You Should Be Listening To Old Ass Music

When I hear the coffee grinder

Robert Bly, from Poems on the Underground

As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.

What if we heard Noah's story differently? How would that change our understanding of scriptures and Christianity?

That is what is explored here. It's worth a listen.

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A new myth. A myth is not meant to be accurate history, but to tell a story that conveys a deeper spiritual truth. Stories are powerful.

This myth is the over-arcing story of Genesis to Jesus. I don't even really want you to believe the truths within the story. I just want yo

McNabb didn't "choke" in the Superbowl. And give Andy a break about mismanaging the clock when he did everything else he possibly could to coach the Avengers into nearly defeating Thanos without any deus ex machina bull shit.

Just pure gumption and genius coaching. But nothing beats 2000's Brady. Even as a fucking AARP member with the fucking Tampa Bay Rays he's still formidable and a regular contender for the Superbowl today.

Back then Brady and the Patriot offense was an unstoppable force that just plowed up and down the field and every possession ended in a TD.

The 2004 Eagles kept up with Brady.

And our defense fucked him up like the spirit of Reggie White possessed them.

They made him cry and throw a tantrum and got dirt on his uniform. And turf in his face mask. Hitting and hurrying Brady almost every down against the very best offensive line money and guaranteed Superbowl rings can buy.

And fucking Brady just got even better.

And yet. And yet with Terrell Owens on a broken leg playing half speed yet doing outrageous plays and a nervous McNabb playing extremely competently using his legs and working well with Westbrook doing his magic and Owens showboating, Andy Reid almost did it. He almost got his offense to keep up with Brady and his defense to slow Brady down enough to give Donovan a chance to win.

But McNab let the pressure get to him at the end and stopped having fun. And began to hesitate and second guess instead of just instinctively having fun and playing at his usual superhuman level.

He just got nervous. A real chance to beat Brady! And win the Superbowl for Philly at last! With his favorite teammates and coach Andy Reid! (Andy Reid is what Joe Paterno pretended to be.)

Donovan McNabb got nervous because only Tom Brady wouldn't get nervous at the thought of facing Brady let alone hoping to beat him in the Superbowl when he was playing top of his game. So Donovan "choked" and made some shit plays at the end there. But up till then he had danced up and down the field vs the Patriots defense and kept up with Brady blow for blow. McNabb was beautiful that day.

Andy Reid was on his game too and against all odds almost lead the Avengers to victory against Brady.

But Brady and Bellicheck with Gronk on his game is absolutely invincible. Just an unstoppable force where you are hoping for a failed 1st down run and and short second to make for a long third and then some kind of miracle stop or on third and long. The best defense was to try and draw fouls. Because you can't stop the guy. You just have to slow him down and hope for one or pray for two bad throws this 3rd down.

Like, third and thirty five was difficult but doable most possessions.

Eagles actually hit that smug father fucker a whole bunch on his way up and down the field. It didn't stop him. But it was hella fun to watch as my team almost beat Brady in his prime, but nothing could ever beat Brady in his prime. Even on his bad days he was nothing short of perfect and intelligent and creative and instinctual that borders on godlike.

I hate his guts and I just don't know why. He seems hella nice. He's too good looking and dates a model but good for him on all of that. I'm happy to see decent guys win the lottery. But I still don't like him. Such is life. I wish him well in everything but football. Get sacked Brady.

But yeah, no body, no matter how well prepared, trained and superhuman can be perfect for the entire Superbowl. You are going to lose some possessions without having scored.

The Eagles were a true Super Bowl team. Any other decade they would have won any Super Bowl against any team outside of the 2000's Patriots. They made every offensive line in the NFL look silly and picked off future hall of famers every other down.

The Lombardi Trophy belonged to Brady back then. Pure and simple. It was just who is going to lose spectacularly in the Super Bowl after playing big fish in a small pond till now.

Eagles almost beat Brady in his prime, but nothing can keep up with a demigod.

I submit that the 2004 Eagles were a feat of genius by Andy

He was able to cobble together a really good team around his star QB and other key players who are all hall of famers now. And I don't know how he snatched up Owens. Owens was amazing. He just had a big mouth and was a showboat. He backed up every boast too and made the greatest future hall of famer DBs miss every single time. And everyone loved it. Except the fucking racist NFL and some pundits.

Andy managed to cobble together this amazing 2004 Eagles team and got them working together even though they didn't like each other at first and help them run together so well that he almost took this army of reject NFL superheroes up against Thanos and won.

He had Donovan Captain America leading the charge. Somehow we had Deadpool with a sharpie up his sleeve carving up the captains of Thanos. And mysterious preternatural undersized Black Panther Westbrook conducting acrobatic feats y'all wouldn't believe today. Even still that man's shit was like watching Black Panther dance around dealing broken ankles and first downs out of third and long every time McNabb got in trouble.

But even the Avengers can't beat 2000s Brady.

Give McNabb and Andy Reid their due respect. They almost did the impossible together. Don't give them such trash about minor little lapses in perfection. You aren't the God of Noah.

