American Beauty

I just finished watching "American Beauty" with Ana. What a film. I feel like I'm going to cry now. Every night is as close as I'll ever get to praying. I may not believe in God, but I believe in some sort of guardian angel. Every night I pray for my angel to purify me. I have lead and other toxic heavy metals in my soul. I almost started crying. When Annette Bening hugs his suits. Her grief. Human grief. The first time I watched that movie I could not sleep. I tossed and turned the entire night. It bit. It stung. That movie was OUR lives - when there was still an OUR. What's most interesting though is how OLD that movie is and how much it has aged. I mean that in a good way. It's not only a culmination of, but it is a RECORD of the Clinton years. But what's really shocking to notice is that just ten years ago people were so much more ALIVE. Yes, even just back then people were still ALIVE. At least back then people knew there was something wrong. At the very least the words "ennui" or "malaise" were still in the dictionary. People were still human back then. Not now. Not anymore. The teenage drug dealer in that movie used a BEEPER. Not a CELLPHONE.

But what a haunting movie. I think of our proto-McMansion and our central air conditioning. I think of the sterility of the McMansions. I think of how we FELT RIGHT. A hot girl would have to live in a big McMansion with a glimmering pool in the backyard. The month of May in New Jersey - nothing like it. Too bad this May had to be so cold and rainy.

At the end of the movie I want to hug and love everyone I know and love because I think of how we all have to die all day and then I'm just emotionally overwhelmed. I'm not an emotional writer. At least most of the time. Not to sound cliche, but sometimes it does hurt too much to feel. But I want to feel. I don't want the people I love to die. We were all young once and now even I'm getting old - and somehow I never thought I would get old.

I'll hide behind the tongue in cheek again. What will I think about after some closeted homosexual blows my brains out?

I'll think of family happy hours with high balls, cheap Pennsylvania beer, and White House subs, the smell of the hot peppers and the white wrapping paper.

I'll think of a perfect morning on Brigantine Beach and how long it took to walk out to the jetty.

I'll think of watching "Ghostbusters" at my cousin's house and playing Barbies. 

I'll think of the first time Eric Hartz taught me the "F" word.

I'll think of how much I thought of death when I was 12  years old.

I'll think of all the wonderful moments I had with myself when I was 12 years old.

I'll think of the first time I had an orgasm. It was on my parents bed. I was grinding my hips on the bed while watching Spice.

I'll think of the Monster Truck Spectacular and what it was like hiding out in that air-conditioned trailer - and dreaming of a perfect girl - as rednecks swarmed the tee-shirt stand.

I'll think of when I used to be an usher at the Roundabout and how exciting and new our very first show ever - "The Man Who Came to Dinner" was.

I'll think of all the laughs I've had. I'll think of the friends who matter. I'll think of every moment when I felt just all right.

I'll even think of the times post-Prozac when I could not really feel as much, but I still felt. I could still appreciate the sterility of the central air-conditioning.

I'll think of that time - just about ten years ago, when I was just about to start my real life - when I sat up all night tossing and turning because I had just watched "American Beauty" in the movie theater.

Bertrand Russell: The Tom Hanks of Philosophy

I've applied for Social Security Disability. I do not want to contribute anything to society. Nothing. I have a very deep-rooted anger and hatred toward people and society in general. I've suffered too many traumas.

A good story: When I was in the 7th Grade I was trying to grow my hair long, like Axl Rose. One day, when I wasn't paying attention, a skinny little punk put a fist-sized wad of bubblegum in my hair. I had to go to the nurse's office so they could cut it out with scissors and pull out whatever was left with a comb. It took them at least a painful, humiliating hour to fully remove all of the gum. Knowing how humiliated I must have been they closed the door so the other children could not look in. The whole time the two nurses said to one another: "God, these kids are so terrible. God, these kids are so horrible." My hair was ruined. The little punk had violated my life to such an extent that I had to change my hairstyle for him.

When I found this boy I shoved him face-first into a brick wall. A female teacher ran up to me: "What are you doing?" I tried to explain the situation to her. "But you just can't go around shoving people. You can't put your hands on people!" She sent me to the principal's office and I was disciplined. That was just one of many equally traumatic events. After such a traumatic event it is easy to understand why I spent all of my time dreaming of a big city like New York or Los Angeles where I could be myself and both famous and anonymous. Like a gay kid I had to run away from a small-minded suburban environment. My only incentive against murdering one or more of my classmates was the hope of a better future. I, of course, would have been completely justified in torturing and killing gum-boy's entire family to the last living member.

