, but this my own friggin’ blog and I’m allowed to state the obvious.

I was in the Portland airport last week, meeting some friends flying in from New York to show them all that the city of roses, rain and Tonya Harding had to offer the wayward traveler. As a force of habit, I always arrive at airports far earlier than I intend to, even when I’m not flying out, I always arrive a full hour earlier than necessary. I think it has something to do with the fact that I really like airports. I like the bustling crowds, I like finding a quiet corner and reading a book, I just like the way they feel. The feeling is rooted in an association I have with airports in that I’m generally there when I’m going on a trip, and I only go on fun trips.

So I’m wandering around PDX, people-watching as I love to do, waiting for the status of their flight from Detroit to display on the screen (I told you I was early) and out of the corner of my eye, I see something that makes me stop in my tracks. It was a young woman, perhaps 25 years old, very much enjoying the massage chair outside the entrance to Brookstone. The pulsing rhythms of the chair were massaging the arch of her back in such a way that her shoulders were being pushed forward right, then left, then right, then left, etc. So, for all the world to see (or at least all those boarding for the flight to Albuquerque) this woman was shaking her major-league yabbos with gusto, eyes closed with a look of ultimate pleasure on her face. I was transfixed, not only by the sight beholden, but by the fact that there were about ten other guys within my field of vision that were having trouble not stepping on their own tongues.

Back and forth, back and forth. I almost expected her to start doing that awful porn soundtrack, “oooh, baby, yeah, that’s sooooooo good!” It didn’t take long before the gaggle of guys with the x-rays eyes started their motors again and went on their merry ways, certainly counting the singles in their wallets on their way to one of the many exotic dancing clubs offered in this great town.

Once again, off topic, I’ve heard tell that Portland has more strip-clubs per capita than any other place in the United States. To those that believe that, I suggest a trip to Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve also heard rumors of a place here in town called “Xotic Tan” where a lonely, (and admittedly pasty) guy can rent a room with a pretty girl, where she performs an erotic strip-tease while the gentlemen receives a treatment from one of their top prefessional quality tanning beds. Strange, but true.

Every morning when I put on my pants, one of my cats will inevitably make a grab for the dangling belt. It’s irresistible to them; much like boobs are to men. We can’t help it, and you have no right to think less of us for merely caving to our own nature. You’ve got plenty of other reasons to think less of us, individually, without having to pile that on as well. I think Steve Martin put it best in the film L.A. Story, “I could never make it as a woman. I would just stay at home all day and play with my breasts.”

You’ve been awake for hours, and are already beginning to feel the day slip away. You put on your coat that reeks of cigarettes and scold yourself for not quitting. You walk down the stairs, onto the cracked and trash-ridden streets, and go to the convenience store on the corner. As you pour scalding coffee into the Styrofoam cup, you remember an incident only days earlier when you heated a pin under the flame of a cigarette lighter and pierced a blister on your thumb, a blister your got when you touched a pot of boiling pasta. Single-serve packets of cornstarch and powdered whey, single-serve packets of white sugar, coffee that’s so hot you can’t taste it anyway.

You count the cracks in the sidewalk and momentarily consider scavenging for aluminum cans for extra cash, and somehow see your dignity getting in the way. You smirk at the idea. You sip the nuclear coffee and hope you don’t have to heat another pin and pierce a blister on your tongue. Single-serve discomfort.

You try to remember all the things you promised you’d look up at the library today, and can’t remember a single one. Your right shoe squeaks, not because it’s old, but because it’s so poorly made and the canvas has scraped off the inside, causing your heel to rub on smooth plastic.

They won’t let you into the bookstore anymore because you never buy anything, and you once tried to steal that copy of Gulliver’s Travels. You see the shop approaching as you contemplate that horrible turn of events, when you cried as the store manager picked up the phone to dial the police. A sip of not-quite-so searing hot coffee and you flip up the collar of your coat as you pass the window, even though it’s not cold.

The schwarma stand three blocks away is already busy and the sweet smell of unidentifiable meat with garlic and onions causes your stomach to churn and rumble, and the burnt coffee funk in your mouth to turn sour. You can actually feel the little glands in your mouth begin to pump saliva under your tongue, but you don’t want to swallow, for fear it might get worse.

