Oy Ve!

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Luke Ford

Last night I dreamed I had sex with one of my male friends.

Does this mean I’m gay?

It was horrible. I woke upset.

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Maybe The Rabbis Don’t Deserve My Rage?

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

So I’m sitting in class and I’m thinking, why am I here? I already know all this. I attained enlightenment years ago. I’m way ahead of these people. I could teach this class.

I sit there in mounting frustration for 90 minutes and then I realize I don’t know this stuff and the people in class know this material better than I do and they are moving through the process more quickly than I am and they are far more likely to graduate and marry and get mortgages than I am.

That I am being left behind!

The rabbis are leaving me behind!

No appointment on the horizon. Just lost in the ether.

Damn those rabbis. Damn. I’ll —- ’em up on my blog.

I’ll never master all this material. It’s too much. They demand too much! I’m only flesh and blood. I’ve got Alexander Technique and acupuncture and yoga and therapy and my dreams of a better life. And that’s not even including making a living because frankly I’m not making a living. I’m just sinking deeper into debt.

My Blackberry buzzes. I check my email furtively under the table. It’s from my new friend Yid. He’s a key source. He likes and respects me. He writes tonight to say that he believes I’m…. evil!

Well, —- him. I don’t care what he thinks. —– him! Ha! I couldn’t care less what he thinks.

He’s soo smug. He thinks he knows better. He thinks he’s so wise. He thinks I’ll be grateful to get his opinion. Well, —– him!

I don’t care what he thinks.

Now the rage has changed into depression.

And it’s all so familiar. I always feel this way towards authority.

I think about the movie "21" about MIT students counting cards and making money in Las Vegas. The movie starts with the protagonist making his case for a scholarship to Harvard Medical School. I’m enraged as he has to make his case to this authority figure. Why should he have to humble himself to impress this jerk? Why should I have to humble myself to impress anyone? I’m Luke Ford. I’ve designed my life so I have to humble myself to as few people as possible. I’m practically invulnerable?

I’ve created a life where authority can’t boss me around, except for my Orthodox Judaism thing.

Oy, the helpess feeling of rage. Why do these rabbis have so much power? They’re gonna —- me.

Oy, it’s all so familiar. I always react this way to authority. Must sit with the feelings and talk about them in therapy and then blog them out. Don’t react. Don’t say or do anything stupid. Play the game by the rules. Give the process a chance.

Marc Gafni was right. He said when we met last July that he sensed from reading my website that some authority figure let me down early in life and that I have been filled with rage eversince and I take it out on rabbis etc instead of dealing with that early wound.

He’s right.

I’ve got enlightenment. Why do I then feel the helpess free-floating rage which feeds the shame which feeds the rage and it all creates depression and I scrunch my neck and want to blog nasty things about people and make them as miserable as I am?

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Yoga By Candlelight

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

It was on my 18th spine-roll that I made the rude noise.

It reverberated around the yoga studio like the sounding of the gong.

I try so hard yet spiritual enlightenment and smooth digestion still escape me.

My afternoon began with the formidable task of turning left against three onrushing lanes of traffic.

I decided it would be easier to just walk the 1.5 miles to therapy.

It was just one sentence into my session that I realized I had lost my voice and had to make do for the following two hours acting out my feelings with the stuffed animals.

I showed what I liked about —-. She was competely present in all our conversations, and seemed fully honest. She didn’t display an ounce of fear. Some people fear me, but she didn’t. Not a little bit. She was graceful and gracious. It might’ve been the yoga. It gives people a glow. Their breathing slows down and they’re not as compulsive and they learn to listen and be still and be sensitive to those around them.

At the end of class tonight, the guru left us with a one-sentence wish: "May you learn to forgive yourself."

After class, I talked to a very unspiritual chap who said his primary reason for starting yoga this week was to meet girls.

Imagine!

He’ll never attain enlightenment.

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Candye Kane Converts To Judaism

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

I was acquainted with Candye Kane and her body of work in my previous life.

I saw her play the piano with her breasts at the World Pornography Conference in 1998.

She was one tough act to follow.

She too has beaten a path to Torah and enlightenment.

The San Diego Union Tribune reports:

Although Kane was raised in a nonreligious home, spirituality has always been a part of her life, she said.

“My parents were Bohemian hippies,” she said. “My childhood was quite turbulent, and so to escape the lunacy of my household, I used to go to church with the Mormon family down the street.”

Although Kane’s singing was encouraged at church talent nights, she was excommunicated at age 16, when she became pregnant with her first son.

Kane converted to reform Judaism five years ago.

“I’ve always been a seeker of religious peace or spirituality, (but) Judaism spoke to me on several levels as an adult, because of, No. 1, tikkun olam, which means ‘repairing the world.’ ”

Kane said she also incorporates aspects of Buddhism into her life.

