I suggest that if you have a problem with some of the things I have written here that you e-mail me about them. I'm always open for some intelligent discourse and conflict of opinion. I just ask that you note my use of the word intelligent before you send anything my way. Either that or just leave and go be offended by yourself because I quite frankly don't like people who whine unintelligently. This is my page. These are my opinions. If you can't laugh at yourself then you need to get a grip.
Rant #1 : The Jesus movie and the Jesusantic...
"Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded." -Feodor Dostoyevsky in Notes from Underground.
Here's the part where Matt becomes Siskel and Ebert.
Overall, I was really unimpressed with this movie. Plot aside, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with narcolepsy and certainly not to anyone who puts any thought into what they believe. Frankly, the effects weren't very "special". I would think that for the son of Yaweh himself that they could have cranked some dough out for this thing. For example, I'll describe a scene from the movie in my flowery prose. Jesus is walking around with his arms stretched out (he does that a lot; I think it was probably early signs of Parkinson's Disease) and he comes upon this old, smelly blind guy who's sort of hunched over and wearing these filthy rags. His eyes look really gross (no, not really... it looked like they put slices of Tupperware over them to make them look diseased) and Jesus, being the phat savior that he is, puts his thumbs on the man's eyes. Literally on the edge of my seat, I watched as Jesus looked towards the sky, said a few words to Dad, the camera flipped away to a shot of clouds and when it came back the man had normal eyes. Oh come ON! I mean, it's completely obvious that they just slapped some contacts on this boob and then had Jesus put his hands on his face, the camera pans away, the contacts are removed and then it shows him cured. Okay, if they wanted to make a stop motion movie about the son of god then why the hell didn't they just slap a beard on Gumby and have him running around curing people. Pokey could be the virgin mary and Mr. Bill could be Pontius Pilate. It would have at least been more entertaining that way. I wonder what color blood Gumby has....
Another huge problem I had with this movie is that it claims to be the most accurate depiction of the life of Christ to date, yet... there isn't a SINGLE person who isn't white in the whole damn movie! Uhh... Middle East *check*, long time ago *check*, lots of sand *check*, a few camels *check*, robes and sandals *check*, no black people *what the HELL?*. I mean... I can't find the words for this sort of thing sometimes... I'll just let that issue go right here.
Matty's Solution!!!
You all know what the biggest blockbuster movie of the year was right? No... not The Man Who Knew Too Little... but Titanic. *pause so all the women can get tissues and let their crying fits pass*. I honestly didn't really see what the big deal was about this movie. I mean, I'm a big fan of epic stories and stuff, but it's one of those movies I see once and never need to see again. It operates on only one level. I'll never be able to get anything else from it by watching it again (with the exception of a date making out with me during the movie because she thinks I'm sensitive for wanting to watch it). There's relatively little depth to it in my opinion. I couldn't get into any of the characters because they just seemed too contrived to me.
The Dude: Typical peasant with a good heart, dreams bigger than the world, and an incredibly attractive face.
The Wench: A spoiled rich girl whose soul is dissatisfied with only her material things, she's been betrothed to some shmuck who no one likes, she's a really cool person deep inside, and she's got a nice rack.
The Villian: Devilishly handsome gentleman with a ton of money and a thing for the wench. He also has a vendetta for the dude because he is a peasant with no material possesions, yet the wench still wants to jump his bones. Basically, the villian feels that his phallus department is lacking that certain "umph". For the first time in his life, he is encountering a problem which his wealth cannot solve and he must get revenge at all costs. The audience is supposed to hate this guy, but for some reason I thought he had the most substance of any of the characters and he was the one I related to the most... relatively speaking.
This is a recipe for love I guess... albeit a flaccid one, but give me a break. It's been done before. Now it's been done on a sinking ship. *yawn* BUT! I will say this for it. Titanic had some KILLER special effects. I mean a huge sinking boat, people bouncing off props, heavy things crushing people, lots of water, spitting, gratuitous breast shots... the whole nine yards. All I could say about them was... wow. Those effects were incredible.
Now here's what I propose. Why don't the people who made the Jesus movie get on the phone to James Cameron and the other people who made Titanic and get them to build another Titanic model ship and then they could just film the Jesus movie from the Titanic! I mean, I was talking earlier about how Titanic was just the same generic love story except on a sinking cruise ship... and the cruise ship aspect of it is what made it such a success! We all know there's no story more generic and overplayed than the story of the life of Christ, so I think it's about time for a fresh, modern interpretation of how he lived and died. If it worked for Leonardo, I think it could work for "el saviorrrrrr" as well.
