Instead, Forest saw the world as a giant trash can somehow convinced it was responsible enough to empty itself. He disagreed. The world was not fulfilling its duty to skim the filth off the top. This meant, to Forest, that normal, everyday people would have to intervene, but in order to make such drastic changes one had to sacrifice their own life. Something Forest would never have done if he had not just found his pregnant wife enthusiastically fellating his own nephew in the bathroom of a Chuck E Cheese.
He wanted to blame some physical person standing there in front of him but he was too smart. People aren’t naturally wired to act like this. Fifteen year old nephews are not supposed to be attracted to older pregnant women, but when their friends start daring them to watch more and more disgusting online porn videos, things change. Pregnant housewives aren’t supposed to be so open to such scandalous behavior, but when they stay home all day watching reality television they begin to feel that their role in society isn’t enough for them. They then opt for the far more exciting bathroom-floor-dick-sucker role. To say that Forest fully understands this transition would not be totally accurate.
The culture we’re stuck with now would never let anybody exterminate one of its revenue-generating components. Those at the top of the whole mind-fuck were making way too much money to care about individual people. Cultural progress had been pushed into the direction of financial gain and nothing worthwhile was coming out of it. This last ditch effort would be for the good people still wallowing in the filth, like billions of unwanted babies in the rusted, overstuffed dumpster that is modern life. Those who lived on afterward would be better off. Perhaps Forest would save at least one other lost soul from ducking out early like he was about to.
*** *** ***
He was supposed to be a comedian, but he wasn’t really funny. He glorified the absolute worst elements of our culture. His name only got thrown into the hat because one of his commercials appeared on the television as Forest was making the lottery. The black and yellow Bruins hat was filled with nouns. People, places, and things that Forest felt never should have existed in the first place. If he was going to off himself anyway, he might just as well hook everybody else up with a minor victory. If he could just scrub off one ugly piece of graffiti from our walls then he would feel a lot better in his last moments. The catch-22 was that he might see the light at that very moment. Something about fixing society a little might be just the thing he needed to pull him out of this slump. By then he would be waist deep in shit. Once the process was started he couldn’t back out. Even if he didn’t follow through with the second act of his murder-suicide plot, he would be a fugitive. He would never be able to relax again, but Forest would just have to roll the dice on this one.
He bought the ticket. The gun was already loaded, lying under a pile of towels in his closet. Once you didn’t care about making it back alive, putting these types of projects together was easy. He giggled to himself when he realized this would be the last time he’d ever have to parallel park in a crowded Boston street. Then he set the alarm just for the hell of it, walked into the club, and sat in the very front row.
His name was Larry the Cable Guy and even he saw it coming.
Forest got ‘er done...
Apparently, the media didn’t want Public Enemy to rock the populous, as Chuck D points out with, “Radio/Suckers never play me/On the mix, just O.K. me.” Luckily, the boys of PE found a way to reach people regardless by using a crazy variety of samples to bolster their rhymes. This album stands as a true synthesis of great music, brought together to create even more great music. Even if an upper-middle class white kid in 2009 picks up this CD, he’s gonna be able to find something on it to relate to or recognize musically. Maybe this kid won’t understand or know about the politically charged aspects of Public Enemy’s music, but Nation of Millions is socially conscious enough to know how to reach out in other ways. It then promotes understanding and knowledge after the initial dive into this hardcore political hip-hop. It’s important to see this and tip your hat to PE for pulling it off.
The genius of Public Enemy’s use of so many samples—such as “Angel of Death” by Slayer, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” by the Beastie Boys, and “Funky Drummer” by James Brown—is that every sample used not only comes together in a perfectly cohesive sound, but also stands to bolster the messages in every song. Twenty years down the road, Public Enemy’s music still appears on its own and in samples for newer songs. It’s clearly influenced the use of samples in hip-hop and other types of music on a larger scale. In 2009, we’ve seen the mash-up generation steadily gaining steam (think Girl Talk, Super Mash Bros., N.A.S.A.), undoubtedly sparked by Nation’s ability to mishmash hip-hop with metal, rock, funk, and even speeches and quotes. PE’s Nation of Millions, with its library of samples that rivals those of most club DJs these days, paved the way for artists who know what beats get people moving and listening. The most important part is that they taught us to do this together by using things that speak to people from any walk of life. Then they drop the bombs.
