To Whom It May Concern

If you subscribe to any certain religion, or wholeheartedly devote yourself to a certain faith, I commend you. I don't' respect you, but I commend you. I commend you for choosing one outlook on life (most likely the one with which your parents reared you) and sticking with it while the rest of the world throws alternative options in your face on a daily basis. I commend you for not doubting your faith, and holding true to your convictions of an overall balance of good and evil. It is almost inhuman to not question your surroundings and the idea of an afterlife, but you have succeeded in suppressing human nature with theology. For this, I commend you. It is no minor feat.

If you happen to be one of the above mentioned religious individuals and you promote brotherhood, compassion, open mindedness, tolerance and equality, then I thank you. I thank you for standing up for the betterment of society when the rest of the religious community wants to judge, condemn, bitch, moan and fight with everyone who disagrees with their fundamental outlook.

However, if you are religious and think your religion is better than every other religion on the planet, or if you think your specific prophet held the one and only way to those roads paved with gold, well, to you I say fuck off.

Fuck off you intolerant, murdering, hypocritical, lying, primitive Muslims. Threatening people with their lives in order to force them to uphold your beliefs is exactly what Mohammad wanted, I'm sure. Which Surra states killing babies and innocent people because they don't share your beliefs is okay? Which Surra states the importance of converting everyone on the face of the planet? How pretentious. Get a fucking life and finally join the rest of the world in the post-barbaric age of heyletsallgetalong.



And to the Buddhists who think all the answers of the world can be answered by OM-OMMMMing and sitting under willow trees for hours at a time while pondering the meaning of bird: fuck off. Life is a bit more complex than that, and sometimes a green bean is just a green bean. I mean, yeah, your philosophy is super cool and I love the coy fish, but don't down play the complexity of life by reducing our consciousness to fluffy clouds.



And to the Christians who drive around with bumper stickers that say things like "Eternity is a long time to be wrong" and "real men love Jesus":fuck off. Jesus would hate bumper stickers and billboards and corny t-shirts and the concept of using fear of an eternity in hell as the sole method of converting people to Christianity. And fuck off to you if you think the world was created in six 24 hour periods between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Jesus wanted you to have faith, not ignore science and become an idiot in his name. For those of you who use the bible as a political weapon:fuck off. The Gospel means "good news," not "give me separation of church and state and make this country a Christian theocracy so we can forever battle the evil, blasphemous Muslims." Fuck off to the Mormons (hey, they're kind of Christian) for having their giant, gaudy temples closed to the public. What better way to spread the word than by closing everyone out and then pounding on their doors with tracts and bicycle helmets to drag them in.



For all the hypocrisy, fundamentalism, simplifying, stupefying, judging, hating, killing, and fakery religion brings to our world, you would think people would start opening their eyes and brains. After all, religion is supposed to help us by promoting love through the works of teachers of yore and through a love of God and the betterment of the world. Religion isn't a competition. If you think it is, and you think you are on the winning side, and you think you have it all figured out and that you are on the path to "heaven" and everyone else is doomed, to you I say, with all the bravado, arrogance and cockiness my lack of religion affords me: fuck off.

Apostle's Creed - The Christians' owner's manual

Suppose a friend asked you to get a joint gym membership with him. As with any other proposal, your immediate response would be to consider how you would benefit from it. You weigh the pros and cons and after a brief moment of internal debate, you ask your friend why he thinks you should. What would you say if he responded like this:

"Well, the gym in town donates a lot of money to charities and I think it would feel good to be part of that. Also it's a really old gym and it has a rich history and there is a very strong sense of pride for the members of this gym. Oh, and also, the people there are really friendly and cordial and they always make you feel welcome and appreciated."



You may dwell on it for a moment, and there's a small chance you would join based on the benefits proposed, however, the chances of you joining this gym would greatly increase if you added a few more benefits, like this:

"Well, the gym in town donates a lot of money to charities and I think it would feel really good to be part of that. Also, it's a really old gym and it has a rich history and there is a very strong sense of pride for the members of this gym. The people there are really friendly and cordial and they always make you feel welcome and appreciated. Not to mention, if you do it right, you could become totally healthy, lose weight, increase your quality of life, live longer and boost your self-esteem."



In the first scenario some benefits are listed, but nothing overtly tangible. Everything listed could be attained by some other means and aren't necessarily worth the cost of joining a gym. However, the second option coaxes a bit better with direct, substantive effects and positive physical changes that can ONLY be attained by physical activity, which happens to be the purpose of a gym. Now, one can justify the membership fees because the benefits of the specifics offered by the gym outweigh the money.

