Just a little something before I disappear back into the void...

I just wanted everyone to know that Rob Crow, the lead singer, guitarist, fat guy, and principle creator of Pinback, a real kickass Math-lite melodic indie band from San Di-fucking-ego, is also the lead vocalist and guitarist of a band called Goblin Cock. For realsies.

I love you wikipedia.

Also, new Pinback album came out a month ago, but they have a (shitty) video up for one of their singles. Pretty damn good if you're into that kind of thing, though not their best song. Still a rather kickass album.


Also: If anyone on the planet is still ignorant of it, the new Radiohead album In Rainbows is available off the internet. For free. Just type in 0.00 when it asks you what you want to pay. Someone I know typed in "free", and the website gave him the finger. That's what you get for being a douchebag. Of course, being the audiophile I am, I pre-ordered the uber deluxe disc set with the album on a vinyl and an enhanced CD with eight (count 'em, eight) new songs you can't get off the download. Amazing.

Listening to both these bands in tandem is making me cream buckets of liquid gooey joy. Oh music, how I love thee.

Life is getting in the way of un-life.

I've had little alone time in the recent months, and thus little time to incessantly type on this profane machine you know as the interwebs. However, a mighty post is coming. It will blow throughout the land. Until then, however, I am too busy talking to real live humans to chronicle my own esoteric opinions. So much to do and so little time.

Shit, I haven't even masturbated in a month. Need to get on that.

Youthful Indiscretions: I Used To Prank Call Suicide Hotlines

I have probably killed myself 13 times, and it never ceased to be liberating, my tawdry routine reduced to a head wound victim bleeding out life's little bullshit. And yes, I do realize that I am King Asshole of the Universe right now, reigning over the lands of Douchbagia, but I'd rather reign in Unhygienic Feminine Products than serve in whatever the fuck is the opposite of that. Football? Golf? I'm not here to get into semantics.

If there was ever a question that I would go to hell, this soundly resolves it. I am going to be burning for eternity. But it was such a good ride.

If idle hands are the work of the devil, I should have given my hands something normal to do, like masturbate. While most kids kill time wanking it to women, I was constructing malicious social deviances. One of these was to prank call suicide hotlines.

Strangled by depression one fateful eve, I picked up the phone. I was lonely. I wanted someone to talk to. And what luck to find a business card for a toll free suicide hotline.

I grabbed this thread of hope dangling on the end of a telephone wire, and yanked hard.

Dialing...

Dialing...

Diali (*click*) "Suicide Prevention Center..."
Oh shit, I don't know what to say.
"...my name is Jason ********, how can I help?"
What the fuck should I say?
"Hello?"
I'm not suicidal I'm just lonely.
"Hello?"
Is it a crime to call without a real crisis?
"Hello, I'm here for you?"
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh
"HELLO?"
"Oh yeah. Ummm. Hi..." think quick think quick think "...I just took a bottle of..." what kills you what kills you "...sleeping pills. Give me a reason to live or I take another."
His voice is as steady as a dial-up connection, "Suicide is never an answer. What kind of pills were they?"
"...Green ones?"
"You need to contact your local hospital immediately. I'll be here for you. Where do you live, I can call an ambulance right now."
"Don't you have caller ID?"
Some humor seeped into his words, "Nah. It sucks. We got these shitty phones from like, the 80s. All these non profits can't afford fancy stuff like that. I can always #69 you, but I don't think we can even call out on these phones." Holy hell. I felt some pride for this organization. Though it may be entirely accidental, funding fopahs have rendered it completely anonymous.
"Thanks for that. No longer want to kill myself. Keep up the good work. Kudos to you sir, kudos!"
"Wait, don't y-" *click*

Jesus! I have stumbled upon something! This kind of knowledge in the wrong hands could topple the entire suicide help system. Shit! I am the wrong hands! What havoc can be wreaked upon these poor sods dishing out their time to help the hopeless.

I need to learn to work a payphone.

Dialing...

Dialing...

Diali (*click*) "Suicide Prevention Center..."
"HOLY HELL GET IT OFF ME. THE BATS ARE FUCKING EVERYWHERE."
"What!?"
"MY GOD MAN THEY'RE EVERYWHERE, EATING THE EYES OUT OF FINE NUCLEAR FAMILIES. SHIT MAN CALL THE AUTHORITIES."
"WHA-" *click*

I bolted out of the booth and waited for the cops, listening for the ring of a terrified woman sweating in a call center somewhere. The phone hung patiently. A taco and two joints later, it still rested, completely mute. No wailing of sirens and no flashing of badges. What a racket I have stumbled on.

Now aware of my complete impunity to retribution, that twisted chamber of imagination began chugging out smoking cocktails of anarchy. This...this was free form. This was fucking avant garde theatre at its finest.

With the stage set, and the actors recruited from my personal pool of social pariahs, the show could go on. I put on elaborate plays, great dramas of our time to the lucky volunteer, an audience of one. Tales of passion and romance, blood and betrayal were recited into the receiver, parts played to perfection. Popguns, firecrackers, washing boards, watermelons, and hacksaws were all privy to our performances, giving us the nuances of sound, shut doors and broken hearts. Our audience was apart of the show, urging Julia to give up on Matthew, to put down that blade, to let go of anger despair and regret.

And in this we too were healed, dying each night only to awake to a star beautifully apathetic to our rocky satellite.

Our grand experiment had to die. Life was catching up too quickly to us, phonebills infallible evidence of our disregard. I had to kill it.

Where is that phonebooth?

Dialing...

Dialing...

Why do they never pick up until the third ring?

Diali (*click*) "Suicide Prevention Center, my name is Sarah..."
"Hi Sarah. Listen. I've got a twelve gauge under my chin. You have sixty seconds to give me a reason to live or my brains become one with the wall."
She sounds a little panicked. "Killing yourself isn't going to solve anything. Death is a permanent solution to a temporary problem..."
"I'm not solving a problem. I said give me a reason to live, not a reason to not die. Forty six seconds left."
"Think of your friends and family, and how this will effect them..."
"I'm an orphan and all my friends were killed in a chemical fire. Thirty five seconds left."
"What about all the experiences you will miss: you won't travel the world, you won't have sex..."
"I'm confined to a wheelchair and I was castrated when I was four. Twenty three seconds."
"Suicide is a sin..."
"I don't believe in God."
"Jesus man, what do you want from me!"
"A reason to live."
"Well shit, I don't know what the fuck to say to that. Why don't we all just kill ourselves then!?"
"Because nothing matters."
"Huh?"
"There, I did your job for you. Nothing matters. We are free to create ourselves and overcome our world. Nothing matters, so everything matters." My words are cumbersome, indecipherable, but somewhere in there is an inkling of knowledge. "I'm dead. Times up. But yours isn't. What are you going to do with your life?"
"Ho-" *click*

I used to prank call Suicide Hotlines. They gave me hope. And reason. I may have abused the system, but they accomplished their purpose. I still have this day, willing and malleable to my ends. Fuck yeah.

America! Fuck Yeah!

Yesterday was September 11th, the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history. I always remember the day the same way, quietly rocking back in forth in the fetal position with an AR-15 clutched to my chest. Then the Feelings come, and they always come in two waves. First, the wave of euphoria and appreciation for my country. Then, the tides of hate and malice drown me in disgust, the bubbling froth of anguish filling my lungs. Every breath is a mouthful of anathema, of utter condemnation of all things human.

But today is the appreciation day! My hate will come tomorrow.
Here is the stuff that keeps my crank turning:

Free Speech (Fuck Yeah)!

Gun Rights (Fuck Yeah)!

Xbox (Fuck Yeah)!

Nice Tits (Fuck Yeah)!

Mario (Fuck Yeah)!

Plaid Jackets (Fuck Yeah)!

Kilts (Fuck Yeah)!

Cthulhu (Fuck Yeah)!

Bioshock (Fuck Yeah)!

Bajingos (Fuck Yeah)!

Subversive Books (Fuck Yeah)!

the Internet (Fuck Yeah)!

Blue Skies (Fuck Yeah)!

Nice Beaches (Fuck Yeah)!

Carnitas (Fuck Yeah)!

Shoegaze (Fuck Yeah)!

Punk Rock (Fuck Yeah)!

the Singularity (Fuck Yeah)!

Aerogel (Fuck Yeah)!

Nanotech (Fuck Yeah)!

1337 h4x (Fuck Yeah)!

Zach Braff (Fuck Yeah)?

Ed Norton (FUCK YEAH)!

a Datsun 280zx (FUUUCK YEEAAAH)!

Ron Paul (Fuck Yeah)!

Barack Obama (Fuck Yeah)!

Ethinic Diversity (Fuck Yeah)!

Burritos (Fuck Yeah)!

Comic Books (Fuck Yeah)!

Fender Mustangs (Fuck Yeah)!

Single Coils (Fuck Yeah)!

Humbuckers (Fuck Yeah)!

Smart Girls (Fuck Yeah)!

Ethnically Diverse Tits (FUCK YEAH)!

Jon Stewart (Fuck Yeah)!

Stephen Colbert (Fuck Yeah)!

Genetic Engineering (Fuck Yeah)!

Super Colliders (Fuck Yeah)!

Swords (Fuck Yeah)!

.357 Magnum (Fuck Yeah)!

