If You Have Air Conditioning, You’re Living the American Dream!

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Does anybody remember the plot of Ghostbusters II? I haven’t seen it in a long time, but there was this really evil force in Manhattan, (more evil than Donald Trump, even!), who was trying to unlock this portal to hell and unleash demons on an unsuspecting public. And this evil force was manifested in some sort of ectoplasmic goo that, as soon as it touched people, caused them to have horrible feelings of anger and rage and made them do the most heinous things to each other. (It’s possible that I’m getting the plot of Ghostbusters II confused with Cocoon, and the goo with Steve Guttenberg.) Anyhoo. My point is that, in the movie, (at least how I remember it), this evil just kind of built up gradually, imperceptibly, touching a random person here or there until it surrounded the public and was almost impossible to stop. (At the climactic scene where hell is about the be unleashed on earth, cue the Ghostbuster’s theme song, Bill Murray saves the day, end credits.)

I think in today’s tough economic times, the Republican Party is Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II, and the goo that is being spread is this angry, hurtful myth that lower taxes and less government regulation reduce poverty and lead to greater economic wealth for the general public. If Bill Murray doesn’t step in soon, it’s only a matter of time before hell is unleashed on earth.

I think it would be easier for Marcus Bachmann to admit that he is gay than it would be for most people to talk about poverty. No one likes to think about it. Certainly no one wants to admit that in a country as great as ours it even exists. Hell, the only way I seem to be capable of talking about it is to act like it is some hidden away problem that isn’t anything my friends suffer from. Republicans take advantage of this. Because there is this reluctance to discuss the subject, because there is so much shame attached to the concept of poverty, conservative aggressively attack the issue by questioning its existence, demonizing the poor and doing everything they can to further reduce government assistance to them. What makes the conservative attitude more appalling right now is that they are being this aggressive towards the poor while we are suffering through the Second Great Depression.

But, let’s start from the beginning. What exactly is poverty?

I think that we can all agree that, as far as we know, thanks to the government subsidized cheap commodities of corn and soy, America is not teeming with famine-ravaged refugees streaming across the border to Mexico for help, as they are streaming into Kenya from Somalia. So, yay Team America! You’re not Somalia. But is that it? Is that the standard? “Sally Struthers isn’t trying to airlift you food, so quit complaining, you’re not poor?”

There is, of course, more to it than that, especially in a country with a standard of living as high as ours.

Even though we are not starving in the streets, there are homeless, working poor parents with children in this country. There are people lining up by the thousands hours in advance to apply for housing vouchers in this country. There are people dying because of a lack of access to dental care. There are people waiting for hours to attend free clinics to get their teeth cleaned or the blood pressure checked because, even though they work three jobs, they can’t afford health insurance. So. What is poor? Are only homeless people poor? If you can afford rent, if you can make a car payment, if you can pay your electric bill, does that mean that you are not poor? To some on the right, that is exactly what that means. If you have an obese child or you own a cellphone, you clearly can afford to eat and you can afford luxuries. So, you’re not poor, you’re just horrible with money. If you only budgeted with a little bit more discipline, you’d be able to climb up the economic ladder. Your failure to get ahead is your own fault.

Now, in my mind, I define being poor as a level of economic hardship that limits a family’s opportunities. So, a person who has straight A high school children but who cannot afford to send them to college, that person is poor, as their dreams for a better life are limited not by their intellectual abilities but by the size of their wallet. A person who lives paycheck to paycheck, who cannot afford to set any money aside for retirement, that person is poor. They are at the complete mercy of economic tides that they have no ability to protect themselves against. A person who is forced into bankruptcy or forced to sell their house because of unexpected medical bills is also poor. And, of course, people who suffer from even more economic hardship than that: the women who work 40 hours a week for $8.00 an hour but who have to file for food stamps and Medicaid because their wages are not enough to live on. Elderly people with no savings, homeless people, the mentally ill, people who have no ability to support themselves with a trade or an occupation, the list goes on and on. I believe the US Census estimates that about 15% of Americans, or about 45,000,000 people, live in poverty. And, in my mind, I can see that. I see them every time I go to Dollar Store or a Wal-Mart. I can only imagine what I would see if I looked in places that truly terrified me.

Of course, all of the people I’ve described above would probably be considered middle class in a country such as Somalia or Kazakhstan. But that false comparison doesn’t erase the fact that in this country they are on wobbly rungs of the economic ladder and they have no social mobility. They are poor in this country, even if they own relatively cheap, abundant electronic devices, such as answering machines or DVD players.

Here’s the arrogance of anti-government assistance advocates: they actually argue, in public, no less, that if you have a refrigerator and a VCR or any one of dozens of other cheaply made, readily available electronic devices, (such as a coffee maker), you are not poor. If you were poor, you wouldn’t own the $150 window air conditioning unit. In other words, according to some policy makers on the right, if you’re not living in a thatch hut pounding kava root into mush with a mortar and pestle while flies lay eggs on the mucus membranes of your malnourished children, then you’re wealthier than the richest people on the planet were 100 years ago.

Anyone who has studied American history is vaguely familiar with the phrases “A chicken in every pot” or “40 acres and mule,” even if they have no idea what historical events those phrases are associated with. (The first was the campaign slogan of Herbert Hoover in the year before the first (!) Great Depression, and the second stemmed from promises of slave reparations General Sherman made during his March to the Sea at the end of the Civil War.) And, of course, this is the Land of Milk and Honey, where the streets are paved with gold. America’s identity is replete with references to wealth, and dreams, and freedom, and opportunity. So. DOES the United States have an obligation to create, at the very least, a minimum standard of living?

This is where liberals veer one way and conservatives veer straight into the outstretched arms of Vigo the Carpathian.

