Book Review: Ritual America

Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society, A Visual Guide by Adam Parfrey and Craig Heimbichner is a sleek and comprehensive 340 page book filled with hundreds of amazing photos, illustrations and quotations about numerous secret societies. Included are Freemasonry and concordant bodies such as The Shriners, Prince Hall Masonry, Job's Daughters, Rainbow Girls, The Jesters, The Scottish Rite, The York Rite, and The Knights Templar, but the book doesn't stop there. You also get rare glimpses into the worlds of The Redmen, The Woodsmen, The Odd Fellows, The OTO, The KKK, The Owls, The Elks, The Illuminati and The Fraternal Order of Police, among many others. Quotations range from Albert Pike and Robert Anton Wilson to Lady Gaga.

As a Mason, it's interesting and eye opening (no pun intended) to read about the not-so-flattering skeletons in the closet that haunt the Fraternity. No punches are spared as the racist and sexist history of various Lodges is revealed for all to see. Despite all this, as an insider I see how far we have come when I look at the ethnic diversity in the Masonic community I interact with on a regular basis.

The book tries to be as objective as possible when presenting the various accounts from both pro and anti Masons within its pages, but can get pretty harsh when presenting the latter. Nevertheless, it inspired me to explore and question those unfavorable elements and that's a good thing.

I read every word and learned many things. I really recommend picking it up.

Club 33 at Disneyland

I'm one of the very few people lucky enough to have spent their 33rd birthday at Club 33.

Club 33 Wiki Page

Lee Marvin

With the Chuck Norris meme done to death by the fact that Chuck Norris is a psycho right wing conservative, it's time for a new hero to replace him. Who better to fill the shoes than Chuck's superior officer in Delta Force... Lee Marvin?!

For those of you who only recognize the name from Reservoir Dogs, I suggest renting "The Big Red One", "The Dirty Dozen", "The Wild One", "Hell In The Pacific", "Gorky Park", "The Killers", "Cat Ballou", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance", "Emperor Of The North" or "Point Blank".

Lee was a hard drinking, tough as nails biker, hitman, soldier, and cowboy in his films. He had on-screen fist fights with Marlon Brando and John Wayne, shot Ronald Reagan dead in "The Killers", liberated a death camp with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in "The Big Red One", and shared a woman (and some goofy musical numbers) with Clint Eastwood in "Paint Your Wagon".

In real life, Lee was a WWII veteran who was wounded in the Battle of Sai Pan (shot in the ass), directly related to George Washington, and won an Oscar for playing a cowboy whose horse was drunker than he was. There is also a secret society called The Sons of Lee Marvin that counts Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and Jim Jarmusch among its members. For these reasons (among many others), I was inspired to put together a custom action figure of Lee's character Walker from the movie Point Blank: