When autumn leaves start to fall...

One of the many reasons that Rachel and I moved to Sonoma was so that we could have plants, or a garden, or both.  We now have a townhouse with a pleasant little back patio with a barbecue grille (another modest desire that was not quite possible in NYC). There is a plant out back that was there when we bought the place. I believe it is a type of small maroon Japanese maple. It is almost more of a bush than a tree. There is one in the front of the house also. We both really enjoy them. When fully colored in the summer they are beautiful and slightly exotic. I'm told they're also rather expensive.

A few months back Rachel's mother, my friend Lisa, and myself planted a few additional plants in the back yard. We were all hoping for the best. After only a couple of days it became evident that these plants were not getting enough sunlight or water. I could change one of those things, so I did. I began watering almost every morning. This didn't help save any of the new plants we had planted and killed the one that was already here, the maple. I guess I over watered it. So now, with victory complete, having decimated the entire back patio, I return to square one. We will have to replant the back area and I will have to do some research on what to do next, and perhaps more importantly, what not to do. 

So, that's how things have progressed on me becoming a farmer... I'm thinking of applying for a farm subsidy. I mean, I am still a liberal victim.... I'd hate to not keep my republican friends sufficiently angered. 

My piano playing has not been going well either. I'm not practicing enough. So, I'm not getting any better. I will wait until we have guests over and then after a few glasses of wine I become Elton John in a duck outfit with oversized glasses... hammering out a few drunken chords, forgetting verses, false notes, slurring lyrics, changing songs mid-performance, all the while thinking myself to be quite the entertainer. One friend recently thought enough of it to shoot a quick iPhone video. In the morning I was confronted with the wreckage. Let's just say that Ray Charles' legacy is safe for now. But I'm quickly snapping at the heels of Motley Crue. 

Home Sweet Home, indeed. 

.

Apostrophes, the pain of lost convention

Awake for hours, lying in bed, unable to sleep. I know that I should go lie down and try to drift back but it is a novelty to be up, alone in the middle of the night / early morning.

Yesterday, a friend generously pointed out to me how deficient my grammar is. It is something that I have known for some time. The more that I write, the more detailed I try to become. When I go back and read my posts I am mortified. The errors are too many to fix. Well, the ones that I notice anyway. He specifically drew attention to instances in which I was incorrectly using the apostrophe to pluralize words rather than to denote that I was forming the possessive case. 

It is a long running theme through my life. I have tried, quite self-consciously, to ignore convention, believing myself to be above the petty constraints of standardized rules.  Grammar is for pedestrians, I have whispered in my sleep. Commas are at my command.

I went through a period where I believed that I was a sort of American Rimbaud in the making. It was in my late-teens and early twenties. It didn't take long, by my standards, for me to realize that I was far from being the genius/prodigy/poet. The entire process perhaps took a decade. But the feeling that silly rules didn't apply stuck with me, for good or ill. I went from being the poor man's Rimbaud to a sort of traveling house-to-house Chinaski. I might have made a worse jump. But the impulse to correct myself didn't come along until much later in life.

I joke about being either Rimbaud or Bukowski, of course. They were two of my heroes and I only meant that I tried to emulate them, or what they represented. I don't place myself among them, but only in spirit, etc.

I have a Holt Handbook that I keep next to my desk but I rarely consult it. Most of what I write is only a revised first draft, many mistakes and poor habits slip through. Sometimes I will begin writing in the morning by correcting the post from the day before. Even then, the errors that remain are many. 

It all seems so simple. There are only a few components to punctuation. The mechanics of it seem fundamental, at least on the surface. My focus must be elsewhere. I have accumulated many untutored habits. 

Well... the idea is to improve over time. I am hoping to still have some of that left. Time.

Email me and let me know if you find glaring, shameful mistakes. If you can tell that I have been drinking when I wrote the post then don't even bother. On those posts I will usually just delete whole paragraphs the following morning. Shameful passages crept out into the darkness with swaggering pride; sailors at a whorehouse. Things that can not be so easily slept off by noon, far beyond the reach of penicillin. I often wince at the morning computer screen, wishing it all to be a lie, a joke played on me by the internet. 

But, no.

I miss staying up at night and writing. It is something that I haven't done in a while. The boy has shifted all household behavior towards his needs. I am lucky now to get 15 or 30 minutes in the morning to try to quickly jot some semblance of a thought down. Sometimes I feel lucky and am pleased with what I've forced out, other times it represents the limitations of the arrangement. 

Ok, enough about writing. It is something that is better done. It becomes much less so the more that it is talked of. I must assume that I have sufficiently bored anybody that has made it this far.

-----------

I missed the deadlines to get my teaching certification (substitute teaching). So, now I must wait until January.  I will find some other foul means of subsistence until then. Perhaps I will get involved in gambling or African gun-running, etc.

I found a new collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens, one that was recently published in paperback. I will have something to do now for a week or two.  It is why I couldn't sleep last night. Some of my insomnia is self-induced.

That reminds me, a brief story, tales from the family file:

I have tried to learn to manage the family caravan, navigating the streets of Sonoma. There is Rhys in his stroller, Barkley on a leash, and me usually in flip-flops. Sometimes the fates are with me, yesterday they were not. It was the late afternoon and I only wanted to get out of the house for a bit to break up the monotony of the remainder of the day. It helps both Rhys and myself to have something to do, an activity that requires minor local travel. 

We drove to Sonoma square and easily found a spot in front of the theater. I parked the car and meticulously got everybody ready. This requires an orchestration of commands to Barkley to "stay" while preparing the stroller and getting Rhys out of the car. Then there is getting the dog's harness and leash on him while monitoring the stroller and Rhys' happiness reservoir. Barkley seemed quite pleased to be coming along with us. On the way we passed an agreeable black labrador who was tied up just before the book store. The day was not so hot that leaving a dog on the sidewalk seemed cruel in any way. He seemed quite happy, content.

I managed to get everybody inside the book store; acting at once as captain, courier and doorkeeper. They are dog-friendly there. I carefully guided our multi-species convoy towards the poetry section. I wanted to replace my book of collected poems by Dylan Thomas, something I gave away back in NYC. No luck there. Lots of poetry, none by Thomas.

Lots of poets, but not so much poetry...

As soon as we started moving towards the next section - a thing accomplished only with a mild mixture of concentration, discipline and effort - Barkley started heaving up what was soon to be some intestinal remnants on the center of the floor of the book store. I picked him up before he could jettison any of the vile stuff onto the carpet and took him outside, leaving Rhys briefly unattended though presumably safe. I could still easily see his stroller through the front window. I tied Barkley to a sign post near the friendly black lab, confirming their mutual friendship. 

