I was going to post another tale about the JCC gym, but something major came up.

I am leaving (e:Jim). Things have been going great in our relationship, in fact he is perfect in every way. I will look back upon the time we shared together and think fondly of it. The reason I am leaving is because HE came into my life



wouldn't you leave your mate for a taste of that?


now if you excuse me, I am going to wash my everything in rubbing alcohol.

• Note

I am not actually leaving (e:jim). And you are more than welcome to the tasty bit of man-alanche above.

I have been at the JCC (Jewish Community Center for the goys and others) for two years now. It has been good and all that for a while now, but it is time to go. The staff is wonderful, Kandy and Joe could crush my head with the weakest muscle on their body, but they are so nice, crazy nice. Like, offers to baby sit just for the fun of it nice. It is unreal. But, as their hours are constantly being reduced, they did a horrendously sleazy fundraising campaign (On Monday I got a letter saying they were closing down one center due to financial woes and a plea for donations, on thursday miraculously they were able to find some extra cash. jerks) Well, it is just time to go elsewhere, to mine for more interesting stories. Here is part one of a three part series, the stories, neh, LEGENDS! of the JCC.

1) The Prego Fetish

He is there all the time. I think he is a trainer, but I can't be sure. He sits around and chats with his meat head friends about squats and other vaguely sexual sounding exercises while the world around him is pardoning themselves as they grab weights or benches his massive ass is blocking. Well, he and this other meathead were gym jerking off.

Gym Jerking Off is when you lift as much and grunt as much as you possibly can. In modern, enlightened societies you can be beheaded for this. So, he does a set of cable flys. A very showy exercise, as it looks like you are crushing the skull of an invisible grizzly bear. His friend does a set. He is about to do his second when.... she walks in.

She and her husband were being given a tour of the place. They were not in bad shape. Soft around the middle but of respectable proportion. Oh, and she was about nine months pregnant. Had the tour taken place an hour later I am sure her water would have broke somewhere between the basketball court and the swimming pool.

Well, Mr.Meathead lights up. He claps his hand in skull crushing style and screams "YA! Let's do this!" and does that thing straight men do where they skip in the air, arms thrown back, and buts his chest against his embarrassed friend's.
1! YA!
2! All right!
3!.... if the Count from Sesame Street was never this excited about numbers. It was like Flowers for Algernon, where Charlie is very excited he has learned to count overnight.

His searching eyes the entire time never left the face of the pregnant woman.


Eventually the Gym Jerk Off ended. But the actual jerking off had only begun for him. As his splooge Pollocked his belly I am sure he was wishing it was a round dome like the woman's.

Almost it is time to go.

I love tormenting (e:jim)

subtitles in movies have this hypnotic effect which just puts him to sleep. At least when I get a Russian film the guttural sounds of that language keep him awake, not conscious but not asleep either. But every once in a while I go through an Ingrmar Bergman kick. God I love that man.

He hasn't really directed a film since 1984 (the year, not the Orwell) and I assumed it was because he was dead. Not so! Just really, really old.

I had been gracefully accepting his mortality and an old age fraught, with complication, with dignity from the beginning. Whether it was the Knight buying a few more minutes from death in the Seventh Seal or the reflections of an old professor in Wild Strawberries. These seemed like the films of a man who has reflected on the long years of his own life. Though he was nearly 40 when he directed these movies in 1956-57.

Even through his later films, like Autumn Sonata, his characters have a depth that one wouldn't expect from a young director. This depth does not seem richer with time, but more explored, each a little more from film to film.

Well, thinking him dead for many years I was surprised and saddened to learn of his death earlier today. I have seen perhaps a dozen of his films and found each of them moving and unique. It is a giant film catalogue and great body of work to go through.

Since we have been on a Scientology streak with (e:libertad) [inlink]libertad,40256[/inlink] and (e:paul) [inlink]paul,40252][/inlink] here is a bit of fun

So, there was some mild hubbub about a creative up and coming artist couple; one of whom killed themselves and the other disappeared. I ignored the story because... well... I just don't care. But then, THE LINK!

Here is the juicy quote

"Many were shocked by the turn of events while others noted that the couple had acted strangely in their final months together.

According to several friends and art world peers, the two believed they were being stalked and harassed by Scientologists, an abiding fear that soured old friendships and made some of their respective working relationships difficult."

Stalked and harassed by Scientologists! It is by some grace that the entire staff of Roswell as well as members of the Buddhist center have not plastered their brains to a ceiling.

Did the couple kill themselves to avoid Scientologists? Or was the trigger pulled by the spectral hand of L Ron Hubbard himself? I can't say, but I will caution all to wear aluminum hats when walking past that nefarious building.

Be vigilant, be safe.

Being a frothy atheist I sometimes feel the need to remind the religious that I have no problem with their personal spirituality. Their institutions sometimes make me vomit a little, but those are exceptions.

With that out of the way, James Dobson is a jack ass.

If you are not familiar with the baboon head of Focus on the Family, let me give you a little taste. If you are familiar, here is another Homer Simpson forehead slap to stamp on his fuselage.

The Beast Speaks! Finally on the scourge that is Harry Potter.

Dobson doesn't like Potter. He corrupts Christian youth turning them towards Wicca and New Age. You can almost hear the word gay in there somewhere. Here are his complaints with my own anotation.

FOTF objects to the presence of magical creatures in the story, such as hipogrifs, goblins, ans such. Because
"given the trend toward witchcraft and New Age ideology in the larger culture, it's difficult to ignore the effects such stories (albeit imaginary) might have on young, impressionable minds."

Incidentaly, I happen to have instructions on how to summon these beasts (occult history is one of my pet academic projects) and the same spells and incantations used in witchcraft and new age stuff today comes to us directly from Christian magicians. Yup, from John Dee in Renaisance England all the way to today with the Golden Dawn people are using Christian spells. Which is to say nothing of the many demons and spirits which inhabit the bible.

ok, another one.

"The world of Harry Potter is still an elite occult world where secret knowledge is the way to power and success, Order of the Phoenix' tries to mitigate that by saying that anyone can become a great wizard, but once again, that involves learning the secret occult knowledge of how to do witchcraft and how to wave a magic wand properly,"

Shall we ignore the hierarchical nature of Christianity? Where heads of organizing bodies form the top tier. Bishops and preachers forming a second. Congregations providing a base of goodly men and then the other: those not in the church, muggles. Personal and divine revelations provide the occult (meaning hidden) knowledge needed to maintain their authority. Or sometimes it is a pointy, gilded witches hat which gives papal authority to properly interpret divine word for the ignorant masses.


Then it is recommended that people not admire Harry Potter, but rather some lunatic in the old testament who let himself be thrown to lions. And recommends CS Lewis and Tolkein instead because they are constructed in a Christian framework.... *cough*

For a religion that demands so much on the imagination of its followers I find it amusing that it also demands fidelity of that imagination. The fantasy worlds of Harry Potter, Lewis, or Tolkein too much mirror each other, not because of divine inspiration but because each come from our simply human psyche. But this all boils down to a fundamental problem with the bible:

You can't frickin read it. Seriously, I have spent a lot of time reading the bible over the years. But reading the book of Daniel just now required me to go over it several times just to get the basic story let alone the supernatural wonderment explained in non-existent footnotes. That is why Daniel is not a hero and Harry Potter is, because we know what the hell is going on.

eat is Dobson.