My Mutant Manifesto©

by BOOGA

INTRODUCTION

When I started this project I thought I was going to make some grand cumbersome thing proclaiming the power and true essence of the Mutant community as it is. I realize now that the project was preposterous and it is too early for such things. Mutants are all different. No one description can fully describe us all. As this progressed I realized this and decided a new approach. This project evolved into a short story of my entire life, focusing on every aspect that I could think of which I feel is related to my Mutant heritage. I tried to be as honest as possible revealing secrets that I felt, although not always positive characteristics, may be important pieces of information for someone else doing Mutant research in the future. I hope that those who read this will pull some meaning out of my work and perhaps better understand themselves as Mutants. We are not perfect. We are all flawed, but that's part of what makes us so beautiful. We have the power to turn our flaws into priceless characteristics and prove ourselves superior to the human masses.

What is a Mutant

As long as we can tell there have always been Mutants. Most of these Mutants are unaware themselves of their true title. Their powers are left untapped and hidden.
Often Mutants bring up the idea that it us not us who are weird but them, and that we are the normal ones. Does it really matter? The point is that there is a difference and we are the minority. Not a difference in color or race, but a difference in spirit. Since we are the minority we are the weird ones. We act 'abnormally' to get attention on purpose. I believe that's totally true. We know we are different and when we see everyone else act the way they do, it hurts us. Not just because it seems wrong but also because we are thought to be a part of it, just like everyone else. Just as stupid as any other human. We act different and try to look different because we are ashamed to be labeled as part of a species that behaves in ways we do not accept as our own.

Origin Of BOOGA

I was born August 14, 1977. My parents are both working class ex-hippy types. My father was in a motorcycle gang and almost made it to Woodstock. My mother is an eccentric new age artsy type. My father spent all his money to buy a house in a nice neighborhood so that I could grow up and get the benefits of living in a nice neighborhood. Shortly after I was born my parents got divorced. While my father stayed in the snobby town of Richmond my mother moved into the city and lived in shitty apartments and trailer parks until latter in life when she could afford her own house. During my youth I moved back and forth from each parent on a regular basis. I got a feel for living in a rural town full of woods, woods, and snobby people from living with my dad. While living with my mother I experienced the tension of living in the city with children who had delinquent parents and therefore became delinquent themselves. I was a rather innocent child and always willing to be friendly and nice. When people thrashed out at me even though I was kind and gentle I decided it was best to keep to myself. That is how it began.
The earliest moment in my life when I realized I was different was my first day in kindergarten. I was shy and confused and I didn't know how to interact with my peers. I was quickly labeled a weirdo and it was quickly made known that I was to be ignored by everyone. At the time I did not understand why I was ostracized by my peers. I wondered what they saw in me. I needed to know.

By third grade I realized an unnerving pattern. Every year I would move up a grade. Promoted to a new status level, I would be given more and more challenging work, tedious tasks to perform. Year after year of promotion to a position almost identical to the last; more complicated and less interesting. I watched my peers as they moved up through their world seemingly unaware of their fate. I watched those ahead of me. The eight graders on their way to High school. The teachers and parents (who my peers would ultimately become). I watched them try to hide the fact that they were depressed, they hated their job and their life held little meaning. At this age I realized that I was in the middle of some twisted training ground; a programming department, systematic enslavement.

I knew that if I spoke out to anyone about this grand conspiracy that I would be quickly reprogrammed through 'psychological therapy'. Everyone was involved. Yet few were aware of their own involvement or that of others. I decided that the ways of society were not formed by good intention and posed a threat to my well being. With no visible exit, I played along so not to be noticed. Sitting quietly and observing everything.

At the time I was not aware that others knew what was going on. At the time I thought I was the only one. We were all being harvested; being bred into this sad worthless existence, and I was the only one who realized this. As my peers slowly realized their imprisonment it was obvious they were being bred also to accept it without question. The phrases "too bad" and "that's just the way life is" became more prominent. What little they were allowed to understand was useless to me. They lacked any motivation. Over time a few tried to fight back with "teen angst" but it was obvious that brut force rebellion would be futile. I needed another approach. During my time in elementary school I had little to no access to useful information that would help me find the answers I wanted. I didn't even know that there were others like me. So I learned what I could from watching the Normals around me.

