Susie Bright's Journal

Sometimes You Eat the Bear, Sometimes the Bear Eats You

The first thing I thought when I heard a foxy female governor from Alaska was anointed as the McCain's running mate was:

"Wow, they didn't have single man on their short list who didn't have a freakazoid, wide-stance, hooker-party sex scandal on his rap sheet— they HAD to pick a woman."

But I was so naive. Sarah Palin has enough scandals of her own, sexual and otherwise, to make a sailor blush.

I feel a bit sorry for her, as I do for all the photogenic "spokesmodels" that the GOP specializes in recruiting for jobs that they prefer to be handled by professionals behind the scenes. The neo-cons have no respect for government; it's just a business they've enjoyed deregulating. They put up the the most useful idiots on the ballot that they can launder, and smirk at every sucker they take in. After all, Karl Rove's an atheist who's made a career out of manipulating the religion vote!

For all the squawking about Sarah Barracuda's lack of experience, I am certain Palin is smarter than George W. was at any age, and she can READ better than he ever will, on or off a teleprompter. She earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Idaho that she made the grades for, all by herself— without anyone pulling a string. She can shoot a grizzly between the eyes at 100 yards, and is a lot better "close in" that Dick Cheney will ever be.  Let's face it, Palin's an L-Word fantasy writ large, and the perfect example of why butch straight women set hearts aflutter no matter where they appear.

But despite her fantastic hide-your-own-caribou upbringing, there is one way that Sarah Palin betrayed her classic Alaskan heritage and that is by being such a two-faced prig.

I only spent one youthful summer working in the 49th State— but the impression I left with is that Alaskans care about whether you pull your own weight, and mind your own beeswax. That's it. How you spend your personal time, and what you believe in, is entirely up to you.

Like everyone else in Alaska, Sarah Palin had "premarital sex." Like every other Alaskan of my generation, she smoked weed. She lived close to nature and was familiar with the unsentimental cycle of life, death, and birth. She works hard and plays hard. It's no joke that there's nothing much to do in those months of darkness besides fuck, hunt, fish, smoke, and drink. Her teenagers are apparently following in their parents' footsteps... they too, are having sex, and now one of them, Bristol, is said to be pregnant, for the first time. (Her boyfriend says on his MySpace page: "I don't want kids.)"

No one would give a whit about any of the Palin peccadilloes if Sarah hadn't made such a spectacle of herself campaigning as a pro-lifer, gay-hater, abstinence-monger, Creationist-dork. Where does she get off mandating public policy that tells anyone how to live their life?

Sarah's been under the Crony Club impression that's there's one set of rules for stupid voters, and another life of privacy and privileges for the elite. Is it so hard to imagine that Sarah also has family members who are gay, or who've had an abortion? When she was earning her B.S. at Idaho State, I bet she had the sense not to stuff Genesis fairy tales down everyone's throats in Biology class. I can guarantee her family doesn't preach abstinence around the Moose Stew.

A number of people spent the weekend wondering if young Bristol is already a mother, of the mysterious "Trig" who she holds so devotedly to her chest. The idea that mom Sarah might've faked a pregnancy to cover up the family's shame is a real Alaskan Gothic. It's parallel to a doping scandal. Politicians have to "dope up" their family history to make the impossible seem believable. Of course normal flesh and blood family members are going wreak havoc, especially the teenagers. Of course any candidate's life will fail the Leave It To Beaver test. 

It's obnoxious on every side. The way the Democrats spin Obama's home life makes my eyes clench shut. I don't want to know! I don't care if they're crabby or delightful or close-knit or estranged or cute or ugly... SHUT UP already.

I only care about one thing, and that's the politics the candidate is fronting. I expect them to be held accountable to the will of the people— and that's not a profile you'll find in a tabloid magazine. We're the only country in the world that makes our presidential election candidates into a beauty contest. Did "Miss Wasilla" say that she longed for Whirled Peas when she accepted her Miss Congeniality crown? I don't think so.

Why doesn't she just take a big breath of icy Northern Air and tell the truth: Sarah Palin got picked for this job like a two-bit player at a casting call. What McKook doesn't understand is this: Barracuda is an ambitious Sourdough ballhandler who isn't going to let anybody's brats— nor the GOP— stand in her way.

Andy Griffin: Bring Your Own Beer, Guns, & Drugs

August 18th was my birthday. I took a break from writing about food and farming to engage in a little sentimental reflection.

This story is by Andy Griffin, my friend, a fellow author, and the organic farmer who provides all the veggies I eat!

I’m thinking about the old black and white movie, The Wild One, with the very young Marlon Brando, who plays “Johnny,” the leader of a motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small California town.

The costume designers were the real stars, since so many of their notions about how to look "cool" were taken up by actual bikers of the times.

The movie is loosely based on an incident in Hollister, July 4th, 1947, when several thousand motorcycle riders, led by the Boozefighters motorcycle club, went on a rampage for several days and trashed the town.

Castroville has an Artichoke Festival, Watsonville has a Strawberry Festival, Gilroy has a Garlic Festival, and Greenfield even has a Broccoli Festival.

But Hollister, where I farm, has an annual biker rally that celebrates the attempted rapes, drunken assaults, and broken windows from times past.

During the rally, the air around our farm is alive with the sound of Harleys. The streets in Hollister swarm with insurance brokers, accountants, dentists, and software engineers that like to dress up in leather and play at being Marlon Brando playing “Johnny,” who played at being Sonny Barger. I call them “The Mild Ones.”

It can get loud as they roar up and down San Felipe Road in packs, but for a day or two out of the year I don’t mind. The weekend warriors are kind of cute— and then vrooooom, they’re gone.

The real outlaw bikers aren’t so cute.

