May the Fourth be With You

Today is May fourth, and that's an incredibly special day for most people. It's international Firefighters day, so we should should all be glad there's a section of the population crazy enough to run into buildings that happen to be on fire. I keep arguing that maybe we shouldn't be building our structures out of wood and paper mache, but I digress.... Hold on a moment, that's not what you're celebrating today, is it? So what exactly are you celebrating?

News flash, people. Star Wars sucks.

Search your feelings

I don't use the word sucks very often anymore. I prefer to use lame, or shitty, or a host of other words to describe something I'm not particularly fond of. In this case, sucks works perfectly, because that's the sound of the gaping vacuum that this abomination of a cultural phenomenon has created. Star Wars is a slurping, ugly, hot mess of a franchise.

Now, given, the first three films released a few decades ago are pretty good. The special effects were mind blowing at the time, they had an interesting new story and have held up pretty well since then. The acting is lousy, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the late seventies/early eighties was so high on cocaine that they had to be reminded that still they teeth in their mouths. But those three films are just a slice into the Star Wars universe, and most of that Universe is absolutely ridiculous.

Referred to on-set as the Force

There aren't just movies about Star Wars. There are books, games, toys, costumes, dinner ware, spin-offs, bed sheets, action figures (which are NOT toys, apparently), Iphone apps, party themes, wedding themes, and a Christmas special that George Lucas would like you to pretend never actually existed in the first place. That is a sliver of the amount of stuff that Star Wars has licensed. It is not a universe of space fantasy, so much as it's a cash cow that lactates golden milk.

I thought people would have learned after the Phantom Menace, but they kept making movies, and games, and books. People kept buying them. And my Darth Lord, there is a new Star Wars movie coming out, and I can hear people frothing at the mouth already. Sit down for a second. I hate to break it to you, but this new movie will never live up to anyone's expectations. It can't. The fan base has become so rabid we actually have a day of the year now dedicated to it. All across the world, people are calling in sick, so that they can sit down and watch all six films back to back, spending their mornings trying to fast forward to the good parts of the prequels.

Please don't make me fast forward through 80% of the movie, JJ

The worst lot is the Star Wars books. Ever read one? Don't. Do you want to know how many people have authored Star Wars books in the last three and a half decades? Seventy Five. That isn't novelisation at that point anymore. That is slash fan-fiction at it's best. I would complain, but truthfully the longest peace of fiction ever written isn't War and Peace, but a slash fan-fiction piece about Super Smash Brothers that contains over 3,500,000 words. That would be slash fan-fiction at it's best.

It still doesn't compare to my Pokemon Fan-Fiction

What it boils down to is this; I don't like Star Wars because when it started it was a space adventure that was shot on a budget of eleven million dollars. George Lucas was once a rebellious young film maker who took chances and now he's the head of a vast empire of knock-offs, merchandise and what borders on a lifestyle brand. George Lucas was seduced by the dark side.

Darth Schlock

 If you find yourself getting worked up over this, then heed your own words. There is no passion, only serenity. Jedi code mother bitches.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p,s. Help us JJ Abrams, you're our only hope.

p.s.s. Star Trek is for real nerds.

p.s.s.s. Not that Action balderdash with the JJ Abrams (although the casting was pretty fantastic)

p.s.s.s.s. Actually, with JJ Abrams, the only thing I can hope for is to walk away from the theatres not blinded by lens flares.

Floyd vs. Manny

Last night, Floyd 'Money' Mayweather Jr. faced Manny 'The Pac-Man' Pacquiao in one of the most anticipated fights of the last two decades, and the former won by unanimous decision at the end of the night. Some would say that the fight came too late, as both fighters were past their prime, but it didn't matter to fight fans, as the fight was billed at a half billion dollars, which Floyd pocketed roughly two hundred million.

I'm not here to talk about who won or who lost, who was the better boxer. I heard speculation that Manny had torn his rotator cuff before the fight and that's why he wasn't coming in as strong as some would have liked. I don't know shit about boxing, and the little I do know comes from a friend of mine who's a huge boxing fanatic. What I do know is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is an abusive piece of shit and is known to use his fast hands to batter women. So why aren't more people talking about it?

Except for this guy.

Wait, also this person.

And this person.

Damnit, you guys are making me look bad.

Okay, okay, okay, plenty of people know that while he wins most of his fights by decision, he has no problem K.Oing his loved one at home. That Floyd kicks the crap out of women is well known and documented. The big argument here is why are we condoning his actions so he can continue to box in the ring. The answer is incredibly simple, and it also happens to be Floyd's monicker.

Money.

Money Money Money!

A half billion dollars is what the fight cost, not what the fight generated, and no one in the boxing world does anything for free. Between HBO, the MGM Grand, the casinos, the hotels, the restaurants, the airlines, everyone is going to get a little slice of that boxing pie. If you're wondering why Floyd has been charged numerous times for instances of violence against women, and so far has only had do spend sixty days in jail because of it, well, there's your answer. Money talks. But is money the real driving force here?

Let's roll back the tape to February 2014, when Ray Rice was caught on tape knocking his then fiancee out in an elevator, then dragging her back to his room. Jail time? None. Hell, they got married not too long later.

But shucks folks, let's go all the way back to 2007, and bring in Micheal Vick. Now, Micheal has done some shady deals in the past, but battering women didn't seem to pop up. Drug use, theft and the notorious dog fighting scandal came up, but nothing about battering women. I'm not sure if you remember 2007 all that well, but people were pissed, I mean really pissed that Micheal was breeding dogs to fight. People were calling for his head. People on my feed who aren't even interested in sports were up in arms.

A Pack of Blood Thirsty Wiener Dogs (1)

When you compare how people reacted to Floyd and Ray, with a 'That's guy is a piece of shit, why does anyone watch their sports anyways' compared to Micheal's 'That guy fought dogs? INNOCENT PUPPIES BLARGRGRAGR!!!!!!! CUT OFF HIS HEAD!!!!!'
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Spousal abuse doesn't just happen in sports. It happens everywhere. Some abusers are engineers, or lawyers, or doctors. There's plenty of spousal abuse in the entertainment industry. Even women have been known to abuse men in relationships as well. Violence is shitty any which way you cut it, and I'd say that sports and entertainment get a bad rap simply because they're in the spotlight. I'm almost certain that if you were to compare the statistics of sposal abuse between regular jobs and vanity jobs like football players and thespians, you'd find that they're on even ground.

I'm not condoning the actions of Micheal Vick here, what he did was atrocious. It did open up my eyes about how we view the abuse of women. They may be mothers, they may daughters, hell, women might actually be people who walk the planet with hopes, desires, and dreams like the rest of us 'cough'. And we might continue to turn a blind eye towards the abuse of women, in favor of entertainment, money, and the ability to sleep a little bit better at night.

But if you ever fuck with man's best friend, we will cut your sack off and feed it to the goddamn sharks.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I had a dog once. It was delicious.

(1) - "Dachshund-puppies" by Alex Khimich - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dachshund-puppies.jpg#/media/File:Dachshund-puppies.jpg

Baltimore - I'm Not Racist, But....

Baltimore. Located in Maryland, It's the twenty-sixth largest city in the United States. It's home to the Oriels and the Ravens. The Wire, one of the most acclaimed television series ever to grace the tubes takes place there. Both the famous singer Billie Holiday and the baseball legend Babe Ruth hail from Baltimore. And unless you've been under a rock or on the moon for the last few weeks, you would know that the city is in chaos over the death of Freddie Grey, a man of twenty five who died of spinal cord injuries while in police custody.

I'll break down what happened, but we're not going to spend a lot of time on it. Freddie made eye contact with police officer, then proceeded to flee. The officers took chase, pinned him down and processed him for carrying a switchblade. They threw him in the back of a van. When Freddie told the officers he had sustained injuries, they ignored his pleas. You can read about the whole thing here. They found out his switchblade was actually a folding knife, which is not illegal. As for running from the police, the supreme court has determined this action is not a crime a while ago. Technically, Freddie Grey was illegally detained.

