The Lord Taketh Away

For some reason I make the mistake (maybe it isn't a mistake--maybe it is stupidity--my Dad says that a mistake is something you make once, maybe twice, but after that it is just stupid) of trying to reason with some kids I grew up with back in Florida who have become wildly evangelical with their Christianity. I feel like I owe it to someone--I don't know who, maybe other kids back home that have not fallen for their nonsense--to make the case for rational thought, science, common goddamn sense, etc. Anyhow, it rarely seems to work and I end up in long comment threads on Facebook trying to understand how someone can possibly think the types of things they do. I am an Atheist. I believe that the creation of the universe was not done by any of the deities that are found in religious texts. I do not believe in Gods. Spirituality, the soul, these things are of interest to me, but on a scientific level. Other than that, I make no assertions about the universe. I am not a Nihilist, a fascist, a Nazi, a barbarian, or any of the other things I have been called by these kids, called them simply for not believing that the Bible, in all its infinite wisdom about burning witches, stoning to death prostitute daughters of priests, the keeping of slaves, etc, to be a very moral book. Moral in the sense that it does more good than harm,not moral in the sense that it follows the customs of an archaic text, which is a distinction worth making. For them Morality is what God wants us to do. For me it is what society would benefit from most, what would cause the least amount of suffering, pain, death, etc.

For believing that, I am a nihilist. My morals are said to have no compass. Who invented the compass anyway? The Arabs, I think.

Anyhow, I read this in the November issue of Harper's. One of the kids said that "Ideas have consequences." I agree. Here is an example.

The lord taketh away

From the trial of Carl Worthington of Oregon City, Oregon, who was charged with manslaughter after his fifteen-month-old daughter Ava died last March of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been cured with antibiotics. Instead of seeking medical treatment, Worthington and his wife, Raylene, with family and other members of the Followers of Christ, prayed and conducted faith-healing rituals. In July, Worthington was found guilty of criminal mistreatment, a misdemeanor, and sentenced to sixty days in jail. Greg Horner was the prosecutor.

greg horner: Let’s start with your beliefs about the use of modern medicine. You don’t believe in modern medicine. Isn’t that correct?

carl worthington: I don’t know that I’d say that I don’t believe in it. I don’t put my faith in it, would be a better term.

horner: You don’t use modern medicine as a means of addressing illness. Is that correct?

worthington: Right. If I can anoint someone with olive oil and he starts feeling better, then there’s no need to use medicine.

horner: Well, it’s a little bit more than that, though, isn’t it? It’s not whether they get better or not. It’s just that you don’t believe in using modern medicine.

worthington: It has to do a lot with how they do. If I never seemed to get better, then why would I do it? I would probably use modern medicine myself. I’ve never felt that I’ve needed it. It wasn’t because somebody forced this on me. It’s because I seen it for myself, as I was growing up. When I was anointed, I felt better, so that trained me to have faith in it.

horner: Has your position changed as a result of what happened to your daughter?

worthington: No, it’s still the same.

horner: So the fact that you did not get your daughter to a hospital Saturday night, and she died a day later, has not changed your position on modern medicine?

worthington: Well, it hasn’t changed the way I feel. I’ve seen nothing here that’s proved to me that it would have been any different had we taken her in. When a doctor can’t do nothing for you, you usually put it in God’s hands anyways, so that’s where I’d had it the whole time.

horner: Even in retrospect, even knowing the outcome, you wouldn’t change how you handled her medical condition?

worthington: There’s nothing they’ve done to prove that they could have cured her. What I got was a maybe yeah, maybe no. They wasn’t sure.

horner: You acknowledge, then, that, gosh, maybe if I’d taken her in, she’d be alive today?

worthington: I don’t believe so, no.

horner: Well, that’s what you said about what the doctors would say. But for you, it was more important to follow your faith. Isn’t that right?

