SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME – the book

In fond memory of Thee Duke, who fought the good fight with admirable courage, fantastic humor, and more than just a dash of outrageous flamboyance. 

“If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended:

That you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.

Gentles, do not reprehend!” (William Shakespeare)

————————

—CHAPTER ONE—

I have a question.

A simple one. 

Do you remember the first time you woke up in a canoe in the middle of a lake in a foreign country with no immediate recollection concerning the sequence of events that led you to the canoe, currently in the lake, in the foreign country (the name of which eluded you at that moment) and the contributing factors those events may have had on your clothes because, after close inspection, you discovered you weren’t wearing any?

When this happened to me, I was in Holland. It took me a minute to remember that. Maybe it was called the Netherlands. I never did get a straight answer about the name of the country. There was a North Holland and a South Holland, too.

That was the first problem. When you wake up in a canoe in a foreign country and are unsure which one, it would help if the government had a name upon which all could agree. To help you get your bearings.

I knew I was close to the North Sea. I didn’t know if I was in the North Sea. I considered it possible. If I remembered my geography correctly, Scotland would have been to the west. I heard excellent things about Edinburgh.

To the east would have been Denmark. I met a couple from Denmark in high school. They were fun. I don’t remember the particulars, but one night, he and I ended up dancing naked in front of our girlfriends, much to their delight (beverages were involved). I figured if the canoe and I drifted to Copenhagen, it would work out just fine. I already had no clothes on, so that was good.

I lifted my head and peered over the left side of the canoe. I was in a lake. Not too far from land. I looked at the sky and tried, without much success, to piece together the previous evening. I glanced to my right. I noticed a young woman stretched out next to me. She was fast asleep. Her entire outfit consisted of an ankle bracelet.

Then, I remembered. Well, “remembered” is overstating it. Maybe, “Started assembling the pile of puzzle pieces related to the night before.”

I recalled meandering around Amsterdam that afternoon with a college friend called Duke and meeting a few of his friends at a bar. They, the friends, were going to a concert that night. We decided to tag along and join them for a drink before shuffling off to the show. Just for one drink. One and one only. We agreed to little or no booze. Duke had to wake up early the following day. That was it. One. Maybe two. Tops. No more. Three at most. Three was the number, and the number was three. Four being right out.

Duke was a fellow college sophomore who lived down the hall from me during school. His real name was Sebastián, and he was a proud Hollander of Netherlander, Dutchist, Amsterdammit, or whatever. He preferred to be called Duke in honor of the Thin White Duke, David Bowie’s alter ego at that time. Duke was different. He was gay and was keen to tell you all about it, including the part about what he’d happily sacrifice for a night in bed with David Bowie. It was a downright risky thing to advertise in 1977. His boyfriend, Anwar, dressed exactly like the biker character from The Village People. Together, they could have inspired Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave from South Park.

I met Duke while performing in a college production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” I got the role of Nick Bottom. If you know me and know the play, then you’ll agree this was inspired casting by the play’s director.  Duke was Puck. He enjoyed the role way too much. When he was cast as Puck, he assured me, “Mischievous, flaming, and naughty fairies, Puck and I. Merry wanderers, we! I am the captain of the fairy band. Mount my steed, Sir Bottom. I know you want to. Hop on board, sailor boy.”

“Hey, Puckface. I gotta deal with you turning me into a donkey every night. Isn’t that enough? Besides, you don’t know where that….steed…has been.”

Duke sighed, “Lawd, what fools these heteros be. I will delight in Anwar. And Thee? What greater glories await?”

I smiled, “Karla, of course. Whiskey and debauch. Debauch, mostly.”

“Little Karlita! That girl will tear you apart.”

“One can only hope.”

