Author Archives: authorbengarrido
Watching “The Interview” in Korea
“The Interview” is an American buddy comedy, owned by Sony Pictures, primarily making fun of North Korea. Naturally, North Korea responded by hacking Sony’s database and releasing several of that company’s upcoming films. The North Koreans (probably) then threatened to commit ACTS OF TERROR against cinemas daring to showcase The Interview. That my native country, […]
2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many […]
Bad Man, Funny Girl
“Is there a Mr. Patriarchy S. Infantalizer in the waiting room?” research assistant Jamie Jayne asked. “I want to make sure I have the name right.” “That’s me, but you can just call me Patriarchy.” “It’s so nice of you to join us all the way from the 19th century, Patriarchy. I’m very grateful […]
On My Father’s Birthday: A Letter To The Man Who Killed Him
Originally posted on TALES FROM THE MOTHERLAND:
Dear Sir, I don’t know your name, but you killed my father on June 9, 1973, in Stockton, California. My father was thirty-two years old then; I was ten. If he had lived, he would have been 74 on November 29th. The year my dad ws killed I am…
An Open Letter to My Readers
Dear Readers, I’m sure you’ve seen articles in which writers explain their struggles to find inspiration. I’m sure you’ve seen articles where writers explain how, crushed as they are under unbearable work loads and familial burdens unequaled by Atlas himself, it’s just so hard to find time to bless you all with another glorious tome […]
Buying Happiness
A lot of folks believe that money doesn’t buy happiness. I don’t think I outright disagree, but I can’t help rolling my eyes. Part of this is my maniacal (and often hypocritical) hatred for cliche, but a bigger factor is simply the fact I’ve been both upper and lower class and, as such, I know […]
Is Meaning Possible in a World Without God?
Originally posted on Truth Is Elusive:
I was going to do a series about meaning but as I was studying and writing the series on morality I realized that there is a whole lot of overlap in the 2 subjects. They are both based on values which would explain that. Many of the things I…
The Stupor Bowl
In trivial news, the New England Patriots lost the 2008 Super Bowl to the New York Giants. In non-trivial news, I celebrated that day by attending the momentous, historical Stupor Bowl VI. The Stupor Bowl is a more or less annual exhibition of mutant bike culture and extreme- skills contests put on by the Reno […]
The Blackguard – My Novel in Ten Sentences
My first published novel, The Blackguard, is about 60,000 words long. I’m going to try and explain it in ten sentences. Props to Diotima’s Ladder for this idea. The Blackguard is about oppressed minorities getting run over by the march of modernity, except here those minorities are white supremacists who practice Chinese-style foot-binding, East African-style scarification […]
You Don’t Know Jack
Science tells us the capital”T” Truth. We don’t think it, we don’t believe it, we don’t suspect it. We know it because science is repeatable, it’s systematic and we can verify everything science says through empirical methods. We’re smart, us scientific people, we aren’t a bunch of creation scientists or fortune tellers or primitive Amazonian tribesmen […]
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