1. Funerals are for the living. They are an opportunity for those left behind to get together to pay respect to the deceased as well as pull together to mourn. As mom put it, the deceased are already gone – and thus those in attendance to such a gathering are the ones that need it.
2. “Do not have a wake, a funeral or anything else even slightly depressing in my honor. When I go, and you feel the need to think of me, or talk about me in anyway, I want you to discuss happy things. Something I did that made you smile, or happy – not something sad. If you get together and have a sad event for me I shall haunt you – so throw a party! Talk about your crazy mom with jovial stories – raise a toast to me – but do not sit around and be sad – it will do you no good.”

In short, she was right. The funeral thing, like the one I attended today, is actually missed by most who attend one.  Many people go to a funeral for the person who died, not for themselves. This is tragic. Again, the deceased is gone and with any luck they made peace with you before they left. The reason that you are there is for you and those also in attendance. The most important thing at a funeral is the part that most people dismiss – I even discussed this with the Pastor today: There is a part where the Pastor, or whomever is presiding over the event, asks those in attendance if anyone would like to come forward and discuss the deceased. At the funeral today one person did – one person out of all of those there – I was not that person either. I don’t say this to chastise those in attendance today, only to illuminate with example.

Why is that important to note? Tragically in the USA, for some reason, we have managed as a society to stifle our sadness, our emotions and in most cases our sharing of those things that we all have in common. I know that there were many in attendance just today who were not only sad but also felt that they were made a better person by the deceased. The catch is only one person felt compelled to say as much. Why? Long ago a man died, Bob, whom I looked at much like a second father to me. He was a saint. I truly loved the man for who he was. He was my friend’s father and just an incredible guy. I was given the opportunity then to speak at his funeral, to say one last bit of dialogue, maybe he’d hear it – who knows really. I passed on the opportunity because, to be frank, it just felt weird – standing there in front of a couple hundred people bearing my soul regarding the man I cared for as a father. Think about that – why is that so wrong? What is wrong with us? I will always regret not having said what I felt – and no, it wasn’t for Bob, it was for me. I loved him. Everyone there loved him. The primary thing about Bob that hadn’t been said, and needed to be said, was simply this: Bob was a cool guy – and it remained unsaid.

Today I was at Helen’s funeral – she lived to 92. Helen was breathtaking. I mean that. There are few people in my life that I have met that actually amazed me – that I was in awe of – Helen was one. Helen was a great mother, not only to her own children, but to so many others that she didn’t owe anything to – she just cared for them. She loved them, and showed love for them as any amazing mother would for her children. Helen was also an incredible wife. She and her husband spent a long happy life together – in fact they set an example to so many others on how two people might do just that.

To me Helen was more than that. I was not related to her in any way. I would love to say that we were friends, but the truth is we barely knew each other – we attended the same family events, sure, ones where she was a borderline institution – the woman was famous for her cooking skills and sitting idly by watching her family enjoy her labors. I would watch Helen, I would say hello to her, I would occasionally kiss her head as if I was kissing my own grandmother’s head. I can honestly say I loved Helen as well – why? She was not my mother, nor my grandmother, and we were not old friends – but what she was, and always will be, is far more than that – an Inspiration.

We all need inspiration in our lives, and sadly, often times it is difficult to find. 92 year old Helen was just that, an Inspiration. She never once accepted the societal norm that some people do: old people are to be shelved until they pass on. It is sick – and Helen never once acted like she even knew that people did that. No, Helen lived her life the way people should – she sucked the marrow out of the bones of life to the end. At 92 years old she went bowling several times a week. 92 year olds aren’t supposed to go bowling are they? No they are supposed to just sit in chairs and nap right? Not according to Helen – no, she lived every day like it might be her last and still wanted to get in a little bit before it ended – even the day before she passed she was out doing errands and visiting people. Now that is living.

So to Helen, if I had a glass I would raise it, an Inspiration for us all. A woman who showed us how life should be lived – to its fullest. I am a better man having known you. God speed.