Now, you didn't come to Mr. Charlton to hear the facts. No, you came here for an opinion and I'm going to give you one. There is a race problem and it's mostly white people.

Ouch.

Now, it doesn't have to do so much with the pigment of white people. If white people were neon green, then we'd have a neon green people problem. You could argue history has documented numerous accounts of white people committing atrocities against other white people, and you would be right. You could also argue that history has documented numerous accounts of not-white people committing atrocities against other not-white people, and you would also be right. Again, it doesn't have as much to do with pigment as people would have us believe.

It has more to do with what I like to call 'White-Washing'. The term white-washing is an old one, and it meant other ethnicities were encouraged to act white, to be more palatable to a broader audience. I like to use the term differently, in which history is down played or forgotten to make the history more palatable to white people. It stems from what I hear all the time from white people. “Well, all of that is in the past, why can't we just get along now?”

This is how I was raised when I was younger. I remember learning in school that racism is bad, and we should be nice to everyone, no matter what their skin colour was. People used to mistreat others based on their ethnicity, and that was bad. I moved to the big city, big ol' small town heart, and I then I learned that I was actually pretty racist. Coming to that conclusion was an eye opener, and actually made me more racist in the process.

All of the shit white people did, I never really learned about. The enslavement of black people in America, the genocide of aboriginals in Canada, residential schools, forced sterilization. Christ, it used to be illegal for black and white people to get married. This all fell under 'mistreatment'. Long story short, the cruel history of murder, rape and enslavement was a very long story made short.

Again, this kinda shit has been happening for almost as long as human beings have been humans. The issue today is, again, what I term White-Washing. We've made it look as this part of our past and history isn't that big of deal, or we pretend it never happened at all. The truth is, it has shaped the current state of how we view the deaths of young black Americans in the United States. We don't get upset or pay attention when one of these people die in the hands of law enforcement, we get upset when they start to riot because of that death. That's when the cameras turn to those impoverished communities. Maybe that's a large part of the reason of why people riot in the first place. If you can't get attention with a peaceful protest or by pursuing legal action, then maybe the only way left is the violent approach.

I'm not condoning the riots. What I am going to say is this sort of thing is going to continue to happen unless we start having a frank and honest discussion about race, and what that means to everyone. As white people, we might have to start being more honest about our own history. I think that kind of discussion is already taking place, due to the large leaps in technology in both photography and distribution. It won't happen over night, but even in the midst of all the chaos, I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I'll live long enough to step into it.

I don't know what it's like to be black. But if you want to know what it's like to be white, I call tell you that aside from the homicidal urges and the compulsive need to devour human flesh at the end of the month, it's pretty damn sweet.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. The human flesh eating. You guys all get that too, right?

p.s.s. Seriously, I'm in Golden right now and the selection of of human meat is pretty weak.

Touring my Bathing Suit Area

I used to grab my cock when I was a child. I mean, I really used to hold on to my penis at all times, as if it were some sort of lifeline and it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the planet. There's pictures of me, and there I am, holding my dong. You'll see videos of me, my father asking aloud, “Mr. Charlton, why are you holding on to your penis?” and I would shrug, and wander off with my pecker in hand.

This is something I did for years, to the point where my penis actually curves to the left now a little bit. I'm not sure if this is a direct result of having been holding onto the thing as much as I did, but I can be assured that it certainly didn't help. So yeah, I was the dick holding kid. It stopped for the most part when I got old enough; where it was no longer cute but seen as incredibly inappropriate. I can't remember the exact time in my childhood, but there was a very definitive line from where my father would gently ask why I was holding my johnson, to where he would angrily shout at me to relinquish my dick grip. But it still sprouted up from time to time.

Mostly it was when I was playing video games. I has a tendency to be a bit of a hog when it came to taking turns and playing fairly with my brothers or whichever of our friends happened to be over at the time. This was even more apparent when I had to use the wash room, as I would use the bottom half of my hand, the ring and pinky fingers, to grab my pecker as the other half of the hand, the far more dexterous part of my hand, to hold the controller and continue playing, leading me to hold in my urine for an extended period of time.  I believe it's this act alone is why, at the age of twenty-six, I had to see a number of doctors, even one urologist, to ascertain why at such a young age I was pissing like an old man.

