StandUP, Ya Big Fraidy Cat!

Is there a worse job in the world for a terminally insecure person than standup comedy? You take someone who, in normal daily life, shudders at the very thought of being judged by checkout people at the supermarket for buying two pints of  Moose Tracks ice cream (Do you really need two, fat ma’am?) versus one and you throw him or her up in front of a room full of strangers. Then, you expect them to stand up and say words that they’ve written in the privacy of their own room, for the purpose of eliciting laughter (and thus more approval) from people they will most likely never see again.

On the other hand, you take the same confidence-challenged person and lo and behold, the room full of strangers actually laughs and applauds wildly! For a brief moment in that performer’s career, life is an Etch-a-Sketch and suddenly, if not temporarily, all the fear, pain, distrust, disappointment, anxiety and heartache which brought said person to said stage disappears in an emotional screen shaking; at least temporarily. Very soon thereafter, when the adrenaline wears off, all of those doubts start to creep back until the next performance and hopefully, the next healing.

The problem is you never know just which side the coin will land on. Heads, you walk off that stage...no, you float off that stage to the roar of approval, or tails, you slink off into the shadowy darkness of the bowels of the club, avoiding stares from the audience and your peers, and curse the day you ever learned to form a complete sentence. And later, on that long, dark drive back to the safety of your home, you wonder (often aloud) to yourself, what in God’s name am I doing? 

But it’s just a Jersey gig, you say. Or Wednesday. Or Shrimp night. Or some shitty bar where tomorrow night is karaoke.

“It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things”, you proclaim to invisible you sitting in the passenger seat, as you tear down the New Jersey Turnpike. But you know that it’s a lie. How you did up there matters to you and no one else because you took that leap of faith and stood up there in the first place. You have that little voice inside you that has screamed in your head over and over since you were young enough to think that you had the moxie to triumph over all of this. You are the chosen one. And while every person in that audience will have forgotten your name by the time they leave the club, you will carry that show, for good or for bad for years to come. And so you go back again and again, not looking for killer shows (although that would be nice), but consistency of performance levels.

Over time, you develop a thick hide. Most of the time, you learn to laugh off the horror nights and remember the killer sets. In that sense it’s a lot like childbirth, or so I’m told. To be honest, while I was at my birth, I don’t remember much about it. I can only imagine that it was not unlike my first marriage or being beaten on the soles of my feet with wet bamboo rods. Horrors like that definitely deserve to be forgotten. From my mother’s viewpoint however, I’m sure it was quite different. 

Fear is at the core of it all, isn’t it? Fear of failure, of pain, of success, it’s all the same. Fear can kill you, ruin you or debilitate you. Fear can chase you, catch you and ensnare you.  It can make you powerless and freeze you right where you stand. It is the bully that stands on the corner each morning as you walk to school, waiting for you. It is a wall of fire that roars in your face and dares you to test your tolerance for the pain it can inflict. All you have to do to be swallowed up by it is to give in. Once that happens, it’s all over.

Take me for instance. I live in constant fear of everything, and right now I’m frozen solid. I can’t move right or left, up or down, which is kind of weird, because suddenly, everything is going right for me. My shows have been going quite well, I’m getting bookings, and the possibility of a play about my life could actually come to reality. I’ve got everything going for me. So, why am I so petrified?

Come on Julia, don’t be a dumbass! You just stated why you’re afraid. You might actually be successful for a change and you don’t know how to handle it.

Hmmm... Interesting point, horribly nagging conscience. And what is it in particular that is causing this?

Must I do everything? Think a little won’t ya?

Well let’s see...shows are going well, blog is going well, the Comedy Test Kitchen is going well, the comedy competition is coming up...

And?

The comedy competition ...is...coming...up...must write...must compete...

That’s it isn’t it? Tell these nice people what’s going on.

Sigh. Alright, here it goes. Now you have to understand that I absolutely suck at competitions. From the time I tossed a ping-pong (age 6) in a futile effort to have it land in a tiny goldfish bowl at Palisades Amusement Park, to trying out for the football team in another vain and humiliating attempt to prove my manhood, to Star Search and Letterman, I have always seriously, undeniably, majestically and miserably crashed and burned in an awful metaphorical conflagration, the likes of which made the Hindenburg explosion seem like the pilot light on your stove.

Are you getting the picture so far? Good. Now with these images in mind will someone please tell me what in God’s name I was thinking when, after a twelve year absence from the stage, I up and entered, not just a comedy competition, but one for women only? And, not just the competition, but the professional category of that contest! Me, a sixty year old, transgendered, newly out of retirement, arthritic, lesbian comedian; what the hell was I thinking?

It was an impulse, a whim; I swear. But now that I’m entered....Oy...now that I’m entered....

Have you ever had one of those defining moments in your life? You know, the ones that scream out at you “If you walk away from this and don’t deal with it, you will carry this with you for the rest of your life like a cinderblock around your neck.” Well this is it for me. This is the time I need to decide if I am going to let fear beat me yet again.

It’s not that this contest will make or break me. I have too much skin in the game already to let a contest define me. But this is about ME letting ME break ME. This is about making friends with me for a change, and believing that win or lose, I will not shame myself under any circumstances.

It’s only May, and right now I’m quaking in my fuzzy slippers over something that won’t happen until July. Logic tells me that if I let this fear get a hold of me, they will have to carry me in on a stretcher come show time. So, there’s only one way to deal with it. I have two months to work, to write, to rehearse, and perfect my sets. I have two months to believe that I can do this. Two months to take back my life.

In the last twelve years I have allowed myself to be shamed over my decision to live the life that was in my heart and soul. There have been times when cruel words and even crueler actions have driven me to places so deep inside that I never wanted to come out. But I refused to trade one prison for another, and instead I turned to the spirits that surround me, and they lifted me up to face another day, and all the days that followed.

Ten months ago, if you had told  me I’d be back doing the thing I love to do more than anything else, I’d have laughed at you. But I’m here. I’m doing it. I’m friggin doing it!!!

You can do that too; every one of you. Tomorrow, the next day, or soon, face a fear and walk through it, all the while screaming at it with every ounce of strength you have inside. What you’ll find is that fear doesn’t exist. It never did. It’s the monster under the bed and it grows inside you if you feed it. The only way to starve fear is to deny it what it wants; your mind and your willingness to give in to it.

I will probably look at this post tomorrow and wonder what drug I was on when I wrote it. Sometimes stuff just bursts out of me like the alien in the movie, um... Alien. But I would be less than honest if I refrained from putting my truth on these pages. Some of you may think, “She should keep that stuff to herself”, but I suspect that more people than not have been held back by the same feelings which I’m going through right now. And sometimes all you need to know is that you aren’t alone or crazy in feeling the way you do about something. So, if someone reads this and it sparks them to move forward, would that just be the coolest thing in the world?

Over the next couple of months, I hope to post my progress on this endeavor from time to time, both the good and the bad. I hope you share with me some of your victories too, because sometimes it gets a little lonely around here, and I like to hear from you.

