This Blog Celebrates its First Birthday

This Blog Celebrates its First Birthday

 

Almost exactly one year ago, May 20 2011, I posted a few short essays and a poem here at www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com. One year, 185 essays and over 170,000 page views later, I still don’t know what I’m doing here, but now, every minute of every day, over 1,000 times a day, someone visits this blog looking for something.

185 essays in one year! Can you believe it? That’s one every other day. That seems a bit excessive to me. Don’t I have something else to do with my life? Apparently not.

It’s not like this stuff just appears out of thin air. No, there has to be a lot of marijuana smoke in the air for this stuff to appear. That means I spend a lot of time smoking marijuana and staring at a blank sheet of paper, before I remember that I’m supposed to be writing something, and even longer before I remember what on Earth I am supposed to write about. Speaking of which…

What am I supposed to write about? My remote off-the-grid lifestyle imposes some limitations on my subject matter. With no internet connection or phone, I don’t exactly have a world of information at my fingertips, so I don’t write about anything that requires research. I stick to what I know, make up, or hear on the radio. Since I really don’t know that much, and the radio doesn’t give me a whole lot to work with, I rely on my imagination quite a bit. I have a much more interesting life in my imagination, and it gives me plenty to write about. It is where I prefer to spend my time

Still I try to write about stuff that normal people can relate to. Hence the recurring themes of sex, junk food, and economic oppression. I suppose there is more to life than sex, junk food and economic oppression. I just can’t think of anything else right now.

I know some people like to make a big deal out of politics and sports, but they don’t mean anything, change anything, or make any difference in anyone’s life, except for the worse. No, sports and politics just distracts us from the fact that all we have to look forward to in life is sex, junk food, and economic oppression.

So, basically, the way I see it, if you are not getting laid, your life pretty much sucks, but even if you are getting laid, junk food and economic oppression can still get you down, if you don’t find a way to laugh at it. Which is why we are all here, right?

I mean you’re not here because you want your penis tattooed, or because you are looking for a prostitute, or want to see a good image of necrophilia, are you?

 

You are?

Really?

All of you?

Oh well. Here’s to a solid year of online masturbation at www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com

 

The Olympics, Hitler’s Best Work

The Olympics, Hitler’s Best Work

 

The Olympic Torch arrived in Britain this week, carrying the Olympic Flame from Mt. Olympus in Greece, via a very circuitous route around the world. Thousands of Britains cheered the arrival of the torch, and lined the streets to watch it pass.

 

Carried high overhead, by a single runner, the Olympic Torch must be light enough to carry comfortably for long distances, and produce a bright flame visible from a distance, even in broad daylight. It must withstand high wind, rain or a fall without going out, and it must carry enough fuel to keep the torch burning all day. At night, the torch must allow refueling while it is still lit. The Olympic Torch represents a kind of technological achievement, and its design has remained unchanged since before WWII.

 

This invention has made the single most archetypical symbol of the Olympics, The Olympic Flame, a reality for millions of people in the ensuing years, as it continues to do, all over the British Isles in anticipation of the start of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. How many other machines remain essentially the same as they were in 1936? Zippo lighters haven’t changed much since Bogart’s day, but of course, everyone uses a Bic now.

 

The British promised us a new Olympic Torch, with a lower carbon footprint, the Bic of Olympic Torches, if you will, but they failed to deliver. Sure, the London torch has a new look, but underneath, it is still Hitler’s design. So, again in London, the Olympic Torch still liberally burns the same mixture of propane and butane as designed by its inventor, Adolf Hitler, all those years ago.

 

Yes, that Adolf Hitler. It shouldn’t surprise you that the Olympic Torch comes to us as a result of advanced German engineering, but it may surprise you to know that Hitler was that German engineer. In fact, the whole torch relay thing was Hitler’s idea. Before 1936, there was no torch relay.

