Too much violence, not enough sex

It was a hot afternoon for this late in September. The rush hour traffic baked under the Sonoran Sun. I had just bought a couple DVDs before going to the art supplies store to put in an application. I rode the scooter instead of the bicycle because I didn’t want to drip sweat on the job application. So I’m sitting at the intersection waiting for the light to change. My iPod had just shuffled up Antonio Carlos Jobim singing his own composition, The Girl From Ipanema. It’s a live, solo version; just him and his piano, a clear case of less is more - “…que cosa mas linda!” (pronounced that cool Portuguese way ‘cosha mash linda.’) There’s a slight difference in the lyrics. The English verse sounds like it agrees a little more closely to the Portuguese than the hit by Joao & Astrud Gilberto.
So I’m sitting there digging the purr of the engine between my legs and the beauty of the music in my ears when I thought I heard a female voice. I barely heard it over the music and the traffic. Looking to my right I saw a pretty young woman smiling at me from behind the steering wheel of a little red beater in the right hand turning lane. I don’t know what she said, and I doubt she was trying to pick me up so I just smiled at her just before she took a drag on her cigarette, and I continued to enjoy the sultry sweetness of that transcendent moment.
Scooting up Craycroft Rd. I pondered the incident briefly. I was acutely aware that I’ve got 3 sons who are probably older than that sweet young thing. So I concluded that the Blue Beauty (as I’ve just decided I’ll call my Kyocera Grand Vista) was probably the object of her admiration. Thirty years ago, I mused, I would have gone after that smile like a dog after a bone. But I wanted to stop at the grocery store for some coffee and a few other things, besides, I have to keep it real.
As real as the Santa Catalina Mountains looming ahead of me as I approached Grant Rd. My mind meandered back to the Dylan piece that I had just watched on PBS, No Direction Home. Specifically, I was remembering the segment in which Joan Baez was talking about Dylan’s refusal to stick to a pre-arranged format for the shows they did together. I don’t remember the exact wording but she did say that he did it “to fuck with you.” PBS bleeped out the “fuck” but it was tasty to see an elegant woman like Joan Baez use that word in a natural way. She wasn’t being lewd or angry, she just used it because it was the word that best described what she was trying to say. The harm that has been done to our culture by the holier-than-thou crowd is incremental. A little censorship here, some subtle coercion there, before you know it, Lady Liberty is in handcuffs.
Then, as if on automatic pilot, I realize that I’m walking into Safeway and my Ipod has started playing Donovan singing Catch the Wind…
“In the chilly hours an minutes
of uncertainty
I long to be…”
Then a puff of strawberry blonde hair caught my eye as I scanned the customer service area on the right. A bright smile is beaming at me and she’s looking right into my eyes. I almost looked to my left to see who was there once I realized that I didn’t recognize the pretty face behind the shopping cart. She can’t be smiling at me? But she was, so I smiled back and enjoyed it.
I flashed back to the morning bicycle ride to work, a little kid yelled out a greeting and smiled as I rode by the school. I knew that he was digging my satellite radio antenna on my cycling helmet. I must admit that I must make quite a sight. The helmet is faux chrome with orange and yellow flames licking toward the back. The antenna is a smallish gray cylinder, somewhat reminiscent of a tampon case and it attaches to the helmet’s smooth surface with a suction cup gizmo. I usually put it just below the top of the helmet, pointing forward; that seems to be the optimal position for good reception. I can see how that would cause one to chuckle. But I was wearing my black beret, not the helmet; and there were no gray tampons sticking out of my head, so she probably wasn’t laughing at me; but I checked my fly anyway.
It was at that point that I became very puzzled. Why were these strange (strange as in strangers, not strange as in a John Waters movie) women smiling at me?
Far be from me to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s just that gratuitous smiles are not the kind of thing that one sees during a big city evening rush hour. Maybe they thought they were seeing Jerry Garcia’s ghost. But why would Jerry Garcia’s ghost be shopping at Safeway?
“Where else would a ghost shop, Seven Eleven?”
“Huh? Who said that?” I doubt that I said it out loud but I know that the smartass woman’s voice was not in my head. It was God again, dressed in a smart business suit, she was shaking a cantaloupe and smelling its butt.
“Start any major disasters lately?” I joked. Then I held my breath. I’m never sure how God will respond to my irreverent humor.
“Not since I made you.” She cracked like lazy lightning then she roared like rolling thunder. “But I didn’t come just to laugh at you. I’m too busy laughing at the whole Human Race.”
“But you made us.” I interjected somewhat lamely.
“Did you ever wonder why?”
“Well, now that you mention it…”
“That was a rhetorical question that you interrupted,” she cut me off as she administered a dope slap upside my head. “It certainly wasn’t so you all would worship me. I just wanted to be amused.”
“So we’re doing alright?”
“Too much violence, not enough sex. Didn't my angels remind you of the taste of the divine that you people get to sample in your mundane little lives?” Then she winked and disappeared.