A Prophet and a Nihilist Walk into a Bar

I’ve loved stand-up comedy since high school. I even did my own set a few times years ago (I wasn’t very good at it. Need to research comedic timing more.) My all-time favorite comedian is Bill Hicks (rest in power.) He wasn’t just a comic, he was a prophet. He tried to open the eyes of the public at large to how they were being fucked and just sitting back and taking it. He was a fierce social critic. Other aspiring comedians might want to be like Carlin or Pryor or Lenny Bruce or Sam Kinison. I wanted to be like Bill Hicks.

Another comedian I love — who I think carries Hicks’ torch and also burns the world down with it — is Doug Stanhope. He doesn’t care about waking people up. He doesn’t even give a shit if he bombs on stage. He’ll just get bombed on alcohol while he bombs on stage.

Comedy has always had its rebels and these two fit that description. Hicks wanted to wake you up. Stanhope wants to drag you into the abyss with him. Both are/were uncompromising, dark, and unwilling to sell out. However, their philosophies couldn’t be more different.

Let’s start with Hicks. Hicks gave a shit. He wasn’t just telling jokes; he was preaching. Every set was a sermon against consumerism, war, censorship, and blind conformity. He wanted audiences to see through the veil, to wake up. When a joke bombed, it stung him. It didn’t just mean the laugh was missing, it meant the message hadn’t landed. Hicks carried the weight of a prophet, a sense that comedy could save humanity if only enough people listened. His core drive was enlightenment through laughter. His tone — righteous, sermon-like; a preacher in a smokey comedy club. His view of humanity was misanthropic but hopeful. Humanity was flawed, but people would wake up. And when he bombed on stage it was a personal wound, proof at how far gone society was.

Hicks’ legacy is almost biblical. Fans and admirers treat him less like a comic and more like a visionary who used a microphone as his pulpit.

Then there’s Doug Stanhope: the nihilist who doesn’t give a fuck. Comedy isn’t a sermon to him. It’s a dare. Can he say the most obscene, brutally honest thing in the room and still stand there, beer in hand, while the audience squirms? If Hicks bombed, it hurt. If Stanhope bombs, it’s just another outcome. Sometimes it’s even the point. Walkouts, police calls, physical confrontations, they’re not failures … they’re souvenirs. Stanhope is more amusement through honesty. He’s kind of like your drunk, nihilistic, misanthropic uncle who doesn’t sugarcoat shit. His view of humanity is that it’s hopeless and it’s best to laugh at the chaos. When he bombs, he’s neutral and sometimes even celebrates and that shows that he’s not just pandering to his audience.

Stanhope’s legacy isn’t prophetic, it’s apocalyptic. He doesn’t offer hope; he offers anesthesia. He’s not here to save you; he’s here to mock you while the ship goes down.

So you have a prophet and a nihilist. There’s a good set up: “A prophet and a nihilist walk into a bar.” Hicks wanted comedy to save the world. Stanhope wants comedy to burn it all down … or at least make the collapse funnier.

Hicks was a preacher who believed in laughter as a path to truth. Stanhope is a nihilist who believes truth is unbearable, so we might as well laugh while we’re here. Hicks aimed for transcendence. Stanhope embraces the gutter. Both approaches matter. Both expose the absurdity of life and culture. But where Hicks offered a vision of redemption, Stanhope only offers a toast to the void.

Hicks is remembered as a voice of moral clarity in a corrupt world. Stanhope is like Heath Ledger’s Joker. One pointed toward the light. The other cackles in the dark. Maybe comedy needs both: the prophet to believe change is possible, and the nihilist to remind us that, even if it isn’t, the laugh is still worth it.

Guns, Blood, and the Empty Comfort of “Thoughts and Prayers”

Yesterday in Minneapolis, two children were murdered inside a church during Mass. Seventeen others — kids and elders — were wounded. The shooter was a former student armed with a rifle, pistol, and shotgun. He opened fire on a congregation gathered for worship. That’s the bare fact of it. And like every other time, we already know the script that follows: politicians, pundits, and parishioners offering “thoughts and prayers.”

