The Pitch: Banning All Religion

I took a Religion and Violence course during the last semester of my Master's degree. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be published in an upcoming book edited by Charles Bellinger regarding religion and violence. I found this competition regarding advertisements on banning all religion really hilarious and really thoughtful.



This Australian program is called The Gruen Transfer, and the segment is called "The Pitch." I think I might be interested in seeing some of the other pitches, such as bringing back child labor, invading New Zealand, and euthanizing everyone over eighty.

Adam Friedli's Memories That Are Totally Real*

*Full title that was too long to be a title: Memories That Are Totally Real, and Not Fake, Because Why Else Would I Call Them Memories, Memories

In this photo: Real Hair, Justin, It's All Real

So, there was this one time when Justin was like, "Amy, come out and play-ay..." It was pretty comical, because he didn't say "play" like you usually would say it.

Ha.

In this photo: Still Pretty Real, Justin

However, this didn't get the response he was looking for. "I'll need to try this from a different...'angle'..." he thought by speaking out loud at a different angle. So...then...and then Justin came up with an idea! "Hehehe, see, here I'm now by myself, uh, uhhh talking to myself..."

In this photo: Listening for The Safety Dance, but found Justin instead., Amy, A Real Light. This is how you know I am telling the truth.

"Hey! That's...that's chaos theory!!!" sprouted Amy, who also just happened to be in this frozen tundra maze. They both agreed the maze was unsafe and far too cold, and...wait...what was up with Justin's hair? And that's the story of how Justin and Amy met.

In this photo: Very Effective and Warm Coat, Justin

Do you remember that one time when I dared Justin to not sit in the snow for hours on end but he did it anyway just to demonstrate his philosophizing skills? Well, guess who's philosophizing now?! Justin, because he's still alive. This picture was caught in mid-sneeze. It's confusing that way, but that was part of his philosophizing process he told me. He said it also demonstrated his immense love for Amy the best. Ah yes, I thought, because that is the face of a man in love if I ever saw one.

In this photo: Jared, He's in the woods if you look VERY closely. Look closelier., Adam, Amy, Justin

Oh man. Road trips and airplane food, am I right? Probably. And probably this was one of the best trips ever conceived by anyone. We were heading to...NOT Medieval Times. I remember that much because Amy was saying, "Why is Adam wearing that Medicinal Times hat? Am I right?" Then Justin said, "We better watch out because I'm driving here and I forgot to bring my Marginal Times hat that helps me find proper directions. Am I left?" I just kept scrunching my face and moving my beard, because that seemed like the right thing to do. And that's the story of Amy and Justin's first date. I know, because I was there.

In this photo: The 2nd UNO Night, Interstellar Water Bottle, Amy, The Power to Destroy Heavenly Bodies, Justin, UNO Night, Maybe a Bit of a Couch

Back in the year 2000, there was this undiscovered astronomical phenomenon that defied all logic of time and space. We'll call it a "star." Jump forward to 2006. Nothing happened. Now go to 2009. Stuff happened, but not good enough. Now go to 2010. We're already there. Guess what? You just traveled through time. How? Well, you were in "now" a little while ago. But now, You're in NOW now. Where is that? It's right here. And here...here is where the story takes place. But what's a story? It's a collection of truths. Like when Justin and Amy blasted apart a star. You didn't hear? So check it out. They caused a supernova...with their love. And some Champagne. It's crazy, I know. It's crazy. But you want to know the craziest part? Get ready. UNO Night...without any UNO. What is that?! It's still an UNO Night. Exactly. Well, luckily none of this madness ever happened again, because you can only blow up a star once like that...

...or can you?

Thus concludes the first installation of Adam Friedli's Memories That Are Totally Real. I've received word that there are several more forthcoming story arcs in the series, so stay tuned to Cavemengo for more from Adam Friedli.

What is Class?

A few days ago I was driving down the road in my mom's station wagon. I had my windows down and a Rolling Stones album cranked up and I was just living the rock life. In my mom's station wagon. As I passed my girlfriend's house, I saw her outside entertaining two gentlemen by her car. Naturally, I pummeled my horn like I was Mel Gibson (which is accurate, because my horn has no soul) to make my presence known. Immediately afterward I texted my lovely girlfriend: "Classy?"

