A few days later, when the neighborhood seemed on the verge of hysteria and civil war looming, a sign appeared outside the dumpster. The sign, a testament to the genius of 38’s super, read as follows:

Dear Neighbors,

In an attempt to be more ‘green’, we are currently replacing all of our gas-powered stoves with electric ones. We hope you understand that this dumpster is part of our commitment to the environment and our community. We apologize for any inconvenience.

So there it was. The residents of Gramercy, though still unhappy, stopped complaining and expressed their frustration with gritted teeth instead of wild tongues. And so a fragile peace was upheld.

But the peace between our two main characters, Raoul and Ivan, was also growing quite fragile. Raoul, moving through the dumpster as carefully as possible, had just been cut all the way up his shin by a sharp piece of metal that he’d missed. Ivan, standing outside the dumpster next to his truck, hadn’t realized what happened and thought Raoul’s screams were some cultural anomaly.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” Ivan insisted. The other was too busy using his mother tongue to curse God and all his angels to help his friend’s confusion. “Just hand me the stove.”

“Hand you the stove! Hand you the stove!” Raoul grew livid as the sun hit his fresh wound. “Why don’t you come in here and you lift up the stove–”

“I brought the truck!” Ivan replied, his anger growing in proportion to the other. “It’s my truck, I brought the the truck. I read the sign; this was my idea. I brought you to help, but all you do is fucking complain.”

Raoul’s face exploded and he began kicking the hard metal inside the dumpster, making a
noise
loud enough
to wake up
the models
and actors inside
the apartmentsmaking a noise loud enough to wake up the models and actors inside the apartments who were recovering from last night’s parties.

“Alright, alright,” Ivan put his hands up slowly. “Just calm down–”

“Calm down!? Calm…” Raoul gave up and now started punching that same metal, making an even bigger noise. Ivan looked around nervously and then shrugged his shoulders, telling the streets and trees that there was nothing he could do about his friend’s anger.

After Raoul had vented for a few moments, he started pulling up another stove (they’d gotten three so far and somewhere in the pile of garbage bags there were three more). Besides the fact that Ivan had provided the truck, Raoul was the dumpster-diver of this mission because of his strength. He didn’t disappoint and lifted up the giant stove in one quick motion, passing it to his friend who after stumbling in a heavy, forced circle finally put in the back of the truck; he then fell down on the trucks edge, catching his breath heavily.

“Luba” He muttered under his breath as the sweat poured down.

“You’re lazy, man…” Raoul said, sighing.

“What? My truck, my idea!” Ivan was exasperated and quickly jumped up, yelling “How about I take my truck and leave you there in the fucking trash?!”

Raoul started muttering in Spanish again. Adding, “But I know where you–”

A dog started barking and the two men’s eyes shot in its direction. It was a little thing, for all the noise it made; holding onto it’s leash, was an equally small young woman angrily staring at the scavengers. Ivan, having grown up somewhere that lacked the concept of “misdemeanors” began losing it.

“We have to hide!” he insisted as the woman got closer.

“Hide–”

“Yes, now, quickly. Get under the bags–”

“Are you fucking crazy?”

“She’s going to think you’re Al-Qeida–”

“I’m Dominican!”

“it doesn’t matter, just–”

It didn’t matter; because it was too late. She was standing before them and holding back a dog dead-set on eating the men. Her eyes, naturally inquisitive, put together the story quite quickly.

“Okay, Gentlemen,” she said, not addressing either in particular. “You cannot do this. You cannot be here. This is not that kind of neighborhood.”

The flare Ivan was able to show his friend disappeared. Humbly, he answered “You’re right.”

“I mean, this is, I don’t even know,” she moved over to their truck. “This is really quite disgusting. Is this really what you do?”

Ivan lowered his head. “We’re sorry, it’s just…”

“We’re collecting trash for Obama.” A voice said. It was Raoul.

“What?” the girl said incredulously.

“‘Trash for Obama’,” Raoul said again. “We go around to dumpsters taking out the trash and bringing it to the campaign–”

Ivan’s head came up, at first looking at Raoul with the same confusion as the girl, but then he spoke, “Yes, we take it to the campaign office and they put it in one of the machines, the, um–”

“Compost? Compost!” Raoul added.

