I’ve lived in Dallas, TX for 45 years. Over that time one thing has become crystal clear; there’s something in the air or the water or the ephemeral plasma that transforms this person:
Into this person:
Like I said, maybe it’s the water.
Whatever it is, (thankfully) it doesn’t affect everyone. Lots of people drive safely and actually live up to the Texas slogan “Drive Friendly”.
But some do not.
Some people not only consider all driving laws driving “suggestions”, some obviously consider them challenges to be overcome.
Red light? Can’t\won’t tell the difference between green\yellow\red.
To them all the lights mean scream through the intersection at the highest possible speed with zero regard for anyone.
Stop Sign? That means scream through the intersection at the highest possible speed with zero regard for anyone.
School crossing? That means scream through the intersection at the highest possible speed with zero regard for anyone.
School zone? Obviously one should scream through the intersection at the highest possible speed with zero regard for anyone.
Are you sensing a pattern?
Listing all the different ways these drivers destoy the very idea of safety would take more time than we have in this universe.
But it’s not the water, or the air, or anything like that.
You may have noticed that, in the good old USA we live by one seemingly pervasive concept: The world in yours and you must take it any way you can.
Me first, everyone else who the fuck cares.
Dallas culture is the same, just dialed up to Eleven.
Squared.
Making the horrifically bad choice to drive somewhere, anywhere in Dallas doesn’t just mean risking your life. It means risking the lives of everyone you have ever known.
Don’t know how that works but it’s right there in black and white so it must mean something.
In visiting other big cities in Texas and elsewhere it becomes very clear to someone accustomed to the terror driving in Dallas: These people are different.
San Antonio, TX is a very historic and beautiful place. And the people actually drive as they cared about their own lives and maybe others too.
Same in almost every other Texas city.
The solution:
This is the only one that makes sense to me:
That strange feeling you’re getting is the odd concept of safety.
In 2014 I was diagnosed with stage II prostate cancer. This was annoying as I had planned to live out my life cancer free. (This worked out about as well as my plans for marrying Raquel Welch.)
Fun Facts about prostate cancer:
It’s one of the slowest growing cancers
As only men have prostates, it’s not a concern for women (But ovarian cancer pretty much cancels out this benefit.)
The test for prostate cancer is call a PSA test. This is a blood test that determines the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level. This antigen occurs normally in the bloodstream. Higher levels generally indicate some prostate issue, not necessarily cancer.
The first time my PSA level was high I elected to take immediate action: I changed doctors.
My new doctor didn’t believe in PSA tests. At the time there was a lot of discussion in medical circles about the high incidence of false positives. I naturally assumed it was a false positive. This belief would have continued if my new doctor hadn’t moved his practice. The new location was just too far so I went back to my old doctor.
Surprisingly, my high PSA scores were still high. My old doctor suggested I see a specialist.
So I go see the specialist. He is a very nice man with an impish smile and he really enjoyed hearing me jabber about my love of horror films. His examination and blood test confirmed that something was going on. The next step was a biopsy.
This isn’t nearly as much fun as it looks.
The easiest was to access the prostate is going up the ass. Sure, I could use “rectum” but that just sounds gross. (Don’t worry, we’ll get plenty of gross stuff on this journey.) In the image that’s the approach labelled “Trans-rectal needle”. That’s the one my doctor chose.
The process involves the doctor going up my ass several times. First with his finger to locate the bump inside my ass that is my prostate. Next was with a shot of local anesthetic. To clarify, the doctor shoved a special syringe up my ass and stuck it through the wall of my internal ass into my prostate.
This was not fun but it wasn’t terribly painful.
Once I my prostate was satisfactorily numbed he went up my ass with a needle gun to actually perform the biopsy. Only it wasn’t just one needle. The gun actually contains 14 needles. (Fun City!) This allowed the doctor to check 14 areas of my prostate.
He had warned me that the anesthetic wouldn’t completely numb my entire prostate; some of the needles might hurt a little.
At this stage in the story its useful to explain doctor terminology. Here’s a handy translation from doctor speak to real world speak.
What the Doctor Says
What it actually means
“You might feel some pressure”
“This is going to hurt”
“You might feel some discomfort”
“HOLD ON TO YOUR ASS, PINOCCHIO, PAIN’S COMING TO TOWN ON A RADIOACTIVE FREIGHT TRAIN MADE OF SCORPION LAVA”
So he goes up my ass with the needle gun. Fourteen needles through my ass wall into my prostate.
Fourteen.
The first ten didn’t hurt at all. I could feel the needles as they lanced through the succulent (don’t know if the prostate is actually succulent, it just sounds cool.) flesh of my ass wall and my prostate, but there was no pain.
And then there were needles eleven through fourteen.
Yes I did feel pressure but on needle eleven there was just a bit of pain. Enough to cause me to say “OH!” but not too bad.
Twelve was worse. MUCH more pain, causing me to say “OH, OH!” But I’m a tough guy so I got past it.
Thirteen was like someone took a very hot needle and shoved it up my ass, into my (now angry) prostate. I honestly don’t remember what I said here, but the doctor did leave the room for a minute.
Once the screaming stopped (my memory is vague at this point.) he came back in for needle fourteen.
The last one. (Thank freaking god!)
Also the most painful one. Maybe the anesthetic had worn off or never got to this part of the prostate.
This was full on, radioactive, white-hot, barbed-wire drill bit up my ass and into my now fully raging prostate.
I’m really struggling to find the words that can accurately describe the pain. Imagine the emotional pain you would feel if Trump was immortal and was elected President for life.
Imagine how life destroying that would feel.
Now convert that soul crushing emotional pain to physical pain, up your ass and into your insides.
This would be almost the brain exploding pain of the needle fourteen.
But at least it was over.
For now.
