NIGHTMARES ON SALE – GET 2 FOR THE PRICE OF 1

I TRY TO IGNORE THE WHISPERS LOUDER THAN THE SCREAMS. IN DREAMS I WALK WITH YOU. You Roy.  I AM TRAVELLING. Always traveling. Moving. New apartment. New house. New CCITEE-Y. NEW STATE. STATE OF MIND. Party goers and house warmers and birthday goers and CHRISTmas mass attendees gather. I know some then I know everyone. I am no one. They don’t see me this way. He doesn’t see me this way. She. You.

 

MR SANDMAN BRING ME A DREAM.. I know you. I love you LOVE! I carry buckets of paint to your house and the party has just begun. I GET NO KICK FROM CHAMPAGNE either Frank, baby. Seven sisters of love pies stare at me and glare at ME AND THAT LOOK. THAT LOOK. IT SENDS CHILLLS DOWN MY SCARS- inside and outside that run against my heart. Let’s get this CHORDETTEONIAN PARTY STARTED MR JIMMY!

 

I put my arm around Grandmom to say I love you. People STARING. People caring. Empty people fill the crowded party. Acting hearty. Listing their character defects. Last chance. MY DEAD GRANDMOM TURNS HER HEAD AND SAYS “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!”

 

 

I wake up smoking and drift back along the sea of asphalt, scraping my fat ass and ripping my favorite dream jeans still wondering what I did. WHAT DID I DO THAT GRANDMOM KNOWS I DID? Was it last summer Jennifer Love?

 

I am alone. ALONE. MY NEWEST OF THE NEW HOUSES. Sir Raleigh comes with news. I thought he said PRESIDENT REAGAN HAD DIED OF INDECENT IMPLOSURE. I didn’t care until I realized he wasn’t just dreaming about my Dream girl locked in his dungeon TIED UP WITH VINES and THE SISTERS OF REJECTION.

GIVE HIM TWO LIPS OF HATRED AND VIOLENCE. RESTRAINING ORDERS, BRIGHT LIGHTS AND SIRENS.

 

“SHE’S A COKE HEAD” HE SAYS.

“SHE USED TO GIVE BLOW JOBS TO HERMAPHRODITES.” HE SAYS.

 

My throat fills with vomit and joy. IN DREAMS I DO COKE WITH YOU.

 

Stolen emotions and borrowed gifts are shared at the airport and train stations and parking lots and I’M STILL NOT SURE WHICH IS WHICH. IN DREAMS I TALK TO YOU. Us is back and you is cornered and still slip away. Reptilian monkeys bred become bread for the children of Elizabethan peasants but I grab two of them and hand them to the girl with ruby slippers and she vanishes like the Dark Knight into the dark night when she hears Bruno approach.

 

“I’ll whip you now my pretty and your LITTLE MAN too! Hahahahaha” Bruno yells but not enough to find her. I find her in her Old Kentucky home with three wooden porch steps away and I go into seizures. Jules Vern hides Tu-Tu Hundred Feet Under The Sea Under The Porch. I pass out. DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM –DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM. MR SANDMAN WAKES ME. The ape lizards have grown by the time I reach the inside. The Dark Huntress awaits me wearing a smile and a bra. I am excited to see her but worry about poor Mr Vern. Guilt reddens my pink face knowing that I shouldn’t be THERE. The Queen would be quite jealous and take away my deconstructed addictive Kingdom. SHE IS THERE AND SHE IS THERE. IT WAS A DUBIOUS PLAN OF THE HUNTRESS OF DARK TO HAVE Mr Vern under the porch and watch my web of lies unfold. The evil one IS not Bruno and I NOW KNOW WHAT GRANDMOM KNOWS I DID. I JUST DIDN’T DO IT YET WHEN SHE TOLD ME.

 

Caught in the trap admiring the salamander gorilla’s ability to change in size determined by the cage they are in. I imagine if they were let loose if they could grow bigger than the entire world. My Darling Queen and my Miss Huntress dance and change clothes despite the height and come out laughing at me and yet forgiving me and I feel a calm as MY DEAD GRANDMOM SAYS “ I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID.”

