Creation vs. the Creative Process (Nate Offends Everybody)

“First time I read the bible

It struck me as unwitty

I think it may start a rumor

That the Lord aint got no humor”

-Gogol Bordello, Supertheory of Supereverything

The greatest, most imaginative and inspiring work of science fiction is our own universe, in its entirety.

It is with the utmost humility that I make the following statements. For I am no more inclined to understand the mind of God than anyone else, and I am certainly not a prophet. With that said, I am now going to make a rather bold claim, which I believe will shed some light on a misconception that has existed both within the Christian and the secular spheres of reality for, well, somewhere between 6,000 years and several billion years, depending on your particular cosmological persuasion. And speaking of which, I am going to settle that dispute while I’m here. So I will now climb from the trenches of insecurity, meekness, and deference, where I make my home, and don the mantle of authority, if only for a few minutes, before being booed off the stage, and I will at least be able to take solace in that everyone is in agreement, even if they only all agree that I am wrong.

In this age of reason, Christianity is taken about as seriously as astrology, and is seen as even less intriguing, to boot. It is seen as anti-intellectual, backwards, oppressive, and generally irrelevant; we don’t need those kinds of answers, one will argue, because science has answered them for us. Which is why I feel it is more socially acceptable to admit that I don’t like any of the songs off of Thriller than saying that I am a Christian. (Seriously, I must be missing something because I do not understand how seven of those songs were in the top 10.) I believe that I have a richer perspective on Christianity, and religion in general, because it’s not something in which I have always believed. Growing up I spent an unnatural amount of Sundays with my dad at the planetarium or at the local wetlands museum (which is way cooler than it sounds), or simply dissecting insects and animals I found in the woods, and a grand total of zero at a church of any kind. My mom had the churchgoing habits hammered out of her years before, but would occasionally go to random churches and sit through a service to get free coffee if, we couldn’t afford any, because, like addicts of any other drug, caffeine users need their fix. So I believe in science, all of it, and all of the post-hippie fallout, minus the vegetarianism, because physiologically, we pretty much evolved to be pack hunters, which is an entirely different subject to tackle in an entirely different essay. Growing up free of any religious instruction, I am now free to make intelligent, rational conclusions about my faith. Despite whatever problems I have with doctrine, authority, and organized religion as a whole, choosing to follow Jesus was the surest my otherwise cripplingly indecisive mind was of anything. Taking close second was the decision that I wanted to be a writer. (In third place: “Indian food is delicious.”)

I’m not exactly sure why it happened when it did, and I’m equally mystified about what I wanted to do with my life before, but I was literally in mid-sentence when I decided that I wanted to be a writer. I think before this revelation, I wanted to be some kind of scientist, probably having to do with biotech, kind of, because enzymes are pretty rad, and there are at least as many in the human body as there are words in the English language. But there I was, an ambitionless kid about to enter his senior year of high school, for whom dreaming big consisted of fitting upwards of thirty grapes in my mouth at a time and maybe talking to a girl without crapping myself (not at the same time), and all of a sudden I had this conviction that this was what I needed to do with my life. And yes, I may end up living in the box for an Ikea lamp fixture underneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, but right now I’m on a mission. (And for the record, of course it will be under the Brooklyn end of the BQE, because that's where all the artsy people live.)

The problem then arises, for us intellectually-inclined Christians (which should be all of us), is how to reconcile scriptural “truths” with scientific facts. Viewing the bible this way, as simply a list of facts, turns it into a storybook, and takes away from what it was intended to be: the most important instruction manual that exists. But the debate still rages as to the veracity of the opening passages. Predominantly, this focuses on the origin of the universe and the origin of life, whether or not it was created, or it evolved. After finally figuring out how to take my writing seriously, I have come to realize that both sides have misunderstood the issue, because of a pernicious misconception about what it is to create something.

Any kind of sentient creator or architect for the Universe would seem to be out of synch with standard science, in which the universe is roughly 12.4 billion years old and where everything came to be the way it is today, life especially, through gradual changes that were based mostly on trial and error and accidents, some beneficial and some not so beneficial. Everything from evolution to the big bang theory, and even Copernican cosmology, seemed to fly in the face of the notion of what it meant to be “created.” When these alternative theories of creation emerged, the church’s knee-jerk response was to condemn them, because the church felt that they were antithetical to the notion of a divine creation and undermined everything for which the church stood. And if man was nothing but an accident, then what is the impetus, if any, behind salvation, or is there even salvation at all? The notion of evolution causes one to question whether there is even a creator at all, with the conclusion usually being that there is none. The two theories seem irreconcilable. And they are, with our current, working definition of creation. But the Christian conception of creation, of the creation of life and the universe itself and everything in it, is nothing more than a gross misunderstanding of what it really is to create something. I do not know whether this is due to a lack of creative people or simply because so few rigorously partake in the creative process, but I did not understand, until I undertook to rigorously perfect my writing, that there is a long and complicated series of events that take place between impulse and the actual product of that creative impulse.

When one thinks of an idea, it is just that, an idea. It has nothing physical by which to be represented, and it is fuzzy, lacks form, has holes, lacks internal cohesion. It is only when one tries to act on that idea, and turn it into something physical, that it begins to take shape as something that can exist in a physical universe, and subsequently be understood or consumed. In other words, the limitations and complications of putting a creative idea into practice, although they may alter it, serve to perfect the original idea. As it is translated from thought into action or physical form, every detail must be painstakingly constructed, so that the entire creation fits together as a perfect whole. And at a certain point, details are generated spontaneously; nuances in language and connotation lead to entirely new ideas, the structure of one sentence can shift the direction of an entire passage, subconsciously the idea is constantly reevaluated and updated to accommodate how these accidental details affect the whole.

And an idea is never static when it is being creatively applied. Things aren’t necessarily changed because the old was inferior, but because one inspiration generates another inspiration.

Then there are revisions, numerous drafts, where ideas that don’t work are thrown out or are modified. And I can’t even imagine how many more I personally would have to make were it not for the magical word processor. The whole structure can be changed, every minute detail can be changed, and sometimes only the core idea or motif remains. And even that is not set in stone. But it is these changes and revisions that preserve, then distill and clarify the idea. Tolstoy re-wrote War and Peace seven times. Leo, bless his sanity, wrote the novel six more times than most people will read it, and he certainly couldn’t skim over any passages. It’s an arduous process that takes many many attempts, each attempt a wholly different macro-entity.

When I say revision, I do not mean a re-write where mistakes are corrected. I mean a recreation of the work, articulating ideas differently, experimenting with structure, form, cause, and effect. And in this case the revision is constant.

The difference between our creative subjects and God’s creative subjects, and what complicates the model more than a little, is that God’s subjects seem to be, at least to a certain extent, up to their own devices. Subatomic particles decay at a rate that is constant, but when the specific particle decays is completely up to chance. Atoms and molecules vibrate randomly. UV rays slice through DNA and other organic tissue. And then of course, there is the added dynamic of free will to complicate things. Imagine if some of Chaucer’s pilgrims had decided that, hey, they didn’t really want to go to Canterbury, and instead headed off to London or Venice or Baghdad or off to find the New World. It would certainly create a problem, wouldn’t it?

Whether or not we are the final draft is another sticky subject, and the answers may not be as universally apparent. But if man is created in God’s image, would it then mean that we are the end, the final draft? We may have reached God’s physical image but the world is still changing and we continue to have the power of changing it. And I like to think of God’s work as never being finished, so there isn’t going to be a final draft. The first one was good enough to publish. The revisions may go on forever, just for revision’s sake.

We cheapen God and we cheapen the majesty of His creation by thinking of it as a singular process. To think of creation as a single, temporally isolated event – rather than one which is in a constant state of revision and re-perfecting – is an underestimation of the wisdom of God.

And you may say that I am yanking God off His pedestal and placing him on a human level, bound by earthly constraints and all the other baggage that comes with existing inside the universe. That this take on creation, that God’s initial concept of the universe and everything it contains, from protons to platypuses, was not already supremely perfect from the beginning, would imply that God himself is not perfect. And, this potentially reeks of understanding God on human terms. But once again, you are selling both God and yourself short. A superentity of the utmost perfection would surely use the most perfect method for creating the most perfect work. Creation on a whim, that is what is imperfect, and that is the action of an imperfect being.

Instead of thinking of things as something that came to be with a “thou shalt be this,” it makes much more sense that it is one of a string of infinite possibilities, that many ideas of it have been tried before, and many more ideas will be tried in the future. We are part of God’s creative process, and I feel blessed to be part of it.

Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean that you automatically become a good person, and despite what people will tell you, it doesn’t make you into any worse of a person either. It’s applying that creative process to crafting a righteous person of yourself. And everyone will fail at some point, I know I have. That doesn’t necessarily mean a pious person or a clean person or a sober person or even a person with strong morals, but someone who will better the world, and have faith that the world can be bettered through conscious reevaluation of the self within and of the universe without. And that is why I write, both to better the world, and to understand the process through which the world is bettered, that process being the creative process. Creativity made the world what it is today, and creativity can save the world. But we can’t be scared of it. We can’t be scared to throw out what doesn’t work, accept what does, and constantly revise everything, and I, too must not be afraid to throw out sentences, paragraphs, whole tracts even , which are insufficient, and push my comfort zone to find what is sufficient.

I want you to question what you believe in, be it total atheism or literal biblical creation, and everything in between. Let’s say this is third in the hierarchy of things I am certain of, edging out “Indian food is delicious.” Everything we know and observe came to be exactly how scientists will tell you it happened, and the change was driven by the exact same mechanisms. But that is creation, that is God whipping things into being, as He sees fit, because the God in whom I believe is the most creative individual I know, and I would pray that I could have an infinitesimally small fraction of His creative genius, if genius is even a loaded enough word.

And this conclusion is only the beginning. May peace be upon you and may the world never stay the same.

Let's Be History

The last known survivor of World War I died today.  His name was Frank W. Buckles, and he was 110.  The dude was born in a home without electricity and lived to have his own facebook page.  Perhaps this is not all that remarkable, because someone of my generation will pull off a similar feat.  They may say of the oldest surviving veteran of the War on Terror that he was born in a home without robot butlers and lived to have his consciousness uploaded into a massive orbital database.  But as far as we're concerned right now, that's impressive.

The ancient Greeks, pre-Herodotus believed that history was accurate until it was two generations removed from those who experienced it.  In other words, if I were to tell someone, on my deathbed, about Obama's election, and he, in turn, were to tell my account to someone else on his deathbed, that recipient's generation would be the last to have an accurate account of the story, before Obama turned into the son of Zeus and some unlucky rape victim, and won the presidency after slaying the minotaur.  Granted, this was back before they bothered to write things down, because no one could read and barbarians were constantly invading and using histories as toilet paper.

World War I was the destruction of an old world order, and lead to the formation of a new one, which, once again, has become obsolete.  With Buckle's death also comes the realization that World War I was not the start of the modern age.  The world has now gone from being bipolar - with the world aligned along the lines of the USA and the USSR - to being schizophrenic, with dozens of other nations becoming more economically powerful and getting better at basketball.  (Seriously, Lithuania?)  World War I has now faded into the background of history, something that none of us have experienced and something that can only be read about, never fully understood as it once was.

So, to everyone who reads this, I have a challenge for you.  Participate, somehow, in something that you think will be defining of our era.  That doesn't mean go out and enlist, or, conversely, strap on a vest of plastic explosives and run into a mosque pertaining to the other sect during Friday prayers.  (In fact, please don't do the second one.)  Go live in a tree in the rain forest before they're all wiped out, or fight some Japanese whalers.  Bring democracy to your military dictatorship nation.  Attend a gay wedding.  Get your life ruined by a social gaffe on facebook.  Or just, I don't know, catch Bieber Fever if you can't come up with anything cool to do.  You don't have to do it now, but when you do, make sure it pushes your comfort zone, and you walk away with a good story to tell.  And tell it to everyone who will listen.

I was going to post about something else (probably how sports are important) but then I read about Mr. Buckle's death, and I forgot what I was going to write about and wrote this instead.  Because I think it's important.  We're all going to be part of history someday.  It's said of Herodotus that, "if it isn't true, it ought to be," and I want to live in an era where what is true and what ought to be true are one in the same.

My Confused Inner Caveman

I know that it's not actually based on science, but I sometimes think that my caveman body, that is, my primitive, pre-civilization body has a mind of its own and is trying to interpret the world in which it lives, and explain it in terms that it knows.  And I imagine it must be very confused, because it has to deal with all sorts of unnatural things, like routinely traveling at 60+ miles an hour, high fructose corn syrup, and whatever the hell they put in NyQuil.

I tend to make one meal with a lot of leftovers, and subsist off it for at least two days.  This makes sense to my inner caveman, because he expects that the only thing in the fridge is what he killed a few days ago.  But more often than not, it's probably more confusing, because he's thinking "what, I run all day and all I catch is spaghetti?  Where's the mastodon?"