The residents of the college dorm, to their credit, never gave Duke and/or Anwar a bad time even though, in the 1970s, the general sentiment in the US was homosexuality was a communicable disease spread throughout the country by gay communists who wanted nothing more than to destroy our great nation by infecting innocent heterosexuals with their gay cooties which was a threat to life, liberty and Bif’s pursuit of Marianne (who wanted no part of Bif due to Bif’s difficulties with personal hygiene) because, once Bif got the gay cooties, he’d give up the idea of procreating (probably just as well) so he could spend all his time having gay sex behind school buildings and jumping in front of young children so he could give them a copy of the Communist Manifesto which was filled with gay cootie dust that little boys would inhale and no longer play with toy trucks as their days would be spent watching cooking shows plus Marianne would no longer want to follow the great American tradition of marrying some guy who’d cheat on her, beat her up and claim it’s her fault. Instead, due to the gay cooties, she would flaunt her new-found hatred of our All-American family values by wearing an “Equality Now” t-shirt, getting a tattoo of Lizzie Borden and going to an Indigo Girls concert.*

In fact, in 1977, Dade County, Florida, passed an ordinance that legalized discrimination against gay people. I’m not kidding.

Florida is good at doing stupid shit like this. And, when I say “passed,” I mean “PASSED.” To the tune of almost 70% in favor. The person who led the charge was Anita Bryant, who made a name for herself by doing orange juice commercials on TV, which, as far as she was concerned, qualified her to be the country’s moral arbiter on everyone’s sex life.

Anita insisted the survival of heterosexual families was at stake, that All-American family values would disintegrate due to the gay cooties, and that children had to be saved from said cooties. They needed to learn about happy, wholesome families from a Mommy (currently throwing down her sixth Thorazine of the day), a Daddy (currently in bed with the sixteen-year-old girl across the street), a big brother (presently locked in his bedroom with a copy of Playboy magazine) and a big sis (currently dating Marianne) so they, the children to be saved, could grow up and marry someone of the opposite sex as heterosexual marriages were the most sacred and the holiest of all institutions.

She got divorced a couple of years later. 

I’m not kidding here, either.

I have no clue what old Anita is up to now. She could produce her line of Anita Bryant dolls that would tell Barbi to keep an eye on Ken once you pulled her string because he’s watching too many cooking shows.

Back to Amsterdam…

We were in the part of town with naughty bookstores and dames du soir who drummed up business by posing behind full-length windows.

The women behind the windows looked cute. They came in assorted sizes, shapes, and colors. Considering their chosen profession, their poses were conservative—a few women dressed as cute Catholic school girls. I saw a dominatrix or two, a couple of Playboy Bunnies, and one woman dressed as a nun holding a large sorority paddle.

They all looked reasonably friendly.

Except for the nun.

It seems to pay in public for sex was, and is, legal in some regions of The Netherlands. If you felt the urge, you’d go to the window and explain what you hoped to accomplish while in her company to the nice Window Woman. She’d let you know how many guilders (the local currency at the time) you needed to cough up before taking you to a room without windows. 

I’m guessing the entry fee (so to speak) was inflated. After hearing the cost, the men hesitated and took a step backward. The men would try to cut a deal. The Window Women weren’t having any of it, probably because 10 to 12 men were closely assembled in front of each Window Woman. Many of whom were, no doubt, willing to pay above the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for a bit of comfort and joy. 

So, hey, Stud. Market forces. She’s got the negotiating leverage, and you’ve got nothing. This is the original service industry, and when supply isn’t meeting demand, you must make a hard decision (so to speak). Are you prepared to take some of your son’s dialysis money to make up the shortfall and give it to the nun-lady so she can slap you around for a while? (That’s a rhetorical question. We all know the answer, which is fine. Kids are resilient.)

It makes all of us Americans from the good old USA proud, as this is the business model upon which we built our great country. You don’t need to read The Wealth of Nations to figure this out. It’s elementary. America developed into a superpower based on the concept of a woman dressed up as a naughty Catholic schoolgirl in front of twelve guys drooling on the other side of a window.

