Aftermarket tits fill me with joy when they’re cartoony and obvious. I love them when they look like someone stapled some skin over a Tupperware set. I only find them depressing when women get them to “fix” something. There are medical problems that have to really be fixed, of course, but I’m not talking about that kind of “fixed.” I’m talking when they’re not happy with their tits because they’re “too small” or “too saggy.” I’m not saying it’s wrong to do it, but it’s depressing to me when women use surgery to try to be “normal.” I like when surgery is used as a celebration of nutty desire. I like surgery when it’s a “fuck you” to god. When the tits are sticking out like Hummer headlights on a Big Wheel tricycle. I like them to be a celebration of choice over nature.
I don’t have any tattoos. I’m typing this in a Vegas Starbucks, and everyone has a tattoo. Tattoos used to mean you lived outside the law; now tattoos mean you’ve been to a mall. You now have Miss Americas with tramp stamps. How depressing is that? It’s not depressing because it makes Miss Americas more like sluts, it’s depressing because it makes sluts more like Miss Americas. I like sluts; I don’t like Miss Americas. I’m old enough that tattoos still seem a little carny and prison, but that image is fading even with me.
My friend, mentor, and hero Doc Swan is a carny. He’s a real carny. He’s my age, but he’s from another time. He taught me fire-eating, and he taught me about friendship. He broke my heart once by telling me that I used to be the funniest person he’d ever met. He said I used to be like Curly Howard in the real world, but the day I did Letterman for the first time, I stopped being funny just to be funny—I was now only funny for money. I don’t think I was ever as funny as Doc thought I was, but it’s certain that something was lost in my heart when I walked out on that Letterman soundstage. Some of my young desperation for attention was replaced with control. Doc loves me enough to tell me. He loves me enough to be sad as he watches me on TV in his motor home parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot, illegally using their storm drain for his gray water.
Doc told me a story about a fire-eater that he knew. Doc said that even for a carny, this fire-eater was really far out. There’s a carny story that I’ve had verified by two different liars. There was a carny named Vinnie the Puke who had scammed a big rig driver. I don’t know what they say this Vinnie did, but let’s say he took the driver for some serious jingle. The trucker found out that Vinnie the Puke was with the show and followed the show to the next town to beat payback out of him. The trucker parked his eighteen-wheeler, walked onto the lot, grabbed the first person who looked “with it,” and demanded to be taken to Vinnie the Puke. The roustabout responded, “Which one?” He wasn’t fucking around. This is a profession that can support two Vinnie the Pukes on a single show. (Doc was telling another carny about my writing this section of the book, and when he told the story, the carny stopped him and asked, “Vinnie the Puke or Benny the Puke?”) And, even in that world, Doc says this fire-eater was out there.
Doc said this fire-eater creep didn’t want to spend money on food at the cookhouse, so he would eat out of the midway trash. He’d just reach in and finish half-eaten hot dogs and cores of candy apples. Of course there’s still good eating in carny trash, but it’s a little sickening. There are researchers trying to find out if part of the allergy problems in the USA are caused by too much cleanliness. Doc supplied the anecdotal evidence that this fire-eating pig was never sick.
Doc would tell me how this man had no respect whatsoever for his body. He didn’t care what he ate and didn’t care about his hygiene, and he was meaner than a snake. Doc once saw his ankle and there were some very odd tattoos. Just weird kinds of angles and marks. Doc asked him what the tattoos meant. “Fuck you,” the fire-eater explained. Doc caught him another time, after the fire-eater had found some liquor in the trash and was in a better mood, and asked him again. The fire-eater told Doc that the marks on his ankle didn’t mean anything. The fire-eater had been paid five bucks to fix someone’s tattoo gun. He’d fixed it and had to test it to make sure it worked. He tested it like you’d test a Bic pen on the back of a candy wrapper. He had his legs crossed, so he just scribbled on his ankle to make sure the gun was fixed. They were the only tattoos he had. Tattoos that didn’t mean anything.
