Sorry, kids, I'm wrapped up this week with homework, an exam, and prepping a conference presentation for next week.
Also, and once I eventually get to it I'll expand upon this more, I'm not really looking forward to this second installment of my religious story. Like many trilogies - Back To The Future, Star Wars, Look Who's Talking - this second part will end on a bad, uncertain note. A lot of it are memories I don't particularly enjoy revisiting.
Once I have some downtime, though, I'll do it. I promise. It will be good for me, and good for you as far as learning why I walked away from Christianity.
Until then, consider me on sabbatical.
As much as I wish I could just sit around reading and writing all day on subjects I gave two shits about (as opposed to, say, this 400-word biography of Haydn I have to write), I'm pleased to say that the conference presentation I'm working on is Zappa-related, dealing with his 1984 album Thing-Fish. That I am looking forward to.
Until then, peace.
Alex
Monday, March 22, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Ask Me Anything
http://www.formspring.me/AlexDiBlasi
Why am I doing this?
(For those of you interested, I will be submitting Part Two of my religious saga in the next 36 hours.)
Why am I doing this?
(For those of you interested, I will be submitting Part Two of my religious saga in the next 36 hours.)
Sunday, March 7, 2010
My Religious History, Part One: The Good Christian Boy
I'm tentatively entitling this entry with the suffix "Part One," as I'm going into this thinking there's a lot of ground to cover. There might not be. We'll see.
I would also like to preface my story with a big fat warning that my experiences are just that: experiential. They are subjective, and they are incredibly personal. Any reference I make to Christianity applies to the Methodist-Baptist upbringing I encountered, not Christianity as a whole. We'll get more into specifics when I reach that point in my story.
Let's begin at the beginning.
I was born into a Methodist family, which meant I was baptized before I could even form a word. My maternal grandfather had been a Methodist minister, retiring before I came into the picture. From all the recollections I hear from my mom it sounds like she was raised in some bizarro version of The Andy Griffith Show and The Waltons. Her parents were traditional, but not overly strict fanatics. Then again, my mom was also a fairly well-behaved preacher's kid, a status as intrinsic to the culture of Protestantism as ushers, deacons, trustees, and organists.
I don't remember too, too much about the Methodist church we attended in my hometown of Seymour, Indiana, other than the distinct sound of the pipe organ, the hospital-green paint job, and the overabundance of old farts in the congregation.
When I was four, one of the pivotal moments in my early life came upon my parents purchasing the Encyclopedia Britannica. I'd fallen in love with reading early, and this only boosted reading from mere hobby to obsession. At five, I knew the names of the Presidents, Prime Ministers of Canada, and could tell you a pretty good amount of information about the Second World War. Later on, I would try reading passages from the Bible, but by and large I thought it was boring, although using the index to find passages discussing sex made for some interesting reads.
(Not that it contributes to this discussion all that much - or maybe it does - but I didn't learn until 2nd grade what the actual sex act was, and it wasn't until a year later that I learned sex was where babies came from. No shit.)
A new pastor came when I was in 2nd grade, and he has some pretty backwards ideas. Long story short, he told my mom that she "couldn't serve two Gods" because of her visiting another church...the other church being the Baptist church.
Whatever, it didn't involve me all that much, though I can't help but wonder how differently I might have turned out growing up Methodist rather than Baptist. Who knows, maybe I would have grown up with a version of Christianity I found acceptable.
Anyway, we became Baptists shortly thereafter. The idea of immersion baptism bothered me. I don't quite know why, it just did. Maybe it was the resemblance it bore to the bullying practice of "dunking" at the swimming pool...I'm not entirely sure. Mom, Dad, and my older brother Eric were all baptized during the same service. For my parents, who (I'd like to at least hope) had acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as their savior many years prior, this was their admission of membership to the church. For Eric, this was a significant step in his religious growth.
The procedure was one I didn't understand until Eric did it. At the end of the pastor's sermon, he would have a call for anyone wishing to accept Christ, during which time the final hymn would be sung and Bruce (the pastor) stood in front of the pulpit. Eric went forward, talked to Bruce for a bit, and then he, my dad, and a deacon and deaconess went off into one of the Sunday School rooms where they talked and prayed.
Eric was given this tract from Chick Publications, and it scared me just a little. (By the way, readers, do take the time to click through when I provide links.) The guy didn't seem to do anything all that wrong, but he wound up in a lake of fire.
The summer of 1995, a bunch of my friends who had gone to church camp accepted Christ and were baptized. Oh, church camp...again, a topic we'll return to at greater length shortly. I remember our counselor asked us to pick our favorite Bible passage. Mine was Revelation, chapter 16, which describes seven angels pouring "Bowls of God's wrath" onto the Earth.
What did I get out of it? That God isn't messing around, and that Jesus was coming back. I remember coming home crying because one of the kids in the neighborhood said Jesus was "an asshole." A student at my elementary school said he didn't believe in God and I told him that he should, otherwise he would go to Hell. (That kid actually became one of my best friends in high school...again, this will come full-circle later.)
In short, I was a parrot. A parrot who had had the fear of God put into him. I had developed a fascination with Revelation. The thought of all the vivid imagery, of catastrophic events, beasts, dragons, God's wrath, and people being sent to Hell simultaneously captivated and terrified me.
Start 'em young, I guess.
No one put any pressure on me to do it, I put the pressure on me all by myself, but I finally decided to overcome my fear of an immersion-based baptism and accept that Jesus of Nazareth suffered, died, forgave all the sins of mankind, and then rose from the dead. I made this decision at the ever-so-informed age of eight.
Look, I enjoy looking back on my early years with the sort of tongue-in-cheek good-natured humor that permeates so many good cartoons, memoirs, and stand-up routines...but I can't even pretend to joke about this. It was totally okay with my parents, my pastor, and an entire congregation that an eight-year-old boy was committing himself to a belief system that he had little knowledge of, centered around a big (boring) book that most of them hadn't even read.
Eight year olds can't vote, can't drive, they eat soap if they swear (or at least I did...), can't work, and they aren't expected to fulfill many obligations other than to complete their homework, get along with their classmates, and wipe their own asses. And yet this, choosing a philosophy you were expected to follow for life at age EIGHT, was totally okay?
I've been around the block enough now to know that all across the board religion is something handed down from parent to child, assuming - not hoping - that it will take. My fiance Shelley was raised Jewish, and her apostasy has driven her father to self-loathing induced alcoholism, thinking he's somehow failed as a human being and a father. That's not even a worst-case scenario. Shelley follows a blog about a girl who was raised Orthodox Jew and is now shunned by her family for leaving the faith. One of my newer readers told me he is a "skeptical Sikh." Another reader, a dear friend of mine since 8th grade who I always knew to be a Pentecostal Christian, told me he and his wife are at a stage in their life where they're seeking out their own answers.
On one end of the spectrum are Muslims calling for death to all apostates. On the other end is my friend Nick, born and raised Baha'i. When he came of a certain age, he said, "Well, I guess I'm a Baha'i." His mother said, "No, you will find religion on your own!" He's still a Baha'i, but not before he did some independent investigation himself.
In short, it's good to know I'm not alone and bad to know that this is fairly common in any organized religion.
One thing my Christian upbringing taught - and NEVER sat well with me - was that non-Christians went to Hell. My parents have the Universalist sentiment that "those who haven't known Jesus" are saved, putting my youthful query of whether or not bushmen in the Kalahari desert were going to go to Hell when they died. (Yes, I asked that.)
Then came another pivotal point in my upbringing, and that was having two fire-and-brimstone lunatics for Sunday School teachers, named Kim and Craig. They were a married couple, with a son a year older than me and a daughter my younger brother Nick's age. And every single week, our lessons had less to do with Moses, Noah, Jesus, or John the Baptist and more to do with the events of Revelation, the Anti-Christ, the Final Judgment, and tales of Satanist rituals involving child abduction/sacrifice.
One night I told my younger brother a distilled (and probably slightly embellished) version of all the crap I'd been told in Sunday School, causing him to freak out and tell my parents. They asked me where I heard it, so I told them the truth. The next week, I was in the 6th-grade Sunday School class my dad taught. He almost minored in religious studies when he was in college, so we would read stories from the Bible and discuss what the moral of the story was, all with a good smattering of my dad's goofy sense of humor (which, along with his innate hatred for talking on the telephone, I've inherited from him).
I was still plagued by the apocalyptic Christianity I'd been exposed to. Matters were made worse when my church's youth group trekked to Kentucky for a Christian music festival called Ichthus. It wasn't the music - in fact, a pre-fame Sixpence None The Richer played a new song of theirs called "Kiss Me" at the Friday night show. It was that I encountered more of those damned tracts.
One dealt with an otherwise good girl having sex, getting gonorrhea and AIDS, but then finding Jesus thanks to her doctor. Another featured an exceptionally Semitic-looking Ebenezer Scrooge accepting Jesus. Another explained that evolution is a lie before expounding upon original sin.
There were two others that had the most profound impact on me, though the "Earthman" tract embodies one of the central tenets I was taught. The first one is called "The Curse Of Baphomet." Never mind all the crap about the Masons - though until sometime in middle school I really thought they were some evil organization - it suggested that there really were forces of evil out there, perverting men's minds, deceiving them, and sometimes winning.
It also triggered my fascination with the occult and its symbology. I don't believe in the occult, I think it's all horse-shit, but it is intriguing in the same sense that I was fascinated reading about the religions of Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece as a kid.
The other one, the real behemoth, was "The Last Generation." I can't emphasize enough how much this tract frightened, mortified, and haunted me. It scared me to think there could someday be a reality as depicted in the tract, a world where religion is outlawed and men are tortured to death for their beliefs. The thought of a Rapture frightened me, mostly because I had some behavioral problems at school and at home - it had me convinced that I wasn't a good person, and that someday the angels would blow their trumpets, as I had been told by Kim and Craig, ushering in the soul harvest and the Rapture...and that I would miss it.
(Better get some eye-soap ready. Remember, you can't really un-see things.)
The picture of Jesus near the end of the tract...
...with its vacant stare and all the accompanying tales of judgment, Hell-fire, and all-around bad things that I'd been hearing for the last few years, kept me awake at night. I slept with my door open, and could see down the hallway in my house, which could get very dark. Laying on my right side, I would see that face, hovering in the darkness. Even now, at age 23, I find it to be a very unsettling image. It's the eyes.