As best as I can tell, Republicans claim that they want every citizen, (and they DO mean citizen–you illegal “aliens,” as they so compassionately call you, can go fuck yourselves. Preferably across the border.), to achieve the American dream. And they strongly argue that the ONLY way every American is going to achieve their potential is if taxes are ridiculously low and there is no government interference with personal attempts to create business whatsoever. If the government would only stop being an oppressive overlord, making unnecessary demands on its citizenry merely to suppress their freedoms and make itself more powerful, people would get back to work, incomes would rise, and Jesus himself would return to earth to pass out free passes to Disneyland to Jew and Gentile alike.

The problem with that belief is that it is complete bullshit.

Capitalism in the multi-national corporate industrial sense in which we know it today hasn’t been around for very long. It wasn’t very long ago in our history, you may remember, when we had people like Vic Morrow telling people like Levar Burton, “I do say, my good sir, would you mind picking that cotton and placing it in that basket for me? Why, thank you very much.” And so, while the idealized vision of the country held by a typical conservative seems wonderful and simple and rooted in basic truths, it really has no basis in fact.

First and foremost, let me simply state the obvious: Taxation is necessary to run a country effectively. We didn’t rebel against England because they were taxing us. We rebelled against them because we didn’t have a say in how they were taxing us. This current anger we feel about high federal taxes only serves to make the top one percent of our population wealthier. The only real purpose of keeping taxes at historical lows is to ensure that the wealthy hold onto more of their money and the government has even less of it to do their job effectively. (Their job, of course, being to protect the public good and maintain the health and well-being of its citizenry.) I know, that’s pretty obvious, but I had to get that out there.

Second, the economic system that we love in this country, capitalism, creates poverty. It just does. If it didn’t, it would be called socialism or communism. Capitalism is not designed to spread wealth among all people. It is designed to funnel wealth to people at the very top of the pyramid. The people on the bottom who do not possess enough ambition, ingenuity, luck, or connections invariably are left with nothing. They live on the barest of wages, if they are lucky enough to find work at all. And, in this modern industrial world, they cannot even lay claim to small plots of land on which to grow food for survival. In fact, as corporations grow in power and capital is even more concentrated at the top, it is only government regulation, anti-trust laws, laws against unfair trading practices, etc., that prevents them from taking it all. If we didn’t have public-minded government policies put in place to protect us against the greed of corporate interests, our society would more closely resemble feudal Russia, with its handful of aristocrats and millions of serfs than it would the rosy, middle-class, robust, democratic, (as long as you weren’t black or another minority!), society of America in the 1940’s & ’50’s. (Not that the Republicans aren’t working hard to destroy even those few remaining barriers to complete oligarchy, mind you. They are.)

Unfortunately, poverty is going to exist regardless of how much we work to alleviate it. That is an unpleasant, hard truth. The question is, even though we cannot eradicate it entirely as if it were smallpox, does our government have a moral obligation to assist the poor? Should government do as much as it can to offer them pathways to upward mobility? Does government assistance help people improve their circumstances, thereby reducing the number of poverty-stricken people? Is there a point when government should throw up its hands, say “Oh, this isn’t working,” and completely disown the poor? Is the government exaggerating how many poor people there are in this country? Why on earth would it? Should they stop wasting taxpayer dollars on programs designed to help the poor, as studies show that almost all of them own refrigerators, (something not even Louis XIV owned in France, and he was a KING!), so it is obvious that they’re doing fine? Wouldn’t it be better for all taxpayers, in fact, if we just executed the poor if they can’t pay their bills? Do we really have to worry about poor people, when it is so patently obvious that they don’t care about themselves? If they’re not strong enough to survive on their own even when things are incredibly desperate, does the government have the legal authority to kill them? After all, they’re not really helping anyone, right? And their drain of society’s resources is the sole reason why our economy is in decline and why our deficits are so massive.

Sorry about those last few questions. No Republican talking head or policymaker has posed questions about the sensibility of executing poor people en masse…yet. I simply got carried away, carrying Republicans’ heartless views of the lower classes to their logical conclusions. I probably have a little of that Ghostbusters II goo on me. Ever since Ronald Reagan and his “government IS the problem” message has infected the public, we’ve become a greedier, more self-interested society. Not surprisingly, in that time, corporations have become wealthier and more powerful while average Americans have slipped deeper into poverty. And the further we slip into poverty, the harder Republicans come out arguing whether or not poverty even exists and aren’t we in fact making a big deal out of nothing?

They are better educated than most. They certainly have more money, and they have access to more resources. Not only that, but they can continue to pound their message into the American psyche while the rest of us have to work two or three jobs just to keep from sliding one more rung down the ladder. So Vigo & Friends are definitely winning, even though their arguments are outright lies and make no sense.

If Bill Murray doesn’t show up soon, y’all, we’re totally screwed.

Bad Touch

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I’d like to think that being molested as a child led to my robust sense of humor, but that is probably more attributable to the fact that I read a lot of Erma Bombeck as a kid. She was the one, after all, who asked, “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits?” And an 11-year-old victim of child abuse can certainly relate to that kind of existential angst.

Editor’s note: Laurie has NO idea what the phrase “existential angst” really means. She really doesn’t. It just sounded good to her. I’m not kidding.

This autobiographical blogpost is being written to offer up a little bit of insight about me, the author, as I’m sure that, now that you’ve read more than one of my weekly essays, you’re starting to feel a burgeoning sexual attraction towards me. With the heat of my intellect and hilarity of my wit searing your computer monitor, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. And since the passionate crush you are feeling is so powerful and strong, I want to reveal some unknown details about myself to you, if only to help you avoid sobbing in frustration once again at my unattainability after you experience yet another unsatisfactory, unfulfilling orgasm while masturbating furiously in the bath to the thought of me.

