Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

Weed, California, on my computer, September 1, 2010: Today I received that led me to a website with the following. This helped me to understand and gain clarity about homosexuality and religion, and I hope that some of my readers will find it equally entertaining- Oops, I mean useful ...

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a east coast resident, which was posted online recently ...

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

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It's In the Cards

Santa Cruz Mountains, August 20 2010: Back at the Tantra Certified Educator's training, I have been wrecked upon the shoals of Scylla and Charybdis, and as Martha Stewart so often says ... that's a good thing.

Scylla and Charybdis, for inquiring minds that want to know, were the two navigation hazards for Greek ships, at least according to the stories. Charybdis was a female goddess, but also a sea monster with a huge mouth that swallowed vast amounts of water; in other words, a whirlpool. Across from Charybdis was another hazard, a huge rock (Scylla). Thus when a ship had to pass between them, it was "between a rock and a hard place," as we said in Texas, where as everyone knows, navigating ancient sea vessels is a topic of constant discussion among the town folk.

So what does this have to do with the teacher's training course in Tantra Yoga?

It's that I've discovered that so much of what I thought I knew about how to learn things .. just doesn't work here. Bummer. It's like this ..

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Enter Tantra Yoga

Boulder Creek California (Santa Cruz Mountains), June 25, 2010: For months I've been fascinated, excited, and terrified.

It happened like this --

For three years after Adrienne and I parted, I've wanted no woman in my life.

And then came a day ... that I did.

Well, I know what to do (http://sweetheartreport.com), and so I began the process.

I'm seeking the Love of my Life, my Beloved, my dearest lover and best friend, yet again. I've had a few hundred lovers in my life, and been deeply and completely in love three times. I'd like to make it four. I'm ready.

Back in San Francisco days, in addition to picking up women in the supermarket, on the bus, in classes, at a funeral, and on the street, I'd learned to use classified ads. That was the big thing, back then. And twenty-some years later, it's online dating sites.

I tested two sites, one against the other. (Match.com wins. SeniorPeopleMeet.com works and provides plenty of prospects, but it seems to hand me more women who are being "old people." While I know how to act my age, I also want the freedom and fun of acting like a kid, and Match.com seems to hand me more creative and vibrant women.)

One of my first dates was a small, delicate, and enthusiastic young lady of about my own age, with an endearing sweet smile, wild auburn hair, and a body that seemed both refined and indecent. And thirty minutes into the conversation she said a particular word.

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Being Happy Today

Mt. Shasta, CA, June 2010 -- For several months now I've been engineering a secret project.

(Shhh. It's a secret- Uh, no, wait. It's not a secret any more. Never mind that hush-hush stuff. You can blab this all over, if you want to, OK?)


Years ago, back in San Francisco, and even earlier than that, I did some counseling. I didn't stick with it, because other things caught my interest. (Mainly women, I can admit it.)

The type of counseling I did was kind of unusual. It uses a very sensitive biofeedback meter. This thing is so sensitive that it reads on your thoughts.

And that's why it's so useful. If we're in a counseling session, I can ask you questions, and then when a resulting thought occurs, no matter how quick it goes by, I can steer you to that thought again. It's kind of like a compass and a steering wheel right inside the mind. Oh, it's not perfect. But it's pretty darn good.

And if that thought that just flashed by just happens to be the answer to why you feel stuck in your job for example, why you feel frustrated and can't seem to get ahead ... well, that's a pretty handy thought to be able to track down.


And I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

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You Got to Trust Yourself

Holiday Inn, Denton Texas, September 1965. James Cato was a cajun from Lake Charles, Louisiana. He had a wooden leg from his youth. He and a friend were drinking beer in the street outside a bar, when a speeding car lost control. James pushed his friend out of the way, but his leg was crushed between a parked car and the speeding car. So he was crippled for life.

He'd played guitar at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, once upon a time, when Elvis was there. James was certain that Elvis was a tee-totaller. "I've got my first time," he said, "to see him take a drink."

At the Holiday Inn, a guy named Fred Kahler had been brought in as manager from the Lake Charles Holiday Inn, owned by the same folks as built the one in Denton Texas. Fred Kahler brought in James Cato from Lake Charles to be the night auditor in the Denton Holiday Inn. One day I asked James about how he added everything up, and he told me about it. I puzzled.

"How do you know you're right?" I asked. He gaped at me.

"You *got* to trust yourself," he said.

Now as it happened, one day James Cato told the manager and Ron the Assistant Manager, that he was going to go back to Lake Charles, in three weeks. They did nothing. He told them again. They did nothing. He told them again. They did nothing.

So in three weeks he left, and they ran about in circles, waving their arms, wailing what where they going to do?

I stood up. "I can do it," I said.

