Food for thought...in bulk. More than a few words about Atheism. Quotes by intelligent people, who were known for doing many great things. If you are one of us, don't go on thinking you are alone... these are people you have heard of. While I could say a lot on the subject... at this time I am going to leave it to the pros.
"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." - Mark Twain, American writer (1835 - 1910)
"Lighthouses are more helpful then churches." - Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father (1706 - 1790)
"The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief." - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist (1856 - 1939)
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." - Douglas Adams, British writer (1952 - 2001)
"It is worth remembering that if God created the world and all things in it, he created smallpox, plague, and filariasis. Any person who intentionally loosed such horrors upon the earth would be ground to dust for his crimes." - Sam Harris, American author (1967 - present)
"All Bibles are man-made." - Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847 - 1931)
"I see no God up here." - Yuri Gagarin, first human in outer space (1934 - 1968)
"Science may not offer eternal salvation, but it offers the possibility of a life free from the spiritual slavery caused by an irrational fear of the unknown." - Marcelo Gleiser, Brazilian physicist & astronomer (1959 - present)
"A man without a religion is like a fish without a bicycle." - Unknown
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests." - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician & orator (1833 - 1899)
"All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few." - Stendhal, French writer (1783 - 1842)
"The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer (1803 - 1882)
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." - Gene Roddenberry, American television producer (1921 - 1991)
"The death of dogma is the birth of reality." - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1724 - 1804)
"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages." - Richard Lederer, American author (1938 - present)
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology." - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President & Founding Father (1743 - 1826)
"Is it any wonder that there are atheists in the world, when the church behaves so abominably?" - Voltaire, French philosopher (1694 - 1778)
"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit." - Richard Pryor, American stand-up comedian (1940 - 2005)
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher (341 BCE - 270 BCE)
"At some fundamental level, religion doesn't allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible." - Barack Obama, current U.S. President (1961 - present)
"It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous." - Gloria Steinem, American activist & writer (1934 - present)
"I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator." - David Attenborough, British broadcaster & naturalist (1926 - present)
"Atheists do look for answers to existence itself. They just don't make them up." - Teller (of 'Penn and Teller'), American magician and comedian (1948 - present)
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." - Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father (1706 - 1790)
"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." - Arthur C. Clarke, British author (1917 - 2008)
"If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion." - Edmond de Goncourt, French writer (1822 - 1896)
"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." - Mark Twain, American writer (1835 - 1910)
"You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate." - Richard A. Weatherwax
"God is a concept by which we measure our pain." - John Lennon, British singer-songwriter (1940 - 1980)
"I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood." - George Carlin, American stand-up comedian (1937 - 2008)
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life th...at will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - Marcus Aurelius
"Science built the Academy, superstition the inquisition." - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician & orator (1833 - 1899)
"All religions begin with a revolt against morality, and perish when morality conquers them." - George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856 - 1950)
"A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing." - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician & orator (1833 - 1899)
"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!" - Clark Adams, American activist (1969 - 2007)
"My own mind is my own Church." - Thomas Paine, author and American Founding Father (1737 - 1809)
"The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature." - Alfred North Whitehead, British mathematician & philosopher (1861 - 1947)
"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake." - Catherine Fahringer, American activist (1922 - 2008)
"Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe." - Luther Burbank, American botanist (1849 - 1926)
"Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it." - Charles Caleb Colton, British writer (1780 - 1832)
"The imaginary flowers of religion adorn man's chains. Man must throw off the flowers and also the chains." - Karl Marx, German political philosopher (1818 - 1883)
"The imaginary flowers of religion adorn man's chains. Man must throw off the flowers and also the chains." - Karl Marx, German political philosopher (1818 - 1883)
"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world." - Richard Dawkins, British biologist (1941 - present)
"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it." - Christopher Hitchens, British author (1949 - present)
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
"I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get." - Napoleon Bonaparte, French military & political leader (1769 - 1821)
"The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity." - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
