Witches and Such

The best part about living and working in my town is the eccentric people that I meet. They frequently have the most amazing stories to tell: Over the past few years I’ve met a couple of multiple personalities, a topless fire juggler, a guy who has sex with his horse, a Satanist, a couple of transgenders, lots of Native Americans with very interesting cultural perspectives quite different from our own (and personal experiences with the “little people”), an alien abductee, a phone-sex operator, quadriplegics, blind people with their dogs, a woman on a portable ventilator, an elderly incontinent woman with Alzheimer’s (who everyone finds “cute” because of her mindless mutterings, until she comes into your office, wastes an hour of time free associating about something that happened to her forty years earlier, and wets your visitor’s chair), deaf people with their sign language interpreters, PTSD Vietnam vets (with stories about their experiences that gave ME PTSD), a couple of reformed prostitutes (and some who aren’t), strippers earning over $100,000 a year, a witch, numerous ex-cons, a dwarf or two, various addicts in rehab, various religious extremists, and recently a very scarred woman who has an “intermittent explosive disorder” which has led to violent confrontations with police. This last one asked me why men didn’t find her attractive - it was a temptation to tell her the bitter truth “Because you’re incredibly ugly, have a terrible personality, and you’re crazier than a loon.” It’s never dull in my town.

Speaking of witches (and I was, sorta) here’s a favorite skit from Monty Python about how to determine if someone’s a witch. It’s just in time for Halloween and reminds me of the rhetoric I see in the political ads:

Sir Bedevere : There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1 : Are there? Oh well, tell us.
Sir Bedevere : Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1 : Burn them.
Sir Bedevere : And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1 : More witches.
Peasant 2 : Wood.
Sir Bedevere : Good. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3 : ...because they’re made of... wood?
Sir Bedevere : Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1 : Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere : But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1 : Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere : Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1 : No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere : No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1 : Bread.
Peasant 2 : Apples.
Peasant 3 : Very small rocks.
Peasant 1 : Cider.
Peasant 2 : Gravy.
Peasant 3 : Cherries.
Peasant 1 : Mud.
Peasant 2 : Churches.
Peasant 3 : Lead! Lead!
King Arthur : A Duck.
Sir Bedevere : ...Exactly. So, logically...
Peasant 1 : If she weighed the same as a duck... she’s made of wood.
Sir Bedevere : And therefore...
Peasant 2 : ...A witch!

The Eagle

A remarkable thing happened yesterday. My squeeze and I were walking her two idiot dogs through the neighborhood, and as we did a very large bird flew over us about a hundred feet above. As it tilted in a glide I saw its brilliant white head against the dark blue of the sky. A bald eagle! I don't know that I've ever see one in flight before. It was spectacular and that vision and that memory will be seared in my mind for a very long time.

I hope seeing the eagle was a sign of some sort. As magnificent as it was, it can only augur for something good. Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket.

Fear, Loathing, and the Homophobe

I watched the third presidential debate a week or so ago. I did it because I'm a good citizen and because there were no reruns of Family Guy on in the same time slot (you need to watch Family Guy if you never have - Peter, the patriarch, rides an elephant up to his wife who is standing on the front step of their house; "Look Lois, the symbol of the Republican Party" (pause - wait for it) "A middle-aged white guy who's afraid of change!").

I was particularly interested in the question poised to both candidates about whether they believed homosexuality was a choice. President Bush said "I don't know." I find that an acceptable answer, although as President of the United States I would think he would have the resources to find out. Senator Kerry answered "We are all God's children." Also an acceptable answer, and a safe one for Mr. Kerry.

Looking at the available research evidence, something which either neither candidate did, or neither candidate admitted to, things are more complex than yes or no. Aren't they always? For some reason commonsense goes on holiday during election years, and yes/no black and white responses give the voting public some sense of comfort that even a moment's reflection would show to be false.

As with so much in this world the answer to "Is homosexuality a choice?" is "It depends." There is no doubt that there is something that could be called "situational homosexuality." We see this is men's prisons: if you're going to have sex in prison it will be with men. We see it in Sparta 400 B.C. where the soldiers of that place and time were in a sort of prison called the army. We see it in people like John Lennon and Hugh Heffner who experimented with homosexuality and decided it wasn't for them. These are the exceptions.

