Epilog: I read the book version of Red White and Royal Blue

Heartbreaking

 

Most fan boys read a book and then criticize the film almost universally for deleted scenes and other compactions along with other alterations for things in the book that don't translate well to the screen. I on the other hand saw the film first and have now read the book too. I stand by what I wrote in my review of the film because that's what I saw but I can see how people who read the book first might not agree with some of it. My main takeaway is that they are both really good and different. There is really no point to complain because they are just not the same. Most of the film is pretty faithful to the book but frankly I think the film did some things a lot better than the book. The book and the film largely were the same at least until around the New Year's Eve kiss so I won't dwell on that.

For starters I don't think anything could surpass the scene of Alex talking to Henry on the phone after they had been cut off while in crisis. There is a raw emotion about it that was just heartbreaking with the minimal amount of words said. Alex's "baby" and Henry's "Hurry. Please" captures everything about what they are going through. The scene on the stairs when Alex gets to Kensington and the tenderness of comforting his lover who is in utter despair is just beautiful. I suspect that this is because Matthew Lopez understands the pain of the closet at a visceral level. In general I think that the film captures the agony of Henry's closet better which is what most of the film is about. In the film, you can see that Henry is crying often with his puffy eyes. That's hard to get across in a book.

The other scene that I think the film did much better is the platform on the lake scene. The "drowning" scene is really not possible in a book but it perfectly captures Henry's despair of not being able to have the one thing he wants above all others: Alex. He can have anything in the world materially but he can't have happiness. His closet is suffocating him. Drowning him. Alex's clueless about his situation was a dagger into his heart. Alex falling for Henry while the one thing Henry wanted most, was the one thing he could not have. In the book there was much, much more dialog in that scene while the film was about symbolism. The symbolism wins hands down in my opinion.

The making love scene in the film was better too, in my opinion. In the book, they are pretty torqued having been out drinking all night. That's usually not the best time to try to fuck and even if it's successful it's not going to have the tenderness that the film showed. As the book explains later, Henry has been in love with Alex since the very first time they met. It was bearable because he never thought that Alex would love him back. In the film, it's very clear that Alex is falling hard for Henry even if that surprises him both with him being a guy and Henry of all people. But in the book, it makes it clear that Alex was absolutely obsessed with Henry from way before they ever met. The scene in the film is sort of emblematic of Alex figuring out what that obsession was about. And for Henry it is possessing for the most fleeting amount of time the only thing that he really wants and you can see it in his eyes looking at Alex. That sort of scene and introspection is just not going to happen after a night out drinking in LA. And Paris, of course. Who the fuck doesn't fall in love in Paris?

I agree with the film that compressing June and Nora into Nora is fine. June doesn't really do much if anything that drives the plot. Getting rid of Wimbledon was fine too. It was basically a repeat of the polo match so didn't really bring much to the table other than giving Alex and Henry more together time. The karaoke being in LA was a little more believable than some bar in bumfuck Texas. It's debatable that the Texas venue would be more anonymous because most Americans know who the front line royals are and they'd certainly know who Alex was. But in Hollywood it would have raised a lot of eyebrows and iPhones though.

I think that the meeting with the queen (vs king in the film) made more sense. If they married off the stair scene with it it would make more sense. I don't like throwing in Henry's mother -- who we've never met before -- to stand up to the queen. The film has it right that that was Henry's fight. That's mainly because it finally allows him to become his own man and own his own destiny. A destiny he didn't think was possible. Henry grew leaps and bounds in that scene. He finally allows himself happiness. "I certainly hope not". Perfect.

One major difference between the book and the film was how Alex and Henry were outed. In the film it was a one-off fling reporter of Alex's who did it. That really didn't make a whole lot of sense. And that is certainly not a good way to make friends and lovers in gay land. In the book, there is an entire subplot of Alex's mentor becoming a mole in the republican candidate's campaign. In today's hyper polarized climate that's a hard ask. But what doesn't make sense is that they don't seem to do anything once they find out with the book version. There are vague allusions to it after being in the press, but they don't really resolve whether it was even damaging.

In the book it makes much more sense for Alex to give his coming out speech after having resolved it with Henry in London. In the film, he's basically giving Henry no agency in his outing which puts Henry in another bind. How can you deny anything when the other half has already come clean? So the book makes much more sense. If I recall correctly, the outing speech had a much more personal aspect that wasn't in the book. As in why am I here? I'm fucking in love with him. 