One particular artifact existed in my school library which gave me hope and kept me going. Within the children's book section was a small collection of classic monster movie books. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Creature From the Black Lagoon and the Wolf man were all captured in thin, black and white, hard cover books. Whenever I could I would read these books and gawk at the pictures over and over. These books gave me hope and stirred my imagination. Frankenstein, Dracula and the Creature From the Black Lagoon were my favorites. Little did I know at the time that these freaks of nature were really metaphors for what I was; a Mutant. Even though I didn't fully grasp their value I was thoroughly entertained.
Every Halloween I was Dracula. He was by far the best. Unlike Frankenstein's monster and the Creature, Dracula was not a helpless victim of humanity. He was a freak and it made him strong, and he fought back with style; it was the humans who were the hunted.

I became more aware of abilities I had which allowed me to manipulate my environment. One of my favorite moments was a particular day in gym class when I was chosen as 'Team Leader'. The duty of the two leaders is to pick the team members one at a time alternately before playing a game. Since I understood gym class was a training ground for obedience and didn't care about winning a stupid game, I did not participate to full capacity and was always one of the last kids picked. This time I was ready with a plan. As my opposing team leader picked the best players for his side (standard procedure) I continued to pick the players in opposite order from the worst up. Everyone I picked groaned and hated me but I didn't care. The game was a pathetic exercise in futility and I totally annoyed the gym teacher and everyone in the class. It was my first real victory.
After a while my peers left me alone to contemplate my surroundings by myself. I noticed there was an inherent pattern in everything normal that could be exploited by those who chose to do so. Every bus ride to school and back, every recess was the same, and every class was basically the same. By studying these patterns I found subtle loopholes in the system which when exploited, made my life much easier. I would learn latter that this skill is a powerful tool for most Mutants trying to survive in the world.

Although I had peace and over time, gained respect by my peers for my individuality, I was quite depressed. You see I had no real life experience of the world outside of my small school and the small town I lived in. From what I learned of the world by watching this isolated place, I had little interest in learning about the rest. As far as I knew I was a one of a kind. I had no knowledge that other people like me existed and I was terribly lonely. At the same time I was angry with the Norms around me because they had each other and the thought of even pretending to be one of them to fit in disgusted me. I think that has at least a little to do with my vision.

I remember clearly the first time I had my vision. It must have been some time around first or second grade, very early in my school career. I was sitting in the bus looking out the window as usual (the outside of the bus was always much more interesting than the occurrences inside). Outside cars and houses rushed by and the world was peaceful and quiet looking. Inside the students were jumping around, gossiping, fighting each other and basically being typical kids on a bus. I was always troubled by their presence and wished for some peace of mind. I quickly learned to hate everyone. This one day I was so angry that I envisioned demons everywhere. These evil, violent creatures filled almost every crevice of empty space I could see and were tormenting and slaughtering everyone around, everyone but me. I sat in this world watching in comfort with an evil grin as my human peers were devoured. This vision brought me some comfort from my mental anguish so I continued to work on it and let it evolve.

Growing up During the Cold War gave me plenty of ideas to fuel my apocalyptic fancies. It was no longer demons. How much more pleasurable would it be to watch the humans destroy themselves! And of course through some strange coincidence I was left alone and unscathed. Of course movies like Mad Max would soon fill my head with even more ideas and visual detail. Mad Max was indeed one of my more influential role models.

