Redirect

I have started a new blog. Please go to:

http://oldsinners.blogspot.com/

rectum lips

Have you ever noticed, when you puff out your cheeks and put your tongue to the inside of your lips, that's it's shaped just like a rectum? Interesting.

Also, I was listening to Joni Mitchell's Raised on Robbery and when she sings, "He was drinking for diversion," I thought it was, "He was drinking 40 Version." I thought 40 Version was some kind of cheap whiskey -- like Ten High or something. Listen to it. It really sounds like she's saying 40 Version.

Sometimes my mind just works funny.

Creating gods in our own image – some random thoughts

Somehow our fierce American independence has ironically resulted in our being the most conformist society on the planet. We've smashed our guitars, burned our flags, and even poured urine on the image of Christ. And now that we've done all that, what have we got left? Nothing. So we've settled into a life of complacency. We can't come up with music more abrasive or behavior more outlandish, so we've now taken to worshipping our own existence, eerily echoing the words of St. Paul who wrote...

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

This has resulted in a society where we are our own paradigm. We no longer have a God to look to for truth. There is no truth. It is all relative. Therefore, WE have become the truth. For, you see, we MUST have truth. We must have order and example. It's hardwired into us. So, in exchange for the gods of the past, we've determined our own truth -- our own system of deciding what is significant.

And what is it that we think is significant? Well, here we'll find nothing new. It's the same list that was kicked around in the fourth century: money and what it can buy, fame and adulation, sensory pleasure. There's absolutely nothing new here.

This is what we grope for ...the house, the car, the stock portfolio, the schools our kids go to, the clothes we wear ...winning all the little pissing contests in life to elevate our status: the meetings at work, political debates amongst friends and colleagues, boasting in our victories and those of our family ...having the optimum sex life: how do we stack up against the sex and the city girls and those desperate housewives? Are we able to get it up as often as we should or do we need a Viagra?

These paradigms have become our truth. There is no truth beyond them anymore.

I don't just mean this to be a soapbox for monotheism. Even in the pantheism and spiritual exploration of the 1960s there was something of a belief in truth and goodness. It was the idea of there being "better angels of our nature" that moved us. As Joni Mitchell wrote, “We've got to get ourselves back to the garden” But, in order to do that, there has to be the notion of a garden. And it seems that we no longer even believe in the concept.

Online Dating - Continued

So the first online dating site I tried was a Christian site called The Single Christian Network.

I thought to myself, well, why not? After all, it’s a Christian site. The women who look at this site won't be nearly as harsh as my officemate Tamra. Rather, they'll be full of Christ-like compassion. So, even if they pass me over, they'll at least be gentle.

On this point I was sadly mistaken. It’s now been a few years and dating sites later and, I have to say, the Christian women are just as bad, if not worse. For, in addition to the usual laundry list, they also have the spiritual laundry list.

After the Christian site, my next experience was the esquire.com personals.

It was when those Brittney Spears -- a la Marilyn Monroe -- photos came out. When I saw that shot of Brittney in that white sweater with her cute little butt cheeks exposed, I just had to click on over to esquire.com and get a higher-rez look.

While there, another photo caught my eye. It was that of a young lady down in the corner of the page under the "personals" heading. A very cute, short-haired blonde. The caption under her photo read that the music of Chet Baker "put her in the mood."

Well, to hell with Brittney, why mess with the unattainable when Mona from Seattle was crying out to me?

But in order to communicate with Mona, I had to go through the rigamarole of signing up for the site (name, rank, credit card number).

Then the vital statistics...

Gender: Male
Age: 43
Height: 5 ft 9 in (I lied a bit there. I'm 5' 8 and 1/2".)
Hair Color: Hair? What Hair?
Eye Color: Brown
Body Type: average (I try my best)
Smoking: a non-smoker except at the odd party when I get plastered
Drinking: a light/social drinker except at the odd party when I get plastered

...and so on.

And then I had to fill out "the profile."

Now, the profile is an interesting thing. In many ways, it's like trying to meet a woman in person. If you come off too brash and self-assured, then you're seen as being conceited, cocky ...an ass. However, if you let you're honest, sensitive side out, then you're weak. Women don't want men who are weak. They want strength and confidence. But, if you cross the line over to being arrogant, you're out. It's tough.

Oh, and then they all want someone with a sense of humor -- a sense of humor, but not an ass. You have to be able to make them laugh, but they need to be able to respect you in the morning.

So, my first attempt at the profile was this...

- quote -

I think I'm a gentle person. I'm creative. I love art, music, theatre, film, history. I'm not a voracious reader, but I'm fairly well read. (I even managed to pass myself off as an English teacher for a time.) I have nice hands and I take good care of my fingernails. I'm looking for someone who likes kids and dogs and seafood with good white wine. And someone who's not mean, materialistic, nor a prude (but especially not mean).

- end quote -

Now I thought that was pretty good. Honest. Interesting, but not snotty, showing my gentler side, but not weak. I mean, what the hell do they want anyway?