This does not mean that I am stupid or not interested in other things – it simply means that men are simple creatures. They are easily amused. They like the physical world. It isn’t that men don’t do existential, in fact they excel at it, but it almost never directly applies to them. Men think existentially about other people. What if humans did have a soul? Crap like that. What men, well most men, can’t stand is fruitless drama. We hate it. I hate it. I am using the word hate here. WE HATE IT. Along with drama comes anything that leads to drama, we hate that too. Like Gossip. Gossip sucks. Typically it is bullshit. In an office environment when I hear gossip I either ignore it entirely or, if it is about me, I go straight to whom supposedly said X about me and ask them. I also sight the source of this knowledge. “Mary said you think that I don’t bathe. Is that true?” Nobody talks to me about gossip anymore.

WARNING: Chauvinistic stuff to come!

Why do women seem to enjoy gossip and drama? I don’t get it. I understand that not all women do, but it seems like a majority do to me. In the past I have discussed how drama, in this life, has a tendency to find you, meaning you don’t have to go look for her. She is a cold calculating bitch who loves to show up in your life when it can have the worst possible impact. So why look for her? The bitch will be back with a vengeance soon enough. If your life is so boring get a hobby. Do not create drama. Do not talk crap about other people. Gossip is bad, and typically is based on a concept that humans seem to excel at above all other things: embellishment.

Example: Janet almost walks out of the ladies restroom with a single sheet of toilet paper attached to her foot. She notices it, takes it off, washes her hands and giggles to Jessica. Jessica hates Janet. Jessica goes and tells Michelle that Janet stepped in poop, wiped it off with her finger, and didn’t even wash it off.

Why?

Humans are ugly creatures. We have an amazing ability to create, and a greater ability to destroy. Even my two year old son likes to figure out how things work so that he can break them faster. Women seem to love to tear each other down. It is this constant dance of the sick and twisted that destroys a family or team. Take any situation, embellish, and tell as many people as you can by prefacing said dramatic story with “You didn’t hear this from me but…” and you are on the right track for drama. This has taken such a foot hold in younger people on the internet that now they are killing each other off and committing suicide. Think about that.

What is to be gained exactly? What do you get by spreading drama, lies, deceit, and horror? Are you really so empty, so filled with self loathing that you need to destroy another to feel good about your self – even for a little while?

Do yourself and everyone else a favor, for just a day, and try to not create drama. Furthermore if someone around you is trying to create drama, call them on it. See what happens. Report what happens back here.

So why is this topic even worth discussion? One could quickly ascertain that the subject may very well be counter to what many Feminists believe – men are shit and get everything. The odd point of contention over the years has been the idea of equality – what “GirlWritesWhat” is stating, really, and what I have stated in the past, is that equality is a great thing if there is real equality. The catch is, and her video argues this point,  that this is not the actual case at all. In fact, according to her, men are, in a fashion, given the short end of the stick when it comes to equality – a point that would make most Feminists lose their god damned minds. I can hear the shrill sounds of chanting “BURN THE WITCH!” now.

How is it that there is not true equality? Moreover, what is the problem with the concept? Feminists seem to argue that they want equality, but the general observation is that they want equality only when it suits them. Which is really a point being argued in this video, in not so many words.

1. During wartime, only men are drafted. Not equal.
2. If a ship sinks, Women and children are saved first. Not Equal.
3. A boy is expected to be tough, and thus is often time not nurtured, while a girl is protected. Not equal
4. At birth a boy’s genitalia are hacked at. Not equal.
5. Women can don men’s clothing and be called cute for it. Men donning women’s clothing are cross dressers. Not Equal.

The list goes on really. I believe that all things should be treated equal, if they are in fact equal. The catch here is that men and women aren’t actually equal. Men excel at some things over women as it is their nature to do so. Like killing stuff. Men are great at killing as men are wired to be hunter gatherers. Women excel at a veritable cornucopia of things over men, almost too many to list really. A major one being multitasking. Women are glorious at it. Why the difference between the two genders? Because they are meant to work together, their skills  are to be employed in a situation by situation basis. Meaning that dependent upon the situation at hand, equality may take a back seat to necessity driving the car.

