AUCTION FIGURES

I attended an auction today. I didn’t go because I was looking for any specific items, but because friends and family would be there, and because I knew the woman who was having the event. I watched as strangers made competing bids for her stuff—the stuff of decades—and I watched as they boxed it up piece by piece and carted it all away. At noon, I stood looking at a jungle of merchandise and following a flurry of activity; by six that evening, the evidence of an existence had been erased.

I’ve never known her exact age, but she must be well into her seventies. She owned a collection of Department 56 Christmas figures that had filled some twenty floor-to-ceiling x three-foot shelves. This was a collection that had begun in the early 80s, thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of original value. And auction attendees were purchasing it all for a pittance. I not only watched the auction, but I watched the woman watching it. I am sure she was reflecting on when her husband was alive, harking back to those days when her children lived at home. I could envision her readying that home for the upcoming holidays, setting out the newest figurines with a sparkle in her eye, positioning them among the older pieces just so. I imagined the warm feeling that attended the compliments visitors offered on her outstanding collection; and now, the emptiness that accompanies the realization of the ephemeral nature of material objects—and of life.

Away went the tools from the detached garage, the circular saws and extension cords, the miter boxes and monkey wrenches, testaments to her deceased husband’s handiness. Antique furniture—beautiful pieces that she had gazed upon for more years than I’ve been alive—was carefully loaded into the back of pick-up trucks. A winning bidder drove off in her mini-van. Her mini-van no longer. Dishes, appliances, wall hangings, shelving, sofas and chairs—all gone in a relative flash. Children’s toys from another era switched hands in a cold and methodical fashion. She faced four more nights alone in that huge, empty, echoing house before her trip to Tennessee, where she planned on finishing out her life in the company of siblings. Her final move. She told me she hadn’t been in Tennessee since she left at age twenty-five. I tried to picture her at twenty-five, but I could not. I would need to see photos for that. I mentioned that she looked frazzled. Indeed she was, she said. This was her first auction. I told her that people generally only had one auction.

It is a popular maxim that you can’t buy beer, you can only rent it. Well, the truth of the matter is, you can’t really buy anything. All of the possessions we hold dear eventually end up scattered to the four winds, sent to the care of others at some point. Maybe we buy perishable goods or items with short functional lives, but those books and CDs and wall hangings and figurines and well-crafted tools are but rentals. Maybe we will be lucky and die while residing in our long-time homes, leaving our stuff to the family, but most of us are forced to cash in once in our lives. I had an idea of what that ageing woman was feeling because I had been there. I had cashed in. I’d had my auction.

I had my auction far too early in life. Things happen, some beyond our control, some owing to our own arrogance and complacency. I watched my collection of prized Beatles memorabilia be divvied up and made to vanish for diminished returns. My power tools, my chests of carefully-sorted and labeled hardware, my library, many things that meant something to me, the products of toil and care, all imbued with memories that only I could see, memories of my wife and children, of more idyllic times, of outings, parties, vacations and laughs, were all carted off for next to nothing in a grinding heartbeat. And then one spends a few empty nights in a hollow, echoing structure that belongs to someone else now. The building, in the span of a day, has become a house rather than a home.

Auctions seem like happy events at face level; the atmosphere, in fact, is almost festive. Attendees trade jokes as they compete; buyers marvel at their new purchases like children on Christmas morning; laughing commentary regarding the odd stuff that some folks will pay good money for resonates about the grounds. The reason an auction is being held, though, is generally anything but happy: someone has died, or an old, familiar life is being exchanged for a new, strange one. Often a lesser one.

People, for the most part, only have one auction. It is difficult to accumulate an auction’s worth of stuff—a lifetime’s worth—twice in a lifetime. And holding an auction is not a fun thing to do. A person would not want to endure it a second time. An auction cannot be held until the house is sold, and the seller cannot live in a house with no furnishings. Everything is a rush, a matter of timing, and the work involved is overwhelming. And then you are hit with the unsettling revelation that your prized possessions are not yours—that they never really were—and that there is not a one of them that you can take with you when your ride comes. You silently bid them adieu, hold your head up and hope that the new possessor will enjoy those material objects as much as you did. And even if the buyer is in it as a business, with an eye toward turning a profit, you know that one day, barring destruction by time, wind, water or fire, those figures—those symbols of your past life—will be auctioned off.

#TO AVOID OFFENDING MUSLIMS

Last October, angry and discontented Mohammedans, exercising their free-speech rights, began protesting Google offices around the world. The protests were staged because the corporate giant chose not to pull a certain video from its YouTube content, a video that the miffed sign-wielders deemed offensive and not protected under the aegis of free speech. I suspect, however, that if those indignant Islamic faithful were privy to another interesting bit of information that yours truly has uncovered, they’d decide this amateur video that keeps them awake at night is the least of their problems with Google—or Yahoo or Bing or any other search engines. 

At the behest of an idea that came to me from reading headlines and news stories, I entered the phrase “to avoid offending Muslims” into the top search engines. In fairness, I only did this after inserting the names of other religions into that phrase. “To avoid offending Hindus” brought up two stories, one of an airline removing beef from the menu, and another about McDonald’s in India serving strictly vegetarian cuisine to avoid offending Hindus and Muslims. That was all. Another story involving food popped up for the phrase “to avoid offending Jews.” Surprisingly, or maybe not, nothing exists in those data bases to correspond with the phrase “to avoid offending Christians,” save a Daily Kos bit that emerges in Yahoo about  some book sold at the Grand Canyon National Park concessions that fails to mention the geological age of that awesome natural wonder, presumably to avoid offending Christians. I thought for sure ‘Piss Christ’ would’ve generated something along those lines. Not so. In fact, those “to avoid” keywords produce entries about how Christians should strive not to offend anybody, or how Christians should avoid offending Muslims. And as for “to avoid offending Buddhists,” nada. It apparently takes a some real effort to offend a Buddhist in Western countries.