Anarchy (Fuck Yeah)!

Dischordianism (Fuck Yeah)!

Ralph Nader (Fuck Maybe)!

and the hope that they will one day make a sequel to Grandia that is better than the original.

May deities bless you America. Now I'm gonna go ride around town in my Datsun 280zx firing my 9mm wildly into the air while eating mexican food off my Dungeons and Dragons character sheets.

God and Politics: Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate, Except Horrible

The United States of America was created for two reasons: King George III was a dick, and we didn't like paying taxes on tea. But once that was over, our Founding Fathers realized that we could get something good out of this country. Then we got our constitution on, a document I think we can all agree is pretty swell. We did not found this country on religious freedom as some would lead you to believe. The colonies founded by the pilgrims were established because English protestantism was seen as too loose by those particular uptight assholes, but most of the original colonies were founded as profit ventures for companies. Of course the Founding Fathers, or Kickass Old Guys as I like to call them, realized that England had meddled in the past with religious affairs, so they tried to ensure that politics was kept out of religion. Now in the 21st century, we are no longer concerned with politics meddling with God, we are concerned with God infiltrating politics.


Indeed, politics and religion have become like two parasites, feasting on the shit of the other. The Republican party was first to exploit the fundamentalist sects of America for political gain, resulting in a party now more concerned with stem cells and what gays do in the privacy of their own home than, you know, issues that actually matter. Yes, I'm sure in a world stricken with poverty and infested with violence, the first thing we should do is stop legitimate scientific endeavors and dudes that like it in the ass. Jesus would want it that way.

Now we have a president that sincerely believes in the Rapture. This guy believes that when the Jews start a trailer park in Palestine, America and Iran are going to have a showdown at Armageddon, resulting in carnage enough to fill a valley with blood. Then Jesus shows up saying, "whoa whoa guys, hold on. I'm back. Chill out."

Seriously. I am not making this shit up.

With people so devoutly entrenched in the gospel of crazyland, it's hard to see how this won't effect foreign and domestic policy. Hell, it already has affected policy. We've got people advocating the teaching of creationism in schools. We're balls deep in bullshit in the middle-east. We have our own propaganda network. Look at Fox News. Fox news is Al Jazeera for white people. America has a 24-hour news station dedicated to pushing a far right wing christian agenda. What the fuck. If George Washington's corpse were reanimated and armed with all the powers of the 2nd Amendment, he would put a bullet hole in the ass of American Politics so big the fucking Canadians would feel it.

I am a terrible person for laughing at this.

Church and State sleeping together does nothing but riddle American culture with the STDs of extremism. Big fat, bloated boils of fundamentalist religion are oozing off the twisted member of freedom. And within those leaking pustules resides the goo of intolerance. We already hate Muslims, and we only like the Jews for their involvement in the coming apocalypse and their aptitude in accounting. America is being corrupted by religion and those that would exploit it. America is becoming Iran for chrissake.

In the muslim world, politics and religion are the exact same. Identical. The only secularists that rule in the middle-east are dictators. When given democracy, the people vote for religious radicals. And their batshit fuck loco leaders believe in their own bullshit rapture. They believe that once Israel is a smoking crater, Iran and America fight at some other prophetic location, and the conflict is ceased by the second coming of imam, or the easter bunny, or whatever fluffy anthropomorphic deity they pray to. Then everybody comes back to life and rocks out with their cocks out for eternity in heaven. In order to achieve this aim, one must embrace our glorious leaders, then strap a bomb to our chest and blow up some fried chicken joint in the middle of bum-fuck alabama. Or maybe snag some C4 and take out your local fish n' chips stop. Either way, the taint of delicious, grease filled capitalist food must be destroyed to usher in the new age.

This is what happens when the lies of politics mix with the deceit of religion. Our favorite eateries get torn up by some guy that has never experienced the pleasure that is pork.

May we as a species escape the vice like grip of fundamentalism, lest our tastiest treats be sacrificed to the gods of absurdity.

Now I'm hungry. For Freedom.

Religion as Rebellion: God is the new Hot Topic

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Getting Political: Fundamentalists Make Me Glad I Don't Believe in All This God Bullshit

If you didn't catch the three part CNN special God's Warriors by Christiane Amanpour, you probably missed out on the most intelligent, enlightening, and inadvertently terrifying piece of journalism that has come out of the mainstream media in the last eight years. An investigation into the fundamentalist sects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the report detailed extremist groups and their unique takes on the religious crusade.

Whenever I learn something new, I feel like I have to celebrate my fresh wisdom with discourse. In honor of this, I will be posting a series of blag entries to detail my feelings about religion, both moderate and radical, in its relation to a variety of topics. This is hardly a grand undertaking, since I can talk out my ass with the pros, but I hope it will prove at least marginally interesting to all three of my readers. How did you even find this site? It's not like I'm making it easy for you.

