satan is alive and well and hosting a prime-time gameshow

"the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

For those who haven’t seen it, the premise is a bit convoluted for a game show, certainly one based entirely on chance. The contestant chooses a case from twenty six, a case that contains an amount of money anywhere from one cent to one million dollars, or at least contains a sign signifying that amount. Forbidden from seeing what amount their case contains, they have to pick from among the remaining cases to see what amounts aren’t inside their case. After each round of eliminating cases (and reducing the possibilities of what’s inside the contestant’s case), someone off stage factors the remaining (unrevealed) amounts versus the odds of the contestant’s case containing serious money, then phones in with an offer to “buy” back the case, to choose between the “deal” of taking the money offered (followed by the potentially humiliating revealing of how much their case contained), or “no deal”- which means another round of opening cases, increasing or decreasing the chances of winning. This at first sounds highly complicated, but like roller derby and anal intercourse, makes sense after a little experience.

You would think a game show where everyone is guaranteed some kind of cash prize for essentially doing nothing but picking numbers would provide a positive, everybody wins experience for the viewer, but these are the late years of Bush’s America, and “Deal or No Deal” perfectly reflects the national zeitgeist of doom and futility. This is not “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, which was strangely comforting in its’ promise of rewarding us for all being repositories of useless information and trivia. It’s not even the early Bush years freak-show of “Fear Factor”; as disturbing as it was to know that there is a seemingly endless supply of young people eager to debase themselves for a few minutes of primetime exposure, the cash prize was never the motivating factor for appearing on that show, so, in a way, all the contestants won, each achieving the personal dream of having millions of strangers watching as they, stripped almost naked, gag and retch over their meal of maggots and bull testicles.

But “Deal or No Deal” isn’t about how much you know about geography and the 1957 Academy Awards, and it isn’t about the Pretty People debasing themselves for forty minutes of attention, it’s about the money, and the desperate need for money. It’s not a coincidence that all the contestants have heart-breaking stories of deprivation and need; they’re carefully chosen and groomed to tell the most moving story of woe. But this show is not about personal tragedy or the capricious nature of life, it’s about the promise of reward for the hard-working, long-suffering Little People of the world. The contestants have the unwavering, unquestioned conviction that, no matter how tough life can be, no matter what sacrifices have to be made and how many humiliations borne, as long as you remain humble and keep faith in your heart, you will someday receive your just reward. It is the emphasis on this belief, the spectacle of the contestants entering the show with near psychotic mania that this is, finally, their opportunity to inherit the earth, that transforms “Deal or No Deal” from being a mere game show into something far more dark and disturbing.

a wide variety of what you'll never have

Unlike most game shows, class distinction is a serious factor on “Deal or No Deal”; it’s made explicitly clear that the contestants are lower-middle class, going so far as to have a recent NASCAR themed episode. There was an earlier episode where the offer made included the brand-new tractor the contestant had always longingly dreamed of owning, causing him a complete emotional breakdown when one of the showgirls drove it out on stage. More perverse is the heavy reliance on military families; as if compensating for their absence from the rest of television, a disturbing number of contestants are the spouses or parents of soldiers serving in Iraq. There was even a mid-show Marine parade, a patriotic spectacle of flags and dress uniforms and scrubbed young men, some of whom will probably die or return crippled from Iraq.

These are Bush’s Americans: not the Americans whose interests he serves- their number is far too small to elect anything bigger than a country club president- but the vast multitude of mostly silent Americans who provide Bush with his vital lower-middle class base. These are the people who largely voted to keep Bush in office, partly because out of the (irrational) fear that gay marriage threatens the validity of their own unions, and partly because of his tax-cuts for the rich. A percentage of Americans support his tax agenda well beyond the number of those who actually benefit from such cuts, not out of a loyal desire to reward their bosses, and certainly not because anyone actually believes the nonsense of trickle-down economics, but out of the bedrock conviction that, at any moment, they will be whisked up the class ladder to their rightful place among the affluent minority. It is astounding that the Republican Party’s war against the inheritance tax -cynically repackaged as the ‘death tax’- would gain any traction with the vast majority of Americans who will never inherit a sum more than the six million dollars (the amount where the tax kicks in), and that it did reveals that perhaps too many people cling to the fantasy of someday turning out to be the sole heir of some reclusive, unknown rich uncle. Disgusting shows built around ultra-affluent excess, like “The Simple Life” and “My Super Sweet Six”, can only be stomached if the viewer clings to the hope of someday being among the spoiled and vacuous. The only other value of these shows is as recruitment material for radical leftist groups, the forced labor and reeducation camps of the Khmer Rouge suddenly no longer seeming like the worst idea in the world.

