Sperm Banks and Undies

Dear Leah, My boyfriend and I live together, and we have a great sex life — with one catch. He loves to come inside me, and I can’t help but get grossed out by it. If we fuck in the morning, I feel his load leaking out of me the rest of the day, and my undies are a disaster at work. I know it’s how nature intended it and blah blah blah, but it just seems yucky! Am I being a neat freak? Have you ever heard anyone else complain about this?

I hope you’re on some birth control, girl! Your sex life sounds lit, though. Not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous. I don’t think you’re being a neat freak…no one likes having gooey, wet underwear on. Gross! Maybe you can talk to him and make certain days of the week a no-cream-pie zone. Communicate with him! OMG — I have the best idea ever. Why don’t you tell him you want to taste him because it turns you on and make him pull out and come in your mouth instead!? I think that’s HOT AF. Don’t you? And if you hate the taste of semen then just hold your breath and run to the bathroom afterward to spit it out. Lay out some ground rules and tell him busting loads inside is for evening sex only, not morning sex. Just come up with some hot alternatives to suggest to him and I’m sure he will totally go along with it.

Hey Leah, I know most of your questions come from women, but screw it, I’m a guy and I want a definitive answer on this. Some of the women I date want me to be completely hairless, while others tell me they like me to barely groom my body hair at all. On the body-hair spectrum, I’m right in the middle: I’ve got some chest hair, but it’s not like my back is covered with fur. Do women expect me to shave my taint? My butthole? I feel like all the hairless men in porn are ruining things for us slightly hairy, average-height and average-cock-sized men. Adam

Hi Adam, I totally hear you. Porn can sometimes set unrealistic expectations for both men and women. I mean, there is an entire generation (or two) of men who think women love having come all over their face. Or that we all can take nine-inch dicks in our butts no problem…and love every second of it! Crazy right? Anyway, you should have the amount of hair on your body that YOU are comfortable with. Look, it’s nice to take your partner’s preference into account, but it’s really on you. I’ve dated hairy and hairless men. It’s not like it changes the size of their dicks, so it’s not a big deal either way. I do like some grooming around the balls, of course. No one wants pubes stuck in their teeth. I prefer a hairy back over hairy balls. If you can make a woman climax, chances are she won’t be thinking much about your body hair. I would say, focus less on your hair and more on your orgasm-making skills. Hope that helps!

Hi Leah. I’m dating a man who’s hot and extremely charming. He comes from a successful family so he’s got nothing to worry about, money-wise. The catch? He’s full of shit. Without saying too much, he’s a well-known personal chef whose sells his high-end clients on a philosophy that he’s admitted to me is total bullshit. So basically, he lies to his customers for a living, and acts all holier-than-thou about it to the outside world, too. Can I stay with a guy who scams for a living, or should I just admire him for his hustle and deal with it? Amber

“Porn can set unrealistic expectations for both men and women. There’s an entire generation of men who think women can take nine-inch dicks in our butts no problem…and love every second of it!”

Yikes. This scares me a bit. If his whole life is based on a lie, then how do you know he’s being honest about his feelings or pretty much anything regarding you and your relationship with him? Did you know sociopaths also happen to be very charming? I would rather have broke with integrity than successful and full of shit. But that’s just my personal opinion. I would start looking through your man’s phone, e-mails, etc. Maybe even hire a private detective to follow him around. You want to make sure his job is the only area of his life he’s living a lie about. This is not being crazy, this is being careful. And there is a difference. If I were you, my main concern would be making sure he isn’t fucking a bunch of chicks or hiding a family somewhere. If it turns out he’s true to you and only bullshitting his rich clients, I say let him lie and respect his hustle.

Hey Leah! I’m 27 and I’ve been in some pretty good relationships, but I’m really smart and independent and men tend to want to control me and it drives me crazy. Anyhow, I’ve chosen to use a sperm bank, and even though my gynecologist thinks I’m crazy, I wanted to know what your advice would be on choosing to do this alone. Do you have any opinions on sperm banks in general? Deep down, I feel like I’d be unable to coparent with a man, as I have been drugged and assaulted by a man. I feel like my trust for men is gone. Jess

Jess, I admire your independence and bravery to think and be different. I have always been co-parenting. There was never a time I was a single mom with no help. And honestly, I couldn’t have done it alone. I also had a full-time nanny and help from my mom. And it was still challenging and continues to be. That said, the gift of motherhood is priceless and I encourage all smart people to procreate! But know what you’re getting into. Do you have any nieces or nephews or friends with kids? Have you spent time with kids? Do you have family that lives nearby and can help? You know the saying “It takes a village”? It truly does! Do you get paid maternity leave from work? I’m sure you’ve thought about all these things, but if you haven’t then you must. I don’t know anything about sperm banks, so I can’t really comment on that. I would say the best thing is to find women who’ve decided to go this route and make them your mentors. Talk to them. They have the answers because they’ve been through it. No one else will truly be able to give you insight unless they’ve walked that path. Much love to you, Jess!

The Benefits of Service

Yes, the military’s an excellent place for young (and young-ish) hard-chargers and gung-hos to make a difference, to put their ideals into practice, to serve their nation, and, of course, to blow shit up with big-ass guns.

These are the usual reasons trotted out when people are asked why they joined up, and they are good reasons. Like many readers, I lived it, loved it, sometimes miss it, sometimes don’t, and know it’ll always be a fundamental part of who I am going forward.

I especially miss the blowing-shit-up-with-big-ass-guns part. There’s nothing in this world like letting a Mark 19 rip…

But there are other reasons servicemembers enlist. There are other reasons they stay in, too, past their initial contract. These aren’t hidden reasons, exactly. More like layered, subtextual reasons. The benefits: medical, financial, college, all that jazz. They matter, and they matter a lot.

2018 America seems hell-bent on returning workers to the labor underclass of the nineteenth century. At this rate, the American military might well be the last place where the word “pension” is a real goal and not a cruel joke.

The military is a bureaucracy, though, and like any bureaucracy, navigating it can be a maze. Many — too many — servicemembers and veterans don’t know what they’re entitled to and what they’ve earned through their service. Through my work and travels as a veteran-writer, and a few years working for a veterans’ national nonprofit organization, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I wish I’d known about that earlier!” (often accompanied by a few F-bombs for effect).

So. What exact benefits did servicemembers and vets most appreciate? Which ones do they wish they’d learned about earlier? I asked some folks to share their wisdom.

Stephen, retired Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force
“Without a doubt, the VA Home Loan. I don’t how I didn’t know about it earlier, but it was my wife who pointed me to it a year out [from retirement]. It was huge, letting us direct the money saved for our post-military home to funds for retirement and our kids’ college. And can I say the VA was pretty good to deal with for this? I know. I couldn’t believe it either.”

David, former Specialist, U.S. Army
“I didn’t know I qualified for VA medical health care. No one told me during TAP [transition assistance program]. I thought you had to do twenty years and get full retirement for it. I got out after four years. But because of our combat tour to Iraq, I do get VA medical. It’s not good but it’s better than the shit I had before. The mental health program at my VA has helped…. I still can’t believe no one at TAP told us this. Those two years [before finding out about qualifying for VA care] were fucking hard.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I wish I’d known about that earlier!” (often accompanied by a few F-bombs for effect).

Kate, active Sergeant, U.S. Army National Guard
“This is probably an obvious one, but the post-9/11 G.I. Bill is amazing! I’ve been able to go back to school and have my books and housing all covered. It’s crazy to me that more of us [veterans] don’t use it. I know school’s not for everybody, but this is here. We earned it. Set yourself up for success. Though I have some friends who aren’t using it so they can save it for their kids, someday. That’s amazing they have that [transferability] option.”

Maria, former Major, U.S. Army 
“Not sure this counts as a benefit exactly, but when I was a captain and thinking about getting out, DOD [Department of Defense] was offering cash bonuses to extend. $30,000 for four more years in my subject field [transportation]. I weighed the pros and cons with my family, of course, and ultimately decided to do it. It allowed me to keep serving, and when I ended up separating four years later, my résume was that much stronger for civilian employers.

