Coming Out Party

In this day and age, it simply won't do to hide who we are. In the past, perhaps, we could justify cowering in the shadows of Society's closet. "For the good of Civilization" we might say. But no longer. We have to stand tall. We have to fight the closed--indeed, the bigoted minds--that marginalize and belittle us. Merely admitting it will not suffice. We must proclaim it.

I'm coming out.

As a grown, educated, married, heterosexual man, who loves sports and drives a truck, I stand and say to the world: YES, I LOVE THE TWILIGHT SERIES.

I swam through a turbulent sea of dismissive critics and superior literati looking down their noses to see the movies. I fought past my own pre-judgements and my own well laid plan to mock, deride, and despise this teenage fantasy machine. And I ended up in love. Certainly not with the obsessive mobs of fans. Certainly not with the nuclear powered product mongering corporate interests. Certainly not with the books, which are so far down my reading list--I'm scheduled to read them, honestly, but--I just can't get to them until two years after I'm dead.
No, I'm taken with the concepts, the ideas, the mythos that beats at the heart of the Saga.

Much as you should accept, even embrace, what may very well have been born in me--thereby rendering any justification on my part superfluous--I think perhaps a brief treatise on why these movies are beautiful, and OK to love, will help you feel more at ease with me living the Twilight life.

1) Finally, I get why vampires are interesting. All my life, I've thought: So they suck blood, so they haunt the night, and have supernatural powers. Who cares? And, since Anne Rice made them dead sexy, I've been sort of turned off by their super hot sexlessness. I guess you could say I couldn't attribute any humanity to them. Somehow, until Twilight I missed the point: These are people, and they are bored. How horrible it must be to live forever on this earth. To pass through era after era of human history and never change. And see how nothing ever changes. After a few hundred years it must be a desperate and daily challenge to find something interesting on this planet. Through Edward Cullen, and through the Vulteri, this dilemma is explored with subtlety that borders on delicate. It gives one pause, as one translates the idea to the concept of living forever ANYWHERE. If you believe in God, or gods, you start to wonder how an eternal being makes life interesting once omnipotence and omniscience are achieved. You start to see why people cooked up this reincarnation idea. If all the series did was make vampires interesting to me, really for the first time, it may be enough. And there's more on that front . . .

2) While I hate updates to the vampire myth (the part about their skin sparkling in the sun was a groaner, almost a deal breaker), I kind of love the idea that there are vampires trying to do good in the world. Trying, against all odds, to live in peace and help people. I'm sure some lesser known work has more effectively explored the idea of Vampires actually using their powers to non-evil ends, but the idea of the Cullen family remains compelling to me. Why wouldn't a group of vampires evolve who refuse to drink human blood? Come to think of it, why couldn't a group of vampires evolve, after millions of years, for whom the sun is not lethal? (Maybe I don't hate this sparkling thing as much as I thought. Oh well. I still hated the baseball scene.) But you don't have to appreciate the vampires, because . . .

3) You can buy into the Twilight portrayal of what it means to have a soul mate. Believe me, I wish I could simply debunk the whole idea. And I think for a vast majority of the population, the idea IS the purest bunk. But for an unfortunate few, such a thing exists. And it isn't pretty. Every major work of art that attempts to legitimately explore the idea of "star crossed lovers," from Romeo & Juliette to Wuthering Heights, ends up revealing how destructive and dangerous the very idea is. And for all that, the reality of it is even worse. Living that intensely for a single other being is more often than not contrary to the needs and stipulations of Civilization at large. It makes you a freak. And it is beyond the will. You cannot choose your way out of it. It is misery of separation or the world's daily assault against the perfection it cannot permit to exist. Imagine having that load hoisted upon your shoulders as a teenager. I love that Twilight makes its lovers suffer through at least two books' worth of pain, inconvenience, destruction, chaos, separation, despair, societal alienation, family machinations, etc. I can't conceive of anything so miserably dangerous as finding out, at any age, but especially at a young age, that there is another person upon whom your happiness, perhaps your very existence, depends. Because of this, I don't mind the sullen behavior, nor the morose portrayals of the main characters. It thrills me in the same way (though certainly not to the same degree) as the above mentioned works of literary genius. And thankfully, Twilight doesn't stop there. The author wasn't afraid to show that there is a glorious side to that kind of love. If the people involved are willing to wager all and accept no substitutes.