The Window Women didn’t look like their American equivalents at all. Your standard American card-carrying sex worker in the late 1970s wore an outfit that made her current profession altogether clear. She strolled down the street in the t-shirt purchased from the “girls 2-to-3 years old” aisle, spray-on hotpants, and thigh boots. Plus, she’d use a spice for her professional name: Paprika, Licorice, Peppermint, Catnip, etc.

You didn’t need her business card to know what she did for a living.

Plus, to elicit service from Peppermint, you had to meet her at 2 am behind a dumpster to discuss terms and conditions. Then you’d slink off to consummate the relationship in a place that smelled worse than the dumpster.

Duke said the Window Women got the same government protection as any other worker, and the rooms without the windows were very nice. Plus, they received their professional certifications. Now, how does one become government-certified for sex? No clue. It’s like a driver’s test you must pass before you can proudly represent your country in bed. I have thought about the guy responsible for managing the certification exams. I’m guessing he was excited when he got the gig, but if they’re trotting in an eager new candidate every thirty minutes, he may lose his enthusiasm. If he’s having certification sex with sixty women a week, then the novelty must wear off quickly. By the third week on the job, he’s stuck in a wheelchair. I’m sure his wife is long gone, and he’s now spending his weekends sitting in a bathtub full of ice, sucking his thumb, watching Harry Potter movies, and reading Plato’s Republic. After 90 days, assuming he’s not dead, someone will drop his catatonic body off in front of a hospice care facility with a note taped to his forehead saying, “Check for a pulse before investing too much time with this one. If he’s not dead, tell him God forgives him and thank him for his service to our country (whatever we call it this week).”

Duke said the Window Women offer their services in fifteen-minute increments, which seems like a tight time frame to accomplish everything you might have on your to-do list. You got fifteen minutes, then returned to the back of the line and waited for your next fifteen minutes. I don’t know how that works. Despite Duke’s best efforts to convince me otherwise, I didn’t take the plunge. 

Not due to any moral prerogative on my part. I just thought having sex with a pro meant I had to measure up (so to speak) to her standards. My alcohol intake wasn’t nearly enough for me to effectively perform naughty things. I mean, she’s a 100% government-certified sex worker. What if I did a substandard job, and she had to report me to the authorities? I could’ve gotten deported.

To say nothing of the reputation of my entire country. I’m from the good old USA of America! We got standards and shit. I don’t want to be responsible for the headline in the local newspaper saying –

AMERICA NO LONGER IN NUMBER ONE POSITION (so to speak) FOR SEX IN HOLLAND OR THE NETHERLANDS OR WHATEVER

With my picture underneath and the caption, “Would you have sex with this man who represents all of America? ‘No,’ says government employee #352A! ‘More trouble than he’s worth!’”

Duke kept pushing the Window Women idea. “Feeling shy, Dear? They won’t bite unless you ask them to. Go! You’re in need. I can tell.”

“Karla and I split up, so I….”

“Oh, no! Karlita! Oh, I love her, the tacky little tramp. I would go straight for a day with little Miss Karlita. What did you do?”

“We tried having a conversation.”

Duke feigned indignance. “Call her right now. This instant. A little makeup sex. It’s time. Bring Sir Duke. Three in a bed? Four with Anwar. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love.’”

That’s the first time he mentioned Anwar. Odd.

“Can’t. Sorry. Anita Bryant said I wasn’t allowed.”

“That cow? Come on, Sugar Plum. Call little Karlita, and I’ll get my beau. It’ll be such fun. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Don’t call me Sugar Plum. Not in front of the guys.”

“May I call you Sweetie Pie?”

“No, you may not!”

“Mon petit chou?”

“Ick.”

“Gawd, straight men are such a bore. Fine. Knock on a window and get a little. Please. That little Catholic girl would do you nicely. Go. My treat.”

“Oh, hush. Besides, I’m suffering from a severe coffee deficit. We must find a coffee shop. Post-haste. Recommendations?”

