My cousin and I got into a thread about whether God exists. She is a disciple of science and modernism. Pushed hard, she leans toward Freud and Nietzche. It’s all about the ID and the world you can taste and see. I am of a different stripe. My world is absurd. It is full of Cheshire Cats and Jabberwocky. It makes no nevermind to me that my God is absurd. It is better to live as if God does exist and Jesus is who he said he is.
Source: Pascal’s Wager – Wikipedia
Inger got him arrested. Her time in the Bay Area included a year at Sennin Kai. When she got back to Richmond she started over with Eric at Richmond Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Inger trains because it keeps her sane. All that boomer childhood whim indulgence and self-empowerment was worthless. It filled her with anxiety. On her first night at Sennin Kai a Tai Kwan Do blackbelt questioned one of the instructors whether Aiki Jiu-Jitsu was effective. She didn’t see what happened. She only heard the groans of the Tai Kwan Do dude as he lay on the floor trying to recover. He signed up. Shameless Yoast SEO pander: No pulse, just a finger
So, Charles (Boy) of my previous post about Inger, went to jail. Inger had a quiet year. She rented a place a couple doors down from me. The Stuart Street house? It’s still there. She still has it. It’s too bougie for her, she says. So she splits her time between East 15th Street and Stewart Street. If you ask me, Stuart Street has too many bad memories of Charley Boy.
All’s been well until recently. Inger knocked on my door last Saturday. She’d seen the Cadillac Escalade parked in front of my house for a couple weeks. She thought maybe it was mine. Curiosity drove her to peek inside.
What she saw pushed her that last little bit to my door and an insistent knock, “ALAN! FUCK! ANSWER THE DOOR! There is a finger, a human finger on the back seat of that whip!” I hate answering the door in my PJ’s. She kept pounding and shouting about a finger on the back seat of the Cadillac Escalade in front of my house, “Give me a minute!” I put on some jeans and my old Eagles t-shirt.
Inger was at the front door. Two locks, open it, she blows by me and takes a horse stance next to my couch, “A fucking finger on the back seat of that whip. Oh my fucking God!”
Oh yay! My Saturday routine just got disrupted. Never mind couch slugging with PBS on until mid-afternoon. Now I had Inger going on about a finger she saw on the seat of a sketchy looking Cadillac Escalade. Life in the ghetto for a WASP. Woo.
So . . . it’s Saturday. Priorities. I made coffee, a French omelete and home fries. Inger wasn’t hungry or happy. She couldn’t stop worrying about the finger on the back seat of the Cadillac Escalade. Was it a guy’s finger, girls? How did it get there? Now with breakfast made I called the cops. They got to us in about a half-hour. And . . . closed the street.
Awesome. My car was parked behind the Subaru. Forget going anywhere for a while. The one time I park in front of my house Inger finds no pulse, just a finger.
Inger doesn’t drink coffee. She found the loose tea I had and made herself a cup of Oolong. Wait?! What?! You pig. Taiwanese tea, asshole. OMG! Racist even.
Talk about awkward. I’ve got a SHYT in my kitchen amped up about some suitcases she found in the Escalade. Inside was powder cocaine, cash, and clothes. The front seat was strewn with bags and wrappers from a late-night drunk food binge. A couple Four Loko empties were on the floor, shotgun spot.
The powder cocaine was in bricks. A couple kilos. By now the cops had tape closing the street at both the Edwards and Gordon ends of the block. A CSI unit showed up. It’s not like TV. They are very methodical and slow. The clothes were early gone-to-the-club casual. Thongs, bras, jeans and oversized t-shirts. Inger didn’t see anything that looked like guy stuff. Except maybe the glimpse of surplus army boots in the way-back.
Inger knew too much. She denied going through the Escalade. She said she only stood outside and took pictures with her phone. Uh huh. In my cab-driving years, I gave rides to thousands of drunks and addicts. Many of them were Cartel members. It was my job to make snap decisions about the likelihood of a given fare ending with payment and polite goodbyes. By dint of repetition, I got pretty good at it. Inger’s version of the events leading to her hugging a cup of Oolong tea in my kitchen did not add up.
I asked her how much cash she saw, “Not that much. Some benjamins.” Her purse was on the floor next to her. I could see at least one bundle peaking out. Inger’s family has money so it’s possible she’s walking around with 25% of my annual salary in cash. It’s possible. There is an abandoned Escalade in front of my house being scrutinized by criminologists. I’d bet there are more possibilities Inger isn’t ready to confess.
I wondered why she would risk pissing off drug dealers by helping herself to a couple bundles of Benjamins. Inger was a Daddy’s girl and her family had money. All she had to do is ask. Yet she’s in my kitchen wearing designer clothes that have the scent of a thrift store. She looks like she hasn’t slept in ages. She smelled of stale beer and sticky sex.
Charles (Boy) had been stalking her. Inger went so far as to get a restraining order. He ignored it. She was in a manic/paranoid mood of late, texting me incessantly that her laptop would power on and alert her to a tweet from someone who seemed to know exactly what she was doing right then. Inger even started taking the battery out at bed-time. No effect. Still, messages came. She could solve this just by replying to Charlie Boy, maybe joining him in Sid Meier’s Civilization for a while.
Inger bought a gun instead. She was against guns but this asshole was getting scary. Let that fucker violate the restraining order. Then Inger wondered out loud of the finger was Charlie’s. That seemed to make her smile.
Inger and I were getting fidgety. We peaked out my back door and discovered that the cops had not closed off the alley. Good. Processing the crime scene was going to be an all-day thing. Let the cops do their job. She and I closed up the house, headed to the alley and made a right turn toward her house. This wasn’t over.
I’ve given up on the popular conversation about Trump. I voted for him so I guess that makes me a racist, Nazi asshole who hates everybody and especially the golden children of the left–LBGTQ, brown people, and women. I am a born-again Christian, so that adds to the depth of my evil. I’m done trying to engage with those who believe with cult fever that God is on their side in this fight for the soul of our democracy.
I’m resigning my seat at the table where the task is to throw rhetorical bombs at the other side. I don’t want to talk about it. There are plenty who are talking about it. I can opt out.
I’ve said my piece on philosophy and religion. I’ve written a statement of essentials in Nutcracker Ushers. There are 277 published posts on this blog covering current events, religion, politics, and philosophy. At an average of 1500 words each, there are 416,000 ways to be pissed off at me for something I said. I think that’s enough.
I’m more interested in Inger and the other characters I’ve created in this space. So, for now, I’m going to concentrate on a serialized novel telling this story: what happened to that finger, the cocaine and clothes in that Escalade. There was no pulse, just a finger.
You won’t get the reference unless you are old enough to remember Herb Caen. No worries. I’ve been trying since early April to find more to say about five stars. I got 600 words or so. So . . . like Herb I’m just going to be adhd about it and mash together a few shorter ideas into this post.
First, an apology. It’s been a couple months since I posted anything in this space. I pay my bills with a job called Deskside Support. What that means in practice is that I get work because something is fucked up. Most of the fuckups are things that can be fixed in forty hours and the stakeholders are our clients. These last two months have been ass-puckering for my bosses because they got caught out covering for a couple coworkers who had patronage jobs.
