Battle for the soul of the sixties just getting started

It’s been four decades since the battle over the 1960s to determine the direction of the country. The kids from the era are grown, grandparents, AARP members, but still fighting the same old fights.


National politics remains a battle between the doves and the hawks, with the battle lines determined during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Chicago.

The factions remain the same, but what has changed in 2008 is the team that is winning the latest skirmish.

After years in the hinderlands, away from the power in D.C. the Clean for Gene crowd have finally found their Messiah and are prepared to follow him to the halls of power.

The struggle in the sixties can be encapsulated as a clash between the two sides’ lovable losers: Barry Goldwater representing the hawks and Eugene McCarthy representing the doves.

The kids that followed these two real mavericks are now the sometimes power brokers in the Democratic and Republican parties, but remain the “America, love it or leave it” crowd versus the “Make love not war” gang.

Neither side has the slightest idea what the opposition is all about.

Take for instance the controversy over William Ayers. One side thinks living within a three-block radius of his residency is enough to disqualify a Presidential candidate. The other side sees Ayers as a 60s hero. Classic -- failure to communicate.

The “I’m with Barry” crowd of 1964 learned a lesson from their huge defeat in 1964, but the “Clean with Gene” crowd weren’t nearly as quick to crack the books as their Republican counterparts after their big defeat at Chicago68.

The Goldwater kids were trainable: Nixon wasn’t the One, but he was going to be the One for the time. They managed to go to the capital and learn about how to work the system.

The McCarthy followers were named Clean for Gene in 1968 because many of the followers were youth who cut their hair, replaced their sandals with shoes, and put away their beads and flowers to canvas for McCarthy.

After their loss in 1968 the Clean for Gene crowd went home to run for their local water districts and city councils, assuming all they had to do was bide their time and pay some dues.

The McCarthyites would occasionally show up in national elections, but always with poor results – George McGovern, ABC (Anybody But Carter), Governor Moonbeam, Teddy Kennedy, John B. Anderson, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry.

The Democratic party winners since the 1960s, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were hardly the Clean for Gene types. Both were moderate Southern governors who took off the 1960s. They weren’t even in Chicago, damn it.

Meanwhile the Goldwaterites had found their man, the heir apparent to Goldwater, but much better at the getting elected part: Ronald Reagan.

While 1976 was too early for the Gipper, by 1980, everything was perfect, and all fractions of the Republican party were in line to get Ronnie elected, and for them, it was Morning in America.

One thing Ronnie could do better than Goldwater, Nixon, Pete McCloskey, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Gerald Ford, or any other GOP wannabe, was pander. Ronnie was everything to everybody and combined all the remnants of the party behind a cause, with that cause being getting Ronald Reagan elected.

Their party’s problem was a lack of a Ronnie Jr.

Bush the Elder served as Ronnie’s VP, but the Grand Old Party served with Ronnie, they knew Ronnie, he was a friend of theirs, and Pappy Bush was no Ronald Reagan.

Bush was from the rather small but sometimes powerful Kennebunkport segment of the GOP.

Still, they’d grown accustomed to their Georgetown brownstones, and really didn’t want to give them up for ideology. They could handle one term of Bush, but heck if they were going to work hard for him against some Arkansas governor.

To get back to their Georgetown brownstones, the GOP was going to have to be trained by the enemy: William Jefferson Clinton. They went looking for their own Bubba, and found him right next door to Clinton's old stomping ground in Arkansas.

Who would have imagined Ronnie Jr. would be none other than Pappy Bush’s Texas boy? He had the pandering to the groups down cold, and he would let the old Goldwater gang do what they wanted.

Then came John.

It was finally John McCain’s turn. McCain wrote in his memoirs, “I admired him [Barry Goldwater] to the point of reverence.” Surprise, surprise! Eight years of George Bush has torn apart the Grand Old Party that has nothing left for the oldest and loyalist of the Goldwater gang.

He tried to pander. Even his sacrificing his VP pick to the base wasn’t enough for the old hands. One thing they had learned is patience. With the country in such bad shape – caused by their own hands – Palin in ’12 could be their Ronnie III (or is that Goldwater IV?)

