On morals and Google-whacking

I don’t understand people–especially social and religious conservatives.

My friend’s husband believes that nudity is morally wrong. It’s bad, it’s sinful, it’s an abomination in the eyes of God, and any woman who would be photographed without clothing is a dirty whore.

He also beats his wife.

What kind of malfunction do you have to have, what kind of bad wiring inside your head does it take not to see the problem here? Why is it, exactly, that so many people seem to believe that morality begins and ends with sex?

Take Charles Keating, for example. Remember him? He served in the Cabinet under President Regan. He testified before Congress numerous times in his attempts to have magazines like Playboy banned in the United States, and he was also on the Meese Commission on Pornography, the group headed by Attorney General Edwin Meese to try to put pressure on retailers to stop selling Playboy magazine. Keating called himself an authority on morality, and lectured tirelessly on the subject.

He also embezzled billions of dollars from Lincoln savings and Loan, triggering the collapse of the entire S&L industry that cost the taxpayers staggering sums of money.

So: God doesn’t mind if you beat your wife. Stealing is fine. But nudity? Oh, my, no, THAT is a sin!

Goddamn, is it just me, or do these freaks have some kind of moral and intellectual blindness so profound that they’re complete moral cripples, unable to figure out even the most basic things on their own?

At least A. was able to get safely away from her abusive situation, which is good.

In other news, I successfully Google-whacked for the first time tonight, and did it in only seven tries! I RULE!

What is Google-whacking, you say? Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s a sport where you go to www.google.com, the Web’s most comprehensive search engine, and you attempt to find two English words that appear on only one Web page (that is, you type in two English words and get a results page that says “Results 1-1 of 1”). It’s harder than it sounds; Google’s archive contains literally ,i>billions ofWeb pages, and every defined English word occurs on countless millions of them.

My Google-whack? “telomere tankful”

Why it pays to know your spouse

Some time ago, I had a friend I will call “A.” I met A. at a science fiction convention. She was, and is, an intelligent, witty, attractive woman, and indeed, she even dated a close friend of mine for almost two years.

A. was for quite some time one of my favorite models. In fact, she was even on the cover of Xero Magazine, the small press magazine lordfuckbeast and I have published for the last six years or so. A. is featured prominently in my portfolio, and it’s always been her goal to be in said portfolio more often than any of my other models.

A couple of months ago, A. dumped her boyfriend–a man she had once had a restraining order against because he had spent quite a lot of energy stalking her. (Yes, she was dating him; yes, she dated him AFTER he stalked her; no, I don’t understand it either.)

Well, today I received a call from her for the first time in about six weeks. “Hey, Frankin, can you do me a favor? I’m having a fight with my husband–”

“Your husband? Huh?”

“Yeah, I just got married last month. He wants me to tell you to take all the pictures of me off your porn site.”

“Huh?”

“We’re having a big fight…can you take all the pictures of me off your Web site?.

This call came almost simultaneously with an email from an address I don’t recognize: “I demand you remove all pictures of [A.’s name] off your Web site at once or face criminal charges of pornography!”

Okay. So she has evidently married someone she just met, and apparently, this person has some…um, let’s be delicate and call them “conservative social values.” And apparently, this person is…well, let’s NOT be delicate and call a spade a spade. This person is dumb as a post, not even being aware that there is no way a “criminal charge of pornography”–whatever that might be–is even remotely a possibility in the context of this reality.

So.

What is it about intelligent, well-educated chicks who seem to have an obsessive need to marry people they don’t even know?

I mean, it seems intuitively obvious that one’s happiness rests in no small part on the foundation of satisfaction with one’s personal life, said satisfaction being difficult to achieve if one is…um, married to a dumbfuck with whom one shares no traits in common, such as a framework of shared philosophical beliefs and values, or indeed even an opposable thumb[1].

There is an interesting science-fiction writer named J. G. Ballard (writer of works like “Crash”–turned into a movie by David Croneburg). Ballard’s works tend to be unsettling–at least when they aren’t downright nightmarish–and through many of them runs a common theme–an arc of characters who brilliantly, creatively, elaborately destroy themselves.

In many of Ballard’s works, there will come a moment in the story that is much like the moment when a roller coaster reaches the top of the first hill and begins its initial descent. It’s a moment where things aren’t really so bad, but nevertheless a point of no return has just been reached, and you know, right down to your very bones, that there is nowhere to go but down. You’re committed to your course, nothing can stop the roller coaster, and as you descend you will do nothing but gather speed.

I have seen some of my friends take this course, self-destructing in fiery ruin, past saving and beyond any hope of redemption. Tonight, I think I witnessed that moment again.

It’s a pity, too. She deserves better. But ultimately, we all sleep in the beds we make.

[1] In all honesty, I know nothing about her new husband–not even his name. So I do not know from direct experience that he has no opposable thumb, that being only an inference from his behavioral traits.

Back again!

Got back from the MegaCon science-fiction convention in Orlando late Sunday, and I’m finally almost recovered. The convention was somewhat good, somewhat bad, and a whole lot of weird.

The good:

– Getting to attend a panel with Kevin Smith, the writer and director of “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma,” and several other movies. This guy is, no question, one of the funniest human beings on the planet. He’s also very cool, even if he doesn’t like “The Lord of the Rings” (“It’s a story about walking! ‘We’ve got to get rid of this ring. Let’s walk over here. Oh, no, a ringwraith! Let’s walk over there.’ The movie is three hours of walking, and in the end….Credits! That’s what was wrong with “Mallrats”–not enough walking!”).

– The hotel suite. Okay, so it’s pretty bad when one of the hilights of the trip is the hotel suite, but it was an awesome hotel suite.

– Spending time with my wife kellyv, my girlfriend, and scarlete and lordfuckbeast.

– My wife meeting the actress who played Vasquez in “Aliens”–one of her all-time favorite characters.

– Hooking up with my old college roommate chipotle and our old friend John, who we haven’t seen in years.

The Bad:

– Two days of nonstop rain, in violation of everything good and true about Florida. It’s supposed to rain for about fifteen minutes every day at three o’clock, and that’s IT.

– Science fiction geeks have no money–leastwise, the science fiction geeks at MegaCon have no money. Sales were dismal. The “Fuck Milk” T-shirts were a big hit, though.

– The official convention party was held in a NASCAR restaurant. What were they thinking?

– The Orange County Convention Center. Two words: It sucks. I will never attend any event in any capacity held there again. From the organized-crime-controlled parking service to the physical layout of the center to the evolutionary throwbacks running the center, the place sucks, sucks, sucks.

The Weird:

scarlete made Dave Prowss, the actor who played Darth Vader, get a crush on her. He invited her to go home with him…

– The most obnoxious T-shirt I’ve ever seen: A woman walked by wearing a shirt reading “Abortions Tickle.”

So there it is. Perhaps when I have more time, I’ll post pics.

Busy, as per usual…

So I finally have a moment to update my LiveJournal.

I talked to a friend, Leanne, this weekend for the first time in rather too long a time. She moved some time ago–and not just to another state, mind you, but to anouther country. When last I saw her, she was having a number of difficulties in her romantic life; now, it would seem, things have starrted looking up for her. She sounded genuinely happy on the phone, and it was a joy to behold; I’ve never heard her sound so happy, and it really made me feel good.

And, it would seem, she’s begun exploring an interest in BDSM–something I told her I saw lurking in her a long time ago. Damn, I love being right.

On the more amusing side: Let me say for the record that I hate those little “What are you?” personality quizzes–you know, “What flavor of ice cream are you?” “What serial killer are you?” “What carpet stain are you?” But I’ve always been quite fond of chess, so when I saw the “What chess piece are you?” I finally broke down and took it.

And without further ado, the result: the Black King. I have no idea what that means.

On the Nature of People

So today I was reviewing the statistics for the Xero Web site, looking through the keywords that people use to find it and my site.

Looking at the keywords people use in search engines is always illuminating. Most of the keywords are pretty straightforward; for example, many people use some variant on “do it yourself sex toys” to find my page on, well, do it yourself sex toys.

But some of the keyword searches are absolutely priceless and others are just sort of…um, weird. And I’m not talking about the poor souls who use keyword searches like “peanut butter nutrition” and stumble across lordfuckbeast‘s peanut butter story.

No, I’m talking about people who find the Xero site, or one of my pages, using keywords like “ticklish redheads.” Or “sternness damage consenting.” Or one of my own personal favorites from last month’s log: “My dog wants to model.”

Some of the keywords make no sense, like “degrading cluttering mommy.” Some make sense, but I can’t imagine how they led to the Xero site, like “tinted film suppliers UK.” Some, you have to wonder what the user was thinking, like “small plastic enclosure”–a keyword search that turns up 56,500 hits on Google, with the Xero site well over 100 places down.

And then there’s “I hate plumbing.” This isn’t a keyword search, it’s a statement of personal philosophy! Or “Sandra Bullock blowing.” oka, well, that’s entirely TOO much information about somebody’s fantasies…

Here’s one: “Shit through coffe table.” Huh? What, pray tell, was this poor lost soul seeking? Another: “How to cast magic without any supplies.” Damn, I’ve always just HATED when I have a dozen curses to do and I’m fresh out of eye of newt…

“Lesbians with body piercings.” okay, that one I can understand. But “fuck my girlfriend”? Is this a keyword search, or a plea? And “Buckaroo torture”–All I can think of is that scene in Buckaroo Bonzai: “Why is that watermelon in that hydraulic press?” “I’ll tell you later.”

