Nothing Better, Nothing Better!

Than choosing the best. Don't forget to smile when you're in the shower!

Where Time Turns to Space

Get It Now!

Before it happens!

Not Happy

With the sad state of fiction.



"Cookie cutters," he shouts, "are all you're encouraging."

My Psychoanalyst

says Hi more than once.

Hey Whatchya Writing?

Bullshit, just a bunch of bullshit.

Hair Exchange

Making up for a lack of hair in my past life.

If You Knew Who You Were Rejecting

You would be ashamed of yourselves!

As A Writer

I ain't what I used to be.

Get A Haircut!

Responsible for Bankrupting the Printed News Industry

Yours truly.

The Most Popular Adam Luebke

I am the most popular Adam Luebke on the Internet.



In fact, compared to other Adam Luebkes, I am an Internet sensation.

Portals of Prayer - July 1, 2008

Today's Christianity is destructive and degenerate, but most people knew that.

The Portals of Prayer is a quarterly publication that focuses on providing a simple devotion corresponding to a Bible verse. It is meant to be read by Christians who may or may not be too busy to read the Bible, but want something encouraging to read. The Portals of Prayer is a small booklet, and each page represents a day, i.e. Jan 1st is one page, Jan. 2 the next page, and so on. For Christians, this small devotion provides a thought to be gnawed on by the mind throughout the day, and to give a little spiritual courage to the Christian soul that doesn't feel quite at home in the heathen, pagan-swelled world.

Having had the Portals of Prayer publication read to me since I was a small child, I had given it up after I left home, despite the encouragement and almost coercive pressure placed on me by my mother. So I picked it up again, July 1, today, and was nearly appalled by what I was reading. The Portals of Prayer is not a positive message, nor does it show Christians in a positive light.

The title of the devotion for July 1 is "Parading Trumpets." The opening paragraph hooks the reader by the placement of a historical fact. It says, in a nutshell, that Canada was created by the British North America Act in 1867, and that Canadians, "celebrate this anniversary with cricket, picnics, fireworks, and parades." This is a positive first paragraph, showcasing a simple, historical fact, painted with the feel-good images of celebrating Canadians. The pith of it, however, is that Canada, on July 1, 1867, was officially created. Now, I don't know how you like Canadians, or what your feelings are toward them, but this is something to be proud of. And Americans should know, since it is close to our Independence Day.

The second paragraph is where a drastic turn is taken in accordance with today's devotion. I understand that space is limited, since the Portals of Prayer publishes a mini booklet every quarter, and only gets about three, maybe four paragraphs with which to make their point, but today's segue goes from black to white, creative to destructive, positive to horrifically negative.

"With resounding trumpets and a great shout, Joshua's army brought down the mighty walls of Jericho, and the Israelites conquered and celebrated." Is this even close to the lure of the opening paragraph? The reader is transported from a sunny field, where Canadians are celebrating, to the sound of war trumpets, blown by the warriors of the biblical Joshua's army. The next line hammers home the realization that Joshua's army was not invading to have a cup of tea or shake a few hands. "Everything in the city was given to destruction by fire..." Violence has now officially stolen the stage from the birth of Canada, which was centered, and focused upon by the first paragraph, as a positive, creative event. But destruction by fire? The doesn't sound good for the citizens of Jericho. But the destructive act of ravishing everything in a city with fire is only given the tiniest glimpse in this devotion, as the reader is passed off to what should be the good news. The good news: ..."everything [was set on fire] except Rahab the prostitute and her family." Rahab was "set aside by God's Word" as she trusted in it, and was safely escorted out of Jericho and brought back to the Israelite camp for safe keeping. This sentence, then, confirms the fates of the her fellow citizens of Jericho. If Rahab was set aside due to her belief in God, then the other people surely perished, and probably with fire, as the devotion implies by incorporating the word, "everything," when mentioning the destruction of the city.

Is this what Christianity is about? Is this Christ's message of unforgiving love from his (and our) Father in Heaven? And what about that initial paragraph? Is the murderous and disastrous fire set in Jericho by Joshua and Co.'s hands supposed to be linked by the reader to the fireworks of Canada's July 1 celebrations? How can something so commonplace and, hopefully, enjoyable for human beings, such as celebratory recreation, be juxtaposed with such a ghastly, disgusting event as what went on in Jericho? Or is it the title, "Parading Trumpets," that links the first two astringently different paragraphs together as the former mentioned parades, and the latter mentioned trumpets? But how, might the reader ask, does this make anyone feel good, or deliver a positive message? Perhaps this devotion might have been kicked off in a more appropriate manner with an austere description of war-torn Iraqis, or the ruins of Baghdad. And THEN move into Joshua's war trumpets, and the flooding of Jericho with soldiers and warriors, come to do God's bidding by setting "everything" on fire.

The third and last paragraph skips ahead to the future, when Jesus is going to return to earth, and a "trumpet will sound with the voice of an archangel." So the trumpet theme has been preserved from the second to the third paragraph, but a happy day out with the family is left far behind. When Jesus comes, "everything...will be given to destruction...everything save the holy Bride of Christ." How, though, do we become a member of the Holy Bride? It's not a secret society, so don't worry, you haven't been missing anything. The advice is to "Listen for the trumpeting of God's Word, for in it is your rescue and relief." That's a positive message, sort of, considering the majority of the second paragraph.

Questions arise, however, such as: What if you're deaf and you cannot hear that trumpet. What if you have a predilection against the nasally sound of a trumpet? What if you're simply not listening? What if you were born and live in a country whose music has never featured the trumpet? What if every trumpet seems to be that trumpet? What if you sincerely prefer the saxophone?

These questions are not in jest, and are not trying to dodge the so-called "good news" of Christ, or even of this devotion. Seriously, what if one misses the metaphorical trumpet call? Is the sin of not believing in Christ as Savior worth a firestorm, set upon us by other Christians? Or even by the hand of God? And can an all-loving, eternal being really not think of a better way? After all, he created us, did he not? As far as humanity knows, nobody is asked if they want to be born, and to which earthly location assigned. How is anything in this July 1 devotion positive, or comforting? And even if one is certain in his/her belief in Christ, and "knows" of the guaranteed salvation, how can that person live with the fact that everyone else is going to be set ablaze due their logical thinking, ignorance, deafness, or their geographical location? I guess that accounts for the individuals on the street handing out their version of salvation printed on little booklets.

Why doesn't the Portals of Prayer just omit the first paragraph and start with the second paragraph. Don't give Christians nice mental imagery, and then hurl firebombs into their peaceful thoughts with references to biblical passages.

This might not be fear-mongering, as the writers of these dubious devotions no doubt genuinely believe what they are preaching, but the text certainly lies in a bed of fear. Why do we love Jesus? For the Christian awaiting the trumpet call, it's because of fear. Fear of the purported firestorm. Fear of not being included in the Holy Bride of Christ. If that fear is taken away, do the majority of "believers" still believe? Do they still love Christ if the reality to life is that death is the end of body, mind, and soul?

Maybe we should only read the first paragraph in the July 1 Portals of Prayer entry and leave it at that. That's a nice enough image, even if it is simplified and completely devoid of facts or intelligence. It might be worth skipping over the Portals of Prayer publication all together.

HEY Hey! Lemon Tree...

Beyond introspection, circumspection, and overt suspicion, rising mightier than footfalls of egregious thunder, planting and tending dismay in the hearts of former derelicts and prized-fighting pinheads, along with the other more illustrious, lucrative individuals, bent on traveling with a macrocosmic understanding of something rather microscopic, tends to unravel anyone's finest sweater, and begins to tug on the hem of the old Jesus robe tighter than expected.

And everybody cringes.

Make it work.
Build a dome and shield everyone's head, as long as that head belongs to a normal, societally functional trunk and set of appendages, with a smile, then inclusion comes at last. For under that dome, held up by highly technological walls that breathe in good air and exhale the used, dirty stuff. It's a tiny sanctuary of unrivaled safety, and above all, more hallowing and noteworthy is its predictability.
For this sanctuary only exists in the minds of certain peoples, and sometimes like the rain can be controlled with a switch. Every Thursday, at 9PM, it rains. Miss clear weather?

Miss Clear Weather.

Missy Weather Clear has a problem with that time? Well, when would SHE like it to rain?

And everyone is safe.

Basically, it's become evident that people, each individual, wants a personal bubble, maybe constructed out of lambskin, so it still feels good, but offers a standard type of protection. Right? Of course, there are tiny viruses.

Oh.

Lambskin has flaws, after all. It allows flow, don't you agree? How tightly woven is tight enough? A tight, genetic bundle of over-under weaves would keep out the most ghastly decorated illnesses.

And this is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Repeat: This is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Random things from which I once suffered: lemon trees, rubber bands, bygone memories. It took the effort to stop trying to save myself that eventually granted liberation. The lemon trees, I thought, were obvious in their quest to strike me with grief. All of that vivid yellow on green. The luminous yellow orbs, alive and overwhelming, decorating a solid leafy green with such force and efficacy that lesser men than I might have simply been swallowed. I persevered, but with twitches and spasms more grotesque than any horror flick. Frighteningly, as I imagine it, walking down the street, seeing my face from a distance, and, upon taking a closer look, viewing dancing eyebrows, jerky ears, and an ever-settling mouth. That was I thinking about lemon trees. How much uglier it became with a strong cup of coffee is a figure or estimate that remains elusive to me. I knew I was twitching my face almost inside out and imagined the skin on my nect stretching while the front of my face migrated in jerks and skips to the back of my skull.

And, yet, the ears, due to their location, would have been more or less all right.

Thinking like that is childish, and too imaginative, easily overstated, and drunkenly cliche. Like Jack Kerouac? Nah, not like Jack. Like Neal? Cassady? Jack Cassady. Neal Kerouac. A match...made in Heaven. Piano, cue.

What actually needs to be said is taht my face was hardly able to be still, due to all of the overstimulation of lemon trees galore. Garish, spindly, ingrates. ! Especially in conversation to another living being. It was just lemon trees, and their beauty. Lemon trees fuck with all the senses -- sight, they burst in taste lik an exploding chunk of DayGlo rock, touching lemons' lightly goosebumped skin, or scratching your face on the bark of its trunk, and the smell, oh the smell, causes me, at least, to suck in and in until my nasal passages are raw, my sinuses spitting venom, and I know, somewhere under that plethora of citrus, true cleanliness lies. The lemon tree's dynamicism really, truly, brings forth a human's mortality, and screams, "you will NEVER be able to experience ME fully (FULLY!), you FOOL!" And you think, oh, that's right, I am going to perish, and really, on a larger, more expansive world scale, I'm going to experience a fraction of the smallest percentage of everything. And the lemon tree becomes a metaphor, turning into a portentous, and beautiful boil. Nei! Oh...

Mr. Kerouac. You haven't escaped. I've mentioned you, too. Lemon, anyone?

Hail! Jack Kerouac

Mr. Kerouac, where do you reside? With your beer-soaked breath, and your fat white belly; wherever did you go? You left, misunderstood, not fully appreciated, and with a scowl on your face. You were mad, spitting drunk, and you died from a little blood, let loose to flood your organs and give you up to the mad hatter Creator you believed in so fervently.

Jack, Kerouac, come; come wherever you are.

How does one summon Jack Kerouac? Mr. On the Road; Big Sur, Haiku(s). Mr. Dharma Bum. How do you speak with Kerouac, and ask him why the hell he fucked up so badly. Why he left his family. Would you like to just say he meant a lot to you, even though you read him almost forty years after his stupid, immature death?

Well, you can summon Jack Kerouac by buying two liters of whiskey. To begin, you will want to drink the first liter, tainting its kiss with nothing except a grimace and a sigh. Next, you should break something, like a lamp, or a vase, or a mirror. Break something loud, dramatic, and, hopefully, regretful. Next, sip on the second liter of whiskey, and begin to cry. Whisper to the dark room, where you sit by yourself, that nobody understands you, and that you're not afraid to die, you're just too goddamn religious to do it yourself. Whisper that. Think of Jack, and whisper those things with full-on meaning. He'll come. He'll be there any minute.

And if Neal Cassady shows up, ask for his help. He's likely to spit in your face and ask you where your sister, or your mother, or your wife, is at. Don't tell him, because he'll make good on your "offer."