I remember when I was a kid in 1975, growing up in Carmel Valley, a biker named “Wino Joe” from The Gypsy Jokers MC, bought a trailer on a small lot along the south side of Carmel Valley Road where it runs along Paloma Creek, a few miles before the junction with Arroyo Seco Road.

Wino came up to Jimmy Bell’s corral and introduced himself, and he was neighborly. For a housewarming party he posted invitations on every phone pole from Tassajara Road to Greenfield inviting “one and all” to join him for his first April Fools ‘Fool-around,’ BYOBGD.

That would be short for: “Bring Your Own Beer, Guns, & Drugs.”

Wino explained the whole concept to us. The attraction was going to a game of Blind Man’s Bluff played nude after sundown, and whoever was “it” got to ride around the property in the dark on an ATV 110, one of those now-outlawed motorized all terrain trikes with balloon tires that tended to roll over if you turned too quick.

Here’s the kicker: Whoever was “it,” got to try and “tag” the other nude contestants by discharging a double-barreled shotgun loaded with rock-salt. If you’re high enough, this can be a lot of fun.

I wanted to go, but my stick-in-the-mud old man said no. Jimmy drove past, and he said the Monterey Sheriff’s squad cars were lined up along Carmel Valley Road late into the night with their flashing red lights throwing a festive sparkle over the broken beer bottles and aluminum Coors cans that were scattered all over the ground.

The cops weren’t able to kill the joy because it was Wino’s private party, it was on private land, and besides, he’d taken care to invite all the neighbors. Back then, in Arroyo Seco, “Okie” still meant white-trash from Oklahoma and didn’t refer to a tannic Chardonnay with vanilla notes that’s spent too much time on French oak. Nobody cared all that much about the commotion.

Two of Wino’s guests that night, Buddy and Candy, enjoyed themselves immensely, and decided to buy their own place in the country. Candy had lots of money; and issues— she was bizarrely rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Chicago Boss Richard Daley!

Candy bought the old Melen Ranch that lay in between the Hastings Reserve, where I lived, and the Tregea Ranch, up Martin Road, so we got to be neighbors.

Buddy was a knuckle-head who liked to beat the solutions out any problems he encountered in life. He was too much the loose cannon to ever make the cut for an esteemed outfit like the Hells Angels, but Buddy rode with them when he wasn’t in jail or occupied with his own “1% motorcycle club,” The Losers, who were based out of Seaside and Marina.

Buddy had a half-wit, hare-lipped, half-brother named Darrell who was just smart enough to keep balanced on his chopper when he rode with The Losers. It was when he wasn’t riding that Darrell ran into trouble. He fell off his bike into bed with Candy one night, by mistake, and then Buddy came into the room and found the two of them trysted in a knot, so he beat Darrell half to death.

Candy ran off into the night, made her way through the weeds and brush over the hill to Hastings, and showed up on our doorstep sobbing that Buddy was going to kill her too. She begged my father to save her. (Bear in mind that this is same party-pooper father of mine that hadn’t let me to play naked blind man’s bluff with Wino Joe a year earlier.)

Dad suggested that maybe he ought to call the cops, but Candy said, “Oh, no! Boo-hoo-hoo! Because then they might arrest Buddy!”

Buddy was the kind of guy you had to take seriously when he made death threats. He looked like Marlon’s Johnny could only wish to look like– a real Hun, with red eyes, blurry tattoos, long Jesus hair, a forked beard, and greasy jeans held up by a motorcycle chain.

The cops arrested Buddy anyway, not because he beat up his brother and threatened his wife’s life, but because an unrelated assault Buddy perpetrated against a well-digger who’d “looked” at Candy.

During Buddy’s incarceration, Candy got lonely so she started screwing around with some Hells Angels. The Angels brought a 50-caliber machine gun out to the Ranch and had fun shooting it at ancient old oak trees and deer, old pick-up trucks in the dump, and so on. For a while our little canyon sounded like the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon.

Then Buddy got out of the slammer and came home to Candy. He had a big party to celebrate his freedom, but he got too twisted and crashed his bike on one of the few straight stretches upper Carmel Valley Road has to offer, and died.

Some people are simply allergic to money. If Candy had been poor white trash, instead of a slumming rich girl, Buddy would have had to steal for a living and he’d probably still be alive today, fat and sassy in Soledad, with an active social life in the Aryan Brotherhood. Oh well.

Candy never got cold at night. She took up with the Angels again, and married one right away. This was at exactly the same time as the government was preparing for a maxi-trial against the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and even Sonny Barger, the club president, was indicted.

My father’s friend, Jim Farlinger, a Monterey Presbyterian Church organist and the owner of Farlinger’s Funeral Home in Monterey, had the honor of officiating over the burial ceremony that sent Buddy on his final ride off to Valhalla.

Candy wanted an open casket ceremony, so on a foggy afternoon, with the smell of eucalyptus leaves and Harley exhaust mingling in the sea-salt air of the cemetery down behind Dennis The Menace Park in Monterey. Losers, Gypsies, and Angels gathered together to give their last respects to a fallen brother. They lined up and filed past the coffin, dropping in mementos and items that Buddy would need in his afterlife; knives, hash pipes, bongs, baggies of weed, speed, coke and tabs of blotter acid.

“And,” Mr. Farlinger said,” lots and lots of guns.”

Once you’re dead and buried, it just about takes an act of Congress, plus the permission of your spouse, for officers of the state to exhume your body. The government wanted to prove that the Hells Angels MC was a criminal organization that enforced control over its share of the drug trade by murder, but their Federal maxi trial of over thirty senior club officials ran into trouble in part because they had no murder weapons to introduce as evidence.

