Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers -

If you ever needed any proof that the government, all of its branches, were a bunch of lunkheaded wastoids with the sense of three-toed tree sloths, look no further than the recent "effort" to unearth the late (and should have been long forgotten) Jimmy Hoffa. The search involved "more than 40 FBI personnel, along with demolition experts, archaeologists and anthropologists." That's probably about sixty people who were paid with US tax dollars to dig up someone who has been assumed dead and missing for over thirty years now. This investigation is about useless as nipples on a man.

Look, if his family or loved ones want this investigation to continue then let their union-loving asses pay for the anthropologists, archaeologists, and whatever other conspiracy-minded buffoon that actually considers this ridiculous masturbatory effort of law enforcement to hold any weight in national matters.

Say what you want about Ja-raldo coming out of Capone's vault with his dork in his hand--at least that whole debacle was funded with network money. These suited up assholes need to be out there combing the fugging streets for terrorist cells and not wasting time on some duck hunt on a farm in Michigan. Or is the whole threat level thing just a bullshit meter that those in power drag out around election time to jump start the chicken switch and drive voters into the booths out of fear for their own lives?

You know, the FBI won't even consider hiring anyone whose done any drugs harder than alcohol but someone at the top of the ladder over there is sure smoking some serious crack if they think this bullshizz passes the smell test.

Someone's got some 'splainin' to do in my opinion.

LINKS:
FBI Ends Search for Hoffa

TAGS:
Jimmy Hoffa, FBI, Government Waste

This has been reprinted on Memorial Day in honor of all veterans and patriots who have served their country's best interests. I originally published this in 2002 and it was picked up by a group of WWII vets who read it at their annual meeting in Las Vegas.
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We are losing you. You, who boarded ships on both coasts of this city on a hill, and traveled to the other side of the planet to defend something that wasn’t your responsibility but would be if you hadn’t acted. You, who paid the highest price man can offer fellow man, so that children who spoke unintelligible languages to you would see a day where the work they performed was their own choice. You, who filled fox holes in Bastogne, caves in Okinawa, and the skies above France on that Day of Days to drive the vehicle of American Justice straight into the fire den of the demon’s home. You are slipping from the fingers of a grateful nation that has held you, comfortable, in a clenched fist for over half a century now.

Know that there are Americans whose hearts swell and whose eyes flood with tears every time yours’ do when speaking of the noble sacrifices you witnessed daily in the early part of that fateful decade that claimed so many human lives throughout the world. There are those of us who hold you as a hallmark in our minds of what level of greatness can be achieved in the mortal life of man. There is not enough metal produced in the hearts of stars to create enough statues to honor what you accomplished and what you gave up so that others may experience and take for granted that which you so nobly deferred in the interests of yourselves and your fellow man, that they be given the right to choose the paths of their own lives and that you may preserve your right to do so.

What you have given us is all that one human being can do for another; preserve their right to choose and interfere only when that right is being infringed upon by others. We will miss your wise eyes and the pain you have carried around, nestled in each wrinkle on your beautiful faces, however scarred and frowned they may be as you look upon a generation who seems to obfuscate and pass over the sacrifices you have made.

And there are Americans whose hearts fill with viscous anger when they hear the despicable lack of support from countries like France and Germany where thousands of your comrades' bodies lay buried under white crosses, when the former country's last military action was loading human beings on cargo trains to be enslaved, tortured, murdered in mass quantities and burned like timbers; and the latter country who will wear a stain of blood for a thousand years to come, but whose people have been given the right to choose their own lives, apart from this shameful past, much like America and the choice we have made in regards to our sins of slavery and segregation. We do not choose to grieve your loss, now numbering in the thousands every year. Instead, we choose to celebrate and honor your lives of accomplishment and sacrifice, and the sacrifice of all veterans that have supported the flag of liberty, even in dubious circumstances.

This is a eulogy in honor of sacrifice and pride, but not a eulogy for honor and sacrifice. We are your sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters. We have listened and learned from your stories. We have loved you for the people you were and the people you have made us into. We will wear your memory as badges of honor for generations to come. We will flower your tombstones with roses and blood if necessary, to honor that which you too sacrificed on our behalf. Words hold little value to groups, so allow this to be directed to each of you as individuals. We love you. We honor you. We will cherish your memory forever.

Thank you for our freedom.

LINKS:
The Revolutionary War
The War of 1812
The U.S. Civil War
The Spanish-American War
World War I
World War II by the BBC
The Cold War
The Korean "Conflict"
The Vietnam "Conflict"
The U.S. Invasion of Grenada
Operation Desert Storm
The United Nations Campaign in Kosovo
The U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan
Operation Iraqi Freedom

TAGS:
memorial day, Patriotism, Freedom, War, peace, Military, Armed Forces

Most of you have probably never heard of Stanley Kunitz, although you should have. He lived the life of a demure poet although his poetry was everything but demure. Stanely just died on May 14th, 2006; he was 100 years old. He was not a hard-drinking poor me type of poet who spends years wallowing in their own self-dysfunction. Kunitz was a philosopher with a gift for prose and was a master of the line break (in my book, no poet is worth a flip if they haven't mastered control of their line breaks--it means everything in written art).

Society has no more valuable golden eggs than great philospher poets who live to reach their centennial anniversary.

Kunitz was born in Massachussets back in 1905, when someone went around at dusk and lit the street lamps and the only noise heard after dark in small town America was the buzz of insects and the spoken words of human beings perched on a precipice of unimaginable change. They don't make human beings today like they did back then, but philosophers of all ages have been saying this since Moses wore short pants.

His mother was a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant and his father, a dress-maker by trade, committed suicide by swallowing carbonic acid in a public park six weeks before Kunitz was born. His mother remarried but the step-father died when Kunitz was 14. So, he entered puberty without a significant male role model in the home and I believe that this had to effect every word that Kunitz ever wrote.

In 1926, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard with a Master's degree in English. He left the academic world to become a reporter and then an editor because a stone wall of anti-semiticism prevented him from becoming a professor. He was later quoted as saying, "I think it’s stultifying for young poets to leap immediately into the academic life." It's funny because I felt this very same stranglehold as I made the choice of whether to continue on for my MFA in Creative Writing or get out into the world. I personally saw no light at the end of the academic tunnel and chose life instead of the umbrella of university life with its obscure publishings in small presses that nobody reads anyway. Kunitz was uknown for most of life and semi-famous in literary circles for the rest of it and that seemed a-okay with him.

He was drafted in 1943 even though he was registered as a conscientous objector. He filled a position as non-combantant and was honorably discharged with the rank of staff sergeant. He began teaching and seriously publishing after the war. He continued to publish poems until 2005. Kunitz went on to win a litany of awards including the Nobel Prize for Poetry and he served as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress as well as its successor position of Poet Laureate (he held this title when I graduated from college in the year 2000). He also founded two artistic communities, one in New York and one in Massachussets.

Kunitz was a serious gardner, who once said of this craft:

It's the way things are: death and life inextricably bound to each other. One of my feelings about working the land is that I am celebrating a ritual of death and resurrection. Every spring I feel that. I am never closer to the miraculous than when I am grubbing in the soil.

This demure poet lived his life as an everyman but approached his art with the fury of a latino rebel. He was once quoted as saying that, "One needs a revolution every few years;" as well as, "I must create a system myself or be enslaved by another man's." This was no soft-hearted man. He was a visionary and he possessed the greatest weapon ever known to man--patience. The best poets are always patient and understand that is far better to outlive one's enemies than to beat them.

And Kunitz wasn't silent on social issues. He was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam conflict and the more recent invasion of Iraq and he supported the Juntas in Central America. When asked about his political stances in light of his art, he replied, "The poet can't change anything, but [they] can demonstrate the power of the solitary conscience." This was a man who understood that true power and true freedom lies in the mind of the individual and has nothing to do with parades, speeches, or military coups.

But Kunitz reserved his deepest wisdom for the other craft he dedicated his life to--his poetry. Sometimes he wrote Arse Poeticas (poems dedicated to the craft of poetry) but he was at his best when asked outright in interviews. Consider these three statements;

The poem comes in the form of a blessing—‘like rapture breaking on the mind,’ as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.
The deepest thing I know is that I am living and dying at once, and my conviction is to report that dialogue. It is a rather terrifying thought that is at the root of much of my poetry.
A poet cannot concern himself with being fair to the reader. Time will tell. All poems contain a degree of mystery, as poetry is a discovery of one's hidden self. . . . Poetry is not concerned with communication; it has roots in magic, incantation, and spell-casting.

Stanley Kuntiz was a great human being, a great American, and a great poet. I used the first line from one of his greatest poems, "The Wellfleet Whale," as the inspiration for the only poem I ever wrote than won an award--it's title is "Dogs in Pain."

May all poets live to be a hundred and may all of their souls rest in peace.

LINKS:

TAGS:
Stanley Kunitz, Poetry, Writing

A detonated suicide bomb is both a sucess and a failure in the same act. It's a success in the sense that it is a completed act of such horror that it cannot be ignored by those directly affected by it and it's a failure in the sense that any human being would feel that the last recourse they have to rederess their grievances with society is to take their own life and possibly the lives of many others to make a statement about their core beliefs.

I am excited to read John Updike's new novel Terrorist which hits the shelves on the 62nd anniversary of the commencement of Operation Overlord (that's D-Day and that's World War II to the 95% of you Americans who don't know your history). Updike is an amazingly prolific author and, while I'm fairly positive that he would not consider the current President to be an outstanding leader--the man has very important things to say about our culture.

And I'm always on the lookout for an artist (writers especially) who can assemble these burning issues of our species into a frame and then penetrate that frame to the mysterious ground of being which unites us all. I'll be the first to admit that I have never read a complete John Updike novel and the only short story I recall reading is A & P from my creative writing school days (the only thing I remember about this story is the teenage girl's buttcheek poking out from beneath her bathing suit--a very descriptive image that just sticks); but I figure it's never too late to start reading any author. The beautiful thing about reading an author who has been called "the greatest living writer" and who has won two Pulitzer prizes is that if you like what they're writing later on in life, chances are very good that you will enjoy working back through their works to the very beginning. It's like a lesson in craft in reverse.

Books have always held tremendous power for me. I give them as gifts to people I truly care about and I hoard them personally like King Solomon's treasure. Books are the highway to worlds outside my everday existence; they are connection points of humanity, the original hyperlinks.

And even though Updike and I probably don't vote the same way, we are both part of the greatest weapon that Western Civilization has ever known--the ability of our culture to artistically take on the other culture's point of view, penetrate it to the commonality and drive our continents back together in a mountain shifting action human fusion.

I am interested to see if Updike can deliver through this theme and help us find some kind of commonality with the monster we are being told is completely "other" every day on the news and from the highest chambers of power in the land.

Updike fans and those who’ve read this novel are encouraged to post their thoughts here.

TAGS:
John Updike, Terrorist, Literature, Writing, books

Which political party do you typically agree with?

Libertarian
Which political party do you typically vote for?
Republican
List the last six presidents that you voted for?
George W. Bush (2004) and George W. Bush (2000). I abstained from voting in the 1996 election and was too young to vote in the 1992 election.
Which party do you think is smarter about the economy?
Libertarians. Open markets with the least amount of regulation (only that which protects life and property). "Tax cuts for the rich" is a loaded phrase because it is the rich who pays taxes, therefore any "cut" in taxes should logically benefit those who are paying the taxes. Anything else is wealth redistribution and socialism, pure and simple.
Which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs?
Libertarians. From my experience, extensive social aid programs only serve to demoralize and disincentive people from taking risks and investing in others.
Do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out?