Now, let's look at religion like a gym membership. How many successful religions do you suppose there would be if none of them offered the gift of salvation or eternal life or virgins or paradise or reincarnation?

"Hey man, join my church."
"Why?"
"Well, uh, because we are a group of people organized to praise God and promote kindness. Oh, and sometimes we have potlucks."
"Oh. Well, that sounds kind of cool. What do I have to do if I say yes?"
"Well, come to church as often as you can and live life as God wants you to."
"What happens if I don't do those things?"
"Nothing."
"What happens if I do?"
"Nothing."
"I'll pass."

Ultimately, without offering the direct benefit of being able to live forever in a land of golden roads and mansions, religion is just another charity offering soup suppers and can drives. The prospect of spreading the word and saving (or eradicating) non-believers while also ensuring salvation for one's self keeps membership levels high, devotion strong, and minds closed to non-religious ideals.

That said, let's turn our attention to the more complex issues of religion, like religious texts. Every major religion has them, and they're all equally as confusing. Since, as we concluded above, the biggest reason people subscribe to religion is to experience the afterlife, then why learn anything other than how we can achieve our goal?

When I buy a toaster, I don't want a thousand page owner's manual covering the history of toasters and why toasters are good and where the future of toasters is most likely heading. I just want to know how to safely use the toaster to toast my tasty bread. And if I subscribe to a religion, I just want to know how to get the main benefit from it, which would be going to heaven. Yeah, I'll read the Koran out of curiosity, but give me a simplified form with the basics first, then I'll worry about heritage.



That's why I love the apostle's creed. It basically breaks down the meaning of Christianity and tells people what they need to do to get their cut. So, pretty much just believe the things listed below, and you're good to go.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell. [See Calvin]

The third day He arose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Pretty simple, huh? You know all those arguments about what God thinks about abortion and gay people and evolution and slavery and sex before marriage and makeup and stem cell research and "The Stairway to Heaven" backwards? Not important! Just know the ten commandments and follow the above guidelines and you should be A-OK.



Boy, is that a weight off of my shoulders! I just got into Leviticus and man, that's a lot of rules! Now that I've realized the Bible is more-or-less a history novel and reading it is not vital to my salvation, what shall I do with all my time?

Anyone up for going to the gym?

"But the infidels started it!"

Remember that skinny, pale kid in elementary school that would run and tell the teachers if you so much as looked at him cross? And remember thinking, after he snitched you out, how badly you wanted to kick his ass, even though you didn't want to ten seconds earlier when you were looking at him funny?



That pale, skinny kid is radical Islam. Let me explain.

Said pale, skinny kid - lets call him Roland- went and ratted you out for several reasons.

1- Roland's playing defense. By attacking you and dealing small blows by means of being a booger-headed tattletale, he thinks he is protecting himself and his friends from you and your intimidating posse.

2- Roland has low self-esteem. His parents didn't take his binky from him until he was six and he wears weaved belts. His favorite activity is avoiding contact with real human beings and staring at video games while eating granola. Basically, believing everyone is out to beat him up makes him feel more valuable.

3- Roland loves being a victim. It's easy to get sympathy from a select, close few, he gets a lot of attention and if he ever happens to make a bad decision in life, it's a great excuse to use on his behalf. I was abused/bullied/persecuted as a child seems to work well for a plethora of wrongdoings these days.

While Roland may not be strapping a suicide vest on anytime soon, his delusional plight sounds all too familiar.



Cue the AK wielding, not-so-pale radical Muslim ranting about Islam being bullied by the global powers that be ever since Muhammad (peace be upon him) hopped on his white horse. Just like Roland, the radical Muslims have been using their self-pity as an excuse to make the rest of the world pay for the fact that they have been sheltered and ostracized from the global community.

Because let's face it, if it weren't for the "victim card" Al Qaeda pulls on a weekly basis, they would be no more justified than the very infidel, westerner bullies they claim to be defending themselves from.

But don't get me wrong. By no means am I claiming that Muslims (or Roland for that matter) have not had their fair share of shitty deal. I mean, jeesh, the crusades? Totally not cool. But since when were Muslims the only people to fall victim to barbaric human behavior? Last time I checked, there weren't many Native Americans trying to blow up flights over the Atlantic - and we've been stomping the crap out of their holy land for centuries now.