“Oooooh, yes. I know a place that’ll change your life forever, Princess.”

“Life-changing coffee! Well, why doth thou tarry, Lancelot? Let’s go. And don’t call me Princess.”

“May I call you Pookie?”

“No, you may not!”

“Cuddle Bear?”

“Stop that.”

Duke and I continually had this dialogue—much to our amusement and probably no one else’s.

We walked a bit. Duke stopped, pointed to the coffee shop, and proclaimed, “But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is the coffee, and Juliet is the cream!”

“Juliet’s been called worse. So, this is the house of life-changing coffee. Or something.”

“Or something.”

We walked in and were greeted with a considerable blast of pot smoke. People were lounging around, drinking coffee, and smoking joints. Right there. In public. They were being quite casual, as though it was perfectly legal to smoke pot in a coffee shop. Duke immediately said we should see the barista and buy a little pot for ourselves. 

I assumed this meant having a hushed conversation with the barista, sneaking behind the shop, making a covert exchange of money-for-pot, and hoping no one noticed. That was how these sorts of things were done in the States. During the late seventies, in the good old USA of America, getting caught with a couple of grams of marijuana could mean a sentence of five to ten years in the clink where you’d enjoy a happy existence with mass murderers named Tombstone Giggles, Sliced Tumor, and ADC (Anthrax Death Colon).

However, in this coffee shop, buying ganga and hashish involved selecting what kind you wanted from a menu. The menu had items such as Silver Haze, Cottonmouth Boo-Boo, Mash Stash, Doobie Drool, and Wacky Kush Buzz-Buzz Butt.

We went with the Silver Haze. It was highly rated on the menu.

The point of confusion for me was that marijuana and hashish were considered illegal drugs in The Netherlands or Holland or whatever. The government must have decided that enforcing possession laws against selling pot was more trouble than it was worth. So, the government let some coffee shops sell weed and agreed to look the other way.  If you can’t beat it, tax it. Besides, if you’re high as a kite, you aren’t a menace to society as you’re too busy laughing and eating cheeseburgers. The most harmful thing you will do is to yourself when you fall on your face while walking back to the coffee shop and have forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.

Silver Haze did not disappoint. By the time we left the coffee shop, Duke and I were stumbling around having a grand old time, trying not to fall into one of the numerous canals that run through Amsterdam, although it caused our snappy banter to take a giant step backward:

ME (attempting to quote Jaques from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”) – All the players in the world are….merely….players…uh, to stage…. and women have many….parts…and…

[Pause]

DUKE – What?

ME – Huh?

DUKE – Silver Daze…I’m nompletely mucked fup.

ME – Is Silver HAZE, diploaf….ha, ha, ha.

[Pause]

DUKE – Huh?

[Pause]

ME – All the players in the world in…stages…are merely….players…

DUKE – YOU’RE the diploaf.

[Pause]

ME – What’s a diploaf?

[Extended pause]

DUKE – What?

ME – Canals.

DUKE – Canals……? Where?

[Lengthy pause]

ME – What?

DUKE – Canals.

ME – Canals……? Where?

[Extremely long pause]

DUKE – What?

ME – Look out…..

DUKE – Look out for what?

ME – Uh…, canal.

CANAL – SPLASH (once Duke fell in)

ME – What?

DUKE – What? 

After Duke dried off, we found a pub where we met Duke’s friend, Jeroen. Jeroen was at a table holding court with a half-dozen women. The women were amused by Duke playing the flamboyant gay role for their benefit and intrigued by his American friend (me). Jeroen was trying way too hard to keep the focus on himself. Two of the women struck up a conversation with me. One was Linda from Berlin. The other was Hannah from Bern. Linda could speak a little English. Hannah couldn’t.

The entire conversation was as follows:

LINDA and HANNA – [Quietly conferring together]

LINDA to ME – My friend is wonder if you’re homosexual.

