Susie Bright's Journal

What This Blog Needs is a Little Dada

One day I put a new phone message pad on the table next to our kitchen phone. It was a brown-paper square pad illustrated with a pen & ink portrait of a rabbit's derriere.

Something about this design inspired every visitor to our kitchen to embroider the original to their own fancy. I don't think anyone took a phone message.

The 31 illustrations I've saved contain work by Casey Sonnabend, Laura Rice, Jon Bailiff, Aretha Bright, and... many others who dropped by.

If you're in the mood for a departure from reality, this is your ticket for the day.

I call the collection: 1000 Bunnies Listening to Obama, because that's what one of them said at the very top.

Feelin' It

This is 10-year-old Micheal's audition at Motown.

When he sang, it was the only time he could tell the truth and survive it. His songs always seemed to be about something else.

MJ was not only denied childhood, but his gender feeling, his sexuality— everything real about him had to be refuted.

All that repression ended up hurting a lot of people. The cash registers kept ringing and a family was cannibalized by its patriarch's violence.

I hear it in his gasps and sweet notes and spiraling toes— those leaps of freedom. A gift that reached out for transcendance, left the body behind— and floated right off the pain wall.

Susie's Erotic Treasury, the Audio-Book!

Goodie-gumdrops, my book X: The Erotic Treasury is now an audio-book... anyone need a bedtime story?

I've fallen in love with the voice actors; they make all my favorites come alive in a new way.

Here's a sample from "Parts for Wholes," by MonMouth:


And a second, "Must Bite," by Vicki Hendricks:

Screen shot below! If you're an audio-book fan, I'm dying to know what you think of the whole package— and which actors are your crushes. The whole shebang was directed by Mr. Audiobook Geeenius, Stefan Rudnicki, who directed my Best American Erotica audio series on Audible, as well.

Please do email me your feedback, once you've crawled off the sheets!

Who is Adrian Colesberry and Why Do I Want to Make Love To Him?

I get review copies of books all the time, especially sexual advice books. Sad to say, I don't enjoy 99.9% of them.

Isn't that awful? I am picky and jaded.

A few months ago, a book arrived with the most ludicrous title, and I  had to flip to the first page to see if its hubris was warranted. I kept laughing, one 'graph after the next. After I chortled my way through a few chapters, I realized, "This may be satire... but it's also the most honest sex talk I've seen from a man in a very long time. Women would really learn a thing or two from this."

By the time I reached Chapter 4,  I did the very thing I would've never predicted from opening a strange public relations package.... I picked up the phone and called Adrian Colesberry on the spot.

I said, "Adrian, I am ready, I am eager, to make love to you. Right now."

And although our special moment hasn't been scheduled (yet), we are going to engage in a little  foreplay. I am going to reprint an excerpt of Mr. Colesberry's book below. Lean back and take it all the way in. Just don't try to cut in front of me when you're through!

How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry

by Adrian Colesberry

A NOTE TO THE READER

Adrian’s testicles are very sensitive.

If he could magically have you know one single thing about him before your clothes came off, that would be it. He’s not freakishly hyper-concerned with the sensitivity of his testicles. Not at all. It’s just that in the past, they’ve caused him some discomfort, which he’d like to avoid in the future if he could manage it.

“Easy enough,” the plainspoken reader might be thinking, “Adrian should say, ‘Before I take my pants off, I want you to know that my testicles are very sensitive.’”

Sounds simple. Maybe the fresh breath of honesty would inspire something like the following exchange:

YOU: Sensitive? Well, thanks for telling me.

ADRIAN: Sure thing.

YOU: So, kissing but no squeezing?

ADRIAN: Right.

YOU: While we’re talking... my nipples are sensitive too.

ADRIAN: Let me guess...  sucking and licking but no pinching?

YOU: Why, yes. You really understand me.

ADRIAN: And you understand me.

YOU: Now that we’ve had this refreshingly honest conversation, I’m hotter than ever for you.

ADRIAN: Likewise.

On the other hand, you might come back with, “Testicles? What made you think I was going to touch your testicles in the first place?!”

Way too risky for Adrian Colesberry.

But what if you didn’t have to learn about his testicles in the context of an awkward and potentially mood-wrecking conversation?

What if there existed some reliable source, like a book, where you could read, as a matter of indifferent fact, that Adrian Colesberry’s testicles were very sensitive?

Then your knowledge of how to handle them properly would be just another skill set in your possession, like long division or changing a tire.

Luckily, such a reliable source does exist! It’s How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry (by Adrian Colesberry). And in addition to informing you that Adrian Colesberry’s testicles are very sensitive, it’s chock full of helpful examples of how to make love to Adrian Colesberry gathered from the real-life and mostly positive experiences of people—people just like you—making love to Adrian Colesberry....

The Shuffle 15

Okay, you know I'm a sucker for music games like this. My friends Caitlin and Jeff posted the game on Facebook— "15 Songs Shuffled from my iPod." Here's how you play:

1. Turn on your MP3 player.
2. Go to "shuffle" songs mode.
3. Write down the first 15 songs that come up— song title and artist— NO editing/cheating, no matter how embarrassing.
4. Choose 25 (or so) people to share your results with. In Facebook, you can "tag" those people, but as you can see, I'm just blogging for the whole world to see!

Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook if you want to join my daily insanity.

1. Bemsha Swing Steve Lacy and Gil Evans That’s the Way I Feel Now: Tribute to Thelonious Monk 2. Darkness on the Face of the Earth Willie Nelson Teatro 3. Baby, It’s Cold Outside Ella Fitzgerald & Louie Armstrong Ella and Her Fellas 4. Sirata Habib Koite Mali to Memphis 5. Casey Jones Dave Van Ronk Somebody Else, Not Me 6. Drift Away Dobie Gray 1970's R&B Classics 7. Right, Wrong, Or Ready Karen Dalton It’s So Hard To Tell You Who’s Going to Love You the Best 8. These Days Nico Chelsea Girl 9. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream Bob Dylan Bringing in All Back Home 10. Shake Your Hips Slim Harpo Best of Slim Harpo 11. It Ain’t Me, Babe Joan Baez and Bob Dylan Folk Duets 12. Lazy Bones Jackie Mittoo Keep on Dancing 13. Ode to Billy Joe Ellen McIlwaine Up from the Skies 14. You Are My Sunshine George Russell Sextet The Outer View 15. We’re Desperate X Wild Gift

Notes:

I have a bazillion songs, so this list was full of surprises for me— and "long time no hear's!"

I burst out laughing at Dobie Gray's old hit, which is definitely the "hook" of this whole set. Now I can't get it out of my head.

The song I actually listen to the MOST on this list? "We're Desperate," by a landslide.

Most transcendent song on this list, that you probably never heard of: the jazz version of "You are My Sunshine"

My all-time favorite artist who didn't make the big-time: Ellen McIlwaine. I know you will fall in love with her when you hear the tidbit of "Billie Joe." She wrote with Jimi Hendrix, she's the daughter of missionaries, she was one of the first women in the 70s to just tear up an electric guitar.

Jackie Mittoo is here because of Professor Tom, who reported on our Mary Kay LeTourneau disco night! He is "all Mittoo, all the time."

"Ella and Her Fellas" is not on CD, it never even made it to tape cassette. I have it on vinyl and converted it. It is an awesome record of Ella singing with some of her favorite men. My Amazon pick is a close cousin.

I like it when Joani and Bobby get all sloppy.

Terrorism and the State: A Lesson, Again, for Right and Left 

by Al Giordano

“Those who contemplate artificial terrorism with uncritical admiration, even attempting to practice it—either out of despair or because they are victims of the propaganda the regime propagates in favor of terrorism as the ne plus ultra of subversion— do not know that they are only competing with the State on its own terrain. They do not know that, on its own terrain, not only is the State the strongest— but that it will always have the last word.”

- Gianfranco Sanguinetti, On Terrorism and the State, 1979

Just as Situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti warned that the that acts of terrorism always reinforce the powers of the State — that State power and terrorism are mutually symbiotic and dependent on each other—  the North American Religious Right is going to suffer great losses as a result of last Sunday’s terrorist act in Wichita.

The assassination of Wichita doctor George Tiller, ushering at his own Lutheran church service, was the second attempt on his life. The first attempt came on August 19, 1993, when a woman named Shelley Shannon wounded the doctor, who specializes in late-term abortions and fetal abnormalities, in both arms. (Shannon served an 11-year sentence for that crime.)

That, this time, the assassination attempt succeeded, and that it happened in the sanctuary of a church of a mainstream Protestant faith, will provoke a double whammy of shock and revulsion, including among tens of millions of Americans that do not like abortion, but likewise believe that assassination is obviously just as (or more) anti-life.