I recently talked with a mixed-race friend of mine. We shot the shit, classes came up and I told him about Hip-Hop Journalism. He then proceeded to tell me that he had taken a similar class—and had chosen to write his final paper on “why white suburban kids love hip-hop.” Fitting the bill of his subject so precisely made me feel a bit vulnerable. I voiced this to a fellow white hip-hop lover at lunch recently, to which the waspy Texan quickly responded, “The same reason we love Mafia movies.”
I have to admit I see his point. I identify as an (Irish-)Italian. Some of my distant cousins and uncles are indeed mobsters, but I don’t see Mafia movies as my own direct culture. I’m not running drugs, bookie operations, or giving people the cement shoes. I’m the generic white girl just trying to get by in school to a soundtrack of face-melting metal, indie prog-rock, and hip-hop music I can’t live without.
Still, I can’t help but question what right I have to listen to, to love hip-hop. Middle-class, white, college kid. I suppose the rights I have to hip-hop are the same as those I claim to metal: I feel its anger and it soothes my own (though they may stem from very different sources), and I simply love the music. The beats. The way the words pour out over the samples with such ease, the sneering, rolling cleverness that makes you wish you had the authority, the words, the wit to pull it off yourself. I find solace in my favorite rapper—my music collection currently sports about 800 songs rapped, featuring, or produced by him—who just so happens to be white as well.
Eminem was voted the best rapper alive by a poll run in Vibe magazine in 2008.
He hadn’t released any major albums since 2004’s Encore, and was certainly not in the spotlight as much as the biggest music slut out there, Lil’ Wayne, or Jay-Z, the on-again off-again rap retiree. So how did Em pull it off? What is it about him that keeps his fans patiently waiting for the next track he’ll explode on?
Let’s take into account that he’s white. He put it all on the table with “White America,” letting everyone know that the blue-eyed, blonde white kids were eating his shit up because he “looked like them,” but not necessarily because they had similar upbringings. Though white is considered a majority in America, I doubt that the white kids were ballot-stuffing the Vibe poll. It’s simply not that kind of publication. I have to trust that the audience would be more balanced because the hip-hop audience itself is so widespread.
Eminem’s greatness stems from the simple fact that the dude is a genius. Upon asking a buddy of mine what he thought of Em, he replied, “…he’s funny,” and shrugged. Sure, he’s funny. He loves irony. He loves causing a scene and shocking people with his songs because that’s what his whole career has been about. Let’s face it, the odds weren’t with him from the beginning: a bleached-blonde white kid trying to make it in the rap game. He knew it, he knew he could make it, and he wanted to say a big “fuck you” to the haters. His newer stuff is hot (The Eminem Show is still one of my favorite albums), but take a minute to listen to his old shit, his freestyles. The latter is the ultimate testament to his talent.
How the hell can a high school dropout come up with this stuff off the top of his head? The vocabulary, the style and flow, the metaphors, Eminem has it all. It doesn’t matter that he’s white. He’s proven that with his success and the respect he’s gained from his Black rapping counterparts. Em has completely broken every rap barrier. So the next time you hear Lil’ Wayne, or anyone else, claim he’s the “best rapper alive,” think of Eminem, whose fans gave him the title he’d never claim for himself. Yeah, he’ll diss the guys who give him shit, but take his response to the award: “I don't think that there is any one rapper that is simply the best [though]. Everyone who was in consideration and many others are the best at certain things, and at what they do.” Slim Shady? A modest, talented genius?
I’m in love.
MZ's very own Joey Bag-O-Donuts wrote this short piece of fiction as a tribute to Chuck Palahniuk's "Guts". He has since been trying to force it on new people even though it's not very good. Good for a laugh at least. -J.O.
*****
When I was 15, I was really into practical jokes. That year I found myself totally unprepared the day before April Fool’s Day. I had already exhausted all the best pranks I knew. Last year, I wrapped saran wrap around my toilet seat and my mother found my little brother crying because he shat all over himself. The year before that, I fed my cat fishing line and watched as my parents chased him with scissors to cut off the shit trailing behind him. I needed something new, still involving feces though, it seemed to be a recurring theme in my life. Everybody loves poop.