It would be a week before the results came back. During that week my wife and I had sex. It was uneventful except there was blood. My wife said she must have started her period.
That was not the case. Priming my pump solo confirmed that the blood wasn’t menstrual blood. It was my cum. (Or ejaculation issue if you prefer) My cum was now blood. Red, Red blood.
But that only lasted for a week of so. After that time, my cum was black as pitch. Wanking off should be a pleasurable release. This wasn’t that. There was no pain. The actual feeling of wanking or sexing was same as before. Except my cum was the color of Satan’s cum. Fun stuff.
A week goes by. The doctor’s office was supposed to call on Wednesday to give me the results. Wednesday came and went with no call. I took this as confirmation that my prostate might be filled with Satan’s cum but not cancer.
I called the doctor’s office on Thursday. The nice lady checked my results. This is that conversation, as well as I can remember:
Nice Lady: “Your results show cancer in eleven of the biopsy samples.” (Her tone was that of someone telling you you have something green in your teeth. There was zero alarm, just conveying somewhat relevant information.)
Me: (After a few seconds silence) So I have cancer.
Nice Lady: Oh, yes you have cancer. (No change in her tone.)
I get this. She makes many of these calls every day. Nothing new to her. Just information to convey.
I still remember just how unreal that call seemed. But it was real and now I had to deal with it. The nice lady set up an appointment with the doctor for my wife and me.
By the time of the appointment my shock and awe had been replaced with the grim reality that I’d be going under the knife in a big way or maybe have deadly radiation blasted into the area of my body that was fairly important.
The doctor wasn’t grim. He outlined exactly how advanced my cancer was and what the options were. There are generally three options for prostate cancer treatment:
Surgical removal of the naughty prostate
Using radiation to kill the naughty prostate
Waiting
As prostate cancer grows very slowly (generally) if it’s detected early, (stage I) waiting can be a viable option. The idea is that treatment is always advancing and a new, less invasive and less destructive option might become available.
My cancer was stage II so waiting was off the table. So surgery or radiation were the options available to me.
The thing I love about this doctor is that he’s a non-bullshit kinda guy. He calmly explained that radiation and surgery would probably have the same result: no natural erections for the rest of my life and the potential for some incontinence. The plus on radiation was no surgery. Just the fun effects from having several blasts of radiation in my crotch. The plus on surgery was one and done and no radiation and it’s fun side effects.
We chose surgery as I’d had major surgery before and knew how to recover from it. Radiation scared the living crap out of me.
Once the choice was made the doctor set up an appointment for the surgery. As our hefty insurance deductible had already been covered for 2014 (Earlier that year I had been diagnosed and treated for a cataract in my left eye.) we only had to make sure the hospital had the correct insurance information.
So there I was, sitting in front on a very nice man. He took my information, punched a few keyboard keys, squinted at the screen for a moment and then turned to me with a smile, saying: “We have your information. Looks like your part of the surgery will be $25,000.”
The loud, somewhat incoherent laughter I was hearing was my own. “I don’t have that kind of money.” were the words I heard my self say through the laughs. The very nice man’s face went a little pale. He looked at the screen and relayed the information he had. Turns out the insurance info was years old and didn’t reflect our current coverage. Once that was worked out everything fell in place and we were ready to go.
Christmas Day 2014: We were having one of my wife’s old friends over and I was busy preparing a feast. The menu was smoked prime rib, Romanov potatoes, rolls, and other crap I can’t remember. It all came out very well and everyone had a sumptuous meal and by everyone I mean everyone but me.
As my surgery was early the next morning I had to stop eating at noon. Fun Stuff.
Day 1: Surgery Day
The day came. We went to the hospital and went through the different steps of preparing for surgery. The only thing I remember was that everyone was very nice and actually seemed to enjoy my stupid nervous jokes (much as I hope you’re doing now). The surgery proceeded without issue and everything looked very good.
Before the surgery my doctor had said it’s possible that I could be released the day after surgery. I was planning on that as I absolutely hate being in the hospital (big surprise) for all the usual reasons but mostly because I am unable to sleep (without chemical aid) in a hospital. On the plus side I had a morphine pump of which I had semi control over; semi because it was limited in how often I could use it. It would allow me a pleasing wave of opioid bliss and relief every eight minutes which meant I was hitting that sucker every eight minutes I was awake which pretty much my entire stay.
The night came and as tired as I was, sleep was not on my dance card. I thought the morphine might help. Nope. Sleepless night #1
Day 2: “I thought I was going home today?”
Day two was much like Day one (minus the surgery). I was getting my food via tube which makes it fairly difficult to enjoy. I had a catheter feeding in to a lovely plastic gallon bag nest to my bed.
Here’s a clinical definition of a urinary catheter for those of you lucky enough to have never had the pleasure: “A thin, flexible tube inserted into the bladder to drain urine when a person is unable to urinate independently.”
Sounds pretty benign. But below the pleasant medical jargon is the disgusting and uncomfortable reality of having a tube shoved up your dick. This wasn’t my first experience with this medically approved torture device. I accidentally shot myself (story upcoming in a future post) just before my senior year in high school. For some reason during my hospital recovery my bladder decided it was time for a break; a days-long break. This was not a good time. You just haven’t lived till you’ve had the disgustingly uncomfortable experience of being so full of pee that you expected it to begin seeping from every open place on your body – except your dick.
The med tech that helped me out (if having someone shove a plastic tube down your dick hole into god knows where inside your body is “helping you out”) was a Vietnam vet and was actually very cool and sensitive to me being a bloated, scared baby man who absolutely did NOT want a plastic tube shoved up my dick hole. When he came into to abuse me in this horrifyingly intimate way he understood that I might not be thrilled about it. But with great care and a gentle touch to my manhood, he got me through it.
