The Sex Lives of Misfits

1 ▪ Mocha Goddess

I’m sitting on the north coast of the Dominican Republic and about as high as one can get without leaving the galaxy. Gazing directly into my eyes is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on. Only she’s not really gazing into my eyes, she’s gazing into the eyes of a stray dog seated next to me, wagging his tail. She’s a six-foot mocha-colored Goddess with a hairdo that’s a miracle invention of hairspray, peroxide, and the most fabulous use of gravity I’ve ever seen displayed in public.

“Attraction works like this, honey,” she’s explaining, “If you make an effort to sleep with someone, and they’re attracted to you, they’ll be excited by your effort and see it as the most charming thing ever. But if they’re not attracted to you, your efforts will reinforce their belief that you’re not the one. This presents a paradox. If they’re attracted to you and you do nothing, they’ll find your indifference irresistible. But if they’re not attracted to you, your indifference goes nowhere. So it doesn’t matter if you make an effort or not. You’d think it would, but it doesn’t.”

The mocha-Goddess is smart. But I get the feeling that she’s running from something, just like everyone else on this island. People move down here every day in order to escape problems back home and reinvent themselves. Some are running from spouses, alimony or divorce. Others are fleeing the IRS or the law. Quite a few are trying to outrun chemical addictions and mental illnesses. But the consensus (from the health care professionals and beauticians who specialize in such matters) is that, at the end of the day, nearly everyone who moves to the north coast of the Dominican Republic is also running from themselves.

I love this Broadway musical meets live sex show atmosphere, which has more nudity, sex, and eccentricity than the 60’s counter-culture revolution. The Domincan Republic is a magnet for the gifted and the bizarre, the outrageous and the absurd. That’s what drew me here. Absurdity and madness runs rampant in the Dominican Republic.

2 ▪ The Rocketman

I’m sitting here in Cabarete waiting for my best friend, the Rocketman. The last time I saw him he was in his favorite nylon green lawn chair, on the beach, with his dog, Jesus, seated in his lap. They were waiting for lift off and the countdown had already begun. Their lawn chair was attached to fourteen helium-filled Army Surplus Weather balloons that he’d bought at a yard sale.

He and Jesus were packing a twelve-pack of Presidente beer, dog biscuits, and a stuffed whale’s penis for their journey. The Rocketman knew nothing about wind navigation or nutrition, but a free spirit wasn’t going to let little details like that stand in his way.

I’ve been waiting six months for the Rocketman and Jesus to return. Before their departure, the Rocketman had invited all his friends to Cabarete beach for a going-away party; he said something about Jesus and him needing to return home for a visit. I arrived late. When I pulled up and saw my best friend surrounded by balloons and in his favorite lawn chair with Jesus in his lap, I thought to myself, “Ok, this can’t be good. Jesus looked bizarre, absurd, frightening. The Rocketman had attached reindeer antlers to his dog’s head with duct tape and panty hose. Jesus was in the Rocketman’s lap, violently wagging his tail, noticeably excited about the possibility of a road trip. Dogs love road trips.

I carefully studied the hole in The Rocketman’s lawn chair, the condition of the strings holding down the helium-filled balloons, and said, “Listen, brother, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I don’t think you guys are going to make it far.”

“Why’s that?” The Rocketman asked, laughing, adjusting Jesus’ antlers.

“For one thing, your ass is sticking thru the bottom of the lawn chair,” I answered, bending down, peering. “Two of the nylon straps are completely broken,” I added, grabbing them and holding them out to the side so he could see for himself.

“Don’t be such a Doubting Thomas!” my friend said, laughing. He adjusted Jesus’ antlers once again. Then he turned to me, winked, and with one quick swing of his machete he cut the rope securing his lawn chair to a coconut tree — and he and Jesus shot up like a rocket. Most beautiful trajectory I’ve ever seen. Just like the space shuttle taking off from Cape Canaveral. We lost sight of them as they climbed beyond ten thousand feet.
To this day, I wonder if the Rocketman and Jesus understood the difference between a road trip and a trip into outer space.

to be continued...

