The saddest part about homophobia is that it ignores the many advantages that a gay friend can present to a straight man. We’ve almost all heard of the stories about gay men being ideal friends for straight women, but a straight man can enjoy even more benefits from such a relationship.

Every heterosexual male is competition for women with other heterosexual males. But a homosexual does not present the problem of sexual conflict entering a friendship. A gay man won’t allow jealousy to infect a relationship with a straight friend on account of mutual interest in a woman. While the heterosexual is pursuing that sweet, lovely young thing, his homosexual associate is equally ardent in his attempts to snare the sweet, lovely young thing’s… brother.

Then there’s the advantages posed by a differing point of view. Homosexuals are often stereotyped as ideal fashion experts for women, but really now. How can a man tell what makes a woman attractive if he is never attracted to women? But that same man knows exactly what makes another man look hot and sexy as hell. Your gay friend can tell you what makes your ass look too fat, what shows off those muscles you’ve built up from the gym, how to hide that roll of fat from those last few bottles of beer, and how to style your hair to show off your eyes for that nicely predatory gleam that draws the ladies in. Simply because he respects your orientation doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate your physical charms, let alone tell you how to buff those charms to a lustrous shine.

Lastly, there’s the delight to be had in exposure to differing mindsets, different tastes and desires. It’s one thing to have common interests, things you can do together and discuss together, to share with others and grow closer through the sharing. But people of different backgrounds, different beliefs, different cultures, all have something new to show you. New foods, new past times, new hobbies, new stories to tell and new songs to share. A homosexual man may not be the stereotyped cliché of a fruity interior decorating hairdresser, but he’s still more likely to know things you don’t, have experienced things that your straight friends have not. Some of it you won’t like. But some of it you will. Always be open to new things, to new experiences. To close oneself off to the new is to grow old inside. Stay young, and stay open!

…Although you may want to set limits in advance. Or at least keep the lube handy.

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When it comes to fashion, women all proscribe to two basic tenets. One: obey the fashion lords when they decree what is in or out of style. Two: live in fear of the crossing of the line. I’ll discuss those fashion lords at another date. Today, I wanted to comment on the crossing of that invisible line.

Every women knows about that line, whether or not they’ve been specifically told about it. It exists at some point along the field of fashion with a burkha wearing prude at the one end, and an extroverted nudist at the other. That line separates the fashionably stylish from the shameless tramps. Past that line, no decent good girl dares to tread. To cross that line is to suffer the scorn of every right thinking woman, as every obedient male follows suit in condemnation of the offending trollop. But that begs the question: where is the invisible line?

That’s the big question, the one that no woman is ever quite certain of. And so each woman plays a game of risk and bravado, as nerve wracking as blackjack, and played along similar rules. Get as close to that line as possible, without crossing over. There are two underlying forces giving rise to the rules. One: other women will judge a female who appears too boldly sexual and appealing. Two: men desire a woman who is as boldly sexual and appealing as possible. The invisible line is where those two conflicting demands meet, the “21” of the game. The winning hand is played by dressing to appeal to men without provoking the wrath of women.

Consider this article “the Idiot’s Guide on How to Win the Fashion Game.” First is to understand the underlying motivations of the source of each demand. Women condemn others for crossing that invisible line, but they in turn are condemned by other women for crossing that same line. The boundary is always past where you’ve dared to set yourself. The woman wearing a loose billowing knee length skirt thinks the woman in the tight fitting jeans has crossed the line; the owner of that denim hugged rump thinks that the lady with the miniskirt is insane for daring to leave the house like that. But the reason for this condemnation by each in turn? Jealousy.

Every woman is a competitor for the attentions of men. Even after marriage, other women continue to be competition. A neglected and unhappy husband is easy prey for a woman who will give him that which he deserves and which his shrewish wife denies him, be it sex, home cooked food, or simple affection and respect. The drive to keep “hussies” away from “decent, G-d fearing men” is the drive to… maintain a monopoly upon those hard working bread winners, lest they spend the fruits of their labors upon another.

Men, like women, seek out the best possible bargain. Not only when shopping for material goods and services, but also when seeking out a life partner. A typical heterosexual male desires a female of physical and spiritual beauty, who will fill his life with pleasures and joy. His eyes are readily drawn to the sexually provocative, to the boldly dressed and the boldly behaved. His literature of choice (comic books, science fiction, fantasy, video games) is filled with examples of women who no more fear the invisible line than they do bullets or blades or vampire werewolf Nazis (and if you think that’s hyperbole, you’ve never read “Hellsing”).

Therefore, we can define the motivations underlaying each force that sets the invisible line. The motives of the feminine demand are selfish, and to the detriment of the individual player. By contrast, the motives of the masculine demand are selfish, yet to the best interest of the individual player. To satisfy the masculine demand is to receive the winning prize; there is no positive reward for catering to the demands of the competition. Thus, the feminine drive may be discounted as irrelevant to the player’s best interest. Without an intersecting vector to connect to the relevant force, it is easy to identify the true location of the dreaded line.

In conclusion: there is no line…

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This year we saw a poll among women that sparked considerable controversy and outrage, both for the choice of responses and for the actual results of said poll. “Which would you rather be called: fat, or a Slut?” It seems that the majority of women preferred to be called a Slut, which resulted in moral outrage from pundits decrying eating disorders and our intolerant culture’s treatment of the obese, and whatnot.

Well… I’d like to respond to that. In the first place, the idea that being obese is a disease, or something to be defended as a goodness. Obesity is a growing and tremendous social burden in a purely monetary sense. Our swelling bellies are accompanied by diseases such as type 2 diabetes, diseases not known to our ancestors for the same reason that few Americans today are familiar with the concept of catching one’s literal death of cold. Worse yet, obesity carries with it a corresponding limitation to one’s fulfillment of life. To grow morbidly overweight is to voluntarily put oneself in the very selfsame wheelchair that a paraplegic, a quadraplegic, fights to escape through physical therapy. To deprive oneself of the joys of athletic pastimes with friends and family as endorphins and growth hormones pump through one’s veins, a natural high superior to any drug or drink. It’s not just the cost to society, but to yourself.

Try this little experiment. Get yourself a barbell, either at home or in the gym. However much excess weight you feel you are carrying around, slide that amount of weight onto the ends. Now do a snatch with the weight, and then a jump squat. Now repeat the motions without the barbell, with only your bare hands flung overhead. Feel how much easier the motion is, how much higher you jump? Now imagine if you could shed an equal amount of weight. How light you would feel! How easily you would move about! How much energy you would have throughout your day!

But what are the hidden costs of being a Slut? Well… let’s define what being a Slut actually is. In its modern and most commonly used sense (as opposed to “a serving woman” or “a female dog”), a Slut is “a person, especially a woman, considered sexualy promiscuous.” So… what’s wrong with that? Sluts are often called other names as well, but let’s define those terms as well, to see the difference between a Slut, and say… a skank. A skank would be someone who is especially filthy and vulgar. A teenager with a midriff baring outfit that reveals a slight paunch to go with a case of personal odor would be a skank, not a Slut. A whore would be a person who sells sexual favors in exchange for money. A tramp is a homeless vagrant. A bitch is a malicious, spiteful, and selfish person, usually female. But a Slut is merely someone who adores sex.

Hence the title of this week’s article. In Shakespeare’s day, to be called a Jew was to be considered the vilest form of insult. “Thou art a ravisher of women, and a brigand, and a Jew besides,” one might be told, only to counter with vitriolic rage, “I may be a ravisher and a brigand, but I am no Jew!” Indeed, Shakespeare satirized the anti-semitism of his own audience with “the Merchant of Venice,” in which “the evil Jew” receives his comuppance… only after we have been treated to a full recounting of his persecution at the hands of those around him. The court gleefully deprives him of his wealth and even his religion, all to save a man who borrowed money while admitting, “yes, I did spit on you in public, called you a dog and worse… and yes, I’ll do it again, next time I see you in the street. But I need the money.”

To be called a Jew was to be treated as an insult. Indeed, even today it crops its head in such forms as the expression “Jewing them down.” And yet I for one am proud of my Jewish heritage. My ancestors helped create western civilization. Even the man whom Christians regard as their messiah was Jewish, a carpenter’s son turned rabbi who called for a return to traditional Jewish morality in the face of secular hypocrisy and sin; the Last Supper was a Passover Seder. In more contemporary society, Jews have given the world Superman, the theory of relativity, sewing machines, and Google.

To be a Slut is also a wonderful thing. I am a Slut. That means I love sex. I adore it. I find it to be a wonderful and positive thing, that allows me to experience pleasure while giving the same to those I cherish. That is why I have capitalized the term throughout this article. It is why I capitalize the word in all my writings; a bold declaration to the world that I will not stand for anti-sexual puritanical hypocrisy. I will not knuckle under to the condemnation of the prudes, not when everyone truly prefers to be a Slut, with Sluts. I urge all of you who read this to reply and add a similar declaration in kind. Tell all the world that you are proud to be… a Slut.

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I thought I’d discuss Jack Thompson in this latest post, even though Thompson (to the best of my knowledge) has never even been to Las Vegas. Why? Because Jack Thompson is the spiritual brother of the folks you can see down on the Fremont Street Experience, waving placards about repenting of our wickedness while everyone is trying to watch the show (and you’ll note they never cover their eyes when the show begins, either. Or plug their ears against the music from the bands). Jack Thompson is a prime example of confusing vice with sin. Of course, that leads to the burning question, “who the hell is Jack Thompson?”

Simply put, Jack Thompson is a man so universally reviled that when Will Wheaton, the actor unfortunate enough to be forced to play the hideously unpopular Wesley Crusher in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” was giving a speech at a gaming convention and desired to win some audience support, all he had to do to win a standing ovation at the very outset was to open his speech with the sentence, “My name is Will Wheaton, and Jack Thompson can suck my (expletive replaced with the synonym of spherical organs found within the male scrotum).” Thompson has been reviled since the 1970s, when he ran for prosecutor against Janet Reno (of Waco and Ruby Ridge infamy), in Dade County, Florida. To directly quote the wikipedia article, “Thompson gave Reno a letter at a campaign event requesting that she check a box to indicate whether she was homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Thompson said that Reno then put her hand on his shoulder and responded, “I’m only interested in virile men. That’s why I’m not attracted to you.”

Later, Thompson would go on to challenge rap music, particularly that of “2 Live Crew,” possibly because they had released a record supporting Reno in her race against Thompson. While sending out documents, Thompson would frequently attach photocopies of his drivers license, with pictures of Batman pasted over his own photo. And yes, he only got crazier over time. His insanity could be compared to quality cheese, growing steadily more exquisite with age.

Finally, Thompson would settle upon his arch nemesis for the ages. The dreaded video game. He has repeatedly referred to such games as Grand Theft Auto as “murder simulators,” stating, “Murder simulators are not constitutionally protected speech. They’re not even speech. They’re dangerous physical appliances that teach a kid how to kill efficiently and to love it.” He later wrote “A Modest Video Game Proposal,” in which he challenged someone to make a video game by 2006 in which players killed video game developers, using the characters he had created; he would follow up by donating $10,000 to the charity of Take-Two Interactive’s chairman Paul Eibeler’s choosing. The result: “I’m O.K. – A Murder Simulator,” released by Thompsonsoft in January of 2006. Thompson claimed that his proposal was merely satire, refusing to donate a single cent. The creators of the webcomic Penny Arcade responded by donating the full $10,000 to the ESA foundation in Thompson’s name. The check’s memo line carried the line, “For Jack Thompson Because Jack Thompson Won’t.” Thompson responded by accusing Penny Arcade of extortion.

Today, Thompson continues to bark, but he has lost his bite. A long and drawn out battle with the Florida Bar association in which he countered logic and facts with submissions of gay pornography and hand drawn comic books containing swastikas, kangaroos in a courtroom, a host of celebrities, a house of cards, and more, finally ended with Thompson’s permanent disbarment. Thompson remains unbowed, but at least his ability to legally bully others has been effectively neutered.

How does this relate to Las Vegas, you ask? Many people (including the aforementioned placard wavers on Fremont Street) rush to accuse us of being sinful, immoral. Yet people rush to come here, to gamble, to feast, to attend conventions. They may abuse the freedoms here, but to blame us for their weakness is to abandon their maturity, to insist that the world be made kid safe so that we can all stay children all our lives.

Personally, I’d rather enjoy a good platter of sushi, then play some “Left 4 Dead” before settling down with some nice porn. And if you’re going to accuse me of training on a “murder simulator,” I’ll simply ask what YOU’RE doing to prepare for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

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Years ago, I worked as a night watchman for the construction site for what is now the Redfeather shopping center, on Cheyenne between Decatur and Rancho. Twelve hours a night, from six to six, walking about the construction vehicles and trucks, wandering the half finished buildings, moving through the scrapped vehicles and old tires, as I kept a sharp lookout for any possible thieves. One night a small group of said thieves attempted to keep trouble out of the way by placing a homemade explosive device on the little trailer that one of my employer’s other workers lived in, hoping to steal a few thousand dollars worth of whatever they could get while West lay injured or dead. After we’d spooked them off, we examined the little plastic bottle with its contents, then placed it on the ground at a safe location and set it off ourselves, purely for fun.

Another relatively nonviolent but still unsettling incident occurred when I looked across the street and saw four squad cars with the police chopper overhead. Being naturally somewhat concerned, I called 9-1-1 to ask if I could assist in any way. I must say, few things can impart the lesson of self reliance like pressing the buttons 9, 1, and 1, only to hear the following. “You have reached the 9-1-1 emergency line. All our operators are busy…” The next night I began showing up armed, with either a knife, an ASP baton, a wooden sword, or a combination thereof.