I’m not used to working alongside someone who has a job because he has attributes that fit the current fashunabull identities. Nor am I used to someone who is effectively tenured because they fall into the right adjectives and are friends with someone important enough to protect them from layoffs. Until this job. Holy crap. It hasn’t happened yet. But, I swear, these two swinging dicks could be caught fucking each other on a table in the cafeteria and nothing would come of it.
I’ve had two months of late nights at work dealing with the fallout of these two princes. Self care things like working out and cooking for myself so I don’t eat crap have been ignored. Too many nights I get home, change into pajamas, and crawl under the covers to wait for dawn. I’m in a cafe writing tonight because if I don’t I’ll do something self-destructive. So . . . moving on.
Five Stars is a thing. The thing is, it’s gotten silly. Every place that has a presence on Yelp wants to get a five-star rating from you. So many that a five-star rating has become stupid.
I stay at the Paradise Hotel in the Valley. I have a room over the Last Chance Saloon. The Paradise Hotel has a five-star rating from TripAdvisor. We are a spring break destination because of Saito-San. Those five stars come from the cheap well-drink prices, generous happy hour and indifferent attitude of Saito-San towards bacchanal.
Pro-Tip: If you are married, married with children, this is not the hotel for you. It is a dump. The maids clean every few days. You can’t tell. The sheets are threadbare. The rooms that don’t have bedbugs stink of pesticide. Don’t drink the water. The most reliable toilet is the outhouse in the alley. You get the idea.
The Paradise Hotel’s 5-Star Rating is a joke. The Valley is a shit-show. Saito-San has had a blood feud with the cartels for a decade. Waking up to a body in the street is a regular occurrence. You can find feces along the curbs near the hotel. The alley beside the hotel stinks of piss, shit, and puke. Behind Saito-San’s gas station is an outhouse littered with used needles. It’s not safe here. People get hurt.
So . . . what’s up with that 5-Star rating? We are a spring break destination. People come here to get drunk and screw. One month out of the year we grow from a few hundred regulars to nearly ten-thousand. For that month we are a vibrant, pulsating mass of partying youth. Gringo prices for a room at the Paradise will run you 400 pesos a night off-season. During spring break it will be at least 1500 pesos per night. We charge the parents $250/night for room and board. Liquor is extra. For your 1500 pesos, though, we keep the Last Chance Saloon open. The hotel buffet is open 24/7. Good stuff.
We are also a 5-star missional tourism destination. We put on quite a show for the white-monkeys who show up in their chartered buses from churches like the New Pentecostal Deliverance Evangelical Bible Outreach Center. They build houses, churches, and wells we tear down after they leave. They feed the starving children. We don’t have to buy toiletries, socks or underwear. And certain of their leadership has a running tab at the Last Chance Saloon.
Somebody asked me how the town makes money. Well . . . when you are a town that does fine on pesos it doesn’t take much to keep the lights on. When the white monkeys go home we go back to farming and barter. Off-season the regulars pretty much know each other and what everyone needs. We do for each other.
You can easily live on a couple dollars a day if you don’t try to live like a white monkey. You can live even cheaper if you can maintain a garden and some chickens. What you can’t do is keep your white monkey life. For that, we have the Paradise Hotel and we charge for that.
So, to answer the question, we earn enough over spring break to carry us through the year. We also do nicely with the missional tourism. There are also some things that Saito-san does to help manage money for the cartels. But the big thing is the stark contrast between a livable income on pesos and a similar livable income on dollars if you are a gringo. So, that’s a thing.
One last thing. We seem to have settled on male attributes as normal and acceptable while reserving femininity for taboo. A woman can wear men’s clothes and be butch and not draw scolding eyes. She can wear pretty much anything she wants and it’ll be ok. A guy, though, still can’t dress in drag without attracting gossip and uncomfortable stares.
There is also this, that in Mecca, to be with the fashunabull crowd, you have to signal inclusion in some way. Guys have to be brown skinned or a bit fem or both to be accepted. It’s bad if you are a cis-hetero male WASP. That bunch, the ones that drive Subaru’s with four doors and live in cul-de-sacs with detached homes–those guys are on their face evil. This explains the pink golf shirts of some.
I’m friends someone who lives in the mecca of PUDFARB. Berkeley is the spiritual capital of PUDFARB. San Jose is its financial center. The real power of PUDFARB is in the South Bay where she lives. A thread of our conversation is gender identity. What defines a man? What defines a woman? Is it the costume? Mayhaps visible genitalia like dicks or boobs? Are surgery and cosplay enough? What of those who say they can declare a gender identity regardless of the body they reside in?
IRL my friend looks like a Scottish farm-girl who could wrestle a bull and win. A lot of what is fun to her falls into the realm of guy stuff. She’s an accomplished yacht captain and a mucho multi-rated GA pilot.
So, she’s not very girly. But she is a girl, no question. So, what defines a woman? Doing woman things—house-frau, Mary and Mary and such? The clothes? It’s not hard to walk around SJW Mecca and see a person with a beard and Adam’s apple wearing heels, stockings, a short skirt, a silk blouse and a bra. Guy or girl? More frequent is a person who clearly has hips and boobs and no Adam’s apple but is wearing a button-down Oxford, boyfriend jeans, and Converse All-Stars. Girl or guy?
I’ll give you my answer: a woman was born with the potential to make babies. She had a womb at birth. Whether she keeps it or uses it to make babies isn’t material to my definition. Conversely, a guy is born with the potential to get a girl pregnant. The central difference for me is children.
I really don’t care who you marry. I really don’t give a shit whether you yourself have a sausage or an oyster between your legs, whether you were born with a body that might one day nurse a baby or not and who you choose to partner with. Partner with the one you love, gender identity shouldn’t enter into it.
That said, what I do care about is this: are you going to have kids? No? Go away. Do you. Just . . . please don’t shove your life in my face and demand that I love your chosen path.
And . . . please find a spiritual life of some sort. The second thing I care about is evil. If your chosen lifestyle includes darkness that bleeds into the community around you then please repent. Do what you have to do to get spiritually healthy. I happen to be Christian and believe it is the best way. The topic of ways is vast. Find a spiritual way and stick to it.
So, for me, the binary divide is between those who were born with the potential to carry a child and those who were born with the potential to initiate a pregnancy. If you were born with a uterus you are a woman. If you were born with a dick you are a dude. All the rest of it is foolishness.
There was a news story this morning about the Supreme Court deciding that Ohio can purge its voter registration rolls of people who have not voted in a while and also have not responded to attempts to contact them.
This is horrendous. How are dead people supposed to vote if Ohio just deems them illegible to vote? How dare they! It’s outrageous. Dead people have rights too. Dead people matter!
What do you mean dead people can’t vote?! Who is going to vote for reasonable leaders who will do right by the people? Somebody has to make sure the welfare checks get mailed and our grandparents can still buy cat food. I mean, seriously.
Last, I find it curious that politicians who campaign on populism, on being a champion for the people, once elected, turn out to be vicious imperialists. There is a class of elites in this country who will do anything to protect their caste. Letting dead people vote is just a piece of it.
I have to get something off my chest. I met some nutcracker ushers the last time I was in the valley. One particular Baptist Church likes it when I usher while they are here. I’m the token backsliding gringo who is a reason to pray for protection. Ushering for them is a double bonus. They get to signal their hospitality to odd people while trying again to convince me that a blue suit is a better look for me.