As my first post on the topic, I feel like you should know where I'm coming from. I'm an Atheist, but certainly don't fancy these new fangled neo-atheists, or as I like to call them, Evangelical Atheists, these mother fuckers that can't stomach the idea that someone may disagree with them. Richard Dawkins can go fuck himself. Whats up with all this Meme shit anyway? And this whole "Coming Out" campaign? You mean to tell me that instead of holding my own convictions private, I should publicly proclaim my beliefs and berate those that don't agree with me? I didn't realize that being an Atheist was synonymous with being a dick. Also, if I see you wearing these shirts around town, I swear to God I will be disappointed in you.

Protip: The A stands for "Asshole"

On to my origins. My own personal experiences with religion are neither heartbreaking, nor heartwarming, nor all that exciting. When I was young my parents brought me to church for a few boring hours, I would drink my Juice brand Juice Box, and scamper between the pews to get to the bathroom in time. Not all that special. When I got home, I would tear off my stuffy clothes and dive right into Sonic the Hedgehog accompanied by delicious chicken teriyaki. I remember one day, we just stopped going to church (the same time as my parents divorce) and I was pleased as the dickens to have Sunday mornings empty and free for my own dalliances. Riding bikes around the block, surfing at the beach, playing Mechwarrior 2 until Kerensky came home. Those were good times. Although I still held a belief in God, I was not at all active in his pursuit. I knew the ten commandments in the same way I know all 150 Pokemon, less as dogma and more as trivia. As I grew older, the basic idea of a God seemed natural. It was there since I was born, and I assumed it always has been. Although me and my family were officially Presbyterian, nobody really went to church and I only read the bible between BattleTech and whatever bullshit E-Z Reader crap my parents were trying to force me into. No, I don't give a shit about Spot, nor do I give a shit about Timmy winning the fucking baseball game. I would much rather be reading over the trials of Frodo and the Fellowship as they journeyed to destroy the one ring. The precocious reader that I was, my family eventually capitulated to the fact that I really don't need to be stifled by the basics. While most kids were watching Thomas the Tank Engine and Barney the Homosexual Dinosaur, I was engaged by Jedi, the starship Enterprise, and Babylon 5.

Even so, my belief in a God never waned, in fact it was strengthened by Tolkien's none so subtle allegory. Then my mother decided it was time to go back to church. Now I could actually digest the sermon, and was struck with a nausea familiar to practitioners of seppuku. None of what this guy was saying felt right. And I don't mean to imply that through my unequivocal powers of deductive reasoning that I, as an 8 year old, managed to sort through this god bullshit. Rather, I was just unnerved by what he was saying. I need Jesus to feel loved? I need a personal connection with God to save my self from the evil's of this world? What the hell is up with all this eternal damnation stuff? Wait, everyone I know will be forever forsaken by God simply because they do not believe in this crock of shit you're spouting? I call bullshit. Being subjected to the preacher corrupted my rather benign view of God. God had changed from a good natured omnipotence with voyeuristic tendencies to a vindictive prick. But I still believed. I guess I just had it wrong. This guy knows all about this God stuff, it's like his job or something.

I stopped going to church when I learned to say "no". I naively misunderstood the implications of such an all-knowing asshole, thinking of him as just a big-ole-doody head. Then I became a teenager.

It all seemed to click for me in 2002. Some political speech was on Fox, with some guy yammering on about how God is on our side so on and so forth. But something caught my ear. He was saying that God wanted us to kill terrorists. I'm no theologian, but I distinctly remember there being something about not killing in the bible. I think it was on a big fucking stone tablet given to Moses by a burning bush. And I don't think it said, "don't kill unless..." I think it said don't kill. I think it said: Thou shalt not kill. Actually, it said: You shall not murder. But whatever, the concept seems simple, don't fucking kill. Easy enough. Yet this man makes a statement that hey, we should fucking kill.

I am noticing a contradiction.

Epiphany. Humans are fallible. God does not own a typewriter. Therefore, the Bible was written by Humans interpreting the messages of self-proclaimed prophets, who were also Human. So what we have here is not some divine doctrine from OUTER SPAAAAACE!!!! It is the voice of men that thought they could make the world better by saying hey, don't be a douche. Others said: Why? They said: ...isn't it obvious? Others said: No. They said: Ummm...an invisible man will kick the shit out of you if you don't.

And the world was saved.

Or was it?

BUM BUM BAH!

Tune in next time for another edition of: Wow what the hell is wrong with fundamentalists?

Next Episode: Religion as Rebellion, The Recruitment of the Young