You are an Eagles Fan! And you cheered through fucking Buddy Ryan's bullshit. Andy Reid and McNabb almost took down Brady in his prime! You should celebrate that team!

Followers of the mother goddess Cybele were famous for whipping themselves into religious ecstasies. Modern historians love to use the word “orgiastic” to describe her worshippers and their rituals.

One of the stories associated with Cybele is that of Attis, a shepherd whose love for Cybele was so great that he castrated himself under a pine tree in a fit of religious enthusiasm and died. Many of the rituals associated with Cybele attempted to recapture both the intensity of Attis’ devotion and the bloodiness of his act.

All this struck the normally staid Romans as a bit too, well, eastern. They tended to look down on the Persians, Egyptians, and so forth as too emotional, too effeminate, and too undisciplined.

Powerful Romans worked to mainstream Cybele, turning her from a wild mother of nature into a placid Roman matriarch. Cybele was incorporated into less intense new rituals — games, animal sacrifices, that sort of thing — orchestrated by powerful Romans; her priests were not invited to these events. The wild rites associated with her seem to have faded away over time.

Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, was especially interested in using Cybele. Though he had overthrown the Roman Republic, he positioned himself as a traditionalist, someone who would bring back “traditional” Roman values. In doing so, he promoted a vision of Cybele as the “Magna Mater” — the great mother of Rome. She was now portrayed as a virtuous Roman matriarch, often without her lions:

Here’s another Roman depiction from around the same time, which attempts to incorporate all of the symbolism associated with Cybele. We have the lion, which signifies her power over nature; a cornucopia, symbolizing her role in providing abundant harvests; and her crown, representing her role in protecting Rome’s cities.

{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}

Medium

The Strange Journey of a Blood-Soaked Mother Goddess

Cybele’s transformation from wild mountain mother to Roman matriarch

Email to my first year students about the career assessment the university forced on them:

A little over half of you have not taken the assessment yet and you are making the presenter on Monday nervous. Please finish your SII Assessment before the Monday class so you can have it to look at during the class.

To help you find it: on 1/10/24 the link to the Strong Interest Inventory was emailed to all [redacted] students with the subject "SII Assessment,”  sent by [redacted].

A note on the results you will get:

These results tell you about yourself now. You are not carved in stone and you will not be the same person (at least in several important ways) as you are today. The career you choose, the work you do, and the life you live will all change you and you will change and adapt to live and thrive in those places as best you can. In some places, your personality will still be stressed no matter how much you adapt. There are parts of you that won't change. The person I became in the past few years to do life in the way I do today is not the same person I was when I was happily chasing mosquitoes around and helping run our restaurant back in early 2000's. Or the person I had to be to thrive in a research lab a few years ago.

The main point is that this assessment tells you about yourself now, but not who you will become or what kind of job you must work to be happy and fulfilled. 

You will adapt, improvise, and overcome. Use the assessment to learn about yourself. Maybe you do want some career ideas. Maybe you just want to see which directions you want to grow in based on what you already know you want to do. You realize you don't spring forth from your mother's womb ready to be a nurse, doctor, or research scientist. Or father, mother, spouse, or whatever. You suck at those things in the beginning and learn to do them better. And your personality grows and changes to meet your new challenge.

Our ability to adapt and find unexpected solutions are the keys to human success. (along with being highly social and always having community/help)

If you have dreams and desires that don't line up with what the assessment says, or life goes sideways on you and you end up driving a taxi, understand that for most situations you will change and adapt and learn to become amazing and happy in that new situation. Even if it has a rough beginning.

So take it all with a grain of salt and treat it as a tool, not an oracle.

Peace,

Yours Truly

The Blue Fairy is a Chaos Creature

One could blame Geppetto for sending Pinocchio out into the wide world his first day alive without any directions and naught but a sentient cricket to guide him. But that's what you get when you give a one-day old sentient puppet to a half-senile lonely old tinkerer who lives alone with his cat and unnaturally sexy goldfish.

Geppetto did not need a child. Giving him a child was the most irresponsible idea ever. He obviously needed a friend and maybe a caretaker.

The Blue Fairy should have just made Cleo a real woman if she was going to transform anything in that house into a person to help Geppetto. Cleo had truly cared for him for years as he cared for her like she was a regular human stuck in a bowl. And Cleo would have loved him as a friend at least. (We are all weirdly not sure that platonic friendship would be the extent of their relationship.)

Anyway that’s just one idea that is magical and actually would have fixed the old coots problems and saved a one-day old child trauma after trauma which will haunt him for life.

The Blue Fairy is an insane god. Only that could explain her unfathomable motivations for her actions. All of the main characters are victims of a benevolent yet insane incarnate great blue star powerful beyond comprehension or accountability.

My 8yo nephew challenged me to an online chess game. Barely into the game and he sneaks in to wipe out my base pawn in my king's rook fortress and he even got to keep the knight.

He's white. I'm black.

Did I just make the hardest starwars shirt of all time???