I think we need to pull our troops out at the first hint of regime stability. I do not believe (and have heard first hand from people actually in Iraq--one of them a commanding General--that the actual situation is nowhere near as dire as what's being portrayed on the nightly news here in America).
Who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11?
Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq (From what I have read, I believe Iraq also had a hand in the Oklahoma Federal bombing and the original World Trade Center attack in 1993).
Do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in iraq?
No. I believe that what Saddamm had left was smuggled into Syria and is being stockpiled for use against coalition forces at some point in the future.
Yes or no, should the U.S. legalize marijuana?
Absolutely. Wholeheartedly--YES! The war against marijuana is one of the most egregious violations of personal choice in the history of this country. It should be standardized, legalized, and taxed.
Do you think the Republicans stole the last presidental election?

No. I have seen or heard nothing that would convince me of this. I saw plenty of black folk voting at the polls here in Ohio.
Do you think Bill Clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with Monica Lewinski?
No and he wasn't. He was impeached for perjury under oath and he deserved it, despite what party he was a member of. If Bush goes under oath and lies he should also be impeached. At least Nixon had the sense to step down before he was called under oath (cause God knows he would've lied).
Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president?
No. Hillary Clinton is as power-hungry as any modern dictator and I think her presidency would be a scourge on this country and this world that our species might never recover from.
Name a current Democrat who would make a great president:
Zell Miller. His speech at the RNC in 2004 was one of the best that I've ever heard.
Name a current Republican who would make a great president:
Newt Gingrich. The man is brilliant despite his past moral shortcomings (at least he didn't lie under oath about them).
Do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion?

Personally, yes. But I support the 9th Amendment which clearly says that it's the state legistalture (therefore the people's) right to choose how each state approaches and approves this practice. If a woman wants this procedure done, let her go to a state which supports it.
What religion are you?
I'm agnostic. I am deeply spiritual but I also understand that all religions are constellations of metaphors that should be used to put an individual in touch with the nameless mystery which lies beyond all human knowledge and experience. I believe in a personal connection with the divine that goes past my own petty ego, desires and fears and I see people who get caught up in the idol worship of words and rituals as existing on a childish level of spiritual awareness that we are each capable of suprassing as individuals.
Have you read the Bible all the way through?
No. The plot bored me. I have read the New Testament and selected books of the Old Testament but when you get to all that begotten shit, I lose all interest.
What's your favorite book?
It's a tie between Transformations of Myth Through Time by Joseph Campbell and The Awakening of Intelligence by Jiddu Krishnamurti. These two books will destroy your world and build it back better than you can possibly imagine.
Who is your favorite band?
Tool
Who do you think you'll vote for president in the next election?
Probably Newt Gingrich, assuming there isn't an outstanding Libertarian candidate.
Do you think President Bush should be impeached for domestic spying?
No. All presidents have spied on the American people. There is no such thing as privacy anymore and if you think there is, you should be impeached from walking amongst the sane of us.
Do you think President Bush should be censured for okaying the leak that led to outing a CIA agent?
No. This is a bullshit issue and has been ever since it came out.
Do you think it was a coincidence that gasoline prices have nearly tripled and oil company profits have hit record highs while there was a US President whose family made its fortune through oil?
Everything listed here is an effect. The Third World emerging into the modern age at a time when we've reached and gone beyond peak oil production is driving the prices of gasoline up along with the demand. When there is no sign of a coming decrease in the demand for oil but you are dealing with a fixed commmodity, then obviously prices are going to go up and record profits will be reached. This is simple economics, something many do not have even a basic understanding of and tend to resort to pathetic conspiracy theories to mask their ignorance.
Do you think President Bush is the worst US President ever? and if not, who is?

Absolutely not. Woodrow Wilson is the worst President ever. He was a racist buffoon who got the US involved in a European civil war which led to a century of misery and the deaths of dozens of millions of human beings, not to mention produced the War on Terror.
What website did you see this on first?
reverse_vampyr

LINKS:
Newt Gingrich

TAGS:
Honest Blogger Quiz, Politics, Bush, Newt Gingrich, Joseph Campbell, Jiddu Krishnamurti

My advice is not to see this movie until you've read the book. First of all, it is very difficult to take a novel of ideas and turn it into a visual screenplay. That being said, the writers of this script did an amazing job translating the novel to the screen. I guess what sticks in my craw the most is how they turned Robert Langdon (Hanks's character) into a semi-apologist for the church. This was clearly a political maneuver to placate the critics of the film. But say what you will, this novel (and ultimately the film) absolutely challenge the entire concept of modern christianity which is based upon the founding notion that Jesus was not a mortal man but God incarnate. It hits home and, assuming the viewer or reader isn't completely brain dead; it should open at least a miniscule sized peanut hole of doubt which is as exciting as it is disconcerting to the religiously devout.

And, coming away from the movie, there wasn't anything new that I didn't get from the book besides a few goosebump moments. One of these was in Teabing's home office and they were viewing DaVinci's The Last Supper painting, showing the religious iconography which effectively argued that Mary Magdalene was Jesus's wife and was pregnant with his child during the time of the crucifixion, snuck out of Jerusalem and fled to Saxon (France).

The second moment was when Langdon was standing in front of Isaac Newton's tomb and the CGI orbs were flying all around his head and he was breaking the apple code. I think the movie did an excellent job of taking the painstaking logical steps of breaking these codes in the book and turning them into a visual process that the viewer could understand if not enjoy in the movie.

The final goosebump moment is when Langdon says the words, "You are the last living descendent of Jesus Christ." I don't care who you are, that's powerful stuff to think about.

Ultimately, the DaVinci code (book and movie) demands of us that we think about our relationship with divinity--if we cannot be like Jesus, then what's the point of the whole thing? To live life worshipping an idea, a creed, a dusty old book with laws and high flying concepts of brotherly love? To me, that's worse than slavery because at least the slave master is real. Addiction and subversion to an idea is the behavior of the lowest that lies in the heart and mind of man.

And the star, of course, was Ian Mckellan who played the part of the anti-church dude a little too well (McKellan, an open homosexual is known for his inflammatory statements about the church's bigotry and tunnel vision towards homosexuals) but he is the shining star in this movie.

Again, I highly recommend the movie if you've read the book because if you haven't, it will most likely seem a little dry.

LINKS:
It looks like Angels & Demons is coming next
TDC hits $224 million in sales for it's opening weekend

TAGS:
Da Vinci Code, dan brown, books, Film, Movies

Well, well, well--it looks like my little predication last week played out. Vito would be the spark that would ignite the war between Tony and Phil/Johnny Sac. Next week should be interesting but I have no idea how they are going to set this up for eight more episodes.

It was about time Tony gave an ultimatum to A.J.--the little prick. It's just funny that it took Carmella and Meadow leaving before he stepped in and became his father instead of backup when Carmella's placating stopped working. It was a long time coming.

Even though two people were killed in this episode, not much really happened and most of the episode felt like filler. Carmella in France was a big waste of time in my opinion because it didn't really move her character anyway (at least that we could tell at this point). One thing to note was that Heloise and Abelard was the book that teacher she had an affair with gave her to read and she made a remark about Heloise and Abelard when she was eating with Roe in the cafe.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping that Furio would "show up" and they'd have a fling but I forgot that it was The Sopranos and not As the World Turns.

Tony has to kill Phil and his other Captains, right now. He has to take control. You saw how one of Tony's captains praised Phil for his ability to take action--the New York crew will respect the power and balls move of cutting the head of their crew and taking over.

It's put up or shut up time for Tony and his pissant crew from North Jersey...

LINKS:
Peter Abelard and Heloise

TAGS:
The Sopranos, Tony Sopranos, Cold Stones, Episode 76

Related Posts (on one page):

If this movie doesn't get you off McDonald's, nothing will. This will be ten times more potent than Supersize Me. If you've never read Schlosser before, check the book out and definitely read his book Reefer Madness.

LINKS:
Click here to watch the trailer.

This morning when I was walking out the door, I grabbed my iPod and it lit up and when I looked down, I was amazed to see that I had 666 songs on it and the first song was "Friend of the Devil" by The Grateful Dead. You might call it creepy but I call it funny given the recent abuse that has been dealt to the monotheists with extreme prejudiced here at BWP. But don't worry because I'll probably be defending them next week. I have a love/hate relationship with believers. In some ways I see them as quaint throwbacks to the 12th Century and at some point I just want to pat the Christians, Muslims and Jews on their heads and say, "Now, kids--remember that you're all fighting over the same cat turds in the sandbox of the Middle East."

But then I remember that despite the few conservative laws and acts our President has accomplished in his five plus years in office, he is still an evangelical Christian who believes in a literal interpretation of The Bible and probably fancies himself a key player in the "End Times" which is supposed to usher in 1,000 years of peace under Jesus Christ (doesn't anyone else wonder what happens after 1,000 years? Does Satan come back for Genesis II: Revenge of the Snake?).

And I also remember that the Iranian President is also a raving lunatic who believes the same thing, only that his side will be in the winner's circle. And I get a bit unnerved and irritated and then I start lashing out at the believers who continue to hate and kill for their symbols. But in reviewing the letter from the Iranian dude to the Texas dude (hat tip to Fantastic Bastard for sending me the link); I'm a little unnerved by the clearly fascist overtones which have a strong hint of totalitarian theocracy. If you need any more proof that Iran is now run by an Islamo-Fascist, just listen to the mixture of leftist rhetoric with blind religious foolishness:

The question here is "what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?" As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist — to a larger or lesser extent — in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign — paid from the public treasury — be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?... The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the world feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies. The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries. The people are disgusted with increasing corruption. The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because their rights are not advocated by these organizations. Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems. We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point — that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: "Do you not want to join them?"

Now that is some scary shit, isn't it? When crazy leaders start telling you how your countrymen feel and the majority of your press concurs with him, you have an extremely dangerous situation.

Combine that realization with Pat Buchannan's sobering words today in his WorldNetDaily column:

America is today a nation bankrupt in the sense that it cannot meet all the IOUs the country has handed out. We have an empire we cannot afford. We are committed to fight wars on every continent, but we lack the soldiers to fight them, as Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and China become anti-American. We have Social Security and Medicare commitments to the baby boomers we cannot meet without a ruinous increase in taxes. We are running an unsustainable trade deficit of near $800 billion, financed by $2-billion-a-day borrowing from abroad that has begun to sink the dollar. We have a shrinking industrial base and a growing dependence on China, Japan and other Asian nations for the necessities of our national life. We have borders we cannot protect, as the Third World mounts an invasion of America. And we have a ruling party that is breaking up over these issues, as the Democratic Party of 1968 broke apart over Vietnam, riots and the cultural revolution. With this difference: America in '68 had a Republican Party and conservative movement ready to rule. Few today have confidence in the party of Kennedy and Clinton, Kerry and Biden, Pelosi and Reid, Sharpton and Schumer. In 1932, it took a Depression to bring to power new men and ideas. In 1968, it took a divisive war, urban riots, assassinations and a cultural revolution to convince America to turn away from the party of their fathers. What is the calamity that is coming this time?

What crisis indeed? From the way I see it, we are poised, as a species, for enormous calamity or for enormous progress and success. You will know we are moving on in our social evolution as a species when we start actually moving into space instead of talking about it incessantly.