I love the little pup much but he has an uncanny way of making himself a nuisance when I need him to be my easy-going-buddy-on-a-leash the most. It is, of course, not his fault. I had averted the stomach bile disaster at least momentarily, that's what mattered. I went back in but I couldn't browse comfortably with him out there naked to the world. It is the recent story of my life. 

I was trying to not make eye contact and was exuding as much calm and control as I could. Being a lone parent in transit is either a minor feat or failure, or a string of both. I bought my book.

I don't know... 

A man usually learns to manage his own life, sometimes falling in love with a woman and adapting to the changes that love necessitates. The individuals become part of a pair, some say "whole" through that arrangement. The unit learns to function as a team, hopefully. Then, there begins to accumulate around them - around their love - other animals, more life. The dog seems a sensible addition, a friend to care for, a living shield against loneliness. A fuzzy buddy. Then comes the child, upending any and all systems that might have been in place, for all time.

Soon enough, Rachel will be seeking yet another child. I am told that's where the additions to the family unit will most likely stop. We will be fully nuclear.  As is, we are an isotope with one proton eyeing the horizon for a little future neutron.

Somewhere along the atomic way you find yourself standing in a book store, needing some sense of autonomy, some sense of control; the dog is puking on the carpet, the kid pooping his pants in the stroller, laughing along with life, soon to be hungry, and you... wondering how it all happens and whether or not this new Higgs character is truly to blame.

.

the blah, blah, blahs...

(Ellen Von Unwerth)

Well, yesterday's post angered a few friends. My work here is almost complete. As we slide towards the inevitable disaster of the general election the various cultural divides become chasms. We are a republic of splintered fragments, currently undergoing some mild fracking. 

Who would have ever guessed? We are nearly surrounded by Christians. They're everywhere. 

Hey! Some of my best friends are Christians....

Oh, right. Sorry. My benedictions.

What amazes me most in hearing people discuss the various merits, or lack thereof, of the two main candidates is how they all seem to be the victim of the opponent. They have personally suffered at the hands of this cruel monster... or they will if he ever gets elected (the other guy). It's nothing short of amazing. People will blame the president for every failure or difficulty they've encountered in the last four years. 

My brother called me and was saying that he "enjoyed the most economic prosperity during 'blah blah blah...'..." 

When I tried to address the nation's economic prosperity he corrected me with, "No, I said that I enjoyed the blah blah blah..."

I countered with, "Sure, and I got my first strand of herpes during Clinton's first term. What's your point?"

What the hell is wrong with people? 

I remember a pretty blonde girl giving me my first analingus during Reagan's second term. Those were truly prosperous times. I think I was driving a Ford Fiesta.... Thanks, early-onset Ronald...!

Ok, on to more serious matters. Munching butt is not what brought us here today.

Maybe America should stop liberating the middle east, and north Africa, and everywhere else.... Things haven't quite worked out for those Libyans the way that we might have hoped. Man, talk about ingrates. You know, we could have been out liberating other nations... We chose you because you're special, we like you. 

We're quickly heading towards Arab winter, let's see how that pans out. 

I just love snowfall over Cairo....

--------------

Ok, on to less serious matters... Rachel cut Rhys' hair on Sunday. It's the classic first cut, in the "mommy" style. He's still the cutest kid on the block. After much delay I finally conceded that the boy needed a trim. His hair was falling down almost past his nose. It required constant adjusting to keep out of his eyes. He never even seemed to notice. He's the happiest baby I've ever known, truly. If this kid can't make you smile then you have a lonely soul.

The boy just woke up. I can hear him rustling around in his crib. I will go upstairs and give him a few fine, big smiles of my own. Today is our day. I will tell him about Jesus and all of the many angels dancing in the heavens. 

.

A modest call for intolerance

There is no point in telling anyone that aspects of their religion are absurd, no matter how evident that absurdity may be to an outsider. Favorably comparing the tolerance of your faith to the intolerance of any other proves nothing. The comparisons are meaningless. Any time an individual or a group chooses to act solely upon faith then they are alternately acting against reason. All of it should be resisted by those who value rationale and order over mystery and darkness.

I am tired of hearing about how preferable Christianity is, in comparison. A few of my "faithful" friends have recently gone out of their way to remind me how tolerant they are, while pointing out what seems to them to be the apparent absurdity of Muslims who are globally angered by the video, "The Innocence of Muslims." 

I am not convinced. I remind them that Christians frequently kill abortion doctors and bomb abortion clinics.  They'll quickly try to point out that those acts are the acts of individual lunatics. No, they are organized and strategized, often accomplished by groups. Christian groups. If you can lump all Muslims together in one sentence, after damning them for their lack of tolerance, then the same can easily be done about you and your religion. It's easy.

A friend sent me an email the other morning decrying all the nonsense. I have to agree. I am (again) disappointed by the reaction of the left. Most of them seem to have forgotten the importance of the various freedoms we enjoy. It is far more important to them to seem tolerant, the new byword of intellectual flimsiness. They band together and start babbling nonsense, calling for greater sensitivity to the faith of others. I agree that it might be a good idea to not anger others without purpose and intention, but those that condemn the video and demand that it be taken down regard a vastly different set of values than myself. 

If you don't believe in the freedom of speech, then shut-up. 

The only thing that defeats a bad idea is a better idea.  The only way for this process to naturally work itself out is for various ideas to disseminate through culture. When one culture says, "No, that is not an idea that we can allow, that idea must be stopped by force..." then that culture doesn't get to participate in the conversation. It's all very simple.

The one thing that other cultures definitely do not get to do, and will never get to do, is to decide what ideas will be discussed among the free. 

Ever.

This includes Christians. So, why not Muslims?

I disagree with a fair number of assertions that Christopher Hitchens has promoted in his writing but he made some very salient points concerning this in his memoir, "Hitch-22." When he reached the section on the reaction of the left to the publication of, and subsequent fatwa for, Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" it all started becoming so much more clear to me. The left has completely lost its will. Too many now - among those who claim to be the true defenders of liberty and freedom -are really only interested in resisting "the American right." When a threat emerges from anywhere else their immediate attitude is one of appeasement, "understanding," and the very flimsy concept of "celebrating diversity." They want our nation to get along with every other nation because they, as people, likewise want to get along with, and be liked, by all. Ever eager to toss out any offending principles that guide our own culture. If Muslims find our freedom of speech offensive then the left is all too eager to modify that freedom to better suit their needs. Salman Rushdie must have done something "wrong."

