Saturday, October 25, 2008

Don't Vote, I am.

The chorus of voices on every side of nearly every debate has hit what might be all time an high - YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST VOTE. If you do not, THEY will win, and holy fucking Christ, can you imagine what THEY will do to our great country? Its terribly, vitally important that you VOTE.

Allow me to offer a differing perspective.

Don't vote. It really is meaningless. In January, John McCain or Barack Obama will become president of the United States of America. And regardless of which one wins we will all lose.

If you are a member of the Messianic cult that has risen up around Obama, then you may want to just stop reading now. Its not going to get any better for you. This is a man who has become who he is now by any means necessary. He has surrounded himself with an army of people whose primary goal is to convince you that that is someone who will "save us" from the "mess we're in".

What is the reality of the situation? This is a man who has never taken a bold, firm stand for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans. Its hard to comprehend the "audacity" of America's most successful recipient of greater equality doing so little to spread justice. Hard to believe that is if you try to match the failure with Obama's image as a courageous progressive liberal.

Change your perspective; who benefits when Obama sells out the Gay Community? Obama does. He knows that Gays are going to overwhelmingly vote for him regardless of what he does for them. What about so-called "middle class white America"? One way Obama can reassure these armchair bigots that he is not "weird" is by making sure he doesn't seem to friendly to the queers. It's called pandering, and Mr. Obama is an expert.

Consider his speech to the Cuban-American National Foundation. Obama clearly states -

"I will maintain the embargo. It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: if you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relations. That's the way to bring about real change in Cuba through strong, smart and principled diplomacy."

So basically, talk about change and about doing things differently, but when you are talking to the right voting bloc make damn sure they understand that you are really not going to change anything at all.

Much has been made of Obama as a man of peace. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a man who has PROMISED to throw away more American lives in Afghanistan, as though this should be more palatable than lives lost in Iraq.

It may be somewhat transparently ironic for me to quote Martin Luther King Jr. right here... but what the hell. Lets hear what a true man of peace has to say -

"True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to an evil power, it is rather a courageous confrontation with evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart."

"The leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends"

I can't imagine Obama saying these words. He is primarily interested in the pragmatic viability of a military action, not the human cost. In this regard, he is very much like his former advisory Hillary Clinton; determined to acquire power by any means. Willing to sell out any position or stand in order to further the only real goal, power. This is what the Democrats had to offer us this year. Liars selling fake change.

McCain isn't even worth talking about.

I am voting this year, for the very first time in my life. I'm doing it because it doesn't matter, but it should. I'm doing in defiance of its meaninglessness. The idea of democracy is a good one. We should have one, but we don't.

I'm voting for what I want. I'm voting for someone I believe will do what I would do if I was president.

I refuse to vote for Obama because of who he isn't. I will not vote for someone because its practical. I will not balance my decision against how likely someone is to win. I refuse to be realistic about this.

The act of voting should, more than anything else I can think of, be an act of idealism. This is the moment you tell the world how you want things to be. If I sold that out to Obama just because he wasn't a stupid fucking republican, I could never live with myself.

I may never vote again in my life. I have no illusions about how useful or meaningful it is. I know (to paraphrase the great George Carlin) its just masturbation. But for me, this time, its about the principle. Voting SHOULD matter, so I'm voting for Nader.

Friday, October 17, 2008

How to Keep From Killing Yourself

First of all, let me start by saying that I am not anti-suicide. There are all kinds of people out there who really should think about ending it all. You, dear reader, might be one of these people. So don't go doing anything drastic like taking the Final Exit off the table. You have the right to die, (and stop bothering the rest of us) and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

However, you may be like me; frequently miserable and unhappy, but unwilling to die just yet. Why not end it all? Well, because there are still some things that I enjoy at least a little bit. If I was to walk down to the State Capitol, douse myself in gasoline Thích Quảng Đức style, and burn myself to death, id be dead. I'd never have Indian food again. I'd never have a decent cup of coffee again. I'd never have scotch again. I'd never have another orgasm.

In the spirit of surviving your meaningless, excruciating, mediocre life, I have compiled a list of things that may help.

•KEEP EATING

I can't remember ever hearing of someone deciding to kill themselves after a good meal. Food is probably the greatest pleasure that we have. Its easy to get, fun to use, and immensely gratifying. The good effects of food last for hours too. Sure, you might develop an eating disorder or get really fat. Compared to dying, these don't seem so bad though.


•AVOID USING YOUR OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO BUOY YOU UP

You probably don't have much of consequence that you feel proud of. If you did, why would you be thinking about killing yourself to start with? Chances are pretty good that you are just going to let yourself down again. People like you really can't be counted on to deliver in the clutch.

Don't think "if I get the big job everything will turn around for me". You aren't getting that job. They don't want a mopey loser like you mucking up their business.

