THIS is Entertainment!

Warning: Distasteful subject ahead.

So the E! channel is going to hire actors to recreate actual scenes from the Trial of Michael Jackson. The scenes will be taken from court transcripts. They've got a Michael Jackson impersonator and people to play the judge, lawyers, etc., and they have a set designed to look just like the actual courtroom in Santa Maria. I don't know if they're planning to recreate the jury, or what the ethics of that would be. Ha - did I say "ethics?"

They have to do this because

1. There is nothing more important happening in the entire universe for the next six months than this child molestation trial, and
2. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom.

But now that we've been conditioned for the past couple of years to accept "reality TV" as an acceptable "art" form (I'm sorry, I can't stop using quotation marks in this post), who needs cameras in the courtroom? A reenactment could be better than the real thing.

Like, if the transcript indicates that the accused stood and said "Not guilty, Your Honor," the reenactment could depict maybe a spin move and a hand to the crotch. Who's to say it didn't happen that way? Heck, even if somebody did say it didn't happen that way, who cares? This could open up a whole new world of television. I'd like to see a reenactment of Bush's closed door meeting with Putin. Does he call him Vladimir to his face? Or how about the Pope arguing in private with his doctors about the morality of pulling the plug on someone in a permanent vegetative state?

But can E! find actors who can memorize a script that fast? I mean, if they're going to be timely about this, they are going to have to show courtroom drama on the day it happens. This means they'll have to get those transcripts promptly when court adjourns, which probably means buttering up a court reporter at the very least, up to and including bribery, which I think is legal in this type of case. Then they have to convert them to some sort of working script, which will involve one or two rewrites (remember, this will be based on court transcripts. There may be some "artistic" license taken.) and finally the actors will have to shoot the show. They can't be reading or stumbling over lines, and the "news" orientation will make it mandatory that things get done quickly, or at least before the next days' proceedings begin. This could be the career challenge of a lifetime for them.

I don't know if Jackson did anything criminal or immoral. I hope not. But I can't help wondering if the Michael Jackson of today would molest that cute little Michael of 1970. Tune in to "witness" every exciting development.

Snubbed on Oscar Night

My mojo has no effect.

I didn't really expect Gwyneth to invite me to escort her to this year's Academy Awards show, although I did dust off the tux. Imagine how the paparazzi would have reacted. But she could have called, if only to say Hey, I'm in town, just wanted to say hi, let's get together some time. I mean, what would that have cost her? Am I asking too much, people?

You have my number, babe.

The Relationship Issue, Part 3

Who's got the Power?
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

I made the mistake of telling someone, a woman, one who says she is shy, one whom I do not know in person (you know who you are), that when it comes to the man/woman thing (relationships, dating, hooking up), that she has all the power. Not content merely to stick my foot in my mouth, I went further and counseled her to "use it for good," thus making it seem that I knew exactly what I was talking about.

Now, I think I'm right, or I wouldn't have said anything. I mean, if you leave out the serial rapist and the brutal numbskull, and include only normal guys who harbor the wish to love and be loved, and to do right, whether they are aware of this wish or not, within this group -- and I believe this is by far the largest group of males in the world, so large that a woman might go through her entire life meeting only this type of man -- you would find it safe to say that men have ceded control to women in matters of the heart. Personal experience and long observation make me pretty sure I am right about this. Someone's in charge of these matters, and it ain't the boys.

Sadly, though, The Power is is elusive and magical, and I don't have the authority to confer it on anyone. I feel now like the Wizard of Oz, the old fraud, caught behind the curtain, manipulating the levers and dials of a cheap illusion, and forced to admit that I am no more a wizard than you, or you. One thing I promise, though: I won't hand you a diploma or a pocket watch and try to con you with some kind of power-of-positive-thinking baloney, because we all know that no matter how positive we feel, sometimes the real world doesn't go along.

The Power I spoke of is not a force that is controllable -- you see a guy and you want him, so you turn on your Power and he is inexorably drawn to you, unable to resist. You wouldn't want that kind of power anyway. I have known women who wanted it, or thought they had it. Eventually they discovered that it didn't always work, which meant maybe it never had worked, and inevitably they became fixated on the man who did not respond to it, even if they didn't really want him. They would try more and more ploys, makeup and perfume until bitterness set in, and in their disappointment they would become cynical and unable to see the great guys all around who were naturally attracted to them, without any secret weapon having to be deployed. And yet...

And yet there is a power at work when we mate, whether for a night or a lifetime. I don't know what it is that makes one woman look different to me than the others, one laugh so infectious, one body in the crowd so irresistible. And maybe she doesn't, either, but when I fall under her influence I see her face everywhere, I smell her hair, I hear her voice and I long for her touch. Sometimes I feel like I am under a spell, delerious and bipolar. I'm up when she favors me, down when she looks away.

I'm sorry -- you can't use this Power to have any man you want. The Power doesn't work that way. Not only that, but there is no one Mister Right for you. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are millions of them. The Power probably lies in being receptive, but not passive. Give yourself a little credit, and go after what you want -- you may be surprised to find that he wants you, too. If he doesn't, please trust me on this, somebody does. And not just some low-grade slightly irregular second choice, but someone fully ready and able to rock your world. You'll have to take this from me on faith: Somebody does. Really.

He can't stop thinking about you. He wants to impress you. He's waiting for a sign from you, maybe a smile. He'll do anything you ask. And if you look at him with an open heart, he'll get cuter.

We Shoot to Kill

Because the darts wouldn't have stopped him.