Just imagine the possibilities this movie has! Jesus in his flowing robes down in the third class cabin with all the other poor men and women, would be preaching the gospel and curing the sick. He could provide the wine and food for them if they get hungry and hope for them when their faith is faltering. I haven't even mentioned the possibilities the special effects team has with the miracles Jesus could perform. They could have him doing all sorts of cool stuff. He could sew the ship back together... naw, the sinking was actually the best part, but they could have him try and patch up the hole in the side of the boat with a school of fish he makes. He could jump down onto the water and check out the damage since he can walk on it and stuff. Plus, we'd get to see an aspect of Jesus's life that we've never seen before. Jesus as a lover. I'm sure he'd be able to spit a whole hell of a lot further than Leonardo and I think his beard would probably turn more women on. Besides... who can top the son of god as a lover? I think even Leonardo would agree that he pales in comparison. And finally... perhaps the greatest advantage the Jesusantic would have over its predecessor is the fact that it would have a pretty happy ending. I mean, sure masses of innocent people would die in the frigid waters at the end and of course you've got to sacrifice a few to the prop (because that part is really cool), but when Jesus bites it at the end no one would be crying because he'd be back in three days anyway! Think of it! All the guys have seen a veritable special effects extravaganza while the women have seen a mainstream love story where no one you care about dies... for very long anyways. It would make millions... e-mail me if you've got the funding to get this project off the ground because I'll get to work on the screenplay as soon as I get the go signal from someone.
Side Note: After I wrote this, I came across something funny in the school paper which sort of had to do with this. I don't know who to give credit to for it, but it's too funny not to put on this page. Enjoy.
(Scene 1)
KATE WINSLET: Why, this is a fancy boat, isn't it?
KATE'S WEASLY FIANCEE: Yes, it certainly is. Here is the art you asked for. It's by an artist named 'Picasso.' I am certain he will amount to nothing.
KATE: Ha ha ha. That is very funny to our '90s audience, because of course Picasso later amounted to quite a bit, after this boat sank.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: Hello, I'm Leonardo DiCaprio. Perhaps you have seen the many Internet sites dedicated to the worship of me. You are very pretty.
KATE: Thank you. So are you.
LEONARDO: I know. Prettier than you, in fact. I am going to put on my 'brooding' face now, to ensure that women will keep coming back again and again to see this movie. Later, my white shirt will be soaking wet.
KATE: While you're doing that, I will concentrate on standing here and looking pretty, to keep the men in the audience interested until the boat sinks and people start dying.
WEASELLY FIANCEE: Excuse me. I do not like you, Leonardo, even though you saved my fiancee's life. I am going to sneer at you and treat you like dirt because you're poor, and then I'll probably be physically abusive to my fiancee, and then, just to make sure the audience really hates me, and to make sure my character is entierely one-dimensional, perhaps I'll throw an elderly person into the water.
AUDIENCE: Boo! We hate you! Even though all real people have at least a few admirable qualities, we have not been shown any of yours, and plus, you're trying to come between Leonardo and Kate, and so therefore we hate you! Boo! (Even though technically it's Leonardo who is coming between you and Kate. But Leonardo is handsomer than you, even though he is only 13, so we are on his side. Boo!)
(Scene 2)
LEONARDO: I'm glad we snuck away like this so that you could cheat on your fiancee.
KATE: So am I. Even though I am engaged to him and have made a commitment to marry him, that is no reason why you and I cannot have sex together. The fact that I am the heroine of the movie will no doubt help the cattle-like audience to forgive me of this, though they would probably be VERY angry indeed if my fiancee were to do the same thing to me.
AUDIENCE: Damn straight we would! Moo! We mean, Boo!
LEONARDO: I agree. First I would like to draw you, though, so of course you will have to take off all your clothes.
KATE: All right, then. (sound of clothes hitting the floor)
(Scene 3)
FIRST MATE: Captain, we're about to hit an iceberg.
CAPTAIN: Great, I could use some ice for my drink. (sound of drinking)
ICEBERG: (hits boat)
FIRST MATE: That can't be good.
AUDIENCE: (slience)
FIRST MATE: That was irony, you fools.
AUDIENCE: Baa! Moo! Where's Leonardo?
(Scene 4)
LEONARDO: I have been informed that this boat is sinking.
KATE: That is terrible.
LEONARDO: Would you like to engage in some more immoral-but-justified behavior?
KATE: Certainly.
WEASLLY FIANCEE: Excuse me, I -
AUDIENCE: Boo! Boo!
WEASLLY FIANCEE: (aside) I'm getting the raw end of the deal here. (to Leonardo) Listen, Leonardo, to cement my morally-dubious-yet-somehow-less-annoying-than-you personality, I am going to handcuff you to this pipe, here in a room that will soon be filling with water, due to the fact that we are sinking, which I believe has been mentioned previously.