“That’s something I think more young people should know when considering the military. It’s not all infantry and tanks. A lot of these career fields do transfer over to the civilian world. Mine did. Day one of my civilian job, I was 33 years old but had more experience and subject-matter knowledge than people ten years older, who’d been with this company for twenty years. It’s not just about patriotism. There are practical benefits, too, that help us as individuals, and help communities as a whole, from what we’ve learned and know.”

Glen, former Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps
“You mean other than being a Marine the rest of my life? [Makes a woofing sound to signify his Devil Dog-ness] Free dental, I guess. They fixed my teeth. Not an easy fix. I looked gnarly before. Like a wombat or some shit. Now I got that straight-teeth shine.”

Terance, active Ensign, U.S. Navy
“I just joined the Navy myself, but I grew up a military brat. Both parents were in. I swore I’d never be like them…but after college, I was like, Now what? The job market out there is crazy. And my dad, he retired from the military — I’m looking at him, mid-forties, already on a second career, getting a retirement check every month. It’s a hard life, but it’s a good life. A fulfilling life. And my dad told me when I commissioned, be smart, work hard, and the Navy will look after you. No Fortune 500 Company does that. They may say it, but they don’t mean it. The Navy really means it.”

By no means are the benefits mentioned above comprehensive. I’d encourage any servicemembers, veterans, or family members reading this to look into what’s available to you or yours. Whatever it is, it’s been earned. Utilize it. Check out military.com/benefits and explore.va.gov for more information.

After A Day Of Stupid

Similarly, if conservation’s your thing, you have a bunch of publications, including Sierra, Orion, and Nature Conservancy, to catch you up on efforts to preserve land, maintain ocean habitats, and — no big whup — keep the planet from incinerating.

But your options don’t stop there. And since we like to dig a little in this column, we unearthed some fantastic books and podcasts that also go green. The former are worthy heirs to early nature classics Walden and My First Summer in the Sierra, by Henry David Thoreau and John Muir respectively. As for podcasts, audio is a natural for earthly exploration, what with calls of the wild, birdsong, crashing waves, and so on.

Read on, listen up, and to quote Mahatma Gandhi, be the change you wish to see in the world.

Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey, 1968)

They called him Cactus Ed. A prickly, heavy-drinking visionary raised in small-town Pennsylvania, Abbey spent two years as the lone park ranger at Arches National Park in southeast Utah canyonland. A decade later, he published an environmental masterpiece distilling his experience, busting on rapacious developers, and rallying America’s nascent green movement. The book celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Pop open a beer (Ed would approve) and check out his rowdy, ornery hymn to sagebrush and rock.

Winter: Notes from Montana (Rick Bass, 1991)

Arguably America’s best living nature writer, Bass grew up in Houston and worked as a petroleum geologist before radically changing his life. Always interested in nature and wildlife, he moved to the remote Yaak Valley in northwest Montana with his girlfriend and two dogs. This brilliant, wonderfully written book captures their first winter in a valley of 30 people, no electricity, and the Dirty Shame Saloon. Bass walked in snow for the first time. He cut a shitload of firewood. He had close encounters with elk, bobcats, moose, wolves, grizzlies. He got to know rugged neighbors, including Tom Oar, destined for Mountain Men fame on the History Channel. Winter puts the Yaak in your blood.

The Wild Places (Robert Macfarlane, 2007)

Macfarlane is a U.K. version of Rick Bass — at the top of the nature-writing game. A 41-year-old Scot who teaches at Cambridge, he helped recharge the English tradition of landscape writing. Leader of a literary movement that’s been dubbed the New Nature-Writing, this erudite adventurer seeks out the gnarliest, most remote corners of the archipelago (England, Scotland, Ireland). He visits a rugged Welsh island, a vast moor, a mountaintop, roughing it, hiking, exploring. His goal? To generate a new U.K. map, one without roads, its coordinates determined by wildness.

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo (Michael McCarthy, 2009)

Endlessly fascinating, this book, by a top environmental journalist, raises the planetary alarm by focusing on English birds — specifically those McCarthy calls “spring-bringers.” Every year, millions of epic fliers — cuckoos, swallows, swifts, house martins — migrate back and forth between England and Africa. Their numbers are in scary decline. Full of remarkable facts (swifts eat, sleep, and screw in the air; they almost never touch ground), Say Goodbye has the author hitting the trail in every chapter, searching habitats for birds, introducing experts who have made the study of individual species their life’s work.

H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald, 2014)

Winner of multiple awards, this book tells the story, in language that glows like a raptor’s eyes, of a woman who tries to heal herself by training a goshawk. In mourning after her dad dies, Macdonald, a veteran falconer, buys a captive-bred hawk she calls Mabel and brings it into her English home, then out into fields and woods. “Bulkier, bloodier, deadlier, scarier,” she writes of this breed. “A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon,” she writes of Mabel. You learn a lot about hawks, falconry, and the English natural world in H, and it sharpens your sight — though not to the rifle-scope level of a big, lethal goshawk.

Urban Wildlife Podcast

Philadelphia-based reptile expert Billy Brown and birder Tony Croasdale (onetime singer for punk band R.A.M.B.O.) explore critters of the city, from New York terrapins to London scorpions to Shanghai birds. They interview experts and amateurs with stories to tell and cover their own urban adventures. Harpy eagles eating feral cats, anyone?

Outside/In

A favorite of those who swear by nature podcasts, this show, from New Hampshire public radio and host Sam Evans-Brown, offers a range of topics like threats from invasive species and the unintended human costs of clean energy, to wildlife segments (vultures, beavers), to the complex ethics of high-risk rescues in remote wilderness areas.

Costing the Earth

A thoughtful, intrepid, sharply reported offering from England’s BBC Radio, this podcast tackles topics such as the epidemic of wildfires, cruise-ship pollution, sea-level rise in the Solomon Islands, and saving Indonesia’s rainforest. Challenging accepted wisdom, reporting on progress, it focuses on the interface between human life and the environment.

Eyes on Conservation

Produced by a team that also films wildlife documentaries, this podcast features conversations with experts in wildlife biology, environmental justice, and conservation. Recent topics? The impact of plastic refuse. How condors help locate corpses in Southwest canyons. Two women who tracked salmon migration on horseback, from the Pacific coast to Idaho. New research is featured; shows end with ways for listeners to help.

Sea Change Radio

A show revolving around sustainability, the Sea Change podcast, led by host Alex Wise, interviews experts in the field (Bill McKibben, Paul Hawken), and does so weekly. In two recent episodes, we met a Hawaii-based bike maker who uses bamboo for frames, and the CEO of a San Francisco company whose “Fitbit for the planet” measures air pollution.

Prosperity

Ah, the sweet smell of success. Hath thy nostrils been graced by this succulent aroma? If so, please describe it to me. Because aside from owning almost every videogame console from the eighties, I’ve never gotten a whiff of it. My apartment is rented, my practical car is nowhere near being paid for, and my bank account balance often falls somewhere between Oh shit and Fucking Christ. Still, I’m well enough off that I haven’t yet had to pawn my ColecoVision, so I can’t complain. The money is usually there when I need it. But what about that real money? That “I didn’t buy the new Nintendo, I bought Nintendo” (or at least stock in Nintendo) money?

I want funds that ferment, turning from gaggles of luscious grapes into quarts of thirst-quenching wine. But why stop there? I want an Audi for spring, a Ferrari for fall, and a Porsche, Bentley, and private tour bus for the rest of the year. I’ll keep going. I want a house on a private lake, with a duplicate house on the opposite side of the lake, so when I swim across my lake I don’t have to swim back to my original house. You dig? I want it all. But I’ll never have it.

For starters, I’m not business-minded. I looked at my purchase of a French Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 poster as an investment. Also, I don’t know how to properly ration my money (please refer back to the terms “ColecoVision” and “Nintendo,” in addition to the movie poster line). Third, I’m not a visionary. I have no concept of laser focus or the ultimate goal. Grandiose ideas come to me, sure. But it doesn’t take much to throw me off the path. Had I been working in Tesla’s lab, the announcement of a local bar’s Jäger Bomb happy hour would have prevented me from participating in the discovery of the alternating current. It’s just how I’m wired, if you’ll excuse the pun.

If I’m being honest, though, I’m okay with living the regular life. Despite the fact that I work in show business, live in Hollywood, and am completely surrounded by, for lack of a better term, utter whores, I don’t have stars in my eyes. And that’s a good thing. I realize the quest for prosperity has brought us many an invaluable asset, from flight to fusion to frozen food. But it’s also created a lot of raging assholes.

