"Life Is Long If You Give It Away"

Great song, great performance. David Byrne always keeps things fresh:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

David Byrne Pt. 2

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Joke of the Day

An Excerpt From My Interview With God

Since today is my birthday, God decided to sit down with me for a little interview, you know, to clear up any confusion I may have.

Yes Larry King, that's right. I landed God first.

I should probably also tell you that out of all the famous people I've interviewed, God was by far the coolest. He was relaxed, he joked around with my assistant and I, and you could tell his assistant was very well taken care of; The relationship was almost familial, but totally professional.

And he also brought me this birthday cake (which he baked himself, and was quite good):



The Interview:

Me: God, thanks for sitting down with me. This really is a pleasant surprise.

GOD: No problem Spencer. I loved your book.

Me: Oh, wow. Thanks. Too bad we couldn't get you to do a blurb. (God & I exchange friendly laughter)

GOD: And happy birthday, too. It's pretty awesome that your birthday is on the same day as Dr. Seuss's, don't you think?

Me: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it's really cool to share a birthday with Dr. Seuss. I love him. I read his books to my kids all the time. 'Oh, The Places You'll Go' was one of the most formative books in my life.

GOD: Green Eggs and Ham is also very important...So, I'm here to answer a question for you. That's your birthday present (that, and the cake). One question answered by God. This is a rare and important opportunity for you, and it's not an opportunity I often offer. So...what'll it be?

Me: Oh, wow. I don't know. I mean, you don't actually expect this day to come...do you have any suggestions?

GOD: Well, the 'why' questions are always popular. 'Why am I here?', 'Why is there suffering?', 'Why don't you reveal yourself to mankind?', you know, questions like that.

Me: (I furrow my brow in thought) Well, probably not. No, I don't think I'll ask those questions.

GOD: Why not?

Me: I don't see what good it would do. Not much cash value to having the answer to that.

GOD: William James and Epictetus. An interesting cocktail. So what can I do for you Spencer?

Me: Well, how about some advice? Maybe something like a reader's digest version of some good things to avoid, and some good things to get involved with. Like a list of some kind. a handful of, oh, I don't know...

GOD: Commandments?

Me: Exactly...oh. Ha ha. Yes, a handful of commandments or suggestions or something that are more personally tailored to me.

GOD: Okay, that's a good one. Let's see. Well, let's start with the proactive stuff, because I'm more of a 'yes we can' kind of God than people often give me credit for being. Here we go:

1. Be skeptical, not cynical. There's a difference, and it's big.
2. Don't marry yourself to your worldview.
3. Try your hardest at everything you do.
4. Be good to others, and be good to yourself.

And for the 'thou shalt not's', I'll say, stay away from drugs, religion, and credit cards, and you'll be in a good place.

Me: Those things all sound easy enough to do.

GOD: Maybe harder than you think.

Me: Stay away from drugs, religion, and credit cards? Isn't that a little extreme?

GOD: Well Spencer, you wanted them personalized. Sure, it's possible for a person to engage in any of those activities responsibly, but it's also necessary to 'know thyself'. And I know you. You have poor impulse control. It would make things alot easier for you to just steer clear.

Me: Okay. I can see that.

GOD: And don't forget the proactive stuff either. People are always worrying about the things I tell them not to do, and not thinking enough about the things I tell them they should do. It's relatively easy to not do things, and it's even easier to tell other people not to do things. Doing things, now, that takes something else.

Me: It's surprising that you told me to stay away from religion.

GOD: (sighs in a way that is both frustrated and loving) Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I'm not really God. I'm just a vehicle you created to validate your own worldview and philosophy. People have been using me for that purpose since the beginning of time.

Me: Right. Well God, thanks for answering my question.

GOD: Happy birthday Spencer. I'll tell Dr. Seuss you said 'hello'.

God exits in a whirlwind. Our assistants exchange phone numbers. I think they're going to get together sometime to play racquetball.

They Will Scream When They See What We Have Done

by me. I'm really fond of this poem. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And please be sure to read everything else over at Sir!. The art for this issue is beautiful, and the content is solid. I'm extremely sympathetic to the aesthetic that (I think) Brian Foley is going for. Here's to issues 3,4,5...etc.

If you enoy the art for this issue as much as I do, go check out E.B. Goodale's website. Many lovely things to be seen.

