The Grunt and Groan Game

Endeavoring to write about professional wrestling has proven to be far more difficult than I expected. Not because I don't have much to say about it but because I have TOO MUCH to say about it. Think about that for a second. Look at the length of my previous blog posts (and read them if you haven't because I can be quite clever at times). I actually am having trouble writing about wrestling because I just have too much to say about it. But just as I try to tell younger performers trying to get an understanding of our art: in wrestling less really is more.

Very simply, fans go to wrestling events for the cathartic experience of living vicariously through someone they love defeating someone they hate in physical combat. It is a business in that promoters are investing time and money into getting patrons to come and exchange capital for their product. It's an art because it is based on reaching into a real, fantastic world and seeking to invoke real, heightened emotions. 

I love professional wrestling. As a fan, as a participant, as an ambassador of the sport, I love professional wrestling. The physicality, the drama, the brutality, the pageantry. The empathy, the manipulation, the danger, the surprise. When wrestling is great it provides an interactive experience that no other athletic endeavor or entertainment field can duplicate.

A number of possible blog entries came to mind. I could write about the reality of wrestling. I could write about the appeal of wrestling. I could write about the "violent" nature of wrestling. What makes a good wrestling show? Why do I call it an art form? Perhaps if people comment on this post I will reply with specific posts.

One thing I will not do: tell you HOW we do what we do. In my opinion too much of the wrestling business has been exposed already and I feel an almost sacred responsibility to protect some of our secrets. Penn & Teller do the Cups and Balls trick not to show you how to be a magician but to show you how hard their job is and just to offer a little insight into their art. Similarly I am willing to share "why" we do some of the things we do but if you want to know the "how" I suggest you do what I did and go to wrestling school.

Chuck, You Is Crazy!

**This blog will permanently destroy any "tough guy" or "cool guy" credibility I may have pretended to have but maybe it will be helpful to someone who needs the encouragement.**


In conversation I will occasionally say, "I know I'm not crazy; my therapist said so." I love the ironic sound of this phrase but it's actually very true. I may be irrational at times, I may have strange, emotional, nostalgic moments. I may not always connect to people the same way other people do but I'm certainly not "crazy" in the sense that I'm a danger to others and myself. But I have had at important times in my life sought the services of mental health professionals in order to address immediate and long-standing emotional issues.

I was hesitant at first to seek out professional help because, like many people, I had this perceived notion that mental health problems are like the conditions of a hypochondriac and, ironically, "all in your head" inasmuch as that it's something I was just making up. The only people you ever see in movies seeking mental health treatment were catatonic, violent, drug abusers, or purely delusional. It seemed that if you didn't think you were Napoleon you were just a regular ol' person and that you should be totally fine and that to suggest otherwise is to admit an unspeakable personal weakness. Fortunately, I was encouraged by good people, a family member and friend, who had found therapy beneficial and that gave me the strength to try to face my fears. While I'm not sure if the diagnosis is 100% correct I was diagnosed with a condition in therapy that at least gave me a jumping point to find avenues towards improving my emotional and behavioral health.

You see, the brain is so unfathomably complicated that it's currently impossible to explain how it works but everyday we learn more and more about how it functions and how it affects our behaviors and our decisions. We do know some things like our ability to use pure reason plays a very, very small part in most of our actions and choices individually. It stands to reason then that every single person on the planet probably has a few, if not several million, neurological misfirings and connections which cause us to think and behave in ways that may not be most beneficial to our physical and mental health, much less for how they affect other people. And, if that's the case, it seems rather sensible to me that people might want to take time to see if there may be things they can do allow their brain to function in a more healthy way just as they would their heart and lungs.

Recently "the failure of the mental health community" has become one rallying cry in regards to the apparent, though I think sensationalized, rash of acts of mass violence by individuals. This may be my irrational brain causing me to say this but it seems that a more immediate issue is the violent individuals' inability to address their own mental health issues. Perhaps when you're psychological function is that far gone you are incapable of recognizing that you may need a different mental health strategy and that's totally fair. I'm not sure if the same thing can be said for a person who posts twice a day on Facebook about their drinking habits, their misanthropic preference of dumb animals over their fellow human, or the often hate-fueled disgust for people with different political or sociological perspectives.

