Speculum

Love of life
When it’s done right
Silly to say you don’t want to be a pretty wife
Why fight
Mirror image is your imagination
Shame, really; home early
So much sparkle and gloss, feelings of loss
If ever a lovelier reflection
It lived in a serpent’s seduction

So, yes, I succumb, we all make monstrous fools of ourselves in front of soft focused cameras on Saturday nights and seventeen ounces of liquor served chilled; saintly and proudly stiff.

Grand exits? Oh me? Oy vey, oh yes!

Some nights we end up alone
Swirling through names in a phone
And we dial
Some mornings we don’t wake
Sleep and die and sleep and read about Haiti’s great quake
Aren’t we vile?

I get by on my looks, cross and dirty
But if I were you…

Oh, if I were you

Well, looks and drinks and the many thinks we may think
This scheme is a put on to disguise my true intentions
Which are
for me to know and for you to marry into like the callisteia queen taking Jesus’ hand
Lovely

You’ve steered quite clear of making a decision
But I must say
Love of life
Don’t delay
Beauty is the servant of an aberrant vision

Carolina

I wish I could revisit you on that Southern beach
In exchange for crystal clear mornings, I’d hold your hair back and count gold coins from your chest
But this working town peels away my skin like gloves from the calloused hands of a coal miner cursing his cancer and succumbing to the opium
I stand around naked, black to my toes, resigned to your memory’s baffling waste; I use up too much energy craving you, carrying you in my creased palms; I sleep too little
Your darling daughter comes around some mornings,
asks about you,
looks like you,
pretends that you and I are still on speaking terms and not on the far edges of a sinking iceberg, you caught below the surface, I foolishly clasping tight to the tip not yet submerged
I make the same mistakes every morning
Cut myself shaving, catch myself staring, calm my nerves drinking
I tie my shoes once, then twice, a third time out on the sidewalk
I forget your name in mixed company, me and anyone else
Some days I don’t even see the sun, up before dawn, down every second after
The stars take cover behind the silver-burnt puffs from the smokestacks, colluding in my banishment
I lay silently in pitch black

Come home, Carolina
No one lives forever, but you didn’t have to go and prove it

John The Cop

Let me tell you a story.

You will recall that back in my first few months in Philadelphia, I landed a fantastic job at a Used CD/DVD store right downtown.  If you haven’t read my account of crackheads, bums and Bob the Builder, you really should.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

When you have a central figure as dynamic as my unshowered, overweight, prostitute-frequenting, drug-addicted boss who didn’t pay his employees, well, sometimes other characters get glossed over, or left out altogether.  For instance, there was the homeless couple I mentioned briefly who disappeared unexpectedly one day, after about a week of acting jittery.  Or, another example, I remember one night when a nervous-looking deaf man was attempting to converse with me and my high school level sign language, at the same time as a flamboyantly gay teenager overtly ogled me (and my ass) every time I stood (he would ask me where certain CDs were just so he could leer at me as I walked from section to section).

Additionally, I left out the night I was waiting for the bus home at midnight and ended up in a congenial conversation with a sweet, hefty black woman who turned out to be a phone sex operator (she didn’t like leaving the job at night because sometimes customers found out where their operation was based and would wait outside for particular operators).

Hell, even some of my co-workers were quirky in their own right.

But one particular fellow deserves his own entry:  John the Cop.  Now, this is usually the part where I say, “Let’s call him…” and give a fake name.  But I never knew this guy’s full name.  I only knew him as John the Cop, and I like the ring of that title, so I’m sticking with it.

John the Cop, like all good cops, was a chubby bastard (there seems to be a theme of fat-ness running through my Philly stories; unsurprising for a city that routinely puts squeeze cheese on their cheese-steak sandwiches).  This was a man who, in an action movie, would be the fairly dimwitted fat cop who loses the perp in a foot chase and then gets chewed out by the hero of the film, only to be revealed in the climax as a crony for the main villain.  That is to say, when he entered the store, I was not filled with an overwhelming sense of personal security.

The first night I met the protagonist of this particular entry, he was in full uniform.  This was not unusual, as my store was in a somewhat seedy part of downtown and cops routinely strolled in and out of the store.  If you know me, you know that cops make me a bit uneasy.  I’ve never had a serious run-in with the law, but my few experiences dealing with individual cops have been mostly unpleasant.  Other than maybe one exception, every cop I’ve dealt with has been particularly douche-y.

Cue: John the Cop.

He came up to the counter with a fat stack of DVD boxsets (think seasons of The Sopranos, The Simpsons, etc.) and CDs.  The way my store worked, all the actual discs were in the back organized by numbers, so I would take the cases and have to search through old, flimsy, 30-count cardboard boxes for the right discs.  With one title, this could take a minute.  With a stack of 15 or 20 different titles, this could be quite the ordeal.  But okay, that’s cool, the store is about to make a lot of money, so I’m happy to do it (this was back in my first few weeks when I still wanted the store to succeed).