A 500-pound tiger somehow got loose last week and wandered around in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, for four or five days. At first there were just mysterious seven-inch wide paw prints, but this morning (Wednesday) there was a sighting. So far nobody knows who lost the tiger. There are no native tigers in Ventura County, so it is assumed this one was being kept by someone.

Anyway, authorities were called. They could have used tranquilizer darts, but said later they were "concerned for the safety of residents and motorists." So they shot him dead.

The Deluge

Pray for Los Angeles.

We are slipping into the sea. We have now received twice as much rain this season (32 inches) as the fine, rainy city of Seattle. The difference, of course, is that we have built our homes of straw, and on hillsides of soft dirt and boulders, and -- look out! -- here they come sliding down!

The Hollywood Freeway was closed tonight. A 10-foot wall of mud filled a couple of condos in Hacienda Heights. Houses are sliding off their moorings in Culver City, Anaheim Hills and several other cities. A guy in Woodland Hills was buried in mud. Another guy died when he fell into a 30-foot deep sinkhole. Parts of the commuter train system have been shut down. There have been power outages throughout Southern California. A boulder crashed into a second-floor apartment and killed a 16-year-old girl as she worked at her computer. And the rain keeps coming, on its way to a hundred-year record.

We are always at least a little dramatic here, and now we are pretty sure this is the end of the world. And if it ends this way, in darkness and thunder, a wound on the left side bleeding our foolish fantasies like mud into the ocean, draining our dreams down the flood channels, the city of eternal wishing and hoping finally beached and lifeless, well, it's got to end some way.

It Was Your World, Doc

I just lived in it.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
1939 - 2005

Lisa's Legs

I'm trying to blog, make coffee, watch a movie and find my tax documents.

All these activities have to take place in different rooms. So I go in to where the big TV is hooked up to the digital cable box, and there is Clockwatchers, a sad, funny movie about four young women killing time as temps in a huge office. Also, there are the papers I have been sorting through for half of this dreary day, looking for my tax stuff. This stuff has been piling up for months. It has now been separated into three piles: The biggest pile is recycling - mainly flyers from local grocery stores. I don't know why I didn't chuck them the moment I saw them. Then there is shredding - the endless junk mail I get that has my real name and address on it. Blank checks I (or anyone who finds them) can write against my credit accounts, subscription renewals that just might tell someone too much about me - have you noticed how personal, how targeted junk mail is becoming? The third pile is stuff I'm pretty sure I have to save, but I don't know why or where.

So I go to the kitchen to get a paper bag for the recycling and there is the coffeemaker. I am a coffee freak. I buy roasted coffee beans at health food stores (!), organically grown, and unsprayed with poison. Coffee is the most chemically treated crop in the world, you know, so if you're going to drink as much of it as I do (don't ask) you don't want a pesticide cocktail along with it. I mix at least two different varieties of coffee most of the time, and grind the beans one pot at a time. I have been using a glass Melitta stove-top cone-type coffee pot since the Spanish American War, until last Christmas, when someone tried to bring me into the 21st Century by giving me an electric coffeemaker. I had told this person many times that I liked the ritual of the stove-top model - the measuring of the water, the boiling of the water in a separate vessel, "surprising" the coffee with that first brief squirt of hot water, refilling the cone a couple of times until the perfect pot of coffee was there, visible in its' gorgeous mahogany glory in my glass pot. But I got the electric coffeemaker anyway. "Look," he said, "it's a Melitta, and it uses a cone!"

So for a few months a good part of the coffee ritual was gone from my life. Water in this hole, coffee down here, press the button and walk away. Might as well walk away, because the carafe is stainless steel, so you not only don't have to do anything, but you can't even see if anything is happening. Also, you can never tell for sure if the pot is clean, because you can't see through it.

But some of the ritual element is returning, because the electronic mechanism that detects when there is no more water and the coffee is ready has gone haywire, and now the coffeemaker stops brewing at random times during the process, sometimes after only a cup has gone through, sometimes in the middle or near the end. When that happens you have to push the button again to make it start. Lately it has been stopping three or four times before finishing a pot of coffee, each time necessitating a manual restart. It's not exactly a mystical ritual, but it's all I have left. When this thing breaks down completely, I'm going back to my ancient glass rig.

But why am I standing in the kitchen with this paper bag in my hand? Oh yes, the recycling, which is on the floor in front of the TV. I leave the coffeemaker and go out to gather up the papers from the floor, and now I am back watching the movie. The four temps are amazed and disgusted that some new girl has been hired on a permanent basis to do a job that any one of them can do easily. There is no justice.

After bagging up the papers to be recycled, I get smart and pick up the papers to be shredded, so my walk back to the kitchen can have a dual purpose. I take the shreddables into where the shredder is, which is also where the computer is, which reminds me that I have a bunch of blogs open in tabs, and these obsessive bloggers will be looking at their site statistics and trying to figure out who was reading their blogs for six hours. So I try to read (and close) a few of my faves while I stuff paper into the shredder, hoping that sorting this stuff while watching Lisa Kudrow's long, long legs in a short, short skirt hasn't made me put my tax documents in this pile by mistake, because, hey, it's too late now. Then I think Well, maybe I'll type a few notes myself, and I start to do that but then I remember that I want some coffee.

I go in the kitchen, and sure enough, the coffeemaker has stopped. So I restart it and go back to type some more, but while I'm at it I realize the movie will be ending soon and I've never actually seen the ending. Do you do that in this era of cable movies? Watch parts of movies here and there, now and then, out of sequence, until you've seen the whole thing?

But I have missed the ending, my stuff that must be saved is still sitting on the coffee table and... Coffee table! Coffee!

Back in the kitchen, the coffeemaker needs another restart, and now I can't find the bag of recycling. Shit, it's in by the shredder, next to the computer, where the blogs are waiting to be read and written.