LINKS:

Ahmadinejad's Letter to Bush
Pat Buchannan's Column
We are going to establish a colony on the Moon but NASA cannot do it alone--this should be a species-wide focus (Confucious say, "Making Moon tracks better than making war...")
Public space travel is fast-becoming reality

TAGS:
Bush, Ahmadinejad, Christianity, Islam, Fascism, Space, Exploration

In keeping with the Put Egotistical Christians in Their Place theme this week, I dug into the archives and pulled out an opinion column I wrote for the BGNews back in the Fall of 1997. The idiot editing staff insisted on changing the titles to all of my pieces (I guess so they felt they had a "hand" in what I was writing) but I have restored the original title as it should have been all along. I can't begin to tell you the hate mail that pieces like this drove to my inbox. I made some pretty stupid enemies (always have)--unfortunately for them, they didn't know they were messing with Thus Spake Mintonsusta:

In ten-thousand years, mankind has invented every religion and law imaginable to make order out of chaos. We've invented morality and sin. We've created a concept of something greater and given it a name (God). Then we began to worship this idea as a fact and attributed scripture and laws to a metaphor.

Throughout human history, there has been authority--someone to tell us when to have sex, when to plant our crops, when to sacrifice, feast, fast, love and kill. There's also been authority to punish those who break these laws.

Every religion speaks of salvation and every bureaucracy dreams of an ideal moral society. But for all the talk, religion and law have not changed man inherently. Organized religions and idealized governments promise rewards and threaten punishment, but they have not made a significant change in the way that human beings treat each other. We still murder each other over territorial disputes. When leaders don't behave as puppets, we murder them too. We allow human beings to starve while others have more resources than they could possibly use. Have religion and law served their function to the point of overuse?

In order to express why no one religion or system of society is better than any other, we'll use a parable: Let's say that you've lived on the banks of the Ohio River all your life. People have always talked about "The Other Side." They say it's wonderful, with roses and wine that falls from the sky. There's always food to eat and everything you desire becomes fulfilled. You're standing at the shore of the Ohio and decide that you want to go to the other side.

One day, you find a book that tells you how to build a raft. After many seasons of toil, you build it and set sail. You do everything the book says and finally you reach it. You're here. It's The Other Side and it's as beautiful as they said. It never rains and there's food and libation aplenty.

Now you have a choice. This vehicle that brought you here; do you pick it up and carry it with you?

Let's say you do. You feel a debt to this Holy Raft and you hoist it on your shoulders and begin walking the new land. Suddenly, everything disappears and you're back on the side you started from. You spend your entire life wandering in wilderness with a raft on your back looking for "The Other Side" again, but you never find it.

Or let's say you leave the raft. You turn around to have one last look but it's gone. There's no Ohio River. There's no raft. There's no book. There's no Other Side. You're at the spot you were standing on when you decided to leave, but it's changed.

If you're a Christian and you've found salvation but continue to carry the raft that got you there, then what about the Jews, Hindu, Brahmans, Muslims, and Pagans? Can they find salvation through their systems too? Or must they put down their rafts and pick yours up? Then there's just people walking around in the darkness with rafts on their backs when all they needed to do to find Heaven was put it down and look!

Authority is the raft which must be put down.

Authority on any level is a hindrance to freedom. If I depend on a body of law, dogma, or some person for my salvation, then I become a slave to ticket-taking sheep herders that regurgitate law and scripture and mold the definition around my fear.

The most evil form of authority is that of the teacher, author, and artist. If I assume that only I am right and speak as so, then I have set myself up as the authority and the cycle of ignorance continues. It is only when authority no longer accepts the position of dominance that any true progress can be made in our society.

Don't look to the writer or you teachers for answers; we have none. The most intelligent individuals are those who are completely aware of their ignorance to the point where all ego has been dumped for humility of this fact: Knowledge is limited! No philosophy, science, scripture, or politician can save us.

Be aware of yourself and your environment to the point where Heaven is no longer some figment of your imagination up in the clouds, but right where you're standing.

As you can see, I pulled no punches (still don't) when I'm putting a thesis together. I mastered the writing style of hitting someone so hard both intellectually and aesthetically that they literally have nothing to say of substance to refute the argument. The normal response to this blitzkrieg style of writing and rhetoric is pathetic ad hominem character attacks that only satisfy the weak-minded anyway and actually serve to effectively weed out the audience and zone in on the ones who have ears to hear and eyes to read the message inherent in the argument. The secret to effectively using this Blitzkrieg style of written argument is that you must believe you're right more than the asshole across the table believes your wrong. After all, you can't knock down a mountain--it must collapse under its own weight.

A couple of interesting things to note about this article:

Note the line:
We allow human beings to starve while others have more resources than they could possibly use.
This is a completely socialist statement to me and it would never even pass my smell test for putting a thought together today. It is my deep belief that it is the achievers of society who drive positive change in our species and, while there are plenty of idiots whose wealth owns them; the majority of prosperous individuals give back to their communities in beneficial ways which are unquantifiable, and unfortunately invisible, to the mind that sees the world only in terms of the haves and have-nots.
I used the Ohio river for a couple of reasons: 1. Because it was the river that slaves crossed from Kentucky to obtain their freedom in Ohio--it was literally the boundary between slavery and freedom. And I believe I had recently finished reading Beloved by Tony Morrison and it had a profound effect on me. 2: Because everything about Ohio is cooler than every where else (except Williamsburg, VA).

JUVENILE FLASHBACK TO 1991:
The picture is of Jason Lucky from my high school. One day, after school while waiting for the activities bus (the late bus), I made out with the brunette (her name is Shannon) in the background between the soda machines by the wrestling practice rooms. While those idiot jocks had their faces in each others' crotches, I had my face between a big pair of boobs going "Bah-boo-bah-bah-bah." She was one of the best kissers I've ever come across and she tasted like Bubble Yum. Thanks Shannon--I might have been an ass to you after that but I never forgot the experience--it was hot!

LINKS:
BGNews

TAGS:
Spirituality, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Muslim, BGNews,Joshua Minton, Boys Wear Pants

Related Posts (on one page):

Authority is a Hindrance to Freedom (Flashback to 1997)
The DaVinci Code and Attack of the Christian Half-Wits

The Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers Prime Directive
Human beings are meant to live as free individuals and true freedom lies beyond all human knowledge, experience, and systems of thought and governance. True Freedom is not made by man, nor can man possess it as a commodity to buy and sell. True freedom cannot be owned, possessed, endowed, or taken away by any man or institution of man. A just government is one that recognizes and protects the rights of individuals to pursue their visions of happiness provided they do not infringe upon the lives or property of other citizens. Collective laws and their enforcement are extensions of the inherent individual right to protect one's life and property from being infringed upon by others and when laws go beyond the measure of securing individual rights and property, the law has become a tyranny unto itself and authority must be revoked by the individuals who collectively authorize its use to preserve a social structure of justice. A just society is the product of an education founded upon the freedom of the individual with an emphasis on civic responsibility and compassion for differences--this blog aims to support this type of education.

About the Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers Blog
This blog was created to take over the world, overthrow all authority, topple ancient institutions of thought and worship, and to smite all non-believers in the Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers Prime Directive. But if none of those things happen, I'd be happy just creating original and interesting content for the individual reader. As a freshman Creative Writing major at Bowling Green State University in the Fall of 1996, I began a weekly newsletter titled "Transdescriptions" which included my thoughts on life, politics, science, philosophy, art, God and a number of other subjects which fascinated me. I made hundreds of copies in the campus computer lab and handed them out to everyone I knew--so this blog started out on paper.

I bought my first computer after graduating college in the summer of 2000 and created my own hard coded website shortly after. It was a blog format, with the most recent posts sitting on top of older posts which were also categorized by month and subject, but it was all hard coded. In the spring of 2005, I finally acquiesced and started a free blogger site which I migrated to a paid hosting site under PowerBlogs in August, 2005.

This site was named Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers because this is a line that my conservative Brother-in-Law would often throw at me when I made the mistake of calling my pants "pants." I thought is was an interesting tag line which represented how men are expected to be adults but are marketed to like they were children (I guess the same could be said of women as well); but it was also representative of the entire state of our society, how we are each trapped between adolescence and maturity, between love and hatred, between peace and war. I wanted to create a blog that would explore these rifts and see if there were any ways to bridge the gaps.

I believe in proper grammar and sentence structure. You won't find any of that cutesy-cutesy new age writer crap where everything is lower case and there isn't any punctuation or spell check performed. I ruthlessly edit everything I post, sometimes going through dozens of revisions until I reach what I consider to be perfection. I can't guarantee that every post will be "According to Strunk" perfect but I will guarantee that I will correct any errors that readers point out.

I believe in ideas over personality. I'm not going to tell you that I'm a rock star, that I've slept with 10,000 women, or even that I'm very interesting or different from you (actually I'm quite normal and my wife would say "boring"). But I will tell you that my ideas about the way things should be are better than the majority of people in the Blogosphere, many of whom are, as Bushwick Bill would say, "talking loud but ain't saying anything."

Why You Should Subscribe to This Blog
Longevity. I'm in this for the long haul. I'll be doing this blog long after a major publishing house picks up my work and I have an agent, a high-priced lawyer, an accountant, and all the headaches that come with success and genius. This blog will be my cornerstone to bring me back to reality. It will be the medium of conversation I have with my reading audience who will do as much to shape my thinking as I will theirs. I was a born storyteller, a single child who spent hours and hours creating elaborate storylines with my GI Joes, Transformers, Thundercats, or Star Wars men. When it came time to put the toys away, the writer in me stepped forth and picked up the tools of my imagination and I haven't looked back since. I underwent an enormous spiritual and intellectual transformation at the age of 19, during which time I formulated a philosophy of living which I call "Between the Points," a philosophy which has saved me from madness many times in the last ten years. I believe that humanity can come to an understanding of our place in a violent and mysterious universe which has an inevitable beginning and end for each one of us. I am not afraid to challenge myself, my ideas, or change my opinions provided that they all fall under the prime directive under which I have set forth.

And I want you to come along for the ride. So, please sign up through your RSS aggregator (select the drop-down box on the left or click the "Full Content RSS Feed" link and copy past the URL into you aggregator). If you want to learn more about RSS, Click here.

Or, if you prefer you can sign up to receive posts by e-mail by clicking the "E-Mail Notification" link (I only need your e-mail address and name). If you want a comment account, e-mail me and introduce yourself and if I think you're an intelligent person who would add to the content of this blog, I'll grant you authority to post comments. If you're really good, I'll grant you authority to create your own posts.

So here's to many more years together...

To Learn More About Me Personally...

Click here to view my MySpace Page and add me as a friend.

I do not blogroll any sites that I don't personally read on a daily basis and just because I link to a site doesn't mean that I condone or share the views put out by the author(s) of that site. I have come to find that categorizing a blogroll is helpful to those interested in networking and branching out to read the referred opinions and writing of others. Therefore, I am composing a list of links and descriptions of those who I blogroll in the hopes of promoting their work to people interested in branching out to find interesting people and, most importantly, interesting content. Any time I blogroll a new site, I will add it to this master list with a descriptive reason behind my decision to link BWP to their site.

Celebrity Blogroll
These are famous or semi-famous people who have started their own blogs and maintain them with interesting content on a regular basis.

NIckerblog: Shane Nickerson is an actor and television producer who is also a family man with a wife and daughter who lives in Los Angeles and keep a constent blog with great photos and even the occasional video. Shane is a very funny writer and his topic usually range from the acting industry, parenting and his daughter, and he has some great fictional stories and general brain droppings.
The Trump Blog: Who doesn't love The Donald? This blog, like it's namesake, has a lot of personality although the big man only posts about half the time, reserving the other half for guest authors. Trump pulls no punches when he deals with subjects as vast as the media, the cost of oil, politics, or jabbing back at Martha Stewart. The business advice given is valuable and well worth checking out.

