Good morning loyal parishioners.  I’ve been looking over my last few sermons and I’ve decided that perhaps things have gotten a wee bit too serious here at the Temple of the Holy Chaos.  The voice of god had been loud in my head, but now it seems to have quieted down a bit.  (A week in Vegas will usually shut the little fucker up for a while.)  So today’s sermon might be a little bit lighter.  Or not.  One never really knows.

Ladies and Gentlemen, good peace loving readers, I have bad news for you.  There are DEMONS living among us.  Well, not full blown demons, but human beings with demon ancestry, demon dna, right here in our own neighborhoods.  Sure, they look mostly human.  They do all the normal human things.  And many of them are cute as hell.  But they are demon spawn none the less.  You know these demons by another name: Japanese girls.

Oh, now I know what you’re thinking.  Reverend Che, Japanese girls aren’t demons.  They don’t carry demon dna.  They’re just normal humans like everyone else.  You’re just being silly or paranoid.  WRONG WRONG WRONG!  They are demons.  Hear me out…

First, a word about my world view.  The inner world I live in is probably more flexible than yours, and unless you understand a little bit about it, you’ll never see why Japanese girls are most certainly demons.  As Hamlet said so eloquently “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  I live by this credo.  I believe that we don’t ever get to see much more than a glimpse of reality.  All of our myths, every one of our stories and fantasies, have some truth in them.  Just as much truth about who we are as our histories and our mathematics.  If I make something up, and it seems factual, it probably is factual.  The Truth is made up of more than just what is true.  After all, is light a wave or a particle?  Neither until we want it to be.  I could go on, but I’ll leave the rest for another sermon.

Now, let’s define our terms.  What is a demon?  All cultures and all religions have some form of supernatural creatures.  If, from our limited human viewpoint, they’re generally positive we refer to them as angels.  If they aren’t so positive, we call them demons.  Of course it isn’t quite so simple.  Some angels might kick your ass while many demons were just a little bit misunderstood.  But the terms ‘angel’ and ‘demon’  are a useful generic shorthand for supernatural beings that represent either the light or dark side of the yin-yang symbol.  Let’s be careful here to weed out any christian bullshit about good and evil.  The Tao tells us that light and dark, angel and demon, are equal parts of the whole, both necessary and embraceable.

In ancient times many creatures walked the earth with humans.  Pan ruled the wild places and angels, heroes, and demons were common place.  But the rise of monotheism and in particular Christianity meant that humans could no longer tolerate the supernatural.  The world became a much narrower place.  The church declared war on anything non-christian.  The inquisition ruled the day .  Angels fled, trolls and beasties disappeared, and demons became persona non grata.  You think I’m kidding.  BULLSHIT.  Pope Sylvester (999-1003) confessed on his deathbed that a demon succubus named Meridiana helped him become pope.  He was forgiven during his last rights and the vatican developed it’s exorcism catechism.  Go ahead, look it up.  I dare you.

So what were the demons to do?  They were being hunted and killed all over the world.  They needed an isolated island where they could assimilate with humans over time.  And they found just such a place in Japan.  Is it a coincidence that Japan cuts itself off from the world at just about this time and stayed mostly isolated until the late 19th century?  I think not.  The island became populated with demons from all over the world.  And they stayed by themselves, breeding with the local men for centuries.  (I should probably mention here that I’m assuming that demon dna would be carried only by women.  That’s obvious.  I mean really.)  And now, centuries later, Japanese girls still carry that dna with them.  Demons.  Every one of them.

I know, now you’re thinking “Reverend Che, that seems reasonable enough, but how do you know there’re still demons?  Where is your proof.”.  Fair enough.  Here’s a list of the top ten things that will clearly prove my hypothesis:

1- Japanese women must cover their heads during the marriage ceremony in order to hide their demon horns until after the wedding.  Totally true.  Look it up.

2- The Bushido, or warriors way, was developed in Japan.  Unlike every other code of chivalry on earth it’s practitioners are not expected to protect women.  In fact women are usually seen as the path to darkness and dishonor.

3- The hero samurai never gets the girl in popular legend.  He always leave her behind.  Because she’s a demon.

4- The obsession with ‘Hello Kitty’.  How is that not demonic?

5- Have you seen Japanese tv shows or their sense of style and fashion?  Enough said.

