Enlightening Nonsense

Brett is the maintenance guy in a building for the entertainment business. Apparently a couple of people were putting up posters and smashed a big glass pane and Brett was called down to clean up the mess, kind of like Harvey Keitel’s “Mr. Wolfe” in the movie “Pulp Fiction,” only Brett’s job was to clean up some glass, not a dead body.

When Brett got down to where the accident had been, he saw the mess and two seemingly incompetent people putting up posters. Brett said, “Hi. This is really part of my job so I can put up the posters for you.” The lead girl responded that she was fine. Within a minute the girl had smashed another glass frame, which came smashing down. Brett said, “Look, put down what you’ve got there and I’ll handle it.” The girl said she could handle it and Brett said, “Stop being a baby and let me do this. You’ve already made quite a mess of the place.”

Next thing you know, Brett is called into the office of his boss who sits him down and says, “I was informed that you had a confrontation with another worker in the building. She told her boss that she felt physically threatened by you.” Like many people who are suddenly placed in the surreal world of “What the fu—?” Brett probably put up a defense as doped up as Bob Marley acting as his own attorney for the murder case involving a deputy, in which he said, “I shot the sheriff but I did not shoot the deputy.” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSQvc6VWrPY]

Brett’s boss told him to take Friday off while she figured some things out. On Monday Brett was fired—supposedly not because of the “physical harassment” but because “the company is downsizing.” I’m guessing that the company might have actually been downsizing but that Brett’s firing was like throwing a virgin in the pit of the “South Park’s” Scuttlebutt, the feared monster with a stalk of celery for a hand and Patrick Duffy for a leg—a way to not only appease the monster but also to get rid of one more girl whose not giving it up.

My very good friend, Dan, Brett’s roommate, told me the story on that Friday before Brett’s official termination. He said that while Brett showed irritation with the girl, he said how he in no way had any body language that even remotely suggested a physical threat. It also happened that the girl who “felt physically threatened” had a female boss and that Brett’s boss was also female. From my own personal experience, if you are ever the sole guy dealing with three women whose menstrual cycles have come into sync h from being in close proximity for a period (get it, “period”?) of time, it’s probably best to plead guilty to killing the deputy.

I only had one talk with Brett when he bailed out of participating on the day of the reading with actors of my new original play. I called him up and said that I was disappointed and really needed him to be there. He was having girlfriend troubles and said he had to attend to them. From our phone conversation, he seemed to me to be more of a pussy, the kind of guy who would go out to buy his girlfriend tampons, than one who would push his physicality on anyone. Dan also told me that Brett is slight in stature and probably only about 5’4” in height and that he has known him for a long time and knows that he would never threaten someone physically.

I suppose one could argue that in every news report about some mass-murdering psycho, you always have the next-door neighbor saying, “Mr. Manson was such a nice man, he would never hurt anyone.” While this may be true, I do trust Dan’s take on this, even if his politics and personal health practices leave me planning an intervention for him.

Could the girl have felt “physically threatened”?  Sure. But so, too, could someone if a long-haired, dirty hippie like myself asked them for the time in passing; that doesn’t mean the problem lay in Brett and it frustrated me that a decision was made without really having all sides sitting in a room and seeking resolution. But I suppose that’s business as usual and in the entertainment industry…short of committing to being the pee-tap boy for an agent at the urinal, you had best not risk crinkling anyone’s plastic smiling mask without having your desk cleared out and ready to go.

I recently had a bomb dropped on me, which I went into in the piece “Swami X Goes To Court,” involving being accused of sexual harassment, which was outlandish. I had lunch with my friend Tisha the other day and she told me that I shouldn’t have included that in the piece, that most people would be tainted when reading that. I totally heard what she was saying but was like, “I included everything from the court case, from what was said, to my feelings before, during and after. That bit emphasized one point I was trying to make: how most people rather hurt someone to win than seek union and perhaps not.” I also said that I would feel like a liar if I just “happened” to leave out that one bombshell piece of the story. In the piece I even covered one incident where my actions were wrong, unethical and poor judgment and on further reflection I understand how it could potentially make the other feel uncomfortable; I was willing to put this forward, too, in order to not only seek Truth but to do my best to present it as well.

But the truth is, most people have their biases and it doesn’t matter what the “verdict” turns out to be, if this person was accused of child abuse most of us will think, “He might have gotten off but he’s guilty as sin!” Until it happened to me, I was the same way! I always thought, “Why would someone accuse someone of sexual abuse, rape or child abuse if it didn’t happen? People just don’t do that.” But at times they do.