Suck My Fuck

Suck my fuck

I’m out of luck

The Sandman took

My very last buck

 

I want to live

I want to give

I want to love

I want to forgive

 

From God I’m forsaken

I feel he has taken

Unless I’m mistaken

I cannot awaken

 

I’m sick in the head

Stuck in this bed

Moving I dread

I feel so dead

 

All I want is love

Without a kid glove

Yet pure as a dove

I’ve been so void of

 

Cursed

Blessed

Thirst

The rest

 

Fuck a suck

Eat a duck

Mind is muck

No more Luck

Desire Part 2.3

 

Desires of riches through

Creative means means means everything to me.

Drawings,

Novels-how novel,

Music paid to play and

Photography.

I want it all.

Desires of riches of the spirit

With God

Through God

My Guardian Angel

Speaks to me

And takes care of me.

Desires of love

Of another person

Mutual, true, deep

And understanding love

That lasts forever

That knows no end.

Desires of happiness

Through satisfaction of self.

Inside and out.

Silence My Lamb

.Butterfly

Conversations with Scar Tissue Past

Scar tissue expands every day on my wounded mind.

Sometimes I feel nothing. Denial? Remission?

Sometimes I feel everything. Projection? Frustration? Anxiety?

Scar tissues spreads and strengthens me and weakens me.

Sometimes my past will pop up and surprise me.

“Hey how ya doin?”

“Great. How are you?” *Stutter and shake*

Chocolate shake. Fuck you. I want vanilla. I always want vanilla.

“Livin the dream” *Shimmy, shimmy shakes*

Shimmy my ass. You’re dream must be simple. You must be simple. Fuck your shimmy, shimmy and your Goddamn shake.

“Oh. That’s great I guess.”  *Reelin and rockin*

Ahh.. that’s better. Reeling and rockin… Not living or dying just kind of rockin.

“Yeah man. I am so filled with gratitude for my wonderful life.” *proud statement loosing confidence*

“Yeah? Me too. What are you so grateful about?” *Twisting and shouting*

“I woke up today. The sun is shining. I have love. I have friends.” *it goes on and on and on and . . .yeah*

Doubt and reconsideration of this fool standing before me. Too evasive. Too general. Hides the scars and pain and the past. Denies it.

“Are you grateful you took a shit?’ *sarcastic laughter held in*

“Wha. . ?” *confused by ninja verbal dance moves*

“Are you grateful you found a dollar to buy some food?” *humility or self righteousness (can’t tell)*

The past faded away as I questioned and hustled and even disco ducked..

Hope or hopeless. Doesn’t matter if I remain in motion. Mental motion. . .Keep going and no matter the scars or the past or the pain, the spirit is well. Always is if I tap into it. Do the twist. Shake it out baby. Shake, rattle and roll.

You know how it is, Rockin and rollin and what not.

You cna live your dream. I’m living my life. It’s worth every scar.

The Artsy Girl – an Excerpt from my novel Yellow Socks

The Artsy Girl (as it originally appeared in Yellow Socks: Confessions of a Non-Don Juan)

 

Living with Terry and Morton was a blast. They were both in their early thirties and I was in my late twenties. We are all artists in one way or another and we were all on the prowl for the ladies as we clumsily tried to pick them up at coffee shops, AA meetings, bars, art shows and anywhere else we thought that we could find our type.

 

Our types varied. Terry was obsessed with finding a “Vampire chick” or a “Goth Chick’. Ironically he dressed kind of standard 1988 in 1995. He had that bob cut hair. It was kind of long on the sides and real short in the back. Morton was after the “Rocker Chick Slut” or the “New Age Hippie chick.” He usually dressed the part either wearing his new age outfit or his Rock star clothes. He had long black died hair. As for me, I stood by with my usual requirements: any good-looking girl that actually liked me. We rarely found what we were looking for after obsessing day and night about these fantasy girls we would never have. We had fun in our bonding of failures with the ladies.

 

We all lived in a house that Terry owned in a town on the outskirts of Camden, NJ. It was a poor neighborhood and was becoming racially mixed. It was mostly poor minorities and white trash. The chances of ever seeing hot chicks that fit our tastes were next to impossible.

 

Then she appeared. A young girl of maybe seventeen walked by our house every day around 5:30 pm. She dressed a little on the “alternative” side. It was around the end of the grunge years and that’s when the poor neighborhoods usually take over a style is when the middle class is done with it. Always a step behind. Kind of like us. So Terry nicknamed her the “Artsy Girl” because he says she dresses artsy. It was a style that was once artsy but not now. The three of us became obsessed with her. Everyday at 5:30 one of us would call to the others “Artsy Girl!” and we’d all come running to the kitchen window to see her.