Every race, religion and gender has been victimized throughout history. Hell, we're all victimizing each other as we speak. But the whole victims begets victims thing doesn't do much in terms of progress, and at the risk of sounding like a corny U2 song, the cycle must be broken. At some point, Roland must wipe the tears from his eyes, learn some social skills and approach the bullies in a way that isn't going to make them want to kick his ass even more. Big boy words go a long way...even on the global playground.

Pink shmink

Pink necklaces. Pink rubber wrist bands. Pink cosmetics. Pink broaches. Pink t-shirts. Pink sunglasses. Pink laptops. Pink...soup cans. Wait, what? Pink cement trucks? Pink pistols?



Has this breast cancer awareness thing gotten totally out of hand? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about healing and finding cures and surviving and all that jazz, but where do the lines of decency in promoting a cause get drawn? At what point do we filter the products that get a coat of pink to boost sales? How long until American consumers say, "you know what? If I want to help find a cure for breast cancer I'll donate to the American Cancer Society, just don't offer me a pink snow shovel."?

All this wreckless spattering of pink has taken the honor out of the fight for breast cancer and has transformed it into a matter of popular culture and marketing. I find it just as insulting to see a pink cement mixer as I do to see a punk ass kid with a POW MIA tattoo plastered around his forearm because his great uncle is a Vietnam veteran.


As a matter of fact, next time I'm at Walgreens and they offer me a breast cancer awareness flashlight for 4.99 I'll tell them to actually make a difference by donating money to the American Cancer Society, then shove the flashlight up their ass.

If you would like to donate to help fight cancer click here and save yourself from buying some tacky, pink item you don't need.

I hate when people say "back in the good ol' days" as though society was better fifty years ago than it is today. And to be completely fair, I must admit that I wasn't alive fifty years ago to speak from experience, though I'm sure the obvious advancements made since then can speak for themselves. But I'm not going to compare the intellectual state of the average citizen today to how things were "back before bicycle helmets, car seats and that damned Internet" but I can say, without fear of being nostalgically biased, that people are stupid.

Yep. I said it. The average, middle class, blue-collar, hard working, plumber Joe American is a flipping idiot that doesn't know what the hell they're talking about unless it's football or Oprah. They're too busy feeding their faces with smutty magazines, tacky sit-coms, vampire books, chicken soups for the soul and video games to actually learn something about the world around them every so often.

A 2005 article in The New York Times states that one in five adult Americans thinks the sun revolves around the Earth.

Wait. Let me reiterate that one with the proper accents to really drive this home.

A 2005 article in the New York Times states that ONE IN FIVE adult Americans THINKS THE SUN REVOLVES AROUND THE EARTH.

There are really only two excuses one could give in defense of this scientific misunderstanding. They are as follows:

Excuse 1- "Of course I think the sun revolves around the earth, for I am a time traveler from the 14th century who has never heard of heliocentrism. What? Copernicus? Who's that?"

Excuse 2- "From the time I was born to this very moment, I have been kept under a very dark, heavy rock. My parents fed me earthworms and laffytaffy and prevented me from learning anything from anybody. I couldn't read any books, except for the Bible, of course."

If neither of these applies to you, and you are just learning of this late breaking, cosmic development, unfortunately you fall into the Plumber Joe category defined above. Go read a book. (not the Bible)

But why are Americans so dumb? Why do the majority of people in the US think Africa is a country? Why do so many Americans, after years of political discussion and analysis on the topic, think Saddam Hussein was the one who ordered planes flown into the WTC on September 11th? And why do 24% of our uber-patriotic citizens not know what country we fought in the revolutionary war? At first, I chalked it up to simple, genetic inability to process information. I felt sorry for these people because they were born stupid. But I soon realized this couldn't be the case when I heard several 'good ole boys' at work argue about the differential in the new Ford pickups, complete with in-depth descriptions of complex mechanical processes. The cognitive capacity is there. The interest is not.

Obviously, somewhere along the line, someone conveyed to all these people that this political, philosophical, scientific and mathematical knowledge wasn't as important as, say, the names and statistics of every athlete on the Chicago Bears or why Brad and Jennifer broke up again.

"So who cares?" you say. "If they want to be ignorant, let them." you sass. But here's the thing. I don't want to hear someone talk about shit they know nothing about but think they are an expert on. It makes me angry that these people get to vote and use taxpayer money when they couldn't care less who their senators or representatives are, or what they do for that matter. I don't like to discuss politics with someone who thinks Glenn Beck would make a great president and I don't like reading texts from people who don't know how to spell 'Merry Christmas!' (Marry Christmas).