But here’s the truth: thoughts and prayers don’t stop bullets. They don’t bring people back. They don’t stitch wounds. They don’t disarm shooters. They are nothing but a ritual; an empty, performative hymn for a country that has decided mass shootings are just the price of being “free.”

I say this not as someone outside gun culture, but as someone who — as you already know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while — owns guns. I grew up with them. I have an AR-15 in my closet. I keep them around “just in case.” I know guns. And because I know guns, I don’t pretend they’re holy. They’re tools. They’re dangerous, powerful machines designed to kill. They’re not symbols of freedom. They’re not the cornerstone of civilization. They’re not worth more than the lives of those people in the pews.

In America we’ve turned guns into idols. We treat them like sacred objects, untouchable by law or criticism. Our culture doesn’t just allow mass shootings, it fuels them. We raise generations of people who see killing machines as toys, as symbols of manhood, as birthrights that matter more than the lives of strangers.

Gun culture is the sickness. And “thoughts and prayers” are the cover-up. They’re what we say when we’ve already decided we’d rather keep our guns than keep children alive.

If you own guns, you have a responsibility to break this culture. Don’t hide behind the excuse of “responsible ownership” while staying silent. Silence is complicity. And if you don’t own guns, stop letting your leaders hand you Bible verses instead of policies. Stop letting them offer condolences instead of consequences. If we keep swallowing “thoughts and prayers” as if they’re medicine, the shootings will keep coming. The funerals will keep coming. The blood on the church floor will keep coming.

America doesn’t need thoughts and prayers. America needs to choose: guns or children.

Why the U.S. Hired Nazis but Hated the USSR

It’s one of the strangest contradictions in American history: right after fighting a war against Nazi Germany, the United States turned around and gave hundreds of Nazis safe passage, jobs, and paychecks. At the same time, it launched a global crusade against the Soviet Union, its former ally in the war. So why were ex-Nazis welcomed into the U.S. while Communists were treated like the ultimate enemy?

After World War II, the U.S. quietly recruited more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians through a program called Operation Paperclip. These weren’t just neutral “lab coat” types. Many had been members of the Nazi Party or had worked directly for Hitler’s war machine.

Wernher von Braun, who built V-2 rockets with slave labor, later became the father of the U.S. space program. Hubertus Strughold, the “father of space medicine,” had ties to medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Why hire them? Because knowledge was power. The U.S. wanted their rocket science, their chemistry, their military technology, and just as importantly, it didn’t want those brains falling into Soviet hands.

While the U.S. was willing to rehabilitate Nazis, it drew a hard line against Communists.

The U.S. was built on capitalism; the USSR was Communist. American leaders saw Communism as a direct threat to private property and global markets. Geopolitics: After the war, the USSR controlled Eastern Europe and projected influence worldwide. The U.S. wanted global dominance and couldn’t tolerate a rival system. Once the Soviets tested an atomic bomb in 1949, the competition turned existential. Anti-Communism fueled McCarthyism and justified military budgets, CIA coups, and repression of leftists at home.

In short, fighting Communism was about preserving U.S. power, not morality.

This is the big contradiction: The U.S. claimed it was defending freedom and democracy, but its actions told a different story. Nazis were a defeated enemy who could be repurposed. Communists were a living enemy offering an alternative vision of the world. So America struck a deal with its conscience: use the Nazis, fight the Soviets, and sell the public a story about good versus evil.

This history cuts through the myth that U.S. foreign policy is about values. The real driver is power. The U.S. was never “pro-freedom vs. anti-fascism.” It was always pro-Capitalism vs. anti-Communism, and if that meant hiring Nazis to help win the Cold War, so be it.