For instance: A creature with claws and teeth has entered the home. Do you dispatch the 6 foot 2 inch tall 235 lb male to deal with said creature, or the 5 foot 2 inches tall 125 pound female?

For instance: There are 27 different things that are important tomorrow. Do you count on the man, who can think about basically one thing at a time, or the woman who can’t think about only one thing at a time?

These are both ridiculous scenarios, obviously, but they are meant to make a point: Men and women are not equal, but only because of the situation they are found in. Should a female miner be paid as much as a male miner? YES! If she can do the same work. This applies to all fields. If a woman can play Linebacker as good as a man in the NFL then YES she should be given a shot and be paid as such. Period. If there is a war, and the country needs to be defended, then YES both genders need to be called to action. Will they do they exact same job is the question?

That depends on the job. Watch the video. It may be the best 16 minutes you spend this year.

I’d always prided myself on never having paid for sex but this girl was beautiful and needed help, I said ok and paid a 200 baht ‘bar fine’ for taking the girl out of the place and gave her 500 baht for the sex, less that $25 altogether including a drink I had in the bar. She was grateful and said to come get her whenever I wanted. A couple of days later I was attacked by two men with swords and was lucky to have lived through it. I was in a Thai hospital for two days wearing the same pjs that I had been operated in(brain surgery to remove bone fragments)and this girl came in and started caring for me. I was in the hospital eight days and she came in and bathed me, changed the sheets, my pjs, brought me food(coffee, can’t live without it) and anything I needed. If I fell asleep she was there when I awoke. I was amazed, these girls we call whores, prostitutes, we lie to, tell them we want to marry them, take them on trips to exotic places… for the most part they’re very good people and have been treated like something disposable.

Almost every girl I dated till I came to Nong Khai wanted something at the end of the night even if it wasn’t discussed beforehand and 200 baht or $7 US will usually cover it. Age is not an issue here, disability, looks, they accept you as you are. Falang is the term they use for us, it’s not derogatory in any way either, most of the girls want to have a ‘falang baby’ and it’s a status for alot of them. I’ve been asked to marry by a dozen beautiful women in Thailand and Laos and it hurts to say no to someone who wants you and will care for you. I have one friend who is pregnant by me now, that’s what she wanted though I didn’t know that was one of the reasons she dated me. Since I’ve been in Nong Khai and have added many of the local girls to my Facebook friends list and I’ve had several girls come meet me and want to come home with me and not want money, these girls pride themselves in not taking money but don’t look down on the others.

I’m living with a girl now who ‘approves’ who I date and gets furious if I stray from her suggestions. If I seem antsy to her she’ll say ‘you need go Nong Khai and boom boom?’ and she’s ok with it. My neighbor introduces me to single, available girls weekly or more often and we’ve talked about the possibilities of us getting together, she’s pregnant, the guy’s out of the picture, I’m 64 and still having some problems because of my head injury, we may work it out. We’re planning to move to Chaing Mai next month and we care about each other, hope it works out. Guess I got off of the subject.

I pulled a photo off of the internet, a girl this pretty costs about $100 or 3000 baht for the whole night and there are about a dozen like this in this town. In Bangkok there are a thousand. A warning: in Bangkok AIDS is pretty prevalent, in smaller towns the girls may only go out a few times a week and that’s less than the average waitress in some bars in the US. Use protection and don’t go home by way of a dark alley………baba

You need to zoom into the image to read it. Make sure you haven’t eaten recently – it will make you want to vomit.

Notice: I put this image in our Health and Biology category – because frankly, this isn’t very healthy.

My trip to work is roughly 12 miles. Fairly straight shot too. I am on side streets for only about 2 miles of that journey, and those are straight shots to and from the freeway entrance – the rest of the time I am on a freeway. Let’s stop here for a moment. What is the difference between a Freeway and a Highway? No clue. Anyway – I travel to work by driving down a 3 lane wide road, on direction, 3 lanes the other way as well. My journey has literally one turn on this road as it is a beltway – meaning a giant circle. Today, within the ten mile stretch I spend on that road I saw 7 accidents. SEVEN. Why on Earth were there seven accidents one might wonder….LEt us rewind this article:

“there was black ice, everywhere. EVERYWHERE.”

