the (apparently very scary) dogs of islam

My daughter tells me her podiatrist, a nice Muslim convert, told her that the reason Muslims aren’t into dogs is because they feel like when the Messiah returns, they are concerned that if they have dogs in their house, their barking will scare off God or Jesus or the angels or whatever that have come to take them to heaven.

I mean, I can think of a number of immediately logical fallacies with that off the top of my head, not the least of which is why would an all-powerful being be scared of a dog bark, from a dog that it created, and its apparent all-encompassing love and kindness would somehow disappear in the face of such noise, instead of turning into the completely obvious snuggle attack a being of pure love for all things would engender.

Beliefs are weird, aren’t they?

And stupid. Also stupid.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1336 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing
Comics: Black Science 29, Low 17-18, Deadly Class 28
Music: Emotional Rescue, The Rolling Stones

happy birthday, sis

Sly Stone dies and my sister lives another year. Good for her.

Not that she shouldn’t live another year. Like all the people I love, I hope she lives until I die, at least. After that, well, I hope for her sake she lives a long time, but hell, I’ll be dead. What would it matter to me?

Then again, there’s always reincarnation. Maybe I’ll come back as a vibrator.

Assuming I’m bought by a Hollywood starlet, that’d be cool, I guess.

Or a carrier of the Republican virus, in that it only targets individuals who voted Republican, and rewires their brains to be permanently set on Mr. Rogers.

Now, wouldn’t that be a nice cleanse?

Sometimes, I think the stars aligned and decided: there is something truly, profoundly wrong with this guy.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1715 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Comics: Fathom v6 1-4
Music: Eagles Essentials, The Eagles

easter monday

Jesus is hungover. Or rather, he’s been on a bender all night watching pornography and eating Cheetos, and now, he’s wondering if he can turn those powers of water into wine into returning his foreskin to its original colour.

But, hey, it’s a day off, right?

(For the record, I’m not Jesus, and Cheetos are terrible lube.)

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1177 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Comics: Hit-Girl v3 11-12, Kick-Ass vs. Hit-Girl 1-2
Music: Indestructible Object, They Might Be Giants (Jesus' dick?)

he is risen!

Or maybe, he’s just figured out how to google Sydney Sweeney, and now he’s down a rabbit hole of AI-generated porn and short clips from Euphoria and The Voyeurs.

Anyway, I cooked two turkeys yesterday and a ham today, so I have not risen. I have fallen onto the couch to watch my beloved Maple Leafs destroy their hated rivals, the evil Sens. Any euphoria I have will come from that, and any voyeuring I do will be with my beautiful wife, who also has a spectacular bod.

Anyway, happy Easter, be nice to each other. I think that was Jesus’ whole deal, once you strip away the religious bullshit.

Too bad Christians haven’t quite figured that out.

Target; 1200 words
Written: 965 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Comics: Hit-Girl v3 8-10, Kick-Ass v4 18
Music: Indestructible, Rancid (fact: there has never been a bad Tim Armstrong song)

jesus is dead

And so is Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna and Joseph Smith.

The myth of the resurrection of Jesus is hardly proof of his divinity or his status as the son of God. You know how many other people were raised from the dead in the Bible?

Sounds to me like they needed better coroners.

Better doctors, at least.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1198 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Comics: Hit-Girl v3 4-5, Kick-Ass v4 14-15
Music: In Your Honor, Foo Fighters (ugh... honor.  It's honour, bitches.)

long weekend

I fully intend to follow this up with a post on Monday or Tuesday called Long Ass Weekend, but for now, know, going into Easter, that I was run ragged for weeks before our vacation, and as fun as travel is, it was also insanely busy, and then we got back and I have a thousand things to catch up on, so hosting Easter is kind of bullshit.

Fuck Jesus, and the bunny he rode in on.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 983 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Comics: Hit-Girl v3 1-3, Kick-Ass v4 13
Music: In Violet Light, The Tragically Hip

spiralling again

I’m doing it again. I feel like giving up, starting over, losing more time, more years, more precious life force, precious focus.

Christ, at this point, maybe heaven’s a better option. Or would be, if I believed in an afterlife.