I liked the small subplot of Alex's high school fling Liam having a part in the book. It doesn't push the plot forward at all so I understand why it was cut, but it's probably nice for Liam to finally have closure as a gay man that Alex wasn't just an experimenting straight guy. Small, but nice. I do really wish that Alex had grabbed Henry to introduce him to Liam and his boyfriend on election night. It would be best if he just introduced Henry as his boyfriend and maybe Henry being curious to speak to Liam later since he knew Alex back in the day. Basically Henry disarming the elephant in the room that Alex is dating a prince.

Alex pulling Henry up to them by the arm: "Hey Liam and Spencer, this is my boyfriend Henry"

Liam, nervously: "Nice to meet you, uh...", not knowing how to address him

Henry, breaking in: "Nice to meet you Liam, we really must get together and talk young Alex. And just Henry...", with a mischievous smile 

Liam, laughs and says: "I don't want to scare you away from him", with a broad smile

Alex: "God knows, I've been trying to scare His Royal Highness off for years and can't shake him" and Liam understands their relationship dynamic while starstruck Spencer giggles

Henry, rolling his eyes: "I keep threatening him with dungeons and locked towers for his impertinence and still nothing works. It is my lot in life" and they all burst into laughter

The other thing I want is when Alex butters up the audience at the convention and finds Henry after he gets off stage is to drag Henry back onto stage and say:

"Hey! Have I introduced you to my boyfriend? Meet Henry!"
 

On a personal level... The Emails. I am one of the people who invented an email authentication protocol called DKIM. It wasn't our intent at the time, but as it turns out DKIM makes for pretty air-tight non-repudiation. That is, if you wrote something you can't deny you wrote it and say that it was hacked. It's not quite that simple but suffice it to say it would be very, very difficult to deny it. Imagine my surprise years later after Her Emails (ie, Hillary Clinton's) was a brouhaha that I found out that DKIM was being used to prove that they were real. In the book which has their actual email correspondence (in the film it was really confusing because all they did was text each other) and more importantly the email correspondence of the republican campaign's plot to out Alex and Henry would not be able to be denied. In the book, they needed to get the mole senator to come clean because they didn't have time. In reality running the raw email through one of the many available DKIM verifiers online would have taken only a few minutes. It doesn't really make any difference, but it's just an unintended quirk that any time I hear of a controversy involving email... there I am.

Just to be perfectly clear I am not bagging on the book in any way. Or the film for that matter. They were bound to be different. That's just the way it is. It's just that the film took advantage of the visual media in ways that would be almost impossible in the book. Henry's intense stare as Alex is fucking him for the first time. How can you represent that in a book? The image is raw and visceral. Same with the stair scene. Lopez really took good advantage of his medium without really altering the overall arc of the book. 

So in conclusion I am glad I saw the film first and then read the book. I'd probably be much more critical of the film if I had read the book first, and my takes in my first post about the film would have probably been different because I'd already know the back stories which I didn't have, not having read the book. I don't think that my takes were wrong, per se, it's just that the film doesn't give as much context so you have to infer more. But the long and short of it is that I'm still sort of amazed at how much this has transfixed me in a way that although I loved Heartstopper, it did not. I guess it's the corrosive effect of Henry's forced closet that is just too real. The closet is something pretty unique to the gay experience and you don't see it in gay media very much. Or at least where it's the driving force of the plot. It deserves more attention because our project is far from done. We gay people who are out and happy need to be reminded that our experience is far from the norm. Oh, and last but not least from the book: Henry has a big dick. Big dick bottoms are my fave.

Epilogue

So they've been dropping a few cut scenes and of course there is an uproar about not including them. The problem is that Matthew Lopez was given a two hour time budget so if you're going include them, what are you going to cut or compress? I've scanned through the movie looking for what could be done and I frankly don't see it. The movie is already rushed especially at the end. The one that is causing the most controversy is the fireside chat scene where Henry tells the tale of the prince born with his heart outside his body. In the book this was one of their email exchanges and Alex is trying to understand what makes Henry tick. In the cut scene, it is the night before the lake scene and Alex is basically asking Henry if he has permission to love him. Although it's somewhat ambiguous Alex doesn't think so and thinks that Henry's answer is "yes". What doesn't make sense is why he would have waited? He would have told Henry then and there and it would have been a very different movie. So while the scene is absolutely beautiful and Nick nails it, I understand why it got cut. We should just be happy we got to see it (and hopefully more) instead of complaining it wasn't in the final cut.