“Compost! They put in the compost and turn it in to energy. That way the offices can all be green…”

“Is that really true?” the woman asked, disappointed.

“Yep!” Ivan insisted. “We call it ‘Trash for change’!”

“It’s very, very green!” Raoul promised.

The woman gave a small sigh, mumbled ‘whatever”, and kept walking, dragging the dog with her.

Raoul, now wanting to get out quickly, lifted another stove from the dumpster and silently handed it to Ivan who, also quiet, put it in the truck. They stood there for a moment.

“Trash for Change?” Raoul sighed.

“Trash for Obama?” Ivan fired back, recovering from the work.

“Still friends?” Raoul asked, humbly.

Ivan shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?”

Raoul continued digging while Ivan sat on the truck’s back.

And into this he inserted “friends”–a species that existed too briefly for history and science to find or name them. But these ‘friends” lacked food and water and as the being tried to speak with them and tell them of his pain, their skin shriveled up from thirst and fell upon their bones from hunger. While the being spoke of loneliness and heartache and longing, the creature he had created perished painfully and died one-by-one until all he could speak to were corpses.

So he created water, to wash away the dead and clean the bloody ground. And moving over the crystal clear substance, the being saw his own face and shook the earth with horror and disgust. I’m awfully ugly, he thought, as again he thought of the word ‘here’ and asked himself ‘Why am I here?’ if I’m so ugly. Then out
of
the water
arose bits of
reflectionless land,
were his face
couldn’t be seen and
he was as beautiful as he wanted to beThen out of the water arose bits of reflectionless land, were his face couldn’t be seen and he was as beautiful as he wanted to be. Plants and trees grew up on this mass, but the being didn’t like that the light shined for all eternity, so he split the day into two parts: one light, one dark.

Then all the plant and trees died from the shock of the new, unsustainable darkness and he had to start again. And as they healed, he created a new batch of species, let’s call them “friends 2″, and this time he thought to make them in his image. But having spent so much time on land, he hadn’t seen his image in a while and these “friends” he made were everything he wasn’t, but wanted to be: perfect, beautiful, sure, and confident even when the nighttime nothingness came. And they too were hungry, so not wishing to repeat his mistake, the being went about filling the water with fish for them to eat and while doing this he saw his reflection again and then saw theirs and realized the vast difference from what we think we are and what reflections tell us we truly are. So, though his anger was really with himself, he sent a giant fireball to wipe out the new “friends” and that was that.

The Earth then began feeling up with creatures he planned properly; odd, strange looking things that he didn’t have to fear: ducks, zebras, spiders, anteaters, elephants, whales. And then he said, “Let the word now be, without a doubt: I am the most beautiful being here.”

But whether angry at their lot in life or just unable to communicate, the creatures didn’t talk to him, didn’t thank him or praise him, didn’t ask him for anything. There’s really no such thing as “charity” on this earth, we all act in our own interests–that’s not to say we’re bad, but even the most charitable among us wants a simple “thank you” every now and then for his own pleasure. God didn’t get this from the beasts, even as they fed on the very grass he had put in place for them.

And so came Eve. A thing far more flawed than the “friends”, perhaps even an accurate mirror of himself. And God spoke to her and, to his delight, she spoke back. And he told her about the stress of power, of not understanding the ‘why’ of the ‘here’, and–though almost whispering–he told her of his great loneliness. And she smiled in sympathy. Eve was thankful, Eve was talkative, Eve was kind; but Eve grew bored rather quickly and soon Eve was “too tired” to speak and was “too busy collecting fruit” to listen. But on occasion, when the storms came and the ground shook, Eve would start talking to God again and asking him for help. And he would help and then ask if she ever got lonely like he did and did she know that it’s–

But she didn’t care once the rain stopped.

And God grew envious when she went other places and mad at her occasional stupidity and flustered with her fickleness and impatient when she wouldn’t thank him again and again. Who the hell did she think she was? Doesn’t she realize that I’m the be all and end all of her existence?

More storms came and more earthquakes; poisons found their way into Eve’s food, making her sick and the animals became violent and mauled her several times and though God came down and asked, “Oh, Eve, are you okay?” he still grinned from up in the heavens at all her new miseries.