"What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. It's a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake-oil for rheumatism." - H. L. Mencken, American writer (1880 - 1956)
"Atheism is the voice of a few intelligent people." - Voltaire, French philosopher (1694 - 1778)
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes." - James K. Feibleman
"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,The Devil always builds a chapel there;And 'twill be found, upon examination,The latter has the larger congregation."--Daniel Defoe, English writer (1661-1731)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein, German physicist (1879 - 1955)
"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." - Thomas Paine, British author, revolutionary, & American Founding Father (1737 - 1809)
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins, British biologist & author (1941 - present)
"There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there." - Thomas Hardy, British writer (1840 - 1928)
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty." - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President & Founding Father (1743 - 1826)
"The churches answered criticism in the past with murder." - A. C. Grayling, British philosopher (1949 - present)
"I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent." - Arthur C. Clarke, British writer (1917 - 2008)
"A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen." - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (1854 - 1900)
"The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course." - A. A. Milne, British writer (1882 - 1956)
"To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy." - William Ralph Inge, British author (1860 - 1954)
"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." - Bertrand Russell, British mathematician & philosopher (1872 - 1970)
"Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity." - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
"I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose." - Clarence Darrow, American lawyer (1857 - 1938)
"All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science." - Matthew Arnold, British poet (1822 - 1888)
"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible." - Mark Twain, American novelist (1835 - 1910
"I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it." - Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician (1872 - 1970)
"There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings." - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." - Arthur C. Clarke, British author (1917 - 2008)
"Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?" - Mark Twain, American novelist (1835 - 1910)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick, American writer (1928 - 1982)
"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." -Sir Richard Francis Burton, English explorer and diplomat (1821 – 1890)
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." -Sir Winston Churchill, British politician and writer (1874 – 1965)
"In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides." - Heinrich Heine, German poet (1797 - 1856)
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life." - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist (1856 - 1939)
"Gods are children's blankets that get carried over into adulthood." - James Randi, Canadian-American magician & author (1928 - present)
"There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven." - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician & orator (1833 - 1899)
"The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on." - Frank Zappa, American composer & electric guitarist (1940 - 1993)
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization." - George Carlin, American comedian (1937 - 2008)
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." - Thomas Paine, British author, revolutionary, & American Founding Father (1737 - 1809)
"Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature." - Carl Sagan, American astronomer (1934 - 1996)
"Men rarely (if ever) managed to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." - Robert A. Heinlein, American writer (1907 - 1988)
"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain, American writer (1835 - 1910)
"If churches don't have to pay taxes, they also can't call the fire department when they catch fire. Sorry reverend, that's one of those services that goes along with paying in. I'll use the fire department I pay for. You can pray for rain." - Bill Maher, American comedian (1956 - present)
"Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have." - Penn Jillette, American illusionist and writer (1955 - present)
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher (c. 4 CE - 65 CE)
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." - Marquis de Sade, French writer (1740 - 1814)
"Truth does not have to be accepted on faith. Scientists do not hold hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! Amen." - Dan Barker, American activist (1949 - present)
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." - Isaac Asimov, Russian-American author (c. 1920 - 1992)
"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." – Butch Hancock, American country/folk songwriter (1945 - present)
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell, British philosopher (1872 - 1970)
“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the clergyman.” - Victor Hugo, French writer (1802 - 1885)
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire, French writer & philosopher (1694 - 1778)
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg, American physicist (1933 - present)
“All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.” - Aldous Huxley, British novelist (1894 - 1963)
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan, American astronomer (1934 - 1996)
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot, French philosopher (1713 - 1784)
"If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction." - Percy Bysshe Shelley, British poet (1792 - 1822)
"Fear is the mother of all gods." - Lucretius, Roman poet (c. 99 - 55 B.C.E.)
