the official unauthorized blog for oneword.com

If someone is gay and wants to serve in a military rampant with John Waynes and Pattons—they should. That's courage and determination if I've ever seen it.

I'm happy to hear that someone in the US government has seen the light. In fact, the only people that should be banned from the military are, well, people like me.

For the people that are furious about this; for the ignorant hoards that spent millions pushing Proposition 8 in California—I have a proposition for you:

Why not go all the way? Why be half-assed? Why not boycott everything involving gay people?

It won't be easy, but it's your cause, right? And causes aren't easy.

Let's start with something close to home:

HOME
No more furniture or décor designed by homosexuals. This includes all art, knick-knacks, and appliances. Not forgetting the exterior and general design of the house itself. (Straight knockoffs are not allowed.)

Great, you live in a log cabin, let's move on to:

FASHION
Okay, you look like a polygamist, next:

TECHNOLOGY
You can't read this article. The father of modern computer science, Alan Turing, was totally gay. Oh, and what in technology didn't DaVinci's gay hand remotely touch? Let's take a steam train on over to:

ENTERTAINMENT
Well, at least there's Pixar. Oh wait, nevermind. Let's see, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, HBO, Showtime, Dreamworks, Imagine, any feature film company. Nope. West Side Story? What about Star Wars or E.T.? Nope. Don't say it... don't say it... Disney's cool right?

So you're sitting in a burlap sack on a barrel enjoying KBYU, the Mormon church's public station, if you can stomach the homoerotic tension between Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street. (Oh, and your TV is black and white and ugly.)

MUSIC
It's nearly impossible for an artist, if not gay themselves, to make it from mic to master without involving the talents of a gay person.

Then there's "the blues," all-American and infused into every rock-n-roll song, which could hardly exist without the very lesbian "mother of the blues," Ma Rainey.

That's fine, since KBYU has the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (so long as they don't riff off Tchaikovsky). Oh, and Justin Bieber, for at least another year.

Rufus Wainwright is okay since he is so gay, it's neither here nor there.

HUMOR
The ever-flaming Oscar Wilde and gay-laced troupe of Monty Python directly or indirectly inspired any popular comedian alive today. Plus, what would Dane Cook talk about?

TRANSPORTATION
You could attempt driving, but there are too many design elements intrinsic to driving, from road signs to street layout and traffic signals, that likely had a gay hand involved. Plus, a gay pencil almost certainly graced the drawing board for even the most modest of minivans. And you can forget BMW or Mercedes.

I think the Model-T suites you just fine.

I could continue with advances and triumphs in Medicine, Cosmetics, Literature, Politics, Science, Physics, Education, ad nauseam. My point is that, like it or not, we'd all be looking pretty shabby (not shabby chic, mind you) without the astounding contributions and influence of gay men and women.

The word of the day is equality. This is a big step toward it. The next step is to remove the labels altogether, and recognize that we're all just human beings trying to make the world a better place.

It's not that I think Wikipedia's a bad idea. On the contrary—I think it's brilliant.

What's not brilliant is seeing a giant banner with the founder's photo with the headline:

"Please read: An urgent appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales."

For being ad-free, this sure feels like a whopping ad staring me in the face.

It's a great site, yes. It's also a giant pain in the ass. Anyone who has ever tried to create a Wikipedia page will attest. Wikipedia is, in my opinion, moderated by a multi-national cult of informational meter maids—minimum-wage/volunteer bullies—venting their insecurities in the form of cut-and-paste "flags" with twelve pages of stipulations and no apparent intention of helping to further my—or Wikipedia's—cause.*

Desperation doesn't become anyone.

I don't know what the Google guy's face looks like. Why? Because he's never put a giant ad pleading for money on Google's homepage. Instead, they put up some unobtrusive text ads, allowing them to continue offering their services while not starving to death. A pretty damn good business model if you ask me.

The reason that Google has failed to conquer Facebook or Twitter or Apple is because those companies are as masterful in their own arenas as Google is in theirs—delivering user-specified information. Fast.

So: Dear Google Guy, please make poor Jimmy an offer so he can put his unappealing appealing to rest and his idea can flourish. Then give it some serious Google streamlining. Most people use your site to get to his site already anyway.

