Organ Grinder:
News for Pervy Little Monkeys

In the circus of life, sometimes you just can't stay away from the sideshow tent. Even when you know that the fat lady is a misery and the mermaids are fake, you go willingly. You know all the while that the barker is a liar and the midgets will pick your pockets. You go because you want to believe in the sublime and the ridiculous. Surfing for good porn is like that: Finding the occasional marvel doesn't really stop you from expecting the sawdust and the geeks.

It is a lovely, lonely night. I am snuggled up close to my monitor, getting ready to surf some nasty business. I'm horny for life and equipped with accessories:
Latex catsuit with tear away bits: check.
High speed Internet connection: check.
Vibrating ez boy reclining double-dildo-espresso-matic: check.

Feeling in a curious sort of mood, I log onto my favorite search engine and type in "sexual+oddities". Instead of the usual blizzard of images ranging from the explicit to the inexplicable, I receive this message: [0 SITES FOUND. DID YOU MEAN "SEXUAL+HEALTH"?] Strange, very strange. I try again, this time searching "erotic+films". My browser comes up with two moldy old biology films, Henry and June, and a broken link to Ju Dou. Jesus. How many times do I have to tell people that watching a film that culminates in a woman cutting off her husband's dick and running through town with it is NOT EROTIC. I wonder about folks sometimes, I say aloud. My cursor flickers, as if narrowing its beady little pixels, and then spells out the following: [AND WE WONDER ABOUT YOU, TOO, CASSKING.] I pass out.

When I come to, it is dawn. I am alone. Barely conscious, I feel an alien softness on my right arm. I scratch, thinking it might be the cat. It is not. Inexplicably, I feel the same disgusting furry sensation all over my body… along my legs, in the crook of my elbow…in the crack of my ass…oh dear God. Oh sweet baby Jesus. It's flannel. Some sick fuck broke into my house and dressed me in flannel against my will. Or did I do this to myself? I feel paranoid. I feel nauseous. I feel strangely cute and fuzzy.

I pad over to my desk, noting that my ez-dd-espresso-matic has disappeared, in its place is a brand new ergonomically correct kneeling chair. I kick it over, yelling "EAT MY FUZZY SLIPPER! AARG!" and crouch in front of my monitor. No matter how hard I try, I fail to dredge up anything pornographic or offensive. Nothing. No anime, no strip-poker-for-geeks; eeriest of all, no pop-up windows. I see sites on sexual health, gender identity, body consciousness, reproductive rights… no smut. I see Dr. Ruth, Dr. Laura and Dr. Dolittle. No Betty Dodson, no Annie Sprinkle, no Ducky Dolittle (a.k.a. Knockers the Clown). Of Pat Califia there is no trace, and of Susie Bright and Camille Paglia, all that remains are out of print book titles on Amazon.com. It's all very healthy, very "let's dialogue", very safe. I put my mouse between my legs. I lick my monitor in rebellion. I pray to Frida Kahlo. I pass out.

I dream of a long white corridor, a brightly lit place with many doors in odd formations. Through the open doors I can see vignettes… images of humans in extreme pleasure and pain, of sweat and flesh and funny grunty sounds. Yes, the sounds are images; they float out from the doors in cartoonish balloons, and litter the corridor floor like marshmallows. I walk, and a man in a white lab coat walks behind me, shutting and locking the doors and picking up the word-mallows. We get to the end of the corridor and stand chest deep in a sulfuric hot tub. He is a representative, he says, of the Higher Good, an intellectual think tank who have concluded that exposure to explicit material only serves to nurture the deviant, lower part of our personalities. "But what about choice?" I ask, the words falling out of my mouth and plopping into the water between us. "We'll be like chickens in cages who eventually stop growing legs…what kind of people will we produce in a society denied the basic right of discretion?" He starts laughing, turns into Christopher Walken, and disappears.

I wake up and note that I have scrawled a red lipstick slogan on my white, white wall: "TOLERANCE OR BUST!" I busy myself making obscene shadow puppets, and try not to think about all the times I used the phrase "that shouldn't be allowed." Tolerance or Bust. Perhaps I have finally found an ideal worth fighting for.

*The format of this piece should be partially credited to a great Chicago poet/comedian named Shappy. You can find him at www.freshpoets.com. You can also send comments and information to Cass at organgrinder@terminalcity.com.