Bless this Mess
Homes that house two children and their single, twice divorced, liberally raised mother, are not typically hotbeds of religious fervor. They are in fact (in my experience) the exact opposite.
However, there is something to be said for religious curiosity for the everyday Agnostic. And that is what I consider myself to be. Atheism for is just the other side of coin that mirrors right-wing, religious, Sarah Palin groupies. I’m open to the concept of a higher power. And why? I’m a tremendous fan of fact. Were said higher power to tap me on the shoulder and say, “Psst. Liam. I actually exist.” How could I deny that. And I’m sure that this higher power will be well equipped with clearly documented proof that proves its point. It is after all a higher power. And a higher power is organized power!
Maybe there is something bigger than us. And maybe I should go about finding it out. First of all, I skipped Buddhism in my religious conquest because with all it’s teachings of “tranquility” and “peace” I just though, “Well, who needs that shit?” Naturally I move on to the more discussed religions. Christianity and it’s sub-religions (remember organization is key, just ask the higher power) Catholicism and Mormonism. There are of course many other religions to dive into, but let’s face it. I’m a child of the twenty-first century. My attention span is shot, computers remember things for me and the notion of devoting a significant amount time researching something that in most cases causes a tremendous amount of anguish. I’m gonna pass. If it doesn’t come in an iPod app. I’m not interested.
Mormonism allows interesting practices. Let’s discuss the more shall we say…unusual ones. Magic underwear. Does it exist? Yes. Is it a religious entity? No. Magic underwear is underwear that can be found in any sex shop and if properly activated, can vibrate the bejesus out of your crotch until you feel that magic running all down you leg. Again magic underwear isn’t a religious thing. It’s an electrical gadget that now comes with a remote, for the truly lazy who are also children of the twenty-first century who themselves do not have time to reach down and turn their magic underwear on because they’re too busy Twittering about the experience. And no, Twittering is not serving a euphemism for anything. …Dirty birds.
I was disappointed that magic underwear proved to be an unsuccessful venture for me. I even had holy water doused on my Fruit of the Loom underwear. I love the Loom. Apparently, God does not. And let that be a note to all you sinners.
After further dabbling in Mormonism, y’know, shackin’ up with a couple of broads, and naming each and everyone of our seventy-one children Jim-Bob, regardless of gender, I moved on.
Now, Catholicism. That’s something I can get on board with. Have you seen the GUILT these people deal with. I live with that every single day. And I’m not even practicing. I really thought I had met my group of people. Guilty folk who help the poor-and what? The Priests are molesting kids? Hm. I’m out.
You guys, finding a religion that works for you in HARD! Especially when you have the likes of the right(wrong)-wing elite of the world so firmly clasped to these faiths.
In the meantime I don’t think that I can get on board with Jesus, Allah or Buddha, but there is one thing I know for sure. And that’s that Oprah holds more power than any of these deities combined. Have you seen how quickly she popularize a book or independent film?
Until next time, sweet dreams Oprah,
Liam
Jewish life is gangsta life.
Okay, the title is in absolute no relation to the story. Well, maybe except for the Jewish part. The…Jewishocity, if you will.
Growing up in Ottawa with an Irish family I looked like a troll. Not even in the metaphorical sense. Not in the way where, “troll” is code for something. I mean that I literally looked like something that should have lived under a bridge. Because you see, I am Irish, Italian…but I don’t look the part of the Irishman at all. It’s all Italian all the time. And when you’re a kid and you don’t see your physical features reflected in those around you, you feel like an alien.
The Italian side of the family was long gone and me and my giant nose were left all by our lonesome.
However, around the age of seven I made a remarkable discovery. It wasn’t treasure, it wasn’t a new singing sensation…it was the Jews. People who looked almost identical to myself. People who led with their nose and body hair.
And so naturally…as a seven year old, you think, “Well…this is what I am. A Jew.” This however, didn’t bode well when it came time to discuss the holidays in the first grade.
On a snowy December day, my first grade teacher Mme. Myrick (Merryk? Myricke? I can’t remember. I was seven.) pulls out two holiday themed calendars. One of Santa Claus for those that celebrate Christmas and one of the birth of Jesus for those that celebrate Chanukah. Well, being one of the chosen people I had to make the right choice. I selected the appropriate calendar which I had deemed apropos to my people.
I go to select my calendar. But really it was so much more than a calendar. It was a calling card, a sign, a lifestyle. It was everything I needed it to be and more. Those lame-os and their Santa Claus calendar! The guy doesn’t even exist! Now, Jesus, well, Jesus, now he’s a guy I can get on board with! Turns water to wine and the wine he hasn’t converted from water, he walks on. Now that’s plausible!
So I select my calendar. It’s then that Mme. M (I don’t want to try and spell her name anymore. I shouldn’t have to. I’m Jewish. Haven’t my people been through enough?) looks at me strangely.