Those tattoo scribbles mean the world to me. Those scribbles on his ankle are pure atheist symbols. They show that god, the higher power, nature, the order of things, doesn’t mean anything. We are only here for a little while, and our bodies belong to ourselves and no one else. There’s no need for respect for a creator because there is no creator. I love those ankle scribbles, but I could never have them. Mine would mean something, and by meaning something would mean nothing.
Teller and I did a bit on Conan where Teller carved the name of Conan’s “freely selected” card into my arm. I’ve written a lot about “tattoos of blood.” Those are tattoos without ink. All the pain and none of the gain. Tattoo ink is a lubricant and a coagulant, so tattoos of blood hurt more and bleed more than a real tattoo and they last about three years. So, the same length of time as most of my relationships. It’s really just carving into your skin. Teller carved the selected card into my arm on Conan. There was no trick to that part, he just carved in my arm on TV. Teller and I had to practice—we had to put more time into learning it than you’d believe it’s worth. That’s always how we fool you. We had to practice the card force, but we also had to make sure that I could focus and do the magic moves while my skin was being carved. We had bought an unlicensed tattoo gun and it arrived at our shop. I was wearing cutoffs (it’s the desert, and with my body, you gotta wear the Daisy Dukes and feature the talent). While I was waiting for Teller and the crew to get the cards and start working the script, I fired up the gun and just scribbled on my leg, making cuts and letting the blood flow. Trying to see my intelligence, vitality, and passion as outside of nature and my body. It wasn’t secret cutting. I can’t pretend to understand why young people, mostly women, cut themselves up. I won’t write about that, except to write that what I was doing was different from that. And it was different from the carny pig, because it was self-conscious. I was writing “fuck you” to god in blood on my leg, and I knew it, so it wasn’t as good.
These tattoos that are walking by me in Starbucks as I write this are tribal and Asian, and some outright religious. I figure the Asian logogram that the trendy guy thinks means “truth” probably means “round-eyed sodomite,” but what do I know?
But to me, even the overtly religious ink says “fuck you” to god. (Take this with a grain of salt—to me, Green Acres reruns on Nick at Nite are a “fuck you” to god.) Tattoos and big fake tits are a way to say to yourself and the world that the way you ended up, even the way you think you were created, is not as important as your free will. God wanted the back of your neck to have a cute little freckle at your hairline, but you think “Property of Wolf” is more to your liking. God wanted a mole right on your miniskirt line, and you’d rather have “Heaven’s Above” and a little pinstripe.
If there really were a god, wouldn’t he have the power and wisdom to put that Playboy bunny on your ass at birth? I don’t like tattoos much, but I sure love what they say about people taking control of their own bodies.
That’s why I like big stupid fake tits. Don’t try to tell the world that you were naturally endowed like a fucking Barbie doll; let the world know that you decided you wanted a balcony someone could do Shakespeare from regardless of what god wanted. Big fake tits are a celebration of technology and humanity, and a rebellion against god and nature. I’m all for that.
Which brings us to Auto-Tune. Anyone who has heard me try to slide up to that high F on my upright bass during our show knows that I don’t have a great ear. I have pretty good time, but my intonation really sucks. I’ve worked hard and gone from being oblivious to knowing when I’m off. The next step is to be able to figure out whether I’m sharp or flat without experimentation.
I can’t sing in t
une either. And now there’s a gizmo that can put me right in the dead center of the note. Right in that fat middle where Sinatra and Ella always seem to be. And you can use it live too. Anthony of the Chili Peppers can now choose to be right in tune on “Under the Bridge.” It’s amazing technology, but I miss people being out of tune. The Monkees were produced within an inch of their lives, but if you go back and hear the records (you can still use the word “records” even for new music; it may be digital, but it’s still recorded, don’t you think? “Record” doesn’t have to mean vinyl), their slightly (or more) out-of-tune harmonies give them a feeling of youth and disrespect. Lou Reed being a little flat on “Walk on the Wild Side” isn’t a mistake; it evokes the pure ennui that he was living. Stevie Wonder being a little sharp cuts through that fat Sir Duke sound. Not being in tune can be a choice or a very happy accident. Now, engineers often tune stuff up reflexively, without even making a choice. You’re not going to hear one of those American Idol fucks singing like the Go-Go’s live in their own arena show, now, are you?
