The Modern Deviants: Interviewing an “Assistant”.

My spouse and I are back “In Love” again. This is, I believe, the fourth time in more than twenty years. Each time we do, it just gets better. OK, we’re getting older…who knows how many good years we have left? Right?

Each time we get better at it, because instead of having to re-learn everything all over again with someone new, we just do an Etch-a-Sketch Dance and start over with each other. I’m really not fucking kidding…it sounds glib, and I suppose it is, but then again, who of us Multiple Marriage Survivors (sequentially, of course…sort of….) can say that? Take it from me, I was married four times before I met her, and was engaged to future ex-wife number five by the time we fell in love. Everyone thinks we are crazy, but…I was determined to prove it was easier to fix it than to fuck it, as long as you started with the right partner.

Of course, in order to Rise like the Phoenix, we had to Dive into the Fire. The process itself seems to require some sort of cataclysmic event to occur within the relationship. Anything short of physically jumping into a Real Volcano can be survived.

We had to reach the point where most couples would have divorced, only to discover that we could not financially afford to do it, so we decided to negotiate peaceful coexistence, but without any vengeance. We had both seen the War of the Roses, and knew we were better than that, but it took experiencing a Crush of Adolescent Proportions to bring both of us to our senses.

The Intoxicating Infatuation we had once experienced together, (usually the exclusive Domain of Teenagers…) was revealing herself to me…and I so greatly wanted to share it with She Who Had Once Been My Goddess, that as my feelings for My Crush grew, I became more irresolute in my obsession to share that with My Former Very Best Friend. The reality and truth of these experiences are still unfolding as we speak. We are taking the first steps toward resolution. We are both fanatically committed to each other’s mutual satisfaction. I am a bit blissed out by it, so I may tend to digress worse than usual. (This blog seems to require more prologue than most to properly set up the story.)

If most people could actually see what their life would be like after they got divorced, I doubt that they would do it. But Love Rediscovered is undoubtedly the rarest commodity on the planet, and it seems like most people would rather run away from facing their Illusions, so they could just live in denial somewhere else. The thing is that we already know where all the bodies are hidden…we are not spotless, and it is not eternal, but we have learned how to set it all aside…hit the Reset button, clean out the attic, the basement, the garage, the closets, have a giant yard sale, kiss the old, bad memories goodbye and send them on their way, like ungovernable children to military school. But this time, we are keeping a map of the squeaky floorboards, weak railings, roof leaks, broken steps, potholes in the yard and other hazards already known and acknowledged by both of us.

We decided it was easier to forgive than to have to forget. Amnesty wins over Amnesia.

We are also crossing over from Swinging, and other forms of Open Marriage that presuppose that it is entirely Improper and Wrong and Dangerous to engage in anything more engaging than shallow, “Purely Physical” Adventures (as if anything Deeper or more meaningful might jeopardize our Franchise)…and into Polyamory.

We finally decided that we both preferred to also share Love and Friendship with the people we are fucking, and in one case so far, try fucking the people we already know and Love. Compared to Swinging, it really does narrow the field a great deal, but as a theoretical construct, it just makes sense…Seduce the heart, and the mind (and body) will follow. If you do not delude yourself by thinking it is meaningless, perhaps some meaning and purpose will reveal itself to you, all by itself. Just let it happen. You can’t force it now any more than you could when you fell in love the first time. Just be open and It will come to you.

In addition, and also in the meantime, we decided to seek the assistance of what might hopefully be a long-term facilitator for playful friendship. Someone to help us tickle each other’s fancy….

(Swinging was sooooo much easier….) MORE TO COME LATER….

First, “I would pray this smoke shall carry my words straight to Heaven, so there should be no lies between us…”

So I guess the future really IS now after all, at least to read my text, because “later” is (now) NOW…to [mis]quote a Kadak Shaman…the digressions continue.

