so this bartender in williamsburg killed the king of pop

so i had my final today in organic chemistry, and it went pretty poorly. but the class is over, and that's what counts (as everyone has been telling me, and i'm not necessarily sure that's the case. isn't doing well in the class the most important part about taking the class?)

anyway, to celebrate, I headed over to sweet ups with joe, and met jeff and adam there, to hang out and drink $1 48 ounce pitchers. after 5 o'clock, the deal become buy-one-get-one-free pints of beer. you buy a pint, the bartender gives you a poker chip that's good for another free beer whenever you want it. pretty sweet deal.

so i drank a few pitchers, hung out with my pals, tipped a buck on each one, which i consider ample tip, when the drinks are $1 each. standard fare. (STOP ME IF I'M WRONG, PEOPLE).

after 5, i order a beer, and the bartendress forgets to give me my poker chip for the free beer. No big deal whatsoever. She gives me my change, I pocket it, and ask for my chip, reaching into my pocket to get my dollar for the tip for the beer, thinking to myself "she gives me the chip, I give her the tip, we both walk away happy". When I ask her for the chip, she says "YOURE NOT EVEN GOING TO TIP ME, HUH? ARE YOU SERIOUS??"

and then goes on this ENFLAMED diatribe about how she's been bartending for 10 years, and she's sick of people not tipping, and all day people haven't been tipping her and etc.etc.etc.

blown away (and tipsy from my nearly 100 ounces of beer in a half hour), i apologize, remind her that i've tipped her for every drink that i've received all day (TALLY: TWO), and that she was the one that erred, ripping me off for a free beer, and that I was planning on putting a dollar on the bar when she did her job, as advertised on the chalkboard out front. it was an honest mistake, much like not giving someone their free beer. we all make mistakes. there's no reason to get bent out of shape. just do what you're supposed to do, and we'll both be happy.

i didn't even go into details about how she's been a mediocre bartendress, at best, and i thought tips were supposed to be for exemplery performance, but i've worked in service before, i know you make your living off tips, and i appreciate that she's working a crappy bar in william s. burg at 4 in the afternoon, so here's your dollar. i didn't do that. i gave her my dollar and said sorry.

a few minutes later, i went up to the bar, and asked if she was okay. i reiterated that it was a mistake, i meant to tip her, just plum forgot, and we're fine now, right? and she was still a little attitudy, saying "i'm just having a bad day. people don't tip on drinks and that upsets me" or some such rot.

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a few minutes later, i get text-blasted with "CAN YOU VERIFY THAT MJ IS DEAD??!?!?!?!?!"

i go to bitchy macgoo behind the bar, and say "holy crap, michael jackson is dead?"

all strife is put aside. she flips on cnn, pours shots of tequila, and we put on joe's ipod, rocking out to the king of pop for a half hour or so.

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at the end of the day, one of my three favorite musical artists have died, right before he planned on a comeback tour. but hundreds of people are dying in iran, and as joemsak puts it: "thousands of people are waiting in line for 1 toilet in south africa". priorities need to be put in order.

i will always remember where i was the day MJ died. getting berated in a bar with my three best friends, playing gin rummy, doing tequila shots, celebrating the moment where i finished a class a year before i go to west virginia to be a doctor. it'll put it into perspective, i feel.

also, every fifteen seconds someone dies of hunger. where were you when that happened?





how about when that happened?







and that?










and that?










and that?











and that?












and that?

things and sundry events

so two nights ago, katie left to go visit our practicallysisters' graduation party. missing her terribly, i made plans to go somewhere, so i wasn't sitting at home alone, morose and clueless (standard fare for lonelyhusbear).

i went to a lovely little venue called sweetups, for $1 48 ounce pitchers of beer, with joescott. jeffloughlin (of BEARDS! fame, holy carp), sebastian taylor (who, no less, flew in from hellay to hangz), kelly waterman and aubrey fry all came to pitch in.

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here i'll say i'm officially worried about iran.