This is the song that plays every time I walk into a room:

This Editing Life

An email I sent to Matt DiGangi regarding the first batch of poetry submissions I reviewed for The Jargon:

Matt,

lol. It's fun to receive an email from a complete stranger that starts out very formal and complementary, and transforms as it goes into a diatribe about finger-fucking someone's knife wounds and tentacle rape. You must look forward to opening your email every day.

I sent rejection letters for most of these poems. The gist of all of the rejections was 'we're going to have to pass on these, but thanks for considering us'. I thought a couple people were promising, so I gave them some more specific encouragement.

Garrison Keillor says in his 'Good Poems' Anthology that some poems are '...like condoms on the beach, evidence that someone was here once and had an experience, but not of great interest to the passerby.' So far, those are pretty much my thoughts exactly about this first bunch.

I can tell this experience is going to deepen my understanding of what makes a good poem. It will definitely be exciting when I finally come across that beach condom that makes me want to climb inside it.

Thieves Jargon

Last week, Matt Digangi asked me to be the new poetry editor for Thieves Jargon. I said yes, and now it's official.

This should be fun.

Relax, Joy.

Ann Coulter is usually very fun to watch on television, especially when she is being interviewed by sanctimonious liberals who know way less than she does. Coulter is funny, nimble, and relaxed in this interview: The clear victor.

There are too many liberals that are unable to laugh at their own idiosyncracies and ideological shortcomings. After years of being the butt of the joke in so much satire and political comedy, most conservatives have learned to appreciate humor that comes at their expense. Until a larger number of liberals in our country learn the same lesson, Ann Coulter will always have ripe material to mine, and I will continue to be entertained.



"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."-Voltaire.

Merely

A line in Sartre's Existentialism Is A Humanism that made me chuckle the first time I read it: "And when we speak of 'abandonment'--One of Heideggers favorite expressions--we merely mean to say that God does not exist, and that we must bear the fully consequences of that assertion'.

ha!

It's Sartre's use of the word merely that gets me. What an underappreciated word, and what a strange word to use to describe the thought that this world is a godless one. There doesn't seem to be anything mere about the existence of God. At least, not in any way I can think about it.

Dictionary.com defines the word this way:

MERELY:
–adverb 1. only as specified and nothing more; simply: merely a matter of form.
2. Obsolete. a. without admixture; purely.
b. altogether; entirely.

Origin:
1400–50; late ME mereli. See mere 1 , -ly


But we discover a more substantial meaning to his use of the word a little further on:

" The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely disturbing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom."

Now, this is a bold statement, and one we need not embrace in totality. Even Sartre was very careful to hedge his bets about the existence of God. You can believe or not believe in God and accept the following proposition: Man is free, and thus must decipher a meaning for himself. He is responsible for his own actions and decisions, and is responsible for the person he chooses to be. No one is born a hero or a coward, therefore no one has a right to resign themselves to accepting such stations. We are what we make ourselves.

The bottom-line question Sartre asks us to ask ourself when deciding (through action) what kind of person we are to be is this: If everyone else in the world acted as I am, would this be a good world?

Apparently there is more to merely than I had initially thought.


the exact opposite of an existential worldview:


*The image at the top of the page comes from www.uri.edu.

Alpha & Omega

Every now and then people get to wondering whether or not Adam and Eve had belly-buttons. The reason people wonder about this is because if these original creatures weren't born of a woman, they wouldn't have needed to receive sustenance through an umbilical cord. I think this is a reasonable question for people to ask. Another reasonable thing for people to ponder about the days in the garden is this: Adam and Eve didn't have umbilical cords, but the apple that they ate off of the tree of knowledge had a stem.

What do you think about that?

I Heart Valentine's Day

I.The following comments about Valentine's Day always irritate me:

1. Valentine's Day is just a made-up holiday that the greeting card industry uses to make a quick buck.

2. My man/woman (usually man) should love me all year 'round. If he/she needs a holiday to remind him/her, I'm not interested.

Sigh.

Regarding the first instance I say, of course Valentine's Day is just a made up holiday. All holidays are just made up holidays. Do you think the first of mankind to crawl out of the primordial sludge was greeted with specific instructions on how to carve the Thanksgiving day turkey? Of course not.

Regarding the second part of the first instance: this is America. We're a capitalist country. to survive in a capitalist society (and any society for that matter), you need to make capital. Besides, what else is the greeting card industry going to make money on?

The second instance is irritating for its solipsism, and its shortsightedness. The solipsism is evident, but the lack of perspective regarding the definitions of who we are that can be derived from the holidays we choose to celebrate, is alarming.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are celebrations of family and communion. They also give us opportunities to be generous and thankful. Halloween provides our children with an opportunity to experiment with different aspects of their personality by playing dress-up, and it's the closest our culture ever comes to acknowledging death. New Year's is a chance to celebrate our successes and reset our goals. It also can serve as a good marker to measure our achievements against.

Valentine's Day is just as important. It's an opportunity for us to celebrate our partnerships, and to meditate on our loves. It's like a New Year's for the heart. And, besides, who doesn't like a little bit of champagne, dark chocolate, and Chet Baker every now and then?

There is also a certain hedonism to Valentine's Day that I find irresistable.

II. For 20+ years, Ted Kooser (a great poet) has been writing a Valentine's Day poem for an ever enlarging list of women, and mailing it to them. "Valentine's Day is a great holiday for the poet...It's not tied up with anything other than expressions of sentiment." Check it out.

III. Here is something of a universal Valentine poem that appeared in my e-book, Mule & Horse. I wrote it in honor of those wonderful devices that carry women from point A to point B.

YOUR LEGS

Your legs
Your olive legs
Your caramel
Snow-white
Ebony
Pink tan legs

Are the scissors
That cut my concentration

Through halls
Designed to indulge echo
You clip
My head
Turns

Your legs
Your thick legs
Your soft
muscled
Thin
Tattooed legs

Should require
A license to operate.

IV. And here's a poem I wrote more specifically for my wife, from the same collection:

LARGE OBJECTS MOVING SLOWLY

As your breasts
make their glacial excursion
towards your hips,

and my balls begin to droop
like a Halloween bag
full of too much candy:

I will pause
(from time to time)
and remember years before:

when our two taut bodies
were so easily entertained
by such equally firm surfaces.

We explored them ruthlessly:
Like conquistadors,
looking for golden cities.

I will smile,
and consider these current days:
Terrain complex. Unpredictable.

A safari nowadays of the many
curves and folds,
may take months of planning.

And only god knows
how many hired natives
will be lost along the way.

V. Have a fun, happy, sexy, wonderfully indulgent & celebratory Valentine's Day everyone!

Flight Of The Conchords:

Robert Ballard Gets Me Excited About Deep Sea Exploration

super cool:

Back & Forth

I found this debate between evolutionist Steve Novella and creationist John Andrew edifying. A good representation of the larger argument.

A Few Things We May Have In Common

On Saturday, My family and I accepted an invitation from a friend to go to church with her. It was one of those big, non-denominational super churches with stadium seating and free coffee.

I didn’t expect to get much out of the experience. I’m an agnostic, and a devoted skeptic:I think this is the main reason my friend invited me. I think she wanted to show me how cool Christians could be.

I don’t think she understood that it wasn’t the coolness of Christians that I doubted. It was the validity of the claims found in their foundational document.

So I sat with my friend, my wife, and my oldest son in the enormous, high-tech amphitheater. My mind kept flashing to images of Richard Dawkins sitting in Ted Haggard’s super-church in The Root Of All Evil. I imagined myself being like that: there to observe. An independent thinker among the faithful.

And then the band began to play. They were good. They sounded and looked like any number of Christian rock groups out there: vaguely ‘alternative’ sounding music played by a handful of goateed young men in skate shoes and beanies. But it sounded good. It was passionate. My son danced in the aisle.

After a short video, the preacher came out and delivered his message on the book of Ezekiel. He was a compelling speaker, and the audience was enrapt. He told us that ‘the world as we know it’ is always ending, and that if we put our faith in worldly things rather than God, we will always be disappointed.

I appreciated the language he used. He reminded the congregation that all nations fall, and that there is nothing special about the U.S.A. He told us that yes, the U.S. was just another nation among many, and it too some day would fall. He told us not to get too comfortable with our taboos and our cultures, because they would go bye-bye too someday.