“I really had a sense – especially after fighting cancer – of the importance of being in the moment, and of kind of letting go of the outcome and letting the universe provide for me what the universe is going to provide.”

As an artist who once wrote a song titled “The Lord Was a Woman,” Kane said she was impressed that her rabbi was open to the possibility that God could be female.

“That was just a huge turning point for me in my spiritual quest.”

Although the musical is largely adult-themed, the first two performances, Thursday and Friday, will be slightly toned down, so parents can choose to bring their high-school-age teens.

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Naomi Ragen Responds To Michal Tal

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

Over the past year, I’ve published charges of plagiarism (by authors Sarah Shapiro and Michal Tal) against Israeli novelist Naomi Ragen.

Naomi Ragen (I’ve enjoyed all her books, but didn’t have the strength to approach her at the American Jewish University book fair) emails me:

Dear Mr. Ford,

I am following with interest the rantings of Michal Tal on your blog. Since you seem interested in exposing the truth, I am forwarding an e-mail from author Cassandra King (whose real name is Sandra Conroy) author of “The Sunday Wife” which, according to Ms. Tal I plagiarized “60%” of her book with my book The Saturday Wife. As you can see for yourself, Ms. King read my book and “found no incidents of plagiarism whatsoever.”

I’d also like to thank you, Luke, for giving Ms. Tal an internet forum. I’ve actually used her e-mails to you to make my case in court. Ms. Tal has been delaying her case in court for over a year with one excuse after another. Last October, when the case was supposed to start, she claimed to be deathly ill. At the same time, though, she had enough strength to libel me on your website. The judge was very interested in this. So thanks Luke! Let’s keep in touch! Maybe in the interests of justice you can get Ms. Tal to actually come to court to plead her case? It feels pretty strange to be the defendant and to demand we get to court already.

I also enjoyed her posting comparisons between our books in Hebrew…. Her book, by the way, was never published. It was printed by a vanity press who she sued for non-distribution. According to court documents, she sold 200 copies, but has no receipts to prove even that. I’m glad to see she is using your site to look for a publishing house for her new book. I suppose that’s an indication of what she has to gain in all of this. But who will pay my court costs is another matter, since she claims to be penniless. Perhaps that would be another topic for a Luke Ford expose?

Best wishes,

Naomi

Sandra Conroy emails Naomi Ragen Feb. 4, 2009:

to naomi ragen:

over the past year, i have received a couple of emails asking if i’d read your book ‘the saturday wife,’ and if i’d noticed a resemblance in plot, character, etc., beyond the coincidental. i personally believe there is nothing new under the sun, so i had no interest in pursuing it.

to be able to respond fairly, however, i read ‘the saturday wife,’ and can truthfully say i found no incidents of plagarism whatsoever. i’d be willing to respond to such accusations in a more formal manner should it become necessary.

sincerely,

cassandra king

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I’m Not Selfish, I Just Love Literature

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

I like this remark by V.S. Naipaul: "It’s the thing about the work. If you are travelling for material or to write a book, it isn’t that you are self-centered, it is that you are with the work. You are obsessed with what you are doing. And when you start writing, it is such a delicate thing, writing, shaping a paragraph, a page, shaping a chapter, having a sense of the bigger structure of the book, you’ve got to be with it all the time. You are carrying it in you head, and things that upset you are very irritating." (Pg. 433)

That’s Naipaul’s reaction to his wife’s diagnosis with cancer.

I read books about Naipaul and Evelyn Waugh and I see that these writers had all of my flaws.

If they could be this screwed up and still produce great work, what’s my excuse? I feel cheered. I have my dreams.

I love Naipaul’s response to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie: "It’s an extreme form of literary criticism."

Vidia would not sign a petition in support of Rushdie because he found the novelist’s views "left-wing and trivial and antiquated."

Vidia told Moni Malhoutra that India should stop sending high culture to Africa. It was wasted and "it reinforces the belief about Indians being a weak race." Instead, India should send circuses. Africans love the circus. Bringing large numbers of African students to India is counter-productive. "It doesn’t win you any friends; it only makes you enemies."

When Vidia found out Hindi film actress Neena Gupta was having a baby by the West Indian cricketer Viv Richards, he said, "How could she have a child by that nigger?"

Richards was the greatest cricketer in the world at the time.

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Overcoming Shame

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

Tuesday afternoon I had a big shame attack.

