From time to time I’m going to write a short blog on some of the freethinkers, atheists and rationalists that have influenced my thinking. I’ll start with Douglas Adams, because today is his birthday.

Douglas Adams and I were born 21 days and one continent apart. I’ll be 57 on April 1, Adams, if he’d lived, would have been 57 today, March 11, 2009. As a radical atheist fascinated by religion, a middling talented guitarist, a lover of modern music, fast cars and cameras, an unapologetic technology nut (he was one of the original Apple Masters and loved his Macs, using e-mail and Usenet long before most people ever heard of them) and a genius writer, editor and humorist, Adams and I share a lot of pursuits and interests and there is much to be admired in the man. He was a wonderful, giant talent, physically and intellectually.

I’ve been amazed with Douglas Adams for a long, long time, longer than I’ve known who exactly he was, certainly. The admiration began years ago when listening to A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on National Public Radio, and watching Monty Python, where Adams was a writer and occasional performer. I didn’t know his name at the time, but I definitely liked his work and loved that sense of humor.

Hitchhiker's Guide began on radio, and developed into a "trilogy" of five books which sold more than 15 million copies during his lifetime. It also became a television series, a towel, a computer game and a feature film that was completed after Adams's death. He was known to some fans as Bop Ad (after his illegible signature), or by his initials "DNA".

He also wrote the Dirk Gently novels, and originated and helped develop the idea for the computer game Starship Titanic.

The intellectual outrageousness of Monty Python and The Hitchhiker’s Guide appealed to a side of me that, as a Jehovah’s Witness (JW) at that time, I had to keep suppressed. That was the side that already knew that much of religion and a literal view of the Bible is laughable, and here was great writing making fun of these oh-so-serious subjects.

Certain things from Adams’ fertile imagination I remember and still chuckle at. Topping the list is his character Zaphod Beeblebrox being the only person to have survived the Total Perspective Vortex, a virtual reality machine that, for a split second, shows you your true insignificance in the scheme of the infinite universe, a truth so massively disturbing to the self-conscious ego that it destroys the brain. Except Zaphod’s. He went in the TPV and came out totally unscathed. It was never exactly clear why. Did Zaphod already have a Zen-like acceptance of his insignificance, or did the TPV actually verify his outsized importance in the infinite universe?

Then there was the invading army that failed to discern the size difference of the universe they were attacking, and their entire invading fleet of space vehicles was swallowed whole by a yawning dog.

Adams struggled in his early years to make a living as a playwright and humorist, taking a series of odd jobs that included barn building, chicken coop cleaning and janitorial work - all of which I’ve done. At 6'5", he also served as a bodyguard on occasion, an occupational pleasure that has thankfully passed me by. He eventually would achieve great success, filled with odd little rewards at times like being able to play with Pink Floyd on stage or turning the number 42 into the answer to life, the universe and everything. Type just the numbers 42 into Google, and see what the first links are. He died of a heart attack in a gym in Santa Barbara, CA when he was 49, far, far too young.

Ah, I think it is time to mix a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and raise a glass in toast to Douglas Adams, freethinker.

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