So.... onward and upward for us all! And by the way, thanks for listening. I feel better now.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza! 

           

The Weight of the World

My friend Nicole called me the other day to tell me how excited she was that the warm weather was finally coming to the East Coast.

“Oh Julia, I can’t wait! Pretty soon I’ll be lounging around on the beach, and I’m already working on my tan!” Just what I need to hear. Keep talking, Nicole, as I continue to develop my secret formula for cellulite spackle.

For me, the thought of summer sets off a continual loop of the “Jaws” sound in my head at the very idea of not having layers of clothing to cover my body with. Why only this week, I had the landscaper come in to trim the layer of winter fur from my legs and underarms. For Nicole though, it is an awakening; a time to let the world bow before her magnificence, while I silently plot to inject her with ice cream and pie as she sleeps. 

Please. She’s a size four cougar; gorgeous. Of course she’s excited. On the beach, her blonde hair flows in slow motion like a Cover Girl commercial as she sexily snaps her head around to remove it from her eyes, all while men gasp at the very sight of her. I swear that white stallions show up in herds on the beach, begging for her to ride them bareback through the pounding surf, just so they can brag to their horsy friends.

Even her perspiration streams are perfect. They form obediently down from her thorax into her cleavage and instead of it puddling up and forming huge sweat stains on her bikini top, angels come and remove it, and then I’m sure, drop it as a gentle mist upon a rainforest somewhere in the tropics. It never forms on her forehead, as it does on mine, or drip down from her temples, as it does on mine, or cover her eyeglasses so that she looks like she’s constantly crying (she has 20/20 vision of course). There is also no pasty, white gunk dripping down her sides as the result of her deodorant melting. She is perfect.

“Why don’t you come with me to the beach, Julia?” I have to hear this EVERY friggin year. And every year I have to sternly raise one eyebrow and glare menacingly at her.

“Really, Nicole? I’m supposed to go to the beach with YOU? Oh yes, there’s nothing I like better than to use up the last of my dwindling self-esteem, plop my big, fat, atrocious looking body next to yours and watch as nuns decide whether or not to give up their vow of chastity just to be with you.”

“Oh stop!” she says, waving her dainty, skinny hands at me. “You’re not that bad”.

Not that bad. No, if ever the world wakes up to the fact that taut, glistening thighs, stunningly perfect breasts and flat, fatless stomachs are no longer things considered beautiful, perhaps then, I would be able to be ranked in the category of not that bad.

Oh I know that I should be happy with the gifts that I have. I’m reasonably intelligent, have a pretty good sense of humor and ...oh shit, who am I kidding? I’d give those things up in a heartbeat to be a mindless, gorgeous automaton. Where Nicole worries about what type of sunscreen is best for her, I am seriously contemplating using any of the twenty or so miracle cures for “ugly back fat” that find their way into my spam folder each week. Where she contemplates a tasteful tattoo of a dolphin or some friggin Chinese characters extolling the beauty of life, I am researching the death statistics from lapband surgery. 

True, she works out five days a week, and walks several miles a day, while I practice the ancient art of Nah-ping one hour a day. Yes, her entire diet consists of nuts, berries, and skinless chicken, while my dietary choices usually come down to trying to decide if a cinnamon donut has fewer calories than the powdered sugar kind. The results of this study, by the way, are not conclusive; more extensive research is needed.

Yeah, I know that like government, when it comes to our dietary choices, we all get the body we deserve; you are what you eat, blah blah blah. But what about genetics? I’m sure if you put her DNA under a microscope against some of mine, Nicole’s would be just as slim and perky as she is, while mine would be lounging on the sofa eating a bowl of Bosco-topped ice cream

Okay, let’s say that I perhaps could adjust my eating habits. What would be the benefits?

Sure, I would be able to buy clothes in the regular sizes departments of stores and not have go straight to the plus sizes, where everything looks like it was designed by Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show.

While we’re on the subject of women’s clothing, can someone tell me why when big, fat guys have to shop for clothes, they get stores with dignified names like He Man, Big and Tall Stores, and we get places called the Dress Barn? Really, a barn? What are we, cattle?

“Alright Tex, round those pretty little heifers up and put em’ in the barn! Yeah Curly, kick that fat one in the ass and shove her into one of the dressing stalls. Oooooo-wee, she’s a biggun, ain’t she? ”

Yes, it would be nice to go to the beach and not have to make the walk of shame from my blanket to the water, and then have to stay in the water for five hours until after sundown when everyone has gone home in order to avoid a repeat performance.

Now some of you might be reading and yelling at your computer screen, why do you care what they think, Julia? And to you I say thank you, but I think the fact that you are yelling at your computer screen indicates deeper psychological problems than mine. You really should seek therapy. Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment and it is a question that I have asked myself repeatedly over the years. Trust me when I say that nothing would give me more pleasure than to proudly waddle down to the beach in all my adipose glory, jiggling and bouncing my flab in front of the lean, zero body fat, perfectly tanned gods and goddesses that populate the Jersey shore. I would love to offend them and wish that I could revel in their choice little comments such as “how can she do that” or “someone should speak to her” or “she’s frightening the children”, but I can’t; because somewhere not so deep down inside, I am ashamed of how I look and I know that they are right. I should take better care of myself. The question is why don’t I?

Being fat for one’s entire life is like being chased through the jungle by a starving tiger. You want more than anything to survive and will run at top speed for as long as you can. But at some point, you are just not going to be able to outrun the tiger and sooner or later you will become desperately exhausted. Once you reach that moment you are almost grateful that she’s going to eat you because you don’t have to fight the threat any longer. I think I am at that point.

Being overweight has been an issue for me since childhood. I’m sure it has contributed to my becoming a stand-up comic, because as we all know, stand ups are in desperate need of acceptance. The stage is the one place in all the world where we can be ourselves, and despite the difficulties we face in the real world, can function in a socially acceptable way.

Being a comedian also brings instant gratification, which is the same thing food does for us. Whatever is lacking in our psychological library, we find onstage. And unfortunately for us (fortunate for the audience), the more screwed up we are, the funnier we tend to be. And one can either fight the tiger or embrace her; in that ‘death’ of submission to the world as it is, there is rebirth and freedom.

I guess what I’m saying is that we need to learn to love ourselves despite all of our imagined shortcomings. Some of us are deigned to be like Nicole, while others are destined for other things. We all have gifts, you know? And just because some magazine or TV show wants us to believe that physical perfection is the key to Nirvana, we don’t have to buy into that. If you work at developing a good body, do it for yourself, not for others. If you are of an intellectual bent and really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about being buff, fine. Follow your bliss and your heart, and internal peace will unfold in your life. Just embrace the tiger.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a powdered sugar donut waiting for me in my research lab.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

   

You Got Spunk? They Hate Spunk.

Who can turn the world on with a smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? President Obama, that’s who!