LEONARDO: Why don't you just shoot me?
WEASLLY FIANCEE: Because then you wouldn't be able to excape and save Kate from me. Of course, you're going to die anyway -
AUDIENCE: Don't spoil it for us! Boo!
LEONARDO: He's right, though. I am doomed.
AUDIENCE: Aww, look how cute he is when he's doomed.
WEASELLY FIANCEE: I hate you people.
(Scene 5)
150-YEAR-OLD KATE: And that's when Leonardo rescued me from my evil finacee and helped me float on a board in the water. Of course, if it hadn't been for having to rescue HIM, I could have gotten on an actual lifeboat, and not frozen my legs nearly off. Anyway, he's pretty much dead now, and I'm well over a thousand years old, and who's making my supper? I need a bath. Turn down that Enya music, it's making my ears hurt. You kids today, with your loud music. Why, when I was - hey! Don't you walk away from me, Mr. Snooty-Patootie! I'd turn you over my knee, if I had one. I'll beat you in the head iwth this huge diamond! Come back here! (Fade to black; roll credits; play annoying Celine Dion song.)
Rant #2 : The Dapper Gap Guy
"Beggars . . . should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them." -Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Rant #3 : Sorority Girls *not for the faint of heart
"There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it." -Mark Twain in Notebook.
It all started when I was sitting in this very chair doing god knows what on my computer. I was probably playing video games or something mundane like that, but whatever it was that I was doing, I was fairly engrossed in it. So I'm sitting here, and all of a sudden I start to hear the blare of car horns outside my open window followed by the cheering of a gaggle of girls. It didn't take me long to figure out what it was because this kind of stuff has gone on outside my rooms here at school since I arrived 2 years ago. Periodically throughout the year, the sorority girls on campus will form these incredibly well organized motorcades that drive around campus making noise. That's what this was. It was a bunch of sorority girls driving in some sort of Jeep Cherokee motorcade cheering because... I don't know... one of their sisters had a boob job or something. I really don't know why they were doing it and furthermore I don't care. Frankly, it kind of pissed me off and as I thought about it more and more I got rather angry. I just don't understand why I have to be subjected to it. There's a reason I don't hang out with those people and it's because I don't like them. I don't subject them to pieces of my life that don't need to be shared and I really wish they wouldn't subject me to theirs. They're shallow and stupid. Things that matter to them are clothes, boys and beer and I don't want to hear about any of them. I don't want to know about their stupid pledges or their rush skits or how philanthropic their cause is. They're here so that frat guys can have someone to bone. They accommodate erections. They're like cupholders in a car, just there to hold something while you're driving. I don't like what they stand for. I'm sure there are a lot of nice sorority girls out there, but the whole system is barbaric. It's a meat market... at least it is here anyways. If any of you reading this are, in fact, sorority girls then I'm sorry. I'm not sorry if you're offended, but I'm sorry that you're a sorority girl and you've had to pay for your friends.
Anyway, so I'm just sitting here as this five minute motorcade drives by with all these girls and since I couldn't see them, I was just picturing what this parade of cars looked like. I could see all these shiny, new cars and sports utility vehicles driving by with windows down and girls hanging out all over the place cheering. These vacant, vacuous, bleach blonde, silicone infested shells of people just driving around annoying the hell out of people. Right at that moment I wanted to see the first car of that motorcade flip over for one reason or another. I didn't want to see it roll or swerve, I wanted to see that shiny SUV get all four wheels off the ground and spin about 20 times before it smacked into the ground. Maybe the driver saw a J. Crew catalog or something in the middle of the road and swerved to miss it, but I just wanted to see this expensive luxury vehicle barrel rolling in slo-mo through the air flinging girls left and right out the windows and the sunroof, horn blaring all the while. Then all the other girls, too preoccupied with their hooting and showing off their breasts to notice, would just keep driving, piling up one car at a time into the huge flaming wreckage. The cars would ignite amidst the screaming of these girls as they tried to pick up their arms and legs and move to safety. But before any of them can make it, the combined mass of hairspray and beauty products would catch fire igniting a noxious ball of flames in a window shattering explosion. It would be heard for miles around. Girls are flung for hundreds of feet. Some are stuck in trees or draped over the gravestones in the graveyard. Some haven't even landed yet.