They all seem to conveniently forget, or ignore, that one of Mohammed's instructions was to convert the world to Islam, at pain of death. If the infidels will not be converted then they are to be killed. It is written. The command is very plain. 

Let me know how tolerance works out there. Celebrate that diversity, while you still can...

When "diversity" includes killing others over the depiction of Mohammed, or anybody else, then the response should be very simple from all sides... No, not at all. Not ever. The freedoms of speech, religion, and press must always remain primary over all other considerations. It is not possible to accommodate all tenets of all religions: like the killing of others for the purpose of converting the world to their faith, etc. We need not ever even voice this, it is embedded in our laws. Murder is a crime, it necessarily must be. We do not bend our laws to accommodate their religion, in any way, nor any other religion. The consideration that we adopt Sharia law - making the desecration of the Koran, or the depiction of Mohammed a criminal act - should frighten anybody that has ever read The Bill of Rights and understands its importance. 

For this same reason, "hate-crime" being a criminal offense should not be tolerated. One only need exchange the word hate with thought to see the problem. Hatred is a form of thought, an emotion. It can be acted upon, but the act alone should be what constitutes criminality. These crimes might be despicable - almost as despicable as the state criminalizing thought - but a person's bias should only be used to establish motive, it should never be an independent crime. It is one short step away from criminalizing dissent, hate against the state. Hate crimes might be an absolutely contemptible thing to witness on any level, but to criminally punish a person's thoughts is far more dangerous than those hateful thoughts could ever be on their own. It is the expression of, the acting upon, those thoughts alone that must be judged. 

We might not have faith in the judicial system, but the inclusion of motive as a separate crime should never be mandated by the state. The penalty for the heinousness of a crime should be left to the discretion of the sentencing judge. It is they who have heard the details of the crime, and they should be left to determine an appropriate punishment, one commensurate with the hideousness of the act. Motive - once included in the trial at the level of either guilty-or-not, with attending minimum sentencing requirements - becomes a very different thing. It becomes the criminalization of distinctions and bias. 

It is illegal before you even think it, soon to be punishable on its own. 

If hatred can be criminalized then Christians should argue for the criminalization of the Islamic faith. It could be proved easily in court. By quoting Mohammed's instructions to kill infidels who refuse to be converted then you have made the entire religion complicit to past and future murders. It would only take one religious based killing to establish this in court.

Jews and Christians would not fare very well under this process either.

This is the greatest threat from the latest left, a very serious one. They have struggled to create a world that is somehow safer for some. Now, the full fruition of that struggle will prove its danger.

The assertions in the last few paragraphs might seem like opposing ones. They're not. They both seem to advocate intolerance, but one does the opposite. Once laws are created to protect citizens unequally then all that is needed is the re-application of those same laws to render basic rights meaningless. If the koran advocates killing infidels who refuse to be converted - a clear violation of hate-crime laws, advocating violence based on religion - then the text will eventually be brought into court as evidence by an overzealous prosecuting attorney. The establishment of a primary religious text as advocacy for a hate-crime will change everything. You think the world has problems now... Just define the koran as a doctrine of hate and then just wait and see.... 

Equal protection under the law. Punish the act of crime... not the speech, not the thought, not even the doctrine.

Imagine if all motives were rendered criminal. Shortly after leaving your insurance agent's office you were arrested. Because your husband or wife listed you as the sole beneficiary of their life insurance policy, then motive has already been established for murder. Haul them away. There is no end to the absurd application of law once inequality is allowed to enter the process, and motive considered apart from the criminal act. If the motive alone is a crime then every child should be arrested when gazing excitedly at the candy rack. Throw those little thieves in the licorice jailhouse. 

If you think this sounds too far-fetched then read this article. Here is the DA allowing debt collectors to act and function as stewards of the law. In most states it's against the law to impersonate a police officer, but apparently not so as the DA. The entire system functions upon the assumption of guilt, then combines the most debased aspects of capitalism to merge in punishing, and preying upon, the untried defenders. Eat the weak, eat them quickly before somebody else gets to them.

Combine the privatization of law with the Christian faith and you've created an unstoppable monster, many unstoppable monsters. The Rick Santorum's and Paul Ryan's of the world will come to life in unimaginable ways, breathing their own brand of fire. Without equality under the law then there will be no way left to stop them. Arm an army with a sense of righteousness and the selective application of the law and it's only a matter of time before they're marching to purge a holy land, one just like ours.

.

Up the valley and into the woods

Another day. 

My readers are slowly returning. I have stopped posting on my other site. 

Life is odd and strange and sweet when at its best.

Rachel, Rhys and I went for a hike yesterday. There is a path that cuts through a large swath of woods between two small, country highways. Midway along the hike, one that we have done many times, I decided to try an alternate path. It led in steps and easy switchbacks up a relatively steep hill for some time. We were almost at the point of turning back several times. I kept negotiating our way up the hill, promising a new and unknown vista. We arrived. Sure enough there was a crest line that was new to me. Rachel had hiked to this spot before but by a different, easier path. Far below us we could see the blue of a lake through the trees. We had been warned of rattlesnakes. A sign at the trailhead also warned of mountain lions spotted in the adjacent woods.  

At the top of the small crest the brush and shrubbery had thinned out so that it was only trees, the floor of the area being covered with dried oak leaves, allowing for an easy view. We didn't linger very long there in the shade. We chose a return path that was slightly less steep but brought us back towards where the car was parked at the beginning of the path.  Rachel led. I carried the puppy, Barkley, about half the way down. The other half he cautiously navigated the trail, with me looking out for snakes, assuring him with my voice. Eventually we made it back to a familiar point on the path and turned south towards the car, all of us sweating through our clothes as we headed back. The day had nearly ended for each of us, there was still the journey home.

.

Pop Jazz Super Star

I love jazz. I often try to play it for people when they come over. So many of them look at me as if they've maybe done something wrong, wondering why they're being tortured. But last night Rachel made a suggestion that she recorded on her phone, off the radio. I downloaded it, and voila... magic. A jazz album that I can play for people, one that I like and one that they won't find offensive. A rarity.  Of course I'll end up having a few glasses of wine while its two cd's play through and by the end of it I'll be putting on the heaviest electric psychedelic Miles I can find and the party will be, as they say, over. 

The album is "Christian aTunde Adjuah" by Christian Scott. Anyone with even a passing interest in jazz should check it out. Here is the single off the album. 

He's a 29 year old wunder-kid. He plays in very breathy un-voiced tones. 