If Jack doesn't show up, don't despair. He hardly ever shows his face anymore. It's too bloated, and whiskey(ed) up. It's okay to scream how much you hate him. It's all right to yell a little, and holler about why he's so damn elusive, and enigmatic all of the time. Tell him, he hasn't heard it before, that he could have had such a long, prosperous life, living as long or longer than Allen Ginsburg. He could have slept with Allen. They could have been lovers. The hippie and the conservative. Ishmael and Queequeg. Leg over leg, arms entangled, genitalia nobodies business.

Offer an incantation: To Kerouac, how they loved you. To Jack, how we do still. You aren't ever going to go away. We'll burn your words and send the smoke, offering you praise, but hang our heads in shame.

Peoples Eclectic

I've been toying with the idea of writing short essays on the various people who have captured my interest of the years due to their idiosyncracies, ideas, and life history. I am in love with characters who wandered around this vast planet fully tuned into their own ideas and awareness. People like Paul Dirac, who took every statement literally, and lived his life on an entirely different plane; away and above the common public. Dirac didn't seem to want to be different as much as he came off confused about what everybody else was doing around him. He was known to climb trees around the campus of the university, where he taught theoretical physics, in his business suit. He didn't pay attention to social order and propriety because, in my opinion, he was too smart. That is simple, but seems very well to be the case. Paul Dirac was too smart and too gifted to worry about what might seem weird or strange. His behavior was not threatening, nor was it dangerous. He was a man living in a different realm than most other men. Did that make him greater or lesser? He was a very gifted physicist, but most likely lacked many other skills, evening him out and putting him on par with the rest of humanity. He did, however, steal the stage on which we, the audience, constantly judge and predict what the human characters are going to do. Dirac lowered himself from the ceiling, so to speak, when his direction was to enter stage left.

These kinds of people are going to be my focus for a series of writing that I'm going to call, Peoples Eclectic. I will draw inspiring, and rather odd, characters from all walks of life, from different professions and backgrounds, who hold polar beliefs and walk in the extreme.

I will be publishing these essays soon, hopefully by the beginning of June, at:

www.associatedcontent.com/adamluebke

It shall be fun.

Editing Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is famous for his two week tryst of benzedrine and coffee fueled writing, which led to the breakthrough 'On the Road.' The infamous picture is of a writer, hunched over his typewriter, typing furiously, taking pills and slugging cups of coffee, in the confines of his private room, telling a tale, spontaneously as it came, depicting the prior four years of his life as he criss-crossed the United States with the unforgettable Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). His manuscript of 'On the Road' is a scroll, taped together and worth big bucks. It unrolls over one hundred feet, and is really an American relic, produced by one of the most mysterious writers the North American continent has ever produced.

But is it all true?

Jack Kerouac is famous for his supposed belief of no revision. He is said to have written spontaneously, and whatever he wrote remained, untouched, and ready to be published. He loved the errors and all. But that is untrue. Pertaining to his American opus, 'On the Road,' Kerouac revised many times, contradictory to the legend. He actually worked on that piece for four or more years, compiling notes and journal entries from his travels. It was his work in progress. And while it may be true he sat down and hammered it out in the space of a few weeks, the majority of the plot and memories had been recorded and written down, needing only to be patched together and put in a coherent manner. And Kerouac revised like hell. He worked on his manuscript like any other author would have, and even sent it away to a friend to read first. The friend suggested Kerouac provide more centering on the story's main character, Dean Moriarty. Kerouac understood his friend's critique and put Dean center stage.

The misconception of Kerouac being the great Non-Revisor might have originated with the fact that the author refused to let the editor at the publishing house make certain changes to the 'On the Road' manuscript. That somehow became the genesis for Kerouac not believing in revision to his work, and keeping 'On the Road' as is, with no care or concern for criticism. Like any author, Kerouac was obstinate on what keeping 'On the Road' as he'd sent it to the publishing house, and not as it was after he supposedly slapped it together in the space of two weeks. In truth, the manuscript had been worked and reworked, in pieces and sections, for at least four years.

But the legend remains, and it's a beautiful one.