happy holidays!

The greatest Chistmas laughter ever? A few years ago, my brother johnny and i were visiting bob and jan in the Poconos. They were singing in the Christmas Eve choir at church, so we went to hear them. We sat in the front row of the balcony. Well into the heart of the service, a group-sung hymn came up. We held our hymnal, and as the song was progressing, realized that the lyrics had a very bizarre grammatical structure. Every line of the chorus started with the verb. I casually leaned over to john, and on the next chorus whispered in a yoda voice, "Praise him, we do...worship him, we will."
It is only a mild exaggeration to say that two heathens nearly fell out of the balcony with suppressed laughter.
Happy holidays to all.

destructiveness

"I don't drink, and don't lie. Were every human so afflicted, i would never again be subject to moronic questions about why i don't get laid more."
-wrob

I'll stand by that statement, even though it is (for the sake of wit) a touch facile and simplistic.
Today, a third non-quality came to mind - destructiveness. It's possible that a lack of destructiveness may be one of the few concrete qualities which has long set me apart, as a human being.
Destructiveness is not evil. Destruction is an element of change. Whether with one person or millions, change requires a breaking down of the old. Creation is profoundly destructive.
The Harry Chapin song "Sniper" contains the lyric "I am a lover who's never been kissed, I am a fighter who's not made a fist". Though i've been kissed, i have indeed happily never made a fist. These two lines' proximity underscores the curious connection between loving and fighting. Both acts are profoundly penetrative. Many men (and some women, these days) acknowledge that they find the chase more compelling than the consummation.
Just as you don't need to google "crime of passion" to know there's a connection between love and hate, you don't have to watch lions mate to spot a connection between fighting and loving. Even among well-intentioned people, lies, half-truths, and sins of omission are part of nearly every sexual consummation. Selfishness is tied to romance in ways that few are ever able to be honest about. But as selfishness grows, so grows destructiveness.
Though i've been romantically involved with dozens of women, my lack of aggressiveness has reduced my number of "consummated" affairs. My personality is non-penetrative...okay, no, that's false. I'm penetrative, maybe even extremely so, but in a non-aggressive way. I've always been bored by the "chase", eager to skip to the communion of loving. There's never been an unplanned pregnancy in my life. My loving has been about nurturing (or at least the attempt to do so, as we humans fumble about, blindly seeking to fill our emptiness). My non-destructiveness has extended to all interpersonal relationships...i've long been aware that i'm one of the least likely people to offer personal advice.
Of course, i don't pretend that destructiveness has been alien to my spirit...were it so i never could have accepted a public speaking trophy, written a diatribe against makeup, or had a dream about trying to destroy a monster eel.
But now, the last year has brought me in touch with destructive interpersonal impulses. Every morning of my life i've awoken ready to live the most beautiful romantic story in the history of time...yet except for one or two years, my journey has been mostly solitary. Part of the reason may be that many women who desired me waited in vain for me to be more of a predator.
The scraping wound that has been in my spirit these past few years has manifested in both self-destructive and destructive impulses. My bloodied hunger for healing has nudged me toward ignoring some of my gentler wisdoms. I'm learning that a wounded creature becomes more impulsive and feral. It's like on some level, a part of me is seeking to reclaim my genetic birthright to be mindlessly sexualized. A tiny piece of me almost feels betrayed by my gentleness, and wishes to reclaim a decade or more of fucking. I'm long past ready to find the eye at the center of the storm. All my old habits of making sure that my partner isn't going too fast, for her sake or mine...these tendencies have been sorely tested lately.
Destructiveness of course does not stand apart from drinking and lying (indeed, the opposite is true). That being said, "I'm not destructive...were every human so afflicted, i would never again be subjected to moronic questions about why i don't get laid more", may be more concise than the earlier quote...
It is, however, entirely lacking in wit.
We'll go with the first one.

i walked

I walked through a land
A land I did not know

The thundering echo of a million dreams
The gasping howl of a million desires
fading

Through the meadow
to the water’s edge
I reach out

The naked infant turns
I look into my eyes
We embrace
Emptiness dies

different

I’m different
I’m a monkey in a tree
I’m different
Not sheep number six billion three

I’m different
I puzzle you? You puzzle me
I’m different
They all went that way…such idiocy

I’m different
You understand me? I disagree
I’m different
The impossible dream, finding my she

I’m different
No good for anyone, you see
I’m different
And no one’s any good for me

"Soap"

1977-1981
In the discussion of the greatest TV shows of all time, one gem gets overlooked more than any other. SOAP gets neglected because it doesn't fit into the established categories. Hysterical and half an hour, but not a sitcom, SOAP spoofed the ridiculous banality of soap operas. And obviously it's had a lasting effect on the genre, as modern soap operas are bastions of credible situations and believable characters.
Or not.
Created by Susan Harris, SOAP was as barrier-breaking as it was funny. It had one of TV's first openly gay major characters. It showed us a high school teenager having an affair with his female teacher (i admit, i thought "oh those silly, over-imaginative writers" when i first watched it). And happily, it was the first show to use the word "boffed".
Richard Mulligan's Burt is one of the most towering physical comedy performances ever. Catherine Helmond and Cathryn Damon were the emotional center of the lunacy. Robert Gillaume took all kinds of flak for signing on to play a black servant, but in Benson he created an iconic character of dignity and humor. Billy Crystal gave a stereotype a heart. Arthur Peterson's portrayal of the Major is purely priceless. Jay Johnson as Chuck and Bob made us believe a doll was as real as any human. Robert Urich was there (which of course is pretty much a given if you're discussing american TV from the 70s to 90s). Ted Wass and Lynne Moody played a loving interracial couple, something i'd never seen. Harold Gould's monologue to the suicidal Jodie is one of the most heart-rending moments in TV history.
Part of the fun of watching Soap today is the parade of actors and bit actors who went on to greater fame. We've got Boss Hogg, Col. Flagg, Johnny Fever and Arthur Carlson, Norm, Mona, Miracle Max, K.I.T.T., Marie Barone, Red, the new Galactica doc...plus Robert Englund, Jack Gilford, and Joe Montegna. A "greatest episodes" list is pretty pointless, because the level of silly wonderfulness never dropped off. Here's to one of TV's landmark shows, and one of the greatest comedic ensembles ever.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"

2006-2007
Ah, here we are, reveling in the joy that is season three of STUDIO 60! It's December, so we may be treated to yet another amazing Christmas episo-

Oh yeah. I forgot.

STUDIO 60 was cancelled after one season.
You know, that 30 ROCK FROM THE SUN may be brilliant. Any show that taps into Alec Baldwin's comic side is on the right track. I wouldn't know anything about it though, as i've never seen 30 ROCK, and have no plans to do so. I realize that's a tiny bit unfair, but at some point in these shows' concurrent initial seasons, someone decided that two programs about the backstage goings-on of an SNL-style show were one too many. When the dust cleared, STUDIO 60 was gone.
It was going to be one of the best ever, maybe as good as its Aaron Sorkin predecessor THE WEST WING.
Oh, to be sure, they were still finding their first-season feet a bit...but actually less so than WEST WING and any number of other legendary shows. You know how i know? Because i wouldn't have watched the complete series five times in a row on my home dvd player if the show had been only about potential. Five times in a row, plus when it aired the year before. I'd never done anything like that before.
The writing was intelligent, funny, and socially relevant, and the number of shows in TV history which have been all three of those can be counted on one hand, i'm sure. The directing was laser-precise, and the production values were silly good...few casts have ever had so amazing a set. The acting was across-the-board unimpeachable. Bradley Whitford was a rock. Matthew Perry was up to the task of changing the minds of Friends-haters everywhere. Amanda Peet was all over the place and thoroughly believable. Steven Weber brought great sympathy and humor to his oft-antagonistic role. Sarah Paulson is an absolute treasure. Timothy Busfield was beautiful, and never got to the story lines which would have involved him more in following seasons. D.L. Hughley didn't miss a step. If Nate Corddry isn't getting more work, somebody's not paying attention. Merritt Wever was going to be the next Janel Moloney. Ed Asner, Ayda Field, Lucy Kenwright, and Mark McKinney played their roles so well you hoped that they would appear each episode.
HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS
Episode 1: Sharp, airtight, and made luminous by the Emmy-winning (i may be making that up) performance of Judd Hirsch as Wes Mendell, the patriarch who loses his job for telling the truth on-air. The exquisite Donna Murphy also appears, but is underused.
Episode 2: The "Model of a Modern Network TV Show" number is probably funnier than most production numbers on any real sketch comedy show.
Episode 3: Rob Reiner's Schlomo appearance is classic. Science schmience.
Episode 5: Achingly beautiful music by Sting.
Episode 6: Another guest actor Emmy, for Eli Wallach (although we don't quite buy that Cal wouldn't have known the Hollywood Ten).
Episode 7-8: Yet another Emmy, for the irrepressible John Goodman as Judge Bebe! Also notable for getting the Zhang Tao storyline rolling, which features the saucy Julia Ling, and the less saucy Raymond Ma.
Episode 11: "The Christmas Show", the best of the series, with the most moving musical moment i've ever witnessed on serial TV.
Episode 15: "The Friday Night Slaughter", the worst of the series...but still pretty good.
Episode 17: Busfield's biggest episode, made more sweet by the appearance of Allison Janney, the two of whom created WEST WING's most memorable couple. Such fast-paced fun that i watched it five times without even realizing that the show's two biggest stars aren't in the episode.
Episode 19-22: Despite shining guest performances by James Lesure and J.D. Walsh, the final four-episode arc struggles (and not just because of the most quease-inducing sorkin line of dialogue ever, matt's "Show me something"). But to say that it got too heavy, is simplistic. If WEST WING showed us anything, it's that the heavy episodes were often the best. I call it bad timing, that when the show's fate was hanging in the balance, they detoured away from funny. If the show had gone on, i don't think anyone would have thought these episodes weak at all.

damn you, ryle!

