Another regurgitated old blog post back from the grave. Enjoy the text version of my rewarmed forty-day-old corned beef and hash. Original Post Date: Monday, September 18, 2006 - 9:15 AM

If you haven't seen or spoken to a zealot, and think they don't exist, then you just haven't met one yet. You will. What do I mean by 'zealot' you ask? What I mean by that term is anyone who is SO against something, or SO for something, that they will destroy any and every moment of peace and tranquility you have, and go to any lengths to prove their point, even though they coulda just stated their point in a calm manner and dealt with people like any other normal human being would.

Case in point: animal activists. I have no problem with people legitimately caring about what happens to animals. I like animals. I like petting some of them, but, that being said, to be honest I like eating them a lot more than I like petting them. Not ALIVE of course, I mean, I'm not a Chupacabra or one of those natives that stabs sharpened reed straws into the necks of water buffalo. No, I dig animals and think they shouldn't be mistreated, or otherwise raised inside of bonsai jars. (I swear to Christ though, that the first one of those PETA people sprays my leather coat with orange paint is getting a tire iron stuck in his head up to my wrist). We have a cat that, while annoying, I love. I don't plan on making a hat out of her anytime soon. A white and gray angora pimp hat with a tail wouldn't match any of my other clothes anyway. It's activists or activist wannabees (oddly enough almost all of whom you see wearing Abercrombie and Fitch nit hats and clothes advertising hemp products with facial piercings and tribal arm-band tattoos [that don't go all the way around their bicep because it hurts too much to have a tattoo done on the inside of the arm – POSERS]) who have so much pent up rage in them about the state of affairs that they will find some random schlub wearing a fur coat, assault them, paint them, scream at them, all the while that person might have been just walking to the bookstore to get a gift for their grandson who's at the hospital dying of some crazy strain of rectal leukemia. See, that's going too far. THAT'S being a zealot. You don't know anything about those people you are assaulting (because if you did then the argument for premeditation is easier to make). You don't know what they're doing or what they stand for. You just see an easy target with a coat on you don't like. Like those gangs that drive around looking for some anonymous somebody so their new member can shoot them for their first kill and earn the club teardrop tattoo.

There's this part of town in Kansas City here called The Plaza, where I'll run into all sorts of freakos each with their own cornucopia of beefs they wish to picket and rage against on the sidewalks. The last one I remember was a few months back when Judge whats-his-head (John Bigbootay or Cocktoastin [its Slavic] or something) was being voted into the Supreme Court, so when I went to the plaza that particular week, the flavor of picketer that day were these red-faced, screaming, veins-showing-in-the-neck women that would run up to me on the sidewalk as I strolled by and ask stuff like "DO YOU THINK WE NEED MORE CONSERVATIVE JUDGES ON THE SUPREME COURT?" (which is a loaded question, because, I mean, I HAVE eyes, and can read their t-shirts with blunt anti-Bush statements on them…I pretty much GET they aren't honestly asking for my thoughts on the issue so we can enter into a calm conversation about it.

They only want to know if I answer "A" or "B". "A – I'm going to scream at this guy", or "B – he's on my side so I'll hand him a pamphlet and turn to scream at the next person.") I simply won't take a political stance on anything in public. Ever. To anyone. I'm more of a social miscreant than a partisan. I more enjoy studying people's reactions than to hear how they feel about something. So I choose to go with answer "C". Which means I calmly ask them to show me their tits. Their initial response is always the same. "What did you just say?" There are a few moments of tense silence because they're not really sure what I said, but from my posture they assume they probably heard me correctly, and all the while I just smile creepily at them, until they frown with concern and walk cautiously back to their group

The lesson I'm teaching is that not every average-looking, mild-mannered, casually-dressed, middle-aged guy walking along the sidewalk is safe to approach. Some could be profoundly psychotic, so don't make me kill you. Imagine I had a problem with a friend of mine who smoked in public. This guy doesn't know that half of my family is dead from cancer, and I personally quit because it was ruining my health too and I'm at a particularly high risk of getting cancer myself, so I'm naturally really touchy about being in the presence of cigarette smoke now. A normal person who felt strongly about that would say something like "hey dude, I can't be around smoke, and you should quit. Don't you know all the health risks involved in sucking on those things? Man, half my family is dead from it." And heck, why not toss in "Oh, and here's a pamphlet on the dangers of smoking" if you have any handy. Ok, that's what a normal, albeit lonely, person might do. Here's what a zealot might do if they were in the same situation and had a problem with smoking: "HEY MOTHERFU%ER! PUT THAT BUTT OUT, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE EVERYDAY FROM THAT SHI+ YOU FU&%ING PIECE OF MOTHERFU*$ING TRASH?!?!!" followed by running down the street to evade authorities, adding a notice to their bulletin boards about that smoker that 'was' a friend of theirs, posting a news story about it on their webpage about the smoker that 'was' a friend of theirs, contacting the media to inform them of their hatred of this smoker that 'was' a friend of theirs, and when or if the authorities finally nab them they scream about how the person they assaulted was the one the cops should be taking into custody for their crimes against humanity and animals everywhere...I mean come ON! Is that sane? Is that the best way to handle things? Zealots will do ANYTHING, I mean ANYTHING to get their name and face and cause in the spotlight. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure these people believe the beliefs they have. Either through someone pointing it out to them, or through some kind of mind control device implanted into their raphe nuclei (sorta like in that episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Plankton takes over Spongebob's brain with scotch tape and a joystick. "Come back here, stupid brain!").