 

Hitler had a very intimate, hands-on, and long lasting effect on the Olympics in other ways as well. In many ways, the Olympics of today remain a living expression of Hitlers creative vision, a vision the Olympic Committee works tirelessly to maintain.

 

Not only did Hitler invent the Olympic Torch, he, working with filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, defined the aesthetics of the Olympics, creating a work of art, the likes of which the world had never seen before. Hitler and Riefenstahl’s presentation of the Olympics continues to inspire the world today. Hitler and Riefenstahl branded the Olympics, and its a brand the Olympic committee doesn’t dare change. They recognize the creative genius behind that vision, and they do they’re best to recreate it every four years.

 

Sure, they held the Olympics before 1936, but they were a much more low-key affair. Hitler made the 1936 Berlin Games the centerpiece of his global propaganda campaign. Hitler, and as a result Germany spared no expense in producing a grand spectacle on the global stage. The 1936 Games became Hitler’s pet project, and his fingerprints are all over it, right down to the Olympic Torch that he invented. Hitler elevated a simple sporting event into a sacred ritual that continues to entrance the world. The Olympics represent the pinnacle of Hitler’s creative work as an artist.

The beginning of Riefenstahl’s film “Olympia”

They don’t actually get to the torch until pt2

 

So, as top athletes from all over the world descend on London to play their parts, tens of thousands of spectators and TV cameras reaching hundreds of millions more all over the world, focus on Hitler’s torch, as it finally arrives at the London 2012 Games, initiating the elaborate opening ceremony, where they will recreate once again, Hitler and Riefenstahl’s choreographed expression of human transcendence through the evolution of a master race, in all of its power and glory.

 

I’m sure all of the Londoners who lost their homes to The Olympic Village, feel it is a small price to pay to breathe new life into this Masterwork of the 20^th Century. After all, Hitler, more than any other artist, and more than any other human being on Earth, in fact, defined the 20^th Century. Certainly Hitler had a tremendous influence on the architecture of London in the early 1940′s, and I’m sure all Londoners want to celebrate his influence on their city.

 

With the best of the best of the world’s athletes gathered beneath snipers and surface to air missiles in their highly fortified enclave, Hitlers vision lives again this Summer in London. What does this tell you about sports fans, and their taste in art?

 

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

 

Folks who frequent this blog know that I was nonplussed by the sponge that 2^nd CA District Congressional Candidate Jared Huffman sent me a couple of weeks ago. This week Huffman’s campaign sent out a new mailer that caused me to give him a second look, or at least give his wife a second look.

Holy cow! Jared Huffman has got a HOT wife! She’s got classic blonde California granola-crunching-hippie-chick good looks in faded blue jeans. He’s in there too, and there’s a couple of brats thrown in, but wow, she looks great!

This full page photo was clearly intended as the main focus of this mailer. With the big question mark on the cover, that photo taking all of page 2, a few bland platitudes on page three, and a few endorsements on page 4, clearly Huffman’s campaign thinks that the hot blonde hippie -chick, and the two adorable kids have the power to win votes, more than, say a one page written statement of vision on the issues of the day.

Don’t forget, these are the same people who thought that sending me a sponge was a good idea, but in this case, I think they are right on the money. This mailer definitely improved my opinion of Jared Hoffman. I’m not exactly sure why, and I’m not exactly ready to vote for him, but if he sent me a few more pictures of his wife, without him and the kids in the way, maybe at the beach, in her bikini, I might be persuaded to pull my lever in the voting booth for her.

 

On The Money, Unemployment, Revised

I received an email recently from an editor at Fifth Estate magazine. They asked me to revise this piece and update the statistics for publication in their Summer, 2012 edition. I think it improved the piece quite a bit. I encourage all of you to subscribe, or at least pick up the new Summer 2012 edition of Fifth Estate, which should be on newsstands any day now.

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

Unemployment

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about unemployment. The national unemployment rate hovers at about 8.3%, although experts agree that the number of people out-of-work far exceeds that figure. The 8.3% figure only reflects the number of people actually looking for work. It does not count the growing number of people who have stopped looking for work.

This “not working, not looking for work” segment of the population might really be on to something. Jobs don’t pay like they used to. Fewer jobs than ever actually provide a living wage. Housing costs came unhinged from wages years ago. Affordable housing used to mean that you had a decent place to live that cost no more than one-quarter of your monthly wage. How many of you can say you have affordable housing by that standard?

Most employers expect workers to have a phone, reliable transportation, and a presentable wardrobe whether or not the job pays enough to cover those costs. Workers often make these expenses a priority over their physical needs, sacrificing their own health for their employers profit. A full time job scarcely leaves workers enough time or energy to prepare healthy meals, further compromising health. For this meager existence, workers trade roughly half of their waking hours, and 60-80% of their life energy.

When you think about it that way, its a wonder anyone wants a job. So, lets look at these people who have stopped looking for work. How do they do it? How do they get by? What are they doing that’s working for them? Are they dealing drugs, robbing banks or hacking computers? They can’t all have the talent to deal, rob and hack profitably.

Half of the world’s population lives on less than $1 a day. Why can’t we? If living in a storm sewer and eating spit-roasted rat isn’t better than working for a living, its gotta be close. Life is too short to spend it in self-imposed slavery chasing an allusive, and mostly extinct middle-class illusion.

Most of us already know that we’re never going to be “super-rich”, but if you no longer aspire to be middle-class, a job no longer seems like such a necessary evil, and evil it is. If you can get out from under your job, you can reclaim your time, your energy, and your freedom. Three things working people have sold too cheaply for too long, all of them more valuable than money.

Face it, the biggest problem the world faces right now is too much money. Too much money caused the housing meltdown. Too much money caused the Fukushima meltdown and too much money caused the polar ice-cap meltdown. We’ve really got to stop thinking about how to make more money, and figure out how to live without it.

See, we’ve got about 7 billion people on the planet, and right now, damn near every one of them wants to make money. So they all start making stuff out of the rocks, trees, and animals they find around them, to sell for money. People who do well at this soon have more money that they need, but they don’t stop making stuff, instead, they expand. They buy machines that help them make more stuff faster and cheaper.

Soon, they have even more money, so they loan it to other people to expand their businesses, so they can make more stuff faster and cheaper. That way, they make even more money, but nobody wants their money just sitting around doing nothing. No, everyone wants their extra money to make even more money, and most people don’t care how it happens, as long as it happens.

So, all of this money really, really, wants make even more money out of whatever rocks, plants and animals that are still left on the planet, creating our present situation: We have rapidly increasing amounts of money chasing dwindling numbers of rocks, plants and animals, all over the world.

Today, this money exerts tremendous pressure on all of us. It constantly works to find new ways to extract more from us, and the planet, every day. It never rests and does not care about anything else but making more of itself. Money has become a monster. Stay away from it.

From this perspective, unemployment is not our most serious economic problem. Unemployment is the solution to our most serious economic problem. Don’t try to make money, that just exacerbates our global problems. Just find someplace to live and something to eat. If you can’t find a better way to do something than with money, consider that a failure of imagination.

We cannot afford to be productive workers any longer. Our own industriousness got us into this mess. The more productive we become as workers, the faster capitalists extract resources from the commons, and the more pollution the whole process creates. As a result, the whole world becomes impoverished, polluted and enslaved while a few people live ridiculously opulent lifestyles. Been there, done that.

We deserve a planet full of trees, rocks and animals, and we deserve the time and energy to enjoy them. Let them keep their soul-sucking, planet-raping, low-wage, no-benefit, endless grind of a job to themselves. Do something different with your life. Spit roasted rat is not half bad. There’s a view of the unemployment problem that’s On The Money.