The only thing I remember from the 2016 Summer Olympics is the Ryan Lochte controversy. In short, the decorated medalist possibly vandalized a gas station and allegedly lied about being robbed at gunpoint. He was then suspended from swimming for ten months (a gift if you ask me — like when you fuck up in high school and they punish you by making you stay home for a week).

But the American public couldn’t believe their ears when they heard about Lochte’s antics. Everybody just couldn’t comprehend that another goddamned celebrity acted like a dumb fucking schmuck. What’s the surprise here?

People always wonder: What’s the secret to success? The answer is simple: being a self-serving piece of shit. Celebrity scandals are frequent because being a celebrity means, essentially, being at boss-level. If you wanna be at the top, you gotta work your way to the top. And that’s a dirty, dirty job: plotting, manipulating, scheming, casting aside friends, ignoring family, and so on.

Have you ever had a boss you actually liked? I haven’t. I was never gender-biased about it either. Every female boss I encountered was a bitch and every male boss was a cocksucker. Even if a friend of mine moved up the ladder, I showed no mercy: “Got promoted to office manager!” “Congrats, you’re officially a douche bag now. Don’t come to Dave and Buster’s with us ever again.”

Generally speaking, only the worst of the worst reach the top of the heap. And that doesn’t mean they do bad work. It means they suck as people. Frank Sinatra? Love his music! Total prick. Barbra Streisand? Terrific actress! Walking nightmare. Harvey Weinstein? Need I say more? Admit it, you still love Pulp Fiction and you’re not going to throw away your special-edition DVD. Neither am I.

Reaching for the stars means exactly that: focusing on the upward climb, becoming so intoxicated by the alluring stench of your own underarms that you no longer recognize the value, needs, and sometimes rights of the people around you. Globally renowned comedian Louis C.K. (see what I mean?) once likened success to a rocket ship: It takes off and pulls everything around it up into its thrust. That’s spot on. Rocket ships have zero regard for the earth they scorch — outer space is all that matters. So many of the ambitious and motivated have turned their lives into one giant, perpetual selfie. That’s sick. (Incidentally, even if you’re not famous or successful, if your Instagram feed consists of nothing but selfies, that’s sick, too.)

This culture suffers from a terminal case of selective indulgence. We condemn rich foods for being too caloric. We outlaw trans fats. We denounce capitalistic greed and do our best to send gas-guzzling vehicles the way of the Dodo. But, boy, do we love to celebrate ourselves. Mouths are steadily being stuffed at the buffet of me, where every dish is a special because every customer is special. Every individual nowadays is a diamond-encrusted dewdrop, rolling down a piece of golden origami, with a heart that’s an ocean and a soul that spans galaxies. I swear, even on an empty stomach, I could puke.

Every individual nowadays is a diamond-encrusted dewdrop, rolling down a piece of golden origami, with a heart that’s an ocean and a soul that spans galaxies. I swear, even on an empty stomach, I could puke.

Look, I’m not saying we’re all worthless, I’m just saying we’re not that important. None of us is even the center of the internet, let alone the universe. And if you’re wholly incapable of not constantly staring at yourself in the mirror, at least take some time to notice the reflection of other people, too. They matter. So do you, incidentally. I don’t want you to ditch your dreams and settle for whatever life hands you. Don’t be a pig, is all.

So where’s the middle ground? It’s existing somewhere between the extremes: egomaniacal indulgence on one side and passive defeatism on the other. For me, the compromise is the true pursuit of happiness. I focus on the stuff I actually want versus the stuff I’m told I’m supposed to want. There are a million of life’s perks I’d love to obtain (cash, cars, lake houses), but I can fall asleep at night knowing I have the necessities: friends, family, and a roof I don’t own, but which still keeps the rain out.

Sometimes it’s okay to lay down at the end of a long day, feel pride that you made that Honda Civic payment once again, and relish in the fact that you finally beat Castlevania III. Hell, if you have a window in your bedroom, you can even look up at the stars. Just don’t be compelled to reach for them, you dick.

Rape In Peace and War

Recent focus has been on hierarchical rapes — that is, sexual assault committed by people in positions of authority over their victims. But the most common form of rape throughout world history has been as a weapon of war. Historically the victor in a battle had the power to “rape and pillage” the losers. Modern rules of warfare are now making rape a war crime if committed by soldiers under the direction of their commanders. This is because rape continues to be a weapon of war even today.

There are several kinds of rape that are used as weapons. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, enemy women were raped and deliberately impregnated in order to cause them to bear the children of the victors. During the Holocaust, the opposite approach was taken. Jewish women were raped and then murdered. I recently learned that a 16-year-old cousin of mine, who was very beautiful, was repeatedly raped by Nazi soldiers in Poland and then murdered.

Among some terrorists, rape is used as a prelude to turning the victim into a suicide bomber. She is deliberately raped, and thus, under the local culture, dishonored. Her family, too, is dishonored by her victimization. The only way to restore the family’s honor is for the woman to die as a terrorist martyr.

Yet, despite these atrocities, the United Nations and other human rights groups have paid less attention than they should to the use of rape as a weapon of war. This is because human rights organizations generally apply a double standard: one for Western democracies and the other for less developed parts of the world. It is also because the United Nations and other human rights groups spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources on one Western democracy, namely Israel. The U.N. Human Rights Council, for example, devotes more than half of its agenda to Israel’s disputed policies and almost none of its agenda to the serious issue of rape.

A related reason for this general neglect of rape as a war crime is the politicization of human rights in general and of rape in particular. Consider the following academic paper, written by hard-left doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She began her thesis by noting that Israel has one of the best records in the world with regard to their soldiers raping enemy civilians.

Rape is a crime of violence, as well as a crime of sexual gratification. The very notion that your victim has to be seen as humanized is preposterous.

When she could not find instances of rape by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Nitzan hypothesized that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.” Rape by soldiers, infrequent as it is, is taken very seriously and punished quite severely. As a result, it almost never occurs.  So that is the data point from which the thesis was developed.

It is her conclusion that is so remarkable. She argued that the reason Israeli soldiers do not rape Palestinian women is due to an Israeli government program which teaches IDF soldiers that Palestinian women are subhuman, inferior, and unworthy, and therefore not appropriate objects of sexual assault.

Nitzan wrote: “In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences — just as organized military rape would have done.”

This conclusion is so absurd that it does not warrant a serious response.  But if a serious response is to be given, it is only necessary to point out how frequently Nazi soldiers raped the Jewish women who they had dehumanized beyond the point of any recognition.

Rape is a crime of violence, as well as a crime of sexual gratification.  The very notion that your victim has to be seen as humanized is preposterous. Tal Nitzan’s thesis is a prime example of primitive anti-Semitism. The core belief of the anti-Semite is that if a Jew does anything good, it must be for a bad motive. If Jewish soldiers do good by not raping Palestinians, it must be because they are badly motivated by their dehumanization of potential victims.

The world must move toward zero tolerance regarding rape both in wartime and in peacetime. This will not be easy to accomplish, especially during wartime, because the use of rape as a weapon of war has such deep roots in world history. But we must do everything possible to eliminate this scourge from our planet.

Whatever I Need to Do…

Mental Hell
Hi Leah, I recently started listening to Improper Etiquette and it has changed my life! I know it sounds corny, but it has opened parts of me that I thought I needed to hide to not be “too much” for others — listening to you speak so openly about your sexuality, being a single mom but not letting that define you, and most of all talking openly about your sobriety and mental health.

I’m 27 years old and a single mom to a beautiful 8-year-old boy; unfortunately, the baby daddy is an asshole. I’ve always struggled with depression and anxiety, and I was officially diagnosed at 16. But after having my son, and with the baby daddy coming in and out of our lives, my depression got worse and I turned to drinking. I hid it for a really long time, but the past couple of years it’s become obvious to others that I like to drink. I finally got on medication about three years ago for my depression/anxiety, but it was highly frowned upon by baby daddy and my family, so it took a long time for me to reach out for help.

Having mental illness has made me feel like I’m crazy at times, and I feel like it’s something I need to hide. It’s gotten pretty bad, but since listening to you I’ve decided to stop drinking. The problem is, I don’t feel like I can share it with anyone because in the past it’s been used against me in court.

