The Salamander

…happens tonight! Self explanatory poster follows! Bring tits!

Some weeks ago, our TV gave up its ghost so Janice and I were forced to dig up her old TV, the one she used in her bedroom when we were still in college and, I must add, the same one that witnessed many of our acts of premarital sex. Anyway, we dug up that old thing and set it up in our living room. It’s a tad smaller than the one we were used to wasting our days on, but a TV is a TV and God forbid we miss out on watching our favorite cable channels (movie channels for me and lifestyle channels for my wife). To our dismay, we quickly discovered that that set wasn’t cable ready. We had to acquire a piece of equipment called a channel selector, which costs around three thousand smackaroos.

Fortunately, our friend Jerome passed by and offered to lend us his channel selector since he’s not using it anymore. I think he bought a new TV set for his apartment or some other shit that I don’t really care about. What I do care about is that we’re getting an expensive piece of equipment for free. So I hooked up that black box (thinking, “something this clunky cost 3,000 Pesos?”)… or rather, I tried to . The next problem that old accursed TV hurled at me was the fact that its input was of the old antenna type. I had to go out and buy some sort of jack for it. And that’s what brought me to the mall.

I went to the local Handyman hardware store in Robinson’s Los Baños and found what I was looking for. As is my wont whenever I go to a hardware shop, I started looking around. While I don’t fit the male stereotype of a Mr. Fix-it, I do have a fascination with power tools, axes, knives, and all that manly shit. Maybe it’s a manifestation of my insecurity about my penis, this attraction to big tools I don’t really use, but I’ll leave psychological profiling to the disciples of Freud, say thankya.

So there I was, window shopping, when a jumper-clad sales assistant went up to me asking what I needed. Now this is a really annoying question in my opinion. If I wanted any help I would ask for it. And it was pretty obvious that I was only looking around. I try not to be an asshole outside of the internet so I politely told the man I didn’t need any help and that I was only looking around. He stepped back a little and just stood there. I swear I could feel his eyes burning holes on my back. It became a small war between us. Who would walk away first? Well, if you must know, I am the type of person who does not walk easily away from a manly challenge like that.

It was unfair for him, really. I had the upper ground right from the start. He’d probably been doing that same shit with other customers since that morning and was bored out his skull. I, on the other hand, had all these tools to look at, inspect, caress, and such. Finally, the man walked away. Five minutes later, so did I. I rule, motherfucker. It was a Pyrrhic victory, however. What should’ve taken me five minutes at the shop actually went over twenty. And that sales assistant was getting paid for what he just did.

That little incident isn’t my first time engaging in a battle of wills with mall employees, however. I’ve done that before and I predict I’ll keep doing that until malls finally go out of fashion in some dimly seen future where all kinds of shopping are done online. Why, just this weekend, when we were shopping for toys for our godchildren and my brother-in-law’s kids, the same thing happened.

It was in Toy Kingdom in SM Megamall. Now, I am of the mind that Toy Kingdom almost sucks because most of it is filled with sissy-ass toys for toddlers. Its only saving grace is the action figures section. Predictably, during our shopping trip, I went to that section first. I was looking a nasty model of Hellraiser’s Pinhead when a sales assistant went up to me, telling me that the store has new GI Joes that just came in (ironically, Toy Kingdom employees, like Handyman employees, also wear jumpers as uniforms… it’s a bad sign methinks). I told him, no, I wasn’t interested in GI Joes. What I really wanted to say was that I think GI Joe is for pussies. No one ever died in GI Joe. And that was a fucking war. Whenever a Joe blows up a COBRA fighter plane, you always see a parachute popping out. And they all try to shoot each other dead with fucking laser rifles. LASER RIFLES! Pshaw-pshaw-pshaw, I’m already shooting with unrealistic laser guns but I can’t seem to kill a single COBRA operative because I’m a fucking pussy, pshaw-pshaw-pshaw! Look, if I wanted laser guns and futuristic technology, I’d go and buy Transformers action figures. At least in Transformers: the Movie, a lot of characters, both good and bad, die horribly.