 

“Artsy Girl!” I said.

 

“Where?” Terry said.

 

“I don’t see her. Did I miss her?” Morton said.

 

“Stop fucking with us, man. This is the highlight of our day. We don’t need to be teased.” Terry said.

 

“Sorry. I just think that it’s funny that we all start salivating the minute someone rings the Artsy Girl bell.” I said.

 

She was cute in her little flowered dresses and her Doc Martins. She had medium length reddish brown hair and pretty brown eyes.

 

One day I was walking home from the train and I ended up walking home with her. She didn’t acknowledge ever seeing me before. Thank God. She didn’t know what a letch I was. Her name was Megan. She just got out of High School. She was going to start working at the local convenience store. I was going to hit on her then I realized that she was just a regular little girl. That’s ok but not for me. When we got to my house I felt sadness in her eyes that I was going home without hitting on her or asking her for her phone number. After getting to know her the thrill of the “Artsy Girl” vanished. I realized that I am not the letch I thought. She was too young and too inexperienced in life.

 

I still fucked with the roommates though. I still gave them the mating call of the Artsy Girl. They still kept a running. I never felt the same again.

Purchase your copy of Yellow Socks; Confessions of a Non-Don Juan here.

A Watched Pot Never Boils or Adventures in Model Photography

Patience.

Good things come for those who wait.

They say a watched pot never boils.

I say a watched cock never erects (that is a story for another time)

I’ve been trying to get this new website going for months. I don’t want to reveal too much about it until it’s up and running and maybe successful. I have an outline of the site and the name. The concept is there. I have tech guys ready to help when I am ready. I even bought a camera so I don’t have to depend on my photographer friends. The missing ingredients are photographs of models. I even have several friends that have either verbally or written interest and commitment to helping me out modeling. They love the concept and are perfect for the parts. None of them have followed through after several months until the other day.

When I came up with the idea of the site my friend was ready to go and partner up with me. I was a bit anti-social and didn’t take advantage when she was ready to go. Then it took me months to get a hold of her and set a date. Meanwhile, she switched boyfriends and the new one is jealous and got mad when I hung out with her a couple weeks ago. This guy is jealous with her every waking moment.

She was advised by others to model for me if she wants to and not to tell him. I prefer boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancés, wives and husbands to at least know and hopefully approve and support the model. We set up our first shoot anyway. I had to pick her up a block away from her apartment because she lives near friends of her boyfriends.

We did the location scouting on the fly and did the shoot gorilla style. We both liked that. A sense of adventure and not knowing what we were doing next. We knew what outfits but not the poses and places. We played in trash, fake blood, pantyhose, the woods and an out door fire pit. Just to give you the idea of adventure we had. We were done in a couple of hours and headed back to her place. Then another ball dropped. Her boyfriend called and said he was coming over in 20 minutes.

Of course I got lost driving her and dropped her off just in time to clean up. In the haste I handed her my bag instead of hers. She had my lap top, camera and other valuables that for some reason I thought I couldn’t leave without. She suggested I stay in the area and we’ll exchange bags when he leaves her house. I headed to a local bar to kill time. After an hour or so she texted me to tell me he’s spending the night and we’ll have to exchange in the morning. I tried to get her to figure a way out of the house and do the exchange. I eventually accepted that I’d have to go the 12 long hours without my precious lap top. I realized the insanity.

I decided to stay at the bar since I was already making one-night friends and the bartender was hot. She even gave me a free roast beef sandwich. One guy who has been playing in dart throwing leagues for over 30 years played a few games with me and taught me how to throw. He kicked my ass.

I went home, slept, got up and off I went to rescue my bag. I’m not sure I want to work wither as long as she has a jealous boyfriend. We’ll see how that goes.

Now the other models set up dates and times then can’t do it for whatever reasons. Each one is a legit reason but it’s been frustrating as hell. I’ve made it this far so I’ll keep trying until I have at least 3 or 4 models shot until I launch the site. See you then.

Women. You Can’t Live With Them and Men Are Assholes

Women. . . You can’t live with them . . . . Men are assholes that fucked women up. The messed them up for guys like me. Maybe guy like you.