Perhaps we have this hold over belief that mental health is associated with sin and that we're unhappy because we aren't following God's will or something. Fortunately, we've pretty much eradicated that belief when it comes to physical health issues (contrary to what the Bible says, I might add) so maybe it's time that society starts looking to more reasonable answers. Perhaps your "relationship with God" operates differently than mine did but my experience involved scores of hours of requests to alleviate my youthful self hatred and loneliness to an unanswering God. But, as I eventually learned, just as an obese person can't pray away the fat, a depressed person can't pray away the pain.

There is so little we know about the brain and psychology is such a young, strange science that we know we are ignorant and wrong about some or a lot of things. I can live with that because I know that the heart behind it is the question, "how can we make people healthier, better people?" You don't have to be on the verge of shooting up a school to seek to improve your psychological health. You just need the strength to say, "I wonder if I could do this better?

An Angry Holiday Letter

**Attention, anyone can read this but I'm specifically aiming this diatribe at atheists and agnostics. In this typically long-winded blog I'm going to share some stories and attempt to tie them together into a cohesive thought here so bear with me if you have the time.**

Some of you may recall that I used to pride myself as "the atheist who loves Xmas." Well, I'm not anymore. I don't celebrate Xmas or Christmas. I take some stuff way too seriously and holidays are one of them. Since "the holiday season" has become so politicized I decided I would take a formal position on the matter.

So, instead of saying "well...I don't really celebrate Christmas because I'm not into Santa or Jesus but I like the lights and blah blah blah" I've found a great alternative: HumanLight. Some people in New Jersey started it and since then it's been sponsored by the American Humanist Association. Basically, since it falls on December 23rd it's like the secular humanist's bootleg Christmas. Yes, I know it's a stupid fucking name. Truthfully, I'm stumped when it comes to thinking of a better one but it's at least as good as "Easter" or "Arbor Day." If you're a secular humanist you've got something to put on your calendar. Note: it's the day AFTER my birthday which should also be on your calendar so you can remember to give me stuff.

But here's the thing: it's for secular humanists, right? So we have a holiday now where we get to all be proud about being humanists without the "burden" or whatever of religion? What does that mean? That we show the light of our....well, that's what I'm wondering. The light of our what?

Get this: I'm an atheist. I actively believe there is no god. In my opinion, that in no way speaks to my character or the quality of person I am. It may affect my decisions and actions but just because I don't believe in the supernatural in any way means I'm a "good" or "bad" person. Despite what that moron Paul may have said in a letter, my works actually do matter. But, you know, I don't think all atheists really get this idea.

See, a few weeks ago I went to an atheist meetup. Was I there to engage in intellectual discourse? Well, sure. I mean, mostly I was there hoping there might be some hot, single atheist babes who didn't think being involved in the professional wrestling business was appalling but, yeah, sure, I was there for the discourse. Certainly there was some of that (not so much the hot babes) but there was one thing I definitely found: self righteous atheist snarkiness.

You know, I get it. Religion is stupid. It teaches things and ideas that are untrue and often harmful. Tell me something I don't know. But you know what, just because you aren't religious you aren't all of the sudden better than the people who are religious. In fact, if all your anti-religious experience grants you is the ability to make jokes about Mormons then chances are you might not actually have a whole lot going for you.

Jump forward to a few weeks later. I was invited to a breakfast by a fellow skeptic and was fortunate to meet some very cool people. Snarkiness was not present at this discussion but there was, thankfully, some disagreement. The idea was presented that there was a deep concern about the presence of libertarianism within the skeptic community. For one thing, I don't think having a diversity of opinion within the community is a bad thing but for another HEY! I'm a libertarian! In fact, I describe my beliefs as being "atheist libertarianism."