I haven't found the papers I was looking for, and I haven't had my coffee. But I have filled up a trash can with shredded paper, read some and blogged some, and that's something.

Oh yeah: And I had a brief video relationship with Lisa's legs.

Sex in the Back Yard

Right here in the Big City.

I heard a loud ka-thunk in the backyard the other morning, and I went out to investigate. Using my Holmesian powers of deduction, I pieced together what had happened:

A couple of possums (yes, I know they are really opossums, but I just can't say it - or type it - that way) had been engaged in some hanky panky on top of a six-foot cinderblock wall. They had become transported by their amorous activities and lost their balance, slipping off the wall as one possum and crashing together into the top of a 5o-gallon plastic trash can. This caused the ka-thunk. They must have immediately rolled off onto the ground.

At this point, Ms. Possum evidently decided she'd had enough and it was time to call it a night (this was at 7:00 AM, people). She had managed to wriggle about ten feet from their original landing point. That's where they were when I came upon them.

As you can see from the picture, the boyfriend (or BF) was not finished with her. They were not cuddling in this picture. They were coupling. About five seconds after this picture was taken, Ms. Possum (the one in the lower right portion of the frame) broke free and the two of them scrambled away into the nearby bushes. I felt bad enough for getting this compromising shot and I didn't pursue them. For all I know they continued their debauchery in the bushes for the rest of the day.

I like possums. They are the only North American marsupial. They are quite successful. That is, their population is not threatened, because despite their slowness and what sometimes seems stupidity, they apparently have figured out how to get what they need to survive side-by-side with man. Some think they look like giant rats (the two pictured here were probably ten pounds each), but I think they are kind of cute, like an AMC Pacer. This is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. But I'm glad these little guys are in my neighborhood, and I wish them well as they start their family.

I told you I'd be getting back to writing about sex. And there's more where that came from.

Pollyanna Politics

Getting a little political here at revision99.

This was originally intended to be mainly a political blog, but I got sidetracked somehow. I guess I realized early on that since I didn't have a real news organization behind me, I couldn't get inside information. I couldn't get invited to press conferences by the President or anyone else, and I didn't have a staff to research anything. In the absence of those capabilities, I have nothing but my opinions, which, it turns out, are a dime a dozen, and of no compelling interest.

Thus freed from having to rant about the government and its insane policies, I was able to turn to more mundane - and fun - topics, like sex, bondage, animals and technology. Some day, however, I intend to make good on my promise to post something that tries to make sense out of the current political climate in the United States in light of the apparent shift to the Right that has manifested itself recently. Some day. In the mean time I need to do a short follow-up on yesterday's post. This is more politics, folks. Turn it off now if you were looking for sex.

Yesterday I was thinking about the army. The troops, as they are usually called these days, on bumper stickers and in Congress. I don't support them.

There. I said it. I don't support The Troops. Oh, I love them like my own brothers and sisters, and my heart goes out to them, and I don't want any of them to get hurt or killed, and I want them to come home and be with their families, or get back to their jobs or farms or drug habits, whatever it is they want. I wish they weren't in some far-away desert country where they don't speak the language, the food is rotten and everybody they see might be sizing them up for a suicide bomb attack. Most of all I weep for the ones who lose their arms and legs, or their minds.

But God damnit, when they do their military jobs, when they drive their armored vehicles, read their radar screens, fire their weapons, conduct their house-to-house searches, when they are soldiering, they are doing the work of the devil. Our troops are in somebody else's country, somebody who was not a threat to this country, and there are a hundred thousand dead Iraqis because of this. Can we stipulate that this is just wrong?

You might be thinking that our army is merely following orders, and you can't blame them for that. In light of the monstrous horrors of the 20th century committed by people following orders, do you really want to use that argument again?

Look, I'm not trying to say that any of this mess is the fault of any individual soldier. But when you sign up for an organization that wears armor and carries machine guns as part of its dress code, you have to know that somebody is going to get shot. Maybe you don't expect that a loco presidente is going to take you adventuring to exciting foreign ports o' call, but if your training involves the killing of human beings, well, you just gotta figure there might be some killing in store.

Maybe you've seen the bumper sticker that asks "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" I know life is much more complicated than that, but I still ask myself, what if...? What if people just didn't participate in these wars we keep having? After all, it's just Joe Sixpack shooting Mohammed Hookah Bowl. Guys like George Bush and Saddam Hussein don't take any chances with their asses, so why should we be so eager to enlist?

At this point it would be pretty easy to bury me in arguments about why we need an army, why everyone needs an army, how freedom isn't free, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, we can be pacifists, but what if the other guy wants to fight? etc. I'm not claiming I have practical answers to these points. I'm just sadly looking at a world that is increasingly armed and dangerous, and wondering if there's anything at all we can do to make it better.

OK. That's all the politics for now. Next week I'll get back to sex.

Lines

On the playground we were all warriors.

We played many games, all of them designed to replicate real wars. Move the ball, score on the opponent. Victory and defeat. Triumph or humiliation. Attack and defend.

Sometimes we played Capture the Flag, a game that almost exactly mirrors the activities of war: stealth, death, deceit, guard duty, all the highlights. The entire play area is divided into two territories, and two teams, who each hide a flag or an icon of some sort in the farthest reaches of their territory. The object is to find and steal the flag of the other team, and bring it back to your own territory. Along the way you can be captured and imprisoned, or killed, and if you catch the other team on your ground, you can kill them instead.

Sometimes things would escalate beyond gaming. Someone would get pushed too hard, and get too serious about the offense. The undercurrent was always there. At these times you would try to defuse the situation. The parties involved could not back down, and any intervention could lead to greater tensions, and punches could be thrown, shoves administered. Would-be peacekeepers could get bloody noses.

