THE OLD MAN AND THE “ME”

First let me tell you right up front this is not a rant on the dynamics between my father and I while I was growing up so don’t expect any juicy tidbits about anything like that. In fact my father doesn’t factor in to this subject at all. Nor is it some sort of analogous nod to Hemingway and his book or the fact that from time to time I have looked (and acted) similarly to him at various stages in my life. When I stay at the El Tovar hotel on the south rim of the Grand Canyon I don’t stay in his old suite and park myself on the balcony and shout drunken obscenities to the tourists below while I bang away on my laptop instead of a typewriter when I’m there. Freud is barely a part of the conversation too even though the “Father of Psychoanalysis” was, by profession, a neurologist and renowned researcher in Cerebral Palsy and probably knew more about me then than I do right now. Unfortunately I don’t have any significant “Oedipal” issues worthy of bringing him to the party for. Somehow though all of these people and issues mean nothing on their own but collectively…they’ve started me to wonder more than a little bit lately about a vast library of things that have hit me in the face over the past few months. I’m too young to be old and too lucid to be feeble but many would like to treat me that way in spite of those facts. I’m old enough to know that wisdom is not necessarily knowledge but knowledge is needed to create wisdom. Looking and acting younger in order to be considered “relevant” has never been a dance I’ve felt compelled to learn. It’s not that I can’t, don’t or won’t embrace new things it’s just that I’m at that point in life where I feel I’ve earned the right to be extremely selective about who and what I allow into my life. I have no need to gain favor with anyone…they need to gain mine and that includes lovers as well. Unfortunately for all concerned I have probably forgotten more sexual techniques and etiquette than most have or will ever have learned and along with that some bridges I wish I hadn’t burned when I had the opportunity to do so. In many ways this probably makes me a social antique…so be it. A typical night out for “adults” these days is to go out to a futuristic train wreck of a nightclub or “retro” bar and drink Red Bull and Vodka with frozen “tapas” while they smoke their electronic cigarettes. They sit there in their uncomfortable chairs in their uncomfortable circus clothes and text each other because the music is so loud they can’t talk to one another about how much they PAID to get VIP treatment and where they’re going for their next “Exclusive” trip. Please…you’re kidding right? That isn’t being social that’s pathetic posturing with make-believe food and drink at the Mad Hatter’s table. The “Old Man” you see smiles knowingly while the “ME” inside laughs hysterically at all of the bad acting. Speaking of acting…thanks to the education world our children no longer know how to be creative. Kids have been taught to do little more than text (an antiquated method of communication) while they’re driving and die much sooner on their way to the only job they’re qualified to do these days…working in the drive-thru window at a fast food place or being a pseudo-computer geek wearing a red or blue polo shirt. The few that survive major in “Communications” in college and take jobs in the Media Industry through their Fraternity and Sorority brother’s and sister’s who aren’t really qualified but have great ideas. They want to resurrect all of the really bad movies they grew up with and see if they can make them even worse with “hot” new actors their own age. They don’t know how to write so that’s all they can think of to do. Life needs to stop imitating art…or art needs to stop imitating life…whichever the case may be. People used to read to learn and/or escape from real life for a while and connect with a different point of view. These days it’s unnecessary expose’s on somebody or war, murder and deceit masquerading as a medieval theme park. Movies try and outdo each other on how violent they can be compared to the world outside the theater until some dumb fuck who fails a test and decides to make the inside of the theater all too real as a way to get their fifteen minutes of fame. The sad part is that I can say with some certainty there are at least a dozen idiots out there planning to one up the carnage because they’re not smart enough to come up with anything original yet they want their moment in the spotlight. The “Old Man” you see on the outside cries knowingly because he’s seen it happen before. The “ME” inside cries even harder because he knows this will all come true yet again. When people in my generation came around we were the “Us” generation, an all inclusive “change the World” generation that quietly morphed into the “Us…Against Them” generation when yuppiedom sang its siren call, it didn’t take long for us to abandon our principles. Our children were the “Me” generation with a giant sense of entitlement and a self-absorbed, lazy sense of importance. When you asked them to clean something they looked around for their imaginary maid and regardless of whether they graduated or not from college they expected to be paid more than we were paid at that moment from the get-go. What makes it worse is we condoned it and blew “happy smoke” up their asses. Then along came the Gen-X,Y and Z slackers who can’t keep their clothes up, have no money or ambition but they do have thousands of dollars of tattoo’s and body piercings on them (I wonder how that happened and who paid for it?). What’s next…the “aMoEba” generation? Admittedly the gene pool needs cleaning but… Our parents didn’t fuck up everything that’s happening today…we did. Between our greed and apathy we let all of this happen while hoping someone else will pick up the pieces. Then we dropped the ball by not teaching them to pick up anything or giving them the tools to do so and those generations are teaching our grandchildren (and possibly great-grandchildren) to give it all away without a second thought…it might interfere with their video game playing. The “Old Man” everyone sees is tired, upset and disgusted with everything around him. The “ME” inside is finally mad enough to make a change. The question is where to start.

