Growing Older With Mr. Whipple, Mr. Ed, Mrs. Olsen and the Green Hornet

A dear friend of mine named Geneva just turned 80 years old. She has more vitality, vim and vigor than most of the people who drive the trucks at monster truck rallies. She considers me (at 58) young. This is one of the delights of hanging out with folks who are older than you – it is all a perspective.

When I turned 40, my beloved life partner Wes snuck into my AT&T office and decorated it with balloons and banners with the number 40 appearing endlessly. At that time, 40 seemed to mark a demarcation between pretending to still be young and having to admit to middle age. Everyone who worked with and for me was still in their early 30’s. Computer careers are often like that – it truly is a career of youth due to the constantly changing technology. I spent years using the computer language COBOL and that is now equivalent to admitting that you spent years as an elevator operator at a department store downtown that went bankrupt.  Anyway, the idea of letting others in my Logan’s Run group know that I had reached the time to be zapped was terrifying. So I ripped down all the decorations frantically. Like Jack Benny (does anyone still alive remember him? Oh, dear, I am showing my age yet again) I wanted to stay 39 forever.

Geneva gave me the wonderful affirmation: “My mind and body are light as a feather”. In just those few words, she captured affirmatively what many of us Boomer Generation folk (like the aging members of the BRADY BUNCH)  fear most: the mental and physical “heaviness” that can be associated with growing older.  What is associated with youth? A body and mind that responds quickly and lightly to your commands with no back talk (grunts as I get out of a soft chair, strange gurgling sounds in the tummy after eating something spicy like oatmeal).

Now, how many times have you ever wished to reach out and have someone compassionately listen to your fears about aging, only to have the person flash you their most manic Unity smile and glibly say “You are only as old as you feel”. Well, such a response gives me the momentary desire to dip that person in a vat of tar and use them to repair a hole in the roof.

Certainly our attitude is extremely important, but so far no one’s attitude has kept them 25 indefinitely, except for inspiring role models like Cher. I believe she was my age when she wore a full body see-through stocking and sang in front of a huge Navy ship of horny sailors. At least 90% were probably at least amused (if not aroused by this woman old enough to be their grandmother), while the statistically present gay 10% of the sailors SECRETLY lip-synced the song with her.

But if I were to don a full body see-through stocking, I would look like the Grinch that Stole Christmas. All 100% of the Navy Sailors would rush over to me and cover me in a burlap bag! Then I would probably awaken in a spotlessly clean clinic testing booth, being asked to put the square pegs in the square holes and to submit to MRI brain scans. Consequently, what works for Cher will not work for me.

 I did discover that if I smile all the time, I look younger, so I do my best to smile all the time like one of the Double mint Twins (there I go again, dating myself by the commercials I recall). Nonetheless, none of this gets at the core issue of being afraid of getting older. What is my fear about? I fear having a mind and body that no longer function as they used to in some mythical youthful golden age.  

When I was 25 my mind was sharp, judgmental, competitive at work, obsessed with my looks (which establishes your only line of credit in the gay subculture) and generally worried about something on a moment by moment basis. My body never matched the handsome muscle boys on the covers of gay magazines. I worked my poor body at the gym day after day, but it still remained thin. Finally, an instructor pulled me over and said “Listen kid. You inherited long stringy muscles. The only way you are going to gain bulk is with steroids.” I responded “Aren’t they illegal? Don’t they hurt the liver, and even worse, cause acne?” The instructor had the attitude that gay men should eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we transition. Ironically, he was right, for about this time the AIDS epidemic began. But I refused the steroids and remained what nature basically intended for me to be, a scrawny little guy with gorgeous blue eyes and a nose big enough to house the Van Trapp family.

Why tell you all this? Well, actually I was talking aloud to myself, reminding me that my youth was not so golden after all. And now? I am retired and no longer have to compete for a place in the gay subculture because we are divorced. Men my age are usually relegated to discreet little piano bars. There was a bar like this in San Francisco that I and other golden boys of youth referred to as the GLASS COFFIN, because it had huge glass windows looking in, and all the patrons were in their 50’s or older. In the gay world, that is equivalent to death. The gay subculture is a vicious place, and reflects a lot of internalized shame. However, when you are young and good looking, it can be a lot of fun until the music stops.

So is this how I age gracefully, by going to seedy downtown piano bars during happy hour? Of course not.  And I also will NOT buy a Buick, which seems to be associated with being older (no offense to you wonderful darling Buick drivers out there). If you see someone in a Buick, that person often appears to be in their 70s to 90's. In other words, Buick drivers are often probably the parents of the Boomers because aging Boomers are more likely to buy a sports car or one of those 70 ton home trailers. Remember the old commercials “It’s not your dad’s Buick anymore”. No, it isn’t. He transitioned 10 years ago! Now it’s on the used car lot with a $500 price tag on the window.

Older people are offered many options to pass the time: waving our arms around in pools as an instructor encourages us to do our water aerobics with enthusiasm, riding a golf cart and hitting a little ball with a stick, then chasing it with the cart so you can hit it again, listening to FOX News and ranting about socialized medicine and anything more progressive than apartheid, and folding service bulletins at Unity Church. IF we have money, we can also take cruises to Alaska or travel to Egypt (does anyone besides me remember the song DANCE LIKE AN EGYPTION? No? sigh…..). We can tutor little kids who say we smell funny (I always keep a dog poo in my pocket so I don't disappoint the kids, who have been trained to say whatever pops into their heads....from one extreme of being silent around adults to the other).

Seriously, I know there are tons of wonderful activities and services that older folks can do, and each person has to find the right match. I am amazed at the large number of Boomers who are raising their grandchildren because the children’s parents can’t be bothered because the goddess of meth, alcohol, mental illness or good old fashioned “career comes first” rides the land in a black unmarked 1968 Buick Le Sabre.

For me personally, growing older has been rather fun as I become more and more INVISIBLE.  The older I get, the more often younger gay men look right through me as if I am not even there. This even happens at Unity Church, which is not exactly prime cruising territory. (Or am I just being naive?) Yes, I remember the days when I did that to older men – it was a way of saying “Stay away from me, you dirty old bugger”.  And a good day to you too, boys.  Now I go to busy malls, and most of the customers seem younger than me and part before me without looking at me, as if I am a trash container or a support pillar. Maybe it has nothing to do with age. Perhaps it is because I am about the only person at the mall anymore who does not have tattoes covering the shoulder or arm or legs. Does not having a tattoe make me invisible?

I feel a little guilty. Why am I bothering you with this nonsense when I could bother God instead! As the Source, God must know something about old age, as entire star systems collapse and perhaps our universe has breathed in and out millions of times, contracting to a tiny black spot and then once again exploding into a visible expanding universe.

God, I trust totally that you will guide me to handle aging gracefully. No longer will I wear a Chris Rock black Tee-shirt, and roll into Unity Church on a skateboard (clutching the walls to keep steady) with my hair in dreadlocks. I will no longer wear baggy pants that make it seem as though I took a dump in them. I will not deny the changes of the body (and they can be serious and painful) , but instead will do what I can to befriend my body and mind, knowing that neither of them is ultimately me.

If in time I start rambling about Mr. Whipple and who squeezed the Charmin, or insisting on riding Mr. Ed, or demanding that the Green Hornet be asked to get rid of the Africanized bees, or worrying about  Mrs. Olsen (The Folgers’s coffee lady – “It’s the richest kind”) or telling my care giver “Mother please, I’d rather do it myself”, my inner Self will still be intact, and will be helping me detach from this fantasy world so I can go home to Truth. And then perhaps I get a chance to do the whole damn thing all over again.  Oh, what fun.