After maybe 12 to 15 minutes, I’ve found all the discs and I set the stack back on the counter in front of John the Cop.  With a pen and paper, I start to make out a receipt in order to give the cop his total.

“Oh, no.”  John the Cop says (at this point, I don’t know his name).  “I don’t pay for these.  I have a deal arranged with Greg.”  Greg isn’t the guy’s real name.  The cop meant another employee at the store who worked mostly days and had been with the store longer than anyone (other than the crackhead boss and his crackhead baby’s mama).  So, yeah, let’s call him ‘Greg’.

“Greg lets me borrow this stuff and I make copies of all of them.  Then I bring them back in the morning.”  Already, you’re getting the sense of what kind of person this John the Cop is, aren’t you?

Now, my incredulity must have shown on my face, because John says, “You can call Greg if you want.”  I didn’t know Greg’s number, but I might have been able to scrounge around and find it.  Of course, the thought of me saying to the cop, “Yeah, one second, I’ve got to verify your story” and then turning the store upside down searching for the phone number seemed a bit, shall we say, stupid.  I was new in the city and not too keen on having a cop being on my bad side.  On the other hand, what the cop was doing was legally (and morally) suspect and not good for business.  It was a real ethical quandary.

So, I summoned up my moral courage and I said, “Nah, it’s cool.  Go ahead and take them.”  John the Cop smiled his big, smarmy-cop smile and did just that.  Greg worked the next morning, so I figured John the Cop would just return the stuff to Greg the next day and the boss would never know, everything would be square.

Over the next few weeks, John the Cop would show up from time to time, gather up a buttload of CDs and DVDs and I would let him walk out with $300 to $400 worth of a merchandise.  John the Cop even gave me his personal phone number and said, “Give me a call if you need anything.”  This seemed like a pretty good trade off.  John the Cop got all the burned media he wanted, and I had a cop in my pocket if I needed something (I wasn’t thinking like bribery; I was more concerned with possibly getting a public intoxication ticket that I would need expunged).  I didn’t particularly look forward to John the Cop’s visits, but at least I understood the routine.

He would even call me up sometimes and say he was on his way.  Once, he asked me if I wanted him to bring me a drink.

“Oh, sure, whatever you want to bring,”

“What kind of beer do you like?”  Um.

“Um, whatever is fine.”  If you’re wondering about the ethical questions of drinking on the job… fob off.  It was just a beer, I wasn’t going to get drunk and even if I got plastered, I think I could manage to sit on my ass in an empty store.  My main hesitation was simply that a cop was offering to bring me a beer (he didn’t even know my age, though I was over 21).  This guy wasn’t lining up for any Medals of Merit.

Naturally, he brought me PBR.  I think I’ve made it clear my feelings towards Pabst.  I didn’t end up drinking the beer and it ended up in my fridge back home for the rest of my year in Philly.  But still, it’s the thought that counts, or something.

Now, Greg and I didn’t regularly cross paths.  We were both essentially managers and so we had opposite schedules to take care of the store operations.  That is to say, from the time I first met John the Cop, I didn’t actually get an opportunity to discuss any of the happenings with Greg for a few weeks.

One Friday morning, probably a month and a half or so into my total of 2 months working at the store, Greg and I crossed paths at one of the stores and started chatting about whatever (probably bitching about how shitty our crackhead boss is).  Something about John the Cop had been bugging me for awhile, so I casually brought him up.

“I’ve had a few run-ins with John the Cop,” I said to Greg.

“Oh, yeah,” Greg replied, knowingly.

“So, he usually brings the DVDs back to you?”  I asked, rhetorically (so I thought).  Greg laughed.

“Nah, man, he doesn’t bring them back.  He just takes them.”  Shit.  “Yeah, that guy hates Steve” (the crackhead boss), “they got in some big fight awhile back.  So he just takes whatever he wants.”

“Shit!  He told me he was bringing them back to you.”

“Nope.  Don’t worry about it.  I figure it’s just  better to stay out of it.”

I was an accessory to some pretty pricey theft.  But Greg was right, there was really nothing to do but stay out of it.  By this point, the crackhead boss had stopped paying his employees, was taking money from the till nightly and showing up to the store with prostitutes.  Neither he or John the Cop were really on the right side of the law, and I frankly didn’t care if they both went down.

Of course, within the next couple weeks, my crackhead boss would be busted by the police with a prostitute and a trunk full of drugs (apparently the prostitute took the fall for the drugs), and then one of the stores would be shutdown due to lack of payment on rent.  This would all lead up to that fateful Sunday when the crackhead and I had an all out yelling match where I decided to quit on the spot.

Quitting led to better things, so I was happy to leave that store behind.

Plus, I never saw John the Cop again.  And I hope I never will.  Or any cops for that matter.  Yeah, yeah, not all cops are crooked assholes, I’m aware of that.  But there are John the Cops out there, and I’d gladly avoid all police just to make sure I never have another run-in with his type.

