"No Rain"

In Satiristas (which everyone should own and read), Judd Apatow says,

"When we were making 'Freaks and Geeks', NBC said, 'Why can't they ever win?' They tried to turn it into a wish-fulfillment show like they were used to making. 

We said, 'The whole point is they DON'T ever win - but they have each other. They MAY win in the end, but not right now. I had a sense of that myself as this funny kid, bad at sports, reading comic books and writing reports on the Marx Brothers - not for school, just for myself. I used to think, 'One day, these things will be COOL.'

When I moved to L.A. at seventeen, I started hanging out at the comedy clubs. I felt like that 'bee girl' in Blind Melon's 'No Rain" video, walking through the field and finding all these other people dressed like bees. I couldn't believe there were that many people with the same interests as me. I felt alone in high school; nobody else cared about comedy or was obsessed with Bill Murray or Monty Python or any of that. It was a great feeling to be in the comedy world, where suddenly, 'Oh, I'm NOT that weird? People VALUE that I know minutia about John Candy?"

I've probably said enough times that Penn Radio was my "bee girl" moment. It was the first time I looked through the gate and discovered there were other people who shared my point of view on god and religion. The "No Rain" video doesn't end at this discovery, however. "Bee girl" runs through the gate and begins dancing with all of the other "bees". This is the exact feeling I have when I get to moderate the LIVE chat during Ardent Atheist and Skeptically Yours. In my opinion, this is what the Internet does best. It allows small, disconnect pockets of like minded people to find each other and shed that sense of loneliness. It's where you can stumble on great sites like The Not Alone Project or The Coming Out Godless Project and read stories written by folks who are dealing with (or have dealt with) that same sense of isolation. You are not alone. Both The Not Alone Project and The Coming Out Godless Project were kind enough to post my "Spiderman Made Me an Atheist" story. I hope it helps someone who's feeling how I felt during my youth. Go to these sites and share your story. You never know who it might help.

Know Your Audience

"When the garrulous barber asks him, 'How shall I cut your hair?," a quick wit answers, 'Silently.' 

In a video I watched recently (see below), Jimmy Carr said this was the oldest known joke. I don't know if that's true, but I did learn that its earliest known telling is in an ancient document titled, Philogelos (Laughter Lover), that dates to the 3rd or 4th Century A.D. I have no idea how well this joke went over in Ancient Greece. I can tell you that it bombed this morning while I was getting my haircut. It did earn me a mostly silent haircut. I fear the result of that haircut is probably the funniest joke of all, however.

You can find a version of Philogelos translated into English by Professor William Berg here.

Granddad

As soon as the final fifth grade bell sounds, everyone I knew began telling me how awful my first year of middle school was going to be. They told me, and told me, and told me. They continued telling me throughout the summer (You ever notice how much quicker summer months expire?) It wasn't long after the opening bell of sixth grade that I figured out they had all been lying. It's not awful. Ask anyone involved, and they'll tell you the same thing. Teachers, students, parents, the custodial engineers (It would be rude to ask everyone else, and leave them out)...you name it. Sixth grade is not merely awful. It was the worst year of my life. And there's not an ounce of hyperbole in that sentence. 

Okay, there may not be hyperbole in that sentence, but I did leave off a crucial qualifier. Sixth grade was, in fact, the worst year of my life...up to that point. There are a number of reasons for this. For starters, I believe middle school teachers suffer from a condition similar to road rage. Something about being penned up with preteens sends them into outbursts of aggressive behavior. I learned that it wasn't that uncommon for a sixth grade teacher to shout obscenities at a disruptive class, or to throw a trash can across a room to get the attention of his students. Across the room and through a window. A closed window. True story. It wasn't a case of the inmates running the asylum. It was true, however, that a number of those running the joint should have been inmates. If the kind, elderly woman who taught your fourth grade class was Dr. Jekyll, the red-eyed, lunatic who taught your sixth grade shop class was certainly Mr. Hyde. 

