His name was Varnell. He had many, too many, nicknames and I can't remember a single one. Just his given name, Varnell. He was ex-homeless, a recovering crack addict, overtly gay in his gestures, mode of speech and constant innuendoes. Varnell was estranged from his family and maybe that's typical. He probably also had a diagnosed, due to his various stints in prison or stays at treatment centers, but largely untreated, mental illness. Physically, he was tall, black, with lazy red eyes and charred crooked teeth. He wore a pink rosary - ironic, quirky, and interesting.

We meet briefly as he was harassing someone for something and suddenly latched on to me. His first words were "damn, did you see her, she's beautiful." as a woman passed between us "You know you deserve that." He emphasized know and not deserve, which changed it's connotation so lewdly I sort of liked him right from the start. Sort of because I knew he wanted something from me, money probably.

As we walked, he was supposedly going to the same pizza place as me - what a coincidence! - he told me his life story beginning with his father; a gay drug addict, like himself, except his father was also a post-op transsexual. His mother, a lawyer in marin county, had disowned them both leaving Varnell to be raised, from 12 on, by the state. They didn't do a good job. As he went on and on I found him to be intelligent beneath his damaged and mangled personality. Now, after years of living on the street in north hollywood, going in and out of prisons for what he alluded to were violent crimes, and most recently having graduated a drug treatment program he was in san francisco trying to get up to marin to stay with his mother. She was dying and had invited him to try and bridge the divide she has tossed him over in his youth.

As we sat in the pizza place he choose a different table. One already occupied by a laborer with a soft face and hard eyes enjoying his piece of the pie and not, under any circumstances, interested in Varnell's stories or forced compliments. Varnell complemented every single person who wandered into his cross hairs, and most of them wanted nothing to do with him. He understood this reality and that understanding was reflected in the strained, yet oddly melodic song he sang loudly in the pizza place for a good 20 minutes. The few verses I recall were that he "wanted you like a tree wants a leaf", and that he's alone becuase of something the "motherfuckers" had done or not done to him. His song became increasingly violent and bitter as it progressed.

The story ended up costing me 4 dollars and a slice of pizza, with habaneros. It probably isn't true.

He was neurotic and co-dependent but no one knew because he mumbled so baldy due to a defect in his palate he had since birth. His neurosis would have been debilitating - his complaining constant and irritating - but his birth defect, a severe speech impediment that would have made life so difficult for others made his livable. He cataloged his fears and apprehensions. He listed them in order. Not in any order that would be meaningful to anyone but himself, but still an order.

First, he worried his neighbors could hear him in his room listening to the same song over and over. The song changed, but he got hooked on one for a while. A week, a month. A while. He would listen to it alone over and over on repeat.

Second, he was afraid he would fall down the stairs, his pants would fall off and he would shit himself and it would end up on the news somehow.

Third, he felt everyone could smell his cavities when he spoke. That his mouth smelled like rotting teeth but he couldn't smell it.

Fourth, that he was special somehow and vastly superior beings watched him in disappointment and made fun of him for never figuring out life's simple mystery.

Fifth, that he had women's underwear on the back of his shirt from the dryer he used in the public laundry.

Sixth, he had a special form of cancer that only became dangerous if it was discovered while also having a virus that was killing him but was treatable if he'd only get a checkup.

Seventh, that he would die in the some way that killed the soul as well.

Eighth, that he could be having sex with the girls in his apartment building because they agreed all he had to do was ask but wouldn't tell him because it was a test.

And finally ninth, that everyone was in on "it" and he was too but was to stupid to know it was "it".

The late night checker champ. Eyes locked on the pieces, as they fall aside and double jump. He had all sorts of strategies. Whittle away, double jeopardy, pin and gang bang. He took the whole thing way to seriously. While the hours ticked away he could hear the world go by outside his window. He played internet checkers and never looking up or out the noises his neighbors made might as well have been his cheering section. The baby crying when he loses, the girl down a few doors cackling when he struck deep into his opponents side of the board.

He often wondered what his opponents looked like. Pimply, red eyed teenagers or strange taiwanese guys in their wives panties. He fantasied color commentary as his games were broadcast, perhaps on japanese television. "Oh look at that!" An excited voice would say, "that's double jeopardy right there, red doesn't know what to do!" They would shout as they hung on every move, dissecting the minutia of his strategy for a riveted audience.

