The Faux Pas Press #34: Catholic Crap

23 May 2010

The Faux Pas Press #34

By Jason Fresh

Catholic Crap

Catholics now claim Copernicus.

The 80’s hair metal band, Cinderella, blares from the interior of a TransAm wielding a crossed phoenix on its hood. The lyrics are memorable – especially timely for such an untimely gesture by the biggest, repeat, the biggest joke of an organization on the planet. You guessed it. I’m talking about the Catholic Church.

Just two days ago you’ve got the Archbishop of Northern Brazil arrested from maintaining a sex dungeon in the basement of a monastery. You’ve got the Catholic Diocese (why don’t we just call them what they are – syndicates – local posts in a crime network), these people up in Massachusetts complaining about the state requiring them to admit homosexual students, and you’ve got other robe wearing fuckers reburying a man once condemned for doing what was morally right. Now, I hate to say this, but coming from a kid whose dad roamed around a suburban home dressed in a one-piece Mormon Temple garment scratching his balls every which way, I’m beginning to feel like my religion is pretty normal. The Catholics win the award on Sunday, May 23rd. Way to go fuckers. The song lyrics? “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” And if I was a big enough douche bag (and I’m pretty douched) it would be me behind the steering wheel singing, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone!!” If God is alive in organizations like these then so is the devil, friends.

Copernicus was a John Galt, he was hero, a veritable sage in his own time but died and was placed in an unmarked grave – until now. Frombork, Poland is a wonderful place where heroes are buried 500 years after they’ve been denounced. This is where the grave of Copernicus is now found. I imagine it is right next to a cavern of filth where alter boys enact a live-action role play of atonement. Magnificent, don’t you think? These poor alter boys will have to come to the sad realization, as will the Whore of All The Earth, that the Earth and humanity are not at the center of the Universe. For that matter, nor is the Catholic Church. They will have to revere a man now, revere him for what mankind is supposed to do, revere him for behaving the way humans are supposed to behave – reasonably. We are supposed to think, supposed to calculate, supposed to labor and counter our own theories with scientific facts. If it were not for Copernicus we would not be looking out into space. Does this make since to you people? Are you too busy tying up alter boys down in the basement?

So, this is how it went down. A local Polish bishop decides to urge scientists back in early 2004 for the bones of a 70-year-old man. This is the age of Copernicus when he died. Scientists later verified the findings through DNA testing. This is all fine and good – and proud we are of all of them, right? But what the hell? This is worse than Mormons performing post-mortem baptisms for celebrities so that Michael Jackson will go to the Celestial Kingdom. This is certainly worse than the U.S. Army reacting at the behest of a Facebook page to award a 147 year-old Medal of Honor. This is atrocious. This is catholic crap.

Here is the deal. If you appreciate someone then tell them. If you are alive then live. Don’t make things worse by making it seem like you’re atoning for shit that happened 500 years ago when you’ve got Brazilian alter boys being locked up and taking it up the ass. As far as I’m concerned, do what you want with the 70 year-old skull. Fix your organization or you are not going to have one. I promise. The Vatican didn’t appreciate Galileo when he was alive. They will probably neglect findings of the great thinkers today also. You think?

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

www.fauxpaspress.com

The Faux Pas Press #33: Faster

22 May 2010

The Faux Pas Press #33

By Jason Fresh

Faster

When the chosen few, both in America and abroad, become a Marie Antoinette-like keepers of their own pasts (i.e. going to high school reunions, talking about Joe Montana hitting Dwight Clark to win the Super Bowl over 25 years ago, reminiscing with the gals from your senior class just to ‘catch up’ when you’re really taking a detailed inventory of who is scoring more loot, or talking about that time the guy at the place with the thingy) then what you’ve got on your hands is a world unprepared for the sweeping changes coming down the pipe. You’ve got a bunch of fat people sucking on the tit of a few hard-working people. Get faster, fatty. Get faster.

Like any pivotal moment in history - the rise of Napoleon to power over the First French Republic, the creation of the military industrial complex and the most prosperous ten years in American history (1950’s), or invention of the glue gun (the unsung hero of American ingenuity) – he who moves the slowest at key historical points (just like in a game of chess) loses. Now, I know that most of us, shopping at the store on the weekend, creeping around the shopping mall looking at other chics, jerking off in front of a glowing computer screen, most of us are hung up on the past, on the feeling of being OKAY. But guess what folks? No matter what the stock analysts tell you, no matter how much you’re paying tithing to your church, how many pancakes you can put into your bloated fucking belly – things are not okay. I repeat. Everything is not okay.

