Let us remember that an important victory in America’s War of Independence came in 1776 from a sneak attack launched by George Washington ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!!
----- o -----
Christmas is about kids—trying to get the grownups to stop fighting, at least in this SP video.
Best wishes from SFWILLIE’S BLOG.
I received a phone call years ago from a member I knew only slightly. He wasn’t very direct, so I feared he was going to ask for a date. Turns out he was starting a new career as an investment broker and he wanted to handle my portfolio.
When I explained that my portfolio consisted mainly of unused postage stamps, he quickly got off the phone.
Regardless of any civil law, or club bylaw, it’s basic bad manners to use clubmates’ contact information that way.
It happened again yesterday, almost Christmas Eve. This time it’s spam email disguised as a Christmas card from a couple of GLTF members. I know it’s spam and not a personal greeting because I’ve never actually met either half of the couple.
Also I think it must be spam because they include logos of their businesses, and, at the bottom of the page there's a copyright line. There's even an Opt-Out link at the very bottom. Come on! What kind of Christmas card includes an opt-out link?
This is annoying enough. But the content of the message is what really disturbed me. It is so unflattering. Art-historically it's a cross between Grant Wood and Diane Arbus.
----- o -----
“Like, say, I announce the cure for cancer tomorrow,” Pud proposes reasonably, “would Time re-think their choice? What, would they make me wait to be POY for 2007?
“It’s like we may as well hibernate for the rest of the year,” Pud waved in disgust.
SFWILLIE’S BLOG will not announce it’s own choice for Person of the Year until the year is complete. So those of you who can find the cure for cancer, or who can broker a mid-east peace, don’t wait till after the first of the year. Do it now. SFWILLIE’S BLOG will recognize your achievement timely.
“Screw Time Magazine,” Pud eloquented.
----- o -----
A biography of Pud in now available. Click the Who Is Pud link in the right column.
I would have quizzed them on the Bong-hits-for-Jesus free speech controversy in their state, so maybe it’s just as well I missed them.
I did a little thought experiment—what advice, assuming we’d never meet again, could I give them? Here’s the result.
Why Be Good
Being good is a necessary condition for happiness here on earth. It doesn’t matter whether or not there is an afterlife. Happiness here on earth, and in the afterlife are the same thing.
Any advice to be unhappy here on earth in order to achieve happiness in the afterlife is totally bogus. Happiness is happiness is happiness.
St Finbar's, County Cork.
When St Finbar died, the sun didn't set for three weeks.
Pud says find something more comfortable than this to sit on.
So, why does being good bring happiness here on earth?
-It reduces shame and remorse.
-It allows you to associate with other good people.
You’ll find that good people tend to associate with each other and to avoid the company of non-good people.
The opportunity to associate with good people is the primary feature of heaven.
The restriction of associating only with non-good people is the primary feature of hell.
Q. What is “being good”?
A. The golden rule. Everyone knows that.
The golden rule is repeated in the second of Christ’s two great commandments.
Overlooked is Christ’s first great commandment: Love God with your whole heart, whole soul, etc. What the heck does that mean?
It means we should
-Accept the physical world as we see it and not reject it in favor of some promise or story about some unseen “better world.”
-Explore all resources and exploit them to create good feeling. People who try to create good feeling tend to associate with each other, etc.
So, morality isn’t all that bad. Usually morality is seen as a burden or fetter. That’s because usual morality is promulgated by rich assholes who don’t want us stealing their shit.
True morality, be good and try your best to have fun and create good feeling, is meant to be a formula for happiness, real happiness, with lots of sex, and rock and roll, and plenty of bong hits for Jesus.
----- o -----
My first favorite song was Love Letters in the Sand, sung by Pat Boone.
Hey, I was just a little kid!
It was 1955. Pat hadn’t gone politico-religious yet and, considering that this recording marked the apex of his career, my choice was almost even astute. Also, the heavy reverb is irresistible to a boy that age.
Anyway, it’s been so mf cold and damp around here, as the northern hemisphere heads toward the darkest of days, I needed a reminder of a better time.
Heartbreak’s not so bad, if you can go around in shorts and flipflops.
That dikey Canadian gal has a contemporary xmas song that uses the word Christmas as a verb, as in “I’ll be Christmasing with you.” Fingernails/blackboard. What does it mean, “to Christmas” with someone? Kinky?
Curt Hall, of The Authorities, used to say, “San Francisco has the worst weather in the world.” It’s obvious untruth was always encouraging.
Nonetheless, I’ve decided to solstice in Palm Springs. I hope I can remember how to act gay.
----- o -----
The whole DNR thing is heavy enough, ordering medical staff not to resuscitate a patient who has stopped breathing. Apparently, if a patient has a pacemaker, the family has to take positive action to get the pacemaker turned off.
With advances in medicine and in litigeousness, patients will soon need permission to die. The science of saving lives becomes the science of extended torture.
This neat website, whatismormonism.com, critiques the Book of Mormon from an historical, scientific, logical point of view. The long list of anachronisms are hysterically funny. This website contends that the basic story of the BOM was ripped off from a novel written in 1812.
Pud wants me to tell you that the most honest, reliable pot dealer he’s ever known was a Mormon. “Good people,” Pud says. Also, Pud wants you all to notice the hand on the hip.
I asked myself why I delight in ridiculing new religions such as Scientology and Mormonism. I think it’s because they take on the trappings of traditional, tribally based religions. The Xenu cosmology for instance. Or the angel Maroni? It seems to me if you’re want fairy tales you should go with those that have stood the test of time.
The Bible is like Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm. These new religions are like Barney and Friends.
----- o -----
Not only is fatherhood our guy’s highest vocation, but it’s pretty much expected and desired by parents and others in the straight oriented world. For many men, fatherhood is sort of optional, but sort of not.
Now here come these fancy gay men who want to get married to each other and become fathers if they wish. For them, becoming a father is a lifestyle choice, something that fits into a fulfilling life.
For our average guy, fatherhood doesn’t fit into his life, his life fits into fatherhood.
So I sympathize some with our average guy who may not be all that enthusiastic about gay marriage and all
Also, the process of regular fertilization means that each of us could be the product of a really great fuck, as in “Dad, where did I come from?”
----- o -----
An easy shape, but what a word for L-swallowers like me and Tom Brokaw!
Even squares can get a little tipsy.
----- o -----
Those days, especially on Sundays at Santa Anita, it could be a dress up affair. As I recall, my brother and I wore our church clothes with little clip-on bow ties.
So the trip to Bay Meadows last week brought back a lot of memories.
I was surprised to see how cheap it is. Parking is $4.00, general admission is $3.00 per person. The program costs $2.25, but the same information is available on the internet for free. And the feeding opportunities are numerous and moderately priced. And, you can place a bet for as little as $1.00.
Thoroughbreds are beautiful animals. The Thoroughbred Racing Association has a great looking website.
----- o -----
Other psychologists have grouped these nine traits (hard for anyone to remember them all) into three general types. A fourth type, which includes a third of the population, is “Other” or “mixed."
If this is true, it comes as a relief.
Our perceptions are correct, there actually are such things as “difficult” and “easy” babies.
The hard-wiredness of temperament removes responsibility from both parent and child.
A child isn’t difficult because of some shortcoming of the parents. And the child isn’t being “bad.” The child is difficult simply because some children are difficult. And, supposedly, there’s help available for raising difficult children.
The fact that smart people are looking into ways to help parents and their children to interact happily gives me a good feeling. Child development professionals tend to be tres sympatique at least as compared to, say, dieticians (sorry but it’s true). This guy for instance.
This website belongs to a shrink specializing in adoptive family relationships, who himself had a “difficult” child.
A nuclear physicist I worked for briefly, who was himself undistinguished in appearance, had pictures on his office walls of a beautiful wife and two good looking boy’s. When I complimented him on the photos he said matter of factly, “Yeah, the younger boy had some developmental issues, but now he’s ok.”
Lucky kid.
I see no reason why the hard-wiredness of temperament can’t eventually be modified medically, as we do with the hard-wiredness of schizophrenia.
Innate response styles must be caused by neurochemicals. While the field is in it’s infancy, we can expect neurochemistry to eliminate eventually the “difficult” child.
My friend says this is Brave New World.
----- o -----
Good old Alexander Cockburn! He just won’t let us progressives relax!