Oh, and by the way, I still have his phone number in my cell address book, under the name, “John the Cop.”

Good Without God?

I love a good debate.  You all know that.  Debating questions of religion and God are a fun diversion for me, in the way, say, playing Halo might be great entertainment for you.

On occasion, having a debate with no end in sight can prove fun, like when you’re at a concert and the band jams on your favorite song for an extended 10 minutes.  Then again, sometimes you just want to hear the song and have the band move on.

One of the surest ways to fall into the trap of a never-ending argument (and debates quickly devolve into arguments when they have no definitive endpoint) is to never establish your initial premises.  So often, a semantic quibble or hypothetical analogy hijacks the conversation, sometimes without you ever knowing what was being debated in the first place.

Recently, I was asked my opinion on a debate topic, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

Here is the topic of debate (as it was being had in a college course):  Can you have morality without Religion?

You’ve heard this question, you’ve witnessed this debate.  It can come in many forms, though most commonly it is a topic that arises when people want to argue which has done the greatest harm in history, religion or atheism.  These debates inevitably crumble into discussions of how many people died in which war or genocide and whether or not Hitler/Stalin/Kermit the Frog was an atheist (ultimately this misses the greater point that all of the 20th century’s greatest atrocities were the result of global actions taken by thousands of people in back rooms and behind doors).

This debate is one that inevitably goes around in circles and only ends because the participants get fed up.

If, by saying morality cannot exist without religion, you merely mean that religion is the only effective means of propagating and enforcing morality, then you have made no larger claim about God (you are discussing completely natural events).  However, this view is demonstratively false.  While you may assert that morality as we know it originated in religious belief and would not exist if it had not been for religion, moral atheists/agnostics (yes, they do exist) prove that morality can be taught and spread without a religious basis.  Even if you wish to hold the tenuous position that all morality came out of religion, when an atheist teaches his or her child to behave morally without relying on religious authority, they have proven that morality can be spread without religion.

The reason this debate is such a frustrating one to have is because the initial topic is a red herring.  You think you’re arguing whether or not morality exists without religion, but in fact what you are really debating is, “Can morality exist without God?”  By extension, the debate you’re truly having is, “Does God exist?”  When the question is framed as “Can morality exist without Religion?”, it obfuscates the true nature of the debate and it gives the Naysayers (“Morality cannot exist without religion”) a hidden advantage.

If you claim that all morality comes from religion, you are either arguing that morality comes from God, or you are making no argument at all, for you can no more answer which came first, morality or religion, than you can answer which of the chicken or the egg came first (that is to say, there is a correct answer, as one must have come first, but the pursuit of the answer serves only academic interest and does not reveal any deeper truth about God or the lack of a god).

(For the record, morals came first.)

Instead of establishing the debate on a false premise (Morality requires religion), we must state what is truly meant: Morality requires God.

And with this understanding, the debate falls apart.  Any attempt to answer the question assumes the existence of God, and that is the very thing we are debating.  If I engage the false face of this debate (“Morality cannot exist without Religion/God?”), I would be overlooking the true first premise of the debate (“God exists”), essentially conceding a point that I absolutely refuse to concede.  Every argument you make in favor of this assertion will be predicated on God’s existence, which requires that I either except that premise in order to address your point (and thus handicap my actual point of view), or maintain my own atheism and always remain outside your argument’s sphere, leaving us swinging at each other like two boxers who haven’t left their corners.

This debate has no where to go but down.

The only question we’re left with is which is preferable, morality with or without God.  That is to say, would you prefer to imagine an existence where people are capable of morality without an outside force, or is it more comforting to imagine that without God’s intercession, humanity would be irredeemably immoral?  If you prefer the latter, what does that say about your own murderous tendencies?  Are you always just one Dark Night of the Soul away from becoming a serial rapist?  Personally, I find comfort in knowing that our species evolved morality as a way of surviving and thriving as a social animal.  It means that morality isn’t the arbitrary whim of a capricious Supreme Being and it means that our base nature, though selfish, is not truly evil.

Either way, there is no debate.  To debate this topic is to debate the existence of God, and though that is one of my favorite pastimes, it’s the sort of thing even your most passionate Christian would rather avoid on a day to day basis.

Before I leave the topic, though, I do want to engage it one more time at face value (going against everything I just said).  When you make the argument, Morality requires Religion/God, you must then go further and state which God.  Christian or Islamic, Monotheistic or Polytheistic, Fundamentalist or Liberal?  And which morality:  Old or New Testament?  Sunni or Shia?  Must we dismiss the morality of god’s like Bacchus or Eros?

If we accept that morality came from religion (and, again, I do not), it would clearly be false to claim that your monotheistic religion (whether it be Christianity, Islam or Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) was the first religion.  Even Judaism is predated by a great many religions, mostly polytheistic.  If anything, the argument that morality comes from religion (assuming that morality is a good thing) is likely an argument against your particular religion, since the common morality we all acknowledge existed long before the formation of any currently practiced religions (unless you’re worshiping Pharaohs).

