so yet another soldier has been discharged from fort bragg after appearing in a gay porn vid. this news prompted me to read the text of the u.s. policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces. under the code, granted, the military has the right to discharge these guys. but I noticed an interesting thing: exceptions can be made if the man/woman can demonstrate that "such conduct is a departure from the member’s usual and customary behavior."

how does one do that, exactly?

"sarge, as you can see from my daily planner, I had sex with ladies one hundred and sixty-three times last calendar year, while I only boned a guy twice. each of my sexual partners has signed a notarized statement concerning the accuracy of these numbers. furthermore, my shrink will testify that, when it comes to guys, I only do it for the money."

just wondering. also, I haven't read any accounts of exactly what these discharged fellas were DOING on video. I am no fool--I've forgotten more skin flicks than most people will ever see, believe me. and in a lot of military themed amateur clips there is exactly one guy in front of the camera, all by his lonesome. ergo, no homosexual contact. therefore, while he may be knowingly titillating the minds of gay men, he is doing nothing to warrant a discharge under the law. I'll just believe that these former military men were doing work of the more...intense variety. thinking that they got canned for doing solo work would finally drive me over the border and into canada.

and on a slight tangent, is it fair to equate "homosexuality" with "homosexual acts?" on the one hand it's a no brainer. on the other, well. I still maintain that there's no such thing as clear cut sexual orientation. whatever the conscious mind tries to kid itself into thinking, it's all one shade of gray or another. that's not to say that one's orientation can be changed or controlled, far from it. I think that we just need to say that human beings like sex and leave it at that. just sex in general. it can be about love, it can be about one another's naughty bits, or it can just be about friction.

[author's note: these news stories rarely mention the name of the site causing all the flap, but most of us know which it is. and I'll tell you something. the site's webmaster still has soldiers lining up around the block to go on film. fuck you, uncle sam. oh, wait. that's against code.]

I ramble too much. so today I'm letting steven wright do it for me.

some of my favorite steven wright quotes:

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun. She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."

I installed a skylight in my apartment. The people who live above me are furious.

One time the power went out in my house and I had to use the flash on my camera to see my way around. I made a sandwich and took fifty pictures of my face. The neighbors thought there was lightning in my house.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child...eventually.

The sign said "eight items or less." So I changed my name to Les.

When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.

I hereby decree that "mony, mony" be regarded as the greatest song ever. don't argue with me. I only recently discovered that it was inspired not by a girl but by the sign on the Mutual Of New York building (which I can't find a good picture of, dammit--see midnight cowboy for a good view of it as it looked in 1968 when the song was released; in fast, see midnight cowboy anyway). that cemented its status for me.

incidentally, when I was a kid I thought that "mony" was a play on "mona," as in mona from "who's the boss." it made sense to me, since mona was all sexy and things.

wake it, shake it, mona mona.

[postscript: I see that in january of 2006 I stated that "harper valley p.t.a." was the greatest song ever. forget I said that.]

I'm glad that it takes children a few years to develop a real sense of irony. otherwise kids would be more vicious than dorothy parker ever was.

I love living in a world where I can download audio files of john cage's "4'33" for my listening pleasure. go ahead. download and listen.

is anyone else rankled by how many recent low brow comedy films use LPs--that's "little people" here, not long play records--for comic devices? am I the only person who thinks it's demeaning to LPs in general? I'm not one of those people who takes political correctness to extremes, but it seems wrong to me. besides, what's the big attraction? okay. they're smaller than the majority of the population. and?

yes, I got deathly hallows yesterday. no, I haven't finished it, nor have I started. I also picked up the audiobook, so I'm going to read it at work where I can more easily justify spending six hours plus per day on it. justin bought it at midnight, went home, and read constantly until last night when he finished, stopping only to eat and take a short nap. crazy fuck.