Interview With Jesus (01-21-2007)

 Q: So. You’re here.

A. Yep.

Q: …….Is this the final judgment?

A: Well, you’re not dead, are you?

Q: No

A: And there are no immortal wasps of fury going up your ass, is there?

Q: No

A: I’m just visiting. The judgment’s a bunch of crap, anyway. It was written in code for early day Christians to communicate with each other, and it’s referring to Romans. When “the evil kingdom crumbles??, who do you think they’re talking about? When “the righteous rise to heaven?? and “the evil will seek death to escape from righteous torture but will not find it??, who do you think the winners and losers are in that equation? I mean, can you blame the Christians for making such violent revenge fantasies for the Romans? Flaming sky, boiling sea, blood moon, and killer bees. Watching your sister get fed to lions for a half-time show at a Roman gladiator event will be more than enough to get those creative juices flowing.

Q: So why is the Revelations still in the Bible?

A: Beats me. Honestly. It’s really confusing to me. I mean, first of all, John says God said not to take anything out of the bible, but there are missing gospels like crazy. Matt, Mark, Luke, John and Paul weren’t the only guys I hung out with, so why is the new testament made up of just their stuff? I know I saw Phil, Tom, Judas, Tim, everybody was writing something whenever I said something. See, they had a bit of forgetfulness, so they wanted to make sure they remembered everything. But you know, Pete probably lost his notepad. He was real forgetful.

Q: Yeah?

A: Oh yeah! What kind of guy walks on water, then halfway to shore, it suddenly slips his mind how to do it right, and he sinks like a fucking rock!? Ah, but I sound angry, I’m sorry. I’m not really angry. It was just really funny. Still cracks me up, that’s all.

Q: I notice you swear.

A: Yeah.

Q: It’s just weird, that’s all.

A: No, you’re right. See, whenever I show up somewhere, I try to assume the dialect that I think will get me more accepted. I know high-intellect to engage in dialogue and resolve the present spiritual quandary residing in the zeitgeist of our time, or I can ghetto you about the jive-turkey blue eyed devil Boss Charlie fucking the brothers and sistas out of the motherland. But what do you think? Should I cut them out?

Q: Swearing?

A: Yeah.

Q: I don’t know. I mean, we can print them, that’s not a problem. But, from my view, it’s hard enough for people to handle that you’re here. So, I don’t know, I guess being a little more cordial would make you easier to swallow.

A: Yeah, that’s good thinking. Alright. Print this: I promise not to swear anymore for the rest of this interview. Alright, back to the show.

Q: Alright, cool. How long have you been here?

A: Well, I’m here on a bet. The World Series, last year. Someone, God I think, or maybe one of the seraphim, made some bet with me about the Red Sox winning the World Series. I said, “Yeah, sure. What have I got to lose??? They came out on top, and I won a vacation.

Q: What did you think of “The Passion???

A: That Mel Gibson movie? I never saw it. I went to “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights??, which came out at the same time. I thought it would have Patrick Swayze in it, who I’m a big fan of, but I guess I was misled. Besides, I was at the crucifixion. And I doubted a movie would get it right, so I avoided it. I heard it was pretty depressing anyway.

Q: Yeah, I heard that too.

A: Yeah, I don’t dig that.

Q: That’s a fair lead in to my next question: Is there any religion that gets you mad?

A: Well, no. There’s no one religion that gets me mad, but there are things they each do that I don’t like much. Satanists kill people, which is worse than if they were to just hurt themselves, that’s free choice. But hurting innocent people, I don’t dig. Islam has a long tendency to oppress women, that’s not cool. Judaism is really high stressed and has a lot of weird rules for membership and acceptance. I mostly feel bad for Buddhist; everybody beats them up because they think they’re wimps, and they never do anything. They’ve got no beef with anyone. They pick no fights, they don’t take any stand that’ll get anyone hurt, and still they get pushed around by everyone. Everyone here’s got it backwards. It takes a lot of guts to not beat someone when they really deserve it, to not get angry when you’ve got the green light to be, and the Buddhists get no credit for it. This is the same kind of mentality in this world that makes a woman who’s getting beaten by her boyfriend tell the guy that finally called the cops and saved her life “Lets just be friends.?? Apparently no one thinks good deeds are that impressive or awe inspiring. You know, just because someone is predisposed to doing good deeds doesn’t mean they’re weak, like he can’t take care of himself, or take care of you too.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, we just keep getting all these prayers from these guys, really nice guys, who are having a harder time then they should. Assholes pick on them, then girls date the assholes – they get no appreciation for basically just being nice. It’s no wonder a lot of them give up and become assholes, and the whole thing starts over again.

Q: Assholes?

A: It’s not a swear word if it’s the truth. That’s what they are. You know, when the going gets tough, nice guys still have the guts to do the right thing and be strong when they need to be. That’s one thing a lot of women here should learn – nice guys are brave and strong, and all those other things that women rightfully like in a person. I mean, look at me; nothing but good deeds, helping people, and letting people have their way when it was the right thing to do, rather than get in a fight. But when the time came, I bit the bullet, hung on the cross, and did my duty. It all ends up well, though. You know how much sex I got when I ended up in heaven?

Q: There’s sex in heaven?

A: Oh yeah. Why do you think it’s heaven? If you died for what you thought was right, kept up the good fight, you’re in like James Bond. Everyone who took a stand and kept it; me and Socrates, Hunter S. Thompson, Thoreau, Nietzsche…

Q: Nietzsche’s in heaven?

A: Yeah, why wouldn’t he be? Heaven is a place where everyone’s welcome. You get to hang out, do your own thing, there’s no venereal diseases to catch, every kind of person you could want to hook up with – hard to get, compassionate, borderline nymphomaniac even. Joan of Arc is a big draw for a lot of guys.

Q: Really?

A: Oh yeah! Courageous, speaks her mind – a slave to no one. There’s a lot of respect for those type of people up in heaven. Especially since she’s a redhead? Forget about it.

Q: Can I ask some more questions about heaven?

A: Yeah, sure.

