You're So Gay, You Prolly Think This Blog Is About You

Laura - Scissor Sisters (mp3)
How You Play the Game - Michelle Shocked (mp3)

The following is a reader comment following an interesting NYTimes blog about gender and homophobia:

Homophobia itself, like sexism, needs to be eradicated. And children need to learn (this must be taught by parents + in schools) that “masculine” and “feminine” may be descriptive (what the terms actually mean should always be open to question), but they must never be prescriptive. All children should be free to grow into whatever man or woman they want to be. And both parents and teachers have a moral obligation to facilitate this growth.

I will attempt to explain why the comment above begs me to differ, but first, I must offer some background.

I'm straight. Hetero. Whatevs. I'm also a Southern-Fried Protestant Honky. These are qualities that must be acknowledged right away. I won't gloss over them or the baggage they would naturally require me to carry.

Here's the next thing to make clear: I am fairly open-minded when it comes to sex and love and gender preference and all that jazz. Gay men in general bother me far less than NFL athletes in general or glam rock stars like Bret Michaels in general. I'm not the least bit uncomfortable around most gay men... be they my next-door neighbors or one of our fantasy football team owners or even a student who might or might not have begun to openly admit it to his peers or teachers. Just because I'm open-minded and comfortable, however, doesn't mean I can proclaim that famous ironic statement, "I don't have any problem with them gays."

Seems to me we all have problems with everyone at some point or another. We have problems with our parents, with our kids, with our coworkers, with people in the news, with homeless people, and so on. Some of these are excusable while some less so. But inevitably, our problem with a particular person will inevitably collide with a part of them that ain't like us. Their gender, their race, their sexual preference, their religion. And when that happens, we must ask ourselves how much of that different part plays a role in the conflict.

Put another way: "Am I annoyed by that guy because he's annoying or because he's gay/black/Moonie and annoying?"

The Rev. Al Sharpton comes to mind. He's not evil, but he certainly has too much Publicity Hound in him for me to consider his motives pure and virtuous. I don't like him. So, how does this opinion affect my placement on the Racist Bastard Scale? Is it damning, or do I get taken down a notch, or is my distaste for Reverend Al entirely unrelated to my racism or lack thereof?

Let's use "YouTube Fred" as another example. I don't care whether that kid is gay, het, or hermaphrodite, Fred annoys every last nerve ending in my entire body. (Yes, I know he's TRYING to be annoying, but he's also, like, annoying in ways that are beyond intentional.) Is it because he's effeminate? Probably. I can't deny that possibility. Am I bothered by effeminate males? At times... well, yes dammit, yes. But I'm also bothered by beefy guys who jiggle their man-boobs back and forth to show their amazing muscle control, and by manly men who constantly call everyone "fag" in deep baritone voices. I'm not a fan of ditzy bottle-haired model wannabes with boob jobs and collagen-injected lips who think it's cute that they can't spell simple words and don't know how many states make up the U.S.

In other words, People who behave in real life like two-dimensional cartoon character stereotypes are super-annoying. This distaste crosses all barriers and involves all stereotypes. Women with some masculine qualities or "Oreos" or "Bananas" or "Hootie" or men with some effeminate qualities... none of this bothers me. Hell, I got a whole heap o' Girly Man in me, and I'm really disinclined to be too apologetic about it.

Further, when it comes to essential differences in people such as race or religion or the like, there will always -- ALWAYS -- be some key moments where one side can't quite understand the other. It's a black thing. It's a gay thing. It's a teenage girl thing. It's a horny older married guy with children thing. You wouldn't understand. You're right. I probably wouldn't. Cut me a little slack then.

But then I read a comment like the one this dude wrote: "All children should be free to grow into whatever man or woman they want to be. And both parents and teachers have a moral obligation to facilitate this growth."

How, exactly, is that to be orchestrated?

I'm just not sure we can raise our children in a gender-identity vacuum. Am I supposed to feel somehow uncivilized if my son just so happened to start obsessing over bulldozers and trucks before he was a year old, in spite of living in a house with two older sisters and being surrounded by their dolls and stuffed animals? Am I failing my daughters that they love horses and American Girl crap and iCarly? While I don't believe my wife and I shoved them in these directions, I can't exactly say we've been guilt-stricken or spent time trying to expose them equally to what might be gender interests on the other side.