The original assassination attempt on Dr. Tiller came eight months into the Clinton presidency. The parallel with today’s offense ought to be obvious: a pro-choice president takes office and the violent extremists go all crazy, whipped up by some of the same right wing radio talkers today as sixteen years ago.

The predictable knee-jerk response from some in the pro-choice majority will be to attempt to demonize and link all Americans that define themselves as “pro life” as aiding and abetting this act of terrorism by having a mere opinion, just as George W. Bush and others attempted to link all oppositional dissent to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

While it is an absolute certainty that the Obama Justice Department will investigate and prosecute this latest crime - and criminal - to the maximum extent of the law, those that want to, like Bush, demonize dissent itself are not going to get much rhetorical backing from the President. Obama's May 17th remarks at Notre Dame University are now prescient:

A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website – an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

An assassin in Kansas has inadvertently strengthened the hand and command of this head of State.

A  similar dynamic will come into play as did on April 19, 1995, when a terrorist car-bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building killed 168 people, and wounded 450 more, including children in a day care center there.

That terrorist act- the man convicted for it, Timothy McVeigh, believed he was avenging an act of State terrorism two years prior in Waco, Texas- returned the upper hand to an already embattled President Clinton. His Democratic Party had lost the US House in the 1994 elections to what then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s called his “revolution” of the right. The Oklahoma City bombing shook public opinion enough to considerably slow what had been, prior, a juggernaut's momentum by the Gingrich revolution, allowing Clinton to again claim the terrain of the political center.

Josh Marshall printed the statement from Attorney General Holder, following Tiller's assasination, with shades of of 1962:

"The murder of Doctor George Tiller is an abhorrent act of violence, and his family is in our thoughts and prayers at this tragic moment. Federal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime, and I have directed the United States Marshals Service to offer protection to other appropriate people and facilities around the nation. The Department of Justice will work to bring the perpetrator of this crime to justice. As a precautionary measure, we will also take appropriate steps to help prevent any related acts of violence from occurring."

In 1962, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent US Marshals to the University of Mississippi to protect its first African-American student, James Meredith, from segregationist rioters.

"Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law," President John F. Kennedy said in a nationally televised broadcast, "but not to disobey it." In 1963, the Kennedy administration sent US Marshals into Alabama - and put the Alabama National Guard under federal control - to tell then-Governor George Wallace to step aside from a university door in which he had been standing to block two African-American students.

That today’s atrocity occurs not under the helm of an embattled liberal president, but of one that enjoys 67% support, still, from the American people, will have even more devastating consequences for the cultural and political right that has placed abortion at the center of its agenda.

There is no need to demonize them with a broad brush for it. The first immediate consequence of the assassination of Dr. Tiller will be that it virtually removes the political points to be scored by those who planned to wage an anti-choice argument against US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

I would also be  surprised if, in the coming days, some right-wing radio talkers and those from anti-choice organizations like "Operation Rescue" can’t help but make the sorts of outrageous statements about this act of terrorism that shock and provoke backlash from the American public.

As a crew, they have already whipped themselves up into a mental state of frenzied derangement. The countdown now begins to find out which will shovel their own political graves over this one.

Cue up Randall Terry, founder of "Operation Rescue," to step right into this tragedy with inflammatory rhetoric. He told Associated Press:

"George Tiller was a mass murderer and we cannot stop saying that," Terry said. "He was an evil man — his hands were covered with blood."

Terry said he was now concerned that the Obama administration "will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions."

Terry was already a very self-marginalized fringe player, but, still, he knows not isolation like that which he has brought upon himself and his organization now.

Dr. George Tiller spent much of his 68 years on earth working for an ideal– every woman’s right to safe reproductive freedom– for which he paid the ultimate price. I  believe that if the good doctor could watch what happens next, he would not at all feel the sorrow that comes from dying in vain or after a life without meaning. His was a life that did not end in death, but lives on with even greater purpose and reason than it already had deservedly accrued.

As we say South of the Border, where we have many martyrs - old and new - for human freedom: George Tiller, presenté.

From Al Giordano's blog, The Field, with kindly permission of the author.

Drawing: DaVinci; Graffiti: Warsaw, 2002, photographed by William Rubel

George Tiller's Patients Speak

"In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins.

"We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants.

"We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

"We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do.

"Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies.

"I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone.

"The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world."