Eventually someone would draw a line. Step over it, and I'll break your head. Take it any way you want. There it is. A line. You could go for it, if you were tough enough, or if you thought you had no credible choice. You could ridicule the concept as a way of not ignoring it but not having to brave the possible consequences. Some of your playmates might see it your way, and not think you a hopeless chicken.

But one thing was sure: When it got to that point, when the line was drawn, it was too late for intervention. It was past the point of no return. Someone was going to get hurt, physically or psychologically.

What were we doing, with our lines and our threats, and our posturing? Readying ourselves, instinctively, for the Game of Life that we were headed for, a game where the winners take what they want and to hell with everyone else, where you draw a line around your territory and warn all who pass step over this at your peril, where you penetrate the territory of others, steal their stuff and race with your spoils back to your homeland. Welcome to the big game of deception, betrayal and death.

Like children, power mad and run amok, we have marked the whole world with lines, an elaborate system of borders, and we have warned each other in the harshest possible ways do not step over our line. We no longer remember why the lines are there, but we will kill the trespasser, and the killers shall wear medals, and we will honor them and they shall be known as heroes.

Valentine's Day

Your happiness does not depend on being anyone's "Valentine," OK?

I remember in the fourth grade it was kind of a competition. Valentine cards were prepared by the box and delivered to classmates on February 14, and the numbers each receieved were openly discussed at recess. I'm not sure what we thought we were doing, why the teacher sanctioned these shenanigans, so obviously exclusionary and non-academic. What were we supposed to learn from this? That it was good to be loved? No, because we never said "I love you." It was implied, of course -- what else does "Be Mine" mean? -- but we never said it.

We were keeping our options open, way back then. Just children, not willing to make a choice, knowing instinctively that in our choice we would lose all other choices. What if we picked wrong? We couldn't see far enough down the road even to know what that would mean, much less how the horrible error could possibly be corrected.

Or could it be that some of us were ready? Ready to make a decision, make a connection, select a partner. Who's to say that a fourth-grader is any less prepared than the average twenty-year-old bride and groom? If getting older makes us so much smarter, why do most marriages fail?

And what does it mean to fail in your marriage? Of course the ultimate failure must be splitting up, right? My parents did it, and I was traumatized, mostly by the problems of trying to know who I was in the world. Starting at age 12 I had only a mother. This, I thought at the time, made me different from other kids. If only I'd known.

Then Mom and Dad got back together, and that was even weirder. They didn't remarry, so my self identity became blurrier still. Who was this guy living in our house, and why was this even allowed? They're not getting married, so are they really together? My own parents conducted their love life like a couple of fourth-graders.

When I was in fourth grade, I thought I had to get Valentine's cards from all the girls. And I didn't get them. I want to say "...year after year, I didn't get them..." but I don't remember how many years it was, or if it was just one humiliating incident that now seems like a lifetime, lived a lifetime ago, a longing loveless lifetime of no Valentine's greetings, secret smiles, walks home from school.

I made up the torture for myself. Made it up, sentenced myself to it, and carried out the punishment, cruelly, as a child can do, turning on myself bleakly and tasting the pain. I was crucified for the sins of Cathy S., Sybille G. Mary D., Annette M. and the others who walked on by, talking and laughing, I was sure at me.

The man I have become walks with this little boy's fear and pain. Sometimes I feel like a cartoon who hides from the threat, the everywhere fear that I won't measure up, won't be presented with a piece of paper that makes me real, that stands me up in the eyes of another, the word made flesh, the flesh made holy, blessed at last by your love.

The world is filled with love and beauty. Love that flows into each us from all of us, because no matter how separate, no matter how distant we grow, we only have each other, and we always have each other, all of us, alone together, the billions, the One.

I have burned my cards. I send no letters. And not just for today, but for all of fourth grade, all of our time here, I love you.
_______________________________________
Update, February 14, Noon - Turns out I did receive a Valentine card. Here it is:

Wet Dream

It's raining again in Los Angeles.

It started last night, and continues now, on into the weekend. Rescue teams have already pulled someone out of a flood control channel today. They might as well stand by with their equipment, because for sure someone else will fall in tonight. As I have said before, it is a no-brainer to stay the hell away from these treacherous man-made maelstroms during a storm. For background on this, you can check this post.

This has been a wonderful wet winter in Southern California. Those of you who live in other parts of the country, forgive me for rhapsodizing about something so mundane, but this part of the world is a natural desert. If it weren't for all the water we steal from Northern California and Arizona (via the Colorado River), the amout of rainfall here would support a community of about 80,000, and it wouldn't be pretty. It would be brown, because we'd be drinking the water, not putting it on our lawns and gardens. I shouldn't say "we," because I wouldn't be here.

I have a window cracked and outside the room where I type this stuff I can hear the rain. It's a soothing, musical sound, and lulls me, making me dreamy and forgetful that the garage is probably flooding. So what? I have long ago lifted everything important off the floor out there, my spare monitor is resting safely (OK, precariously) on the seat of the excercise bike, the incredible array of cardboard boxes full of useless junk that I can't throw away has been placed inside of waterproof plastic boxes. Why would I do a thing like that? It was a big job, but I did it because it semed like a big job to actually sort through the stuff and organize it. So I avoided one big job by doing a different, less useful, big job.

