Date with a Mad Man (?)

I have a date.
Gigi will be joining me on this date after a couple of hours because the fellow involved apparently has a past so checkered that it's against my better judgment to talk to him at all - but that's just because of how he looks on paper.   Given that I've gone out with men who looked great on paper but were disappointing in reality, I figure there's logic in going out with someone who looks awful on paper.  Further, ever since my divorce, the only men I've dated came from internet dating services.  I met this man in real life, and frankly had no idea of dating until he brought it up.

At first, I altogether dismissed the idea because preliminary evidence suggested he was nuts, and to his credit, he stayed dismissed until I contacted him again.  He had done me a good turn in a comment thread somewhere on the internet, and I felt thanks were in order.  I confess that I like the way he maintains a respectful distance and adapts to whatever pace I require.  During the subsequent correspondence, he sent me the link to a patent he holds for some device that uses magnets to generate energy.  His complete legal name was on this patent, and of course I began to Google.

I already knew a bit about his blogging persona because he writes on those blogs people create that provide forums for reader diaries and on those that make you register in order to leave comments, like firedoglake.  I never read those blogs myself because I think they're filled with bullshit.  It's much better to read analysis and commentary of current events and politics on the blogs of people I've discovered through my own and whose opinions I've come to respect - like Mr. Charleston, for example, and JadedJ.  Those guys haven't been into politics much lately, and neither have I for that matter.  For me, that's because politics and current events are too damn depressing to go cruising the internet in search of more.  I get that stuff in the Journey with Roundtree7 room on Facebook.

*Note* Roundtree7, Worldwide Hippies, Here Be Mosters, Pinko the Bear, Air Amarteifio and AWOP radio have formed a collective called TheCommonsProjectNetwork.  The concept is that by standing together we have a bigger voice.  Website coming soon.  We're working on combining live video feeds with blogtalk shows to provide interactive access for the audience.  So far, we're kind of stuck with Google+ Hangouts because it's free and youtube is good for watching, but not so good for interacting.  I have confidence we'll figure it out - and maybe one day soon, we'll have a virtual salon at Menopausal Stoners HQ.  Smoke 'em if you've got em.

Banner Prototype by Gwendolyn Holden Barry

But back to this date.
I already knew from these profiles that he used to be a lawyer and then became a stripper.  Web search results revealed he was disbarred, but I don't know why.  It could have something to do with weapons charges, since he made reference to an incident on one of his posts that included military grade weapons.  He has sent me a link to a poem he wrote which he said was well received at a poetry slam at the Beat Museum in San Francisco.  He went to law school at Berkley and has a thesis on file at Brown.  He says he taught astrology when he lived outside London.  I think he lived at an Ashram.  Somehow from there he wound up in Kandahar.  I wouldn't be surprised to find that Hunter S. Thompson himself participated somewhere along the way.  Given that my buddy Gwendolyn learned about mythology from Joseph Campbell, got high with Carlos Castaneda and wound up in Berlin the day the wall came down, there's no reason why this fellow's life should be any more or less colorful.

When he first appeared on the periphery of the Triciasphere, I mentioned to my Roundtree buddies that he looked kind of like a character you would find in a Turkish Bazaar in an Indiana Jones movie.  Since then, he's brought up Kemalist philosophy, so I guess I wasn't far off the mark. He may very well be older than Woody which means he's pretty far outside the age parameters I used to set on Match dot com and other sites - further proving that nobody in real life asks how old you are if you meet at a party.  As it happen, I met this fellow at a meet-up called by a man who writes under the name Lambert Strether, primarily on his blog, corrente.   Lambert is one of the people I trust to have well informed political insights.  Dennis Trainor, Jr., Punk Patriot and Lee Camp fall into that category

That night about half the folks at our table of seven in Chinatown would have been familiar with Woody Konopelli from back in the Eschaton days.  Again, I don't pay much attention to the beltway crowd because their enthusiasm for politics sort of reminds me of the way people become all hooked into soap operas, and they watch national politics so closely that they think they know what's really going on inside the Beltway.

Bokonon tells us in Chapter 3 of Cat's Cradle:

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.
And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."
"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."
She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.
She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he can see what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].

And in Chapter 46:  Pay no attention to Caesar.  Caesar has no idea what's really going on.

In real life, right after the World Trade Centers came down, the director of my school called a meeting of the teachers to discuss the situation among ourselves so we could have a better idea how to handle anything the kids did in the classroom.  One of the teachers was a young woman who had come to the US from Iran with her parents when the Shaw was deposed.   She said that none of us will ever know what went on behind closed doors, so live our lives the same as we ever would.

Smart words from a woman who knew from experience that none of us can even claim to know what the hell our leaders are doing, or even what they think they're doing.

But back to the meet up --
I didn't mention Woody that night because the Kos folks were comparing notes, bringing up bloggers from the early days and listing all the blogs from which they'd been banned.  Woody was banned from all those blogs a long damn time ago for saying that the only reason he ever watched George W. Bush's speeches on TV was because he was hoping to see a nickel sized hole appear right between W's eyes.  People frowned on that sort of remark.  In fact, Lambert himself banned Woody from correntewire.com once upon a time.  Like Woody, the two Kos folks at the table that night evidently thought they were smarter and better informed than anyone they knew - and the woman was very will informed indeed, particularly about the internal workings of the DNC and about Obama's early days in Chicago when he received beaucoup bucks from the nuclear power industry.  She said that this country would be better off if Hillary had gotten the nomination, which would have happened if the DNC hadn't screwed Hillary somehow in the Texas caucuses.  Personally, I doubt we'd have seen any substantive differences if Hillary were president because she's become as hawkish as Margaret Thatcher, if you ask me, and her own daughter not only worked on Wall Street but she's now in the propaganda business. When you consider that the only thing Bill Clinton has done in Haiti is (1) build a luxury hotel and (2) purchase FEMA trailers condemned for formaldehyde after Katrina - I just don't see how anyone can think Bill Clinton walks on water even if he did, as the woman claimed, admit that NAFTA was a mistake. (Joe McEvoy at Worldwide Hippies reported on the Clintons in Haiti.  There must be links somewhere on WWH, if anybody wants a citation.  And really, anyone wanting proof of anything I say can do their own damn research).

As I recall, when the fellow I'm meeting tonight tried to engage her in conversation, she waved him off like a gnat.  I wasn't sure if that meant she was a jerk or if he was a nut or both.

I guess we'll find out more this evening.  He suggested a few places downtown, and I chose Toad Hall because I like the name.

For the record, when I told Velvet I had an actual date with a man who may or may not have been disbarred as a result of charges regarding military grade weapons and who then became a stripper - although not in a goofy club like Chip 'N Dale's but at bachelorette parties and such - all he had to say was, "Jesus Christ, Mom."  He agrees that although it sounds a little twisted, it's not boring.