J'aime Paris! J'aime Dionysus et Saint-Denis!

One day I will walk in this plaza, and speak French like a Parisian.

I believe the universe wants me to visit France again. It has been several decades since I've been there. But now that my daughter lives in a suburb of Paris, I expect that the time is growing near for a reunion.

My daughter is in love with a French filmmaker. In France, unlike America, the government is generous with those in the arts, and thus a filmmaker can actually make a living. They are young and in love and I can think of no better place to be than Paris.

Oh thank Heaven for little girls.

It should come as no surprise to those who believe that the universe does drop clues as to what we should or should not do, that my first name is also the name of the patron saint of France. I will have to go to the basilique de Saint-Denis, because I may have been him in another lifetime.

Not that I wanted to be a martyr, but it is nice to know my name has a deep spiritual connection to France. As I understand the story of Saint-Denis, he was so head strong that after he was beheaded, he picked up his head and gave a sermon as he walked along.

I think I saw this in a Monty Python film.

Here is what I found on Wikipedia about the patron saint of France:

Saint Denis (also called Dionysus, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250. After his head was chopped off, Denis was said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way, making him one of many cephalophores in hagiology. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as patron of Paris, France and as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. The medieval and modern French name "Denis" derives from the ancient name Dionysus.


And like any good wordsmith, I had to proceed further into the past to learn about Dionysus. I knew it had to do with being the god of wine, but Wikipedia provided yet more gems about my fabled first name.


Dionysus ( Greek: Διόνυσος, Dionysos) was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC byMycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; and in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theater.


The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish". In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and ithyphallic, bearded satyrs. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.

I had read another description that related that Dionysus was not only the Greek god of wine but also that his name meant "One whose heart is made glad with wine."

I was once told in a lecture hall at a university that I looked like a Greek. I also was told that by a Greek woman from Melbourne, Australia. So somewhere way back in the past I had a Greek connection. I can honestly tell you that it doesn't take more than two or three glasses of good red wine to put a smile on my face. At a certain point I lose my head altogether and  I carry my head around with me and it tells people the history of Paris.

But for the life of me I couldn't tell you the history of Paris without imbibing the wine and losing my head. Maybe it was the wine and the famous French cheeses that sustained Saint-Denis after his head was lopped off. I have been schooled in the fact that cheese should be eaten before drinking wine to slow the absorption of alcohol.


Yes, I am sure it was the cheese that enabled him to walk around after he lost his head. This is why I alway carry a cheese in the pockets of my Pink Panther rain jacket. 


Saint-Denis a indiqué pendant qu'il tenait sa propre tête : " Je suis désolé, je semble avoir perdu ma tête au-dessus d'un femme. L'amour transforme un homme en saint." 


And what is Paris without a love story?

And now a word about our appearances.

I wish I could say I was without flaws, that I did nothing that offended anyone. But I know this would be a lie. We all do something, often unintentionally, that bothers others.

When I found out I snored I was horrified. I didn't want to be a person who snored; I wanted to be a person who slept silently and looked good in the morning. But what can you do? Yes, of course, you can get surgery, or wear a pincher thing on your nose when you sleep. But who wants to?

Oftentimes we are unaware of how we appear to others. We meander through life unaware that we may be doing things that offend others, like our spouses, for example. We may be blissfully unaware that people are gossiping and snickering behind our backs at the office. 

Some people, god bless them, love us so much they tell us point blank what is wrong with us. Often they make it their life's work to do this. This life work is generally called "married life." While we had no awareness of our plethora of problems going into the marriage, we soon learn that we are entirely freakish in the extent of our problems. 

The test of any relationship is to remain calm when the one we sleep with says things that cut us as clean as a freshly sharpened machete. We must remain open to their suggestions and they of ours. When our mate suggests other wardrobes, and mentions that Bill and Beth don't want to invite us to dinner because I habitually chew with my mouth open, I must accept that she is only mentioning it not to hurt me but to correct wrong behavior, so we can live blissfully in the land of love.

However, often those who love us want us to change, or look like a movie star or former lover, and this is not okay. You can ascertain this almost immediately when you first go to their place and see a framed photo of a person who looks like you sitting beside their bed. If you find that someone has hooked up with you on the rebound, due to your resemblance to their former lover, you should run as quickly as possible for the door. Short of plastic surgery, you will never fill that person's shoes. Their template will hang over you like a dull gray shadow for all eternity.

On the other hand, if our soulmate wants us to lose that bulge around our middles, and they will help us clip our abundant nose hair, and pluck the hair growing from our ears and moles, schedule an appointment to have our third nipple removed, or take us to the body wax place, and afterwards take us to eat tiramisu by the wharf, then we can be pretty certain they love us like no other. This is their life's work, let them do their magic. They will still love us if we look like death warmed over. They will put up with our awful maladies and we of them. This is true love. Your soulmate is in it for the long haul, and if they have to haul your behind to the plastic surgeon, let them! let them! Accept no imitations. Listen to them and do their bidding and later give them airline tickets to Hawaii and give them a boob job, if they are women, and buy them a DVD of great moments in sports, if they are men. Your call.

As long as they are nice about it, and say please, let them make their suggestions. 

Physical imperfections are sometimes correctable, but it's the personality foibles that are the biggest problems. Listen when friends tell us we are being ignorant, listen when they say we can't have another gin and tonic, that we shouldn’t sing in public, or try to speak French to the in-laws from Quebec until we can actually speak French. 

We all want to be prettier, more charming, and ultimately - more lovable. God help the single people like me who don't have someone who loves them enough to tell them they have skin flakes on the tips of their ears, or that our fingernails look like something out of a horror movie.

We must cherish those that tell us that we shouldn’t cover our bald spots by swooping a twelve inch lock of hair from somewhere near one ear, or suggest where we might get hair transplants, or that there is a cure for vitiligo, or mention we have a piece of cilantro that could choke a horse stuck between our teeth, or suggest that Roasted Garlic is not a good brand of cologne, or that there are other perfumes besides Odor de Swine.

If our loved ones suggest we try a new hairstyle, or that we purchase a more hip pair of glasses so people will like us, we should listen. They simply are looking out for us; they want us to be popular. And when we say to the ones we love: "I like that your hair is jet black even though you are sixty-seven, but darling, your nose hairs are white as snow," or, "your toenails are so yellow I'm thinking of trying to hock them as gold to make our mortgage payment," we can expect them to not reach for a meat cleaver or vase to hurl at us, but for tears to well up in their eyes in gratitude. And if tears flow it is not because they are offended but because they know they are loved with unabashed love that stares into their imperfect faces in the mornings and says, "Honey, you have a wad of eye junk that's really grossing me out. Can I pluck it out for you?" or, "Your breath smells like a poopy diaper. May I get you a breath mint before we make love?"

We mustn't ever lose our sense of originality. When we cannot change something about ourselves, we must not cower in disgrace and humiliation. We must mount up on our roofs and use a bullhorn to tell the world, "Yeah, that's right. I'm a freak. I like to braid my back  hair, so what of it?" or, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm freaking proud of my two foot long Jesus fish on my freaking car!" or, "I have man-boobs and I reek of truffles, so what?" And your neighbors and your coworkers, if they love you, will accept you for your candid outburst and your confident stride.

If we want to dress like a disco queen, or a drag queen, or as a Druid then it is our right. If your woman likes her legs to be more hairy than most men's legs, and won't use the defoliant you've placed by her nightstand, then I say - let her be hairy. We mustn't be too rigid about our suggestions to those we care about. Who honestly gives a darn if our neighbors think we are strange because we wear clothes that aren’t hip enough for the neighborhood? Whose business is it if we like our restored 1974 Ford Pinto, and won't trade it in for a used BMW? Maybe we want to wear our shirts tucked in instead of out. Maybe we find women's shoes more comfortable than men's shoes. Perhaps we like eating our potatoes raw. What is important is that we love who we are and if we cannot change to suit everyone then we cannot change and we shouldn't have to. And we shouldn't. Besides. So there.

Some who meander aren’t lost. Vive originality. But if you feel the need to say something to your loved ones about their bizarre laugh or their butt cracks showing when they wear their high water pants, say it nicely, won't you? We must be careful not to push the wrong buttons, because it isn't so much what we say, it's how we say it.

Finding my organic herd.

I have become an organic evangelist. It is a revelation because I just thought I was an artistic type who was picky about what he eats. I didn't realize I had been grazing with the wrong herds.

I have had a healthy paranoia about the products on the shelves for at least twenty years. But after my colonoscopy I decided to cut down on red meat, particularly livestock that ate feeds that weren’t organic. I avoided farm-raised fish, or those that were caught in polluted rivers, for the same reason.

I accepted the fact that I enjoyed an occasional chicken enchilada, or filet of Alaskan salmon. I didn’t quit eating free-range buffalo burgers. I just cut down my intake, and made sure about the sources. One day I may try being a vegetarian, but probably not. I love a good organic salad, but I doubt I'll ever be a convert to tofu.

I habitually read the ingredients list on packaged foods, and on cosmetic and personal care items, to the disdain of my family. Their logic is that poison taken in small doses won’t kill a person. But if I don’t like what I read on a label, I don’t buy the product. This watchdog mentality includes the paints, household cleaners, and laundry soap I purchase.  When I am at a traffic light I make sure the vents are closed so I don’t breathe the pollutants coming from the tailpipes of the cars around me. When I buy a shirt or pair of pants I make sure it has natural fibers that aren’t derived from petroleum.

I don’t want to compromise anymore. The world is a polluted place and I don’t want to lower my standards to assist companies that don’t care about living things, to prosper, by buying their products.

I don’t know exactly when I became more aware of these things, but I think I had my epiphany in the mid-1980s. It really hit home when my parents died. My father regularly worked with toxic solvents and paints in his auto-body work, and my mother thought eating red meat seven days a week was fine. Dad died of Alzheimer’s and mom died of colon and liver cancer. I grew up in an agricultural area, in Hood River, Oregon, where most of the orchard owners died early, due to the pesticides they sprayed on their trees. I was elated when I saw a line of organic fruit juices are being produced in Hood River.

Lately, (I do wonder why it took me so long), I have decided that if I ever get a regular job again it will be with a company that cares about the health of the planet, and about the health of all living things. If it is a food company, they must make only organic products and donate to causes I believe in.

It’s not so easy being an organic evangelist. You have to be careful about who you hang out with. You can’t lower your standards and hang out with people who eat heavily processed foods. You will offend those who drink mainstream carbonated beverages, the hot dog lovers, white bread eaters, and polyester clothing devotees. People will hurl insults about tofu at you, and if they learn that you secretly eat Twinkies at midnight they will tell everyone of your hypocrisy. Being an organic evangelist requires constant vigilance. It is not for the weak willed who will capitulate to fit in with their friends.

Being human is all about finding your niche. I have found mine, and I’m letting my freak flag fly. I don’t know where the organic people congregate, but I suppose it is in small enclaves where the air is pure and the way of life is mellow. I hear the siren call to live off the land and grow my own vegetables. Why has it taken me this long to realize this is who I am? Because I have spent much of my life trying to fit in and it has made me unhappy. I am simply seeking my bliss.

Human beings are mostly herd oriented. We want to fit in; we want to be appreciated. We don’t want people talking behind our backs. If I weren’t into organics it would be something else that people wouldn’t like about me. We all do things and have viewpoints that run contrary to what some people expect. This is why some people get along well with some people and hate others. Our task is to join the herd that likes us. I am looking for my organic herd. 

The Wonders of Gorilla Glue.

My friend, the writer, says I should be a spokesperson for Gorilla Glue. I am enamored with this wonderful glue, however I must caution any novice user to be very careful about getting it on your hands or clothes. It will give a whole new meaning to that film "Stuck on you."

And you thought Super Glue was king of the world.

What is Gorilla Glue made of? My guess is it is some form of caramel apple formula gone mad. I think someone in Wonka-Land came up with it. Maybe it was Gene Wilder's idea. It would explain his strange hair. He used to have normal hair until he went into the lab and came out with Gorilla Glue. It would also explain why Gilda Radner was so attracted to him. Gene: "The Oompa-Loompa's can be FIXED! Gilda, hand me that bottle of Gorilla Glue!"

CAUTION: Don't touch anything you or your significant other hold dear, like the fender of your gal's Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce, or that mink stole in the closet, or the fine china her mother gave you, or anything you don't want bonded, or you may find yourself in a legal battle. When you don't need Gorilla Glue, keep it in a cabinet away from the kids and your  in-laws, and anyone with dementia. It is not a toy! This is the science of glue-ology!

Often, after having solved yet another impossible problem with Gorilla Glue, I launch into an impromptu TV spot that goes something like this: "Is your life falling apart? Can't hold your marriage together? Tired of flip-flops with too much flip, and not enough flop? Got something that has lost its staying power? Use Gorilla Glue! New improved Gorilla Glue makes everything like new! Got a loose thinga-ma-jigger? Is your whatcha-ma-callit making you blue? Get Gorilla Glue!"

My friend says I should take photos of all the things I have fixed with Gorilla Glue. She says I should take a photo of me by the Gorilla Glue display in Ace Hardware. She wants me to become a spokesperson for the company, and thinks they might support me like Nike supports athletes.

I am not so sure. It is not that I am unwilling, I just figure it can't be that easy. Just because I like a product doesn't make me special. Or does it?

I am going to write to Gorilla Glue, and see what they say. If it worked for Jared Fogle, why not me? I might even get along with Fogle, if we met at a spokesperson convention. I would walk up to him with a Subway foot long and say, "Hey, bro, awesome foot long!"

When I first began using Gorilla Glue I was unaware of its strengths. I simply wanted to fix my European type sandals. So without comprehending the amount to use, I put a good bit of it on the heels which were doing a lot of flipping and flopping. Then I put the sandals on the floor and went to bed.

In the morning I looked down at the sandals and my first thought was that an alien life-form had begun to eat them. The Gorilla Glue had expanded five times its size, just like the small type on the back of the bottle explained that it would. Thankfully, I was able to trim off the excess glue with a razor blade.

But after that I was rolling. I used it all over the house, which is built in the Cotswold style. Back then, in jolly old England, they did not have Gorilla Glue. If they had they might have bonded the bricks and stone with Gorilla Glue. "Bloody well right!" they would have said.

I will get back to you with what the makers of Gorilla Glue reply to my sticky note, er, my email.

Salvage Zombies of Atlanta.

I flew to Hotlanta to make my dreams happen. I had a couple of reality show ideas, plenty of screenplays, and at least four completed novels to sell. My plan, and trust me I had a plan, was to get in, get out, and get back to the Pacific Northwest or to Tahiti, and I was leaning towards Tahiti.

But once I arrived in Hotlanta things sort of unwound. I did everything I'd planned to do to get things going. I had the ideal set up: I would help a fellow writer fix up her second house, the one that was going to cause her financial ruin if she didn't sell it. In return, I would get a free base to operate from.

I toted that bale, I fixed a variety of problems in the house (ah, the wonders of Gorilla Glue!), painted walls, doors, closets, and ceilings. I walked the woman's dogs, cooked her lots of dinners, made a lot of phone calls and emails, and in the end came up empty.

That's when I started to wonder about the sanity of my great plan, and realize my boat had a hole in it and I might drown. But then I realized that it wasn't all my fault; I didn't have to flagellate myself, which is a relief to any former Catholic. It was the economy that was making people not return my calls, and answer my emails. The South had turned cold. Hiring companies had a more conservative, skeptical attitude than five years ago. They are keenly aware that there are many more qualified people out there who are about to lose their shirts. It has become a buyers market. They can be extra choosy.

I figured manual labor would assuage my disappointment, and help my friend, who was about to commit hari kari. I asked her if she had thought about taking antidepressants, and she said she wasn't suicidal, she just didn't want to live anymore. "Right," I said.

I took about a ton of junk to the top of the house's driveway last night. I had the ability, like most ants, to lift several times my body weight. I would be the guy who would lift the car off of you if the jack slipped. It is a genetic thing.

It was trash day today, and the woman's garage was packed with stuff no one wanted. Several tons had already been sent into the Never Never. Even the Australians across the street had myths about all the stuff I'd set on the street for the garbage men to haul away.

This morning I awakened early; the mockingbirds were doing their imitations of creaking hinges and babies crying in the woods behind the house.  It was then I realized that among the ancient doors, sheets of very heavy glass, handles for tools that no longer were made in the Western Hemisphere, and tables made by logic deprived peoples, was a nicely painted molding I could use along one wall in the garage to dress it up. It was only six-thirty in the morning; I figured I would find the molding still on the pile. But after searching for ten minutes I discovered someone had taken it in the narrow window between eleven in the evening and six in the morning. The suspects: nocturnal people, aka: insomniacs; better known as Salvage Zombies.

While I pondered how the zombies worked, a beat up old red pickup truck pulled to the curb. A dark black man got out and he began looking longingly at the pile.

I said, "I had a plank out here and now it's gone."

"The zombies took it," he said. "They get it in the night."

"Zombies?"

"Yeah."

I noticed his interest in the junk. I said, "See anything you like?"

"Yes, sir," he said, "I'm wondering if you have any metal I could have. You see, I salvage metal.  I take it to a place by the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium and they pay me for it. That's how I survive."


I introduced myself and he said his name was Henry. I asked him how he got into this line of work. He said he had been laid off so many times he had déjà vu. Then he had the epiphany that the only solution was to be self-employed because, while we are often our own worst enemies, we don't bite the hand that feeds us. Normally that hand is attached to our own bodies, unless of course we are salvage zombies, in which case it is often walking around on its own in the street at night, like that hand, ‘Thing,’ in the old Addams Family TV show.

Henry said that the metal he takes to the recycling center is crushed and shipped overseas to countries such as Japan, where they make it into products such as cars and the shells of audio equipment. So I said, "You mean to tell me that the next time I buy a car from Japan that I'll be driving around in a reconstituted pile of junk like this?

"That's right," Henry said.

"Cool," I said. "So you're not a salvage zombie?"

Henry said, "No, I'm not a hard core night zombie if that's what you mean. I'm a day zombie. Those freaks work all night and sleep in the daytime. They're scary. I have seen them before."

 "You mean," I said, "They are like the creatures who lived below ground like in the book by H.G. Wells?"

"Don't know no H.G. Wells," said Henry. "All I know is I start early and quit early, 'cause I am a daytime salvage man. I ain't no zombie, no sir. Never gonna be one of those."

I liked Henry. I liked him because he took the bull by the horns. I think he was swell. I helped him load all the metal from my pile. I held the heavy doors up so he could pull out some old metal window screens. I said to him, "Henry, when we get to the Promised Land, will you stand up for me and tell God I helped you out? I'm depending on you Henry, to stand up for me when that big celestial finger is pointing at me and saying how I screwed up. I want you to raise your hand and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, but this here man is all right.’"

Henry said he would do that for me. And then Henry and his metal laden truck drove off into the dawn.

Weird situations in wine bars.

I am, admittedly, not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to understanding the dating game. Give me a blank piece of paper I’m a creative powerhouse. I can come up with an ad campaign; no problem. But sometimes I think I don’t have a clue how to find the perfect mate, or understand the clues dropping around me. But I am not alone. 

In the back pages of our local weekly paper they have a personals section. Women are seeking women, and men are seeking men. Couples are seeking candidates for threesomes. It’s total bacchanalia. The paper has cleaned up a bit in the past two years. They used to have ads for escort services.

I avoid this section normally, but occasionally you see some pretty creative copywriting. The general impression I come away with is that people are terribly lonely. Now multiply that by six billion and you’ll have some idea of the enormity of the problem. 

I have never placed an ad there, nor am I ever likely to. But admittedly, from time to time, when I have a nice conversation with some woman, say, in the grocery by the broccoli, or while looking at vintage clothes, I wonder if they felt attracted to me too, and whether they’ve placed an ad to me in the ‘I Saw You’ section. 

Three years ago, on a visit to Virginia, I met a young woman who I felt attracted to. It came to nothing but polite conversation on a sultry night in Charlottesville. When I got home I placed an ad in the local weekly there. To my surprise, the woman responded. We spoke on the phone. Now it was my move. All I had to do was say I was building a second home there and ask if she would like to rent from me, or that I was sailing my yacht to the Virgin Islands and would she like me to swing by and pick her up. I didn’t, so that was the end of it. Most women are more practical than men; they don’t want a long distance relationship. Money is the easiest way to bridge physical distance, though ultimately, it can’t bridge the emotional distance between men and women. Experts say our brains are different. We are hemispheres apart.

But still, money has power over most women. Why? As much as the world has changed technologically, women are still constrained by time. They only have a certain window to decide to have a child or two, (unless of course they decide to adopt.) Often they sacrifice their careers to have children. They desire a stable financial situation to have a child. And who can blame them? Childbirth is expensive, sending a child through college even more so. If I had a child growing inside me, I’d be worried about money too, particularly in this economy. This is why women are attracted to financially successful men. Men, on the other hand, can father a child when they are ninety. We don’t have small windows of fertility; we can impregnate any day of the week. The typical man, if offered sex by a reasonably attractive woman, (a sliding scale based on the perspective of the man), will rarely turn it down. This is why I think women are smarter than men, like cats are smarter than dogs. Women are hardwired in their DNA to want children and to rear them in safety and financial security, for the propagation of the species. Men, on the other hand, let their smaller heads, the ones in their pants, rule their larger ones. It was God’s idea, not ours, ladies, we can’t fight our nature.

All this obvious stuff has become acutely clear in my five years of bachelorhood. I can’t pursue young women, because most want children. I’ve already had two children, and I’m done. A number of the older women I’ve met are bitter from past relationships. It’s hard to find that one in a million gal with a sunny disposition and no axe to grind. Most of the best ones are married, and some are even happily married. But people are still lonely, and this is why we behave the way we do. This is why personal ads are the rage. This is why online dating sites are chock full of photos posted by people that show themselves five years younger than they are. People regularly lie about their ages. The older you get the more desperate you get. When you are trying to attract a mate the last thing most want to do is to show their cellulite, wrinkles, sagging boobs, fallen arches, bald spots, or moles. We all want to be flaming peacocks. Honesty is the last thing desperate people attempt. But ultimately, you want someone who, as the father in the film, Juno, said: “... thinks the sun shines out your ass, and loves you for who you are.”

Sex makes a person’s head spin, but money, like the song goes, ‘makes the world go ‘round. With money, you can look like a walking cadaver and have a blonde on each arm, but you might not have love. Something’s gotta give, and love often does. I am remembering Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer. Believing that money is what turns a girl’s head, he goes to get a job at a bank because that’s where the money is. Drew Barrymore makes him realize that money, in the long run, doesn’t matter as much as love and commitment. Oh if only it were that simple.

I am not the world’s most savvy person about sex. I like sex of course; but since my divorce, it’s not happening for me. But, being a man, I am excited by the word or prospects of understanding the word. Thus, when I saw a Craig’s list ad for a client here in town that makes ‘love oil,’ I decided I had to meet them. I had no idea what I was in for.

I arrived early for my meeting. I had time to kill, so I began to notice the details of the foyer of the house I was sitting in. I noticed, like in the British film, Death at a funeral, the overtly sexual images on the walls. I found myself staring at a little table in front of me that had a display of the client’s product line. I got up and looked at the literature and the bottles. On the table by the bottles was a long black box with no markings. Curious, I opened the lid. The last thing I expected to find was a twelve-inch long dildo, a very realistic one mind you, lying inside. If I had been Columbo I would have remarked, ‘uh, there’s just one more thing,’ because that was quite a murder weapon. I shut the lid quickly and felt horrified. Then I laughed at my reaction; I guess my Catholic upbringing made me shy. My parents never talked about sex, but they produced seven children, so they knew something. But the thing in the box freaked me out. I had shut its lid quicker than you could say ‘holy mole!’ Then I backed away from the table and, feeling unclean, did a Barney Fife type head jerk to see if the perky secretary had seen me. She hadn’t. I had had my own personal Pleasantville moment. I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow. 

Just then the client rushed in the front door. She was a tall woman with dyed jet-black hair, in her early sixties, and jittery with caffeine. With barely a hello, she told me to come into her little office. I was still recuperating from what I’d seen. I had my large black portfolio box with me. It rested in my lap, my knees scrunched by her huge desk. Before I could begin, she began a nonstop spiel about her products being nonsexual, and how they were designed for arousal challenged women to help them enjoy good clean sex. I didn’t know much about sex but I sure knew it wasn’t clean. But when I tried to speak, she hushed me. I wanted to mention her décor in the foyer and the rather large thing in the box, but she was telling me she wanted someone, probably not me, to redesign the packaging to be more ergonomic, curving the bottle inwards like a woman’s waistline. She had not seen any of my work yet. After ten minutes I felt compelled to interrupt her. I brought out a jewelry brochure. She snatched it from my hands and said, ‘you’ve never done a personal care product design, have you? Hmm? I mean for a woman.” I shook my head to say no. I hadn’t, and I was certain I wasn’t about to either. Clearly, I was in the company of a man hater.

My elder brother had warned me of women like this when I moved to this strange town that I’ve called home for too long. He said, ‘there are a lot of angry women here.’ I didn’t know what he meant for over ten years. I was sheltered; I was married, what did I know about angry women? I thought all wives were angry; were there others? I had only met a few gay people in San Francisco; they seemed pretty normal except for their peculiar attractions. Gay-ness had a long history. I had some knowledge of the Ancient Greeks. I should have remembered the Greek story of the women of the island of Lesbos. 

I have become more urbane in these years of singleness. I know not all lesbians are angry. I am sure many are really quite happy with their lifestyle. ‘Not,’ as Jerry Seinfeld once said, ‘that there’s anything wrong with it.’ I say, live and let live. But my lack of experience has gotten me into embarrassing situations.

In Eugene, Oregon, where I lived for too long, they have a monthly event that happened on the First Friday of every month. One time I was at a local wine/coffee bar in downtown First Friday. I had already done the tour of the art galleries and had wine, cheese, and crackers. I was mellow and seated was at this coffee/wine bar to see a local group play, and perhaps see a few tango dancers. I took a seat in the back near two attractive ladies. The shorter one was very flirty with me and we had a nice little chat about a variety of things as we sipped our wines. Her companion, the taller, sullen one, was polite but reserved. I learned they were killing time before going to a concert. Then I made my faux pas. I said, “gee, it’s too bad your spouses couldn’t join you to see the concert.” I said this because I’d noted that both women wore wedding bands. The flirty one laughed, pointed to her tall companion, and exclaimed jubilantly, ‘she’s my spouse!’

Do these things happen to everyone, or am I God’s jester?

Art-O-Matic.

In the dark ages, when man was realizing that dark cave walls were not the smoothest surface for drawing on, and he and she were tiring of drawing bison and flightless birds, large black stone obelisks appeared. Primitve man beat on them with their primitive palette knives and lo, it came to pass that, ideas sprung into being like no time in man's history. First they invented fountain pens, conte crayons, woodblock printing, rock guitars, and sandblasting. Then a cave man made transfer type that you simply burnished to put on things. Cave man's sloping foreheads were ideal for affixing unintelligible words from these sheets. Before long, words like AKEE-TAH, and MA-WONGA became the in thing. But the type was not like cave people's primitve tattoo's, so they moved on. They made the wheel, and the internal combustion engine, but abandoned them when they couldn't figure out how to use them. 

In time they came up with quartz clocks, abacus with quartz beads, the Dewey Decimal System, five or six new languages, Blue-ray players, direct-mail, the curve ball, and shopping malls. The large brained humans showed prowess with these devices, but in time all were abandoned but the malls. Ten thousand years passed. The black obelisks summoned the brighter man-apes, and the nubile woman-apes, and taught them binary codes, that, if strung together well enough, would create the Internet. The Internet never caught on, but smoke signals caught on. Friends would send smoke signals to say they were headed to the malls to shop for bison burgers and elephant ear donuts. But just when man was on the verge of something big, bigger than hula hoops, badmitten or lacrosse, the Dark Ages descended. Knowledge passed out of man's cortex. The survivors, the dumb humans, the artistic ones, decided that smoking was a better hobby. They tried everything: rocks, dirt, various fruits, arcaic corn, wheat, rice, barley, oats, ganja, various flowers, grapevine segments, and the herb of choice - tobacco. The dumb apes got together and created vending machines out of shale and slate for their tobacco. In time metallurgy was born, and glitzy machines were everywhere in the malls of America, and every dive in every village. Everyone smoked - babies, toddlers, adults, senior citizens. Outdoor signage encouraged it. It was manly, and womanly to do it. But after a couple thousand years, the habit took its toll. The billboards fell into disrepair, and humanity forgot it was addicted to the noxious tobacco. A lone cave artist, tired of the foul tobacco and the resulting cough and cancer, started making small artwork to put inside the tired frames of the now discarded tobacco vending machines. He named the newly branded machines: Art-O-mat. Soon everyone was flocking back to the primitve malls to get his art from the machines. He bought a condo in Florida, and four blonde cave women, who looked like The Girls Next Door, moved in with him. They had a grand time. Time passed. Meteors struck the Earth. All was in ruins; the sun was smote by the plumes of volcanoes. The only thing that survived were a plethora of small mammals, and the vending machines to remind us of this ingenious cave man. We only know him by his first name: Art, or Arty. Modern artists took up his long dead hobby. The spirit of Art survived. The refurbished machines were reborn; they are everywhere, just like in the old days. There is talk in California of having them dispense ganja. But for now, for a pittance, you can put your money in them and get one-of-a-kind treasures. Recently an email came to me. My new friends in Nebraska are sending me art they got from an Art-O-Mat machine. I hope it's a piece of charcoal. I am in the mood to do some art.