Not only did I imagine the apocalypse, I believed it would happen. I felt it was my duty to survive it and so I spent my childhood spare time studying survival techniques and skills that would allow me to be self-sufficient. Even today I have a strong interest in such subject matter. As time progressed my daydreams became more and more complex. I searched for companionship but still had no perception of others of my kind. Therefore In my dreams it was necessary to allow certain individuals to survive the apocalypse in order to keep me entertained. Every day I created vast worlds in my head and lived through drawn out epic adventures, sometimes spanning several days. But while this happened I lost contact with the real world. I would not be until I progressed to high school and was forced to deal with an entirely new environment that this hit me.
High school was a shock to my system. I had grown up spending every other weekend in a trailer park with my mother so I was experienced with urban living to some degree but at that location I was treated even more poorly than at my ignorant, rural elementary school. I tried to socialize but getting into rock fights with the local thugs wasn't my idea of fun so once again I kept to myself. Now I was amongst all sorts of people. Different ethnic and cultural groups, different subcultures and a wide range of popularity levels flourished here. Once again I was a ghost. Among all these people I still felt as if I were one of a kind and all these different types of people where basically the same, normal humans.

My first day of school was extremely embarrassing. For some reason the bathrooms where locked that morning and I could not get a hall pass. That and the realization that nothing had really changed from my small town school. The realization that I was still alone in the world and any chance of happiness was slim. With all this shock I freaked out. I pissed my pants. Although I'm not proud of this and never tell anyone this I feel it's important to understand the old me. To know that yes, I was a loser. I had very few social skills and I lacked the strength to survive in the outside world. The decision to separate myself from society was an act of personal strength and independence but it also created a weakness. As time passed I realized that I would have to work on my social skills and become more comfortable around Normal people.

As high school moved on I found my place in the social world I was a leader amongst a pack of geeks; social deviates who lacked the skills to fit in but desperately wanted to. It was the best I could do. I made friends and gained respect as an individual, an eccentric cool enough to be left alone but still a freak. I even found my first real crush. A tough, skinny, blond girl by the name of Amy who drank, smoked, did seemingly every drug she could find and often came to class with a broken nose, bruises or a black eye which she would say she got from a recent punk show. She was rough around the edges and yet had a level of clarity to her I found appealing. Amy never took shit from anybody. She was also one of the few girls who talked to me without passing judgment. It was the first time that I actually cared for a girl rather than was merely being physically attracted to one. I admired her for her defiant attitude and strength and worried about her at the same time. But I knew her and I were not meant to be.

During high school I started finding people who I actually felt comfortable with and my world started falling into place. Angela was my first encounter with another Mutant. At the time we did not know what we were but we would soon find out. I now had clues that there were other people out there who where like me. My next job was to find them.

As soon as the Internet became available I rushed to get hooked up. I would soon find out that the Internet would be my greatest tool for finding my Mutants. One day, while looking through a magazine, I saw a picture of this guy holding a blue drink wearing a leather jacket and a t-shirt with a picture of the head of a man who had a large grin and a pipe in his mouth. I didn't know why but I wanted that t-shirt. The only clue I had was the word Subgenius. Latter on while my friend Dustin was showing me a web site about Satanism I saw a link to the Church of the Subgenius. After following that link I was sucked into a world that changed my life. I became addicted to this anti-religious, humorous cult thing called the Church of the Subgenius (www.subgenius.com). I soon became a dues paying minister of the church of the Subgenius and was now a part of this international society of people who seemed to understand the same things about reality that I had noticed all my life. I After I showed my friend Angela she became a minister as well and has remained one of my best friends.

Towards the end of high school I fell into the Rave scene and became attracted to the open minded, free spirited all night events which gave me hope for the future. At the time Raves were still low key. They had not reached the focus of mass media and most people still didn't know much about them. At the time it was mostly college students or older. My friend Dustin and I were usually the youngest people in the crowd and it felt good. The spirits of the people were high and the drugs were clean and reliable. Unfortunately I got into the scene just before it went under.

