In yesterday's post, I published a photograph of lovely Christian gentleman and his informative sign listing all of the groups of people who will be judged harshly by God. Here, again, is a closeup of his sign:
In my previous post, I helpfully turned this poster into an easy-to-read list and my readers responded--by determining how many of these categories are going to contribute to their own eternal damnation.
However, as you may recall, there were two groups that Fosco couldn't quite read. With the help of some new bionic eyes (and some other pix of this guy from other sources), Fosco is pleased to announce that he can now complete the list:
ADDITIONAL People Who Will Be Judged (Presumably Unfavorably) By God
Thieves
Ankle Biters (what does that even mean?)
Do these additions cause any revisions in your personal number, readers? (Especially if any of you are small dogs...)
Unless you live in a college town, you may not be familiar with yesterday's 4/20 holiday (it's "clever" because yesterday's date was 4/20). It's that day of the year when pot smokers come together at 4:20 PM to celebrate "cannabis culture" by smoking up--often in public. It is a particularly popular holiday at two major US public universities (as noted in this article in the NY Times): University of Colorado at Boulder and (wait for it) Fosco's own University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). In fact, the holiday has become so closely associated with UCSC that a picture of UCSC's 4/20 event is used to illustrate the 4/20 entry on Wikipedia. (And yes, the above picture is of UCSC's mascot, the Banana Slug, smoking pot.)
The event has always been unsanctioned by UCSC, of course. However, as the holiday has become larger and more public in recent years, the UCSC administration has become more concerned about the questionable PR. This year, UCSC sent an email to the parents of all first-year students asking them to discourage their sons or daughters from participating. As the email suggested (with keen insight into the mind of today's youth):
"I encourage you to talk with your student about his or her plans for 4/20. Ask direct questions about the choices they make and express your expectations regarding marijuana, alcohol or other drug use. Although students may not initiate discussion on this topic, your opinions and expectations can influence their behavior."
"Golly, Beaver, I sure hope you aren't planning to take the pot on April 20th. Remember that anyone who offers you drugs is not a true friend."
But that was just Prong ONE of UCSC's two-pronged attack on 4/20. Prong TWO was to essentially shut down the campus for the whole afternoon, in an attempt to prevent easy access to the Porter College Meadow (traditional home of the gathering). This meant shutting down the bus routes, closing the West Entrance to campus, and beefing up parking enforcement. Of course, there was added benefit of inconveniencing any non-pot-smokers who remained on campus: "Can't get home? Blame the potheads!"
Normally, Fosco would strenuously avoid an event like this, considering that he considers any group larger than twenty-five people to be an unpleasantly large crowd. And when that group is made up of pot-smoking hippies... well, let's just say that Fosco has aesthetic objections to "cannabis culture." However, this year found Fosco in class at Porter College until 4 PM on 4/20. Essentially, Fosco was a within an easy quarter-mile walk of the whole gathering: could his inner anthropologist resist a glimpse of the spectacle? Would a giant crowd of pot-smoking hippies be enough to convince Fosco to stay on campus for an extra half hour?
Yes, of course, I went to look. You would have too. And this is what I saw...
By 4 PM, the people walking toward Porter Meadow had become a steady line (see Monterey Bay in the background?).
It's kind of like watching pot-loving ants, no? And look at the smoke cloud.
Here's a view of the line looking back from the Meadow:
One thing I didn't mention yet: this was the hottest day we've had this year. It was 97 fucking degrees. (And yes, even with my canteen of water, I was regretting the quarter-mile walk by this point--anthropology is hard.) Of course, the heat did give the Santa Cruz Sentinel the opportunity to use the "twice-baked" pun in their coverage, so I suppose it was worth it.
One option for beating the heat was to smoke in the woods that surrounds the meadow:
Other heat-beating options I observed: umbrellas, parasols, shirtlessness, sweating profusely. These photos were taken around 4:05 or so--note the giant crowd and smoke cloud.
For the first time in the history of UCSC's 4/20 event, there were some party-crashers: local Christian nutballs showed up with signs to protest. Seriously!
Don't these guys have something better to do? Like picketing AIDS funerals? Or throwing blood on abortion doctors?
This guy was my favorite:
Who would have thought that God could hate so many things! Luckily, this guy has made a list for us. Can we go to a closeup? Yes?
Let's just take a moment and convert this sign into a list.
People Who Will Be Judged (Presumably Unfavorably) By God
All Non-Homemakers (wow, I bet these guys get lots of dates)
Party Animals
Drunkards
Jesus Mockers
And Catholics...
Whew. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of God I could really get into. Watch out, Sports Nuts.
Anyway... the golden moment, 4:20 PM PDT, finally arrived and the smoke got even thicker:
These pictures don't quite capture the moment adequately--for one thing, you can't hear all of the drums. Consequently, allow me to offer the brief video that I recorded (and uploaded to YouTube):
Sadly, I cannot make this experience available to you in "Smell-O-Vision" because, as my college roommate David noted, the whole thing "must have smelled unspeakably awful." I cannot disagree.
All in all, I managed to stave off incipient heat-stroke until about 4:30 when I gave up and walked back to my car at Porter. I wasn't the only one leaving:
Caption: "We'll always have these stupid memories."
Walking back, I passed the only official UCSC presence at the event:
And what did I learn? Well, for one thing, I thought there would actually be a more communal atmosphere at this thing. I had envisioned people passing joints and conversing. Instead, everyone just broke up into their own friend groups--and most of them weren't actually very nice about it. I had kinda been expecting to be offered some smoke (not that I would have indulged), but that didn't seem to be the vibe. I've been to much friendlier football tailgates. And I've had more pot offered to me at concerts.
For another thing, I wonder how many actual UCSC students were there. Walking down, I was in front of a group from Berkeley. In the Sentinel coverage, they interviewed students from everywhere but UCSC: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, CSU-Monterey Bay, Cabrillo College. N.B., some kid from Berkeley was named in the Sentinel coverage as "Skittles." Delightful! Also suprising: I didn't see anyone I knew there. I've been at this school for three years and have a pretty large circle of acquaintances: colleagues, grad students, current students, former students, etc. Of course, it's possible that my students saw and avoided me...
Random 4/20 observations:
You could not pay me enough to eat the vegan food being sold onsite by the Hare Krishnas.
Hippie guys are not very attractive.
God is surprisingly wrathful. That's probably bad news for my afterlife plans.
Too many people brought their dogs (which are prohibited on campus). And too many of them were pit bulls.
I thought there would be more music (of the non-bongo variety). Where were all the people I saw walking with acoustic guitars?
It was SO FUCKING HOT.
All in all, I think I learned some important lessons. And I hope that I have created a precious anthropological record--especially for those of you who wonder what undergrad life is like nowadays.
Governor Sunshine's post-impeachment press conference was absolutely thrilling, especially the desperation that sneaks into his voice as he offers to play basketball with some local kid. This is fun of the highest order.
But, there were actually loads of other neat items in the news today. Here's a roundup:
File under "good news." As per Defamer, Jeffrey Tambor assures "Arrested Development" fans that Michael Cera will definitely participate in the AD movie. Cera's participation had been in question, but Pop Pop has confidence that he can persuade Cera if necessary. Fosco once saw Mr. Tambor live (when Fosco was a member of the studio audience of "Regis and Kathie Lee"--don't ask) and his personal charisma is considerable. I believe he can make this movie happen.
According to Deadspin, the email tells the heart-warming story of "Kurtis and Brenda," two crazy kids with little in common except an inexplicable physical attraction and a burning love for Christ. The email plays up lots of more Christian-y aspects of the couple's courtship (yet is curiously silent on the subject of saddlebacking). The best part of the story, however, is all the basic facts that it gets wrong, and usually in such a way as to make the story less interesting (oddly enough). Here's a quote from the Deadspin piece:
Brenda was never a checkout girl. She met Kurt when he was still in college and before his career took its unfortunate turn for the worse. (She actually stuck with him, despite his many football failures.) They were together five years before they got married, not one. Her son, Zachary, is actually her oldest child and he doesn't have Down's Syndrome. His birth father dropped him on his head when he was an infant, leading to brain damage and blindness. (The trauma of that incident let to the father leaving Brenda, while she was pregnant with her second child.) Also, left out: the tornado that killed Brenda's parents in 1996; the spider bite that cost Kurt a tryout with the Bears; and Brenda's first career as a freakin' Marine.