I'd get up from my computer, go get my buddies from across the hall, grab my jacket and some marshmallows and we'd head outside to get a view of the carnage. We'd just kind of stroll nonchalantly up to the molten mass and survey the area, our theme music playing in the background. I don't know how, but there would be theme music... this is my fantasy dammit... leave me alone. There's still quite a bit of shrieking and popping of silicone implants going on, but it doesn't bother us too much. Then, we'd yank out some marshmallows and light them up on some smoldering face. We'd say some incredibly witty things too, "hey, you got something on your face." "Love that perfume you're wearing! What is it?" "Hey babe, now that you have no eyes or face... do I have a chance?" After we had our fill of eating, we'd hop into Mike's car, a beat up old Subaru station wagon left unscathed by the explosion nearby, and fire it up. After backing out and pointing the car in the right direction, Mike would hit the accelerator with the car in neutral to rev the engine as we all roll down our windows, take a seat on the ledges and begin to hoot obnoxiously pumping our fists in the air. Then, all of a sudden, he'd pop the car into drive and we'd take off like Evil Kinevil down a dragstrip and just plough through the burning wreckage. Of course we'd emerge on the other side unscathed without a single singe on our clothes. The only evidence of our stunt would be a couple of implants, some lips and a nose stuck to the windshield. We'd just crank up the wipers and head of to a bar to get drunk..... that's something I'd like to see.
Rant #4 : Stupid People
"To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime. To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn't." -Primo Levi in Other People's Trades.
But I digress. So I'm going to go and get a glass of water from the fountain past his room and he sort of flops his head up on his shoulders and says, "I'ngonnapeenow" in one word. I was like, "Okay man. Do what you gotta do." But at this point I thought he was just letting me in on his planned trip to a urinal somewhere in the near future. But, as I passed his door on my way to the fountain, I heard the sound of running water and I came to the realization that this guy was letting loose right there, in the hallway, in front of all these gorgeous women. Would anyone else out there be pissed off (no pun intended) or is it just me? Here's my reasoning. Here's a guy that hasn't even mastered a skill most kids have when they reach the ripe old age of 5 yet, he's got not just one, but multiple attractive women, also over the age of 5, in his room while he pees in front of them. All I heard one of them say was, "That's really gross. The bathroom's right next door."
I mean... this kind of thing really tests my faith in humanity sometimes. I know I'm no great catch, but I can basically guarantee any girl that I'm interested in that I will never, even if we are married for 50 years, pee on a floor in front of her. I may be lacking something as a "lover", but good grief. Plus it's not like he's the only one who has to live on this floor. I have to walk down that damn hall every day and now I can't even have the peace of mind to set foot out of my room without some shoes made of asbestos because he decided to empty 3 gallons of alcoholic urine onto the carpet outside his door. Frankly, Cindy Crawford could be standing outside my door in crotchless panties with no bra on and if she squatted down and took a leak at my door, I can say that would probably kill my image of her just a little bit. Is intelligence that overrated? Is it really that easy to get women in your room? Not that those women were any great prize, I'm sure. I mean, basically it was just stupid, attractive people having sex. That's the way I see it anyways.
It's these kinds of people that cause the mass murders at McDonald's and the post office where some guy sets off multiple, fully-automatic rifles equipped with hollow point bullets. I don't think that the stupid ones are actually the people committing these crimes, mind you, becuase frankly I don't think this guy could figure out which way to hold a gun. But if I had to work with someone as utterly incompetent as that every single day of my life, 8 hours a day, 365 days a year for any amount of years I'd consider an execution with a gun kind of mild. And you're damn right if I got fired from a job where there were people like that working there while they maintained thier blissfully ignorant lifestyles unscathed, then I'd really go off. I'm talking napalm and torture techniques here folks.
Plus, I was pissed off because I don't understand how someone like that could even get into this school. Even more than how was the question why? I don't consider myself to be a massive elitist scum or anything, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. There are millions of people in America getting second rate educations and not going to college because they can't afford it, meanwhile you've got rich little frat boy and his three bubble-headed, nymphomaniac bimbos literally pissing away an education their parents paid money for them to get. Then you've got kids trying to get out of the hellish lives they lead unsuccessfully, and we have the nerve to blame them for the high crime rate and lack of motivation!?! No, no, no, no... that's not right. You want to see where the problem is? Look at where the power lies. This kid who was literally peeing in the halls last night will probably graduate eventually, secure some semblance of a job and live fatly on his father's amassed fortune in Cape Cod. That's where the problem is. He can snort coke and smoke pot the entire four years he's at school here and he'll probably graduate simply because of his parents' money. There's no way this school, amidst a purely capitalist society, would turn down the chance to suck some more money out of his family. Plus if he gets a decent degree and secures a six-figure job where all he has to do is push a button, that means some new buildings for the campus. We've got people who want to be educated and people who want to get ahead in the world but they can't because they don't have the money. So they rot in slums, trailer parks and projects all over the country while the circle of the upper class remains as intact as it ever was. I say that we don't point the finger at a single group of people until we've walked in their shoes and I think I can safely say that I've walked in the shoes of the guilty.
