Eat Your Heroes: The Ballad of Ray Hill 2

This is not the beginning. The beginning is here.

This is the middle.

Go. Begin at the beginning. That way, you’ll see the middle more clearly and anyway, the beginning’s the better bit.  

Here in the middle, we flash forward twenty years. Two decades since that dark parking lot with its red bricks and its singing nuns and by now there are two things I have learned.

First, Ray Hill made the world a better world. No question. The world is better for his having been here.

He’s a hero.

And second, you should never meet your heroes.

Meet Your Heroes: The Ballad of Ray Hill

This is a true story.

I haven’t always lived in Houston, you know. There was a time, many years ago, when I resided in a little Texas town known as Huntsville. Population 20,000, give or take.

This would have been back in about 1995. I was ten. Dad moved me and Antony up to this God-forsaken place so that he might attend Sam Houston State University, which didn’t work out as planned and then there we were. In Huntsville.

Now, Huntsville is exactly one hour due north of Houston and any way you slice it, it’s a town that is notable for one thing and only one thing: It is home to the world-famous Texas death chamber.

Jackie on the Run

I told her, “I just don’t trust anyplace that doesn’t have ‘Texas’ in the name.”

I mean, why would I? What has Oklahoma ever done for me? Or Kansas. Let’s talk Kansas. Can somebody sit down with me right here and now and explain Kansas to me? Kansas, simply, and Kansas, succinctly, in a way even I might understand?

Why, I heard there’s even a place called “French Lick, Indiana,”  although to tell you the God’s honest truth, I have some doubts.

Moondance Pie

Alright. C’mon. Let’s get started, shall we?

Take your seats, please. We are trying something new tonight. It is a first tonight for “Lesbians in My Soup.”

We’re experimenting with heterosexual men tonight. Specifically, with a fellow who goes by the name of Mooner Johnson. He is our GUEST. We are honored to have him!

Please give him your undivided attention. There will be a quiz at the end of the blog, and counselors will be available if you should feel you need to talk to one.

So with that, I give you our Guest Blogger, Mooner Johnson…

___________________________________________

So.  Whenever I pay a visit to a buddy blogger's place of business, like what I'm doing here, I don't ever know how to start things off.  You guys don't know me, I don't know you, so I have no credibility whatsoever.  Not that knowing me would grant credibilities, but as a full disclosure kind of guy I want you to always have everything you need to judge the truths and accuracies contained in my words.  I owe it to Katy to not fuck things up too badly. 

It's like with my good buddy BJ, who loaned his chain saw to a neighbor for a few hours' use.  Being a thoughtful and appreciative sort, the neighbor decided to perform some routine maintenance on BJ's chainsaw before returning the saw as a gift for its use.  He got on the INTERNET and found a volume of maintenance instructions posted by the saw's manufacturer with pictures and graphs, and even some videos for instruction.  Long story short, the nice neighbor totally fucked the chainsaw all the way up. 

Like BJ's neighbor, my native habit is to use my good intentions as tools of destruction.  I wrote some stories for this one buddy when he went to vacation last year, and The US Department of Defense shut his site down.  It wasn't my fault, mind you, but it was my doings.  So, your having a frame of reference through which to process what follows is vital.

Having said all of that, my name is Butcher Einstein “Mooner” Johnson, I'm an environmentalist who leans quite far to the left, I think Texas Governor Rick “The Pompadoured Prick” Perry is an asshole, and I am returning a favor to my beloved Katy wherein I will provide her with content for her website.  Katy's said favor was to produce a Public Service Announcement that she made for me when evil right-wing Christian conservative religious fuckballs spread rumors that I was having a big “open bar” party out to my place, and everyone was invited.

Everyone on the entire worldwide web.

Not that I don't like parties, it's just that I like to limit the percentages of evil right-wing Christian conservative religious fuckballs allowed entry out to my ranch.  I find that it takes but a small number of those assholes to reach critical mass and create circumstances under which I end up in jail.  Not that I mind jail all that much, but if I get jailed one more time before Halloween, my psycho therapist has promised to lock me up over to the Loony Bin and forget me.

I hate that fucking Loony Bin.