In short, when you assert the premise “Morality cannot exist without religion,” you are not simply saying “God exists,” you are saying, “My God exists.”  Which is to say, you’ve already come to your conclusion before the debate has begun.

So, by all means, debate God, debate morality, debate which is better, Vanilla or Chocolate (trick question, it’s Mint Chocolate Chip), but don’t waste my time claiming to want an open discussion of ideas when all you really want is for everyone to agree that your God can beat up anyone else’s God.

For the record, Kermit’s an Agnostic

Another One

Lately, everybody’s dying
Kind of get the feeling no one noticed
One tenth of one tenth of one percent in an air bubble
We come at it like a movie: plot, character, credits, Stars
and Saviors work at scale
It’s not getting any better having someone to believe in
or someone who believes in me
Anyhow, all the same, if faith counted for anything,
we’d mourn newborns and celebrate our afterlife
Even fractured fairy tales should serve a purpose
Give a reason for the dying
Instead, devil’s make toll-free pacts on our televisions
While mother’s cancer of the soul
makes below-the-fold news
Nobody’s going to miss another one

(another one)

Haiti

I’m used to going to the New York Times website every morning and reading about another bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan, a mass murder in Africa or a national disaster in some part of the world.  When I first heard of the earthquake in Haiti, my natural reaction was, “That sucks.”  To be honest, I had a similar reaction when I heard about a plane flying into the first World Trade Center.

I was not even a month into my first semester of my Freshmen year at KU.  I was outside of Wescoe Hall, having just exited my first class of the day, Ethics.  A friend and I were walking out when someone he knew approached him and casually mentioned that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  My first thought was, “Weird, I wonder how that happened.”  I was thinking something like a private plane had flown off course and into the building.  Having never been to New York City at that point, I couldn’t even picture the scene.  Some random student walking by overheard us talking about it and said he had just heard about it, too.  At that point, I understood that this was a big deal, I just didn’t get how big.

It wasn’t until I walked back to the scholarship hall I lived in and went down to the common area that I began to understand the scope of the tragedy.  A bunch of the guys from the hall were downstairs watching CNN as the story unfolded.  By that point the second plane had hit and it was pretty clear that this was an attack.  The rest of the day is kind of a blur, as I don’t remember when we first knew it was Osama Bin Laden behind the attacks.  I’ve seen the footage so many times since that day, I can’t even remember if I watched the buildings fall live, or if they had already come down by the time I was watching TV.

What I remember vividly though was that first moment of hearing about it and not really grasping how momentous the events unfolding were going to be.

And that’s how I was with this earthquake in Haiti.  It seems every other month an earthquake (or hurricane or fire) causes large swaths of damage around the world.  It’s tragic, but it feels so remote and even in our modern connected times, it rarely feels like something that’s in my world.

If you’re being honest, that’s how you feel quite often, too.

The thing about these massive tragedies, though, such as Haiti where the death toll estimates are at an unthinkable 50,000 people, is that even though I have no connections to Haiti and will feel almost no personal repercussions from this tragedy, there is a riptide that emanates from it and I can’t ignore it or shutter it away with an, “Oh, that’s too bad.”

President Obama has promised 100 million dollars in aid, with more to come later, and I am in full support of the decision.  There will be plenty who say that we are not responsible for other countries, that we don’t owe them anything.  Those people are right.  We owe nothing to Haiti.  But this is an instance where our humanity demands more of us than just cold Capitalistic Ideals.  It is true, there are tragedies all over the world every day, with millions if not billions of people in need of financial help.  And no, we cannot help everyone.  But if the choice is between making an arbitrary decision to help one specific group over another, or do nothing, then there really is no choice at all.  Only a fool believes moral actions are black and white, yes or no, do or don’t.

If you want to help out, do so.  If you feel the urge, do so.  If you are broke and have no money or time to give, you are not a bad person for not giving, but consider if there is anything you can do.  At the very least, though, go to Good Search and for the next week or month or forever, use it as your search engine instead of Google (I love Google, but it’s a worthy and easy sacrifice).  With every search, you donate a little to a good cause.  It costs you nothing, but with a large enough base, it can make a huge difference.

In this instance, there are numerous worthy charities to donate money to, so it shouldn’t be hard to find one you trust to be good stewards of your donation.

I need to add that I know there are a lot of good, decent Christians (and other religious people) who will give money and sacrifice time and organize charities to help in this tragedy, but I would encourage those of the faithful to not put preconditions on what you give.  There are quite a few faith-based charities who do good works while requiring that the beneficiaries of their work give a commitment to the Christian faith or submit to Christian ethical standards (such as the Abstinence Only AIDS charities in Africa). True charity comes without strings or agendas.  (At the same time, there are faith-based charities that don’t have preconditions, and I say kudos to them.)

In general, there are plenty of excellent secular charities out there, and if you want to look into the charities you can give money to, there are sites like Charity Navigator to help you out.

