Author: chris

i just read the da vinci code, bowing to pressure.  like most pulp authors his writing was often bad, sometimes horrible, dialogue resembling machinery.  but the story was good…except the end.  that sucked, dan. 

to the point: i don’t know if you’ve heard all the crap that has been going on regarding banning the book, boycotting it, etc.  however after reading it it’s blatantly obvious that those who are boycotting and banning haven’t read it.  there’s nothing in it i haven’t read outside of the novel (aside from the FICTIONAL story, of course) and [warning: spoiler ahead] it doesn’t make the catholic church out to be any worse than many other people have made it out to be.  i’m speaking of information regarding mary magdelene, that sort of thing.  these theories aren’t new…they’re just injected into a novel. 

when i told catholic or otherwise christian friends that i was reading this they all said something to the effect of, “it’s not true, you know.”  that startled me, because i found it in the non-fiction section amidst many historical texts, and the book itself is marked as “non-fiction” and….oh wait…it’s a work of FICTION.

i apologize for those last two entries.  i’ve been very angry.  so now, two short…poems? stories?  who cares.  labels get us nowhere.

when it was raining
charged air to my lungs drenched with humid.
charged air to my lungs with dripped air.

when i was falling asleep
she’s got the voice of a lullaby.
head is falling to the ground
and tumble
and body twists
and curls.

perhaps they will go on my site? yes? no? perhaps as a photo caption?

so what are you doing for easter?  the pope will be damning the scourges of society: the pope “will pray for society to be cleansed of the ‘filth’ that
surrounds it and be restored to purity, freed from ‘decadent
narcissism.’” good luck with that…but anyway: “Particular condemnation is reserved for scientific advances in
the field of genetic manipulation. Warning against the move to ‘modify
the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God,’ the Pope will
lead prayers against ‘insane, risky and dangerous’ ventures in
attempting ‘to take God’s place without being God.’”  lastly, again on the subject of evil: “‘Where is Jesus in the agony of our own time, in the division of our
world into belts of prosperity and belts of poverty . . . in one room
they are concerned about obesity, in the other, they are begging for
charity?’”  eh i guess it’s how you look at it.  in another room they’re concerned about finding a way to combat life-cripling diseases through a different medium, genetics, and in another room they are linking those guys across the hall to satan.  maybe the pope is just exorcising his nazi demons?

so, how are you? i am extremely tired.

i don’t know if you’ve heard about the guy who slept in walmart (read the story here).  
that’s what he did for his spring break.  so. all you need to do
to get on the news is to live in walmart for a few days.  and why?

it is especially interesting to take this story into account as i read
despite everything, a compendium of the famous underground zine
cometbus.  aaron cometbus squats in houses, rates local pawnshops
by smell, quality of workers, and stealability.  he
almost-ALMOST-makes it onto saturday night live.  but
doesn’t.  so why isn’t he in the news? for the extremely simple
reason that he’s not doing any of it for a purpose.  if he were
protesting something, or making a statement about something, then
maybe, possibly, news would have picked him up. 

oh wait.  the walmart kid wasn’t saying anything either.  he
was just sleeping on toilets and playing video games for 41 hours
(yes…less than two days).  for $160 dollars.  what did he
spend the money on?  food i suppose, at the mcdonalds.  but
did he get fries for the entire store?  probably not.  so
what the hell did he spend the money on?? maybe he’s just an
idiot.  so to get national fame, even for a few minutes, all you
have to do is blow money in a walmart for less than two days, right?

someone please help me solve this problem.

EDIT

two posts in one day.  i need to space these out to twice a year.  next time. but for now…

i just tried a method of procrastination that truly works.  if you
are having a tough time figuring out how you can procrastinate please
read on.  my specific procrastination is for a paper that i need
to have done by tomorrow night, but i think it could work for any
procrastination.

1. read the prompt you are going to write on (or review the task you
must accomplish) at least a week before the deadline.  (if this is
not possible, use the greatest amount of time possible) ONLY READ IT
ONCE.  i cannot stress this enough.
2. after a week has passed you should only remember the general idea of
the prompt.  if not, get wasted AS SOON AS POSSIBLE using any
available means
3. do not glance at the prompt again until the day before the
deadline.  on this day, merely look at the first few words in the
prompt and the last few, then go to a bookstore, movie shop, or other
area of interest. tip: try to figure out how to steal something while
you’re there.  this will take up some important time!
4. hopefully you spent a lot of time thinking about how to steal
something and/or you got thrown in jail for stealing something. 
good job!!
5. get back to your computer and sit down.  open your word
processor and type your name.  get out everything necessary for
writing the paper (sources, etc.)
6. play an old nintendo game until you beat it.  i recommend super
mario brothers. you can find it online. if you can’t, see if you can
get an original nintendo system.  right now.
7. bake something, like cookies.  watch them in the oven as they bake.
8. eat
9. start a debate with someone you know, online or over the phone. make
sure to argue with opinions that differ from your friend’s. agreeing
isn’t going to waste any time at all.
10. surf the internet for a while. try wikipedia.com–they have tons of
information, and you will feel like you’re actually doing research.
11. write a blog entry about how you procrastinated.
12. the simpsons is on.  watch it.
13. it’s very late. go to bed.

i hope this helps someone become a productive person.

wouldn’t things be much easier if we had never created the concept of the soul?  this magic entity that embodies us, is
us.  it’s something that we cannot prove or disprove, yet so much
importance is placed on its existence.  abortion for
example.  how many problems has abortion created because of the
theory of the soul?  this is the argument against abortion: you
are killing a soul.  then when does that soul come into existence?
when a sperm enters an egg? what if a sperm has survived long enough to
reach the egg, but is hindered from fertilizing it because of a drug, a
procedure, etc.? is that abortion? catholics say it is because they’ve
had theologians discuss the very issue. protestants freak out because
the bible doesn’t talk about abortion, or conception of a soul, and
they have refuted catholic thought, so they stand there with no real
reason for believing what they do, but implement laws to back up their
unfounded beliefs.