Everybody knew it was the end of the line, for Big John.

The Democratic party in Ott-Eight was having their own mini-battle over the soul of their party. Hillary was no Clean for Gene type. She even dared to write in her memoirs, “I liked Senator Goldwater because he was rugged individualist who swam against the political tide.”

Former Senator Tom Daschle never forgot his first love. As a 20 year old, then not even old enough to vote, he was there at O’Hare airport greeting Eugene McCarthy in 1968, the last great moment for the Clean with Gene crowd. Daschle had no need to get clean for Gene -- he was an ROTCer at South Dakota State University -- but the feelings from the tarmac in Chicago stayed with him for 40 years.

Daschle went looking for his own Ronnie Reagan and found him in Barrack Obama. It seemed a strange choice: inexperienced, a product of the Chicago Daly machine, African American, a funny name, young, and not involved in the sixties at all, but who would have thought the heir to Goldwater would come from the Bedtime for Bonzo movie (and not be the chimp.)

The Clean for Gene crowd now have their own Reagan Jr. ready to lead them to the promised-land, and surprisingly enough it looks like it is going to work.

And it only took 40 years.

The only thing the Goldwater/Reagan/Bush gang hadn’t counted on is the drop in value on their Georgetown brownstones. Will they sell them to their old nemesis, the Clean for Gene crowd, and take a chance they’ll still be in the tank in four years, or will they hold onto them hoping for Palin ’12?

Cup of Tea in Tennessee

We welcome you to Tennessee. There is a break in the action at the cricket match between the Gujranwala Goatherders and the Bahawalpur Buccaneers while they take a break for tea, here at ESPN 13, we will bring you a new event on ESPN 13, The Cup of Tea in Tennessee debate, between John McCain and Barrack Obama. We are thrilled to have as our commentators: Howard Cosell and George Foreman.

Foreman: It’s really a thrill to be here at Belmont U to announce this bout between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barrack Obama, Howard, doesn’t this remind you of the bout between the bruiser Sonny Liston and the dancer Cassius Clay?

Cosell: George, I was thinking more of the epic battle told to me by my ancestors: Goliath and David, but in this case, David enters the ring as the favorite over the hulking Goliath. After their first fight, The Lippy in Mississippi, they finished in a dead heat, but McCain has been showing his glass jaw the last few weeks. It should be thrilling to watch the longer reach of Obama versus the experience and up-off-the-canvasness of McCain.

Foreman: But the undercard, Smokin’ Joe Biden and Sarah “The Barracuda” Palin, the Rattatouille in St. Louey, gave McCain some room to fight, didn’t it?

Cosell: She is pushing McCain to go below the belt. It will be intriguing to see if the long-time referee Tom Brokaw will allow any below the belt punches.

Foreman: The two fighters are coming out to the ring now. They go ahead with the Boxer Handshake, and no staring down with these two.

Cosell: Because of their first fight, where McCain barely looked at Obama, there was some concern about how the handshake would go.

Foreman: As expected, round one dealt with the bailout. Obama was talking about the Great Depression and energy. McCain also talked about energy.

Cosell: What is fascinating to me is they both seem to be channeling the populism of perennial Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. Someone should tell them he lost every election. Luckily no talk of Cross of Gold.

Foreman: I’d have to give that round to Obama, as the original populist.

Cosell: I’ll agree with you George. McCain was dilatory to the show.

Foreman: Round two was still about the economy with both candidates trying to apply blame.

Cosell: With Obama disparagement of the administration, McCain had to go into a co-blame rope-a-dope strategy. It’s ardorous going for McCain, having to hoist the excess weight of his Bush belt around the ring. Obama looked much bouyant on his feet and able to slip McCain’s haymaker punches.

Foreman: You gotta dance with who brought ya. I’d say that round wasn’t even close. Looks like we have Obama up two to zero on rounds. Round three deals with priorities.

Cosell: More rope-a-dope from McCain. He refused to prioritize while Obama easily followed the referee’s tutelage. Looks like another round for Obama. McCain did get in a late jab with the $3 million overhead projector which Obama failed to counterpunch, but did manage to bring up JFK.