Ok, the weekend is ahead of us. I must go to the gym, then decide on some family activity of some sort. We're looking forward to it. We've had so many guests, for so long, that it's nice to finally have a weekend to ourselves. I have decided to have pork for breakfast, after the gym, to maintain the necessary balance of life. 

I will put Christian Scott's album on my iPod and push my heart to the breaking point, demanding that my legs and arms do things that they currently can not, that they will not, issuing stern orders from the center, my lungs aching for mercy, drenched in sweat, my eyes fixed on the wall, repeating a single word over and over. 

Go. 

.

Unfriended at the game room

(Anton Corbijn - Mick Jagger)

Oh, geez... I've fucked up again. I've lost another friend on Facebook. It's too bad, I really like him. He's a good guy, though with somewhat disagreeable ideology. 

You see, I've decided that all I'm going to do is argue politics on Facebook any more. No more feel-good posts about newborn kittens or monkeys. It's my new obsession. For those of you who have known me for a while you know that I need a new obsession every now and then. Well, I've found one: general election partisan politics. 

I've really had so much fun on Facebook the last few days...too much, really. It's like a video game and I'm just shooting down Republicans (and some Liberals) as fast as they can come at me.  Around 9pm each night I run out of quarters and have to meet mom at the food court so she'll give me a ride home. That sort of feeling.

But I guess I went too far with my friend, Mark. He claims that I insulted him and he deleted me as a friend. I'm used to being deleted, that wasn't what stung. It was that I was just fucking around. Yes, I disagree with almost everything he posts, but I like the guy. I unthinkingly claimed that he exports "political hatred," which is a partial truth, he does. But he didn't like this, he went on to say that he had been accused of "hate-speech," which wasn't true at all. All of his posts are extremely biased against every single action of the left, the president in particular, as you can imagine. He will think nothing of posting derogatory comments and links that paint the entire left as deluded lemmings. I disagree, or only agree inasmuch as the far right is also. But using stereotyping to insult half of a democratic population is a form of political hatred. I should know, I do it all of the time.

Extreme partisan politics seems self-defeating by nature. One side can neither be completely wrong, nor right. Not in a democratic way, anyway, only ideologically (and only for themselves). Extreme partisan politics seeks to circumvent democracy, its goal is to defeat the "others" in a war of supposed overarching principals, regardless of the thoughts and concerns of those others, even if they are in the majority. In fact, it is when one side is at a disadvantage that partisan politics becomes ugliest. Even if both sides were half right, with no overlap in "rightness" then there should still be open debate, and hopefully some conciliation involved. But with many, there is not. So, I've decided to just anger those who are eager and willing to be angered. What possible harm could come from such fun? 

Political disagreement and the constitutional right to own guns couldn't possibly go wrong... You see, partisans believe that their opponents should not only not be heard, but that they should be eliminated. If you carefully read the subtext to many of the posts on Facebook you will see a brewing hatred for the opposite side that is ghastly. Liberals and Conservatives alike, they wish the other side to be out of existence, to be silenced for all eternity. They expand their opponents to monstrous proportions or reduce them to merely diminutive characterization. We are already several steps towards disaster. The more extreme elements on each side want a dictator, not a president. Just watch the ways in which they will support and defend unilateral actions from the top. It is shocking.

The term "Executive Order" might become truly terrifying in the next 10 years.

One of the many books to read is "Escape From Freedom" by Erich Fromm. It partially explains the authoritarian impulses found within free societies. The fear of choice, freedom, and the mechanisms by which presumably democratic people seek to dissolve the freedoms of liberty.  Freedom makes many uncomfortable. The book separates liberties into negative and positive halves and explains how only possessing impulses towards the negative (the release from restrictions) without also possessing the positive (the impulse towards a creative, free and expressive society) is extremely dangerous and leads to authoritarian leadership. 

Both sides are deeply engaged in stereotyping their opponents as the sole cause of restriction. From there it is a very small step to define them as the thing that society has a seemingly universal need to escape from. In America neither side is going anywhere, yet. But that imaginary balance does not always hold.

Moderation has become a joke. Just the other day I was called a coward by somebody on FB because I said that I didn't like either candidate. The person accused me of lack of bravery at simply not choosing between two candidates that I didn't care for. It is a common and easy response to elicit.

In that same thread I instructed him, and one of his comrades, in this way: "How 'bout you suck a greasy Dorito fart out of my asshole?"  It was a joke, of course, I don't eat Doritos. But the temperature of conversation online has devolved to such a degree that neither of them even flinched at this. What one of them found far more repulsive was me not being willing to directly defend Barack Obama, so tuned was his focus on partisan attack alone.  He was prepared with many youtube videos to defend his lack of support for the president.  How is it possible that I can tell somebody to "suck my ring piece" online and it goes virtually unnoticed, but presenting a balanced view of various virtues or faults of a candidate invites a witless duel of the dearth? 

There is a paucity of moderation involved in most all of the conversations that I participate in. People's arguments often lack all nuance, or charm. There is only the supposed bludgeoning of the opponent, even at great collateral cost to the misinformed self. 

So, my sole purpose from here until the election will be to agitate. Let's turn over some strict-party rocks and see just what is crawling, or lurking, underneath.

.

Misdemeanor

(criminal and feline accomplice)

Rachel and I are gearing up to go to battle with the city of Sonoma. We want to fight the ticket that we got for having Barkley, the dog, at the plaza. We realize that it might be a lost cause, but a friend sent an article published in the local Sonoma News that states that even the sidewalks around the central city plaza are a place where they will fine you for walking a dog. There are no signs posted to this effect. There are signs posted that you can not have your dog IN the plaza. They are located on the garbage cans as you enter. But I don't see how they can enforce an arbitrary law that changes from sidewalk to sidewalk without notice or warning. This sort of strategic incompetence should be illegal. That is the argument that I will present to the judge, that he is in league with incompetent criminals. 

I wrote about us getting the ticket here, at the bottom of the post. 

It is infuriating, the misuse of law for the purpose of generating revenue. I am already working on my statement to the court. It starts out, "Hello assholes and syphilitic hillbillies...."

In truth, I do not know how much time or energy I could possibly devote to such a thing. But the regular abuse of the law for the purpose of generating revenue angers me more than most other things.  

Fuck the police, is what I mean. 

I just had an errand to run. On my way back from doing it I drove around the entire plaza, checking to see where the signs were. There is only one sign letting anybody know that dogs are not allowed that is even visible from the crosswalk as you're entering the plaza. Even then it is unclear whether the sign means that there are no dogs allowed past that sign, as most people would naturally assume, or whether it covers the sidewalk in front of that sign as well. It is precisely this kind of low level incompetence and lack of information that drives me crazy. They are actually inviting you to come to the town square, encouraging tourism and civic participation in every way that they can, then punishing you with a fine even when you seem to be abiding by the law.  