But, as you may have guessed by now, the “to avoid offending Muslims” pool is unique in its depth. I like to take my readers’ attention spans into account, so I’ve kept this list limited to what shows up quickly without a lot of scrounging for crumbs. It is still considerable in its length, but that’s the good thing about lists–you can resume later if you get bored. And so we begin.

“Hospital removes hot-cross buns at Easter to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Café told to remove extractor fan to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Dads banned from nursery to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Marines ban farting to avoid offending Muslims.”

“BBC drops fictional terror attack to avoid offending Muslims.”

“British schools remove Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Schools drop Crusades to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Brussels bans ‘offensive’ Christmas tree to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Can the military do more to avoid offending Muslims?”

“American Bible translators bowdlerize scriptures to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Premier League finds Sharia-compliant award to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Premier League offers non-alcoholic rose-water and pomegranate drink alternative to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Premier League contemplates champagne ban to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Denmark city officials ban Israeli flag at local diversity festival to avoid offending Muslims.”

“US soldiers in Afghanistan told not to impugn pedophilia, mistreatment of women to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Airline bans Bibles to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Libraries told to put Bibles on top shelf {and out of sight} to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Soccer badge changed to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Papers pull Opus comic strip to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Prophet Muhammad novel scrapped to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Teachers drop Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims.”

“London university considering alcohol ban to avoid offending Muslims.”

“British Red Cross removes Christmas decorations to avoid offending Muslims.”

“British Red Cross bans Christmas to avoid offending Muslims.”

“British Red Cross removes all references to Christmas to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Australia: KFC removes bacon from menu to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Prison in Britain removes chapel crucifix to avoid offending Muslims.”

“White House delays release of Bin Laden photos to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Spanish villages tone down festivities to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Mother told not to breastfeed to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Pork off menu at UK schools to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Australia: Non-Muslims must cover up at municipal pool to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Museum pulls artwork to avoid offending Muslims.”

“British mull discarding flag to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Church school renames ‘Three Little Pigs’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Minnesota: Santa Claus banned from Head Start classes to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Santa banned from kindergarten to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Netherlands: Paintings featuring pigs removed from hospitals to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Schools rearranging exams and canceling lessons to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Police dogs to wear bootees during house searches to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Council renames Christmas to avoid offending Muslims.”

“{Renowned 16^th century playwright Christopher Marlowe’s} ‘Tamburlaine the Great’ censored to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Australia: Hospital bans Bible, crosses from chapel to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Illinois schools canceling Christmas, Halloween to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Oregon: School drops ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“25 US papers censor Sunday comics to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK airline wipes Israel off map to avoid offending Muslims.”

“China’s state TV bans pig images to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Chinese New Year apt to offend Muslims.”

“Denmark delays freedom of speech conference to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Kristof concerned King Hearings may offend Muslims.”

“Modern Warfare 2 map pulled to avoid offending Muslims.”

“School changes name of play to ‘Three Little Puppies’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Hospital staff told not to eat at desks to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Plastic bags to be put over ‘terror cameras’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Jew with dog arrested for offending Muslims.”

“Singapore: McDonald’s apologizes for leaving pig out of Chinese zodiac collection to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Montana: President of ice cream company faces resignation for mistakenly offending Muslims.”

“Piggy-bank giveaways halted to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Paris Hilton ropes in cultural guide to avoid offending Muslims.”

“New 2012 movie goes out of its way to avoid offending Muslims.”

“New Bible versions remove ‘Father’ and ‘Son of God’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Gay activists consider canceling pride parade to avoid offending Muslims.”

“UK: Tate Museum pulls artwork to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Norway: Star of David banned to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Toy pig removed from farm set to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Miami-Dade Transit pulls ads from buses to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Danish newspaper apologizes for offending Muslims.”

“UK: Newcastle United football shirts offend Muslims.”

“UK agency rejects digital remake of ‘Three Little Pigs’ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“No shoes allowed in terrorist captures to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Anzac Day may offend Muslims.”

“Artists try not to offend Muslims as satire festival treads softly.”

“Raids during Ramadan could offend Muslims.”

“Bethlehem: Souvenir sellers stop selling crosses to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Release of ‘Little Big Planet’ delayed for fear of offending Muslims.”

“Cambridge University issues directives against shaking hands with Muslims to avoid offense.”

“EU and UK refuse to label halal meat as halal to avoid offending Muslims.”

“South Park’s giant bear offends Muslims.”

“BBC drops Anno Domini and Before Christ to avoid offending Muslims.”

“Concern Bin Laden capture movie will offend Muslims.”

“Austria: Judge rules that yodeling offends Muslims.”

 

No matter your politics, no matter your desire to find fault in either no one or only Western culture, deep down you know something is out of step with the successful administration of human society here. Someone is working and someone is being worked.

I need to decide on my tag words for this piece, and here are some I’m considering: remove, reject, refuse, rename, reconsider, rearrange, change, delay, cancel, censor, pull, ban, stop, halt, end, discard, tone down, contemplate, mull, try not to, wipe off, drop, scrap, apologize for, and bowdlerize.

In parting, let me ask you to imagine how hilarious it would be if you and your people could make cops remove their own shoes while putting shoes on their dogs before entering your abode looking for mass-murderers. And don’t even think about yodeling.

