(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

(image courtesy of Gawker)

Dear Global Overlords (my apologies if that’s too familiar),

Okay! Uncle! We get it. You run this shit. Breaking the global economy just to prove a point seems a bit extreme. Unlike the others who criticize you and protest, I trust you had your reasons. That’s the main point of my letter. I get that you have different rationales and agendas. And we, the ignorant plebes, might not understand. But do you have to do such a sloppy job dominating the world? It just seems terribly short-sighted.

Overheating the world’s economy and then crashing it so you could buy up the broken pieces on the cheap that was a little bit of genius. What a cunning way to accelerate greater corporate consolidation and further the reach of your global control. That was a smart move, really. If I was in your position, and was employing your values, I’d likely do the same thing. Buy low and sell high, right? When prices get too high (like the housing market) rather than wait for some market correction, just chop that value down and buy low again. Clear-cut that financial forest! Now, that’s a heart-breaking, staggering work of genius, if you can get away with it. And it seems you can. So… Okay! Fine! We get it! You’re gonna do shit your way. It’s not like we can do anything about it anyway. But couldn’t you be smarter about how you dominate the globe? Is this really the best way to run a global conspiracy and corporate technocracy? It just seems… really messy. And I’m talking about it from your standpoint. You seem smarter than what your results suggest. You don’t need all these headaches. Not when you have so much wealth and power to enjoy. Right?

Okay! So here are, free of charge, a few ideas on how you can better dominate the world, global trade, manipulate the world’s religions and resources for your benefit, so that the scraps you leave for the rest of us to fight over would still be a much better brand of scraps. See? That way we all enjoy a better, safer, cleaner world… you first, of course.

1.  Biomimicry

I can’t figure out why but you seem to ignore the potential of this emerging field of science like it did something bad to your mama. What’s up, Illuminati? Maybe rather than fracking your way to the future, why don’t you take a look at what researchers are doing with algae-based solar power? Rather than strip mine every mountain and de-forest the rest of the known old growth woods, maybe look at what designers are creating by imitating termites, butterflies, plant leaves, sharks, and kingfisher birds.

Biomimicry requires inventors or innovators to consider the world their laboratory. It urges them to use Nature as their mentor, model and measure. And it asks: why don’t we use non-toxic processes, ones that imitate the effectiveness of Nature’s engineering? We can borrow recipes from that 4.5 billion year old cookbook. We can pilfer from the treasure trove of research-and-design secrets stored in the world around us. And I know how you like to pilfer and poach. The first wave of scientists committed to biomimicry are really doing some fantastic stuff. But they could use some money to conduct more research.

Look, I know some of you are pretty heavily invested in companies who profit off the non-renewable resource streams like coal and oil, but you know it and I know it, that shit’s getting pretty hectic. The petrochemical industry is a tough business. And it’s getting downright ugly. So, here’s your chance! Divest in petroleum and start dominating the markets of solar power, renewable resources and biomimetic engineering and design. It’s the smart thing to do and in the end it will be cleaner and cheaper.

You’ve seen The DaVinci Code, right? Sure you have. You remember how the Fibonacci sequence is mentioned over and over again? It’s the most efficient rate of mathematical inflation of a pattern that replicates itself. It’s what Nature uses to grow a sunflower, seashells, your brain cells, and even galaxies. Well, there are companies using it to make new products, basic stuff like fans, but ones that are 25% more efficient because they utilize theFibonacci sequence. Do you know how much energy is dedicated to all the fans used by your sprawling global techno-empire? Lots. You could save like 12% of the energy consumed every day just by switching to ones made by Pax Scientific. There’s a burgeoning field of exciting and innovative new enterprises. Time to fold them into your plans for continued world domination. The Biomimicry Revolution could be huge for you. Bigger than that mess we called the Industrial Revolution. Don’t think about it- just do it!

2.  Whole-life cost Economics

You know it and I know it- it’s time to update! Economics is boring so no one talks much about it, but the old methods of accounting are no longer applicable to our real-time global infrastructure. We need to bump it up towhole-life cost economics and start tracking the opportunity costs and physicals costs of the lifetime of an item or asset. We (and by we, I mean you) need to figure out what it really costs to make something, use it and then destroy it (or better yet, reuse it). That way in the race to the bottom, we (and again, I mean you) can find the real and truly cheapest method to produce an item. Why fuck around with Ebeneezer Scrooge-era accounting methods when we have the computer power and labor force who could make sense of the life cycle of a product?

If all the countries of the world are competing, it’s time to keep track of the global scoreboard. Right? If I was in your position, I’d want to accurately be able to dominate every aspect of industry/production, and do it as cheaply as possible. Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? I think it’ll really change your game.

3.  A Living Wage For Your Happy Consumers

Ever since you decided to shake up the global financial snow-globe and let the chips fall where they may, a lot of people have lost their homes. I guess the message of The New Normal is this is what we can expect. All over the world, from Las Vegas to La Paz, it sure seems like you prefer it when we’re somewhat rootless and can easily roll away like tumbleweeds. But if people are gonna constantly lose their homes to foreclosure, terrorism, civil war, famine, flood, etc, they’ll still need to go somewhere. As it stands, getting around the globe is super-easy for some, but for others it’s a matter of taking their lives in their hands. That’s bad for business. Right? You still need customers. Even that skin flint Henry Ford understood that people needed enough money to buy what he was selling. And they need a place to keep the stuff they buy, so they can occasionally enjoy it. But you have your agenda, so rather than guarantee affordable housing and a chance to build wealth and secure a future for our children, could you at least make sure we can occasionally buy all the wonderful products you make. Seems like a win-win.

4.  Basic Human Services: water, food, shelter, entertainment

And this brings us to another core challenge of dominating a globe filled with seven billion plus autonomous pains-in-your-ass. We need stuff every day. What a drag! I feel bad for you that we need so much stuff… every single damn day.

If globalization is basically a really nice wrapping paper for the new One Third World, couldn’t you at least manage it based on some sort of greater sense of regionalism? Water is about to be a serious fucking problem for millions and millions of people in South America. Consider the case ofBolivia’s water wars. And still you’re letting the CEO of Nestle run around and talk about further privatization of this precious natural resource? The Chinese government is sponsoring the purchase by private Chinese companies of the American heartland so that they can anticipate the food needs of their still growing population. The way it is now it’s just a reckless free-for-all. Why is a French food company harassing Bolivian citizens for their water? Why are Chinese funds buying American farmland? I’ll say it! Because capitalism is a silly and stupid system sometimes! But work with what God gave you, right?

So, here’s another thought. Create better management of resources at the regional level. If Chinese companies want American farm products, they should buy them on the market, not just buy the farm. They have no vested interest in the area or the people who live there. That’s bad management. That’ll cause more problems than it solves. The Romans teach us that if you want to run an empire you need good local regional managers to do the bidding of the empire. Trust me, it’ll be far cheaper than all the wars that loom on the horizon over water, food and, of course, mineral rights. You don’t want to deal with that. Even from a distance, that’ll be ugly to watch.

5.  Women World Leaders

This one seems to be happening of its own accord. But I gotta say it’s nice to see. Women tend to bring a different toolbox to fix the problems of the day. It was smart of you to no longer thwart their social progress with such a rapacious zeal. And I think, as you may have noticed, women make excellent world leaders and there should be more of them. I can only assume they make excellent members of The Illuminati, and if I’m right, bully to you. If at all possible, at least in America, would you mind encouraging more women to run for office and replace some of the jack-hole douche-bags who keep embarrassing us on the world stage? I have no idea what your plans are for America, but I think it’s only good for the world if we ensure some of our congressmen speak less often in front of a microphone. Once again, maybe they serve a certain purpose for you. Maybe those fools just make you laugh the way a talking baby makes most people laugh. I don’t know.

6.  Who Gets To Be A Full Voting Member of The Illuminati?

Last question. Did you really let Kanye in to The Illuminati as a voting member? I mean, Jay Z… I can see that. He has the sort of mind that can help you run your empire of global dominance. He intuitively understands what people want, need and will buy. But Kanye? He seems more suited to help you plan your annual winter ball, or maybe create a line of casual men’s clothing for relaxing at your hidden mountaintop summits. I just hope he doesn’t get to decide the future of offshore oil drilling or mineral management in sub-Saharan Africa. That would be a huge mistake. Kanye may be able to hear the future of music but I don’t think he sees the future for Bangladesh quite as clearly. No offense, Yeezus.

So, there you go. I hope these ideas help. We all share the same planet (at least until you no longer need us and replaces us with robots). Since you obviously run this shit, it’d be cool if you did it as intelligently as possible. If only for your sake. Now, I may think of a couple of other ideas. You may hear from me again. But hey, you gotta be pretty stoked most of the other seven billion plus pains-in-your-ass aren’t all as opinionated as I am. Right?

Hope you take some time to enjoy the colors of autumn (you know, while we still have such rich biodiversity),

All my best,

Zaron

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

Yesterday, I was talking on the phone with my nephew. He told me he was watching Rush Hour 2. And he asked me if I’d take him to an Asian massage parlor. I tried really hard not to laugh. I totally wasn’t expecting him to ask that because my nephew’s in elementary school.

The last thing any boy needs is for an adult to laugh at his interest in sex. And I like for him to feel comfortable asking me anything. But an Asian massage parlor? Whatta ya say to that? Since he’s a little kid I didn’t feel the need to tell him all about massage parlors and the horrors of global sex trafficking. Instead, I told him the police don’t like it when adults take little boys to massage parlors. I explained that we have laws against that sort of stuff. And judges take those laws seriously, even if the little boy goes to the massage parlor with his uncle.

He’s a bright kid, so he immediately thought of a way to overcome this minor legal speed bump. He told me he could pretend to be an English midget. If anyone asked, he’d tell them he fought in the war. I nearly lost it. I felt badly about it but I laughed out loud. I thought: A horny English little person who fought in the war? Where does he come up with this shit?

He told me not to laugh at his dreams. And then asked if we could go to a massage parlor the next time he visited California. He was sure his English accent would work. I kept laughing. Rather than ask him what war or why an English little person, I asked him what he’d do in a massage parlor if they believed he was a veteran and let him in. He said he would… just be in heaven.

At this point I was curious what all he knew. I asked what he thought went on inside of massage parlors. He said he didn’t exactly know but he thought we could sing songs as we got massaged. I asked what songs we’d sing. He said Aretha Franklin songs. And he started to sing one. I had to tell him he was singing, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. He said he didn’t know who it was since he only ever heard the song in the movie, The Replacements. Clearly, this boy was learning way more from movies than he was from school.

To prove his plan would work he gave me a sample of his Russell Brand-inspired English accent. I had to tell him he sounded more like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire than Katy Perry’s ex-husband. He told me not to crush his dream. He was gonna find a way into an Asian massage parlor. He just needed a little help.

I had to laugh again at the little horn-ball’s dream. In many ways, I was proud of my nephew. He’d joined the club. He’s now, officially, a guy.

As boys we all start out with these ridiculous sex fantasies. You can’t blame us. We start out as horny little bastards because we get overwhelmed by our biology. We desire sex even when we don’t know what it is. I remember how it felt when my body craved satisfaction from this new unknown. And once you feel this need, most guys never lose it.

Once, while people-watching with my grandfather, my sister was shocked to see him take an interest in a sexy young woman who walked past. When she called him on it, he said, “I’ll stop looking when I’m dead.” Apparently, our sexual impulses never go away. Sure, some dudes don’t really crave sex as much as they once did, but those guys are married. (I’m just kidding, married people.)

Marriage doesn’t really kill a man’s sex drive. If it did we wouldn’t see all these married men in the news who ruin their careers, relationships, reputations and whatever else matters just to get a taste of some forbidden flesh. Yes, I’m looking at you, Carlos Danger. Apparently, sex is, and will always be, a lifelong preoccupation for men, whether they’re having it or not. But beyond the ego stroke of feeling desired, appreciated and powerful, what motivates male sexuality? What makes a man jump in bed?

I don’t feel a hundred-percent comfortable speaking for a gay man’s sexuality, since that’s not my experience. But going off what my gay male friends tell me, sex all sounds pretty much the same, if you just swap out some body parts. So, I do feel comfortable saying ALL men want and need sex (except, obviously, the asexuals out there- I don’t know what they want, so we’ll leave them out).

If you stick your hand in ice water you’ll feel cold, and if a guy sticks his dick in another person’s body, most of the time, he’ll feel good. But that doesn’t answer the question: What do men like in bed? Short answer: EVERYTHING.

Some people like to say, when it comes to sex, men are like dogs. I’d say that’s giving men far too much credit. And it’s really unfair to dogs. Men are far simpler. We may not hump any leg we see, but we’re not much more advanced than dogs. We’re just better socialized. Yet, we’re still a horny animal.

If you wanna know what men like in bed, the answer is deceptively easy. When it comes to arousal, you can find a man who likes ANYTHING you can imagine. We like it ALL! Men are the IRL version of the internet’s Rule #34. There is no normal and there is no standard. There are only the limits of the imagination.

What we guys want and desire is different. For instance, somewhere out there is a man who wants to rub his dick in your hair while you film him in a mirror. Most guys don’t want that, but somewhere there is a guy who wants exactly that. Although this example doesn’t quite suggest it, even that dude is a simple creature.

When you consider all the men out there, you’ll find our tastes fill the spectrum. We are simple, but collectively, we’re complex. Men are like Elvis impersonators. We’re all the same but yet so damn different. In this way, we’re no different than women, but we don’t get credit for this. Women are assumed to be sexually unique, while men are considered simple sexual creatures. This thinking is, of course, wrong. Men are just as varied as women and snowflakes.

We develop our sexual tastes very early, long before we know what sex is. Looking back, I’ve known guys who knew they were gay when they were seven, eight, ten, way before they reached adolescence. And I remember wanting to feel boobs when I was five, in fact, I used to come up with ways to make that happen, knowing that no adult would assume I was having sexual thoughts. I might’ve been grossed-out if someone graphically explained sex to me when I was five, but I knew its appeal.

In those years before sex makes sense, this is when we acquire our life-long tastes. In those moments when our nature rubs up against the effect of how we’re nurtured, our desires get set, and continue to be shaped through adolescence. This is what provides us our variety.

Yes, some men like a finger in their butt, and some guys hate blowjobs (why, I have no idea), some guys love small boobs, some guys like a generous butt, some men are leg men, and some men like a flat stomach. From what I can tell there is not a single body part that isn’t coveted.

For instance, I have a friend who worked at a shoe store in high school. Some of us used to tease him about his foot fetish. I mean, does anyone other than a foot fetishist even try to get a job in a woman’s shoe store? He once told me he knew in kindergarten. Before he could write his name he knew feet made him feel funny in a good way.

Another guy I know was heavy all through junior high and high school. When I met him in college, he saw how I ate and asked me for help losing weight. I suggested vegetarianism and daily exercise. He followed this plan and dramatically lost weight all through his early twenties. He even became a model for a little while. Suddenly, he could get most any woman he wanted. But he remained bitter they’d overlooked him all those years. He never said this, but his porn habits suggest it, thanks to being heavy when he was young, he will always likes women who look like the teen girls, the ones he lusted after but never got to touch. A developmental hole that formed in his adolescence, and his lack of sexual interaction with age-appropriate girls can never be filled, yet to this day, he still tries. He dates women who look like girls. Which is sooo not sexual to me. But I don’t judge him for it. He may have lost the weight but he never lost his teenage sexual appetite because he never got to express it.

Thanks to the variety of our experiences and natural inclinations, men have a wide and varied sexuality. Not every guy likes small waists, big tits, and a bubble butt- or if you’re gay, it doesn’t mean every guy likes broad shoulders, six-pack abs and a huge dick.

Whatever you look like, whatever you’re self-conscious about, somewhere there is a guy who finds you absolutely sexy. It’s true. Not to pick on anyone but there are guys who will pay good money for a morbidly obese woman to sit on their face and crush them until they signal they need air. Men may be simple, but our tastes are wildly varied. It’s foolish to expect two men to be similar when it comes to sex.

The only rule that seems true for men is: Attitude is the key to sexual behavior. Pay attention to how he relishes new experiences. Check how much he savors whatever it is he enjoys. Even if it’s just a minor everyday experience like eating appetizers when you dine out. This will tell you almost all you need to know about a man’s approach to sex. Other than that, be prepared to be surprised. And beware of a man who never smiles when he eats. Most likely he’ll be bad in bed.

Before I hung up, my nephew said to me, “I like you because you think I can wait until I’m eighteen. Dude, sometimes you have to break the rules if you want to live the dream.” I laughed at his borrowed wisdom. I had told him that and now he was throwing it back at me. As I chuckled, he told me visiting an Asian massage parlor wasn’t a fantasy… these were his plans. I didn’t want to deny him and have him turn massage parlors into some forbidden taste he’d always crave, so I told him he just had to wait. Although I agree there are times and places to bend and break rules, I told him when it comes to sex, that’s usually not the case. I tried to cheer him up, so I told him this just meant he had time to work on his English accent.

What I didn’t tell him and what I’ll tell you is, when it comes to sex men like it ALL.

If you’re a dude who wants to pour hot sauce on a woman’s ass and lick it off, don’t feel weird for what you desire. Just find a partner who’s into that. And if you’re someone who likes to fuck men, trust me, there are plenty of dudes out there who desire someone just like you, whatever you look like. The only trick is finding them. So guy or girl, be honest with yourself. There is no norm when it comes to sex. If you don’t believe me, just ask Hot 97 radio personality, DJ Mister Cee.

One final thought on male sexuality. It comes from notorious sleaze-ball genius, Woody Allen. In his film Deconstructing Harry, his thinly-veiled main character describes his thought process when it comes to women and sex:

“I think of fucking every woman I meet. I meet a woman in the bank… or on the bus… I think: What’s she look like naked? Can I fuck her?”

Keep in mind those were the words of a 70-something year old man. Like I said, men are simple. We want to fuck. Only our tastes are different.

 (this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

It’s estimated around one-hundred and thirty-four million babies will be born in 2013. Of that one-hundred and thirty-four million, some of those babies are gonna be ugly. That’s not me saying that, that’s just the math. Now, if you’re in college you may not know what I mean, if you’re in your mid-twenties you may be seeing the first ones, but by the time you’re in your late-twenties you’ve seen enough to know there are some ugly babies out there. What? There are. By the time you turn thirty, your Facebook feed is so full of baby photos you can pretty accurately guess how old any kid is at first glance. Social media is making us more fully aware of the life cycle. We see it all now from the womb to the tomb. Whether you have one or not, by your late twenties babies enter your life full force. Those happy-faced little life-changers are suddenly everywhere. It feels like everyone’s popping out a kid. And some of those little pride-and-joys are not lookers.

So what do you do when, say, a friend of a friend, someone you meet at a party tells you they just had a baby and this is, like, the first time they’ve been out since they had their little love muffin? And then, before you can ask how old he is or what the kid’s name is, they pull out their iPhone to show their bouncing ball of joy, and when they hand it over to you, that’s when you see their kid looks like a lumpy loaf of whole wheat bread. I mean sometimes the kid will be so ugly you wanna smack the phone away. What? Oh, come on. Lighten up. You know there are babies out there dogs don’t want to play with. I know it’s messed up to say a baby’s ugly- and I don’t say this… to the parents. But you and I both know we all have some thoughts that make us glad no one can hear what we’re thinking. It’s okay. Some babies are ugly. And they may have bright beautiful souls, and grow up to cure cancer and repel an alien invasion, but in the crib they were a funny-looking creature.

