My Life Changed in a Moment, Part II

In “My Life Changed in a Moment“, I told my story of how one person, asking one question, sent me one place wanting to help and how they changed my life forever. Had I known the path his interest would chart for my unplanned future I certainly would have asked and recorded his name to later thank him, but that is very seldom how it works. He blessed me without even realizing it. But then, I am one who believes nothing happens by chance or coincidence. Not even luck is a coincidence. He was placed in my path as a guide post. I hope the same happens to you as you make your way through life.

Wherever you are sir, if you happen to read this and recognize yourself, know you hold a special place in my heart, “mano a mano.” (Incidentally, this use is actually an Anglicized misinterpretation of that expression. In Spanish, it means hand to hand, as in engaging in combat. Mano sounds so much like man that we gringos bastardized it to mean “man to man” when we use it exactly as I have done here. I do mean man to man with him. I hope you can’t ever say you’ve read any post here and come away not having learned something. That’s my purpose here. Sharing knowledge to create and enhance relationships. You’re welcome.)

At the time those moments do happen, we are thankful for the opportunities bestowed upon us, particularly those opportunities we desperately covet despite our refusal to anticipate and make adequate preparations. Still, we don’t feel the gravity that is just beginning to hold our feet fast to the path. We had a dream without a well-thought-out plan. We were operating on the “This-is-how-I-hope-it-goes,” plan.

That’s the one where they discover your real worth and skills that up until then all others have missed. They value your potential so highly that they sprinkle you with fairy dust and tap you with their wand while delivering the incantation, “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.” That spell having been cast, things begin to change right then in a way which confirms their recognition of your heretofore untapped and untested potential. Your “If only…” wait is over.

That is what far too many of us hope to happen and by which so many of us are soundly disappointed, sometimes repeatedly. If at first you don’t succeed, better luck next time; maybe. Like baseball, there’s always hope for the next season.

Those who didn’t so anoint us obviously must not have been on the mailing list for the quarterly newsletters or photo Christmas cards sent by our mothers extolling our virtues. In real life of course, the timing is more often an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. The process can be so prolonged that with the passage of time we lose our connection with that distant moment which set our path on a new and fortuitous direction.

Losing the connection

That is exactly what happened to me until I recently recounted to my youngest daughter how I started in the motion picture, television and video production business. Just a few days before I had told the same story to my youngest son. I wanted them both to know how I came to be in this business that has brought me so much joy and fulfillment. (No, fulfillment is not being hyperbolic.) I wanted them to know the genealogy of my career, as it were.

At the time of that initial telling to my son, I had missed the deeper significance of that job application process. I have always quipped two things regarding that experience and subsequent entry into this career. I would quip that I owed that man one of two things: either 1) thanks or 2) condemnation. Which of those two choices depended short-sightedly on my financial straits at the time. I will attest that when I saw my first credit on that wide glowing screen in the dark I was seduced. Obviously, that too was its own life-changing moment.

With my son, I never made the connection that the job interview had become about more than getting that first job in a business for which I hadn’t prepared other than desire. I shudder to think what would happen today with almost all initial applications being taken and processed online and reviewed by an algorithm. I very possibly would have clicked off and moved onto some other job that had as little appeal as that one I was interviewing for at the time, No one would have been there to offer to talk about it and I’d have missed my fantastic career and life.

As it all winds inexorably down now all too fast, I have so much to look back upon with so little regret. My hope is that you will be able to feel the same and say the same. That like we used to say on set on the most excellent of days and still even pejoratively quip on the bad ones because even then it was true. That you can say:

“Living the dream!”

As to education, training or degrees, it didn’t require a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate to enter the field. As a freelance independent contractor your employment and negotiable remuneration was based on the proven performance of your learned and developed skills. Many of those skills came from on the job training either independently or through union apprenticeships.

That’s not to say there are not degreed people in the field. There are both universities and “trade” schools that specialize in media production education and do issue degrees. In my over 40-years experience, it is a field were the technicians and laboring workforce are highly educated though not necessarily formally educated in production per se. They do tend to concentrate on the humanities and arts. I used to self-deprecatingly tell my electric and grip crews, “We’re all just a bunch of college-educated carnies.”

It is a field populated with people who want to be part of it more than anything else and who will go to almost any extreme to find a way in. You can see now why I say this person changed my life in that moment. He opened my door into it. After that it was up to me to implement my work ethic and dedication to learning the necessary skills that grew my reputation and career. If I had been independently wealthy, I would have shown up and done my job for free with no less dedication. I have loved it that much. I still do.

I’m not saying other significant moments haven’t happened in my life that affected change in it. Marriages, deaths, births, illnesses and spiritual moments have all held sway at one time or another. They too are important in their special ways in my life. In most of those moments there were elements of conscious choice on my part. With others, they manifested themselves as part of the day-to-day life processes we all live through that happen to us, not because of us. (Few people consciously choose to get ill or die).

Our choice of occupation differs from those other social happenings. It represents a pivotal moment in our lives because it determines our education choices and ultimately our income potential as we move forward. We don’t seriously contemplate marriage, family, and buying a home until we feel confident our occupation can support those. The pressure to choose a viable occupation begins before we have any idea of what we are capable of achieving or have suitable capacities to attempt. It usually begins with someone, most often an adult, asking us:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It is a rare child who answers that they don’t know. Boy or girl, nearly all have an answer at the ready by the time they are entering school. “I wanna be a…” No child wants to “do” a thing, they want to “be” the thing. Having said that, to the best of my remembrance, I was that rare child that didn’t really have any idea until middle school (then called junior high) and 9th grade biology class. At that point I decided I wanted to be a doctor. I can’t remember what happened to bring about a change of mind, but thankfully something did; probably organic chemistry and physics classes. (I just remembered upon editing this, at one time in my early years I thought it might be fun to be a spotted dalmatian on a fire truck. I’ve always been a little different I suppose.)

Medicine would have been way too rigid and structured for me. The challenge of helping people would have been satisfying, but the highly disciplined routine of a doctor’s day would have been creatively smothering. I admire sciences but I love arts. Make no mistake about it though, the entertainment business is a business which has its own set of disciplines for all involved, but creativity is at the heart of it. It was that creative environment that appealed to me. Once invested in it, I was never interested in anything else as a career.

Was I a victim of coincidental circumstance? As I said above in the opening paragraph, I don’t believe in coincidence. I prefer to believe we are all part of a master plan with parts to play. It’s as if life is a jigsaw puzzle in which we have a particular place where our piece is designed to touch those of others in a way that completes the puzzle: the puzzle of our purpose and destiny.

The end result of my job application was a hybrid process. I was choosing what I was applying for from a desperate reading of a want ad. but the job I got was not the result of coincidental circumstance. I prefer to think of it as kismet. Kismet has played a part in my life many times over.

I hope the same for you. You may not know what you want to be when you grow up until you do grow up. You may not choose it. Like me, by kismet it may choose you. Even if you do not know what you want to be, do know what you want from life. Know those things which you value above all others. Sure, we all desire money sufficient to our needs and wants, but discern those non-monetary needs and wants which when achieved will bring contentment to your lot in life, not frustrated desires.

One common trait I’ll let you in on about people in film production: our answer as to what we want to be when we grow up would be, “Why grow up when we get to play for a living?” Forever young; Peter Pan all of us. Techs and actors. Teamsters and honey wagon attendants. Craft service and PAs. We all found more play than drudge work in our careers.

Wherever you find yourself, don’t be either the infamous Richard Corey or the one who was envious of Corey’s station in life. Be as Dorothy and her new-found friends she encountered on the road to the Emerald City. I had been set upon a path in my life that few have been blessed by providence to tread. I had been set upon my own yellow brick road and sent off to see a wizard who would grant my wish for a job in image making.

Like Dorothy’s wizard, mine didn’t grant my exact wish at the time either, though it did seem I had flown over the rainbow and into a vocation I would forever love in times both good and bad. Yeah, I hear the groans. But wouldn’t you be disappointed if I hadn’t sunk to some base movie memes, cliches or platitudes? Look at how superior you can now feel. Again, you’re welcome.

If you’ve stayed around this long, I have a special treat for you: a classic mellow yellow gift from composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg. It’s “an oldie” as Marty McFly would say, but not a Johnny B. Goode-ie. Since it’s my post, my rules, I’m going to introduce you to a singer-stylist who, in my opinion now owns this song. Sorry, Judy, take a seat. I browsed upon this version a few years back. I wish she was still with us. I’ll provide a second link below the video clip for your listening pleasure and also so I don’t have to regret her passing alone. If goosebumps (piloerections) don’t start rising on you as she begins her vocal soaring at 3:45, check your pulse for an absent heart beat. Now enjoy the sublime blessing that was Eva Cassidy.

You owe it to yourself to hear more of her soulful styling. She never got truly comfortable with performing or believed how talented she was and how devastatingly beautiful her gift was.

Again, you’re welcome.

More Eva

https://youtu.be/tiSjxSc2hac

My Life Changed In a Moment

How many of us are able to make that statement? A lot of us actually, though we may not realize it. How drastically our life was changed may vary, but there is no escaping life-changing moments. I suspect all of us will be able to reflect and speak to that if we live long enough and wish to share the story. If we don’t live long enough to have one to tell about, our dying will become that defining moment when our life changes. I’ve chosen to share my living moment with you now, not because it is exceptional but because I want you to know how easy it is to miss it in that moment when it happens. If you are fortunate, like me you will later discover and recall it. That is how it happened for me as you will see. In the telling of the story of how my career began I discovered my life changing moment which I missed realizing at the time of its happening. Taking only two seconds in time, it was easy to miss.

Read on. Don’t dismay. This post won’t be as dark as that opening paragraph. My observation about dying being life-changing wasn’t part of the post until I typed “if we live long enough.” That was when the truth of that inevitable, inescapable life-changing moment we all will experience occurred to me. In our contract with life, that moment is our inescapable escape clause. Whether we choose the moment or the moment chooses us is the revelation we all wait upon. But, enough of my pretentious philosophical pontificating.

(An aside: I often wonder how many readers notice my penchant for word play? Whether done well or annoyingly not “…inescapable escape clause”; oxymoronic and with all those hard “c” sounds and “…pretentious philosophical pontificating”; with all its “p”s and “f “s and which is blatantly pretentious in its own right. You’ll just have to endure or choose not to read. It’s how I have fun as I write which can at times be tedious work. This aside also demonstrates how my thought process functions. It’s not unlike the internet filled with hyperlink-esque synapses popping up as I write. I even get to coin my own terms as you can see.)

I mention all of this because that is how this post came about. My daughter did not know how I discovered my life-long occupation. After explaining it to her, the hyperlinks started clicking in and a thought process began creating this post. If you have ever wondered, or if you haven’t, you’re about to learn something of my creative process as it applies to writing as well as about that life-changing moment. I share this story not to present myself as having any prescient wisdom to have realized it at the time but to show that those moments do happen and sometimes it takes history to make us aware of their happening and to reveal the depth and breadth of them. History very much defines our present and how we live our presence within it.

I am going to take the liberty of ignoring certain events or happenings one typically would say were moments that changed their life like achieving higher education, marriage, birth of our children, deaths of friends and family or a profound spiritual awakening. Those are the obvious and easy ones to recall and are certainly valid examples but are low hanging fruit for my present purpose. I want to encourage you to recall the less obvious life-changing happening which at the time was not anticipated as such. You may not have had the one yet. Think hard about it though. The one you had may have seemed just another casual remark or action in the moment; another step in a long progression of many that had come before, but then over time turned out to be the one that set a great life story in motion:

Your life story.

This post is going to mention a variety of things and places that unfortunately a few of you may have no reference point to bring to bear because of your youth or culture. Those things and places not withstanding, the message of the post will still have relevance you will relate to. Notice I did not say “can” or “may” have relevance but “will.” So, stay with me.

While in college, I made friends with a fellow student and Vietnam War veteran. He had been a photographer with the Army Public Information Office. He had a camera with him constantly both there and in college. He would have either a 35mm Pentax, Nikon F with motor drive, or later adding a more compact digital Canon Elf. There was always something for me to fool with or borrow and as a result I developed a strong interest in becoming a photographer. I can now see it would not have been a good fit for me, but as I said above, I was not in the least prescient.

When I left college I began searching for jobs in photography in the mid-sized city where I lived and still do. Most people would have gone to the local daily newspaper or any number of community newspapers that were plentiful at the time. For whatever reason, I didn’t even consider those options, not that I had a plan let alone a portfolio to show, What was I thinking? Even now as I look back in earnest, I can’t really say. Some, including me, would say I wasn’t thinking but dreaming.

I saw an ad in the classifieds of the local daily paper. Yes, Virginia. Newspapers used to be published daily and people placed advertisements in them. There was a section called the classified ads where, among other items listed for your attention, people placed small descriptions of jobs their businesses needed to fill. One day I saw a listing for a copy camera operator. I had no idea what that was but it had the magic word “camera” in it. I called the business, let’s call it Copy Boy, to make an appointment to go in and fill out an application.

It was a street-level, store front location with large windows looking out onto a busy downtown sidewalk. As I entered the front door to my immediate right was a bank of mimeograph machines noisily cranking away spitting out duplicated pages. This was a time before economical photocopying Xerox machines were to be found humming away in most business offices. If you needed a lot of copies quickly you took your original materials to a print shop. Mimeograph and Ditto were the cheapest form of making copies. Some of you may fondly remember the smelly blue-lettered sheets handed out in classrooms for tests, announcements and permission slips. Those were mimeographed. It’s a very chemically smelly and noisy process and the more machines printing at once the smellier and nosier it is. There was one poor soul overseeing the cacophony of the current duplication jobs. For an introvert like myself, it was already much too much uncontrollable auditory input. As a result, I was already having second thoughts about a possible future there.

The person managing things and taking the applications met me and gave me the paper form to fill in with my information. Back then it was as if every company on Earth went to the same business supply store and purchased pads of the same ubiquitous job application form. If you did a lot of in-person applying you found yourself wishing for your own pad of them which you could fill out in advance at your leisure, show up on time appropriately dressed and then hand it over to skip the tedium of the paper work.

The front of the form was the easiest needing all your personal information: name, address, parents’ maiden names, school history, etc. The back was where you had a chance to tailor things to better fit the employer’s expectations as you perceived them. It would have past employment history, personal references, a description of your skills and possible qualifications and pay expectations. This was the most tedious part because you not only were once again documenting your less than spectacular past but also trying to be creative as to their expectations about your future value to them.

How much of what do you reveal? Which jobs and in what capacities? Whom do you list as references that will sufficiently impress them even if they never actually contact them? The references were particularly trying because you generally did not know all their addresses and phone numbers by heart and would often vary them to the circumstance. You would have to get out your by-now ragged-edged folded contact cheat sheet and match them to your supposed idea of who served your needs best on that occasion.

I had just turned their form from front to back and was getting ready to pull out my sheet to begin creating what we of social media now call a profile. That’s when the air went out of my desire balloon to work there. Amidst all the unceasing, unpleasant racket I came to the conclusion this was not the place for me. At that point, the fellow waiting on me to finish came over and asked how the application was coming. You may have figured out from reading other posts on this blog that being straight forward, though at times verbose, is my strong suit, even to a fault. I didn’t name it Frankly Speaking just for optimizing web-crawling search engines to find it. I actively try to avoid search-ability. I can be the same in a face-to-face situation. In that spirit, and sparing him any verbosity unlike here, I gave him my direct 10-word reply:

“I was just thinking about throwing it in the trash.“

That’s when it happened. I didn’t realize it the time, but that man, in only two seconds, was about to change my life forever. This year, 2023, marks a decades-old anniversary date of that happening. He replied with a 4-word, two-second life-changing response:

“Let’s talk about it.“

There may be many things about that conversation I don’t recall, but I vividly remember those precise words. How many other potential employers would have justly replied to my curt response, “Okay. Thanks for coming in. Don’t let the door hit ya’ where God split ya’ on the way out,”? I have no idea why he showed any interest in my decision or compassion toward my frustrated but unintended near-smart-aleck attitude. In the short time I was there I had decided being a copy camera operator for them was not where or how I wanted to start my image creating career. Taking pictures of artwork and copy created by others at Copy Boy alone in a dark room onto huge Kodalith sheets to later be transferred onto printing plates for the presses of newspapers, magazines and other similar flat media was not my idea of a creatively satisfying day. I may be an introvert, but I have never wanted to exist as a hermit in a dark cave for my work environment.

After all this time, I don’t remember the exact conversation. I do remember the particulars though. He asked why I had applied for that specific job; why my initial interest in it? What was it I was hoping to do as a career? What were my educational and job experiences? I no doubt responded with youthful prattle about being a photographer based more on idealism than factual knowledge. He was polite enough to indulge me instead of dismiss me. Because he asked and not only listened but heard, he made a decision to send me in a direction that put me on my life-long career path; a career that has brought me great career joy and contentment as well as creative satisfaction.

When I say, “he sent me,” I am not speaking of directional advice given but him actually sending me to see someone he was certain would hire me. You may argue that it was that second person who changed my life and that would be true too, but I would not have begun to be standing in front of him had it not have been for that interviewing manager and his sympathetic response. That was the 4-word, 2-second moment when my life forever changed.

Since then

Some days I have worked with some people I would rather have not met.

Some days have made some demands of me I would rather have not met.

Some days I have had to make some decisions others did not want to meet.

Some days have even put my life in peril.

But, I lived through those days and am here to tell the tales. Those “some days” occasions have all been temporary. That is one of the benefits of the job. Like the military, no post or command is forever. Unlike the military, you aren’t required to accept a bad duty assignment. As a freelance independent contractor you can always respond to and reject an undesirable hiring situation with, “Sorry, I’m already booked,” If you have a good reputation with the skills to support it, other work will come along and that passed-over client may quite possibly call back some other day in the future with something more desirable.

Some days I wish I still had all those physical, mental and creative challenges to meet.

“So,” you’re wondering? Where did he send me that led to a fantastic life-long and life-changing career and what was it?

If you have in past posts read Two Degrees from You— “…Every Person Is a New Door, Opening up into Other Worlds’ “ or My Dinner With a Vampire, a General and a King you may already have an inkling. In My Life Changed in a Moment, Part II, I’ll tell all.

Did 9/11 Really Happen?

SOURCE

I don’t intend to revisit 9/11 in any particular detail. I have already said what I wanted to say concerning the tragedy of that day in a previous post. It has been reported on at great length and continues to be so even now decades later on its anniversary date. Interestingly, the reporting has changed little as to the detail and perpetrators. There are revelations here and there that purport that there are still truths we do not now and that have been withheld from us. Among them is that it was an inside job formulated by then President George Bush and the CIA. In light of these revelations, some perennial and some annual, I am beginning to wonder, did 9/11 really happen?

After all, we only have the mainstream media to rely on as the definitive source; no other trusted arbiters of absolute truth or bastions of freedom of the press. You have to remember the first Twitter tweet was published on March 21, 2006, nearly 4 1/2 years later. Facebook didn’t first post until February 4, 2004, nearly 2 1/2 years later. The first Instagram post was on July 16, 2010, very nearly 9 years later. MySpace (don’t pretend you don’t know the name) first launched August 1, 2003, nearly 2 years too late.

Without these purveyors of absolute truth how do we know we have not been duped with mis- and disinformation by an agenda-driven mass media? Where were the legions of self-qualified fact checkers reporting fresh truths told by “highly-connected reliable anonymous (Aren’t they always?) sources?” Where were the leaks of restricted confidential and classified information held by the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, and other alphabet investigative bodies? Have we been kept in the dark all this time?

Social media would have figured it all out in no time at all. It took nearly 10 years to accuse, find and kill Osama bin Laden. Hell, it only took a little over a month to find and attempt to kill a Supreme Court justice once his and other addresses were outed by social media. If only they had known in which bedroom Kavanaugh slept like we did with bin Laden. In 2019 the U.S. had 630.000 reported abortions. Apparently that seemed a fair trade to the demonstrators outside his home and would be assailant: One father and husband for all those babies.

Whether you are pro choice or pro life it would seem both those numbers would give you pause. The first numbers far exceed the estimated 2,974 deaths on 9/11 or the 4,343 survivors and first responders to die since from toxic exposure. Then you have the great number in the military who have died since 9/11 as we brought the justice to our enemies. The second single number received much less press other than regarding the arrest of the would-be assailant. After all, Kavanaugh was on the wrong side of history social and mass media would tell us. There is a constitutional law forbidding what the demonstrators were doing. They were on the wrong side of a law while demonstrating their right to free speech. Social and mass media saw no dichotomy there and neither did the DOJ and U.S. Attorney General or those of all the justices’ resident states. Justice and enforcement of the law can be fickle it seems.

All of this is to say, if 9/11 or a similar terrorist attack were to happen again, how would we as a sorely divided nation respond? How many would think it an internal conspiracy? How many would feel we deserved it as retribution for our alleged past racist and colonial sins? How many would come forward to exact a price from our enemy? How many would find it possible to stand beside their political opposite in defense of a nation they no longer feel represents them? Are we now so far apart we cannot come together to defend a common purpose or a greater good when, not if, that need will arise; or does the ballot box divide us to the point that a common enemy has but to wait as we crumble?

I have tried so hard not to involve this blog in the current political and social fray, but I fear for the perpetuation of this nation and the goodness the mass of its people have always cherished and stood for. That goodness for which foreign peoples still will risk their lives in an effort to become citizens so they may stand among us and seek their destiny. We are better and not as full of hate as social media and the mainstream media profess and present us to be. Don’t believe the ugly picture they paint.

Illegitimi non carborundum

ADDENDUM 9/17/2022

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Source

Why the Big Bang Is No Longer a Theory: A Terrible Responsibility

Synonyms for terrible: appalling, awful, dangerous, dire, disturbing, dreadful, extreme, frightful, horrendous, serious, severe, shocking, unfortunate, unpleasant, desperate, dreaded, fearful, inconvenient, offensive, unnerving, unwelcome, and abhorrent.

I have been trying to finish this post for nearly a year. While thinking about writing more on it today I decided I need to preface it with the fact that I am a lot older than some of you may speculate. I tell you this because I want you to know I have seen America through good times and not so good. Notice I did not qualify America itself as good and bad. Having lived through and seen so much political, social and economic turmoil ebb and flow I know we will in time rise above the worst things. We are not bad people or a bad nation. That doesn’t mean bad behaviors are never exercised though, I will agree.

This post will be about a particular reaction in my life resulting from the escalating criminal violence that has developed in the last few years, particularly the last two, 2020 and 2021. I live in a city whose murder rate in 2021 set a new all time high. Per capita, we slightly outrank Chicago. The previous record was set in 2020. Over 500 people living here not killed were injured by gunfire in 2021.

“On the last day of 2020, at least 20 people were shot and killed in the United States. Among them, one was a teenager in Philly. Another man was killed in San Jose, Calif. A 75-year-old was shot in Richmond, Va. And a man and a woman were found shot dead inside their vehicle in Louisville, Ky. Those deaths end a record-breaking year for gun homicides in America. According to the Gun Violence Archive, a total of at least 19,223 people lost their lives due to gun violence in 2020.”

Source

Are you seeing a pattern yet over those two years? Add to that, by 2020 armed carjackings rose 150% over the previous year and in 2021 we even exceeded that record. My city is also one that decided to decrease the budget of the police department and enact policies that have created continuing attrition and low morale within the force. They did not do this by a ballot initiative voted upon by the citizens. The city council caved to social pressure as so many have and reaped the same devastating results as so many have. These statistics bear witness to that. Now, they are looking to RE-fund the police to keep the city from going down the tubes as businesses withdraw from and shun cities with rising violent crime. “Goodbye” LA, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Spokane. Alas, we no longer know ye well. Though I am not providing statistical citations as I typically do as to not identify my specific location, the facts are true.

Let’s return to the synonyms at the head of this post. Most people have become lazy with how they define a thing because they have become lazy with words. They no longer are encouraged to read classical literature written my great thinkers whose choice of words when speaking or writing was much more precise. All of the synonyms above represent options for terrible, but you will notice that each one colors “terrible” in its own special way. They each exhibit an emotional value that more precisely defines what “terrible” may mean specific to the particular circumstance begin addressed.

Unfortunate, disturbing, unpleasant and unwelcome do not convey the same emotional distress as do shocking, dire, severe, and horrendous, which are not on an equivalenacy with extreme, frightful, serious, and unnerving.

They all can speak to one thing in particular, however, which I will be addressing.

I hate disclaimers and qualifiers. The fact you’re credited as a sentient, rational-thinking being writing should be the position one should be able to begin from until they or the reader disprove it within the progress of their discourse. That is no longer the case with the exchange of ideas within the marketplace. If one suspects the contrary political or social leanings of the other, the discussion doesn’t even begin. As we listen or read we are at times doing little more than collecting evidence to the contrary as we wait for our turn atop the soap box. It seems, many people troll sites not matching their positions just for the pleasure they derive from being contrary.

I like to reach as many people as possible when I write. For that reason I try to avoid politics, particularly in the current ongoing divisive contrarian climate. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. I do have opinions; some of them very strong as I’m sure you also do. I also don’t want to have my blog canceled and lose all my content that has been safe to this point. I have put a lot of work into my past posts and am proud of them. I’d hate for WordPress to take them down and delete all the content. They are free to do that based on the EULA we all sign on sites to be able to use them. You would think your intellectual property would be archived for your retrieval if taken down.

I have been denied access only once in the distant past for nearly two weeks. They do not tell you why at the time or for how long. All you know is your writing and blog are at peril. Eventually they sent a mail telling me the problem was the attribution to a photo I had used linked to a site they felt was spam. All that was needed was for me to change the photo to one with other attribution. It seems they could have put the horse before the cart and mailed me first but it’s not their way.

EVEN SO

At peril to my blog, I am going to address an issue that has become increasingly political. I am not going to plead one side or the other, though in the course of the post I may have to advocate for a position based on facts I feel should be apparent to any reasoning human being because there are statistical data to back them up or sufficient anecdotal data to begin a consideration of the topic. I do not want, nor will I engage in, a discussion as to any interpretation of the second amendment or it as a proposed causation for some of the devastating effects of gun violence and I will not publish any comments that do. It’s not that I want to deny your free speech but I don’t want to engage in that debate here and now and end up plunged into the whirlpool of dis- or mis- information accusations. My goal is to present relevant issues concerning the subjective “why” of the meteoric rise in gun ownership. I may not be a social media titan but I can adopt and play by their exclusionary rules on my blog. If WordPress sees it differently then I still deem it worth the risk.

This is published as a public service announcement. My concession to a disclaimer to cover for WordPress.

The issue is firearm ownership.