If you choose to be uninformed, it's none of my business. If you have no desire to learn about life or seek answers to your questions or observe the planet and the cosmos bustling around you everywhere you look, it's fine by me. But if you don't know what you are talking about, please don't talk. You aren't that important. Because regardless of what one in five Americans think, the universe does not revolve around you.

Leave it to the Germans.

This German immigrant living in Philly has a really long name. I can't confirm if it is the longest in the world, but it's long nonetheless. I'll bet he hated filling out scan-trons in high school.

(First and "middle" names)
Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert
Irvim John Kenneth Loyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy
Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor Willian Xerxes Yancy
Zeus

(Last name)
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarengewissenhaf
tschaferswesenchafewarenwholgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschut
zenvonangereifenduchihrraubgiriigfeindewelchevorralternzwolf
tausendjahresvorandieerscheinenbanderersteerdeemmeshedrraums
chiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefah
rthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelshegeha
btbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevanver
standigmenshlichkeittkonntevortpflanzenundsicherfreunanleben
slamdlichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandere
rintlligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum

Senior

This literally pisses me off.

The whole purpose of using the word literally before an assumed hyperbole is to eliminate the possibility that it is a hyperbole at all, and to emphasize the literal meaning of what was said.
Some examples would be:

- I was literally up all night working on my essay. (Implies the speaker was working from dusk to dawn. Believable.)

- I literally drank a whole pot of coffee this morning. (Implies that the coffee is now gone and was consumed in its entirety. Believable.)

However, some people feel that they can use a hyperbole and literally to further emphasize the ludicrous nature of the statement.
Some examples would be:

- “He literally chewed my ass all day.” (Implies the speaker's ass was being gnawed on for a whole twenty-four hour period. Unbelievable)

- “What an expensive taxi ride! That cab driver literally charged me an arm and a leg.” (Implies the cab driver in this scenario forced the speaker to dismember himself to pay for the fare. Also unbelievable.)

- “I literally slept for six days straight.” (Implies the speaker slept for 144 hours with no water or food. Not even possible. )

- "I'm literally doing like a million things at once right now." (This is just ridiculous.)

If you are guilty of this silly debauchery of the English language, please do me a favor and stop it. Thank you.

Word Play

John and Marco were playing a newly invented game in which they were allowed only one timeout, which lasted twenty seconds. John got frustrated halfway through the game when Marco took his twenty second timeout due to extreme fatigue. Was John’s frustration justified?

The. Best. Sandwich. Ever.

The ideology behind the sandwich is beautiful. The simplicity combined with the astounding number of combinations of ingredients makes a perfect opportunity for, well, an opportunist.

The following is the best sandwich ever. If, after making it, you don't believe me, I really don't care because that means you probably have ageusia and you should visit your family doctor.

Ingredients needed: Turkey breast, roast beef, one fried egg, whole wheat bread, hot mustard, mayonnaise, pepper jack cheese, swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, Texas Pete's hot sauce, avocado, salt, pepper.

Preparation - Take all the ingredients (minus the whole wheat) and place them between two pieces of whole wheat (insert whole wheat)

ENLARGE AND READ

NO MORE!

The GOP is finally dead.
Let’s lift our hands in praise
and set our minds on future times
filled with better days.

They tried to tear this country down
with God and fear and war,
but on this day we make a stand
and boldly say “NO MORE!”

“No More!” to secret agencies
infringing on our rights.
“No More!” to Texas oil men
picking global fights.

“No More!” to aristocracy
dining off our dime.
“No More!” to intel cover-ups
and blatant Wall Street crime.

“No More!” to bible politics
and Evangelic rule.
“No More!” No Child Left Behind
and underfunded schools.

So stand with us and say “No More!”
to Bush and all the rest,
and let’s lead Lady Liberty
to the bright and shining left.

Process of Elimination

The following conversation took place on November 4th, 2008.

Matt (while walking through my front door)- Well, it's done.

Patrick- What's done?

M - I voted.

P - Sweet. Were the lines long?

M - No. It went pretty smoothly.

P - Nice.

M - I voted for myself.

P - What?

M - I voted for myself.

P - You mean you wrote your name in?

M - Yeah.

P - Why?

M - Why not? I wasn't about to vote for any of those assholes.

