The Son he Wished he Never Had

Rumor has it that President George Bush had been on the outs with his Pa, ex-president George Bush. The issue is the senior Bush's warm friendship with that scoundrel Bill Clinton. I guess you can't blame W to much for being jealous, because W never had peace and prosperity in his presidency like Billy and he's yet to balance one single budget and now his own father is acting like Clinton was a better president than Georgie is now. And to top things off, he was the one who introduced these two in the first place.

Clinton and Bush Senior aren't the only odd couple ex-presidents out there, by the way. Presidents Ford and Carter developed a warm partnership between themselves, once they'd gotten together and aired their differences. It turned out that they had a lot in common and the only people who ever understand what it was like to be president of the United States - you guessed it - are other people who've been president of the United States. Clinton, as a matter of fact, was well known to have taken advice from Tricky Dick himself out in exile in San Clemente. Maybe Bill should have asked Dick whether cigars and interns were such a good idea.

Speaking of rumors: Now the rumors are that Georgie has had a nervous breakdown and/or has taken up drinking again - much to the dismay of his wife; rumored dismay, that is. Bush's popularity numbers are in the toilet, where they should have been all along. I'd bet it's probably because most Americans are starting to pay their heating bills and wondering why this is, after the US invaded one of the largest oil producing nations in the world. 'Coincidentally', the oil companies have posted their largest profits ever.

Or is it a coincidence? Hmmm.

I feel bad for the president and I feel guilty for feeling bad for him, because you know what? He should feel a bit lousy. At least a hundred thousand Iraqis are dead based on crummy decisions he made. Tens of thousands are maimed or wounded or are languishing in our prisons and camps since they are accused terrorists, or enemy combatants, or some other name that means that they don't deserve to be treated fairly like the human beings they are. Not to mention the Americans who are dead (two thousand plus) or maimed or wounded (fifty thousand plus).

Come to think of it, the President does deserve to have some sleepless nights. At least he's still alive to have those sleepless nights, which is more than you can say for all those permanently deprived of their right to ever sleep again on his orders. And if his father is treating Bill Clinton as the son he would have rather have had, then W deserves that, too.

Bring Out your Fat-Suits

Tyra Banks, Maria Menoulos and now an un-named model on the Today Show have all taken to the streets in padded suits and jowel make-up to expose with hidden cameras what it's like to be overweight in America. And ... Are you ready for this? It's not fun. Tyra was absolutely in tears. I mean, really, is this what it's like not to be a Super Model? Poor baby, how could she take it for the few hours that she didn't have everyone kissing her butt?

Well, there are a lot of people who could tell her what it's really like, and a lot of them are living here with me in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is now the most overweight state in the USA. And the US is the most overweight country in the world, so if you happen to notice the Midwest sinking a little in the middle that's the reason why. I guess we should take 'pride' in being the pudgiest of the pudgy, but I don't know if I feel like jumping up and down yelling 'We're number one!' because it would take me so long to get out of my LaZee Boy, and by then I'd be winded.

I don't know what motivated all of these people to dress up and pretend to be heavy and not beautiful for a day. It must be like a sort of tourist destination for them, as in: "I wonder what it would be like to be ordinary and not splendid and wonderful?" This is their self chosen penance for having it too damn good, with the only difference being that they're just visiting, and can rip off the blubber make-up when they've had enough.

Overweight people are treated poorly. There's no question about it. And a lot of people have no sympathy for a voluntary condition like obesity, because if you think about it, no one has to be fat do they? These people should just not eat so much, right? It's never, ever as simple as that, of course - unless it's not you. Then it is. Excess weight is one of those conditions that's also considered a moral failing to many.

From an evolutionary standpoint - or intelligent design standpoint, if you insist - obesity indicates unfitness in a potential mate. It also indicates, for a male, that the woman is potentially pregnant with another man's child who you wouldn't want to raise as your own, would you, you big brained ape, you? The dismay that humans feel towards the non-healthy is in reality innate in the species; we either evolved or were designed that way.

I can't claim to have spoken with every three hundred pound person in the world, but my experience has been that when you find somebody that heavy, you inevitably find somebody with a lot of trauma in their life. Ask and I guarantee that you will hear a horrible story or two that will bring you to tears. The excess eating is medication to kill the pain. So, not only are they living with the awful things that caused them to overeat in the first place, but now they have also the scorn of society to deal with.

I haven't seen the entire TV pieces from Tyra, Maria or the Today Show so I can't tell you what lessons they may have had to teach. I find it personally distressing that for almost certain they will take up the cause of this 'new form of discrimination' for a day or so, then abandon it for the next 'new form of discrimination' that comes their way. Maybe they'll actually succeed in helping those who need that help. Or maybe they'll just get higher ratings.

I Like the Drug Companies Running my Healthcare

In a healthcare statistics class I had last year, the instructor told us that the United States ranked seventh in infant mortality and she asked us - the class - what we thought might be the reason for the US not being number one, having the best available health care in the world and all. I raised my hand and told her that it was likely that every other country that ranked ahead of us had universal health care while the US did not and factors like better pre-natal care and such were the reasons for this. The instructor, bless her, looked puzzled by this news as if this were the very first time she'd ever heard such a thing.

Here's another more recent statistic: The United States now ranks twenty-third in over all life spans. Twenty two other countries have citizens who live longer than us. Do you think those countries might have universal health care for all their citizens? As you read this, forty five million Americans have no health insurance at all. That's about twenty percent of our population (I think. I actually didn't do all that well in that statistics class). There is no other industrialized country in the world that would trade their healthcare system for ours, that is their socialized healthcare system.

But Steve, I don't want the government providing my healthcare! That was a statement I heard from my brother-in-law years back when Bill Clinton was attempting to provide healthcare to all Americans. In reply to my brother-in-law - the postman - I mentioned that the government was already providing healthcare to him and it seemed to working out for him just fine. He was a bit nonplused, but not for long and I forget how the rest of our discussion went.

More statistics: The administrative costs for Medicaid and Medicare are two percent, that is, this is the cost that these agencies charge to distribute and administer funds. The comparable costs for insurance companies to perform the same service is between thirteen and thirty percent, in other words they are six to fifteen times less efficient than the despicable, inefficient government in providing the same service.

But how can that be? Everybody knows that private industry is automatically better than government because of competition and all that. Right? Well, first of all, not necessarily, and second it isn't the function of government to provide services as cheaply as possible while charging the most money possible and lining their pockets with the rest. But that is exactly what private companies do.

Here's something not a lot of people don't know about insurance companies: They don't make money only from taking people's money and then paying out less than that so they make a profit; Insurance companies invest the money in the stock market. A major reason for the rise in medical insurance after the year 2000 was that the insurance companies had to make up for stock market. You didn't pay more because you were getting better services in order to better save your life. You paid more because the people you had entrusted with your money had gambled it all away. No one would stand for them taking their money to Vegas and putting it on the Roulette table, but that's more or less what they did and the odds were poorer.

No Evolution for Deer

A school board in Pennsylvania was thrown out by their voters in a recall election for coming up with the rule that science teachers would have to take one minute to tell students in their classes that there was such a thing as a theory of intelligent design. Likewise Kansas has been wrestling with the Darwin V. Intelligent design theories. My question is, sure you can make all of your science teachers teach intelligent design - they want to keep their jobs, after all - but can you make them keep a straight face while they're teaching it?

As I was driving home tonight, beeping my horn frantically while a stupid deer stood in the middle of the road staringat me, I pondered evolution. 'Why,' I asked myself, slamming onthe breaks, 'Hasn't evolution worked here, evolving this speciesenough common sense to stay away from cars?' It's a good question. There have been automobiles now for over a century, and in my book that's plenty of time for so-called evolutionto do it's job. Unless, of course, the theory of evolution is total bunk in the first place. Well, maybe I won't go that far. But there are clearproblems with Darwinian evolution and I don't think that reasonablepeople should too quickly dismiss intelligent design.Wait, wait, wait. Don't get ahead of me. I'm not saying therefore: Jehovah,seven days, Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, etc. Far from it. Butthe alternative to intelligent design is fantastic coincidence; the 'fact'that the universe is just randomly situated to allow for what we call life.It's as if scientists are saying that the universe is a sort of giant jigsawpuzzle that for no particular reason matches up into a beautiful picture and more than that, this jig-saw puzzle also just happens to have assembleditself just by pure chance, too. Pretty incredible, right?There is a theory called the anthropic principal that somewhat explains this.In the anthropic principal there is not just one universe but many universesor a multiverse. (Strictly speaking you can't have more than one UNIverse).These universes all have different laws of nature and only the one weare in right now had the exact right combination that would allow forintelligent self-aware beings like ourselves who can ask ourselves thesequestions. My problem with this, Mr. Smarty-pants Scientist, is where areall these other supposed universes? I don't see any extra universes layingaround anywhere. And I've looked real hard.Alright, I actually know the answer to this one, too. All of these extrauniverses are in other dimensions that are supposed to be curled up real small and you can't see any of them because they are so small. But why would there even be extra small dimensions in the first place. Where did they come from? Would one of you scientists answer that for me?