That's probably also why I always need to be munching on something when I'm sitting down.  He's saying "hey man, what are we doing just sitting here, we could be foraging for berries or something."  Half of that translates to action; I munch on a bag of chips or something and keep sitting there, and as long as he's getting fed he's happy, because for all he knows, it's still the ice age and the next meal could be a long ways away.

When I go to Costco to stalk up on non-mastodon foodstuffs, I'm able to get almost a full meal out of free samples.  This makes sense to him, because it's like foraging.  A bunch of small amounts of random foodstuffs are coming his way, but he has to wait for it, and seek it out.

He's probably wondering why I haven't had my head smashed in at least once by a heavy blunt object, and why my feet never really seem to hit the ground, almost as if something is strapped onto my feet.  He wonders what this kind of cave it is I live in - it seems too bright and never the temperature that would be expected.  When I watch TV, he wonders why this strange kind of fire entertains me so much.  Why so many hot liquids going down your throat? he thinks, why so many chemicals in the air you breathe?  And when I eat a banana, he thinks "I didn't come all the way down from the trees just to eat like a damn monkey!"  (This also happens when I eat insects from off my friends' backs.)

And I'm sure that for most people, their inner caveman is even more confused.  They're sedentary, for the most part, and they stay up all night and are half-asleep while the sun is up.  And their biggest adrenaline rushes seem to come when they're sitting down, seemingly doing nothing fight or flight-y at all.  We've lost touch with part of what we are.  We've gained a lot, but I can't help wonder if it all just serves to make our bodies confused.

In reality, there is no thought behind any of our biological processes.  But it's amusing enough to think otherwise, if only to realize how different we have become, and how far we are removed, from what we as humanity did not so long ago.

One From Dan Quayle - "Spaceship Earth"

Since some of you have expressed powerful feelings of rage, loss, injustice and emptiness after A Tribute to Dan Quayle was taken down, and because I am constantly trying to work the most favorable ratio of content to effort, I will be reposting some of its brighter moments, complete with new epigraphs and maybe even some meta-commentary.  Here's a post about (the now deceased) Spaceship Earth, circa May 2009.

"It's so cold and lonely out here in outer space

At least I've got my keyboard and my low bot has its bass"

-Pepper, Stormtrooper

My car is a spaceship. It has disguised itself as a sedan from the early nineties to hide from bounty hunters. The windows are tinted to the point where they are probably not safe, and probably not entirely legal either. I bought it from a guy on Monument whom I found through Craig's List. He was moving back to India. I have named it Spaceship Earth because it is green, and after the quote by Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, which states "...for on God's Spaceship Earth, with bomb and gun, we're All One or none. All One! Exceptions eternally? Absolutely none!" It's a wonder that anyone still talks to me.

There is a shipboard AI, which is the after-market stereo system that was installed in the car. There is a life support system (AC), data readouts (the little button that I press to get the outside temperature), and a cargo hold (the trunk). The driver's seat is the bridge. The passenger seat is the navigator's seat, who sometimes has to assume the role of the gunner. The driver side back seat is the barracks, and the passenger side back seat is the brig, becasue the passenger side back door only opens from the outside. The middle seat in the back is just the bitch seat, because some things are the same in both spaceships and cars.

When the sun roof is open, it becomes the gunnery. When at least one window is rolled down all the way, Spaceship Earth is in atmospheric mode. When the windows are up, it is in interstellar mode. When in atmospheric mode, I can do research by sticking my hand out the window. When in neutral, I am cruising in stealth mode, as my engine is idling, and therefore, I emit fewer heat signatures.

Aboard Spaceship Earth, there are two protocols that are constantly in effect, and several others that are initiated as needed. The conditional protocols are the internal de-moisturizing protocols (primary, secondary, and tertiary), external demoisturizing protocols (primary and secondary, the first of which involves deploying the moisture shields), energy conservation protocol (when decelerating with the intent of stopping, I pop it into stealth mode), and the life support moderation protocol, which means that I cannot use the life support system if the outside temperature is within ten degrees of the desired temperature and atmospheric mode is a feasable option.

The two protocols that are constantly in effect are the primary introduction protocol and the stack protocol. The primary introduction protocol states that whenever it is a passenger's first time in Spaceship Earth, they must be given a complete briefing on the features of Spaceship Earth, regardless of circumstances. The stack protocol states that whichever CD is currently in the shipboard AI, if it has a case, must have its case at the top of the stack of CDs in the storage space directly below the shipboard AI. There are no exceptions to either of these protocols.

But Spaceship Earth is not just a collection of absurdities to represent the world that goes on in my head and takes over when my conciousness can't take anymore of real reality. Spaceship Earth is my room, my bubble, my place in space. It is where I can think about things, it is where I can talk about things, it is where I can reason, where I can work out the big and small issues, some of which matter and some of which don't. Spaceship Earth has a mind, it can think and respond and understand. And together we have this kind of synergy, the perfect marriage of artificial and organic intelligence. Whatever it is, the ship knows me, and I know the ship. But we fly though space with nothing to defend, we are drifting and never quite in orbit, not to mention taht there are no satelites around us. Ship doesn't mind, but it makes me a little melancholy. But only a little.

Sometimes in the deep voids of interstellar space, I'll walk the dark corridors and think "something is missing."  Especially in the service ducts for the computor systems in the bridge. Maybe I'm too crazy to fix them, or not crazy enough; it may be that it'll take someone crazier than I to repair all the systems. Or maybe just someone competent.

Either way, we make a damn good team as it is, and thanks to the well established system of protocols, especially the stack protocol, everything runs smoothly.

The sad thing is that now, as I am really getting an understanding of this thinking space I have discovered, it will probably not be joining me next year, as I will probably not need a car where I am going. But I am not going to sell it, because I will need a car again eventually, and I probably wouldn't get enough to justify the trouble of selling it. That's ok. I'm going to drive this thing until it falls apart on the interstate. (Strangely enough, this is exactly what ended up happening.) Because dammit, for once, it's a space that I have made my own, and I can finally do some good thinking in there.

So be warned, if you ask me for a ride, you may be in for a long speech about all the features and the importance of having three different de-moisturizing protocols. But don't let that deter you, because it is a place where everything in your brain will allign itself properly, all the cells have the optimum osmotic pressure, all the molecules are vibrating at the same frequency, and everything makes sense. Trust me.

Super Bull Prediction

Pre-game: Reporters ask various players "what's going through your head right now?"  All of them will respond with "I'm just gonna go out there and play a good game of football."  Do they expect any other kind of answer.  I mean, most of these guys barely made it through high school.

1st Quarter

15:00 - Steelers win the coin toss.  Typical asshole Steeler fans will act as though this is what their team is entitled to, as it has been willed by both God and the Founding Fathers.

14:52 - Packers take to the field with tomahawks, wounding a forgettable member of the Steelers special teams.  Cut to first commercial break.  Commercial involving talking squirrels who understand the nuances of managing a stock portfolio.

12:38 - Steelers finish their first drive with a touchdown, but there is some controversy.  From the camera angle in one of the replays, it appears that members of the Steelers offensive line were operating a tank on the field.  Cut to commercial featuring pop star drinking Pepsi.

10:15 - Greg Jennings steps on a land mine planted on the Packer's 30 yard line.  His left leg is destroyed below the knee.  Cut to commercial featuring lobsters using a Xerox machine.

7:30 - Packers get on the board, using a trick play that involves crashing a blimp into the field.  Cut to fear mongering commercial that makes you terrified for your family's financial future, and realize that the best option is to get AIDS asap.

4:15 - Ben Roethlisberger rapes a woman during a timeout.  (Too soon, too soon...)

2:13 - Packers get into field goal range, in part with the help of Greg Jennings' partially-intact tibia bone, which they are using as a bludgeon.  Cut to commercial for godaddy.com featuring Ben Rothlisberger raping a godaddy.com girl.  (Ok, that was really too soon.  At least I'm not making overplayed Michael Vick jokes.)

0:15 - An IED that has been planted inside the game ball explodes.  Hamas claims responsibility.

2nd Quarter

15:00 - Steelers take to the field equipped with riot control gear.  Packers respond by dawning keffiyehs and throwing rocks at them in front of cameras.

13:10 - After a few tense minutes and a whole lot of teargas, the Steelers open fire.

12:30 - Aaron Rodgers calls in an air strike.

10:15 - Once the Steelers are able to regroup and get their communications satellite back online, they regroup on their own 40 yard line.  Roethlisberger orders a tactical nuke strike.  Cut to commercial using racial stereotypes to illustrate a cell phone company's extensive coverage.

8:58 - Packers use microwave satellites to focus beams of energy that cause Steelers players' brains to melt and ooze out of their ears.  Cut to commercial featuring bears mauling fast food employees.

7:00 - Clones of the Steelers special teams take the field to return a punt.  This tactic, used to minimize potential injuries, is ruled perfectly legal by the referee.

4:23 - Aaron Rodgers rides an elephant onto the field.

2:13 - Steelers score another touchdown by having Hines Ward jump into a black hawk helicopter which then lands in the end zone.  Cut to commercial featuring dinosaurs buying auto insurance.

2:06 - Packers defense is equipped with RPGs to prevent another touchdown like that last one.

1:15 - Camera cuts to man wearing cheese on his head for the 5,725th time.

0:47 - Steelers get dirty and break out the mustard gas

Halftime

The Black Eyed Peas fail to appear on stage.  Upon further investigation, it is revealed that they have been eaten by Troy Polamalu.

3rd Quarter

15:00 - Greg Jennings takes to the field again, with a new leg grown by the resident mad scientist on the Packers' sports medicine team.

14:30 - Ben Rothlisberger reveals his true form - BEN ROBOTBERGER: A giant angry robot who shoots lasers out of his mouth.

11:15 - Troy Polamalu poops out the Black Eyed Peas.  On the field.

10:55 - "My Humps" heard emanating from Troy Palamalu's Black Eyed Peas poop.

9:23 - Packers develop high-density neutrino cannons, and they are not a moment too soon, because at...

9:06 - Steelers release nano-drones onto the field.  Cut to commercial featuring John Madden birthing Siamese twins from a Raiderette with tentacles for hands

4:15 - Packers find a way to put the stadium under null gravity.  Ender Wiggin reminds the Steelers that the enemy end zone is down.

2:12 - Zombie JFK intercepts a pass intended for Greg Jennings, before Castro blows of his head with a sawed off shotgun.  Cut to commercial featuring talking baby birthing John Madden from a diversified stock portfolio

0:15 - Packers get another field goal, which is really easy to do in zero gravity.

4th Quarter

15:00 - Puke from 60,000 spectators feeling the effects of zero gravity is flying all over the stadium.

13:12 - Packers nuke the Steelers while they are in huddle.

12:50 - Ben ROBOTberger may have been destoryed, but Ben Cockroachberger can survive any nuclear holocaust!

10:09 - With puke everywhere, no gravity, and every player bleeding from their eyeballs and from under their fingernails due to radiation poisoning, the game will become a disorganized mess.  Cut to commercial featuring a can of Pepsi drinking a pop singer drinking the blood of the first born John Madden

6:66 - Satan comes on the field, steals Mike Tomlin's wallet.

5:12 - After a plague of space leprosy (from the future!) sweeps through the field, cut to commercial featuring talking babies drinking Bud Lite after successfully diversifying stock portfolio by investing in Pepsi, life insurance, and X-Treme Mouth Rape Spicy Doritos.

4:48 - Michael Moore announces that he will be making a documentary about this game, and how it could have been done much better in Europe.

3:18 - To hold off a Steelers drive, Packers re-locate their end zone to a small comet in elliptical orbit around the sun.  Cut to commercial break featuring talking babies with erectile dysfunction getting a tip from a caveman John Madden to use Viagra.

2:04 - Commercial featuring talking babies with massive, 4 hour long erections sodomizing talking lobsters making photocopies of pop singer drinking Pepsi-flavored Bud Lite.  Strangely enough, this is actually a commercial for godaddy.com, and you need to go there to find out what happens next.  (Hint: it involves tentacles... lots of them!)

0:00 The game ends and America goes back to whatever it is America does.

And that is what will happen tomorrow.

A Tribute To A Tribute To Dan Quayle

The internet is now a slightly more intelligent place.  In order to alleviate the burden of its embarrassing presence, I have finally taken down my old blog, A Tribute to Dan Quayle.  Actually, it hasn't actually been taken off the internet yet, but currently it's set so that only I can view it.  And although it was, well, pretty awful, I feel that I should at least give it a decent wake.

About five years ago I started A Tribute to Dan Quayle, which was then originally entitled "Nate's Naterrific Blog," for really no apparent reason.  This would be the medium through which I discovered my voice as a writer.  (You could say that this actually happened when I wrote No Time for the Meek, but you have to be really special to know what that is.  Still, I think the first 30 or so pages of that are the highest quality of work I have ever produced.)  Now, as I said, the writing is abysmal, there is no focus or coherence to most of the posts, and until you get to the Processing Cycle, it's not really going anywhere.  Then it ends with a long, overwrought post where I try to sum up everything I had learned in the past three and a half years and then it dies and then the Ozone Shack was born two months later.

Sad that you missed out on A Tribute to Dan Quayle?  Don't be.  I can summarize it all right here.

"Here Comes the Food Pyramid" through "Hi"

I have a lot of things to say, and I will say them in a semi-coherent manner.  There are many amusing incidents that I wish to share with you, and I think you will be interested by them.  The food pyramid is a bad invention. I run a lot.

"Big Week" through "Legit"

I am passionate about running.  I want to be really good, but it is frustrating.  I have some more observations to make, but they make even less sense than before.  You want to hear about my track meets? No?  Well too bad, you have to!

"Speeches, Wreaths, Babies, Old People, and Running Man '06" through "Sim City"

I am slowly coming to terms with the world, and beginning to observe it critically rather than just accepting it and making snarky yet humorously disarming remarks about it.  I am growing up, but I am not maturing.  Or maybe I am maturing but not growing up.  It's kind of hard to tell.

"The Adventures of Emo Foot" through " Apple Jacks Were a Good Choice"

My foot is broken, I am sad, I am useless, I have nothing to contribute.  I am going to play some more Sim City.  The best thing I can do with my life right now is probably waste it.

"Well, I Guess this is Growing Up..." through "cell ph0n3d"

I am trying to form coherent observations about the world but I just don't have the brain power.  However, please read these long and rambling posts as I try to make sense of the world around me and offer some quality insight into the world.  I think I am deep, but I am not.

"Ice Cold Tecate" through "A Bit of Nostalgia"

So guess what guys, I want to be a writer, now look at me try to do writerly things and come up with stunning, thoughtful, and entertaining posts.  Unfortunately, they're actually probably worse than before becasue now I'm actually trying harder than before.  Things I like: running (still), Pearl Jam, writing, the word "hella," Chuck Klosterman, irreverent humor, silence.  Things I dislike: traffic school, Michael Phelps, Radiohead, Blink 182, the sound of my own voice.

"A High Level Discourse on the Subject of Beards" through "Reading"

Quality has improved.  I can write semi-goodly, I have good observations, and I don't really write about myself anymore, and when I do, it is because there is actually a good story to tell.  You like beards?  Here's a post about beards!  You like Obama?  Here's three fucking posts about Obama!  You like Christmas?  Here's a post about Christmas!  You like music?  Here's a couple posts about music!  You like March Madness?  Here's a post about March Madness!  Aren't I leveling up!

"Processing" through "Processing, Part VII: A Long Song About Nothing (and Epilogue)"

I have finally found my niche in the universe and the most awesome people that anyone could ever know.  I have interpreted every incident that has happened to me over the last four years, and I am now wiser, partially because my car has a brain that allows me to talk to it.  But now I have to leave.  Here is a very long goodbye.  Also, I like making posts that sound like Coheed & Cambria album titles.

And that was basically A Tribute to Dan Quayle in eight paragraphs.  I could have saved 160 posts and three and a half years of my life.  Instead it took me twenty minutes.  

All five or six of you who read that debauchery of a project, I thank you for your devotion and your support.  Without you guys I would probably not have realized my passion for writing.  And as Dan Quayle said, "I stand by all the misstatements I have made."  Likewise, I stand by all the pointless, inane, and unstructured posts I made.  They were a step on getting where I am now.  And some day, I will look back on these early years of the Ozone Shack and think "this needs to be taken of the internet immediately!"

Baltimore???

"So I'm turning off the TV, and I smashed my radio
Cuz I realized that my heroes are the people I already know
And I'm burning up the papers, and tearing up all the magazines
Cuz they make me feel so lonely
When there's no one who represents me."
-H₂O, Role Models


As it turns out, my existential sports fan crisis has not been resolved.  In fact, it has been deepened by a revelation I had last weekend (and didn't get around to posting until now because this is the internet and you get what you pay for.)  I thought I would never have any problems again after arbitrarily deciding to devote my fandom to the Miami Dolphins, Montreal Canadiens, Portland Trailblazers, and, somewhat less arbitrarily, the Oakland A's.


