06 ramadhan 1426

if the following makes no sense to you, then may this photo serve as your guide as to why...

the other day, i was sitting in bumpin', my favorite bar here in gangneung, and i was having a conversation with a rather belligerent and obnoxious bottle of jim beam.

i was explaining to it/him/her the vagaries of ramadhan; i was elaborating on my disdainful contempt of organized religion and my religious adherence to belittling this organization of slavemasters and mind-controllers; i was elucidating the correlation between a flame's slow but tasteful disintegration of the smoky tobacco leaves of a fine cigar and organized religion's slow but distasteful disintegration of the smoky lustiness that is the human libido, spirit, and soul; and how choosing an organized religion unto which one devotes his or her life is akin to choosing the direction of one's politics or the (lack of) depth of one's social awareness, how similar and intertwined, in fact, religion and politics are and how one's choice of religious belief could be as much a statement of one's politics or social beliefs as one's choice of politics is of one's religion.

it was in the midst of my ever-burgeoning soliloquy that ol' jim interrupted me and reminded me that there is but one deity toward which one must pledge one's everlasting love, upon which one's hope for eternal happiness and one's loathing of eternal damnation rests, and for which one must always raise one's eyes, glass, mind, loins, soul, lust, and thirst: bacchus.

i must admit that my conversion to islam several years ago was as much a retaliation for the west's disgracefully racist, imperialistic, and condescending attitude toward islam and the middle east, as well as toward the rest of asia and all of africa and south america. it was, in a sense, a move made for social and political reasons as for anything else, seeing as how my aforementioned scorn for all organized was at that point beginning to pass into full bloom.

thus, it rang in my skull like a telephone on hemorrhoids my glass friend's comment that i needed only pay heed to the god of wine, debauchery, and good times and reminded me of the good ol' days when i was more laid back, content with life and the human species alive on this planet, more good-natured and fun-loving, and less reticent. i was reminded at how the balance of seriousness and levity in my life had been seriously breached in favour of being much too grim and heavy. it seemed that i, too, had been pulled into that vacuum where the evil minions who control organized religion wanted me, into that void of human existence where all is one, some, or all of the combination of the following: being judgmental and/or arrogant, lacking love, forgetting lust and carnal desires in favor of rancor and self-control, overlooking the deliquescence of relationships, ignoring the saudade of longing that makes one feel alive, and being constantly ashamed or feeling guilty for the basic of human desires, longings, and thoughts--none of which are wrong at the basic core of humanity.

it is surprising to many, even to those who know me fairly well, when they discover that i am moslem because for most of the year, i act as much like a stereotypical moslem as do a gaggle of prostitutes passing out condoms at the local pork chop market.

however, that's part of the point: to explode the myths of what people in the so-called "civilized" world have of those "uncouth" moslems. in truth, i've met on my travels people from the heartland of islam, people who are, on the basis of their skin colour and nationality, stereotypical moslems, yet who were anything but. it was THEY, these moslems from moslem countries with islamic traditions going back centuries, who exploded my own stereotypes not as much of what a moslem resembled, but how (s)he felt, acted, thought, or did in their private times. true, for the most part, these were people who had moved away from their native lands because of their disdain for how their countrymen and -women acted, or because they disagreed with social or political policies, or because they had been touched by the kinky finger of bacchus (or his henchman, pan), so they might not have been truly representative of their countries, but, then again, i'm certainly no barometer by which to measure the average american...

to which i can say, "thank bacchus for that..."

so, the next time you find yourself being sucked into organized religion, "think bacchus...".

when you're losing the balance between enjoying life and thumping the nearest bible or koran, "be bacchus...".

when you're contemplating the neighborhood church or mosque over the local pub, "drink bacchus...".

in the next episode of "calmyhungover", we'll discuss combining one's bacchanalia with one's principles and knowing by which priniciples to stick and which ones to abandon for their irrelevance--and how each is related to bacchus, his (lack of) principles, and when to seek wine and wooing when one thinks one wants to seek ire and irracibility...