The article uselessly states that is written somewhere in a city ordinance. I hadn't realized that we should read all of those before moving here.

I want to fight it, but how much energy can somebody dedicate to such a thing. Even the law will beat you down like the phone company. There comes a point where it's juts not worth it to fight it. The organized will usually beat the free; they are prepared to win, so they do.

Weren't we all supposed to have two full-time lawyers working for us as part of the promise of the industrial revolution. 

How did that great pledge possibly go wrong...

.

But all your friends are there

( photographer: youreuglykbie )

The boy is under the weather today, so I must watch him here at home. There is no bringing him to the nanny on a sick day. Too much danger to get the other kids sick. It is a small taste of what later childhood might be like: days spent at home, missing work to watch the child. It is more than just money that prevents parents from taking vacations. It is lost opportunities, though Rachel keeps telling me that I have it backwards, each day is a blessing. 

She might be right.

Speaking of vacations, we eagerly look forward to our trip to Florida in October. It will be the first time that we've seen some friends from NYC since we left. We will try to take Rhys to Disney World, though he will be too young to appreciate it. I have been many times but will go again and tell Rachel boring stories of my life in Orlando: staying up all night dancing at "The Beacham", then eating more acid and going to Disney all day. We would have theme days... Do nothing but ride transportation rides, or try to get in as many family pictures as possible, or eat more acid and get really weird, unable to drive home for hours, sometimes just wishing that it would stop.

It seems another lifetime ago. 1989-90-91. A time before cell phones. I was married before Rachel, her name was Amy. We had a little starter-marriage. Very few of my friends now even know her. When it was over I began the process of moving on, seeking new friends elsewhere. It was crushing, as if there was a lead apron on me, just like at the dentist, but everywhere I went.  I was being x-rayed for seasons, across great distances. There was no escape from it. After the split it took me another five or six years to move from Orlando, leaving the doomed marriage and yet another failed relationship with a woman named Honey, lost among several other things that I had once irresponsibly cherished. That love. My mother had passed away. The glue of my life had ceased to hold. The binding had become dry and the pages began to drop out. Nothing held.

Neither of us was mature enough to make the commitment of marriage at the time, me more than her. But we lived as unorthodox of a life as possible and it eventually took its toll. It didn't take very long. I, perhaps wrongfully, believed that all things could be laughed away, that nothing could possibly touch us.  We were young and indestructible. It turned out that only one of those things was true.

I tempted fate, fate noticed.

I was too young, and far too eager to push people's limitations, to be married. That much became crystal clear, held there in shattered glass as it all dangerously faded. I didn't get married again for almost 20 years, after assuming that I probably never would. Now, I've finally achieved the maturity level of a man somewhere in his mid twenties, I hope. It all seems to fit better now. Maybe I should re-celebrate my 30th birthday sometime soon.

I'll invite everybody. I'll send out the invitations this week. 

"You are cordially inverted...."

.

Partisans

Along with others I've felt the deeply partisan divide in this country, and have felt the continuing damage of it as well. Growing up in Florida it was impossible not to notice the stark contrast between the two political views, the presumably Manichean divide. But something has changed, at least for me. It's possibly only the effect of social media, this heightened partisan feeling. People are more willing to trot out their hate for one another with less consequence, so they do.  They mask their contempt with the thinly veiled idea that they are merely trying to make a point, or have a "conversation," but they'll engage in dialogue in ways that would hardly float in the actual world. The arguments are almost exclusively ad hominem.

But those same people, emboldened by their newfound strength on Facebook, and their sudden strong sense of allegiance with a cause, now seem to be also exporting those opinions to their daily lives in somewhat watered down versions. Both sides only seeming to ramp up their nearly senseless rhetoric. Where politicians used to seem to want to appeal to moderates, now those people are only called "undecided voters" and are fought for in a variety of different ways, but rarely treated as a group capable of having moderate sensibilities. The center is not only not holding, it is disappearing. 

I know this Facebook effect first hand. I often engage in it. Of course I do, I'm a social liberal. I see it because it's on the screen right in front of me, almost daily. I am partially kidding along with it, or trying to, but there is enough conviction behind what I post, and comments that I make, so that people know how I feel even when I am joking. I think, I hope, sometimes I hardly care.

I wonder if we'll ever have a truly moderate president again, or live in a world where people wish to engage a centrist political dialogue. It is an interesting thing, always being able to blame the other side, being able to choose whether you are a victor or a victim, ex post facto. 

The press do nothing, or very little, to help. They are likewise involved in an accusation war, hurling allegations of "bias" back and forth as if the "wrong" discovered in one reporting equals and absolves that found in another. On and on it goes, making it easier than ever for the reader/viewer to suffer confirmation bias. Nobody can even agree on the supposed facts any longer, though in truth they hardly ever could.  The war on the fact-checkers has already begun, with each side wanting "the facts" to better represent their cause.

Many of those facts are now complicated enough that they tell more than one story, and with seeming honesty from each side, further complicating matters. There are so many issues at stake now that I question whether the average voter even has a basic grasp on most of them. I admittedly struggle with quite a few issues, especially international economics. I simply don't know enough to have an opinion, so why should I be allowed to vote?


Some facts:

The economic prosperity we felt during the Clinton years was credited by Republicans to the success of Reagan's "trickle-down" economics. Now they've changed their tune a bit and they simply state that there never was the prosperity that we all felt and that perhaps Clinton is to blame for the troubles we now face because he was borrowing money to make the budgets seemed balanced... never revising their Reagan story, out of necessary convenience. These are the new facts.

It is funny that conservatives claimed that trickle-down economics would never result in wealth disparity, then denied it as it was happening, and now claim that the causes of it were something other than tax policy and incentive. The greater the result of the disparity the more it seems to confirm their opinion that some were meant to have, others were not. It is written in the stars, and elsewhere... One only need study the recent history of wealth disparity in the country to get an idea of how the conversation has changed, and to what purpose. People seem to believe that because there have always been poor people that means that there should always be poor people. To attempt to change that, or to even allow others to prosper, goes against biblical wisdom. Those are the old facts.

Who knows, eventually who cares. The election cycle is fatiguing for most. It is quite sensible that they only force us to endure it every four years. It is a little talked about wisdom of the founding fathers, the spacing out of the general election to avoid complete and total political burnout. Well, perhaps that wasn't their explicit intention, but rather an unintended result. 