I was adopted at six weeks, a child of divorce by age two, and being told to stroke a man’s penis by age four. That year I also suffered a serious accident that broke my collarbone and crushed my skull, requiring that a steel plate be implanted in my head, which I have to this day. (And by that I mean the steel plate. I lost my head some time ago.)

In retrospect, the subsequent 37 years have been quite tame in comparison. Well. Except maybe for the raping, which occurred from ages 5-10.

I’ve been fortunate in my life. I haven’t suffered starvation in a ghetto or been brutally gang-raped. (In case you’re curious, I have also never been gently gang-raped. Although, as I just mentioned, I have been raped.) I have never watched a family member overdose on drugs, and I’ve never had to kill anyone. (“Never HAD to” being the operative term. Any murders I have committed have been gleefully voluntary. Editor’s note: Laurie is merely having “fun” with the English language. So just back the fuck up, FBI electronic monitoring device.) All in all, except for that whole, you know, childhood phase, my life has been relatively trauma-free.

I can’t speak for everyone who has had their hymen or anus ripped at age five because of the adult-sized penis that was inserted into that particular orifice, (I can almost hear you now: “And THAT’S when I stopped masturbating to images of Laurie, Doctor.”), but I’m more than willing to tell you what it did to me. Since I was lured into sexual congress at the age of four with gifts of candy cigarettes by a friend of the family that everyone thought very highly of, I subsequently spent most of my life extremely suspicious and distrustful of anyone who ever attempted to do anything nice for me, regardless of how trustworthy they claimed to be. (I also developed a hatred of candy cigarettes, but that hardly seems as important now.) Since all I wanted was to be left alone, as a teenager, (and into my adult years), I was repulsed by anyone who was interested in me sexually. (That probably also explains why I have generally only been attracted to people who want nothing to do with me. They are so much safer than the lecherous predators I’ve been all too familiar with.) Since I grew up in a home in which serious psychological problems such as my molestation or my step-father’s Vietnam-war induced PTSD were never discussed, I developed the ability to survive without healing. Since I did not have a stable, secure family life in which to develop roots and self-confidence, I never became confident enough to develop lasting, sincere friendships. And, since all of this abuse happened to me before I had any inkling of what the world outside my home was like, I thought something was wrong with me before I even knew what having something wrong with me meant. (I was raised in a home that thrived on self-reliance and stoicism. If you weren’t tough enough to knuckle down and get the job done, regardless of how hard things were, then you were a disappointing weakling.)

Needless to say, armed with all those tremendous life skills and lessons, by age 18 I suffered my first nervous breakdown. And as my life progressed through my twenties, I was heading down the classic, self-destructive path taken by so many dysfunctional children before me. Horrible relationships, depression, booze. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Luckily, a well-placed friend here or there along the way has helped raise me out of the gutter in which I found myself being pissed upon. Instead of being haunted for the rest of my life by the turbulent ghosts of my childhood, I have been able to see that there is more to life than just painful memories. I could try to go into detail about how that happened, but this essay is long enough as it is. Just suffice it to say that I did it. Without Oprah and without the Lord, as if those two things are mutually exclusive.

I know I’m not the coolest kid on the block. I know I’m not the most secure. I certainly don’t have the best career path mapped out. And I am absolutely horrible when it comes to developing long-term romantic relationships. I’ll be alone, with my cats, for the rest of my life. I’ll be lucky to hold onto my house. Even though I type things on a computer and upload them onto the internet, that in no way makes me exceptional or expert about anything. I realize that I am merely a product of my environment here in America and if I were the daughter of a goat-herder in Azerbaijan, I would see the world differently from how I do now. Nevertheless, even though I’m limited in my thinking by the society I am a part of, I still feel like an individual, and I am terrified of group-think. I am, not, in other words, perfect. More like “perfucked.”

I didn’t share these details of my life with you tonight in order that you could admire me or say “You’re so courageous and strong.” I’m simply lucky. Lucky that I didn’t drink so much alchohol or take so many drugs in my years of struggle that my brain turned to swiss cheese. Lucky that I was able to walk away from negative influences when I heard the instincts in my head say, “This dysfunctional relationship is harmful to you.” Lucky that I found at least one or two truly loving friends to help me realize that not everyone on the planet is a douchebag.

I wanted to share all of this with you to help you see that I know what it is like to be an outsider. I know what injustice feels like, and what it feels like to be tense and angry towards the entire world. I know how it feels to be shuttered and silent, incapable of expressing an emotion or an opinion. I know what it feels like to be terrified of being someone’s victim again. I know what it feels like to hold onto bad habits and dysfunctional friendships simply because I don’t have any self-worth.

Obstacles CAN be overcome. Nightmares CAN dissipate, and you CAN grow more confident about yourself. (Assuming, of course, that you are not Donald Trump who, as we all know, is already bursting with so much confidence that it is physically impossible for him to gain more confidence without exploding.) I mean, maybe you feel fine about yourself and you don’t need any pep talks, certainly not one from some strange cat lady on the internet. Which is fine. I’m not really about giving pep talks, anyway.

That being said, if you have despaired, and if you have wondered if there is ever a light at the end of your tunnel, maybe you’ll gain ever so slight comfort knowing that at least one person found it. And if one person can find it, then maybe two can. And then we can-can-can.

Editor’s note: At this point in the blog, please don your hemp skirts, braid your hair with daisies, light incense and dance in a circle, holding hands while singing “Age of Aquarius.” Now grab a hand-held mirror and explore your own vagina. Thank you.

I hope I don’t sound self-righteous or unctuously redeemed by reliving some of the highlights of my childhood with you. Because, God, do I hate assholes like that! But, as I write about social issues and injustice and various outrageous things that make a person say, “Can you believe this bullshit?”, I hope this helps you understand a little bit of my motivation. I mean, basically, all I’m trying to say is that bullies suck.

Of course, I could have said that about a thousand words ago, and I could have just texted it to you instead of writing this huge fucking essay. But, I had to write something.

