dance October 22, 2003

Certain things are inherently divine.

I love the things we do that have no explanation.
Why do people dance?
Why does dancing bring joy, inherently, in humans?

Sure, we can wrap in up in protocol and social pressures and take the joy out of it. But it is deep down *good*.

From the tribesman bouncing to clacking sticks to the pantaloon wearing bloke skipping to a lute to the dreadlocked candy raver shaking his glow stick at a speaker.

Why do we dance?
I know why we have sex. The joy from sex has an obvious biological explanation.
(I still believe that sex is inherently divine…but the argument isn’t nearly as clear.)

I was reminded of this when I watched the Matrix Reloaded.
Some people have ridiculed the scene where the residents of Zion dance their asses off as the robots approach.

I loved it. I loved that the distinction between the machines and humans was not reproduction, not self preservation, not even anything biological…

What makes us human is that we dance.

+++

I used to go dancing every week until my favorite place closed. I considered it church. I just realized that my drastic drop in dancing over the last year occurred at the same time as my drastic drop in mood.
I think I need to find a new place of worship.

PORN HOARDING October 2, 2003

It’s different for boys today. Elaborate searches for Dad’s Playboys may soon be an extinct childhood tradition. Thanks to the Internet, the current generation has access to pornography unlike any time in history. I was born just a little too soon.

***

In my closet I have a folder of old porn photos ripped from girlie magazines…crumpled, worn pages from my past.

They were collected during my elementary and Jr. High school years.
Some were gifts from friends with older brothers. Many were found on playgrounds or randomly scattered in the street. I STILL bend down to pick up tattered magazines from the gutter if an image of skin is facing up. Nowadays it’s usually Sandra Bullock’s shoulder, or a shameless Details cover…but there was a time when it was different.

Years ago, I remember finding dirty pictures quite a bit. Well, probably no more than 20 times, but often enough to have a folder for it. And often enough to keep one eye on the muddy ground at all times.

I was always aware of the magnitude of these gifts. These creased, once-glossy pages were my prized possessions. To a child, porn is priceless. Let me explain: A young boy is fascinated by naked ladies. But does he have access to naked ladies? No. Could a little boy save up money to buy naked ladies? No. Porn is totally out of reach for a kid. So when it is bestowed upon you, it is more valuable than gold. More valuable than candy, baseball cards or anything else that’s a part of your world. Porn is a priceless treasure from another dimension.

Cute and disturbing you say? But wait, there’s more!

As I grew, Porn became more available. I remember turning 18 and driving to the adult bookstore to buy my first magazine. Nothing classy like Playboy or Penthouse. I bought a really dirty one. One that actually showed penetration. Penetration. It was a *very* important day for me. If I lived in a remote village, the bloody removal of my foreskin with a sharp rock would have signified my manhood. But this initial porn purchase was *my* rite of passage…and equally significant.

Did I then throw away all the old porn I had? All the dirt-encrusted pages? The images burned into my brain so that I had every fold and crease memorized?

Hell no.

Like one of Pavlov’s horny dogs, I had been classically conditioned to associate porn with the ultimate in forbidden blessings. Porn is priceless. I could never throw away porn!

And when I say “I can never throw away porn,” that’s exactly what I mean. Not a single page. Not one glossy, printed boob.

I’m now 27. I’ve been comfortable with the fact that I enjoy pornography for a number of years. I’ve ordered porn by mail with a credit card countless times. (Securing my name on all sorts of FBI pervert lists, I’m sure.) Every month I now receive a few catalogs from several porn distributors. They’re usually 8.5 x 5.5 with rows and rows of 1 inch thumbnail screen shots from porn movies. A brief but nasty descriptive text gives you an outline of the action in store. Do these catalogs qualify as ‘porn’? Tough call. They *do* have pornographic photos (albeit small). Well, if there was any confusion over whether it was porn, that dissipated after a few masturbation sessions with the tiny carnal thumbnails in hand.

So now I have several large boxes in my closet filled with porn catalogs. Hundred and hundreds of catalogs. Most are very similar. The Adam and Eve catalog or the Leisure Time Products catalog might have a new cover and a few new featured videos or toys, but the meat of the catalog (pardon my word choice) doesn’t change month to month. It’s the same tiny pictures for the same videos and marital aids.

But this duplication hardly matters to me. My conditioning is strong. I can’t throw it away. Seriously. Look in my closet.

Want to kill me? Put a backpack full of porn on me and push me in the pool. I’ll drown before I part with the explicit treasure.

And it’s not like porn has an expiration date. An old Newsweek or fashion mag fails to stay relevant, but porn is always porn. The actresses may have out-of-date hairstyles and a little more pubic hair (Okay, *alot* more pubic hair) but the anatomy is the same.

Is there a way out of porn pack-ratting predicament? I can only hope. Otherwise smut will totally take over my living space. Will I be like that crazy old woman who needs to buy a bigger house to hold all her collectible ceramic cows?

Porn will take over my apartment like the Tribbles took over the Starship Enterprise.

Eventually it will pile to the ceiling, collapse on me, and smother me in a porn tomb. You know, that’s not *too* bad a way to go.

But there is hope.

The Internet may save me from my porn hoarding. The treasure quickly devalues when the same commodity saturates the market.