Among gay men, the vast majority will tell you that they've known they were gay from childhood. When my friend Tim told his mother he was gay his mother replied "Of course you are. I've know that since you were a little boy." Tim had fought his gay impulses most of his life. As a young adult he married and fathered three great kids. But eventually he couldn't hide from who he was and, after divorcing, lived the life of an openly gay man. Right now, the best guess about most male homosexuality is that it is either genetic (and how that could be so is the stuff of another blog another time) or caused by conditions in the intrauterine environment.

Biochemical and/or genetic factors apparently play a role in SOME lesbianism. But for most, it really is a choice. Why choose to be lesbian? One young pretty lesbian I know has chosen that sexual orientation so that she can remain a virgin until marriage! Yes, she fully intends to lead a heterosexual life after she marries but has chosen lesbianism until then. My friend Morgan called herself a LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) because the quality of men in her college was deemed to be so very low. Currently Morgan is married and the mother of two children.

A second reason to choose lesbianism is a disdain for men. Strippers, who see men nightly at their very worst, are commonly lesbian. Feminists are often lesbian (can't sleep with the enemy don't you know). Girls who were the victims of childhood sexual abuse become lesbian with an astoundingly high frequency. As a woman's educational level increases, her likelihood of labeling herself a lesbian increases proportionally.

But now I'm going to get a bit peckish, a bit disputatious. My blood pressure and my ire spike dangerously when I'm told that God hates homosexuals because it says so in the Bible, in Leviticus. It certainly does. But interestingly, only for men, whereas the very next verse prohibits men OR women from sexual gratification with animals. Leviticus also prohibits men cutting their hair or shaving their faces. Men and women are forbidden from wearing clothes made of two different types of fiber. Eating shellfish or pork is an abomination. Working on the Sabbath (Saturday) is punishable by death. Planting a field with two different crops is a sin. The Bible condones slavery, but only if slaves come from a country other than one's own. Men may have plural wives and concubines.

Why is it that the homophobes of the world quote the Bible about homosexuality, but completely ignore the other "rules"? The answer is obvious.

I'm not writing this blog to promote gay marriage. Nor am I trying to deal with my own sexuality (I'm a flaming, out of the closet, heterosexual). I'm hoping that President Bush might not have to say "I don't know" if asked about homosexuality in the future (I'm sure he'll read this blog). I'm also applauding Senator Kerry - we are indeed ALL God's children.

Close Encounters

Betty Hill just died. You remember Betty don’t you? She and husband Barney were our first alien abductees. They were driving along a deserted stretch of highway up in the north east part of the country one night in 1961 and arrived home with stopped watches and no memory of where they’d been or what they’d done in the previous two hours. Over the next several weeks Barney started having terrible nightmares that eventually led the couple to seek psychiatric help. If my memory is correct, Dr. Leo Sprinkle performed hypnosis on them and they both reported being abducted by space creatures during the missing two hours of their trip. This was all chronicled in the book Interrupted Journey. Oh, THAT Betty Hill.

Certainly less well known but much more important to UFOology was J. Allen Hynek. He was an astronomer who famously suggested that some UFO sightings were “swamp gas.” More significantly he was the man who classified UFO experiences as Type I, II, or III. A Close Encounter of the Third Kind was his label for “Contact!” and subsequently the title of a movie about just such a situation. Hynek even had a cameo appearance in the movie - an embarrassingly close close-up of him lighting his pipe. How fleeting fame.

Because of the rash of alien abduction reports poor J. Allen had to revise his system to include a Close Encounter of the Forth Kind - Abduction. Blame that on Betty and Barney Hill. If Hynek had lived until today who knows what additions and refinements would have occurred. Close Encounters of the Seventh Kind - Human Alien Dating? - Four Aliens Playing Poker? - Aliens in the NBA? I’m sure Dr. Hynek meant for the classifications to be fluid.

Now here’s a what if: What if the aliens aren’t out in space, but instead right here among us? What if they are actually inside us? What if they’ve always been here and have appeared throughout history as demons, and fairies, and dwarves, and leprechauns? See if you can score some diemethyltrypamine before you formulate your answer. Then get back to me.

Viagra

There are more ads on television these days than ever before. You can thank the federal government for recent changes that allow this to be so. Not only are there more ads, but we get to see ads for prescription medicines including those for ED. Bob Dole has been in various commercials telling us that ED is "erectile dysfunction" and the implication is that Bob suffers from this and is helped considerably by the wonder drug Viagra; which explains the upsurge of pen marks on Elizabeth Dole's back.

Viagra is the icon for the men (and women) dealing with ED, in spite of the presence of two other similar drugs, Levitra and Cialis. If it were up to me, I'd try Levitra first because I like their commercials best. When the pretty middle-aged woman in the man's shirt and (perhaps) nothing else underneath tells the audience that her man and she appreciate the (pause - look embarrassed) "quality" of the Levitra experience, I imagine that commercial by itself curing ED in many viewers all across the country. "If you think our commercial is arousing, wait till you try our product!" I have to remind myself that the actress is being paid to act and is probably, in fact, a lesbian.

But it's Viagra that everyone talks about. It's Viagra that all my middle-aged male friends seem to know WAY too much about. It's Viagra that people have numerous doses of because "friends" gave them a couple. The manufacturer says the drug won't do a thing for those who don't actually have ED. But the "quality" of the experience is believed by the culture to be far different: it is an aphrodisiac; it produces an unusually firm erection; the orgasm for the man is more intense; the erection lasts longer post coitus; the man's refractory period is shorter.

I've said for a couple of years, I'd like to give Viagra a try. No. No ED here. Not yet anyway. But I do experience a lower libido than I did when I was younger. My doctor did blood work and determined that I have a normal level of testosterone. Whatever normal is for a person my age. I actually think my libido is impaired by the antidepressant medication I take. Here's the rub - when I take enough meds to keep me from tearing off someone's head and eating their brain I have little interest in playing Where's Waldo? with anyone or anything. But if I cut back to the point that the World Health Organization would have me declared "Dangerously Undermedicated" then Mr. Libido and I become best friends again.

So I tried it.

Nothing. Nothing what-so-ever. No Hallelujah Chorus. No Vestal Virgins smoking Cuban maduros. No IM from Britney Spears.

It reminded me of the big snowfall we had when I was a kid. I made the biggest snowball you ever saw and hid it in the freezer. Months later, on a hot July afternoon, I took that hard frozen jewel out of the refrigerator, ran outside with it, and heaved it at my best friend. I missed him by a mile.

Taking Viagra for me was something like that - lots of anticipation but, in the end, a huge disappointment.

So I rub my eyes a lot. I drink too much cheap red wine. I watch way too much TV.

I collect cars.

On Collecting Cars

I have a little penis. I know this because people who have never seen it but know I collect cars tell me so. Apparently only people with little penises can be car collectors. Or so is the conventional wisdom.

One of my cars is forty years old and has a four cylinder engine only a little bigger than found on a riding mower. It develops 75 horsepower DIN (and even less if you rate it by the American SAE standard). Supposedly it is capable of over 100 miles per hour, but it gets to be a handful to control around 60, and almost impossible at any speed with a cross wind.

But I love this little red car and proudly showed it for the very first time this last weekend at the First Annual Inverness Vett Set car show. It was in a category for imported sports cars 1982 and older.

I had only decided at the last minute to go to the show. The deadline for registration was 12 noon, and I didn't decide to commit until about 10:30 that morning. There was no week long detailing process to get ready, I just fired her up and drove on out.

Once registered and in my spot I ran a duster over the finish a couple of times and Windexed the windows. Then I popped the engine lid (the engine is in the back) and set up a folding chair to stake out my turf.

The car drew a crowd like edible panties draw flies on a hot day. Most of my admirers were Vett Set members (it said so on their satin jackets). They were amazed that the engine was in the rear, that it was the size of a TV tray, and that I had a Pike Pass on the window (meaning that I actually drove the car, and that I didn't treat my garage as a museum).

I didn't win first prize Saturday; the winner in my class showed a car that looked a lot like the one James Dean was driving when he went to live with Jesus in 1955. But I got a nifty bag of goodies including a Home Depot Frisbee, a magazine about Corvettes, a ruler (yep, still 10 inches), and some Armorall wipes. I also won a drawing providing me with a gift certificate for me and my squeeze to feed at a local steak house. And I met some lovely people.

Life is good.