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.

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.

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?

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.

Josh's First Birthday

Saturday I had the very first observance of my birthday. A bit of a roller coaster getting to it, but that seems to always be the case with me. I invited several people and damned if about half of them couldn't come. This might not be devastating if you invited 100 people to your 31st birthday party and only 50 came. Fifty is still a whole lot of people. But when its your first one ever, and you are 31, and 4 out of 10 people can't come, and you really shouldn't even count one of the ten people anyway because she is your girlfriend, well... it sucks.

So I canceled it. What the hell, nothing lost, nose still very well covered with skin, etc. The remaining people all still wanted to do something though, so we agree on Olive Garden. Nothing too exciting.

Here is the surprise - it was utterly fantastic. My advice to everyone in the world: every once in a while, surround yourself with people who truly love you. I was genuinely touched and affected by the display of affection for me. Its been a bad month in a bad year for me, and this made all the difference. If someone like me can find friends among such lovely people there may still be hope.

Or maybe it was all the scotch.

Heroes

I don't feel especially sorry for people who go over to Iraq and get themselves killed.

There, I said it. I mean it. Let me tell you why.

First, and probably most importantly, I do not believe there is any honor or glory to be found fighting wars that should never have been started to start with. If someone still thinks that it was a good idea to invade Iraq, then they are hopelessly stupid. Don't even bother trying to talk to someone like this. As far as the military presence there now, I do not respect service in the name of blood for oil. I do not support the actions of these troops.

The American Story that I heard growing up was that the Founding Fathers were guys who heard what the authority of the day had to say, thought it was bullshit, told it to go fuck itself, and then did what they believed was right. Time and time again, both courts and public opinion have held that "I was just following orders" is absolutely no excuse for criminal or immoral actions. So why is it OK for some guy to join the Army, go drop napalm on five-year-olds, and then claim that he has no responsibility for his actions? They want to blame Bush because he started it. Just how far would this stupid war have gotten if people had just refused to fight? How well does "just following orders" fit with the revolutionary spirit Americans should own as a birthright?

Secondly, to quote the late, great George Carlin -

"...you strap on a gun and go struttin' around some other man's country you better be ready for some action Jack. People are touchy about that sort of thing."

So, you went to go fight in George Bush's war for oil. While you were over there, some guy planted a bomb in the road, you drove over it, and so much for your legs. Well, I agree this is a unfortunate situation, but what exactly did you THINK was going to happen? This is a WAR for fucksake! If you weren't interested in a future spent piloting a Jazzy Scooter around town, then why the hell did you sign up for an occupation that has land mines as a work hazard?

Meanwhile, average Americans die every day for no good reason whatsoever. Some dumbass runs a red light or drives drunk and now a family is minus one parent. Is this less tragic because my imaginary "freedom" wasn't on the line?

I'm really sick of hearing about how soldiers are "heroes". One moment they are not responsible for their actions because they are just following orders. The next they are heroic Paladins holding the standard of Freedom high. I fail to understand how some kid trying to get money for college is a hero. More tragic than heroic. Totally different dramatic principle.

If you really want to do something heroic, refuse to fight an illegal war of aggression in a foreign land. Tell them that you would rather go to jail than put innocent people's lives on the line in the name of oil and American Hegemony. Tell the powers that be that they can go fuck themselves and let the old men fight their own damn war. Stand up for what's right, for what you believe in. Refuse to be a pawn in our Plutocracy's latest power grab. That would be heroic.

Not A Short One On Politics

"There is only one difference between dictatorship and democracy. In democracy, you vote and then take orders; in dictatorship you don't waste time voting." - Charles Bukowski

Reannan asked me write something about politics. It is a subject in which I have much interest. There is an irony here - I'm not even registered to vote. For a long time I wasn't because of the enforced apolitical stance of my upbringing. More recently its been out of a inability to find someone to trust. But I like to know what's going on. I stay informed. If I'm going to get fucked, I'd like to at least know who's holding the dick.

The first thing you need to know about American Politics is that the same people have ALWAYS been in charge. It's a well reported fact that every last U.S. President has been a direct descendant of the Royal families who have ruled Europe for centuries. Not only that, but pretty much all of our presidents have been related to each other too. What does this tell us?

Some people infer a giant Illuminati style conspiracy from these facts. I believe the truth is simpler but at the same time even more foreboding; power has stayed in the hands of a few families for pretty much all of our recorded history. To look at it another way, if you want to be president it really matters more who your family is and how much money you have than whether or not you are really the best man for the job. It means that Orwell was right; power never really changes hands. Despite his best efforts to remind of how different he is from "those guys on the dollar bills", even Obama is from the same blue blood stock.