Sure, they are who they are, and they will be who they will be, and I'm not one to believe we can alter that course drastically without doing some pretty serious damage to them. But I'm just not sure there's some Yellow Brick Road of parental behavior that makes us androgynous shepherds on an androgynous journey while our androgynous children figure it all out for themselves. Nor do we live in an androgynous vaccuum, with pop culture and school and everything else constantly screaming at us about sex sex sex in every way possible.

Could I, like the father in Heathers, proudly and mournfully proclaim the words, "I love my dead gay son!" (Except maybe I could mean it?) I think so. However, I'm not sure that how I raise my children from day to day would get some Good Gay Housekeeping Seal of Approval or anything, since that's not really something I worry about very often. And to follow the "moral obligation" this guy mentions, wouldn't I have to be conscientious of all that stuff all the time?

No thanks. As Lloyd Dobbler said, "I can't figure it all out tonight, so I'm just gonna hang with your daughter."

Chops

The Band--"The Shape I'm In" (mp3)
The Magnetic Fields--"Acoustic Guitar" (mp3)


Slowly, very slowly, I am trying to get my chops back.

Now, I'm not claiming that I ever had great chops to begin with, but they were certainly a whole lot more than what they are now.

We're talking about guitar here. In terms of sideburns, I never had any chops and could probably let them grow until Doomsday and never get anything more than wisps. I can hear it it now: "Hey, nice wisps."

I've never looked up the official definition of the word "chops," if there is such a thing, but I've always understood it to mean (quotations mine, for my definition) "playing with fluidity and grace, i.e. technical proficiency." It's kind of like, how good you are.

A person with real chops has total command of the fret board. He or she hits a note, any note, and immediately knows what it is. He or she knows numerous different positions for the main, popular chords and knows all of the jazz chords--those diminished, and 7ths, and mu chords--as well. He or she knows the major, minor, blues, and all the other scales. I never got that for. Well, the first part, yes. I can make a chord and various deconstructions of it four or five different places on the neck.

Or could.

When you stop playing guitar for a long time and then pick it back up again, there are no miracles. You find out immediately what you have lost. The first thing is you hurt. Guitar players build up incredible calluses on their playing fingers, and when you stop playing for a long, long time, those go away. Switching to a ukelele for the summer does nothing for those calluses. The second thing you lose is finger memory. Oh, you don't forget the chords or how to form them, but your fingers lose the precision of placement that they had when you were forming those chords over and over day after day. So you get some dead string or buzzes or just plain shitty sounds. Maybe you want to try a little solo or a bluegrass run. The fingers remember how to ride that bicycle, but they are wobbly and slow.

So, the guitar chops project begins. The problem is that we all develop so many different chops and it's almost impossible to keep them all up to speed. At various times, I've had basketball chops, fiction and poetry writing chops, romantic chops (I know, all things are relative), gardening chops, running chops. Right now, I'd say my cooking chops are pretty good and that's about it.

I have a divorced friend I was talking to the other night, and we agreed how awful it would be for him to re-enter the dating scene right now. The reason? Though we didn't say it then, it's because he's lost his chops. It's one thing to stumble through a song on a guitar--imagine how that translates into the world of searching for a new woman when your mouth doesn't work quite right and you don't know the current standard behaviors and you still have the memories of what it was like, but not only are you not sure how you accomplished what you did, you aren't even sure you want to try to learn how to do it all over again.

There's a simple fact I've learned to live with: the amazing people who seem to accomplish so much more than the rest of us don't. They don't. They can't. There isn't time. They haven't been granted any more hours in the day than we have. They've simply decided to put their energy into those visible, public aspects of life, while the invisible (to us) parts suffer. Chops are a choice, and many of us are blessed with an ability to develop strong skills in a number of areas, sometimes simultaneously. But ultimately, we're going to have to choose between what (or more likely, who) we want to nurture and develop now and what we used to take pride in being pretty good at.

Still, the guitar beckons from the corner of the living room.

Ode on a Grecian Fonzarelli

Love Is Not a Fight - Warren Barfield (mp3)
La La Love You - Pixies (mp3)

My iPod died yesterday.

It was a clinical death, technically speaking. Time of death: 12:04 p.m. I was walking back to our house after a walk-through the dormitory, and I had scrolled to hear the theme song to "Rescue Me," otherwise known as "C'mon C'mon" by the Von Bondies, and when I pushed play, the thing just went paralytic on me.

I didn't even notice right away. Pushed play, kept walking, and realized several seconds later that no sound was flowing from my glorious machine, up through those heavenly small cords, and directly into my eardrums. Once I did notice, I tinkered, still not yet panicked. iPods can, on occasion, glitch out for a second. They'll freeze, or they'll lose themselves in a song, or whatever. So I tried the scroll wheel, and I tried all those little stupid standard things people do with small machines at moments like this.

When none of that worked, I did the Menu/Select double-tap -- a dance any long-time iPod Classic (or any other scroll wheel version) owner knows all too well. And when I did this, at first the Apple logo came up, and then, after that, an image I'd never before seen: The Red Circle X.

Upon seeing The Red Circle X, several expletives emerged from my vocal chords and out into the atmosphere around me, because I knew my iPod was summarily FUBAR.

Trying to maintain composure, I rushed back into the house as if I were carrying my own child back in from having discovered him or her drowning in a backyard swimming pool. The iPod was cradled lovingly in the palm of my hand, and my bottom lip trembled at the thought that My Precious might have died in so unceremonious a fashion. "No no no no don't do this to me," or something to that effect.

I gently laid it next to my mouse and began Googling with urgency. Images of Superman flying around the earth to reverse its rotation to save Lois Lane from suffocating in that miniaturized landslide inside that toy car flew through my brain. "iPod red circle x" I typed, and began the line-after-line clicking to find any and all possible solutions. I could rebuild it. Make it stronger, faster...

The main Apple site advised a series of actions, mostly centered around the "reset," or the Menu/Select act. The reset is to the iPod what defibrilators are to a human heart. I crashed the paddles once, twice, five times. Each time that damned Red Circle X popped up. I began trying more serious measures, all with the same nothingness in return. Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker!

Stuck in a serious stage of denial, I began to blame the Von Bondies and their stupid awful terrible song. Why the hell did I want to listen to that song? I've got almost 7,000 songs on my iPod for God's sake! Why why why that one?!?! Something as simple as a poor choice of musical preference could prove catastrophic.

I brought God into the mix. Totally serious here. I hardly ever pray, because my particular off-brand of Christian faith isn't particularly obsessed with the traditional prayer routine. But the thought of losing my iPod for any stretch of time was too much to bear. I had dorm duty last night, Jesus! Don't leave me in there alone without my iPod!

Why are you smiling? Why do you think I'm joking? Am I a clown to you? You people don't understand.

That iPod never leaves me. In the past eight or so years, I have not gone anywhere, done anything, at any time, when an iPod was not easily within reach. About four nights a week, I put it on 30-minute sleep timer and play it while I fall asleep. I play it in my office. I play it through a "jam box" (heh... I just used the words "jam box" in 2009...) when I'm in the shower. It plays when I'm on the scooter or in the car. I strap it to my hip when I'm making sweet sweet love. OK, maybe the emotional strain got to me a little on that last one. I've gotta learn to keep those to myself.

In SAT terminology, iPod : Billy :: E.T. : Elliot. I was dying right there with it.

Just as I was about to give up all hope and leave my precious sidekick for dead, I had a flash. Everytime I reset my iPod, it would click, but I couldn't hear the hard drive spin inside its beautiful aluminum casing. Maybe it was stuck. Maybe something inside that machine had lodged in a place it didn't belong.

So I slammed my fist down onto the face of My Precious. Were one to have observed this act, one could have construed it as an act of anger, of unbridled rage. I submit to you this was not the case. It was the act of any number of movie protagonists pounding desperately on a thought-dead lover's or friend's chest, screaming "Breathe, dammit! Breathe!!" It was the act of the Fonz, a.k.a. the Fonzie, a.k.a. Arthur Fonzarelli, hitting the side of Arnold's jukebox with his fist.

