dawkins

Stood outside for what seemed like forever. Eric, me, Jason, and Scott. I was hungry, all I'd eaten was a Pop Tart. We talked a lot, various subjects. "Infinite Jest" seems to be going well for Eric. Jason and Scott are good.

The auditorium was mostly full. Wooden chairs sprawled out from a podium. We sat in the bleachers, because we figured it'd be easier to see that way. Kind of funny, waiting in line to go to the back of the room. Well, not the very back, but you know. Wedged in behind some old people. I wonder from time to time if our conversations might be offensive. We drop F bombs left and right.

There'll be a Q&A section afterwards and I think of the perfect question: "Mr. Dawkins. How do you feel about DP?" But it goes unasked. This leads to a unanimous decision from the group that DP is okay, as long as it's just one cock per hole.

We sit for a long time. I talk about a lot of things. How I suck at small talk. I'll hear people around campus, like, "Hey man. How are you." "Good." "How's Brian?" "Doing his thing." "You going to Matt's tomorrow?" "Nah, I got lacrosse." And they just go on and on. How? This shit stumps me. I have to be talking about something. But w/e.

Lecture begins. Dawkins gets the standing O. First thing we get is a movie about how Ben Stein sucks. It's a trailer for his movie "Expelled," only it's called "Sexpelled" and some clever dude went in and changed all the references of "intelligent design" to "stork theory", see, Dawkins views the evolution v. ID argument as analogous to: gravity v. "intelligent falling" or birth v. "stork." Anyway, the trailer goes on and on, and finally it gets to the end and it says "Ben Stein is" and the next card's supposed to say "Expelled,", but this same clever dude went in and put a card in that says, big letters, all caps, AN IGNORANT FOOL. Strikes me as petty. Crowd loves it.

Crowd also loves: everything, it seems. They applaud consistently. The crowd becomes divided: the clappers and those who find the clapping to be annoying and those who find those who find the clapping annoying, annoying. Nothing comes of it. Just an interesting thing to watch. The clapping I understand: it's a bottling up effect. If you're an atheist and you live in Oklahoma, you have to keep that shit on the low. This is Bible country, son. When you get a bunch of godless folks in a room together, for the most part, they are ecstatic, like, "My people!"

My back starts to bug me. I'm like, "Alright, guys."

Dawkins is old. Brushed back white hair. He proceeds through his lecture, "The Purpose of Purpose." It's basic biology stuff. We get a lesson in how evolution works. Dawkins says there are two forms of purpose, archaeo- and neo-, which is his "new spin", which I'm sure would've been interesting if it wasn't just a new way of putting old shit. More evolution stuff, and the lecture is over. I'm like, "What the fuck."

Q&A starts, and it's more interesting. At this point the back is killing me. The thighs too, and the ass is numb from the cheek to the lower back. Everyone, everyone kisses this dude's ass. "Thank you so much for coming to Oklahoma." Which I mean, I guess it's a nice thing to do, but I'm like, "Questions, people, where are your questions?"

In the middle of a question I hear, "Shut the fuck up!" really loud and I'm like WHOA. Crowd goes hush. A woman stands up, saying, "Security! This man has been bothering us the whole time..." blah blah. This nut in the crowd had been babbling I guess, and some dude lost his temper, but then crazy guy stood up, wearing denim, thin, carrying a big yellow legal pad, yelling something like, "I RENOUNCE YOU." Security escorted him out, the end.

Afterwards, we ate at Taco Bell. Then went to the bar. Topics included: Indy 4, suicide, drugs, would you fuck X to save Y, etc. I only spent $7.

And now, I sleep. Good night, folks.