A Possible Credo

I do believe in the Republican goal of fiscal responsibility, but even if I were a single-issue voter I could not call myself a Republican anymore than I can say I am a feminist. There are radical elements to those positions I believe will harm society. I will support that in no way. “That’s not what feminism is all about,” I have heard argued. Well, white nationalism wasn’t a part of the Republican party either, at first.

I stand apart and say I am a Democrat who promotes egalitarianism and moderation. If we will suffer identity politics forced upon us by fringe groups, let it be about who will argue ideals – which happen to be us all.

— Matthew Sawyer

Advertisements

Fumigator of Souls

My neighbor behind me is a slob, Exterminators have told me so much. The man never cleans his apartment. His place is infested with bugs. My bathroom and his kitchen share the plumbing and the east wall. Cockroaches come through the plaster and between wooden beams. They squeeze under un-stuck caulk and into my bathtub.

When they stare up at me, each pressing themselves up onto a slanted, six-legged stance, I sometimes think, “If reincarnation were true, and there was a karma that only the sacrifice of life satisfies, I think they beg me for death.”

Sure, a last surge of self-preservation overcomes them all before each are squashed, but they go to a better life, I suppose. If it all were true, I make believe I satisfy karma in acting as their executioner. And as an atheist, I have no concern for an afterlife of my own. In my time on earth, I become a remorseless fumigator of souls.

 

These Harvey Weinstein Days

Something we should keep in perspective during these Harvey Weinstein days…

Per Google’s dictionary definition, sexual harassment is “harassment (typically of a woman) in a workplace, or other professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks.”

Per a 21st century Radical Feminist, sexual harassment is a circumcision. A right of passage. And as a radical feminist, it’s not if a woman is raped, it is when. And that rape can be as significant as her male co-worker accidentally sipping from her coffee mug at work. A woman these days needs the merit badge in order to call herself a true feminist.

I’m not defending Harvey, I’m telling you that pretenders will come out of the far left to advance a radical feminist agenda. One in which women wholly replace male leaders in governing bodies, despite qualification. I think the exact quote made by feminist employers is, “I hired her, because as a woman, she is infinitely qualified for any position occupied by a man.”

This was the secret Hillary Clinton motto that lost a woman the 2016 election.

 

How the Gospels Were Written

Plagiarized strictly for the review and criticism of others from the song, ‘Anything You Can Do’ by Irving Berlin

[1st refrain:]
[Early Christian:] Anything your gods can do, mine can do better
Mine can do anything better than yours
[Pagan:] No, your god can’t
[Early Christian:] Yes, He can
[Pagan:] No, your god can’t
[Early Christian:] Yes, He can
[Pagan:] No, your god can’t
[Early Christian:] Yes, He can! Yes, He can!

[Pagan:] Anything your god can be, mine can be greater
Sooner or later mine are greater than yours
[Early Christian:] No, they’re not
[Pagan:] Yes, they are
[Early Christian:] The First Commandment
[Pagan:] Baal is great
[Early Christian:] There is one God
[Pagan:] Praise to Allah and Odin and Thor

[Pagan:] Mine can heal blindness at the Pool of Bethesda
[Early Christian:] Mine can heal blindness with mud in the eye
[Pagan:] Mine can turn water into wine
[Early Christian:] In a clay pot?
[Pagan:] Yes
[Early Christian:] Simon Magnus can do that.

[Pagan:] Can your god rain down manna from heaven
[Early Christian:] Mine can multiply fishes and loaves
[Pagan:] With only five loaves?
[Early Christian:] He’ll feed 5,000
[Pagan:] And only two fish?
[Early Christian:] And the fish can be small
[Pagan:] No, your god can’t
[Early Christian:] Yes, He can
[Pagan:] No, your god can’t
[Early Christian:] Yes, He did
[Pagan:] Is he dead?
[Early Christian:] He died on a cross

A Reminder: Halloween is Coming!

There is a cemetery I know that has a clubhouse. A clubhouse, with a bar and a restaurant, like a golf course. Arcadia Green, it’s called. The clubhouse is cryptically called Gothic. The place is open to the public after six. A placard in the ceiling-to-floor window list its hours of operations until midnight, everyday except Sunday. I was there for a friend. It was his birthday. He has always enjoyed arcane places.

He went outside to smoke, as that was the law in this state. I stayed inside because I don’t. The only other person I talked to went to the restroom , so I fell into an old habit of eavesdropping. There is a couple in a booth next to our own group’s, which was in an unlit corner. The windows about us were solid dark. There are no clocks, but it is obvious the day was well past sundown.

“I lived in Los Angeles for a while, too much sun,” the young, casually adorned man said to an anxious woman. He sounded as if he made an introduction. I had the impression they were probably on a first date. Although I was not watching the couple, I did glimpse them and saw they were not sitting close.

She tells him something curiously believable. “To be honest,” she said, “Men used to chase me when I was younger. I got wise with age and I now stick close to home, deal with what I know.”

Their conversation abruptly ended. I didn’t look, but when I had glimpsed, I did see them examining menus. Their menus were not the same as our own, but we were a special occasion.

“I don’t want kids,” the young man stated with uncertainty. He sounded as if he yet contemplated his future.

“What? Why?” his date inquired. She sounded surprised instead of disappointed or dejected.

He tells her, “I don’t like how they scream when you bite into them.”

“But that’s the best part,” she told him.

 

Halloween is coming!

 

The Bother With Civil War Monuments

The Waste – Third Revision of a Vision

Dear Reader,

A word from the author…

Readers hate this story. And if you are one of those critics driven to warn others, you might as well copy and paste any of the following:

“How many false starts does this book have?”

“Tons of grammar mistakes and incomplete sentences.”

“Is English even his natural language?”

I am saying, if you’re a persnickety nag, you will loathe my writing. And you will miss everything I have to tell, because, who else can speak for me?

I persist regardless the persecution! Here I am, and I insist The Waste is an epic story. Well, anti-epic; it’s tragically adventurous. What is here is a novice’s effort to create a story on the scale of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Stephen King’s The Stand. But my tale is different. There is no good versus evil. Everyone here is an un-redeemed sinner. There is only evil in this desert world called the Shur. God is gone, and that has left an opening for demons and alien gods to fill that void.

That supernatural struggle is reflected in the religion and the very same absent god of two theocratic combatants. A demon plays these factions against each other. That is probably where readers complained about encountering false starts in my story – you are meant to follow a demon and not any tangible character through the books. I meant the original titles – Pazuzu Book One published by Llumina Press and my self-published Pazuzu Trilogy – to reflect my intention.

The Waste is actually in its third revision. I self-published the thick volumes twice under my pseudonym, Mr. Binger. The Waste is a two volume edition of what I wanted the book published by Llumina Press to be. The out-of-print Pazuzu Book One, though, only told half the story, and people weren’t buying it. That brought an end to hiring a professional proofreader. All we have got is a Libreoffice spell-checker. I hope readers have seen through the multiple revisions and incarnations of the story, I do correct typos as I go.

The Waste is always the uncensored pinnacle of the story. Whereas, a single novel would easily tell the tale, I always imagined two volumes. Just like the New Testament, there are two parts – a resurrection and an apocalypse. The trilogy split the story into three suggestively titled books – Manifestation, Emergence and the meaningless Abeyance – but that did undermine the whole idea to revise Christianity. The Waste, Book One and Book Two, is what readers should have got. — Matthew Sawyer

Hardcover books are now available from Matthew Sawyer’s Storefront at Lulu.com.

Cheaper paperbacks and ebooks will be available from Amazon soon.