Rapture, Rupture, Relief, Reserved

Apparently if you ain’t repenting, then you best be kissing dat ass goodbye.  The rapture is reportedly at hand; therefore, one could reasonably say:

The word is at hand and the word is doom…. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Believe it or not, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this; but let’s talk about it for a few, shall we?

For those that don’t know, the rapture is basically the second coming of Christ and all the “good” folks get ‘raptured;’ which basically means they get yanked up to heaven and get to flip off all the ‘bad’ people off as they ascend to some sort of exclusive celestial kingdom after-party that not everyone is invited to attend.  I mean, it’s totally understandable… What good is salvation if EVERYONE gets it, amirite?  I mean, fuck those OTHER guys, right?  Shit man, WE were RIGHT, motherfucker!  Our fucking team wins, beyotch!  Now go burn in hell and junk.

Yeah, nice.

Now where it really gets interesting is the simple fact that most “good” people who follow this ideology can’t agree what ‘good’ means… Some say believing in the christ (hence Christian) is really all that needs to happen.  Others say that repenting of sins is also needed.  Others say that you must do both along with good works and an absolute refusal to EVER dance to hip hop music.  Still others say you have to sacrifice to Cthulhu and corrupt the innocent to know the pleasures of the… Whoops… Wrong doctrine… Sorry.

Ahem…

I kid, I kid… Look, I really don’t have a problem with anything you want to believe as long as you keep it the fuck out of my face IF you’re too chickenshit to discuss it rationally with me.  Yes.  I openly invite any and all comers to discuss their beliefs of nearly everything with me–fucking rationally being the only stipulation.  Oh and do not try to convert me, either… If you believe that the third coming of the most holy beanbag shall smite the users of sweet pickle relish, great!  I don’t have to believe it too, ya feel me, homie?  Cool… Cool…

So yeah, the rapture… Look, I don’t really care if it comes.  Seriously.  It’s not big talk either.  If I were to go to hell, honestly, I would be amazed that such a place exists in the first frigging place.  Personally, I think the existence of hell would SHRINK the universe, not expand it… But lets, for the sake of argument, say that the nutters who are claiming that May 21st 2011 is the date of the rapture are correct.  If they are correct, then it stands to reason that their interpretation of the bible is also correct or nearly so, yeah?  Well, kiss your ass goodbye, moderate Christian, sane person.  We’re talking about the kind of people who look upon your burnt, crispy, damned ass getting rammed full of hot coals by devils as they lie on a cloud pissing on you from heaven.  These folks ain’t right, my friends.  They are looking FORWARD to that day.  By all standards of the wide umbrella of Christianity that I have studied, that simply “ain’t Christian,” ya dig what I’m saying, brah?

“Oh Jas, you simple bastard!  When did YOU ever ‘study’ Christianity?!!”

Years upon years, me bucko.

I, unlike some, needed more than just some dude waxing long and loud about disciples and casting out stones of bitter herbs and junk.  I NEEDED to know.  I had to know.  I read and read and thought and thought and prayed and prayed and yeah… I learned a lot of interesting stories.  I read a metric fuck ton of fucked up shit.  I studied the early Christian cults, movements, separatists and heretics (deemed so by powerful Romans with money and time to campaign against divergent belief systems, I might add)…

By the way, Circumcellions have to be my favorite nutjobs; seriously, they were bug fuck nuts.  Awesome.  (I actually wrote a Cracked.com article about the Circumcellions in a bored moment because they were so damn nuts)  We can sum up the Circumcellions by saying they were an early Christian “death” cult.  They believed that martyrdom was the only way into heaven so they basically ran around pissing people off until the pissed off people killed the Circumcellions; you know, in the name of god and all that.  Wow… Just wow.

Another of my favorites were the Donatists–I wrote a song using their ideology as a backbone for the in song story.  That song should be on the next EP–coming soon.  If you want to know what they were about, look it up.  I really really didn’t want to go this long on the damn rapture bullshit and here we are… I have to tap dance and I therefore start to lose interest in the real point of writing… sigh.

I find this to be a good enough segue…

So what does the word “rupture” mean in the title of this blog?  Well, many of you know that I’ve been sick.  A fucking month sick, damnit.  Let me tell you how pissed off I am about that… I finally get back into martial arts and and TRULY enjoying myself learning the system of Krav Maga and what happens?  I get sick for a goddamn month.  Grumble, my friends… Frigging grumble…

So back to the rupture… I went in to the doctor three different times and the lovely people at the clinic who could give a rat’s ass whether I lived or died (sorry, these people were assholes and made it ABUNDANTLY clear that my health was the least of their fucking concerns) told me that they thought I had mono.  aka:  Infectious Mononucleosis, aka:  the kissing disease.  I know… No, I haven’t been kissing people.  No, I haven’t been drinking after people.  Apparently, the shit is mad contagious and you can get it from someone coughing around you or picking their teeth and then touching a doorknob a few minutes before you touch the same doorknob, etc and so forth.

Basically, it boils down to the fact that we’re germ factories and gross fucking slobs that kill each other with our gross-ass habits and lack of hygiene.