Does anyone reading know directly or personally someone affected by a wounding or killing caused by non-military, non-governmental use of firearm? The question is not written to boost participation in the comments. It’s actually rhetorical to allow me to tell you I do. I know someone who, during their late adolescence, had their father shot and killed with a handgun. It was an easy to shoot revolver and all six shots were fired. It takes no training if the gun is already loaded and the safety is off. If single action, pull the hammer back. Point gun. Pull trigger. At a distance of 10 feet or less, missing a human being who’s holding still is next to impossible if the shooter keeps their eyes open. With six chances, even a child could do it and tragically some have. I won’t get into the why of this particular killing. I won’t even say that had he had a gun to defend himself it never would have happened. Who’s to say with any authority?

My point is that it did happen and there was no pre-qualifying involved; only the availability of a simple to use loaded firearm. If you’ve ever shot a cap gun, water pistol, dart gun, nerf gun, bb gun, or pellet gun, you know how to aim and pull a trigger. You’re already proficient enough at close range. Easy peasy. It’s far from being tossed the keys and plopping behind the wheel for the first time and being told “let’s hop up on the 10-lane freeway during rush hour, open her up and see how you do.” Even if you’re only sitting on the couch with a controller driving on a screen, it won’t be as perfectly executed as holding, pointing and shooting with a real weapon that first time at a body mass at close range.

The person who lost their father so early on in both their lives has had an aversion to firearms of any sort in their home for almost 50 years. No handguns. No rifles, No shotguns. Not even for hunting. They have nothing against hunting for food procurement or target shooting as a sport; it’s only the association with the death of their father that creates their disdain for guns, particularly handguns. They still fear what can happen with a loaded weapon available. Now though, in their life and of those they love, they fear more what can happen if one isn’t available. Very available.

Before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and “fact checkers” decided from their distant perches what was fact and truth and what wasn’t in their own little unexamined worlds, there were local newspapers or other media where journalist reported on happenings as reported to them by others: trusted merchants, residents, police, neighbors, fire departments, EMS workers and listening to scans of municipal radios. The complete truth was often worse than what the nightly news reported which was bad enough. Much worse. The county never wanted to paint a true picture since there was little being done to address it. So much crime. So little human and fiscal resources and so little will.

The police have all but stopped responding to calls not involving immediate danger to human life and then responses are less than optimal as to the timing of their arrival on scene. Petty crimes draw petty responses. Armed car jacking has quadrupled. Parking lot/garage assaults, muggings, thefts and break-ins have skyrocketed. Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent, liberal, conservative or libertarian the numbers are the numbers. You may want to argue the why behind those numbers as I do, but that’s not for here and now either.

My point for here and now is there is a reason to be of concern and people are showing that concern by leaving locations of heavy crime if they have the means to do so and are also buying guns in record numbers; 44 million doing so legally during 2020 through January 2021. Over 5 million were first-time purchasers. Black and women purchases are up. The purchases that weren’t legal were most likely the bad guys. Whether you think this is the best response to the rise in violent crime or not is your opinion. Their opinion is they do not feel secure from crime and have little faith in an effective police response at a time when rapid, effective response is discerned as the very real difference between life and death.

Defunding the police has broad consequences just as it would with any social support agency. Less police; less enforcement; less prosecution; less incarceration; more crime; more bad guys on the street doing more bad things. There’s nothing to say that funds diverted from the police to other social agencies will substantially reduce drug and gang crime that I’m aware of. Theories maybe, but I am not aware of any long-term studies supported by empirical data.

It seems only reasonable that there are people who fear for their safety under those circumstances, especially older people who are less agile while being more fragile. Two or three 12-year-olds together can pretty well stomp and beat anyone over 60 into a broken mass on the ground to take their purse or wallet and car. The elder person may end up hospitalized, disabled or dead. For them and many others a gun is seen as an intended equalizer to prevent that from happening. They don’t want to wound or kill anyone, but they don’t want to be the broken victim either. It puts both the perpetrator and the victim in an undesired spot. A terrible spot. Shoot a child giving you a beat down or surrender your health, wealth and maybe life to them. Neither side of the story makes good press for the one left standing. Sure it would be a difficult and terrible decision to shoot anyone, let alone an adolescent. You are saying probably, I could never do that. Let’s take it out of your hands then. And the hands of a defunded police force. Let’s say it’s your elderly mother or father being kicked and beaten bloody and they have the means to bring it to a stop. What would you want them to do?

(In Washington, DC a 15- and 13-year-old girl stole a car at gunpoint and a fatality resulted. Neither knew how to drive. In Chicago an 11-year-old was arrested as an armed “prolific” carjacker. In Westmont, Il a armed 15-year-old shot a 56-year-old woman during a carjacking. He shot her in the leg as he pulled her from her car by her coat. Do not think minors are not to be feared. FYI, I went 6 pages into Google and it appears armed carjackings are most prevalent there. Odd that would be the case in a city where legal handgun ownership by the average civilian is almost nonexistent and CCW is highly restrictive. Seems to be working for the criminals.)

The first thing to know about owning a gun for self defense is if you are not willing to commit to killing or maiming anyone of any age or gender in defense of life or liberty to yourself or another, don’t buy a gun. I’ll address this dilemma in Part 2 of this series.

 

When Is An Accident Not An Accident?

Shortly after beginning my career, I had the emotionally unfortunate experience of seeing an actor get shot in the face. For me it was unfortunate. For the actor it was far worse though not fatal. I will not be naming names so you will have to trust but not be able to verify. I don’t know that there was any press coverage of it either. It happened during a night shoot so there were no non-production witnesses around and production drove the actor to the emergency room in a company vehicle. We did not have an armorer on set though we did have a special effects technician supervising all explosive effects. Both weapons involved were double action revolvers, a .38 special and .357 magnum befitting the characters.

I do not remember after all this time the particulars as to what safety procedures or protocols were followed. I do remember what happened during the take though. It was a cat-and-mouse chase scene in a rail car yard. The bad guy was pursing the good guy among the cars. The good guy had taken a position flat against the side of a box car while waiting for the bad guy to turn the corner coming around the end of the car. When the bad guy turned the corner he was going to be surprised by the good guy waiting. He was. Very surprised.

I have recently seen the movie (which was released) and do not remember if that action was scripted or if the tense actor accidentally pulled the trigger discharging the gun. The bad guy actor was within a few feet of the muzzle and received the heat, flash, pressure and residue of the powder plus the fiery wadding in the end of the blank cartridge full in the face. I do know he was not blinded but burned severely.

Recently there was a shooting death on the movie set of Rust. It has been called an accident by the media. The death was certainly a tragic accident, but the shooting was no accident. To understand why I say that you must first understand the difference between what is classified as an accidental discharge and a negligent discharge of a weapon.

“We’ll start off by saying no, accidental discharges and negligent discharges are not interchangeable and do not mean the same thing. But they both can happen. I’ve seen the term accidental discharge used by the media and firearm owners when they should have used the term negligent discharge.

Let’s take a look at the definitions of both:

• Accidental: happening by chance, unintentionally, or unexpectedly.
• Negligent: failing to take proper care in doing something.

As you can see, they each mean something entirely different. And many people will say that there are no such things as an accidental discharge and that all accidental discharges are actually negligent discharges.

I’ll agree that most of the time I see or hear someone talking about an accidental discharge, they should be calling it a negligent discharge. Whatever the case is, usually there is something that the operator has done or not done that caused the firearm to discharge. Most of the time it is caused by them not following the fundamental rules of gun safety be it the NRA’s Three Safety Rules or some of the other gun safety rules.“

SOURCE

On movie sets when any type of weapons are involved it is typical protocol to have at least a head props person responsible for those weapons and often they employ an armorer with specific knowledge and familiarity with the chosen weapons: blades, spears, bows, clubs, rocks, guns and the like. If guns, their duties include the proper and timely loading and unloading the weapons and securing them. The armorer releases the weapon to the actor who returns it to them when the takes are finished.

It is the responsibility of the head props or armorer to make sure the weapon is in a safe condition when handed off. They also may coach the actor on the proper and safe handling as well as realistic use of same. If there is a mistake at this point, it is the result of an act of negligence.

Now comes the question of just how much did Alec Baldwin know about guns and gun safety, particularly revolvers? For a single-action revolver to fire a bullet the hammer has to be drawn back which both advances the cylinder to the next cartridge and sets the trigger. When the trigger is pulled it releases the hammer. The hammer strikes the firing pin which impacts the primer in the cartridge. If the cartridge is a loaded blank or live round there is a discharge. Even if a blank, there will be gas, fire and some material that is projected from the barrel. Because of this the gun, any gun, is never pointed at anything you do not intend to damage or kill and your finger is never within the guard or on the trigger until you have a target sighted. As you are sighting you make sure you are aware of what is before, behind and to the left and right of your target.

If Alec Baldwin knew all of this as he should have, the shooting was negligence on his part, not an accident. Even if he did not know any of these things, he was still negligent for breaking gun safety rule one which is to treat every gun as loaded with live ammunition, even if you have just unloaded it yourself.

You might want to argue, “But what if he didn’t? What if he knew nothing about guns?” I then would point out to you what is almost a universal admonishment made, even by those unfamiliar with guns, when a gun is being handled in a group of people,

“Don’t point that thing at me! It could be loaded.“

There currently are a number of reports concerning other discharges that allegedly happened on set days leading up to this incident. In time the full truth will come out. No matter what the truth is, it will not change the basic facts above that the occurrence was avoidable and negligence was the cause. Both whoever was responsible for the securing of the weapons and Alec Baldwin were negligent. As with all negligent “accidents” in life, had proper safety rules and procedures been followed, it would not have happened. The FBI has since issued a forensic report saying that it is impossible for the particular gun used in this incident to fire without pulling the trigger. With the hammer on the revolver in full or half-cock position, striking the hammer alone will not cause the weapon to fire. It has been Baldwin’s contention all along that he did not pull the trigger.

I don’t know Mr. Baldwin’s politics as concerns the second amendment and gun ownership. If negative, it may have prevented an interest on his part of becoming familiar on his own with the safe handling of a firearms. Gun ownership often has no requirement that knowledge of and/or proficiency with needs to be exhibited before a firearm can be purchased. With the exception of the varying requirements of carry permits, there is no rigorous licensing test as with driving an vehicle. But then, most driver’s licenses only require proficiency with rules of the road and no exhibition of extensive competent operation of the vehicle.

If you can drive in a straight line, stop it and park it you are likely good to go. You can then buy and drive anything from a VW to a Corvette. Not that much unlike purchasing a gun. Well, unless you are a convicted felon or mentally defective. Then you can still purchase and drive that car. Even with 2 or 3 past DUIs and no regular proof that you no longer drink being required to do so, with the right judge and district attorney you can still drive.

Hey, Dave!

Normally, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to say when I start tapping away at these keys.

Not this time.

I’m here now because I picked up a new subscriber recently. Dave. I know noting else about him other than his name. I am pleased he thought enough of my writing to become part of the community, but wonder why he jumped on board when my last post was almost a year ago and the one before that was around 4 months earlier. Pretty skimpy compared to when I first started and was laboring through about one per week which were averaging about 2,000 words, a good amount of links to additional material and a smattering of graphics or photos. For the type of blog this is, the posts are really too long. I should chop them down to smaller 500 word quick reads; something I tried to do by creating the category “Quickies,” but still failed to do. I have no control over them. As I have said before here or some other place. I don’t write these. They write themselves and they write until they have said all they want. I begin with an idea and then start down a path. Sometimes they stay the course, and other times they evolve. I have had more than one post take an unexpected turn while searching for supporting facts or a photo even. This past post is a perfect example. I began with the sentiment expressed in the first meme with the baby, a meme I stumbled upon that inspired me to begin writing. When I found the second meme of the adult woman as I was writing, my purpose completely changed. Now that you know this, as you look for it you can see the change happening, can’t you? The post wrote itself. My style is very open in that way. I’m not afraid to let kismet work its magic. Now, I’m going to create another paragraph because blogging 101 tells me not only are my posts too long, but so are my paragraphs; like this one.

Better now. An interesting yet frustrating thing has happened as this blog has aged. I still get a few new readers, but not as many comments as I did initially. Hardly any at all as a matter of fact. I’m not sure what to make of it in light of how social media commenting has exploded during the same time. EVERYone is willing to say just about ANYthing about EVERYthing; and almost all of it with little to no anonymity. It’s not just my blog either. I’ve read some very interesting, well-written posts other places and they go begging for reader comments, some even months after being published. I find myself wondering how the authors stay motivated to continue writing. I am assuming they are getting visits but only they know their stats. Maybe I am wrong and no one is reading. Just because they clicked on lured by an interesting title doesn’t mean they stayed after the first few lines. Time to move along. Getting better at the rules, huh?

I used to believe I was a writer because I was enjoying the process. As a life-long introvert, what I probably was enjoying was being able to talk without being talked over. So, was I really a writer, or was I newly birthed talker? And because they were reading, I translated that to mean they were “listening.” We introverts hardly ever get the chance to talk, let alone be listened to when we do. How do I know they were listening? They were commenting. And I always replied to each comment unless it was apparent they were a troll. And they might reply back. That for me was like a conversation. Something introverts rarely get engaged in. (Yes, I could have written there “..conversation; something in which introverts rarely engage” like a good writer and not dangled my preposition as I learned to not do in Latin class, not English grammar, but I ain’t gonna. You may have noticed I break a lot of rules here.) Move on, Dan.