 

We are all a result of our personal experiences in life. Most of us stick with what we experience in life early on and it seems we stop changing in at a certain age. Look around. You can usually tell how old someone is by what they wear, their hair styles, how they speak and their interests like music and television. You know the types. You can tell when someone grew up in the 80’s, 90’s etc.

 

Ahh…. The mysteries of the male and female relations. It’s never been solved but I have my theories and opinions.

 

In my dating experience and the older I get I find that I am less and less of a commodity and I gather more and more baggage. The same goes with the women I encounter or date. It’s been a while but I have been paying attention to other people’s relationships. So when I date a woman I am also dating her last boyfriend/husband/fiancé, the one before that and the one before that. Each experience she has changes her in some ways. This seems to go against what I said earlier about people staying in certain mentalities from early life. It’s been my observation that each man they date reaffirms her attitude from early life rather than changing it especially the women that have had traumatic experiences with men in childhood, teen years and early 20s.

 

So, the reason I was thinking about this is because my friend is having guy troubles. She’s been dating a guy that grew up in the same city neighborhood with the same friends and family dating the same type of girls his entire life. My friend grew up in a backwoods environment and transitioned to the center city life and has had different types and tries to let go of her past relationships when entering a new one. They are only a couple of months in and he didn’t realize how many male friends she had. I hung out with her last night and she let him know she was going out with a guy friend. He started to get jealous. She even called him while we were out to assure him it was cool. His jealousy got worse and worse.

 

Today she posted a photo of us on facebook and he freaked out with even more jealousy. She’s not used to this. Even in her wildest times of her youth she never cheated on a boyfriend. Apparently he has or he has experienced girls cheating on him.

 

It got me thinking about the line from when Harry Met Sally (yes I watched it several times and I’m proud) when Harry says “No man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.” I found this to be fairly accurate for me personally until I hit my late 20s and early 30s. Sex became less important and friendships become more important.

 

I suspect that my friend’s boyfriend still has that mentality in his mid 40s. My friend is a pretty tough bitch sometimes and she won’t tolerate it. She’s still upset about it.

 

The other code I cracked a while ago that I don’t always follow or live up to is the “women are bitches” and “men are assholes” mentality many people seem to have. It’s pretty simple to me.

 

Women are attracted to confident men. In many cases men that appear to be confident are actually cocky. There’s huge difference between cocky and confident. Cockiness is fake. It’s a way of overcompensating for insecurities. These men are usually assholes and dickheads. Men that are nice and accessible appear to be weaker and unconfident and a lot of them are. A woman gets the cocky guy and he turns out to be an asshole. Then she is either a victim or a bitch.

 

Men are attracted to confident women. The louder and more aggressive women turn out to be bitches because of their insecurities. The nice accessible women appear to be weaker and too easy so he turns to the cocky woman and she turns out to be a bitch. It’s a vicious circle for some of us.

 

Due to my personal struggles and variety of women I’ve dated I have been an asshole, a nice guy and a confident man. I’ve had the most luck being nice and confident.

 

I’m not even going to address my thoughts on love. Let’s say, for now, that I have no opinions on love.

 

Love ya.

Epiphany Shmiphany

 

I’ve been waiting to sit down and write about an “epiphany” I had a little over a week ago. Epiphany. For such a soft word that is almost pretty as it rolls through my mouth it is a powerful word. I’ve had these changes in attitude and  realizations ( a harsher sounding word that’s way less powerful). I was basically going to tell you about the “epiphany” that I have told you about and have experiences over and over. I guess I should mention it briefly then move on, huh?

 

I was watching a documentary about Hubert Selby Jr, author of classic novels like Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream that were made into fantastic movies, about a week and a half ago. Learning about the struggles of the life of an artist is just rehashing what I already knew. An artist is born that way. Born to struggle through life so he can create art. That is his purpose and contribution to life. In a world of money oriented and materialistic people, we the artists, are giving instead of taking. As soon as we share our creations with at least one other person our art is art.

 

Ok, I’m not going to go on on and on about my purpose in life and your role in it. Basically I was just reminded of what I need to remember and keep forgetting. The struggle is the burden and consistency and I have to comment, react and create from it then give t away.

 

“I am an American artist I have no shame.” Patti Smith

 

The past few weeks have been terrifying, incredible, amusing, and on and off weird.