an Indiana home-maker (and wife of Iraq veteran) gets to meet and receive
advice from the object of her life-long obsession, mid-90's pop group Hanson

This is the same Cinderella self-delusion that crowds the casinos and lottery ticket lines. Living in a neighborhood that includes a large number of the economically disadvantaged, it is depressing to the extreme to stand in line behind someone throwing away more than a hundred dollars that they could certainly use elsewhere in their life. I’m not passing judgment on gambling per say, and consider it a vice no better or worse than any others, when engaged in with moderation. But moderation has no place in fulfilling dreams, and you don’t deserve to have those dreams fulfilled if you’re not willing to risk it all. On one episode of “Deal or No Deal” there was a woman playing with the sole goal of buying a nice home for her mother, who had greatly sacrificed to put the contestant through college to become an elementary school teacher (her entire fifth grade class was in the audience to give moral support). She had a surprisingly good steak of luck, getting to an offer of about three hundred thousand dollars. On national television, she openly wept as her friends encouraged her with assurances that she deserves this, that after so many difficult struggles in life she deserves to finally win for once. Nodding in agreement as she wiped away the tears, she said, “you know it, Lord, you know I deserve this”. Convinced that the one million dollar top amount would soon be hers, she passed on the offer. The million dollars turned out to be in the next case opened, and in the end she went home with only four thousand.

That episode perfectly expresses the true message of “Deal or No Deal”; everybody loses. While I personally think being paid four grand to stand there saying numbers for half an hour is a pretty sweet gig, I’m also not laboring under the belief that I will ever once be handed a check for one million dollars. I have yet to see a single episode where the contestant did not announce with absolute certainty that the case they chose in fact contains the million dollars. At first I assumed this was a false enthusiasm suggested by the show’s producers, but watching the way people consistently play, I’m inclined to believe they actually think this. There is a point in almost every episode where the offer has risen into the six digit range, sometimes more than a quarter million, and always more than enough to fulfill the dream they initially stated as their goal. But egged on by the audience,the loved ones they brought along and their own growing greed, they almost always pass on the offer, out of the theologically unsound belief that God would choose a game show to reward their devotion. As if scripted by some brilliant but evil hand, the remaining large amounts are quickly knocked out of play, and the contestant limps home with far less than they could have had.

"Since Satanism is essentially a religion of the self, it holds that the
individual and his personal needs comes first."
Anton Levay

The humiliation of the contest runs deeper then just blowing the chance at serious money. It seemed strange at first that they would select for the show’s host Howie Mandel, someone whose comedic career entered its’ decline around the same time as Yakov Smirnov’s, but then I realized what a cruelly brilliant choice Mandel is. Unlike the baby-voiced, twitching spazz with a rubber glove over his head that brought him fame in the ‘80s, the new satanic-appearing Howie Mandel alternates between mock-concern and barley concealed contempt as the contestant falls. It is bad enough to lose your one shot at happiness because of your own unchecked greed, but then to have to take the insincere sympathy of someone who- by any reasonable standards- shouldn’t be allowed on television... The reality is not only is Howie Mandel far, far richer than you’ll ever be, if he hasn’t nailed half of the case-carriers, it’s because he chooses not to.

Someday, people will look back on this time, trying to make sense of the Bush years. Hopefully, they’ll quickly stumble on old copies of “Deal or No Deal”, a perfect starting point to consider Bush’s legacy. This show uniquely offers an opportunity to actually see the individuals who have provided so much political collateral; from Iraq veterans to Katrina survivors, from New York firemen to devote Christians, from struggling small business owners to stay at home moms- “Deal or No Deal” is a parade of all the extras who occupied the background during the Bush saga. If “Deal or No Deal” is read as a metaphor for life in George Bush’s America, there’s no other possible ending then the one that closes each show-everyone leaves with their hopes destroyed and feeling betrayed for ever believing….everyone leaves a loser.

this man has been laid more than you...a lot, lot more

I need to pay closer attention to dates

I'm ashamed that I didn't know about this (or even pay attention to the date) until it was too late. Thankfully, I just discovered it on Tainted Love's journal, so at least I can get it now. It is dangerous that we continue to frame the Pro-Choice/Anti-Abortion conflict like it's some Pepsi/Coke debate. It is naive of us to continue to vote for candidates regardless of where they stand on this issue. And it is obscene of Pro-Choice men to continue to stand on the sidelines watching women fight for their lives while they do nothing.