"And, re-assembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend." -Satan in Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Rant #5 : Televangelists
"You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength." -Charlotte Brontė in Jane Eyre.
I was up a few nights ago, as I'm accustomed to being, and I was flipping through late night television. I ran across this guy named Robert Tilton. Now... I realize that faith in a higher power is a big thing for some people, but the way this guy uses people's weaknesses to further his business, yes they are weaknesses and yes it is a business, makes me sick. Basically what this guy does is gets in front of a camera every day or every week and talks about God. Then after numerous minutes of gesturing and melodramatic prose, he shows produced stories of faith using real people. The particular story that I watched last night was one of a woman, recently divorced and out of work. She had two daughters and they were living on welfare. Eventually, the story told, her lack of a job and her status on welfare made her become depressed. Now let's stop here for a second in the story and notice the way they choose to tell it. They never once speak of God as the source of her depression, but her divorce, drug problem and welfare as the cause of her despair. They never speak of how her misery plays into God's scheme of things. Now, this woman gets on the television and begins to talk about seeing Robert Tilton on television "preaching the gospel". He was telling a story, according to her, about a poor widow that she immediately connected with. Here's what shocked me though... it showed her in the next scene writing a check to Robert Tilton! Hello?! A minute ago we had a drug addict with two children on welfare and now we've got someone who can afford to send money to Tilton's ministries. I can't believe that people, religious or not, see this and aren't completely disgusted! Of course, with her "vow of faith" as he likes to call it, her life turned around. Here is where God begins to take credit in Mr. Tilton's little tale of woe. All of a sudden, she is looking through the paper and finds a job in the classifieds as a hairdresser. A job which, apparently, was made available to her via the big guy. Umm... maybe it's just me, but the classifieds aren't a new thing. What, did she think that the classifieds magically appeared when she wrote the check? I'm not really sure, but here was yet another story of a "lost sheep" reeled in by this depraved business.
Now, don't mistake me here. What upsets me is not the whole religion aspect of this little rant, because if people want religion they can go to any church for free and receive the same spiritual help they are looking for. That's a different issue altogether. What upsets me is the sheer genius of the business Robert Tilton has created. Just think about it. Stories of people who have nothing and I mean nothing sending money they don't have to this guy and their life turns around. So, Tilton has the best of both worlds because the way he makes it sound is that these people have nothing because of some immense character flaw of their own, not the almighty, all powerful God he raves about. He exploits their lack of self esteem and attributes every problem in their lives to a fault of their own, but he provides a simple solution to their problems. So, by writing a check for money they don't have, they are forced into a situation where they must get off their butts and do something. And because of this check they have written, they have done something that they would not typically do, or maybe they do typically do it, I'm just providing a hypothetical scenario. They have challenged the state of their lives by doing something that they cannot afford to do. So, it's either a sink or swim situation the way I see it. Either they'll get a job, pay the check and surprise themselves by actually swimming or they will sink deeper into despair, lose their phones, homes, televisions and sink into oblivion. So, now the people swimming are swimming on their own, but Mr. Tilton attributes it to God. God has brought them from their depths of despair. So, they are still unconfident with themselves, but now they are swimming, much to their dismay, and think that in order to stay afloat they must keep giving their hard earned money to "Tha Lord-a" or he will take their new found prosperity away. It's sheer genius. I just have a conscience and couldn't do that to people in need. He's got them hooked for life. "You can't live on yesterday's blessings. God wants to give you a new car," Tilton says.
"You've got to give him some seed to sew." he says. "Where is your level of faith? Is it a thousand dollars?" he asks. "'We were broke, we didn't have a thousand dollars.' But they had faith!" he says with emotion. Why? What the hell does God need money for? What can he possibly buy that he doesn't already have? I mean, does Microsoft make some sort of "Stained Glass Windows 98" or something? Does a Rolex tell time that well that God needs one too? Oh yeah... it's probably so that Mr. Tilton can have a fresh new suit and brand new cameras to film his lies and deception. "I like to have nice things to give my children," he says. People like this guy give Pastors, Preachers and free thinking Christians a bad name. If people used a book that I found holy and deeply meaningful to lure the weak into their budget, I'd be just a little bit peeved. Hell, I'd be making a cross out of my bed with Tilton's name on it.