Yeah. I noticed it 20 feet out of my driveway. TWENTY FEET! (notice how I keep repeating words in caps. Good times.) How is it that nobody else did? Surely they had to have felt it. Right? If you feel that you MIGHT be travelling on ice shouldn’t you account for that possibility? Apparently not. One accident was so bad that there were 6 cop cars there and two news crews. No shit. My friend Zhazoo, had a guy fly past him and off the freeway – twenty feet away from him. Going around that turn I mentioned the dude was doing no less than 65 miles per hour. SIXTY FIVE on black ice around a turn.

PEOPLE. LISTEN. TO. ME. IF you are driving in bad weather, if not for yourself, maybe for your kids, or for the rest of us – slow the fuck down. Please. Sigh.

1. Deer? I loves killin me deer. Hell if I could kill one with my bare hands I would! (Bullshit. Period)
2. Bear? Naw, they ain’t scary none. You can easily pick one off from a 500 yards! (Not very sporting old fellow. Trying doing it the Native American way – run up and slap one).
3. My Dog? Yeah once he slows up a bit I’z gonna put a bullet in im and gets me a new one! (Can you wife do the same to you?)

None of those lines are made up btw – well.. no they aren’t. So why does old Thraxxus have an issue with hunters this fine day? It is hunting season! And that means that stories about stupid hunters are coming out in droves – and that makes me happy.

Story number 1: Hunter Lights himself on fire and falls from a tree to his death. I sincerely hope that a group of deer found him and cracked jokes over his body. I mean really how funny is this? Sure a guy died, blah blah. However, he died by LIGHTING HIMSELF ON FIRE. I can’t even imagine the crap going through this guys mind just moments before this occurred and then how those thoughts took a dramatic turn right after he lit himself on fire. “oh yeah… gonna git me a nice buck today. Probably a 18 pointer! (no idea if this is even possible btw) I swear old Gus will show them youngins down at Skippy’s Bar who is.. whoa.. holy shit! Wtf!?!?! AAAAAAH” SPLAT.

Story number 2: 79 year old shoots his friend. Just going to quote the story here because, well, its just too good on its own. “Matthew Raley was guiding James Wennerlind and his son on a turkey hunt. The old man fell asleep and the guide walked into the field to try to spot some birds to hunt. When he walked back toward the slumbering hunters, he was mistaken for a turkey and Wennerlind opened fire.” ROFL right? I wish I could have listened to them explain that to the cops. “See, now Billy-Bobby-Joe there, well, he always did remind me of a turkey.. and so when he stepped out of the grass, and them turkeys is mean mind you, I just figured he might be a gobbler makin a play for us. Damned evil bird the turkey. Oh sure they taste good with gravy and mashed taters, but if you let one sneak up on you? It is game over my friend.”

And finally third we have a story about protesting gone bad. Apparently some lady was opposed to duck hunting to such a degree that she waded into the water in front of some duck hunters to tell them so. Some how, and this is the funny part, SOMEONE SHOT HER. Anthony Bourdain said that duck hunting was one of the most boring activities he has ever been forced to do. Basically a bunch of idiots sit for hours waiting for a duck to come by so they can open fire on it hoping to take it down. In the mean while they all tell mindless stories about previous duck hunting trips. No shit. What gets me here is that if you wish to protest against people who kill stuff, you should probably do it when those people AREN’T ARMED TO THE TEETH. Just saying.

All one really needs to do to find a hero in literature is to open practically any book – most of writing is centered around that idea in some way, shape or form. Even romance novels (not that I read those – psheah) have a hero of some kind who typically becomes the love interest of the main character. Written accounts of heroism dates back thousands of years, in fact it is those stories that have been handed down the most. The Bible? Filled with heroes. The Qur’an? Loads of em. The Torah? Please, of course. These are all the central texts of the three major religions in the world (yes there are loads of others) and each of them are filled with accounts of heroism. Why?