Calling all film dorks!!

Or, at least the ones in the Chicago area. I'm interested in starting some kind of film club, to informally gather and watch selected titles, perhaps discussing them after. I'd want to include a wide range of movies; exploitation, euro-sleaze, horror, cult, lost classic, pyschotronic, camp, experimental, underground, whatever. If you live in the Chicago area and have any interest, leave a comment or e-mail me at address included in my profile. Thanks, Jason.

too many books

I spent part of today going through the shelves of my bookcases to see what I can get rid of tomorrow. As much as I've tried to keep my personal library to a reasonable amount, each year its' size slowly grows, threatening to over-take my apartment. Where the hell do they all come from? A couple of times a year I do this, either selling or donating three or four bags full, but not only are there no fewer books, the collection is continuing to grow. The four bookcases I've had since my mid-twenties are now two rows deep, and they've spilled out to the rest of my home.

Do I really need all these books? Of course not, but each new title joins the ranks with ones I've owned for ages...books I irrationally refuse to let go of. This is particularly strange, since I'm not a collector, and not given to nostalgia for people or things. For instance, I own far fewer movies than one might expect. I know people that burn every DVD they rent, out of a compulsion to possess films they may have not even watched yet.

It's not much different with music. While it would be reasonable to say that I own more music than, say, typical iPod People (who I assume fill their devices with nothing other than the songs they remember from high school dances and music they're introduced to in movies and television commercials), my collecting has never risen above the status of a dilettante. According to allmusic.com, the Nightcrawlers compilation I'm presently listening to falls short of covering their entire catalog by three songs, nor any singles by the later spin-off band Conlon & the Crawlers. And though I'd love to someday hear these excluded tracks, somehow I think my life won't be too empty if I never succeed.

But books are harder. I limit my music purchases to what I might reasonably someday listen to, and my movie buying is almost non-existent, but books are a serious addiction. This is compounded by the fact that, while the retail cost of a new book is a lot more than an album or DVD, their used price is a lot lower. There are any number of places I can hit on my book-hunting circuit, and for only two, three dollars, walk out with an easy dozen titles. Over the years I've developed my ability to find good used books to something like an art, and the current fire hazard that is my apartment is proof.

About four blocks from where I live is a humongous Salvation Army that seems to receive its' donations from some distant, sleepy college town. Usually S. A. is a bust for book hunters, but this one is out of the way enough that new arrivals aren't quickly picked over. I'm going to safely assume that books aren't a major concern in my neighborhood, since half the residents have only a rudimentary grasp of English, and the other half seems to preoccupied with mastering the current art-school fad for ironic red-neck chic. The thrift store competition is pretty stiff for Madonna statues and trucker hats, but for books, the field is wide open.

Why do I need to save what is damned near every book I've ever read? For a long time it was because I knew a lot of other people who also read, and we served as libraries for each other. I barely know anyone anymore who actually reads often, and I can't remember the last time I loaned out a book where it wasn't me desperately trying to improve the taste of my friends.

There is something sadder and more dorky at the play here; the need to be an authority. As improbable as it is that it will ever happen, there is still that geek-ass fantasy of some eager miss asking me to explain the difference between Pierre Louys and Joris-Karl Huysmans, a question I can only accurately answer if I have ready access to their major works. I'm sure that sounds absurd to the vast majority of people reading it, but there are also at least a few who -albeit reluctantly- nod in understanding. I can't change your oil or build you a robot, but I can read the fuck out of some John Fowles.

It can't be healthy to have this many books, but I struggle to separate myself from objects through which I had some many meaningful experiences. This can't be understood by non-readers, but there is something truly intimate in reading a book, a communication between the author and his or her reader. I'm looking at this moment at the half a shelf taken up by the complete works of Jerzy Kosinski, which I read through one summer eleven years ago. It's doubtful I will ever reread any of them except for "Painted Bird" and "Steps", but it somehow feels like a betrayal to dispose of the others, each of which brought me hours of joy (okay, not joy...there's nothing really "joyful" about Kosinski, but I did experience a weird uplift from reading his works, perhaps because my own bleakness paled next to the unearthly hell he consistently created).