"When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." – Robert M. Pirsig, American writer (1928 - present)
"All thinking men are atheists." - Ernest Hemingway (American writer, 1899 - 1961)
"I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create." - Vincent van Gogh (Dutch painter, 1853 - 1890)
"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs." - Frederick Douglass (American escaped slave, c. 1818 - 1895)
"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." - Charles Darwin (British naturalist, 1809 -1882)
"No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry." - Edgar Allan Poe (American writer, 1809 - 1849)
"Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life." - Aristotle (Greek philosopher, 384 - 322 B.C.E.)
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan (American astronomer and author, 1934 - 1996)
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony (American civil rights leader, 1820 - 1906)
"The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." - Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese explorer, c. 1480 - 1521)
"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers." - Robert G. Ingersoll (American politician and orator, 1833 - 1899)
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." - George Bernard Shaw (Irish playwright, 1856 - 1950)
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan spiritual leader, 1935 - present)
"There is no god higher than truth." - Mahatma Gandhi (Indian spiritual, political, and civil rights leader, 1869 - 1948)
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." - Albert Einstein (German-born Swiss-American theoretical physicist, 1879 - 1955)
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. President and Founding Father, 1743 - 1826)
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels (German Nazi Minister of Propaganda, 1897 - 1945)
"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help." - Robert A. Heinlein (American science fiction writer, 1907 - 1988)
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." - Napoleon Bonaparte (French military and political leader, 1769 - 1821)
"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." - George Carlin
"It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity." - Abraham Lincoln
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx
“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion it.” – John Adams
A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. Edward Abbey
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion." Edward Abbey
"Paradise is not a garden of bliss and changeless perfection where the lions lie down like lambs (what would they eat?) and the angels and cherubim and seraphim rotate in endless idiotic circles, like clockwork, about an equally inane and ludicrous -- however roseate -- unmoved mover. That particular painted fantasy of a realm beyond time and space which Aristotle and the church fathers tried to palm off on us has met, in modern times, only neglect and indifference passing on into oblivion it so richly deserved, while the paradise of which I write and wish to praise is with us yet, the the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real earth on which we stand." Edward Abbey
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
A few quotes and routines from one of the greatest writers ever to have lived.
DR. BENWAY OPERATES
The lavatory has been locked for three hours solid... I think they're using it for an operating room...
NURSE:" Adrenalin, doctor?"
DR. BENWAY:"The night porter shot it all up for kicks." He looks around and picks up a toilet plunger... He advances on the patient..."Make and incision Dr. Limpf," he says to his appalled assistant..."I'm going to massage the heart."
Dr. Limpf shrugs and begins the incision. Dr. Benway washes the suction cup by swishing it around the toilet bowl...
NURSE: "Shouldn't it be sterilized, doctor?"
DR. BENWAY:"Very likely but there's no time." He sits on the toilet plunger like a can seat watching his assistant make the incision..."You young squirts couldn't lance a pimple without an electric vibrating scalpel with automatic drain and suture...Soon we'll be operating by remote control on patients we never see...We'll be nothing but button pushers. All the skill is going out of surgery...All the know how and make-do...Did I ever tell you about the time I performed an appendectomy with a rusty sardine can? And once I was caught short without instrument one and removed a uterine tumor with my teeth. That was in the Upper Effendi, and besides...the wench is dead."
DR.LIMPF: "The incision is ready doctor."
Dr. Benway forces the cup into the incision and works it up and down. Blood spurts all over the doctors, the nurse and the wall...The cup makes a horrible sucking sound.
NURSE:" I think she's gone, doctor."
DR.BENWAY: "Well, it's all in a days work." He walks across the room to a medicine cabinet..."Some fucking drug addict has cut my cocaine with Saniflush! Nurse! Send the boy out to fill this RX on the double!"
"In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die or boredom." - Wm S Burroughs
THE MAN WHO TAUGHT HIS ASSHOLE TO TALK
Benway: "Why not one all-purpose blob? Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard.
"This ass talk had a sort of gut frequency. It hit you right down there like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you have to do is turn loose? Well this talking hit you right down there, a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.
"This man worked for a carnival you dig, and to start with it was like a novelty ventriloquist act. Real funny, too, at first. He had a number he called 'The Better 'Ole' that was a scream, I tell you. I forget most of it but it was clever. Like, 'Oh I say, are you still down there, old thing?'