Soooooo, it was mutually agreed that my wife should do the interviewing, partly because she has more free time, partly because she is very good at recognizing incompatible “agendas”, and mostly because she is charming and much more socially engaging than I. She makes friends easily, is outgoing, and men and women both respond very positively to her. I am more of an “acquired taste”, that requires time and patience to fully appreciate, like scotch whiskey, cigars, or anal sex.

To us, Human Sexuality is a vast and fluid landscape, like an amusement park for all our naughty parts and thoughts, as well as our most noble and elevated emotions and intentions. Either of us are as likely as the other to trade roles or indulge each other to try on new “hats” (or other costumes).

Our general rule of thumb is No Scat, No Blood, No Children, which leaves a lot of latitude for experimentation and exploration.

She has several profiles out on sites that cater to what formerly was the exclusive domain of newspaper “Classified Ads”. Where one of my sites might yield a half-dozen hits a week, she often receives several dozen inquiries a day. I trust her judgment implicitly, and she is very capable of protecting herself, if need be, but it has never come to that. She has very strong Mojo.

For this reason, we will be jointly contributing to regular features here as a sort of byline, which may get its own page or heading, or whatever. (MORE TO COME).

Now the really interesting idea (If I was writing this as a screenplay) is this: my spouse and  My Crush have never met, or even spoken over the phone, but she has taken no small offense to things that should remain unspoken in fairness to all parties, even though I was completely honest and open in disclosing events as they were occurring, and in truth  we have long passed that point in terms of the development of our relationship….

A really devious sort of person (say the Lead Male in this imaginary screenplay) might be tempted to encourage Ms. Crush to seek My Goddess via one of her classifieds, and arrange a “meet and greet” so they could get to know each other on neutral ground. They are both what I would call “a woman’s woman” in that they both genuinely like other women; they don’t normally treat them like adversaries or competition. They both have amazing senses of humor, and I am sure they could be the very best of friends (in my imaginary screenplay) if they just had the chance, but this is not a screenplay, this is my life in real time…(as far as I can tell right now) and I am somewhat ambivalent about subterfuge, even with the best of intentions, when it involves someone who needs to trust me implicitly as much as I do her. But in a novel or a screenplay, this would be a brilliant turn of events, even if “His” duplicity was discovered, only to complicate the plot and further masturbate the reader/viewer.

But, as it turns out, this is where my life IS like a screenplay, since I already know she will be the first to read this, as she is not only my Publicist, she is also my Biggest Fan. In fact, it was She who suggested I write on this subject for us, to get the process in motion.

I wake up every morning thinking I am the Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth, and she spends all day doing everything she can to prove me right…and I do the same for her. The Willing Suspension of Disbelief. We support each other’s delusions well enough that they are no longer delusions at all.

It is Never Wrong for anyone to tell another Human “I love you.”

At this point, I will be signing off. Time to go to bed, to sleep. My spouse, My Goddess is in Los Angeles, visiting family and friends, and having the time of our lives there for both of us, experiencing, growing, and gaining wisdom, and will have much to post for the next installment of “The Modern Deviants”.

I really am the Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth.

My Comment on “I Slept with your Husband”

(A very dear friend forwarded Anonymous’ post to me, and I was moved by what Anonymous had written for several reasons, including the fact that she received a witch-hunt worth of hate mail from people who clearly didn’t “get it” [and probably don’t…] a secure well-adjusted person with an active, happy sex life does not get that easily threatened).

I hear you, and I get you. Your headline caught my eye, because more than twenty years ago, my wife made the same choice you did, and look where it led her…we have three wonderful children together, and about four months ago, fell back in Love…Madly in Love, for the fourth time since we met. She followed her heart. No one can judge, but be careful what you wish for….Someday the glove may be on the other hand. Since you already know you can’t possess him, if you want to keep him then pleasure him, and give him his freedom so he always wants to come back.

At the time that we started the affair, I did not know my former wife was cheating on me, and I felt guilty for embracing the Irresistible Force. In retrospect, Karma had led me where I was supposed to be. Once we made that decision, we also made a commitment to each other to embrace Polyamory. Now we don’t have to cheat. What we do instead is to encourage each other to honestly and joyously pursue everything from cheap thrills, perversions, and provocations to flirts, infatuations, crushes and sometimes even genuine Love and Friendship, which we share freely. It is a great source of strength. We have no need for secrets.

