YOU ARE SURROUNDED (SPECIAL STATE OF THE UNION EDITION)

"I didn't really like the look of penises right away," she said.

"Yes, I'll bet they are a little distasteful at first, but I'm sure you like them for what they can do to you," I offered, hinting at how we grow old and forget all things capricious and young.

There was a pensive silence when we both took stock of our lives, our desperate youth, failures and triumphs. We each spent a heartbeat in ourselves, reliving moments of wistful childhood, looking backwards in time down the path that had led us to now. Here, with our history and identity at hand we sat and wondered at their meaning.

"Kind of like my first beer," I suggest. An elegant sip of wine; the cobweb billowing of pipe smoke.

"Yes. Pretty much exactly like that. It's all cocks and beer, all the way back to the beginning of time."

So, then, is my evening of phalli and symmetry.

There are, quite literally, dicks everywhere today. I won't dwell on it, but I'm searching for a name for the emotion I'm feeling. Is it relief that this was the 8th and final State of the Union address from a man who, without question, is poorly qualified to deliver such a lecture? Sigh... I have nothing else to say besides such things are inevitable in this most disappointing of ages, when we shake our heads at the State of things, when history will judge us, mercifully, as unsuspecting victims of our own excitement rather than the able actors we are. We have created this world. There's no sense in denying that.

With luck, our children will view us as one would view a stranger with a Midwestern accent or a Southern drawl, well meaning but maybe just a bit lacking up there [discreetly indicates brain].

Alas, it would be unfair to say that my beloved president is the only dick in the dildo closet. Borders bookstore makes the list as well. Sadly, the ginormous "book" seller (which, incidentally, has equal numbers of DVDs as literary volumes, of which Legally Blonde rounds out the why-oh-why-must-we-have-a-embarrassing-taste experience) nudged my favorite used bookstore out of business (earthy smells, obscure thesis chapters). Those rat bastards at Borders stay open until 11pm, though, so, yes, that's where I was today.

Surrounded by hot, hot cocks.

It's not hard to notice what books will be jumping off the shelves this season. For instance, the "Sexuality" section at Borders (147 versions of the Kama Sutra, ancient and modern), which could also be called "You Might As Well Just Masturbate to 90% of This, Because The Rest Will Be Excruciatingly Painful for Your Pale, Flabby, Couch-Seasoned Body" with no less accuracy, occupies as much shelf space as "Fiction/Literature" A-K. Lump in the "Erotica," "Romance," and "Graphic Novels" sections, and you've just out-played every author of "Literature A-Z" in Borders's universe (with flesh).

To ram my point home, I'll tell you this: there were 1/4 as many books by Roald Dahl in total as the seminal, "Speeding: The Old Reliable Photos of David Hurles," which anyone a) with an MFA or b) who has been mistakenly invited to an "industry party" in San Francisco (never again, damnit!) will tell you, is full off hot, hot cocks. [What bibliologists often refer to as "folio-cock."]

I'm not a writer. I'll never write a bestselling novel. I will, however, tell you that if I ever do attempt to sell my work to the public, the only way that bitch is ever going to make me famous is if I call it, "Fuck Like a Champ: My Life as President by J. Sizzle."