6- Are you familiar with J-pop music or videos or dancing?  Check it out sometime.  Everything seems just a little bit off.  It’s mostly human, but not quite right.  Very difficult to describe, but if you’ve seen it I know you’ll understand.  It looks exactly like what you’d expect if something not quite human were trying to appear ‘normal’.

7- They don’t seem to feel the need to cook their food.

8- Japanese girls are obsessed with tentacle sex.  A clear holdover from their demon history.

9- They have short little stumpy demon legs but still manage to be sexy.  In fact, they’re sexy way out of proportion to their actual attractiveness.  Short, stumpy and kind of goofy looking.  But sexier than all those tall leggy girls with waists.  Don’t believe me?  Then why is Japanese porn the most prevalent kind of asian porn on the net?  Clearly a result of all the succubi dna.

10- The main Japanese fetish is bondage.  Perhaps to try to contain the demons?

I could go on and on, and sometimes I do.  But take my word for it.  Japanese girls are demons.  Not that this necessarily a bad thing, but you should be warned.  And that fact that my wife is Japanese has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.

Jesus H. Fucking Christ.  Freakin Moses and Mohammed.  I have had enough of the whole lot.  By the way, if you’re deeply religious in a god kind of way, you might want to turn to another channel.  I’m going to piss you off.  But I just can’t stand it any longer.  So here goes…

I, the Right Reverend Che Gonzo, have had it up to here with the three big monotheistic religions.  That’s right, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.  If there is a hell, every god damned one of you pious mother fuckers probably belong there.  I mean really, let’s start with the basis of your beliefs.  A big, anthropomorphic guy that just happens to look EXACTLY LIKE YOU created the universe and runs everything in it.  What are the odds?  I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that kind of arrogance.  So God is the “father” and he loves you and wants to bring you home?  This is some weird kind of Freudian shit going on here.  And I’m just getting started.

The ten commandments?  Sure they seem to be a pretty good idea.  But I haven’t noticed very many of you bothering to live by them.  There is ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION between monotheism and kind, moral living.  Sure, some of you do, but so what.  Good people are good people and evil fuckers are evil fuckers.  And that’s that.  Religion has ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION to moral behavior.  And you can’t argue otherwise or I’ll spend the next ten years listing evil shit done in the name of your specific god.

I understand that there’s a real danger in judging religions by the actions of a few.  Except you fuckwads do it all the time.  Right now many “good Christians” have their panties in a bunch because some Moslems want to build a community center 3 blocks away from where some other Moslem’s blew up the WTC.  Okay, by this logic we better not let Christians build their church next to playgrounds because so many priests seem to like sucking on little boys penises.  My point is that people are either good or bad, extreme or moderate, kind or cruel, based entirely on who they are, not on which temple they pray in.  But all three of these giant religions claim the moral high ground and to represent the will of god.  Bullshit squared.

Here’s something you’ll never hear a religious leader say; “Gee, I find this issue to be totally morally repugnant, but my God doesn’t agree with me so I guess I’ll go along with it.”  Nope, won’t happen.  Because ‘God’ just happens to agree with THEIR ideals and morals EVERY FUCKING TIME.  Again, what are the odds?  It’s amazing, ‘God’ is all powerful, but his very serious followers can’t even agree on whether he wants us to eat pigs?  Really?

The whole Judeo-Christian-Moslem world view is deeply fucked down to it’s very core.  The whole construct is based on the idea of ‘we’re right, we’re chosen and special, and everyone else is wrong’.  How can this philosophy help but lead to conflict, dehumanization of others, and war?  Do you want to believe in a monotheistic god?  Good.  Be my guest.  Do you want to follow the Koran or the Talmud?  More power to you.  I’ll defend those choices and your right to make them down to my dying breath.  But as soon as you start to talk about being the ‘chosen people’ or ‘the one true path’ or sending out missionaries or evangelicals to convert others you’ve crossed the line.  You’re no longer religious.  You’re arrogant, stupid and evil.

All three of the major old testament religions are constantly guilty of this.  The jews actually refer to themselves as the ‘chosen people’.  Moslems think they can kill people for drawing a picture of their prophet.  Christians, well, never mind.  You know as well as I do about missionaries and shit.  And all three of you want to make sure that everybody else follows your repressive, anti-sex, anti-joy, anti-fun, and all to often anti-kind agenda.  Even if some of us think the idea of a talking snake and a big guy in the sky is really fucking silly.  Even if we happen to believe that the spiritual part of the universe rejoices in our orgasms, our joy, and our tolerance.  So fuck you and your talking snake.