I had to give you something to masturbate to this week.

Praying the Gray Away

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You know, just like k.d. lang and Eddie Izzard, I’m a lesbian. So, naturally, you would think that I would have an opinion to offer up on the historic passage of a gay marriage bill in New York state last week. Unfortunately, my having inserted my hand into a woman’s vagina during intercourse makes me no more qualified to talk about gay marriage than it makes me qualified to be your gynecologist.
That being said, I have never let a lack of qualifications stop me from talking about anything. If that were the case, I would have nothing to prattle on about except the refreshing, icy deliciousness of a Coca-Cola Slurpee or the advisability of chain healing as a resto shaman in World of Warcraft. So, slide down, friends, and let me slip my opinion into you. It will probably feel cold and you might feel a pinch, but just relax. It will all be over soon.
I don’t know which part of me is prouder of the New York legislation: the lesbian in me or the atheist in me. Oh, did I forget to mention that I am an atheist? Yes, I am. And as Ellen becomes more popular and more straight women become comfortable with admitting that of course they wouldn’t mind being kissed by Angelina Jolie, who wouldn’t?, what I’m discovering is that what most straight people here in the South find strangest about me isn’t my sexuality or the fact that I love dunking french fries in mayonaisse, it’s that I don’t believe in God. That just seems to blow people’s freakin’ minds. To go through life without a belief in a (meat-lover’s) supreme being is stranger than existing without lungs. Or, if you’re a supporter of a certain scandalized congressman from Brooklyn, it’s stranger than going through life without receiving a twitpic of Anthony Weiner’s bulging BVDs. (If you haven’t received one yet, just wait. People in rehab always relapse.)
So when Governor Cuomo signed the law last week that allows people of the same sex to marry one another, the atheist in me took a deep sigh of relief. Because what seems to be continually ignored in the fight for gay marriage is that, in an attempt to “protect the sanctity” of marriage, religious leaders have been surreptiously co-opting the concept of marriage from the secular world. (That must piss straight atheists off to no end.) And while the victory in New York does not put an end to that effort by religious figures in other states, it at least has a bracing effect that can help bring the concept of civil marriage back into the discussion.

Although I am an atheist, I understand that society loves its religious ceremonies and traditions. Tradition, be it a bris or a hot dog eating contest on the 4th of July, is an important part of civilization. It helps us stay connected to our heritage and provides us with an identity. That being said, the tradition of getting married is not exclusively a religious one. Civil marriages are not a new concept, malovolently created by scheming homosexuals determined to destroy the universe with their same-sex attraction and uncanny fashion sensibilities. Essentially, every time a religious leader publicly speaks about protecting marriage, saying that it is nothing more than a sacred covenant with God, and that God has decreed that it is a ceremony to be performed only between a man and a woman, they insult homosexual and secular people alike. I mean, assuming that you don’t live in a religious theocracy. And I thought, whether conservative or liberal, the one thing we loved about this country was the fact that we weren’t one of those. It’s nice that people with particular religious faiths want to have their God sanction or annul their marriage, whichever is necessary at the time, but when widows file for survivor benefits, those checks aren’t signed by Jesus. And if your church doesn’t currently recognize your heterosexual marriage, while that may be painful for you, you know full well that you are still considered married in the eyes of the law even if you have to marry that heathen slut in shame down at City Hall instead of in St. Andrews.

And, of course, it should be able to go completely without saying that the principles, concepts, justifications, and rules surrounding marriage between a man and a woman have been evolving for hundreds of years, and that what our society today holds sacred as marriage in no way resembles the biblical definition of acceptable marriage.

In the space of time between now and when Noah built that aardvark, we’ve come a long way, baby. Now, I’m sure that many a religious zealot would like you to believe that the evolution that society has undergone since Eve invented the appletini, (just a reminder: religious dogma is not my strong suit), is a sign that we are going to burn in Hell, and that we are condemned to spend eternity wishing we had at least one less impure thought in our lifetime. And I think it is clearly obvious to anyone with even a speck of a brain that yearning for the past in such resolute fashion is completely preposterous. What Fred Phelps and fire-breathing preachers of his ilk are essentially saying is that ALL change since the beginning of time goes against God’s will and is a sin deserving of God’s wrath. That is the basic argument, and why gay marriage is a horrible, destructive thing. Which is REALLY ironic coming from the mouths of supposed Christian leaders, when you think about it. Because, of course, arguably the biggest catalyst for change in the western world occurred 2,000 years ago when a man whose mama probably used to call “Jay Jay” stood within one of the largest temples built to honor God and said, (in the best Samuel L. Jackson voice he could muster), “Some shit gonna CHANGE up in this here muthafucker!” That is why humans have advanced more than, say, rocks. Because we learn. We grow. We love. We evolve.

I mean, that is so blatantly obvious that it seems to be a complete waste of your time, my time, and the Lord’s time to even mention it. (But, in his defense, the Lord can get a lot done in one day, so it probably didn’t take him very long to read this.)

Now that I have gotten that out the way we can go back to talking about the hot lesbian love action.

 I think it’s great that two people who love each other can get married. Seems like a perfectly rational thing for a sane, civilized society to allow.

Thanks for your time. If you feel the need to pray for me, please remember to enunciate: I would like you to pray the gray away. With an ‘r’.

Tacks In Our Tea

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“The American Revolution was started because the English put tacks in our tea.” ~ anonymous American essayist, potential future blogger, and possible leader of today’s Tea Party movement.

I am not an intelligent person. This will become clearer to you with every essay you read. However, if you can’t find the internal fortitude to soldier through them week after week please, take my word for it: I am an idiot.  You may ask how I know this. Well, it certainly isn’t because I’m capable of awe-inspiring, deep, logical thought. I’ve already established that I don’t really have that going for me. But, since I do have the unenviable ability to actually hear what goes on in my head before I say or type it, trust me. I am not a brilliant thinker.