Every party I throw begins its guest list with at least one evil right-wing Christian conservative fuckball attending on a pre-confirmed RSVP.  That reservation would be made in the name of Mother Johnson, my mother, and mother likewise to my lesbian sister, Sister.  Which brings up a point.  Mother is my mother, Sister my sister, my grandmother is Gram, my father was Daddy and his father was Granddad.

Whythefuck am I Mooner?  I mean other than the fact that I'll drop my pants to my ankles and show you my ass for no apparent reason.  Then again, Brother would be a name that I wouldn't like and Sonny simply doesn't fit.  I'm many things, but I'm not your fucking Sonny.

Did I tell you I have a serious case of the dreaded ADHD and that fuck is my favorite word?  That little fact is likely the second thing I should have told you up there when I started.  I should have said, “My name is Mooner Johnson and I have the ADHD and blah, blah, and blah.” 

You could buy my silly fucking book, Full Rising Mooner, to get a full low-down on my world, or you could go over to my bloggie site and get confused for free.  The linkster stuff for the book is on the Bloggie Roller dealie.  I don't really give a shit either way because this isn't about me.  This is about social justice. 

Or is it about social injustice?  See what I mean about perspectives?

Probably not Mooner's house.
But how Katy pictures Mooner's house.

Since I've already introduced you to Mother and Sister, I'll use those two of the many strong women in my family to demonstrate my points.  When my sister exited my mother's womb, she came out feet first and shopping for Birkenstocks.  Sister was born lesbian and never had a closet to shed.  She was accepted as such by our entire family, including Mother, and she grew into a highly productive adult—even a model citizen.

Me, while I was always ready to defend her against any attackers, it was usually Sister who came to my defense.  Now, Sister is married to my third ex-wife, Anna the Amazon.  At six foot one, Anna is but three inches my junior and I'm stopping myself from telling you all sorts of stuff that you don't need to hear about my brief marriage to the blond goddess.  Let me summarize for you by saying that my sister is a typical American woman in every way except that her chosen life mate is another, mostly typical, woman.  I love them both and admire them as well.

My mother is likewise a typical American woman in every way, just so long as you like your typicals to be prejudiced, bigoted, and filled with the dogmatic religious idiocy of the Southern Baptist Convention.  I'm certain that my mother loves both my sister and me, but I'm just as certain that she doesn't like or approve of us. 

The certainty of her love is assumed.  Knowing that she dislikes and disapproves of us is rock-solid first-hand knowledge.

“I don't know what I have done to deserve having such an ungrateful heathen for a son and a homo-sex-u-al for a daughter.  God must think I've the shoulders of Atlas,” was Mother's martyred lament at breakfast a couple hours ago.  She always says the word homosexual like that, as if she's saying the word around a mouthful of dog shit.

Sister and Anna were out to the ranch this morning because today is “Pig Day” in my kitchen.  Every meal will feature fresh pork products carved from the carcass of a hog named Sweet Willie who was raised on a neighbor's farm.  As I am a terrific cooker of all things pork, Pig Day draws a crowd.  If I was to actually have a party this weekend, I would serve pig meat.

“What you have done to deserve us, dear Mother, is you've grown to become a bigoted, close-minded asshole who has forgotten how to think for herself,” I answered.  “You've gone from being a loving, gracious woman and turned into something unpleasant.  You and your Tea Bagger buddies have steeped your brew too long.  You're a bitter old bag with no love in your heart, and I think a major disappointment to Jesus.  You want some more bacon?  Smoked pig face?”

Smoked pig face is my favorite part of freshly cooked fresh hog.  I love the crunchy skin and ears and snout.  Most people turn all squeamish and shit just hearing about it.  And before you start on me about disrespecting my mother, stop.  Our current relationship is the result of decades of me bashing my head on the good son wall.  My mother is mean and vindictive and self centered.  And she lives in my home and eats my food, and she shits all over me and the people/things I love.  It has been only in the last month that I have allowed abrasiveness to enter my side of our relationship.  And I must tell you that it feels really fucking good!

OK, wait.  Maybe it feels really fucking well.  Hell, it feels good and well too.

“Answer me this, dear Mother, if you will.  If you Tea Baggers are all about small government and staying out of peoples' lives, why do you keep attacking homosexual people on every front?”

A germane question in these prickly times for American politics if I do say so myself.

