American 27-year-old Gainesville store worker charged with video voyeurism

In America: A Gainesville store manager was arrested on suspicion of secretly videotaping dozens of women inside a bathroom.

Johnathan Matheny, 27, was arrested on a charge of video voyeurism. According to the Gainesville Sun, Matheny, the manager of a CVS, admitted to hiding his cell phone in the bathroom to obtain video of women undressing. He reportedly told police that he’s filmed 50 women in the past six months.

A customer found the cell phone hidden under a pile of tissues on Friday afternoon. A company spokesperson said Matheny has been fired, and CVS is cooperating with the investigation.

bron: www.clickorlando.com

The Genesis of a Crumb

Way back in March this year I read an article in the Guardian about the (in)famous American cartoonist Robert Crumb and his recently completed four-year project to illustrate the whole of the Book of Genesis. Described as an ‘acclaimed satirist’ and ‘hero of underground comics’, he worked directly from the King James Bible and Robert Alter’s translation to illustrate the first book of the Bible.

I thought at the time that this would be yet another attempt to upset religious people and pour sneering scorn on their holy books. After all, his publisher Jonathan Cape was heralding the book as a “scandalous satire” which “presents a complex, even subversive, narrative that calls for a significant re-examination of both the Bible’s content and its role in our culture”. The publisher also called it a ‘reinterpretation’ of the Book of Genesis.

Now, I wasn’t going to write or say anything about this book until after the Times had published an article about it. The writer had a copy of the book sent to me so that I could comment on it for the said article. I had a very interesting and intelligent conversation with the journalist over the phone after I had read the book quickly. But I didn’t want to preempt the article by blogging it.

Then today I saw myself quoted by Ben Leach on the Telegraph website saying:

I didn’t think it was satire. He set out to say; ‘this is important, fundamental myth’ and it seems to me he’s done a good job.

Well, I did say that … to the Times journalist. But I have not had any contact from or conversation with Ben Leach from the Telegraph. So, where did this come from? I am interested to know. Why? Because the article is headed as follows:

A sexually explicit illustrated Book of Genesis by controversial artist Robert Crumb, which features Bible characters having intercourse, has been condemned by religious groups.

Actually, it hasn’t. Or, at least, it wouldn’t have been condemned if the said journalist hadn’t rung up Mike Judge of the Christian Institute who (from his response) clearly has not seen or read the book. When I got my copy it said on the cover, ‘Adult supervision recommended for minors.’ And ‘The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!’ When I read it I thought it was excellent and realised that this is simply a case of an inept publisher trying to sell more copies by sensationalising what isn’t sensational.

In other words, what it says on the tin is not what you find within.

I would simply make the following observations:

1. Genesis is a bit racy at times and tells stories of sex, lying, violence, hypocrisy and all the other things that are to be found wherever you find real people. The book is about real people and real things. If you can’t cope with that, don’t read Genesis in the first place.

2. Surprisingly (to me, at least), there is no pornographic representation of sex acts that are graphically described in words in the original. If children need to be protected from drawings of breasts and a man ‘lying with’ a woman, then pity help the children.

3. The text of Genesis has been stuck to faithfully and taken seriously. Isn’t that brilliant?

4. The drawings bring the stories alive and impress upon the reader the ‘flesh and blood’ reality of the people and events described – thus rescuing them from the sort of ‘Holy Scripture’ we gloss over and making the stories powerfully and engagingly real.

5. Crumb faces the problem of how to depict God directly. In an interview he said: ”My problem was, how am I going to draw God? Should I just draw him as a light in the sky that has dialogue balloons coming out from it? Then I had this dream. God came to me in this dream, only for a split second, but I saw very clearly what he looked like. And I thought, OK, there it is, I’ve got God. He has a white beard but he actually ended up looking more like my father. He has a very masculine face like my father.” He had considered, he said, drawing God as a black woman. “But if you actually read the Old Testament he’s just an old, cranky Jewish patriarch.”

Well, I disagree with the last bit, but I take his point.

So, who are the people likely to take offence at this book? I guess it will be the people who (a) haven’t read it or (b) take offence at anything that involves bodies, sex, God or cultural intelligence.

Ignore the sensationalist nonsense. If the publisher thought this was ’scandalous satire’ and ’subversive’, he should be sacked for having failed. It is an excellent book and well worth a read.

you're judging me.

let me tell you about my day. yes–i know it is 3am. i am going to explain.

let me tell you about this past day. it was the most unproductive i have ever been in my entire life. i woke up at 10am. then again at 12pm. then finally at 3.

i blogged, as usual.

made a pan of PERSONAL PANCAKES…just enough for me.

blogged some more,

and went right back to sleep.

i woke up again at 7pm and i called him.

he&i have been arguing for the past forever. these past few days have been kind of hard. personally, i think it’s the rain. but anywayyys, we argued. i cried. he got upset. we decided to leave [again].

this is how i have felt. imagine me standing in the middle of the street...in the rain...yeaaa. that's about right.

i got a little TOO upset and hung up.

just to call him right back.

we apologized. got stuck on the topic of what to do next…as usual. said some hurtful things to each other. discovered some honest truths. i got my face played and he got a hint of reality.

he didn’t like that.

he hung up.

i ordered his favorite–hotwings&cinnastix–and ate them all by myself as some sick and twisted way of getting back at him. lmao.

and i attempted to cry myself to sleep, only to not be able to sleep at all. so i called the one person i knew who could make it better.

him.

i told him i couldn’t sleep. i asked him did he still love me. i told him i didn’t want to sleep unless he stayed on the phone. and he did.

i dozed in and out of sleep…and he was still there.

and i rest reassured that whenever i need him the most, i reach out for his hand—and he’s there.

when he thought i was fast asleep, he hung up.

and i lay in my bed staring at the ceiling in deep thought.

then the funniest phonecall i have ever received came. the most eventful thing that happened to me all day.

the[drunken]QUE called. lmfao.

in some sort of JIBBERISH language;; he spoke in BARKS&partialENGLISH.

“goooooooooooooooose! arffff arfff. where youuu at??? you bet’ not be drankin’! you too cute to be drankin’! i was talkin to mah niggga ’bout youuu and i was sayin’ ‘i really wanna talk to her but she be drankin’ like a mannn!’”…

at this point—i am DYING laughing.

i told him i wasn’t drinking. i was chilling at the crib. trying to listen to the background, i was worried that this drunk negro was walking down some street by himself.

which he was. SMH.

“gooooooooooooosie, i had the NASTIEST dream last night. and it was sooo homo because youuu were in it.”

pause. lmao.

he thinks i am his homeboy. lol. his “nigga”. so anything “sexual” that he may think or envision, is homo to him. haha. i know…weird.

he proceeds to tell me IN EXTREME DETAIL about a dream that began with him hitting me like the true dawg he is and ended in me screaming “get out of my stomach”…..

-_- blank stare. cricket. cricket. cricket. cracking the hell up.

this negro was SOOO drunk that i couldn’t even curse him out. and if he REALLY knew what that dream did to me, i’m sure he would’ve showed up at my door ten minutes later…

so he continued to rant. he even talked about a few things that i’m sure he wasn’t supposed to tell me for the sake of his fraternity and the sake of his own embarassment.

meet the man who never says the word GIRLFRIEND or WIFE. the man who “never trusts no bitch”. welppp. he said it tonight. so i’m a TAD BIT afraid. lol. he told me that, other than his LBs, i am the only person he looks forward to seeing some days…and amidst all the things that made me cry today, that made me smile.

he calls me gooooosie affectionately. as if to say it different because it means something different to him.

we had a 20min convo just to get him home safely about how he is adamantly trying to find something wrong with me, but cannot. i passed the test of not talking to or fucking anyone from his three organizations on campus, no one is talking about me, and no one is shedding any dirt on my name…and he’s a little worried. he keeps saying, “i’m trying so hard to find something wrong with you so that i can go ahead and stop trusting you,” and that shed some light on how niggas think these days. there ARE still such things as good girls.

nowwww, just because this dog buries her bones a little deeper than the others doesn’t mean that she is good ; ) remember that. haha.

theQUE’s a little drunken bastard, and i kinda like him. i think he likes me more than he wants me to believe, which is surprising.

i wonder if he will remember ANY of this later on…

While you were sleeping

My lover is sleeping, next to me, breathing, and I allow myself to write as I see his pristine, peaceful face. Such an innocent image, yet it scares the normal being to think what one is capable of.  I sometimes stare at him wondering who the hell he is, what he is doing next to me, and the circumstances that have lead to me allowing him such a prolonged entry in my life. How I have made the gates wide open for him to enter, shutting out many others.

