a so-so day

Aye, job interviews cometh, and job interviews goeth away.

I had a meeting with Larkin St. Youth earlier today, which would be a street outreach job. Which is cool, although it will be a mile outside of my comfort zone. Assuming I get called back for a second interview, and I get a walkthrough day, and then I get a job offer.

And you know that song, "fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads, fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum!" Well, it's stuck in my head. And if you do know it, now it's probably stuck in yours, too.

I'm tired. Right now I feel like I'm just waiting for the next game cube to come and take me to the next system. Reboot, dammit.

Hey, audience poll. Me as exotic dancer. Waddya think?

quip

Me: One day, hundreds of years from now, future archaeologists will unearth this place. And you know what they will find?

BF: No. What?

Me: My web page still hasn't loaded.

more...

Okay, I'm on a roll now. I should really just write out more posts Rosemary-style. My rants are fun. For me.

Let's face it, the seconds we got on the planet are finite. We probably ain't got that many more breaths in our body, certainly not in the cosmic sense. So if every single moment is a gift from God/nature/flying-spaghetti-monster, then why in the hell/nothingness/pasta sauce am I spending one more second listening to anti-gay arguments? They draw me like flies to those irritating buzzing traps. (And why do flies get drawn to those things, anyway? Is it just like, "I'm annoying. It's annoying. Strangely... compelled...")

The thing is, I keep trying to find something that makes sense. And I guess on some level I am looking for validation, like if I really see every anti-gay argument for myself and can readily verify that it is crap, then I can rest easy. That's stupid. I don't need to see every anti-racist argument to not be racist, and I don't need to hear every anti-gay argument to know that it all boils down to the same "it's yucky/ God said so" arguments. Enough, I'm tired of this crap. I'm gonna go do something productive. Like cocaine.

angry thoughts

I feel like bitching more about life. Grah!

According to the BBC, yet another review panel has concluded that abstinence-only programs don't work. Gasp. Because it totally makes sense that when you have millions of years of evolution-perfected hormones telling you to have sex on one hand, and Phyllis Schlafly or whoever on the other telling you to abstain, abstinence totally wins out. What were you smoking?

And while I am on the subject of Satan and his minions, I am filled with anger at a particular individual at the clinic where I work at. How do you manage the fact that you know someone is lying to you but you can't say anything about it? Especially when that person is an irresponsible little bitch who doesn't fess up to anything but just wants to feel powerful? And that's like a parasite at the clinic, or at least in my section. People want to be sensitive to your feelings and not say anything that would be perceived as judgmental. We want to own up to our end of things and work through our issues responsibly. Then this ass comes along, waits for other people to fess up to their ends, and then uses that as proof of being right all along and look, "they even admitted it". Well fuck that. Up to this point I have really tried to be someone who is fair and rational and handles conflicts with impartiality. An up till now its worked for me. But you know what? I do judge this person. I deem them an irredeemable butt-monkey with the emotional IQ of a curtain. A damn manipulative butt-monkey at that. I wanna just say that they are a piece of shit and be done with it. But then that becomes evidence that I am an irrational person who "just doesn't handle conflict well," and "maybe we can negotiate this?" Maybe I can negotiate a fucking pipe up your ass you sack of crap.

I hate prospective employers who do not respond to emails and do not answer phone calls and do not give me a freakin' job. May they roast in that special hell with spikey cucumbers and pink upholstery and Michael Bolton karaoke-style.

On second thought, Phyllis Schlafly advocates women staying at home and serving their men, not abstinence, I think. Screw you, Wikipedia, you are dead to me. Oh, and you too Phyllis Schlafly. You go to prospective employer hell.

musings and a fun conversation

I realize that I have been lax about posting.

I suppose it relates to my continual string of existential crises about what I think is interesting and what I feel is worthwhile to let outside of the confines of my own head. I feel like I ought to have a biohazard sign on my scalp.

And let's face it, I'm lazy. Not like I don't want to work, but I don't generally want to take any effort that is going to require any initiative at all on my part. I mean AT ALL. Which is why an attempt at a blog is a kind of silly endeavor for me. But still a lot of fun. And gratifying that I have over 70 posts that have sprung from my head, heart, and fingertips, even if some of them are two lines and a link. OK, most of them. Shut up, who asked you?