Don't say "if I can only get that threeway happening with my girl and another chick, imagine how great that will be". If it was going to happen my friend it would have by now. Just forget about it and watch some more porn. You can imagine that you are watching your girl get fucked by a real man for a change. (Ladies, I won't pretend to understand what is going on in your head enough to attempt a female version of this point. Sorry.)


•FIND THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO

There isn't a chance that I'd kill myself right now with the new Star Trek movie coming out next summer. Waiting for the new Amanda Palmer certainly kept the blade from my wrist for a few months earlier this year. Planning on seeing Amanda in Pittsburgh next month is doing wonders for me now.

A word of caution on this strategy - it can backfire in a big fucking way. There are families across the country who curse the Transformers movie every day for letting them down. Daddy isn't coming home baby, he's looking for energon in heaven with Jesus now.

Avoid counting on your friends and loved ones. If you could count on them to understand how important the plans you all made together were, then maybe you wouldn't be thinking of killing yourself.


•STAY BUSY

If you keep busy doing lots of things, you are less likely to take the time out of your day to kill yourself. Suicide is fairly time consuming and will really fuck up your plans. You just can't do things when you're dead. Plus, it makes a bunch of extra work and bother for other people.


•GET SOME PERSPECTIVE

Think about your whole stupid life. Think of every moment that has passed you by. Does it seem like a long time? I don't know about you, but mine has gone by in a flash. And so will the rest of it. Why bother killing yourself? It'll be over soon enough anyway.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Meaning

It hasn't always been like this. Something used to matter. I'd scatter words on paper. Compare the perfect robin's egg of one day's sky with the azure of the next. Mellon Collie versus White Album. Coffee and coffee and coffee. Days indoors and nights under the moon.

Things used to matter. I'm sure they did. Something must have. How else did I survive?

Was it all god? Sorry... I mean God? Maybe just the belief that there was a larger Purpose? Some reason to endure all the pain? The truth has been exposed. There is no Purpose, no Plan, no reason for it all.

And yet the pain is ubiquitous. I guess it always was. Yes. It was. It was always there.

It won't hurt anymore when I'm gone. I won't have to worry. I won't have the stress of success or failure. I won't have anything. Just nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The closest thing to peace that I can ever hope for. That must be why people kill themselves. Just for peace. Out of options. Life is too noisy. We just want peace and quiet.

The Sweet Mystery of life has cloyed. Its just frustration compounded with frustration with no end in sight. Am I "just feeling sorry for myself"? I don't think so. I don't literally "feel sorry" about me. I'm unsatisfied with life. Its short, excruciating and consistently disappointing. And EVERYONE'S life ends in tears. No matter what you think or who you are or what you do, your story will be a tragedy. Memento Mori motherfucker.

There will come a moment in the future when a worm will eat the part of someone's brain that contained very last memory of me anywhere in the whole universe. There will have been no point to anything I have ever done. Nothing lasts. Everyone dies. Entropy always wins.

This should be the most beautiful thing any living being could know. It means that we are absolutely free to do anything at all with no fear of consequences from an Old Angry Man in the Sky. We don't need Him. I don't need Him. I don't care if He exists or not. I won't serve Him.

I don't know what I am struggling with. Search for meaning? How silly is that?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Smells

I'm sick to death of everything being so goddamn scented. I can't wash my hands in the restroom in my own home without ending up smelling like Strawberry Shortcake's vagina. What the hell is wrong with just smelling like soap?

I don't need or want everything to smell 'nice'. This doesn't make my life better. This doesn't make me smile. This just annoys me.

I can appreciate that for most of our history humans smelled pretty damn bad. Feces, sweat, and ancient caveman style funk. Its OK now though. We don't owe some kind of scent debt to our ancestors or anything. We can just let it go. We have the ability to just smell clean now. Let's leave it at that.

There is a whole industry devoted to this stuff now. A good friend works at Bath and Body Works - its their bread and butter there. These people have built an entire enterprise around the idea that you can take the same 4-5 products, repackage them in a myriad combinations, and sell them over and over again to the same people. Some of these people basically own 10 bottles of the same product, just with different smells! I don't get it.

The potency of these modern smells is also unnerving. When I was a kid, there were two scented products that smelled super strong - Irish Spring bar soap and Lemon Pledge. Kids in the 90's killed themselves huffing Lemon Pledge, and Irish Spring is a Lucky-Charms-style, faux-Irish abomination. But at least that is where it stopped. Nowadays, every fourth rate gas station hand sanitizer is a sandalwood scented aromatherapy assfuck.

I'm done with it. From now on, I'm going to wash my hands in rubbing alcohol and dry them with a cigarette lighter. Sure sometimes I'll be badly burnt, but as far as I know Bath and Bodyworks doesn't sell Silvadine, so I think I'm ok.