Until then, it’s time for my vitamin pill and a little nap before watching Ghost Whisperer reruns. The lead character can see ghosts. She is such a nice girl, and she has no tattoes.  

PART 3 – Will’s Supernatural Adventures – We Visit Fred and are visited by a Shadow Person

Wes and I moved from our little haunted domicile in the Twin Peaks VG (Very Gay) area of San Francisco in 1984. At that point, we betrayed the city and moved to the eastern suburbs, on the other side of the San Francisco Bay. Our employer had built a massive business park in San Ramon and was offering attractive ($$$$) incentives for employees like us to move. After almost 2 years of Fred’s tedious presence, we were ready to move. Housing in the East Bay was brand new, and so we moved from a typical 1945 city house of 975 square feet to a new house in upscale San Ramon with 3000 square feet, a Scarlet O’Hara style circular staircase in the foyer crowned by a huge crystal chandelier. This was quite a house, loaded with oak paneling and ornamentation. One gay guest, upon seeing the house for the first time said “It appears that Liberace is alive and well in San Ramon”. 

Our lovely new home was located on a hillside overlooking our employer’s business park, a huge earthbound Star Ship Enterprise that housed 7000 employees, had the largest cafeteria west of the Rockies, and was surrounded by manmade lakes filled with trout and white swans. We had very deluxe accommodations at work to mask a huge amount of human pain. But that’s the general story of corporate America today.

Allow me to digress, as usual!  I had a boss so ruthless during my last year with AT&T that after staff meetings, I would hold my own “recovery” meetings where people would cry and yell before returning to their desks. Our boss was an ex-marine who was evidently taught that the way to get things done by PHD white collar professionals was to threaten them with being fired constantly. Under the year of his terrorist regime, I lost 40 pounds and developed painful TMJ. Many of our best software engineers quit. Women were often in tears – it became so common that we became hardened to it.

But the universe has a way of balancing things out. A year after I retired, this same boss (who had the same respect for women as Viking invaders) told a meeting of female clients that their breasts were really big and just begging to be squeezed like ripe melons. The outrage from the clients was so profound that he rushed out to get nondisclosure agreements, urging them to sign so that no one would find out about his mammary gland comments. But one of the clients stormed over to our Legal Department and threatened to sue AT&T if he was not terminated. Well, he wasn’t killed, but he was immediately fired. I heard many employees took the rest of the day off to dance in the halls of the building and hold impromptu bring-your-own-celebratory-libation to the parking lot!  

Well, during the reign of terror, Wes and I would often flee from the suburbs back to the old gay neighborhood of San Francisco on weekends, where it was common for us to hold hands while walking down the street (without some religious thug threatening to kill us), and we were no longer invisible. You see,  the suburbs eat gay people alive, taking away their individuality and leaving droids in their place in golf shirts and golf carts.

One such Sunday as we drove around the old neighborhood, we decided to check out our old house and wave to Fred as we drove by. This was about 10 years after we had sold the house. We were surprised to see a huge sign proclaiming that the house was FOR SALE and that there was an OPEN HOUSE that very day.

Our curiosity got the better of us, since we knew that the couple that bought the place had big remodeling plans. We were surprised to find the Open House realtor sitting at a card table outside the house. Usually, the realtor is standing by within the house to pass out sales information. We toured the house (and true to their word, the couple who bought the house had taken our ceiling and used it as the floor for more renovation). The interior was STUNNING, and could easily have been chosen for Architectural Digest magazine or San Francisco Yuppie Living magazine. The bedrooms were set up as if someone was just about to turn in for the night, with an opened book on the bed. The kitchen had a lovely display of freshly cut vegetables on a cutting board. Everything was simply STUNNING.

However, beneath the picture was a different story. The couple had died in the house from severe health problems even though they were in their 20’s.  Neither set of surviving parents wanted anything to do with the house or the contents. They removed the clothing and personal toiletry items, and then put the house up for sale with contents included. Very strange.

We pretended initially to be typical open house looky-loos, but then got a bit chummy with the realtor. She confessed that she was frightened to be in the house alone. The house felt clammy and sinister to her. She apologized for such nonlogical thought, but she thought perhaps one of the previous owners was haunting the place. She said that several clients had felt the same way about the house, and that it had been on the market for over a year with out a single offer. She felt that subconsciously people just felt a sense of “wrongness” about the house.

We then came clean and told her about our adventures with Fred as previous owners. Evidently, Fred’s charm was making itself felt on the realtor and her clients. We can only theorize what the couple may have experienced and why the surviving families wanted nothing to do with the house. When we walked through the house, Fred didn’t make an appearance (perhaps he was checking our credit ratings as potential buyers). We took a chance, in that I feared the old fart might follow us home to our new suburban house, but he seemed tied to that spot.

My supernatural life after this was relatively calm, except I did have one very strange experience in the new San Ramon house.  One night as I was sitting in the kitchen with our two dogs, I strongly felt a presence enter the house. At that exact moment, the dogs jumped up, growled and rushed to the door of the kitchen starring out at the foyer. Yet they would not leave the kitchen. Most odd. I decided to say nothing to Wes about it and we went to bed. But no sooner had Wes’ head hit the pillow than he sat up and said “There is something very wrong with this house. It does not feel right. Stay here.” And with a dramatic flourish and reached behind the bed and retrieved a gun and began to search the house, while I (your brave author) had my head under the pillow along with our 2 dogs.  Wes returned in about 10 minutes and this was his experience.

He checked all the upstairs rooms and they were “clean”. Then he descended our sweeping foyer staircase and went into the family room. There he encountered a black form that could only be described as a Shadow Person. A pitch black form was standing in the family room….was it waiting for us to fall asleep before ascending the staircase to wave a feather under our noses to make us sneeze?

Wes said “Who are you?” This seemed to startle the figure, which perhaps was not accustomed to being seen by mere humans. With a speed that turned the figure into a black blur, it fled out of the family room and through the locked front door. Was it an earthbound spirit looking for a place to crash for the night?  

This third installment of my tale is perhaps the least dramatic, and I am so pleased about that. If people on reality shows like Ghost Hunters (which I understand is staged) want to go into ratty old insane asylums and old hotels to seek out ghosts, bless them. But I am glad to live my life without such spiritual red herrings in my life.

The truth again is that God is within each of us, and this is the greatest possible adventure to uncover on earth as a human. As the Bible says, let the dead bury the dead.

However, the logical part of my mind sometimes becomes really annoyed, and I wish I knew where to lodge a cosmic complaint. If there is any order to this “set up” of many dimensions, how do people seem to just fall through the cracks? Is no one in charge? Why is Fred allowed to wander around a little row house in San Francisco in farmer overalls? Are there no Rescue Squads on the other side of the ever popular BIG WHITE LIGHT?

Who are these shadow people? Who are “elemental spirits”? What next, fairies living at the bottom of my garden?