THE PROOF-OF-AFTERLIFE PLANT (My Excursion to the Other Side)

Plants are analogous to the internet and hammers inasmuch as they can be used for good or evil. They can feed, they can cure, they can poison. And in at least one case, purportedly, they can pull back the curtain between the material and the spiritual worlds. We learn such a thing from a religion peculiar to a handful of tribes in western central Africa, particularly in Gabon. The religion is called Bwiti, and its practice involves a ceremony centered on the ingestion of a certain root bark. In Bwiti culture, male children as young as eight are inducted into manhood after embarking on something of a vision quest in which tribal shamans spoon-feed the initiates a powdered form of the root of the Tabernanthe Iboga tree. Tradition tells us this ceremony dates back centuries. Practitioners believe that the right amount of powder swallowed over a measured length of time will send the initiate to the world of the deceased, where he can speak not only to his ancestors, but sometimes to God. Iboga has been referred to as the proof-of-afterlife plant, and for some that appellation is more than hyperbole.

This ceremony is not generally open to outsiders, but the right amount of money can buy just about anything. Over the past few years, Westerners from several countries have visited the jungles of Africa to experience the Iboga ritual. Additionally, enterprising parties around the world have opened up Ibogaine clinics (Ibogaine being the alkaloid derived from the root bark) where the adventurous can go to seek out spiritual healing. Like its more well-known South American cousin Ayahuasca, Iboga is one of the so-called healing plants. One Iboga clinic may be overseen by a doctor, another may be staffed by a shaman who administers the dose and acts as a material Virgil to the customer’s Dante. It depends on what the client is looking for. The stories one finds on the internet about Ibogaine experiences fascinate. At some point during the trip, the pilgrim invariably meets a spirit guide—an other-worldly rather than a material Virgil—who reveals the secret entities and motivations crouching in the shadows of a person’s psyche. The spirit guide, who takes different forms for different people, often answers the initiate’s questions along the way. In reading these accounts, you will frequently be warned that this is no pleasure cruise, that it’s not for the faint-hearted. Ibogaine forces one to face his weaknesses and his failures as a human being. It exposes his most hidden thoughts and behaviors. The point behind it all seems to be an epiphany that perhaps will set a person on the right track. It has been discovered that a certain percentage of Ibogaine adventurers are offered the chance during the experience to leave their physical bodies permanently for apparently idyllic shores. The official count of eleven Ibogaine-associated deaths may have something to do with that offer, but, of course, we’ll never know. I can’t speak for others who have been inexorably drawn to the mystical properties of the root bark, but I can speak for myself.

The circumstances around my drift into the Iboga-fueled unknown are necessarily confidential, but I can spill the rest of it. The details are bizarre, and to some they will be unbelievable, which I can understand. I would say reserve judgment until you’ve tried it yourself, but I would also not recommend it to anybody. It is, just as they say, not for the faint of heart. Ibogaine came into my possession because it was meant to, and I took it when “King Iboga” wanted me to take it, or so I was informed, and I have a hard time believing otherwise. Dosage is everything. The Bwiti shamans make certain their subjects swallow a sufficient amount by asking questions and judging by the subjects’ answers whether more is needed. The larger the dose, the more intense the experience. Research and/or expert counseling is a must with Iboga.

More than an hour had passed after swallowing the elixir (at approx. 7:00 PM) when I noticed what I call the ambient drone. This hum, or buzz, or whatever you might call it—I’m sure it’s always there; we just don’t hear it in the sensible world. At least not under normal circumstances. It had been getting louder the whole time, but only now did it catch my attention. My vision began to grow distorted to where it became difficult to focus on any one object. At this point, a prevailing sense of uneasiness fast-forwarded into something more akin to fear. Something—no, someone would better describe the sensation—was now in control of whatever was about to happen to me. This someone had been expecting me. That’s how it felt. Soon I was getting a look into another aspect of physical existence, where every object contained living, moving patterns and bright colors. I plopped down on a mattress and let myself be consumed, not that I had a choice anymore. I studied the events going on around me, the constant movement, the sailing and assailing colors. I noticed that when my gaze shifted from the floor to the ceiling, an apparition of sorts moved from the ceiling to the floor, and vice versa. When my eyes moved right to left, the thing went left to right. This kept me occupied for some time, although it was only a handshake to let me know I was in the right place.

Just as the ambient drone had crept up on me, so too did the sound of my heartbeat. It was so loud and so fast I thought I’d overdone things. (It turns out that this sensitive awareness of your beating heart is normal.) I felt it pumping against my ribs. I repositioned myself, trying to make it go away, which worked, thank goodness, as it was scaring the hell out of me. As long as I lay a certain way, I was shielded from the pounding. I lost my motor skills to the degree that I couldn’t walk. I could barely pick anything up with my hands, my depth perception being so distorted. I eventually found comfort with my eyes closed, where in the darkness a veritable performance was underway in my honor. For about three hours I lay still watching images morph into other images, a cosmic parade of color and artistry. It’s really impossible to describe it with any accuracy, but boredom was never an issue. And then, when I was distracted and not expecting it, an abrupt interruption halted the show.