One day he found her sobbing, shedding the same tears that had used to create his oceans and his rivers.

“What’s wrong,” God asked, as the old tenderness came back; speaking while stopping the rains and stabilizing the ground.

But it wasn’t the weather or beasts that bothered Eve. “I understand,” she finally said. “I know the loneliness you speak of.”

And all of their long talk together came into his head and he realized that he was, for her, nothing but a voice from the heavens. Not a mate or a partner or even a friend. Oh, what a mess I’ve created, God thought, as the sun rose over the seventh day. Too tired to start again, too tired to even argue with Eve: he created Adam for her and retreated back into his nothingness for a time. “Have fun”, he thought as he took one last somber look at his creations.

And his reflection could now be seen on the land too. In us. In Everything.

So, here we are: twenty-two thoughts, predictions, stories, observations, discoveries, two questions, and some all-out lies in honor of having gotten this far:

1. New York City, more than space travel or poetry, is mankind’s greatest acheivment.
2. 99% of all things called “new” are just redressed versions of things we hate.
3. JD Salinger, whose spent the bulk of his recluse life writing things for posthumous publication, will finally, hopefully, die in the coming year.
4. A bored man sits around thinking how much fun yesterday was. The next day he spends upset, thinking how pleasant it was yesterday to be able to sit around, in peace and quiet, and look back on the fun day before. The day after, he feels a great sadness as he wonders whether those last three reflective days were the best of his life. This story could go on for a while, but I’ve promised you brevity.
5. In history’s annuls there’s not one successful or meaningful person who’s ever, ever, ever, ever, ever “branded” themselves.
6. That “rocks”, “rock on”, or “you rock” is over and dead. It means nothing anymore. When someone says “that rocks” they’re really saying “I don’t care about that”.
7. You ever wonder how many people in your building, block, or street share all your secret perversions, all your hidden beliefs?
8. The biggest problem with our culture is that dreamers and philosophers won’t sleep on floors anymore. Starving and ‘getting by’ now translate roughly into having a decent car, a fairly impressive phone, and enough for a Frappuccino.
9. This year’s great personal literary discoveries: Schnitzler, Dos Passos, Lardner, and Melville.
10. Rain will fall no matter what. Whether it’s your wedding or your war, nature doesn’t give a shit that we all seem to scatter when she tries to gives us water.
11. The Times Square Subway station has a daily, official, sponsored busker–a musician, usually, who gets the best spot for all the tourists to notice him and stop and pay. But there’s other, lesser known, more underground performers in the crevices of the old station; they’ll be heard, if they play well enough; you can find them, if you look hard enough.
12. Salesman today are just as unimportant as they were yesterday.
13. Tom Waits didn’t put out a new album this year, but his last one was a three disc set so I’m still thankful and grateful for it.
14. There’s nothing scarier than the basic truth: men will invent myths, tales, and conspiracies to avoid it.
15. George Bush is sitting in a Texas bar, drunk beyond words, the day after he’s left office. The bartender, a kind and good-hearted soul, asks him (after the third whiskey) if he’s ever “sorry” for all the destruction and misery he’s caused. George thinks this over while swallowing a few peanuts and then replies, “No. I didn’t force any of you to vote for me.”
16. This been a large conspiracy in the world propagated by Germans (of course) and spread exponentially by North America. This myth: Beer is Good. Beer is disgusting and awful and anyone who talks of their “favorite beer” or says “Mmm” after drinking a beer is a liar and a fraud. Wine is wonderful, this I’ve learned; we only say “I want a beer” because saying “Hey, lets get drunk” sounds juvenile.
17. A woman gets pregnant at 18, she marries at 19, has her third child by 25, and finally discovers sex-toys at 29; her husband discovered them at 28. (I think I’ve told this one).
18. The theys, the powers that be, are not always right. Yes, we alone, singular little us, can sometimes be more right than the vast majority of people–even though those people will continually point out that they are a vast majority in order to feel right. However, don’t get too comfortable with this idea or you’ll be wrong a lot.
19. America: I’m not that interested in politics, but if you don’t elect Obama my generation will never forgive you.
20. Many well-intentioned people spend so much time saying “Life is short”, “Live every day as your last”, and “None of it matters in the end”; nobody, nobody actually lives this way–we all spend our lives scared, obsessed, and stuck in the short term. And we always will.
21. I’ll quit smoking when quitting smoking can be my only stress. In other words, when everything else in life has come to a victorious relieved halt, I’ll quit–after a triumphant cigarette.
22. What the hell does anybody know at 22?