Of course I’m not smart. I’m a human being.

Just because I’m not the shiniest olive on the apple tree, (see?), doesn’t mean that I don’t think, though. I just don’t do it effectively. And those piss-poor cognitive skills are what binds us together as a species. We don’t all look the same. We don’t all speak the same language. We don’t pray to the same God. And as this recent rise in organic foods and veganism shows, we sure as shit don’t eat the same foods. The only true thing that connects us is our incredible fucking stupidity.

Now, I probably shouldn’t have cursed just then. There was really no need for me to gratitiously upset or shock you. But it’s as they say: profanity is the sign of a weak and feeble mind attempting to express itself forcefully. And I definitely want to get my point across to you. Dammit.

Based on some things that I discovered while I was “doing the Google,” I am going to unscientifically say that, since the beginning of human existence, about 85 billion people have lived and died on this rock we call home. (Call home for now, Xenu! For now!) (And for those of you who don’t know who Xenu is, feel free to “do the Google” about Scientology, “the religion so weird that even Mormons feel comfortable making fun of it!”) Or. I could link it for you here. It is not an accident that, of those 85,000,000,000 souls, we can only think of maybe 1,000 truly brilliant ones that have lived here among us and changed the course of human evolution. And even THAT’S being generous, as I know for a fact that I can’t think of a 1,000. I mean, Sir Isaac Newton, of course. I can think of him because he invented gravity and that cookie that I love. Then there is, umm…Nikola Tesla. And Jim Henson. (Pure genius.) Are there any others? I certainly can’t think of any right now. Maybe that guy who hung out with Pinky. Or, wait. He is an animated figure. He’s also a mouse.

My point being, of course, the vast majority of us are, and have been, slobbering, incoherent drones who, were it not for the creative, intrepid genius of a mere handful of genetic mutants, would still be living in caves, pooping in corners, and dragging womenfolk off by the hair to go make babies, convinced that Two & A Half Men is the funniest, most popular show on television. The human race has advanced tremendously in the past 160,000 years. Individual human beings, however, haven’t. They still think it’s funny to light their own farts and post video of it on YouTube.

But even Copernicus would think that was funny. (That’s another smart human, by the way. Copernicus. He invented the Milky Way or something. Just Google it.)

Lately, perhaps because I’ve seen some incredibly stupid things happening, I have been obsessing about the concept of intelligence on both the individual and collective level. I am trying to determine how relevant intelligence is to humanity. I am not convinced that it’s terribly important. Humans have done a lot of stupid shit throughout the course of history, and we’re not extinct yet. I mean, I think intelligence is important, although I do not have a lot of evidence to support my claim. Intelligence not only makes us more self-aware–as was clearly illustrated in the movie “Short Circuit,” (if you never saw that movie, it was about a robot who got “short circuited” somehow and thereby magically became intelligent. “Number 5 is alive!” was the big catchphrase. Just Google it.)–but it also helps improve civilization. Nevertheless, I have a lot of questions about the subject–questions that I cannot begin to resolve in this essay. But, since I’m a fucking idiot, that’s not going to stop me from asking them.

Here is just a sampling of some of the questions that rattle around in my brain in a continual loop:

What is more important: Having the ability to think rationally, logically, and deeply about complex issues, or being able to communicate effectively to the masses? You can be one of the brightest intellectuals in the world, earn the best degrees from the best schools on the planet, and you can use the intelligence honed therein to write dense, complex position papers about serious global issues such as climate change or peak oil, and you can methodically, carefully prove that we need to change the behavior of our society as soon as possible in order to survive…or you can be a gum-poppin’ small town mayor from Alaska who sums up the opposite view with “Drill, baby, drill.” Which person is having a greater effect on the evolution of the species, the brainiac or the maniac? Think about it: the policies of America today are more closely aligned with Sarah Palin’s outlook than that of the UN Climate Change Conference. I think a full 40% fewer people in America now believe that global climate change is occurring from when Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” documentary was first released. Is it a coincidence that in that same period Glen Beck and Sarah Palin have risen as populists as rapidly as the levels of carbon dioxide and methane have risen in the atmosphere? In other words: Does intelligence stand a chance against blindingly stupid charisma?

What percentage of the people on the planet now even have the capability of grasping the severity of the issues that plague the planet, much less the ability to work on solving them? And if we the people, this teeming, selfish mass of thoughtless hormones and primal urges, are blind to the real dangers that lie before us, how are we going to avoid them? Should we even try to focus on the problems facing us, or should we all just go back to watching Ice Loves Coco?

Are people instinctively aware that the human race is burning through the resources on this planet too quickly, even while they claim ignorance on the subject? Do we know in our gut that we don’t have much more time left? Is that why we don’t bother to pay attention anymore? Is the enormity of what is before us too frightening? Is that why we gravitate to the simplisitic comfort of religion or the Food Network? Does belief in an all-seeing, infallible, omniscient God relieve us of guilt and the responsibility to learn how to live as respectful citizens of the planet? After all, it has already been written that He is going to destroy the earth, so what is the point of trying to save it? Are the only two responsibilities you have on this earth to vote for the next American Idol and save your own soul? In other words: Are we simply, incontrovertibly, genetically, stupid?

Here’s another question: (I shouldn’t ask so many questions, I know. But, it beats the fuck out of swearing.) Have humans always been deliberately thoughtless like this? Part of me wants to believe that centuries ago, the common man and woman yearned desperately for knowledge that they didn’t have access to. They suffered and toiled in obscurity while secretly aching to know more about the world in which they lived. Today, though, knowledge is EVERYWHERE! All you have to do is do the Google. You have to really work hard to remain a fucking idiot in this day and age. Thanks to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, the instantaneous sharing of thoughts with many different people is commonplace. It’s hard to remain in a bubble of ignorance in that environment, right? People all over the world, (and Canada!), can help you shape ideas, form opinions, and teach you about issues that you didn’t even know existed before you met them online. All of these factors, you would think, would raise the collective intelligence quotient of the species. But believe it or not, people are still as dumb as bag of fucking hammers. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the Reader’s Comments section of any newstory posted on Yahoo! News, particularly articles about Barack Obama or the gays.