That’s one piece. The next bit is that I’m not a nutcracker usher. These Baptists are a Sunday best sort of church. Their ushers stand at their assigned door like nutcrackers. You approach their door, they open it to let you in, maybe hand you a bulletin and then let it close. Lord almighty if you speak to them. Never do that.
Though, funny thing. If a friend approaches their door, whole other thing. It’s smiles and chatty and they spend a minute catching up. I’m a damned Yankee. I walk toward a manned door and it’s like I am a leper. They open the door arms stick straight, keeping their distance from me.
You are right. It is now how it is done. Ushers with some boogie and charm don’t fit the stiff blue suits that guard the doors to the chapel. I mean, I look like I am dancing while I flit from person to person greeting them and ensuring they are welcomed.
Let’s repeat something. Jesus is absurd. Christ chased the money changers with a whip. He broke bread with prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath. He said that the meek and poor in spirit are blessed. That bastard Nazarene carpenter told a wealthy man it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for that man to enter heaven.
Keep that in mind as I say that this country is in an imperialist/legalist mood. The answer to most problems is more and stricter law. Lately, London’s mayor has decided that the answer to a rise in murder by knife is to ban knives. He forgot about acid.
Baptism’s dark side is similarly stiff and authoritarian. Many Baptists cannot hear the loving voice of Christ over the shouting they internalize–they are not good enough, every exhale is a backslide, every inhale another ingestion of worldly decadence. The answer is to insist that people must know Jesus because that would solve it.
Those nutcracker ushers are not in the Valley to show us the Mercy of Mother Mary. They are here to save us from the depravity they see all around them. They see us and there is too much of the world in us. Yep. We just toast them and tell the band to crank it up.
Jesus came to fulfill the law. The whole miracle is wrapped up in how he fulfilled the law. Hillel’s summary of the Torah, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah.” Christ flipped the script, Mat 7:12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” All this bickering over things like whether it is proper for an usher to have his hands in his pockets is a trifle needing charity. Yet there are Baptists who can spend hours arguing over this and whether intinction is proper.
Meldenius, “Necessariis unitas, quae necessaria libertatis et caritatis cetera.” I get annoyed at those who would judge my fielty to Christ by my manner of dress, the placement of my hands, and the music leaking out of my headphones. It’s not very far from that to judging someone by bloodline or skin color. I have a hard time believing my stated sin of having my hands in my pockets is a necessary concern requiring unity. But . . . I’m Presbyterian and we decided to punt when challenged on whether fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman is a requirement for our clergy, so there you go.
We are a Middle Eastern religion born out of a rebellion against the church and Rome. Our truest nature is that of malcontents. We are odd. Once we stop being outliers we dim the lamp of the Holy Spirit. Ours is a traditional way of life with rules that are essential and thus, require unity. I wonder, though, if the man who praised a woman for pouring nard on him and turned water into wine would obsess over the position of the hands on an usher.
As to fundementalism, I like what Shane Claiborne said. Since we are dissident Jews our fundamentals ought to be Arab and Israeli. I am amused at the thought of a rabbi giving a homily in a ‘merican church. It would be an uncomfortable few hours for the nutcracker ushers.
Here are some of my essentials: I find myself hungering for service to everyone regardless of their rung on Jacob’s Ladder. I am alive because of God’s Amazing Grace. It is out of gratitude for His grace that I keep saying we should lead with grace. Jesus said a lot in the short time he was here. Some of my favorites are the Beatitudes, Acts Chapter 2 and Romans 12.
I repeated the Meldenius quote above. Asked to boil my essentials down to a paragraph I would say we are to love our enemies and neighbors as ourselves, treat others as we wish to be treated, diligently seek to perform small acts of kindness with great love, pray, worship, tithe, and read scripture.
If there is anything that is characteristic of us it is this: we never stopped arguing about what we believe. It is why I love Meldenius’ words. We all have to pick our essentials that are not up for debate. After that the rest is fungible.
I know the nutcracker usher who chided me for having my hands in my pockets. His faith is fluid. He fights that first step, admitting we have a problem we are powerless against. Like many, when sober he is brilliant. His inner child became an overachiever because that way his parents would be safer. There is safety in law for him. If there were a law and we would comply it would be so much better.
So he comes to the valley to tilt at our absurdities. We need to come correct so he can be ok. If we knew Jesus and all that. I suppose Fr. Thomas doesn’t know Jesus. The nutcracker usher has been to confession. He found it troubling and attractive.
I’ve crossed paths with him at the cathedral. He’s been at the club when I walk through to my flat upstairs. I think I get where the thing about my hands comes from. It’s easier to fight for kings and law to solve our problems. Christ is tough. His way is absurd. Rather than lift a sword he died and lived. Bickering over hands buried in pockets is a lot safer.
Father Thomas starts on the Yucatan Peninsula. Yah, yah, I read Koontz’ Odd Thomas novels. Literary coinkidink. Thomas Chan was born to Mayan parents in the Hospital General in 1983. He is average height and build for the Mestizaje. Tommy was born with a cleft palate that explains two things: falla exógena para prosperar and a nagging suspicion that he is a symptom of generations deep curse on his parents.
It is fashionable to tag a fate as immutable and thus, Fr. Thomas ought to be pitiable. He also ought not to improve his position beyond the photo of him at age 3 staring up at a gringo photographer. The cleft palate repair was remarkably good. He was adopted by an American family when he was four. Bit by bit, all of the medical problems he had at adoption were treated and cured. He was a favored child in his Southern Baptist Church. One thing I’ve learned from Fr. Thomas is that priests don’t talk about their studies unless pressed. Protestants are in love with credentials. We would use a Doctor of Divinity as a marker of authority. Priests sing the Psalms end to end every week. Fr. Thomas, like his church, has that quiet authority that comes from a history that goes back to the cross.
More than a few missionaries have arrived in the village sure that they can bring us to Cheeezus and a first world paradise. They think he is one of the villagers needing Cheezus. Then the missionaries ask Father Thomas if he is saved and the fun starts.
Here is the thing. Some of this first world largess makes a mess of things in the third world. Missionary tourists have expectations of us. The village in our valley is small. No traffic lights, one gas station, the club where I stay when I am there, and a smattering of squatters huts. When missionaries show up to build a church it’s a huge deal. It costs us a lot. As much as the missionaries bring they eat us out of house and home. Then they build a church that we can’t keep open because there is no way to pay for the water, sewer, heat, and electricity for it. The last group’s church is a depot for the village’s trash.
Which explains why Fr. Thomas isn’t at the head of the line to greet another group of Evangelicals who think we need a church. He leaves that to Saito-san. Saito-san gets saved every week in the summer by one more group of missional tourists. It’s something to see. Saito-san does a great job getting healed by the spirit.
One adamant missionary from a beautiful non-denominational mega-church asked Fr. Thomas if he was saved, citing John 3:16. “Si. ‘Porque tanto amó Dios al mundo que dio a su Hijo unigénito, para que todo el que cree en él no se pierda, sino que tenga vida eterna‘. ¿Recuerdas 1 Corintios 13: 4: El amor es paciente, es bondadoso. El amor no es envidioso ni jactancioso ni orgulloso. 5 No se comporta con rudeza, no es egoísta, no se enoja fácilmente, no guarda rencor. 6 El amor no se deleita en la maldad, sino que se regocija con la verdad. 7 Todo lo disculpa, todo lo cree, todo lo espera, todo lo soporta‘?“, asked Fr. Thomas.