Though the police did arrive at a later date. Someone had seen my flashlight and called the police, thinking I was a thief myself. I emerged from an empty warehouse after patrolling the interior to find the police chopper overhead. When I heard the command to get down on the ground, I slowly sat down ,then made a show of drawing my knife, holding it overhead, then tossing it a few feet away. And when the two squad cars peeled in and the four policemen emerged with guns drawn, I called out my name, my job, and my employer’s name. A tense but brief conversation and a few calls made by both parties later, the police drove off, and I was free to resume my patrol. Once I’d stopped shaking, anyway.

Not that it was all guns and explosions. There was also time to spend doing…whatever I pleased, really. Martial arts training, wandering down to the Fiesta casino to munch on one of the post-midnight specials available from their cafe for my “lunch break,” listening to reruns of the previous day’s daytime talk shows on AM radio. But the best part of the job was something that anyone in Las Vegas can enjoy, if they get up at the right time of day and find a good position to watch it. For me, the best position was climbing up to the roof of one of the buildings to watch.

The red comes first, of course. It literally covers every color in the visible light spectrum, but it’s the red that comes first. Then the orange, and then the yellow. After a few minutes the sun itself becomes visible and you can no longer look directly at the sunrise itself (unless there are low clouds to cover the sun), but before that you can see the color green there on the horizon, where red and yellow light blend with a black sky now illuminated and turned blue. It is every color of the rainbow, all splashed across the sky in the unforgettable and incomparable desert sunrise.

It was my favorite part of the job. It was a triumph of beauty. It was a demonstration of the sheer magnificence of nature. It was the sort of harsh beauty that thrives only in the desert. It was a testimony to the wonders of creation. It was the signal that it was end of shift and time to go home.

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It seems we’ve got a lot of California emigres here in Nevada these days, especially after the events of 2003. While later revelations established that it was in fact Enron and company who were responsible for the bulk of the power shortages, what matters is now, with so many former Californians now living in Nevada, especially in Las Vegas proper. Our population exploded in a few short years, and the result was the blending of two subcultures of American society. The resultant cocktail is certainly something interesting to behold, but first we should look at the original ingredients.

Nevada is, at the heart, truly the remaining, lingering embodiment of the Old West. Self reliance is a virtue, as is respect for the privacy of others, and a sensible, “can do” attitude. We’re too tough to waste energy on the fabled bad attitudes of, say, New Yorkers; what I call “the East Coast Attitude amounts to nothing here. We live in a desert, and all the profanity and “badassery” will not impress an overheating car engine ten miles past city limits when the fuel tank is running on fumes. We speak softly and carry big… pistols. An armed society is a polite society, to quote Heinlein.

California, by contrast, is and has always been the land of social reform. Almost every big new thing, good or bad, has its roots in the Golden State. Racial integration, tolerance of alternative lifestyles, the president who took down the Soviet Union. California is a place of people always eager to try new things, to do new things. Yoga. Pilates. Sushi. They don’t have TIME for tradition; or to be more precise, their tradition is of always being on the cutting edge of new trends. No time for out with the old; it’ll just have to share space with the new.

The result? Makino’s, where patrons can enjoy all you can eat gourmet sushi the likes of which residents of 19th century Edo could only dream. Opa, a testimony to fine greek dining that would make Zeus himself weep in envy. Hedary, whose middle eastern cuisine would cause terrorists to put off jihad until after dessert. It’s a delicious blending of west meets… well, west. Tolerance of other ways of life coupled with respect for the doings of others; a desire to do great things coupled with a capable, can do attitude.

Such is what we have become, in the last decade. Such is this town, the City of Sin where endangered children and teenagers can seek assistance at any of the locations owned by “The Best Bad Guy in the West.” The best place in the world to be; and an unending stream of tourists all concur. It makes me proud to be a resident of Clark County. How about you?

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A lot of people have said that television is “the opiate of the masses.” It’s really more of a precursor to the Internet – with all the potential therein. You simply have to watch the right show (or surf the right page). Case in point: Good Eats, hosted by Alton Brown.
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Last night’s episode was devoted to the humble omelette. After opening in a Japanese Zen garden (or a credible mockup, at any rate), Brown went on to demonstrate how to make a perfect egg omelette. This morning I followed his directions… and the pics attached to this email are what I had for breakfast. The omelette itself had a fluffy, perfect exterior, with an interior tasting not unlike a rich, fine custard. Served with a sliced tomato, a large cup of german chocolate flavored coffee (with sweetener and milk to taste), and a bit of Beecham’s cheese (and yes, that is a discount sticker on the package; I bought the cheese at half price because they were overstocked. I AM Jewish, after all. ^.^). Good breakfast, then a quick bit of weight lifting… good start to the day.
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Bon appetit!

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