If the Feds had asked, Candy, who was already married to the mob, certainly wasn’t going to give them permission to dig her Buddy up and claw through his bones for the evidence they needed to put her new squeeze away. Instead, Candy put the Melen Ranch up as collateral for a truly huge bail bond, and in the end, most, if not all, of the Angels flew the coop. The Melen Ranch was sold, and sold again, and now the land is part of the Hastings Reserve.

My peripheral contact with the Wild Ones wasn’t quite over. When I was in college I worked for several years setting up stages and unloading trucks for rock & roll concert promoters around the Sacramento area.

We did a Waylon Jennings/Hank Williams Jr. concert, for Charlie Magoo Presents, which was owned and operated by the Rodeo Chapter of the Hells Angels, from down by Vallejo.

I was dispatched early to meet the caterer’s van and un-load it. There was Tule fog down to the ground that morning. As I waited in the parking lot, lost in a total white-out, waiting for the van, I heard the rumble of two Harley’s circling, trying to find the arena.

When by accident, we finally almost collided, I got a chance to meet my bosses for the day. “Tiny” was a 6'4", 300-pound gentleman— and his sidekick “Dump Truck” was so big he made Tiny look like one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs.

Dump Truck had ridden all the way up from Rodeo in the fog wearing nothing but his colors, open at the front to give his beer gut room to breath. Nowadays it seems like every soccer mom has a unicorn tattooed on her ankle, but Dump Truck had a death’s-head tattooed on his chest the size of a garbage can lid and it was impressive.

The van arrived, and we unloaded all the party supplies– case after case of Jack Daniels. The meeting of the minds that occurred later in the day was when Waylon’s Band and the Hank Williams band got tangled up with the Angels— and a Ford Econoline’s worth of whiskey. It was something to behold and a party to remember. But that’s another story. So much for life in Lake Wobegon.

Story reprinted from The LadyBug Letter, by Andy Griffin (c) 2008.

Photos: Top; Sonny Barger leading  Angels Rally in 60s, Bottom; Graydon G. Griffin, circa 1963, of Andy Griffin, age four.

"Usually Tight" — Barnard Girls Go Wild in the Gilded Age!

While cleaning out my desk this past week, I discovered a wonderful "sex shock" news clipping that a friend in Boston found for me in her collection of early 20th century newspapers.

There is no annual date on the story. I'd guess it's from the late 20s, given the use of flapper language like "getting tight" and "tipplers."

If you recognize the newspaper or can pin down the year, let me know!

The culprit in this tabloid shockeroo was The Jester, a campus humor magazine, founded in 1901. But that the student editors published this survey at all, given the era, was quite scandalous:

Girls Answer Quiz on Purity

Barnard Students Admit Necking and "Soul Kissing"

New York, Oct.22— Answers to an amazingly frank "purity test" taken by girl students at Barnard College were published in the Columbia Jester at the university today. Shocked professors immediately ordered the magazine suppressed.

Within 45 minutes, however, the ban was lifted by Dean Herbert E. Hawkes. He made no explanation.

The test went to the ultimate of candor— and in publishing it, the authors of the Jester article inferred that some of the questions were too hot to print. 

They reported that: 51% of the 70 girls considered "one or more propositions to be contrary to their honor; that more than 50% indulge in necking; that 34% practice the "soul kiss"; that 49% had kissed ten different men; than 29% have gone out with other women's husbands, and that no one would answer the question: "Have you ever swum nude in mixed company?"

Of the group, the authors reported that 80% were smokers and 66% tipplers. Answering the question: "Have you ever been tight?" 38 wrote "no," 32 wrote "yes." Of those answering in the affirmative, 14 said they had been tight once, 14 said they had been tight often, and four said that they were "usually tight."

What Our State Legislators Can Teach Us About Barebacking

No wonder Larry Craig feels like a choir boy.

Tap-dancing in airport stalls is nothing compared to the wasted nights of homophobic Washington state legislator Richard Curtis, who had one hell of a depraved bacchanalia before his inevitable resignation.  —Lingerie, cell phone photos, casino bingeing, tight rope, cold stethoscopes, cheap barebacking, and blackmail. He was only one diaper short of a Vitter.

By the time I finished reading about Curtis' Wild Ride, I felt like he'd given the entire Roman Empire a run for their money. Still, I insist on finding the educational value of these sad stories—  and I'll use any excuse to talk about  the much-maligned topic of ethical barebacking! Take a listen to my latest audio show...

  Listen to an excerpt 

Listen to the whole show at Audible.com: LINK

Get the show free for a month: LINK

 

Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a devout and religious listener makes the case that, although he's horny and loves kinky sex, he's not feeling the least bit guilty.

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 318, November 16, 2007)

Photo: The delightful Mr. Germany, by Ralphboy

The Prince Harry/Cal Fighting Song Mash-Up

Prince Harry licks cocaine off the nipples of his best buddy after nose-whiffing vodka shots.

"Oh, we had a little party down in Namibia;
There was Harry, there was Mary, there was Grace.
Oh, we had a little party in Namibia,
But we had to carry Harry from the place.

"Oh, we had to carry Harry to the ferry,
And the ferry carried Harry to the shore;
And the reason that we had to carry Harry to the ferry
Was that Harry couldn't carry any more.

All the prurient details from News of the World, via Scanner at Nerve. I love homo-royal-eroticism.

As for the song... How many of you— probably only Californians— can sing it all the way to the end?

My mom and dad met at U.C. Berkeley in the '40s, and for decades after, if they had a beer or two, they would start laughing, and sing their way through this entire song. "Here's to the Irish— Dead Drunk!"

I thought that was truly shocking in my grade school years.

I don't understand these flawless photos of "the beautiful people" getting high. Kate Moss looked like a fairy coke princess in those photos where she was cutting up and snorting lines. Harry's skin is golden. Aren't the deleterious effects suppose to kick in sometime? I don't look this good eating spinach.