Bill Hicks and Joe Rogan

I’m tired of this whole bro culture that’s going on right now and Joe Rogan seems to be the man in charge of it. He never really amounted to much until someone decided it’d be a good idea to give him a podcast. Years ago I thought he was decent enough because he admired Bill Hicks and he was friends with Doug Stanhope. Hicks and Stanhope are two of my all-time favorite comedians. Then things shifted.

I think Hicks and Stanhope would have differing opinions on Rogan though. Stanhope openly says he doesn’t care if he bombs on stage. He’d rather be himself than pander to an audience. I don’t see this being Rogan’s attitude. However, the difference between Hicks and Stanhope would be Hicks would roast Rogan and Stanhope would shrug, pour another drink, and say “Who gives a shit?” That’s just who Stanhope is. Hicks though? He wouldn’t stand for it.

Rogan would always bring up Bill Hicks and call him a hero, a genius, a prophet. Hicks was all of those things, but if Hicks were alive today he’d tear Rogan to shreds. Hicks spent his career railing against corporations, conformity, American militarism, consumer culture, and the numbing stupidity of mass entertainment. Hicks wasn’t trying to “be edgy.” He was trying to wake people up. He was pissed off because we were all sleepwalking through a corporate-controlled nightmare.

Now look at Rogan. His whole empire rests on platforming reactionary voices, selling supplements, and playing culture-war middleman. He’s not smashing the system, he’s feeding it. Rogan is what Hicks warned us about: the corporatized, commodified version of counterculture. He’s a watered-down rebel packaged for the masses.

Bill Hicks didn’t attack “wokeness.” He attacked greed, imperialism, and consumer hypnosis. Rogan, meanwhile, obsesses over trans athletes while pretending that’s the frontline of free thought. Hicks went after presidents and generals. Rogan goes after strawmen and invited presidential candidates and billionaires on his podcast.

There’s a difference between using a microphone to question power and using it to launder power’s talking points. Hicks’ comedy was dangerous. Rogan’s podcast is safe. It’s safe enough for Spotify to cut him a $200 million check.

Bill Hicks wanted us to stop being sheep. Joe Rogan built a career herding sheep in new directions.

Bill Hicks was a prophet of rage against the machine. Joe Rogan is the machine.

Capitalism Milks the Dead

In America dying isn’t the end of your problems. It’s the start of someone else’s payday.

The U.S. funeral industry is a masterclass in capitalism’s ability to monetize practically everything, even grief. The average funeral with burial costs $7,000-$12,000, and that’s before you buy the plot, the headstone, or the flowers. If you want to be cremated, you get to see the $5,000 “cremation packages” padded with memorial videos, keepsake urns, and “optional” services you’re told are essential.

It wasn’t always this way. I should know. I wanted to be an embalmer back when I was 16 through my early 20s. I researched the entire industry just because I used to be a good little capitalist and wanted to know what would make me the most money without having to deal with people. You see, before the 1960s, funerals were modest, local, and often handled partly by the family. However, the corporate consolidation came along. Giants like Service Corporation International began quietly buying up small funeral homes, keeping their names, and centralizing operations. That’s when the real profiteering began.

Here’s how they squeeze the bereaved:

Casket markups of 200-400% over wholesale.
Burial vaults sold as “protection” for your loved one’s casket (they’re really just protecting cemetery landscaping.)
Embalming pushed as a requirement, even though it’s legally required in very few cases.
Bundled “packages” that hide inflated costs and make it harder to remove overpriced items.

The Federal Trade Commission tried to rein them in with the Funeral Rule in 1984, which requires itemized pricing, but industry lobbying watered it down. Enforcement is weak, and corporate funeral chains keep finding new ways to upsell when you’re least able to fight back.

The most obscene part? This predatory pricing works because it’s aimed at people in mourning; people who don’t want to “cheap out” on honoring a loved one. The guilt is baked into the business model.