What amazes me most is the near senselessness of some of the political posts online, and what people believe makes a valid political point. And I don't mean when they're trying to be funny. They seem to be quite serious. If you want to study America's lack of critical thinking skills then look no further than Twitter and Facebook. People can't seem to separate the differences between the presentation of organized opinion, farce, and unbiased data. Yes, yes, I know, I know... Some will say that any presentation of data can be biased. It's easy enough to do a little research and get an idea, or at least understand the alternatives.  But to proudly present farce as fact....

I love it, truly.  I am easily corruptible and Facebook seems to suit my sense of humor, both "for" and "against."


Earlier today somebody posted that the "real losers" in the Lance Armstrong story are those that might have been helped by his cancer foundation. All I did was agree. I said, We know they're the real losers, they have cancer...

Somehow I'll never get it right.

Or, is it always?

.

Superbar Fly

(Barfly)

Sunday morning. I went to bed around 9pm last night and am just getting out of bed now, about 11 hours later. I think Rachel's mad at me, I can't tell.  She's gone, out walking the dog and the boy with her grandpa. 

I've had nothing to report for days. I want to write about my bug bites, or the continued saga of the crazy neighbors, or strategies to get in and out of SF on a Friday night. But my mind is shooting blanks. Is that right? Drawing blanks, maybe. That makes more sense. My mind can't seem to impregnate the page. My computer has fertility issues this morning.

Ok.

I missed the gym yesterday, must go today. I am a fanatic at all things. If I can not achieve fanaticism then I am hardly able to maintain interest. It is a sickness of the infertile mind. If I'm going to the gym then I must go every day. If one day slips through then my mind will start looking for something else to obsess about. I fear that sleep will be my next passion. 

I am getting tired just looking at the words.

.

 

5-2 Giants

Yes, we went to the Giants' stadium last night and watched them beat the Dodgers 5-2. I think that was the final score. I was losing count towards the end, and just cheering for our guys. It was a hoot. We took Rachel's grandfather to the park and had a lot of fun. Good ol' American fun. A friend had a box where the picture above was taken. I ate all the chicken wings, sausage and popcorn I wanted. In a single event I negated every workout I had done for the last two weeks, possibly longer. Beer after beer after beer. Just an endless stream of delicious but relatively mild intoxication. I could look down and watch myself growing at the waist. I am like the national debt.

. 

Confiscated By Any Citizen

(lawful application of the 4th amendment)

Guests last night, Cato and his father, another guest today, Rachel's grandfather. Festive times. Chicken on the grille, bottles of wine, cheese, talk of rock and roll, blues, politics, etc. Tomorrow evening, an SF Giants game. A big game against the LA Dodgers, California rivals. Should be fun. I like baseball much more when at the park eating hotdogs and drinking beer. It is the way that it should be done. It will be the first game we've been to since NYC.

I haven't seen Clinton's speech from last night. I read the transcript this morning. He seems so much more capable of beating on the repubs like an out-of-tune gong than Barack is.  What can anybody say to him, really?  He proved the lie of the right, doubly so. I keep hearing people from the red say that they want to get back to pre-2007 spending levels. I can only assume they must mean 1993-2000. Anybody that would want a return to Bush era economics is a willfully ignorant fool.

I'm not super excited about Barack Obama but I want him to beat Romney and his wunderkid henchman.  The thought of either of those two dipshits being in the position of appointing a Supreme Court Justice should terrify anybody, everybody. I deeply disagree with their portrait of America, what little of it they've revealed when you can finally wade through the rhetoric, nonsense, or outright lies. There are four justices that will likely be retiring soon. If those appointments push the court even further to the right then we are all doomed. It will bring us back 100 years or more, possibly all the way back to 1861.

Ok, not much more to tell today. I haven't seen the neighborhood woman since the day before yesterday's debacle. The husband tried to give me some "grandfatherly" advice yesterday as I was walking Rhys and Barkley, making it seem that the real issue was our inability to comfortably raise a child, our exaggerated touchiness. I let him know that, No, that's not it at all, the problem is that his wife should have detected us not answering our phones for what it was, an inability or lack of desire to talk to her. So, I made sure he understood to let her know not to do it again, that her knocking on our door, and persistent calling of our phones, is not welcomed, nor will it ever be.

He actually tried to couch his condescension in "advice."  I nodded and listened then said, "Well, I'm not anybody's grandfather but when two people don't answer my calls my next move isn't to knock on their front door. We don't pay our mortgage so that people can have unrestricted access to us, we pay it so that we can have privacy, peace and a quiet place to sleep. It's actually the reason there are walls and doors on the place, to keep others out."

I had had about enough after that so I just walked off and took Rhys and Barkley for their walk. 

I'll be a hermit within the next 5 years, grumbling to myself about those "damned fools" that live across the river, always making so much noise and dancing, eating up all of the squirrel meat, stinking up the valley.

I can almost see it approaching in the distance, like an out of focus thunderstorm.

.

Buckets of Bells, Wagons of Whistles

I awoke and started listening to Bob Dylan this morning. I can never quite seem to get enough. He just gets better and better. I'm listening to his brand new album now, Tempest. So far, so good.

Last night I played "Buckets of Rain" on the piano for Rachel (That link is for Beth Orton's cover of the song). It's one of Rachel's favorites. It was nice and sweet and touching and much needed for us. We sang together before going to bed, each of us in our own key. The piano also in its own respective key. It almost resembled a harmony.

-------------

We have new neighbors, with good intentions. Last night, as we were trying to put Rhys to sleep each of our phones went off consecutively and then beeped a few times after a minute or two, letting each of us know that a message had been left. Then there was a knock at the door. Apparently it was a code-red emergency of some sort. She wanted to let us know that the lawn maintenance crew would be here early today. 

"Did you just call both of our phones?"

"Yes."

"And now you're knocking on our door while we're trying to put the baby to sleep? What could possibly be this important? Did us not answering our phones indicate anything at all to you?"

I closed the door in her face and locked it.

I feel bad about it, but what the fuck.

Let me relentlessly harass the neighbors to let them know that there might be something other than me that bothering them in the morning... 

I mean, her heart's in the right place... but when two people who live next door, who have a baby, don't answer their phones, and you leave messages on each phone, does that somehow send the message that what we really need is for you to come over and knock on our door?  

Why don't we just install a buzzer system from house to house so that you can alert us of anything that occurs to you, any hour of the day or night. Maybe an air horn of some sort, tie it into the Emergency Broadcast System, just in case.