Here he pricks the bubble of hope Barack has created. Cockburn thinks it’s mere flatus.
He won’t let us dream. But REM sleep deprivation causes psychosis. We’re stuck.
----- o -----
They’ve done their calculations and charts and projections and conclude that the earth will be uninhabitable either because of nuclear war or because quickly doubling world population will fully consume or pollute earth’s life sustaining resources, soon.
We’ve fucked up planet earth, now let’s fuck up the rest of the universe.
Leaving planet earth in order to establish “civilization” elsewhere is like Ted Haggard, after getting fucked in the ass (pardon the harshness) and snorting a couple extra lines of crystal meth, going out and preaching against homosexuality.
If the human species can’t survive on this beautiful garden called earth, it doesn’t deserve to survive at all.
This is it. Last chance.
Pud thinks I’m getting rantious, but he can go fuck himself.
“Don’t worry,” Pud said calmingly, “the physics of space travel amount to a virtual quarantine of earthlings.
“To that extent you could say there actually is some sort of intelligent design. There certainly are other garden spots in the universe, but we physically can’t get to them, nor should we. It’s like an intergalactic public health measure.”
“So don’t worry,” Pud concluded, “we’re all gonna die here and take planet earth with us.”
That’s one reason I tolerate Pud, he knows how to cheer me up.
----- o -----
I gave the Elvis version, a 45rpm, to a friend, Christmas 1957. I was eight.
I like both versions posted below.
Whatever Pud was on, I didn’t want any.
“Last year I asked for a Fra Angelico,” he said, “something small and portable, you know, one of those little wood panel thingies.
“When the data entry elf typed F-R, the computer auto-filled FRUITCAKE and the stupid elf accepted it. I wonder, in the history of the universe, has anyone ever asked Santa for a fruitcake?
“So I got a goddamn fruitcake!
“I’m hoping for a pie.”
Back in the Sixties SF State’s Poetry Center put on weekly poetry readings in the “Gallery Lounge,” a large open one story building, long since torn down. Having walls on which student art could be hung was the “gallery” part. The carpeting, which was more comfortable to lie or sit on than the bare concrete below it, qualified the venue as a “lounge.”
Very funky, very minimalist, I heard many of the best living poets read from the banged-up lectern.
One week the scheduled poet was a guy from Ireland who was brought to SF State for a semester to teach a graduate writing seminar. I think in the late 1960s it didn’t cost much to get an Irish poet to come to San Francisco. I imagine him sleeping on a cot in Mark Linenthal’s basement.
In his opening remarks the Irish poet mentioned the first meeting of his graduate level poetry-writing seminar. He said he began by asking the students, “Who is the greatest poet?
“And,” he said, “they all replied ‘Cavafy’.”
I can’t remember the Irish poet’s name. I certainly can’t remember any of his poetry. But, he was probably correct. Constantine Cavafy is the greatest twentieth century lyric poet in an Indo-European language.
Cavafy’s language and themes are a mixture of, or interaction between, the classic and demotic. A gay guy, sort of on the make in turn of the century Alexandria, Egypt, you can’t tell if his exploits are happening in 1910 AD or 510 BC.
I happened to be home with the TV on during Jackie’s funeral. When it came her long-time boyfriend’s turn to speak, he read a poem by Cavafy, Ithaca.
I think this qualifies as a “really good poem.”
I’m grateful to George Barbanis for putting this poem on his site.
ITHACA
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.
Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
The entire crew at SFWILLIE’S BLOG congratulates Hugo Chavez on his re-election to the Presidency of Venezuela.
While we are generally leftist, Chavez became our special hero just recently when he spoke to the U.N., one day after George Bush had addressed that body.
One definition of poetry is utterance in which sound and sense are one. Another aspect of poetry is that it points out truths so obvious that no one had noticed them before, or at least stated them.
We think Hugo Chavez’ utterance below meets both criteria. Do we agree with what he says? Absolutely.
Viva Chavez!
[Sorry about the CNN crap preceding the U.N. clip.]
----- o -----
I was talking with a graphics-interested friend the other day and I recommended he check out the Al Jazeera site. I think the black and white photos create an unusual effect.
He said he didn't want to access the site from his own computer because he was afraid DHS was tracking its visitors.