You walk into a movie theatre lobby and head straight into the bathroom and spit into the sink. You look deeply into your eyes and are simultaneously convinced that you are both beautiful and vile. You exit the bathroom and are glad to see the smell of fresh popcorn does not exacerbate your condition. Single-serve satisfaction.

As you continue to count the cracks and sip your now lukewarm coffee, you ignite a cigarette and it seems to help assuage the vertigo you are beginning to feel. You take a seat on a park bench and dig into your satchel for your current paperback. You forgot to mark your place again, before you went to sleep, and you must randomly flip through the book looking for familiar words and phrases from last night’s adventure.

Frustratingly, it seems your eyes will not cooperate and your legs become itchy with jitters, your arms and shoulder restless. You get up to again, burying the paperback in your satchel once more. You think about the mouse your found in your oven once, and how you were off frozen pizzas for weeks, not just because you didn’t want to have to see it again, you didn’t want to kill it by turning the oven on. Then you think about the cat you had as a child, and how she once given birth in your lap while you were sleeping, the mewling of the kittens waking you in the early morning to warm moisture, making you think you had wet the bed in the night. There were five of them, six if you count the stillborn, but you never do.

The freezing cold coffee tastes like the rim of an ashtray and you trash it in a curbside bin, fearing the acid tang might remain in your mouth forever. You find another park bench, and this time your limbs allow you respite to engage in your tattered book, but now your mind is reeling, and your stomach sour. You think about all the books you’ll never read, about all the pleasure you’ll be denied, just because you could never live long enough to read them all. Contemplating all the masterpieces sitting on the office shelves of their disappointed authors, never to be published, and even the multitude of stories not yet committed to paper, make you sad. Single-serve discontent.

You think about time wasted working shitty jobs, worrying about money, worrying about love, cleaning, eating, fucking, shitting, shaving, and everything else. Even if you had all that time back, you could never read them all.

You stand and walk, keeping a rhythm with your breath and your feet, exercising physical control, concentrating on your heart beating to soothe the buzzing between your ears.

You fumble for your keys, and open the heavy oak door that stands at the entrance to the lobby of your building. You unlock the door to your apartment and think calmer thoughts of peanut butter and honey and fresh cold milk. You sit at your desk and begin to type, hoping the day has not gotten away from you.

As a Secular Humanist, I believe that tecnology can never solve humanity's problems, it can only work to make our lives easier which can, in turn, allow us more time work to solve those problems ourselves. That being said, I am, as I type this, sitting in my backyard, enjoying Portland's unseasonably warm early spring weather, drinking a Sierra Nevada Pal Ale, blogging to no one in particular, listening to Brian Wilson's Smile, and burning a copy of Deadwood: Season One on DVD, all on my new laptop. I might also add that I still have 88% battery life remaining.

I love technology.

Is there such thing as a Secular Technologist?

The irony is, of course, that the post in which I chided the sick fucks that would search for such filth, has caused three separate hits to this site from twisted sex-perverts searching Yahoo for “Muniz naked.” For curiosity’s sake, I went to Yahoo and ran my own search using the same terms, only to figure out exactly where in the order of hits this site appeared. My eyebrow was raised instantly upon seeing a site entitled, “Shirtless Frankie Muniz Fan Club.” Now this I gotta see, so I clicked.

The poor, pathetic, aged computer I use here in the office was instantly bombarded with pop-up after pop-up of “Asian Sluts Who Drink Piss!” and “Dutch Girls Must Be Punished for Having Big Boobs!!” and various other things I cannot bring myself to recollect. My computer got so bogged down with all this crap popping up over and over again that the whole thing froze and I lost the marketing letter I was typing only moments before.

Do you see what you have cost me, “Shirtless Frankie Muniz Fan Club?”

I knew that pitting myself against this gang would bring only suffering and regret, but I never knew how much.

I might also add that if you run a search on Yahoo with the terms “HOW TO DETERMINE HARNESS OF ROCKS THROUGH FINGERNAILS,” mine is the first site to appear. (note that the word “hardness” is missing the letter “d.”)