When Kurt and Justin Met Debbie

Once upon a time, there was a very serious reporter for a very serious newspaper, who decided to investigate one of society’s scourges: the child pornography ring.

Two years after his exposés riveted the nation, it turned out the reporter had gone off the deep end. He’d paid his main source, become a webmaster at the very porn site he was investigating, lied and bullied anyone who questioned him, and had all but ostracized himself out of a reporting career.

But it wasn’t just him. The witch-hunters, bogeyman blamers, and moral-panic enablers— were everywhere. Our little reporter might have landed in deep shit, but the hysteria he milked became bigger than ever before.

Call him one of the most bizarre media offenders in the past two years of fear-mongering: Former New York Times and Portfolio reporter Kurt Eichenwald. He wrote two front-page stories on the subject of sex that won't be forgotten soon: Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, and its followup, Child Sex Sites on the Run.

From the get-go, both stories were creepy: the softcore sexy descriptions, the “blame the internet” righteousness, the homophobic ick factor, and the unexplained implication that Eichenwald had looked at piles of this material himself, when by current law, he wouldn't have that right, no matter how well-intentioned his purpose!

Why did Kurt portray himself as an elite one-man rescue mission, and why was he so lurid in his crusade?

It didn’t smell right.

Susie Interviews The D.C. Madam

When the D.C. Madam calls and says she wants to talk, who wouldn't want to listen?

Today, my special In Bed audio interview is with Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the escort service proprietor whose phone records have set Washington DC on fire.

She's not done with them yet. Whoever decided to take on Ms. Palfrey had no idea what they were in for— she is not one to tremble or apologize.

I don't think Jeane has ever been interviewed before by someone from the sex work field before, as much as some network anchormen may protest.

Listen to Susie's interview with Deborah Jeane: LINK

Read the interview transcript at 10ZenMonkeys: LINK

Listen to the whole show at Audible.com: LINK

Get the show free for a month: LINK

And as if that wasn't enough excitement, in the Try This at Home mailbag, a listener asks: "I'm a woman who just rolled out of bed with my best gay male friend— how rare is that?"

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show girly cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 308, August 24, 2007)

The DC Madam: Too Cheap by Half?

I love the petty-level ethics discussions swirling around the DC Madam scandal. Maybe we should call them "pathe-ethical."

I've heard many talk show hosts pose their main worry: "What if the DC Madam names a man who's innocent, who just dialed the wrong number for a pizza?"

Pepperoni with onions never came so dear.

When you think of the triple-layers of mendacity that Bush officials have used— the war profiteer cover-ups, the privacy violations, racketeering the entire Federal branch*— how does anyone have a blush left on their cheeks to look askance at a working madam who's mounting a straightforward criminal defense?

I, for one, am thrilled that Ambassador Randall Tobias was exposed as one of Madam's customers, and shamed out of office.

This guy has an ethics problem like a brick in the head. As United States Director of Foreign Assistance, and Admin of the Agency for International Development (USAID), Tobias went around the world preaching abstinence and monogamy. He denied aid to countries who provided condoms, birth control education, or outreach and health care to prostitutes. He led a Fundie Crusade with the USAID purse-strings wrapped around his nuts.

In comments to ABC News after the release of his terse resignation letter, Tobias, who is married, said that he liked "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." He insisted the massages were not sexual.

But the State Department's call for abolition of prostitution is an absolutist moral declaration, which, in principle at least, Tobias appears to have violated.

Tobias spearheaded efforts to prevent AIDS primarily through faith-based values programs that seek to delay first sexual experiences in teenagers, encourage sexual abstinence except for married couples, and encourage faithfulness within marriage...

Last year, Tobias was elevated to the position of deputy secretary of State in a move that consolidated all U.S. foreign aid programs under a single "strategic framework."

That framework, defined in the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget request to Congress, requires that poor nations receive American largesse based not on need but on their strategic value for the U.S.

You don't have to look too closely to see that sexual morality plays a role. For 2008, the administration is asking for $70 million less in international family planning funding than it did for 2007. Aid for family planning - which may include abortion services and sex education - has been cut every year since President Bush took office.

Laurie Garrett, LA Times

 

Why do so few people want to talk about the disgrace known as Bush's Foreign Aid Policy, and would rather fret that some wonk in DC ordered the wrong anchovy?

The Ambassador sure didn't have any personal budget problems. He was regularly ordering special services from "Miz Julia's" escort agency, although he allowed, as only a man of conceit would, that he sometimes "used Central American gals," too.

Sure, I have my own little curiosities about this mess. For one, I thought Madam's prices were awfully low. $275 for ninety minutes? That's an afternoon bar tab for these guys. Plus, if you were able to get a guy off in ten minutes, did you really have to sit there and play Canasta for another seventy? 

Finally, what kind of client was Randall Tobias, anyway? —Were his peers surprised?

I found answers from a couple of our dear readers here, and Miz Julia's own records.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was an experienced madam who used this pseudonym, "Miz Julia, of Pamela Martin Services" for her DC escort service. She ran the whole operation from phone lines in Vallejo, a working class suburb in San Francisco.

Deborah is an outrageous woman who loves to write and editorialize. One of her favorite parts of her business was to publish newsletters for her escorts, advising them how to act, dress, and avoid The Man. Her radical feminist rants are my favorite:

The misogynists get a real kick out of surprising (shocking) you girls, whenever you give them the opportunity!! Often, this is simply done. The motherfuckers bust through an "unbolted" (left unbolted by you) door, with video cameras in hand, while you, the escort, are in various stages of undress. Therefore, you are to lock, double lock, triple lock all doors!! Figure it out, before they "get cha"!

If only Karl Rove was as indiscreet.

Some people wonder how Tobias's protests that he did not have "sex," could possibly save his reputation.

