Reaction to "How to Be an Atheist Without Being a Dick About It"

True, I only skimmed Jezebel's recent (and lengthy) article How to Be an Atheist Without Being a Dick About It, but still, fuck that noise.

I recognize that religion is probably the greatest invention of all time, because it instills social order and creates the illusion of some greater purpose to our lives, thereby giving people a reason to keep trying, to keep living, even in the face of adversity or the absence of positive change. And I have a very clear understanding that our world can often be one of unrelenting, unspeakable cruelty, and that we as people are often very terrible to one another.

As a result, there are many victims in our world, and perhaps for many they need faith in a higher power to provide them with hope and strength. That's fine -- whatever it takes -- because I don't know what that's like.

But it still doesn't change the fact that religion is an invention. And I'm not going to give it any more credence than its function, because I also recognize that as a tool it's used to oppress and manipulate the very people it promises to save. It hurts just as much, if not more, than it helps.

I'm not going to live in a lie, and I'm certainly not going to play a part in the charade. I view religion, in general, as aggressive, invasive, and dangerous. It's just as bad as the advertising media which inundates us. Both are parasitic and forever in need of more people in order to survive and grow.

But I also have another reason why I won't play the polite little atheist. Because religion distracts us from the real world, where we need to make some real changes.

There's a reason why they say "God helps those who help themselves." It's because praying doesn't change anything. It's just throwing pennies in a well. But when people take it upon themselves to make a change, that's when things gets done. God has nothing to do with it.

People are the ones that have the power to make our world a better place. There is no perfect afterlife or redemption.

If it sounds like I'm being defensive or that I'm angry, that's because I am. If this sounds like I have a chip on my shoulder, it's because I do.

This is all we have. It's time we took some responsibility for it. No one else is going to save us.

PS: I know that I'm making generalizations about all religions here, and that there may be some exceptions (those which are less "aggressive, invasive, and dangerous," as well as less "oppressive and manipulative."). However, given the actions of the world's religious majority I think I this generalization is justified.

2AM

Near the end of my bike ride home from the bar tonight I came across a guy passed out cold on someone's lawn a few doors down from where I live. His bike was laid on the grass beside him. I parked my own bike and knelt down beside him, trying to wake him up. It took awhile, and I tried several different tactics, even shaking him and slapping his arms and legs.

Finally I just resorted to shouting into his ear, "Hey! What's your name?!" and he bolted upright. "Nick!" he said, rolling around in front of me, unable to sustain purchase. His eyes were unfocused and bewildered as he tried hard to see through the drunken dream state.

"You need to go home," I said. "I'm afraid someone will take advantage of you while you're passed out here."

He nodded his head furiously, sending his balance off kilter.

"You gonna be okay?" I asked, in no state to babysit some drunk dude, but still concerned (what if he'd had alcohol poisoning?). "Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

He shook his head no, still tottering.

"Okay," I said. "I'm gonna go." Then I added, "Get home safe."

I got on my bike and rode it down a block and got my keys out. In the distance I could still see him still sitting there, legs wide open, head down.

Godspeed, Nick. Tomorrow's prolly gonna hurt.

m o t h

            Unsure at first of what had caught his attention, or whether it was only an involuntary sweep of the room, simply taking inventory of his domain, that had spawned a predatory reflex, the man’s brow furrowed and he leaned in closer to inspect the grey smudge on the wall. His feet were bare and in his hands he held a magazine that he had been flipping through the moment before. Instinctively they rolled the glossy pages tightly into a batting instrument, and he raised the weapon, targeting his prey. 

The Hair Here

My hair got long
from negligence

Now

When I wake up
in the morning
the light from
the window
is black
with the day
raked through

Now

I'm wearing my
mask of hair

Who am I now
with my mask?

Where will I
wear it?