Q: Just tell me more about it, I guess. So, everything’s….

A: Good. Everything’s good. Happy. Exciting, challenging…drugs, guns, love, sex, rock & roll, books, great conversation, and even a little port-a-pottie on one of the floors you can use to go back to Earth if you feel like it. Anything you want.

Q: What if two people’s vision of heaven don’t match?

A: That’s one of the rules you have to follow while you’re there. It’s also one of the qualifications to get in. It’s just a really laid back place, and everyone is relaxed enough to hang out and put up with everyone. There’s no revenge, no jealousy, no back stabbing, everyone’s open with their feelings and, just, hangs out. There’s really no other way to describe it. As long as you’re not purposely being a buzz kill for everyone, you’re welcome to show up.

Q: And everyone’s there?

A: Well, not everyone.

Q: Like who?

A: I don’t know, off the top of my head. I really don’t keep track of who isn’t in heaven. It’s a bit of a bummer for me. I know down here you guys have a real revenge hang-up, like you think you have all the qualifications figured out and who’s ever in or out is dependent on some rules you’ve selected. Never minding the fact that that would mean 6 billion different sets of rules for who’s in or out, you’re completely off base anyway. I wouldn’t even tell you who is or isn’t in, cause I just know, if I mentioned someone’s name who’s in hell, someone else on Earth would feel righteous: “I knew I was right! I must have it figured out.?? Like I said, no one has any of the rules figured out, cause you’re all way off base.

Q: Could you explain?

A: Yeah, sure. There was actually only one guy I ever saw who had the vision of hell right – his name is Jhonen Vasquez.

Q: The guy who wrote “Johnny The Homicidal Maniac???

A: Yeah. You know him?

Q: Yeah, I’ve read the comic book…

A: Yeah, that’s him! Man, I loved that comic book. The whole thing! And then Johnny heads to hell, and wow! This Jhonen guy got it completely right! And with no help from us, as far as I know, cause I don’t recall anyone visiting him and suggesting those ideas to him.

Q: Maybe you should go into it a little bit, just for me and the people who haven’t read it.

A: Yeah, sure. I’d be glad to. Basically, Johnny ends up in hell and finds everyone comPLETEly stressed out over every little thing. Just the most insignificant, meaningless details about the world around them. Like, this one old lady Johnny meets there explains that everyone’s in hell because they let everything get to them, and that maniacal need to control everything is keeping everyone so high stressed that they can’t enjoy themselves – then she goes berserk because she finds some lint on her jacket, and destroys a whole sidewalk! Perfect! That’s exactly it! He nailed it on the head. Everyone, alive or in hell, gets worked up about every little thing, and it keeps them out of heaven – figuratively on Earth, and literally afterwards. Also, I want to give Jhonen props for something – when Johnny goes to heaven, he’s told any pain inflicted on anyone is immediately fixed, AND that he has mental powers: he can do things just by thinking about it. So he starts blowing peoples heads up with his mind! We forgot we could do that! So we’ve been having a lot of fun getting some blood, guts, and gore flying around heaven. I want to thank Jhonen for that.

Q: Well, we’re out of time for right now. Thanks for answering everything.

A: Oh, yeah. I mean, how often am I around?

Q: I’d like to do this again sometime, if that’s alright with you.

A: Yeah, just call me up. One last thing though. Just some advice I’d like to impart, if you don’t mind. You know I have to.

Q: Sure.

A: This is for everyone. Hang out, have some fun, relax. Remember; learning to let things go is good for you, plus it’s something you have to learn how to do if you’re going to get into heaven. Enjoy yourself while you’re here. I mean yeah, heaven’s heaven, but I always like stopping in this place when I can. I’m usually so busy, but this trip has been good. You get tired of just seeing white everywhere, trust me. This is a nice place you guys got here.

But most importantly, the best piece of advice I can give you, is always be happy to wake up every morning. You’re lucky to be here, but if you don’t look forward to getting out of bed and starting your day, everyday, have the courage to take steps to change that. Go somewhere, find something, that gives you that feeling. It the greatest thing in the world, and the worst thing in world when you don’t have it. Sorry to preach a sermon, but hey, look who you’re talking to. It’s the truth.

On the Wolf Hill (08-06-2007)

 I'd made a final decision to visit the peak of Athens. The highest point here in town. A welcoming enough moniker of Lykavittos - "Hill of the Wolves".

Left to my own devices, I always make the choices that make the most sense to me. No different from anyone else you would say, except for the fact that I'm always wrong. My internal common sense is so skewed from what The Right Way Is, that I end up in situations like this one. If you've got a map of a city, and you have a hill you intend to ascend, a dark bloch on your cartography, you would think that following the proper named road closest to that bloch would lead you to the nearest easy path up said hill. But not in this world, apparently.

I wired back and forth on streets until I'd reached the very edge of Constructed Civilization. Here I am at what appears to be the closest I possibly can get to where I want to go, and there's nothing. No sign, path, beaten track, or even the sounds of an elevator nearby, like I was told the would be by my teacher. In normal situations, you pull back and regroup. Get your directions right and hit it again, tomorrow. Luckily, whatever it is that works my off-center Muse when it comes to normal common sense also applies to what normal people usually do in normal situations. The press of time helped keep me from thinking straight as well. The Point of this little stroll was to take in what was far and wide agreed on as the best place to see the sunset in all of Athens. So the creeping purple of the sky was like a slow falling gullotine, and if I didn't hurry right, I'd have nothing to show for all this walking.

Taking off from what can only complimentally be called a backyard of some stranger's house, I went up. Nothing else to do. Find a hole in the fence. Go up. Ignore the rustles in the bushes, sounds of animals that don't quite sound like dogs. It's just your imagination. Watch people on roof-tops within eye shot of catching you, and tell yourself that it's not their property, none of their business, why would they bust you? you tell yourself as you find yourself creeping lower to the ground anyway. Sandals in brown-green underbrush, since my Logic avoids shoes as well, no matter how bad the trek I'm undertaking might end up being. Slight thorns, gnarled branches that one would usually avoid, I get to grab whole handfulls of, tightly, for levers up. Oh this is going great.