Do you know what it feels like to come up with an idea no human being has ever had before?
Nope, neither do i.
But for a week or two in 1995, i thought that maybe i had. I was working on a master's degree in philosophy, at West Chester U. of PA. In my three semesters i became the department's only graduate assistant, and resurrected the long-dormant philosophy club (my one presidency...wheeee). I graduated something cum laude. It was a very cool year and a half.
In one of my courses, we were studying Gilbert Ryle's "systematically misleading expressions". The ten-cent explanation: certain phrases are inherently dishonest because their construction implies the existence of something which doesn't exist. For example, saying "carnivorous cows don't exist" implies that they do exist, as something must exist to have attributes. The way to correct that phrase would be to say "there is no such thing which is both carnivorous and a cow". This is all a bit egg-headed, but stick with me.
People use systematically misleading expressions all the time, often with no problem, as most people don't need a philosopher to tell them that carnivorous cows don't exist. But we shape our thoughts in words, and if there are lies hidden within our language that we are blind to, the quality of our thought will suffer.
For a week or two, i thought i had come up with a systematically misleading expression no one had ever thought of. A very important one too, one which we all use every day, not realizing that it prevents us from relating to our own human nature more truthfully. Think about the following phrases: "my hands are sticky", "my head hurts", and "my sense of humor is dry" (or a parallel construction such as "her butt is bangin'"). We've all used this grammatical construction, probably every day of our lives. And there is a huge lie hiding inside it.
Anybody spot it?
No, "she ain't got no bangin' butt!" is not the correct response.
The lie is that the construction implies ownership. "My" head. "My" sense of humor. "Her" butt. Is it not strange that our language implies we have the same relationship with our feet as we do with our shoes? We don't "own" a head or a sense of humor. We are a head, we are fingers, we are a sense of humor (despite occasional evidence to the contrary). "Owning" our head invokes a self which is different from our physical, thinking being. Of course, those who believe people are immortal might be thrilled with this. Since the fear of death is the most basic human fear, our primary existential condition, it's easy to perceive why we may have shaped our language this way. Without realizing it, we've all been walking around every day of our lives affirming that we ain't gonna die, even though every measurable piece of evidence screams that we will.
So how do we re-construct this part of our language? Well, clumsily. It will take a while for more honest language to not feel silly. "My head hurts" might become "rob-head hurts". I know, pretty weird. "Her butt is bangin'" becomes "Jenny-butt is bangin'!" Hmm, that last one feels less clumsy, somehow.
Anyway, after a week or two, i read Ryle's next article. And damn double-damn him, he based his next article on my idea. I knew it wasn't going to turn the world on its head, but...still.
Ah well. For a week i walked under the rarefied sun of original human thought. I suppose that's a week more than most get. But try out "Jenny-butt is bangin'" the next time you're at a party. Once the humor fades, you may actually feel a little different in a way that you can't even explain.

george's greatest

GEORGE HARRISON'S GREATEST SONGS
1) All Things Must Pass
2) Let It Down (2001 demo version)
3) Free as a Bird
4) Someplace Else
5) Handle with Care
6) Isn't It a Pity
7) End of the Line
8) All Those Years Ago
9) When We Was Fab
10) While My Guitar Gently Weeps
11) Blow Away
12) Here Comes the Sun
13) Here Comes the Moon
14) Any Road
15) Something
16) Crackerbox Palace
17) I Me Mine
18) Soft-Hearted Hana
19) Pure Smokey
20) Within You Without You
21) Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)
22) Taxman
23) Cockamie Business
24) What Is Life
25) P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)
GEORGE'S ALBUMS (RANKED)
1) ALL THINGS MUST PASS
His years of constipation burst forth in this 3-disc album. Even under the weight of phil spector's overproduction, the songs just roll you away. With the title song, it was the "quiet one" who turned the passing of the Beatles into an artistic expression of universal beauty and breadth.
2) TRAVELING WILBURYS VOLUME 1
I include Wilbury albums, because george was the driving force.
3) BRAINWASHED
His final album, a scintillating gem from start to finish, it reveals something (like warren zevon's last album) about the power of motivation in brilliance, as george had to know it would be his last.
4) GEORGE HARRISON
The mark of a great album is one in which you look forward to the lesser-known songs as much as the singles.
5) THE BEST OF DARK HORSE
Absent the hits from his early solo career (perhaps becase he didn't want to enrich his old record label), this is nonetheless one of the most satisfying hit collections around. The three new songs are a delight, one and all.
6) CONCERT FOR GEORGE
A benefit organized by clapton, and almost indescribably wonderful. The indian music is fantastic, and the lineup of george's friends performing his music is almost perfect. Particularly wonderful are ringo's "Photograph", billy preston's "Isn't It a Pity", paul's "All Things Must Pass", joe brown's "I'll See You in My Dreams", and paul and eric doing a ukelele version of "Something" (the best recording of that song ever).
7) THE CONCERT FOR BANGLA DESH
Synergy is real. Head and shoulders above most benefit albums.
8) THIRTY-THREE & 1/3
There are forgettable tracks, but wonderful songs fall like ripe fruit.
9) TRAVELING WILBURYS VOLUME 3
The brilliance rolls along...
10) LIVE IN JAPAN
The only tour in which a number of george solo songs were ever performed, this is a joyous event, supported by clapton and his band.
11) CLOUD NINE
Well-deserving of its status as one of george's best, and home to his most unappreciated song, "Someplace Else".
12) GONE TROPPO
His happiest album. If this is what living in the tropics does for everyone, we should all pack our bags. "Mystical One", a tribute to clapton, is a particular delight.
?) GEORGE FEST
A tribute concert overseen (and performed in) by son dhani, a more loose and light-hearted collection than CONCERT...though perhaps a bit too faithful in the song arrangements. Brian wilson, weird al, ann wilson, conan o'brien, norah jones, the black ryder, black rebel motorcycle club, and other young turks...
13) THE BEST OF GEORGE HARRISON
The only new studio track is the lovely "Bangla Desh". A fine collection of Beatle tracks and early solo work, one must subtract points for inclusion of the abysmal "You". Now that i think about it, george may be unique in the music business, where fans are usually subjected to endless hit collections with unending song overlap, plus that one new song which requires us to go out and buy the damn things. George released two hit collections, with no overlap between them. Eternal thanks, george.
14) LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
A well-crafted album of good songs and two very good ones, the title track and "Give Me Love".
15) DARK HORSE
The first five songs are forgettable, "Ding Dong" is an annoyance of monumental proportions, and the final three songs are a delight.
16) SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND
A burp of an album, redeemed only by "Life Itself", and "All Those Years Ago", written in the wake of john's murder.
17) EXTRA TEXTURE
His most listless and uninspired work, rescued from the rubbish tip only by "Tired of Midnight Blue". "Ooh Baby" is interesting, a primitive version of what would become "Pure Smokey".

HIV Chin Chin Niggah

STAGE/SCREEN 78 & 80
-fall 2007, 2008
I'm black and blue, and have a pimple where my skin hasn't been able to breathe.
Either i spent the weekend in a gimp costume, or i've been in a movie.
Koh Yamamoto's new film HIV NIGGAH required two days of shooting. This is the second Koh film i've been in. The first, CHIN CHIN CHAN, was filmed a year and a half ago, and even now is only almost completed (a clip is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4bGPfSSn9c). CHIN CHIN is about an underground NY rock star murdered by an obsessed fan, but the show goes on. I played the brother of the fan, a good ol' Texas boy who gets taken out by sis's shotgun too. It was the first time i had ever been squibbed (that's when they strap gunpowder and blood onto you, and explode it remotely). The shoot was an absolute hoot. We filmed part of it in a Manhattan S&M dungeon. It was a great and goofy time.
NIGGAH is about racism and safe sex. We shot part of it in the very same dungeon, and this time there were clients on the premises, and the background shouts of "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow...." lent the set a surreal element. I play Mark, a Christian Scientist holy roller pimping out my HIV-infected wife in NY nightclubs. Once again, the shooting was just silly fun. I was one of five actors who have been in both films. I was supposed to have a softcore sex scene with Tatiana, a real-life adult film star, but the scene was dropped due to time constraints. I'm bruised from the fight scene i was in...the Jagger pants i was wearing allowed for no pads, so my knees took a beating.
Film acting is a curious beast, one i'm still working on. Some great stage actors are never able to do film well. We're trained to project vocally across distance, and it can be hard to make the vocal shift to the intimacy of film. I felt like my vocals were projected and forced during this shoot, but that was because i was trying to use a "nightclub" voice, where people talk loudly to overcome the music. I had to imagine the music while we were shooting our close-ups, and i can only hope that the performance i delivered is more natural than it felt. Film acting is more an exercise in multi-tasking than stage acting. Sometimes you only get a few minutes of rehearsal, and then have to do take after take of the same scene, while a big chunk of your mind is focused on simple continuity, making sure that you deliver each take in exactly the same way...the way you grip your bottle, where you grab your partner's arm....maybe you only feel really good about one or two of the takes, but often those takes end up on the cutting room floor, for technical reasons. Actors create stage plays. Editors create movies.
Some of the actors asked me what people are going to think of the film, as it seems a non-stop shockfest of racism, sex, and violence. I'm told them i'm pretty sure Koh's films are comedies, actually. I think Koh (a sweet fellow who acts and produces, in addition to directing) is a bit of a modern day Anton Chekov, writing comedies everyone thinks are tragedies. How else do you explain the fact that the funniest scene i saw was a rape? Actors are the toughest audiences to impress, particularly ones whom you are working with. We know what's coming, so after the first take or two we seldom giggle. But that rape scene, i'm still smiling at the silliness of it days later.
Another beautiful week in the big city.