While I was appreciative of this tone, and the practicality of this message (which could be delivered outside of a religious context just as easily as within), I wasn’t deeply moved. But then the preacher started talking about the way we should interact with each other, essentially saying we should be the most genuine version of ourselves possible. We should be open to new evidence, yes, but we should state boldly those things which we were certain we knew. We should accept challenges to those dearly held ideas, and be willing to change them if we should discover they were wrong. We should proselytize on behalf of that which we knew to be true. And then he showed this video:



The preacher introduced Penn as ‘A famous, crass atheist.’ And at the completion of the clip, simply said, ‘Interesting’, and moved on.

I had been blindsided.

I’m a fan of Penn’s persona, and share a lot of his ideas. He’s a fun, thoughtful character that I associated with my little sphere of resources. I was surprised to see his face on the jumbotron at a super-church, and even more surprised to see it up there as an example of a viewpoint the preacher agreed with.

Penn’s word’s touched me, and at that moment I realized that I wasn’t so different than the people in the seats around me. It’s very easy to go through life in this country playing it safe, not speaking our minds on controversial issues, being p.c., and generally not delving too deeply into who we really are or what we really believe. That wasn’t the case with me, and it didn't seem to be the case with the other people in that audience. We were all people willing to stand up and claim our beliefs. We were all a bunch of dry bones looking for answers. At that moment, I felt connected to everyone around me.

Were I the kind of person to believe such things, I would think it was more than coincidental that the preacher chose to tie a meditation from Penn Jillette into his sermon. It would almost seem like he was saying, ‘That’s right Spencer. You’re an Agnostic. You don’t know for certain that I’m here, and you’re even less inclined to believe that I’ve ever dictated a book to any group of human beings, anywhere. Good. That’s who you are. Don’t feel bad about it. Be brave. This is who you are.’

But of course, that would be a silly thing for God to say.

Colds & Coughs

I’m just getting over a nasty little cold that knocked me out of the game for three solid days. Lots of coughing and dizziness, along with a few less savory side effects. But I got to do a little non-productive reading, as well as spend some time staring at the ceiling and watching cartoons on TV. What I like best about colds is the moment before the bad stuff really hits (when you are a little light-headed and euphoric), and the moment right after you realize that you are better, and it becomes clear how good better actually is. Another fun thing about being sick--if you are married--is being waited on by a patient, doting spouse. My wife brought me Gatorade, medicine, and soup (when I could take it). She kept the kids entertained and kept our vessel floating seamlessly while I recuperated. Mad props to the lady of the house.

When one part of the team is down, we are given the opportunity to repay them for the hard work they have put into making this family work. By making sure they are comfortable, seeing to it that they have something fun and meaningless to read (and never run out of 7 up), we can say we're glad you're part of the team.

There is perhaps a bigger opportunity for the person that is down, however. That is the opportunity to be grateful to have someone willing to look after them when they need it, no strings attached. In this culture of self sufficiency and self service--where everything is attainable for a price, and every lesson that is learned comes at the cost of some amount of blood on the floor--to find oneself truly grateful for a gift given purely out of love is a wonderful and unusual thing.

Nice!

According to The Telegraph, Scientists from Conservation International recently discovered ten new species of amphibians in Colombia. Thank you Colombia, for Bandeja Paisa, good coffee, Shakira's hips, and now, this neat discovery. I can't wait to see what you offer the world next.

The Medicine Cabinet Recommends

1. Now that Barack Obama has been sworn in, and is hard at work on his economic recovery package and the minutia of governing, many of his most ardent supporters are feeling a little down. No more encouraging speeches. No more rallies. No excuse to buy candidate-themed merchandise.

Where to put all of that energy, now that the horse race is over? Obviously, Obama was looking to be more than motivational speaker of state. He's hunkered down over his desk, oblivious to the rousing his rabble desires. So they've moved on. The people are looking for a new iconic figure to lead them out of the wilderness. Results have not been promising thus far:



2.Frank Rich tells beltway republicans to grow up or get out of the way.

3. Bill Clinton at the World Economic Forum:



4. I'm no economic genius. That's why I appreciated this fleshing out of our current economic situation, provided by This American Life.


5.Science & Faith:



6.Life. This is a poem I wrote about a year ago for Dan Tricarico's Litsnack experiment. It's message is very apropos to my situation right now as I try to secure letters of recommendation for grad school, and try to land a job in my field in this shoddy economy. It also seems relevant to the mood of our nation right now: We're rolling up our sleeves and trying to solve some serious problems at home and abroad, so our children won't have to.