 

I’ll start with right now. At this moment I am sitting inside a coffee shop in Collingswood, NJ. I just finished talking to a friend I’ve hung out with only a few times but when we see each other there is this bond we have and we end up in deep conversations about art, music, addiction and sometimes the meaning of life itself. Ha. He’s in a similar situation as me and we always get along.

 

I went to the welfare office at 7 am this morning and spent over 2 hours trying to get some kind of assistance. I followed it up with a visit to unemployment to waste another hour or 2. It wasn’t a complete waste. My unemployment is back on. I just had to fight for the weeks they held back. This is fantastic news after waiting almost a month without the money and bills are adding up.

 

When you’re broke. Really broke. You start thinking about every coffee, donut, dinner out, pizza delivered, soda, etc and you over analyze what you wasted money in the past while still spending the same money on the same things. Oh yeah, the air conditioning is killing my roommate and me. Both he and my landlord suggested I turn it off and leave the house each day and hang at a coffee shop or somewhere with internet connections. These days that’s pretty much every coffee shop and eve restaurants and bars.

 

I went home after the unemployment office. It was about noon. 5 hours spent on trying to get help and it was semi successful. I still had the entire day ahead of me. I still do. I rubbed one off watching Judge Pierno or whatever her name is to relax. Not long after I got a phone call from the lady I spoke with at the unemployment office to tell me that all of the past money owed to me will come through. I was more floored by the fact that the woman called me back as soon as she found out than I was about the money. That was just really nice. I was ready to get out again and head to the pharmacy and then relax at the coffee shop. I am relaxed despite the caffeine.

 

I just ran into a girl I knew from a group I used to attend. Young, beautiful and great body and she is a fellow writer. A talented writer. I had such a crush on her a while back. I had so many fantasies about her in the past few years. I haven’t seen her since this past winter when I fist grew my beard and hair long and she called me a Wooly Mammoth and I was embarrassed and I was already anxious borderline agoraphobic. Weird. It was just a cute little name-calling and borderline flirtation that helped speed up my already progressing reclusiveness.

 

Irony. Now that I am leaving the house I run into the girl that I not only had a crush on but made me not want to go out anymore. I have to admit when I first laid eyes on her I got a little anxious and I pretended not to see her. I wanted to hide and jump up and call her name. I didn’t. I went back to writing what you just read. What I just wrote. I felt comfortable when she approached me on her way out. She was actually working, looking for a story to cover for one of the publications she writes for.

 

We talked a little bit about writing and how good it was to see each other then she left and here I am. This is the message of my writing today. Random events that mean nothing and mean everything to me.

 

When I got here I randomly started talking to a guy I never met before about misery versus happiness. I happen to be learning and relearning that life is a struggle and it’s what you put into it. This is before I met the others here today.

 

Last week I went to Philly to sell my cds to a shop where I’ve known the owner for a while. We had a great talk and he gave me a great price and I left a happy man. I wandered to a coffee shop I’d never been to greeted by 3  barista angels that worked the registers and coffee machines. People talked to me and greeted me like I was someone. I grabbed my drink and tipped then sat right outside so I could smoke. Huh… I haven’t had a cigarette yet since I entered the coffee shop. Usually I jump right out side and smoke. If I did that I wouldn’t have run into my friends. Shit. Now I want a cigarette. . .  .

 

*Dramatic pause for Rich Hillen Jr’s cigarette break*

 

Great smoke break. I’m texting my friend maybe girlfriend that lives in New Orleans all about my day. She’s another story. We’ve been talking about moving in for a while but we can’t afford it yet. A long drive and she has a pooch.

 

Just 3 weeks ago (maybe 2 and a half weeks) I was so desperate and stressed about my financial condition and it’s slowly pulling itself together.

 

Once I had my “epiphany”, I felt better over all and knew things will work out if I make the effort and try not to feel or come off desperate. I was ready.

 

My roommate told me about a music shop in Collingswood that would probably give me a good deal on my amp I’ve wanted to sell. I headed out one night to sell the amp and I ran out of gas within 4 blocks from the store. I laughed. My gas gage isn’t always working right and it says that there is less gas than is in there. I was on empty and was planning to get gas after I sold the amp.

