An Ominous Sign

I'll tell you this only because no one reading can recognize my face in public (yeah, as if anybody reads this blog to begin with). I have just heard Mandy Moore's version of 'Umbrella'...and I really like it. I mean I really like it. So apparently, 2008 will be the year my ability to discern good music from schlock begins to speed down the road to oblivion. I'll be on the other side of the cultural mountain after that, folks, should this turn out to be true. Brain soup is right around the corner. Oh, I'll try and head it off at the pass, so for the next 48 hours I'll be listening to Exile on Main Street, Blood on the Tracks, Late For The Sky, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on auto-repeat. See you next year. Stay safe. Wage war on corporate puke.

Post-Yule Fatigue

I do hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas season, but I must say it seemed to fly by awfully fast this year. I didn't even get a chance to sit down and enjoy my annual ritual (for the past two years at least) of watching the 1974 classic Black Christmas on DVD. And as always, there's that somewhat unpleasant letdown that begins on December 26th, when the natural high of opening gifts has left, when the food is gone from the plate and now lives on forever hanging over the sides of your britches, and you still have to make it through the single most depressing holiday ever invented by man - New Years. Ah yes, a holiday devoted to the passing away of one of the precious few years of life you'll have here on earth, celebrated at the darkest, coldest time on the calendar. Although I guess 'New Years' is a better title than 'Suicide Week'. I've always suspected that the actual date of New Years was originally August 14th before being changed by lobbyists for the liquor industry. But the biggest cause of depression this time of year is the knowledge that you're now going to have to put away all 17,000 decorations that you've used to make your house look like a North Pole-based theme park. And it was only in the past four days that I even realized I still had rubber shrunken heads hanging on the wall from Halloween. And for those of you who have a cat it's even worse. You'll be finding little dried-up patches of vomit with one lone Christmas tree needle caked in the center for months to come. Cats give too, y'know.
Me personally, I'm just countin' the days until April Fools.

Note To Self...

Having just finished re-reading American Rhapsody by Joe Eszterhas for the first time in seven years, it brought back memories of all the bad feelings I used to have for Bill Clinton and how I once thought that no future President could ever possibly be worse. Wisdom - in this case at least - was learning that not only can I be wrong, and will be wrong, but will oftentimes be wrong immediately.
So remember - as long as there is a Bush alive on planet earth, your optimism belongs on a very short leash.

Creatures of the Night

Over the summer a neighborhood kitty with the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen curled up under my bush outside and stayed there for days, clearly unhealthy. By the third day I tried to gather him up and take him to an animal hospital (since the neighbor he belongs to doesn't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot), but the little kitty became very unhappy when I got too close to him. So I put out a small bowl of cat food and some water, hoping that might help a little. He disappeared for a week after that, then reappeared looking refreshed and quite healthy, I'm glad to say. He was also looking for more food. Devoted animal lover that I am - and cats are my favorite of all - I gladly put out a bowl of Kit & Kaboodle and some fresh water for the little guy. He wouldn't let me pet him, and he's not the friendliest feline I've ever met, but which each new bowl he grew more comfortable with me, eventually even rubbing against my leg while waiting. And then one evening around sundown I walked outside and found another kitty, this one much bigger, more nicely groomed and clearly well-fed, helping himself to some leftover Kaboodles. When he realized I wasn't a threat he became very affectionate, but clearly he didn't understand me when I told him that this food was for another cat. So I let the newcomer eat what he wanted, then made sure the bowl was filled for little Blue Eyes, whose overnight appearance was now like clockwork. Weeks passed, and I'd occasionally see the bigger cat around, but since he didn't come around every night I didn't mind. Then one day, a yellow Tabby from across the street was there eating from the bowl too. Not long after that a tiny little black kitten came by several times a day, ate a few pieces and scampered off. What can I say? I'm a sucker for these creatures. If they were hungry and wanted to eat, then so be it. And then one night I heard what I knew was some unusually loud chewing going on outside. I mean, really bizarre chewing. Chomping, crunchy chewing that would drown out popcorn kernels popping on the stove. Next morning, there was Kaboodle everywhere! It was a gigantic mess, and very unlike the eating habits of any of the cats I'd seen so far. But I didn't think that much of it until one night after dark when I heard it again. Grabbing a flashlight, I quietly slipped out the front door, curious to see which kitty was making obnoxious eating sounds like Aunt Phyllis at a buffet. And it wasn't a kitty at all. It was an opossum, making no effort towards table manners of any kind. Now, when you expect to see a cat and get an opossum instead, it's kinda scary. There's just something about those long, pointy snoots and skinny bare tail that will jolt a suburb dweller like me. I'm sure country folks wouldn't have given him a second glance, unless they just wanted an entrée before dinner. But it startled me. Once he became a regular nightly guest as well, I got used to him, but that first introduction was a little spooky, so I started going outside with a bit more caution after dark. Once last week, I peered out the kitchen window and saw the opossum and the Tabby actually taking turns eating from the bowl, although that didn't last long. The Tabby took off after the opossum made a move for a piece of food on the ground that was close to the Tabby's paw. But it was a sweet picture while it lasted. And then last night at around twelve-thirty, I was turning off the lights and getting ready for bed, cursing myself for sitting and watching 'Hostel' all the way through on cable. Bleeeccch. But there it was again - loud crunching. I couldn't help myself, so I flipped the blinds open and looked out. There was the opossum (whom I've since named Percy...no reason) and two brand new friends. Raccoon friends. Big raccoon friends. And it was one of the raccoons who was doing the crunching this time. The other one, for some reason, didn't eat any food. Poor Percy got too close to the one who was eating and got smacked right in his big ol' long snout for his trouble. Raccoons aren't as willing to share, I guess. So, simply for trying to help out a sick little blue-eyed cat, I've managed to draw the attention of three other felines, one opossum and two raccoons. I'm on the lookout for a moose next. And I'm spending a friggin' fortune on Kaboodle.

