FROM MAD MAGAZINE TO OBERLIN COLLEGE TO ROBERT ANTON WILSON
Current mood: mellow
Category: Life

Some time ago †Ra's Al Ghul† asked me about how Robert Anton Wilson affected my life and thought.  I'd never gotten around to answering it, so here's my first attempt at doing so.

First, an aside:   Some psychologists seem to think that how we process the information we get from the world around us, how we determine what is and is not important, just how important is that information or experience, etc is a sort of flexible until we reach the age of ten.  At point, according to this idea, how someone learns something is then set for life.  Note that the proponents of this idea aren't saying that we really stop learning new things at the age of ten, but that HOW we learn new things (and perhaps how enthusiastic we are about doing so) gets "hardwired" around that age.[1]

Anyway, when I was ten I spent the summer with my father in MA and was not looking forward to returning to live with my grandmother in MS during the school year.  During one of my usual little ten-year old funks I came across Mad Magazine Super Special 25 lying around on my dad's coffee table.  I'd always been curious about Mad Magazine as I passed it in the stands in the supermarket, so I had taken this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

It should be said at this point that this was in 1978, a summer that even a year later would stick in my mind as something quite pivotal in my life.  MAD Magazine (supplemented by Saturday Night Live which I'd discover a short time later) was my introduction to political and social satire and the finger that pointed ten-year old me towards establishing an identity distinct from that of parents' generation.  As a ten year old who had a large chunk of his childhood in the conformist south, MAD jammed a wedge into a door in my brain that life in the South just might have tricked me into closing for good.  Before innocuously opening those pages—no before even setting my eyes on Don Martin's rock music cover, I had no idea just insipid advertising really was, how idiotic political leaders and other authority figures could be, and just how moronic (one of the many words I learned from MAD, thank you very much) popular culture often was when someone simply SAW it instead of just passively allowing it to enter your sensory organs and wash your brains out your ears.  In short, it showed me just how much the things I'd previously been encouraged to accept as normal were actually stupid, bland, and/or (perhaps most importantly here) woefully unimaginative.   And the artists and writers did it in a manner that made a ten-year old kid LAUGH, guaranteeing that those seeds of subversive thought would stay planted inside his head in a way that no amount of serious revolutionary pedagogy (this was still the seventies, after all) ever could and ever did since then.

It hit my brain like a drug.  No, let's drop the metaphors; it WAS a drug.  It did some real electrochemical rearranging in my head the way a drug would have done.  There was no way I was going to go back to being normal, especially since my brain hit that ten-year mark I was telling you about earlier.  Even though, I had made a half-hearted show of joining my grandmother's church when I was 11, organized religion never really had much of chance inside my skull.  The conflict between questioning everything (often in a rather smart-alecky way) and the guilt-and-fear-driven brand of charismatic religion I encountered growing up caused too many internal conflicts for me.  Guess which one got to keep the really cool penthouse studio loft in my head.

During that same year, I discovered "Saturday Night Live" and this was back when it still irked, shocked, and sometimes made a wee bit nervous the kind of people more sympathetic to authority and normalcy.  I really dug it too, but SNL was a really good chocolate-loaded mocha latte with extra caffeine laced into the whip cream.  A great stimulant, but that MAD Magazine Super Special 25 was my first acid trip.

Walking through that door in my head, going through that transition from non-awareness to less non-awareness, when I was 10 had become a major (if subconscious) motif of my life.  Much of the type of writing I'd done and the things I'd say to people at time were done in the spirit of inducing just a little of that spirit in others.  Those attempts were often clumsy and off-the-mark, as one could expect from a kid just beginning to learn about life and relating to people (as opposed to an adult just beginning to learn about life and relating to people).

But things changed.  Maybe it was because I'd gotten older or maybe it was because certain other element had gained control of MAD and SNL.  Maybe it was simply the case that I had learned that certain something from them and it was time for me to move on to the next class.  Whatever the reason, that body of work and I had amiably parted ways.  After creatively and emotionally acknowledging the foundations laid, I set about slowly building the house that was my reality tunnel (a term that I really wouldn't learn until I was twenty, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Happily during the eighties (from junior high school to early college years in my life), newspaper funnies like Bloom County and the Far Side filled roles in my life almost isomorphic to MAD and SNL.  By the time, I'd discovered Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker books, Heller's Catch-22, Richard Pryor concerts, and many of Vonnegut's works; MAD had already gotten me mentally ready for them.

Eventually, I'd graduated high school and attended (owned by the Mississippi Baptist Convention).  After two years there, I transferred to Oberlin College because of that aforementioned epiphany that I was never going to cut it in God's army (and MC at the time of my attendance was far less strict about things than, say, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a big a contradiction in terms as I've ever heard). 