It couldn’t be less important or more annoying…

So anyway… They said that my lack of energy and fatigue sounded like mono.  They asked if I’d had it before.  No.  I have not.  Fix me, you bastards.  Something like that.

What does this have to do with raptures or ruptures?  Spleens… Spleens rupture.  If you exert yourself with mono your spleen can rupture and you could end up in the hospital or dead.  Fuck spleens, just saying…

Well, after chasing the bastards for three days, they finally gave me my results… No mono for Jas.  Apparently, I’ve had mono before.  Who the fuck knew?  I certainly didn’t.  They laughed and said that mono is “just like that.”  No rhyme or reason apparently.  You can have it and not even know you have had it… Well, thanks there, Mr. Nurse-man.  I appreciate the burning rush to get back to me three days after I already knew that my test results were in–I called, so don’t fucking waste my time telling me I was rushing them.  They’re lazy and just as bored with their job as you are with yours.  Let me let you in on a little secret… Healthcare professionals could give a rat’s ass about you… It’s a job.  They want to go to the club as much as you do.  If you expect different… You’re fooling yourself.

Am I mad?  A little… But I get it.  No hard feelings… Seriously.  I get it.  It’s a J-O-B.  Just do us a favor, healthcare professionals, remember that your J-O-B is our L-I-F-E.  It ain’t a fucking credit card account or a used car or a roof or a broken appliance… It’s our lives.  One day you’ll be sick as well and you’ll look at your bored ass, ready to go home, thinking about the club nurse practitioner with the same glassy-eyed hopefulness that your ass isn’t REALLY sick the same as we do.  Remember that.  Just saying.

That shit aside, I’m good.  No mono.  I’m terribly allergic to grass, apparently… Sigh.  So now it’s off to the allergy doctor to see about some shots.  I don’t want to take Allegra for the rest of my life and every other medicine that I have tried in the last month has either not worked, given me anxiety or made me so goddamn drowsy I couldn’t function.  Thanks pharmaceutical industry!  No really!  The side effects are awesome!  Make sure you keep pot illegal for people with serious conditions and keep giving them shit that makes them need to gamble and kill themselves as a side effect!  HOORAY FOR BIG MEDICINE!  (yes, I’m not fucking with you… Some “medicines” have a side effect that makes you want to gamble… TONS make you feel suicidal.  Happy days…)

Okay, you got me… This is a grumpy blog.  I’m sorry.  I really am… But let’s be real… It’s been an interesting read, right?  Come on, now… We LOVE it when people bitch a blue streak, yeah?  Don’t bother denying it–you know it’s true and the studies show that is absolutely the case.  Either way, I don’t want to just bitch.  I suppose I had to vent a little and for that, I’m sorry.

Let me move on to a few things that make me happy.

Therefore, we’re on to relief…

I’m relieved that I don’t have mono.  That’s cool.  That means that I won’t be out of commission for a month or better.  I’m not thrilled that this could be an allergic reaction to grass pollen–that would indicate that I have to deal with this bullshit every year when grass pollen is at a high.  That sucks.

So what in the world could I possibly be relieved about?  My music.  That’s what I’m fucking relieved about.  Oh shit!  I totally forgot!  The shit-ass “health care” fuck jobs at the clinic I went to, when not rushing me off the phone due to me questioning results and begging them to tell me what was wrong with me, told me that my triglycerides were completely off the chart.  Yep.  I had to force them to tell me what my blood results said.  Nice, huh?  Fucking wankers… Sorry… Back to it… So yeah, they tell me I have to get on fish oil right away.  While sounding like they could totally rather be clipping their toenails, they explained to me that my triglycerides were completely off the chart.  When they told me my level, I said, “holy shit!”  The girl laughed and said, “uh, yeah.”  (do it in the most monotone annoyed voice that you possibly can)  So, uh yeah, as they would say… I am now running the risk of heart disease and I had to drag it out of them to tell me.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… But I don’t eat fast food, I don’t eat sugar or white flour and believe it or not, I’ve been off booze for near a month.  I don’t smoke, I don’t eat a lot of fat… Shit man, I’ve been a monk for a damn month or better!  They DID take the test about an hour after I had eaten and they dude even said–”that will throw off the test” but I still care more about my life than those fuck-holes do; so I now have to really start watching my cholesterol level.  I guess I’m just pissed.  If I hadn’t pressed for my blood test results, I would have NEVER known about this shit.

You know what?  If you’re a healthcare professional… please, please FUCKING PLEASE do better than these fucks… You don’t have to care.  Really, you don’t… But just tell the people what they need to know.  Tell them in a timely manner and tell them what they need to do to correct the mistake.  Seriously, why I have off the chart triglycerides is a frigging mystery.  I don’t eat sugar, I don’t eat fats, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t eat white flour, I don’t eat potatoes, etc and so on.  They say it’s hereditary… Maybe so… My doctor apparently doesn’t give enough of a shit to tell me much more than don’t eat sugar and take fish oil.  Me?  I just hope I don’t have a fucking stroke before I reach 40.