And that brings me to the final part of my heartfelt, sacrilegious rant.  (And I hope you stayed with me, because I think it might be the most important.)  The creation story that you all agree on, the one with Adam and Eve and the Apple, actually guarantees that you’re going to get it wrong.  If you believe this story, you’re screwed, and here’s why:  According to the bible, Adam was happy in Eden until the serpent and Eve tempted him onto biting into the “fruit of knowledge”.  Upon doing so Adam became ashamed, covered his nakedness, and was kicked out of paradise.  In this delightful little story the apple represents self knowledge or self awareness.  That new found self awareness is what makes Adam start casting about for fig leaves.  Now according to church doctrines, we are all ‘born into sin’ because of the knowledge gained by Adam.  And by following the church, we can ge forgiven and returned to Paradise.  In other words, the church is telling you that self awareness, self knowledge, personal growth and actualization is a sin.  Smart is bad, stupid is good.  And if you’re good enough, contrite enough, and dumb enough, you’ll get to lose all sense of yourself.  I’m sorry, but that sounds like a shitty deal.  It flies in the face of what we KNOW to be true.  That by becoming freer, smarter, and more self aware we get to be better people, not the other way around.  Although that back-assward  world view does explain why people like Sarah Palin seem to find so many followers.

So, here are the new rules:  Everyone gets to believe whatever they want.  No one is persecuted because of their beliefs.  No one gets to apply their religious beliefs to ANYONE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES.  No one is allowed to recruit, evangelize, or have missions.  Belief systems that celebrate joy, inclusion,tolerance, and self awareness will be given preference over hate filled bullshit.  And I know these rules are right because I talked to God.  He looked just like me, and he thinks I’m always right.  What a wonderful coincidence!  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.

So, loyal parishioners, I’ve been thinking.  Perhaps even pondering.  Musing.  Cogitating.  And of course, you’re wondering what’s been going on in the crazy  Reverend’s head.  Well, I’m so glad you asked.  I’ve been thinking about tolerance.

I believe in tolerance.  I really BELIEVE in it.  I don’t just think it’s a good idea.  I WORK at it.  Hard.  And it’s reflected in my life.  I have friends who represent a broad range of philosophies.  Wacky right to wacky left.  Hippie to Evangelical Christian.  Biker to drag queen.  Gay, straight, old, young, all races and religions.  And I can find common ground with all of them. Regardless of who they are or what they believe, there’s more places where we agree then disagree.  And I work HARD to remember that fact when something comes up that exposes places where we differ.  If I listed the ten most important qualities in human beings, I’d put tolerance pretty close to the top.  But there’s a limit to my practice, and I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.

If you believe in tolerance, practice it and live it, what do you do about the intolerant?  I know.  We’re practically drowning in irony here.  But I can’t find it in myself to tolerate the intolerant.  I have no problem with Islam, but when whole countries deny humanity to half their citizens because of their gender it makes me fucking nuts.  If you want to believe in Jesus, go right ahead.  But when a bunch of you idiots get together to demonize people who love each other and want to form a family, I want to put your fucking head in a car door and slam it a few times.  And those aren’t very tolerant views.  What a mess.

Is there a limit to tolerance?  Should there be?  And is that limit the place where you run into intolerance?  I’m not sure.  I wish I could be tolerant of everyone.  My spirit tells me it’s the right thing to do.  But that hardly seems practical, because if you allow intolerance to run unchecked you frequently end up with slavery or concentration camps.  So perhaps we should stand up to intolerance.  Call it out for the shitty hatred it represents.  But then aren’t we practicing the very thing we’re trying to abolish?  I just don’t know.

The best answer I can come up with is that tolerance is just a human idea, and like all human endeavors, it’s deeply flawed.  So once again I guess I have to learn to live with conflict within myself.  Practice tolerance, but refuse to accept the intolerant.  Take it on a case by case basis.  Sometimes I wish I was a little smarter, a little wiser, a little better.  But you have to work with what you’ve got.  Do you have any better ideas?  If so, email me or hit me up on facebook or twitter.  (All that info is on the contact page.)