At Oberlin, I lived most of the time at Lord-Saunders, a.k.a. the African Heritage House (or most affectionately, simply "The House").  It was here I managed the extremely difficult feat of somehow failing to get laid while being a student at Oberlin College (Trust me, if you're a twenty-year old male with normally functioning hormones and are not actually trying to maintain your virginity, accomplishing this requires that you be a TREMENDOUS loser.  Here's a hint: hanging out Friday night alone in a booth at the Rat and hoping some female comes along and offers you a pity fuck does NOT work very reliably).

Another thing I learned is that I'd have made a very lousy revolutionary in the typical Black Power movement.  For those of you who knew me way back then, please understand that I love (well, some of) you folks and I know much of my material hadn't been all that great at the time, but some of those so-called revolutionaries gave me the creeps.   I got (and sometimes still have) the funny feeling that if the radical thinkers I'd come across in the House ever managed to get the world the way they'd wanted it, I'd be among the first people they'd want to be rid of.  There was no way in hell I'd want to live in the world of their dreams.  Took themselves WAY too seriously.  Just thought I say. 

Anyway, my life (good and bad) with the House, the campus political protest de jour (one wit there who wasn't me once quipped that holding protesting Reagan's Contra War on the steps of Wilder Hall [2] was like the Baptist Church sending missionaries to the Vatican), Spartacus Youth Club (supposedly a pro-socialist group that was so smug and obnoxious that student were sure was a front for the CIA), other parts of being an Obie, had pretty much ruined any chances the Left had of ever getting me to join the cause heart-and-soul.  Likewise, my time at Mississippi College (which capped my earlier childhood growing up in the Bible Belt) had pretty much killed any chances of me ever aligning myself with the conservative crowd.  Due to much of my experience had been sifted through the interpretation mechanism set up by the all the satire I'd absorbed into my head, it had become viscerally clear that there was something wrong with the whole left/right political dichotomy.  It was too much of a Procrustean bed for my way of thinking.  It seemed that other people around were feeling the same way but were succumbing to the drive to fit in [3].  This was my social and psychological world when I encountered Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy.

This is the book that reminded me (without my realizing it until then) that I'd been wishing for another "aha" moment evocative of that mind-blowing one that MAD magazine had surprised me.  Of course, my brain had soon accustomed itself to the experience and I'd long since accustomed myself to the fact that there'd be no way that I could replicate the frisson I'd gotten from the "newness" of the whole thing (I wonder if this was what McKenna meant by novelty).

It turned out I was wrong.  This book not only served as the adult version of that experience, it set me on the road to learning how to use my brain to create my own (I really hadn't started to figure out that bit until my early thirties, but the book pointed me in the right direction).  It was how I not only really began learning how to critical consider other people's ideas but how to catch myself when I'm full of shit.  I don't mean an intellectual's type of humility.  I mean the kind of self-examination that makes you want to sneak past mirrors without making eye contact.

While MAD and SNL showed me that the orderly and normal weren't necessarily always good, Wilson and Shea showed me that chaotic and unusual were not necessarily always bad.  Again, I had known that kind of thing somewhat intellectually from before, but now I'd been shown how stream of consciousness, Burrough's cut-and-paste approach, and certain aspects of postmodernism could be beneficial if used conscientiously.  Wilson's writings opened my head to subjects that I had passed .. such as the works of the aforementioned William Burroughs, Discordianism, the occult, cognitive psychology, history, ontology (the works of Wilson is where I first heard of the phrase "reality tunnel"), modern art…you can fill in the blanks here with whatever you choose.

A point I'd like to touch upon here is that I learned to use ideas instead of letting them use me.  My own experience with postmodernism, for example, is that it's great for breaking up old thought patterns that simply don't serve much of a purpose for me any more.  As someone with a little scientific background, I think rigor and structure in one's thinking is vitally important.  But too many people's mindsets get so calcified that it constricts their thinking.  Philosophical attacks on old ways of thinking can be great for breaking up and clearing out obsolete mental scaffolding.  But the point of that is so that I can then build up a newer kind of internal structure that would work better for me.  I don't stick with the same old worldview, no matter how obvious it's become useless; that seems to me to be letting the idea of traditionalism (or its worst exaggeration) use me.  And I don't just demolish an old idea no matter how useful it is and claim that any world view is as good as another; that seems to me to be letting postmodernism (or its worst exaggeration) use me.

Anyway, that's one of the influences Wilson's works had had on my life.  And he made me laugh while he did it.