I could go on. But the above points suffice. Hopefully. Look, I'm just asking you to give the movie, and the people who can't help but love it, a chance. Don't look down your nose at it just because bazillions of ditzy teenage girls are screaming themselves hoarse over it. Don't give up on it just because the whole thing seems, on the surface, to revolve around a buffed up teenage werewolf and a skinny, mopey vampire taking their shirts off.

Open your mind and heart to the possibility that people like me exist. And we just might be right.

Unearthed Musicana

How does Peter Gabriel's album So escape people's "Best Albums of all Time" lists? Give it a listen. I don't care if several of the songs reached self parody status because of over exposure in the 80's. Even a 5 song EP with Mercy Street, Your Eyes, Red Rain, Don't Give Up, and Sledgehammer would merit consideration for All Time Greatness. If this were all he ever did, it suffices for immortality.

Speaking of which, a friend of mine and I recently performed at a local bar. When she wanted to do a Courtney Love song, I balked, having always found the former Mrs. Cobain loathsome, and believing that she was absolutely responsible in some way for her late, great, husband's death. But upon hearing the song Malibu, I forgave her everything. I remembered watching Immortal Beloved, wherein the woman Beethoven had terrorized (and loved) says: "I forgave him because of the Ode to Joy." I remembered reading an interview with Morrissey wherein he stated that David Bowie is pardoned of all sins because of Drive-In Saturday. Courtney Love is certainly no Beethoven or Bowie, but Malibu is that kind of achievement. If it were her only accomplishment, she could still be called great. And even Love haters would have to admit the greatness of at least that song.
It occurred to us, that every performer/band has their very own Malibu. The song that even detractors must accept. The song that makes you forgive them. Even non Smiths fans cannot dismiss There is a Light That Never Goes Out. It is too beautiful. Even non Bowie fans have to love The Man Who Sold the World, and/or Drive In Saturday. And for the greatness of these offerings you forgive his fop-pop in the 80's, and his hair in Labyrinth, and the fact that he made himself a publicly traded commodity (you see why he needs at least two). You might hate Metallica, but you can't help but rock out to Enter Sandman. ETC.

It isn't just picking the ear candy out of some one's catalogue. Think of every great band you like. They have to have at least one song that grabs the world and says: "judge me by this." Really great songwriters have several, in many cases because they need that much forgiveness. Often you discover these songs because bands you actually like cover them, and you realize, "I was never really into Michael Jackson, but that version of Smooth Criminal is coolness."

Can you think of any more examples?

What's your Malibu?

HodgePodgeman

[Editor's note - The ostensible plan was to allow the author to let his mind wander, stream of conscious style, and record each thought as it occurred, to the delight of a wide range of consumer demographics. However, the initial result was slightly darker than this space usually exhibits. In point of fact that composition, consisting of a question about the ever decreasing life in the battery of his lap top, which led to a bleak meditation on decaying love and lifelong dreams being deferred until the soul itself is a dry husk, which then actually became an immense black hole sucking all life and light into a dark core of nothingness, the location of which in the cosmos can be inferred by its gravitational effect on nearby stars and planets. With that boil lanced and deleted, the author was free to let his mind wander into strawberry fields. It is hoped that the reader will delight therein, though the fate of the cosmos (vis-a-vis the aforementioned black hole) remains, at best, questionable.]

*For my money, John Hodgeman's The Areas of My Expertise is the funniest book ever written. Every page is purest gold. Even the outside cover is delicious. It even contains a chapter entitled Those 500 Hobo Names You Requested. Need I say more? Find it. Buy it. You will thank me. And you'll owe me for a thousand and one smiles and delightful conversations.

Speaking of smiles . . .

