I only steal from the best

Dudes,
I think everyone can point to a handful of things that influence their lives and make them tick. Have a little bite of mine.

1. Cryptozoology

I have no idea where my fascination with cryptozoology came from. It just happened. There are hundreds of legends of monsters who lurk in forests, mountains, and seas, and reading these stories makes me happy in my heart. I can't prove that any of these creatures exist, but you can't prove they don't.

2. Rock n Roll

My brand of music may be on the grittier side, but it's still rock and roll to me. Hmm...I think I've heard that somewhere before. Music has the power to take me places I've never been and show me things I've never seen. Music teaches us that it's ok to be free and to live our own way. If your music doesn't tell you that then you're listening to the wrong stuff.

3. Vans shoes

Vans was founded in 1966, and it's the only shoe company that has mattered since. It's funny how in the past five years or so maintream America has figured this out. For the first 40 years of its existence Vans was worn almost exclusively by burnout skaters and "punk rock" kids. Now every kind of person of every age can be seen wearing them. Good for vans; bad for my individuality. Luckily I don't give a shit about individuality anymore.

4. Beer

These are the two best beers on the planet right now. Wow I need to wrap this post up so I can go get some. Ok...focus. Seriously people, do yourself a favor and stop drinking Miller Lite and Michelob Ultra. If you're a Miller Lite drinker that tells me you work in a cubicle, play golf on Saturday afternoons, and probably have a goatee. The highlight of your week is when your wife lets you go down to your "man cave" and watch porn on the 80 inch flat screen you bought to make your life seem less pathetic. Don't you owe it to yourself to at least drink decent beer? The extra few pounds you'll gain from drinking it will be worth it. By the sound of things your wife stopped having sex with you years ago anyway.

5. Mexican Food

I'm not sure life would be worth living without Mexican food. Everything that is right with the world is in those two pictures. My mother raised me on this stuff, and that is why I love her. She might have done a few other nice things here or there, but nothing compares to her making me homemade flour tortillas with carne guisada, rice, beans, guacamole....oh man...I'm hungry. Why do I do this to myself?

Post over. Taco and beer time.

Pantheist

Palm tree and Pine tree, I'm at home.
Earth is a good mother.
She was made for my kind of sickness and I'll take everything she's got.

The creature crawls on his belly and has no friends.
He's a busy breeder.
But he's only half the animal his father was.

How about four corners of the earth?
It's a good story.
Guarded by angels and held up with pillars for your pleasure. 

Up on those hills it burns and burns bright.
What a tragic allegory.
Extinction fuels the faith in man and the Spirit.

He got me young. The venom drips.
What a useless fucker. 
Dig me a shallow grave so I can live on as hemlock.

The swamp is so unforgiving and makes me beg. 
He's a regretful creator.
Next time there won't be a next time.

Flamingos in the front yard

Dudes,
Do you ever wish you could just remove your brain from your body and not think about anything for a few hours? Well I do, and I'm wishing it right now. I've been stuffing my mind with new information for the past week or so and now my brain is fighting back. It's sick of it.

The problem is the kind of things I stuff my brain with are really burdensome but mostly useless facts. I get totally consumed with sucking in information about religious, philosophical, scientific, and metaphysical nonsense. Of course it's not actually nonsense, but right now I genuinely feel like it is. I weigh myself down with this stuff that constantly swirls around in my tired mind, and there doesn't seem to be any actual benefit to learning it. All I get out of it is being able to snicker to myself when someone is talking about something that they think they know about, but really they are just regurgitating some piece of ignorance that they heard somewhere else. Yay me for getting to be an arrogant dick. It's the classic struggle between who I am (smug asshole) and who I want to be (an abominable snowman).

I want to talk about birds. They make me happy. Did you kids know that there are over 82 million birdwatchers in the United States? I must've missed that bandwagon the first few times it came around, but I'm jumping on it next time I see it. Seriously, think about all the pointless hobbies that people take up like metal detecting, stamp collecting, or playing with their children. Let's get rid of these fruitless activities. They're garbage. Now have you ever taken the time to just sit for a minute and watch a bird go about its business? Well you should. They are fascinating little creatures. They hop around and peck things and eat worms out of the ground. PLUS they fly! Can you fly? Nope. I'm telling you...the birds are on to something.

If I were an Ostrich, Emu, Penguin, or Kiwi I would be pissed.

I would love to have a pet bird, but I could only have one if its wings weren't clipped and I could give it room to fly. Seriously, how can anyone stick a bird in a cage with a clear conscience? "Hey bird, you know that one special thing that you can do that defines your entire species? I'm not going to let you do that." Every bit of instinct inside of birds (minus those I listed above) tells them to fly. What kind of monster would take that away from them?!! Selfish bastards!!! You can't see me but I'm shaking my fist at you. 

Look how majestic!

Wow. 

Nobody's Deity and Thank God for that

Celtic, Cultic, mystical motion
I never wake. Always dreaming on a holy night

Because of those terrible songs you summon
I dance and sing and lose every bit of my mind.
I admit you are my meekness.

The bull is here. He stretches my eyes in all directions.
A Civilized, Celestial, massive marauder.

If I were dying, I would be dying to confess.
I never prayed to the bull; he never bought me.
I'm still free in my own weakness.

