brotherscrat's Journal

Entry One
I don't care who you are. You're reading me because someone directed you to me, either because my writing is entertaining, thought-provoking, or, in the case of any future legal action, exculpatory. I will use big words and in-jokes, occasionally with a reference note, but I'm not talking to you, I'm mumbling to myself. Brother Scrat is a lone squirrel in search of a nut and a place to keep it during the winter.

I will ramble through whatever I want, but mainly I am trying to find sense in a crazy time and a religion that won't tell me I'm damned in the process of enlightenment. I'm looking to identify with SOMETHING, and I begin by figuring out what I'm not. I don't do organized religion, which makes finding a religion hard when there are so many prepackaged ones available in stores and churches nationwide. I believe a religion is organized if its has more than two members, because by definition, the majority can organize against the minority. This can even happen in two-person religions (see Co-Dependence).

Only three phrases begin with the word "organized": religion, labor and crime. Under varying circumstances, these can be semantically equivalent. For more on religion itself, I refer to the collected works of George Carlin and Bill Hicks. Don't worry, I will sprinkle them in as they come to my head, but don't go out and buy them from Steve Jobs online. (Bill Hicks would have a field day knowing people are buying his stuff at 99 cents per track, and the very fact that I can't know what he would say about that or any number of other things will always bug me, especially when my only other option in many ways is to listen to Carlin become a grungy old man.)

I want a religion of some sort, but I'm not up on the whole idea of ritual...focusing energy at a given time and place is fine, but I do better making those up than I do trying to follow someone else's spiritual foxtrot. Ask my wife: when I look at a ritual and say "no, it should be the other way around," I'm apparently right most of the time. But I never do that anymore. And I get annoyed if I'm right too much. Goes against my rearing.

My childhood, as such, was built around a fairly simple premise, which I can try to sum up as my mother saying, "You're brilliant, physically brittle, belligerent and WRONG!" Thank Whatever I didn't look like my father or I'd have been stabbed before I was 10 by her, I bet. And no, I'm not exaggerating--ask. As with your average late 20th century male, I must first get over the mindjob done unto me by alleged authority figures in the interest of raising me properly. Going into said details will not help. My mother is best left far from me.

It's very hard to remain upbeat. The world's been coming to an end for 5 years now, and I'm tired of it. All protestations of faith or patriotism (which is a worldly version of faith) have become tedious. I've chosen to hate than to wait anymore. I'm not even a Democrat or a Republican. I simply like knowing there are other people who also think whatever's happening is insane. Both parties are crazy, and the land is devoid of common sense. I'd feel better if they were all dinosaurs and America was call This Land (see JibJab and Firefly). At least that way we'd know they were extinct animals and could start over while waiting for them to decompose sufficiently to fuel the last fossil-powered engines made.

By the way, let's go back to using big words. I went to college, and got myself as many degrees as I could without feeling sufficiently scholarly to throttle poor instructors for their insolence. (Don't tell me you're a fair teacher, then give a multiple choice test where two of four answers are somewhat right, depending on your interpretation, so that half the class has to argue your points with you to get their final grade.) I did this for two reasons. One, I was trained from birth to get a college degree. I went to classes with my mother by the time I was three, and corrected the professor when I wasn't called for role. Two, I was scared of actually having to go out and get a job, pretty much to the point that I figured the only thing that would get me a job was a degree that looked impressive.

Third, I was subjected to formative experiences that had nothing to do with parents or school. I watched a lot of cable TV as a child, and this included a good deal of Doctor Who and British shows in general, as well as at least one documentary on Jack Paar, who no one remembers unless you say he was the guy before the guy before Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. When Kennedy was President, people actually wanted to see famous people talk to each other on TV, not just relate some almost amusing anecdote about the latest fecal media product or bound about the furniture proudly showing the world that someone should have better taste in women, publicists and/or religions.

I respect the language, or try to as best I can for being an American. I am a snobby linguistic engineer, and believe in the right tool for the right job. If you can't figure out the difference between its and it's, don't care where you put commas, and just think you can make up "dignitude" as you go along, pick another language. And if you feel intimidated because you can't spell intimidated, it's not my frakking fault. Apparently, according to feedback I have received in past work, I sound condescending and arrogant because of this. Is this because I sound smarter, or someone else feels dumber? I guess it doesn't matter, because when you're low on the totem pole you slice yourself up so your feet fit into the cruel shoes. One of the few things my mother said correctly was that I would be a man a lot longer than I would be a child, and the same can be said of my work. I want to lead, and leaders can use big words. I can sound simpler, but I won't dumb down just because I make someone else feel stupid. Maybe they're more interested in being self-conscious than realizing smart isn't hard. Things are hard when you think they are.

That's my basic philosophy: Life isn't hard. Everybody thinks it is, for whatever reason... Because we're at war. Because there are temptations we must struggle against. Because of the economy. Because of my aching back, indigestion, male pattern baldness, decreased resale value on my home, increased likelihood of teenage pregnancy, occupational apathy, bad breath, good drugs, low carb pasta, Janet Jackson's nipple, oil prices, Apple shares, single moms, multiple orgasms, terrorists, extremists, fundamentalists, guys from Montana, gun nuts, beer guts, big butts, cellulite, vegemite, mp3s, SEC, IPOs, NGOs, IRAs, NRA, logic problems, word problems, family problems, Bush's drinking problem, cell phones, Fed moans, student loans, stuffed-crust pizza, value added tax, bomb attacks, cuts in tax, bribes, political jibes, bad vibes...

Calm down. Have some dip. Make it yourself--you'll feel better eating it afterward.

Of course life is difficult, just as seen on tv and described on the label, right above the UPC symbol.

It wasn't always like this, and doesn't need to be now. I go to work, come home to my wife, get up the next day and do it over. It's not great, but it'll get better day by day, without finding out how much I have to spend or looking for the one product that'll make it all ok.

Hitler comes to mind for many reasons from time to time. Such a rich individual to examine. Yes, he was evil and, as the saying went, balls-to-the-wall batshit wacko, and there were reasons for this. If it weren't for WWII, many parts of modern life wouldn't exist, for good or ill. The death of chauvinism, frozen food, spam, a single global superpower (at least until tomorrow, depending on which paper you read), suburbia, the UN. Life got complicated, in short.

One thing that never gets mentioned should be, just because it puts him in perspective somehow. His actions changed the world, and the man had only one testicle.

Current Music: Spoon: The Way We Get By

Advertisement