3 ▪ The Interview

I got a call as I was sitting at my favorite Irish bar waiting for the Rocketman and Jesus to return. There was a job opening for someone who could pour drinks during tourist season in Cabarete. Remembering that I’d once sold homemade lemonade on the sidewalk outside my house, I recommended myself for the position. There was only one thing standing in my way: the interview.

I hate job interviews. No, I despise them. The problem is that job interviews are flawed from the start: they’re filled with irrational questions that not only encourage one to lie, but downright demand it. The people conducting the interviews use their own personal taste when evaluating you — unconsciously discriminating and judging you based on everything from the clothes you’re wearing to your hair style. In about the time it takes to walk across the room to introduce oneself, your interviewer has seen, heard, and gathered enough incriminating evidence to have decided your fate before you’ve even opened your mouth.

This presents a paradox. Whenever I’m honest, I end up offending people and don’t get called back. But when I tell the most absurd lies in the known galaxy, I get hired.

In my interview for the esteemed position of bartender, I wore my favorite linen suit. I knew that linen has a tendency to wrinkle and look slept-in, but was surprised when the owner asked, “Why are you wearing your pajamas to a job interview?”

Despite this small misunderstanding, I got the job. The next day I was wearing a fluorescent green polyester uniform, churning out margaritas until my hands turned green, and working for an escaped mental patient named Timmy O’Brian.

4 ▪ Timmy O’Brian

Allow me to describe Timmy O’Brian. Timmy stands about 5 foot 8 inches and is shaped like an Oompa Loompa. He wobbles when he walks, is of Irish American descent, and is a full decade younger than me. He didn’t like me from day one because I never really convinced him that I hadn’t worn my pajamas to his interview.

I never liked Timmy O’Brian for the simple reason that he was boisterous, loud, and anti-social — plagued by a unique drinking problem that caused him to speak in a secret language that made him scream the same phrase over and over — “Papi-chulo, Papi-shampoo” — to every female who walked into his restaurant & bar.

Unfortunately, this inane phrase was always followed by loud cackles of hysterical laughter from both him and his pet parrot, Mabel, neither of which had the slightest clue what the hell he’d just said.

Timmy was Big Fred’s son, but Big Fred owned the bar. Every day Timmy came into work under the influence of woodworm, Viagra, and baking powder… and he’d tell us the brilliant new rule he’d thought up that morning while seated on his toilet.

Unfortunately, he was routinely too high to remember the previous days’ rules and as a result would come in and yell at us for not doing whatever he’d “86’d” the day before. Nearly every day he completely contradicted whatever he’d said before. This put the restaurant and staff in a constant state of chaos.

As a direct result of this instability, every morning the staff all got together to decide whether or not to uphold the new rule that had been made under the influence of baking powder and glue, or to revert back to earlier rules that had been made while under the influence of Viagra and woodworm.

Needless to say, this vicious cycle never ended. And unfortunately, it got to the point where the staff and I were forced to defend ourselves and take matters into our own hands. We did what any normal person would do under similar circumstances: we fed Timmy a recipe of crushed-up Viagra, speed, and caffeine. This had the comical effect of inducing an uncontrollable erection that would make him sprint out of the restaurant in his tube socks and down to a local brothel where he would hump every stationary object that he accidently bumped into. Unfortunately, this chemical concoction also had him copulating until he collapsed from complete exhaustion, requiring paramedics to use defibrillators to resuscitate his heart.

Admittedly, this was a nasty little side-effect. However, given the duress the staff was under, our little ruse was warranted — and it had the added benefit of making the restaurant much more efficient and serene in the time he was gone.

To be continued...