As I've been sporadically adding a sentence or two to this update throughout the day I've been tossing books onto the pile, getting ready for tomorrow. And while the final pile is not as large as I had hoped (and in fact has barely dented the shelves), I have gotten together about twenty books that I'm ready to part with. I'm still grappling with the idea of getting rid of some of my failures, books that I couldn't finish. I've tried twice now to find traction in Don DiLillo's "Underworld", but I just can't do it. I'm starting to wonder if that means I should dump it. There are certainly books I had tried to read in my early twenties but couldn't grasp until I was older (for instance, "The Sound and the Fury", "Pale Fire" and anything by Celine). But maybe I'm old enough now to concede that if I don't get it now, I'm probably never going to. Of course, as I'm packing up the books that I just couldn't keep interest in, there's a sensually innocent voice in the back of my head, asking; "please teach me about 'Gravity's Rainbow'".

a brief update

Okay, I should probably post, since I said a few days back that I would. I spoke prematurely earlier when I said I'd be done with the site. Alot has happened, and things are different in my life than they were a week ago, but I intend to continue writing. I'll have a regular post ready for The Blue Monk Page by the end of tomorrow, if not earlier. It may be a little longer before I have anything for here, not only because my personal drama has distracted me from the news, but because my current mood, while markedly improved over a couple of days ago, is still not particularly humorous. Plus, how can I laugh when I know that Lindsay Lohan is suffering?

a quick word about the blogroll

Despite near crippling laziness, I've finally gotten it together enough to add a blogroll, which the intrepid reader will notice on the right side of the page. All the blogs I've included are ones I, myself, enjoy reading, which I held as the first and most important criteria in determining inclusion. These blogs cover a variety of subjects, from music and art, to DIY crafts and veterinarian culture, with the only common denominator being the search for ways of living beyond the conventional mode. The only subject I didn't include was cinema, partly because those belong at Blue Monk, but mainly because most of the sites I've found are less interested in serious discussion of film, and more fixated on the gossip surrounding celebrities.

Except for the couple of personal friends included, I've not contacted any of the site authors to inform them of the linking. These are all blogs written by very nice, intelligent people, and they don't deserve to be associated with my grim little freakshow. Earlier this week I wrote an e-mail to an acquaintance to ask if she would be interested in swapping links. At first she seemed receptive, but I think she then visited my site, her subsequent silence most likely stunned horror at the discovery that I don't write like the socially awkward, stammering schlub that I am in real life.

Anyway...I will continue to add new blogs and journals as I discover them. I will also try to keep up and remove any that have been dormant for a long time, or have devolved into unreadable blather. Of course, if you happen to have a blog, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail with your URL.

abortion and porno and gays oh my! (pt 1)

It looks like I’ll be volunteering at Planned Parenthood a couple of hours a week. I’d been thinking about doing this for awhile, so when I saw a position open at the local branch, I quickly submitted my resume. All was fine and good, until a friend vocalized what had already been gnawing at the back of my mind; the possibility of association with a controversial organization handicapping future job opportunities. That this concern was put forth by a friend, one who is a self-defined radical feminist, just goes to show how crippled we all are by fear. It was this same fear I heard expressed by people opposed to the war who didn’t go downtown to protest; that no matter what they thought of America entering an unprovoked war, the cost of permanently bearing the stigma of an arrest is far too high just to make a public stand against Bush’s folly. While I am not generally prone to paranoid Big Brother conspiracy theories, there is something suspicious about instilling from childhood on a terror of one’s “permanent record”- a closed and secret recounting of every grade and deed, inaccessible to the subject, but a brutally revealing dossier forever open to any and all future universities, prospective employers, and bank loan officers. I suspect this is why schools (at least public schools) have dispensed with beating children; the controlling mechanism in corporeal punishment only works during and immediately after the paddling. Once the welts fade and the humiliation is forgotten (or at least repressed), the child is free to behave as he or she chooses, until the next time he or she is caught and punished. Instead, we calmly explain to children that every minor misdeed, every poor grade and every defiant act, will echo throughout the rest of his or her life, resulting in a miserable, pointless future. Is it any wonder that we’ve become a nation of cowering, passive sheep?

So abortion…while I know a great deal of our collective energy is wasted on this subject, I can’t help but question why certain people are so morbidly obsessed with restricting a woman’s right to choose. For a long time I accepted the conventional wisdom that abortion opponents believe as they do because of religious teachings, an honest and sincere conviction of the universe being a metaphysical construct. And while I personally find the evidence proving the existence of the Great Cosmic Creator highly circumstantial and flawed (the book is true because it says so in the book), an awful lot of people are convinced, and not wanting to descend into the utter blackness of being a lonely misanthrope, I have to accept the faith of others with respect and tolerance. But more and more, I’m starting to question whether religious faith is what’s really behind this mania to outlaw abortion. Certainly, dogma is a factor- at least as a rationale, but I think at the heart of the anti-abortion movement is a terror of something much more primordial and dark: fear of sex.

Consider this: if I truly, genuinely believed that each and every abortion committed was MURDER, the snuffing out of a human life no less than if one person guns down another, it would be vital that ANYTHING be put forth as a solution to this massacre. Certainly, if I believed this to be an unending slaughter worse than the Holocaust (which their rhetoric claims), I would cheerfully embrace any and all options that reduce the number of killings. Yet interestingly, there is more than a little over-lap between the anti-abortion lobby and the forces that continually block access to birth control and sex education for teens. While I would not suggest that everyone opposed to reproductive rights is also part of the absurd, doomed “abstinence-only” movement, my Internet search failed to discover ONE website that suggests theology-free sex education and easy access to birth control as possible solutions to stem the “genocide”. There are, I’m sure, a couple of people out there who are opposed to abortion while also believing that everyone is entitled to frank, honest information about sexuality. But except for the two angry e-mails I expect this post will produce, their voices are lost on the wind.

This past Saturday was the thirty-forth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade verdict, which Cardinal George of the Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese commemorated with a special mass. He seemed sincerely moved as he spoke of the forty-seven million souls lost since 1973, but curiously absent from his pious concern were the millions of additional abortions performed in this country prior to that year. Combing through the endless websites dedicated to stopping legal abortion, I have yet to find a single organization that mentions even in passing that Roe v. Wade did not invent abortion, that women were terminating pregnancies long before it became accessible, safe and legal to do so. Perhaps that’s the whole point; in the utopia of an America where Roe v. Wade is reversed, situations will still arise where women will need to seek medical assistance in ending pregnancies. But unlike today, the abortion will return to the back alley, where in shame and fear women will endanger their health and freedom. The Pro-Choice movement defined the cause with the image of the wire hanger, a grim reminder of a dark and barbaric past. But this may have been a miscalculation; for those who would over-turn Roe v. Wade, the wire hanger offers a message of hope. If the agenda is transform America into a nation where the sexualized are forced into the shadows, beyond the protection of community and the law, then the wire hanger becomes a sacred totem, a punishment visited upon the fallen woman.

It’s interesting that the opponents of abortion don’t even pretend anymore to aim their argument to changing the viewpoint of the American majority. Their admitted agenda is to erode the courts and clog the political system with far, far right-wing zealots. If this seems an over-simplification on my part, please, go ahead and run a Google search. The language of these sites has nothing to do with winning new converts, and everything to do with raising the blood-thirsty rage of their (minority) base (the ‘against God’s will’ argument certainly doesn’t work on those who do not believe, nor does it even work on those who do believe in a divine creator whose will they might not be so eager to claim special understanding of). The (self-styled) comparisons between the anti-abortion groups and the Civil Rights Movement ring false, if not outright absurd. While both initially began arguing an unpopular position rejected by the vast majority of Americans, moral high-ground combined with the strategy of passive resistance altered the fundamental way millions of white Americans viewed race, successfully “opening their hearts”, to use Martin Luther King’s term. But after thirty-four years, the percentage of anti-abortion Americans has actually shrunk, holding at the roughly thirty percent it’s been since the 1980’s. Yes, three out of ten Americans would like to push abortion back underground, but- perhaps not coincidently- about thirty percent of Americans want to impose prayer in school, are panic-stricken at the mention of ‘gay rights’, think the Earth is five thousand years old, and actually thought “Everybody Loves Raymond” was funny (I’m not sure there’s a connection with this last one). Where the danger lies is in that in a country where only about half the electorate votes, a single-minded thirty percent becomes a dangerous majority.
to be continued...





















let's be honest...our women are cuter