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An Atheist on Christmas – 2015 Edition

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I grew up a spoiled kid in suburban Staten Island freebasing on sugar, Jesus and Santa Claus. For a boy raised by Italians and Polacks, what other choice was there? Though we didn’t always go to church on Sunday, we did have regular religious instruction to prepare for Communion and Confirmation and other rituals to keep me involved. I even remember my folks hosting religious classes at home for the local kids. A lay person taught the class in my basement. My parents probably used the time to smoke cigarettes and bone upstairs, finally free of my brother and I for an hour. It was 1981. I remember that because the timer on my archaic VCR made a loud clicking sound during class as it began recording The Greatest American Hero.

I have great memories of Christmas. I ate it up, loved every single thing about it. The lights, the music, the animated specials, the religious stories, even midnight mass. Of course my brother and I were spoiled rotten. The gifts under the tree inched into the corners of the room. When I was seven, he and I opened every present under the tree before the family awoke, even theirs to each other. That must have been fun for them.

For years I’d walk slowly through the neighborhood marveling at Christmas lights, eventually driving across Staten Island to see some of the more outlandish ones, Bing Crosby bu-bu-bu-ing away on cassette in my old Mercury Topaz. I had a Jesus bauble in that car staring up at me by the radio controls. I’d make a cross on it with my thumb whenever I passed an ambulance or church, which ultimately gave Jesus a weird black eye. I could see him staring at me whenever I fooled around in the backseat.sta4

Not very long after this I made a drastic change, at least religiously. In a few short years I was a devout atheist. A real atheist. I wasn’t “mad at God.” I didn’t believe in God, so how could I be mad at something I didn’t believe existed? I was mad at humans for believing in such things, and at myself for being fooled so long.

I was engaged to a lovely Italian girl, Catholic through and through. She watched in despair as I changed my entire belief system. Everyone I knew was Catholic back then. All my friends and all my family, and none of them could relate to me. They felt much like I had just a few years earlier. They pitied me and were sad I’d “never know what it’s like to love God” like they did. Yet, here I was on the other side. And I wasn’t a monster. I knew love. I knew joy. I found beauty in places many folks couldn’t comprehend.

“I didn’t believe in God, so how could I be mad at something I didn’t believe existed.”

“But I’ll never be a Catholic again,” I told my fiance’s parents one quiet afternoon. To their credit, they listened and even tried to understand, religious as they were. They were good to me anyway, and I was good to them. Until, of course, I plucked out their daughter’s heart months before our wedding when I couldn’t bear the religiosity any longer.

“I just don’t think I’ll be happy,” I said to her, unraveling all our arrangements and pulling out the carpet beneath her. Before you take out your violin, know that she landed on her feet and has exactly the family she always wanted. The one she wouldn’t have had with me. Getting married was the best thing I never did.

sta3Christmas didn’t die with my atheism. Not yet, at least. I kept that fire burning for years. I was an atheist with a Christmas tree who still enjoyed the music and community surrounding the holiday. I bought Christmas presents for my new girlfriends, even the Jewish ones, and especially a 100% percent Italian girl who loved Christmas with an exuberance that was contagious. We’d wake and bake Christmas morning, tear into breakfast and presents and play video games. We had a fricking ball.

Then that relationship ended, around Christmas time, in fact, in the months that followed 9/11.  A lot of folks got closer to the ones they loved after 9/11. I went the other direction. I was already an angry atheist, but this was the icing on the cake.

I’m not an angry atheist anymore. If anything, I’m a complacent atheist, which is worse. I haven’t really celebrated Christmas since, though, and I don’t miss it at all. I feel a huge sense of relief that I’m not involved, actually. I used to be just as brainwashed to be a seasonal power consumer as the next guy – but this guy woke up.

While there are plenty of good ways to celebrate the holidays, on the whole Christmas represents too many things I have no respect for. I don’t respect lying to children about Santa Claus. I don’t respect being forced to buy things under the guise of some magical holiday. I certainly don’t respect the blind acceptance of religious falsehoods – which isn’t easy to say, especially when so many of the people I love still celebrate the holiday and follow the religion. But if they can tell me how much they love it, I have a right to express myself, too, don’t I? You can always turn me off, can’t you? Maybe you already have.

sta2Hence, it can be lonely being an atheist at Christmas, or at least isolating. I’m lucky. So many of the folks I know are either atheists or agnostics now, all of which were either Christians, Baptists or Jews before. There’s more of us everyday.

“I’m not an angry atheist anymore. If anything, I’m a complacent atheist, which is worse.”

To be clear, I would say that most if not all of the religious people I know are good people. Many are smarter and more talented than me, I know that. They live decent and productive lives and teach their children how to be respectful and to tolerate others, even people like me.

Still, there are certain things I can’t get my head around, like folks praying to a God in the sky that grants them wishes. Is it a coincidence that kids do the same with Santa? Even when those prayers are selfless, the audacity is too much for me to handle. How can you think you’re humble if you also think the God that created everything is listening to you? That this God can intervene in your life to make a polyp benign, or allow you to score a touchdown, or find the hundred dollar bill you lost – but it can’t show itself for thirty seconds to finally convince every human being that it’s truly worth believing in? You know how many lives would be saved if that happened? But it won’t happen because it can’t happen, and I know why. So do millions of other atheists.

star1So yeah, it’s hard to be a free-thinking atheist and still find a way to celebrate the holidays, though it’s certainly not impossible. You can look to the solstice, you can look to family and friends, you can even look to the Santa myth, if that’s the direction you want to go in. You can do whatever you want. You can even treat Jesus like the myth he is and still enjoy the holidays. Me, I prefer ignoring it altogether. You should try it some time.