There’s a great line in the great stage play and movie with Jimmy Stewart called HARVEY. In this movie, Jimmy Stewart chills out with his best friend, an invisible 7 foot tall rabbit known in Celt mythology as a pooka (an animal spirit). At one point, Jimmy Stewart’s niece says “Oh, mother! Will you please stop talking about this thing as if it really exists!!!?” With tired and compassionate eyes, her mother (Jimmy Stewart’s sister in the movie) says something to the effect of “There is so much you don’t know, and I hope you never have to learn it”. In other words, there are people on this planet that have experienced the inexplicable and know in their minds and hearts that it exists. Then there is the vast majority that may use such subjects for entertainment, e.g., HARRY POTTER, but would run screaming from the theater if even the slightest indication was given that anything supernatural was real.

I’ve been one of those people who has experienced the supernatural at close range. But now I am retired. I’ve hopefully passed on my baton to a younger generation to deal with Fred, possessing spirits, and Shadow People.

PART 2: WILL BRINGS HOME A SPOOKY BLIND DATE

While Wes and I still lived in the Twin Peaks house with Fred, I sought help. Of course, I could not call the police, talk to a mainstream minister (since they do not believe in ghosts or anything supernatural, which is a wee bit ironic,). Well, finally someone suggested a sympathetic organization in the San Francisco Bay area I will simply refer to as The Institute. I went to them and explained the situation, hoping (like on TV) someone would show up with a smudge pot and smoke out Fred and any refugee potato bugs.

Instead I was invited to start out the process of having The Institute help me by paying for a psychic reading. Uh huh. Well, I was so desperate that I decided to go for it. The lady doing the reading went into an altered state and her eyes looked very strange, sort of like blueberry ripple ice cream.  She said that my aura was very hard to read because it was flashing in many colors and constantly changing. Evidently on the energy level, my aura was Times Square in NYC. She noticed a huge energy cord from my solar plexus outward. She followed it and discovered my mother at the other end. She asked if I’d like it cut, and I urged her to “Slash, cut, burn”. I did not expect to actually feel anything, but I felt a delicious itching in my solar plexus area that was better than sex. In other words, this psychic lady could cut my energy cords any time she wanted. Woof!

She did notice a form in my aura, and essentially described Fred!  According to her metaphysical mumbo jumbo (sometimes mumbo jumbo can be true….) a spirit can attach to the aura of a living person and leach energy and live vicariously through that person. Since my life then consisted of going to work as a financial analyst in a cubicle at the West Coast Stock Exchange (Montgomery/California St), Fred must have been rather hard up for excitement. My idea of excitement at this time was sneaking across the street for a large coffee with cream and chocolate chips on top.

Ms Psychic didn’t think Fred was evil, but seemed more mischievous like a teenager tagging the side of your house. Then the psychic said I had great telepathic and empathic powers far beyond the understanding of modern man (although female psychics had it all in hand), and I should immediately sign up for some of their classes such as “Meditation and Healing for Poor Saps [men] who have great Telepathic and Empathic Powers Far Beyond the Understanding of Modern Man”.

Therefore, I found myself traveling weekly over the famous Golden Gate Bridge to Marin, where the classes were held in an old warehouse that had been converted into posh art studios and classrooms. The teacher was a middle aged gay man who I did not trust. There was something predatory about him. He took a liking to me (reminder: This was around 1982 and I was still young and astonishingly handsome even though I resisted taking all the steroid pills that most gay men of my generation took to quickly gain the muscles of Mighty Mouse). He took me to lunch a few times, which was distressing for me. He would boast about what was going on in the energy fields of the people around us, and amused himself by sadistically slashing through the intertwined energy cords of people in love, and tying together such energy cords to complete strangers. Evidently, his psychic abilities did not extend to sensing the revulsion I thought at this ethical violation.  When I asked the guy what his goals were for using such abilities, he said "Money and Power". What a wasted gift.

Well, this was 1982 and I didn’t know where else to go, so I asked him to come to my house to check out Fred. He came for dinner one night, and focused all his energy on Wes, as if trying to steal his memories. This made Wes quite ill. Later, when I confronted the guy on what he was doing (psychically trying to rape someone else of their memories) he feigned innocence.  My skepticism grew.

The depth of what I was deaing with came finally in class, when this guy announced that it was time that each of us become attached to an “elemental” spirit. This is supposedly a spirit that has never been human, but has a pure heart and a desire to serve. The class was told that instead of using our own energy to heal others, we should use the energy of a spirit being that would become “one” with us.

Frankly, I thought this was total nonsense. But since I didn’t want to make a scene, I partook of this bizarre ritual inside a large pentagram with the other class members. The teacher supposedly summoned a spirit to stand behind each one of us. I saw nothing. Then I was to say some words in Latin and then repeat the words of integration (essentially, inviting the spirit to move in, like those modern mucus commercials). I did so while rolling my eyes in my best modern financial analyst yuppie disbelief. But right after uttering the final words, my body began to heat up until I felt that I was burning alive. I cried out in pain and (I confess) screamed and fell to the floor.

The teacher seemed a bit thrown by this development. He rushed over and put one hand on my brow and another down my pants. No, not really – just checking who is still with me. The other hand he put on my solar plexus (not far from the belt line). He mumbled something and I immediately felt fine again.  In a hushed tone, he said that sometimes the “elemental” spirits do not know how to adjust their energy to cohabitate in a human body.  Then he calmly asked if I’d like him to summon a different spirit.

"Ah…….no, not tonight thank you. I have a bit of a headache and think I’ll just go home." It just hit me in the face that this guy was sinister and what he was effectively was doing could be called Possession.

I rushed out of the warehouse, swearing never to come back. As I walked towards my car, a Porsche 914 convertible with recessed lights (after all, I did work in the West Coast stock exchange at this point), the lights of the car came out of their recessed pockets and began flashing off and on at me. This was in the very ancient days before any one outside of Star Wars had a little pocket clicker for car doors and lights. I got to the car, unlocked it and got in. Meanwhile, the lights kept going in and out of the recessed pockets. I remember thinking “I cannot possibly drive across the Golden Gate Bridge this way; the cops will stop me for sure.” Then it hit me that this might be an after effect from the ritual I had stupidly participated in upstairs. Maybe my  spook was not in my body, but wanted to let me know it was still around. I said aloud “STOP THIS NOW AND GO AWAY”. Well, one out of two isn’t bad. The lights did stop their insane display.

I quietly drove home, and parked outside the house. Wes and I had made an agreement that I would park my car in the garage first (it was a tandem parking garage, one car in back of the other. In the 1940’s I doubt it occurred to the builders that someday a household might have 2 cars).  As I stopped, Wes’ car, which also had the recessed hidden lights that were the rage in the 1980’s, began doing the same thing!  My invisible little friend had evidently hitchhiked home with me.

Now, bear in mind that I originally contacted The Institute for help in dealing with Fred, with the hopes of getting rid of him. And what had happened? I had evidently brought  home a playmate!

Again I told this “thing” to stop fooling around with our car lights, and this immediately stopped. By this time I was wrapped in fear. I became very religious instantly and began praying for deliverance from the new Spook in my life. I prayed so hard one of my contacts popped out!

Well, I must say that either the prayer worked or the Spook decided I was a bore, because all indications of its presence died (no pun intended) in a couple days.

Now, I have something important to tell you all. This story, like Part 1 is 100% true. There will be a Part 3 since even 10 years after we sold the house and fled to the East Bay, the house came back into our lives in an eerie way.

But what you truly and sincerely must know is this:

BELIEF IS NOT NECESSARY. IF YOU GO THROUGH SUCH A BIZARRE OCCULTISH RITUAL TO SUMMON ASTRAL ENTITIES TO SUBLET YOUR BODY, YOU ARE SEEMINGLY ENTERING INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE CONTRACT. FROM MY EXPERIENCE, BELIEF IS IRRELEVANT. ALSO, STAY AWAY FROM LATIN - IT IS A DEAD LANGUAGE, OR PERHAPS A LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD.  

PART 1: Will's Paranormal Life - Haunted by Fred Mertz!

Wes and I bought a fixer-upper in the gay Castro/Twin Peaks area of San Francisco in 1980. This neighborhood is one of the highest points of the city with magnificent views of the Bay and downtown, and also the best weather (fog is too heavy and settled below the neighborhood). When San Francisco was destroyed by the fires after the 1906 earthquake, much of the surviving population camped out on Twin Peaks, which then was open space and had a few small dairy farms.

Our house was built in 1945 (the third house on that exact site), a mere infant by San Francisco standards of building age. Like most homes in San Francisco, the house was actually a row house, with communal walls on each side, the garage on the first floor with living space on the second floor.  We bought the house in an estate sale. An elderly couple had lived there for 35 years until each transitioned. Nothing had ever been modernized. When I touched the curtains, they crumbled into dusty pieces.

We set to work totally gutting the 1940’s kitchen and added a family room on the ground floor facing the large backyard garden.

However, I always felt a sense of being watched, and a sense of foreboding in that humble little house. The first strange event was probably totally my own doing. The backyard was huge and had some classic Italian statuary, including an almost life size copy of Michelangelo’s statue of David. I began moving it by pivoting it from one side of the thin pedestal to the other. Then inexplicably, it landed fully on my big toe and broke it! My trip to the ER resulted in giggles and laughter as word spread throughout the nursing staff that a gay guy had broken his big toe after dancing with a naked life size statue of David! I probably received more attention than most gun shot victims.

Then REAL strange things began to happen that did not involve dancing with Biblical characters. . The first peculiar event occurred as Wes and I sat on the living room couch, looking down the hallway. Suddenly, the door knob of the guest bedroom turned, and the door opened fully.  Then the door closed all by itself. We looked at each other in disbelief.

From this preliminary event, strange things began to escalate. We were both woken one night by the sound of our bedroom door being opened and closed. In walked a man! The man was a shadowy figure wearing very unspooky looking farmer’s overalls, a plaid shirt and a wide brim hat. The figure walked to the foot of the bed and starred at us. Wes sat up in bed and said “Who are you?”  At that remark, the figure seemed to become startled. Get ready for high strangeness. Instead of disappearing or just floating away, the figure climbed invisible stair steps, disappearing head first through the ceiling!

Frankly, I was terrified of the figure, while Wes found his presence a bit fascinating. So naturally,  the figure enjoyed manifesting when I was in the house alone, perhaps feeding off my fear to gather strength (just a theory).

This figure did not like a grandfather clock my parents gave me in our dining room. I would routinely eat breakfast in the dining room and find the glass door open and the pendulum stopped, as if the figure did not like the passing of time. One day I was eating cereal in the dining room and noted that the clock was running just fine. Then I got up to get some coffee off the stove. When I returned, the glass door was open and the pendulum had again been stopped.

On several occasions I would see the figure nonchalantly walking across our living room, disappearing through the wall. We would also often hear footsteps stomping up the staircase leading from the garage to the living quarters.

Since there must be humor in everything (somewhere….), we nicknamed the figure  Fred in honor of Fred Mertz from the I LOVE LUCY show. The figure resembled that TV character. He also bore a frightening resemblance to a minor character in an MTV Police video at that time for a song called EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE. This video (available on YOUTUBE) includes a shadow of a slightly portly man cleaning a window in the background as the group (Police) perform the song. This video creeped me out at the time.

The house was built in an Edwardian style, which means that all rooms were off a main hallway. I liked the house to be bright and cheerful, so I would open all the doors before leaving for work. When I came home, all the doors were closed. I suppose you could rationalize that this was due to drafts. However, I planned a little test. I got some heavy bricks from the backyard and propped each door open with a load of heavy bricks. Then I went to work. When I came home, all the bricks were in a big pile in the hallway and all the doors were slammed shut again. Only a hurricane could do this! Only later did a friend suggest I not antagonize Fred, since he could have thrown a brick at me as I climbed the steps from the garage to the living quarters hallway.

With time, Fred’s antics seemed either more juvenile or sinister (depending on your outlook). . On several occasions, I came into the kitchen to find all 4 blue flamed gas stove burners flowing at maximum.(Tangent note: I cannot imagine why San Francisco allows gas stoves considering that the entire city burned to the ground because of broken gas pipes). 

As a gay couple, we slept together, but were quite discreet about this when Wes’ 10 year old daughter came to visit. I would always lock our bedroom door. Wes’ daughter would wake up earlier than us and go into the living room to watch Saturday cartoons. One time Wes and I had no covers on and were naked since it was a rare warm spell in San Francisco. Suddenly, I watched as the locked door unlocked itself and swung open. I hurriedly jumped out of bed naked and shut the door. If I can guess at motives, I would say that Fred hoped Wes’ little daughter would see us laying in bed together naked. Not nice. As it is, Fred may have told Wes’ daughter the score in another way. I had given Wes a birthday card that I had hastily thrown atop a bookcase when Wes’ daughter came over. She said later that as she sat on the couch, the birthday card floated down onto her head. She read it and realized that we were not just friends. This was very upsetting for her and we did not see her again for 6 years.

When we added the family room, Fred  evidently felt he had to investigate the strange contraptions we call light switches. After installing electric power to the new room, we were awoken that first night by the light switches being turned on and off, casting a reflection of light on the garden walls. Wes went down to the family room and told Fred to knock it off so we could sleep, and he did.

One sunny afternoon Wes and I were sitting in a gazebo we had constructed in the back of the garden. Fred walked out of our back door as if he owned the place and proceeded to walk up the pathway leading to the gazebo. Every hair on my body was standing on end. In the sunshine, Fred was semi- transparent, looking somewhat like an old fashioned photograph negative. Happily, Fred paused before reaching the gazebo. He stopped at the foot of an ancient tree that must have been older than the house, and froze starring at the foot of the tree. After a half hour, we got the courage to run past Fred.

 Now many people have asked “Why didn’t you dig where Fred was standing?” All I can say is that this would have meant destroying a lovely tree, and I really did not want to find a corpse (and probably have city officials breathing down our necks). Of course, others have said that perhaps there was a buried treasure of gold at the base of the tree. Yeah, perhaps Amelia Earhart was buried there along with Jimmy Hoffa.

After a year and 11 months, I just could not take it any longer. Wes agreed that the stress was becoming too much for me (since I was Fred’s favorite) and we sold the house to a young couple. California law recognizes the reality of such manifestations and required us to disclose our experiences to the buyers, but they laughed them off as superstition. Ten years later we learned that they had both died in the house. But that is part of another installment of my paranormal life.  

The Police - Every Breath You Take

Is Everything Spirituality?

I have been struggling with the wide spread use of the word “Spiritual” and "Spirituality" in our society. I may just be a cantankerous (but still handsome) older man. But this bothers me. The use of the word Spirituality  has reached the point where people think having a free sugar cookie in the Unity Phoenix courtyard is a spiritual experience! This makes me wonder how often a so-called spiritual experience is actually a sugar rush!