The adamant missionary knew Leviticus by heart. He’d heard Matthew 28:19 as an accusation that he not done enough. Fr. Thomas got accused of being evil. To which Fr. Thomas agreed. He is evil to those whose literary eyes never drift from the KJV and whose soul cowers at the slightest whiff of dissonance as a sure sign of the devil.
The next day that missionary boy spent the day in the cathedral learning about the stations of the cross. The boy who would save us began to learn that his small life in Christ obsessed with coming correct was a tiny lamp nearly out of oil. The light of Christ given off by the whole church was brilliant. He who would save us began learning how much he didn’t know about Jesus. It shook him.
Fr. Thomas is odd. He left the valley and learned to live in the light. The blood of the cross transfused his valley water. He hurt as he surrendered to the blood of the lamb. The pilgrimage out of the valley started with Baptist missionaries who adopted him.
Tommy’s gringo parents flipped through a couple different New Age utopian communities a year. They hungered for simple living and self-reliance. Mayhaps not the fault of the communities they chose, but of those Eros was king of the gods. They came to Cheezus in a small town, Southern Baptist Church with a preacher who was sure every day was the day of rapture.
Tommy ran away at age 13 to ricochette from jail to church to street to the beaches of Vietnam to Antifa to a bar in Merida seeking purpose and vision or at least something to numb the chronic angst. He only knew that he did not want the gestalt bestowed on him by his barely present adoptive parents.
One of the deep lessons he learned is that feelings were weapons. He had to be perfect for his parents because a backslide would devolve into hours of cray-cray prayer where even asking for water was a sign of the devil. So, Tommy became an overachiever. The devil can be incredibly motivating while he eats your soul.
The Baptists have a trope they ache for. The one where someone in the pews is overcome with spirit and makes a public prayer of acceptance. It doesn’t always happen that way. Jesus is, if anything, an absurd, thick-necked and stubborn revolutionary. It would be out of character for him to stick to a Baptist trope in every case.
I argued with God for decades. He won. For a while I needed my questions answered. Over time, Christ’s love and mercy leaked into my valley water and turned it into wine. For the last decade, I have been slowly letting Jesus fill me with the blood of the cross. It hurts much of the time. Things that are not of the cross die. I won’t have it any other way.
Tommy’s altar call happened at station Twelve of the Cross. The Southern Baptism of his adoptive parents just never felt right. It could not be that the only way to view the world was as a table offering souls to eat. Death had to have a meaning beyond the threatened fire and damnation burned into him if he did not come correct. He was in Merida during the Festival of the Dead, staying with a Mayan family as an exchange student, and went to a cathedral out of curiosity. There was a monk in a pew near the Twelfth Station.
My love of Christ has been a slow surrender. Tommy’s turn came in a nervous breakdown. One moment he was taking selfies of with the icon of Christ’s death and the next he was in on a bed in the priory. Sometimes Jesus kicks you in the nuts. Tommy became Fr. Thomas after such a kick.
Tommy returned to the US hungry for the body of Christ. His new love of Catholicism and taco de pescado got him shunned by his adoptive parents. He could not go home again so he made is way back to Merida and the twelfth station. It began as a novice. The journey continues as Fr. Thomas serves as clergy for the valley. We keep him busy.
So . . . I made a meetup. I’ve called the group, “The Liars Club”. The event is called Flaming Pants Night. It is every Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Urban Farmhouse in Richmond’s Scotts Addition. I have two ideas for this night. One is a storytelling and writers meet and greet. I hope people bring works of short fiction that they would like to read and have critiqued.
Let’s talk about vision & purpose for this thing. I’ve met with three different groups of writers in RVA. All three have adopted the current progressive orthodoxy regarding diversity and inclusion. And all three are predictably intolerant of outliers who won’t adhere to their orthodoxy. Also, I haven’t found anyone (yet) whose blog is a mix of commentary and fiction like mine.
Thus . . . The Liars Club’s Flaming Pants Night. I hope I get wonderful lies from the members. Not just little white lies. Big, flaming, pants on fire lies. Her Gropenfuhrer had sex with a porn star? Meh. Cheeto Satan made a gangbang video with 100 women? That’s more like it. With a little luck, this will grow into a live show where performers compete to tell outrageous stories.
Politics, religion and such. I am about the story. Polemic speeches to persuade an audience to agree with you, regardless of oratorical skill, are a problem. It’s better if you can tell a story with a point of view. I’ll listen to the story. Chanting the slogan of the day or ranting about Doorknob Trundlefuck‘s latest crime against humanity? Shut up.
Now, this is the sort of thing that can devolve into a mess. Thus, some rules.
I was at the Urban Farmhouse in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition last night at 6:31 pm. Nobody else showed up. I had two other people say they were going and didn’t go. So, there are now two lies recorded about Flaming Pants Night. One, those that said they would show up can now say they told the first lie in the Liars Club. Two, my own lie that I would stay the whole two hours. I left a little after 7:00 pm.
It’s night two of Flaming Pants Night as I make this edit. A few tables from me is a social worker and his friends gathered to talk about non-fiction writing. I hear bits of their conversation. Most of it is about the process. What’s the plan? How do we feel about the plan? They are deeply in the weeds on the best means of facilitating good non-fiction writing. It makes my head hurt.
The people I like around me are nuts. There is no plan. We operate in this sequence, “FIRE! Oh, uhm, yeah, forgot . . . ready? ok, AIM! Right, sorry, I’ll wait while you load more bullets.” We are the fools that will give up the markers of the normal first world life for a shopping cart if it means we can keep doing our thing. Flaming Pants Night, once it is more than me, isn’t going to waste much time on exactly how we will organize a bunch of malcontented outliers with a story to tell. We’ll tell the tale and then figure it out.
How do you become a writer? Start writing. Write at least a page a day every day. Well, ok, for six days. Sabbath is a thing.
The next task is to find readers. The difference between a diary and a book is an audience. A diary is read by a very limited audience. A book is a hope that lots of people will read what is contained within. Sometimes we get lucky and the book makes money. A couple notes, though. First, if your purpose is to gain fame and wealth from creative work and not the work itself? Stop.
You will never put in the effort needed to get good at the work. There will always be a piece of you wondering if this is the thing that will blow up and achieve the wealth and attention you hunger for. Choosing art, regardless of media, is a choice to be miserable. There are decades of work that goes unnoticed. Odds are no one will ever give a shit. Your brilliance will end up collecting dust on the floor of a closet.
Choose to create, to make, because you can’t imagine doing anything else. Choose to do what you do because not doing it feels like choosing death. It’s gonna cost you everything. But . . . if you are willing to sacrifice for your work, it may pay off in the end. It may not.
Art is born out of the mess. To find the good work you have to allow a little cray-cray. Too much analysis just kills it. The Liars Club is a reflection of its founder and my own comfort with not knowing the plan or the usual method for getting something done. I’m the only one here for the second week. Nothing good ever comes easy. Besides, sitting here nursing a coffee has added 600 words to this piece about my hopes for the Liars Club’s Flaming Pants Night.
For next time and each time after this I am bringing my laptop and intend to spend the two hours at the Urban Farmhouse writing. Though this is the Liars Club so I might be full of shit. There is a chance I’ll buy a bottle of wine to share. You can find out the truth of this by showing up April 6th at 6:30 pm.