Funny Blogroll
These are humorous sites that consistently make me laugh.

Mouth of the Brazos: This blog is run by JD Allen, a Vietnam War veteran who was some kind of chemical engineer and who lives in Brazoria Texas (you guessed it--at the mouth of the Brazos river). JD was one of the first blogs I put on my blogroll and I was referred to him by Antimedia of the Media Lies blog. JD has a razor wit and can be brutal and heavy but he is always amusing. I find his writing to be a refreshing change of pace in my aggregator each day--you never know what he's going to blog about next.
Nickerblog: See Above
Overheard in the Office: This is a site where people from all over the country send in funny conversations they overhear in their offices. I have laughed till I've cried on some of these. This site is well worth checking out.
Supafine: Mary Beth is a fellow BGSU alumni who worked at the BGNews the same time that I wrote an opinion column for them. I've seen her blog go from politics to motherhood and it's always been interesting. Mary Beth is definitely a character and her stuff will keep you interested. She is an expert at web design and always has the best looking blogs--of course; she is also a perfectionist and constantly tinkers with her design. Give her a chance, she won't disappoint.
Tao of Tran: This is a site by my friend David Tran who is a fellow alumni in the BGSU Creative Writing program. Davie is Vietnamese and not afraid to shove it down your throat. He is very talented and funny and always keeps me reading on. My one complaint is that Dave doesn't keep up with this blog that much, choosing to focus more on his MySpace page but hopefully in the future he will see the light.

Personality Blogroll:
I keep coming back to these sites because they have character, spark, spunk, and fight.

Annika's Journal: This is a relatively new blog on my blogroll but I have found it to be very interesting. She linked to me after my post on the 9/11 movie United 93 and I have been checking in on her site on a regular basis. She has a viscious wit about her and her writing is solid and well worth checking into.
The Barbaric Yawp: This site is run by another BGSU Creative Writing alumni, Jon Williams. Jon is a very down-to-earth writer whose web log is more diary than creative repository but I'm hoping that he starts to publish some of his short stories and poems on there soon. I always enjoyed Jon's straightforward style of writing and communicating. He is a skilled expository writer and is rarely misunderstood or misinterpreted (as I am).
Mouth of the Brazos: See Above
Nickerblog: See Above
reverse_vampyr: This site is run by a cool dude named Doug who, besides being a skilled writer and a moderate political thinker, is also a umpteenth degree blackbelt in Japanase sword mastery. I find his middle of the road viewpoints to be well-thought out, expertly delivered, and sourced properly. I've corresponded with Doug a few times and have found him to be very amicable. You could do far worse than blogrolling his site.
Supafine: See Above
Tao of Tran: See Above

Politics Blogroll
These are sites that I find valuable political commentary and discussion.

All Things Beautiful: Alexandra is conservative. Alexandra is religious. Alexandra is a master at Photoshop and has the most amazing photos. Alexandra is a master of getting conversations started and poking them to ignite the ash when they die down. Her readers are generally very intelligent and their comments truly add to the discussion of whatever she's talking about. This blog is a must read!
Annika's Journal: See Above
Media Lies: This was the first site I ever blogrolled and I just found it by chance, scrolling through the Blogger's "next" function. It was lucky I found it because only two weeks later, he moved to the PowerBlogs platform and I never would have received his recommendation to move my own blog here. Antimedia is all about exposing the lies and distortions in mainstream media. He has a heavy focus on the War on Terror and was a primary resource for me during the 2004 election, convincing me that John Kerry was a dirty traitor and would have made a disastrous Commander-in-Chief. I keep up with his site every day and have corresponded personally with him several times. This one is a site you should be keeping up with.
Mouth of the Brazos: See Above

Reference Blogroll
These are “Non-Fiction” sites which contain quality information on a variety of sources.

The Blog Herald: This is an excellent resource for the business of blogging. I was referred to this site by Darren Rowse from Problogger.net.
Major Nelson's XBOX Blog: Major Nelson works at Microsoft. Major Nelson works on the XBOX Live team. Major Nelson has a blog. Major Nelson has a podcast which he calls a blogcast (probably because the “pod” in podcast stands for iPod which is a Sony product). If you own an XBOX or an XBOX 360, you should be reading this blog and listening to Major’s podcast.
Leo Laporte’s KFI Podcast Show Notes: This is the master of all things tech and you must bow to his feet.
Plagiarism Today: This is a site I was introduced to by Darren Rowse and includes invaluable information and resource links to protecting your intellectual property online in a world where a click of the mouse could rob you of hours, days, weeks, and months of hard work. Protect yourself online and keep up with this site.
ProBlogger: Darren Rowse’s blog about how he makes enough money from blogging that he is able to do it full time. This blog is invaluable for anyone seriously interested in maintaining momentum on any blog.
Seth Godin: Set Godin is the author of several excellent books on marketing and business in the Information Age. This is a fantastic resource for anyone doing business online and off.
TV Shows on DVD: I am a huge fan and collector of television shows on DVD and this is the primary resource on the web as far as what’s coming out, how it will look, and how much it will cost.

Self Help Blogroll

Post Secret: This is an amazing site which is a public confessional where people from all over the country (maybe even world) send in anonymous postcards with the most intimate secrets. Some of these cards will break your heart but all of them are entertaining.
Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog: This was another referral from Darren Rowse. Steve is truly committed to helping others bring forth the best that is within them. His posts are generally longer and more involved but he only does a few a week to balance out the reading time. Sometimes he gets a little philosophical but the world could use a little more philosophy sometimes, right?
The Trump Blog: See Above

Okay, duck because I'm about to get ruthless...

With The DaVinci Code hitting theaters this weekend, it amazes me the passionate vitriol with which some Christians are attacking this movie. Even in my office, I've heard the church goers have the most baseless and negative comments about a book they haven't even read in most cases.

And even those that do read it have the same stock line: "It's only fiction." Well, what do you think The Bible is? If you think that The Bible is a historical document full of factual information then you're an idiot. If, however, you understand that The Bible is a historical path of spiritual thoughts mixed with history that many different cultures contributed to and is a snail trail of mythological art and rituals which were metaphorically valid at some point in time but which are as outdated today as stove pipe hats, then you are one step further on the road to understanding.

And I don't care if you're an scheister ass like Rod Parsley here in the Midwest parceling out fear and hatred in the guise of religious worship or if you're a neo-hipster Christian like Tony Pierce who doles out five cent sermons in stream of consciousness prose posts that seem open-minded on the surface but on closer inspection turn out to be bigoted, cliched, and dried up idol worship without substance. If you're bashing a book you haven't read because it challenges the card house of metaphoric worship you've set up for yourself as the corner stone of your existence, then you are small-minded, petty, and pathetic.

And I've just about exhausted my patience when it comes to people who have no tolerance for ideas different from their own. I'm talking about people whose entire self worth is wrapped up in a string of broken imagistic experiences they have mistaken as a static entity which exists independent of the natural world but is actually as fragile as a cotton ball thrown into an open flame. I'm talking about ego people, the beginning and the end of it. I'm talking about true freedom which only lies beyond the known and can never register in a mind that has been humbled through the submissive worship of symbols instead of through the complete death of the ego and the total cessation of time which accompanies it.

I'm talking about Eternity here, the realm of the sacred in the temporal flow of birth and death which all animals are imprisoned in from jump.

In the first chapter of my upcoming book How to Think, I decimate the entire foundation of Western thought as mere idol worship and put out a clarion signal to move beyond this petty first stage of thinking to the next creative phase of freedom in thought. Many will be incapable of this leap past logic and hero worship but you know what, too bad! Show me ten people whose minds are completely free from the corpulent husks of religions and philosophies built through time and death and I will show you a lever long enough to move the universes both within and outside the limited mind of man.

I have gone back to reread my copy of The DaVinci Code (the illustrated edition) before I go see the movie. I loved the book and it doesn't matter to me one iota if its fact or fiction. I love it the same way I love the story of Jesus rushing the Temple of Jerusalem and turning over the money changing tables, pointing his finger in the faces of the politicians, the merchants (corporations of his time), and the priests who stood at the barricades of heaven cherry picking souls like a cosmic Club 54 and said, "Fuck you, assholes--there are things in this world and the next which are not for sale or barter. So back up before my daddy bitch slaps you and tears this temple of stone down to the bone (and I'll rebuild the bitch in three days as a final eff you)!"

Regardless of its historical authenticity, Dan Brown has given us one hell of an interesting mystery to read and reread for hundreds of years and at the same time, he stuck a red hot poker up the asses of the holier than thous of our world and is smiling all the way to the bank about it. And now the same churches responsible for the burning, torturing, and general mass murder of 5,000,000 women over a 300-year period are being called to account for their physical and spiritual crimes against humanity. Well, boo hoo! My heart's pumping purple panther piss for them.

See, I respect real faith which is as immovable as the massive black holes at the hearts of galaxies. And if your faith happens to be fed through the symbols of The Bible and is something that connects and opens you to the human beings and the natural world around you as well as the god and gods within you; then I say, "A Salud! Consider yourself on the path of enlightenment!"

But if your faith is dependent on wooden symbols which are constantly in danger of succumbing to the fires of time and history and you use these symbols as weapons and gates of death to keep you separate and distant from your fellow man, then you are a cosmic fool and I predict that an ocean of fear will swallow your wooden faith like a sewer grate tossed into the open ocean from heaven.

The final word is that if a book of fiction is enough to challenge a faith based on the historical accuracy of your religious metaphors, then you never had faith in the first place and deserve to lose your illusions. So stop lying to yourself, free your mind, and read the frigging book already.

LINKS:

I Beat Dan Brown by Three Years in Writing a Fictional Story About Jesus's Bloodline in My 1998 Short Story Rising Earth and a Shadow of the Moon's Conspiracy (scroll to the bottom to read from the beginning)
Follow the heated DaVinci Code discussion on the JCF forum (requires registration)
When Tony Pierce Attacks and When He Attacks Again and Tony Pierce Hates on The DaVinci Code (Make sure to read the comments on this post where Tony and I go at it about religion and he ends up attacking my politics)
Funniest tag line of the day comes from Fark: "[Ironic] Vatican says of Davinci Code: '...shows mass ignorance... and promotes products that have nothing to do with the truth.' Irony meter off the scale"

TAGS:
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, Christianity, Faith, The Bible, Rod Parsley, Tony Pierce
Related Posts (on one page):
1. Authority is a Hindrance to Freedom (Flashback to 1997)
2. The DaVinci Code and Attack of the Christian Half-Wits

Let's look back a moment...

Media Lies - I was browsing through my Technorati hits....

Look, I'm no link whore. I don't want just any douche bag linking to my site but we're talking about AntiMedia here! First, let me explain the nature of Internet search engines and how Blogs are changing them. They used to be based on nebulous information like meta tags, keyword saturation and hyperlinks. Every time you post a blog with a "Permalink" for each entry, that essentially makes that entry its own web page which will have its own web ranking based on subject key words and the authority of the mother Blog.

Your Blog develops authority by linking to and being linked from other Blogs with similar content to yours (and this is the key). If I have a parenting Blog linking to a porno Blog--this is no good. But if you have one of the most important sources for alternative news in the Blogosphere (I'm speaking about AntiMedia here) linking to you and you link to him as often as your content allows (this is another key, linking beyond the subject of the content is pretty much interruption marketing but staying in the bounds of your content is in the land of Permission Marketing), then the search engines will recognize the beginnings of a social network and will eventually be feeding anyone interested in your subject-related keywords to you and your affiliates.