*Armed with donated gift cards, I had the priviledge of taking a kid from the shelter to Pac Sun [super hip clothing store for tweeners, teens, and twentysomethings - ed.] and was impressed with their cutting edge set up. Problem: the young person in question has a 38 inch waist. There were only two pair of super hip jeans with a waist over 34, and they were 36's. Conundrum #1: On the one hand, I was absolutely sympathetic and supportive to the chubby teen, who is a really great guy who is in the process of overcoming a very difficult childhood. On the other, I was rejoicing inside that there was a retailer willing to bring the hammer down. How to put it diplomatically that you are secretly, and yes, uncharitably, glad that the fashion industry so blatantly marginalizes the more generously appointed? Conundrum #2: since when did skinny jeans become mandatory? I love a trim line, but I do not need jeans that grip tightly around my knees and ankles. I don't understand their range of cuts, which was "skinny" on the wide end, and "tighter than Billy Idol's leather pants from the 80's" on the other. Conundrum #3: PRICES. After shopping so long at second hand stores and bargain outlets, the idea of paying more than 20 dollars for a pair of pants sends my mind reeling. Some of the jeans in that place were $50. And that's a bargain to the fashion forward. I've seen jeans selling in the $80 -$200 range and thought: I am a country mile behind the world. If I won the lottery I wouldn't pay that. If George Soros paid me Al Gore money to tell America how stupid and evil it is, I still wouldn't pay half that. It is beyond my comprehension. Dang I'm poor.

Perhaps the dominance of the skinny jean paradigm is God's way of ending the bitter, loathsome scourge of sagging, baggy jeans. My prayers that he simply use the Smite App. on his Celestial i-phone have been long unheeded. But now I see. No lightning bolt, no foul disease, no earthquake or pestilence could make them see how disgusting they look. They will never see the folly of sagging their pants so low they cannot even run from the cops who should soon be arresting them. But soon, they will be marginalized along with fatty. They will wear sweat pants in public or they will step reluctantly into the light. The nightmare of boxer shorts and butt cracks will have an ending.

Speaking of endings . . .
*LOST is coming back. The YouTube promo almost rekindles some of the early enthusiasm I felt for that magical show. The fact is, we have to know. We have to know how it ends. And isn't it a relief to see a show that says: This is it. We are ending it. We will not compromise our artifact for profit. I wish more shows would know when to call it quits. Like Flight of the Conchords. Like Extras (and almost every other BBC show, including the original Office). Like Arrested Development (Please don't make the movie! People THINK they want it, but they will rue the day.)

Speaking of ruing the day . . .

*Christmas time rolls around once a year to remind us that Jim Carry will burn a thousand years in the ninth circle of Hell for his portrayal of the Grinch. Only his stint as the producer and narrator of Arrested Development has earned Ron Howard a provisional pardon. I heard that horrible "Where are you, Christmas?" song in the store the other day and went into convulsions. It's almost as bad as the torturous "Feliz Navidad." Here are the lyrics I hear every time it putrefies the airwaves:
Here's a Spanish phrase.
Which I'll blast in your face.
Let me say it again and again and again with a blah blah blah.
Now I'll sing the same thing in English.
Now let me sing the same thing in English.
One more time I'll say it in English from the bottom of my heart.
Here it comes again.
Do you wish you were dead?
This song never ends and prospero blah blow blah blah blah blah blah.

Try it, it matches up. [Addendum: In several states it is not considered murder if you kill the composer and/or performer of that song. I'm not saying; I'm just saying -ed.] If that song is now stuck in your head, you'll be wanting to kill ME, so we'd better close with a palette cleanser. Where does the mind wish to meander.

Still Christmas.

I was 7 years old when I figured it out. I got up in the middle of the night to pee and saw my parents wrapping gifts that were supposed to be from Santa. They didn't see me. For their sake I lied about believing in Santa for another year or two. I also continued to lie to my friends about believing. I didn't want to make waves. It was such a relief when the cat was out of the bag for everyone involved.

If you don't watch A Christmas Story and Dr. Seuss' ORIGINAL animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas sometime this month, you are inartistic, ignoble, uninspired, and unamerican.