worthington: My point is that if the medicine hadn’t worked, the doctor would tell you to put your faith in God anyway. They’d say there’s nothing more we can do for you. That’s where my faith and trust was, so it sounds like there’s a good chance that’s where I would have ended up anyway.

horner: Getting back to the question about whether or not you were willing to ignore the medical likelihood, that had your child been taken in Saturday night, she would have survived—you were willing to take the chance that that wouldn’t happen. Is that right?

worthington: What chance are we talking about here?

horner: The chance of Ava dying.

worthington: When?

horner: Saturday night.

worthington: Saturday night? I didn’t think she was doing that bad Saturday night. She started off like she was coming down with a cold. I mean, does everyone take their kids in every time they have a cold?

horner: No, they don’t. But they do take their child in when they’ve got a huge growth on their neck, and they’re choking, and having difficulty breathing, and the father thinks that there’s a possibility they’re going to die!

worthington: I don’t recall her ever choking. There was a moment after she hadn’t slept all night when I was worried that she was getting weak, and then I saw her take her bottle and hoist it up with one arm by herself, and she showed me she was strong.

horner: So you see her lift up a bottle with one hand, and that’s enough for you to say, Okay, I’m willing to take my chances with prayer?

worthington: Well, it was an improvement. And we wanted to see a bigger improvement. We did see that bigger improvement that evening, after we’d laid hands on her again.

horner: Had she declined, you would have been on the phone to 911 and got that child to the hospital? Is that what you’re saying?

worthington: That’s an impossible question to answer. It’s possible that someone could lose their faith if they’re not getting the results they want. But why would you take them to a doctor if they’re getting better?

horner: You take them to a doctor because if you don’t, the bacteria and the pneumonia kills them. Does that make sense to you?

worthington: Say it again.

horner: You said, “Why would you take a child into the doctor?” The answer is, you take them in because they die from bacteria, pneumonia and swelling. Does that make sense?

worthington: I didn’t know she had a pneumonia, I didn’t know any of that.

horner: Why was it that you didn’t know that?

worthington: I’m not a doctor, I guess.

I got to see Kid Dynamite right before they broke up. It was a strange time in hardcore, I think. I was new to the scene, about 13 years old. I was really into Minor Threat and GB. All the bands then were kinda sludgy and heavy, and weren't really into just playing fast music and having fun. It was time to be serious. But I was young and wildly idealistic and wanted to have fun with my friends at shows. Kid Dynamite came into my life and kind of ruined hardcore for me. I saw them and nothing was ever the same. Because like two months after they came to St.Petersburg they broke up. No band ever cam close to em again, i don't think. Maybe the first times I saw Stretch Arm Strong or Bane, or even the first American Nightmare or Hope Conspiracy tours, but those were a little more heavy handed and not as much of a party. Here was their last show, a reunion they did for a friend with cancer, I believe. I wasn't there; i was in Australia.

I said, but I'm tirred! I been walkin all day, try'n to find a job.

I worked as a carpenter and framer for several years. I worked for a few friends of mine, one of them being Rick Lang, who passed away about 5 years ago now. He was a good man, and one I'll always miss. When this song came on he always starting tapping his big work boots, and would inevitably end up singing to us and dancing. Those were good days.

Back from Florida. What a trip. More later.

For now, enjoy this video. I don't care how bad I get made fun of for loving this song. I love it.

Blistered

I had the pleasure of seeing Strife just after they "sold out." They were amazing. They ended with this song "Blistered"


and threw the mic right into my hands for the last breakdown. I remember holding it up with some sweaty, screaming kid growling into the microphone "Look into the sky!!! I can see the ashes falling! Look into the skyyyyyyyy! I can see it all coming dooown!"

That was a good night. I remember walking out of State Theater and seeing Boomhower in the back, smiling at me. "Saw you grab the mic there, dude," he said. "That was a good fucking show."

So much for one a day!