I suppose this is common knowledge to everyone else, probably kind of like how professional wrestling is not actually real. But it absolutely amazes me. They've got everything down to such a science on that program! Right down to the Bible verses they choose to use and the tongues Mr. Tilton seems to blurt out. "Caba-ha-shaktah," and other rediculous baby-talk. They seem to carefully script and construct the words he uses because the same words are used in every sentence, they're just rearranged. Words like "vow", "faith" and "thousand dollars" are all used very closely together and they're quite often interchanged so that they seem to mean the same thing. I can easily see how people who are utterly desperate are mesmerized by something which seems to provide so much structure in their lives.
Well, I guess the entire picture of why this is so upsetting to me is that it stands in stark contrast with everything I believe. I have had some bad times before, granted I wasn't on welfare with a drug habit, but I've had some times where I felt utterly alone and desolate. But what I've found, through experience, is that I have the power within me to pick myself up by the bootstraps and make things work in my favor. That's why Tilton upsets me so much because he takes that experience away from people. He takes that experience, the experience I find so vital to my well being, and attributes it to God and his own ministries. I wish that the people in these stories could see that they are the ones turning their lives around. Their willpower is getting them the jobs, their willpower is getting them better homes and their willpower will continue to allow them to succeed. Just like there is no five day weight loss plan that actually works for more than a few weeks, Tilton's ministries do not provide any type of financial solution. He's taking the human spirit and our natural tendency to strive for survival and putting a dollar sign in front of it. Basically, he's marketing evolution; the survival of the fittest. Faith is a powerful thing and Tilton takes the faith of those people, faith that could be placed in themselves, and places it on himself. To me, that is a travesty. He has robbed them of their final possesion and for that he is the scum of the Earth.
"As you preach and I bless them, their tithe will pay your bills Robert." said God to the televangelist.
Rant #6: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell by Marilyn Manson
"The manner in which Americans 'consume' music has a lot to do with leaving it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles, like the score of a movie--it's consumed that way without any regard for how and why it's made." -Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book.
Well, I broke down and bought his
book and now I've read it. I suppose some of you are
amazed that I would do such a thing, but quite frankly I
don't think a whole lot of people eager to criticize
Marilyn Manson for what he says and does have ever really
listened to any of his cd's or heard anything he has to
say. Although I am shocked by some of the things he has
done on stage and some of the lyrics in his album, I
think that is his point. I don't think he's out there
putting out cd's to coax millions of small children into
Satanic rituals, I just think he is just screaming for
America to put some thought into what they believe and
perceive as the truth.That aside, I was disappointed with his book. I mean, first of all he wrote his own biography which is a testament to how self absorbed he can be at times. I also didn't feel like he wrote it for his fans. The book mainly consisted of stories of all the drugs he had done, women he'd done and outrageous things he'd done backstage at shows under the influence of drugs. Quite frankly, I expected a little more intelligence from him in his writing of this book. I really don't care about how big of a drug addict he is and in fact, his stories of drug use kind of disappointed me. Not that I think drug use is wrong or anything, that's a different rant altogether, but because I don't think that it is always necessarily an intelligent thing to do and in excess I think it is a statement of immaturity. Besides, I think he just wrote about all his antics merely so the militant Christians who hate him so much will have more reason to alienate them from their society. This is why I don't think it was a book written for his fans. He just wants to be more of a scapegoat in order to pump his fevered ego and he knew that this collection of stories would anger those he hates most.
The reason people are in an uproar over this man, or so I thought, is because of his militant stance against Christianity, organized religion and organized thought. I believed that his actions and radical behavior were merely statements against these things, but after reading this book I'm not so sure about that anymore. The way he tells these stories of self-mutilation and abuse is gratuitous. It seems to serve as a device to pump up his ego and I expected more from him.
Although the stories were interesting at times, the best part of the book, in my opinion was at the end when he includes some of the entries in his journal that he kept while on tour. These best describe some of his philosophies and best allow the reader to get under his skin a little bit.
Overall, I don't recommend this book unless you're going to check it out from the library. It reads quickly and doesn't really pose any intelligent arguments that will make people think. If Christians rally around a burning of this book, it will be because of his stories of drug abuse, sexual promiscuity or off the wall stage presence, not because he has said anything which shakes the foundations of anything they believe.
Here's a journal entry he includes that I thought was the best part of the book:
"For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions." -Plato in The Republic.