 

This teenager appeared out of nowhere and started pushing my car. We couldn’t budge it for some reason. I was a foot from the corner street wedged on the curb. I called my close friend that lived in Collingswood and he was on the road going to a show and couldn’t help. I was pretty far from a gas station. I racked my brain finding someone in the area that could and would help me out.

 

I called my filmmaker friend who I’ve worked with on a few projects and he came through for me. I was still in a decent mood. I was also lucky enough to have had a gas container. So my friend picked me up, took me to the gas station and back to my car. It worked out because he wanted to talk to me about his upcoming projects. Just as we pulled up near my abandoned giant red beat-up 1994 Lincoln Towncar there was a Mini-Cooper in front of it and my cell phone rang with an unrecognized number. I just said to my friend that it looks like my mom’s friend’s car and it was my mom on his cell phone. I laughed again. My mom and her friend were parked there checking to see if I was ok. I was. They left. It was starting to get windy and a storm was on the way. I gassed the car up, thanked my friend and drove off to get gas.

 

I debated going to the music shop because of the gas problem and the storm brewing. I went anyway. It was a great decision. There were 2 women sitting in there with a guy that worked there. I jumped right to business and didn’t even check out the ladies. I wanted money. I knew exactly how much I wanted for it and the guy looked at and tested it. He left to get the owner to look at it and appraise it. While he was gone I looked at one of the now noticeably pretty women and she said “Hi Rich.” I knew those eyes of hers. It’s been over 20 years but you don’t forget her eyes. I said hi and I was a little uncomfortable yet happy. Memories rushed through my head of all of the nights I hung out with her, her friend and my weirdo friend. Many drinks and many other things. I tripped on acid with this girl at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She was at my college graduation party. One night we got really stoned and went back to her place to look at her art (she was an incredible artist). We had a most memorable passionate night that we agreed not to tell anyone about. I wonder if it made it special because it was a one-time deal. It doesn’t matter. Here she was face to face 20 years later and looked the same.

 

I knew she lived in the area for years and heard about her musician boyfriend/fiancé through a friend of mine. I did run into her once 10-12 years ago and it was a brief conversation because we both had somewhere to go. So you can probably guess who owned the music shop I was standing in hoping to make a buck from. It was the infamous boyfriend/fiancé or whatever. Then I talked to him about the people we had in common. We talked after he paid me righteously for the amp of course. I left feeling good.

 

Then came the storm as I was leaving. A physical storm followed that Sunday afternoon after “helping” out my uncle who is really my great aunt’s live in boyfriend clean offices. I pulled muscles in my arms and shoulders. This triggered my infamous Trigeminal Disorder. The pain was at its’ worst since I was first diagnosed with it in 2005. I was running out of pain meds and I couldn’t refill them for a week. I took migraine aspirin and sleep aids. I spent most of the next 3 days away to escape the explosions in my face. I was in extreme pain for 3 days then the recovery took a day or 2. I was finally back in the world and that’s when I sold my cds and hung out in Philly.

 

This past Saturday I did my usual “helping” out my uncle whose not my uncle. Afterward, I met up with my adopted mother, the one that raised me, to have lunch in honor of my adopted father whose 2^nd year death anniversary that also fell on Father’s Day. We were supposed to meet up the next day but she changed her mind and we had a great dinner and conversation.

 

On my way out I ran into another friend I’ve known for years sitting on a bench and I voluntarily joined him. This is a big step for me to be social and I hung out with him for an hour in the hot sun drinking an iced coffee from Starbucks. I was in a good mood. I headed home and watched some movies and did a little writing.

 

Sunday was Father’s day and my adopted father’s death anniversary. It was an awkward day. Having 2 dads can be difficult. My focus was on the dead one who raised me and not my biological father who came back in my life as an adult and has been there for my for over 20 years now. I called him and text him. We decided we will celebrate when I can afford it. It ended nicely.

 

Shit. This was a random bit of writing that went on forever. If you’re still reading, God bless you and thank you for sharing my life as it’s still spinning in and out of Epiphanies, pain, poverty, good memories and hopes of tomorrow, meanwhile, living in the moment no mater how good or bad it gets.

 

Ride on.

 

Right on.

 

Write on.

 

 

Thank God I’m an Athiest

A religious rant? Maybe. Maybe not.

Does it really matter what I think or feel about religion? I rarely talk about it but her goes nothing.

