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Jimmy Carter shrunk and dropped in that terrarrium Ricardo Montalban pulled the devil ear-worms out of in Wrath of Khan.

. . .to come back and see that the things that bothered the hell out of me are still going on.  

That the board won't ever completely shut up about politics, and praise Eris.  
That the board won't ever be free of trolls, and praise Eris.
The board won't ever be free of self-aggrandizing nadwipes, and praise Eris.

. . .to discover that I can go from being a weinery "Anarchy r00lz, LOL!" idiot to idolizing Roger to agreeing with St Hugh to somewhere else entirely in the space of a year, and that every time I leave and come back there are new things to break my heart and mend it.  

That Roger's going through a bad time and catching shit for it, and praise Eris.
That aini's getting preached at again, and praise Eris.
That Turd's gone (more) militant, and praise Eris.

. . .to realize that I still don't know how to end one of these.  I can't wrap this all up neatly.  There's no ending.

At times he heard within him a soft, gentle voice, which reminded him quietly, complained quietly, so that he could hardly hear it.  Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him.  Like a player who plays with his ball, he played with his business, with the people around him, watched them, derived amusement from them; but with his heart, with his real nature, he was not there.  His real self wandered elsewhere, far away, wandered on and on invisibly and had nothing to do with his life.  He was sometimes afraid of these thoughts and wished that he could also share their childish daily affairs with intensity, truly to take part in them, to enjoy and live their lives instead of only being there as an onlooker.  

I suppose it's not really ALL a game, but most of it is.  How many things we do every day which amount to nothing much!  Get up, go to work, cuss at the stoplights and cops and old pensioners out for a morning drive-and-fuck-up-traffic.  Sweat all day, break for lunch, drive home.  Every few weeks, get paid.  Our ration of food pellets, of time on the big metal wheel, of space to burrow and make a nest in.  How much does any of it MEAN?

Well, I'm trying to tie it into the reason we're all here.  Not HERE here.  Here on this website, talking about this goddess.  We're here because even a funny religion gives a sense of purpose.  Even just pretending to venerate a cockroach, or a floating clip-art head who smokes a pipe, enriches our lives in some way.  See, most of life, obviously, is a big game.  Religion is the manifestation of the drive of human beings to try to stop playing the game.  To take our ball and go home, and just you wait because I'm telling my big brother on you!  

Maybe there's more to it.  PROBABLY there's more to it!  To play with that pet metaphor a bit more, I sure as hell don't know who's turning my heat-lamp on every day, or who sprinkles that food in my tank.  But I'm not GOING to know any of that.  I can guess, I can observe, I can make shit up, but until I die and float to the top I'm never going to come in contact with that all-powerful force.  It remains as much a mystery today as it did when I was 7 and Santa Claus was still going to visit in a few weeks.  I suspect I won't know any more on the day I do go to that big fishbowl in the sky, but hopefully I'll have gotten to eat a lot of really excellent algae and swim through some cool castles.  With the sunken chests that open and close, and the lights and skeletons and everything!

My point is that there's very little we do that needs to be done.  You need to sleep, shit, and eat.  Beyond that isn't really any of your business, but it can be fun.  Pissing all over someone else for doing something you don't personally approve of is MORE pointless than how pointless you think what they're doing is!  So is taking offense to someone doing so.  They're not the ones buying the fish-flakes, it doesn't matter what they think of you.  Remember that it's a game, and remember what games are for.  EVEN if there is no higher power, and this is all random chance, it's still a game.  Hell, in that case it's maybe even moreso, because nothing we do matters at all to anyone!  

So, the next time someone gripes about life being meaningless be sure and laugh, if only to yourself.  Of course it's meaningless, that's kind of the point.  That's what makes it really pretty incredible to get up every morning.  You can do what you want, read what you like, sing however loud you want to, and fuck whatever you please.  

Just, please.  Leave me alone to sit over here and be a huge, flaming hypocrite.  And keep your damn fins off my mealworms!