The well-paid Googlepedia® staff will have nineteen references for every other word within weeks. Sure I'll see a text ad for car insurance while researching the Madagascar Day Gecko. I'll live.

# # #

*my oneword.com page has been flagged for deletion since May 2009. (I'm waiting.)

In an earlier post, I had mentioned being anti-stupid.

This was in response to multiple (some harsh and rude) allegations of the site being against freedom of speech. This, to me, is not only comical—but the antithesis of oneword.

Rather than being anti-stupid, I would like to offer a revised, more accurate statement:

oneword.com is pro-intelligent

The kid who sprays a litany of racial slurs, or pastes "your mom has sex with horses" a thousand times, is intelligent. Somewhere in there. Deep down.

Everyone has the capacity to act stupid, though it's just that—an act. And usually one of insecurity; of being afraid to truly express themselves. And, if anything, that's what oneword.com is all about: expression.

Yes, pro-intelligent, is the [compound] word of the day, and here's to shining a light on the brilliance inherent in everyone, in hopes that others—and, importantly, you—will see it, and be it.

After his mother and I had been split up for a year or so, I was in Salt Lake City visiting from Las Vegas. Simon was sitting in his car seat, eating popcorn.

“Dad. I want to be just like you.” His cute six-year-old voice was very matter-of-fact.

“Awwww… Thanks sweetheart.” I said, adoring him in the rearview.

“Yeah," he continued, "I want to get a divorce, then move to Vegas.”

My heart sank.

“No, sweetie. Don’t do that. Learn from that.”

I hope he does.

Inspiration is a tricky little son of a bitch.

Really. Inspiration's mother was the daughter of Necessity, the mother of Invention, who was the daughter of Repetition, the mother of Skill (from her first marriage), who was widely known to be a ranting, annoying, bitch.

The more we write, the less we die.

We want to be inspired, so we sit diligently at our laptops, waiting for it to hit. And wait... and wait... and wait...

Then nothing. So we wait some more...

 Finally, we get frustrated and give up and get on with our uninspired lives. No sooner do we succumb to the doldrums of existence—BLLLAAAAAAANG!—that little son of a bitch pops in. "Hey, ass hat!" He taunts, "check this out!" Then proceeds to flood your mind with the beginnings of this brilliant and life-changing idea. Your fingers fly at breakneck speed as Inspiration eloquently dictates revolutionary prose like an auctioneer on a coke binge. Then—GLLLLLRRAAARRP!—you hit a wall. Stuck again.

Why is this?

Looking at the etymology of the word "inspire," it began meaning "to breathe" or "breathe into." Origins of this meaning date back to before 1000 B.C. As the language evolved it began to take on more religious connotations leaning more toward "to breathe in spirit," or "breathe to life."

Life is an interesting word. What is living? At its very core, life is breathing. We could stop eating and live for months; stop drinking water and live for days; but we can't go without breath for more than a few minutes. So it could be said that breathing is the most important thing in our lives. How often do you think about breathing—the most important thing in your life? Unless you're a yogi or climbing Mt. Everest, it's probably a pretty rare occurrence.

Just like the air that we breathe, Inspiration is always there, unseen; ebbing and flowing. And, just like breathing requires us to exhale in order to inhale, Inspiration requires an expiration before again fill the lungs of creativity.

Is life supposed to be an endless cycle of rampant creativity followed by utter stagnation? Maybe. But the trick is not to argue with either. Be just as open to the exhale as you are to the inhale; to the expiration as you are to the inspiration. Then the ebb and flow are enjoyable. Acceptance and allowance of something, in a sense, puts one in control.

Now you can expect Inspiration, all grown up, well beyond mother's clutches.

Were it not for my job, I may have never heard this song—number one hit or not. Hell, upon first listen, my gag reflex nearly triggered. Nonetheless, I have heard Katy Perry's Firework upwards of three-hundred times by now. And, though I won't buy the album or voluntarily listen to it again, it's nice to see a song with some amount of substance at the top of the pops.

