Thoughts On Christmas (And The Holiday Season In General)

WE NEED A HOLIDAY FROM THE HOLIDAY
There's a reason basically every culture and civilization put a big holiday right around the winter solstice. It's because that time of year sucks ass. It is really cold, and it gets dark so soon, and outside everything is death and bone-chilling despair. That's why suicides historically skyrocket this same time of year, because it's an awful, awful time. So they created the Holiday. Call it Christmas, Yule, Hanukah, Kwaanza, Saturnalia, or any of the other names it has gone by in different cultures, the Holiday itself is pretty standard. Today, what was intended to be a joyful celebration to help make bearable the depressing winter has been transformed, become a monster that makes this awful and hateful time of year even worse. It is not only a major Consumer Stress Event, but it also leads to Unavoidable Social Obligations. Everyone is so stressed out about having a good time during this "most wonderful time of the year" that they neglect to have the good time. We need a holiday from the holiday.

CHRISTMAS IS A HOLIDAY FOR WOMEN AND SMALL CHILDREN
Actually, come to think of it, ALL holidays are holidays for women and small children...

CHRISTMAS IS A MODERN AMERICAN POTLATCH
Stop me if you've heard this one. The people are under intense social pressure to BUY, to purchase gifts for one another. Then the holiday comes, and when it passes they all rush back to the stores to return the gifts they just received. What is this immense waste of time and retail man-hours but an ineffective version of potlatch, conspicuous consumption on the tribal scale?

"THE ONE DAY A YEAR I'M SUPPOSED TO NOT BE A DOUCHE"
In older, more religious societies, the paradigm was six days with the Devil and one with God. In other words, for six days you would be concerned with this world and tarnish your soul to grasp onto it, but come Sunday you would be back in the house of the Lord. In modern secular America it is 364 days with the Devil, one with Santa Claus. Christmas is the time when you're not supposed to be a douche, but people spend most of the month or so leading up to it being selfish and lunatic douchebags. Defeats the purpose? Not for me to say.

LYING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT SANTA CLAUS IS STILL LYING TO YOUR KIDS.
Just a thought.

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER WAS AN UNCLE TOM
What's the meaning of this story? Kid born with freakish ability. Ostracized for it. Oh, wait, his freakish ability saved the day! THEN how the reindeer loved him... If I was Rudolph, I would have told the reindeer to fuck off. I'm the same reindeer you made fun of yesterday, I want nothing to do with any of you assholes.

WE NEED SOME NEW CHRISTMAS SONGS
Did you ever notice that Christmas songs describe the Christmas experience of the 1940s or the Christmas experience of the 1800s? When was the last time you ate chestnuts roasting on an open fire or rode in a one-horse open sleigh? Christmas songs are totally irrelevant to the modern Christmas experience. They should do a song called "I'm Waiting On Line For Christmas" or "A Prescription For Yuletide Cheer."

SANTA HATS AREN'T FESTIVE
They just make you look like a fucking idiot. Consider this a public service announcement.

THEY SHOULD SELL EGG NOG YEAR ROUND
I mean, they don't just sell turkey around Thanksgiving, or liquor around St. Patrick's Day. Why do they only sell egg nog around the Holiday? It's really delicious!

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ARE TACKY
To be fair, I guess in the right hands they could be a tasteful, even aesthetically interesting medium. Just not the way you're doing them. Especially you lames with the flashing lights. This has been another public service announcement.

PEOPLE WHO SAY KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS ARE DUMB
First off, Jesus wasn't even born in December. He was probably born in March. The reason the festival of the dying-and-returned god was placed in December had a lot more to do with the pre-existing holidays already set for December. Saturnalia ran from the 17th to the 23rd. The Germanic pagan winter festival Yule took place on December 25th. There was the Holiday long before there was Christmas. Christmas itself wasn't celebrated as such until centuries after the death of Christ, when it finally supplanted the pre-existing holidays and assimilated them into itself. (Listen to Christmas carols talk about "yule-logs" and "yule-tide" and see what I mean.) In fairness, I do admit that if you take Christ out of Christmas it's just "mas." That sounds retarded. Maybe we should keep Christ in Christmas after all.

A Passage I Just Wrote For Something That I Deleted

...his attendance was like a game of Battleship, sometimes a straight run here or there but mostly scattershot and random.

Render Unto Caesar

So I got forwarded this chain email, by a close family relative who really should know better, and while I usually delete these unread I clicked this one out of curiosity and was rewarded with a genuine head-scratcher, the body of which I have duplicated below (minus most of the poor formatting but with all the poor grammar kept verbatim):

---

Fw: Re: Fwd: It has begun...Refuse new coins

REFUSE NEW COINS

This simple action will make a strong statement.

Please help do this.. Refuse to accept these when they are handed to you.

I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead..

The lady just smiled and said 'way to go' , so she had read this e -mail.

Please help out...our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!!

U.S.Government to Release New Dollar Coins


You guessed it
'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!

DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE

Together we can force them out of circulation..

Please send to all on your mailing list!!!

---

Okay... so. Wait, I'm still laughing about how ridiculous this is. Hang on.