And I’m not talking about anything other than a perfectly healthy baby, the ones that have all their fingers and toes, but still they look like their mother had an affair with Don Rickles. To make sure I wasn’t just being superficial about these babies I asked my friend, Derek, for his opinion. He’s not a doctor or anything but he’s funnier than anyone else I’ve ever known, and there’s always great truth in a laugh, so I trust him implicitly. Not only did he agree there are ugly babies out there, he and I texted back and forth some of our worst thoughts we have when confronted with a particularly funny-faced child. So, you know, for all those moments when someone pulls out their phone to show you their little bundle of love and it turns out to be a blanket full of funny-looking, maybe you’ll remember one of these answers and spare yourself that moment when you awkwardly pause at an unexpected sentence break, “Oh my… Doesn’t he look like… his father.”

If you’re the type that gets upset that I call a baby ugly, I don’t really know why you even clicked on this, but you probably shouldn’t read these ten suggestions because it’s only gonna get worse.

Generally, when you see an ugly baby it’s best if you pick the first aspect of the child that catches your attention and comment on what you like. Simple and easy. And that way you’re expressing your honest appreciation of the unfortunate child.

So… okay, imagine you’re on the balcony of a friend’s apartment, at a party, it’s not loud but it isn’t quiet either, and their neighbor’s girlfriend is out there with you. Suddenly, she pulls out her phone to show you a picture of her brand new nephew- OMG! Her brother’s kid! Boom! You see the picture. This baby looks like Elmo had sex with a bag of potatoes. She’s standing there holding her phone and smiling at you, a proud aunt. You can’t hesitate in that moment. That would be rude. This exact moment, and ones like it, is why Derek and I drew up the Top 10 nice things to say about an ugly baby. You’re welcome.

First, there’ll be your initial reaction- what you want to say (but don’t).

And then there’s the alternative – what you should say.

What you want to say: You do know it’s illegal to fuck an orangutan?
What you say instead: Wow. He sure has a full head of hair.

What you want to say: You hope for ten fingers and toes… and then you realize, you should’ve aimed a little higher.
What you say instead:  Look at his fingers and all his little toes!

What you want to say: Oh my, he looks like something you buy in a bait shop.
What you say instead: Tell me, how did you pick his name?

What you want to say: So… I’m guessing Snoop Dogg’s the father?
What you say instead: Such loving eyes, bless his little heart.

What you want to say:Wow. Looks like your husband’s sperm sucks.
What you say instead: So this was your first baby?

What you want to say: I see all the good orphans were already taken.
What you say instead: Does he sleep through the night?

What you want to say: What did your wife drink antifreeze while she was pregnant?
What you say instead:  With the holidays coming up have you picked out a Halloween costume for the baby yet?

What you want to say: I guess no more date nights for you two, huh?
What you say instead: What a happy baby!

What you want to say: It’s funny. I didn’t think Howie Mandel had groupies.
What you say instead: Is your wife Canadian?

What you want to say: Why are you pushing a dog around in a stroller?
What you say instead: Wow. Sure looks like his father. He must be proud.

You may not believe me, not yet, but one day, you’ll be somewhere like an airport waiting area, and someone seated next to you will get friendly, a nervous flyer most likely, and they’ll want to show you pictures of their brand new niece, the one they’re flying out to meet, and when that day comes, you’ll be glad you read this.

Now, for the trolls who made it this far, you don’t need to waste your time typing it out. We all know it’s terrible to call a baby ugly and I’m headed to hell. But you know it and I know it, there are unattractive babies out there. We’ve all encountered them. I’m just admitting what we’ve all thought, at least once. I’m trying to find that silver lining. And don’t we all need that. Really?

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

I don’t understand why making people happy, wanting others to be content, secure to do what they want, to be trusted and supported in a way they feel they can stretch and reach for what they imagine, I don’t understand why this belief makes me so naïve. I’ve been told this my whole life. And I know the world is a hard place, it is a mean and cruel place. The world will often break your heart if you have one to break, but I firmly believe it’s getting better every day. Of course, I struggle with this belief. Well, I used to, then I read an article by Katie J.M. Baker, and now my hope is restored. It’s crucial that one has hope.

I’m no bed-sitting John Lennon-style idealist. I see the friction where the softness of humanity meets the unrelenting metallic momentum of day-to-day life. Where flesh meets mineral and the hard lattice of crystalline precision scrapes away the epidermis and exposes the body to the elements. I’d be a fool not to see that. But I don’t believe we have to apply pressure, we don’t have to force ourselves against these hard and presumed unbending realities of life on earth. We don’t have to be brutes. We don’t have to be bastards, bimbos, bullshitters, or bamboozlers. We can be brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers; we can be one supportive human family. Or at least we can strive for that. Who knows if modern civilization will provide us the time and resources to make it there?

Folks often like to say the beastly aspects of Nature are inherent in our nature. They say that we are as opportunistic and coldly calculating as reptilian predators. We are and we aren’t. Other folks like to say that we are as twitchy as herd animals, or as clique-y as our ape relatives. We are and we aren’t. The only true statement one might make about our beastly nature is that we are all animals on Earth, sharing the same ecosystem. Which means, although we aren’t equals, we animals all have our place.

I believe in us and our evolution. I’ve been told my belief in humanity is damning proof of some sort of weakness in my character, that rather than solely count on myself to make my way in the world, I see it as a planetary potluck, of sorts. Some folks suggest that I’m a communist of the worst stripe. But I’m no commie. I just believe we’re all in it together. And you know what, I’m sick of feeling dismissively naïve because I think we do better when we treat each other with kindness, respect, dignity and laugh at all of our many human foibles.

The hair that broke this camel’s back, the feather that forever tipped my personal scales, was one collection of words, rather beautifully, intelligently arranged in a way that made the whole world make sense again. You can read the piece here.

I owe the writer, Katie J.M. Baker, a debt I can never repay. She gave me back the world and all the people who call it home. And she did it with her words. She won the final battle of my personal war of belief.

The reason her article was so phenomenal was that she didn’t argue a polemic against an obvious and pitiable villain. Instead, she slowly undressed him and let him shame himself with all of his naked inadequacies. She let the dick speak for itself. Her article is about pick-up-artist supreme, Daryush Valizadeh, better known to his international followers as Roosh.

I’m sure you’re aware of PUA culture. It’s something I read about when I was a confused young lad. Like many boys I thought there were secrets to charming and bedding women. Of course, when I got to know the women I was fortunate enough to share a bed with I saw they were no different than me. We had different body parts, of course, and many other obvious distinguishing factors, but we were the same. We were both just horny humans who wanted to feel pleasure.

Just as any good teacher will tell you, when you cheat, you’re only cheating yourself. We think they’re full of shit when they say that, but it’s true. And I found it’s true with women, too. If I conned a woman into sleeping with me, I was only conning myself. I was momentarily hurting her with my manipulations to get some sex, while also creating a pattern and reinforcing values that were deeply hurting me as well because I was using negativity to get what I wanted. Soon, I stopped employing any of the bullshit tactics of the PUA. And I let Nature run it course. I didn’t try to game the system. For two simple reasons, I love women and I love myself.

This is why Katie J.M. Baker’s piece is so brilliant. What took me years to figure out she made evident in one article. She addressed what was still a nagging existential question for me: Who’s the real fool, me, the idealist who misses out on the available low-hanging fruit? Or are my critics, the opportunists who outnumber and usually mock me and those like me, the real fools?

To be honest, my side has a pretty shitty record and reputation. We sound like poor people pitying the rich. Now, I can easily find folks who share my values, but they’re just as marginalized because they’re old people in the dwindling years of their lives. They say all the same things that I believe. But who listens to them?

Then along came Katie J.M. Baker, and she used PUA culture to show the fallacy of the selfishness of our modern world. The whole thing! It’s fucking brilliant!

Using Denmark as her Petri dish, and the PUA caveman, Roosh, as her living study, she describes how when he and his fucked-up values were added to the culture of Denmark, not only did his system of opportunism and manipulation fail, but Denmark proves we’re collectively moving toward a possible future wherein our societal evolution might reach a new height, and if we can reach it, the ideals the dying old people argue are the most important, could be the same values we use to arrange our societies. We can treat people with love and respect from the womb to the tomb.

Denmark is feminist, socialist and compassionate. Which, in combination creates a community wherein women, in particular, can’t be “negged” and tricked into sleeping with shitballs like Roosh. This may not seem like much to you, but remember, we’re all the same. And thus, the culture of Denmark is one wherein neither men nor women can easily manipulate each other. To quote Katie J.M. Baker’s article:

“Unlike in America, where bestsellers goad already overworked and underpaid women to Lean In even further, the assumption in Denmark is that feminism is a collective goal, not an individual pursuit. Danish women are less likely to be financially dependent on men and therefore feel less pressure to ‘settle’ or change their behavior by, in Roosh’s words, ‘adopting a pleasing figure or style that’s more likely to attract men.’ Imagine that.”

Women are supported by the state in a way that they feel no need or pressure to have a man in their life. Free of the economic pressures of single motherhood, free of the fear of abandonment by their mate, free of any need to find a man to provide for them, they are able to provide for themselves, and if they can’t then the state steps in and helps them. This means women choose their partners for far different reasons.

“Roosh comes to the conclusion that women who aren’t as dependent on men for financial support are not susceptible to the narcissistic salesmanship that constitutes phase one: ‘attraction.’ That’s why Roosh fails to advance to the second level— ‘trust’ — without being creepy. Thus ‘seduction’ is almost always out of the question.”

As Roosh found, Danish women are immune to PUA bullshit. And subsequently, the men of the community are also free to do as they please, and make decisions that best benefit what matters to them. Everyone is free from negative manipulations, or at least far more than in places like America that use negative motivations as a primary fuel for social conditioning.

“In her essay ‘A Marxist Theory of Women’s Nature,’ philosopher Nancy Holmstrom argues that women’s lives are less free than men’s under capitalism ‘both because they are dependent on men and because they have children dependent on them.’ Therefore, ‘traditional sexual values constrain women more than they do men,’ and women ‘are less able to act to realize their own desires’ and must be ‘more passive and oriented to other people’s wishes than men.’

But in societies with a less marked sexual division of labor, those sexualized generalizations dissipate. Marginalized women who need male spouses to flourish might, indeed, find pick-up artists alluring. But women in countries that have gender-equalizing policies supported by an anti-individualist culture may not.”

More than this being some state-run abomination of the natural order, this system grants everyone freedom and respect to be who they wish to be and how they wish to be, which, to my thinking is the natural order. By protecting all of its citizens with a generous and compassionate safety net, Denmark grants its citizens the freedom Americans like to believe they enjoy. By looking out for one another, they’re all looking out for themselves.

This sort of paradox is hard to sell at the polls and I wouldn’t expect any American politician to make it a plank of their platform. But using only our military spending, the amounts America has spent on our recent wars, using only those extravagant expenditures we dedicate to violence we could have given all Americans a support system even more generous than what the Danish enjoy. Instead, we bomb people. We kill people. And for the life of me, I’ve yet to understand why we’ve been bombing people for 10 solid years. We seem no closer to our goal. How much longer until we see the mounting evidence that soft power and cooperation are far more lasting influences on behavior than the simple dogma that fear = respect?

As a man, I’ve been a reluctant feminist. Not because I disagree with feminism. I totally support and agree with its aims and values. But I never know where to stand and never want to be one of those guys, you know who I mean, the ones who ruin the term “feminist man.” But after reading Katie J.M. Baker’s piece, I know where to stand. I know how to say I am a feminist. It’s actually pretty easy. It’s just five words: I am a human being.

To say you are a “humanist” is just more loaded jargon. But to say you are a human being is akin to the Yiddish/German term “mensch.” In means to be decent, caring, thoughtful, considerate, respectful, loving, laughing and most of all prone to mistakes and errors in judgment, but always willing to address those mistakes, clean them up and do better next time. So rather, than say I’m a feminist because of what Katie J.M. Baker wrote, instead I can now say I whole-heartedly believe in and have hope for humanity. I can now proudly claim that I am not a feminist man. Not at all. I am a human being. And for that I owe her the world.

As media outlets around the world just reported, Nirvana has been nominated as an inductee into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. This is, of course, no surprise. In 2011, Nirvana celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of Nevermind. In September of this year, fans celebrated the 20th anniversary of In Utero. Everyone knows it was only a matter of time until Nirvana was everywhere they didn’t want to be. Institutionalized.

Nirvana was the last “biggest band in the world.” They were the last band that changed the world. The last band that drew a line across music history and announced there was the time before us and then there’s the time after us. They’re definitely first ballot hall-of-fame candidates. They’re fucking Nirvana!

Writing hugely popular pop songs that fans and critics both love ain’t easy. It’s pretty much… The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Kanye West and Nirvana. And Nirvana did it ugly and sludgey, playfully dark and obscenely sarcastic, meaningful and meaningless, and still somehow they made music that remains rather timeless. Now, before they become further enshrined asmuseum pieces, or sold as Halloween costumes, let’s crank this shit up loud enough to piss off your neighbors, and really consider why Nirvana was the last band that had a chance to change the world. One key reason is obvious, timing. They blew up just before the internet. And thus, they were the last ones to grab everyone’s attention and kill off what came before them.

In order to consider Nirvana, every discussion must begin and end with Kurt Cobain. Even though he was just another skinny metal white kid from bum-fuck Aberdeen, in rural eastern Washington where towns smell like industrial paper mills and logging trucks crowd the two lane highways, when I think of Kurt Cobain I think of someone else. And the person I most closely associate with Kurt Cobain isn’t from the Northwest, or even from the ‘90s, although he was punk rock. The person I most associate with Kurt is another sensitive artist, another genius who wasn’t really built well for this world but his hand changed the direction of the culture and left us with lots of beautiful shit to contemplate and appreciate, the painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Think about it for a second and the parallels will jump out at you.

1. In the artworld, there was the time before JMB and the time after.
2. They both left their homes of divorce to live as a homeless artist.
3. They both relied on women, and were advocates of the strength/power of women.
4. They both made art that felt like the creation of a developmentally-stunted child.
5. They were both obsessed with the human body from a clinical, medical angle.
6. And they both share an odd connection with Courtney Love. IRL, she was obviously Kurt Cobain’s wife. In the movie Basquiat she plays one of JMB’s romantic interests. Which is just a funny strange coincidence that they were both paramours of Courtney. (For the record: I fucking love Courtney Love and everything she does, so I consider it a lucky blessing for both.)
7. Neither of them could ever find the peace they were seeking. Ever.
8. And lastly, of course, they both died at 27.

When you go back and consider Nirvana’s influence on the ‘90s and beyond, Kurt Cobain’s influence on our culture it’s just as obvious and palpable as Jean-Michel Basquiat’s still-expanding influence on our culture. In their primes, both men chafed at the monkey suits they were asked to wear, both acted out against the audiences that mocked them, and consequently, both lead short, brilliant, uneasy, heroin-sustained lives. And now, just as street art is being enshrined in the museums of the world, Kurt Cobain’s ghost will be enshrined in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. The ultimate outsiders are being canonized by the white-haired insiders. So be it.

Quick! Let’s appreciate Nirvana for the band they were before we get soaked by the approaching monsoon of bullshit and hype about what a great band they were.

So here they are: The Top 10 Reasons Nirvana Was The Last Band That Really Mattered

1.  They killed off the whole era of music before them

Nirvana murdered Sunset Strip cock rock on national television. They declared the whole genre irrelevant. And they proved it to millions of people around the world watching MTV. Here’s the clip of Nirvana playing their song Lithium at the ‘92 MTV Video Music Awards. This clip has everything!

If you didn’t watch the clip, here’s the gist: Kurt Cobain pretends to play their song Rape Me, horrifying the MTV execs, only to transition into Lithium, a song they band previously agreed on playing. They play a sick version of the song, toward the end of the performance, Kris Novoselic throws his bass way up in the air, loses sight of it in the stage-lights, it falls back down, cracks him in the head, he crashes to the stage, gets back up, staggers around as he’s losing consciousness.  Unaware, the bassist has suffered a major head wound, at the end of the song, as if Kurt wants to make it perfectly clear who they are and what they’ve come to do, he ends the song in this fury of squelch and buzz and the whine of feedback. He stabs his amp with his guitar, a few times. He tosses his guitar, climbs up the stacked speakers, pulls them down and sends a speaker cabinet tumbling, like he was a willful toddler and they were his toy blocks. Then he stands, balances a moment, and then sorta throws himself down onto the drum kit. Meanwhile, after crawling out from behind that same drum kit, Dave Grohl runs on stage and finds the mic. He shouts his now-famous mockery of Axl Rose, and by extension, Guns ‘n’ Roses, and every other band like them.

This is the moment when Dave Grohl made it clear that Axl Rose and cock rock were no longer relevant. He repeatedly mocked Axl in a sing-song voice from the center of the destroyed stage, “Hi, Axl! Hi, Axl!” Rumor has it, Nirvana was responding to a pre-show fight backstage between thetwo bands.

And well, after that performance of Lithium, kids stopped wanting to be in or listen to hair metal bands. Suddenly, those dudes looked like badly hair-sprayed rock n’ roll zombies caught rotting in some LA nudie bar.

Here’s the TL;DR edited video version of the highlights I just mentioned:

2.  Nirvana wrestled with the moribund notion of “selling-out”

They were the last important band to really struggle with that now-lost notion of what it means (or meant) to sell-out. They believed there was The Man and you sure as shit couldn’t be on his side, at least not and respect yourself. But yet, they signed major label deals, played videos on MTV and chased that fame buzz like every other corporate whore on their same major label. Yet somehow, with a certain honest oxymoronic quality, they wore their new success and mainstream appeal uncomfortably like a wet wool Goodwill sweater. Nirvana always wanted their audience to know, they were doing it to get their music out to their crowd. But obviously, they wanted the fame, too. They were the last time this paradox was still a worthwhile or interesting question. Now, we’re all hustlers. These days, there’s so many distractions any public awareness of your brand is actually really fucking valuable. It’s hard to get everyone’s attention.

Juxtapose their more innocent media reality against ours and you look at this Rolling Stone cover. It’s the perfect image of their punk rock innocence meeting the ever-hungry corporate media machine.

This is Nirvana’s first Rolling Stone cover:

3.  Dave Grohl’s drums!

The guy pounded the heaviest drum sound since John Bonham and Keith Moon quit the game. He’s a drummer you can identify after just a few beats. If it sounds like someone is playing drums with two sledgehammers for drumsticks, then you know it’s Dave Grohl. Seriously, he’s one of the best drummers… ever.

4.  Kris Novoselic’s weirdly dark and wryly honest Eastern European sense of humor

Here’s an interview with all three members of Nirvana, but Kris Novoselic sorta takes over the interview. He starts talking about logs, average life expectancy, he urges viewers to slack off, and suggests they don’t have babies; he’s basically fucking with the journalist, but in a way you don’t see our modern self-serious celebrities do. He’s both smart and silly, yet strangely real and trenchant at the same time. He plays the holy fool. He’s a lot like a very drunk/stoned Louis CK.

“…People standing on escalators! That is a testament to human laziness!”

5. Kurt Cobain had the single best pop presence since John Lennon

It’s rare that a major musician/celebrity/brand-name pop star is bitterly funny, bitingly acid funny, subversive and angry, yet also softly sentimental and obviously inwardly rather tender, and apparently, often-mending. Like John Lennon before him, Kurt Cobain was a beautiful/horrible paradox. If you’re a hardcore Nirvana fan, here are three different interviews with an English music journalist (so, you know they’re good) all recorded in a busy pub.

One is just after Bleach was released. The second is just before Nevermindwas released. And the third is just after Nevermind was released. It’s fascinating stuff if you’ve ever wanted to eavesdrop on a conversation worth hearing between a relaxed Kurt Cobain and a smart interviewer. Kurt was on that Lennon level of being on a next-level fame ride. He anticipated it, so he could play with it. Here’s the interviews.

6.  Steve Albini produced what is arguably their best album: In Utero

I have a huge soft spot for Incesticide, but it’s mostly covers. If I were asked, on my deathbed, and I had only one last breath to say my answer to the question which is Nirvana’s best album, I’d have to say… it’s In Utero.

