The Seven Deadly Sins (21 page)

I have a really great argument against “greed is a sin” dog shit. Have you ever eaten one single M&M? Hmm? Have you ever used just one single square of toilet paper? Have you ever limited yourself to just one ketchup packet? Have you ever slept more than your allotted government-recommended eight hours a night? Well, not only have you been a glutton and a sloth (allegedly), you have been greedy.

On behalf of my fellow M&M lovers everywhere, I would like everyone who thinks like that to kindly go fuck themselves. Greed is just the genetic need to acquire, and that has been going on since we moved into frickin' caves: “We need grass on the floor, and it
has
to match the moss on the walls.” We are hunter/gatherers, and if you did not bring back the bigger brontosaurus, you had to go club your neighbor to death and take his.

Leave it to religion to make greed a sin, by the way. I know how it started. In its heyday (i.e., the Middle Ages), the Church was not only the seat of spiritual mercy and grandeur but also the place to obtain an education. Colleges were built by the
clergy and, more importantly,
for
the clergy. In order to attend, you had to become a priest. Most commerce was presented within spitting distance from the Church's doorstep, and usually the vicars got a little kickback for their trouble. So imagine its dismay if someone came along who was wealthy and a little bit ahead of the curve in the smarts department—Q.E.D.: “He or she is guilty of the sin of greed!”

What a crock. Was the Church not greedy when they kept education for themselves? More to the point, are religions not guilty of greed and vanity when they say their “god” is the only real god and their teachings are the only real teachings, and they try to hoard all the followers by decrying the other side? It is horseshit; any religion that preaches one-sided doctrines is not religion at all but a fucking recipe for control and hate. I am talking about Christianity, Islam, and any other way of life that tries to control life itself. The zealots of the world are using faith as a race to see who can sell the most holy cookies because whoever has the most followers wins. They combine scripture and conspiracy theory to fashion a mandate that will attract the human flies to the sticky trap. We are the equivalent of religious capital—nothing more. When those who are leading the masses are doing so not because they are teaching but because they are obsessed about winning, you can see that greed can corrupt the most ardent and proves that no one is above reproach. We are human: We are flawed, and saying that some people are not culpable is blasphemous to the human condition.

On a lighter note, I love movies!

I have several thousand DVDs in a room I call the Vault. It is air conditioned to maintain the proper temperature because my
comic books are also in there. The movies are alphabetized, followed by any titles that start with a number. The room has several shelves that encircle its circumference. It now has a lock on the door because my friends borrow movies and never bring them back. Hey, fuckface, I'm not Blockbuster. I will break your fucking hands and legs. Bring back my copy of
I Spit on Your Grave
, Mike!

I have so many movies that many are still in the plastic. I have so many movies that I forget what movies I have and I rebuy them and end up giving the old ones away. I have so many movies that I sometimes keep the multiple copies because there are different versions. I have around twelve different versions of
Reservoir Dogs
: I have the regular one, all the different colored tenth anniversary editions, the special edition Gas Can package that was released for the fifteenth anniversary, and the Blu-ray version. If I am anything, I am a collector and an enthusiast. But here is my question: What is the difference between greed and collecting? Where does fandom end and fanaticism begin? Is it greed if all my movies are alphabetized?

We are all guilty of some greed. Think about those times when you need a penny at the convenience store, and you know you have a penny in the pocket of your skinny jeans and you take one from the penny plate anyway. Think about those times you were strolling through the grocery store and you took a few pieces from the Brach's candy display. You guys do remember Brach's candy, right? No?
Fraggle Rock
neither? Damn, I am getting old.

You can call it stealing, but I call it greed. You did not need that penny or that delicious candied root beer barrel, but you took it anyway. You wanted to have it so no one else could. That
makes you a bad person. Not really, but it does make you human. We all want not only our fair share but whatever is left in the till as well. It is like eating all the fries at the bottom of the bag when you know some of them were in your wife's order of fries as well. The whole human race is trying desperately to get more for their money, the spiritual super-saver deal so to speak. Is that greed? Not necessarily. You do not have to be greedy to stand in line for a discount. But the base measure of wanting and needing is in that very concept of necessity. Bring a man a glass of water and he will drink it, no questions asked. Bring a man a shot of whiskey and he will complain over whether it is scotch or bourbon. Personally, I prefer rye, but that is just me.

A lot of people are going to say this book is just a way for us all to get away with proverbial murder, but my point is much simpler. We all carry so much fucking baggage in our lives that the last thing we need is more shit we do not need from people we do not know. It is like when you see the sequel to a movie you love—you already know what has happened beforehand. The backstory goes without saying. So if we all know we are human and we are going to make mistakes, why keep shoving it down our throats? Do you want us to choke on morality or spit resentment into your pupils? We know we are flawed. We learn from flaws. Our flaws make us unique. We are the soiled snowflakes of history. But to say we are going to burn in your hell not only for being born but also for being alive is the greatest piece of hypocrisy ever committed to myth. The cocksuckers that be will forever try to put the “wrong” in your right to be anything, and they are terrified that someone is going to come along and call them on their bullshit. That time is now; that someone is me.

