This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

In 1917, Fatty Arbuckle had a huge hit film in “The Butcher Boy.” Fatty’s love interest had been sent away to an all-girls school. Attempting to get her back, Fatty and his dog Luke try to get her out by going undercover, aka in drag. Audiences howled with laughter at Fatty in drag. No one in the audiences complained or thought it sexual and children were routinely allowed to attend without question.

This film would banned in Florida and not allowed in schools as “woke.” Twelve years later, the actor Jack Haley (The Tin Man from Wizard of Oz) Appears in a film where he must get a family ring back from a woman or be disinherited by his father. He poses as a plumber to enter the ladies dressing room to get the ring. But as the women return, he becomes woke and dresses as a woman to escape.

The list goes on and on. “Some Like it Hot” with those woke actors Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressed as women to escape the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Their only chance to get out of town is by joining and all Girl band. Now here’s the comedic rub, it is a band with Marylyn Monroe in it. The movie was an instant hit and became a beloved classic, but not in Florida. Even though part of the film takes place in Florida.

Lucille Ball dressed as a cowboy with a fake moustache and speaking with a deep voice. Is that anti-woke? Is it alright for women to dress as men but not alright for men to dress as women? It’s not sexual it’s comedy. It has always been entertaining because it goes against what we perceive as normal and thus becomes funny. Fatty Arbuckle in a dress with his finger in has mouth and acting like little girl. Bending over and flipping his dress up to show us his ruffled pantaloons to make audience laugh.

Alfred Kinsey developed the Kinsey scale of sexuality. No one is entirely straight or gay, but it is on a sliding scale and so the idea of a man feeling inside he is a woman or a woman feeling that they are actually a man, becomes a logical medical possibility. It’s called a medical discovery and not “woke.” A lot of people didn’t like that idea much as they didn’t like Galileo pointing out that the Pope didn’t know shucks about astronomy.

Shakespeare was always performed woke as women as thespians were considered even worse than women as lesbians. Actors were considered a low class just above common criminals. And so, all the parts were played by men. Juliet was a man baby!

Jesus in his woke ministry never said a single word about homosexuality or cross-dressing. Maybe he was just woke, or maybe a man traveling through the country with twelve other men shouldn’t mention some subjects in certain circles. There is no Biblical prohibition against cross-dressing or a man performing a show dressed in women’s clothes. It has been going on for hundreds of hundreds of years.

In 1960, Rod Serling gave us, “The Monster’s are Due on Maple Street.” It is a story without cross- dressing or any mentions of sexuality. It is a story about human nature and our simian behaviors. After a series of strange occurrences. The neighbors on Maple Street become frightened after a neighborhood kid tells them all about alien stories from his comic books.

The street becomes fully agitated and frightened and begins to turn on each other culminating in the shooting of a neighbor thinking that he’s an alien. Ron DeSantis is that neighborhood kid telling comic book stories. DeSantis uses the word “Woke” in place of the word “Alien” to energize and frighten the neighbors on Maple Street, aka Florida.

DeSantis is an ambitious man who wants to be President. So, he creates a problem that doesn’t exist and then promises to solve it with a series of draconian laws. And just like Maple Street, it begins to spiral out of control. Until anything and everything can be “woke.”

Until finally, the simians on Maple Street become fully enraged at all culture that doesn’t fit in their Maple Street paranoia. A Florida Charter school principal was sacked for allowing 6^th graders to see Michelangelo’s “David” without sending home a letter to warn parents first. (Oh, God no!)

Years ago, when dinosaurs once ruled the world. As a young child I would look at the pictures in the encyclopedia (An ancient book of collected knowledge used before the Internet.) I remember seeing “David” as my name is David too. David was a naked man, and I was a naked little boy who didn’t see the problem. Because my woke parents actually encouraged me to read books. And they filled the house with them filled all sorts of ideas.

At thirteen my mother purchased a copy of “Everything you ever wanted to know about Sex but were afraid to ask.” She placed the book casually on the coffee table and knew that it would soon disappear. She never mentioned it nor did I. That’s the way my family rolled we might not talk about subjects, but ideas and knowledge weren’t ever forbidden subjects.  I devoured the book from cover to cover and dog-eared what I considered to be the important relevant pages.

This ultimately leads to my own wokeness as I was taught to accept ideas logically rather than emotionally. We also had a replica of the Venus De Milo on a shelf, and she was naked you know. I never once perceived that statue as sexual but only as art.

DeSantis is trying to reach the highest office by the lowest means. By creating enemies of goodness and right thinking out to destroy America with their Alien agenda. To turn Americans against Americans but there is a flaw in the slaw. DeSantis can work his wicked will in the cauldron of evangelical Christians who judge issues emotionally and feel threatened by drag shows held downtown someplace. But only because they want to protect the children. Not their own…yours!

Mark Twain spoke of his travels in Hawaii of how everyone swam naked. Women went topless and children ran naked. He pointed out that even the most offended soon got over it in a few days and accepted it as normal.

Twain illustrates that culture is not static but flexible. That normal is what we are taught and trained. And it logically follows that if you are taught and trained that everyone must conform to certain standard and some things are evil and forbidden, that’s just bigotry. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe you are going to hell for celebrating birthdays.

But worse than just bigotry, it is politically motivated bigotry much like that brand Christianity as practiced by the Ku Klux Klan. But the prohibitions aren’t Biblical. Moses had ten commandments but Jesus only had one. To love one another.

Just image Michelangelo’s “David” without a penis. Now that’s funny. Imagine a politically correct non nude non woke David wearing a dress!

DeSantis has a problem, his anti woke agenda is reminding Americans of another leader who also banned books and demonized harmless people simply living their lives. So, DeSantis begins a campaign claiming that he isn’t banning books, It all a plot against him. A plot by the woke out to get him for fighting against their wokeness. But DeSantis appears to be sinking in the polls. Not because the American people are woke, but because they can spot bigotry and hate mongering when they see it.

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. – John F. Kennedy