For one, it’s a real album. It’s intended to be one coherent whole. And two, it was produced by ridiculously talented punk rock legend/producer Steve Albini. He came in and saved Nirvana from the possible excesses of their success. His no-bullshit attitude was key for them and that album. Together they made a rather perfect album. Here’s the letter Albini wrote when he proposed how he wanted the recording process to work. He’s British, if that helps.

7.  They could actually play the blues

It’s not easy. Just ask Everlast from House of Pain. And don’t get me wrong, he did it well. But Nirvana, and specifically Kurt Cobain believably ached with the blues. And now, every day their version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” turns more and more kids on to the blues and artists like Leadbelly. Thanks to YouTube, every day kids around the world become fans of the blues because of Nirvana. And let’s cut the shit, Nirvana’s version of that particular Leadbelly song puts pennies on eyes. It’s a murderous track.

8.  They wore dresses to rebel against their particular paradox of fame and fortune

All three dudes in Nirvana were adamant feminists. They were fun, cool allies who were motivated by their shared riot grrrl feminist attitudes, which were ahead of their times. And this time-divide left them hating part of their audience. Some of the people (asshole dudes) who showed up to their stadium shows and sang their songs back to them were also the ones bullying people in the crowd, and would most likely be bullying/harassing people the next day when they were all back at high school. The same sort of frathead jockstraps that made their younger years hell were now some of their biggest fans. To show the fans where exactly the band stood, Nirvana put on dresses and made this video.

9. They made one of the ten best music videos ever: Heart-shaped Box

To this day it’s still one of the coolest videos ever shot. And perhaps more importantly, it still says something about who we are, twenty years later. After shooting four music videos with Kevin Kerslake, Nirvana turned to Dutch photographer, Anton Corbijn. And together they made a visual wonder, strange as it is beautiful. In the video there’s an old man. He’s naked except for a loincloth wrap and he wears a Santa hat. He uses a wooden ladder to climb onto a Christian cross. A little blonde girl in a KKK hood leaps to grab human fetuses dangling like fruit from a tree. But she can’t reach them. An obese woman in a skinsuit with her organs painted on it walks with arms outstretched, reaching. And she smiles. The mechanical crows. The surreal poppy field. The Wizard of Oz on bad acid for their setting. And all of it was hand-tinted to create the super-saturated colors, a fever dream version of the vibrant colors of the old Technicolor processing for movies. And to be cute, they even had a heart-shaped box for Nirvana to perform inside.

Speaking to the Daily Beast , Anton Corbijn described working on the video with Kurt Cobain:

“Generally, the ideas for videos are mine, with sometimes an idea from a singer or a band worked into it. But usually the ideas are sparked off by me listening to a song. I tend to need a long time. I need to play the song 20 or 30 times in a row while I do exercise or sit in the bath; these are places where I always get ideas. But Kurt’s ideas came fully formed, along with the song. Kurt was so incredibly detailed in his ideas, and they were so good, that of course I went with those. I would say that I contributed, idea-wise, maybe 15 percent.

…He was a totally unique figure. He was visionary. For somebody to write a song and have a detailed vision for the video, or anything connected to it, that’s really rare. I have not encountered it to that level elsewhere.”

10. Relationships formed by the band… spun-off and created talented offspring

Never forget, Nirvana also gave us… The Foo Fighters …and Francis Bean Cobain. Both of whom make the world a better place.

(11. Bonus Reason) Even VH-1 agrees with me about Nirvana…and we never agree about anything!

VH-1 did one of their pop culture specials, they focused on grunge, and well, here’s what their glass menagerie of talking heads had to say.

Nirvana was the world’s last great punk band. They were the last “biggest band in the world.” They were the last band to be “as big as the Beatles.” And their Nirvana-mania level of fame was based on their talent and audience’s love. They weren’t a product of super-clever corporate-sponsored word-of-mouth campaigns, cross-platform brand awareness, big money ad dollars outreach or hyper-targeted youth marketing. Nirvana just fucking rocked like it meant something to them. And that was the secret to their appeal.

Unlike the pop-punk bands that followed them, there’s no reason to attach the word pop to them, even though Nirvana was the most pop and wrote some of the best pop songs of the last 20 years. Just like the Fab Four they transcended the limits of pop music and created timeless songs that remain new for every kid who hears them for the first time. I never got to see them perform live. Which sucks mad donkey balls. But I watch their live shows on YouTube. Which, I guess is the next best thing. And the videos are unreal.

It’s been 20 years since their last album was released. Yet, Nirvana doesn’t feel dated, at least, not the way the hair metal bands, or boy bands, or even West Coast gangsta rap, all sound dated.  Play their track Radio Friendly Unit Shifter and ask yourself if it could be a hit today. Their music remains very much alive.

Some time next year, the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame plans to swallow them whole, gobble up Nirvana and claim them as their own the way the white hairs of the art world have claimed Basquiat, Haring, Schnabel, Blondie, punk rock, early Bronx hip-hop and all the rest of the New York art scene that gave us so much of the cultural fuel and energy of ‘80s, and even on into the ‘90s.

None of that art belongs in a museum, not that way. It needed new museums. We didn’t have them. But now we do. At least, for music videos we do. Ignore the museum and hall of fame. YouTube is our new museum space, and it’s an evolving hall of fame. And that’s where Nirvana lives. That’s where they can be found playing their music.

Go and seek them there!

Here are Nirvana’s Top 10 Music Videos

1. Heart-shaped Box 

2. In Bloom 

3. Come As You Are 

4. You Know You’re Right

5. Smells Like Teen Spirit

6. Sliver 

7. The Man Who Sold The World (MTV Unplugged) 

8. Lithium  

9. Where Did You Sleep Last Night (MTV Unplugged) 

10. Nirvana MTV Unseen

Here are their full albums:

1. Bleach  

2. Nevermind 

3. Incesticide 

4. In Utero

Here are some live performances:

1. Negative Creep (Europe ’91) 

2. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter (Munich, Germany ’94)

3. About A Girl – Polly – Breed – Sliver – Love Buzz (’91)

And here’s a full concert:

Nirvana Live In Rome 

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com and Medium.com/HumanParts)

Like you, I have a few secrets I never tell anyone. But dear readers, there’s one secret I want to tell you. It taught me a great truth:

There’s nothing to fear from failure.

I know this firsthand. I’ve watched my dreams crumble before me like a sandcastle at high tide. My secret is one of those failed dreams.

I was once cast in a big Hollywood movie.

When that happens, people begin to talk. No matter how much you try to keep it under your hat, as soon as one person knows, the secret is out and has a life of its own. I’ve written before about how much I used to look like Bob Marley. What I left out — because it was still an embarrassment, one I didn’t want to be reminded of — is that I was cast to play Bob Marley in a biopic from Warner Bros. It was a movie about the famous singer’s life. And it was just as cool as it sounded.

But obviously, since you’ve never heard of the film, it was never made. What can I say? Hollywood is a fickle place. During pre-production, behind the back of Warner Brothers, Rita Marley sold the entire catalog of her late husband’s music to Disney. Faster than you can say Tuff Gong, it was all gone. The movie, the role of a lifetime, and the buzz about the project; they all disappeared like silence when you speak its name.

It’s hard to describe how it feels to be that close to something you’ve always wanted, something that so many people say you are perfect for, only to have it slip through your fingers. But I don’t have to tell you how it feels. I’m sure you know already, because I’m sure you’ve lost something that matters to you. I’m sure you’ve seen a dream slip away. Or lost a love that you thought would define your life. Or perhaps you made a mistake that ruined your chances of knowing the happiness you were pursuing.

It sucks! No, that’s not strong enough. It doesn’t suck. It feels like living death, like your life force has been sucked out of you. But the thing is … as much as you may suffer in that moment, it doesn’t last. Eventually, your broken heart heals. Your options get better. Your horizon brightens. And you keep going; you keep moving toward new goals, new happiness, and deeper love. The only things that can stop you are death or grave illness.

Of course, it doesn’t feel like that at the time. But I can promise you, it’s true. And the little saying I made up to deal with how I felt when my dream smashed on the rocks of indifference and I needed something to keep going was a simple little phrase, but I’ve told it to a few friends and family when they went through similar difficulties of life and they all found it helped them as well.

Your suffering polishes your soul.

When the Bob Marley movie withered on the vine, I was crushed. I was so sure my whole life was about to change. And it did. Only it changed for the worse. It seemed like everyone I knew had heard about the movie, and now they all wanted to know what happened. They wanted to know why someone they knew wasn’t going to be a big star. Ha! That’s a fun moment, watching the light of excitement extinguish in the eyes of your friends and family. And I had lots and lots of friends and family to tell the story of my failed dream. Awesome.

The point is, that moment of terribly unbearable weakness wasn’t the end. It was just the turning of a page in my life. And from that moment of great weakness, I was reminded how it was actually a distillation of a great strength of mine. I had to tell the story of my broken dream and brush with near-fame to so many people because I had so many friends. And although I was embarrassed to tell the story, I told it. And in telling it, I was reminded of how many people care about me. And that’s my real wealth. Like my health, I’d overlooked what really mattered as I chased the illusion of fame and glory and Hollywood excess.

When Heath Ledger died, a part of me died with him. I loved that guy. He was a tremendous actor. One of the best I’d seen since Brando. And I saw in him what happens to the sensitive when the monster we call fame closes it jaws down around them and swallows them whole. I had a feeling that if they’d made that Bob Marley movie, my life would’ve followed in Ledger’s footsteps. I wasn’t cut out for that sort of life. And most likely, it would’ve killed me. When Ledger died, I knew I’d been really lucky that my movie never got made. It’s funny how life works that way.

You may not have an exact, similar story in your life. But the details don’t matter. It’s the twisting path of life that you and I share. We think we know what we want from the future. We place our faith in the hands of tomorrow and hope that it gives us back what we dream will one day be ours — a job, a house, a partner.

But I can tell you the only thing you can trust the future to bring you is surprises. I call it the great weirdness of life. It’s the only thing I really believe in, and I do so with my whole heart and mind. I’ve found that’s the best way to move from today into tomorrow. And that’s a rad thing to believe in, because it means your future will always be better and stranger than you could ever expect.

Since the failed Bob Marley movie, I’ve endured numerous other failures, some of which I’ve written about, others that I’ve kept close to the vest. But all of them have made me a happier and better person than I imagine I would be had I received what I thought I wanted.

I was an arrogant prick when I was a youngster. Well, that’s not exactly right. I was a very sweet kid. At least, that’s what all the adults who knew me then tell me. They say I was sensitive and kind, curious and funny.Whatever. I buried all of that as life wore down on me. It started when I was a short kid and got bullied. It got worse when my parents divorced and my heart broke with my shattered family.

It got even worse when, on the heels of my parents’ divorce, I went to five different schools in five years. That’s hard on a sensitive, shy kid. But it toughened me up. And I had to get tougher, because things got worse for me, such as when I was one of the only black kids in an all boys’ high school. In my math class, kids would make monkey faces at me. But being the smallest one, it’s not like I could fight them.

I learned to hold my feelings deep inside me. And I learned to use humor as my most ardent defense mechanism. I gravitated toward punk rock and skateboarding. I embraced all the outcast cultures of youth. I’ve known marginalization for as long as I can remember. Obviously, your story may not be the same as mine. But I’m sure you’ve felt bullied, or like an outsider, or disrespected, or perhaps devalued by others. And as crazy as it sounds … be glad you were treated poorly. Because as I said before:

Your suffering polishes your soul.

I can promise you that even after all the mistreatment I’ve faced in my life, all the failures, broken dreams and lost loves, I’m a better person today than I was yesterday.

Naturally, it took me twists and turns to get here. In fact, at one point, just after the economic collapse of 2008, I had to move in with my sister. I’d come home one day and found an auction taking place in the front yard of my house; and that’s how I learned the home I was renting had been foreclosed. The landlords never said a word to me. And so, I scrambled to find a new place to live. This was the second place in a row I had to move from on short notice. Terribly worried about me, my sister insisted I move in with her so I could have some stability in my life.

To do my part while I stayed with my sister, I helped her raise her two small children. And the lessons her children taught me, as I attempted to teach them, brought me full circle. They reminded me of how I was as a boy; and their smiles and laughter and simple love healed all the remaining pain inside me. They taught me to be brave — at first for them, so they wouldn’t be afraid of life, and then for me, so that I might remember to go after what I wanted despite the fact that it sometimes hurts to not get what you want.

Just like Mick Jagger once sang, “If you try sometimes, you just might find… you get what you need.”

And damn if that crazy ass isn’t right. That’s the irony of satisfaction, it’s not what you think you want, it’s what you need. And I needed my niece and nephew to remind me. If I’d gotten that part, I would’ve most likely never lived with my sister and her kids. And I have a strong feeling I wouldn’t even be on this side of the grass.

Life is funny that way. Life is relentless that way. Life will never let you down that way.

It’s almost the holidays, and here in America we have a time-honored tradition. Every year NBC and a few other stations will broadcast the Frank Capra / Jimmy Stewart picture, It’s A Wonderful Life.

I love that movie. When I was living with my sister, I totally related to the George Bailey character. And every year, just like millions of other Americans, I watch it on Thanksgiving and twice on Christmas. It always reminds me of what matters most in life. And I can’t watch it without crying at the end. Every single fucking time. It makes me cry with happiness. I get a wave of feels that begin when George Bailey says, “ZuZu’s petals!” and soon my cheeks are wet and my nose is running. I have the chills now just thinking of it.

To me, It’s A Wonderful Life is the greatest reminder of how a good life feels. We all suffer. The real trick is how you respond.

If you’ve seen the film … watch the clip below and let it remind you:

Your suffering polishes your soul.

If you’ve never seen the movie, don’t watch that clip. I’d hate to deny you the joy of seeing it from the beginning. Here’s the whole movie.

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

I was watching “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla” on cable yesterday because that’s what you do when you’re a freelance writer and your home is your office. Just after Godzilla emerged from the frothing whitecaps of an angry Pacific, the film cut to a scientist in his office. He picked up the phone and uttered the classic line:

“What’s that? Godzilla is attacking the city?!”

Quick cut to military personnel and men in lab coats racing down hallways and climbing ladders, preparing for the ensuing destruction. An announcement sounded over the loud-speakers.

“This is an emergency! All stations position red. Godzilla alert! Level three!”

I laughed and wondered, “Wait- that’s only level three. What’s level four? Godzilla arguing for the rights of women and indigenous people? The monster has plans for a socialist revolution?”

“To your battle stations!”

Imagining what could possibly be “level four” made me laugh. Mostly, because I’m a simple bastard. But as I sat there, chuckling to myself, and Godzilla was busy wrecking shop, scaring the shit out of the locals, I realized I’d stumbled upon a great truth about humanity.

Godzilla is just like Feminism.

And it’s the same problem all the social justice movements face. They’re seen as fight to the death, a battle for a way of life. I often ask myself, “Who the hell argues against the rights of women? Who wants to fight against the rights of any disadvantaged group?”

Well, Godzilla showed me who. Terrified people.

Watching Godzilla rampage his way through the Tokyo waterfront, it finally clicked. There in the soft glow of an afternoon epiphany, I asked myself a super silly question: “What’s scarier Godzilla or Feminism?”

I know it sounds stupid, but stick with me. Because, you see, the thing is, when some conservatives and culture warriors watch other people struggle for the rights of women, they perceive the movement as a threat to their way of life. It’s like they see a poster for a ’50s B-movie, The Attack of the 50-foot Feminist.

“She’s already destroyed San Francisco… and now, she’s headed for Oakland! She must be stopped! To your battle stations!”

I know, I’m ridiculous. But I prefer to laugh at things that would otherwise make me angry. Looking past Godzilla, and the Attack of the 50-foot Feminist, I finally saw for the first time the real problem with how humanity perceives and reacts to a threat. Our first instinct, is always to fight. We love to get medieval on that ass. But rarely, when that happens, does anyone walk away from the fight unscathed. And that, my friends, is the biggest problem for Feminism and other movements for social justice. It’s a fight. They’re seen as battles. We wage culture wars.

Moving from one cartoonish cultural figure to another, watching the Godzilla movie also reminded me of Russell Brand. He’s recently been anywhere and everywhere calling for revolution. Bless his heart. And I like the guy – as a comedian. Not so much as a revolutionary. Mostly, because clowns don’t make good rebel leaders. And he can’t help the fact he brings a “circus vibe” into the battle with him. That’s not his fault. That’s his strength. But in a revolutionary struggle, his sort of strength isn’t helpful. And it certainly, isn’t enough to win. He only calls attention to the problem, and then he gets in the way, even if he offers worthwhile solutions. The worst part is his presence cheapens the work of others in the fight with him. But you know what? I don’t really care if Russell Brand’s revolution lives or dies. Quite frankly, I don’t believe in revolution. They always fail.

If you study cultures from around the world and cast a studious eye at the history of revolutionary politics, you’ll notice there’s a seventy-year rule. It happens everywhere with just about any revolution you can name.

Seventy years after the American Revolution (1775-1783), the States were fighting in the Civil War (1861-1865).

Seventy years after that, America was in midst of The Depression and what could be called the “Roosevelt Revolution.”

In Mexico, they had a revolution (1910-1920) that was followed by a nine-year period of political instability that led to seventy-one years of single party rule under PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). But that ended in 2000.

The French Revolution of 1789 was followed by the Second French Empire of the 1860s.

The same can be said of the 1917 Russian Revolution that gave the world, the USSR (1922-1991). Communism crumbled seventy-four years after their Bolshevik uprising.

Today, we’re watching as China tries desperately not to succumb to this pattern. And many would argue, America is experiencing similar growing pains.

Seventy years.

You may notice, that’s roughly the length of the average human lifetime. It also translates as three generations reaching adulthood. In that span of time, the memory of what life was like before the revolution dissipates. Over those seventy years, the fervent energies that won the fight weaken as the spirit of change grows old, and the political will becomes enfeebled, much like a septuagenarian.

This seventy-year rule is why I’d argue that instead of a revolution, we need [r]evolution. We can’t fight our way into the future we want. We must evolve the future we want. We have to grow so that we can grasp and hold the social justice we’re reaching for.

For those who are presently suffering, when someone like me suggests they don’t need to fight to better their lives, this will most likely sound suicidal or depressingly limited in terms of what change they can hope to achieve. But please don’t mistake my call for evolution, as a call for apathy or resignation to The Powers That Be. Not at all.

When I see something like the struggles against patriarchy, the persistent scourge of bigotry, the choke-hold of systemic capitalistic corruption and greed, I want to fight to end that bullshit, too. However, the history of revolutions around the world suggests that’s a losing battle.

Despite all the furious energy we gain from feelings of righteousness and despite all of the positive buzz of collective action, the fight we engage undermines the goals of those battling for social justice. Win or lose, someone inevitably wants to fight again. Godzilla gets beat. And he always comes back for the sequel.

Returning to the ones on the front lines of the battles for social justice, the ones who have memories and scars from a recent past marred by inequality, unfairness, brutality and pain; to you, it might sound callous or ignorant to suggest you put down your arms and stop fighting. But I firmly believe a battle will never get you what you want. Because whomever you’re fighting against, they most likely see you as a threat to their way of life, too. You are no different than Godzilla. And they will respond the same way the Japanese do. “To your battle stations!” They will dump countless resources into fighting you. They will build a Mechagodzilla to defeat you.

But hey, let’s say your revolution wins. Well, seventy years after your victory, the revolution will become the status quo. The outsiders become the insiders. And this is where it gets tricky. Conditions allow for a return of the monster we call change. Godzilla returns to destroy Tokyo, one more time. It’s what Godzilla does. And, it’s what we do. Eventually, the old revolutionaries stand in the way of the next revolution.