I bought The Get Up Kid's Four Minute Mile and Save The Day's Stay What You Are the summer between my junior and senior years of High School. I was driving a green Toyota Tacoma with a big, clunky topper on the back, in which I had constructed a platform bed and a surfboard storage area, all in hopes of driving around, sleeping in the back of my truck, listening to music and staring out at the ocean at dawn and at dusk by myself. It had been a weird summer, and I was really getting a knack for running away from things. I decided to graduate early; I had the credits I needed; what was the point of staying? So, I told the school what I was doing, they said "sure." They didn't seem to care at all, but they did keep me from being included in the Mr Venice contest because technically I had graduated and they "couldn't control what I would do on stage." I had wanted to play this song by Saves The Day:


But, I got denied, and probably for the better as I had a pretty terrible voice, even for covering whiny ass Saves The Day.

So, I graduated and moved to California. I drove out west with Tim Croft and my Dad, caravaning with my green truck and Tim's white bronco--Janessa, he called it, if memory serves me correctly. It was a good trip. I listened to Four Minute Mile and Stay What You are A LOT, and really still love both those albums and miss that period of music. Here's one of the Get Up Kids newer songs, an album that I HATED when it came out, but one I have learned to really enjoy.

I'm going to start posting favorite songs/videos. One a day. A retrospective of sorts!

I meant to post this yesterday.

Elliot Smith was introduced to me right before I moved to California, when I was 17. I didn't listen to the albums much on my drive west. I was burning to see the pacific, to move, to surf everyday, and find something out about, well, something.

California is a different story, but I will tell you that I listened to either/or and the self titled album in rotation with The Get Up Kids Four Minute Mile the whole ride home, driving through the south, following the first real arctic blast of that winter, sleeping in my truck, covered in boardbags and wetsuits to stay warm.


One of my favorite songs, covered by Smith.

I'm sure I'm late to get around to posting this. It's probably old news, but for some it might not be.

Since moving to New York I have become kind of a gearhead when it comes to bikes, though a very slow-to-learn one. I have gone through 5 bikes in less than two years now, swapping and selling them, getting hit by cars on them, giving them to Jack only to have them stolen hours later, etc. Possessing the personality that I do, it's hard for me to ever feel finalized in my bike quiver. Currently I own my Holy Grail bike--a Waterford built Schwinn Paramount track bike with a full Suntour Superbe Pro group, with the exception of the wheels which are Mavic Open Pro's laced to Phil Wood hubs--a more proper city track bike wheel, I think. I have been slowly tweaking the most current project, which I am almost ready to abandon and leave as be, a Kona Paddy Wagon, built up like a porteur bike, specifically designe, not for delivering papers, but for hunting/gathering at Trader Joe's on Monday AM's.

Anyhow, what I wanted to post was about some kids I know through a gulp bike forum. I have met some really great guys on there, many who I met in real life and later realized were on the forum. One of them was Lucas, who I have become really close with, though he talks to me like he was my girlfriend and I the negligent boyfriend.

So, they did a write up in the New York Times about of a thing that Lucas and Devotion's friend John Prolly has organized in Williamsburg each Thursday evening called Peel Sessions. I've been to a few and enjoyed hanging out talking shit, drinking a beer or two and watching kids get silly on tweaked out track bikes.

Full article here

Several people who I haven't seen in a while have asked, when I've told them I'm getting married, if Elle was pregnant.



Well.......

No.

She is not.

In fact, she is really goddamn skinny now, the results of going to the gym to run 5+miles EVERY MORNING at 615!

I, on the other hand, am only a little skinnier, having dropped below 200 for the first time since the fated Christmas trip to Florida where I did absolutely nothing but eat and sleep on the couch with Lemon and Kiwi on top of me. I'm getting slim, trim, and back on it. But fuck if I'm getting up that early for it! I can write that early, but not run.

Sometimes I feel like History is going to crush me.