Foreman: At the end of that round Referee Brokaw had to warn both fighters they needed to go to neutral corners after the bell. The fourth round is about sacrifice and it will be an interesting round to watch.

Cosell: Just as expected, both candidates stayed with a populist vision of no sacrifice for the folks. McCain mentioned across the board freezes, but that was spending, not sacrifices for the folks. I’d have to call that round a draw, making the standing 3-0-1. McCain is going to have to start scoring soon in this 12 round bout.

Foreman: I was shocked when Obama mentioned “High on the Hog.” You think that was a reference to McCain’s running mate? McCain didn’t mention the reference, but did come back with a comparison of Obama to Herbert Hoover. We are on to round five and entitlements.

Cosell: Obama said he won’t do anything in the next two years, but he will get to it before the four years are up. McCain says fixing Social Security is easy but fails to say how. Perhaps it is like my old friend Richard Nixon’s secret plan to win in Vietnam. I’m giving that round to McCain because I want to hear his secret. That makes it 3-1-1.

Foreman: This round could be a tricky one for McCain, with the subject being climate change.

Cosell: Got to give this round to McCain. He was much more specific about drilling and nuclear power. He even pronounced nuclear correctly, showing his maverick spirit, splitting from President Bush and his own running mate. McCain is starting to catch up with the score now 3-2-1.

Foreman: Round seven is dealing with health care. McCain said health care is a responsibility while Obama said it is a right.

Cosell: This could be were McCain loses the fight. He was going with a populist vision, but then suddenly switched gears and went to Adam Smith. This isn’t a good time to be a free marketer. He’s going to need to throw a knock out in the next few rounds or Obama will probably win this match on points.

Foreman: As we get to the end of the match, we are getting into foreign affairs. This round ended up being about Iraq.

Cosell: Obama’s rabbit punches seemed to have McCain on the ropes. While McCain continued to try and sucker punch with Obama not admitting the surge is a success, Obama countered with “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” and McCain saying Iraq would be easy. No way McCain can recover. He looks flabbergasted.

Foreman: With the match 5-2-1, McCain will have to go for the knockout.

Cosell: ZZZZZZ
Foreman: ZZZZZZ

Cosell: We missed the last four rounds, but with them dealing with Pakistan Russia, Iran, and the candidates faults, we are sure we didn’t miss anything. We’ll just call them draw.

Foreman: With no final flurry, the match finished with the scorecard of 5-2-5, and it will be on to the Adieu at Hofstra U and the rubber match.

Cosell: They’ll be throwing out the Marquees of Queensberry rules for that. Watch for some low blows and less of the pitty-pat punches we saw tonight. McCain is going to have to listen to his running mate and go with some of the Ayers and Wright jabs.

Foreman: Obama has made no secret if McCain brings up that kind of stuff he will counterpunch with Keating and Todd Palin anti-American separatist group.

That’s it from Belmont University. We will see you in New York for the Adieu at Hofstra U. Now it is back to exciting cricket match between the Gujranwala Goatherders and the Bahawalpur Buccaneers here in ESPN 13.

Papa Bear still the Alpha Dog

The O’Reilly Factor is one of the highest rated television shows on cable, but you wouldn’t know it by asking college kids about the show. The Factor is off the radar on many college campuses.

The Colbert Report is a satire of the O’Reilly Factor, but many young people manage to enjoy the Colbert Report without having ever watched the O’Reilly Factor. The unintentional humor from the Factor is not as compelling for the kids as Colbert’s intentional humor.

According to the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of the Factor’s viewers are over 50. The Report only has 22 percent of its viewers over 50 and the Daily Show only 23 percent.

Cable and Radio Talk Show Audiences: An Ideological Profile

Regularly watch or listen	Conservatives	Moderate	Liberal
O’Reilly Factor	66	24	3
The Daily Show	22	24	45
Colbert Report	14	45	36

Pew Research Center

Not watching the Factor, viewers of the Colbert Report are missing chunks of Stephen Colbert’s humor.

