Presidents' Day

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, you can see it in the eyes of children and on the faces of their parents, it is a special season and it only comes once a year. It’s Presidents’ Day, the holiday where we honor our chief executive by giving them the same birthdays, like race horses and English Royalty.

It kind of hacks me off that I never get write about this holiday because I’m busy doing my taxes, (That’s right, I’m not an Obama cabinet selection.) and if ever a holiday deserved 3000 over wrought and sarcastically ironic words from me its Presidents’ Day.

Both of you who are reading this have probably suffered through my Presidents’ Day Song Medley and know how enthusiastic I am about boring people into a coma with facts about obscure presidents; like how Franklin Pierce kept a small shaved monkey under his desk that he would introduce to dignitaries as his son. (I’m kidding; Pierce is not an obscure President.)

This is an important holiday with lots of history attached; it’s more than just an excuse to hold a white sale although for the life of me I can’t think of another reason right now.

It used to be that we only had to remember Washington and Lincoln, conveniently born within a few days of each other during Black History Month and each with a special place in the hearts of black Americans, one for freeing slaves beyond his control and the other for freeing slaves he controlled albeit after his death. But there are forty two other presidents to be remembered, (Let’s settle the Cleveland issue once and for, Cleveland was a pair of identical twins both named Grover and the Baby Ruth bar was named after his daughter who went on to have a spectacular career with the New York Yankees setting many batting records.) and not all were born in February or even memorable in their own time ( Garfield during his own bullet shortened term was referred to by members of Congress as: “That guy a disappointed officer seeker plugged.”) so a remedy was needed.

Briefly, celebrating every President’s Birthday was tried, but it was a logistical nightmare, Calvin Coolidge was born on July Fourth and Chester A. Arthur’s birthday frequently conflicted with Columbus Day. Also it was thought that taking the additional 42 days off each year would undermine the economy; postal workers, government officials and GM workers disagreed and continue to observe the extra holidays to this day.

At any rate our dark overlords cobbled together Presidents’ Day, conflating Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays into one nameless pointless holiday to ensure bankers and bureaucrats weren’t over worked. My imaginary family and I will celebrate this year in the traditional Presidential manner, I will make promises I have no intention of keeping, pretend I care about the lives of others and hit on cocktail waitresses when Hilary isn’t looking.

So enjoy your Presidents' Day, it has no songs associated with it, no parades, no games, no events, you don't even get to plant trees but enjoy it any way and please join me in promoting a new holiday, Vice-Presidents' Day on July 11th. Its the day sitting Vice President Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton and the last time one of these non-entities did anything useful while in office.

The Tortoise, The Ant and The Country Mouse

I got a complaint about the last post I put up about three children and their miserable fiery death. They said it was a bit angry, I said the Blog is called Products of a Diseased Mind. They said I had a responsibility to moderate my writing for the impressionable, I said if I haven't driven someone to a tower with a high powered rifle, a bucket of chicken and a can of Brasso, I haven't done my job. They said if I had the courage of my convictions I shouldn't hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, I said thats what the Internet is for, to insult, offend and slander people anonymously.

We could have gone on like this but as Finch in the Sham Wow commercial says: "We can't do this all day," so I scraped my tale about a Labrador Retriever that gets sucked into the intake manifold of an F-16 and gets his doggy guts blasted over the tarmac like so much puppy chutney and posted this family friendly chestnut from the slush pile.

The Tortoise, The Ant and The Country Mouse

In a land far away, at a time just past now, in a bar called Ye Olde Coach House, that was noted for its cool quiet calm as opposed to anything “Olde” or coach like about it, three characters from various fairy tales, parables and morally uplifting stories gathered to relive the past. The tortoise, the ant and the country mouse would regale everyone around the bar with accounts of their long past achievements eventually boring their fellow patrons beyond mere tears and causing them to repent their lives.

The quality of an evening at Ye Olde Coach House could be judged by the number of times the discharge of a firearm punctuated the night. Almost nightly one or more customers would end the torment of listening to the biographical ramblings of a reptile, insect and rodent to seek a happier destiny by punctuating his skull with a bullet. In another time or place Ye Olde Coach house might have suffered for patronage in light of its sinister reputation but there were always more recruits willing to test their mettle for the cheapest well drinks in town.

Normally a reptile, insect and rodent wouldn’t have much to discuss much less drink about except as it related to who was going to eat whom but this is a fable and the county it takes place in is notoriously lax in its supervision of alcoholic beverage serving establishments since most of it revenue comes from servicemen on leave.

Each animal had a moment in the spotlight, and taken applause from a hypocritical public who demanded moral rectitude from their icons while they wallowed in a sump of comfortable corruption. To refresh your memory, the tortoise had won his famous race against the heavily favored hare through a combination of persistent plodding and sustained effort. The ant had thriftily stored up wealth for the long lean winter unlike his careless friend the spendthrift fiddling grasshopper. Despite the blandishments of his city cousin, the country mouse had turned his back on the material appeal of the city fleshpots for the wholesome values of the country. They were held up individually and collectively as icons of virtue and like Roman conquerors they returned to receive their praise from the mob. Unfortunately at the time of their triumph no slave rode in the chariot with them, holding their laurels above their heads and reminding them that fame is fleeting.

The fleet of fame had definitely sailed for these guys, they were has beens. They still got invited to appear on telethons and sometimes they were hired as guest attractions by the local triple A ball team; having them stand around and shake hands was cheaper and safer than giving away beer or bats. An unbiased observer would agree their time had passed; the bloom was off the rose and their glory days were long passed. If Arthur Miller were writing this they’d all have been traveling salesmen.

What made their pathetic lives even more galling was that their counterparts, the hare, grasshopper and city mouse had all gone on to success in other fields. The hare had gotten some coaching and gone on to lead his team to the league championship an unprecedented six times while having sex with an astonishing number of partners even for a rabbit. The grasshopper was so successful in his music career that on his last world tour he had filled Wembley Stadium and for an encore led a swarm of other like minded grasshoppers and locusts that denuded Somalia of its grain crops, causing widespread devastation and starvation. The city mouse had established a fabulously successful publishing empire anchored by a magazine he edited that featured photos of nude young female mice and generally lived the life of a degenerate Italian playboy except that he was rodent vermin and spread the dreaded Hanta virus in his feces.

The three spent their lives waiting and discussing their past with who ever came through the swinging doors. They complained about how unfairly life had treated them. But mostly they drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank.

One day a man named Hickey came into their saloon to drop off some ice and exposed the petty meaninglessness of their drab empty lives with irony and biting insights. Incensed they fell upon the interloper, killed him and then devoured the still twitching corpse. Normally that would have been the end of it but the death of Hickey started them thinking: Their lives were indeed dead and meaningless except for the earlier specified triumphs. After some soul searching accompanied by a commensurate amount of drinking they discovered the psychological roots of their existential ennui:

A.) Incestuous relations with an insane prostitute mother.

B.) A drunken, abusive religious fanatic father.

C.) Inability of society, family and/or self to accept homosexuality.

D.) A&B but not C.

E.) B&C but not A.

F.) A&C but not B.

G.) All of the above

H.) None of the above.

This galvanized our unlikely trio and they resolved the next day to start running guns to worthy Central American revolutionaries. Like latter day Ernest Hemingway’s they would all take notes and keep diaries and any one who survived the adventure would see to it that their story got told. Of course their wives, creditors and employers frowned on this sort of behavior so after sheepish apologies they shook off their hangovers, abandoned their crazy dreams and continued their lives of noisy desperation.

In a more forgiving culture they might have carried on like this for years but fortunately this occurred in a land where the personal right of every person to carry a hand gun was respected. After one night too many, the barkeep, tired of mopping up after suicidal patrons bored to despair by the endless self examination and angered by the trio’s incessant boasting about killing his dear friend Hickey, snuffed them all. The jury didn’t bother deliberating; many recalled Hickey as valued member of the community and a friend, while the deceased victims were an insect pest, an animal valued primarily as an ingredient for stew and an unpleasant but un-endangered species of turtle. The barkeep was released with the thanks of the court.