Hearing voices, my imagination runs away with me: Running for my life from brown-skinned foreign tongued kidnappers waiting to use my skin and bookbag for their knapsacks, I keep my eyes moving and my ears peeled. I find enough road to decide to follow, taking every fork, as long as it looks like it's going up more than the one I left off.

Eventually, I reach a paved parking lot. Closer to civilization, for sure. Those stairs go up. Why not? Up. At least now it's really steps, but The Orb is going lower. Keep walking, keep an eye out for the more upper paths. Looks like this is the only one. I'm on the right track. Resturaunt, but there is higher. Porch, but still higher. Now I'm there. There's a church, and about 40 tourists on the gated edges, here for the same thing I am. The sticking point for me is that I look like the only person there alone. I feel myself pretending to hate them for crowding God's sights with zoom lenses and bad t-shirts, but being honest with myself, I knew that if I had company I'd be ruining some solitary pilgrim's trip just as much as they are for me. It's not solitude I want, it's company. Their crowd is just reminding me more, which is why I wish they were gone and would leave me alone. So I wipe the cranky out of my brain and take a seat, near a group of American kids (you can judge a book by its cover a lot more than people would probably want to admit).

Watching the slow swoop of the Sun, I didn't think much. Trading jokes with the kids next to me - "Make sure you don't miss it, it might not come around again." "Sunrises are the harder ones. They don't happen nearly as often." - I watch the effect I've always liked with sunrises over mountains, where you can actually see the range even farther than you would've in the full light. Some kind of dark shading effect, where direct sunlight keeps them hidden somehow. Falling between a wedge in the two, the sun makes a rounded and 4-sided diamond, llike a doorway to a whole other place. Like I've caught a look through a closing hole in the canvas, and behind it all is a bright light you weren't supposed to see. I didn't even want to explore it. I didn't want to go there. I was just feeling lucky I'd found it and seen it.

The walk back down took somewhere around an hour due to a habit of mine to want to take both paths when I reach a fork in the road. I doubled back around, left, right, and double-tracking, looking like I was lost if someone had been watching. I happened on a small ledge, no more than a 3 foot drop down, and I heard barking and running, heading my direction. I turned around a little, but before I'd completely turned my back, the yellow-colored mountain mutt that had made the racket that had made my heart jump for .00013 seconds came into view. He looked at me long enough to make sure I didn't want a fight - my half-retreated pose probably hinted at least that much - and walked back without giving me another thought, to the thing he seemed to have been protecting. Nothing more than a friend of his. I couldn't tell if it was a female mate, or just a best friend partner, but either way, the two of them wandered off, leaving me by myself again.

I sat on the ledge and thought. Mostly about my view. To my 3 o'clock, about where the dogs had disappeared, there was garbage. But with a little imagination, I thought I saw structure, enough of a circle, for The Gears to run again. I imagined that this was, is, had been a camp. Something for the very gypsies I'd thought were going to kidnap and kill me on the other side of the hill. The area looked lived in. At least long enough until the next hassle. And even if it wasn't, I thought about how it could've been. How a person can learn to use just about anywhere as at least a place to fall asleep and wake up again. And my mind went out further. I thought of Hunter S. Thompson and his book on the Hell's Angels. How could someone get in with people like that and tell their story? I didn't know how, but I wanted to. This was a flash of some kind of inspiration - a kicked-out left for dead and worthless part from The Civilized World that had some magic spells, some Habits of the Highly Effective People of their brood, that worked for them. And I wanted to know them. What made them different but the same with us. They still found a way to work their hustle and not get shoved off the food chain. I saw my expose that I'd probably never write, my fact-gathering and roving reporting that might not ever happen. But I saw myself, in my mind's eye, working for The Story, because I had to know it. All of it.

In time my head came back together, and I made my way to the bottom of the hill. Taking twists and lost turns of course, but not coming up with anything as interesting.

Lollapalooza: Part 3......The Last Wave (04-24-2007)

 The secret to life is knowing exactly what it is you want, and going through anything to get it. Certain limits are to be followed, obviously, but for the most part, suffering makes a goal all the sweeter. We would’ve sat through the voluntary flagellation of a religious messiah for three hours, with a pair of kicks to our shins and knees as cherries on top, and it still would’ve all been worth it. Matisyahu was entertaining enough, an interesting mental challenge, to be sure. But in order for front view of who followed him, I would’ve sat through anything. Any prologue was inconsequential.

In the order of your life and death, you realize that some things become inextricably linked to your very self-survival. Perhaps not at a time when you would admit it, but at a moments notice you might find yourself seized with the sudden urge to promise your life to something that, in a more sober state, would be insanity. Communicating this to weaker members of the human race is near impossible. You either know what I’m talking about or you don’t. You wait for a thing to fill you with the idea that you might be a part of the end-all of everything you’ve ever understood, simply because you can’t imagine anything better. You know its coming. It makes no difference to you.

Why would this feeling rise from something as mundane as Lollapalooza? Because it doesn’t matter the venue. It doesn’t matter the when or where of how you found it. You’re attaching to something greater than yourself. If you know something is going to last forever, then the more you’ve contributed to it, the farther YOU have lasted forever. It’s the infinite flow of solid time, and you mount it to your greatest ability.

Queens of the Stone Age has become the one thing I was afraid I’d never have the impossible luck to be apart of in my whole short life: Some band of noise that would reverb through the dark echoes of time that came from MY time. I didn’t think anything I had ever heard before I first found them would or could ascend to the heights they have. I heard something, created by people who represent me, that will never be replaced or improved on. Better musicians may come again. Better lyrics. Better singer. Better anything. But this fingerprint has stained. Nothing will remove it. A new peak that will never quite be climbed again has been tread, and I was there for it.