Why Packer Fans Wear Cheese Heads

I was born and raised in Wisconsin, but actually have lived most of my life in Minnesota - so, even though technically I could say I'm from Minnesota just from percentage of life lived in that location, I fear I'm forever stained as being from Wisconsin. Our State quarter came out and the bas relief picture on the reverse had a picture of a dairy cow looking adoringly at a huge wedge of cheese. Yes. That is the image that most and best describes who we are and exactly what we do.

You can see, then, how it would make so much sense that the Packers would have so much pride thrown their way by us. Sure, they haven't been hot this season, at all. Real embarassing as a matter of fact. But their performance in any given year is the point so much as them being a football team in Wisconsin. Period. That's something, and if we all can't take much pride in how they play on the field they are the one and only team that is actually owned by the people who live in that area and not some out-of-state whiney billionaire who cries if a half billion dollar stadium isn't built for him at taxpayer expense, so he can make money and take it back out of the state that built him that stadium.

I'm thinking of the Vikings (Vi-QUEENS here in Wisconsin) last owner Red McCombs. They got sold to somebody else now who's actually talking of building his own stadium, but I'm sure somewhere down the line he'll try and stick-up Minnesota for a hundred mil or so and call it a bargain. And while the Vikings have been to the Super Bowl four times, they've lost every single time, which is how you always win a sports argument with a Minnesota fan. You just remind them that their team will choke and break their hearts. They'll get quiet then, look down at the ground and say sadly: "Yeah. You're right."

Border rivalry's are pretty silly, generally, because they're based on nothing more than random geography and nothing important, like in the past when the people of Wisconsin invaded their state and enslaved all the Minnesotans and made them work in our cheese mines. As an example. That didn't really happen. But if it did, then it would make more sense for them to hate the packers like they do. Personally, I have less reason to participate in border rivalries like this since I've lived almost equally on both sides of that border.

Wisconsin people call Minnesotans 'Mud Ducks' (I don't know why) and they call us 'Cheese Heads' because of our production of cheese and putting it on our heads makes it insulting. Actually, I think Minnesota actually surpassed Wisconsin as far as their number of total cows, so if you ask me they should be the real cheese heads. But, you know, they don't have cheese on their coins, so maybe it's fairer to call us that rather than them.

The cheese hats came about - I believe - as a way to take an insulting term and take ownership of it. That would be much the same way that gay people started taking the term 'Queer' and using it openly and unashamedly for themselves. It took a lot of the power and the sting out of it and a pejorative doesn't work so well when your subject refuses to be shamed by it. The problem with the cheese head hats, though, is the very act of putting something that is made to resemble a huge wedge of cheese is in itself very undignified and make yourself look even stupider in no way gives you ownership of the insult. It kind of adds to it.

The New Veterans

When I was in the Reserves, I used to occasionally take the bus to the meetings on the weekends. Seeing a man in a sailor suit, the other passengers used to - of course - take this as an invitation to start a conversation with me. A lot of times these conversations would be comments by tired middle-aged men that if they had stayed in the service they would have gotten their retirement and presumably they wouldn't be tired midde-aged men on a bus in the very early morning hours of the weekend on their way to a job.

Not to give away my age, but now that's me. I wonder now what it would be like be collecting that wonderful retirement for the rest of my life and never have to work very hard again. Because you do still have to work since the retirement doesn't really cover all of your living expenses for the rest of your life anymore. It would probably cover my living expenses, but I'm really, really cheap.

Looking back on it is certainly a whole bunch different than the other side of looking forward to it when I was in my twenties. I tell you, one year in the service was a very long year and at the end of the first four of those long years sixteen was thoroughly unimaginable. Somehow I let myself get talked into six years of the reserves - for the money - and then when those years were up I didn't re-enlist. Since they must have figured that nobody with a dozen years in would not re-enlist the Navy didn't send anybody to try and persuade me to, or offer me any money or anything else.

The next weekend that I was out of the Navy I didn't show up at the Reserve Center. On Monday they called me and asked why I hadn't showed up for my meetings and I told them it was because I wasn't in the Navy, which truly puzzled them.

I was stilled owed my last yearly installment on my re-enlistment bonus from six years back, so I called up the Reserve center and asked for the commander of the unit, but got the executive officer instead and I asked when the Navy was going to pay me the money it owed me. He kept trying to tell me that what I had to do was go to my unit and work through them. To which I replied that I didn't have a unit and I wasn't in the Navy and what I had was someone who owed me money and when did they intend to pay? I got that check in three days. I think it was because I just plain embarassed that guy.

The second alternate reality that I envision is if I hadn't joined the service at all. To that, I believe that I would have ended up with a boring life without any adventure in it. It just might have been a happier life, but it sure wouldn't have the same color as the one I led and I wouldn't have about half of the stories I love to bore people with.

Back when I was in, the military had switched to an all volunteer force. That's been awhile now so it's safe to say that the result of the all volunteer force is that many Americans are shirking their responsibility to their country to give back what it's given them. The people with the most to gain and keep from living and doing business in America are the last ones to send their own sons and daughters out to defend it and the policies that they support.

That's right. I'm talking about all you rich guys. Not that I want to engage in blatant retro-snobbery or class warfare, but its rare that somebody not motivated by economic need joins these days, which has made service to our country a lower and working-class exploit, except I suppose for the officers. Otherwise, risking death and dismemberment is for the other guys. But you'll put your flag out on Veteran's day, won't you? Or slap a magnetic yellow ribbon (made in China, by the way) on your car to show your patriotism. The one thing you won't do, though, is put on a uniform. Will you?

But thanks, anyways, for thanking me for my service. It means something that you'll patriotically take this day off to honor the service of others who did it in your place. Insincere gratitude is still gratitude. And that's all we veterans are likely to get.

Chai Vang's Last Stand

Chai Vang, the Hmong deer hunter from St. Paul who was convicted of murdering six Wisconsin deer hunters, was sentenced and had his chance to speak out about his situation. He said he was happy that he would no longer pay child support for his seven children, and he was grateful to the State of Wisconsin for housing and feeding him for the rest of his life. I'm not sure, exactly, but I think he might just have been a little sarcastic. It's hard to say, because he might in truth be pleased that he will no longer have to do a lick of work to put food on his or anyone else's table.

During the trial much was made about the 'racial slur' that was made about Mr. Vang, to wit: "I'm sick of those Mud Ducks coming into Wisconsin and taking our deer". This was supposedly said by one of the Wisconsin hunters. Actually, you should know, 'Mud Ducks' does not refer at all to someone of Cambodian ancestry at all, but rather it is a pejorative term used by someone in Wisconsin about someone from Minnesota. I have no idea about the origin or etiology of this insult, but if you're from Minnesota and I say this to you in a bar ... well, them's fighting words. Even if neither of us knows exactly why.

There is a fairly sizable Hmong community in Western Wisconsin where I now live, but I haven't had much contact with them. When I first moved back, I worked briefly at a motor factory (before I got canned) and there were a number of Hmong workers there, who were held rather in awe by the other (white) workers because the Hmongs were especially speedy and dextrous. In fact, to amuse each other they would have contests among each other to see who could be the most productive.

There was one cheerful older guy I used to talk with occasionally who found it absolutely amazing how much his white co-workers complained and tried to slack off. He thought he had it good and what to me was back breaking work, he thought was a piece of cake.

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to visit a Wisconsin prison. This one was a minimum to medium security one, so it's probably not like the one Chai Vang's going to go to. My visit was quite a shock to me. I'd expected, I suppose, the type of prison that you see on TV and in the movies, you know, huge scowling men in a powder keg of violence hiding in the corners sharpening their shivs waiting for their opportunity to gang rape the new fish in the shower. Instead everybody was real relaxed and casual and the expected sadistic guards were rather easy-going and pleasant.

Out in the yard, the prisoners played scrabble and threw horseshoes and were going for their morning runs. And since these were Wisconsin prisoners they were nice - they smiled at you and said 'Good Morning' and held the door for you. For sure, they did something wrong to get there in the first place but they were nice wrong doers. Aside from the involuntary aspect of it, I really thought that I might take a weeks vacation and spend it there. It looked awfully restful.

The Magical Diet for Everyone

Reading diet books is my occasional hobby - not using, not following - just reading. So far, I haven't been much influenced to go along with any of these books for very long because I realized a long time ago that they all suffer from one flaw: They don't know me. These books start with the insane premise that every single person in the world should be eating the same exact things and you know what? No way. You mean to tell me that a twenty year old marathon runner should be eating the same food as a ninety year old nursing home resident?
Hmmm.

A number of years back in Hawaii a Doctor noticing that a number of his native patients were suffering from obesity and the related health problems - Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, etc. - switched them to a more traditional diet that their ancestors would have, and his patients lost weight and became healthy. The culprit was thought to be our evil Western diet.

Every now and then you'll read how different countries have diets that are just horrible, like the French or the Italians, but there seems to be some one element, like the tanins in the wine or the asparagus they eat with their meals will be scientifically determined to counteract this. Or you might also read how the Japanese have a super diet because they eat a lot of fish and Sea Urchins and thus the whole world should be eating fish and Sea Urchins.

Excuse me, bull crap. The French are healthy because they are French people eating French food, and the Italians are healthy because they're Italians eating Italian food and ditto with the Japanese and pretty much everybody else. These foods represent the fuel that they've been genetically designed to run on over thousands of years. It absolutely should not be a surprise that they do well with traditional diets.