You can wake up now, Ra's.  I'm finished for the day.

1:50 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A QUOTE FROM ROBBINS ALONG WITH MY OWN GIBBERISH RE: NOSTALGIA
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

"...for Pan had begun to live in his memories, an unhealthy symptom in anyone, sugesting as it does that life has peaked.  Every daydream that involves the past sports in its hatband a ticket to the grave."  From "Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins.

Sometimes I wonder about this trend toward nostalgia in popular culture, particularly with movies as of late.  In fact, I catch myself being nostalgic with my selection of music (when I can be bothered with changing it) for my profile here on MySpace.  Are we as a culture subconsciously saying the future is a dead end?  Are we saying we took a wrong turn somewhere?  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe it's just Hollywood's problem.  I don't know.

Currently reading : Jitterbug Perfume By Tom Robbins Release date: 1990-04-01

1:17 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

SOME THOUGHTS ON ALBERT HOFFMAN (1906-2008)
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

Yesterday, I found out from Disinformation that Albert Hoffman, first to synthesize lysergic acid diethalymide (a. k. a. LSD) had passed.

Now, I'm not saying we should all drop a tab of LSD in memoriam (but I'm not about to shrilly rant AGAINST doing so either). Everybody's body different and what substances you put (or refrain from putting) into it should general be up to the individual. I've never tried LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and anything really psychotropic. But if I were going to take someone else's advice about such things, I'd be a little more confident in someone knowledgeable of pharmacuticals than I would be of someone's who's training was in politics or law enforcement. (Nothing against police in this particular statement, folks, but come on: if someone stole your car, would your first choice to go after the culprit be your doctor or pharmacist?)

But I'm straying from the subject here, which is that a major part of the foundation of what we think of as the counterculture (whether he really intended to be or not) has moved on. Psychedelic art may not be your thing, but I think it beats crack and meth's contributions to our culture hands down.

According to everything I've read about him, he dropped acid at least once a year and lived to be 102. It makes me think that Timothy Leary was right when he said "Just say KNOW." Maybe Dr. Hoffman knew something the DEA would prefer the rest of us didn't.

Fare thee well on your next great trip, Dr. Hoffman. And thank you.

7:59 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR SO HERE’S THE OBLIGATORY CURRENT AFFAIRS RANT
Current mood: confused
Category: News and Politics

Okay, let just put aside the question of whether or not it is ethical or moral for the United States Government to bail out all banks and financial institution who've apparently screwed themselves over as well as their debtors with this sub-prime loan business.  I'm not asking a question about whether capitalism is more evil than socialism or vice versa.

Moreover, without going into what and what is not a fair interest rate, I understand the reasoning behind charging interest when lending money (i.e. the lender has to do without that particular amount of money for the time it takes for the loan to be repaid, etc, etc.)

I am simply going to assume, simply to lay the foundation for my question here, that the primary function of a business is to make as much money as it can.  My question is "What the hell were these banks' substitute for thinking?"  Taking a few risks with loans I could understand.  Going nuts by repeatedly with handing out loans to people these banks (almost by definition of sub-prime lending) suspected of not being able to keep up with the payments gets a big WTF from me.

Was it about making money?  Uh, folks, rational self-interest I can understand, even from a heartless corporation.  This recent example of acting on self-interest stupidly (my personal definition of "greed") is something that has me scratching my head.  Seeing these legalized loan sharks limping around after shooting themselves in the collective foot would be funny to me, if it weren't for all the families losing their homes.

And from what I understand, the foreclosure process is a major paperwork headache for banks as well as the poor souls who've lost their homes.  Am I to understand their plan was to sucker a lot of bad credit risks into high interest mortgages, take their houses, and then turn around and sell them to...uh, to whom, exactly?

I'm not too certain about how much government should regulate business beyond making sure transactions don't involve coercion or fraud.  But I think if businesses (and people) don't want too much government involvement in their affairs, then they should at least be extremely embarassed to come running to Uncle Sam with their hands out when they screw up (insert corporate welfare joke here). 

1:58 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

RAY GUN (part two)
Current mood: curious
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

A little over a month ago (3 March 2008, to be exact), I (as well as Disinformation) blogged about the Pentagon's Active Denial System.  Now, the story on 60 Minutes that kicked off my original blog made a big to-do about how almost impossible it was to defend yourself against this thing, but they failed to mention a itty-bitty caveat about this thing.  I should have thought of it myself after all the physics courses that kicked my ass back in college (and I concede John Stossel was right about one thing about mainstream journalism:  when it comes to explaining science and economics to the general public, it often drops the ball).  The people writing the Wikipedia entry, however, seemed to be a little more savvy about the possible (albeit not necessarily glaring) drawback to ADS.