I looked to the internet for answers. There were sites dedicated to lists and lists of the dumbest pranks I had ever heard of. Switching the bags of cereal between boxes so that Cheerio’s would come out of the Lucky Charms box. What the fuck is that? Who cares? I needed something bigger, something toilet related. So I googled “toilet pranks”.
The page that came up was really poorly put together. The font was a shade of the same color that the background was and I could barely make it out, but there it was. My mischievous prayers had been answered by the same all-knowing deity that showed me my first vagina, the internet. Right there on my computer screen was the best prank I had ever heard of. It was called “The Upper Deck”, it involved someone shitting into the upper tank of a toilet, the tank that you were not supposed to shit in. This seemed simple enough. The really great part is that every time someone flushed the toilet after that, instead of clean water flooding in and sucking down the waste, more shit would flood in. Then once the victim realizes what has transpired, they have to take the lid off and pull the shit out with a glove or a spoon. This would be my greatest moment.
The mechanics of the prank were easy and it took no planning whatsoever, aside from maybe eating a lot that day. I just needed to choose a victim, not someone necessarily deserving of it, just someone who would be really disgusted by it. I racked my brain for a little while and realized that one of my friends’ mothers was particularly obsessive about keeping the house clean. You could even say that she was obsessively compulsive about it. I’m sure she would have a nervous breakdown if her toilet bowl kept filling with shit every time she flushed.
My friend’s name was Nick, he was the one in the group that everyone secretly hated, but we weren’t mean enough to completely kick him out of our group. Freshmen year was bad enough with a group of friends, I couldn’t imagine doing it alone. I called Nick’s house and asked if I could come over the next day after school, he asked his mother and she permitted it. My evil plan was coming together without a hitch, and I was so thrilled I could almost shit.
That day I made it a point not to do number 2 at school, and I ate as much food as I could. I knew that I would have to shit anyway, but I wanted it to be an extra special shit. I didn’t want anything to come between me and the glory that awaited me. I daydreamed through all my classes. I was too excited to pay attention to algebra or french. I had my eyes on the prize.
Finally the last bell rang. Nick had never felt so wanted by any of our friends. I tracked him down within 30 seconds of school’s ending. He was in the pick up zone out front, waiting for his mom. I pounced on him like an excited dog, grabbing his arm and jumping up and down. He was a little shocked. I began talking enthusiastically about how much fun we would have that day. Nick seemed confused but played along. He was a loser, but he wasn’t dumb; he knew that he was lucky to have a friend like me.
Nick’s mom came through the big front parking lot of my school in her shiny silver Lexus. I jumped in the back seat, Nick jumped in the front. His mother asked how school went in a very forced, uninterested tone. Nick didn’t even bother to answer. I barked out that it was great. She just looked ahead, focused on driving. What a bitch. Desecrating the toilet of this unpleasant woman would be my defining moment.
When we got to Nick’s house, his mother told me I had to take my shoes off before I went into the living room. Almost all my friends’ moms had this same rule about the nice carpeting in their houses, but when she said it, I got pissed. I kicked my shoes off, purposely showing my disgust for her house rules. Just more fuel for the fire, I thought. I had never noticed I hated her so much, I remember thinking about how ugly she was. I wondered if this was how she looked when Nick’s dad married her or did she deteriorate over time due to the stress of raising kids. Maybe I was just focussing on all her flaws so I could convince myself that she deserved to have someone shit in her upper tank. This act of tom-foolery was going to happen regardless, even if I hadn’t considered her a miserable bitch.
Nick talked my fucking ear off. I just zoned out like I always did back then. I did it to my parents, my teachers, and almost all my friends. I just played video games and nodded occasionally, sometimes muttering one word answers so that he would think I was listening. I pretended to focus on the video game only as a cover. I was really using my peripheral vision to see where his mother was. She was still too close to the bathroom. I needed to wait till she was far enough away that there would be absolutely no chance of her coming in. She seemed like the type who wouldn’t knock. That bitch! Having your friend’s mom walk in on you using the bathroom is brutally awkward, but today it would be catastrophic. I can’t imagine anything worse than your friend’s mom catching you perched over the wrong part of her toilet with a shit half out of your ass.