Unless you’ve been under a rock all week, you probably know by now that on Wednesday, my President came out in favor of same-sex marriage, exactly one day after North Carolina voted to amend their constitution which now defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

WAY TO STICK IT TO EM’, MR. PRESIDENT! These right wing crazies need to understand that they are in the minority and that America is a country that embraces diversity. What’s more, you’ve shown everyone a lesson on tolerance and acceptance and...wait, wait...something’s wrong here.

Who am I to be reveling in the refreshing candor of a politician who is obviously using this as a campaign ploy designed to pander to one-tenth of the population of the country? Why, If I want to rub North Carolina’s face  with the gooey icing of my patented cream cheese frosting that sits proudly atop my freshly baked victory carrot cake, wouldn’t that make me a lowly, jealous and angry slug of a human being? I mean, if I did the happy dance over taking away someone’s right to take away someone’s right, am I not reducing myself to their level of inhumanity?

Well, hell yeah I am. But who cares? For the first time in the history of this country, the person at the very top of the political food chain has stood with us on this issue. And so to the people of North Carolina I proudly say, suck it!

If ever Americans needed a clear line of demarcation between the strength and character of this President and Mitt Romney, this was it.  With those few sentences, my President proved once again that he is a man of character and conviction who is not afraid to stand up for what is right and just.

Of course, I would be more than remiss if I did not acknowledge his point man, Vice-President Joe Biden, who opened the door for my President on last Sunday’s Meet the Press by acknowledging that he too supported same-sex marriage.

At first I thought this was just another one of those embarrassing Uncle Joe ‘oops’ moments. But three days later, when the President was coming out, I realized that Uncle Joe is as crafty as a fox; a silver fox. This move had all the precision planning of the Bin-Laden hit, minus Seal Team Six.

Romney naturally, was speechless and released a somewhat limp response and reiterated his continued support of hetero marriage only. This has been his position from the get-go and maybe the only one he hasn’t flip-flopped on since he began running five years ago. I’m not surprised though considering that it was the Mormon Church’s influence that overturned Prop 8 in California. It’s strange that this would come from them considering their relatively recent abandonment of polygamy.

Both of these endorsements (Obama and Biden) mean nothing of course, and yet they mean everything. To the people of North Carolina who want to believe that we are going to go back in the closet and return America to a white-dominated patriarchy, this was a big, giant thumb-nosing. To the millions of GLBT people who want nothing more than to have first-class citizenship, this was a major step forward to that end; for no sitting U.S. President has ever done what my President did last Wednesday. And while it doesn’t change what happened in North Carolina, it does present a clear choice to Americans in November. Will they choose the man who supports the views of the far right on retro-fitting vaginas to suit some delusional pre-World War II view of women, who had to be shamed into allowing interracial marriage, who even now have the chutzpa to inject religious views into what is clearly a civil issue? Will they choose to elect a man who flip flops more than an Aunt Jemima pancake on a hot griddle, but whose religion is surprisingly lily-white and would deny America’s Aunt and beloved icon membership to same? And finally, will they elect a man who clearly is so out of touch with the mainstream that he believes corporations are people?

Barack Obama is not perfect to be sure. But I believe with all my heart that this man has the best interests of the American people at the top of his agenda. From his handling of the automobile crisis to the banking situation, to gay rights, he has stood his ground and done the right thing against almost insurmountable odds.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, we are at a turning point in this country. There is a dangerous movement afoot by the extreme right to undo the very roots of our Constitution and put in its place a quasi-theocracy, which can only turn into tyranny. But this is not about religion; this fight is about a white patriarchy being forced to turn over the reins of power to the very groups they have so successfully oppressed for the last 200+ years. They are so fearful of becoming a minority that church pastors are now commanding their flocks to procreate in an effort to stem the tide. It’s really kind of sick.

As a case in point let’s take a look at Shaun Winkler.

  See Shaun. Shaun is running for Sheriff of Bonner County in Idaho. Shaun has lots of friends in the Ku Klux Klan. Shaun likes his friends so much that he became an Imperial Wizard.

Spot, the dog, is afraid of Shaun. So is Puff the cat.

Shaun likes fire and religion. He likes it so much that recently he invited the media to watch him burn a cross to show how much he cares. Remember, Shaun is running for Sheriff.

“We look at it more as a religious symbol”, said Shaun to his media friends. “Mainstream society looks at cross lighting as a symbol of hate, but it predates the Klan by hundreds of years”.  Shaun is correct. Emperors of ancient Rome used them to hang early Christians on and then set them on fire to provide light for their parties.

Shaun has a kinder, gentler side though. “Most people don’t know that we don’t just oppose the Jews and Negroes. We also oppose sexual predators and drugs of any kind,”

said the wizard. While he doesn’t condone the use of using humans as torches, he believes that immediate hanging is an acceptable form of punishment for drug dealers and those convicted of being sexual predators. Spot and Puff think Shaun is insane because he says that his personal beliefs won’t guide the way he would act as sheriff. Both Spot and Puff and Dick and Jane laughed until they peed themselves when he said this.

They won’t be laughing if he gets elected.

Whether you want to believe that this polarization of America is racial or not, I can’t help but believe that the vitriol I’ve seen directed at my President would not have happened if he were white. Sure the Republicans and Democrats would have bickered over issues, but that is the nature of a two party system. But this is a struggle for power to control the future of this country. And if you don’t believe that, take a good look at what Mitch McConnell said almost immediately after President Obama took office.

"The single most important thing is for Obama to be a one-term president"

That’s their goal. Not jobs, not economic growth. Their goal is to restore America to a lily-white power base and to legislate the rights of all Americans to conform to a twisted view of what they believe America should be. And you, as an American, ought to be outraged that you are being used for that purpose.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

You've got to be taught.

The other night I was watching the movie Going My Way, which stars Bing Crosby as the hip, piano playing priest, Father Charles O’Malley. There he was, taking his ghetto kids to baseball games, pulling them off the street and forming an all-boys choir, all while saving an ailing St. Dominic’s parish from foreclosure by simply stalling the banker who held the mortgage until he could produce a hit record to pay it off. And when a fire destroys the church shortly before Christmas, Father O was not dismayed. He simply erected a makeshift chapel. His indomitable spirit was an inspiration to everyone in the movie. In the end, he is called away to rescue yet another ailing parish and leaves quietly and humbly during the Christmas Eve ceremony, but not until he sees the reunion of elderly Father Fitzgibbon and his mother, who have been separated for forty years. Every time I watch it, I think to myself, wouldn’t it be nice if that’s the way life really was?

Meanwhile, back in reality, there is Sean Harris, pastor of the Barean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, who, in last Sunday’s sermon, told his congregation that effeminate boys should be punched by their fathers and sent outside to dig ditches to make them more manly. He also suggested that if boys show signs of “limp wristedness” fathers should “Crack that wrist”. In other words, beat your kid straight.