And even if one is vindicated from the accusation, the well is still poisoned. Look back to the Tawana Brawley case. In 1987, at the age of 15, this young black girl received notoriety for accusing six white men of raping her, some of which were New York City police officers. The Reverend Al Sharpton offered his services, as he is always quick to throw gasoline on any racial affair. The faces of the accused were plastered on the front pages of the newspapers and they were dragged through the mud for a very long time. The conclusion: Tawana Brawley lied. And it was even suggested that Al Sharp-tongued and her black lawyers, Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, became aware that her story was false and continued with the case and their defamation of the characters of the accused.

After the case, one of the officers said that all he wanted was an apology—which he never got. But regardless of the page 23 retraction that said, “Uh, our bad—he was innocent,” do you think he received justice in the eyes of the people who looked at him for months on end as a monster and probably still think, “Maybe he’s innocent in this case, maybe he’s not—but he is still capable of such a crime.”  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley]

On April of 2002, the Palestinian news agency Wafa started reporting that the “massacre of the 21^st century” had been committed, claiming Israel had killed hundreds of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Jenin. Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations on CNN said that Israeli helicopter gun ships were shooting missiles into an area where 15,000 people were packed in a refugee camp and that Israel was preventing ambulances from entering the area and that all of this could be clearly witnessed by the whole world. Many people immediately started arranging protests against Israel and called for world action against the tiny nation. It ended up being bullshit. The death toll was 56 Palestinians, the majority of them combatants, and 23 Israeli soldiers.  [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/218vnicq.asp]

On January 6 of 2009, it was reported that Israel made a mortar strike on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school resulting in 43 deaths. An outcry against Israel occurred for them savagely targeting a school. Only after much pressure did Maxwell Gaylord, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Jerusalem, admit that the IDF mortal shells fell in the street near the compound—from where Hamas terrorists were firing—and not on the compound itself, and that “…all the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school.”  [http://israelinsider.ning.com/profiles/blogs/un-admits-that-idf-did-not-in]

And then there are the stories about how the monster of Israel bombed hospitals and a U.N. building, all-inclusive with video footage of bloody people and a Palestinian doctor who worked in a hospital saying the latest massive influx of victims makes it clear that the attacks by Israel were designed to target civilians. What the doctor failed to mention was that the uniform of Hamas is civilian clothes and so there were no “dog tags” or any other “clear” determinants of who was a civilian and who was a combatant.

France also denounced the attacks. In a January 2009 article the French foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevalier said, “We condemn in the strongest terms the bombings this morning by the Israeli army of several hospitals and a building housing international media in Gaza city.” Chevallier also condemned the attack on the UN building. “Israel must abstain from all action that is contrary to international law,” he said, adding that France was again appealing for an immediate ceasefire “to spare the civilian population.” [http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5id2EhQv6jq0iG07Ezz2yR2JkKScA]

Once again the world is outraged. But for the five people, probably all Jews, who decided to pursue the follow-up, they discovered that it was not so clear if Israel bombed any hospitals or not. Further research shows that Hamas—acknowledged by every one who doesn’t believe in the dictum that Allah wants you to kill anyone who doesn’t believe the same as way as you do—had operated a command and control center inside the main hospital in Gaza. Not only that, but it was operated by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh himself!

An IDF probe revealed that Hamas took over a ward of the hospital, believing that Israel would not target the building—because they know that Israel values the lives of innocents, a conclusion from the very group that will kill innocent disco or pizza parlor patrons to make a point that they are righteous people, and every day senior Hamas officials would meet in the safety of the hospital, equivalently using the sick and dying as shields of war. They also knew that if Israel did bomb that main hospital that it would be a media coupe de’état for Hamas.  [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710759267&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull]

I have seen footage from a documentary by Pierre Rehov showing a U.N. van dropping Palestinians with big guns on the frontlines to fight against Israel (and also showing that not all French people are pussies.) So to hear the French foreign ministry representative voice his outrage is like having to endure listening to a whining yoga poser condemn someone for bloodying a bully’s nose—without asking any questions—and issuing the statement: “I condemn violence and I will not rest unless an assault charge is filed and the nose-bloodier issues an apology.”

Did the world issue an apology to Israel for any of these quick to judgment reports? When Israel was vindicated, did charges go up against the perpetuators of lies against Israel—the same way we have charges here in America for slander and libel? Somehow page 23’s retraction didn’t make Israel’s detractors think any differently nor have the protest organizers shifted in any way their thinking as to question whether the purveyors of the lies that they are supporting might be lying about anything else.