i’m sorry for the rant, but it’s so disgusting. i’m not saying i’m
pro-abortion, but i also don’t think making it illegal does anything
whatsoever for anyone.  a legal abortion is safer than a
self-implimented abortion done with a coathanger, and i firmly believe
abortions will always be
performed whether illegal or legal.  i think the answer is in
removing the stigma of sex as well as birth
control/contraception. 

there’s the argument that contraception, “the pill,” causes actual
abortions to occur. “the pill” refers to over 40 different types of
birth control with different components.  so if only one of these
causes an abortion, one can say that the pill causes abortions and
still maintain a bit of truthiness.  so…fine, i’ve read
published documents from universities and medical schools that say that
not every form of birth control causes abortions, but people can read
the conspiracy reporters who say that that’s a lie, that the medical
profession wants to hurt women.  ok.  so what about when they
create a male oral contraceptive? one that keeps sperm from
developping, in essence kills them before they are ejaculated?  it
will be invented someday.

my guess: they will still be against it.  catholics will be
against it because of how they define a soul, and because they believe
that hindering reproduction in any way is an abomination to god. 
but they can’t say that can they? at least not now.  too many
people will see that that’s insane, and that that’s clearly
implementing their religious beliefs in the government.  while
church and state are technically seperate, technically, laws are still
passed based on this religion (look at my state: anal sex and use of
dildoes is illegal), but it might just be time before the little
technicality of the separation of church and state becomes obsolete and
we can pass jesus’s morality as law even if you don’t believe in
him.  until then, i think catholics/christians will just say that
the male contraceptive is also a conspiracy.  eh, what’re you
going to do?

sorry again. for the rant.

why should YOU have to go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?

you know that sense of absurdity of life that you first got when you were younger? high school, maybe junior high age.  maybe younger.  the first one is always the best.  now it’s just a little annoying (sometimes).  i’ve had it all day.  usually it will go away when i drink enough alcohol, but i’m on my tenth margarita and it’s still there.  (this is a joke.)

i really like philosophy.  i really do.  but at the same time it’s pointless, in the same way that everything else is pointless.  i know this sounds tired, old, and cliche.  however, that doesn’t make it any less true.  no amount of philosophy or religion or science or talkshows is ever going to really change anything, at the basic, primordial level. either something is true or it isn’t, no matter what a person thinks about it.

i was discussing this with someone once and he asked me, “then why do anything at all?”  i gave him an answer, but i don’t know what it was.  if someone asked me that now, i would repeat some version of vonnegut’s words: the arts are not a way to make a living.  they are a very human way of making life more bearable.

is he talking about philosophy? is that considered an art? i don’t care if it is.  that’s why i like it.  and if you have never read something by vonnegut you should.  anything.  at least before you die.  “what a bummer it is to be a human being.”  it is! it’s absurd!

i was very excited when i realized that i actually wanted to teach philosophy, to be a professor. because the idea of teaching english had never really left much more than a bitter taste in my mouth. so that’s what it was going to be: graduate degree(s) in philosophy, philosophy professor. and then i was told that for each rare philosophy teaching position in my university there were at least 400 applicants. so i suppose philosophy professor is out. maybe i can teach gym. and i feel foolish.

i am writing a story for a creative writing class. since i brought it up, i don’t think people should take creative writing classes. if you can’t figure out what is good writing and what is bad writing intuitively, related to your own work, over a period of time through lots of trial and error i don’t think you have any business being a writer. for some reason i keep thinking that the next c.w. course will be different. but anyway, my story…it’s about god’s brother radley. it might be able to be good. but as i’m writing it for a deadline for a class it might not be good. they usually haven’t been in the past. i have heard that my professor dislikes stories not grounded in reality. this might be a problem. but that’s okay.

“during the holidays, i own your availability,” he said over the phone. i could see his lips curling into a smurk, his hand tightening on the leather whip covered in the dried blood of my coworkers. “so, choose, your other job or us.”

i chose the other job but he might not know it yet. he is on vacation, because he got more than two days to visit his family for christmas. i chose the other job because i want make it clear that he owns nothing of mine. what is funny is that he is short 3 cooks, 4 in two weeks, and at least 2 more are leaving in the next year. isn’t this called insanity?

so, how was your christmas?

i just posted a new story: change. i do realize this is not the best title i’ve ever had…but what’s in a title? everything. some people only read the titles on my site, so i feel i have let them down. but sometimes this is inevitable, and i am okay with it. the story was written last night from an idea i jotted down months ago.

also, you might notice that at the main page (here) i have put a new picture up. i thought it was pretty. no cars came by when i stopped to take the picture, which was lucky, because it was on a bend and there wasn’t much of a shoulder for me to park on. i could have laid dead next to that incredible cat. it looked like it would never decompose.

that really really sucks. i wrote this really good blog entry. it was very insightful, i worked my way through a lot of things in my head. it was simply excellent. and apparently it was a dream.

i took my last final (as it looks, all As and a B, possibly C) and thought that i would probably write another story soon, as i have posted one in about six months. that’s a long time eh? i used to post once a week. anyway, while i have a few remnants of stories that i’ve written throughout those six months, but no real interest in developing them. instead i’m reading. a lot. but on top of my current lust for reading i got another job, so the chances of my writing something are exceedingly slim.

i think i have to go to work now. crap. i don’t remember which job it’s for.