That drawback involves something called a Faraday cage.  Now, the information I've looked over seems okay.  I think, however, I (and anybody else reading this) should get a refresher on the relevant physics first before taking this info at face value.  There's not much sense losing credibility for your cause by showing up at a protest wrapped in aluminum foil only to get fried anyway.

Mental exercise for conspiracy theorists:  was the reference to Faraday cages in the ADS article in Wikipedia planted there as disinformation?

11:10 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

SO WHAT’S UP WITH NEW FALCON PUBLICATIONS
Current mood: pissed off
Category: News and Politics

This one’s probably not going to mean a lot to most of you.

First I’m finding out late in the game that Christopher S Hyatt, writer of wonderful books of psychology and the occult, had died in February and I should have known much sooner because I’m on New Falcon Publications’ mailing list.

Then I go to New Falcon’s site and find it’s down.  Of all the books that I’ve actually bought (rather than checked out of a library or borrowed from someone), New Falcon as a publisher represent the largest percentage of those purchases.  That should give you an idea of my interest in this.

What gives?  There’s likely an acceptable answer, but I can’t help but feeling annoyed that I hadn’t heard about Hyatt’s passing.  His ideas influenced me quite significantly and I count him on my top five influences as far as my own thought processes go.  I haven’t read his stuff in these past few years, but trust me: it’s part of the background of my subconscious.  Specifically, his "Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation and Other Devices".  Check it out if you like getting your mind blown.

I mean, shit, last year it was RAW.  This year it’s Gygax and Hyatt.

By no means do I think anyone should start running around claiming he or she is Hyatt’s (or RAW’s or anybody’s) "intellectual heir" or "only one worthy enough to carry on the great work".  That kind of cultural scavenging and ghoulish cult of personality is something I want nothing to do with (and is completely against what I think Wilson and Hyatt were all about in the first place.  It was about GETTING YOUR OWN DAMN LIFE).  In fact, I’m kinda of wondering if I’m contributing to that very problem just by writing this blog.

I’m going to go somewhere and be pissed off for awhile, but eventually I’ll get right back to work.

And rest well, Dr. Hyatt, and thank you.

11:50 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

DEBRE DAMO
Current mood: inquisitive
Category: Travel and Places

As I was doing research for a novel, I ran across a reference to a 6th Century monastery atop Debre Damo in Northern Ethiopia. Debre Damo is a flat-topped mountain called an amba.

It’s a four hour drive from Axum until you get to a place where the road stops.  From there, you’d have to hike up a hill for around two hours.  And, finally the only way you can reach the monastery is via a 25-meter climb up a sheer cliff.  In short, you better be pretty serious about visiting this place.

Drawing some of the heartier tourists, scholars, and believers, the monastery at Debre Damo is built around Ethiopia’s oldest church with its intricate carvings on the beams and ceiling. The monastery is also known for its collections of ancient manuscripts and paintings. Now, a lot of this info can be gleaned from the Wikipedia entry, so I’ll just stop blathering for now and let the pictures speak for awhile.



In addition to Wikipedia, I also derived my information from this Naty Tours description and from Dinknesh Tours.

Maybe I’ll get there myself one day.  I just thought one or two people might be interested.

11:24 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

OKAY, SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE
Current mood: vexed
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

Once again, reality has rendered any witicism on my part redundant. In other words: WTF!

8:35 AM - 11 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

AND WHEN YOU VISIT, REMEMBER: DON’T DRINK THE WATER
Current mood: contemplative
Category: News and Politics

I suppose the AP had to make up for that Britney Spears memo debacle awhile back.

AP's investigation into US drinking water.

And, of course, I couldn't help but put this comment on Global Grind's MySpace blog.

But seriously though, it seems to drive home the point that you don't actually "throw something away" in our environment as much as you just shift it around.  Let's be a little more careful out there, people.

2:03 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

ELSEWHERE IN THE GREAT WHATEVER
Current mood: busy
Category: Blogging

Yeah, I know, I know.  "Maid of Honor" is late; I'm on it and a bunch of other things.  Today, I've been coming across so many good blogs by other people that I put in some horrendously lengthy replies to some of them.  Namely

"From the Ashes" by Maya Goddess

"BAH" by Lauren

"Fever (Parts 1 and 2 [where I get particularly verbose])" by Tainted Meat--Prince of Peace.