Unity stresses our responsibility to choose our thoughts. I agree 100% with this, and it is a very therapeutic discipline. But is it really spiritual to use the power of your mind to attract the perfect mate, a new car, or whiter teeth into your mental spider web?  For years I’ve studied mind power, and I’ve experienced some amazing results. I know someone who won the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes via mind power. But be honest.. Is this co-creation with God, or just OUR willpower in action? I know a person who believes spirituality involves finding the perfect parking space. Is Spirituality the power to be lucky in physical life, such as the ability to drive down Bell (a street that runs from one side of Phoenix until it crashes into Scottsdale, where it is renamed)  and never getting stopped by a red light?

I’ve found Spirituality is now applied to swimming with dolphins, reading about near death experiences, astral travel, ghost hunting, medium ship, sightings of Elvis Presley, UFO's and the channeling of assorted entities (some who even condescendingly have called me their child although they’ve never provided child support payments). Have you noticed that such entities never seem able to speak in normal common sense English,. They commonly need to use a 1000 convoluted words to say something we’d say in 10 words. Some speak through the voice of the channel audibly.  I remember some Arcturian aliens who sounded like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Some famous channeled entities  are Seth, the great grand daddy of New Age channeling in the early 1970’s who coined the term “You Create Your Own Reality”. His channel was Jane Roberts, who I corresponded with until her death. Unfortunately the poor woman died while Seth seemed totally oblivious to her physical pain and decay. Instead he continued to ramble on about how she would quickly recover,  She died that day.

Jesus  has supposedly channeled The Course in Miracles and numerous other unrelated books that always purport to set the record straight. We must not forget  Ashtar (head of the Space Command) who claims that our Space Brothers will land and give us a cure for acne when we send them enough love. I am reminded of the scene in PETER PAN where the audience is asked to clap if they believe in fairies. Evidently, we just don’t love them enough for them to land. Maybe if they’d put out a shirtless calendar, we might love them some more.

Then in 1977, the homophobic Ramtha, a 30,000 year old war criminal,  appeared to a common housewife (JZ Knight) who started a Ramtha centered cult and became quite rich, building a huge mansion and compound in Yelm, Washington. Unity promoted her movie WHAT THE BLEEP and later DOWN THE RABBIT hole, conceived and its production funded by William Arntz, who co-directed the film along with Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente. All three were major directors of  Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. Joe Dispenza, a chiropractor, author, and a follower of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment acted as a subtle marketing agent for the films. He (sigh…..) was promoted by Unity in speaking engagements across the country. ;The most outrageous aspect of the films is that Ramtha’s channel, JZ Knight, appeared in the films like a bloated tick in a blonde wig. Her channelings as Ramtha were seamlessly spliced into the movie as if she had the same credibility as all the world class physicists featured in the film. Unfortunately, many of the latter bitterly complained after the movie was released, saying that their comments were taken out of context and distorted to support the movies’ dubious pop metaphysics contentions. Rent the movie today in the Unity Bookstore!

According to Margaret Wertheim, an author on the cultural impacts of physics, history abounds with religious enthusiasts who have read spiritual portent into the arrangement of the planets, the vacuum of space, electromagnetic waves and the big bang. But no scientific discovery has proved so ripe for spiritual projection as the theories of quantum physics, replete with their quixotic qualities of uncertainty, simultaneity and parallelism." Werteim continues that the movie WHAT THE BLEEP  "abandons itself entirely to the ecstasies of quantum mysticism, finding in this  description of nature the key to spiritual transformation.”  As one of the film’s characters gushes early in the proceedings, “The moment we acknowledge the quantum self, we say that somebody has become enlightened." Becoming enlightened never became so easy. Can a spiritual pill be far in the future?

Then there are assorted channeled entities such as the arch Angel Michael. I’ve called upon him a few times, so let’s move on! We must not forget Shirley MacClaine’s dead dog who has accompanied her on her many important lives including being the high priestess in Atlantis, Egypt, and Frankenstein’s bride in 19^th century Transylvania. Now Egypt brings up another tangent (is all my writing a massive collection of tangents, like someone collecting different colored rubber bands in a ball?).

Why does Unity connect Egypt with Spirituality? I do understand traditional Christianity promoting little invasions of the fundamentalist infidels into the Middle East to see the Christian oriented tourist traps (e.g., where Jesus was supposedly born, a preserved sheet where Jesus had his first nocturnal emission = wet dream), etc. But why is any Spiritual power glibly given to a totalitarian society built on the total worship of the Pharaoh? The only country in the world that resembles ancient Egypt is North Korea, built totally around the god-like worship of the communist leader. Unity Village, for example, is promoting an expensive trip to Egypt in the spring. Why not Maui? I’d much rather frolic in the warm ocean than tramp around in the dust and sand of Egypt fearing for my life (this may be partly because I already live in America’s version of Egypt = Arizona, land of dust and sand). History is very fascinating, and I love studying ancient cultures. But I do not understand what ancient Egypt has to do with Spirituality. Even if the pyramids were really star gates to other dimensions, is such travel Spirituality? Is the disassembly and reassembly of the body in Star Trek Spiritual?

Now we have a very popular channeled entity known as Abraham-Hicks. Someone please tell me when and why the channeled entity Abraham-Hicks has become attached to the Unity movement, like a barnacle on a boat bottom.  The local Unity bookstore rents Abraham Hicks DVDs and sells their books. The Lending Library has around 75 audio cassette tapes from Abraham-Hicks. What has the gestalt of entities calling itself Abraham got to do with the 100+ year old Unity movement? Did Charles or Myrtle Fillmore channel entities speaking  in riddles? I think not. Yet even UNITY FM has a show on UNITY fundamentals  (called ABSOLUTE LIVING) where one of the hosts quotes Abraham Hicks frequently as if this entity’s words are sacred. . How did this happen?

OK, so now I’ll get off my high rocking horse and stop complaining.

What is Spirituality? Like in grade school when I didn’t know the answer to a teacher’s question, I am now looking down at my desk top as if the secrets of the universe might be deemed by interpreting its scratches.

I am not sure what Spirituality is. But that has never stopped me from offering my opinion. Here goes:

I believe that Spirituality is consciously connecting and identifying with the Presence of God within us.

That’s it.

You can do this by simply sitting still, calming your mind, and patiently abiding in the silence. You can call this meditation or prayer. You can express your gratitude and your needs in your own way. You can release anything and everything that no longer serves you to God, and await in faith for  guidance for the next step for your life. Evaluate what you think is guidance with your logic and intuition. It should feel right.

Forget all the metaphysical theatrics I’ve mentioned above.

GOD IS.

This is the basic truth in the universe. GOD IS WITHIN US AND WE ARE EXPRESSIONS OF GOD. You don’t have to search for Spirituality in Space Commanders or dead warriors. You don’t have to seek enlightenment in Egypt.. Breath deeply now, and wrap God around yourself like an electric blanket on a cold night. The presence of God is here and now. Gratitude, kindness, joy, service, and love are the fruits of that presence, fruits of the Spirit. To me, this is Spirituality.

Of course, God’s next step for me may reveal something different. God has a sense of humor, so tomorrow I may begin channeling the king’s main concubine of Lemuria or Mu (mythical nations that don’t appear in any animated movies like Atlantis). If so, I'll create a cult, build a huge mansion in La Joya (I like the ocean), and will probably become a featured speaker at Unity churches across the country!

Bye!