Death should be a time for mourning and remembrance, not another transaction in the endless marketplace of American life, but in a country where every human need — from healthcare to housing — is for sale, it’s no surprise the final stop is too.

In the good old U S of A, they’ll tax you while you live, squeeze you while you work, and sell you dignity when you die.

Luigi Mangione, the IRA, and Hamas

Sometimes I imagine the world as a stage, and these people—the IRA, Hamas, Luigi Mangione—are the ones strutting across it in a hatchet-sharp tuxedo, demanding that everyone pay attention. It’s chaos, it’s terror, it’s… performance art? I don’t condone it. I don’t want anyone hurt. But I’ll be damned if I’m not fascinated by the sheer audacity of it.

There’s a certain poetry in throwing a wrench into the machine. Most of us tiptoe around, sending polite emails or muttering complaints under our breath. They jump in with fireworks strapped to their confidence, daring the world to notice. It’s reckless, it’s absurd, and it’s brilliant theater in a way that a thousand essays never could be.

I like to imagine the headlines as stage directions: “The world pauses. A single act, impossible to ignore, echoes across cities.” That’s propaganda of the deed distilled to its essence. Not ideology, not morality, just audacity. You can’t help but watch.

It’s this mix of danger and spectacle, of nerve and chaos, that fascinates me. The world expects everyone to sit quietly. They don’t. They scream, they jump, they disrupt. And in that disruption, in that reckless display, there’s a strange beauty. Not beauty of the deed itself—God, no—but beauty in the sheer, unfettered defiance of expectation.

Healthcare in America: Pay Up or Get Sick

I’m tired. Tired of this system. Tired of pretending it’s “broken” when it’s actually running exactly the way it was built: to profit off of people’s suffering. Today I had to sell my medical marijuana, my prescribed medication, just so I could afford my psychiatrist appointment. Both are essential to my health. Both are prescribed by professionals. And yet, the United States makes me choose between them like I’m choosing which limb to keep.

That’s not bad luck. That’s not “failing to budget.” That’s a health system that says:

“We will let you live, but only if you can afford it.”

Politicians tell us to “take responsibility” for our health. I am taking responsibility. I’m going to the appointments. I’m following the prescriptions. I’m doing the work to stay alive and functional. But responsibility means nothing in a system where access to care is determined by your bank account.

The truth is, this isn’t a healthcare system. It’s a pay-to-play survival game, and the people in power know it. They benefit from it. They built it this way.

I’m done calling it “broken.” A broken system tries and fails. This one succeeds every single day at its real goal: squeezing profit out of sick people until we can’t afford to stay alive then have to worry about our family getting the funeral bill.

The Devil You Know: Comparing I, Lucifer and Paradise Lost

I’ve recently re-read Glen Duncan’s book I, Lucifer. It’s sort of the Biblical story of the fall of Lucifer from the devil’s perspective. Duncan doesn’t just make Lucifer into someone out to cause chaos. I mean, he does, but just in one person’s life. Entertainment makes Lucifer more intriguing in books, television, music, etc. Another work of literature that made the devil interesting is one of my favorite tales … John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which paints the devil as sort of an anti-hero. The Devil has always been a master storyteller when authors or whomever gives him the mic.

I, Lucifer and Paradise Lost take that premise and run in opposite directions. Both let Lucifer speak for himself, but the similarities mostly stop there. Milton’s Satan is a tragic epic hero. Duncan’s Lucifer is a sardonic London party guest. Together though, they show just how flexible the figure of the Devil can be, and what that says about us.

In Paradise Lost, Satan enters with the gravitas of a fallen general. His speeches are full of classical grandeur: “Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.” Milton’s blank verse gives him a dignity that almost rivals God’s. Over the course of the epic poem, that dignity rots. The grand speeches shrink to self-justifications, and Satan’s transformation into a literal serpent mirrors his moral decay.

