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Lysistrata

Wassup your butt, Beta? Thing from Miletus fits guys in one place. Borrow your thing? Baby got no bread. Baby Doll got no bread? Kick it to the Rock. Who's playing? Santayana & the Four Realms. Put on your pads, color your lips, agitate the gravel. Yer bazooms flatter the bums.

Lysistrata - Notes

Lysistrata ("Army Disbander") is a Greek comedy by Aristophanes, first performed in Athens in 411 BC. Spunky Lysistrata is on a mission to end the war between Athens and Sparta with a sex strike by the women.   Beta—2 nd letter in the Greek alphabet. A young woman. Her girls ’ night out could play a part in a modern rendition of the play. She'll be soon back in the saddle enjoying it more, having made the point. Person Two—a young woman Thing—a dildo Up your butt—an expression or metaphor. Miletus—a Greek trading post on the western coast of what is now Turkey, known for dildos. Rock—the Acropolis in Athens,  a religious and civic center . W omen were generally not allowed there , but  they had  temporary access to specific parts of the  Acropolis  during certain festivals or religious ceremonies . Bazooms—they’ll crash the Rock by showing their tits. There is some precedence.  Phryne was an ancient Greek courtesan active in Athens, best  known for her impi

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

My first sense of a Higher Power walked in with death: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. —Child's bedtime prayer, 18th century Before my mother taught me the prayer, I had had no thoughts about death or God. Afterward, those were all my thoughts. The prayer, a childhood favorite at the time, established a supernatural realm and the agency to connect it with the material world. It reminded children of the impermanence of life and the certainty of death. Withal, it promoted the curious idea that the sovereignty of the prayer would not only reassure children before bedtime, but also preserve the innocence of childhood slumber following its recitation. This can’t be right, can it? How could I go to sleep if I might not wake up? Terrifying. As we prayed together each night, she taught me to pray for others. Would they die, too? This sad bedtime poem generated more questions than answers. What is a

Tanks

Tanks for the memory Of crap games on the floor, Nights in Singapore You might have been a headache, But you never were a bore —from Rainger, R. and Robin, L. (1938). Thanks for the Memory [lyrics] You never know what you're gonna run into when you’re breakin' bush in the middle of a war. One fine morning, March second, I recall, the jungle was jungle. Then, Presto Mundo—a three-acre clearing with a road running through it. There was no bush on the sides of the road and no leaves on the trees. Agent Orange had been here—“Only you can prevent a forest.” The entire area had been bladed and sprayed extensively. Busybody U.S. engineers had created a wasteland, except for a big pile of logs and brush on the far side of the road, next to a termite mound. Lt. Martinez shouted, “We're makin' a combat assault on the road!” Huh? Against a road? The lead elements of Charlie Company stepped into the clearing. We glanced at each other. No traffic lights. Like obedient Civil War sold

I-255

Barry’s roadster pressing vapors and clouds, foggier and doggier. Silver stanchions lamp-lit the stage. Coronas, dreamy signs billboards— The Arch bathed in blue light. Hearing your voice out of the fog, I wish I tasted your eggnog laced with whiskey, long sips…

Refusal to Bury

On the sunny afternoon of 8 August 1970, a courier dropped the daily casualty report on my desk. The day prior, Charlie Company had been investigating a suspicious area in the bush. Capt. Martinez, who inclined toward the unusual, had set up an LP (listening post) away from the main body. An LP was the least popular assignment and most unsettling because the enemy owned the night.   Two of the newest men in the unit, an FNG (fucking new guy) and SP4 Pondextuer Eugene Williams, a vet from The Big Red One, were put out there in no man’s land like tethered goats, to pick up enemy traffic. They were huddled around their radio listening to the night noises for tell-tale signs when a Viet Cong snuck up and planted a mine. The blast took off Williams' head and critically wounded his companion. Doc Gerrits went out to check. Williams was done for, so he treated the wounded man.   Taking care of your buddies is utmost, but Williams’ friends were shaky because of recent enemy contact. “H

Refusal to Bury Note

While stumbling around the Internet today I ran across "Refusal to Bury." It brought back a lot of memories because I am the  Ron  Martz cited in the piece. When that story was dropped in my lap I was in my second month of my first newspaper job after dropping out of college after two years. The story resonated with me because I had spent three years in the Marine Corps prior to college (1965-68), the last 18 months working in the Casualty Section at Headquarters Marine Corps (they sent me there because I could write a simple declarative sentence and type with all 10 fingers; an oddity in the Marine Corps at the time). I remember the day Mrs. Campbell walked into the newspaper office and told her story first to Dick Lundin, who was a part-time correspondent for us who wrote about community affairs in Port St. Lucie, Fla., a planned community just south of Fort Pierce. He wrote the first piece about it and then the story was handed to me, in part because of my military backgro