The W∅RD on the Colbert Report is great fun with the bullet points on the screen talking behind the back of the host, but the sarcasm will be better appreciated by watching O’Reilly trying to pretend he isn’t reading from a teleprompter by acting like a junior-high kid trying not to plagerize.

How can you not love a show that advertises itself as the no-spin zone, yet makes it's viewers dizzy? O’Reilly was one of Bush’s main butt boys right up until the Presidents approval ratings dropped below 30 percent.

Colbert couldn’t be funnier than O’Reilly this week in his “interview” with Congressman Barney Frank, who currently heads the House of Representative Finance Committee. Who can’t enjoy O’Reilly telling a member of the U.S. Congress to “Stop the crap” and Frank calling O’Reilly boorish?



There are a few parts of the Factor that the Report hasn’t tried to copy that can be hilarious.

The Factor uses two different types of correspondents: The washed up hacks and the young blonde experts.

The hacks are highlighted by Former Bushie Karl “Able to leap subpoenas in a single bound” Rove, Professional Clinton hater Dick “Toe Sucker” Morris, Pollster Frank “Leading questions” Lutz and Comedian Dennis “BillO still laughs at my jokes” Miller.


Hey BillO, Alberto Gonzales not available?

There are others such as Stratfor founder Dr. George Friedman who is considered a geopolitical expert despite being wrong on every significant geopolitical issue over the last decade, and Newt Gingrich, who is worried gays getting married will hurt the sanctity of marriage while his having three wives (so far) can only strengthen the institution of marriage.

The fact that so many O'Reilly Factor experts are battling well below the Mendoza Line for procrastination shouldn't give anyone the idea they can’t be experts going forward.

Fox in general and O’Reilly in particular are worried about their older demographics. The O’Reilly Factor is the highest rated news show on cable, but advertisers aren’t all that interested in their older viewer.

In the big push to appeal to the kids – specifically the young males and lesbians – they have combed the earth looking for hot expertise on a variety of subjects.

Bill O specifically liked the 20something blondes with big teeth:


Occasionally he will have a brunette on for diversity sake, but you can tell Bill’s heart just isn’t in it. He gets giddy as a teenager when talking to his group of blondes. He is his happiest when he can get two hot blondes arguing with each other while simultaneously saying Bill is always right.

The college kids should love the O'Reilly Factor and Fox in general. There are amble drinking games involved in both. Every time O'Reilly says "shut up" or claims he is a "moderate", take a drink. While "fair and balanced" comes up way to often for the kids to avoid alcohol poisoning, just restrict the drinking to times a hot blonde correspondent says Fox is "fair and balanced."

Colbert Report has a lot more intentional fun – often at BillO’s expense – but when Colbert goes off on one of his far too numerous vacations, why not take a turn at watching the original article?

Do it for the poor blondes.

Too old to wear socks, too young to die

This summer quite a milestone was reached at El Estado del Rey. An entire summer went by without wearing socks. Not one day, not one half day. No socks all summer.

We all know how important it is to set goals. College students often have summertime goals. It could be to learn a trade or a foreign language, prepare for the LSAT, assist the meek to inheriting the earth, traveling to Budapest, learn to play the ehru, or just get a real cool tan.

It’s been the same goal every year for some time: Go the entire summer without wearing socks.

Something always gets in the way. It might be a family wedding or a funeral, a baptism of a small King, some sort of important meeting with a Congressman or Hollywood studio boss, or a trip to San Francisco. Whatever it is, the goal always falls short.

When summer ended last week the realization hit: no socks.

The fact was driven home when in the laundry room for the third and final summer laundry and no socks started or ended in the laundry.

In a closet on the King Estate there are 30 hangers, used by 30 different formerly pampered Aloha Shirts. These shirts used to periodically go to a nice Haitian couple in Hialeah who ran a dry cleaner. This place was a resort for Hawaiian shirts. They were dry cleaned, perfectly starched, and beautifully folded with tissue paper between each shirt, ready for another trip into the rotation.

