The Sporadic Curmudgeon

Ach du Lieber! An Italian newspaper claims to have uncovered documents proving that Adolph Hitler invented the plastic girlfriend. It seems that Nazi soldiers were servicing more than just their country during WWII, leading to some dishonorable discharges, if you catch my drift.

So how to keep the upstanding members of the Master Race unsullied by contact with non-Aryan ass? Hitler himself leapt into the breach with a plan to equip every Nazi serviceman with an inflatable fraülein. Exhibiting his usual attention to detail, Der Führer was quite explicit as to the latex liebchin’s design specs:

She should be a natural size with a pretty woman’s appearance with white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, 1.76 meters (5 feet, nine inches) high, with large lips and breasts.

The man Hitler put in charge of the project was Heinrich Himmler, a brutal murderer who, judging by his physical appearance, probably already had extensive experience with non-human hoochie. In any case, the portable shore-leave idea was abandoned after the factory was destroyed during the fire-bombing of Dresden. Deutschland Rübber Alles!

Tonight ABC begins the six-part miniseries Empire, depicting events in Ancient Rome from the assassination of Julius Cæsar in 44 BCE through the collapse of the Roman Republic to the establishment of the Principate in 31 BCE.

Well, not really. The ABC executives have, in their infinite wisdom, chosen to spare us the true story of one of the most turbulent periods in the recorded history of the world (the two other contenders being the cataclysmic upheavals of the Black Death in the 14th century and World War II in the 20th). They have instead given us the adventures of a fictitious ex-Gladiator cum bodyguard named, get this, Tyrannus, who shepherds the callow Octavius (the future Emperor Augustus) into manhood and ultimate power. The fate of the Empire rests on his broad nonexistent shoulders, etc. etc.

One must sympathize with the network. What, after all, could a modern audience possibly find interesting about dry, musty old Roman history? As Executive Producer Tony Jonas tells us, “The idea was what can we do to ease our audience into what’s kind of a difficult buy, which is to traverse 2,000 years.”

And what better way to ease that audience into said difficult buy than throwing in a great big beefy gladiator or two? Hey, it worked for Ridley Scott and an earlier generation of homosexual men. Et tu, Steve Reeves?

I swear, every time I start thinking that studio execs might not really be the collection of stereotypical drooling microcephalics they’re usually depicted as, something like this comes up.

For the record, here’s a small part of what happened during the period in question. My source, which I’m shamelessly paraphrasing, is the wonderful and incredibly lurid Lives of the Twelve Cæsars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus. (You should read it for yourself; people who think history is boring have simply never been exposed to the really good stuff.) Any inaccuracies or misrepresentations in the following are my fault, not his.

The Roman Republic was decaying, and the brilliant and popular senator Julius Cæsar had become supreme ruler of the city through a combination of military exploits, devious political maneuvers and populist measures. Most of these pissed off the other powerful men in Rome, and a group of senators, including his supposed best friend Brutus, conspired to murder him on the steps of the Senate House on March 15, 44 BCE. All hell broke loose.

The conspirators, who had deluded themselves into thinking that they’d be welcomed as saviors of the Republic, were hunted down like dogs. Chief among the hunters was Cæsar’s nephew and heir Gaius Octavius. To achieve this end, Octavius needed serious political muscle, so he announced his candidacy for Tribune of the People, a high position for which he was not technically eligible.

This offended another powerful senator, the consul Marcus Antonius, who did everything he could to throw obstacles in his way. Octavius had counted on Antonius’ support, and when it was not forthcoming he tried to have Antonius bumped off. When that failed, Octavius figured that Antonius was probably so ticked that he might retaliate in kind, so in self-defense (and also in defense of Rome and the aristocracy, or so he said) he raised a private army of veterans he’d served with in the various wars. By this time there were two new consuls (new ones were elected every year), and both of them backed Octavius.

Going up against Antonius’ forces in the first battle, Octavius won. On a personal level, however, he didn’t do so well. According to Antonius, he scurried away from the battlefield and wasn’t seen again until the next day, minus his cloak and horse. If true, it was the last time Octavius exhibited personal cowardice.

One of the consuls was killed in the battle, and the other was wounded and died under mysterious circumstances soon after. It was suspected, not entirely without reason, that Octavius had assisted both men in shuffling off this mortal coil, so as to leave him unchallenged once he’d disposed of Antonius.

After the whole running-away-like-a-little-pansy thing, some of Octavius’ allies figured he was eventually a goner and gave shelter to Antonius. Octavius saw which way the wind was blowing and switched sides himself, joining up with Antonius against the nobles. Together Octavius, Antonius and another big-shot, Marcus Lepidus, set off to finally settle the assassins’ hash. (Yes, that’s an etymology joke.) Although sick and at times narrowly escaping capture, Octavius caught up with Brutus at the second battle of Philippi. He had Brutus’ head shipped to Rome to be thrown at the feet of Cæsar’s statue. Thus was bowling invented.