I remember first going to the doctor's to see about my problem. This was a private clinic, not far away from where I was working at the time. My first doctor was an incredibly attractive Vietnamese woman who was in her early thirties. She took a few samples of urine and blood, then let me out. I came back a few weeks later. Tests came out negative, no STDs or irregularities. Now the good doctor was going to give me a prostate exam. I was dressed smartly, I always was for work. Here I am, suit and tie, pants around my ankles while this cute Vietnamese doctor with knee high leather boots and smelling of lilacs is sticking her index finger up my asshole and checking my prostate. I remember, when she was done, turning around and, after a few exchanged words regarding the health of my inside cock, I looked at her and said “Nice boots, by the way”. I remember her looking at me, her face saying 'Did you just flirt with me after I had my finger up your ass?' and I shot her a look back with 'Yes, yes I did just flirt with you after you had your finger up my ass'. I did not get her number.

There were more tests, a visit to an ultrasound clinic, a few more prostate checkups. I was lucky that, for whatever reason, the doctors performing the exams were always attractive women. My idea of a prostate exam may be skewed as I haven't had an unpleasant one. Finally, they sent me to a urologist at Rocky View hospital in Calgary. My father took me there, as he was in town at the time. To lend support, I guess. I was nervous, because I was informed that the procedure would be to take a camera and stuff it up my urethra, a procedure called a cystoscopy. Not a particularly fun procedure. We waited in the dick surgery department, I being the youngest person in the room; my father being the second.

My name came up, and I was led to a room. After waiting no more than thirty seconds, a nurse came in. In the most clinical way possible, she told me to take off my pants and underwear, lay down on the table, and that she would be administering a numbing cream on the tip of my penis. There was no flirting here, this woman meant business. I did as I was told. I stripped, laid down, and she unceremoniously put the cream on, as if she were lubing up break pads in a car. I had to admire her professionalism to turn what most would find to be an embarrassing situation into a grease job at a garage.

The doctor came in. He was a nice man who very quickly explained the procedure. He would be cramming a tube like apparatus up my no-no area, he would look around and make a diagnosis depending on what he saw. There was a large television in front of both of us and he slid the camera into my body. As we took a stroll into my bathing suit area, he narrated the adventure as if he were a tour guide and I was a tourist. I was almost hoping to find a kiosk outside the room, where I would be able to get a photo in a cardboard frame, with the caption 'My First Cystoscopy'. Perhaps a hat with a slogan that read 'Dick Adventurer' would suffice.

The procedure finished, and to my dismay, everything checked out fine. There was no reason for my pain or my difficulty urinating, it may just have been a small start to the eventual and complete breakdown of my body. I grabbed my father and we began to leave the hospital. Just before the exit, I had a sudden urge to pee. This made sense, as the cystoscopy procedure pumped the bladder full of saline solution. I opened the door to the boys room, found a suitable urinal and proceeded to take one of the greatest pees in my life. It was glorious.

Now, the doctor mentioned that he's be pumping fluid into my bladder. What he didn't mention is that there would be some air in there as well. So as I'm whizzing away, blissfully re-leaving myself, the air started coming out of my cock. I'm now farting out of my dick, my penis whipping around like an elephant's truck as the bathroom fills with the sounds of dong farts. THPPPIIIIPPPPPPP, THPPIIIIPPIPIPPPP, rang out my knob as I howled with laughter as my dink spun around violently. It had to be one of the funniest things I had ever seen.

A man came in and I've tried so hard to picture what he saw. There's this young man, laughing to with point of tears as he stares at his penis, while the audible farting is coming from the front of the body and not the back. I remember hearing him coming in and I stopped, looked over my shoulder, then loudly proclaimed “Don't worry buddy, I'm just dweefing.”

And that was when I, like many storytellers before me, had been presented the opportunity to create a new word. Dweefing; the act of farting out of your dick.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. The wiener works great now, I couldn't tell you what was wrong with it. Maybe it was the stress of being an awesome penis.

Back by Popular Demand

Well fuck.