God only knows the sort of mascot a sport like this would have but it would scream in excitement at every well placed set of moves. Maybe it would be a leather gimp who would mock the defeated by lightly beating them with a whip and rubbing it's nipples while the audience is worked up in to a frenzy of double jump lust.

He often referred to his opponents by the only two things he had to identify them. Their nation and opening move. Their was polish, who he feared, and spanish who he knew he could take advantage of. There was english middle and israel left side, german protects his pieces and russian sacrifices. If they did the same he would be english left side or english force trades, english wins at the end some how.

It started with tether ball. At least that was the first time I remember that competitive spirit. That feeling of accomplishment you get when you figure out how to beat someone in something. Tag, hide-and-seek, marco polo, lava monster. All those games involved a wide range of skills and talents. But tether ball was just about getting one good rotation, ball low on your end, high on theirs and then you pound away and around it goes. Finally that satisfying clank as the chain between rope and ball reaches the pole that lets you know you've won.

Simple games, but dynamic enough to remain entertaining. Checkers, connect four, uno and tether ball. Those games hold a special place in my memories. The board games I remember playing on rainy days in the auditorium while waiting for the bus. Tether ball, the courts to busy during recesses and lunch, were empty except for the dedicated, after school. I was an off again, on again, latch key kid so I spent plenty of time in after school programs and tether ball was our thunder dome.

By high school it was basket ball or football. But elementary school it was all about that giant cat toy. A metal pole on, in the better schools, a thick rubber mat, the feeling of the old converted volley ball as I hit it and the sound of approaching buses sneaking in after rush hour traffic. That was how the days ended in those after school programs.

The day I meet God I was standing in line at the DMV. It happens that way sometimes. I wouldn't describe God as a him though. It wasn't like I meet a person. God is like the audience, only you don't know you're on stage and you might be acting your part, drowning in mud after a pitched battle trying to stay alive or fighting cancer in your hospice bed or just standing in line like I was, when all of sudden the theater lights come on and that's God.

I stood there for a while, not sure at all what to make of it. Seeing suddenly how flat the sets were, how phoney the dialog. You can't quite go back to your character at that point. It's not like you lose yourself. It's more like waking up. You suddenly remember the rest of yourself, out of the dream or remember you need to get milk in the real world, even though the part you're playing on stage is in the middle of dying from a stabbing.

When I died I remember thinking it was a little like that, but more. You haven't just broken character for a moment, catching yourself before you laugh off queue. It's like the show's run is over and you're overwhelmed with nostalgia and fond memories but excited to finally be able to leave that character. The rest after that, it's just like when you were alive except you don't take things as seriously because you remember what it was like. So when you die again... well you gain some insight and experience. It's not as exciting.

It'd be nice to die again, for the first time, actually. But what can you do?

A journey of many tiny steps

A world of porcelain and relief, I don't know how long I've spent in bathrooms over my life but it's a significant period of time. Not only in the sense of what, I'm sure, is a lot of time outright, but much more significantly in how that time affected me. I think when you go to the bathroom a deep archetype is experienced. It's modern mans last link to the temple. A refuge of meditation lasting against the modern speed tribes relentless destruction of peace and quiet.

While young I could spend an hour at a time in the bathroom. I refined my ability to read there, endlessly pouring over magazines and those large paper back books which seem to serve no room better. I would take the back off the toilet, wrap it in a towel, lying it across my lap, and use it as a set to play out the sorts of fantasies young boys have, with action figures. My parents, I'm sure, were endlessly amused or perhaps frustrated by the hours of sound effects overheard as I forced my G.I. Joes into tragic pitched battles.

As I got older I found I continued to spend a lot of time in the bathroom, exclusively entertaining myself with books, what few action figures I had left, now hidden away. As I began to socialize more on my own, with a car and a license, I became self conscious of how long I spent in the bathroom. Like an isolated tribesmen suddenly clearing the jungle onto a modern highway I found myself looking at my habits as quaint and embarrassing. I tried to go faster, but despite my best efforts I just couldn't get my bathroom visits to less then 15 minutes.

I noticed that my friends would spend between 1 and 3 minutes in the bathroom, hardly long enough for any deep contemplation but it did beg the question - why did I take so long? It occurs to me now that I never noticed how long my parents spent in the bathroom.