I’ll bet this is how Faulkner attracted fans.

And on a note of masturbatory self-aggrandizement, (come on, it’s Friday afternoon and the wife and I are going to Bagby Hot Springs this weekend, I’m in a saucy mood.) I would like to thank Small Flightless Bird for listing this sloppy excuse for self-expression as one of their favorite blogs, and in their words, “possibly the best blog ever.” Apparently they haven't bothered to read much of this crap, but I'll take it where I can get it.

For the first time ever, I get the unsubstantiated feeling that someone, somewhere out there is reading this drivel. To you, I say, have a nice weekend, sex-perverts.

ce•leb•ri•ty

Pronunciation: (su-leb'ri-tē),
—n., —pl. -ties for 1.
1. a famous or well-known person.

In 1809, Lord Byron wrote the seminal work of his lifetime, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and was catapulted into history as one of England's great satirists. English Bards... was written specifically in response to scathing reviews his previous works had received in a Scottish newspaper, and it was this antagonism that fueled the mischievous satyr within him. When this work of retribution was met with open appeal and huge success, Byron was overwhelmed. He is quoted in Memoranda from his Life, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

The only problem with being an instantly successful and celebrated satirist, in Byron's view, was that he was, ranked on par with Shelly and Keats, a Romantic poet.

The lesson here is that "celebrity" is out of our hands. It is, by it's very definition, mob-rule. Byron was a great poet, but it was his satire, encompassing a small fraction of his work, that represented the commercial success of his living years. Fame is hoisted upon celebrities by the non-famous, there's no better proof of that than the doughy kid from New Jersey (previously know as the "fat Dutch kid.") If you haven't already seen it, I suggest you crawl out of that spider-hole, shave your beard and take a look. This dude recorded a video of himself bobbing and jiggling like a like Star Jones Reynolds on the Tower of Terror, to the infectious beat of a Romanian pop song. This video somehow managed to make it onto the global ridicule circuit (a.k.a. the Internet) and it was an instant hit. I mean, even this doofus knew about it. This video has seen record downloads and emails (if such a thing can be accurately tracked) and even been featured on CNN, ABC and most recently, in the New York Times.

It's funny, it's cute, it speaks humanity's cross-cultural love of music ("All music is dance music," according to Afrika Bambaataa) and frankly, people like to make fun of people that do the same things we all do, but just don't have the forethought to keep it in front of the bathroom mirror. Celebrity, albeit minor, has been thrust upon this guy by the unwashed masses because that's how celebrity is obtained: through thrusting.

There are those that think that all celebrities are talentless, vapid, overpaid, self-centered, "it's time for my dog's acupuncture," shit-bags, just check out HOPE and Kid Protocol. For the most part, unfortunately, they would be right. One of the biggest reasons the resentment for these people is so palpable, is that their celebrity status is handed to them like Excalibur from the hand of the Lady of the Lake, and suddenly they become elitist, Scientology-believing, coke-sniffing, political activist assholes. For the most part, they seem to have forgotten that their fame is a gift from us, the plebians of the world. Without us buying their records, going to their concerts, watching their movies, or television shows, they'd be sucking mud like the rest of us. Of course, there are also those that, no matter what a celebrity does, his or her innocence will be shouted from the rooftops by some group of squish-head fanatics.

The concept of "celebrity" is so nebulous that it can hardly be defined more succinctly than "a well-know person." The things that draw the world's attention making that person a celebrity vary so greatly, they can rarely be fully understood, much less predicted. Just look at Paris Hilton and the amateur porn escapade that most people have never seen, but everyone knows about.

According to the NYT, the 19-year-old Gary Brolsma (fatty-fatty-boombalatty) is not too happy about all this attention his gelatin-like antics have received, and would like it if everyone just left him alone. Good luck with that one, Gary. According to Andy Warhol, you've still got about eight minutes left, I would suggest you enjoy them while you can. While taking out the garbage, Gary's grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant, was approached by a reporter and asked about his grandson's distaste for recent events, "I don't know what's wrong with him," he replied.