Ron is a brilliant American comedian and storyteller.  He has lived such an amazing life that to try to chronicle it here would be insulting.  Go to Ron’s youtube page and listen to his stories.  He is currently 66 years old and battling a very rare and aggressive form of cancer.  In the last 5 years or so, Ron and i have become very good friends and it really breaks my heart to see him sick like this.  You can donate to Ron by buying his comedy albums or funny t-shirts from his website or you can just donate if you aren’t interested in those things.  I’ll have links at the bottom of the post.  (Comedians don’t have a union or any benefits to the job and the pay is pretty bad.)

1/15/2012

Ron, you are such an amazing man and such an inspiration to so many people. You have lived such a rich life that most of us have no choice but to be enthralled by everything you have to say. You accomplish more in one year than most people do in their entire lives. You have so much to be proud of and happy for and, like all the wise men with whom you share company, you have never taken any of it for granted. You squeeze life like an alcoholic squeezing a bar rag. You get the most out of every moment, every relationship, every opportunity and you give back to the world whenever you can; through your stories and just who you are as a person.

I don’t want to sound like I’m throwing in the towel or anything. I just want you to know that you make the world a better place. There are many things we wish we could say to people and many of us leave those things unsaid for their whole lives. I just don’t want another day to go by without letting you know these things. I want you to know that I (among thousands of others) love you Ron. We love you and support you through this fight and we want nothing more than to see you be a part of our lives for many years to come. The world needs more people like Ron Shock and, thanks to your art, perhaps pieces of you are permeating through young minds hearing about Ron Shock for the first time on YouTube. You see Ron, you can’t die because you’re a legend. And legends live forever.

I’m grateful for every moment I have spent with you and the many more I plan to spend with you, Ron. And I will say this, I don’t know if there a rapture as the Christians know it, but it seems to me that if there is one that God is using cancer as the catalyst. It never seems to go after any assholes. Only the best and the brightest; the good and the righteous. Keep fighting Ron. You’ve lived such an amazing life that I believe that, if anyone can beat this, it will be you. God will have you for eternity, tell him to wait 30 more years.

Rock n roll.

Ron’s website where you can purchase comedy albums, funny t-shirts and donate to Ron:

www.RonShock.com

 Visit Ron’s YouTube page where he chronicles his years with Bill Hicks and his current battle with cancer:
www.youtube.com/VegasPoet

Sign the petition to get Ron on This American Life on NPR:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/we-are-asking-this-american-life-to-do-a-program-about-the-legendary-comedian-ron-shock/?cid=FB_TAF

tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?

Why that would be tumblrbot of course!

Well it feels good to be back.  Mentally and physically.  I had to check out and go live in my own world for a while but I am ready to start working again.  It’s not like I completely left the industry or anything but I definitely took a backseat in my life and career for the last year.  Call it depression.  Call it bitterness or anger.  Call it frustration.  Call it what you want, I didn’t want to be in show business anymore.  I didn’t feel like being the funny monkey.  Why should I entertain these people?  What do they care about me? 

Then there’s the industry that didn’t want me too.  Its like meeting your soulmate and then finding out that they are abusive.  The rejection I was facing day in and day out was starting to affect me and my emotions.  Not just in the industry.  In my everyday life.  I was having a hard time making friends.  Having a very very hard time meeting members of the opposite sex.  My confidence went through the floor.  There is always a transition when you move to a new place but it’s been three years.  I shouldn’t still be struggling this badly. 

I had no stability in my life for 3 years and it ravaged my psyche.  I had no financial stability.  No job security.  No stable home.  And I was trying to hustle in a career and city that was pushing my mental/emotional stability.

Long story, short, I kinda just became an anti-social hermit for a year.  Why?  I’ll tell you in the next blog.

Thanks for sticking around,

Sina.

To Nolan Beesley, Gabe and Ben Jones, Tim Lameroux, Dave Starr, Ditty Bennion, Heston Starkey, Ryan Perry, Aaron Padilla, Mike Fuller, my Grandpa and all the other brothers who are no longer here…I miss you guys like stones miss the mountain. We were all part of something special and I wish you were here with me now to bask in the fruits from the work I dedicate to all of you.

P.S.  And Kendallee Thornton and Ryan Nelson.  Fuck, why do my friends keep dying???

The concept of evolution seems so obvious to me that I can’t fathom how people could reject it logically.  I don’t understand why evolution has to debunk the existence of a God.  There can be a creator that, in addition to creating life, also created patterns of harmony between all life on Earth to sustain the life for perpetuity.  Ever since the first single celled organism existed on this planet, matter had to work in harmony to create a functioning organism.  Any matter that wasn’t working in harmony would not survive to be a part of the cell.  As those cells were spawned from the primordial goo the cells that didn’t work in harmony with the other cells then died off or found another system that they could thrive in.  Of those cells that survived, some found that they work better with some cells rather than other cells…so they would work closely together until they began forming multicellular systems.  These cells would eventually work in harmony with other cells until they began to form more and more complex organisms (or living systems).  These organisms would work in harmony with one another living off of the waste of the other cells and finding fuel sources that were abundant in their environment…if they couldn’t live off of something that was abundant then they would eventually go extinct. 

Over billions of years these systems became more and more complicated and included more and more combinations of cells which eventually over millions of years the old systems that worked well with the current systems and formed plants and animals.  And the animals lived off of the other animals and the plants.  The systems all worked in harmony.  There were probably systems back then that there are no record of because they didn’t work in harmony that was nature.  The system as a whole is made up of millions of smaller systems.  That is evolution.  We are all the same.  We’re made from the same stuff that is on the ground and in the air.  The strange things that swim in the ocean are distant cousins.  The world is one constant evolution shedding off unnecessary layers to make room for more harmonious systems of life.

Thinking about cells and micro-organisms is pretty abstract though and most of us can’t envision what that must be like or how long a million years is.  It’s easy if you think about money.  Think about how much money you have, then think about how much money Donald Trump has.  Then think of your grandfather’s life as a hundred dollar bill.  That will give you an idea. 

But the most obvious evolution is the one we’re a part of.  Our society.  Whether you believe in certain animals being living ancestors of other animals or you believe all life was put on this Earth in a matter of days exactly how it is you have to be aware of the evolution of society since the dawn of man.  Primitive man formed packs with other tribes of primitive men.  Then those joined tribes would form villages and cities and colonies.  Then countries and Allied Forces and United Nations and PETA and Walmart.  And the ones that work in harmony with the other systems get to stay but then others like the Nazis, the Druids, the Vaudevillian needed to either evolve to work in harmony with the other systems or would die off.  Now we have social networks and world wide webs and roadway systems and earthquake drills and evacuation maps and cell phones that work on grids with satellites.  And the parts of our technological evolution that become obsolete end up being taken out of the system and, thus, become extinct.  The evolution we can’t see is going on constantly in your mind.  Work with the system and you will survive.  Work in a way that disrupts the harmony of the system and you will die.  The system will continue to evolve with or without us.  The things that live in harmony with nature and the systems of life that so delicately balance each other out in a blueprint that would be a genome project on a massive scale.

How well do you think our systems of life are working in harmony with the systems that make up the rest of the biosphere as time goes on?  Do you think cancer knows it’s cancer?  If it had the consciousness to understand it’s role in the system in time to find a way to work in harmony before killing the host, would it?  The next evolution has to occur in our minds.  The future of our societal systems of life will rely greatly on our ability to learn to see the world as one.

And if you do believe in evolution, just for fun, go to the gym and put the 2001: A Space Odyssey opening music on as you watch us run in place and swing from bars.  It’s like Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of OZ times a hundred.