So, AntiMedia, I hope you're ready for the ride of your life because it's time to prove that the traditional media should soon be given the Schiavo option and be taken off life support. This is hyper-information at the speed of life, my friend.

Let's get it done.

It's been a great year for both of our blogs. The Media Lies blog is still kicking strong and so is BWP. Here's to many more years of annoying the whining people out there.

TAGS:
Media Lies, AntiMedia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Joshua Minton Teaches Artists How to Use the Internet to Establish Their Writing Careers with Print-on-Demand Availability of Flipping the Temple: Win the Information War Using the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist at Lulu.com

May 15, 2006— Joshua Minton teaches authors how to establish a serious online presence with the publication of Flipping the Temple: Win the Information War Using the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist in conjunction with Lulu (www.lulu.com), the world’s fastest-growing provider of print-on-demand books.

Flipping the Temple: Use the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist is a guide to help independent authors establish a presence online, post quality content, and use online direct marketing techniques and tools to build an audience with which they can then seriously approach major publishers or start their own publishing company.

Joshua Minton wrote Flipping the Temple to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist to help himself and other independently published authors take their careers and talents into their own hands, build up marketable products, and distribute them online so that when it comes time to approach major publishing companies or start their own small press, they would already have an established presence in the marketplace. Joshua came to Lulu because he wanted to be in control of the publishing process and found Lulu’s print-on-demand tools to be fast, easy and, most importantly, free. Flipping the Temple: Win the Information War Using the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist is available for purchase at www.lulu.com and includes invaluable advice and links that you will find nowhere else in one place.

Link to Publication*: http://www.lulu.com/familyblissent

ABOUT AUTHOR
Joshua Minton is President of Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc. and holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He is the Chief Editor and major contributor to the Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers blog (www.boyswearpants.com) and looks forward to publishing his first novel, …And the Third Floor Magistrates Took the Rape and his controversial upcoming philosophical tome How to Think; both will be published in the late Summer 2006.

ABOUT LULU
Founded in 2002, Lulu is the world’s fastest-growing print-on-demand marketplace for digital do-it-yourselfers. Please see www.lulu.com for more information.

TAGS:
Joshua Minton, Flipping the Temple, Lulu

If The Sopranos was a game of checkers, Tony just got kinged. A lot of positioning took place in this episode. For one, we finally hit a little meat with Tony's relationship with Janice. He admitted that she was the only one who ever stood up to his mother, something he was rarely ever able to muster the will to do. Melfi also hinted at a Freudian sexual deal which is frankly a little too disturbing to dwell very long on. But the real reveal came when he finally saw clearly how much power his sister wielded and, possibly, what a valuable asset she could be. It is a well know cliche that Italian women are matriarchs who control the neck which turns the heads of the Italian men, but Janice wields dictatorial control over her household and is unafraid to confront Tony. So, he took advantage of Johnny Sac's weakness to put his sister into a recessive position using the only weakness she has--the kindness of the people she loves. See, Janice learned from her mother the art of torturing the ones she loves in a way to keep the close to her (by distancing them as far as possible with personal loathing but always ready to push the "family" button when necessary to keep them from flying off altogether). Perhaps Tony finally sees the benefits of a woman boss and is thinking of making Janice a captain in place of her clearly emasculated train-hat sporting husband.

Johnny Sac is out. He's weak in the eyes of his own crew and Tony is positioned to take it all. There are three moves that Tony needs to make to clear himself and his family for life.

He needs to kill Phil Leotardo and get his crew under control, securing Johnny Sac's entire New York domain and sewing North Jersey and the Sac empire into one coherent unit run from Satriales.
He needs to fully move Christopher into place as an acting boss reporting to him only through verbal meetings which take place on the Stugots II or other locations which are not bugged or monitored in any way.
He needs to move the hell out of North Jersey and insulate himself as much as possible from the day to day dealings of his crew.

If he can do these things, Tony can avoid the fate of John Sacrimony--if he can't, he will either suffer alongside John in Federal prison or get a bullet in the back of his head for his troubles.

And I believe Vito's return (and possible murder at the hands of Phil Leotardo) will be the breaking point which can give Tony the opportunity to complete this triple jump and secure the game.

But this is The Sopranos and anything can happen.

TAGS:
The Sopranos, Moe'N'Joe, Tony Soprano, Episode 75

Related Posts (on one page):

Whenever people I know do something cool, I like to pass it along. In this case, my cousin Jason who lives in Illinois made his own video game cabinet. I'll let him tell you about it.

Its a full size arcade cabinet built from the ground up. I buit it using 3/4" MDF. I started it almost a year ago but stopped working on it for about 5 months. This cabinet is a M.A.M.E. That stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Basically you run the Roms of games from all different systems such as origional arcade games, NES, N64, Sega Genesis, and Neo Geo just to name a few. All said and done there are over 5,000K+ games that can be played from this cabinet.

Underneath the control panel lies a board called an I-Pac which programs a button push on the control panel to a keystroke on the keyboard. A standard usb keyboard is plugged into this board which connects to your pc. Other than that all you need is a video card with s-video out and your good to go.
I put a 20" Sony inside the cabinet and all games look flawless. Hidden on the bottom of the control panel are credit buttons for player 1 and 2. I plan on adding a coin mechanism into the door so you have to insert quarters to play which will also be controlled by the I-Pac.

Other then some t-molding, a Marquee I designed in Photoshop which im having printed onto translucent material between plexiglass which will be backlit, and some small touchups, its almost finished. Not bad for someone with very limited tool skills.

Since I work at Lowes and can get great deals, the total build cost for this project was $250 of which $100 was the tv...not bad!

Not bad at all, Jason. It looks great. And when I get my game room up and going, I'm going to have you build me one of these fandangled contraptions. Excellent work, sir.!

LINKS:
Other Pics 1
Other Pics 2
Other Pics 3
Get in Touch with Jason

Religion is a tool. Art is a tool. And the greatest band in the world is named Tool. I first discovered Tool as a mixture of sound and marijuana smoke seeping out from under a dude named Carl's dorm room door on the third floor of Kohl Hall in the late Fall of 1996. The album was Ænema and it changed my life. There are several intellectual and spiritual paradigm shifts in my own psyche and life which are directly attributable to this album that to merely call it an important work of 20th Century art barely begins to scratch the surface.

A tool is useful for a specific task and when the task is completed, it can be set down and left alone until another task which requires its use surfaces. It would be ridiculous for any handyman to carry around every tool they own on their body and in their toolbox. Yet, how many people do this very thing with art and metaphoric religious symbols and rituals?

Art and religion are both tools which are effective in putting the individual human being in touch with the divine mystery that is the source of all existence. But a few years ago, while relistening to Joseph Campbell's lectures on Kundalini Yoga; I realized that it was possible that Tool was structuring their albums around the Kundalini chakra system of psychological and spiritual transformation. As the fourth and now fifth albums came out, this thesis became more obvious to me.

First, let's set the foundation of what the Kundalini system of yoga is, according to Professor Campbell:

Yoga is the intentional stopping of the spontaneous activity of the mind stuff. Suppose you wanted to hold in your mind one thought or one image. You will find that in four or five seconds, you are having associated thoughts--the mind is moving. The goal of this yoga is to make the mind stand still...Yoga then is a linking of consciousness...this ego-consciousness, to the source of consciousness and the source of consciousness is, of course, transcendent of all our concepts. Just as, all that truly--I don't even dare say is because is is a concept--you see, you can't talk about these things. When you ask, "Is God one or many?" One or many, these are concepts--these are the categories of thought and the word "God" is not supposed to refer to a personality; it's supposed to refer past the personality to that which is really transcendent of thought. (Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time, From Id to Ego: Kundalini Yoga Part I

Campbell goes on to describe a pond which is rippled by a blowing wind and in the choppy waters, what was a still reflection is broken up into an infinite number of partial images. This analogy is supposed to refer to pairs of opposites engaged in the struggle inherent in living a temporal mortal life. Well, the problem of being an individual is that we associate ourselves with one of the broken images instead of as an ephemeral fragmented piece of the greater reflection. So, the goal of this yoga is to make the mind stand still and see the single reflection where there were infinite fragments before; this involves a loss of identity and a reconnection with the great spiritual energy that is the source of all existence. This should be the goal of all religion, but when you introduce politics and economics into the process you get the obvious results which have built, conquered, and destroyed civilizations. So, it is important to keep in mind that religion is a tool that is meant to serve a purpose and once that purpose has been obtained, the tool should be set aside. Now, for art.

One of my favorite lectures from Professor Campbell is about Proper versus Improper Art, which is based on the aesthetic put forth by James Joyce in his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce makes a distinction between Proper and Improper Art. Improper art is kinetic, meaning that it intends to move the observer either toward it or away from it. Joyce makes this distinction with the terms pornographic and didactic.

He defines Pornographic Improper Art as any expression which intends to draw the observer toward it in an act of possession. Advertising art is a perfect example of this. Joyce defines Didactic Improper Art as any expression which intends to push the observer away from it with fear or loathing. Political humor and social satire are perfect examples of this. Most modern music, cinema, and writing are works of pornographic didacism, intending to move the observer one way or another, but still keep them firmly rooted in time and space, inside the reality which has been constructed by the human mind in which all things can be categorized and easily referenced.

But Joyce goes on to define Proper Art as static, meaning that it, like Yoga, intends to make the observer see the still image in the moment and dissolve the illusory separation that exists between objects in time and space for the deeper reality of the unitary existence which underlies the known and uknown universe. Any work of art which uses the contemporary objects and relationships in time and space to blow open the door to infinity and allow the observer to stand humble as their ego dissolves into transcendental obscurity can be called a work of proper art by Joyce's (and Campbell's) reasoning. But art, like religion, is also only a tool and can become just as dangerous and detrimental to total freedom as a suicide bomber is to a peace accord between warring nations.

Kundalini Yoga heralds from the 4th and 5th centuries and actually influenced both Hinduism and Buddhism.

The word Kundalini comes from the word kunda which means "coiled up" and what the reference is to is the spiritual energy which is coiled up at the base of the spine. When it's in that condition, coiled up down there, there's not much spiritual life--the spiritually energized organs are in the lower pelvic area. The goal of the yoga is to wake that coiled up energy and bring it up the spine. (Ibid)

As the Kundalini comes up the spine, it hits seven distinct zones, or chakras, of spiritual existence and as it does the pyschology and spirituality of the individual change completely.

Chakra 1
Consider what Campbell has to say about chakra 1:

The first chakra is at the base of the body between the rectum and the sex organs, at the very root of the body. At this level, the psyche is practically inert; it is just hanging on to life. And my image in my mind for this is dragons; which, as we know from biology, guard things in caves and what they guard in caves are: beautiful virgins (symbols of the second chakra--symbolic of sexuality) and heaps of gold (the third chakra--possession and winning). They don't know what to do with either, but they simply guard. No zeal for life. No positive action, only reaction. So the psychology appropriate to the dull condition is that of Behaviorism where you don't have an active psyche but only a reactive one. Nietzsche call this position that of "groveling before sheer fact." Actually, there is no such thing as a sheer fact--it's an object for a subject and the attitude of the mind beholding the object is what changes the character and meaning of the fact. People that hang on like this, we call creeps and they are exactly the incarnation of chakra one. Art on this level is simply sentimental naturalism--it has no breakthrough to the radiance. (Ibid)

Note Campbell's emphasis on art; this is because the history of art is the history of human emotion and intellect and is much more accurate that accounts and holy books which are always composed by victors of war at the expense of the conquered and silent dead.