Okay, I think I’ve made my point now.

But for everything the Senator and I disagreed on, there’s one thing I think I’ve grown capable of seeing eye-to-eye with him on: Sometimes we need to give hate a chance.

I told my friends on that holiday morning, with delight, that the Senator had been ejected from this world and that, hopefully, wherever he was going had a whites-only section. I didn’t get a laugh or a smile from most of them, but, as too often seems to be the case with American liberals, they said, “That’s not nice. He’s dead…” or “If you don’t have anything nice to say…” or “He’s beyond politics now…”. Have we become so weak and namby-pamby in this country that we can no longer have even a little tinge of enjoyment when a despicable man gets his mortal comeuppance? Or so relative that we’ve forgotten one basic truth of life: You’re allowed to hate those who hate.

My generation in particular was warned against hatred. Many of these warnings were justified as the country was waking up from a couple hundred years of racism, sexism, and every other categorized prejudice that mankind has thought up. But why do the truly bad forms of hate have to give all hate a bad name. Martin Luther King, quite rightly, asked us to judge people on the “content of their character” and not the color of their skin, but the thing is–we’re still supposed to judge. If no one among is worth hating, than who is worth loving or respecting? No human being is perfect, but in some special cases, such as in the case of Senator Helms, a person’s existence is so repugnant, their views and actions so detrimental to all, and their flaws outweighing their benefits to such a degree that we should be able to say, without reservation, “this person has caused nothing but misery and pain; because I love my fellow human beings, I hate him.”

“while to many Mr Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps he took to pave the way towards the eventual peacefully negotiated settlement in our country.”

These were the words spoken by Nelson Mandela after the equally late death of PW Botha. Mr.Botha, the penultimate apartheid president, had taken what was a policy of oppression and turned it into a policy of genocide; he took state-censorship and turned it into death squads and assassinations of critics both at home and abroad. When Mandela said that after the man died two years ago, I remember thinking that this was why Mandela is a great man and you and I are just good ones. We do hate and sometimes, if only to be half-way decent, we must hate.

It’s clear my site has slightly slowed down of late. While I’d like to attribute this to some much longer pieces I’m working on (or what I and the rest of the world call “Real Writing”), or to the fact that as I reach nearly my hundredth short-short story that I’ve run out of insane situations to sadistically put characters, usually representing people I know, into and see how they react; but, truth be told, neither is true. It has far more to do with several moves, both physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional (well, two of those are true) taking place in my life right now.

For one, I’ve moved. No, I haven’t left the city, far from it, for then I’d truly have nothing to write about. I’ve moved to the Bronx: as unapologetically ungentrified a borough as you can find. The stress and logistics involved in this move have greatly effected my output, but, thankfully, the move is now over and complete. As for the Bronx itself, I can’t say much yet having only been here two days, but every time I’ve told anyone I’m moving to the Bronx, the first thing I get is that strange look that says “Oh, god, do you have a gun?“. I don’t. However, as the upper borough is the home of both the Yankees and Ella Fitzgerald, I’m guessing that, as usual, the prejudices of midtowners and Brooklynites are wrong. I’m sure my feelings on the new location, for better or worse, will inhabit these pages in some form in the coming months.

Then there is the other move: My…(dare I say it)…Career. I’ve never really been sure what exactly I want to do with my life, well, let me rephrase that: I want to write, but not sure what I want to get paid to do. The direction I seem to keep getting pointed in involves copywriting and–I’m wincing more than you are–advertising. That being said, as I soon put my 22nd year to bed (post coming soon), I’m delightfully aware of how many options I have and, despite having not a day of formal education beyond high school, how many opportunities I’m allowed to fuck up before I get it right.