So that said, now the pressure is on to make the nearly two week wait totally worth it. I got nothing. OK, I got something, but it ain't me. Well, fuck it. It's long and it's funny. You don't like it, you can suck it. Suck it dry.

(P.S... Damn you slow internet, you foil me again. I will have your soul, rah!)

John: ... I mean, what will it take? That last speech literally made no sense. It was crazy drunken bar talk! Islamic radicals are like COMMUNISM?! (gets speech on laptop) If we don't fight terrorists in Iraq they'll build a fundamentalist terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia? What the fuck? Even assuming Spain, which last time I checked is 95% Roman Catholic, goes down, you gotta assume France, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, all eight hundred million Hindus in India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would be somewhat of an obstacle.

Tyrone: To be fair, you're going west-to-east. Maybe he meant a fundamentalist terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia going east-to-west. Going that way, there's only the U.S. The President could be warning us that if we don't prevail in Iraq, the United States will become a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist state.

John: ... a little oblique, isn't it?

Tyrone: The man is nothing if not subtle.

John: (calling up map on laptop) You know, I guess if you start in Spain, swing hard south through northern Africa, you got Algeria, Libya there, Egypt, cross the Red Sea and you're in the Middle East ...

Tyrone: From there, if you spot him the Indian Ocean and India, you're in Indonesia.

John: I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.

Tyrone: And again, I must point out Bush said "the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, allowing them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region." That's what the militants believe. They may just be delusional. He says that himself: "Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical and extreme -- and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed."

John: But he's citing that desire as a basis for our strategy. You can't cite your enemy's delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy. Goals don't exist in a vacuum, they're linked to capability. David Koresh was utterly committed to being Jesus Christ. See how far that got him.

Either Bush is making strategy based on a delusional goal of his opponent, which is idiotic; or he's saying he believes his opponent has the capability of achieving this delusional goal, which is idiotic. Neither bodes well for the republic.

Tyrone: Reading here, the speech boiled down to two points --

John: Who cares? The Spain-to-Indonesia thing should automatically invalidate the whole speech. I don't care how good your investment advisor is, he can spend three hours reviewing mutual funds, as soon as he says "And of course, we can put your money into the Easter Bunny's Egg Upgrades", he is out of --

Tyrone: -- two points. First, Iraq is the keystone in the struggle between the West and Islamic Fundamentalism.

John: Which, if we accept the Administration's own argument, means that invading and destabilizing Iraq with insufficent post-war planning (and all that entails), not enough personnel, and shitty equipment for that personnel was the biggest screw-up in the War on Terror.

Tyrone: He's the President: if he says it, it must be true. Second, Bush says we have made a lot of progress in stopping al-Queda plots. Look: "Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three al Qaeda plots to attack inside the United States. We've stopped at least five more al-Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States, or infiltrate operatives into our country."

John: What are they counting for those wins? Are they counting guys like Padilla?* This is all very gooey, like how we've killed like, nine of Osama Bin Laden's #3 guys.

Tyrone: Being #3 in Al-queda is like being a "creative vice president" at a Hollywood studio. There are dozens of them ... and they are expendable. Listen, don't do this, you're just getting worked up. Have another mozzarella stick.

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27%.

John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

Tyrone: Hadn't thought about it. Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

John: ... a bit low, actually.

Tyrone: (shrugs) Probably right, then. Speaking of Obama, I need to get t-shirts printed up to sell.

John: I can do that on the web. What do they say?

Tyrone: Don't You Dare Kill Obama

John: How about Don't You Dare Kill Obama (... and we know you're thinking about it)

Tyrone: Niiiiice.

John: Or You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN

Tyrone: Even better. Nobody wants their shit burned down.

John: Glad to help.

Tyrone: I'm having you taken off the list for when the revolution comes.

John: ... there's really a list --

Tyrone: Oh yeah. Hell yeah.

on atomic replacement

Ah, insomnia.

I heard something cool the other day on NPR. According to this study involving radioactive atoms and long-term observation, every year 98% of the atoms in our body are replaced. The exception are a few DNA atoms in our hearts and brains, but they don't count for too much. I essentially interpret this to mean that in a year we will all be dead, replaced by identical clones composed of almost entirely different atoms.