Faith is like grafting.

Left to their own devices, carrots will embrace and intertwine, tree limbs will grow together and form natural ladders, and tomatoes will form animal shapes and the faces of human beings. Men and women, if they live in proximity to one another can form lasting friendships and fall in love, and form families. This is the way of nature, and of human nature. 

I went to church last Sunday for the first time in months. I’m not convinced of the necessity of church, though I’ve been a member of several churches in my life. I can’t say what I hoped to find on this particular Sunday; I know the Creator of the Universe isn’t bound by the confines of architecture or impressed by the drapery. I am sure, from God's vantage point, outside the realm of time, humanity's methods of worship must seem pathethic. Why put up with it? Why not drop the big asteroid?

I was surprised to discover the message from the pastor was about the church’s struggle to stay financially afloat. The economy has dried up many people’s natural desire to give, and tithes are at an all-time low. I had the thought that if I won the lottery how cool it would be to do a Peter Sellers type thing and start throwing handfuls of fifty dollar bills. A battery operated fan might help the bills flutter down on the people. People would be clamoring for the money, and probably there would be punches thrown, even by the pastor.

It would instantly solve the church’s problems. In theory, the money would make the church and its people bind together, intertwine and grow, like tree limbs. But life is rarely so simple or miraculous. God seems to be entirely fickle about who gets the money. On a superficial level, it seems the more aggressive pastors are about reminding their congregations about tithing, the more prosperous the churches become.

On Friday, two days before church, I had a date. I hadn’t had a date in nearly a year. She lived on a farm with her three children. The only thought I’d had, as Friday neared, was to call it off. I couldn’t see myself as being a good candidate for a relationship and that level of responsibility. But is God so practical? If God suddenly told me to start another family, wouldn’t I be a fool not to listen? Maybe I would have a prophet or two. What if God said to me in a dream, "Son, here's the winning lotto numbers. Play them or I'll smite thee." Of course I would play, are you kidding? But how could I know if the Lord was speaking to me or 'the Dark Lord?' What is the acid test of knowing? If there is a Devil, it surely smart enough to impersonate anyone. 

The date went fine; it was a pleasant night without rain. We went to a number of art galleries and ended up eating Japanese food. Three women paid a good deal of attention to me without much encouragement from me. It made me wonder if there was a natural law in effect. The law of attraction should, in order to be a law, work the same in all cases. If it works with carrots and tree branches, it should work with human beings. Right?

With human beings, the law is turned upside down. Other women, seeing an attractive woman in the company of an ordinary man, naturally assume the ordinary man is anything but ordinary. The women therefore want the man all the more. What has happened? The credibility gap has been bridged. 

A church operates in a similar way. A pastor can build his church on the foundation of his own integrity. When I find myself believing in the lotto, or only going to the prosperous churches, then I will have to wonder about my faith. If I get that low, it will be like the Stevie Wonder song, "When we believe in things we don't understand, we suffer. Superstition is the way...."

I have an idea that God is all about the grafting process, like in tree branches. Our faith is the tape that helps the graft take. And when it has taken we are connected where once we were strangers.