What is it that’s so important about the comments for me? I’m not just any old garden variety introvert. I’m that special rare hybrid: an INFJ. If you clicked the link, take special note of #2 in the list. When people bother to comment on the blog, they are opening themselves up to a deeper discussion with me, not a superficial one. The way I write does not encourage superficiality on the part of our community. The comment/reply format also has a great advantage over live conversation for INFJs and all introverts. Built into the format is a time delay. We are perfectionists for the most part. We want to say the right thing the first time. We need time to process our remarks. We can hold on hitting the keys to express ourselves until we are comfortable with our response. We even have that time between finishing writing and hitting the submit radio button to take a last look. No blurting out a mistake for either party. (Raise your hand if you’re old enough to know what a radio button is. Extra points if you know how to set the stations in a car with that AM radio…mounted in a metal dash…with chrome trim…and an ash tray and lighter…one speaker in the middle…pre 8-Track or cassette or CD or MP3/4 or bluetooth or satellite internet.) Notice how this post is beginning to evolve and write itself? Ooops. Time to move on. Paragraph police.

You may have noticed in the past I wrote a lot about marriage, relationships and sex. I have never presented myself as an expert or academic but I did research those topics to be able to present facts. I wanted to avoid writing only what amounted to my opinion, factual or otherwise. I have always made every effort to give attribution through the use of hyperlinks when stating facts or giving proof . (Bad blog etiquette is to create a link that opens onto another page or opens a new tab. I do it all the time.) After the first year, the more I read, the less I felt I knew. Not so much because of the mass of information available, but that rapidly evolving science kept moving the goalposts. Being a perfectionist, I didn’t want to publish incorrect information from old data so I decided to stop writing until I could research some more.

Now here I am 7 years in from the start and still stuck. It’s not writer’s block though. As you may have noticed, I can chatter away here quite prolifically. I am having a problem with feeling the information I am studying is factually accurate and relevant. The actions and positions of social media and mainstream publishing have me now wondering how unbiased is what I have been reading in the sciences. How were the studies and surveys conducted and who funded them? Did they have an agenda? If so, what was it and did it skew the data? All these current political shenanigans that have upended trust in any media have me wondering just whom can I trust? Worse, what might I say that may subject me to cancellation and attack because it’s not popular or used the wrong pronouns? It’s not a part of my day-to-day life and a lot to keep up with. Ooops. It’s a lot with which to keep up. Ooops again. It’s a lot to keep track of. NOPE. It’s a lot with which to keep track. There. Watch those prepositions. Cut and run.

It used to be you could turn on the network news and you felt you were getting a fair amount of accuracy and representation on all sides of an issue. No longer. Questioning the accuracy of the news, if you dare, is not only a matter of whether you are conservative or liberal; democrat, independent or republican because often the lie or misrepresentation is so blatantly obvious. When you have seen a verifiable factual telling of another side of an issue or story elsewhere you wonder why others choose not to address those same facts. Then you find yourself wondering who you can trust for true facts; all of the facts. Not their interpreted truth, but the facts from which you can form your own opinion. They have destroyed my faith in media of all sorts. What is being published and why, and what isn’t and why?

Now, when I read the latest study or research, I find myself wondering if they asked after each new piece of information the “and then what” question until they ran out of questions? How thorough was their effort? How deeply did they dig into the issue? When I bother to read or watch the news anymore, I find myself asking the print or video “journalists” on the screen that same question which they seem to not bother asking.

“And then what?”

Asked by me and every other thinking human being reading and watching

It’s Not All About You: Non-sexual Touch, Pt 3

In Part 2 of this series I wrote that we may purposely avoid touching our wives if we feel it will arouse us. Our concern is 1) we may become aroused and 2) it will happen at a time when you will not feel the same and any advance we make will be rejected. Do not feel I am saying that each time we touch you we absolutely do become aroused and that we expect you to be sexually available and willing each time we become aroused. Being rejected, (or perhaps refused is a better word) can carry a lot of emotional baggage with it for some relationships. The husband may feel, as also a refused wife may, unloved, undesired, inadequate, disrespected, unattractive, and unneeded. There is so much there I could get into but I want to take a different approach as to the more immediate consequences of being sexually refused as a man. I choose to discuss these consequences because I feel they best demonstrate why NST is a challenge for us. The challenge is the arousal touching you creates within us.

 

---

At this point I am going to give some of you a break from the often deeply-researched background that is typical of my writing. My mother used to say, to little affect apparently, “Sweetheart, they just want to know what time it is, not how a watch works.” Below, I set the stage for the graphic in this post that is key to my point about NST and male arousal. If you feel this information falls under TL;DR for you, cut and run to the Weekly Handy Work graphic.

---

 

I have no doubt there are many wives who think husbands make a bit much of how strong the male desire for sex is and how often they think we would like to have sex with them. There is an iconic scene that illustrates this from the 1977 movie Annie Hall in which Alvy (Woody Allen) and Annie (Diane Keaton) play a couple who are at separate but simultaneous sessions in their therapist’s offices. They are bemoaning the fact that they never enjoy themselves anymore, individually or as a couple. The full scene lasts less than a minute. You can see it here if you wish. The scene is played out in split-screen with Annie on the left and Alvy on the right.

Left Annie: …Brooklyn was the last day I remember having a really good time.

Right Alvy: We never have any laughs anymore is the problem.

Left Annie: I’ve been moody and dissatisfied.

Right Alvy’s therapist: How often do you sleep together?

Left Annie’s therapist: Do you have sex often?

Right Alvy: (Despairing) Hardly every. Maybe three times a week.

Left Annie: (Grousing) Constantly. I’d say three times a week. Like the other night, Alvy wanted to have sex.

Right Alvy: She would not sleep with me the other night you know. It’s just…

Left Annie: And…I don’t know. Six months ago I would’ve done it. I would’ve done it just to please him. You know?

Right Alvy: I tried everything.You know, I…I put on soft music and my red light bulb.

It would seem Alvy is wired differently than Annie and I think that’s true of men and women in real life in general which ironically gives the scene its stinging comedic value. There is so much we see differently from our separate gender paradigms. More than that, there is so much we feel differently; not only emotionally, but physically too. Both types of feelings are affected by our hormonal levels as well as other factors. Our sexual desire is affected by the hormones estrogen and testosterone. Testosterone, to a great degree, determines the strength of our individual sexual desire, particularly in men. We men naturally have much more free testosterone in our system than women…way more.

Adults

Age	Male (in ng/dl)	Female (in ng/dl)
17 to 18 years	300-1,200	20-75
19 years and older	240-950	8-60

Source

You may have noticed the extremely broad range of nanograms per deciliter of free testosterone in males. That makes applying the terms of low and high regarding testosterone levels in men a complex judgement call involving a lot of factors and choosing to boost testosterone through therapeutic intervention something to be considered with great caution. If you have a “low” level, your body may well have its own reason for being at that level and boosting it could have very adverse affects. T-level is not a one-size-fits-all factor. This is by far not a sure case of “if some is good then more is definitely better.”

Having done my due diligence by giving the above caveat concerning T-augmentation, what are the issues for either sex of having too low a T-level?

“Testosterone levels decrease naturally with age in both sexes.

In males, lower testosterone levels can lead to:

• hair loss (including on the body and face)
• reduced muscle tone
• more fragile skin
• a reduced sex drive
• disturbed mood
• memory or concentration problems

Low testosterone levels in females can lead to:

• irregular or missed periods
• low sex drive
• vaginal dryness
• weak bones
• fertility problems

However, more research into the effects of low testosterone on the body as people age is needed.”

Source

I would draw your attention to what I regard as a subtle but significant language difference within two descriptive bullet points between men and women. Those are—

“In males, lower testosterone levels can lead to:

• a reduced sex drive“

Low testosterone levels in females can lead to:

• low sex drive

For women, low T could lead to a “low” sex drive. For men though, it could lead to a “reduced” sex drive. To put that in a sexist but effective light women may relate to, I see it as the difference between having a reduced weight from your dieting and a low weight. Reduced carries the implication that there is still sufficient retained weight to be a reason to continue with a healthier eating and fitness plan. Low weight implies you may have reached your goal and can stop…the diet, not the sex.

Reduced T could imply that a man’s T is down some, but still within what is normal for him meaning his sexual desire may still be functioning at a “normal” level for men. “So,” you are wondering, “what is your point? What does all this have to do with NST?”

We are not unlike women in that sexual tension can be a condition that builds incrementally over a timeline. We too can anticipate what tonight, the weekend or a planned getaway might contain that will reward our libidos and bring us into a stronger emotional connection with our spouses. Where we do significantly differ though is in how quickly that tension can rise up. When our testosterone-fueled sex drive causes our arousal to rise to a threshold point that creates sexual tension or anxiety within us, we will typically look to release that tension. In a perfect world, our mate would be available, willing, ready and, most importantly, enthusiastic in helping relieve that tension.

I hear you saying in your defense that this is not a perfect world and to get over it. Guess what? You’re right. The world is not perfect. You’re off the hook. You’ll get no argument on that from me. You win. Imperfect world. Hands down.

But, while we’re on the topic of hands, consider this—

Below is a graphic displaying the average number of times a man might masturbate per week. Yes, that’s per week and times with an “s.”

http://

Embedded from BestInfographics.co

Notice, according to these statistics, a combined 55% (36.7+18.6%) of men are personally relieving their sexual tension between 4 and 15 times per week. Granted the largest single percentage is 37% at only 4-7 times per week, but that is still a lot of men doing it a lot of times in 7 days. Based on 7 times in 7 days it may be fair to speculate there are men masturbating daily. Factor into that at least a few of them may be getting additional partner-assisted sex on average 2 times per week. That’s sexual satisfaction sought 6-9 times per week by the average husband married to the average wife who is involved statistically in an average of two of those occasions…on average. That’s a lot of flying solo.

[One thing piqued my curiosity and I was unable to find any statistics. I would like to tease out figures regarding masturbation between married and unmarried men. Would there be a difference. One could assume married men would masturbate less because of the availability of a partner to have sex with, but if not statistically supported, what might that tell us about married sex in general?]

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s not wrong with this picture is the better question? The one thing I feel the need to clearly establish up front as to what is not wrong is masturbation, in and of itself, as a form of sexual pleasure and/or release. I do not hold the position of some marriage and relationship bloggers that masturbation is absolutely unacceptable in a relationship and always damaging to intimacy.

The reason I say this is that masturbation is sex of a form, and sex within marriage has been established as good and masturbation has not been specifically excluded. Onanism in the Bible was not addressing masturbation but withdrawal, if anything, and that only because Onan in so doing was defying Judah, displeasing God and denying Tamar, his widowed sister-in-law heirs to care for her in her declining years. Actually, little has been specifically excluded between a husband and wife though we are admonished that not all is beneficial. I can’t honestly condemn masturbation by either partner when done in moderation (however done and however much that may be individually) as irreparably damaging to a marriage, if at all. It may; however, put a damper on one partner’s libido and desire at time that is inconvenient to the other.

It is possible circumstances involved in a masturbatory act may create undesirable issues though. Primary of those circumstances are that it is most often done alone which means it is probably kept secret from the other significant person in the relationship. Because that relationship is built on a deep trust that is unique to it, keeping this secret from your partner may signal to them that you do not trust them to know all about you, especially about things intimate which are at the core of the relationship you share. If you withhold that, what else might you be withholding they may wonder?

Then there is the fact that you are denying your partner an intimacy that could be shared instead of being selfishly appropriated for your pleasure alone. In all fairness though, if you have a partner that is denying intimacy in the form of sexual sharing and release it is understandable that you may regard self-love as an option that keeps your sexual satisfaction within the bounds of the relationship and precludes cheating or an affair.

There is also the concern of where your thoughts are as you masturbate. What is it that you focus on to achieve and maintain arousal to the point of orgasm. If you hold an image in your mind is it one of your wife and her body? If a prior experience is in your mind, is it one that you have shared with your wife? If an erotic fantasy, does it involve your wife?

Speaking of your wife, how often do you think she might masturbate? You may notice that the chart and graph provided below do not designate the marital status of the subjects surveyed. I think it is fair to assume though that they did not exclude married participants even if not questioned as a couple since no specific exclusionary data are given.

 

Source

 

Source

An interesting thing about this bottom bar graph is that though the percentages for women are less than those of men, notice how the blue and green bars for each age group are almost proportionally mirror images. Per capita, women may be masturbating less, but the ratios within their respective cohorts seem to closely echo those of men.

 

The Negative Outcomes of Masturbation for Married People

Psychology Today looked into the question of whether masturbation is harmful to the marital union and found that masturbation fills a void when one spouse or the other is unwilling or unable to engage in a mutual sexual activity.

Inadequate Feelings

The spouses who don’t engage in masturbation report displeasure when they discover what their partner has been up to. They tend to blame themselves, assuming that their spouse or partner is bored or unhappy with them.

Substitute For Intimacy

Masturbation is a problem if it interferes with day to day life or if it is used as a substitute for real intimacy with another person.

Trust

A married partner may feel that his or her partner has been keeping secrets if masturbation happens. WebMD quotes David Schnarch, Ph.D., director of The Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colorado, as explaining. “For some couples, it’s a breach. For others, it’s not.”

I am going to close this with a link to a post on Paul Byerly’s blog, The XY Code, titled All Those Years Flying Solo. Take heart, Paul writes more concisely than I. The post doesn’t warrant a TL;DR qualifier. I am sending you there because that post has 54 comments at last count and I value the anecdotal value of reader comments. That is why I try and avoid referring to this as my blog and my community, but call it ours. I may author it, but it is your diverse comments that give it authority.

 

 

 

It’s Not All About You: Non-sexual Touch, Pt 2

In Part 1 of this series, I propose to men how we should try to cultivate the practice of non-sexual touch with our partners. I also explain to women why NST often comes into conflict with the nature of our male sexuality. It is difficult enough for us husbands to have conflicting guilt or shame for desiring our wives. But, worse is how disappointing and disheartening it is to have our wives regard our sexual desire and how we express it for them as crude, lewd and even inappropriate and turn away from us.