Yet another side note: Okay... I, unfortunately, am one of the stupid people who bought the newest Marilyn Manson cd, Mechanical Animals. I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said that it is the absolute worst piece of garbage I have ever had the misfortune of listening to. The guy makes me want to tear out my ears and mail them to someone. Not that the music itself or the lyrics are that grating, I just feel like a complete and total TOOL for EVER buying into his crap. I mean, the guy is a total phony. I know that there are a lot of people who just don't like him because he's "weird" or "scary" or something, but I don't even think he's that. He's completely fake!! The lyrics on his new album are completely recycled... things like, "god is in your tv" or "I don't like the drugs, but the drugs like me." OH, come ON!!! For an atheist, he sure talks about god a whole lot. His attitude on this album seemed to be... "Okay, I'll get high for about 6 months on various substances and when my bank account is dry, I'll write about 15 songs involving god in televisions, veins, and how messed up I am. Then, I'll use some more drugs and write really unoriginal guitar riffs. I'll have to put the cd out soon becuase I'm almost out of drugs and I have no money, so we'll just nix the post production of the album because I've got a lot of faith in myself as an artist." It's all drugs and the devil for Marilyn Manson and thanks to his shock-rock mentality, America has become desensitized to his crap and the fifteen-minute timer is now ticking as far as I'm concerned.
Rant #7: Billy Gets A Blow Job
More power to him.
Rant #8: Computers and Holy Stuff
Man do I love my computer. It's great. There's really no limit to how much stuff I can do on it. The only problem comes when my limited expertise fails me in some areas. It's weird because after you have a computer for a few months or so, you start to realize that everything you save on it and everything you do to it actually has an effect on it, kind of like when you're 65 and you've been smoking your whole life only to find out it's killing you. I mean Christ, I had so much garbage amassed on my hard disk after a year that I had to clean it up before my computer started to barf. I slowly realized what an ordeal that is. It's like f**king passover or something. Go through and mark all the files you want with this sheep blood and eat nothing but unleavened bread for an entire day. After that time, stroke your computer until it begins to boot and then just nuke everything. Now I know how God felt. I mean, it's not like I've got anything against the files I'm destroying, but my computer wants to make it seem that way. "Are you sure you want to erase this?" "I mean really sure?" "I'm serious now, I may be a great invention, but I can't bring back files from the dead." Jesus! What, am I aborting files or something? Are they carrying on meaningful relationships inside my computer? That's why I start to sympathize with the Old Testament God. He was pretty new at the whole creating life thing I think. He f**ked it up the first time around and panicked, so he just said, "F**k it." and sank it under a sea of water. Noah and all those animals must have been his boot disks. He hadn't quite perfected the programming for us humans yet, so he figured he'd start with a clean slate. Of course, it scares me a bit to compare the computing habits of God with those of myself. I mean, the reason I clean out my hard drive is either because I'm really bored or I've got entirely too much pornography on it for it to run anything at all. Does that scare anyone else? Maybe God's just some pervert and the great Biblical flood we read about was merely a result of his overactive libido. He made all these people who were just getting crazy all the time and he realized that people constantly having sex kind of slow his little world down. I'm not really sure what happened after the flood. He must have discovered DOS or something like that... this is where my theory is a little weak. I'm not sure where Jesus fits in yet either. I think that he must have been analogous to the Commodore or the Amiga. They were short lived and wound up crushed by Microsoft. Hahaha... there' s a funny thought. Bill Gates is Pontius Pilate. Billius Gateus. Now that's a shirt I'd like to see: "Bill Gates Killed Jesus". I'd wear that with pride any day. Of course no one would get it, but then again, that's the story of my life.
Rant #9: Undies
How many of you guys out there actually wear whitey tighties? Actually how many guys just wear white underwear? See, my white underwear phase went away as soon as I got to college. I know every guy out there can relate. And I don't even have to say why. I mean, let's just face it: skid marks do not a popular man make. The last thing I want to have pop up in the laundry room in front of a bunch of women is nasty undies. So, I discovered flannel boxers. They're dark and stuff like most boxers, so you can pretty much do about anything in them and not worry about what they'll look like afterwards. See, you ask a guy why he's got on boxers and most will say something like, "Well they give my boys room to breathe" or something like that. That's all bull though. What they really mean is, "Well because this way if I decide not to wipe my butt or I eat too much spicy stuff, I don't have to worry about skidmarks." Boxers are basically a tampon for guys. It's just less embarassing to buy them I suppose.