He and "the gals" may know something we don't. They're all aware that prostitution is defined, in criminal terms, as something penetrative: oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse. It's oriented toward a penis going into SOMETHING of someone else's.

If Tobias wanted domination, if he had a fetish, if he wanted to beat off while he got a show; he'd be inside the law. No wait!— Maybe he wanted a woman to dress up like Condi in spike heels and spank him while jeering at his manhood.

As Laurie Garret wrote, "Designing foreign policy to stamp out sexual activity among consenting adults is a fool's errand and a waste of taxpayers' money."

After all that money, all we know is that Tobias never gave a fig about the agenda he was selling.

I was fortunate to get an interview with one of Tobias's staff in the US AID international offices, who we'll call "Sore Throat." The last sixteen months under Tobias, he said, "was like working for a fascist regime."

...My colleagues and I formed an underground cell of resistance, where we talked about the mismanagement of our Agency and shared our letters to our Congressmen. There was no tolerance of open dissent, different opinion, or criticism... so we passed around little barbs and stupid Tobias quotes, and hoped that it would all be over soon.

But we had no idea that he was such a naughty boy, and that his reign would end so suddenly. We heard weeks ago that Tobias would likely leave to take on a governor position in Indiana or else replace Wolfowitz at the World Bank. At this point, it looks like he won't do anything of the sort now that his name is so discredited.

...First time I saw Tobias in person was in Baghdad. He came to speak to the USAID folks there, just a drive-by. Spirits were already low at the mission, but in ten minutes he managed to torpedo morale significantly.

Someone asked how they were supposed to get by with such emaciated aid budgets for Iraq, which had forced the mission to close down our health, education, and infrastructure programs for Iraq.

Tobias answered that, in fact, there's no budget crunch, and we should be tightening our belts further. No one dared disagree. Then he went on to tell us that "all the expertise and local knowledge is in our field offices, which is why we in Washington are going to set our aid strategy." In other words, he deliberately took the people who knew best out of the decision loop.

Then again, in Cairo, he said the same stuff. This time, he didn't even bother to check in with his USAID staff or visit our office, even though he was the head of our Agency and was in town for a week! —Never even dropped by to see the two hundred people who work for him in Cairo. Amazing. It was around that period that I first heard him say, "USAID is trying to do too much for too many people. We're spread too thin. We're a mile wide and an inch deep." 

Well, now we can guess what was an inch deep... just ask his Central American gals!  Funny, though, when he testified before Congress on several occasions in the past two months, he kept saying, "I don't know" whenever they asked specifically what he was going to do that's different from the way we've done aid for decades. He also couldn't answer when they asked why he's cutting aid to key countries like India, Russia, Nepal.

Basically, he was in over his head.

Some of us have been trying to understand what was going on with those escorts. One thought was that he may have been telling the truth about the "no sex" part.

He was a tyrant in his business life, so we speculated that he needed some young smart ladies to put him in his place in his personal life. We could easily imagine that he was into spanking, being forced into submissive stuff.

That would be embarrassing enough that he'd rather resign than have the story come out— but he could honestly say he didn't have "sex." Well, it's just our best guess, knowing him from personal contact and observing him as a leader accused by Congress of 'tycoon-itis' just last month.

I have no notion of what it's like to work in a Foreign Aid office, other than what I've seen in Hollywood movies. I asked "Sore Throat" to give me some perspective... what would a decent high-level official do when visiting his staff overseas?

Ha! Thanks for asking!

Ambassador Tobias' policy was not to meet with anyone below rank of Ambassador or Minister (equivalent to our Secretary). This is why he didn't want to meet with local heads of aid offices (we call them Mission Directors), since they're not high enough rank. Needless to say, he didn't meet with their staff. He was arrogant, out of touch, as you say...  and this is not that unusual for high-level political appointees.

But I can happily tell you by comparison that other leaders are not like this. Our acting administrator is Jim Kunder. He's a political appointee, which means a friend of the White House. I've worked a bit with him and others in his group. Kent Hill, the Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Global Health is another example— a high-level, conservative religious guy who was appointed by our President.

In their cases, I expected to dislike them, since I disagreed with their politics and the high moral ground clichés —"We know what's right, and we're going to tell you and make the world live by our rules."

But these gentlemen have been excellent leaders, and even people who don't agree with their politics respect them.

Jim Kunder told a group of USAID officers in Hungary about three years ago that he was a former Marine who served in Vietnam. Because of that, he told them, he's "un-insult-able." No matter what criticism you have to tell him, he wants to hear it; he's heard worse.

Following that speech, he's not disappointed us. When Jim goes out to USAID missions, he visits our projects in the field, talks with our staff and our host country counterparts, learns about the program... that's how it should be.

Kent Hill is from a similar mold, although he's a PhD scholar and very thoughtful. He told the same group in Budapest that he wants us to find moral leaders in the culture that we're working with.

I found that this surprising, coming from a hardcore former head of a Christian college. Similarly, when Kent Hill went out to a country, he spent a lot of time meeting with staff, visiting projects, getting to meet local religious leaders... he is an impressive guy, and is still another high level official in USAID.

This gets at the core problem with the current administration. Their mistakes have resulted from failure to listen to diverse perspectives, failure to allow debate and competition of ideas. Instead, the top leaders have barricaded themselves and forced bad ideas down to lower levels to implement. It was true for Tobias, and also for all the other guys higher up. They kept denying the real world ("there's no civil war in Iraq") when the lower-level people knew the truth; but the real world has a way of catching up to us.

Make no mistake about it: we are fighting a war. I don't know if it's right to say it is a war on terror, or a war between liberalism and fundamentalism, a war against poverty and disease (that's our battle in my field), or between Western and Islamic paths... but there's a war out here. Not only in the Middle East, but mainly here.