Now, Tool's first album was titled "Opiate" and has the energy of a psyche at the lowest base of existence thrashing around and coming to life. And I would like to imagine an individual pysche as representative of the images and expression of each tool album, and therefore be able to talk about the pyschological and spiritual transformation which occurs from album to album. The pysche in "Opiate" is a reactive one, meaning it must be illuminated from outside in order to express itself. Consider the following lyrics from songs on this album:

Seems like I've been here before. Seems so familiar. Seems like I'm slipping into a dream within a dream...And I'm sweating, and breathing, and staring and thinking and sinking deeper and it's almost like I'm swimming...It's the way you whisper. It drags me under and takes me home. ("Sweat")
Someone told me once that there's a right and wrong, and that punishment would come to those who dare to cross the line. But it must not be true for jerk-offs like you. Maybe it takes longer to catch a total asshole. But I'm tired of waiting. Maybe it's just bullshit and I should play GOD, and shoot you myself. ("Jerk Off")

But there is definite movement toward the higher chakras. We get a whiff of chakra two (concerned primarily with sex and lust) in the song "Part of Me:"

I know you well. You are a part of me. I know you better than I know myself. I know you best, better than anyone. I know you better than I know myself. You don't judge. You can't speak. You can't leave. You can't hurt me. You're just here for me to use. I know you best, better than one might think. I know you better than I know myself. It's time for you to make a sacrifice. It's time to die a little. Give it up. You are a part of me. ("Part of Me")

And we definitely see the effects of chakra 3 in the title song from the album:

Choices always were a problem for you. What you need is someone strong to guide you. Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow, what you need is someone strong to use you.. like me, like me. If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me .Don't judge or question.You are broken now, but faith can heal you. Just do everything I tell you to do. Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow. Let me lay my holy hand upon you. My Gods will becomes me. When he speaks out, he speaks through me. He has needs like I do. We both want to rape you. Jesus Christ, why don't you come save my life. Open my eyes and blind me with your light and your lies. ("Opiate")

This song is a brutal condemnation of organized religion and the metaphors it has used to justify murder, slavery, and the destruction and subjugation of the natural environment and this is a theme which runs throughout all of Tool's music and reaches a fever pitch in the song "Eulogy" on the Ænema album.

It is important to note that just because a person is at a certain chakra, doesn't meant they won't exhibit symptoms of the effects of the other chakras. In fact, this is precisely what one would expect from any species in the throes of evolution. First, certain thoughts and emotions are fleeting, sparse, but as they begin paying off in terms of pleasure over pain, they become more prevalent until they are common course and the chakra changes. Spiritual transformation is not like a video game where an objective is achieved and one then moves on to the next level. Rather, true change and a recognition of true freedom in the mind of the individual is like the ocean tide coming further and further into shore until the the entire world is full of water (which can be stilled and seen as one image--how's that for getting the most out of your metaphors?).

Chakras 2 and 3
Again, let's go to Campbell:

[Chakra 2 is at] the sex organs. At this moment the psychology is transformed--it's no longer Behaviorism but Dr. Freud. Everything now is exciting. Sex is the aim of life. Everything's singing the bells are ringing for me and my gal. The frustrations of sex are also to be recognized here and if the frustrations are continuous, then one turns one's mind to other things and civilization comes into being--this is what is known as sublimation.

Campbell then goes on to describe the five orders of love:

There are five orders of love and the earliest, lowest and simplest for people who are primarily interested in something else--is that of master and servant. "Oh, Lord--you are the master and I the servant. Give me rules to live by and I will live them." People who are engaged in the activities of life without much time for religious thought, that's about the level on which they work. This rule giving principle, you get a heavy dose of it in the Old Testament in the Book of Laws and so forth--rules under which God subjugates you. The second order of love is that of friend for friend; with the friend you're thinking of him more. It is the order in the Christian tradition of the Apostles to Christ. They're close in, they can ask questions--they're thinking of him more and they come to realizations. The third order of love is that of parent to child, where the deity is the child. What this represents is the birth of the spiritual life in your heart--it is just born. It's a tender child. It must be fostered. This recognition of the divine in the activities of life--this is good Hinduism, it's good Tantra, Buddhism. Going to temple is quite secondary. Our religious life is here, now. The fourth order of love is marriage, spouse for spouse. The highest order of love, where there is nothing but love--mad, engaged, illicit love--careless of the rules of the world, a break past into the transcendent. Passion, impulse has taken over to such an extent that the world has dropped off.

This is a very eloquent way of talking about spiritual awakening because many people experience love in different forms, yet each are equally valid tools of getting one to an ultimate connection with the divine mystery. But, as it is, those who exist on chakra two are primarily concerned with the lustful aspect of connecting with another human being. And chakra 3 is the war chakra concerned with turning everything into oneself. Often, these two chakras will give way to one another as the drive for sexual conquest yields to the drive for power and conquering. In Tool's second album Undertow, the two often compete to dominate the psyche:

How can I tolerate you. Our guilt, our blame, I've been far too sympathetic. Our blood, our fault. I've been far too sympathetic. I am not innocent. You are not innocent. No one is innocent. I will no longer tolerate you. Even if I must go down beside you. Because, No one is innocent. ("Intolerance"
I was so young and vestal then, you know it hurt me, but I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive even if signs seem to tell me otherwise. I've got my hands bound, my head down, my eyes closed, and my throat wide open...Won't you come a bit closer, close enough so I can smell you. I need you to feel this, I can't stand to burn too long. Released in this sodomy. For one sweet moment I am whole...For I am your witness that blood and flesh can be trusted. And only this one holy medium brings me piece of mind. Got your hands bound, your head down, your eyes closed. You look so precious now. I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this shit blood and cum on my hands. I've come round full circle. ("Prison Sex"
Why can't we not be sober? I just want to start this over. Why can't we drink forever. I just want to start things over. I am just a worthless liar. I am just an imbecile. I will only complicate you. Trust in me and fall as well. I will find a center in you. I will chew it up and leave, I will work to elevate you just enough to bring you down. "Sober"
I'm on my knees and burning. My piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire. So smell my soul burning. I'm broken, looking up to see the enemy. I have swallowed the poison you feed me... but I survive on it, and it leaves me guilt fed, hatred fed, weakness fed.. and I feel ugly, and dead inside. Shit adds up at the bottom.
Because I can see your back is turning. If I could I'd stick the knife in. This is love. This is my love for you. Get up. Now. Say you won't go.
Lay back and let me show you another way. I'll kill what you want me to, take what's left and eat it. Take all or nothing. Life's just too short to push it away. Take it all. Take it all in. All the way in. ("4 Degrees")
My warning meant nothing. You're dancing in quicksand. Why don't you watch where you're wandering? Why don't you watch where you're stumbling? You're wading knee deep and going in. And you may never come back again. This bog is thick and easy to get lost in when you're a stupid, dumb ass, belligerent fucker. I hope it sucks you down. ("Swamp Song")

But there is also a moment where this psyche begins to rise above the third chakra to the fourth, where spiritual transformation occurs and the human animal turns into the human being. Consider what Campbell has to say on this:

Now, when people are living on these levels [Chakras 1-3], they are living on animal levels. Animals too cling to life. Animals too beget their future. Animals too are fighting to win. And when people are living on those levels, they have to be controlled by social law. Just think of our popular religions, what they're concerned with--prayers for health, wealth, progeny, victory--that is asking the Gods to serve your animal nature and this is popular religion. And it doesn't matter what the God's name.

But chakra four is the beginning of a properly religious life, where there is a total psychological and spiritual transformation in the individual and a "Second Birth" occurs which affects the entire world. The human being is born an animal and must pull themselves up out of the muck to rise to the spiritual challenge of being reborn. Consider the lyrics from the song "Flood:"

Here comes the water. All I knew and all I believed are crumbling images that no longer comfort me. I scramble to reach higher ground, some order and sanity, or something to comfort me. So I take what is mine, and hold what is mine, suffocate what is mine, and bury what's mine. Soon the water will come and claim what is mine. I must leave it behind, and climb to a new place now. This ground is not the rock I thought it to be. Thought I was high, and free. I thought I was there divine destiny. I was wrong. This changes everything. The water is rising up on me. Thought the sun would come deliver me, but the truth has come to punish me instead. The ground is breaking down right under me. Cleanse and purge me in the water.

There are actually elements of several chakras in this song. There is a definite finality in the realization of the waste of living a life within the lower three chakras, but there is also the fifth chakra where it is realized that one's image of God is one of the final obstructions to attaining a communion with the mystery which is the ground of all being.

Chakra 4

We are not in the field of properly religious life, in the field of the spiritual birth until we have come to chakra four and this is at the level of the heart. Subject and object, though they seem to be two, are the same. I and you are the same--this is the breakthrough of the metaphysical realization that the two that seem to be separate are really one. This is the midway point to transcendence--to realizing relationship as identity.

There is a complete spiritual awakening within the album Ænema. We see a marked psychological transformation from the reactive psyche present in Opiate to a much more aware, driven, and powerful force:

Something has to change. Undeniable dilemma. Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear. Constant over stimulation numbs me and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's not enough. I need more. Nothing seems to satisfy. I don't want it. I just need it. To feel, to breathe, to know I'm alive. ("Stinkfist")
What's coming through is alive. What's holding up is a mirror. But what's singing songs is a snake looking to turn this piss to wine. They're both totally void of hate, but killing me just the same. The snake behind me hisses what my damage could have been. My blood before me begs meopen up my heart again. And I feel this coming over like a storm again. considerately... am too connected to you to slip away, to fade away. Days away I still feel you touching me, changing me, and considerately killing me. Without the skin, beneath the storm, under these tears the walls came down. And the snake is drowned and as I look in his eyes, my fear begins to fade recalling all of those times. I could have cried then. I should have cried then. And as the walls come down and as I look in your eyes my fear begins to fade recalling all of the times I have died and will die. It's all right. ("H")
My shadow's Shedding skin and I've been picking scabs again. I'm down digging through my old muscles looking for a clue. I've been crawling on my belly clearing out what could've been. I've been wallowing in my own confused and insecure delusions for a piece to cross me over or a word to guide me in. I wanna feel the changes coming down. I wanna know what I've been hiding in my shadow. Change is coming through my shadow. My shadow's shedding skin I've been picking my scabs again. I've been crawling on my belly clearing out what could've been I've been wallowing in my own chaotic and insecure delusions. I wanna feel the change consume me, feel the outside turning in. I wanna feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured within my shadow. Change is coming. Now is my time. Listen to my muscle memory. Contemplate what I've been clinging to. Forty-six and two ahead of me. I choose to live and to grow, take and give and to move, learn and love and to cry, kill and die and to be paranoid and to lie, hate and fear and to do what it takes to move through. I choose to live and to lie, kill and give and to die, learn and love and to do what it takes to step through. See my shadow changing, stretching up and over me soften this old armor. hoping I can clear the way by stepping through my shadow, coming out the other side. Step into the shadow. Forty six and two are just ahead of me. "("Forty-Six & 2")
Lead me through each gentle step by step by inch by loaded memory. I'll move to heal as soon as pain allows so we can reunite and both move on together. Hold your light, eleven. Lead me through each gentle step by step by inch by loaded memory 'till one and one are one, eleven, so glow, child, glow. I'm heading back home. ("Jimmy')
I will choke until I swallow... Choke this infant here before me. What is this but my reflection? Who am I to judge and strike you down? But you're pushing and shoving me...Take care not to make me enter. 'cause if I do we both may disappear. But you're pushing me, shoving me. Pushit on me. Slipping back into the gap again. I'm alive when you're touching me, alive when you're shoving me down. But i'd trade it all for just a little bit of piece of mind...Just remember I will always love you, even as I tear your fucking throat away. But it will end no other way. ("Pushit")
Cuz I'm praying for rain and I'm praying for tidal waves I wanna see the ground give way. I wanna watch it all go down. Mom please flush it all away. I wanna watch it go right in and down. I wanna watch it go right in. Watch you flush it all away. Time to bring it down again. Don't just call me pessimist. Try and read between the lines. I can't imagine why you wouldn't Welcome any change, my friend. I wanna see it all come down. suck it down. flush it down. ("Ænema")
Shrouding all the ground around me. Is this holy crow above me. Black as holes within a memory and blue as our new second sun. I stick my hand into his shadow to pull the pieces from the sand. Which I attempt to reassemble to see just who I might have been. I do not recognize the vessel, but the eyes seem so familiar. ("Third Eye")