Baby Jesus - He's Alive! I watch a Christmas Play in a Dark Field

Last night was quite an emotional event for me. I remember well the grease paint, the stage lights, the changing into costume and character, the rumble of the audience awaiting the curtain to rise, the orchestra in its pit fine tuning their instruments, and that momentous knock on my dressing room “Five minutes to show time, Mr. Christie”. Yes, my 5^th grade Christmas Pageant, where I played Gabriel so well it made my mother cry, was riding the nostalgia train back into my consciousness.

You see, last night I again enjoyed a live Christmas pageant, but as a member of the audience. We were all seated in a dank field, and the play (produced by a local church) was a traditional rendering of the birth of Jesus. The  audience was made up mostly of youthful parents and their hordes of noisy screaming children.. I actually felt rather nervous until the play began and the audience was “safe” in the dark. After all, this was a fundamentalist Christian church. Being in the middle of such literal minded Bible thumpers made me feel somewhat like a Jewish American spy in Nazi Germany.  OK, I know that is an outrageous statement but I’ll share why I said it.

I know political and religious code language when I see it. As I walked into the play area, I was handed a free CD that was called “FOCUS ON THE FAMILY – RECAPTURING AMERICA FROM THE LIBERALS” Yep, “Focus on the Family” = classic code words for “Let’s scapegoat the gays since they don’t belong in decent Christian families”.

Then the minister arrived to introduce the play. Yikes! He had a thick Southern accent, which is always dangerous when combined with a Bible. Have you noticed now many of the right wing preachers on God TV have thick southern accents? I slunk a little lower into my seat and pulled my cap down low over my face. 

The play began with Mary sitting on the floor knitting a hat to keep her pet camel warm. Suddenly Gabriel, a handsome young man wired for sound, appeared and in a rather tired monotonous tone told  Mary that she was going to lose her virginity without any of the fun associated with this milestone in life. . Poor Mary. She was going to be “overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit. Well, Mary took the news well since it is very hard to argue with the Biblical God. He, like John McCain, is subject to nasty temper tantrums.

Just between you and me, I can see why the Holy Spirit would be attracted to this particular Mary. I always visualized Mary as being rather demure and plain, even shy until she began appearing to large sell-out crowds at Lourdes. But this Mary was quite a dish, perhaps even a seven course meal!  She had a beautiful face, tastefully applied make-up, and a smashing golden Dolly Parton wig. This mother of Jesus could have easily modeled for VICTORIA’S SECRETS! 

As for Gabriel, I just didn’t feel his heart was in the message.  Gabriel seemed tired and bored, wanting to get the message delivered quickly so he could return to heaven, take his sandals off and go to sleep. The concept of angels sleeping has always troubled me. When I was a little boy, I couldn’t see how angels could sleep in a bed with those big wings in the way, so I assumed they slept hanging upside down like bats. But then I realized that their robes would fall down over their faces, revealing their sacred angelic underpants. As a kid, I settled this theological conundrum for myself by assuming that  angels sleep in Long Johns. Didn’t Clarence the angel wear Long Johns in the movie with Jimmy Stewart IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE?

The play involved a few choice vignettes from the Christmas story: Mary gets told she has lost that which every bride (until the 1960’s) saved for her husband on the wedding night. Then Joseph and Mary were off to Bethlehem for Caesar’s stupid census, then suddenly Jesus was born (and BRAVO for reality! He was a real baby, not a doll),

Then  for no logical reason I can think of, the  shepherds were notified by Gabriel, who clearly was  inwardly praying  “God, Can I come home after informing these yokels?”. For this scene, the young man portraying Gabriel ascended a stairs and stood on a platform above the shepherds. Alas, he was in the center of a spotlight which acted as an x-ray, allowing the audience to see through his flimsy bed sheet robe to settle forever the question of whether angels are male or female. The shepherds made a big fuss after seeing Gabriel’s genitals. Each grabbed their favorite sheep and  came to see the baby.

Then the wise men appeared, looking just as you would expect such men to appear in a local church play. Each one wore a different colored bed sheet, and seemed to have waste baskets on their heads, lined in gold and silver Christmas wrapping paper .. If any of you are sophisticated movie viewers like me, the wise men would have immediately reminded you of Gonzo’s space relatives as they descended from their space ship in the intense movie MUPPETS FROM SPACE.  However, here the correspondence ends. In the movie, Gonzo is shot into space from a cannon. But these wise men just dumped some gold colored stones, a gold sprayed vase and some silverware  into Jesus’ manger (so the kid could literally be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, thereby fulfilling Biblical prophecy).

The final scene was of a glowing cross, so all the kiddies in the audience would know  how guilty they should be that Jesus was born just so God could kill him off on their behalf, the dirty little buggers!

Frankly, I enjoyed the experience very much, notwithstanding the possibility that if the rest of the audience knew that 2 fags were there, it could have turned into a public stoning! Nonetheless, such cute little plays seem to be part of Amercana and satiated my need to celebrate Christmas the old fashioned way. And the best part? No one mentioned “elimination” (see December 15’s post).

Keep The Balance Right - Gratitude

Since writing the previous post today about feeling sad on the Christmas holidays, I've felt sad. Well, duh. I wonder why! Even though most of the post was meant to be humorous, I know how suggestive such words can be on my mind and others. WORDS HAVE POWER!  That may be why so many teenage boys are very silent while teenage girls are constantly chattering LOUDLY (God bless them)  at Arrowhead Mall. Ting versus Tang (which tastes just like orange flavored Metamucil).  As a tangent, the reason the elevator at Arrowhead Mall suddenly closes (which freaked out some teenage girls today.....me and a gaggle of girls trapped in an elevator as it slowly ascended....I almost began singing about snow) is because the elevator is weight sensitive. So once a certain weight is attained, the elevator doors close. Mr. Wizard has spoken.

I felt it was time for all of us to do a gratitude exercise.  So do as I do. Start listing all the wonderful things you are grateful for. I'll show you how it is done.

1. I am grateful for dogs with a sense of humor. My dog has a great sense of humor. If I fall asleep on the couch wearing sweat pants, he pulls them down very quietly. . He thinks this is very funny. He also puts rocks on my favorite chair and then chases his tail when I yell in pseudo pain.
2. I am grateful for the angel at the Wildflower Bakery earlier this week. I ordered a sandwich and had a tray with a very tall glass of water. I stumbled and the glass wobbled dangerously, but settled on the tray without falling. It had to be an angel. Thank you for saving me from the embarrassment of spilling a couple gallons of water all over other customers and the floor. The management don't like when that happens.
3. I am grateful for GHOST WHISPERER, which is a fantasy show about a woman who can see and talk to ghosts. Her husband is hot and takes his shirt off a lot. The stories are often a bit corny with the ghost telling someone on earth that they love the person, that the 10 million dollars of embezzled funds are in the glove compartment of the car, and that life on the other side is like LA without the smog.
4. I am grateful for the Agape Choir, which can be very relaxing when everyone in Scottdale decides to go slumming in Phoenix at the same time and 101 becomes a parking lot.
5. I am grateful for UNITY-FM, the online Unity radio network. I made a sampler of my favorite shows on CD and put the binder in the Lending Library. I also created an introductory CD that has my rich bartone voice on it. Borrow it sometime.
6. I am grateful for my partner Wes every day for all he does to keep our little family going, which includes buying a tropical coconut cream pie when requested.
7. I am grateful for Phoenix. It sure ain't San Diego, where I wanted to retire, but Wes and I have met some truly wonderful people here.
8. I am grateful for the infinite possibilities to recover from whatever challenges I face. Believing this is often half the battle.
9. I am grateful that my 98 year old dad is living in a posh retirement home. Although he is mostly deaf, blind, incontinent, and needs a wheel chair, he always has the strength of mind and character to tell me that I'll never see my mom again because she went to heaven in 1996 and I am going to hell. Don't let this bother you. He tells everyone they are going to hell unless they belong to the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod only.
10. I am grateful for the quality of gratitude, which feels so good.