No matter how they came to their reasoning, I don't think they're faking it. Again, I state that I have an understanding where they are coming from...sometimes. Not all zealots can be understood though. Some are complete whackos that may have to be brought down like a mad dog one day, like that nut job "Pastor" here in Kansas City who walks the streets with a handful of blank-eyed, slack-jawed zombie followers (most of whom are oddly enough members of his own family, 'zeig heil') holding signs that say "GOD HATES FAGS". I wish they'd do that crap down on The Paseo, then we'd see how safe their little protests would be.

People who wear fur, or leather, or eat meat, or drive SUVs are NOT DEVIL PEOPLE. They are consumers. Average people. Everyone is a consumer. I am a consumer, you are a consumer, Greenpeace activists are consumers...all of it. The person wearing that fur didn't go bring down the animal with their teeth gripping its throat, then skin it alive with a Buck knife, blood spraying into their eyes and hair as the animal's body shudders and twitches in agony and its death throes. They bought it on a rack. The person wearing that fur probably has no idea you are so enraged by their wearing it. So tell them about it if your mission is to bring about awareness, but don't go apeshi+ on them. The person wearing that fur probably never even thought about the animals that died to make the coat...they just thought, "hey, that feels nice, and it looks nice" etc. NO ONE needs to be taught about your viewpoints by hitting them in a surprise haymaker to the temple with the trochanter of a human femur (yes, I got an A+ in anatomy and physiology in college…makes me a more efficient killer – YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPER…NO, I AM NOT REFERENCING A DOG NAMED COPPER FROM A CARTOON, I MEAN YOU PIG…NO, NOT FROM CHARLOTTE'S WEB, I MEAN YOU 'POLICE OFFICER') you wield as a primitive club, then screaming down at their dazed face about what a monster you think they are. I always got a kick out of the Anti-Smoking ads called "TRUTH" where they used humor to make a statement. And oddly enough their statements always stuck with me and very well could have contributed to my quitting smoking. My favorite one was the mockery of the adrenaline freak Mountain Dew ads, where they had these guys bungie jumping off a bridge to grab a can of some drink called 'Splode'. "GRAB YERSELF A SPLODE! WOOHOOOOOOO!" then the bungie jumper explodes after he opens the can on the way back up. The moral message appears over the top of it saying something like "Not every product tells the user that 30% of its consumers will die using it. Cigarettes do." I'm saying, you can't walk into a world entirely populated by people that do a certain thing, have always done a certain thing, and don't even consider an alternative to that certain thing, and expect that your assaulting them, verbally or otherwise, is going to make them come over to your side. You just ASSAULTED them. Who would see your point if you did that to them?! They now not only keep on doing what they were doing before, but they also see you and your kind as psychopaths. Hey zealot, guess what...you just ruined your chance of winning that person, and all of their friends and family members they told about the incident. Good job. Clever. Ummmm...no.

You know who did that once a long time ago, and got a lot of other people to do it too? Fu*%ing HITLER is who. I'm not comparing GreenPeace, PETA and any other organization to Hitler, but I 'am' comparing "zealotism" techniques to him. Explanation forthwith - If a person is fanatical enough about something they will get cronies to fall in line behind them to make their point with force behind them. When there is a crowd of zealots things get rougher than they would have if there was only the one of them making a statement with a bullhorn.

Here's the rub, though...a zealot can't see reason. They "can't" grasp that there is another way than force, brutality, hate, and publicity to get their point across. So you can't even reason with them about it. Their response would be, more than likely a red-faced screeching of the words "BUT THEY WON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING IF I DON'T KILL THEIR CAREER OVER IT...IF I DON'T MAKE A MOCKERY OF THEM PUBLICLY...IF I DON'T SCREW THEM OVER SO BAD THAT EVEN IF THEY TRY TO DEFEND THEMSELVES THEY LOOK LIKE A BAD PERSON."

