Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Illusions of War and Peace

Law of our Maker:
Make others become like you.
Futureless asshole.


Every time I see a talking head on TV yapping about Iraq, I just shake my head and laugh. It's all about politics and scheming and debates over whose farts smell the best. Gibberish all - and no one remembers a word of it. Ever wonder why the only phrase to ever resonate out of all this was "stay the course"?

Do you want to "stay the course" in your life? To say "yes" is to validate your life choices. Say "no" and you'll have people looking at you funny. You really want that? I thought not. So everyone's gonna say "stay the course" - both the damned and the blessed - out of fear of his fellow man. Now there's an interesting commentary on our world.

We want to believe in this world of ours. There are those who look for the good in it and those who look for the bad - both are wrong. We only need the truth of it. That will save us. The beauty of truth is that it always gives a way to salvation. Am I "negative" to say the world lives a lie? If we truly are on the wrong course, then I have been positive in my faith that there is another way to live. And if we are on the wrong course and I say otherwise, how vile those words are!
So you want a solution to Iraq? Here it is: honor the truth. Truth is we were wrong to invade, we fucked up and we're the bad guys in this scenario. Seems counterintuitive to admit that as a way to redemption, but can you feel the healing in it? Nothing galls me more than some asshole talking about us "saving face". As if that's where honor lies. And they are willing to let others suffer for the charade.

(Had I lived my other life, I would love to do a video of the current President committing seppuku. I would call it "Saving Face", with images of Iraqi violence flashing through his mind.)

I will finish with a quote from the Haiku Monk:

A man who refuses love will have himself for an enemy. And then he has brought war to the world.

One man's war can become a nation's, and then the world's.

Monday, November 27, 2006

The Idea Guys


"Get this! Get this! This shot is going to be genius! Bank it just past the side pocket, slice into the 4 ball which hits the 3 and just barely cuts the 9 in the corner pocket." On other tables in the pool hall, the sounds of balls dropping murmured in the background. But those were ordinary shots, not shots of genius. Those people had no idea of greatness. But the Idea Guys did.

"OK, OK," countered his friend. "How about this one? Go two rails, kick the 6 into the 3 and combo the 9 in the side pocket." The Idea Guys always laughed at the others with their chalked up cue sticks and powdered hands, struggling to make even the simplest of shots. They were above all that - they never picked up a cue - inventing shots their brethren "can not even conceptualize".

The last one of the trio surveyed the table intently but could find no combination of rails and ricochets to outdo his cohorts. Finally, he looked up and grinned. "I'll just lift up the table from this corner and roll the 9 ball in!" His companions looked at one another, mulled over the idea, and then quickly concluded with a high five. "Genius!"

Grabbing their coats on the way out, they talked excitedly of "Fight Club" being on TV that night. The man behind the counter eyed them contemptuously as his assistant poked him curiously. "But they didn't play the game. They just threw the balls on the table."

"Yeah, I know. They've been doing it for years. They never pick up a clue."


Saturday, November 25, 2006

Road to Fucking Damascus

Road to Bali

Like the ancient apostles, I continue to disperse pearls of wisdom through my letters. Eat your heart out, Paul. A song can sing but can a letter? So here's another fart of insight I passed on to the Homeless Guy:

"Living and dying while dancing to Billy Squire"

"One day happy, another looking to slit my wrists"...I understand that. The moron in me says, "If you were normal you would be happy!" But then I remember, is it normal to be happy when you're freaking homeless?? Some people HAVE killed themselves to avoid this predicament. You have shown an astounding strength of character. And trust me, I never hand out a free compliment.

But for me, there is the freedom: to think what I want, to say what I want, to be as I want. My freedom feeds me in a way that jobs kill me. People are jealous of my freedom and try to paint me with their sins, saying that my freedom is optional. Well, if that were true we'd all still be under the feudal system - or as I call it: the "futile" system. The joy of every breath I take is in knowing how many people it pisses off!

When Gandhi was queried on the very real possibility of his being shot, he replied, "Then they'll have my dead body." That's all the fuckers are going to get out of me too. Funny part is, they think that's enough, that it is "victory". But what can you say to someone who has yet to learn their lesson? Life’s a good thing. We keep finding that out every day.


Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A President Confesses

It seems O.J. started a trend with his confessional book. The following is an excerpt from the current President’s book: “If I was the greatest traitor in American history: How I’d done it.”