We started as swingers, but soon realized that we did not have to fear extramarital Love any more than we had to fear extramarital sex…extramarital Love was much scarier at first, but in the end, was far more rewarding.

I was quite impressed by the fact that you recognize that you have a part of him that you love that needs to be loved, and that you also realize that you can no more possess him than she can. She may have the home field advantage, but he hits those line drives deep into center field for you. You don’t have to deal with the everyday stressors that can kill even the most vibrant of relationships, but you also don’t get to cuddle late on Sunday mornings. In that sense, the playing field is level. If you continue undiscovered, no one really encroaches on the other’s territory…maybe no one will get hurt. There are no guarantees to anything. My ex-wife did me a favor, including absolving my guilt.

I wish you the very best. Follow your heart. I hope you learn as much from your mistakes as from your successes. There is no free lunch. The opening of your post sounded like it could have been written by a very dear friend, for whom I also wish that her every desire should be fulfilled.

I call her Goddess, She calls me Lover

I have a bone to pick with no one in particular, but if only for the sake of clarification, I think that we may be due for reclassification of some very old Pursuits of Happiness.

Recently, the BD/SM community (wouldn’t it be great if we all really lived in the same neighborhood, by the way?) has begun to address the fact that although the Old Guard believes you are either a Top, or a Bottom, a Sadist or a Masochist, and that you either Bind or are Bound and either administer or receive the Discipline, My Advisors tell me this is no longer true….

For me, that is much too rigid, inflexible and limiting. I realize some people can only function in one capacity or the other because of…who knows?…lets just leave it at Something Happened Some Time Ago, or it may still be happening, but suffice it to say, that for some, when One Door Opens, Another Closes (rather than the other way around), implying that we can’t simply run willy-nilly through the whole house, leaving all the doors open, as I am often want to do.

Until a few years ago, I was a more or less typical Alpha-Male Sub, perhaps because I made life and death decisions every shift I ever worked, and I was a control-freak professionally. I was attracted to women who were assertive, especially in regard to expressing their desires, particularly if those desires included me. I don’t claim to be shy, but I find it difficult to get started, if you will. I try to induce women to pick me up, and I love it when they pick up the check and say something too crass for a man to even think about implying, and then winking at me as if to say “…Lobster, huh?” (like it may be my last meal) “…don’t think you’re not going to earn every drop of butter-sauce…” …a nod, a wink, a knowing look…I look back as if to say “Yes, Nurse Patent-Leather…your wish is my command.” That was my niche. To look like a diamond in the rough…a find…a discovery. That was then.

It has been my finding that an assertive woman often wants to dominate, allowing her to act out all kinds of fantasies that I already knew I was having myself. For many self-realized, empowered women, the more Alpha-Male the man is, the more they want to take control.

At this point, I would like to call attention to my Bone of Contention regarding acknowledgement of a portion of the BD/SM Community that is not fairly and accurately represented…Not all people necessarily derive pleasure from receiving or inflicting either pain or humiliation. I think that the Master/Sub(servient) relationship is more about Control and Surrender. Don’t get me wrong…the right amount of painful stimulus, artfully applied, can trigger massive endorphin releases that stimulate Opium Receptor sites, resulting in a euphoria similar to heroin (…according to my “research”…) that some refer to as the Sub Zone. And few things can equal the pleasure of spanking someone you have Loved long enough to really want to spank…

But for a few of us, the real thrills come from what I have come to refer to as “Sexual Chicken”…where the Dom du Jour purposefully sets out to push the limits of their Sub/Slave to perform acts dredged up by Dumpster-Diving into both psyches looking for new and as yet undiscovered territories of what hopefully at least feel perverted or dirty…trust me on this point…if that doesn’t seem like an almost limitless territory, then you are not really using your imagination to its fullest potential.

What I have only come to realize very recently is that many Dominant Women also have a huge capacity to be dominated…as much as they crave Control and Power for themselves, they are also attracted to those who possess it. Registered Nurses are no strangers to this enigma, for instance. They frequently seek men that need to be fixed (not like a cat, of course…more like an old house, or some project) that does not threaten them, allowing them to feel superior and in control…a pet boyfriend, if you will. They are frequently generous to a fault, but regard these husbands and lovers as possessions, that they soon grow tired of, seeking an affair with a doctor or cop who makes them feel helpless. Not all men are up to the challenge of playing Master to the Dominatrix, but then again, if you are already an Alpha-Male type, it not only is within your job description professionally, but who better knows how to subjugate another being than someone who craves Domination?

As I have mentioned in other posts, we all need a “Safety Word” to prevent harm or emotional damage if we intend to sail in these convoluted and treacherous waters. This is axiomatic to the pursuit of Forbidden Pleasures danced on the Razor’s Edge. In much the same way, those of us who go both ways as either Master or Slave, may find it helpful to have a word or phrase that indicates our intentions, desires, and fantasies or more accurately, our desired Role for either the evening, or even the moment.

Either of us are well-suited to Assume the Position and when that is our desire, I call her Goddess, or she calls me Lover. Or else I call her Slave-Girl, and she calls me My Pet….

One Man’s Meat is another man’s Poison.

One Man’s Ceiling is another man’s Floor.

One Man’s Mate is another man’s Person.

One Man’s Goddess is another man’s Whore.

…I apologize in advance for the male-oriented poem. Our culture and our language have certain almost built-in prejudices, and I was trying to manipulate well-know phrases by juxtaposition. Please feel free to reply with a second verse that helps balance the scales. You get the idea, of course….

Sex allows Adults to Act out like Children…to play…to fantasize. It is the most exalted form of Theater of the Mind.

All the World is a stage we’re going through.

I Slept With Your Husband

My Angel

Angel of Mercy

Angel of Death

Sweet Angel gonna carry me

across That River

To the Other Side.

I’m in no hurry,

but don’t feel no Fear.

I know your face

I seen you before.

You told me back then

If I make you come again

You’re gonna have to make me go

but you’ll be taking me there with you

and I don’t blame you at all,

It’s just your job

it’s not your fault

your job is tough

but you make it look

so easy

All you have to do is smile.

Give me the Nod and Wink

I’ll offer you my arm

As we walk away in style.

The Talking Monkeys: Merle (as Introduced by Ash)

I first met Merle when we were enrolled at the University of Florida. He was studying Botany and Pharmacology, and I was enrolled in the Seminary. Back then, we didn’t pay much attention to gainful employment, or even life after college. We were in the moment…back then, our dreams and speculations centered around Utopian visions. Now our visions foretell of the Apocalypse. We both had generous scholarships, and came from the kind of middle-class homes that equated a college education with financial and social success, so there was no shortage of support of any kind. We felt Invincible. Our Needs were few, and we worked at pursuits that seemed to generate as much money as we needed, but didn’t require regular hours or interfere with our studies.

I played guitar and acted as front man for a sort of loosely arranged group of musicians that used to jam together. Each of us had our own arrangements, charts, and/or recordings of previous live performances that we would use to provide some identifiable semblance of structure, that we rehearsed in different forms so, depending on who was available at any given time, we could more or less show up at a gig, and just get into it, much like the way jazz musicians perform in some clubs. In a very peculiar way, they were our “Standards”, considering that we had an audience that usually was already familiar with the same influences. I recall someone calling the scene “Art Rock”, or something like that. We could be quite pretentiously unpretentious about form, or genre, and we catered to a very indulgent, but sophisticated audience.

