The In-Synch-Erator

Dumpster Diving For Jesus

In The Iron Giant (see The Love Gun), Hogarth seeks “food and shelter” for the giant metal man, and he finds a JUNK YARD to be the ideal location.

In the myth of Kauhuhu, the Shark God of Molokai (see Double Rainbow), the guardian dragons instruct Kamalo to hide in the Taro peelings, which is the “GARBAGE DUMP” of a Hawaiian village.

In the Toxic Avenger (see I Heart the Monster), Toxie finds shelter in the local landfill, and he owes his super powers to “TOXIC WASTE”.

These connections would have gone pretty much unnoticed, except the garbage disposal went on the fritz this month, which shall now be called the In-Synch-Erator Event.

Island Tale’s wonderful graphic novelization of the Hawaiian myth shows the dragons twining around each other like snakes, creating the DNA double helix. Which gives us DNA dragons guarding... a junk pile. Dragons generally do have good taste in treasure, so I’m wondering what might be of value to these DNA Dragons, and I wonder if it isn’t our “Junk” DNA?

Junk, or noncoding DNA, makes up a whopping 98% of human DNA. Some say it contains the record of our ancestors, from bacteria on down the line. Is this the place where the gods live? Some kind of insanely compacted and “zipped” bio-logical hard drive? And is this perhaps the place that is accessed via dreaming and entheogenic plants? Somehow, our consciousness, while “unconscious” is able to read snippets of code, almost like a book, and these “trips” or “visions” are what fuels our myths, movies and fantasies. That’s why Kauhuhu, the “shark” god, can only be approached while rooting around in the “garbage”. That’s where he lives.

Sometimes I wonder if my DNA isn’t “God”. That’s how he’s both within and without. The code of the living universe, living inside my tiny cells. The bible is always going on about the “Inheritance” and perhaps that is literally the case - our inheritance is the wisdom contained inside our non-coding DNA!

It’s pretty fascinating how our own garbage, our own pollution, is what will probably kill us as a species. We are challenged by both internal and external “junk”. We’re learning how in nature there really is no garbage. One plants waste is another animals breath of life, and vice versa. And likewise, maybe so with our DNA. It may be that our own DNA scrap heap, our ancestral archetypes, are the key to our own future. Perhaps that is why we are here, to reclaim our subconscious garbage? Id recycling - Back to the Future!

NOTES:


The clowns are Seattle's J. P. Patches and his girlfriend Gertrude. He lives in the city dump.


It occurred to me that the non-coding DNA theory of God would explain why gene-splicing is pretty much the ultimate sin. As it was in the days of Noah...