Brautigans

I've always read a lot of books, with at least several competing for my attention at any given time, and that makes it easy to pick up on certain things like rhythms, patterns of speech and so forth. One thing that I always notice, usually by its absence, is atmosphere, the mood created by the author when his or her words are strung together. When you read a lot of books you come to realize how rare it is when a writer can not only tell a story well but also impart an aura into their work that becomes palpable, as unique as a perfumed page that moves the emotions and the spirit like an internal music. Someone who wrote with that ability, and many times created a tone of profound beauty that fascinated me even when I understood little of what I was reading, was Richard Brautigan. Author of the celebrated Trout Fishing in America, which became something of a cultural landmark, he also wrote other books that reeked of some friendly yet ghostly presence that escaped from each page upon reading.
The very first time I ventured into one of his all-too-brief works was with Willard and his Bowling Trophies, one of his least popular books among literary critics, and one of my favorite books ever. I won't spend any time trying to describe his writings; only the books themselves can do that. But his chapters, seldom more than a page or two in length, could turn a few lines of scant detail into precious art in much the same way as would a freely sketched drawing by Rembrandt. With barely enough material to fill the page, both captured souls and essences in a manner that made it seem as if that was their primary purpose for living. Or maybe in Brautigan's case, the only thing that kept him alive.
Brautigan's life, in fact, was over just months after I began reading my mothers copy of Willard..., and I still have the small obituary she cut from the newspaper after his body was discovered inside his house in Bolinas, California. A bit ragged from age, it is used as a permanent bookmark in her small, hardback copy of his final book, So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away. A few years ago, his daughter, Ianthe Brautigan, wrote You Can't Catch Death, an amazing book that's on par with every great thing her father wrote, and in all honesty (given the circumstances that helped to create it) much more emotionally mature. It is a dual biography both of Richard's life and her life with - and after - him, an attempt to understand his upbringing, his career, his suicide. It also happens to be the kind of simple, funny, tragic and very human story that Richard Brautigan himself seemed to love writing.
Perhaps because two of the first Brautigan books I ever read were in fact Willard and his Bowling Trophies and So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away, I imagined that death was a common theme in his writings, unaware that there is far more joyful innocence and whimsy in his words than anything else. Reading much of his work only after his suicide somewhat tainted the happiness that was there on the page. But it is still there, and it still acknowledges that there were times indeed when he truly felt it, and I can assume truly loved living as well. And hopefully those times were not as brief as his chapters suggested.
I wouldn't know where to tell anybody to begin if they wanted to start reading his books, and I might tell them to start with You Can't Catch Death before they read any of them. Or maybe just pick one at random and wait until you have a quiet hour to spare. It's for certain, though, that they're friends worth having.
A decade before his death, Richard Brautigan described the melancholy he felt once when passing by some homes affected when the Yellowstone River in Montana overflowed. It was, he said, 'the silence of flooded houses'.
And so long as you know that there's plenty of beauty and laughter still inside them as well, I think those are perfect words to describe what he has left us.