Mass media popularized Raves and soon everyone knew what was going on. The cops were frequently busting drug dealers. Fake drugs became more prominent. Parties decreased in quality as admission prices increased. The parties became more and more full of younger and younger people who just didn't get what it was all about and the Vibe or spirit of parties slowly withered away. I saw it coming early and watched it all happen with much sadness. My one refuge from society was destroyed.
During high school I discovered Tank Girl comic books. Tank Girl was a violent, post apocalyptic, Ausi-punk girl who took shit from no one. She became my dream girl. The character Booga was Tank Girls boyfriend, a mutant kangaroo with a personality I very much related to. I started toying with the idea of using Booga as a nickname at that time.

Meanwhile I had graduated from high school and was ready to move on to college. When I got to college things quickly took a turn for the worse. Within two weeks I had a complete mental breakdown and was forced to withdraw from school. My depression and lack of social skills had gotten the best of me and I was a wreck. I lived at home and got a job at Blockbuster Video and tried to live my life ignoring my problems. Finally I broke down again from a bad acid trip and afterwards was so unhappy with the pain and suffering that I had to deal with that I thought of ending my life. Luckily I was not that stupid and began receiving mental help.

The funny thing is when I look back I'm extremely thankful for that bad acid trip. If I hadn't freaked out then I wouldn't have gotten help for my depression and I'd still be a loser. I would have remained quiet and upset with the world and lived the rest of my life miserable no matter what I did. That bad trip changed my life, changed my personality and sent me in a direction which forced my Mutant blood to flow thick and hot.

My recovery was quick and drastic and by summer I realized that college was the right path for me and I decided to go back. It was around this time I started calling myself BOOGA. I was put on Prozac and it was definitely helping. Rather than solving my problems, it leveled off my mind so that I could focus and deal with my issues from a logical and reliable angle. But at the same time it gave me this rush of energy unlike anything I had ever felt. That summer I met my first girlfriend. We met on the Internet and lived four hundred miles away but we hit off quite well. My confidence and social skills were increasing. I was in a good mood and it seemed anything was possible. I was a new person entirely. My entire personality was being altered through the process of my therapy and via the effects of the Prozac. It was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I was moving so fast that I couldn't decide whether it was a good change or not. That's why I made the conscious decision to stop taking the drug before college despite what my doctor said.

At the beginning of my second freshman year I was still running hard on a Prozac high. I was overly social, needed little sleep, was optimistic and had more energy than ever before in my life. I got the great idea to create a Registered Student Organization in order to get money from the University of Massachusetts to put on a Subgenius Devival (an anti-religion rant-a-thon for kooks). All I needed was ten signatures (members) and a name for the group. Of course the somewhat random people I picked to sign up as members where naturally curious as to what they were signing up for. When they found out what I was up to they wanted in on the action. Thus the Mutants Against Majority Organization was born. It took a year just to get the Student government to accept us as legit. I complained to everyone and wrote the SGA numerous letters. I think they made us an RSO just so they could keep track of us. Indeed our work seemed far more subversive before were under the preposterous rule of the SGA. After they got my number I kept getting Big-Brother phone calls every time we did something that actually got a response from the campus. But at the time the perks seemed worth it.

Free web space hooked up to the UMASS web site, e-mail, the ability to hold meetings in the campus center, our own mailbox and all sorts of other nice perks. But most of the really good stuff never came our way. Supposedly when an RSO starts out the SGA gives them a little money to get started, but we saw nothing. The SGA wouldn't give us any money but that didn't matter so much any more, I now had members. I was no longer running a two-bit scam; I was fighting for the Mutant community! I had collected a handful of dreamers, punks and eccentrics who would become a circle of friends and colleagues. After a few appearances of MAMO on campus we quickly grew as a cult status symbol. Everyone was trying to figure out what we stood for and we always gave a different answer.

More people had learned my name than people who had actually seen me. I was this mysterious BOOGA character. I was the leader of a strange group on campus. I did everything I could to promote MAMO. In order to keep MAMO running I had to fork out my own money to keep it afloat. I was paying for art supplies, photocopying and anything else which the group required in order to have a good time. But it wasn't all bad. By keeping MAMO's spending well organized in our own pockets we got more bang for our buck than any other group. I got free stationary from my mother's job, lots of random stuff was donated to us, the Lost Burning Youth punk wing of MAMO even held a benefit concert for MAMO which funded many a happy activities latter. I wrote and published a small newsletter, the MAMO-GRAM, for the group. I went to other campus groups and supported them, creating valuable allies. We created a massive web page, which is still bigger and more confusing than any other RSO web page on campus. With hardly any money and a handful of dreamers I managed to create a powerful force on campus that still has notoriety today.