Without putting too fine a point on it, basically someone said that though she is an atheist she still maintains some of her Christian morality and that as such she still supports the idea of having a safety net. Mind you, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have a safety net but I retorted by saying (and I paraphrase), "I still have some of my Christian morality as well but the tradition I came from was the Salvation Army and even though most of those people support conservative economics they devoted much of their lives to supporting social services and saw helping those in need as part of their duty as Christians."

Flash forward to yesterday: a friend of mine, perhaps one of the most compassionate humans I've ever known, texted me asking if she should give money to the Salvation Army because she wanted to know if the money went to the church or social services. I'm sure that to most atheists the answer is very clear: no, the Salvation Army is a church and they shouldn't get any of my money. Almost certainly my issues with the SA are personal and deeper than yours so when I say I don't give money to them believe me when I say have legitimate reasons. But for you? You could do better but you could do a hell of a lot worse too.

But then it hit me, all three of the stories have this same connective idea: what does it mean to be a secular humanist? I mean, we have a holiday with a stupid name now, right? So what are we celebrating about our belief? That we think we're smarter than Christians? I can tell you right now that I don't want any part of that bullshit.

Listen, I'm not going to attempt to argue that libertarianism maximizes resources and expands economic growth for all people in the long run. Frankly, I'm not sure that it does and there is evidence to the contrary. But I can tell you what I want out of my own life and what I'd like for others: I want to be able to be free to make my own decisions, live my life as I best see fit, use my time how I want, make whatever I want out of my life to the best of my ability, take care of myself and those that I love, and when I'm able, help out people who are in greater need than myself. That's all I want. I don't mind people telling me what they think is best for me but I sure as hell don't want to be forced to do anything. I don't want anyone to be forced into doing anything they don't want to do. If that's the ugly presence of libertarianism, idyllic and naive as it may be, I can live with that.

But what I can't live with is people calling themselves "secular humanists" and then not really giving a fuck about their fellow Homo sapien. There probably should be a safety net provided by the state. But if you ask me, it should be a last line of defense. The reason we're even alive as a species is because evolution granted altruism as part of our genetic make up. We're here because we had to take care of each other. Is it enough? Maybe not, but goddamn it, let's at least fucking TRY.

The people in the Salvation Army are wrong about us needing Jesus. Cool. But you know what, I've seen Salvationists who would LITERALLY take their shirt off for a person in need. No, gays aren't going to hell and it's a stupid, horrible belief to hold. But, goddamn, those assholes cared about their fellow human beings. To me THAT is really what it means to be a humanist.

Secular humanists, I'm not saying you need to change your politics because as far as I know you're right. But I will ask you to do is to give a fucking shit about your fellow humans and do something about it. We're smart enough to know that evolution brought us to this point on Earth, we ought to be smart enough to figure out that we can be personally involved in helping to make the lives of other humans better.

Honestly I don't really want to be kind to the world. I want to be fucking Lex Luthor. I want to be so smart, so driven, so crazy I can challenge goddamn Superman. Really, I'm not even that nice of a person. Ask the guy at the gas pump who yells, "hey, big man!" if I open up my wallet to him. But since my stupid monkey brain keeps telling me "you're supposed to care about those dumb schleps within your species" I try to find some ways to exhibit compassion. 

So if you're a secular humanist I expect the same out of you. I'm not saying stop giving to your fucking save-the-pit bull campaign ('cause some of those chicks wear skimpy outfits and make calendars with which you can put my birthday on) but how about this: give to a save-the-human charity every now and then. My favorite is Doctors Without Borders but there are plenty of great ones out there, probably even better ones. You've got time and resources to go online and waste it reading my bullshit so you must have something going for you.

What's that? You're like me and mooching off the Internet at work? Then give blood or something. That's apolitical, that's secular. I've even gotten some cute phlebotomists' numbers out of the deal. There are lots of ways of addressing material needs and until we have an Atheism Army that runs orphanages and handles disaster relief you might have to bite the bullet and do it in a less appealing way.

