pennies for the dead 💀 (part v)

“I don’t know Sheila,” I said, “you’ve faked demonic possessions before.”

“Try me, asswipe!” she replied. Then I pumped a few bullets into her chest.

Nothin

“Alright, so I guess you’re Jezebel,” I said. “Where’s Pete?”

“His soul resides in HELL for all eternity!!!!”

“Good, he’s a Boston sports fan,” I said, “he needs to know how that feels.”

“You will join him soon enough!”

“Sorry sister, I already live in Ohio.”

I pulled the trigger again but I already emptied the revolver. I threw the gun at her and started running down the hallway while screaming for my life.

I hid in the closet under the staircase. Of course, it didn’t take long for her to find me. Using her demonic powers, Jezebel began to eat my soul. I started praying. “God, I regret everything,” I said.

Then God responded. Thunderbolts began raining down on Jezebel from some unseen force and she retreated into the shadows. I was still alive.

I crawled out from the closet. In front of me stood a wizard-like figure dressed in white robes and holding a staff.

“Thank you Jesus,” I said.

“I’m not Jesus,” the figure replied. “I’m Joe Morris.”

I stood up. “Joe Morris? Shouldn’t you be 120 years old?”

“119 to be precise.”

Then Pete ran down the hallway. “Ty! I’m still alive!” he said.

“I thought you went to hell,” I replied.

“I did. It ain’t such a bad place. I got to meet Dave Cowens.”

“He’s still alive dumbass.”

“Are you sure? By the way, did you piss your pants?”

“I did. It’s a side effect of my elavil prescription. Where did Jezebel go?”

“She went back to hell to lick her wounds,” Joe Morris said. “We must go to the cellar, return to hell, and make sure she never returns.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “This ain’t my problem. I’ll just collect the money from Dorthy and be on my merry way.”

Right then, a possessed Dorthy flew down from the ceiling and attacked me. While I fought her off, Joe Morris released more thunderbolts from his staff. Finally, she flew off of me and began writhing on the ground before whatever cursed spirit that possessed her left her body. Dorthy was dead.

“Mother!” Pete screamed.

“She hasn’t been your mother for a long time,” Joe said.

I took a moment to gather myself.

“Alright,” I said, “I need to change my pants before we go to the cellar,”

TO BE CONTINUED…

pennies for the dead (part iii?)

“Sorry babe,” I said to Sheila. “I got the whiskey dick.”

“It’s alright, I’m used to it,” she replied. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink before sex.”

“I wouldn’t know. Never tried it.”

Sheila climbed out of bed and got dressed. As she put her shirt on, she noticed the crap on the floor. “What’s this stuff?” she asked.

“Don’t touch it,” I said, “that’s a spirit box and a Ouija board. You might awaken a demon from hell. Trust me, that’s one can of worms you can’t close.”

“What are you doing with that?”

“It’s some case that I’m scamming *ahem* I mean helping some old lady solve.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh yeah, totally.” I looked over to the clock and noticed it was 7:30pm. “Speaking of, gotta get to work.” I got out of bed and threw my pants on. “You can stay here for the night,” I told Sheila, “but remember: DO NOT touch that damn Ouija board.”

I was running late. I had to meet Pete at the Morris estate where he was going to shed some light on Jezebel’s identity.

I arrived 45 minutes later. It was nearly pitch black. I grabbed my flask and flashlight and got to work. “This better be worth my time,” I told Pete.

“I told you that you’re not gonna need that .38,” he said.

“You let me be the judge of that.”

We began venturing into the woods. There was allegedly a cellar back behind the mansion that contained the remains of Jezebel. “I’ve been told all my life that this is an old Indian burial ground,” Pete said.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before I pissed on that hedge?” I asked.

“There it is,” he said. I shinned my flashlight in that direction. The cellar was only a few yards ahead.

“How far down is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I never been down there.”

I lit up a cigarette. “You go first,” I said.

Pete gathered up his courage and proceeded towards the cellar. He took a deep breath before going down the stairs. The cellar was deep. Too deep for my liking.

I put one hand on the .38.

Finally we reached the bottom. We were standing in a wide, musty corridor with multiple chambers. “What the hell was this place used for?” I asked Pete.

“Supposedly this was a torture chamber for runaway soldiers during the Civil War. Many slaves lost their lives down here.”