Rant #10: The Origins of Christianity
You know, I have a theory about religion. Christianity in particular. It was started and based on guys exactly like myself. Not that I'm like Jesus or anything.. well maybe I am. See, guys like me never got laid as teenagers, so we were always sort of jaded by it. That's how the Christian religion all began. A bunch of guys who couldn't get laid started it. They were pissed off at the people who were getting it regularly and decided to spoil their fun. Besides, since they weren't getting it, they had to think up a valid reason why. If they became priests, then they could just tell everyone that they were "not giving into temptations of the flesh". Bullsh*t. Have you seen these fu**ing priests? They're like all under 5' 4" and they're totally bald. RIGHT... women everywhere are trying to get them to give into "temptations of the flesh". What they really mean is that they chose a profession that made them feel better about their lack of sexual appeal. The guys who wrote the Bible were all people who couldn't get laid, so they formed this little club with about 12 guys and the leader of the club was this guy named Jesus who was really horny. I mean, this guy was so horny that he could move things and heal people with as a result of his pent up sexual energy. Plus his mom was a virgin. How much less sex could you have in a club? So, here's these 12 dorks with a sh*tload of sexual energy traveling all over Israel trying to see how many other people were like them. Then the people who were getting laid, mainly Pontious Pilate who got laid more than Wilt Chamberlain, became a little wary when they saw how many of these guys there were, so they killed Jesus. But instead of killing the idea of the virgin society, Jesus became this huge martyr and hence what we have today. The Christians today never cease to amaze me. I mean, if there's a book or a movie with the word WOOD in it, who's going to point it out like it's a sexual innuendo? The Christians!! They're always looking for sex in things so that they can point it out and be better Christians. What they're actually doing is trying to rid their world of things which remind them of how impossible it is for them to get some. Just a little theory... direct the flaming e-mail towards my mailbox.
Rant #11: Crisis in Yugoslavia
Well, as of yesterday (March 25), NATO started bombing Yugoslavia. First off, I don't claim to know everything about events unfolding over there. In fact, I know very little, but I am going to share some of the things I've found out about the small nation of Kosovo.
From what I understand the Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has started attacking the Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and in the interests of keeping things "humanitarian", NATO started bombing to stop him. After reading a bit of the history behind all this, I found several things. The Albanians in Kosovo started rallying for independence in 1968 and have been fighting with the Serbs ever since.
What I object to is the media coverage of this whole thing. Last night on television, The President as well as the news anchors and all the people they interviewed painted a picture of these helpless Albanians being killed, nay massacred. What I found upon further inspection on the internet is that the Albanians have a long history of terrorism in Yugoslavia. They moved in there from surrounding territories and have been seeking independence in order to create an ethnically cleansed Greater Albania. This information also came to me from a media source equally as suspicious as our own, the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Official Web Site" in the section about Albanian terrorism. They back up their stories with grim photos of executed Serbs and crematoriums created by the Albanians in order to get the Serbs to leave the country they wish to claim as their own. The address is http://www.gov.yu/terrorism/index.html if you would like to take a look for yourself.
Now I'm at a loss for what exactly to think about all of this. Certainly the fact that the page on terrorism was made by Yugoslavians makes it a bit suspect, but it's hard to disregard all those grim photos. And certainly our own media here in America is suspect just because they have tainted so many things. But what I do know is that these are two different stories about the same place, making one of them or perhaps both, a lie. I can't see the logic behind our country getting into a war when the lines are this grey. It appears that a considerable amount of violence has taken place on the parts of both parties, so why are we in the middle of it?
Today, I logged onto ICQ and the first message I got was from someone not on my contact list (if you don't know what ICQ is then, tough... I'm not explaining it). It said something along the lines of "Stop bombing! Viva Yugoslavia!" and it was from a 20 year old kid in Belgrade. Not 10 minutes passed before I got another message from someone else that was more graphic and angry. I'm tired of feeling ashamed of what my country is doing. First our President runs his name along with the American judicial system through the mud with his lies, then he bombs Iraq in an attempt to ricochet the media spotlight elsewhere and now we're bombing Yugoslavia. Great, now I have to apologize for being an American to everyone? No, thanks but I don't want to do that.
This is actually a pretty weak rant, I just wanted to make the point that I don't think we have any place over in Yugoslavia at all. Yeah, there is violent stuff going on, but it is being perpetrated by people on both sides. It is futile for us to pick sides and start bombing. I would think we would have learned our lesson about trying to quell a civil war after Vietnam, but apparently not. I'd like to get some feedback on this if I can... I'm not the most well informed on the subject and perhaps I have made some broad generalizations that are ignorant... I don't know. Responses are welcome.
More rants to come... unless someone puts a hit on me for something I've already written...
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times... these rants you are reading here have all been written by me... Matt Hill. They are my property and I'd appreciate it if you decide to use them in any way shape or form that 1.) you tell me and 2.) you give credit where credit is due. Because otherwise I'll be forced to take all this stuff off here and I'm sure all 2 of you that read this page would be utterly mortified were that to happen... so please, be kind.
"If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research." -Wilson Mizner in The Legendary Mizners
Email: hill_m@denison.edu
