Dear USA: You Embarrass Yourself (and, Worse, Me)

I was watching OPB -- Oregon Public Broadcasting -- yesterday. Specifically, "Rick Steves' Europe."

The show was a treatise on how they make the show, which I'm a fan of, in large part because Steves is such a dork and does a lot of walking around a lot of beautiful places, which I'm unlikely to be able to do -- the "lot of walking" being the sticking point.


To paraphrase something Steves said during the show: "When we're shooting all this art, which people have enjoyed for centuries, we have to take into account whether it can be shown in the States." He went on to say that he meant breasts and genitals and/or the depiction of people using or enjoying same can't be filmed because America is in denial of the fact that all humans have sex organs and use them. (Even Catholic priests; hence the Vatican's rapist-defense fund. Which reminds me: If you go to Catholic Church on Sundays and contribute to the collection plate, you're helping sick-ass rapists get away with their crimes and you're complicit in them. ...Perhaps Church isn't the best place to cleanse your soul...)

OK, so I editorialized the slightest bit toward the end of that last sentence. (The one before the one in parentheses... But that goes without saying, because we all know that putting a sentence in parentheses makes it a weird kind of sentence-that-isn't. So you're reading this sentence, here, and not-reading it at the same time. ...Yowzah!)

...Back to the main: Sex is the best part -- or always should be, anyway -- of the human experience. And that's coming from someone who takes 130 mg of Oxycodone and 6 mg of Klonopin a day. That boobs carved in marble can't be shown on TV -- or television fit for people of all ages, anyway -- is just fucking mortifying.

Jesus, America, I'd say grow the fuck up, but kids know they have genitals and how to use them and run around naked without shame Until their parents' religion gives them the gift of being ashamed of what god created in his own image.Which makes sense in some parallel fucking universe. ...If we're to be ashamed of our very selves -- our naked selves -- made in god's image, then when we all meet god are we supposed to feel boundless shame for god's appearance?

So: Jesus, America, get the Jesus outta my goddam teevee! Some of us can appreciate The Birth of Venus without getting a sinful erection from a marble statue!

Apropos of nothing: Take a listen to Starfucker. One of the best bands that, due to it's name, may never be allowed on television. Good thing we have the Internets. ...Where most people in America are checking out porn which they would, presumably, enjoy having on TV but won't let themselves have on TV.

Great. Now I have a mammoth headache from thinking about how goddam silly and twisted about itself this country of ours is. Dancing at architecture ain't easy.

Mixx it!