But more than anything, such incidents permanently prejudiced me against average and ordinary people. THEY (not people like me or Nietzsche) are the CRUEL. Their mediocrity would be forgivable if they were not so cruel. But being that they are cruel and that they possess strength in numbers, all of their flaws are entirely unforgivable. If every mediocrity on earth had to die for me to experience the slightest touch of happiness, that would be perfectly acceptable and even desirable.

Which brings me to the Tom Hanks of Philosophy - Bertrand Russell - and his cowardly critique of Nietzsche. I presume Lord Russell did not know what it was like to have a fist-sized piece of bubblegum lodged in one's hair and perhaps that is why he is so quick to attack Nietzsche and defend the Herd. Russell writes of Nietzsche: "He admires certain qualities which he believes (perhaps rightly) to be only possible for an aristocratic minority; the majority, in his opinion, should be only means to the excellence of the few and should not be regarded as having any independent claim to happiness or well-being. He alludes habitually to ordinary human beings as the 'bungled and botched' and sees no objection to their suffering if it is necessary for the production of a great man." And? So? Your point is? And why should I care about the Herd? And is that not exactly what I have been saying since long before I had ever even heard of Nietzsche?
Not only that, but there is so much more to Nietzsche. Nietzsche's philosophy is more about self-overcoming and perpetual self-development (not to mention his metaphysics, his criticisms of history and philosophy, his doctrine of the Eternal Return, etc...) than it is about wielding power over the others. He continues to "explain" Nietzsche's philosophy to the uninitiated: "True virtue, as opposed to the conventional sort is not for all, but should remain the characteristic of an aristocratic minority. It is not profitable or prudent; it isolates its possessor from other men; it is hostile to order, and does harm to inferiors. It is necessary for higher men to make war upon the masses, and resist the democratic tendencies of the age, for in all directions mediocre people are joining hands to make themselves masters."

Okay Lord Hanks, his ethical stance is not "profitable"? What are you, a philosopher or a shopkeeper?

It is not prudent? Nietzsche's whole philosophy takes joy in laughing in the face of prudence, especially your kind of prudence. Did you skip his aphorisms on the Dionysian?

The possessor of this virtue is already isolated from other men - whether he likes it or not.

It is "hostile to order"? Of course it is to a boring logician such as yourself.

It does harm to inferiors? So what?

And, yes, I make war against the masses every day simply by not owning a cellphone.

The Obamas are always speaking in the plural - they love the words "we" and "us".

And, well, are not the mediocre masses already our rulers? Just flick on the t.v. (which I also don't have.)

At the end of his shallow critique of Nietzsche he throws in a quick cheap shot: "What are we to think of Nietzsche's doctrines? How are they true? Are they in any degree useful? Is there in them anything objective, or are they the mere power-phantasies of an invalid?"

Well, it must have escaped you Lord Hanks that you are practicing the same sort of "English" utilitarian thinking that Nietzsche so despised. He would have hated you even more than he hated J.S. Mill because at least J.S. Mill was original!

"How are they true?" Nietzsche was a PERSPECTIVIST. Your "true" would not have mattered to him. In this sense, again, he was a more sophisticated and daring thinker than you.

"Are they in any degree useful?" NIETZSCHE WAS NOT A UTILITARIAN!!!!!! He would not want his teachings to be "useful" to most. It would be better for them to be "useless" than to be used by people like you. Didn't you get that or were you too busy making small-dick jokes about a brilliant dead man?

"Is there in them anything objective?" See above. Perspectivism. I know that doesn't jibe well with your MATHEMATICALLY BORING logician mind.

"The mere power-phantasies of an invalid?" Now you show your true colors, your true CRUEL colors you smarmy Tom Hanks hypocrite! Yes, I had power-phantasies too. I pretended to be Axl Rose, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Tyson because that was the only way I could survive day to day.

He finishes his chapter on Nietzsche with a fictional dialogue between Nietzscha and Buddha that almost made me vomit: "If Buddha and Nietzsche were confronted, could either produce any argument that ought to appeal to the impartial listener? We can imagine them appearing before the Almighty, as in the first chapter of the Book of Job, and offering advice as to the sort of world He should create. What could either say?

Buddha would open the argument by speaking of the lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor, toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle, dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.

Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his turn came: 'Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about snivelling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is purely a negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non-existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napolean. For the sake of such men, any misery is worthwhile. I appeal to you, Lord, as the greatest of creative artists, do not let Your artistic impulses be curbed by the degenerate fear-ridden maunderings of this wretched psychopath.'

Buddha, who in the courts of Heaven has learnt all history since his death, and has mastered science with delight in the knowledge and sorrow at the use to which men have put it, replies with calm urbanity: 'You are mistaken, Professor Nietzsche, in thinking my ideal a purely negative one. True, it includes a negative element, the absence of suffering; but it has in addition quite as much that is positive as is to be found in your doctrine. Though I have no special admiration for Alcibiades and Napolean, I, too, have my heroes: my successor Jesus, because he told men to love their enemies; the men who discovered how to master the forces of nature and secure food with less labour; the medical men who have shown how to diminish disease; the poets and artists and musicians who have caught glimpses of the Divine beatitude. Love and knowledge and delight in beauty are not negations; they are enough to fill the lives of the greatest men that have ever lived.'

'All the same,' Nietzsche replies, 'your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and, as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we should all die of boredom.'

'You might,' Buddha replies, 'because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no on can be happy in the world as it is.'"

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO VOMIT! BLECCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only does this dummy not understand Nietzsche, but he doesn't even understand Buddhism! Could you imagine if Lord Hanks had picked on Nietzsche while he was alive and sane. Verbally, Nietzsche would have ripped him a new one and made him look outrageously weak, stupid, ignorant, ridiculous, and hypocritical.

Why don't you go stick gum in someone's hair, Lord Russell? That's more YOUR speed you hypocrite!

A quick guide for knowing the Tom Hanks' of the world:

Axl Rose = Nietzsche
Slash = Lord Russell

Mike Tyson = Nietzsche
Evander Holyfield = Lord Russell

Me = Nietzsche
My Sister = Russell

In the end it's just a clash of personalities: Analytic Conformists and Mad Poets. Apollo vs. Dionysus. I'm still in the latter category.

But still, THEY are the cruel. Not us.

The Anxious Dreams of Kafkaesque Killy

I was never a big fan of Kafka, but he did pay attention to dreams.

Dream #1:

The Trial.

I'm in an office, standing before a judge.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"No, your honor."

"Do you know what you've done wrong?"

"No, your honor."

"Your case is one of the worst I have ever seen. You should be ashamed of yourself." He pulled out a thick file. "One of the worst I've ever seen."

"Yes, your honor."

"Do you know why you're here?"

"No, your honor."

"Good. Now go into my courtroom and sit down."

I sit down at a defense table with two other defendants. Everyone made me feel like a nuisance of an intruder, like I had no right to even take up space.

Dream #2:

I'm in an elevator bay of a Las Vegas casion (I've never been to Vegas). I'm crawling on the ground in front of the elevators. The right elevator, the one closest to me, cannot open or close all the way, something is blocking it. The middle elevator opens. A chubby, older blonde woman exits, sees me, recognizes me (apparently she knows me) and takes pity on me.

On the elevator ride back to her room she says: "I loved you back in the 60s (I was not yet a gleam in my father's eye in the 60s) but you're gross now."

Despite these words we went to her room and then she told me that I had to leave. But I couldn't leave because I couldn't find all of my clothes. I kept scrambling but as soon as I found one piece of clothing I lost track of another.

Dream #3:

A rabid animal bites me. I will have to seek immediate medical attention, but for some reason I kept moving in slow motion and other people kept sidetracking me, until we were on the cusp of being "too late".

The Black Tom Hanks

I used to work in a factory with this light-skinned black dude, Michael. Michael was 30 years old, married with two young children. He was a Hip-Hop head and a gregarious animal. He took pride in being pleasant and "laid-back".

One day I wore a red shirt to work.

"You down with the Bloods, Will?" Michael teased.

"Me? Down with the Bloods? Oh, no way. I'm not a coward. I'm not a conformist. I don't need to hide behind ignorance. I fight my own battles."

"Ooh! You better watch what you say!"

"Why? I don't live in South Central L.A. What? Are you afraid of those pussies? Yes, I see all the little 'Bloods' in my neighborhood. If they bother me I'll take off my leather belt and spank their little black asses raw. I'll beat them the way their fathers should be beating them. I'll be their father. I'll beat them the way my father used to beat me. I had it much rougher than any of them and I'm not pretending to be some kind of gangbanger. Bunch of pussies."