There is theme of revolutionary change bubbling out of this album, a spiritual awakening that contains both a dark and light side, further testimony that truth lies beyond ethics and beyond pairs of opposites. But the album saves its most scathing condemnation for the religious institutions of the world which have failed miserably at curing mankind of the disease of living on the first three chakras. Consider these lyrics from the song "Eulogy":

He had alot to say. He had alot of nothing to say. We'll miss him. So long. We wish you well. You told us how you weren't afraid to die. Well then, so long. Don't cry. Or feel too down. Not all martyrs see divinity. But at least you tried. Standing above the crowd he had a voice that was strong and loud. We'll miss him. Ranting and pointing his finger at everything but his heart. We'll miss him. No way to recall what it was that you had said to me, Like I care at all. So loud. You sure could yell. You took a stand on every little thing and so loud. Standing above the crowd, he had a voice so strong and loud and I swallowed his façade cuz I'm so eager to identify with someone above the ground, someone who seemed to feel the same, someone prepared to lead the way, with someone who would die for me. Will you? Will you now? Would you die for me? Don't you fuckin' lie. Don't you step out of line. Don't you fuckin lie. You've claimed all this time that you would die for me. Why then are you so surprised to hear your own eulogy? You had alot to say. You had alot of nothing to say. Come down. Get off your fuckin cross. We need the fuckin space to nail the next fool martyr. To ascend you must die. You must be crucified for your sins and your lies. Goodbye...

If the lyrics to that song sound harsh--trust me, it doesn't compare reading it to hearing Maynard sing it. I saw Tool play this song live at the Lollapallooza festival in 1997 at the Polaris Amphitheatre in Columbus, OH and at that time, I could pretty much hit every note. I remember screaming so loudly on the final "Goodbye" that the woman in front of me turned around and screamed back at me to shut the fuck up. Then she left the stands. It was fantastic. This is just such a ruthless song for any of those televangelists or Rod Parsleys out there who put themselves up as the middle man between God and man. Hell, I even had aspirations of being like this prior to hearing this song--it absolutely scared the living hell out of me and changed my entire approach to what I wanted to say to my fellow man and how I wanted to say it.

Religious awakenings are not always angelic hymns and white satin; sometimes they're as dirty as muddied up gravel in a cemetary. Tool's music will always carry both the sacred and profane with it as it ascends the spiritual pire. And as we move into the fifth chakra, we indeed see the music become even darker.

Chakra 5

This chakra is at the throat and is the inverse of chakra three, that is--the energy which formerly was projected out to conquering others is now turned back against yourself. Your energy is not going to be facing outward anymore--but facing inward...Our highest god is our highest obstruction. He represents the consummation of the highest thoughts and feelings you can have. Go past that. Meister Eckhardt said that the ultimate leave-taking is that of leaving god, that is to say the folk god, for God; that is to say the elementary idea. Breakthrough. It's very difficult. (Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time)

It is interesting that, in the opening song of Lateralus, Tool's fifth album, the person being addressed is the one who cannot let go and their ego is the weight of a concrete block. In fact, this entire album is a build up towards a confrontation with the ultimate image of images, oneself which then projects and image of God as the ultimate finality. Consider these lyrics from "The Grudge:"

Wear your grudge like a crown of negativity. Calculate what we will or will not tolerate. Desperate to control all and everything. Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen. Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down. Justify denials and grip it to the lonesome end...Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell. Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again...Saturn comes back around to show you everything. Let's you choose what you will not see and then drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again. Spits you out like a child, light and innocent. Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or drags you down like a stone to consume you till you choose to let this go. Choose to let this go. Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor. Give away the stone. Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold. Let go. ("The Grudge")

This song is analogous to the Egyptian weighing of a heart against a feather after one dies. This song is a clear warning that the spirit will not be able to proceed while hanging on to the pains and pleasures of the past.

In the song "Schism," we get the knowing knower who stands at the threshold of the uknown and screams about the lack of order despite their faith that there is full order in the compassion of love. In a way, this is a swan song for those who believe that ultimate knowledge can be attained through purely rational and tactile reasoning and experience. Consider the lyrics:

I know the pieces fit cuz I watched them fall away, mildewed and smoldering, fundamental differing. Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion. Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication. The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so we cannot see to reach an end crippling our communication. I know the pieces fit cuz I watched them tumble down no fault, none to blame it doesn't mean I don't desire to point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over. To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication. The poetry that comes from the squaring off between, and the circling is worth it. Finding beauty in the dissonance. There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away. Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting I've done the the math enough to know the dangers of a second guessing. Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers between supposed brothers. And I know the pieces fit. ("Schism")

The recognition of the eternal as existing only within the moment and this being the final battleground between the individual their conception of the ultimate divine is evident in the song "Parabola:"

We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment, We are Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...This holy reality, this holy experience. Choosing to be here in...This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in. This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal all this pain is an illusion...Swirling round with this familiar parable. Spinning, weaving round each new experience. Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing chance to be alive and breathing. This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality. Embrace this moment. Remember. we are eternal all this pain is an illusion. ("Parabola")

The battleground is set in the title song, where we can literally witness the expansion of the ego to rise as high as any conception of divinity the mind can create.

as below, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend. Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines... Reaching out to embrace the random. Reaching out to embrace whatever may come. I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human... 'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me. And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been. Spiral out. Keep going. ("Lateralus")

The final battle between image and image actually comes in the final song on the fifth album. Here, we have a recognition of the need to have the pond stand still in order for the spirit and psyche to move on to the next stage of evolution.

I find that I can see a light at the end down. Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole. Defeated I Concede and move closer. I may find comfort here. I may find peace within the emptiness. How pitiful. It's calling me...And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping. The moon tells me a secret. My confidant. As full and bright as I am, this light is not my own. A million light reflections pass over me. It's source is bright and endless. She resuscitates the hopeless. Without her we are lifeless satellites dreaming dreams. And as I pull my head out I am without one doubt. Don't want to be down here feeding my narcissism. I must crucify the ego before it's far too late. I pray the light lifts me out before I pine away...So crucify the ego before it's far too late. To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical. And you will come to find that we are all one mind. Just let the light touch you and let the words spill thorough. Just let them pass right through, bringing out our hope and reason. ("Reflection")

Chakra 6
Now this is interesting because, to be honest, I never expected Tool to put out another album. I assumed that Maynard was going to use his other band A Perfect Circle to address the final two chakras. But they did and so we move on to a description of chakra six:

This chakra is between the eyes and the energy of love in Chakra 2 is now experienced at chakra six as the sublime love for God. When Dante beheld Beatrice it was in the way, not of chakra two but of chakra six. He saw her, not as an object of lust, but as a manifestation of God's grace and love for the world and through contemplating her in that way, he was brought to the throne of final realization. (Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time

It's funny that so many people forget Jesus's saying about coming not to bring peace but a sword. There is nothing peaceful about spiritual transformation. It can be bloody, bruising, and downright nasty and it is rarely peaceful. Consider these lyrics from the opening song on the 10,000 Days album:

Credulous at best, your desire to believe in angels in the hearts of men. Pull your head on out your hand please, and give a listen--shouldn't have to say it all again. The universe is hostile, so impersonal. Devour to survive... so it is, so it's always been. We all feed on tragedy, it's like blood to a vampire. Vicariously I live while the whole world dies much better you than I. ("Vicarious")

We see are clear chakra six love, which is seen in terms of eternal beauty instead of lust.

Here from the king's mountain view. Here from the wild dream come true. Feast like a sultan I do on treasures and flesh, never few. But I, I would wish it all away; if I thought I'd Lose you just one day. The devil and his had me down in love with the dark side I'd found. Dabblin' all the way down. Up to my neck soon to drown. But you changed that all for me, lifted me up, turned me round...No cross you could hold, sway or justify my giving away my center. So if I could I'd wish it all away, if I thought tomorrow would take you away. You're my peace of mind, my home, I said, I'm just trying to hold on one more day. Dim my eyes. Dim my eyes. Dim my eyes if they should compromise our fulcrum. Want and need divide me, then I might as well be gone. Shine on forever...Shine on benevolent Son. Shine down upon the broken. Shine until the two become one. Shine on forever. Shine on benevolent Son. Shine down upon the severed. Shine until the two become one. Divided I'm withering away. Divided I'm withering away. Shine on upon the many. Light our way. Benevolent Son. Breathe in union. Breathe in union. ("Jambi")

There is an accepting finality of personal loss that is also indicative of a sixth chakra spiritual level in the song "Intension:"

Moved by will alone. Pure as we begin. Pure as we begin. Move by will alone. Leave as we come in. Pure as light. Return to one. Move by will alone.

In the title track, one no longer has to wonder what someone at the chakra six level would say to a iconic symbol that millions worshipped as a spiritual fact of salvation.

This little light of mine it gives your past unto me, I'm gonna let it shine to guide you safely on your way your way home...Ohh, what are they gonna do when the lights go down without you to guide them all to Zion? What are they gonna do when the rivers overrun, other than tremble incessantly? High is the way but our eyes are upon the ground. You are the light and the way they'll only read about. I only pray heaven knows when to lift you out. 10000 days in the fire is long enough. You're going home...You're the only one who can hold your head up high, shake your fist at the gates saying, "I have come home now!" ("10,000 Days")

This chakra six level is also the level at which angels exist and interact with mankind.

ngels on the sideline, puzzled and amused. Why did Father give these humans free will? Now they're all confused. Don't these talking monkeys know that Eden has enough to go around? Plenty in this holy garden, silly old monkeys; well there's one you're bound to divide it right in two. Angels on the sideline, baffled and confused, father blessed them all with reason and this is what they choose. Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground, silly monkeys given thumbs they forge a blade and then there's one bound to divide it right in two, right in two. Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground. Silly monkeys give them thumbs, they make a club and beat their brother down. How they survive so misguided is a mystery--repugnant, dismal creature who would squander the ability to live, to die, and have a conscience. Brothers sleep inside here. Cut it all right in two. Fight over the clouds, over wind, over sky. Fight over life, over blood, over air. Fight over love, over sun, over another fight each other, over angels on the sideline again. Been so long with patience and reason, angels on the sideline again, wondering when this tug of war will end. Cut it all right in two. Right in two. ("Right in Two")

There's not a whole lot of movement which happens at this chakra, rather it is a contemplative one, a final look around before dissolving into the big sleep. It's a time when the last few fragmented images are settling down into the still pond which comes at chakra 7.

