Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

From Nicotine: A metaphor that I adore (What Would Hank Do?)

This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:

John:
"Hi! I'm John, and this is Mary."

Mary:
"Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me:
"Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I want to kiss His ass?"

John:
"If you kiss Hank's ass, He'll give you a million dollars; and if you don't, He'll kick the shit out of you."

Me:
"What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"

John:
"Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can't until you kiss His ass."

Me:
"That doesn't make any sense. Why..."

Mary:
"Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"

Me:
"Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."

John:
"Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me:
"Do you kiss Hank's ass often?"

Mary:
"Oh yes, all the time..."

Me:
"And has He given you a million dollars?"

John:
"Well no. You don't actually get the money until you leave town."

Me:
"So why don't you just leave town now?"

Mary:
"You can't leave until Hank tells you to, or you don't get the money, and He kicks the shit out of you."

Me:
"Do you know anyone who kissed Hank's ass, left town, and got the million dollars?"

John:
"My mother kissed Hank's ass for years. She left town last year, and I'm sure she got the money."

Me:
"Haven't you talked to her since then?"

John:
"Of course not, Hank doesn't allow it."

Me:
"So what makes you think He'll actually give you the money if you've never talked to anyone who got the money?"

Mary:
"Well, He gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll get a raise, maybe you'll win a small lotto, maybe you'll just find a twenty-dollar bill on the street."

Me:
"What's that got to do with Hank?"

John:
"Hank has certain 'connections.'"

Me:
"I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game."

John:
"But it's a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And remember, if you don't kiss Hank's ass He'll kick the shit of you."

Me:
"Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to Him, get the details straight from Him..."

Mary:
"No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank."

Me:
"Then how do you kiss His ass?"

John:
"Sometimes we just blow Him a kiss, and think of His ass. Other times we kiss Karl's ass, and he passes it on."

Me:
"Who's Karl?"

Mary:
"A friend of ours. He's the one who taught us all about kissing Hank's ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times."

Me:
"And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss His ass, and that Hank would reward you?"

John:
"Oh no! Karl has a letter he got from Hank years ago explaining the whole thing. Here's a copy; see for yourself."

** From the desk of Karl **

1. Kiss Hank's ass and He'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
2. Use alcohol in moderation.
3. Kick the shit out of people who aren't like you.
4. Eat right.
5. Hank dictated this list Himself.
6. The moon is made of green cheese.
7. Everything Hank says is right.
8. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9. Don't use alcohol.
10. Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank's ass or He'll kick the shit out of you.

Me:
"This appears to be written on Karl's letterhead."

Mary:
"Hank didn't have any paper."

Me:
"I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's handwriting."

John:
"Of course, Hank dictated it."

Me:
"I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"

Mary:
"Not now, but years ago He would talk to some people."

Me:
"I thought you said He was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they're different?"

Mary:
"It's what Hank wants, and Hank's always right."

Me:
"How do you figure that?"

Mary:
"Item 7 says 'Everything Hank says is right.' That's good enough for me!"

Me:
"Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."

John:
"No way! Item 5 says 'Hank dictated this list himself.' Besides, item 2 says 'Use alcohol in moderation,' Item 4 says 'Eat right,' and item 8 says 'Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.' Everyone knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too."

Me:
"But 9 says 'Don't use alcohol.' which doesn't quite go with item 2, and 6 says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."

John:
"There's no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As far as 6 goes, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."

Me:
"Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of rock..."

Mary:
"But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."

Me:
"I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon was somehow 'captured' by the Earth has been discounted*. Besides, not knowing where the rock came from doesn't make it cheese."

John:
"Ha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know Hank is always right!"

Me:
"We do?"

Mary:
"Of course we do, Item 7 says so."

Me:
"You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That's circular logic, no different than saying 'Hank's right because He says He's right.'"

John:
"Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come around to Hank's way of thinking."

Me:
"But...oh, never mind. What's the deal with wieners?"

Mary:
She blushes.

John:
"Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It's Hank's way. Anything else is wrong."

Me:
"What if I don't have a bun?"