If I were told I would be cloned and then killed, I would be terrified. But this is kind of exhilerating. I guess you could kind of go either way on this, but it makes me feel like death isn't that scary because really, it's happening all the time.

Now this assumes that the research is true (which it probably is). Honestly, I'd like to think so.

an extra dose of special

I was watching TV the other day and I saw this commercial, which just blew me away. Kids playing, asking their parents ominous questions, and then the voiceover, "There's no reason not to have a plan in case of a terrorist attack. And some extremely good reasons why you should."

Methinks the government doesn't think we are scared enough to vote Republican.

why the news is evil

I was at the gym today, mindlessly pedaling an elliptical like a hamster in a wheel, when I look up at the TVs to see a report of "Blast Rocks New York."

Now what the hell would any post-9/11 American think after hearing that friggin' headline?

Turns out, as I learned seconds later, that it was a completely terrorist-unrelated steam blast from an underground pipeline. I hate the news.

a gay millenium

Had a hard time sleeping again last night, so...

good times, good times.

things of the world

Michael Glatze has written another piece which makes my head want to explode even more, but I resist.

Lately I have been wondering just what is so damn great about the iPhone that makes people want to pee themselves about it. Well, I have my answer. The humor here makes me miss Tye.

On a less light but more positive note, water has been found underneath Darfur, which may help to end the conflict there. Cool beans.

good deed for the day

Hey you!

Do not get off your lazy butt!

Instead, go to this website and exchange 30-45 seconds of your life to help make the world a (slightly) better place.

(Even if he is guilty, everyone deserves fair, due process).

tudors

The Tudors is a pretty fun show, from the one episode I've seen.

It also brought back memories. Since I am awake anyway, I thought that I would link to this It's worth watching for the first 7 minutes or so, past the ads and up through the song.

Warning - history spoilers. In fact, the song is the reason I remember what happened to King Henry's Wives.

ambivalence

Do you ever read a book and think, "man, I wonder if this will ever be a movie?" and then one day you see the preview for that movie?

Last night I saw a preview for the Susan Cooper book "The Dark is Rising" which I loved as a kid. It was a lot darker than other kids books (of course); Its child hero wasn't this bold, idiotic kid who flew by the seat of his pants to save the day. He was thoughtful, and sad to find out that he was chosen for his particular task. He also wasn't a singular "chosen one," but part of a few people who were born immortal, and he acknowledges that being immortal pretty much sucks. Besides that, the writing was poetry.

So my first reaction, once I realized what story they were doing, was to be kind of excited. But the way Will seems written in the movie (as per the preview) is the sort of stock, brash, Eragonesque kid. And they seem to invoke the whole "chosen one" trope.

I will probably see it. But I am bracing myself to leave the theater mad.

a minor theory

I saw the Harry Potter movie yesterday, and something occurred to me which I felt kind of dumb for not having wondered before.

I kind of think the final hallow is his scar. Just saying.

why Michael Glatze pisses me off

I think that I am getting sick, so I am going to console myself by deconstructing this article.

It's written by Michael Glatze, who recently came out as ex-gay. This was a guy who was active in the LGBTQ community for ten years, even created and edited a gay magazine.

Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak.

Doesn't mince words, does he? So straight off the bat he conflates homosexuality with weakness. Fine, but then he has to justify the possibility that at least some gays and lesbians aren't weak. This isn't even getting into what he means by weakness.

My mom died when I was 19. My father had died when I was 13. At an early age, I was already confused about who I was and how I felt about others.

My confusion about "desire" and the fact that I noticed I was "attracted" to guys made me put myself into the "gay" category at age 14. At age 20, I came out as gay to everybody else around me.

Here's the mandatory implication that homosexuality in general is the result of traumatic early experiences. Naturally. Show me someone who didn't have some childhood trauma (or a man who didn't have father issues). But it's really the next sentence that may just take the cake for the entire article: he was "attracted" to guys. "Inappropriate" use of "scare quotes" aside, if you are a guy who notices that you are attracted you guys, you just might actually be gay.

At age 22, I became an editor of the first magazine aimed at a young, gay male audience. It bordered on pornography in its photographic content, but I figured I could use it as a platform to bigger and better things.