That’s why we must not fight for social justice. We must ignore any simple emotional call to revolution. We need to understand our times our merely the conditions that require us to evolve. We must grow, change, adapt, in order to reach social justice. Fighting is a losing battle, physically or linguistically.

No one builds a Mechagodzilla to defeat a tsunami. Those are natural disasters. And you can’t beat killer waves with lasers and robots. When a tsunami threatens Japan, the people band together and do whatever they can to outlast those hell-spawned waves.

I would say that, today, we live with a number of tsunamis that threaten the cause of social justice. We must band together to outlast them. We need to grow a future built on the values we want to see in our society. Otherwise, we’ll always be fighting monsters, battling Godzillas and building Mechagodzillas. One generation after the next. Now, I love the world of those crappy B-movies, but I’d hate to live there.

Your enemies are not monsters. They’re as natural as a typhoon. They are as dangerous and as destructive as an Oklahoma twister. But no one tries to punch the wind. No matter how furious it blows. Instead, you hunker down, you act smart, you outlast the storm, you mourn those lost and you rebuild structures, creating ones that will withstand hurricane-force winds of the future. That’s how we evolve!

Instead of picking up arms to fight, pick up books to teach young minds the values they’ll need to shape the future. As the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. Don’t fight for Feminism. Grow feminists! Make it a story kids understand. And also, tend to all the adults being hurt today. This includes trans women and men.

Feminism struggles to connect with many people because it’s seen as a fight. There are sides. There are factions. There are winners and losers. The fight even divides feminists against each other. But the goals and values of Feminism are inevitable because they are decent, and we can attain them once we can each articulate what they are. Labels divide us, as Joss Whedon recently pointed out (if you’d like to read more about that, Kat George wrote a great piece about it). But I’d go one further than Joss Whedon and focus on the fact, stories connect us.

What Feminism needs isn’t more jargon, or to win a final battle, not at all. Feminism, and any other social justice movement, needs a story everyone can tell. Once it becomes our story, a shared story, that’s when the [r]evolution wins. Otherwise, I give it seventy years, because as the B-movies remind us…

“Godzilla will be back!”

(this post originally appeared on Medium.com/HumanParts)

There never seems to be any time for us. Plans change. Dates shift. Minutes stumble into hours, the hours trip into days, and days fall flailing into weeks and months. This drives me crazy. I want to quit responsibility and pop corks and spill laughter.

I wanna get drunk with you.

Cursing clocks and calendars profits neither of us. Patience dictates, like ketchup stuck in the bottle, we must wait for the good things to eventually come to those who wait. But the waiting stretches interminably into the future. I want the future to be now. Now.

Why can’t we find the time? Why does it run from us? Where does it go to hide? There are so many seconds, so many minutes, so many days, it seems it would be so easy to line them up in groups and enjoy them together. Together. I want to banish unfeeling clocks, do away with calendars, eradicate itineraries and abolish schedules.

I wanna get drunk with you.

I want to let the redness of you stain my smile. I’m thirsty for these moments. I wish to abandon sense and reason, to fly from sober solemn silences and get loud with you, to laugh with you with complete and reckless abandon.

How do we make up for all our missed minutes? How can we erase the inhibitions and limitations with liquid encouragement of wine and liquor and talk away the night and linger our way into the small hours of the morning?

I wanna get drunk with you.

I want to be circular, giggle drunkenly with you and run candles down to pools of frozen time on the table between us. I wish for us to tell each other stories from our childhoods as we ease adult tensions. With great alcoholic enthusiasm, we’ll plan our next moves and our rushing, oncoming futures.

I wanna get drunk with you.

How can we make dinner together, taking turns with the knife, dividing vegetables, making rhythms on cutting boards, arranging sloppy plates of delicious food — meals so mouth-pleasingly good we can’t finish them — and instead, we return to our wine and our talk?

I wanna get drunk with you.

I want to crush cushions of a couch and with fumbling fingers undress you and you undress me — until we are naked and not shy. I wish for our wine-stained mouths to mash together as we half-clumsily muscle our way into sweet, sweaty sex, timed to the beat of our drunken hearts.

I wish to be sloppy in passion with you, until we collapse together. I want to finish what’s left in the bottle as we tell each other jokes and stories in the purple hours of dawn. I want to slip and slide our way into those early moments of morning, just before the sun becomes cruel to those who are still awake.

I wanna get drunk with you.

How can we pile together our impossible schedules so we can whisper secrets to each other with our heads resting on pillows stuffed with our dreams of the future? Our future.

I ask you. How can we get drunk together when the calendar holds us apart? I’ve grown to despise its weekly limitations. Now, I wish defiantly for us to blot out the clock like an eclipse blanketing the sun from our eyes. I need to spend minutes, days, months with you and let them pour out over our lifetimes like the generous flowing redness of uncorked bottles.

I wanna get drunk with you.

Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com

In the video of the interview, when asked about his reaction to Al Sharpton calling him out for using the Confederate flag, Kanye had this to say:

I called Al Sharpton … Heh … Well, I called Russell to call him. And I was like — Tell Al Sharpton to call me before he go out talking to people…

(DJ interrupts to ask why Sharpton should call Kanye first)

You don’t never know what I’m trying to do. Because I like, literally called, because I was like… it was like the day I was about to sign my deal, finally. I was like — See? This is what happens. And that’s funny — that you jump to that off the title of the conversation. Or we can talk about the Rick Ross conversation. — Of it being black people stopping other black people from getting checks. Talking about — Man, that was racist! No, but wait — but y’all…

(DJ interrupts to say Rev. Sharpton “felt the pain,” presumably the centuries of racism)

What black people don’t know is racism is something that like white people don’t even have to do anymore. ‘Cause we hate niggas. We hate each other more than white people hate us. It’s like — It’s like a real estate of racism. Like it works on itself. Now you talking about the pain — The thing is, you know, people got bills. Don’t nobody care about the Confederate flag to that type of level. It’s like if someone did, if you came to ‘em and said — Look, I know that you’re, uh… that you know, uh, that this symbol means this, but I’m just gonna pay all your bills for one year and I’m gonna ask you — Does it mean that same thing? That in fact don’t mean nothing.

(DJs erupt into laughter, discussion ends)

There you have it. Make of that what you will. I transcribed it verbatim, as best I could. My intent was to avoid unfairly quoting him or taking his words out of context. Now, let’s zero in on the themes of his answers, the underlying reasoning of his argument.

A. Kanye resents that black people hurt each other financially, and specifically as in his case, do it by way of public criticism.

B. Kanye feels Black America suffers more from the racism of Black America. He suggests Black people hate themselves more than white people hate them. And this racism creates a self-perpetuating system of valuations similar to real estate.

C. As far as dealing with the pain and memories attached to the Confederate flag, if Kanye offered to pay the bills of an offended person for a year, none of the offensive nature would matter anymore, or at least, not nearly as much. Money would act as a pain-reliever.

I’d say those are fair summations. Now, let’s take another look at Kanye’s Confederacy controversy.

It would be sloppy to compare Kanye wearing a Confederate flag to any of the obvious analogs. There’s no value in contrasting his situation to say a Jewish entertainer wearing a swastika. Comparing atrocities always offends me. It reduces human suffering to the backs of baseball cards wherein history is turned into numbers and a scoring system of pain and suffering. All pain is pain. All suffering is the same for the one suffering. So, no comparisons will be made aesthetically or cross-culturally.

When it comes to waving this iconic flag of racism, as he prefers it, Kanye will stand alone. And in the spirit of his single-mindedness, let’s stick to our title question.

Kanye just stole the fucking Confederate flag and made it his own… can he do that?!

Full disclosue: I own and wear clothing with Confederate flags. What can I say? I blame The Dukes of Hazzard tv show. I loved that show. Heaven is in Hazzard County, as far as I’m concerned. Driving in the south, I have pulled off the freeway to take a picture with one of the many General Lees bought and exhibited by fans, often southern auto dealerships. If you’re unfamiliar with the General Lee, that’s the nickname of  the bright orange ’69 Dodge Charger, the car Bo and Luke Duke drove in the show. It’s painted with the “Flag of Northern Virginia” across the roof of the car. I have a die cast metal toy version of the car near my desk. For a son of a black Nationalist, I have a surprising number of Confederate flags in my bedroom.

But I’m not on a mission to wave the rebel flag, at least not the way Kanye is. I just like the damn thing. Due to the power of fiction it has positive associations for me. The difference is how my backwards-ass love of the Confederate flag affects the rest of the world. Obviously, my sphere of influence is much smaller, microscopic in comparison. There is an influence and I consider it when I wear the Stars and Bars.

For my last birthday my sister gave me a black leather belt that had Confederate flags all the way around it, every few inches. It’s tacky as all-get-out. And I love it. I wear it. The thing is where I live no one really notices it. Maybe it’s because I call California home, and specifically, I live in Los Angeles. It’s a city of immigrants and transplants. Maybe that’s not it. I’ve just noticed that, for whatever reason, a black man wearing a Confederate flag doesn’t raise eyebrows out here. So, in some ways I feel like I understand Kanye on this one, or at least I feel I have some familiarity with what he may be thinking about the Stars and Bars, and its history as an icon of racism.

Back to the question at hand; Kanye stole the flag and is trying to make it his own. Just attempting that is one of the boldest thefts of a historical property on record. Anonymous has snatched the iconography of Guy Fawkes for their purposes. Grabbing from the rebel past is kinda a thing these days. And so, Kanye went a little bigger and captured the rebel flag of a whole history of institutionalized American racism. That’s a bold fucking move! No doubt about it.

But can he pull it off?

The hidden irony of his flag-snatching is something Kanye inversely points out in his radio interview. He seizes on the same social value. He just mistakenly uses it for faulty leverage. He ignores how he’s hastening others into forgetting history. That’s the whole deal! That’s the slippery fulcrum of his argument.

His daring move fails because when he tries to steal the Confederate flag, in effect, he’s not really stealing anything of value. Who cares if you steal forgotten history? There’s nothing there. It’s fast disassociating from the power it held in memory. Kanye accidentally cuts history loose like he’s releasing an astronaut’s tether only to watch the spaceman drift away into the vast black void.

If Kanye helps people forget why the Confederacy, and by extension the flag of the seceded states, the Stars and Bars, is such a hateful icon of racism what that really means is, Kanye has finally stolen something that’s boring.

That’s why his rebel yell about stealing the Confederate flag feels so lame. It’s not setting the culture ablaze with the burning fires of controversy. It’s not really badass to use the Confederate flag if everyone is already busy forgetting what it was.

In fact, even the choice to use it comes off as adolescent. It’s a silly pose. It’s one struck for maximum drama, “Ooh! Look at what I’m gonna wear out of the house!”

If that’s the case and Kanye stole a boring piece of controversy, then that leaves the matter of how Kanye’s use of the Stars and Bars is hurtful to those who remember it originally; the ones who lived under it before it was removed from stubborn state flags, for those survivors of decades of persistent, life-limiting racism, Kanye’s stunt must look even more adolescent.

When it comes to creative geniuses, one expects more nuance, especially in the arena of fashion aesthetics. You can’t just be edgy. There’s more to it than just stealing a racist bit of iconography and daring to wear it. Cast an eye at the trouble the fashion designer Jeremy Scott stepped into with some of his 2012 shoe designs for Adidas. The provocative designer ham-handedly created basketball shoes with bright orange chains and leg manacles, the kind last seen on the ankles of slaves and work camp prisoners of the Deep South. That fiasco was fueled by Jeremy Scott’s insatiable need to be daring, edgy, provocative and slightly ahead of the curve. Take heed from his lesson.

Or if you prefer a laugh, watch Spinal Tap for a reminder of where the line of bold interesting taste is drawn. “There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”

Kanye’s Confederate flag campaign fails his aim because apparently his fans don’t really care that much about the flag, or if they do, he feels they don’t care deeply because they can be bought off by a year’s worth of their bills, which leaves the symbol empty of its raw power and him with a legion of easily-swayed fans. Meanwhile, for those who can’t forget the original meaning, the Confederate flag rises again as a painful reminder of the human capacity to brutalize and then forget as fast culture leaves the historic lessons in the past.

For me, it’s less a question of: Can Kanye steal the Confederate flag and get away with it?

It’s more of a question of: Should he even waste his time trying to get away with it?

Dude’s a genius. So it’s fair to assume, he can pull off whatever he’s trying to do. But is this a good use of his genius?

Kanye’s attempting to point out that blacks Americans are the “new slaves” and they hate each other based on a system of self-sustaining racism. If that’s his social message, stealing the Confederate flag isn’t the best way to spread that message. Sure, it ramrods the point home, but it does it simplistically, with a tin-eared redundancy, and it’s culturally unwise based on the loss of memory; as well, personally for Kanye’s brand, the symbol fails to be daring. Nothing is worse than being boring.

And this isn’t an example of black people getting in the way of other black people getting a check. I can’t say I wouldn’t do exactly what Kanye is doing if I was him, and if the circumstances were the same. I just have the luxury of not being Kanye. I see things a little differently.

The thing is, do you, Kanye. Do you. Just don’t be boring. Especially, if by you being boring it pains old black people. I mean, come on, brother. Haven’t they been through enough? You gotta put Confederate flags on the backs of shirts of all the kids in their neighborhood?

Maybe a year from now, when kids are hopefully still wearing your merch; maybe you can go ask the elderly in the community, the ones who remember, ask them if they don’t mind seeing all those Confederate flags on the kids. Maybe you’re right and they’ll say, “That in fact don’t mean nothing.”

Waiting at the DMV yesterday, I watched a middle-aged man who I guessed to be a Native American, a middle-aged American white woman of indeterminate ethnic extraction, and a middle-aged American black man who looked to be a veteran, bonding over their love of chocolate. The American Indian man’s face split wide with laughter as they all shared their struggles with the same weight-loss program. Apparently, it limited their chocolate intake. The conversation began when the American black man spun around in his plastic shell of a chair and interrupted the American white woman and Native American man.

He asked, “Can I assume you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

Slightly leery, at first, the Native American man asked him what he thought they were talking about. It turns out his assumption was correct. The American black veteran used the coded language of some unnamed diet program and explained how he identified with their struggle. They all launched into laughter as they took turns expressing their frustration with the limitations of their diet. I loved watching them chat as I eavesdropped. Their conversation was a perfect example of the way I think the world should always be — strangers coming together to laugh about something important. Like chocolate.

Second only to waiting rooms for heaven and hell, a DMV in Los Angeles typically houses people from all walks of life, every inhabited continent, and most every religion, persuasion or tribe. They’re the great and colorful Vegas buffets of humanity. And yesterday, it got me thinking (because let’s face it, I had the time). Looking around at all the individuals waiting with me, I felt as I often do when tested by life: these are my people. Not because we were all bonded by the bureaucracies of indifferent government, but rather, because I firmly believe everybody’s my people. I don’t care who you are.

This hasn’t always been the case. I used to be a defiant loner. It took decades of marginalization before I could find solace in being my more open-minded self. As the quote at the head of this essay so eloquently captures, I’ve known moonsickness and marginality well enough to express my pain, frustration and longing in verse. I could write epic poems about my “otherness.” But rather than standing on the sidelines of life, pushed off to the edges of society by the power and primacy of all the many proud well-defined groups (since I seemed to have no group I might call my own, other than my family), I decided I would find brotherhood in the eyes of every stranger I met. I would embrace the whole human family as my people. Everyone. It doesn’t matter who they are and if we speak to each other or not. If I were born to have no group, well, I’d just have to live borderless. That way, everyone was in my group. Selah.

Most folks see me as an American black man. This is not really an accurate description. Yes, my father is black. But he is also Native American. And my mother, she’s a mix of European nations too numerous to list. This mélange means my blood flows from family lines of three continents. I’ve never felt comfortable with the idea that I am best described as a black man. To me, this rejects the struggles of my many ancestors, whom, without their efforts, I wouldn’t be here. And I like to honor all those steely survivors.

Make no mistake. I don’t distance myself from my blackness, or from black people. For instance, the other day, walking past a young black man, we met eyes, nodded, and rather casually, he said, “Right on.” I wish more people felt that instantaneous sense of brotherhood. It’s something black men often offer each other when we meet as strangers in public. It’s a way to say, “Keep your head up.” Yet, I feel we all could benefit from that; everyone needs that same sense of shared identification and positive support.

And that’s why I don’t think of myself as just a black man, but rather as multiracial, even though I know that, to most of the world, I am merely just another black guy. Fine. They can have their opinion and I can have mine. Rather than just offer head nods to black men based on our shared blackness, I’ll give a nod to anyone who meets eyes with me and for a brief moment, we’ll see each other and affirm our common dignity. “Keep your head up.” “Right on.”

You may think I sound naïve, like some throwback ‘60s political radical, or perhaps I resemble some flower-sniffing hippie who asks, like Rodney King once did, “Can’t we all just get along?” And yeah, I get why you might imagine me carrying around a basket of wishful thinking. But I came to this view of life not from innocence, but through decades of pain and suffering for my “otherness.”

I played football in high school. After a game against a team from a mostly black school, my teammates and I were changing out of our uniforms. One of the offensive linemen, a broad and dense farm-boy, wanted me to know how proud he was of me. Not for my play on the field, but instead, because I wasn’t a nigger. He said the team we’d just played and beat was full of them. They disgusted him. He had no respect for them or how they talked shit the whole game. He practically spit his appraisal in my face. He was visibly angry. He told me, “There are black folks and then there are fucking niggers. And that’s why we all like you, Zaron. You’re not a fucking nigger like them. You’re a black person.”

The fact I wasn’t a nigger seemed to erase or minimize some of his vitriol. He saw it as the greatest compliment to give me. “Geez, I’m not a fucking nigger? Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Check out who’s doing something right with their life.”

That’s what I sarcastically thought. Humor is my first defense. And of course, that’s not what I said. Standing in the visitor’s locker room, naked, about to go shower, I didn’t know what to say to my teammate. I’d never heard such a clear distinction drawn about me. My blood grew hot, while my naked black skin felt cold. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to cuss him out. But what would be the point of that? Instead of a pointless confrontation, I hit the showers and stood under the streaming hot water. I let it rinse away the mud, the blood and the dirt from the game; I also used the shower to hide the tears I felt welling up in the corners of my eyes.

He was my teammate. I felt like a coward for not saying anything. This offensive lineman, who’d spent the game protecting me and picked me up from the mud after any play that brought me crashing to the earth, had just hurt me more than all the tackles and body blows I’d suffered during the game. But he was still my teammate.

This wasn’t the only time my identity on my football team caused me pain. There were other players who regularly called me a faggot because I knew about fashion and could talk somewhat knowledgeably with women about things that only seemed to matter to them, like feminism and Sylvia Plath; and because I took classes like drama and creative writing, which were classes that were predominantly taken by girls. Football made me tougher not because of the broken bones, the deep bruises, and the bodily collisions that required me to play through pain. It made me tougher because of how my teammates treated me. But rather than reject them and everyone else who hurt me over the years, one day I decided I would go the other way. And like a dysfunctional family coming together for Thanksgiving, sometimes people say horrendous things that hurt me — but I still know they’re all my family.

This is why when people speak of privilege, or when they argue that racial, religious, gender-identification, economic, cultural, or what-have-you divisions are more important than the commonalities we share, I will disagree and defend the offenders. Not because I think cultural identity isn’t important, or that bigots should spew venomous ideas into our culture, but because I think when we raise our voices in calls to activism we tend to forget that every one of us has emotional needs, that every one of us is hurting, especially the meanest among us. To battle them only guarantees that our divides harden and calcify into walls, our boundaries become defended lands, thus making all travel more difficult.

I don’t deny that privilege is a real and powerful thing. It is. But to me it’s the beginning of the discussion, not the end. It’s something to be addressed, but not something to fight for as a cause. It reinforces the divides rather than erasing them.

