Cheating is OK: As Long As You Look Good Doing It and Nobody Likes Your Wife

Firstly, I have had a particularly long week, so there is not a Guatemala entry this week. We will start wrapping that up next week. Promise. And then we will start Asia 2011v1.

This week, we’re going to be talking about the following statement from the Facebook page of one Patrick O’Conner (and by the way, any political debate or speech is more fun if you’re following Patrick online at the time):

“I find it interesting that people who have no heartburn about calling themselves feminists or progressives while supporting Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton now wanna act like any amount of evangelical support for Newt Gingrich just proves what worthless, soulless sellouts the other side are.”

We’re not really going to debate that statement, because debating hypocrisy in politics is kind of pointless. We are, however, going to discuss why some affairs count more than others.

Let us acknowledge that different incidences of adultery in politics are treated with different levels of disgust by people of all types. Not all offensive affairs (though all affairs are offensive) are considered the same level of offensive in the mind of the general public. I’m going to skip Ted Kennedy and instead focus on four recent examples of known, exposed affairs of politicians and then explain to the Jocelyn Saurini Affair Brutality Matrix. So, we’ll be looking at:

Bill Clinton

Newt Gingrich

John Edwards

Anthony Weiner

YES! THAT’S RIGHT! YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE BEYOND WEINER, BUT I’M BRINGING IT BACK. SUCK IT, BITCHES!

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On Aging, Sadness, Happiness, Cocaine, Heroin, and the Lemonheads

As an FYI, the Guatemala entries have also been updated. You can find the most recent one here. 

Firstly, while this entry is contextualized in the Lemonheads show from Monday, it is not about the Lemonheads show from Monday. If you are about to stop reading because you have no interest in a review of the Lemonheads show, then you’ll miss out on my winding philosophy on aging and sadness. On the other hand, if you are looking for a review of the current Lemonheads “tour,” then this is not the spot for you.

So, on Monday, Ferris, Pookie, girlfriend of Pookie, TPalk (that’s the best I can come up with) and I ended up at the Lemonheads show at Stage AE. There were also these two epically drunk people who we met at a bar before the show with us. This is important later.

Firstly, let’s maybe consider that some of you are not familiar with Evan Dando or the Lemonheads. That’s a shame, because It’s aShame About Ray is truly a nearly flawless album, and Baby, I’m Bored is really good, too. They were in that whole Indie pot smoking acoustic yet not acoustic movement in the late nineties. If you’ve never listened to It’s a Shame About Ray, maybe you should. If you just want a brief overview, go here, here, or here for some Lemonheads classics on YouTube or here, here, or here for some Evan Dando solo work (of which I am a fan).

Issue One: Stage AE

Maybe there was a part of you right there that said, “Does that stand for Stage American Eagle? Certainly it can’t.” But I am here to tell you, oh yes, it can. Not only is Stage AE the venue of a subpar suburban clothing manufacturer, but there’s a huge McDonald’s: I’m Loving It poster RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE. Not only is it sad overall that this is what it’s come to, but it’s sad that one of the most sensitive indie-esque groups of the nineties is now playing there. Somewhere, backstage, Evan Dando was clearly saying, “This is what it’s come to. A Monday night gig with a McDonald’s poster ten feet from the stage.” This depression will be important later in the story.

Issue Two: Old Folk

I mean, listen, I include myself in this. But this was a show of people in their mid-to-late thirties, because that’s who loved that band. This is an actual conversation that I had with the woman behind me. She was thirty-nine. Her husband was forty-two.

Her

I mean, it’s already 9pm and they haven’t come on yet. I hate that I sound like an old person, but he’s got to understand that his crowd is old now. We have an all night babysitter. If he doesn’t play until ten, that cuts into our all night babysitter time, and that’s rare. We don’t want to spend it standing in a club next to a McDonald’s poster.

