Chad and Chew

Realizing that this is a departure from the norm o’ Chad…indulge me, and picture this, if you will.

You wake up..SO EXCITED to be going to your menial admin job.  You look at the denims…knowing full well that you just signed a contract days ago that you would only wear khakis…granted, the denims cost more than those Old Navy khakis…but you aren’t going to pick that battle…yet. 

Instead, you head downtown debating the coffee situation.  Of course, there are two hard choices to make.  Coffee before the train…hmmm..may have to pee…the MTA is prone to making bad timing decisions..and you remember that horrible accident you had at DisneyWorld on your thirty-first birthday.  Or should you buy the coffee on Madison Avenue, where specialty store prices make Starbucks seem like they’re giving coffee away.  A bran muffin and iced coffee…seven dollars…bitch sez what?

One muffin and coffee later, and I’m RARIN’ for the restroom…a solitary confinement of porcelain and product.  And as the queen sits upon the throne, what should appear?  Not eight tiny reindeer, mind you, but a full-length mirror hanging opposite me on the door.  Now, I love Rodin as much as the next guy…but do I really want to reflect upon myself in this sacrosanct moment?  The only way of escaping the mirror is to look down and feel like a three year old child…or turn off the lights and be like a seventh grader playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Tomorrow i’m foregoing the bran.  i’ll fast…perhaps the mirror can be like Narcissus and gaze upon itself.

Creatio Ex Nihilo…this came to my mind today when I was asked yet again why I’m studying religion.  Knowing full well this remark is steeped in curiosity yet tinged with a dram of smart aleckness, I ask why the hell not?  I keep bumping into people who turn into donuts when I tell them what I study.  The face stays doughy, but the eyes just glaze over.  When they sense that I’m finished speaking, they begin to respond…what are ya gonna do with that?  become ordained? 

And when I do go into why I want to do it, I can tell people have already tuned out.  The reason being - we all think we understand religion.  It’s this organized entity out to tell us what not to do and make us feel ashamed.  It’s a big Jesus freak in your corner who dances to Amy Grant while unabashedly peeing on your heathen Parade.

Yet, that’s not what is to me.  It’s an interconnection of history, politics, psychology, art, literature, mythology, anthropology….it’s an Indra’s net that is the reflects the totality and is the totality.  But religion is not the only pearl.  History, politics, psychology….they are all infused with and inextricably bound with each other.  Out of this tremendous fusion, human behavior fashions itself.  This behavior, in turn, leads to new mythologies, religions, and art.  The potential for possibilities is limitless. 

And this realization is wonderful, in the sense of a faculty of wonder that is omnipresent.  Yet I think as adults, we lose this child-like quality of seeing the world.  We’d rather, like playdough, sit lifeless in front of the shadows on the cave wall.  Feel free to enjoy that witticism.  As the Wachowski brothers brilliantly pointed out in the first film, we’d rather stay engaged in a matrix.

I say, eff that.  Look around at pop culture.  There’s an slew of serialized shows that depict people looking inward for answer, Lost and Battlestar Galactica being the most developed.  I would argue this is not an inward turning to a "God" or notion of "Heaven" so much as a disciplined introspection that will instigate change.  A change built on death and resurrection.  Christianity doesn’t hold the authority on this.  Think of the Phoenix, the Saturnalia, agriculture, life after 9/11…

Which brings me back to the original question….Why study?  Because it shows the myths and beliefs that my peers and pop culture are co-opting and re-appropriating, as our ancestors have done for millenia.  Because it illustrates how when we sit in a theatre, we are being entertained with our own contemporary appropriations of the Homeric campfire stories.  Because it allows me to step outside my own sheltered box and dispel my pre-conceived notions.  Because it allows me to see the similarites among people as well as the differences.  Because it is found in the paper everyday in topics ranging from euthansia to youth in Iraq…from education to ajudication.  And most importantly, because it gives me a voice to my imagination and an anchor for my knowledge.  Because you can’t get something from nothing.