7. "Cash Rules Everything Around Me":

Kind Of Blue

This March 2nd (my birthday) will be the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis's seminal work, Kind Of Blue. NPR had a nice little piece about it this morning that inspired me to make the disc my day's soundtrack.

I've owned the album for years now, and it's still gets regular play in my house and car. I can't think of very many jazz recordings that are more important, or that still sound so fresh fifty years later. When Klaatu comes to our little blue planet looking for justification to keep us around, aside from showing him a few Peanuts specials, I would recommend playing Kind Of Blue.

Miles does a version of 'So What' on Steve Allen's Show:


Herbie Hancock gives us his interpretation of the same song, with Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter :


Tom Harrell performs 'Freddie Freeloader'

Updike

John Updike was the guy who made me want to write short stories. It was through his jacket blurbs that I branched out and explored other literature, and it was in his writing that I found juicy echoes of my own neurotic humor. I can't say I'm sad that he's dead, because he was old, and it sounds like he led a pretty good life. I can say that anyone who likes short stories should go out immediately and grab a copy of The Afterlife, and anyone who likes good writing period should read all of the Bech books, The Coup, A Month Of Sundays, and Couples. His poetry was also wonderful: A first edition copy of Verse is one of my most prized possessions. Great writer. To whomever is responsible for endowing such talents upon us: more like this, please.

Talking Shop:

It's Always The End Of The World

I keep track of asteroids. They’re interesting to me. When I look at the above image, there’s a little fear, a little thrill. My human solipsism is confounded by the idea of a universe without us, but at the same time the prospect is sobering. Walking across the Cincinnati suspension bridge the other day, I looked at our beautiful little city and found it unimaginable that it would one day be gone. All of the bridges down, all of the windows blown out. Ohio used to be underwater. A walk along the evolutionary stones at Sawyer Point illustrates that nicely. Who knows what the next big shift will bring?

Here's a possible change agent: A little asteroid named Apophsis. Apophis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god of destruction. Maybe the name is appropriate, but it’s a little melodramatic for my taste. I prefer Daisy.

Apophsis (sensationalism aside) is expected to be another in a long line of near misses. Only if it passes through what is called a ’gravitational keyhole’ as it zooms past us in 2026, could it cause a problem, creating a highly probable collision in the year 2036.

Why is all of this so appealing to me?

How can it not be?

If you allow yourself to slip from the Summer Blockbuster angle, step past the survival fantasy, and override the slight tingling in your death instinct, there are good reasons to contemplate both your own, and the Earth’s, ultimate revelation. Such considerations aren’t--at least on my part--purely morbid, nor are they some kind of Hicksian yearning for Arizona Bay. While as humans we surely fall short, I don’t eagerly anticipate some kind of cosmic come-uppance.

Knowing that the story has an end, that our time is finite, and that indeed,we are lucky to be here at all, can only do us good. As Richard Dawkins opens his awesome book Unweaving the Rainbow :“The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains in Arabia.”

Out of all the variations, disasters, missteps, etcetera, that could've happened to us along the way to existence--navigating our way across a long, unbroken chain of evolutionary idiosyncracies--we are here. And we are alive, which is doubly lucky! The miracle in this scenario is our presence. We have already overcome the greatest hurdle we could ever face; all before we were even conscious of the concept of hurdles at all (and I was worried about getting into grad school)!

We are all grad students in the school of life.

So for creatures so random, so free to create our own meanings in this life, is it so bad to consider that someday we're going to check out?

It helps me. To know that I'll die--to know that you'll die too--takes a hesitation away from action. I am not here forever, and I can't be sure about anything that comes after this. I can't stow away my true intents and secret philosophies for vindication at a later date. I need to do it today. To know that I am finite and fallible (not necessarily operating on marching orders from some divine force), tells me to be open to others and to be kind. We are all in a similar situation here. And we're not guaranteed tomorrow.

Someone said all of this better than me:

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

who could argue with that?

There’s at least metaphoric rock at the end of both mine, and the Earth’s life. While it can be unsettling to consider, it helps keep me on point, and adds a poignancy to both the sound of my children's bare feet patting across the living room floor, and the sound of my now creaky knees as I stand up.

"The Chinese", and "A Husband's Lament"

Two poems of mine are currently headlining over at Thieves Jargon.

A Simple Observation

Two basically decent human beings embrace: