Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!

guy, “Want something for your Christmas reel? Shoot this.” I pulled down my pants and pulled out my balls. He was freaked. Sometimes I’m more of a nut than I realize. The skin on the top of my feet did peel off too, but that was so much less entertaining.

That kind of stupid can’t be fixed with a resolution, so I don’t try. I read an article in the Times that said that New Year’s resolutions really do help people. I was surprised by that. I thought they helped only health clubs. People make a promise to work out and get in shape, they join a health club and then they stop going. Health clubs, like insurance, are businesses based on people paying for but not using the business. They count on people not showing up. They count on people not knowing themselves.

I have a friend who runs a legal whorehouse. He told me his whole business model is based on having a guy pay for what he wants before he knows what he can really use. Have a guy pay for three sex partners for six hours, and when he uses one and a third partner for fifteen minutes, the men and women supplying the service get to sell that same time slot again to another guy who thinks he’s going to fuck for six hours. If you can do six hours of work in fifteen minutes, you start to turn a profit.

I played Reno the New Year’s Day that my mom died. It was her dying request that I miss no shows for her sake, so I didn’t. I don’t remember anything from the sound check or the show. I just know that I got through it. My friend who runs the brothel came to the show, with a couple of his co-workers in tow. They were scantily clad and they were there to enjoy the show and say hi afterward. I had offered my friend my complimentary tickets for the show a few months before, so they were all set up, and with my mom’s death, I’d forgotten all about them, but there he was with a couple/three co-workers to help him reciprocate. They were ushered back to my dressing room after the show.

I don’t know a lot of etiquette, but I approve of those rules that tell us how to act when we don’t know how to act. When someone experiences the death of a loved one, one says, “I’m sorry for your loss.” If you say something other than that, you may cause even more discomfort. You don’t want to say “I know how you feel” because you just fucking don’t. You don’t want to say, “They’re in a better place” because they’re fucking not. You don’t want to say, “Things happen for a reason” because they fucking don’t. “I’m sorry for your loss” is safe and kind. They are magic words. There is no etiquette for how you tell an attractive person who is not wearing any underwear that your mother died that day. I’m not saying it’s wrong to fuck or be fucked on the day a loved one dies. It’s very good to throw raw life in the face of death. I understand the point of view that it’s good to be human when you’ve lost a human that you love. I understand all of that, but it hasn’t been the way I’ve felt. I didn’t want to be crying with a prostitute in Reno in the middle of the night. I know I wouldn’t be the first, but I didn’t want to do it. Go ahead, call me a pussy.

That was the scene in my dressing room the night my mom died. A pimp, three prostitutes, a friend of mine who’d driven up from L.A. separately, and me. The prostitutes had seen the show, and they were guessing I was a fun guy. No etiquette. I said, “Um, yeah. Thanks for coming to the show. Thanks for coming backstage. It’s nice to meet you. Um. My mom died today and I’m in kind of a weird mood. Not a weird mood for my mom having died—I think my mood is appropriate for my mom having just died—but a weird mood for the way you’re dressed.” They were dressed very appropriately for a performer’s dressing room backstage, but inappropriately for a wake. They put their legs together and crossed their arms. “So, thanks a lot. Nice to meet you. Hope you come see the show again. Good night.” My friend showed them to the door, and I got to the work of mourning and crying.

New Year’s Day is a complicated holiday for me. Everyone in showbiz works on New Year’s Eve. I don’t. People drink. I don’t. People watch sports. I don’t. It’s a day of resolutions that I don’t make.

It’s an important day for me. It’s a real holiday for me. On New Year’s, I think about death, and remember my losses fondly, and I celebrate life by bribing my children with toys.

Listening to: Bach’s Sonata #2, BWV 1028, Andante—Gary Karr

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY— YOU CAN BE IN MY DREAM, IF I CAN BE IN YOURS (BOB DYLAN SAID THAT)

OKAY, HOLD YOUR HORSES. JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN. I’m NOT going to write about race. I’m not going to write about racism. I’m not going to take a quote from someone on Twitter, credit it to Martin Luther King Jr. and send it around the world. Not again. I’m going to try not to write anything stupid. Most of the time I’m trying not to write anything stupid, but maybe I’ll get lucky this time.

In my little, dead-factory hometown of Greenfield, we had only a few African-American families. The few African-American students in my little school were cousins, and they would dance with each other at school dances. It’s a small town and maybe a lot of cousins were dancing together; I just didn’t notice the others. I didn’t go to many school dances. I’m not the one to write about racism in Greenfield, Massachusetts. I just don’t know anything about it. I never heard overt racism until I left Greenfield, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The cousins dancing together certainly showed we weren’t living in utopia. Utopia would have everyone dancing and fucking with everyone else.

My buddy Karen Russell, the daughter of Bill Russell, was in Massachusetts when her superstar dad was playing basketball for the Boston team. I know nothing about sports, so the few times I met Bill Russell we talked about magic and comedy. Mr. Russell knows more about magic and comedy than I know about basketball. It’s likely Mr. Russell knows more about magic and comedy than I know about magic and comedy. He’s a smart cat. The best thing about having Bill come backstage was how much it pisses off my buddy Arsenio Hall that I’ve spent more time with Bill Russell than Arsenio has. Maybe the secret to Bill Russell’s attention is not talking about basketball. Or maybe it’s because he loves his daughter. I bet both help. Bill Russell being a superstar could not protect his family from subtle, overt, and criminal racism. Karen tells me stories and I listen, but those are her stories. It’s not my place to write down those stories. I’m not qualified to comment.

I am welcome to write about Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, because Dr. King included me in that speech. I’m one of the ones he wrote it for. I just watched it and read it again while thinking about Martin Luther King Day. We can ignore everything else Dr. King did, and I’d be okay with celebrating Martin Luther King Day based just on that one delivery of that one speech. The being-on-a-Monday thing instead of his birthday pisses me off, but I like observance. He was the best of us.

Before I reread the “Dream” speech, I listened to Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” speech. That was the last speech he gave before he was assassinated. “I Have a Dream” is way different. “The Drum Major Instinct” speech was given in a church. It’s a sermon. He was speaking to believers about religious issues. The “Dream” speech was given during a secular March on Washington. That difference matters. The difference mattered to Martin Luther King. He knew I wasn’t going to be at church, but he knew I was going to listen to the speech he gave from in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and he wanted to make sure I was included. He was a preacher, a religious man, and a real no-kidding minister. I don’t doubt his faith, but he constructed that speech to make sure I knew his faith shouldn’t exclude people who didn’t share his faith.

I’m going to write about this speech from my tunnel-vision perspective. What I’m about to do with the “Dream” speech is the equivalent of writing about Bob Dylan’s life work by critiquing his three-ball juggling cascade in the “Blood in my Eyes” video. (Bob does almost five throws of a three-ball cascade before we cut away. Those throws qualify him, barely, as a juggler. Mr. Dylan never really has this pattern under control. Every throw is too late. Instead of throwing at the apex of the subsequent ball, he throws when the next ball is already on the way down. This gives his juggle a precarious feel. The audience never relaxes in the knowledge that Bob is in control of his props. Juggling should be carefree at least until the final trick. Mr. Dylan’s throws don’t stay in the same plane; they aren’t straight up and down. Bob throws every throw a bit in front of the last. This reviewer would humbly suggest more practice with his knees pressed against his couch. I would also humbly suggest that he think more musically and less visually about the throws. Each throw must be connected to the pattern and not a separate event. You can’t do that if you’re waiting to see when to throw; you have to feel the beat of the next throw independent from the visual. Bob gives us a new thought with every toss, and we never really feel the security of an established pattern. Bob Dylan’s juggling is a tentative series of throws, a very long way from a professional juggling routine. It’s acceptable juggling for his grandchildren, but Bob Dylan doesn’t seem prepared for juggling clubs or rings outdoors where his props might be blowing in the idiot wind.) I want to write about Martin Luther King’s “Dream” speech from the POV of separation of church and state, about how religious folk can