Oh well.  Enough of that.  C’est la vie.  And if you’re religious please try to remember this little sermon in a few days.  Because I’ve about had it with churches and I feel a very angry rant coming on.  I’ll just apologize in advance!  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.

When last we met I prattled on about my experiences at the soon to be lamented Bodhi Tree.  This got me to thinking about Malcolm Gladwell.  Do you know who he is?  Do you care?  He’s a writer who’s written two fabulous, thought provoking books.  (I know he’s written more than two, I just particularly liked these two.  (And sorry for the parentheses again (Oooh parentheses in parentheses in parentheses.  I better stop before I go blind.)))  The first is called The Tipping Point and it deals with… well, never mind.  That’s not what I want to talk about.  But go read it, especially if you’re interested in how societies change.  The one I want to talk about is The Outliers.  Pretty cool book, but I won’t go on and on about it either.  I’ll just mention one idea that really struck me; the 10,000 hour rule.

Mr. Gladwell is very interested in highly accomplished people.  He interviews them and ruminates on their success.  And one of the things he decides is that to truly understand a thing or master a skill you need to spend 10,000 hours doing it.  Think about it.  10,000 hours.  That’s a lot, but I think he’s probably got it about right.  Wanna play a musical instrument?  10,000 hours of practice.  Be good at a martial art?  10,000 hours on the mat.  Really get a handle on some task at your job?  Well, you get the idea.

Since I’m now what some people would consider middle-aged, there are a few things I’ve spent 10,000 hours doing, for better or worse.  What are they and what does this mean for my life?  Here’s what I’ve thought of so far, discounting all the obvious shit like eating and sleeping:

Martial Arts- Absolutely.  That’s probably good.

Teaching- Way more than 10,000.  Also pretty good.

Reading- Yep.  Still good.

Having Sex- Probably somewhere around 10,000 hours, but harder to figure accurately.  What can I say.  I like sex.

Watching bad movies-  Maybe not such a good thing.

Working out/running- That’s cool.

Driving- Okay, I guess.

Being stoned/drunk- Again, this one is hard to figure, but I might be getting close.  Probably not such a good thing.

Watching Baseball- A fan is a fan.

Worrying or stressing- Okay, this one sucks.  I think I’ll stop now.

So, what have you spent 10,000 hours doing?  What are you succeeding at?  I can’t help but think about my late teacher George Leonard who always used to say “Practice makes perfect and you’re always practicing something”.  What are you perfecting?  And if you don’t like the answer, start something new.  It’s not too late.  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion!

In 1985 I moved from NY to LA and I was a hot steaming mess.  Just married into a doomed union, just out of therapy, just having left IBM, and just totally fucking lost.  My abusive shithead parents had convinced me I was a worthless clod and I had no idea what to do next.  No church, no community, not too many friends, and no clue.  Besides that I was too smart for my own good, had the attention span of a teenaged gnat on speed, was pretty crappy at taking suggestions, and seethed with righteous anger.  Without a little luck I was probably destined to be shooting coeds from a tall building.  “Gee officer, he always seemed so quiet and polite before he started collecting body parts.”  And then I walked into The Bodhi Tree.

Reading had always been my escape and my saving grace.  I read with incredible speed and remember almost everything.  For my first LA job I found work in a bookstore because they were the closest thing to a refuge I knew.  And in the first few months I made sure I visited all the best ones in the area.  That’s how I ended walking into The Bodhi Tree.  My life turned around.  The pebble dropped, and I’m still riding the ripples.  And after 40 years that store, that incredible, unique place, is closing.  Fuck us all.

Most of you have probably never heard of, let alone visited The Bodhi Tree.  Started in 1970 by two couples, it’s a big ass converted house on Melrose in West Hollywood.  A ‘niche’ bookstore, with a used annex in the house around the corner.  It has little rooms, a heavy incense odor, free cups of tea, a couple of bulletin boards, and about a zillion books on shit you can’t even imagine.  If it involves religion, spirituality, growth or human potential, they have it.  Jesus to crystals, martial arts to psychology to cookbooks.  No judgments, no agenda, just every damn book you’d ever need in order to learn something about human inner life.  And it saved my fucking life.