Happy Holidays!

Hack Into Me

What follows is an unconfirmed, possibly fictional statement from a scientist who may or may not have asked that his name be removed.

So they hacked into my private e-mails. Wherein I had spent a small amount of time, a few words here and there, wondering why the data wasn't matching my agenda. I might have also mocked those who disagree with me, referring to them as "twat" and "ignoramus" and other choice terms that mature adults use routinely when they don't think they will have to actually show their cards.

It has been really embarrassing. But not in the way you might think. I'm embarrassed for all of you.

How sad it is to see how deeply people's ideology clouds their judgement. There are actually people who believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming on a religious level. They have never looked up the facts. They accept the party line of their spiritual leaders. They derisively dismiss anyone who dares disagree with them. They assume that anyone who wants to actually look at the idea of climate change scientifically is their moral, social, and political enemy. To that end, they LOVE my smarmy name calling. The myriad UNtruths in their Gospel of Inconvenient Truth are unthinkable to them. They ignore, utterly and profoundly, the particular e-mail where I mentioned that the famous "hockey stick" graph mentioned by their Goracle is not supported by the data, and recoil, utterly and profoundly, from the possibility that I might have any questions about their dogmatic faith that man is at the root of climate change. I'm sure that if I ever find evidence to the contrary, they will throw pies in my face as I leave the symposium. They are, in short, utterly and profoundly, UNscientific.

They have counterparts. Doppelgangers if you will. People who have ignored the data with equal exuberance. Their opposition is equally devout. They sift through 3,000 e-mails to find the one or two where I dared question. They take them as evidence that makes their case. They somehow interpret my infantile jibes to their ilk as evidence that my arguments are flawed. Most of their minds exist proudly within the bounds of the AM radio waves that carry the vitriol of their prophets. If they end up being right--I should say, correct--their arguments will dismiss themselves with the self same tools they used to dismiss the tenets of their "enemies."

But these are the people who dwell on the surface. It would be wrong of me to expect better from them. From Time Immemorial humans have desperately sought after facts to fit their agenda, rather than the more sensible opposite modus operandi. That is what they will do with my leaked e-mails: they will hear what they want to hear, and this will render the whole debate fairly moot. Happily, you can count on religious types from both camps to at least be well intentioned. So I'll handle my embarrassment. I'll take my medicine like any mature adult who is caught with questionable half truths and insults in his mouth: I'll obfuscate the questionable and augment the insults even as I pretend to apologise. Watch me; it'll be beautiful. However, as you watch, you might begin to feel a bowling ball in your stomach, as the fingers of your brain grapple in the mist for the real revelation slinking around between the lines of my hacked private communications.

There are people who are much worse than those I have mentioned. People whose agenda is not well intentioned. Big talking individuals who profit in unthinkable ways by manipulating the data and the perception of the data. One group requires that GW [global warming] sink into the dank basement of myth so that their cronies and partners can increase margins and avoid regulation. They might even want to be free to pollute soil and atmosphere. The other group NEEDS desperately for AGW [anthropogenic, or man caused, global warming] to be a fact. They require the subsequent fear and panic and activism to implicate a political agenda that has little to do with the actual climate. Their financial well-being literally depends on their premise being true. I might even be one of them. Or I might work for them. Or I may depend on them remaining and gaining in power so they can dispense money in my direction. Or I am an important third party to their friends, who are captains of industry, who need to sell products that say "green" on the label. For all I know, these apparent poles of contraction are working together. Tricking everyone into choosing sides because that is how they get paid.

As it turns out, most of us have chosen sides on flimsy grounds, such as liking one side or the other, or how one side makes us feel, or whether they agree with our views on how socially progressive society should be, or whether their comedians are funny to us or not, or whether their religion is traditional or couched in pretending to be non religious.