PLAYING DEAD

At some point in everyone’s childhood (at least in mine) we found ourselves wondering what it must feel like to be dead. Sometimes it was brought on by an unexpected death in the family or a close friend. Sometimes it was just kids being curious about the universe around us. We’d lie down (if we weren’t in bed already), close our eyes and hold our breath and take note of the sensations. Depending on the person we’d startle ourselves back to reality or simply open our eyes with a “that was interesting” thought. If you’re male within a certain age you probably grew up playing some sort of “War” game outside where you had to count to ten or twenty if you got “killed” before you could come back to life and begin playing again. We couldn’t “reboot” the video game and begin anew back then. As we grew older we may have had to do something similar during our military training or paintball games. In any event we all got pretty good at “playing dead” by the time we got to adulthood. So much so that parts of us were dead (or at least incapable of living). By that time we no longer knew who we were, what we were doing or where we were going. We were young enough and arrogant enough to try and convince ourselves and the world at large we were smarter than anyone else on the planet and had a better idea of what to do and when, where and how to do it. I have yet to meet someone who would stand there and say “Yep…I’m as dumb as a fence post but I plan on continuing to learn what I don’t know the rest of my life.” More often than not it is always “You’re telling me something I already know. Why are you wasting my time?” and more often than not…it’s from someone younger than I am who comes from one of those generations where nothing useful was taught because it was all cut out of the budget and fewer than any other generations before or after them graduated from high school…much less college. This in no way suggests older is better or smarter. When Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Paul Allen were in their teens and early twenties they were well on their way to changing the world as we knew it. Coincidentally they happen to be my age now (RIP Steve). The difference between them and the vast majority of young people today is they remain curious and are always looking for that next new innovation, the BIG PICTURE and the small details. Young people today are content to let someone else come up with it, stand in line to buy it first and then proclaim they’ve known all about it “forever” and how they can do even more things faster without having to get up off of the couch. All of this stuff designed to make life quicker and easier has enabled them, and the rest of the world at large, to be supersonic multi-taskers. What used to take a person a forty hour week to do can now be done in ten minutes. Rather than have more time to live and enjoy life we’re working twice as long and hard to keep up with the information flow…never mind the fact they need fewer of us to do this these days. Vacation days and weekends are scrutinized and used as a reason for getting rid of you if the opportunity presents itself because “you’re just not giving it your all anymore”. It’s no wonder that “Zombies” are a cult phenomenon these days. The entire workforce of the world is inhabited by the walking dead. They don’t think, they don’t feel and it doesn’t matter if a limb falls off…you don’t have health coverage for it anymore anyhow. We’ve all been programmed to “Play Dead” until you actually do die because there’s no retirement benefits either. Nobody is going to fix any of this for us either. The “Government” is broken at all levels and incapable of fixing itself much less us, they can’t even provide us with an honest accounting of where the money comes from and goes to. Neither political party is in any position either…that would require them to give things up that are near and dear to them like money and power. This in no way suggests we revolt and attempt to overthrow everything. There’s enough stupidity going on in this country without adding to it and we’ve become our own worst problem in this respect and others. We’ve played dead for so long we wouldn’t know where to start without hurting ourselves more than we already have by our years of complacency. Maybe we should instead sue the Governments and make them give back all of the money we’ve given them over the years (with interest) and gotten little in return for it except for more demands for more money because a few people are expecting seven figure bonuses at the end of this year for mishandling our money once again. This game is over and I think it’s time for me to come back to life again… sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…