I care little whether you agree. You scream “Shit!” and call me foul for ignoring who or whatever band it is that gives you that feeling. The point is that you KNOW the feeling. If God-Jesus-Lord himself appeared to me in The Spacesuit of Time-Travel and told me no one would remember Queens of the Stone Age a day after I died, I would call him a liar to his face and fart down-wind towards him. The power to change the very facts of history, THAT is the feeling I’m talking about. We’ll worry later about whatever that reveals about me: A psychosis break from reality due to improper potty training? You get to work on that. I’ll check in and find out The Why after my legs are broken from exhaustion, thank you.

For an hour they played. I can’t remember what songs they played, but that always happens anyway with everyone. We were a queasing sea, probably looking like it was trying to collapse in on itself from their viewpoint. Leans and bodies and no one with a weak constitution would survive. Trampling was a constant threat, as was raining bodies of crowd surfing from above. My spine was collapsed about 3 times from big fuckers who thought 220 pounds was light enough to try and ass-bump across a field of roving skulls. We were constantly moving wounded and fainted out, since they could no longer defend themselves after the heat stroke got to them. Private space is an impossible concept, unless you want to try to push elbows out for more breathing room, in which case retribution will be swift and from all directions, and in a thousand pounds of pressure that no one could stop. You’ll immediately become the enemy of every person there, as causal effect makes them feel ANY incorrect variation of space, and the strange inverted ripple from 30,000 people that comes back to you will most likely crush your arms to pieces against themselves.

No place for children, which is exactly what no less than 50% of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ fans consisted of. Not my problem, unless said band was following QOTSA. Using the rule of patience through whoever precedes the band you’re waiting for, what happens when you’re 14 years old and the band prior has a penchant for attracting much, much larger men? You’re left with nothing to do but stand ground the best you can. I saw this, multiple times. Even big brothers trying to cover their youngers. You try to help, but you know it’s beyond a lost cause. You know these kids had been waiting all weekend and probably longer just to see their favorite White-Boy funk-rock quartet, only to collapse from heat stroke a mere hour short of everything, without bruises if they were lucky. It’s wrong, and the equivalent of shitting in someone’s ears in the middle of the night while they’re fantasizing about all their dreams appearing before their eyes. A little forethought on the part of the organizers would have been prudent, but I doubt they’ll be losing much sleep on the nightmares that their beyond-fucked schedule will be leaving hundreds of minors with in the ensuing years.

Now at 3/4th of the way through the Red Hot Chili Peppers show. I’m still front row. I realize something, very important. In highly stressful situations, certain bodily functions are temporarily ceased. In laymen’s terms, pure excitement keeps your mind off your natural voiding process, until you receive clear signal that no more time can be spared. I needed facilities immediately. I entreated one of my fellow concertgoers to put me on the Upper-Flight Pass Express, where I swam on heads until I could fall out past the steel pens. A bouncer pointed me out. It was a clear swath back from the stage until I reached the soundboard, where I was instructed that I’ll have to march in the opposite direction of 70,000 people all wanting to be at the front as bad as I once had.

Imagine being covered in 5 ½ hours of warm bottled water, your sweat, and the sweat of a thousand strangers (just sweat if you’re lucky), soaking every stuck-close hair on your body, contracting sphincter muscles against action that is delivering solids kept strongly out of whack for over the past 80 hours, all while you’re marching in quick step against an angrier 6 dozen thousand people pushing in the direction you’re not going. Making it just in time, I let everything fly before concerning myself with the fact that there’s no toilet paper. One thing at a time, lord.

Emerging with the ability to speak in complete sentences again, I doubted these stalls had anything resembling bathroom tissue since 4 p.m. Friday afternoon. I didn’t bother myself asking around.

A short while later, it was all over. I found Bishara and he told me how he most likely threw about 2 dozen children to their vertical doom at the hands of strangers. Good for him. I regaled my scatological near-death. We made it back to the car in relative silence. On our way out of the garage we noticed how disgusting low on fuel we were. I was struck by visions of running empty alone in deep Chicago with shit-sweat smelling pants and no one who’d miss us soon enough to find our bodies before they bled to death. Nothing was left us, except just enough to get back and tell the tale, if we were lucky.

I don’t know if it was the feeling I originally set out looking for, but I know I’d found something. I was left with the distinct impression that I had performed something perfectly. Some tight rope had been crossed that I didn’t even know I was on until I’d found wide ground again to contrast it all with. Short of actual war combat, there’s not often in normal life that one feels like a wrong turn would’ve ended in death or, worse, some sort of jabbering paralysis. There are only two places I can think of getting the feeling: Vicariously, through a Hunter S. Thompson book, or with a straight blast into the pupil and a hypodermic through the eardrum like a rock concert can be. At least as long as you do it right.

A Search for Soldier Coverage: Part 1 (10-07-2007)

 I’m in way over my head. On some impulse I followed a message left on a white board in one of my classes. It was for a support group for “those with loved ones serving in Iraq or Afghanistan”. That sentence does not apply to me in the least. If anything I’m the last person that should ever come in contact with war widows. I wrote a nothing of an article two years ago about a few doubts that struck me while watching a half-dozen soldiers eat at a Perkins. To my surprise there was a cult of girlfriends, fiancés, and wives who rounded off at least 3 separate messages to both myself and the Flip Side for printing me. In a rotten moods, too. I say cult because I’d never heard anything from these people before in 3 years of college. Not a word, a poster, a bubble on a white board, not a sign, and not a letter to a paper until my written fart stirred them up.

Whichever reason it was, it must have put some kind of itch in my ass, because now I’m on the trail of the elusive Counsel Creature. I’m exaggerating for the most part, I know (and it’s something to always keep in mind while you read my every word), but I feel like I’ve got been gladly thrown into a challenge of my brilliant budding intellect: The Angry Women in question two years ago suggested I shut my damn mouth until I know what I’m talking about, and there’s not many things more exciting to me than when my radar clearly picks up an area I’m blind-drunk ignorant in and I jump in full-on naked.

I don’t know what or how American soldiers come back as. I never actually admitted that I did anyway; The Women simply took my naturally curious nature as affronts to their soldier boys’ presence (or absence, however you want to want to look at it or whichever one’s grammatically correct). But they were still right—I didn’t know what I was talking about. I have no personal baggage in Iraq, no one in my family I ever knew personally has been killed in combat, I’ve never waited with a white shawl on the rain-fallen sea-side docks. So this is a backlogged debt. A chance to take them up on their offer.