Harris had some good, Christ-like advice for female children too. For them, he suggested that while it was alright for girls to play sports as long as they did it for the glory of God (Jesus apparently loved field hockey), girls should “girl up” afterwards and wear dresses, be pretty like a girl and “smell” like a girl, whatever that means. I’m sure he has done extensive research into how girls should smell or he wouldn’t have made such an idiotic statement, although I’m not really sure why girl-smell is important to Sean Harris when it comes to salvation. To the best of my knowledge, even though there was a seemingly wayward girl in Going My Way, Father O’Malley never smelled her in an effort to put her on the right path in life.

The impetus behind Harris’ zealous tirade was that this week, North Carolinians are voting on a bill, which if passed, would alter their state constitution and define marriage as between one man and one woman . His goal was to rile up the faithful, grab a voter registration card on the way out of the church, and register that day so they will never again have to worry about homosexuals coming in and defiling the sanctity of marriage. For that you can read the life and times of John Edwards or New Gingrich.

Ostensibly, Harris’ did the old chestnuts in his sermon; gays are an abomination, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, how God designed you to be a man or a woman and to question or alter gender was a horrible thing, etc. But I went and listened to the entire sermon, all 55 fire and brimstone minutes of it; I strongly urge that you do the same. And while the anti-gay rhetoric was as usual, repugnant, there was another overt message that was even more stunning to me; at one point, he began urging his congregants to begin cranking out babies because the Muslims were beating the Christians in that race. He actually fears that Muslims will take over the world with their sheer numbers! So his argument wasn’t so much that gay folk can’t be good parents, it’s that man on man sex can’t result in reproduction. Talk about social engineering!

Of course, Sean didn’t really spend too much time on lesbians and I suspect that was for two reasons. First, his view of how society should be structured is blatantly patriarchal. Women need to be pretty and attractive and barefoot and pregnant.  Secondly, women can reproduce, but only by a man. He doesn’t think much of artificial insemination or two moms. No, there must be a man present in the child’s life because who else is going to dole out the punches? No comment from him on those straight couples that need it to have a baby.

Sean was emphatic that everyone needs to be married and cranking out kids. He was also pretty bellicose in pushing his belief that there was no reason for divorce. “Work it out!” he screamed. Tell that to the woman whose getting beat up on a daily basis by her man or whose kids are being abused by the same.

I could go on and on about Sean Harris’ ‘sermon’, but let me wrap it up here. After it went viral on YouTube, he recanted his call to beat and punch effeminate male children on Michelangelo Signorile’s Sirius Radio talk show.

“I had no idea the video would be chopped and posted in the blogosphere in such a manner in which the entirety isn’t understood”, he said. Again, I reiterate; go to the Barean Baptist Church website and listen for yourself. I think the context is quite clear. And that brings me to the second part of this entry, which deals with the results of Sean Harris’ Godly advice.

On June 4, 2012, CeCe McDonald, a black, transgendered woman will be sentenced to three years and five months in prison for the death of Dean Schmitz, a white man, reports the Huffington Post.

Mr. Schmitz was apparently doing the work of the Lord on June 5 of last year when Ms. McDonald, who was transitioning at the time, had the audacity to walk past the bar in Minneapolis where Mr. Schmitz and some other patrons attempted to “masculinize” her by throwing a glass at her face, taunting her and her friends with epithets such as “faggots,”  “niggers” and “chicks with dicks”. Feeling threatened by Schmitz and company, Ms. McDonald defended herself and stabbed Mr. Schmitz to death.

What’s tragic about this story is that one man is dead, and a woman who by all accounts was just in the wrong place at the wrong time is now going to jail, all because of the type of hate that many churches all across America are disseminating through their congregations. And that, “Pastor” Harris, is what your kind of preaching does. Issuing a retraction may be good for covering your ass from lawsuits and DYFS investigations, but I’m guessing that you and your kind put out hate-filled speech like this regularly. The shame of it is that you do it in the name of Jesus.

So, we’ve gone from Father O’Malley’s loving care to the dirt of Sean Harris’ plan for ‘social cleansing’ in just a few short paragraphs. And since I love movies so much, I’d like to leave you with some lyrics from South Pacific.  I can’t think of a better way to address the Sean Harrises of this world.

You’ve got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You’ve got to be taught

From year to year,

It’s got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made

And people whose skin is a different shade

You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to b e taught before it’s too late

Before you are six or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

That’s it. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

You've got to be taught.

Crazy-10, Darwin-0

Ya know, sometimes I’m glad I’m on the downside of my lifecycle because lately it seems like the whole world done gone plum loco!

Okay, maybe I don’t mean the entire world. There are some sane and rational places left, and as soon as I figure where they are, I’ll be happy to clue you in. But I can tell you for sure that Tennessee and couple of other places aren’t on that list.

The Tennessee legislature never ceases to amaze me when it comes to choosing to spend its time (and the public’s money) dwelling on issues that will do nothing to solve the 8% unemployment there or their dismal educational rankings among the nation’s schools. Instead, they seem to spend an inordinate (and if you ask me, downright creepy) amount of time focusing on the sexual and gender mores of its citizenry. It’s as if the entire governing body is made up of the John Lithgow minister character in the movie Footloose.

This state, which forces an abstinence-only curriculum on their schools, ironically ranks in the top ten states when it comes to teenage pregnancies, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that when you tell hormone driven teens not to do something that feels that good, they are bound to listen. 

I’ve written about these folks in past blogs, and particularly the one entitled Let My People Pee, in which they tried to pass a law prohibiting transgendered folk from using the public facilities of their new gender. In that case, they wanted to station guards outside public bathrooms to prevent bodily waste from accidentally co-mingling with that of the other gender, and thus spawning a new Sodom and/or Gomorrah.

The latest adventure of this august legislative body (am I allowed to say body without inducing spontaneous orgies in Tennesseans?) is to ban hand-holding in their schools because it is, get ready for it, a “gateway sexual activity”. It makes me wonder what is going on in their public schools. Are students so horny that they break out in to spontaneous intercourse on their way to creationist biology class? It seems to me that if they really want to ban such urges to merge, they ought to also pass a law against serving apples at lunch, since that’s what caused Adam and Eve’s downfall. That makes about the same amount of sense as banning hand holding.

Now, you would think that something as crazy as this would pass with only the thinnest of voting margins wouldn’t you? In fact the Tennessee Senate passed it by a vote of 28-1, with the lone, sensible dissent coming from Sen. Beverly Marrero, who said

"All of us realize that abstinence is the absolutely only way to prevent any kind of sexually transmitted disease." But teens contending with raging hormones need honest information, not unrealistic nonsense about how hand-holding leads to getting knocked up. And really, with a Sex Ed program like this, it's a shock that Tennessee ranks in the top 10 for number of pregnant teenagers, isn't it?"

Guess who will be eating lunch alone in the Tennessee Legislature’s lunchroom from now on?

Why stop there though? If hand holding is a gateway sexual activity, what happens when you combine it with alcohol?  It’s crystal clear to me that the Tennessee legislature should convene in emergency session and pass legislation banning such bar drinks as the Mountain Dew Me, the Slippery Bald Beaver, the Bend over Shirley, the Butt Sex, the Suck, Bang and Blow, Sex on my Face, Sex on the Beach, and finally, The Blow Job. But then again, what would the male members of the Legislature have to titter lasciviously about in the bars after all their hard work a-legislatin all day if not for these drinks?