TRAVELS WITH YODA PART VI

TRAVELS WITH YODA PART VI So far it’s been a busy summer for Yoda and me. We’ve been doing what other aging “Rock Stars” do this time of year and have been doing a “tour” of sorts. We titled our little summer adventure the “Too Young for Social Security and Medicare, Not Blind or Messed-up Enough for Disability” tour. (The logistics and putting all of that on a T-shirt was a nightmare.) We’re a little more “bare bones” than the other tours. We don’t have semi’s full of equipment and “roadies” to schlep everything to all of the Indian Casino’s, Branson and the “One Night Only” shows in Vegas and Reno lounges the way the other people do but we still have our followers. In years past we had our share of groupies asking us to sign all sorts of body parts. These days we still have our groupies. A few still want to date Yoda and the rest of them still want my autograph…albeit on a medical form to remove or fix something on or in my body. It used to be a turn-on to have a woman request I take off my clothes, it would lead me to believe we were heading in an interesting direction. Now when I hear that all I feel is dread wondering what sinister plan is up their sleeve… or worse. It would suffice to say we’ve been on the road a lot lately and haven’t had the opportunity to check in as much as we would have liked to. Yoda has already grown tired of doing parlor tricks for people like levitating vehicles and such. Every waiting room looks just like the other ones for me now. Even the people somehow all look the same. The only saving grace is we haven’t had the stage rushed by a bunch of Q-tips in vintage rock t-shirts wanting to throw their DEPENDS up to us… I’d never be able to sleep again if they did. Everyone still dances around flicking their Bic’s which, strangely enough hasn’t stood the test of time as well as we might have thought. Since way back then fire codes have gotten stricter and equipment has gotten more sensitive so the occasional unexpected shower happens now and then. The bill for trashing a waiting room is a lot more than a hotel room back then too. The dance moves we thought were so cool back then look a little spastic in this day and age and could cause you to get an unexpected new med (and quite possibly a new ensemble) when you finally see the doctor. We seldom encounter the paparazzi these days. We leave most of the photo shooting to the X-ray technicians as a general rule. Other than that unfortunate night when Yoda had one too many margarita’s and did his light saber act naked we’ve been forced to pose for a camera phone or two but that’s been just about it. The tour is far from over for the summer so be on the lookout for us at a hospital or medical center near you soon.