So there I was, telling Mr. We Have New GI Joes that I’m not interested. He stepped back, and bored holes in my back, same as every single sales assistant I ever encountered in every mall store I ever entered. I sighed and danced that old fandango with him until he got bored and walked away.

These two stories and many more disgustingly like them leave me asking: what is it with mall employees that they all have the same game? Do they teach people in sales assistant school to do that? I know that they’ve been ordered to keep an eye out for shoplifters but shoppers of the non-kleptomaniac type would appreciate a little more effort at discretion from these mall people. Isn’t that why they put mirrors everywhere? But no, they have to stick to you like underwear rash.

Then again, maybe I do look like a shoplifter. And maybe bathing a little more often than once a week would improve my image.

In one of my posts in the Man Blog I said something to the effect that I think God is a cunt because I think I could do a better job at running things had I been given omnipotence. While that line was constructed for maximum shock value, my real feelings about the matter isn’t really too far off. If I die in my sleep tonight and wake up facing my Creator, He’s got a squeaky wheel to take care of.

So, does that mean I believe in God? While I have no use for organized religion and have had no use for it since I was in high school, yes I do believe in God. A lot of times, however, I suspect I only believe because if there wasn’t a God out there then there is no fucking point to anything I’ve done and will ever do. No God, no soul, no afterlife. Even if I’m remembered for my works in the history of the human race for ten thousand years, I won’t be around to enjoy it. Not even as a ghost/psychic impression/whatever. When I’m trying to be painfully honest to myself, I ask myself if I only believe in God because I don’t what to face the truth that we’re all screwed and we’re just deluding ourselves that we’re okay.

Now, about organized religion. As I said, I have no need for it. And when I was younger I despised it. Recently, however, I’ve started seeing its value in human society. You see, most religions are basically good. The bad ones don’t last. Sure, there were a lot of bad eggs who preyed on ignorance even in good religions. Yet the actions of bad men do not necessarily make the aspirations of a religion bad. All good religions want each human being to have a good, rewarding life. The nasty side-effects come from bigotry, hegemony, and other big words. In short, human weaknesses. Weaknesses that are strangely contagious. A bigoted pastor can make a docile flock rabid. Hey, I never said religion wasn’t dangerous in the wrong hands. Yet the potential danger of religious power can be checked by education and information. If your priest or high juju wants to keep you in the dark, odds are he’s a bad man. If, however, he encourages discussion and the exchange of ideas, chances are he’s shooting damn straight. Faith without education is just as bad as education without faith in something… anything. An ignorant faithful has a tendency to blow up a church full of people in the name of Allah. A faithless intellectual has a tendency to make himself a god who’s got all the answers to the world’s ills if we would all just join his fucking revolution. Education and faith. Checks and balances.

Some of you may be objecting: the bad religions don’t survive? Those that do survive are basically good?  What the fuck about Satanism? Damn thing is still around and that is anything but good!

Yeah, sure it’s basically good. Just look at The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth:

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
   If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
4. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
5. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
6. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
7. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
8. Do not harm little children.
9. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
10. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

It looks nasty because we were conditioned to see anything related to Satan as anti-life, anti-good, and anti-whatever it is that warms the cockles of your heart. Take away all references to Satan and I’m sure you’ll agree that most of it looks pretty sound. Never mind that most Satanic churches are just a couple of snotty teenagers trying to look cool or a handful of aging hippies whose brains have been addled by too much drugs. Order of Azazel my funny little asshole. Also, Satanism has been around for only what? Forty years at most? Even Wicca is just a few decades older, their claims of being older than Christianity notwithstanding. What, I make a claim that my gods are the animals that cavemen have been painting on their walls and suddenly my religion is older than history? That’s as ridiculous as Felix Manalo claiming that his is the true Church of Christ as was written in the Bible because he’s the first one to have received a copyright to the name. But I’m getting off topic. Suffice to say, these newfangled religions are toddlers compared to the grand old toga parties of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. And the odds against Wicca, Satanism, New Age, Scientology, etc. aren’t good to begin with.