“Liam, are you Jewish?”
“Uh…yeah.” (Tsh, duh.)
“You celebrate Chanukah?”
“Of course.” (The fact that I really celebrate Christmas is completely irrelevant.)
“I tell you what,” she said. “Go home tonight and ask your mom if you celebrate Christmas or Chanukah.”
“Done and done.” I figure…I got this.
That night, I’m home from school and my mom walks through the door from work. I greet her in the excitable fashion most seven year olds do when their parents walk through the door. But you can imagine the added gusto that was added to my greeting as a result of my new found way of life. My mother makes her way into the kitchen. Throwing her things on the kitchen table, filing through mail, unwinding from the day. It’s as she does this that I ask her, “Mommy, am I Jewish?” “…No,” she replies. And just like that, my new found sense of identity, gone. As though it never even existed. The promises of porkless life and dradle spinning gone. What am I to do now with this Mediterranean complexion and bushy arms?
And so…it was the next day that I returned to school, broken-hearted and jaded to my first grade teacher. And she then asked me the inevitable.
“So, are you Jewish?
And after a long pause I simply replied, “Yes. Yes I am.”
And for the rest of December I was the fake Jew in the corner counting down the days to Chanukah.
I guess what I’m trying to say is — if there’s a moral to this story — it’s this.
Happy Kwanzaa everybody. Let’s make this the best year ever.
Liam
Sex in the…oh, city, yeah, I guess it still applies.
Well, I’m planning the move to Toronto.
I’m a panic-person. So, right away, I think, “Hey, maybe I can be a hip and happening single person with wonderful affairs that will give me stories that will carry me into old age when I no longer have interesting stories and instead my days will just be spent sitting in the corner of an old folk’s home, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair staring at the corner of the room, mumbling incoherently about the children I never had.”
…Wait…what’s the negative alternative? Oh, yeah. OR! There’s the fear that I’ll go there, get raped and pillaged — and I don’t even know what pillaged means, BUT DEFINITELY raped by young hoodlums who’ll steal my money after leaving my ravaged money in the streets, using the money to buy nothing but beer and Playstations! Playstations! I mean, really!
Don’t worry. Man purse is now equipped with Mace and a rape whistle. Happy travels everyone!
Liam
“Don’t Come Around Here No More…”
I’m a host. And yet customers in the Pit seem to ignore the last two letters of my job title and just treat me like their ho. This is in direct reference to parents and their goddamn kids.
Believe it or not, I am a sensitive person. Tonally, this may not be in keeping with my blog, but I’m sensitive. And I’m sympathetic. I’m sympathetic to the fact that you pushed a watermelon through your hot pocket, and it will be this same watermelon that will probably wind up being a tremendous disappointment to you emotionally and financially. Have you seen the kids in university now? Yikes. It’s like someone just stuck a bunch of bad hangovers in a room and gave them really bad acne. Never before have I met a group of such remarkably inarticulate and self-absorbed people in the world. Can you only imagine the generation after them? I sense a downward spiral.
I digress.
But speaking of a downward spiral, that’s how my days feel when parents walk into the restaurant with their kids. Maybe it’s not so much the kids as it is their awful parents. After all, four year olds can’t be TOTALLY responsible for poor behavior. It’s really their parents that are the problem. Parents don’t push manners anymore, they don’t care if they speak to you disrespectfully and they certainly don’t care treating you like shit for their kids. Because after all…it’s all about…the children.
I don’t know. Maybe if I knew the full story I wouldn’t be so harsh. The family dynamic has changed so much. I can’t even count how many times at a table an entire family will sit there in silence, not talking, not looking at each other. Mom sits in silence, Dad preoccupied on the Blackberry, and the kids mindlessly play their video games, getting lost in their own worlds.
Granted, if I had kids I’d be pretty thrilled if they didn’t talk at all quite frankly. I’m good like that.
My new favorite trends amongst parents is when everyone thinks that their kid…is gifted. I know every parents thinks that their kids are best things on the goddamn planet, but I feel like once parents open their eyes to see just how miserable their children are, maybe everyone would be able to gain a little perspective.
Your children are not wonderful people. They’re not gifted, they’re not the smartest and they’re not God’s gift to the world
Wow. Bitter blog. Can you tell that some awful families have come into the Pit lately? That’s it. I’m getting my tube tied.
Liam
The Deforestation…of Porn
I am not a prude. Sex is not evil. And in fact, it has been statistically proven that violence shown in any media forum has been far more detrimental to the populous than sex, nudity or sexuality in any way.
But that is not the issue at hand. I’m not hear to preach about morals or ethical code, I’m here merely to debate…where did all the body hair go?