Anyway, point is: There’s still a tremendous amount of blood flowing through this site and a thoroughly dedicated writer whose committed to it. Also, if you happen to know anyone looking for a New York copywriter, particularly one who understands how the Internet works, feel free to point them to my site and, if you should ever find yourself in the Bronx without a gun, give me a call.

I look forward to flushing more neurosis and disturbances out onto these pages in the coming months and I truly hope you’re having a wonderful summer!

–Seth

Bob Dylan can’t be heard on the radio or on television. He can’t be found alleviating the boredom in that moment between a talk show host’s joke and his interviews. He can’t be found playing Saturday Night Live or doing HBO specials. He isn’t sitting in a Starbucks or playing a concert sponsored by Budweiser. He’s not heralding the opening of a new mall or writing special protest songs for rallies. He sure as hell can’t be found in the Village (or anywhere in New York).

Bob can’t even be found on my parent’s radio anymore, his music giving them that bizarre quality like a Soviet vision of the future. They’ve convinced themselves that it’s the Beatles and Elvis that they liked all along. The middle aged people who once were encyclopedia’s of his music; where this song came from, who it was about, what it was about, the events that inspired it; they’ve since forgotten and seem to think every song is about Warren Beatty.

But Bob can be found at vintage clothing stores and antique shops, he can be heard in Vinyl stores, and be seen being traded around by record collectors. Restaurants name food items after him and journalists, marketers, and businessmen write pieces and tracts whose headlines are allusions to his song titles. Thrift stores sell posters of him and jackets that look like his. Trendy clothing spots on the west-side put his face and quotes on expensive t-shirts. All of it, every last branded pillowcase and DVD, will shoot up in value on the day he dies because we all know, though won’t admit, that he hasn’t and will not be replaced.

And, yes, he can also be heard on my stereo late, late at night from the confines of my fortified room; where no one can see me smile, but where I can see no one frown. These times aren’t changing.

“To our brave fighting men…” said the leader with a grin, thinking it strange to call children men.

“Yes! Hear Hear!” The others chimed in, with the same oldmen grin.

“Of course, the mission is far from over–”

“RIGHT!” They yelled, too excited to contain themselves.

“The surrounding villages have, for far too long, displayed their chauvinism and continue to display it…such displays will be met with force.” The leader proclaimed, “We will defend our homeland!”

“YES!”

“For AS LONG as it takes!”

The room
almost
exploded with
applause. The leader’s
wife almost
exploded with screamsThe room almost exploded with applause. The leader’s wife almost exploded with screams–”alone” in her house, almost a mile away.

“Holy Shit!” she gasped, as her and the young soldier laid in bed, both sweaty and out of breath. She laughed, “How old are you again?”.

“Twenty-three”, the soldier said, still huffing. “And you?’

She flicked his ear with her pointer finger and laughed, “I’m eighteen–”

“No, no,” he insisted, getting serious. “I know the difference between a woman and a girl–you’re a woman…” (she was indeed)

“I don’t exactly know how to take that, but thank you.” She rubbed her hand through the deserter’s hair. “We should get dressed, the meeting will be over soon.”

His uniform was crumpled in a ball on the floor, part of a big pile that contained both their clothes. On top sat his medals, nearly a dozen of them–the village council seemed to make a new one every week. As the fugitive lovers regained their composure, he stared at each shiny medal, at each “battle” they represented and remebered all their names: During the ‘Battle of Northside’ he had been with Martha, during the ‘Siege at Cherrville’ it had been Jennifer, when they’d stormed Leertown, he’d stormed Margarette and Joan. But none of those excursions had even come close to what he felt today. Since enlisting, He’d been with the wife of every leader of every village in this war, but never with the leader of his own.

“No. Please? Let’s just lay here for a few more minutes,” he pleaded.

She laughed. “Don’t be so romantic, if they find any of you here this time, they’ll probably declare war on the moon: A fittingly far place.”

“Are there any women there?”

“Slut!” she grinned, as she got up.

So did her husband. And standing in front of the elders, he tried to wipe the smile off his face and display something akin to empathy. “But let’s not forget,” he declared slowly. “That many of our young men have died in this war and, um, unfortunately, many more will probably have to die.” Some of the crowd’s eyes lit up and he forced himself to ignore it. “So, now let’s now have a moment of silence in their honor.”