It initially struck me as strange to see a notice written in basic marker on the far corner of a white board advertising something I thought would be a foregone conclusion years ago—support for the ones left behind. My logic would’ve guessed that the day after the boys on the boats left should’ve been the inaugural meeting , but maybe not. The other shock was that I actually saw the notice. Like I said, the group is notoriously cloistered, at least as far as I could tell, since being a compulsive reader, I figure I would’ve run into the group before I wrote The Thing two years ago.

I like seeking out the truth in a situation, because it’s sure to be more complex than anyone could guess at a passing glance. I’m masochistic in that sense—I like losing my footing and getting proved wrong, and there turns out to be enough finer points to the idea of “Support Group for those with loved ones serving in Iraq or Afghanistan” to keep me busy for a while.

Lisa Cooper-Murphy, coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Equity Center, and the organizer of the group (every other Wednesday, 7 pm, WAGE Center Schofield 30), even had initial trouble rounding up a fore-going group to follow in the footsteps of.

“There hadn’t been anything formal or publicized that I’d been able to find out about. I think other groups were just informal meetings between friends, or people that heard through the grapevine another person was going through the same thing.”

The idea came from a brainstorming session over the summer, once Cooper-Murphy found out she was getting the WAGE position. I was initially twisted when I found out she’s neither a psychology/psychiatry major, nor has a personal missing significant other due to the war. But the plan for the group has the full blessing of the Counseling Services, so I trust judgment of people who know better than me. Maybe it’s just a fluke. I’m overreacting, probably. If I can put myself in the shoes of the type of people that this group is for, I would guess I’d be happy to have a solid base of operations, a constant open-door spot where I knew people would be on call for the type of thing that I’m going to be coming in with every time I walk through the door. If you talk with Cooper-Murphy, you can tell she has plans together with what to do with the group, and has back-up contingencies for things that might go wrong.

“I put specifically on the posters that it wasn’t a political debate, and that’s what I was worried about, and I think that maybe a concern with some people that there’s such strong feelings surrounding whether or not we should even be in Iraq, that they’re afraid of having to take sides one way or another, so part of what I plan to do at the group is that if it gets into any kind of area like that where people are getting heated and starting to talk about politics rather than just their coping strategies I’ll have to diffuse that. I think that might have been a concern in the past that the real purpose of the support group would get lost in the political debate.”

The group has only had one meeting so far, and I haven’t been able to secure an interview yet with anyone who was there. I can’t speak on the meeting, either. I left on deference to privacy. But besides solid plans for a creative support group (baby-sitting support crews for those members left with children single-handedly, a reading list that Cooper-Murphy’s been going through on her own time, and the Counseling Services as a referential safety net for anything she feels is out of her powers) I felt good watching it come together.

These aren’t widows either, near as I could tell by first impressions at least. No black shawls. Mostly my age, with one mother whose son returned within the last month. But I’ve already been verbally bitch slapped once on this overall topic, so I approach on my judgments with caution. In the references Cooper-Murphy gave me to Counseling Services alone I’ve got more work to do with an interview I grabbed there with PJ Kennedy (till next issue kids), and I want to do everything the best I can. I’ve got at least four more issues left this semester to cover the whole 100-yard run of this topic to the best of my ability. I’m counting on being pulled back and forth. I know soldiers coming home and the support they and theirs get (or don’t get) is not something to face lightly.

Also, being the icon of high-class reporting that I am, I’m not actually done with this. It’s a piece-by-piece work in progress. This might go somewhere completely off of left field in the coming installments. Come with me as we have our mind’s blown and possibly find out everything we know is wrong. Or it might be really boring and a waste of your 75 cents of segregated fees (yes, you have already paid for this paper, in order to keep it free. Wrap your mind around that). The excitement is that no one knows which way it’s going to go, certainly not me. That’s always the fun of confronting your ignorance.

A Search for Soldier Coverage: Part 2 (10-22-2007)

 Pure terror. I read over my article just now, from two years ago. I said some things about soldiers, things that had me feeling a bad shake, coming from my ass and down my legs and up my spine. I don’t like people trained in M-16 assault rifles with armor-piercing rounds. They scare the shit out of me. And sitting in that restaurant 10 feet from a good half-dozen of them had put me in some kind of manic high-speed wind shear—I’d just started writing on my notepad, in one sitting, talking about fearing for the lives of children I don’t have yet if they were put in the same room as these soldiers. These were family members of people I’d never meet, and I was glued to my seat, thinking about the death they’d carried with them in every word they spoke and story they told.

The Women who struck back at me had every right to hate me. I’d talked about little more than the feeling I had of wanting to run screaming from the very sight of the people they loved, for the things they’d done before I met them and were going to go back and do again. I’ve opened up this can of worms all over again. More than I bargained for here. Not the shot of adrenaline from being scared that I enjoy; this is mental terror. I’m following the lines, theorizing, contemplating, and not liking the conclusions I’m reaching.

Every soldier, no matter how nice and beautiful, no matter how many candy bars and new pairs of shoes they give to poor Iraqi children, are still in a selected vocation of being given the information on how to best end someone else’s life. That’s a fact. Some of them are unmitigated assholes out for the blood-lust, but most of them aren’t. I know that. But they still know how to kill. Each and every one of them.

************

Lisa Cooper-Murphy sent me to P.J. Kennedy, a psychiatrist at counseling services, who was her liaison to the professional world of mental health here on campus, in the event that anything or anyone came to the WAGE center “support group for those with loved ones serving in Iraq or Afghanistan” that she couldn’t handle. Like I said last issue, I was worried about the fact that a non-psychiatry/psychology major was put in charge of offering emotional support for women with shipped-out loved ones, but I was put at ease when I saw how prepared things were, and heard about the green light Cooper-Murphy had been given from counseling services. Both from Lisa herself, and straight from Kennedy.