I would wrap myself up in my blankets like a cocoon/burrito, lay on my left side, and get as close to the wall as possible. Sometimes at night I would hear the nearby whistling of a train and think the trumpets had been sounded and that I'd missed the Rapture. This happened several times, and I would panic in the middle of the night, grabbing the flashlight I kept in my bedside table and one of my books on The Beatles I'd gotten from my grandparents and simply read until the sun came up. Sometimes I'd listen to The Who's Tommy on my Walkman. Eventually in 6th grade it went away.
The next few years were pretty uneventful until 8th grade, with one exception. At junior high church camp, in my "fat" phase (where I briefly had tits, sensitive nipples and all, before starting puberty - it's like my body was briefly considering being a woman), on the last night after campfire and all that there was a "special program." There was a long path in an open field lit with coffee cans filled with kerosene. At the end of the path was a massive cross...except there was a body on it.
For a brief, stupid 12-year old moment, I thought it might have really been HIM. I then thought, 'Oh, probably just one of the counselors.' Nope. It was a paper-mache likeness of Jesus, with baby blue construction paper on a string forming his teardrops and red construction paper on strings all over to represent blood. The camp leader then spoke to us, telling us in fairly gruesome language what all Jesus endured during the crucifixion and everything leading up to it.
Everyone else around me was at the very least sullen, their arm around someone else and at the most bawling. I just stood there, hands in pockets, wondering why everyone was so upset over an incredibly fake scene. I was unmoved.
This whole concept of me being unmoved while others around me were crying their eyes red was something new for me. I'd overcome my fears (for the most part, though that fucking picture still creeps me out), and I'd read many times the story of his execution. I was past the point of it making me cry...and yet that seemed to be the purpose.
I walked away from everything that night realizing how it worked. They tell you the story, which involves a man being persecuted by the state, sold out by his peers, tried, and subsequently brutally beaten and then crucified. During those three days, he was in Hell, in spite (allegedly) never doing anything wrong while on Earth. The details of this are played out for dramatic effect, eliciting feelings of guilt and sadness - "He did this for YOU!" - and then it's like a forced confession during an interrogation. You're supposed to crack.
In many ways, that humid June night in 1999 was the beginning of the end for me with Christianity, though I didn't know it then.
Stay tuned for Part Two, though until then let me end with a song. No, not one of mine. Those all involve two chords and generally crappy lyrics. This song I first heard in Kenneth Anger's 1979 re-edit of his film Rabbit's Moon. It ties in with me having the ultimate bout of nyctophobia for most of 1998. Click here if the embedded video isn't working.
Alex
PS - A lot of the information here I'm disclosing for the first time. There's stuff here I don't even think I've told Shelley. Not fishing for compliments or anything, but writing this - for what I thought was of interest to you, the reader - has actually helped me learn more about myself.
PPS - Thanks for reading.
I would also like to preface my story with a big fat warning that my experiences are just that: experiential. They are subjective, and they are incredibly personal. Any reference I make to Christianity applies to the Methodist-Baptist upbringing I encountered, not Christianity as a whole. We'll get more into specifics when I reach that point in my story.
Let's begin at the beginning.
I was born into a Methodist family, which meant I was baptized before I could even form a word. My maternal grandfather had been a Methodist minister, retiring before I came into the picture. From all the recollections I hear from my mom it sounds like she was raised in some bizarro version of The Andy Griffith Show and The Waltons. Her parents were traditional, but not overly strict fanatics. Then again, my mom was also a fairly well-behaved preacher's kid, a status as intrinsic to the culture of Protestantism as ushers, deacons, trustees, and organists.
I don't remember too, too much about the Methodist church we attended in my hometown of Seymour, Indiana, other than the distinct sound of the pipe organ, the hospital-green paint job, and the overabundance of old farts in the congregation.
When I was four, one of the pivotal moments in my early life came upon my parents purchasing the Encyclopedia Britannica. I'd fallen in love with reading early, and this only boosted reading from mere hobby to obsession. At five, I knew the names of the Presidents, Prime Ministers of Canada, and could tell you a pretty good amount of information about the Second World War. Later on, I would try reading passages from the Bible, but by and large I thought it was boring, although using the index to find passages discussing sex made for some interesting reads.
(Not that it contributes to this discussion all that much - or maybe it does - but I didn't learn until 2nd grade what the actual sex act was, and it wasn't until a year later that I learned sex was where babies came from. No shit.)
A new pastor came when I was in 2nd grade, and he has some pretty backwards ideas. Long story short, he told my mom that she "couldn't serve two Gods" because of her visiting another church...the other church being the Baptist church.
Whatever, it didn't involve me all that much, though I can't help but wonder how differently I might have turned out growing up Methodist rather than Baptist. Who knows, maybe I would have grown up with a version of Christianity I found acceptable.
Anyway, we became Baptists shortly thereafter. The idea of immersion baptism bothered me. I don't quite know why, it just did. Maybe it was the resemblance it bore to the bullying practice of "dunking" at the swimming pool...I'm not entirely sure. Mom, Dad, and my older brother Eric were all baptized during the same service. For my parents, who (I'd like to at least hope) had acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as their savior many years prior, this was their admission of membership to the church. For Eric, this was a significant step in his religious growth.
The procedure was one I didn't understand until Eric did it. At the end of the pastor's sermon, he would have a call for anyone wishing to accept Christ, during which time the final hymn would be sung and Bruce (the pastor) stood in front of the pulpit. Eric went forward, talked to Bruce for a bit, and then he, my dad, and a deacon and deaconess went off into one of the Sunday School rooms where they talked and prayed.
Eric was given this tract from Chick Publications, and it scared me just a little. (By the way, readers, do take the time to click through when I provide links.) The guy didn't seem to do anything all that wrong, but he wound up in a lake of fire.
The summer of 1995, a bunch of my friends who had gone to church camp accepted Christ and were baptized. Oh, church camp...again, a topic we'll return to at greater length shortly. I remember our counselor asked us to pick our favorite Bible passage. Mine was Revelation, chapter 16, which describes seven angels pouring "Bowls of God's wrath" onto the Earth.
What did I get out of it? That God isn't messing around, and that Jesus was coming back. I remember coming home crying because one of the kids in the neighborhood said Jesus was "an asshole." A student at my elementary school said he didn't believe in God and I told him that he should, otherwise he would go to Hell. (That kid actually became one of my best friends in high school...again, this will come full-circle later.)
In short, I was a parrot. A parrot who had had the fear of God put into him. I had developed a fascination with Revelation. The thought of all the vivid imagery, of catastrophic events, beasts, dragons, God's wrath, and people being sent to Hell simultaneously captivated and terrified me.
Start 'em young, I guess.
No one put any pressure on me to do it, I put the pressure on me all by myself, but I finally decided to overcome my fear of an immersion-based baptism and accept that Jesus of Nazareth suffered, died, forgave all the sins of mankind, and then rose from the dead. I made this decision at the ever-so-informed age of eight.
Look, I enjoy looking back on my early years with the sort of tongue-in-cheek good-natured humor that permeates so many good cartoons, memoirs, and stand-up routines...but I can't even pretend to joke about this. It was totally okay with my parents, my pastor, and an entire congregation that an eight-year-old boy was committing himself to a belief system that he had little knowledge of, centered around a big (boring) book that most of them hadn't even read.
Eight year olds can't vote, can't drive, they eat soap if they swear (or at least I did...), can't work, and they aren't expected to fulfill many obligations other than to complete their homework, get along with their classmates, and wipe their own asses. And yet this, choosing a philosophy you were expected to follow for life at age EIGHT, was totally okay?
I've been around the block enough now to know that all across the board religion is something handed down from parent to child, assuming - not hoping - that it will take. My fiance Shelley was raised Jewish, and her apostasy has driven her father to self-loathing induced alcoholism, thinking he's somehow failed as a human being and a father. That's not even a worst-case scenario. Shelley follows a blog about a girl who was raised Orthodox Jew and is now shunned by her family for leaving the faith. One of my newer readers told me he is a "skeptical Sikh." Another reader, a dear friend of mine since 8th grade who I always knew to be a Pentecostal Christian, told me he and his wife are at a stage in their life where they're seeking out their own answers.
On one end of the spectrum are Muslims calling for death to all apostates. On the other end is my friend Nick, born and raised Baha'i. When he came of a certain age, he said, "Well, I guess I'm a Baha'i." His mother said, "No, you will find religion on your own!" He's still a Baha'i, but not before he did some independent investigation himself.
In short, it's good to know I'm not alone and bad to know that this is fairly common in any organized religion.
One thing my Christian upbringing taught - and NEVER sat well with me - was that non-Christians went to Hell. My parents have the Universalist sentiment that "those who haven't known Jesus" are saved, putting my youthful query of whether or not bushmen in the Kalahari desert were going to go to Hell when they died. (Yes, I asked that.)
Then came another pivotal point in my upbringing, and that was having two fire-and-brimstone lunatics for Sunday School teachers, named Kim and Craig. They were a married couple, with a son a year older than me and a daughter my younger brother Nick's age. And every single week, our lessons had less to do with Moses, Noah, Jesus, or John the Baptist and more to do with the events of Revelation, the Anti-Christ, the Final Judgment, and tales of Satanist rituals involving child abduction/sacrifice.
One night I told my younger brother a distilled (and probably slightly embellished) version of all the crap I'd been told in Sunday School, causing him to freak out and tell my parents. They asked me where I heard it, so I told them the truth. The next week, I was in the 6th-grade Sunday School class my dad taught. He almost minored in religious studies when he was in college, so we would read stories from the Bible and discuss what the moral of the story was, all with a good smattering of my dad's goofy sense of humor (which, along with his innate hatred for talking on the telephone, I've inherited from him).
I was still plagued by the apocalyptic Christianity I'd been exposed to. Matters were made worse when my church's youth group trekked to Kentucky for a Christian music festival called Ichthus. It wasn't the music - in fact, a pre-fame Sixpence None The Richer played a new song of theirs called "Kiss Me" at the Friday night show. It was that I encountered more of those damned tracts.
One dealt with an otherwise good girl having sex, getting gonorrhea and AIDS, but then finding Jesus thanks to her doctor. Another featured an exceptionally Semitic-looking Ebenezer Scrooge accepting Jesus. Another explained that evolution is a lie before expounding upon original sin.
There were two others that had the most profound impact on me, though the "Earthman" tract embodies one of the central tenets I was taught. The first one is called "The Curse Of Baphomet." Never mind all the crap about the Masons - though until sometime in middle school I really thought they were some evil organization - it suggested that there really were forces of evil out there, perverting men's minds, deceiving them, and sometimes winning.
It also triggered my fascination with the occult and its symbology. I don't believe in the occult, I think it's all horse-shit, but it is intriguing in the same sense that I was fascinated reading about the religions of Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece as a kid.