Embed from Getty Images

That view of our desire complicates and confuses matters even more. In response to that guilt and shame felt by us, we may purposely avoid touching our wives if we feel it will 1) arouse us and 2) possibly end in rejection or shaming of our feelings for her. (Notice I did not say rejection of a sexual advance from us, but a rejection of what for us feels like a normal and natural way of showing our love.) We physically connect to emotionally connect. It’s a process that works for us. It is how our brains are wired.

Don’t think I am unaware of possible tongue clucking and response that we are not showing our love but our lust. We are doing what is normal for a male and whether it meets with your approval or acceptance or not does not change the fact that it is our normal and what works to connect us with you. To have our normal reactions and feelings dismissed because they are not as you would have them shared leaves us feeling not only confused and misunderstood but also disrespected.

What you are doing is showing a lack of respect for not only what and who we are but whose we are—

Genesis 1:27 ESV / So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Isaiah 64:8 ESV /But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV / Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

Psalm 139:13 ESV/ For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:14 ESV / I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works…

Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV / Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him…

I do not mean to parse the scriptures to our advantage and I am not saying all the above verses were written to exclusively apply to our created sexual nature. What I am saying is they all speak to whose we are and testify that we, both men and women, are created as He intended. In what ways our application of free will determines our manner of sexual behavior or defines the depth of our sanctification and is another side of the story.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. I am justifying our male actions.

“Justify.” That word in contemporary use has acquired a, more often than not, negative connotation and compromised meaning. In today’s culture it seems to popularly mean making excuses for ones bad behavior or a bad outcome resulting from that behavior. If you google a definition for “justify” this comes up top of the page—

jus·ti·fy

verb

gerund or present participle: justifying

1. show or prove to be right or reasonable.

   “the person appointed has fully justified our confidence”

   synonyms:

   give grounds for, give reasons for, give a justification for, explain, give an explanation for, account for; More defend, answer for, vindicate “directors must justify the expenditure”

   • be a good reason for.

     “the situation was grave enough to justify further investigation”

     synonyms:

     warrant, be good reason for, be a justification for “the situation justified further investigation”

2. Theology

   declare or make righteous in the sight of God.

   Source

I am not trying to make excuses or create license for our behavior. Neither am I asking your forgiveness—tolerance or patience perhaps, but never forgiveness. If we are operating by and within God’s design as to our sexuality then there is nothing here to be forgiven.

By the first definition above, I am attempting to “give grounds for, give reasons for, give a justification for, explain, give an explanation for, account for; ” our difficulty with touching you in ways that are not arousing to us and how almost any touch may have a sexual component for us.

Consider a loving mother touching her babies as she feeds, dresses, bathes, plays and cuddles with them. How often is it that she touches her child at other times without experiencing intimate feelings toward them? Since birth she has been touching her child with love in her heart as she performed those and other nurturing acts. Is it not likely that touches at other times might also evoke feelings of love, even if it is a warning holding of their hand to control the child’s inappropriate or careless behavior in a public place?

As often happens with my research, kismet intervenes and at times I come across items which further inform my writing. So it is with the above second definition of justify——

“Theology

declare or make righteous in the sight of God.”

How does that inform this post you might ask? It tells me I shouldn’t have to justify our sexual desire for our wives to our wives. That sexual desire is righteous as it was ordained of God and part of our creation as men by Him. The fact that touching you arouses us is part of his divine plan and the apostle Paul would have us know that arousal is a reason for marriage. God did not remove sexual arousal and desire knowing that it might tempt us to sin, but gave us a way out. He gave us a husband or wife with whom to share that attraction and desire. As such, we should not be condemning our spouse’s desire or making them feel guilty or ashamed of exercising it when it is normally and appropriately displayed.

Paul tells us:

1 Corinthians 7:9 NLT

But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust.

This in no way means that marriage should be seen primarily as a means to satiate our sex drives or primarily to propagate the church. Marriage is to be an outward, worldly manifestation of the relationship between Christ and His church.

John Piper says this about sexual desire in men specifically—

Instead when a person marries—let me simply use the man as an example—he takes his sexual desire, and he does the same thing with it that we must all do with all our physical desires if we would make them means of worship—1) he brings it into conformity to God’s word; 2) he subordinates it to a higher pattern of love and care; 3) he transposes the music of physical pleasure into the music of spiritual worship, 4) he listens for the echoes of God’s goodness in every nerve; 5) he seeks to double his pleasure by making her joy his joy; and 6) he gives thanks to God from the bottom of his heart because he knows and he feels that he never deserved one minute of this pleasure.

Source

For our concerns here I would point husbands to number 2—”he subordinates it to a higher pattern of love and care;” and number 5—”he seeks to double his pleasure by making her joy his joy.” To subordinate means to give some thing a lesser importance than some other thing. In so doing, you are in effect elevating the importance of that other thing. In this case, that other thing is how your wife feels when you touch her; how she interprets the motivation behind your touch. You want her to not feel sexual objectification from your touch, but to feel the depth of your adoration and appreciation of her. If she feels that, she will also feel joy, and through making her joy yours, you will double your pleasure.

What is her joy and how might it double your pleasure? Here is a quote I have harvested from the internet and have the author’s permission to use.

It does make me feel all warm inside just remembering it. Notice he’s getting points for doing it long after he did it and more than just that one time in the moment. Meaning I feel loved remembering it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

It gets my attention when [he] does something different than his usual kiss (a longer kiss while he strokes my hair, a tighter hug, holding my face…And sometimes it undoes me more than a sexual touch. (my underlines)

Did you notice above how little extra effort it takes on our part to imbue our wives with the feeling that their presence in our lives is special and goes beyond only their capabilities to meet our most basic desires and needs and how that effort will have long-lasting benefits? Little meaning these actions are not complex or multi-layered. It is all about being purposeful with your touch. Even if you are clumsy with words and don’t have a hidden Cyrano by your side prompting you and making you an eloquent romantic orator, you can still give her the feeling of being as adored and irreplaceable as she is to you.

All it requires of you is—

Telling her how much,

A gentle, purposeful touch,

A deliberate, firmer embrace,

A little longer lingering as you touch her face.

NST is about establishing and sharing intimacy in a non-sexual manner. The goal is to avoid create a feeling of sexual obligation on her part while creating one of a relaxed mental and physical closeness. Cuddling is a high form of NST between partners. There are also many health benefits that come from cuddling, especially after sharing sex. Here is a site that speaks to cuddling and lists 7 health benefits I feel are true. (It is a site with wellness products which I am in no way involved in promoting, endorsing or selling.)

I came across this comment and asked the permission of the author to use it to illustrate my point.

We desperately want and need to feel loved. That word “desperately” says so much that is unspoken here. When you don’t feel connected, you check the situation extra thoroughly to determine if it really is love.  It is so important to us that we need to be sure it’s actual love and not just a physical hunger from our husband.  I’m not saying a physical hunger is bad.  I’m saying it’s NOT the same as feeling loved and it doesn’t satisfy that need. That “desperate” want and need [for women].

One definition of desperate given in Your Dictionary is

“something sad or hopeless, or a feeling of really wanting something or of trying really hard to make something happen.”

I want to assure the wives and others reading here that none of us husbands want them feeling sad or that the situation is hopeless. As to the second part of that definition, it also has application for us men who work to make a change to remove any such desperation from our wives’ lives. Trying to remedy their desperation can be where our desperation comes into play. It most often manifests itself as a physical desperation which we experience when trying to allay your emotional desperation. You want touch. We are willing to deliver on that want. The problem for us arises in that reasonable and understandable qualifier as reported in the comment.

“It is so important to us that we need to be sure it’s actual love and not just a physical hunger from our husband.“

As stated in Part 1 of this series, It is difficult for us to touch you and not feel sexual arousal at times. I feel some of you are saying “all the time” but I try to avoid absolutes when it comes to emotions and matters of the heart, ergo “at times.” You may have noticed I absolutely try to avoid absolutes whenever possible in my writings here. There is little in life and love that is always and absolute.

Even the desire for sexual action or interaction is not an absolute. There are people who are asexual. They may have little or no sexual attraction or desire toward another. If you are curious as to asexuality, here is a safe place to get some concise information. It does have an LGBTQ agenda if that may be a problem, but not overtly so and seems not to be biased against heterosexuality. The part on asexuality is actually very neutral since it can occur across a broad gender/sexual spectrum. It is thorough for a quick and easy, understandable read.

Since asexuality represents approximately 1% of the population, it would be fair to say that most husbands have both sexual attraction and desire toward their mates. That attraction and desire leaves us longing and desperate to touch you. It would seem to be a perfect match, and it would be except for that qualifier.

“It is so important to us that we need to be sure it’s actual love and not just a physical hunger from our husband.“

In Part 3, I’ll address why the qualifier, though reasonable and understandable, sets a high bar for us.

 

 

 

It’s Not All About You: Non-sexual Touch, Pt 1

This post is about and directed toward my fellow husbands and written as an explanation to our often exasperated wives. I am sure I can say without much reservation there is little that feels more pleasurable and satisfying to us than touching the soft, silken, enchanting flesh of our wives. Touching them is our delight. When you touch her though, does she delight in feeling the touch of your hand, or

Does she feel it’s all about you?

                                         Not her idea of NST.  Source

“Why is it the only time my man touches me is when he wants sex?“

I doubt there is a woman who has spoken those words without lamenting what she feels is a hurtful truth behind them. I am not saying women feel we men are intentionally behaving in a hurtful way. What I am saying is they feel hurt by what they perceive to be the truth behind the above question; hurt by what they believe about us. A truth they may believe which, though partially true, is not always accurate.

The truth they believe is—

---

“The only time he touches me is when he wants sex.”

---

Let me begin by explaining the paradigm that frames the truthful reality prompting their question.

With the great majority of us husbands, it isn’t that we touch you only when we want sex, but that when we do touch you, it inflames our desire to physically connect with you. We touch you when we have a need to feel a connection with you. That connection isn’t only a sexual one though. When we begin to feel emotionally distant from you, touching you is the first thing we will do to begin to re-establish our missing emotional connection. You more often will use relational conversation to establish an emotional connection. I won’t deny that perhaps we should also try verbalizing our feelings more at times, but most of us are not wordsmiths and feel downright clumsy trying to be so. Just ask us, “What do you love about me?” or “How much do you love me?” and you will witness our tongues struggling to utter what we hope will be a romantically acceptable answer. Maybe it shouldn’t be that difficult, but for us it is.

But know this—

Touching you does not mean we are pushing for immediate sex or even have to have sex. We won’t die without sex; maybe only feel like we have. Seriously though, if we are being adequately satisfied through physical sharing in one form or another with you (i.e. not feeling we are on a sexual diet) there are times when mere skin-to-skin contact will give us that emotional connection we desire and need. I know many women will find it difficult to believe that being physically close to you without it always resulting in sex can emotionally satisfy us, but it is true. I do stress though, this will more often be the case if we are being adequately satisfied sexually with consistent regularity.

Know this also—

Adequate satisfaction is not about numbers; it’s about the quality of the sex, as it should be. However, consistent regularity is about numbers. Those numbers will be unique to each couple and likely determined through an informal “negotiation” process by the spouse with the lesser drive of the two. Sexual activity once is less than three times; but then, five is more than three while less than nine. Notice how “more” or “less” is really a relative term when describing libido or drive. Many men would find themselves especially happy with a spouse whose lower drive was for 5 times a week even though 5 was short of the “more” they were giddily anticipating…relatively speaking. It’s fair to say most of us men are as kids in a candy store when it comes to sex. How much and how many kinds can we have? Like those kids, our appetites too will become sated and calm down in time.

“What’s your problem then?”—

The problem is this: if sex is infrequent enough with us our hormones will almost always create tension when we touch you. That tension will rise very quickly into arousal with us. By that point, we will usually find ourselves in a quest seeking relief. That tension may cause some men to emotionally and physically rush through the sharing with their spouse. When that happens we can move too quickly through the progressive building of that sought emotional connection we are needing and which would be satisfying to us both.

And almost finishing in second place is…—

Unfortunately,  At that point, not only is the emotional connection less than satisfying for both, but so is the physical connection. With too little foreplay the likely result is no orgasm for her. An orgasm isn’t the end-all and be-all of sexual sharing with your wife or husband, but it pretty much beats whatever is in second place. No orgasm for her means no release of certain hormones (oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine) specific to feeling the pleasure of sex and the creation of pair bonding.

For us men, it is primarily sex which connects us emotionally with our wives. It’s the way we naturally work. This is not me justifying or giving you an excuse for our behavior. It’s me giving you the natural facts. I do not feel it necessary for any man to justify his desire for his wife or any wife for her husband. It is the way God designed it. If you wish to deny God and his plans for us, then accept that it is the way nature designed things for preservation of the species. Either way, I make no excuses or apologies for men being men and having desire for their wives.

Once we have connected through sex, the problem then becomes the impetus to touch becomes diminished until we feel disconnected once again and this cycle repeats. If only we could think to touch our wives more frequently in a non-sexual way, both wives and husbands would develop a stronger, more consistent connection. Sure, we will still likely use touch as our primary initiating tool when it comes to sex, but hopefully not all of our touches will be seen as disingenuous and opportunistic gestures by you.

“We need to talk!”—

Men can have another problem (But, who’s counting?). Very few of us men will verbalize our emotions that result from these feelings of distance and disconnection. Part of the problem for men is we don’t often analyze why we feel a certain way. We only identify that we have feelings bothering us and then go about fixing those feelings. Unlike women, we generally don’t talk about feelings. We do something about them. What we do may fix it in the short term, but do little in the long term for the relationship since we fail to search out the why of our feelings.