One activist makes a difference. I will give him that. And I can't lump him in with the zealots even though he is so passionate about the issues he goes after. Passionate is the key word...not fanatical. He NEVER assaults anyone. He NEVER ruins people. And he ALWAYS makes a point. Michael Moore. I find him amusing, I've seen all of his films, and a lot of what he talked about stayed with me. I think he blows a lot of smoke, and takes stuff out of context to make for good entertainment, and I think he pushed it a little bit trying to make a political statement when he was picking up an award one time, but hey, everybody is entitled to look stupid from time to time. I do it daily just to stay on top of my game. Don't hold your breath, though, for me to join the Church of Scientology or study the Kabbalah or any of that happy snappy crappy. Tom Cruise is a dumbass. There, I said it. Tom Cruise is a dumbass, and I'm taking psychiatric medication. Tom, I'm holding my finger aloft... Nothing. See, don't be afraid of Tom Cruise. I just openly showed my derision of the man, and I'm still alive. Weird, what's this red dot of light moving around my chest?

Let's have some fun. If you try hard enough, everyone is guilty of what they themselves fight against, even if its in some small portion. Take people who are against cruelty to animals and eating meat for example. We'll call him Jimmy. Jimmy doesn't eat meat, and he tells everyone about it, usually while they are eating meat and usually with an insulting comment or five. (People tend to not enjoy the company of Jimmy.) Jimmy doesn't eat meat, we got that part...does Jimmy wear a leather coat or shoes? Nooooo, because that would be cruel to animals. Does Jimmy drive a car? Well, probably, but what does that have to do with animals? JIMMY! Cars run on gas, made from petroleum, whose drilling stations displace animals from their habitats, its shipped in tankers, tankers that spill millions of gallons of toxic crap into the seas that kills millions of creatures. Cars generate toxic fumes that create pollution that contributes to lung disease and animals dying and the ozone layer disappearing and global warming. A single automotive company, among many, can use the skins of some 9000 cows a DAY to add leather seats to their various lines. JIMMY! HOW COULD YOU SUPPORT AN INDUSTRY THAT DOES ALL THAT YOU SICK CRAZY BASTARD!!! Does Jimmy read or write? Well, of course...but what's that got to do with animals? JIMMY! Books are printed on paper. Notebook paper is made out of paper. Paper is made from trees. The pencil he used to write on the paper with is also made from trees. We use so many paper and wood products without recycling sufficiently that we are deforesting entire regions and removing the homes of deer, owls, elk, raccoons, and in some countries forcing tribal people out of their ancestral homes. JIMMY! YOU SON OF A BITCH! HOW COULD YOU USE PAPER PRODUCTS!!! But Jimmy defends himself by saying "Ah, but I don't use paper (ever, yeah right, where'd your fu*$ing furniture come from, and the wood for your home...but let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and say his home is made of a giant bubble of blown glass, and all of his furniture consists of thrice-recycled vinyl beanbags) I always use a computer to write to people, or I read ebooks. Computer monitors have mercury in them. Every time a computer monitor is thrown out it goes to a dump because there are inappropriate methods to remove waste like old computer parts. A dump where the monitor will get crushed. The mercury, in enough volume, will pollute the ground, seeping down into the water table. Lets go a step further and talk about when the twin towers fell on 9/11. Those buildings were 110 stories tall, with say a VERY lowball number of 1,000 computers on each floor. When those towers fell, some 110,000 computers went with them. Where did all that mercury go? Why didn't anyone in the computer industry help to clean that out? JIMMY! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN WE NEEDED YOU MOST?!?! Do you like licorice, Jimmy? A little bit of a sweet-tooth perhaps? You do? Mmm, Twizzlers. I like Twizzlers too. Did you ever look at the product information on the back of the Twizzler's package, Jimmy? It contains fat. FAT. Where'd that fat come from? From ANIMALS, Jimmy! YOU KILLED BAMBI, PEELED HER FAT LOOSE TO MAKE YOUR LICORICE ROPES, AND LEFT HER HALF-HARVESTED CORPSE IN A DITCH!

You get the picture. So, unless Jimmy wears only plastic clothing made from recycled 2-liter Vess Cola bottles, drives a solar golf cart or a Segway, lives on iceberg lettuce and gouda cheese (which by the way reminds me of this awesome cheese I was just turned on to…its this aged cheese called Roomano, and I can't get enough of it, but its super expensive…it breaks apart in hard chunks and has this carmelly yet salty flavor that is an incredible accompaniment to a full-bodied red wine like an Argentinian Malbec, or a Spanish Rioja…off-track sorry), and doesn't communicate with another human being, he is most likely guilty of something he would otherwise be protesting against.

My points in all of this? Death to Jimmy, and Tom Cruise is a dumbass.