If you take my replies in "BAH" and part two of "Fever", you could probably piece together an entirely new blog.  I hope you can forgive the rather non-local nature of today's blog.  I'm not trying to be lazy here, it's just that I'm still trying to get on top of all the stuff I want to get done.  And besides, I happen to really like the abovementioned stuff.

Currently reading : The Life of the Cosmos By Lee Smolin Release date: March, 1999

8:50 AM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

ADVANCED TO THE NEXT LEVEL (Gary Gygax 7/27/38 - 3/4/08)
Current mood: sad
Category: News and Politics

I've just recently found out that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has passed.

This game was one of those things that made high school that little bit more bearable (because for the most part, socializing wasn't cutting it for me until I reached college).  I can still remember the little "ping" in my head when I first cast my eyes on my first 4-, 8-, 10-, 12-, and 20-sided die and I knew then and there I had made one more step away from ever thinking normally again.

Besides reading, this game exercised my imagination like naught else and I'm still reaping the benefits of playing this and other role-playing games to this day.  In fact, one of the ways I got a feel for what kind of storytelling works for a general audience was through gamemastering.

So fuck all the so-called "normals" who thought what I enjoyed was stupid and childish (They also thought I should have read less and watch more television.  Plus, this was in the mid-eighties when at the quality of teen sex flicks and slasher films had oozed down to one of its lowest points).  And ESPECIALLY FUCK WHAT CERTAIN PARANOID RELIGIOUS IDIOTS said about it being the Devil's work.  In fact, I should get out some pencil, paper, and dice; roll-up me a combo wizard-thier-fighter, and enlist in another one of those gaming sessions that go on for about a year or so.

Thank you, Mr. Gygax, for helping us enjoy the hell out of our imaginations that little bit more.  Rest well.

1:21 PM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

THIS OUGHT TO MAKE THE NEXT WTO PROTEST INTERESTING...
Current mood: curious
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

So last night, I sitting there watch 60 Minutes and...

Well, two words:

ray gun.

(Oh, by the way, they already invented the jet pack decades ago. The thing's simply too bulky and inefficient fuelwise to market.)

So it's nice I can feel like less of an ass for wanting to blog about science and technology and write science fiction, but I have to admit I felt kinda weird seeing this.

Anyway, Disinformation sort of beat me to the punch, so I'll just get back to work on the novel. 

2:13 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

HELPING OUT A FELLOW WRITER (JANE TIMM BAXTER)
Current mood: busy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Well, once I get this novel accepted for publication, I'm going to want a little help with publicity too, so here's a message from .

The Renegade Synopsis:

Vanessa White is a vampire who is on the prowl after her boyfriend, who has faked his own death. She knows however that his kind cannot die, for he is one of the Elite, a race of immortals that even vampires don't believe in. The Elite are the ancestors of human vampires, having created them by breeding with humans back when time began. Vanessa has always sought them out, believing in them since she became a vampire. Now that she has met one, she won't let him go without a fight. She doesn't realize that Descher, another Elite, is also looking for her boyfriend, Jules. His purpose is different as he has been charged to destroy the renegade Elite. Jules has broken ancient laws by allowing his existence to be found out. It's a race to see who will find who first, and whether blood or passion will flow in the depths of the night.

You can order The Renegade at Amazon.com, or request it for order at any bookstore. Jane's website is at http://www.freewebs.com/janetimmbaxter.

Friends of Jane's msypace (http://www.myspace.com/theauthoress) have exclusive access to excerpts of The Renegade, as well as other works.

12:08 PM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

SYNCHRONICITY ANYONE?
Current mood: amused
Category: MySpace

I got this from the Disinformation blog.  In of some of the things in my novel "Maid of Honor", I thought this was an interesting coincidence.   Of course, a lot of commenters were perceptive enough to notice that the statue is on the highest point in Rio de Janeiro, making it much more susceptible to lightning strikes.

I'll leave the debate up to the reader. 

7:38 AM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

WELL, IT’S SORT OF OFFICIAL NOW....
Current mood: contemplative
Category: News and Politics

Last week, I read Selles's blog and part of the conversation concerning the Mike-Judge-directed film "Idiocracy", which I thought was a nice addition to his more well known work.  Some wondered whether or not "Idiocracy" (which has now attained a cult status) was prophetic.  I've already given some of my opinions about why some people seem to put a low value on intelligence and didn't see much point in saying all that stuff all over again.

Then this morning, I read about this.

Well, at least, Mr. Baker was (somewhat) upfront about his priorities.  As for me, I probably won't be relying too much on the Associated Press for pertinent information any time "now and for the foreseeable future".

Oh, well, back to work.

7:17 AM - 7 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment