Saturday, September 25, 2010

Sex

I keep a journal. Handwritten. 66 volumes of angst and perturbation. Probably several million words.
With tales of sex sprinkled through out.

I'm consolidating the sex into one volume specifically. From my first kiss thru all the things I have learned. Which may or may not be that much.

Now I grant you that women are mysterious creatures and I think they have a hard time believing that men are so simple. But we really are. I love women. When I walk down the street I only see women. Men are just fuzzy blurs. (I stole that from Richard Feynman, actually.)
This volume of sex is not going to read like Penthouse Forum. Though some stories are remarkably strange and unbelievable. This specific journal will be the women I slept with. The few I loved. The ones I snogged in a car after various parties. The ones who broke my heart. The ones who tore my heart out, stabbed it with a knife, ate part of it, set it on fire, then flushed the ashes... Ok, maybe that was just one girl.

And a few (or could be many) I was interested in but they never called me back.

Will anyone read this volume? Nope. No one will be reading my journals either. They are my way of doing therapy without the cost of a shrink. I just thought it would be interesting to write down all the experiences that made me the (hm.. what word am I looking for here? Lover? Idiot?) I am.

Why do this? Every person you sleep with helps shape you. What you like or don't like. What you will or will not be down for. I was flogged by a professional Dom once. (It was a birthday thing.) It was interesting, but I didn't add it to my "things I'm into" as far as sex goes. It was a test of endurance. I also wanted to prove something to the people watching who thought I was a wimp. I did discover I mark easily. The Dom liked that...

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Cats

I'm taking care of a couple cats right now. They are sweet, curl up in my lap, but damn they are little furnaces so I have to throw them out of my lap after a while. Throw is too strong a word. Evict them from my lap.
I still think they can see into other dimensions. Or they are just plain nuts. I don't know which. But I'd like a government grant to do some research to decide if they are nuts.

They have been fighting a bit. I don't know what cats fight about but the hissing and thumping that goes with the fights is pretty spectacular. Then I find tufts of black fur on the carpet from the longhaired cat who is typically the loser.

They like going outside. Which worried me a bit when one didn't come back until it was dark. If it was a 12 year old kid I could say "come back when the street lights come on." But it's a cat. I don't know if it knows where it lives and it had no tag. I'm in Burbank, but there are coyotes sometimes. And I saw a raccoon once. So I try to keep a close eye on them.

If the cats disappeared I'd be very bummed. I've never had any animal come to harm while I have been in charge of it.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Lost

A very good friend of mine is joining the Army Reserves. This is not a big thing really except that he retired from the Navy Reserves after 24 years and 3 tours in the Mid East. He was there in 1990 for Desert Storm. He went back in 2003 and 2005 for the Iraq war.

I was hanging out with him at Comic-con after he got back from Iraq in 2005. He was having a hard time with the adjustment back into"real life." I was pointing out something I thought was cool. He said he had a hard time getting excited about anything. This stunned me. I didn't know what to do with that or know what to say.

The experience in Iraq was so heightened that the normal world doesn't compare. When I saw The Hurt Locker I knew exactly what it was describing. When I hung out with him at Comic-con this year he said pretty much the same thing he said 5 years ago. He said he missed the war. Things over there made sense. Since I have never had that type of experience, I don't have any frame of reference.

I think he's kind of lost. So am I in my own way. He has a wife and kids. I have yet to figure that normal stuff out. But he feels the need to go back to something that made sense to him. His wife understands. But his kids are too young to know what is going on.

So my response to this news is; I feel lost too.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Water

I've been thinking about water. I don't know why, I just have.

There are probably only a few things on the planet that have been around since this ball of dust and gas and debris from the creation of the solar system coalesced into this form of Earth. It has had many forms over 4.5 billion years (sorry creationists, I'm an evolution kinda guy) but it has been water. It is 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom combined. It's a really simple element, but one that can be separated or created anew when you burn hydrogen.

However, it doesn't really get destroyed. The atoms have been around in some form for billions of years. Ice, water, water vapor. Solid, liquid, gas. The water has also been in every thing that has ever lived. Once that thing died, the water moved on. Without water we are about 8 pounds of dry goods.

So the water that is a part of you came from the burning volcanoes 4.4 billion years ago. It was part of the primordial oceans where life first happened. It has been trapped and released from glaciers and ice ages countless times. It was the living breathing dinosaurs, the water they drank and, yes, even dino urine. It has been the rain in hurricanes, the currents of the oceans, the clouds in the sky. And the pool that I swam in even today.

So as far as "elements" go. That's pretty impressive. The only thing that might compare to such a journey over time is air.

Hmmm...

9/11

I remember being woken up after 6 am by a phone call. "Turn on your TV."



I turned the TV and couldn't believe what I was seeing. The first tower was burning.



I watched until my alarm went off and I had to get ready for work. I drove to Santa Monica listening to the radio and hearing the morning DJs describe what was going on in NYC,



The office was watching TV. Not much was being accomplished. I was given the option to skip my everyday work tasks. I chose to do it because I needed normalcy and I had an appointment to keep in the valley. Watching the TV made me feel helpless.



In the elevator of an office building a woman looked at me and said "isn't it awful? how do you fight this?" We still don't have a good answer.

Burning the Koran was an idea that didn't work.

How about education? Teaching the people in the world more than the contents of one book. Keeping people stupid and inflamed works to control them. They will believe what they are told because they don't know how to think for themselves. And don't have the resources to figure it out on their own.