It’s been a quiet week on the farm. Spring is a few months away. There is still winter misery in the valley. Over the winter Ray tore down the 9N and rebuilt it. The chicken coop needs an overhaul, including two tires. It’s been a couple years since the bearings have been changed. Father Thomas’ homily touched on Lamentations. Guys complain about their honey-do lists. Guys that live in 3500 sq ft homes at the end of a cul-de-sac. Men who would shut their mouth after a day of chores on the farm. My Dad offered to help Ray and got to a lawn chair in the barn before he had to sit a spell.
I never lived in a cul-de-sac. My Dad’s house is in a tree covered suburb of Philly. When I headed west in a Trailways bus out of Cherry Hill I was dazzled by the bright lights of the City 3,000 miles distant. The City by the Bay called to me and I answered with a bus ticket. I stopped on the east side of San Francisco Bay at my grandmother’s house in Albany, CA. My Dad said I’d never last living in the city.
It’s been forty years in the city. My Dad has a few chairs on the farm in Merida. One is in the living room with a shoe-box full of remote controls. He commands the entertainment from that chair. Another is an Amish made cane rocking chair with a commanding porch view of the farm. He used to take visitors and talk to the farm hands. Lately, he sleeps in that chair most of the day.
Sixteen years ago the reasons to stay in the East Bay disappeared. The Empress flew to Taiwan with my son. I lost another temp job. My landlord declared that he was converting the entire complex to Section 8 housing. Every tenant had to either move out or qualify for Section 8. Then and still the wait list for Section 8 is decades long. I make too much money so that left moving out.
Choices. Stay on the correct coast where my Dad’s family can trace their California story back through the San Bernadino Mormons or leave the golden state. Then there is the Mayan option—to live with my grandfather’s family on their farm in Yucatan. I chose the third option. I moved from Richmond, CA to Richmond, VA in 2002.
Even when I am in Yucatan I stay in Merida at a hotel. All those years watching the world pass by my taxi-cab windshield make the bustle & noise of the city feel right. Also, I’ve seldom lived in “good” places. Home has been cars, friend’s couches, hotels and beggar shelters. The house in Richmond is the longest stint of stable living I’ve had since separating from the Empress. My Dad was wrong about me. I did last living in the city.
It’s twilight. Dinner service is wrapping up and the band is tuning up. I’ve got my Mccauley’s neat and a plate of barbacoa. The weatherman is telling the gringos that this monsoon season will be bad. The train of storms starting in Nigeria is strong. Already they have named 8 storms that have wandered near and then away from Merida. The 9th, Ian, generated warnings to evacuate. I took another sip of my bourbon.
This is the wrong side of the tracks. It is populated by the bottom third of the bell curve. The normies and good folk fear this valley. They see the shadow of death over us and nod with complicity to their preacher who tells them that we are their fate if they don’t behave. We are good with that.
When I am not in Richmond, Philly or Merida I am here in the bar or in my flat upstairs. The flat used to be warehouse space for the bar. No amount of Pinesol is enough to erase the mix of old bourbon, piss, puke, stale beer, illicit sex, and cigarettes. It has two rooms, a former office in the back with a thrift store sourced kitchen. Someone before me put a cheap fiberglass shower with copper pipes green with age into the former office. I’ve tried to clean the toilet but even straight bleach won’t remove the years of beery piss and tossed smokes. The sink stinks of smoked heroin. The big room in front used to store liquor and also has thrift store furniture. It offers no escape from the stench of mortal sins.
More than a few have climbed the stairs to my loft and exclaimed, “you like living here?!” I do. The noise of the bar plays a melody grounded by the sub-woofer beat of freight trains that pass by every couple hours. They hurry on to feed the hungry maw of the collected mass of normies who worry about me. Let them be scared.
Normie kids come to the bar to get their freak on. This place is exciting. Stuff happens. Girls show up ready to dance, drink and mayhaps give some. The music is awesome. The food is good, even better after a few drinks. People come here to play and then we send them home a little worse for it.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. We don’t want to be less dangerous. It’s a long drive over the hills on two-lane gravel roads to get here. An hour out of town is a gas station inhabited by a shotgun-toting old man with a bad attitude. His nose for outsiders is unfailing. He’s put buckshot into the doors of more than a few who seemed like they were lost and ought to be headed back out of the valley.
Old man Saito does sell gas. You have to get past the initial curmudgeonly greeting. You can’t be in a hurry. Most of the normie kids out for a weekend in town know enough to either tank up before they cross the pass or invest a few hours in drinking rice wine (50 proof!) with him. Those in the know bring a fifth of Makers Mark with them. He searches their car for contraband and finds it, upon which his attitude improves considerably. Also, let him find a carton of Marlboro Red 100’s. Sometimes the old bribes are still the best currency to buy some freedom.
There is freedom here you can’t find on the other side of the pass under the bright lights of the city. Somebody came to a twelve-step meeting and was nervous that they might be found out as a gender-queer psychiatry patient with a thick jacket of mental ward admittance and city jail time. We were not impressed. We are small enough to not need a recognizable municipal government.
The closest we have is Saito’s son, who can be seen drifting through the streets picking the trash for aluminum cans. He’s out on parole after collecting federal time for punching a US Marshall. Oh, it doesn’t stop there. Once inside a fellow inmate threatened to rape him so Ren killed him barehanded. You have to do better than liking both sausages and clams to be interesting here.
It’s a hard life here. We don’t have public schools, public health services, or a social safety net. There are Ren Saito’s friends and there are those who either die or leave because they pissed off Ren. Those that stay figure out a truce with Ren. To survive here you either need your own money or a way to earn a living. Ren found The last guy to try standing on a corner with a sign asking for money in a dumpster at the back of the bar badly bloodied. He was offered two choices: clean the bar after it closes or leave town. He stayed and is the first to greet fellow beggars with a warning.
You know this one, that when you hit bottom the only direction is up. Our townies leave here stronger, clean & sober. We do for each other. The reason we don’t have a lot of municipal services is that we are small, we know each other, and we don’t hesitate to do the needful for each other. It’s how a lot of small-town America works.
I’ve seen the world from the 31st floor of 101 California Street in San Francisco. My suits from back then cost me what I make in three months. I had a family, a two-bedroom condo with designer furniture and two cars. My travel mug costs a month’s wages for those who don’t live under the city lights. That was then. Things are better now.
Last thing. The church is here. Father Thomas is a Cherokee, a Gulf War Vet, with a bronze twelve-step chip. He was accused by a parishioner of raping boys. Before all that he was convicted of tax evasion for selling moonshine. The county ADA could never find enough evidence to charge him with rape. The church offered to send him to Brazil. He left instead.
He went back to Seminary and was ordained in the Anglican Church. The rumblings of some that the church was out of sync with the times regarding abortion and standards of fidelity or chastity in marriage drove him to set out on his own. He planted a small monastic order in the valley. His order runs a local school, missions and mercy programs, as well as the usual services of a local parish.
Many have underestimated Father Thomas. One seeker accosted him, wanting to know if he used the KJV, “I do not.” Which one, then? “My own.” Your own copy of the KJV? “No, my own translation.” Oh. You will find the NABRE in the pews of the order’s chapel. The order lives under a modified Benedictine Rule.
