Random Thoughts on Turning 41

In the industrialized West, we mark birthdays by eating cake, receiving plastic novelty gifts made in Taiwan and pontificating on one’s life. Pausing on the day on your birth and reflecting about another trip around the sun and just what those 365 days brought is only reserved for the truly introspective. Everyone else does body shots off a coed’s abdomen before vomiting on her tits.

Everyone but me, for I choose the introspective path.

Turning 41 is a supreme letdown in the grand scheme of things. The Big One is turning 40, when a person officially enters the dowdy realm of middle age and must make due with a shabby wardrobe, an ever-expanding paunch and the fact that one day you will die. Nothing like reflecting on your mortality to liven up a party.

But reaching 41 doesn’t pack the spiritual wallop as cracking the Big 4-0. Turning 41 just tells the world that you’re getting older. With age, comes the fact that a majority of the world is younger, thinner and better off than you’ll ever be. No wonder people drink on their birthdays. It’s not to celebrate some milestone of living another year on this planet. It’s to deaden the pain of getting older.

So upon reaching 41 I’ve got a few things I’d like to put out there. Call it wisdom, advice or quirky observations. The older I get, the more daring and impervious to criticism I am.

Here are some things that have been bugging me as of late:


Why is it that movies or TV shows that feature young, attractive female reporters has them fucking her sources? Can’t the bitch just ask questions? Why does she have to sleep around to get information? To be fair, I’ve known female reporters and most of them aren’t wanton sluts who’d blow a politician for a story. Many of them are articulate, intelligent and professional ladies dedicated to newsgathering. Some of them, however, are insecure whores who screw men for an interview and then say it was “empowering.” Yeah, it’s really empowering that a politician can use you like an Atlantic City escort.
I’ll admit I’m at a disadvantage here. I have to use my sophistication, wit and interpersonal skills to persuade people to talk to me. That’s why I win journalism awards and don’t have a raging case of chlamydia.


If there’s something called Yankee pot roast, I wonder if there’s a dish called Confederate pot roast. I’m sure it’s the same thing as Yankee pot roast except African-Americans cook it and serve it to white people at a long table.


I loathe Sarah Palin. I think she’s a phony hypocrite who represents everything dysfunctional about 21st Century politics. She doesn’t annunciate concrete ideas or graspable logic, instead preferring the murky world of jargon, platitudes and feel-good bullshit. Palin is as nasty as a pit viper when she wants to be, and uses this taunting teenage snark to demean her opposition. It isn’t enough that she’s superficial and disingenuous, but her whiny, nails-on-the-blackboard, cunty whine irritates me. At a time when we need specifics, Palin floats on generalizations and playground insults masquerading as folksy chatter. Why do the conservatives give her or her bumpkin family so much attention? Does she embody the Republican principles of less government and prudent spending or is she just a redneck who dragged herself from the wilds of Alaska and gained followers by playing poor victim to the merciless liberal media, blaming them for accurately reporting that she’s an empty pantsuit and a vapid torchbearer for the Tea Party Republicans?
And while we’re on the subject, doesn’t Todd Palin look like Sarah nails him with a strap-on? What’s with his neatly-trimmed 1980s gay beard? Did he sing backup with the Village People as the lumberjack?


Do ghosts watch you masturbate? If they do, I’d hate to have my grandma watch me jerk off. That would really be uncomfortable having her float above my computer as I’m doing it.
“He used to be such a nice boy,” her disembodied voice would say eerily through the void. “But he touches himself more than a zoo monkey. Must he do that all the time? He’ll ruin the rugs.”


One in five Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. Interesting enough, one in five Americans also admits to drinking and driving. I guess that whole Muslim stat makes a lot more sense now.
The only thing Obama is guilty of is being pretentious and uptight, which is what presidents ought to be. The right rants that Obama is turning America into a socialist nation like the former Soviet Union. I disagree: I think Obama is too ineffective and weak to do anything of the sort. See, socialism historically came from a groundswell of popular support in the form of revolutions and armed insurrections. Obama can’t even get five people in his own party to agree on anything. Of course when you’re chain-smoking and drinking Chablis in Martha’s Vineyard, it’s hard to gauge the true pulse of the American people.


I think that women who find my humor crude and off color are ironically the same women who need a cock in their mouth.


Why do some fat people dress like they’re thin? They wear clothes a size too small and strut around with their bellies hanging out. If you’re 25 pounds overweight, then spandex or Lycra is not an option. Find the largest thing in your wardrobe and wear that. Please. For the love of God. Nobody wants to see rolls of fat sticking out of your shirt. It doesn’t look sexy at all. It’s the anti-sexy.


