Regarding the Article I Posted on Animal Cruelty / Things to Think About / Hello

12/16/13, 10:28 pm

http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists

“Your anger will cool into hardened passionate insight if you wait a day.  Most of the things that make me angry, I try to let them sit.  The heat that remains will be sufficient.  The stuff that evaporates is the stuff that would have simply offended or made it histrionic.” -Keith Olberman

    I am an avid reader of just about anything.  Newspapers, magazines, books, websites, nutrition facts, etc...Being a reader opens one’s eyes to things that non-readers may not be privy to, and every once in a while you may come across something that moves you to changing a viewpoint in your life...or creating a new one that may have not been there before.

    Recently I read an article that moved me to the point of a change.  After I read it I went apeshit, my head spinning circles, spewing fire from my eye sockets, the hate inside me born of a spawn from lucifer himself.  I ran around and punched things and screamed and kicked and cursed.  I was reading about cruelty to farm animals, and it caused me to have a cow, and this cow is now living humanely in my living room and will continue to do so for the rest of his natural life.

    The above quote from Keith Olberman is fitting for my situation because after I read about the things that are done to cows, pigs, and chickens so we can get cheap meat (and very possibly pay for it with our health) made me so angry that all I wanted to do was write a 12,000 word manifesto that damned every person on earth who eats mass produced meat straight to hell...In hindsight this may have been an exaggeration.

    I did start the thing though, and plastered it with quotes from said article along with my own personal beliefs and as I was doing it I realized that I was so angry that what I was trying to say wasn’t coming across very well (It didn’t come across well after several beers at a friend’s engagement party Saturday night either).  You’ve got to press on though when you feel strongly about something.

    And please do not get me wrong.  There are terrible things happening to our fellow humans in other parts of the world as well as right here at home at this very moment.  My point is that these things will continue to happen to both man and animal for as long as all of us decide that we’d rather not hear about it because it might upset us.  I am guilty of this too.  I was discussing this topic with a coworker today and it went something like this:

Me: “Pigs are just as smart and affectionate as dogs and cats and what happens to them blows my fucking mind!”

Coworker: (Concerned sounding) “Really?”

Me: “Yeah.  The mother is immediately shocked and kicked and prodded away from her babies, which she is trying desperately to get back to, and meanwhile the baby piglets have their tails cut off without any kind of anesthetic and they’re screaming bloody murder and a lot of the workers take pleasure in this.”

Coworker: “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

I can’t say that I blame him.  I had a professor show my philosophy class a video that documented a lot of this senseless slaughter once, and for whatever reason it didn’t take for me at the time.  I was much more worried about catching my next buzz.  Maybe it was divine intervention or some other serendipitous phenomenon that brought it back to me now, when I’ve been desperately trying to get pumped up about something.  Some folks become born-again Christians...I write blogs about animal cruelty.

I’ve ranted on this long and haven’t even mentioned where I read said article.  I found it on Rollingstone.com, and it is titled: In the Belly of the Beast, by: Paul Solotoroff.  You may be thinking that I am just reading liberal propaganda and adding in my own imaginary catastrophic crimes against nature, but I am speaking from watching the videos that are presented along with this finely written article.  Mr. Solotoroff interviewed a group of undercover workers sent into these slaughterhouses by the Humane Society of the United States.  They caught workers taking pleasure in seriously injuring animals, animals living in multiple inches of their own shit (mmmm boy, who wants a steak?), and multiple other chilling scenes that if you are able to watch without it moving you in some way that you may possibly not be alive or have had the part of your brain that projects compassion removed and replaced with evil…

And what really gets my goat (see what I did there?) is that the large meat manufacturers that carry out this sickness along with their lobbyists have our politicians in their pocket.  Laws are in place to protect our household pets, but not livestock, no matter how heinous the offense (Read the piece.)  Lawmakers in several states are also attempting to make it illegal to video and document the cruelty in these places.  I believe in privacy and not having to worry about watching your back all the time, but not when you are torturing a creature that is scared, defenseless, and more times than not is struggling to find a way out of its surroundings, which it never will.  Cows, pigs, and chickens are kept in much smaller quarters than are livable.  This leads to cannibalism, tramplings, and contaminated food supply when the corpses are left to sit there with the ones that are still to be slaughtered.  This all goes down in the name of efficiency.  Because we can.  Why churn out less food to the public than we can?  If we can up our output to the absolute tipping point, why not do just that?  Because what is happening is fucking barbaric.  That is why.