5 ▪ The Rocketman Ascends

Ninety seconds. That's how long it took a stuffed whale penis carrying genius to ascend ten thousand feet into outer space with Jesus in his lap. The Rocketman wasn?t a rocket scientist, but he had a mission, and he wasn?t going to let anything get in the way. He was on a mission, and no one was going to stop him from fulfilling the mission. The mission involved a journey into the unknown. I tried to convince them to come back to earth, if only for a visit, but I was powerless to bring them back. Dogs and crazy people do love their road trips.

Ninety seconds. You can't drink a beer in that time. If you only took ninety seconds to reach orgasm, your partner would tell you to climb back on top and do it again. The fact that the Rocketman so easily reached ten thousand feet ? and was still climbing rapidly ? reminded everyone still on the beach how easy it is to leave the planet if you really want to. The Rocketman not only made it look easy, he made it look effortless.

From the Rocketman?s perspective, navigating a hot air balloon into outer space must have seemed easy. With one swing of his machete ? severing the rope holding down his lawn chair to a coconut tree ? he took off like a rocket. He ascended so rapidly that we lost sight of him in less than a few minutes. He made it look as if he?d just robbed a bank and was making a getaway. If not for his brief speech and a quick last minute adjustment of Jesus? deer antlers, he could have gotten to ten thousand feet during a commercial break and no one would even have noticed he?d left the planet.

There is no defining line between the earth?s atmosphere and the vacuum of space. But generally space is considered to be about ten kilometers from the surface of earth. That?s a distance of 328,048 feet. Of course, no one really thought that the Rocketman and Jesus were going into outer space. He didn?t even bring earmuffs. But, in his eyes, he might as well have been on the space shuttle and working for NASA. He and Jesus were traveling alone over the planet, far from home, without any sense of direction or easy way of returning back to earth until they either ran out of beer, dog biscuits, or helium?whichever came first.

6 ▪ Our Island?s History and Culture

I should pause here to reveal a little about the history and culture of this little island in the sun. Our island is filled with beautiful beaches, stunning mountains and valleys and beautifully warm, friendly people ? descendants of Arawakan Indians who landed here around 650 AD. They came here fleeing the flesh-eating, cannibalistic, highly-feared Carib Indians. Unfortunately, some of the descendants carried with them a taste for flesh, and to this day their descendants do their best to consume every over-weight, inebriated, topless female tourist they can drag back to their shack. It?s a symbiotic relationship however, and everyone seems to go home happy with the arrangement.

The islanders aren?t the only descendants of note. A significant proportion of the islanders are descendants of the Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese sailors who landed here after 1492 searching for gold and easy women in the New World. Sadly, they found both and the result was that this island quickly turned into a rather large brothel that satisfied the financial requirements and sexual needs of thousands of sex-starved, sun-stroked, emancipated Europeans. As a direct result of European?s immense sexual appetite and greed, the island?s indigenous Indians were decimated and the little gold found on the island was pillaged, plundered and sent back to Spain where it was melted down into cheap costume jewelry that satisfied no one except the eccentric tastes of the King?s court and 16th century Spanish drag queens.

Here in the Greater Antilles archipelago the government includes some of the most compulsively corrupt, habitually deceitful and thieving politicians in the known galaxy. Still, it?s not all bad news for the galaxy because a few of our politicians have actually completed the eighth grade and can read a Donald Duck magazine at the proficiency of a fifth grader. Well, that?s not entirely true. Most of them cannot yet read, but that doesn?t stop them from passing some of the most bizarre, contradictory laws in the known universe. One particular law states that you have to wear a seatbelt when driving a vehicle, but you?re free to put your entire family of eight on your scooter ? including placing infants on one?s shoulders ? while you try and reach the speed of sound.