Sure enough, Young Gay America came around. It was meant to fill the void that the other magazine I'd worked for had created – namely, anything not-so-pornographic, aimed at the population of young, gay Americans. Young Gay America took off.

Sexual imagery and hypersexuality in the gay male community is its own bag of chips, but he isn't writing this in a vacuum. He is writing it for a specific conservative audience for whom he knows that implications of pornography will fit quite neatly into a pre-existing image of what it means to gay (although it doesn't say much for the lesbian experience). Playing on that image without discussing it in greater depth is, at the least, irresponsible. At worst it is dishonest. After a couple more paragraphs highlighting his achievements,

Young Gay America launched YGA Magazine in 2004, to pretend to provide a "virtuous counterpart" to the other newsstand media aimed at gay youth. I say "pretend" because the truth was, YGA was as damaging as anything else out there, just not overtly pornographic, so it was more "respected."

In case you missed it the first time, gay = pornographic. Even if it isn't pornographic. It just is. Makes sense to me! And this comes without any evidence for that claim.

It took me almost 16 years to discover that homosexuality itself is not exactly "virtuous." It was difficult for me to clarify my feelings on the issue, given that my life was so caught up in it.

Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic. It destroys impressionable minds and confuses their developing sexuality; I did not realize this, however, until I was 30 years old.

One wonders (and by one I mean me) if heterosexuality is by its nature virtuous. Or if wearing socks is virtuous. Or eating Ramen. My point being that he doesn't clearly define what he means by "virtuous." But he is also talking about having experienced some difficult personal conflicts about himself as gay, which I respect.

But onward to the meat and potatoes! Homosexuality (the sex? the attraction? the penchant for Madonna music?) is by its nature pornographic. It harms developing minds. How? Why? What does actually mean?

YGA Magazine sold out of its first issue in several North American cities. There was extreme support, by all sides, for YGA Magazine; schools, parent groups, libraries, governmental associations, everyone seemed to want it. It tapped right into the zeitgeist of "accepting and promoting" homosexuality, and I was considered a leader. I was asked to speak on the prestigious JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2005.

It was, after viewing my words on a videotape of that "performance," that I began to seriously doubt what I was doing with my life and influence.

Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God; I'd developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I'd been engaged in.

Soon, I began to understand things I'd never known could possibly be real, such as the fact that I was leading a movement of sin and corruption – which is not to sound as though my discovery was based on dogma, because decidedly it was not.

I came to the conclusions on my own.

Aha! A conversion experience! I saw the wickedness of my ways (on VHS, no less) and realized my error. Well, that and the intestinal cramps. Why was he getting intestinal cramps? Methinks as a former peer counselor and gay advocate, he would know better than to do something that could result in intestinal cramps. Certainly they aren't the logical consequence of living a (sexually active) gay life. Not that he mentions that.

And then he comes to God. On his own, mind you, he wasn't brainwashed into it (ahem). Simply put, if his decision actually weren't based on dogma, I would be expecting much better arguments for the claims he makes in this article. Rather, he seems not even to consider them worth questioning. While his position has changed, there is no indication that he has actually learned something: no deeper understanding so far of where it was he actually went wrong.

It became clear to me, as I really thought about it – and really prayed about it – that homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within. We cannot see the truth when we're blinded by homosexuality.

We believe, under the influence of homosexuality, that lust is not just acceptable, but a virtue. But there is no homosexual "desire" that is apart from lust.

In denial of this fact, I'd fought to erase such truth at all costs, and participated in the various popular ways of taking responsibility out of human hands for challenging the temptations of lust and other behaviors. I was sure – thanks to culture and world leaders – that I was doing the right thing.

Driven to look for truth, because nothing felt right, I looked within. Jesus Christ repeatedly advises us not to trust anybody other than Him. I did what He said, knowing that the Kingdom of God does reside in the heart and mind of every man.

Alright, so what we are being asked to swallow here is that his was a purely experiential conversion. He didn't learn anything, he wasn't brainwashed, he just finally prayed hard enough and God cured him. Of course, if it worked for him, it really ought to be working for anybody who has same-sex attractions. So for all those people who are raised in strict Christian households and still come out, even after years of praying; well, it wasn't quite enough for them. Try harder, LGBT people.