But then reality and emotions, two things that I am trying to eliminate my life because they slow me down, intervened.  And it was done by a team in purple, which makes me even more uneasy, because I hate purple, not really the color itself or because I'm homophobic and purple is mildly gay or something like that, I just hate teams with purple as their uniform color.  Just thought I would clear the air on that one.  I don't like purple uniforms just because.  Anyway, a team in purple.  That team in purple was the Baltimore Ravens.  Because when they lost to the Steelers (whom I hate for non uniform color scheme-related reasons) there was this intense visceral feeling that I had never felt before.  It struck a chord inside of me - I really wanted this team to win, and not just because I wanted the Steelers to lose.  I don't live anywhere near Baltimore, nor is the city of Baltimore stuck in the 1970s/Cuba, as is Miami.  They're a bird team, and I don't take bird teams seriously.  I don't watch The Wire, which I feel now needs to be mentioned any time the city of Baltimore is mentioned.  Plus I'm pretty sure it was a Ravens game that got nuked in The Sum of All Fears.  And they're fucking purple!


But I think that I'm subconsciously a Ravens fan...


So maybe I have to base this whole sports fan thing on feelings rather than facts, kind of like how I learned to do things in elementary school.


Being a fan involves identifying with the team, even though most football fans are not between 22 and 35, pumped up on roids, severely concussed, and ludicrously overpaid.  The team represents you because you live near them, or because being a fan gives you a community with which to identify (e.g. Raider Nation).  


And I do not have a sports team that represents me.  So I'm going with my gut here.  Listen Baltimore, you don't like me and I sure as hell don't like you, but we're going to have to work together to solve this existential crisis.  So here are the terms of our agreement: I will be slightly happier when you win, and insanely angry when you lose.  During games where you play the Dolphins or the Raiders, I will feel conflicted.  I will not buy any of your merchandise.  And this agreement is over if you end up moving to any city that I deem to be unworthy, or if the NFL launches an expansion team somewhere in the state of New Mexico.


And this is why I hate sports.

Hello and Welcome to my Mission Statement

Part of growing up is confronting the facts of life, and the fact is that no one reads the Ozone Shack.  I mean, yes, there are people who read it, but, in the scheme of almost 7 billion people, it's, well, not very many at all.  (If I weren't blocked in China, I would have more readers, right?  Right?!?) Edit: I am not blocked in China anymore.  So, I have been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by knocking on your door and asking if you would like a pamphlet and an awkward conversation about Jesus.  No, wait, that's Jehovah's Witnesses.  I've been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by getting its name out there on the internet, and I realize that there is no real message of the Ozone Shack.

Oh wait, here comes the obligatory semi-relevant song lyric...

"I told you a million times how I love you

But honey your old fickle heart won't let me in

So I'll just relax here, with this glass of gin

And head for the ozone again"

-Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, "Lost in the Ozone"

It's about the future, sort of, it's about sci-fi, sort of, it's about music, sort of, it's about sports, sort of.  It includes stories from my life, it includes album reviews, it includes opinion pieces, it includes some fiction, it includes a lot of meaningless wordstuffs, and it includes way too many robots.  But as far as a target audience, it has none, and as far as a slogan, all I have is "Your guide to surviving and thriving in the future," which is not very descriptive as all I can tell you is that you should insulate your home with microwavable burritos, douse yourself with perfume to hide from zombies, and probably learn to speak binary.  01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110.

And despite my minuscule readership, I still, for whatever reason, think of myself as a legitimate writer and a legitimate blogger.  This is kind of like when I would run around the neighborhood as a kid convinced that I was  an army man fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, until my mom yelled at me because my grandpa actually did fight the Japanese in the Pacific and actually did become an alcoholic plagued with horrible night terrors as a result.  Or like how George W. Bush thought he was a cowboy.  Remember that?  We all had a good laugh about that one.

So the question remains, does the Ozone Shack need a focus, does it need a unifying message?  The only demographic I've really focused on is people age 5-500 who are literate, and even then, it's probably more enjoyable if you can't read it.

So I say, forget about a theme, forget about sloganeering, forget about selling a pretty package.  The Ozone Shack can be a freewheeling collection of everything - mindless ramblings, half-baked opinions, and horribly skewed observations.  It can be whatever I want, and I'll let it accumulate meaning or focus as it goes, and if it doesn't, then it will be all the better.  Screw hits, screw ad revenue, screw being taken seriously by the blogging community.  Because the Ozone Shack is a place where everyone can come to unwind in a crazy crazy future.

And you know, I think I just came up with something of a slogan.

See also: The Artistically Defining Moment of Self-Doubt

"I'm lost in the ozone again

I'm lost in the ozone again

One drink of wine, two drinks of gin

And I'm lost in the ozone again"