The three little children that died miserable fiery deaths

Once upon a time in an airliner flying above the Great American Desert there were three naughty children. They enjoyed kicking the backs of the seats of people that had never done them or their people any harm. Despite the patient pleadings of those people and stern warnings from their drink and drug addled mother they continued their naughtiness.

“They can’t throw us off the airplane,” said Jimmy the oldest most repellant boy. “We’re up too high!”

“They can’t give us a well deserved beating because they aren’t relatives and they stand to do some serious time, child abuse laws being what they are, if they lay a finger on us!” Said Maria, the noxious middle girl.

“Lets run in aisle and throw some of the tasty seasoned bits of fried dough, corn chex and pretzels the airline provided at passengers who paid full fair for their tickets.” Said Hector, the imaginative youngest cur and unholy spawn of Satan.

Soon the three naughty children were frolicking in the cabin and people many rows away came to despise them. An elderly woman undid their shoelaces and gave them a razor sharp pair of scissors she’d smuggled on board to hold while they ran around the cabin. The sky Marshall gave them his service revolver to play with in the hopes that an accidental discharge might kill the loathsome creatures. Everyone in the airliner offered controlled substances to the mother to sedate the noisome pack but she gobbled down the collection of opiates and horse tranquillizers herself and fell into a stupor. Various kinds of English and Spanish commands were tried to control the unruly trio but it was to no avail. They continued to annoy the paying passengers.

Because of air traffic delays caused by personnel cutbacks that saved money the airline could pass onto their executives in the form of well deserved pay raises, the airliner had to stay aloft for far longer than was expected so the three naughty children got to play long into the evening being hopped up on caffeine, sugar and Ritalin. For hours they played, kicked, and screamed until the youngest finally filled his pants with a partially digested broccoli and beans mixture that oozed out of his huggies and down his legs. This was the cause of much hilarity among his siblings.

All good things must come to an end however and in this case the airliner had pushed away from the terminal with just enough gas to get from Chicago to L.A. Because of cutbacks and labor troubles this fact wasn’t noticed by the cheaper if somewhat lesser skilled replacement workers now in charge of noticing things like that. The airliner was soon plummeting like a rock through the clear desert sky. It got very quiet in the cabin as the all too reasonable pleadings and prayerful wailing of adults replaced the insane rantings of children.

Some one or some thing must have heard because the temporary secretary that had replaced the striking pilot in this case was able to land the 737 with minimal damage even though she’d only been given 24 hours to study the manual and was only certified on Word for Windows.

Safely on the ground the three naughty children surveyed the cabin and began scampering through the debris and playing with the oxygen masks that hung down from the ceiling. They splashed through the residual jet fuel that had leaked into the cabin as the other passengers evacuated. A quiet man who had been in the row just in front of the kids, tossled the eldest’s hair and told them to stay in the plane until their Mom came to. “Do anything you want.” He said, “the planes a write off anyway.” He gave Maria a lighter he had modified to be not so child proof. He left the plane and shut the emergency exit behind him.

The passengers danced around the subsequent fire in celebration of their good fortune as the superstructure burned with a steady blue flame until it was a pile of twisted metal. The only injuries were to rescue workers who tried to enter the burning wreck to save the children. They were inadvertently clubbed by irate passengers who mistook them for baby harp seals in firemen’s turn outs.

AUSTRALIA

Australia of the antipods, a blessed sun kissed land of beaches, great stands of explosively combustible gum trees and an odd looking collection of endangered agricultural pests is populated almost exclusively by descendants Irish settlers who sought their fortunes in either farming, prospecting or on parole.

The Brits selected it as a penal colony because they felt that the prospect of internment in its moderate climate, good air and clean water would terrify into good behavior any inmates dispatched there. When compared to the drafty, foggy and tuberculosis ridden climate the inmates were used to it was indeed terrifying, so terrifying in fact many never returned. Its only when you see the acres of pink Irish flesh basted in SPF 1000 sun block then burned to a ghastly crisp on Bondi that you realize the Pommy bastards might have been on to something.