Sometimes, the only way to fix something is to hit it. My iPod spun back into life. I am once again whole.

Thank you Fonzie. You have once again shown me the path to enlightenment.

Both of these tunes and bands can be found on Amazon.com and iTunes. At least, I'm pretty sure.

100 Days

Raphael Saadiq--"100 Yard Dash" (mp3)

"Tea Parties" protest taxation without representation!

Pirates on the high seas!

Scandals over a bare-armed First Lady!

Is this the 21st century or the 18th century? Or just another day at the office for still-new President Barack Obama?

Any day now, the evaluations of Obama's first 100 days in office will start appearing all over the place, and they will, no doubt, be all over the map. Many will be critical, as Obama has been blamed for pretty much everything, including the last 20 years of the U.S. economy and the disappearance of Matchbox 20 from the modern musical landscape.

Put me in the camp of giving him high marks. Here's why.

First and foremost, I give him extremely high marks for that most intangible of intangibles: I like knowing that he is my president. I like knowing that he is in the house, that his family appears to be a normal one addressing normal American family issues. I like knowing that regardless of how many crises go on at once, no matter how many irons he has in the fire, he seems to be having fun being president. That must be what pisses off the right wing the most. Here is a guy who may have his own cool factor, but what he really thinks is cool is being president. He isn't dwelling on burdens of the job or tough decisions, though they are obviously there since these are tough times; instead, he handles the job like it is a job--that he's going to give it all he has in any given day, but that he knows he isn't going to get it all done, and tomorrow, he's going to get up and keep working at it.

Even the most right wing of right wingers would not try to argue at this point that John McCain could have handled this complex economic, social, international, political landscape.

My second praise of Obama comes in response to the many criticisms against him. If you bundled them all up and took a look at them, here's what you would discover: Obama is being criticized for being the Democrat that he is. His approaches to economic troubles, to health care, to stem cell research, to Cuba, you name it, his approaches are Democratic approaches. Now, I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, because this is not a case of right or wrong. Instead, it's a case of "if I had been elected, that's not how I would have done it." Agreed. We get that. Now acknowledge that he is the one who did get elected and he's doing it the way he said he was going to do it.

My God, he's gotten a lot done in less than 100 days:

He's gotten major legislation through.

He's conducted a successful European trip.

He's begun to address global warming.

He's reversed Bush on stem cells.

He's reversed about 10 (wrong) presidents on Cuba.

He's handled a tough decision as Commander-in-Chief with flying colors.

He's picked the NCAA national champion.

He's made the tough call that St. Louis might actually have better deep dish pizza than Chicago.

He's fulfilled his campaign promise to his family about the dog.

He's called out Rush Limbaugh.

He's begun the national health care discussion.

He's taken on Wall Street and Detroit auto.

He's begun to get us thinking about how we need to change our lifestyles.

As my friend said across the table in a bar tonight, "I like the fact that he's willing to try things. And, hey, if they don't work, then he'll try something else."

Yep, it's probably no real surprise that I'm a big fan. In a world where so many of us have to multi-task all the time, where we're talking to one person and texting another, where we're juggling work and family and concern for the environment and the love of a good meal, we've got a president who seems to understand and do all of that on a much larger scale, a scale that he handles with grace and aplomb. Is he willing to get a little down and dirty to accomplish what he wants? Yes. But guess what? I have to do the same thing every day. And I don't mind a class war, even if I'm on the losing side. I guess that makes me a liberal, too, eh?

Run, Forrest, Run!

You'll Never Catch Him - Buffalo Tom (mp3)
Run Rabbit Run - Rob Zombie (mp3)

Recent events in my line of work have had me thinking about the violent tendencies of the youthful male. While it's clear I have the "self-bloodsucking" gene, I somehow fell out of line when it came time to hand out the Fighting gene.



Forthwith is my own brief historical experience with fighting.