Wow. Put that all together and I think you have the best white trash epic since The Grapes of Wrath.
And that Steinbeck reference provides a nice segue to this bit of local news from the San Jose Mercury News. A restaurant war on Monterey's Fisherman's Wharf has erupted and it's gotten nasty. Apparently, the hosts at one restaurant have been dumping another restaurant's pagers into the ocean. It happens like this (now follow along here, it gets a little complicated):
Prospective customers go to Restaurant 1 where they are placed on a waitlist and given a pager.
Prospective customers walk along the wharf while they wait for their pager to summon them.
Prospective customers are accosted by the host at Restaurant 2 who notes that they can be seated immediately at said Restaurant 2.
When the prospective customers agree to be seated at Restaurant 2, the host at Restaurant 2 claims that he/she will return the unneeded pager to Restaurant 1.
Restaurant 2 host does not return the pager, but rather drops it into into Monterey Bay, where it immediately becomes a choking hazard for curious sea lions. Okay, I made up the sea lion part.
Believe it or not, this sequence of events was established in a sting by two undercover police officers (Monterey doesn't have drugs or murder, apparently). A diver(!) "reportedly discovered seven pagers on the sea floor under [Restaurant 2]. During another dive, three more pagers were found."
Ideas are resilient things; they never die. Even when an idea goes out of style (no matter how deservedly) it will always return at some point in the future. Otherwise, how to explain the popularity of things like leeches or swing dancing? While this may be comforting news to someone like Fosco who loves out-of-style ideas like Baked Alaska and Communism, it also means that all of history's bad ideas are (at most) only a decade or so away from revival.
Even though Fosco (mostly) believes this theory, he wasn't exactly expecting the recent return of Calvinism. (For those of you who are godless heathens, that's theological Calvinism, not illustrational Calivinism.) Theological Calvinism maintains, among other things, that (and Fosco is no theologian here, so please cut me some slack) individual salvation was determined in advance by God and there is nothing that a human being can do to affect their eternal fate. Some are predestined for heaven; some are predestined for hell. And there's nothing anyone can do about (including understanding why God would even do such a thing).
Calvinists arrive at this conclusion through the belief that there is nothing at all redeemable about humans, that they are corrupted through and through. So naturally, there is no way that a human could ever do anything that would result in pleasing God. Ergo, anyone who ends up in heaven must do so contingent on God's unknowable pleasure, rather than as a reward for anything that could be done on earth. It's kind of like a supernatural lottery. Actually, it's exactly like a supernatural lottery. And as religious faiths go, it's not exactly one of the warm and fuzzy ones.
You might think that such a faith would be radically out-of-touch with any but the most annoying of contemporary Christians. Well, you're right. But it seems that there are a lot more of these annoying people than you expected. According to a profile in Sunday's NYTimes Magazine, Calvinism is making a comeback, especially among youth in major urban centers like Seattle. According to the piece, one of the stars of the movement is Mark Driscoll:
Driscoll, who is 38, is on the cutting edge of American pop culture. Yet his message seems radically unfashionable, even un-American: you are not captain of your soul or master of your fate but a depraved worm whose hard work and good deeds will get you nowhere, because God marked you for heaven or condemned you to hell before the beginning of time. Yet a significant number of young people in Seattle — and nationwide — say this is exactly what they want to hear. Calvinism has somehow become cool, and just as startling, this generally bookish creed has fused with a macho ethos.
A macho Calvinism? What the hell would that look like? It's worse than you think:
On that Sunday, Driscoll preached for an hour and 10 minutes — nearly three times longer than most pastors. As hip as he looks, his message brooks no compromise with Seattle’s permissive culture. New members can keep their taste in music, their retro T-shirts and their intimidating facial hair, but they had better abandon their feminism, premarital sex and any “modern” interpretations of the Bible. Driscoll is adamantly not the “weepy worship dude” he associates with liberal and mainstream evangelical churches, “singing prom songs to a Jesus who is presented as a wuss who took a beating and spent a lot of time putting product in his long hair.”
Ummm. Okay. Fosco would just like to point out that, based on all the pictures we have, Jesus' hair is a bit too long for product--you really can't style hair of that length. As if product would have held up in that heat, anyway!
