Deconstruct This
It’s Saturday morning. I have missed capoeira practice because of last night’s asinine behavior. I’m sitting in front of the tv watching the VH1 Top 20 Countdown. Adam Lambert is doing his Mad Hatter / Mad Max / wood nymph thing.
My friend says to me, “Is this the video that makes us suspect that music itself might have dementia?” Then he says something about the structuralist utterance out of the void. Fuck, this music really is bad. It’s not just that I’m getting old, is it?
This same house guest, I just discovered, was responsible for this bathroom poetics when it originally read “SUCK IT.”
Do You Mean What You Say?
Are the enemies of God welcome here at the Bay Shore Mennonite church? Verse 11 of Matthew 5 reads, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” But, seriously, what if the enemies of God (whatever that means) walked into church one Sunday morning screaming obscenities or staging a hunger strike in front of the podium? I seriously doubt the Mennonites would be down. Not to mention, this sign is probably not saying what it means (or meaning what it says for that matter). Does it mean, “Praise and worship the enemies of God” or “The enemies of God are welcome here” or “Praise and worship. The enemies of God, with reference to the Beatitudes. Welcome” ?
Look at this (bathroom poetics No. 3):
I believe that someone in the bathroom stall at Smokin’ Joes was tired after a few beers, a few missed opportunities, too much inhaled smoke. I believe it because it’s a likely scenario. But welcoming the enemies of God into your place of worship is not as likely on a number of levels, the most obvious being that “enemies of God” is the dumbest phrase in the world. Not that I am a realist, by a long shot. I like unlikely scenarios when the writer gives me the freedom (leeway, wiggle room) to not believe them literally.
Bathroom Poetics
I was at my favorite bar the other night watching some NBA playoffs when the bathroom called to me. I found this:
I think it takes some real balls to 1. claim to be God and 2. claim a space in the Smokin’ Joe’s unisex bathroom to stake your Godness claim. Or maybe some drunkard had a supernatural experience in which God visited said bathroom and said drunkard simply wanted to share it with the world. Whatever. Bathroom poetics.