Starting in early 1986 until I moved north in 1989 I practically worshipped at Bodhi Tree.  At least one long afternoon every week was spent browsing through every freakin section.  Gee, this book mentions Astral Projection.  What the hell is that?  Oh, there’s a whole section on it.  I still have hundreds of books that came from there.  Sure, a lot the books and ideas didn’t speak to me, but some of them did.  And those books, on Taoism, Buddhism, Tai Chi, Meditation, etc, became my starting point.  I learned some pretty profound lessons in that store.  Like fulfillment might come with service to others rather than expansion of self.  And that there are a lot of ways to find joy.  And that it doesn’t matter if the regular world thinks you’re nutty if you’ve found an answer that eases your pain.  Without this resource I would not be who I am today.  I would be lesser.

Now I know what some of you are thinking.  Why Reverend, all that information is on the world wide webs.  Today you can access all that on your magic little laptop.  And to you I say “Bullshit”.  I know the amazing Google God can find anything in .074699 seconds.  But it has one giant fucking limitation.  You have to know what you’re looking for.  If your question is “I wonder about _______?” it’s fabulous.  But if you’re question is just “I wonder.” it totally sucks.  And “I wonder.” is a far more important question.  Look, in order to use digital information you have to have a concrete starting point.  But the deepest questions, the most profound ponderings, have no starting point.  A search engine wouldn’t have helped me at all because I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR.  What would I type in the little box?  Depressed, unfulfilled with existential angst?  Go ahead, try it.  Nothing too useful comes up.  Type “I wonder” into your browser and you won’t get many useful answers.

The Bodhi Tree had answers.  In fact it had thousands of the fucking things.  Turns out that, unbeknownst to my 23 year old self, all kinds of people had asked the same questions, and their answers were all in one magical place.  And it had more that just the books.  It had resources.  I found my first meditation class, my first Tai Chi teacher, my first Taoist lecture, my first Buddhist Temple.  I could go on and on.  My first Karate school, my first Aikido Dojo, my first human potential seminar.  Every one came through the Bodhi Tree or through a contact I found out about at the Bodhi Tree.  So what becomes of a world without this kind of place?

The Bodhi tree is closing for all the usual reasons.  The people who started it are getting older.  Amazon and the chains have hurt them.  The economy sucks and business is down.  But also, I think, the world has changed.  “I wonder” doesn’t seem to be that important a question any more.  Christians stay Christian and Jews stay Jewish.  Liberals stay democrat and rich white kids stay republican.  Middle class kids go to school to learn more about the world they inhabit, not to learn about worlds they can’t even imagine.  Everyone lives in their own little spiritual ghetto, unwilling to say “I don’t know” and start over.  Google serves the times.  It fills in blanks in the dominant pedestrian narrative.  Bodhi Tree let you start whole new story.  When it closes it’s doors the world will be a much poorer place.  And I will mourn.  And maybe, so should you.  Everyone I ever touched, every child I’ve helped and every piece of advice I’ve offered, started in that store.  And I’ll remember it fondly ever time I say “I wonder…”,

Vaya con Dios my friends, and Viva la Revolucion.  Because it ain’t coming fast enough.

I’d like to humbly suggest a new concept for all of our public debates.  There are these obscure things that used to be considered important when issues were being discussed.  They’re called FACTS.  You know, real things that aren’t just some pundits opinion, bullshit talking points or religious gobbledygook.  Do they even exist anymore?

Why, I remember a time when people tuned in to news shows or picked up a daily newspaper in order to find out what was happening in the world.  Well, no more of that stuff, little buddy.  Now when we turn on a “news” program we get treated to the verbal equivalent of Dr Seuss’ Zax story.  (Go ahead, look it up.  I’ll wait.)  Some airhead introduces Republican Leader Bubba Buford from Buttfuck Oklahoma and Democratic Congressman A. Arrogant Hippie from NYC who ‘discuss’ an issue from both sides by yelling at each other.  At no point does the ‘reporter’ let you know that both of these idiots are probably full of shit.  And this is the best you can hope for, because some of the stations don’t even bother to present both sides.

