Self-Quarantining With "Men"

Virus

Part 27 of 30

The warnings have been pretty clear, the more we self-quarantine the safer we’ll be. To be alone is safer in the sense of the germs others have not getting on you. That much is common sense. But it’s still up to each of us -- having the virus as a common enemy -- to take care of ourselves while we have a fighting chance.

Of course families have to stick together. Having a family gives the benefit of being able to look after each another, a kind of holding each other to account. I heard it many times growing up, "The family has to stick together." Or as the soldiers used to say, "We need to hang together lest we hang apart." I always heard that, and that's actually one of the biggest reasons I never "served," I didn't want to hang apart. On the battlefield that'd be a lonely death until they came across your carcass one day -- three weeks dead -- hanging apart, and after three whole weeks, very much alone.

In other words, this is serious business. And that’s the way it must be dealt with, 1-2-3, stepping through it, having a certain discipline and sense of perception about the threat. It's no time for half measures or treating such serious business with anything but a serious response. Speaking for those around me, we've taken the serious path, huddling together, watchful for additional threats but for the most part optimistic that we'll make it through. You'd be proud of me. Four months into the pandemic, I got my first face-mask yesterday!

And we've had fun, actually, sheltering in place. I can well imagine such togetherness will have its additional rewards. As, say, nine months from now when the virus has passed and new people will be raised up to replace the old. (None of them will be mine. I knew it'd be tempting so I dipped my undies in wet cement, the fast-setting kind.) But for the others, this is the way of life, holding great promise for tomorrow and -- who knows? -- maybe facing a different virus on a different day. Because if you get one, there could just as easily be another million coming. God forbid, I know.

But not all of us are surrounded by people, friends or family, but instead are alone, the minutes passing slowly as they rouse into defensive posture every time they hear someone passing. "Are the hordes here to steal what’s mine, my toilet paper, my canned soup, or worse, my paper towels? Will they take my life? They may as well. Without my stuff what would I be? Withering on the vine until the grim reaper makes it official, 'He’s dead.'"

Anyway, I meant to say, all this breeding is happening where those equipped to do it are doing it. Meaning we’re just 7 or 8 months away from the dawning of the Q Generation, the Quarantiners in their youth. Their generation marked by the forever compulsion of stocking and restocking, "We never have enough! Take care of yourself with the uttermost caution. Plan way in advance. Anything can happen!"

For those who are about to pass on -- never to see the glorious days of nine months from now, let alone the adulthood of that future generation -- pass me that old copy of “Men.” Even if I'll never be a father, I can dream.

The Beguiling Love Theme

Part 15 of 30

Self-Abuse September

Rather than focusing on particular porn stars and their work -- and this is the same tact I’d take with great composers, famous politicians, amateur night strippers, and men of God who have been lured away by the flesh and having knuckled under have found themselves pulled deeper in the morass where that and the other fleeting allures of life have hooked them and left them floundering on the beaches of wasteland -- I’m taking a whole different approach. Bunching them together in the aggregate, and going as deeply as we can before our time and space is spent, should pay good dividends in the end. We will cover the territory, but lay bare the understandings that are their actual claim to fame, important and lasting legacies up the yin yang.

Of course I’m prone to conceal my own association with the industry, insofar as it exists -- I learned the facts of life from these flicks -- and ask with vulnerable supplication that no one pries any deeper than that to relieve your curiosity. (I believe all amateur films of my exploits -- which were messier than I'd like -- have been burnt.) Any appearances I may have made in any of the major films were literally no big deal, usually being incidental to the main action, one of the sidemen shunted aside in favor of the star.

But follow the bucks, that's often the main focus, the central approach in films of this magnitude. The sidemen are important and get important action, if it amounts to nothing more than to serve as a contrast to the more endowed star. The same happens in nature, an giant erupting volcano gets center stage, putting to apparent shame the smaller hills in their repose. But wait a few years and it's they who alone abide in majesty while the volcanic action, exciting for a brief moment, is gone, its glory cratered out, now a hole. The real life's now on the slopes. As to the stars, I won’t even guess what dysfunction they have when they find an actual significant other and have to limp along, the shaft a shadow of its former self. A crotch is a terrible thing to waste.

If you see it differently, let’s agree to disagree, but as for me I will keep things free and clear to perform their natural function alone, promising a better life. Think of how great it is to live and whatever you're doing, don’t do it again. Yes, with lust things can be bumpy depending on what’s going around. They say tomorrow never comes, yet we know the facts, it always arrives, and there awaits the pain. Playing the piano may be fine to a certain extent, your fingers lightly tinkling it, true for either black or white, but what may be fine for a concerto will not go well in the annals to be told.

Most music has its fans, whether it is "Seka Does Dallas" or "Kitty Does Earp." But once kitty does enough earping, that’s when you need figs to cover it, because that’s nasty business, not fit for man and we shall leave out beasts. Such an outcome renders complete disease in my members, from the brain down.