The US government has, of course, one recommended diet for every single person in the US called the food pyramid. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty leary about following any diet created by government bureaucrats. Do you really want your body to be the same type of well oiled machine that our federal government is? I'd read that what the food pyramid suggested to eat as far as proportions of fat to carbohydrate to protein was almost exactly what you would get in one American candy bar. This it turns out is pretty close. After I finished eating a salted nut roll one day I looked at the nutritional information on the wrapper and - yes - it was almost exactly what the food pyramid recommends. The candy bar had a little less then optimal protein, but otherwise you can eat candy bars and the government thinks you're doing okay.

If I were you, I'd be leary of taking any diet advice from proponents who are not themselves actually thin. I'm thinking mostly of Robert Atkins who was absolutely chubby when he passed away, but this also holds true for bald and not thin talk-show psychologist Dr. Phil and the very excitable, not very sane, and not very thin Richard Simmons. They aren't necessarily wrong in what they tell you, but how come its not working for them?

In the past, I've gone for both higher carbohydrate diets, when I was running a lot and needed the fuel to propel me for miles, and higher protein when I was lifting weights and needed to the protein to build tissue. Both, I think, work just fine for those purposes. When I was more sedentary, then I just reduced my total calories and that seemed to work just fine, also.

The one popular fad diet that I gave a serious shot at was the Atkins diet, and I'd have to say it worked - in sending me to the bathroom a dozen times a day in fear that I'd crap my pants. I'd started on the advice of a buddy who'd trimmed down nicely on it and told me how easy it was for him. So I did it and lasted a week, and in that week I lost eight pounds. But I couldn't take any more so I had to stop. When I told my buddy about this, he urged me to get back on Atkins because my body would adjust and in the meantime I should just get used to it. So I tried again and did not adjust or get used to it and quit again, because I'm not going to spend that sort of money on Adult Incontinence Products just so my jeans will fit a little looser. Thank you.

But I will occasionally recommend the Atkins diet to others. Why, you may ask, is that? Is it because I'm a sadist and want other people to get the runs several times a day and risk social embarassment like I did? No, no. Not at all. The reason is that I've talked with many other people who it's worked for wonderfully - one was a cardiologist - and so I realize that even though it was not right for me, it's probably right for many others and so if you're having a tough time losing weight this might be it for you and go ahead and try it. It didn't work for me, but it might for you.

Today I'm on what I call 'the gravity enhancement diet', which has been specially designed to ensure that the centrifugal force of the spinning Earth does not fling me off into outer space. I don't want to give away too much information on this, but it does involve frozen dinners and fast food. It will all be detailed in my new diet book, including sample menus. Mostly from McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Wendy's et al.

Here is the magical diet that is guaranteed to work for everyone. Are you ready? Commonsense. Nobody knows you better than you do. You are the expert on yourself and you know who you are and what you do and with this information you really should know what and how much you should be eating. The thing is: you just have to stop fooling yourself. The magical diet can be as simple as just not eating so much.

Sneaky, Sneaky Co-workers

Misbehaving co-workers endanger your livlihood. If you know about a misbehaving co-worker you are automatically in a double bind, given the equally unpleasant choices of turning in the miscreant - being a despicable snitch - or putting up with it and saying nothing (ie) betraying your employer by being complicit in the misbehavior. Neither one of these are very pleasant, which is why your misbehaving co-worker not only does not hide the misdeeds, but rather would prefer you know about it so you will be in that nasty double bind.

Think about it: If you turn this person in what do you gain? You focus the spotlight of management not only on this person, but also yourself. Are you so pure that you have absolutely nothing to hide? I'm not. You probably aren't so, either. So who wants that? And if the co-worker is not canned, you've made an enemy - actually a few, because no one else you work with is going to trust you so much, you snitch, you.

Your boss isn't going to be grateful that you've brought an unpleasant problem to solve. In fact, it's just possible that the boss was aware all along and was happily ignoring what was going on. I'd probably say it was more than likely. Now the boss isn't happy anymore. And if the boss has something to hide - well, you see the mess you've created. You're the one who's the most inconvenient.

It gets worse than this. Your misbehaving co-worker is going to try and tempt you into misbehavior, also. There's a good chance that you might indeed want to work a little less hard than you do, especially if you have a real butt head job. And this way you're both of you in the same boat and you can be black mailed into silence, because you're doing it, too.

Yes. I have a story that goes with this one.

Back when I was in college, one of my jobs was as an evening security guard as a parking ramp. Before you turn your nose up at me for this, it's an excellent job for a student because you have a good deal of time where you are actually not guarding a damn thing and have time to study your course work. I didn't. But I could have.

I was working at the parking ramp with a very charming, but shifty fellow named Jim. Shifty Jim would nightly regale me with amusing stories of his shiftiness. I guess I envied him a bit, wishing that like him I could also do so many wonderful things like he did without worrying about a conscience to bother me.

One Friday night, a couple of hours before quitting time, Shifty Jim told me that I could take off and he would cover for me, and then the following Friday, I could do the same for him. Sounded good. So, I left and for the next couple of months or so we took turns covering for each other and I didn't feel very bad, because the security company didn't pay all that much and I wasn't taking off that many hours anyways.

Then one Wednesday, about four hours before our shift was supposed to end, Shifty Jim told me that he'd signed up for an evening class which he was going to right now, and if I wanted to report him I could. And then he left. Well, I couldn't report him, could I? He had just about as much dirt on me as I had on him - he'd made sure of that - so all I could do was sit it out and hope no manager from the company came by enquiring where Shifty Jim was. Eventually, that was precisely what happened and I was then in the position of having to come up with some sort of lame lie to cover for myself, and I barely kept that job, though - really - I should have been just as fired as Shifty Jim.

What should I have done? First of all, (obviously) I should have made sure I was doing my job, regardless of what anybody else was doing. Should I have reported him, if I hadn't been taking off myself? That one I'm not sure of. Probably in that case, I could have, because what he was doing was so egregious but also he wouldn't have done it in the first place if he hadn't carefully laid his foundation of blackmail so that I couldn't.

If you have a co-worker like this, I think you have every right to be angry right from the start. Somebody has to do the work they're getting out of and that nice person is probably you. And they are putting you in an unpleasant situation that you didn't ask for. Maybe what you want to do when you start a new job, you might want to let it slip out that you just cannot keep any kind of secret of any kind, ever. That could well save you some trouble later down the line.

Bob Cratchit was a Lousy Clark

I can never watch any version of a Christmas Carol any more because I keep getting bugged by one nagging question: If that damn Bob Cratchit thinks he has it so bad with Scrooge, why the hell doesn't he get out there and get himself another job? You hear so much in the story about how miserly Scrooge is with his, but you know what? I'll bet Scrooge must have been paying a competitive wage for his clark. If Cratchit thought he should be getting more for his work, then he should have found the employer who would have paid him more and treated him better.

But he didn't. And do you know why? It's because he was a slacker. Maybe Scrooge was paying less for his clarks then anyone around him - that's possible - but that was because no one would pay even as much as he did. Cratchit was plain lucky to have Scrooge pay him what he did and keep him on for as long as he did at any salary at all.

Should we feel sorry for Bob Cratchit because he had a large family to support? Well, who told him to have all of those kids in the first place? I'd bet you if he and his wife had paracticed some sound family planning and had perhaps only half as many children, then the money would have stretched a lot further. Anyways, he was able to put a roof over his families head and food in their mouths. They weren't in the poor house or anything close to it.

But that was the thing: The guy was just a complainer. Look at it from the Boss's perspective. Would you want someone under you who was always complaining about everything? Like, the office was just too cold for Cratchit, so, of course, he has to waste precious coal so that he can be toasty warm. What about the company? Scrooge and Marley is paying good money for that heat, bucko. Wrap your muffler and take one for the company. Be a team player for a change.

Or how about all that extra time off that Scrooge's clark kept asking for? Back in Victorian times, Christmas was a minor holiday at best. Nobody was really asking for Christmas off. Most Victorians worked on Christmas so that they could have an extra day away from their family. It would be like me asking for Captain Kirk's birthday off. What sane boss would grant that request? It was the same with Christmas back then.

I get so angry at the end of a Christmas Carol. Everybody thinks it's so wonderful that Scrooge turns his mean, bitter life around but all I can see is him giving this awful Bob Cratchit a big Christmas goose and a pay raise when he really should be giving him a pink slip and a boot out the door.

Revenge of the Sith

If you ever get to be an evil galactic overlord, I've got a bit of advice for you: Don't gloat. If you have your opponent on the absolute ropes and all you have to do is to deliver the coup de grace - deliver it. Don't stop and talk to your apparently fallen foe. Kill him. Then if you feel like gloating, you can indulge yourself to the brim and you can speak as much of a monologue as you want over his dead corpse. If you do that your nemesis will not come back to save the day.

But does any super villain ever do that?

No.

Anyways, I just rented the DVD for Revenge of the Sith and there was a scene where the evil emperor to be Palpatine AKA Darth Sideous has Jedi master Yoda on the ground after shooting him full of blue lightning and instead of shooting Yoda full of more blue lightning and finishing him off, guess what he does? That's right. He gloats. And by gloating he paves the way for three more epic movies and two more trying to be epic, but instead being tedious movies.