I am not proposing that everyone become a vegan tomorrow.  What you feed yourself is entirely up to you.  I am proposing that everyone think about what goes on behind the scenes.  I am proposing that we educate ourselves more about things.  Things like this, as well as other things we may not want to hear about for fear of hurting our fragile little feelings or giving us a tummy ache.  Animal cruelty is just my wake-up call.  Yours may be something else.  I strongly recommend you go to Rolling Stone and read this article though, because even if you care nothing for animals, you should care about the backroom bullshit that causes these things to happen, and you should also care about the health issues that the constant stew of chemicals being pumped into our meat and dairy supply could raise or already have.

I was raised to be an animal lover and I am sure that is why this issue has touched me in such a way.  It just isn’t right though.  This is an instance where greed has become so rampant that we are willing to completely disregard other living things’ well-being.  There’s no reason to treat them the way that we do.

So much for the quote from Olberman I guess...If this rant or some other thing that you have seen or heard has moved you the way this has me, please don’t just let it fall by the wayside.  We let things fall there much too often, and this is what breeds injustice.

PUPPYFIGHT!

12/10/13, 10:29 pm

    I just broke up a pretty serious fight between my two poodles.  I was sitting at the kitchen table while Veronica was hogging the computer desk for her “really important final exam,” when Charlie and Red both expressed an interest that it was time to play.  I could have picked up any of the number of toys that are lying around and thrown it for the perfect amount of playtime, but I decided to get up and chase Charlie into the bedroom with Red not far behind.

    Usually when we play “run to the bedroom,” it involves all of us running into the bedroom (yes), and jumping on to the bed and roughhousing.  Sometimes we play “hide under the blanket,” and other times we play “tug of war.”  This particular time before I could initiate any of the above mentioned games, a violent free-for-all broke out...It’s only by the grace of God that I, or either puppydog was able to escape with our lives.

    I was the first to the jump on the bed with Charlie close behind and finally Red thereafter.  Normally Red would be the first dog to make it, but he was preoccupied with his mommy (Veronica) when Charlie and I make our break.  It’s only about a 15-20 ft. sprint from the family room to the bedroom, so Red closed on us fast with his freakishly long legs.  It all becomes blurry after we all landed.

    I vaguely remember calling out for help while the two titan poodles were in the midst of their duel, but to no avail.  They had postured each other in their battle stances and it was then left over to whomever would draw first blood.  It was not unlike a Darthraki wedding.  Little did they know that first blood would be drawn from their master.

    At first I remember thinking that it may all just blow over and break up on it’s own like most fights between puppy-brothers do, but it just kept escalating.  A moment came when I knew that I had to involve myself or surely commit one of them to a soldier-puppy’s burial upon the winter’s morn…”STAND DOWN, PUPPIES!,” I screamed in fear for their safety and my own.  But it was no longer feasible to expect any peaceful resolution...So I pounced.

    I am currently employed in Crisis Management for Behaviorally Disordered teens, and am highly trained in Safe Crisis Management.  I was sure when I jumped in that my instinct and training would kick in and all would be well.  I imagined it would be somewhere along the lines of when Batman would disable a group of henchmen without issue...What I forgot was that Batman often gets injured while fighting crime.

    I swept Charlie up using the side-carry-transport hold and made my way for the door to separate the two brutes.  It would have been a clean break had I not failed to take into consideration Red’s freakishly long legs.  I remembered this fact right as his front incisors sank into my left love-handle.

    “AHHHHH!,” I yelled as I quickly dropped Charlie and ran screaming from the room.  “Stupid damn dogs!!!! Go ahead and rip each other’s heads off!!!”  I ran back to the family room to see Veronica still sitting at the computer table (which she continues to hog all the time for her graduate classes) laughing hysterically.  “That sounded so terrible that I didn’t even want to come in there,” she said, still laughing.

“I’m bleeding out!!!  Get a gauze pad!!!”  

“Hahahahaha.  They hurt you?,” she asked, not really caring.

“Red got me near the kidney.  You better go check on them.”

Both dogs survived.  As of presstime, I am also in stable condition, and both dogs have been locked in the closet.  The master will always win.

12/7/13, 10:40 pm

Day one of Luke 2.0 has gone pretty well if I may say so.  I did a mile and a half on the elliptical today...This wasn’t planned.  At no point in my rebirth did I anticipate any sort of exercise…

I’m sitting here staring at the same building as always across the parking lot outside and thanking the lord that I never got serious about hunting in my youth.  I’m not sure what possesses grown men to go out and sit in the cold and wait for game to walk by in sub-zero temperatures, but I am sure that it isn’t for me.  I’ve been perfectly content with sitting inside where it’s warm and watching college football all day.

And what a day of college football it’s been!  I knew Mizzou and Auburn would take it to a shootout, but I did not think that one would beat the other by 19 points.  That was a gambling loss on my part today, as I am sure it was with lots of others around the country.  I quote Dr. Hunter S. Thompson often, and as a master gambler he wrote more than once that it is silly to bet with your heart.  Even though I am no Mizzou diehard, some part of me wanted to see them pull it out today...And I am the guy that once egged on a good friend and Mizzou alum to go on an obscene tirade on why his alma was so great in the middle of a family pizza parlor by saying how much I thought they sucked at everything.  That was a fun day full of beers.  Brooks Demijian, Todd Bauer, and Matthew M. Terry can attest.

Michigan State pulled the upset and changed my luck on a dime in the process.  It could be a pretty lucrative night with all the small bets I’ve placed.  Fresno State is trucking along nicely and Damian Lilliard just went nails on a three spot to put the Blazers within two with just under four minutes to go...They probably won’t clear the 5 ½ on the spread, but we can still hit the teaser bet if New Mexico State follows suit against Gonzaga, but that’s neither here nor there...Not looking like the Blazers are gonna pull it off as of press time.  Fuck me.

Oh well.  That’s why we don’t place large bets here in the Schnake/Wright residence...Hold on, wait!!!  Lilliard hits another tray with 1.9 seconds left!!!  Holy shit, people!!!  This kid is a dynamo.  If you haven’t heard of him then you need to stop what you are doing and go look him up right at this very moment...As of press time Monta Ellis just sealed it for the Mavs at the buzzer.  Fuck him and his no-defense playing self.  It’s amazing how much more exciting these games are when you have a few dollars invested in them.

The Blazers are a team that I have a softspot for.  The city of Portland rivals St. Louis Cardinals fans when it comes to supporting the Blazers.  Growing up here that impresses me.  Quite possibly the greatest sports book ever written was about a season spent with the Trail Blazers.  The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam is a classic of nonfiction, period.  Nevermind sports.  The man paints a picture that can’t be matched short of going there yourself and seeing it all in person.  That’s the mark of a great journalist.  He was a master.

How’s all this for stream of consciousness writing?  It feels good to get thoughts on the page.  If you’re reading then bear with me.  Just like the guitar, I’ve gotta practice to get really good...But that’s the goal.  Nighty night.

12/7/13, 1:20 am

Hunter Thompson once wrote about being reborn.  In the author’s note to The Great Shark Hunt he wrote that he “might as well be sitting up here carving the words for my own tombstone...and when I finish, the only fitting exit will be right straight off this fucking terrace and into The Fountain, 28 stories below and at least 200 yards out in the air and across Fifth Avenue.”  He decided to make a conscious decision that he had lived the life that he had planned to and that “everything from now on will be A New Life, a different thing, a gig that ends tonight and starts tomorrow morning.”

I’m feeling a bit like the good doctor on this cold winter night in St. Louis.  I am looking out a window at the building across the parking lot and contemplating what my second life will hold.  After a long talk with my wonderful girlfriend I am starting to feel like the life I counted on is over and now I have to start trying in order to make things happen.  I’ve been at the party now for almost 30 years.  It has been a lot of fun.  But I’ve been coasting for the most part.  Maybe not through all of it, but for most of it I’ve found the safest nearby wave and rode it for as far as it would take me.  The comfortable wave instead of the calling wave.  The calling waves are the ones that call out to those who are ready for a challenge and want to gain an actual rush from accomplishing it.  Even sitting here at the keyboard my instinct is telling me to cut this rant short and go watch tv.  But pressing on is much healthier.  

I’m not planning on doing a header out the window and Dr. Thompson didn’t do it either.  I am however thinking that Luke Schnake 2.0 will be born in the morning after some sleepy time.  

What, you ask, is the conflict that brought on this resolution?  It actually is some distressing news regarding unpaid college bills and the news that I may not be able to pursue a second college degree in journalism right away.  I am four classes shy and would love to be able to apply for jobs in the St. Louis market with a B.A. in journalism.  It just may have to come to pass at a later date.  Luke 1.0 may have let this detract him from his goals, but as you will see, Luke 2.0 is going to be more assertive in his writing and publishing goals and will be every bit as handsome as previous Luke.  I WILL receive my second degree, but it may not be in August as hoped for.  I will become a professional writer or reporter, and I will receive gainful employment doing so.  Economy and job markets be damned!!!  Words must be produced!!!  Why not by Luke 2.0!?

My current personality before the overnight switch has lacked a certain amount of self-motivation that has hindered Luke 1.0’s ability to accomplish a lot of things.  On many occasions first Luke has mentioned how “the future will be different,” or how “from now on I will make myself write,” or “I am going to stop procrastinating tomorrow!”  It will be.

The talk with my Veronica that I speak of had me pacing back and forth around the foot of the bed and raising my voice not so much in anger but more in a declarative stance that this was the life that I wanted for myself careerwise and I want us both to be happy both in the home and outside.  For some reason my fragile psyche needs to feel the warmth of knowing that my intentions are out there before I am able to do anything about them.  Kind of like this rebirth that is taking place in the daylight hours later this morning.  Even though my public most likely gives no less than two shits about my intentions in life, it is nonetheless necessary.  The show must go on.  Luke 2.0 shall be born…

It is frustrating for me that this has not happened sooner because when I rack my brain for things to write about there really are endless possibilities.  Family, dogs, sports, work, it could go on.  Even if it may not all be interesting to everyone out there, that is where you start and hone your skill to the point where you could be writing about two robins fighting over a piece of toast and have your readers by their nuts the whole time.  Sometimes it just takes a little Chivas or Labatt Blue to get the fingers, much like the bowels, expelling the buildup in the brain.  There’s a lot of shit up there.

There are things that are possible that I can grasp for while I wait for the day to finish the degree.  Things that my former self lacked the gumption for, but Future-Luke will leap at.  It starts tomorrow (today)...Get ready.

(Friends will no doubt roll eyes at the thought of Luke still taking college courses...To these people I can only say: fine whiskeys and wines also take many years to reach their optimal taste.)

Keeping With the Dignity of the Bobblehead

8/7/13

  The smell of kraut is one of favorite smells at the ballpark…That’s just one of the many thoughts that went through my head last night at the Cardinals game.  Memories from yesteryear come through every time I go to a game.  Since 2006 I have looked around the current Busch Stadium and still feel like I am in its predecessor until my eyes get to the arch skyline.  (I was sweating ballsacks at the game too, and rest assured that I would have been sweating twice that in the old Busch.  The wind was never invited to the old Busch.)  It was “Nelly Bobblehead Night” at the ballpark last night.  I mentioned this to one of my bosses at work today and he asked when his bobblehead night would be.  I see his point.  It’s a way to draw in a crowd no doubt, but what possible connection does Nelly have to the Cardinals that my boss, I, or anyone of my friends doesn’t have?  Maybe its sour-grapes on our part, but it’s a reasonable damn question. 

           

  I can remember my mom taking my buddies and I to games in junior high on school nights and us staying until the end of the game pretty much every time.  There were circumstances that could keep us from staying like a blowout on either side or a rain delay.  But  for the most part we would always stick around at that time because we wanted to see if La Russa would put in Willie McGee.  Willie was in his career twilight at that point and he was strictly a bench player, but every time skinny Willie hit the field there was a standing ovation.  For good reason too, he was a shot of nostalgia in the late 90’s of “Whitey-ball,” which utilized his speed and playing style perfectly.  He was and still is a hero to any true Cards fan.  (At this time there was also a guy named McGwire playing here in town and he could’ve been another big reason people stuck around for the whole game…But if you’re like me and think juicers are ruining baseball then you’d like to forget that he was a reason you’d stick around.)  Willie was still giving his all even though his legs wouldn't bend anymore when he ran.

            

  Anyway, I couldn’t help but notice last night that a lot of people were leaving in the 7-8 innings when we were only up by a run!  I’m looking around thinking what the hell is wrong with all of you people!?  I know it’s a fucking weeknight, but we can’t claim to be the best baseball town in America and all leave the game in the 7^th effing inning only up 2-1.  We probably made the damn Dodgers feel right at home heading to the gates during a close game like that. They played the Clydesdale song on the organ between the 7^th and 8^th and the claps were some sorry stuff, man.  A crowd from the local Tuesday night Jewish coed volleyball league could have made more noise…Maybe I’m crazy and just imagining this, but it just seemed like there should have been more around for a close game in August against one the best teams in our league.

            

  You’re probably saying right now, “Luke, you’re crazy…Lots of people probably just showed up for Nelly night and a lot of them were probably fairweather fans.”  I agree.  I’m sitting here watching the game right now which is “Star Wars Night,” and I guarantee there are 30-year-old virgin Storm Troopers there tonight who left in the bottom of the 4^th because they didn’t understand what was going on.  (I can make fun of Star Wars fans because I am one…I’ve had sex though.)  You may also be saying, “Luke, you sack of crap, Nelly is a local celeb and a lifelong Cards fan.”  The Oakland A’s had an M.C. Hammer bobblehead night last season because he was a local hero and a lifelong A’s fan…That doesn’t make it right.  As much as I love one hit wonder rappers (Bel Biv Devoe!), and the theme song to the Addams Family movie, I just feel like Bobbleheads should be reserved for those who contribute to the game or the team.  Call me old fashioned…

  One bright spot from Nelly night was that his lyric; “Light it up and take a puff, pass it to me now” is no longer blurred on the stadium sound system.  I mean, if this isn’t progress for pot smoking I don’t know what is!