Hindu-Islamo-Satanic Values

I hate to get ranty. Well...I hate to get ranty to you, dearest blog. You listen so well and I just hate that you're the only one I trust enough to tell all the bad things. I wish you could hear the great things about my life like you deserve.

You don't tell anyone what I tell you, do you blog? Because certain accidents could happen if, in fact, you do.

Where was I...ah, yes. Me with the ranting and the writing.
I often get fixated on a very specific thing that is said or done, especially when it is:
A) Repeated ad nauseum and
B) Mind-bogglingly wrong.
Have I found such an example, say you? Quiet! say I, I'm getting to that part. It starts where all festering sores upon the disease ridden flesh of discourse start: It starts with Bill O'Reily.

I could've sworn Uma Thurman was in some movie about killing Mr. O'Reily with a Samurai sword, but her target could well have been David Carradine (they look so much alike). Unrelenting and still with all of his limbs unfortunately intact, Bill O'Reily is a forerunner for misrepresenting major religions by putting his beliefs under their name. Especially my religion, which I happen to know is something VERY different from what Mr. O'Reily thinks it is.

My main argument focuses on Bill's use of the term "Judeo-Christian", a term which, in almost every situation, has almost no value. Do Judaism and Christianity have a lot in common? Sure they do. But not to the extent that people like Bill O'Reily think that they do. My favorite (and, for brevity's sake, only) example is sex. Now, the Chritianity that Bill chooses to misrepresent has some rather strict views on sex. No sex outside of marriage, sex is for procreation, gay sex is a sin, etcetera. What really grinds my gears is when, in an argument or rant, Bill drops a bomb that is not unlike my small paraphrased tidbit:

Homosexuality is an affront to the Judeo-Christian views of marriage and sex.

Exsqueeze me? Did I just hear the terms "Judeo-Christian" and "marriage and sex" joined together like gay citizens can't be? (oh, burned) What in G-d's name do Judaism and Conservative Christianity have in common with regards to sex? Last I checked, the reason for waiting until marriage to have sex in Judaism is NOT to create a family, and that sex is BY NO MEANS just for procreation. Oh no. See, in Judaism, sex is HOLY. It is a serious, intimiate, mandated bond between two souls that is too powerful to be trifled with (hence the marriage thing). A Jewish man, according to Jewish law, is COMMANDED to have sex something like four times a week or SEVEN if he doesn't work full-time. That's right. Jews are commanded to have sex, on average, once every day or two. That's a LOT o' boinkin' your significant other. On the Sabbath, you know, day of rest, sex doesn't count as work. Actually, you're supposed to DEFINATELY have sex on the sabbath. If you don't have sex on any other say of the week, you get down and dirty on saturday.

I'm not even going to go into things like the Union for Reform Judaism (or the National Reform Council, I can't find the gorram book with the quote) supporting homosexuality (and bisexuality and such) with biblical counterclaims to all the "homosexuality is a sin" arguments. That's a whole 'nother rant. It's just that when guys like Bill O'Reily and Sean Hannity and Hell, maybe even Rush Limbuagh tack my religion onto their twisted, perverted version of Christianity (for more perversion of Christianity, see Wagner, Richard) I begin to feel like my beliefs are being violated.

My faith is not yours, Mr. O'Reily. You'll never read my little blog but I will shake my fist at the blank area in front of my computer screen that symbolizes your face. My religion has little do to with yours, especially where you think it does. My doctrine does not agree with you, and it sure as Abraham doesn't support you.

Shabbat Shalom, Mother Fucker

Gabriel

Worth at least 10,000 words

Dramatique!

Veloci-Rapture

Every day in the shower I am reminded that I am Jewish. As such, I do not believe in either the concept nor Christian specifics of the Apocalypse. To paraphrase my rabbi, the Rapture allows people a way out of needing to care about the problems of the Earth, for what need is there to repair the world when you will simply be wisked off of it at the endtimes? I am of the rather sound belief that the only way for the world to end from a religious perspective is for all of existence to suddenly negate itself and, thus, no one would notice.

I am forced to reconsider this position, however, in lieu of what can only be described as a maelstrom of destruction with me at its frighteningly calm center.

Allow a few examples, sis vous plez:

In the course of a few months, I discovered that the following individuals have cancer:
+One of my best friends moms that I have known for over 10 years (breast, and her treatment is so far very successful)
+My good friend from Arizona (golf-ball sized in brain, also recovering well)
+A friend from high school (leukemia, he died some months ago)
+Another high school buddy (brain and spine, just diagnosed)

As if that long list weren't enough, there have been many other deaths to worry about:
+My orthopedist/neighbor/hero dropped dead of a heart attack
+My brother's friend was just hit by a car and killed
+My great-grandmother died, ending her 103 year reign as Altman family matriach


Ah, and let us not forget the vortex of health problems surrounding my fiancee:
+Fell on knee after dislocating (the latter is commonplace) and wrecked ACL
+Had surgery to remove screws from knees, caused momentary immobility and severe pain
+Having mental breakdowns over extreme stress such as reliving grandmother's death every time a family member goes to the hospital (herself included)
+Had gastric infection causing her to vomit for about 36 hours (with some blood vomiting thrown in for good measure)
+Still has fibromyalgia and dislocating kneecaps

Combine this with many other individuals that I am close to having severe problems and breakdowns, natural disasters rampant, and a total solar eclipse lining up with the election of an Israeli leader (one of those freaky straight out of Revelations things) and you have a Jew sincerely rethinking his views on the end of the world. At the very least, the fact that I can link up with so much negativity tells me that something is happening and that said something probably will have a lot to do with me. I hate being bombarded with coincidence because it lets me know that there is some greater consciousness (lower on the food chain than G-d, or so my Lurianic Kabbalist training tells me) is not only very real but is very much enjoying toying with my existence.