first love

This week, over two decades later, i became lovers with the girl who was my first teenage sexual desire.
The fact that it was a dream does not make it as unreal as you might think. I'll get back to that in a minute.
So often in life we distort or simplify truth, as it suits our needs. With statements like "I've never felt this bad", "You're my first love", or "That was the spiciest food ever!", there is often a lack of total truth, but for most people a measure of truth is all that is required. If no one is being essentially deceived, this facet of human interaction isn't even necessarily a bad thing...it can enrich the day-to-day moments of our lives. And sometimes we think we're remembering truth, but memory is fallible and self-serving in ways we're only beginning to understand.
Once in a long while, our superlative statements are true. But human psyches are too layered for most emotional superlatives to be so. When we say "i've never felt this bad", there have almost always been variations and building blocks of that feeling all our lives.
Who was my "first love"? Was it Renee, my childhood crush? Was it Miss Dull, my fifth grade teacher? Was it Stacy, the girl whom i gently adored in that window between childhood and adolescence? Was it Farrah? Was it Carol, my first long-suffering teenage crush? Was it Missy, the first girl who paralyzed me with longing? Was it Meghan, the first girl i had an intimate, healing relationship with? Was it Amanda, the first (and third) girl i fell in love with? Was it Vanessa, the first girl i felt a vacuum-in-my-head thunder strike for, the moment we met? Is it a woman who's only ever existed in my imagination?
In the dream, my mother and i were teaching at an elementary school in the Pocono Mountains. It was dark outside, and a blizzard was forcing an early end to the day. After we got all the kids away, Mom and i and some others, both kids and adults, got into a big van and headed for home in the swirling darkness. I was in the way back, with some kids and a girl i couldn't see clearly. As i chatted with the kids, the silent girl moved closer. I became aware that it was Missy, who lived across the street when i was a teenager. Even now, having seen her only once in the past twenty years, the image of her standing alone by our pool in her black bikini is enough to affect my pulse. I was lying across the van seat, with her now behind me, and i reached under and behind her, and slowly touched her in the most intoxicatingly sensual way. She stared front so as not to give our secret away. I continued talking to the kids, my hand moving in her pants. The softness of her skin and the electricity in our touch was breathtaking. I slid a finger into her front hole, then one in the back hole. She didn't open fully immediately, but eventually both fingers were drawn all the way in. Finally she laid back on me, face up.
It was at this point that i became aware it was a dream, and that i was slowly coming out of it. I tried to stay in the dream, but a minute or three later i was mostly awake, with an erection so full it almost vibrated.
Did you know that the brain doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality? In a study done on athletes, winning a race and imagining winning one manifested completely identical brain patterns.
So in a very real sense, i've made love with Missy. Was it the "best sex of my life"? On some level only my purest brain understands, a little bit, yes.
Of course, since we only remember a fraction of our dreams, it's possible that i've made love to Missy before...maybe even thousands of times. But this was the first time i remembered it...or the first time i remember remembering it.
If that's not the total truth, it's enough to make for a tender tale...
Especially the part where she liked my finger in her hiney.

why, johnny ringo!

Michael biehn came onto the scene in 1984, starring opposite an austrian bodybuilder in THE TERMINATOR. In the decades since, one of those actors has married a kennedy, had a parade of blockbuster films created around his talent, and become governor of the most auspicious state in the union.
The other has had a quieter career filled with consistent work, but the price of that consistency has been lower-budget films, of which many have been average, and a few awful.
Yet the well-budgeted austrian has appeared in more appallingly bad films, and both actors have been in the exact same number of brilliant movies - four each.
So it's time to celebrate mr. biehn.
No amount of money or talent can guarantee that a film will be good. The process is too scattered and complex. Compared to stage actors, a film actor is helpless in creating brilliance. Of course, it helps if james cameron loves you - three of michael's four have been cameron-helmed. And three (but not the same three) have had bill paxton in the cast, so make of that what you will. Michael is possibly unique in film history, in that his greatest roles have been perfectly balanced between good and bad guys (Hollywood rarely offers categories beyond these two). The essential filmography:
COACH - A fascinating curiosity. Far from brilliant, it is nonetheless sincere and charming and could never ever EVER get produced in today's politically correct world:
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2011/10/coach.html
THE TERMINATOR - Arnold's performance made the film, but try to picture some other actor as reese.
HILL STREET BLUES - Just weeks after TERMINATOR opened, michael had a memorable three-episode run as amoral rookie officer randall buttman.
ALIENS - Again, sigourney centers the film beautifully, but imagine someone else as hicks and it just feels wrong.
THE ABYSS - Lt. coffey is so creepily dislikable, you just want him to...not be there. Yet the core of his creepiness is the horrible certainty that there are people like him out there. If this film didn't knock you out, you may have only seen the original release. More than any movie i know, the added minutes of footage in the special edition elevate it to unqualified brilliance.
TOMBSTONE - In creating johnny ringo, michael drops the pretense of goodness which coffey carried. The result is deliciously horrible. One of those rare films which gets better with each viewing.
---
A part of me wanted to wait an indeterminate number of years before writing this article, because i have the feeling that it's not complete, that when all is said and done there will be one more transcendent film on michael's resume. How many would wager the same about the governator?
Reese. Hicks. Coffey. Ringo. He's no daisy.

germany's greatest generation

The glorification of "America's Greatest Generation" makes me sad. Not merely for pacifist reasons. Calling the generation who fought WWII the greatest, is a sentimentality that's difficult to reconcile with facts. My question: why do people who honor that generation not shower equal or greater praise on the generation of Germans who fought against them?
Soldiers aren't leaders or politicians. In our lifetimes, no soldier has ever played a part in deciding whether or not their country goes to war. Soldiers answer a call to duty. They go where their leaders point, and when they arrive they don't have the luxury of reflection. They kill or die.
Measurably, this is what the "greatest" generation did. The richest country in the world brought an end to a war in which every country but us absorbed unfathomable, horrific devastation.
The generation of Germans who fought that war almost conquered all of Europe and Russia. If you're not impressed, you don't understand how relatively small a country Germany was. The frontline soldiers didn't know about atrocities committed on Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. Inasmuch as they knew anything, they looked upon concentration camps just as our own brave boys looked upon Japanese internment camps. Perhaps unfortunate, but necessary. The Germans who fought the war simply answered the call to duty, as any soldier does, because they loved their families and their country. The idea that one army can be morally distinct from another is illusion. There's never been a noble gathering of killers.
As i write, there are seventeen global wars being fought. Since no one is suggesting that America's current warriors will ever become our greatest generation, my wish is that the other thirty-three living generations of soldiers be the last "greatest" generations this world ever knows.

chopperoo

The greatest toy of my childhood? The Chopperoo.
I've never seen another, or talked to a single other person who remembers having one, and i guess that's a tiny piece of the legend.
The main body was thick molded yellow plastic. It was over four feet long, a foot wide in the middle, and low to the ground. It had solid plastic handlebars rising above the front rubber wheel. The pedals connected to a metal chain which went inside the main body, back to the axle that sustained the six-inch plastic rear wheels. There was a big black removable seat back, with peg-hooks which allowed you to move it up or back.
I was probably four when i got it. The one picture i have shows me at that age, sitting on it side-saddle on my driveway, towhead hair shining in the Buffalo summer sun.
It FLEW down the street. Never flipped, not ever. Around this time, the most popular kiddy rider was the Big Wheel. The Chopperoo dwarfed the Big Wheel, and the few that tried to race me soon saw nothing but rear wheels.
Most toys hit their peak of glory when they're brand new. Novelty and excitement and shininess begin a slow, imperceptible dimming on the day you crack open the box. The Chopperoo did not live the life of the average toy. Its peak of glory came two years later. In child years, an eternity.
When i was five, my family moved to Ohio. My new best friends were ty mcclain and amy culler, who lived in the houses across the street. After a year of watching me zip around Indian Hill Dr., their parental pleas for new roadsters came to fruition, and they each received for Christmas the latest model: the sleek, dangerous-looking Green Machine. It was nearly as long as the Chopperoo, with a back wheel assembly much wider. It was steered by independent right and left handles -very cool. All that winter, those shiny Green Machines sat in their garages. By this time, the Chopperoo was weathered. Amy and ty couldn't wait to release their new kings of the road, when spring's thaw set us free.
The day finally arrived. As i walked the Chopperoo out of the garage, i smiled. It didn't owe me a thing. I knew that i would be proud of it no matter what happened. Amy and ty had already zipped out their driveways, and were trying out the crazy angles their rear assemblies allowed.
We set up in the middle of the street, looked at each other, and somebody said "go". Within four seconds, the race was over. Within forty seconds, i reached the end of the street, and turned. They were several houses back. I did the first summer lap of the island at the end of the street, and zipped back to meet them. The Green Machine, for all its beauty, had no chain-drive. It never had a chance.
The Chopperoo held together as lesser vehicles came and went, came and went. It was another five years before the seat finally cracked, and the molded plastic began to freckle and pucker. I was riding a bike by then, so i allowed it to be laid to rest.
Is it possible to love an amalgamation of plastic, rubber, and metal? I've always looked a little askance at grown men who profess love for a car...
But put me back on the road, five years old, the wind zipping over me and the best machine in the world...