Hilarious and Terrifying Anecdotal Side Bar
Bizarre Sex Kink Gone Wrong: Story 1
At one of the 13,895 jobs I’d had a co-worker told me two stories his emergency room doctor brother had told him WARNING: This isn’t going to be pretty.
One night a guy came into the er with some bladder pain. He pulls down his pants and the doc sees something he’s never seen before: a rather long length of black plastic electrical cord coming out of the end of the patients dick. (It gets worse, much much worse) The solution seemed pretty simple: What goes in, must come out. Easy.
Except the cord WOULD NOT BUDGE. And any time the doc tried to budge it, the patient transformed from a naked scared man into a human screaming machine.
Turns out, this guy’s kink was to take a fairly long length of black plastic electrical cord (without the plug thankfully) and catheterize HIMSELF. (Yeah, I get that when you take sex, human desire, and the infinitely bizarre world of human kink, you find some stuff for which the only appropriate response is WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING FUCK?!!)
The details: The guy would take the black plastic cord and carefully feed it inside his dick hole. It was long enough so that some of it would end up inside his bladder. Then while still riding the ecstatic kink sex high he would gently pull the cord out. He’d been doing this for a long time without issue.
Not this time.
This time something new and TERRIFYING happened; towards the end of the cord, it stopped coming out and HURT when he tried to proceed.
An x-ray told the horrifying, disgusting and brain exploding story; the black plastic cord had somehow coiled into a knot. (Please feel free to stop reading at this point for the appropriate scream break.)
I would like nothing more that to tell you how the doc ended up getting the knot out, but I don’t know, because my response to hearing about the knot caused me to put my hands over my ears, close my eyes, and scream “NO NO NO NO NO OH MY FUCKING GOD NO!” for a long time.
Bizarre Sex Kink Gone Wrong: Story 2
Another time in the er a guy (why is it always MEN who do this crazy shit?) came in complaining of stomach pain and days long constipation. Again, an X-ray told the story (or part of it). It showed several oddly shaped objects in the guys stomach. The objects were oblong, about two inches long with a short inch long tube protruding from one end. The doc asked the patient if he had any idea what those objects might be. And then came the rest of the story.
This guy’s kink was to bite off the head of a Barbie (Sorry Mattel) as he whacked off and swallow it as he came.
This is not a joke. And the really bizarre thing is that this is apparently a VERY common kink.
There are times when I think the universe created humans as an experiment to see just how fucked up supposedly intelligent animals can get.
We are the result.
You’re welcome universe, hope you’re enjoying the show.
Day 3: “You want me to do WHAT?”
Here’s something you might not know about hospitals in the great USA; they are apparently staffed entirely by doctors, nurses, non-doctors, and non-nurses who share several curious tendencies:
They are, by all appearances, regular people.
They appear to be very kind and considerate.
They are in fact sadistic to the point that it would make the Marquis de Sade scream “HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION AT ALL?
The impossible thing they wanted me to do was get out of bed and walk around while dragging my piss bag (containing a really lovely mix of unhealthy looking piss, blood, and crap I’ve never been able to identify, not that I wanted to)
So, with help, I got out of bed on my VERY shaky legs and slowly shuffled down the hall and back. You might think I was self conscious, but the universe was kind enough so that there were a lots of people shuffling around the halls dragging piss bags containing various fluids of disgusting nature.
My understanding was that I’d be going home today so I was waiting for someone to confirm that.
Nope.
Turns out when you have everything related to your urinary track cut apart and rudely patched back together, your body needs to do one very specific thing to prove that your insides have been correctly re-plumbed. Apparently having shit come out your dick and piss coming out your ass isn’t considered an upgrade.
So everyone in the hospital was waiting for me to fart.
Everyone.
And that gas just wasn’t budging from my ass.
Day 4: No Farts, No Joy, No going home
The good news was that except for feeling like there was an over inflated basketball in my gut, I felt pretty good.
Getting up and walking was easier and I could see the end of the tunnel.
Just waiting on the fart.
Day 5: On Frustration, Food, And The Most Enjoyable Fart A Person Could Ever Have.
Most things were much better. Getting up and walking around felt almost normal (except for dragging the piss bag) The good news is the piss bag fluid looked less like liquid afterbirth and more like regular yellow piss. (Small favors)
But I was still in the no-fart zone. My lovely wife and I discussed this issue and came up with a cunning and bold plan: we asked for a tuna salad sandwich. (Up to then I’d still been getting nutrients from the tube in my arm.)
Surprisingly, they said yes and a tuna salad on whole wheat came to my room, delivered by a dancing group of smoking hot nurses in black bondage gear. (That part is fiction but I really like that image.)
I ate the sandwich. It was the best thing I had eaten in my life up to that point.
And not long after that I visited the bathroom, my bowels opened delivering the longest and most satisfying fart\shit I’ve ever had. (It was one of the ten best memories I have.)
Everyone was happy (except the people in hazmat suits tasked with cleaning the bathroom.) Very soon I was discharged and went home to continue my recovery.
Epilogue
The rest of my recovery was uneventful and soon I was my normal sarcastic and cynical self.
With some big life changes:
My wonderful (and I mean that truly and sincerely. He’s the greatest medical professional I’ve ever had the pleasure to have inside my guts.) had warned me that getting erections would be problematic. The good news (and I didn’t know this so it was a very pleasant surprise) was the erectile dysfunction meds work just as well for missing prostrate guys as they do physically complete models.
So I could pop the pill and ride the orgasm express with my lovely and supportive wife just as before.
Sort of
The prostate produces semen that is mixed with sperm and ejaculated by a specific muscle. Here’s the clinical explanation:
Bulbospongiosus Muscle:
Situated in the midline of the perineum, the bulbospongiosus muscle surrounds the bulb of the penis and the corpus spongiosum, the tissue that houses the urethra. This muscle is instrumental in ejaculation, as it contracts rhythmically to propel semen through the urethra. Additionally, it aids in emptying the urethra after urination by compressing the bulb of the penis. The strength and coordination of the bulbospongiosus muscle are essential for effective ejaculation and urinary function.
The removal or destruction of the prostrate means the circuitry that causes those contractions to no longer function. Without semen or sperm your body has nothing to ejaculate, so it just doesn’t happen.
As it happens (to me at least) those contractions and the joyous tiny cannon explosion of ejaculation was gone, never to return.
I could still orgasm, in the clinical sense, but without the particular sensation of ejaculation, the experience was very different and fairly unsatisfying.
The was past this is to (by LOTS solo excursions and sex) basically re-learn how to enjoy the actual sensation of orgasm. Eventually it will get better in at least one way (no more need for tissues, towels, or socks [don’t judge me] soiled with man juice) That’s actually pretty cool.
The second big change is that the removal of the prostate means the patient will experience some incontinence. Instead of your pee waiting patently for you to hit the bathroom, it might just take the express train to your underwear.
Not fun.
But the solutions are many. Special underwear (call it what you want Casper, it’s a freaking diaper), pads of varying sizes with different levels of absorption (think drips and leaks to Niagra level protection)
You can also do the male version of a kegel by exercising your pelvic wall.
Funny story: I went a little overboard with this and had the blissful (that’s sarcasm Spanky) experience of getting a cramp in a place where you NEVER NEVER NEVER want to get a cramp. So I slowed down (stopped completely) with the kegels.
Twelve Years On
The biggest takeaway from this, and what I hope this way-too long text means is that getting prostrate cancer and dealing with it however you choose isn’t the life\sex ending experience some think it might be.
I’ve known men who seriously said they would rather die than lose the ability to rock a hard one and share their man juice in every way possible.
Guys, it’s a big deal health wise, but it not the end of the world.
JUST DON’T IGNORE IT, REALLY!
I say that will much emphasis because I did know one guy with this attitude that elected, against his doctors advise, to wait until that magical day when prostate cancer could be corrected with zero changes to his horizontal boogie ability.
And it killed him. No Fucking Shit.
Sorry to end on a downer but if you take one thing from this encyclopedia level textual ejaculation (Hey, if I can’t shoot cum, at least it hasn’t impeded my Cthulhu given ability to ejaculate bullshit!) get your PSA level checked regularly for your own good.
Final Thoughts
Two people made it possible for me to endure this journey with the bare minimum of mental and physical distress:
My Loving, Supporting, Sexy, Funny, Beautiful, (I would run out of superlatives before I effectively conveyed just how great she was and is) wife. She stuck with me through the entire process and gave me the courage to make it through. (Buying the sexy nurse bondage gear was a BIG plus!)
I would not have survived it, much less thrived without her infinite patience and support.
THANK YOU SO MUCH DONA!!! YOU ROCK MORE THAN ANYONE HAS EVER ROCKED ANYWHERE IN THE MULTIVERSE!
My AMAZING doctor and surgeon. He and his team were ALWAYS there to make this potentially terrifying journey manageable. I still see him every six months and we ALWAYS spend too much time talking about stupid shit, just like the two juvenile guys at heart, that we will be always.
Thank you Keith, you’re the best doctor\surgeon\oncologist anyone could ever hope for. The memory of your kind and caring smile, your impish laugh, and just the way you put me at ease beginning day one and continuing 12 years on, actually gives me hope for the black hole that is healthcare in the USA.
Hello, My name is Donald Trump and I’ve come from the mirror universe to say I’m very, very sorry. (For those of you not familiar with the mirror universe, here’s the short version: the mirror universe is almost exactly like the one in which you live. We have the same history, the same people, for the most part. Whoever you are there’s someone here who looks exactly like you. But whatever personality type you are, they are the opposite. If you are brave, they are weak. If you are strong, they are weak. If you are intelligent, they are a moron.)
Which brings me to the purpose of my message. Please forgive me for appearing to brag. Generally I’m reticent to “blow my own horn”, but it’s important for your universe to understand just why I feel responsible for your version of Donald Trump.
If I am to be considered to successful, I can only point to having two loving and supportive parents. They gave me the tools to become whatever I am. They taught me to value the truth above all else, but not at the expense of other people. They taught me to always do my best and to also help anyone around me who might be struggling. They taught me that great wealth equals great responsibility.
Those lessons served me well, in business and my personal life. The business’s I started all did very well, both financially and in a much more important way: they helped people. They helped the people that worked for me and the clients we supported. But please understand, the staff of all my business’s are simply the best. I give them the tools and resources and they make the magic. Their devotion to each other, our clients, and to the business humbles me, and shows me how amazing people can be.
At different times friends, family, and co-workers have tried to push me towards public office. I resisted, as I didn’t feel my talents were up to the challenge.
In 2014, I finally relented and agreed to run for President of the ASA (Allied States of America). Realizing the great responsibility, I started building a team that reflected the values and standards that my family had taught me.
We were very fortunate and won the election. Now the real work began.
Our goals were challenging to say the least: End hunger in the ASA. End homelessness. End bigotry and prejudice. End poverty. Make sure every child born in our great country came into a world where they were safe, warm, all physical needs provided, and most importantly, loved.
We made great strides in my four year term, but it was my team that made all the good things happened. They made me so very proud.
But we were not able to accomplish everything we had wanted. To me, this made it clear that I was not the right person to lead the ASA into the future. I didn’t run for a second term.
I settled into retirement and fully expected to live out the rest of my years in peace. Having the opportunity to devote myself to my hobby, dimensional physics and advanced quantum mechanics. Time travel had been perfected some years ago, so that wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was to create a stable portal to another dimension.
It took 10 years but the project was successful. I asked some physics and engineering buddies to take my plans for the DP (Dimensional Portal) and make it a reality. They did just that.
Last year we made our inaugural trip between universes. Lots were drawn and my good friend Julie Love drew the lucky ticket.
The DP was configured and everything was ready. Julie stepped through the portal and was gone.
The portal allowed her 24 hours before returning. To our surprise she returned in three hours. As she stepped through the portal it was very obvious that something had gone terribly wrong. Julie was crying, wracked with convulsive sobbing. We did what we could to calm her.
When she could talk, she told us of the horrors she had seen. In that universe, (your universe) bigotry and sexism was rampant and actually seem to have governmental support. Homelessness, poverty, all the darkness that my universe had banished with the light of human compassion eclipsed the entire planet in hopelessness.
And at the center of it was me. This was all my doing. Yes, I realize that your Donald Trump isn’t me. But in him I could see many, many similarities.
It made me so very ashamed. Ashamed that anyone with the name Trump could stoop to do such things.
Shortly, we will begin to disassemble the DP. There’s nothing in your universe for our people except a grim reminder of what might have happened. But before we do, we needed to send this message. It not much, but it’s what we can do.
I’m asking your forgiveness for all the terrible things my team (as they exist in your world) has done to produce such horrible conditions.
For myself I ask no such forgiveness. If the Trump in your world is incapable of admitting failure, I will admit it for him.
I’ve failed you. All of you.
I’m sorry.
I will leave you with this one potentially bright spot; there is always hope. As long as some people in your America value the truth, compassion, and love, there is always hope.
This is something you CAN do. I’ve seen broken people rise up and become so much more than they thought they could be.
You can do that. All of you. You only have to believe and work a little every day to make things better in your area.
The same way I believe in the infinite potential of my people, I believe in you.
Just how are you supposed to walk away from the car?
The car that you had dreamed of, and finally owned?
Before that question is answered let’s look at the long journey to this car. (FYI: the images of the 2008 BMW 135i are for representation only.)
The original dream.
In 1978 I somehow came across an image of the current lineup of BMW vehicles. The M1 was BMW’s consumer version of the race car they were developing. It cost a stunning $25,000. To compare, the most expensive American car at that time was the Cadillac Seville Elegante cost around $18,000. The most expensive American sports car was the Corvette at $13,000.
That sticker price, might have well be a million dollars. So much for that dream. Time for a new one.
The new dream. The 1989 (yes, time has passed) BMW 635I. This is still the perfect example of a touring coupe. But this car was $50,000 in 1989. I did eventually make enough to buy a used one, but that was in 1999 and it didn’t make much sense to pay $15,000 for a used car.
The reality.
In 1989 A BMW did grace my garage. It was a 1982 BMW 320i bought for $2500. It replaced a 1984 Nissan 300ZX. (Don’t ask) To say it was a disappointment was a huge understatement. It was not fast. It handled well but was ultimately underwhelming.
Convertible #1
Time passed and in 2005 I had essentially given up on BMW’s. But not on convertibles. That year the stars aligned and granted me the opportunity to buy a new car. The 2005 Toyota MR2 was my choice.
It was a very fun car. But it had a shitty stereo and was NOT fast. Still, it was enough for a time.
Convertible #2
A few years later I was looking at a 2008 Honda S2000. My oldest son (the ultimate car person) suggested a 2008 Mazda Miata Grand Touring hardtop convertible. This one felt much faster. The hard top power convertible top was just so freaking cool. The stereo was still shitty. So this graced my garage till 2012. This is the car that made my baby cry.
In 2012 my wife broke down in tears when I was teaching her (at her request) to operate a stick shift. So I decided to buy a car with an automatic transmission.
I religiously checked CR and was amazed and delighted when they listed the 2008 BMW 135i as a reasonable choice. So I went looking.
This is what I found:
The dream, realized.
The BMW 2008 135I Convertible was the most enjoyable car I had ever owned. It handled like a dream. It was SUPER fast. It was a powered top convertible. And the topper was it’s sound system was as good as my home system. And it was an automatic so my wife could drive it. (Though she never did.) The funny thing is that this car used cost almost exactly the same as the BMW M1 did in 1978. Ironic.
I loved this car. I loved driving it, looking at it, just appreciating the fact that I finally owned my dream car.
But the years passed and they took their toll on my dream. The car’s electronics were groundbreaking in 2008. In 2026, less so.
Then it developed an electrical issue that would kill the battery overnight. The one bad thing (and it was a huge one) is that while this model was more reliable, it still required regular maintenance that was sort of expensive. An oil change was over $100. Any sort of repair was around $2000. So it was time to move on.
We elected to donate it instead of going the hassle of another repair and selling it.
The tow truck came Monday afternoon. The driver marveled at good it looked and how the power convertible top worked. (Had to lower and raise it one last time.) He hooked it up to his truck and drive away. I didn’t actually see that. Just couldn’t watch.
Just about this time last year I started looking at vacation options. We needed a real vacation. It had been nearly four years since our last real vacation.
We were thinking a cruise. I’d been on one in a previous life and enjoyed it quite a bit. My wife had never been on one.
The great thing about a cruise is once you pay for it the hardest thing you have to do is get on the ship. That isn’t that hard. Once you’re onboard the hardest questions are what to do, what to eat, and what to drink.
There’s always something going on the ship, lots of activities to keep you busy.
That’s how I discovered The Star Trek Cruise. I’m not going into detail about the cruise. Visit https://startrekthecruise.com/ for more information.
I’m a big Trek fan so I was sold. My wife likes Trek, but isn’t really a fan. But she said ok so we signed up.
Now we just had to wait for nearly a year.
The year passes and we arrive in Miami, FL on departure day. Getting to the cruise ship port was the worst part of the process. Once onboard everything was easy.
Expectations: Overall, I didn’t really know what to expect. We’re not really the type to frequent fan conventions. I expected there to be a lot of panels and interviews. I expected it to be a lot of fun.
I didn’t expect it to be inspiring.
The Unexpected: The celebrities who spoke spent most of their time talking about how they came to trek, how Trek’s overall philosophy has affected their lives, their relationships with fans and the other celebrities in their particular show.
There were very few silly fan questions. Frankly I can’t remember a single one. Time after time, a fan would come the mike, holding back tears, and recount how something in Trek, a story, a character, an episode, helped them through very dark times.
The actors shared their own dark experiences and told how their Trek family pulled together to get them through it.
Every actor who spoke had several things in common: They loved being part of such an open, accepting community, they loved working on such great shows. they loved the other actors on their show, and they loved the fans.
They all spoke of the great feeling of community just by being a part of the Star Trek Family.
Everyone who spoke, Famous or Fan, spoke of hope, of love, of connection, of family.
They spoke of how the completely fictional struggles of completely fictional characters had helped them with their all too real life struggles.
Again and again, my heart was broken listening to the pain an actor or fan had felt going through a dark time and how something or someone in Trek had somehow made the hardship just a little easier.
But the most important message of all Trek is inclusion. No one is excluded from the Trek family. This beautiful spirit is evident in the amazing spectrum of fans.
I expected to have a great time with other Trek fans and celebrities. And that certainly happened, far beyond what I could have hoped.
I didn’t expect to have my heart broken and healed again and again.
I didn’t expect to come away feeling uplifted, hopeful, and energized.
I’ve always loved Trek. But somehow I had forgotten the great message that no matter how dark the night, the dawn is just over the horizon. Great things are just around the bend.
It’s hard to look at what happened yesterday, January 6, 2021, with anything less than horror and shock.
And yet there is no surprise. Trump and his supporters have been quite successful in convincing a great number of people, just like you and me, that this election was fraudulent and that “the enemies” were trying to destroy democracy.
So people reacted in what they thought, what they had been told, was a reasonable and necessary act; to take back the government that was being stolen.
We did this. You and I. Because that’s all there is. There’s no “they”.
There’s only us. And we have to figure this out.
If we, as a people, as a nation, can not reach out and find some way to work together, then we are truly lost in every conceivable way.
In the last year or so, I took a solace in thinking that as bad as the divisions among us were, at least we weren’t engaged in a full blown civil shooting war.
Only today have I realized that this country has been at war with itself for many, many years.
The differences are that there are more than two sides and there’s been no formal declaration.
Instead of bullets, cannons, and the like we used something much more insidious and destructive.
We used words.
We used the very things that should help us come together to find some kind of compromise that gives us all something.
Somewhere along the line (and this is true of any political party or movement) the idea of working with the opposition (or whomever we perceive as such) was lost.
We bought into the idea that politics, our prevailing national ideology, is something that could be “won”.
There’s no winning here, unless you’re a politician looking for a few more years of a cushy life for little to no real work.
Yet even the politicians are working within the reality that we’ve all allowed.
We are the problem. All of us. And only by putting aside our differences will we have any hope in making things better.
So here I am in the middle of a life with the dawning understanding that nearly everything I thought to be the cornerstones of acceptable and positive human behavior was bullshit.
Please note that this “enlightenment” did not come all at once. It probably started in my mid 30’s, after I’d been married for nearly 10 years and had three kids. My life was pretty much formed, yet I was forced to accept that I had very little understanding of what it actually meant to be a “good” man or a “good” person. I was still far too self-centered, self-absorbed, and just generally selfish. I had no good friends and honestly had no idea why.
I’ve considered documenting my lame efforts at adopting the Christian faith and living that life. Although my life continues to be shaped and informed by the seminal wisdom and irrefutable cultural truths found in the bible, it’s promised spiritual and actual life benefits evaporated under the brutal scrutiny of real-life trials and the crucible of honest scientific examination.
But I eventually did find a relevant and pragmatic mythology, one that fits perfectly with honest examination, introspection, and observation of my external reality.
In the endless outpouring of the admittedly unreal I found the real. My mythology, the structure, and concepts on which to base a life, a world view, and a complete perspective I found in the words, sounds, and visual imagery of fiction.
My teachers are many and quite varied.
One of the first is the late Kenneth Millar, writing under the name of Ross McDonald. Through his writing I became acquainted with Mr. Lew Archer, a California private investigator. He allowed me to follow him in his long and eternal struggle with a landscape of shallow glitz tinged with human failings and an uncaring system. He taught me that no matter how many times life gangs up and beats you down, you always, failing death, have the strength to get up, brush yourself off, and continue. Mr. Archer was often beaten but never defeated. Not because of his boxing prowess but because he simply would not be defeated.
Another is Sue Grafton. She introduced me to Kinsey Millhone. Referring to her as another southern Californian private investigator simply does not do her justice. Hanging around her gave me some small insight into the subtle yet profound differences life forces on women, in particular women who attempt to invade the unspoken but rigidly protected universe of the male hero. In her I could see the inviolable steel will of a woman who does what she must for no other reason than it is what she knows to be right. She allowed me to recognize (or at least to begin to) the strength and determination I’d seen in my mother, some of my schoolteachers, and the various remarkable women I encountered.
I watched Jonathan E. explode with lethally focused violence in 1975’s “Rollerball”. Through his pain and determination, I learned that sometimes the significance of the single, unwavering unit, the person, nameless to the thoughtless, corrupted, and never-fulfilled maw of the human monster’s appetite for violence, sexuality, anger, and mindless desire to WIN, is and always be, important, for no other reason than one individual believed in it.
Through the incomparably beautiful prose of Walter Mosely I met Easy Rawlins. Mr. Rawlins’ adventures as a black man in late 40’s Los Angeles gave me a protected peek into the racial barriers thrown up by fearful whites. He gave me just a taste of raw bigotry and hatred for no more reason than a darker shade of skin. I do not and never will know completely what it’s like to be black, (or female, or any other identity that we call “minority”) but I have some small idea.
But by far my greatest teacher has been the late Robert B Parker. He introduced me to his friend Spenser (like the poet). First name unknown (perhaps even to Mr. Parker) he works as a private investigator in Boston. He’s taught me about love, being true to yourself, sometimes cruel and brutal honesty, friendship, and what it really means to be a man, in almost every context. Not being married, he taught me that eternal and unchanging love is not a feeling but a decision, made every moment of every day to fulfill a promise made to oneself and to another.
Not being a father, he taught me that the greatest instruction one can offer a child is unwavering and unconditional love.
Not being some perfect icon, he taught me that failure is inevitable and certain. That to fail spectacularly in private or in public, is to take one significant step towards the best we can ever hope to attain: simply being able to honestly say: “I did my best.”
Mr. Spenser was none of those things but one thing he was in spades: a good friend. And that, perhaps, is the greatest lesson of all.
As he moves through his violent and ever changing landscape, struggling against a faceless, nameless foe as determined to corrupt and destroy as he is to support, aid, and perhaps to redeem, he meets other heroes. Some help him once and are forgotten. Others are drawn to him, recognizing in him the same burning desire to help, to make right those few wrongs that can be made right. He makes and keeps friends. These are true friends, not momentary images or words with nothing more than a virtual existence. Although they are no more real than the words and phrases that manifest their entire reality, they are more real to me than almost everything I see.
They are real because they represent that which means everything to me. The truth, the truth about everything and everyone that is, so much today, cast aside for material stuff, meaningless and unfulfilling as empty space, the cynical illusions of friendship, promoted by a virtual market no more real and relevant than the virtual space it inhabits. The ridiculous concept of falling “in love”. As if a lifelong commitment to care for and be cared for by another could in some bizarre universe, be equated to some intoxicating but well-understood biochemical process doomed to evaporate in time.
These are my teachers and I will never ever learn all they have to share. But I am listening, and I am, despite all my weaknesses and personal failures, learning.
I watched a lot of tv as a kid, mostly the meaningless pablum of daytime programming. Most of it was from the late 50’s and early 60’s. It had little or nothing in common with real life, certainly not my life.
My family was poor, my father farming cotton on someone else’s land, spending what money he had to raise a crop, selling it for what he could and having to pay a significant portion of those proceeds to the landowner. There was never much left for him or us.
Our house was on the edge of town, small and spare, heated by three gas stoves, one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and the smallest in the single bathroom. In the summer it was “cooled” (and I am using that term in its most generous sense) by a large evaporative cooler, blowing somewhat cooler air through a living room window. It had a bad bearing, causing it to screech loudly on long, hot summer nights.
This was my real world and it was made nearly unbearable by what I saw and understood as “normal” on the various TV shows I watched. The characters that lived inside that small simulated wooden box were sometimes so much more real to me than the real people in my life and nearly always preferable.
I am the youngest of five and by the time I was born my parents were both in their early 40’s. They’d both been born into large, depression-era families, sharing only the life crushing poverty common in those times. They spoke little of their childhood (to me) and as far as I was concerned the history of my family’s existence began (and perhaps ended) with me.
Life had not been kind to them. Whatever hopes and dreams they might have had, were almost completely dead and gone before I was born. They did the best they could. It has taken me long years of hurt, disappointment, sometimes hate, and longing to understand that. All of that was displaced, directed mostly towards my father. My mother tried, in her own way to make me happy. My father spent all his time simply trying to keep food on the table, a roof over our heads, and shoes on our feet. He had no time or energy for the kind, generous fatherly relationships that was common on the insipid and fanciful TV shows that informed me as to what a father should be like. I still don’t and probably can never understand the soul-wringing hardships he suffered.
Against this seemingly grim background of my childhood was projected the insubstantial and unreal black and white moving pictures of completely unrealistic fictions. “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It To Beaver”, “Make Room For Daddy”, “Ozzie & Harriet”, etc were my windows to a world that was so much more real and preferable to the crude outlines of my actual existence. I lived in those shows, spoke with the voices of the two-dimensional children therein, listened to the calm, measured, and loving voices of the fathers and mothers, and dreamed of someday living in a house where patience, love, material plenty, and an easy, totally fictional and perfect life was offered to all who would take the time to sit, watch, listen, and believe.
Sure, I watched the other shows, “Superman”, “The Wild, Wild West”, “The Twilight Zone”, “The Outer Limits”, etc. The difference being that I completely recognized those for what they were; fanciful and fantastic visions with little or no connection to the real world.
I didn’t understand then that the family shows were no more accurate or relevant than these fanciful tales. To me they were what real life was or perhaps what it should be. They shaped my dreams and expectations as much as any accurate history or memories shared by my siblings, friends, or parents.
They were my mythology, even though at the time, I did not recognize them as such.
But a life built on the foundations of ephemeral and never existing shadows can only eventually dissolve under the simple and unrelenting pressures of what happens during normal human existence. The dreams and visions collapsed with no more substance than the light from which they were constructed. Life, rich and full of the ugly, insistent, and intense barrage attacks of real consequences, was always so much less and so much more than the shadows of those false teachers. Their truths and lessons, based on nothing more that some overworked and hasty TV writer’s hurried scratches, evaporated as the steam from water, boiled too long and too hot.
My life was almost always a huge disappointment, delivering none of the expected perfection, richness, and promised material wealth.
I don’t know when, but eventually I came to understand that the things on which I had built my life were baseless and simply put, bullshit.
Here’s something you may or may not know and\or understand: For the most part, people serving in political office at any level (but particularly at the federal level) have one, and only one priority: keeping their job. This isn’t surprising as that’s essentially the desire of anyone who has a job. The primary difference being most people try to keep their job by actually performing the work for which they were hired.
Not politicians. The work they should be doing is hard, and fraught with difficulty. So long ago, they learned the easy way to keep their job; convince the voters that someone else is actively preventing them from doing their job. They are most excellent at this.
So now, we have a divided country where both sides are completely sure that all the problems they face in life is someone else’s fault and thank heaven for my tireless senator\congressman fighting the good fight to make sure we get everything we want, desire, and need.
What a load of bullshit.
Let’s face the ugly fact and those are that our country was founded by rich and powerful white men who were mostly interested in providing a legal and political structure that mostly looked after the interests of rich and powerful white men. Sure, they paid lip service to the rest of us, but that was NEVER anything but an afterthought. The rest of us were simply mindless drones, fit for nothing more than mindless drone labor and other meaningless activities. But even they, in their relentless pursuit of a system designed to promote rich and powerful white men, saw political office as public service and NOT A FREAKING LIFETIME JOB!
But we, the people, have been lazy. (and frankly far too busy trying to overcome the endless barriers put up by rich and powerful white men to our very existence to do much about it) We believed them when they said they were doing this for the good of all. (Of course, to them that meant for the good of rich and powerful white men.)
So now the most prominent leaders of our nation are rich and powerful white men (and a few rich and powerful women) who are FAR too old and out of touch to really understand the majority of the people they are paid to represent.
This is not some radically outrageous proclamation, made by me in a pathetic attempt to get attention. (Unlike practically everything I post) I believe this will all my heart. If you can provide solid evidence to the contrary, I’d be happy to see it.
Perfect Illustration of the currant state of the USA.
Sad but true. This country, the one we’ve been crowing about for nearly 250 years as the shining example of the triumph of democratic achievement has one, tiny, little secret:
It was all a big fat fucking lie.
Created by rich white men, most of whom either owned slaves, had owned slaves, or would own slaves. They were almost certainly not the enlightened and completely altruistic heroes we’ve been told about. They regarded most women as property. Sure, some allowed themselves to lower themselves to the level of women and were duly rewarded when such women seemed to bloom under their care, guidance, and tutelage. (Of course, what was really happening was they were allowing themselves to recognize the skills, value, and abilities that had always existed in these and all women.)
Is it any surprise then, that at the end of the day, this country, every scrap of it, has an incredible bias towards white men and rich white men in particular. This bias is so very fundamental as to be nearly invisible.
Make no mistake. These men created this country for the benefit of all. No doubt about that.
But in their hearts, the word “all” was synonymous with “white men” first and foremost. All others came a very distant second.
This is the unspoken fundamental truth that we’ve been in denial about since forever.
Not surprising, considering white men had been pretty much running things forever. There was no reason to change.
Think about that.
Re-read all of the great, glorious, magical, documents associated with the birth of our country. See all the references to “men”. We’ve culture-corrected those references, in our own heads, to mean “people”. (After not a little pushing, shoving, bleeding, dying, killing, etc.)
But this does not change the intent and underlying world view shared by these great men. They envisioned a country filled with all sorts of entities; men, women, and others. That’s how they saw people. Anyone not white belonged to the “other” category. These were entities that were “almost” people.
The simple and somewhat ugly truth, the truth that we’ve been denying, is that these men, the founders of our country, created a world where they, as the destined ruling class (that being white men) would thrive and prosper.
And they (most of them anyway) gave absolutely zero thought to anyone outside themselves.
Don’t misunderstand, they wanted only the very best for everyone. (Provided the quality and opportunities of their own personal lives were never impacted negatively.)
This is why our country is broken. It was broken from the beginning.
Can it be fixed?
There was a time when the answer was “Of course! The US can do anything!”
But that’s a lie. We’ve clearly demonstrated the profound ability to NOT be able to do anything, other than to make rich white men richer and more powerful.
We make it through the so-called civil rights movement. We thought gains were made. We thought the country was moving forward.
We thought it was working.
And at some levels, town, city, and state, it might have been.
But at the federal level, the rules still give all the power and opportunities to rich white men. Others need not apply.
The civil rights movement did nothing to eradicate the underlying hate, resentment, and outrage that afflicted so many white people. When they no longer felt welcome in the national conversation, they didn’t go away. They went silent and underground.
And they grew. Initially, via word of mouth and personal relationships. The internet age brought them all the tools they needed to connect, thrive, and most importantly, influence.
Still doubt the idea?
Take a look at the baby-man Cheeto “running” the country.
All of his perceived faults, the thinly veiled hate, the ignorance, the lies, the denial, the seemingly endless list of character flaws, are perfectly representative of the kind of person our founding fathers saw as the perfect leader: A rich white man.
They would have seen no problem with the Cheeto. They would have clucked their tongues at his boorishness and ignorance. But his fundamental right to be a leader would be a given.
And there’s obviously a great number of people who still feel that way. They see him as a leader…a great one.
We are truly and profoundly fucked as a country.
Until a majority of the people of this country understand the fundamental shortcomings of our leaders, how can we possibly begin to effect real change?
The only way forward is to fix everything from the ground up.
Not amendments, not presidential edicts, not shaming, not focus groups, not anything like that.
We have to start with one simple shared and committed concept: every human alive in this country has all the rights, opportunities, and responsibilities of every other human.
For real this time.
Once that is done, we get really radical.
We level the playing field for real.
For everyone.
We perform the herculean task of equally redistributing all real wealth.
All of it.
There’s about $98 trillion owned by US citizens.
There’s about 208 million adults in the US.
$98,000,000,000,000/ 208,000,000 = (roughly) $471,000 per adult.
That’s right, that’s how screwed up this whole thing is.
We start by taking it all away and actually distributing it evenly.
That’s where we start.
And if we actually do that, it will solve most, if not all of our countries issues.