I miss the out-of-tune music, both the intentional and the accidental, because . . . with recorded music, the chosen and the accident become the same. They’ve played “Layla” so much on the radio that the out-of-tune high slide sounds perfect, and I love that. There are a lot of lo-fi musicians who are keeping things out of tune, so the battle is only lost on the cheesy Top Ten stuff, and the Top Ten is almost gone anyway. We’re getting all sorts of diversity. With the cosmetic Auto-Tunes, comes the technology to do the crazy Auto-Tune. The proud 44DD of Auto-Tunes, used just for effect. I’m not sure what software the Black Eyed Peas use to sound like cartoons, but it’s only one whole step from what Ross Bagdasarian used for the Chipmunks. They’re not trying to fool anyone that they really sing that way. It’s making a joyful noise that god never wanted us to make. I love Cher’s “Believe,” and I love her tattoos, but I hope she isn’t trying to pass off the tits to anyone as real.
Big fake tits, tattoos, and obvious Auto-Tune feel atheist to me. All of a sudden I’m pretty happy with Fergie, and Ke$ha, and if I throw in loving anyone who is on the front lines fighting for the First Amendment, have I painted myself into a corner where I have to say that Janet Jackson is the perfect human being? I guess so. Janet does seem almost as cool as a carny pig who eats out of the trash and tattoos doodles on his ankle.
“Rock Your Body”
—Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl
The Bible’s Third Commandment
Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain, for the lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
My friend Lana is a new atheist. She wrote this to me: “For me, the biggest part of letting go of god was holding myself accountable for my own actions. Life is so much easier when you think someone else is doing the deciding for you. It is easier to place blame on ‘god’s will’ than to say ‘I fucked up’ or ‘I need to work harder.’ It felt safer to be a passenger in my own life than to take the wheel.”
ONE ATHEIST’S THIRD SUGGESTION
Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself.
(What used to be an oath to god is now quite simply respecting yourself.)
Preach to Me and Pray for Me—Please!
The party line for atheists is that they don’t mind religious people hanging around in polite society as long as they don’t proselytize. It’s okay for one to believe bugnutty shit as long as one shuts the fuck up about it. I don’t agree. Proselytizing is annoying, but not proselytizing is immoral. Not proselytizing is anti-American.
I was on some Joy Behar show on CNN. There was some smart guy sitting next to me. We were talking about religion. I described myself as a “hard-core atheist.” Joy and the smart guy scoffed, and Joy said mockingly, “What’s a ‘hard-core atheist’?”
“I don’t even believe that other people believe in god.”
My buddy the scientist rob pike was the first person I heard say that line. Rob didn’t say it to be clever. He wasn’t trying to get a laugh. It’s hard to believe people believe in god. If people really believed in god, how could they ever sin? If I thought that having sex before marriage would displease an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omni-nosey power, if I really believed that, then the entire staff, male and female, on-and off-camera, every single body, of Kink.com could never have even been able to get my cock hard. What cost/benefit analysis allows one to sin? They build in that “sin in your heart” thing so that everyone feels guilty, but even with that—man, if I’m believing in the god almighty of Abraham, I can keep thoughts of Maggie Gyllenhaal bringing me coffee out of my mind (thankfully I don’t have to). I don’t know that anyone really really believes in god. Even the most faithful must feel at least the same little itch of doubt about religion that I feel about abstract painting. I love nutty art, and I know it really is great, but in the deep recesses of my mind I hear, “Maybe my four-year-old could do that. Maybe it really is just bullshit.”