In a war, the top brass who go out to the front lines are usually serving two main purposes: they want to ground-truth their own view of the war, and learn what they can from the grunt's perspective. They want to motivate and inspire troops. —Only two things, shouldn't be too hard. But if the leader fails to look and listen during the visit, and fails to speak in a sincere and motivational way... then s/he is not serving as a good wartime leader.

It's one thing to have incompetent bureaucrats during peacetime, they only waste our time and taxpayers' money. During wartime, incompetent leaders cost thousands or even millions of lives. We are fighting a worldwide war on HIV/AIDS, for instance; how many people may have died as a result of our administration's insistence that abstinence (not condoms) is the way to prevent transmission?  Science has debunked that approach...

Thank you, Sore Throat... talk about straight from the trenches.

It's impossible to think about this war, AIDS, or any global dilemma without seeing lots of zeros... the number of deaths, the number of dollars. It really does put the DC Madam's income in perspective. I'm sure the DC cops have already spent more money on her prosecution than she made this past year.

Being the Madam, she couldn't make tips for "extra" services. She relied on her booking commissions, so she's making about $150 for those 90-minute calls. Her newsletter spelled out what she expected from her girls:

We, here at Pamela Martin, try very hard to do things a step or two above that of our competitors. We want the client to always enjoy his appointment and to never feel rushed!

Often, an hour is not quite enough time, but an hour and a half is for completing enjoyment. Nonetheless, in the course of implementing this 90 minute policy. Management. has discovered that certain clients and even certain escorts for that matter, tend to interpret this 90 minute time frame "rather literally."

It needs to be clarified once and for all, that the client is paying for the "activity" conducted within the one-and-a-half hour period— not for the ninety minutes itself! If there is a problem, refer the client to Julia. Again, 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes is reasonable. Let's not see any 20 to 30 minute stuff, OK?

Okay! But I'm going to bring a pack of cards just in case!

I asked my friend and retired call girl, "Oakland Peach," if she could weigh in on the going rate, and my assumption that tips are where you  really make an "appointment" memorable!

Yeah, Palfrey's price sheet does seem cheap, but in all honesty, the market doesn't think much of pussy.

Madams RARELY work the very high end— and, besides, rich guys don't always play in the high end. 

It was really the L.A. girls with their coke-dealing madams in the early 90's that got the rates jacked up, and then the Internet created the independent scene.

I was in the first wave of that, which is why my rates got so high. It was pure experimentation. Those high rates were unheard of before, and are still somewhat unusual. The big money independent girls with websites is a mostly California phenom. 

The only other big money stuff, with the Arabs, is out of the modeling agencies and super, super, discreet. Those people never get caught because it's not really run like a business, and it's mostly out of Europe.

The real money is made in the mid-range— hourly fee: 150-300. That's what it sounds like Miz Julia was doing. It's your standard big-city escort service, with what I imagine are unwritten "menu options" once you get private with a girl.

I worked for a local circuit madam when I was 23.  $200/hour, 60/40 split, no upsales allowed. She had an "in" at the Republican Party gatherings they used to have up at the Bohemian Grove, so her guys were lots of big-money rightwingers.

I worked one day a week, never saw fewer than five. It was usually six or seven and that's just because I cried "uncle"— plus, I was chubby and older (!) and therefore a difficult sell.  I met very pretty girls there who would see nine or ten a day for a week, and travel city to city. There were usually two gals at her house per day. So you do the math. She was making a lot more than 150K per year, I'll tell you that much. [150K per annum is what Palfrey is claiming]. Some of her best clients were spending almost half that a year on their habit.

"So why did you finally go out on your own?" I asked.

I was really more of an opportunist than an innovator. And evidently a hell of a lay, but ahhhh, those were the days. Now I am an earnest sensual masseuse with inviolable boundaries and a much more stable love life. But as you quoted Tracy Quan saying, right on your blog, "I came about my prudishness honestly." Honey, ain't that the truth!

*Frank Rich reported this weekend:

"By my rough, conservative calculation— feel free to add— there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006.

—Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout.

I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously— an all-time record."

Superpower tshirt/poster from WhiteHouse.org. Check out Tracy Quan, on this podcast, for a insight on a sex worker's legal prerogatives in this situation!And yes, that is the panel from the old "To Tell The Truth" TV show. I just loved that program!

 

Hold The Diapers— I'm Pedaling As Fast As I Can

A friend of mine got in a pickle lately, and I advised her to give my old Well friend and legal genius Mike Godwin a call.

Mike said to her, "Hey, it could be worse— you could be stalked by an astronaut in diapers with a BB gun."

So true! Really, all of life's challenges shrink like hemorrhoids by comparison.

I'd like to venture an opinion about Captain Nowak. Everyone says, "She's crazy!" But what kind of crazy? She's too old for adult onset schizophrenia. I have another (entirely unproven) theory: she's strung out on amphetamines.

I don't know whether it's meth, Ritalin, or Reverend Ted's crack pipe, but Nowak's delusions, paranoia— and most of all, her changing appearance— made me think: speed kills.

The drug's utility would be an attractor in her profession, where, as her superiors described, she was "a vibrant, hardworking, energetic person who did her job very well."

Mother of three, married for almost twenty years, separated just weeks ago. Her friends and family say she was perpetually cheery, always "disciplined." The stress in these kind of jobs to be more vibrant, always perfect... you can imagine the pressure if things didn't go just right, and you had access to a performance enhancer. Mother's Little Helper gets her through her busy day.

It was Nowak's booking photo that gave me pause. I'd like to see her smile or scream, so we could see the dental situation. She's lost weight from her previous photos, her hair looks to be falling out— and her skin, even for a mug shot, is like parchment. And, of course, she drove all those hundreds of miles in Depends so she wouldn't have to stop for anything.