I don't remember when I chose a side, but I did. I absolutely did. Being a scientist doesn't, and shouldn't preclude that. Keep that in mind when you judge our data. Keep that in mind when you judge our humanity. We are people. Cut us--do we not bleed? Make our private lives public, do we not appear as childish as everyone else? Try to untie the Gordian knot of where our politics end and where our objectivity begins, and are you not face to face with your own agenda driven ignorance?

If you aren't, perhaps you should be.

In the end, these are just 3,000 e-mails that will have no lasting effect on whatever passes for "debate" in this world. That said, if we squint long enough into the temporarily large shadow of this feckless electronic edifice, we might find a handwritten line by a long dead prince of Denmark: There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy.

Candide

Mark Twain went around the country. In the end, embittered and full of bile, he was paraphrased in the blogosphere, saying: "If you don't watch the news, you are uninformed. If you do watch the news, you are misinformed."

Not long before, Voltaire sent Candide around the world. In the course of his misadventures, he discovered something: he didn't care about the price of tea in China. It was all outside the sphere of his influence and was therefore bereft of meaning. He decided, in another immortalized turn of phrase, to "tend [his] own garden."

This was all taken to heart by my good friend Jason, who said: "Don't talk to me about current events anymore. If there's nothing I can do about it, I don't want to know about it." A month later he has never been happier. He gets more done. He eats the food in front of him without being distracted by the menu at some distant Mcdonalds.

Ask yourself: does an infantile war between an administration and a television channel have anything to do with you? Does your certainty that they are in cahoots and are simply succeeding in boosting each other's numbers help you succeed at your job or studies? If members of that administration declare earnest admiration for history's worst dictatorial murderer [ed: it's Mao Tse Tung, for the ignorant] does that change the way the tomatoes grow in your garden? Will shaking your fist at the Wall Street insiders who advise your president stop them from flushing billions of dollars down fat cat investment bankers' toilets while common people suffer? Do you really think the future generations who are being crippled by the current rates of government spending will look back at average Americans and shake their debt shackled fists in anger? "If only you had been informed about this!"

They will not. Neither will anyone begrudge you missing a Conan O'Brian reference because you failed to catch CNN that day. Free yourself.

At any rate, at least if you watch the Daily Show, [or the even better Colbert Report-ed.] you can have a good hearty laugh whilst you are propagandized and misinformed.

Civilization is B___S____

"War is not the answer," said the bumper sticker. I nodded my head. A lovely sentiment. Then I had a little thought. The sticker had the guts to lay it on the line, I thought it might be an invitation to dialogue. I said, What if the question is: How do we stop Hitler from slaughtering Jews and taking over countries? In that case, I thought, war is the ONLY answer. I don't care if it's a cliche. And what if 13 colonies declare independence with an eye toward inventing freedom, and the oppressive tyranny of the motherland decides to kill them until they submit? Seems to me war is the answer again. Perhaps Mr. Bumper Sticker made a rash, preliminary statement? "Look, I'm stuck here. I can't change. I have to be the truth." I couldn't make sense of the logic. And before I could ask another question, the light changed and he drove away.


I couldn't have been happier to come upon the Jesus fish on the freeway, I'd been meaning to ask if he remembered when he was secretly drawn as two arcs in the sand by the feet of Christians scared of being killed for their beliefs. I thought it was a little degrading to see him so close to exhaust and roadkill. But he couldn't answer. He seemed to have something stuck in his craw. In fact, he was chewing on something. A little version of himself, but with feet. "I'm the Darwin fish!" screamed the poor little guy. "All I wanted to do was co-opt his symbolism and insult his religion! What's his problem?" His problem, I thought later, is that he should never, EVER have put you in his mouth. The only thing more petty and childish than the first cheap shot is throwing the second punch. (I guess turning the other cheek doesn't apply to bumper sticker melodrama.) At any rate, I couldn't think what his problem was at that moment. I was too curious. Who made the Jesus fish with the little feet and called it Darwin? I mean, I think it was certainly small minded, but it is a pretty clever pun. "Oh, no one came up with that idea! These feet just grew here by themselves."