Simply put not everybody can be a hero. We like to believe that being a hero is in all of us, and to some extent, given the right situation, maybe that is the case. According to Berkeley :

“when we ask why people become heroic, research doesn’t yet have an answer. It could be that heroes have more compassion or empathy; maybe there’s a hero gene; maybe it’s because of their levels of oxytocin—research by neuroeconomist Paul Zak has shown that this “love hormone” in the brain increases the likelihood you’ll demonstrate altruism. We don’t know for sure.”

Does that mean if you lack that chemical, or are just short on it, that you can’t be a hero? This leads us to the question “What is a hero?”  Dictionary.com says:

And this..

We were standing outside of a grocery store and I recalled my father telling me that cashiers never handed him his change back, instead they sort of threw it at his hand. I thought that he must be either crazy or oversensitive – then we went shopping. The problem started while waiting in line to pay – the cashier wouldn’t really look at my dad – directly anyway. When he said hello she just kept swiping his goods. Whatever it was we bought cost under $20. My father handed over a twenty and thus had change coming. Sure enough about half a foot from his hand she threw it him. What the hell was going on here? That never happens to me.

I have had many African American friends in my life, all coming from different back grounds, but we always ended up discussing race. My friend from Haiti was the first one to enlighten me as to how Police often viewed blacks. He was the manager of a movie theater and thus always wore suits. One day he was going to work, picked up the assistant manager, a Caucasian guy, and was halfway to work when a Police care pulled in front of him. Weird? No. but when the other sides of his car were surrounded by other Police cars who then all turned on their lights there was something up. They pulled him over into a parking lot, surrounded the car, all got out of their cars with guns drawn, when one officer approached the car. He looked in at my friend. He looked at the passenger. He got back into his car and they all left. Not a word was said.

In the same town I personally witnessed a black kid walking home with groceries. He had five bags. A Police car pulled up, two cops got out, and proceeded to force him to empty the bags, his pockets, everything. No provocation. Once they were satisfied with whatever they were doing, they left him there with the groceries on the ground and a disgusted and confused look on his face. I asked him about it – he said they never gave him a reason – just empty your bags, your pockets, frisked him, ran a background check, and let him go.

I now work in software and the mainstay of our customers have their own call centers for customer support. Out customers, like us, are located in the mid west. About a year into the job (I am on year three) I noticed something odd – over 50% of all the agents in all of my customers’ call centers were black. Why? I turned to my niece – she is Caucasian but is dating an African American and worked in one of my customer’s call centers for a while. She made it simple, and tragically is accurate as I later confirmed with some of the reps in the call center and her boyfriend. “It is easier for a black person to get a job where they won’t be seen by customers.” WOW. What year is this?

Think about that. You are African American. You have no legal record of doing anything wrong. You are putting yourself through college, trying to get an education, like so many other people. You take pride in how you look – clean, well dressed, proper. Everything, if you weren’t Black, adds up to being able to get a job almost anywhere – and yet you feel compelled to get a job somewhere in which people won’t see you. Why? Because it is common knowledge within the African American community that you have a better shot at getting a job from an employer where the employer knows you won’t be seen. This revelation crushed me.

Back to my father. I brought this up to him and he confirmed the same issue for him. “Looking Mexican, even though I am not, people automatically assumed that I wanted to work outdoors – doing something with nature – like yard work –  gardener, etc. Every time I worked indoors, like at Titleist Golf Clubs, I was treated weird. That is the place where my boss flipped out on me. I never forgot that. Furthermore it was like I was expected to hang out with other Mexicans no matter where I worked. It was implied ‘The Mexicans site over there.’” Unreal.

It is now 2011 – we are now in the enlightened age it seems – except for the fact that many people “of color” still go by the old rules – work where you are hidden. Is is their problem? Are they being over paranoid? Over safe? Or is their perspective reality. Being Caucasian I cannot confirm on deny any of it because I will never experience that reality. What I do know is that no matter what the truth is – the very fact that the belief still exists, and appears to be accurate, is tragic and pathetic in a way that makes me ashamed to be human – again.