Increasingly we’ve allowed our news to become as ghettoized as our radio stations.  Did you smoke a LOT of pot in college?  Please tune into MSNBC.  Is there evidence of significant inbreeding in your family tree?  Fox News is right this way.  My pastor said that the liberal media was pushing a gay agenda so everything they say is evil.  The Religious Right is trying to scare America into giving up it’s civil rights in order to give Dick Cheney orgasms.  Blah blah blah.  My personal favorite moments are when the Right declares that they represent ‘real America’ and no one points out that damn few people live in their shitty little states.  Or when MSNBC hippies start ripping the ‘corporate controlled media’ on a station owned jointly by Microsoft and General Electric.

You think the death of the fact in the media is a joke?  Well, the Texas State Board of Education just announced a new state wide curriculum that is delightfully fact free.  All the little schoolchildren in that state will learn about ‘intelligent design’ and the importance of the conservative movement to the Constitution rather than actual history or science.  No Darwin or Jefferson, just Jesus and Newt Gingrich.  And did the media point out that this shit was just WRONG?  Nope.  They brought in Liberal Pundits to yell about it.  21st century global competitiveness?  Maybe not.

Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty, but I must admit I find the right to be a little bit guiltier.  Probably this is just because they seem to think that the bible is literally true.  I also understand the irony of calling for factual reporting using a forum that is entirely my opinion.  But that’s okay because I’m RIGHT!  Snicker snicker.  I also have to admit that I don’t really have an answer to the problem.  Giant corporations own everything and expect profit from every division.  And apparently fact gathering and objectivity don’t bring good ratings.  But it should.  Probably we have to start with ourselves.  Try to find journalists who just find facts.  Patronize outlets that don’t editorialize, even if what they’re reporting makes you uncomfortable.  Accept facts that conflict with your world view.  And feel free to change your mind if you find out something new.

On second thought, I guess I do know the answer.  What a great way to fuck over the Man.  Keep an open mind and change it often.  That way they won’t know what channel you’ll watch.  Force them to retreat to reality because the audience is seriously schizo.  I love it.  As usual, I’m a freakin genius.  Vaya Con Dios and Viva ls Revolucion.

produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron,

Well, let’s see what words we can drop ink on today that we may produce a million thinking people.  Or not.  As I was communing with the almighty god this morning (actually I was suffering through an ugly rehab run) it occurred to me that we need fewer questions and more answers.  So, loyal parishioners, let us be solutions oriented today.  And rather than trying to solve any one of the myriad problems the world faces, I think I’d prefer to muse upon a Draconian solution that solves a whole bunch of shit.  That’s so much more fun.  So here we go…

On a couple of occasions your gentle, truth-seeking Reverend thought it was a good idea to study Zen in a fairly traditional setting.  When one is sitting formally, in and old-school temple, there are monitors.  These fine folks walk slowly and quietly behind the rows of meditators and carry a big stick made of split bamboo.  If they happen to see you nodding off or staring off into space daydreaming they stop behind you and wait.  At this point, as a good Zen student, you bow forward and they smack you twice across the soldiers.  Whap whap.  This brief burst of pain wakes you up and helps refocus your attention.  Kind of like awareness police.  And it works.  Really well.  I’m proposing we take them out of the temple an apply them to the world at large.

Let’s face facts.  Human beings are self-centered, stupid, and easily distracted.  I know, this is hardly news.  But it seem to have gotten way worse recently because 1) we’ve invented so many cool distractions and 2) we’re relatively safe from natural predators.  I’m sure nobody wears Ipod earphones and texts their bff while walking around areas where tigers still eat people.  We have a deep awareness deficit.  A guy recently lay dying of stab wounds on a street in NYC for hours because NO ONE NOTICED!  Muggers, taggers, rude drivers, litterers, and scofflaws of all kinds depend on no one noticing their transgressions.  We don’t need to give up civil liberties to protect ourselves from a terrorist, we just need to PAY ATTENTION.  The last two attempted attacks were foiled not by body cavity searches or police cameras but by people who noticed shit.  A guy trying to light his underpants on fire in a plane and a smoking car left in Times Square with the keys in it.  We don’t need more police or fewer rights.  We just need to be reminded that we’re in the world and that we should probably pay attention to what’s happening around us.

Of course the most elegant solution would be to let tigers loose all over the place.  While I personally love this idea, I can see that it does have certain limitations.  So instead I’m going to look to my Zen experience as the answer.  Awareness officers.  Let’s train thousands of them.  Volunteers, so it doesn’t cost any money.  Martial Artists, meditators, paranoids, bikers, anyone with a slightly higher level of awareness.  Let’s give them sticks, or hell, let the just us their hands if necessary.  They get special badges that make them immune from being sued or arrested for simple assault.  And put them EVERYWHERE.  Any public space.  I love this idea.