What I want to know is this: Do you think most people in the galactic empire had it all that bad? I don't. I think in the Star Wars Universe most everyone on all the planets just lived their lives like normal and there wasn't a whole bunch of suffering. They could give a rip whether they lived under a galactic republic or a galactic empire as long as the crops came in on time and there was food on the table and they could slip out Saturday night to Mos Isley for a few belts.
The ones who were most inconvenienced were the rich lords and ladies with the titles and it doesn't look like they had their luxurious lifestyles impinged on too much, so what was the problem with having an evil emperor?

I've got another question: Doesn't anybody in that galaxy ever think about getting laid? In the first three movies there was plenty of indication that the inhabitants all had healthy sex drives. The three prequels make it look like they're all constipated and pre-occupied and got better things to do. Yeah, I know, Anakin, future Darth Vader is married, but it really looks like almost a pain in the ass thing for him and there doesn't seem to be a whole bunch of passion between them despite Natalie Portman's overacting.

At the end of the movie when Darth Vader becomes Darth Vader, you know, when they finally put the suit and the mask on Anakin Skywalker completing the transformation, I almost had to laugh. That's not Darth Vader! That's Darth Vader lite at best. Hayden Christiansen is just too short and skinny and you just wonder to yourself how he packed on all the muscles and extra height for episode IV. He must have gotten onto the roids big time.

Thank God George Lucas won't be making anymore Star Wars movies so that I can stop seeing them and being hugely disappointed. I just get the feeling that he's a real lonely bachelor who watches a lot of C-Span and thinks it's riveting. That's what all of these pre-quels felt like to me. Who cares about senate deliberations, even if they are galactic senate deliberations? It's still a huge yawn. And good old George can stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars in order to bore me stiff.

Witches and Terrorists

A few years back in a bookstore I ran across a volume called Malleus Mallificum or Hammer against Evil (roughly translated). This book was the infamous medieval witch-hunting manual which advised the witch-hunter that when he had his suspected witch safe and sound in his dungeon, he should show the suspected witch all the instruments of torture and then explain how each and everyone of them is used. Then the witch hunter should simply wait for the confession to come spilling out, which the book advised was just about all that was ever required.

I believe it. I don't know about you, but after that little lecture by a robed and hooded inquisitor, I'd be howling for a pen and paper so I could write down for them exactly how bad a witch I was. Because you know what? One way or another I would know I was done for and I would want to save myself whatever suffering I could until my inevitable fate.

The United States, it seems, has been getting away from the idea that torture is wrong and horrible in all circumstances. The CIA has - allegedly - been running their own franchise of torture chambers in different countries that aren't so finicky about cruel and unusual punishment as the United States used to be. 'No! Not the CIA!', you say. Well, I'd hate to think it could be true, because it's just so, so unlike that organization but the evidence is kind of mounting up.

Are we all 'shocked ... shocked!' to discover this? I guess I have a little more reason to believe that the CIA would actually do this. You see, a relative of mine once worked for them. Please, don't worry, I'm not going to out him like Valerie Plame, and even if I were, he's long since been out of their employ (he claims. But I'm not so certain). Anyways, he left their gentle loving arms because of unspecified 'moral' problems and that was all he would ever say about it. We can probably guess what some of those moral problems might have been especially knowing where he was when he had these moral problems - in the Mideast, working for one of the many despotic tyrants we used to bankroll back in the day.

The victims of the new CIA torture chambers are not witches, but terrorists, they say. Few people really have much sympathy for terrorists and I have to admit that I'm one of them. Torture is wrong, but my sleep is not so troubled if some of these awful men experience some discomfort before they're rewarded with seventy two virgins in paradise for their deeds.

The problem is that they aren't really terrorists, but rather they are 'accused' terrorists. They have not had any public trials in front of a judge and a jury of their peers with a defense council, you know, all that sixth amendment stuff. Nor have any of them even had a secret military tribunal, either. They've just been spirited away in the middle of the night and who knows what happens to them, then?

Like we used to do with witches. My God, the Bible says we should not suffer a Witch to live and do we really want these minions of Satan in our midst? What rights should Witches really have? All of our souls are at risk and I think extraordinary measures are thoroughly justified to get rid of them - just like 'accused' terrorists.

Secret CIA prisons for suspected terrorists are one thing, but has everybody forgotten that we already have a thoroughly out in the open prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? On Meet the Press one Sunday there was an evil Republican senator who was defending the 'detention facility' in Cuba. His ploy was to read off the menu at Guantonamo for a particular Sunday to show how well the terrorists were being fed, and this bozo even exclaimed in astonishment that they were getting... rice pilaf! Tim Russert, the moderator of the show, asked a very pointed question about due process and the evil Republican went back to the Guantano menu and read off next Sunday's entree ... glazed chicken! Well, case closed. If these guys are getting rice pilaf and glazed chicken, then screw anybody who complains that some of them have been held incommunicado for three years without any legal process.

What a bunch of whiney cry babies!

Russert asked Evil Senator about some of the interrogation techniques that were documented at Guantanamo and he listed: Sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, stress positions, being stripped and forced to stand naked, the use of dogs to terrorize them, having women violate their personal space, Christina Aguillara music. E.S. (Evil Senator) responded by not responding and told Russert how every cell has an arrow that points to Mecca and we scrupulously have the call to prayer for them five times a day. Russert asked again about the use of the guard dogs for one particular suspected terrorist and E.S. sneered: "oh.. he had a dog bark at thim." Um, it was probably a little more than that, Senator.

The problem with getting any sympathy for these people is that, first of all they're thought to be terrorists - bad, bad people - and second the interrogation techniques are what are called 'psychological' and they don't sound all that bad. Until you've had them done to you, that is, and how many people really have? (I have and so have a handful or military people of my aquaintance).

Just likethe inquisitor from the middle ages they haven't physically done much ofanything to you. There certainly isn't much drastic tissue damage and that's really what torture is, isn't it? None of it's allowed by the Geneva Convention, of course, but the Geneva Convention outlines rules for the fair treatment of prisoners who are signatories of the convention, as we define them. The Red Cross and Amnesty International beg to differ, but who are they? They don't have any armies.

Now, the one about a female interrogator violating my personal space, I've got to confess: That one sounds like it might not be so bad, and when you throw in that Christina Aguillara music they talked about, that's basically a lap dance. Terrorists getting lap dances doesn't sound so awful to me. The thing is: I'm an American and it's different for a Muslim male. The equivelant for me might be a technique that I heard from an Army guy who was enrolled in military interrogation school in Texas. This guy told me that one of the techniques they taught him was to have your subject hand cuffed to a chair and then you, the interrogator, come in and start grilling the subject while you're butt ass naked. American men are very homo-phobic and this one tends to freak them out a lot.

You know, these guys in Cuba have been there for years and there'slittle of intelligence value they could still provide. If they're terrorists, then prove it. It's as simple as that. They should have their day in court just like every single horrible murderer here in the United States.

I guarantee you that we are right now holding innocent men prisonerand have been for years. For example, one of the people that theyactually did let go (after holding him for two years) was one hundred and four years old. I don't know if I feel all that safe with this guy back out on the street, probably committing terrorists acts or something.

If you think it's alright for us to hold people who are simply accused of terrorism then I know one more accused terrorist that needs to go to Cuba. You! That's right. I think you're a terrorist. Now that you are an accused terrorist, like all those men that we're holding overseas, you should be more than happy to give up all of your civil liberties and be held in solitary confinement for an indefinite period. But please don't worry. They'll give you glazed chicken and rice pilaf and you'll have an arrow in your cell that points to Mecca so you'll know where to pray to five times a day. Hell, the US government will probably even throw in a free complimentary copy of the Koran.

Or maybe you'd prefer to be charged with witchcraft.

It's up to you.

Too Horrible

Horror can certainly go to far. I was watching TV recently and saw the ads out for Saw II. It seems pretty similar to Saw I, that is, it features ingenious sadism on a low budget with unknown actors, and as far as I can judge, little else. This is one that I don't think I'll ever go to a theater to see, rent at the store, or watch when it comes to television, though if it ever does come to television it will be edited down to ... absolutely nothing, because that's about what they could show. I don't think there's much that will be redeeming or fun or scarey in the 'good' kind of scarey or spinechilling or any of that. It just looked sickening.

Now, of course, I obviously can't do a review of movies that I haven't seen or even state with confidence that nobody else should see them, either. I'll leave that to fundamentalist Christians, who can, it turns out judge a book by it's cover or a movie by it's trailers.

The first horror movie that I remember thinking was too much was The Excorcist when I was about twelve. I couldn't tell you now what I thought was so horrifyingly appalling about that movie. Perhaps I thought some of the blood and violence was entirely gratuitous or that it seemed too real and believable. I don't know. I went home terrified and asked my mother if this was at all true or possible. My mother, a bit of a hard-core Christian herself assured me: "Yes, Stevie, Demons can inhabit your body like that."

I didn't sleep for three nights.