Sick of this guy yet? It gets better:
The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”
Richard Simmons! (Incidentally, Richard Simmons is another man whose hair is not amenable to product.) You know, I tend to think that if Jesus was worried about comparisons to Richard Simmons, He probably wouldn't have kept forcing his disciples to weigh in while telling everyone to "love your neighbor as yourself, girl!" I think it's also worth pointing out that Richard Simmons has already sent fifteen people to hell (mostly drifters). But seriously, just when you think Christianity can't get any more homophobic, some nuts go and "out" Jesus.
Of course, all of this macho Jesus shit is going to sound just a little familiar to any of you who have studied Victorian culture. Back then, it was called muscular Christianity and it celebrated physical activity and manliness as Christian virtue. It was also an influential movement in the US. As far as Fosco knows, it wasn't a particularly Calvinist thing; however, in the same way that ideas never die, they also endlessly recombine to form stupid new remixes.
Next week's stupid remix: Jews for Jesus. Oh wait, that's real. Ummm. How about compassionate Conservatism? Oh really? That one's real too? Gee. Maybe "lesbians who love being teabagged"? Does that work?
While Fosco is indeed an atheist, he's not too big on the recent trend of public advertisements for atheism. Here is the new bus campaign in England:
I guess I just find it hard to believe that a person's religious belief will be adequately shaken enough by such glibness to produce any change. For most people in society (i.e., those of us raised in a religious tradition of some sort), atheism tends to be the fruit of a long scholarly path and a period of serious intellectual honesty, not something that one adopts because of a bus ad.
Now if the ads were aimed more at questioning the role of religion in public discourse, I think they might be more useful and have more clear effects. Something like: "God Shouldn't Be Our Prime Minister" or "Jesus and I Should Stay Out of Your Personal Life" (oh dear, those are terrible, aren't they?). I think people's attitudes about what is appropriate in public discourse are more easily swayed, mainly because I think the norms of appropriate public discourse are currently in transition.
That being said, I do like the part about "Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life." That's good advice for atheists and nonatheists alike.
You may have noticed that Fosco has had a Catholic bee in his bonnet lately. Mostly, this is because of Fosco's anger at Catholic support for Prop H8. While this current story is not about Prop H8, Fosco thinks it clearly illustrates the kind of coercive tactics that the Catholic Church now uses on its members in order to influence politics in the (supposedly secular) public sphere.
That's right, a parish priest is asking his parishioners to confess if they voted for Obama:
A Roman Catholic priest has told parishioners they should confess if they voted for Barack Obama because the president-elect supports abortion.
The Rev. Joseph Illo says his parishioners at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto shouldn't risk losing their "state of grace" by receiving communion sacrilegiously. He delivered the message in a Nov. 21 letter and during mass.
"Father" Illo then goes on to note that voting for Obama would qualify as a "mortal sin." A mortal sin, as per Aquinas, is one that would exclude the sinner from heaven (if not confessed and repented).
First things first. "Father" Illo is a douchebag.
Second, let's take a minute and unpack this whole thing a bit. This is actually a remarkable move on "Father" Illo's part. Note, this is not the Catholic Church supporting a specific policy proposal (such as a ban on abortions or, say, gay marriage). While Fosco may disagree with the Church's position of these issues, he can understand how the Church may choose to urge Catholic voters to adopt the Catholic position in voting on these issues (of course, threatening any Catholic with damnation for their vote is repulsive). But this is not just about voting on a specific issue, rather, the Church here is weighing in on a candidate--a candidate who (like almost any political candidate) holds complex views on policy. "Father" Illo has essentially reduced Barack Obama to a pro-abortion caricature.
This is wrong for several reasons. The first of which is that Barack Obama is not exactly "pro-abortion." You can see that here. Obama (like all of us who support Roe v. Wade) would actually like there to be fewer abortions. And how do we reduce abortions? I think comprehensive sex education and improved economic opportunity might be a good place to start. Obama, like many of the rest of us, recognizes that we can reduce abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies. Guess what, the Democratic party even has a plan!