“In the WAGE center, they can have a support group—not a counseling group, a support group—for family members. Who are they really going to get their support from? It’d be facilitated by WAGE, but being able to talk to other family members who are going through the same experience is supportive.”

Kennedy himself is a Vietnam veteran. This is something I hadn’t run into yet—someone with a touch, somewhere, of first-hand experience that I could talk to. I hadn’t been able to get an interview with any of the Women yet, and Lisa Cooper-Murphy had no personal connection, no need for support herself. She was just an organizer. But Kennedy put things in perspective, especially in comparison of the homecoming between now and 40 years ago.

“I was a pretty disillusioned person [when I returned]. I really think people returning from this war will be a little different because I think in the nation we’ve made that differentiation between the war and the warrior. Whether we agree with the war or not I think we support him or her. My reading of it is there is more support in society, for people coming back. I think as a nation we are going to do a better job this time supporting our service members and I think for post-Vietnam we did a pretty poor job. And I do think, as a society, we owe it to them.”

On a cursory glance by Wikipedia, I found stats comparing Vietnam and Iraq, parts 1 & 2. On conservative estimate (from the Gulf of Tonkin until full withdraw) Vietnam lasted 140 months, with 553,000 soldiers sent, with 58,209 casualties (10.5%) (1). Iraq 1 was 697,000 over 6 months, with 293 casualties (0.04%) (2). Iraq 2 is on 56 months, with 300,000 shipped out, with 3,833 casualties (1.3%) (3).

“The survival rate is higher in this war [compared to Vietnam]. What does that really mean? That means there’s going to be a lot of injured people coming back. There are many ways that people can be affected by the time they leave that warzone. And the military man today is different from the military man then. There’s a wider age range. It’s not a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds who went into the service right out of high-school. Some of them are 40 year olds. It’s a whole different situation.”

I think about now, in comparison to peace time. At any given time, will you grant me a safe assumption that there are crazy people in the world? A certain ratio of the populace that will always be high-strung, in all the wrong ways. Too stressed, too nervous, too many things to handle on a day by day basis. For whatever chemical reason, we will never have a perfect population of mental health walking the earth. The difference between now and any other time in our country lies in where they come from. The Given Ratio is created from birth, or whatever it is that causes these mental quirks. But, other than the standing percentage of anger management cases, no one is ever born a warrior. And other than the backwoods of Michigan and Montana, there’s no source of militant warfare and the psychological change that comes with it. Except during wartime. A new category is created every time a war declaration is made. A certain group of people leave and come back differently. This new strain needs to be dealt with once the flags are flown at full staff again and the guns are put away. This is point one of my concerns—most people live their lives in Normalcy. They get from one end to the other. Cradle to grave, straight line. But sometimes a large contingent of people, on occasion, do not. And Normalcy needs to deal with this new baggage that returns with them. And as P.J. Kennedy said, “There’s only so much resource to go around. There’s only so much pie to cut.”

************

I don’t want people thinking I imagine killing-squads of ex-marines roaming the streets of America pumping lead into anything walking on less than 5 legs. I know everyone coming back from the front does not live on a hair-thin edge keeping them from blowing off a string of gruesome sprees that would put Manson to shame. I just want information. I want to follow all strings of information that come my way, come up with questions, get them answered, and then come up with seven more that I need answering. I’m not that frantic, even though the first time I wrote that sentence just now I wrote “I not that frantic.” That’s just because it’s 3:43 in the a.m. now. I like each step I’m taking here. I can feel myself getting smarter. I know it’s working, too, because I can read this last paragraph and tell that I’m getting my sense of humor back.

I even know my next move. If you talked to a Veteran Psychiatrist from Vietnam about war stress, where would you go next? Maybe some voices a little more contemporary? I think I can satisfy your hungry little brains with more.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties...

2. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/

3. http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx

I Interviewed A Gay Guy (11-07-2007)

 Conform or be buttfucked. – Josh Homme

Some things make being alive a whole lot more exciting, simply by the fact that you’re alive at the time they’re going on. At the risk of sounding lame, the gay struggle is just about the most fun I ever have watching the news. This is history in the making, one of the 4 or 5 things that our generation will be judged on how we handled it.

I got an interview with Ryan LeMay of SPECTRUM, the gay-bisexual-transgender-lesbian-curious experimentation in college-straight allies support and activism group, a few days before their “National Coming Out Day” rally on the campus mall, on October 11th. The whole transcribed dialogue is over 38 pages, it’s 8:54 a.m., we have to get the Flip Side to the printers, and I’ve been up on pizza, Mountain Dew, and cigarettes for 19 hours now. So I’ll just be rushing through this, giving you my own pre-formed opinion, while drawing choice quotes from Ryan just to reinforce my own points. Stick with me. See if you end up learning something anyways.

What can be said about the Gay’s and the bullshit they swallow that hasn’t already been said? Well, for one, I follow it like informational crack cocaine. It interests me to no end. It’s a watershed to so many things that stretch beyond something so simple as who goes to bed with which private organ between their legs. The gripe one always hears every year everywhere is that the world is losing its moral high ground. A planet adrift in the blackness, blown off the course of what it had once been sure of. Grey shades are coming, folks. They have been for a while. It’s going to get worse, and I’d warn you to keep an eye out for them if I thought it was a bad thing. The quirks and twists of personality people have to deal with on a daily basis are only going to get more imaginative, and I enjoy hearing about it. Not even on just a roller-coaster ride sense of excitement level.

To make a curt point, since I have to keep this all at around a 1,400 word size, nothing you find or are given is a guarantee anymore. Feel the malaise around? That’s you doubting whether your upcoming college degree is a guaranteed proof-positive for a life of opulent splendor. That crueler you’re about to eat might be shortening your life, maybe more than the starvation it’s avoiding would be worth fighting against. But enough depressing bullshit. Here’s the good news: life is losing its meaning, there’s no where to run, and the rules are a thing of the past.