(nervous, incredulous laughter)

Okay, I think I'm -- wait, be right back.

(more laughter, cough cough cough hack spit, deep breath)

Okay, I'm ready to continue. But where to begin? By picking apart the patently preposterous propositions? Like "our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!"? As if WORDS ON A COIN really matter EVEN AT ALL in a real world sense. Or the part where "The lady just smiled and said 'way to go' , so she had read this e -mail." But, how could she have already read this email when the incident involving her was just mentioned in it? Time travel? Precognition? Or maybe the person that wrote this email is lying scum. Take your pick, back to the subject at hand.

Now, maybe you really think God should be on our coins, the way it's been since the beginning of... well, since 1864, when Salmon P. Chase (yes, his real name) got the ball rolling on stamping In God We Trust on coins. Maybe you're really religious, and you just forgot the part where Jesus said "You cannot serve both God and money." It's Matthew 6:24 if you need to look it up. Or, maybe you're real patriotic, and you just forgot the part where it is unconstitutional for the federal government to acknowledge or endorse any deity, deities, or religious figures. (Except Elvis, naturally.)

Look. It's almost 2010. There's still slavery going on, did you know that? In the time I wrote this sentence a couple hundred people just had their lives taken by violence in various parts of the world. A bunch of people just starved to death somewhere. We live in a world where 99% of the resources are owned by 1% of the people, and "if ever there was a reason to boycott something," this is it? Seriously? I've said it before and I'll say it again, please someone build a spaceship so I can get in it and leave this madhouse and all you fools behind. Please.

But wait, here's another relevant Jesus quote: "Render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's; and render unto God what is God's." (Matt. 22:21)

The real question is, why does In God We Trust belong on our money in the first place? Jesus didn't approve of mixing God and Money. The Founding Fathers didn't approve of mixing Church and State. So clearly only someone who hates both Jesus AND the principles of this great nation would want to demonstrate their contempt by cynically putting In God We Trust on money.

It's like this, folks. Over here is religion, and whatever God or Gods you worship. Spritual. Transcendent. And over HERE is government, and money. Secular. Material. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of it, it would look like TWO COMPLETELY UNCONNECTED CIRCLES because that's what the spiritual world and the material world are. Unconnected. Unless you buy into Eastern philosophy or quantum physics and believe that everything is connected to everything else, in which case you probably aren't too concerned with WORDS ON A FUCKING COIN.

And last, since the money isn't actually backed by anything but our own belief that it's worth something, wouldn't it be more proper for the coins to say IN OURSELVES WE TRUST?

Spider-Man Comics In The Nineties

Confusing Continuity
Consisting of Convoluted Crossovers
Concerning Carnage and Clones

3 Things I Wrote In My Head Today

Talya
Talya likes to ride on my shoulders. A few visits ago I told her that I would not let her if she had a dirty diaper because I didn't want a dirty diaper up on my neck. Reasonable, right? And she understood. Then somewhere along the way it turned into every time her diaper gets changed she runs up to me and says "Uncle Noelie, I want to ride on your neck! My diaper is clean!"

Me Against The World
I am only an outcast freak because in my mind I am still an outcast freak. Time and again the world has told me it is ready to accept me now, and time and time again I have told the world to go fuck itself. Tragic flaw or personal triumph? I'm not objective enough to say.

A Classic Rant
You know how they have those self-checkout lines at grocery stores? And how they break them down by quantity? Like twelve items or less, five items or less, and so forth? Here's an idea: self-checkout lanes for COMPETENT PEOPLE.

The Dark Ages™

an excerpt from Panopticon Remix:

Picture it like this: You're born in a dank, smelly, dusty hut with a dirt floor. When you are old enough you are set to work in the fields for the Lord Of The Land™. If you don't provide enough the soldiers come. Perhaps you get drafted to fight in one of the dozens of small wars between this lord and that lord or between this king and that king or between the followers of this sect and the followers of that sect. Or perhaps you are drafted as a laborer for one of the great and grandiose projects your leader envisions; a big wall, a lavish palace, an ostentatious tomb. Better not complain. Maybe you even survive all of this, to come back to the home you do not own and work again. From the day you were born to the day you die your life is not your own. You cannot read, you know of no other life than a short and miserable one at service to people you have never even seen. Maybe if you're lucky you will not fall victim to any one of the thousands of illnesses they cannot cure yet. Maybe if you're lucky you won't be murdered outright in this era of lawlessness. Maybe you'll live to a ripe old age, to see your children felled by war and disease and overwork. Then die, then repeat. Continue this for a few thousand years.

Or maybe that's too depressing for you and you prefer to identify with the rulers. Who wouldn't? So how about this: You are born into more wealth and power than you rightly know what to do with. Your slightest whim is made into reality, you hold in your hands the lives and deaths of thousands of people. Dirty, smelly people -- barely even people at all. You bask in pleasure every waking moment of your life. This is the Divine Right Of Kings™. Then, one day, you get murdered by your own guards. Or by your brother. Or your son. Right before you die you think for a moment about how tenuous your "power" always was, or more likely you just think about how unfair this is. Or heck, maybe you live a long life and it's only after you die that your entire bloodline is brutally wiped out by the competition. It happens.