Finally, I want to say for the record that I believe Pat Robertson to be an evil person.  There are no apologies for him, no dismissing him as an old kook.  He isn’t just some nutjob sitting on a street corner.  He has a public forum, a television station that lets his filth spread forth into the public (and he has an audience that listens and respects what he says).  I’m posting the video that you’ve probably already seen so that you will get angry.  Don’t pray about it, don’t get defensive and say, “I’m not that kind of Christian.”  Get angry and use your actions to prove that Robertson doesn’t speak for anyone.

Personally, I’m counting down the days until Robertson’s reign of terror over Christian evangelicals comes to an end.

Have you ever heard the one about…

*** WARNING *** THIS POST IS NSFW *** THIS POST IS NOT SAFE FOR EASILY OFFENDED PEOPLE *** THIS POST IS NOT SAFE FOR FUCKING PUSSIES ***

(I’m letting you know early, just so you’re safe, you precious flower.)

The recent brouhaha over at NBC concerning The Tonight Show (with Conan O’Brien; as it should be) and the absolute fail that is/was The Jay Leno Show has me contemplating one of my favorite art forms: Stand-Up comedy.

First off, if you don’t know about the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien mess, let the funniest guy in Late Night explain the situation:

Note:  When I say funniest guy in Late Night, I’m not counting the Comedy Central Duo of Awesome that is Stewart/Colbert (2012!), because they are their own beast.

Comedy is a subjective thing, obviously.  Personally, I find Jay Leno to be fairly dull, with a monologue that is a solid 10-15 minutes of sliced unfunny in toasted boring bread.  But, okay, I get it, for some people he’s the bee’s knees.

Those people are wearing adult Pampers.

I’m just playing, you can like whoever you like.  Unless that includes Carlos Mencia.  Then you’re probably your own uncle.

I love comedy down to my core.  I pathetically don’t have the balls to do stand-up myself (maybe one day, if I’ve free-based enough heroin), but watching live stand-up comedy is one of the best experiences you can have.  The first stand-up comedian I ever saw in person was Lewis Black, way back in the day (I got his autograph!).  Later, in my college years, one of my brothers did stand-up for some time, so I had regular viewings.  Then, when I moved to SoCal, my roommate and I would go see Daniel Tosh all the time at the Improv.  If you’re unfamiliar with Daniel Tosh, let me introduce you.

(If you aren’t tracking down more of his comedy right now, then we probably don’t have similar senses of humor.  That’s okay, I’m sure your parents are to blame.)

Continuing my personal journey with stand-up:  When I moved to San Francisco, one of my roommates was an Australian pothead who fancied himself a stand-up comedian.  Trying to be friendly with the new roomies, I met him and his girlfriend at one of his gigs (if you need to picture this couple, think of a couple so horrific, the Jerry Springer show would have deemed them too depressing to put on TV).  In the process of warming up for the show, this momentously unfunny man, let’s call him Larry the Cable Guy, got himself plastered.  When his time finally came, Larry went up to the stage, angry that he had to go on so late, drunk as Bukowski at a wedding and too Australian to make any sense.  In a 5 minute tirade of what was presumably supposed to be jokes, the only intelligible words were a smattering of ‘fuck’, ‘cunt’ and ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ (yeah, I don’t know, either).

It was funny in the same way that videos of guys on pogosticks nutting themselves are funny.

Stand-up comedy, to me, is the rawest form of performance, and for that reason I have a healthy mix of admiration and astonishment for those who get up on stage and risk all levels of humiliation on the assumption that the funny voices in their own head might amuse other people.  I have many favorite comedians, most of which could never headline an ABC sitcom because their material is bit too, as they say, blue.

For instance, there is the king of wrong:

Louis C.K.

This clip may actually be the perfect summation of his comedy, because it’s awkward and wrong and filthy and bizarre and yet so so smart.  I’m surprised to be typing this, because I have so many favorite comedians, but I think Louis C.K. is my all time favorite, the person who most perfectly fits my sense of humor.  If you haven’t heard me make this kind of joke, it’s because I don’t think you can handle it.

Dave Attell

This guy kind of looks like my oldest brother, so there’s the family connection.  Plus, this guy can take a completely ridiculous idea and make you follow it as if he were just telling you a story about going to the grocery store.  I’ve been a fan of his since he hosted Insomniac on Comedy Central (now that was a kickass show).  He drinks too much and will fuck anything that moves.  Essentially he’s a writer in the body of a comedian.

Sarah Silverman

This isn’t her best clip.  Not even close, but I like it for the shot of Laura Dern looking particularly uncomfortable.  Sarah’s comedy  has the amazing ability to not only be unfunny to certain people, but to make them ferociously angry.  She made fun of Paris Hilton (and I mean, come on, talk about an easy target), and people flipped out (as if anyone would give a guy shit for making the same jokes).  Some people just fucking hate Sarah.  Maybe it’s because of how sexual she is in her jokes, maybe it’s because she says absolutely terrible things (some of which some people like to label ‘racist’), but I think it comes down to this:  People are shocked by a woman making the same kind of filthy, un-P.C. jokes that male comics make all the time.