Teachers were not the only change, though. All middle schools have an awful smell. It's created by pubescent boys who have yet to figure out that the foul aroma is actually emanating from their armpits. No middle school aged boy has ever heard the word deodorant. It's been shouted at him by his parents and teachers repeatedly, of course...he just hasn't heard it yet. The halls are filled with more than this malodorous stench. They are also filled with what appears to be real life giants. The students in eighth grade are only a year away from high school and many of them are huge. Not only that. A number of them have facial hair. Three months prior, I was one of the tallest kids in the school. Now, I'm straining my neck to (reluctantly) make eye contact with a bearded guy wearing a denim jacket covered in Iron Maiden patches, who reeks of cigarette smoke (Which is actually pleasant compared to the BO lingering everywhere else). As luck would have it, this monster is in your class because he's been held back the last two years. You know who else was in that class? Girls. When did they start letting girls in school? I swear, I didn't notice a single one of them in elementary school. Now they're everywhere and more interesting than pretty much everything else. Put all of these ingredients into a blender and you have middle school life. It's a huge culture shock and very intimidating. None of this has anything to do with sixth grade being the worst year of my life (up to that point).  

Roy Eugene Swam died January 1, 1986. You didn't know him, but that's okay. I didn't really know him, either. Despite growing up only a few miles from my father's father, we spent much more time visiting my mother's parents who lived farther away. If I had to guess (and I'm almost 40, so I do), I probably shared space with him two or three times a year up until I turned ten. It was about that time when, because of diabetes, he had the end of his left foot surgically removed. While he was recovering from his surgery, he moved in with us for awhile. Almost all the memories I have of my Granddad come from these few months. 

He was the most amazing house guest ever. Both of my parents worked and it was unusual for them to be home when we (my sister and I) got out of school. My Granddad lit up the minute we walked through the door. He was filled with questions about my school day. He would sit quietly with me while I did my homework or told him about some of the lunchroom antics of my classmates (never me, of course). Just the act of spending time with me seemed to fill him with joy. That meant a lot to me (still does). It's an odd thing to be unable to remember many specifics from those few months, but to have such vivid memories of the emotions I felt. If Doc Brown ever shows up at my house tomorrow in a Delorian equipped with a flux capacitor, I'll ask to travel back to those couple of weeks we got to spend with him.

We're going to borrow Doc Brown's gadget and fast forward to New Years Eve, 1985. I was eleven and my sister was nine. We were allowed to stay up to see the ball drop that year (it was a pretty big deal). My father worked a late shift with the police department at the time. He had many opinions about how a police department should be run, and was happy to share them. He told me several times that opinions were like assholes. Everybody has one, but not many people want to see (or hear) yours. Since he was unable to watch the ball drop with us, it didn't seem that unusual for him to call the house and say hello shortly after midnight. I remember the brief conversation he and my mother had, and I remember being upset to not get a chance to say hi to him. A short while after she hung up, she told us that Granddad had died. 

This was my first experience with death, and I was devastated. I didn't get a chance to know Granddad well, but what I knew of him, I liked a lot. He had a kindness and humor that was contagious, and I was never going to experience it again. The finality of it all was too much for me to wrap my head around. My father came home an hour or so after the phone call. I remember him coming into my room and sitting on my bed. He was still in his uniform. Just before he broke into tears he said to me, "At least he made it long enough to see the New Year." It was the first time I had ever seen my father cry (I've only see it happen one other time. We're very different that way.) I cried with him, and I'm crying again now as I write this.

My Granddad was a deeply religious man. He played the organ at his church and had perfect attendance for more than fifty years before he got really sick at the end. Years later, I learned that he gave a large amount of his savings to a con man, or televangelist. Which ever you prefer. I have a few blurry memories of his funeral service. People said kind things and talked of seeing him again some day. I do remember being lured in by the thought of seeing him again. I had given up believing in god, but maybe there was a way I could be reunited with my Granddad.