I once listened to the story of a woman who lost her right arm and spent 5 years in a coma because a drunk driver. She has since decided to spend the rest of her life with MADD talking about the dangers of drunk driving (a worthy way to spend a life and, sadly, a message that falls on far too many deaf ears). I remember her saying, “You know I forgive the man who was driving. We’re ‘friends’ now. It is all about fate, you know.” Now, I spoke up in the auditorium. “Excuse me, madam, madaaamm!!!! If the gods, the dreaded fates controlled our destiny, then what the hell is you addressing us today going to change anything?” A few co-workers looked at me in disgust (a usual occurrence in my life) and wondered why I would call this person out. Well, I’ll tell you why I called the one-armed woman out about issues of fate, destiny, the will of the gods. I called her out because it is not true. If you can stand back from yourself and your experience for just a minute you would see the battlefield raging beneath you, your neighbors waltzing all over the place talking about vacations and shit, and you would say to yourself, “If I am going to do anything with this experience, I am going to stop fucking around here. I am going to buck up. Quit buying into other people’s ideas, never enter another shopping mall, never eat at another fast food joint, cook my own food, stop depending on this systems around me to live, let my baby-booming folks fend for themselves and die in whatever way suits them, and get a fucking clue.” If I were living this standard, you’d see me making all my decision based upon fact, logic, and reason. You’d see me telling a lot more people to go fuck themselves – though I already tell many. I repeat everything is not okay. But you, you alone have the power to change things.

Now, I don’t know how much I buy into the 4 Noble Truths but I do know that there is suffering. Most of the suffering I have seen in the world is caused by the individual reacting to every emotional pulse around him.

You need to be careful not become a Napoleon I on the cozy thrown. You need to get faster folks. It is time to loose all of your weight (psychological, emotional, spiritual, and material). Great change is moving. Get in shape – get faster. Get off that thrown Napoleon and get ready for the shit.

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

www.fauxpaspress.com

fauxpaspress@yahoo.com

The Faux Pas Press #32: Smoking Plywood

The Faux Pas Press #32

21 May 2010

By Jason Fresh

Smoking Plywood

“You must be smoking something. What you been smoking, dude?” I speak to my fellow Americans with the intonation of a Brooklyn cab driver - although I am not from the East Coast and have only driven passengers for money on a handful of occasions.

I’m wondering how we got ourselves into the international tip-toe dance with a bunch of clueless South Korean and North Korean military officials. “Have you been smoking plywood, you Almond Joy-eating Tax Leeches?” Also, and most importantly, I just want to give a Thank You to a wonderful Scorpio mother of two, Bill and Chelsea, a well-intentioned power whore, but a clearly unprepared Secretary of State on her recent visit to the East. After doing as much research on the occasion as my rectum could withstand, I considered tearing off a piece of the plywood table here at the Seaside Public Library, buying a crack pipe from the one of the city’s vagrants, and lighting a chunk of the good stuff – I’m talking ‘bout that plywood, baby. Whew! You know, I just want to smoke what the heads of state are smoking - mostly South Korean President Lee. Not because I want to get high. No, I just want to understand how these guys think. You know what I’m saying, dude?

So, we send Hilary Clinton to do this job? Great! Who are we going to send next? Glen Beck, the Tea Party? Maybe the North Koreans will stand down, drink some Soju or smoke plywood with me after a couple of minutes listening to those folks talk to each other. “God is the center, I say, the center of my life. The family is sacred, the family is sacred. I say the blessed family is the divine central unit of society. Obama is SSOOO stupid. Isn’t Obama stupid? Have you read Thomas Paine? Oh, you haven’t? I have.”

No, seriously, Hilary Clinton is going to resolve a conflict that stood for over half a century? It pains me to say this, but you got a better shot sending my nemesis, The Korean. He may be a Soju-drinking sonofagun with a three-inch pecker, but at least he talks that devil Korean talk!!! Tarnation! Whew!!!!!

You know what. I’ve got a better idea. As long as we’re sending America’s most qualified emissaries to resolve conflicts in the Yellow Sea, why don’t we send pop sensation Justin Bieber? Baby, baby, baby, OHHHHHH!!! No sense talking about prudence like South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, has decided. Oh, wait, let’s go make those bastards pay for what they did to our naval vessel TWO MONTHS ago!!!! Now, I know that it is kind of a challenge to make decisive, military choices when the majority of people are worried about little details like say, umm, eating, but…..really? President Lee, come on, dude? Let us commence, brother. If you don’t get something done soon, the Americans will send over a kid who can not only sing, dance, and play the drums, but a kid who is apparently blacker than Eminem, a little, bad Justin Bieber who will come over there and whhhoooopppp somebody’s aaaassssss. Okaaaayyyyy? Baby, baby, baby, OOHHHHHH!!!!

