Summer Reading List

Hello Gentle Readers:

Well, summer's here(not officially, but close enough)and it's time for dancin' in the streets...whoops, I mean, it's time for the Summer Reading List. You remeber your school sending out one every summer to spoil your vacation? No? Well, my school did it and I still have nightmares about it and if I have, so should everyone else. (It's my Blog...nyahhh).

This is the Official Perfect Blog Title Summer 2006 Reading List:

• The Truth About Witchcraft Todayby the late great Scott Cunningham. The shortest book on the list. Does what it says on the tin.(That's an in joke for all those in the UK).


• Anything by the Dalai Lama


• When Elephants Weepby Jeffery Masson. A look at spirituality is never complete without a look at how you look at animals.


• A History of God by Karen Armstrong. Some people climb Mt Everest, some read Karen Armstrong. The effects are similar. Extra credit book.


• The Wisdom of Big Bird(and the Dark Genius of Oscar The Grouch) by Caroll Spinney, who also illustrated it. Required reading from a man responsible for shaping the minds of my generation and possibly at least two more.

That should keep you busy.

Rice & Beans

I hate Anne Rice. Don't get me wrong, I hope she has a happy life and never gets audited by the IRS, but I want back all the hours I spent reading The Witching Hour. Nearly 1000 pages of itty bitty print and at the end I find it's the first in a series! So idiot me goes back to the library and snags the second book, Lasher, a mere 600 pages. Apparantly there's a third book, but I'm not going to bother.

1600 pages and not a damn thing happens. And yet I read all 1600 pages. I hate her. Why can't I be that brilliant? Her writing is hypnotic, like a LSD trip (don't ask me how I know), very very pretty but no plot to speak of.

Oh, you know who Anne Rice is. She's The Interview With A Vampire babe, remember? She recently wrote a wonderful novel with a plot based on the early life of Christ. It, too, is to be the start of a series. A series we already know the ending of, incidently.

And then, musing on Anne Rice and her dreamy plotless novels, I realized that's why I could never get into The Bible. I've read it all, cover to cover, in two versions and after finishing it for the first time I thought "That's it?"

I read it the second time to be sure I didn't miss anything. I didn't.

The whole Old Testament is apparantly to set up for the coming and going of Jesus. And quite frankly, Jesus is not that much of a due ex machina. No publisher in their right (or left) minds would publish the New Testament if, say, it were submitted today. No Jewish independence, no lawyers, no car chases. And Jesus is a bit of a wimp. Great storyteller, but who could understand Him? Miracle man, but only did a very small ammount of miracles to a very small corner of the earth. Hell, he could've invented pizza! Very few souls are saved when there's no pizza in the cards, let me tell you.Having the power of God and not trying to break into the movies? Not very realistic. And why are only people talked about? What about the animals? That's why I reject the New Testament as reading material--no cute dogs. Not even the donkey He rode to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is given a name or a chance to save a diciple or two from drowning.

Maybe Anne Rice can spice it up a bit for me now. She knows beans about keeping interest...I just hope she sticks a cute dog in that's not murdered by the undead. And, come to think of it, would Jesus technically be a zombie?

And The Greatest of These Is Faith

Screw love. Love gets you in trouble, love makes you crazy, love lets you think you can change Satan's ways if he only had somone to love him. Love will always fail you.

It's faith that gets you through.

The manuscript I wrote & illustrated was about my faith. I'd dedicated the book to my first dog Rusty, who taught me that faith was stronger than hope or love. It took six years of struggle, outright plagerism and alot more blood than sweat. It was nearly finished, at a monstrous 800+ pages.

And then the only copy got burnt. "So much for faith in a Great Spirit," I thought. "Dogs are better than God."

I don't watch Oprah, but my Mom does. She said there was a dog on, so I had to watch. The dog that came on was named....

Faith.

The dog was wagging her tail most of the time. She sure played to the audience! And she was so happy.

So what's my excuse?

Dum-Dum-Vinci Code

Oh please, people. Here are five things better worth your time than arguing over a stupid movie:

1)A fair look at albinos

2)DaVinci had more on his mind than codes

3)See the light

4)Tom Hanks' Hair--A History

5)When it all gets too much.

Stunt Requests For David Blaine

David Blaine is one of the very few people who impress me, like the Dalai Lama, Gandhi or Peter Gabriel. Anybody who can pull a tooth out of someone's head and then spit it back in I sit up and take notice (and keep my mouth shut around). When I was living as a hermit in Bathwick, England I still heard all about his 44 day fast suspended in a Perspex box above London. (I could hear Gandhi say "Ahh, amateurs!") In case you happen to be a hermit off of the planet Earth, you probably heard about his latest stunt, Drowned Alive (which almost happened). Poor boy is probably convalescing, wondering what on earth he can do to top that.

Well, David, never fear! Here are some suggestions for guaranteed payoffs:

* Shoot my ex out of a cannon into the Grand Canyon. When he splatters, say "Ooops--that's show biz!"
* Find out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop.

*Find me a job...well, that would take a miracle, I guess

*Pull the teeth out the George Bush's head, make 'em disappear and then make them reappear in Dave's poo.

*Get my dog and my Mom's cat to stay in the same room without setting off the next world war.

*Get Hasidic Jews, Fundamental Christians and Osama Bin Laden-wanna bees together for a toga party. Hell, invite my dog and Mom's cat, too.

*Get a new roll of toilet paper going without shredding the stuff into tiny strips of useless fluff. Now that's magic!

(I also placed this article up on Bubblews)