So, how long has it been since I've written anything down on this here blogtown? A year? Two years? We'll say it's been a while. I've had the pleasure of talking to some of you, and I guess that four, maybe five of you are excited as shit to see me type words onto the internet again. For the rest of you, well, there's always pornography. Mr. Charlton isn't going to blame a person for wanting to touch themselves instead of reading what I have to say. As far as why I quit the blog, there's a few reasons.

1. I had a career.

Also.

    2. My damn job was to sit in front of a computer all day.

There were some good things about this, and some bad (mostly bad), but long story short, being a at computer all day, then coming home to a computer and writing well into the evening was looking less and less appealing to this handsome man. As well, a lot of companies want your online personality to shine. I'm not saying I don't shine like a diamond. I do. But the idea that I was now representing the company on my free time made writing about dolphin cocks a little harder than usual. I found a fantastic solution though. I quit my job.

Yes, yes, yes, you've heard this all before. This wouldn't be the first time Mr. Charlton took a good long at his life and politely said...

“Fuck this shit.”

I've a had a lot of people ask me what I'm going to be doing. I've been telling them plenty of things.

1. I'm going to travel to South East Asia and become a wandering monk.
2. I'm going to go back to school to teach myself computer science.
3. I'm going to finally sit down and finish writing that damn book.
4. I'm going to train an elk to be my stead because that's the closest thing to a Unicorn I might ever get to ride.

Anyone telling me they wouldn't ride a horse with a fucking spear on it's head into battle is a liar

So here's the deal. I'm going to flat out say I've got an idea of what I want to do. But I'm keeping that a secret. Some of y'all know what I'll be doing for certain. Most of you don't. Mr. Charlton likes mystery, so it's going to stay that way for a while. Feel free to drop me a line if you really need to know. I'm going to remind you that mystery is way sexier than honesty, and I'd love for you fine people to stay sexy as all sin. But when I say some of you know what the scoop is, right now it's two people. And one of them is Mom.

I'm going to keep this short, 'cause this is more of a re-introduction than a full on post. If you're wondering where I am, I'm hanging out in Golden for a bit. Getting my bearings, getting rid of some shit (If you need a fondue set, I have a KILLER little number that is perfect for re-creating 1970's parties. Quaaludes not included). 

How long are you going to be there? For a while, but not for too long. Vagueness is sexified mystery.

Where am I going? Honestly, that's a little irrelevant to me at this point. I ain't too worried about the actual location.

What am I doing? Goddamnit people, stay sexy for me. Keep the mystery alive!

Why am I doing this? I've been in the consulting game for a decade people. I've been a desk jockey for ten damn years. I've got no kids, no mortgage, no career and nothing but time. If I'm going to do something crazy, this might be the last ticket I can punch.

Who are you? Well.... hold on a sec. Is the next question going to be How something question again?

Uhhhh..... Listen, captain twenty questions, let's lay down some ground rules.

1. I don't know when I'm going to update this shit.

If this were business, then yeah, I'd be saying shit like 'New content every Monday and Thursday!' But I forfeited my internet dollars the second I started swearing on the blog. It's through Google, and if you read the fine print, they like to keep things kid friendly. I'm about as kid friendly as rat poison. I've got no fuckin' idea when I'm going to update shit. All four to five of you are going to have to wait until inspiration strikes.

2. I don't know what I'm going to write about.

I was aiming for some sort of theme the last go-around with this blog, and that ain't happening. Will pretty much be off the cuff. There was some good topics last time, there were some bad topics last time. I'm not going to be putting junk up here just to meet an invisible quota for myself. Let's shoot for good stuff.

3. I do not edit this shit all that much.

I wrote a short story two days ago, one that I'm really proud of. I had a couple of people look at it and rip it to shreds. Did a re-write, and now I'm really, really proud of it. I'm going to have one or two more people take a peek, tweak it, and I'm hoping it will be blooming after that. Good writing takes editing, it takes fresh eyes, it takes feedback. With this junk, I might take one good look at it, do a re-write, then ship it, warts and all. This isn't my Sistine Chapel. This is my ledger where I doodle.