she-pigments of imagination

During my twenties, i made the realization that a staggeringly high percentage of my favorite writers and musicians were white men. This troubled me. I knew that our thoughts are a product of what we pour into our brains, and that subconscious attitudes are passed on more readily than hand-me-downs in a family of eleven. I had to face the reality that my patterns of thought predominantly reflected white male ideologies and perspectives. If this seems an obvious realization, it's just that gender and race issues had been important to me even as a child. I kicked myself a little for not making more non-white and female reading/music choices in my youth. While this self-assessment had validity, i eased up on myself when i realized that all this was largely inevitable, because for millennia girls had been taught to be quiet and unintelligent, while boys were taught that boldness was their birthright. How could it be otherwise then, that history's achievers would be overwhelmingly male? As for skin color, this reality had limited parallels there as well.
But still in all, when one makes such a realization, consciously seeking out more female and non-white creativity is a most excellent and goodly response. Which i did.
Of course, a little piece of me was also kicking myself for partitioning the creative universe into color and gender at all. As a writer, it is often my fervent hope that people might take no notice of my skin or my sex (posting pictures of myself on this blog was a choice that took some pondering...eventually the desire to be naked outweighed the desire for albino androgyny). I am sometimes unhappy that my name alone invokes assumptions of ethnicity and gender. I've always loved tomboys and androgynous names. I did change my last name once, and a part of me thought about going even further, but that desire clashed with the part of me that finds name-changing contrived and past-denying.
No one ever said being an evolving human in a complex world would be simple.
More than a decade later, white males still occupy the lion's share of my musical/literary favorites, but not quite so thoroughly.
I now have Keb' Mo' and Buddy Guy in my life. I have Cassandra Wilson, Paula Cole, Joni, Annie Lennox, Alanis, and Tori.
Michael Harper and Sandy Boucher have joined King and Malcolm X. Judith Levine and Carol Tavris have joined Simone de Beauvoir.
The greater dream is that these and all people be defined not by pigment or genitals at all.
We're getting there.
I hug you all.

games GAMES GaMeS

Games are fun. I like fun. I like games.
You can learn about a person from the games they like. Or don't like. I don't care for chess, it's always felt too earnestly militaristic. Maybe i also sensed how much commitment was involved in being good at it, and decided it wasn't worth the time investment. Plus everyone playing it always seemed so serious.
And although i was the perfect age and demographic for the video game explosion, i never got into them like my peers did. There have been rare exceptions, but i clearly remember being around fifteen and deciding that video games were too sedate and voyeuristic.
Here are the games i've loved (a "*" denotes one which i still play).
The earliest memories are card games. There was a vegetable-themed version of Old Maid, with characters like Col. Corn and Star Rock Broccoli. There was Last Card*, a complex version of Crazy 8s. Two versions of solitaire*, and double solitaire with my big sister and younger brothers (your fingers have to be quick in double sol). For a while, i loved War. There was Blitz* (Scat, to some), a trade-in game where you try to reach 31. This was the first money game i learned. We played for coins (or pretzel rods, or whatever). Hearts* can be fun...he's shootin'. When i was old enough there was Milles Bornes*, a French automotive travel game, and Pit*, the crazy shouting stock market game. And above all, Upsy Downsy* (also known as Up the River, Down the River), a game of bidding, tricks, and trump. Games can be as long or short as you want, and as many as ten can play. A good game lasts over an hour. Over the years, my brothers and i have added new rules, refining and experimenting. Upsy is king. I think i like it so much because it involves a certain amount of skill, but the human interactions are the best part. A few years ago, my aunt discovered a store-bought variation called Wizard*. I love it, although some purists in my family resist its charm.
The childhood board and box games i loved were Don't Break the Ice, Don't Spill the Beans, and Whirlaway. The Mickey Mouse Rickety Bridge game was great, saving monkeys and all. Mom had a game from her childhood about going to the outhouse, called Gotta Go. Aggravation was great fun, a marble dice game where you try to get home. My sister and i played this one regularly for a year or so, and i remember the day i was finally going to win. I was one die roll away, and she suddenly flipped the board so high that the pieces hit the ceiling. So i've never beaten her. Husker du was an awesome memory game. Breaker 1-9 was a cool trucker game. Skirmish was a Revolutionary war game. We played Monopoly, Life, and Go To the Head of the Class. The Star Wars Battle of the Sarlacc Pit was a great 3D board game, with little players that fell into the mouth. Battleship was cool. Clue was very cool, both the original and Master Detective versions. Coolest of all was Creature Features*, a monopoly game of horror movies. My brothers and i couldn't get enough. We dove into Risk* with a passion, too.
Poker* is my other favorite card game. Love it love it love it. I play low stakes, usually nickel-dime-quarter (i've never felt the allure of real-money gambling). The most i've ever lost in one night is about $15. I'll sometimes play poker solitaire, playing all six hands of draw. I've never played strip poker, and i can't wait. Poker and nakediditity together, holy cow. I've also loved Euchre*, both the two, three, and four-player versions. Push and Shove*, a rummy game, is fine.
During pre-adolescence, my next-door best friend Dave Bent and i played games ardently. Stratego was great. Titanic was so cool. It had a multi-layered board, with a big ship that spun into the ocean, turn by turn. You had to run around collecting passengers and food, then continue in a lifeboat. It's the one game i've never seen another copy of, and would most like to find again. The biggest game Dave and i played was War at Sea/Victory in the Pacific, two store-bought games i combined and modified extensively. I was hugely into naval military history in those years, particularly WWII. I added dozens of ships they had left out, and totally restructured the rules. I always played the Axis powers...not sure exactly why that was, but that was the way it had to be. A full playing of the game would take several weeks, a couple hours at a time. I haven't played it since those years, but a little part of me hopes that one day i will.
College added two games to my favorites. Questions is a party game in which every response must be a question. Celebrity* is a partner game in which every person writes celebrity names on strips of paper, then all names go into a bowl, and on your turn you must describe a person to your partner until they say the name. You try to get as many names as you can before your turn ends.
I'm old enough that i remember the first video game, Pong. Good stuff. Boop, boop. I played Coleco's Cosmic Avenger and Smurf and Ladybug before i gave up video games...i remember my brothers being awed by my Ladybug talents. The only video game i've played regularly since those teen years is Lode Runner with my second cousin John, for one year in my twenties. It was silly fun, with evil monks and goofy juice.
I got into Mancala, the African stone game, a few years back. I acted in one play where it was the backstage obsession, and i beat most everyone. I also had it in my briefcase the year i was a high school substitute teacher, and would reward worthy students with a game or two against me.
Trivial Pursuit* is lovely. The best version of it i've ever played combines Star Wars Trivial Pursuit with Star Wars Monopoly: if you can answer a question correctly, you avoid paying rent...but if you miss and the owner answers one right, you pay double. I couldn't get my brothers to play again after i schooled them the first time. Apples to Apples* is a great game my nephews love. The coolest board game i've learned as an adult is Balderdash*. You make up definitions for words no one knows, and try to fool others into believing your definition is correct, while guessing the correct definition yourself. This game nicely exemplifies my view on winning. I usually neglect to move my piece if i've won points, and am happier playing without the board altogether. Usually Balderdash deteriorates into who can write the funniest fake definition. So one of the quirks of the game is that the memorable definitions are rarely the correct ones.
Games games games. Let's play.

greatest story never told

The most important book which as far as i know has not yet been written is a comprehensive sociological study addressing the question of whether there is a measurable moral and ethical difference between religious people and non-religious. In essense, a scientific answer to the question of whether believers in god are "better" or "worse" people than athiests/agnostics. The study would measure characteristics such as honesty, generosity, courage, patience, kindness, and corresponding negative characteristics. The essential difference between religious and non-religious people is acknowledgement of a higher authority. The non-religious assume full accountability for their actions, while the religious give authority for their actions to some outside agent. Does one of these paths create a "better" person?
Of course, any such study would be mired in a ridiculously relativistic moral quagmire. The religious and non-religious have such fundamentally different moral codes that concepts of good and bad often have little crossover meaning. The results of the study would be debated ad nauseum. There are also those who will be concerned about making a distinction between religion and spirituality. I am sympathetic to that point.
As a person who has long been subject to condescension by religious folk, i have my biases in this matter. I've always been gently certain that a very large percentage of the "believers" who've looked down on me were nowhere near as "good" a person as i. So deflating the moral pretense of religion motivates me, as does the evolution of humanity out of the darkness of ignorance and superstition. I've had good friends with deeply-held religious beliefs who have been among the better people i've known. And might the research perhaps yield results which defy easy conclusions? Whatever the case, i just very much want to know what the study would reveal. If any of you know an ambitious disciple of sociology looking to make their mark, one of the seminal works in the history of moral evolution is waiting to be written...

ZAZ!

David zucker, jim abrahams, and jerry zucker, we salute thee. Hm, given their predilection for exclamation points, i probably should have used one in that first sentence.
No matter!
There are two realizations that blindsided me while researching this article, which almost made me dump the whole idea - ZAZ were responsible for one of the most unfunny comedies ever, and one of their funniest films was actually made by someone else.
Nonetheless, the comedic eruptions created by this three-headed directing monster were so cinematically nonpareil, that tribute must be made. It is said that drama is far easier than comedy. A towering testament to that is the number of unfunny films these three were associated with when they went their (more or less) separate ways. Someone i was once trying to impress called the films shallow. I was deeply troubled by that suggestion. But i believe that humor is the most underrated indicator of intelligence, and that people who don't "get" ZAZ are missing something.
A curious feature of ZAZ films is that sometimes the versions they air on television are slightly different than the product released on video. Was andy a rock, or was it howie? What does geronimo yell when he leaps out of an airplane?
I was a bit stumped on how to structure this tribute, as focusing solely on the movies they created together left out films i wished to honor, yet the bulk of their solo work i wished to ignore. I ultimately highlighted all their collective efforts, plus a few solo shots - a sloppy approach that's the only satisfying way to point a ZAZ neophyte in the right direction. In order of funny...
AIRPLANE!
The first film they directed, it tapped into the need for a certain kind of mass cathartic laughter which had never before been accessed in such a fully-realized, completely unapologetic way. This film is nothing less than a culture laughing at itself.
THE NAKED GUN
So comedically perfect that, in the european release of this article, this goes to the top of the list.
AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL
Not created by ZAZ! Not at all! I'm in shock, as for years i've toyed with the idea that this might be one of the few sequels to ever top the original. How'd ya do it, writer and first-time director ken finkelman? If that's not shocking enough, i've just discovered that that very same year, ken penned...GREASE 2! Aaaaaaaaaahh!!!
POLICE SQUAD!
The only television they ever did, and such a smash it lasted four whole episodes. Naturally, one of the most over-the-top brilliant shows ever. The original files from which the NAKED GUN films were based, they were too brilliant for the airwaves. As the ZAZ boys say, too much audience attentiveness was required, because the jokes never let up. Leslie nielsen and ed williams (mr. olsen) are the only actors who leapt from small screen to big. Alan north (ed) and peter lupus' (nordberg) big-screen replacements were fine, but 'tweren't broke, so they aughtn't've fixed it. And one of the most brilliant characters ever, johnny the bootblack (william duell), never made the big screen at all. But i quibble.
TOP SECRET!
Val kilmer's debut, and the talent he displays is seamless. Yet this kind of role would never be Oscar-nominated, which is another reason why i haven't given attention to the Academy since 1985. Listening to the directors' commentary was the trigger for this article, as i simply must disagree with their moaning over how this inexpensive film suffers from a lack of plot. What the hell are you babbling about, boys? Only one or two films per decade come anywhere near this kind of funny. The underwater fight scene alone is worth the price of admission.
THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2
The second-greatest shower scene ever. A round of black russians on me.
THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE
Their earliest film, before they directed their own material. It's wildly uneven, and we none of us are worthy to touch rex kramer's size 27 tennies.
THE NAKED GUN 33 1/3
There is a moment when one realizes the ZAZ alchemy is petering out - when they do the long pan across the feet of the showering prisoners, a moment of brilliant comedy...totally fails to materialize. Am i the only one to wonder where was the inmate who had one black and one white foot? Even a tired ZAZ production is funnier than a million imitators, though.
HOT SHOTS! & HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX
The only spoofs ever made by a solo ZAZman which (almost) deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with the originals, are these by jim abrahams and ZAZ regular writer pat proft.
RUTHLESS PEOPLEGaah! They made this turd? Well, we should all...uh, step outside our comfort zone.

bad monkey 2: monkey love

I worked the 2008 NY Chocolate Show this week as baby Bananas, the lovablest loveball merry monkey mascot.
In earlier Bananas articles, i don't think i was able to communicate how much genuine love he inspires. I despair of ever really being able to do so, in words. The reaction to most mascots is "yes, you're a dude/girl in a chicken suit/big doughnut, and you can go now". For anyone not aged 2-5, the best one can hope for, even with mascots which aren't overtly annoying, is a "that's cute" reaction which is relatively quickly forgotten, but hopefully remembered subconsciously.
With Bananas, the average reaction is on a different level, to say nothing of the more profound reactions. I'm not saying that Bananas is the first mascot to transcend the genre. The Phillie Phanatic has been making adults forget there's a man inside there, for years. That chicken does it, too. So it's safe to assume that others have done it.
But the kind of love Bananas engenders is just more personal than anything i've ever heard of. For a significant percentage of the thousands who saw Bananas this week, he was the cutest and most unexpected thing they experienced at the show, and he stayed in their consciousness throughout the day. For a smaller percentage who had a more personal interaction, he'll be a part of their consciousness for a good deal longer. And for a few...
The best way i can describe the profound interactions is by telling you of one child and one adult. The common thread was that they simply could not get enough. Please believe that hyperbole is not my style. The child was around two, and this non-verbal lad convinced his parents to return to me three or four times. I'm sure some of those times he just bolted from their presence when he spotted me again. He would have stood there, waving and dancing and hypnotized, for hours. This interaction was on the last day, when i was a bit wrecked. Most mascot gigs are over in three hours, but i was doing more than twice that for almost four days. By the last day, the pain in my upper back torso was pretty well torturous within a few minutes of putting the helmet on. In that state, you grab at extra moments of relief that come with leaning your heavily-helmeted head back. But even when you're cheating, you try to do it in character, so on that last day, someone watching long enough might have wondered why Bananas was so curious about the ceiling. If our booth had a massage therapist on-call, or i had a live-in therapist of my own, i'd have endured better. I'm not holding my breath on the former, and accepting applications for the latter. But this child came on the last day, and i gutted out the pain needed to give him a little window of magic which will very possibly only come once in his life.
The adult mirror of this child was a girl in her late teens. She was with a friend, and as happens in cases like these, i could tell right away that she was feeling something very strange and personal, something which affected her whole being. The first time she hugged me, i felt her urge to not let go. There's no way this reaction could have been so profound if it was a one-way thing. Something in her presence touched me deeply, and we created a circuit. Like the child, she and her friend came back to me three or four times (and i found her once too). There was just no way she could get enough of what she was feeling, as she looked into the screens of my eyes while i cradled and stroked her hand. If i had left the building with her, she wouldn't have even analyzed it. I mean, you know, at some point reality kicks in with adults, and within a few blocks, she would have analyzed it. But think about how amazing that proposition is, that it might have taken that long. When i'm in that rare zone, which occurs about once per show, i'm certain the woman just wants nothing more in the world than to take Bananas home. Again, no hyperbole. I would call it likely that years from now, she and her friend will suddenly recall that monkey moment in time.
For the first time ever, i saw video images of Bananas this year. I've always been objectively aware of his cuteness, but i now know that i never comprehended it fully. The images almost startled me, and i'm the one in the suit! It seemed almost unfair that that amount of cuteness could exist in the world.
At the end of the show, Bananas gives a rose to his favorite worker from another vendor's booth. I began this tradition last year, and this year delivered one to the Chocolove stand.
And this year i experienced one other thing i'd never felt. I gave a monkey hug to a beaming woman, and after a second or three, through at least five layers of costume and clothing, i felt her heart. It was so strong and i was so surprised that i pulled back a bit, and as i did, she exclaimed to her friends in amazement that she could feel my heartbeat.
Just like that.
Monkey love.

"Pittsburgh"

2006
-directed by Bradley & LaBrache

The movie PITTSBURGH is almost wonderful.
The dvd of PITTSBURGH is indeed wonderful.
This mockumentary chronicles Jeff Goldblum's return to live theater and his hometown, to play Harold Hill in a regional production of "The Music Man". Being a huge fan of Christopher Guest films (plus liking Jeff, and seeing Guest regular Ed Begley in the cast), i was drawn to this film, though i'd never heard anyone speak of it. Though it was enjoyable, i had to conclude that its lack of word of mouth was deserved.
Calling it a mockumentary isn't even entirely accurate. It's a mockumentary/practical joke, though that's not right either. Much of the supporting cast is unaware that a mockumentary is being filmed, they are simply real people honestly interacting with the leads, under the impression that the cameras are filming a documentary about Jeff's return to theater.
It's when you watch the deleted scenes and listen to the directors' commentary track however, that this dvd takes off. You have to watch the movie to appreciate the extras. The deleted scenes have more laugh-out-loud moments than the movie, but they didn't fit into the narrative restraints of a feature-length film. And it's only when you listen to the commentary that you appreciate the "performances" which turn out to not be performances at all. It's not even clear watching the film that the play-within-the-movie is real, and that Jeff and the others did indeed play these parts on this prestigious Pittsburgh stage. But real it was, a performance which existed independently of the filmmakers' cameras, and had been scheduled long before the film itself. The directors didn't know how much of Jeff's anxiety was sincere, and how much was acting. The silence about the mockumentary extended to real talk show appearances, wherein Jeff talked about the play, rather than his most recent movie (which ties in to his manager's ongoing distress that Jeff's choices are jeopardizing his career). There are delightful cameos. A subplot is Jeff's real-life engagement to the actress playing opposite him in the stage play, and the reactions (both fake and real) of the people around him to this whirlwind romance with a woman 30 years his junior. The movie ends with the city of Pittsburgh naming an official "Jeff Goldblum Day", another event which you don't realize is happening in real life.
Decent film, and delightful dvd. Hmm, that sounds like a brand new cinematic category.

(kiss and) NO MAKEUP!