Among the charms of the island continent is that death comes at you from a variety pack of different sources. Australia which is Latin for Southern Land means “Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here!” when freely translated from the aboriginal languages. It’s a wonderful place of great beauty and grandeur and some of the most dangerous flora and fauna on the entire planet.

One of Auz’s proudest claims is that it is home to nine of the ten most poisonous snakes on earth. There isn’t a cobra or rattlesnake in the top ten so unless you happen to be in southern Africa and step on a black mamba, you aren’t ever likely to stumble across anything as venomous as anything playing in Australian snake league. And what a large league it is, of 400 or so native species of snakes the majority of Australian snakes are venomous, the only place on earth that can make that claim

Although they make asps and sidewinders appear almost cuddly Australia’s killers have homely even prosaic names. Although being bitten by something called a Death Adder is pretty alarming, how bad could the bite of a Collett’s snake be? Well almost instantly fatal in fact, like wise the Taipan and both Brown Snakes. Yes, it seems that two species of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes happen to be called Brown snakes.

Thanks to either incredibly bad luck on the part of two Mr. Browns who independently discovered how lethal the snakes they were handling were thereby earning the distinction of having the species named after them or a profound lack of imagination on the part of Zoologist, two of the world’s deadliest reptiles have identical names. They could have named one the Khaki Colored Man Killer or Taupe Death Dealer but no, Brown Snake was good enough! I imagine this is a problem when a man goes to a doctor complaining of snake bite and the doctor has him describe the snake.

“Brown,” the patient answers and the doctor tells him to come back in a half hour and he’ll know which anti-venom to give him. The patient wonders why it should take so long to identify a snake and the doctor tells him it if he’s still alive in half an hour they’ll know he was bitten by the less dangerous of the Browns.

Of course there are many other deadly animals in Australia some surprisingly convenient for tourists and the unwary Australians to stumble over. There are huge salt water crocs that denizens of the out back are fond of poking at. There are a variety of man eating sharks swimming off shore, including the Great White, the species popularly credited with eating one of Australia’s prime ministers. Most heads of state have security details that rehearse scenarios to see how they’d react in a given situation; I wonder how many have to rehearse what to do when the old man wants to go for a swim?

Of course in Australia a critter doesn’t need to be big to kill you! Sydney is the home range of the Funnel Web spider, it’s about the size of you fist but it has the largest fangs of any spider, period. There is none of that bullshit about percentage of body size these fangs are bigger than camel spiders or tarantulas carry. The nice thing about the species is it’s aggressive, particularly when it has loving on its mind, it will attack a full sized human under the misapprehension the human is after its girl. Fun Fact: Female Funnel Webs live in holes that bare an uncanny resemblance to shoes, at least to Male Funnel Webs, so be sure you shake out the espadrilles before you put them on when visiting down under.

And don’t forget to check out Redbacks and White Tail spiders on your way to the morgue or the aptly named Paralysis Tick if hiking in high grass is your thing.

Of course you are only likely to encounter Funnel Webs in Queensland, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne but when you head down to their famed beaches death can stalk you in exciting new ways. Lots of dangerous things lurk under the waves, including more lethal snakes, blue ring octopuses and a venomous snail but aren’t considered interesting because they live to far out at sea to rack up a decent body count and their victims usually drown in terrified agony and are ripped to shreds by voracious sharks before they’re missed.

So lets just consider the killers of waders, Stonefish and Toadfish are considered the most dangerous fish on earth and freely available to be trod on in the surf. Victims of the Stonefish’s sting have been known to beg to be killed rather than endure the agony of the injury.

Varieties of jellyfish float on the gentle tide. Portuguese Men O’War or blue bottles if you prefer trail long strands of tentacles studded with stingers that inflict painful wounds and inject toxins. Fortunately the treatment for the agonizing injury is fairly mundane, just apply vinegar or urine to the affected area, it may or may not work. So if you see a bunch of Auzi’s peeing on one of their ilk, it may or may not be what it appears to be at first glance.