Which reminded me of another conversation I had, with a bumper sticker that compared evolution to gravity with the intention of discounting the existence of a supreme being. This one I really wanted to address. His stereo was up really loud so I tried to come up with some kind of sign language that said: I believe in evolution! Absolutely I do. I congratulate you! But it is still officially called the Theory of Evolution, whereas Gravity has long since been elevated to the status of a LAW of nature. Like thermodynamics, entropy, etc. You are discounting your argument with what might be a simple oversight! Obviously, the effort was doomed. The sticker just gave me an enthusiastic "thumbs up." I shook my head no. It was not good. I sank into a quick, but nonetheless bleak depression, thinking about a great movie I had just watched on String Theory (The Elegant Universe, check it out) wherein scientists gamely admit to working their brains out and then simply forging forward (by faith, essentially) where their knowledge breaks down, accepting that true scientists can only believe the latest thing going, which is the next thing to be proven wrong. I wanted to try and shout above the noise, and ask if he was perhaps acquainted with the brilliant scientist who told me: Science will never prove nor disprove the existence of God. We will never see him in any telescope. We will never write an equation that dispells him. The question is outside the province (or "providence" if you are Justice Sonya) of the scientific process. Be wary of anyone who crosses the ideas of Science and God with the goal of disproving one or the other. By then I had to turn right, towards the supermarket. As I signaled the turn, I remember distinctly hearing the words of the song blaring from the vehicle in question: "I am ignorant! I accept conventional wisdom on blind faith! (La la la.) Which makes it religion or worse but don't tell me that! (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)"

Well behaved women rarely make history. Or so the lavender bumper sticker seemed content to proclaim endlessly to anyone who dared to look upon her. I instantly agreed. But, as you have already deduced, I have a problem. Can't seem to simply agree with anyone. (If it makes you feel any better, it happens even when I agree with myself.) She was parked at the video store, so I knew I could have a real conversation with this one. I started small. What about Mother Theresa? She seemed pretty well behaved. She behaved herself right into the Nobel Prize. She said nothing. What about Emily Dickinson? She's the most amazing woman who ever lived. Sure, she boldly stopped going to her father's church, and then stopped going out into society at all, but, OK, maybe I see your point a little bit. Maybe you're one of those people who means "Political hay" when you say "History." In that case, wait a minute! Well behaved men have rarely made history either! Why not just say "People" for feminism's sake! In other words, what is your point exactly? Is your lovely font going to rectify some great wrong--inspire some young girl to stand up and tear down the sexist patriarchy that currently tells her to grow up and be whatever her brains and will can achieve? Who in legitimate American discourse is currently demanding that women "behave?" I waited some time for an answer. I thought the sticker was going to say "I'm left over from the late sixties. But believe me, there are people who still need to hear this." I'd have taken that. Instead, she sat there mute, her lavender turning an angry red.
[Editor's Postscript: There are millions of unsung PEOPLE in history, Ms. Bumpersticker, whom you might derisively lable as "well behaved," who poured their whole soul into being decent, hard working parents, who raised noble, hard working children, who helped others, baked great bread, kept clean homes, told delightfully bad puns, and basically made the world go around.)


For a moment, I felt a little foolish for trying to engage in any way with something so futile as a permanent statement of philosophy or belief on the bumper of a car, with anything so infantile as a punch in an ideological fistfight that takes place in tiny letters just above the place where the carbon monoxide comes out as you drive by. I decided to live and let live. And to keep my eyes on the road.

Then Calvin drove by, peeing on everything. Then praying to things. Then peeing on everything again. I love Calvin and Hobbes very much. I consider it one of the greatest works of modern literature. I saw Watterson clamoring in his grave. I mourned for humanity. I gave up. I decided I would have my car fitted with a weapon that would fire a stupidity seeking missile at any one with Calvin peeing, (or anything dirty, like the one I saw that said "Save a mouse, eat a p*ss%.") I said: I will avenge you, poor, bastardized Calvin! I will bring destruction on these vile masses. I WILL EXTERMINATE ALL BRUTES!"





Then I realized where that came from.

Truly the Heart of Darkness is our own soul.


But I still blame the bumper stickers.

etc.