I have trouble remembering too much about his funeral, but I have very clear memories of a get together at my Uncle's house after the funeral. What sticks in my mind are the stories told about my Granddad. No one talked about the last year or so when he became sick. They were sharing happy stories, from a healthier time. My father told a story of Granddad chasing him out of the house after he had gotten into some trouble in school. My Dad was a high school football star (another way we are very different) and thought for sure that Granddad would never catch him (he was a short man). He jumped a fence at the end of their backyard into a farmer's field, and thought he'd glance back to celebrate his escape. Instead he turned to see Granddad coming down the other side of the fence, right on his tail. My father decided at that point to give in and accept his punishment. The laughter and smiles that filled my Uncle's living room that night...those I'll always remember. It was obvious that my Granddad was a great man and those closest to him would hold him in their hearts for as long as they lived. That was how he would live on. 

When I returned to school, I remember my sixth grade math teacher asking me how my grandfather was doing. I told her that he had died shortly after the ball had dropped on New Years. Sadly, one of the clearest memories of my Granddad's death is what she said to me. "Well, he's in a better place now." What?!? What place would that be? How was that "place" better than here with the ones who loved him most? Other than those few moments at my Granddad's funeral, I had never given much thought to whether or not there was an afterlife. No one I knew personally had ever died before. These were new and difficult questions to consider. Would I ever see him again? I didn't know. I was too upset and too young to have an answer to that. One thing was certain. Her comment, though well intended, offered me no consolation. 

I learned an important lesson from my Granddad's death. I would have loved some more time to spend with him. There was no guarantee, however, that time will come. What we do have is the time we share with one another in THIS life. That's the life I want to celebrate and take advantage of. It's something I could still do a better job of. What can never be taken from me are the memories of my Granddad. Some I formed on my own and some I've acquired second hand. Some are more accurate than others, I'm sure. All of these memories come back to me every December 31st . It's because of this (in my twisted mind at least) that he's been able to see every New Year since. 

I'm Fatsighted

Yesterday, in an attempt to poke fun at myself, I posted the following on Facebook:

I have (as far as I know) a rare condition. If an object is just far enough away that I can't make out what it is, I automatically see it as food. For example, my wife had left a striped rag on a table in our room after cleaning. From my chair, it looked like a plate of striped fudge (boy was I disappointed.) I've searched and searched the Internet and I can't find an official name for this. Rare medical conditions are like distant objects in the sky. If you find it, you name it. (Okay. It probably doesn't work like that. Cut a fat guy a break.) So, I'm calling it fatsightedness. Snappy, huh?

Like any person (loser) who writes a post with a fake "rare medical condition" that receives 11 "likes" on Facebook...I submitted my new word (fatsighted) to Urban Dictionary. They've since approved it (you can see it here). So, when people want to now what's taking so long to write my book...I'll point them to this blog post. And, if you could've seen my wife's face when I said, "Cool. Look dear, I can even get a mug with my word and the definition printed on it!"...you'd probably have a better understanding of why it's taking me so long to have sex again.

Under god?

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." 

Not anymore, you jackass. I'm talking about when I was younger...better. School-aged. They made us say it every morning. But to answer your question, no...I don't say it anymore. I guess I could have changed that first sentence to "I pledged allegiance...", but that's not the line. Please hold your questions until the end. Thank you. Now, let's try this again...

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." 

It wasn't until the fifth grade that I starting paying attention to the words in this thing. Why were they asking us to pledge allegiance to an inanimate object, anyway? It didn't make any sense. I was as happy to live in America as the next kid in the room, but what did that have to do with pledging to a flag. It would make more sense if you were pledging allegiance to a flag... 