Ordinarily the Portuguese Man o’ War is the top of the stinging order when it comes to bobbing lethal blobs of goo but the Auzi’s go one step further and have box jellyfish, all species of which are venomous but with one variety deemed to be the most venomous animal on earth. That’s right the capo d’tui capo of venomous creatures great and small and it wasn’t discovered until some one stumbled ashore screaming “something bit me!” and then died. It is microscopic and apparently so lethal its copious previous victims were presumed to have had heart attacks and drowned. Fortunately medical science has discovered an anti-venom for this mini man killer so a victim of its sting can make a partial recovery with a minimum of disfigurement and surgery if he makes the agonizing ride to the hospital in time.

Urine is of no use for treating the Box Jellyfish sting but do pee on the victim anyway, you'll enjoy it and the victim will probably be dead in a short time.

Of course death stalks the tourist in Australia no matter where you go or what species you encounter. The Emu, a flightless bird is the third largest and most dangerous in the avian order. It has bad eyesight and an evil temper which when combined with its gently curious nature has produced some notable encounters of the last kind. Typically the bird will wander over to the unlucky tourist apparently interested in his head wear or whatever until it comes into visual range, realizes it’s a human he’s been stalking and in flurry of feathers and claws, guts the poor traveler like a catfish.

I could stop here but I won’t because in Australia death hides where you least expect it, kind of like a lethal Candid Camera. Australia has one of the very few venomous mammals: the platypus. Most venomous mammals are small shrew like creatures, not dangerous to man and very rare, Platypus are large, common and lethal. The males have a spur on a hind leg that is connected to a venom sack, the nice thing is when a male has hooked a victim he voids the entire sack into the victims blood stream since the Platypus has no control over the process.

I hope you found these tips handy if you fancy a trip down under. In spite of their incomprehensible English the Auz are a fair dinkum bunch O’lads with more euphemisms for vomiting than any other country on earth. So loosen up in this land of firsts, mosts and deadliest, set your mind at ease, sit back, relax and enjoy Australia until a Dingo eats one of your children.

Telethon

Recently I was involved in an archaic form of entertainment(?), the telethon. A telethon, in case you've been in a coma on a distant planet without cable for the last seventy years, consists of people begging and screaming at you to donate money between musical or comedy acts that make you wish they'd get back to begging and screaming at you for money.

Telethons differ from pledge breaks on Public Television in that the pledge breaks interrupt nothing entertaining, just the usual BBC documentaries and dreary BBC costume dramas where as nothing stops a telethon.

In the past these endless juggernauts of entertainment mediocrity aimed to wipe out diseases, cerebral palsy, arthritis and muscular dystrophy spring to mind. I have participated in telethons for Muscular Dystrophy, Arthritis and Easter Seals although I never understood why a concerted effort against piniped aquatic mammals was necessary or how they ever became associated with the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. And let me say with added emphasis I have nothing against the people fighting cerebral palsy but they never asked.

Lately with Arthritis apparently eradicated and Easter Seals exterminated I help out on the MDA or Jerry Lewis Telethon and a relative new comer on the Telethonic scene, the Armenia Telethon. It is a valiant and successful effort to raise money to pay for infrastructure and educational facilities in impoverished areas of Armenia.

Armenia is a small country in the Caucasus that has a view of Turkey (The Country) from every window, this would be less distressing if the Turks hadn't spent the best part of WW1 trying to exterminate the Armenians. To put it in perspective the Armenians regard their occupation by the Soviet Union as more or less benign, Stalin and Communism were apparently less lethal to the average Armenian than a determined Turk so we are talking some hard backed persecution vets here. At any rate, for 12 hours on Thanksgiving they raise money in prodigious amounts for their homeland, paying for new roads and schools so the Russians and Turks will have new things to destroy next time they decide to go Genocidal.

All this Telethon talk has reminded me of the time I did an Amish Telethon. We had to go door to door but we raised eighty seven dollars and a barn.