So, when I grapple with the concept of intelligence, that is a brief sampling of the questions that I’m trying to resolve within myself. I’ve already well-exceeded my 1,000 word allotment for today, (Oh, I know. Ssh. Don’t cry.), so, like a battery-operated vibrator that runs out of juice before you’re done, I will leave you here unsatisfied, begging for more, and kinda pissed off. Hopefully someday we can explore this topic a little further, if you want to. And maybe when we do both of us will come out of it a little wiser in the end, which would be good for humanity. Until then, I’ll see you on YouTube.

And, PS: don’t put any tacks in people’s tea. That tends to rile them up.

The Meaning of It All. The Humblest Essay on Earth.

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I realize that I’ve only started “blogging,” (a pseudo-technical term that, I think, translated loosely, means “throwing up on your computer” in its original Finnish), for a week but, no time like the present. Might as well solve all of the universe’s mysteries now, so we can stop worrying about all of this kynäillen and go back to watching “The Voice.”

You know you want me to.

Every single person on the planet wants to be able to open up a book, flip on a computer or listen to an inspirational speech and have answers to the Great Unknown laid out before them. That’s why Stephen Hawking and Deepak Chopra land on bestseller lists as soon as they publish books. That’s why “Family Circus” is one of the most popular comic strips in American history. It’s why Oprah has developed so much gravitational pull over the past 25 years that the sun is literally beginning to revolve around her. We need someone to tell us WHY and we want them to tell us now.

Now, I’m certainly no Deepak Oprah, so I must have the balls of a mastodon to burst onto this computing device professing to have it all figured out. And, of course, it’s particularly poor timing on my part to try and explain the universe after only last week discussing Rosanne Cash at length. Because that sexy musical guru succinctly figured out Life’s Master Plan back in 2006 when she wrote “God is In The Roses.” He’s in the roses. And the thorns. If you don’t believe me you can find it here.

(Oh, yes, munchkins. I’ve been trying to figure out how to insert links. I’m evolving. Kind of like this guy.)

The quest to discover what it is all about probably began, (for my Christian readers, please insert “as soon as Eve bit into the apple” here), right around the time, while out hunting, an early human watched his best buddy Ray Ray get gored by a mastodon with huge testicles. Once it dawned on us that life was dangerous and harsh and we could be killed at any second, it was on like Donkey Kong for the human race. (Note to self: Try to use the phrase “on like Donkey Kong” in every essay, just like they did in the Federalist Papers.)

And what’s ironic about this quest that we’ve been on is that, while most everything about our species and our planet has evolved, been eradicated, (I don’t normally give a fuck about an Oxford comma, but I really needed one there), or enhanced since those early ancestors tried to kill enormous critters with sticks, we have come absolutely no closer to understanding the Meaning of It All. And I think that is all you need to know about knowing the Meaning of It All.

When you think about it, humans, (and by humans I am referring to the modern definition of human: people that clustered together, formed civilizations, created language and alphabets and learned to put the seat down after peeing), haven’t been around all that long, (again, Christian friends, just feel free to ignore this last bit), not in relation to the age of the planet we inhabit. In that relatively brief history of time we have made some amazing discoveries, most of them mathematical. One guy named Euclid invented geometry, and we’d probably still be living with the livestock in thatch-roofed houses if Sir Isaac Newton hadn’t invented calculus. And then there is this. But, even with molecular biology, germ theory, deep space probes, Large Hadron Colliders and snuggies, we still have don’t have a clue why we’re here on this planet. Not a fucking clue.

But, as Stuart Smalley would say, “that’s…okay.”

Try to think of the entire human race as a mass of molecular material that makes up one body. (No, really, I’m serious. Just try to imagine it. Damn it, smoke some weed if you have to, but I want you to stop reading until you imagine that we’re all molecular components of one body!) Every molecule in a body has a role to perform. Some make the eyeballs blink, others pump your heart and some are just there to cause that weird cramping in the arch of your foot you get when you’re just sitting there on the couch mind your own business eating a Twizzler while watching “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” If they didn’t work together, the body would, I don’t know, just kind of explode, leaving fragments of Twizzlers and bone and eyeball juice everywhere. Do you think the molecules in your small intestine are sitting down there wondering, “Why am I here? Where do I go where I die?” No, of course not. They just gurgle and fizz and churn up acids and make you wonder just what, exactly, is in that Hormel smoked turkey deli meat. It can’t possibly be good for you. Now, some molecules follow orders from some head honcho fella who tells them what to do to form a heart. At the same time, a group is working down on that nasty toenail growth that keeps millions of (Good Lord, I hope this isn’t racist) Asian women employed. The two groups don’t know about each other and couldn’t care less what the other is doing. See?

What do you mean, no?

Some of us are in Kentucky, working on our Harley motorcycles and getting ready for another disappointing men’s college basketball season, (the heart) and some of us are in Kandahar, looking to join the Taliban (the feet). And the feet have no idea what the heart is doing. But we’re all connected, nevertheless. We’re all cells in an infinitely vast organism that we have absolutely no ability to quantify or define. We don’t know why we are here because we are completely incapable of both seeing outside of ourselves or recognizing our innate interconnectivity. It’s like licking our own elbow. We cannot do it. We’re incredibly intelligent as an entire organism, but incredibly stupid at a molecular level. This organism known as humanity is really nothing more than phytoplankton spreading dangerously fast across the planet in an unstoppable wave. Oh, Mother Nature has tried to halt our progress with a plague or a war or an iceberg here or there, but to no avail. We will continue on until we exhaust either ourselves or the rock that we live on. We will become extinct and another type of red tide will take our place. But nothing that we do will stop us from trying to lick our own elbow.