For as long as i can remember, i've been a more ardent feminist than most women. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the topic of makeup. I am so averse to it that it's rare for me to be attracted, sexually or platonically, to a woman who wears it. This streak is mined from the same vein that makes it unlikely for me to be attracted to a black woman who straightens her hair (if you don't get that, please read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"). Some people are perplexed by my aversion. When asked to explain, i often don't know where to start, because my aversion exists on so many levels, and i'm so passionate about it that i sometimes can't even remember all the reasons.
1) THE PORCELAIN DOLL
Reach back into history, to discover why makeup came to exist in the first place. During their millenia of subjugation, women have had one purpose - sex. A woman's worth was in her attractiveness. Undesirable women were kept around for their domestic contributions (although if you think women have never been killed simply because they were old or unattractive, you're not paying attention...in China today, women are killed for much less). What do you do with a porcelain doll? You paint it. This makes it prettier. The origins of makeup exist in that simple analogy. Painting a woman emphasized her only quality. It also made it easier to forget that she might feel hope or pain or anger...it made it easier to forget that she was breathing and alive at all. A woman wearing makeup today is like an african-american wearing a big chain around their neck. And yes, i suddenly realize that mr. t may soon be giving me a stomping.
2) YUCK!
Having been an actor, i have a inside perspective on makeup. It keeps skin from breathing. Do male performers keep their makeup on at the end of a show? No, no matter how great the show, taking off the makeup is generally the first thing we do. Makeup is patently unappealing to the touch or taste. Well of course, it's paint! Men kinda screwed this act of oppression up, they succeeded in dehumanizing women, but they inadvertently lessened the quality of woman's essential function. Makeup tastes terrible, and it smears whatever it touches. Apply makeup to a blank piece of paper, and ask for volunteers to lick or kiss that paper. You won't get any (except maybe ol' freaky jill, who once humped a swimming pool). Sex is rubbing and licking and fluids...randomly toss paint onto any couple who are proving their passion, be they people or pandas or porpoises, and annoyance will be the only result.
3) PSYCHOLOGICALLY
I like being naked, literally and metaphorically. I like real emotions and total truth. I like for nothing human to be hidden. The psychological walls that exist between us all are many and varied...because of fear or shame or desire or anger or a million other factors, we all wall ourselves off from the world, and once we're old enough to realize this (and to the extent which we do realize it), we then spend the rest of our lives trying to escape these walls. I hate makeup just as i would hate it if everyone wore a casper the ghost mask all their lives. Don't tell me it's not the same - it's just a matter of degree. If you think that putting a physical covering onto your face, no matter how thin, doesn't psychologically distance you from the rest of humanity, then you don't grasp basic psychology.
4) PLUNGE!
I'm a physical plunger. Show me a waterfall and i'll be wet, show me leaves and i'll tumble, show me a pillow and somebody's getting thumped. Makeup is antithetical to the spirit of plunging. If you're concerned about how dirt or sand or tears or sweat or swimming will affect your makeup, you're not really all the way alive.
I've been to the future. They don't have casper the ghost, and they don't have makeup.
Strangely however, they do have mr. t.

fragile insecurity

I have repetitive stress injuries in my knees. This is a self-diagnosis, as i haven't had medical insurance since my last regular job fifteen years ago. When my knees are rested they're fine, but prolonged hard use (like climbing a mountain) makes them tender and tight. It's a little worse in the right one. I'm guessing the damage is in the cartilage or ligaments. I still get around the boroughs by bike, so my legs won't get soft, and one of those arthroscopic surgeries may fix me up as good as new. But i don't have $25,000 lying around (my current fortune is closer to $250).
I'm not sure how i got these injuries. It may be a combination of factors. I've been a NY mover, requiring the moving of heavy loads up and down flights of stairs, sometimes for hours on end. But you know what the real culprit may be?
Vanity and insecurity.
I love my legs. I've always been able to run and climb and jump better than most everyone. But all my life, i've gotten "skinny leg" comments, especially from the males in my family. No amount of exercise has ever made my legs bigger. I've biked as much as 500 miles a month, and they stay just the same. They've always been well-toned, but from time to time those ol' skinny comments come my way. Why, when my legs are functionally better than almost everyone's, would these comments possibly bother me?
Because people suck. Because dragging someone else down is the easiest way to bolster our own status. Because we're stunningly good at dragging others down even when we don't consciously intend to. Because there's a little place inside all of us where we dream about being the most desirable person in the world. If there are people who've never been affected by body image issues, i haven't met 'em. My own self-love and confidence have been admired, even envied. Rightly so. There are perhaps some who would be stunned to know i was ever bothered by insecurity at all.
A couple years ago, i decided i finally wanted to make my legs "big". I lived on a long, steep hill, and i decided to sprint down and up this hill every day or two. It was beautiful exercise, one that i had to work at for a couple of months before i could sprint all the way up without slowing.
Except...i was running up and down a concrete sidewalk. It may just be coincidence, but it was about a year after i began my hill running that i first felt knee tenderness. In retrospect, it may have been the downhill which did the damage. If i had just walked down...
Such are the thoughts that play in one's mind.
Mind you, there was more going on psychologically than just that one motivation. I ran the hill partly for the joy of pure physicality. But have i sabotaged two of the best legs around, in the name of insecurity? And the greater question...if i can fall prey to insecurity, where does that leave the six billion or so whose self-worth is more fragile than my own?
We live in the land that created anorexia. We live in a world where thousands will have plastic surgery tomorrow, while babies go without the cleft palate surgery they need. Look at all the faces you pass tomorrow, feel the damaged psyches, the parade of people who will live their whole lives craving an unconditional love and acceptance they will never find. Look at them, feel them, and hug just one stranger.
I love you all.

cyberlovers 3

(this article is one of a series about online dating correspondences in which the couple never meet, despite conspicuous outlays of time or emotion)

To a large extent, i have no one but myself to blame for the prolonged wound-scrape that was my relationship with B. When we met online, i was looking for healing...for the truth of touch to salve my weary spirit. At the time, i was in love with a woman i couldn't be with, and battered by a lack of physical healing in any relationship i'd had in years. To be held with unconditional acceptance and love...it had been over a decade since i'd felt anything like that. And my experience with C had made me wary of any kind of online emotional involvement prior to meeting.
It took me the better part of a year to discover that B's needs were almost the polar opposite of mine. Her own path had been one of harshness in physical intimacy, and she needed spiritual love and acceptance more than she actually needed to meet someone. She did want to meet me eventually, for in time my resistance gave way and our spiritual love was secured. But ultimately she was so afraid of rejection, or of our love not measuring up to the intensity of the dream, that my year-long pleas for contact were an isolated howl into the winds of time.
It was one of my own ads that began our tale. I posted a poem of mine, and she was so taken with it that she responded, even though, as a devotee of makeup and heels and fashion, she wasn't the natural woman i had written about. Her intelligence and spirit touched me, and we were off. For a year, we wrote almost every day, and shared our poetry (one of my more resonant poems, "Sanctify", was inspired by her). She had lived through a loveless ten-year marriage, in which she had once been raped. She had been born in the Caribbean, and was taken with my light skin and long blonde hair. We sent each other very naked pictures...in most of her photos, her face was turned away, and i learned this was because she didn't like her eyes (and because i didn't like makeup). Sometimes she would pretend that a picture she had sent wasn't her, just some island girl for me to dream about. This was a little cute, but eventually honesty became a problem for her. In most ways though, she was possibly more open with me than she'd ever been with anyone.
The profoundness of her growing love for me was intense. I tried to hold back, but with limited success. Even at a distance, we affected each other physically. She affected my breath, and made my chest tighten. We would have long back and forth conversations. A few times, i became spontaneously erect while writing with her. She would sit on her bed to write, and one night she was stunned when she experienced a spontaneous orgasm under her warm laptop. My insistence that it was unhealthy to not hold a woman who just came because of you, fell on deaf ears.
After about a year, she told me that she had to leave New York for Texas, and we made one real attempt to get together. Strangely, i had a little rush of uncertainty at the last minute. I asked to re-schedule for the following day, but it never happened. She left, and i asked to break off contact. In the year or two that followed, we were intermittently successful at this. Occasionally we would write, and once there was even a strained phone call. Throughout, she did a number of things to destroy her credibility and be less than gentle. She threatened to hook up with blonde men she met. Once she answered another ad of mine, and carried on a conversation with me for several days, pretending to be someone else. There were other untruths, but my self-preservation has blocked the memory of them.
She also revealed at one point that she was dying. I told her it didn't matter, and that i didn't understand how dying wouldn't make her more willing to meet. In meeting, the only promise i made was that she would be held. Perhaps she needed the "ever after" part so much that any less would be too much to bear. She did finally visit me on a trip to NY. Unfortunately, she didn't tell me in advance, and went to my old address.
I know that perhaps i've been a tiny bit ungenerous, and that her version of the tale might leave you feeling more sympathy for her. During our Texas time, she accused me of cruelty for sometimes refusing to acknowledge her letters. But in the years we wrote, i still searched in vain for the simple physical healing i'd been needing...so that colors my story, to be sure.
I do love her.

cyberlovers 2

(this article is one of a series about online dating correspondences in which the couple never meet, despite conspicuous outlays of time or emotion)

I responded to a forgotten online ad by F, and when she wrote back i was quickly taken by her assertive energy and bright intelligence. Adorably, her name rhymed with the African country she had been born in. The picture she sent pressed almost every visual button i had...she stood alone under a palm tree next to a volleyball court, her dark skin and hair the picture of natural beauty, her physique a complement of my own. She was looking for more than a hook-up, but she was all about freedom and multiple lovers. Although we shared some wonderful letters for a week or so, she decided that i was too monogamously-oriented to risk pursuing. The fact that i both agreed and disagreed was moot.
A month later, we resumed our letters. She opened up her life to me. She had been raised in Germany, and shared the most beautiful tale of sexual awakening with the German girl she had lived with. She had known many lovers. She was a painter, and her paintings were beautiful and moving. She told me about the two great loves of her life, a Brooklyn artist and a French businessman. The artist had been her first, and he had promised her she would never find another love as physically satisfying. She and he were still occasional lovers, and she was on friendly terms with his live-in mate. The businessman and she had been involved for a year or two, whenever he came to town. She explored submission with him, and related tales of degradation that were quite stunning (one of them either made him a freak of nature, or on viagra). I myself had never indulged in dominance/submission, but a part of me was so taken with her spirit that i closed no doors. When i told her about my taoist training, and separating orgasm from ejaculation, she was unhappy. Ejaculation was such a huge part of her enjoyment of sex, that this was almost a deal-breaker for her. I eventually told her that if i loved someone, i would never fully deny something so precious to them. For all her libertine ways, she had never had multi-partner sex. She told me there was something psychologically fearful about it. A lifelong devotee of fear-facing, i fantasized about making love to her with other men. There was something intoxicating about the kind of lover she wanted in me. She liked to devote entire days to making love (her "fourteen hours", she called it). During the months we wrote, the specificity and intensity of the fantasies i had about her were profound...the things i would do for her which i had never done, and the things she would do for me...
She told me all about her childhood, and sent pictures of her African home, where her family still lived, and with whom she was close. She told me about the ways her home life had damaged her spirit. Abandonment issues. She continued to send pictures of herself, and a couple of them literally took my breath away. She occasionally wore makeup and heels, but i felt that this wouldn't bother me like it would with other women.
She shared poems she had written, and one of them was among the most beautiful, heart-rending things i've ever read, and ultimately the straw that broke our back. It was a poem that ripped past all her surface strength, and revealed, in a tiny voice, her profound fear of never being loved. All along i had been dancing around the idea of being with her without having access to ALL of her...but when i read her poem, i knew that i needed to love her, without walls, beyond time. Even though i held on to the idea of meeting her (i suggested we could hold each other from time to time, in simple asexual love), she was ultimately too afraid of the self she had revealed to me. She wrote that in another time i might be the fulfillment of her most sacred dreams, but that she couldn't reconcile me with her present world. She asked me to walk away. I knew that to do that, i would have to wipe out every physical connection...delete every poem, trash every picture, take her e-mail address out of my computer...else i would never be able to let go.
I did all this.
A couple of times in the years since, i've had a moment of weakness in which i've sent a tiny e-mail to the address time won't let me forget.