What’s this obsession with deep frying foods in this country? Every county fair these rednecks try to outdo themselves by taking food that obviously should never be deep fried and deep-frying it. There’s deep fried Twinkies, deep fried Oreos, deep fried pickles. Now they have deep fried beer. No wonder everyone in this country is obese and stupid. The zest for invention and experimentation in American migrated away from useful science towards deep frying junk food. Forget about developing a cheap source of renewable energy. That’s too difficult with our puny American brains. Deep-frying high-sodium, high fat foods? That’s where we excel as a nation!


I’m sick of how petulant and shallow Americans have become. We used to be revered for our strength and determination and for our willingness to compromise. We were once the good guys. Now we’ve devolved into a nation of whiny, spoiled, narcissistic children who want the latest shiny toy. We have to have six iPods or iPads or whatever Apple is shilling at the moment. Instead of holding face-to-face conversations, we text each other, our fat little thumbs running over the keyboard as if our very lives depended upon conveying this vital information that’s absolutely trivial and banal.
The worst offenders are twenty somethings. When I was in my 20s, we were computer literate, but we read books. We contemplated life. We used the phone for calling people, not for sending photos of our genitals to each other. That’s all people in their 20s do. Sexting and sending photos of their genitals. Where’s the mystery and romance anymore? Where’s the allure of love and the promise of passion if you get a text with a photo of your date’s junk? Young people are morons.

Who's Your Daddy?

The buzz around news desks, the blogosphere and the punditdome is the $1 million donation News Corporation, owner of Fox News, The New York Post and Wall Street Journal made to the Republican Governor’s Association in June.

This is causing a lot of tittering, sniggering and giddy schoolgirl laughter from liberals and other free thinking humans that Fox News, a network accused of bias toward Republicans is actually giving a yachtful of money to Republicans.

In fact, the donation has caused many to note that Fox News is admittedly in the GOP’s pocket. It’s no secret that the pundits such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are Republicans who interview Republicans and push the Republican agenda of less taxes, less government regulation and less minorities besotting God’s glorious nation of America.

Fox News is not “Fair and Balanced” as the network’s moniker proclaims, but functions as a spin machine and Ministry of Propaganda for the Republican Party.

How bad is Fox News from an objective and newsgathering standpoint? The well-dressed mannequin robots and beauty queens are specifically programmed to regurgitate clichés, banal extractions of partisan hackery and inane observations and blend them together in a pile of foul stinking offal that doesn’t remotely resemble fair play or journalistic ethics.

This is the same Fox News that employs Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, all three of them potential presidential candidates in 2012. How can a news organization claim it’s “Fair and Balanced” when the politicians, the very people journalists and networks should keep at arm’s length, are right under their noses?

It’s true that Fox News wraps itself in the American flag, hires conservative pundits and kisses more right wing ass than a retreat with the Log Cabin Republicans. Yet its smugness and inflated bravado when speaking for and about the United States, only serves its target audience and ratings. Its content is tailored specifically for a certain political agenda, a kind of “tell me what I want to hear” ethos. The network parades itself around as the top rated news network, yet there’s very little objective news. Its content is mostly opinion and political commentary from anchors that look like yuppie serial rapists.

The $1 million donation to the Republican Governor’s Association was a clarion call for watchdogs who’ve known News Corporation was biased towards Republicans, that it was only pretending to be a serious news organization.

News Corporation spokesman Jack Horner (no relation to ‘Little Jack Horner’ of nursery rhyme fame) said his company donated $1 million because “the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at the most critical time for our economy.”

And what would those priorities be? More snappy Obama insults during Fox & Friends? More dour-faced reporters interviewing hedonistic Hollywood moguls? More politicians who want to chip away at the citizenship and equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?

Yet we can’t blame Fox News for being the parasitic whores they are. It’s in their nature and part of capitalism to shuck journalistic standards for money. More power to them for being an entertaining puppet show for the right wing. Without Fox News, conservatives all over this great land would be watching an endless loop of “Triumph of the Will” and shooting dusky hued immigrants with BB guns.

But the so-called “liberal media networks” such as CNN and MSNBC also donated to political candidates. They have their own blank-faced idiots and raw sewage masquerading as special reports and hard news. Anyone who watches Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow knows that snark, whining and urbane witticisms will save the day and secure the 21 to 40 year-old demographic until The Daily Show with Jon Stewart comes on.

Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, donated $70,500 to Democratic candidates and $41,500 to Republican candidates this year.