A disabled, poor, blind, ninety-eight-year-old black Jewish lesbian trans woman Indian chief… she wins everything right? Her intersectionality, her lack of privilege, her diminished access and social power, her paucity of economic freedom, her history of abuse and discrimination, that pretty much trumps everyone else in the conversation over privilege, right? She would win, right?

Well, if that woman existed, I think she’d agree with me. I think she and I would both say she doesn’t need defense or allies, because she’s not in a fight. She doesn’t win anything, unless she has friends and neighbors that help her live a fulfilling life. I think her experiences would’ve taught her what is truly valuable and worthwhile during our brief time on this space-traveling rock covered with a murderous garden, this watery globe we call Earth. She knows love is the only thing worth fighting for, and it is an internal fight to love one’s neighbors as themselves. Our commonalities trump our individuality.

Everyone from children to the marginalized yet kind-hearted elderly to fools like me … we just want to enjoy our limited time here rather than capitalize on it, monetize it, criticize it, exploit others, reject life in favor of towers of study, barricade ourselves in caves where no one can hurt us, or amuse ourselves with acts of depravity or gluttony. We just want to live, laugh and play, as simple as that sounds. And I’ve found despite all the pain and marginalization I’ve experienced, I try to transcend the hurt and forgive small-mindedness because I’ve seen how my example has helped others do the same. I’ve never had a tribe to call my own, and as I was reminded again at the DMV, we’re all in this together. That’s why everybody’s my people.

I’ve had a surprising number of friends commit suicide. I’ve also had a number of friends be killed by violence and by accidents. This life is not promised to any of us. You never know how many tomorrows you have left. So be unmistakably passionate about what you care about. Be honest with yourself and with others.

If you love someone, and you feel they need to know – tell them. Tell them now. This isn’t an act of selfishness. It’s an act of bravery. And if they turn around and tell you they don’t feel the same, you are free to be heartbroken; and then, as the flood of that pain recedes, and trust me it will recede like the tide, you will be free to love again. And hopefully, this time you will find someone deserving of your heart.

This is true not just in love but in all things. Be brave enough to stand tall on your own two feet and say, “Damnit, this matters to me!” Your life and all that it touches should matter to you. I’ve spent far too many years distant from others for reasons that embarrass me to admit but for the sake of your life I will share with you my fears. I was afraid of being rejected. I was afraid of being put down. I was afraid of being laughed at, of being excluded, or further marginalized. But you know what? To live in fear is the worst thing you can do. As many wiser than me have said in many ways, to live in fear is to die a thousand deaths each day. Fear is our greatest enemy.

The way to counteract your fears is to move boldly forward, chasing after what you want, unencumbered by all of the possible imagined outcomes. Love is the opposite of fear. It propels you to go after what you desire, what you wish for and what you need. As the screenwriter William Goldman famously once said, “No one knows anything.” He did leave out one thing we all know. We will one day die and be no more. With your ever-precious minutes in this world be wise and loving and brave enough to be you at all times. Yes, people will laugh at you and reject you and cause you to suffer many other pains of existence. Fuck them! Don’t let them steal away your vitality. Don’t let them darken your days.

Often people sometimes don’t know what to do with me. They don’t believe that I, or more accurately, that someone like me exists. They think that I couldn’t possibly care about fall fashion as much as I care about getting muddy on a mountain bike. They find it incredulous that I could love Beethoven as much as I love Mykki Blanco. They find it difficult to believe when I tell them they are one of my favorite of God’s creations. I know that. I get it. Not many people talk like that. But that’s not my problem. And it’s not going to stop me from being me. I just hope that one day they will believe me.

I have no interest in being cool because I burn. I burn like the fire of a thousand suns. As Michael Ondaatje once wrote, “The heart is an organ of fire.” I know exactly what he meant. And from that fire we spill out light and illuminate the world. Fire heats us up when the world turns cold and dark. Fire is one of humanity’s greatest friends. Whereas cool reduces life. It’s a lie as slick as an advertisement. It’s procured with great effort. Now, of course, there are those among us who truly are cool in the best possible sense of the word. The reason they are cool is paradoxical. They are cool because they burn. They care about themselves, about others and about what their life touches. They care! And that is the true secret to being cool. The coolest amongst us shed light.

In many ways, I am an emotional communist. I’d never be an economic communist because I don’t think it’s a system that befits our human nature. Socialism is another story. But leaving economics behind, the reason I say I am an emotional communist is because I believe, as the dictate of Karl Marx proscribes, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” and that means we are all in this together. Your emotions affect mine and mine affect yours. And thus, occasionally, I need to be able to give my time and energy to you to help you be your best and happiest self; and sometimes I need you to help me. If any one of us thinks being cool is more important than shedding light and being warm to the world, than all of us suffer for it.

So please, my friends, burn and burn bright. As Dylan Thomas once admonished us, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” For as the sudden and surprising passing of my friends has taught me, you never know how much time you or anyone else has, until they are gone. And thus, we all must make the most of our hours on this Earth. Time and health are our most valuable commodities, and love is our greatest expression of those. So love yourself! Love your family, your friends, your neighbors, and bravely burn with the heat of a thousand suns.

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

I’ve been swapping languages with a friend of mine. He desperately wants to improve his facility with English. And for some odd reason he thought I could help him. Poor guy. But when he asked, I told him he’s in luck. Mi Espanol es muy malo. Hablo como un nino. I made a bargain with him. If he’d teach me Spanish, I’d teach him English.

The cool thing is, that way, we’re both the learner and the teacher. He speaks English to me and I speak Spanish to him. We both sound like idiots. But there’s no need to be embarrassed because we’re getting better together. The moments when he gets frustrated with himself are balanced out by all the times he laughs at my ridiculous conjugations and my oddly constructed sentences that sound like something a Venezuelan spambot would tweet. 

When some people speak a foreign language they make it sound really damn sexy. When I speak Spanish it sounds like a drunk parrot is reading the Madrid phone book. It’s not sexy.

The sad thing is, it’s not like Spanish is a difficult language to learn or pronounce. I kinda feel like I’m failing on both sides of the ledger. I’m butchering Spanish, which makes him think he’s not a good teacher. And I’m confusing him with English.

You see, I forgot about my mother tongue. It’s been so long since I learned the language, I overlooked a key point. The rules for English barely qualify as “rules.” They’re more like guidelines. Spanish is such a clean and ordered language. Once you can conjugate irregular verbs and gender your nouns, you’re golden. But English? It makes absolutely no fucking sense.

I keep trying to teach him, only because my friend really wants to learn. My main focus is not to confuse him. Things were going pretty well. That is, until the other day. He asked me a question I couldn’t answer. He asked:

“Z, como… When do you use… fuck?”

Shit. There’s no easy answer for that. We use it for everything. When I tried to tell him how and why people say “fuck” most of my answers required an accompanying hand gesture or for me to act out the scenario.

Have you ever tried to explain the word “fuck” to someone who’s learning to speak English? Good fucking luck!

Watching the light of learning go out in his eyes, I decided – fuck it — I pulled out my iPhone and googled “how do you use the word fuck.”

Of course, I found a video on YouTube. I bet you could find something on YouTube that’d teach you how to give a polar bear a perm and a penguin a pedicure. There are how-to-videos for EVERYTHING.

Now, before you watch this — three things to keep in mind:

First: It’s not the best quality video.

Second: It features an Indian guru with a very thick accent. In order to fully understand him, I transcribed his speech for you. That way you can read along as he talks. Or you can just read the transcription. Whatever.

Third: The funny bearded guru dude is a very curious fellow. He may, or may not have been, a cult leader.

With all that in mind… enjoy!

(transcription follows below)

“One of the most interesting words in the English language today is the word fuck.

It is a magical word. Just by sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love.

In language it falls into many grammatical categories.

It can be used as a verb.

Both transitive: “John fucked Maddy.”

And intransitive: “Maddy was fucked by John.”

And as a noun: “Maddy is a fine fuck.”

It can be used as an adjective: “Maddy is fucking beautiful.”

As you can see there are not many words with the versatility of “fuck.”

Besides the sexual meaning there are also the following usages:

Ignorance:  “Fuck if I know.”

Trouble:   “I guess I’m fucked now.”

Fraud:  “I got fucked at the used car lot.”

Aggression:  “Fuck you!”

Displeasure: “What the fuck is going on?!”

Difficulty:  “I can’t understand this fucking job.”

Incompetence:  “He’s a fuck-off.”

Suspicion:  “What the fuck are you doing?”

Enjoyment:  “I had a fucking good time.”

Request:   “Get the fuck out of here.”

Hostility:  “I’m going to knock you’re fucking head off.”

Greeting:   “How the fuck are you?”

Apathy:   “Who gives a fuck?”

Innovation:  “Get a bigger fucking hammer.”

Surprise:   “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me.”

Anxiety:   “Today is really fucked.”

And it is very handy, too.

If, every morning, you do it as a transcendental meditation… just when you get up – first thing.

Repeat the mantra: “Fuck you!” Five times. It clears your… (unintelligible)

[ends with audience’s LAUGHTER]

…Okay, so who exactly was that weird bearded guru dude?

From a little internet digging, I discovered his name is Osho. He was a controversial Indian love guru who grew famous in the ’70s and ’80s. At that time, on the west coast of America, from San Diego to Seattle, one could pick from a plethora of personal spiritual leaders. With so many to choose from, gurus needed to distinguish themselves. Osho was a master at that.

He decided it’d be best if he were a little bit country and a little bit rock-n-roll. Osho attracted tons of followers, mostly, confused Westerners looking for a fast track to enlightenment. Capitalizing on their spiritual longing, he made millions and millions of dollars. Like, he did really well.

These days, he’s dead. But don’t cry for him, Argentina. He’s been dead for twenty-three years. It’s okay. Like most cult leaders, he led a colorful life.

A few interesting facts about Osho:

He was born in India in 1931.

He reached enlightenment on Mar 21, 1953.

After that he went on to get a Masters degree.

To start his own religion, he synthesized multiple spiritual practices into a curious mélange of Christianity, Taoism, Jainism, Hinduism, Greek philosophy and of course, Buddhism.

In 1980, while giving a talk on his peculiar faith, he was knifed by someone who apparently believed Osho needed to be stabbed. Police failed in their investigation and the alleged Hindu fundamentalist perpetrator escaped justice.

Osho left India the next year.

He and his followers settled in… you guessed it… America! And they bought and occupied a 65,000 acre ranch in rural Oregon. It costs 6 million dollars, in 1980s money.

After living there for awhile, Osho and his followers learned how the legal system worked, mostly, because they were constantly running afoul of the law.

At one point, in order to suppress voter turnout for a local election some sources claim his followers spread Salmonella on salad bars in the area. There was a measure up for vote intended to limit Osho and his followers and their activities on their 65,000 acre ranch. Reports from the time claim 751 people were affected by the Salmonella poisoning.

Also, a pair of Osho’s top aides were charged with attempted murder on the guru’s personal physician. Later on, two other followers were tried and convicted for conspiracy to murder a local lawyer. Again it was something to do with the ongoing efforts to close Osho’s ranch.

After increased troubles with the law, and once his millions were safely deposited in Swiss banks, Osho returned to India, in 1987.

His health began to fail. And he died in 1990.

At his peak, Osho had 200,000 followers and 600 spiritual centers spreading his word. Fuck! And until now, I’d never heard of the guy.

Interesting sidenote: “Bhagwan” was Osho’s original first name. Some critics have said that Bhagwan means “Master of the Vagina.” 

Is that true? Fuck if I know! 

I just wanted to teach my friend how to say fuck and instead I ended up with Osho. But it worked. After we watched the video, my friend said, “Who is that fucking guy?”

I laughed. I considered it a major breakthrough. I said, “No se. Este hombre es un payaso.” We both laughed. It’s funny all the ways “fuck” brings folks together.

Stoked to announce my new ebook was just published by ThoughtCatalog. Think you might enjoy it.

“Whether it’s his story of driving a car that’s on fire, crashing a rental sailboat into a super-tanker, trying to avoid a fight with a racist in a Salt Lake City bar, picking paint colors with a Hollywood star, or getting rescued off a mountaintop by firefighters only to be laughed at by his saviors, you will laugh your ass off reading all the many ways Zaron Burnett III answers the question: How Do I Survive This Sh*t?”

You can purchase it as Amazon and iTunes.

Most of us know more about math than we know about orgasms. This is likely due to the fact our climaxes are so uniquely personal. Your orgasm is not my orgasm. Yet, we both agree, there are few bodily pleasures that give you such a rush of cascading sensations as a real live orgasm. Chocolate and cheeseburgers come close (together they’re as powerful as an orgasm, but only as a tag team.)

Despite our general agreement that orgasms are wicked fun, most of us know so very little about them. How silly is that? Imagine having a money tree in your backyard and never watering it. Hell, I’d say it’s worse than that. Orgasms beat money since your health is your true wealth.

Electric flesh-arrows … traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm. – Anais Nin

Do you know what Arthur Miller, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Joe Dimaggio and John Kennedy all have in common? 

None of them gave Marilyn Monroe an orgasm.

(Poor girl.  All that famous fucking and not a hint of horny happiness for her.)

She revealed this sad sexual fact of her life in recorded conversations that she sent to her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, thanking him for teaching her how to have and enjoy orgasms. The tapes were recorded just before she died; but apparently, Marilyn reached a point wherein she was able to relax her mental tensions enough to safely feel and enjoy the orgasms always denied to her in the past. I guess she got pretty good at it pretty quickly, or she really put in the practice because Marilyn learned to enjoy multiple orgasms.

What I told you is true when I first became your patient. I had never had an orgasm. I well remember you said an orgasm happens in the mind….

You said there was an obstacle in my mind that prevented me from having an orgasm; that it was something that happened early in my life about which I felt so guilty that I did not deserve to have the greatest pleasure there is; that it had to do with something sexual that was very wrong, but my getting pleasure from it caused my guilt. That it was buried in my unconscious. Through analysis we would bring it to the conscious mind where we could get to the guilt and free me to be orgasmic. Then you said for the orgasm problem we’ll try a different approach. That you would tell me how to stimulate myself, that when I did exactly what you told me to do I would have an orgasm and that after I did it to myself and felt what it was, I would have orgasms with lovers. What a difference a word makes. You said I would, not I could.

Marilyn found her troubles weren’t in her body. They were all in her mind. There’s no doubt our mind-body connections determine the nature of our orgasms. Perhaps her training as an actress gave her an advantage but, regardless, Marilyn learned to play sexually and she started by “stimulating herself.” One could say her doctor told Marilyn Monroe, “go fuck yourself,” and it turned out to be some of the best advice she ever heard. It’s a funny little world.

Okay, here are some stats I bet you’ve heard before:

- 10% of women have never experienced orgasms (despite great efforts)

- Only 29% of women regularly experience orgasms (from/with their partner)

- 33 – 50% of women experience infrequent orgasms (reports/studies vary)

The French understand the primacy of pleasure. This is why they coyly nicknamed orgasms, “le petit mort.” It means the little death. It’s a poetic reference to how orgasms, obliterate you similar to the exit of death. I’d argue, we all need more obliteration in our lives – the good kind, the “Make Love, Not War” kind. Whatta ya say? Together, let’s endeavor to increase pleasure in our world.

Here are 21 facts, corrections, explications and tidbits of science-porn to help you become better friends with orgasms – both yours and the orgasms of others.

1. “Why can’t I stop this fucking orgasm?”

Yes. It happens. While most of us chase climaxes, there are a few unlucky bastards who can’t shut off their orgasm engine. Like, check out this hilariously bad re-enactment of a woman suffering from a three-hour orgasm. Yes. Three hours. And no, that’s not a typical problem for married people. I guess it happens. This is what it looks like on TV.

Beyond whatever that woman had going on, there is also a very real and very sad medical condition called: Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder

That shit’s no joke. It’s not nearly as cool as it sounds. For those poor unfortunate souls who suffer from endless orgasms, their lives are cursed by something akin to a sexual Midas touch. Any school-kid who’s heard that one can tell you why not everything should be golden. Imagine having to masturbate furiously to find some release so you can be able to leave your house.

In the Daily Beast, Lizzie Crocker wrote a touching piece about the suicide of a young woman afflicted with PGAD. The woman was 39. Kinda puts your orgasm concerns in perspective, doesn’t it?

2. So What Is an Orgasm? (…and do Germans have them, too?)

Yes, everyone, even Germans, can enjoy orgasms. (I don’t know where you would’ve heard otherwise.) Orgasms are as universal as dreams. Of course, some of us have better dreams than others. Some of us dream more often. And some of us can’t remember the last time we had a really good… dream.

Orgasms are specific to each person, and yet, they’re common as the head cold.

Orgasm (from Greek οργασμός orgasmos, from organ to mature, swell, also sexual climax) is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual tension during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic muscular contractions in the pelvic region characterized by sexual pleasure. –Wikipedia

That’s the internet textbook definition. But what are they really?

Orgasms are a brilliant paradox. Begun as sensations in the body, they take place entirely in your mind. There’s no doubt orgasms are one of the smartest gifts Nature ever gave us. They make us happier than a hog in mud. And they make us dumber than a dog. When I say orgasms make us dumb, that’s not like a silly sitcom opinion, that’s actual-factual science.

During climax, part of your brain shuts down. It’s a region located behind your left eye. It’s called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and it’s the seat of reason and behavior control. When you experience an orgasm everything outside of the orgasm falls from focus. In many ways, they’re like meditation. (Maybe that’s why they feel so healthy.)

3. “How will I know if she’s had an orgasm? (…asking for a friend)”

There are 5 stages to a woman’s orgasm:

(A woman’s orgasm is similar to a man’s but there are a few distinct differences.)

First Touch 

When a woman is touched and teased in a way she likes, a tiny intimate symphony of sensations triggers a series of waves of arousal. And this is why women’s sexuality is difficult to study, women can grow aroused and reach climax purely from imagination and anticipation. (This is also why romance novels sell so well). Real or imagined, with the first sensations of touch a woman’s brain flushes with neurochemical activity.

Rising Action 

After her mind is triggered by touch or anticipation, next, a woman’s hippocampus and amygdala get involved. These areas are responsible for dreams, emotional processing and associative thinking. Together, these two sections deepen her fantasy. She begins to engage in the story of her sexual experience.

Cresting the Summit 

As a woman nears climax, her muscles tighten and tense, her skin flushes with blood, her nipples stand erect, her butt, thighs and abs all begin to quiver or spasm.

It takes a woman, on average, 15 – 40 minutes of arousal to reach this point.

“OMFG, I’m Peaking!”

At the apex of her climax, a woman’s hypothalamus triggers the release of oxytocin (the bonding chemical), along with increased amounts of dopamine. It’s like getting shot-up with heroin while watching Youtube videos of puppies.

Post-O Comedown 

Most women only require a short resting period to give their nervous system a chance to calm down and reset before they’re ready for more stimulation and pleasure. Because of this much faster turnaround time, women are more likely than men to enjoy multiple orgasms.

Wudya Believe It? …Men Have Far Simpler Orgasms

This should surprise no one. A man’s orgasm is exceedingly basic. Have you ever seen someone open a bottle of champagne? Boom! You fully understand the male climax.

“Champagne, anyone?!”

Most times, a man sees something that excites him. Suddenly, he’s got sex on his mind. “You know what it would be supercool right now? Some sex.”Once he’s triggered visually, his brain shoots chemical messages down his spine to his genitals. Hormones hit the bloodstream. A rush of blood engorges veins and tissue of his penis. Abracadabra! Look at that, he’s sportin’ an erection.

“Who wants to open this bottle?”

The erection is followed by increased sensitivity. The heart rate jumps to 150 to 180 beats/minute. His attention shifts to all the many nerve endings. The aforementioned parts of his brain shutdown as he enters “the O Zone.” The longer it takes a man to peak, the longer he can stay excited but not cum, the greater his eventual climax.