The hair here
is different

Heresy
to those
who inherit

The hairy
stone gathers
no moss

It's stone 
business
of mine

Now, mine

Heir to the
throng

Hairy bush
thong

The hair here
is long

And in kind

The Specter Ayn Rand Shivers

The specter Ayn Rand shivers

Over her pendulous pulpit

With haunted, shuddering eyes

In a mouth agape with her Word

Rows of teeth, like pews or headstones,

Swim forward, scrabbling over

Each other as they surface

Through her gum and maw

Each a greyed and decaying seeker

Independent and detached of her jawbone

These are her seeds that she sprays

In a hypnotic pollination that preys

Upon the wet-minded and dissolute

She is her own foretold apocalypse:

Ayn the coiled, ticking dial

Ayn the lunacy with its twin macabre genius

Which we wish only to jail and deny

Ayn the useless rogue demon

Fraught with the failure of her own

Glacial alienation

Oh, some will inevitably circle her trap

Like fruit flies ‘round a sweet compost heap

Attracted because they smell themselves

But her philosophy erodes itself in its own fantasy

Like an ant, which can hold up to fifty times

Its own weight, then made big and crushed

Under its own frame

For its seeming strength

Is in actuality

Its own most

Debilitating vulnerability

Ayn the isolated tower

Ayn the disfigured wraith

Babbling fishhooks for the worms

Ayn the Ouroboros

Eater of her own feces

The specter Ayn Rand shivers

Behind the mirror

The specter Ayn Rand shivers

Long and on and on

(note: this poem was a reaction to an old 60 minutes interview with mike wallace and our subject. i wasn't planning on writing an indictment of her or her philosophy, it just sort of happened. in all fairness, i haven't even read her work, nor am i all that familiar with the details therein. i'm only aware of what's generally known about her books, and what she told us in this interview. this was a reaction to her presence in that particular interview.)

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Bill Frisell

Back in 2009, during possibly my most serious longterm bout with depression, I used to listen to this song on repeat for, like, an hour or two at a time. I had it on my iPod, and I would go for these long aimless walks.

I had a secret place that I would go to, where I would just sit and listen to this song. It was this empty lot with gravel and trash and overgrown weeds. There were these two big metal pipes lying on their side next to each other, and I would sit on one and put my feet up on the other one.

It was in the middle of summer and the sun beat down on my back. I would wear these ridiculous mirrored sunglasses that I had found on the sidewalk and just listen to this song over and over and over again.

It was one of the ways I'd developed of removing myself from myself.

One of the lyrics (even though they'd been omitted from this instrumental version of the song) spun around and around in my head. It made so much sense to me.

I'm just about to lose my mind, honey, honey, yeah...

That line became the title of a comic I was working on. I put everything I had inside me into that comic. And when I look at it now I can see how absolutely lost I felt then. I fell into that comic and got lost in it, too. It was another way for me to remove myself from myself.

Tonight I put that song on again. I hadn't heard it in a very long time. And then I remembered that vacant lot with its pipes. The last time I'd walked past there someone had erected some condos over it. My secret place was gone. But it was okay because I didn't need it anymore.

"I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn"

I think this is such a great line. I'm convinced that if it had appeared in someone's novel (like, say, something by Raymond Chandler), rather than a Wallflowers' song, writing majors in Iowa City would be quoting it after hours between drinks at The Fox Head. 

It's like the Universe fucked up and sent that particular string of words down the wrong pneumatic tube, so it never got to where it was supposed to go. And now it's just a fucking joke.

It's a Damn shame...if you really think about it.

S P R I N G B R E A K E R S

I originally posted this movie review to my Facebook wall on March 25, 2013. ***SPOILER ALERT***

Some might expect this movie to be extremely misogynistic, and that I would naturally despise it for being so (especially in the wake of Steubenville and conversations about college binge drinking), but this couldn't be further from the truth. Instead, Harmony Korine channels Terrence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, Tree of Life) in this extremely meditative comment on prevalent pop culture such as Girls Gone Wild, hip hop, slasher films (Turistas, The Ruins, Piranha 3D), guy party movies (The Hangover, Project X), and gun culture.