Another movie that I thought went too far for the time - not a horror movie, but I'll add it here anyways - was The Godfather. I know, it's a classic and if it's on TV and not much else is on - then I will watch it, because it's a great story and it had great acting. But when I first saw it (13 years old) the portrayals of frank violence made me feel like I'd been hit in the stomach. I especially remember when Luca Brazi has his hand nailed to the counter with a knife and is then garroted from behind with piano wire. I kept thinking to myself: "Please don't show anything more like this."

But they did. And looking back on it, it seems almost hilariously mild, but up until then I had never, ever even seen somebody getting shot and then actually bleeding from that gunshot. That alone, the mere concept that people will bleed from being shot got to me.

Horror I've seen in real-life has gone too far. In Minneapolis at different times I've seen three different men get onto city buses - and they had no hands. Not only did they not have hands but they didn't have prosthetics, either; just the stumps. And each of these men were very dextrous with what was left of their arms, manipulating bus cards from their pockets and into the correct slot.

The first guy I saw do this - I tried not to look or stare, but there was almost no way not to - he noticed me and, instead of scolding me for my impoliteness, smiled gently and wished me a 'Good Morning'. It made me feel one inch tall. These guys I saw were all African in appearence and I would guess victims of the civil wars raging in Central Africa, where to spread terror they amputate the limbs of people they don't like so much. They would have been in Minneapolis, probably, because of the institute for torture victims that's in that city on the University of Minnesota campus.

Too far in horror, then, is too real. The frightening monsters in the mafia and in Africa are not mere figments of a writers imagination but live and breathe. I never want to watch a movie to find out the truth that the world is a horrible place full of evil, pain, sickness and death. I like to believe that at least some of us are going to escape and live until the next sequel.

Michael's Arabian Nights

Michael Jackson is now set to take up residence in Dubai according to the Tabloids. He's had his picture taken several times with a fan of his in that country, this fan happens to be part of the royal family - a prince, I believe - and has been encouraging Michael to move in. I couldn't say why the prince wants Michael to live there so badly. Jackson used to be an excellent musician and entertainer at one time many years ago, but he hasn't come out with any new music that anyone wanted to listen to for years.

My guess? The prince is, in fact, a big fan and dropped a line to Michael and told him that if Michael came over to Dubai he could sleep with as many young boys as he wanted to and nobody would arrest him or even bother him about it, because that's what all the grown men in that part of the world do. It wasn't for nothing that Sir Richard Burton labeled it the sotadatic (sodomy) zone. Sure, Sir Richard wrote more than a hundred and fifty years ago, but it probably still holds true.

I followed the Michael Jackson trial with re-enactments on the E channel and thought it was pretty riveting television. Our trial system, the adversarial system, automatically includes a lot of drama which is why there are so many lawyer shows on TV. We Americans like contests like this, which is what a trial is. Most trials, of course, aren't anywhere close to this one. The vast majority of defendents in criminal cases don't happen to be multi-millionaires so they don't get to put on these extravagant defenses with trials that last for months with witness lists in the hundreds.

They have lawyers appointed for them by the court and they go to prison.

However, they probably should go to prison. Seventy five percent of people serving time right now plea bargained their cases, which means that they not only admitted what they did, but they agreed to serve the time that they're serving. Perry Mason was probably the only defense
attorney who had the luxury of only defending innocent clients. The rest have to wrestle with this moral quagmire of trying to prevent justice for bad people they know should be punished. They can take comfort, I suppose, in the fact that they are doing their constitutional part in providing everyone with the best defense but there have to be times that they regret being as good as they are at their job.

Michael Jackson - I believe - got away with his crimes. Despite his 'Not Guilty' verdict, he sure wasn't very innocent and some of the jury were clear that they thought this, too, but that they couldn't in good concience convict him of this particular crime. The same probably went with the juries for O.J. and Robert Blake. Both were found 'Not Guilty' but it wasn't a slam dunk in either case. I'll bet some jurists in those cases are having some sleepless nights still.

The hell of it is for Michael Jackson that if he were born in a different time and a different place his actions would have branded him as a solid citizen and not a pervert (I mean, alleged pervert). Three thousand years ago (or so) in Athens it was thought to be the absolute civilized ideal for an older man to take a younger man under his wing and educate him in the ways of the world, acting as a mentor to his protege. And then boofoo him.

I remember reading Plato's Republic and coming across that. In the book, Socrates and his gang of philosophers were out in the market square bantering about before they got down to some serious philosophizing. One of the sub-philosopher teases Socrates that he 'knows how Socrates gets around a young handsome lad'. Ho, ho! Wink. Wink.

It comes down to this thing called age of consent. When is a person considered a grown-up? In ancient times the answer was that it better be as soon as possible. In Jesus's time a man was expected to be married when he was fourteen; In America we won't let a fourteen year old
cook a hamburgermuch less reproduce. But it was different then, because for most of human history a fourteen year old was a middle-aged person. So they better start breeding and keep breeding because otherwise there wouldn't be people.

It took six live births to guarantee that two people would live to replace their parents, meaning you'd better start early and keep going. We are all here right now because for most of human history fourteen year olds did it.

But, of course, this is the twenty first century and nobody under eighteen should be even thinking about that stuff. When they turn eighteen then they can think about marriage. Period. That's all. Although, I'm not exactly sure why exactly we've put the ages down for what's acceptable. In America you can drive at sixteen, vote and go to war at eighteen, drink at twenty one, and become president at thirty five. Doesn't this seem just a tad bit arbitrary? Why shouldn't it be President at sixteen, drink at eighteen, vote and go to war at twenty one and then drive at thirty-five? It sure would be a more interesting country if we did that.

In Europe people do drink at sixteen, then receive their drivers licenses when they're eighteen. It seems more sensible to me, somehow, that you learn the social responsibilities involved with alcohol before you're able to get behind the wheel of a car. People should be taught how to
drink with adult supervision first.

Okay. I got away from Michael Jackson and I promise I won't do that again. The most important thing about him that has not been getting the coverage that it deserves is that his music sucks. It didn't always. In his time he came up with some great tunes, but I haven't heard anything that I remotely liked at all since his Thriller album. And I just hate listening to his voice because it's so nasal since he chopped up most of his nose. I've heard that he never stopped writing songs and could have other artists release some of this unheard music, now that he's in the clear being associated with him might not quite be career suicide.

The key to this Michael Jackson business, I believe, is revealed in his video for the song Thriller. In the video, a young and relatively normal appearing African American Michael Jackson with only a modest nose job is leaving a movie with his date, an attractive African American woman. (A playboy centerfold in real life). Michael looks pretty hip - 80's hip - and is dressed in a red leather outfit. The two of them leave the movie theater, go to his house and are about to start snuggling when Michael shyly stops her and tells her that he is: 'Not like other guys'. Then he turns into a monster, chases her away, and goes out into the street and dances with other monsters.

The way to interpet this video is symbolically and I would have to believe that it was all sub-concious on Michael's part. He didn't want us to know this on purpose. This is my interpetation
only and is merely speculation, I don't have proof and he was found 'Not Guilty', blah, blah, blah ... please don't sue me, Mr. Jackson.

Here goes: The opening symbolically shows a conflicted Michael Jackson who is struggling with his sexuality and his un-natural desires, (ie) his 'monster-hood' while pretending to the world that he is in all ways a conventional hetero-sexual, even a ladies man. To his date - the world - he reveals that he is secretly a monster (attracted to boys) and he rejects the standards and conventions of society (chases his date away). The last part - dancing with the other monsters - needs no explanation, because we all know what dancing with monsters means, don't we?

Gay Sulu

Actor George Takei of Star Trek fame has come out of the closet recently and announced his gayness to the world. The actor played the character of Sulu the helmsman on the TV show Star Trek and later in the movies based on the television series. Takei, in his announcement, cited the fact that society has changed to such an extent that he no longer felt he had to conceal his sexual orientation. But mostly, I believe, he knew that it wasn't going to negatively affect his career as much as it might have, both because of the more tolerant atmosphere in the United States and also because being a pretty old guy by this time with money in the bank, his career is undoubtedly winding down. If he has a career at all.

He had been slated to appear in the last Star Trek movie with the original cast in a very small part, but he found out that were he to decline this part, the writers would make a reference to Captain Sulu having his own Star Ship. Which is what he decided to do. The other Star Trek actors roundly criticized him for turning down a real-life role paying actual money so that the fictional character he used to play could get an imaginary promotion. I'm guessing that he knew that whatever lasting fame and immortality he would ever have was tied to the character of Sulu and he wants his obituary to read that he played the role of Captain Sulu instead of merely Commander Sulu. It also shows a lot of dedication to the creative process to pass on real cash.

I'd read his autobiography a number of years ago. Obviously he hadn't made any reference to his lifestyle back then, but I do recall him saying that it was difficult for a Japanese actor to get any roles aside from 'houseboy' in plays and movies. Kids, back in those days every gay man was an actor. Every single one of them (for the most part), every single day had to pretend that he was straight and not acknowledge the thoughts and desires that were illegal in all fifty states. It's no surprise that so many of them chose to get paid for what they were doing already for free.

Star Trek for it's time was extremely ground breaking merely for showing an egalitarian work place where men and women and people from different countries and ethnic groups worked side by side. That work place did not exist in the mid 1960's and to even show it as a possibility was controversial. Portraying openly gay characters would have been entirely beyond the pale.