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Law 23 of Paradox

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

Paradox is an Illusion, caused by the Limitations of our Perception

That's it.

Early in the morning on March 4th in 2004, Adrienne and I were smoozing over coffee, and she said she was re-reading a book on "enneagrams", a scheme presented by Gurdjieff that classifies humans into nine personality types. She said she was a Two (the Giver) and that I was a Nine (the Boss).

Well, while I like to think of myself as a warm and wonderful person, and although I have learned not to have any employees, perhaps she is right.

But that's not the point.

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Thanksgiving and Good-Bye to an Old Friend ...

Network Answering Service, San Francisco, 1984: Way back in the day, many years ago, my wife Lori and I ran an answering service on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, with hundreds of musicians, actors, small businesses and the like for our clients.

And one day, a young woman came to San Francisco from the East Coast, to make her fortune. Her name was Andrea Lewis.

She showed up, and we gave her work, and the in-house communication training we did, and she became more and more self-confident and took on more and more. At one point, when I was off on some dumb adventure, the whole place was run by three women: my wife, Andrea Lewis, and our manager Mara Kimmel. That round-the-clock staff of 30+ was just humming.

It was sometimes tough times. And it was some really good times.

A VOICE

Andrea Lewis had a voice. A helluva voice.

She got a lot of encouragement from us, and began to sing in gigs, and found a spot on the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. They won four grammies, and performed in Carnegie Hall.

POLITICAL

Alway political as all get out, sometimes she thought I was a warm and kind fellow, and other times she opined that I was a sexist, honky, capitalist pig.

And she'd tell me about it.

I liked her.

A VOICE ON THE AIR

Not long after the end of Network Answering Service, Andrea found her true home, as a co-host on popular San Francisco radio station KPFA, and she's been a favorite voice on the air ever since.

On November 15, 2009, Andrea Lewis, age 52, died at home of a heart attack.

And I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that she was still on this planet to give me grief like back in those days gone by.

A MEMORIAL

Her parents came in to the San Francisco Bay Area from Florida, because KPFA arranged a memorial service in Oakland.

Some of the old crew from Network Answering Service, including me, went to attend, to remember her and to think back on those days.

THINKING BACK

This woman who had come to San Francisco from Detroit many years ago, and found a home in the community that had arisen around our answering service company on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco.

With us and our gang she got employment, friends, communication training and lots of encouragement.

She went on to become a much-loved radio talk show host on popular radio station KPFA, along with achieving some great results with her music.

WE DIDN'T KNOW

When Andrea died last week, suddenly and unexpected, we were all shocked to hear the news. You see, she seldom said much about herself and we didn't know she was seriously ill, even though for others, she used her gift at interviewing them, both making them feel at home and also getting them to open up on some of the tough questions.

Here is what her friends at KPFA Radio had to say.

A MEMORIAL

The memorial service was amazing: Attending was the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the local congresswoman, Barbara Lee of Oakland, made arrangements to read Andrea's name into the Congressional Record, and notable speakers remembering her included a Poet Laureate of California, along with professors from Stanford and University of California praising her journalism and mourning her as a friend.

They played recordings of Andrea singing, blues and jazz. Her former jazz band played, and there was even a performance of dancing girls with huge drums. It was a heck of a send-off. The only one who would have enjoyed it even more, Andrea herself, was unable to attend. Or maybe she did.

On the huge wall above the stage in this large church, bigger than life, they showed a montage of photographs, including several dozen from our Network Answering Service days together. Eight of us Network folk had come, some for hundreds of miles, to be there. To say good bye and remember her.

The large church was so packed that many had to sit on the floor, along the walls, and stand in the lobby outside.

THANKSGIVING

And what does this tell us?

It tells us to cherish our friends.

It tells us .. not to let them slip away.

November celebrates Thanksgiving in the U.S., but there's no reason it can't be day of "thanks" everywhere in the world.

So I wanted to say "thank you" to all of you who have been a part of my life and times I've seen, down through all the years.

I just wanted to let you know I'm grateful.

Thank you for being here, on this planet, in these times.

James Bond on the Eigenharp?

November 12, 2009, Weed, CA: It's not a Chapman Stick on Steroids? It's not a sweet-voiced Mobius Megatar. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's .. an Eigenharp!

Check out this amazing instrument, and then click the Link beneath the Video to pass it on to your friends!


Chapman Stick? Megatar? Nope. Eigenharp.

Twenty Second Tune-Up Makes You Feel Good

Weed, California, Easter Sunday 2009: Here is an Easter gift for you ... a super-quick little thing you can do in about twenty seconds, and it makes you feel really good. Most likely this is very good for your body and mind as well, though I can't prove it!

I call it 'Traktor's Twenty Second Tune-Up', and it's both startlingly effective and super-easy ...