At some point I just got into that 1 - 3 minute zone. I do, sometimes, miss the peaceful meditation of a fifteen to thirty minute bathroom stop but more often I'm thankful, like when I use a public bathroom and I don't have to stay in there for too long.

It's brisk. How often do you notice the temperature when you're dreaming?

Wheat forever. From up here it looks like a carpet, this one burning. High above the world, not flying but tall on legs, spidery thin. High above the world and far below a gray sky. Not blue like you might hope. A gray that says something's a little off, a little dark, about this dream.

The smell of ozone and carpet shampoo. That new car smell, or is it old car smell baked fresh in the sun? Dust mites play in front of me, sunlight reflecting off their backs. They move about in front of me in some microscopic battle I can't quite make out except as tiny points of light. Dreams often take place in cars, this one is in a mini-van, but still it's not uncommon.

I see a corporate office park, it's vastness surrounds me. There's something on the radio about "fail-safes" and I see, heading downward, shallow on the horizon, a nuclear missile. It has a white trail behind it. It's not like it would be in real life. In real life you wouldn't see it or hear it. You'd just see a cloud of debris filling your vision or, if you're close like I am, you'd just be gone. Completely gone. In the dream I see a large missile. Several large missiles actually. All but one veering up and away. Disaster averted but for one. My last thought is a sardonic "of course." The missile disappears behind a glass office building I'm lost in white. I'm not breathing. Not suffocating. I don't need to breath. It's disconcerting. Everything suddenly is nothing save for me in it. This lasts for a moment as I sense time happening all at once and finally the universe collapsing. Waking at the point of death is one thing, but to dream of death is something entirely different. I've had this sort of dream before and, just as I have before, wake feeling a deep loss followed quickly by an indescribable joy at being alive even with death on the horizon.

I dream that I'm having sex with a short hispanic woman. She has a slight pot belly and enormous breast. She's inexperienced and nervous. She's wearing white and silver. A white dress made of a slick and stiff material, and a sequenced silver top with a sports bra underneath it. She's slowly taking them off while she straddles my leg but I stop her and we begin to dry hump. I wake up and remember her name and that she had a small mole beneath her eyebrow. I quickly forget her name as I start to realize it was a dream and not real, though I shouldn't say I realized. It felt more like forgetting that it wasn't real. She smelled like soap. I could smell it long after I woke up.

A question has been asked of science since it first took its steps away from religion. The question has evolved and changed over the years but has never been answered beyond being dismissed as irrelevant or outside the realm of science, suggesting that it's both superstitious and a spurious waste of time. The question has an implied illegitimacy - the question has been variously "Can science prove god?", "Can science prove the soul?", "Can science prove reality is not an illusion?", "Is there a such a thing as empirical?", "Where does the observer end and the observed begin?" and a million other variations.

All of these questions are the same question. They're all asked from a sense that most humans can't seem to shake. That we're not here, or there, distinct or alone. That the universe isn't mechanical. Cause and effect are not random at all. That there is an overwhelming presence or connectedness. Be this expressed as belief in god or gods, a universal consciousness, a mishmash of quantum physics, the paranormal or the supernatural.

These questions are often dismissed as a common human need to believe in purpose as with the belief in destiny or fate, a fear of mortality as with a belief in the afterlife or reincarnation, a need to feel important as with the belief in god, or purely the realm of philosophers as with questions toward the underlying nature of reality and specifically mans place in it.

There is a basic assumption that science needn't be bothered with these questions because science is about mapping what can be tested and proved. It's about setting up experiments and crunching the numbers. That ultimately science is a way toward knowledge but not necessarily answers.

The way I ask this question is "Is there a such thing as empirical?" Is there a point at which you can differentiate between the experimenter and the experiment. Often this question is seen from the perspective of the experiment. It's now known that there is an interaction between the two but it's believed that the effects of the interaction can be minimized by repeating the experiment over time and by different experimenters. This assumes two things. First that the effects the experimenter has on the experiment are limited and second that all experimenters are not themselves connected.

My personal belief is that both of these assumptions are false. That there is a great if not complete link between experimenter and experiment, that there is no distinction there at all and that all experimenters, scientists, all people, all things for that matter, are not just intertwined but the same. I answer the question within that beliefs, of course.

Science is a tool, but not one that simply measures. It's not a microscope, it's a screw driver. Science's ultimate end is it's application.

