About Me

So, what’s my story …

I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan – a great place to be from. In truth it was actually fun growing up in a large city and, though I’m a rural guy nowadays, I still have fond memories of those times. (The ‘67 riots, the ‘68 Tigers, the ‘69 Apollo moonwalk, BobLo island, Gordie Howe – oh those memories.) Nothing special about my youth – just another kid trying to avoid trouble and trying to meet girls (unsuccessful on both accounts). Back in those idyllic times I was brought up as a Christian in the Methodist church. My mother was always a dedicated member of the church, though I don’t think she really lives her life in a very christian way, but that is another story. My father (deceased now) never went to church (bless him), though I don’t know if it was because he was an unbeliever (doubtful), lazy (possible) or simply disliked my mother (probable). Regardless, my mother religiously dragged me and my siblings to church each Sunday. All through my youth I never really bought seriously into the God/Jeebuz thing. I would have characterized myself as more of an agnostic at the time. You see, I am a big fan of the natural sciences and trying to reconcile all the magic and voodoo of the Bible with the real world just didn’t jive. In looking back on those times I feel as though I’d always had some innate understanding that is was all bunk. Anyway, I eventually grew up (chronologically, anyway ) and quit attending church. I’ve never looked back and, quite the contrary, feel more solidly rooted in my atheism than ever. However, my leaving the comforting embrace of the church was more than just growing up. There was a darker reason that I’ll divulge here (for the first time ever). However, to explain I must digress a bit …

When I was young (early teens) I had a passion for silent films and pipe organ music. I still do. Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel&Hardy – I loved these great talents. I also enjoyed the fact that the action and emotions in these old films was expressed musically by someone improvising music accompaniment on a theater pipe organ. Often I went to old local theaters for ’silent film’ festivals so I could hear the grand organs played along with the films. Anyway, all this led to my having a strong wish to have the skill to actually play a theater (or church) pipe organ. (I also loved classical organ music such as Bach, Buxtehude, etc).  So, my private dream of playing a theater/pipe organ remained just that – a dream, until somewhere around age 14 or 15 (can’t recall anymore) when our local church organist volunteered to give me lessons. (For a token fee, of course.) Our church only had a large electric organ, but I figured the skill would be portable and someday I’d be able to sit at a real pipe organ and thunder away. Thus, I signed up for organ lessons.

Can you possibly see where this is heading?

Well, laugh if you must (hey, it’s the web, who the hell knows), but what I got were organ lessons of a manifestly different nature. Yup, you guessed it. The fucking church choir director and organist, loved by all, righteous to the last, was a goddamn pervert and sex abuser. Week after week I found myself sitting at the church organ desperately trying to concentrate on the music (I really did want to learn this stuff) and this fucking psycho fucktard would place his hand on my crotch and massage my prick to a full staff and entertain himself. All this taking place in the balcony of that hallowed house of the holy, under the watchful gaze of Jeebuz (a portrait, of course, and how the fuck do they know what he looked like anyway?) and the usual church symbolism. At the time I was so pathetically subservient to adults that all I could do was suffer through this abuse until the official end of the ‘lesson’ when I quickly got the hell out of there. I never told anyone. Who the fuck would have believed me anyway? This guy was a fucking pillar of the congregation for crying out loud! I had to tolerate this for quite a while as my mother insisted I keep up with the lessons. (She still thinks the choir director was such a wonderful person – makes me gag thinking about it.) It was quite a while before I was able to muster the courage to feign a lack of interest in learning to play the organ, and dropped the lessons. Another fucking childhood dream crushed.

Well, that was the seminal event (an interesting choice of word) that sent me solidly and permanently away from religion – all religion. Mind you, I wasn’t much committed to the lame stories (Noah’s Ark? Come on now … get fucking real) and ‘God is watching over you all the time’ bullshit. (If God is watching all the time, he must have been getting off pretty good watching my ‘lessons’.) The ‘hands on’ experience pretty much cemented my opinion that religion and those adherents staking claim to some higher ethical and moral values are total crap.

For many a year now I’ve considered myself a hard-core atheist and I wouldn’t change for all the tea in China. Years of reading, observations of human nature and simply listening to the insanity spewing from the mouths of the ‘righteous’ convince me more than ever that religion is corrupt, hypocritical, at odds with human nature and responsible for more human suffering than any device conjured up by the minds of men. (And it is a male-run institution, isn’t it ladies?) It a seriously bad drug for foolishly weak minds. All the monotheistic religions are bullshit – plain and simple. There is no Jesus, no Allah, no heaven nor hell waiting for me or anyone else after our time in this world. How we spend that time, for good or ill, happy or sad, rich or poor will make no fucking difference in the end.

So now you know a bit about me.