"'Nah! I had to go relieve myself.'
"After a while the ass started talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time.
"Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in- curving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags nobody loved it and it wanted to be kissed same as any other mouth. Finally it talked all the time day and night, you could hear him for blocks screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it, but nothing did any good and the asshole said to him: 'It's you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we don't need you around here any more. I can talk and eat and shit.'
"After that he began waking up in the morning with a transparent jelly like a tadpole's tail all over his mouth. This jelly was what the scientists call un-D.T., Undifferentiated Tissue, which can grow into any kind of flesh on the human body. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands like burning gasoline jelly and grow there, grow anywhere on him a glob of it fell. So finally his mouth sealed over, and the whole head would have amputated spontane- ous -- (did you know there is a condition occurs in parts of Africa and only among Negroes where the little toe amputates spontaneously?) -- except for the eyes you dig. That's one thing the asshole couldn't do was see. It needed the eyes. But nerve connections were blocked and infiltrated and atrophied so the brain couldn't give orders any more. It was trapped in the skull, sealed off. For a while you could see the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes, then finally the brain must have died, because the eyes went out, and there was no more feeling in them than a crab's eye on the end of a stalk.
TWILIGHTS LAST GLEAMING
S.S. America off Jersey Coast.
"Ladies and gentleman there's no cause for alarm. We have a minor problem in the boiler room but everything is now under..." (Sound effects of a nuclear blast). Explosion splits the boat. Dr. Benway, ship's doctor, drunkenly added two inches to a four-inch incision with one stroke of his scalpel.
"Perhaps the appendix is already out doctor" the nurse said peering dubiously over his shoulder. "I saw a little scar."
"The appendix already out !?" the doctor shouted. "I'm taking the appendix out! What do you think I'm doing here?"
"Perhaps the appendix is on the left side doctor," said the nurse. "That happens sometimes you know."
"Stop breathing down my neck I'm coming to that! Don't you think I know where an appendix is? I studied appendectomy in 1904 at Harvard." He threw back his elbows in a movement of exasperation.. He lifts the abdominal wall and searches along the incision dropping ashes from his cigarette. "And get me another scalpel! This one has no edge to it."
He thrusts a red fist at her. The doctor reels back and flattens against the wall from the force of the explosion with the bloody scalpel clutched in one hand. The patient slides off the operating table spilling intestines across the floor. Dr. Benway sweeps instruments, cocaine, and morphine into his satchel.
"Sew her up!" he said, peeling off his gloves. " I can't be expected to work under such conditions."
Dr. Benway. Carrying his satchel pushed through the passengers crowded around Lifeboat No. 1. "Are you all right?" he shouted, seating himself among the women. "I'm the doctor."
THE DO-RIGHTS
Well this, ah, folkloric text from the Federal Narcotics Hospital in Lexington Kentucky, well, more of a Prison really - people did sentences there, was actually inspired by Juvenal, the Roman satirist. He's speaking of Greek parasites and sycophants; "All arts, all sciences a fasting Greek knows. Bid him go to hell, to hell he goes...If you but say you're warm, he breaks into a sweat...If you complain of a draft, he calls for his overcoat."
There is an exclusive wing of Lexington reserved for the do-rights, who are considered good `rehabilitation' prospects. They get better rooms and more medications. A do-right always shows up with letters from his congressman, banker, employer, and, you know, pictures of himself as an Eagle Scout, shakin' hands with a priest on graduation day. There's no limit to what they'll do. You know the type. Bawls all over himself to light the boss's cigarette.
The Doctor walks into the ward and says, "Rather warm in here." As one man the do-rights break into a sweat and rush around opening windows. "Cold in here isn't it?" Immediately the do-rights see their breath in the air, snatch blankets and bundle themselves up to a chorus of chattering teeth. Front office brown-nose finks to the bone. "Doctor, when I die I want to be buried right in the same coffin with you! You're the finest, most decent, most deeply humane man I have ever known." "I'm puttin' you down for additional medication, son." "Thank You, doctor! A pusher should receive the death penalty." Of such stuff are do-rights made. It's the Old Army Game from here to eternity. Get there firstest with the brownest nose.