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW

For all three of my dedicated followers, I have started a new blog, but it is still under my profile. Check it out if you'd like.

www.billboardshepherd.blogspot.com

Russian Rambo

A heavily armed recluse nicknamed Russia's Rambo of the Forest has been gunned down in a shoot-out with police.
Alexander Bichkov, had lived a semi-feral existence in the woods for 20 years, terrorising locals and the police if they ventured near him.
A giant at 6ft 7in with a wild straggly beard, the man lived in an old shack and self-made camps, hunted animals for food and only ventured out of the forest in summer when he wouldn't leave footprints leading back to where he lived.
Russian police said he descended from a family of criminals who were exiled by Stalin to the Kostroma region 450 miles east of Moscow, in the 1940s.
At the end of Soviet times nearly 20 years ago he disappeared from his home in a village in the region after refusing a court order to pay alimony to his ex-wife following an acrimonious divorce.
He was declared dead by his family in 1997 because he had been missing for so long.
But now it is known the former forestry worker had fled into the dense Kologriv woods near his village, which were designated as a nature reserve a few years ago.
Terrified local police refused to go into the woods to hunt him down ever since he captured a local commander while out hunting and held him at gunpoint for hours before freeing him and then disappearing into the trees.
Even after he burned down 30 holiday homes in the area belonging to rich Muscovites, police refused to pursue the man they dubbed "Rambo", after the popular action-film hero played by Sylvester Stallone, who was skilled in weaponry and survival.
They did not know - until killing him on March 14 - his true identity, which was obtained from documents they found and through checks with his family.
He was finally shot after the head of the Department of Natural Reserves in Moscow, angered by the inaction of local police, ordered a surveillance operation on him.
After finding out where he lived, six specialist policemen - including Afghan war veterans - from outside the local police and four armed Park rangers went into the forest on snowmobiles to hunt him down and try to arrest him.
Locals nicknamed Bichov Rambo after he became a recluse and terrorised locals like the fictional character played by Sylvester Stallone
But the hermit, who carried two shotguns and a home-made pistol, ambushed them and wounded two.
He then set alight a swathe of forest as a diversion, tracked behind the men and was apparently preparing to start firing on them again.
But a police sniper managed to shoot him in the head, killing him instantly.
One of the policemen, Andrei Potemkin, said: "He ambushed us and I told him to surrender and that we wouldn't hurt him.
"He yelled 'I've nothing to lose' and opened fire.
"He hit two of the others and fired at me. My bullet-proof vest saved my life. He then set his place on fire, and everything was covered with smoke.
"He's a real professional. While we were helping the wounded, he made a circle around us, hiding in the smoke, and cut us off.
"It was pure chance the sniper suddenly saw his figure in the trees and pulled the trigger. He shot him right in the head and he died in a flash."
Police later found in his semi-destroyed lair more weapons, dozens of furs, hundreds of traps and books about hunting and survival.
Locals told of their relief that the man who had haunted the region for so long was dead.
Maria Muzhalova said: "Parents would not let their children go to school without dogs going with them.
"He would steal boots from outside people's homes and steal potatoes from the fields. If you came across him in the summer, he was way too scary-looking to confront him."
Director of the Kologriv nature reserve, Maxim Sinitzin said; "We were all sick and tired of him. He kept leaving traps for animals everywhere.
"We'd break them and he'd make more. Once he trapped three of our inspectors and told them he'd kill them if he ever saw them in the woods again."
Police said that the man used to be a forestry worker.
After his wife left him and the court order against him, he turned into a recluse, cutting himself off from society.
He lived at an abandoned forestry station, miles from the nearest village.
Police sources said: "At the time the forest had not been designated as a nature reserve so no one bothered him for years.
"Then his parents died and his sister and her husband had him declared legally dead - as they had not seen him for so long - and sold his house.
"We think this may have enraged him, making him angry at anybody who moved into the region to build a house, so much that he would burn down their homes because he had none of his own."
When the forest was later made into a nature reserve, hunting was banned, leading to violent clashes between Bichkov and park rangers who would remove his traps, police said.
"He felt he was the king of the forest," one said.
"He had his house, a shed, and his hunting traps. When we went after him he fought to the end. "It was all he had left. He had nowhere to go."

Loophole

I found this while blog surfing and couldn't help but post it HERE.

This is when I say I will never eat McDonalds food again. Then I actually refrain from eating it for about 2 weeks. Then I take my sons there and order them both Big Macs.

"What? You guys don't like Big Macs? Grrrr! I guess I have to eat both of them and shovel the remaining lettuce in my mouth and lick the cheese off the box. Why aren't you drinking your Super Sized Dr. Pepper? Fine, I suppose I'll drink that too."

Kids are so picky these days.