Why the fuck am I so smitten by Red White and Royal Blue?

[I should say I haven't read the book (yet), so people who have might have more context about my takes]

Ok, I fully admit that I love the gay rom com genre so I'm an easy mark. It's probably because there was no gay equivalent of things like the Breakfast Club and things like that when I grew up. RW&RB is completely formulaic in the star crossed lovers kind of way. I get that. But they all are to varying degrees: that's not a bug, it's a feature. So why is it that I'm sort of obsessing about it having watched it about 5 times in the last few days? It's even caused me to write some fan fiction about a possible sequel. What in the fuck is wrong with me?

First off I think the acting was superb. I don't know if in the book that Alex was supposed to come off as a typical douchey straight frat boy, but geeze is he annoying even when they are together. If the intent was to be cringe, Taylor Zakhar Perez really pulled it off. His creepy inappropriate familiarity in situations that should have more decorum is every bad stereotype. But in some ways I do see myself much more in Alex's shoes than Henry's. While I'm not a douche (seriously. ok, fuck off) Alex is much more confident of himself and his situation that allows him to be a douche. It took a lot of vulnerability with Henry to tell him that he was scarred when they met and that's why he reacted the way he did to Henry. Bit by bit, he de-douches himself. It allows him to enter a world he had not really contemplated. Even in the end he's still pretty much a douche, but he shows that he is absolutely committed to Henry. I like that. Redemption for douches? Who knew?

Then there is Henry. Yes, Nick Galitzine and especially those lips slay me. But there is something about him and the trap he finds himself in that is so relatable. Being in the closet is bad enough but to be in the closet with the public starring at you 24/7 is horrible. In the old days before the internet and social media you could be gay and famous and live a semi-normal life if the powers that be were complicit with the game. Think old Hollywood. There were plenty of gay actors where it was an open secret that so and so was gay but the studios controlled the narrative. We all knew that Rock Hudson, for example, was gay in and around Hollywood but the studios put up the facade of plausible deniability and everything was good. But for Henry in the internet age, that is not possible and freakishly makes his closet far more miserable. There is no such thing as "confirmed bachelors" anymore. That is something actually new and refreshing because it's new. It's easy to shit on celebrities, but I mean they are still people and have to go through a lot of shit that they don't like just because of their visibility. I certainly don't know what it's like and I don't want to excuse bad behavior but I sure as hell wouldn't want that life. Part of my life is that I just didn't really care what other people thought and was always horny so I can empathize with Henry for whom that is just not possible.

But there are many scenes that kill me. First and foremost is the scene when they've been outed and Henry has his phone taken away from him. When Alex finally manages to get in contact with him and Alex asks him if he's ok, Henry answer "No. No I'm not" and when Alex says he's jumping the next flight London Henry says "Hurry. Please". Their meeting and the tenderness of the scene was just heartbreaking. It's a cliche trope of the top protecting his bottom, but I don't care about the stereotype because it felt very real. You could feel Henry's anguish and hopelessness. Nick did such a good job of conveying that. I don't know where Nick is on the gay spectrum, but geeze does he seem to have access to the emotions. Hey Nick, it's ok either way but if you are it's ok... the water is fine especially if you're bi like Alex.

The butt sex scene is somewhat unusual too for the gay genre. Let's face it, they're usually terrible. Usually it's done under the covers, fully dressed and shown with wild animalistic passion which is not how I experienced sex much. That and the trope of throwing them to a wall and fucking them from behind standing up is too cliche for my taste too. But in this scene they are fucking missionary slowly and passionately taking in every bit of the experience (update: apparently a lot of straight people didn't know we do missionary. It's like what the fuck? It's honestly my favorite because I like to see who I'm having sex with). Henry's expression is especially emotive and shows that he is falling hard for Alex. Alex delivering "making love" in the scene is quite beautiful because Alex is clearly a wham bam thank you ma'am kind of guy. He's clearly falling for Henry too but he is much more conflicted about it. Maybe conflicted is the wrong word, but I think it's because Alex is still rather surprised that he can fall for a guy in a romantic way. That seems like a genuine phenomenon with bisexuals because finding women attractive both for sex and romance is the easy path. Finding guys attractive especially in a romantic context is the hard path and a lot of bi guys can be oblivious to it until that one guy causes them to wake up. Henry on the other hand is terrified. Terrified to allow himself to have feelings. So while the scene is a bit unusual, it did what it needed to do: watching them falling in love while making love.