After all the hubbub, Antonius and Octavius divvied up the administrative duties. Antonius headed off for fun and adventure in the East, while Octavius had to take a bunch of veterans back to Rome to give them some land they’d been promised. The people who owned the land the veterans had been promised were not thrilled by this, and everybody ended up blaming Octavius. Except Octavius, of course, who rather sensibly blamed Antonius for getting him into the mess in the first place.

Then yet another consul named Lucius Antonius decided that since things were already so fucked up he stood as good a chance as anybody at ruling Rome. He was badly mistaken, and ran to a town called Perusia, which, being inhabited by a bunch of complete idiots, took him in. Octavius starved him out, and then demonstrated to the good citizens of Perusia that payback is indeed a bitch. Some three hundred men, high and low, were executed. On March 15th.

Tired of finishing wars other guys started, Octavius picked a long, drawn-out fight with the island of Sicily. (In the ancient world declaring war on Sicily was apparently a kind of hobby: pretty much everybody did it at least once.) He built a huge fleet of ships, both military and mercantile, that was promptly wrecked in a storm. He rebuilt, but the fleet version II also ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

By this time Rome was starving, mainly because the Egyptian grain they depended on was now fish food, and they forced Octavius to make peace with Sicily. Never one to think small, he took the opportunity to build a third fleet, set twenty-thousand slaves free and trained them as galley oarsmen (now there’s a deal for you) in a new harbor created specially for the purpose by opening up a channel between two lakes and the sea. Then he went after the Sicilians again.

At one point during the Sicilian war Octavius mistook some of the enemy’s ships for his own and walked down the beach toward them. Realizing his error at the last moment, he made a break for it through some narrow passageways in the rocks, during which one of his companions’ slaves tried to kill him. I think we’ve all had days like that.

Finally Octavius got sick of Antonius’ pissiness and turned on him. Antonius high-tailed it to Alexandria, where his old girlfriend Cleopatra (the last Pharoah of Egypt, a major babe and notorious trollop) held court. One can only image the unfettered joy with which she greeted this reunion. A few battles later Antonius was history, Cleo let an asp latch on to her boob and Octavius, new Master of the Civilized World, was changing his name to Augustus and digging up Alexander the Great’s corpse just so he could take a look at it. The end.

Come to think of it, maybe that story is a little boring. A sweaty, homoerotic chunk of fictional gladiator might just be what it needs. Let’s all watch tonight, shall we?

Incredibly dumb. Incredibly funny. Tom Cruise Kills Oprah. Not everything has to be witty and insightful*, you know. It’s Friday.

* My original spelling was “inciteful.” Maybe that’s more accurate…

Sometimes the sky gets mighty funky, a fact that has not escaped the fine folks behind the Atmospheric Optics website. If you’ve ever wanted to see amazing photos of anti-crepuscular rays or a rainbow sitting right on the ground, this is the place. There are dozens of well-done diagrams and illustrations explaining the whys and wherefores. Plus it’s really cool stuff.

So the next time you’re at a party making chit-chat and the topic turns, as it always does, to the weather, you’re loaded for bear.

Today is my 48th birthday. Whoop-de-friggin’-doo. These things used to be fun, now they’re just depressing reminders of loss. Beckett once wrote “we give birth astride the grave.” More to the point, James Brown once wrote a song called “Fuck Everybody*.”

* It’s on the provisional soundtrack cassette compiled for The Big Easy. A friend of mine was in the cast, so I’ve heard it for myself. I wish Mr. Brown would officially record the song; it’s a better mood-elevator than Prozac^®. I’d like to hear it now, actually…

Jeez, another trip to the whine cellar. I had a muffaletta from Jason’s Deli, a wonderful birthday cake, and my annual screening of Destination Moon (a 23-year tradition). Now I’m feeling a lot better.

A Glasgow, Scotland man is in trouble because he attempted to conduct an employment interview in the nude, even inviting the woman applying for the job to disrobe also. She declined.

Akbar, 35, left the interview room and came back in to speak to his female victim naked and clutching a clipboard.

When the job candidate refused to strip as well, he put his clothes on and attempted to continue the interview as normal, the court was told.

Akbar, from Fife, said: “I wanted a bit of excitement that afternoon, that’s purely all it was.”