When the world is smarter, and not hungry, then maybe you won't have another 9/11.

Book Burning Cancelled

Terry Jones cancelled his planned burning of the Koran.

I wonder if it was the burning in effigy in Afghanistan? The condemnation by everyone? The hundreds of death threats? Maybe he felt he had gotten on the world stage enough.

Whatever the reason, it's cancelled. Now I wish someone would tell the people still protesting in the middle east that it is cancelled. But they don't have access to newspapers and the television or the internet like we do so they haven't gotten the information. And the people inciting them to protest don't want to give it to them.

Keep your masses stupid and inflamed. It helps to control them.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Burning Books

Burning books is an age old tradition. From the burning of the library of Alexandria, to the Nazis, to the book burnings in the South. If someone finds something objectionable they think burning it is going to squelch the ideas in that book. It's a pretty stupid theory. You don't destroy the thought, you just show your own bigotry and ignorance.

Pastor Terry Jones (not the Brit from Monty Python) is going to burn the Koran to protest the attacks on 9/11. This has recieved global condemnation from governments, religious leaders, and generals fighting the war in Afghanistan. But this has not detered him. I think all the coverage has secretly given him a hard on for attention. I bet money no matter what happens this Saturday, he will do something as outrageous or more outrageous because he has now become a whore for the limelight. This guy will become the equivilant of Lindsay Lohan. The Paris Hilton of the pastoral set. He runs a church no one ever heard of that has 50 people in the congregation. He was kicked out of the church he started in Germany for stealing from the money collected from the flock. This guy is not a holy man. He's an opportunist.

He says he is burning the books because the Koran, "is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims." Well, of course, it espouses something other than "biblical truth", fuckhead, it's not the Bible. And what do you think will happen after you burn the book?

There is an easy fix to the book burning. And one I think just might happen. It is legal in this Florida town to have a small campfire on your property. Small bits of woods and twigs. It is not legal to burn anything bigger, for example, books. So have the fire department sitting there with hoses primed and ready. The moment he throws the first book in the fire, go great guns on the fire with 3 high powered hoses. Soak everything and everyone in the immediate area. Then have the sheriff arrest him for illegally starting a fire or some such. Haul him away, in front of all the media that is certain to be there, soaking wet in handcuffs.

If any American anywhere is killed because of a reaction to this book burning, sue him in court for 50 million dollars.

You have the right to practice any religion you want. You have the right to free speech. You can burn books if you are so inclined. You have the right to be a closed minded fuckhead. But really, Pastor Jones, what would Jesus do?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Jury Duty Done!

Ok. This case was an odd one. A civil insurance case. In the end we decided for the insurance company, but to a juror, we all hated that we had to decide that way.

Because the guy's house burned down, there was a claim put in to the insurance company. Not by him, by his agent. The plantiff attorneys tried to figure out who had put in the claim and were they authorized to put in a claim. Blah blah blah.

As a juror you are given certain information and other information might not be given to you because it is prejudicial to the case. For instance. The guy threatened the fire and police who came to put out the fire at his house. He was put on the ground by a 6'7" fireman and the captain, and held there until the PD could come and take possession of him. This was given to us, and there was a photo showing his hands which had been burned on the backs. There was slip of the tongue and someone called it a booking photo. This was struck from the record. But we still remembered it and made us wonder "what happened to the guy after the fire because he was nowhere to be found for weeks." His dad came to town and had power of attorney to do stuff. Presumeably because the guy was in jail or maybe committed. We still don't know. Maybe in alcohol treatment. We don't know. But there was a picture of 8 Absolut bottles in the trashcan...

There were fire and police investigators who said the fire was suspicious in nature. There were 3 cans of acelerant (a 5 gallon gas can with the lid wired open, a 1 gallon gas can downstairs, and paint thinner in another room.) There were pour patterns, an arson dog "hit" on 6 spots in the house. The fire was fast and hot, not like an electrical fire, which he said it was, would have been.

Also the homeowner policy that would have covered the fire had lapsed because he didn't pay the premium. There was an impound account set up to pay the mortgage and that account was supposed to pay the premium. But countrywide changed the terms and sent him a letter telling him he had to pay it. He didn't. Did he forget? Did he read the letter? We don't know.

There was a mind numbing assault on our brains as the defense and plantiff showed the same documents to us over and over. To ask the same questions over and over of the different witnesses. The plantiff attorney had a strange tendency to ask witnesses questions like "did you know there was this or this in the house?" When there would be no way for the witness to know any of this information. So what did it do? Pissed off and bored the audience, which, for all intents and purposes, we were. Lose the audience, lose the case.

I spoke briefly with the defense attorneys. They wanted to know what worked and what didn't. I wasn't going to talk to them, but did. There were things I had in my background I couldn't share in the jury room, but never had to because we ended the trial with 2 questions. Things about the arson dogs. I have a good friend who is a deputy in San Diego. He had drug dogs for years. Because I knew him I knew how the dogs were trained, and how they work, and how well they do their jobs. To tell me the dog is wrong is not going to fly with me.

I'm glad it's over. I don't want to ever do jury duty again. I'm going to have

"FUCKING GUILTY!!!"

tattooed to my forehead. If called for jury duty, they won't ask what the tattoo is about they will just dismiss me out of hand. Am I fucking guilty, is the palintiff? They won't know, but just having me in the jury box would look bad.