Unknown + Lies

GOOD NEWS! My camera was found and returned to me by a very sweet newlywed! BAD NEWS! There's pictures on there from Jon's Bachelor party. Uh-oh!!!! Even worse, I posted them online at my Flickr site. Now everyone knows!!

Go on. Look at this picture and tell me there's no love here!

This weekend was Ali and Jon's wedding. It was very wonderful, but very EXHAUSTING. Brutally so for Old Man Don. I hurt.

To describe how fun the weekend was - let's just put it this way: I lost my camera ($200), licked a cockroach someone grabbed off the floor of a strip club (literally - that's not code for some sex thing), got beat on a weed deal ($40), got sick, puked multiple times, fell into a garbage can, had Australian women scream at me, suffered one of the worst hangovers of my life, got puke stains on my suit pants ($50), stood for hours in un-air conditioned places, was interrogated endlessly about my tattoos, got a parking ticket ($65) was stuck in traffic multiple times, scolded by bossy bridesmaids, couldn't smoke weed the whole weekend, didn't get laid all weekend, sweated more than I have in my whole life, stood in the rain and was bossed around by photographers and I STILL had the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. All of the above I did LAUGHING and smiling like I never have in my life. Thank you Ali and Jon, you're the most beautiful people ever, B's and G's (sorry, I don't want to blogicize your names. You understand. Umm..."The BeeGees?"), friends and cousins of friends of aunts and uncles of friends I made friends with, the UNCONQUERABLE Fordham Masters of the Universe (just try and think of a more gratifying gang name!), and everyone who was involved in making this event so very awesome.

I lost my camera on the same night I lost any-shred-of-dignity-I-can't-believe-I-might-have-had-left (one word). This is the night of The Bachelor Party. That happened Thursday night, so no camera for the rest of the wedding events. To make up for it, I made these crude stick figure drawings to help people who weren't there visualize what a nice time I had. This first one is of me at the bachelor party. The evening started out nice enough in Brooklyn. We went to Boat for drinks (ding!) and had a very excellent dinner at Pacifico where they had pitchers of margaritas (ding! ding! ding!). I was very happy to see a lot of my old friends - most of whom I know from college. We have a gang that's much like the Fordham Baldies - except, instead of fighting we like to party and instead of threatening our enemies with being "rocked & cocked" (see "The Wanderers"), we decide to have no enemies because were the friendliest people EVER.

As the evening progressed, things got SLOPPY. I remember eyeballing a girl at the bar at Pacifico and thinking "I'm a go talk to her." - (exact words) But, of course, we can't walk up to the bar and NOT order a drink, can we? So I ordered a shot of Jack Daniels (DING!) and then...uh, yeah. I wish I could tell you.

I don't remember how we got there, but we ended up at 6A. I've ALWAYS hated this bar - too small, too crowded, too trendy. But we hung out outside and things were cool. But beer beer beer! (Ding! Ding! Dohhhh...) The bachelorettes came and met us and...then it's a little blurry. This guy said he'd sell me weed, it turned out just be crumpled up paper and DUH is me. Then I took my pants off. Kids, listen up: there's lots of good reasons to go to jail - maybe out of protest for some cause you believe in, maybe you go to jail to protect someone else...my point is, drunken public nudity is NOT a good reason to go to jail. Fortunately, some of my good fellows were wise to this and helped me out with not getting naked.

Again, it's all a little blurry. Then somehow we ended up in Flashdancers. I honestly don't remember who was there (Ahem!). I'm not even sure I was there. I think I said to a stripper, "You smell so nice!" I'm sure that gave the bouncers an alert. But beer beer beer (Ding...du..ding..).

We closed Flashdancers, and then wandered the streets of Manhattan for what seemed to me to be 3 hours. It was gross hot out and I can't imagine any of us were walking straight at all. I finally got fed up and hailed a cab.

Next thing I remember, I'm in the back seat of my parked car and I needed to BARF. It was hot and sticky out, I didn't have shoes on and I ran out onto the sidewalk and ralphed in a garbage can. Meanwhile, this is like rush-hour on Friday morning in Brooklyn. All around me people are headed to work in business clothes with their brief cases. I guess I should say at this point that I fully intended on going to work on Friday - at least I did when I left work on Thursday. But things weren't looking good so I called in sick and slept a few more hours in the back of my car. When I woke again, a cop was giving me a ticket. I opened the door of the car and he said "Whoa!" and ran away - I'm not kidding. I got out of the ticket - THIS time.