The other one, the real behemoth, was "The Last Generation." I can't emphasize enough how much this tract frightened, mortified, and haunted me. It scared me to think there could someday be a reality as depicted in the tract, a world where religion is outlawed and men are tortured to death for their beliefs. The thought of a Rapture frightened me, mostly because I had some behavioral problems at school and at home - it had me convinced that I wasn't a good person, and that someday the angels would blow their trumpets, as I had been told by Kim and Craig, ushering in the soul harvest and the Rapture...and that I would miss it.
(Better get some eye-soap ready. Remember, you can't really un-see things.)
The picture of Jesus near the end of the tract...
...with its vacant stare and all the accompanying tales of judgment, Hell-fire, and all-around bad things that I'd been hearing for the last few years, kept me awake at night. I slept with my door open, and could see down the hallway in my house, which could get very dark. Laying on my right side, I would see that face, hovering in the darkness. Even now, at age 23, I find it to be a very unsettling image. It's the eyes.
I would wrap myself up in my blankets like a cocoon/burrito, lay on my left side, and get as close to the wall as possible. Sometimes at night I would hear the nearby whistling of a train and think the trumpets had been sounded and that I'd missed the Rapture. This happened several times, and I would panic in the middle of the night, grabbing the flashlight I kept in my bedside table and one of my books on The Beatles I'd gotten from my grandparents and simply read until the sun came up. Sometimes I'd listen to The Who's Tommy on my Walkman. Eventually in 6th grade it went away.
The next few years were pretty uneventful until 8th grade, with one exception. At junior high church camp, in my "fat" phase (where I briefly had tits, sensitive nipples and all, before starting puberty - it's like my body was briefly considering being a woman), on the last night after campfire and all that there was a "special program." There was a long path in an open field lit with coffee cans filled with kerosene. At the end of the path was a massive cross...except there was a body on it.
For a brief, stupid 12-year old moment, I thought it might have really been HIM. I then thought, 'Oh, probably just one of the counselors.' Nope. It was a paper-mache likeness of Jesus, with baby blue construction paper on a string forming his teardrops and red construction paper on strings all over to represent blood. The camp leader then spoke to us, telling us in fairly gruesome language what all Jesus endured during the crucifixion and everything leading up to it.
Everyone else around me was at the very least sullen, their arm around someone else and at the most bawling. I just stood there, hands in pockets, wondering why everyone was so upset over an incredibly fake scene. I was unmoved.
This whole concept of me being unmoved while others around me were crying their eyes red was something new for me. I'd overcome my fears (for the most part, though that fucking picture still creeps me out), and I'd read many times the story of his execution. I was past the point of it making me cry...and yet that seemed to be the purpose.
I walked away from everything that night realizing how it worked. They tell you the story, which involves a man being persecuted by the state, sold out by his peers, tried, and subsequently brutally beaten and then crucified. During those three days, he was in Hell, in spite (allegedly) never doing anything wrong while on Earth. The details of this are played out for dramatic effect, eliciting feelings of guilt and sadness - "He did this for YOU!" - and then it's like a forced confession during an interrogation. You're supposed to crack.
In many ways, that humid June night in 1999 was the beginning of the end for me with Christianity, though I didn't know it then.
Stay tuned for Part Two, though until then let me end with a song. No, not one of mine. Those all involve two chords and generally crappy lyrics. This song I first heard in Kenneth Anger's 1979 re-edit of his film Rabbit's Moon. It ties in with me having the ultimate bout of nyctophobia for most of 1998. Click here if the embedded video isn't working.
Alex
PS - A lot of the information here I'm disclosing for the first time. There's stuff here I don't even think I've told Shelley. Not fishing for compliments or anything, but writing this - for what I thought was of interest to you, the reader - has actually helped me learn more about myself.
PPS - Thanks for reading.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
This Is Protesting?
I found out last night from both a CNN report and an email from my editor at the Kingsman that there were to be mass protests at colleges all across the country today.
This immediately planted seeds in my mind of picketing, chants of "Hell, no, we won't go!", tear gas, and maybe even a storming of the vice provost's office. The notion of the power being forcefully clutched from the oppressive fingers of the plutocrats currently running our country's educational system and returned to the people, the students isn't some bullshit romantic ideal. It needs to be reality, especially since Obama's proposal of freezing spending in almost all departments (including education) to fund our nation-crippling wars.
We should be pissed.
Instead, lectures were hosted (on campus, no less) for students who were essentially skipping class. What was solved? Nothing. What impact will this have? A mention in the school papers, maybe a soundbite for the local news, and that will be it. This was publicized on CNN the night before it happened. If the cops had wanted to bust some heads, they would have known where it was going to happen.
Last night I attended a lecture about a group of Native Americans who visited Palestine. They talked about the mediocre healthcare in their own communities in the United States, sometimes having to sacrifice a whole day waiting without seeing a doctor. I leaned over to Shelley and said, "And yet that fucking healthcare bill is dead in the water!"
Maybe the bad guys really have won. Harry Reid doesn't care about whether or not I have access to decent healthcare. He cares about getting this bill passed so his name will go down in the history books, while ensuring his re-election bid this November. The people running the universities don't give, to use one of my favorite phrases from Steve Albini, "two splats of an old Negro junkie's vomit" about your education. They want your money. They want you to buy football tickets. They want you to spend $40 on a textbook you can buy at an independent store for $25, which is still too much for what is little more than pulp, ink, and ideas.
They want it to cost so much that you're swallowed in debt payments for the next twenty years, just in time for you to send your own offspring to school so the process can start again.
At Brooklyn College, I see students from East Asia, the Caribbean, and East Europe who are either first-generation immigrants or immigrants themselves; in them, in the stories I've heard, I'm constantly reminded that there still is an American Dream, and it sure as Hell isn't one of picket fences and 2.3 children. It's about upward social mobility, it's about not living and dying as a busboy or mindless menial work.
If there really is going to be a tuition hike as a direct result of spending freezes in our national education budget, some portion of this contingency of people - in many cases, the first in their families to pursue higher education - will suddenly find themselves unable to afford college. Learning really does come with a price tag. This should not be the case. This is criminal.
Americans balk at the notion of the caste system in India, yet we turn a blind eye to a capitalistic parallel on our own soil. If you're born poor in this country, unless you put your nose to the grindstone (and amass some student loan debt along the way), you're going to die poor.
Meanwhile, if you're born rich, you're going to die rich, even if you fuck up and blow your daddy's inheritance money on feeding your drug and alcohol addiction and shady business deals. Hell, you can even become the most powerful man in the world and make things even worse for those groveling ants you have cutting your grass.
This has to change. Where is the Barack Obama we fell in love with on the campaign trail? Where is the Barack Obama who promised an end to Reaganist plutocracy? Where is the Barack Obama that Dr. Cornel West proclaimed in February 2009 when he visited IU was ushering in a new era, "an age where you don't measure success by the money you earn, but rather by your own greatness!"?
Guantanamo Bay is still very much open. Our war in Afghanistan is escalating, not coming to an end. Iraq - still happening, still a daily hell for its citizens, not that we'd be hearing about it in the press. The USA Patriot Act? Oh, yeah, that thing...yep, still in effect. Health Care is turning into a series of compromises and surprisingly slimy behavior from the Democrats in the Congress that we thought would turn the tide after the midterm elections in 2006.
And now this. Education, something that should be as fundamental as healthcare, a chance for breaking the barriers of one's class and making something of yourself, is about to be taken away from a good chunk of this nation's students.
Students, don't just assemble and exchange ideas. Get angry. Get vocal. We voted this guy in based on what was supposed to be more than same-old, same-old campaign rhetoric. It's in our hands.
Alex
This immediately planted seeds in my mind of picketing, chants of "Hell, no, we won't go!", tear gas, and maybe even a storming of the vice provost's office. The notion of the power being forcefully clutched from the oppressive fingers of the plutocrats currently running our country's educational system and returned to the people, the students isn't some bullshit romantic ideal. It needs to be reality, especially since Obama's proposal of freezing spending in almost all departments (including education) to fund our nation-crippling wars.
We should be pissed.
Instead, lectures were hosted (on campus, no less) for students who were essentially skipping class. What was solved? Nothing. What impact will this have? A mention in the school papers, maybe a soundbite for the local news, and that will be it. This was publicized on CNN the night before it happened. If the cops had wanted to bust some heads, they would have known where it was going to happen.
Last night I attended a lecture about a group of Native Americans who visited Palestine. They talked about the mediocre healthcare in their own communities in the United States, sometimes having to sacrifice a whole day waiting without seeing a doctor. I leaned over to Shelley and said, "And yet that fucking healthcare bill is dead in the water!"
Maybe the bad guys really have won. Harry Reid doesn't care about whether or not I have access to decent healthcare. He cares about getting this bill passed so his name will go down in the history books, while ensuring his re-election bid this November. The people running the universities don't give, to use one of my favorite phrases from Steve Albini, "two splats of an old Negro junkie's vomit" about your education. They want your money. They want you to buy football tickets. They want you to spend $40 on a textbook you can buy at an independent store for $25, which is still too much for what is little more than pulp, ink, and ideas.
They want it to cost so much that you're swallowed in debt payments for the next twenty years, just in time for you to send your own offspring to school so the process can start again.
At Brooklyn College, I see students from East Asia, the Caribbean, and East Europe who are either first-generation immigrants or immigrants themselves; in them, in the stories I've heard, I'm constantly reminded that there still is an American Dream, and it sure as Hell isn't one of picket fences and 2.3 children. It's about upward social mobility, it's about not living and dying as a busboy or mindless menial work.
If there really is going to be a tuition hike as a direct result of spending freezes in our national education budget, some portion of this contingency of people - in many cases, the first in their families to pursue higher education - will suddenly find themselves unable to afford college. Learning really does come with a price tag. This should not be the case. This is criminal.
Americans balk at the notion of the caste system in India, yet we turn a blind eye to a capitalistic parallel on our own soil. If you're born poor in this country, unless you put your nose to the grindstone (and amass some student loan debt along the way), you're going to die poor.
Meanwhile, if you're born rich, you're going to die rich, even if you fuck up and blow your daddy's inheritance money on feeding your drug and alcohol addiction and shady business deals. Hell, you can even become the most powerful man in the world and make things even worse for those groveling ants you have cutting your grass.
This has to change. Where is the Barack Obama we fell in love with on the campaign trail? Where is the Barack Obama who promised an end to Reaganist plutocracy? Where is the Barack Obama that Dr. Cornel West proclaimed in February 2009 when he visited IU was ushering in a new era, "an age where you don't measure success by the money you earn, but rather by your own greatness!"?