It was a college town, so there was no shortage of well-trained versatile musicians, or dives, garages, basement clubs or bars; empty buildings awaiting their next future failed venture, and it was not at all unusual for other musicians we knew to just show up at one of our gigs, and jump right in. Sometimes we would hop from one club or practice session to another, or even crash an out-of-town gig to surprise a “rival” band…not that there seemed to be a lot of competitiveness in what we were doing…we were just doing it. To even get paid at all was great, and we frequently used most of what we got to buy more instruments, and electronics. We rarely ever spent much money on drugs, because there was also no shortage of fans and friends only too happy to see to it that we didn’t want for recreation, companionship, or entertainment. “Who Shall Entertain the Entertainers?” Indeed.

From my point of view, any money I got somehow justified all the money I was spending just to play in the first place. I realized at an early age just how much I loved to perform. The Clergy appeared to be a way to preform for an audience that was infinitely more respectable than Rock, or even Jazz Music, and Classical was way too straight-laced to suit my Nature. My folks were scientists, and they just wanted to be sure I had something to fall back on, preferably with a Health Care Plan.

We also had this shared following/audience of roadies, self-proclaimed agents (anybody that got us a job got ten percent), groupies, friends, zealots, and the most amazing group of hangers-on that I’ve ever known…college used to be like that…an intellectual, spiritual, and sexual Mecca for persons of like mind and aspirations…which leads us to Merle.

We called him Merlin the Magician because of his legendary talents with Botany, Chemistry, and Pharmacology, which he used to provide us with just about every sort of psychedelic, hallucinogenic, psychotropic, and stimulant imaginable and make it look like an experiment. He was from Arizona, so he had great access to many plants that were sources of Sacraments to the Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples of North America. As a mixed breed Apache, he genuinely believed he was entitled to ancestral rights in the pursuit of his religion(s), which he had actively studied and pursued since his childhood. He was the son of a Shaman, and was well on his way to becoming an accomplished one himself. As much as each tribe strives to maintain their own cultural heritages, Merle had spent many summers traveling from one reservation to another, to swap magic with other Medicine Men and Brujos, picking up Mojo from every place he went, and eventually leaving a little of his own as well. He called it cross-pollinating, as he traveled like the bee, from flower to flower.

I had spent so much time and effort studying what I came to call Theoretical Theology that I did not recognize how far I was outside of mainstream religion or anything that remotely resembled any organized religion. I saw no conflict between my pursuit of deviant forms of music, sex, art, philosophy, theology, sociology, anthropology, or my own brand of spirituality and my desire to be a holy man, even if the prospects of finding a church to hire me were effectively nonexistent. Merle maintained that we were already both holy men by virtue of our chosen paths, as well as our actions themselves. He had wisely chosen a career path that would afford him means, and respectability as long as he kept himself within certain legal guidelines. I decided that I would try to conform enough to get hired by a Unitarian Universalist church that provided me with a lot of latitude as far as Theology was concerned, at least until I met Kali.

She came to us on the heels of a very ugly, messy divorce down in Palm Beach county that could have rivaled the Pulitzer divorce, had they been wealthier or more notorious. She had been sufficiently wise to get enough Hush Money in the settlement to be comfortable for a while, but she did not demand enough money to bring her future ex-husband into sufficient temptation to consider making her disappear, of which she believed him to be quite capable.

As it was there was a bit of tongue-wagging by a few of the more vocal and self-righteous married women within the congregation before Kali arrived, but we all found her to be intelligent, thoughtful, gracious, charming…and beautiful…especially me. We were married within the year, but already the clouds of controversy were looming on the horizon like a storm at sea, and eventually that controversy led to not only my dismissal, but the revocation of my membership in the Unitarian Church as well.

During this time, Merle managed to travel and gather experience pretty much wherever he chose, doing consultant work for several pharmacological labs. Whenever he was near enough, he would stay with us in our home. I did counseling and social work when I could get it, as much for the sake of my pride, which Kali respected, despite the fact that we essentially lived off the proceeds of her money and investments, which I largely to this day cannot pretend to really comprehend or understand, but I trust her instincts, as well as her intentions.