-- An anonymous commenter on John Cole's Balloon Juice, which I found through Bitch PhD's blog.

Photo: Jon Bailiff, "The Diaper Cake"

Mary Kay's Night Out

Last week, I heard an outlandish announcement: the famous Seattle schoolteacher who ran away with her seventh grade student— and eventually bore his children in wedded chaos— was, after all these years, sponsoring a "Hot for Teacher" night at a local Seattle bar, featuring her husband as DJ.

Mary Kay Letourneau's story has been exploited ad nauseum— mostly by people other than herself or her family— but it is truly an unusual tale.

Her dad was an extreme right wing Catholic politician who ran for President on a "nut-job ticket." Her mother was a rabid acolyte of Phyllis Schafly. It was a "What-Goes-On-Behind-Blonde-Doors" sort of thing.

She married at 22 and had four kids with her husband Steve, before she first met the 13-year-old, Vili Fualaau, who decided she was hot— and whom she, at 34— couldn't say "no" to.

She and Vili had a torrid affair right under people's noses for some time. It finally blew up, a triangle with Vili's mother pulling the trigger after a period of "watch and wait."

Next, MK was given a lenient jail sentence— but blew the terms of her parole by meeting Vili  on the sly— where they conceived two children. The two kids were initially raised by his mom, who continued to either sue or defend Mary, depending on the week.

Mary was under a court order to never see Vili again, after her stretch in the pokey. Seven years is some hard time.

After sleeping with a bunch of other people and getting busted on DUI's, Fualaau came of age and successfully petitioned the court to see Mary again.

They got married a tabloid-sponsored million-dollar affair. If you had told me Tonya Harding was the maid of honor, I wouldn't have been surprised.

But I was surprised by this: they stay married. They have two daughters. Even stranger, Mary's oldest son by her first marriage lives with them, and her second-eldest comes to visit most every weekend. The two youngest are not of age and still live with their father, the mysterious Steve. He seems to be the only person who hasn't said something about this to the press, which makes him look rather sterling. It's certainly one of the greatest cuckolding stories of all time.

I recount these observations as part of the fractured fairy tale, not as a defense or cause celebre. It's unfair to strike a moral posture on The Letourneau Affair,  because their story defies all predictions.

The couple seems to live in a delicate but impermeable bubble. They live off of, and yet apart from, their infamy. Those who know them, find the couple "warm," "real," "down-to-earth." They fit, in their set. If you watch these videos, you get a glimpse of that.

Those who don't know them are grossed out by the recorded history. They think she's crazy, deluded, and reckless— and that he must be hot mess who'll dump her as soon as he grows up but will never dump his damage.

In interviews today, MLT seems strangely doll-like and submissive after all these years — like she wouldn't last seven minutes in prison, let alone seven years. Vili still sports the same machismo and juvenile "I can rationalize anything" affect he's had since middle school.

MK remembers how great it was when Vili turned 21 and they could both go out and order a drink. Is the whole family just swimming around at the bottom of a glass? I have no idea.

They don't "influence" anyone outside their intimate orbit, as much as they insult propriety. MLT is not leading a trend or setting an example for anyone. The two of them are outliers.

When I was a young teacher, leading classes of college students not much younger than me, I was terrified of their crushes. I didn't find them attractive; I found them threatening. I felt as if they could flip a switch from adoration to fury with one wrong look. I wanted as much detachment and authority as possible.

On the other end, I always had teacher crushes myself— a little transference here, a little swooning there. I don't think I caused anyone worry, if or I did, they never let me know. I think the fantasies were a gesture of "looking up" to someone, idealizing a mentor, of wishing to grow up.

I liked having teachers on that pedestal; I didn't suffer the distance. The couple of teachers that I ended up having post-grad friendships with, evolved over many years, with our intellectual rapport leading the transformation. If they are a little parental with me now, I enjoy it.

I asked my friends on Facebook if any of them would trot out to "Hot for Teacher" night and report back. I didn't ask for any political ID. Two people, Professor Tom and Litsa Dremousis, filed quite different reports.

Their one area of agreement? Apparently Miss Mary has spectacular gams. And neither of them could stand the gig for more than half an hour.

Professor Tom at "Hot For Teacher" Night:

Mary Kay LeTourneau Fualaau appeared to be a sweet, happy, gregarious, vision of beauty with an aura of compassionate, motherly care.

The event went like this: "She served her time for the crime and now that we're all adults, it's time to PARTY." 