It is subversive in every way, and seeing it in the theater illustrated this in the best way possible: it was a packed house, and during the scene where James Franco deep throats two gun barrels at the same time, each being wielded as a cock by two ex-Disney Channel girls, you could hear a pin drop. In fact, what I did hear were sighs of discomfort and much shifting in seats.

Effectively, what most people thought they were coming to see (and what most feminists will expect to react to) is not what Korine actually delivers. It is extremely intelligent and razor sharp. The danger here isn't in a blatant celebration of misogyny, but that it might be misinterpreted as glamorizing the very thing it critiques. Although, given my own experience seeing it in the theater, this also seems pretty unlikely, for the audience as a whole gave off an air of discomfort, as though they were unsure how to react.

Much of this is because we aren't used to seeing women portrayed in roles such as these. It's all too often we see movies about four dudes having wild adventures that involve random wild sex (partying, strippers), crime, and eventual camaraderie. And women only play secondary roles (slutty random hookup, stripper, etc) in those movies. But in Spring Breakers the roles are not only reversed, the woman actually have an understanding of what they want and how to get it (versus past films where men are haphazardly flailing through each drunken mishap). They appropriate the phallus and use it directly against the men who make advances of power or sex against them. They cannot be owned (no matter if they choose to bail on the party or forge on), and ultimately, in the spirit of Thelma and Louise, these girls each decide what is right for them, act on it, and Korine abstains from judgement.

I also applaud Korine for finally making a mainstream movie. After Mister Lonely, which had a higher budget than any of his previous ventures, he reacted to his lack of complete creative control on the project with the juvenile and safe (in art school terms) Trash Humpers. It was a step way, way back, and it was clear (at least to me) that he was licking his wounds. It's nice to see that he was able to finally come to terms with the Hollywood machine, but also understand how to use it to make his films stronger.

One of the many differences between Gummo and Spring Breakers is that the latter understands how to reach a wider audience and tear the rug out from beneath them. Korine is no longer shocking the choir. He's poking the nerves of the mainstream.

C O U G H S

Recently the Chicago Reader included a blurb in their Best Of issue about my friends' old band Coughs. It brought back a lot of memories, and I ended up writing this little thing about being at their shows. It was originally posted on my Facebook wall on June 20, 2013.

I'm still surprised I never got injured at a Coughs show. Just imagine a room (no matter the size) packed wall-to-wall with a convulsing mass of headbanging misfit kids. It's no exaggeration. At every show we would all be smashed flat into each other (if you wanted to leave too bad, cause you didn't have a choice), so that each row was literally being supported by the row in front of it. Meanwhile, the entire writhing shit show would undulate forward in violent spasms. Forget it if you were in the front row and trying to stay upright, because you would inevitably be knocked into the drum sets over and over again, relentlessly demolishing them. And then the band would get pissed and stop the show and curse you all out. Then they'd start up again, and it would all repeat. It was great! I always worried that I would get my teeth knocked out by the person headbanging in front of me, cause my eyes would shut involuntarily and my own head would be banging. The day after a Coughs show I always felt like I'd gotten whiplash from a car accident. But miraculously that was the only injury I ever incurred.

My favorite moments were those when the band winded down to a tick-tocking reprieve. It was like the eye of a storm. Jail's sax would wail and Anya's voice would be in a steady, anticipation-building mantra, and the band would suddenly jolt you and then sink back into that steady building anticipation, and we'd all be waiting for the next jolt to knock us over. It was during that eye of the storm, that momentary reprieve, that everyone, squished and spent, would give up and lean onto the person in from of them. We were all so exhausted and sodden with collective sweat that we simply couldn't hold ourselves upright. It was strangely intimate. You could feel people's chests rising and falling, heaving, their heart knocking. That was my favorite moment in any Coughs show.

And then the punishment would start again.