The lake scene of course was devastating. When Alex talks about taking Henry around Austin hand in hand and Henry's eyes pop open, it perfectly captures Alex's complete naivete as Alex was about to tell him he loved him. The metaphor of Henry drowning because of his closet underscores the terrible toll the closet is taking on him. While I was never especially closeted I can just feel the horrible situation that Henry finds himself in. That Alex is oblivious to that is crushing to Henry. There is no way out because there is no way out. That I think is pretty unusual for the genre and certainly is pretty unique to the gay experience. 

The New Year's Eve scene is similarly unusual for the genre. Alex is still pretty oblivious that in reality he's quite obviously flirting heavily with Henry. Again, a bisexual angle that you don't often see. Henry knows he's as gay as a maypole(!) but Alex is oblivious to his feelings. It takes Henry's kiss to allow him to connect the dots about his feelings for him. And then, why Henry of all people? Love is like that, dude. Weird shit happens. In that I see some of myself in Alex. Instead of weirding out, he is much more like "huh. didn't see that coming, self" and rolls with it. That's the sign of somebody who lives much more in the moment unlike the over thinker Henry who has to calculate everything out to the nth degree. (update: in the book, Alex is definitely an over thinker, but not for sex and love, in my opinion)

The meeting with the king was a little stilted. I mean in this day and age would actual royals be this uptight about a gay prince, especially a spare? I guess with all of the drama with Prince Harry, maybe they would but it's hardly a secret that there were gay princes and kings for that matter. But I'm certainly no expert on all things royal so what would I know? Plus the king rolled over way too easily if it was his serious intent to quash the entire thing. The entire flash mob thing was also a little too clever by half. Not my favorite scene, but they had to drive the plot forward somehow on that front.

Likewise with the election scene... Texas? Seriously? I know it's Hollywood and you have to suspend disbelief but that's an especially hard ask. I guess they had to tie it back to Alex's work but it's really hard to imagine that happening these days with Trump and the crazy party ruling the roost. The final scene at Alex's house reinforced the bromance narrative. But that is a dynamic that a lot of gay couples have that is not as socially acceptable with straight relationships. It's ok to be bros and lovers too. Aric often compares me to his older brother Michael who he fought with every day. That's a look that's a little unusual too. All too often Hollywood forgets the playfulness of relationships.

One more minor thing I like is that Nick actually plays the piano. I had to look it up, but yes he is an accomplished musician. I have been having the Bach Sheep May Safely Graze he was playing become a very annoying earworm. That and Rachel Maddow. Girl, you need to stop doing these things. They are not a good look.

So why am I so smitten? I think it gave some new and refreshing twists to the age old genre. I thought that the acting was "on the nose" (sorry, Henry). While I have had nothing like Henry's experience (mine was much more like Alex's minus his cluelessness) I as a gay man really empathize with his predicament. This shit does happen up and down the social pecking order.  That and Nick Galitzine is beautiful. And a bottom. At least in the movie. The American hegemony of being the top makes all things right in the world. And that is yet another reason to love this.

My Red White and Royal Blue Sequel

 

[I've been completely smitten by Red White and Royal Blue and do think that a sequel is possible. Here's my ideas of the flow. Note that succession like things and royal protocols is definitely not my strong suit so it's more the ideas here. The time line is probably dodgy here too.]

Henry: I have been smitten by you from the first time we met. Charming. Insufferable. Impossibly handsome. Impossibly impossible. You rescued me from my agony and hopelessness and dared to love not just the man you thought I was, but the man that was actually there. Vulnerable. Trapped. I have never been so happy in my life or even dared to believe I could be. You are my prince charming, and I want to live happily ever after with you. Will you marry me?

Alex: I have been obsessed with you since I was 13. I didn't know why and I didn't understand my feelings. I projected my obsession onto you in the worst possible way. Then when we were forced to make good I finally saw you for who you really were. Beautiful. Warm. Giving. That our bromance turned into romance surprised me. And I loved everything about it. I grew as a man and I knew that I needed to protect and free you so that I could have the man I fell in love with. My forever. Will you marry me?

Cut to: another royal wedding, this time with Prince Henry and Alex a year after the election. Who will be in attendance from the royal family? Phillip shows, but very grudgingly. Set it in America to bookend the first wedding. The King has kept very distant. Drama: minimal, though everybody drew a deep breath at the cake feeding ceremony. Alex was very dainty with Henry causing everybody to exhale. We finally meet Henry's mother.