At the beginning of this winter I put rye grass seed down on the lawn. I just found out about this two or three years ago. I should have known about it, I guess, because apparently eveybody does it, but, to be generous, I'm a late bloomer. Professional gardeners and deep-rooted homeowners put fertilizer on top of the grass seed, which stinks up the neighborhood and, as far as I can tell, doesn't do anything for the grass. Mine grows just as well, without the manure. Anyway, rye grass seed goes down on top of whatever grass you've got, no fuss, no muss, and it grows lush and green during the winter, then it's gone. With all this rain, I've got me one bright green yard, and in the dead of winter. Sorry, Minnesota. At least you've got The Vikings in the Superbowl. Wait, you don't have that, either.

I love this rainy splashy sound so much. After my jangling, jarring work week, it is a joyful pleasure just to sit and listen and write. This is not Big Storm rain, just a steady, gentle shower that covers everything, and washes away all my sins.

Comment This

Holy shit!

I just left a comment at Kung Pow Pig regarding the Trampoline of Death. You should read that post, but the real shit is that Blogger has improved the commenting section. I'm still not sure exactly what all is new, but one of the biggies is that you, oh Anonymous One, can now sign your comments without signing up for Blogger. You know who you are. Click on "Thoughts on this rubbish" at the bottom of this post, and see what I mean. I'd love to hear from you, and you know you have a lot to say to me.

But it looks like if you are a Blogger member, your picture appears with your comment! Is that cool or what?! I have been saying "more pictures" for months (OK, mostly just to myself, but once or twice here and in comments), and now there will be tons more pix. Those of you who don't post pictures of yourself in your profile: what are you hiding? Are you a high public official who must maintain the strictest propriety? Are you afraid your stalker will find you (I recently discovered these are referred to as "ex-bf's")? Are you just flat out butt ugly? These are not good excuses, people. OK, if you're afraid, post something clever in place of your mug, like this guy did. But blogs need more pix, folks, and I think you know it's not going to happen unless you make it happen!

Put a comment here to see how the new comment thing works. This is not a trick to get as many comments as I possibly can going here. It's not.
___________________________________________________

UPDATE: The new commenting system also allows me to make the comments appear in a popup window. This means there will be no further use for Haloscan. Seriously. Click on my comment link. Really, just do it.

In Vino Veritas

I want to go to a bar.

Hang with some guys, shoot some pool, listen to music. Any bar. A little neighborhood dive would be fine, up to and including the Viper Room. Trouble is, I don't drink.

Well, let me put that another way: I am taking a break from drinking, while my friends catch up. I got so far ahead of them that they weren't any competition to me anymore, so I stopped to give them a fair chance to equal my intake. But the bastards have been very slow, and after almost ten years, they still haven't caught up, although to give proper credit, some of them are trying heroically. Thing is, I said I would wait, and I'm a man of my word, so I'm still waiting.

Those of you who aren't horrified at the idea of not consuming alcohol ( please follow the bouncing double negative) are probably saying "What's the big deal? Go out, have a good time, drink Perrier."

I'll bet not one of you has tried being the Designated Driver for Life. It's not as easy, or as fun, as it might seem. OK, I know it doesn't even seem remotely fun, but to me it isn't a bad thing, either. It just kind of is. I actually have no problem abstaining. I was a drunk, now I'm not. As I say, I'll be a drunk again when my friends have proven they can keep up.

But when you do something like this, your old friends get uncomfortable. I'm not sure if this is because they are afraid you will be sober and judgmental (sober as a judge, get it?) while they get loose and do stupid things, or if it's some Fraternity of Drunks thing, where they want you to be on the same level as they are. There is some kind of weird sanction against drinking alone, but A) I never had any difficulty doing it, and B) you're rarely alone in a drinking establishment.

The world of bars is geared toward serving liquor. The drinking of liquor begets the buying of more liquor, which begets the drinking of more liquor, and, well , you get the idea. The stuff I want to do -- pool, hang, music -- these are the things bars have going to get you to drink. They are peripherals, not the main attraction. It's not a temptation thing. I'm just not comfortable being such a square peg in such a round hole. People are not cool with it, no matter what they say, and no matter how badly they might need a ride. They look at you funny.

Once I went to a costume party in the garb of a Catholic priest (Side note: It was literally the garb of a Catholic priest -- my date's brother, who didn't know I had his stuff.). Talk about looking at you funny. Everyone knew me, and everyone knew I was wearing a costume, but still they treated me differently. Raucous conversations died when I approached. Joints were kept hidden in cupped hands, away from my eyes. No necking took place while I was around.

Flash forward a few years. As word spread that Larry wasn't drinking, I started to receive that same treatment. I hadn't changed, but people thought I was not the same, and treated me accordingly. It was like I was wearing a costume, one that was just a little too real for them to ignore.

Thus my dilemma. I know a big part of this problem is inside me -- I can't blame it all on stupid people unable to live and let live, much as I'd like to. But I've told you before, don't psychoanalyze me. Damnit, I'm missing out on a lot of male bonding. Foosball, sports on giant-screen TV's, waitresses in skimpy costumes -- darts, for Chrissake!

Maybe I will try coffee houses. Not coffee shops, like Denny's or Bob's Big Boy, but the dark, inviting descendants of beatnik hangouts in North Beach, circa 1955, like the place I went on my imaginary date with Gwyneth Paltrow. I love coffee, and, as with hard liquor, I can drink gallons of it at a sitting. As a big plus, coffee generally doesn't cause projectile vomiting, the way Kamchatka vodka does. Coffee houses often have entertainment, although I can't think of any that have foosball tables. Come to think of it, the entertainment is likely to be a "folksinger" or a "poet," which may not be my exact cup of, uh, tea.