“What part of 'God hates homosexuals' is so very difficult for you to understand, Mooner?  Are you so heretical a heathen that you deny God's word?”  Mother asked.

Now here my mother had set a trap for me and stepped into it her very ownself.  God has been making routine visits to see me and to tell me shit. “Well, Mommy Dearest, God came to visit me out to the dock just a few days ago and the Big Guy/Girl/Thing told me that you are full of shit.  His precise words were, 'Those silly assholes are full of shit.  Some of the best among you are homosexual.'  Then God and I discussed some of those gay people, like Lloyd and Katy and John Travolta.”

And don't you Katy readers even start on me about Johnny T.  That dog's done shed its hair.

“John Travolta is not a homo-sex-u-al, dummy, he's married and has a pilot's license and all of those big jet airplanes.”  My mother has interesting logic—the same logic used in many cases by right-wing bigots nationwide.

“But he is a devil worshiper, so you might have a point,” Mother added.  “Anybody who believes that some guy from outer space is God is a coo-coo if you ask me.”

Exactly.

“Well, Mother, my God is better than your God.  My Big He/She/It is loving and inclusive and only wishes that we earthlings learn to appreciate and care about one and another.  Your God is, in all truth and actuality, a narrow minded, bigoted asshole.”

Have you ever been around a narrow minded and bigoted fine Christian lady when somebody calls their God a narrow minded, bigoted asshole?

Anyway, I had a point when I started this but I don't even know what it was.  That's one of the frustrating things about the ADHD, you know, getting off track and then tracking off into the wilderness.  Oh, did I tell you about the three-way sex dream I had with Hilary Clinton and the Governor of New Mexico?  I love sex dreams.  I've met some incredible women in my dreams.

OK, I just hit 1,750 words and I haven't said squat.  So let me give you something to think about.  Whenever God comes to see me, we drink a few icy-cold Carta Blanca beers and shoot the shit awhile.  He calls me “Dude” sometimes, and sometimes He lets me ask Him questions.  I asked God this one question on his last visit, but he would neither confirm nor deny the veracity of my hypothesis. 

Here's what I presented to God.  I think that the Pope is Queen Elizabeth's maternal twin and they were separated at birth.  What do you think? 

Manana, y'all.

__________________________________________

QUIZ:

1. If Mooner’s sister, Sister, were to have a daughter, what would that daughter’s name be?

2. What was the symbolic significance of John Travolta in this blog post?

3. How would you describe the level of vulgar language in this blog post?

            a. Too much

            b. Too little

            c. Just about right

            d. What was vulgar about it?

4. What effect has reading this blog had on your likeliness to buy Mooner’s book?

            a. More likely to buy

            b. Less likely to buy

            c. No difference

            d. Been hearing good things about Finnegans Wake

Hunting Hippies in East Montrose

When it finally rained in Houston, nobody knew what to do. As in nobody remembered how to handle the reality of water falling out of the sky. Was there some sort of procedure in place for handling this? Should we make our way to the nearest FEMA camp? Was it safe enough for humans to touch? How long would it last?

And the kids… Well, the kids were only children, after all, and completely without any firsthand memory of rain. And they came shrieking into the house, soaked to the bone, to announce that fluffy grey things had invaded the local sky and were throwing water at them. The kids were worried about the birds, who seemed so unprotected.  

When it finally rained in Houston, the desert jinni, the spirits and demons and dervishes from parts generally west of here all packed up their things and began hightailing it out of town. This was just as well, really, because desert spirits are notorious for driving men to do some crazy shit like start religions even, and there’s been quite enough of that already, thank you.

Rick Perry’s Texas Will Not Defend Christian Family Values!

It is nearly unimaginable, really. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it, and it gnaws away at me in the night, running counter to everything I thought I trusted, believed. Everything I thought I knew. It defies conventional wisdom and it laughs condescendingly at your momma, at apple pie, at baseball, and at puppies.

It laughs at goddamn puppies!                            

But still, I am a firm believer in laying the truth out on the table, so as much as it pains me to say these words, prepare yourself. Here it is:

RICK PERRY’S TEXAS WON’T LIFT A FINGER TO DEFEND CHRISTIAN FAMILY VALUES!!!

I mean, Jesus, Mary, and Noah know that I’ve been trying my hardest.