Lee says, “A boxer in the ring would only get hit with the cloves.” Come on, man. As Michael Madsen’s character says in the 90’s heist flick, Reservoir Dogs, “Are you going to bark all day, little doggy, or are you going to bite?” We’re waiting on the U.S. Secretary of State? Are you smoking plywood? The North Koreans killed your people – 46 to be exact. This is just like when I got my ass whooped by Josh Perkins in the 5th grade. Was I going to go home and get my mom??? Hell no. I either had to put up or shut up. Everyone knows I got my ass whooped again the second time too. But the third time? Guess what? Josh Perkins never messed with me again. He’s a barista at the Bagdad Café in the Castro District now. It is time to send North Korea back into port – covered in flames, drenched in combustible oils or it is most certainly time to shut the hell up (or at least quiet down so I can watch E! Chelsea Lately. “Oh my god. I’m drunk. I’m so drunk. Mediocre is cool, right? I’ve got a down-syndrome Mexican dude on my show. I’m soooo LA trash.”)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going out to my 2005 Chrysler Sebring to smoke some plywood.

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

fauxpaspress@yahoo.com

www.fauxpaspress.com

The Faux Pas Press #31: Honorable Dead

20 May 2010

The Faux Pas Press #31

By Jason Fresh

Honorable Dead

It was reported today that Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing of the Union Army, a man who perished from a Confederate bullet wound, will now, at long last, receive the highest military honor that our country has to offer, The Medal of Honor. I have also decided to award the Department of the Army, Captain Shapiro of the U.S. Air Force, and finally, the parents of Alonzo Cushing.

I will, in kind, award the highest honor I have to offer. This is an honor that is not only revered by me, myself, and I, but also by thousands of tiny ants that I talk to, little insignificant insects that live in ant mound near my home in Hawaii. Now, this award will be presented at The Faux Pas Press and in front of the ants that support it. I reference the ants because I can only imagine what Gettysburg must have looked like to the American God when he watched his children slaughter each other in the hands of a government that would wait 147 years to honor its dead.

I have to imagine that the Lieutenant, in retrospect would holler, “Go screw yourself. What did I die for again? Progress? For a president who ‘freed the slaves’ yet violated major tenants of the Constitution I swore to defend. I died at the canon’s mouth so that future generations could send me one last middle finger by petitioning the Army through a Facebook page? Thanks but no thanks.” (This is actually what I would say if I were Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing. He’s more heroic than me. He probably said something that resembles King Leonidas or Mr. T. The fact that he did what he could with 110 men in the face of sure extinction is beyond all definitions of heroism or stupidity. This all depends on how you look at it. If you’re the American Consumer Christian God, you might wonder why he didn’t go out wearing something more fashionable.)

First, my friends, neighbors, and countrymen, I have to give a Thank You to the Department of the Army for making me laugh and ask, “How long will it take you to honor the victorious, honorable, and righteous dead that you’ve leeched off for the last decade? The poor and the hungry from America’s ghettos and countryside? How long will it take for my American Brothers and Sisters to get their due when you can’t even find a rich kid from Saudi Arabia? Thanks for giving one of the bravest men in our history the Medal of Honor, but I give you a healthy middle finger for neglecting to give our boys the right gear, the right armor, and the right intelligence.” Those boys in the Union Army, like 22 year-old Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, must have felt pretty insignificant too. Yeah, so I talk to ants. I’m a crazy dude who talks to ants with a clear conscience. How about you U.S. Army?”

Second, as I stated previously, I would like to give The Thank You to Captain Phil Shapiro. I say, “Dear Dr. Phil, it brings me great comfort to know that tax dollars go to free time. Surfing the web on government coin is pretty heroic too. I guess, ummm, thanks? I now know that I’ve got a better chance of getting policy pushed through the military on Facebook than I do through my chain of command. Thanks for your service, Dr. Phil. You’ll probably get some face time with the brass, you Blue Falcon.”

Third, I say, in the light of giving 147 year-old awards, “Thank You, Mr. and Mrs. Cushing, for not only grooming your son to die along side thousands of his countrymen, not only Thank You for helping us create the amazing nation that we live in today, a nation free of corruption, free of hypocrisy, and free of people who read and understand the Constitution. I would just like to, at the same time, thank you for giving your other sons regular names while giving Alonzo the name of my bartender at El Bandito Cantina. Thank You.

Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing represents the best of us. What are we doing with the Alonzo Cushing’s of today? Love your neighbor as yourself, quit thirsting for power, and live happily.

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

fauxpaspress@yahoo.com

The Faux Pas Press #30: Sophia on Sundays

18 April 2010

The Faux Pas Press #30

By Jason Fresh

Sophia on Sundays

Recommend a path to your brother, and he will choose the other. Recommend solitude to your mother, and she will find a lover. Recommend both to yourself and take them and you will surely find it, the truth on which you long to hover. Sophia spends the recycled energy that she whirls away from the ocean and stars; she gives the energy to he who can be still.

Man, I don’t know where half of this shit comes from but I like it. I sound just like a prophet, don’t I? I think the great poets of history just started spitting shit out and writing it down: Kerouac, Whitman, Tennyson, Ginsberg, LL Cool J and Lil Wayne. All these poets brought it – whatever the hell ‘IT’ is. Do you ever wonder if being a poet means to be the biggest fraud amongst your neighbors?

Take Monterey, for instance. If I write poetry, say what comes to my mind, hold on to my solitude and look lonely and pensive. Women think I’m interesting and want to talk to me. People think I’m brave and interesting. Children want their fathers to be fun like me.

I have not told this to very many – my wife met me write after I finished writing The Apostate Hymns. “What a fun and creative man,” she thought. She also thought it would be really fun to sleep with me. It was really fun for awhile. Of course now, like the vast majority of women discover about their choices, they were not choices founded on reason and logic, they were founded on the whims of romance and deceit. She must have forgotten that I met her at The Britannia Arms British Pub, a genuine shit hole. (No offense to the staff who work there. Hard-working folks who provide prompt service. But the ownership can lick a horse’s ass.) She now has to live with a man who has a hereditary disposition to addiction, a hairy ass, and pathetically small penis. Congratulations, Liz.

I thumbed through this book on magic yesterday. And when I say ‘thumbed’ I really mean used my speed-reading techniques to complete the book in under 45 minutes so I didn’t have to purchase it. Yes, I ‘thumbed’ through an over-priced The Philosophy of Magic by Arthur Verslius. In it he discusses the vast disconnect between the Modern Man and the ancient Hermetic traditions. He also introduced a concept to me, a concept called Sophiology. This is a philosophical concept pertaining to wisdom, godly wisdom, I guess. Some say that Sophia was the Bride of Christ. I don’t want anyone to think I’m peculiar or New Age, a damn mushroom-eating mountain goat, but I had this vision on Sunday when I feel asleep at a coffee shop called Café Lumiere. This is funny. I always have visions from the beyond around this time of year, May 16 -19.

I saw Sophia standing alone in a smoky pub. She was standing on a barstool. She was poised like in a drawing and introduced herself to me. She appeared again while I was reading Mr. Verslius’ book - not on a barstool but in the pages of the book, not an apparition but literally in the book. Crazy.

Two years ago I viewed an apparition while running along the bike trail of Monterey and Pacific Grove. I saw Jesus standing on a cloud. Most people didn’t believe me. Maybe because I write crazy shit on a regular basis, maybe they are used to it.

Either way – you tell your brother to take a path and he takes the other, you tell your mother to know solitude and she finds a lover, and if you, yourself take both then you will find it, the truth on which you long to hover.

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

fauxpaspress@yahoo.com

The Faux Pas Press #29: Monterey

THE FAUX PAS PRESS #29

By Jason Fresh

13 APRIL 2010

I come to the Great City of Monterey because I have to – not just because the Federal Government requires but because I require it. I come to Monterey because I have to. There are not many other places in the Land of the Brave for an insightful person to find himself. Where else does he go?

There are not too many places on this planet where the disenfranchised American geek can swim around in a foreign language extravaganza. I can think of few schools besides DLI that pay the individual, board him, and teach him all at once. For a curious, academically able, socially awkward student from Allen, Texas or Pueblo, Colorado, Monterey and the Defense Language Institute provide what he may very well have been searching for his entire life: a community of pretentious but well-intentioned foreign language snobs, a marketable skill, and a fucking pay check. If he is successful at DLI, he will also have time to wonder the historic, ghostly corners of this ancient Mexican capital. Doing so will provide him answers to his questions and questions to his answers. A never-ending cycle of completion.

I found my ghosts here. I faced every last demon here. I danced my own dance here.