I didn?t know much about the contradictory laws of the universe before migrating down here in order to find my best friend, the Rocketman. For those who?ve never had the pleasure of spending time in the Greater Antilles, it?s a lot like traveling back in time, to when electricity was still in its infancy, toilets were a luxury afforded only to the rich, and drinking water offered both cholera and diarrhea. It?s much like it was, say, in the Middle Ages, back when people took certain liberties from your wallet, your wife, and your donkey as soon as you left the house and were off to work.

Still, things aren?t all bad down here. Today we only have dengue fever, malaria, hepatitis, venereal disease, diarrhea, food poising and projectile vomiting from inebriated tourists to contend with. Cannibalism has been mostly eradicated.

Every inch of dirt on this island is arable ? this includes car bumpers, front porches, rooftops, gutters and in-between peoples? front teeth. No place is too sacred to grow food.

Our natural resources include nickel, gold, coffee, cacao, rice, bananas, beans, coconuts and girls. Lots of girls.

Our island obtained its independence nearly a millennium ago, but like most of the Caribbean the island is so dependent on money from outside agencies ? foreign aid organizations, foreign governments, charity organizations, IMF loans etc. ? that it begs the question: What?s the point of gaining independence if you always have your hand out and someone is stupid enough to keep pouring money in?

As of 2008 our population was estimated at roughly ten to eighteen? million islanders. Of course this depended on who you were talking to, what time of the year it was, and whether or not there was a full moon. It?s impossible to know the true population of the island since census studies here involve someone climbing the tallest coconut tree in town and taking a rough estimate at the surrounding houses, shacks and tree houses.

Life expectancy is dependent on an individual?s access to medical care, but basically it works like this: the more medical visits you make to a doctor or hospital here, the more likely you are to die a premature, totally preventable death.

Most islanders are Catholic, though recently we?ve been inundated with nametag-wearing Mormon missionaries, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventist, and Evangelicals ready to convert everyone and everything they accidently bump into ? including farm animals, stray dogs and our very own inflatable Santa Claus and his reindeers. The missionaries aren?t totally stupid, they sweep through small towns, villages and farms converting people and livestock with the promise of sugar, laundry detergent, Mamma-Juana, and large, pink, sponge hair-curlers. Luckily, most of the converts tend to be local alcoholics and the destitute ? all known to change their religious alliances as soon as someone new offers a free drink or sugar cube.

To understand our island, think of cardboard walls instead of drywall; corrugated tin roofs instead of traditional roofing; outhouses instead of flushing toilets; and mules, horses and donkeys instead of SUV?s.

If you want to picture our women start with the big tall hair, add fake finger nails (able to reach the cortex of one?s brain through one?s nostrils), and add a maniac obsession with clothes, shoes, mobile phones and laborious bi-weekly hair salon visits that involve pounding, sculpturing, molding and waxing. For a better picture of the men, simply substitute big hair for short hair, and then simply add any female within a mating range of, say, thirteen to sixty-five, let?s just say anything with a pulse. There?s no discrimination here: women of all ages, nationalities, colors and creeds have a plethora of mating options whether they?re tall, short, brown, green, skinny, fat, mentally retarded or semi-conscious. No one gets discriminated against when it comes to sex, and this includes stray farm animals that wander too close to the natives.

The UN, IBF, Red Cross, WHO, and a number of other charitable organizations have been sending colossal amounts of taxpayer money down here to our habitually-corrupt government, to be managed by officials who are unable to put a condom on correctly or balance a checkbook. After sitting back and watching said charity organizations give away vast amounts of foreign tax money to islanders who love nothing more than to purchase lottery tickets, mobile phones, gas guzzling luxury SUV?s, expensive cosmetic surgeries and fake finger-nails with other people?s money, I came to the unorthodox conclusion that there exists no better way to instill corruption, wastefulness, inefficiency, laziness and dependency on a country than to willfully throw money its way.


To be continued...

Celt202 said:

The Rise of the Franks| Lectures in Medieval History | Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, KU

Click to expand...

Fascinating history. I really enjoyed the map of Europe from 600 AD.

Frank