How did you finally decide that you needed to stop drinking, and from day one, what did that look like? Secondly, how have you maintained your sobriety, especially when you’re required to go to social events where alcohol is served? Again, I love you for being a badass bitch! I feel like you are the best example of what my best me can look like. — Annaliza

Leah: My journey into sobriety started at age 15, when I went to my first of many rehabs. But I didn’t finally put down a drink until many years later, at the age of 27. I was empty inside. It’s a hard feeling to describe to someone who doesn’t have an addiction problem. So if you do, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s like waking up and you are in hell every day. The world is happening and moving around you and you are in quicksand. I tried everything except sobriety. I saw psychics and healers, I got colonics and went on cleanses. I hired a personal trainer, fasted, went to a therapist, tried switching to wine only, and drinking a glass of water between each drink. Everything except abstinence from booze.

Finally, one day after work heading home on the train, I had a complete spiritual experience (I’m not sure what else to call it). Maybe it was my brain going into survival mode, but I like to think it was more of a divine intervention. I had an out-of-body experience and I saw my child and her dad, but I wasn’t there. I saw my mother and father, brother and sister. But I was gone. And I knew at that moment that if I drank again I might not live to my next birthday. It was the Universe giving me a major warning sign.

I made a phone call to a friend who was sober and I was taken by another friend to a 12-step program. I’ve stayed booze-free since then (not anywhere near perfectly or always sanely, but I have not picked up a drink).

I have maintained this in one very simple way: No matter how shitty things get or how bad I want to escape, I do not drink. Sometimes I go to AA, yoga, acupuncture, or ice skating. Sometimes I fuck a dude who I know is a psycho, smoke a pack of cigarettes, stay up all night watching true murder shows. Whatever I need to do, I do it. But I don’t drink. My kid needs me sober. If I stay sober then I stay hopeful.

Recently I started smoking weed and it led me into other things, and into a bad, bad depression. Now I am counting days again in a 12-step program. And honestly it feels fucking awesome. Feels even better this second time around.

Your kid needs you as straight as possible. I’m sure once you put down the booze you will feel less depressed. Alcohol is a depressant and physiologically messes with our brain chemistry. I promise your life won’t get worse by quitting booze. It will only get better. And my advice is to look up a local 12-step program near you. It has saved me.

I truly wish you all the best. I hope you make the choice to reclaim your life and your happiness.

Flesh for Fantasy
Leah, I’m a 36-year-old divorced dad of two. I am in a relationship. I love her, and I can definitely see a future with her. Lately, I’ve been having fantasies about a threesome. I never really had this when I was married.

Our sex life is good. I can basically do anything I want with her. But I keep coming back to wanting a threesome. I know she would do it, but I fear that, mentally, it would not be something that excites her. There’s even the potential that it would make her feel bad. Do I ask her and try to talk her into it? Or do I just table it, knowing that she’ll be uncomfortable?

If I didn’t have feelings for her I would just say fuck it and go for it. But I do and don’t want to mess up a potential future. What do you think? — Scott

Leah: Okay, let me put this real plain and simple to you: If you love her, and if you know a threesome would be something that not only wouldn’t excite her but might make her feel bad, do you really love her? Why don’t you keep your fantasies just what they are — fantasies. I mean, I have lots of fantasies that would make people feel bad. Like, a million of them. But I don’t act on them. Like today, when this bitch cut me in line at Starbucks, I had a fantasy of throwing a scalding hot latte on her. But I didn’t do it. Hope that helps!

Contact Leah with Thoughts or Questions

The Mobro 4000

As recently as 1985, for instance, Americans only recycled about 10 percent of their garbage. It was a bad scene. Even worse, the number of landfills in the country was rapidly shrinking, as old dumps closed and not enough new ones were being set up to replace them. A crisis, it seemed, was imminent. And that posed unique (and uniquely gross) problems for those areas of the country running out of places at which to unload their trash.

Enter the Mobro 4000.

The Mobro was a barge, brought in to carry tons of trash from the Long Island town of Islip, whose landfill was nearly full, and float it down the coast to comparatively roomier dumps in the South. The idea was a pilot project, dreamed up by Alabama businessman Lowell Harrison, meant to benefit both sides: Islip would get rid of six million pounds of garbage in one fell swoop, while the Southern dumps would get cash, as well as an early experiment in renewable energy, by generating electricity from the methane gas produced as the trash decomposed.

Harrison got the owner of the only dock in New York City licensed to ship garbage involved, and together they secured investors, like the mob boss Salvatore Avellino. All appeared to be well. The Mobro 4000 left port on March 22, 1987, pulled by the tugboat Break of Dawn, and headed south.

But by the time the barge pulled into Morehead City, North Carolina, on April 1, there was a problem. A local TV crew had drawn the public’s attention to the matter, and suddenly the battle lines of City vs. Country were redrawn.

“No one said ‘a bargeload of waste,’” Harrison later said of the media coverage. “It was ‘a bargeload of New York waste’!” Then a government official spotted a bedpan amidst the trash, which led to fears that there might be other, more hazardous hospital waste onboard.

At this point, word of a homeless, floating mound of garbage went national. Nightly newscasts across America were suddenly full of images of the Mobro as it tried its luck up and down the East Coast, with vivid descriptions of its cargo “dripping brown ooze” as it sat onboard, rotting and fully exposed to the elements. After Louisiana, the barge tried its luck across the Gulf in Mexico, and then further south in Belize. For a time it sat anchored a few miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. But nobody wanted it.

In May, the Mobro returned to New York. But a pair of court orders once again blocked it from being unloaded. Even back in the trash pile’s home state, it was a quagmire that no politician wanted to be associated with. Finally, more than five months after first leaving port, a judge ruled that the Mobro’s trash was to be burned in a Brooklyn incinerator — where it was found to contain (surprise!) mostly scrap paper — and then returned to the very same place it originated from: Islip, Long Island.

At the time, the odyssey of the Mobro was seen as a face-slappingly obvious symbol of the garbage crisis facing America in the 1980s. It was also used as a rallying cry for the burgeoning environmentalist movement; at one point Greenpeace activists hung a banner off the side of the trash that read “Next time…try recycling.” And it seemed to work, too. Remember that dismal national recycling rate of 10 percent in 1985? It jumped to 16 percent in 1990, and then to 25.7 percent in 1995, thanks in part to awareness created by stories like the Mobro’s.

Looking back, however, the legacy is more complicated. Derided at the time, Harrison’s plan to move excess garbage across state lines is now standard practice; according to one expert, New York City now sends out the equivalent of seven Mobros’ worth of garbage every day. And his idea to use trash as a source of renewable energy now seems downright visionary, with more than 600 landfill gas projects currently in operation across the U.S. Even the panic about a lack of landfill space turned out to be overblown, as those outdated municipal dumps were in fact being replaced by far larger, regional ones.

But at the time, it was simply too hard for anyone — politicians, environmentalists, or the general public — to look at a garbage barge, dripping ooze, and see a good-news story floating their way.

Tech ‘N’ Roll

While MP3s changed the music industry for consumers, sweeping digital innovations were also changing the way music was made. And if technology and music have become irreversibly intertwined, it’s because we tend to instinctively associate recorded music with the era it came from.

The 80s had giant goofy snare drums, the 90s machine-driven club music. The sound of the current moment is usually tied to the state of the current technology.

As often as people complain about the overuse of CGI in movies, it’s also true that most successful digital rendering goes unnoticed. For every fake-looking space monster, there is a glorious, near-impossible sunset on an empty beach.

Similarly, some recording technology first appears as a gimmick — think Cher and T-Pain and Auto-Tune — but later becomes omnipresent. In fact, just about every record made now is Auto-Tuned, and though there was no exact moment when it started, these days you might only notice when it’s missing. But other more insidious, creeping digital advances may be having a more profound effect, because they’re far less obvious.

Specifically, I wonder if the very idea of playing with great feel will survive the digital era, since there is really no form of popular music that doesn’t have every idiosyncrasy ironed out before it reaches your ears. While recording engineers correct a vocalist’s pitch, they also line up every drum hit to an imaginary grid, sync every bass note to the drums, and make sure every instrument is the same (loud) volume. What would be the point of hiring a legendary session musician now? You could literally go to a studio and play each drum once, and one note on every instrument, and the engineer could do the rest, for half the money. And who gets credited for the performance?

