Day: July 30, 2010

Anne Rice sings the hits

~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment

“I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.”

A screencap from facebook revealed that she’s still “committed to Christ” but at least she’s come to her senses about the main issues. Even on this Asian trip, I told my dad, my view of Christ doesn’t jive with Christianity, which is why I’m not one. But there are ideals of “Christ” that I still adhere to.

I don’t believe that — as an artist — Christianity in its current American cultural form can mix with real life. The sheer amount of information it tries to dispute is ridiculous.

Kudos Anne Rice for taking that stand. Hopefully she’ll write some non-Christian material, because I wrote her off as a Christian author.

The quote above, man, I’m putting that on a t-shirt. That shit is awesome.

Worry no more

~ Jeremy ~ 3 Comments

I know how worried some of you were about my safety. I landed last night in Chicago, and have spent all my time holding onto Tina as if she were full of helium and would float away if I let go.

My first order of business after showering and loving on Tina was to go to Whole Paycheck and buy two of the best dry-aged ribeye steaks they had on display. I grilled them with some potatoes. Damn, that hit the spot.

We watched TV for a little while and then I crashed.

My kneejerk quick responses about the trip as a whole:

  • In case you didn’t notice, I was happily using “Jezzasia” and “Cambo First Mud” to tag my trip entries. Congrats to Petursey and Glock for helping with those.
  • I’m extremely glad I went on this trip. Hospital stay and all, it was a great adventure. I was able to hang out with my dad for 2 weeks. And even with a few conversations about politics and religious philosophies, we were able to bond and make memories not to be forgotten.
  • It felt good to be able to tell foreigners that I’m not a Christian. I was asked a few times.
  • It was also cool to meet people not infiltrated by the Yeshua Fog. In fact, my dad made a comment one day, “There’s a Buddhist Temple on every block.” My response, “Some say the same thing about the Christian church.” He said, “Really?”
  • When Jimmy started preaching, he was often ignored. People simply weren’t interested. They were in their land surrounded by their religious ideologies. They had no use for Jesus and they made that clear.  There was one Christian who ended up hurting Jimmy. He stole some money from Jimmy after they had begun to trust each other. I’ll tell that story soon.
  • Do not, I repeat DO NOT, fly UNITED AIRLINES internationally if you can help it. Holy shit. They are the most unfriendly bunch of people on an international flight. They pluck the ugliest, dumbest lot of flight attendants possible and stuff them all in packed planes and make sure you are as miserable as they are for 14 hours. When possible, choose another airline. United International sucks.
  • Cambodia offered the worst smells and worst food I’ve ever experienced on Earth. There’s a reason you don’t get a craving to order out Khmer. Unless you’re from there, it’s AWFUL.
  • If you’re going to get an acute gastric infection in Asia, do it in Thailand. If you get one in Cambodia, you may get an unwanted, first-hand look at the Killing Fields.
  • Finally, I’ll be able to start sentences all hoity toity like, “When I was in Cambodia …” or “When I was in Thailand …”

I’ll be updating more on my trip. Today I have to catch up on some work. Tomorrow Tina and I leave for Asheville, NC to shoot regular reader Xina’s wedding. She’s so excited I could feel it from goddamn Cambodia. I got an email that she’s update her email address with her new last name and everything. I’m so excited to shoot her big day. Like everyone, she deserves great happiness and her future husband is someone I am certainly glad she’s ending up with. Yay!

After Asheville, my brother is going to drive and pick us up to take us back to High Point, NC where we’ll stay for 3 days before returning to Chicago. Tina and I will be staying at the Witteveen compound and we hope to squeeze my two nieces’ cheeks as much as possible. My dad gets back from Asia on Tuesday morning. And we leave again on Wednesday evening. (You writing this down, SAW?).

Anybody else got any vacation plans coming up? I’m looking forward to hearing more of Biodork’s trip to Italy.