They've mainly been living together in America though Henry still keeps up with his royal duties. Alex has been working both behind the scenes and doing outreach and campaigning building on his success in Texas. Basically climbing the ladder for his ascent into politics. Henry is enjoying being less in the bright light of the public eye, though obviously not completely. A little bit of domestic bliss that he thought he could never have. He has even started to learn to cook. He can finally say that he as at peace and is happy.

A month later, Henry is summoned to Buckingham Palace. The news is not good: the king has lung cancer (those ciggies were foreshadowing!). The prognosis is unknown, but lung cancer is never a good thing. He will undergo surgery and radiation therapy and more will be known after. 

Alex finally decides to take the plunge into elected politics and run for congress. Henry is wary of this as he told Alex before of trading one prison for another. Plus it's pretty much a no-no for royals to be part of politics, though being American politics makes it a little easier to bend the rules. Henry makes it clear to Alex that he doesn't want to be used as a prop. His inclusion in the presidential race was a fluke due to the circumstances of being outed. They have to work out boundaries and the friction that causes. 

The campaign is underway in earnest. The good thing about it just being for congress is that most of the time the campaigning is local, but duties both from the White House and the Palace drag them apart more than they'd like. They start talking about having kids, something that Henry could never have dared to imagine other than through some sham marriage. They find out there is a new somewhat experimental procedure that allows both of them to donate their DNA into an egg so the child would be completely their blood. They then playfully banter about who would donate the X and who would donate either the X or Y.  Should it be a boy or a girl? Who will be the surrogate? 

The news from London is not particularly good. Nothing is imminent, but lung cancer is a bitch. The king is becoming more frail due to the ravages of treatment and the disease. The nation and world hold their breath. 

Then disaster strikes. Prince Phillip had a diving accident in the Maldives that has left him in a deep coma and most likely brain dead. The horror sets in for Henry: he may be king. In fact he will be king, it's just a matter of time. He is inconsolable as much as Alex tries. Alex is completely torn between his ongoing campaign which is nearing election day and Henry's existential crisis. Henry knows that this will destroy them and the only happiness he's ever known. Alex ever the optimist says they'll just have to figure it out. Alex reaches out to his mother but all she can do is offer a shoulder to cry on. He has to contemplate whether he's willing to give up the career he's always wanted to be with his man. Henry on the other hand never expected or wanted to be king. Should he abdicate? 

Election day. Alex wins handily. The charming young congressman and the face of the new generation of democrats. A very bright future lies ahead. Or does it? Henry shrinks into his cocoon rattled by the fear of what lies ahead. Alex brings up kids again. He thinks they should do it. Henry desperately wants this too, but just can't reconcile it with his reality. In the context of mostly being in America and living a mostly normal life, that made complete sense. Now though? He's back in the trap of not thinking about the future because there is no future that Alex freed him from before.

Phillip is indeed brain dead. The painful decision to remove him from his ventilator is made. Henry is officially next in line to be king. Media explodes and his and Alex's lives are thrown into complete chaos.  On the bright side, the king has stabilized and although the prognosis is not great it's not grim either. The king summons both of them to Balmoral where he has been recuperating. It's never been entirely clear what the king thinks about the two of them. He was taken aback by the support Henry received but beyond even his homophobia he has been very wary of being intertwined with American politics -- the less the better. The king makes it clear that it is duty before love as it has been for centuries. Henry must have a plan and that plan must include being king.

Alex makes plain that he will give up everything to stay with Henry. It's that important to him. And oh by the way? This settles who gives the Y chromosome. Succession demands it. Instead of comforting Henry it sends him into a funk anew. He knows the life that Alex is setting himself up for and knows that it will probably defeat him. Alex is hopeful though and after all a lot of politics is cutting ribbons and the like too. And by the way, what would his title be? Could he be the first male queen? His gay friends would be howling in laughter. 

Henry approaches Bea about the prospect of carrying their baby. He's trying to be hopeful and allow himself a future again, though he doesn't know what it might be. Bea says she'd be honored and when does he want to do it? Alex is ecstatic about the news and is insistent about doing it right away. They make the arrangements at the fertility clinic and the treatment will soon start.