It usually takes a man two to seven minutes of arousal before he climaxes.

Yep. Two to seven minutes. Or, put another way, that’s between 120 and 420 seconds of loving. (It almost sounds more impressive that way. Almost.)

“Careful where you point that thing!”

Orgasm draws near. Semen gets loaded. Sperm wait for the launch, ready for their short trip. This is a kinda like a sexual point-of-no-return. Once the love gun is loaded, it’s quickly followed by a period of 10 – 15 waves of muscle contraction. They’re rather obvious. The shuddering spasms occur and then…

Pop!

Penis muscles launchsemen at 28 miles/hour. To put that in perspective, that’s as fast as Jamaican Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt runs at top speed. (Isn’t that a lovely little race to imagine?)

For a brief period of time before and after ejaculating, a man feels a rush of dopamine and endorphins in his blood. This “good feeling” usually lasts between 3 – 10 seconds. Reported times vary greatly from one man to another. There are rare reports of a male orgasm lasting longer than 30 seconds.

Soon after ejaculating, the blood flow in a man’s penis reverses course and his erection falls into memory. Statistically, the average man requires a half hour for full recovery.

4. “Is It True Lady Gaga Can Ghostride Her Whip?”

Yep. Lady Gaga claims she can think her way into an orgasm.

Researchers call those “hands-free” orgasms. A small percentage of people report that they can climax this way. I’ve done it. And, for me, it required extreme circumstances, plenty of concentration and heaps of imagination. Lady Gaga acts rather breezily about it. She talks like you’d be having brunch with her, and meanwhile, she’s secretly getting all the way off. Lady Gaga told New York magazine:

I love sex,” she says, tipping her sunglasses down a bit and leering. “You know, sense memory is a powerful thing. I can give myself an orgasm just by thinking about it.

My only question is: If she’s using sense memory, isn’t she acting? And if she’s acting, doesn’t that means she’s faking her orgasm? But, I guess, if she can’t tell the difference – what does it matter? And really, of course, Lady Gaga would fake an orgasm with herself.

5. “How Clean Would Your Teeth Be… If Brushing Gave You An Orgasm?”

A Taiwanese woman with epilepsy began to experience orgasms when she brushed her teeth. In her early 20s, the girl developed what’s called, “reflex epilepsy.” This is a condition triggered by specific patterns and sensations – things like blinking lights from video games. The only trick that made her special was the fact her seizures manifested as orgasms. And what triggered her seizures? You guessed it.

Not every time, but about twice a week, whenever she slid a toothbrush into her mouth, she might be floored by an orgasm. Literally, floored. Her dental orgasms/seizures were so powerful, for about two minutes afterward, she’d lose consciousness. Passing out in a bathroom from a standing position is skull-crackingly dangerous. One good blow to the back of the head and that’s all she wrote.

For years, this scared young woman didn’t seek help because she was ashamed and convinced she was possessed by a demon. (This is why we need more common everyday education about orgasms. This poor girl climaxes and her first thought is she must be possessed by a demon). Sadly, once she came forward, doctors were unable to treat her dental-based orgasms. To protect herself from future injury, she switched to mouthwash.

6. You Don’t Love Me, You Just Love My Downward Dog(gy-style)

I don’t know why every gym and yoga studio across the country doesn’t make this the cornerstone of their advertising campaigns; but apparently, women can experience powerful orgasms from yoga and working out. Hell, that’d be the name of my yoga studio. Yogasms. And if I opened a gym it’d be called Dumbbells & Coregasms. And both would sell frozen yogurt.

Forget doggy-style, when it comes to lady-loving yourself, it’s all about Downward Dog.

Yogasms: Certain yoga positions combined with internal muscle clenching can really get a girl off. It’s all about two words: Kegel exercises.

Coregasms: If ever there were a reason to get you to the gym, coregasms seem like the winner. Women often experience climax just from moving their bodies. (So jealous.)

Of the women who had orgasms during exercise, about 45 percent said their first experience was linked to abdominal exercises; 19 percent linked to biking/spinning; 9.3 percent linked to climbing poles or ropes; 7 percent reported a connection with weightlifting; 7 percent running; the rest of the experiences included various exercises, such as yoga, swimming, elliptical machines, aerobics and others.”

7. Foot Orgasm Syndrome (or FOS)

You think you have problems, there’s a Dutch woman whose brain thinks her foot is her vagina. She was left with nerve damage that occurred from a sepsis infection. As her nerves regenerated, her spinal cord confused the nerve signal paths. By the time she was fully healed her brain could no longer tell the difference between her vagina and her left foot. She noticed this after, roughly, 5 to 6 times a day sensations from her foot gave her skin-tingling, pulse-hastening orgasms. Walking barefoot for her was like being finger pleasured by Mother Earth. You may think lucky lady. She found it terribly embarrassing. Her condition is so rare the physician who treated her got to name it. He picked: foot orgasm syndrome (yeah, not the catchiest name). Good news is, now there is a website for those of you out there silently suffering in mute embarrassment.

8.   Phantom Limb Orgasm (or PLO)

Similar to the Dutch woman, there are folks who lose limbs to injury or amputation, but then, as the brain re-maps its neural network things can get a little screwy. For instance, one woman lost her leg. Months later, as she was having sex she noticed increased sensation. Her orgasm wasn’t limited to the usual pleasure centers. Suddenly, she was having an orgasm but mostly in her missing foot.  Welcome to the curious world of phantom limb orgasms.

There’s a region of the brain called the cortical homunculus. This is where motor (movement) processing for certain body parts occurs. Would you believe it? The areas responsible for processing signals from the foot are next to areas responsible for genitals. Often, after a serious injury, as the brain rewires itself, the sections processing signals from the genitals might take over the brain space now left unused by say, a missing foot.

Lizards can re-grow their tails? Big fucking deal. We can re-map sections of our brains!

Your mind is possibly the coolest thing ever invented by the universe.

Sex, Lies and Videotape

9. “So Is It True… Women Enjoy Lots & Lots of Different Types of Orgasms?”

Not only do women have better, longer lasting orgasms, they can easily have multiple ones, pleasure that can be either be multiplied or concurrent. The reason is simple. Women have far more avenues to orgasms. Guys have, like, two. Play with his dick and/or put a finger or dick (or whatever) up his ass and work his G-spot. Two ways. Women have near-limitless combinations. So yeah, it’s true. Women’s orgasms are better, stronger and more satisfying.

Here are the commonly traveled paths to a woman’s orgasm:

Vaginal: I guess you could call this the beginner’s orgasm. Not all women can climax from vaginal play alone. But this remains the gold standard of women’s orgasms. One thing to spice it up, locate her g-spot on the front wall of her vagina and you might become that one memorable sexual partner she occasionally thinks of years later.

Clitoral: The name-you-know when it comes to orgasms. Due to the concentration of 8,000 nerve endings in a very tiny space, this love button can trigger orgasms easily and reliably. But don’t just rush there and mash on the girl. Orgasms aren’t the finish line. You’re not racing to get there. Instead, think of orgasms as a body’s way of applauding the performance. An orgasm is like a standing ovation. (You might not always get one.)

Nipples: Recent studies have concluded that women’s nipples send nerve signals to the exact same parts of the brain as nerves from the genitals. But nipple orgasms aren’t as common as other types. It’s estimated that only 25% of women enjoy nipple orgasms.

10. “I Read That Japanese Women Experience Two Types of Multiple Orgasms?”

First, what merchant marine told you that? Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to hang around bars down by the docks? And, to answer your question, no, that’s just racist.

All women (can) experience two distinctly different types of multiple orgasms.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I suppose, technically, a guy could experience both types of these multiple orgasms if his g-spot was being stimulated and his partner was something of a nimble-fingered magician. But these two types of multiple orgasms occur far more easily for women.

Multiple Sequential: As the name suggests this is when a person experiences climax after climax after climax in quick and steady succession. Think shuddering diesel engine.

Multiple Concurrent: Stimulating numerous sources for orgasmic arousal, women can experience orgasms from multiple locations on their body, at the same time.

11. “So… uh, Clitoral Stimulation… Um, what is that?”

It’s woefully sad how few men (and some women) have no idea how to play with the little pleasure buddy, the clitoris. They love to come out and play, but they hate to be bullied. And for other reasons, lots of guys are intimidated by this. So let’s drop all that and learn to be coy and playful mates to the clitoris.

There’s, of course, a tiny problem when making a how-to video for a sex technique. What do you demonstrate on? You don’t use a real person. If you do, that’s porn. So you have to use a fake model body. In this video, a rather reserved Australian(?) man who we never see, only his hands, he uses a pink physiology doll to instruct us in stimulation. The surprising part is dude has it down. Straight forward and his info is solid. If you’re looking to get better at clitoral teasing and pleasing… check this vid!

12. “What the Hell is Squirting (And How Do I Get a Woman to Do That)?”

It’s just like you see in porn. Okay, let’s pretend you’ve never seen any porn or even a fraction of a second of a woman squirting. Cool. Well, my virginal friend, here’s a video to explain everything you’d want to know about this burgeoning sexual trend. And this doesn’t mean you’re kinky it means you’re curious. This video comes to you courtesy of a site called dontneedaman.com. (I think that says a lot right there.)

…Now watch it!

g-spot stimulation

13. “Is The Male G-Spot Real? (…Or How Do I Make a Man Cry with Joy In Bed?)”

Yes. It’s real. And I have a map for you. It doesn’t matter if you think “finger in your bum” talk is weird, or if you’re a little more modern and you wanna know how a dude can enjoy multiple orgasms; this video shows you (in a kinda science-y way) how to find a man’s g-spot. It’s up to you to figure out how to get him sprung on your finger. G’luck!

14. “Will she enjoy more orgasms if she’s on top…”

“Positions, people!”

It’s critical you keep your physical rhythms fresh and your sexual geometry exciting. Do it for them, for you, for everybody involved. An orgasm is a product of your brain-body connection. You gotta use your mind to get the most pleasure (in and) out of your body.

Here are 41 (possibly new to you) sex positions known to induce orgasms. Check ‘em!

15. “…And That’s Why It’s Never Cool To Show Up To A Party Early and Uninvited”

Newsflash: Don’t beat yourself up about it. Apparently, premature orgasms happen to everyone – guys and gals.

Stats suggest, roughly, 20 – 30% of men experience premature ejaculation.

And surprisingly, 40% of women reported having premature orgasms.

(No word if “faking one” is considered a premature orgasm.)

16. “But hold up what about the people who can’t have orgasms? That must suck!”

Yes, it does indeed suck. Modern medicine calls sexual dysfunctions that limit or preclude climaxes: Anorgasmia. It’s a catchall term that covers a host of physiological and psychological difficulties. I won’t detail them all here but it’s a staggering set of complications.

17. “No, I’m not bored. I’m actually orgasming right now. No. I am. I am…”

Let me tell you a funny story about a little drug called Clomipramine. It’s a sordid tale of drug interactions and unintended side effects. But you know how those go. Heard one, you’ve heard them all. You know what? Long story short, clomipramine is this dirty, heavy-duty anti-depressant. They don’t even prescribe it anymore since it was so heinous and clumsy on the brain. It sorta stomped around as it worked its mental magic. The funny part is this terrible dirty old school anti-depressant caused some patients to experience orgasms when they yawned. Yes.

Go ahead and yawn.

Imagine if that made you feel as good as climaxing.

Can you see yourself in some boring ass meeting … you yawn … and boom! goes your dynamite.

Not a bad way to get through a slow Monday meeting or a long afternoon class, right?

Except, there were side effects for this medicine. Kinda horrendous ones, like, persistent dizziness, dry mouth, heart arrhythmias, hypotension (low blood pressure), severe constipation, pounding headaches, stronger allergic reactions, the list goes on and on…

Yet, and this really speaks to the power of orgasms, despite that shit list of side effects, there were patients who wanted to stay on the medication for as long as someone kept making it. Wow. (If you’ll go through all that for an orgasm, might as well just get married. Ba-dum-dum! Tsshhh!)

I guess no one told those reluctant patient there are easier ways to get orgasms than take a anti-depressant that gives you headaches and makes you anal retentive. Reading about them, it made me sad to think they apparently didn’t have some nice cousin in their family who’d take them to a sex shop for their birthday and buy them something useful like a vibrator.

18.  “But I Still Don’t Understand …Why Do We Orgasm – What’s the Point?”

Just like you, an orgasm has a job to do. But we don’t fully know what that is. Researchers think (or more accurately, theorize) it has something to do with raising the odds of reproduction. Science isn’t entirely certain other animals have orgasms. Seems kinda stupid to look at that way, considering the fact all female mammals have a clitoris. I think the cocaine monkeys prove that animals have pleasure centers in their brains and know how to reward themselves with good feelings. You gotta figure orgasms aren’t a new trick of Nature. They are the hidden stitching that keeps the fabric of the animal kingdom together.

Thinking we’re the only creatures that enjoy orgasms is silly. It reeks of the stink of species-based superiority. (And no, I don’t mean that in some “you better check your privilege, humans!” sorta way.)

Better questions to ask are: Why wouldn’t other animals have orgasms?What evidence do we have to suggest we’re such a rare creature? What if orgasms are a central factor to the advances of evolution?

Primate researchers had this to say:

At the Institute for Primate Studies in Norman, Okla., psychologist William Lemmon and his grad student, Mel Allen, argued that “the female chimpanzee manifests most, if not all, of the indices of sexual arousal and orgasm that occur in women.”

Other than lubricating general evolution, orgasms also play an individual role in human reproduction. Thanks to really tiny cameras we can now see what it looks like inside her vagina when a woman orgasms. I’ve seen some footage. And I warn you, like walking in on your parents having sex, seeing the footage isn’t something you forget.

You’ll see up close how her cervical muscles spasm and contract and cause the opening of her cervix to drop down into a “flattened pool” where sperm collects. The cervical entry to her uterus keeps dropping down into the pool and “sucks up” sperm. The intensity of her orgasm correlates with the vigorousness of the sperm-sucking action. The more a woman gets off the more sperm she pulls into her uterus.

This is important because the average man’s shot of semen holds 500 million sperm.

Now, of that huge crowd of swimmers, often, as few as 20 sperm cellsmake it far enough to find the egg. Think about that, those are some batshit crazy odds!

The odds of winning the New York lottery jackpot are: 1 in 258,890,850

The odds of one sperm surviving the trip to the uterus: 1 in 500,000,000.

(Keep in mind there are likely around 20 sperm that even reach the egg.)

The fact you’re reading this sentence, means you beat those odds — you already won the lottery once in your lifetime just to get your ass here. Way to go, you!

Now, if you’d like to see what that sperm-sucking action looks like (or if you’re Trent Reznor and just really want to see fucking from the inside) as it happens, in a real woman’s body… scroll to 5:06 in the video…and enjoy!

19. “Is it true what I’m hearing? …Orgasms can cure baldness?”

What? No. Don’t be an idiot. Orgasms aren’t magic genie wishes. But they are pretty amazing. Just consider some of the stuff they make better.

They can make you look 7 years younger. They’re good for skin,weight loss , pain relief, fighting cancer, reducing menstrual cramps… you get the idea!

But I’m A Cheerleader

20. “I always think orgasms are … kinda pornographic?”

Yes. Often the best ones feel that way. But they come in all sizes and flavors.

It’s difficult to convey the importance of regular orgasms without sounding wildly kinky, or like a cheap salesman or some boring science lecturer. However, one can always shut-up and let an orgasm speak for itself.

Photographer Clayton Cubitt captured climax as the central experience of a series of videos he made filming a woman’s orgasm. His efforts are highbrow rather than merely cheap and tawdry because he asked women to read from a book of their choosing while they were teased and stimulated (spoiler alert: by an unseen vibrator-wielding assistant). You listen to her read aloud as you witness the woman’s experience of a real live orgasm. Clayton Cubitt’s project is called “Hysterical Literature.” (I was such a fan I wrote a whole article about it and you can read that here.)

For now, enough words, here’s a sample video.

21. “Have You Seen Natalie Portman’s O-Face?”

From Black Swan, here’s Natalie Portman enjoying some trick Mila Kunis can do with her tongue.

The reason why this is important cinema isn’t the girl-on-girl titillation. This moment is super-tits because women’s orgasms, or even showing a woman experiencing pleasure, is rare in Hollywood’s blockbuster culture.Fuck that! Women don’t exist as service receptacles for the pleasure of men. Their orgasms should not be considered as a magic trick, or a point of pride for a guy, or comparable to some elusive prey. Check history and you’ll find women are and have always been as freaky-deaky as men.

(And let’s not be naïve and think this cinematic moment is some pinnacle of feminist sexuality that was snuck into a mainstream movie. One could call it shameless girl-on-girl action. But at least the moment is focused on a woman’s orgasm, even if the whole point is to mix together sex and death in a coldly manipulative Arnofskian way.)

Just watch the clip and drink in the ecstasy of Natalie’s hella serious O-face.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/82152136/

Well, let’s put a bow on this. The last words on orgasms will come (no pun intended) from science writer, Mary Roach. Here she is giving one of the best Ted talks ever.

What’s that old cliché? Life isn’t about the destination but the journey? That’s how it is with an orgasm. It isn’t some target or goal to be reached. It’s a reward for how you get there.

A few days ago the writer, Luke O’Neil, employing typically well-placed emphasis, tweeted some pithy advice for all modern men:

Every now and again just shut your fucking mouths and listen to women telling you what their experience is like without interjecting.—
Luke O'Neil (@lukeoneil47) January 31, 2014

For countless reasons men (and by extension our culture) find it difficult to listen to women. Many would argue there’s no difference between listening to a woman or a man. And I would agree. It’s a fairly simple process when you break it down:

Determine what she is saying

Confirm you heard her correctly

Consider her words/ reflect on their meaning

Allow them to affect your experience

That’s it. That’s all it takes to listen to a woman (or a man). Yet, simple as that sounds, we still have a difficult time listening to women.

I grew up in a house of women. And for me, listening to women eventually became as familiar as a second or third language. Clearly it wasn’t my first language but I could understand them if I took the time to listen. And by understand I mean the context and subtext of their words, the referenced history wrapped up in their comment, the implications and expectations. I found there were tiny braided worlds of meaning beaded like embroidery on each word a woman said. Like, sometimes I had to stop and think about what was meant. Other times I’d have to translate or interpret as best I could what a woman in my family was saying. Over the years all those experiences provided me a basic fluency. And now, I thoroughly enjoy listening to women. To my ears listening to a woman is different than listening to a man. Not that it’s more difficult, it’s just different. (You may not agree … that’s cool. You don’t need to agree.)

Often when men converse it becomes a Darwinian struggle to be heard. Participants interject as a natural part of the exchange. One jumps into a conversation. Listening is considered something to be earned by being an expert, or funny, or smart, or just the loudest, but few men expect to be heard, they must convince others to listen to them.

Whereas, when one woman listens to another woman there is a great deal of conversational overlap, when it’s a group of women they might all talk over one another, and this might look similar to how men interject; but you’ll notice, everyone keeps listening to each other when it’s a group of women. Four women can be talking to each other all at once, and yet, they will hear what all is said. That’s a skill I had to work hard to learn. Although they seemingly interrupt each other, there are few, if any, blunt force interjections. There are fewer sudden insertions of opinion that invalidate whoever was talking. Women don’t seem to do that as much, or at least not the same as men.

For men, when listening to a woman, it helps if you do like Luke O’Neil suggested and you shut the fuck up and don’t interject, offer no interruptions, just shut up and listen. Men need to get out of the way and listen because we tend to use different conversational rhythms — we like to interject. It’s part of how we communicate with each other. Whether it’s instinct or learned behavior, the impulse comes from a good place. We think we’re problem solvers. We’re fixing the conversation. We’re correcting bullshit someone else said. We think we’re helping. And that’s our doom right there. We tend to focus on a “problem.”