My first foray into the world of pugilism did not come until I was in the seventh grade. Before that, I had several playground encounters where my smart-ass big mouth would piss a bigger kid off, and then I'd go running like the dickens until they got sick of chasing me. Running from larger kids, much like Indiana Jones running from that large boulder, inspires speed and endurance beyond what is normally possible.

The seventh grade fight involved four punches. I said something to piss off this guy Matthew, and he punched me in the chest. He swung at me a second time, and I started running (you'll probably notice a theme building). Unfortunately, this dude was a burgeoning track god, so he had little trouble catching me and forcing me to face him. We both flailed like only wimpy seventh-graders can, aiming anywhere and everywhere without discrimination, and a friend of ours screamed at us to stop because a teacher was coming. Both of us also being geeks not wanting trouble with The Man, we stopped immediately and parted ways. After I got around the corner and beyond the line of sight of the other students, I broke down into a fit of bawling. I had trouble catching my breath.

One of my friends came around and saw me crying and wanted to know where I'd been hit. He didn't believe me when I kept insisting that I wasn't hurt. Although physically unharmed, the mere act of trying to punch someone else, of someone else trying to punch me, broke my heart. But I didn't understand any of that at the time. I just knew I was unhurt but overwrought with knee-quaking sadness.

A similar fight sprang out between myself and a classmate and friend. We were in ninth grade. We attended the same elementary school for three grades, and he had witnessed me smarting off and fleeing many fights in his day. He was one of my better elementary school pals. By ninth grade, however, he had taken a more jock-ish path while I was destined to be cut from every team this side of basket-weaving. On this particular day, we were wrestling around, and wrestling just happened to be my sport... in that I served as the tackle dummy for many good wrestlers.

Enjoying my unusual advantage over this larger guy, I kinda abused him a little. The action got a little too intense, and it seems I accidentally kneed him in the balls (no, seriously, it was an accident). I tried apologizing, but he swung at me anyway. So guess what I did? Yup, I ran. I ran and ran, but the dude was in better shape than me, and he kept running, too, until I found myself cornered.

At that point, he took several swings at me, landing nothing serious, and I behaved much like a panicky cat, occasionally shoving out from the wall with my legs and ramming into him to push him away. He kept insisting that I come out from my "little rathole" and referred to me in numerous ways that might suggest I was not a real man. I kept insisting that he accept my damn apology and quit trying to beat the shit out of me, thus proving to all witnesses that such accusations of my not being a real man were well founded.

Finally, he gave up and walked away. Once he did, I broke down and cried. Yes, more crying. No physical wounds, no real reason to cry. Just difficulty breathing and a feeling like my heart was breaking. Except this time it was worse, because he had been a real friend, and the whole fight was due to my carelessness, and that fight signalled the official death of whatever friendship had remained. From then on, we were just classmates with a past who got along with one another.

My only other fight, in my entire life, was on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. My large group of friends were drunk and in a meat market dance club called Players. So were members of the UNC wrestling team. One of those dudes and one of our dudes had words. Both dudes agreed to take it outside. All their dudes and all our dudes followed. Once outside, their dude beat the ever-livin' shit out of our dude, and it wasn't even a contest. Unfortunately, their dude also pulled a Mike Tyson and started chewing on our dude's ear while choking him so intensely that our dude was turning the same color as Violet Beauregard in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

Sincerely fearing for my dude's life, I screamed at their dude to stop and ran forward to break them up. From a direction I can't even describe or explain, something landed in my diaphragm with the force of a medicine ball and sent me reeling back into a storefront, collapsing in a heap to the pavement. Friends tell me 10 minutes passed before I was capable of speaking. I found out later that one of the other wrestling dudes had bum rushed me and landed a shoulder right in my mid-section at high speed -- what was he, four feet tall?? Mini-me?? -- sending me into the wall, where he then punched me in that same general area once, upon which I crumpled like Princess Leia in a garbage compactor. Although I can't be sure, I suspect the dude who KO'd me with one and a half punches cried after it was over, only because he'd picked the one dude who was completely incapable of even putting up anything resembling a fight.

Point is, I don't get fighting. Never have, and likely never will. If I ever say the words, "I'm a lover, not a fighter," it's not so much that I'm bragging about my amorous skills as a simple process of elimination.

The Buffalo Tom tune is off their latest awesome album,  Three Easy Pieces. Highly recommend it. It's available on eMusic, iTunes and Amazon.com. Can't find the Rob Zombie tune anywhere.

Sonic Resurrection

Dinosaur Jr.--"I Don't Wanna Go There" (mp3)
Dinosaur Jr.--"Tarpit" (mp3)

Dinosaur Jr. last night was the sonic resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Sorry, but sometimes only blasphemy really makes the point. I've never seen a show like Dinosaur Jr. at Rhythm and Brews. I've never seen a guitarist like J. Mascis. If, in 2009, fingers on an electric guitar could send a man heavenward, then surely J. Mascis is the one who could do it, playing a non-stop swirl of notes, chords, and fills, moving effortlessly from rhythm to lead, and, most of all, playing so melodically that, if you could have actually heard what anyone was saying around you, you would have heard them gasping at the sheer beauty of each Mascis solo.

If you think about the times you have confronted beauty in your life (mostly likely in nature or in a museum), you may recall that sense of awe that leaves you unable to do much more than to nod your head, maybe smile at those around you to make sure that they are reacting the way you are reacting. Such was last night. Who knew that such beauty could exist at over 120 decibels!

Were we ever to confront the beauty of God, we would have to turn away. It would be too overwhelming. Aurally, last night was the same experience--too much for naked human ears to comprehend. Godlike? Maybe. Really, really, really fucking loud? Mos def.

If you weren't there, then all I can say is that you missed it. What a rock show! And, let's face it, how many rock shows are out there in 2009 that rock this hard and with this sophistication?

Here are the 5 keys to a Dinosaur Jr. concert that make it like no other I've seen in a long, long time:

1. Music before the show. The music before the show is louder than most live shows. The bass alone started to mess with my internal rhythms. I'm having a hard time clarifying my anticipation--there was a sense of the unexpected, even a sense of fear, or danger, but not that something bad would happen to me. On the contrary, I knew the show would be good. The fear was more of a fear of inadequate preparation: was I ready for what I was about to experience? Dinosaur Jr. would be a no-brainer for a 20-year-old, but when you're almost 52, it's a little scary to return to something that overwhelms your senses that completely. You want to thrive; you want to survive. It reminds a little bit of that theme park ride that your child loves so you ride it with her, and when you get off, your brain's sense of balance is so scrambled you can't walk straight.

2. Earplugs. If you didn't have them, you probably don't have your hearing today. You might not have it tomorrow. I've never worn earplugs at a concert before, which certainly isn't bragging, it's just fact. I had 6th row seats in front of the wall of speakers at Deep Purple when I was 17. I stood once in a small club on McCallie Avenue about 20 years ago watching Tinsley Ellis, and I could feel my eardrums palpitating from the sheer volume. I knew I was losing hearing that night, and I didn't like it. Last night, most everyone had them, and what a pleasure it was, after an incredible performance, to pull them out and to enjoy full, clear hearing.

3. J.'s rig. Dino is, of course, a three piece, but J. Mascis lives in his own little universe on stage. The boundaries of this universe are Marshall stack. Next to that stands another Marshall stack. Next to that stands a Hiwatt stack. These form an angled wall behind Mascis. In front of him is another stack with what looks like a bass head on top that faces him. It is probably four times the gear that you would expect to see a guitarist bring to a show, any show. Imagine this pagoda of sound in a club that holds, at most, 200 people. It's like Neil Young packed up his stadium set-up and brought it into your living room.

4. J. is in his own world and you are in yours. When Dinosaur Jr. is onstage, you can do nothing else but watch and listen. You can't talk to your friends--they will shrug their shoulders and give you a look of incomprehension. You can't chat up strange women for the same reason-- all your flirtatious loquaciousness is on mute. Even your cup of beer looks like an earthquake sensor in full activity. So you just let the band's sound take you over and you muse and you ponder and you dream of heaven.

