Sunday, November 14, 2004

Okay. here it is. The moment you've all been dreading...

SingleTails Is On Hiatus

I'll be back in January, hopefully sharing my exploits at MAL. I'm taking time off from writing here in the hopes that I'll be able to get some writing done on my book.

See you all in January!

Here's some pics of my tattoo work to tide you all over. It's not done yet. This coming Friday, we'll hopefully be able to take it from where it ends now on my left pec down my arm to my wrist. But, you've all waited long enough [g].

Enjoy!












...oh. And here's one of Faithful Companion next to the new custom made Wesco harness boots.



You'll be hearing from me in 2005. Enjoy your holidays.


Thursday, November 11, 2004

Uh... No.

Not impressed with the new and much touted MSN Search. When you search on Singletails, my weblog isn't even on the first page. On Google, I'm the number one listing. (Love that.) And searching on my name brings up nothing related to me anywhere. In fact they run out of people with my name (there's a college baseball third baseman who is my nominal doppleganger) after just two entries.

No no no.

That won't do at all.


I Walk The Earth

I am loving my new custom-made Wesco harness boots.

When I went to the Leatherman to pick them up (with cubby! thanks for sharing that moment, cubby! Folks-- never go shopping for boots without cubby along. It's just a mistake to do that.), I was initially concerned. They felt too large on my feet.

I should have trusted Wesco and the several dozen measurements taken during the fitting. Y'see, they've just molded to my feet. They feel amazing. Like bedroom slippers. Only big black leather bedroom slippers.

I'm wearing them everywhere. Which is kinda tricky as I've come to a new appreciation of what 'boot-cut' means with respect to jeans. Those legs have to be pretty wide to fit over the shafts of my big black Wesco harness boots.

But here's another thing. They're heavy, and they kind of effect my gait. Whereas before I think I at times drifted into a scurry, this ain't happening with the Wescos. I sort of swing one foot forward, and then the other. There's a Zen mindfulness to my stride now. A sort of slower, lumbering gait. I compensate by taking longer strides on my long legs. When I have to hurry up, it's kind of a heaving run. Think of an animated Paul Bunyon. ("Babe! Where are ya, Babe! Oh there ya are! Whatchya doin' hidin' behind Pike's Peak like that? You're a good ox, Babe.")

Love that.


Monday, November 08, 2004

Got The Fever

What is with me lately?

I am obsessed. Totally obsessed.

Lately, I'm just thinking of one thing: I want to whip a man.

I want to whip a man really really bad. All I'm seeing are backs wherever I look.

But not just any man. An experienced whipping bottom. Or at least a bottom who is used to playing really deep. Who is open, and trusting, and longing for an axe to break the glacier that imprisons his heart. A man with a sinewy, muscular back. A man on whom I can just unleash it all.

Two possibilities. One is this blond boy. Former Coast Guard. Don't think he's been whipped, but he's big into scat. He's built. His arms are covered with tattoos.

The other one is this... this... guy. He's hot, he's smart, he knows what he wants. Been thinking about him, and our pretty great internet conversation a lot.

Trouble is, he's collared, and his Sir has him in lockdown. So right now, he probably isn't available to be whipped. (Hmmm. Maybe if my Sir talked to his Sir... Gosh, it's just like Junior High again: Maybe if my dad talks to his dad we can go on the camping trip!

We'll see how it goes.

Seeing as it's just about all I'm thinking of lately, something ought to turn up.


Perfect

How to have a Perfect 40th Birthday...

Step One: Find a Sir. Earn his collar. A Sir who loves you and never fails to make you melt where you stand with a look or a word. A Sir who take pleasure in welcoming you into the fourth decade of your life.

Step Two: Reconnect with old friends, meet new ones. Your Sir throwing you a birthday party, like mine did last Friday night, will make that happen.

Step Three: Be in a place of incredible natural beauty. Mine was the Russian River, north of San Francisco. The redwoods, the vineyards, the drive out to the beach to see the sunset over the Pacific.

Step Four: Make sure there's a hot tub. (There's got to be a hot tub.

Step Five: Make sure it's cool at night, so you get to fall asleep with your Sir's arms around you for warmth.

Step Six: If it involves flying, take Southwest. They were incredible! On the flight out, the plane was maybe a third full. So for the first time in a few decades, I had an entire row to myself, where I could stretch out and sleep as we flew over all those Red states. And on the way back, same deal. And, because of heavy traffic (California, California...) on the way to Oakland International, I got to check-in about fifteen minutes before my plane took off. The only other flight to Philadelphia that day was booked. The Southwest guy said, "the gate is right up those stairs. If you want to try to make it, you might. But I can't promise that your luggage will. I tried, and carrying my new custom Wescos in my arms as I dashed down the gangplank (or whatever that thing is called), I made it. And, in Philadelphia, so did my luggage! Unbelievable.

Step Seven: Surround yourself with great interior design. In the Russian River, we stayed at one of those touristy resorts. This one was run by lesbians. Like... uh oh! Right? Wrong. It was wonderful. From the horizontal wainscotting left raw in the bathroom to the perfect paint on the walls the color of parchment, to the minimal wall decor consisting of old Russian River postcards from the '20s in simple frames, it was gorgeous.

Step Eight: Eat good food. And the worst meal we had was not too bad.

Step Nine: Take some time to strip to the waist and show off your tattoo at the Starbuck's in the Castro. Be very pleased that your 40-year-old-ain't-seen-a-gym-in-a-month-and-a-half physique draws an admiring crowd.

Step Ten: Dream dreams of all the wonderful things that will happen to you in your 40s, if the first weekend of the decade is any indication.

And that way, you can't go wrong. Trust me on that.


Saturday, November 06, 2004

Tim-berrrrr!!!

Check me out. Spend the morning musing on the History of Ideas, and the afternoon chopping a cord of firewood, and tonight I'm off to the Bike Stop for fun and frolic. Am I a renaissance leatherman or what?

On the wood chopping. After a couple of hours of splitting wood, I started roaming the property looking for downed trees that I could haul back and cut up. While busy with this, I saw The Tree. About thirty feet away from the house, it was a big one. Easily sixty or seventy feet tall. And dead. Riddled by woodpeckers.

This was bad news. It was leaning towards the house. One good windstorm and it could come down and do a lot of damage.

I had to take care of it.

But how? It was just me today. And the tree was really really big. A mankiller. Easily twenty inches in diameter.

First, I dug out the chainsaw. Then, I found a hank of rope in the garage and fetched a ladder. I got up as far as I could and tied off the rope on The Tree. Then, I stretched the rope taught, and tied the rope off to a live tree standing about twenty feet away. Again, getting as high up as I could.

I started in chopping with the ax. Then, I started in with the chainsaw, making wide wedges in the sides of the tree at right angles to where it wanted to fall, towards the house. When I heard the first loud crack of the wood giving way, I backed off.

I went to where the rope was tied off to the live tree, climbed the ladder, and pulled on the rope till my feet were on the ground. I started rhythmicallly pulling on the rope, then releasing, pulling, then releasing, pulling, then releasing. I got The Tree rocking in a wide, slow arc, along a line that was perpendicular to the house.

It was dangerous. If that tree fell on me, I was a goner.

And it was hard work, too. It took all my might to get the tree bending in the direction I wanted it to bend.

And then, it bent, I heard a crack like a rifle shot of the heartwood giving way, and down it came, with a huge crash, and hitting with a thud that shook the ground.

I gave a war whoop and shouted, "Timberrrr!"

My father, watching all of this from the house (with the phone near at hand to call 911 if need be), called congratulations.

I did it. I brought down The Tree.

It's too big to cut up, so I'll have to just let it lie there, growing a skin of mushrooms and rotting.

And then I went back to cutting up all the lumber I hauled out of the woods.

Y'know, was the day when I would be home on a trip from the Big City, and spend an afternoon cutting up firewood. It felt so good to do real work, work that didn't invovle squinting into a a computer screen, tapping away at a keyboard, and pushing a pencil. Now, I am grateful to say, I do 'real work' all week long. I am a Man Who Works With Tools.

Damn.

Life is pretty sweet.


Incurably Romantic

Now that's an interesting line of inquiry.

Diabolique forwarded to me an op-ed piece from the NY Times, about how the election represents a rejection of the Enlightenment values on which this country was founded. I raised this in 'talking' to one of my WorldLeathermen correspondents, a German. He pointed out that our nation was, in fact, founded by people who were products of the Protestant Reformation (those Puritans!), and so although Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were steeped in Enlightenment thought, the bulk of the country pretty much missed out on it. Although those Not-Quite-Founding Fathers did their best to impose the Enlightenment on our newly independent nation, it was pretty much just the American upper crust that took to it. The South Carolina planters and Pennsylvania pioneers had never read their Kant.

However, one Zeitgeist that did sweep the nation was Romanticism. In Europe, that was a corrective to the cold and dispassionate spirit of the Enlightenment (the German word is 'Aufklarung,' one of my favorite German words). Those enlightened thinkers saw the human body as a complicated machine, God as a great watchmaker who had wound up Creation and let it run, and--verrrry importantly--saw humanity as 'correctible.' Just line up society like so many gears and cogs and everything would be hummming along fine.

In Europe, Napoleon was the Great Man of the Romantic movement, inspiring composers (Beethoven's Eroica) and philosophers (Hegel just about shot a load when Napoleon's armies took his university town of Jena). He was clearly not some cog in a great machine, but a passionate and moody Man of Consequence, who rewrote history rather than being subject to it.