It was like: I’m here! No warning, no announcement of any kind. I knew right away without any inkling of doubt that I was in the presence of the one they called the spirit guide. So much had been going on that I’d forgotten about him. The presence in my case did have a maleness about it. I was never to have a sense of friend or foe regarding its (his) manner, just an air of: This is how it is. He was invisible to me, but I didn’t need to see him. His existence bore down on me. I immediately found myself in a dark room, and on one wall was a brightly-illuminated poster. It looked like the cover of the “Let It Be” album, but instead of seeing the faces of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, four different aspects of my face filled up the squares. And they were none too pretty. I was older and wrinkled. I studied the picture before looking away. When I looked back, it was still there. I don’t know how long I stood trapped in that room, but I eventually left and was taken up to fly over a timeline that covered the years of my life. I would descend randomly at a certain year, where I’d view a scene from my past, beginning with my childhood. None of the scenes were anything I’d remembered in real life, but when I saw them, everything came flooding back to me. I would rise up and descend again over another year and watch another episode. I couldn’t tell that there was a point to the particular remembrances, more that the spirit guide was showing me what he was capable of. There was one, though, that was troubling. When I was eight, a friend of mine’s mother shot and killed his dad in the house next door. I must have blocked that recollection from my mind over the years, but now I remembered it all as if I’d never forgot it. And the murder motif would return before my journey was finished.

I later stood in utter blackness when a luminous arm stretched out in front of me. I could only see the arm and not the body attached to it. The sleeve of a white robe covered it, and in its hand was a burning yellow orb. The arm rolled this flaming sphere into the darkness like a bowling ball. It struck a mass of what looked like rock, which exploded into pieces. Some of those pieces went spinning until they too became spheres and began orbiting the fiery ball, which, I realized, was the sun. I was watching the planets form into our solar system. My attention was drawn to one particular planet, a planet that changed from gray to dark blue. I saw the white of waves on it. And then masses of land began to pop up in the water. Trees with green leaves sprang up on the land. In daylight, objects that I can only describe as organic white cylinders were dropped from the sky onto the Earth. One by one and rapidly, the cylinders opened up to show their empty interiors. Into the vacuous spaces went beating hearts, full circulatory systems, and all the organs—until skeletons encased the whole mess. The cylinders closed, and then sprouted limbs and heads. They moved forward, as if on a conveyor, to be clothed in some form of battle attire before they were sent off to fight. A voice posed the question: what is in their minds that they would create humans to kill each other? And then I saw the globe. From Europe, millions of warriors crossed the Atlantic to fight and conquer the inhabitants of North America. And then in the Middle East, warriors in black hoods rose up in their millions before spreading out to conquer Europe. The victors then crossed the Atlantic and started a war against the North Americans—the former Europeans—while I watched. Blood and limbs and organs were flung everywhere.

The whole scene vanished, though, and I was staring at something like an IMAX movie. A swan drifted about on the calm surface of a lake. Autumn leaves dropped gently into the water around it. This was the opposite of what I’d just had to watch. A narrator said: They call it nature’s way. What do they mean—nature’s way? Is nature a mindless happenstance, an accident? Or is nature a living, sentient being? Does it impose its will?

The event that happened next was the most critical—and the most terrifying—of the whole experience. It answered any question I had as to the existence of an afterlife. All I had to do was think afterward about what had happened, what clue I’d been given, what I’d really learned. If you came across a muskrat skeleton in a trap on a river bank, you’d know without a doubt that a living muskrat had got caught and died there. What I was shown next said as much about the afterlife as a trap and skeleton does about a muskrat. At least in my opinion. It was just a matter of processing the information

Not for the first time I stood in a lightless room. Beginning just above floor level, about three feet by three feet, was a window into…somewhere. I didn’t know—a parallel universe, I supposed. The window’s top was roughly as high as my waist. As one would feel the cold while passing by a freezer with an open door, I felt an emotion emanating into my space from the open window, an emotion that I had never felt. There was a frequency to it, some sort of vibration that engulfed my entire body; my ears clogged as if I were rapidly changing altitudes. The sensation was intolerable, and it caused me to step away from it. I was bothered that it seemed so horrible, and I was propelled back into it by the need to assure myself that I could take it if I had to. If I had to? I stepped toward the window again, and a magnetic power or a vacuum tried to pull me into it. I was sure that if I didn’t break away I’d be trapped in that other world, enduring this miserable feeling maybe forever. Some emotions are positive, some are negative, and negative emotions such as sadness can reach levels of severity that can make a person despondent or suicidal. Anger, greed, and envy can make a person kill. This emotion was beyond all that, something that could only exist in another world. Sometimes love-sickness or homesickness can be forms of torture. Again, this emotion was beyond that. I couldn’t bear the limitless, infinite dread that was consuming me like fire, and I wrenched away, retreating until I felt safe. Inside the window, flashes of lightning illuminated the scene every few seconds. A man dressed in the clothing of the late 50s or early 60s, trench coat and fedora, stood behind a car of the same era with an eight or nine-year-old boy. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the child in the stomach. In the next flash of lightning, one man shot another in the front yard of an old house. Every time the lightning flashed, I saw a murder. And the words “Murder Street” appeared in the window at one point. One more time I tried to endure that infernal feeling—again, I had to know that I could—and one more time a force locked onto me when I got too close, drawing me in. Over the following days I wondered why I was being shown such a scene, and more importantly, made to experience such an emotion. Was this the fate of those who took the lives of others? Was it murderers’ hell? Then why would I need to know about it? Taking a life is not in my nature. I am bothered by it as I write.

The spirit-guide portion of the journey lasted three or four hours, during which I was shown things about myself that were disturbing, including the existence of cancer. Communication was managed through imagery, telepathy, and narration both written and spoken. When he—the spirit guide—was finished with me, he told me so. I hurriedly asked a question: What can I do? I then saw a beating heart as if looking through a chest. I soon grasped that it was my chest and my heart. It pumped harder and harder, until it exploded. Bloody pieces splattered against the lens through which I watched. And with that, the guide was gone as quickly as he’d appeared, and his cryptic message of exploding hearts was lost on me.