The phone rang and Nick’s mother picked up. It must have been one of her dumb housewife friends, she started chatting about the stupid bullshit that housewives use to distract them from their own mundane lives. This was my chance. As she left the room with the phone to her ear, I handed the controller to Nick. While I stood up, I interrupted him in mid-sentence without even making eye contact. I said I had to use the bathroom. Barely keeping the smirk off my face, I shuffled across the linoleum kitchen floor. I hadn’t realized how bad I had to shit while I was sitting down. I began to rush a little bit, my socks were so new that they hadn’t been worn in at all. I slipped a little on the kitchen floor, almost falling down, I grabbed the doorknob to the bathroom and pulled myself across the shiny floor. I thought to myself that Nick’s mom probably cleaned every surface in the house like 20 times a day because she had nothing better to do.
I closed the bathroom door behind me, and, much to my chagrin, I saw that they had a bunch of stupid knickknacks on top of the toilet cover. Little white angels, all in different prayer poses. I took them off one at a time, I made it a point to put them down on the floor in the exact order that they had been on the toilet. I wanted to leave things the way they were, without leaving any traces. I pretended to be a ninja in there; silent and deadly. I took the lid off of the upper tank and quietly rested it on the floor. Then I put the seat down and climbed up, aiming my ass over the open tank.
It was more straining than I had anticipated. I had held it for too long, now I was compacted. After straining quite a bit, I had made some progress, but it wasn’t going to be a quick, easy shit. I took a deep breath and pushed as hard as I could for as long as I could. I kicked one leg out in frustration as I let my breath out. All my weight was on my other leg, and my brand new sock slipped off of the toilet lid. With a loud smash, I fell down onto the toilet. Pieces of porcelain scattered all around me as I bounced and started to fall toward the hard tile floor. Of course the stupid fucking angel knickknacks were lined up in perfect order right in my path. They hit me in the side all at once and shot out around me in different directions. There was water and broken porcelain all around me, I could hear footsteps right outside the door. I didn’t even try to move.
After a few seconds, I got used to the temperature of the toilet water. It was cold, so I noticed the difference when a warmer liquid began pooling against my leg. I put my hand down and touched the puddle. It was blood. I lifted myself up enough to see the disgusting puddle of shit and blood forming around my legs. I gagged a little, I had never seen anything like that. I was still in shock so I couldn’t feel where the blood was coming from, but I knew it had to be a deep cut; there was a lot of it. I shifted my weight back down onto my side and just laid there in my puddle of blood and shit. I knew I was bleeding from somewhere, but I didn’t have the motivation to investigate any further. I remember thinking that it couldn’t be any vital organ, probably just my thigh or my ass cheek. I would probably need stitches, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Then there was a quick knock on the door and I anticipated shame worse than anything I had ever felt before. It was Nick’s mother. She asked if everything was alright and then just walked in with Nick behind her. Their eyes widened simultaneously as they observed the pathetic display in front of them. I was laying on my side, squealing in pain, surrounded by little angel knickknacks covered in blood and shit. The broken porcelain was everywhere; the mix of piss, blood, and toilet water was almost covering the entire white tile floor. I couldn’t have said anything even if I wanted to; the fall had knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t even make eye contact with either of them, I just stared straight ahead at one of the shit-covered angels, thinking that this was Karma.
It seemed that Nick’s mother couldn’t even comprehend what had just happened. Her OCD compelled her to just start cleaning around me, acting like I wasn’t there. She seemed to be mumbling to herself as she picked up the pieces of porcelain and tried to put the toilet back together. She whispered to Nick to go get her the crazy glue, he ran off toward the kitchen, leaving me alone with her. Then she grabbed a rag and started wiping up the toilet water and blood. I thought to myself that this bitch was actually going to make me beg for help. She was more worried about her fucking bathroom being clean than she was about the bloody, shitty deviant literally wallowing in his own filth on the floor.
Nick came back with the crazy glue and handed it to his mother. She was really about to start working on the toilet, I couldn’t believe it. I had gotten enough air in my lungs to whisper: ”It’s serious.” I guess it didn’t hit her until I spoke, she started bawling and dropped the crazy glue. She couldn’t handle the fact that her bathroom was destroyed and there was nothing she could do to fix it right now. Then she just walked into the kitchen with her hands on the sides of her face, I assumed she would call an ambulance or my parents. I could just barely see through the crack in between the door and the wall that she was just pacing in there crying to herself. I sighed in disbelief and looked up at Nick. He didn’t know what to do, it became obvious then that I would have to direct him if I was going to be rescued.
