Seth Rogen is the Anti-Satan

I wear a checkered, short-sleeved, buttoned-down shirt, like a "nice kid" from the 1950s, the kind who walks a poodle mutt and works on neato science projects. Individuality and all the best of conformity. I have Ray Bradbury's optimism. I think of the 1950s Suburban Florida of the "Porky's" movies. I'm Pee-Wee with a morning erection. Scientists work on the atomic bomb. Forgotten transistor radios in a 1950s house on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. The musty smell of an older and forgotten house - with screen doors - close to the beach. My bare forearms press against a cool desk. I read of aliens from outer space, the Montauk Project (a Top Secret physics/mind control project involving Nikola Tesla and the psychologist Wilhelm Reich) and the Greeks.

All of my work is fodder for those "up until 5am" phone conversations. Those priceless conversations about life, death, life after death, the existence or non-existence of God, and the vastness and complexity of the universe and the high strangeness of Being itself, the very odd fact that anything - space, time, and the rest of it - exists at all. These may be High School conversations, but she makes me feel like I'm in High School.

I own all the pretentiousness and self-importance of a High School poet or a Morrissey-listening, Camel-smoking contributor to a community college literary magazine. Now if only I could learn to fully write like that again I'd really be on to something! She makes me feel that innocence, naivete, and hope in a time when Seth Rogen is the only God we have ever known. I love Ronald Reagan and 80s-era NASA! Sue me! Late-night existential conversations are both innocent and terrifying. They remind us that we are human, mortal, and trying to grapple with the big questions. Perhaps I am maturing. Isn't it better to make love to a human being? A quirky, unique individual who is just as strong, tender, lost, and found as myself? Seth Rogen is the anti-Satan. He hates joy and sex. He will not be happy until sex is reduced to two mannequins rubbing their genitals together. Okay! Sex is a big deal and not such a big deal! We get it! Now put on your shoes (your socks are stinking up the joint) and put down the bong, you hippie fratboy! As for me, I think a smidgeon of 1950s-inspired romance is a good thing. Aren't sex, love, and the starry sky above Grand Central wonders of the universe?

Whatever happened to innocence? To wonder? To glorification?