You see the Amish don't have telephones or television, so they'd have to go next door to a Mennonite family that had those things to call in. I'll explain the Amish in a latter blog.

Good Bye Columbus

As the Holiday Season draws to a close and by Holiday Season I mean the one between Halloween and Veteran's Day, my friends and I like to reflect on the various civil liberties and protections against unwarranted government intrusion that have fluttered down the old memory hole like a non-person being excised from history.

There is a curious universality to this, my right wing and lefty friends agree that secret government cadres are working against their particular political wing by compiling dossiers on their Internet porn preference and listening in on the politically dangerous telephone conversations they have with their Mom. I think this is a promising trend, it shows the government is using foresight and will be in a good position to help the right or left wing, which ever one wins, round up their Kulaks of choice.

The black helicopters, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, Illuminati, the Masons (either Pamela, James or Perry and possibly Mason Reese and Mason Williams) Tri-Lateral Commission and Skull and Bones are stipulated by both right and left wingers as bete noires of their personal liberty, although I must have missed the passage of The Personal Liberty and Freedom Act since I still have to pay taxes and I 'm still not allowed to shoot my neighbors. My Commie and Wingnut friends are never the less convinced that the above stated groups' purposes are diabolical, that their given public raison d'etre is duplicitous and they're really dedicated to taking away the same liberties and freedoms that the left and right wings are so fond of taking away from their opponents.

Somehow the Rockefellers and the Jews are at the center of this universe of conspiracy, either as creatures of the United States government or the United States government being a creature of theirs. Since the Rockefellers are sort of the Beverly Hillbillies of World Domination with Nelson or David in the Jed Role and Happy Fitler (The trampy Philadelphia girl Nelson married after he divorced Mary, although not as trampy as that Megan chick who was blowing him the night he died.) as Granny I'm thinking maybe they've been in charge all along although judging by some delicatessens I've been in, it takes a Jewish mind to master chaos.

I had very serious doubts that our Government would be able to take away very much in the way of personal liberties, the Patriot Act, the Library Snooping Enabling Act and the We Want to Know How Many Times You Downloaded "Opps I did it again" And Shared It With Your Cousin Act not with standing. So far they haven't they haven't been very good at taking away Personal Liberties even from Al Quiada (This is America damn it, a Q its followed by a U no matter what the stinkin' Arabs say.) of the five hundred we caught and released about 450 have turned up fighting us again in either Afghanistan or Iraqu.

I thought we had little to fear that our poor incompetent Liberal democracy would turn into the soul destroying oppressive nightmare depicted in Orwell's 1984 unless Americans suddenly became law abiding. (By the by, I did put on my INGSOC jumpsuit the morning of January 1, 1984, faced the Telescreen and participated in two minutes of very satisfying hate over the continued sabotage of Oceania's war effort by the followers of Emmanuel Goldstein, just in case.) I always figured lefties were better at that sort of thing, since the giants of their pantheon, like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and the guy in charge in China that had tanks run over all those students over in Tienanmen Square, are all giants because they are standing on mountains of dead Kulaks, the sine qua non of consensus left wing government.

But I would be wrong. Behold the new face of Big Brother, the nice lady in the lavender but business appropriate suit at the top. She's Helen Jones-Kelley and she just got thirty days of unpaid quiet time for peeping at Joe the Plumbers records with out a legitimate reason. She is head of Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services and like any good bureaucrat she was just exercising due diligence, investigating a private citizen that happened to ask Barack Obama a pointed question. She was particularly concerned that Samuel J. Wurzelbacher owed child support, received public assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes. Although Inspector General Tom Charles disagreed Ms Jones-Kelley denied her search of Joe the Plumber's records was politically motivated since she did the same thing to any Ohioan who happened to surface on national media. With past practices and precedents like that that guide her she dumped the whole weight of government on the poor dumb idealistic shmoo.