The room, reluctantly, got quiet. For a moment they all stood just listening to their own breath. But one old man sitting in the back could swear, was sure, was damn near certain that in the silence he heard feminine screams coming from within the village. He thought about saying something for aDmoment, but then let it pass; he was just hearing things. There were no such screams anymore, he assured himself, not since the war.

“Yes, but we’re not going to–”

“Kill them? What are they gonna just leave, go to Florida maybe? What the hell did they teach you at that Christian School–”

“Liberty Univer…” Mark stopped. It was the first time either of them had said that, the word “kill”. Madison Square was completely dark now except for a few people at the enclosed dog-run. The young man listened to the fierce words of his “handler” while he watched a tiny child chase a dog, twice his size, around the enclosure. The agent kept his face almost completely hidden away by standing in front of the Madison Square War Memorial, the monument to New York City’s war-dead, which blocked the beams of the street lights.

“And why do the Jews have to die?” The Agent kept going, not caring about what school Mark went to or what his theology was, “because they’re non-believers, and heretics, and infidels, and bad…right?”

Mark was still stuck on the word “kill”, he nodded gently.

“We don’t complain about that, right? Kill a few thousand Jews! If it
saves
the souls
of billions, then
what’s the
problem, right? Right!”If it saves the souls of billions, then what’s the problem, right? Right!”

“Wait, wait,” Mark snapped out of it. “I’m not sure that’s exactly what the bible says–”

“Whatever. It’s just an example. It’s just a fucking example. These are different times, much, much worse times in fact, right?”

“Yes,” Mark answered resoundingly, as the child continued chasing that dog. “Much worse.”

“We’re weak. And decadent. And careless. ‘Home of the free’ has become: ‘If it feels good, do it.’ Whatever happen to these guys?” The Agent knocked on the memorial like it was a door, “Where are they now? Where are the brave and the just?”

“Right, I agree. Completely.” Mark said (and he did).

“You agree? You Agree! You agree….I don…we don’t need your agreement we need your action! You either want this to be a god-fearing righteous nation or you don’t! You either want bravery and a purpose or you want decadence and decay. You choose, but either way: Don’t fucking tell me it’s not worth killing over!”

There was that word again. The child had fallen over and the giant dog was now licking his face, to the delight of both.

“Or, hey, fine, just go ahead and keep carrying petitions,” The Agent continued. “Put on your bow tie and blazer, quote the bible from your homeschooling, quote the constitution from your Christian college, and run for treasurer of the Young Republicans. That’s fine–then sit there and watch the country turn into a cess-pit of relativism and perversion; we’re going to elect a black guy–if you think that’s historic–wait until there’s a transsexual up there, or a pedophile, or–”

“Look, you know I support you guys,” Mark interrupted, getting angry. “But…bombing? Manufacturing a disaster–”

“Listen!!” Now it was the Agent who got disturbed from the blunt use of words. “We’re not creating a terrorist act–how could we, we didn’t invent terrorism–we’re simply preempting one. You think an attack isn’t coming? You think we ain’t gonna get hit soon, again? And why? Because we’re weak! But what if a small event could knock this country back into consciousness, back to the way it was after 9/11. Back to defensiveness; could make us know that righteous fear again. Such a small “event” could stop a much larger one from happening. What if–how many people ride the subway? Fifty or so–What if fifty or so people had to die to save the lives of thousands. Like Jesus and the Jews, or, fuck it, like Jesus himself.”

Mark’s eyes drifted back to the dog run. The child and his companion were now gone, as was everyone else. There was no noise but the sound of crickets and faint street-traffic. He heard the agent laugh and knock on the memorial once more.

“Here, ask these guys if sometimes you have to take lives to save lives; to save principals.”

Somehow Mark had lost his ability to speak and his silence was the one thing that was able to unsettle the confident, meticulous agent.

“Hey,” the Agent said, exasperated. “Tomorrow around dusk they’ll be a, uh, package in the bathroom at Union Square Station. If later that night it’s gone, we’ll know we have a new patriot on our hands; if it’s still there, we’ll alert the police to it and they’ll blame it on some Arabs somewhere and talk about what a great job the city did. And then you can go back to protesting abortion clinics and volunteering for your local congressperson and, well, doing nothing.”