I'm actually glad that I closed the door on her face when I did. One more second and I would have been screaming. Then, I might have even felt worse than I do this morning. 

We all awoke at about 4am this morning. I was going to go over and ring their bell to let them know that the sun was gonna come up in a couple hours, didn't want it to wake them unexpectedly. Just stand there on their front porch banging on the door and ringing the bell, calling their phone. 

Holy Christ, are they ever gonna thank me for this neighborly warning...

The funny thing is that the lawn guys showed up at their normal hour this morning. 8 am, about 4 hours after we woke up.

I think I'm going to put a sign on the front door: "If you haven't been invited to knock on this door then don't."

Or, just: "Hell is other people." -Sartre

.

Monster Shih Tzu's and Feline Instinct

Relationships are difficult, at times impossible. Everybody knows it. But very few people that I know want to be alone. It is a state that they might come to accept, but they do not seek it for long. It is not their preference, mostly. People might want peace from their relationship but they also want the relationship to return to once they have enjoyed some tranquility, some privacy, some space.

Babies change everything. All efforts are somehow for the baby, even mine and Rachel's love for one another. Never before in my life has there been such a complete and thorough loss of the self. I have done supercharged psychedelics, ones in which there seems to be a complete shedding of the ego. Even these heavyweight hallucinatory chemicals do not compare to the perpetual stripping away of the self that occurs with a baby. It is as if paint thinner has been applied so consistently, and so evenly across the surface of self, that all the paint has been removed and now the wood is being sanded down far past its original form. A different object will be the eventual result. That much is clear.

I've been told that it comes back, the self, though in a vastly different form. Some say, "Improved!," and that it becomes easier to separate what matters from what does not. But I suppose I wasn't quite prepared to shed off all of the the things that didn't matter about my life yet. Also, I did not realize that my wife would appoint herself as the supervisor of this project. It becomes tedious. Nobody wants their love to be tiring, without adequate escape, or relief. It is not Rachel's fault, her body has released a set of chemicals which instruct her to instruct me. There is no negotiating with it, no way to reach the woman that I fell in love with. Talk is useless. Men just learn to hide, when they can. It's as if you've just discovered masturbation again, but without the joy, there is only the need for occasional privacy, a closed and preferably locked door.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing."

Wouldn't it be fantastic if an altogether different form of masturbation emerged in middle life? I can't think of what possible evolutionary advantage this would offer, other than perhaps keeping some men alive longer. But it would be tremendous if all of a sudden I discovered some new secret that made my heart race and my mind explode in different directions, in any direction. A new, private life.

The old path to the waterfall is nothing now but well worn shortcuts.

I have been going to the gym, trying to rebuild where there has been much loss, trying to regain some of the shape of my youth. Even if it is only form, I hope that it might be enough to fool me. If I can fool myself then maybe I can fool others.

I want to take a vacation, anywhere. I want to get out of this new life for a moment. I don't want to abandon it, but I need a break from it, a reprieve. It is not Rachel's fault, but her sensing my feelings in this regard doesn't help anything. She doesn't seem to understand how or why I would feel the way that I do. Mothers' emotional sensors are hyper-trained on their husband's dissatisfaction through this stage, but not so that they can help with it, but rather so that they can turn up the volume on their concern, and needs, only compounding the issue. 

That is what is happening. She needs me more than ever, and her expectations of me double or triple right along with the child's weight and height, but there is less of me left over to help. I have vanished into a different life, one that doesn't need me the way the old one did. I see now why men talk less and less as they get older and women talk more and more. The reins of control shift. Many men hide in their jobs, dedicating themselves to that as a substitute for love. Their version of love becomes almost exclusively "providing," a thing that can be questioned by no one. Capital representing self where self alone was once sufficient. 

It's true. I need a job. It feels as if that would solve part of the problem. But I know what it does instead. I have seen the effect of it. It can be a productive place to hide if one is not careful. Or, if hiding is what one prefers.

I am happiest when I am taking care of the baby on my own. I know what I am doing and there is only the joy of interacting with the boy. I can't seem to figure out why it becomes something so different when we are all three together, four including Barkley. Suddenly I am not a father, I am only a mother's assistant. It is not even Rachel's fault, it is occurring on some level that I do not believe she has much control over. I can intuit the deeply hormonal nature of it. Fighting with hormones is like taking on the winds from all directions with karate. You will only tire yourself out, look foolish, and never, ever win. Never even draw.

Yesterday we got a ticket for having Barkley in the park. It was a total bullshit ticket and the cop didn't have to write it. Rachel's explanation for what was happening should have been adequate. She was waiting for me, only one foot over the line of the sidewalk on the grass, in the shade, directly in front of her car. It was too hot to wait for me in the car with the baby and the dog, or on the sidewalk in the sun. Any human could have seen that she was telling the truth. I arrived as the cop was talking to her, corroborating the story that she was merely waiting for me to go to lunch, but the evil fascist fucker wrote her a ticket anyway. It ruined our day. Rachel cried with frustration and the cop is just standing their apologizing for doing the thing he could have just as easily chosen not to do. 

We don't walk our dog in the park, others do. We don't because we don't want to be the type people here (there are many of them) that think the simple rules don't apply to them, flaunting their breach in everyone's faces. Rachel crying was almost too much for me. I wanted to choke the cop to the ground and watch his eyes roll into his skull but immediately thought better of it. 

I mean, I thought of better ways to accomplish the same. I envisioned Barkley suddenly growing into a 15 foot tall Shih Tzu and snapping him up by his head, spinning him around like a cotton chew toy, watching his arms and legs flail, hearing his screams and pleas emerge from within his jaws as they crunch down on his spine, which only served to excite the playfully monstrous dog even more. Bones snapping, the spine and extremities falling limp, etc.  Pure "Clash of the Titans" stuff.

I think that's what I wanted anyway. Something along those lines. Instead, when he asked that Rachel sign the ticket I called to her and said, "The juggernaut of bureaucracy needs you. The stormtrooper of the paperwork apocalypse will not rest until you've acknowledged your crimes against humanity."  Well, I said the first sentence, thought of the second after we were already walking away, with me assuring Rachel not to worry about the ticket, pissed that I hadn't thought of the second sentence sooner.

Somewhere I must find some new strength, some new sense of self. I must see a different creature in the mirrors at the gym. 

I will go today and look at my reflection, speak to myself about becoming something new, forcing the change to happen at great personal effort, and painful repetition. I must recapture the Eye of the Liger. 

I will approach the mirror, staring deep into my own eyes and whispering to myself, "Move, you fat motherfucker....Move, before it's too late."

.