 It’s interesting to note too that all of these drinks are female oriented and not particularly complimentary to women. Perhaps these good ole boys should teach their men folk a little bit more in the way of respecting women and not assume that just because they hold hands with them, that it is the gateway to sex.

Abstinence, along with gender preference and sexual identity is a personal choice, not a legislative one, and the Tennessee legislature needs to get their collective libidos in check, get some therapy, and get back to the business of rescuing their state. Tennessee is, after all, the Volunteer State, and abstinence et al should fall into that category, not the “do it or you’ll be fined, fired or imprisoned” one.

As crazy as Tennessee is, it seems to be getting a run for its money by Arizona. Apparently the 110 degree ‘dry heat’ seems to be getting the better of them, because in the last couple of years they have passed laws that among other things, allows you to bring a loaded, concealed weapon into a bar, forbids welfare recipients from having the “niceties” of life such as cable television or a car, repealed KidsCare, a health plan for poor children, and an immigration law which allows the police to demand “papers” from anyone they suspect might be an illegal immigrant (Colonel Klink for Governor!). Oh yes, they also have a law that demands presidential candidates provide birth certificates if they are to run for President of the United States in Arizona. Hmmm... I wonder what made them come up with that one.

But the one that takes the cake, at least in the United States, is a newly signed law by Governor Jan Brewer (female) that has determined, through exhaustive research I’m sure, that life now begins before conception.

Well of course it does Arizona! Everyone knows that. And unicorns live in New Jersey, along with stepping on a crack being the leading cause of breaking your mother’s back.

What the hell is going on here?

What’s going on is that is that there is a patriarchal cabal taking place in our country. This is a concerted, unified effort by ultra-right wing to keep the power to achieve real social change away from women and every other social and ethnic minority. The ole boys who have managed to keep us all in check for a good long time are losing their grip on directing the show and they know it. And so the only way they can effectively keep women barefoot and pregnant is to effectively take away control of their bodies. And shame on Jan Brewer for being a traitor to her own gender for the sake of some stupid governorship and for being a toady to the machine which funds her campaigns.

But I’ve saved the best for last.

Al Arabiya News has reported that in Egypt, the majority Islamist Parliament has drafted a law entitled the Farewell Intercourse Law, which would entitle the husband of the deceased woman to have sex with the corpse for up to six hours after the death. Why six hours? I don’t know, but can only surmise that even Islamist extremists have an “icky” rule when it comes to necrophilia.

To be fair and balanced, Moroccan ‘cleric’ Zamzami Abdul Bari, claimed that the woman should be afforded the same “privilege” with her dead husband. Well, thank goodness for that. What a progressive society!  Can Tennessee and Arizona be far behind?

The truth is, as crazy as we Americans view the habits of those fundamentalist religious radicals “over there”, we have an ample supply of them here as well. All have as primary goals suppression of free will and thought. All achieve their goals through oppression and elimination of expression in the name of God or Allah. All are self-anointed power hungry bullies who use intimidation, fear, and severe consequences to enforce their power. The only difference, however, between what happens ‘over there’ versus ‘here’ is that our crazies cloak their insanity under the guise of democracy.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!   

Thank God I'm a Heathen.

When I was seventeen years old, I was the smartest human being to ever grace the planet. Oh, there was nothing left to learn I believed, because I had been born with an innate knowledge of everything. I was particularly unreceptive to anyone older, wiser, or more experienced in the ways of the world. As a result of my youthful idiocy, I also became one of the most stubborn individuals on earth. Why else would my first car have been a ten year old, 1960 Rambler American, which refused to ever start and whose new car smell was ‘mildew’? Yes, I had been warned repeatedly against buying it by mechanics and friends. But their criticisms of the wisdom in throwing one hundred hard-earned summer job dollars down the drain fell on deaf ears. I was firmly convinced that I knew better, and that the car was not only salvageable, but that with just a couple of  dollars worth of parts, I would soon be tooling around town in it and thumbing my nose at the naysayers who doubted my genius in getting such a bargain. Through sheer stubbornness and hubris, I maintained this position right up until I paid the towing guy thirty-five dollars more to haul it to the junkyard, which I assume is where it rests until this day.    

 

You see, the inherent and inevitable down side to being stubborn is that unless you are correct in your opinions 100% of the time (an impossibility, I’ve since learned), hubris, the root of stubbornness, prevents you from redacting previous opinions without losing face. If you are a sensible, mature, thinking human, you will learn to be open to new ideas, weigh their validity, and eventually make an informed decision based on data, rather than emotion. For the chronically stubborn however, logic and common sense has no place in your decision making process; maintaining power and position is all that matters.  

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as though being a leader of an organized religion these days requires a Doctorate in stubbornness. Let’s take a look at a recent brouhaha instigated by Pope Benedict XVI, over some recent statements made by, of all people, (gasp) nuns, the second-class citizens of the Catholic Church.

A recent New York Times article (4-18-12) by Laurie Goodstein, with the headline, The Vatican Reprimands a group of US nuns and plans changes opened with the following:

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest

and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying

that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems”.

Wow. That’s pretty serious stuff. You have to get a little jittery when a pope uses words like “rein in”, “investigation” and “serious doctrinal problems”. Can you say Inquisition? Gee, I wonder what crime these nuns gone wild are guilty of? Could it be Heresy? Blasphemy? Gluttony? You know how much nuns love angel food cake!

According to the article, the members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, dared to question church teaching on male-only priesthood and homosexuality. What’s more, the Vatican added insult to injury by accusing the rogue nuns of promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith”. And as if those ‘crimes’ weren’t worth at least two hours on the rack, these sinning sisters of God were chastised for “focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping silent on abortion and same-sex marriage” according to Ms. Goodstein’s article.

I have to interject something here. When this article was brought to my attention by a friend, I found quite difficult to believe it was genuine and not the product of The Onion, a satirical and brilliant online magazine, or one of its many imitators. But then I began to recollect my own years of being associated with the Catholic Church and all doubt slipped away.

As a product of the pre-Ecumenical Council Catholicism, I still bear the scars and guilt of many of its ‘teachings’. Among those lessons was that of the infallibility of the Pope. I was taught that because he was the authorized representative of God on earth and leader of one true holy and apostolic Church. He was by virtue of his election by fallible men, now infallible. As a child, this made no sense to me. It makes even less as an adult. What is to stop anyone from declaring themselves infallible and then legitimizing such a claim with threats or reprisal? That being said, if the Pope is infallible, and his directives are correct 100% of the time, why then is this Church so flawed? Well, the answer is sort of a Catch 22. If you accept that the Pope is infallible, then you also must accept all that he says as gospel. Thus, these nuns are way out of line and in direct violation of the Church’s doctrines. If however you find that the idea of a human being infallible somewhat discomforting (as many Catholics do), then you open the Church’s teachings up to scrutiny and criticism, two things it has always been able to suppress in the past through ostracism, violence and torture.

Having spent the first twelve years of my life deeply immersed in the Catholic faith, I can tell you that in general, nuns are pretty cool people. They live austere lives for the most part, do all the grunt work and get none of the perks that the priests do. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the patriarchal arrangement that the men in the Catholic Church have set up for themselves to see why they balk at allowing women to become priests. Why what would happen if women were suddenly allowed to be equal?  They might become bishops or worse-Pope.

As for challenging the Church’s view on homosexuality, it’s about time someone did. With all the disgraceful behavior of some of its priests coming to the foreground after years of cover-up, maybe it’s finally time to admit that voluntary celibacy is an impossible myth to live up to. Maybe it’s also time to put aside the idea that sex, straight or gay, is something shameful and sinful and allow these religious folk, who want nothing more than to spread love and charity in their communities to simply be allowed to do so. And maybe then, the Catholic Church will start to see its ranks begin to grow again instead of exponentially shrinking as it is now.

How can someone who claims to be infallible even entertain the idea that those who purport to be Jesus’ messengers spend too much of their time on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping ‘silent’ on abortion and same-sex marriage? It just boggles my mind.

Perhaps a little radical feminism is needed in Catholicism. Surely it couldn’t hurt. One needs to only look around and see that there are female ministers and rabbis doing God’s work all over the world. The Bible itself is rife with strong, proactive women championing its cause. Joan of Arc led an army and was executed in a most unpleasant way in the name of the Catholic Church. Bernadette was chosen to have beatific visions and Mother Teresa changed the world with her simple message of love for the poor. Why doesn’t the Vatican get it then? The only answer I can come up with is that of stubbornness based on hubris. And the last time I was in a church, Pride was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

But the Vatican won’t yield to change now because to do so would be admit that it was wrong. And so it will continue to see its congregations and its clergy members diminish over time. It will not listen to the opinions of those more connected to the real world than they. And eventually, it will, like my old Rambler, wind up in the junkyard of religions with a place in history alongside the others who have disappeared.

There is a place for religion in the world, I believe. For all of its flaws and contradictions, the idea of it is one that binds most us morally. Even Karl Marx could see the value of it. His quote, “Religion is the opium of the people” has been battered a bit because it is taken out of context. Here is the actual piece, and it is worth reading.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

For religion to work, truly work, it must resolve to make heaven on earth, not beyond it. It must put aside its haughtiness and hypocrisy and acknowledge its humanity. If it believes that we are children of God, made in God’s image, then we are all equal and fallible. To use the idea of God and a distress-free afterlife as a means out of one’s earthly distress is the true abomination. The problems of the world don’t come from gays marrying someone they love or abortion or radical feminism. Those are being used as targets to control people. Freedom to think and challenge conventions are the answer, not repression and ‘investigations’ of those who dare to speak up. Jesus’ teachings or any of those of the world’s religions aren’t based on fear, they are based in love.

I truly hope that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious stands its ground and doesn’t succumb to the Vatican’s bullying. Prove Marx wrong and make us all believers that this is not a heartless or spiritless world. Claim your right to question and better those things in which you believe and others of like mind will find you.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

Resolve, Re-solve.

Well, I’m a little overdue, but I’ve finally made my New Year’s resolutions! Yes, I know that it’s nearly May, and believe me, I WILL NOT PROCRASTINATE is right at the very top of my list, but I take this stuff seriously and feel that it is worthy of nearly 5 months deliberation.

Okay, I lied. Procrastination is the ONLY thing on my list of resolutions. Actually, there really isn’t really a list per se, since I never got around to making one. There’s just this nagging feeling that no matter what I think about doing, somehow it will never manifest itself into word or deed.

There is a saying that reads, “Procrastination is the thief of our tomorrows”. If that is true, I should have died in 1986 because I can find a reason to put off anything.

Take writing, for instance. In 2002 I started a book about my experiences growing up around mental illness and alcoholism. By all accounts of those who read it, it was a pretty good book. I received lots of emotional support and people were asking almost weekly, “Hey, how’s the book coming along?” Of course I’d respond, “Great! It will be finished in about a year.” Of course I didn’t say which year, and the damned thing is still sitting in a file cabinet drawer with the other two books I’ve started and never finished.

And then there’s this blog, which is probably the only successful thing I’ve ever written. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put off writing it, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t wannnnnnaaa.

Well see, now that’s an interesting, insightful glimpse into the workings of my psyche that I’ve never noticed before. The adult in me wants to write constantly, simply because I love watching these things come together. It’s like figuring out who the killer is in a mystery novel, you know? And then of course there is the sense of accomplishment in seeing how many folks actually read the thing. So, that’s a positive, I guess.

But then there’s this little kid inside me-this miserable, rebellious, snotty child who resents any kind of authority. And when she feels the pressure of others to produce something, she says “fuck you, no one is going to tell me what to do”, and moves on to something else. The kid logic of course is of the I’ll show them variety; but of course I’ve only ended up hurting myself over and over again by running away.

It happened in comedy too. The minute I got successful, I got a writer’s block that rivaled the Berlin Wall in size. It got so bad that I had to run away yet again. True, the transgender part of it was an obstacle, but the truth is I could have gotten back much earlier than I did. I ran away for one reason only; I was afraid of being successful. And I’ve done it with every job, and every relationship that I have ever had.

What makes it so aggravating is that I know what the problem is. I know that I possess the innate ability to be successful, or to lose weight, or to love someone and accept their love in return. The adult in me understands it. But it’s that damned kid who can’t quite get it. And as foolish as that statement looks to me on the screen as an adult, the kid locks herself away from people time after time in order not to be hurt again. It’s a never-ending battle between ‘adult’ me and ‘The Kid’ me.

Now before you all start thinking, well, she just suffers from depression, let me stop you. I know that already. Yes it is depression and about a half dozen other things. Sometimes it’s worse than others and sometimes it is entirely manageable. Sometimes I can catch it before it goes blooey and  head it off at the pass. But it always begins as it is now; with the gnawing dissatisfaction with the way things are and an intense desire to just wish the pain away.

The truth is, I’m just afraid. The fear inside me is getting so bad, that lately, instead of procrastinating forever, I am beginning to just sever things rather than waiting to see how they work out. So, in one way, I am dealing with the procrastination issue, albeit in a negative way.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just that in old age I am realizing that I no long have the luxury of time to work through the fear. Even at this late stage in life, when success seems just within my reach, I will walk away in failure rather than face success and the problems that brings. Like an old boxer who should just stay down and take the count, I keep getting up and fighting some more in the hope that maybe this time it will be different; but it hasn’t up till this point.