Often when a man listens to a woman, as soon as he hears her mention one, he wants to help her fix “her problem” (whether she’s aware she has a problem or not). Consequently, a man will interrupt a woman to give his opinion, to help clarify her thinking, or he may offer his solution to her problem, or what he feels is a better tactic, a new strategy, a handy tool, anything to fix or improve her problem, whatever it is. For obvious reasons, women don’t often appreciate this approach to their problems.

Culturally speaking, a woman of the western world tends to speak as a way to convey meaning, to establish and maintain community, solidarity and for lack of a better word, reinforce sisterhood; she seeks affirmation, or confirmation of facts, or to find solace in a quiet confession, to think out loud, to hear how she feels, to confide, to blow steam, in a sense, to express and calibrate her inner reality and sometimes do so from a place of vulnerability. However, her vulnerability should never be mistaken for weakness. Nor is it a cry for help. This can be confusing for a lot of men. It has been for me.

Although I was raised in a house of women, I still process the world with a guy’s head. I see problems and want to fix things. This cultural gender bias causes heaps of trouble. But I wouldn’t say men should abstain from their desire to fix things and improve situations. Men just need to learn when is the right time and place — this means, especially, if the problem isn’t ours, we must wait until someone asks for our opinion.

We must learn how to wait for someone to request our help. We have to stand still and not shoot from the hip because that’s how we’re comfortable speaking. We have to recognize we’re not giving the world a gift every time we announce what we’re thinking. This shift in perspective will help us stop constantly interjecting and inserting our values where they were never invited. Men seem to forget that the goal in listening is to listen. Here are some refresher bullet points:

Keep reminding yourself that you don’t need to improve anything

Remember, you don’t need to express your view (unless asked)

She doesn’t need you to clarify anything for her (unless asked)

You know what you think — listen to figure out what she’s thinking

Seek to better understand her viewpoint before sharing yours

Listening should require few if any words on your part

When you listen to a woman with the fullness of your attention, her experiences will shape yours. And this is where you benefit. Every experience you share with others enriches both of you. The more you listen to any one woman, the more deeply you will listen to all the women in your world and the better your life will be. Trust me on that.

A successful habit to employ when listening to a woman is to think about what she’s saying, and as you consider her words, ask yourself if her story sounds like one you’ve heard before, listen for if it sounds like an experience shared by other women. However, this comes with a warning: you may not like what you hear.

One of the great indictments against our culture is the number of sad and horrifying stories women can tell you. This is of course why it’s important you listen to a woman. It’s the best way for a man to begin to help fix or improve her situation. One of the key messages of listening to someone is that you let them know they matter, that they’re important. Now, sometimes listening to a woman can be dreadfully painful. It can redefine your life. But those may be the most important times to listen to a woman.

There were a few moral questions raised by the recent release of Dylan Farrow’s open letter account of her sexual abuse at the hands of Woody Allen. The questions center on how we listen to her. I noticed a pattern emerge as I asked some people I know and respect if they’d read her open letter yet. This was the gist of our conversations:

Friend: No, haven’t read Dylan Farrow’s letter yet … But have you read the one in the Daily Beast?

Me: The one written by his biographer dude — the one who defended Woody?

Friend: Yes, that guy was there at the time. He says some shit you might wanna read before you go hog wild on Woody after just listening to her allegations.

Me: Are you planning on reading her letter?

Friend: Yeah, maybe… but I don’t know if I want to read all that. I don’t want to think of Woody like that – And I wasn’t there.

Me: No one was there, but her and him. We only have her account and his – well, we have no account from him.

Friend: Yeah, that’s why you have to read the other letter.

The important point to make is my friends and I are/were all men and all Woody Allen fans, and our interest was more than that of the casual observer or average American. And what wasn’t said aloud in our exchange, but what we were all puzzling over were the most interesting questions of all.

If it’s true and Woody Allen is a child molester, can I still enjoy his films and my memories of his films?

If I can find a way to still enjoy them, how do I defend that and remain a good person?

If it’s true and Woody Allen is a child molester, and I can’t enjoy his films, who do I blame?

What if I just don’t read the letter? Can I continue to enjoy his films?

That last one sounds like the scrambling logic of a junkie, rationalizing one more hit. The most troubling aspect of those exchanges with my friends was the fact these people, whom I like and respect and are typically very astute members of the culture, cast a light on our culture’s difficulty listening to women:

They were suggesting I listen to one of Woody Allen’s friends and consider that man’s words and his account with equal weight and value as the victim of the sexual abuse. 

We all know that dude wasn’t there. Why should anyone listen to him? And some are unlikely to read her open letter because of his words. That dude has interjected at a cultural level. Some of my friends were satisfied with the biographer’s defense of Woody Allen rather than listen to the victim. That’s insane!

If you ever wondered what it looks like — there it is — that’s the shadow of rape culture darkening the proceedings. And it’s a perfect example of the sort of trouble we have with listening to women.

Even though Woody Allen has always been my artistic hero, some one I admired, and so forth, I decided to read the letter of his accuser. By halfway done, certain details had seared into my memory. Dylan Farrow’s words were so freighted with pain they were scarring me with the emotional impact of her story. But listen to me go on. It’s not about my reaction. This moment is about Dylan Farrow and how we choose to listen to her.

With each of her words I could feel Woody Allen slipping away from me. All of my positive memories of him were growing obscured by Dylan Farrow’s words. And even though her words, as they stacked up like bricks, meant I’d lose my connection to him, I listened to her. I kept reading. A wall separating me from many happy parts of my past might be made of her words, and it may be her account that severed my easy and happy connection to Woody Allen and his artworks, but it was his actions that did the damage.

I would never be so emotionally sloppy as to somehow blame Dylan Farrow for changing my relationship to Woody Allen films. Woody Allen ruined his movies. I hold no resentment against Dylan Farrow despite all the years of joy and many happy memories that her words cost me. But see, how that sounds? It’s ultra-critical we notice such language. Not only do we need to actively listen to women but we also must listen to ourselves and how we think and talk about women. As I listen to Dylan’s words – I must remember her words cost me nothing, they revealed his crimes. It’s too easy to focus on her words and hear what they mean for us, and this causes our attention to wander away from where they should be focused: Woody Allen’s actions. Make this more about him and less about her. The damage was done by Woody Allen.

If you’re still having trouble listening to what she has to say, or if you’re of the opinion there are two sides to every story, unfortunately, we can’t turn to Woody Allen. He’s yet to comment. However, since his artwork and its cultural value have already entered the discussion, you could also consider other bits of his artwork and add them to the discussion, such as this dialog from a recently produced play of his that the writer, Emily Nussbaum, tweeted:

@mattzollerseitz @KateAurthur This is a gross/shocking joke from a one-act play Woody Allen play produced 3 yrs ago: http://t.co/bIdoq8IbzU—
  (@emilynussbaum) February 04, 2014

Like you, I’m unburdened with the execution of justice. I don’t have to treat Woody Allen as innocent until proven guilty. And neither do you. The only thing we need to do is listen to Dylan Farrow.

I had a damn hard time reading Dylan Farrow’s account. As I read it, listening to her recount her abuse, I had an even harder time considering her words and not believing her. But if I had any remaining doubts, that scene from Woody Allen’s play would surely remove them. And as you look back over all his work you’ll find plenty of disturbing references to little girls. Joe Coscarelli collected some here.

I’m not indicting Woody Allen with this dialog from his play or many other instances of similar jokes. Rather than ask if one can accurately detect the subconscious in punchlines, I’m suggesting there’s little rational ground to stand on and argue that Dylan Farrow is a liar; which is what you do if you choose to believe Woody Allen and his biographer friend, Robert B. Weide.

It’s a zero-sum scenario. Either she’s lying or he is. Since none of us were there, we have to choose who to believe. All we have is their word. We have to listen to them and decide. How you decide, that’s on you. But first we have to listen to her.

Listening to a woman isn’t always easy. Sometimes it will cost you, or hurt you, embarrass or pain you; but if you want to help her the best thing you can do is listen. With so many people making it a priority to listen to this one woman’s account of her sexual abuse, with so many advocating that others read and share Dylan Farrow’s open letter, it’s showing victims of abuse their story matters, too. It’s showing them that perhaps folks would listen to them, too. That’s the power of listening to one woman.

How do you listen to a woman?

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog)

I never wanted the life I have. I don’t know if anyone does. But I know I didn’t. I’m writing this on a park bench surrounded by pristine silence. Shadows are spread before me on the cupped snow at my feet. I’m not used to the cold of an east coast winter. And the quiet has brought back bad memories. Life is funny that way.

In the short time I’ve spent on Earth I’ve been a lot of things. Some I’m proud of – some that make it hard for me to sleep. I don’t know if silence is my friend but it is often my companion. And on still nights like this as the chill chafes against the tight skin of my scalp I find the memories come quickly and unwanted like so many of life’s surprises.

You may have heard that God laughs at the plans of mice and men. The poet Robert Burns said that. Doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not – the statement is true regardless. We are often laughable creatures. So where does that leave us?

We travel down the one way street of our life hurtling toward a final rest. But until then we’re left to react the best we know how. And some of us, for reasons that make no sense and make one feel that life is unfair, are given challenges we don’t know how to handle but have to deal with nevertheless.

I’ve been a lot of things in this life. A brother. A son. A friend. A lover. An actor. An outlaw. A writer. And the only thing that remains consistent is the singular sense that time rolls on. One day you learn this is your savings grace. Life never stops.

I’ve been in rooms I never wanted to be in. I’ve sat with killers. Tight with nerves, I’ve felt the lifeless cold of a gun against my waist as I watched drugs deals go down that most folks only see in movies. I’ve listened to men tell stories about doing things to others and the details of the horrors they recounted one never forgets. And these men stand next to you on the subway. These men sit in cars next to you at stop lights. And you wouldn’t know them on sight.

Despite knowing and seeing acts of what others would call evil I’ve never abandoned my belief that people want to be good – they just lose sight of how. Some are broken when they are children and never had the chance that you have. Some are shattered in adolescence. Others are severed from their decency in their adulthood. But even those folks were once children. Innocent. And I’ve seen killers come back from the brink to become loving fathers and husbands. And it is this that I focus on. It’s this that allows me to keep going no matter how dark my days get.

The thing about life is you always have a choice as long as you’re on this side of the grass. No matter how much you may feel that darkness has swallowed your hope – it’s still there with you like the sound of the echo of your heart thumping along inside your cage of ribs.

Many folks who deal with me think I’m a strange bird. They sense how eager I am to see them happy and it makes them suspicious because what they don’t understand they chalk up to easy conclusions. Often when I’m kind or thoughtful a person thinks I have an angle, and since they don’t know where I’ve been they assume I must want something from them. The funny thing is I get what I want by giving. I don’t want anything from them other than to tell someone not with words but with an action that I see and appreciate them and what they do, and I give them whatever I do because to see how I make someone smile reminds me we’re all connected and that what I do can spread joy and their joy is my joy; that with these finite moments of my life, with these tiny actions, we keep hope and love alive. That’s very important – now more so than ever.

We live in selfish times. And rather than give in to the rhythms of self-concern I remind myself that by thinking of others I make my life better. Outlaws taught me that. With the same energy we use to take, we can give. And when we give to others we spread joy and hope. By giving to others you invest in yourself a belief in a better tomorrow. When you think of others as you would yourself you gain that better tomorrow for you. Life is backwards like that.

Be kind to others because it’s the greatest gift you can give yourself. This is what motivates the protesters in Ukraine, in Russia, and Venezuela. This why the ones who risk their lives to give strangers a better tomorrow know they’re giving themselves the gift of hope. And with the softness of hope any transgression can be endured. This is how water defeats rock and steel. (And ironically, this is also why Ukrainian grandmothers are making Molotov cocktails).

If we are ever to transcend our base natures it will be because the hope of selflessness reaches a critical mass that makes it possible for people to believe that what they do has meaning and value and will outlast them.

Music is the language of the soul. I’ll leave you with this final message of indefatigable hope sung by agitprop art collective Pussy Riot. Just like the outlaws and killers who taught me, Pussy Riot wants to tell the world how “Putin Will Teach You How To Love.”

This is the great and timeless power that spurs them on despite the sting of the lash or the cold of a prison cell. Hope and love outlast. Always.

From rooftops, shouts ring out across the land, “Real American men are dead! Long live real American men!” You’ll hear talking heads on tv spout that dramatic pronouncement, you’ll hear it from coffee-hyped bloggers and dead-eyed journalists, you’ll hear it as a punch-line over Sunday morning brunches amongst groups of young urban women, and it’s there written on the worried and confused faces of young American men. The ruler of the past is gone. The cold dead king of the castle has fallen into memory. Deader than Dean Martin. All the real men are gone. But if you look carefully you’ll notice that in his place, now rises up a New American man. Behold his beating heart!

Steve McQueen was my boyhood hero. To my young eyes he was American masculinity. Cool, confident, quiet, lived fast, fought with fists, rode hard, existed in resistance to the rules, loved any woman he wanted because he took what he wanted and left doubt to weaker creatures. Honestly, this was my first role model of masculinity. But by the time I’d reached adolescence such a man was a joke, a throwback, an atavistic reminder of a dying era. No one thought it was cool if you went through life like a character from a Steve McQueen movie. And so, I was left without a role model.

My story is not unique. This was true of many men of our generation. Although your hero might not be the same, suddenly, the idea of the real American man was replaced with metrosexuals, a term so laughably commodified I’m rather certain it was created by advertisers. And it was never something I wanted to become. But the world was changing and this was the first stab at a new ideal for American men.

Thankfully, the metrosexual was a momentary blip — a failed ad campaign that gained no traction. He was quickly subsumed by the hipster. And laughed at by the gamer, who pursued masculine activities inside imaginary worlds of Xbox video games and online role-playing games. Given no actual outlet he preferred, his masculinity thrived as a role to play in a virtual world, as its value atrophied in the real world.

Like many of my generation, I am a man raised by women. And what masculinity I learned came from media, from the past, from my friends’ fathers and from cultural mores. Left free to weave these disparate influences together on my own, I had to create my view of masculinity. I had to become a man made in my image. Since I was raised by women and a straight man, I included their values of what made a good man. This choice troubled my chances at success before I’d even begun because I was left with only two male dynamics to make my own. Would I be an Alpha male and demand what I wanted from the world? Or would I be a Beta male and negotiate what I wanted?

In relationships with a woman, a straight man has two ways of being. Alpha and Beta. This is what our shared social logic dictates as the two poles of masculinity. And you know these types well.

An Alpha male is a winner. He makes others losers. They’re known to be stoic, individualistic, and they always come first (if you know what I mean). In our media, you have the classic representation like John Wayne, the more savage update of Clint Eastwood, and of course my fave, Steve McQueen. Alpha males. Their role in society is to dominate, to be aggressors, they’re known as war-makers, they stride cocksure across the terra firma.

In relationships, they have the mentality of the caveman. They prefer the safety of a cave. They like limits, clear-cut boundaries; solitude is presumed, and metaphorically speaking, the ideal relationship would have a man drag a woman back to his cave. It’s the throwback model of masculinity. We still cling to this dynamic as a strong response to the tenuous nature of this thing we call life. And the other reason is women dig alpha males. We wouldn’t have them if women didn’t want them.

For the great majority of human history, Alpha males, as much as they weren’t emotionally available, were attractive because in a word they’re winners. And women like winners. Enough said. An Alpha male’s doom comes from the threats he sees in openness, his aversion to sensitivity, his avoidance of vulnerability and his general fear of what can only be called full freedom. He likes his cave. Don’t take away his cave.

Now, a Beta male is, by default, a loser. But he’s only a loser in the sense that by definition he usually comes second (which, for women is not a bad thing). A Beta male is a natural negotiator. He has something to give up in exchange for what he wants. He makes others winners. A Beta male is vulnerably open and emotionally available. His mind considers the world from a group perspective. He lives in constantly negotiated balance with others. If you think of humans as wolves, he finds and knows his place in the pack.

In media, there were the ‘70s versions we all know, such as Robert Redford and Alan Alda as the emotionally strong liberal-minded male; or there were the diffident and neurotic models of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks. Later, in the ‘90s we saw a sexy update with Ethan Hawke and Kurt Cobain, so desperate to be loved, dependent on another to make him whole. And now we have Michael Cera and Justin Timberlake who both like to be the sideman as much as the star.

The role a Beta plays in society is to be the submitter. He makes peace. He avoids conflict as much as possible. His boundaries are set by others and he navigates them. In relationships he’s usually a happy domesticated creature. He prefers the comfort of assurance from those around him and often finds community in groups and subcultures.

A Beta male’s doom comes from his reliance on others, how he must wait for satisfaction to be given by others, how his limits are proscribed by others. He can get hurt because he is so vulnerable, and he might cry, and he can lose himself in his emotions and become a mess no one wants to clean up

So where does that leave us? Well, as promised, there is a new American male that you’ll spot. He’s out there. He’s often young, but if loved and supported by young women he could and should become the new model of masculinity for our modern times because he imagines life according to a networked dynamic. And he presumes relationships require that he act as a partner and he expects likewise. He competes to win and makes his partners winners with him.

For lack of a better term, we’ll call him the Omega male, because he exists at the other end of this alphabetical spectrum. He’s not the last man, and he sure ain’t Charlton Heston (from The Omega Man, in case you don’t dig on ‘70s sci-fi films). The Omega male is present, because like an athlete or an entrepreneur, he competes. He’s cooperative and sees the world as I + you. And the good news for straight women (and I would presume gay men) as a partner he doesn’t always come first, or second like the others, he makes sure you come together because you’re doing it together (you know what I mean).

In media, he’s been showing up for awhile, like, I’d say Bruce Lee pulled that vibe. And for sure, Heath Ledger was an example of this man who must balance his nature rather than idealize either pole of masculinity. And these days, Channing Tatum represents that male ideal of a modern man, robust and married, partnered with his wife in life and in business. His role in society is as a competitor who has partners and thus makes opportunities for others, and he’s protective, like the best teammates are; there’s a presumption of togetherness that seen in his actions.

In relationships, he’s engaged, neither individualistic and closed-off, nor submissive and excessively vulnerable, because let’s face it, women don’t want a man who’s an emotional sack with the backbone of overcooked spaghetti. They want a man who stands tall and takes stock of his responsibilities to society and keeps his nature in balance, able to roar as well as purr. And when we say engaged it means with society as well, able to provide charity because he’s involved in commerce. (Simply put, the motherfucker has a job!) His only doom are results of the same things that bedevil men and women alike, the human frailties inherent in human nature – greed, lust, wrath, envy, etc. He must keep his nature in check, just as every woman must.

As much as feminism has given birth to a spirit of possibility for young women, a third wave (if you wish to call it that) of masculinity is underway, and of course it’s accompanied by birth pains, at times it’s hard to recognize, or occasionally, it’s there and then it’s not there, but this new Omega male dynamic is creating a spirit of possibility for young men to become fully-present equal partners first and foremost, for perhaps the first time in western cultural memory.

In the February season of love it seems fitting to celebrate this new spirit of masculinity for it promises greater partnership and a presence that can attune to a woman, and to her  thoughts, feelings and rhythms, while also attending to his. The networks of communication that give our lives shape, they have re-engineered society to the point of forced equality of labor. Men’s work and women’s work is gone. And now out of sheer logical necessity, thanks to the Internet and all the life changes it represents and generates, we have created a world where a man lives in constant partnership.

