A Pilgrim’s Digression

As of noon today, I am officially on vacation. I am leaving for my fishing trip to Ontario tomorrow. I will return to blog again July 5th or thereabouts.

I may even return with some some pictures of me holding fish I’ve caught. I haven’t posted any photos in a long time, so I think that may be my first blog after I return.

Since God created the world, was that act of creation more similar to an author creating a work of fiction, or a mother giving birth? Your answer to that question may reveal your entire world view.

More often than not, I think God created a work of fiction. I look around me, and I just don’t believe anything is real. Things happen beyond any control. Action seems pointless because the future is foreordained. Daily life becomes a series of repetitious movements.

Religion itself is a mechanical movement, a going to a certain place at a certain time, saying the right thing, convincing ourselves of belief in a certain thing. Religion is no different than the way we get up in the morning, piss, shower, shave, dress, go to work. There is comfort in routine, which is the power of religion.

God, country, love, work, faith, values, beliefs, honor, duty. These are just words, bricks in the wall we build to block out the view of the emptiness of our being.

I slept badly last night. I woke up at twenty-five minutes past three, my back aching. I got up, took an aspirin, and got back into bed. I dozed the rest of the night sitting up, my back propped against pillows. My dreams were dark, unremembered in the morning.

I am leaving on a fishing trip to Ontario tomorrow. Since 1956, my Grandpa has been going on this fishing trip. Every year at approximately the same time, he goes fishing. When my Dad and his brothers were old enough, they went along. When I was old enough, I went along. Now we all go. We get up at dawn, go out on the lake in a boat, make repetitious mechanical motions with our arms and hands gripping a rod and reel. Come back to the cabin at noon and eat the fish we caught. Sleep through the noon hours. Go back out in the early evening and fish until dusk. Repetition to block the view of the void that is life, death. Religion of the fish.

I look around me on the train in the early morning, and I try hard not to assume that everyone is as empty as I am. It’s difficult. I don’t understand what life is, what it was supposed to be.

When you’re a kid, you can only imagine what life is like because you think you haven’t begun living yet. Kids say, “When I grow up I will…” and to them, that’s when life will begin. When I grow up. Somewhere along the way, you grow up and don’t even realize it, and then you can’t remember what you meant when you said “When I grow up I will…”

I will what? What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to be?

I don’t go to church anymore. I still believe in God, but not in any organized way. It was always the mechanics of religion that brought me to church anyway. I sought freedom from guilt and freedom from the fear of death through repetitious movements and phrases, but religion brought me neither. Now I just seek, pretty much assured that I will never find what I am looking for. There is no peace, and very little happiness, in this life. The only happy people are the ones who have completed their wall blocking the view of the void.

It’s a Nietzschean point of view, I realize. The prisoner stumbles up out of Plato’s cave to discover not light, but a great darkness. At that point, Nietzsche’s anti-hero accepts the darkness. Me, I stumble about in it, hoping to touch something familiar, hoping I’m wrong and the darkness is not total. Maybe I’ll find God somewhere in it, or love. If God is love, then I might find both at the same time. Maybe I’m wrong and there is meaning. Or maybe not.

I need a cigarette. And a black beret, black turtleneck, black jeans, and a table at les Deux Magots, preferably near the street. Waiter, coffee please. Make it black and strong.

Just to provide fair warning, I am going to be leaving for a fishing trip to Ontario at the end of the week; Friday to be exact. I probably won’t blog anything past Wednesday, however. I will be away from the computer from Friday June 24th through Monday July 4th, returning on Tuesday the 5th.

I am leaving quite a bit of unfinished business behind, namely my novella “Rented Space.” Almost as soon as I set a new deadline for publishing further installments, I broke that deadline. I did not publish last Wednesday. I doubt I will publish this Wednesday, though I may surprise myself. I have quite a few handwritten pages that at some point I need to type up.

Under normal circumstances, I don’t hand write anything anymore, but my wife has been using my iBook pretty heavily, and so I’ve been virtually computer-less except at work.
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Need a sure sign that western civilization has reached the nadir of decadence? I know what you’re thinking, and no it has nothing to do with sodomy.

Recently, I noticed that Starbucks has begun selling something called Chantico™ drinking chocolate. Now instead of coffee, one can buy a cup of “drinking” chocolate. Fortunately, the beverage—if it can be so called— only comes in one size, 6 oz.

Poor country mouse that I am, I find it hard to imagine the thoroughly dissolute person who would raise a cup of pure, liquid chocolate to their lips and pour it into their body. If this catches on, pretty soon we’ll all just be lying about in bed drinking chocolate, having fat sex, and watching “American Idol.” All of which sounds pretty good to me except for the “American Idol” part…but still. We aren’t supposed to indulge in something just because it feels good.
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This September 11, the “War on Terror” will have lasted longer than our involvement in World War II. From December 7, 1941 to August 15, 1945, we were at war for 1233 days. Put another way, the war lasted three years and 227 days.