So here's a screen capture:
----- o -----
Apparently Satan’s emissary to Chile, Augusto Pinochet, has stepped back from death’s door. This is good. The longer he lingers in a state of pain and incapacity the better.
It is also necessary to the interests of justice that prosecutions against the mass murderer continue. His death should take place in a prison. Also, all of the money he plundered should be located and returned to the Chilean treasury, and his family should be stripped of all assets associated with their international pariah paterfamilias.
Chile’s current president, whose father was tortured and murdered by Pinochet, is ultimately responsible for any state funeral that may be provided the former dictator. When asked, her spokesperson said, “It’s in bad taste to talk about funerals when somebody is still alive.”
“Bad taste, that’s my department!” Pud chimes in.
“I would make it a simple, dignified state funeral,” Pud says.
“I always liked the mule-thing they did for MLK. We should go with that.
“We strip Pinochet’s body bare, except we CrazyGlue that comic opera cocked hat to his head. We hitch him up to a pair of mules and drag him through the streets of Santiago—through rich neighborhoods, through the financial district.
“Then, in the main public square, we toss his body in a pen of ravenous dogs.
“Then, after the feast, the remaining bone splinters will be gathered up and sold on eBay , the proceeds going to the legal expenses of Chileans who wish to sue Pinochet’s estate for damages.
“It’s easy and cheap, a couple of mules, some glue, maybe a couple of snare-drummers, the dogs are free, and with pay-per-view and other marketing it’ll probably be a real money maker.”
“But Pinochet is small fry compared to the guy who put him in power in the first place,” Pud says. “What’ll we do with Henry Kissinger’s body”
“You’re being harsh,” I told Pud, “it’s bad karma.”
“You want harsh?” he exclaimed. “Harsh is what they did to Ceausescu. He was the Romanian dictator who created all those touch-deprived orphans. Cuckoo! He and Vlad the impaler put Transylvania on the map. The place is just spooky, like Texas.
“Old Ceausescu and his wife were caught trying to sneak out of town. The rebels executed them on Christmas Day, and announced that their deaths were a ‘Christmas gift to the country.’
“Completely well deserved,” Pud said, “but, yeah, maybe a teense harsh. Deservedly harsh.”
----- o -----
When Pud “dances” he’ll choose a phrase, today it was “I told you so,” and use it, repeatedly, over and over, as the lyrics to some familiar tune; today’s tune was the Canadian national anthem.
As he sings he dances, sort of abstract free form, it looks like tai chi, except jerkier, and the space he fills up is the entire room, plus adjoining rooms if any.
He must have gone through the tune twenty times; one verse he performed with a swiffer thingie and got every cobweb in the house. One go-through would be canonic, the next highly melismatic.
He did a series of four verses, each of which was a single melisma on one of the words. So we heard O Canada sung through with just the word “I,” then again with just the word, “told,” and so on.
Costume changes on-the-fly, lighting changes, a whole mini-production, this is what Pud lives for. It makes me happy just to see him so happy. He’s like a four or five year-old, which I fear was probably the apex of his career.
When he finally stopped and I pointed out all the cockamamie contrarian assertions he’s made that haven’t proved true. “It’s luck,” I said, “like a hole-in-one.”
Pud just scowled, gave me the finger, and performed another five rounds. Good for him.
Well past the age of eighty my mom got news from a radiologist looking at full torso films: my mom had pronounced scoliosis, curvature of the spine, which was a congenital condition.
One of the themes of my mom’s childhood was being told to sit up straight. Her continued failure to sit up straight was judged by her parents to indicate some moral defect, or just stubbornness. Why wouldn’t Loretta just sit up straight?
The scoliosis news provided some vindication for my mom, if somewhat belatedly. There was nothing wrong with her character, there was something wrong with her back.
This is a happy benefit of science’s slog into darkness: conditions thought to come from moral defect are shown to have physical causes.
Stomach ulcers, for instance, were thought to be caused by stress and/or diet with behavior modification (reduce stress, eat bland) as the usual prescription. Then, in the last thirty years, researchers discovered that 80% of stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, for which effective medicinal interventions were available.
People who sit up straight are creepy. There’s a kind of office-girl (and office-boy) whose back never touches the back of the chair during an hour-long boring presentation around a conference table.
Sitting up straight makes them look proper, and alert, and attentive, when in fact their attention is consumed by the back pain that only increases in severity as the speaker drones on.
It’s a kind of pretend. It’s almost like they’re holding they’re breath till the ordeal is over.
But not just office girls, but yogis and ballet dancers and gymnasts, with their straight backs, make me uncomfortable.
TV footage of fairly primitive Amazonian tribes shows them lying around in hammocks all day, or sitting in the ground slumped forward over their work. Verticality is the exception, and is always purposeful.
“I’m a Yanomami!” Pud exclaims.
This is the least dangerous delusion Pud has had in weeks, so I let it slide.
----- o -----
Considering the number of congresspeople going or gone to jail and or to disgrace, the Bible hasn’t worked that well, so, I figure, why not try alternatives?
Others disagree. HuffPo points to an amusing appeal from old Don Wildmon (will he ever die?) to protest this attack on our Judeo-Christian (i.e. Christian) way of life.
By the time I get to congress this issue will be worked out and each congressperson will swear on whatever book, or for that matter object, he or she chooses.
I’m going to swear on the OED, the thirteen volume edition from my childhood. I would be dedicating my tenure to the idea that words mean something . . . something!
----- o -----
Today I played tennis with a liberal writer/historian who had never heard of South Park.
So that got me experimenting with You Tube etc.
Enjoy.
DATE
A pomegranate on the wall,
An orange juice bottle prominent
On the coffee table, his talk,
Of marijuana pancakes,
“Imagine,” he said, “pancakes!”
And on his head in curls
Brown hair, he spooned my first taste
Of halvah from a bright blue can.
© Copyright 2006 William Morrissey All Rights Reserved
Three of those four names were associated with relatives or cronies. I think both of my names packed double whammies. Once my mom cautioned me that there were two Williams out there, one my godfather, the other an uncle by marriage, who both thought I was named after them.
Joseph was my dad’s name. Michael was the unattached name. I think they chose it because it’s so normal and so strong.
We Catholics are supposed to be named after Catholic saints. Anyway, there was for me the idea that one’s name connected one to famous people in history with the same name.
For instance, William the Conqueror, Saint George the dragonkiller, Michael the Archangel, Joseph and Mary.
Actually, the story of St Joseph, husband of Mary and stepfather to Jesus doesn’t sound like much fun. I wonder if poor St Joseph’s predicament has ever been used to satirize the Christ story.
But before him, another Joseph got a coat of many colors, and pissed his brothers way off. And he went to Egypt, too. [These poor Jews with asses and foot power made it to Egypt on a regular basis and our fucking president-to-be couldn’t hop a 707 to Europe. – P. Wilson.]
People tell me I look a little like William III, above.
What made me think of this was the heartbreaking picture of two young boys who went missing on a Native American reservation. The older one was four years old with big plump cheeks; his name was Tristin.
The first Google hit says it’s related to “Tristan,” the Arthurian knight of the Tristan and Isolde story, and it might have the word for “sad” as its root. They say it’s a boy’s and girl’s name.
I think that was a criterion for my folks: the name had to clearly indicate the sex of the child.
Then there’s the boy-named-Sue approach, or the ancestral approach which propagates Clarences and Sebastians and Aloysiuses. A name is something worth fighting for.
The second syllable of Sebastian is very harsh to an English speaker’s ear. And there aren’t good diminutives. And St Sebastian is the guy with all the arrows stuck in him so homoerotically.
One of the great names from the history of baseball is Tris Speaker.
The name Tristam didn’t get in the way of a lifetime .344 average. So I guess I’m full of shit.
One of the funniest things I ever said was at work in UCSF’s Accounting Office. A young, shy, first-generation Chinese American girl was very pregnant with her first child and would soon be on leave.
“Faye,” I said, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you’ll name your son “Bill.”
She had to think for awhile (to realize I was joking) before she smiled and shook her head, no.
“Ok,” I said, “a hundred dollars.”
It’s true, though, we’ll have a president named Barak, long before we ever have one named “Timothy,” or “Tristin.”