AT MASTER DO'S COUNTRY HOUSE

Two miles from town, I meet an old woodcutter
and we travel the road lined with huge pines.
The smell of wild plum blossoms
drifts across the valley.
My walking stick has brought us home.
In the ancient pond ,Äì huge, contented fish.
Long sunbeams penetrate the deep woods.
And in the house ,Äì a long bed
all covered with poetry books.
I loosen my belt and robes,
copy phrase after phrase for my poems.
At twilight, I walk to the east wing ,Äì
spring quail startle into the air.



Tramping for miles I come upon a farm house
as the great ball of sun sets in the forest.
Sparrows gather near a bamboo thicket,
flutter about in the closing dark.
From across a field comes a farmer
who calls a greeting from afar.
He tells his wife to strain their cloudy wine
and treats me to his garden's feast.
Sitting across table we drink each other's health
our talk rising to the heavens.
Both of us are so tipsy and happy
we forget the rules of this world.


Too confused to ever earn a living
I've learned to let things have their way.
With only three handfuls of rice in my bag
and a few branches by my fireside
I pursue neither right or wrong
and forget worldly fortune and fame.
This damp night under a grassy roof
I stretch out my legs without regrets.

Even translated I love it.  It's things like this that make me want to learn every language, to hear these words in their mother tongues.

Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll set and listen to them by myself
Today's music ain't got the same soul
But who fucking listens to records anymore, anyway?

"We have to stop consuming our culture.

We have to create culture.

Don't watch TV. Don't read magazines,Ķ create your own roadshow."

--Terrence McKenna

Sometimes, even kooks are right.  Everyone, I'm coming to believe, gets at least one or two truly profound ideas that really should be shared with the rest of the world at some point.  This particular idea is ringing true to me at the moment in a very concrete way, as I deal with an ever-increasing fear of becoming boring.  

Now, I've always been boring to hang out with, since I don't do much.  I don't like going out, I don't like crowds, and most of the things I'd want to do at home are solitary activities.  This type of boring I'm used to and can accept.  This isn't what I'm talking about.

The type of boring I fear is boring in the mind.  Boring in the soul.  Becoming the very essence of boring.  The type of boring that asks "Hey, Bob.  How was your weekend?" and fucking MEANS IT.  Thinking boring thoughts and believing they're not boring.  This is probably the only unpardonable sin, since once you head down that path there's little chance of wrenching yourself free from it.  

To mangle a quote from Dune, THIS is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

The reason I included that quote at the top there is because I think it speaks to the root cause of this boring.  Consuming is alright, sometimes, but if all a person does is consume and consume and never creates anything, what the hell good are they?  What have they done to make an impression on the world around them?  They might as well never have been born, and the universe wouldn't really care (not that it cares anyway, but that's a different sermon).

Think about it.  Have you ever talked to someone who did nothing but watch TV or read books or play video games?  All they have to discuss is what they think about the shows, or what character X from book Y had to say, or how they pulled off a super-rad 23-hit combo in Kickfighter 10.  All they can think about is whatever they're consuming, and when they'll find the next cool thing to consume.  

Yeah, it's like a drug.  It's fun to watch weird cartoon shows and spout off lines from them with your friends.  Pretty soon, though, those lines get stale and you can't wait for the next episode so you'll have more things to say.  More funny lines that will save you from having to be funny or interesting yourself.  It frees you from the burden of thinking, of paying attention to and processing the things you see to come up with ideas.  That's a lot of work, and most of the time it's for very little gain.  So, just whip open that latest Terry Pratchett book and believe the things he says, steal his lines, and become instantly entertaining again.  At least, for a little while.

Over time, the parts of the brain you used for critical thinking start to atrophy, and that just makes it even harder to come up with anything new, which is all the more reason to fire up that TV or hop on the internet for a new dose of interesting.  It's a horrible cycle, and one that feeds on itself until you become nothing but a mindless content-sink, a black hole that consumes and consumes, vapid and useless.  Every word out of your mouth is something from a book or a movie, or some funny thing you heard someone else say.  Every thought is bent towards where to get your next "fix" of content.  All your activities are in the pursuit of these, and anything that requires the exercise of that old gray matter is shunned and ignored.  