Maybe the thing to do is to go to bars, drink coke from a cocktail glass and act drunk. Bars being what they are, it would be an open secret in no time that I'm not really drinking, but I think the pose might put people at ease. Nothing like loud, slurred speech directly into someone's ear to make them feel the love. Maybe I will find other people at the bar who are pretending to be drunk, and we can play pool and secretly judge the real drunks.

Ancient Misery, Part One

I figured out that if I take the leather case off my iRiver MP3 player it is a very svelte little package indeed.

I can slip it into my shirt pocket, run the wires up the back of my neck, stick the little earbuds in and I am walking in rhythm. Who needs this thick leather case? Without it, the player even looks better. This only took five months to learn.

The songs (several hundred from various sources, and the thing is like one-tenth full) are mostly upbeat, so it's supposed to keep me happy. There are a few ballads and nostalgic pieces, but mostly it's hard rockin'. This is not the soundtrack to my life. I wrote about this little box once before, and someone said "Great, you can create the soundtrack to your life." The problem is, the music just plays. There is no musical director who senses my mood, or prevailing conditions (horrible monster behind the kitchen door, for example) and adjusts the music accordingly. No matter what happens to me, the music plays.

No one else hears it but me, and with the invisible way I am wearing the thing, few even realize I am musicized. But when I feel kicked in the teeth, I want to hear "Man of Constant Sorrow," not "Hey Ya." I carefully chose those titles to be somewhat illustrative of what I am saying, without getting into extremely era-specific material, so you won't be picturing the real geriatric me, gimping around with an MP3 player hooked up like an oxygen tank. Anyone who cares to find out will know that I am 57 years old. Funny -- for the last twenty-eight years or so I have told people that I am one year older than I really am, so that on my birthday, when the actual age catches up, I will not feel so bad. I can't believe I cared about this when I was thirty. But when I signed up for this blog I dutifully reported my real birthday, and Blogger went ahead and calculated my age and there you go. It's right in my profile.

I'm a relatively young 57, not that it makes any difference. In the real world I am fitter, smarter and more creative and energetic than most guys I know who are twenty- and thirty-something. I have almost no nose hair. But blogging seems to be primarily the realm of twenty- and thirty-somethings, and in THIS world I feel impossibly ancient when I am reading a blog and the girl says"Eewww, this OLD GUY tried to hit on me at the gym, and I had to like, run." How old was he? Seventy? Or 57? I make a special point not to hit on anybody, but still. I don't remember being so mean to old guys or women when I was thirty. Maybe I just didn't have the venue.

More on that in a later post. For now, you kids should be ashamed.

I have been cut off. By someone who blogs. As I have said here in the past, I read a lot of blogs. I have read many great books in my incredibly long life, written by professional writers like Salinger and Dostoevsky, but these days I am really digging the amateurs, and I mean that in the sense of "volunteers," the bloggers who are telling their stories, expressing their feelings, telling on themselves, as another blogger put it once. There is something real and powerful about it that the pros often lack. And there's interactivity, by which I mean that I can comment, and the blogger gets to comment back, and we can find out about common ground, new ideas, stuff like that.

And I was doing this with this other blogger, thinking communication was happening, and then all of sudden she disabled comments and put up a post saying she was writing for herself and didn't want a conversation. I felt like I had been poked in the eye, since there were only like three people commenting and I was one of them. Funny how I can get to thinking that some kind of connection is happening in cyberspace (I know, but what other word can I use?) when actually nothing at all is going on.

And then before I can even fully wrap my mind around what happened there, or didn't happen, as the case may be, another woman (not a blogger) who has recently had a perfectly good chance at me and didn't take it, is heard to say that she needs to get laid, and has felt that way for quite some time. And, without going into all the intimate details, the situation she's looking for is pretty much the exact one I offerred. What's a boy to think?

I need no consolation here, people. I just want to know why all the shit has to hit the fan at the same time.

I am a man of constant sorrow.

I'm Not Wearing Any Pants

I have to put something on top of that last post, and quick.

I wouldn't want it to be the first thing people see when they look here. I really don't know what gets into me. Am I like that all the time, and most of the time I'm hiding it from myself and everyone else? Or am I normally well-adjusted, confident and cheerful, overtaken by the howling only on those rare dark nights of my soul? Well, no matter now. I'll deal with it when I have to.

I was going to discuss what I did yesterday, but it's probably more germane (what does that mean, really?) to tell what I ate yesterday. I was invited to two Superbowl™ parties. Have you ever noticed that the TV commercials for big-screen televisions that proliferate in the weeks leading up to the Superbowl™ never say the word "Superbowl™?" Beer and taco commercials, too. They always refer obliquely to "the big game." That's because the National Football League has claimed the word "Superbowl™" as their own, and if you try to make money with it, they will make you pay. Dumbass idea, since everybody and his Dutch uncle knows what is meant by "the big game." I'm going to trademark that phrase. Then I'll get that Lexus and that penthouse.

Anyway, I could hardly sleep last night, not because I was pondering the monumental importance of who won the game, or who was even in the game, or the fact that I didn't get to see Paul McCartney's tits (although I was told that Alicia Keyes was trying to have a wardrobe malfunction, but nothing happened). No, I couldn't sleep because the things in my stomach weren't getting along, and some of them were trying to leave the way they came in. Because I ate

20 grapes
5 pineapple pieces
8 pieces of salami
8 pieces of cheddar cheese
1 hot dog (no bun or condiments)
1 hamburger (white bun, mayo, catsup, pickle relish)
Chex mix (numerous handsful)
Doritos (much crunching)
2 bowls of pasta salad with feta cheese
5 pieces of rotisserie chicken (very small)
1 10-inch skewer of little shrimps (possibly poisonous)
20 round crackers of some sort, plain (couldn't find anything to put on them)
2 bowls of chili (cheese and onions on top)
7 glasses of water (due to heavy salt intake)

It should be noted that I consumed all this in less than three hours, and that the water was in addition to the usual amount of water we all drink every day (you're swallowing eight glasses, right? Good.). This intake was necessitated by the extremely high salt content of everything else I ate yesterday. Add in the fact that I didn't do much chewing, but simply kept stuffing things in the front, thus forcing earlier items down the back and you can see that my stomach had a big job, and one it was not used to, or, evidently, up to.