UNFORTUNATE CLOTHES

We all have them; you know the ones, purchased on an impulse thinking it was the greatest thing you’ve ever seen or it might get you through those “in between sizes” times. Some of them you actually did wear…once. Somehow or another they all quietly (and sometimes magically) and quickly found their way back to the deepest, darkest, corners of your least used closet hoping they will somehow disintegrate and disappear without ever actually touching them again and have to admit you really bought them in the first place. Women are usually the actively guilty party to this fashion travesty in their attempts to show up their friends and social contacts while men tend to come by it a little more unconsciously. If it’s clean (and sometimes not so clean) and within a certain color spectrum they’ll wear something until it rots off of their bodies. Styles are a secondary thought. If that style looked great on them thirty years ago…it should still look great on them today is the male general rule of thumb. The only reason a man changes his hair style throughout his life is because he ends up with less and less of it each year and you can, unfortunately, pretty accurately guess a man’s age by the amount of hair product he does (or doesn’t) use. This is also why “then and now” photos are so deceptively easy to figure out. Women agonize for hours over their choices trying desperately to convince themselves they’re being daring, cutting edge, possibly even sexy. “Do I even have someplace to go where I can wear this?” is a common thought that passes through their minds as they try to decide about their choices. Men, on the other hand, walk into a store and grab the first familiar thing they see in a size and color they can live with and are back out the door in less than fifteen minutes. Only patterns occasionally throw them a curve…not that they care. Women will probably only see it for the first time when the men are getting ready to go somewhere. “It was on sale.” Will be their defense mantra should their purchase be questioned as some sort of absolution from any perceived fashion faux pas and consider the conversation done and over with. Women will proudly model their purchases hoping for positive affirmation to their bold choices only to get something like “Don’t you have three other things exactly like that only in different colors?” as his eyes return to the TV. The exception to this is lingerie…as long as it’s not playoff time or a bowl game is on then all bets are off until halftime. Making an extreme change requires a courage most don’t posses as well as financial flexibility the majority of us simply don’t have these days not to mention a stylist or qualified expert (that isn’t a relative) to bounce your ideas off of. With that said, most of us tend to tweak our appearance in drips and drabs as the opportunities present themselves which leads us back to our stash of unfortunate clothes. I can sympathize and emphasize with the women more than the men in this area. I have already more than once admitted I have more shoes than most women and pretty much every man I know. My clothes are vast no different from scrutiny yet still carefully organized by size, color, fabric, season and occasion. It is not likely you’ll catch me showing up at your kid’s wedding in a pair of Dockers, shirt and tie with a jacket emblazoned in the colors and logos of my favorite sports team. Needless to say I have made some very unfortunate clothing purchases along the way from obtaining these items from time to time would have to load up several bags of hideous garments and drive to a Goodwill, St. Vincent’s, or other thrift shop clear on the opposite side of the valley to donate them and give myself some assurance I won’t likely encounter someone wearing any of those things a few weeks later. I realize what that makes me sound like but my brain can only take so much abuse these days. Part of me is proud for doing this and knowing someone will get some use out of my crazed purchases. Part of me sometimes wishes I had shredded them into rags and dispose of them piecemeal as I use them to clean stuff and leave no trace of the crime. Let’s face it…I don’t know what the shit I was thinking when I bought some of that stuff, but it seemed so right at the time (Note to self: No more Margarita’s while shopping.) All I know for sure is I have helped create a world of sadly dressed people and I should feel ashamed of myself. For all of the times I have advised people to put their best foot forward style wise in public and social gatherings I have enabled people to do just the opposite. So from today on that stops and I promise to be a more responsible contributor to the world at large. That’s only fair…right?