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we decided to play poker, forcing jeff loughlin (OF BEARDS!! MY GOD) to go buy us cards inthefirst place. then we played handafterhand, betting dollar bills (AKA pitchers of beer) on good hands. fun times.

joe and i peaced out many ounces of beer later to stumble incoherently through the lonely streets of east williamsburg. we happened upon alligator lounge, which offers free large pizzas with every drink purchase, and went to sit in back. jeff and sebastian arbitrarily found us there, because in the land of drunken happenstance, random encounters are commonplace. for that, i thank you, brooklyn. we observed some of the worst kareoke i've ever witnessed (HOW CAN YOU SCREW UP AFRICA BY TOTO, GUY?). i attempted to sing "Clint Eastwood" by the Gorillaz, for my homies, but it was a reggaeton cover, so we quickly escaped to barcade (read: the bar with classic arcade videogames). joe and i walked home, put on a movie, biked to a chinese place, and laughed our individual juevos off to the rifftrax version of twilight.

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also, i'm bummed about obama's treatment of homosexual rights in our country.

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mercifully not hungover, the next day i spent time with adam (Quac) in his backyard, drinking beerz, until we rodebikes down to see frontier ruckus play at southpaw. all told, it was jeff, joe, me, sean and quac on our bikes, a veritable gang of miscreants the likes of which would make james dean blush.

at the gig, we rocked out, met up with dozens of pals, who all split up to go different directions after the amazing set. some of us went to lamesauce US, on atlantic, which was filled with dbags and ridiculous outfits.

fleeing said bummout, we rode hard down to carrolgardens, to the only bar which can perk up a nearly lost night. a delightful little rendezvous called the zombie hut, a tiki bar slash slasher flick. they offer drinks made entirely out of mango slushy, rum, and a shot of 151 in the straw. serious conversations, hilarious jokes, personal revelations, and we're all immersed in perfect good times. miss my wife.

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chemistry cannot be overrated when it comes to hanging out at a bar. good times hang on a hinge of personal relationships, personality quirks, and mixology. it's an interesting dichotomy; the wrong drink or the wrong pal will potentially ruin a great hangout. luckily, the humans occupying that space fulfilled my desires, and the drinks did flow. having katie there would have made it the perfect night. having steve mcqueen there would have meant everyone would have had to have dealt with a ridiculous dog. went home past 3 for the second night in a row (and the first time in a year or so).

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this morning(afternoon, 151 is hangover guarantee. which reminds me. being hungover is really just viral marketing for the hangover, right?), washed and ate and left to go to a Mets game, which david and shannon graciously invited me to.

arrived.

immediately astounded by the fact that the gig was sponsored by fox news AS EVIDENCED BY THE GIANT FOX NEWS BANNERS EVERYWHERE. ponchos, hats, gloves, glasses, coozies, all flashing the gang signs of the worst news establishment outside of al jazeera. hung out with conservatives who constantly made HILARIOUS comments about the correlation between tattoos and moral turbidity. watched the Mets play, with free beer and food. got a towel with I-kid-you-not-uncle-sam.

miss my wife.

daveandshannon wanted to go to a strip club (i pondered innumerable number of hilarious annecdotes that would be afforded to me, based on her pregnancy clashing with queens strippers). went back to barcade instead, and got schooled in every one of my favorite videogames by shannon martin. props.

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i'd like to talk about my feelings regarding californication. is that okay? i'll bring it up later. i promise. also, i can't stop watching rifftrax. addictions can sometimes be beneficial. keep that in mind.

two nights ago, in between the moment when katie leaves for work and my alarm rips me awake (i have anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes of intense, passionate sleep), i had a dream.

in the dream, i was jeff daniels (circa escanaba in da moonlight). i had just finished riding my bike over a large hill in the adirondacks, and had been struck by a speeding ambulance. writhing and whirling on the pavement (with the majority of my skull caved in), i remember wondering how my bike had fared, while gawkers and paramedics alike stood in impotent worry around what was left of my brainandblood, pouring into the gutter. i leapt to my feet (to the astonishment of the crowd that had gathered), and stumbled in a circle, as a doctor told me i'd probably never walk again, and that i most likely would die soon. i remember feeling the pressure of a question that needed to be asked before time ran out, and as i opened my mouth, i awoke.