My point, briefly - Dear Atheists,

Stop being so goddamned snarky and help out your fellow fucking human.
No government, NGO, non-profit or even corporation is going to make this place better if we aren't willing to do the good ourselves first. Maybe if we're all so smart and just so goddamned humanistic that one day we won't be arguing about a safety net we'll actually be runnin' this damn thang. Maybe it won't be goddamned megachurches I see running winter-time clothing and toy drives in my 'hood. I know a lot is institutional and just being compassionate and godless won't change that, but it sure as hell is a step in the right direction.

A Memorial Day Thought

A couple of weekends ago a friend and I were driving through an Atlanta neighborhood and he pointed out a Civil War monument I had never seen before. I told him about how my grandmother used to show me this photograph of an ancestor of mine who fought for the Confederate States of America. I wish I paid more attention to her than I had for I can't remember his name. I don't know anything of his accomplishments on or off the battlefield. Likewise, I don't know much about the Patterson brothers who fought in the American Revolution that led my family to Georgia. But despite my ignorance of their lives I still felt that perhaps I might join some organization like the Sons of the Confederacy or Sons of the American revolution to honor their memories.

This was completely foreign to my friend. Why, he implored, would a person want to link himself to something of such legendary error as defending the evil institution of slavery? It's clear that I am opposed to slavery and, ultimately, I support the idea of a unified United States of America. So why would I want to honor those who fought to continue one of the greatest moral injustices that humans can, and still, engage in?

At first, I couldn't really answer him. He's right in that whatever positive reasons the Confederacy may have had for secession are vastly out weighed by the burden of slavery. But somehow, I still cannot hate the soldiers of the Confederacy just as I cannot hate the soldiers of the Union. Slavery is deplorable but I also think the total war tactics employed by the Union, and particularly those of Gen. Sherman, are also immoral. The Union will be forever known as the force that freed the slaves in America but also as the force that torched and destroyed the South in order to do it.

My father served in the Vietnam War. He was always a quiet man so I was never sure if his overall silence about the war was because of his general disposition or because he intentionally kept us in the dark about his time there. Years later after I graduated college I found out that my father was ill. He had been diagnosed with diabetes as an adult and then later with Hepatitis C. As it turns out my father contracted the disease during his time in the war. I don't know where he got the disease, Malaysia or Vietnam, but I do know that he was infected while using drugs that he never used before or after his military service. Although I do not know the details I do know that this was a common event for men who were asked to do things and see things which caused them great mental distress and they did what they could to anesthetize themselves.

The Vietnam War was not a just war nor was my father's involvement in it. He committed no crimes and did not volunteer to engage in war. The UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT decided that he and many other men were not free moral agents but property of the state. Their liberty was not a consideration as they were forced into virtual slavery, given guns, and then sent to fight for causes that many knew nothing about and many opposed. While my father did not die in war and it was his own decisions that led to his early death I will always consider my father a combatant who died because of war.

I loved my father dearly. I honored and respected my father. I even loved my father's service in the military. He did not see things in the extreme way I did. Rather, he saw himself as a man who simply answered the call that the country he loved so dearly made. He was a hero to me as a father. And even though he fought in a war we now consider to be morally questionable he was also a hero to our country.

Soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, guardsmen. They are heroes. Ask any friend that's been with me to see it and they can confirm that if I'm in line at a grocery store, filling my gas tank, or getting a sandwich that I will stop what I'm doing to say 'thank you' to any man or woman in uniform. They make a living defending freedom and that's just about the coolest thing ever.

But sometimes these men and women are asked to do things I think is wrong. Sometimes these heroes are sent to places that I think the United States should avoid. But duty and honor are their callings, their job descriptions. They are the fighting men and women of the greatest military on the planet and are Grade-A ass kickers and I'm grateful that they are here.