People talk all the time about meth epidemics in their hometowns, but no one ever points it out when it hits the prestige or celebrity circuit. I was in a neighborhood café not long ago when I overheard the waitress bitching about her ex-husband to the chef: "Oh yeah, he's gotten it all taken care of, with his mom... His mom does his laundry, his mom takes care of his kids, his mom scores his meth."

It's exactly that ubiquitous. Speed is driving everyone crazy, and it's more of a middle-class and rat-race epidemic than anyone likes to admit.

Meanwhile, diapers are making headlines this week. Dan Savage's column split my sides open with his answer to the loving wife of a diaper-baby-man. The missus wrote Dan to say that despite her devoted practice to peg and fill all her husband's infantilist whims, he was now withholding all vanilla sex from her— the one thing she needs to get off, every blue moon or so!

Dan replied:

Does your "baby girl" realize what he's got in you? The world is crawling—literally crawling—with adult babies who are alone and single and miserable and always will be. While the internet has made it possible for adult babies to find each other more easily, a shared interest in nappies and nurseries doesn't guarantee compatibility. Plus, female adult babies are scarcer than folks who can read "my husband whines and cries and pretends to be a baby during sex" without hurling. Your husband should be doing everything in his power to keep you happy.

My advice: Take that break. Cut the little brat off—no more baby games until he can successfully wrap his bonnet around this: Your pleasure matters as much as his does. Then tell him that although he may not be interested in regular sex, he better learn to fake it convincingly. And finally, tell him that his continued failure to meet your vanilla needs is gonna get his diapered ass divorced, leaving him single and shit out of luck, sex-partner-wise, for the rest of his adult infancy.

Putting the gun down and the diapers aside, I have to ask— what is it about us mortal dingbats that we always have to fuck things up when we hold paradise in our hands?

Photo: No slander is intended to lovely Marta (Yvonne Craig), starring in Star Trek as a green Orion Slave Girl. She's as sane as they get.

Notes on Cunt

One of the biggest sex stories of the year— which many decried as the most repulsive— was child-star-turned-dissolute-divorceé Britney Spears, who flashed her waxed vulva for all the world to see.

The world however, hasn't been able to pry their hands from their face. The peek-a-boo set is, for once, too scared to look.

My photograph on the left is not Ms. Spears— it's a friend of mine. I wish Britney could have been as unapologetic. I wish her audience could have been cunt-positive. Neither is remotely the case. But let's unveil this one slowly.

In Bed with Susie Bright 276: The Year's Top Sex Story

Listen to excerpt.

The phenomenon of celebutard coozie flashings was remarkable, but the depth of analysis was sophomoric. Why?

Was the fury on account of Britney torpedoing her "I'm a Republican Goody-Two-Shoes" career? Nope, she can get in the back of a very long line on that ticket. Was it Hollywood, the star-making suicide machine? Alas, the spectacle of child exploitation in show business until they disintegrate into narcissistic toy-adults is all too common.

The real shock, the bit no one mentions, is that even though everyone is informed, through reading, about Britney's crotch shot, relatively few people have looked at the evidence. The majority haven't seen, or want to see, what all the fuss is about.

Go look. Remember to remove all the whore/madonna crap out of your mind, and tell me what you think about it.

Without the slightest feminist or artistic design, Spears has changed the public perception of what a mother-of-two's sexuality might be all about. Here she is, showing you her bare cunt, and a vulnerable cesarean scar that couldn't be obscured by  otherwise careful makeup.

The picture has an impact, regardless of her delusions.

"But why should I peer at such a thing?" you might protest. "It's vulgar! It's sad! I'm above all that!"

Oh, bullshit. Have you ever looked at titty pictures for the hell of it? And speaking of vulgarity, who flocked to Saddam's hanging video, or clicked on Abu Ghraib's tortures? That was far, far more popular than Brit's twat.

There's no need to list extremes. What about reality TV— squirming is a national pastime!  And who wouldn't pass up a picture of Justin Timberlake's hard cock if it happened to be captured from the Mickey Mouse Club bathroom? Many of us will voyeurize everything, and still hesitate when it comes to a photograph of a woman's genitals. 

There is something about the sexual and creative center of a woman's anatomy that is beyond the PALE of our comprehension. We just can't hack it!

Sure, Britney's hoo-hoo has gotten plenty of internet clicks, but not NEARLY as much traffic as any of the incidents I listed above.

If you do go to the forums where people are looking and commenting on BS's photos, they are all men. Each one of them debates how disgusting her vagina is, and just how desperate you'd have to be to fuck her. The disdain and condemnation for her behavior is beyond anything I have ever seen on any subject. Bush never got it this bad, nor Clinton, for that matter.

In the printed news about Britney, we hear of her "inappropriate behavior" as a euphemism, while the actual deed is obscured. She is said to drink, pop pills, snort powders, pass out in public, commit sartorial murder, lather in promiscuity, be the worst mom ever.

But GOD FORBID you should mention she has a cunt, and that she showed it without any foreplay, tease, or a million-dollar payout. Playboy centerfolds are fainting from the disgrace of it all. Ms. Spears simply opened the door of her limo, then did the same with her legs, and let the cameras go nuts.

Why is THIS act the last straw? A shot of a man's penis, flaccid or erect, never destroyed him. People might think it's funny, interesting, sexy, or bizarre, but not a condemnation to hell. You can see Daniel Craig's cock in his popular movies, and he's  been elevated to Bond.

Britney Spears, or any female public figure, cannot reveal her uncovered mons without a wholescale public attack. It wouldn't matter if she was a brilliant actress or avant-garde philosopher. When it comes to this anatomy, where the pleasure comes in— and the babies come out— our culture is in cardiac arrest. The fear and loathing crush any reality check.