While it’s been clear for a while now that you can be a successful musician without knowing how to play anything but your laptop, the distinction between performance and program has only very recently become more or less irrelevant. There used to be great rhythm sections (musician-speak for bass and drums) known for playing in the “pocket” (musician-speak for that magical groove that depends on an unspoken understanding between two or more players). One of those rhythm sections — the legendary Muscle Shoals combo from Alabama — played on scores of R&B records and were sought out by everyone from Aretha Franklin to Paul Simon.

Surely there are similar groups working today. It’s not that great players will cease to exist — it’s just that pretty soon it won’t matter at all. The market will dictate that.

Auto-Tuning every performance ensures that the shittiest bass player sounds exactly like the greatest bass player. It’s hard to imagine another rhythm section achieving the stature of the Muscle Shoals band, and people raised on digitally aligned music will never know what they’ve missed.

It’ll be up to cranky old coots like me to remind them.

Goodbye, Harry Dean

There’s so much we loved about Stanton, the Kentucky-born World War II veteran who discovered his love of acting in a college drama class. A notorious lone wolf on-screen and off, Stanton seemed to be everywhere all the time, appearing in more than 200 films and TV shows in his 60-year career. Yet somehow, we never got tired of him.

“Play yourself” was the advice Jack Nicholson gave Stanton when he wrote a part for him in the 1966 outlaw film Ride the Whirlwind, and that’s exactly what he did — for the rest of his career. Stanton’s naturalistic technique made him the perfect fit for all his roles, and that’s saying a lot. Here’s a look back at some of our favorites.

— Straight Time (1978)
Though one of his lesser-known features, it’s a must-see for film nerds and lovers of 70s cinema. Dustin Hoffman plays Max Dembo, a thief newly released from prison who fails miserably at going straight, so he returns to what he knows best, and brings Jerry (Stanton) in to help. Stanton was an experienced yet still obscure character actor at the time, and beyond cool with his long hair, aviator sunglasses, and sawed-off shotgun.

— Death Watch (1979)
An odd sci-fi melodrama, directed by French auteur Bertrand Tavernier and filmed in Scotland. Stanton plays Vincent Ferriman, a callous reality-TV producer who implants a camera in Harvey Keitel’s eyes so he can surreptitiously film the last days of a terminally ill woman (Romy Schneider). HDS’s everyman persona is a strange match for this slick character whose ethics are severely out of whack, but as with everything Stanton did, it works.

— Alien (1979)
Years before it became just another Hollywood franchise, Ridley Scott’s terrifying masterpiece was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Stanton plays Brett, the mercenary, trucker-hat-wearing engineer on the “commercial towing vehicle” Nostromo, and the second victim of the titular monster, after John Hurt’s abdominal blowout. Yet another supporting role for Stanton, but a breakthrough one at that.

— Escape From New York (1981)
Alright, so John Carpenter’s futuristic cult classic isn’t as great as we remember, but it’s campy and fun and so off-the-mark from what NYC actually became. Air Force One crashes into the maximum-security prison island of Manhattan, and Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) must rescue the POTUS from the inmates. Stanton plays “Brain,” a demolitions expert and BF of sexy scream queen Adrienne Barbeau. It’s a nonsensical film (currently getting a Robert Rodriguez reboot) that’s somehow grounded by Stanton’s presence.

— Repo Man (1984)
Helmed by first-time director Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy), this film was required viewing for 80s punks. Stanton plays Bud, an obscenities-spewing repo man who’s on the hunt for a Chevy Malibu with radioactive aliens in the trunk. The role was originally offered to Dennis Hopper, who wanted too much money; thankfully Stanton stepped in, owned the part, and secured his cult status for all eternity.

— Paris, Texas (1984)
HDS’s first leading role, at age 58, in Wim Wenders’ gorgeous desert drama. Sam Shepard co-wrote the screenplay, and it was his idea to cast Stanton as Travis, an amnesiac wanderer who’s lured back to the civilized world by his brother (Dean Stockwell) to reconcile with his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and their young son. Arguably one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in cinema occurs when Travis reconnects with her at the sex club where she works, tears pouring down his face as he recounts their doomed relationship.

— Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012)
Also the name of an album released jointly with the film (Stanton was an accomplished musician), this documentary, directed by Sophie Huber, follows the then 87-year-old actor around, asking him questions he’d rather not answer. Stanton drinks, smokes, and visits with old friends and collaborators — Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Shepard. He’s a tired old man who’s sick of talking, but ask him to sing and he lights up the room.

— Lucky (2017)
Just as the film’s title card says, “Harry Dean Stanton is Lucky”: a bullshit-free curmudgeon whose small, regimented world is comprised of five daily yoga moves, cigarettes, pots of coffee, silent wandering, and the occasional song. This was Stanton’s second leading role, and like Paris, Texas, it was written for him (by his longtime assistant, Logan Sparks). The film serves as both tribute and eulogy, and in it, Lucky and Stanton appear ready to shuffle off this mortal coil — and shuffle off he did, at age 91, two weeks before the film’s release.

Field Reversals 

When you write a sports book about a team’s previous season, as I did in 2009, telling the story of the 2008 Green Bay Packers, you have to make judgments about players that get set into the cement of printed pages and which later, depending on how the players do career-wise, can make you feel lucky, or dumb as hell.

I got lucky with quarterback Aaron Rodgers (perhaps you’ve heard of him), and wide receiver Jordy Nelson. Rodgers replaced living-legend Brett Favre in 2008, and though neither he nor the team had an especially great season (Rodgers threw 13 interceptions, a career high through 2017; the Pack went 6-10), the former Golden Bear displayed lightning footwork, moments of uncanny accuracy, a quick brain, and a cannon disguised as a human arm that saw him launching the rock on 60-yard arcs to receivers running go-routes.

Even in 2008, Rodgers had games that incinerated the reports of those NFL scouts who looked at his college work and concluded he “lacked arm strength” and “couldn’t throw the long ball” — these are actual quotes — and warned if you drafted him you’d be signing a dink-and-dunker with weird mechanics who’d never be more than a game “manager.”

But it turned out the guy taking over for a very disgruntled Favre — the guy whose story-in-the-making had me move from L.A. to Green Bay in summer 2008 — possessed signal-caller skills so elite that Aaron Charles Rodgers now comes up anytime football observers start discussing the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game.

So I got lucky. We put Favre on the cover of the hardcover edition, because everyone on the fucking planet practically had heard his name by 2009, not least after the months-long retirement-unretirement-revenge-will-be-mine soap opera that ended up with the Ol’ Gunslinger playing for the New York Jets (wha??). But for the paperback edition? Buyers of the book were greeted with a photo of the Californian, future boyfriend of Olivia Munn, and I got to write a new afterword covering the Packers’ 2011 Super Bowl win.

Jordy Nelson caught nine passes for 140 yards in that 31-25 victory over Ben Roethlisberger’s Pittsburgh Steelers, setting a new Packers receiving record that had stood since Max McGee racked up 138 yards in Super Bowl I. Speaking of covers, Sports Illustrated ran a shot of Rodgers and Nelson doing an aerial shoulder-bump on the front of the mag in its postgame issue. I got lucky with Jordy, too. (I feel like I can call him by his first name because halfway through the 2008 season I drove to his tiny farm town of Leonardville, Kansas, and watched a Packers-Titans game on TV with his mom, friends, grandparents, Little League coach, high school chemistry teacher, and others, gathered in Nelson’s Landing, a sports bar Jordy’s parents, farmers by day, had opened in town.)

Nelson was a rookie that year, the Packers’ first pick in the draft. I devoted a chapter to him. He could have sucked. A lot of Cheeseheads and national prognosticators more or less predicted him to suck, or be average at best. I had some doubts myself. But “the Hick from the Sticks,” as an unkind Great Plains football writer once called him during his record-smashing Kansas State career, has ended up kicking total ass as a Green Bay Packer.

But I’m stupid in my book, too. I basically called Alex Smith — the quarterback who went No. 1 in the 2005 draft, 23 spots ahead of Rodgers — a bust. Except then in 2011 Smith led the 49ers to a divisional crown and their first conference championship appearance since 1997. After being traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, he led KC to a playoff appearance and was elected to his first Pro Bowl. In 2015, Smith spearheaded the Chiefs’ 11-game winning streak and their first playoff victory since 1994.

And in 2017? He started the season throwing four touchdowns for 368 yards as the Chiefs stomped the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots 42-27.

But life comes at you fast in the NFL. As I write, Smith is coming off some bad games and the article-negging has begun. Is the Alex Smith Era Over? one of them asks.

And that’s the point. The National Football League is an up-and-down experience for most players, and the quarterback position especially is a freakin’ yo-yo.

And the year of our lord 2017? It was like God himself was handling that yo-yo, spooling it out, reeling it up, snap, snap, snap, with a revolving lineup of QBs pinned to the toy. The aforementioned Roethlisberger? On October 8, he became only the seventh quarterback in 20 years to throw five interceptions and no touchdowns in a game. He posted a hideous 37.8 quarterback rating. And Pittsburgh lost to Jacksonville 30-9.

“Maybe I don’t have it anymore,” Big Ben said after the game.

One reporter present said Roethlisberger was being sarcastic. Others contended the Steelers stalwart truly did seem shaken by self-doubt. At any rate, it was a moot point — because Big Ben began dominating again, and the Steelers piled up Ws.

Outhouse to the penthouse (heh). Case Keenum knows all about that journey. Collegiate superstar. Undrafted in 2012. Signed by the Texans. Waived by the Texans. Signed by the Rams. Waived by the Rams. More address shuttling. Back with the Rams, he posted a perfect 158 rating in a 2015 game. He was benched the next year. Became a Viking in 2017. Took over after Sam Bradford went down. And all Keenum did then was rip off that “journeyman” sign and lead streaking Minnesota to six straight wins.

His last victory as this issue goes to press? Against his old team, the L.A. Rams. The QB nobody wanted beat the guy who replaced him, wunderkind Jared Goff.

And did I mention that on this same football weekend the Buffalo Bills benched their starting quarterback of the past couple seasons, Tyrod Taylor, went with rookie Nathan Peterman, and the newbie promptly threw four picks in 18 minutes, and a fifth INT for good measure just before halftime? Taylor was back taking snaps by quarter three.

It’s one of the worst signal-caller debuts in NFL history.

Nobody knows anything. Screenwriter William Goldman once wrote that about Hollywood. It can sometimes seem the same way with judging quarterback talent. Brock Osweiler, anyone? Arguably the most quarterback-starved team in league annals, the Cleveland Browns passed on Carson Wentz when they could have picked him in 2016.

And now Wentz, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, looks like the next Tom Brady. Or the next Aaron Rodgers. But of course I might regret typing this. Or not.

The One-way Street of College Drinking and Sex

And university administrators don’t have the guts to confront this issue directly because it would make them unpopular with students who regard the right to get drunk and “hook up” as fundamental to the college experience.

Many if not most of the she-said-he-said controversies about whether a sexual encounter was consensual involve one or both parties being drunk. In these situations, memories are blurred and the woman is almost always believed. Moreover, women aren’t charged when they have sex with a drunk man. It’s a one-way street.

Colleges that knowingly permit drinking by underage students are not only morally complicit, they may be legally complicit. They claim they can’t stop it. They are lying. It wouldn’t be easy to stop all illegal underage drinking, but it would certainly be possible to reduce the incidence of drunkenness among students.

Colleges could have a zero-tolerance policy toward underage drinking: If you’re caught, you’re automatically suspended.

They could have university police monitor local bars and card all undergrads.

They could ban alcohol in dorm rooms and actually enforce the ban.

They could require dorm supervisors to report drunken conduct.

Already many dorms have video cameras that record the entry and exit of students. These videos could identify drunk students, just as such footage is utilized in contested sexual assault cases.

Fraternities, sororities, and other clubs that today serve as alcohol mills should be required to stop providing booze to teenagers.

Tailgate parties could be monitored for underage drinking.

There is nothing ideological about drinking. Moreover, it is gender neutral — women are as much at fault as men.

None of this would be easy or popular but it could have a dramatic effect on reducing sexual assaults. It would also reduce the number of questionable cases in which both parties are drunk and lack clear memories of what happened.

I am not suggesting that colleges adopt Brigham Young University’s blanket prohibition on all premarital sex, or even its blanket prohibition on all drinking, regardless of age. But to be effective, a ban on underage drinking would have to be somewhat over-inclusive — it would have to apply to all undergraduates, even those who have reached the drinking age of 21. Otherwise it would be too easy for 21-year-old undergrads to become the providers and facilitators of underage drinking. The slightly over-inclusive ban would permit colleges to have an absolute rule against any alcohol in undergraduate dorms, at undergraduate parties, and other social events. It would require 21-year-olds to wait until they graduated before drinking on their alma mater’s campus.

But it would be worth it, if it cut down on the number of sexual assaults and complaints. It is difficult to come up with hard statistical evidence of cause and effect when it comes to alcohol and sex, because the data on drinking and sexual assaults is unreliable. But clinical evidence points to a close association between excessive drinking and disputed sexual encounters.

An effective ban on underage drinking would also save colleges a small fortune. Today, there is an entire bureaucracy in many colleges whose primary job is to monitor the sexual behavior of students to assure that every sexual encounter meets the varying standards of consent articulated by different colleges. It would also improve the quality of the education provided by colleges, since students who come to class with hangovers are not in the best position to learn. Finally, it would reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries associated with alcohol consumption.

So why is there no movement on campuses to allocate more resources to regulating drunkenness rather than sex? Because an entire industry and political movement has been built around punishing alleged sex offenders rather than preventing sex offenses. There is nothing ideological about drinking. Moreover, it is gender neutral — women are as much at fault as men. So there is no political or ideological benefit in focusing on the alcohol component of sexual encounters. But the cost of tolerating pervasive drunkenness on campuses — especially to women — is too high. Difficult and unpopular as it would be, it is imperative that colleges take responsibility for tolerating the crime of underage drinking.

Sit Out The Vote

Actually, it almost certainly won’t be. Look, it won’t be. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but with the way things are going, each of us is likely to be trolled by the president on Twitter, somehow connected to a sex scandal, and sustaining ourselves on recycled urine, all by early March.

But here’s the good news: You can use your New Year’s resolution as a distraction from the horror of life. You can set your sights on bettering yourself, in that one seemingly minuscule way, as a means of focusing on a small positive instead of the gargantuan negative.

I know, I know. Most of us are lousy at keeping those optimistic promises we make ourselves every January 1st, but that’s where more good news comes in. I have a resolution for you that will be incredibly easy to honor. In fact, it takes zero effort and you won’t even need to act on it for another three years. Don’t vote in the next presidential election. That’s it.

This isn’t a resolution for me, it’s a lifestyle. I don’t vote for the president, I’ve never voted for a president, and I am quite confident I never will vote for a president. Before we proceed, let me address the first of several criticisms that will surely come from certain readers…

You’re apathetic.

I’m absolutely not. Apathy is a lack of interest or concern. I’m completely interested in what the leaders of this country are doing and it concerns the hell out of me. I just can’t do anything about it. None of us can.

And before you accuse me of white privilege, save it. I’m adopted and I’m not even sure if I’m white. A bunch of those DNA and family-tree websites tell me I’m Middle Eastern and African. But let’s just say I’m white since I was raised by Italian-American parents and I’ve been told — in a startlingly racist turn by so many self-proclaimed progressives — that I “pass.”

Now, with me being white in mind, my perspective on government was birthed many moons ago, when I, as an 11-year-old-boy, discovered hip-hop. My favorite rappers — surprise, the majority of them not white — schooled me on the values of radicalism. They taught me that major societal changes don’t come from people playing ball. Leaders who truly fight for the people usually function outside of the system — Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus, etc. And we all know what happened to them. That’s why it’s no surprise to me that our outside-the-box, third-party candidates — you know, the ones most Democrats and Republicans yell at you for wasting votes on — are silenced, bullied out, or never stand a chance in the first place. Therefore, true change just isn’t possible. You’re reduced to swallowing the crumb promises a mere two parties offer you, and they don’t even make good on those most of the time.

It’s not the lesser of two evils, it’s the better of two candidates.