So I stuffed in two pounds of useless crap, stayed up way too late on a school night, lay in bed moaning for a good long while before drifting off into a fitful coma, and I still don't know who won the game.

Also my pants don't fit.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

I'm a distressed blogger tonight.

There are a lot of us out here. You know who you are. You're students, stay-at-home parents and office workers. You know how to use a computer -- many of you are certified computer gurus, twiddling with your blog templates, writing your own code, tracking the IP addresses of your readers. Some of you know just enough to get Blogger working, don't care about anything but typing your thoughts.

And a lot of those thoughts are unhappy. Marital problems are huge these days. There are husbands frankly admitting that they want to find some nookie on the side, wives who are at the ends of their ropes with unresponsive, uncommunicative husbands; students who are so bored with classes that they are blogging during lectures; receptionists, secretaries, IT personnel and various levels of administrator who are so disgusted by their jobs/paychecks that it seems all they do at the office is blog about how they'd rather not be at the office.

I am your brother tonight. My life hasn't changed, but something is different. This has nothing to do with the Superbowl and the imminent end of the football season. The Vikings got drunk after Thanksgiving dinner as usual, and they're just sobering up now, so I haven't been following football since then.

I have a sense of foreboding this evening, as if something bad is happening, but I am not in on it. Yet. I have dark confessions burning within me that must not escape. I am contemptible. I am wallowing in undefined self-pity. It's unworthy of me. My mind knows this, and is repulsed, but my heart doesn't care. It is heavy with longing and broken hope.

I have never shown my face but I can't hide from myself. I have gone too far, or have I moved at all? No one knows me, or have I revealed too much? I have nothing to say, but an urgent need to talk. I am your distressed blogger.

I'll be fine by the time the sun comes up.

What I Like About You

I like a woman who says "panties."

If you say "panties," you probably think everybody says "panties," but you're wrong. Some women say "underpants." Some say "underwear." Panties is what they are: sexy, frilly, taboo articles. I tried to wear my sister's panties when I was a kid, so I learned they are naughty. When you say "panties," I think you're naughty, too. Am I alone in this, guys?

I also like a woman who can handle a stick shift. OK, a manual transmission. It's a control thing: You have to know how a drive train works in order to drive a stick. RPM's, flywheel, clutch, synchros. And connect all that to pushing the right pedals at the right time and sliding the shifter into position. Being in the right gear. And this doesn't even take into account the motion of the legs required to accomplish this, preferrably in heels. This is a woman who knows what the hell she wants, and how to get it. The ultimate extension of this is the woman who downshifts to pass. If you drive like that, can I ride along?

I love a woman who can carry a tune. She doesn't have to be a pro, or have any particular singing style, but the ability not only to recognize a melody, but also to recreate it more or less faithfully -- that turns me on. It's magic when she pulls the notes out of memory and performs the task of converting that memory into physical sound, using lungs, larynx and lips. I did it for a living for a long time, but the how of it remains a mystery. I become entranced when I witness it.

And red, red lips.

I like lips a lot, and they can be plain or painted with any number of colors and glosses, and it's all good. But when you do 'em up in Real Red they take on an erotic charge that's hard to look away from. Maybe you think red is the wrong color for you. I urgently request you to think again.

Did I say "heels" earlier? Yeah, I know they're uncomfortable and orthopedically incorrect, but good God you look hot when you wear them! And every time I hear a pair of them clicking down the hall outside my office, I start having nasty co-worker fantasies just from the sound. They could be the simplest black pumps or exotic platform sandals -- they do something for you, from the tilt of your ankle to the line of your calf to the curve of your ass. Geez, now I'm all sweaty again.

Put on your pretty panties, baby, your high heel shoes, red dress and lipstick. C'mon out and play. C'mon out and dance in the sprinklers, twirl in the moonlight. I'll be wearing my skinny red tie. Pick me up at the corner and let's go for a ride.

The Chump Chronicles, Part 3

Hoo boy, am I buzzed!

There was a power failure in the office this morning (no, I wasn't here, because I am always a full hour late for work). It was described to me thus: off, then on, off, on, then off, then finally on for good. So all the PC's, terminals, printers and servers were scrambled.

It is not my job to fix this stuff, but the people whose job it is don't know how, so I have been called all over the building all morning by folks who can't get their work done because, hey, their computer doesn't work. To work around the fact that I can't get MY work done while I'm fixing their stuff, they bribe me. With coffee. "Siddown! How you doin'? Have a cup of Starbucks. Hey, will you take a look at this..." So I have had like eight cups of strong joe today, and I haven't done one thing in my job description.

My last stop was in The Big Guy's office, and as I was wrapping things up there, who shows up but the NEW Regional IT Director, just going around to all the branches and introducing himself. What happened to the OLD Regional IT Director? That useless, know-nothing, do-nothing, sack of rhinoceros dung, whose father is a corporate executive? He has been promoted to NATIONAL IT Director. So he will be driving a Lexus and living in a penthouse, and I will be fixing all the computers.

At least I get all the coffee I can drink.

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So, for the most part, it looks like my literary exploration into the psyche of the Modern Woman was not a big hit. I am chastened. I will stop.