Modern art is great, it really speaks to me on an intellectual and visceral level, but there’s a little stone in my shoe worrying that it might all be just jive. Anyone who believes in virgin births in a species other than lizards and other non-breasted life, anyone who believes that there’s a benevolent force in the universe that cares if we jack or jill off, must be worrying in the back of his or her mind that Christ might have been just spilling random paint on the canvas about what we should be doing before we exit through the celestial gift shop. I love Stockhausen and Half Japanese, but there is a chance some of it is just noise. There’s always doubt.
But let’s just say that someone really believes in the life-after-death spook show and eternal life for reals. Not like I believe that Sun Ra planned exactly what the sax solos would sound like, but like I believe in gravity. They can feel it. Okay, let’s go to my favorite example. This one hypothetical religious guy, let’s call him Charlie Manson, really believes that “Helter Skelter” wasn’t just about roller coasters and fucking. He has faith that the Beatles and/or the Bible really sent clear messages about race riots, life after death, fashion, diet, and homosexuality. If our Charlie really believed that there was everlasting life through Jesus Christ, piggies, or L. Ron Hubbard, how can he not proselytize? How can it be moral to be politely quiet about something that important? If our life here is really just a brief vale of tears and the real joy is after we croak off the mortal coil, if someone really truly believes all that like ice like fire, don’t they have to preach to everyone all the time?
I don’t know you from Adam, but if I saw you standing on the railroad tracks in dark clothing, in the middle of the night, right after a bend in the tracks, and I heard a train a-comin’, rollin’ down the track, doesn’t everyone’s morality mandate my saying, “Yo, there’s a train a-comin’, rollin’ down the track—move off the goddamn tracks, stupid”?
You reply, “Shut the fuck up, you out-of-fashion, train-believing whack job, leave me alone, or I won’t invite you to any cool parties.” What if even while you’re saying that, I feel the train a-rumblin’, rollin’ down the track, shaking the very ground beneath our feet, and I say, “Can’t you fucking feel that? Can’t you tell that you’re about to be hit by a fucking train, a-comin’ rollin’ down the track?”
“No, leave me alone, I have a right to not believe. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and other really smart guys, say there’s no train a-coming and these aren’t even tracks. And Christ, are you really wearing a black tie and a white shirt and riding a fucking bicycle door to door? You’re never going to get any pussy.”
Now I can see the train, but the poor blind, deaf, numb, deluded atheist can’t believe a train is a-comin’, can’t believe he’s about to be turned into haggis. Isn’t there a point when any moral person just tackles the stupid cocksucker, knocks him off the track, and saves his life? That’s the only choice . . . if you really believe in that crazy imaginary train.
If some
one really believes in everlasting life (that’s a big, big “if,” but stay with me—Jackson Pollock really is great, I love Duchamp’s snow shovel, and Cage’s notated silence really is music), then letting someone fuck up everlasting life is much worse than letting someone get hit by a train. Fucking up everlasting life is being hit by a train forever, and “forever” in this case is even longer than the time between when you cum and when she cums. This is like real no-kidding motherfucking forever, like dentist-drilling-into-your-teeth forever. You have to do whatever you can, even if the heathens laugh in your face and think you’re worse than the stupidest of the Baldwin brothers. You can’t respect someone’s right to not believe in something that’s going to give him or her eternal life. That’s not real respect, that’s callous disregard. That’s negligent eternal homicide.
If you believe in everlasting life, and you keep annoying me about it, you are insufferable. Get away from me! If you believe in everlasting life and don’t annoy me about it, if you’re polite and let me believe what I want, even though I’m going to spend eternity in real break-is-over-back-to-the-handstands-in-the-river-of-shit hell, what kind of scumbag are you? Get away from me! How much do you have to hate someone to let that everlasting train of lost eternal life squash someone’s heathen ass?
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Atheist.”
“Atheist who?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t go around knocking on your door when you’re trying to relax.”
Atheists are also morally obligated to tell the truth as we see it. We should preach and proselytize too. We need to help believers. Someone who believes in god is wasting big parts of his or her life, holding back science and love, and giving “moral” support to dangerous extremists. If you believe something, you must share it; it’s one of the ways we all learn about truth.
God, No! Page 7