As money stopped coming into the King Estate, one of the niceties that had to go was the pampering of the Aloha shirts. It was off to the rough and tumble life of Maytag. To avoid over-shocking these delicate shirts, laundry day has been reduced to a dozen times a year. Old friends can even tell how close it is to laundry day by what shirt makes it through the rotation.

But this isn’t a tale of Aloha shirts or the hard times at El Estado del Rey. It’s about socks, or to be more exact: non-socks.

As goals go many may scoff at the idea of not wearing socks for a season as a goal.

But what is the point of life goals? As you get older and realize goals have been attempted, and reasonably often met, the need for life goals looses their importance.

Why scoff at the idea of a life well led, ready for the relaxation earned? What would be wrong with dolce far niente?

Still goals are good. As some life coach said once, goals help you to choose where you want to go in life.

If the objective is to relax and have a stress-free summer, not wearing socks can be a way of achieving the more nebulous goal of relaxing.

Streaks end. Cal Ripken took a day off. Joe DiMaggio didn't get a hit one day. Sugar Ray Robinson was knocked out by Jake LaMotta. At some point the temperature will drop and toes will get cold.

It isn’t clear how long this sock-free summer goal has been a motivation, but when the realization hit that socks hadn’t been worn for three straight summertime laundry cycles, it builds motivation for more goals to be set and reached.

Is there anything beyond the realm of goal setting and achievement?

Bring on the ehru!

Just say ‘No’ to welfare queens; yes to E.T.

In the 1976 election then-Presidential-candidate Ronald Reagan warned us about welfare queens. They were never going to stop milking the system as long as we continued to enable them. Some claimed they were costing us millions of dollars (with no proof, likely it was more like thousands of dollars.)

The current Republican Administration and Democratic Congress now talks about turning over $700 billion to the Wall Street welfare queens, much more than ever given to any welfare queens in Harlem, Detroit or South Chicago.

Just think what that $700 billion could do in giving a kick-start to the U.S. Energy Technology (ET) industry. This is our future, not enabling Wall Street welfare queens.

As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion here, a billion there, and soon you are talking about real money.”

According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, the Head Start Program’s budget is $7 billion dollars, which is used to help 900,000 disadvantages students pay for their education. The $700 billion gift to the Wall Street welfare queens could be used to fund Head Start for 100 years.

Every expert has told us the world economy (not just the U.S. economy) will collapse if we don’t socialize Wall Street losses. But they are also concerned that we won’t allow them to capitalize profits after we finish bailing them out. Wall Street isn’t really all that different than the hyperbolic welfare queens of the 1980s.

They are just numerous orders of magnitude more expensive.

Do we really lack choice? Is there no other option than throwing $700 billion at the problem without any accountability?

If we do not bail out Wall Street what is “The Ripple of Evil” that will result?

The investment banks will collapse. Many people will lose their savings, with many pension plans tied up in these investments. Also investors from China, Saudi Arabia and Dubai will lose their shirts (or at least a sleeve) and be much less willing to lend us money or invest in our corporations in the future.

This will cause considerable instability in other banking institutions.

Houses will drop significantly in value. People will walk away from their homes when they don’t see quickly getting back to their mortgage value. It will become fairly common to walk away from your house valued at $200,000 when you have a million dollar mortgage.

Housing prices will drop more, leading to more walking away from mortgages. The housing market Ponzi scheme will end just as Ponzi schemes always end, with the late investors left holding worthless notes.

The housing market will eventually be priced as their value as shelter, rather than investments. Homebuyers will ask themselves, how much is it worth to have a roof over my head not how much can I make when I flip this house.

With so many banks failing, so many foreign investors leery of U.S. investments, credit will become difficult to obtain meaning buying fewer new cars, fewer jet skis and less crap from Walmart.

Americans, whose only remaining super power is our spending power, will stop spending. People will live within their means. We will lose out status as a super power, in the short term probably replaced by a vacuum, but if we don’t make the right moves, replaced by petro-dictators.

It could be a very tough next ten years. The country might actually have to make sacrifices for their crazy behavior over the last few decades.

All nasty stuff, maybe nothing like it since the Great Depression.

The good news is the government can respond. Apparently they have $700 billion laying around Washington D.C. that they didn’t use to bail out Wall Street (it really doesn’t exist, but it can be available.)