Here is a post that I felt was somewhat atypical for this blog community. It deals with a subject that causes very strong, polarized reactions. That is to say it deals with the issue of Animal Welfare and Rights. This issue is one that I’ve spent countless hours in internal dialog/debate (read: ongoing mental struggle). I believe I can accurately comprehend the way the world works. And it is a violent, bloody, and short existance on this planet for most living things. However, I cannot shrug the concept that as sentient beings capable of empathy amongst ourselves, should we (as humans) not extend this to all living things? Obviously my conceptual question interweaves principles derived from a plethora of sources… religion(s), philosophy, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, biology, etc.

Take a look at this site. The movie it touts is currently being considered for an Oscar. I find the subject matter a bit hard to stomach…but blunt reality is required to open minds to consider other possibilities. Upon viewing the trailer, attempt to resist the impulse to follow engrained cultural norms – really stop and think about our lifestyles and impact. Or, as my theory predicts, most of you will utter something under your breath, shrug this off, and stereotype the author of the post.

http://www.earthlings.com/
http://www.earthlings.com/blog/index.php

One day he walked up to me and said ‘Are you Dave Robins?’ I think I stepped back, sorta expecting to get hit or something but he extended his hand and said ‘Hi, I’m Eric, I think that you’re my father.’ I had about eleventeen emotions go through me in the next few seconds but managed to say, good to meet you or something. It turned out that his mom went to the University of Texas when I was there and she had told Eric that I was his dad. I saw her photo and learned her name and neither were familiar to me but I told Eric that I would be proud to have him as a son and to this day I hear from him more than some of my other kids.

I invited him to move in with me while he was in town and he did, we talked quite a bit during the time we were roommates/father/son and he told me that before Sasha that he’d had a son with another girl and that they hadn’t stayed together and that she had given the boy up for adoption, that boy, he said was the kid who played Anikin Skywalker in the latest of the Star Wars series. In short – I may be Darth Vader’s Grandfather.

My next topic is more of an announcement about me taking a hiatus from writing and commenting. Related to this, my current thinking is that of permanently retiring this nom de plume. Never was it my intention via Caravaggio to bully or abuse others through the role of antagonist. Recently it became clear that the nuances of my approach might not have been as evident as I’d hoped. My focus over the past year and a half was to combat the utility of logophobia and not mindlessly troll for a reaction (although I bet Caravaggio came close to this on many occasions – and therefore an apology is most likely due — My apologies!). Logophobia (in its extended definition) is a doctrine about the utility of rationality that states logic cannot be an objective constraint on us… it is just whatever we make it, and how we make it depends on what we value. As I hope you have come to realize without any ambiguity that I find the use of logophobia inexcusable, utterly distasteful, and highly intriguing at the same time. Its utility on this weblog was as a flame in which the moth named Caravaggio could not resist. Caravaggio embraces logos! As I have witnessed, numerous threads veered wildly because of my comments being interpreted, not through the lens of philosophy, but rather as personal insult. Again, my apologies for being the genesis of “bad karma” for I truly meant no harm.

Therefore, fellow active authors, commentary participants, and even passive lurkers all, Caravaggio is no more – a victim of his own making. However, once my current work settles down a bit, I shall be back with a new name and a new doctrine to evangelize. I can actually envision the grimacing, wincing and flinching as I type this.

Peace to you and yours.

Well we here at Blinkinblogs have long been chatting it up about ZA, and now finally it seems our infamous pharma-pimps over at the CDC have awoken to what will surely be the greatest threat to humanity in history – Zombie Apocalypse!

It is a blog and lets face it the emergency preparedness list of supplies doesn’t even have a pocket knife, much less a nice chain saw, shot gun or even a Staff of Fireball, listed.

I was rather hoping that the scheduled Rapture this Saturday would take the souls and leave the Zombified followers behind…