TIME TO MAKE A CHANGE PART II

It took me a few more days to digest the response from my previous post than I thought it might. All I can say is…WOW. It illustrated many things to me that I have, no doubt, reason to comment on further at a later date. This little rant is neither the right time nor format to address those things without more thought first so forgive me in advance for that. While I’m at it, thank-you in advance for the many private notes for and against what I said and a special thanks to the crazy few who actually posted their opinions publicly. Your opinions were well received and respected…I’m not so sure Part II will get the same treatment. On that note, let’s begin. Some of you got the revised posting which included the third philosopher that was also an integral part of the forming of this country and some didn’t. Regardless of that fact his input is a very important aspect of Part II and needs to be discussed further. His name was John Locke and his philosophical beliefs were either quoted verbatim or paraphrased throughout the Declaration of Independence. Phrases like “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…” along with his beliefs on religion. Religion has been a sticking point in this country for as far back as anyone can remember. It has been incorrectly bandied about by the religious right that this is a “Christian country, founded by Christian principles”, a statement that only faintly rings true. Yes, the founding fathers were largely Christian, but they were also the offspring of people who came here in part to be free of being told how to practice their religion. The Colonies and townships were formed largely by what a person chose to believe religiously as much as economic considerations. Therefore the forefathers were very sensitive to religious diversity and embraced it and included it in the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t intended to be “Christian Only” it just happened at the time they were the majority religion here but were smart enough to see far enough down the road and include EVERY RELIGION directly or indirectly. John Locke had taught them to be forward thinking in these issues nearly a hundred years before this country was formed. Locke believed a country was made stronger if it allowed for religious and intellectual diversity to freely flourish and interact in a “humanist” manner doing what’s best for everyone. History had repeatedly shown him (and us) that having one dominant religion was foolish and extremely short-sighted. Locke, writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–92) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance. Three arguments are central: (1) Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints; (2) Even if they could, enforcing a single "true religion" would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence; (3) Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity. In spite of the best of intentions by those who came before us we have lost our way. Hate and dissent have given way to rational thought. We spend more time arguing over who’s “family values” are the correct ones, who’s religion should be taught in schools (if any) or whether or not we’d prefer a Mormon, a Muslim or a candidate of unknown religious affiliation for President or City Councilman. God help us all if they’re single, divorced, gay, lesbian or have purple polka dots. That’s a can of worms that may take generations to unravel. Never mind if they can actually do the job…they have to be like us. I’ve said before, I don’t care what religion you are. Believe what you want to believe…just don’t expect me to politely stand there and listen to you explain your beliefs to me or condone you wearing it on your sleeve. I really don’t give a shit. It that helps you sleep at night, good for you, there are meds for that these days. What’s really important to me is…if our neighbor is in need of help…will you stand next to me and have their back or are the differences to great to overcome?

