Devil's Advocate for the Adulterous Advocate

Your Next Lover - Lori McKenna (mp3)
A Girl in California - Nine Days (mp3)

I caught wind of John Edwards' daliances slightly ahead of the curve thanks to my regular visits to Plastic.com, a geeky little discussion + news site that posted this as it was starting to really percolate in late July. So I felt like friggin' Drudge when Edwards came out and shocked the world with his confession last week.

The reaction of acquaintances has been fairly surprising, to be honest. Shock, mostly. Edwards' infidelity has been a much larger surprise to (left-leaning?) people, it seems, than that of Wild Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, I'm like, The dude pays FOUR HUNDRED FRIGGIN' DOLLARS to get his friggin' hair cut! He spends as much on his hair per year as Spitzer spent on that prostitute. Any guy who loves his own hair that much is waaaay too full of himself to sleep exclusively with one woman.

But here are some other thoughts that have sprouted from the Edwards scandal:

FORGIVENESS
Edwards said he has sought his wife's forgiveness and his God's forgiveness, and so he basically doesn't care what the rest of us think. Since it's hardly our business to begin with, I couldn't agree more. If you enjoy this story for its juicy context, or if you enjoy watching the overly ambitious and well-coiffed get their come-uppance, that's fine and good. But I'm kind of violently anti-TMZ and anti-paparazzi at the moment, and for me this is just a slightly higher-class version of celebrity rubbernecking I can do without. This really should be between him, his wife, and his deity of choice. Well, and the "other woman "who seems to have gotten a sweet-ass deal out of it.

BUT HE LIED! HE DENIED IT!
If reporters gave a flip about my private life -- and if you thought The Truman Show was a boring concept, my daily existence is even more snooze-a-riffic -- and had the unmitigated gall to ask me if I was having affairs, or smoking crack, or surviving solely on a diet of Pop Tarts, Mountain Dew and Twizzlers, I'd like to think I could answer them in such a way that gave them nothing good yet amused me to no end.

If they ask and you say "No" because it's the truth, then you're only helping their cause, because they can then use you as an example of those who "have nothing to hide," allowing them to bring down that judgmental hammer harder on another's head. So I'd like to think I would say I'm sleeping with everyone. Kate Beckinsale. Ashley Judd. The whole cast of The Golden Girls (except for Estelle Getty, of course, God rest her sweet soul). Tom Cruise. Barbara Bush (the older AND the younger). Say their names, I'm sleeping with them. And they're all just using me for the sex.

My point is, once Edwards screwed around, is he really obligated to, according to our society's odd little rules, confess it in detail to the first reporter to ask the oh-so original question of "Have you ever had an affair?" Is George W. Bush required to explain in great detail his past drug use or even admit he did cocaine just because some bonehead asks him? Are we really better off as a country if they tell the truth to us when it's none of our business?

In my book, if goobers with no right to do so ask anyone such questions, it's not lying to tell them whatever you want. "I sleep with Martians. We spoon, mostly, but sometimes we use toys on each other. I prefer Martian Menages after my Martian Massages. And if you've never been rubbed down by a Martian, you haven't truly lived!"

BAD APPLES MAKE BAD ORANGES?
Our Puritanical society has somehow bought into the bullshit that you can't be a great politician without being a lily-white clean slate of perfect family values. Being outstanding or gifted in one area of life does not require being outstanding or gifted in another. That's like saying you can't be a great rock guitarist without sleeping with 40 women a year. Or that Donald Trump can't be successful in real estate unless he's also a devoted and loving father. It's so oddly unrealistic and foolish that I don't even know why we continue to allow this myth to propagate.

"THE WORST TIME TO DO IT"
Almost every person I've heard pontificate on his infidelity says something akin to this: "And he couldn't have done it at a worse time. His wife is fighting for her life against cancer, and he's off fucking around! What a jerk!" First off, I wasn't aware there was a proper or acceptable time for adultery. Is there some space shuttle re-entry in adultery, where there's a few "perfect windows" in the atmosphere wherein it's acceptable and understandable for married folks to screw around?

Jimmy's always been a devoted husband and father, and although he slept with that drunk librarian two years ago, it was at a time when his wife was healthy and everything in his life was going well, so it was no big deal. If he'd fucked that librarian back when Shelly had been diagnosed with diabetes, well, that would have been another story... Then Jimmy would have been one disgusting sumbitch.

Let's go one step further. (Since my writing on this entire topic automatically qualifies me for the "Perhaps He Protesteth Too Much" Award, no point in leaving any stones unturned.)

Isn't it maybe a little more acceptable for the dude to seek his needs elsewhere at a time when his wife is utterly and completely incapable of being there for him? So long as Edwards didn't abandon his wife emotionally, so long as he was there in the ways she needed him, why isn't his shoplifting some pootie on the side more acceptable when Elizabeth is sick rather than when she's shiny and healthy as a pearl?

If one of you readers is willing, I would really appreciate you breaking down the Affair Scale for me. From 1-10, when's having an affair a 1 and when is it a 10? This might help all those readers out there who want to know when it's most acceptable to have an affair. If they're gonna be immoral, at least they can be considerate.

"Your Next Lover" is from Lori McKenna's super-mega-awesome album Unglamorous. "A Girl in California" is from Nine Days' latest EP, Slow Motion Life Part I. Both can be purchased through iTunes or on Amazon.com's mp3 site.

Men, Part 2: Husbands and Fathers

Hall and Oates--"Family Man" (mp3)
Hall and Oates--"Maneater" (mp3)

In a shameless act of self-promotion, I think my best commentary on this topic is a short story I wrote a few years back. So, I'll offer the opening. If it catches your interest, please read on:

SUPERDADS by Bob Bires

I don’t know who came up with the SuperDad concept, me or Jason. I do know that beers were involved.

The problem was this: each fall, we were part of a Fantasy Football League, you know, the kind where you draft players from all different teams, and you “start” a quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, a kicker, and a defense each week, and each of those positions earns you points. There wasn’t big money involved or anything like that. We just wanted to be able to go off on Sundays (and maybe Monday nights) and drink to our hearts’ content at a local sports bar, watching as many games on as many TV’s at the same time as we could. All the forces of the universe oppose this desire.

So one of us said (I usually take full credit for things like this, but not this time), “It’s easy! We become SuperDads.”

We decided that if we were of exemplary character and behavior for the other six days of each week, our wives could not deny us our Sunday lapse. And, we were not going to pretend. That was genius of our plan.

“We have to want to be SuperDads,” one of us said to the other.

“I’m already a good dad,” the other one said.

“Yes, but you’re not a SuperDad. This is going to require a full commitment of body and soul. The body must be willing, and the soul must seek self-actualization. We won’t have to be talked into putting up a swing, we won’t reluctantly agree to Chucky Cheese’s or the park, we’ll be all for it. And then, on Sundays, we get to veg.”

We hoisted our beers to each other and made the pact.

And then, just for clarification, one of us said ominously, “Of course, this also means becoming SuperHubby. That goes with the territory.”

We looked at each other, wondering if we were willing to go through with it. SuperDad helps with homework, swims when he doesn’t want to swim, goes to amusement parks, plays UNO, makes brunch, picks up children at junior high dances, comes up with activities for sleepovers, but SuperHubby? Nothing so tangible. SuperHubby listens to problems that he isn’t allowed to solve, agrees with what he doesn’t believe, attends films when he wants to see movies, offers up tidbits of needless gossip, shrugs off criticism of his parents, ventures beyond the safety of black in evaluating his wife’s clothing choices, even initiates sex in the face of denial. And more.

“Understand, it’s not a concession for freedom,” one of us said to the other. “We have to want to do this. It isn’t a sacrifice. We can’t perceive it as a curbing of a lifestyle. It has to be a change that we want to make, the right thing to do. It will make everyone happier.”

Since we didn’t care much about hockey, basketball, or baseball, we couldn’t predict whether we would remain SuperDads after the Super Bowl. That wasn’t important in the middle of July.

“I’m in,” said our friend, Ricky, who had been given permission to go out with us one night and heard of our plan. Ricky loved Sunday football and he loved going to Ed’s Sports Bar. He was especially amenable to the SuperDad idea because he had made, upon marriage, certain promises that had restricted his extracurricular behavior in the past, but now that discipline gave him an immediate edge up on us. As our sometime-friend Geoff, said about him, “Ricky had to promise not to do a lot of stuff.”

Don’t get me wrong. We weren’t bad dads or negligent husbands. We did our share of family duties, put our families first. I even cooked the meals. But we were men.

The Mecca for our Sunday escape was a place called Ed’s Sports Bar. There were other sports bars in town, but they were pricier. Plus, Ed’s had both excellent chicken wings and superb cheeseburgers. When you’ve worked through too many pitchers and start to get that hollow, dizzy feeling, you want to have something special to look forward to, and Ed’s, not being a chain, prides itself on its food, especially those wings and burgers. Plus, all of waitresses at Ed’s show their midriffs, and usually their belly buttons are pierced.

We conceived of our plan early enough in the summer to have a “SuperDad training camp” during late July and August, in other words, a chance to practice before the Fantasy League draft in early September. Late summer’s usually vacation time for our group, and when we regrouped briefly at the pool one night, all of us had success stories to share from traveling with our families. By that time, another friend, Chas, had come aboard, and while there were others that we could have invited, there was trust—we couldn’t have word getting back to our wives that would misinterpret our plan. Besides, we needed some of our acquaintances to serve as lesser husbands, should we need that comparison.

Vacations were a great success, we found, as we congregated in the water while watching our children go down the slide. Jason bragged of having had sex twice during the same vacation and of his wife saying, “We need to do this more often.” Ricky’s wife declared him forgiven for his drunken escapades at a college reunion in Chapel Hill last April and even suggested that he needed to get out with his safer friends (meaning us) more often. And I, though I didn’t tell this to the others, making up some line about great sex, too, saw in my wife Ronnie’s eyes the looks that we shared with each other eighteen years ago, as though time and children and money and death had never intervened.

For the rest of the story, click the link below.

SUPERDADS,continued

Who knew that Hall and Oates would offer the definitive musical commentary on this topic, available at Itunes.