If you look at old time TV shows and movies you can see that there were gay characters portrayed, but only for comic relief. You know, look at those funny men who act like women - that sort of thing.

My belief is that a lot of the 'buddy' movies of the past were actually code for gay relationships. Look at Abbot and Costello. Don't tell me that those two men weren't involved in a loving monogamous relationship. Or Hope and Crosby. Why were they always on the road to somewhere or the other? It was because they would keep getting run out of town for their deviant ways and had to take to the road. Martin and Lewis? Okay. Sure there was always a lot of talk about Dean and his women - so maybe he was Bi - but you always, always knew who his first love was, didn't you? At the end of the movie, who did Dean Martin end up with?

And the three stooges, what was their story? Why were these three men always together everywhere? Well, I've got the answer and it's simple if you think about it: Gay swingers.

Founding my Religion

In 1800 the United States government prepared to mount an expedition to the South Pole. The main purpose for this glorious voyage of discovery - that never got off the drawing board - was to discover the entrance at the South Pole that led into the entirely hollow Earth. It's yet to be proven for sure what exactly is inside of the Earth. Most scientists think it's something like a gigantic molten core that rotates and thus creates our magnetic field, though none of these scientists has bothered to dig a hole deep enough to prove their 'theory'. I have to concede that they're probably right, more or less. It would be fun if the Earth was hollow and inhabited by terrifying mole people set on conquering the outside of the World, but ... it most likely isn't.

About the time that this US exploratory vessel failed to sail, a man named Cyrus Teed founded a sect that was based partially on this premise. His religion didn't take off, but Cyrus had a cousin whose religion did. Cyrus's cousin was Joseph Smith and his religion was the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Or Mormons. I'm not going to get into whether or not Joseph Smith was visited by an angel who gave him golden tablets, which disappeared after he transcribed them. Nobody believed me when I was visited by an angel that gave me disappearing golden tablets. So, I know it can happen, and I also know how damn skeptical people are when you tell them about it.

Mormons, I've got to say, are rather nice people. Granted most of the Mormons I've met have been trying to sell me on their way of life, and it wouldn't have paid to be a dick to potential converts like me, but I've known some others and they were nice. Mormons emphasize a healthy way of life - no baccy, booze, drugs, or even coffee for crying out loud - and they also emphasize family and community. All of this means that they live very long, healthy lives and if you think their theology is a little hard to take, please remember that most of the world happens to think your personal philosophy is one hundred percent wrong, too.

It never occurred to me that I could start my own religion until I saw videotapes of David Qoresh talking to his followers at Waco. Man, I thought to be a cult leader you had to have charisma or something but this guy had nothing. Maybe it was his ability to not blink for long periods of time that made him look like a visionary. He had a line of rap, for sure, but it's beyond me why anyone would let this guy lead them to their deaths. They all must have been pretty dumb was all I can figure.

Then it hit me. Yeah, to start your own religion all you need are people who aren't as smart as you are. You don't have to understand the secrets of the universe or anything close to that, you just have to be able to convince other people that you do. I know what you're thinking: Steve, even if that's true you still wouldn't be able to find a roomful of people who are so much stupider than you.

Well ... I could so. This is America and people are absolutely proud of what they don't know. It would be a snap to recruit a bunch of seekers of insight, because, as you know, there's a seeker born every minute.

There would be a few hard and fast rules for my seekers. Number one is: Nobody kills nobody. You don't need to go out on my behest leaving a trail of bodies in order to start Helter Skelter (a water slide in England, by the way, not an apocalyptic race war) or go after our enemies, because everybody's going to absolutely love us. Most especially you don't have to kill yourselves. If for some reason the spaceship doesn't come, or the end of the world doesn't happen, or everything collapses like a house of cards - we're done. Nobody drinks the Kool-Aid. Everybody can pack up and go home. And if for some reason the FBI shows up with tanks and tear gas cannons, it's safe to say we must have messed up big and maybe we should open the door and hear what they have to say.

Rule Two: I don't care who you sleep with. I won't tell you how to use your private parts at all. That's entirely your own business and I especially won't require anyone to sleep with me to achieve enlightenment. It would be highly encouraged, but not a hard fast rule.

This is where all the other cults go wrong in a real creepy way. There was this one in England where the leader decided that this one kid was the new messiah and everybody in the cult had to sleep with him, including his own mother. He grew up and killed himself. Or there was the Sri Rajneesh cult in Oregon where everybody had to wear orange and sleep with everybody else. Which sounds good in theory, but in reality if you really could sleep with everybody - you wouldn't want to.

Mostly they go in the opposite direction and advocate total celibacy for everyone except, of course, for the guy who's running the show and telling everybody else not to get any. For some reason God requires that guy to get as much trim as possible. It reminds me of that flying saucer cult in California where the men all thought it was a good idea to not have their testicles. Ewww. That gives me the shivers. Then they all put on tennis shoes and drank the Kool-aid, but you know what? They might as well have, because they didn't have a whole bunch to live for anyways.

There'd be some perks for me, of course. I read somewhere that L. Ron Hubbard the creator of Scientology went everwhere with two blonde teen-age girls in white hot pants following him around. One carried his cigarettes and the other his lighter. Apparently that's all they did for him and he never made any attempt to sleep with either of them. He was a pretty old guy at that point and all he wanted to do was sail around in his many yachts and write (not very good) science fiction books. I can't say whether or not that's a true story, but I like the idea.

So, I'll have an entourage, too. I quit smoking awhile back so I don't need any help with smoking materials, but I like the idea of comely maidens escorting me, though I don't know what purpose they could serve. Probably I would have them as my personal cheerleaders. Clearly, any person who thinks that they should sit at the right hand of God has no problems with excessive modesty, so I think if I took the important step of starting a religion, this would be more than appropriate.

Oh. And what, you may ask, are the tenets of my new religion? I know I haven't really gotten to that part of it. Well, I haven't decided that yet. But don't you worry about it, because it's going to be good. It's going to be something you can really believe in and I guarantee it won't be anything goofy at all. Trust me, you're going to want to be one of my disciples. So, what you can do right now while I'm thinking this stuff up is get your cheerleading uniform out of the closet and think up some good cheers for me, because I'm going to want to get started with this religion thing real soon and I want all my followers ready.

The French Pirate

Public officials generally do not engage in facial hair what-so-ever. Teddy Roosevelt - I think - was the last actual US president to have any whiskers at all. Maybe it was Taft. My point is that is hasn't happened recently and I think for a good reason. People judge very harshly on what you choose to have growing out of your face. Look at John Bolton. He got criticized more for that stupid white mustache under his nose then for the proven fact that he was thoroughly unqualified, either through experience or temperment, to be a US Ambassador. You just had to look at him to know that his judgement could not be sound. John Bolton believed that his big droopy walrus mustache looked good. How could Americans possibly trust his judgement on any other important matter, like nuclear disarmament?

I've got a huge confession to make: I've had silly facial hair. For most men facial hair appears in two epochs of their lives. The first is when we're adolescents and we discover that we can grow any at all, which is what we then attempt to do and not very well. This facial hair usually disappears when we realize that our sparse attempts at mustaches and beards make us look less manly - not more so. That's the first time.

The second great period of facial hair occurs when the hair on top starts to disappear. Then it's crucially important to show the world that we can still grow hair out of our head. Sure it's not where we want it to grow, but it's hair none-the-less and that's the critical thing. This, by the way, also explains hair growing out of noses and ears.

When I was on an airbase in Texas I noticed that a lot of the retired military would engage in bizarre facial hair. These guys would be shopping at the base exchange with hair-cuts that would be as high and tight as any active duty service member, but then they would add to it some weird beard, like huge curling mustaches, or a long Colonel Sanders, or giant sweeping side-burns. Something to let you know that they had made their twenty years, and don't you dare try and give them any orders.

I've sort of fallen into the Midwest habit of growing a beard in the colder months and going clean shaven during the warmer ones. The rationale is that the beard provides extra warmth for your face when you need it most. Which is really just baloney, because no one around here is outdoors so much that it really makes much of a difference. We have indoor heating and we use it.

The real reason, I admit, is just laziness. It's a drag to have to scrape your face with a sharp piece of metal every single day and those few minutes it takes to do so can be better used for other purposes. Usually TV. So, you just say it's your 'winter beard'- or around here it's your 'deer hunting beard' - and you get out of that tiny bit of work for the next six months.
I claim that I can grow a full beard if I want to. Maybe with a little help from an eyebrow pencil here and there to fill in, but that still counts. The beard I grew last Winter is what I call 'the French Pirate'. This is the kind of styling you see on a number of male celebrities like Jonny Depp, Colin Farrell, Leonardo Di Caprio, P. Diddy Et Al. The French Pirate consists of a mustache, a soul patch underneath your lips then a bit of fuzz on the chin. Think Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood.

I didn't get much of a positive reaction to that beard. A few people observed non-commitally that: "Oh. You're growing a beard." To which I was compelled to reply: "Um, no. It's fully grown. This is the whole thing."

Then the subject would be changed.

A couple of women told me that it looked 'cute' and I thanked them for the compliment while thinking to myself: "No. It's not supposed to look 'cute'. It's supposed to look dashing. Like a French Pirate."