The Gift

What if you were tied spreadeagle to the bed?

Not with painful metal handcuffs, of course, or wimpy ribbons, but something substantial. Nylon stockings, tied just right, are inescapable. I've been reading you between the lines, and I think you'd allow it. In fact, I think you'd like it. You might play the part of a bad girl, just to get yourself in "trouble." Or you might just come right out and ask to be tied.

Oh, you might have second thoughts after a wrist or an ankle is secured, and you might try to break free. But your struggles would be half-hearted, wouldn't they? Because you intend to give this gift, it excites you to offer yourself in this way. You won't make it easy, but you'll make it possible.

And then there you'd be, on your back, without your clothes, helpless. You could pull at your bonds, and I'm sure you would, but you'd find them quite sturdy. Still, it would be fun to observe you for a while, trying in vain to escape. I wonder what you'd be thinking then, as you came to the realization that you had lost all control, that whatever was going to happen was going to happen with or without your consent. You might be excited. You might be a little bit apprehensive.

You might be blindfolded.

In the darkness you listen for your lover. Is he still there in the room? You strain to discover what's going on. You feel the openness of your perfect body, perfectly ready. You lie there in the silence, exposed and vulnerable, a willing slave-girl, a sacramental gift to this one in whom you have placed your trust. Your senses are charged, and it seems like a long time is passing. Suddenly you feel a hand behind your knee, fingers barely brushing flesh. The thrill shoots down to your toes and up to your scalp and you shiver.

Unseen fingers trace ever so lightly up one thigh. A tiny moan escapes you as they pass your crotch, brush across your belly and start down the other thigh. You arch up toward them but they are quickly withdrawn, and you learn again that you are not in charge here. A tug at your bonds reminds you of your helpless position, and you sink back to the bed.

In a moment your submission is rewarded as you feel hot breath on your breast; then a tongue, just the tip, begins slowly to circle a nipple. By instinct you want to reach around to the back of his head and pull his face into you, but your restraints hold your arms wide and above your head. You moan in frustration as your other nipple is teased into hardness. Then both nipples are squeezed between thumb and forefinger, the pressure alternating from one side to the other, back again, almost reaching the threshold of pain, stopping just short.

Your breath is coming shorter now, as you feel your lover climb between your spread legs. He blows gently on your pussy. You whimper. He plants a kiss right on the center of your womanhood and you think Yes! There! Kiss me there! but it is not to be, not yet.

Now his fingertips stroke down your sides, from your shoulders, whispering along your ribs, down to your hips, so softly they might be feathers. You gasp, then moan, as your body betrays you. The fingertips move from the sides of your hips to meet in the middle of your belly, then begin to move lower, stroking through the bush of your dark delta.

You have no movement, you have no light. All your senses focus on what is happening to you down there, and you urgently push upward, toward the probing fingers, but again they are taken away. You cry out and thrash against the ropes, but soon you know that you must relax, that indeed you have given up your power and you must take what comes.

He wants you to beg for it.

And so you beg. You plead touch me, let me have you! You receive little rewards, a kiss behind the ear, a moment of petting on the pussy, a bite on some sensitive part of you, but you must beg for everything. You are eloquent, you are vulgar. You are crying out loud. In time there is a damp sheen on your velvet skin, and you are taut with arousal.

And frustration.

Gradually, more of his attention goes between your legs. For an eternity he plays with you, petting, fondling, spreading, fingering, kissing, licking and when you are almost there, he stops. Again and again you are almost there, and it is taken away from you. Your pleading becomes like the cry of an animal as you struggle for relief. You are driven nearly to frenzy by the sweet torment, until you are laughing and crying and pleading all at the same time.

And finally, when you are insane with lust, he is ready to come inside, to cut you free, to take possession of your gift...

OK, I think we all know how this ends. I don't have to write it, do I? This is not pornography, people. I see it as more of a literary exploration. Pornography is later.

Amazing Grace

I just realized that the residents of Baghdad are probably called "Baghdadis."

I also realized that I know less about women than even I thought possible. Blogging women, anyway.

I fought in the Sexual Revolution of the 1960's on the side of Free Love, raised consciousness, gender equality and mutual respect. Some of us thought that's what women wanted, and I lived a large segment of my life thinking that. Turns out they want to be tied up and played with -- spanked, tormented, tickled and sexually humiliated.

As you know, I am more of a blog reader than a blog writer, and I regularly cruise for blogs to enlighten me. Since half of all blogs are written by women in their thirties, I have become one with that demographic, and in the past ten days, I have read no fewer than five posts from these girls admitting, sometimes shyly, sometimes brazenly, that they are curious about this particular kink, and want to try it, with someone they trust, of course. These women are not web sluts cruising for horny guys willing to pay for a peek at their webcams. They are single and married Moms, working women, college students and computer geekettes and other apparently normal people.

What. The. Fuck. Why didn't I know about this? I didn't get the memo, I guess. This is a fantasy that I gave up on as a boy, thinking it was unattainable/creepy/illegal/perverted. Sounds like fun now, though.

To get in the proper mood I will write a bit of soft core pornography, and post it here this evening. Get the candles ready and the ambient music queued.

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In the meantime, while you wait for the dirty stuff, you may savor this picture. While I was working out this morning, I watched part of To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The part I saw was the section in which they meet and get to know each other, over a 24-hour period. The chemistry is unbelievable, the erotic tension palpable -- you don't see it in movies these days -- and the dialog is so fucking snappy I wanted to memorize all of it. Sadly, I was not able to. However, I did come to the conclusion that this woman is indeed a goddess.

Amazing Grace. Who's your Baghdadi?