"Hey, did I tell you about the conversation I had at will-call when I went to pick up the tickets? I asked them what time the band was coming on, and they were like, 'I can’t tell you.' And then I pressured them, and they were like, 'The first opener will come on at 8, but that’s all I can tell you.' And I was like, 'Ok, that’s enough for me to plan how long we can stay at dinner.' Then I asked what the venue was like. Was there seating or tables? And the guy was like, “'It’s standing, like OLD SCHOOL.' Like I was too old to know what that meant."

Yep.

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Guatemala Day Six (and Seven-ish): One of My Favorite Moments. Ever.

This entry will be short, because there is mostly driving. That will be boring for you, but since day six in Guatemala included one of my favorite travel moments ever, it will be important for me to have a dedicated entry for it.

We now need to get from Sayaxche to Livingstone, Guatemala. Livingstone is a little Caribbean surprise island off the coast of Guatemala. It’s very eco tourist and given my druthers I’d like to go back for a week to hike and kayak. It’s also very far away because we have, naturally, picked destinations that are incredibly far apart from each other. So Pollo has decided that we will take the trip in two days. “We’ll camp tonight,” he says, “I know a deserted beach.”

So most of the day is spent driving (though there’s a great meal in there), which you don’t care about. But then we arrive, near sunset, at this beach.

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Two Stories About Boys: One Salty, One Sweet. And One Plea for Help

I really don’t want this to become a boy blog, but it is a blog about my life, and that’s the topic right now. I’m sure we’ll shift into something more stimulating like politics or travel soon.

Oh, but speaking of travel, I am backdating this blog and finishing out the Guatemala entries (and then the Asia entries). You can find the first Guatemala stories here. The most recent one is here. Now, onward (to sexy).

Chapter One: Salty

(Some) Men Will Lie Over Anything

This story is from Vegas circa 2007? 2008? Whenever I was thigh-deep in that whole SMOS initiative. I never posted this story because a)those SMOS blog stories were getting out of control and b)that boy did (and may still, who knows?) read this blog. In fact, I’m probably about to receive an injunction because this entry is just too personally identifiable. Bite me.

You may remember that SMOS was supposed to stand for “Six Months of Single” (which rapidly is accelerating towards six years, depending on what you count as a boyfriend). What it also ended up standing for, if we’re keeping it real, was “Seriously Maximizing Opportunities (for) Sex.” See how I did that? And yes, I did that.

It was during my SMOS era that I briefly dated Newsman Joe. As you may have figured out from my clever identity-concealing pseudonym, he worked as a news paper reporter. Joe was divorced with a young kid, had unfulfilled dreams of writing the next Great American Novel, drove a very practical car, preferred beer to vodka, and was kind of all over the place really. Basically nothing at all like what I’m looking for. But we would have these great dates. Like, awesome dates in smoky, dive, local Vegas bars where we would have conversations like this:

Me

And then, blah blah blah blah, and then he shot himself. And then, blah, blah, blah, blah, when we broke up I totally found a bunch of fat chick porn hidden under the bed.

Newsman Joe

So, by this age, you really just assume that something must be fucked up and totally defective about any guy who’s even into you a little bit, right?

I mean, WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO GO OUT ON THESE DATES? And no, if you know me at all, you know that I am not joking when I say that.

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Guatemala Days Five and Six: Some Monkeys, a Jungle, a Boat, a Horse, Some Mangoes and Bug Spray (Not a Lyle Lovett Song)

Here is something that you should know. When most people visit Guatemala, they go to see Tikal. Tikal is a massive Mayan ruin. It’s also a massive tourist destination. As I think you know, we do not travel like that. I had left all destination decisions up to Pookie. He chose: Laguna Chicabel (done), Livingston (next chapter), and Aquateca. Aquateca is an alternative ruin to see. It is much further away from anything than Tikal is and much harder to get to. But this is how we roll. And as you may recall from the previous entry (which you likely may have read well over a year ago), our jumping off point was Posada Caribe.

We were actually spending two nights at Posada Caribe, which by the way is run by this man:

His name is Julian Mariona. He speaks no English, mostly. He is a kind soul and a family man who has made this little nest of magic near the Mexican border. He will speak in Spanish with joy about his children, his dogs, the river. His eyes become sad when he talks about how crime has increased along with traffic headed over the Mexican border to the north. His daughter goes to school up the river in Sayaxche, but she takes the boat home frequently because, really, who wouldn’t want to always be a part of this magic?

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GuataAwesome: Travels Through Guatemala with the Boys. In a Van.

This is still in progress, people :) 

Day One: Maybe We'll All Get There
In which only Joel makes it to Guatemala on time and I get stranded in Mexico with small screaming children.

Day Two: The Pancake, Volcanoes, and We Hike. Uphill. 
In which I explain to you how pancakes should be, and then we hike to awesomeness.

Day Three: What Goes Up Must Come Down
You need to know about Laguna Chicabel.

Day Four: This is Mostly Driving
In which I fail at vacationing.

Day Five and Six: Some Monkeys, a Jungle, a Boat, a Horse, Some Mangoes and Bug Spray (Not a Lyle Lovett Song)
In which we explore ruins and hike through jungles and experience all of those things that I just mentioned in the title.

Day Six (And Seven-ish): One of My Favorite Moments. Ever.
In which there is a deserted beach, a mojito, dogs, and fish stew.

 

Is the Text Message Breakup the New Berger Post-It?

Firstly, if you don’t know the cultural reference in the title, then I can’t help you. The moment where Berger breaks up with Carrie Bradshaw using a Post-It note is possibly one of the most important moments of television in the last decade. It summarizes an epidemic of men who are less adult, less emotionally mature, less put together, and less accomplished than the women that they’re trying to date and how they can’t even man-up in the process of running from those situations. It simultaneously shows how, even given the above description, it still crushes the women on the receiving side of the running/dumping. But mostly it was just “Damn, he just straight broke up with her ON A POST-IT NOTE.”

I got dumped (I’m not sure it can technically be called a break-up) via text message. On New Year’s Eve. And then I cried over a fortune cookie in the middle of China Palace. That’s a true story. And it got me thinking about the lameness of the text message breakup (Remember the song? It was awesome! "You can't even spell break right. Brake? That's in your car."). I was also thinking about a conversation that we were all having on Facebook about this time last year about what was an appropriate method of breaking up: text, chat, email, or in-person (or phone) conversation. I came down pretty strongly on the side of email (which is, admittedly, how I always handle ending things). But let’s run through the pros and cons again.

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I Am Not Involuntarily Anything.

So, the other day, I read this article (if you don’t want to click the link, it’s a column from the NYT about a woman who hadn’t had babies by the time she was 41 and her subsequent successful journey through failed fertility attempts, the disillusionment of the potential to adopt and finally to hiring not one but two surrogates to meet her goal of having twins). There was, frankly, a lot in the article that somewhat offended me, but I accept that my views on fertility and personal life choices are not the same as those of many other people. However, as the days since reading the article progressed, I’ve found myself with a complete lack of ability to not continue to be angry about one particular quote from the article. Let’s work it out, people. The quote is:

“Eight percent of women between forty and forty-four identify themselves as involuntarily childless or hoping to become pregnant, according to a Pew report.”

So, firstly, I’m not even going to address that part about “hoping to become pregnant between forty and forty-four”, except to say that I sincerely wish you good luck and hope that your dreams come true.

And, honestly, it’s really the other part that offends me more. The fact that not only are we using a term like “involuntarily childless” but also that women seem just fine with that term.
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Weight is a Funny Thing. But There's Nothing Ok About Thinking It's Cool to Be Unhealthy.

I can tell you already what's going to happen. I'm going to post this blog entry and then get a bunch of hate mail about how I'm not authorized to talk about "being fat" or "people who are fat" or "dealing with weight" because I, myself, am not fat. Whatever. I will say now, I could give a shit if you are overweight. However, I do get to give a shit when you're throwing your unhealthy lifestyle around like it's the coolest thing in the world. It's the same reaction that I'd have to somebody trying to tell the world that it's cool to use heroin.

I've been upset about this trip I took to Denny's for over a day now. Which means it's officially time to write about it and let it go.