I sat up to tell Nick to call 911 because I was hurt. When I shifted my body, the blood leaked even faster, it seemed to be coming from my ass. I couldn’t see it, but Nick could and he started crying. Seeing the look on his face scared me, I started crying too. Then I screamed for him to do something and he ran to get the phone. Thank god, I thought. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, but at least I wasn’t going to die here, bleeding to death out of my ass.
After way too long, the ambulance arrived. I could hear their voices in the kitchen. When they asked Nick’s mom what happened she just started ranting about how much it would cost to fix the toilet. After an awkward pause, they realized she would be no help, and they walked past her. Nick couldn’t do anything but point at the bathroom doorway where watery blood was starting to leak into the hallway. When they saw me they knew there would be no point in asking questions at the moment, they had to get me out of there. When they lifted me up, more blood shot out and I fainted.
I came to in the ambulance, the shock had worn off and I could feel everything. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t even tell exactly where it was coming from. I could hear them talking about testicular torsion, and atrophy. I had no idea what these words meant but they sounded horrible and they were a clue as to where the blood had been coming from. This was enough to get me crying again and, in an attempt to console me, the female EMT told me that my parents would be waiting for me at the hospital. The idea of them seeing me like this just turned my slight whimpering to an all out hysterical fit. After about five minutes, I couldn’t cry anymore and I was silent for the rest of the ride.
When I got to the hospital, I did everything I could to avoid eye contact with everyone that I passed, including my parents and the doctors. My parents were told to wait in the lobby of the emergency room, and I was a little relieved by that. The doctors told me that I had ruptured my scrotum and I would need surgery right away. I cried uncontrollably again until the drugs kicked in.
I was out of it for the next few days. When I finally became coherent, the first thing I saw was my father leaning toward my hospital bed with my mother crying in the chair next to him. Instead of waiting for me to explain how this happened, he just started talking with a seriousness that I had never seen from him. He proceeded to ask me if I knew what a eunuch was. I had no idea, but I was still euphoric from the drugs they had given me so I just assumed it was something good. It sounded like a good word. With a nervous grin stretching across my face, I asked him to enlighten me.
My father continued and I slowly began to make the connection. I was sure he must be fucking with me. He was just trying to scare me, to teach me a lesson, I thought. Trying to make sure I would never try a stunt like this again.
Just then, the doctor came in with his face hidden by his clipboard. He pulled it down to reveal a very concerned expression and began telling me that time was a huge factor in my little accident. He said that if I had made it to the hospital only a few minutes sooner things would have been different. My dad leaned back into his chair, putting his arm around my mother. He began to cry too and then I knew he had been serious. I instantly blamed Nick’s mother. She had started cleaning instead of calling 911 right away, I had to tell Nick to do it. That dumb bitch had castrated me with her OCD.
The doctor went on to tell me that severe blunt trauma to the spermatic cord was an injury that needed immediate medical attention. He said that there was a very short window of time in which to save testicular function. Then, he handed me a pamphlet. Through the tears forming in my eyes, I could just make out the shapes of a bunch of happy men playing football and smiling. I wiped my eyes and saw that it was some eunuch support group flier, telling me that I could still have a fulfilling life without a working dick. I thought this was a joke, but when I opened my mouth to laugh I just starting crying even harder.
After they gave me some time to flip through the pamphlet and ask some naive questions, they pointed to my clothes and told me I could get dressed now. I stood up slowly and shrieked in pain. It felt like my legs were tied together, I couldn’t walk right. As I shuffled slowly toward the nurse who was holding my clothes, I started to get hysterical again. I slapped my bloody clothes out of her hands and onto the floor. From one of the legs of my pants flew a shitty little angel. It slid across the floor until it bounced off of the doctor’s foot. Everyone’s eyes followed it the whole way.
I laughed. A great big delirious chuckle had forced it’s way up from the bottom of my lungs. I couldn’t stop it. When I tried to, it just made the muscles in my face hurt. Everyone else in the room was perplexed. I just kept laughing like a mad man, staring at the shit covered angel with tears leaking down the side of my face.