Actually, something happened today that got me thinking. I ask questions on formspring.com and I ask things that I’m curious about in people in general. Sometimes I’m silly, sometimes I’m curious and sometimes I’m serious. I asked about 130 people that I follow whether he/she believes in God or a “higher power”. It was interesting. The most interesting answer I got was confrontational.

“Do you believe in God or some sort of “higher power”?” I asked.

“Better question: Why is it that in our culture it is completely acceptable for a total stranger to ask some one the details of their spirituality? Why is it that we do not treat that information like the intimate thing that it is? People often structure their personal morality on their religion or lack there of, so it stands to reason that it should be a much more in depth conversation than “so do you believe in God?”. Honestly I think it is vulgar to toss out that question as simply as you might ask some one about the weather. Short answer: That’s not something I discuss with some just any one.” She answered.

I wasn’t trying to be deep or intrusive. It was pretty much a yes or now answer type of question. I was really curious as to why it seemed personal to her. I’ve asked way more personal questions like “What is the first thing you do after sex?” and there were polite answers from people that did think it too personal. I don’t feel attacked by the god answer but it threw me off.

Personally, I never cared much about the existence of God until I was introduced to the 12 steps where I “had” to find a “higher power” to help me recover. I kept it simple and call Him God but my interpretation or beliefs are flexible. I know that God could be anything. He could be Jesus, Buddha, Allah, nature etc. I’m open enough to believe that it could just be something in my own head that I “pray” to. It worked for 20 years. To a certain degree my non-descript God is still working. Like any human I lose faith. I also gain it. I keep on truckin’ despite my persona;. Emotional and physical problems and I still depend on a “higher power”. It’s just changed. I know that I am in control of some things and I have no control on others.

I just heard a great comparison to Bipolar disorder to the weather. It’s a daily thing. I rarely check the weather reports. I open the door and check the weather and then I know how to prepare for the weather. My mind is like that. I wake up depressed and I know the things that I have to do to prepare for the day.

This is how I explain my belief in God. It varies day to day. I don’t expect things to change. I just want to be prepared for what’s ahead of me and the ability to accept and change it. That’s my belief. I don’t think everyone should have the same view.

I used to bash various religions especially the one’s that seemed pushy. I hated religions that had the “holier than thou” attitude or “believe what I believe or you are going to Hell”. I could go on about all of the wars in the name of God and tear apart the hypocrisies of the members and clergies but that doesn’t help me. My personal beliefs help me. I don’t know if any religion is right or wrong. I do know it’s wrong to judge someone just because they do not believe what I believe. That is my only problem with religions. Every religion, atheist, agnostic, organization or group has it’s good points and bad points. They all have members that set a good example for the above-mentioned groups.

I don’t have any answers. I am open minded to believe that any belief could be the right one. There may not be a God. There might not be a heaven or hell. I may be my own God.

I never overanalyzed it like many people I know but I was pretty judgmental. I was lucky that religion was never pushed on me. I was raised Catholic. My first natural family weren’t real consistent with it so I found church boring and uninteresting. I was “adopted” at 11 and my new mom was (is) an ex-Catholic nun and my new father was and Agnostic Jew (ex-Jew). They raised me with my options open and I chose not to choose. I did what any self centered teenager might do. I lived for the moment. Instant gratification was my middle name. (still is sometimes). In college I wrote a paper about God for a philosophy course. That was the last time I really gave God or spirituality a thought. I received an A on the paper but was failing life.

As I mentioned already I was encouraged to find a “higher power” when I stopped drinking at age 24 by 12-step meetings. It changes as I do. He or She changes as I change.

One point I took a brief interest in studying Anton LaVey’s Satanism. It preached more peace than I expected. I was curious because LaVey seemed such a charismatic character. He was witty, intelligent and convincing. Then I realized that his distaste for the Catholic Church made his “religion” pretty much the same as any other. I don’t judge it or any religion at this point.

The individuals of various religions and the Atheists are the ones that get to me. The “haters” from each organization religious or otherwise are the ones to give what they claim to represent a bad name. If you are that convinced that your way is right for you then the need to recruit and convince others your way is the only way then you should live your beliefs not preach hate.

I am not committed to or hold anything against any religion or belief system unless it involves hatred and violence.

I think I had a point with all this. If not oh well. I haven’t written a blog for a while so here it is.