Linda Lovelace For President

Part 10 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I hope the Linda Lovelace advertisement doesn’t stir up anything. I mean of a negative vibe, that kind of thing. As for stirring anything else, in a series on gratifying self-abuse, I suppose it could, although the taller you are the more farfetched it’d be. I’ll go first and say it doesn’t stir anything in me except my memories of seeing the film in a theater during its short run. And at this distance in time I needed Wikipedia to remind me what it was even about. My biggest memories of it were 1) Micky Dolenz was the bus driver; and, 2) There was a bus.

In my moments of research I made note as well that Ms. Lovelace has since passed away. I probably heard about when she died -- it’s vaguely familiar -- but my retention of who’s alive and who’s dead, unless it involves traumatic assassinations or loved ones in their last throes (Grandma or my various dogs), is faulty. Be that as it may, I didn’t mean to bring everyone down. This month, more than any month in history, September being Self-Abuse Month, I want everyone to be flying sky-high! Like in the Tom Jones album, “The Lead and How to Swing It.”

If you’d like to get off here, I would understand. Anywhere a guy can get off -- say something hits your funny bone just right -- that’s something to treasure. Here’s an assignment. Take the titles of the songs from that Tom Jones album and think of something lascivious about each one. Ready? 1) If I Only Knew; 2) A Girl Like You; 3) I Wanna Get Back With You; 4) Situation; 5) Something for Your Head; 6) Fly Away; 7) Love Is On Our Side; 8) I Don’t Think So; 9) Lift Me Up; 10) Show Me; and, 11) Changes. I think “Changes” makes a good last title, if you’re thinking of changing the sheets. And “Lift Me Up” more naturally fits either before or after “Something for Your Head.”

The lasciviousness of it writes itself. "If I Only Knew" I was going to blow out the bedroom wall I would have gone to the bathroom. "A Girl Like You" needs to find how how Grandpa used to start his car, with a crank. "I Wanna Get Back With You," that is, as soon as I doublecheck if I have a better offer. "Situation..." A situation's what we're gonna have if your dad walks in. But I'm packing heat. And it's not a gun.  "Something for Your Head," but I'll aim lower. "Fly Away" but don't mess up your landing strip. "Love Is On Our Side," rightside up, upside down... "I Don't Think So," but a couple more minutes and I'll be done. "Lift Me Up," hope it's not too heavy, I've never had complaints before. "Show Me," but don't show me up. And, "Changes," because occasionally the sheet's ... as aforementioned. 

Then examine the hand: Quality, Variety, Service, Comfort, Saving. Just to be brief, on quality at this point, personally, anything will do. As for variety, let's touch on the basics first. Service, it's that time of day. Comfort, I'll make myself at home. And Saving, pretend the world's ending tonight, let's go for the moonshot!

Going back to Linda Lovelace, the point of mentioning her is only because she was one of the more famous porn stars. Porn is one of those weird things that you don’t really need or want a long drawn out story, or even that much length to the film. Unless you plan to watch it in installments. But then the bus scenes and Micky Dolenz would be an unwelcome distraction. Certainly it’s good to have a scenario, but beyond that ... who cares? "Get down, humpa humpa, slurp slurp, eeee-yaaa, shit shit, The End."

Mentality Half-Formed, Totally Stupid

No. 13 of 30 -- Guidance Counselor series

Through this hardhitting guidance counselor series, I have rightly portrayed myself as the aggrieved party. With the guidance counselor being the supposedly responsible adult with an actual profession of “guidance” and “counseling” to uphold and perform. Far from what I was, an innocent high school kid, not an adult, with the innocent psyche of a half-formed, mentally bereft person, barely there at all.

It's so hard to picture me as immature, but I was. Because look at me today. People look at me, they point to me, maybe they read my blog and say, “There’s no one more mature, more responsible or qualified to lead the youth of tomorrow.” And it’s so true. I always take the position most aligned with good behavior, benefits for all, and responsibility. It’s not for nothing that my blog was voted “Best Blog to Fall Asleep To” three years in a row by the juvenile delinquents in my neighborhood. It was also a true survey, the results not determined, like most, by payoffs.

But I seriously wasn’t precisely an infant in a playpen in high school, but virtually. I didn’t know anything about anything. If you would’ve told me that babies came from baby factories and parents picked them up, I would’ve believed it. The closest thing to sex I knew was dirty magazines, which in those days weren’t explicit. More cartoons than anything, all hinting around about something but never quite coming out and showing it. Not like we have today, a fully inflamed wanton moisturized ready-to-go double-page spread and engraved invitation unmistakable in begging eyes.

So when I showed up at the guidance counselor’s office, I wasn't ready to be under his thumb and wasn't prepared to take him on. I appreciate it today that kids are schooled a lot more in what adults can do to them and the signs they need to watch for and the responsible things to do as a response. Back then they simply trusted adults and suspected kids of being dummies, which I at least was.

So we might wonder how did wrestling coaches get away with so much? And how did guidance counselors manage to break their students psychologically? With so few consequences. There was an stupid innocence and lack of awareness then that adults are up to no good if given half a chance. So these guys could commit murder and it'd be your fault...