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fellow awesome dude and scandanavian Kristian Mattson

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also, everyone needs to go download the rifftrax (AKA MST3K) version of twilight, here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b49868c1cfc1032ed9d5c56d04dfa8b0c0fe072194bac5fa5be6ba49b5870170

As this is an old re-post, I've added some pictures to spice it up.

Over the course of my intellectual development, I have found that the predominant question I have been unable to answer internally and set aside without social repercussion has been concerned with the nature of religion. I have followed a path of enlightenment, secular inquisition, and comparative analysis, all of which have deposited me firmly and without apology on the shores of Atheism. I have read the sacred books of the three Abrahamic religions multiple times, both during a period of personal doubt, when I was open to the possibility of some metaphysical being, and after I had created a system of belief that was founded on intellect and reason (read here: not a slight against those who use “faith” to direct their belief, but rather, as a delineation as to why I believe what I do).

A brief interlude about faith: I cement my understanding of the world on fact and reason; therefore, I necessarily set aside faith as a luxury that has no place in concrete intellectual concerns, and for this alone I make no apologies. Faith is, by definition, a belief in a premise without logical proof. Notice the definition does NOT say “a belief in something even though there may not be proof”, the language here is very specific. The lack of proof is necessary for faith to take hold, and I afford faith absolutely no domain in my life, for intellectual reasons.

The scope of arguments in which I find myself besieged and beleaguered include: the nature of my lack of faith, my personal beliefs regarding the lack of soul or lack of an afterlife, the overwhelming evidence supporting the fact of evolution versus the intellectually stunting and dangerously ignorant dogma of Biblical creationism (again, here, the definition is specific, as not to broadly insult or slight my friends. The facts, as few and far between as they may be, are thus:

1) The Earth is not 6000 years old. To turn a blind eye to the mountain of evidence that is supported by scientists and intellectuals belonging to every possible religious sect in the world requires either a staggering ignorance regarding the basic principles of the sciences concerned, a fabrication of amazing proportions (i.e., Satan planted fossils to throw modern scientists off the trail), or a leap in faith so wide it completely overshoots logic to the point of being absurd.
2) It is literally impossible for one man and one woman to populate the Earth to the extent in which we find modern populations. Explain the principles of genetics or biological reproduction to a child and they would tell you the same.
3) Thanks to the ongoing genome project, and advances in modern gene technology, we are capable of watching in near-real time the process of evolution taking place, both in model organisms as well as in our own phylogeny.

All of that aside, the most commonly created argument against my Atheism regards morality. It is, in fact, a two-pronged approach. The distillation of the argument goes:

A) If you weren’t raised in a religious background (or do not now consider yourself religious), how can you consider yourself moral? Where does your morality come from, if not from religion?

-and (this one, more frequently)-

B) If you don’t plan on raising your children to follow a specific sect, how can you possibly instill a sense of morality or ethical culpability in their impressionable young minds?

I was inspired to address this question after a conversation I had with a good friend last night, and I feel I’ve nailed down my response as well as I can at this moment. I find myself agreeing, for the most part, with Richard Dawkins, both in his books The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene. When he responds to an argument posited by Stephen Jay Gould, he writes:

Similarly, we can all agree that science's entitlement to advise us
on moral values is problematic, to say the least. But does Gould
really want to cede to religion the right to tell us what is good and
what is bad? The fact that it has nothing else to contribute to
human wisdom is no reason to hand religion a free license to tell us
what to do. Which religion, anyway? The one in which we happen
to have been brought up? To which chapter, then, of which book of
the Bible should we turn - for they are far from unanimous and
some of them are odious by any reasonable standards. How many
literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death
penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the
sabbath and for cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy
and Leviticus (as all enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do
we then decide which of religion's moral values to accept? Or
should we pick and choose among all the world's religions until we
find one whose moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask,
by what criterion do we choose? And if we have independent
criteria for choosing among religious moralities, why not cut out
the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the
religion?