Tip:: Don't only be grateful for big momentous things. Find gratitude for the small things (Some guys will know what I mean).

Why Am I Sad At Christmas Time?

I realize it has become a psychological cliche for people to feel sad around the holidays. Of course, every year the stores push back the holidays even further. I think this year I saw Christmas trees at Walmart in August. But this did not trigger sad feelings - I will not let Walmart control my emotional life! Now that's an affirmation you don't hear often.

Perhaps the sadness is due to the music. I weep for human kind. Every other Christmas song is about snow. I hate snow. I spent most of my life in California to escape snow, and now I live in God's sandbox = Arizona.  What is with all these psychopaths who seductively sing "Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow". Yeah, and let your feet freeze and your cheeks get chaped and may you drop your car keys into  a 3 foot high mushy mound of snow where many dogs have relieved themselves! I just cannot find any logic to this cult like worship of snow. If snow were marketable, I could understand the promotion as just part of corporate America's molding of our psyche so they could sell us more snow. But snow just falls from the sky. There's no sales tax on snow.....yet. Is that its appeal - people like snow because it is free?

The Christmas song about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is particularly cruel if you know the secret meaning behind the words!  The song begins by naming Santa's reindeer, with the words "There's Donner and Blitzen....". Do you  know where the name Donner comes from? It comes from the Donner Party that was trapped a century ago (in what is now called Donner Pass) by SNOW (!!!) and needed to eat each other to survive until spring. When spring comes each year, how come people don't sing about the joy of melting snow bringing flash floods and mud slides.

Perhaps my sadness is from the hype on TV about how good Christmas FEELS.  I was a child during the golden years of TV specials for Christmas, e.g., Charlie Brown, & Lucy,  Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, Santa sledding on a rotary blade shaver.  What can possibly match up to the hype about Christmas on TV? The Muppets (who seem to have gone into cold storage in some warehouse) have old holiday specials replayed with John Denver, (who is resting in peace on grandma's feather bed). Such benign Christmas specials focus on love and friendship which requires that everyone sing (calm down, Will) about SNOW!!

By the way, you can tell what decade each special was made by Miss Piggy's changing hair style - from Farah Fawsett to Lindsey Lohan. I'd like to see a new Muppets special where Miss Piggy "does a Britney Spears on meth" routine and shaves her head. I know my Muppetts example is pretty silly, since if Kermit were to walk into this room right how, I'd probably be on top of the bookcase and calling the exterminator. "Mr Christie, is it a gecko, a large scorpion, or a mouse? You say it is green?  Um, do you happen to be wearing green lensed sunglasses?"

OK, maybe at heart it IS all about my sweet heart. I want the heart to feel something joyous, something really special beyond my expectations that the tryptophan in the turkey will put me to sleep in front of the blue flames of our gas fake fireplace. Yeah, I probably just want to be a little kid again and enjoy the simple faith and joy of the season. A frontal Lobotomy might help.

I've already detailed on my FACEBOOK page my fantasy of hiring actors to portray my ideal Christmas family. To recap, there would be Aunt Bea in the kitchen, and she would tossle my red wig and call me "Opie, dear" all day. Dad would look just like Sheriff Taylor (also from Mayberry) and he'd sing some corny songs with his guitar and wear those kick butt boots that I thought were so sexy as a kid (early signals that this kid is gay). My mom would be Donna Reed, since she always wore pearls, a highly starched "house dress" from the 50's and highheels (early signals that this kid is gay).  My sister would be Hermoine Granger (so I could finally get my hands on her hair with my dog brush). As a brother, I'd probably pick Rock Hudson so I'd have someone to share my paper dolls and 2 Ken Dolls (early signal...blah, blah). For an Aunt and Uncle, I think I'd like Lillly and Herman Munster.  They were strange but very sweet people.

Alas, I have a feeling that even such a contrived Christmas family would not restore that old FEELING, especially (if like my therapist) any of the actors kept sneaking a peak at their watch to see how much longer they'd have to stay in character.

So do I have a poignant solution? Nope, kiddies. I don't. I will say that I realize that metaphysically, Christmas symbolizes the birth of a deeper sense of Self within, what could be called the Christ Self, the Self that is supposedly our True Core Self regardless of how many times we remodel the external personality self. This Christ Self is a matter of spiritual faith. Yes, it feels good to believe in an immanent God, that we are each a manifestation of that Source, like waves on the ocean. Therefore, Christmas becomes a time of reminder of our individual spiritual heritage, a faith that we are so much more than walking talking pieces of meat, being chased by the Donner Party (metaphorically our fears and negative thoughts feeding on us).

Nonetheless, on Christmas I'll consume too much sugar and shake like nervous nelly Don Knotts. I'll pull the crackers and wear a silly hat (Wes and I retain some English/Scottish Christmas traditions that America abandoned just because an invading British soldier with a leaky cigarette lighter burned the White House in 1812).  I'll play with our dogs. I think by then we will have a new little brother for our golden retriever Chandler. I'll watch the Pee Wee Herman Christmas Special from 1987 - the golden years for Pee Wee before his INTIMATE interest in children was known. Nothing is as it seems, including Christmas.

However, I bless those of you who have found and kept a wonderful FEELING of Christmas. Please bottle it for the rest of us.  If there's any of Aunt Bea's pie left, I'll bring you a slice.

Profound Ruminations on the Latest Harry Potter movie

Today was sulky and rainy in Arizona, a dark and dim Voldemort type of day. Since the great outdoors reminded us of Morty, my partner Wes and I decided to see the latest Harry Potter movie, probably the last humans on earth to do so. We drove to our local multi-plex-imax-cyborg 3D pleasure center and sat in the back row. The theater was practically empty - just the way we like it (We get so little rain in Arizona that people are deathly afraid of it and hide under their beds - which is hard on those people who still have waterbeds).  I felt a wee bit like Donald Trump, buying out every seat in a theater simply so he wouldn't be annoyed by the sound of other people crunching on over priced popcorn during the movie.

The movie had a dark angst that I enjoyed, showing that even wizards have bad hair days. And Hermoine and Ron particularly were afflicted with this ailment. I was itching to climb into the movie with my dog's brush and try to bring some respectability to Hermoine and Ron's greasy hair, but since taking PAXIL my wand does not respond as fast as it used to! Why couldn't they be like my darling toy boy Harry, who has blossomed into a rather handsome young man with perfect skin and black orderly hair. Isn't that ironic? Wasn't one of the descriptions of Harry in the early books as being the boy who couldn't get his hair to lay flat? Well, for most of this movie he looked like he had just gone to Vidal Sassoon and then been outfited by Calvin Klein.