With that last bit I said, fuck people, feel free to criticize a guy. How the hell is a guy supposed to improve if nobody is telling me it's shit?

Look, if you know me, you know that I have an ego that borders on being a problem. When I masturbate, I look in the mirror and think of me. If some of you think that you'll hurt my feelings, just remember this; my last girlfriend called my a soulless, emotionless robot, and part of me took it as a compliment. 

 Maybe one day my programming will allow for love.

Anyways, I'll be in touch. I've had a few adventures, a number of stories, and a couple of yarns to spin. It'll be sooner than later. Until then, you fine, sexy, not-going-to-ask-a-lot-of-questions people, this gentleman is signing off.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Mad apologies to Dr. Hottie for being a robot. Keep kicking cancer's ass.

p.s.s. I get it. Sexified is not a word. I'm still using it, damnit.

Last Call

It's been awhile. As I sit down late in the evening, I'm contemplating exactly why I haven't written a blog post. I've been writing, yes, but not here. Not on the tubes. I've been shying away for some time, between bouts of calm meditation and exercise on one end, drunken fueled orgies of excess on the other. Business as usual, I guess, but the sway between the two states seems to be greater than usual, especially the last few months. New job, new friends (as well as old ones), small trips and cooking experiments have left me little time to entertain you all. Let me explain.

I was going to write about how I had lost a lot of my writing to this infernal site. You see, there seems to be an issue between the mobile app and blogger's page, and it had reverted copy to the blog that were unedited or incomplete. In some cases it had deleted many paragraph and much humour. Google's free little service may not be the best place to host these words.

I was going to write about the current devastation in Calgary, my former home, my home for over ten years. I was going to express my love for the city and the good times that took place. Calgary welcomed many of my 'first's' and brought me more friends than I could shake a stick at. Calgary was so good to me that I've turned down more opportunities than most people get in a lifetime. I even shed a tear into my Manhattan when I saw the extent of the flood.

I even have a post written about the difference between Edmonton and Calgary, my own personal 'Battle of Alberta', although I've only lived in this city for less than a year (hint: Edmonton is very nice, but Calgary still wins by a nose or two). I was also going to talk about my biases regarding this decision, but the truth is a good portion of the blog disappeared.

So why am I writing? Because I've come to conclusion that I'm done with the blog. For now, at least. I'd like to say that it was a tough call, but truthfully, it was not. A small factor was when a voice in my head spoke out as I was writing and said Are people going to like this? For me, that was a slippery slope between being a writer and being an entertainer. And although entertainment is good, writing about dolphin sex was a little too base as well as not going to win me a Pulitzer. Not to mention I can only play the monkey when I'm hammered and that's starting to wear thin.

It wasn't you, dear reader, all six of you. Nor was it the cause mentioned above, to be honest. To be perfectly frank, it is because of the computer. I could go into detail, but it's getting past my bedtime. Long story short, I spend eight to ten hours a day at work in front of a computer and the last thing I want to do when I get home is spend more time on here. I want to cook. I want to write. I want to read books, take walks and go jog around for a bit. I want to learn origami and go to scotch tastings. I want to suck in some life, now that it's summer, and every moment I'm sitting here is making me slightly ill and less interesting.

So, for now, I bid adieu. Last call was twelve minutes ago and I'm getting up early to make a fantastic breakfast with turkey, spinach and eggs. Maybe one day I'll get around to getting some stuff back on the web. But it won't be until the snow hits and I'm stuck inside. Even then, I may instead buy snowshoes.

Sincerely

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I'm going to be hitting up Calgs for two weeks in August. You people let me know what the score is.

Losing my Religion

If you haven't heard the news (I am speaking to literally no one who has an internet connection) is that the Pope has resigned at the ripe ol' age of eighty-five. The last time a Pope resigned was St. Celestine the Fifth in 1294 (you could argue that the last time it happened was Gregory the Twelfth in 1415, but I'm not of that opinion). For most people, this isn't really news. It happens to be incredible news if you are a Catholic, or in my case, an ex-Catholic. Yes, ladies and gentleman, something that many of you may not know if that I was raised Catholic in the Sacred Heart church.