What the hell does this have to do with gay people, Phil? Well, enter Vern. Vern is 16 years old, and lives in my noggin. He’s a hypothetical, folks. A cliché of the gay discussion. Vern’s a smart kid. He knows that coming out of the closet would invite non-stop abuse, from a fine cross-section of high-class Americana, for the rest of his life. He could keep it under wraps, of course. Everyone could. Every single one of the lovely members of that fine subculture that is presently illegalized from declaring their eternally bonding love in a courtroom could just suck it up and swallow, and live with it. Their lives would be easier. So why do they do it? They same reason anyone does anything that seems like a terrible idea: it’s gut. They have to. They feel like if they don’t, their stomach walls will burst. So we have a trade-off here, don’t we? The deeper workings of the body’s humors, soul and heart, actually have a bigger pull on people than one might want to admit.

But not for everyone, true? A large part of the fight for LGBTA groups is supposedly “recruitment”. Sounding the horn and getting the sweet note of acceptance to ring in on every closet case and half-assed fence sitter who says they aren’t sure. Let the true colors fly, as they might say. But my brain turns this all around on me. If the LGBTAers are working with the premise of self-confusion and self-denial, what’s stopping it from working the other way? “Gay man comes to his senses!” “Conversion for GEE-SUS!” Exaggerations, perhaps, but the point stands. I’d put money there’s at least one person who feels like the homosexual servings aren’t his idea of the best hot lunch in town. It doesn’t even matter if you couldn’t find him, or even if he didn’t exist. My mind’s already off.

I’m white. Find a black person around campus. They’re black. Got that? Good. Can you look in the mirror and tell you’re not gay? I can’t. For someone who works in doubt for his breakfast lunch and dinner 7 days a week, this is an interesting quandary. I’ll never be sure if I’m gay or not. And short of arm tattoos following a post-birth genetic scan for traces of The Gay, you’ll never be sure either. Quick head count, find the queers in the room around you. God they could be everywhere, couldn’t they? Anywhere. Check the signs. Anyone well dressed? Anyone talking politely with someone of the same sex in your vicinity? They might be flirting? Are there any violently loud acts of same-sex copulation in the cubicle near you? Well, sorry to tell you, but that’s about the only sure-fire sign you can trust. That shit about lisps, weak wrists, and fashion sense is a lot less surefire than you’d think. Just like everything else around you, huh? You feel the world crumbling around you, don’t you? Welcome to my kingdom. Take my hand, and I will guide you through the Land of Utter and Total Uncertainty. At this point, the only vestige of sexual security I have is that I still masturbate to women. That’s something I’m sure of.

Time for quotes! A bunch of them.

“No one has an easy life. Everyone has problems. So even if I was straight I’d still have problems. So why would you say, ‘Oh, I’d make myself straight. Then life would be fine and dandy.’ Well, no. Everyone has shit, so why should I pity myself? ‘I’m gay. Nobody understands.’ I understand. Myself at least. That’s all that really matters. For anything.

“A woman had just come to terms with being a lesbian, and she asked if there was a certain way she should behave now that she’s out. I made sure to go up there and say, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that because you’re a lesbian you act this way, or do this, or you dress this way. You do what you’ve always done. You be who you are.’

“It’s ingrained in your being. Being gay doesn’t mean dressing a certain way. You have the attraction, the physical, emotional, spiritual, you have that. You still know. You can lie to everyone around you, but you can’t really lie to yourself. There’s the fear of acceptance, of course, but facing that is part of growing up.”

I couldn’t write anything better than what Ryan’s put into words here. This returns us Vern, and his seemingly masochistic choice he’s about to make. No one’s going to be there with the homo-pamphlet. There is no national registry. He doesn’t get classes in this. He’ll have support, of course. But the choice of how he lives with this decision is something he’ll be living with and remaking every day for the rest of his life. Every day he might find someone who hates him, or someone who backs him up. But lets be honest, more likely more of the former than the latter. That’s what happens. That’s how it is and has been. Might be for while, too. But he’s got The Gut. He can’t live any other way. If he’s lucky, before long he’ll find out that every shitty day after The Change is still better than the best day he had when he was still lying to himself.

And in a sweeping touch, I bring it all around to the point I made in the beginning. Those are your choices. Politeness and pain, or courage and pain. Get along with everyone, or take a chance and don’t. I’m not even going to tell you the same tired “adventure” bullshit I’ve always heard whenever this topic comes up. It doesn’t have to be exciting. Just know that whatever you do, somebody on the other side is going to try and give you shit for it. But they don’t have to live with your gut. You do.

The gay fight is nothing more than latest battle scene. It symbolizes everyone who’s ever wanted to be some way, simply because they felt like they had to be that way. The only thing left was for them was to keep kidding themselves, try to play the round peg in the square hole game, and fail just like everyone else ever had. The sooner you quit, the sooner you might start winning. The Gut makes the rules. All you can do is hope the chips fall someplace right.

A Man Saw The Vagina Monologues! (01-11-2008)

On Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 I was attending the Vagina Monologues for the first time, the production by Eve Ensler, who wrote about interviews she held with women across the globe about their vaginas, self-explanatory. She excerpts the testimony to group them into themed pieces – sexual freedom, war time rapes, first experiences, and first-hand account of stories that would cause mental collapse in any man whose penis was submitted to likewise wrangling, twisting, robbery, and torture.

I had heard bits and pieces performed by enthusiastic female friends who told me that they had to show me a new book of stories about female sexual empowerment. I had gathered the general tone of the book was one of strong female attitude – something I was leery of. I have a heavy attraction to strong women who won’t take shit from anyone, and I was afraid my objective journalist eye for the event would drown from my drool, metaphorically speaking.

I was handed a program, and took my seat. I noticed random facts had been thrown onto the pages, and had immediate issue with some. “2/3 of the cast has had a negative sexual experience.” I wondered exactly what the definition of a ‘negative sexual experience’ was. Boring? Over too soon? Or impolite to say the least, sans-condom without asking first, or other gray areas, while still genuine gripes, needed to be explained. And as far as “38% of the cast has [been] a victim of sexual violence and/or abuse.” goes – violence is violence, but I recalled a problem told to me by a lawyer acquaintance of mine that the term “sexual abuse” had been thrown around so loosely in terms of a cat call, dark look, or just plain awkward attempts at first dates, the cases were losing their legal definition and entering the realm of simply being cried “wolf” one time too many.