In my estimation, this cuts directly to the quick of the argument. Who are the religious to attack the non-believers on the grounds of their morality? Where in the history of human evolution or social development has there been a structure that can be blamed for more hatred and bigotry than religion? In the years during the human age, whether they be measured by the thousands or the millions, religion has been the primary tool that has been used to excuse all the horrors that we have been forced to endure. As Dawkins puts it, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror”. I would ascribe most, if not all, of these attributes to religion in general. However, to say that I am extrapolating those qualities of the major religions to encompass all people supporting or ascribing to those religions is a fallacy that doesn’t merit a response. The point that is being made is simply: Who are the religious to act with prejudice or malice regarding secular morality, given their track record thus far? Or, as Bill Maher famously soliliquozes at the end of Religious: “If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers.”

Of course, to truly make a defense of my morality, it isn’t sufficient to merely attack the attackers. That is a policy that has resided for too long in the hands of the religious majority, and one that is only useful in tearing down another person, instead of building up oneself. My morality is based a simple ideal on which I feel ALL morality should be based: altruism. I believe in acting in a selfless manner, for others’ good, as well as for my own. It’s really that simple.

What astounds me, however, is the inability for certain people to accept the principles of altruism as an acceptable alternative to religion, Why is it so outlandish to accept that a child can be taught to “do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing”? Why does it seem to so many people that the only option for teaching morality is to fall back on a roughly 2000-year-old work of fiction? In a best-case scenario, the social rules and contracts drawn up in the Bible are marginally outdated, with little to no practical application in a modern society. The majority of the permanent and incendiary moral questions that are being debated nowadays weren’t even thought to be possibilities during the period of time in which the Bible was written. Which doesn’t even take into account the fact that the majority of the Bible is written in such vague terms that anyone can interpret the message to be for or against anything they want. This is why the Bible is being used even now as a defense for and against slavery, for and against abortion, for and against polygamy, domestic abuse, murder, etc. Interpretation can be used to justify or attack anything you want, there are no concrete truths when it comes to morality. The closest thing we come to a “concrete list of moral certainties”, the Decalogue, are just as weak.

The major world religions can’t agree on what they say. The Talmud lists the first four as declarations on how to worship God, establishing that he is jealous and insecure in his power. Many Christians consider “I am the Lord your God” as a preface, not as a commandment, as other groups do. Even commandments such as “Thou shall not kill” are up for interpretation. Some say the word “kill” actually means “murder”, because at the time, it was socially acceptable (and therefore, not punishable), to “revenge kill” a person who had killed a family member. The lines are muddled even in the “top ten”. Which brings me back to my original question: Did I really need a 2000-year-old work of fiction to tell me not to kill? Or to steal? Or to commit adultery? Obviously not. For whatever secular reason you want to use, “eye for an eye”, “social repercussion”, “golden rule”, “PUNISHMENT”, it doesn’t matter. If you really relied on such an old doctrine to tell you what’s right and wrong, without using any modern social cues or guidance, then there is a larger problem at stake.

In quick summation: I hope that my children will have inherited the integrity of character and intellectual fortitude from their mother and I that they are able to understand a basic premise such as “do the right thing”. And if they aren’t able to wrap their heads around the concept of being a good person for the sake of being a good person, I would hope that I wouldn’t find it necessary to rely on such a flawed and piecemeal list of partial millennia-old laws. I would be able to use my wife’s moral responsibility, as well as my own. I would use intellect, reason, and altruism to teach my children the difference between right and wrong, just as my parents used with me. To feel that my children were only doing the right thing because they were concerned about a series of ultimate rewards and punishments would make me feel like a failure as a parent, or at least as a moral compass.