Often For fun we would have MAMO Movie Nights. We would pick a night and all of the members who wanted to would meet in the lobby of Van Meter with food and videotapes. We would then fight over which movies to watch first and continue to watch movies until we gave up and went to bed. Other times we would just hang out and do weird stuff like go Goth-bowling, perform severed head launchings or just hang out naked.

There are a few events that stick out in the history of MAMO. The first time we were noticed was when the Friends of Jesus, a homophobic and anti-sex group, arrived on campus to spread their evil propaganda. Just before their arrival I bought some sidewalk chalk and MAMO went across campus writing scandalous, controversial and witty slogans all over the place such as "Jesus masturbates too", "Masturbation is Good" and "Obey my Thirst". The Student Government was very displeased and scolded us. Half the campus thought we were ass holes for writing graffiti and half the campus thought we rocked.
When the Friends of Jesus finally showed up we were ready. Through MAMO connections I managed to collect about fifty people to help out. I was able to procure some free poster board and markers, which we used to make signs with yet more scandalous and humorous slogans. The next day while the friends of Jesus tabled and preached the hate of god fifty freaks marched around them chanting obscenities and making all around fools of the Friends of Jesus. MAMO got on the front page of the college newspaper and our popularity went way up.

Once we were officially a Group on campus there were new events that we could participate in. One highpoint of MAMO was the very first Homecoming Parade we participated in. Picture a van with a flashing light on the roof, a green paper mache monster on the roof and MAMO banners with a dozen loud, obnoxious, Mutants in the middle of a cheesy college Homecoming Parade that represented almost everything MAMO was created to defeat. It was probably the greatest display of pure Mutant pride that MAMO has ever achieved. Luckily it was captured on an astounding piece of videotape.
An annual highpoint of MAMO is Halloween. Typically the most important holiday for any Mutant. I managed to teach at least some Mutants that Halloween was not just a single night of the year and my fellow Mutants helped increase the available festivities. During one particularly incredible Halloween we managed to have quite a party. Typically early in the week some of us would go see Rocky Horror Picture show. Then we would make Piñatas for the punk show. That year several Mutants (Lost Burning Youth) did an incredible Misfits cover and made me a Misfits fan. At the punk show we had free vegan donuts, 40oz. Root beers, and piñatas, all funded by MAMO members. The next night (Halloween night) we went to a Christian dance party heard Christian techno for the first time (weird stuff), ate a bunch of their food and then left to go see 3D Porn at the Academy of Music in Northampton. It was by far my best Halloween so far.

I paid close attention to the results of everything that MAMO did. For me MAMO was just a practice run. Within about two years I had switched from a quiet depressed loser who dropped out of college and was thinking of killing himself to a campus cult figure who ran a corrupt student organization promoting high weirdness and counter culture. MAMO gave me a stepping-stone to catch up on an entire childhood of social skills, which, due to my abnormality and isolation, I was not able to obtain. The group also gave me the resources I required to continue my personal research for knowledge.