Meanwhile, he decided not to trust anyone other than Jesus. Whom, by the way, never said a damn thing about homosexuality. This is an article that clearly avoids being influenced by modern interpretations of Scripture. As any fool could tell.

What I discovered – what I learned – about homosexuality was amazing. How I'd first "discovered" homosexual desires back in high school was by noticing that I looked at other guys. How I healed, when it became decidedly clear that I should – or risk hurting more people – is that I paid attention to myself.

Every time I was tempted to lust, I noticed it, caught it, dealt with it. I called it what it was, and then just let it disappear on its own. A huge and vital difference exists between superficial admiration – of yourself, or others – and integral admiration. In loving ourselves fully, we no longer need anything from the "outside" world of lustful desire, recognition from others, or physical satisfaction. Our drives become intrinsic to our very essence, unbridled by neurotic distractions.

He overcame the gay when he stopped looking at other guys... and started looking at himself. It's so Zen it makes me want to poop myself. Besides that, do you follow the broader logic here? I had same-sex attraction. I overcame same-sex attraction. Ergo, same-sex attraction is bad. Because none of my straight friends ever have desires. And I kind of wonder, if he used his newfound emotional responsibility to overcome his gayness, does that mean that a straight person could use it to overcome their straightness and become gay? Of course not, it isn't the natural state. But see, while I buy that it is possible to overcome desire generally, I have a harder time believing that most people can change their desires. So he must be about to mention his new girlfriend, right?

Homosexuality allows us to avoid digging deeper, through superficiality and lust-inspired attractions – at least, as long as it remains "accepted" by law. As a result, countless miss out on their truest self, their God-given Christ-self.

Did you catch that oh-so-subtle dig at gay rights legislation? It was so embedded in a completely appropriate context that you may just have missed it. By the way, gay Christians? yeah, you still aren't getting it. Try harder until you hit your true, completely straight-like-me self.

God is regarded as an enemy by many in the grip of homosexuality or other lustful behavior, because He reminds them of who and what they truly are meant to be. People caught in the act would rather stay "blissfully ignorant" by silencing truth and those who speak it, through antagonism, condemnation and calling them words like "racist," "insensitive," "evil" and "discriminatory."

"Insensitive"? Sure. "Discriminatory"? Often. "Racist"? Natura... wait, what? "Evil"? Uh, wait, we call them that? And if we get a little antagonistic at being told we are in the grip of Satan, well, sorry, didn't mean to step on your toes there. Whereby my "truest self" means, fuck off.

Healing from the wounds caused by homosexuality is not easy – there's little obvious support. What support remains is shamed, ridiculed, silenced by rhetoric or made illegal by twisting of laws. I had to sift through my own embarrassment and the disapproving "voices" of all I'd ever known to find it. Part of the homosexual agenda is getting people to stop considering that conversion is even a viable question to be asked, let alone whether or not it works.

Because really, it is us gays who are trying to twist the laws to our viewpoints, and ridicule our opposition into silence. None of that going on with conservative Christians... bah! Of course the debate gets heated sometimes, and since the debate is over our hearts and souls, yeah, we take it personally.

But here's the thing: when he talks about there being little support for gays, or rather, the wounds caused by homosexuality, one wonders what he thinks he is doing right now. Does this article offer any such support? Any useful advice for someone struggling with their sexuality and their religion? No: just the tired implication that if you just pray hard enough, it will go away.

See, I could imagine being sympathetic to an ex-gay, as long as they were honest about their reasons and sensitive towards the realistic issues that gay people face. As a man who was so involved in the gay community, he is clearly aware of these issues. He ignores them, and he's damn well writing to the sterotypes of an audience who hasn't genuinely considered the other side. And while the ethos of this article is about a lost sheep finding the flock, the very clear implication just beneath is that this is someone who is intentionally distorting the truth based on their newfound faith. That outright pisses me off, because it is so easy to read it and think he just made an honest soul-searching effort to change his life. Whatever his truth may be, the gospel he is trying to preach is clearly flawed, and it stinks.

There's more of the article that I won't go into. I have to go punch a wall.