General Electric, owners of NBC donated $688,900 to Democrats and $410,100 to Republicans for the 2010 election cycle.

Viacom, parent company of CBS donated $108,700 to Democrats and $64,000 to Republicans this year.

And Disney, home of Mickey Mouse and owners of ABC, gave $110,500 to Democrats and $95,000 to Republicans.

News Corporation’s $1 million donation pales in comparison to the money given to Democrats by media outlets, proving they’re all a bunch of pandering sluts.

Corporate media PACs lobby politicians for influence when it comes to media regulations or legislation that affect networks or communications.

That’s the real problem here. The system is based upon donations and buying influence and paying for your agenda. By donating anything – even $1 to politicians – news organizations discredit themselves. These giant media behemoths influence society by starting the national dialog on various issues. They have a tremendous platform with which to espouse viewpoints, whether liberal, conservative or batshit crazy. Such an awesome responsibility demands tempering through insight and objectivity. It demands an atmosphere where news organizations lead by example and prove they have no connections with political outsiders who might push their agendas.

Politicians are corrupt to the core, dwelling in a self-perpetuating system of cronyism, naked partisanship and troughs of money. News organizations shouldn’t be obligated to buy influence with such wretched people. Journalists write stories about how awful pay-to-play is upon our political process. Now that they’re part of the same cesspool, it smacks of hypocrisy.

There Goes the Neighborhood...

Rendering of proposed Islamic center in Manhattan that will plunge Earth into a black hole and destroy the galaxy.

The Cordoba Initiative, a moderate Muslim group, has plans for Lower Manhattan, and if you’re not living under a rock or are blissfully ignorant of the 24-hour news cycle, then you know what those plans are.

The group wants to build an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in an abandoned building that housed a Burlington Coat Factory store. The store, by the way, was struck by airplane landing gear during the September 11th attacks and closed in 2001.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement as a way of bringing American Muslims and non-Muslims together through various programs. He is the Imam of a mosque that’s 12 blocks away from Ground Zero and wants to create a community center that would function as a cultural exchange for Muslims and non-Muslims.

The plans to build a “Ground Zero mosque” has morphed from a simple local zoning issue to one of great national debate, as politicians, citizens and the media duel over its significance in the aftermath of 9/11.

This backlash against the development began months ago when right wing bloggers covered the story. The issue gained momentum when a few Republican politicians, namely Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio expressed their opposition to the controversial plan.

Palin wrote, “We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they?...If those who wish to build this Ground Zero mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive ‘cross-cultural engagement’ and dialogue to show a moderate and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven’t they recognized that the decision to build a mosque at this particular location is doing just the opposite?”

Gingrich wrote, “there should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”

By the time the news media got the story, it turned into a titanic shit storm, especially after President Obama weighed in:

“Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -- particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.”

After that eloquent support for the U.S. Constitution and clarifying that it wasn’t Islam but Al Qaeda that we’re fighting against, Obama reversed himself, saying his comments referred to the right to build the community center and mosque but was not an endorsement of it.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid also affirmed the right to build the mosque, but condemned its location.

And the location makes it controversial to those who believe Ground Zero – the former site of the World Trade Center and attacks by radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda where 3,000 people were killed nine years ago - is hallowed ground and to build a mosque there defiles the memory of the victims.

But there are already two mosques that exist in Lower Manhattan already: the Masjid Farah, 12 blocks from Ground Zero and the Masjid Manhattan, which is four blocks from Ground Zero and near City Hall.

Why haven’t the detractors protested these mosques? Perhaps they weren’t told of their existence for a reason.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the center, calling it a true definition of American religious freedom:

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.”

It might happen here if the people get their way.

According to the Siena College Research Institute, 61 percent of New York state residents oppose the planned community center and mosque’s location. The poll stated that 85 percent of conservatives, 52 percent of liberals and 55 percent of moderates oppose the project’s location.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 68 percent of Americans surveyed oppose the project, while 29 percent support it. If you don’t think this is a political hot potato, get this: 54 percent of Democrats support the building while 43 percent are opposed to it; 82 percent of Republicans oppose it while 17 percent support it. The poll found 70 percent of independents are against building the community center and mosque while 24 percent favor it.

Feeling the heat, the Cordoba Initiative changed the name of their proposed project to Park 51 because it was more cosmopolitan-sounding and less scary than Cordoba House.

I get that branding is important and putting a positive spin on your project is essential, but no ad campaign will win over people’s hearts to this project. No espousing the importance of religious tolerance or freedom can quell the anger felt over this proposed building.