One time when he came to us, he brought Peyote he had just gathered during his last trip out West. Sometime during that visit, we sort of jointly received what most people, including myself would call an epiphany regarding the source of the controversy leading to my dismissal. Why not build a church around the very Principle that had precipitated my unemployment? Why not indeed? What has Brought About my Downfall Shall Become my Strength. Make Controversy the building blocks to set around the Cornerstone of my Church, which shall be a spiritual mission devoted to Polyamory, and in so doing provide a loving and creative environment of nurturance and support that would effectively channel and direct the same forces that by virtue of their strength can either destroy our culture, our families…even our spirits themselves, or energize and strengthen our thinking, our actions, and our approaches without Fear, Guilt, Sin, or Jealousy by embracing both Love and Sex without reservations or restrictions. To allow and encourage all of us to realize that we possess within us the power of both God and Goddess alike…The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

If it weren’t for Power, Death, Love and Sex there wouldn’t be any need for any Church at all….

You could say that Merle was my Wing-Man, and Kali was Our Angel.

Torch Song

When I met you,
my eyes were already
Wide Open,
which probably explains
Why
I was so Blinded
by All the Stars….

My Oldest Friend

My Oldest Friend is the youngest person I know. “Running Mates”, some people would call us. Partners (often in crime) in every endeavor for as long as I can remember, we were co-conspirators in every Dirty Deed I have ever done or been “falsely accused” since the beginning of Time. Taught me shape-shifting before I was five years old, and “relative invisibility” shortly after that. Went on every excursion I ever took from Astral Travel To Acid Trip from Santeria to Salvation.

Most of my other friends are afraid of him, and warned me that our acquaintance was conjured in Hell. You can see the terror in their eyes. So enigmatic that they cannot even tell if “he” is male or female…(When he talks to me, he sounds like Eddie Griffin…) and he always has enough Havana Cohiba’s for both of us…and Dark Rum from a bottle so old it was hand-blown…it has a cork that he pulls out with his teeth and it always looks about half-full.

“Mista Chazz…” he calls me through a smile full of long pearly-white shark teeth as the smile becomes a grin just a red cunt-hair’s breadth short of a sneer, “We sure do strike sparks everywhere we go. I wish they would let me take an assistant, but MANAGEMENT sez no…such a pity, but no matter, I go everywhere you go just because I like ya; I go everywhere else because I have to…even when you was a baby, you were never afraid of me, even though your folks couldn’t see me…funny thing, like that, ain’t it? Maybe they’ll let you be my assistant when it’s Your Time.”

I remember feeling him walking on my shadow that night in Pompano, as we walked through that apartment building, police everywhere…around the pool…chalk line around the stains that hadn’t even dried yet…cops hanging out on the stairs, smoking cigarettes like all the big stuff was over…the bust was over…now it’s paperwork and reports and debriefings…cops just milking the job…walked right in with me to that apartment on the other side of the building…a half-dozen detectives standing around, shooting the shit about the shooting…just walked right in and bought a forty-piece like it was fucking bubble-gum, right under their noses, and walked right back out…Holding…just like that. He’s always there with me every place I never should have been.

As I get older, I know there will come a time when MANAGEMENT will insist…retirement time…My Friend will come to take me to the other side…he says that what we don’t realize is that for the first six months, you can’t stop laughing, just looking back on it all, especially The Fear. He says that as long as I can keep up, then we’re cool, because I amuse him, and I sense a certain detached admiration…he says I make the time he spends on this side fun…for now.

This may be the longest introduction for The One Who Needs No Introduction. He is the Harvester; the Guy with the Clam Rake…the Butterfly Net…the Spear, the Lasso, or the Scythe… we have been friends since before my parents were born.

Some time back, I started to realize that my friend was with me even when I didn’t realize, but did that shape-shifting thing again, and caught me by surprise by coming to me as a woman…knew I wouldn’t be cool with that…couldn’t feature it…(especially thinking back on some of the things we did)…but really, that was my fault, because I made Everything in My Own Image….