Some time later, while sitting on the porch of my parents' house, my good friend Brian described to me the class-dynamics of our good friends from high school. We had always belonged to this metaphorical Island of Misfit Toys. Some of our friends fit the local dynamic better, coming from financially well-off families, whereas others, sometimes living directly across the street, lived from paycheck to paycheck and had, at various times in their youth, experienced poverty face to face. After high school, I think the differences in social status were more obvious. Those raised with money somehow naturally knew how to excel, and they amazed us with the kind of success they could achieve, whereas the so-called have-nots often lacked either drive or dream, and sometimes both.

The part that struck me the heaviest was when Brian described me as somehow being the most successful at jumping between these links, perhaps even the missing link himself.

The progression of my summer was enough to prove this theory of Brian's. As soon as I'd completed all required papers and exams I was on a plane to New York City to visit my high school friends Becky, Elliot and Ken. Ken had worked his way into management at The Walking Company before becoming a certified pedorthist. Elliot had an illustration degree and was working for a company that deals with possibly his favorite thing in the world: records. The two of them had consistent DJ gigs throughout town. But the cherry on top of this success story is my best friend (female category) Becky. She became our most successful high school friend the moment she moved to New York and began working in design for Liz Claiborne. I couldn't personally imagine anything more impressive than that. But she now has her own apartment in the Village and works freelance for Victoria's Secret. When I was in town there was no difference between us. I adore everything about these, my classy friends.

When I left my classy friends to their classy lives in classy New York City I returned to my home town in Michigan. Michigan is one of the states most devastated by the economic turmoil of the last several years. It stinks with suffering, sacrifice and sadness. Even those who might have had chances at a classy existence have found themselves stuck int his mire. Months prior to my return, my parents had been forced to declare bankruptcy, and my Michigan friends all found themselves in similarly difficult situations. My friend Jared, for example, had been working two jobs: he works for the City of Grand Rapids in a parking garage and at a local college in their food service, and yet there are many weeks where he's incapable of getting a single hour of work between the two jobs. Most of the rest of my friends have found themselves working in terrible factories and various temporary positions through Manpower. Some live in trailers. Others, like myself, live with their parents in whatever apartment or house they can still afford. My Michigan friends are, by the standards of many, trash, and I, by anybody's standards, am no different from them. We stand together in solidarity on the nation's bottom rung.

Some might imagine that class has something to do with your level of education. I have two bachelor's degrees and two half-completed master's degrees, one of which I intend to finish within the year. While speaking with my girlfriend's step-dad Cliff, he once remarked, "Some of us only had a little bit of college." He sarcastically addressed the possibility that the amount of education you have has some connection with how classy you are, with what subjects you can talk about in high society. Sure, I can argue that most people are giving Plato's Republic a bad reading, but I've only ever worked at low-paying jobs that anyone who graduated from high school could be hired for. And quite often the standards weren't even that high. Prior to my return to school I was selling fried chicken at a Chicken Express and confirming service switches for Verizon in a call center. And the pendulum of Justin Tiemeyer has swung back to the trash side.

It was actually a discussion with the aforementioned Cliff that brought my understanding of class versus trash into better perspective. Cliff runs a business in the town of Lowell, a town located not too far from where I grew up. When I was in high school we were trained to believe that Lowell was a town full of hicks on tractors. I went to Forest Hills Central, a fairly wealthy and respected school district. Lowell had a football team that became one of our football team's rivals, so it was important for people to spread rumors as to Lowell's deficiency in the name of school spirit. That's how you get mindless crowds pumped up and excited about crushing large groups of people you don't know or understand. (I wonder if anyone's ever tried to do this on an international level...) What Cliff told me is that he was once privy to some demographic information which told him that the average income in Lowell is much higher than he would have ever guessed. We were taught that Lowell was nothing but trash, but if the financial method of measurement is correct, Lowell was actually a place of class.

