reverse the stupid laws and policies that make our citizens insecure in their own homes. Not only do we need to make America safe, we need to make Americans feel safe. In the hands of a competent person, guns are just another tool. Unfortunately, nothing can be made foolproof, and too many guns are in the hands of fools. Even so, we handle this issue like we handle all issues; we err on the side of freedom. Watching this country enjoy the blessings of Liberty will eventually unseat oppressive regimes like North Korea and Iran. Just look at the so-called Arab Spring. The conservatives won’t like it. They want their nightmare. But they’re long overdue for a wake up call.~~ back to table of contents
WHEN THE MOMENT IS RIGHT
There was a survey on the news the other night that said that something like 90% of all Americans believe in God. Bullshit! If that’s the case, why do Americans buy so much Viagra? You’d think a god who can raise the dead could raise a few droopy dicks.
People go to faith healers for treatment of all kinds of infirmities: blindness, deafness, irritable bowel syndrome, and so on, but you never hear about anybody going to a faith healer because his peter is too pooped to pump. Millions of Christian men in America, and you’re going to try to tell me that it never occurred to even one of these God-fearing pussy hounds to try for a cure at the local tent revival?
If I were at a revival meeting and if I were on Viagra, as soon as I saw the cripple guy throw away the crutches, I’d be jumping up and down screaming “Me next! Me next!” I can only assume that a lot of the men claiming to believe in God are lying, because we have figures for the sale of Viagra, and figures don’t lie.
That there are men of Viagra makes sense to me, but who in the hell are the WOMEN of Viagra? I see the commercials for products like Viagra and Cialis, and when their husbands walk in the door with a bottle—box of tablets? Vial? White powder in an envelope? or whatever type of container this stuff comes in—of on-demand boner, the women of Viagra are overjoyed. My sweetie would probably slap the stuffing out of me if I came home with such a thing.
She doesn’t understand that at my age time is of the essence. My heart can only support so many competing demands for my body’s blood supply, and for some reason, over which I apparently have no control, as I get older, a stiff Johnson slips ever farther down the list of priorities. If I’m watching TV when the “right moment” comes along, just the act of standing up puts stress on the system. By the time I make it from the couch in the family room to her favorite reading chair, my amorous intent is no longer in evidence. I stand before her with my cutest little-puppy-dog look and she says, “Go away. I’m trying to finish this chapter.”
The women of Viagra must read a lot, because the commercials entice you with the staying power implied by that talking small print: “If you have an erection lasting longer than three to four hours, see your doctor.”
Doctor Hell! If I have an erection lasting longer than three to four hours, I going down to the senior citizens’ center and show that bad boy off. The women of Viagra must be married to liberal atheists, because conservative Christians could just pray for it: “Heavenly Father, give us this day our daily bread and an erection lasting no longer than three to four hours…. Amen”
That’s all I’ve been able to figure out so far, but I’ve decided that I want to write the definitive work on the women of Viagra. Perhaps the women of Viagra can befriend me on facebook and provide me with further enlightenment.~~ back to table of contents
KEEPING IT SHORT FOR THE USPS
Sometimes a cultural change comes along that I find frightening. Living in Tucson, I’ve noticed that as we give more streets Spanish names, the street names have become longer and longer. I hate long street names. Every time you write a letter, you have to spend half an hour on the return address. When I lived in Illinois, the street names were almost always short: one, two, or three syllables, and that’s it. Here in Arizona, I run along Paseo de Diego Puerta. In Illinois, that would be Door Street. We made a sentimental exception for Dr. Martin Luther King. There are Dr. Martin Luther King Drives all over America, but everybody just calls them King Drive.
If native Americans hadn’t had such long addresses, they might have been able to write letters to their friends warning of the depredations of the white man before disaster overtook them, but here’s a typical Indian address. This one is from Song of Hiawatha by Longfellow:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
How would you like to be the mailman delivering a letter from Hiawatha to his grandmother? I can just see poor, old Nokomis sobbing in her teepee, “Why doesn’t he write? Sniff…” Today that whole thing would have been Lake Street.
My ex is from St. Thomas, USVI, so I know a little bit about the strange street addresses they have down there too. They’re like British addresses or something. My in-laws lived on something called Agnes Fancy. A street name should provide an answer, not raise more questions. I find myself asking, who is Agnes? And what’s fancy about her? The street addresses of St. Thomas kinda make sense when you realize that the only town was in a hole surrounded by hills. I guess each one of the hills had a name, and that’s how they got their addresses. Lots of people don’t know this, but the uniforms of our modern day mail carriers were inspired by those hills.
You see, back in the day, everybody on the island of St. Thomas was descended from pirates or runaway slaves, so they all had spyglasses. There was no postal service for the hills surrounding the main town of Charlotte Amalie, so the postmaster would just throw all the letters for the hill folk onto the big lawn in front of the post office. The people living outside of town owned such good telescopes they could look down from their front porches and read the names on the envelopes. If they received a letter, they had to walk down to town and then climb back up the hill.
I’ve climbed the hills around Charlotte Amalie, and after the first thousand steps straight up, you start looking for a better way. Nowadays of course we have cars. Back in the old days, there were no cars, so the hill folk taught their donkeys to read and sent the donkeys into town to fetch the mail. The donkeys didn’t mind. The job sure beat the hell out of carrying heavy loads of produce to and fro. They walked slowly going and coming, and more often than not the mail was late. But it was a workable system until one of the donkeys started picking up the wrong mail.
The problem was solved by fitting that donkey for glasses, and the system was working fine again. But you know how donkeys are. Donkey see, donkey do. Soon every donkey on the island just had to have glasses. The mail was getting expensive because eye glasses are expensive. And of course some of the frames for the glasses were bigger than others, which set off a competition among the donkeys as to who could get the biggest frames. Pretty soon every donkey on the island was wearing big, old Elton John sunglasses. Then some of the donkeys started accessorizing, and pretty soon every ass on the island was in big, old Elton John sunglasses and a wide-brimmed, straw hat, all of which cost a fortune.
As if the mail wasn’t moving slowing enough already, the donkeys used to stop when they met each other and discuss the latest fashions. But you know how donkeys are. They liked to chew as they listened, and sometimes they’d accidentally eat the letters. So in addition to being slow and outrageously expensive, now the mail service was undependable. Disgruntled Virgin Islanders started walking around in tee shirts that said, If I had known, I would have picked up the mail myself. Finally the hill folk had a big meeting about the mail carriers and fired every one of their asses.
So the poor donkeys were back to just being farm donkeys, and donkey mail has
long been replaced by snail mail. But the United States Postal Service has never forgotten the traditions started when asses were first put in charge of the mail. That’s why even today, mail carriers dress in those gray slacks that are the same color as a donkey. Is it any wonder that the Postal Service is going bankrupt? The least we can do is help out by keeping the addresses short.~~ back to table of contents
AIR FORCE WHITE
As a young man, I was in The United States Air Force. I can’t understand why anybody would ever want to be in any other branch of the military. My underwear supports me on that point. When I went through what passes for basic training in The Air Force, we wore white underwear: just regular briefs and boxers that can be bought in any men’s store in any mall. My older brother, who was in The Army, tells me they had to wear green underwear called skivvies. My younger brother next to me in age was in The Marine Corps. He claimed Marines had to wear brown underwear.
I can understand it for a bunch of toddlers, but why should any group of grown men be force to wear green or brown shorts. I can’t help but wonder if they came with a big, yellow polka dot in the front. Why then, are Marines called leathernecks. I thought it was because the Nazis claimed Brown Shirts before World War II, but the Marines could have