Let's begin with this. I am not concerned with weight except in how it pertains to health. Weight and attractiveness are an incredibly variable issue. Let me relate a conversation I had last year with the charming and eloquent Larry Halff. I was visiting San Francisco and Larry and I were discussing where my next move may be. The following conversation ensued.

Larry

You're really thin right now, by the way.

Me

Huh. So, I'm really considering LA for my next move.

Larry

Oh, right. There you would not be really thin. In fact, you wouldn't even really be thin at all. Here, in San Francisco, you're really thin.

So, you see, even with my body type, which ranges from average to thin, how I'm perceived in the world of weight and attractiveness varies vastly. I will  tell you this, in the rural reaches of Western Pennsylvania, I'm like a waif. But that's not the point.
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I am a Spiritual Being on a Human Journey. Not a Human Being on a Spiritual Journey.

I know. I haven't written in a long time. I still have about eight days of Guatemala trip entries to copy and paste and post. But tonight I am writing because we all know that that's what I do when I need to dump things out of my head, and the events of today angered me so much that I probably really need to do this.

The Quick History
After a fifteen year struggle with Alzheimer's, my father passed away this week. But that whole pot of worms isn't what we're talking about. Many years ago, my father made a decision about what he wanted to have done with his body when he passed away. He made this decision when his father and his brother had both been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and when he, in retrospect, was probably just beginning to realize that his own mind was slipping away from him. And what he decided was that he wanted to donate his body to science in hopes that he could, in some small way, contribute to finding a cure for this horrible, horrible disease.

Anybody who knows me knows that I have struggled with my father for years. Our relationship is complicated, and the moments in which I could be clear in being proud of him as a person were far between. But this was one of them. One of them because I found it to be a brave decision. I will tell you repeatedly that I feel that the body is only a vessel, but I don't think I could agree to the idea of having myself used in essentially the same way that the fetal pig I dissected in high school was used after I passed.

And, most importantly, I felt that this decision was nobody's business but his. He was not a spiritual man. He didn't believe in an afterlife of any kind. He believed, without hesitation, that the here and now is all that there is. I, somewhat obviously, do not believe that. But he, like *every person in the world* is entitled to believe whatever he wants as long as he is not harming anybody while doing it.
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Guatemala Day Four: This is Mostly Driving

I am sorry to tell you that today’s entry basically lacks excitement until the end as well, but I have tried to keep it brief. To the degree that I can do that.

We get up in the morning to an amazing morning view of the volcanoes around us. Also, there is a herd of cattle wandering through our campsite. Also, after I get done being amazed at the herd of cattle, I look over and see that Ho has gotten his laptop out in the middle of said rural campsite where cattle wander free. Such is the year 2010.

I won’t lie to you. There’s not much exciting that happens here today. We eat some breakfast. We drive, because we are heading to the far north. The scenery is amazing. The music mixes are fantastic. There is one minor story of a Jocelyn fail.
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Guatemala Day Three: What Goes Up Must Come Down

In the morning, it is cold and misty. The boys go for a walk around the lake, and I sit in the opening to the tent with my sleeping back wrapped around me enjoying the view. I have to say, it’s pretty much perfect. When the sun finally comes out, I take my walk around the lake, and then we break camp to head back down.

Two things. The first thing is that we will first have to go back up to the crest of the crater. Instead of taking the trail, we actually take some stairs that are maintained by the park staff. You may not know this, but generally speaking stairs are much steeper than a trail. I am dying. DYING. One Daphne Smith may now recall that all Joel and I can think of during this part of the day is the following phrase: “God damn steps on the God damn mountain.”

At the top, there is another attempt at a sibling holiday photo.

Yes? No?

The second thing is this. Going up the day prior, Pook had said to me, “The good news is that tomorrow will be all downhill!” And I whipped around in cranky fashion and said, “How is that good? Going downhill is always harder than going uphill!” And it was. There were no switchbacks as I’ve probably mentioned six times by now, so we had to manually weave. I have to give it up to Ho Lin, though, because dude rocked the downhill at blazing, blazing speeds.

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