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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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