Guantanamo Bay is still very much open. Our war in Afghanistan is escalating, not coming to an end. Iraq - still happening, still a daily hell for its citizens, not that we'd be hearing about it in the press. The USA Patriot Act? Oh, yeah, that thing...yep, still in effect. Health Care is turning into a series of compromises and surprisingly slimy behavior from the Democrats in the Congress that we thought would turn the tide after the midterm elections in 2006.
And now this. Education, something that should be as fundamental as healthcare, a chance for breaking the barriers of one's class and making something of yourself, is about to be taken away from a good chunk of this nation's students.
Students, don't just assemble and exchange ideas. Get angry. Get vocal. We voted this guy in based on what was supposed to be more than same-old, same-old campaign rhetoric. It's in our hands.
Alex
Sunday, February 21, 2010
A Rather Formless Rant About Religion - Yet Again.
Well, I gave it some thought, and after some conferring online with Guruka Singh Khalsa, who has a bunch of great and informative videos on YouTube, I now consider myself a sahajdhari Sikh.
It's a work-in-progress, naturally. Slowly I'll phase tobacco and alcohol out of my diet, and maybe someday if I feel so led I'll no longer cut my hair or trim my facial hair. This week I'm going to try meditation, and I do not expect for it to simply click after my first few goes at it. Even non-believers say that meditation offers benefits like stress relief, which at this point in the semester I am in desperate need of.
I have a teacher's audition this Tuesday at the Kaplan Center on Kings Highway, near where Shelley lives. Although her landlady said she would charge more for a couple, perhaps (once there's enough money stashed away under both of our names) once we get married I'll move into her place. It's right by the Q line, which runs infinitely faster than the 2.
This week I have to present in my class tomorrow on madrigal music, which I really enjoy. Gesualdo is my favorite of the two we've got on our listening list. I love his tinkering with harmonies...the note intervals he uses may not be "holy" intervals like the guys who wrote songs for the Pope, but they sound amazing. The piece of his we're discussing, "Moro Lasso," is on the YouTube. You don't need to know a damn thing about music to appreciate how beautiful and haunting this piece is.
I guess that's one thing I'm realizing about music - in spite of McCartney's assertion that if he learned how to read music at this point in life it would take the magic out of it - all the neat little tricks you can do with intervals to create these majestic, otherworldly harmonies. Once I flush the punk out of my system and finally record something, I might have to take some serious stabs at composition.
Holy shit, I'm learning things I didn't think I needed to know! Isn't that strange how things work out like that...and at a SCHOOL, no less?! (I hope my sarcasm is easily detected.)
My brother celebrated his 26th birthday last week, and since I have no money, I instead wrote a short story about the time we went to the Madison State Hospital to visit an inmate who had become pen pals with him. Wonder what he thought of it.
Yesterday, thinking aloud to Shelley, I toyed with the idea of writing about the various religious cultures of New York City. Since we are living in a Post-Postmodern world, a quick search reveals two other scholars have beat me to this. On the one hand, this has me thinking - especially since each source is from NYU and Columbia, both pretty big names in academia - maybe it was a hare-brained notion. But then I also think of how many books on Shakespeare get published in the course of a year. Each scholar, provide they are of sound ethics (and trust me, I am; I'm the king of citations), would theoretically bring an entirely different experience to the table.
A quick skim through Huston Smith's book on world religions, considered to be THE text on comparative religion, and one will see he limits Sikhism to two and a half measly pages. It gets worse. These two and a half pages are at the end of a 70-page chapter on Hinduism. The passage on Sikhism is an appendix, beginning by stating how many Hindus consider Sikhs to be a sect of their own faith. He continues by suggesting there is a degree of synthesis between Hinduism and Islam, going so far as to say it may have been a subconscious notion in the mind of Guru Nanak to reap the "best" of each tradition while injecting little unique on his end.
That is an insult, implying that Guru Nanak was attempting to reconcile two disparate beliefs. He had been born Hindu, but was against the caste system, against rituals, and the notion that women could not read the Vedas. The Islamic leadership meant the presence of a religion that did (and in many parts of the world still does) separate women from men in terms of practice, held to many ritualistic practices, and professed the idea of a corporeal God.
What I won't deny is that yes, this culture fostered Guru Nanak's writing. He walked away from his Hindu caste and after a three-day period of prayer and meditation, emerged with what would become the basis of the Sikh faith. What Smith seems to ignore is that perhaps God indeed did speak to Nanak; indeed, he writes that all paths lead to God, the way of the Sikh is but one. It is permissible to be a Muslim or a Hindu, just difficult and more prone to falling into blind rituals.
Nanak championed equality, regardless of gender or class, in the late 15th and early 16th Century, at a time where feudalism and slavery was in practice throughout Europe and the Orient. Even if you don't believe in God, you can at least give that much to Nanak.
Smith's attitude reminds me of a condescending ethnographer from a more backwards time, and yet he is reverent and insightful in his discussions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Should it be any surprise that he studied and practiced these two faiths? I don't want to put the guy down too much, as he is the granddaddy of comparative religion, but Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world. This was a status obtained without waging holy wars, invading neighboring territories, or actively proselytizing to non-believers.
Smith also completely (!) ignores Zoroastrianism, the seminal religion that brought us the notions of monotheism, good versus evil, and free will, while the Baha'i Faith gets a solitary mention:
"...[the Baha'i Faith] originated in the hope of rallying the major religions around the beliefs they held in common, [but] has settled into being another religion among many."
Again, it's an almost condescending perspective. We have friends who are members of the Baha'i Faith, and they are among the nicest, happiest, and deep-thinking people in our age bracket that we've ever met. I don't agree with the notion that Baha'u'llah wrote of all religions uniting under the Baha'i banner someday, but since I can safely wager that this will never happen. Hell, I even agree with the allegory Smith depicts:
"There are people who want to have their own followers. They would prefer to head their own flock, however small, than be second-in-command in the largest congregation. This suggests that if we were to find ourselves with a single religion tomorrow, it is likely that there would be two the day after."
We've gone to many devotionals with our Baha'i friends, and it is a moving experience to hear similar verses from faiths all across the globe touching on the same themes. Since our friends are interested in the Middle East, a majority comes from the mystic poet Rumi, Sufism, and the Qu'ran, although there's been material from the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, quotes from the Tao, Confucius (who, in spite of all the latent racist "proverbs" jokingly attributed to him featuring minced English - or "Engrish" - actually had some damn good things to say), and the Buddha, an occasional verse from Zoroaster, and even secular poetry. I don't think we've had much of anything from the Old Testament / Tanakh and nothing from some of the more problematic religions like Scientology, Mormonism, or Paganism.
What draws me to Sikhism, though, is that it recognizes that all right-minded paths lead to God. No faith is more right than the other, including Sikhism. It encourages mysticism through meditation and prayer, worship consists of hearing the sacred texts put to music, and from the very get-go followers are urged to steer away from ritual practices and superstitious beliefs.
It has no syncretic agenda, and the underlying message is a beautiful one: recognize God's presence in others, do good deeds, live honestly, pray and meditate, and the cycle of birth/death/rebirth will be broken.
In my investigation of both Liberal Quakerism and the Unitarian Universalists, I was bugged to learn that while you might go to a UU service and hear a non-Christian discussion of Bible as philosophy, you could also go to a UU service and hear a Neo-Paganist read some half-baked poem about Mother Earth and tree worship. I also don't like the Universalist half of the UU church. That's the notion that Christ's mercy will save all nonbelievers.
The Unitarians I like, with their rejection of the Trinity. Try talking to a Christian about the Trinity, and it will get confusing - they don't even get it. In fact, they attribute the nebulous idea of God in three persons, yet these three make up a whole, as something we aren't meant to understand. To them, the fact we can't "get" this concept is proof of the complex nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
It reminds me of Roger in American Dad when he says Christianity sounds like "the diary of a madman." I should stop before I start stomping on toes.
Anyway, whether my idea falls through or not about documenting the cultures of various religions in the city (there's even a center for Tenrikyo in Manhattan; I'm not saying it would be easy work, but what an experience it would be!), it's becoming obvious that I'm not just a music writer, a film critic, journalist, a cultural analyst, or a sociocultural polemicist. I'm all those things and more, with both seeker of truth and mystic being added to the laundry list. I don't mean to sound arrogant; in fact, I don't really like talking about myself in a positive manner. Like, ever. But I don't know if I could manage to be bound by any one field.
The remedy is obvious: I need to write, and I need to get published. And not only that, I need to get published in at least two different milieus so as not to be pigeon-holed. Rock critics are only known as rock critics. Huston Smith's work has solely been on faith. There's got to be some way to get my name out there under several different umbrellas.
Until then, I'll just keep on keeping on. I always do.
Alex
PS - I don't know how many of you actively use Blogger, but when you are adding tags to your post, make sure not to press enter unless you are finished, otherwise it will publish your unfinished entry.
It's a work-in-progress, naturally. Slowly I'll phase tobacco and alcohol out of my diet, and maybe someday if I feel so led I'll no longer cut my hair or trim my facial hair. This week I'm going to try meditation, and I do not expect for it to simply click after my first few goes at it. Even non-believers say that meditation offers benefits like stress relief, which at this point in the semester I am in desperate need of.
I have a teacher's audition this Tuesday at the Kaplan Center on Kings Highway, near where Shelley lives. Although her landlady said she would charge more for a couple, perhaps (once there's enough money stashed away under both of our names) once we get married I'll move into her place. It's right by the Q line, which runs infinitely faster than the 2.
This week I have to present in my class tomorrow on madrigal music, which I really enjoy. Gesualdo is my favorite of the two we've got on our listening list. I love his tinkering with harmonies...the note intervals he uses may not be "holy" intervals like the guys who wrote songs for the Pope, but they sound amazing. The piece of his we're discussing, "Moro Lasso," is on the YouTube. You don't need to know a damn thing about music to appreciate how beautiful and haunting this piece is.
I guess that's one thing I'm realizing about music - in spite of McCartney's assertion that if he learned how to read music at this point in life it would take the magic out of it - all the neat little tricks you can do with intervals to create these majestic, otherworldly harmonies. Once I flush the punk out of my system and finally record something, I might have to take some serious stabs at composition.
Holy shit, I'm learning things I didn't think I needed to know! Isn't that strange how things work out like that...and at a SCHOOL, no less?! (I hope my sarcasm is easily detected.)
My brother celebrated his 26th birthday last week, and since I have no money, I instead wrote a short story about the time we went to the Madison State Hospital to visit an inmate who had become pen pals with him. Wonder what he thought of it.
Yesterday, thinking aloud to Shelley, I toyed with the idea of writing about the various religious cultures of New York City. Since we are living in a Post-Postmodern world, a quick search reveals two other scholars have beat me to this. On the one hand, this has me thinking - especially since each source is from NYU and Columbia, both pretty big names in academia - maybe it was a hare-brained notion. But then I also think of how many books on Shakespeare get published in the course of a year. Each scholar, provide they are of sound ethics (and trust me, I am; I'm the king of citations), would theoretically bring an entirely different experience to the table.
A quick skim through Huston Smith's book on world religions, considered to be THE text on comparative religion, and one will see he limits Sikhism to two and a half measly pages. It gets worse. These two and a half pages are at the end of a 70-page chapter on Hinduism. The passage on Sikhism is an appendix, beginning by stating how many Hindus consider Sikhs to be a sect of their own faith. He continues by suggesting there is a degree of synthesis between Hinduism and Islam, going so far as to say it may have been a subconscious notion in the mind of Guru Nanak to reap the "best" of each tradition while injecting little unique on his end.
That is an insult, implying that Guru Nanak was attempting to reconcile two disparate beliefs. He had been born Hindu, but was against the caste system, against rituals, and the notion that women could not read the Vedas. The Islamic leadership meant the presence of a religion that did (and in many parts of the world still does) separate women from men in terms of practice, held to many ritualistic practices, and professed the idea of a corporeal God.
What I won't deny is that yes, this culture fostered Guru Nanak's writing. He walked away from his Hindu caste and after a three-day period of prayer and meditation, emerged with what would become the basis of the Sikh faith. What Smith seems to ignore is that perhaps God indeed did speak to Nanak; indeed, he writes that all paths lead to God, the way of the Sikh is but one. It is permissible to be a Muslim or a Hindu, just difficult and more prone to falling into blind rituals.
Nanak championed equality, regardless of gender or class, in the late 15th and early 16th Century, at a time where feudalism and slavery was in practice throughout Europe and the Orient. Even if you don't believe in God, you can at least give that much to Nanak.
Smith's attitude reminds me of a condescending ethnographer from a more backwards time, and yet he is reverent and insightful in his discussions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Should it be any surprise that he studied and practiced these two faiths? I don't want to put the guy down too much, as he is the granddaddy of comparative religion, but Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world. This was a status obtained without waging holy wars, invading neighboring territories, or actively proselytizing to non-believers.
Smith also completely (!) ignores Zoroastrianism, the seminal religion that brought us the notions of monotheism, good versus evil, and free will, while the Baha'i Faith gets a solitary mention:
"...[the Baha'i Faith] originated in the hope of rallying the major religions around the beliefs they held in common, [but] has settled into being another religion among many."
Again, it's an almost condescending perspective. We have friends who are members of the Baha'i Faith, and they are among the nicest, happiest, and deep-thinking people in our age bracket that we've ever met. I don't agree with the notion that Baha'u'llah wrote of all religions uniting under the Baha'i banner someday, but since I can safely wager that this will never happen. Hell, I even agree with the allegory Smith depicts:
"There are people who want to have their own followers. They would prefer to head their own flock, however small, than be second-in-command in the largest congregation. This suggests that if we were to find ourselves with a single religion tomorrow, it is likely that there would be two the day after."
We've gone to many devotionals with our Baha'i friends, and it is a moving experience to hear similar verses from faiths all across the globe touching on the same themes. Since our friends are interested in the Middle East, a majority comes from the mystic poet Rumi, Sufism, and the Qu'ran, although there's been material from the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, quotes from the Tao, Confucius (who, in spite of all the latent racist "proverbs" jokingly attributed to him featuring minced English - or "Engrish" - actually had some damn good things to say), and the Buddha, an occasional verse from Zoroaster, and even secular poetry. I don't think we've had much of anything from the Old Testament / Tanakh and nothing from some of the more problematic religions like Scientology, Mormonism, or Paganism.
What draws me to Sikhism, though, is that it recognizes that all right-minded paths lead to God. No faith is more right than the other, including Sikhism. It encourages mysticism through meditation and prayer, worship consists of hearing the sacred texts put to music, and from the very get-go followers are urged to steer away from ritual practices and superstitious beliefs.
It has no syncretic agenda, and the underlying message is a beautiful one: recognize God's presence in others, do good deeds, live honestly, pray and meditate, and the cycle of birth/death/rebirth will be broken.
In my investigation of both Liberal Quakerism and the Unitarian Universalists, I was bugged to learn that while you might go to a UU service and hear a non-Christian discussion of Bible as philosophy, you could also go to a UU service and hear a Neo-Paganist read some half-baked poem about Mother Earth and tree worship. I also don't like the Universalist half of the UU church. That's the notion that Christ's mercy will save all nonbelievers.
The Unitarians I like, with their rejection of the Trinity. Try talking to a Christian about the Trinity, and it will get confusing - they don't even get it. In fact, they attribute the nebulous idea of God in three persons, yet these three make up a whole, as something we aren't meant to understand. To them, the fact we can't "get" this concept is proof of the complex nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
It reminds me of Roger in American Dad when he says Christianity sounds like "the diary of a madman." I should stop before I start stomping on toes.
Anyway, whether my idea falls through or not about documenting the cultures of various religions in the city (there's even a center for Tenrikyo in Manhattan; I'm not saying it would be easy work, but what an experience it would be!), it's becoming obvious that I'm not just a music writer, a film critic, journalist, a cultural analyst, or a sociocultural polemicist. I'm all those things and more, with both seeker of truth and mystic being added to the laundry list. I don't mean to sound arrogant; in fact, I don't really like talking about myself in a positive manner. Like, ever. But I don't know if I could manage to be bound by any one field.
The remedy is obvious: I need to write, and I need to get published. And not only that, I need to get published in at least two different milieus so as not to be pigeon-holed. Rock critics are only known as rock critics. Huston Smith's work has solely been on faith. There's got to be some way to get my name out there under several different umbrellas.
Until then, I'll just keep on keeping on. I always do.
Alex
PS - I don't know how many of you actively use Blogger, but when you are adding tags to your post, make sure not to press enter unless you are finished, otherwise it will publish your unfinished entry.
Monday, February 1, 2010
On Religion: A Very Special Blog Post
Welcome to this, my 150th post. You'll find beer in the fridge, sodas in the cooler, and of course there's punch, peanuts, and chips. I also made Chex Mix.
Let's get down to brass tacks. I'm about ready to consider myself a member of the Sikh faith, though I do plan to cut my hair and periodically shave. This would make me a sahajdhari Sikh. The service we went to was a big deal for me: the message spoke to me, the music was beautiful, the people were friendly, and the food? Wonderful.
Having said all that, I want to issue a message to people my age, a generation older or a generation younger: don't let your upbringing in a religion that was forced onto you by your parents, your nation, or your culture turn you off of God. I know too many people who were raised Christian who, after 18 years of having crammed down their throat, declared themselves either atheist or hid under the umbrella of "I'm spiritual, not religious," or "I believe in God, but I don't like organized religion."
I'll get to atheism in a second. First, those latter two options are cheap and lazy. Get off your ass and investigate. Actually, thanks to the Internet, you don't even need to get off your ass. Hell, you can even do this in the nude.
To begin, think about what you feel is right. Do you think God is formless? Do you believe in multiple Gods? That sort of stuff, the basic questions to get you thinking.
This quiz, while not comprehensive (something with that sort of depth and breadth would be insane, but totally awesome), can point you in the right direction. In fact, taking it is what got me to snoop around New York and see what sort of options were out there. Now, I have the luxury of being in an incredibly multicultural city. For just $2.25, I can hop on a subway train and get to a Jain temple or a Sikh gurdwara.
This brings us back to the eternal reach of the Internet. No Buddhist temples in Cortland, Indiana? That's okay. First of all, you might not be as far from one as you might think (there's one in Bloomington and one in Indianapolis, for example). Even if the drive is too much for you to do even on a semi-regular basis, get in touch with them. Someone will be glad to share information with you.
As I said before, the quiz from beliefnet.com isn't perfect. Japanese folk religions, newer faiths that might be a little more syncretic in nature like Cao Đài, Zoroastrianism, and Ayyavazhi are all absent from the results. In other words, you might have to go beyond the scope of that list. (In all fairness, it's a very Western-centric site, with even the Eastern traditions being compared to Western thoughts.)
Here is a list of the major world religions and spiritual traditions. Start reading. After all that, if you still find yourself thinking you're spiritual but not religious, fine. Go ahead. You've earned it.
Atheism? My problem with modern atheism is these dour English academics like Dawkins and Hitchens who are blaming all of society's ills on the big three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and, based on the actions of radicals from each camp, are putting down all of religion. Their rhetoric is as close-minded, angry, and contemptuous as that of their targets. Also, Dawkins' refusal to debate a Creationist is sheer arrogance. That's like the Orthodox rabbi, priest, or cleric who doesn't accept invites to interfaith discussions.
If you consider yourself atheist, give some thought to agnosticism. That at least leaves the possibility open that - GASP! - you might not be right.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for now. I just want people to actively search out the answers to their questions. Don't be lazy.
Word of the day: agnosticism. Note its difference from atheism.
Peace,
Alex
Let's get down to brass tacks. I'm about ready to consider myself a member of the Sikh faith, though I do plan to cut my hair and periodically shave. This would make me a sahajdhari Sikh. The service we went to was a big deal for me: the message spoke to me, the music was beautiful, the people were friendly, and the food? Wonderful.
Having said all that, I want to issue a message to people my age, a generation older or a generation younger: don't let your upbringing in a religion that was forced onto you by your parents, your nation, or your culture turn you off of God. I know too many people who were raised Christian who, after 18 years of having crammed down their throat, declared themselves either atheist or hid under the umbrella of "I'm spiritual, not religious," or "I believe in God, but I don't like organized religion."
I'll get to atheism in a second. First, those latter two options are cheap and lazy. Get off your ass and investigate. Actually, thanks to the Internet, you don't even need to get off your ass. Hell, you can even do this in the nude.
To begin, think about what you feel is right. Do you think God is formless? Do you believe in multiple Gods? That sort of stuff, the basic questions to get you thinking.
This quiz, while not comprehensive (something with that sort of depth and breadth would be insane, but totally awesome), can point you in the right direction. In fact, taking it is what got me to snoop around New York and see what sort of options were out there. Now, I have the luxury of being in an incredibly multicultural city. For just $2.25, I can hop on a subway train and get to a Jain temple or a Sikh gurdwara.