These three comedians (and Daniel Tosh) are the comics who make me laugh every time, without fail.

I have many many more that can make me slap my knee (literally; when I laugh it’s a full physical reaction).

Jim Gaffigan, Zach Galifianakis, David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Eddie Izzard, Mitch Hedberg, Steven Wright (aka the original Mitch Hedberg), Maria Bamford, Dave Chappelle and on and on into the night.  I love stand-up comedians.  I miss having cable where I could watch Comedy Central’s Friday Night Stand-up, but thank God for the internet, because I’m never truly at a shortage for great comedy.

But I don’t just love the comedy, I’m fascinated by the personalities that do stand-up.  It’s no secret that comedians tend to be pretty fucked up people (again, like writers, but with better stage presence), usually with major depressive issues or other mental problems.  Watch the movie Funny People for insight (a movie that didn’t do very much box office despite being quite good; if you haven’t seen it, do, but don’t expect a comedy.  Yes, it’s funny, but in a very personal way.  It really is a drama that just happens to be about comedians).

That’s why I loved the new book, I’m Dying Up Here by William Knoedelseder.  It gives an entertaining and fascinating look into the comedians and club managers that made the comedy scene of the 70s into such a boon time (both Leno and Letterman are major players in the story, along with some of the greats who have long since fallen out of the public consciousness).  I can’t do the book justice here, but if you have even the faintest interest or respect for stand-up, this book will be well worth your time.

The book will also give you a lot of great insight into the history not just behind Letterman and Dave (which is mostly public knowledge and still very interesting in a Schadenfreude sense) but also the integral part that the Tonight Show has played in launching comedy careers.  It’s why I completely respect Conan’s stance to not tarnish the long running standard of the Tonight Show by pushing it back a half hour.  NBC is about to ruin a comedy institution.

Still, there’s nothing funny about talking about comedy, so I want to leave you with this.  It is a collection of comedians telling the greatest joke of all time, taken from the DVD extras of the documentary, The Aristocrats.  You know when people say stuff like, “I know we can be friends if you like this band or this movie”?  That’s what this movie is for me.  If you don’t laugh your ass off watching this incredibly dirty and fantastically insightful film, then… well, we can still be friends, but you probably wouldn’t want to be.

If we’re ever out drinking (and there’s no one around who will get their panties in a bunch), just ask me and I’ll tell my personal version of the joke that’s so good it got Jesus to raise from the grave just to say, “The Aristocrats!”

Jesus built a ship to sing a song to; It sails the rivers and it sails the tide

On the 19th of this month, Spoon will release “Transference” and you bet your ass I’m excited.

And that leads me to my point.

This is a post I’ve meant to write for a while but have kept putting off.  A nice fluffy music piece.

We all get the question: “So, what kind of music do you like?”  And we all equally hate it.  It’s the kind of question that throws us into an existential bout of self-doubt.  “What music do I like?”  “How do I explain my musical tastes with anything less than a 15 page thesis with footnotes?”  “Who am I, really?”  It can be tough.

Inevitably, we may try to answer with the musical genre that we are most drawn to.  Rock.  Country.  Electronica.  Disco.

But that is difficult, because even within those genres, the range can be immense.  Maybe we try to narrow it down more.

Classic Rock.  Alt Country.  Dub Electronica.  Polka Disco.  (I bet that exists.  And I bet it’s awesome.)

Still, labels are so limiting.  Maybe it’s just easier to name a few favorite bands.  But defining your favorite bands can be a stupefying task .  It’s easy to think, “Band X is my favorite band,” because they have been since high school, yet you realize as time goes by that you don’t really listen to Band X anymore.  If one of their songs come on, it’s a blast of nostalgic joy, but you haven’t actively sought out their album (or mp3s) in months, maybe years.  You grow up, your tastes expand, or change.

And then there are those of us whose musical tastes are far too expansive to give a label or sum up with a few bands.  There is a tendency to label anyone whose musical tastes don’t include the Black Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga as “indie” (though plenty of ‘Indie’ kids love Lady Gaga, so that’s probably not even a fair example).  But “indie” as a descriptor of aesthetic, style or factual grouping (i.e., independent music) can at times be both too broad and too limiting.

In our modern Internet world, being indie means anything you want it to be.  Frankly, I’m usually insulted when someone says I or my tastes are indie because it’s mainly meant as a way of quickly classifying me without engaging who I am or what I like.  And I don’t think it’s very accurate, because most of my favorite artists are on major labels (or were), even if they may be respected in indie circles.

So what do I do when I’m asked the question?  Well, I list my 3 or 4 favorite bands/artists and hope the diversity in their styles indicates that I listen to a lot of different music styles, but it always feels ineffective.  I love Outkast but it wouldn’t be true to list them as one of my favorite bands, and if I did it would just incorrectly skew people’s ideas of my musical tastes.

