Larry and I attended something called a "Home Show" at our local fairgrounds over the weekend. I had never been to one before that I can recall. I'm sure anyone who has also been to a "Home Show" might feel the same way. We were inundated by 45 types of soft-sided hot tubs (we live in Southern California, after all,) and more useless kitchen cabinetry than I've ever seen before in my life. Carnival barkers bearing "vinyl siding" and "double-pane windows" hawked their dangerous wares, tempting us with free samples and "in home demonstrations". Larry and I were lucky to emerge with our bank account intact.

We went to see a terrific (and terrifically tragic) film called "Stop Loss" over the weekend. It's about the Iraq War and what it does to human beings (of every kind).

George the Worst threw out the first ball of baseball season -- to a LOUD chorus of booos. I'm sure his sycophants were on hand to fawn on him with "nice shot" and "heckuva job" to mend his poor little fractured ego. Reality bites, doesn't it, you bastard? (ADDED: Ol' George's friends keep getting these yanked -- and I keep finding new ones :)

If you saw John Adams' latest installment yesterday, you caught a beaut. The scene where Adams (the first ambassador from the US to the Court of King George) speaks before the King for the first time was absolutely wonderful. It was, of course, extrapolated because that King George couldn't speak any more English than our current one does, but the scene was stronger played as it was.

Now, about my diatribe to the anti-slash women who are hating on us these days.


Shall I say that you're sick and perverse, you women who don't like slash? Andrea Dworkin once said the erect penis is always a weapon. Should that weapon ONLY be used on women? Are men not to be subject to its wrath? Are you so hateful toward your mother that you must cling to the male/female dialectic to continually punish your mother for your birth?

See? Two can play at that game. The above is no more "right" than the anti-slash diatribe. I don't care if you're quoting from Paul of Tarses or Susan of Brownmiller, a religious zealot is a religious zealot. Quote your gospel all you like, cast judgment upon sinners -- anyone can take any idiotic idea, present it as Truth, and spin it around to prove ANYTHING.

I was very lucky, at a young age, to stumble upon a series of books that didn't tell me what to think but helped me learn how to think. I include among these the books of Robert Anton Wilson and Douglas Hofstadter, and the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Hofstadter became fairly pedantic in later years, but Bob Wilson always retained his amazing agnostic mind. He could hold multiple different contradictory theories on something and considered them equally valid. He did not have beliefs, he had suspicions, and his ultimate suspicion was that he was probably just as full of shit as anyone else.

This taught me the sole and ultimate truth -- there is no great guru to guide us all through the badlands. We have only helpful lights along the way and they are human and thus fallible. Your vision is as "right" as any other -- however, it is no *more* right than any other, too.

I thought about compiling a lot of cobbled together bull to explain why women who hate slash are evil, but then I realized that those without a sense of sarcasm (hello to my adopted "brother" Harry for pointing this out to me yesterday) would flood my comments with protestations,
entirely missing my point.

What it comes down to is this -- no one knows the truth. You have the same right to your truth as I have to mine. But your emotional reactions to me are your own problems. Don't like slash, don't read it. Don't want to know me because I love it and read it and write it (and I write
very explicit slash at that), then don't know me. I had to chuckle at someone who posted an anonymous thing to one of those fan secret LJs to the tune of "everyone knows I hate slash but some people don't know I'm ready to give up long-term friendships because of it!"

I'm sorry, but what a sad little mind. If you have a problem with gay people - and I'm sorry, I'm going to go against the politically fan correct perspective and state outright that most slash-hating people I've met are homophobes (if you can accept het but not slash, then
you have a problem with gay people, and that is your problem, no one else's). By that, I don't mean people who don't like reading slash, but those who actively hate it. If you don't like erotica, don't read it. But if you want to tell the rest of the world what to think, do, say, write and believe, then I hope you see yourself for what you are -- an authoritarian. Just the
same as George Bush, Dick Cheney and every other authoritarian who wants to tell the world what to do, think and believe.

Oh, you're okay because you're right, you say? Sorry, it doesn't work like that. Until you find two people who can take their thoughts out of their heads and weigh and measure them to be certain they are exactly the same, we will never have anything but one person's opinion over
another person's. My experience of life is my own. You have no right to judge it or demean it. As long as you keep your nose out of mine, I won't bother with yours either.

As for those cowed by the fan fic bullies of the world, I will share with you the words of my late, great spiritual father Bob Wilson when I told him I was afraid to write something because "I'd look stupid". He said, "I always look stupid to someone ... so do you ... there is
great freedom in embracing our stupidity."

With that, I'll close with the words of a song I love (first recommended to me by Kathy Resch a long time ago), "Jesus was a Capricorn" by Kris Kristofferson (I should add that Kris is a Rhodes Scholar and a brilliant man ... he just "talks people" because it's how his people
do things).


Jesus was a capricorn
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes

Long hair, beard and sandles
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon we'd just nail him up
If he came down again

Chorus:
'cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on
Who they can feel better than at any time they please
Someone doin somethin dirty decent folks can frown on
If you cant find nobody else, then help yourself to me

Eggheads cussing rednecks cussing
Hippies for their hair
Others laugh at straights who laugh at
Freaks who laugh at squares

Some folks hate the whites
Who hate the blacks who hate the klan
Most of us hate anything that
We don't understand.


The anti-slash women, the warriors for innocence, all these latter-day Gestapos, are just the same old jackboots with new heels on.