It's beginning to feel like Fall here in NYC. I'm pumped. I built up a Kona Paddy Wagon with some slightly more burly all-weather tires, put some Pasela touring tires on Elle's bike, and am working on getting a 5-rail Cetma rack for the Wagon so I can haul around my bag without sweaty-back. We've been really enjoying our morning rides down to Tribeca from out apartment on 20th and 1st. It takes the edge offf a bit. I end up not punching windows or slapping rear-view mirrors as much when its nice out; pleasant weather has a calming effect on me that i never realized until moving to NYC. The seasons really change my disposition, writing, and worldview.

We're heading to Rhodes Island on Friday evening or early Saturday morning to pay my dear friends, the Attias family, a visit. We are hoping to poke around Providence, look at Brown and RISD, meet their new Frenchie, Lola, and generally enjoy the company of some of the gentlest people I know.

Dehumanized

There's a really wonderful piece in the September issue of Harper's Magazine written by Mark Slouka,about the effects of an economically driven educational system, the current fate of democracy, etc. It's a great piece to give to someone when they ask, "What are you going to do with a degree in __________(insert any of the humanities here: Literature, Philosophy, History, Etc.)."

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/09/0082640

here's some clips:



Rain does not follow the plow. Political freedom, whatever the market evangelists may tell us, is not an automatic by-product of a growing economy; democratic institutions do not spring up, like flowers at the feet of the magi, in the tire tracks of commerce. They just don’t. They’re a different species. They require a different kind of tending.

The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult—to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization—not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be. ......

They are thus, inescapably, political. Why? Because they complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties. Because they grow uncertainty. Because they expand the reach of our understanding (and therefore our compassion), even as they force us to draw and redraw the borders of tolerance. Because out of all this work of self-building might emerge an individual capable of humility in the face of complexity; an individual formed through questioning and therefore unlikely to cede that right; an individual resistant to coercion, to manipulation and demagoguery in all their forms. The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what we might call democratic values. There is no better that I am aware of.

For me, this shot summed up the SDRE show on Saturday

Do you remember CD clubs?

I do.

My Dad let us join one when we were like 9 or 10. It was one of those deals where you bought one CD for full price (16.99!!) and then got 11 CD's for a penny each. For Christmas that year my Mom had been given a 5 disk CD changer, and one CD: Tracy Chapman. Whenever I hear that "He's Got a Fast Car" song, I feel like I am 9 again, being woken up for school, or eating Honey Bunches of Oats with Jack, looking at 1+ year old Kayla learning to walk, my Dad drinking coffee and filing his briefcase with bills and invoices for Beliken, his clothing company. Mom would try to cut bananas into our cereal. I just recently, as in, like, yesterday, began to tolerate bananas.

Anyhow, I remember a few of the CD's we ordered. We each got to pick three, I think, but I don't remember who ordered what. Here's a list from foggy memory:
Shaquille O'Neal: Shaq Diesel
Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Greatest Hits
Soul Asylum: Grave Dancer's Union
Montell Jordan: This is How We Do it
Pearl Jam: Ten
Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience

The last album was my Dad's jam. We listened to that album a thousand times if we listened to it once. I remember many an afternoon out in the shed, putting the drywall on what would eventually become the Rompin Room, singing along:

"Things you said and did to me
Seemed to come so easily
The love I thought Id won you give for free
Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you"

Recently, my friend Futureman hooked me up with an invitation to an "exclusive" torrent site for DLing music. It was like being 9 again, flipping through the BMG catalog, circling the pictures of the album covers I wanted, making a list of fifteen albums and laboring over the final cuts, except I didn't have to make any cuts-; I can download whatever the fuck I want! The anxiety is short-lived now( it took WEEKS to get the CD's from BMG; it only takes about 45 seconds to DL an album from the site), but I still get excited about new music the same way I did back then.

I haven't been home to see my pops in 6 months now, and have been missing him and my sis terribly lately. The first album I snatched from the site--can you guess? Gin Blossoms discography. And damn have I been listening to it, blasting it when the ladies aren't home, drowning out the little girl that lives next door's singing lesson, playing air guitar in the living room, thinking of my Pops.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7WaJt02sTE