A Pilgrim’s Digression

Few things make for a greater scandal than hypocrisy. Partly, it’s because the public has a genuine appetite for seeing hypocrites brought low; partly, it’s because the media love bringing them down. Add in sex and you’ve got the makings of the archetypal political scandal; but add in gay sex and you’ve got a blockbuster of a scandal guaranteed to make people pay attention.

It’s hard to believe that Democrats would get so lucky as to have two gay sex scandals in one year, and yet Republicans have rewarded them with just that. What makes the Larry Craig story so delectable, maybe even moreso than the Mark Foley scandal that preceded it, is that Craig has been such a fierce opponent of gay rights. In fact he still opposes gay rights. Yesterday, he so adamantly denied that he was gay that one gets the impression he can imagine nothing worse than being gay.

And yet he gets caught soliciting sex in an airport bathroom, like some George Michael wannabe. I think like a lot of people, I am left wondering how a hypocrite such as Larry Craig lives with himself.

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Commuting to work on a train at 6 AM is usually a quiet, almost dream-like experience. One might hear the faint thump of someone’s music through their headphones, but rarely does a cellphone ring that early, and even more rarely does anyone speak. One can look around the train and see people dozing uncomfortably or reading silently. No one speaks. We are all still partly asleep and dreaming.

Metro stations are no different, though a little noisier. There is the constant, dimly heard roar of trains in tunnels, and the occasional annoying PA announcement: “Is that your bag? Four simple words that can make all the difference. Please, if you see an unattended bag on a metro train, just ask,’Is that your bag?’ If no one claims the bag, please report it promptly to a Metro employee.” But generally, all is quiet.

People look dazed, as if waking from sleep to find themselves fully dressed and standing in the Metro station waiting for the train. And you may ask yourself, ‘How did I get here?’ However, no one speaks, suppressing their own feelings of dislocation and jarring sleep deprivation in favor of not being judged for daring to break the silence.

Today, however, while waiting at Metro Center for the next orange line train towards New Carrolton, I was treated to what I first supposed was just a “random crazy” as I’ve come to think of them.

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From President Bush’s speech yesterday:

“In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called ‘The Quiet American.’ It was set in Saigon and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: ‘I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.’

“After America entered the Vietnam War, Graham Greene — the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. Matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.”

There are many things I find confusing about the President’s speech yesterday, not least of which is the above-quoted literary reference.  In some ways, as other bloggers have pointed out, the description of Pyle as a man whose good motives result only in disaster could be used by Bush’s detractors to describe the President himself.

Further, it is unclear whether the President was using Greene to support his argument that America should stay in Iraq, or whether he means to offer a critique Greene.  The critique seems most likely.  One cannot imagine the President staying up late, poring over his natty copy of The Quiet American, underlining important passages and scribbling notes in the margins.  Thus the literary critique must be the work of his script writers.

And it is not even a purely literary critique, since the President attributes to Greene a purportedly “naive” political viewpoint–that Indochina would have been better off without any American involvement–that Bush can then attribute to current foes of the war in Iraq.

Every blogger today is writing about the lessons the President should have learned from Vietnam (or from Graham Greene), and it seems to me they miss the point.  He doesn’t care to learn anything.  Nothing means anything to this administration.  I would even question whether any politician can see beyond his or her own shortsighted political goals.  Most politicians have no deeper understanding of ideas and events than can be gleaned from a Cliffs Notes version of a classic novel.  The value of history or literature is completely lost to men and women who look upon both merely as tools of manipulation to achieve certain rhetorical goals.

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I couldn’t resist this blog post opportunity. It was just handed right to me.

Brendan was taking a bath this weekend, and as usual he asked me for a straw. He likes to use a straw as a rather ineffective snorkel. Every once in awhile, I popped in on him to check on his progress, as he alternately played and washed himself.

Then, I heard, “Dad, come watch this.”

I went in the bathroom, and he was sitting in his bath, holding the straw to the tip of his penis and peeing through the straw into his bath water. He was holding the straw upright so that the pee shot up in the air, making him look like a cherub in a fountain.

“That is really amazing,” I said. Yes, it was disgusting, but I figured the soapy water would pretty much dilute the pee.

Brendan laughed, and then he put the straw to his mouth to go back to “snorkeling.” Hardly had it touched his lips than he suddenly took the straw away from his mouth and made a face as if he had just tasted a pickle (Brendan hates pickles).

“You realize you just tasted your own pee, right?” I say.

Smacking his lips in an attempt to get the taste out of his mouth, Brendan said, “Tastes salty.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. (In truth, I probably do know what it tastes like, if I really thought about it. Anyone who has ever performed oral sex on someone has probably tasted the tang of urine)

On top of that, he has told a couple people, out of the blue and with some degree of pride, “I tasted my own pee.”

We are trying to get him to understand the inappropriateness of displaying his Yellow Badge of Accidental Urophagia quite so prominently, however.

I seem to have lost any purpose for keeping this blog. The blog posts have become fewer and farther between over the past few months. Ideas for blog posts no longer spring readily to mind. I find myself meditating blog posts about the intemperately hot weather, or of descriptions of my lunch. I just no longer have anything to write about.

That is probably a weak excuse. A good writer could find something worthy of writing about in the most mundane of events. The fact is, I no longer enjoy blogging. It has become a chore that I put off until guilt, or a desire to communicate with friends, prompts me to write one more post.

I am trying to say I think I may be done with blogging. I am not deleting my blog, or doing anything drastic, because the impetus to write may one day return. Heck, I may write another blog post tomorrow. I just feel like I need to explain why I haven’t written much over the past couple months.

In case this is my last blog post, however, I want to wrap up a couple subjects I have written about a little.

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I took this picture of a Vespa in Minneapolis when I visited back in May.  I need to link to the full size image so you can read the writing on the sticker.

So, what would Bukowski do?  Hmmm?

There’s an old joke that the acronym MMORPG stands for “Many Men Online Role-Playing Girls.” This little film plays around with that idea, to great effect. Even if you don’t play games, give this a chance…I promise it’s funny

Jimmy: The World of Warcraft Story

I read in a news article somewhere that, in one reporter’s opinion, World of Warcraft is now a “generational event” comparable to the Beatles or the invention of the Atari. That seemed an overstatement at the time–and maybe it is an overstatement–but undeniably, the game has had an impact on people.

I find it fascinating how people have used the game’s mechanics to create their own mini-films. In the case of this particular film, one might even say that there is a creative vision behind it, with the gender confusion and the vaguely gay-themed overtones. There is probably a college research paper somewhere in this idea…but thankfully, I don’t have to write it.