TIME TO MAKE A CHANGE PART I

A few months ago I received an e-mail from a friend who happened to also be the owner of the company I had my real estate license with at that time. It was entitled “Time to make a change” and it spelled out some rather significant changes the company would very soon be making and how they would impact everyone’s business (and clearly mine). I wasn’t shocked, surprised, angry, sad or disappointed. In fact I felt nothing at all…except perhaps a small amount of relief. I was fighting a battle (not as quietly or privately as I had thought) to regain my life and a more meaningful sense of normalcy to it all (I still don’t have a clue what “normal” is but it’s been interesting trying to find it out to be sure). So I did what most people do in similar situations… acted like everything was fine and kept looking for answers to unknown questions I hadn’t thought of yet. It should have been a mental train wreck but, oddly enough, it turned out not to be entirely. It was more like a demolition derby where a car gets sideswiped and ends up balanced on two wheels as it scoots around the track looking for a place to land on all four wheels again for a moment. You discover you can do things you didn’t know you could do and probably weren’t supposed to do in situations like that. Even worse…there are rules and laws of some form that say you shouldn’t have done those things without serious consequences. So what did this have to do with that e-mail? Everything and nothing really it just opened a door to move in a different direction I hadn’t entirely considered before that. Because of that e-mail I gave my real estate license up because after enduring every test known to man during that time and over the past few months since it was determined I shouldn’t be working, driving, standing for extended periods of time or lifting a whole lot of stuff so that pretty much ruled real estate out, Wal-Mart greeter…pretty much the same thing and to make matters worse, I don’t look good in blue. So today June 12, 2012, exactly sixteen years to the day my real estate career has officially come to and end, it probably should have happened sooner. Am I even a little sad or disappointed? Not really. I found myself slowly moving towards a career and lifestyle I probably should have never abandoned…even a little bit, and I find myself becoming more and more at peace with ME each and every day. The interesting thing about my particular predicament is that I’ve had the opportunity to observe a great many things up close which has caused me at times to look deeper into a variety of issues that seem to have many people’s panties in a bunch. I can’t honestly say I’ve found solutions for many of these issues…but I do see glimmers of hope that have been hiding right in front of us all but we’ve all been too busy or caught up in our own lives to notice. Here are a few examples: DISCLAIMER: First and foremost I’m going to disappoint some of you and piss a few of you off…get over it. I’m going to talk about issues like politics and religion and not take sides. Even though many of you would like to believe otherwise there are no right or wrongs when it comes to these subjects and as you all follow along with the bouncing ball I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from when everything is said and done. It’s an election year. This means that a large number of politicians from the President on down to Street Sweeper is re-applying for their jobs or trying to replace someone else for whatever job is open. It’s part of what makes this country great and seemingly different from other political models. That may have been true once upon a time but, I suspect, isn’t so much anymore. When this country was formed our forefathers were big fans of two very prominent philosophers who proposed that government belonged to the people and they were intelligent enough and rational enough to have a say in how government operated without the dictatorial musings of monarchs and/or people of supposed better lineage and educational superiority. The two philosophers were Thomas Pain and Adam Smith who gave us strong foundations to our country like laws should be created with the “highest and best use for the most people” and the economic model we still use today. Anyone who isn’t deaf, blind and stupid (or in a coma) knows that laws today are created for the fewest, the noisiest and the most well funded regardless of what side of the isle the bill’s sponsor sits on or what impact such a law would have on the public at large. In this day and age politicians come into office with a pocket full of IOU’s none of which are made out to their constituency. To make the issues worse today’s politicians are groomed to be there. They aren’t there because they feel a genuine responsibility to the community and country they live in. It’s because they’re the child of or went to school with so and so or are strategically planted by some special interest group… that and all the “bennies” they’ll get during plus if and when they ever retire at the taxpayer’s expense. Our economic model is almost two-hundred and forty years old. One would think we should be working on a new one that actually factors in the current global economy instead trying to use band-aids and quick fixes on the old ones. We should stop bailing industries out run by inept and greedy people who take the money and give themselves bonuses and pay raises out of it while cutting salaries and healthcare for employees below a certain pay scale and then try and make it mandatory for people to have healthcare and pay for it out of their own pockets. We should make budget cuts that make sense for everyone not an “I’ll give you this if you give me that” cut, there’s already enough pork in the country’s system to give us all heart attacks. Do two-hundred and eighty-nine people need to handle and generate paperwork for the purchase of one hammer? I think not. Do we need the hammer? I would hope so. Should it take less than six people to get it from point A to point B, probably but will that likely happen, probably not, it makes too much sense. Government is obscenely bloated at all levels and it’s not because of fast food or pork products. Other than Greece we have more government employees doing absolutely nothing all day than most other countries in the world. Many that actually do something generally do it wrong so the few that do have a brain and are trying to make a difference are overworked and by private sector standards…underpaid. We can’t seemingly afford to hire qualified people to do the jobs quickly and efficiently and pay them what they’re worth…but we can hire a dozen “fog a mirror” people and Uncle Bert’s illegitimate moron twins and use up what budget we do have. Believe me I have experienced this and more of late first hand to the point I can’t sleep at night anymore. We should do away with the Republican and Democratic Parties. Neither says anything that makes sense anymore. There’s no contrasting political opinion exchanged these days just playground name calling. They all say the same things and just use different words to sound clever. The voting ballots shouldn’t have names or political affiliations on them anymore. Under each political office we should simply have “Dumb” and “Dumber” and let the public vote on those names. Then the candidates would draw a name from a hat to see which one they were. It would have the same importance and impact when everything is said and done. Many people believe change is good…and I’m one of them but change for the sake of change may not necessarily be so and just because you see something as an injustice it doesn’t mean everyone agrees with you or that you’ve thought it completely out. Arizona has been a breeding ground for such things the past few years. Such an example is SB1070. I’m not going to divulge my personal opinion of this bill other than to say there are some really good points to it and some really stupid points to it as well. It also has been one of the funniest political drama’s I’ve witnessed in a long time that, sadly, illustrates how our political system has decayed. We can blame the press and news media in general for this. When all of this stuff hit the fan people divided themselves quickly into two main camps…those for it and those against it. The media swarmed all over them like mosquito’s on exposed bodies getting reaction from the crowds. Now there must be a class all journalism students must take on how to find the dumbest person in any group to interview. So after the quick sound bite speeches from the politician sponsoring the bill and those against it the journalists sought out “public opinion”. For the “pro” side they found a fuzzy vet obviously between visits to the Happy Hour at the local VFW hall who couldn’t say anything without being offensive. For the opposition they found a diminutive middle aged woman who could barely speak English and only seemed to know how to say “But WE were here first!” at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately they were both horribly wrong. The Hispanic community is very much an integral part of Arizona and has been from day one. They don’t deserve backhanded bigotry. That being said…they weren’t the first. The Native American Indian was. The Spanish/Mexican’s and the Whites showed up in a tour bus years later. With that the battle lines were drawn and the political positioning started and before long disruptions spilled out of the Capital complex. Politicians proved how stupid they could really be on a nightly news show and the intrepid reporters would always find someone in a rundown trailer park in what’s left of a house dress and hair styled by a weed whacker, holding a cigarette in one hand and a half full bottle of Thunderbird in the other saying “I saw the whoooole thing and it was just awful…just awful” … and now back to you Steve while I prepare my Emmy acceptance speech. Tomorrow…Religion! Won’t that be fun? Time for a change yet…maybe…kinda…sorta?