And finally: “Ping Pong sex.” Now, I consider myself somewhat experienced (jaded, I’ve been called); but if someone out there is having Ping Pong sex, this is the first I’ve heard of it, and that is a crime. Whatever this Ping Pong sex is, i want it. i don’t even understand it, and I want it.

Cutting metal in a fiery blaze…

…or, Thoughts on sending an elf to do a dwarf’s work.

Neal Stephenson, author of the outstanding cyberpunk novel Cryptonomicon, divides the world into three sorts of people: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Most people, he says, are Men. They do whatever it is they do for a living, and that’s about it.

Elves, by way of contrast, are theorists. They create novel things, or explore in novel ways; Thomas Edison was an elf, as was Albert Einstein.

Dwarves are the ones who take the theory and turn it into reality. Henry Ford was a dwarf; he took an idea already invented, the automobile, and figured out a way to produce it so that it was within reach of everyone.

I am an elf. Most particularly, I like designing unconventional toys for grownups.

So why was I up until one o’clock in the morning yesterday with lordfuckbeast, cutting metal to build a plastic molding machine to put this novel toy into production? Because when you don’t have a very large amount of seed capital behind you, sometimes an elf must do double-shift as a dwarf, as well. (As a side note, lordfuckbeast maintains that prototyping is elf’s work; I say, Building equipment for production is dwarf’s work. So there.)

So there it is. An elf can, sometimes, do a dwarf’s work, though dwarves’ work is a nasty business that makes one quite grimy and tired.

And off I go to Valentine’s Day dinner with kellyv. For the evening, I shall be neither elf nor dwarf.

On Dreams

I rarely remember my dreams. So rarely, in fact, that it’s always a surprise when I do.

So imagine my surprise when I had not one but two dreams last night, both of which I remember quite clearly.

In the first, demi moved to Florida and hosted a large party, to which I and several friends (including scarlete, lordfuckbeast, and feorlen) were invited. The most memorable thing about this party was the large and patient, but quite frustrated, spider that kept spinning a web across the doorway. People would come in, the web would be destroyed, and the spider would construct another across a different doorway.

In the second dream, the Mafia was trying for some reason to assassinate me. So I took a pair of horns, stuck them on my head, and phoned the Mob boss on his cell phone, saying “It’s open season on Yak Boy–come and get me!” Then I ran around town, teasing the Mafia hitmen and making fun of them–I’d dress up like an electrician, for example, and stand on a ladder pretending to fix a sign while they ran by beneath me, then call the boss on his cell phone and tease him some more–“Your guys just walked right past me, and I’m wearing horns, and they still didn’t see me! How dumb is that?”

I have no idea what either of these dreams means, though I welcome all attempts at analysis. 🙂

It’s official…

I’m flying out to California at the end of March to visit lacaba. I’ll be out there for a week…I’m really looking forward to it!

Life has its ways of playing tricks on us…I never believed I’d even attempt a long-distance relationship (leastwise, not one that started out long distance. Of course, feorlen is in the process of moving to California herself, but she was local when first we met.)

In other news: I’ve been spening a lot of time trying to prepare for the upcoming convention, MegaCon, that scarlete and lordfuckbeast and my wife kellyv and I are attending two weeks hence. I’ve been frantically trying to get the CD-ROM version of my game Onyx ready to go…

Finally got time to process the film of last weekend’s photo shoot with alyyss and kattvomitt, so I should be able to start printing on Sunday. This is happy news; i haven’t been in the darkroom in a long time, and I miss it.

Just for the record…

My wife is one of the coolest people in the world.

It’s been a long and hectic week, and I’ve been so stressed out over it that she bought me an hour-long massage on Saturday. First professional massage I’ve ever had. It was absolutely wonderful, though I found myself mentally taking notes during the massage… “Hey, that works very well!” “Hmm…interesting, I’ll have to try that.”

I love giving massages, but haven’t ever had any formal training. It’s always nice to meet people who have skills I don’t have, or who are better at things than I am…I can steal the benefit of their experience. 🙂

Did a photo shoot with kattvomitt and alyyss and a friend of theirs whose LJ name I don’t know this afternoon. Had a great time, got some photos I’m highly optimistic about (though I haven’t had time yet to develop the film, much less make a contact sheet). All in all, an excellent end to a weekend that started rather poorly. But more of that is on lordfuckbeast‘s journal here, so no point in me going on about it.

My wife is talking to lacaba right now. I want to talk to her, dammit! My wife gets to have all the fun… >pout<