This brings us back to the eternal reach of the Internet. No Buddhist temples in Cortland, Indiana? That's okay. First of all, you might not be as far from one as you might think (there's one in Bloomington and one in Indianapolis, for example). Even if the drive is too much for you to do even on a semi-regular basis, get in touch with them. Someone will be glad to share information with you.
As I said before, the quiz from beliefnet.com isn't perfect. Japanese folk religions, newer faiths that might be a little more syncretic in nature like Cao Đài, Zoroastrianism, and Ayyavazhi are all absent from the results. In other words, you might have to go beyond the scope of that list. (In all fairness, it's a very Western-centric site, with even the Eastern traditions being compared to Western thoughts.)
Here is a list of the major world religions and spiritual traditions. Start reading. After all that, if you still find yourself thinking you're spiritual but not religious, fine. Go ahead. You've earned it.
Atheism? My problem with modern atheism is these dour English academics like Dawkins and Hitchens who are blaming all of society's ills on the big three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and, based on the actions of radicals from each camp, are putting down all of religion. Their rhetoric is as close-minded, angry, and contemptuous as that of their targets. Also, Dawkins' refusal to debate a Creationist is sheer arrogance. That's like the Orthodox rabbi, priest, or cleric who doesn't accept invites to interfaith discussions.
If you consider yourself atheist, give some thought to agnosticism. That at least leaves the possibility open that - GASP! - you might not be right.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for now. I just want people to actively search out the answers to their questions. Don't be lazy.
Word of the day: agnosticism. Note its difference from atheism.
Peace,
Alex
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thirty Day Hiatus
The winter intersession at my school was bullshit. That is just too much time for me to not be doing anything.
Tonight was one of those nights where a little bit of sleep went a long way. That happens to me about ten times a month. Does that ever happen to you, you get three or four hours of sleep and then you're good for the day? I woke up somewhere between 4 and 5 after hitting the sack around 1, maybe a little earlier. I figured I might as well make the most of my time.
First of all, those of you clever enough to effectively follow me from my old URL to this one deserve an apology. I change URL's, post a rather negative piece about someone I really do love and respect like a brother (though I wish his negative attitude about everything would subside), and then disappear for thirty days. Let's just pretend this was a voluntary hiatus and not me being a lazy turd.
Second, January has been a busy month. It's felt like it couldn't have gone by any slower. Makes me dread February. In spite of Shelley's birthday, my brother's birthday, and Valentine's Day, I've always hated February. Hideous weather, grey skies, and the painful aching for verdancy and the distinct smell of spring all make February the closest thing to Hell one can experience in life.
I won't lie, I've also been a little depressed of late. At the airport, amid her tearful goodbye, my mom told me if I couldn't land a job by semester's end I would have to go home for the summer. Look, I love my family and I love seeing them, but I hate everything about that region of the country. I hate the backwards politics, I hate the fact that religious diversity out there means Presbyterians breaking bread with Methodists, and I hate the soul-crushing reality of the job market in the pseudo rust belt/agriculture-heavy economy. There isn't even a bookstore.
The things that really make being home worthwhile is the interactions. Those little conversations with Dad when nothing good is on the TV that turn into long discussions of life, culture, and art; the late nights when Eric and Maddie would be over, Mom and Dad had gone to bed, and we'd just sit and talk. Even the little things, like when both Joe Boxman and Joe Bray knew I was going to be back in town I get texts from both of them saying "Call me, we need to hang out," or Forrest asking if our yearly tradition of China Buffet for lunch on either 12/24 or 12/26 was still on. My answer was a resounding 'Hell yes.'
Aside from a brief (too brief) encounter with my old middle school friend James Hare and his wife Jackie in the Wal-Mart parking lot, I didn't see anyone else. Just seeing him had me thinking about the old gang from middle school. I don't know what happened with me and James, we just sort of stopped hanging out. We never had the same lunch period or something. Regardless, he finally joined Facebook. So did Josh Bowman. He was the ringleader, daredevil extraordinaire...made me look like the Cowardly Lion by contrast. This kid would streak in the dead of winter if it meant he'd get a laugh. He would...and he did. But then he moved away before high school. He's now married with a kid and living out in Arizona. Mutual visit offers have been extended.
Then I think about my high school friends, and how despite my Facebook status advertising my return home for the first time since August, not even so much as a "Scott Johnson likes this" or a post from Brett saying, "Cool, man. Give me a call." People I'd shared so much with for so damn long...I bet Shelley that Johnson wasn't going to try and get in touch. She plead no contest. And he didn't.
This all sounds like me playing a violin into the wind, but all last summer no one from Seymour seemed to appreciate or understand that come August, I would be gone. The exceptions to this standard were the usual suspects, people like Joes Boxman and Bray, Forrest, Crowley, Jordan, and Graham. Hell, those last two were home (CA and MA, respectively) the entire time I was home. That blew.
Just another one of those things, you know? Realizing your true friends. We had fun with Boxman and his lady Jocelyn, and seeing Forrest was great. Catching up, talking about our latest plans and projects was a blast. Crowley coming down for New Year's Eve and spending the night was awesome, too. I wouldn't have guessed in a hundred years he would have had breakfast with me at my parents' house, but behold the mysterious ways of the Great Magnet.
Still, as with my rather harrowing week and a half home in August, the MVP award goes to Joe Bray. Ever since the summer of 2006, he's been one of those guys who's always been there when I needed it. Our bond doesn't stem from the shared experience of high school. We had different experiences then. Maybe we'd be in a class together (10th grade geometry) and raise some Hell, but we never hung out. Never ate together at lunch.
To start, he and I have in common a key factor that has made the other Joe and Forrest such good friends in the time that's passed since 2005: we all grew up. Whether we learned our lessons early or just knew better, it wasn't all about sex, booze, and rock and roll. (It can be, mind you. There's a time and place, sure...just not all the time.) We all took our work seriously. College wasn't just unsupervised freedom, it was a new period of growth.
They're all different sides of me, too. With Boxman and Forrest, we have our in-jokes, we have memories, we have similar tastes (and can agree to disagree otherwise). Boxman is the quintessential bohemian, Forrest is the unheralded talent of a writer who is proud of his roots but ready for the world, and Bray is the cosmopolitan who knows how to make a mean sandwich and mix a cocktail to wash it down with.
What sets Bray aside, though, is that we're both intensely spiritual people. Do we agree on everything theologically? No. Not on a lot of points. He is pursuing Orthodox Christianity, and me...well, we'll get to that later. He can make crass jokes and is capable of bad behavior as much as the next guy I chalk up as a dear friend, but when it's philosophy time hang on to something. Beyond that, he was in the know regarding my situation(s) at home, having me over to get me out of a bad environment, not just to share company over wine. To that end, you can look at him and see God.
It's one of those things probably best left unspoken. The kind of compliment you'd give after your third glass of wine, certainly not something said while reveling. Unless of course stopping all activities in the middle of the evening to say, "You know, I really value our friendship. I see God in you, my friend!" is your idea of fun.
Back to my original point, about jobs and shit. I have full confidence in landing a job. Let's face it, between my experience in retail, DJ'ing weddings, my video editing skills, and the academic junk I have under my belt, I'm not a bad catch on paper. I guess it's just that even as a graduate student, a week before turning 23, my mom can still put the fear in me.
Speaking of turning 23...I know I'm not old. Nowhere near it. But I'm sensitive about aging. I worry about things unaccomplished, projects unrealized, dreams waylaid. The whole day, I was just kind of depressed. I spent the afternoon finishing one of my dumb little pieces in my PC game The Movies. Snicker if you'd like, but I'll have you know as someone who once dreamed of a career as a filmmaker, it's not only a great outlet creatively, but my own little way of pursuing a pipe dream I thought I'd buried in 2007. Shelley wanted to take me to Chuck E. Cheese, as sort of a sweet half-joke. I passed, citing that they probably serve really bad pizza.
It wasn't just that, though. I just wasn't in the mood. She kept asking me what I wanted to do to celebrate...and I couldn't conjure up anything. Nothing that was realistic or feasible. A day off someplace with good food and tropical weather? To have a massive box in my front yard, open it, and have the six guys (Joe, Joe, Forrest, Graham, Jordan, Andrew) from back home worth a damn to me jump out and say, "Surprise! We moved here!"? A visit from my brothers, my sister-in-law, and my parents?
That's what I wanted.
I settled for Vietnamese food in Chelsea and some bush-league sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The best part was that I figured we could go to the grocer's next to the theater after the show, get some cake or something. As per my tradition of searching the drink aisle in hopes of finding Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda, there it was. In an electric green can with mustard yellow lettering. I might as well have been stumbling upon a photograph of the second gunman at the grassy knoll near Dealey Plaza.
I don't even remember what Shelley got me...a CD and a DVD, I'm wanting to say...but the can of celery-flavored soda I guzzled down as we walked through Chelsea was wonderful, second only to a good ginger beer as the best fizzy drink of all time. Bonus points, though, to Andrew Crowley for getting me something, never mind Television's Marquee Moon and The Replacements' Let It Be.
We both got a little fussy waiting three and a half years for the goddamn 2 train somewhere under the city...and that was it, aside from a phalanx of Facebook wishes and a check-less card from my grandparents. Not that beggars can be choosers, but the yearly tradition used to be a birthday card and a check ranging from $25 to $50, maybe some t-shirt or sweater I wouldn't be caught dead in to boot, other times a surprisingly thoughtful bio on Lennon or The Beatles. But this year? Just a card.
I don't even want to talk about my gift from home.
Eric claims he sent his presents my way. Frankly, I can't wait. We have the sort of connection where we know just what to get. We had a polite discussion that while gift cards are nice, I had thinking someone else's hard-earned money is going down my gullet in the form of coffee and/or pastries. This inevitably led to us revealing to one another that we still look at certain CD's/DVD's/books and go, "Oh, yeah, I got this from so-and-so, Christmas of 2004!" I'm cooking up something nice for him on what will be his 26th.
Maybe it's the weather, being nervous about jobs, new classes, but my own personal happiness is infrequent. Makes me a real joy to be around, I'm sure. My great fear is that I'm becoming anhedonic...but then I put on some music (lately it's been The Clash, although there was plenty of Zappa in my ears, especially the Sleep Dir LP - NOT the CD mix, though) or see the sunlight and I crack a smile.
Both watching Anthony Bourdain on Netflix and the late-night drama was a fascinating way to pass the time, though, I must say. As a culture junkie, I pretty much have to write an essay on it, right? I will later. I promise. Till then, I love how Conan ended it. Beyond taking the high road, he said in his farewell speech what my entire generation needed to have told to our jaded little asses, never mind something I was desperately yearning to hear:
"Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism, it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen."