That's how I feel about the Confederates. It's also I how I feel about the Union soldiers. Most southerners did not own a slave. Far fewer owned many slaves. But many men died on their behalf. Consider this sentence: wealthy, politically connected southern aristocrats convinced poorer, less sophisticated men to fight their battles for them. I could have easily replaced "southern" with "northern" and the sentence would be true.

My dad did not give a shit one way or the other about the Viet Cong. He may have known Communism was evil but he may not have known why. Regardless my dad, Charles Barrett Porterfield, had no business being entangled in the struggle to prevent it's spread to Asia. But politicians forced my father to do what millions of slain heroes have done: fight rich people's battles for them.

I've got nothing against wealth or the wealthy. I do have a problem with some wealthy people conspiring with people of great political power to send people like my father out to fight and possibly die. Most combatants in history have been men. Whether they were a Mongol, a Zulu, a Greek, an American, a Nazi, an Apache they were all individual, human beings that could have been someones father or brother or husband or lover and were absolutely someones son. Killed for a cause they may or not have believed I do not know if I have the moral fortitude to decide whether any or all died in vain. I do wish that whatever the issue at hand was that it had not come to war.

Maybe the Civil War was the only way to end slavery. Perhaps World War II limited the combine genocides of the Nazis and Soviets to 70 million when it could have been hundreds of millions. My cousin, a captain in the awesome US Navy, is involved in military intelligence and could probably tell me things that would make me accept a Nobel Peace Prize one week and then send tens of thousands of sons to a front line the next. But, goddammit, I have to believe there is another way. I argue that it's through free and fair trade that international conflict is reduced but if a politician espouses anything other than anti-war rhetoric then they will never have my vote.

My dad did not die during a war but war caused my dad to die. On this Memorial Day I'm going to remember him specifically and every warrior collectively who carried a gun or lifted a sword or drew a bow or flew a plane or sailed a warship and fought with (mostly) his all to fight for his country. May your sweat and blood be the foundation with which we forge a world in which our differences lead to competition and cooperation rather than violence and force.

Similarly Inclined

I've been reading this terrific book by Michael Shermer called "The Mind of the Market: How Biology and Psychology Affect our Economic Minds" (Times Books, 2007). It is no surpise that I find this and his other books compelling because a) like Shermer I'm a skeptic who seeks scientific explanations for events and b) Shermer advocates for free market economics for a variety of social and moral reasons. This falls squarely into the category of "preaching to the choir" as I am an atheist libertarian like Michael Shermer himself. Both of us have been persuaded by the same arguments regarding philosophy and ethics and we share a similar perspective of how the world does and can operate. I am aware that there are equally learned and brilliant people who criticize Shermer and his philosophies but I have yet to read or hear any messages that I find to be more persuasive than those that he espouses. Since I have drastically changed my mind about these subjects before (remember, I used to be a socialist Christian) I always like to leave open the possibility that I may, and most likely will, alter my beliefs about the world.

So here's my question: what's so hard about taking the perspective that a person may be wrong about things and that it's just part of being a human? All the time I see conservatives deriding liberals as being mentally disabled and stupid and I see liberals calling conservatives hateful and ignorant. Maybe it's because of my libertarian bent that I take issue with this because I tend to support economic conservatism and am therefore lumped together anti-abortion, pro-religion zealots. Perhaps it's because I think people should be able to choose what they put in their bodies, be it drugs, fast food or cocks, that I'm considered a morally permissive sinner bound for Hell. I have no idea what the best choices for you are. I certainly don't think that corporations or the government know what is best for you. I do think that we as individuals are more than capable of making relatively good decisions for ourselves and the more autonomy we are given the better off we are. At least I am until I am given sound reasoning to think otherwise.