Now, the question, of course, is can the human mind live with the meaningless of life? Philosophers down through the ages have struggled with that question, I’m assuming. I haven’t actually read any philosophy books. But I think I heard Matt Damon talk about one in that movie “Good Will Hunting.” They worry that, faced with the gaping maw of the unknown, without a belief in God or some supernatural higher purpose in life, humanity will collapse into a state of anarchy and ennui not seen since Seinfeld went off the air.  It’s possible that is already happening. How else can you explain the popularity of this? But, we’ll be alright. Because I don’t think the majority of human beings want to stop believing in the supernatural, despite how many times Richard Dawkins can prove the improbability of God’s existence. In fact, those of us that don’t believe in God, like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, we’re nothing more than isolated cancer molecules within this host organism called Life. We’re mutated anamolies. We float around planting dangerous, humanistic, secular tumors while rabbis, priests and mullahs try to kill us with the radiactive power of their prophets’ words.

Didn’t mean to harsh your buzz, but that’s basically it.

I look forward to discussing the latest episode of Paris Hilton’s new reality show with you next week.

I Need Some Viagra to Boost My Lust For Life

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Get out there!

In the 90s, I developed an intense dislike for that hipster voiceover artist on those Carnival Cruise Line commercials. “Get out there!” she commanded in a husky, playful tone as Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life throbbed in the background. In our stained pajamas on our dusty couches, we enviously watched as smiling, athletic waterskiers, jet skiers and rockwall climbers enthusiastically had the time of their lives during the vacation of their dreams. Of course, what wasn’t advertised as much was that those same vacationers were sometimes getting so drunk on those obscene, floating pleasure palaces that they would fall overboard in the middle of the night and their bodies would never be recovered. Putting yourself “out there” can have some unpleasant consequences.

I experienced the anxiety of that firsthand this week when I thought I had been blocked by a celebrity on Twitter.

It’s not really important who it was, (although here’s a hint: her first name is Rosanne and if Johnny Cash walked through her door she would wave excitedly and say “Hi, Daddy!”), the important thing to know is how the interaction made me feel. Because, if we have learned only one thing about this blog so far, it’s all about me. And this little Twitter episode made me flush with anxiety and reminded me that, no matter how big my boobs get, on the inside I’ll always be a scared, insecure little girl. An insecure little girl with enormous breasts.

(I didn’t really want to mention my breasts in the above paragraph but, if there is one thing I learned from that writing seminar I imagine I took with Michael Chambon and Richard Russo, it’s to reference the twins as frequently as possible, even when writing a clemency letter to a governor or a pope. Keeps the reader’s eyes rivetted on the page.)

Admiring Rosanne Cash is not a fresh and exciting new adventure in my life. I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember. There are two things that I am proud of in this world. One is the soft, curvaceous set of mammary glands that I squeeze into my overworked bra every morning, (Eyes on the page, people!), and the other is that on a somnolent Sunday morning, I got to stand in the doorway of the King’s Record Shop, right where Rosanne Cash stood for the album cover of the same name in Louisville, Kentucky. Some people have their Abbey Road moment, whereupon they try to replicate that iconic picture of the Beatles. I have my King’s Record Shop moment.

I also happen to think that album is the finest country album from that era, but I digress.

As a self-proclaimed feminist, I have always been drawn to strong, intelligent, independent women who are not afraid to step outside of someone else’s shadow, and so it should come as no surprise that I admire Ms. Cash. She’s never really struck me as someone who tries to be someone she is not. She has this wonderful combination of talent and brains and style and grace mixed with this down-to-earth quality that makes her fame and success seem natural and free-flowing. She’s endured many scares and potential tragedies with quiet courage and strength. I spent a few years in the early “aughts” reading a blog that she maintained and it helped me appreciate her overall intellect, aesthetic, and political viewpoint. She is an outstanding writer. And, through it all, through the highs and the lows, her music just keeps getting better. She is aging like a fine wine and she truly is an American treasure.

If I ever met her in person, I would try to tell her how much of a genuine inspiration she is, how much I appreciate her unique musical gifts and how the grace of her life is helping me see that not all celebrities are pretentious, narcissistic assholes with no redeeming qualities other than a pretty face or a gorgeous sense of entitlement. (I’m looking at you, Ashton Kutcher!) Unfortunately, if I ever did get an opportunity to meet her, I probably wouldn’t say any of that. I would probably sound an awful lot like the “I like turtles!” kid.

“I like your music!” “You’re really great!”

I know exactly how I feel about Rosanne Cash, but I’m not so sure how I feel about Twitter.

Twitter is a strange social media concept. It is incredibly illusory. No one you actually know in real life uses Twitter, so you latch onto celebrities, musicians and comics, eager to see the niblets of brilliance that will be tweeted from their phones. It doesn’t take long to discover, though, that…well…most of them are kind of dicks. But you can’t really tell anyone in the Twitterverse that they are banal or vain or way too obsessed with cock jokes, because that is simply not done. You either admire uncritically or you…unfollow.

But then there’s Ms. Cash. I’ve been following her for months and not one cock joke! She’s taken her enormous writing skills and condensed them down into this techno haiku that brightens an otherwise dull, dark Twitterverse. And she interacts with people, so it’s very easy to get caught up in the sense of community that she fosters with her Twitter feed, because…well…she cultivates a sense of community.

So imagine my horror when I thought I had been blocked! The anxiety that races through the brain.