“Pete, I’m beginning to think that your family deserves to be cursed.”

“What’s this?” Pete asked. I shined the flashlight over to an old fire pit littered with ash and bones.

Then the cellar door slammed close.

I pulled out the 38. “Stay calm,” I said.

“I told you there’s something strange going on here!”

“Shut up Pete.”

“I can’t die down here! The Celtics are in the playoffs!”

“Pete, so help me god, if you don’t shut up I’ll shoot you myself!”

Suddenly my flashlight went out. Then something grabbed Pete. “Damn you Brad Stevens!!!!!!!” he screamed before disappearing into the dark.

I started firing indiscriminately into the shadows.

“Pete!” I screamed out.

There was only silence.

The flashlight kicked back on and I shined it all around the corridor. Pete was nowhere to be found. “Fuck this,” I said as I sprinted back up the stairs and to the car.

I floored the Geo Metro back to the apartment. I rushed in through the door and began frantically looking for the Ouija board. “Damn it Sheila!” I yelled. “What did you do with the Ouija board?”

Sheila stumbled out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. “The planchette began moving around,” she said as she slurred her words. “It started spelling out ‘You’re next’, ‘Hail Satan’, and ‘I heart ass’ I didn’t know what that meant so I threw it into the fireplace.”

“Sheila,” I said, “I might’ve opened a portal to hell.”

TO BE CONTINUED

pennies 4 the dead (part II)

I couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed.

I had a hunch that it was the repo man coming to take the Geo Metro. I pulled out my .38 and shouted into the dark. “I have your filthy money!” I yelled. “Show yourself!”

Out of the shadows, I heard a thick Boston accent: “Are you Mista Cahson?” it asked.

“What’s it to ya PAL?!”

The figure stepped forth slowly from the shadows. He was tossing a baseball into the air.

“I’m Mista Pete Morris,” the figure said. “I’m son of Dorthy Morris, your client. I understand that you’ve been taking my mutha’s money.”

“She’s been giving it to me in larger amounts than I’ve been asking. That’s hardly stealing,” I replied.

“Hey ohhh, buddy! I ain’t said nuthin about stealing.”

“Then you better make your point. I have a .38 aiming between your eyeballs.”

Pete straightened up his jacket and began stammering nervously. “All I’m asking is that you let me in on the cut,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I work better alone. Besides, fuck the Red Sox.”

“I’m tellin ya,” Pete said, “there’s somethin goin on with Dorthy.”

“Yeah, it’s called dementia.”

“No. There’s something else goin on up there at that estate. Something that can’t be explained, not of this world. Some things just can’t be stopped by bullets, ya know?”

Pete then tossed the baseball again and I shot it out of the air.

“I haven’t found one yet,” I said.

“Look, I have all the answers you’re looking for,” Pete continued. “The death of Joe Morris is deeper than you think.”

I put the gun back into my holster. “Buddy,” I said, “if you’re trying to grift your rich elderly mother out of her money, you’re gonna have to find another angle.”

As I turned around to finish my walk home, Pete spoke up again. “I know about Jezebel,” he said.

“So do I pal,” I said as I continued walking, “she was Dorthy’s sister who died of pneumonia a year before Joe’s death. She was 20 years old.”

“That’s not the whole story,” Pete replied, “in fact, she wasn’t Dorthy’s sister.”

I stopped, turned around, and pulled out a cigarette. “Alright bucko,” I said, “now you’ve got my attention.”

TO BE CONTINUED

pennies for the dead )part I)

Yeah yeah, I know that my detective stories are unpopular and always peter out before I finish them. But I’ve never written a story with supernatural/horror elements in it, and a detective mystery is my only way in.

Will this story work?

Lol, I never promise that.

So let’s see how this goes…

****

So I was doing a seance during the middle of the night in a cemetery when a security guard approached me.

“The hell are you doing?” he asked.

“Conjuring the dead. What does it look like?”

“Well hurry up. Gates close in an hour.”

So I cranked up the spirit box and pulled out the Ouija board. I asked the spirit box, “is a Joe Morris present?”

The box scanned through the channels before saying “Beelzebub”. Oh shit, I thought. I probably just cursed myself.

“No no no,” I replied. “JOE Morris.”

The box continued to scan but I was receiving no answers. The Ouija board was no help either. It kept spelling out “anal sex” and “go fuck yourself”. This was getting me nowhere.