Either way, insert some Dark Ages™. Fast forward through the needless suffering, the ignorance, the filth. Or, if you’re one of those ren-faire type people, fast forward through an era of unheralded chivalry and honor. Either way, skip ahead a few thousand years.

The Chess Piece

In chess he is brutal. He tears apart the opponent's force, piece by piece, before finally backing the enemy king, frightened and alone, into the corner. Checkmate. He does this, not because he is malicious or vindictive, but because for him it is the only way. He does not see the quicker and more efficient lines of vulnerability, he is too cautious. Cautious yes, yet brutal. Against lesser and equal players he can hold his own; his brutality capably backed by his intelligence and his short-term planning. Against greater players he is destined to lose; while he is tearing into their defense they can trap his king with inventive combinations he is incapable of seeing, let alone guarding against.

A Very Scientific Explanation Of Why Old People Suck

Remember when getting old was a sign of wisdom? When the elders of the tribe were the ones with the most experience and knowledge and respect? That was way before Toffler's Future Shock kicked in, when generations could pass by without a whole hell of a lot changing technologically or socially. In that environment an older person would be wiser, if for no other reason than they lived through more, they put in the time.

Now things change so fast that an old person, whose mind has become rigid and less adaptable to changes, is basically useless. Who cares how things were in the 1950s, you old fart? Quit driving so slow! Quit holding up the grocery line with your hundreds of coupons!

Now, it's not that I think that old people are worthless, per se -- just that I think that most people overall are worthless, and people in their 20s-30s are better looking and have more flexible minds than people in their 70s-80s, and they can walk faster too, so they are not quite as worthless as they will be given another 50 years.

OBAMA PASSES LAW, BOGARTS KRETEKS

One thing that really gets me cheesed off is the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which was signed into law by President Obama on June 22, 2009. This law, designed to regulate the tobacco industry and make things safer for kids and soccer moms, is a bunch of crap. And why do I say this? Because now clove cigarettes, or kreteks, are outlawed.

Not just cloves, of course. All flavored cigarettes are outlawed. With the exception of menthol -- and just try to get the black president to outlaw menthol cigarettes. Some people are crying conspiracy, that Phillip Morris makes menthol cigarettes, that once again Big Tobacco has reared its ugly head.

I am just mad that I can't get cloves anymore.

I am mad because I voted for the guy that signed them out of law.

I am mad because instead of legalizing more and cooler things to smoke, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.

I should have known that this would happen when the Democrats took power. Goddamn liberals trying to legislate self-destruction out of existence. I like to self-destruct! I like to smoke cloves. The crackling sound they make as they burn (hence the onomatopoetic term "kretek"). The pleasant numbing sensation in the roof of the mouth. Menthol cigarettes are like smoking a damn cough drop – utter crap in comparison.

Now the first Democrat president since the one that tried to outlaw Internet porn (with the Communications Decency Act of 1996 for all you young heads out there) has come in to outlaw clove cigarettes.

Good job, Obama.

At least under the Republicans all we had to worry about was people getting tortured and phones being tapped and shit.

A thought: Does this mean some enterprising soul is going to start selling black market Djarum Blacks? I mean, just because a commodity is outlawed doesn’t mean it’s unavailable – Lord no – it just means it’s more expensive and when you get ripped off you can’t complain to the Better Business Bureau.

Let me go back to my earlier point. It is 2009. Instead of outlawing clove cigarettes and fruity flavored cigarettes and whatever other flavors Phillip Morris doesn’t sell, why not legalize every cool drug and even some of the weirdo degenerate ones your black sheep uncle is out in his car doing during awkward family get-togethers? I mean, if health is the issue, we could try making a better health care system. That way, people who get weird illnesses from smoking cloves or salvia or doing lines of ketamine on the men’s room floor could be treated, and go back to enjoying their alternative lifestyles. Isn’t that what America’s all about? Rugged individualism? A nation of men, not laws? So instead of banning things that are fun to do but may be harmful to the health of the individual that uses them, reform health care.

What’s that? You say they already are, and it’s a big controversy? Shows how little I get out. I don’t really pay attention to the news anymore. We are so far away from mankind’s actual destiny that by the time we get there everything happening now will be wholly irrelevant.

So why can’t I just have my damn cloves?

Liberals Saved My Life

I definitely had a Columbine in me. Here's a secret I don't think I ever told anyone: I sat in the back of the crowd at my high school graduation, watching the proceedings and seeing all the different ways I could be killing these people. Later in life I would joke that I was just too apathetic, but the fact is that being raised in a post-hippie liberal household saved my life, prevented me from making these idle daydreams into a reality.

Had I been raised in a conservative gun-nut household, I would have had easy access to weapons. And without the liberal touchy-feely huggy-huggy feelings-are-real and everyone's-are-valid mindset, I would not have had the only value structure that would prevent me from using said weapons willy-nilly. And while it could be argued that in the long-view that was a mistake, that I passed up a real and direct chance to clean up the gene pool and do a favor for future generations, it is also true that it would not have ended well for me personally. So, in a very real sense, liberals saved my life.