At one point in my career I took a special pilgrimage to recapture the core essence of the Church of the Subgenius. For the weekend of July 5th 1998 I participated in the Subgenius end of the world festival called X-Day. I had gone to the X-Day drill the year before but that was just a practice drill and was composed mostly of intense yeti-sex with my girlfriend of the time. But this was the real thing. July 5th 1998 at 7:00 am was proposed as the end of the world for the Church of the Subgenius long ago and I was to participate in this grand fiasco, no matter what the outcome. Even though the world didn't end as predicted few people left the grounds of that event disappointed. I spent four days camping with 500 Mutants, Freaks and Subgenii. It was one of the most influential and enjoyable times of my life. Many of the people who started the church in the late 70's early 80's were my age or older when they put the church together. Seeing 500 Mutant adults and youths getting along and partying together in this little community was an incredible experience. I think what I needed to see the most was the elder Mutants. During the weekend I camped next to two middle-aged guys who were going all out for the event. One had created a giant electronic flying saucer set to explode in the air for part of the final event. Often I hung out at their campfire and just hung out chatting and being neighborly. There was mutual understanding and respect between almost everyone. Just imagine spending a weekend with 500 people you wouldn't mind having for neighbors. It was just an incredible reassurance to know that the Mutant phenomenon is NOT just some phase of youth and that it is a legitimate type of person. X-Day boosted my confidence that I was doing the right thing and brought me the calm happiness I had been seeking.

While MAMO functioned I had the ability to study the Mutants and humans interact up close. Before then my experience with Mutants was limited. By this time I had begun theorizing on potential future experiments that I am still working on today.
There are many reasons I decided to retire from my position as president. The main reason is that I'm just not leader material. I'm much more or a research scientist/philosopher. The only reason I did the job was because nobody else would and I cared too much about my people to not do something (actually that's not exactly true, I did it because it was fun). I suppose I decided to leave when I realized that most of the work I was doing for MAMO wasn't actually helping the group. I was constantly trying to get my members to understand things like I did and get them to agree with me. I tried to get them to go to X-day and participate in other events that I felt were important. When they didn't listen to me I got discouraged. I realize now that I should have just encouraged them to be themselves and not try to make them like me. After a while being president meant kissing lots of ass so lots of people think you're the bomb while not looking like you're kissing ass. I found out that there is a very thin line between kissing ass and actually liking and legitimately supporting any group or person. Realizing/believing shit like that is what made me sick of being a leader. Being a dirty politician is fun indeed, but after a while I found myself being nice to people I didn't really care about and that made me feel kind of hollow when I was nice to the people I do care about.
Getting members to be active was my greatest challenge. I know they're there. It's just most of them are less motivated than I am. Nobody cares that they're a Mutant, they're not proud or angry or anything. Just down and out because "the man" or "the conspiracy" has got them down, or the world is stupid. They don't realize how much power they have and how close to happiness they already are. That's why I got into this, because I took the time to find shit out on my own and time to listen to our elders to find out their losses and gains through life so history wouldn't repeat itself. Things are fucking good and we got a reason to party. I just got tired of telling that to a room full of people who didn't really care or didn't really believe. They just wanted to "raise hell" and "fuck shit up"; they wanted revenge on the Norms. That can be fun sometimes but when that's all you want to do it just shows you have issues to deal with. I spoke up because I'm different and I realized other people out there are different. I spent my life trying to find out exactly what it is that makes me different and my journey is far from over. I may not have all the facts yet but I do know that being a Mutant is a good thing; it's something to be proud of. The first thing to do once you realize that you are a Mutant is to be happy and celebrate.

Future Plans

Now that my little MAMO project is almost complete and the end results have almost solidified into a self sufficient organization that will soon no longer need my back up I am forced to ponder what I shall do after I leave school. I have no special job skills. I'm one of those "good at a lot of things, but not good enough at any one thing to make a buck" type of people. Ideally I'd like to be independently wealthy, jobless and have my own secret mad scientist laboratory in my basement along with a little greenhouse in the backyard. Of course chances are that wont happen.

The urban commune for Slackers is my current project I've been contemplating. Like many of my peers I'm fairly sick of society and I'd like to find peace away from society. Most people I've talked to are trying to find ideal countries to move to. Other than Australia the idea sounds silly to me. The world is getting smaller and smaller and it's just getting harder to hide. So I figure the best way to find comfort is to create a simple way to survive smack dab in the middle of the mess while still being isolated and having an easy life. The basic idea is this. I get about 4 or five like-minded Mutants to share a house or apartment in an economic city or town. All of us having shitty low wage jobs (preferably part time) and pool our money into food, housing, recreation and what not. Utilizing the skills of multiple Mutants to create our own little world.