When I got home I slept it off and a cold shower totally saved my ass, because next was the Rehearsal Dinner. A hungover, unshaved and underdressed me crawled out into public again to get told how-to-walk and where-to-stand. Then we moved to John's Pizzeria in Manhattan for dinner. The food was very yummy, but for some reason they didn't want us to have air conditioning and the place was full of chubby, white tourists. For being in the wedding party, we all received some very classy flasks engraved with our names. Oh yeah!

The wedding was CLASSY. Even though it rained, we were in the lovely, lush Fort Tryon Park. This is a picture of Ali and Jon taking their vows. Awwww! Even my cold heart melted. Smiles were in abundance and the ceremony was filled with lovely music, poetry, and beautiful people all around. I'm very cynical and I've been to lots of weddings that make me want to puke. But this one was so nice even I got choked up. (Sniff!)

After the ceremony there was, of course, eating and drinking and crying and more drinking and dancing and drinking and laughing and eating cake and drinking coffee with sambuca in it and eating more and drinking. There were lots of cute kids running around and more friendly people than I thought were left on the earth. It was a first rate party for a first rate crowd in honor of the nicest couple I know. Seriously, my faith in humanity was invigorated - except I was there (and I'm the worst of us. Ewww!).

This next picture is of me after the ceremony. All of the tables had these nice centerpieces with LOTS of limes in them. I thought, "What a perfect opportunity to show off my RAD juggling skills!" Anyone who juggles knows that it's not often you get a chance to show off, so you take what you can get. But after doing it for 3 seconds, I remembered that juggling makes people seem more clowny and, thus, more like a child molester. No one was impressed. I think I even pissed some people off. But did that stop me? No way! "Look at this dope cross-throw! Ali-ooop!! Yeah!!"

After the official ceremony was over, we went to the Playwright's Tavern. I didn't see a lot of playwrights there. Upstairs, lots of old ladies, downstairs, lots of meathead frat-boys. To make up for all the girly fluffiness of the wedding, we watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) marathon! Ouch! Those bastards really try to fucking hurt each other! Eventually, I was DEAD on my feet. Every inch of my body ached. So I said my final goodbyes and went back to my normal life in my little cave in Mount Vernon. My two favorite kittycats were there and they were also watching the UFC. So we all got cozy and RELAXED.

At the end of the day, I realized someone stuck me with one of the centerpieces. People, you got to understand! This is more limes than any human being needs! EVER! Like, this is what sailors brought with them on ships in the 18th century to fight scurvy - for the whole crew for like 6 months! What am I going to do? Have a Lime Party?! Drink like 900 Coronas? Help!!

Thanks Ali & Jon and everyone who helped! It was a perfect wedding!

Slayer was awesome, as these blurry pictures indicate. This was one of the best shows I've ever seen and I enjoyed myself greatly. To give you an idea, as I'm writing this it's two days after the show, I still have no voice and my neck still hurts from all the headbanging. Unfortunately, the night has to be remembered as somewhat of a bummer as we were stuck in traffic for 3 HOURS coming home. Anyone who lives in NYC and has seen a show at the Meadowlands knows it's really only a 20-30 minute drive across the George Washington Bridge. We got stopped less than a half-mile from the bridge at 11:50 (at which point we said, "Wow, it's not even midnight!" and were all smiles that we'd be getting to bed at a decent hour). Two hours later, we'd moved all of quarter mile, gone through every celebrity name we could think of playing The Name Game, and I personally was bottling up a venom against God and humanity. I remember watching the moon rise higher and higher and eventually wishing it would fall to earth and smash the bridge and whoever the fuck was imprisoning us in that hell. The cars would move 15 feet, then stop dead for 20 minutes. This went on for three hours. Fuck New Jersey, fuck the fucking construction workers on the bridge, fuck whoever made the decision to block off the bridge for 3 hours (MORE for the traffic that surely built up behind us), fuck asshole truck drivers, and FUCK New Jersey. I did nothing but spend $ in the crap state of New Jersey the whole fucking night and this is how they treat me when I leave.

Anyway, to focus on the good part of the day and night, me and my crew earlier in the day visited Untermeyer Park in Yonkers. There's this creepy little place there that has some local - devil-worship urban legend attached to it, so I thought it would be appropriate for our day of METAL. But instead of devilish and creepy, it was just very pretty. We saw a momma dear and her little fawn. They got very close to us and looked like giant mice. Thanks to Veronica Vinegar for this nice photo!