The Romantic spirit stressed the emotions, passion, mystery, obsession, and fervor. Romantic literature is filled with images of storms, darkness, blood, and insanity. (Think Edgar Allan Poe and George Gordon Lord Byron.) There was the 'light' side of the Romantic era (Keats in the Cotswolds), but there was also the dark side. To illustrate the darker aspects of Romanticism, the college English prof of a friend of mine once showed his class Kenneth Anger's film 'Scorpio Rising,' about the Hell's Angels.

In politics, Romanticism manifested itself in violent revolution. To the barricades! Let's usher in a couple of decades of bloody, lawless upheaval! Heedless of cost and consequence, impassioned masses took to the streets and regicide became quite the thing.

Now my point, and I do have one, as half-thought-through as it might be, is that in America, we experienced Romanticism largely untempered by Enlightenment. Passion, rather than reason, has always carried the day in our political life. In choosing our leaders, we go with out guts, rather than with our heads. And no great issues have ever been decided by 'reasoned discourse.' The very framers of the Constitution hoped sincerely that we'd all be one big nation of debaters, and had a horror of the degeneracy of political parties. (Interesting to note that was shattered when that great scion of the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson, let his feelings get the better of him and let the agrarian-based Democrats sweep him into the presidency.)

In that book that still probably graces the back pockets of jeans of college students, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, the author argues that there are two types of people in the world, Classicists and Romantics. It disintegrates in the same way that all of those 'there's-two-kinds-of-people-in-the-world' arguments always do, namely that there's a hefty dose of the Romantic in every Classicist, and lots of Classicism in every Romantic. But Pirsig is correct in that at certain times and under certain conditions, one mindset or the other certainly seems to hold sway.

And so, when the majority of Americans go with their guts, and for reasons that they're unable to articulate elect a man to the highest office in the land who does not shy from bloodshed and sure chaos when his heart tells him that that's thhe way to go, rejecting a cool, patrician man given to overly nuanced argument, those Europeans just shake their heads in wonderment. After all, they've seen where that dark, Romantic spirit can lead them. Isaiah Berlin was certain that the seeds of Totalitarianism were planted by those types who got all broody on thunderstorms and waves pounding against the shore.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. That's the model that the aforementioned Hegel set forth. In Europe, they've synthesized the Yin-Yang of Classicist Reason and Romantic strivings. We never have.

An' anuther thing. It strikes me in writing this just how steeped in the Romantic spirit is the world of leather and leathersex. Jiminy crickets! Every aspect of it! From the dim lighting in leatherbars right down to fetishes of Nazi imagery. So, in a way, we should feel right at home in this New Romantic Resurgence. It could well be that our bachanals on the shores of Lake Michigan and the hills of Pennsylvania could be on the verge of reaching their apex in years to come. Our President and senators might be comfy in the company of snake-handlers and speakers in tongues, but those same passionate urges are inspiring passions of another sort, too.


Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Am I Blue

The writing is on the wall. Patrick Buchanon called it correct: with the abeyance of the Cold War, political energies in the United States of America are now turned all but entirely to the Culture War. It's the Cultural Elite--those latte swillin', homo marryin', mutual fundin', Schubert listenin', french speakin', New Yorker readin', Aspen skiiin', rock climbin', Thai cookin', city dwellin' types--right in the crosshairs. And for at least the next four years, those people from those rectangular states are pretty much going to have all the power.

How to cope?

What's a guy to do?

Well, this isn't the first time in our history that such a thing has transpired. Let's survey strategies from decades past--such as the '20s, the '50s, and the '70s--when amoral folks like ourselves have felt themselves to be alienated from national life have done.

1. Go to Europe! With the unification of Europe, many believe that the American Century ended with... well, the last one. Europe is poised to become the economic, military, and (possibly) the cultural axis of the world. The Dow Jones could be a mere footnote to the Bourse or the Footsie (whatever that is). Marry a dutchman or a swede and you can become a true global citizen: a double national, and be able to live anywhere from Ankara to Aberdeen.

2. Go to College! Not to do something 'career-oriented,' but heck, haven't you always wanted to master Medieval Latin? Now's your chance! Pick a nice four year program at some sweet little college town with a nice live music scene, and find shelter in the Sacred Grove of Academe.

3. Substance Abuse! Although crystal meth has gotten a lot of bad press lately, the prospect of 'ruining your life' suddenly is not looking like such a bad alternative, is it? A word of advice though: don't deal to support your habit. That will get you into prison pretty quickly, and the pokie is not a good setting to deal with the onset of HIV and Hep C. But Turning On and Tuning Out is nothing if not time tested.