But the journey was far from over. The time was somewhere around three in the morning, and the visual production was as intense as ever. I lay shaking, trying to sort it all out. I didn’t know whether my eyes had been open or closed throughout the previous hours. It seemed as if they’d been open, and that I’d existed in two worlds at once. The corollaries of lucidity had remained in place throughout the night: I knew who and where I was, and I knew exactly what I was doing the whole time. Yet, I had been in another dimension, as if I’d left my body. Now, as I lay there, I was seeing events every time I closed my eyes. Usually in black and white. I saw the boots of marching soldiers ticking across a gridiron in perfect time. I blinked into another scene, where factory machinery was stamping out product—in perfect time. I blinked again, and I watched children on a playground, jump ropes striking the surface at their feet as if keeping time. With each blink, a new scene presented itself: traffic stopping and going in time, train wheels turning, drums beating, engines cranking, synapses firing, hearts thumping, everything in time. I was being shown a world that carried on in a particular rhythm, as if being managed accordingly. This went on until the sky was light outside, when the visions began to change.

I could now see through walls, at least in my mind. No matter what went on inside of an apartment building, I could watch it all. In residential neighborhoods, in industrial parks, in office buildings, drama unfolded before me. I rose up above the city and peered into the lives below. I felt I was being shown that some entity was capable of doing exactly this. I was glimpsing what that entity saw. Nothing was hidden. Maybe the implication was that cameras are everywhere, maybe I was being told something else. This too went on for a considerable length of time, and I realized I was in an uncomfortable place. When I could see the private lives of people—or read their minds—things were not at all too happy. We behave one way in public and another in private, and while we may think we would give in to our voyeuristic tendencies if such powers were given us, we would be punishing ourselves in doing so. There is no pleasure in it. I was being shown two different existences in the same material world. When the private world was exposed, I felt my will to live melt away. Privacy, I seemed to be learning for reasons I can’t yet conceive, is crucial for a society’s survival.

There is much that I understood in what I was shown and much that I’ll probably never decipher. While the experience was harrowing overall, the following day and night were actually pleasant, as if I was being rewarded for all I’d endured. I did not eat, drink, or sleep for two days, but I had no need to. I was as comfortable physically as I’d ever been. My motor skills returned by the first morning.

More than anything else I’ve experienced in life, my introduction to an emotion not included in the emotion spectrum associated with physical existence leaves me convinced of a spiritual realm. I have since reasoned that this emotion must exist in our universe or I could not have felt it then or any other time. One cannot dream up an emotion that isn’t real. And with this revelation I came away satisfied that there has to be another plane—an afterlife. I should also mention the colors; they were unlike anything one sees on this side. They behaved as if they were vibrant, as if they bore the germ of life within. They shone with a brightness that defies description, so here I’ll give up describing them. 

Iboga journeys (trips is way too mundane here), like Native American vision quests, are unique to the individual. There are similarities that tie them together, however, depending on the dosage, such as the spirit guide. Some who have taken this journey have come away happier or healed of their malady, some have quietly packed up and disappeared. As for me, it’s a mixed bag. Again, I wouldn’t recommend it. Chances are, though, you know something now you didn’t know yesterday, and that’s what I’m here for.                                        

TUNNEL

There I stood on a precipice. It was no metaphor. I gazed at the canyon floor some two-thousand feet below, my internal monologue of the moment transforming into internal dialogue, a debate with the self. I wondered what it would be like, those terrifying seconds of falling. Would that split second of pain, of bones breaking and organs rupturing, linger beyond the moment of death, or would it all quickly vanish into nothingness? You often hear that suicide is the easy way out. I wasn’t so sure. Nevertheless, I was on a mission of sorts, and after I cleared my head of morbid thoughts I decided I was going to the bottom of that canyon rather than not.

I’d spent the previous winter dragging through chemo and radiation, and the spring trying to recover from it. Here in late June was the first time since then that I’d challenged myself physically in any meaningful way. This particular trek into Canyon De Chelly follows a steep switchback down a sheer cliff. The hard part would be the return trip. The sun would be higher in the sky by then and more potent than it already was. But I had to prove to my weakened self I could do it.

Not far from the top, only a few yards into the descent, the trail led into a tunnel through the rock. It was heaven in there, to be honest. Freakin’ paradise on such a day in the Arizona desert. A natural breeze swept through continuously, making it feel for all the world like air conditioning. I rested there for a minute or so, and then begrudgingly left those comforts behind in the darkness. Somewhere in that canyon was a millennium-old Anasazi cliff dwelling and I wanted to see it. That was my reason for the trip if anyone asked.

The one-way distance from the trail head to the cliff dwelling was a mile and a half—most of it vertical. I made it down the wall and across the canyon okay. I didn’t figure that would be much of a problem and it wasn’t. But after I got my fill of the ruins and the accompanying hieroglyphs, with my head tilted back I contemplated the bluff that stood between me and a real success. The sun was now straight overhead in a cloudless sky, the temperature in the middle nineties. As it turned out, I could only take the ascent in segments, three-minute cycles of walking and resting. Then two-minutes walking, four resting. I wasn’t yet ready for something like this. Most of the walking was done with my hands on my knees and my tongue visible. The water from my bottle did its best to put out the fire in my throat, but after several agonizing stretches of climbing ever higher, it was no match for nature. I’d been thinking I’d made a mistake for some time now. I creased my eyes in the harshness of the unfiltered light. Everywhere tiny rocks sparkled and reflected the pelting rays of the noonday sun. The RV-size boulders that squeezed me into various sideways aspects from time to time exhaled heat. Every step was more grueling than its predecessor. I had moments of doubt—many of them, in fact. I kept pushing, though. I kept pushing up that interminable bluff and through those torturous sunbeams because I was propelled by a certain bit of knowledge: I never forgot that there’d be a tunnel at the end of the light.