I packed everything up and took out my flashlight. Next to Joe Morris’ tombstone was the name “Jezebel Morris”.

Dorthy Morris neglected to tell me that name.

Joe was Dorthy’s father. He was allegedly poisoning in 1952. The autopsy, however, was inconclusive. Dorthy’s been wanting this case solved her entire life. Now, in her twilight years, she lived a reclusive life on her family’s estate while her brain slowly demented away.

In my opinion, Joe died by natural causes. You know how men lived in those days. But I hadn’t had a case in months.

Was it wrong of me to take this elderly lady’s money? Yes.

I immediately left the cemetery and stopped at the Voodoo shop. I had to do something to spurn any demonic curses, ya know? Afterwards I drove to Dorthy’s estate.

I pounded on the door. She was hard of hearing.

“Is that you Lyle?” she asked

“No ma’am. It’s Ty Carson, private detective,” I replied.

I opened the door and found Dorthy with a blanket covering her lap in front of the fireplace. She was playing checkers.

“Who are you playing checkers with?” I asked.

“I’m not playing checkers.”

I quickly moved on to the business at hand. “I did what you asked,” I said. “I went to the cemetery to talk to Joe. I found out that the dead aren’t too keen on talking.”

“But I talked to Joe this morning,” she replied.

I ignored that comment.

“Who’s Jezebel?” I asked.

Dorthy gave me a puzzled look. “Jez has been dead for years,” she said.

“I know. Who was she?”

“No. I can’t betray Joe like that.”

“But she might be key to understanding Joe’s death.”

“No. That matter is closed.”

I shrugged. I figured that I could just go through public records in the morning. As I began to leave, I turned around.

“Oh, by the way,” I said, “the spirit box and Ouija board came to about $150. That will be charged to your account.”

“$5,000 you said?” Dorthy asked as she pulled out her checkbook.

“Yes.”

TO BE CONTINUED

sorry matt 😢

I owe Michael Dillahunty an apology (not that he gives a shit).

When people call into your show regularly and try to deny reality and reasoning, I could see how one would lose their cool. In a discussion, when one person is correct and the other is wrong, when the correct person is an asshole, it does not negate the legitimacy of their claim.

I’ve often said that proof of unambiguous truth does little to change people’s minds. Probably because, and I could be wrong on this, that most of the decisions we make throughout a day are of the aesthetic preference/value kind (good or bad) and not the true/false kind. Nevertheless, where true/false claims are made…which is usually the source of our arguments…either someone is right or both parties are wrong (or both partially correct, or both WHOLLY correct but are lost in semantics).

Which leads me to this question: is it better to be correct and an asshole? Or better to be wrong but nice?

I think the answer is obvious: the former.

Or, in other words, truth trumps all.

Now obviously, truth is difficult to establish. We’re human. We’re finite. That’s why we have to rely on logic, reasoning, evidence, and experimental science to establish such claims. If you want to deny the validity of those methods, you have to use those methods you’re denying, which means you’d corner yourself. Of course, most arguments and disagreements are of the moral/ethical kind.

Morals and ethics are, in all likelihood, a human invention which are subject to change given the historical paradigm. But so what? I’d say that these ethics and the laws and social engagements they promote are VERY necessary for a society…however big or small…to function. And where these ethics fail the needs of a given paradigm, then it’s our moral obligation to challenge them. That’s my general description of morals/ethics that, I think, many would agree on. (If not, then excuse the hell out of me)

So what methods should we use to establish these ethics and morals?

That’s where Dillahunty is unapologetic: it’s humanism. Does humanism have its flaws? I’m sure. But it’s kinda hard to gain the moral upper hand when you’re arguing AGAINST the best interests of all people….or even against SOME people.

So I’ve changed me mind: Matt Dillahunty has every right to be a jerk while he’s arguing for truth and well-being for all of humankind.

Deal.

The ‘atheist experience’ guide to looking like an asshole

People are shocked to hear this when I say it, but I genuinely do NOT care about question of God’s existence.

When I hear people arguing this question, it’s like listening to nerds getting into a heated argument over which fictional spaceship is faster: the Millenium Falcon or the Enterprise D?

It’s a nonsensical argument and I treat nonsense in the only sensical way: I ignore it.

Which leads me the ‘Atheist Experience’.