Then we went to Jersey and had fun in the heavy metal parking lot. Ms. Meowrgo drove so I could put my drink on! There were lots of meatheads there and I felt like my belly wasn't big enough nor my face hairy enough to be there. First, Mastodon played. They're an ocean-themed metal band with songs with names like "Seabeast" and "Aqua Dementia". They were pretty rocking and I think it's cool that metal is addressing the very real threat of being drowned by rising waters. Mastodon's album Leviathan is based on Moby Dick, which is the classic tale expressing the futiliity in an mankind's ego-driven pursuit against nature. Their songs are filled with vocals that sound underwater and drums where every beat seems like a drop of water crashing down from repeating waves.

After Mastodon, we went to the concession stand to get beer and eyeball people. A nice girl offered us her tickets to the General Admission area on the floor - Woohoo! So we went into the parking lot again to have a nice beer and smoke and watch the pretty pink sunset. When we re-entered, we were on the floor for SLAYER!!

Slayer is one of my favorite bands to sing along to. Tom Araya must have known that, because he kept not-singing and letting the audience participate. I liked watching the guitar alternation between Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman. They opened with "South of Heaven" and closed with "Reign in Blood". Notably missing in their set (for me) - "Behind the Crooked Cross" possibly my favorite Slayer song. They did play new songs and dedicated "Mandatory" to our soldiers in Iraq.

I've been meaning for a long time to write an open letter to Fugazi. In my formitive music years (the nineties), Fugazi was the band that spoke out against war and bullshit happening in the government. If you had told me then that there would be an unjust war under the son of George Bush, and that, with all the bullshit that has happened under the current administration, Fugazi would be disbanded and seemingly have nothing to say about it, I would have called you a liar. But it's true. Fugazi pussied out and decided to stay silent when we needed them most. I'm suprised, but encouraged, that METAL bands like Slayer and Motorhead continue to write music that calls us on our own bullshit and tells us to WAKE UP!

P.S.: Karl Rove is guilty. He's a traitor. He belongs in prison. This is bullshit.

Apparently, the report I cited about the Left Behind video game was innaccurate and I hadn't posted it for a half-hour before some Christian dude found it and called me on it. You can read it yourselves in the comments for the June 1 post. Sorry, Christian Cadre. I didn't know you were watching my every move. Overly religious types give me the heebie-jeebies. And this thing I posted in a negative light about Christianity on my little blog (which I keep thinking no one reads) got a response from a stranger within a half-hour...Yikes!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not smart and nothing I say is reliable. But c'mon! There's a cadre? Watching little old me? To see if I say something bad about Jesus? Seriously. Come back to Earth. I like Jesus. He fed the hungry, he cured the ill and he treated whores and tax collectors with dignity at a time when most people didn't. But ever since I was a child I've struggled. God gave me a brain and that brain tells me that there is no clear evidence of "His" existence. When I was about 10 I told my mother this and she brought me into to the kitchen - the kitchen was where we got lectured. And she angrily stated to me, "This is what we believe! This is our faith! Jesus died for our sins. He died for you!" That's all I remember her saying, but lecture lasted like an hour. Powerful argument.

Okay, so Jesus was this guy who lived 2006 years ago and was executed because I masturbate smoke pot, and troll for porn on the Internet (sometimes all at once!). And therefore I should act on his every word (which has been changed, retranslated and reinterpreted countless times) and actively try to convert people to follow him - which doing so in itself is sort of vague...Aw hell! Just give $ to the Church.

Probably my least favorite idea in life is the notion that one life is better than another. "I worship God and you worship Vishnu, so you're going to hell" or "I have college degree and you dropped out of high school so I'm smarter" or "I'm rich and you're poor so I'm better" or "You watch TV and I read books, so I win." To me, it's predjudice. Any way you look at it. It's not what Jesus taught.

My recent contempt for religion has a lot to do with this. I couldn't trust anyone LESS than someone who claims holier-than-thou status and uses it as a reason to condemn works of art, science, people who worship differently, and people with differing sexual orientation. To me, much of what is passed off as spiritual nature seems more like a mental illness. People become so obsessed with the idea of a God watching over us that they become ultra-sensitive to things that might be offensive to "Him." And some of these people are just itching to be offended! So books and music - even science - anything we could actually learn from that doesn't have to do with Christ is seen as being Satanic. They use standards for living in an afterlife as an excuse for what is often cruel behavior HERE, today, on EARTH.