The Agent disappeared as quickly as he had come and left Mark standing, alone next to the war memorial.

Every now and then you run into a story, says, “some guy broke into a house, stole a lot of things, and while he was in there, he raped an 81 year old woman.”
And I’m thinking to myself, “WHY??? What the fuck kind of a social life does this guy have?”

–George Carlin

It was far from his funniest bit. Even during that particular special, Doin it again, I wouldn’t rank it as one of the show’s most brilliant moments. But damn it got me in a lot of trouble. Their was a brief time while I was in fourth grade that I was going to be a stand-up comic; not sure why, I wasn’t particularly funny then (or now). Jim Carry was huge at the time, his goofy face-changing antics were inspiring kids all over the country to act like morons. Robin Williams, Nickelodeon’s All That, the resurgence of SNL: The early nineties saw a unlimited amount of popular–and mediocre–American comedy. Anyway, I too had decided to become a goofy comedian–somewhere between being a fireman and a baseball player. So when this ten year old asked his video store clerk for a recommendation of “really good comedians” and he passed me an aging VHS with an old, supremely goofy looking man on the cover, I sat down with a school notebook and began to do “research” in front of my TV (this was before parents were supposed monitor everything you watched). I still remember the first line:

“Why is it that people who are against abortion don’t look like people you’d want to fuck in the first place?”

My mouth dropped. I was young, I knew what abortion was and I certainly knew what fucking was, but I’d never heard them spoken together, by an adult, by someone who was supposed to be funny. I looked around my living room, scared that I’d get caught with such filth, but too transfixed to shut it off. I just turned the volume down (slightly) while this old man attacked every sacred cow, breached every unspeakable subject, and spoke every word that I’d been told for a decade never to speak. And he did it casually, with confidence. It was mind-blowing.

The next day I went to school and told an unsuspecting student a joke about an 81 year old getting raped. He didn’t laugh. Neither did the next student I told, or the next, or the next. Or the teacher. Or the principal. Or the administrators. Or my parents. It didn’t matter though how much trouble I got in; while I did apologize and promised never say it again, the truth was, still is, that I’d ceased to see language and ideas as offensive or bad–the moment a child apologizes with a painful grimace that says “Sure, I’ll play by your rules. For now.” is the moment he’s truly become a free thinker. Thanks George!

But it wasn’t just me who George Carlin brought to an intellectual maturity. While Christoper Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are currently the patron saints of Atheism, no one person is more responsible for helping Americans–raised in a deeply religious society–overcome the god myth. And the religion myth. And the death myth. And the germs myth. And the “The Children” myth. And every other myth that permeates this highly superstitious land. He exposed them for what they were: At times ludicrous, at times dangerous, but always very, very funny. With every new saying, slogan, and belief, George seemed to be standing there with a grin, asking “What the fuck are you people talking about?”

To call him simply a “stand-up comic” would be dismissive and missing the point and if stand-up comedy itself is an art form, it’s only because he made it one. No thinker had a greater grasp of the American language since perhaps Mencken (and if Mencken, only Mencken). Not even strategists and pundits understood as well as he did that language and words didn’t just come about and transform for functional reasons, but for political ones. The opening monologue from one of his last shows, called “A Modern Man“, is a grand-finale of millennial linguistics that is both terrific and terrifying and includes lines like: “I’m an alpha male on beta blockers” and “I bought a minivan at a megastore”; this short bit of anti-postmodern poetics ranks high among America’s great works, and may be a better way for coming generations to understand what it was like to live in these times than pages of straight history and hours of video.

People keep asking me, “Does George Carlin ‘rest in peace’, I mean he didn’t believe in god, so…” etc. etc. The funny thing here is, no one would have found more humor in the question than George himself. Of all our dysfunctions, none made him laugh more than our discomfort with mortality; the way we dress up corpses, plan elaborate funerals, shout on and on about the “sanctity of life” (he once pointed-out the obvious bias here: only alive people care about life). If George was still here (he isn’t) and saw people looking over his own sticking carcass, he would’ve smiled and declared: “I’m not resting, I’m fucking dead.”