In this day and age, with all of our access to information, I literally — and I mean literally — can’t understand that there are still people talking about a how presidential candidate “gets them.” The level of power and wealth you need to acquire to even run for president is unfathomable to most people.

And I’m talking about the people that legitimately run, not the guy in glitter tights that hangs out in back of your gas station who somehow got his name on the ballot. I’m referring to the handful of Republicans and Democrats that end up on the pageant stage, out-shitting one another for the nomination. Those assholes are on another planet from us.

I’ve actually heard people refer to presidential candidates as “down to earth.” Are you fucking kidding me? Who else is down to earth? Tom Cruise? I’m sure when he’s not saluting a volcano alien, he’s just a real straight-shooter. How about Lady Gaga? Get her out of that meat suit and she’s just the gal next door.

There’s a reason why every Hollywood movie about the White House centers around power, corruption, deceit, and lies. And there’s a reason every Mafia movie revolves around the same. Because art imitates life. Yet, we take the gangster flicks at face value and label the political films “thrillers.”

But not voting is crazy.

Is it? Take a look at the numbers. Most of us aren’t happy. I know I’ve never witnessed the end of a president’s term and heard someone say, “That was great!”

Over the last fifty years, only three presidents have received a majority approval rating. Three. That’s less than 30 percent. But we just keep trudging forward, repeating our actions, and expecting different results. That’s crazy. In fact, it’s the very definition of insanity.

Let’s take things in the other direction for once. I’m willing to bet that nobody showing up at the polls on the next election day would be a louder statement on behalf of the people than what we keep doing every four years. Our individual votes don’t mean dick against the Electoral College anyway, so what have you got to lose? One of two things will happen: Either we, the people, will actually be heard for once, or we can at least avoid feeling hustled and embarrassed for buying into a bill of goods.

I’m willing to bet that nobody showing up at the polls on the next election day would be a louder statement on behalf of the people than what we keep doing every four years.

Well, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

Talk about a fundamentally untrue concept. I don’t vote and I complain constantly. Watch, I’ll prove it: THIS COUNTRY SUCKS. See? Any minimally witted human being is capable of understanding that you don’t need to participate in a broken system in order to recognize shitty circumstances.

Besides, we question the integrity of every other system, bureaucratic or not. Faith in your church is considered a pipe dream, faith in your employer is deemed misguided, and faith in your marriage lasting is unrealistic. We call the police force corrupt, accuse judges and juries of being bought, and wave a collective middle finger at Wall Street. Our money isn’t safe in the bank, our loved ones aren’t safe in the streets, and no one feels safe enough to retire. Politicians “misspeak,” salespeople mislead, and non-profits misappropriate donations.

And we’re supposed to believe a government-run process, monitored by a foreign organization, consisting of several members that hail from countries the research organization Freedom House ranks as “not free,” is somehow clean? By the way, the current voting system was created in 1787 and hasn’t been updated since 1971’s Federal Election Campaign Act. There’s a new iPhone every eight months, but our federal election process is good to cruise for at least a cool fifty years.

People fought for your right to vote. It’s your duty as a citizen.

People also fought for my right to own slaves. Just because people were willing to risk life and limb doesn’t mean their cause is appropriate. But, to be fair, when it comes to voting, warring or fighting or marching for the right to do so was not just immensely important, but necessary. Having the ability, or illusion, of expression should be a right — or empty exercise — shared by all Americans equally. Good on us for achieving that.

But doesn’t it seem like an odd coincidence that the more people were granted the right to vote, the more the government seemed to slip through our fingers? The more we were allowed to raise our voice, the less our voice was heard.

Couldn’t it be that, maybe, just maybe, subterfuge was afoot? They gave us a shiny distraction to shut us up? We all own a few shares in the company, but none of us are actually sitting on the board. It’s a fucking rub. It’s like when the car dealer talks to you about the value of a rebate or when Costco advertises that buying twenty pounds of salmon instead of two actually saves you money.

Voting is a means of involving yourself, regardless of its impact.

It’s been my experience that at this point in the no-voting debate, the pro-voting advocate will usually say something along these lines. That’s fine. If the act of participating helps you sleep at night, then go ahead and run with it. Good rest is important. But call it what it is. Voting is essentially praying. It’s another way for someone to express the need to believe in something in order to avoid the spirit-crushing possibility that there is no greater purpose.

Sure.Because believing in nothing has a history of spawning such cheerful and helpful people. … Truth be told, a great many of us have probably not voted “for” a candidate since college. We have a long history of voting against people, however. We should never take away someone’s legal right to vote (or make it stupidly hard to do so, just sayin’). That said, if they choose not to vote we should be able to take away their right to bitch.

Boozers Of (Some) Renown

Winston Churchill’s massive consumption of alcohol is well-documented. And these days, given the seriousness with which we view problem drinking, a few of us are looking back at

As drinkers go, this Brit got a lot done, on a big stage — as large as they come. Murderous racism and petty misogyny aside, Winston Churchill helped defeat Hitler and, according to my Twitter feed, at least 70 percent of us still dislike that bellowing, genocidal fascist. In a world of irony and gray zones, killing Nazis still counts for a lot, and even if revisionist killjoys are now trying to downplay the portly prime minister’s Johnny Walker intake, Churchill’s functional overseeing of an empire-in-decline staving off the one ideology that makes good guys of us all is a noble standard. Especially for those of us who think way too much about how to meet a simple deadline when the Adderall and whiskey balance has been misjudged.

But it’s easy to praise famous men — they’re famous, and even in contrarian times, there’ll always be some hack historian willing to go on Charlie Rose and agree with you.

Drop down a notch or two from the world-historical figures, though, to men and women whose names we still know and who drank at epic, Churchillian levels — and who suffered from the debilitating disease of alcoholism — but nevertheless got the sausage made. Who will step forth and write glibly of their triumphs and pain, plumbing the depths of both cynicism and human fortitude, just to make rent? Well, I have two thumbs and by no small coincidence, I come before you, readers of Penthouse, as that guy.

We have, as a society, largely dispensed with the myth that suffering makes great art. Entering into that change is the fact that most of us, even if we place considerable value on art, would rather have our loved ones happy(ish) and alive instead of following the more “romantic” course: a tortured creator battling the black dog of despair, using ceaseless inner pain as raw material, heroically succeeding in leaving a cultural mark, and then kicking the bucket with more tumultuous creativity left untapped.

Or maybe we’re still trying to figure out the exact point where a major artistic contribution validates, on some level, the time-tested ways creatives who carry lacerated souls through life drown their sorrows. Is there such a point? If so, where is it? Hell if I know. In my own life, I’ve met roughly an equal number of bores and geniuses inhabiting every part of the emotionally and chemically damaged spectrum. I’ve been tending bar for twenty years, however, and, to be honest, all of you guzzling patrons look alike. So I turn to history for this, my celebration of the Not-Quite-As-Famous-As-Winston-Churchill Problem Drinker.

We begin with a poet, Englishman Philip Larkin, whose appalling attitudes on race and gender are often defended in the same way as Churchill’s. “He was of his time,” people say. Fuck that. We are wild and free and living in the now and can judge like we’re getting paid for it (I am). But I love Larkin nonetheless. He was without a doubt a total creep and no one should spend a single second defending any aspect of that creepiness. Having said that, Larkin’s reactionary politics and antiquated views, it seems to me, are rooted in a deeply held disdain for both humanity and himself — a disdain not unlike that of the best misanthropic hardcore singers.

“I hate everyone equally” is a tiresome trope of problematic artists and noise-scene nerds alike, and I’m not here to argue the dude deserves a statue, but I get it, the shade. Hater of literary parties, lover of drink, Larkin in his poetry grapples with changing social mores and our universal death terror better than many kinder poets of his generation.

“Aubade,” his final great work, written before alcoholism and bitterness became his all, opens, “I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.” And here’s how it ends: “Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring in locked-up offices, and all the uncaring intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.” It’s the most penetrating consideration of our daily existential fear that I know. Larkin was a guy who once, at a writerly function, decided he was wearing enough tweed and winter layers to safely piss himself without notice. He was incorrect, but even if all the man had written was doggerel, that boldness in the face of God and fabric absorbency would be enough to include him here. (As an owner of much corduroy, I look forward to the day I try the Larkin Method myself.)