I then posted a couple of choice photos and I was one my way. I figured I would shortly be inundated by with love letters from beautiful females.

Nothing happened.

Frustrated, I decide to take matters into my own hands. I started the email campaign.

I began by writing to Mona in Seattle.

More later...

Online Dating - I think I prefer feathers and a mating dance.

Online dating. Ah, yes. Of course online dating makes perfect sense when you think about it -- a hi-tech version of the old personal ad, only you reach a much broader audience. That, combined with computer dating technology, makes it all very logical.

Whether it's good for you psychologically is another matter. However, I'm not really interested in debating it or decrying its merits. Online dating is a fact. And until something better comes along, it's here to stay.

I'm only going to relate my experiences here, and what I've learned about myself and my fellow man (or, woman, in my case) in the process.

The idea of online dating was first suggested by a boss of mine when I told him that my marriage was ending. He put it quite bluntly: "You need a girlfriend. You ought to go on match.com."

At first the idea was appalling to me. I hated thinking of myself as being that desperate. Besides, my marriage wasn't even officially over. So I shrugged it off.

The only person I knew at the time who had gone in for online dating was this twenty-something year-old girl in my office named Tamra. Tamra would actually review potential candidates aloud from her cube. "This guy's too fat. This guy's too short. This guy doesn't make enough money." No one was good enough. I remember thinking, "Poor bastards, why would anyone subject themselves to that?"

And when she did finally date somebody, I remember how the guy was always a liar. "He didn't look anything like his picture. He doesn't even have a job." And so on.

One guy she went out with took her to a strip club. I thought that was funny.

But about a year later, when my marriage WAS officially over, things weren't quite so funny. And one day, while doing a web search for single parent support groups, I instead came across an online dating site.

More later...

Some opening thoughts on Generation X

One of my favorite movie quotes comes from the 1981 film, My Dinner with Andre. At the beginning of the movie, Wallace Shawn has an interior monologue where he states, "When I was 10 years old, I was an aristocrat. I rode around in taxis, and all I thought about was art and music. Now, I'm 36, and all I think about is money."

I don't think we're all like this. Some of us are pragmatists from the start. But for many of my own late baby-boomer generation, we started out in life with idealism and a passion for the beautiful and then, after years of being stepped on and having the creative breath sucked from us, we've become practical, resigned ...dead. We've fallen in step with the gray millions who trudge to and from work each day, abandoning their higher hopes and dreams.

But this new generation of adults, Generation X, doesn't seem quite the same. They seem to be born and bred for the trudging. Even the name, "Generation X," says a lot. Before we had the hippies, the beats, the lost generation. Now we have Xs and Ys.

And the voices... other generations had their voices: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Coltrane, Lennon & McCartney. Who is the voice of Generation X? Jessica Simpson or Snoop Doggy Dog?

Perhaps I'm being a bit unfair. Or I’m not seeing the whole picture. Or maybe I'm just getting old. Perhaps future retrospect will provide the answer.

I define Generation X as people born between the years 1965 and 1980, making Generation X-ers now mostly between their mid-twenties and late thirties.

When I taught high school in the 90s, these people were my students. Even then I noted the difference in values they had from those of my own generation.

For the most part, they showed little interest in the humanities. Literature, history, art & music (in the classical sense), all had very little bearing on them.

There was a time not long ago when any 14 year-old school boy could tell you the plot of Oedipus, Hamlet, or Faust. Nowadays, these things don't matter at all.

In the late 1980s E.D. Hirsch published his ideas about cultural literacy, in essence, stating that part of what distinguishes us as a culture is our connection with the continuum of experience that has brought us to the present ...a knowledge of our stories, both real and created, our art, our music. To illustrate, he created a list of what we, as Americans, should know.

Hirsch was decried by many as a racist and a luddite for his ideas. But even though he may have been a bit extreme, I think he was definitely on to something in his observations.

More later...

Why am I doing this?

I’ve always wanted to be famous. But, as I begin writing this quasi-autobiography-blog-thing, I think, what a weird thing it must be to actually be famous – to have your whole life be public – to have all your shit out there in the open.

Take the Clintons for example. Both Hillary and Bill have written these massive tomes explaining their lives -- casting light into dark corners, catharting a bit perhaps. (To be honest, I haven’t read either book.) After such exposure, how does one walk down the street and look people in the eyes? You don’t know who knows what about you. You have to assume everybody knows everything.

So, why am I embarking on this? Why am I about to relate all these personal thoughts and experiences, after which, I too will be exposed. It’s like playing a game of "I’ll show you mine if you show me yours" and then the other person backs out …and there you are with your pants down.

I suppose one reason for this writing is therapeutic. I want to make sense of what’s happened to me over the years -- an attempt to laugh and put things in perspective. There’s also the hope that I’m not alone -- that some of the things I say will resonate with others, and that, just perhaps, I am indeed not the only one who isn’t perfect.

My first blog entry

This is my first blog entry. I'm really nervous.