Vili seemed like a young man who has found a pot of gold. He spun hits for the massive crowd in a pro DJ style that could've been pumping in any one of the steamy clubs of downtown Pioneer Square. 

These days we all carry cells and Pods as a prop— so instead of standing there with a drink, the infamous couple (mostly Mary) were surrounded by people holding their devices up in the air, trying to capture that rare image or sound bite— or calling their friends and streaming online.

Vili didn't rap or talk to the crowd of well-wishers but kept a hand on the mixer and laptop sound system. He was animated, smiling.

Mary was tan, slim in a strapless short black dress, and heels. She has great legs. The T-shirt for the event didn't show her golden-blond straight hair, beautiful complexion, or bright red lipstick. 

She did not address the gathering of her fans from the mic, but she did hold center stage with a genuine smile while everyone hugged her and got their picture taken.

She bubbled more like a giggling schoolgirl than any schoolmarm.

I talked to a guy who said he was Vili's friend and that Mary is always around (presumably kickin' it) and is very happy— a regular person.

A woman from San Diego told me she might go to hell for being here tonight— or for accepting these folks for who they are. She said it was unthinkable for her nine-year-old son to experience this at age twelve.

Not everyone knows that MK and Vili didn't get caught in the van in the school parking lot by the security guard. The police didn't respond for a year to eyewitnesses. It was Vili's mother and aunt who finally insisted the case be heard. This was in a closed door, upscale, quiet neighborhood.

So much for our educational institutions turning out cookie-cutter worker drones for the military industrial complex.  

Back in the fifth grade, I fell in love with my teacher named Heather Danniker. This was about 1970.  Heather looked like Ali McGraw from The Getaway. She was young for a teacher— probably fresh out of college— but that was older woman for me.

There were times at the end of class when I had to come up with a reason to stay seated to avoid embarrassment from a protruding encumbrance brought on by studying the color, texture, light and shadow of Ms. Danniker's pantyhose.

I'll never forget her sitting in a chair with a book in front of the class where I would patiently wait for her adjust her crossed legs one way or another providing a glimpse of natural science. 

-- Professor Tom

Litsa Dremousis at "Hot For Teacher" Night:

“Really?" my cabdriver asked, sensing I’m not the type to frequent Seattle’s cheesy downtown sports bars. "Why are you headed to Fuel Sports?”

“I’m going to 'Hot for Teacher Night,' that thing with Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau,” I replied— referencing the infamous convicted Level 2 sex offender and her onetime underage victim, now adult husband of the past four years.

“I’m covering it, though. It’s not like I plan to make new friends tonight.”

“I don’t know,” the driver said. “If you look at the fact they started over a decade ago, they’ve lasted longer than most marriages I can think of. They really seem to want to be together.”

True, they had been “together” in some form for over a decade, no small feat. But most great love stories don’t involve one party’s family suing the school district and police department for failing to protect their son and for child support of their two children.

We arrived at Fuel; I paid my fare and hopped out. A truly vile dance mix of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” blared from inside and engulfed the sidewalk, drowning out the commotion gathering outside the entrance. A man in his 40s wearing a softball shirt and wire-rim glasses yelled at three security guards while two local television stations filmed the exchange.

“She’s a child rapist!” the man shouted. “You’re making money off of sexual assault!”

“She served her time, man! She served her time!” the security guards shouted back, all bald and clad in black leather.

“You guys could have had One Dollar Beer Night instead! There are other ways to get a crowd!”

Two of the guards lumbered to their motorcycles parked on the street and summarily revved them as loud as they could, obliterating the man’s words and ruining the stations’ footage.

The man moved a few yards away. The guards, none of whom seemed to realize the extent of their clichés, finally ceased the revving and menacing. I asked the protester if he would like to discuss the evening’s theme. He said his name was Joe and that in the course of his career as a police officer in California, he had worked with dozens of sexual assault victims of both genders. “This whole evening is an atrocity toward domestic violence and rape. They’re profiting off the pain of others.”

I thanked him for his time and got in line. When I arrived at the front, I saw a sign reading, “No media or press not approved earlier this week.” A guard asked for five bucks and my I.D. “I saw you talking to that guy. Are you a reporter?”

“No,” I fudged, neglecting to mention that, also, I thought he was an asshole.

“Then why were you talking to that guy? I saw you asking him stuff.”