That Competitive Spirit

After watching the press conference yesterday regarding steroid abuse in major league baseball, I can't help but fall back on exactly the kind of rationale that society (or at least the corporate dictators who run our official media) despises (and yes, I know I use too many parentheses in my writings). At the risk of sounding like a Marxist shill (which I kinda am...see, that's just way too many parentheses), isn't it something of a damn shame that there are men in the world of professional sports, already gifted with athletic ability far beyond what most of us will ever comprehend or could ever dream of achieving, who succumb to the unbearable pressure imposed upon them to break records - historical or financial - even if that requires breaking their bodies and ruining their future long term health in the process? It's such an age-old story and so commonplace that it barely even registers anymore. But does nobody feel some ugly thing in their conscience when they realize that America is now at a point where an early death is considered a fair price to pay for a better than average home run or RBI stat? We're constantly reminded that competition is a natural thing, but is natural always desirable? Disease is natural too. Deformity, sickness, mortality - all natural. But who wants them? Who seeks them out? If competition leads to the degradation of body, to the perversion of everything that ones soul finds noble, couldn't we find something better with which to occupy our time? The root cause is easy to pinpoint, as always. Hit more home runs and more people will watch; more people watch, more money. After that the only question is 'how do you hit more home runs?' The players found the answer. So some of them sacrifice everything worth keeping and make money doing so. Never forget that as much money as they make for themselves, they make far more for the organization that owns them, the organization that demands ever increasing revenue, ever higher profits. The marketplace in action. Now I doubt much will happen from Mitchell's report or Selig's response; none of this was exactly what you'd call 'news'. But even if it was only the official report of the worst kept secret in sports, it still serves a decent enough purpose. It perhaps can lead to more prevention of steroid abuse at the high-school and collegiate levels, though that's debatable. It can act as yet another sad example of where the endless pursuit of wealth ultimately leads, which happens to be the one lesson that corporate America doesn't want anyone to hear. And truthfully, it has made me understand I'm not without some blame in this scenario, nor is any other sports fan. I haven't been an active baseball fan in a while, but I still love - of all things - boxing, which is now virtually a cult fringe in the world of sports. The same sport whose exploitation and destruction of its participants is legendary. I was one of the unlucky ones who sat and watched a young fighter named Beethoven Scottland beaten to death on live television in the summer of 2001. I watched Diego Corrales absorb countless blows to the head, hearing his speech slurring more and more with each new post-fight interview before his tragic death via drunken motorcycle accident this past year. I know what Bobby Chacon is like today, decades after his classic brawling days came to an end. Why I continue to watch after all that I have no idea, but I do. Maybe I, like so many others, simply think this is the way it's always been and always will be. Like deformity, sickness and mortality. And maybe I, like so many others, need to keep in mind that there's a sickness in the way I've been taught to think about competition, about success, and about the 'root cause' that motivates us to do all sorts of very bad things.

Conference of Idiots

So, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have taken back their positive review of 'The Golden Compass' less than a week later. Pressure from Der Führer-In-Chief over in Rome, perhaps? Or maybe they only gave it a good review to begin with because they thought it was going to be a big hit with the youngsters and wanted to jump on board (the movie, not the youngsters - hey, they know we're keeping a close eye on 'em), and now that they've seen which way the wind is blowing they've decided to abandon ship. It does kind of make you wonder if anybody over there really saw the film or not. I'm guessing that they planned on going and then at the last minute decided on bingo instead. On the bright side, while it took the Vatican more than three hundred years to rescind their condemnation of Galileo (which, granted, was more of a P.R. necessity than anything else, since it's not good for business to admit that the Bible contains zilch in the way of accurate science), this organization did an about-face in less than seven days. Apparently, their thinking was 'Lord help us when our children might go to see a movie about talking polar bears when they could be watching a two-hour S&M snuff film that's become a classic among leatherboys, featuring a mostly naked man having the flesh beaten off his body so we might better understand God's 'love' for us.' Ah, priorities, priorities. Pity that Philip Pullman isn't an anti-Semitic drunk; you wouldn't have heard a thing from these folks. And if he had been dating a nine year-old boy, trust me, they would have bused the audiences in.

Evolution - Mach II

You may have seen the story in USA Today earlier this week detailing the increase in speed of human evolution. Well isn't that just great? Now, even evolution refuses to take its own sweet time anymore. Clark Larsen, the chairman of anthropology at Ohio State University, said that his studies have backed up the belief among scientists that there's been "a ton" of biological changes in the human animal just during the past 10,000 years. "It's still going on. Right before our eyes." he declared at the end of the article.
Now, I don't work in the field of science or scientific experimentation, but I did spend some time in a conservative evangelical church as a youngster, so I grew up thinking that I knew more than them anyway. And I can honestly state that I've personally witnessed some intriguing evidence that verifies what Larsen says. For instance, the article mentions that a mere ten thousand years ago, very few humans possessed the gene that allowed them to drink cows milk (I assume it meant allowing them to drink it without vomiting, though the article was rather vague on that point). Likewise, just a short decade ago I was able to watch a movie starring Julia Roberts without feeling severe nausea - but no more.
The speed with which that turnaround happened was pretty incredible, especially when you consider that I'm one of the few people who made it all the way through her early role in 'Satisfaction', musical numbers and all. (I guess I should put 'musical numbers' in little sarcastic quotes too). What happened genetically to bring about that change inside of me? I dunno, but it only magnifies my astonishment at the wonders of nature, evolutionary biology, and the entire big ol' beautiful world around us.
However, I think that Mr. Evolution, like everybody else, needs to slow down on occasion and smell the lovely aroma of the flowers he helped to bloom. Unless he's working on something that just can't wait. Like, making stupidity 100% fatal. Or shrinking that Adam's apple on Ann Coulter.
Although come to think of it, fixing the first one will make the second unnecessary.

I Liked This Guy Better When I Never Heard Of Him

Not to beat a dead horseman of the Apocalypse, but let me cast my vote alongside of those who developed an immediate disliking for Mitt Romney after his little JFK-wannabe moment last week. In spouting off the standard buffoonish rhetoric favored by many of the pillars of the Religious Right, such as the (fortunately) deceased Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy and the (hopefully) soon-to-be-deceased Pat Robertson, Romney displayed exactly the kind of smarminess and plain old asshole-ism that characterizes so much of public religious temperament today. So, Romney detests the 'religion of secularism'. Fine. For the sake of argument, I'll say that I detest the religion of Mormonism. The only difference being, Mormonism actually is a religion and secularism isn't. Secularism is the absence of religion, which usually suggests the presence of at least some form of logic and rationality, two things not usually on display in any religion.
This is a common linguistic con job that certain people - such as, oh let's see, hmmm - TV preachers for instance, put to good use. You accuse and condemn an opponent for engaging in the very behavior that you yourself wallow in. To those who lack the ability to think, it sounds good and scores points. Which is why you always hear evolution refuted and disbelieved because it is a mere 'theory' (by which its critics mean something entirely different than scientists mean when they use the word) but never hear Christianity or any other religion called the same thing. If anything is a theory in the sense that religionists mean, it is the utterly unproven, and unprovable, doctrines of religion itself, but as we all know, they're never held to the same standard.
Like it or not, God is a theory. Heaven is a theory. The resurrection is a theory. Unlike scientific theories however, they have no empirical evidence backing them up. So why does Mitt Romney scold 'the religion of secularism' and yet throw a hissy fit when others, including evangelicals, scold the religion of Mormonism? If secularism is a religion unworthy of respect, then Romney is making an acknowledgment (albeit unwillingly) that religion doesn't deserve a free pass. I'd agree with him on that one, and I think most people would (a secular education will do that to you). First on that list of religions that deserve scrutiny would be one that was founded by hallucination-induced white supremacists who waged an active and bloody war against the American government, then went on to proclaim their defeat and punishment as 'persecution'.
Now, I can just see Romney (and the entire state of Utah) bristling with indignation and arguing that the Mormon religion isn't like that anymore.
Good. I'm glad to see evolution in action. But it isn't as if his religion doesn't still have to answer for a lot of questionable things. Glenn Beck's existence, for example. Orrin Hatch's musical catalog. Marie Osmond making it as far as she did on 'Dancing With The Stars'. I could go on but you get the point. We all belong to some kind of group that has awful skeletons in its closet. Some of us just wish that the doors were thrown open on an equal basis. If my 'religion' can be slandered, so can yours. And religious people often seem to be the most oblivious to that fact.
Now, I'm sure that the ever flip-flopping Romney is just following the standard playbook of modern politics. I'm quite sure he's intelligent enough to know that secularism is not a religion, but since there are plenty of voters he wants on his side, he says what they want to hear. That's to be expected. Obama executed the Democratic version of this playbook to a tee with Oprah over the weekend, using her in the role of John The (Missionary) Baptist proclaiming the coming of the New Messiah. And we all know that Bill's wife has tried to get a hallelujah out of a few crowds herself in the past, even if she did look silly doing so. But it's just so sad to see how dumbed down we all feel we need to be.
Once upon a time, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Hodge, Hans Kung and a few others showed that there's always the possibility of combining religion and genius. It's rare, but it can happen. And if it can happen with outright genius, then it's certainly possible that religion could be used properly by those who possess a mere common sense and maturity we once took for granted in our adults.
It's just not possible during election season apparently.

Is 'Neuroartist' a real word?

No, I suppose it's not, technically speaking. 'Neuroartist' was just a cute little term I dreamed up after realizing that a whole lot of my paintings and drawings involved some aspect of the human brain. Of course, I then had the sense to 'Google' the term and found that, lo and behold, I didn't actually invent the word at all. It already existed, though I didn't known that beforehand. Honestly. Anyway, I like it, and I still dabble in 'brain art' every now and then (photos to come...someday), and I thought it was as good a name for a blog as anything else. No need to read anything into it beyond that.