5. Excellent companions. I was thinking yesterday morning that I didn't want to go. John made me go. He had been getting fired up by playing the tunes on his deck all weekend. Various people mentioned coming, but they didn't come. Billy came. He had to wait for his wife to get home from handbells practice. He didn't have a ticket. He could have bailed. He didn't. I've said it before about live music and I still believe it's true: you have to make the effort to go, because the older you get, the more things get in the way of your going. I'm glad we were able to share the experience. Even when you can't talk to each other, that smile, that nod to each other in the face of soaring, pounding, bass-in-your gut beauty is really all you need.

And Dinosaur Jr.? They were excellent companions, too, albeit more ambivalent ones. Their music was transcendent. Their noise was threatening. They put the sound out there and left it to us to figure out what to do with it.

"I Don't Wanna Go There" and "Tarpit" both come from the 7" vinyl given out to those who attended the show.

I've Got Yer Plank Right Here

What Was I Thinkin' In My Head - Sly + The Family Stone (mp3)
Heart Into Suicide - Exile Parade (mp3)

Pirates. The TODAY show talked about 'em. Every friggin' news source this side of Al Jazeera has talked about 'em. Hell, I bet even Al Jazeera has talked about 'em. Let's check, shall we? ...  ... Yup, Al Jazeera's got pirate news!

Forgive me, but this whole story of the Somali pirates and the Heroic Bearded Captain and the Kick-Ass Snipers is... well, it's pretty damn cool, if we're all being completely honest. The characters in this particular yarn are so compelling that it seems everyone followed at least a teensy bit of the tale.

As the wacky liberal I sometimes find myself to be, my second reaction upon hearing that these pirates had been sniped out of existence was a sort of pity and sadness. The desperation and poverty of trying to survive in a hopeless third-world African country and all that. It's pitiful that these people fall into such a livelihood, yada yada.

The success of all these pirates, their pillaging and their booty, was pushing them up the News Stock Market. There was a Pirate Bubble on the open seas, and it was only a matter of time before they overextended their investments by catching a fish too damn big for their own good. And this one was it. They caught an American fish, with a crafty American captain. Then, to make matters worse, they killed the sympathetic nature of even a wacky liberal like myself by reneging on a trade. They promised to trade the captain for one of their compadres, but upon receipt of said compadre, they welshed and kept the captain.

It was at this precise moment in the Reality TV plot that folks everywhere said, "Oh no they dint." And then we all said, "Oh, they're fucked now."

John Grisham's plotting genius was not needed to finish this particular yarn. We all knew this one ended with the pirates floating face-down in the ocean. The only drama was whether the captain would return to our continent in or out of a pine box.

But here's what I've been thinking: Who's dying to go back and re-view those "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies??

Seriously, does anyone in America find it just a teensy bit more difficult to enjoy those movies now, after months and months of these non-Johnny Depp-lookin' dudes pillaging anything and everything in sight? Does all of Jack Sparrow's clever quips and his runway-esque strut create just the slightest "I just threw up in my mouth" kind of reaction to anyone? 'Cuz it does for me. In theory and in practice, there's very little difference between the kind of crap Jack Sparrow did as a pirate in the movies we proudly show our children and the crap these dudes did that earned them a high-caliber Navy SEAL bullet right in the skull.

Except, when Jack Sparrow was doing it, we cheered him on. And when those British soldiers were aiming at him with their muskets, we hissed and booed.

It just leaves me wondering, political leanings aside, what side are we on, and when are we on it? Do we cheer for the charming and the attractive, no matter what they do or how they do it? Do we root against the disheveled and downtrodden without regard to their motives, their needs?

If you want to watch a really great movie about this, I'd recommend George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg in "Three Kings," where they're both the soldiers AND the pirates, and they're forced throughout the movie to sway back and forth between the two evils, trying desperately to figure out how to do either one and keep their souls.

In the meantime, all I can say is I don't really want to see Jack Sparrow for a while. I think I'm done with him for now. As for Keira Knightley... she might need to get in touch with me and coax me into continuing my drooly habits in her direction. Ms. Knightley can reach me at bottomoftheglass@gmail.com 24 hours a day, 13 days a week.

(I can't seem to find either of these songs anywhere on iTunes or Amazon.com... so good luck!)