John:
"No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong."

Me:
"No relish? No Mustard?"

Mary:
She looks positively stricken.

John:
He's shouting. "There's no need for such language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!"

Me:
"So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it would be out of the question?"

Mary:
Sticks her fingers in her ears. "I am not listening to this. La la la, la la, la la la."

John:
"That's disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat that..."

Me:
"It's good! I eat it all the time."

Mary:
She faints.

John:
He catches Mary. "Well, if I'd known you were one of those I wouldn't have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you I'll be there, counting my money and laughing. I'll kiss Hank's ass for you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater."
With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.

Hello World

I figured I would show the world me. So here I am in all my hideous and old glory. :-P

I used the ugliest change I could. I love it for the very reason it looks like a brain near some point at the end.

Heh.

Me go-go dancing for Seth Lazarus...

This was me go-go dancing to a song NOT the one you hear. No it was not Screamin' Jay Hawkins "I Put A Spell On You" that I heard.

Nice editing though ... for most of the video you can't tell that I was dancing to a different song.

Heifer.org

They do a lot of good things and we've taken to giving to them as gifts for other people. Most people that we've offered to do that for seem quite happy to have us donate in their name as a gift. Only a few think that it's "selfish" in some way.

Which to me is the weirdest thing in the world. I donate money in your name so that it's from you as a gift and it's "selfish?"

Weird.

Anyway, I haven't been keeping up with this blog because I've literally been avoiding as much politics and news as I can. I keep up with it through The Daily Show and The Colbert Report but really reading about it all just makes me feel so frustrated.

The whole Diebold mess is disgusting. Six years later and it's only NOW getting some news. Grrrrr. Thus I've been avoiding the news because my stress levels have been through the roof. Mostly I've been staying with LJ and Model Mayhem and focusing on art and photography.

I have four pieces up at a gallery in Dallas. I have shoots this weekend where I'm modeling and where I'm photographing. Really, right now it's all too much for me.

When it comes right down to it I will probably have to move to the morphine for the pain. And it's not a happy thought.

But so it goes.

Keep Jesus Off My Penis

A cute, funny and very freaking true song I got from my friends off Livejournal. Thought it would make for a good return to the land of the Blogger.

Things have been insane and sad. My two ferrets died, one of a genetic issue, the other of what can only be described as loneliness. We tried our best and the vet said we did more than anybody else they had ever seen.

But at least we tried.

So here's something cute, funny and good.

Because it's just too sad and frustrating and now I'm sick

I have not updated in a long while because I have too many things on my plate.

First I have fibromyalgia, an anxiety disorder and ADHD. Only I don't have the last one being treated and the other two I'm having just sort of taped up rather than really fixed in any way, shape or form.

My photography is taking off, in a non-paying sort of way. Models are starting to queue up to model for me and I have both women AND men that want to work with me.

Not only that, but at the end of March I came up with an idea for an alternative erotica site that functions on a NON-hardcore premise (no penetration, or anything like that and I refuse at this point to shoot, "pink" as it is termed in certain circles) and found a female with a mind that works well with mine and though she has CFIDs she also is ex-Army and has an e-commerce degree (as well as two years in the sex fetish industry). So I came up with an idea, threw it at her, it passed muster and we had the barebones of a site up within one week.

Already with no upfront pay (we're paying models based on revenue they attract, which might seem less fair upfront, but is far more fair in the long-term toward them) we have almost the entire fifteen models we need to comfortably start. I have the outline of what my PHP engineer needs to build and the style for my designer to work based on. And I have photographers (the non-jerk ones, I have to add, I've already met a couple real jerks online) that I respect onboard and shooting for us.

Incorporation should happen shortly. I shot twice this week, I'm shooting this coming Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and then we're flying to Boston to drive up to NH (long story) in order to shoot one of my best friends in the world's wedding.

It may kill me ... all of this working beyond my body's capabilities. Gods know I'm freaking sick as all hell today. But I have today and tomorrow to literally just lay here in bed and not do anything other than mentally keep myself as shut down as possible.