What we're doing is learning to walk on land again, so to speak. Science is part of our evolution. Except it's not hopping out of the sea on onto the beaches that we're talking about.

Regardless of the merit of the beliefs that bring such a question to bare it is not simply a matter for philosophy or religion. It's a question of what science is, not what it is not.

What happened to the militia movement?

I started off thinking I was going to write about the militia movement but now I feel like talking about something else. Maybe I'll get back to it in some round about way, but later.

When I was in high school I was interested in the growing militia movement, and militant anti-authoritarian movements in general. I was also interested in UFOs, conspiracies, anarchist philosophy and mysticism. I've never felt any of these things were flaking and always tried to keep a rational, if a heated and enthusiastic, approach to them.

When I was 10 or 11 or there abouts my father was working for RAND, in one of their think tanks. I don't know exactly what he did or what projects he worked on specificly, but around this time he held a family meeting. In fact, this is the only family meeting we ever had, at least officially. We were a family that, while we commonly ate in different rooms, spent time with each other often for company and enjoyment, and family meetings were just not something we did. He told us that he was only going to say this once, and that beyond that there would be no discussion. "Aliens are real." That was that, and thus began my fascination with ufology.

He began buying me books on cryptozoology and ufology - the ufo encyclopedia being the one I remember most. I eventually became as much as an expert as you could with out being either in the field investigating reported sightings or actually meeting an alien. I would even go so far as to say I was as well versed in the phenomenon as just about anyone. But that took years of attention. At 10 or 11 I was mostly afraid of aliens as monsters and being helpless in their inhuman control. What did they want? Did their presence make us special? Were they even real? Many of those questions were laid to rest, not by answers, but the revelations that came with age. How could we know what they want when we don't even know what other humans want? Yes we're special, whether they're here or not as life is special in a universe that is mostly empty. Yes, they are real, even if they're not here.

To me ufology was not the question of aliens. It was a question of what's really going on? These flying things, these saucers and disks and cylinders are real. I've seen them myself and there is to much evidence for an intelligent person not to understand that these things are flying around and are a real phenomena. I haven't seen what I would consider good evidence that aliens fly them and to me it's just as reasonable to say the government is, or time travelers or Santa Claus. What's important about it to me has always been that they are proof that something extraordinary and yet totally hidden is going on. Squareman meeting the sphere. Whatever is behind the UFO phenomenon, the fact that these flying machines exist is interesting enough and important enough.

Another aspect of my interest was of a purely sociological nature. Here we are with these things, to the public at least, of totally unknown origins flying around and defying what we would think is possible and yet no one seems to be interested. At least not most people. It still amazes and frightens me that nothing has really come out of this. Even if it was only to discover that aeronautics, here on earth, was 50 years more advanced then we thought.

In '97 there were over a million witnesses to a large object in excess of a mile wide over phoenix. It was on ABC, CNN and CBS. At least I saw it on those channels. I don't remember now if it was Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings, but one of them described it as something that would change us all forever. And it did change me. I lost a lot of faith over the following months. I was shocked that this wasn't the biggest thing to ever happen. Even if it was a man made craft - it hovered, it was over a mile wide and it was on the news! That's when I understood that people didn't really care. There were lots of things that they didn't understand that they never questioned in the first place. It was only a few of us, it seemed, that wondered about how things worked and what was going on. So the sociological curiosity faded. I had my answer.

During that long period at the end of the '90s a lot of other things faded away too. The militia movement went underground, as a corpse some would argue. The world was set further along a path of neo-feudalism under clinton and the money elite. And all was covered in a serene snow. The economy was on track. There was an impressive job bubble and new money seemed to be making a new elite who were young and progressive. It seemed for a while that the revolution was here and it wasn't what anyone expected. Then the bubble burst. Florida did it's thing. The towers fell. The world was in shock and the trauma came again and again. Bush won a second term and silence fell as many realized something terrible. This snow was not serene and it was threatening to be a long, long winter.

Which brings me closer to today and what originally inspired this, now that I read it, kind of rambling stumble down memory lane.

The militia movement. What happened to it? What was it? A lot of people really don't understand it at all. I won't claim to be an expert, but I have many memories of this time, had several occasions to meet and speak with militia members and actively read and participated in their discussions online, way back when.

The militia movement was a populist movement. It had strong ties with the right and emerged when it did and how it did, because of this. However, it in no way is truly tied to the right, as it's but one moment in time in a long history of the peoples struggle against those who would be the aristocracy.

What you may have heard about the militia movement is they were racist, gun crazy, anti-semitic extremists who were either anti-federalist, white power klansmen or religious nuts. Exploring these common perceptions is as good a way as any to start.

Firstly the militia movement was not racist. Militias in the south spent, perhaps, more time trying to distill racist groups from their movement then it spent in anti-government activities. Of course in the south it was a larger issue as these racist groups were firmly entrenched and were already organized. Militias in more urban areas and in areas not suffering from such a problem with hate groups had much less trouble.

In it's own way this myth reveals a certain amount of bigotry outside of the militia movement. Even though it was a movement on a national level people only saw largely white and rural militias in the news and assumed they must be a bunch of cousin fucking racists. They never heard of the largely black militias in urban areas or understood that several influential militia leaders were black, women and/or liberal. Although the militia movement was largely white, and this is exactly what the power structure wanted and exactly why the media focused on racism within the militia movement.

What would be most apt to say is that white power groups saw the militia movement as something they wanted to take over and subvert toward their own goals. By and large they didn't succeeded.

Really these groups were in anathema to the militia movement. Not only because militias had many whites, blacks, hispanics and [insert ethnic group here]s, but because these white power groups were nationalistic to say the least and the militia movement was a populist and therefore anti-nationalistic movement. There are countless examples of the militia movement as being in direct opposition, both demographically by their membership and philosophically, to racist groups.

The militia movement was pretty gun crazy. Although there are plenty of counter-examples, by and large it was gun crazy. That shouldn't suggest necessarily that they wanted to over-through the government or the status quo through violence. Many of them did, but even those who didn't saw that no matter how they attacked the system, it would attack back and it would use military action. I remember that many very influential militia personalities at the time realized that while an armed revolt may be necessary at some point it wasn't what would make or break the movement.

Really the racist and gun crazy sides of the militias were used to scare the left into staying the hell away from this weird right-wing movement. Gun control has always been a divisive issue between right and left and accusations of racism or anti-semitism are great ways to poison a debate. What the power structure feared then and now was that the right and left would join forces and create a large populist movement that would be hard to suppress. A great example, actually, of this happening was with the protests against the WTO.

So what about the anti-semitism in the militia movement? It was there, sort of. If you can see the difference in being jewish and being a zionist then you'll be along way toward understanding the issues involved. The militia movement was, definitely, anti-zionist and I think there are two main reasons for this. The first is that zionism is a nationalistic movement. The second is that Israel influences American foreign policy and by extension, some feel, has engendered a much more nationalistic home front. I don't think Israel is to blame for this although I do think they take advantage of it, but who can blame them. However, there is a connection in so far as a country can not be nationalistic abroad without being so at home. focusing on this connection is not in itself anti-semitism but could easily be seen as such by one who feels that jewish survival is dependent on a jewish nation state. In that I feel for people who are targets I understand this tendency toward nationalism, but nationalism is harmful in the long run. It makes people into a sort of political currency and devalues their individuality. Which is why nationalist and populist movements are often at odds.

Honestly this was just an after-thought. All of this kind of came to mind as I realized something pretty strange and sort of funny. In the early and mid-nineties the right was anti-zionist. Now they're very pro-zionist. The left, which was pro-zionist, is now increasingly anti-zionist. Then it struck me - the right in the early to mid-nineties was disenfranchised and because of that suddenly very populist. Now the left is disenfranchised and suddenly very populists. The right, at the time, had a government controlled by democrats, the left now has a government controlled by republicans. The worm has turned and somewhere deep down this anti-nationalist tendency has sprung forward once again. And like before it seems to have displaced it's criticism toward our own nationalism squarely on Israel. Although the issue of why anti-nationalism is so tied to anti-zionism is interesting and needs to be addressed, I don't want this to turn into another god only knows how many more lines, so I'll move on.

So what happened to the militia movement? It died. But in a much more important way it still lives. There is still the same spirit that inspired it at work in the common persons struggle for their own individual identity and sovereignty. Even if that spirit seems a bit fickle at times.

A dictatorship is a democracy of inaction and a democracy is a tyrany of the masses.

We refuse to think and we head straight for the abyss that against all warnings we insist is heading toward us, not we, toward it.