I’m sitting in the Harris County D.A.’s office with my wife, Dana, her husband, Anthony (who is also my brother), and his husband, Aesop (who is also my husband), and we are trying to turn ourselves in for Double Bigamy (All the Way). We’re prepared to reap what we’ve sown. Eat our peas. Face Lady Justice.

A young black assistant D.A. sits across from us, looking for all the world like he only wants to go home. He is holding a printout of the Texas bigamy statute, which we have helpfully provided him:

§ 25.01. BIGAMY.  (a) An individual commits an offense if:               

(1)  he is legally married and he: (A)  purports to marry or does marry a person other than his spouse in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the actor's prior marriage, constitute a marriage;  or (B)  lives with a person other than his spouse in this state under the appearance of being married…

(e)  An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree.

The assistant D.A. wipes his glasses again. He says, “I’m sorry, folks.” He says, “I’ve talked to my boss, and we are not going to bring charges.”

He glances up at my t-shirt for the fifth time. My t-shirt says this: “Warren Jeffs is My Hero!”

And the reason Warren Jeffs is my hero is because he managed to get the State of Texas to prosecute him for – among other things – violating the very criminal bigamy statute that I just quoted above. He’s on trial for it even as we speak. Warren Jeffs is my hero because – best I can tell – it’s not an easy proposition convincing Rick Perry’s Texas to uphold the solemn dignity of traditional Christian marriage.

The assistant D.A., he rolls his eyes and says, “Look. If I were y’all, and I was trying to get arrested to… make whatever point y’all are obviously trying to make? I’d head on up to your small rural counties. Taylor, Jefferson, Fort Bend. You’d stand a better chance of pissing someone off somewhere like that.”

So I am a bigamist who can’t get arrested in my home town, but I take my twisted, anti-biblical family and I head on up to Huntsville, where they run the famed Texas Death Machine. Back in the Nineties, they were frying a baddy every other day here. Huntsville doesn’t pussyfoot around! Huntsville doesn’t coddle criminals like some New England hippie commune! Surely in Huntsville of all places, a carful of bigamists doesn’t stand a chance.

We walk into the Walker County D.A.’s office with signed confessions. We’ve spent the morning putting “Wanted” posters up on telephone poles all over town, and Aesop is wearing a t-shirt on which he’s written this in pink permanent marker: “Sometimes I’m a Faggot.”

We talk to a seasoned county prosecutor who quickly convinces himself that we’re trying to get thrown in jail to get some of that sweet, sweet prison rape we’ve heard so much about. Then he informs us it’s his lunch hour and kicks us out of the building.

So I am a bigamist who can’t herself get arrested in East Texas: In the World Capital City of Lethal Injection.

And I can’t get arrested in Abilene. And I can’t get arrested in Sugar Land. I can’t even get arrested in Waco, even though I bring my handy King James Bible with all the relevant verses highlighted in pink.

And I have to tell you, we are getting a little desperate. I mean, what do you do when you cannot get the Great State of Texas to enforce its own marriage laws? Read your Genesis. It was Adam and Eve, by God, not Adam and Steve and Alice and Eve and whomever else happened to be standing around at the time.

But me, in my heart, I know. I know when God falls to the wayside and his holy Word is ignored and all looks to be for naught, there still exists one man who can be counted on to save the day. A man called by God at an early age. A man who prays for rain and tells his flock of constituents to do the same. A man who NEXT WEEK is inviting all people of (Christian) faith to join him at Houston’s Reliant Stadium for a Day of Fasting and Prayer.

I know Rick Perry cannot abide Double Bigamy (All the Way) in his state on his watch. When I send him that large envelope full of signed confessions, marriage certificates, wedding photos, Leviticus excerpts, the Texas Penal Code, and complaints from my neighbors, I just KNOW that this abomination will not go unpunished!

But now it’s a month later and still I am left free to walk the streets and flaunt Texas, Jesus, and Good Taste.

It’s a month later and I am left wondering whatever happened to the traditional Christian Texas family values I knew as a child?

What the heck does a pervert need to do to get punished in Rick Perry’s Texas?

Double Bigamy (All the Way)

I got married on Tuesday.

To a man.

On Tuesday, my wife got married, too. She married my husband’s husband, who also happens to be my twin brother.

Or, put another way: “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”