I know what most of you are thinking, but yes, I can walk into a church without bursting into flames

I'm not here to talk about church politics though, although most governments have a clean slate compared to the corruption that underlies the largest church on the planet. I could spend hours talking about the pedophilia, the incredibly poor treatment of any native population that was encountered by the church or the role (singular) of women as seen by the church. On the other hand, it does do charitable works across the world and has existed for (roughly) two thousand years. Again, not talking about that. I'm here to tell you about my experience as a Catholic growing up.

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of good things to say about the church. I didn't have a lot of bad things to say either. There was one bad incident I remember, where when I was six and was chasing girls outside. An older women took me out back and kicked my ass screaming at me over and over "You be NICE to girls" (which actually screwed me up well into my twenties). But I wasn't molested. I was never caned for forgetting my Hail Marys. My youth in the Catholic church was... boring. Really, really boring. I could not for the life of me a time where I was that bored. 

One of the things, in order to become a full member of the church, is Catechism. Basically school for learning about the church. There are steps you have to take each year, steps like; Confession, where you explain to the priest about all of the bad things you've done or Confirmation, where... I don't know, strengthens your ties to the church? Fuck it, these steps are called 'Sacraments' and in after school Catholic school, we learned about 'em in great detail.

At about the age of nine or ten, I started to to slip from 'God, church is so BORING' to 'Wait a minute, these people actually believe some of this stuff...'. I always thought it was a big metaphor. One of my little 'Aha' moments happened to be when, in make believe school, we had to write two hundred words about how great Jesus was. I was totally not interested so I sped through the assignment as quickly as possible, pouring saccharine and sap all over this sucker like it was fresh golden brown waffles. A week later I found out my little paper was the best one of SOME sort of region, and won fifty dollars. Two things sprung to mind. One, that what I wrote was complete drivel and I meant zero of it, and Two, I made fifty bones. Now if I had been part of another Christian denomination, I probably would have become preacher at one of those Mega Churches, driving a Benz while I did mounds of cocaine before I exorcised demons from good paying town folk.

Instead, Catholicism got weird for me at about the age of twelve. This was about the time that the third sacrament, the Eucharist (from now on will be referred to Magic Crazy Cracker Time), was popping up in my life. Now, Magic Crazy Cracker Time is something that, as a kid, you're REALLY looking forward to, because as a kid, you get to watch all these adults take part in Magic Crazy Cracker Time. You'd wonder to yourself "Damn, is the cracker THAT tasty? They get wine too? Are they getting their buzz on? Maybe that's why the priest is always so happy (He was seriously drunk all the time)". Basically, it's one of those 'The adults get to do it, why can't I?' kinda things.

A cracker ain't the only thing he's asking you to swallow

Anyways, we start to learn about Magic Crazy Cracker Time, and transubstantiation. What the hell is that big word, you may be asking? I give you a brief insight into not just mine, but almost all young Catholics when they are told what this means.

"And when you take the Eucharist into your body, you are taking in Jesus Christ."

"Okay, so we believe it's the body of Jesus Christ. Gotcha."

"No. It is the body of Jesus Christ."

'Okay, yeah, but like a metaphor, right?"

"No."

"I've watched you all eat that thing. It's a cracker."

"No but the priest blesses it, and through the power of transubstantiation it literally becomes the flesh and blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

"So, we're eating flesh, like cannibals." 

"No, that's not exactly..."

"Yes, when people eat other people, that's cannibalism."

"Look, can't you kids just agree with me and do what you're told?"

And it's not like I'm some sort of Wunderkind over here, I saw the same look on a lot of young people's faces. But we went along with it, not because many of us believed it, but because we couldn't leave class until we agreed. So we took part in Magic Crazy Cracker Time and ate the body of our Savior (tasted stale) drank the blood of our lord (tasted like old people spit) and earned another merit badge on the 'Getting into Heaven' sash.

Our family stopped going to Mass (what catholics called going to church) as often then. Church wasn't a fun or spiritual place for anyone in my family, I think. But we still went the odd time, and I still had to do the occasional outing with the church. And that was the last straw.