Reality is notorious for putting its own unique spin on the status quo. There is a common misconception among the believers and the shakers that damnation lies in laying down with evil in its most dubious form. However, the truth is far from where they stand. The devils we know do not come in any medieval or fantastic guise—no red suits or pitchforks, no fire or brimstone. They look like you and me. The devil you have to watch out for looks like your neighbor, talks like a salesman, and feels like your best friend. Holy help you if you get all three.

Here is a tawdry little tale for you. About ten years ago I was taught a very valuable lesson about greed. I had just received a sizable check, or as I am prone to call it, “coin of the realm,” because you never know when you are going to find it. Anyway, I received this check and I thought my life was signed, sealed, and delivered from evil. I had never made that much money in my entire life; in fact, if you were to add up all the money I had ever made in my life up until that point, it would not have equaled this one check. I am not bragging; if I were, I would tell you the amount. It was not in the millions or anything. I am just putting it into perspective so you understand what happens in the rest of this story. People say money does not buy you happiness. What they do not tell you is that losing money will make you lose your mind.

Anyway, I fell into the same cliché mistake that I had always read about. After I had spent a bunch of it, I decided I was going to “play it safe” and invest it into companies that I would either start myself or that already existed. So the first company I invested in was a T-shirt company that I had been planning to start with a person I will call Jimmy. Jimmy and I had been talking
about doing something together for a long time, and it seemed that now that I had the capital to do so, we could get started. We decided to start simple and print white-on-black T-shirts with clever sayings that we had come up with. It was foolproof—no artwork to reproduce and no writers to pay off. So I sent Jimmy a large deposit of money to get things started. I know what you are thinking and I concur. That was indeed my first mistake. Do you know what Jimmy did? He used some of the money to print a few T-shirts that he then let sit in boxes and he spent the rest because it was a business expense, that is, he did not have a job and he needed gas, food, and cigarettes. After going back and forth with Jimmy for several months, I finally cut ties with him and wrote off the money as a loss. It was not like I was going to make the same mistake twice, right?

So the second mistake I made was a tattoo shop I helped start with a friend I will call Louie. Louie was a really good tattoo artist and had already started one shop in town with someone else. He was looking to start his own and I was looking for some way to get some money back and still be a sort of loud silent partner. So a plan was hatched: Find a spot where there would be little competition in our field and not only offer tattoos but also piercing, T-shirts, and jewelry. I advanced him a good chunk of change and, while I was at it, bought some ad time at some of the local radio stations for good measure. It was only a matter of time before I would see a little return on my investment. You have to love the indestructibility of youth.

The shop, as you can guess, was a flop. Louie set it up an hour outside of Des Moines in a town that suffered from chronic small town hypocrisy. He also hired two of the worst artists in the business to help him. The place was churning out shitty ink at high prices. I tried to buy more ad time to get more business,
but it was no use. The shop went under. Louie went off and started another shop with another sucker. I ate another handful of shit to go with the money I had lost. It was okay, though. It was not like I was going to make the same mistake three times, right?

So the third mistake I made was the worst of all. It involved people who were very close to me and it rips my heart to pieces to think about it. Out of respect to them, I will keep their identities completely anonymous. It makes no difference, though. The loan was substantial. The loss was incredible. I literally have nothing to show for it. I have not been the same since. I ended up in financial trouble, and for a few years I was chasing the tail end of a tax debt I had not planned to have. Greed had made me think I was smarter than I really was with money. If I had sat on that money, I would be doing very well right now. Instead I turned into some kind of carpet-bagging lunatic trying to triple every cent in my pocket. If the whole ordeal taught me anything, it is this: Greed makes you do the most inconsiderate shit on the planet. . .and I should have just stuck to singing.

I recovered from my follies, thank god. I never got a dime back from any of them, but I can say karma is a toothy rabid dog. Jimmy is now broke and his teeth have rotted out of his face. Louie lost everything, including his wife, and had to leave town. The other people, well, let's just say they are living in a hell I would not even want to drive by on a road trip. In the end, the experience and the knowledge I took away from it all has been wonderful. Today I am smarter with my money and let people who do it professionally handle it for a modest fee. I do not start or invest in companies anymore: I buy houses. Real estate may fluctuate, but everyone needs a house at some point. I set up college funds for my children and I am saving the rest for a
houseboat. That way, no matter where I am floating, that is where I live. The way was rough, but I got there. I am wiser than I have ever been. I am not a genius—I still forget to put the seat down and my wife hates it. But I am getting there. So after all the things I have taken away from that and all the things I have learned, I can safely say that without greed I would not have become the man punching these shiny keys today. If I took so much away because of greed, how can that be a sin?