With women, talking about your feelings is almost always the first thing you will do. You may go through a quiet phase first, but at some point, usually sooner than later, you will tell us how you are feeling. Granted, you may be somewhat indirect about it, as in “I’m feeling all alone in this marriage,” instead of “I wish we would do more fun things together like when we first dated,” but you eventually will openly voice your angst and despair. (Despair for our purposes here: a feeling of being without hope or of not being able to improve a situation.)

What befuddles us men is you will first tell us at length how you feel, but not why so we can do something to solve it, being task-oriented as we are. You may get to it in time, or we may have to persistently dig to uncover it. I would speculate the desire to make us dig is to see just how deeply unaware we really are of your needs, a process which almost never goes well—”I’m going to guess and keep missing so we can both become even more frustrated as to why there is a disconnect,” he is thinking to himself.

Not only is this passive/aggressive but also ineffective for solving the problem. You will want to talk about it…and with him. (“Sigh,” despaired all the males reading this who have earned the hat and t-shirt for having been there and done that.) It would be fair to say most males cringe when we hear, “We need to talk,” from or mates.  Admittedly, if we talked—and listened— more often with you it would likely not come to those feelings of dread resulting from starting the conversation later than sooner. Aside: Why is it “conversation” sounds so less foreboding than “discussion?”

Why all this stuff about communication differences when this is supposed to be about touch you might wonder? I bring it up because, on the whole, men are not verbally expressive when it comes to feelings of love and intimacy. We could practice it and perhaps become better at it but until then we could certainly try more NST; something that comes quite naturally to us. Watch any man in a car lot as he moves through the vast selection before him. Those which please him most, piquing his interest and arousing his desire, he will at some point touch, dragging his hand across the body. Car salespersons know this and watch for it. If the car could only respond in kind no doubt we would pay whatever asked without even balking at the infamous and nonnegotiable “dealer prep and interior protection package” charges loaded into the sale. I believe NST (non-sexual touch) is just as valued and needed by our wife/partner/girlfriend as respect is by us and women want to know that touch is a gift that comes without an implied price.

So, where do we start?—

Recently an article came to my attention and I want to share it with you. The author, Shaunti Feldhahn, has published many books on relationship issues and written a few novels as well. Probably the most well-known of her relationship work is the series that began with For Women Only. It was followed 4 years later by For Men Only, which was coauthored with her husband Jeff. Both books were revised in 2013. The …Women Only and …Men Only books of the series have become so highly regarded that they have become almost universally required reading in churches that offer or require premarital counseling.

I would encourage you to read not only the book that applies to the opposite sex, but also the one that applies to your gender. I guarantee you will get a better understanding of yourself if you do.  I know I did. Reading For Women Only gave me insight as to the why of some of my behaviors. Seeing how accurately that book applies to your gender will then help you have confidence in the accuracy of the information found in the one applying to your mate. But, while you are here, click to this short article by Shaunti and give it a read— http://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/communication/5-biggest-little-ways-to-improve-your-marriage

Notice particularly numbers 1 and 3 of the five ways—

1. Takes her hand. (For example, when walking through a parking lot or sitting together at the movies.) This deeply pleases 82 percent of all women.

3. Puts his arm around her or lays his hand on her knee when they are sitting next to each other in public (at church, at a restaurant with friends, etc.). This deeply pleases 74 percent of all women.

(Statistics hers/Emphasis mine)

It’s easy enough for us men to take our wife’s hand or offer our arm as in example #1. That is if we are not walking discourteously out in front of or lagging behind her. It saddens me to see a man walking paces from his wife as if he were not there with her, especially in a parking lot when her safety should be his utmost concern. One excellent up-side of holding your hand is it generally does not create problematic sexual arousal for us. I don’t mean to suggest sexual arousal should be seen as problem, but that it can be uncomfortable it occurs in inconvenient places or at impractical times.

I’m afraid I would not be too far from wrong in saying many women see arousal in quasi-public places as not only inconvenient and impractical, but as inappropriate, which complicates things and increases our frustration all the more. She may be thinking, “How can he be sexually excited in an elevator/car/parking garage/office/restaurant/movie/ballgame/park/swimming pool/hot tub/hiking trail and so many other seemingly disparate venues or times? He needs to calm down!” Or worse, “He needs to get his mind out of the gutter.” Do you realize that if you think in that last way you are actually not only placing his natural and normal desire for you in the gutter, but yourself with it as well since his desire is for you. Is that really where you want to place all of those things? His desire for you doesn’t deserve to be there anymore than you do.

We men need to do #3 way more than we do. Unlike the milder hand-holding, I see it as a more intimate display of affection that is totally appropriate in public and apparently so do 74% of women. Men or women, our hands are constantly exposed and frequently used for the most mundane things of life, but our thighs, waist and neck are less accessible and then only to a select few. Touching there is a warmer gesture both emotionally and physically which makes it more intimately satisfying while still being seen as appropriate by that overwhelming majority of women.

Kissing too, can be a form of nonsexual touch. We’ve all kissed our mother, daughter, sister or a very close friend showing intimacy with them in a nonsexual way. Kissing can be a possible way to engage in NST and increase intimacy and connection with our spouse. It’s no secret that women love to be kissed by their spouse and also no secret that women feel we don’t kiss them often enough or long enough when we do. To often our kisses are of the obligatory “drive by” type as we pass in a rush on our way out the door. Take the time to kiss her as if it may be your last. You never know when it just may be.

Men, touching the woman in your life is not all about you, even if your motivation is the desire to maintain a deep emotional connection with her and what is compelling you to touch her. That deep emotional connection is most often created for us through sex and we usually initiate that sharing with touch. Even if she understands this, she needs touches from you that are not those which are your way of suggesting she meet your need for connection through sexual intimacy. She needs touches from you that are about her; touches that show you value her as an intelligent, nurturing and anchoring presence in your life.

Frankly Speaking, though sexual contact between consenting couples is usually intimate, not all intimacy has to be sexual to express and share our love.

Part 2 of this series will address the NST dilemma for men and how they very often address the lack of intimacy they feel with a more hands-on approach.

 

 

My Dinner With a Vampire, a General and a King

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

The Go-Between By L.P. Hartley

The best way to start a good story is to start with a great first line which gives a sense of mood, time and place or purpose. I am blatantly stealing Hartley’s first line. I could write nothing more perfect for the task at hand of telling two memories from my past.

I was a month from 15 years old before I ever saw or spoke to a Negro in person, or anyone of any other race for that matter. I may have before then as a toddler, but if so, I don’t recall. It was a time before “African American”, “person of color” and “black” were commonly used and considered acceptable by those that bore those titles. Up until that time, I had lived only in states that would have been northern sympathizers and vacillating border slave states during the Civil war. I have ancestors that were Union soldiers. It would be correct of you to surmise I was not a true son of the south. I am telling you this not because I bear the south any malice, but to point out how it was possible to have lived 15 years in America at that time and not to have seen someone of another race. Bear in mind, nationality and race are two different things. America has far more nationalities than it does races, as do most nations I would suppose.

I’m sure there were black people living in cities where I lived during those 15 years, but it was the mid-20th century and still a time of segregation. If they were there, I am sure they “stayed in their place,” and I never saw them since we too stayed in our place. That’s just the way it was. We were both more comfortable with each to their own. My parents did not purposely choose where we lived to limit our racial exposure; they were merely the cities where my dad’s company transferred him.

The last place I moved with my parents, we lived on a leased, rambling 200-plus acre estate with a half-mile long paved driveway that was shaded by the leafy over-arching boughs of 100 (Yes, I counted them.) stately old maple trees leading to a white, columned, two-story Georgian style home. Each side of the drive was bordered by 100ft-wide grass fields. In one side yard of the house was a huge laid-stone barbecue pit near a large formal rose garden with trellises and surrounded by tall white pine trees. On the other side across the drive and distant to the house was the 3 acre pond. A log timber cabin stood about 50′ behind “the big house” as it was called.  It was a large enough estate that a caretaker came with it along with a tractor, wagon and bush hog to help him to keep things tidy. This was all kept in a shed attached to the three-car garage at the end of the drive.

A split-rail fence edged with irises separated the property from the road. The entrance to the drive had two curved stone walls with shrubs in front of them and pillars at the four ends. One of the front pillars held a large bronze plaque with the name of the estate, the other had a large mailbox built into it. The end of the drive at the road was a slightly higher elevation than at the house. The house had pin oaks and maples embracing it which made it invisible from the road in the green months. As you approached the house and the drive dropped in elevation below the maple bough tunnel above, the effect was of a rising curtain revealing the house with its columned front. It was truly as impressive as it sounds, and in a yellow, red, and orange maple autumn shroud it was stunning. The local newspaper once came out and took a color photo of the drive in the fall for the cover of their Sunday supplement. This was when newspapers were just beginning to run color photos so being featured was a big deal.

The day my brother and I first arrived, my mother was in the house directing the moving crew on furniture placement up and downstairs. We had way more house than furniture at the time. We had a formal dining room with no suite to put into it. It had a chandelier, murals on the walls, drapes with box valances on the windows and even a foot pedal hidden under the carpet to summon the kitchen help with a buzzer during meals. Up until then, a table in the kitchen had been our dining room. We had come from four years in a subdivision where houses were probably 1,000sq.ft. and no more than 30′ apart. Tract housing was all we had known until then with each move. Suddenly, we found ourselves living in our own private park with our very own fishing and swimming hole. It was kid heaven.

My brother and I were alone outside exploring our new domain when it happened: We came upon caretaker William. His presence and appearance startled my younger brother so that he went running into the house exclaiming, “Momma, Momma, there’s a monkey man in the yard!” We had just seen Colored Bill as he was known; our first black person. Colored Bill was an appellation my brother and I never used. He was simply Bill, William or Willy to us. My father put in a horseshoe pit near the house in the shade of the pin oaks as an addition to our park. My father used to engage William in a game of horseshoes at times and would call him Willy while playing. It’s was interesting how that shared experience led to a respect for William on my father’s part.

When not in William’s presence, my parents might on occasion refer to him as nigger William or nigger Bill; not all the time, but all too often as I look back now. It was a vice my brother and I fortunately avoided adopting. My parents never got above that particular raising from their past but otherwise did treat William kindly and with respect. My mother would invite him to have coffee of a morning and prepare a lunch for him. I guess you could call them benign, highly-functioning racist to be generous. They were from a past where things were done differently.

Rain or shine. Hot and humid. Snow and ice. You could count on William to show. He was a hard worker, but an older fellow. He was careful to pace himself throughout the day—a day which always began with a bus ride from his distant home and a half-mile walk down the drive to ours. When the summer days began to wear on him, old Bill would take a rest and sit in the breezy shade of the porch of the only-slightly-older cabin and have a smoke. He smoked Pall Malls. It was the way he smoked them that was so clever. Part of Willy’s smoke plan was to sneak a quick nap without getting caught. Most smokers hold a cigarette close to the end they place between their lips; not William. He held it near the lit end. When it burned down far enough, the heat on his fingers would wake him. He’d break his rumbling snore long enough to move the fire further from his fingers to repeat the process. After three or so cigarettes, he’d get in that quick nap and no one was the wiser.

For three fall seasons, while my brother and I still lived at home, we took pity on William’s seasonal solo Hurculean efforts and would help him with his most formidable annual task at the estate. The house was surrounded by ancient maples and pin oaks and fall meant leaves to rake. Lots of leaves. Wagon loads of leaves. Because pin oaks are so late dropping, it was a hard job that went into early winter and was made much harder if rain or snow fell upon their leaves. We raked, off and on, for three months. Willy, as we by then were calling him, would hitch the wagon to Sally, his name for the hard-starting tractor that could be as stubborn as the mules she may have replaced of decades past. We raked the leaves onto huge tarps, dumped then onto the wagon and then dispatched them to the tobacco bed to be spread as a mulch; a process we repeated dozens of times.

As the leaf-raking season extended into the cold grey of December, we would pile the leaves near the drive by the house and burn them to stay warm while we worked. Their burning had a wonderful smell that few kids now know what with county laws against air pollution and open fires. As reverently bucolic as this all sounds, a Christmas wish for the three of us was that the pin oaks would finish dropping before the holidays. After Christmas the deep temperatures of January and February would set in on us firmly freezing the broad pin oak leaves to the wet frigid ground.

The entire family developed a special relationship with William; my brother and I especially so. Laboring beside someone presses you into a relationship, for better or worse. Sharing manual labor with them affords the benefit of experiencing their perseverance and work ethic in a way other tasks do not. More importantly though, it provides the opportunity to talk while you work about things that matter to each of you and those conversations can create bonding relationships which allow you to take the measure of the character of one another. Old William measured up as a kind and good, hard working man deserving of the respect of my brother and me. I can only hope we met his measure for a man.

Fast forward 10 years

It’s the mid 1970s and I’m working on my third movie deep in the below-the-line crew. During lunch, I get into a conversation with the leading man, William, a fellow 24 years my senior. With food on his mind, William begins to ask me about dining suggestions for him while he is on location with the film. Distant talent is always looking for good places to eat which are convenient to wherever they are billeted. They don’t often rent cars and some from New York City never bother getting a driver’s license since they have abundant mass transit available. Interestingly, the ones from there that do have a license want to drive every opportunity they can get on location. At the time, I was still too young to have had a broad range of dining experiences, though I had eaten a few of the finer restaurants in town. I mentioned a white table cloth place that was a regional favorite with a national reputation which featured excellent fried chicken with home-cooked vegetables served family style. He asked where it was and if he needed a car or cab to get there. I knew it was further than an affordable cab ride and that he would have a difficult time finding it in the dark if he were to drive. I offered to take him to dinner as my guest after wrap that day.