A quick perusal of the last decade's number one hits reveals a litany of danceable, memorable nonsense like Bootylicious, Drop It Like It's Hot and Hey Ya. (That being said, I am a firm believer in the healing power that comes with moving one's body to music—shaking it like a Polaroid picture, if you will—regardless of lyrical content.)

Lyric-wise, Katy Perry has about as much a chance of landing in lauded future literary texts as Snoop Dogg or Outkast, but what I like about Firework is its message:

Baby you’re a firework, c’mon let your colors burst...

Yes, it's silly, but to its primary demographic—known as "tweens"—it's an inspiring metaphor. “make 'em go ‘ah ah ah’...” It's annoyingly simple, yet paints a beautiful picture of revealing one's light to the world.

With such a simplistic and vivid metaphor comes equally vivid comprehension, and when the music engages mind (lyrics), body (rhythm) and heart (melody), it gets instantly imprinted in giant bold letters on the subconscious.

Perry's natural progression is typical, from the adolescent exploratory phase of kissing girls to teaching us about opposites like hot and cold, then finally exploding in a firework—which may or may not prove analogous to her chart-topping career.

Who knows? For now, the word of the day is "Firework." And I say kudos to Katy. And kudos to anyone who can see that they truly are "brighter than the moon, moon, moon..."

Small talk has never been my thing. I can recall many first conversations with people where midway through the conversation they'll say something to the effect of, "Wait, why am I telling you this?"

My wife's uncle Jerry and I share this trait. He has no clue what I do for a living or what I think of the current President. He's very quiet for the most part, but enjoys waltzing into a room and asking some thought-provoking question.

What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

"Wisdom is knowledge applied." I blurted out, excited that I had this quote in the database.

He replied, "You could have the knowledge to jump off a bridge, then apply it."

Damnit! I thought. Yes, you could have the knowledge of how to split an atom, then apply it and it may not exactly be the wisest thing in the world.

The Princeton English Dictionary defines wisdom as: "Accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment."

This definition would rate Cliff Claven from Cheers right up there with Gandolf.

As wisdom goes, my dog trumps all humans I know. I can't count how many arguments I've had with my wife—but all of them—where I've looked down at the dog, sitting there in silence, wagging her tail, and thought, "She is so wise!"

Perhaps wisdom is unconditional love. My dog isn't necessarily being wise by applying knowledge that she has accumulated, but by loving unconditionally.

Now, the "wisdom is knowledge applied" definition works if I were to learn (gain knowledge) from my dog and the next time a potential argument arises choose to sit there, shut up, and apply unconditional love.

The definition would be infallible if modified slightly:

Wisdom is knowledge discerned then applied.

Though I think the original quote assumes the reader isn't stupid enough to jump off a bridge.

The word of the day is "wisdom." Know it. Apply it.

I'm reading a book about Utah-famous Hugh Nibley, who was a revered member of the LDS (Mormon) religion. He was a professor at BYU, a prolific author, and—more interestingly—an "apologist" for the church.

The apologists were called upon to field any significant scientific or intellectual challenges to the validity of the church's doctrine or leaders. And do it in as quiet a manner as possible. Some of Hugh's methods of verbal reassurance and deflection included such gems as:

People underestimate the capacity of things to disappear.

Like the capacity of the sources of upwards of 70% of the footnotes in his books. Or the virginity of his then five-year-old daughter, for instance.

Of course, this blog post and anything that disagrees with church doctrine is immediately written off as conjecture on the part of whomever lurks on the other side of the LDS fence.

It's nothing new, myriad churches have claimed to be the end-all-be-all for millennia. They used to get away with beheading people that challenged them. When beheading became politically incorrect, threatened religions employed teams of apologists armed with circular logic.

One would think that truth wouldn't need apologizing.

Over the last decade or so, the internet has made it virtually impossible for someone in that line of work to remain unexposed—or, in the very least, their "apologies" to remain so. Transparency is the word of the day, and soon enough, the best they'll be able to do when someone challenges them is yell:

Hey look! It’s Mark Wahlberg!

Then run.