Usually the pattern of defeat goes like this. I get charged up about something and plunge into it totally unprepared. It’s like getting on the famous Atlantic City Diving Horse without any training and expecting a smooth plunge with nary a ripple. And when that doesn’t happen, when I break something emotionally and don’t have that immediate success, my fears begin to take root. Sooner rather than later, I always seem to find a reason to sabotage it. And more often than not, I seem to take down the good people who believed in me as well. There is an abrogation of their trust which only serves to justify this sense of not feeling worthy of anything remotely joyous.    

See, now there’s another insight! Failure has always been a comfort for me. By laying low and staying under the radar, it was impossible for people to see me. But to succeed at anything would have meant facing people’s criticisms of my work or love.

I wonder how many people find this state of mind to be as debilitating as I do.

I’m feeling the cycle begin again, which is probably what prompted me write this. Believe me; I had originally intended this piece to be a humorous at worst and funny if possible. Sometimes though, you just have to let the fingers on the keyboard go where they want, and hope for the best. That’s the part I love about the creative process. The downside to spontaneous writing is of course this; what if you, the reader just gets fed up with my whining about childhood and fear, creative paralysis and just go watch Dancing with the Stars instead? What if all you want to read is the funny stuff and I can’t produce it today? It’s a bit manic I know, but such is the bane of the writer.

The answer to the question for whom am I writing, goes way back to the very beginning of this blog. Back in December I vowed that for once I would write for my pleasure and not my potential readers’. My hope, of course, was that you would join me and connect, and you certainly have done that beyond any expectations I had. For that I thank you. But honesty must prevail here, above all things or there is no point in writing at all. Writing for the pleasure one gets in the approval of others is just mental masturbation. And when the audience leaves, so does the pleasure. I think it is far more fulfilling for me as a writer to explore and report the reasons we do things. In the long run, it will benefit my writing and thus make future essays perhaps a bit more interesting, don’t you think?

Moving right along though, there are dozens of other resolutions I’ve made over the years that have been overturned by The Kid’s oppositional defiance, such as becoming a comedian instead of 9 to 5ing it for my entire life. Of all the things I’ve attempted and been moderately successful at, stand-up is the one that has filled gaping voids in my heart and given me great joy as well as its inverse.

Hey, an interesting thing just happened between paragraphs. I just got a phone call from a comedian friend of mine and in the course of a three minute conversation; he brought up the subject of his phobias and fears... totally unsolicited from me! How weird is that?

I guess we all have bugaboos that jump out of the darkness in disguise and try to scare us. It makes you wonder how most of us get through the day sometimes.

Maybe resolutions aren’t the way to go after all. To resolve is such an adult word and it carries the connotation of consequences for not following through on it. Besides, most of those resolutions fall by the wayside after a very short time anyway. I want something that’s going to last.

 Perhaps what I need to do is parent myself a little- you know, try to coax The Kid into growing up. I know that the rule book of life that I’ve been using is the same one I used to protect myself from the crazy that I experienced so long ago, so maybe it’s time to institute some new rules

And so what if I don’t fix myself totally? Trying to do that would be an endless task, because I would always find something new to work on. No, maybe the best thing is to just let it all unfold, not fight it and most of all not fear it. Success doesn’t have to be monetary; that isn’t it. Success, for me at least, is in seeing something through to the end, regardless of how it ends. Some stuff will work out the way I had hoped, and some won’t. But I will never know how it ends if I just walk away from it.

Okay, there’s my resolution for 2012; think stuff through and be sure you want to attempt it. And once you attempt it, don’t give up on it. Yeah, that’s one I can live with.

Tonight’s essay was necessary; for me and maybe for you too. That is my hope. Now I have to go write a comedy sketch for my Wednesday night Show, Julia Scotti’s Comedy Test Kitchen. I wonder how it will end.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

  

   

Are You lookin at ME?

I’m a big fan of paranoia, and I would be a lot more vocal about it if I weren’t afraid of being hauled off the street and thrown into a black van by burly thugs as I walked leisurely to Mr. Gower’s drug store for a sasparilla. 

I say this because paranoia has run in my family for generations and we’ve grown comfortable with it. True, I can’t sit with my back to a window because at age six my mother had me convinced that an errant bullet would come crashing through the window and cause my untimely death, but I’m okay with that. And you may not believe this but about twelve years ago, a bullet actually DID come through my window and nearly killed me. And no, it wasn’t my mother sitting in a sniper’s nest outside, trying to teach me a lesson.

The first time I realized just how paranoid I was occurred on November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was shot. I remember lying in bed that night fearful, teary and certain that Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone, and the person who had really shot the President was not only still on the loose, but climbing up the side of my building with the sole intention of hiding out in my second floor bedroom.

Even now it creeps up behind me occasionally and taps me on the shoulder just to let me know it’s still around. Today for instance, I was checking the stats on this blog and saw that one person from Italy had read it. Right away I’m thinking, Jeez, I hope it wasn’t the Pope reading my Easter essay. He might be really pissed, send a cadre of secret Swiss Army guys to kidnap me, and take me back to Rome for a little “renouncement” of my heathen ways, if you know what I mean.  

Of course that is more than a bit egotistical, even for me. I doubt that the Pope reads this blog, right? I mean he has a lot more on his plate and is so backed up with work. Look how long it took him to forgive Galileo. Still, someone in Italy read it, so why not him? Naw...couldn’t be.

The good news about embracing and assimilating paranoia into my DNA is that finally ... FINALLY, the entire country is catching up with me. That means either three hundred and some odd million people are mentally ill, or I am a visionary!

Think about it. As a people we are convinced there is danger EVERYWHERE. Just look at any news source on a daily basis and you can see it. Here’s a partial list of just how paranoid we’ve become. For example, we live in dread fear of

1. Global warming

2. Homosexuals

3. Mexicans

4. Mexican homosexuals

5, Any Middle Eastern country that starts with the letter “I” or ends with “stan”

6. The Chinese

7. Guns

8. Conservatives

9. Liberals

10. Mexican Homosexual Liberals and Conservatives

11 The Government

12. Anyone who is religious

13. Mexican Homosexual Liberal Religious Conservative Atheists         

14. Fracking

15. The economy

16. The Mayans

17. The Muslims

18. The Mormons

19. The Mennonites

20. The Methodists

By the way, no one is really afraid of Mennonites or Methodists. I just went overboard on alliteration. The Mormons however, are a crafty bunch, and if you’re gay, try to stay on their good side. 

Things got so paranoid here in America that for a while, even breast milk was under suspicion for containing dangerous toxins. BREAST MILK for God’s sake! Next it’ll be exploding suicide puppies or terrorist cats connected with an international ring of felines know as Al-Cat-A

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

-          For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield, 1966

You were soooooooo right Buffalo Springfield. Paranoia does indeed strike deep. So much so, that over the last three to four generations we have become a frozen nation who are afraid to step out of the box  for fear that we might be labeled as a dangerous non-conformist. The onslaught of information that overloads us constantly is gnawing away at our individuality. We are gradually learning to march in lockstep with groups rather than skipping along merrily to our own tune.  And why? Because more and more, we are being told to fear this or hate that, or that this group is planning to hurt us, while the other group cries out and says the same things.