What did I say? Did I interject myself one too many times into her world? Did I become a nuisance? Did I say something to offend her? Had she grown sick of me, yet another desperately lonely “tweep” who continually interrupted her otherwise sensational day with my pathetic little attempts to communicate with her?

This is why you don’t put yourself out there, Laurie. Not only should you not go parasailing in Jamaica, you shouldn’t even try to talk to anyone above your station. You’re just a bystander. Go stand in the corner and don’t speak until spoken to, please. And, trust me: No one will speak to you.

That and more is what you feel when you realize that someone you’ve never met rejects you in a way that you didn’t even realize was possible when the flip phone was first invented. It is unpleasant and nerve-wracking and not something I want any of my gentle-hearted friends to endure. So, fuck Carnival Cruise Lines. Don’t get out there. Just stay inside and play Free Cell. If you need to feel connected with life, get a cat. After you talk to it long enough, you will be surprised at how vociferously it reacts to the sound of your voice.

Of course, it turns out that she hadn’t blocked me at all. It was simply that the tweet I was trying to send her was too long. I couldn’t send it until it was shortened.

But, I think the lesson I learned was a valuable one, which is that sometimes it is okay to just be an admiring bystander. Either that or I am just too plain fucking stupid to use Twitter.

My breasts and I thank you for listening.

Introduction

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A co-worker of mine told me that she had to write 1,000 word paper about a movie that she watched for a sociology class. This stunned me. Perhaps if you knew the facts of the case, it would stun you as well. She is a working mother with four children. She spends forty hours a week at her office job, and is taking classes at night from the University of Phoenix to get her associates degree in business. She is not, I repeat, NOT attempting to obtain a sociology degree which, in my opinion is the only degree you should be attempting to receive if your sociology “professor” insists that you write a thousand word essay on a movie. Movie critics at the New York Times write about movies all the time, and even though that’s what they get paid to do!, most are probably no more than 800 words, if that. A thousand words. To write about a movie. The script probably had less than a 1,000 words of dialogue in it. I’ve been stuffing this paragraph with more filler than Taco Bell’s seasoned meat, and I’m only up to 176 words. I don’t know how she did it, how long it took, or what grade she ended up getting on it. All I know is that the task itself seemed to righteously suck. What made it worse was that she didn’t even like the movie. She’s just a playa looking to get paid by slogging through night school, and instead she got stuck writing one long-winded paper about some stupid topic that she doesn’t care anything about, knows next to nothing about, and that isn’t in any way going to help her become a better supervisor. Ain’t that some shit?

Fast forward to today.

I have a couple of friends that insist that I start a blog. Misguided, gentle souls that they are, they seem to be convinced that writing a blog is right up my alley. It’s funny, because I see their insistence that I create a blog along the same lines as a woman who knits Christmas sweaters for herself (and her cats) views her friends who frequently suggest that she go on a coffee date with Delores from accounting, because once you get past her tangy, acrid body odor she’s a really nice lady, you’ll see. At first you sigh and politely decline. And then you just sigh and shake your head once while stifling a scream through a compressed, toothless smile. And then you meet Delores for coffee because you realize that they are never going to shut up about it. Ever.

So.

I am going on this metaphorical coffee date.

I’m going to establish a few ground rules and see what happens.

1. I will try to write about one topic, once a week.

2. No topic is off-limits.

3. In honor of the painful writing assignment that my co-worker had to endure, I will try to make each essay about a 1,000 words long.

4. I’m up to 500 words. Fuck.

I have never created a blog before, so I have no idea what I am doing. I don’t know how to insert pictures or links or Death Cab for Cutie songs. I’m a Luddite when it comes to that sort of thing. (A “Luddite,” for those of you who don’t know is a person who reads Robert Ludlum books, but not on a Kindle or anything electronic like that.)

When creating a blog, it is important to come up with a catchy name for it. I’m all about honesty, so my first instinct was to call it the “Super Hot Fun Sex Kitten’s Guide to Life, Love & the World of Warcraft,” but I probably won’t talk about World of Warcraft all that much. Since I am surprisingly obsessed about the 1,000 Word Rule, I thought about calling it “MilliWord,” which not only conveys the size limit that I am so focused on, but also indicates that I am willing to embrace the metric system. This would make me appear to be exotic and European and kickass, like Milla Jovovich. Unfortunately, I could repeat the phrase “MilliWord” in my head a milli times and it would still sound stupid.

Since one of the friends who insisted I write has the last name of Hayes, I considered “The Hayse-y Days of Summer” in tribute. But, I quickly tossed that idea aside, as my OTHER friend would be furious, as she has been urging me to write this blog much longer than Ms. Hayes has even known me, and I just could not deal with the jealousy, although that WOULD make an awesome plot to center an episode of “The Hills” around. HER last name is Pugh, so I thought “Hey, Don’t Pugh Pugh the Hayse-y Days of Summer Idea” would be a great compromise, but it just seemed a little wordy. Plus, I don’t really think it is a good idea for my blog to be directed solely towards them, although without their ridiculously insane levels of encouragement/ruthless obsessive stalking, you would not see the words that you see before you today. I mean, there are plenty of valid reasons not to directly reference them in the title. For one, they probably stopped reading paragraphs ago, as they have attention spans of chipmunks and b)when I want to write to them I will send them a text message, like a normal person.

“Please. Hold Your Applause ‘Til The End” sounded remarkably narcissistic and obnoxious so, naturally, I was immediately drawn to it. But the more I thought about it, the more nuanced it sounded. ‘Til the end of what, exactly? No, really, don’t applaud. Or, maybe, yes, you should?…because can’t we all just take a moment to celebrate the fact that I actually took the first step towards doing this thing, whatever this is.

It’s obnoxious at first glance and incredibly self-absorbed. But, the more you look at it, the more layered and subtle it actually becomes. Kinda like…me.

One thousand words. Awesome.