Just imagine it.  You’re walking down the street, yapping away on your blackberry, a menace and annoyance to the world.  And out of nowhere somebody walks up to you and whaps you in the head.  You’re stunned because YOU DIDN’T SEE HIM COMING, largely because you WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.  But after the smack you immediately rejoin the world.  You notice the people around you.  You’re PRESENT.  In the HERE AND NOW.  What a wonderful gift.  Think about it.  The world would slowly change for the better.  If some dumbass teenager decided to write on the wall, everyone would see him.  Muggers would be shit out of luck.  We’d demand that ugly shit get cleaned up, since we’d actually BE LOOKING AT IT.  And distracted drivers would at least be heavily bruised.

Of course it would be better if the plan was codified into law, but the moral retards in Washington and Sacramento don’t have the balls to enact useful shit like this.  So fuck them.  I may just start myself.  Randomly smacking people who aren’t engaged in the world around them.  For their own good.  I’m appointing myself as the first Awareness Officer.  Would you like to be deputized?  I thought you might!   Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.

The last 3 months have been one of those horrible chances to expand and grow.  Another fucking learning experience.  For the last 20 years my life has been arranged around helping other people.  Service above self.  Really, no shit.  Raising children, training clients, teaching both kids and adults, starting and growing the nonprofit. supporting friends, healing others, and learning to be kind.  (The kind part was hard because I come from a long line of assholes!)  Now that period of my life seems to be over for a while.  I need to heal myself.

This transition has TOTALLY SUCKED.  Transitions always do, and this one involves a complete reorientation of thought.  Alas, poor me.  All right, enough whining.  I’m such a drama queen.  You get the point.  I’ve got ISSUES.  My knee os totally fucked.  My cholesterol is too high.  Flying monkeys have colonized my brain.  So the next 6 months are going to be a rebuilding period.  Run 6 days a week.  Maybe another marathon.  Less junk food.  Full nights of sleep.  Weights three times a week.  Martial arts training three times a week.  Learning to play some music on the bagpipes.  Walks on the beach and time spent with friends.  You get the picture.  In other words I have to spend half a year doing all the shit I help other people do.  Oh, the horror.

And after that?  Well in October I’m going to start my 5th career, writer.  I have 2 books outlined and I’m damn well going to write them.  How hard could that be?  I think I’ll write both at the same time to make it more challenging.  But not until the fall.  Until then I’m learning to take care of myself.  Not an easy job, but God says I should and, as a reverend, I must obey.  It will also give me plenty of time to update the blog, but as we said earlier, nobody cares.  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.

“Egotism is nature’s compensation for mediocrity.”    - L. A. Safian

Brothers and Sisters of the Imaginary Church, we are gathered here for the last time this year.  I will be taking a short sabbatical in order to recharge the holy batteries with a much needed trip to the City of Angels and the Holy Temple of the Las Vegas Strip.  As we prepare to celebrate the New Year it’s customary to make resolutions.  What can we do better?  How can we improve ourselves in some small ego driven way?

Well, I for one am already perfect so that seems like a tremendous waste of time.  Besides, the dark cold days of February kill off the best of intentions with a frigid laugh.  Instead, I’m going to offer a list of qualities that I’d like to increase as well as shit I could live without.  This seems like it might be more useful.  Or not.  Only time will tell.  Feel free to make your own list.  Or be lazy and use mine.  What the hell.  And so it goes.

Oh great and mighty unfeeling and uncaring Universe, hear my intentions and take note.  Even if you don’t give a fuck.  I would like my 2010 to include:

More joy and more music.  More fun and more rum.  More compassion and more beauty.  More freedom and more tolerance.  More training and more riding.  More friends and more sex.  Better food and a calmer center.  And more kids made a little bit more content.

Fewer judgments and less anxiety.  Less worry and less fear.  Less religion and less hatred.  Less caution and less repression.  Less greed and fewer corporations.  Oh, and well we’re at it, let’s kill off Fox news.

So there you have it.  My plans for 2010.  See you next year.  Vaya con Dios and Viva la Revolucion.  Amen