Cliff told me the story of a recently deceased and widely mourned local man named Ivan. Ivan was, by all standards, wealthy, but if you saw him walking around Lowell you'd never know. He'd be wearing over-alls. He'd be covered in sweat and dirt from working long days. If Ivan were to walk into a fancy jewelry store in some other part of town, there's a good chance he wouldn't even be waited on. In Lowell, however, Ivan was welcomed everywhere, regardless of his appearance. Ivan was of the old stock, the land-owners and pioneers who founded the area, the kind of person I am lucky to be connected to through my grandfather Paul Slater and great grandfather Hugh Slater. Ivan is a man who could purchase most businesses he's ever set foot in, but if appearance was all that mattered he would be called trash by lesser people. If such a person as Ivan ever existed on this planet, and expert testimony says he did, then the definitions of class and trash given so far in this essay ought to be called into question.

In China during the life of Confucius, traditionally rendered as somewhere between 551 BCE and 469 BCE, this concept of class and trash was of the utmost importance. Back then it wasn't merely a matter of what bar you were going to go get drunk at. It was a matter of whether your ruler was brutal or kind. It was a matter of life and death in many cases. The classy folk were known as chun tzu, which literally translated means "Lord's son." The chun tzu was a noble overlord of the people, a prince who ought to be defined by his kindly and thoughtful rule of the people. But as time went on, the word began to lose its moral overtones. The chun tzu no longer represented or protected the people, causing great suffering and often death.

In modern times, the most common translation for chun tzu are "gentleman," "superior person," or even "examplary person." None of these emphasize the noble ancestry of the individual, and this is a fact owed largely, if not completely, to the ancient philosopher Confucius. For Confucius, chun tzu was not a birth right: it was a perfection cultivated daily by a person, focusing on morality, filial piety and loyalty to other deserving individuals, and being benevolent toward all life. I once heard a speaker apply this benevolence even to the plant life around us, claiming that a Confucian ought to understand other life on this earth not in human terms, but in terms of the life itself.

Ancestry, like wealth and level of education, is not the measure of class, at least not of true class. True class is an invisible quality of character, built with hard work and careful guidance, an invisible quality that oozes off of a person, obvious once you learn how to recognize it. The trouble, in my experience, is that it takes time and close examination to understand the nature of class in another person. It takes love. In short, you need a spoonful of class yourself before you can recognize it in others.

Amidst the graft and excess of New York City, I have some friends with true class, and I would tell you more about them if that were the best way to hammer home my point. Instead, I want to tell you some more about my best friend (male category) Jared, he of the parking garage and food service. Why? Because if you know Jared Smith, the man I am speaking of, then you know that class, in its purest and most benevolent form, currently resides in a trailer park in West Michigan. Never have I encountered a more noble soul, and I can't imagine encountering his like ever again. Some have come close, but all have fallen short at some point. Jared is a man of kindness. He is discerning but never manipulative. He loves and respects women like few men I have ever known. He is understanding, almost to a fault. He'll give you the benefit of doubt even if you've just broken his heart and crushed his dreams. And that's because Jared is the modern chun tzu. He's a gentleman. He's The Gentleman.

Jared Smith, if my opinion can be trusted, has class, and I'm willing to devote my entire life to striving towards being this man's equal. In response to Brian's conclusion that I'm capable of moving between crowds of class and trash, that I am in some way "the Daywalker," I'm going to have to disagree. I don't have a single un-classy friend. I have some friends who might get kicked out of restaurants. This is true. I have some friends who I might get a call from in the middle of the night from jail. Also true. But all of my friends have class.

What is class? I don't think I could ever put my finger on it, But if I'm looking at the right people as examples I know that loyalty is definitely involved. And by loyalty I don't mean partisanship. I mean the kind of loyalty that spits in the face of all established order, the kind of loyalty that Jesse Custer embodies int he comic book Preacher when he says, "Well [God] can shove his law up his ass, if just one word of it says I can't stand by my friend."

Amen.

What Is A Poet?

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music. His fate is like that of those unfortunates who were slowly tortured by a gentle fire in Phalaris's bull; their cries could not reach the tyrant's ears to cause him dismay, to him they sounded like sweet music. And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.'

- Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life