Of Snow, Nancy, Duluth, and the Cah

Snow report from Boston, from the scene!

Of Moxie and Farmers as the Pillar of Civilization

Houses falling into the North Atlantic after a winter storm, the election of a new Pope, the likelihood that multi-vitamins don't do anything, the apparent epidemic of erectile dysfunction (judging from television advertisements for erection pills), the stock market breaking a record, capitalism in general, our grotesque and absurd gun culture, the new Wrigley gum that has caffeine in it, the woman who threatened me after I said, "good morning" to her when I was in Whidden Hospital, and the subsequent fight it produced on August 21 of last year...they all have something in common. I don't care about any of it. It doesn't matter to me. They can all go piss up a rope, as my maternal grandmother used to say. Trying to make the world better is like shoveling shit against the tide, another one of her colorful expressions transported from a farm on Prince Edward Island to Boston.

Something else is on my mind today.

This isn't meant to be callous or indicative of nihilism or misanthropy. While I'm an existential nihilist, I really do care about people and the moxie required to live, and live well, and be compassionate. Our grace, empathy, sympathy, and compassion are the most important traits we can possess. And those qualities can be difficult to exhibit, particular in the world as it is today. The world as it is seems almost designed to reward cruelty and stony indifference. Our inclination, as human beings in a world dominated by incredible technology and unforgivable ignorance in parallel, is to be apathetic. Yes, I'm speaking in generalizations, which are, by definition, inaccurate. But I don't care. It's what I see most of the time, and that has shaped me. Here I go to the real subject of this rant.

It has changed me from what I would have been if I lived in a world of 100 million hunter-gatherers instead of almost 8 billion consumers, most of which don't know where their food even comes from, who mock those who use their hands to make a living. I'm going to say that again. Drink it in. Moment of Zen, as they say on the Daily Show.

We live in a world where those who work the hardest to grow our food and feed people are derided as stupid, uneducated sots who should go to school so they can learn how to make video games or become a lawyer. Another fucking lawyer. 

It's not easy to take this world seriously, which is probably good, except when it leads to disdain. There's no spine to it. That's something I care about, because I don't want to feel that way about my brothers and sisters on this planet. But I care about eating and surviving, because I love my brother and wife and father and need food to live to enjoy their company.

Someone has to grow the food. It's hard work. It requires intricate knowledge and experience. It's not a mystery as to why so many people take a superior attitude towards physical laborers like farmers; they are taught to, pure and simple. And it's easier to work in an office (and that's hard, too) than it is to put hundreds of acres of land to bed for the winter, rotate crops, know when to plant wet or dry, maintain nitrogen levels, and worst of all, deal with an economic system that is designed to take advantage of such people.

Here's a little ditty. Did you know that the purely economic impact of monopolies like Monsanto selling genetically modified seeds, that are far more expensive than naturally occurring seeds, is that farmer's will be practically broke at the time of planting, while Monsanto is already counting money from a massive profit. Before the crops have even come in.Why? Because Monsanto has international property rights for seeds that are pest resistant and wonderful. This creates a seed shortage, increased competition between farmers, and in the end, that Monsanto will own the very farms they claim to be helping. If you're of a mind to, check out this paper, written by William Freiberg.


Everyone makes money from farming except for the farmer.

Farm subsidies create the perception that farm states have political influence, and use it to get a hand-out. If they didn't get that, "hand-out," you'd be going hungry. You might even starve.

I'm the product of a world where people speak of a,"21st century economy." In such an economy, it's clean and no ugly slaughterhouses or factory eyesores. And there are no farmers and no industrial workers. Because who the Hell wants to do that? I don't. But if the whole world, all 8,000,000,000 of us, embrace such an economy, where the fuck will our food come from, our cars, our telephone toys? Right now, we have farmers who cannot function in a free market, who require Socialism to survive. A fascinating subject to kick around. Capitalism cannot sustain the farms that keeps us alive. Industrial jobs? Capitalism cannot create the products we use and pay a living wage to the workers who make them. We need slaves. Also called low-wage workers. Wage slavery.

Maybe I'm batshit insane because I'm aware that I live in such a ridiculous world, or think I do. Maybe we are all on Prozac and Zyprexa and Smirnoff because we're aware of this situation. And there is always, always the possibility that I'm totally wrong and full of shit. That goes without saying. But I don't think so.

This gets emotional, however. I think of Nancy's grandmother, who grew up and lived on a farm all her life. I talked to her for precisely one hour and a half, when we visited her last summer. It was not easy to get to her, just over the border of Minnesota, in North Dakota, living in an assisted living facility. She was 94, and died about three months ago.

My honest impression of this woman, as a useless lump of fat produced by my own weaknesses and a world that doesn't mind them, is that she knew something that I'll never know. That I can't know. She was Atlas, holding up the world, part of a world most of us never think of, the world that feeds us. A world most of us do not want to be a part of, and that includes me. Because feeding the world is hard work. Very hard work. And wisdom that doesn't involve Google or hard drives or erection pills.

I'm pointing fingers this morning. But mainly, I'm pointing the finger at myself. I'm a taker, not a giver, and perhaps that is why I need pills to accept my own wretched existence. Nancy's grandmother's name is Alice. We spoke of grackels, the old days (with pictures, she kept a photo album nearby), how the harvest looked that year, playing the piano, pumpkins bigger than a car, and a world that is gone. I was never a part of it, and I miss it. And I know that we desperately need what is left of it. Perhaps I'm romanticizing, I tend to do that.

Where Do Cape Cod Nudists Go In Winter?

If you've known me long enough, you've unfortunately probably heard the story of the time my then girlfriend and I went to a nudist colony on Cape Cod. Specifically, in the village of Marston Mills, which is a small part of Barnstable. It was my idea for us two fat people to go to a nudist colony, and we weren't particularly happy about it, but neither of us wanted to back out and look like a Puritanical New England priggish school marm. Basically, we dared each other.

People pretending that they're not acutely
aware that they're buck naked.

Obviously, this was before I met my beloved wife, Nancy. I've asked her if she would like to go to Sandy Terraces with me, the aforementioned nudist colony, and she said, "While I appreciate and admire the tenets of nudism, and would like to explore it some day, I'd rather not go at this particular time. Soon, though, perhaps next summer."

If you know Nancy at all, you know I'm full of shit. When I asked her to go, she said, "There is no fucking way I'm doing that. If someone wants to see me naked, they'd better pay me, a lot. No way I'm ever going to do that, so don't bother asking ever again. Nope. It's fucking stupid." So she didn't exactly leave the door open to the possibility of one day frolicking naked in the salt water pond, or enjoying the warmth of the nightly fire pit.

Incidentally, hanging around a roaring fire when naked is a perilous proposition. What with the sparks and all. A floating ember near a naked body is like a lottery with no winners. One hopes to get away without any little burn marks, but most get a tiny burn on their ass or back. I suppose that would be a, "winner." An unlucky loser gets a burn on one of the bodies' delicate pink spots. But I digress.

 James "Jimmy" Durante

Honestly, though, one time was enough. The experience was interesting, and I can scratch it off my bucket list (if it was ever on there, I'm not sure). Swimming in the nude is delightful, as is walking through the woods with just socks and sneakers on, or flip-flops. When one hates his body, it's gratifying to just whip everything out and mince around. After a few hours, though, one starts to feel like an idiot. And the rules are a little disturbing and gross. Everyone has to carry a towel, to sit on when in the cafe, or at the fire pit, or just for any chair. Simply put, they don't want uncovered ass rubbed on anything, or low-hanging testicles. Also, if a man gets an erection, it's considered courteous to cover it up. And there are mosquitoes, and snapping turtles (and God knows what else) in the salt water pond, and there are dozens of people pretending that strolling around naked is normal. It's the naked elephant in the room during every conversation. One fellow we spoke with was a chiropractor, who approached us while we were sitting on beach chairs and stood there, introducing himself and engaging in small talk. All the while, his crooked penis and low hanging balls were right at our eye level. We couldn't stop staring at it. I thought it was going to say something. When he walked away, I said that his cock looked like Jimmy Durante. It did. In that case, it should have broke out with a show tune. A-cha-cha-cha! Meanwhile, my penis looked like an "inny" belly button. It was cool out, and I'm shy, so it took to hiding. By the way, his penis didn't look like Durante's nose, it looked like Jimmy Durante.

It's worth noting how well concealed this place is, down a dirt road, amid the hedges and scrub pines. A very large wooden gate stands shut, and one has to knock and provide the "code phrase" that is given to you when you make your reservation. When the gate opened for us, a very skinny and very old man greeted us, wearing a brown loin cloth, which came off when we entered and the gate closed. In the office, there were several pictures of single white men who were not allowed to enter; local sex offenders, mostly, and a few who did God knows what the previous season.

Are you really a nudist if you wear a hat?
That was our cabin, the blue one in the distance.

After we checked in, and it was clear that I didn't look like anyone on the Wall of Deviants, we went to our small but lovely cabin. Most places like Sandy Terraces don't even let single men in, just gay and heterosexual couples, women, and families with children. White men are creepy, apparently.

At the cabin, it took us about 5 minutes to decide who would walk out of the cabin first, nude. Naturally, it was me. We were being watched by the old couple who let us in, probably to make sure we weren't there to just look at nude people. We had to prove our nudiness. The gauntlet had been thrown down. After that, we were in the club, as it were.

It's snowing out right now, and the town of Barnstable, along with the little hamlet Marston Mills, and Sandy Terraces within it, are getting nailed with 25 foot waves off the ocean and temperatures around 30 degrees Fahrenheit. So naturally I feel compelled to ask, "Where do all the nudists go?" People like these, all looking for their lost shaker of salt while hopefully not bending over in front of you...