There has to be some kind of sinister ulterior motive these Muslims have for building this community center, right?

According to the Park 51 website, the organization will “uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people; cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities; encourage open discussion and dialogue on issues of relevance to New Yorkers, Americans and the international reality of our interconnected planet; commit to social justice, dignified human development and spiritual growth for all; pursue the development of American Muslim identities, engaging New York’s many and diverse Muslim communities and promoting empowerment and compassion for all…”

Well if that doesn’t sound like a recipe for world domination, I don’t know what is.

Okay, I’m being facetious.

It’s hard not to be skeptical of this group. They seem too good to be true. Like Dick Cheney telling the American people that the American forces invading Iraq in 2003 would be heralded as heroes and have flowers thrown at them by grateful Iraqis.

According to the Park 51 website, the group will be “dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet.”

Just what exactly will be constructed a stone’s throw away from sacred, hallowed ground?

The Park 51 website said the proposed community center will contain: “outstanding recreation spaces and fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court); a 500-seat auditorium; a restaurant and culinary school; cultural amenities including exhibitions; education programs; a library; reading room and art studios, childcare services; a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park 51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community; and a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all.”

So it’s not just a community center like some are claiming and a portion of it will be a mosque. But according to Park 51, it would be run separately from their organization, which could throw up a red flag of concern for those who think Glenn Beck is some kind of doomsday prophet and wise soothsayer.

What’s even stranger is a proposed September 11th memorial planned for the site, a fact that all the right wing pundits and talking heads seem to be conveniently omitting.

There's a missed opportunity here. Instead of meeting the group half way and welcoming the community center and mosque, Americans are proving themselves to be the closed-minded yokels the Muslim world thinks we already are. That can’t be good for relations that are already strained. Many Americans view Islam with suspicion and a jaundiced eye. The religion is equivocated with terrorism and violence. Critics have charged that if Islam were a peaceful religion, then why, immediately following 9/11, didn’t the Islamic community rise up and condemn the attacks?

Politicians are using this wedge issue to their advantage. Republicans see it as a golden opportunity to ride the angry wave and create a backlash against Obama and the Democrats. The Democrats are also plugging into this issue to show they can be just as patriotic and xenophobic as conservatives.

Other politicians are asking Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf be called onto the carpet for denying Hamas is a terrorist organization and questioning where the $100 million funding will come from to build the mosque.

Just playing devil’s advocate here, but if a Catholic priest or Protestant reverend were held to the same scrutiny and witch hunts, would the public support the politicians or the concept of religious freedom?

Critics claim that this is all part of some dubious Islamic plan to gloat over the mass casualties of 9/11, that this building will be a triumphant edifice Muslims can rally around and cheer the demise of the West. Maybe they can use the community center to host couscous and kebab night while secretly plotting ways to kill more Americans. Maybe they’ll have macramé and jihad classes.

One opponent of the project held up a sign that read “Islam builds mosques at the sites of their conquests and victories.”

America does the same thing, except we don’t build mosques. We build McDonald’s, Starbucks and 7-Elevens. Capitalism is our religion, and we spread that throughout the globe, much to the chagrin of other nations. When foreigners complain another American franchise is going up in their historic neighborhoods, we balk and say it’s progress and that corporations have the right to expand.

That’s what’s so troubling about this stupid mosque issue. It’s just a non-story that’s garnered so much attention has become part of our national dialog and fodder for the mid-term elections.

Islam didn’t murder 3,000 people nine years ago. A group of Islamic fundamentalists whose warped religious views and anger at the United States’ support of Israel killed those people. There’s a difference between condemning a religion and condemning members of that religion with their own agenda.

If we equivocate Islam with evil, if we treat Muslims like the Catholics and Jews were treated by the Protestant majority 100 years ago, we fail to bridge the divide between them and the West. This creates more tension, prejudice and violence.

If we believe what the Cordoba Initiative tells us, then the center will be used as a place of understanding and learning and not an indoctrination factory worthy of Osama bin Laden’s endorsement.

I cannot help but see a population persuaded by the media and political leaders transform itself into an intolerant, dangerous mob. They are sheep led by manipulative shepherds, fed on a diet of false patriotism and outrage and willing to destroy their sacred American freedoms without really understanding how precious they are. They're gleefully ignorant of their past and volatile to the core. This is not so much a national debate than it is a national tantrum, one where fury trumps logic and fear beats courage.

I think we’re better than that. Freedom is not just a buzzword you put on a bumper sticker. It has to be a living, breathing entity.

“Liberty and justice for all.”

Not for some. For all, even if a religion is misunderstood or unpopular.