“How funny would it be if we went full Christmas this year?” my atheist girlfriend says to me. It’s important to note that we don’t buy each other presents, don’t decorate, hardly acknowledge the holiday at all. So this idea was really hysterical to us. It would be the exact opposite of who we are.

“That would be really funny,” I say. “Wreath on the door, Christmas tree, lights on the terrace. Maybe a big blow up Santa village in the living room?”
“Or we could do something really weird,” she suggests. 
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Like a Christmas yam?” she says, laughing.
“That would be great. With, like, a paper star hung on a paperclip.”
“No one would ever understand it,” she says.
“That’s exactly why we should do it.”

So, from one atheist to another, try not to let all this rampant religiosity and consumerism bring you down. You have the whole rest of the year for that. This season is yours, too. It may have even been yours first.

Celebrate what you want, however you choose to. Or don’t, no one’s watching – not a fictitious Santa or mythological God. Just the NSA.

yam

 

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Rest Easy Eric Curran a.k.a M.C Krispy E

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Almost every year for the past 6 years and on the same day, I’ve posted the same pic of me in the hospital  during my temporary and untimely demise  in 2015. A few weeks after I was back to “normal”, I asked Eric “Why’d you take the pics?” And he said, “I knew you would want to write about it if you lived.” Eric was right. Eric was often right and Eric always had my best interest at heart. I am going to miss my friend.

You ever meet someone and become friends immediately?! Well this was not the case with Eric. Before he was my manager at Morgan Stanley, I would often see this 6’4″, giant white guy walk up to the only black woman at work, say something then walk away without any hint of human emotion. Naturally I thought he was a jerk until I asked her “Yo, is that dude bothering you?” She laughed and proceeded to tell me he was a great person, which I ultimately got to experience first hand. Little did I know this Italian from Staten Island was more Brooklyn than most Brooklynites.

Eric was not with the shits!! If there were ever someone who lived their life in direct, honest and no uncertain terms, that would be Eric. He would ask me questions at work like “Why are the other consultants making more money than you?” I knew the answer to that question and so did he. Eric then proceeded to increase my salary by 15K. After arguing with all our managers that “You need to hire Alfred!”, they eventually did 1 year prior to the 2015 incident. In the hospital, one of my friends asked me, “What if you didn’t have health insurance when this happened?” I would be in debt for the rest of my life is the obvious answer. I still am in debt for the rest of my life but at least, it is to those who made sure I had a more enjoyable life and for that, I will gladly repay.

My mom loved to tell me the story of how she met Eric. After they told her I was going to be in the ICU for some time, she told the doctor “Well I’m not going anywhere.” She then hears a voice from that back of the room that says “Well I’m not going anywhere either!” That was Eric and in true form, he was at that hospital every single day until I was discharged.

Eric passed away in December 2021 of stage 4 cancer. After feeling faint on his way to my bbq, he went to get checked out and was diagnosed. During the past 5 years, Eric lost his mom, twin brother and dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like but I’m glad that pain he was feeling is no more.

It’s been a bit difficult to deal with it to be quite honest and I’ve been writing this in my head for years but never had the bravery or grace to accept that my friend wouldn’t be here soon. I also can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your entire family nucleus unexpectedly. In true Eric fashion however, I would like this to not be about me but whomever has lost someone and has been coping. I’ve always intimated that my life would not be as enriched as it was were it not for the people in it. The problem with that is there is also no way to deny that it feels empty without those who helped craft your path. Rather than focus on the negative, I would rather focus on the examples of duty, family and emotional intelligence. All concepts reinforced by Eric that have led me to have successful relationships since I’ve put them into practice.

From being my manager to my business partner, writer, book editor, artistic director, and most importantly, my friend, I am going to miss you MC Krispy E a.k.a “Enrique Pollazo!” And although you told me Enrique means Henry in Spanish and not Eric, it was too late!

Sidebar. The day I was discharged, while everyone was deciding what was best for me, no one had remembered that I would need clothes in order to leave the hospital. Eric shows up (unasked) with all the clothes I had on the day I coded, laundered and ready to go. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve friends like this but i need to keep doing it! Sidebar complete.

Rest in Peace Eric. “Be Good.”

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Writing Your First Book / Should I Self Publish?

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I had the distinct pleasure of  participating in a panel discussion on writing your first book, presented by the Harlem chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.  Alongside Jim St. Germain, Author – A Stone of Hope: A Memoir and Dr. Keneshia Nicole Grant, Author – The Great Migration and the Democratic Party: Black Voters and the Realignment of American Politics in the 20th Century.  We opined on pain points, benefits and strategies regarding our inaugural voyages into authorship. Feel free to watch for your self and I hope this provides some insight to all those looking to make the same voyage. Enjoy!

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What the NFT is a BEEPLE?

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On March 11 this year, the digital artist Beeple sold a collage of digital images from his “Everydays” series for nearly 70 million dollars as an NFT, or non-fungible token. And if that sentence confuses you, you’re not alone.

A non-fungible token is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and thus they are not interchangeable. NFTs can represent digital files such as art, audio, video, and other forms of creative work. While the digital files themselves are infinitely reproducible, the NFTs representing them are tracked on their underlying blockchains and provide buyers with proof of ownership.” – Wikipedia

Still confused? Let the artist himself explain it, and learn how he went from NFT newbie to making the third most expensive artwork by a living artist in three months. Not to suggest Beeple is an overnight success. The “Everydays” series alone involved creating a piece of art every day since May 1, 2007 – and he hasn’t missed a day.

Check out some of Beeple’s amazing and controversial work below.

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