----- o -----
“It’s difficult to focus on the historic Sunni-Shia rivalry when you have a four-hour erection!
“You know,” Pud concluded, “ the Puritans’ witch-burning thing--not so much wrong, just futile.”
----- o -----
It’s disheartening to catch someone in a lie, not because of some moral outrage, but because it means that future statements by that person will require some scrutiny and verification, which is unwanted work.
So, Americans have seen demonstrated in recent months that leaders of major corporations lie, and can’t be trusted. Leaders of major religions, both traditional and emergent, are liars and can’t be trusted.
And our president and his administration, it’s finally dawning on the American people, actually did lie knowingly to justify an illegal, birdbrained invasion.
Thousands of humans killed and maimed.
Thousands of humans killed and maimed.
Rush Limbaugh admits lying about his views on political issues in order to “carry the water” of the Republican regime.
I know, ho-hum, gambling at Ricks… but what about the 50% of Americans who are of below average intelligence? They rely on smart people to help them figure things out. Tell them to go kill Iraqis, and they’ll actually do it. Lying to them is a sin.
They are bewildered. Who can they believe?
----- o -----
The old “power corrupts” saying tells us that even good people, once they acquire power, become corrupt.
The idea of term limits seems to be aimed at this problem.
Cincinnatus is certainly an example of an uncorrupted power-wielder. He got in and out.
The image is of Chernobyl after the accident. Some workers volunteered to go in and accept death. But most, I think, went in for very brief stints, so that the radiation dose wouldn’t kill them.
Like D.C.
Possibly the final nail was the revelation that the leader of Bush’s Evangelical base was a closet gay drug abuser.
A few days before the election we were able to compare the integrity of Ted Haggard to the integrity of a (former) drug-involved gay prostitute. Mike Jones even admitted that he timed the revelation to affect the election (including anti-gay Colorado initiatives).
Even members of Haggard’s megachurch, have reportedly thanked Mr Jones for exposing a problem, for which the reverend can now get help.
Karl Rove mentions the Haggard scandal as one of the contributors to the rout. Most lefties are ignoring the exit polls regarding corruption. They say it’s Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.
But our invasion of Iraq is itself a scandal. We were lied to about the reasons for going into Iraq. We still haven’t been told the honest truth about that.
Their annual reports are lies. Their state of the union messages are lies. Their assignment of priests are based on lies. Their oaths of office are lies. Their sermons are lies.
And the media’s incredulity is a lie.
Nobody likes to be lied to, at least not about important things, for instance the safety of one’s life-savings, or the reason one’s son was sent to die in combat.
So, the Republicans were turned outof office, not because they are war criminals and torturers (which they are), or thieves (certainly) but because they’re such goddamned liars. How “quaint.”
----- o -----
As an opponent of sex-fun in general and gay sex especially, Rev Ted Haggard is disgraced as a hypocrite.
Lost in this is his utter failure of pastoral duty.
When a Christian minister meets a prostitute, the minister’s response should be to help the prostitute find a better line of work, not to ask, “How much?”
The larger question for me is the dignity of sex work in general. Prostitution seems like a default source of income, when nothing else is available, and it beats dieing of starvation. But that’s probably not always the case
I think I wouldn’t enjoy having sex with people not of my choosing. But I can imagine how someone could find it more fun and rewarding than flipping burgers.
My mom used to say, “Young people think it’s all about sex. Gradually you learn that it’s really about power.”
The reported male prostitute in Denver, Mike Jones (I used to know a Mike Jones), who reportedly has audio tapes of the minister, is probably a nice man with diverse interests who does prostitution as a sideline and could survive without it; at this moment he has a lot more power than the disgraced minister.
BTW: Reports say Mike is 49, and still selling it? You go, girl!
----- o -----
Pud was glad to see that PW Botha had finally died. “How do these evil fucks live so long?” he asks. Then answers himself, “Because they know what’s coming when they die.”
Pud was clearly overwhelmed by the idea of a flight to “South fucking Africa.”
“Maybe you don’t have to piss on Botha’s grave, Pud,” I suggested, “Maybe this obituary from the Guardian does the job for you. Check it out.”