Anyway, it's been 90 minutes. I shouldn't spend much more time here. I need to shower, as Shelley and I have someplace to be this chilly late January morning. We are going to a Sikh worship service in New Jersey. One of our friends at the Sikh Coalition offered, so we wouldn't be blindly showing up at a gurdwara not knowing what the Hell was going on. So, yeah, thank you Satjeet!
That all said, after a dipping of the toe into Liberal Quakerism (too quiet!) and the Baha'i Faith (again, another entry for another day, friends), my urge to further inquire about Sikhism led to a slot volunteering my services as a video editor with the Sikh Coalition in Manhattan, plus my own cautiously-paced investigation of what gradually revealed itself to be a philosophy I completely and utterly agree with. The only conversion is a simple declaration of faith. I'm not there yet...but close. More on all that later, too.
Word of the day: sahajdhari.
Peace,
Alex
Tonight was one of those nights where a little bit of sleep went a long way. That happens to me about ten times a month. Does that ever happen to you, you get three or four hours of sleep and then you're good for the day? I woke up somewhere between 4 and 5 after hitting the sack around 1, maybe a little earlier. I figured I might as well make the most of my time.
First of all, those of you clever enough to effectively follow me from my old URL to this one deserve an apology. I change URL's, post a rather negative piece about someone I really do love and respect like a brother (though I wish his negative attitude about everything would subside), and then disappear for thirty days. Let's just pretend this was a voluntary hiatus and not me being a lazy turd.
Second, January has been a busy month. It's felt like it couldn't have gone by any slower. Makes me dread February. In spite of Shelley's birthday, my brother's birthday, and Valentine's Day, I've always hated February. Hideous weather, grey skies, and the painful aching for verdancy and the distinct smell of spring all make February the closest thing to Hell one can experience in life.
I won't lie, I've also been a little depressed of late. At the airport, amid her tearful goodbye, my mom told me if I couldn't land a job by semester's end I would have to go home for the summer. Look, I love my family and I love seeing them, but I hate everything about that region of the country. I hate the backwards politics, I hate the fact that religious diversity out there means Presbyterians breaking bread with Methodists, and I hate the soul-crushing reality of the job market in the pseudo rust belt/agriculture-heavy economy. There isn't even a bookstore.
The things that really make being home worthwhile is the interactions. Those little conversations with Dad when nothing good is on the TV that turn into long discussions of life, culture, and art; the late nights when Eric and Maddie would be over, Mom and Dad had gone to bed, and we'd just sit and talk. Even the little things, like when both Joe Boxman and Joe Bray knew I was going to be back in town I get texts from both of them saying "Call me, we need to hang out," or Forrest asking if our yearly tradition of China Buffet for lunch on either 12/24 or 12/26 was still on. My answer was a resounding 'Hell yes.'
Aside from a brief (too brief) encounter with my old middle school friend James Hare and his wife Jackie in the Wal-Mart parking lot, I didn't see anyone else. Just seeing him had me thinking about the old gang from middle school. I don't know what happened with me and James, we just sort of stopped hanging out. We never had the same lunch period or something. Regardless, he finally joined Facebook. So did Josh Bowman. He was the ringleader, daredevil extraordinaire...made me look like the Cowardly Lion by contrast. This kid would streak in the dead of winter if it meant he'd get a laugh. He would...and he did. But then he moved away before high school. He's now married with a kid and living out in Arizona. Mutual visit offers have been extended.
Then I think about my high school friends, and how despite my Facebook status advertising my return home for the first time since August, not even so much as a "Scott Johnson likes this" or a post from Brett saying, "Cool, man. Give me a call." People I'd shared so much with for so damn long...I bet Shelley that Johnson wasn't going to try and get in touch. She plead no contest. And he didn't.
This all sounds like me playing a violin into the wind, but all last summer no one from Seymour seemed to appreciate or understand that come August, I would be gone. The exceptions to this standard were the usual suspects, people like Joes Boxman and Bray, Forrest, Crowley, Jordan, and Graham. Hell, those last two were home (CA and MA, respectively) the entire time I was home. That blew.
Just another one of those things, you know? Realizing your true friends. We had fun with Boxman and his lady Jocelyn, and seeing Forrest was great. Catching up, talking about our latest plans and projects was a blast. Crowley coming down for New Year's Eve and spending the night was awesome, too. I wouldn't have guessed in a hundred years he would have had breakfast with me at my parents' house, but behold the mysterious ways of the Great Magnet.
Still, as with my rather harrowing week and a half home in August, the MVP award goes to Joe Bray. Ever since the summer of 2006, he's been one of those guys who's always been there when I needed it. Our bond doesn't stem from the shared experience of high school. We had different experiences then. Maybe we'd be in a class together (10th grade geometry) and raise some Hell, but we never hung out. Never ate together at lunch.
To start, he and I have in common a key factor that has made the other Joe and Forrest such good friends in the time that's passed since 2005: we all grew up. Whether we learned our lessons early or just knew better, it wasn't all about sex, booze, and rock and roll. (It can be, mind you. There's a time and place, sure...just not all the time.) We all took our work seriously. College wasn't just unsupervised freedom, it was a new period of growth.
They're all different sides of me, too. With Boxman and Forrest, we have our in-jokes, we have memories, we have similar tastes (and can agree to disagree otherwise). Boxman is the quintessential bohemian, Forrest is the unheralded talent of a writer who is proud of his roots but ready for the world, and Bray is the cosmopolitan who knows how to make a mean sandwich and mix a cocktail to wash it down with.
What sets Bray aside, though, is that we're both intensely spiritual people. Do we agree on everything theologically? No. Not on a lot of points. He is pursuing Orthodox Christianity, and me...well, we'll get to that later. He can make crass jokes and is capable of bad behavior as much as the next guy I chalk up as a dear friend, but when it's philosophy time hang on to something. Beyond that, he was in the know regarding my situation(s) at home, having me over to get me out of a bad environment, not just to share company over wine. To that end, you can look at him and see God.
It's one of those things probably best left unspoken. The kind of compliment you'd give after your third glass of wine, certainly not something said while reveling. Unless of course stopping all activities in the middle of the evening to say, "You know, I really value our friendship. I see God in you, my friend!" is your idea of fun.
Back to my original point, about jobs and shit. I have full confidence in landing a job. Let's face it, between my experience in retail, DJ'ing weddings, my video editing skills, and the academic junk I have under my belt, I'm not a bad catch on paper. I guess it's just that even as a graduate student, a week before turning 23, my mom can still put the fear in me.
Speaking of turning 23...I know I'm not old. Nowhere near it. But I'm sensitive about aging. I worry about things unaccomplished, projects unrealized, dreams waylaid. The whole day, I was just kind of depressed. I spent the afternoon finishing one of my dumb little pieces in my PC game The Movies. Snicker if you'd like, but I'll have you know as someone who once dreamed of a career as a filmmaker, it's not only a great outlet creatively, but my own little way of pursuing a pipe dream I thought I'd buried in 2007. Shelley wanted to take me to Chuck E. Cheese, as sort of a sweet half-joke. I passed, citing that they probably serve really bad pizza.
It wasn't just that, though. I just wasn't in the mood. She kept asking me what I wanted to do to celebrate...and I couldn't conjure up anything. Nothing that was realistic or feasible. A day off someplace with good food and tropical weather? To have a massive box in my front yard, open it, and have the six guys (Joe, Joe, Forrest, Graham, Jordan, Andrew) from back home worth a damn to me jump out and say, "Surprise! We moved here!"? A visit from my brothers, my sister-in-law, and my parents?
That's what I wanted.
I settled for Vietnamese food in Chelsea and some bush-league sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The best part was that I figured we could go to the grocer's next to the theater after the show, get some cake or something. As per my tradition of searching the drink aisle in hopes of finding Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda, there it was. In an electric green can with mustard yellow lettering. I might as well have been stumbling upon a photograph of the second gunman at the grassy knoll near Dealey Plaza.
I don't even remember what Shelley got me...a CD and a DVD, I'm wanting to say...but the can of celery-flavored soda I guzzled down as we walked through Chelsea was wonderful, second only to a good ginger beer as the best fizzy drink of all time. Bonus points, though, to Andrew Crowley for getting me something, never mind Television's Marquee Moon and The Replacements' Let It Be.
We both got a little fussy waiting three and a half years for the goddamn 2 train somewhere under the city...and that was it, aside from a phalanx of Facebook wishes and a check-less card from my grandparents. Not that beggars can be choosers, but the yearly tradition used to be a birthday card and a check ranging from $25 to $50, maybe some t-shirt or sweater I wouldn't be caught dead in to boot, other times a surprisingly thoughtful bio on Lennon or The Beatles. But this year? Just a card.
I don't even want to talk about my gift from home.
Eric claims he sent his presents my way. Frankly, I can't wait. We have the sort of connection where we know just what to get. We had a polite discussion that while gift cards are nice, I had thinking someone else's hard-earned money is going down my gullet in the form of coffee and/or pastries. This inevitably led to us revealing to one another that we still look at certain CD's/DVD's/books and go, "Oh, yeah, I got this from so-and-so, Christmas of 2004!" I'm cooking up something nice for him on what will be his 26th.
Maybe it's the weather, being nervous about jobs, new classes, but my own personal happiness is infrequent. Makes me a real joy to be around, I'm sure. My great fear is that I'm becoming anhedonic...but then I put on some music (lately it's been The Clash, although there was plenty of Zappa in my ears, especially the Sleep Dir LP - NOT the CD mix, though) or see the sunlight and I crack a smile.
Both watching Anthony Bourdain on Netflix and the late-night drama was a fascinating way to pass the time, though, I must say. As a culture junkie, I pretty much have to write an essay on it, right? I will later. I promise. Till then, I love how Conan ended it. Beyond taking the high road, he said in his farewell speech what my entire generation needed to have told to our jaded little asses, never mind something I was desperately yearning to hear:
"Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism, it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen."
Anyway, it's been 90 minutes. I shouldn't spend much more time here. I need to shower, as Shelley and I have someplace to be this chilly late January morning. We are going to a Sikh worship service in New Jersey. One of our friends at the Sikh Coalition offered, so we wouldn't be blindly showing up at a gurdwara not knowing what the Hell was going on. So, yeah, thank you Satjeet!
