Writers

Atheists Still Act Religiously (In A Manner Of Speaking)

 

I know, in my case this probably isn't true, but it still rings true:

All sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do. But if they’re white, they won’t say it. I used to just pretend I didn’t notice it, and now I just think I don’t care. 

There are all sorts of reasons not to like my writing. But that’s not one of them. Saying something is angry is not a criticism. It’s not valid. It’s not a valid observation in terms of criticism. You can list it as something that’s true. But it’s not critical. 

You may not like it because it makes you uneasy—and you can say that. But to damn it because it’s angry…. They always say that about black people: “those angry black people.” And why? You’re afraid that there might be some truth to their anger. It might be justified. 

I promise you, if I had blonde hair and blue eyes this wouldn’t be an issue. No one ever says, “That angry Judith Krantz…” or whatever.

 

 Fighting a pain others turn from is but one of the many concepts I've had to wrestle with, practically all my life, starting much too early. I've learned to compartmentalize a lot of things, just to get on with it. But, whatever I do, I don't follow my "beliefs" just because they "ring" or (let's be blunt) feel true. 

I know how that "works":

Exactly a week after watching the movie Edmond, where a fortuneteller's "advice" helps screw up a guy's life, I accidentally bumped into another film that featured a male NewAger.

It was The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers starring Geoffrey Rush. 

Now - having no clue a fortuneteller was an integral part of Peter Sellers' story - I could have found this second NewAge occurrence significant, somehow, as a part of my own life.

I'm into this shit, right-right?

Somebody trying to "tell me something," maybe?

   

Hey, I might be that hot important.

But it gets even better because, after divorcing his wife (!) Peter Sellers goes to this fortuneteller who - fraudulently acting on a tip the director Blake Edwards wants Sellers to star in a movie - tells the actor to build a strong relationship with someone who has the initials "B.E.". 

Sellers immediately runs out and "marries" Britt Ekland. 

Which also doesn't end well.

But, otherwise, what's so weird? 

My very next movie was The Wicker Man, which I had no idea was starring - wait for it:

Britt-Fucking-Ekland!!!

   

 And not just Britt Ekland, but I'm talking Peter Sellers' second "wife" buck naked - this YouTube cut is edited and framed not to show it - and doing some Stonehenge-y white girl hoodoo love dance, using NewAge to try and make a good man go bad.

[Place the theme to The Twilight Zone here.] 

I was getting totally sucked in, like, Oh-My-God, Becky, Look-At-Her-Butt.

What the name of Oprah and Gail was going on?  Had I discovered The Matrix? 

   

Nope.

 Nothing was going on, except we're a nation of hysterics, seeing "signs" where there are none - and disregarding everything we know for "beliefs" - as unworthy as anyone who holds them.

The reality is, I pick up, and watch, random DVDs for free from the library. 

Y'all suit yourselves,...

 

Hard Knocks

"More impressive than his output is his utter lack of fear of self-contradiction, flights of laughter-inducing hyperbole, public obsessiveness, repeated self-contradiction, betrayals of utter ignorance, and failed attempts to mimic the Bard by coining bizarre neologisms to match his wandering moods."

-- Christopher Badeaux, taking down Andrew Sullivan - without ever removing his cap and gloves - for The New Ledger.

Seems To Be A Lot Of That Going Around

"[Naomi] Wolf’s article on [Angelina] Jolie is not a standard celebrity profile. There is no interview, no encounter between the author and the object of her affection. Jolie remains an ideal, and the article is explicitly about the 'life narrative' Jolie has 'crafted,' the 'persona that [took] her to global icon.' It declares itself an essay about artifice and image. What makes the piece so compelling is Wolf's palpable yearning to believe. In the guise of analyzing Jolie’s image, she succumbs, forgetting that glamour is an illusion."

-- Virginia Postrel, pulling out those pesky NewAge buzzwords - and sticking them in quotes - so we can know they've got nothing to do with Deep Glamour.

Am I Trapped? Oh Man, You Betcha

"Humor, if we are to be serious about it, arises from the ineluctable fact that we are all born into a losing struggle. Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can't afford to be too frivolous. (And there just aren't that many episiotomy jokes, even in the male repertoire.) I am certain that this is also partly why, in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion, which in turn is the official enemy of all humor. One tiny snuffle that turns into a wheeze, one little cut that goes septic, one pathetically small coffin, and the woman's universe is left in ashes and ruin. Try being funny about that, if you like. Oscar Wilde was the only person ever to make a decent joke about the death of an infant, and that infant was fictional, and Wilde was (although twice a father) a queer. And because fear is the mother of superstition, and because they are partly ruled in any case by the moon and the tides, women also fall more heavily for dreams, for supposedly significant dates like birthdays and anniversaries, for romantic love, crystals and stones, lockets and relics, and other things that men know are fit mainly for mockery and limericks. Good grief! Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she's just had? ('And then Quentin was there somehow. And so were you, in a strange sort of way. And it was all so peaceful.' Peaceful?)'"

-- Christopher Hitchens, discussing why men are funnier than women, in Vanity Fair

You have to read this article. It touches on so many subjects I've pondered for so long - why are the first pews, in every church I've ever entered, filled with such crazy women? - and Hitchens writes with such knowing, and laugh-out-loud humor, there's nothing I could do but read it in awe.

I've got a friend, Kevin Carnes, who is this amazing drummer. (One of the handful of musicians, that I know personally, whose playing I consider up to my songwriting level.) He's so good that, when he's sat at his kit and started fooling around, just to get comfortable, I've seen a gallery of lesser drummers break their sticks and declare their artistic careers over. ("I'll never be that good," they always say.) That's exactly how I feel reading Hitchens. He's this unstoppable force. A giant of letters. I mean, people tell me I can write, but - fuck - I'll never be that good. (I know, I know: I'm just getting started. But still.)

I shared a cigarette with Hitchens one night in San Francisco, and he autographed his newest book for me, saying we were "Well met." It was his tiny Bill Clinton expose' (entitled No One Left To Lie To) which I'll, probably, carry with me for the rest of my life.

I had no idea then he was going to be this huge star, of course. I had no idea he was huge, even back then. Or an atheist. Or a conservative. But I did know he was a genius.

And, while I seem destined to wear both of those titles like a weight around my neck (will no record company ever sign me, so I can get my teeth fixed, and make my mark?) it's still a *major kick* to watch those same seemingly-difficult attributes set another fellow traveler free.

Go - read his article - it's a humbling experience:

A humbling experience that feels really good.