The Wierdness of the Japanese

I hope Hollywood decides to make no more horror movies based on Japanese ones. They're really boring and not the least bit scarey. Right now I'm thinking of 'The Ring' and the 'The Grudge' and I've seen ads for 'Black Water' which I absolutely will not see or rent in the future because I learned my lesson from those first two. Both of them I fell asleep watching. The Ring, I know, got some good reviews and it was really beautiful to look at but I didn't like the characters and I didn't understand what was happening most of the time. I wasn't the least bit frightened because I didn't care so much if bad things happened to these two dimensional characters and I didn't quite get what was supposed to scare me, anyways.

The problem with Japan is that it's not America. In college I got interested in Anime films because they were really beautiful and I loved the concept of using cartoons to tell a story, but again - and please tell me if I'm really just stupid - I didn't get at all what was going on. Like in this one anime all the characters were really frantic about this glowing egg from which a magical dragon would pop out of and I knew it had to represent something - but what? I'm not Japanese. A glowing egg that a dragon pops out of is just a glowing egg that a dragon pops out of. That's all. I don't know what it means.

And what is the deal with Japanese school-girls? In all of these anime films there would be Japanese school-girls who would be represented as fully sexualized, eager and active. And the movies would let it be known that they were thirteen or fourteen. For a Westerner like me, it just seems more than a tad bit creepy. I know, in Japan they have vending machines that dispense used School-girl panties (Yes. True) And I also know that books about how to rub up against School-girls in the subway are best-sellers. It's their culture and I should respect it and not make judgements ... but, c'mon.

I rather enjoy some Japanese video games, but again, the weirdness just gets to me. One of the first games I played was called Zone of the Enders on Playstation 2. It's what's called a mech game, (ie) you control a giant fighting robot which you ride in, in this case the robot also flies.
I was already familiar with this variety of game from watching the Power Rangers on TV, mainly because of the delightful Amy Jo Johnson AKA The Pink Power Ranger. My ten year old nephew was quite confused as to why she was my favorite power ranger. He's older now and I presume he understands my preference.

In Zone of Enders you fly around in your giant robot, but the cockpit (so to speak) is at the top of a structure in the lower mid-section of the robot that bears more than a passing resemblance to a woody several stories high. Forgive me, but it just makes me uncomfortable playing a game from the tip of a huge robot penis. I don't why. Maybe it's just me.

Some Japanese video games I've enjoyed are Onimusha (the whole series) and ICO. They were so great because of the lovely worlds they created and if I never knew exactly what was going on, well, they were video games and I alway knew enough that if a monster attacks you then you fight it. The plots were just beyond me and I learned to stop asking myself why this or that was happening or who this person was and why they had wings. Here's one I still don't get: For some reason in Japanese video games chickens, of all things, seem to be set as the most terrifying monsters imaginable. The hugest Boss fights would be with gigantic, awful chickens. I've never been much scared of poultry, but it must reach deep into the dark depths of Japan's psyche.

Time for a little cultural relativism. Is it possible that perhaps some things about Americans seem a little off to the Asian mindset? Perhaps they find some things about us 'weird? Well, I've also played a few American video games where part of the plot of the game involved the elements of fire, water, earth, and air, like in Myst where you have to travel to worlds that represent each one, or any number of other games where you had to collect parts that represent the four elements and then put them together in some meaningful way.

It makes sense to me, but is the whole world as familiar with medieval European alchemy as we are in America? Probably not. Not everyone has the same background of myth as we do. Joseph Campbell didn't design their video games and movies like he did for us, so if they're a little backwards in that area, it's probably his fault.

Sad to say, I think this lack of cultural understanding is a generational thing, too. A lot of entertainment product that they wee ones are getting are coming to us courtesy of our good neighbors in the Far East. Our kids are growing up with this stuff. They know it, and they like it, while dinosaurs like me - and maybe you, too - are perplexed and baffled. Ever have a kid try and teach you Yu-Gi-Oh? I have and I guarantee you that I'm not know, nor ever will be a skilled Yu-Gi-Oh player.

And one day when all these kids grow up having been exposed to all these foreign Asian games, we'll all seem like the weird ones to them.

Well, we probably already do.

You Can Have My Video Game When You Pry It Out of My Cold, Dead Hand

Please, let's all get this straight once and for all: Video games do not cause violence. People cause violence. A video game has never shot a gun, pulled a knife, exploded a bomb or ordered hundreds of thousands ofAmericans to Iraq based on a lie. Video games just sit there until the end of time unless somebody picks them up and plays them. The same goes for movies, TV, Rock music, magazines, books, pornography and most any other form of information that you can think of. I'll concede that they influence people, sometimes to violence, but it still takes a person to decide to act on that influence in ways they know are wrong.

Could you tell me what video games Genghis Khan and his hordes were playing when they laid waste to most of Asia? None, right? Yet, somehow he and his murderous armies figured out how to rape and kill and burn and loot without a single blessed Playstation or X-box in sight. How was that? What do you think could have caused their violence?

Well, what about those Columbine killers? They played a lot of video games. Didn't they? They played Doom, a first person shooter. Don't tell me that it didn't have anything to do with their spree of violence.

And my answer is that, yes, it had something to do with it. But millions of people have played Doom - millions of high school students, even - and for some reason we haven't had corresponding millions of high school shootings so the relationship is far from proven. I'll bet you those boys went to church sometime in their lives, like most brutal murderers. That's a correlation. Church must have influenced them, wouldn't you think? For that matter, we all know that the Bible is responsible for untold violence throughout history. Let's ban that. Or at least put a parental advisory on the cover.

If anything, there's a negative correlation between violence and playing video games. Hasn't the crime rate gone down in the last few years in direct proportion to the rise of video games? There's a very good reason for that, you know. Video games make kids too fat and lazy to go out murdering.

Some of the games I see, I'll confess, are just sickening. No, I wouldn't touch them. Fortunately, there's a law that says I don't have to play those games. I can let the people who want to play them, do so. That is, people who are the correct age, which it says somewhere on the cover.

When You're a Man

One day when I was in a bad neighborhood of Minneapolis, I overheard a young urban youth - maybe fourteen or fifteen - trying to pick up on girls. None of them seemed to want to give him the time of day and in frustration he yelled: "Hey, I'm a man. I've been to jail."

Whoa. It made me think, that one did. Could it true that in some sub-cultures incarceration is considered a rite of passage into manhood, rather than a blot on your character? This young boy obviously thought so and he probably wasn't the only one who did, either. I'd suppose it's like a test of sorts. If you can survive that type of environment you're tough, and therefore a man. To my mind, though - not. Most people do, in fact, survive - perhaps not very well, but they do. And who says it makes you a man? Being in the gentle custody of the corrections system means you're a criminal (or suspected) and it also means you're lousy at it because you go caught. Does being a lousy criminal equate with masculinity?

That's the problem with being a man in America. There's no one ritual or test that means you've crossed that magical line into adult-hood. We have any number of informal yardsticks, for sure. For instance, if you manage to talk your way into some teen-age girl's pants that's widely thought to mean you've grown. Although, again, I would tend to disagree since there are no real manly skills - other than lying - that are required to seal the deal.

Around where I live hunting is the big thing. When you're old enough to be trusted out in the woods with your own shotgun, then you're one of the guys. After your first kill somebody, probably your father, will take some of the blood from the dead animal you just created and they rub it on your face. You're 'blooded'. Not everybody subscribes to that ritual, but a whole bunch do.

For me it was Navy Boot Camp. Getting through that and then being fully qualified to defend my country was quite an accomplishment. It just would have been nicer if there weren't so much explicit homo-eroticism in the experience. Like in the chow line the company commanders would scrunch you together so the line would be shorter and they would do this by yelling: "Nut to Butt! Nut to Butt! Make the man in front of you smile!" Now, what exactly did they mean by that? How was I supposed to make the man in front of me smile ... unless they meant ... No! Not the Navy!

In other cultures they have very well-defined manhood rituals. When you're a certain age the village elders will kidnap you and the other pre-man boys and then they take you into the jungle in the middle of the night, dance around with big scary masks and throw mangoes at you. Or whatever makes sense to them, because what happens isn't so important as the fact that it does and everybody knows what it means.

This is what our country really needs. We need one clear manhood ritual at a clear certain time in a boy's life and everybody should subscribe to it. That way guys wouldn't have to commit crimes so they could go to jail to prove themselves, or be smeared with raccoon blood by their dads, or even join the Navy. I imagine the American Manhood Ritual would involve reciting sports statistics while lighting farts on fire or peeing on trees or something like that. The details don't matter so much as we all agree on it and do it, and once you're done with it, then you are a man.

Monsters from the subconscious

As a Horror writer I've been often and pointedly been asked why I write this stuff. It's not ever said directly, but it's always there: Is there something wrong with you? In my own defense, quite a few people enjoy reading this same stuff and even more get a thrill out of watching it on the big screen. Just to hazard a guess, I'd say most people have in their life read a horror book or seen a horror movie. The question then becomes: What's wrong with us?