Well, down in the dim gray wards and day rooms where the do-wrongs hock and spit and shiver and vomit, "Fuckin' croaker wouldn't even give me a goof ball...He asked me what the American Flag means to me and I said `Soak it in heroin Doc, an' I'll suck it!' Says I've got the wrong attitude_. I should see the Chaplain an' get straight with Jesus." And then, with the tears streaming down their lousy fink faces, the do-rights leap up and bellow out the Star Spangled Banner.
"I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for your self. Only they never find out who the audience is."
Words of Advice For Young People
Never interfere in a boy and girl fight.
Beware of whores who say they don't want money. The hell they don't. What they mean is they want more money. Much more.
If you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
Avoid fuckups. You all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, no matter how good it sounds, turns into a disaster.
Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly, "I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal fool."
Now some of you may encounter the devil's bargain if you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving at least to a priest, but not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. They charge the easy ones first, you know, like money, all the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery? Not much to spend it on, eh, Gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard. Have you forgotten something, Gramps? In order to feel something, you have to be there. You have to be 18. You're not 18, you are 78. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.
How about an honorable bargain? "You always wanted to become a doctor. Now's your chance. Why, you could have become a great healer and benefit humanity. What's wrong with that?" Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains involving exchange of qualitative merchandise like souls. Just quantitative merchandise like time and money. So piss off, Satan, and don't take me for dumber than I look. As an old junk pusher told me, "Watch whose money you pick up."
LAST WORDS
"There is no final enough of wisdom, experience- any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, No Final Satori, no solution. Just conflict.
Only thing that can resolve conflict is love, like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico. Pure love. What I feel for my cats past and present.
Love? What is it?
Most natural painkiller what there is.
LOVE."
A bit of Spoken Word from Mister Mojo
Okay so it is pretty much what it says it is... Homemade video using stock footage from an old PSA. The routine is an old crowd favorite of mine entitled satan Drove The Shortbus, I rode Shotgun. Not to be confused with my song of the same name. Was taken from a show from awhile back... enjoy...or not...or both!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
More Splits... Danger Island!
The first 2 parts of Danger Island, which ran on The Banana Splits Show. It was directed by Richard Donner who went on in the 80s to direct a few notable films such as The Goonies, and Superman, and it starred Jan Michael Vincent of later Airwolf fame. Chongo was played by martial artist and stuntman Kim Kahana. This shit was ballin', and all the cool kids were digging the Splits. Catching these serials was a big part of what made this show cool. The whole thing ran about 3 hours long.
More Banana Splits Sundaes on Sunday...
A nice stack of "videos" from the show... my friend Mike and I were talking about how this music wasn't really children music... not that it was inappropriate or anything it was just pretty typical of the music out there for older folks.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The BEST Fucking band in The World!
No... you don't understand. I'm serious. They were showing reruns of this back before I was in school, yeah man back in the pre-cable tv days. I used to wait for the Splits to come on. This was probably the first exposure to music I ever had outside of something that was on my mother's turntable. The music on this show stuck in my head for my whole life. Back then a lot of the animated shows, had their own house music... and a lot of it stuck with me. I still say to this day, that the Splits were one of the reasons I went on to play in bands as a teenager and adult. Their music was pretty typical fare for the times. The early Scooby Doo episodes, from the Where are You era in particular had a song in most of the chase scenes, and of course Josie and the Pussycats and the Groovie Goolies featured the characters themselves playing the music. Plenty of live action stuff for the kiddies featuring music as well, not to mention School House Fucking Rock. Kiddy telly was saturated with music, but then I guess it still is. Either way...tell me this doesn't fucking rock?
Weirdest Film I have Ever seen.
Rubber Johnny, a film by Chris Cunningham, and featuring music by Aphex Twin.
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