"What about hardcore?" you may ask. Yes, porn is the exception, but even there, we see a transformation. Beaver shots are not "in" anymore, as they were for one brief moment in the 70s. Aroused cunts are not the focus— it's tits, bouncy butts and shaved anuses, gigantic cocks, denuded holes, and fantastic open mouths. When was the last time you saw an X-rated picture promoted based on cunnilingus or any kind of cunny-worship?

Furthermore, the hair issue has been turned upside down. It used to be that pubic hair denoted modesty and mystery, the allure of the enchanted forest.

Now, a single hair is thought of as unclean. By waxing everything off (which shaving alone cannot accomplish)— and following up with bronze makeup from waist to knees— you achieve a Barbie Thing. It's a a desexualized "clean" look, as Britney's stylists put it. If it wasn't for Spears' birthing scar, and the curve of her thighs, you might miss her element altogether!

I have nothing against shaving or waxing per se— it's all quite fun until the hair grows back in! I appreciate seeing the "sculpture" of a woman's cunt, and how it's mature, not like a young woman's. Most people don't even know that— that your coozie grows up. I once published one of Tee Corinne's self-portraits of her shaved vulva in On Our Backs, and the magazine was banned all over the country for being "child porn." The censors don't even know what a 35-year-old woman's genitals look like, and how different it is from a baby's. The ignorance is stupendous.

I'm not trying to be obvious. I'm exhausted with the usual rhetoric. It's not that anyone should shave, or not shave— pose "commando," or wear long-johns. Yes, Britney is a mental health train-wreck, and yes, there are far more important things that should be on the front page of the newspaper. All of those things are easy to say.

My beef is this: the toxic taboo around women's cunts, clits, and the whole furry circle is so over-the-top that it goes beyond celebrity scandal or pleas for modesty. Our conservative culture has made a fetish of women's sex as "dirty" beyond compare; a sin and a revulsion above all else. Of course I could write a book about this, and many others have. Like Inga. Or Laura. Or Betty, Tee, or Joani. Somebody please send Brit copies.

The ultimate disfavor of the anti-cunt clamor is that women get the impression that there is something terribly wrong down there. So wrong it can't be spoken plainly, let alone looked at.

The club-girl commandos like Paris, Lindsay, Tara, and Britney have done us all a very weird favor. They have degraded feminine "virtue"— thank goodness. By making a cunty spectacle of themselves, they have inadvertently triggered consciousness that, in a subversive context, taps the right note. They might not understand a pussy-pride backlash— they may deny, regret, and wring their hands— but the clit-fix is in. I'll look forward to a sober, in-your-face replay.

In my mailbag, I follow all this up by offering some timely advice to a woman who worries her boyfriend will be grossed out when he goes down on her. See what I mean?

Top photo by Honey Lee Cottrell, and middle photo from Tee Corinne, both published with many awesome others in Nothing But the Girl. A wonderful fan sent me the CuntFire Girls logo, but I have no idea who created it! Please tell me if you know!

This story is one of our Top-10 most popular posts!

If you've found it valuable, enjoyable, or beneficial— or just a great kick in the pants— Subscribe to my blog for $5/month or donate what you can afford now!

Thank you so much... Susie

Girls Gone Wild: Producer Going to Hell

By now, many of you know that the only celebudick in more trouble than Mel Gibson is Girls Gone Wild fiendmeister, Joe Francis.

The LA Times nailed Francis to the wall for assaulting one of their reporters and repeatedly putting on exhibitions of himself as a sadistic predator whose whole operation could be called Rape-Lite.

GGW procures and pimps young women in a scheme just one hair from criminal offense. —Or not.  At the rate the lawsuits and subpoenas are piling up, Francis is one powdery white line away from a complete self-incineration.

Aside from the huge quantity of alcohol discussed in the Times story— used to lubricate every GGW scenario— there's no evidence described of other drug binges. No, the story only reeks of them. This guy is the king of The Mickey In Your Drink and the poster brat for Speed Kills. As Feministing says, it's "male privilege on crack."

Francis is such a lost cause that other attentions have turned to the young models, who fall for, and even seek out, his video camera's attentions. The girls think they're going to be "stars," they thrill to the idea of being "hot" without actually having to give up anything real (i.e., their virginity).

Francis, however, has every intention of taking their cherry and smashing it in their faces— but his PR is that it's all good fun and Mardi Gras beads.

Many parent-types have asked, "Why are we at a place where the only way a young woman thinks she can be important or meaningful is to take her top off for a creep's camcorder?"

Good point.

But many feminist daughter-types have countered, "It's not the topless part that's the problem, it's the exploitation by this prick. If the women took their tops off for their own movie, their own orgasm, and their own point of view, it would be a completely other story."

I identify with both sentiments. I made a lot of DIY "feminist porn" with my friends when we were young, and never had a single regret, nor would I ever say that "it was all a blur." On the contrary, we had wildly ambitious goals about what we wanted to say about our bodies and desires. I still do.

Francis' dirtiest secret is that he traffics in porno-puritanism, in sexual shame. His profit lies in young women snookered into doing something "shameful" that they will want to hide the rest of their lives— once they sober up. They have been ruined— the ultimate GGW turn-on. It's the frisson of humiliation that makes him, and his audience, hard.

And why, pray tell, is ruination the hottest American Fantasy du Jour?

It seemed appropriate that when Francis himself got assaulted by one of his little druggie pals, he was made to stick a dildo up his ass, at gunpoint, and repeat on camera how much he loved every minute of it. (I'm tellin ya, it's all in the LAT!)

Whoever pressed that button wanted to make sure that Francis finally got a taste of his own medicine. Too late— I'm afraid the nausea of repressed prurience already ruined us.

For an interesting take on what it's like to be a female viewer of Girls Gone Wild porn, check out Greta Christina's analysis, which I think beats the hell out of anything Joe Francis or the Times could articulate.