It was about this time that the director ambled over and sat down beside us on the porch steps of the house we were using as a location. He apparently had not overheard our conversation and asked the star if he would like to go to dinner with him that evening. The director’s leading man coolly informed him that he wouldn’t be able to go with him. “Dan has invited me to dinner this evening.” OUCH! Stars generally do not do that with their directors and producers. They are always concerned about where their next job will be coming from and friendships are key to staying employed. Crew below-the-line like I was don’t get stars jobs. Bad raps from well-established directors and producers can bring careers to an abrupt end. Though my new friend was a more successful “star” than the fledgling director, he was a big fish in a small pond. The actor had great appeal and recognition within his demographic, but it was a market that had limited size and clout within the movie biz. Turning down the director was risking future employment. The director played it well, but he was miffed at being rebuffed for a lowly crew member.

After the typical 10-hour day of production, I picked the star up at his hotel that evening with my wife accompanying us. We drove thirty minutes into a nearby rural county to a large restaurant. The three of us stepped through the front door and foyer into the aroma of crispy fried chicken and freshly baked biscuits. My wife and I proceeded to the hostess station with William following and standing immediately behind us with his imposing, impossible to miss, 6’5″ stature—a famished party of three. The hostess smiled at my wife and I and queried, “Two?” Not thinking anything of it, I replied, “Three.” The restaurant had multiple dining rooms and I could see from where we were standing, though busy as usual, a number of tables with place settings for four were available.

The hostess called a manager over to assist with our seating and following them we proceeded to our table. We were walked past all the front dining rooms on our left and right to a smaller one in the rear of the restaurant off of the kitchen. I was too young and naive at the time to realize what was happening. We were being taken to the back of the bus because William was black. They weren’t being particularly rude and dismissive, but they were keeping us in our place: a place away from the eyes of their other guests that evening. We had been smoothly taken down he hallway in an effort to avoid any disturbed stares. William was quite graceful about it as I look back upon it now. I think he sensed my innocence and politely made no mention of the incident knowingly offering me grace while preserving his dignity.

Upon being seated, a black waitress brought out the usual tender hot, flaky biscuits and local spicy apple butter that were a signature complimentary appetizer. That’s when, in the slightly paraphrased and inimitable words of the black housekeeper, Tillie (played by Isabel Sanford), in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, “All hell done broke loose,” but not in a bad way. After our individual orders were taken by the first waitress, the drinks were brought to us by someone else. The entrees were then brought to our table by yet a different server. Then the individual bowls of made-from-scratch vegetables being served family style were brought out. All twelve of them. Not as was usual on a cart, but        one           bowl           at            a            time. Each presented by a beaming new server.

Each fresh warm, welcome bowl of delicious goodness was accompanied by a fresh warm, welcoming face in awe of William’s ever-commanding presence. Word had spread through the nearly all-black kitchen staff that a star of theirs was in the dining room and they were patiently taking turns visiting the table. As each server pushed wide through the swinging service door with bowl in hand into the dining room, you could see a crowd queuing up in the kitchen on the other side as it opened trying to catch a glimpse as they waited their turn to serve and meet him. Each one of them respectfully addressed him as Mr. Marshall. William Horace Marshall, the man they likely and most famously (sadly so) knew as Blacula was generously, patiently, cordially receiving each visitor as if an expected guest to our table. William was showing the respect, grace and courtesy that should have been given him when he made his unassuming entrance through the restaurant door.

William Marshall in Blacula    Source

You might be surprised and wondering why William turned down the director’s invitation and chose to go with me. I know I was surprised at the time. I would have understood if he had suggested we do it some other time so he could dine with the director. William never did tell me why even though he had the chance in the privacy of my car that night. He was again too gracious. I have over time pieced together what I feel was a possible reason.

The director admired the work of Alfred Hitchcock as many directors do. Hitchcock was a master storyteller. He had one little quirk he enjoyed doing in his movies. He liked doing an uncredited cameo appearance. He did 37 of them in the over 50 movies he directed. When he first began doing this in 1927, his face was not that well known so he went unnoticed by most of the viewing audience. As he became more famous and his picture appeared in news articles, magazines and trailers for his films, people began looking and waiting for the cameo in each new movie. As a master storyteller he saw this as a potential distraction to the story but had too much fun with it to stop so he began doing them as early as he could in the movie allowing the audience to settle down and pay attention to his complex plot lines. So, what might this have to do with the dinner refusal?

The movie I was working on was what was known as a blaxploitation film. They were made by white producers specifically to appeal to the black market. They were often written and directed with little input from or consideration given to their target audience other than how to get into their wallets. There were script changes that William Marshall was supposedly going to be allowed to make that didn’t happen. More significantly I think though, there was a scene in which an archeological dig took place in a cave located in the script in Nigeria. There, an indigenous digger unearths some  artifact relevant to the story which of course places a curse and certain death on all who possess it. As genre storytelling goes: “Round up the usual suspects.”

The director decided to do his Hitchcock cameo homage by playing the part of the native digger. The director had short curly hair and felt he could play the part in black face. It was not done in the crude minstrel style of vaudeville with the broad white lips. It was not meant to be a facial caricature. The makeup was done with proper skin tone but the physical business of the director was somewhat stereotypical. It’s my belief when those scenes were shot a line may have been crossed for William. Like I have said before though, he was too gracious to say anything at the time, at least I hope that was why he made no comment. I’d hate the think that William did so because he felt he should “stay in his place,” not to say that he would have felt he had a place to stay in. It was during this interview in which he speaks of  D.W. Griffith’s The Clansman, subsequently re-titled The Birth of a Nation,  where I found some probable insight into why William may have been upset and declined the director’s invitation.

As unwitting recipients of his grace, none of the white front-of-house restaurant staff recognized William. They may seen him and heard his mellow bass voice on segments of Bonanza, Rawhide, Star Trek, Maverick, Daniel Boone, Benson, or The Jefferson’s and many more; but, the roles they would have seen him play there were fleeting, not often recurring. However, there is one repeating role in which they, their children and even you and your children may have seen this gracious man—

William Marshall as King of Cartoons     Source

William assumed this part as a benevolent King on Pee Wee’s Playhouse in 1986 out of concern for his grandchildren. He wanted them to have a more accurate and gentler image to remember him by than that signature undead character from an undying film role.

---

To see William at his best in a classical role though, you should watch here.

This from IMDb: “He played Shakespeare many times on the stage in the U.S. and Europe, including the title role in at least eight different productions of “Othello”. His Othello (which was later captured in a video production in 1981), was called by the London Sunday Times “the best Othello of our time”.

While this review from here.

“not a great Iago”

22 November 1998 | by alexr647 – See all my reviews

The guy who played Othello was good. Jessica from Logan’s Run, always hot. But Iago was just as powerful a character as he should or could be. Not the best production ever, but stayed closer to the play then Orsen [sic] Wells [sic] or Kenneth Brannagh [sic]”

Guy? Was “good?” Indeed, alexr647!  And that’s Orson Welles and Kenneth Branagh.

Sic erat scriptum.

When Size Doesn’t Matter…It’s Not about Quantity, But Quality

Yet again, it’s that time of year when a lot of people will be going to a lot of gyms, women in particular. Some of them will be going to get smaller and some perhaps to tone up a bit. Most of the men will be going for both reasons. Like the ladies, we want to trim down too, but we also hope to bulk up; most of us in the chest and arms since we don’t want to take, or maybe don’t have the time to make, a hobby of working out our total bodies. We feel, for the most part, you ladies notice more things above the waist; our chests, arms and ruggedly handsome good looks. If above the waist checks out, you give us a limited pass below the waist. (Don’t think though that we don’t know some of you check out our butts.)

And while a muscular chest and arms are nice, we don’t often have to bench press 200lbs at work or home; however,  that doesn’t stop some guys from wanting still bigger than they need or can practically use. There are a lot of guys out there that feel bigger is better and live with an ever-present disappoint that they aren’t big enough.

We men notice your size too. For the most part we seem to notice, top to bottom, pleasingly bigger breasts, rounder butts, and curvier thighs which can result in body image issues for all of you ladies reading here…and even those not reading here whom I’ll forgive for their literary transgression.

It’s a good thing we men don’t subject ourselves to body image issues.

Well, other than sucking in our guts as best we can when a particularly attractive woman walks by or looks our way. Even if they are not flirting with us, we do want to put our best foot forward, not our worst fat forward. “Yes, Virginia. There there is a buckle on my belt.”

If we’re at the pool and not already bummed out by our belly being a built-in mini-shelf, we can cross our arms over and just under our chest giving it a lift and adding some faux bulk. While we’re at it, we can put our hands under, not on, our arms and push our biceps out from the back-side to “bulk” them up too. Don’t do this if you are a lady wanting to look buff and uber-fit from the gym. When you push the backs of your hands against your biceps, the fronts push against your rib cage and “shrink” your breasts back into your chest cavity. Maybe not the look you’re looking for when you hope he’s looking.

Thank goodness that’s about the extent of male body image issues.

Well, other than having really ruggedly handsome looks. I personally don’t get the weeks-worth of stubble look popular now, and wonder how that plays when you’re “out together dancing cheek-to-cheek” (Thank you Irving Berlin—If you didn’t get the lyric association or know that name, please DON’T let me know. My ignorance of your ignorance will be bliss.). I can only imagine how repeatedly rubbing your sandpaper cheeks against her even more-delicate parts must feel. I remember hearing Shannon Ethridge on Sexy Marriage Radio talking (at 11:42-12:58) about an idea she had for women to keep warm during sex. She suggested cutting the crotch out of a pair of fleece-lined leggings from Walgreen’s; like crotchless panties, only leggings. They might work for bristly cheeks too.

When it comes to male body image issues, that about sizes everything up.

Well, everything other than penis size I suppose. Yes, I’m actually going there.  And remember, it isn’t always about quantity, but quality. That’s the guy story anyway, and I’m sticking to it. It’s not always how much you have but how well you use it and most of us men find ourselves wishing it were more well-used, but that’s another post.

What Is The Average Penis Size?

This study found the average penis size to be as follows: For an erect penis, the average size is 5.6 inches (14.2 cm) Average circumference of an erect penis is 4.8 inches (12.2 cm). These figures were last updated March 18, 2016. After looking at a number of studies, I suggest you be advised from one study to the next, YMMV.

---

 

We will present you with facts from all the scientific studies done on penis size so that once you have finished reading this article, you will feel content that you have the most accurate answer to the question. And perhaps you will be reassured about your own size or that of your partner’s penis.

Fast facts on the average penis size

Here are some key points about the average penis size. More detail and supporting information is in the main article.

• While 85% of women may be satisfied with the size and proportion of their partner’s penis, men are less sure of themselves.
• As much as 45% of men believe they have a small penis.
• Across studies, flaccid length average from 7 to 10 centimeters (2.8 to 3.9 inches).
• Flaccid circumference/girth average from 9 to 10 centimeters (3.5 to 3.9 inches).
• Erect lengths average from 12 to 16 centimeters (4.7 to 6.3 inches).
• Erect circumference is around 12 centimeters (4.7 inches).

Source

Only 15 percent of penises are over 7 inches, and only 3 percent are over 8 inches.

Among all the 10 countries surveyed, people thought the “ideal” penis was longer than the perceived average penis. The U.S. had the largest gap between the perceived average penis and the ideal penis, with a difference of 1.1 inches. In comparison, those in the Netherlands were most satisfied, believing the ideal penis was 0.4 inches larger than the perceived average penis.

Source

 

Average Penis Size by Country

The following table illustrates data that corresponds to average Asian penis sizes, American penis sizes, as well as African, Russian and many others. Although there is evident variation between individuals from different countries, we can see this variation is completely within the normal range.

Country	Average Erect Length
Canada	13.92 cm (5.48 in)
United States	12.9 cm (5.07 in)
China	10.89 cm (4.29 in)
Japan	10.92 cm (4.3 in)
Africa	14.9 – 17.83 cm (5.9 – 7.0 in)
Italy	15.74 cm (6.2 in)
United Kingdom	13.97 cm (5.5 in)
Russia	13.21 cm (5.2 in)

Source

I added the conversions to inches and where appropriate rounded up to the next tenth. Seriously, my being a guy and all you certainly didn’t expect me to round down.

 

How to measure your hand. Source

As unlikely as the literature predicts this to be, if any of you women do happen to wonder how your man stacks up but considerately hesitate to put a tape or ruler on him, there is a less obvious way of gauging things if you are piqued to take a peek at where he peaks.

The width of the average female hand is 2.99 inches while the average length is 6.77 inches measured in this way. If you have a firm grip on the situation, you can then estimate the overflow beyond the palm of your hand and add 3 inches. If you happen to ever-so lovingly caress him within the soft warm cradle of the length of your hand and he just fits, you know he’s beyond the 5.6 inch average. Feel free to gasp and utter an appreciative wide-eyed exclamation of  “Oh, my!”

Though size reportedly isn’t really a big deal with women, there is one odd anomaly at play and that is the difference between her preference between one-night stands and long-term relationships. For one-night stands, women reportedly seem to prefer a tad more length and girth. If they have to choose one over the other, they prefer more girth. The speculation is that experience has led them to feel the greater girth stretches the entry to the vagina somewhat thus pulling the clitoris closer to the penis providing better stimulation that leads to greater pleasure and hopefully an orgasm for them. While the circumstances of that size preference may be somewhat of a stretch, I find it more surprising that the women in the long-term relationships opt for smaller all around. What happened to that proposed desire for orgasm?