We’ve got to stop believing everything that a few people tell us, folks. Stop believing the news, the politicians, or the radio station that tells you what music you should like or dislike. Stop believing the Facebook crazies, the bloggers, including me, and start thinking for yourself. Read a book. Think. Form an opinion and stick with it based on what you know, not what people scream at you from a box in your living room.

I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that all of this was some genius, Machiavellian plot to reconstruct society into a kowtowing group of sheep.  Of course, I can say   that because I’ve already admitted to being generationally imbued with paranoia. But you don’t have to. You can still think for yourself, can’t you?

Don’t be afraid to challenge convention. Today, right now, and from this day on, THINK before it’s too late. Or you may wake up one day and hear yourself say,

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
everybody look what's going down

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

It isn't finished.

I think I need therapy. This morning, as I indulged in the orgasmic daily experience that is my morning coffee (black with 1 Splenda) I flipped on the television to find the movie musical Godspell running. After five minutes of watching, I turned to Katy, my replacement cat, and said, “These people are stoned and this is a stupid movie”, at which point I flipped off the TV, grabbed my rainbow emblazoned mug o’Joe, and came here into my office to write. Tried as I might, I just couldn’t seem to focus on the topic I wanted to cover, which was the state of race relations in America because something about my reaction to the movie bothered me immensely. I may still get around to the original topic by the end of this entry, but I can’t promise you anything.

Sitting here yet again in front of the blank computer screen, desperately searching for that magical combination of words to form an attention grabbing opening sentence, I kept going back to my comment to Katy. Why did this Love Generation version of the Bible fill me with contempt for the people onscreen? Why was their naiveté and innocence about as inspirational as a Mitt Romney extended version recording of God Bless America? And why was I talking to a cat?

Part of the explanation for my malaise could probably be explained by the fact that it was 6:30 on a Sunday morning and I was pissed at Katy for waking me up way too soon. She, like me, is a creature of habit, and doesn’t understand any break in routine. At 6:30 each weekday morning, she stands on my chest while I’m in bed, puts her head close to me and meows very loudly in my face. This is her subtle cat way of letting me know that she’d like some breakfast. As smart as she is, she knows not that Sunday is a day to sleep in.

But the real issue I took with the movie was that it represented a time in my life that seems so distant and alien to me now. When Godspell was new, so was I. I had the future to look forward to and all the power of creation at my disposal. Nothing was impossible, including leaving this world a better place than I found it. I truly believed that peace, love, and understanding were not just a slogan for my generation, but a way of life. What was the mantra of my idealistic youth has given way to a rapidly increasing realization that age has caused my ideals to callous over; and that bothers me tremendously.

I doubt that therapy can help me recover the endless anticipation, idealism and excitement I had when I was young. After all, I’ve seen too many things both horrible and joyous to be that naively blissful. At this stage of the game it is probably foolish to think that mankind has a chance to evolve into a society that actually lives by the principles of Jesus as opposed to just using them to exploit a personal motive, like greed, intolerance or hatred.        

I used to wonder what the world would be like if everyone’s individual voice could be heard. In my Godspell years, my immature thoughts and fantasies fully accepted the idea of a world where love replaced hate. It seemed so possible then.

“Some men see things as they are and ask why?

I dream of things that never were and ask, why not? 

How many times over these last forty or so years have I heard the words of Robert Kennedy echo in my head so loud and clear whenever a new war breaks out here or there, when unspeakable travesties have been perpetrated on innocents, when buildings are reduced to nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes, dust and bits of charred bone? How many more times like those are yet to come during my lifetime and beyond? And how much more hatred must be spewed upon the earth until the day comes when there is no turning back?

This Internet, this wonderful magical thing that mankind has invented, has allowed us all to speak to one another in a way that has never been seen before. We have the opportunity to reach out and reduce our differences to meaningless dust. But it seems that more and more, we are shouting at one another instead of listening. We are turning the Internet into a modern day Tower of Babel instead of embracing a light of understanding. There is no longer civil discourse going on; it is being supplanted by the venomous demagoguery of those whose bullying philosophies can garner more numbers than their opponents.

I mentioned earlier that if possible, I would get to the race relations issue and this seems like as good a time as any to do so.

My diatribe today was inspired in part by an article that appeared in the Huffington Post. It had to do with the firing of a National Review writer, John Derbyshire, who wrote an article about the “talk” that white parents should have with their children when dealing with black people. I won’t even dignify Mr. Derbyshire’s article with quotes from it (you can read it yourself), but suffice to say that when as conservative a publication as the National Review calls the writer’s views “appalling”, you know it can’t be good.

The article appeared in an online magazine called, ironically enough, Taki’s. Not being one to take the word of one reporter, I went to Taki’s to see for myself what this purportedly ‘libertarian’ magazine was putting out for publication. What I found not only blew my mind, but made me a little sick to my stomach too. Among the top ‘reads’ were columns with titles like the aforementioned “The Talk: Nonblack Version”, and “Trayvonasaurus Rex”, which is a thinly veiled attempt to paint Trayvon Martin’s killer as the victim (I don’t know that he was or wasn’t and am waiting for more information before I decide).  

Also listed as ‘most popular’ were articles such “Multiculturalism: When will the Sleeper Awake?” and finally “Keep your Ovaries out of our Wallets”, a story about the recent Sandra Fluke controversy regarding contraception. I don’t know if this ‘magazine’, which is published by someone named Taki Theodoracopulos, is an attempt at satire in the vein of The Onion, but I suspect that it isn’t and ‘Taki’ sincerely believes all the venomous dreck which appears there.

It’s not that I find opinions that digress from my own intolerable. I love a good debate, provided that there is an intention to enlighten and teach in doing so. But it seems that more and more, civil discourse has given way to uncivil disgust. Instead of sharing opposite opinions we seek to shut them down and shut them up. This kind of intolerance can only end with polarization, clan hatred and violence. It has to stop.

Civilization, if it is to survive, must learn to accept the fact that not all people are the same, and that they cannot ever be forced to be so. I hope that the fragmenting I see so much of online is simply the over zealous exercise of free speech that has heretofore not been available to the masses. Average people are getting to speak for the first time in history and perhaps we are just in the infancy of understanding.

So, maybe I don’t need therapy after all. My idealism might be a little dented and rusted, and arthritis prevents me from running through a field picking wildflowers to hand out to strangers, but it is still there. And if this is the journey that humanity must take, then I can do a little here and now and maybe I won’t feel like the place is worse off than when I got here. Of course, it would be lot easier if you pitched in and did your part as well.

Over time perhaps, long after I’m gone I fear, the soot that has covered Jesus’ teachings over the centuries since His death can be scrubbed away, revealing the beauty and simplicity of what He really meant. From neighbor to neighbor, maybe we can all see each other more clearly, follow each other more nearly, and love each other more dearly. But it won’t happen overnight. We must work at it... day by day by day...

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat some Easter Pie. Abbondanza!