For the record, I agree with 99.99% with what this asshat, Matt Dillahunty, is saying. His logic holds up. But this is the #1 thing that drives me bonkers about YouTube atheists: logic is fetishized.

I’ll concede: maybe this is a ‘me’ problem. Perhaps I view logic, reasoning, science, and philosophy…and perhaps religion too…as a vehicle, not a destination. That may be too “Buddhist”, for a lack of a better word, way of thinking of these things but it has helped me “keep an eye on the ball” and not get hung up on the small stuff.

I mean, this is the purpose of life, right? To find meaning in a chaotic world? To love life, to enjoy company of others, to pass on our wisdom to the next generation? Life is about the sublime moments. When I’m trying to enjoy my short existence on this earth, I don’t really care what vehicle I drive to get to work.

I’ll always have respect for someone that channels their beliefs in a transformative way….way more than somebody that demands you follow the rules of logic. That being said, some atheists don’t need belief in a higher power to enjoy life to the fullest. I guess I’m one of them (I’m more agnostic. Or, more precisely, apathetic).

Matt Dillahunty is, however, just an asshole.

YouTube atheists aren’t alone in this phenomenon. Everyone is complicit is this internet “dunking” culture, where we try to make our perceived enemies look like idiots. It’s disgusting.

Dillahunty clearly had some bad experience with religion and is bitter because of it. I get it. This happened to me too. I’m sure it happened to all of us. But what are you trying to prove?

I think if the experience of the last few years have showed us anything, it’s that showing facts and logic is totally not persuasive. I mean, it CAN be…over time. But that absolutely cannot be done in a debate style format…especially when one of the participants is being a complete fucking dick.

I’m sure we’ve all been in a position where we find ourselves in a heated political argument where we know that we’re right, and THEY know that you’re right, yet strangely our interlocutor never says “you know, you’re right…you’ve changed my mind.” If this has happened to you then you’re a fucking liar.

There’s something deeply hidden in the human psyche that makes us believe things that are so patently false and absurd, that we just believe them. I think there’s a Latin phrase for it. I’m sure if we interrogate our own beliefs enough, we’ll find one. And when people call bullshit on it, we believe them even harder.

I think a helpful skill to learn, that when you find yourself in a heated argument over religion or politics…and you have your opponent on the ropes…make sure the joke’s on you. Don’t be so far up your own ass that you can’t make fun of yourself. In that case, you might’ve won the debate but you lost the war.

People’s minds don’t change over night.

What Dillahunty did was take his bad experience and project it onto ‘Brandon’. Now Brandon probably believes whatever nonsense he believes in that much harder. Nothing got solved.

Besides, what is an “Atheist Experience’?

Isn’t that just ‘Experience’?

‘The Secret Gospel of Mark’: The Art of BS

I’m old and my mind is going. Too much drugs, too much useless information clouds my brain. Which is why a lot of common knowledge straight up misses me.

As you are aware, I’m a nerd for New Testament/Early Christian history. Am I a Christian or a religious person? Not really, but I don’t understand the question enough to give a definitive answer (remember, my mind is going). I simply obsess over 1st Century Christianity because, as Bart Ehrman asserts, it might just be the most important era in Western History (I disagree. I think it’s the second most).

Unfortunately, there’s just not enough concrete information to definitely say what happened during Jesus’s real life ministry. Of course, speculating is part of the fun, but it’s also a curse. Because there’s so many gaps in the timeline, this invites a multitude of con artists and conspiracy mongers to perpetuate fabricated stories.

Which brings me to the “Secret Gospel of Mark”.

The actual Gospel of Mark, the one we have in the New Testament, is quietly the most important text in Western thought. I say this because the Gospels are certainly more widely read than something like Plato’s Republic, and Mark is the Gospel that Matthew and Luke based much of their texts on (the other source they both used, the hypothetical Q source, I would argue the author of Mark was familiar with as there are too many similarities…which would make Q the most important text. But Q remains hypothetical). Mark is therefore the oldest surviving account of Jesus’s life (the oldest surviving Christian writings, however, are the seven verified Epistles of Paul, with 1st Thessalonians being the oldest).

Now, there are A LOT of questions for Mark. Too many to recount here. It is the barest of the four canonical Gospels with plenty of peculiarities.

But what if someone credentialed allegedly came across evidence to fill in these gaps?

Enter Morton Smith, a Ph.D from Hebrew University and Th.D from Harvard Divinity, and professor of ancient history at Columbia University. Pretty impressive right?

I was made aware of this story when reading Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. I’ve never heard it before and I was shocked at my ignorance. Now Ehrman is probably the leading academic in the field of Early Christianity, and even he doesn’t quite know what to make of this story.

Briefly, Smith claimed to have found a lost letter from Clement of Alexandria, an early Christian theologian, which describes a variant of the Gospel of Mark and even provides a couple of passages. And boy oh boy! What passages they were!

The problem is that, allegedly, this lost letter was transcribed in the 18th Century, and Smith couldn’t provide the copy because it was property of a monastery in Jerusalem. He DID, however, provide photographs of the letter and scholars have determined that these writings were indeed in the style of Clement and Mark (and the handwriting was also of 18th Century style).

Additionally, Ehrman recalls a story of hearing another academic claiming to have seen the letter himself, despite the library still refusing to permit research into it. So, it’s safe to say that this letter genuinely existed.

Whether or not it was written in the 18th Century is a different story.

You see, because if there was one person on this planet that could have forged that document…well enough to fool many academics…Morton Smith was that man. And, apparently, he had a motive to do so (see Ehrman’s Lost Christianities).

For the record, I think the letter is a total, unambiguous forgery. Too good to be true+motive+means=bullshit. But I gotta tip my hat to Smith.

Every bullshit artist knows that eventually they’ll get caught in the lie. But the trick is to leave a shred of doubt. And Morton Smith either made the discovery of the millennium, or the greatest forgery of all time.

lamentations

Think hard enough and you’d realize that life is pretty stupid.

Sure it’s easy to marvel at the miracle of consciousness, but when you consider the immensity of the universe, there’s nothing miraculous about it.

Your suffering is pointless.

The universe is the totality of all there is, all there can be. All possibilities are both infinite and determined.

God has abandoned you.

All is vanity, all is darkness. Consider Voltaire: we live in the worst of all possible worlds.

In this world void of hope, there is one beacon of light:

Arby’s: Put Some Meaning in Your Life

philosophical shit

While sitting on the toilet (which I clogged btw), I came across an interesting paper with a memorable title called “Explaining and inducing savant skills: privileged access to lower level, less processed information” by Allen Snyder, which you can read here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677578/

Sometimes I engage in armchair (or toilet) philosophy, and this paper kinda reaches at what I’ve been screaming about on the internet for all these years: that we form ideological (or “holistic”, using the terms of the paper) perceptions on nature, which in effect disguises the TRUE reality of nature…BUT we have access to this “lower level, less processed”, pre-ideological information which is how we are able to speculate on this nature at all.

Savants don’t have a problem accessing this information, hence the subject of this paper. The reason they don’t is due to abnormal, neurodivergent functions in the brain that can be caused by genetic factors or injury. This permits them to see the world in its factual, literal state which can lead to incredible cognitive abilities.

However, in a “normal”, non-savant brain, we begin to categorize this literal information, which permits us to socialize, communicate, and operate on the barest of facts. Language presumably plays a tremendous role in this phenomenon. But these categories are merely a projection facilitated by prior experience and socialization. They are not actual “facts”.

But I’m just a guy sitting on the toilet. What do I know?

penisball

So I was tossing and turning over night, agonizing over a specific question: is pop culture dead?

Of course, “pop culture” can never really “die” so long as there’s entertainment, fashion, etc. But has it fundamentally shifted in a way that requires new methods of critique?

Guys like Theodore Adorno were critiquing “pop culture” way back in the 1940s, claiming things like movies, music, etc. were massed produced commodities and were therefore not genuine (or whatever). But maybe the pandemic and the prolific use of the internet has changed the game.

Obviously these things have changed the way we interact with pop culture, but the question I’m concerned with is: “has the pandemic, and specifically the internet, changed the very nature of pop culture itself.”

(This is all from my dementia-driven perspective, btw)

Anyways, what made me agonize over this question is that everything feels a little passé. When people talk about reading tweets, I’m thinking “you’re still using Twitter?”. Even at 106 years old, I feel like I’m more “in the know” than most 20 year olds. It’s not because I’m “cooler” than them, it’s because they don’t give a shit. So how can “pop culture” be pop culture if it’s not popular?

Please help me. I haven’t slept in 27 days.