SHOW AND TELL

I hated “Show and Tell” when I was a kid. I wasn’t sure I wanted the whole world to know what interested me. I wasn’t embarrassed or even remotely ashamed of any of it…I just didn’t think it was anybody’s damned business but mine. The older I got the more I hated the whole concept. Over the past several months I have been asked fairly often why I don’t talk about sex more (especially considering where my musings get posted a lot of the time). So I sat down and gave some serious thought to those questions over the past several days. Interestingly enough I came up with a reasonably simple answer and here it is…because it’s easier to show you than tell you about it. As much as I hate to make that statement (if I had hair it would be standing up right now) it’s quite true. The old saying “Actions speak louder than words” couldn’t possibly ring truer than when it comes to the subject of sex. Anyone can talk a good game…few can actually play it. I can talk (or write) all day to the point of exhaustion about how and where I would touch my lover and the heat, smells and moisture it would create. I can describe the surroundings, the atmosphere and possibly the sounds created by both the environment and the mechanics that would be generated by such an opportunity but they would only ignite the imagination. To be physically present and involved would be the “proof in the pudding” so to speak. Sadly we’ve brought the need for this upon ourselves. People have been seduced by words since language was invented. Unfortunately as we have evolved (or de-evolved in some cases) language has become an afterthought. “UR so HOT” or U make me…whatever appearing on your phones text box seldom arouses anyone over the age of ten (I hope). Forum pages on many of the sites my wife and I subscribe to are filled with posting from “Hey look at ME” members asking questions they really don’t want a serious answer to like “What’s your favorite position?” or “What kind of lube do you use?” and so on. What they really want is for someone to tell them they’re hot and flirt with them and possibly even make a date with them…only for people to discover the posters are sexually inept fools (but they do look good). Another reason why seeing, touching and experiencing…is believing. You’re not going to get graphic descriptions of my latest experiences or conquests from me. My ego is healthy enough without bragging about such things for personal fulfillment. I may use excerpts of those things to illustrate a point but it’s hardly a conscious effort to seduce you I have other places I can do that in if the need arises. If you want to know something I will honestly answer your question but be prepared for an answer you may not like or a response of “I can’t tell you, I can only show you.” It’s not a “come-on” it’s merely a simple fact. To this day I still don’t like to talk about what interests me…I’d rather show you so you can better understand it for real.