Hmmm… I’ve got a job performance review coming up soon. I wonder…

By the way, you young whippersnappers that are confused by the title of this post (it is a pun, and a very bad one) should click here and all will be horribly clear. I guess I’d better put a link to the definition of perineum as well. Not everyone shares my predilection for obscure sexual terms.

Yesterday was a difficult day at work: I found out I’d been poached by another department. It’s a major opportunity, which is good, but I’m really going to miss working with my newly-ex-supervisor. Ciao, baby.

Worried and stressed, when I got home I did the only reasonable thing a man in my position can do: ordered delivery Chinese food and hauled the telescope out into the front yard. The food was pretty good, but holy cow was the sky spectacular. It was the best seeing I’ve experienced in 37 years of staring into eyepieces.

My telescope is a 4″ Dobson-mounted Newtonian reflector with amazing optics, made by Orion. (It was a gift from my wife and is the sweetest scope I’ve ever owned.) When I trained it on Jupiter I was astonished. There was absolutely no atmospheric turbulence whatsoever. None. Jupiter sat perfectly still in the field of view, without any of the dancing around that usually afflicts earth-based astronomy. The image was so stable that I could actually see details at the boundary of the cloud belts.

Not only were the Jovian moons Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede bright and motionless, but I believe I actually made out Himalia. Himalia is a mere 58 miles across, and is about 500 million miles away. If so, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it, and I did it from one of the most light-polluted cities in the world. I’m not absolutely sure that’s what it was, of course. Other than the Galilean Moons, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a real-time graphical representation of the position of Jupiter’s satellites.

Then I aimed it at our sister planetoid Luna, aka the Moon.

Wow.

I’ve seen Hubble photographs of the Moon that weren’t that clear. There was a beautiful line of shadows stretching from the Caucasus Mountains to the terminator, and I could clearly see the two famous rilles Rima Ariadeaus and Rima Hyginus, just west of the Sea of Tranquility. Rima Hyginus was particularly exciting; it’s normally not visible in anything less than an 8″ telescope. It’s only two miles across, for Pete’s sake!

Both my wife and daughter were impressed, and it’s hard to impress a five-year-old with astronomy. Or a wife, for that matter.

I tried to get some shots with my “disposable” CVS digital camera, but was unsuccessful. (The images above were taken out the window of the Apollo command module during a moon mission.) If conditions tonight are as good as they were last night I’m going to attempt it again with my brother-in-law’s digital camera, which is decidedly not disposable. If I have any luck I’ll post the results.

Well, the digital camera thing didn’t work and the wind came up, shaking the scope. But overall the seeing was still good this evening, and at least I was able to confirm that it was indeed Himalia I’d spotted. And Rima Hyginus was still there, plain as, well, a 130-mile-long, two-mile-wide crack in a plain. All in all, a good night.

It’s been a while since my last post. I’m not dead yet; I just wish I was.

You, too, can hurl yourself into a sticky miasma of disgust and depression by visiting this page. Just don’t go there before dinner unless you’re trying to lose weight.

I won’t spoil it for you, mainly because trying to describe the contents would make me want to slit my wrists.* I’ve listed it under “Genitalia in the News,” but I don’t think that’s completely right. Maybe I should create a category called “Soul-Rending Vortex of Nausea and Disgust.”

I’m probably being a mite harsh toward the practitioners described in the article, but man. That’s just vile.

* More than usual, I mean.

Exactly twenty-seven years ago to the hour I was sitting in the back seat of a stolen car screaming west across the night desert at 100mph with “Baker Street” on the radio and a bale of marijuana in the trunk. It set the tone for my entire adult life.

I’d decided to hitchhike from San Antonio to Los Angeles even though I was flat broke. I made the decision after a conversation with a remarkably irritable loan shark convinced me that I should travel for my health. A couple of acquaintances had moved there a few months before and told me to drop by when I was in the area. I figured I’d show up on their doorstep without warning and see what happened. Hey, it was the seventies.

A friend dropped me off north of town, and at one o’clock in the afternoon of June 3, 1978 I stood on the shoulder of Interstate 10 and stuck my thumb out for the first time. I caught a ride in less than half an hour, and I remember thinking that hitchhiking was pretty easy as I tossed my duffel bag into the car and climbed in. They took me 145 miles to Sonora before dropping me off. Then things started turning ugly.

Sonora is a dry, dusty town on the western edge of the hill country where the scrub starts turning into desert. There were other hitchhikers there too, some of them all too willing to tell me what a hellhole Sonora was. One guy told me about being stranded there for two weeks. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. By five o’clock I was starting to get worried. I didn’t want to spend the night out in the open, and didn’t have enough money for a crappy meal, much less a hotel room. This was beginning to look like a serious mistake.

Perhaps I should clarify something about myself when I was this age. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was a young, extremely naive idiot that for some unfathomable reason repeatedly managed to avoid death and dismemberment. My memories from that period induce more cringing and winces than the promo spot for Britney Spears’ reality show where she asks, “Can you handle my truth?”

Finally about six o’clock a car pulled over. There were two men in their twenties inside. They asked me where I was headed, and I told them. The guy riding shotgun said they were going to San Diego, so they could take me that far. I wasn’t about to turn down a ride at that point, even if it was a little out of the way, so I agreed and got into the car. Settling into the back seat, I watched as Sonora dwindled behind us, and allowed myself a sigh of relief. I was on my way to California!

It soon became apparent, however, that something was not quite right about my benefactors. For one thing, they were distinctly unfriendly, and generally didn’t seem to be the kind of people given to performing acts of kindness. They didn’t talk much, not even giving their names, and completely ignored me. I listened to the radio and stared out the window. Dusk settled over the desert, then it got dark.

After sixty miles of uneasy silence, they loosened up a little.

“When I get to San Diego, I’m gonna party so goddamned hard,” said the driver.

“Damn straight,” said the other. “I’m gonna party too.”

“Shit, yeah!”

“Party,” I said, in an ill-advised attempt to make conversation.

The driver glared at me in the rearview mirror. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he snarled.

About nine-thirty we pulled into a MacDonald’s in El Paso and I spent the last of my money on a Big Mac. The two switched places and we continued on our way. The one that had been driving soon fell asleep. The guy now at the wheel cracked the window to get some air.

We seemed to be going awfully fast. I looked at the speedometer. The glowing red needle was above 100, which I thought was worth noting.

“Oh, that,” he said. “We stole this car in Kansas City.”

“What?”

He continued without responding. “Then we drove it down to San Antone to pick up a few kilos of grass. It’s in the trunk. We’ve got a big buyer in San Diego, but we gotta get there before noon tomorrow or the deal’s off.”

We must have driven twenty miles in silence.

“That’s why we’re driving so fast,” he said finally, by way of explanation.

Several hours passed and he began to get fatigued. Cruise control meant we maintained our rate of speed, but once in a while the car would slowly drift onto the shoulder. Huge velocity-blurred saguaro cactus loomed in the headlights, and he’d jerk us back onto the asphalt. Half a dozen repetitions and he slowed to a stop and shook his partner’s shoulder. “Your turn again.” He turned to me. “You might want to get some shuteye yourself.”

I grinned weakly and nodded, but didn’t take his advice. I’ve always had problems with insomnia, and the additional visions of my imminent fiery death in a brutal grinding cataclysm of steel, glass and meat made drifting off to slumberland a bit difficult.

Just past dawn we crossed the California border and stopped for breakfast, which they were nice enough to spring for. The day was gorgeous, and after the gothic horror of the night drive my future looked all bright and sparkly. We made our destination in good time, and they both loosened up a little. “I guess we’ll drop you off here,” said one. “You be careful in LA. There’s some crazy-ass motherfuckers in that town.” We pulled over and I climbed out onto the shoulder of the San Diego freeway.

As I pulled my duffel bag out of the back, a California Highway Patrol car pulled up right behind us. A large, mean-looking cop opened the door. He pointed at me and said, “You wait over there and don’t move.” He continued to the car as I moved about ten yards back. He spoke to the driver, and then had them both get out. I couldn’t hear anything, but I saw them all gesture toward me several times. The officer had them open the trunk, then took their car keys.

By this time my knees were shaking uncontrollably. Not in the state half a day, and I’m already going to Federal prison. Figures.

The cop turned and walked back toward me. His expression was grim. “Did those two talk about anything during the trip?”

I didn’t want to make things any worse for them (or for myself), so I said, “No, sir. When one was driving the other was sleeping.”

I must have looked utterly pathetic, because he suddenly took pity on me. “Look,” he said, “they say they just picked you up in Texas and you don’t know anything about this. It’s illegal to hitchhike on the freeway in California. If you’ll head over there to the onramp you can catch a ride there.”

I thanked him, and really, really meant it. Scurrying off, the last thing I saw of my benefactors was the two of them being stuffed into the back seat of the patrol car.

Hitchhiking on the San Diego freeway turned out to be much more difficult than hitchhiking on IH10 in Sonora, and it took me ten hours to get from San Diego to the Sunset Strip, where my friends lived in an apartment building. They were surprised to see me, which is understating it a little. They seemed fairly okay with it, though, and agreed to let me crash on their couch until I found a place.

The next morning I got up and looked out the window. There was a beautiful redheaded woman sunbathing topless beside the swimming pool, and I knew I had found my home at last. As I said, it was the seventies.