It makes my blood boil, at least simmer, to see an adult guidance counselor in the same playpen as an innocent baby (representing me) wailing like he’s somehow the aggrieved party. I’d like to grab that lousy stinking bastard by the scruff of the neck, or let’s say cinch his tie up a little tighter for him. Then with his head straining like a filthy pimple, engage him toward expanding his professional disciplinary horizons. "You bastard" is right! How dare you?!

February Survives -- I Blame Hugh Hefner

WE CAME THAT CLOSE TO WINNING,
BUT FINISHED THE BATTLE WITH
NEXT TO NO SURVIVORS, ONLY
ME. AND I'M GOING INTO HIDING.

I was up early this morning, looking for signs of success against February. My heroic attempt to destroy February as a month on the calendar, then divvy up most of its days with other months and preserve a "stump month" of 10 February days, hung in the balance. Alone in my prayer citadel -- other than the courthouse the highest point in the county -- I tried to have faith, but reports coming in from around the world painted a dismal picture. There was no popular groundswell, none whatsoever, to do away with February.

I held out hope, biting my fingernails to the quick. Various lieutenants and family members climbed up to check on me. The braver ones warned me to be prepared for bad news. They said reports arriving from other states and countries showed the chances of destroying February as bleak. Legislators were not meeting, Congress pitched pennies instead of working, and the United Nations was closed, ambassadors laid off without pay.

Finally, I realized I had to put on a brave face. And show that everything was fine with me, in spite of my disappointment. I stripped off my outer layers of clothing. (It's a cold day.) Then my thermals. Last, I shed the rest of my clothes and stepped out on my citadel balcony, totally naked, me against the world! In one last expression of defiance, albeit vain, I peed. Reasoning, if I can't destroy February, I can go for the Guinness world record for the longest adhering urine stream. I was stoved up with two pots of freshly ground coffee -- jet black! My stream might still be flowing -- somewhere, somehow -- even as I write this two hours later.

So what happened? It's too early for a complete post mortem. I won't get into the details of my agitating government and the media. I put my heart into it, but it wasn't enough. I would like to mention, as an incriminating aside, that there seems to be a lot of old-time XXX movie houses very close to the Capitol. Could it be our "faithful representatives" are more "hung" up on some "pressing" matters of the flesh than they are "coming" to the aid of their people? 

OK, I did the government thing, but the heart of the campaign had to be this very blog. I put the word out there everyday -- with a worldwide outreach -- and what did people do with it? That's what I'd like to know! I know you'll say this is in bad taste, but frankly I'm shifting much of the blame to my readers, whose personal pleasure was their only real concern. Pretending to be on my side, pretending to do the heavy lifting, but then ... not really. I'd guess most of them are also into XXX entertainment, whether in some rundown smelly/sticky theater, or right there with their iPhones "in hand."

I've suspected all along that I've been dealing with mental cream puffs, halfwits, and the usual run of dim bulbs you meet on the internet. They're spoiled, there's no commitment. You know what, I remember the internet back in the '90s, man. Back in the '90s, man, you'd run a campaign -- destroy February, replace Christmas with Worship a Pine 2 x 4 Day -- and you'd get it done. Then the 2000s came -- 9/11 and people became pansified -- and now we're so soft we've essentially melted. It's 2015 and you couldn't raise an internet volunteer to YAWN on cue; they'd be asleep already before you flashed the sign!

OK, you had your chance. So don't come looking to me next year when February rolls around again. Just suffer. Because I'll still be nursing a grudge -- an eternal grudge -- stewing over how you deserted me, then even went so far as to callously stab me in the back right when I was on the brink of victory. The very worst time for betrayal, because the hurt never leaves. I'll always remember ... this time back in 2015 when I took on this literally thankless task. When my readers were so "into pleasure" they couldn't be bothered to support a brother in his hour of need.

It's a lot different from what I grew up with. I grew up hearing about the Depression, with my relatives' memories being how they stuck together, through thick and thicker. So where did things go so wrong with society? You know what I blame it on? There was strength in World War II, then a huge letdown, and people relaxed. When, guess who, Hugh Hefner comes along and fills the vacuum with Playboy magazine, setting the old mores aside as well as the old values. Look it up in any sociology text. Hugh Hefner gave us the dawn of a hedonism that would've made Caligula blush. And therein is the reason we couldn't destroy February.

So it's a problem with our government, and a problem with my readers, existing as they do in this reckless XXX world. And apparently there's nowhere to find better ones. Even the most prominent think tanks can't find people. They're all so hopelessly wasted, there's probably no one but me who'd even be smart enough to apply.

Porn Kings Need Bailout

I heard about this story yesterday and figured it was a complete joke, that the porn industry in some manner wants a government bailout.

I'm just going by memory here, but it seems they're blaming free porn on the internet for reduced sales of magazines, videos, and I suppose that's it.

It's just hard to believe that anything will be done to help them, if indeed there really is a downturn in their industry. I thought that was an industry where they want to lose their shirt, and everything else.