How many languages do you pray in?
Every time I try I feel the fire.

Attis.:.Odin.:.Dionysus.:.Quetzalcoatl.:.

Don't be scared to hail and bow.
He did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
That must be why we killed him.

Fermented Meat/Hot Spring of the Ice Island

We journey, we drift. We are diggers.
I cannot do this alone. I need your feminine hands.
All these uncommon things we have in common are speaking to me.
What they're saying is worrisome for a journeyman.
Your music is like a kiss...not on the mouth but into my starving ear.
Every breeze that blows is another song that sustains me.
Never will I cry again and I will only bleed for you.
If you can remember, will you get started on that bread early?
Tomorrow my day begins before dawn and I need the music.
Remember me when you make your bed tonight. Be my thoughts.
Happiness is only a word, but we defined it.
We will never know any others.

I'm beginning to love this little house.
You finally taught me how to breathe your song and let go.
If we disappeared I would never care or even notice.
The ice island would never be the same.
I would hunt for little pleasures and you would always be my thoughts.
Never unlearning what the island taught me,
and you taking me places with your little pleasures. 
It gets tricky here in the leaves. Every beast has a name so we must be careful.
They set traps and they're much larger than they seem.
Heaven? No. Well I've never seen this many devils so I guess it's possible.
On second thought, we're too good for this place.
We must know another.

Deleting the Cheating

There are people who know and care.
There are people who care and don't know.
There are people who know and don't care.
There are people who don't know and don't care.

Which of the four of these is the best? Which is the worst?
Knowing and caring can be a massive burden, but only when it translates into action. The most obnoxious people in this world are people who know and care but don't do shit about it. I'm so glad your heart hurts for starving babies in Rwanda. That was sarcasm. I'm not glad. The only difference between you and me is you "care."

I took a trip to Haiti a few years ago right after the big earthquake. Truthfully, it sucked. There was one lady who came with us who fancied herself an evangelist. No one warned me. During this trip I got a glimpse of what goes on all across this planet when it comes to Christian missions. We had giant bags of food to give the people, but we made them sit and listen to "The Reverend" scold them for being sinners for an hour before we gave them the food. Then when she was done punching them with the love of Christ, we closed ourselves inside iron-gated walls and made the people come in one by one to get their bag of food. I felt like writing a note on every bag that said, "Here's some food you barbaric, heathen animal. Fuck You." I'm fairly certain that was the title of the sermon that day. I've been on a handful of these trips now and I can promise my three readers that I will never ever EVER again be a part of something that calls itself a mission trip.

I guess that was a bit of a tangent. Let's get back to the meat here...why I don't care about Rwandan babies. Ok, to be honest, I do care, but my point is it makes absolutely no difference. I have visited slums and orphanages in South America and the Caribbean and the main thing I learned from it was those kids could not have cared less that I was there. When we brought them toys I noticed some of them playing with the toys, but I also noticed that a lot of them would rather play in the dirt with the sticks and whatnots that they already had. Question: Is it possible that these people aren't suffering as much as we think they are? Why do we as Americans automatically assume that everyone wants to live like us? That they want to live the same wasteful, extravagant, and ridiculous lifestyles that we live. Do you really need eight pairs of jeans and twelve black t-shirts? Do you need a television in every room of your perfectly climate-controlled home? The people who have all of these things are the people who would read this post and be appalled and disgusted that I could say I don't care.

It's story time. A few years ago I briefly hung out with a girl who was a super passionate, Jesus-loving, feed all the little children in the world person. When I first met her I thought she was going to be really cool because I assumed that if she was like this then she must be a really sweet and kind girl. After hanging out with her for a week or two I started to realize that she was actually quite a bitch. She was extremely self-righteous and judgmental, and she was generally angry at the world. I was learning that in order to love the little children you apparently have to hate everything else. She and I were attending the same school and she talked a lot about all the people at school that she disliked or that annoyed her. Most of the time the reason was because she wasn't satisfied with their level of godliness. So naturally she hated them.

One night she and I were hanging out downtown and we stopped to sit on a bench. One reason I didn't write her off after the first date was because she liked to discuss theological issues, and if you've read this blog before you know I enjoy discussing such things as well. So we sit and chat for a while and then all of the sudden she says, "Do you ever wear any other shoes?" And yes she said it in the way you think she said it...with judgment and condescension. I said, "Nah not really. I've gotten used to wearing these all the time. Plus I just really like them." So she responds, "All you ever wear is jeans and those same shoes. It's kinda weird." Things got a little awkward after that. It took every bit of goodness inside of me (which isn't much) to not rip her apart. I mean verbally, of course. This is someone who supposedly wants to dedicate her life to feeding and clothing the sick and the poor, but it bothers her that I wear the same shoes every day? Does anyone besides me see a problem with that?

A country full of selfish, greedy, soulless takers. America is fuckin' RIGHT! Woooohoooooooo. 
We're so accustomed to being these things that all of our hypocritical actions don't even register in our minds.
I know you like shit. I like shit too. The whole point of what I'm trying to say is it's ok to like shit, but if you're going to pretend that you "care" then be prepared for me to smack you in the head next time you start talking about starving Rwandans.

You know what I care about? My one pair of shoes. 

Sexy.