“I felt like talking to him. That’s allowed, isn’t it?” I replied, my sarcasm thick as his skull. A second guard checked my bag and eyed my notebook suspiciously. I met his gaze and said, “I carry one sometimes. So?”

Stumped, they took my money and let me in. Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” blasted from the sound system and I edged towards the mostly-empty dance floor and spotted Fualaau onstage with his MacBook, ostensibly serving tunes but mostly providing spectacle.

Patrons sporting a stunning array of crunchy and outdated haircuts crowded the bar and U-shape of surrounding tables, viewing Fualaau as if he were a zoo act. He didn’t look up and appeared almost timid, as if he weren’t quite sure how to proceed.

Letourneau was nowhere to be found and I asked a table of college girls with a giant inflatable pink penis on their table what they thought of the evening so far. “We’re just here for my bachlorette party!” one of them replied, adjusting the strap on her pink shiny halter dress. “We thought it would be fun!”

A thunderous cheer tore through the crowd— not quite the kind that met Barack Obama on the campaign trail— but more than, say, Jimmy Fallon might expect to elicit.

I turned and saw a woman with almost-daffodil yellow hair and superb legs. It took me a second to realize this was the once-frumpy schoolteacher I’d seen in countless hours of news footage. She beamed as dozens of camera phones flashed like popcorn-ing rhinestones.

“Mary Kay!” an older woman in walking sneakers and capri pants yelled. “Make sure and tell Vili I’m the one who sent the baby book!” Letourneau smiled and returned the hug when the woman embraced her.

 A nearby reveler pointed at Mary and asked his friends, “Can you imagine if she had been a guy teacher? Alcatraz, baby! Al-ca-traz!” His female companion answered, “I know it sounds weird, but I always thought she was hot.”

The bachlorette throng rushed Letourneau as if she were a long-lost friend and the woman who launched a thousand punch lines responded in kind. On and on it went, each customer  more rapturous than the previous. A Fuel employee sold autographed “Hot for Teacher!” t-shirts and posters at a nearby folding table, looking slightly queasy. “How much is the merchandise?” I asked.

“Seven dollars for a poster and twenty for a t-shirt. We’ve sold a lot so far.”

“How do you feel about them making money like this?”

“I’m dating the owner’s cousin. He asked me to help out tonight and I couldn’t tell him no.” She paused, as if concerned someone would hear our exchange. “I’m neutral about Letourneau, but you don’t say ‘no’ to family.”

A half an hour later, I was back in the  cab riding home— and the driver asked me, 'Hot for Teacher' Night? What’d you go to that thing for?”

-  Litsa Dremousis

Bios:

Litsa Dremousis’ work appears in The Believer, BlackBook, Bookmarks, Esquire, Filter, Hobart, McSweeney's, Monkeybicycle, MovieMaker, Nylon, Paper, Paste, Pindeldyboz, Poets and Writers, Seattle Magazine, Seattle Sound, the Seattle Weekly, and on NPR. She is writing her first novel and blogs inconsistently but with great good will at http://theslipperyfish.blogspot.com/

Thanks also to Litsa for her photos!

Professor Tom is at large in Ballard.

Ernie Conrick Does Not Spare You from Golden Hemorrhoids

There is no other way to watch the news today, without losing your integrity: someone's dick must be up your ass or yours up somebody else's—  or the news will not make any sense.

Ernie Conrick (aka Richard Connerney!) reads another of his Kerouac-opiated inspirations, an original story titled "Golden Hemorrhoids," at the In the Flesh Reading series in New York where we were hosting the launch of my anthology, X: The Erotic Treasury.

Ernie did NOT read from his tennis-brat celebrity story, "Backhand," which appears in my book. Oh, no. That story is a thinly veiled pornographic romp through every tennis scandal you ever heard of.

Instead Conrick wrote something special for me, for this night. He specializes in making me scream—and I always wonder if he's going to be attacked from some overly-stimulated member of the audience. No fear!

The video clip reveals all...

I'm sure after you see this, you're going to say, "MY GOD, what else has this guy written?"

Well, you're in luck, his new book is out: The Upside Down Tree: India's Changing Culture.

It is as original and unpredictable as his erotic story reading!

Thank you to Rachel Kramer Bussel for the great video.

Dear Meghan McCain... Let's Understand Sex Even Further!

Dear Meghan McCain,

You sure set the woods on fire, girl... I just read your blazing editorial for The Daily Beast: "The GOP Doesn't Understand Sex."

Good golly.