Of course there are several aspects involved in making this work. First you need Mutants or willing, creative humans. Finding the right people is always a challenge. Your best bet is to have some old friends that you can trust and are willing to join your group. If this is not feasible you may have to live the life of a bachelor for a while and search the area you want to live in for likely candidates. That takes time and skill. Identifying Mutants is hard enough. Convincing them to join your commune will take great skill.

An obvious problem I foresee is keeping the group together. If two of the members are dating or married and break up or if one or more members decide to move out you will always need eager replacements to fill their spots to keep the commune running. This may be difficult.

Choosing this path requires willingness to relocate. I have been doing a fair amount of studying of different regions to find a proper location for my micro-commune. Right now Las Vegas is my primary choice, although my research is far from over. Supposedly living costs are low, there are plenty of recreation choices and most likely a fair number of Mutants willing to join up with me. Another possible location is Australia, just because it rocks.

As usual, money is always an issue. Depending on how nice you want your house to be you may need to get a nice job. Ideally, with collective resources, each member would be able to survive on a part time job and have the majority of their time to enjoy life. Even working forty hours a week with an easy job will be more productive if you're saving most of your money living in the commune. Another important aspect of money is deciding how to pool funds and how much each person pools in.

A big no for this style of living is having a job that comes home with you. If you have to take paperwork home or anything like that it takes away from your personal time and that's just wrong (unless you're one of those twisted people who enjoy their work). The idea is to live well without working hard. That way you have more personal time to do the things you really care about in life. And don't forget those little perks of lame ass part time jobs. If one person works at a grocery store you might get a discount or be able to sneak home free food. If another works at a video store you can get free video rentals (who needs cable?). If another works at a department store you get a discount on all household items and clothes.

Another cool thing is that if each person focuses on a particular aspect of the house you can end up with a cool set up in your house. For example if you have an artist/writer, a person with all sorts of sound equipment, another with film equipment, then you have your own little movie studio. Or if everyone knows a few handy skills like taking care of cars, cooking, decorating, balancing budgets, these skill can make living cheaper and more comfortable.

My dream is to have a little house smack dab in the middle of suburbia. Amongst all the cokie cutter families searching for the American dream I'll be living the slack full life with my friends. In the basement of the house I'll have my own little mad scientist laboratory set up where I do all sorts of odd experiments. Upstairs we will have our cozy little house set up with the walls painted crazy and all sorts of beat up Salvation Army, tag sale furniture and junk littering the house. I'll have a little greenhouse in the back yard growing my own herbs and vegetables. It'll be great.

The fact is that people manage to own homes with only one or two paychecks AND manage to take care of several children. The way I see it is that a couple of eccentric folks with no children can easily manage to own their own home while working far less than most people and have better lives. It just takes commitment and unity. It's sort of like a hippy commune but smaller and capable of interacting with the rest of the world in an irregular fashion. Not to dis Hippies or anything but living in the woods on a farm milking goats and making my own clothing just doesn't sound like a communal environment that would improve my life and make me happier.

If this project works out successfully I plan to document my experiments and plan to write a do-it-yourself book. That way anyone who wants to will be able to learn from my experience and avoid my mistakes in order to create their own little commune.

Bits and Pieces

Bellow is a collection of quotes and excerpts of articles, books and personal writings that I feel bring up important ideas. I hope you enjoy.

People need to start looking at the big picture when dealing with politics and trying to change the world. Take a look at all the major world powers out there. What do you see in common? I see religion. Most world religions parallel the political system they work with. Most world religions are controlled by one entity or a small group of entities. Now take a look at world governments. Do you see a pattern? It's a pyramid design and the people are always at the bottom. Religion programs humans to accept that format and to obey. Do you really think we can significantly change a political system without changing the belief system as well?