Tomorrow I’m going to park in the same place, spoon out of the same peanut butter tub, and overcome my shame my reciting one or more of these mantras as the beautiful acupuncture interns walk by:

* Wehe Guru, Wehe Guru, Wehe Guru, Wehe Jeho
* I feel benevolent, kind and calm
* I’m capable of wrestling with life’s challenges
* I have something to give to those who let me in their lives

I was telling my therapist today how much I admire Barack Obama’s personality. He’s not needy like Bill Clinton. He’s not a loyalty freak like George Bush. He’s cool, calm and confident. I want to be more like Barack Obama. I bet if Barack were an ordinary citizen sitting in my rusting car with a tub of peanut butter and a sticky beard and his favorite intern walked by, he would not be overcome by shame but would roll down the window and say hi. He’d be as happy as a German in Paris.

A friend IMs: "Desmond is here. Says I’m his son now. He fed me dingo soup and told me the earth is 92 years old. Sounds true to me. can’t wait for his telethon:

“the lord said i need 42 million dollars or he’ll call Luke home.”"

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V.S. Naipaul’s Prescience About Islam

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

From Patrick French’s new bio:

In a piece now redolent with irony, Marvin Mudrick wrote in the Hudson Review [circa 1980] that V.S. Naipaul was being "monotonously alarmist" about the dangers of political Islam. What did he fear, seriously — Bedouins "sweeping like the simoom out of the desert descending on Bloomingdale’s with fire and sword and no-limit credit cards?" His counsel amounted to "Grand Guignol with Dracula make-up and howls from the wind-machines in the wings as Islamic fanatacism threatens the very foundations of civilization: the sky is falling! the sky is falling!"

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Irish Teen Has Sweaty Middle-Aged-Blogger Fetish

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Luke Ford

BELFAST, IRELAND—At first glance, 17-year-old Emma Smith seems like any other shy and submissive Irish schoolgirl. She loves shopping, text messaging, and the color pink. But beneath her wholesome exterior lies a wicked secret: Emma Smith is consumed by sexual fantasies involving bearded, middle-aged Jewish-American bloggers.

"I can’t explain it," said Smith, dressed in a pleated miniskirt and pure white knee socks. "There’s just something about bloggers who are at least twice my age and nearly three times my body weight that totally drives me wild."

Added Smith, "They’re so hot."

Though she finds all pasty, middle-aged men intoxicating, Smith said bearded Jewish bloggers who carry most of their weight in their stomach particularly turn her on. According to the sexually inquisitive teen, she often daydreams about sleeping with a 42-year-old LA blogger with poor hygiene and work habits.

"I like it when they dress up like middle managers," said Nakajima, twirling her girlish pigtails with one alabaster finger. "You know, with the sweat-stained dress shirts, and the office clipboards, and the khaki pants that are 2 inches too short."

"God," Smith continued. "Those get me every time."

The Irish nymph then reportedly sighed, rolled over on her Hello Kitty bedsheets, and continued leafing through an old Rochester Big & Tall catalog.

While she has always been curious about men who attended state college before she was born, Smith said she first discovered her fetish after stumbling upon a late-night airing of Uncle Buck on television—a moment the teen now describes as her "sexual awakening."

"I was completely captivated by him," said Smith, referring to the obese, unemployed character played by John Candy. "He was so exotic-looking. It was like this whole new world of pleasure had just opened up for me."

Although she has long fantasized about traveling overseas and having a world of carnal delights revealed to her by an aging blogger, the taut Irish teen admitted that she is uncertain how she’ll be received by American men.

"I just hope they don’t mind the fact that I’m completely shaven," Smith said. "Oh, who am I kidding? They’d probably never go for a naïve young sexual kitten like me."

(Source)

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Time For A Change?

Posted on February 3, 2009 by Luke Ford

Yid emails:

As to you being sued, I think the only thing that has saved you so far is that you are an indigent blogger street person and aren’t taken totally seriously. Most people think you are sick or demented in some weird way and so they haven’t pursued you. But ultimately you will piss someone off enough where they will go after you just to put you out of business and when they do, pro bono lawyer or not, you will be miserable. When they are finished with you, you will not have a web site and you will have to file for bankruptcy. But, that’s all wishful thinking. I have a different take on you. I don’t think you are crazy. I think you are evil and get pleasure in hurting people. I think you are a very jealous person who believes you are smarter than those you mock and can’t understand why they are successful and you are a loser. And instead of making something of yourself and using the talents you have, you have wasted your talents and abilities. First you created a porn blog that caused a stir and after selling it you created another Jewish porn blog of sorts and gave yourself the title of “Moral Leader”. That really is a funny title – moral leader. You are neither moral nor a leader. Read what you write about yourself – cowering from people, afraid to speak to anyone, hiding in the shadows, using your web site to make statements because you don’t have the courage to make them personally.

Why not begin on a new path and try to do things to help people instead of hurting them?! Aren’t you ashamed to live with yourself. Change before your actions catch up with you.

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