the commune Focus: Gay Republicans

he election debates have grown extremely heated, even in mid-April, and with Ralph Nader tossing his durag in the ring, the outcome in November is ever up for question. Analysts are even trying to predict the effect frustrated gay Republicans will have if they pull out of the president and get behind John Kerry. Which leads many to speculate: What the fuck? There are gay Republicans?

Apparently so. They even have a national organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, which possibly a reference to a place Lincoln used to "entertain" visiting dignitaries. the Log Cabin Republicans, or "Loggers," as I've just said, aren't completely sold on voting for Bush this November, following the president's hard-on stance for a "Defense of Marriage" act to amend the constitution. Neither party has come out publicly in support of gay marriage, but the Democrats have taken the bold step of saying they wouldn't fuck with the constitution. According to polls mysteriously conducted, average Americans are against homosexual marriage but also against a constitutional amendment outlawing it.

As a heterosexual woman trapped in the body of a man, I've always found homosexuals something of a mystery. But at least they seem pretty straightforward, no pun intended, in their political support of candidates who pledge their support. Why would homosexuals want to support Republicans, with their history of voting against issues that support them? It's almost as crazy as the notion of a black Republican.

Paula Squatt, a spokesperson for the Loggers and big-time lesbian, espoused the organization's point of view.

"Just because you're gay doesn't mean it's the only thing that affects the way you vote," said Squatt, feathering her hair in a mirror. "We are multi-layered individuals, and issue-conscious voters. We believe in an unrestricted market and stressing the power of the individual to make his own fortune in our society. We think social programs do not encourage people to make better lives for themselves. And overwhelmingly, we believe in a stronger defense for this country, and putting more money into the military. Just because you're gay it doesn't mean you can't vote for Bush in November. I'm not voting for him because I'm a woman, and his gender politics really piss me off."

Still not convinced, I interviewed some gay Republican friends I know from a local dancing establishment. Why did you vote for Bush in 2000?

Del Beauchamp: "He had it goin' on."

Smonika: "He had more 'strut' than Gore."

Roberto Love-Package: "I've always had a thing for Texans."

Vera Wadlow: "The ballot was confusing."

Obie Dufresne: "I liked how he wanted to get tough with crime. I'm a criminal, Mr. President. Get tough with me."

Pete: "I'm a masochist."

Admittedly, they might not be the most representative of gay political groups, but they know how to party. The ultimate answer for why homosexuals would support Bush, even in the much smaller numbers than they support Democratic candidates, should lie in the numbers. Republicans and Democrats both have a history of voting for and supporting legislation that by a large margin favors those with incomes over $150,000 a year. Since a great majority of Americans live far under that annual income level, the question becomes: Why would anyone vote for either party?

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"My mother insisted on buying all my clothes until I was 18, much the same way my father cut my hair in order to prevent shagginess and the use of pomade, which he called 'Satan's lubricant.'

Shopping with my mother was even worse, especially when we had to shop for pants. She would pick out very unfashionable courderoy or canvas pants and made me try on every pair, even the same brands that were the same size as those I just tried on.

I would have to come out and walk around the store in each pair, first in shoes, then barefoot to make sure there was no discrepancy because of the shoes. She would then tug at the pants here and there and invariably say they were extremely baggy in the crotch. She would yell to everyone in the store, 'These are very baggy in the crotch. Do you have these in the same size with a much smaller crotch?'

It was very embarrassing and hard to forgive in those days, but as I grow older I'm able to look back and laugh at the foibles of those mother-son pants shopping trips.

I must say, however, I'm still not able to fondly recall the one instance we shopped for condoms together. I don't think I ever will."

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Just now the question may be dawning in your Pre-Cambrian brain: Wait a minute, what happened in New Orleans? Last time I was down there, it was a drunk, titty-flashing good time. I don't remember all these poor people smashing windows at the Piggly Wiggly to get at some Doritos, or floating around on air mattresses through a soup of toxic dogshit. And since when have they had canals instead of streets? You think you'd remember something like that, even while lying drunk on the sidewalk with your fly open.

Don't worry, gentle idiot, your brain's not playing tricks on you. It didn't come with such fancy features. No, something did happen to New Orleans this month, and it wasn't just an incompetent government run by a man with a sixth-grade understanding of adult reality and all the savvy of a small child lost at an astrophysics convention. Hurricane happened, readers, and it happened but good.