I was 14-15 at the time. We were invited to a youth rally held for catholics in Nelson, BC. A weekend of prayer, song and fun is what was promised. We all piled into a van and headed south. We were the last to arrive, and after we arranged our things, headed to the main hall for the 'festivities'. There were sketches about Jesus (how awesome and cool he was), dancing about Jesus (sometimes a dude was dressed as Jesus and break dancing) and songs about Jesus. The guy next to me, an older kid maybe 16-17, was REALLY the songs. So much so, that when he asked me why I wasn't clapping. I replied that I had sprained my wrist playing basketball earlier that week. An he was so thoroughly into our Hero J to the C that he looked at me, right through me with cold dead eyes, and said "Funny, most people sprain their angles playing basketball". The music must have started to move through me because I started slapping my arm like my life depended on it.

With that kind of zealotry, you can even grow up to be Prime Minister!

Later that evening, me and this girl started hitting it off. Chemistry was bubbling, sparks were flying, the whole puppy love thing was in full effect. We spent the night and any time we had the next day chatting, flirting, being young kids. We were both really excited for the dance later that evening. Did I mention there was a dance? Yes, the catholic church was pulling out all the stops this weekend, and there was gonna be a dance. With touching! Fuck yeah! I was stoked! She was stoked! A lot of kids with repressed sexual desires were stoked! It was something we were all looking forward to!

But... they had rules. I know, catholics with rules. Craziness. One rule, their big rule, was the very simple "We like to see Blue, we like to see Pink, we don't want to see Purple". When we translate that into mature human being talk, it means that they wanted a foot between dance partners. A foot! Might as well be a mile. They had a stick to break you up if you got too close, and people, me and this girl got broken up a lot. We spent the evening trying to look over each other's shoulders so we could sneak a quick hug or a peck. It was kinda sad. 

I remember the next day, I was pissed. The writing fake words about Jesus for money, no big deal. Pretending a cracker is flesh and that I'm a zombie? I thought it was funny. But this? The church, catholicism at it's whole, was now cock blocking a teenager. Let me get this straight... Flood happens, God's will. Letting a girl my age rub up against me because we're full of hormones and confused as shit, now I'm the asshole. Shit catholic church, did you ever stop to think that letting us touch each others fun bits was God's will? That day I did two things; I started smoking regularly and stopped being a catholic

There are a lot of things in the bible that apply, if this was two thousand years ago. The whole Leviticus thing? Perhaps persecuted slaves, most of what made up early christianity, were probably pissed at the current oligarchy and their ways, including homosexuality. No sex before marriage? People used to get married at the age of whenever puberty hit. It's not like you had to wait long before getting your rocks off, this rule basically said 'No fucking children'. 

Look, the whole of catholicism and christianity I find incredibly odd. To each there own, but when I spell it out for without the mysticism or the Grandeur, it's the story of God, who gave people free will but had a plan, who loved people so much that it turned itself into a human form of itself by impregnating a lady, so it could be tortured and put to death (which, because it's all part of it's plan, knew this was coming) so that people could thank the human form of itself for doing this so that they wouldn't go to Hell (Hell, which by the way, was started by an angel who thought that God's plan was pretty lame), because even though they had free will, they were only free to worship God as it decreed, a very poor declaration I might add.

Honestly, looking back on what I just wrote, I'm certain God is simply a big fan of BDSM who came down to party with a bunch of hookers for thirty years. What was it's plan in all that? To experience life through a human's eyes? Isn't it omniscient? Wouldn't after experiencing that much sorrow and pain decide that those were shitty things to give people? Fuck it, I like my first idea better. God loves BSDM, and Jesus has more than likely been reincarnated as Rob Halford from Judas Priest.

He is better known as the 'Metal God' (seriously)

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Fun Fact! I've been listening to Judas Priest for two weeks straight! I still think British Steel is their best album.

p.s.s. Painkiller is also their best album, so is Screaming for Vengeance.

p.s.s.s Defenders of the Faith? Possibly the best album.

p.s.s.s.s. You may have noticed that I refer to God as an 'It'. I'm pretty certain a deity has no use for genitals.