She's probably back at the state capital by now, investigating anyone she feels she has a good reason to investigate because she's a good person that wants to do the right thing. So she's busy doing the right thing and poking around in lives that have done nothing wrong except attract her attention letting the ends justify her means as she goes along.

I love Big Brother.

Res Politicata

According to reports lately received in California some kind of election is occurring beyond the far horizon. It is apparently between an Octogenarian and an Octoroon, I don’t know what those words mean but since between them and their running mates they have eight legs they are an Octoped. That is not important right now.

Lately political discourse has left me with many of the same questions African Americans have after seeing a Lawrence Kasdan movie, specifically: “Why are all these rich spoiled crackers carrying on like that and what is it they are carrying on about?” I have no idea.

I recently wrote a lengthy satire on our two year long electoral process based on Richard Henry Dana’s immortal yarn about merchant seamen called Two Years before the Mast. It was called Two Years before the Election and was 85,000 words of brilliant narrative about a lad who signs on as a volunteer for a Chicago politician and two years later, after learning the ropes of election rigging, emerges as a master politician albeit a corrupt Under Secretary of Commerce presumptive.

Having never read the Dana book my work was ambitious on too many levels and was largely incomprehensible to those who read it. This effort was reminiscent of my attempts to popularize Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher and immortal author of "Fear and Trembling" in a sit-com. We got as far as the theme song, some jokes about the James Gang (William, Henry and Harry James, Harry wasn't much of an intellectual but he played a mean trumpet and was married to Betty Grable.) and a scene in the Long Branch public Library where Soren learns he can't take out "A Critique of Pure Reason" because some Hegelians have taken over the town. Fortunately my hard drive exploded before it was finished and I walked away with nothing to answer for although I now know how Lawrence Kasdan feels.

Of more concern are the propositions on California’s ballot which are as a rule in support of the trial lawyers full employment act. Usually they are about innocuous things like how much we should pay the state to dump asbestos and mercury in our back yards so the kitty cats will have a safe place to be wild but this year is different. A prop 8 seeks to prevent men from having a legally binding contract between them before they engage in anal or oral sex.

As much I enjoy watching men dress up in tulle before they can have sex and then watching them spend years in civil court trying to untangle a property settlement, which is, after all, what love is all about, I think Prop 8 is a terrible infringement on every man’s right to butt slam any anus that strikes your fancy.

I think that fostering marriage between men is a threat to other fundamental relationships. I am not talking about parenthood; we all know that issue, as in children, is impossible in these cases unless you’re a lesbian with a turkey baster and a male friend with romantic notions about turkey basters. No, I’m talking about the deepest attachment humans can have, the relationship between a captain and his helmsman.

Imagine my chagrin when I heard that a gay marriage ceremony and reception had torn apart the poorly maintained mask of civility between Kirk/Shatner and Sulu/ Takei. Will we will never again hear the words, “Set a course for Ipana 7, Mr. Sulu,” or the immortal response, “Aye, aye Captain!” Never again will we see Kirk and Sulu transporting down to investigate new life forms with Kirk investigating any attractive blue or green females and Zulu checking out the local bar scene to see if the men sing Karaoke and ejaculate in each others mouths. Of course Sulu is older, legally married and goes straight home after work so nothing like that could possibly happen now.

As we all know heterosexuals only engage in sex after getting legally wed, it’s the law you know, check it out its in all the literature. The marriage institution remains popular because quality masturbatory aids are so hard to find on the Internet, heterosexuals are compulsively law abiding and they enjoy the lengthy court proceedings that are required to extract themselves from wedded bliss.

Now I have many male friends and almost none of our activities involve showering and massaging each other, putting our penises in each others body or dressing up real smart and making snarky comments about whoever isn’t present. But I’d like to think that if ever that changed I wouldn’t have to go through the trouble and paperwork of marrying somebody just to smoke his dick. Vote yes on Prop 8 and keep government out of gay sex unless it involves Mark Foley, Larry Craig or Barney Frank. Do your homosexual friends a favor and keep gay sex freely available for the Priests, users of public restrooms and American Idol winners that enjoy it without the crushing burden of Government regulation.