The First Amendment must be preserved, lest we lose something that makes us quintessentially American.

Then we run the risk of being the very monsters we’re fighting against.

Gencon 2010

Another Gencon has come and gone, bringing with it thousands of gamers from cross the country and world who converged on Indianapolis for four days in August. This year, which marked my third Gencon, I had the honor of working the Reality Blurs booth and selling copies of their newest game, Iron Dynasty. Though I felt a little under the weather and had other things on my mind, I managed to meet new people and people I've heard of in the gaming industry but haven't met, and hang out with the folks from Reality Blurs. I enjoyed meeting Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams and Robin Elliott of Triple Ace Games, Eloy Lasanta of Third Eye Games, and Kurt Wiegel of Game Geeks.
I got to hear Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation tell stories about his gaming experiences and relate how gaming played an important role in his life.
As part of the Savage Saturday Night event, I ran a Ravaged Earth adventure "Throne of Amenhotep" for six lucky players who fought desert nomads, made a deal with Lord Amenhotep aboard his mighty airship the Eye of Horus and explored the secret chambers beneath the Great Sphinx and eventually discovered the legendary Hall of Records before the Nazis could.
All in all, a good experience and fun time this year. Already looking forward to 2011 with optimism that I'll finish the 23-ounce Scotch ale at Scotty's Brewhouse.

Hello, Indianapolis!

The Reality Blurs booth at Gencon.

Some of the Reality Blurs games for sale.

People in costumes will pose for photos if you ask nicely.

This TARDIS was set up at a Doctor Who store across from our booth, giving me the perfect opportunity to take photos of various Doctors.

The David Tennant Doctor and Amy Pond.

The Peter Davidson Doctor and some cavegirl.

Rosie

Felicia Day of The Guild signing autographs.

Wil Wheaton and his flagon o' dice.

How Peas Changed the World

The consumption of green vegetables created a paradigm shift in European culture that would reverberate through the centuries.

Let me explain.

Back in the Neolithic Age of my intellectual development, I attended community college for two years. Say what you want about community colleges, that they’re deplorable cesspools for single mothers, underachievers and knuckle draggers too stupid to apply themselves. I found it to be a stopover for my eventual transfer to a state college and a chance to learn the things I couldn’t in high school.

One of my professors was this old goofball named Dr. Mahoney, who wore these tweed jackets and looked like a character from a Thomas Hardy novel. Dr. Mahoney taught history of Western Civilization, the kind of elective you take because you wanted to cheer the accomplishments of white Europeans.

He taught with flourish and histrionics and always addressed us as “scholars.”

“Good afternoon, scholars,” he’d begin.

He was the kind of professor you wanted to have for the sheer entertainment value.

I remember one day Dr. Mahoney talked about the medieval period and just how rough those times were. He explained the incessant combat, the chaotic ruling structure, the iron grip of the church and its struggle with the crown and a plethora of diseases that infected the populace. Pretty basic textbook stuff it you’re studying the Middle Ages.

Then Dr. Mahoney told us about the profound changes that occurred between the medieval period and the Renaissance.

Overnight people didn’t grab brushes, start painting and, – viola! – DaVinci’s Mona Lisa came out. There were gradual, almost insignificant things that occurred in society that changed Europe forever, that brought Western Civilization out of the Dark Ages and into enlightenment.

One of these things was diet. Dr. Mahoney said people began eating better, thanks to newer farming techniques. The meat and grain diet of old gave way to more vegetables and that meant better nutrition, which led to developing immunities against diseases that led to a robust population.

Sickly peasants died out in great numbers, while healthier peasants lived longer, produced more and made their little fiefdoms thrive. This in turn enabled their landholders and noble class to become richer, patronize the arts, fund explorations to the New World and raise armies to conquer vast, uncharted regions of the globe.

People eating better meant longer life spans and healthier children who would in turn pass healthy genetic traits to successive generations.

This is all thanks to peas, according to Dr. Mahoney.

“So the next time you’re in the supermarket and go by the frozen foods section, just stop and say ‘Hi, peas! Thank you!’” Dr. Mahoney said.

I told you the guy was a goofball.

As a side note, my father referred to Dr. Mahoney as “Mr. Peas.”

The professor’s argument was compelling. What role does nutrition have in a society’s success or failure? Did a medieval farmer who deviated from the norm and grew green leafy vegetables know what he was doing when everyone else sustained themselves with wheat? Was the first European to eat a salad mocked, ridiculed and called a fag like vegetarians are today?