 

FISH AND WILDLIFE ADDS SASQUATCH TO ENDANGERED SPECIES

Washington, D.C.

November 10, 2012

United States Fish and Wildlife Services spokesperson Naya Faroosh said late Friday afternoon at a Washington press conference that the government organization will include the elusive Sasquatch, more popularly known as Bigfoot, on its list of endangered species. Sasquatch habitat has been severely diminished over recent decades, Ms. Faroosh said. The official FWS stance is that this is due to Anthropogenic Global Warming as well as urban sprawl and human encroachment in inland Oregon and Washington State where the Sasquatch population is believed to be most prevalent in the U.S. FWS scientists estimate there may be fewer than three dozen Sasquatches remaining in both states combined. The total number of these legendary bi-urnal bipeds in the Canadian province of British Columbia may be double that, although much reduced from historic highs in the thousands only two centuries ago, according to the FWS.

“The very paucity of Sasquatch sightings in our own lifetimes is evidence of human carelessness and disregard,” Ms. Faroosh said. “We share this earth with other species who have every right to exist here, and our actions should reflect our appreciation of that fact.” The spokesperson went on to say that a majority of the land best suited for Sasquatch habitat is currently under private ownership, but that with the new ruling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is empowered to take control of those lands and place them under a federal management program designed to restore endangered populations to previous levels. “The fewer sightings there are, the stronger the proof of our negligence as a society,” Ms. Faroosh said. “It is the Sasquatch children who suffer most.”

Sources confirm that Canadian authorities have been approached by the FWS regarding a joint effort in land management benefitting the Sasquatch. Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon of British Columbia, whose province is believed by U.S. government environmental scientists to be home to the largest population of sasquatches in North America, has failed to respond so far, other than handing out copies of the FWS letter during a holiday party. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has issued no official response, but was inadvertently caught on camera rolling his eyes during a telephone communication on the issue with the FWS director’s office, say sources close to the prime minister.

When the subject of general skepticism among the public in regards to the existence of the Sasquatch was broached, Ms. Faroosh responded that some people still deny the existence of Global Warming and the Holocaust. “We can’t be good stewards of the Earth if we’re willing to allow the fringe element in our society to govern our actions,” Ms. Faroosh said. “These people who disregard our environment are the same people who burn African American churches. They couldn’t care less about the plight of certain species or the health of the planet, and it behooves true Americans to ignore the rhetoric of hate that continuously emanates from those unseemly quarters.” Ms. Faroosh went on to assert that sasquatches, or “these gentle giants of the Great Northwest” are “people too,” endowed with “the desire to provide the best for their children” essentially the same as humans.

The White House also issued a statement late Friday afternoon indicating that President Obama looks forward to a bipartisan solution to the problem of dwindling Sasquatch habitat. “The president will consider any ideas as long as they are balanced,” the statement said.

THERE IS NO GOD

The evidence is in and the debate is over. The Science Channel and physicist Stephen Hawking have laid out proof in one hour of cable programming that there can be no God. Here is how the story goes:

The universe is expanding. As far as I’m aware, everyone agrees with that. I’ve heard no competing theories or offers of evidence to the contrary. So, if the universe is indeed expanding, then we must trace it all back in time—some 14 billion years—to when the expanding began. Just as the universe is infinitely huge today, it was infinitesimally tiny back then—sub-atomic, in fact. We continue to contract, back and back in time, tinier and tinier. Now, keep in mind Einstein calculated that time and space are of one fabric; they are not separate and independent of each other. When the totality of energy and matter was sub-atomic, so was that of time and space. We are told science has proved that the laws of physics do not apply at the sub-atomic level. We are told that energy and matter actually do appear out of nothingness when we explore the nano-world. Before the Big Bang, when all hell broke loose and the universe blew into existence from nothingness, time and space did not exist. Therefore, God (perhaps we can use the little g now) had no time to create anything. WHAM! At the end of the programming hour, the narrator hits us upside the head with this apparent fact. Stephen Hawking adds that he certainly doesn’t wish to offend religious sensibilities, but that we each have one shot at life and that’s it. It’s over when it’s over. It has taken mankind until the 21^st century after the birth of Christ to figure it out, but the uncaused first cause has been uncovered. 

If this is true, then I have to wonder if I will lose my incentive. What’s the point? When a loved one dies, most of us are buoyed by the belief, or at least the hope, that we will meet again. If we remove a creator from the picture, it seems that we remove heaven, and we take away any possibility that things will be made right. If we have proved that this life is all there is—that there were no past lives to call our own and that there will be no more shots at doing it better someday, and that there will be no eternity spent in a state of rapture with the spirits of people we know and love—then what difference would it ultimately make if we were Hitler or Stalin or Mother Theresa? Also, when we ponder our own insignificance in the universe, the idea of God being aware of us as individuals is comforting.

Then again, most religions tell us that a preponderance of souls will spend the afterlife burning alive. If we don’t behave in a perfect manner—essentially in ways that are anything but natural to us—we are doomed to unfathomable, and often endless, torment. If there is no creator, then we can breathe a sigh of relief that there will be no more pain. No more sleepless nights of internal grappling over angry or sexual thoughts that are consequential to our humanly existence.

