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is married to axeman Gates ) have two sons , and he lives for his kids , dropping them off and picking them up every nontour day at school , giving them drumming and skateboard lessons , and even introducing them to old-school collectibles from his childhood , like Pogs . Yes , that ’ s right , he repeats . “ Pogs , the classic betting / gambling game ! I remember when they got banned from school when I was younger , and that just killed it . So I went online on e-Bay and bought a bunch of Pogs and Slammers and started playing them again with my kids . So I ’ ve been collecting them again because everyone ’ s selling them now .” All told , however , the singer has no concrete internet presence to speak of . He eschews – make that loathes – all social media , and refuses to take part in the spectacle of self-absorption that is Twitter , Facebook , and Instagram . And he ’ s particularly horrified that Russia used America ’ s with their bodies . Avenged ’ s manager turned him onto it , and he hired another professional coach to come to the house and teach a proper course . And now – rather than getting emotionally bogged down in the daily news of rampant political corruption – he peacefully mediates . And in so doing , he says , “ I ’ ve just embraced my children , I ’ ve embraced my family , and I ’ ve embraced a feeling of love . I spend more time with my family as I try to make a difference in this world in a positive way . And if you can get to that point , that ’ s the way you can sleep at night – by understanding that you ’ re not here for very long , and it ’ s a gift to be able to open your eyes each morning . But part of the deal is , you have to go at some point , and that puts some perspective on your life and allows you to enjoy it .”
Which brings us back to The Stage . Shadows ' other favorite pastime – besides
26 illinoisentertainer . com january 2018 fascination with placing propaganda on these platforms to disparage Hillary Clinton in the last presidential election .
“ And it totally worked ,” Shadows snaps . “ Do you know how many friends I had that had showed me these memes on Facebook ? And they literally believed those things , even though it was all just Russian stuff - stuff that was stoking the fire . They were able to find these groups that would throw ‘ Black lives matter ’ in the face of the alt-right , and throw gun control in the faces of others , until all of a sudden , you ’ ve got everybody pissed off at each other , and it wasn ’ t everyone doing it to each other – it was Russia . And that ’ s disturbing . Really disturbing . I ’ ve never felt like I wanted to partake in social media , and that whole thing just reaffirmed my position on it – I just feel like it ’ s a total time suck and a real waste of time .” He knows he sounds like a misanthrope because many of his friends are online . “ And they ’ re probably all thinking , ‘ What a jerk – this guy thinks he ’ s better than everyone else ,’” he chuckles . “ But that ’ s not it – I just don ’ t want to go down that rabbit hole .”
Instead , Shadows and his wife spend their spare time doing Transcendental Meditation , the David Lynch-popularized practice that keeps their minds in tune an admitted fixation with gaming – is reading . Non-fiction , almost exclusively , even difficult books on , say , string theory that border on being beyond his ken . He ’ d do well in a buzzing think tank – one of his primary joys is conversing with educated others who know more about just about any topic than he does . He ’ s a rock star who loves to learn . So , his Stage concoction is a heady one which includes the forwardthinking philosophies of Elon Musk , Kurzweil ' s Singularity theory -- which posits that machines will soon outstrip man , intelligence-wise -- and the writings of Sam Harris , who once predicted that A . I . would accidentally end human existence in the same offhanded manner that we might kick over an anthill just walking to our car in the morning . Add to this the legitimate prospects of rising sea levels and natural-disaster fraught climate change , and we ’ re all facing a dark future , indeed . “ And Kurzweil sees The Singularity as a positive , but I see it as a very scary prospect , and as some major questions for humanity , about just how far we ’ ll take it ,” Shadows opines . It ’ s not some cyborg-rife Terminator world that ’ s coming , he adds . It ’ s more like we will all become assimilated into a supercomputer mainframe , Borg-style , where our con-
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