Most people are fairly unattractive, which nudism accentuates.

They can't be down there, as Sandy Terraces closes for the winter. But that doesn't mean there isn't some guy still down there, trying to get his groove on...

Good times.

And, of course, someone has to keep up the place while the flakes fly...

Oh, the humanity

I kid, of course. I'm sure that the nudists of Cape Cod are clothed, warm, and anxious for the warm weather to get here so they can re-enact the ritual and engage in the magic of public nudity. Either that, or they went south for the winter, to be nude somewhere else...like Canadian Geese. You can't throw a wet blanket on the passion to do this in public...

A "chubby" with a man attached

To be fair, Sandy Terraces is beautiful. This was the view from our cabin, which was cheap...

Pleasant enough

And that's my nudist colony story. Be sure to tell your friends and family to stop by!

Learning to Fly

There are odd people in my family, both living and dead. I never knew my grandfather, but he left me this video, quite accidentally, to remember him by. You may have seen it before, as an example of a complete fool. I've seen it on David Letterman before. But he wasn't an idiot, he just didn't succeed at...this. He, Al Powell, can be seen in the first 41 seconds. My father tells me that the widow who owned the land paid him $50 in return for trying the wings that she invented. Her design had a few flaws.

Of Lasagna and Housekeeping

Lasagna does not require ricotta cheese, and should be made in a very large pan. The sort of pan one might use to prepare a meal for a church potluck dinner. These are two things that Nancy taught me in the last 24 hours. She sent me to the market to get a pan for a lasagna she planned to make for dinner, and she explicitly requested, or rather demanded, that I get the,"big lasagna pan, not that stupid little one." This made me nervous, as I don't cotton to shopping, and I surely don't want to disappoint my beloved wife by getting the wrong pan.

We sparred a bit about the need for ricotta cheese to complete a proper lasagna. Feel free to guess who won that argument.

 One can't deny that this is one tasty
fucking cookie, however

At the market, patrons had to run a gauntlet of Girl Scouts (like that horrible scene from The Last of the Mohicans), selling their mediocre cookies at jacked-up prices, to fund a nebulous cause. For all I know, they launder the money and and it ends up in the coffers of some Ayn Rand group, or the John Birch Society. And there was also a patina of Lord of the Flies about the whole operation. Remember what happened to the fat kid in that novel? But you can't tell a child to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Or can you? I don't know. Regardless of the social contract between adults and children selling cookies, my scruples wouldn't allow me to be mean to a little girl. So instead I said, "Did you bake them yourself? No? Oh, then I don't want one, young lady." An adult nearby smiled, so I survived that particular social interaction. Nothing I said would bother me later, there would be no regret. No self-loathing.

In the market, there was a problem. There were two large lasagna pans, and purchasing the wrong one would get me a beating from Nancy, so I got both of them. And when I say a beating, I don't mean in a kinky, sexually-pleasing and playful way. No spanking with a safe word. When I say, "beating" I mean that she will endeavor to hurt me and use something like my recently restored 1938 Royal typewriter, or a polo mallet. With a smile on her face, and a song in her heart, I'll be beaten unconscious. Then she'll make fun of me for wearing women's underwear, which I find comfortable because I have no balls. And they're nice and pretty and comfortable. Men's underwear has a large space in the crotch that mocks me (in my mind) for having nothing to fill the space. My little penis and deflated scrotum isn't going to fill the void. My regular readers know my feelings on this subject.

All men of consequence
wear them

A word about that last paragraph. I'm kidding. Nancy rarely beats me, and she is fine with me wearing panties. Last week I asked her if she thought it was indicative of some sort of sexual kink. Her reply? No, you just find them pretty, and they are more comfortable because you have no balls. Magnificent. What a woman.

As it turns out, she did want the extremely large steam table pan, and after receiving it my wife, a fabulous cook, went on to produce a magnificent lasagna with plenty of leftovers that won't last. For breakfast, I had a piece. Nancy is one Hell of a cook. Even though I worked as a cook for 2 years, nothing I make is as good as anything she makes, except for my wonderful popovers. But she doesn't like popovers.

On to housekeeping. I'm a feminist, dammit, and I'm not going to have my wife cook dinner while I sit on my ass and watch Key Largo or Judge Judy, or read, "Down and Out in Paris and London" for the 5th time. Oh no. So I scrubbed the kitchen floor, vacuumed up the place, and cleaned the dust bunnies off the stairs. Hopefully, I filled the dishwasher, as well, and put some plates away. I forget.

We were so domesticated yesterday. Laundry was even done. It was like Pleasantville. Well, not quite.

Without further ado, here is a very short video of our lasagna dinner. The beautiful woman at the end is Nancy, of course.