When people ask, I tell them, my favorite artists are:

Radiohead – They have been my Numero Uno since I was a freshmen in college and that has never faded.  These guys don’t falter.

Ryan Adams – I always feel like I need to add, “Not Bryan Adams” when I say this.  And I realize the link is pretty much empty.

Rufus Wainwright – This is an example of a musician I love completely, yet I don’t find myself listening to him as much anymore.  Part of that was because his last studio album, Release The Stars, was only ‘okay’ for me.  There are some great songs on there, but others that just leave me kind of cold.  Still, watching him live, whether in concert or on DVD is always pure fun.

And then there’s the Beatles.  Which doesn’t need any commentary.  You either love the Beatles or you’re AIDS.  Fact.

If you look at my Last.FM page, you’ll see that my top 3 most listened are the top 3 I just listed, with the Beatles in a healthy 6th place.

Oddly, when I think of my favorite artists, I rarely think of Elliott Smith, yet as you can see he’s right up there in 4th place and his music hits me emotionally in such a unique and wonderful way.  Unequivocally, he’s one of my favorite artists.  For some reason, though, when I’m asked the infamous question, “What kind of music do you like?”, his name doesn’t come to mind.  I don’t know why.

Spoon is another one of those artists (see, there was a point to my intro).  They don’t have a bad song in their whole catalog (even back in the day when they sounded like a Pavement cover band).  I mean, seriously, their last two albums were amazing.  I don’t own “Girls Can Tell” even though it’s often considered their best album, but I have a lot of the songs off of the album, and I can attest that the songs I have are great.  They don’t have as many listens on my Last.FM as the other bands I’ve listed, but they are easily one of the best, most consistently listenable bands I have in my vast library.

Iron & Wine is creeping up into that status for me, especially with their (his) absolutely fantastic last album, “The Shepherd’s Dog” (fabulous!).

I adore Rilo Kiley (and Jenny Lewis, by extension; though that adoration is less, shall we say, pure) as well as Sufjan Stevens, as the number of scrobbled listens on Last.FM reflect (of course, in Sufjan’s case, it helps that each of his albums is like 70 songs long), yet I don’t actually think of them as artists in my all time favorites, at least not in the same way Neko Case or The Mountain Goats fit the bill.

Beirut write absolutely amazing music (well, Zach Condon does), and I’ve gone back and forth on whether to include them in my list of ‘favorite bands’.  Ever since first falling in love with Beirut, I’ve thought that if I could write music (or had any musical ability at all), I would write songs exactly like them.  At the same time, I go through month periods where I skip past a Beirut song anytime it comes on my Ipod.  I just don’t feel like listening to them.  It’s either absolute love or absolute meh with them.

Other artists I cherish, yet don’t think of as ‘favorites’ (but maybe I should): Antony (and the Johnsons), Sigur Ros, Neutral Milk Hotel (amazing band, but they only have 2 albums and no longer exist to keep whetting my appetite), Sleater-Kinney, Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, Ray LaMontagne… the list could go on.  And on.

If you were to just look at those bands I’d listed, I’d say it would be fair to label my music tastes as ‘indie’ (both in the aesthetic and technical sense).  But if you catch me listening to my Ipod, you’re just as likely to hear Jay-Z, Nirvana, Kylie Minogue, The Beach Boys, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (right now, I am addicted to “It’s Blitz!”), Justin Timberlake, Patti Smith, Talib Kweli, Bill Withers, Joe Cocker, Interpol, Nas… etc, etc.

I will admit that my largest musical habits lean towards the Alt-Country/Folk spectrum of indie music (I’d rather listen to Old 97s over Vampire Weekend, though I like both), but that’s not always the case (I much prefer The Magnetic Fields to Fleet Foxes, though, again, I like both).

There is no easy label and there is nothing wrong with that.

I love the internet age exactly for the same reason I hate it.  Easy labels are becoming harder and harder to affix to anything.

I can live with an existential crisis anytime someone asks me “What kind of music do you like?” as long as I get to continue to discover untold amounts of new artists in a raging sea of music.

And don’t ask me what 3 albums I’d take with me on a desert island.

What scares you?

What are you afraid of?

Spiders or Purgatory?  Death or Taxes?  Being alone?

The truth for most of us (all of us) is that our lives are defined more by our fears than our dreams or our joys.  How many opportunities have slipped through your fingertips because you were too afraid to pursue them?

Despite what some people may think of me, I am naturally a quite timid person.  At least, that’s how I imagine myself.  Yet…

From a young age, I was one to face my fears head on, often to detrimental effect.  This is not to say that I was a risk taker in the traditional sense.  Far from it, if I am being honest (if I am being honest is always the question).  My immediately older brother was the one who did stupid human tricks on his bicycle or gleefully indulged in the kind of risky behavior that inevitably earned him broken noses, ruptured spleens and other assorted injuries.  I was more cautious when it came to my physical body.