Why I feel this sense of unreality I do not know, why when I stare at him I am still not sure who he is. I have heard of the story of the husband, who after 50 or so years of marriage realized that he never really knew his wife. This is a fear for me, a real one, a real fear.  I sometimes have to force myself to engage, to pour out my soul, because it is so important for me to be authentic. It is important for me to bare my soul, to crack my legs wide open, to let him inside my mind. Why I was cursed with such a brutal honesty, and would such a desire for brutal honesty, I do not know. I have often preferred people to be horribly direct to me. I’d rather have a truthful cactus than a flower dripping with honey, if you know what I mean.

He continues to snore and strangely enough, I like the sound. It reminds me of the purr of a whirring engine. It is a subtle sign of life that I like, a reminder that my lover is not miles and miles away,  that he is right next to me, within reach. I can hug him, or a plant a kiss on his forehead. I can also take for granted the fact that he is right there, and push him away. All are expressions of fondness, if not love.

Thousands of verses of poetry might have been written after lovemaking, and thousands of verses of poetry could have been written if the artist lover had sat up to pour out his or her heart on a piece of paper after the “deed.” Lovemaking used to arouse a lot more feelings from me – not always positive.  Fear, a desire to reject, resentment, anger, even regret. Yet now it is met with a type of relief, a comfort, a familiarity, a closeness, a feeling of something has been checked of the list and accomplished. It has to do with who is sleeping next to me. My lover, whom I have known for a year. The longest time I have been sleeping with just one person.  Sex is part of the whole deal, almost instinctive, always necessary (at least for me). I know that he will be there the next day. I know that he loves me for who I am and not just because I can satisfy him sexually. This is where the comfort is derived from.

The snoring is more faint now, perhaps he heard my fingers over the keyboard. I look at him and he looks like an infant, and I feel like a lover and mother. I have to let him continue sleeping. I will push this emotional masturbation to a close, and perhaps enjoy a more physical type of pleasure.

You have to kiss a lot of frogs....

Someone once was asked me why it took me so long to find a husband. I wasn’t quite sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, but I guess people assume that if you have a pretty face you should be married early on, that being single past the age of twenty five is unacceptable and they start to think you’re a lesbian. Well let me tell you something. I happened to be one of those people who were in no rush to be married. I enjoyed being single. I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I was free and I wasn’t quite sure if my freedom was something I was ready to give up. It’s not like I didn’t have an opportunity if I wanted to. Before I met my husband I was proposed to five times, thank you very much. Of course I only accepted one, but you can clearly see how that turned out. For me, finding a husband was the easy part. It was finding the “right” husband that was a bit of a challenge. I can probably write a book about my search for Prince Charming and all the frogs I had to kiss in between, but for now, consider this a teaser. So let me reminisce for a bit, starting at the age of 18 just to make things legal. I was with a guy that convinced me to follow him three thousand miles away because he just couldn’t live without me. I find out shortly after moving that he had a one night stand with someone while trying to convince me. I don’t care if we were broken up and you got drunk over it. I felt tricked so I had to cut him loose. After mister trickster, I decided to date someone ten years older hoping he was more mature and distinguished. I was right. He was so romantic, always saying and doing the right things. I even remember him going to a phone booth in the middle of a hurricane just to make sure I was okay. And when his car broke down, he rode his bicycle thirty miles to see me. Of course when I found out that he couldn’t get a car loan because of his bad credit and asked if I can co-sign for him, it was time for me to bail. And then there was the guy I thought was the one. He was perfect except for one flaw; his mother. Good thing I didn’t marry him because let’s face it, three’s a crowd. There was a self made millionaire from NY. I had to break up with him because I couldn’t stand his accent. I remember meeting a fireman who wanted to shuck my corn, and I mean literally. His problem was that I was only able to get a hold of him when he was at work. When I confronted him of my concern and accused him of having a wife, he acted stupid. I hung up on him and never spoke to him again, all the while hoping my house doesn’t catch fire. I finally gave a guy a chance after courting me for six months just to find him bumpin’ and grindin’ at a club with someone else. Hello? Can you be a bit more discreet if you’re gonna try to be a player? But that’s not why I ended it. I felt insulted because she looked like she fell from the ugly tree and got run over by a truck. If you’re gonna date someone else while you’re dating me, try to find someone similar, if not better than me. I dated a personal trainer that took his training a little too personal, if you know what I mean. A doctor that I shared many interests with, including men. Another fireman who slept with a grandmother. I don’t care if she was only in her forties. A grandma is a grandma. Period. There was an Air Force captain that was hung like a horse. I had to kick him out of my house because I was sure I would die if anything progressed between us. All I can see was my obituary saying “Cate. Loving daughter. Wonderful friend. Decent human being. Died of over stimulation.” I was fascinated by an eloquent engineer. He certainly knew how to work and run an engine. So much that one night, he and his friend decided to hit the town and picked up some random chic to bring home to his house and ran a train on her. He tried to blame it on me for making him wait too long for sex. And according to him, it wasn’t a threesome. Whatever. It was certainly disgusting. Oh, did I mention he was still hung up on his stripper ex girlfriend? Ha! How about a baller who took me on a very expensive romantic weekend getaway just to ask me later why I didn’t wanna have sex with him after spending so much on me. Um that’s because I’m not a whore, stupid! I hung out with a chiropractor by day, gigolo by night. A Navy SEAL that was way too cocky for my taste. A business owner from Hicksville. A bible thumper. A closet married man. A psycho and a stalker. A professional dater who was an habitual liar. A dead beat dad who gave up his paternal rights. A nymph who will have sex with anything that moves, and he did. There’s just way too many guys and too many stories to list guys. Perhaps a book is not such a bad idea huh? Now I don’t want everyone thinking that I dated nothing but losers because there were also plenty of men that I felt were absolutely perfect, just not perfect for me. The fact that I dated a lot of men helped me figure out what my likes and dislikes were. So when my husband came into the picture, I was well aware of what kind of man I was willing to share my life with. And let me conclude by saying that waiting for Mister Right was definitely worth it, because in the end, I ended up with the best.