4. Join a Cult! The farther out the better! Do your best to pick one that keeps you fuzzy-headed with sleep deprivation and a low protein diet, and (verrrry important) limits your access to newspapers and the like.

5. Political Engagement Closer to Home. If'n you live in a Blue State, jump in! You'll meet scores of disaffected fellow travelers as you work to stop that Wal-Mart opening or convince your fellow humans to forgo wearing the skins of species not their own. This may be especially important if you live in New York. Fresh from their success in ousting Tom Daschle by pouring $30 million dollars on the unsuspecting heads of half-a-million South Dakotans, you better believe that Hilary Clinton will be on a national hit list when she comes up for re-election in two years.

And yours truly?

Well, I have to admit to being ambivalent. I am, and I long have been, both reassured and troubled by George W. Bush's religious faith. I am convinced that he is sincere in his faith, and not just going through the motions. I am comforted by this because Compassion is a very real thing to the President. And I'm troubled by this as well. Troubled because I am a Conservative. That which I value most highly is Liberty. I don't want government in my bedroom, my bank account, my bookshelf, or my back forty. And additionally, there is a repeating theme of Calling America to Greatness in the conservative wing of the nation. Doing great, bold things abroad and at home, while liberals seems to love nothing more than tinkering around intractable problems and only making things much, much worse. But it is because of my conservative ideals that so much of what Bush has done sticks in my craw. A little more faith in people to make their own choices here at home and being the protector of the world's weak and hurting and less the world's schoolyard bully abroad would be welcome.

So we'll see.


Am I Blue

The writing is on the wall. Patrick Buchanon called it correct: with the abeyance of the Cold War, political energies in the United States of America are now turned all but entirely to the Culture War. It's the Cultural Elite--those latte swillin', homo marryin', mutual fundin', Schubert listenin', french speakin', New Yorker readin', Aspen skiiin', rock climbin', Thai cookin', city dwellin' types--right in the crosshairs. And for at least the next four years, those people from those rectangular states are pretty much going to have all the power.

How to cope?

What's a guy to do?

Well, this isn't the first time in our history that such a thing has transpired. Let's survey strategies from decades past--such as the '20s, the '50s, and the '70s--when amoral folks like ourselves have felt themselves to be alienated from national life have done.

1. Go to Europe! With the unification of Europe, many believe that the American Century ended with... well, the last one. Europe is poised to become the economic, military, and (possibly) the cultural axis of the world. The Dow Jones could be a mere footnote to the Bourse or the Footsie (whatever that is). Marry a dutchman or a swede and you can become a true global citizen: a double national, and be able to live anywhere from Ankara to Aberdeen.

2. Go to College! Not to do something 'career-oriented,' but heck, haven't you always wanted to master Medieval Latin? Now's your chance! Pick a nice four year program at some sweet little college town with a nice live music scene, and find shelter in the Sacred Grove of Academe.

3. Substance Abuse! Although crystal meth has gotten a lot of bad press lately, the prospect of 'ruining your life' suddenly is not looking like such a bad alternative, is it? A word of advice though: don't deal to support your habit. That will get you into prison pretty quickly, and the pokie is not a good setting to deal with the onset of HIV and Hep C. But Turning On and Tuning Out is nothing if not time tested.

4. Join a Cult! The farther out the better! Do your best to pick one that keeps you fuzzy-headed with sleep deprivation and a low protein diet, and (verrrry important) limits your access to newspapers and the like.

5. Political Engagement Closer to Home. If'n you live in a Blue State, jump in! You'll meet scores of disaffected fellow travelers as you work to stop that Wal-Mart opening or convince your fellow humans to forgo wearing the skins of species not their own. This may be especially important if you live in New York. Fresh from their success in ousting Tom Daschle by pouring $30 million dollars on the unsuspecting heads of half-a-million South Dakotans, you better believe that Hilary Clinton will be on a national hit list when she comes up for re-election in two years.

And yours truly?

Well, I have to admit to being ambivalent. I am, and I long have been, both reassured and troubled by George W. Bush's religious faith. I am convinced that he is sincere in his faith, and not just going through the motions. I am comforted by this because Compassion is a very real thing to the President. And I'm troubled by this as well. Troubled because I am a Conservative. That which I value most highly is Liberty. I don't want government in my bedroom, my bank account, my bookshelf, or my back forty. And additionally, there is a repeating theme of Calling America to Greatness in the conservative wing of the nation. Doing great, bold things abroad and at home, while liberals seems to love nothing more than tinkering around intractable problems and only making things much, much worse. But it is because of my conservative ideals that so much of what Bush has done sticks in my craw. A little more faith in people to make their own choices here at home and being the protector of the world's weak and hurting and less the world's schoolyard bully abroad would be welcome.

So we'll see.