That all said, after a dipping of the toe into Liberal Quakerism (too quiet!) and the Baha'i Faith (again, another entry for another day, friends), my urge to further inquire about Sikhism led to a slot volunteering my services as a video editor with the Sikh Coalition in Manhattan, plus my own cautiously-paced investigation of what gradually revealed itself to be a philosophy I completely and utterly agree with. The only conversion is a simple declaration of faith. I'm not there yet...but close. More on all that later, too.
Word of the day: sahajdhari.
Peace,
Alex
Friday, January 1, 2010
If A Bitter Man Complains On The Internet, Does Anybody Hear It?
Although my own callous and distant demeanor might strongly suggest otherwise at first glance, I really am a fairly optimistic kind of guy. But like all people, I will admit that other people's moods can affect me, for better or for worse. If people are giddy, those good vibes are passed on. That's great. For me, that is one of the great reasons to be alive.
Similarly, if someone is perpetually in a rotten mood, it is contagious as well. I've said before that the whole "looking back on a decade" pieces are silly, but I also wrote at great lengths about why this decade was not an infliction from the bowels of Hell itself. Anyway, I stumbled across a retrospective on the best albums of the Aughts written by someone I used to know. His list was prefaced with an extended ramble about the sad state of the music business compared with the 1990's. There are hyperbolic absolutist (yet incorrect) claims, close-minded (and almost entirely baseless) accusations, and a strong hint of bitterness. It's a bunch of codswallop, but this actually passes as journalism in some circles:
In this writer's version of history, the 1990's were a golden period where MTV never censored videos, didn't bend over and censor Beavis & Butt-Head, either; this was a utopia where everybody lived the grunge lifestyle - even the author, who is only two years my senior - and listened to Nirvana. There was no such thing as drab mainstream music, no Top 40 or AOR playlists that consisted of insufferable muzak, and - AND - everyone talked about music. Everyone. No one ever "just listened to the music," no one ever listened to music as "something to have on."
I love the music he's insisting was all that people listened to in the 1990's, but what he's saying is just not true. Since popular music splintered in the late 1960's and early 1970's, can we even really say there was a mainstream? That's the problem with so many arguments in favor of or against certain bands or even genres. Get a whole bunch of Who fans together in a room and you'll be convinced that they were the most important band of their time, possibly even of any age. And yet there are jazz-rock fans who might thing The Who are irretrievably stupid and try to convince you that The Mahavishnu Orchestra was the only band that mattered.
There's plenty more I could say, but it would get redundant. He even goes so far as to admit he sounds like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn, but that doesn't stop him from hammering the point home that modern music is inauthentic, and that the music he celebrated in the idealized version of his youth is the greatest music that ever existed. It's like someone who acknowledges they're an alcoholic, making no bones about their addiction, and then turns right around and downs a bottle of Jim Beam.
There was an older gentleman - a retired professor - who sat in all semester long in one of my classes on American Popular Song. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Tin Pan Alley songs and can spot melodies like no one else I've ever met. However, he also doesn't think much of anything that has come out since the mid 1930's. I can assume that this was the music he grew up loving as a kid...does this make his perspective right?
Well, no. But he was able to express his opinions without insulting the very intelligence of those with different sensibilities.
I'll skip ahead to the end:
It's offensive, but it's also stupid. It can easily be re-worded into...
You could read this guy's essay and assume that the decade-long party that was the 1990's came to an abrupt end with some untold catastrophe, resulting in a desolate landscape of artificial music and a massively dumbed-down populace. Don't be discouraged by shit like this. This is nothing more than the writing of a bitter man who has tasted more defeat than victory in what was supposed to be the decade where he took over the world. Most of us learn the realities of life (everything we were told in high school was a lie, college is a great place to learn but hardly a simulacrum of the real world, and nothing - but nothing - is sufficient enough to shake up the world) in college, we process the information, and then we move on.
Unfortunately, some of us clearly haven't.
Similarly, if someone is perpetually in a rotten mood, it is contagious as well. I've said before that the whole "looking back on a decade" pieces are silly, but I also wrote at great lengths about why this decade was not an infliction from the bowels of Hell itself. Anyway, I stumbled across a retrospective on the best albums of the Aughts written by someone I used to know. His list was prefaced with an extended ramble about the sad state of the music business compared with the 1990's. There are hyperbolic absolutist (yet incorrect) claims, close-minded (and almost entirely baseless) accusations, and a strong hint of bitterness. It's a bunch of codswallop, but this actually passes as journalism in some circles:
"In the 90s, music was everywhere – bands like Nirvana could still command the monoculture, MTV still played videos, and in that rarest of pop-cultural moments, interesting music was being consistently made at both mainstream and subterranean levels. In general, music still made for water-cooler discussion."
In this writer's version of history, the 1990's were a golden period where MTV never censored videos, didn't bend over and censor Beavis & Butt-Head, either; this was a utopia where everybody lived the grunge lifestyle - even the author, who is only two years my senior - and listened to Nirvana. There was no such thing as drab mainstream music, no Top 40 or AOR playlists that consisted of insufferable muzak, and - AND - everyone talked about music. Everyone. No one ever "just listened to the music," no one ever listened to music as "something to have on."
I love the music he's insisting was all that people listened to in the 1990's, but what he's saying is just not true. Since popular music splintered in the late 1960's and early 1970's, can we even really say there was a mainstream? That's the problem with so many arguments in favor of or against certain bands or even genres. Get a whole bunch of Who fans together in a room and you'll be convinced that they were the most important band of their time, possibly even of any age. And yet there are jazz-rock fans who might thing The Who are irretrievably stupid and try to convince you that The Mahavishnu Orchestra was the only band that mattered.
There's plenty more I could say, but it would get redundant. He even goes so far as to admit he sounds like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn, but that doesn't stop him from hammering the point home that modern music is inauthentic, and that the music he celebrated in the idealized version of his youth is the greatest music that ever existed. It's like someone who acknowledges they're an alcoholic, making no bones about their addiction, and then turns right around and downs a bottle of Jim Beam.
There was an older gentleman - a retired professor - who sat in all semester long in one of my classes on American Popular Song. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Tin Pan Alley songs and can spot melodies like no one else I've ever met. However, he also doesn't think much of anything that has come out since the mid 1930's. I can assume that this was the music he grew up loving as a kid...does this make his perspective right?
Well, no. But he was able to express his opinions without insulting the very intelligence of those with different sensibilities.
I'll skip ahead to the end:
"Boomer critics like Dave Marsh remain hopelessly out of touch, unwilling to conceive of a post-Springsteen music world, while younger critics tend to dismiss out of hand anything that didn’t spring from the minds of bearded faux-troubadours or scrawny Brooklynites."
It's offensive, but it's also stupid. It can easily be re-worded into...
"Bitter Gen X / Gen Y straddlers like [Writer X] remains hopelessly out of touch, unwilling to conceive of a post-Nirvana music world, dismissing new music as springing from the minds of bearded faux-troubadours or scrawny Brooklynites."
You could read this guy's essay and assume that the decade-long party that was the 1990's came to an abrupt end with some untold catastrophe, resulting in a desolate landscape of artificial music and a massively dumbed-down populace. Don't be discouraged by shit like this. This is nothing more than the writing of a bitter man who has tasted more defeat than victory in what was supposed to be the decade where he took over the world. Most of us learn the realities of life (everything we were told in high school was a lie, college is a great place to learn but hardly a simulacrum of the real world, and nothing - but nothing - is sufficient enough to shake up the world) in college, we process the information, and then we move on.
Unfortunately, some of us clearly haven't.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Why I Would Make A Terrific Leader
10.) All - ALL - religious institutions will no longer have tax-exempt status. Churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras, all of them.
09.) I'd legalize it. This also means I would tax it.
08.) Three words: Open Border Policy. Immigration reform would make it 5 years to become a citizen instead of 10.
07.) The rich would be mercilessly taxed. Middle and lower classes would pay a national sales tax.
06.) I would illegalize lobbying.
05.) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would end the day I was inaugurated.
04.) The day after my inauguration, the troops will be sent to Darfur.
03.) The right for workers to unionize would become the 28th Amendment.
02.) Defining marriage as "A union between two consenting adult humans" would be the 29th Amendment.
01.) I would do away with the Electoral College.
09.) I'd legalize it. This also means I would tax it.
08.) Three words: Open Border Policy. Immigration reform would make it 5 years to become a citizen instead of 10.
07.) The rich would be mercilessly taxed. Middle and lower classes would pay a national sales tax.
06.) I would illegalize lobbying.
05.) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would end the day I was inaugurated.
04.) The day after my inauguration, the troops will be sent to Darfur.
03.) The right for workers to unionize would become the 28th Amendment.
02.) Defining marriage as "A union between two consenting adult humans" would be the 29th Amendment.
01.) I would do away with the Electoral College.
Why I Would Make A Much-Hated Leader
10.) I have no idea how the economy works.
09.) The legal system would be tied up for years as I mercilessly pursued Big Business, Big Pharm, and Big Insurance for anti-trust and other unethical practices.
08.) The copyright laws will no longer apply to musicians who are dead or have made at least $10,000,000.
07.) New drugs would be tested on prisoners guilty of murder, corporate theft, or domestic violence.
06.) Capital Punishment would be enforced against mentally competent sex criminals found guilty by DNA evidence.
05.) All other prisoners will be rejuvenating, building, or just resurfacing our national infrastructure.
04.) I'd give the Native Americans their land back.
03.) I would take a guy out of the unemployment line and make him my Secretary of Commerce.
02.) The phrase "Sanctity of Marriage" will gradually become erased from our lexicon. It is about love. Whether it's little more than evolutionary instinct or something given to us by a greater Being, love will never be spun towards any system of belief in the law.
01.) The First Amendment will be rewritten so as to both make an exception to Hate Speech and to define Hate Speech in no uncertain terms.
09.) The legal system would be tied up for years as I mercilessly pursued Big Business, Big Pharm, and Big Insurance for anti-trust and other unethical practices.
08.) The copyright laws will no longer apply to musicians who are dead or have made at least $10,000,000.
07.) New drugs would be tested on prisoners guilty of murder, corporate theft, or domestic violence.
06.) Capital Punishment would be enforced against mentally competent sex criminals found guilty by DNA evidence.
05.) All other prisoners will be rejuvenating, building, or just resurfacing our national infrastructure.
04.) I'd give the Native Americans their land back.
03.) I would take a guy out of the unemployment line and make him my Secretary of Commerce.
02.) The phrase "Sanctity of Marriage" will gradually become erased from our lexicon. It is about love. Whether it's little more than evolutionary instinct or something given to us by a greater Being, love will never be spun towards any system of belief in the law.
01.) The First Amendment will be rewritten so as to both make an exception to Hate Speech and to define Hate Speech in no uncertain terms.
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