My Dumb Job

...to me that someone could be sitting at home today obsessing about other peoples’ sex lives. You sent me your e-mail, NSM, at 10:40 a.m. on September 11, 2001–less than 35 minutes after the south tower of World Trade Center collapsed, and 10 minutes after the north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Thousands of people in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania had died or were dying horrifying deaths, and all you could think about were gay men who liked to fist? What the hell is wrong with you? Thank you for being frank about what shitheads AIDS educators can be. I’m an HIV-negative gay guy who ran an AIDS outreach program for five years in the 1990s. The discourse went like this: “Listen to gay men’s problems, keep them informed, but remember, no value judgments.” Community-college marketing majors could do a better job of getting people to change their behavior. Former Sap Oh, right, AIDS educators. Last week I promised to devote yet another column to Seth Watkins, the HIV-positive AIDS prevention educator in San Francisco who blabbed to The New York Times about having unsafe sex with strangers. But somehow Seth Watkins’ sex life just doesn’t seem all that interesting anymore, does it? Really, all I can think about right now is, well, Godspell, of all insane things. Stephen Schwartz’s 1971 musical retelling of the gospel according to St. Matthew was made into a film in 1973. Victor Garber starred as the singing, dancing, mugging hippie Christ being followed around Manhattan by His 13 flower children/disciples. According to the video box, Jesus & Company “form a roving acting troupe that enacts the Parables through the streets and landmarks of New York,” where they perform “show-stopping dance numbers.” One of those show-stopping dance numbers is performed on the top of the World Trade Center. Jesus does a little soft-shoe on the roof and sings “All For the Best,” a song about suffering: “When you feel sad, or under a curse/Your life is bad, your prospects are worse/Your wife is sighing, crying,/And your olive tree is dying… /Your mood and your robe/Are both a deep blue/You’d bet that Job/Had nothin’ on you./Don’t forget that when you get to/Heaven you’ll be blessed./Yes, it’s all for the best.” Being a musical-theater queen, I know the song by heart and I haven’t been able to get the goddam thing out of my head since I turned on the Today show just in time to see the World Trade Center collapse. Your last couple of columns were definitely “yawners.” Most of us don’t care about naughty HIV-prevention educators. What we DO care about is juicy questions from sexually confused deviants, adulterers, and other various weirdos. Bored in Boston I’m guessing that since you managed to be bored in Boston on Tuesday, September 11, BIB, you didn’t know anyone who was flying to L.A. that day. Lucky you. Now back to Godspell: The song that’s stuck in my head is no comfort to me. In fact, it makes me furious. The idea of Jesus Christ dancing on top of the World Trade Center and telling us that no matter how bad our lives are (however much our wives cry, however Job-like our suffering), really, it’s “all for the best” makes, well… it just makes me wanna go kick in a stained-glass window. What happened last Tuesday was not “all for the best,” and the people I saw falling from the upper floors of the World Trade Center are not now in heaven being blessed. They’re just fucking dead. “There’s a real need to turn to prayer,” said one of Jesus’ employees on Wednesday night. Thomas Hartman, a Catholic priest, told Tom Brokaw that “there’s a real need to turn to God.” Who could be against prayer at a time like this? Or against God? Well, I am. Does anyone doubt for a moment that the people on those four doomed planes were praying? I imagine that the doomed people hanging out the windows of the World Trade Center were praying too, as were the people all over the country watching this tragedy unfold on TV. I even slipped up and said a prayer. And what good did all that prayer do? “If we believe absurdities,” Voltaire said, “we will commit atrocities.” On September 11, suicidal Islamic radicals, their heads stuffed with absurdities, committed the most appalling atrocities. And what are we told to do in response? Trot out our own absurdities: Turn to God. Pray to God. God listens. God cares. Does He really? If so, I’d really like to see Him get off His ass and prove it once in a while. FORECLOSED HOMES! NO MONEY DOWN! Foreclosure World continues to be dedicated to it’s [sic] users by providing you with the finest services that you will need in buying your new home. No Money Down It’s nice to know that whatever happens, NMD, there’s some asshole in a cubicle somewhere making sure that spam continues. Listening to Father Hartman promote his own brand of absurdities, “All For The Best” playing on a tape loop in my head, I remembered something from Mark Twain’s essay, “Letters From the Earth.” After spending some time walking up and down on Earth, Lucifer writes home to the other archangels: “[Man] prays to God and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over these extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, he prays for favor, and protection, every day; and does it with a hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered.” Mr. Twain was onto something, I think. Even if God exists–and all evidence would seem to indicate otherwise–our crude and florid flatteries don’t seem to have much of an impact on Him. So to hell with prayer. Let’s get revenge. Let’s catch every last bastard who had anything to do with the attacks on September 11, throw ’em in prison, and get busy rebuilding the World Trade Center. Once the towers are up, let’s drag the bastards to the top by their balls, set their asses on fire, and toss them over the side. That would be “all for the best,” wouldn’t it? letters@savagelove.net