That's part of what scares me about this fricking Left Behind game and the people who are defending it. Through this game, that cruel behavior is made possible and necessary for a war that exists only in the minds of eccentric Christians. And it shows their willingness to carry out the most insidious acts against innocent people in the name of God. Just like terrorists!

Another thing about this Left Behind game and the books that STINKS - and is NOT innaccurate - is that it takes place in New York City. NYC is the one place on earth you can find someone of any religion that's not Christianity. Also, in these stories, the anti-Christ is Chief of the United Nations. The U.N. is an institution that was developed for the sole purpose of peace, regardless of religion. The fact that this game and those books paint the idea of peace through foreign diplomacy as "Anti-Christian" is a concept I find subversive and abhorrent. It's my opinion that any true Christian should be ashamed of themselves for supporting or defending this game.

But my opinion doesn't matter, does it? Because I'm going to HELL!!!

I got this from a friend on Myspace. Oh, internet! How did you know exactly how I've been feeling about modern policy AGAIN?

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, hair color and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Ouch! Let me wipe off some of this sarcasm. In other news, tomorrow, June 10, 2006, I will be viewing the George Romero classic Dawn of the Dead (1978) at my apartment in Mount Vernon. If you'd like to join us, I will have wine, beer, coffee and whatever you bring. Call me or email (or comment) if you're interested. I'll start the film around 9pm. A discussion of the film will follow (inevitably).

In case you don't know about the film, Roger Ebert says "Dawn of the Dead" is one of the best horror films ever made -- and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also (excuse me for a second while I find my other list) brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society. Nobody ever said art had to be in good taste."

Hope to see you!

The most evil band on earth is coming to the most evil place on earth (New Jersey) to play the most evil show ever in the history of evil!!!! Yes SLAYER!!! (please accent the "UURRRGGGHH" sound when you read this) is coming to fuck up the NYC metro area. Are you ready you piss-ant hipsters? Been listening to the White Stripes on your i-pod? YOU WILL BURN!!!!!!

Me and my crew are ready. We've got our tickets (most important). Here's me doing METAL push-ups - gotta make sure the horns are raised high and proud. 666 push-ups are recommended. (I did two).

Now I'm doing neck stretches - the old man wouldn't want to pull anything while thrashing his head to the thunderous beats! That wouldn't be too hardcore...

That's right, this shit is ON. But there's still more preparing to do!! Here's the list:

• prepare cooler full of canned beer and bring tool to poke hole for shotgunning.
  
• practice shotgunning since I haven't done this since college (many years).
  
• decal pentagram on the hood of the car.
  
• find a taker for our EXTRA TICKET!!!!
  

You heard (read) right! We have one more ticket if you want to join me and my crew to see Slayer at the Continental Airlines Arena on June 16, 2006. Think you're METAL enough? Comment on this post if you're interested. If you know my email, email me. If you know my phone #, blah, blah, blah.
\m/

Yesterday was my first day back to work after taking a week off. I still have 6 vacation days left to use whenever. Yesss!! Vacation was fun. I slept, watched TV, drank coffee, smoked weed, wrote music, did some drawing, and ate Holly's fur. Also, I didn't bathe or shave for like 4 days straight. OH and I saw some good shows.

Boris was awesome. I've never been so into a band where I don't understand a word that's being said. Also, big ups to Wata - she's the guitar player for Boris - a female guitar player, which is very rare in hard rock. The guitarist for the Donnas is very good, but I don't really like that band. Anyway, ladies, Wata says, "It's okay to play heavy-metal guitar!"

Unsane put on a pretty good show. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I wasn't Un-stoned. There was way too much saliva going around on that stage- Unsane likes to spit, I realized. Uh, I don't really know why. They kept spitting even during instrumental parts. Ew!!

I also saw X-men 3 which I thought was AWESOME. I have a lot of admiration for these films, the actors and the characters and the writers. They all remain true to the sentiment of the comic books, which is "all of us are different - we have to live with each other."

And, with that in mind, read this... The Purpose Driven Life Takers (Part 1)

It's about an upcoming video game put out by the same people who brought you Left Behind and to be marketed in mega-churches. In the game, your mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- is to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. And the game takes place entirely on the streets of New York City.

I bet the same people who made this game would be offended if you called them "terrorists." And a lot of these folks have lots of $ and heavy political influence. And Mr. Bush makes no bones about which Jesus he loves. And anyone else notice that recently New York City's share of antiterrorism funds was cut by 40 percent by Homeland Security? Kind of like they don't really care what happens to us? Umm...