On to “reserved” I guess, right?

I fucking reserve judgment on the healthcare system.

I reserve the right to be pissed off if I have heart disease because if I hadn’t been a pain in the ass that called 8 times to 3 different clinics, I wouldn’t have fucking known.

I reserve the right to be more than a little shocked if some of you lovely people get raptured and I don’t.  To be very truthful, if that were to happen I do honestly believe that my lovely wife Vicki would be raptured along with you.  She’s a much better person than I am and if all the silly flying to heaven stuff is true then I definitely think jeebus would pick Vicki in the first round draft.  Do I think that I’m a good person?  Yes.  Yes I do.

Do I think this rapture stuff is real?  No.  No I don’t.  Apparently, the “normal, good Christians” don’t either–according to a reliable source of what ‘normal, good Christians’ do on a daily basis.  From all accounts, they’re mad pissed that nutters are yet again giving them a bad name.  Honestly, I don’t care.  I really don’t.  I’m mad at my doctors.  I’m mad at my results.  I’m mad that I was on the “relieved” part of my blog and passed over the thing that makes me most relieved… Therefore, I return, sucka!

Why am I most relieved?  Well, if I do die too young to think about… I (hopefully) will leave behind a large body of work.  My home studio is becoming respectable and guess what..?  I’M GOING BACK IN THE STUDIO TO RECORD AN EP SOON!  Yep.  That’s right, motherfucka… I’m going back in the studio and recording, at minimum, five new tracks that we’ll be releasing circa the fall of the this year.  HELL YEAH!  I’m stoked, playa… I simply can’t wait.

Do I have the material in mind?  Why, yes… Yes I do.  Are they good?  Better than anything on “Working On My Soul” would be my answer… Is that accurate?  Fuck, dude!  Who cares!  More music, mayne!  That’s what matters!

So at this point, I’m going to leave this rather ambiguous blog to its own devices and say a big THANK YOU, ASS-BAGS! to the “health-care” people who gave less than two shits about my well being.

What do I plan to do?

Well, I’ll tell you…

I’m going back to Krav Maga.  If I don’t have mono, it means that if I exert myself I won’t rupture my spleen; so fatigue or not, I’m good to go.  I’m going to tough it out and get back in my work out regime.  I was starting to get really strong and healthy before the month long lapse in health that the “experts” were so readily cocked and locked to name mono.

So that’s why I’m relieved.

If I’m going to die young, I have the means to write and record the music that constantly flows through my mind.  I’m less than relieved to realize that I now am no longer just alone… These days, I’m married… Therefore, I have to leave behind something to take care of my family.  Believe it or not, this also gives me a cause of relief–PROVIDED I don’t die TOO soon.  I intend to write and record like a motherfucker so that if I do die too “young” maybe you people will buy an album or two and make sure my young widow doesn’t starve to death.

It’s an interesting world, isn’t it?

I mean, think about it…

Name a couple of artists/singers/actors who died young… I’m sure you have plenty.  Now try to think of them before they died… Yeah.  We’re shits, aren’t we?  For some reason, it just seems to mean so much more when you can’t have it anymore, ya know?  Listen, truth be told, I’d MUCH rather be Bob Dylan than James Dean.  I don’t want to fucking die, man.  I want to write my music and play my music and perform my music and write my blogs and answer your emails and business as usual, ya feel me? But, as life moves on… I realize that this may not be the case…

I say to you now… I intend to start to making music as much as possibly can.  If I am no longer around, do me a favor and just make sure you pass my music along–IF you dig it.  If you don’t dig it and you found this on a “doomsday” query, then go fuck yourself and have a nice day.  Ahem… Sorry, regular readers… Back to it…

Do you want to know what I want?  I’ll tell you…

I want to leave a body of work that is remembered.  Am I going to be up there with the Beatles?  Christ, no.   No one will.  That happened due to a set of circumstances that can never be repeated.  I know, you don’t believe me; but trust me!  The internet and cable tv and modern radio and satellites and so on and so forth would have to disappear for the Beatles to happen again; just trust me, it was an anomaly.  (not that they didn’t earn it)

But just because I can’t be the Beatles doesn’t mean I can’t last–or my music can’t last, ya feel me?  That’s what I want.  I want my music to mean something to someone somewhere.  I want to inspire a kid to learn a song on guitar or drums.  I want some chick to bop around her job or campus with my song so stuck in her head she can’t hum anything else for a week.  I want a some critic to look back over my body of work and tell people what I ACTUALLY meant in my lyrics or what the music was supposed to say or what I was thinking when I wrote it–TOTALLY hope I’m alive for that one!  (I’d be fascinated to know what I was thinking when I wrote songs–fuck if I can think of what it was myself!)

So I guess I’ll end it reservedly relieved that I didn’t rupture while waiting on the rapture.

Like always, you can download some free tracks both on this blog (upper right hand side of this page) or on my actual site:  www.jaspatrick.com  so ENJOY THE MUSIC!  If you like the free ones, pick up an album–18 tracks of something for everyone.

More news and junk later.

Cheers!