One of the fascinating and rewarding things about authoring this blog is where my research might take me. This blog of Jessica’s is one of those odd little places. If, male or female, you are curious as to just how long your hand should be in relation to your height, go here. Curious about some other body averages? Go here. Both are visually safe.

---

---

 

Just in case you’re annoyingly young or never watch the Turner Classic Movie channel, I offer this to enhance your awareness of a more romantic time when we would all gather together in the dark before a flickering screen and wish we could be so graceful, so charming and so debonair. “Heaven, I’m in Heaven.”

ADDENDUM 10/19/2021

I was reviewing this post from nearly 5 years ago. I was amused by my quip about how if ignorance is bliss, it would be my bliss to be ignorant of those who are ignorant of Irving Berlin, this song and this movie. All three are icons in our American culture and beyond. (Do I have to get into the icons Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or the iconic remark that Ginger did everything Fred did but backwards and while in heels?)

It got me to thinking about another place I had seen this iconic dance performance. It was in a 1999 movie based on a book by an author and all three are iconic to our American times. Because of the still prolific writing of the author, I am sure both he and his books are still part of our current culture. I’m not so sure about the movie though. It is now 22 years old. How many people under the age of 35 have bothered to see it unless they stumbled upon it in their parent’s DVD collection or aimlessly surfing for something to watch? Is it already suffering the same fate as Top Hat released in 1935? That movie is The Green Mile. In it, as one of his last wishes, prisoner John Coffey says he has never seen a flicker show. The guards sneak him out to see Top Hat. Interestingly, the Green Mile with the execution of John Coffey is set in 1932, three years before the release of Top Hat. In the movie biz they call that abuse of facts to advance the story editorial license.

Anyway, I felt there is probable irony in the fact that there are readers who many not even be aware of the iconic Green Mile in which the iconic Top Hat appeared with the iconic Cheek to Cheek song of iconic Irving Berlin. I felt it my solemn duty to do something about preserving and furthering the iconic status of all. Here below you have the icon with an icon within it to the iconic song of an iconic songwriter. Icon not believe I just pulled that off. Like the iconic Alf would say, “Ha! Yeah! I kill me!” Again, let me be blissfully ignorant of your ignorance of the iconic Alf.

Two Degrees from You— “…Every Person Is a New Door, Opening up into Other Worlds”

Source

You may remember the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The goal was to connect any actor to Kevin Bacon with the least links, or degrees, possible but by no more than 6. The game was created as a result of an interview about the film, The River Wild, in January 1994. During the course of the interview, Kevin Bacon told Premiere magazine he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who had worked with them. As a result of that statement, the Six Degrees game was created in 1994 at Albright College in Pennsylvania.

The theory of Six Degrees of Separation, and with it the “small world” concept, is not an idea born in the late 20th or early 21st century though. The idea of such connectedness has actually been proposed for quite a while. As far back as the turn of the last century, Guglielmo Marconi, the accredited though contested inventor of radio, proposed the number to be 5.

The concept was also posited in a short story published in 1929 titled “Chains” and authored by Hungarian journalist, playwright and poet Frigyes Karinthy. He is credited with being the first proponent of the six degrees of separation concept. Long before Facebook, he realized technological advances were shrinking the modern world and ‘connectedness’ was increasing. He proposed that great physical distances aside, the increasing density of human networks was decreasing the actual social distance. Within the short story, the characters created a game which proposed that any two individuals could be connected through no more than five acquaintances. Karinthy wrote:

“To demonstrate that people on Earth today are much closer than ever, a member of the group suggested a test. He offered a bet that we could name any person among earth’s one and a half billion inhabitants and through at most five acquaintances, one of which he knew personally, he could link to the chosen one.” Source

Speaking of Facebook—

“A site called Six Degrees, launched in 1997, is considered to be the first social networking site and the precursor of sites like Facebook and Twitter which have effectively lowered the number of intermediaries in the chain, arguably to almost zero.”  Source

In the late 60’s, experimental social physiologists Stanley Milgram and sociologist Jeffrey Travers were conducting “small world problem” experiments attempting to prove six degrees of separation. Through a random selection of people in the mid-west, strangers in Massachusetts were sent packages for which the sender knew only the recipient’s name, occupation and general location. They were to send the package to someone out of all their friends they knew on a first-name basis and that they felt was most likely to know the targeted recipient personally. This was repeated by each intermediate recipient until the package was personally delivered to its target recipient. Though the experiment was highly regarded at the time and reported in Psychology Today, the results were ultimately found to be spectacularly flawed.

In 2006, researchers at Microsoft studied records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people over the world. The study covered all Microsoft Messenger instant messaging on the network in June 2006. The data base covered the then equivalent to roughly half the world’s instant-messaging traffic. Their figures?—An average of 6.6 degrees of separation with 78 per cent of the pairs being connected in seven steps or fewer though some by as many as 29.  Of course, this is a record of connections through digital contacts which may or may not have any physical contacts supporting them and thus do not meet the original parameters defining connection in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

In 1990, a play by John Guare titled Six Degrees of Separation popularized the term. The character Ouisa Kittredge addresses the six degrees in the play’s most famous monologue—

“…I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. fill in the names. I find that A) tremendously comforting that we’re so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It’s not just big names. It’s anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be. Or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people.”

It surprises some people to think they can connect themselves to someone famous by no more than 6 degrees. They don’t believe it’s possible or is a parlor trick. If it would be possible, they feel that person will be no more famous than a local politician or successful businessperson. This is especially true if it can be established in only two or three degrees.

I have been asked in an email, “by the rules of the game, just what constitutes being connected to a person?” Here are the rules: Consider a degree of separation to be a measure of social, not geographic, distance between two people. You are one degree away from everyone you personally know on a first-name basis. Your friends are one degree away from everyone they know. That makes you two degrees away from everyone your friends know and anyone outside of that level is yet another degree distant from you. For our demonstration purposes here, people one degree separated are those we know on a first name basis. That doesn’t mean we have to be BFF (Best Friends Forever in the contemporary parlance of this period), only that we have at least spoken to them in a personal conversation of some sort beyond, “and I’m Dan, glad to meet you Mr. Bacon.” If playing strictly by the original rules, Tweeting, FaceTiming, Facebook friending and other social media in themselves wouldn’t count. There would have to be a substantive face-to-face encounter involved. In my case, there has been so we’re good on that score.

Like I said at the end of Believing in Fairies Isn’t Always Enough, I’m going to share a big surprise with all of you.

You may only know me through this blog but, as community members, if you and I have personally communicated through this blog, then by only two degrees of separation you are connected to the following—Al and Tipper Gore, Barrack Obama, Mitch McConnell, Rudy Giuliani, John Y Brown Jr., William Shatner, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, John Anderson, Miranda Lambert, Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Mandrell, John Michael Montgomery, Ray Charles, Jim James, Michael Bay, Pam Grier, William Marshall, Maximillian Schell, Harold Ramis, Jamie Farr, Robin Williams, Marlo Thomas, Raquel Welch, Diane Lane, Warren Oates, Brian Dennehy, Robert Urich, Elisabeth Shue, Sean Young, John Hurt, Gina Gershon, Kirstie Alley, John Malkovich, Leelee Sobieski, Wilford Brimley, Lee Meriweather, Ben Johnson, Dakota Fanning, Jan Hooks, John Candy, Bill Murray, Ivan Reitman, Fred Thompson, Phillip Rhee, Kurt Russell, Bill Cobbs, William Devane, Bub (Henry) Asman (Academy Award winning sound editor), Ronnie Taylor (Academy Award winning DP), gaffer Colin Campbell, film directors Joe Pitka and Ridley Scott, Jack Welch past CEO of GE, David Novak past CEO of Yum Brands, William (Bill) Marriott of Marriott Hotels, John Akers past CEO of IBM, Colonel Harland Sanders founder of KFC, Bill Moyers, Muhammad Ali, Kenny Wallace, Rick Pitino, David Stremme, Howard Cosell, Hannah Storm, Denny Hamlin, Calvin Borel, Jeff Gordon, D. Wayne Lukas, Bill (Willy) Shoemaker, Bart Starr, Rudolf Wanderone Jr. (aka Minnesota Fats) and Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Just kidding on those last two. I’ve yet to meet Wilma. Fred’s a hoot though. Let me tell you, that guy knows how to party and ‘que a mean mess of T-rex ribs. Forget the napkins. Bring a bed sheet instead.

If there isn’t someone on this list you are familiar with, you definitely need to get out more. I’m not saying all of these second degree connections and I mail Christmas cards to one another and chat on the phone and DM or IM, only that I know or have known them and may have even broken bread with them through my work or other contact. I know there are some I have forgotten or didn’t list but it’s been a lot of years and a lot of miles and it’s not over yet. I also did not include a bunch more I have worked with but with whom I did not share a personal relationship much beyond “Good morning,” or “Is there anything else you need,” and “Are we good to go?”

I don’t share this with you to boast, but to show you the truth of the fact that you cannot fully comprehend how many lives your own life has the potential to affect. To quote John Guare again, “…How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds.—”

As community members, if you and I have ever had or have yet to have a discussion, something you may have shared or will share with me could have been or may be shared with any of those people. Not only that, but think of the people they know with whom you are now only three degrees socially distant. And the people they know. And the people they know. And the persons within the 6th degree they know.

To quote from John Lennon’s final masterpiece of 1967, I Am the Walrus—

I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together

“The song’s opening line,…is based on the song “Marching To Pretoria,” which states pretty much the same truth.  Source

Marching to Pretoria

I’m with you and you’re with me
And so we’re all together.
So we’re all together
So we’re all together
Sing with me, I’ll sing with you
And so we will sing together
As we march along.

When I hear of someone with a terminal illness or contemplating suicide thinking their death will make little to no difference to this world, I think of the Six Degrees. Those whom you have an immediate relationship with will certainly be affected, but there are people two and more degrees out that may also be affected. How else does the death of a young person with no spouse or children fill a funeral home chapel or church with 100 or more people? I have seen it repeated time and time again.

My own brother-in-law was a unique fellow with a slightly-checkered past. He found God later in life, but still more than a decade before his illness. He died of cancer and was sure no more than 25 people, family included, would show for his funeral.  His employer thought enough of him to continue to carry him on the company insurance when he could no longer show up daily to make sure his medical care and expenses would be met. The company also shut down for the day to make sure all their employees who wanted could be at the funeral. More than 100 people were in attendance. Some of them spoke about him and more than a few of them were led to Christ by him. At his request, they showed up in company shirts to be pall bearers. I sang for him; the only funeral at which I have yet to sing. I caught everyone by surprise so fortunately no camera phone footage of that event exists. Thirty-five cars made the drive along with two motorcycles driven by fellow bikers, one of them the minister who officiated the funeral and grave-side service. The bikers executed traffic control at every intersection for the 90 mile, two-lane drive to the plot on the family farm for his interment. Along the route as we went deeper into farming communities, cars and trucks pulled over and stopped. Country folk working in fields along the route to the farm stopped working and stood in silent respect as he passed. They may have known it was Michael or not, but here’s the deal. Even in death, he was affecting the lives of others in this unanticipated and unintended way.

I’ve seen this effect repeated to one extent or another so many times. I find myself wishing the dead could sit up one last time and take a look at all the people whose lives they touched and hear the memories and stories about them they are sharing with one another. They probably had no idea how deeply they would be missed and how much their lives had meant to so many others.

Never feel your life is being lived in vain, without notice or effect. The tree of life is constantly renewed, but never think it fails to notice the flutter or loss of a single of its precious leaves.

---

---

An interesting article on the six degrees and “small world” theory can be found here. The article has links to other sites and some videos you may find interesting.

This final bit of reality concerning the universality of the 6 degrees—

“The problem with the 6 Degrees theory is “widows” or people who are disconnected from society and “outliers” people who are relativity removed from society.

If we look at a tribe in the middle of the Jungle who has no connection outside of the tribe the whole thing falls apart, if they have little connection it may take far more than 6 connections to connect.

Not everyone has 6 degrees of separation from any given human on earth, including Kevin Bacon. But, studies have shown this factoid to have a lot of truth to it.”  Source

 

Addendum 3/18/2017

Also there is this TEDx talk about the Six Degrees and SixDegrees.org, the charitable initiative he created, by none other than Kevin Bacon. There is also this SixDegrees.org Facebook page.

Addendum 5/11/2020

“Not everyone has 6 degrees of separation from any given human on earth, including Kevin Bacon. But, studies have shown this factoid to have a lot of truth to it.”  Source

I have no idea how at the time when writing this post I was so wrapped up in it that I missed a critical fact: I don’t know Kevin Bacon. How could I miss acknowledging that key non-relationship when this whole post revolves around the game and its namesake? That realization set me on a wo/man hunt. What my hunt revealed was through my acquaintances with Wilford Brimley, Elizabeth Shue, Maximilian Schell and Bill Murray, I am only 2 degrees removed from Kevin Bacon. That means Dear Reader, you are only 3 degrees removed from Kevin Bacon. Thus, this factoid does indeed “have a lot of truth to it,” and one truth is you are 3 degrees ahead of some others in the game. Congratulations.

Addendum 06/10/2023

This post was edited for minor errors and, hopefully, added clarity. Also the addition of a new name or two to the list of those from whom I am 1 degree removed. I will not be taking down those names no longer with us though which would defeat the purpose of this post.