      “I wanna! I wanna! I wanna!” My first words in office as I stomped the floor. Ah, those were the days! So what did I, your Great Leader, so dearly need? Lovely Iraq, of course! Iraq is like gold to me. It shines in my eyes and gets my palms all sweaty. Reminds me of prom night. I just gotta have her!
     Forgive me while I indulge myself once more. It’s like a drug to me (no, not cocaine!). Just think of all that oil! Oceans of it! If I could only get my hands on it I would explode in ecstasy! A new dawn in America. Rivers and rivers of oil pouring in all because of little ol’ me! Mount Rushmore, make room for one more!
     Today, there are people who want to ruin my dream. They’re called Realists. I hate them and God hates them. So let me recount to you how and why I went into Iraq; my need to penetrate her. I’m a humble man and it’s like me to shine a light on my glory, so I feel it’s truly in the best interests of God that I do this. And we all want to make God happy, don’t we?
     It, like, totally sucked when first I was President! I was sooo sulking! I had this way cool army to play with and rad weapons to kick ass with and like no way to spank Iraqi butt with them. But I am a Godly god and all that time I spent up in my room I was prayin’ real hard to get what I wanted to make God happy. And then it happened: 911! Thank you, God!

     First thing I did after I shit my pants was to call my daddy. “Get Mr. Cheney on the phone!” I barked. Already I was a changed man. I was a real life authority figure! So I says to Boss Cheney, “Mr. Cheney, what are you gonna do? Those terrorists are mean!”
      “Well,” he says with his best Darth Vader grin, “this means the best thing possible: war!”
     “Golly, Mr. Cheney, do you think we’ll win??”
     “Of course we’ll win! We’re the God guys. Everything we do is good. We’re going to kick bad guy Saddam’s ass from here to the Alderaan System!”
     “You mean we get to invade Iraq, Mr. Cheney?”
     “The Empire must be protected.”
     “Yeeehaw! I’m gonna ride Laura like a cowboy home from a three month cattle drive!”
     So I ran back to my room, got on my bestest cowboy boots, told Laura she was gonna bark like a dog that nite! and ran back to daddy. That’s when he almost hit me with his light saber as I squealed back into the room.
     “Careful, Mr. Cheney! That saber might be plastic but you can still poke an eye out with it!”
     “That’s OK,” he corrected me. “It would only be your eye. I’ll have to take you hunting with me sometime.”
     “You know what? I’ve been thinking! I been asking God real hard to get me in Iraq’s pants and then God makes it happen! I really wasn't just talking to myself all this time. You know what this means? I am on a mission from God…”
     My voice trailed off at that moment as I realized just how holy I am. I’m on a mission from God, just like the Blues Brothers. No one can critical me now. I’ll be a flashlight in the world and plant my seed in the Middle East to forever bear my fruit of the loom. I am the new Moses.

     I wish I could just stay in that moment forever, that time when God’s word and my word became a holy trinity. I am His instrument to fix the world. It is my duty to grab all power so I can further God’s will. Even my initials, G.W., stand for God’s Will. Destiny. I’ve heard about it so many times and now I finally got one!
     Darth Cheney (he said that’s what I was supposed to call him now), decided to make up all the plans because he said he was “good at fucking people over.” Saddam’s gonna get it now! We watched WWII movies all night and saw how people was screaming and yelling and loving us Americans. “That’s going to be us,” smirked Darth knowingly. Then we watched Bambi and high-fived when the good guy hunter hit his mark.
     I don’t keep my brain on me, it’s another person. Me and Darth call him Emperor Rove because he’s so wizardy and has special powers to know things. Can I pick ‘em or what! The Emperor told us how he was gonna keep the people scared proper so they would follow me no matter what. He said he could turn real live people into sheep; that a whole third of them was sheeps already, another half we could keep in line with his hysterical trance and the rest we would have to kill because they was traitors.


     And, wow, was my brain smart! Everyone started doing my bidding, I was strutting like a Jedi! I was shocked and awed! This only happened because I was doing God’s work. My Brain said God would make people love me and look up to me. I remember I went jogging one day with this soldier who loved me even though I got his legs blowed off and there he was trying to keep up with his fake ones. Was all I could do to keep from laughing!
     I love my toy soldiers. They’re just like those little plastic army men, only better. These guys really shoot! They’re badass! I like to hang with my toy men and talk about what badasses we are. They love me and want to die for me and God. I can’t tell you what a great feeling it is when people die for you. It really gets me “hott”!
     Greed is like a religion to me. God gives money to all us good guys. That’s why people who got lots of money like me the most. But you gotta take care of the dollar if you want God to love you! Me and the Emperor and Darth Cheney and Boba Fett Rumsfeld all got together on how to make money off this. Darth and the Emperor said how we can take all that oil and use it to pay the whole cost for the war! Genius! And then just like the great bounty hunter Boba Fett, good ol’ Rummy says he can do the war real cheap because we got the Death Star and God on our side and we can blow up like a hundred Iraqi families with just one bomb, so all our troops will be AOK. Are we God’s chosen or what!!