When I was nineteen, I inherited a pet peeve. I was at a party and we were on the subject of peeves that were pets and a guy said, "I hate it when people say anyways." I hadn't given it any thought before, but I then realized the stupidity of this non-word. And it has peeved me—and my pets—ever since. So, it gets the number one slot.

1. "Anyways."

I've already gone off about dashes, so I'll be brief.

2. Spaces surrounding em dashes.

When did it become okay to put spaces before and after dashes? I can't figure it out.

Read Great Expectations or Catcher in the Rye or the New Yorker—hell, read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White or the fucking Chicago Manual of Style.

3. Courier.

(The typeface, not people who deliver stuff.)

In a failed attempt to imitate the typewritten screenplays from days of yore, we somehow ended up donning this piece of shit font the industry standard for screenplays. As made apparent above, I have deep-rooted childhood dash issues. And guess what a hyphen looks like in Courier? This: "-"; an en dash? This: "-"; an em dash? This: "-". 

Don't even get me started on Courier New.

4. "I could care less."

Well, I couldn't.

5. "Awe, cute."

It's probable that one could be in awe of cuteness. However, it's about 10,763 times more likely that what you meant to write was "Awwww... cute!" (The number of "w"s is subjective.) It's an onomatopoeia (a Scrabble player's wet dream that means "written interpretation of a sound"). Yes, I know that your spell-checker automatically changed it, but if I just went with everything my iPhone's spell-checker suggested, I'd have alienated most of my address book by now.

And, last:

6. "I'm nauseous."

I'll say.

Admittedly this is straight outta The Elements of Style and, equally admittedly, I've misused this word many times myself. However, after I learned the error of my ways and what it really means—it's worth repeating.

What you meant to say is "I'm nauseated." This indicates that you are sick to your stomach. To be "nauseous" is to cause others to be nauseated. Just like to be contagious causes others to be contagiated.

. . .

I could probably go on and on about you're/your, it's/its, there/their/they're and other things that are like a flea driving me up a chalkboard. But I have a feeling we've both got better things to do.

Sutton Place is arguably the nicest neighborhood in New York City. Three miles West is the corner of St. Nicholas Ave. at 125th St., which is arguably the worst neighborhood* in New York City.

If I had a giant map of the US on my wall and drew a straight yellow line from LA to Sutton Place, then a straight blue line from LA to the corner of St. Nicholas Ave. and 125th—the entire line would be green. If I zoomed way in to street level, there might appear to be some minor registration errors somewhere around Wichita, KS, and by the time you hit Allentown, PA, you might suspect two lines, but at that point you're 94% there.

Standing in Los Angeles, the angle is so subtle that a nanometer to the left could change your trajectory from Trumpville to Ghettoville. A millimeter could land you in Maine or Delaware.

Most of us are trying to make these giant shifts overnight: suicidal to blissful; whale to waif; deathbed to disco. Not only are these nearly impossible, but they are frustrating and short-lived. (Know anyone who's lost weight super fast then kept it off for more than a month?)

I'm a big fan of Abraham-Hicks and they're all about the subtle shifts—from hopelessness to blame to anger to revenge to pessimism to hopefulness to enthusiasm to appreciation to joy.

Next time you're feeling powerless and frustrated, try jumping to bliss. It doesn't work. Next time you're feeling hopeless and some patchouli-wearing vegan pops in and says something along the lines of "life is beautiful, just look around at all the beau—" You're gonna finish his sentence with your fist.

However, if you're depressed, you can, while still slouching on the sofa, shift ever so slightly to blame, "it's that bitch's fault!", still on the couch, but at least you're stirring. Then you can sit up slightly in sweet, delectable revenge, "I'll slash her tires!", then on to pessimism/sarcasm, "Her car will probably slash its own tires just to get a break." Okay, that's kinda funny. (Laughs.) Aha! A laugh! Could you have laughed back at depressed? Hell no! Even a tiny bit of laughter can bridge you right on over to optimism, "Well, at least we can both move on now...", landing us on a perfect platform to hop up to eagerness, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Now I can ask Brenda out!" to empowerment and freedom, "I'm the king of the world. Look out, ladies!"

It's all about subtle shifts that may not look like much from Los Angeles, but by the time you're in New York, they make all the difference in the world.