A) Get an index card, or something similar, about 3" x 5".

B) Write on the card the following seven questions --

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Adrienne Searches on Google

Weed, California, Spring 2009: Adrienne is still somewhat new to computers, and she comes up with things that often elude me.

(Even around the house; she fixed the 'broken' garbage disposal; I'd never have thought to use the plumber's friend plunger!)

She has good results with the search engine, and uses it all the time.

One day I watched, and she types in entire sentences, like "Where can I find a list of all the major dog sanctuaries in the United States?"

I asked her why she didn't just enter "dog sanctuaries".

"What do you mean?" she said.

I repeated my question.

"I don't know," she said, "I just always think of it as the Magic Eight Ball."

For anyone raised in foreign climes, the Magic Eight Ball is a long-popular toy that looks like the Eight-Ball on a pool table. But it's flat on the bottom. You ask a question, and pick it up and turn it over. When you look at the flat part, an answer floats up into view in this little window.

My favorite answers: "Not at this time" and "Signs point to yes."

I have been giving her technique a try. After all, the plumbers friend plunger worked on the dishwasher. Why wouldn't the Magic Eight Ball technique work on Google?

And does it work?

Signs point to yes.

Paul Harvey ... Good Day.

Henrietta, Texas, 1960: When I was a senior in high school, at lunch I'd run to my car and drive quickly down to the Lo' Boy drive in, to order a BLT sandwich and coke, and then ... on with the radio.

Paul Harvey. One day he said, "Sniffing glue. All the kids in Texas are doing it."

Because my high school, and the Lo' Boy, were located in Texas, I was dubious about that particular story. I knew he was full of beans.

But most of the time, he was so on. And then one day he said he'd be speaking at the VFW hall in Vernon, which was less than an hours drive. I vowed to go.

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The Wonder of Acupuncture

White Crane Kung-Fu Studio, Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, 1974: In my Kung-Fu phase, I was crazy about everything Chinese ... except the interior decorating. I know that may sound just too, too gay, but aside from mysteriously grand Chinese interiors in old movies, have you ever been in a Chinese restaurant that wasn't garish as hell?

I've come to learn that it's because Red is Lucky, and no sensible Chinese person on the planet wants to be unlucky. Of course, when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I wouldn't either.

Back to the Kung-Fu and acupuncture. This is a story about needles and eyeballs, but it turns out OK. Just warning you ...

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The Abandoned Road

Dallas, Texas, 1966. On this particular day, my girlfriend and I decided to take the psilocybin before heading out. Driving the Morgan from Dallas to Shady Shores was an odd adventure. It was about thirty miles, and seemingly many days driving.

I knew of this place from years earlier. College roommates and I had lived nearby, and some scouting trip discovered an abandoned roadway that had once run atop a dam built across Lake Dallas. In a concrete building halfway out, remnants of the dam's machinery remained, huge wheels and vast pipes, going nowhere.

Whoever these mysterious builders were, they were fickle, for after building the dam across the lake, they'd cut a hole through it, so it was no dam any longer. Just a finger of elevated land reaching toward, but not touching, a finger of land from the other side. On the elevated crest, earth and stone and even trees, and the once roadway ran, and stopped at the cut.

Just the spot for our picnic.

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The Good Old A-B Test

Weed, California, February 2008: Many years ago, when I lived in San Fransisco on Beery Goulevard, I had to do some layout work. I had very little skill, but I found a simple method. Although my method was slow, it worked.

I would just make up a layout, then change one thing. Then I'd look at version A and version B, and ask myself which version sucked less.

Then I'd take the winner, and discard the loser, and then on the winner I'd change something else, and again compare A to B.

In this way, I could slowly create a layout that looked pretty much OK, if not truly outstanding.

I just realized ... I'm still using the same method. Still slow. Still works.

This little story was version A. Version B sucked more.

So version A is my story. And I'm sticking to it.

Gosh. You learn something every day. Some days, you learn two things. I wonder if today is one of those?

Bobby's Communion

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1960: My cousins Bobby and Danny lived in this nearby city. Their father Pfeiffer sold insurance and had a fancy red Farmer's Insurance sign painted on the doors of their white Studebaker. "It makes the car deductible," he said.

His wife, formerly Rosemary Hurn, my mother's older sister, was in fact the eldest of the Hurn children, and she was quite beautiful. As we remember that screen sirens of the 1940's were somber-faced and dramatic explains a lot about how Rosemary and my mother dressed when they were dressing up. The difference between them was that my mother, a plump and cheery-natured woman, didn't really fit in that picture, but Rosemary brought it off fairly well.

Rosemary, in my opinion as a child, rather put on airs. It was this snooty outlook which made Bobby's first Communion so unfortunate for her.

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