These are all things we think about when contemplating the absence of a supreme, omnipotent being. Atheists have already accepted that what we see is what we get, and they seem to get along all right. If humanity has proved there is no God, then the other 90% of us can learn from the Atheists. We can learn how to remain motivated to live our lives as fully as possible. We can learn why we should be good people and listen to our consciences rather than trouncing on our fellow humans to get our way. Maybe consciences themselves are programmed into us with the recently-discovered God gene as a tool for perpetuating our existence as a species.

But it seems to me that Stephen Hawking is missing something—or dismissing something. Has he proved that there can be no alternate planes of existence?—dimensions, such as at the sub-atomic level, where our known laws of physics do not apply? Is it not a leap of faith to believe that energy and matter can and do appear out of nothing? Is it not possible that this so-called nothingness is really another dimension that remains undetectable by scientific instrumentation and calculation? At the level where neutrinos gambol about, why is it more likely that matter forms out of nothing than it is that portals exist between our material plane and another, unseen realm? Why is it more likely that matter and energy form from nothing than it is that they enter our world through one of these thresholds?

Friends and family have confided in me stories that point to just such a possibility—stories of being clinically dead and traveling to alternate realms, of leaving the body or being visited, even harassed, by other-worldly entities, ghosts, I mean. Spirits of deceased family members have come to convey that things would be all right. I’ve lost count of such confidences. The inexplicable bombards our earthly existence now as it has for ages. I could shrug these things off and assign them to over-active imaginations had I not had such experiences myself. As far as God and Heaven and the Devil and Hell, I don’t know, but I’m ever convinced something else is out there. 

And now scientists themselves have admitted to a belief in the invisible—or what some might call faith. It is pure faith on the part of science to conclude that infinity is formed from zero. The Science Channel motto is “Question everything.” And so we should. I’ve seen more evidence of a spiritual plane than I have that nothingness creates. It has been said that every atom passes through all possible histories, or, in other words: Alexander the Great died at birth and the Moors defeated Charles Martel while your uncle watched from an oak tree. Every alternate history has transpired and will continue to do so. This could be true, as could reincarnation, as could one parallel universe, as could a multi-verse, as could string theory and the theory that the Big Bang was really a Big Collision that happens over and over. It seems to me there is a greater chance that any of these are true than that nothingness produces something.

Something comes from nothing. Another way of saying that would be, “We have no idea where matter and energy and time and space originate, but we’re too tired to go any farther.”

A LETTER FROM BEHIND THE VEIL

The following is one of a number of correspondences I had with a women who went by the name “Shirzan” a year after the rebel uprising in Iran. She made it clear that she was risking her life owing to her anti-government activities, including her internet communications. After one particularly unnerving message, I never heard from her again. 

 

Dear Glenn,

thank you for your support. Yes, we constantly need to be careful. We use proxies and share FB accounts with other trustworthy friends throughout Iran, as to make it difficult for IRI to locate us. There is absolutely no safety here for us. We can be arrested in our house, in the streets, at work or at school. I know of many who have been arrested and tortured. Some of my friends are missing. A friend of mine was shot last year in June during the protests and it was only 3 months later that we found out he was locked up in Evin. He was only released because they realized he was not affiliated to any politcal parties, because he was near death from the wound infection, and also because of the $150,000 in bail money they received from his mother. She gave her house away to be able to get her son out. They now live with family members.

You have no idea what we go through here. And it is so sad that so many are still unaware. We are disappointed at UN for not doing more and for electing Iran to commission on women’s rights. We are disappointed that Obama even considered negotiating with these criminal thugs. We are disappointed that IRI rapist officials were allowed on US soil. We are disappointed at EU as well. We have no money, no resources, no help…we fight with our bare hands and we give our lives. We are being gang raped, tortured, executed by slow hanging or stoning… We are protesting daily in Tehran, Ahvaz, Esphahan, Shiraz and most large cities. We are not losing hope though and are ready to die to topple this rapist government. Also most of us educated Iranians HATE ISLAM and ALL MULLAHS!!! Our true religion is zoroastrianism…

Thank you for spreading the word…we need more people like you backing us up

 

 

 

THE HIGHEST FORM OF HUMOR

American families have been going to the front room and turning on the television for roughly sixty years now. The Simpsons have been on the air for well over a third of that time. That’s remarkable. You have to ask what unique quality gives this program such unprecedented staying power. Is it the weird-looking artistry or the buzz phrases? Is it that the characters are so loveable? All of that has to be considered, but there is a key element of The Simpsons to which its cult following can be attributed—something television audiences had not seen before. I know people who don’t watch it, and I know some who say they never got it. The number of folks who don’t get it is considerable, and I contend it is they who have sustained Bart and company for a quarter of a century.

Simpsons creators took a huge risk by including humor only a small percentage of the viewing audience would understand. Mixed in with the slapstick and occasional raunchiness are some rare gems known in comedy circles as sophisticated humor, and that is what keeps viewers tuning in. The target audiences for those quality lines are made to feel special, as if they belong to an exclusive club, or as if they’ve been rewarded for paying attention. Maybe some TV shows had stuck toes in that water before, but no one had jumped in like the writers behind The Simpsons. When only one or two people in a room of five or six will probably get the joke without it being explained, you have to admire the boldness of the staff and producers.

George Harrison is walking down the sidewalk when he looks up and sees Homer’s band rehearsing on the rooftop of a tall building. “It’s been done,” he says, and walks on. The scene shifts before you have time to digest it. What percentage of viewers will even understand that? Not a big one, I’m sure, but that’s what makes the production classy. A famous sports figure guest-starred and was given one line: “It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited.” I read that the guest had to have someone explain it to him. As would have ninety-percent of America.