Leaving behind this politically sketchy British male, we move to another drunk poet, American, troubled, female, the fantastic Anne Sexton, who broke through in the sixties and took her own life in 1974. Sexton makes the list? Yes. True, her life was fucking sad. But it’s bullshit that the Charles “Barfly” Bukowski types get to be role models for bad boyfriends everywhere, while a woman artist who hits the bottle always earns the label “tragic.”

These ladies invariably get stuck with a Scarlet “T.” (T for tragic. And scarlet like cabernet, pinot noir, or fucking merlot.) I’m not denying the traumas and brain chemistry issues, the bipolarity, that gave rise to Sexton’s pain and made her life a living hell for the most part, but let’s face it, messed-up women artists, historically, tend to get committed while their male counterparts get mythologized and sometimes even earn a statue.

And if Anne Sexton, observing from beyond, doesn’t want to be in the company of the figures on this list, she can haunt me, her ghost. I’d welcome it, an artist that brilliant.

A pioneering confessional poet, writing about everything from depression to masturbation, Massachusetts-born Sexton, in terms that seem positively quaint now if no less offensive, was often accused of being attention-seeking. But WTF? Attention is great, it fills the void in us all for a moment, and it’s easy for me to grok those driven to seek it. Despite the notoriety that did come eventually, though, she was always a dark, despairing drinker. And she boozed right up until the end, pouring a glass of vodka as she sat in her locked garage, rings removed from her fingers, car engine running, no one there to save the day.

Anne Sexton blazed badass trails. These days, confessional poetry — and prose narratives, and songwriting — is everywhere, and it’s been that way for a few decades now. And I think we’re better for it, artists opening a vein, sharing their innermost selves.

Anne Sexton boozed until the end, pouring a glass of vodka as she sat in her locked garage, car engine running.

Goddamnit, people are interesting. I mean, when they are. And Sexton was. Her poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” is unforgettable — a modern-poetry achievement I liken, in music, to Ian Curtis’s searing 1979 Joy Division song “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” That tune, written just a few months before he committed suicide, was sourced from Curtis’s life. The singer let us into his soul. And yes, it was dark — pitch black. And it will live forever.

Shit, it looks like we’re back to art and suffering. And I forgot to write a joke for this part. Drink up.

Time to lighten the mood. As I write, actor and songwriter Kris Kristofferson is both still alive and enjoying a revival. This is a guy, Texas-born, whose drinking has arguably done as much for the public good as Winston Churchill’s. I mean, even without Churchill’s wartime steadfastness, Stalin and the U.S. of A. might have eventually defeated Hitler. And it’s hard to imagine Churchill writing a song as good as “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” which captures the fun of waking up alone and hungover, craving a breakfast beer. For that matter, do you think the British Bulldog, had he been around, could have co-starred with Wesley Snipes in the Blade franchise? (I’m open to being persuaded Churchill could have done so, by the way.)

Through Kristofferson’s storied career, he has lived hard, and variously, working, playing, loving, and drinking within six degrees of separation from seppuku-committing weirdos like Yukio Mishima (Kristofferson starred in a movie adapted from a Mishima novel), leftist weirdos like writer-director John Sayles (the Bearded One co-starred in the excellent Lone Star), and even the silent-film greats who formed United Artists (the studio he helped bankrupt with Heaven’s Gate). Kristofferson wrote some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century, and while he’s been sober for years, he was putting away a bottle of whiskey before noon while starring with Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born (the actor won a Golden Globe — watching his own performance as a drunk, deteriorating rock star convinced him to quit drinking).

The man still smokes pot at 80, and his music, for good or ill, has soundtracked generations of dissipation and regret. Kristofferson would have made the list simply on the strength of “And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad. So I had one more for dessert.” After all, Sunday scriptures vary from place to place of worship.

Anyone who’s read either Joan Didion or a stray Sandman comic will never shut up about the importance of narratives — forms that make order out of chaos — in our lives. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” wrote Didion (who worked on the script for A Star Is Born, incidentally) at the start of her book The White Album. We look at these heavy-drinking historical figures and find ourselves projecting themes and threads upon their troubles, their addictions, their frailties. So at this point I interrupt my story-projecting to widen the lens and say, You know what, we’re all weak, and we all die, and maybe if we fuck the right anthropomorphic representation of metaphysical entities, someone will remember us. I’m pretty sure that was the point of Didion’s Hollywood novel Play It As It Lays, though it’s been a while. But please consider this consideration a celebration of the lives — the existences — of these individuals, not the disease. These are sad people who I dig, with nothing but the inability to turn down a gimlet bonding them. (Any framing device in a storm as they say. Moving on…)

It’s not every day you transition from Kris Kristofferson to Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, but that’s what we’re doing, thanks again to the bonding of a gimlet.

Grant is an outlier in our pantheon of Not-Quite-As-Famous-As-Winston-Churchill Problem Drinkers. First off, he’s as famous as Churchill, at least stateside. Moreover, I don’t really have a strong opinion of him one way or another. I mean, I get the great things he’s done — winning the Civil War was top-notch, and I vaguely understand why historians consider him a bad president (though his reputation, I am told, is currently undergoing a rehabilitation — though not to the extent that there’s a Hamilton-esque hip-hop musical in the works). Thing is, like Brooklyn’s Violent Bullshit puts it, “Loving your president is like loving the cops.”

As for the entity Grant fought against, I don’t hate the Confederacy because they were rebels — rebels and insurgency are cool as hell — but rather, I hate Grant’s enemies because they fought for slavery and white supremacy and were generally bullshit. And I understand that the arc of justice sometimes requires siding with The Man. So keep the statues of presidential drunks on horseback and melt all the totems of General Lee — and all the sober, hateful schmucks of his ilk — into a molten puddle to be recast into the shape of Andre the Giant drinking 116 beers in one sitting. That is my patriotism given material form.

While wrestling with these larger questions, I’m tempted to include Noah (of Ark fame) on the list. According to the Old Testament, he grew a vineyard and became drunk after the big bath, and then his son, Ham, was a jerk about it, so, for some reason, Noah cursed his grandson, Canaan. I respect the pettiness required to punish a grandson and, since I like animals and pairs of animals even more, I’m generally cool with Noah and think you should be, too. But while the only recorded instance of biblical sauce-hitting takes place post-Flood, I can only assume that our man was lit when he neglected to put any dinosaurs or unicorns on the barge.

This list operates by the lofty standard “functioning alcoholic” and forgetting the Pegasi and whatnot is just sloppy. So I’m sad to say that an easy opportunity for a “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke must be sacrificed. We’re aiming for the greater good here — a rock-solid, incontrovertibly true assessment of the Not-Quite-As-Famous As… etcetera, etcetera. If being right was easy, everybody would do it. I’d substitute someone like Whitney Houston for Noah but she’s even more famous than Winston Churchill and Noah combined. Also, if you think I’m going to make jokes, even affectionate ones, about Whitney, you must have me mistaken me for someone who deeply wants to die on the internet.

Not-Wanting-to-Get-Yelled-at-on-the-Internet is also why, fond as I am of them, Nina Simone, any number of Sufi poets, Ant-Man, and Buzz Aldrin are omitted from this list.

These are great individuals and heavy drinkers to the last. But there’s not enough liquid courage on Earth to convince me to die on any of these hills. In fact, I only mention them in passing, if not gratuitously, because I think they’re swell and feel like sharing.

Look, life, as it is, is difficult. We humans struggle every day of our lives. Failure and humiliation come as easy as breath, and death, the inevitable intoxicant, beckons like an unhinged siren. The edge must be taken off, one way or another. Some choose sex, some choose unholy pursuit of empire, and some choose Mad Dog 20/20.

Greatness in those endeavors is hard to quantify. But I support those who strive with a gusto untethered to bourgeois considerations like dignity and self-preservation. I salute them, and you, those of you who drink hard, saying fuck you, for a while, to the dark.

“How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.” And so the joke goes (or as poet James Tate would call it, the oblivion ha-ha). Alcohol isn’t a necessity to nurture this worldview, but it helps. I mean, for a while at least, until it doesn’t.

So here’s to the temporary. Raise a glass to it. Or, as Paul Bearer, hard, hard drinker and Sheer Terror singer, always says to me when lifting another Jameson to his lips while saluting/cursing all the forces in opposition, “Up with us. Down with them.”