Somebody like that doesn’t really need a body of their own when they can just act through the others that come to you from what seems like out of nowhere…and now here. So I told My Friend that when it was My Time to please come to me as a woman…she doesn’t even have to be beautiful…soulful will do just fine…It’s just not my nature to Surrender…willingly, except to a woman…something which I have been doing since before the first time I was ejected from the Garden.

This Is Nobody’s First Rodeo…but for the ones who haven’t realized it yet, it might as well be…everything that has or ever will happen is happening right now…Always…My Friend and I have been doing this ever since, and Your Time is Always Just Around the Corner. Every Day is Judgment Day.

The Talking Monkeys: Management

You will read the term “Management” numerous times in the course of this story. Although it is somewhat purposely vague, as a concept, it is more important to understand what it represents, rather than specifically whom it is, as the identities are less important than the functions they perform, or why.

First comes Middle Mangement, the “Collaborators” of all work place functions. The term “Collaborator” was originally a World War Two invention used initially in France to describe the recently defeated citizens (mostly women), who were willing to suck Nazi Cock and/or perform “…any and all other tasks and assignments…as deemed necessary by Management…” for chocolate, nylons, cigarettes and other favors, usually at the expense of the rest of the others who weren’t. In France, it got your head shaved, while here it gets you a corner cubby, a badge, and other favors. In either case, it represents a person who is willing to sell out their own kind for personal benefit. If this seems like an unfair or harsh pronouncement, keep in mind that most Upper Management has read The Art of War, while Middle Management attempts to find new and imaginative ways to spin The Secret or The Power to their subordinates.

Management knows who their enemies are, and conducts their operations like Warfare, while the Employees are encouraged to think positive thoughts to bring positive results by being contented with whatever falls from Management’s Table. This is not to imply that The Secret, or The Power are not perceptive and valuable texts, but it is only after recognizing the subjugation and victimization practices in Management’s Warfare against their Workers, that one starts to look elsewhere to find out how to draw upon their own power by using positivity to affect their own lives.

Ironically, it would seem best to not Wage War against Management, but to rather redirect your own positive energies to your own devices. Middle management wants to have you believe than you can use positive thoughts to get better leads on a computer-programmed dialer that has pre-set parameters called “skill sets” to get better calls, rather than to use it to find better work…preferably something you love that rewards you rather than someone else. If the analogy of Middle Management prostituting itself to The Enemy seems extreme, then either you have never actually worked in either Upper or Middle Management, or you are sufficiently numb as to not even feel it any more when it is being done to you.

Upper Management can mean a lot of different things, since some corporations have vice presidents in charge of specific functions, who spend their time supervising that operation when they are not creating the perception of a need and justifying their own positions and salaries, often at the expense of the actual operation itself. Once called Efficiency Experts, Capitating Coordinators, or the like, they have to pay their salaries with the money saved by cuts and reductions in the production staff. More like Decapitation, it’s a corporate version of Three-Card Monty since Management is not likely to pay someone to spend more money without justifying it by taking it from someone else, and somehow Management prefers the idea of taking it away from the production staff so they can give it to some corporate cocksucker with an agenda, further evidence of the contempt Management has for their own staff, as if one Privileged Executive Life is supposed to equal three hundred rank-and-file workers.

This lowest strata of Upper Management are the Snake-Oil Salesmen of their realm, a sort of semi-legitimate version of the Long Con. They are generally contracted, rather than hired per se, and as such are often not company employees, but consultants. These are the guys that can sell a salesman a pipedream. They do not stay much of anywhere very long, and are about as useful as a Remora is to a Great White…at least as long as the Shark thinks so.

Then comes so-called Upper Management, most of whom can’t make a decision to take a crap without having “Legal” “look over it” first. Most of them spend the vast majority of their time and efforts just trying to keep their jobs. While they may be felons on any number of levels, they are not true Gangsters. Gangsters in upper management have all the swagger of a Made Man who has somehow leveraged his way into “Legitimate Business.” But even if he is a CEO, he still answers to a higher authority, one way or another.