"Well, some of them might be faking it, but not all of them."

"Wrong! They're all cowards. They're all conformists. Even the real ones who actually kill people. All of them are cowards and conformists."

Sometimes Michael would alternately bore and amuse me with unconsciously and unintentionally comical tales of his anonymous, nowhere life. In addition to working at the factory, he did landscaping work and he was attempting to launch a clothing line called "Ghetto Threads". Thank goodness for unintentional comedians - a gift from nature.

"Yeah, so I do lawns and I run my clothing label and on weekends I do a lot of volunteer work for my church because I think it's very important to give back to the community."

"Oh, that's very nice," I said. But what I was really thinking was: Give back? But nigga, you ain't got shit and you ain't neva' gon' have shit! Give back? How the fuck you gon' give back when you ain't yet received nothin'? But I guess I'm just being a "hata".

I've never understood the concept of "giving back to the community" probably because I have never received anything from the community other than unending grief and heartache.

Michael turned out to be phony and smarmy, a black Tom Hanks. He told me he was on Myspace and I sent him both a message and a friend request. My reasons for doing this were simple: I wanted him to see my Myspace profile - with its erudite references and lists of difficult books - and be confronted with my obvious superiority. In turn he would be simultaneously reminded of his own very obvious inferiority. I, of course, hid my own vain intentions behind a polite and friendly message.

But he never responded to my message. He forwarded it - to Lord knows who - probably to make fun of me, of my "weirdness" or, rather, of what he would take to be my weirdness: my superiority.

What has the world come to when the superior are mocked by the inferior? Well, I suppose the world has always been the same.

What a phony Michael turned out to be. At least I don't pretend to be a Tom Hanks.

Goddamned black Tom Hanks.

In Grammar School they called me "Will the Still" because I was so quiet and calm. Then, as now, I could not understand the constant need for meaningless activity. Athletics are the perfect example of meaningless activity. Especially team sports. At least I could attach my hopes and dreams - as well as the injustices committed against me - to a heroic underdog like Mike Tyson.

Then, as now, I knew there were only three subjects worth thinking about: sex, love, and philosophy - and that's it!

But now I understand the importance of keeping both the mind and the muscles constantly moving. Today I shoveled stone. I worked so hard that by the time I was done my entire face was caked with a white chalk. The "white chalk" was salt - that's how much I'd been sweating. My sweat smells worse than it ever has before because now when I sweat I am sweating out sickness.

I want my heart to be ready for those who deserve it.

Wikipedia Willy

"See, Will, I'm trying to get a grasp on your OCD. I had a female patient, very bright girl, went to Georgetown University and she had to figure out as many ways to walk to class as possible and then pick the right one. Before she had even gotten to class she had come up with 94 permutations. Now that's esoteric, but your OCDs are uber-esoteric. I mean, if you were just washing your hands I could treat the handwashing with exposure therapy. But your OCDs have to do with more esoteric subject matter, such as the nature of enjoyment, for instance."

"Enjoyment, yes. But not just the nature of sensation and emotion itself. I have felt detached from sensation and emotions thanks to anhedonia, but in addition to that I have also had severe issues with time and duration. The fact that everything is transient, including orgasms and good times with friends. I suppose I could try to treat the best of the past as if it were a part of the present and therefore eternally with me. How else am I going to get a grip on the problem of time and ephemerality. I can't freeze time and this bothers me!"

Dr. E was a fit, handsome older man. His office was decorated with fishign trophies and statues of fierce, lean bodhisattvas. I had taken a wrong turn somewhere and now I was trying to find my way back. I had forgotten how to feel anything. And if I felt anything I'd be too obsessed with the moment passing to really enjoy the moment.

"Well, what is one of your specific OCDs related to this?"

"Well, for example, I cannot read Schopenhauer until I've had more sex."

"And you cannot read Schopenhauer until you've had more sex because...?" I could tell by the way he phrased the question that he was not at all familiar with Schopenhauer's work. How could a psychologist pass through so many educational institutions and not be at all familiar with Schopenhauer? I mean, good ol' Arthur is necessary even for a full understanding of Freud's work.

"Well, Schopenhauer, of course, was the pessimist. He saw life as a wheel of desire-satiety-boredom. The only answer to misery was to transcend this wheel through the negation of the Will. Schopenhauer was, of course, heavily influenced by Buddhism, which, no offense - I see the statues here - is a terrible religion. It's both better and worse than Christianity if only because it actually works. And I should know."

"You've practiced Buddhism?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"When? Recently?"

"Well, when I was in my four year relationship. It seemed as if I was going to be married to the girl who took my virginity. I wanted to be with her forever, but I was in the middle of the orgy known as New York City. I was caught between having the girl I had always wanted and having the sexual opportunities I had always wanted. My girl was poor and she had no family or friends. I had to make a sacrifice for her. Very existential Christian of me. Very Kierkegaardian of me. But what is the point of being a Christian or a saint in this time? Things are very grim nowadays and sex has become just another consumerism, but the sort of 'free love' I was looking for was certainly out there for me. I had to deny myself what I wanted on hundreds of occasions. If that wasn't bad enough I was practicing Buddhism and other mysticisms in an attempt to sedate, stymie, control, and kill my out of control sexual urges."

"What if you succeeded?"

My OCDs kicked into overdrive.

"Oh my God! Don't even say that! That's exactly what I'm afraid of - that I may have permanently damaged the apparatus, that I may have permanently alienated myself from my senses, my instincts, even my emotions. That has become one of my worst fears. I mean, an ascetic is not what I am. For me of all people to be a holy man! All I've ever wanted is to be Satanic. All I've ever wanted was to be a rake and engage in licentious orgies."

"'Rake' and 'licentious'. Who uses words like that in the 21st century?"

"Well, I suppose that's my schizotypy. But that's the 21st century's problem - not mine. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to be Byron, but even he was too much of a pessimist."

"So, you've said it before - you're afraid of transcending your desires before you've had a chance to enjoy them?"

"Yes, but then I think of someone like Aleister Crowley."

"Who was Aleister Crowley?"

How could he not know who Aleister Crowley was? So many of our present New Age threads can be traced back to Crowley. Much of what was happening while he was in Harvard in the late 60s can be traced back to Crowley and he has never even heard of him?

"Aleister Crowley was a British occultist. For a time he was meditating up to 16 hours a day, but toward the end of his life he was still enthusiastically engaging in sex and sexual magick orgies with his followers."

"So see? There's hope for you."

Overall I think Dr. E is a nice man with a sense of humor. It still baffles me that his knowledge base is so limited.

"Yes, that's good!" I laughed.

"Have you ever experimented with occultism?"

"Yes, most recently - more than a year ago - I did it for the sake of psychonautics."

"What are psychonautics?"

Oh my Goodness! He has not heard of psychonautics either? And he went to Harvard in the 60s?

"Psychonautics is the use of dance, trance, shamanism, magick, mysticism, and especially psychedelic drugs for the purpose of exploring other dimensions of mind. In all fairness I've always been interested in the mystical, the magickal, the occult, the human brain, the human mind, and the unknown. So perhaps my asceticism was just an accident waiting to happen."

I suppose I was being "high-falutin" with Dr. E, but these were - at one time - existential concerns (they still are) and I really am smart. I just suppose I sound like Wikipedia because I'm trying to prove to him that I am not a total failure just because I do not have a job, a college degree, or a cellphone.

Max's Famous Hot Dogs, the Dangers of Philosophical Pessimism, and the Paradigm Shift

Night and Day is my favorite magazine. Night and Day is a Jersey Shore beachcomber rag, mostly made up of ads and very poorly written - though always positive and enthusiastic - reviews of sponsor bars and restaurants. Forget The New Yorker with their boring stories on neuroscientists, Guggenheim retrospectives, and the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright. I'd rather masturbate to Miller Lite and Yuengling ad spreads featuring pictures of local Jersey girls - their caucasian skin artificially tanned the color of a fresh carrot - quaffing said brews while farting in their tight, slutty pants. These were the sort of girls I could never get in High School because there is quite obviously something wrong with me.

Night and Day is the best toilet-reading material I have ever known. Yesterday I defecated while reading a review of Max's Famous Hot Dogs. This is what I read as I expelled waste from my bowels:

"A Long Branch tradition since 1928, Max's Hot Dogs is said to be a favorite of local celebrities, including Bruce.
Max's uses quarter pound Schickhaus hot dogs, slow cooked to make them extra juicy and delicious. Max's isn't just called famous because they felt it was good marketing, they really are extremely popular around New Jersey.
As former governor Christine Whitman once said, 'We can all concur that Max's in Long Branch serves the most outstanding hot dogs in New Jersey'."

I cannot read of Max's without thinking of my High School crush, Samantha Epstein. Samantha worked at Max's the year after High School. I think that was her first step toward becoming an ugly old yenta hag. Do her arms now feel like a hard palm stroke against a wet, half-deflated rubber balloon?

When I watch the dreams of others (not to mention my own) die so hard it is hard not to fall head first into philosophical pessimism. Kierkegaard is a great komfort when the world seems so dreary and depressing. There are so many traps and a person as openminded as me is liable to fall into all of them.

This is, after all, a world where people like my mediocre sister succeed. My sister is an adult now while I remain in some kind of state of arrested development.

But see, now that it appears as if a major paradigm shift is taking a place (or about to take place) I will be most fit to reap the rewards of the New Age. The future will, indeed, favor those who - like me - have learned to become physically, mentally, and spiritually strong. Most importantly, the future will be kind to those of us who have learned to ADAPT. Those of us who have learned to live the same with one million dollars or one cent.

In the future we will have to be strong, flexible, fast, agile, nimble, lightfooted, and adaptable. Cell phones are too heavy. They do nothing but weigh me down and slow my step.

Satanism and the Art of Lawnmower Maintenance

1.

Christmas Eve, 1994. The entire family was over our house. Highballs were being stirred, wine poured, beers cracked, cards exchanged, presents opened. Christmas music played on the stereo. "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la! 'Tis the season to be jolly!"

While all of this was going on around him my Dad sat on the couch and watched Holocaust footage on the big screen t.v. "Don we now our gay apparel! Fa la la la la la la la!" Hundreds of emaciated corpses were being shoveled into shallow graves. "Sing the ancient yuletide carol! Fa la la la la la la la la!" Skeletons pulled out of ovens.

"Bill, can you please change the channel? It's Christmas!" asked my Mom.

"Why? This is history! This is educational! The kids need to know about this!"

"But it's Christmas!"

This is where I get my sense of humor from.

2.

Love has to be like Kant's morality: Love must exist in, of, and for itself. Love must exist on an empty stomach or not at all.

3.

How mowing the lawn is like Kant's morality:

I mowed the lawn this morning. I love mowing the lawn: not much is better. But yard work cannot be done for the sake of bourgeois respectability.

Mowing the lawn must be done as an end in, of, and for itself. At the very least it must be done for the sake of sweat and its effectiveness in the fight against depression.

Other than that, what's the point?

4.

What people don't understand about organized Satanism is that it's not a religion but a chance to be a kid again. As a matter of fact, Satanism is anti-religion. Satanism is for reason, rationality, science, and education. It's general stance is that of Bill Maher. Think Bill Maher with horns and a staff.

Organized Satanism can be summed up as follows:

Unsophisticated Nietzschean philosophy meets magic and American kitsch.

A lot of people think magic(k) is silly, but it actually works. For myself I like to divide it into four general categories:

White High Magick: The "Great Work". The practices are extremely mind-altering meditations. The world changes because YOU change. It's like Buddhism in that it works even if it doesn't work. Very powerful.

White Low Magick: The use of Qabalistic charms to attain earthly desires that will assist in the "Great Work".

Black High Magic: The use of Satanic ritual to express carnal desires and to attain earthly desires.

Black Low Magic: The use of voice, body, language, dress, and publicity, etc... to generate and make the most of charisma, create "interest", and wield influence over others in the environment.

This is, of course, a very simplified explanation. I have dabbled in white and black magic(k) in the past and I know it does work. However, I do not practice magic(k) now because I do not feel I am ready or strong enough for it at this point in my life.

Remember that magick is just a mind-altering misunderstood physics - a possible science of the future, an investigation into the unknown. As of now I fear my road maps are not good enough.

5.

The Church of Satan founder, Anton LaVey, found his mannequins to be more interesting than most people. He thought they had more interesting things to say than most people.

Well, Lavey was Marilyn Monroe's lover and Sammy Davis Jr.'s friend. After being with extraordinary people (as I have) it's hard to go back to the Herd.

Like it or not, life is like a saying on a pizza box: "Once you've had the best, you don't want the rest."

I'm not saying that Marilyn Monroe or Sammy Davis Jr. specifically were the "best" but they were certainly very clearly distinguished from the Herd.

Four Steps Short of a Hipster if He Lived in that Hipster's Dimension (I'm only three behind, but I also live in yet another dimension)

Just look at him: he probably has a small core of douchebag friends, but even they are a merry go round; a ring of associates and ten thousand who have come and gone without the pain of pulling a band-aid. He'll go out to Jenkinson's and drink with any of them and have really good friends for a night.

I'm sure he's tried everything from basketball leagues to mixed martial arts to Born Again Christianity, but it is all - from hobbies to the profound - transient, a surface show, a play of flat, emotionless images, and nothing runs deep. His only pain is that there is no pain. To him nothing is profound enough to touch, tickle, hurt.

Existential Philosophy could be his next hobby. Why not? We live in a free country and he has a whole buffet of options in front of him at all times. But for him even Existential Philosophy would just be something trendy, something "cool" to do - he would imagine himself as one of the smart fratboys from the "American Pie" movies, the one who drinks a brew and discusses the kind of implements Socrates must have used to smoke weed. He would also want to appear "deep" to equally vapid women.

With or without the sacred or profound his life would be just as vapid. Buddhism was just something that Rambo practiced in "Rambo III". The universe was created just so MTV could exist. 

Even death is like a movie. And even death has become just another fun thing to be tried.

I don't want to live like this man! I want to live! I want to feel! I want the people, places, and things in my life to have meaning!

Call me a goddamned jaded idealist!

Icarus

To search, to try, means you're not there. Today I worked hard. I do odd jobs - mostly landscaping - for my Dad, like some kind of groundskeeping negro half-wit. He pays me a few bucks here and there out of pocket, just enough for food and gas. A thoroughly humiliating situation, but work is work. I worked so hard I have blisters on both of my palms, like stigmata. How fitting. After Prozac I was forced to be a martyr.

My Dad called me an "Icarus". An "Icarus" is someone who refuses to take anti-depressants because they feel that their mental illness is part of their genius or individuality. Forget preserving your individuality! Preserve your life. Those drugs are DEADLY. Preserve your brain tissue itself!

I do not want to be mentally ill! I will be a genius whether I'm a non-functioning schizophrenic or Mr. Mental Hygiene. A genius is just what I am - it has nothing to do with mental health or mental illness. I do not want to be mentally ill. I just want to keep my brain. I want to retain my emotional life - not to mention my libido.

But look at the slick semantics. My training under General Zizek has helped me. Look at the absurdity of the semantics: Anyone who DOESN'T want to kill themselves is called an Icarus. That is one heck of an inversion. Sick, sick, sick. Just like our society in general. As absurd as our society.

The only thing that melted my wings was PROZAC.

It may be very funny to my father, but those drugs ruined my life.

One silver lining is this: I could have grown up to be a douchebag if I had continued on my happy path. Prozac took me back to a lonely, tormented state and prevented me from becoming just another mook.

The other silver lining is this: I learned that my true friends are true Christians, in the only good sense of the word. And many of the people I have met since then have been true Christians in the only good sense of the word.

1.

I fight against dogma. People say one can either be one or the other. Why compartmentalize? With or against/something or nothing/gay or straight/black and white etc... A binary system. I've been shattering the grid my entire life! Why stop now?

2.

I am pro-choice and pro-gay. Not because I love abortions and gays, but because pro-life and anti-gay is predicated upon something completely, completely, completely, completely, completely RIDICULOUS: Christianity. It's all built upon a worthless foundation: Christianity. Once again I am ripping off Nietzsche for the trillionth time. Christianity has no right.

3.

But beating Christianity is beating a dead horse. Now the problem is CONSUMERISM!!! People may be having sex more, but the worthless of the world have made sex more boring, prudish, plastic, soulless, meaningless, dogmatic, compartmentalized, and proscribed than ever. Rather than breaking the grid it has become impossible for most people to even conceive of anything even slightly outside the grid. This is what has to be changed - at least in my microcosm. This is what must be fixed! Thanks to our MTV/digital world sex has no breathing room. Sex needs to stretch its legs before it gets a cramp. It seems as if Christianity has finally been weakened just enough. Why are we kneejerk or ignorant enough to fill the vacuum with consumerism of all things? Why not a livid paganism?

Perspicacious Observations of a New Jerseyan in Massachusetts and Eric and I Come Out of the Closet

Have all the essential moments in my life come and gone or am I being too dogmatic? Is the best yet to come? By most standards I am still very young, but I am already afraid of boring people, myself most of all. If the most glorious experience took place this instant would it inscribe itself on my unconscious/subconscious the way those early, intense moments inscribed themselves on the psyche of an innocent and fearful child? Was Umberto Eco right? Or, do all the good things happen before the age of 21 and everything else is just commentary? Maybe I've been depressed because I am desperately groping for an Act III without fully having had an Act I - and Act I is still all I have, though there is absolutely no reason to cling to Act I. I am just terribly afraid that I am too old and tired to make Act III as meaningful as Act I. I don't even think it's possible. Now - at my age - having and raising children is supposed to be the course pregnant with meaning (no pun intended) and I have no desire to have children. I don't think I'm jaded as much as much as I have just developed a skill at distinguishing the venal (and the new) from the limited associations attached to my own powerful, personal archetypes. Everything beyond that is just too much. Junk food for gluttons and nothing else. I am no longer pretending to be a romantic - it has now truly gotten to the point where only a woman can save me. The right woman may still contain as much as the first woman. Boston is a very charming city, but it's not the L.A. I dreamed about when I was 12 and desperate to get away from Wall Township. At that age I also thought I would be a Rock Star by 21 and dead by 27. Now I'm 28 and well into Act III. At least I have my friends - and they are as personally archetypal to me as can be. They quite literally assure me that my life has meaning. Then I meet new people who inscribe themselves on my life, but my two best friends are my eternal insurance against the "wound of non-meaning."

Eric Hartz is one of my personal archetypes. After all, he taught me the "F" word. I just scolded him for pestering me as I was blogging. He does not understand that an artist needs to concentrate.

Since High School Eric and I have talked to each other as flaming, campy homosexuals.

"Hi sweetie!"

"Hi darling!"

"Ciao!"

"Tata!"

Eric and I are not homosexuals or homophobes, but we find it amusing to act like the former.

Lately it has gotten out of control. Our "gay voices" have now become a crutch in our friendship. It's a wall between the true intimacy of a friendship.

Today, when we arrived in Boston we made a pact to not use "gay voices" for the rest of the day. The first to break the pact would owe the other $5. Eric lost. He whined: "Oh, my darling! Give me my jacket!" in the gayest, gayest, gayest voice ever.

"Ha! You lost!"

"Oh, dammit! I lost!"

The first day of the rest of our lives began at a Panera in downtown Boston. Boston will never be New York, an imagined L.A., or even the "family house" (the house where the Johnson's came from) in Neptune, N.J., but it is a fun, cozy city and it is the place where I felt I found my friend again. Eric and I were hiding behind those gay voices. And now we are not hiding anymore.

We've come out of the closet about our heterosexuality and our friendship.

Well, I'm here in Quincy, Massachusetts. I drove up. Watched Bill Maher's "Religulous". I like him more now. I think he was like me. He reminds me of me. He does not seem as smarmy now.

Boston Road Trip

I'm driving up to Boston today to see my best friend Chris. Should be fun. I've never been to Boston before.

I've always been interested in urban infrastructure: buildings, roads, transportation systems. I've taken an autistic interest in the differences between subway and el trains from city to major city. I've actually studied this online.

But my two most important considerations are the alien-proofness and tornado-proofness of a given location. Urban areas are usually the only places I feel safe from two of my biggest fears: severe thunderstorms and/or tornadoes and alien abductions.

But some areas are safer than others. For example, after New York I found Chicago to be particularly safe. Chicago may be in the middle of Tornado Alley, but its buildings are big and strong enough to stand up to very high winds. Chicago is also crowded enough to make alien abductions a difficult task.

I don't automatically exclude smaller cities. For instance, I find large swaths of Atlantic City to be both tornado and alien proof. Atlantic City has a 24-hour hubbub (a pain in the neck to aliens) and the casinos are built tough and insulated against rough weather. I would feel safe in the center of the Trop in the event of a tornado warning.

Some places are posi-neg - like Dillon, South Carolina. As a major truck stop area, Dillon seems to have all the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, but I cannot think of one convenient basement or tornado-proof structure anywhere in the vicinity.

Believe it or not, some much larger cities are double-negs. Dallas, Texas come to mind. Dallas has rolling fields in the middle of a major crime-ridden city. Dallas is, by far, the least tornado and alien-proof city I have ever visited. For its size it is a major double-neg.

Although Boston is not New York I am sure Boston is a double-pos.

I'll let you know.