Those of you pro-Israel will probably consider me one of you and be like, “Yeah, tell it like it is, brother!” Those of you anti-Israel will probably consider me your opposition and pull out your list of yet to be denied accusations as proof of her being a country based on inhumanity. I am not pro- or anti- anything, except maybe Truth and Love (and I am planning on escaping from that conditioning as well, but figured I’d wait until I get rid of my more annoying conditionings first). I don’t associate my allegiance to any country with made-up borders or any religion with made up fairytales.

For now, I seek Truth—wherever the cards may fall, regardless of who may look the stupidest from their assertions that dirt and fake gods are worth dying for. These were just easy examples, that’s all. And they were not pro- or anti-anything, other than maybe all the stupid people who commit themselves to a cause or dogma over Truth and Love.

It is also an illustration of how once the damage is done, it is not so easily erased. This is because most people rather hold onto a solid falsehood than a porous truth because of their own insecurity about what to do with their hands. The moron sees an empty hand as a reflection of himself being poor. The Buddha understands the richness of the open hand, which is ready to receive or to rub a back in need of a rubbing, and knows that his own richness is unaffected by outside objects and so he has no need to grasp. Unfortunately, there are many more morons in the world than Buddhas.

It reminds me how the stupid kept on believing the Bush Administration about the best way to handle the Iraq War. “Iraq is connected to 9/11!” Uh, no it was not, but after months of this clearly being explained, still 60% of the people surveyed still thought there was some connection between Iraq and 9/11. “They have Weapons of Mass Destruction!” Uh, no again. Whether they did or didn’t, we had no conclusive proof of this and the only proof offered was inconclusive and fabricated, including Colin Powell’s pathetic lies to the U.N., where many of the American people later felt that he was just a pawn of the Bush Administration reporting what he was given when it was clear to see for anyone with a brain that he was a lying sack of shit. “It’ll be a slam dunk—we’ll be in and out in a day!” Uh, it’s been about six years now and we still have American soldiers dying daily. “Bush Declares Victory In Iraq.” Then why are we still there and dying?

I don’t care whether you consider yourself a Republican or Democrat, an American or an Iraqi, a military man or a civilian—WHEN DO YOU START TO QUESTION THE SOURCE AND THINK FOR YOURSELVES? Why would you give someone else so much power by removing your own brain and letting him fill the empty space between your ears with whatever crap he wants to put in there?

I don’t know how many people from that particular yoga studio at which I worked have drunk from the poison well, especially if the owner is so ready to dole out cups of its delusion. There are probably readers of my un-blog who have taken a drink because of my very own presentation of the information. Perhaps, like in John Patrick Shanley’s play “Doubt,” put to screen starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, they will now start to look at my actions and words in a different light; perhaps an innocent adjustment during a yoga class will now carry thoughts of, “I think that was his hip. Or was it!” floating in a head where before there was only silence. Maybe the only way to combat this to the impressionable mind is to spread the rumor that I am gay. Then I ‘d be able to stick my thumb up a yogini’s ass and she’d think, “I never had that downward dog adjustment before—but it’s really keeping me focused!”

But while most will only put forward what puts them in the most flattering light, I am not here to deny that I am a work in progress and often fall short of how I would like to be. I fart, I occasionally curse, I get pissed off—and I also light incense and mind my tongue and apologize when I am wrong.

Believe me, I am skilled enough a writer that I could probably build a following of thousands who would think me, in the style of Big Gay Al, “Super spiritual, thanks for asking!” if I just cut out all the references I make to things going in and out of rectums and my frequent sprinkling of the words “pussy” and “prostitute” into my pieces. I do that in large part because I don’t want a bunch of cultish seekers putting my picture up on their altar and bowing down to me—and not doing their own personal work in the process.

We already quote Jesus and Buddha and Muhammad (although the quotes most-often coming from Muhammad involve blowing some shit up) and are just as miserable and pathetic as we were before we read these “holy scriptures.” Don’t idolize me (I make that easy for you), don’t quote me and think you know Truth. Create your own quotes, discover your own understandings, live your own life.

And don’t drink from anyone else’s well but your own, that you dug yourself, filled yourself, used only non-leaching materials and know that drinking from it won’t cloud your brain and vision of the world or an individual in any way, that the only thing you allow into your body and head is your lived experience.