VATTAFACK?!

Despite looking all fly today I got shot down… for packing! “I’d love some company but I have to pack” Vattafack?! Som min far hade sagt.. Dock inte om detta. Då hade han nog snarare sagt något i stil med: ge fan i min dotter din snuskiga karl. Hon är oskuld. Sen hade han fnissat. Sen blivit allvarlig. Sen blivit lite lätt förvirrad. Sen tagit sig ett glas vin eller liknande.

Aaaanywho. Back to english and the relevant: What man in his right state of mind turns down sex for packing?! Vattafack?! Som min far hade sagt.. Dock inte om detta. Då hade han nog snarare sagt något i stil med: ge fan i min dotter din snuskiga karl. Hon är oskuld. Sen hade han fnissat. Sen blivit allvarlig. Sen blivit lite lätt förvirrad. Sen tagit sig ett glas vin eller liknande. Sorry, got carried away again.

Even if you have to pack because you’re moving in three days and working all weekend you don’t turn down sex! Should I take this as a crystal clear fucking hint?? Oh fuck me. Literally. FUCK ME.

Zwiebeljunge

Nicht nur Oger haben Schichten, ich heute morgen auch. Frühschicht, weil mein Kollege Urlaub hat.  Und mindestens 7 Schichten Bekleidung am Leib. Zwei Schichten Handschuhe mal eingeschlossen. Zuunterst die Motoradhandschuhe, und dann Fäustline drüber. Ich muß mit den Fingern am Roller ja keine filigranen Arbeiten machen. Den Knopf für den Blinker kann jeder Grobmotoriker bedienen.

Als Belohnung afür habe ich jetzt wenigstens warme Finger, und die Füße spüre ich auch so langsam wieder. Der Koffeinpegel erreicht langsam den Zustand “betriebsbereit” und mein Tagesziel liegt bei 3 Fällen heute. Außerdem gabs heute eine originelle Rundmail. Wir haben jetzt ein Standardverfahren, falls mal ein Kunde eine Bescheinigung braucht, das wir auch im Falle einer Schweinegrippe Pandemie einsatzfähig bleiben.

Sowas deutete mein Chef schon letztens an. Im Prinzip läuft es darauf hinaus, das wir dann alle von zu Hause aus arbeiten. Ob die wissen, das ich im Umkreis von 1000 Metern 3 große Schweinezucht und -mastbetriebe habe? Und einen dazu noch in der Verwandtschaft?

Aber es eröffnet völlig neue Möglichkeiten. Hey, Sex am Arbeitsplatz