**************************
That was the last time I ever laughed like that, it’s been ten years. Sometimes, when I listen to the sad stories of the other eunuchs in my support group a nervous giggle comes up as I think to myself that I’m not like them. I always manage to choke it down just before everyone turns to look at me. There is no prank that would ever make me laugh as hard as I did that day at the hospital. I kept the angel, unwashed, in a plastic bag. For the first few years, I would look at it and almost smile, but lately I just use it as a visual aid when I have to get up and tell this story to new group members. After telling the story about a hundred times, it’s pretty easy to pretend that it’s a work of fiction or that it happened to someone else. Then I go home, high on pretending, and I try to masturbate. The reality hits me all at once when my dead dick doesn’t respond to my best efforts at arousal. Then I just hold my shitty little angel and cry until my ribs hurt.
A social commentary piece from MZ's very own Joey Bag-O-Donuts:
It has been said that every generation expects theirs to be the last, but perhaps the youngest generation alive now will finally see this grandiose fantasy come true...
When the atomic bomb first made its debut, the end seemed distressingly near to all those cynical about mankind’s shrewdness, yet nuclear winter has still not frosted the globe. Y2K was hyped up to be the absolute downfall of our only recently computer-based society, but that too has come and gone without even a minor inconvenience. Evangelical christians have been putting exact dates and sometimes even times on the end of all we know; and somehow, being wrong every time has not weakened their enthusiasm at all.
With 2012 steadily approaching, we must begin to wonder: have we simply not learned our lesson or is this apocalypse the real thing? Have we not noticed the negative effects of convincing all those vulnerable enough that the end is upon us? Has the Mayan calendar’s dooming end date sealed the deal for all our skeptics? If not, then what about Nostrodaumus’ and the Bible’s coinciding prophecies?
While we can all assume that this side-show has to end sometime, those who have lived through at least one prophetic failure will likely remain unconvinced until December 25th 2012. What about those who are willing to believe whatever they’re told?
“The History Channel” dedicated a whole week of programming to the 2012 prophecy, boldly calling it “Armageddon Week” as if it were no more serious than their largely popular “Shark Week”. Innumerable “YouTube” videos have laid out many different theories as to the cause and result of our coming apocalypse. Most job-holding adults brush these things off simply because they have more pressing matters to tend to, but what about the kids?
All children within close reach of computers or television, have unlimited access to all the doomsday prophecy they can stand. Is this what we want for our children? It seems brutally obvious that a notion of impending doom will very effectively breed an all encompassing sense of apathy that could indeed manifest these gloomy predictions. The usual urgency that drives our American way of life is seriously threatened by hordes of unmotivated, uncaring children, but, even more worrisome, is the rest of the vulnerable minds who are accepting the end of the world: the flocks of all our major religions.
Those who are up-to-date on their holy books know full well how crucial armageddon is to varying religious doctrines. The climax of said literature always seems to be the same: those who followed the rules get their great rewards as soon as God’s wrath has been evenly distributed throughout the evil multitudes which seem to run the planet. This would all be regarded as laughable science-fiction to the atheists and the pious would remain committed simply because their chance at ever-lasting life was resting on it, but in our time prophecy has been hitting a little closer to home.
Real world events have been cleverly woven into biblical prophecy by those who are trusted with the peculiar job of interpreting it. War in the cradle of civilization is an agreed upon sign of the end for many creeds, and Lord knows we’ve got plenty of that! Also, fundamentalist christians believe that the end will not come until Israel has won back their holy land. How ironic! That very epic real estate battle is bludgeoning it’s way into our headlines almost everyday! What’s most distressing about this whole mess is that the same folks who are interpreting the holy books and finding their own upside to this morbid conundrum are the ones waging the aforementioned wars. The evangelicals who stood so steadfast behind Israel in their conflict with Palestinians did after all have some ulterior motive. They made their moves with the knowledge that Jesus wasn’t swinging back around to pick them up until Israel got what God had promised them so long ago.
With all these unsettling predictions converging on our time and those who believe them acting accordingly, the term “self-fulfilling prophecy” has taken on great importance. If we put our trust in the Mayan calendar, then we’ve simply run out of time, to which we can only sigh and mutter in unison that “We had a good run”. On the other hand, these religious nuts might just be taking us down with them, convinced that on the other side of brutal fighting and hatred amongst mankind there will be salvation for all who deserve it. Atheist or extremist, we should all just pray that mankind will not go out on such foolish and ignorant terms. We all know the end will come eventually, but in case anybody’s watching let’s try and bow out gracefully.
-JO