I know I've written about this before but I'm just fucking tired of name-calling. I'm particularly tired of people thinking they have a moral upper hand because of their beliefs. I shouldn't be surprised about this because in "The Mind of the Market" Shermer discusses studies recently conducted in which people were asked to rank their virtue in comparison of others, including their friends in which they consistently ranked themselves as being more moral and compassionate than others. There are a number of reasons for this but it ultimately comes down to humans' irrational ability to justify their own actions, right or wrong. Having been associated with both religious and non-religious groups I can tell you that no one has a monopoly on self-righteousness. I think atheist libertarianism offers the best, most constructive worldview currently available but that doesn't make me a better person by any measure.

Give Obama a Break

About 16 months ago I published a blog regarding a report that stated that President Obama made more biblical and Jesus references in a year than President Bush did during his entire presidency. If you go back and look at the comments you'll see that a lot of my friends, mostly self-identified liberals, argued that Obama was using religion as a way of reaching out to a part of the electorate and that he didn't really believe in Christianity. In private conversations some even argued that he probably didn't even believe in god.

Conservatives call Obama a Muslim and liberals are calling him an atheist. To me what this boils down to is that they all are calling him a liar and some are okay with it and some aren't. Either way they both argue that he's lying to get votes.

A couple of weeks ago this article came out about the Obamas finding a church home: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1907610,00.html

So he and his family are Christians. Please stop calling the guy a liar. If he were really Muslim he would believe that deception is wrong and wouldn't go to church. If he were really an atheist he would see through the bullshit of religion and would either criticize it or use a different method of arguing his point.

Again, Obama is a fucking Christian. Period. He espouses Christian beliefs. I disagree with a lot of President Obama's ideas including but not limited to his belief in God but I'm not calling the guy a fucking liar. Personally I think his politics are heavily influenced by Christianity and that may be one reason why I disagree with him but I don't think the guy is lying about something as important as his religious beliefs. He is a goddamn, motherfucking Christian. Stop saying he's a liar.

Good Ol' Fashioned Hatefulness

Dear Overtly Hatemongering Asshole:

People are going to disagree with you so you should learn to accept it. You don't have to like the person and you certainly should be adamantly opposed to her or his ideas if you find them to be illogical or unsubstantiated but as a citizen of a free country you must accept that there will be differences of opinions. Even a person who believes the same things as yourself will interpret it and represent it in a different fashion than you simply because her or his life experiences, neurology, genetics, and choices are different.

If you are like myself then you believe in the free market of ideas. I don't want to silence those that disagree with me because I feel strongly that my beliefs are supported by rational argumentation and that the person who posits an opposing view will, in the long run, be proven either right or wrong. Germ theory wasn't immediately accepted but as it stood up to repeated testing and scrutiny it eventually became the accepted explanation of disease transmission. Freedom of speech is essential to the liberation of thought and the advancement of society. I may think that much of FOX News is propaganda for their agenda. But I also think that when a person calls for their "satanic death" like John Cusack has recently it shows a lack of confidence in the logic behind his or her arguments.

But what it also demonstrates to me is that some people are hate mongers. It used to be that when a person was a hate monger you expected that individual to be wearing white robes and burning crosses. From the extremists on the right I hear is how Barack Obama is a simultaneously a communist and a fascist (which is like being fire and water) and that they want him dead. From the left I hear people openly hoping that something awful befalls the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Yes, many of their ideas are wrong. Yes, they have made personal life choices that you or I would not make. But they are still human fucking beings. Palin isn't chopping up homosexuals with chainsaws. Obama isn't blasting bankers with a tank. Beck's politics may be influenced by a fraudulent religion but he isn't financially defrauding people. They all endorse ideas and policies that may be harmful for society but they aren't bad people. Say you hate their ideas. Call them assholes. But being an asshole is not immoral and it doesn't mean that wishing a person harm is justified.

Personally, I have no room for this in my life. I am war with ideas not people. If a person wants to place position themselves on the side that advocates or wishes physical harm to come to another person for expressing ideas then I do not want you to be my friend. If you cannot be civil don't be in my life. A grown up doesn't want Glenn Beck to die. A grown up tries to find the most compelling argument and lets the free market of ideas to take over.