It's my pleasure

A holiday. Labor Day. I'm not sure, but I don't think that I'm supposed to observe the day when I'm unemployed. Or, maybe I'm supposed to double-down, take it to the next level, really show my support for all of those with jobs by drinking heavily and showing team-spirit for the good ol' U, S, of A, etc.

I don't know, Labor Day sounds like a socialist holiday, or worse, communist.... 

I tried to watch "The Iron Lady" last night. It was abysmal. First, she had no super-hero powers as I had expected, and hoped for. It was just about an old woman who had lost her mind. It was very disappointing. I had anticipated that this was just a pre-quel to Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron-Man / The Iron Lady dual-team-up against villainy for sometime in late summer 2013. 

Instead it turned out to be about Margaret Thatcher.  More specifically, it seemed to be almost exclusively about the dementia she has suffered later in life. I couldn't watch it. I was ashamed for Meryl Streep to be involved in such a poorly chosen representation. I've been told that her performance alone makes the film worth watching, but I couldn't do it. After Clint's public derangement the other night it all started seeming a little bit too close to home. I've got Selavy to worry about, you know. 

I never cared for Margaret Thatcher and always saw her as a Reagan with tits. But still, even with that terrible naked image of her in my mind, she was an important figure in late 20th century politics. Certainly they could have focused on more important aspects of her life. Perhaps it was just the liberals being their usual cruel selves, wanting to suggest and link together Thatcher's confusion with Reagan's slide into Alzheimer's while still holding office. 

Who knows.

I only half joke about liberals' cruelty. I am among the guiltiest.  But I don't pretend or profess to be anything but cruel. I am an avowed sadist, occasional masochist. It's my pleasure.

No, I kid. I had gotten into a discussion with Cato about sadomasochism and he has some pretty right-wing Cristian views on the subject. So, I'm just putting a few jokes in the blog so that when he gets back from Burning Man he'll have something to to giggle about. Come to think of it, Burning Man must be over by now. Nope, it ends today. He'll probably stay out there on the playa and help clean up. He is quite the dedicated "burner" now. 

I wonder what new concept of Christ on fire will emerge for him this year.

Speaking of, I never wrote of the pilgrimage of the basilica in Costa Rica. If I remember tomorrow morning maybe I will sit down and try to write it.  Tomorrow is the day that I am scheduled to take the tests that will allow me to start teaching as a substitute. Well, those tests and a few other hoops that I must jump through: background checks, personality assessments, prostate exams, etc. With Christ on my side, a carton of cigarettes, a camel or two, and the faith of a mustard seed, then I will be moving mountains through the eyes of needles in no time.

Our lamb has conquered, let us follow him....

.

used to the feeling

An early morning fog that burned off slowly. The drive back from the gym still chilly, me wet with sweat. The days drift by. I just want to read, alone, or at least left in peace. 

It is what I am getting, sort of, but it worries me. There is a growing distance. Time.

People had warned me that "everything changes" after having a baby. I see that now.  It does. It is difficult to feel the same about things, to return to a comfortable set of sensibilities, to reappear in a familiar mask. There is so much change that some days you just want to crawl back into the husk that used to be your life and resume from there. But it is cracked and shed off, lost in the past. Even that does not seem so attractive when honestly considered, which is something you don't often do much of any more. The past is further gone now than ever before.

There is only the future. All things seem to happen exclusively there, all efforts for then, less for the present. All future fears and joys, hopes, seem to come to life when one lets the thoughts unfold. If they don't then you make them. Dreams can be forced, made. It is easy. It is nothing. Everything requires more energy than you had thought it would. Change is the only thing that will resolve the change that has already occurred. More is a returning requirement. 

The paint has been mixed, there is no un-mixing it, there is only now the painting to consider. All things require a continued effort but without there ever being a sense of completion. Success is now a process rather than a moment.

For all the efforts that I've begun and never finished one might think that I would be quite used to the feeling. They would be wrong.

.

So easy

Beer. It is what's making me fat. I don't ingest a lot of sugars otherwise, or breads and pastas, or many of the other things that traditionally cause people weight problems. I do love pork and beef, deeply and truly. But it is the beer and the wine, also an abiding love. Though I will not stop drinking them only to lose weight. Weight alone is not worth the sacrifice. There must be some other hidden benefit, to sweeten the deal. I enjoy them, and the social time they afford me, far too much. I will perhaps need to cut back on how much I drink, teach my appetites the moderation that I have so well avoided. 

It is either that, or I must spend even more time in the gym. After only three days my body is in pain, almost everywhere, in all directions. I have tried to work out muscles that have long been in disuse or disrepair, the forgotten internal artifacts of youth. The effect has been an odd soreness in places whose existence had become a faint memory. Now those places are awakening and sending continuous neural messages of agony through their special network and directly into the folded recesses of the brain. I have had to ingest additional beer to squelch their dissenting voices. You can see the circularity of the fat dilemma, no? 

When I am done writing this I will go to the gym to further damage the various unknown tissue of my body.  I can almost hear the flesh ripping in extended anguish. The mind screams at the barbarity of it. When that injury is complete I will again thirst for the elixir. 

------------------

Yesterday an old friend from Florida posted something on Facebook. I'm not sure why. I believe it might have been because I mentioned having been Catholic. Yes, now that I think of it, that must have been it. I am a recovering Catholic, but steadfast in my dedication and determination. I should have claimed I was an evangelical, like the fellows pictured above.

But the quote that he posted was apparently from a priest, explaining his supposedly repeated transgressions into many young boys ani.

"A lot of the cases, the youngster - 14, 16 or 18 - is the seducer... It's not hard to see - a kid looking for a father and didn't have his own - and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that."

Yes, of course. If we are not to blame the little infidels that begat all of these pedo-problems, then who else? Certainly not the adults that have taken earthly and celestial vows of chastity, those that are given untrammeled access to troubled youths kneeling, bowing, bobbing and praying to have their sins absolved away from above. Altar, alter, all tear altercations. 

The solution seems obvious... cast these youngsters to the fates, let their worried minds be a temptation to the evil one alone, satan, the lurker. But do not further burden our holy middle-aged men with their free-spirited sexual whim... their taunting adolescent, barely pubescent, whimsy. These men are made only of faith and flesh, not brick alone.

We shouldn't expect these righteous soldiers of christ to keep their cocks in their pants all the time, especially with all these silly little flirts running around in their sexy shorts. 

You can always trust those who profess faith, especially the celibates. Maybe priests should start counseling in pairs, or groups, like in the picture above. 

Solutions needn't be difficult, sometimes they can be so, so easy. 

.