Westboro Baptist showed up one weekend and sought out Father Thomas. They expected tv cameras and protestors. They got a church picnic in full swing. Father Thomas approached them with plates. The Westboro Baptist kids were hungry. It was a great time for all.
Down here on the bottom third of the curve, with places to lay my head in Richmond, the Valley, Philly, and Merida I am happier than I was when I chased status and money. I am free. I may not be successful in building my personal brand such that I collect accolades from the normies. My virtue signal is noisy and dissonant. I’m good with it.
The band started up. Lighting Hopkins stuff. My floor is swaying to the music. It’s a good night for the normies downstairs chasing the light fantastic. I’ll sleep well tonight.
Maybe my first paid post. My buddy asked me to go see I, Tonya. Did that. I had a couple thoughts. First, the obligatory nod to Yoast SEO, aye tonya evil bad. Next, I tried talking to Felina about them. It did not go well. The first thing she said was, “chingada puta.” I thought she meant me. Tonya Harding was the puta.
I’m not ready to talk about the movie yet. So I’ll talk about Felina first. She’s in Puerto Rico helping the family rebuild. The little street market her Dad started grew into an office supply business selling to medical supply manufacturers. Her family’s building was destroyed by Hurricane Maria. Their house was buried under several feet of mud. It took her Mom a couple weeks to find cell phone reception and call Felina. Felina was already planning to go home. When her Mom called a quick convo with Inger and a few clicks on a travel site settled the plans.
All good, no? No. Bae, it seems, claimed that Felina was neither a good Madonna nor a bad Mary. This was a problem. Felina’s resistance to Bae’s ‘spose to’s caused their strife. Worst of all Felina put her family in Puerto Rico ahead of Bae. He wouldn’t leave Richmond with her. She wasn’t understanding. She wasn’t listening. She’s a character on this blog so . . . yeah.
For Felina’s part, that Bae was deep into Call of Duty WWII, hadn’t helped pay a bill in six months, and his one job application hadn’t moved from the coffee table, was a reason his culo podrido should be peeled from its couch cocoon and put outside. She’d be good with an hour of weeding. He waved her off and went back to COD.
In the lobby of the theater when I walked out to pee the two of them were arguing about laundry. Bae claimed that she wasn’t doing it right and btw, had let it go too long. Felina figured, “él es capaz de llevar su trasero de mierda y su ropa putrefacta a la lavandería automática“. Beside’s if she loved him she’d love doing his laundry. Yeah, that . . . didn’t go well.
Ok, “I, Tonya.” First, it’s an awesome movie. Go spend the double sawbuck it costs to see it popcorn in hand. This is a movie about what Hollywood fears most. It is also a movie about abusive relationships. Last, it shows how deeply seductive and evil random reward systems are. It touches me because I’ve been both abused and an abuser. I feel Tonya’s pain.
Next, Hollywood wants you to have empathy for Tonya Harding. She’s the victim in this, so it goes. Her asshat husband and his crazy friends conspired to break the knee of Nancy Kerrigan. Tonya survived her Mom’s abuse and in turn, her husband’s abuse. Felina didn’t like the movie. For her, it made Tonya seem like a 19th-century waif suffering from a chronic case of the vapors. Felina wanted a little street justice for marido gilipollas y su amigo.
Felina and Bae were outside the auditorium bickering, “If you understood you wouldn’t leave me for Puerto Rico.” “Pene estúpido,” she swung and missed. He swung back and connected. Theater security saw him connect and that was it.
I’m good with Tonya as a survivor. She had it bad coming up. I get that. I have no truck with Tonya Harding, who triumphed over adversity and came close to Olympic gold. Hollywood . . . tho. The best villain is a white woman? Really? And men are stupid violent pigs on their face? Thanks, ‘preciate that.
Felina saw this draft. I got a 3am text from her, “las mujeres le temen a otras mujeres mucho más de lo que le temen a los hombres.” I never expected that. Most of my baddies are men. Men commit the majority of the domestic violence in this country. “Las mujeres saben cómo manejar a los hombres. Los hombres luchan con armas y puños. Las mujeres usan chismes y ataques a la reputación. Derrotar armas y puños es más fácil que pelear palabras.”
Ok . . . so the mom as the evilest fits Felina’s claim that women are more dangerous than men. Noted. I cheered for Tonya, cried with her and felt that catharsis possible with a good tragedy. Laments work best when you stay dark, stay in the misery, kill the hero at the end. I, Tonya is almost a good tragedy. It fails because Hollywood can’t stomach a deeply evil baddie, especially a woman. Baddies are just misunderstood.
“I, Tonya” shows us the victim’s side of the cycle. In case you forgot, it goes explosive event, apology, honeymoon, quiet period, tension builds and rinse repeat. The general trend is toward more violent and destructive acts of abuse. It seldom moves toward a healthier relationship. You see that in Tonya’s relationship with her husband. This won’t be news to us who are abusers/victims. Something deep gets rooted in us from abusive parents. We come to trust bitterness as normal. We can’t breathe in relationships that are healthy.
Bitterness tastes sweet to us. So much so that we hunger for it. Tonya Harding had that hunger for bitterness as a gift from her Mom. The hunger is powerful and even though we swear that the last thing we want is more bitter relationships there is something spiritual in us that attracts others who are also addicted to bitterness. We tend to find broken partners that reinforce our own lust for bitterness. I saw that in Tonya’s story.
Felina is an asshat magnet. She has “amo a los chicos malos” emblazoned on her soul. It frustrates her that every time she finds a guy he seems to come around to abuse after the initial heat dies down. Felina went so far toward couch slug In choosing Bae that she picked someone who wore his sloth as an extra dick. She found his tipping point once she started to fight with him about doing something more than consuming large bags of Cheetos and leveling up in COD. He’s done. The movie theater thing happened. Then the restraining order, criminal charges and such. The real test comes once he gets out and it’s, “baby I am sorry.”
The last thing, “I, Tonya” is a stellar example of a powerful reward system—random. The devil knows that he doesn’t have to pay off on every promise. He just has to pay off on enough promises that his subjects remain dedicated to him. Random reward systems drive us to continue a behavior in the hopes that this is the iteration that will pay off. We know if we keep doing the behavior the reward will come. Because the payoff is random we can’t predict when we will be rewarded.
We know that Satan pays sometimes. We believe that we can influence the outcome and be rewarded with a higher payout rate than simply random payouts. So we will do anything to get a hint of the promised reward. The characters in “I, Tonya” were willing to do what it took to get the prize.
Tonya’s most desperate wish was for her Mom to love her unconditionally. This hunger for unconditional love is what her Mom used to get Tonya to work so hard at figure skating. Consciously or not, her Mom’s praise came randomly. Tonya Harding was raised under a random reward system. This instilled a desperate need for bitterness sweetened by the occasional reward of her Mom’s praise. This ache gave her husband the hook that let him keep her in spite of his abusive ways.
Before I wrap this up I have a plea. Being evil works. You can get people to do things they would never do in the cold light of day. We have enough of that. Please be light and salt.
Random reward systems, abusive people, women as the more frightening baddie, and Felina’s bae moving to the city jail. This is the end. Felina’s reaction to Tonya Harding is that she would have beat the shit out of both the boyfriend and the Mom. Maybe a bit of bravado. We don’t really know what we would do until evil has us in its teeth. With Felina, though, I kind of believe her.