Porn is so easily available now. (cue old Jewish man’s voice) ‘These kids today! Why when I was a kid we didn’t have all this free porn on the in-ter-net! We had to make our own porn by holding flash cameras downs our pants!’

A kid today has no need to hoard. A few dot coms, a couple of clicks and any 12 year old with a spare 15 minutes, a computer, and some privacy can be face-to-pixilated face with the most explicit pornography available.

We’re seeing a radical shift in morality as these kids are growing up. How is a kid gonna be shocked by cum stains on an intern’s dress when he’s used to seeing hardcore .jpgs of donkey dicks and facial cumshots. At the very least, the factors contributing to my porn hoarding conditioning have been all but extinguished. Sure, there are probably kids in rural towns who still have to scour the gutters and sneak into older kids’ tree-houses to see pictures of naked ladies, but even they will get online soon. But if they don’t, maybe they can take a few crates of catalogs off my hands.

My generation may be a few years too late to experience the full effects of the Online Porn Revolution, but I am exited about the opportunities for today’s erect youth.

I dream of a world where Porn Hoarding is eradicated. A world where closet space is used to hold clothing and extra towels instead of archived smut. A world where little horny boys and little explicit thumbnail .gifs can live together in harmony. A world where minds are at peace knowing that penetration is always a few clicks away.

I have a dream.

***

naked on New Years

I didn’t always hang out naked.
Heck, in Jr. High gym class, I hid behind my battered yellow locker and lived in fear of boners just like the rest of the guys.

Not much nudity in my High School years. Some drunken skinny dipping, I guess.

And outside of a few fraternity rituals that I can’t get into, my college years were pretty nudity-free, as well.

When did the flesh-capades begin? Hard to pinpoint it. I guess New Years 2000 was the turning point. The survivalists eating chemically heated meals in the woods were *probably* waiting for something a little different. They probably expected explosions and the end of the world as they knew it.

Well, the planet may have avoided massive computer failure and global anarchy, but the night definitely marked a major change for my group of friends.

New Years eve 2000 we threw a 1:30 am after-party at our apartment complex. We figured 1:30 am pacific time would be midnight on the mythical island of Exstaslovakia.

We figured people could go to their tux-wearing parties and then come by afterwards to bring in the new millennium the *right* way.

At midnight, many people were in the streets– spraying Champaign and dancing beneath streamers. And that would have been fine for me if I didn’t have another, very specific, plan.
I wanted to be naked.
I wanted to come into this millennium the same way as I came into the last: Buck naked.

But instead of in a hospital, I wanted to be in a big bed with two naked women. I figured replacing the presence of my mother’s vagina with the presence of two non-related beautiful women’s vaginas would be an acceptable variation on the theme.

So at minute zero, year zero, I was naked in a flesh braid with 2 beautiful women. My first accomplishment of this century was an orgasm.

When people started showing up at our after-party I answered the door naked. I had a clean slate! Why wreck it! Why get dressed and ruin the momentum we’d already started. Far be it from me to derail this millennium’s sexual inertia.

I should mention that I shaved off all my pubic hair earlier in the day. Ya know, part of the whole “entering the new century like a newborn” kick I was on.
I mention this particular grooming detail because I think it is important. Ya see, a naked man is a silly thing. Visually silly, I mean. The penis just hangs there all dangly-jangly and looks really out of place. The sleek lines of a human form are disrupted by this cartoonish jutting organ.

But at least its something that we’ve gotten used to. And getting used to something is critical.

Take an ear, for example. What a horrible looking thing! What a disgusting appendage to have attached to the sides of your FACE for god’s sake. (You think I’m exaggerating? Put this down and go over to a mirror for a second. I’ll hold your place with some exclamation points.

!!!!!!

(20 to 1 says you didn’t go look at your ear.)

Imagine what our reaction would be if a gnarled thing like that popped up somewhere else?! But the key is we’ve gotten used to it. We don’t even see the gnarled flesh knots any more.

The same is true with a penis, for the most part. *Most* of us haven’t checked out as many penises as ears, but we still are pretty familiar with the basic setup.

People’s basic comfort with the jingle-jangle of a man’s penis was destroyed when, on New Years eve, I messed with the familiar ‘naked guy’ visual. A guy’s crotch is wacky looking, but it can easily be dismissed by the brain because it’s something we’re used to. But a shorn wee-wee takes you aback. Without hair, the folds and wrinkles are easier to see. The skin’s color seems starker. The weirdness of the organ’s shape is impossible to ignore.

So, when I went to answer the door at 1:30 am on New Years 2000, some people were shocked. Nobody actually said anything. But the eyes betrayed them during that split second of surprise before the superego takes over. For just a second, you can see the panic. Then their phony, over-the-top act tries to convince you that they’re cool with everything. Maybe they even make a funny joke about being naked. “See? I can joke about your penis. I’m that comfortable with it.”
Of course, once the act had run a sufficient amount of time, they jet. There were a number of people who made efforts to not be in the same room as me for the rest of the night. God forbid a penis brushes against their jeans while in line for the john.

I may be getting ahead of myself. There were a few jangle-dangles walking around the party at times and a couple topless women. But even if it didn’t get tooo crazy, the naked host definitely set something into motion that night.