I'm sure you've heard of hurricanes before. After all, it's what killed JFK. But do you really understand how they work and why they always strike in threes? I didn't think so.

Hurricanes are nature's douche, a natural remedy for when Mother Nature's got that "not so fresh" feeling downstairs and needs to clean house. Regardless of what you may have read in irresponsible academic journals growing up, hurricanes are not "Nature's Fart." In fact, they're not a fart at all. That would be silly. "Hurricanes are Nature's Fart" was a rumor started over 30 years ago by Airologist Walter Zoloft, who though that the wind smelled like beef during Hurricane Yolanda in 1972.

In scientific terms, hurricanes are caused by heat energy from evaporating water. Confused? Think of it this way: When you get out of the shower, you feel cold because the water evaporating off your naked ass is taking your body heat with it. This heat energy does not disappear, it has to go somewhere. And it goes into hurricanes.

The first hurricane in Earth's history happened in 1964. You've likely heard of "Hurricanes" previous to this date, but all such references were to the nicknames of boxers or hookers with grossly oversized egos. The first actual hurricane hit the town of Papa Old Money on the coast of Papa New Guinea in August of 1964, and it scared the living daylights out of the town's seventeen residents, who thought God was whistling at them. No one was sure how to interpret such behavior from the universal creator, and this frightened them.

The world's first hurricane was, as you may already have guessed, the direct result of the invention of the shower in 1963. Previously, nature had been held at bay thanks to the prominence of the bathtub on the world's body-cleansing scene, though the balance had already been somewhat upset by the invention of the "European shower" in 1960, which consisted of standing over the bathroom sink of a gas station and splashing water near your armpits while rubbing an automobile air freshener on your chest.

But the invention of the shower and its catastrophic convenience changed all this in less than a year's time, as the residents of Papa Old Money and their demolished straw huts could attest. It took the town's residents seventeen months to find all the straw again, which had been distributed evenly over the surface of the island, and rebuild their huts in time for the Great Catastrophic Hut Fire of 1966.

The devastation would only grow worse over the next forty years, as millions of people turned to showering to ease overcrowding in the world's gas station restrooms. Hurricanes would grown in strength and number every year, except for a brief respite in 1969 when the hippies took over and it briefly became uncool to rinse off your butt musk and most Americans received all their needed hygiene from police water cannons at protest rallies.

Many famous hurricanes would ruin kite-flying contests and destroy property in nations that had not learned from the legend of the three little pigs during the 1970's, including the famous Hurricane Harry in 1973, the legendary Hurricane Delmon in 1976, and the altogether disappointing Hurricane Pip in 1978. Government officials were able to placate the devastated masses by holding fun write-in contests to decide the name of the latest hurricane, which remained popular until some smartass ruined the fun by naming a hurricane Hurricane Hurricane in 1985, and the federal government had to step in and start naming hurricanes after ex-girlfriends in 1986.

So what can we do to cause the scourge of hurricanes to abate before the entire globe is as flat as a wet T-shirt contest in North Dakota? Besides granting every child's wish by outlawing all bathing, our only real hope is to figure some way to take a break from humanity's true passion: finding new and exciting ways to fuck up the planet with the most noxious chemicals possible. Instead of dumping thousands of gallons of DDT into rivers and streams, why not dump wildflowers, honey and mint? Or whatever they put in douches, I'm no expert on their contents. I only bought one that once because I thought it was a cocktail mix.

You look me in the eye and tell me summer's eve doesn't sound like a good name for a cocktail, that's misleading advertising plain and simple. If they didn't want guys to buy douches, they shouldn't put a woman on the box, that's Advertising 101. You put a vagina on the box and accidental guy purchases will hit zero in a hurry, I guarantee you. Unless the wording on the package is vague enough to leave open the possibility there could actually be a vagina in the box, then all bets are off. But now we're detouring far from my original point.

The fact of the matter is, if we don't like the effects that nature's douche has on our country's barbecues, straw homes, tents and brothel-heavy southern cities, we need to stop making them necessary by continually inundating the entire American South with battery acid, asbestos and Agent Orange like we have been for the last 100 years. We need to clean up the South, or better yet, cover it in several feet of fresh, clean saran wrap and never speak of it again. Only then will we be able to shower with a clean conscience, knowing that the big, tidy nothing the hurricanes are blowing over down there isn't going anywhere any time soon.

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