Still, when it came to matters of the mind or heart, I tended to put myself out there.  Well before I should have been fighting the good fight as one of God’s Good Lil Soldiers, I was trying to convert my unsaved friends to the faith.  I’m talking, 2nd and 3rd grade.  Now, as an atheist, I could look back at my attempts at premature proselytization as a point of shame.  But frankly, I have to feel a little pride in the fact that I had the guts to stand so firmly on what I believed in (even if it was a load of horse hockey).

As for other, non-religious examples of my mostly unsuccessful bouts of bravery, there was my penchant for admitting to girls when I had mad crushes on them.  This rarely (read: never) worked out for me, but I did it again and again, all the way into college.  If there was a girl I liked, I would almost invariably stir for weeks (or months) with thoughts of desire as I worked up the courage to come out to them.  And when I did… bam! shot down like Lincoln at a play.

I don’t think I converted a single person to my religion (thank God), and I know I never won a girl’s affection back in the day.

So what did all that ‘bravery’ do for me?

Well, it taught me that I could take a punch to the gut.

I live every moment with the fear.  Every year I move, leaving behind a steady paycheck to I look for work while the bills mount up and my bank account dwindles.  Every year I separate myself from friendships and relationships that have only just begun to spark into something substantial.  Every day I face the very real possibility that the essentially ridiculous life path I set myself on nearly 5 years ago has no purpose and no endgame.  Every day, I face the fear:

I will fall on my face.

I very well may.  From the beginning, when I used to (semi) joke with my college roommates that I would spend the next 10 years after graduation being homeless, I was hinting at a reality I had only barely thought out.  The truth is, I have no idea what the next month brings, let alone the next year.  Let alone the next decade.

We go to college to add a layer of security to our future.  We say, “At least with a college degree I’ll be able to get a real job.”  We want financial security, we want to know that we’ll be able to pay rent and buy groceries, not just this month but for the next 10 years.  And if nothing else, that’s the bare minimum a college degree should guarantee us.  (Along with all that personal fulfillment and accomplishment crap.)

Yet, I have a college degree, and I can say honestly that I’m not sure how I’ll pay rent next month.

Boy, that’s stupid.  I threw away all of my security so I could live in fear.

Why?

I honestly don’t know.

But I do know I wouldn’t give up the fear for all the security in the world.  It’s when I’m not afraid that I start to get bored.

What are you afraid of?

Quitting the safe job?  Moving away from your family?  Ending a relationship that’s safe?  Pursuing a dream?

Failure?

If you’re not afraid, how do you know you’re alive?

I’m not offering advice (I have none), I’m merely asking questions.

Wikipedia Yourself

You can admit it.  You do it.  You might even do it two or three times a week.  Sitting in your bedroom with no one else around, the lights are off while you stumble through the internet.  In the silence, you think those four nasty words, “Why not Google myself?”  Your dirty little habit is everyone’s vile secret.

We’re internet narcissists.  Personally, I like to think of myself as a real world narcissist, too (because I’m well-rounded like that), but when it comes to the World Wide Web, we’re all a bunch of Reality TV wackjobs seeking attention and trying to be the next big thing.  You’ve even considered filming yourself getting hit in the nuts.  You know you have.

How about take it to the next level.

Wikipedia yourself.

Have you done it?  You’ve thought about it.  Anyone can create an entry on Wikipedia on any subject.  So why not make one about yourself.  Indulge that urge to relentless talk about yourself, only in text form.

Probably the most well-known example of using Wikipedia for personal gain is that of Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.  Colbert went on the air to encourage his fans to essentially fabricate entries. I could explain it, but it’s funnier to just watch him do what he does best.

In doing so, he naturally raised the profile of his own Wikipedia entry.  Now he has 2 entries, one for the real person (which is longer than the entries for Millard Fillmore and Rutherford B. Hayes) and one for the character he portrays on his show.  Colbert is no stranger to personal marketing and by the sheer force of his (and his fan’s) willpower, has gotten his name on all kinds of shit.  He’s everywhere, but most importantly, he’s on Wikipedia.

In the old days, this would have been known as self-promotion.  But this is a new year, a new decade, hell, even a (relatively) new century (the Blue Book value is still high).  With Wikipedia, you aren’t merely giving in to your narcissistic tics, you’re writing history as it happens.  If you want, you can even create a better history (because no one wants to know about your webbed-toes).

Think of it as writing your memoir, but without having to have any talent.  Like Tori Spelling.  Besides, how does anyone know you ever existed if you don’t have a Wikipedia entry?  You can claim you’re a real human being, but until I can link to an encyclopedia entry via my blog, you’re just as likely a bot trying to get me to SAVE MONEY ON MY HOME LOAN (wonder if I’ll get any spam now).

It’s a Brave New World out there and if you’re not actively making sure the world knows you exist, you don’t.

*This entry brought to you by Wikipedia and Prescott Pharmaceuticals