cyberlovers

For the past six years, i've dabbled in online love connections. Prior to that, i had always thought personal ads were a touch pathetic, but when i began using craigslist for job purposes, i discovered the "platonic only" personal section. This seemed an admirable evolvement in the genre, and i browsed. I occasionally answered an ad, and made some new friends. I realized after a year or less that i was only answering ads by females, and that whenever i met a woman, it almost invariably became romantic. I embraced the obvious and began browsing the romance section. In the years since, i've answered many ads and posted some of my own (being a male and off the beaten path, i've met almost no one from my own ads). I often answer the ads which seek opinions, or offer questionnaires. I try to keep an attitude of fun. Craigslist is the only site i use, as paying money for a dating service invokes a level of neediness that's not me.
I rarely look at ads which don't have a picture, as i believe pictures do tell a thousand words, particularly for someone off that aforementioned path. In a similar vein, most men don't need the words of an ad to know whether they're interested in a woman. Which is not to say that men don't care about personality, but sex is sex...or stated a little more generously, the average male can glean enough of a woman's personality from a picture to know whether he wants to meet.
I would estimate that at least half of my NY love life has come through the online world.
This article isn't about that.
This article (and the following two) is about online lovers who never meet...and three women whose lives became a part of mine, but never in the material world.
Being fond of the written word, most of the online connections i make are with atypically literate women. I can be game for flurries of back and forth letters. In general though, if there's a connection, i prefer to meet sooner rather than later. C was one of my early connections. I suspect we met in the "platonic only" section. For a while we wrote increasingly tender and revealing letters, sharing our poetry and lives. She wrote beautifully. She and her lesbian partner lived outside the city. She had only ever been with a man sexually once, when as an adolescent her father or step-father raped her. To this day, one of my cherished possessions is a poem she wrote about that experience, and i will sadly ever keep my word to not share it with the world. Over the months we wrote ever-increasingly intimate letters. She finally became convinced that she had found in me the first male lover of her life, and that making physical love with me would be the most important step in her long journey of healing. I felt the same...her words affected me viscerally, and i was sure that i was who she believed me to be. I honestly can't remember whether we ever shared pictures of each other.
Strangely, considering that she is the lead woman in this memoir, C doesn't fit into the parameters, for we did meet. After about four months, we met at a Manhattan Starbucks. It was faintly surreal, as we sipped and talked. After an hour, she headed back to the station. As we said goodbye, i think we both knew that something we had been so sure of, was not to be. Our physical connection was gentle and friendly, but the spark that would have made real all those months of build-up, just wasn't there. I think it was so obvious to both of us, that we didn't even speak of it. We just smiled and hugged each other goodbye.
We exchanged one or two more notes, and faded out of each other's lives.

economy burn Burn

The single most important feature of the current economic crisis is a reality most people don't grasp.
There is no economic crisis.
Ask any one of the millions who are running about in fear of the sky falling, a very simple question. In real terms, how is the world different from one month ago? You'll get a million babbling priceindexfidiciarynasdaqpurplepeopleeater answers, but very few will look you in the eye and say, "The world is no different, actually".
The world of shared ideas and social constructs has changed, but those things have no tangible reality. Tangible reality is this: how many life forms are on the planet, what resources do we have, and what is the state of our environment. Those three things pretty much cover reality. And they're statistically identical to what they were a month ago. Weevils didn't destroy the planet's wheat supply. A volcanic cloud didn't shroud North America. An overanxious mother in Maryland with way too much access to fertility pills didn't suddenly drop a billion babies into our laps.
All that has changed are human perceptions. I'm not saying that human perceptions don't have consequences...human perceptions are responsible for genocide, The Great Depression, and "Project Runway". But the choices we face in how to distribute our resources and care for our world, these choices are just as they were a month ago.
In more pressing matters...some time ago, one of my brothers stumbled across the question, "Did you burn Burn?" He was referring to cd copying and a Deep Purple album, as i recall. "Did you burn Burn" is a funny sentence, and it quickly became one of our favorites. We tried to think of similar grammatical constructions.
We were stumped.
This morning, over a year later, biking home from Manhattan, a similar grammatical construction finally hit me. I offer up this new sentence, for your edification and enjoyment: "Did you burn Burn while you saw Saw?"
Thank you...thank you. No no, you're too kind. Thank you.
And, good reader, i now include you in our quest. Can we top this sentence? Is there a third such grammatical construction waiting for us out there? If any of you deliver up such a beast, an impressive prize packet of soup mix awaits you.

7 deadly

Before breaking down the 7 deadly sins, let's deal with the concept. "Deadly" is a wee bit melodramatic, but we'll allow literary license. "Sins" is problematic - the denotation of sin is one of human failing related to some moral absolute. "Moral absolute" is possibly a nonsense term, and the greatest "sin" of all is original sin, the single most self-loathing, spirit-maiming notion humanity has cooked up. I suppose "7 insidious character traits" lacks panache? Ah well.
PRIDE
I have no inherent problem with pride. Pride is all around us, and is healthy or unhealthy only inasmuch as how we use it. I find no fault in being proud of a child (helen keller), or a country (Switzerland), or a discovery (the wheel), or an institution (Amnesty International), or an expression (Starry Night...the Traveling Wilburys). Let your spirits swell when you think upon these, and be proud of your species. Okay good, now go back to being chokingly ashamed. Pride is of course misplaced and excessive more often than not however, particularly in this culture of ego gone steroidal.
ENVY
I like envy. It can be a peaceful emotion. I always compare it to its destructive cousin, jealousy. Jealousy says "i want that". Envy says "that looks nice". Envy can motivate achievement, or simply trigger flights of imagination.
ANGER
I like anger too, in tiny doses. There is a need and place for righteous anger. I find that i get angry once every year or two. This i attribute to my peaceful spirit...and also perhaps to the fact that i don't get out enough. Some (lovers) have wished that i would get angry more often, as they see anger as a sign of caring. I care, i really do. But i'll save my anger for puppy torturers.
GREED
The inability to be happy and alive in a moment when all your needs are met, is possibly the greatest failing of a failed species.
SLOTH
Hmmm, sloth. Were humans slothful before we developed agriculture, and spent most of our days in a free-time happy haze? What do you call someone who works two hours a day and lounges the rest? A cat? Or just efficient? What would you call a culture where you work only six months of the year? I don't think i can claim to have ever been essentially slothful...in my life, there has always been a sense of continually moving from one activity to another. The one or two moments this hasn't been the case have truthfully freaked me out a tiny bit. But over the years, more and more of my activities have been happily devoted to recreation. Humanity has been relentlessly degraded by the agricultural/industrial revolutions. We need to reclaim some sloth.
GLUTTONY
I can't get behind gluttony. Isn't it just displacement behavior?
LUST
Bring it. Bring it on. Celebrate it! We haven't figured out how to get past the thousand and three hangups that destroy lust. But we'll get there. Cunt. Cock. The universe. Starry Night. Bring it.

hirci

The paints you wear
your intent declare
to not be licked

The heels you wear
your intent declare
to not run

The hoops you wear
your intent declare
to not wrestle

The hoops you wear
your intent declare
To not plunge

The heels you wear
your intent declare
to not climb

The paints you wear
your intent declare
to not be naked

"It's a Very Muppet Christmas Movie"

2002
-directed by Kirk R. Thatcher
What am i doing here again?
I thought my Muppet movie musings were gone, gone, gone. The small handful i hadn't seen were of the straight-to-video ilk. "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie", a love nod to "It's a Wonderful Life", was supposed to be unwatchable. The post-Henson/Oz years had prepared us for nothing less. But for the first half, this film was very nearly Muppet perfection. Somewhere in the creative team of Tom Martin, Jim Lewis, and Thatcher, is a childhood fan who forgot that this movie was supposed to suck. What's missing is as auspicious as what's here. Missing is the overdose of Gonzo/Rizzo. Missing are the newer characters who fall flat. And yet in the sweeping away of the new, Pepe the Prawn is somehow exempted. And well, Pepe kicks ass.
Returned are all the old-timers, including for the first time since forever, Rowlf and Scooter. They don't go overboard with them, just have them happily present. In a nod to the magic of Oz, Yoda makes a fun cameo. Fozzie is adorable as an accidental Grinch. And more stunningly, the human actors are wonderful. Even those who are often annoying even in non-Muppet productions (David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Joan Cusack) manage to hit the right notes. Triumph the Insult Dog's skewering of the post-Henson era is cathartic perfection. Yes, the music is tepid, and Statler and Waldorf sound like nobody you've ever heard, but at least they're reading good lines.
That said, the second half of the movie is, in Alzheimer's parlance, a very long goodbye. The final forty-five minutes runs about two hours. It's so soporific i debated whether to write this article at all, and whether to now keep the film in my collection. My best guess is that Thatcher had an obligation to make the movie a certain number of minutes, and simply ran out of quality ones. And the sad reality for this TV film is that a "director's cut" will never come to be.
But come Christmas, watch the first half.
And be happy.
3 stars.
POSTSCRIPT: I just watched 1987's "A Muppet Family Christmas", and "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas". The former isn't overly inspired, but it's sweet. It's most striking feature is bringing together three universes: virtually every puppet from Sesame Street, the Muppets, and the Fraggles (with Doc, too) are here. I don't know whether that ever happened before, or after. The sweetest moment is at the end, when we see Jim in the kitchen cleaning dishes as 500 puppets in the next room sing the closing song. "Emmet" is also sweet. A 3-star effort that pushes the boundaries of 4, it is most striking for Paul Williams' songs, which come closer to capturing the musical magic of "The Muppet Movie" than any other post-Muppet Show effort.

boobies?

Last night i read a bedtime story for Tarlik, the semi-verbal tot with whom i live. After the story, i held him while he played with a new Barbie-type doll. She wore a gold, one-shouldered shirt and bell bottoms. Tarlik was completely focused, and the nature of his curiosity was quickly apparent as his nimble fingers searched for a way to take off her top. The velcro soon gave way, and the object of his desire lay before him - boobies. He touched them for a minute or two, looking up at me once or twice as though inviting me to partake of his joy. I smiled, and said affirming but noncommittal words. Finally, he kissed the boobies. For a few seconds i wondered whether his fascination had to do with breast-feeding (i'm pretty sure he's already been weaned).
His fascination did not have to do with breast-feeding.
He began to single-mindedly work and tug at the pants. They resisted his efforts far more than the shirt. After a couple of minutes, he turned to me for help. I told him it didn't look like they were coming off. He kept at his efforts, then asked for help again, handing her to me. That he was seeking male bonding seemed an inescapable conclusion. I faked an effort to get her pants off, and handed her back. He continued to try. After succeeding in revealing only the top third of her hiney, he finally gave up.
Fascinating.
I couldn't help thinking that this scenario would be acted out by Tarlik someday with a real, live, "lucky" girl...and frankly, i'm not sure whether i want him to call me when he has trouble with the pants. At the very least, i hope for the girl's sake that the time units involved are a little more generous.
A semi-verbal almost-three year-old.
And all the groundwork has already been laid for a large part of his perceptions of, and interactions with, females.
Where did he learn his behavior? From the unspoken gender attitudes of all the people in his life. And from TV, as i know he has seen grownup shows. His fascination has also been shaped by our attitude toward the body in general...if we were a society at all comfortable with our naked selves, i doubt whether he would have been so thoroughly entranced. I remember being a child and disrobing a female doll in almost the same exact way...i may have been a little or a lot older than Tarlik, but that seems hardly relevant.
Is there also an element of instinct in his actions? Possibly, but the more we learn about genetics, the more we learn that the "purity" of genetics is a fallacy...that our genetic expressions are not set at birth, but that they shape and are shaped by our ongoing life experience.
Though raising a child takes years, don't ever doubt that by the time we're three, most of our general behavior patterns (and many of the specific ones) are well-set. Get to know a child of three, and you will surely be watching the thirty year-old he or she will one day be.

no mirrors!

I have a pimple.
A rather impressive one. Perhaps not quite classically "visible from across the room", but impossible to miss in close quarters. It's between my mid-nose and my right cheekbone, a location that's high on, but not at the top of, the conspicuous scale. It's a deep pimple, one with a life cycle of at least a week...it started out four days ago as a subcutaneous entity to be ignored. By yesterday, a yellowishness had surfaced, necessitating a decision: lance and squeeze, or not. I chose the former. The first draining was sadly not the last; hopefully that will be tonight or tomorrow. No regrets, let's move ahead. Fortunately, today and yesterday have been hermit days. Tomorrow however, i must do a P.R. event for my peanut butter job. Ah well, the pageant of life. It will be a character-tweaking reminder of the nonsensical miseries we all face.
Pimples struck in my teens. The low point was when i returned to school after having mono. One of my concert band friends asked whether i had chicken pox. I tried one of those little makeup sticks, and i allowed my folks to take my stoic self to a dermatologist, bless them. The biggest point that the dermatologist made was to leave pimples alone, when at all possible. Good advice, but yellow pimples simply must be dealt with (there was a girl on the subway the other day so in need, it killed me to not take her home and take care of her). Once a dermatologist has maintenanced you, you pick up on the technique of pricking the skin before squeezing, to reduce collateral damage.
I would occasionally get pimples elsewhere, but mostly on my face. If you've ever had a grand nose pimple, you know a special kind of misery. The only unforgettable pimple of my life was at my side forehead hairline; its placement made it inconspicuous, but it was so large and deep that the pressure of it actually hurt, and when i squeezed it, a string of yellow goo came out that was measurable in inches.
As an adult, pimple frequency has gone down enough that i've been complimented on my great skin. This is nice, but personality scars can last longer than the blemishes themselves. Pimples didn't dominate my adolescent psyche, but they tried, how they tried. Staring at the mirror, longing for the day when they would be gone...oh my god, i would tear up the world when that day came, talking to any girl, free of fear! Free! On particularly bad days, i did my turtly best to hide from society.
When i did finally pass the prime pimple years, i found that the path to freedom from social fear was something i still had to work at. The human psyche in this damaged society is usually far better at creating obstacles than overcoming them.
Around the age of thirty, pimples began to frequent my derriere, but that's not so bad.
In a perfectly healthy world, mirrors would be rare. In our world they are like clocks, everywhere. In a perfect world, we would all just unself-consciously be who we are. In our world, almost all of us finds a source of misery in the images that stare back at us...pimples, freckles, unwanted hair, fat face, yellow teeth, wrinkles, a scar, big nose, kinky hair, eye bags, thin lips, skin color...most of these sources of misery are pure silliness, and none of them have anything to do with our true beauty.
Imagine a world, a world of no mirrors...

15:3:1

Dear Flower,
I love the Vonnegut quote.
I've told you most of the reasons for the giant thumb pinning my head. Remember those daily kicks? For the past fifteen years, my little daily kick has been "you will lie down tonight unheld". Not that i haven't had moments...i once slept with four different women in the space of five nights (mostly asexually, i'm a cuddler). But in the big picture, i've been held maybe 1-2% of the past fifteen years. For the past fourteen years, i laughed off this almost-daily kick. You'll be hard-pressed to find someone possessed of more perspectives than myself, when it comes to what's important and the singular joy of being alive. However, imagine a light kick that lands in the same spot every day. It eventually becomes tender. After more than a decade it's a pain you're begging to land somewhere else, anywhere else.
I'm dying from being untouched and unrubbed, Flow. If that sounds overly dramatic, remember that lambs who are unlicked often die. I understand the healing power of touch...it gets inside our being in ways we're only beginning to understand, including the correlation between touch and anti-social behavior. In studying people who are inflictors of pain, you will uncover a profound dearth of touch.
I've been a champion of touch all my adult life (which has been a source of heartbreak in this non-tactile society, which has become increasingly moreso due to the heinous, baseless pedophile witch hunt). Having worked with children and the mentally retarded, i've at times been one of the most hugged people on the planet. And the thousands of massages i've given...yet due to my too-giving nature, i've received only the tiniest fraction in return.
I'm so far beyond the catharsis of talk. Your endorphin exercise advice is the choir talking to the preacher. I bike close to two hours a day 3-6 days a week, and do an hour of yoga calisthenics every other day. I eat very well. I do everything right for amazing health, except be held.
A sadness equation popped into my mind this week, 15:3:1. 15 years since i've been really held. 3 years ago i fell in love with a woman i couldn't be with, and only now can i feel myself emerging on the other side. 1 is the turbulent past year, in part because of a relationship with a woman who will be amazing years from now, when she's worked through her neuroses and self-love issues. We broke up for about twice as long as we dated, and my head was exposed to a new kind of almost-daily kick. This in a year when i know that all i need is the simplest of physical healing.
hugs and hugs,
wrob

"Harmful to Minors"

(The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex)
-by judith levine
2002
Possibly the most socially important book since peter mcwilliam's "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do". A few quotes, since it's doubtful i could speak as eloquently for her as she can for herself:
"Trying to fortify the nuclear family by fomenting suspicion of strangers fractures the community of adults and children...Projecting sexual menace onto a cardboard monster and pouring money and energy into vanquishing him distracts adults from teaching children the subtle skills of loving with both trust and discrimination. Ultimately, children are rendered more vulnerable both at home and in the world...
There is no distinct moment at which a person is ready to take on adult responsibilities...people do not grow up at sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-one, if they ever do. A three-decade study of adolescents and adults concluded that, cognitively and emotionally, both groups operated at an average developmental age of sixteen...
Legally designating a class of people categorically unable to consent to sexual relations is not the best way to protect children...the Dutch parliament made sexual intercourse for people between twelve and sixteen legal but let them employ a statutory consent age of sixteen if they felt they were being coerced or exploited. Parents can overrule the wishes of a child under sixteen, but only if they make a convincing case...
Comprehensive, nonabstinence sex education works. And abstinence education does not. In many European countries, where teens have as much sex as in America, sex ed starts in the earliest grades. It is informed by a no-nonsense, even enthusiastic attitude toward the sexual; it is explicit; and it doesn't teach abstinence. Rates of unwanted teen pregnancy, abortion, and AIDS in every western European country are a fraction of our own; the average age of first intercourse is about the same as in the United States."

fellatio

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