But The Simpsons’ raison d’etre is lines like that one, and they’ve made that type of comedy popular. Frasier was one to follow suit. An example: Each scene is given a title. One in particular was called “If at Faust You Don’t Succeed.” Frasier was lured to the hotel room of the agent he’d fired for being too unscrupulous (She has no scruples, no ethics, and NO REFLECTION!) A choir convention was taking place in a banquet hall below, providing haunting music. A red light from a large neon sign shone into the room with an eerie glow. The agent, Bebe, was removing wrinkles from a dress with steam from a hot shower, which filled the room where she stood in flowing black lingerie, beckoning Frasier to return to her with promises of fame and fortune. She, of course, was Mephistopheles, and the whole scene was a Faustian metaphor. But who the hell is going to understand all of that? A small group of keen viewers applauding their asses off, that’s who.

This, the highest form of humor, which I will refer to from now on as HFH, caught on after The Simpsons became such a resounding success. Those same writers went on to create Futurama, another clever HFH production, where the best lines sail by faster than spitballs. HFH programs like these take advantage of modern technology. The viewer has to pause the scene and watch it again in order to read the sign in the background or catch the joke. The Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” has given its audience several HFH classics, such as Aquateen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, and Metalocalypse, to name a few. Family Guy is generally on the crude side, often taking the cheap shot, but every once in awhile they’ll earn their keep with a bold bit of HFH:

Oldest son Chris brings home a girl who looks just like his mother.

Stewie the baby: Looks like somebody’s getting a little Oedipussy.

Brian the dog: Can we say that?

Stewie the baby: I just did.

Wow. I would love to know what miniscule fraction of the audience caught that one, and particularly when they’re only hearing it and not seeing it written as it is above. This was actually two separate jokes pulled off in three sentences. Granted, it took half the show to set it up, but some (I) would say it was worth it, crudeness noted.

I look forward to more years of the HFH that The Simpsons spawned, the life force of shows like My Name Is Earl and King of the Hill. A person could actually categorize the eras of comedy television in a way that would make sense: Before Simpsons and After Simpsons. It was 1987 when the barrier was breached. Before that, there were funny shows, but nothing like in recent years. And because the bar has been set so high, mediocre comedy rarely succeeds anymore. How I Met Your Mother is a glaring exception. And with that, I bring it to a close, leaving you with a dozen or so of my favorite lines from Metalocalypse. Enjoy.

Pickles the drummer, holding a live lobster in a restaurant: Okay, hold on now. So you’re telling me that you put these little guys in boiling water and they shriek and they turn red and they die?

Waiter: Yes sir.

Pickles: That’s the most metal thing I’ve heard in my whole life. High five!

Toki (a Scandinavian guitarist): I…have a confessions to makes. I can’t read music.

Skwisgaar (Another Scandinavian guitarist): Dude, Toki can’t read music. Ha, it’s a laugh.

Toki: Can you?

Skwisgaar:No. I have music dyk…slexia. You know that. I…don’t wish to talk about it.

Nathan (lead singer): Maybe your teeth are falling out because you eat all that candy.

Toki: So what. Teeth grow back.

Nathan: Heh, no they don’t.

Toki: Are you a dentist?

Nathan: No.

Toki: Then shut up.

Pickles, to the comatose chef: By the power of all that is evil, I command you to awaken and make me a sandwich!

Toki: WOW! What IS this place?

Skwisgaar: This is, I believes, called food libraries.

Toki: Foooood li-brar-eee.

Skwisgaar: Fooood liii-braaarrr-eee.

Pickles: It’s called a grocery store, douche bags! I’m sorry about douche bags. I got low blood sugar.

Toki: I Toki. I slips in and out of diabetic coma. They should make insulin-flavored candy. Whatever. Candy taste like chicken if chicken was a candy.

Murderface (bass player): What do ya mean, booze ain’t food! I’d rather chop off my ding-dong than admit that.

Peripheral character: You’ll go to heaven for that, Murderface.

Murderface: I’d rather die than go to heaven.

Toki: And then from sorrow, far too, he blow he brain in.

Skwisgaar: He blow he brain out.

Toki: Whatever.

Skwisgaar: Out.

Toki. It make a great album cover.

Murderface: What are those wooden things? Chairs?

Skwisgaar: They are acoustic instruments.

Toki: What is acoustics? Ah, you mean grandpas guitar.

Skwisgaar: A grandpa’s guitar. That’s for p—-ies and grandpas. I think you know this.

Skwisgaar: Last time I was in Finland, last time I was in Finland I must’ve you-know-what-ed about…mmm, five-hundred girls. Golfpark estimate. Whatever.

Skwisgaar: You know what you are? You are a G-milf. That’s a grandma I’d like to f—.

Nathan, firing the band’s life coach: We, uh, found out that you can just…you know, buy…psychological validation, so…

Pickles: Why do we make it so hard on ourselves? Let’s just solve it like any other problem.

Murderface: Of course. We have them put to sleep.

Manager: You could just give him back.

Nathan: That’s a horrible thing to say…but yeah we tried that already

Pickles (pushing a cart full of liquor bottles) to grocery store clerk: Say chief, this stuff good for soup?

Clerk: No.

Pickles: Ah ha. That’s a yes.

Nathan: We are here to make coffee metal. We will make everything metal—blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

Skwisgaar, pouring coffee grounds into a toaster: What’s wrong with this dumb dildo thing? They gives us all the free coffees in the worlds and no instructions how to cook it.

Skwisgaar: All of our chefs, they has died a horrible death. What of that’s do you t’ink?

New chef: I would rather have my brains scooped out with a melon baller than to miss the opportunity to deliver the various cheese snacks to my beloved Dethklok.