Then comes The Government, part of which is also controlled by Wiseguys, rather than Wise Men. One day, The Wrong Dickhead from the Department of…, or the Bureau of…, “…and they just want to go over a few things…”. They are the Privateers of the business world…just doing the King’s business with Government Sanction…(These guys are also the intermediaries who may get used to manipulate an executive, or an entire corporation on behalf of Someone to whom allusions are made, but names are never spoken.)

Bigger corporations often own smaller corporations, and are not above wrecking one company just to benefit the other company, or to simply liquidate an acquisition as a method of securing capital. Bigger corporations are not above manipulating the government, its people, or their laws for as much as they can for as long as they can get away with it. If you get caught, no big deal…pay a ten million dollar fine for stealing five billion, and it’s no more than “the cost of doing business”

Government is just as likely to manipulate business as well, since even businesses that do not do government contracts know better than to just say no.

For these, and many other reasons, even when a business does something that looks too stupid for explanation, the chances are that it was done for other reasons not so easy to understand, by someone with no concern for the operation itself. Try to imagine a marionette being manipulated by another marionette, who is being controlled by a puppet master.

So when you read that Management has made some decision, keep in mind, that could be anyone, from a CEO’s wife to The President. Whoever pulls the strings.

In Defense of “Dirty”

There was a time when I was quite reactionary about using the word “dirty” to describe Sex, Art, Music, Thoughts or Words. In My World, the Sacred and the Profane alike wallow in the same muck. There was a time when I thought that Sex, for instance was not “dirty”…and I would have argued with anyone who called me “promiscuous” because I felt defensive about what the word meant to them…I’ve had plenty of time to rethink all that several times over….

I suppose when the general consensus was that Sex is Dirty, then Sex without shame, or guilt, or association with Sin is liberating, even to the point of exhilaration. If you still think that Sex is dirty per se, you are probably a gynecologist, and single.

I am neither of those, although I must admit that the concept of being very well paid to look at vaginas all day long fills me with curiosity just long enough to make me want to badly hurt my high school guidance counselor. Then reality sets in…an endless queue of diseased and broken cunts…heartbreakingly curious, a mixture of revulsion and fascination. Janitor to The Temple of the Holy of Holies. Of course, many of them would just be average healthy women, in for their fifty-thousand mile maintenance check. I remember when I worked as a municipal paramedic that on the numerous times I was called upon to inspect one (like a labor and/or delivery call), that I called upon a considerable amount of reverence and decorum by remembering to NOT smile wistfully, as I am often want to do when I see a woman’s flower under non-clinical circumstances, but rather to inconspicuously touch my badge and simply think “God, I love this job.”

This post may be well on the way to running off the rails by way of digressions, but both topics, as well as most related subjects are so near to my heart that I can easily get lost like a child in a department store full of toys and candy.

I read a definition of the word Turpitude that stated that (by definition) “…if you are guilty of turpitude, you should be ashamed of yourself…”. I felt offended…I mean, here a person spends their entire life devoting themselves to depravity only to be so harshly judged. Fortunately, I have also learned to consider self-righteousness to be its own punishment.

By God, but I do digress…back to dirty as a state of mind…A Dirty Mind is a Terrible thing to waste. And Turpitude is its own Reward. The world writhes with Sex at the core of virtually every motivation, ambition, or interest since the beginning of time…Sex…self-replicating DNA…our biological imperative…good for more than a few nights worth of Adventure, but there IS Something Beyond even the most frenzied, sweaty physical couplings…The Zealot’s Chariot of Fanaticism…where the body drives itself to overthrow the tyranny of the rational mind, only to have The Id, the Imp of the Perverse to deliver the final coup and establish its own Junta overrunning all reason…frenzied Ecstasy storms the barricades…short circuits the brain and releases The Madman from the Prison of the Mind…and all in good fun, (tastefully set to whatever Music blows your skirt up). Dirty is a state of Mind…it can take you to the edge of the volcano…it can make you laugh until you cry…and its all inside your head, the biggest sex organ of all.