The man wearing a stripped green shirt is talking to himself and eating spaghetti. He uses plenty of salt and pepper. There is only one barista I know of in the Monterey Bay who can handle him, only one who doesn’t have to make funny hand signals or dance a Samba to get an intelligible response. That same barista served me a coffee in a green plastic cup to match my green pencil pouch. Look at me. I’m so hip and green living in Monterey. Everybody has got a fucking green bag. Oh, shit. I hope that someone with a green bag doesn’t see me writing this and peg me for the asshole that I am.

I listen to post-rock music here. Like a soundtrack to something fantastic that never happens. Like an impossible connection I’ve been trying to make since I came here. If completion is what you’re look for then come to Monterey. Some girl will call you beautiful a couple of time because she is lonely, you’ll face your worst fears an turn them to bravery, you’ll go deeper into the red kelp of the Pacific Coast, and you might even impregnate a woman who will become your wife, leaving all kinds of loose ends to tie up so they won’t haunt you for the rest of your life.

There also people to avoid here. I swear that this black, homeless, fat man among hippies, this guy that walks these streets has lost like 200lbs. Homeless people can’t afford to be fat when the Everyman is skinny. The Everyman is skinny – at least here in Monterey. It doesn’t really send a good message when times are tough for America – being a fat, homeless man in Monterey. I’ve lost weight since I came here. Not too much weight. But I figured the homeless are losing weight – so should I. I guess I come to Monterey because I have to. I need it. I need me some Monterey. 58 days sober today. Won’t be throwing them back at The Mucky Duck though – might go there for 50% off of appetizers.

The Faux Pas Press #28: Mother's Day

Here is little Lola on Mother's Day. She has decided to feed herself.

A little something that could prove useful for her in the future. She's doing great - don't you think?

09 May 2010

The Faux Pas Press #28

Mother’s Day

To Denise

You might find it hard to believe.

You can’t set boundaries with a man who wants nothing from you. There are no names to call.

I’m sorry that you’ve experienced abuse. But you can’t deliver he who needs no deliverance, and for the sake of deliverance, I would like to write a few words today that begin with my feelings. The first thing that I feel today is abundant. Is that okay for you? The next thing I feel today is truth. Is that okay? Am I crossing any boundaries? The next thing I feel is happy.

It makes me happy to write and not spiral down a tunnel of self-destruction, down the spiral of Virgil and the voyage to the center of hell. It feels good to preserve myself. I am reporting 54 days, 54 beautiful days in the face challenge, 54 days on life’s terms, 54 days without the use of powerful market sigils. No drugs, no tobacco, no alcohol. You’d never know that I’ve got Chambers and Carroll in me.

These are the manifestations of a truly painful process that might have led others to severe addiction. I am angry that molestation occurred and that there were few around who placed me at a pinnacle of support when I needed it. Sometimes I feel angry that there where not enough people who wanted to encourage me to achieve my dreams, angry that I’ve had to go it alone, angry that my own family was unable to give me solid council, angry that I’ve had to go it alone. I’m angry that I’ve fathered my father and played husband to my mother.

I have faced those who have discouraged me. It hurts that these people are in the family to which I was born. Sometimes I feel angry that Uncle Joe and the Great Adam’s Family Monster was so wrapped in pioneer indignation, so wrapped in sickness, so obsessed with the weakness in others that it denounced Hercules when he was amongst them. This is the case with you. It is painful to think that you might be withering away in suffering. I am not co-dependent. So, you will have to suffer alone. If you need support you should consider a personal trainer or even just a regular job at a supermarket or something. Hard labor is good. No shame in it. Oh, the world does not revolve around one person’s demands, but it will respond to one person’s influence.

When the voices of my past have settled I feel happy – mostly because it is freeing. I am embarrassed at the wayward jolt of familial tension – trips to the supermarket to buy frozen meat, canned goods stored in the basement of a house where all the druggy kids lived, a tour de shit with an older brother who was crying out for help all the days of life and no one to give a damn. I can not be the Jesus you hoped I would be. But I will be the Savior of my family. Lola and Liz will always be able to depend on me. I am responsible and in love with them.

I wished a woman Happy Mother’s Day today. I did it willingly. I am grateful for that – a sign of healing. I thought it would be good news for you too. I hope that you don’t do what you normally did or what I’m used to you doing. Please take it. It is all I have to give you. I am happy, I am a father, I am sober, I am not alone, I am growing, I am wealthy, I am proud of what my life means. Thank you for your role in it – not because you were good but because I’m better for it.

Green Lights,

J. Fresh

fauxpaspress@yahoo.com