PW BOTHA
Dan van der Vat
Thursday November 2, 2006
The Guardian
PW Botha, who has died aged 90, ruled South Africa under apartheid for 11 years until 1989, and was gradually exposed during his long decline as one of the most evil men of the 20th century, committed to state terrorism, war and murder to thwart black majority rule.
Pud seemed genuinely relieved. “Thanks,” he said, “I can’t tell you what a good feeling it gives me to read that.”
----- o -----
I've created a list of previous posts on this blog. For now it has only dates and titles. To access this list, click the INDEX link in the right sidebar.
When I first read the book and then saw the movie, I was a coming-out-gay leftist English lit major. I saw the moral of the story as simple, and comic: Fuck when you’re young—don’t become a pathetic old man following young boys through the streets.
Now, after thirty years of not thinking much about it, I have to agree with my earlier assessment It’s a simple cautionary tale regarding age-appropriateness. Aschenbach’s predicament in Venice balances the inappropriate choices he made in childhood.
Rather than pursue pleasure in play and companionship in his youth, activities for which he felt inadequate, Aschenbach became a loner and grinder, achieving academic excellence not though brilliance but by dull lead-assedness. His literary achievement, Mann tells us, was substantial but mediocre. The only thing notable in his style was impeccableness, as opposed to, say, verve.
So, in his sixties, when vague impulses draw him to a vacation alone in Venice, he sees and develops a crush on a fourteen year old boy. The overwhelming effect on Aschenbach makes him think that there is something very special about the boy, Tadzio. Aschenbach gushes, mentally, just like an adolescent girl with her first major crush, on “the most beautiful boy in the world.” Tadzio “rises godlike” from the waves of the Adriatic.
There is nothing wrong about this experience and response, we’ve all gone through it, but it’s supposed to happen around age 13 or 14 or 15, not 62. By the time a man reaches his sixties, he should know that the response, “that’s the most beautiful (boy, girl, man, woman) in the world,” is common and fleeting.
The climax of the story comes when Aschenbach utters the words, regarding but not to Tadzio, “I love you.” And, Aschenbach knows, the words are completely appropriate, except they’re uttered fifty or so years too late.
Aschenbach dies, never having touched or even spoken to Tadzio. There is a kind of perfection in this, that could be called tragic. It’s like the lovers on Keat’s Grecian Urn who will always love but never kiss, and never, presumably, smell each other’s farts.
The inability or failure to form a relationship with a perfectly beautiful person can be thought tragic. But consider the disappointment consequent to actually forming such a relationship. I think of the serious young doctor marrying the mayor’s daughter, “a perfection of blondness,” in Middlemarch.
The young doctor found that sexual possession of a beautiful object was entirely possible, but that while being perhaps a necessary condition for happiness, it was certainly not sufficient.
The human species is so successful due at least in part to it’s extraordinary sex drive. A human male, when it comes right down to it, will fuck almost anything. Human females love their offspring beyond all else.
Human sex drive is so strong it crushes us. Aschenbach thought he could avoid it entirely. But Eros’ due could not be denied. Aschenbach paid his debt in Venice.
BTW: In the stage presentation, the actor would shift into the voices of those with whom Aschenbach interacted. I realized that throughout the story Aschenbach talks only with members of the serving classes or occupations—gondoliers, hotel managers, barbers, travel agents, etc. He never speaks with a peer. And he never speaks, or is directly acknowledged by Tadzio, except by glances, never, say, a head nod. This seems odd to me.
The story makes more sense if we assume that Aschenbach is felled by a stroke or something, back in Munich when he encounters the red-haired man with the rucksack, from which he never regains consciousness. The trip to Venice is Aschenbach’s deathbed dream.
TRADE IN D.C.
In his first throes of love, Aschenbach tries to think what kind of relationship he could possibly form with Tadzio, and he considers two paradigms from Greece, Zeus’ “rape” of Ganymede, and Socrates’ relationship with Phaido.
The most pathetic line in the revealed communications is Foley asking a page, “do I turn you on?” And the page replies, “a little.” Hey, Mark, if you have to ask, the answer is “no.” Foley has been mocked by comparison to Austin Powers sticking out his plaid-polyester-clad butt to his lovely costar and asking her if that turns her on.
Needless to say, this is not a question Zeus would ever pose to Ganymede, nor Socrates to Phaido.