Humanity has done a complete 360-degree turn on its eating habits, shucking vegetables for processed foods that are making us fidgety, irate and miserable.

Technology has given us preservatives that keep food longer in our pantries and store shelves, but may be doing harm to our bodies. It’s not bad enough that we’re eating chemicals. We’re a society of coprophagists, eating shit and loving it, so long as the shit we’re eating tastes good.

While nutritionists tell us to have a balanced diet and eat more fruits and vegetables, they are sadly outnumbered by corporations whose bottomless advertising coffers fund massive campaigns designed to push us towards juicy cheeseburgers, snack chips and other high-fat, low-nutrition delicacies.

Not satisfied with existing junk food, people are diligently working to enhance the suck factor of what we eat. Our solution? Fry it. Fried Twinkies? Fried Oreos? Then there are things that are so ridiculous, like bacon cheese rolls, that make me weep for the future. In today’s kitchens there aren’t any problems a little hot oil, whipped cream filling or melted cheese can’t fix.

I’ll be the first to agree that vegetarians are preachy and annoying and that veggie burgers are a pox upon the planet, but they do have a point. Eating vegetables makes sense from a health perspective. Organic growing is catching on in recent years, probably because of a lack of pesticides and a return to “clean farming.”

With a reliance on fast food, junk food and shit from vending machines, we’re suffering from obesity, sickness and are generally more pissed off. I’m going out on a limb here, but a lack of green vegetables in our diets is turning us, as a collective, into assholes. We’re plagued with stress, anxiety and are developing things like high blood pressure and diabetes at alarming rates.

Exercise relieves stress and burns off pounds, but we wouldn’t have asses as big as luggage if we ate healthier. Now I enjoy a good bag of chips and a burger as much as the next red-blooded American male, but we have to watch what foods we consume. There should be no stigma against eating salads and vegetables.

These can’t be seen as the meals of craven, liberal wussies, but as acts of self-preservation. By consuming more green vegetables, especially leafy ones like lettuce and spinach, we might just pull ourselves out of a morass of general complacency, mental laziness and mediocrity. A vigorous, healthy population just might jumpstart the Second Renaissance and begin painting timeless masterpieces again. You know, art that doesn’t look it’s crapped out of a penguin.

Life in the Moment

There are sacred moments in our lives, times that distinguish themselves from others and make us feel wholly alive and happily human.

Some of these moments are spent with friends and loved ones, others when we’re alone and reach some kind of inner clarity. We’re caught musing about the universe and our place in it, and as a result, we’re rewarded with a glimpse of the larger picture and the joy of existence.

These “frozen moments” are indelibly etched and fixed in our minds and can be rewound and replayed, but never re-experienced.

Replaying my life, I find certain fixed moments I’ll always remember, whether it was a person, an aroma, or an event. We attach significance to these moments and they shape us:

It’s 1973 and my grandmother is dunking me in the surf in Ocean City, New Jersey. It is sunny and pleasant. The water is black and dirty, and tar sticks to my feet. I do not like this. Afterwards, we go back to the motel and I’m treated to coconut macaroons and saltwater taffy.

It’s 1977 and I’m on vacation in Maryland in my grandparent’s trailer. Brown wooden paneling, shag carpeting, swinging saloon door divides the living room from the kitchen. There’s tall grass behind the trailer and I discover a three-legged frog I name Jeremiah.

It’s 1979 and I’m in my grandparent’s house in Barrington, New Jersey on a Saturday morning. I watch cartoons and eat cereal. Granny has a drawer in the dining room that she stocks with candy and gum. I sneak some candy and go into the den, which smells of sandalwood. I take the leatherbound books from the shelves and flip through them. I feel relaxed.

It’s 1982 and I’m in a chalet with a loft and a large stone fireplace in the Poconos. My parents and I spent three hours in the car to get here and it’s nighttime. I hook up my ColecoVision to the TV and play video games while mom makes nachos: round chips covered with cheese and jalapeños. Afterwards, we watch Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live.

It’s 1986 and I’m on a date with a girl I met in high school. We’re holding hands as the snow begins falling. Our breath clouds and resembles smoke in the chilly air. Snowflakes cling to her eyelashes as I kiss her cold cheek.

It’s 1988 and the day after the senior prom. My friends and I pile into my car and head down to the Jersey shore. We end up at my parent’s vacation home, go to the beach, binge on hoagies and soda and talk about our plans for the future. We're young and confident.

It’s 1990 and I’m in a campground somewhere in Quebec on a summer night. I’m staring at a billion stars glittering in the velvety black void. The air here is clean, cool and moist. The aurora borealis pulses and dances overhead, an undulating wave of spellbinding light.