Rather than bailing out the Wall Street welfare queens, we use some portion of the $700 billion stake to invest in thousands of different Energy Technology initiatives. We use some to retrain the unemployed, so they are equipped to handle the future energy technology.

We try a huge number of different ideas; $700 billion can buy lots of buckshot. Some will work, most will not. That’s okay, that is what government can do is try things that might not be worth the gamble for someone looking for profit motives.

When there is a world without a hegemony, eventually some nation steps into the vacuum. The next hegemony will be the nation that can answer the oncoming energy dilemma. A country that can supply the world with cheap and renewable energy will make the world decisions.

The World Bank estimate one out of every four people, 1.6 billion people on Earth are off the energy grid, no access to power. Hooking them up to the dirty energy grid will be expensive and bad for the planet. Bringing them a solar generator will be expensive today, but will become cheaper as the technology improves and the scale increases, all made possible with the U.S. finding the right use for $700 billion.

Can you imagine living on a small farm in central Africa that has relied on human and animal energy? Someone from America comes to you with a reasonable priced solar energy generator to power both your farm and your house, no reason to chant “Death to America.”

With petro-dictators no longer having the money to repress their people or invest in terrorism, we truly get to see democracy sprout in parts of the world it has never had a chance to gestate without sending in troops.

We become the world leader by leading at what we can do best. Not spending or invading other countries, but by investments.

The first step is to stop being enablers for the Wall Street welfare queens and tell them the free market is working just as it should.

Loosin' my freak flag

There is a movement in the air. For lack of a better name, let’s call it Barely Hairy for Barry or perhap Sheered Locks for Barrack. We'll need to focusgroup the names to see which one works better.

The original plan for this week was to continue looking at 2008 through acid-flashback eyes by writing about how the Barack Obama campaign is the Clean for Gene crowd of 40 years ago finally having their shot at the brass ring. But the story needs a bit more gestation and perhaps a bit of investigative reporting.

To get started on the investigation process, the first step was have brownish-grey locks sheered.

As mentioned last week, for the first time in many Presidential votes this reporter is supporting a major candidate who actually has a shot at winning.

In 1968 Eugene McCarthy ran for the Democratic nomination for President against the sitting Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson. Plenty of kids pissed off at LBJ about the Vietnam War jumped to the chance to oppose the hawk Johnson and supported the dove McCarthy. They cleaned up their act so they could canvas for McCarthy, hence the catchy phrase, Get Clean for Gene.

Additionally, Mom turned 75 on Friday and she claimed all she wanted for her birthday from her loving son was to cut his hair. Not just the usual haircut of pulling out the scissors or razor and doing self-inflicted surgery, but one done by a professional.

Barbers are about as important a part of life as tax accounts are for many college students. They have a place on the trust ladder a rung or two below lawyers and arms dealers.

Growing up in the sixty, barbers were the enemy. The hierarchy was:

Spiro Agnew
Tie between LBJ and Tricky Dicky
Barbers
The Cops
Sellers of skunkweed

Back in the day, barbershop visits had to happen. In a career as a member of the military industrial complex, no way freak flags could fly. Getting locks trimmed then was something that had to happen at least yearly, regardless if needed or not.

Luckily there was a barber in the family, a father-in-law, generally a nice guy despite his chosen profession. The divorce brought an end to that relationship and the closest ever gotten to a bond between barber and barberee was ended with the marriage. Who knows how different life would have turned out had that relationship been allowed to proceed?

After NASA, it was off to start Internet businesses. Hard to say if it was to get away from the military industrial complex or just to have the freak flag freedom.

Now in retirement, why worry about this barber-phobia. It’s all in the process of falling out anyway.

But whatever Mom wants, Mom gets, especially on her 75th birthday.

Driving around Sacramento looking for the telltale red and white barber pole is a hopeless endeavor.

While walking through a mall there was a sign $15.99 for a haircut.

The last time this reporter stepped inside a barbershop, haircuts were around $4.50, or the price of about three gallons of gas. The current price of a haircut was closer to four gallons of gas. Since so many are complaining about the price of gas, $15.99 must be reasonable for a haircut.