So, if Barack Obama's plan to reduce abortion is not good enough for the Catholic Church, then John McCain must have been planning to outlaw abortion altogether, right? Well, not exactly. Apparently, McCain's entire plan was to appoint enough conservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, "returning the abortion question to the individual states." Hmmm. That doesn't actually seem like much of a plan, does it? I think we all know which states would outlaw abortion if RvW were overturned. And I'm guessing that most women, even those who live in the South, would be within one day's drive of one of the legal abortion states. Of course, overturning RvW would still cause a lot of pain and hardship for women in abortion-illegal states. And there would certainly be women too poor to travel for an abortion (although some might consequently risk their lives for unsafe illegal abortions). So this plan probably would reduce abortion as well. But overall, it's not entirely clear to me which plan would actually reduce abortion more: Obama's or McCain's.
But isn't the point of this sort of thought experiment that it is possible for intelligent people with a moral conscience to disagree about how best to reduce abortion? This is what "Father" Illo and the Catholic Church is denying here. They are being intellectually dishonest by ignoring the fact that there are numerous ways to reach goals that, in some degree, we all share. But clearly, disagreeing with the Church on the "right" way to reduce abortion means eternal damnation for your soul.
Do I even have to note that, by focusing on abortion in determining who to vote for, the Catholic Church is ignoring several other social justice issues that the Church used to care about? You know, issues like poverty and war. Does "Father" Illo really think that John McCain would save enough aborted fetuses to make up for the hundreds of thousands of people in Iran that he would kill? Although, come to think of it, those Iranians aren't Christians so presumably they count less...
LOLtheorists continues to spark creativity in some of you (hint: if you haven't tried one, see what you can do). Todd is rocking the Casbah. I'm glad we've finally gotten to Foucault, and this is a good one:
And at the risk of bending the rules of LOLtheorists, I can't help but add this additional Todd effort (especially since Kathy Griffin is a friend of this blog).
As far as I'm concerned, there is never a bad time to say: Suck it, Jesus. Kudos to Todd for his work!
Fosco is one gin and tonic away from renaming this whole damn blog... Seriously, by tomorrow, you may find yourself reading "Suck It, Jesus!"
In related news, did you hear that the HI-larious Kathy Griffin won an Emmy and then said something wonderful? As per Reuters:
"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus," an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."
Can we just say that once more? Suck it, Jesus. Suck it, Jesus! SUCK. IT. JESUS.
It's like a beautiful dream.
[No matter what my boyfriend Oz thinks, I think KG is grand. GRAND.]
After a decade of life on the East Coast, near the centers of Intellectual and Cultural Life, Count Fosco is cast out. He takes up residence in California to begin anew. Fosco Lives! is the journal of Fosco's new life.
Fosco Lives! follows Fosco's pursuit of pleasures sensual and intellectual. His blog covers the breadth of his interests: gay life, food, books, art, popular culture, travel, music. Regardless of the topic, Fosco aims to share a perspective both humane and civilized. Join him.
Thoughts on Exile
Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat That we must change for Heaven? (Milton, Paradise Lost)
"Exile must be a terrible thing," said Norton sympathetically. "Actually," said Amalfitano, "now I see it as a natural movement, something that, in its own way, helps to abolish fate, or what is generally thought of as fate." "But exile," said Pelletier, "is full of inconveniences, of skips and breaks that essentially keep recurring and interfere with anything you try to do that's important." "That's just what I mean by abolishing fate," said Amalfitano. (Roberto Bolaño, 2666)
Contact Fosco
Email Fosco and he may feature your comment or question in the exciting upcoming feature: Fosco's MailSac.
Jill is absolutely fabulous and so is Stella's Roar.
My friend and colleague Evan Calder Williams will blow your mind at Socialism And/Or Barbarism; or perhaps he will annoy you with X avec Y. Either way.
My friend and colleague Calvin McMillan blogs about Hong Kong film and related matters (like his smokin' hot girlfriend) at Ronin on Empty.
The title of this blog, Fosco Lives! is borrowed from a chapter by A. D. Hutter, which appears in the collection Reality's Dark Light. This is the only similarity that this blog bears to what is, frankly, a rather odd little chapter.
Information on the engraving in the title bar can be found in this post.
Uncredited direct quotations occur occasionally on this blog, but they should be obvious to the reasonable reader.
Most of the pictures have been shamelessly stolen using Google Image Search.
All other content on this blog is the product of Fosco!
In my previous post, I helpfully turned this poster into an easy-to-read list and my readers responded--by determining how many of these categories are going to contribute to their own eternal damnation.
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