This is an often overlooked, yet radical, aspect of modern life; at least, in terms of what it means for the values and behaviors of western men. I have full confidence that more and more young men are embracing this newly emergent image of masculinity. Young men today are stepping far beyond the limits of the Alpha male and they’re also refusing the submission of the Beta male. Instead, they compete as, for lack of a better term, an Omega male, ready to partner and flourish. As more and more women love and partner with such young men, this pattern will repeat itself, and save us from our old polar view of masculinity.

Behold the beating heart of the new American man.

In the small Northern California town of Roseville, a new business called Cuddle Connection just opened its doors for the first time this week. The space offers five different cuddle zones and is designed to offer a similar experience as to what one might find at a day spa. The owner of the business, professional cuddler, Kelly Peterson, is on a mission to change our views on the power of touch and earn some paper at the same time. Quoted by the local news coverage, Peterson said, “We want to change the way that people think about touch.”

Personally, I would’ve paid good money to be in the room when Peterson, the professional cuddler, showed up applying for her potential business license to sell hugs to the good people of Roseville. I assume she met with a presumably confused city bureaucrat and their conversation went something like this:

“And what exactly do you plan to do at Cuddle Connection?”

“We’ll offer cuddling by the hour.”

“Cuddling?”

“Yes, cuddling.”

“You are a professional cuddler?”

“Yes, I cuddle. Professionally.”

“And that’s all you do… You cuddle?”

“That’s what I do. I cuddle strangers for money.”

“For money?”

“Well, I would cuddle for free but … cuddlers gotta eat, too.”

If you know anything about Northern California, you’ve probably heard we’re a bit more touchy-feely than other parts of the country. This is, for the most part, true. But not so much in Roseville. It’s a conservative foothill town that’s not too far from my hometown of Davis. And well, I don’t imagine the locals are all that thrilled about the national attention they’re getting thanks to Cuddle Connection. But dear people of Roseville it’s time you recognize, there’s a new cuddler in town … and her name is Kelly Peterson. She came to cuddle and make money doing it.

Describing her approach to her work, Peterson said, “A cuddle is like a prolonged hug.” Talk like that makes me wonder. She might really be on to something here. “Hugs for sale!” could be a super-sexy business proposition for a lot of potential customers. And I don’t just mean dirtbags.

Yes-yes, we all know it sounds like a business idea stoners or children would come up with; and sure, only a fool would thinks “I will hug you if you pay me” sounds like a solid business model. But I have to say, most everyone I see looks like they could use a hug. There is obviously a market and need for professional cuddling.

I’ve never tried to sell a hug. I have no idea if cuddling will generate big profits. My sister is the business-minded one. I’m the beach bum in the family. But you learn things at the beach. One of the things I’ve learned is people are always trying to sell you stuff you can get for free. There are businesses that do really well selling tans and bottled water. And does anyone remember oxygen bars?  Maybe selling free stuff is the best business model. Like I said, I have no idea. All I have are questions.

I imagine the quality of the cuddling will be super-important. Like, everyone knows a good hug comes down to who is doing the hugging. If I’m paying someone to cuddle with me, I’m gonna want to pick, or at least have a choice of who cuddles with me. This mean they’ll probably need a staff of a few quality cuddlers for any pain-in-the-ass picky customers like me who like options to decide between.

Of course, other questions spring to mind:

Would there be different techniques the cuddlers would offer?

What if you want the person who cuddles you to be scented?

Can I get a cuddler who smells of lavender perfume and moth balls?

What about maple syrup and industrial strength hairspray, something really sweet, would that be a scent combination one could order?

Also, I would imagine that by the time I’m paying for my third or fourth cuddle, I’m gonna have some opinions about other options that might really matter to me.

Peterson just opened for business, so I guess, we should be patient. We’ll have to wait and see where this is all going. At the moment, she’s concentrating on the take-away experience for the customers she and her staff cuddle.

One of the professional cuddlers at Cuddle Connection, Faviola Rodriguez, says that hugs are healing. Simple as that. I mean it’s right there in the name. Connection.

She told the local news, “I think first and foremost, people are going to walk away with a better feeling of themselves.”

Just as the French fry is a vehicle to sell you grease and salt, the hugs they sell (or rent, I’m not really sure how that works) are a way to sell a customer a feeling of connection, and we all know that feeling is in high demand these days.

Faviola’s right to call it healing and good feelings. If these women in Roseville, which is a name far sweeter than the town is, can spread connection in half-hour increments, if they can generate healing by hug-feeling a customer with their body, I say it sounds like good things for everyone involved.

Interesting side note, Cuddle Connection is not the first professional cuddling establishment. There have been other cuddling pioneers. And in the past, city leaders and civic-minded types have shut down similar cuddle operations, such as one in Wisconsin, after the city leaders were lead to believe that cuddling can lead to sex. (I hope it didn’t take them long to do that math.)

Before she opened her doors to folks in need of a cuddle, Peterson insisted and promised her cuddling comes with no happy endings. There are cameras throughout Cuddle Connection. As well, each cuddle zone is heavily monitored. But we all know just because there’s a camera that won’t keep some bloke from popping a chubby because he’s getting touched by a woman. Peterson claims she’s also prepared for any guy who pitches a tent while she’s cuddling him.

She said, “Let them know that it’s OK, if they get embarrassed, if it happens, it’s OK. Let’s readjust, let’s take the focus off of that.”

Is there a profit to be found in hugging? Can a business dedicated to cuddling keep the creeps away? Will they ever offer custom scented-cuddlers?

We’ll have to wait for answers. For now, Kelly Peterson is optimistic she can help the people of Roseville cuddle their way to a better tomorrow one hug at a time.

If you’re thinking, “Well, that all sounds rad … I’d like to see the menu.”

For a half-hour session, they’ll big spoon you for $29.

An hour-long session of hug therapy costs $49.

If you’d like to see someone get cuddled … here’s a link from Good Day Sacramento, a local morning news show that’s just as cheesy as you imagine it is. Enjoy!

Once upon a time, the genius inventor, Nikola Tesla, made the world-famous writer, Mark Twain shit himself. In that craptastic moment of American history, among the bodily product of the great man’s loosened bowels, we find a lesson about humanity, and if we actually take the time to learn from Twain’s stains we just might be able to save ourselves. I know, it sounds ridiculous; but like gum on the bottom of one’s shoe, stick with me. I promise there is wisdom to be found in the soiled white suit of the man who invented American literature.

No one knows for sure when the two men first met. Some suggest it was at a Broadway after-party for theater legend Sarah Bernhardt. Others say they met at a legendary private men’s club in New York called The Players Club. (Yep, just like the title of that mean and raunchy-ass Ice Cube-directed film.) Others report that the two men first met in the swirl of New York house parties, the sort of soirees where one might see John Muir, Rudyard Kipling and Teddy Roosevelt (pre-presidency) all in the same room, and off in the corner might be the two new best friends, drawn to each other like iron to magnet, Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla. Although both men wrote autobiographies, neither one ever told the story of their initial meeting. All we know for certain is Tesla credited Mark Twain with saving his life.

A somewhat frail and sickly child, Tesla was hovering above the precipice of premature death. He’d been bed-ridden and given up as a lost cause by his doctors. When a nurse brought the boy Serbian translations of Twain’s earliest works, the American writer’s tales of jumping frogs and mining towns, and what would later be called the Old West, fired young Tesla’s imagination, and the stories gave him the spiritual vigor to carry on. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense since the two men shared a similar willful temperament – they’re both iconoclastic and eccentric by nature, to put it mildly.

The story goes Nikola Tesla was born during a terrifying thunderstorm. At the moment of his birth a flash of lightning cracked and split the darkness with a great profundity of light, a wonderful terrible heavenly discharge of electrical energy. The midwife attending to his mother warned her that her newborn son would be a troublesome and tempestuous child. Tesla’s mother corrected the midwife and asserted that her son was a child of light.

Similar to Tesla’s entry into the world, Samuel Clemens was also born during extraordinary circumstances. Halley’s Comet lit up the night sky the night he was born as it streaked across the cosmic darkness. Later, as an adult, after he’d taken his new name of Mark Twain, he famously proclaimed that just as he came in with the comet, so too, he would leave with its return.

And sure enough he was right. Seventy-six years later, as the comet once again marked the sky with its brilliance the great writer left the earth. That’s some enviable style. To be certain, both of geniuses came into this world accompanied by biblical-sized portent.

When the two men finally met in America they became fast friends. It’s reported by witnesses to their friendship that at New York house parties they were often found sequestered together in the quiet of some shadowed corner of a room; the two men engaged in private conversation, as others buzzed about them excited to share the same air with such luminaries but intimidated to interrupt their conversation.

Just after the holiday season, a few weeks after the turn of the New Year in 1894, during those dreary January days along the eastern seaboard when snow huddles on the shoulders of the avenues of New York, locked away in his flashing and sparking building, Nikola Tesla was playing in his laboratory. He’d been teasing out new ways to transform and utilize the promise of what one might do with electricity.

And remember, Tesla was a genius but he was still a dude; so he wanted to show off some of this new cool shit to his friends. I mean he’s playing with like the coolest shit of the day. Like, here’s a photo Nikola Tesla took of Mark Twain in those heady first days of 1894. This is one of the first photos to ever use phosphorescent light to illuminate the subject.

Now, just as keen as Tesla was to show off his crazy new inventions, Mark Twain wanted to play with whatever new technology he could get his curious hands on. Twain was equally eager to marvel at Tesla’s inventions as the genius was to share them. They were a perfect pair — a match made in a tempestuous heaven. Twain regarded Tesla’s genius as something akin to an Olympian power, to his understanding the man bent forces of nature to his earthbound will.

From a story published in Century Magazine  April, 1895:

“IN Fig. 13 a most curious and weird phenomenon is illustrated.  A few years ago electricians would have considered it quite remarkable, if indeed they do not now.  The observer holds a loop of bare wire in his hands.  The currents induced in the loop by means of the —resonating— coil over which it is held, traverse the body of the observer, and at the same time, as they pass between his bare hands, they bring two or three lamps held there to bright incandescence.  Strange as it may seem, these currents, of a voltage one or two hundred times as high as that employed in electrocution, do not inconvenience the experimenter in the slightest.  The extremely high tension of the currents which Mr. Clemens is seen receiving prevents them from doing any harm to him.”

In the past, Mark Twain had complained to Tesla about recurring bouts of constipation. (He was often backed-up like a drug mule with an ass stuffed full of cocaine condoms.) Tesla suggested to Twain that he avail himself of the therapeutic benefits he’d find standing atop one of his new inventions, a vibrating humming oscillating metal disc. (What can I say? These were very different times.) But this was no normal oscillating disc.

Tesla looked at the skeptical writer and sold him on the notion his new invention “imparted vitality.” He further piqued Twain’s curiosity with a promise of a pleasing and relaxing effect felt throughout the human body. Mark Twain leapt up on that oscillating disc faster than Tesla could say Calaveras County. Before the electrical genius turned on his electrical wonder machine, he warned his friend — he told him that whenever he indicated it was time for Twain to step away from the disc, it was time for him to step off. No arguments. Or a calamity could occur.

Mark Twain nodded. Tesla tripped the switch. Electricity surged through cables. The disc began to vibrate. High tension voltage crackled in the air around Mark Twain. Just imagine that picture. Both wild-haired geniuses, Tesla most likely in a lab coat, goggles, black rubber apron and matching long gloves; and Twain in his signature white suit, halo’d by bluish-white crackling fingers of electricity snapping at the air all around him.

As promised, it was a pleasing sensation. I imagine it felt something like a massage from a pair of blind masseuses while you’re double-dipping on MDMA. Mark Twain laughed and remarked how terribly good it all felt. It felt so good, Twain began to dance around on the platform, his arms flailing and sweeping through the buzzing throb of electricity. One could say, Nikola Tesla watched his dear friend Mark Twain do the Humpty Dance inside that flashing electrical cocoon of the arcing high tension field. (And that, my friends, is a really fucking funny moment in human history.)

Tesla had warned Twain he’d shouldn’t dance about. Twain ignored him. When he felt it was time, Tesla told Twain he’d been on the machine long enough, it was now time for him to step away. Naturally, Mark Twain ignored him.

The stubborn-ass writer continued to enjoy the ticklish hum of the electric field of Tesla’s oscillating disc. He was basically tripping out on all the cascading vibrations rippling through his body. And there it is. That was his critical mistake of judgment. We’ve all been there. We ignore the advice of the ones who know best — because in the moment it all feels sooo damn good. Why stop? What could possibly go wrong?

When a scientist (preferably, one unbeholden to the corporate teet) offers advice one ought to listen. When a group of scientists all concur, you really ought to hear them out. When the majority of scientists you can round-up and give their opinion on the same subject all agree, you should probably consider what they have to say. Especially, if they’re the leading minds in their fields of expertise. Better question to ask — Why wouldn’t you listen to them? (Who the hell are you?)

But Mark Twain ignored Tesla. And if I were there, I imagine I’d have ignored Tesla, too. We all tend to make that choice. We’re all just like Mark Twain, in that when we get hold of a good feeling we just want to keep feeling good for as long as we can, ignoring bad news or clear indications of danger or doom. And then, suddenly, well, it’s too late. And it all goes to shit.

Feeling the first dribble run down his leg, Twain leapt out of the charged field of the arcing tendrils of high tension electricity, as he sprang from the oscillating disc. Clutching his cheeks together with an ambitious hand, running in a way most undignified, Mark Twain yelled over his shoulder to his dear friend, “Tesla! The water closet! Where is it?”

What Tesla had neglected to tell Twain, the calamity that might occur if one stayed on his new machine too long, there was a tendency for a person to lose control of his bowels and shit himself. And that, my friends, is how Nikola Tesla ruined Mark Twain’s white suit with some rather historic shit stains.

The moral of this story should be clear: When one chooses to ignore the warnings of our best and brightest scientific minds, often enough, bad shit happens.

At the present moment, we’re choosing to ignore the warnings of our modern day Teslas. For reasons future generations will likely curse us, we choose to ignore the warnings and continue to debate whether or not our world is changing. We’re willfully ignoring a dire situation we’ve nicknamed “climate change.” The name doesn’t matter. The patterns do. As James Lawrence Powell has pointed out:

“I have brought my previous study (see here and here) up-to-date by reviewing peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals over the period from Nov. 12, 2012 through December 31, 2013. I found 2,258 articles, written by a total of 9,136 authors.”

Against this sea of scholastic papers published in peer-reviewed journals, climate change deniers argue the debate is unsettled but what do they use to back their claims?

“Only one article, by a single author in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rejected man-made global warming.”

You might get a laugh from this perfectly succinct infographic. Their evidence is laughable. Like, I hurt myself laughing, it’s that paltry. Climate-deniers can hold up one peer-reviewed paper recently published in a journal. One. This is sufficient evidence for them to argue against the 2,258 articles published in that same time period. This one paper from the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences is why we can continue to delay action and engage creative energies to confront this problem. One paper is why we continue to argue about if we’re headed into a shit storm of global significance. What?! That must be one hell of a paper.

Thanks to this “debate” of whether or not climate change is real and occurring, all of us on planet Earth are, in one metaphoric sweep, Mark Twain ignoring Tesla until the shit was literally running down his leg. I love Mark Twain, but don’t you think it’s time we listen to our Teslas? It’s really hard to get shit stains out. We only have this one white suit.

(After-Party: If you have a few minutes, this video imagines what it would be like if Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla had a time machine. It’s cheap humor, but it’s funny.)

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)

I guess what matters most is how much I will miss us. I hate how this is the end of us.

I never cared that people called you ugly. If I were being honest, the first time I saw you, I also thought you were kinda funny-looking. We met when we were both so much younger. I guess if I’m telling the full truth, it feels like I’ve always known you. Like we’ve always been a part of each other’s lives.

And you know what? Even though you’re kinda funny-looking, over time, I began to see why you are attractive. When others made fun of you – and said that you looked like “what people saw when they had a bad acid trip,” I stood up for you, and I said you aren’t ugly, you’re unique. Well, what I really meant was, you’re uniquely beautiful.

You have a funky beauty no one else sees. It’s their loss. I felt, it also meant, you and I were uniquely bonded. We’re both outcasts. You looked like one. And I felt like one.

Of course, I should mention my sister. The only reason we even had our time together was because she didn’t go for you. If she liked you, I know you would’ve spent all your time with her. It happens often enough. That’s okay. I’m not complaining. Some folks need more attention. But, thank God, you two didn’t hit it off. That meant we could spend all those hours together.

I was lucky, like most everyone else, she didn’t see past your weird looks. We all overlook beauty like yours in search of shiny, rare, exotic, wondrous things. And we never take the time to see the beauty that’s right beneath our ass.

It hurt when she said you were ugly and that only an idiot like me would love you. And that’s what makes this so damn hard. I loved being the idiot that loved you.

But I have to quit you. I have to quit us. This. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit here and love you anymore. Our time is done. I know that sounds blunt.

Just as much as I want to let you grab my ass and tell me everything is still the same between us, as much as I want you to hold me and make me feel warm, as much I can’t ignore how long we’ve been together; let’s face it, you’re losing your sexy shape. Fuck it. I’ll say it. You lost it long ago. I don’t care how much you sag. But it’s hard to ignore.

The implants? Sure, they added some lift. They gave you back some years, but you and I both know it wasn’t the same as when you were young. You’ve changed. And so have I.

I guess, I was loving you out of habit. I loved you because of memory. And I’m ashamed to admit, I loved you out of convenience. You’re always right there. Why did you have to always be so damn supportive? How can I ever quit you? How do I walk away from us?

The other day, as I thought about my new move, making so many changes in my life all at once, it made me ask questions I’d never asked before.

We’ve been together for so long, that out of habit, I imagined our new place and us in it. Together. I pictured the naps we’d take. I daydreamed about having coffee together on Sunday mornings and how I’d read my favorite sections from the NYT Book Review out loud to you; and you wouldn’t say anything because you wouldn’t have to. When I toured it the first time, I thought the light in the new place was perfect for our long afternoons. I could see you there in the sunlight. I pictured us together, sharing that last hit of golden goodness from the setting sun.

Then people asked, as they always do, whenever the subject of you comes up.

“Don’t you think it’s time you move on and find some…”

They stopped mid-question because they saw the look in my eyes. They saw the subject was off-limits. But I knew what they were really asking.

Haven’t we finally outgrown each other? Isn’t it time for me to move on?

This time – when they called you ugly and weird-looking – I didn’t defend you. When they said you were too old for me and that I could do much better, I just listened.

For the first time since I was little (except for when I went off to college but that didn’t count since we got back together while I was still at school) I actually imagined a life without you.

I pictured a life without the sound of laughter after I spilled ice cream on you (for the millionth time) as we sat together and watched a movie. No more listening to a new band together for the first time and feeling like the whole world just became more interesting. No more moments of me feeling hurt by this impossible world and you holding me and making me feel like there was nowhere else on Earth I’d rather be.

I imagined no more us.

I won’t lie – I don’t want to do this. It’s breaking my heart to say goodbye to you.But we have to do a lot of things we don’t want to do. And this is just one of them.

It’s time for us to say goodbye.

I want you to know, wherever you go, I will always love you, and how well you supported my dumb ass.

Aw, come on. Don’t look at me like that

Yeah, we’re just going for a little walk … Here, hop on my skateboard

I think you look cool on my board. Just ignore it if anyone laughs. Come on, let’s go for a walk

I’m gonna leave you here for awhile … You can rest your tired frame. Come on, don’t look at me like that

That’s it. Close your eyes. 

And go to sleep…

Sweet dreams…

If I were smart, I’d see this as another example of “this too shall pass.” And that’s true. Good or bad – this too shall pass. But just like how you were always there to support my tired body and happily, lovingly, cradle my ass, well, now, I’ll always carry you around with me. I hate to let go of you. I don’t want to give you up. But life is learning to deal with loss. So, here goes… goodbye.

I love you, ugly chair! 

(this article originally appeared on ThoughtCatalog.com)