They didn't die in vain after all.

I'm glad to see Burger King has a strong grasp on the meaning of patriotism. Bumper stickers are bad enough, but THIS? I'm glad they appraise the lost lives of service members at $1.29. It's all about little sacrifices, but this is ridiculous. I don't think this is what people mean when they use the term freedom fries.

Shock and Awesome

I recently learned that The Tarheel Opry house here in Jacksonville has an Internet capable jukebox that can download music off of a website for an extra fee. This has HUGE potential. Here's my plan.
1. Wear the tightest jeans I can buy, maybe a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, (I'm assuming this is what people wear in these places)and walk in the door like I'm the best damned line dancer in Onslow county.
2. Go straight for the jukebox, download Leafhouse by Animal Collective and place it in queue after Garth Brooks and whatever else people two-step to.
3. Go to the bathroom and take off all my clothes, except my zebra-striped boxer briefs I wore under my Wranglers.
4. Cover my body in brilliantly colored paint, with sparkles and swirls and sticky rhinestones. Decorate my face like a panda. Maybe a kitten.
5. Patiently wait for the intro to Leafhouse.
6. When the music starts and people stop dancing to stare at each other in confusion, I bust through the doors with a WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! waving my arms and slapping my thighs in an interpretive dance which resembles the mating rituals of a an ostrich, but better.
7. Dance until the song is over, or a drunk xenophobic redneck spears me into the Coors light display.

That would be amazing.

Hank,
Sometimes it flows. Just like you wrote about. Sometimes it flows uncontrollably, spews violently and it doesn't stop until my fingers want to bleed and splinter. Sometimes I have it and I don't want it, because it is overpowering and controlling, like a woman with a checkbook. Sometimes I have to find the nearest pen and receipt or paper bag. But sometimes it's there, and I know it's there, but it wont come out. It can be a stubborn fucker in there and no amount of cajoling or bribing will get it to emerge.
I wonder if you had this. This barrier between your desires to create and your body's desire to be futile. If it doesn't come, give up you say. If you have to stare at a typewriter or computer screen, it's not for you. But I can't. I simply can't stop. Just like you couldn't stop. You wrote on your death bed, of cats and betting on horses. You knew it was something deeper than "just stop" and sometimes I wish it wasn't. Sometimes I wish I could relax or sleep instead of drinking scalding coffee at two in the morning while pulling my hair out to get something on paper. So were you talking to me when you said QUIT? Should I take up card collecting or scrap booking? No drink or woman's love or wealth, right? You knew, Buk. You knew and I know. We know the power and I can't stop. Won't stop. You never did.

Lord, I can't wait to don that scarf

I was smiling so hard my face hurt.I sprinted down a cold brick road, past towering Victorian houses and picket fences while leaves of amber and crimson twirled and spun to the ground. Massive oak branches blotted out the sun,marbling the brown grass and cracked sidewalk. I smelled the droopy, gnatty pumpkins and wood burning stoves of my childhood. I was yelling something and I could see my breath.
When I awoke, I was still smiling and my heart beat was shaking my cheeks. I couldn't go back to sleep. I quietly snuck out of bed, concealed by the annoying humm of the air conditioner dripping in the window and stepped out for a smoke into the soggy, musty air of summer.

My ultimate fear is that I will fall into the mundane, regimented life that is every American's destiny. I suppose it is, at the very least, a slight blow to the pride of any adult, male human, but imminent nonetheless. Once we started living for pleasure instead of necessity, it became unavoidable. But I often wonder if even neanderthal man experienced, to a certain degree, the same feeling. Did he fear living in the same cave or region his whole life? Did he wonder what life would be like with a different female? Did he hate the fact that after hunting, building fires and skinning bison, he had no time to relax?
Men were created to be strong, agile, violent and aggressive. Men were not created to sit in an office, or classroom, or stay home with kids. By no means do I feel as though I can't, shouldn't, or don't want to, but it often feels unnatural, foreign and alien. So I strive to be adventurous in my daily tasks; running the occasional red light or exchanging socially non-acceptable words with a fellow man for a cheap thrill. But it leaves me with that same sense of unfulfilled emptiness and desire. This desire which is only partially curved by the smell of a campfire, or the feel of three days worth of growth on my face. I look at my muscles and watch them slowly fade into my frame, swapping residency with fat and cellulite. I have not been true to myself or nature in this life, and can only hope that one day I will feel my heart pump adrenaline in support of the defense my territory or family. I wait for this day with patience as I eat another cheesy poof.