Anyway, other sites do a better job than I ever could of doing a take-down on the things that matter to me politically, scientifically and even culturally.

So for now, this will be once again relegated to when something so upsets me that I can't stand it ... I need to scream it out from here.

Yes, I consider this spamming and ban-worthy:

From an alleged zine on my myspace bulletin board (all typos left intact):

Subject: "Interesting indeed"

Body: "Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.
And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"
In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.
Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we
said OK.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with
"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then w onder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says
Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.
Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in."
You know what? Katrina turned out so badly because people ignored what scientists told them would happen. Well, yes, that's only part of it, but it's a very large part. And that's what I wrote to the person who used what I thought was an "underground music zine" to proselytize inappropriately. So I removed them. I also removed somebody who wrote racist and eugenics based trash. You know what? I don't care what you believe in just so long as you act like a decent person. But when you start judging the world based on what I consider trash and ignoring my rights to NOT BELIEVE (what ever it is you might believe in) you're gone. I have no patience with bigots. Nor should I. There's enough pain and suffering happening in the world and I've seen it happen to people who believe just as often as I've seen it happen to don't. Actually that's a lie. By statistics more people who believe have bad things happen.

I actually had a relative tell me tonight that I just think I'm an atheist because I do good for the sake of doing good. That's right. Apparently real atheists don't do good.

You know what? Fuck that noise. I've had enough. PZ Myers is right. The religious are mostly tools and bigots. There's no point to even trying to have a dialogue with most of them. They're not interested. And it's just sickening.

Working on an essay: Part 1 of debunking The pH Miracle

I received the book (The pH Miracle) from my sister and immediately started drinking the greens and eating avocados as well as trying to cut back on dairy and sugar while reading the book.

I've found several fallacious statements, and the fact that they use pure anecdotal evidence rather than any "real" research should let people know that this is not actual science or medical help he's practicing. And anybody who says to sneak multi-vitamins and minerals by the numbers he and his wife mention into a hospital setting while somebody's healing in supervised care without telling the doctors what's going on is just completely irresponsible.

The idea of him talking about his "research" with a group of 12 West Point students to the point of having such lax control that he uses a "magnetic pendant" at the same time (so you know, it could be that and not the diet that worked!) and talking about "healthy" versus "unhealthy" blood in the manner he does just screams fraud to me.

My sister's an actual medical doctor but she is very willing to try alternative treatments and doesn't understand research or control groups or even how to follow basic statistics. I feel the Young's feed into that sort of mentality.

1. On the first page of the book, the author introduces the premise by stating,"It's all about balance. The universe operates by keeping opposites in balance, and the universe contained within your body is no exception." Starting off with a completely backward statement means that this whole idea and Mr. Young behind it have nothing to do with science and everything to do with marketing. The universe does not "keep" opposites in balance. Opposites stay in balance because otherwise they would cease to exist. Take the orbit of the earth, for example. The earth does not stay in a balanced orbit around the sun because the universe forced the gathering of particles into a ball and placed that ball into a perfect orbit, forever checking to make sure it didn't fall out of balance for some reason. The earth spins around the sun this way because out of the immeasurable amounts of particles, the ones in just the right environment to support it, gathered into a ball (the earth) spinning around a much bigger ball of particles (the sun). The remainder of the particles in that cloud either got sucked into the sun or just went on their way, not getting close enough to the gravity pull of the entities around them. So...the universe does not "keep" things the way they exist today, things exist today the way they do, in a seemingly balanced state, because they would not exist otherwise.

A simpler example: if you have a cup hanging from a string in the middle of the room, open end up, and hurl a bucket of sand into the air, some of the sand falls into the cup. You did not force that specific sand into the cup, but do you see any other sand at that height in the room? No! Because it had nothing keeping it there and fell to the floor instead.

2. In Chapter 2, Mr. Young states that when certain ratios of acids and bases meet, they "cancel each other out" by which I assume he really means "explodes or otherwise reacts violently." Remember the baking soda and vinegar volcano from grade school? Acid + base = violent reaction.

** More later **