Chakra 7

This chakra is at the top of the head. The goal is to be one with the object (God), to go beyond the pairs of objects. This instant is an eternal instant beyond time and space...How do you go to hell? By making your ego system harder and harder and harder. Hell is the place of people stuck with themselves--stuck on themselves. How do you get to heaven? Open, open, open until all is transpersonal. (Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time

The next Tool album should ideally be a purely instrumental album with Maynard singing "Aum" the entire time.

Aum is the sound of the energy of the universe of which all things are manifestations. The energy is what underlies all the forms (E=MC²) and the sound of that energy is said to be Aum. This is a four element syllable--the elements are: "Ah," "Ooh," "Mah," and the silence out of which Aum comes and back into which it goes. The Indians will always recognize that ground in silence, in infinite, in transcendent, in the void. All words are simple fragments of Aum, just like all forms are simply fragments of the form of forms. Aum is the sound of the radiance of God...The goal of Yoga is to bring the consciousness into the deep dreamless field awake and then it will experience undifferentiated consciousness, not the consciousness of any thing but the primary consciousness which we are trying to link, to yoga our waking consciousness.

When I try to think of a musical piece of art that has hit this final level of radiance, the only one that comes to mind is the fantastic but short symphony by Glenn Danzig and Power Fury Orchestra Black Aria--I cannot express how magnificent this album is and how underrated Glenn Danzig is as an artist. But since we're talking about Tool here, let's just say that I believe that these gentlemen are capable enough musicians to accomplish the seventh chakra and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they come up with--hopefully, we'll all gain a release from it.

Now, that being said, the journey isn't over because we are still mortal bodies. Like Jesus on the roof top, were we to cast ourselves down we would surely do more than bruise our heels. In fact, the biggest warning given in Kundalini Yoga is to never confuse your gross body (nerves, muscles, organs, etc.) with your subtle body (mind and spirit). If you do this, you're nuts and you think you're God--this is the sure way to get Bradley tanks knocking down your compound and shooting armor-piercing rounds into the idiots you've duped into believing you.

But for those who have reached chakra 7 without breaking up completely and ending up someone's cross, there is the small problem of coming back to live in a world which is built upon competition, war, and pairs of opposites colliding and clashing in the temporal flow.

Consider what Campbell says:

Now, if we stay up there [chakra 7], the body drops off and we are released from life. The ideal, from viewpoint of someone interested in life, is to come back to the heart where the two are together. There we realize that the energy of three has functioned at five, the energy of two at six, the energy of one at seven--inertia. Thus, we know how to translate our earthly experience into as spiritual exercise. Three--what we are to conquer is ourselves and our attachments--and go to the war, you might say. And two, through our human love, we are to experience the radiance of eternity. (Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time)

Nietzsche once said, "Beware when casting out your demons that you don't cast out the best inside you." But here at chakra 7, we see that the energies which are viewed as negative and holding in the lower chakras are actually redirected to beneficial means in the upper chakras and when one returns to live at the fourth chakra, it is capable of being a good, decent, and moral human being. This the level at which true spiritual, economic, and political leadership should eminate from. Unfortunately for us, most of our leaders in these areas are dunskies who believe their religious metaphors to be historical facts that must be worshipped like a golden calf at the base of Mt. Sinai. Most of the decisions made which affect billions of people are done so by idolatrous fools whose constituents do not see the knives hidden under the halos.

While this thesis has dealt mainly with the lyrical side of Tool, don't forget that they are an amazing musical partnership and that the lyrics, as good as they are, would never be as effective without the brilliant music to drive them through the heart, past the mind, and into the great beyond--spiral out!

Tool is not just the knife and it's not the soft flesh or the blood that comes from the cutting . This band and its music are all three as well as the fourth dimensional observer who is both doing and feeling the cutting. This band is putting out proper art and they are building a pyramid of sound that can lead one to the promised land. Of course, once one has arrived at the promised land using this amazing tool, is it necessary to carry it around, set it on a shelf and worship it until it grows stale with time and decay? Probably not. But it serves a purpose here and now and we can burn that bridge when, God granted, we come to it.

LINKS:
Tool's Website
The Joseph Campbell Foundation
Discuss in the comments below or on the Joseph Campbell Message Board
Buy 10,000 Days by Tool (Affiliate Link)
Buy Ænema by Tool (Affiliate Link)
Buy Transformations of Myth Through Time by Joseph Campbell (Affiliate Link)

TAGS:
Tool, Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time, 10,000 Days, Aenima, Lateralus, Undertow, Opiate, Kundalini

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Boys Wear Pants on Tool Live
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Those Who Speak Do Not Know: Kundalini Yoga and the Music of Tool

The Sopranos is like one of those multi-layered plastic pictures where each layer adds another piece to the photo and when it's done, it looks like one piece despite the fact that it is composed of many layers. Well, it's a bit frustrating because this show is also like a driving range where each episode sets another ball on a tee until every stall is filled with teed up balls. You never know which ball is going to be hit at the end of the season. At since this season is the end of the series, one would hope (against experience) that all the balls would get hit. I predict right now that there will be many balls left to rot in the stands by the end of the series.

It's like that old Jungian distinction between symbols and signs. He said that symbols are metaphors that have one leg in time and space and another in the transcendent (beyond all knowledge and experience). Whereas signs, he says, have both legs here and point to something within time and space. This show is like that--there are symbols and signs. There are skeletons that fall out of the closet and there are secrets that go in the vault forever--like what happened to the Russian "interior decorator" that Chrissy and Paulie left for dead out in the woods during season 3. One has to wonder what symbols are going to be left out and what signs are going to be sewn together for the big sleep.

This episode held the most touching moment I've ever seen in the show--when Tony and Chrissy shared a rare moment of truth (albeit on the alter of murder and theft, but all groups have their rituals of atonement). Christopher is a sad individual, a never-reformed junkie, a compulsive liar (I believe that outside of his relationship with Tony, he actually believes that Adrianna left him); but his relationship with Tony is as pure as that of Sam's for Frodo.

Tony Pierce will probably get his Bush-hating rocks off on the "Heck of a job, Brownie" comment from Tony to Paulie, but I thought it was one more example of brilliant name and placing the show for posterity's sake.

Did anyone note the reference, at the end of the episode when Tony approaches his niece by the fence, to the scene in the Godfather where Don Corleone is chasing his grandson around the tomatoes (right before he dies). Could this be a bit of foreshadowing? Let's hope not because as terrible as Tony is, we need him in our world to keep it in balance from the really bad guys sitting at the throne of power in the capital, the courts, and the churches.

LINKS:
Photo by Destroy everything you touch

TAGS: The Sopranos, The Ride, Tony Soprano, Episode 74, Tony Pierce

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...right into the publishing world. OK, so it's no DaVinci Code but my goals with this book weren't as large as overthrowing the foundation of organized religion (that's coming with my next book...he, he, heh). But this book successfully does what I wanted it to.

I sought out to write a book that did two things:

Show anyone how to get online, build a blog, teach them about trackbacks, tags, onine direct marketing methods, and point them in the right direction of places to go to learn how to blog and/or sell their own stuff online
To explain to everyone how this new medium, with emphasis on the individual ownership of the channels of communication and the advertising and profit that comes along with it, is changing the nature of how information is both disseminated and sought out.

Things are changing so rapidly online that its very hard to keep track of everything. I wanted to write a simple book that served as a nexus for explaining the revolution occurring online adn how it is benefitting the individuals smart enough to take advantage of it right now. I also wanted this book to include several resources that people could then go to in order to get themselves started. This is, by no means, a "everything you need to know book," but rather is a kick start to get your motor running and a steady compass needle showing you which direction to haul ass off into.

I'm holding the galley copy in this photo. There are still a couple of small editing changes and layout revisions I want to make but I expect this book to be press ready by the end of the week. It will be available exclusively through Lulu.com at first but will be available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble in the coming weeks and months.

As always, I want to thank everyone that has helped and supported me throughout the journey of this book, specifically: my amazing wife without which nothing of happiness in my life would be possible, my brother Tommy C. who has always stood by me since day one, Markie Marc Sumerak who is the best comic book author in the world, Jon Williams, who took time out to read and comment on Flipping the Temple, and Chris Schmidt who did an amazing job with the cover art and in reading and commenting on the text (you've earned my future business, my man). And I especially want to thank everyone who purchases and reads the book, then sends me e-mails to help me make it better.

Thanks.

I just got back from seeing the Joseph musical and in one word it was...gay. This show was a thousand times gayer than Brokeback Mountain--at least that was a manly kind of gay, a viking prison bitch kind of gay. But this musical was pink chaffon drinking champaigne coolies kind of gay.

I wasn't really amused, to be honest. I mean all musicals carry the whiff of homosexuality to me but this one wafted a funk of it.

Anyhow, I want to apologize for not posting in the last few days--I've been working on a pretty sweet longer paper where I'll be explaining why Tool is the greatest band on earth by showing how each of their albums is representative of a cakra in the system of Kundalini yoga. To my knowledge, no one has yet made this connection and I'm happy to break new ground here and hopefully introduce a whole new audience to Tool's fantastic music. Their new album 10,000 Days is rocking the world right now and I'm going to help everyone see just why this band, and Maynard James Keenan specifically, is so important to contemporary art.

Keep your eyes peeled for this in the coming days, exclusively here on BWP.

...and I'm right there with him:

For the first time in a long time I feel hope for our country — the spark of something we haven't had for a very long time — an opportunity for the common man to begin anew — a chance for America to become new again. New with the spirit of adventure and enthusiasm. New with the excitement of knowing that we can make a difference, that America can still be the shining city on the hill, the Camelot we had before John Kennedy died.

I sense a spirit of strength and commitment in the generation now fighting — men and women who, despite all that has happened in our country since Vietnam, still believe in America — still believe they can make a difference — still believe that America and democracy and freedom is worth fighting for and that they can win.

For the first time in a long time I feel good about the future.

I have met some of the most amazing people online and it just amazes me that none of these social connections would have been possible without the wizardry of the Internet. I can totally understand what some futurists mean when they say that the invention of the Internet is an evolutionary jump on the scale of the invention of language.

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am a soldier of the new media and a firm believer that the Internet is the lynch pin of democracy--it is an amazing tool that allows human beings to rise out of the funk of the group identities that politicians and the pezzonovante of the churches like to herd people into so they can be controlled. I can totally see a day when Muslims and Jews hash their shit out online where the weak ideas wither and the strong survive.

Of course, this probably won't happen until the idiots with bombs and guns finish shooting and killing each other while the geeks who will inherit the earth are inside typing on their keyboards.

LINKS:
AntiMedia's Post
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Holy cow! Folks, I had tears streaming down my face just reading this thing. I can't wait to watch the video.

LINKS:
Read the Transcript (Links to Video)

...because he has some true brilliant comic moments over there--like this one:

the sad truth is that I don't care about starving African children. Not enough to send any Americans to die for them...Sorry. Sorry you are starving. I'll pray for you all, okay. Other than that, fuck you...You know, of course, how much of our agricultural production is based firmly on petrochemicals, right? Farm equipment, fertilizers, pesticides, lubricants, all that shit is firmly based on fossil fuel. I'm not worried, myself. I have weapons to take food from all you fuckers that don't believe in them.

Folks, that's just some funny shit.

Keep it up, JD. You may not have many readers, but the ones you do have appreciate you coming back to the grindstone each day. Besides, I don't think you'd be happy with a large readership as people in groups larger than one are generally a pain the damn ass anyway!

LINKS:
JD's Full Post
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