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Avoiding The Squirrels
​
Watch Out! They'll take your nuts!
 click here for archive. 

    ​Here Be Monsters
    ​

    “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things:  Of shoes and ships-and sealing wax- Of cabbages-and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot- and whether pigs have wings.”  -Lewis Carroll.

    …down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid.  He must be a complete man and a common man, and yet an unusual man.  He must be a man of honor- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.  He must be the best man in in his world and a good enough man for any world.  He has a range of awareness that startles you but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.  If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.-  Raymond Chandler.

    I am that man.  A man whose past is shrouded in mystery.  Whose future is unlimited by sanity.  Whose present is unconstrained by normalcy.  I am the Right Reverend Angus McIntosh, founder of the Temple of the Circus Monkey.  And I will lead the revolution. I started this blog as a useful way to categorize earlier writings and give my overly busy head something constructive to do.  I have opinions on everything from politics to religion, philosophy, pop culture, current events,  and god only know what else.  I am a Reverend, and I believe that I do interpret the word of God, or the Universe, or the Great Whatever.  Complete ignorance of a topic won’t keep me from expounding on it with great authority. A brief explanation of the name.  Behind every great oak tree is a nut that stood it’s ground.  However, you have to avoid the squirrels!  And there are a fuck of a LOT of squirrels that would like to eat your nuts to keep you from taking root and standing up.  If I have to explain the metaphor, stop reading this and go watch a sitcom.  Your mind has rotted. So now you’ve been warned.  Enter my spiritual world at your own risk.

    The Archbishop writes this blog for himself and he’s a nut.  He didn’t require you or anyone else to read it.  If you’ve found it through some strange happenstance, he thinks you should have the following warnings:

    1- If you read this long enough you’ll find something you hate.

    2- If you read this long enough you’ll find something you love.

    3- The Archbishop is totally unconcerned with being politically correct.  If you’re offended by something, please refer back to #1.

    4- The Archbishop uses strong and colorful language.  He might even include nekkid pictures.  He’s an adult.  Deal with it or get out.

    5- The Archbishop frequently contradicts himself.  He knows that his views all conflict with each other.  So what.  It’s his mind and he can run it any way he wants.  As Emerson said, “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. and Oscar Wilde said “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  So there.

    6- The Archbishop is an ornery pain in the ass.  He’s not a nice person.  And he’s NEVER wrong.

    ​7-The Archbishop would love to know what you think but he disabled the comments section.  If you have something to say just send him an email.  

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2/21/2017

The Real Cost of Cellular

First of all let me make a confession. I love my cell phone. It’s cool. It does a lot of really amazing shit. I like texting and sharing lives through social media. I run my business from it. It’ mind blowing to have access to nearly all the collected knowledge of humanity in my palm. I don’t even mind sending AT&T a check every month. Having said that I work hard to keep from paying the real cost of that connectivity and you probably should too.


Awareness matters. It’s the connection between your little monkey brain and the big wide world outside. If you aren’t careful your little hand computer can operate as a giant awareness vacuum, sucking up every one of your senses. It seems that way the hell too many people have given up experiencing reality in favor of watching and listening to it on their 5 inch screen. A tremendous amount of your humanity is being sacrificed, not to mention your capacity for joy. I’m sure we’ve all seen the idjits who buy expensive concert tickets and then watch and listen to the performance through their fucking phone. What the fuck is wrong with these people?


Last night at the pub I watched a young woman dancing and generally having a good time. She never put her phone down. Not once. I couldn’t help but wonder if she similarly kept it in her hands while she fucked. After I asked around I found that a disturbing number people have had sexual encounters where their partner stayed in contact with the old Iphone. Some answered texts, some took pictures or played music in headphones. WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?


I live in a building full of people much younger than myself. I’m generally and very friendly, talkative fucker but I barely know anyone here because they’re always staring into their fucking screen, usually with earphones on. I spend a lot of time in the gym but almost never talk to the other lifters since they’re plugged in. I’m not, by the way. I’ve learned the secret to awareness, phone control, and good old fashioned common courtesy…


Your phone comes with two incredibly powerful options. Turn it off and leave it home. These options should be exercised whenever possible, and they’re usually possible. Do it. Turn it off. Put it in a drawer. Don’t let the useful, seductive little sucker steal the universe away from you. If you can’t do this you’re paying too much.


There’s another really excellent reason not to live in your Samsung. Threat assessment. If you aren’t aware of the world round you then you’re begging to be a victim. More on this later this week.


In addition to awareness I value a certain level of privacy. I like looking at naked pictures of my wife but that doesn’t mean I want every body else to see them. There are things in my life that just aren’t anyone else’s business. Besides that the world is full of dishonest fucks who’d love to have my bank accounts, passwords, and the like. I’d prefer to keep all of those things to myself. My private life is a cost I’m not willing to pay too.


In order to keep from losing my privacy I take a number of reasonable precautions. I don’t use a cloud service. Ever. I have a fancy ass phone that has very good encryption software. I have a remote wipe service that will clear the phone if I lose it. Everything is password protected and I change it often. These aren’t perfect solutions and some of them are a pain in the ass but for the most part they keep me from having to lose my privacy to get connectivity.
​

I get why some people just refuse to have them. They see the cost and don’t want to risk it. Okay. But they are wonderful little gadgets. Just make sure you contain their real cost. Saor Alba, Vaya con Dios, & Viva la Revolucion.

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