Why are they called relationships?  Is it because most of them are navigated along treacherous waters?  Or because the Titanic sank?  Or because relationshit just didn’t quite sound right to Victorian ears? 

What if we broke the word down….there could be a lot of laying…or a lot of shunning….maybe even some relaying….although I have to admit from a botched three way collaboration that too much seed kills the garden. 

Maybe I could consult Julie.  I’d ask her, without mentioning her 80’s cocaine addiction, if love should be viewed more as a shuffleboard game on the Aloha Deck or maybe more as a lesson in communication.  I’d like it to be more of one with the ship’s photographer…and less of a dialogue with Charo. 

I type this as I enter a new relationship.  I’m struggling with wanting to know the ports of call.  I’m struggling with being able to just relax with Isaac over mai-tais.  And I’m struggling with telling Vicki that absolutely no one ever looks good in a page boy haircut. 

All I know is that I feel good.  And I feel warm.  And I don’t want my insecurities of my past relationship to spill out of the cargo hold.  And I don’t want to think of the boat as a cruise.  I much prefer the deep sea-diving.  And we both have a scuba license. 

In the words of Drew Barrymore in Ever After….Just breathe….not to be confused with Just do it…or confused with Justin Guarino…whew….breathing…epiphany….blogging helps…blogging is my fractured mind making sense…if only it would make cents.

Well, it is November….and anyone who watches over twenty hours of tv a week knows that it’s sweeps week.  Anne Rice has apparently swept out her closet and has introduced her version of Yeshua (that’s Jesus to us laymen) to her fan base and fundamentalists alike.  She claims, and perhaps rightly so, that Jesus is the ultimate superhero.  Cynics may debate whether this "super" is a moral adjective or a mythological throw.  To do either, I would argue, is to miss perhaps her true impetus for writing her book: death. 

Call it what you will…Thanatos, The Grim Reaper, George W…this grinding halt to our own mortality implores people to seek out some system or agent that explains why death happens.  For Rice, I believe, it’s the death of her husband.  Why do bad things happen to good people…

Cue John Williams score (or Marc Shaiman for a little flamboyant flair)….enter Charlton Heston (or perhaps the MY ARMPIT COULD GIVE BETTER LINE-READINGS Colin Farrell…and…TA-DA…religion rears its head.

I must give Rice credit, however.  She has made use of apocryphal materials relating to Jesus’ infancy and Mary’s upbringing.   I think they are used in the beginning as a way of piquing interest to the mildy curious.  And we know how much she has relished myth in the past.  She also states on her website that she will answer all email sent to her.  I’m thinking I just may do that.  And I’m also thinking that this is just Episode I of a tripartite tribute.  Lucas’ fans and bookclubs rejoice!  Southern Baptists run for the hills….as parting contestants, please take these lovely baskets filled with loaves and fish.

I’ll report back later…I’m going to find a way (i think i can…i THINK i can) to tie this to millenial/apocalyptical trends.  Or maybe I’ll just tie myself to a …wait, that will be another post.

Every story has a beginning.  Even mine, I guess.  You would think that having been a child of AOL .5 that I would have tried bloggin’ it a while black.  But it seemed like cloggin’ except this gave good wrist rather than good ankle.  So this is my feeble attempt to see if the power of the written word reaches my friends and myself more than the spoken one.  And I never liked how I sounded in person anyway. 

Come to think of it, that’s an interesting phrase…in person….would you ever say how I sounded "out" person…maybe if you were an existentialist, or like Shirley out on a limb, or if you were being an in your face homosexual with the adamant use of the word out. 

Not that being out is bad.  I came to terms with it back in…pulls chin…ok, well I don’t know that answer right now.  More to come on that topic.  Oh, the double entendre fun.

Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis…I guess the rhyming means I’m happy to be hear.  Look for Sybil fractures later where I discuss my views on religion, sexuality, and that quest for love.  Lust was a thing of my 20’s, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find shades of that every now and then on here.  Straight or not, everyone loves a lil scandal.