Feet of Clay

Aristotle hit the bottle!
Caesar plucked his brows with tweezers!
Those folks we place on pedestals
are really made of clay.
I wouldn't be at all surprised
if Joan of Arc was just one of the guys,
and Jane did all of Tarzan's cries,
and Superman was gay.


Here's a thought....Tiger Woods affairs are not of your business!!! Bill Clinton thought he was above the norms of society because society continually reminded him that "he was the most powerful man in the world"! We enjoy building people up so that we can bring them down. Or how about this....monogamy is not a genetic trait of males! If nature intended man to spread his seed in order to ensure production, then monogamy is nothing more than the results of the feminization of the human race. It may be politically incorrect to suggest that the natural instinct of the male is to have many mates, but just because something is politically incorrect does not mean it is truthfully incorrect.

The Sanctity of the Sanctimoneous

The meek shall inherit the Earth (churches say)
and in thanks for that promise we bow.
Then they pass 'round the plate, you see churches can't wait -
they demand their inheritance now.


All the rip-off artists in history, all the conmen and grifters and flim-flam men, can't equal the damage done to the poor and meek that religions have accomplished. From Oral Roberts demanding 10 million from his followers to stave off God's promise to murder him, to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and their time shares that even God couldn't figure out the schedules for. From the Ayatollahs and their promise of virgins in Heaven (if you're lousy in bed virgins can't compare you against better lovers) and Billy Grahams and pedophile hiding Popes, the meek have been duped, bilked and generally taken for a ride. There was a line in a movie which must be the first lesson learned by those entering the religious fields: "If God didn't want them sheared, why'd He make them sheep?" Here in Charlotte we are now having the trial of Pastor Jinwright and his wife - accused of bilking his parishoners by taking a million dollars a year out of their pockets. The problem lies in our belief that anything really big is good (like Wall Street and banks and General Motors), so our churches have become the Goldman Sachs of salvation. I guess God can't hear you unless you babble along with 4,000 other strangers and funnel your message through our new age, self proclaimed prophets of truth and hallelujahs.

Starting Over

Dating's hard for a man, thirty five and divorced -
and for women I guess it's the same.
The players are new, you've forgotten the rules,
and you've damned near forgotten the game.


Divorce was rare before the 1970s. You muddled through marriage - our parents did and we were expected to. When I found myself at the end of a failed marriage in 1977 I was lost. There was no precedent in our family - and once the pain of failure had faded and it was time to start "getting back into circulation", it had been a decade since I had last dated. Not that I was really good at that before, but in my early thirties I felt like a fish out of water. A flounder.