     The real cool thing about being on a mission from God is that then everything you do is blessed. My Brain told me how we got to tell people “special things” to make the war happen. He, like, knows everything and told how this super race of men did it before. From Super Duper Double Top Secret Paper #8,294,937:

     "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."     
I was like, wow, we can do that easy! Then I got all bummed because I remembered icky Saddam wasn’t the one who attacked us. But Mr. Patriot Darth Cheney solved all that. He told me how this other guiding soul did it and he was one of the great liars of all time. It goes like this:

     "All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the Big Lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the Big Lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
     I was kinda scared reading all that (what the heck does 'strata' mean anyway??). I mean, would it really work, is people that dumb? Great Cheney just cackled when I asked him that. He said, “The Emperor is your brain but I’m your balls.” That’s when I was positively hopefuller we would pull off one of the best frauds ever for God!
      (Gossip alert! When Emperor Brain found out Boss Cheney was my balls he got real mad 'cause he wanted to be my balls and said we had to start calling him Rove the Barbarian.)

     You know the Glorious rest. Like Moses I led my country to the promised land. I stand tall as others run away because my will must be done. We the righteous must suffer the slings and arrows of the blind, the greedy, the arrogants, the cowards, the liars, the hypocriticals, the self-deluders, the misguiders and the ungodly. Thank God I’m not one of them! There is only one thing that can cause my and God’s plan to fail: that’s quitting (remember that if things stayed screwed up). I’m not a cutter and runner! I’m a faithful soldier of the word, and the word is: “I is your god.”

P.S. Some non-believers wanted me to edit this most holy of documents. I rebuked them mightily and asked, “Would you have me edit the Torah too?” I had one of my best smirks ever after that one!

Everyone asks where's the proof this President lied about his reasons for going to war. My reply: where's the proof he didn't?

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Shine Your Own Mirror

Another beer;
Another chip;
Another day
Gone to shit.

Truth is a funny thing. Ask someone what "the Truth" is and they will (unwittingly) tell you their truth. Ask someone the truth of them and they give you the truth they wish you to believe. Example:

Man to married woman: "What do you think of men?"
Woman: "Men are uncommunicative, immature and fragile."
Man: "So tell me about your husband."
Woman: "Oh, he's wonderful. Just perfect!"

It is written that Satan is trying to do all the damage he can because "his window is short". (actually, his term ends in two years) These Short Timers are people who know "the Truth" but then twist it. A man tells me he "needs no water!" And, twit that I am, I awe him as a god, he needs no water like I do. The illusion of his "power" is in having chosen death. In time his folly is revealed, but how many die before then in following him?

Heroes and cowards,
Scarred by tears of battles that
Rape the souls of men.

I had an unspeakable dream of a world run amok with greed and power. Warlords buried people alive. Why? Because they lived in a world that believed in power. And those who gave them such power never believed it would be used against them, that they were safe in choosing death for others. But it's the belief in illusion that's fatal. Just give it time.

As I speak, our war machine is crushing skulls in another land. One day, it will turn on us. It needs no water. This is just one example among many. I read of a Short Timer who claims religion is God (which is certainly fatal), who said our desecration of the environment was OK because God would fix it. Somewhere Satan laughs - for a short time.

"From the fruit of his lips
A man enjoys good things;
But the unfaithful
Have a craving for violence."

- Proverbs 13:2

Assuming this is true, you can certainly see why so many of those who espouse violence so crave to be labeled "faithful". But with our lips we can change the world. No Short Timer wants to be exposed as the fraud he is! Truth will set us free. To choose otherwise is to lose. The price of speaking out will be high. But the reward is far greater.

Since the dawn of recorded history, man has run from the truth - as if that were possible. But the truth is life is a dream gifted and we are little specks of God scattered across the universe to be portals of Light and Joy. In the end, that can be our only fate - but not for those who run from it.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

I'm Dying Quite Well, Thank You

Here's a note I passed on to the Homeless Guy. It sums up a lot of what I tried to say here:

It always shocks people when I say the homeless serve an extremely valuable purpose to society. They don't want to hear this because of their guilt; because most people who killed Jesus never laid a finger on him. But the homeless are the barometer of a society's soul. No society can achieve perfection and how it treats its less fortunate determines its fate. But a society that has declared itself good and holy – and boy, do we sure do that! – turns its back on those in need, calling them deserving of such harm. Those outside of society are the ones most easily able to see it clearly and their words are to be cherished.

This argument of course is too esoteric for most people (although they have an instinctive fear of the homeless' point of view) so I prefer the simplicity of the Terminator when dealing with my critics: "Fuck you, asshole." (monotone with Belgian accent)


His response was: "Hear! Hear!"


I can no longer sleep at night. My facade is crumbling. Like the combat soldier of WWII, I'm developing the "2,000 yard stare". Such is life in the concentration camp of capitalism. How many vain screams for help were heard at Auschwitz? How many pleas to God unanswered? How many Nazis would have understood if their victims had told them one day they would share the same fate?

I know how it is. We are not going to stop until this planet is unlivable. Then we'll say, "Now I admit we were wrong”. I can not reconcile that. I am calm now but there are times when my hate burns against you. And when your turn comes and the screams of a horrific fate reach my ears, I shall not be moved. It’s just God taking out the trash.