Now to be fair, it certainly isn't your fault if you are a direct descendant of Charlemagne or the 15th cousin of The Queen of England. After all, all you did was get born. But the rest of us, the ones who take the orders, should ask ourselves "who is REALLY in charge if all of our choices keep the same people in power for centuries?"


***

Change. As long as I can remember politicians have promised the voters that they could deliver change. I can never remember the word being this worn out and cheap though. Its been drained of all its meaning. As often happens with things like this, its really come to mean the opposite of its dictionary meaning. 'No change' instead of 'change'.

Let's look at one of the central issues of our time to demonstrate. Israel. The country that shouldn't exist. The West's reminder to the Arab world that we can do whatever we like. So if we want to carve a country out of land where some other people were already living, we can do that. Then we can spend 60 years propping them up and arming them, allowing them to have the fucking bomb, and otherwise really just giving the finger to existing Arab governments, and then act surprised when they don't like us.

We fill their countries with troops and bases. We invade or bomb whenever we feel like it. We exploit their oil and resources to feed our "oil addiction". We treat anyone who doesn't like having Israel's insane existence rammed down their throat like an anti-semite and a hostile threat. Then we act shocked when people are so desperate for change in their world that they are willing to blow themselves up to get it.

How about you Obama supporters? How many of you want to ride the bus to work tomorrow with a bomb strapped to your chest? Now that's change. It might not really solve the problem, but its probably cheaper than a TV ad.

If you Obama acolytes want my support, you could start by changing our involvement sovereign nations affairs across the world. You could stop sucking Israel's circumcised cock long enough to take an honest look at what's really going on in the middle east. You could stop trying to look 'tough on terror' by talking about going after bin Laden. Its embarrassingly transparent.

You could also offer me some kind of explanation for why your supposedly progressive party has thrown the gay and lesbian community under the bus on gay marriage. I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that your demographic research tells you that you can count on these votes regardless of how you treat these people. Why bother catering to a group of people who will probably vote for you any way? Why bother caring about social justice, equality, or simple human decency? There is certainly no reason to pause for even a moment and consider the glaring hypocracy of a man who has personally benefited so very much from our nation's growing racial tolerance, standing in the way of equal rights for every American.

If you McCainites would like me on board, you could start by answering one very important question for me. If you are for small, unobtrusive government, why do you care if gay people get married? Why is this such a big deal to you? If you believe that marriage is a religious sacrament, then what gives government the right to be involved in it at all? If its a civil institution, then how can government not offer equal access to it? Perhaps most importantly, what possible interest does a small, non-intrusive government have in who I fuck? To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson's famous statement (on religion), "It makes no difference to me if my neighbor fucks one woman or 40 men. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Any party that calls itself 'conservative' needs to get straight on what that really means. It means "Stop spending so much goddamn money". Stop mortgaging our country to the Chinese to fund this stupid war. How is it even possible that we have spent nearly a trillion dollars on this war and we don't have the money to take care of these poor fuckers when they get home? Where did that money go? Who has it right now? What did they spend it on? Hookers? Lots of pizza? Can I get an itemized receipt for my war please? I'd like to know exactly how many one-armed Iraqi children I got for my trouble.

Both parties can tell me what they are going to do to control the sky rocketing price of heath care. Everyone seems to agree that we should do more to give more Americans access to heath care, (I personally believe that we should ensure it and enshrine it in law) but we are allowing the Doctors and the Drug Companies to continue pushing things higher and higher. They are basically working against our goal of affordable health care by inflating the market value. Why price people out of the system? Who wins when people cannot afford heath care?

Someone is winning. Someone MUST be winning because America still spends more per person for health care than any other advanced country. We spend about $5000 a year per person and look at what we have to show for it. Infant mortality that is comparable to a third-world country, and life expectancy that puts us around 45th in the world (somewhere between Bosnia and Kuwait in case you are wondering). What we don't get is universal health care for every single fucking person from sea to shining sea.

Canada has that. You know how much they pay for it? About two grand. That's right. They pay way less, and they get way more. Oh, and they are number 14 on that same list. Chew on that for a while if you want to get so angry that you might just need a drink. These people live this close to us on the map ---> || <---, they sit around all day drinking beer and eating sausage and maple syrup, and they live almost three years longer than we do. What the motherfuck?


***

So yeah, politics is thoroughly fucked. Nader wants a "Jeffersonian Revolution". I'm afraid that its going to take a Thomas Paine to straighten things out though.

Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. - Thomas Paine