My worry of being blinded by the sexual glitter satiated, I waited while the lights dimmed.

The first piece was called “Hair”, a woman’s story of her husband cheating on her and dragging her to marriage counseling because she wouldn’t shave her vagina for him. While walking into the territory of supposing undercurrents of pedophilia in the man (“it looked like a little girl, and he got off on that”), it still brought to light the fact that he was blaming her for not changing a vital part of her body to satisfy him.

For the record, the suggestion needs to be laid now: Ladies, if a man will nit-pick over whether or not you’ve shaved your vagina, and he’s not simply happy to be allowed to be there in the first place, kick him out of the fucking bed! At least that was the lesson I thought everyone should walk away with.

That was followed by a collection of one-liners: “What would your vagina wear?” and “What would it say?” – answers funnier than anything I could come up with or recall right now. See the show.

Then began the 4th monologue, my personal favorite, called “The Flood”, a story from a 72-year-old woman who hadn’t had a sexual experience in her life. Her curse was due to a teenage SNAFU, wherein she accidentally soiled herself (“Urine?” Please…) after being kissed – “like I had always seen in the movies” – on her first date. The guilt of exciting herself, in public and on the new car’s white leather seat, led her to avoid The Flood for the rest of her life, saying her vagina was shut like a gate, and no one goes there or is allowed in. Again, folks – guy takes a car over a woman, kick him to the curb going 50.

At the end of “The Flood”, the woman attempts to hold some embarrassment at the fact that she had told this story to Ensler, a complete stranger. But she realizes she had never talked to anyone before about the episode. And she feels better for having talked to someone about it. Interesting postscript to that story: shortly after being interviewed for her story, the woman (according to the monologues) told Ensler that she had finally pleasured herself, guilt free, for the first time in decades, and had cried with joy afterward.

Every piece of literature needs a counter to work against. Antagonist is too strong of a word here, but men are definitely the foil in many of the stories. Rightfully so, since this is a collection of women empowerment, what else would suffice for supporting characters?  But don’t believe anyone who says the show is an hour and a half of male bashing. One piece, “Because He Liked to Look At It”, tells the story of a woman who realizes her own self-worth when she sees herself through the eyes of a man who is enamored with her and her vagina. She can see it as perfect as he had, and she came off as the one who had her heart softened. “Bob” was a reminder that some of the things women hate themselves for is made up in their mind. Remember folks, you’re beautiful. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

Another pair of my favorites were the flaming anger in two specific pieces. The first one being “My Angry Vagina”, relaying a grocery list of complaints toward the invasive procedures socially encouraged to get women to clean their vaginas – like it’s a little kid that needs to look good in public or it will embarrass its mother. It was little more than a recap for anyone who’s forgotten, but gold nonetheless. For the record, women have to push dry cotton into their most anatomically sensitive area in their bodies on a regular basis. As well as occasionally needing medical inspection with hardware that resembles cold steel plumbing tools more than anything. You’d get a bit pissed, too. “My Short Skirt” was a pair of righteously hateful women railing against the idea that wearing short skirt meant they begged for something, deserved it, or were asking for it. They came just short of asking for the chance to castrate the type of men that George Carlin said want to send women to prison for being cock-teases, but I understand if not everyone shares my sense of humor. I tried to keep my tongue in, but the louder and angrier they got, the wider grew my shit-eating grin.

The rest of the show was stories with titles like “I Was 12 My Mother Slapped Me”, “My Vagina Was My Village”, “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could”, “Comfort Women” (no, not those kind, perv. Women who were raped in wars), “Smell” (akin to “Wear” and “Say”), “Reclaiming Cunt” (think black people reclaiming the term nigger – same idea, with audience participation of screaming “CUNT!” at the top of our lungs, no less), and “A Six-Year-Old Girl Was Asked” (“Smell”, “Wear”, and “Say’, except 6 years old…and ADORABLE!).

But I saw the second to last piece, “The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy” as the head mark piece – the one that signified everything the Monologues were about. It was a monologue by a former lawyer who became a sex worker for women only, simply because she was a “moan connoisseur”. As she listed all the different species of groans and howls, I waited to see how many people would be able to keep laughing through what seemed to be 20 to 30 different versions of sexual yells and screams, if the unabashed sexuality would be too much for anyone – the crowd rode on every scream, moan, lean, tooth grit, and arm flail. I was proud of my Midwest people.

I thought of those underlying, hidden yelps that meant everything to the person who finally let it out, because it was everything to them. A sexually excited scream is exactly what Whitman was talking about when he spoke of the barbaric YAWP – “I too am untranslatable.” The secret thing, voice, and language, held back by convention, hatred, and everyone else who’s jealous of how loud you are. I saw the piece holding the woman race up against everything, telling it to make noise, and it had things to say, hatred to spew, and things to start demanding for itself.

After the last piece – Ensler’s personal monologue about the respect she gained for vaginas after seeing a childbirth – I was left with a lot to think about. I knew it all meant something, but I couldn’t think of a handle to give myself on it. The closest thing I could think of was a Classic Greek play called Lysistrata where all the women forsake sex for their husbands until they stop their warfare. But I had only heard about the play – I couldn’t think of anything I’d actually seen that was like the monologues. I knew there were complaints of show, that it simplified and degraded women to be thought of in terms their vaginas. I had also heard that it was anti-men, or suggested a simple role reversal – women in charge subjugating men. All opinions I disagreed with, but was still able to see how one could come to those conclusion. I had recently come to the realization that true art doesn’t actually make the world a better place, just a more complex one.

I spoke with a male friend of mine afterwards who was ambivalent towards the show. He said women and sexuality was an intricate issue, and he felt the monologues oversimplified something that needed in depth dialogue, and the presentation had only scratched the surface.

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘But I couldn’t think of a better place to start.’