A person like this is not interesting to talk to and not fun to hang out with, unless you also happen to be a zombie of the same ilk.  Then it's alright, because it affirms what you've been doing and you actually might feel the spark of intellect calling from deep inside somewhere, echoing off the walls.  A small squeak of conscious thought, but it's quickly silenced as soon as you discover some new thing to consume, the excitement of the junkie rushing home with his fix.  

He's right, we DO need to stop consuming our culture.  In particular, I need to stop consuming my culture, but I'm sure I'm not the only one.  I've got to break out of this fog of pseudo-intellectualism and start coming up with shit on my own.  I need to stop spending upwards of 16 hours a day on the internet reading everything I can find in the desperate attempt to avoid thinking for myself.  It's ironic that I'm writing this all up for a crowd of people who are probably among the least like the ones I describe, but I suppose it does make sense.  The ones I'm talking about wouldn't try to understand what I'm saying, anyway.

Some of us might like to think that because we're in her fan club that we'll somehow be spared from making asses of ourselves.  Not so!  In fact, I get the distinct feeling that she gets a particular kick out of kicking her followers.  

I usually cut my own hair, considering I don't want to pay thirty bucks to some young lady who's just going to use the same clippers I got for $10 at Target.  Needless to say, this results in a lot of let's-try-the-3/8"-guard-this-time! buzz-cuts.  The back is almost never perfect, but since I can't see it it's cool.  Just like how my back doesn't need shaved because it's invisible.

Well, Saturday night the goddess must have been bored, because I tried something different.  I had just buzzed the sides of my head, and noticed that it almost looked kinda cool that way, with the top still somewhat longer.  So, I did as best as I could with the back, showered, and drank until I passed out.  

Next morning I throw some laundry in and head out to pick up a video game I've wanted to play, not noticing until I get back that I look as though I stepped straight out of MTV circa 1985.  Like, remember the weinery guy on the couch near the beginning of Pulp Fiction?  With the Flock of Seagulls hair?  I made him look butch.  Seriously, I was on the verge of taking pictures of myself naked to sell on the internet as lesbian porn with this hair.

And I'd been out.  In Public.  

In retrospect, it's not surprising that the guy at Gamestop gave me the box with the elf on it, instead of the orc.  Fucking patriarch.

It strikes me as impossible that this hasn't been discussed here before, but there's a website dedicated solely to stories about Roy Orbison wrapped in clingfilm.  Even if it has been and has since drifted off the front page, it's too important to forget.  Roy and Jetta the terrapin are an inspiration to us all.

John Taylor Gatto was a thirty-year veteran of the NY public school system.  In 1991, when he was made Teacher of The Year, he published an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled I Quit, I Think, and shortly thereafter did so.  Here's the essay:

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the theological idea that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.

That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its "scientific" presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of Biology. It,Äôs a religious notion, School is its church. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.

Socrates foresaw if teaching became a formal profession, something like this would happen. Professional interest is served by making what is easy to do seem hard; by subordinating the laity to the priesthood. School is too vital a jobs-project, contract giver and protector of the social order to allow itself to be "re-formed." It has political allies to guard its marches, that,Äôs why reforms come and go without changing much. Even reformers can,Äôt imagine school much different.

David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can,Äôt tell which one learned first,Äîthe five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I label Rachel "learning disabled" and slow David down a bit, too. For a paycheck, I adjust David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop. He won,Äôt outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, "special education" fodder. She,Äôll be locked in her place forever.

In 30 years of teaching kids rich and poor I almost never met a learning disabled child; hardly ever met a gifted and talented one either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.

That,Äôs the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation. There isn,Äôt a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don,Äôt need state-certified teachers to make education happen,Äîthat probably guarantees it won,Äôt.

How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don,Äôt need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don,Äôt need a national curriculum or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn or deliberate indifference to it. I can,Äôt teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don,Äôt have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I,Äôll be looking for work.

In 2000, he published a book detailing his discontent with the American public school system, entitled The Underground History of American Education.  This book has been made available in its entirety online, at his website http://www.johntaylorgatto.com.  The book itself is here, and it's a fascinating read.

Yeah, I could wait until November, but how predictable would THAT be?

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.


Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.