 

Again With The Circuit-Bending

Again With The Circuit-Bending

Next Monday, May 21the Southern Humboldt Amateur Radio Club will host a circuit-bending workshop with the band CMKT4. I’m really looking forward to this event. I hope I meet all of the local musical odd-balls out there who find the proliferation of pointless electronica (used here to denote a genre of gadget, not music) fascinating, disturbing, or compelling enough integrate these devices into their art.

 

After this event, I will get back to producing the kind of vapid pointless pap that you’ve come to expect from me here. Maybe I’ll even get back to Zombie Rodoni’s write-in campaign for the Second District Supes race. I don’t know, I’ll find something to bitch about. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you pitiful drones desperately seeking sanctuary from your dreary lives in my words. I’m here for you.

 

I know you are out there. I know you count on me. This blog has averaged over one-thousand hits a day for the last two-and-a-half months. Almost a hundred people an hour, and over thirty thousand people a month come here, for what, I don’t know, but I appreciate every one of you, even if you just look at the pictures. I won’t let you down.

 

But right now, I just want to keep writing long enough to use up this disposable pen. I need the spring from it for this electro-acoustic cigar-box drum-machine I’m building. I know these cheap disposable promotional pens really don’t have much ink in them, so if I just keep writing, I know I can use it up. Then I can take the pen apart to get the little spring I need, with a clear conscience.

 

I feel inspired, for the first time in years, to make music. This time with an odd collection of hand-made, circuit-bent, highly idiosyncratic instruments. I don’t have any idea how to get people to listen to my music, and I know that even if I could get people to listen to my music, most people won’t like it. I won’t let that stop me from making it though.

 

Like all the world needs is more fucking music,… played on jerry-rigged children’s toys, no less. Some of you might wonder what I find so appealing about these annoying, noisy, electronic toys. Not only do they sound profoundly unmusical, they’re ugly, they’re plastic, and they’re full of unrecoverable toxins and heavy metals. They offend everything natural and wholesome in this world. Even children don’t really like them much, and parents hate them, which is why you find so many of them in our thrift stores.

 

By all accounts, these things should never exist. No one should ever buy for a child, a toy that makes electronic noise whenever the child pushes a button. Kids should have to work harder than that to make noise. Banging pots and pans, screaming at the top of their lungs or jumping up and down all take some energy, and will eventually tire the child out. Noisy electronic toys make it too easy for kids to be loud and annoying, the way cell-phones make it too easy for adults to be loud and annoying.

 

Though I consider myself a musician, I don’t care much for music, at least not the music of our culture. I don’t like classical music much, because I can smell the tuxedos. I don’t like country and western or bluegrass, because I can taste the alcohol, incest and bigotry. I don’t like rock, because its too loud and stupid, and I don’t like techno, because it has no soul. I don’t care for gospel, because it reminds me too much of church, and I don’t like reggae because it reminds me of the blood-sucking dope-yuppies who ruined this place. No, I prefer something else. Something I find in little black blobs on circuit boards embedded in brightly colored plastic toys from China, or in the spring in this pen.

 

To me, these little machines sound more brutal than death-metal, more comical than Spike Jones’ Jazz and more transcendent than trip-hop. They are more sophisticated than the Space Shuttle, and yet they produce the most crass and banal sounds ever heard on planet Earth. In many ways, these circuit-bent toys reflect what we have become as a society: a cheap imitation of an infantile fantasy, hopelessly short-circuited, and malfunctioning spectacularly. At least that’s how they sound to me.

Or maybe I just love the sound of electricity and the smell of solder. Either way, I killed off that pen about two paragraphs ago. Now I can get to work on my drum machine. Adios!

P.S. I just recorded an interview with Terri Clemmentson of KMUD news in which I demonstrated a circuit-bent teddy-bear’s innards, and a baby rattle miked with a CMKT4 contact microphone. Here’s a short etude for these two instruments.

 

CMKT4 to Lead Circuit-Bending Workshop/Concert in Garberville

This press release went out to all of our local papers last week:

CMKT4 to Lead Circuit-Bending Workshop/Concert in Garberville

On Monday, May 21, 2012, the Southern Humboldt Amateur Radio Club or SHARC, presents a circuit-bending workshop led by the Dekalb, Ill based circuit-bending band, CMKT4. The event begins at 5pm with a potluck dinner, and the workshop will start at 6pm. Circuit-bending, a term coined by Q Reed Ghazala in the 1980′s refers to the art of rewiring battery powered electronic devices to exploit their hidden potential. Since then, circuit-bending has grown into a musical movement.

The workshop teaches skills like soldering, wiring, and creative re-purposing, and encourages everyone to experiment, and have fun with electronics. Each participant will build a CMKT4 contact microphone that can be used as a high quality acoustic instrument pickup, or to turn nearly nearly any object into an electrified musical instrument.

The cost of the workshop is $15 and includes all of the parts, a comic book instruction manual, use of all necessary tools and supplies, and expert instruction. CMKT4 will also perform a set of original circuit-bent music to conclude the event.

Circuit-bending is a great way to learn about electronics while having fun. The Southern Humboldt Amateur Radio Club encourages everyone to explore and enjoy electronics safely. Ham radio is a great way to learn more about electronics, and to meet others who share that interest. Call Jack Foster at 923-3700 for more information about this event.

 

Mother’s Day Reconsidered

Mother’s Day Reconsidered

 

Don’t you think, that for a planet with over 7 billion people on it, a day to celebrate motherhood is just a little out of date. Don’t we really need a day to celebrate child-free women? Shouldn’t they be the ones to get the praise and appreciation, and tax breaks, and WWIC (Women Without Infants or Children) food aid, and housing vouchers, so they can afford their own apartment without shacking up with some jerk who will inevitably knock them up? I mean, I don’t want to condemn the selfish, irresponsible, dimwits who have the nerve to reproduce in the face of global ecosystem collapse. I just think that, women especially, who choose not to reproduce, deserve special gratitude from society as a whole.

First off, all manner of birth control should be made available to them, free of charge, paid for by a tax on disposable diapers. Abortion should be subsidized, and available free of charge, on demand, up to the 12^th trimester. That way, women could have a baby, you know, to have that “mothering” experience, but when the the kid is two and she gets sick of it, she can ditch it with no hassle.

Second, if a child-free woman wants to smoke a cigarette, parents should have to take their kids elsewhere if they want to protect them from second-hand smoke. Same for cussing, drug use, nudity, and public displays of affection and sexuality. Just get your fucking kids the hell out of there and don’t give anybody a hard time about it.

Third, restaurants, airlines, public buildings, and hotels, if they allow children at all, should confine families with small children to a dank, stuffy, soundproof section painted in primary colors and littered with disease ridden toys, while the rest of us enjoy our meals, flights, court dates and overnight stays without the unnecessary disturbance.

Fourth, we need a new holiday to celebrate child-free women. This should be a hell of a lot more fun than Mother’s Day. Forget the sappy cards, flowers, and champagne brunch. Instead, we celebrate everything a child-free woman can do, that would otherwise get her labeled an unfit mother. It’ll be like Mardi-Gras with condoms instead of beads.

Fifth, child-free free women deserve more recognition for the contribution they make in the workplace. Child-free women should get paid time-off to travel, take up skydiving or just party. We’ll call it non-maternity leave. Any woman who works at a job for 5yrs, without having a baby, should get it.

Finally, remember the words of Frank Zappa: “If your kids ever realize how lame you are, they will murder you in your sleep.” Your kids have good reasons to hate you. From the degraded planet we leave them to the dysfunctional culture we inflict on them, they are pretty well fucked. So, whatever your kids do to you, just know that you’ve got it coming. Unfortunately, they’ll probably just take out their resentments on their own kids, because they’ll grow up every bit as dumb and cruel as their parents.

Child-free women on the other hand, deserve the best of what’s left of what life has to offer. Its time we recognized them for their wisdom, compassion for the earth, and for just how hot they are.

 

 

On The Money, The Poverty Line

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working-Class

The Poverty Line

“The poor will always be with us, but it wouldn’t take that long to exterminate the rich.”

WJSHS (What Jesus Should Have Said)

 

We hear about “the poverty line” a lot on the news. The number of children living below the poverty line, the number of families below the poverty line, jobs that pay “below poverty line” wages have all made headlines recently. What does “the poverty line” really mean?

Allegedly, this is how much it costs to get by in this country. “The poverty line” is an official statistic compiled by the OECD.  The poverty line doesn’t take into account things like the cost of housing, food, health care, utilities, transportation.  No, instead, the poverty line is based on 60% of median household income.  Ultimately, it adds up to a pretty good chunk of change.  In 2010 the poverty line for a single adult under 65 was $11,344, a lot more than I made that year.

 

While people need housing, no one needs a landlord. So a lot of the income it takes to reach “the poverty line”, just goes to greedy bloodsuckers bent on taking advantage of us. If we could get rid of greed, I think poverty would evaporate before our eyes. Really, we don’t need a metric to tell us that we are poor, especially if it only tells us that we make less than other people.  We need a metric that tells us when we are being greedy.

I suggest we use the same metric, but call it “the greed line”. Certainly “the poverty line” doesn’t cut it as a gauge of economic hardship. Some people living at the poverty line have miserable lives, while others, like myself, enjoy an enviable lifestyle. Ultimately, income doesn’t have as much to do with how happy you are, as does your health, or how you spend your time. So, we might as well call it “the greed line”, and get some practical use out of it.

 

If we want to know about economic hardship in this country, I suggest another metric all together. Call it “the slavery line” “The slavery line would take into account how much of your time and energy it takes to reach “the greed line”. If you can make “the greed line” income in less than 25 hrs a week, you’re living pretty well. If you have to work 40- 50 hours a week to reach “the poverty line” your life sucks. If you work more than 50 hours a week, at any income, you qualify as a slave. If you earn an income above “the greed line” you are a slave to greed. If you earn below the greed line, you are just a slave. It’s about time we call a slave “a slave” in this country, and it’s about time we abolish slavery in this country as well.

 

In cultures that have survived for tens of thousands of years, greed is considered a very bad thing, at best, a childish thing to be outgrown before adulthood. It’s time we outgrew it too. To outgrow greed, we need to understand it. To understand greed, we need to know where it begins, and greed begins where poverty ends. So, it makes as much sense to call it “The greed line” as “the poverty line”.

 

Actually, both of these terms have too many negative connotations. Both “the greed line” and “the poverty line” make you want to move away from them. You don’t want to be anywhere near “the poverty line”. Heavens no! You want to be well above it, but you don’t want to be accused of crossing “the greed line”. No, you want to stay below that. So, how can you live above “the poverty line” but below “the greed line? You can’t. That’s capitalism’s dirty little secret.

No, we need to call it something else altogether. Let’s just call it “enough”.

 

More Circuit Bending Stuff

More Circuit Bending Stuff

Alright, its only 12 days away from the CMKT4 Circuit Bending Workshop in Garberville, so I want to keep hyping it.  Here’s a video of circuit-bender, musician and instrument builder Tim Kaiser showing you how much fun you can have with a contact microphone, like the one you can build at the workshop.

Here Q Reed Ghazala, talks about circuit-bending, a term he coined.

Here Mike Patton of Mr Bungle talks about circuit-bending.

Here’s a demo of a circuit-bent Casio SA5.  I love the sound of this thing!

And some people get quite carried away with circuit-bending

Does this look like fun to you?  I hope I see you at the CMKT4 circuit-bending workshop on Monday, May 21 at the Veterans Hall in Garberville, potluck dinner at 5pm workshop starts at 6pm.  $15 workshop fee covers parts, supplies and instruction, and you will leave with a high quality contact microphone.

Finally, a circuit-bent Furby

 

Bin Laden’s Porn

Bin Laden’s Porn

 

I heard today that, since it’s now been one year since the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abatabad, the Federal Government plans to release to the public, many of the documents seized in the raid in which Bin Laden was killed. I’m sure some people wonder what we could learn about the Al Quaida terrorist network, and how much of a threat they pose to our national security, but not me. I have only one question about the documents seized by Seal Team 6 one year ago: What kind of porn was Osama into?

 

You can tell a lot about a guy by his porn collection. Is he into au-natural Swedish women in outdoor settings, or does he like raunchy Hustlereque genital closeups? Does he like Ukrainian women in leather and latex, or does he like to see Japanese women tied in knots? Do you think Osama leered at American porn? Do you think he was looking at tanned buxom American blondes stretched out on SoCal beaches, or a severe-looking Manhattan dominatrix in stiletto heels? Maybe he’s into “Sploshing”, a kind of British porn involving messy food. We need to know.

 

Is there any Arab porn? I suppose there must be, but I’ve never seen it. What is that like? One thing I remember about the protest marches in SF before the Iraq invasion, is that there sure are a lot of hot Arab women. I’m sure some of them could be persuaded to pose nude, maybe on a nice rug with big smiles and come hither eyes, or with a ball gag and dildo. I don’t know, I am just speculating here.

 

Do you think women pose with guns in Arab porn? I’ll bet that’s a popular theme. I’m sure it would be more popular here in the US, but some Americans are just not that comfortable with firearms. We’d rather watch women rub up against cars, or trucks or motorcycles, or backhoes or mufflers or even garden fertilizer, as I saw depicted recently. I wonder if arms dealers in Kabul send out promotional calendars featuring olive skinned beauties posing with Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs. Just wondering….

 

I really think it would help bridge the cultural gap between the Muslim and the Christian worlds, if they made Osama’s porn public. It would remind us all just how much we all have in common. We both embrace sexually repressed, dysfunctional fundamentalist beliefs. If we also both embrace the commercial exploitation of depersonalized, dehumanized and commodified sexual imagery, that is a lot to have in common. You’d think we’d get along better.

 

In fact, they should have a huge art show. Osama’a collection won’t be enough on its own, but by now, millions of pornographic images have been seized from defrocked Catholic priests. I’m sure that would make some show all on its own, but they should collect porn from priests, rabbis, mullahs, sheiks, lamas, yogis, zen masters, and any other free agent holy men they can find. Call the show “The Porn of the Pious”.

 

Curate the collection in a way that preserves the diversity and breadth of clerical pornography, and presents a selection that could be viewed comfortably in an afternoon. Well, “comfortably” might be too much to ask, but at least they could frame it, light it well, have a reception, serve Chablis and Brie, and let people decide for themselves. Doncha think?

 

I’d go. That collection would represent the most private thoughts, and deepest desires of some of the most trusted and influential men on the planet. How could anyone deny the cultural significance of such a show? Can you even imagine a more culturally relevant art show?

 

When I said “men” there, I don’t mean to imply sexism. If, and I have never heard of such a thing, but if, some woman has managed to achieve a clerical position in one of the few religions that don’t discriminate against women, and been arrested with a heap of pornography, I want to see her collection too.

 

I can imagine that some former porn star, who found Jesus and then went on to become a preacher might want to hold on to some mementos of her former life, but I’m just fantasizing here. I know some women do enjoy and collect pornography, but not many, and not many of them also harbor clerical aspirations. While I fear that women will be under-represented, in terms of their clerical porn collections, I expect that they will be well represented, in terms of the subject matter therein, at least I hope so.

 

This show just might turn out to be a bit more disturbing than that, but I won’t speculate. I just think we should all see it. We should all see what the people who tell us to “look to God” all over the world, really like to look at. I think we’d find it enlightening, perhaps even instructive.