It’s 1992 and I’ve just made love to a beautiful woman. We cradle each other and fall asleep in my dorm room, under my black and white checkered comforter. As the first rays of morning sunlight filter into the room, I count the freckles on her back.

It’s 1994 and I’m in Dover, England with a classmate staring out at the British Channel. The fierce wind coming in from the channel nearly knocks us off the stone wall we’re standing on. We lean into the wind and shout loudly, raging at this tempest bearing down on us.

It’s 1996 and I’m accepting my first journalism award at the New Jersey Press Association banquet in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is the Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Award for Responsible Journalism. I take the plaque and get my picture taken while the audience applauds. I started working at the weekly a year and a half ago.

It’s 1998 and I’m standing on a scenic overlook in Monument Valley, Utah. Three large red rock mesas tower in the distance over the landscape. The serene blue sky seems infinite overhead and a Navajo guide volunteers to take us on a jeep tour into the majestic wilderness.

It’s 1999 and I’m getting married in Wilmington, Delaware in my wife’s church. The day is surreal; there's a room filled with strangers and lofty promises and poetry about love. The limo ride to the reception feels like prom night. We are giddy and terrified.

It’s 2001 and I’m watching a jet airliner strike a skyscraper on TV. I’m trying to comprehend the sheer horror of what I witnessed, and feel helpless and angry. I speak with my father and wife on the phone. We are living through history, cowering in the shadows of madmen. That night, when the house is dark and silent, I sit in the living room with the TV on and start crying.

It’s 2003 and we’re just north of San Francisco in the Muir Woods National Monument. The air smells of eucalyptus and pine. Ancient redwood trees tower over us, stretching up to a green canopy. A light wind causes the trees to slightly sway, and their leaves whisper softly.

It’s 2005 and I’m on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The building’s Art Deco façade is both classy and elegant. Manhattan stretches beneath me, a city of concrete, metal and teeming multitudes. Staring across the Hudson, I see New Jersey’s sprawl and the Statue of Liberty.

It’s 2007 and I finish my set at an Atlantic City comedy club. Afterwards, my fellow fledgling comics and I head to another club and enjoy another comedy show by professional comics. We invite the comics to Hooters and eat chicken wings and drink beer and later are driven around the city by a former professional wrestler in his Cadillac.

It’s 2010 and I’m filing for divorce. After a five-year separation, I feel like I can finally breathe. I sit outside the lawyer’s office with the weight of the world spilling off my shoulders. We are a flawed species, each thrown into a chaotic world we are tasked with making sense of. But there is no sense. Everything is a random jumble of events, some good, some bad, some indifferent. As I write the check and give it to the attorney, I realize just how botched everything is. My marriage produced no children, no enduring love or great happiness. All people want is for love to be reciprocated. We want to be acknowledged in life, with a realization that our existence is meaningful, that we will not be forgotten when we depart.

In the end, life is all about chances. It’s about our collected experiences and about these frozen moments, events that stand out from every other ordinary day. Falling down and getting back up, loving and losing, standing in awe at the beauty of the natural world and being cognizant of your place in the universe.

Bundle all of this together and you get wisdom. You get a life richly lived, warts and all, filled with summer night skies, sweet grandmothers, family vacations, kisses in the snow, comedy clubs, desert sunsets, making love, pine forests, cityscapes, heartbreak and laughter.

These are the moments that make life worth living. In this rapture and sorrow, we discover self-awareness.

We realize how alive we are.

Appropriately Inappropriate

Ever laugh at something inappropriate and realize that because it’s so inappropriate it makes you laugh harder? Breaking some kind of taboo by jesting at something off-limits doesn’t fill you with shame, but propels you toward making a mockery of it.

I’ll give you an example. Wouldn’t it be funny if the voices in the movie Schindler’s List were dubbed as Muppets?

When Ben Kingsley delivers the line “The list is life,” a Kermit the Frog voice comes out. Oskar Schindler could sound like Fozzie Bear.

That’s so wrong, isn’t it?

What the fuck is the matter with me?!

Why do I labor to see humor in the most inappropriate things? Why do I continually throw sexual innuendo at everything and hope something sticks, like the panties of a sorority sister riding her first Sybian?

See? I just did it again!

I blame my parents. They gave me an appreciation for comedy without realizing it. When I was little, I discovered my father’s record collection. It was mostly doo-wop bullshit, but what attracted my attention wasn’t the music. He had comedy records stashed away, with comedians like The Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson and Bill Cosby.

Bill Cosby’s “Wonderfulness” was my favorite. I liked how Cosby talked about his childhood, about building and racing go-karts, about getting his tonsils out at the hospital and about booby-trapping the living room by smearing Jell-O on the floor because he was scared the monsters in his favorite radio horror program would attack him.

When I was 13, my mother gave me a copy of Cosby’s album “Bill Cosby: Himself.” Most kids got a football or basketball when they turned 13. I got Cosby talking about raising his kids, going to the dentist, the stupidity of drinking to excess and anecdotes from his childhood. I memorized each routine on that album and repeated them verbatim at school in the cafeteria to my friends.

That’s where the comedian in me began.

I learned to make people laugh at an early age and enjoyed it, though I was too unpopular to be the class clown. I was more of the class clown’s understudy. If the wiseass kid who made the teachers and students laugh became sick, I’d fill in.

At Heritage Junior High, I was the only 8th grader to do spot-on impressions of Ronald Regan and Michael Jackson. This was in 1983 when both were still popular and not the subject of senile or pedophile jokes.

As a side note, I can’t figure out why some Republicans lionize Reagan like he was the American Winston Churchill. I understand he worked with Gorbachev to end the Cold War, but besides that speech at the Berlin Wall and lying about the SDI, what did he actually do? People forget that the guy was senile in the end. He let his crazy astrology-worshipping wife run the country. Reagan just sat around eating jellybeans while the Iran-Contra scandal raged around him. But now he’s some kind of national hero? Republicans in the ‘80s must’ve loved bad B-movies and big deficits.

See? I just tore apart a former Commander-In-Chief for being a senile relic.

I’ve been told there are sacred cows in comedy.

A comic should never joke about three things: child abuse, domestic violence and rape.

Let me see… child abuse, domestic violence and rape. Sounds like the Catholic Church, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, there’s nothing in the Bible prohibiting sex with children. Nothing at all. Homosexuality is forbidden, along with bestiality and letting your semen hit the ground. Yet the text is clear: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18:22

A man and a child are two different things. Perhaps the church uses this loophole to justify boffing choirboys. Maybe there should be something in the Bible prohibiting sex with kids. If they make that official, maybe then Father Pedo might not troll around for prepubescent victims to violate aboard the Magical Chloroform Bus of Shameful Secrets.

Not only that, but the Church covers up sexual abuse, like these kids had it coming. But what do you expect in a place where every Sunday you’re on your knees half the time?

See? I just offended Catholics. I called the functionaries of a religion a bunch of child molesters.

Surely there’s some group that’s too taboo for comedy, some belief, practice or religion that must not be crossed no matter what.

Muslims?

Okay, don’t make fun of the Muslim faith. Islam is the only sacred cow out there, as Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the South Park creators learned when they received death threats for depicting Muhammad in a goofy bear costume.

So I won’t make fun of Islam.

But I will go after the terrorists:

Why do terrorists wear smelly, dirty clothes? Because if they shit themselves during a failed suicide bombing, nobody would notice!

See? I went after the terrorists just to prove a point about comedy, which is this:

All good comedy (and even bad comedy) contains a kernel of truth. That’s why politically incorrect stereotypes are funny, because they’re based on factual elements and traits. Blacks don’t tip at restaurants. Jews are whiny. Asians drive like crap. Republicans are gun-toting fundamentalists. Democrats are passive hippies. Rednecks are stupid. People from the northeast are snobs.

Surely these stereotypes aren’t literal. Not all Jews are whiny. Just the ones from New York.

What I’m seeing is a return to stereotyping. Politically incorrect humor works because it’s inappropriate. It shatters the polite norms of the last 30 years and shoves them in your face, exposing them for the ridiculous bullshit they are. Laughing at the inappropriate derides the stifling societal taboos.

As I grew older, I became a fan of George Carlin and Bill Hicks, two comedians who used the beer-stained pulpit of the comedy club to rage at stupidity, the establishment and an America that had lost its way. They were both Holden Caulfield with a megaphone, shouting at the phonies and blasting the pretentious and asinine conformists responsible for war, commercialism and fear mongering.

Carlin and Hicks weren’t jokesters or safe comics; they actually had something to say. They both delivered their messages in a blunt, scathing way that occasionally eviscerated the sacred cows.

Both were intelligent, quick-witted and deftly punished those who needed it.

Carlin had a great aphorism that applied to comedians: “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

Just because a truth is uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s off limits. Sometimes those lofty truths or conventions should be scrutinized or ridiculed just for the hell of it, whether it’s politics, religion, sex or something dark and forbidden.