In any just afterlife, we’d spend eternity finding out all the things we’d ever wanted to know, to experience all the things we ever wanted to experience, to be all the people we ever wanted to be, to relive moments of our lives in as many permutations as we choose, to see what it really would have felt like to take that stand, to try that thing, to make that move on someone special.

Much of it would be unpleasant, but without the endless self-deception, with the ability to try again and learn and grow and be better, what would there be to lose?

Lifetimes lived in an instant. Fantastical trips beyond imagination. Relationships won and lost, friendships gained, battles fought, tyrants brought low by our actions. Our dedication.

Of course, that’s speculation.

But to attempt to live life as it is, good and bad, filled with glory and tragedy, joy and pain, fully engaged with it, stripping away all our blinders?

We may have a limited amount of time to do it in, but it’s still worth the trip.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1581 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
Comics: The Maxx 8-11
Music: No Line On The Horizon, U2

original sin

I don’t believe in original sin. I think it’s fucking ridiculous.

Only a deluded soul could believe that anyone is born evil. Babies are babies; they just are.

Evil is not born. It’s bred.

It’s influenced and created, it has supervillain origins. Origins often tragic and relatable, but it doesn’t ultimately matter because the evil is so ingrained as to overwhelm any compassion one might hold.

It’s a henchman created by an overbearing boss, a desire to please, a fear of independent thought, or whatever.

It’s selfish, narcissistic, and considers no one’s needs but its own. It feeds and feeds and feeds, growing larger and larger, until someone cuts off the damn trough (or it empties its own and starts feasting on everyone else’s, which is when true evil begins).

It needs a slap in the face.

And sometimes, it’s so far gone, so committed to its story of itself as hero, itself as victim, itself as the only character in the story whose needs need to be fulfilled, that there’s no chance of turning back.

There’s only awful behaviour, and ultimately, exile or death.

If, in your story, you are the only one that matters, or you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s?

Fuck you. You’re the problem.

You weren’t born that way; circumstances pushed you a certain direction and you didn’t bother to course correct once you knew.

And ultimately, you started making the choice to be evil, all on your own.

So, fuck you, overentitled pieces of shit, bigoted assholes trying to pretend you love freedom and not just hating on others.

Fuck you, snooty pricks staring down your noses at people for not having the “right” views or the “right” look or having read the “right” books, when the extent of your engagement with justice is a fucking social media post to mask the fact that all you care about is status.

Fuck you, too, people who stand up and say, I’m decisive, I’m advocating for myself, I’m a strong person, but are, in actually, just assholes who treat everyone else like shit over the pettiest bullshit in order to prop up the fiction that they’re somehow worth more than everyone else (your insecurity is showing). Your obsessive need to prove yourself, your obsession with validation, it’s destructive – to you and everyone around you.

And it’s led, time and again, to the same choice – grow, change, be a better person, or close down, stop thinking and fuck everyone else.

Otherwise known as, you know, evil.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 3085 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 9-10
Music: New Order Essentials, New Order

the pushpull

It tears at me. This urge to drive myself forward, to drive myself into something better, while simultaneously fighting not to give in to all the shit people of the world (and there are many).

It’s the dream of free people everywhere; it’s the slavering desire of every monster to put a stop to it.

It’s those close to us who behave in ways that benefit only themselves; who’d screw over their own blood for their own sick self-interest; who are so lost in their own little world that they fail to see that other people are not simply NPCs in the game of their lives, to be slaughtered or ignored as needed (or at a whim).

My biggest concern is that I’m one of them; my biggest fear is that I’m not serving myself by consistently taking myself out of the equation.

I know I need to help more. I know I barely have enough energy to hold my insides in. It’s a virtual certainty that if I stop holding it together, my body will burst and disintegrate, spilling my entrails to the floor.

Is it too much to ask for wings to emerge from the viscera?

I don’t believe in God or heaven, in no small part because it sounds fucking tedious and hypocritical, but I’d like to think peace is the end result, rather than an eternity of regret.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 432 words, poem: Feathers Falling

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 20-23
Music: Never Let Me Down, David Bowie (apparently, he hated this album, which, like, okay, I guess it's less lyrically poignant than most of his others, but it's not exactly horrible, which just goes to show how good he was, I guess. If the work you hated is still pretty good, you must be doing something right.)