Absolute Black

I simply cannot muster the motivation to blog anything you actually want to read. Yes, it’s been a while, and I know it’s disappointing, boring, and frustrating to come back and see the same (previous) blog post up.

All I can think about blogging is the darkest, most misanthropic hate-spiel imaginable. I will restrain myself, but I can at least give you some news, some facts. People are already wanting to talk about it anyway. Facebook is not the place for it, but maybe it’s okay since this blog is already a dark place to begin with.

One week ago, there was an incident. It’s fucked up. Click here to read about it. There is only one conceivably appropriate verbal response to this news story: “WHAT THE FUCK.”

That’s my dad we’re talking about here.

This is more than a shock. This is absolutely insane.

There are other articles that don’t have the facts straight, but I won’t link to those. And television coverage… don’t get me started. Nobody gets facts straight. One story had it that there were multiple hostages, but there weren’t. Some are saying it was over a property dispute, which is a bizarre, random fabrication considering we don’t share ownership of anything with this guy. How do journalists possibly fuck up as much as they do? What, are the small-town reporters hoping to make it into the big leagues of FOX News or something? Seriously, do your fucking homework. Your job is to be accurate, to fact-check, not just broadcast any bullshit you can.

Worse (much, much worse) yet, one local news station aired a phone interview with the fucker which allowed him to tell ghastly lies about my dad, ghastly lies which resulted in him being suspended without pay pending investigation.

Injustice. Here’s an idea: let a crazy man say whatever the fuck he wants on the air—what do you think he’s going to say to try to look justified for attempted murder of a police officer? Fucking horrific.

This is a nightmare.

Last I heard, my family is pulling together to sue the network for defamation. And to file a civil suit against the fucker who tried to kill my dad—and damn near succeeded. I guess when the cops arrived on the scene, he was initially pronounced dead because they thought he wasn’t breathing. Which more than implies that the pastor thought he’d finished the job. Damning, if only circumstantial.

Let me tell you what’s not circumstantial: beating a police officer to the brink of death while wielding a gun and threatening to kill him if he puts up a fight. All facts.

I have no doubt that my dad would have disarmed and subdued this person if he had the chance.

For legal reasons, I’m not fool enough to tell you what I really want to do to this guy… and the fact that I haven’t won the lottery is evidence that there is a God protecting people—from me. Because you don’t want to know what I would do if only I had the funds.

I am going to continue because the people reading this are my friends… except for at least one guy who only reads this because he wants to gather dirt on me to convince my girlfriend that I’m a bad guy and that she should break up with me. I was decent and didn’t say anything for months, but you know what? Fuck you, man. That’s pretty low. Stop reading my blog, you fucking asshole. She already knows about the blog, dipshit. Leave her and me alone.

That was an aside. I was saying, I’m going to paint the big picture for you…

This pastor was tweaked. I knew this fact months ago, just from anecdotes over lunch with my parents. I snidely suggested they simply stop going to church if this is the sort of guy at the pulpit, but they thought I was just being snide for humor’s sake. I wasn’t. I was dead serious: if your spiritual leader is not an exemplar of the virtues the people of your faith aspire to manifest, then guess what—he’s not much of a spiritual leader. Anyway, this guy was tweaked. Apparently he had a reputation for temper tantrums, after which he’d say “Everything’s okay,” like it was a mantra.

This guy, it turns out, changed his name long ago after felony marijuana possession. Pot is hardly a disturbing offense, but I wonder what else he did before changing his name. I guess he didn’t want the seminary program to find out and kick him out.

Speaking of which, as soon as he got the job at this church he dropped out of classes. Hm. Nice follow-through, dick. A dropout pastor.

So here’s a sick part for you: the fucker recorded everything. He recorded it. Presumably to listen to it later to reassure himself that everything was okay, that he did good by Gawd.

Sick. This crazy guy lured my dad into an ambush, with no one else around, under the guise of a spiritual gathering, to try to murder him. And he fucking recorded it all for posterity. For his personal fucking archives. Sick.

What’s almost as sick—and indicative of the pervasive sickness of our entire society—is that total strangers who hear about it online are leaving asinine comments blaming the victim, because obviously a pastor would not be capable of something like this for no reason, right? Right. That’s why he’s fucking crazy. And what kind of “innocent pastor” brings an illegal firearm to church in the first place? It’s frighteningly naïve of anyone to assume that a church minister of any kind is somehow a paragon of virtue.

For that reason alone, I hate people a hundredfold more than I ever, ever have before. And that says an awful lot.

So. A pastor ambushes a cop and records it. Slam dunk case, right? Nothing is that easy. No. I have absolutely no faith in the legal system, not after some of the stories Juliet has told me.

Even if it did work, the law is punitive, not preventative.

Crazy people need to be detected before they snap.

My dad is recuperating—at least physically. I feel understandably frustrated, being a thousand miles away with no gas money to visit home. But he’s going to be okay.

Fuck the church for not doing a background check on their pastor.

Fuck the seminary program (which he never finished) for not flushing him out his first semester.

Fuck the press for being a bunch of chronically inept glory hounds and gossip queens, seeking sensationalism over accuracy (or even a shred of decency).

Even if my family somehow comes out ahead in this bizarre, horrific debacle, I feel as though it’s a turning point for me personally. I think it’s a defining moment, all my thoughts and will being plunged into blackness.

I know you are having a hard time wrapping your mind around this. I am, too. It was their fucking pastor. Suffice it to say, my already low opinion of organized religion has declined somewhat.