My children will know to do the right thing, and not because they’re afraid of a God watching them at all times, like some over-indulged Santa Claus (whether they believe in that God or not); not because they’re concerned about their everlasting soul getting into heaven (whether they believe in one or not); not because they are worried about being punished in Hell (whether they believe in it or not). Not even because they are worried about going to prison, or letting down their parents, or looking bad in the eyes of their peers, or feeling ashamed, or having someone hurting them.

My children will do the right thing because they will be intelligent enough to understand the concept of “the right thing”. They won’t need to be coerced or bribed or punished or frightened or lied to or manipulated or condescended to as the major world religious do every day. They will be good people because their parents are. Period.

There are two ways in which scripture might be a source of morals
or rules for living. One is by direct instruction, for example through
the Ten Commandments, which are the subject of such bitter
contention in the culture wars of America's boondocks. The other
is by example: God, or some other biblical character, might serve as
- to use the contemporary jargon - a role model. Both scriptural
routes, if followed through religiously (the adverb is used in its
metaphoric sense but with an eye to its origin), encourage a system
of morals which any civilized modern person, whether religious or
not, would find - I can put it no more gently - obnoxious.
To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just
plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together
anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated,
distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors,
editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each
other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer
strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird
volume that religious zealots hold up to us as the inerrant source of
our morals and rules for living. Those who wish to base their
morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not under-
stood it, as Bishop John Shelby Spong, in The Sins of Scripture,
rightly observed.

frontier ruckus

also, because cross-promotion is the better part of valor:

rageahol

also.

i'm developing my own process for getting over my temper issues. the first step, i've found, is to do away with any euphemistic treatment of the matter. calling it "temper issues" or "short fuse" puts a cartoon face on it, that can be chuckled at and moved away from. and it is a much deeper and far less transient issue.

i'm incorporating elements from existing programs (/pogroms?) to try and relax the hell down. breathing exercises, meditation, introspection, frequent apologies. i would like people to point out when i'm being unreasonable, excitable, or exaggerating. my old policy of burn bridges now, swim later, is no longer appropriate. it's time to man up, calm down, react slowly with tact and grace, and rely more on my intelligence and less on my wit.

i'm sorry if i offended anyone, i promise i'm trying harder.

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word of the day: defenestrate: "the action of throwing something or someone out of a window".

mirrors and punctuation

It's a rare occurrence these days for me to fully know someone.

I'm having a hard time understanding why that is. Years ago, I felt that I could nail somebody down completely in a matter of weeks, tops. Now more and more I find myself saying "I just can't figure you out", or being utterly surprised at a friend's actions. The reasons seem to be multifaceted. Is it primarily because the people I'm associating with are intrinsically deeper than my crowd used to be? Could it be because I'm starting to understand the different layers and masks people surround themselves with better? Could the opposite be the case? Am I starting to understand people LESS than I was before?

Or could it be that I'm starting to understand myself less or more than I did? It's a confusing process, which is why I'm even more satisfied when I AM able to wrap somebody up into a neat little package. It's a breath of fresh air to not have to try and interpret an action or a word or a glance as something more than is actually there. Or to be able to predict with staggering accuracy the next action one of you make. So thank you, predictable friends. You're an rock. You're an island.

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I am having difficulty deciding whether or not i should abandon my life-long policy of refusing to capitalize the first-person "I". i started refraining back when I never capitalized anything... it seemed more aesthetically pleasing. No sharp corners. Rounded edges you could lay your head on. Punctuation failed to look so threatening; in fact, it became less a necessity and more of a luxury. words seemed to flow better between fractured sentences. Possibly because I was tending to write more, and spending less time editing. Edicts and diatribes were released as free-response yet coherent ramblings, with little or no thought as to what repercussions or reverberations they may have. Even now, when sentences begin with capitalized letters, they look like bookends to me. Periods become more definite and lasting. I'm not sure I support the structuring of my thoughts.

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listening to: Frontier Ruckus
looking at: Organic Chemistry