In I, Lucifer, Duncan skips the slow moral unraveling. His Lucifer arrives already fully modern, fully cynical, and fully shameless. Given one month in a human body (that of a washed-up writer), he narrates in a breezy, pop-culture-savvy monologue. Where Milton’s Satan wraps his rebellion in lofty ideals, Duncan’s Lucifer cheerfully admits it was always about ego, boredom, and refusing to kneel.

Milton’s universe is theological first, dramatic second. Satan’s rebellion is a misuse of free will. He chooses pride over obedience, and the moral lesson is clear: freedom is good only when exercised in harmony with God’s will.

Duncan’s Lucifer would rather set himself on fire than live in “harmony” with anyone else’s will but his own. Free will is the only real prize, even if it comes with loneliness, pain, or damnation. God offers him redemption at the end of his month on Earth; Lucifer declines, not because he can’t repent, but because repentance means surrender.

In Paradise Lost, humanity is collateral damage. Satan tempts Adam and Eve as a strike against God. Milton’s Satan does not care about them beyond their strategic value. In I, Lucifer, humanity is the entertainment. Lucifer adores human art, music, lust, and self-delusion. He mocks humans constantly, but there’s a grudging admiration underneath. He might still ruin your life, but he’ll stay for a drink and ask about your novel.

Milton’s Satan is the stuff of cathedral murals: moral, solemn, and framed by the cosmic stakes of Heaven and Hell. Duncan’s Lucifer is more like the friend who hijacks your bar tab and spends the night dismantling your worldview between shots. One speaks in blank verse; the other in sarcastic asides.

Both invite you into the rebel’s point of view, but where Milton uses the Devil to reinforce divine justice, Duncan uses him to undermine it.

The endgame in Paradise Lost is Satan firmly in Hell, stripped of dignity, an eternal warning against rebellion. I, Lucifer ends with Lucifer walking away grinning, having learned nothing he’s willing to admit, but maybe carrying a few uncomfortable human feelings he can’t quite shake. Milton’s Devil falls because he can’t change. Duncan’s Devil survives because he refuses to.

In both cases, Lucifer is compelling because he’s the ultimate outsider; someone who sees rules, refuses them, and accepts the consequences. Milton’s Satan speaks to our fear of ambition’s cost; Duncan’s Lucifer speaks to our hunger for autonomy in a world that loves telling us what’s good for us.

The Devil, it turns out, reflects whatever rebellion we need at the time. In the 17th century, that meant warning against pride. In the 21st, it might mean laughing in God’s face while ordering another round.

If Milton’s Satan makes you think twice about disobedience, Duncan’s Lucifer makes you want to disobey better.

Elon Musk Has a Breeding Fetish and it Creeps Me Out

Let’s talk about Apartheid Clyde again. Not the genius inventor, not the Mars guy, not the billionaire memelord, but the man on a bizarre, almost dystopian crusade to impregnate the planet. At this point it’s not just “having a lot of kids.” It’s a full-blown ideology. A fetish wrapped in futurism. A techno-breeding manifesto disguised as civilization-saving.

Apartheid Clyde has at least 14 children (that we know of) with multiple women, including employees. He’s tweeted things like “population collapse is the biggest threat to humanity” and “I’m doing my part haha,” as if civilization hinges on him personally repopulating the Earth — or Mars — with his offspring. That’s not family planning. That’s legacy-building with a hint of sci-fi eugenics.

He’s literally turned human reproduction into a status symbol. It’s not about love or parenting or raising decent people. It’s about seeding the future … with himself. He thinks he’s a mythological figure tasked with restarting the species after the collapse.

It’s not subtle. He has said he believes “smart people” aren’t reproducing enough. He reportedly fathered twins with a Neuralink executive. He once called birth control a “civilization-ending experiment.” He’s flirted with the logic of eugenics while acting like he’s just being a rationalist.