Props to Allison Janney for being as evil as Hollywood allowed. Major, major, epic props to Margot Robbie for a stellar performance. It’s a movie worth the double sawbuck price to see it in a theater.
Are There Any Fun Things to do in Richmond? Tourists stink. They ask stupid questions. Often they are too drunk to remember to tip. They dress funny. But . . . my cab costs money and I have important bills like my monthly subscription to sexycats.com. So I guess I should behave and answer the question.
tbh, I don’t want to talk to you, dear cab customer. I really only want to know two things: where are you going and am I going to get paid? Of the two, whether I am getting paid is the important question. After that, I really don’t care. “You must meet some pretty interesting people,” she said. Not really. I meet a lot of people who can’t take transit or drive for one of many reasons. These are not interesting people. These are annoying people like you.
When I drove for Uber I met younger, inebriated people. I met young, inebriated women who heard the rumor that Uber drivers would hook up with them. Huge bad idea. So, not me. To repeat, if I have a passenger that wants to hook up with me she’s going home first, getting some sleep and we’ll do brunch while she’s still hung over. If there is a third date, then . . . maybe.
There have been Uber drivers who believed she did want to hook up with him that found out she was just drunk and momentarily lost her damned mind. The next morning these drivers found themselves under arrest and in the news. There is even a website: whoisdrivingyou.org. So, yeah, it’s a thing, sadly.
I am a veteran cab driver. All told I’ve driven over 500,000 passenger safe miles. Many young, drunk and attractive women have gotten home safe because of me. I see her, saw her, chose a long time ago to leave her alone and do my job. If you are her and your driver is creepy, end the ride. Nothing is worth staying in a bad situation.
The big elephant on the street in Richmond is our place as one corner of the slave triangle and as the capital of the Confederacy. We have reasons to lament. It’s hard to tour this city and avoid the remains of the War for States Rights. I’m not with those who would pave over our regrettable past. I want us to remember. We are not 247365 morose about our dog in the fight against racism. There is a better answer to the question than just pissing on Monument Avenue statues and touring Hollywood Cemetary.
So, on with the topic. There are many fun things to do in Richmond. Some of my favorites are:
Searching Yelp got me 2690 fun things to do in Richmond. I like cafes more than I like bars. Drunks are my money and by extension my food. Mom told me not to play with my food. I have a mercantile interest in making a drunk think I am friendly. But, it’s because you smell of money and look crunchy. By inference, bars are where my food can be found so I like them. As a place to socialize? No.
You will find me in a few cafes around Richmond. The last time I was in a bar with a friend was ten years ago. I spent the whole time studying the crowd trying to decide which of these assholes would actually pay me if I found them on the street needing a cab. Conclusion? None of them. The fish & chips were tasty. It was not fun.
The closest I’ve found to Berkeley’s Au Coquelet is Richmond’s Black Hand Coffee. I want a place with good WiFi where I can write. Black Hand Coffee offers that. One other way it is like Au Coquelet is the lack of parking. I recommend riding an Uber or taking transit to Black Hand Coffee. Driving there is annoying. When I am not at Black Hand I can be found at Starbucks on Robinson Street or North Boulevard.
I spend too much money at Proper Pie. My favorite order is a savory, a pastie and a roll. When I am feeling flush I’ll add something sweet to that order. Proper Pie changes their menu daily so check with them on what they are offering today. Their coffee is good as well.
Down the street is Captain Buzzy’s. This is another place where you can spend an afternoon nursing a coffee and using their WiFi. My son tried their hot chocolate a few years ago and declared it to be his best ever.
I’m a huge movie goer. Richmond’s Byrd Theater is a surviving movie palace that kept its Wurlitzer pipe organ. They offer a different double feature each week for $4.00 per movie. $8.00 to see two movies and hear a pipe organ is a really good deal. The house organist only plays once a week on Saturdays. Plan accordingly. When I want to see a new release in a theater with an audience I go to Movieland.
I’ve only been to one Cinebistro. It was nice to have a beer and some fish & chips while I watched a movie. I haven’t been to the one at Stoney Point. But, P.F. Changs is there along with Cinebistro. Looking at the menu it’s a Benjamin for two people to eat and watch a movie. That’s a bit steep for me. It’s a couple hours of rides on an average day.
There is probably a MoviePass in my future. I let my Verizon FIOS subscription get canceled 18 months ago. I still have 4G on my phone & tablet. That’s where most of my movie viewing takes place. The other movie theaters nearby aren’t as good as Movieland.
I’m settled in my ways. If I eat out it tends to be Proper Pie. Other places include Kuba Kuba, Hibachi Sushi, and Pho So 1. A coworker suggested Osaka Sushi & Steak. My favorite restaurant is actually my own kitchen. Featured menu items include French Omelettes with Home Fries, Red Beans & Rice, Roast Chicken, and Fried Rice. There is East Villa on East Main Street if I want authentic Chinese-American food. Last thing, the Empress found Full Kee on Horsepen Road almost twenty years ago. It’s as close to the Hong Kong Noodle & Barbeque style restaurant we liked in Oakland, Ca. as we could find.
West Main Street starting at Harrison and continuing up to Boulevard has the bar scene for VCU and those who think they are still twenty-something hot. I know Baja Bean because I get a lot of rides out of there. There is also Pearl Raw Bar, 3 Monkeys and Social 52. Uptown Market is open after bar close. You’ll find the crowd that isn’t ready to end the night in line for late night drunk food.
Then there is Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom. The trashier townie crowd that is sick of VCU gownies can be found on East Cary Street starting at 14th Street and continuing to 18th or so. UofR students like this four-block stretch of East Cary Street. It starts with Sine and ends at Buffalo Wild Wings. That’s not the really heavy dive bar scene, though.
To get the full dress code, metal detector, big Bubba bouncer experience you have to go a block over to East Main Street starting at 17th and continuing to 27th Street. The best of these is between 17th and 21st Street. Best of all the cops show up at bar close on weekends and close the street. Richmond had some bad gunfights inside these clubs a decade ago. As a result, the cops send everyone home at last call.
Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy. We are a city with laments. Monument Avenue is an eyesore to those who can’t forgive, can’t forget what we did to brown people until the mid-twentieth century. When you ask us we tend to agree that there is a lot of history in our city. Then we ask you if you have tried the brunch at the Jefferson Hotel.
Lumpkins Jail is a VCU parking lot now. The river landing where the slave ships off-loaded isn’t recognizable. The visible architecture of slavery was erased in many places. The wound on the souls of some is still putrid. Those that would continue the destruction of the memorials, museums and markers of our bitter past are fools. Instead of trying to erase the visible symbols of hate we ought to build more memorials, museums, and markers to tell the whole story. We should rebuild Lumpkins Jail.
This isn’t a polemic. I’ve posted over 270 essays on this site. If it’s polemic you want there is plenty here. This is an answer to the question, “Are There Fun Things to do in Richmond?” There are more fun things to do here that will fit in a single blog post. Even our AntiFa came here and had a good time. My favorite things to do are to eat, to write and drink coffee, and to walk. Richmond has all three and so much more.
You Can’t Repent. You are Irredeemable. Oprah, Queen of Kleenex has declared this. She has sent forth her Amazonian Army to castrate you. You need to get used to being a monster in the eyes of the Queen. Being castrati won’t be enough. There is another who made a Way. Read on and find out.
Psalm 1:1-4—“1 Blessed is the man[a]
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law[b] of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”Matthew 5:6—“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
I lost count the number of Sundays my ass stuck to the lacquer paint of a pew as another pastor droned on about the Beatitudes. This Sunday was one more. The pastor’s frame of reference was that these two passages were about us, about each of us and the ways that we should individually hunger for a deeper discipleship hewing closer to the law. Noble idea. And worthy. And for me . . . a bit annoying.
Israel, when Christ was alive, had the law. They had/have commentary on the law as given by God. Ask a practicing Jew about how to honor the Sabbath. Though, block out some time for this because it will take a while. All of it focused on trying to get a thick-necked people to behave better. None of it much good for its intended purpose.
There is an introspective aspect to hungering for righteousness. We should deepen our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Then we ought to maintain our vigilance in living out that understanding. It doesn’t stop there, however. Jesus wasn’t commissioning a bunch of temple living hermits. He commissioned a bunch of troublemakers like himself who were to make all nations disciples of the Way. So, where activism, social justice work and the lot are within the practices of the Way, we ought to be doing that as well.
Jesus asked us to serve prisoners, the sick, the poor, the persecuted, among others. Go back and read the Sermon on the Mount again. It has both an inward, personal growth aspect and an SJW aspect. It’s not enough to grow personally. We have to get out there, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
Lately, after a rousing acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey’s name was bandied about as a possible candidate for President. Oprah is the goddess of Kleenex, of the teary, emotional moment. The Kleenex Goddess made her wealth on leering at the miseries of others. She cannot afford to have a baddy repent. Though, people seem to be an infinite fount of bad behavior. She is in no danger of running out of baddies to excoriate on national TV.
My name is Alan Webb and I am a wife-beater. It’s been sixteen years since I last hit my ex-wife. I still worry that it is half-time for me and the next relationship will be just as destructive as my first marriage. For all my therapy, classes and introspection the jury is still out on whether my next girlfriend and I can navigate through a relationship that is safe and healthy for both of us.
I have people in my life who will not let me repent. I am a monster. Nothing I say or do can change that. I learned a long time ago that there is no gain in fighting to a victory with someone who believes my nature as a monster is immutable. It’s better to let them believe I am a monster and go about living an honorable life.
Two things of note regarding repentance. One, in our ADHD 247365 shitstorm propaganda cycles, repentance takes too long. The data stream we get is tuned to keep us amped on OMG. because while amped our reason is swamped by our reptilian brain. Our reptilian brain wants to stay alive and fuck. High minded ideas like repentance just don’t get on our reptilian radar. It makes us putty in the hands of those who lead us.
So, for the dear leaders, us holding resentment is part of the stew that keeps us compliant. To be woke is a thing for some. Let me suggest one way to be woke, to be aware of the ways that you are being led by a bull-ring made up of propaganda delivered through social media and more traditional news sources like print, broadcast and cable TV. That ring feeds you emo stories meant to keep your reptile brain afraid that it might die, might not be able to eat or worst of all, be unable to fuck.
One more thing. I saw this in my 1100 hours at the table at Boaz and Ruth. The guys that fell back into ripping and running were also guys who could not answer this question, “what do you want to do?” They were really good at their chaplain speeches. They were very clear that they did not want to do what got them arrested and a spot at the table at Boaz and Ruth. What did they want? That . . . that question was tough.
“I don’t want to be a monster anymore” is an easy answer. Kind of. First, you are not allowed to stop being a monster. If you ever collected the ire of someone who believed you behaved in a monstrous way then you are a monster and like me, you cannot remove that moniker. At best you can gain a grudging trust that you haven’t been monstrous today.
Second, you won’t last on the street unless you find your purpose. It’s not always some grand thing. Sometimes it’s as simple as line cooking or sewer pipe trenching. Mike Rowe made 169 episodes of dirty, skilled labor jobs. Those can be a purpose as noble as anything white collar that you think your parents would approve of. It can be something absurd like writing almost a half-million words ranting about what’s wrong with everybody. The key secret to life as a monster is finding that purpose. And . . . do us all a favor and pick something other than predatory behavior. Thanks, bunches.
Last, repentance takes time. Obvi, no? You would think so. But the town criers that fill our social media feed don’t want us calm enough to reflect on the time it takes to give life to a promise to repent. We are more malleable if we stay amped on the latest OMG to drop. It’s better for our dear leaders if we keep eating the bitterness they feed us.
Now, let’s talk about Purpose. This is one of the big hairy questions we all stumble into. I’ll let you in on a secret about me. I have no fucking clue. I made it through nearly six decades of life just following my nose. There are minor purposes, reptilian ones. But a big, elegant, life-giving purpose? Nah. Hold my covfefe. I mean, yeah, contribute to making the world more peas and fewer big-eyed, starving TV kids? Sure. Write too many words on a blog that no one reads. Did that, doing that. Bring a son into this world with a Taiwanese Mafia Princess? Check. Just . . . I never answered the question, “what do you want to do”?
I still don’t have an answer. I’m a bit like the other guys at that table at Boaz and Ruth. I know I don’t want to do monstrous things and collect prison time. I know I want to live a life that keeps me as safe as possible so the chances of doing monstrous things are minimized. But . . . as to what I want . . . I don’t know.
The small purposes I found, keeping my house and my car, seeking small acts of kindness done with great love, and embracing a stable life, these have been enough. One of the absurdities of God is those Egyptian monks who sought to isolate themselves as completely as possible and left behind words that became world famous. Something cliche and something true, that we are not to worry about what God does with our pittance of a life. We are to simply live. My pedestrian life driven by reptilian desires that sometimes rise to slight elegance in the small acts of kindness I have done will have to be enough.
Purpose, when you are young or misfortune has stolen your position and now your rock must be pushed up the hill one more time, is useful. It helps clarify which choices fit and which don’t. You begin to hear the siren call of the Queen of Kleenex as the dangerous clanging gong that it is. Truth is, we are finite. The day does come when we become legend only alive in the stories of those we leave behind. Choices get made that set a direction. So, being intentional about purpose is useful.
Lovely, no? I didn’t do that. I did whatever I damned pleased. My life never had a carefully crafted purpose beyond making sure I had a roof over my head and food to eat. I’m not MGTOW by choice. It just sort of worked out that way.
Put me with those who find this shitshow I was born into to be absurd. Life has no grand purpose. We are pissing, shitting fucking beasts with a remarkable talent for hurting each other. Altruism, when it happens, is great. I’ll grant you that most of the Bell curve is unremarkable and never does anything story worthy. But . . . I am nearer to the monster end of the curve than I am to the untested saint end.
Except . . . this crazy, criminal, ghetto-boy carpenter born to a whore a couple thousand years ago started a revolution that continues to this day. He said we ought to hunger for righteousness. The world is absurd and God sent us an absurd leader of a new kingdom after all else failed. A criminal is crucified by the Romans at the request of his church leadership and three days later is alive? That’s cray-cray right there.
Oprah as president is a leadership rooted in bitter unforgiveness. Remember this? Some who worry that if we truly knew them we’d shun them. To which we in the church reply, if you really knew us you would stop worrying. Jesus offers us a cause to pursue and a purpose for our lives absent from the Kleenex Empire. We meet every Sunday, usually, around 10 am or so. I hope you will join us.