In the end, though, if God exists, the only gauge He has on judging you is your personal moral code and not whatever sacred scriptures your culture tried to shove down your throat when you were growing up. The Bible, the Torah, the Koran… sacred scriptures, while generally inspiring, are full of plot holes the size of lunar craters. You think God would equip his most beloved creatures on earth with instruction manuals that, instead of getting us to heaven, get us to kill each other? There is no instruction manual, morons. That should be obvious. You’re here to live your life the best way you can. And even if you don’t, I don’t think you’ll find the Pearly Gates closed to your weary spirit. You’ll probably feel like a dumb fuck for a little while, though; but that isn’t as bad as being in Hell, right?

Hell, now that is a concept that has fucked the human race since time immemorial. Hell and the Devil.

This was inspired by one of the threads in the Man Blog Forum.

I’m thinking of beginning this entry with “when I was a boy…” but I realized you’ll be all over me with jokes about my age. On the other hand, fuck you and fuck your jokes. At thirty-one I’m not old. Indeed, a man in his thirties is exactly that. A man. Anyone below the age of thirty is a kid just trying on the boots for the big people. And anyone below twenty, in my esteem, is a snot-nosed child and should act like it. These days, though, children are playing at being adults like they can’t wait to grow up. On the other hand, I quite enjoy seeing sixteen-year-old chicks wearing clothes that advertise their sweetmeats, which is why my protestations doth ring hollow even in mine own ears. Go ahead and dress up like whores, my children. Never mind that during my teenage years a high school chick who dons the vestments of a whore was actually a whore. Not of the backseat cocksucker of Elm Street category but rather of the money-for-sex variety. Anyway, I digress. Let me start again.

When I was a boy growing up in Los Bastos, caroling wasn’t as haphazardly done like it is by kids nowadays. Back then, kids actually took the time to make crude tambourines out of flattened bottlecaps strung with metal wire. They’d group themselves into caroling gangs of not less than five individuals and go from house to house singing songs with the correct lyrics. And more often than not, you actually knew these kids because they’re from your neighborhood. It’s unthinkable to accost people on the streets.

Nowadays, no one bothers to make tambourines anymore. Kids are just too fucking lazy. The nearest to a musical instrument that I witnessed being used by caroling kids this year is a pair of stones struck together to make out the ghost of a beat. Pathetic. And there are no caroling gangs anymore. Often, it’s just a single kid singing a horrible medley of Christmas songs because he doesn’t have the patience to learn even one whole song. The funereal quality of the singing always tempts me to throw hot coals at the little pirates. And don’t even get me started on the maggots who look suspiciously like brain-addled glue sniffers prowling the streets and waylaying pedestrians to listen to their dirge-like ululations.

However, my wife Janice and I are fortunate. That’s because our apartment is in a compound of houses where the unwritten law is that it is the landlady who’s responsible for giving money to the little vermin trying to share their accursed Yuletide cheer. Not that I’ve ever witnessed the landlady doing such. A sin of omission surely, this refusal to give kids glue-money. The Good Book says it all: suffer the little children. And if paying to listen to these kids’ horrible screeching isn’t suffering of the Ninth Circle of Hell sort, then I do not know what is.

Our neighbor beyond the compound’s wall, though, approaches the problem of caroling kids in a manly way: he tells them to fuck off. Tonight I’ve twice heard him cuss at urchins about it not being Christmas yet, and also twice heard him slam his door on kids’ faces before they were in the third note of their opening salvo. Huzzah, my good man. Old Father Christmas is currently writing your name on the “naughty” list but we both know he’s a cunt, right? Yes, cyberfriends, I think Saint Nick is a cunt. If he wasn’t then I’d have been enjoying awesome superpowers since Christmas Day of 1980.