The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: side_show on February 20, 2008, 04:34:04 am
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Hey folks,
Since you're basically all strangers who I know really well, I'd like to invite you to contribute to my latest project:
I want to know:
The evil within you.
The evil you’ve done.
The evil done to you.
The evil you keep inside, that no one knows but you.
I am a professional artist and writer collecting personal stories of the dark, ugly, awful truth for a project I am creating. Stories will be used as part of a theatrical performance.
To share your story:
Email to EvilTheatre@gmail.com
Facebook & MySpace: add friend “Story Evil-Theatre”
Stories can be shared anonymously, or you can leave your name. If you want me to interview you in person, send me your contact information via any of the contact methods listed above and I’ll be in touch.
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Some doors can't be closed once they're opened, Smells. Are you sure you really want to know these things?
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I feel fairly confident that I've been party to enough evil myself that I will be okay with anything that is thrown my way. The reason the anonymity option is there is for those who want it, not because I desire it. I've done enough awful stuff to others and had enough awful stuff done to me, that I know what this is about. I mean, it's the sort of job I've done before - sitting down with victims of genocide and war veterans and such and them telling me all the stuff they've never told anyone before, me turning it into art. I've been there many a time. It is part of the question though:
"Battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you." - F. Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
I'm interrogating this - it's the artistic journey of creating the piece. Do we become somehow soiled by experience, or can we supersede it? I don't know. I'm looking. The piece will be a post 9/11 examination of people's personal experiences with evil. We hear the jargon that "evil doers" are "other" people, mysteriously not within our personal sphere, yet somehow threatening "our way of life." My personal experience is that this is untrue - that the evil is beside me and also within me. I believe in the possibility of inherent goodness in everyone, but also the possibility in inherent evil within everyone and that is the contradiction I'm examining.
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The only time I've been purposely evil about anything ever is scorned affection... and even then... it was a fake kind of evil, like I was forcing myself to try and be evil and it just came out like this strange fun-house mirror parody of evil because... y'know... I actually loved the girl or whatever and I just was trying to talk myself out of it by trying to be a dick and failing at it miserably.
I dunno.
The interesting thing about my taste in media is that... whenever a character is just evil or just likes doing bad things, I immediately can't take it seriously. Everyone is the hero in their own story, you know, absolutely everyone.
Hitler, Mother Teresa, the bored girl working at the CVS around the corner... we all the all of us really believe that we're doing the best we can at any given time, you know.
All the best stories, I think, are about people who've done horrible things but getting inside their head and figuring out why in their life experience they've come to believe that it was all right and good, in some way, ultimately.
But so many people are so... desperately afraid of that, of that kind of story, because they don't wanna admit that they could turn that mirror on themselves, too.
I'm not saying I haven't done horrible horrible things but... nearly all of them have been accidental and I really thought I was doing the best thing that I could at the time, the only exceptions being in heartbreak.
I do have one thing, though... maybe I'll mail it to you, it's... kinda personal.
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Is there something wrong with me that... I can't think of anything?
I often feel that I am surrounded by stupidity which has an effect that's the same as evil - the results are the same even though the motivation is different. But I think we often attribute worse motives to people than they really have - they're stupid more than they're bad, or they just don't give a fuck, which stinks, but I don't think rises to the level of evil.
So, all the lousy crap that people have done to me - I don't think I could apply that word to it. But maybe I'm wrong and that's part of why the world doesn't always make sense to me.
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i feel the same way, but with less life experience to back it up.
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I'm really conflicted about sending in my story, because it's something that relates to a topic that many people find evil but I, personally, don't; I'm split between not wanting to reinforce the general assumption that it's evil and wanting to relate just what parts of it did bother me. I'll think on it some more.
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Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint. He can be called a warped and sick man who has failed to achieve a better answer to the challenge of having been born human, and this is true; he can also be called a man who took the wrong way in search of his salvation.
-Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
I love this quote so much. I wish I hadn't had to return the book to the library before I finished it. So awesome.