You demanded that conservatives get real and support birth control!

It took ovarian nerve to do this.

Congratulations! You're the first adult child of a Presidential candidate to not pretend you're an unmarried virgin.

Many of your readers got goose bumps as you wrote it: "Daughters of Republican politicians aren’t expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it— as if there were some strange chastity belt automatically attached to us female offspring."

We love to hear you smash that ball and chain.

You decried the spectacle of Bristol Palin promoting abstinence when only weeks ago, the young lass admitted on national TV that abstinence "wasn't realistic."

I'm sure you'd rather never hear another Palin Bedtime Story  again... but it was, sadly, your father's campaign who decided to put blow up the Palins' Sex Life like  a balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

But let's get back to your frank declaration: Birth Control = Good Idea.

You write: "My parents raised me to know that, regardless of the mistakes I might make, they would allow me the dignity and courage to make my own choices. That’s the kind of trust my parents have always placed in their children—yet the GOP still needed to get involved and have a say in what I did with my body."

I believe you! I know you appreciate all the power that having control over your uterus brings to your future. I know you're embarrassed that the GOP religious zealots have exploited this issue to sadistic proportions.

There's just a couple hitches. I can't be the first to point them out to you.

You say, that "As a Republican, I am pro-life."

Huh?  I think you need to have a little talk with your ghost writer. The GOP doesn't have a membership requirement that its voters oppose abortion.

Furthermore, ff there were a test to eliminate Republican voters who had abortions, or helped pay for abortions, your party would be wiped out. Miscarriage, accidental pregnancy, abortion, birth, all of these are normal experiences over the course of human life.

You seem like a bright woman—  how can you write that "using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all."

!!!

Surely you understand when one attempt fails, the other becomes a possibility.

Meghan, how many of your friends say, "I don't use regular birth control— I just get an abortion whenever I get knocked up. What a breeze! Me so horny!"

This carefree ditzy abortion-floozy doesn't exist except in the patriarchal nut-job imagination.

You're adamant that your privacy and dignity are essential. It's no one else's business. What you describe in terms of your self-determination is known in the field as "pro-choice."

The pro-life rug doesn't match your drapes.

Your  progressive candor is repeatedly interrupted by the oddest outbursts, like when you wrote that, "True, abstinence is the only way to fully prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases."

Whoops! That is false! I'm sorry, you've just lost the final round!

Abstinence is an intention, a vow— not a method to prevent pregnancy. As a practice, it's  the absolute WORST, most failure-ridden notion of "birth control" ever recorded. Even a dried-up old "Today Sponge" is better than abstinence!

Can't you see where this is going? If you're on the Pill, even if you have regretful sex, or get "carried away," you won't pregnant. If you use a condom, even if you're drunk or distressed, you won't get pregnant. Your IUD or diaphragm won't "fail" even if things get messy. With an actual "method," you're 90-something-percent likely to prevent pregnancy no matter what you "believe." 

If you have faith in fairies or abstinence, however, your odds go down the drain.

What if you were raped or coerced into sex? Most annoying of all, what if you had an accident that impaired the birth control you did use? It happens all the time, especially to married couples, Meghan! Ask your parents!

In any case, I bet you're aware of Plan B, the pill that prevents the fertiized egg's implantation. It's one of the most important pharmaceutical developments of your generation.

You're not joining some idiotic "abstinence" junket. So take the next step. If you're for birth control, then you understand the cycle of life and that abortion is an event that could occur in any woman's life. You understand that if you take "birth control" seriously,  it's not a church and chastity belt.

It must be sweet for your parents to hear you say, "The key [to ending unwanted pregnancy] is communication between parents and children." But I don't think you'd want to be stuck behind a locked door if the  "communication" failed.

Let's cut the infantilization crap; I know you want to.  A great many of the people having "unwanted pregnancies" are full-grown adults in longtime relationships— marriages!— who are not having a chat with their parents about what to do next! 

Even if isolated teens were your only concern, the chats with mom and dad are no help if there isn't public policy that supports sex education and reproductive health in women's self-interest.

I'm impressed you walked away from the Vatican, James Dobson, and Phyllis Schlafly.  You damned the WASP torpedoes and declared "sex is natural." We aren't used to Republicans saying wild and crazy things like that! A young woman no less...

You'll take the standard slut-beating for this little editorial— and feminists will be the ones who have your back.

Your birth control lovin' sister,

Susie Bright

Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features