April 10, 2006
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The Daily News
1 The other night I held court at Original Joe's with Jose, Peter, and Ray, three modern prophets. It's amazing knowing these guys, because they are three of the most brilliant idiot savants I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
2 If you know them, then you know that conversations can range from the very bottom of the crude barrel to conversations explaining full well the entire meaning of the Universe.
3 We fell into conversation the other evening, and they told me all about Southpark, and in particular, the episode in which Tom Cruise refuses to come out of the closet. This episode was banned in Great Britain. I had to wonder why.
4 If you haven't seen it, it's a must see. Words simply can't describe it. Here's a link. I hope it works; it's well worth looking at:
http://www.southparkx.net/episodes/912-trapped-in-the-closet
5 It's a bit about the meaning of life, a bit about how easily someone can be manipulated and steered, and mostly about how simple it is for people to be sucked into things that they think are awesome, quite often leading to their own destruction. And how the brainwashed don't know they are, and how they will not listen to anyone tell them otherwise about anything.
6 The Southpark crew uses L. Ron Hubbard's "Church" of Scientology to make one of the most amazingly accurate statements in the history of cartoons.
7 I was riveted, and I was also amazed at just how brave something as seemingly funny and innocent as a cartoon could take on something as huge as the Church of Scientology, and with grace, simplicity, and biting wit, holding a severe mirror up to our own shivering folly.
8 When those guys told me about this Southpark episode over soup at Joe's, I just laughed at the absurdity. But when I watched it, I thought of just how easily people can get caught up in something, and how easily steered many of us are.
9 So yeah.
10 I'll stay on that one. I always have. It was just nice to see something as seemingly cartoonish as Southpark tackling issues like brainwashing and mind control so absolutely bravely, and so right on the money.
11 At first, when Ray and Jose began telling me about it all, I wanted to join. I thought I could find spiritual cleansing and wonderfulness if only I'd listen to the likes of John Travolta and Tom Cruise.
12 When I heard that spirits were captured, frozen, and dropped into a volcano in Hawaii, I thought of immediately doing some worshipping.
13 Okay, I wasn't serious. But THAT'S how absurd some of our pursuits often are.
14 We often move through life blindly, I imagine.
15 Happens.
16 That episode of Southpark just timed perfectly with things going on in my own life, and maybe in many of yours.
17 We just get so caught up in self-destructive things, thinking they will be the answer to it all. Some of us stray, thinking that we know more than our families, or our friends, who sit and watch off to the side, painfully waiting for us to come to our senses, for us to return to the things that are real, and genuine.
18 Whether it's a religion, or drugs, or booze, or an amazing interest, or maybe a person we think we love, or maybe what we think is just THE answer to it all, we often get lost and lose our way, pushing others out of our lives along our spiritual or enlightened path to happiness. It rarely works. It rarely works. And one morning we wake up, and see that what we have is completely empty. And the word echoes.
19 Empty.
20 It's a mess, I tellya.
21 Anyway, that's what the DN is all about this fine, rainy Monday.
22 And to Jose, Peter, and Ray, I thank you for taking me on a journey through madness, and I sure as Hell am glad I didn't join.
23 Sometimes we just need friends to save us from ourselves. I think I've aged around 90 years in the past three weeks.
Oh well the Touch of Grey
Kinda suits you anyway
That is all I have to say, but
It's all right...
---The Grateful Dead
24 That is all.
25 Peace.
~H~
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