In any other context, this would be horrifying. But because he’s rich and quirky, people brush it off as just another Musk-ism. But imagine any regular man walking around, telling the world it’s his moral duty to have as many children as possible because his DNA is just that important. That’s not just arrogant. That’s a fetish.

This isn’t about children. It’s about control. Power. Legacy. Apartheid Clyde talks about colonizing Mars, building superintelligence, and rewriting human history, always with himself as the central node. He doesn’t want to save the word. He wants to remake it in his image, and apparently that starts in the bedroom. He’s not trying to be your kid’s role model. He’s trying to be their ancestor.

Here’s the kicker: Apartheid Clyde doesn’t believe in collective solutions. He doesn’t trust democracy. He doesn’t care about building a better society. He wants a genetically optimized future ruled by the right kind of people: him and his kind.

And that’s why his weird, hyper-capitalist breeding campaign is so creepy. Because it’s not just personal. It’s political. It’s patriarchal. And it’s deeply authoritarian in disguise. We don’t need more Musk children. We need fewer billionaires treating the Earth — and our bodies — like a startup they can scale.

The Childfree Christ

I read a book some time ago titled The Childfree Christ which was about anti-natalism from the Bible’s perspective. Yes, I view myself as a Christian. No, I’m not going to try to convert you. I get sick of the pro-life crowd saying that childbirth is God’s will. I’ve found that a lot of the pro-life crowd are hypocrites anyway. They want a child born, but not a child loved, fed, sheltered, and educated. This book takes the well-known “be fruitful and multiply” and flips it on its head. I thought I’d share my views as an anti-natalist and as a Christian.

Most Christians assume you have to be pro-natalist. “Be fruitful and multiply,” as I just said above, right? Children are a “blessing,” families are sacred, and if you don’t want children, you’re somehow rejecting God’s design.

Here’s the thing though: that’s not the whole picture. Not even close.

As a Christian and an anti-natalist, I don’t believe in bringing new life into a world soaked in suffering, injustice, and despair. Why? Because I take suffering seriously. Believe it or not, the Bible does too.

Let’s start with Job. You know … the guy who went through more hell than most of us can imagine. How did he respond?

“Let the day perish on which I was born.” (Job 3:3) “Why did I not perish at birth?” (Job 3:11)

That’s not a metaphor. That’s a man who knows pain and wishes he’d never been born. And God doesn’t smite him for saying it.

Then there’s Ecclesiastes, which is the most brutally honest book in the Bible. At one point it flat out says: “Better than both is the one who has never been born.” (Ecclesiastes 4:3)

That’s a direct quote. Not an interpretation. Not a “hot take.” A scriptural lament about how broken the world is.

Now, let’s talk about Jesus. Childless. Celibate. Wandering. Focused on the Kingdom of God, not the nuclear family. In Luke 23:39, he says something that flips pro-natalism on its head: “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have never bore.” Why? Because He’s talking about a time of horror. A world so dark, having kids is a curse, not a gift.

Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was also childfree … and blunt:

“It is good for a man not to marry.” (1 Corinthians 7:11)

“Those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.” (1 Corinthians 7:28) He saw family life not as a holy mission, but as a worldly distraction and even a burden.

Jesus even said to hate this life. “Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25). That’s not nihilism. That’s recognition that this world — full of violence, grief, and decay — isn’t the final goal. Maybe not creating more suffering is part of loving our neighbor.

There’s a long tradition of Christian asceticism, celibacy, and voluntary childlessness from Paul to the desert fathers, monks, nuns, mystics, and Christ Himself. Not one of them believed reproduction was the point. You don’t get into Heaven by having kids. You don’t earn God’s love by pushing others into this mess. You don’t have to romanticize childbirth while the planet burns and billions suffer.

I’m against unnecessary pain. I believe in the teachings of Christ. I believe bringing someone into this broken world without their consent is not an automatic good. It is cruel. If that bothers you then take it up with Job or Ecclesiastes or Jesus. I’ll be over here, choosing not to multiply and trusting God to understand why.