"and to the republic for which it stands"

Oh. Well, okay. That made it a little more sense, but what does it mean to pledge allegiance to a republic? Were they asking me to blindly follow the country, no matter what? And what did they mean by "country"? The people? In that case, I'd probably be okay with it. I'd met mostly good ones at that point. Of course, I'd only met my family, a handful of teachers, and a few cool kids that taught me how to do "the worm". I think it's safe to say that at ten years old, I hadn't met a bunch of people. Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about. I did know the government had done some awful things. What if they did something else that was really shitty? There were tens (even dozens!) of missiles pointed at the Soviet Union. Professor Boyd put Bonzo to bed and then somehow made his way to Washington. He had his finger on the scary buttons. (Okay, fine. Reagan probably didn't put his finger on any of those buttons. But they would have let him had he wanted to). There was more, though. I'd just seen a movie with Rambo (John J). The government screwed him over and left him for dead. Of course, he went on a one man killing spree and managed to survive, but it was still a shitty thing for the government to do to him. After all, we were supposed to be... 

"one nation under God"

Wait...what?!? Why is that in there. I definitely wasn't saying that part. I didn't know much at ten years old, but I knew there was no Spiderman, no Santa Claus, and there was probably no god. (I was still undecided on the Rambo thing). I couldn't be the only one that didn't believe, right? There had to be others, right? Come to think of it, I hadn't heard anyone else say they didn't believe in god. Surely others existed, right? And if they did, why would the government put those words "under god" in this stupid thing. Does that mean I'm not included? (When I said hold questions to the end...I was talking about you. Not me. I'll ask all the fucking questions I want). I mean, if we're supposed to be... 

"Indivisible. With liberty and justice for all." 

...why the fuck were they excluding me. I really liked that last line, but isn't it null and void if this pledge thing only applies to people who believe "under god"? Fuck them, I'm not saying it! They can't make me. I'll say the rest of the stupid words, but I'm not saying those two.

And I didn't. Day after day, week after week, I omitted those two words each time I said the Pledge of Allegiance. Soon, it wasn't enough to not say the words. I wanted something more. I started closing my mouth in a very goofy looking, animated way during those two words. I closed my mouth hard and even lifted up on my toes while the other kids happily chanted along. Boy, I was clever. So clever, in fact, that the teacher noticed my little one man protest. Apparently, those two words meant a lot to him, because he promptly marched me to the office.

I was a good kid. I had never been to the office for a disciplinary reason. I was scared. When we arrived at the office, my teacher announced my crime to everyone. I was not saying the Pledge "correctly" and my parents needed to be notified right away. It got worse. The principal decided they would be called into the school. The school was going to fix me right away. 

I'll never forget seeing my parents walk through the door to the office. My father was in his police uniform and he looked really angry. When he saw me, however, he gave me a big smile. My mother did, too. They announced themselves to the secretary and the principal invited them back to his office. He offered them a seat, but my father said he'd rather stand. "This won't take long," he said. I was seated in the lobby area, but within earshot of all that was said. The principal began to speak, but my father cut him off right away. He told him without any hesitation that I didn't have to say any of the words in the Pledge. He added how angry he was to be called from work for such a ridiculous thing. The principal tried to "correct" him, but that wasn't going to happen. He told the principal the conversation was over. Dad walked over and told me I didn't have to say it and they weren't allowed to make me. I must have looked scared, because my father turned to the principal and announced that I'd had enough fun for one day. They would be taking me home with them. Stunned, the principal told me to go gather my things. 

As we walked out of the building that day, I looked up at the flag outside of the school. I think it was at that moment that being an American made sense to me. I was free to believe what I want. No teacher, no principal, no government could take that away from me. My little protest had worked, and I was filled with pride as we walked to our car. My parents both hugged me before we got inside to drive off. Once inside, my mother began to cry, and all my feelings of pride and victory disappeared fast. I knew why she was crying. Her son didn't believe in god. My father told her it would be okay. 

The lesson I really learned that day? Telling people you didn't believe in god caused a lot of drama. It made assholes angry and it made the people you loved sad. I promised myself that I would never tell anyone again. A promise I kept for a long, long time.