Alex is inaugurated and is now officially a congressman. The in vitro fertilization was successful. But being crown prince means that he has many more duties than the spare and that is eating into their together time. Of course the life of a congressman is no cup of tea either. The king is still hanging in there so nothing is imminent. Henry is doing a better job of allowing life to happen rather than brooding about the future. Henry likes to razz Alex about how much better he is at schmoozing since that is basically his job title. So it's working. Kind of. One of the first orders of business is where the baby will reside when he's born. He will be the second in line to be king, after all. They decide that it would be in DC so Henry can spend as much time with Alex as possible, but the Palace is very not happy. They will have the proper English royal nannies as a compromise.

The baby is born and the media goes completely nuts on both sides of the Atlantic. He will be Prince Richard. As with life as a congressman, when the baby is born, Alex is in full campaign mode with the election being about a year away. But Alex has also been busy with his day job. He and others bucked the past and actually picked up enough seats to retake the House. This has allowed him to introduce legislation that actually has a chance to pass. He picked one sore point for gay people and especially young gay men to make PrEP freely available on demand along with the testing required. This covers the trap a lot of young gay men find themselves in when they are closeted to their parents and are on their insurance. He works his fellow congressmen for sponsors and gets solid support. This will be a solid achievement for his reelection. He has also excelled at constituent support holding many town halls and coffees. His biggest achievement is bringing much needed infrastructure investment back to his district and especially with renewables with batteries for Texas's notorious grid. Henry is deeply proud of Alex even though he is ridiculously busy. Henry even with his duties back in England has been the one who has the most time to spend with Richard.

It's September and the campaign is nearing the end. Alex's PrEP bill passed and made it through the Senate on reconciliation which allows an appropriation bill to not be filibustered along with his infrastructure investments. His mother signs the bill at the White House Lawn with Alex, Henry and Richard in tow. The dads are beaming with pride. Grandma is pretty proud too.

Back in London, things have taken a turn for the worse with the king. Henry is terrified because he knows that he will have to make a decision soon. Henry is crying uncontrollably as Alex tries to comfort him reiterating his promise that he will do anything to be with Henry. 

It's election night and the results are streaming in. Henry has been back and forth between the US and UK constantly leaving very little time to be together with Alex, but he promised that he'd be with Alex for this no matter what. Unsurprisingly the race is called for Alex: his hard work has paid off. Then the news starts to trickle in: King James has died. Henry is now king. Henry is both ecstatic for Alex and in complete dread of his worst fear coming true. The time has come. 

Alex prepares a resignation speech in anticipation that he will have to be the full time consort to King Henry. Unknown to Alex, Henry has written an abdication speech. Alex gives Henry his speech to read. Henry then gives Alex his speech. Alex says "I love you". Henry says "I love you more" making clear that he intends to abdicate. England can deal with a caretaker in the time in between when Richard is old enough to reign. It is, after all, an archaic institution says Henry. 

On New Years day, Henry delivers his speech. In it he says although he grew up knowing that it was duty and country first, he cannot give up the thing that he never thought he could have: a family and love. It's too much to ask of a person who has gone through what he has gone through. He can't destroy Alex and his life to be consort to a figurehead. Alex beams with pride and love for Henry. He whispers in Henry's ear: "Love you more more!"

On circumcision

Ouch!

 

Once upon a time a flamewar was had about the subject of male circumcision on soc.motss. OK, it occurred regularly with twits presuming to know our sexual pleasure better than us. But one time in particular there was an exchange that resulted in an exchange that perfectly set up Steven Levine to finish the job:

From: Steven Levine (steven@cray.com)
             Subject: Re: Having an Affect on the Outcome
             Newsgroups: soc.motss
               View: Complete Thread (1147 articles) | Original Format
             Date: 1998/11/03


            foultone@mtcc.com (Charlie Fulton) writes:

            > I can slam my dickhead in a drawer, yet I can't feel it.


            Michael Thomas writes:
            >  One of the great things about being mutilated is
            >that I can pound the head of my dick with a hammer
            >and watch it turn pretty shades of black and blue.


            Oh piffle.  You boys don't know what it means to

            have religious justification.  When *I* slam my dickhead

            in a drawer, I am doing it to fulfill my covenant with

            the Lord.  When *I* pound the naked scarrified mass of
            cells at the crown of my penis with a hammer,

            I am doing it in the name of the God of

            Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


            "Barchu baruch Shmo" I say, when I behold the

            mutilated stump of the dick that once was.  "Baruch

            atah adonai elohenu melech haolam shelo asani
            goy" I shout to the hills, and, of course, the

            ever-subtextual "shelo asani esha".



            -Steven Levine
             steven@sgi.com

Ba-dum-ching!