From September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2005, we will have been at war 1460 days.

During World War II, a popular, tear-evoking song one would often hear on the radio was “When the lights go on again.”

When the lights go on again
All over the world,
And the boys are home again
All over the world,
And rain or snow is all
That may fall from the skies above
A kiss won’t mean goodbye
But hello to love.

When the lights go on again
All over the world…

The House voted yesterday to curb the Patriot Act. The lights aren’t going on again, but maybe they just flickered a little bit. Specifically, the House voted to revoke the FBI’s powers to obtain library records on a suspected terrorist. “Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect’s reading habits.” Basically, that returns us to the pre-9/11 status quo on that one aspect of our privacy. It’s only a small victory, however, and it may not be much of a victory at all.

Even if the Senate also rejects that provision of the Patriot Act, the President says he’ll use the veto.
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Feel free to make your own list in the comments section. Anyone care to agree or disagree with my choice for number one cause of ear worm?

10. You’re So Vain (Carly Simon)

9. Squeeze Box (the Who)

8. I am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel)

7. Happy Jack (the Who)

6. Hey Jude (the Beatles)

5. Yellow Submarine (the Beatles)

4. Nowhere Man (the Beatles)

3. Under the Boardwalk (The Drifters)

2. Come on Eileen (Dexy’s Midnight Runners)

1. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for (U2)

I added a couple new tracks to the American Psycho playlist, Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” and Huey Lewis’s “Hip to Be Square.” The latter song was used in the film and was originally on the soundtrack, but when Lewis saw how it was used, he pulled the song.

In the book, Bateman hums “Hip to Be Square” in the chapter “Killing Dog,” after he stabs to death “the old queer” and his Shar-pei. The description of the dog licking its own entrails while in its death throes is pretty gruesome.

One other thing of note: in the chapter “A Glimpse of a Thursday Afternoon,” Bateman says his favorite album is Bruce Willis’s “The Return of Bruno.” Yes, Bruce Willis the actor. I had forgotten how many of these actors churned out bad albums in the eighties, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, probably many others. Anyway, point is that it again exemplifies Bateman’s abominable taste in music, as Kaysea’s husband pointed out in the comments to the playlist blog.

Amazon sells the actual soundtrack to the film, which doesn’t look half bad. I’d buy it just for the David Bowie remix of “Something in the Air.” However, it’s unbelievable that the movie soundtrack doesn’t have a single song by Phil Collins or Genesis, considering Bateman gives one of his oracular, academic monologues on the music of Collins and Genesis. Maybe Collins would not agree to allow the music to be used. I can understand why. I feel odd reading this novel on the train, as if people who see me reading it must be thinking I’m some kind of psycho myself.

Incidentally, when I got off the train last night, the street performer who has been singing for money outside Takoma Metro was singing “Somewhere” from West Side Story. What an incredible coincidence.

…the Alanis Morissette album “Jagged Little Pill” is re-released in an acoustic version to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the album’s release.

I saw it for sale at Starbucks this morning. I’ll probably buy it later in the week. 10 year anniversary! Can you believe it? I remember 1995 very well. I’d get in my old ‘86 Toyota Tercel and drive to the University for class, and I could always count on hearing “Ironic” played at least once. Sheesh I feel ancient.
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As I remarked last week, I have been rereading Bret Ellis’s novel American Psycho. I am about a hundred and fifty pages into the book, not quite half through.

In reading this novel again, one of the things that strikes me is how if one is familiar with eighties pop music, this novel has a soundtrack. This weekend, I went back chapter by chapter through what I have read so far and made a note of songs mentioned.

I am going to make a list of the songs I’ve found so far, with the chapter title in parentheses preceding each grouping of songs. Clicking hyperlinks in the names of songs will open iTunes and take you to the song preview, where possible.

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All my life I have been uncomfortable with social interaction. It’s not that I dislike people; I just have this chronic psychological condition which prevents me from getting involved with people, even on the most basic level, such as idle elevator chit chat. I keep my distance.

If a neighbor invites me to bring my wife and son over for a cookout, I decline. If a neighbor extends the invitation via my wife, my wife accepts. And I try to weasle out of it. In declining invitations, all I can think about is how painful it is to stand around with a bunch of people and try to think of things to say. Sometimes even social interaction with people I might consider friends is difficult. Even family reunions are painful, and I try to avoid them. I cannot talk to people, even family. My wife has to pester me to phone my parents and grandparents occasionally. Even talking on the phone is too uncomfortable for me.

I don’t have parties. I certainly don’t go to parties. I don’t have friends over because I don’t even have friends. Not a single one. It’s a wonder I ever even married.
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