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I've done some things in my life I'm not particularly proud of, but as LFM says nothing that at the time didn't seem justified to me. But if anything that makes it more evil doesn't it? Because built into that statement is the assumption that your desires are more important than someone else's. There's a good Pratchett quotes that goes 'Sin is when you treat people as things, including yourself.' and I think there's more than a grain of truth to that.
One thing that isn't that high on the evil scale (I think) but that has always stuck in my mind is this: Once when I was a kid, say around 10 or so, I was chasing my little brother around the house, not in a fun way: he had done something or other that annoyed me and must have just been going on a bit too long because my mother kind of pulled me up and asked me what it was exactly that I wanted to do to him and I just said 'Hurt him' and I really truly meant it in the sense that I just wanted to cause another person (my brother no less) as much pain as I could because of how he'd made me feel. Obviously my mother didn't let me follow my cunning plan through to it's conclusion.
It was a completely childish reaction but at the same time a kind of disturbing one since I know there are still times I just want to hurt something, not because I think it will make anything right but just out of a primal sense of vengeance.
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I have a third nipple -- does that count?
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WITCH! WITCH!
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Hmm.
Evil.
Good vs Evil.
I think that our human position makes it very difficult to be objective about our own position between good and evil, and even the position of others. It does seem apparent on the really large scale that Nazi Germany as an entity perpetrated a lot of evil acts, and left a legacy of evil in the world by ramping up antisemitism, nationalism, racism, and homophobia to amazing and hellish levels. We can say that Hitler was evil, but was he more or less evil making orders or policies than those at the lowest level actually doing the killing, the torture, the mayhem? And can we, from our human level, be sure that Hitler wasn't being directed by something more evil than himself?
My Christian self believes that today's Protestant mainstream has an interesting diametric going on in this regard. I know many people who stand in church, week after week, praising God and contributing to the Church and its work very sincerely. But a huge proportion of them are happy to say they believe in God, and in Christ, but will not admit (particularly out loud) that they believe that there is Satan at work in the world. In fact, those of us who are quite sure Satan is at work in the world are practically looked at like crazy people when we talk about the fact that everyone who believes should be in a constant struggle with their fallen self, that part of us that still reflects original sin, and is capable of Evil thoughts, words and deeds. All sin is, in fact, rooted in the deception of mankind and original sin, which was perpetrated by Satan in the Garden of Eden, and places us in constant tension and a state of spiritual warfare.
If Satan is a human construct, as so many seem to believe, how can God not be a construct as well? I have difficulty believing in God and the risen Christ in the absence of a very real enemy. Without Satan, Christ's suffering, death and resurrection, as fulfillment of God's promise to redeem us from sin and ransom us from death, becomes far less meaningful. Satan must be real for God to be real, in my opinion.
We are all capable of evil, and I have sinned plenty in my life, and that is partly a result( in my opinion) of evil at work in the world, and partly an unwillingness to look beyond myself and my own (perceived) needs. It seems to me that you are looking for stories of transformative evil, a deed that crosses the line that separates forgivable sin from unforgivable (in our human perception) sin. Of course, there is no unforgivable sin for those who repent and turn their backs on sin, at least to God. The world, however, is another story. The kind of deeds it seems you are looking for are the kind that we bury away forever, lock up in our own Pandora's box, the sort of thing that makes it difficult to look in the mirror if you have any kind of conscience. And some have rightly pointed out that those genies never go all the way back into their bottles.
If you had no conscience, though, perhaps you wouldn't identify those acts as evil in the first place...
Looking down at these responses, it's interesting to think about the words behind the words. I know for a fact that in our midst, there are criminal pasts, people with mental health issues, probably people who have been victims (and possibly perpetrators) of heinous (and evil) acts of exploitation and abuse. There may be people who made choices, like terminating a pregnancy or ending a marriage, or attempting to end their own lives who may have felt trapped in an untenable situation. I've made peace with my own past, with the person I used to be - it wasn't that hard, I never considered myself evil although I have, in the past, been pretty callous and occasionally cruel for no real good reason other than it was easier than being understanding or caring or kind. And I used to be a lot more impulsive about my own pleasures at the expense of other people's pain.
Maybe some level of Evil is our standard state and the transformative power is Good - I mean, in many cases it seems more of an effort for people to be kind. In so many cases, people are indifferent at best. But I like all of you enough that there is nothing you can say in this thread that would make me hate you. I just hate to have my illusion of all my perfect, well adjusted and highly functional message board friends shattered...
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Maybe some level of Evil is our standard state and the transformative power is Good - I mean, in many cases it seems more of an effort for people to be kind.
I agree on this point, though I suspect I'm coming at it from a different angle. I remember someone posting in another thread (I think it was LFM?) about how a lot of the pain in the world is caused by the fact that we are living in an environment that we are not suited to. I don't think this is entirely false but I'd argue that many of the acts we define as good happen when we make a choice to disregard our own (generally selgiraffe) instincts and put someone else before ourselves.
I wouldn't go so far as to say Evil is our default state but Good almost certainly isn't. As A-Dawg says above, it's generally indifference. Most people just don't bother to think of others, which I wouldn't classify as evil since lack of conscious choice can't have moral value, but when you start taking others into account, as small a thing as it seems, that's the start of goodness.
We walk around with kind of two worlds: one that we see around us and this huge world that we have behind our eyeballs and we tend to ascribe them similar value, so a person who takes up a small amount of the world we can see might be judged less important than a big idea in the world in our head. When we do that though we're forgetting they have wolds inside them too.
I hope that made sense, I just had a triple shot cappuccino so I'm hearing colours and tasting sounds this morning.
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We walk around with kind of two worlds: one that we see around us and this huge world that we have behind our eyeballs and we tend to ascribe them similar value, so a person who takes up a small amount of the world we can see might be judged less important than a big idea in the world in our head. When we do that though we're forgetting they have wolds inside them too.
This is so true, but you know, maybe part of the problem is that if you really think about it - that every single other person has that big world in their head that they're at the center of it - it tends to make your brain explode. Dealing with every single other person you meet all day, if you thought about this every time - it's hard to see how you'd get on with your life. Treating most other people as minor characters is kind of an understandable defense mechanism.
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Oh no doubt, that's why I say it's not evil to not consider it, but it is certainly good when we do.
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This is so true, but you know, maybe part of the problem is that if you really think about it - that every single other person has that big world in their head that they're at the center of it - it tends to make your brain explode. Dealing with every single other person you meet all day, if you thought about this every time - it's hard to see how you'd get on with your life. Treating most other people as minor characters is kind of an understandable defense mechanism.
Maybe the problem with so many people <is> that they are at the center of it...and we as humans are overwhelmed utterly by trying to make sense of that world and make it work and be successful AND balance the world we've created with those everyone else has, and the world around us. Maybe sin or evil sneaks in as easy ways to seek comfort, or pleasure, or to make our little worlds seem better.
We aren't enough to fill the center of our worlds. There is always a space left. As humans, we try to fill that hole with anything we can seize on - drugs, sex, crime, behaviors, alcohol, work, religion, internet pornography, whatever...a good friend of mine refers to that space as the "God-shaped hole" in each of us. I believe that a positive faith can fill that place and give a person lots of reasons to do 'good' in the world, and that many of the other things that people try to fill it with can lead not necessarily to evil but certainly to continued unhappiness that some people follow to some form of evil, whether perpretated on us, in us, by us, or through us.
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I don't know if I really have any stories of true evil. To me, evil is knowing the right way to treat people and then doing the opposite, just for your own pleasure or to dodge a bullet, i.e., deliberately screwing over another person to save your own skin. I have a couple of stories of stifling incompetence, but nothing that really sinks to "evil." I'll have to think about this.
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We aren't enough to fill the center of our worlds. There is always a space left. As humans, we try to fill that hole with anything we can seize on - drugs, sex, crime, behaviors, alcohol, work, religion, internet pornography, whatever...a good friend of mine refers to that space as the "God-shaped hole" in each of us.
You're friends with Bono (http://lyricwiki.org/U2:Mofo)? Sweet!
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Oh, you are all so awesome.
AD is definitly speaking one half of the debate in my head.
All the stories that have come in so far have been really, really interesting. It's also interesting to see the range of what people consider evil behavior.
I just spent four hours straight postering as the snow got worse and worse. When I walked into the house, I was covered in so much sleet that globs of watery slush made plishing sounds on the floor a few minutes after I walked in. I fanned out from the arts community to the broader community, and I'm really looking forward to what I get back now, because there's definitly going to be total strangers sending me their stuff now.
Oh! And as I was walking around postering, I heard someone screaming out a car window, and looked back to see a friend flayling out of the opened door of a moving car. After I ran over and exchanged hugs, she introduced me to her uncle and niece. She thought my poster looked really cool and took another copy for her neice too. She said "oh we have lots of evil stories" with a gleem in her eye, and I said they were all probably about her. After the all drove off I remembered why they were together: my friend and these family members have been attending the trial of the man who stabbed her sister to death.
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Is there something wrong with me that... I can't think of anything?
I remember in CCD class, waiting for our turn to go into the confessional, the other kids and I would compare notes to figure out what some good sinnage would be. I always felt like I was lacking somehow in that I couldn't come up with much more than talking back to my folks. Which God didn't need to worry about punishing me for, since my Mom wasn't going to let admonitions about "`Vengeance is Mine', sayeth the Lord" slow the administration of The Wooden Spoon.
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Even better is going in there and telling the priest your sin, only to have him tell you it isn't a sin, and then kind of debating it with him for a bit, then just giving up and saying, "okay fine, I was sort of not respectful to my mom the other day." We had confession so often that I started making up sins. Then I realized that was a sin. Then I told the priest that, and he told me I needed to put a little more thought into confession, because surely I must have sinned since last week. But the thing was we were required to go to confession, but isn't it actually possible to have NOT sinned every week?
The stories from strangers have started rolling in. Fascinating.
My little evil for the day was the asshole spazz who told me the Panasonic digital voice recorder and voice to text software I bought was Vista compatable. I then recorded someone's evil story on it, came home, spent a couple hours trying to set up the software, went to the Panasonic site, tried to upload the Vista patch they had up, which also didn't work, called the Panasonic line where the customer service agent told me the site is wrong, they had put up a patch they hoped would work, but it didn't, and that the software and recorder itself are actually not Vista compatable, that the real patch will only be ready in about a year, that I should just return the recorder. So I just finished transcribing it the old fashioned way, and while I was doing it another total stranger was leaving a story on my voicemail.
It's a cottage industry of evil people.
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"It is reason that engenders self-love, and reflection that strengthens it; it is reason that makes man shrink into himself; it is reason that makes him keep aloof from everything that can trouble or afflict him; it is philosophy that destroys his connections with other men; it is in consequence of her dictates that he motters to himself at the sight of another in distres, you may perish for aught I care, for I am safe. Nothing less than those evils which threaten the whole community can disturb the calm sleep of the philosopher and force him from his bed. One may with impunity murder another under his windows: he has to do nothing but clap his hands over his ears, argue a little with himself to hinder nature, that startles within him, from identifying him with teh unhappy sufferer. Savage man lacks this admirable talent, and for want of wisdom or reason, is always ready foolishly to obey the first whispers of humanity. In riots and street brawls the populace flock together; the prudent man sneaks off.
Hence, it is certain that pity is a natural feeling which, by moderating in each individual the activities of his love of himself contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species. It is pity which inclines us to help those we see suffering, without reflecting about it, and which, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, morals, and virtue, with this advantage—no one is tempted to disobey its soft voice. It is pity which will make every robust savage turn away from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of the sustenance he has acquired with difficulty, if he himself has hopes of being able to find his own somewhere else. It is pity which, in the place of this sublime maxim of rational justice—Do to others what you wish others to do to you—inspires in all men this other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect than the preceding one, but perhaps more useful: Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others. Briefly put, it is in natural feeling rather than in subtle arguments, that we must seek out the cause of the repugnance which all men would experience at doing wrong, even independently of all the maxims of education. Although it could be appropriate for Socrates and minds of his caliber to acquire virtue through reason, the human race would have ceased to be a long time ago, if its preservation had depended solely on the reasoning of those who constitute the race. "
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I am a big fan of this man. Sorry for the huge quote. Although some people in my class were trying to argue he meant this to be taken literally, and he actually thought that Pity was a savage impulse that the wise ignore?
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My little evil for the day was the asshole spazz who told me the Panasonic digital voice recorder and voice to text software I bought was Vista compatable. I then recorded someone's evil story on it, came home, spent a couple hours trying to set up the software, went to the Panasonic site, tried to upload the Vista patch they had up, which also didn't work, called the Panasonic line where the customer service agent told me the site is wrong, they had put up a patch they hoped would work, but it didn't, and that the software and recorder itself are actually not Vista compatable, that the real patch will only be ready in about a year, that I should just return the recorder. So I just finished transcribing it the old fashioned way, and while I was doing it another total stranger was leaving a story on my voicemail.
It's a cottage industry of evil people.
I have a Panasonic voice recorder and this squares with my experience. The actual recorder is great, but the proprietary software sucks.
Also, from what I understand, Vista sucks too.
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I am a big fan of this man. Sorry for the huge quote. Although some people in my class were trying to argue he meant this to be taken literally, and he actually thought that Pity was a savage impulse that the wise ignore?
That is probably the fault of reading it too closely. The overall thesis is that there is wisdom in simple impulses that upon reflection with reason and philosophy, lead the unlearned down a path which advances humanity; that its a good thing too because the general capacity for reason is much less frequent than the teeming masses.
I think its interesting that I hear an echo of the maxim that Alistair Crowley espoused, "An it harm none, do as thou wilt" in Rosseau's thesis there.
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I remember in CCD class, waiting for our turn to go into the confessional, the other kids and I would compare notes to figure out what some good sinnage would be. I always felt like I was lacking somehow in that I couldn't come up with much more than talking back to my folks. Which God didn't need to worry about punishing me for, since my Mom wasn't going to let admonitions about "`Vengeance is Mine', sayeth the Lord" slow the administration of The Wooden Spoon.
Ouch!! Not The Wooden Spoon! How the hell did people justify hitting their kids with that? I hated it..
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Ouch!! Not The Wooden Spoon! How the hell did people justify hitting their kids with that? I hated it..
I always feel like a jerk when I do this, but I have my son copy dictionary lines. The other day he was working in the letter F, and came to me and said "I learned a new word."
I nodded sagely, "That's always a good thing. A nice byproduct of what you're doing. What word did you learn?"
He got kind of weird and looked at the ground at this point and said "Fellatio."
Being as he's just hit puberty recently, he's had the "birds and the bees" talk. It appears he's moving on to advanced concepts, before he's fully out of the "girls are icky" stage.
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I always feel like a jerk when I do this, but I have my son copy dictionary lines. The other day he was working in the letter F, and came to me and said "I learned a new word."
I nodded sagely, "That's always a good thing. A nice byproduct of what you're doing. What word did you learn?"
He got kind of weird and looked at the ground at this point and said "Fellatio."
Being as he's just hit puberty recently, he's had the "birds and the bees" talk. It appears he's moving on to advanced concepts, before he's fully out of the "girls are icky" stage.
Education
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Ouch!! Not The Wooden Spoon! How the hell did people justify hitting their kids with that? I hated it..
Well, I'm pretty quick. It extended her reach.
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One of the actors involved with the project sent me a link to a video he made titled "Jamil Mahmood's Suffragette City" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHF3eQJZzE) which is enjoyable, but what really made my day is his other video "Golden Vilar" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOabwsck4O0). Vilar is his last name. Dude is brilliant. Wonderfully odd, and brilliant.
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Just finished writing this play. Some of the random stories were awesome, others sad, horrifying, etc. (person who told the story noted beside)
Here's a highlights reel since none of you will get to see it:
1) a mother abuses her two children in drastically different ways (as told by the mother's adult daughter)
2) a guy goes into his ex-girlfriend's apartment using his old key, covers the mattress in a fine layer of powdered baby pablum (apparently this will stink of sour milk due to sweat and excretions), emails her family and coworkers pornographic pictures of her using her email address, and rolls her sex toys in poison ivy (as told by the guy who did it)
3) a murdered woman returns from death to let the love of her life know he doesn't need to cry anymore (as told by the woman's sister)
4) a gang member unsuccessfully attempts to drown a guy in a sewage lagoon, stabs him, douses him in gasoline but can't get the lighter to work, the guy dives into the sewage and swims through piss and shit to save his life (as told by the now ex-gang member, fresh out of prison)
5) a six year old explains to his four year old brother what evil is (as told by the two children)
6) a comic store owner talks about his personal take on the most evil moment in comics: when the Chief reveals his true nature in Doom Patrol.
7) a woman acts out a rape fantasy related to incest abuse from her past (as told by the woman)
8) a girl about to turn 18 comes out of the closet to her homophobic uncle (as told by the girl)
9) a monster movie fan recounts his reaction to Godzilla vs Hedorah and the fear of a monster of one's own making.
10) a man fantasizes about revenge on the man who killed his loved one (as told by the man)
11) a woman sees her former lover, who has been so badly beaten by her latest partner that she is unrecognizable (as told by the ex-girlfriend)
12) a guy is so caught up in doing drugs that he barely notices his girlfriend is dying - the solution? Do more drugs (as told by the guy)
13) the same comic book store owner reminisces about another evil moment in comics (the Leader blows up the Hulk) and reflects on the absence of clearly defined "good" and "evil" of today.
14) cut scene: a vet suffers PST and flashes back to killing a child warrior. (as told by another soldier who saw this soldier kill the boy)
Maybe now you understand why I've barely been here?
Thanks to the two members of the board who contributed stories. Apologies for the one TOUAMBIE story I didn't use - you got it in a bit too late and I already had way too many stories, but it was a good one, so thank you.
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Oh man... The Chief from Doom Patrol.
Right in my fuckin' wheelhouse. I mean, that WAS pretty evil.
I'll have to catch this when the inevitable touring company comes to Los Angeles.
(Also, kind of insane that the board turned your #8 into a :) face in shades, considering the context.)
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2) a guy goes into his ex-girlfriend's apartment using his old key, covers the mattress in a fine layer of powdered baby pablum (apparently this will stink of sour milk due to sweat and excretions), emails her family and coworkers pornographic pictures of her using her email address, and rolls her sex toys in poison ivy (as told by the guy who did it)
Evil and a horrible, horrible violation of trust, but so help me I laughed.
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It was the sex toys in poison ivy, no?
Sounds painful, but yeah, funny that the dude would think to do this. "I know what'll show her..."
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It was the sex toys in poison ivy, no?
Yeah exactly, the baby powder's a little too subtle to be a truly enjoyable piece of evil and the porn thing is just crass but something about poison ivy sex toys is perfect. Thematically too, kind of 'You're not getting it from me, you're not getting it anywhere.'
Actually thinking about it in those terms just turns it around to depressing again.
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I'd love to see one of your plays someday, Smells... but this one I think I'm OK with missing.
I'd like to know a six year old's definition of evil, though.
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The dildo guy was clearly obsessive about this relationship, both everything that lead up to the breakdown of trust, what he did to her, what her friends say about her to him now... He was totally anonymous, but called back a second time to add details he's forgotten. I tried to be passive with all the interview subjects, but when he told me he rolled her sex toys in poisen ivy I started laughing, and he gasped, was totally shocked and said "You're laughing!? You're laughing at this?! You're the one who's evil! It's you! You're evil!" to which I replied "I never said I wasn't. I think everyone has the capicity for evil and for good." Of all the interview subjects, he was the only one where I got a sense he wanted something from me. Maybe my condemnation of her actions, some masochistic need to be shamed (he held on to the relationship while she ran up his credit card and cheated on him over and over and over again after all), or maybe absolution. Like his act of revenge itself, I could sense that telling me didn't release him from whatever it was he wanted to shake off. He told me he's moved on since, gotten married, etc... but he's so obviously bothered by what he did, and what was done to him.
Here's the scene of the two kids. It's base on a interview I did with two brothers. I've changed the two boys names. These two were the only two people I talked to who didn't point the finger at themselves as being evil. When I continued to ask them about evil in real life, one of them said "there are no evil people, in real life, just pretend," which I thought was just so sweet. Other details I could share with you are pretty identifying, but suffice to say these are two pretty great kids.
Mouths of Babes
A televangelist's voice can be heard, Adam, who is six, and his four year old brother James are watching the television.
Televangelist's voice
I want you to rise up and pronounce proudly that you are with the Lord! Because I'll tell you about evil! The evil that is here. This world. (the televangelist's voice carries on over this scene, with text cont. following James and Adam's text.)
JAMES
What's evil?
Adam
Evil means really, really, bad. So bad that you want to destroy things, but usually there’s a super hero that tries to stop you.
JAMES
Like who?
ADAM
Well, mostly in Cyberchase, Hacker is evil, because you know on the computer, hackers are a bad thing that could happen to a computer? So uh, yeah, he’s the Bad Guy and Cybersquad is kind of the superheros. Except Cyberchase isn't on because it's Sunday.
JAMES
Oh.
Adam
And we can't play on the computer, because they don't have one here.
James:
Sometimes? When we play? It's fun to be evil!
ADAM
Yeah! Sometimes. Sometimes. Not really in the real world though.
JAMES
Only when we’re pretending, right?
ADAM
Yeah!
JAMEs (Singing)
Evil, evil, evil!(the giggle and play-wrestle) One time I remembered a person. And sort of. About when Wal-mart was evil.
ADAM
Oh! Mommy thinks Wal-Mart is evil!
JAMES
So when they’re, they only want your money. And they don’t help you when you’re around where all the stuff is!
ADAM
Yeah! Mommy says it's the evil empire!
JAMES
Maybe Wal-mart got mommy?
ADAM
No!
JAMES
Yeah, maybe, just for play, maybe Wal-mart got her!
ADAM
And we have to save her?
JAMES
Yeah! From the bad guys!
ADAM
Yeah! Okay! Like Cybersquad! Let's go!
They exit.
TELEVANGELIST'S VOICE (cont.)
There is evil. But be not be afraid. "Fret not thyself because of the ungodly: neither be thou envious against the evil-doers. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass: and be withered even as the green herb... Wicked doers shall be rooted out: and they that patiently abide the Lord, those shall inherit the land!" Jesus says "a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, a house divided against itself falls." Satan is divided, and it is God, God that casts out devils. Jesus says "He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." So who's side are you on? Who's side are you on? I say rise up! "He that is not with me is against me!" Rise up and claim your place on the side of the Lord! The wicked shall be cut down! Rise up! The evil doers crushed like serpents at your feet! Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!
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That is quite wonderful. Thank you.
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That is just perfect Smells, I love it.
Interesting that most people were so eager to point to themselves as sources of evil. I wonder if that's because we can more easily excuse bad stuff in others but with ourselves we know when we have no excuse for our actions etc.