Now, while I’m may be a youngin’. I still have fond recollections from a simpler time when music was carried on a CD, sex scandals in offices of government were just being brought to light and when a woman’s lady garden was as thick as a New York slice of pizza.
Who are we to blame? Where does the buck stop? Is there any one person to blame or is this merely a passing trend? Let’s start from the beginning.
Sexual entertainment has been around for hundreds of years. They started off as drawings, manifested into toys and it was only in the 70’s that porn started to become the mainstream outlet that it’s become today.
Production value was low, but body hair was at an all time high. Men and women’s body types were more in line to that of which we are accustomed and mustache rides were in full swing.
These body types seemed to suffice. But something happened. Porn started making money, it became mainstream, it began to reflect and take on certain qualities that mainstream films were promoting. So called “perfect” body types, muscular builds, absurdly thin women and along the way…hairlessness. Why?
Do you know what grown people look like when they’re waxed down? …BABIES! These people literally look like babies with extremely adult features. Why? Are there porn studio heads that have secret baby fetishes? Do they feel the need to rejuvenate their adult performers so, that they need resemble the fragile fetuses from whence they came? Line up a file photo of a current adult entertainer and put next to a picture of your two week old and tell me that they don’t look exactly alike…well, okay, minus the cock ring.
This wouldn’t bother me so much except for the fact that these trends are no showing up on normal people going about everyday life. I swear, if I see one more guy with freshly grown chest hair peering from the top of his V-neck sweater from a recent shave, I’m gonna plotz…or…not shave. Wait. Which would be more effective?
Whatever. Shut up and listen to me. To my men and women in the film industry be you in porn or not…keep the body the way it is. (YOU NEED HAIR DOWN THERE!) You’re beautiful just the way you are. (IT’S LIKE LOOKING AT CAT’S TONGUE!) Accept your body just the way it is. (I VOMIT A LITTLE BIT IN MY MOUTH WHEN I SEE THE SOLE NEGLECTED PATCH OF HAIR THAT YOU FORGOT TO SHAVE! GO ALL THE WAY OR GO HOME!)
Step up beastly people. Step up.
Liam
P.S.
And stop it with the bad porno names. Your parents are probably embarrassed enough as it is. Stormy Daniels, how can you even sleep at night?
For my pal, M.J.
Gay-day, gay-gay!
Oh, Pride Day, what can I say about thee?
Okay, I know that Pride Day was and is very much an important, celebratory event that spreads awareness about human rights issues pertaining to the gay, lesbian and transgendered community across the board and I will say — I very much understand that, and that point was well noted. But, um…how can I say say this delicately…men should not wear dresses. I’m sorry. SOME men should not wear dresses.
Now, I don’t wanna be looksist or anything, but I’m sorry, fellas, ladies, divas, members of the gender unknown, some of y’all need to stick to jeans and T-shirt. Now. The shaving on some of you…very uneven. First of all. Not the way to go. You get Nair. And then you pray for a miracle. Second. …What ever happened to the little black dress? The simple, clean cut dress that says, “Why yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you,” or, “Of course I’m dressed and ready to go to your nana’s funeral!” The low-cut, high-cut, flamingo-esque, peacock resembling, rhinestone encrusted debacle that is your outfit! Wow! …With the over-the-top dress and the three inches of make-up, do you ever think…”Too much?”
Now of course, this could all just be stemming from a…let’s say, not too distant place of insane jealousy that one would even have the balls (Wait, do drag queens have balls. Again. Trying to be gender appropriate.) to decide to put on. First of all, it’s like a forest under my clothes. I’m not gonna lie. I’m of a very mangy breed. Hillary Clinton was right, it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a country to wax my legs.
Also, the dress. …Again, I’m not gonna lie, I gotta be honest, in a dress, I would be hyper aware of my penis. More so than I already am. And you should know that I’m probably more aware of it than most men are because realistically it’s there and I use it EVERY SINGE DAY. So, maybe a dress is not my best option.
Oh! And the amount of guys that forgot to wear pants with their buttless chaps! I wanted to say something, but I didn’t have the gumption to say anything because honestly, I can’t even bring myself to tell someone when their fly is down. It’s always like, “Arg! When is the right moment?!” But I hope those guys were okay. And you know the first thing they’re gonna think when they get home and look at themselves in the mirror is…”Oh, my god! How long have I not been wearing pants! Why didn’t anyone say anything?!” And to you buttless chapped men of Pride Day, I apologize.
It’s hard to find a way to sum up the entire day, but all I can say is that at the end of it all…I saw the most majestic sight. Caught in the branch of tree, blowing in the wind like it’s own little flag was a forgotten strand of weave hair. In light of gay freedom, I just couldn’t let stay caught. And I so let it go. I said, “Fly free, weave plug. Fly free.” And off it went.
“The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Happy Pride.
Liam