It seems anyone who is in charge is doing what they do for personal benefit. Be they politicians, corporate heads or religious leaders it all comes down to money, sex, power and or control over the masses. Do you really think your deity(s) are above all that? Is blind faith superior to knowing the truth? Are you afraid to ask the tough questions? Anyone who has the answers is probably lying or making shit up.

"The answer has a lot to do with personal desire and integrity. Perhaps I would rather be pecked to death by the zombies. That death would produce a great deal of dramatic irony, since they do not know that my enemy is also their enemy and killing me would actually further their own suffering. On the other hand, being killed by the men in black provides instant martyrdom, which is nothing to be sneezed at either.

Take some deep breaths, get out of the house, go to a mall and observe the sewer that is real life. Become more and more depressed until the truth of Dobbs overwhelms you and you begin to laugh uncontrollably - not because it's funny, but because the alternative is unthinkable." -Rev. Mary Magdalen

For ages Norms have ostracized Mutants and Mutants have looked down upon Norms as ignorant beasts. There is a movement in the Mutant community to change all that though. As we progress we learn to understand the situation more. The recent hit movie The Matrix can be used as an excellent teaching aid to explain this.

You see the Mutants are the people who are disconnected from the Matrix. They are free and have a fair understanding of what is going on. The human batteries in the fish tanks are the Normals; the majority of humans. Those in charge of the Matrix have control over the minds of the Normals. Thus the Normals are trained from the beginning to look out for and stomp out the Mutants. It's not that the Normals are evil, just that they are ignorant to what is really going on. For a long time now most Mutants were satisfied with the idea of destroying all of the Normals. Of course this is not feasible or beneficial and is immoral, but hate breeds ignorance on both sides. The idea of educating the Normals and creating an alliance with them has grown in popularity. In theory, once we work together we should be able to put enough pieces of the puzzle together and figure out what forces are in control of our lives and why.

"Libido, to Freud, meant more than sexual energy, it meant energy, a life force, full of emotion. Reich took Freud's theory of libido and expanded it: If individual sexual repression led to individual neurosis, then socialized sexual repression led to socialized neurosis. Sexually repressed cultures were violent cultures, despairing, tyrannical. Sexual freedom would lead naturally to socialism. And so simply solving an orgasmic dysfunction or, as Freud attempted, helping an unhappy person become "functional" wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Social change required the therapeutic community to oppose fascism, address the causes of social violence, the harm done by socialized sex roles and social inequalities of all kinds." (Sallie Tisdale, Talk Dirty to Me)

It's funny to think of how limited our consciousness is. Our ability to perceive the world around is quite limited. Our range of sight, sound, touch, taste is not perfect. It has already been proven that we cannot see things that are out there. We cannot see heat waves, but with special equipment we can and can actually see fresh footprints on the ground, which would be invisible to the naked eye. Dogs and other animals can hear sounds that we can't. It is quite possible that beings and objects such as ghosts, "aliens" and such creatures exist around us and we can only see these things when our perceptions are either altered or expanded. This may explain the beneficial uses of mind-altering substances for spiritual purposes. Perhaps as time flows science and religion will parallel and feed off each other.

It's important to realize that if there are beings around us that we can't perceive, just because we can't see them and interact with them doesn't mean they can't see us and affect our lives. There are positive and negative forces affecting us every day, the more we understand them the more we can control them.

It's important to realize that Evolution is a social thing just as much as a biological thing. So many idiots control the world that natural selection, for humans, is a joke. DEVO was right. Science is just as accurate as religion; it's the same thing really. Both Religion and Science are just stories created to explain how the world works. The trick is to take a good look at who made up the stories. Always look for the man behind the curtain.

"Humans are generally stupid creatures. It is in their nature to oppress others, as well as to accept their own oppression."
Remember when you were little and you had your toys all around you set up, and you had your own fantasy world you created around yourself? Why not do that now? Fuck what anyone says and live your fantasies now. Relax in the comfort of your own delusions. All I'm saying is that the rules of reality are not as strict as most people believe. Those who understand this and learn to take advantage are the happy ones.

Life is just an experience, it's not a test, there is no failure, there is only growth.