I personally did not like the way the aristocratic Malfoy family portrayed we blondes. If blondes aren't goose stepping with merciless vigor in movies about WW2,  they are being portrayed as dim babes (like the South Carolina Miss America candidate who thought people couldn't find the US on a map because of a shortage of maps of the US since map makers were focusing on Iraq). Now we have the blonde Malfoys providing skin care with a carving knife.  Draco's dad looked like he had his wig on backwards, he was in such a sulk because evidently Snake Nose thought the Malfoys were wusses. Of course, they did have the totally insane Beatrice in the family, and who can't  relate to having at least  one perpetually violent  homicidal aunt?

There is only 1 more Harry Potter movie to go, and I think most people will go simply to see if Ron (the most stale marshmellow in the wizard marshmellow bag)  finally realizes that Hermoine is in love with him. There's no counting for taste on Hermoine's part, but it would be fun to be related by marriage to the wonderful Weasley family. I'm not sure what Harry sees in Jenny, since she looks like the girl that came in second place in a spelling bee. However, they do end up getting married. Hope that wasn't a SPOILER for anyone. After seeing a Freudian therapist for a couple months (to deal with my obsession with peoples' hair), I know there is always a lot going on beneath the surface though. Underneath the surface story, I sensed a sexual tension between Harry and Malfoy. Harry may marry Jenny, but I bet  he takes a lot of "fishing trips" with Malfoy to Brokeback Mountain. Of course, I think that Frodo and Sam were really trying to return the evil magic ring to Brokeback Mountain, but that's a different magical story.

Well, I have a golden retriever that requires at least 16 minutes of cuddling before bed each night, so now is the time for us to play spoons until Wes returns. Night!

Unity Church Christmas Evening Service - Say What?

I've been a member of Unity Phoenix Church (The Church of Practical Christianity) since 2004. However, I've never understood the Christmas evening service held each year. Unlike traditional services, there are no actors on stage playing the roles of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Wise Women, Shepherds and Angels. This bothers me because I played Gabriel in one such church production as a boy and got rave reviews in the NY Times!. Of course, I had a live chicken attached to my upper back so that my angelic wing action would be spontaneous and realistic. We told the audience that the chicken's clucking was Gabriel speaking in tongues. I also had a battery pack under my robe so that my halo (a PAPST BLUE RIBBON BEER neon sign that my dad redesigned into a spiral halo like a modern energy saving light bulb)  burnt everyone's eye brows. My budding gayness as a boy was also surfacing when I insisted on bleaching my hair to a golden surfer boy tone (like Troy Donahue), You see, I insisted that all angels are natural blondes. I used my children's illustrated Bible (from the Lutheran Church) as theological proof so even my hardass dad had to concede to this Lutheran Biblical truth!!

The other part of the Unity service that causes my brain to go snap, crackle, pop are the multi-colored candles on the stage. One at a time, a person comes out and lights one of the candles, saying something bizarre like "I am the disciple John and I represent courage. Roar with me".  I volunteered one year for this duty and was supposed to be some little known disciple like Thadeus and given the word "Elimination". So I assumed that I represented God's grace in helping us go to the toilet! I took this elimination role seriously. I went out and bought some Metamucil and thank God each morning ever since for its spiritual effectiveness in lightening the load of my body. Yet the entire candle lighting ceremony seems like something from the Masons or Ralph Cramden's Royal Raccoon Lodge. What does it have to do with Christmas? I confess my ignorance.

Another part of the service I found strange is that every attendee is given a little white candle to light at one point, which reminds me of the candle vigils from my youth protesting the Viet Nam War. I think while we are warming our noses with our candles, the minister is talking about how we are all ONE. But all I see is hundreds of separate candles! I also wonder at the waste of all that wax. Why not gather up a huge pile of fundmentalist Christian books from authors like Pat Robertson and have a festive book burning? We could form chains and dance around the blazing fire and sing "Come on Baby, Light my Fire" (By the Doors in the late 60's).

Sigh....All we do in the service is light our little white candles, focus on not getting wax on anything, and then being told to blow them out together. Wow. Rather anti-climactic. To me it symbolizes the movie 2012 where everyone's life was snuffed out at once as the tidal waves reached Unity Phoenix. 

I also have a theological question. When Mary gave birth to baby Jesus, who slapped him on the butt to make him breath by crying? Shouldn't this person be acknowledged in the Bible? It just doesn't seem fair that Jesus' butt slapper is not part of the Christmas pageant. I bet the Christian apologists would say Gabriel or some matronly angel did it, sort of a celestial Aunt Bea. Wait a minute! Where are Jesus' baby teeth? They'd be worth a fortune nowadays on EBAY. I have my golden retriever's baby teeth in a little golden box. Hmmmmm....I wonder if I could refer to them as Jesus' teeth and set up an EBAY account. One guy did try to sell his soul to the highest bidder on EBAY, but no one wanted it.

Well, on Christmas Eve I will probably again attend Unity's inexplicable Christmas service, sending my prayers to the poor volunteer on stage who represents "Elimination". Of course, if I can find out who this person is before hand, I am going to convince them to update the word. Instead of saying "Elimination" I'll suggest that the person come on stage and just say "Metamucil - a modern  miracle!"

The Time of Year For Church Hopping!

This is a followup to the post on 12-15-10 about Unity Church's inexplicable Christmas service which can seem like a combination of a Rosicrucian secret ceremony and Camp Fire Girls meeting. Wes and I have decided that on such big religious holidays we still want the FEELING TONE of the original traditional  holiday to remain. Therefore, while we may make an appearance at Unity to smell lots of candle wax burning, we will also seek out more traditional venues. For example, out in Anthem there is a little modern church that has a living tableau with all the popular characters (e.g., Mary, Joseph, Jesus, angels, sheep, coyotes....) in an open field. That should be fun, since winter temperatures in the Phoenix area stay quite mild.

There is an architecturally lovely new Catholic church in Anthem with covered colonades and all the absurd pomp and circumstance (priests decked out in embroidered robes and waving incense pots around). I'd like to check out this almost pagan celebration of Christmas - see a big choir, actual Christmas music instead of pop spiritual songs, maybe even a child's reinactment of my role as Gabriel, which has never been surpassed.

Unity Church is a great place for New Thought, for metaphysical thought, for putting everything that irked you about traditional religions into metaphorical psychological terms of spirituality. Unity is especially useful for atheists, for those who are too intelligent to accept literally the religious myths, but have a yearning for a spiritual connection.

However, on traditional "high" religious holidays, Unity can be disappointing.


My best friend Jerry died from complications of AIDS. He was a Franciscan Brother who was forced out for (gasp!) admitting to being gay (God never makes mistakes EXCEPT in terms of sexual orientation, I guess). Jerry, when very ill with limited time left, made a practice of visiting a different Catholic church each day for Mass to breath in what seemed like accumulated spiritual energy in the air. Ultimately he found that spirituality within himself.

But I didn't find that out until after his death in dreams. For example, in one dream I got a letter from Jerry. I realized within the dream that Jerry was dead, so I was curious what the return address could possibly be! In his handwriting I read "Jerry, In Care of the Christ within Me & You".  I opened the envelop and I was enfolded in blinding white light. Yes, it was just a dream, but only the first of several such coherent dreams that acted as messages from Jerry. There was even a final goodbye dream where Jerry said he was moving on, hugged me (forgiving me for my unacknowledged guilt at not being more helpful during his illness due to MY FEAR of AIDS) became a golden spark of light, and vanished.

We all yearn for such spiritual experiences. Sometimes a traditional setting works better at this time of year than hearing about Elimination. Peace to you.