Untitled? Summer, Religion and Marilyn Manson.

I’m sorry if updates have been a little slow but I’ve been quite busy this early summer. First of all, Brit and I moved back home for the summer. Since we live roughly 45 miles apart, spending time together has become slightly more difficult. Add to the mix the fact that I work full time (40hours/week) and she works both days of the weekend. Conflicting schedules, time consuming drives and the hot Californian sun have put quite a tear in our relationship. Fortunately, we sat down and discussed everything has maturely as possible and came to the rather solid, compromised schedule that we hope will work for the duration of the rest of summer.

It’s 4th of July weekend and I don’t think anyone really cares anymore. I’m not sure what it is, or if it’s my age or my friends.. but everyone is much more excited about the two days off (Friday and Monday) than any other aspect of this holiday. I suppose it’s always like this, but at least there was some effort to go see the fireworks and whatnot throughout my childhood. I wonder if Canada Day (July 1st) is still a big deal and if everyone still crowds around the Parliament wearing proud face-painted red maple leaves. I wonder if buses still run free for Canada Day and if the Prime Minister is going to give another dull speech. I wonder if people still buy those stupid glow-in the dark necklaces. Or better yet, do they still try to freeze them when they get home so they last longer and they can get the most out of their overpriced $7 glow-stick? People are stupid. I’ve always known it, but now I truly believe it.

Maybe we’ve all finally realized that patriotism is only an idealized form of racism. Nationalism and Imperialism have gone by the wayside. At least I hope so. I wish Earth Day would be more important to our lives. Fuck Bush. Fuck War. Fuck Oil. Fuck Greed. It’s time to have some Humanitism. Apologies in advance if I sound like I’m preaching. I’ve been picking up on one of my favorite long lost hobbies: reading. I spend the past two weekends barreling through Marilyn Manson’s autobiographical “the long hard road out of hell.” I’ve knew pretty much nothing about Marilyn Manson or much of his music before I read this book. Actually, I can quite easily sum up everything I knew about him in two lines: “gothic, sweet dreams, the beautiful people, intelligent, mismatching eye color and two-ribs closers to sucking his own dick.” I suppose I was a prime candidate to be educated on who Marilyn Manson really is, really was and what he thought. I always knew he was smart ever since I saw him on MTV doing an interview — plus Brit recommended the book to me as a good read. I picked it up and couldn’t let go. Once you get past the scars, crude makeup and rock-star behavior, you realize that Brian Warner is actually a really smart, intelligent guy with a different perspective about life, religion and morality. Now, I see him more as a philosopher than a dendrite. And no, he never took out any ribs.

Who better to take on the hypocrisy of Christianity than someone born and bred as a full fledged Christian? Christian school and all, Brian Warner has all the knowledge and experience to topple religion. Not just Christianity, but all religions as an entire system: Church, God and Morality. He makes some very good and interesting points which are supposed to make you think. Not revolt. Not go out and kill people; but to think. Apparently, his message and his ideas are in his music too, but since I haven’t had the opportunity to give them all a listen yet, I’m going to quote some lines from the book that I thought were very powerful.

I’ve thought about being the Antichrist ever since the word was first taught to me at Christian school. In the Bible, the word antichrist is only used as a description of people who don’t believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He is not described as one satanic entity — as the beast of Revelation which many people believe — but as the person, any person, who deviates from the Christian orthodoxy. But through the years of myth-making and fear-sowing, Christianity metamorphoses antichrists into a single Antichrist, an apocalyptic villain and Christian bogeyman used to scare people as much as Santa Claus is used to regulate children’s behavior.

After years of studying the concept, I began to realize that the Antichrist is a character — a metaphor — who exists in nearly all religions under different names, and maybe there is some truth in it, a need for such a person. But from another perspective, this person could be seen not as a villain but a final hero to save people from their own ignorance. The apocalypse doesn’t have to be fire and brimstone. It could happen on a personal level. If you believe you’re the center of your own universe and you want to see the universe destroyed, it only takes one bullet.
Once you put Santa Claus and Religion on the same line, you start to think. If Santa Claus’s purpose is so bloody obvious, than why is Religion is so highly believed and defended? If science points to evolution, why do people still believe in creationism? Through the rhymes and poetry of Saul Williams I’ve grown much more interested in our future than before. I feel that for the first time, there actually may be hope. I’ll get into Saul Williams in another post since he is truly one of the most inspiration men I have ever met in my life. I’ll leave the rest as an exercise for the reader to think and analyze for themselves on their own time, since as Kanye West says “I’m not here to turn atheist into believers”, I’m not here to denounce, dismiss or demolish anyone’s beliefs. At best, simply to instill some doubt or thought.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes of all time, from one of my favorite poetry books titled “, said the shotgun to the head” by Saul Williams

the greatest American’s have not yet been born
they are patiently waiting for the past to die

Adieu. Navid.