Coincidental warfare is a topic for another entry, but the fact remains that this series of events cannot be attributed to chance. Or, at the very least, I am unable to so casually toss the whole thing aside. I have never believed in coincidence, which leaves me with the uneasy feeling that I am being warned.

So are these mad times a sign of end times or simply bad times with bad rhymes? I can't say that I have the answer. But I'll tell you what I know:

"Good guys win, bad guys lose and, as always, England prevails!"

,שלום (shalom)
גבריאל (Gabriel)

Playing from my Base

I, it seems, am nigh unable of spontaneous creativity, relationships, or anything else for that matter without something or someone as an anchor. Allow me to explain:

When I first got here to San Francisco State University (now you know my full name and where I go to school. Please don't stalk me) I had no friends. This is understandable, as I had just transfered from University of Arizona and was going through the standard "get-aquainted-with-radically-new-environment" stage. But, by the end of my first semester, I still had no friends other than my housemate who was (and is) an old friend from high school who, as luck would have it, doesn't really have any friends here either (his friends are mainly back where we went to high school). So eventually I got on good enough terms with one of my horn section members to hang out with her and her friends, who I am now much better friends with.

It was around then that I realized that I cannot make friends from nothing; I need the security of an established relationship to branch out. My friends at State are through a fellow horn player because I was forced into a situation in which we needed to be friendly. It's not that I don't think that she's awesome or regret being thrown into a forced-friend situation with her, but rather that I would not have ever engaged her otherwise. I came to realize that all of my friends at my high school were from band or through this girl that I was trying to date freshman year. In middle school I became friends with the friends of one of my bandmates. Even in elementary school I was only really aggressive when I needed to be (e.g. kindergarden) and then latched onto a select few people and branched out from there. I even met my fiancee via her being the friend of someone else that I was dating, who I was in a class with.

This peculiar phenomenon has, I've discovered, its roots much deeper in my psyche than just relationships. Whenever I attempt to make an original story it is always a collection of good ideas that never really links up. My ideas for films are so far from presentable that they are almost laughable. When I choose to adapt an existing story, however, I can generate an amazing output, including having a full four hour epic (split into two films, calm yourselves) planned from start to finish. I'm also much better at coaching people artistically than I tend to be at producing. I can give amazing critique that really helps my friends compositions, but when they ask me if they can see what I wrote, I often don't have anything to show them.

I have taken steps to rectify my problem with needing to be...I guess "referential" is the most apt. I am trying to force myself into social situations and to force myself to commit something down to paper in terms of ideas. This blog (no paper per se but the purpose is the same) is one example, as is carrying around a music sketchbook. And recognition is the first step to recovery. I just never realized until a few hours ago that my social problem is also my creativity problem and probably a good amount of other issues as well.

My name is Gabriel and I need a strong anchor to acheive spontanaety.
Hello Gabriel.

Ta.

De-Evolution

My name is Gabriel Stewart Altman-Hadley, and this is tonight's news.

The stigma around amazingly nerdy things has begun to project it's horrid siren's song directly into my brain. A year ago, I wanted as much distance from Dungeons and Dragons and any other RPG without a monitor to stare at. Now I'm actively seeking it out. I always hated how one had to read all 5,017 back issues of a comic to really understand the story. Now I have downloaded almost every old X-men and am (slowly) reading them.

What has happened to my precious desire for social acceptance? Where are the days when I was trying so desperately to fit in, vainly attempting to comprehend a culture to which I always seemed a step behind? I spent the vast majority of my still very short life trying not to be one of "those nerds". I could be a band nerd, but that led into a sophisticated taste in music. I could play video games, but only because they were fun and I never Role Played in any of the online ones. There has always been a wall between me and total nerd-dom, between being socially lagging and socially ostracized. But now, by some strange de-evolution (see, the title of this post did fit into context) I have torn down that wall, uniting my socially adept West and socially inept East in a glorious victory over the terrors of Communism.

Perhaps it is a desire to gain new experiences. Perhaps I am merely pushing my imagination, a frighteningly seldom used thing in modern American society, to its absolute zenith. I am, as it were, staking my livelihood on that imagination with regards to both musical composition and cinema. It is also possible, though unlikely, that I secretly hate society and wish to throw myself into the deep dark bowels of cultural exile.

But as I sit here, staring at a pile of dice with far too many numbers on them, I ponder what it is that separates me from doing anything. Are my inhibitions wearing away, or am I casting them off in search of new truth? Is this a period of growth, decline, or stagnancy? I have yet to discover the answers to all of these questions, but I can only assume that it is the journey to those answers that will teach me the most.

Hopefully I won't be so serious next time,
Gabriel