Better to pay $15.99 than $6.66.

No time to peruse old Playboys, Car and Driver, or Old Scratch Quarterly. The hair butcher didn’t look too scary. She looked like she might be pregnant, but one thing learned over many years, don’t ever make that assumption.

No evil smile or smell of sulphur.

She sat me down in a chair, asked what was to be done and then hardly spoke again. Barbers back in the day were famed for talking all sorts of garbage, generally obnoxious political ideas. They knew you weren’t going to argue with them since they held the sharp instruments.

The only concern sitting in the high chair was if blood pressure meds were taken that morning as prescribed.

A mere 10 minutes later out of the chair. Even tipped the gal a double fin for her troubles. What the heck, what’s a tenner when haircuts only happen every few years.

Mom loved it, blood pressure remained out of the danger zone, and as they say, it’s the thought that counts…

How do we go from one person getting a haircut for his Mom to a movement? The warrior-poet Arlo Guthrie once said exactly how to start a movement.

If one person does it, they’ll think he is sick.

If two people do it, they’ll think they are faggots (Arlo’s words, not mine. It was much less politically correct age then.)

If three people do it, they’ll think it is an organization.

And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in getting a haircut and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that is what this could become, the Barely Hairy for Barry Movement.

Money for nothing and chicks for free

The novelist Edward Dahlberg wrote, “What men desire is a virgin who is a whore.”

Natalie Dylan is proving Dahlberg right by combining the two of men’s desires along with a healthy dose of capitalism and good-old American work ethic.

The Sacramento State Hornet is treating Dylan as if it is a real story. It is fairly safe to assume it is a bogus story concocted by radio DJ Howard Stern and/or Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof. Still it is interesting to look at the story because of the tremendous amount of interest that it has generated.

Dylan is using the Internet to sell a service, her deflowering, to the highest bidder. According to Hof, the bids are about $250,000.

Good old supply and demand at work. Milton Friedman should be proud.

Much of the attention has been on the supply. How dare this young woman supply this as a service. The bigger question is the demand side.

Generally, when we want services, we look for experience. Nobody would spend more to get a plumber who is unclogging pipes for the first time. Better to get a plumber who has seen plenty of pipes in their career.

Services all seem to work that way, experience ranks higher than newness.

Yet when it comes to men (let’s assume it is all men bidding on Dylan’s sexual services) bidding for sex, newness matters. Can you imagine the bidding that would take place for a woman looking for her centennial partner, bogus or otherwise.

There is a reasonable chance the woman looking for that lucky 100th partner will be much better at sex than a virgin, but still she isn’t going to get nearly the demand generated by Ms. Dylan.

Men have fragile egos when it comes to sexual prowess. Women are always telling us we are the best they ever had, but we know in our hearts that’s bullshit.

With a virgin, at least for some period of time, you are the best she ever had. That period might only be fifteen minutes, until she figures out who is No. 2 (at a considerably discounted rate) but still during that time, you know you are the best she ever had.

But why don’t we feel that way with a plumber? Wouldn’t we be proud if we had the finest pipes the plumber has ever seen? Shouldn’t we be looking for that plumber ripe for deflowering?

Perhaps men just don’t see sexual relations with a woman as a service, but as a product.

It is much easier to understand a willingness to spend for a new product over a used one. We understand how products devalue as they are used.

It still doesn’t make sense. Paying for sex is more about a service than a product. You would think you are paying more for what she can do rather than what she is.

Perhaps it is just a prehistoric urge built into men. Regardless if it is sexual or companionship, we still want and need a specific type of woman.

Even though Dylan isn’t the woman you are going to take home to Mom, or showoff at the next company Christmas party, we still can’t get over looking for the woman who fits some ancient idea of womanhood.

The relationship only lasts until the Bunny Ranch buzzer goes off, but we still are more concerned with the woman rather than her skills.

Last week Cody K wrote a blog about robotic sexual partners. Will people want the new robot, fresh off the assembly line, or the one that has been broken in and lost some of the new robot sharp edges?