My first occasions to hear horror stories was as a child in church. I was told that there was a man in a red suit and horns who carried a pitchfork and watched everything I did and wanted to send me to the worst, most horrible place ever if I did bad things. Worse than this, I was told that there was something called 'original sin' and just by being born I was on God's crap list and if I didn't repent for things I'd never done, the man in the red suit would still get me. It didn't seem quite fair to me that my little three year old wrong-doings could earn me the same trip to Hell that someone like Hitler got.

I was scared constantly. And that was the point of those stories, to scare little boys into behaving as their parents wanted them to.

Fairy tales have the same theme: Obey your parents, or bad things will happen. I can't swear that I remember all of my fairy tales, but I do remember as a child being - probably - unreasonably worried about being eaten. For the time, being eaten seemed about the worst thing that could happen to me and I looked warily at strangers trying to evaluate in my mind whether they would try and eat me. Fortunately, there were very few cannibals in Wisconsin at that time. Jeffrey Dahmer was one, but for the life of me, I can't think of any other Wisconsin cannibals. Oh, wait. Ed Gein - but that's it.

Parents frightening their kids is one thing, but why do people want to scare themselves? Did you ever wonder why you paid good money at the bookstore and at the movies for this service that your parents would happily provide you for free? Well, horror stories are about fear, but it's not just about making yourself scared - that alone is no fun. Horror stories are about conquering your fear, and the way they do that is symbolically by creating a monster that represents a fear and by having that monster defeated. Thus it helps you to overcome your subconscious fear/Monster by identifying with the destruction of the one in the story. Works out pretty neat, huh?

Here's how it plays out in a few familiar scenarios. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, was thought to the first real science fiction book, although it really is a horror story. In the story Victor Frankenstein discovers the secret of life - itself! As an experiment he creates for himself a man sewn together from cadavers and then embues it with life, and then seeing what an awful looking creature he's created, he abandons it. He does this because it looks so hideous, though for the life of me, I can't figure out why he had to make the thing out of several icky corpses instead of just finding one beautiful one and giving that one life. Anyways, the monster runs away and then comes back to haunt him and he has to destroy it.

The explanation for Frankenstein is that the monster represents science and the Victorian fear that science and progress had gone too far. Science, once the obedient servant of mankind, had, like Frankenstein's monster, broken free and turned against its master - us. A hundred or years later this same theme is echoed in the movie The Terminator, only this time the science that breaks free is computer science. Computers, our formerly docile servant, turn against us and band together to become one giant warlike mind which for some reason or other decides that all humans must perish throughout time. I guess we had it coming to us.

Vampires, another popular monster, have represented the once prevalent infectious disease that used to regularly wipe out giant swathes of human population. In modern times, Vampires have been reinterpeted to be kind of sexy, that is, they represent the dark sexual impulses people have inside themselves that they also think may destroy them. Vampire stories, then, become our victory over our dark, forbidden desires. Which are represented by those sexy, sexy vampires.

Sex is a constant theme in the slasher movies. The Scream movies brilliantly satirize this by having the teen-agers in the movie aware of the conventions of the genre they are living through, yet helpless to change them as those conventions become their fates. In the slasher movies young girls fear of their own sexual maturity is confronted symbolically by the slasher who represents teen-age boys through the menace of wielding the very Freudian penis/knife. You'll notice that the heroine that inevitably prevails in these movies is the virgin who never succombs to the temptation of sex and not coincidentally, does not succomb to the slasher, either.

My favorite monsters are the ones from the Japanese monster movies, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and, of course, Monster Zero. The reason I love these monsters is that they are political monsters. Think about it: Godzilla is a giant, super-powerful radioactive monster who comes from over the sea who is created by radioactivity and then attacks Japan with that same radioactivity. Sound familiar? (Hint: It's America). All these monsters from overseas are constantly attacking Japan and being beaten up by the cohesion of the Japanese people.

Now, the obvious question for me - being a horror writer and all - is: What are the symbolic monsters in my book, Breakfast with the Antichrist?

Well ... I'm not telling.

Meek New World

I miss the future that we were supposed to have. In the twenty first century, among other fabulous promises, we were all going to fly around in hover cars while wearing silver jump suits with big shoulders. The last time I looked in my garage my car had four wheels and never left the ground (well, not on purpose) and in my closet there is not one shiny silver outfit.

When I was a kid there was a show on called The Twenty First Century which was sort of a science fiction type genre with predictions about what the future of the next generation would look like. I don't recall too much about it, but I remember one episode where they talked about how everyone would have computers and how useful they would be - and I just didn't see it.

I have a lot of fun watching old Science Fiction movies. The one that I just watched that inspired me to write today was ... one of the Planet of the Apes movies. I think it was Return to the Planet of the Apes. The movie opens up with a futuristic cityscape, like about 1980, with chained monkeys in orange cover-alls being led by sadistic, fascist overseers (with whips). They show you a little bit of this, then underneath they put up the words: "Los Angeles. 1991." Beautiful! Does everybody remember just fourteen years ago when we had monkey slaves in California? Whatever happened to them?

Among other things that were supposed to happen in the 1990s, we had the launch of the Robinson family in Lost in Space, the launch of Khan's renegade ship after the Third World War (the Eugenics War), and the moon being launched out of orbit in Space 1999. Also, Atlantis was finally supposed to rise from the sea and the Antichrist was supposed to come to power and launch Armageddon. And the world was scheduled to end by any other number of doom-sayers.

An earlier and better example of the future that never wasn't is the novel1984. It's pretty dated now, but the novel was written by George Orwell in 1948 and was about a dystopian future under a totalitarian system much like we believed Communism was at the time. When the year 1984 did come, all the news magazines and TV shows went nuts with articles and shows about how close we really were to 1984. Not really. There were some handy comparisons between the technology that Orwell speculated about and emerging technology for keeping track of other humans. But that was about it. In America. Elsewhere in the world in more totalitarian countries the comparisons were closer.

When I was a kid I used to love Star Trek, the original Star Trek. God, when I watch it now, though, I almost want to cringe. For one thing, the special effects are so dated. It was cutting edge back then, I know, but these days even crappy Sci Fi can do so much better. And then its almost hilarious how little they imagined for the future. I keep thinking about their picture phones, each with a huge cathode ray tube in back.

Perhaps my favorite episode for silliness is Spock's Brain, which is a rather infamous one with fans - they don't like it - but I find it hilarious. In Spock's Brain, Spock's Brain is stolen, and the crew of theEnterprise (their space ship) track it down to a planet where women rule everything. These women dress in mini-skirts, go-go boots, bouffant hair-dos and long fake eye-lashes.

Yes. If women could run their own planet this is exactly how they would dress.

Now, I started out originally with Planet of the Apes and I'm a fan. Not of the sequels but of the original. Charlton Heston really did some ofhis finest acting in that movie and I still have some lines memorized wordfor word. ie, "Take your stinking paws off of me, you damned, dirty ape!""It's a madhouse! A madhouse!" and "You maniacs! You finally did it. You blew it up. You blew it all up. Ahhh, damn you! Damn you all to Hell!" That last line is delivered in the shadow of the ruins of the statueof Liberty and sent a chill up my spine when I first saw it, but it's still there as is most of the world which was supposed to have ended already.

Mrs. Jesus

Tom Hanks is filming the movie version of the Da Vinci Code right now which reveals that ... cover your eyes if you don't want to know ... Jesus had a wife. This is actually a rather open historical secret, because at the time of Jesus's life in Jerusalem Jewish males were wed at age fourteen through arranged marriages - Jewish females at thirteen. This seems a tad bit young for modern sensibilities, but you have to recall that the average human life span back then was thirty, so fourteen was middle-aged. Everyone had to get married and start popping out the progeny as soon as nature would allow, otherwise there would never be enough people to replace all the ones who died off fast and young. It would have been extremely weird for that day for Joseph and Mary not to have their oldest boy wed as soon as possible.

Historians also speculate that Jesus's wife was, in fact, Mary Magdalene, who was not a Harlot but simply from a place called Migdal. I don't know why on Earth Migdal deserves that sort of slur, saying that every woman who came from there was a whore. But whatever the Lord's wife's name really was, I've got to say that I sure feel sorry for her. It had to have been rough.

Many women have husbands who think they can walk on water, but you know, poor Mrs. Jesus, her husband could. And I'll bet he just let he know about it, too. Didn't he? It must have been a drag for her to have to live with the absolute, perfect husband. After all, who wants to be around somebody who's right all of the time?

And talk about in-law problems? Mrs. Jesus had a father-in-law who,when he had a bad day, would go out and destroy the entire Universe. Well, mostly. I guess he let Noah and some animals slip by. But he did destroy a lot of cities. My point is that Mrs. Jesus's father-in-law had some real anger management issues and was - to say the very least - something ofa control freak.

Then, for the last three years of their marriage her husband takes offand goes on a long extended road trip with a bunch of his buds. Who was taking care of their kids? Did Mr. Jesus send back some money every now and then or was he a holy dead-beat dad? I'll bet it must have been a relief for his wife, frankly, to have Jesus out of her hair for a spell. I have to wonder how thoughtful and dutiful a husband he could have been when he was so preoccupied all the time with the salvation of all humanity. You'd have to think that their marriage took a distant second.

Finally, she hears that her husband's been arrested and she has to go to Jerusalem with bail money.

Come to think of it, I'd rather just believe that Jesus was single all of his life now that I realize what kind of spouse he would have been.