ME to LINDA – Pfffffffft….[spitting beer in all directions]. Wow. Okay. As icebreakers go, that’s now in my top five. 

Linda and Hannah stared at me.

ME to LINDA – Uh, no. Straight. Heterosexual. Hopeless case. Appears to be terminal. How about you, Sunshine? Any particular gender or species do it for you?

Linda and Hannah whispered back and forth for a minute.

LINDA to ME – So, why you being with Sebastián now?

ME to THEM – I’m visiting. We’re friends from school. Oh, and I’m fine. Thanks for asking. And you?

[Whisper, whisper, whisper]

LINDA to ME – So, it’s, um, you’re not sexing on Sebastián yet.

ME to LINDA – Sexing? Really? My name is Drew. Thanks for asking. And your names?

More dead fish stares from both.

ME to THEM – No. Not sexing on Sebastián. Not sexing on anyone and altogether unsexing. And you two? Sexing well these days, I trust.

[Extended whispering between the two]

LINDA to ME – Good. Maybe, okay. Sometimes. We maybe meet someones with the concert. Girlfriends, how many you have?

ME to THEM – To the best of my knowledge, zero, as we speak. No girl friending. No Sexing.

[More whispering]

LINDA to ME – Okay.

That was it—end of conversation.

Done. 

By the time we staggered to the little concert venue, we were all in a barbaric state of insobriety. Four, as it seems, was not our non-negotiable limit. During the walk, Jeroen wouldn’t shut up. He desperately tried to impress us all with how he was about to open a large studio and create some avant-garde experiential artsy type “environment” to enlighten those passing through. What sort of enlightenment? No clue. Jeroen took about 20 minutes to explain it to us. I fell on the first turn. If you can’t clearly define what you’re doing within 30 seconds, then maybe it’s time for Plan B.

Maybe not. The more significant issue could be that I’m too dense to get my arms around most avant-garde things.

Well, not everything. Books, I can handle. I read Kafka’s “The Trial” and found myself seriously relating to Joseph K. I don’t know if Jean-Paul Sartre qualifies. I used to read his books and quite liked them. Hell, I acted in “No Exit.” William Burroughs, Ginsberg, TS Elliott, and all the others Bob Dylan talked about. I enjoyed Anaïs Nin, so that’s got to count for something.

Regarding avant-garde “experiences,” I may be punching above my weight class. Electric body paint. Jeroen mumbled something about electric body paint. If your body is covered in paint that conducts electricity, you will have an avant-garde experience. As experiences go, it might have its merits. Depends on the voltage. And where you paint yourself. And the number of coats. If you’re obliging the woman in your life and out of emotion lotion, you could trot out some electric body paint and see how that works for her. She might find the experience rewarding. Depending on the voltage. And the number of coats.

The concert was in a quaint little theater with, if I remember correctly, stained-glass windows—an altogether unusual place for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to perform. When I staggered into the concert hall, I wouldn’t have known a Tom Petty song if it bit me on the ankle. I had no idea how good he and the band were.

This was before they hit big and well before Tom got all mellow and laid back. He was a live wire that night. Aggressive, angry, and, in terms of mental hygiene, appearing altogether unwell.

I’m sorry Tom Petty died so young. He seemed like someone who finally slayed the demons and was ready to enjoy being a grandfather. He was one of the great American songwriters, up there with Hank Williams, Smokey Robinson, Carole King, and Richard Rogers—the ones who took many swings and rarely missed. 

One Tom Petty song that always makes me smile is “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” One interpretation of the song is that it’s about someone who has decided to get high one more time before giving up the drug life.

The first time I heard it, I thought about a friend of mine who had to check into a drug rehab facility. He hit me up for a ride. I said sure. The facility was about four hours away—easy enough. It was around 9 p.m. when he called. Then, he casually mentioned that he needed to be there by 6 am.

The following day. 

Before I could say anything, he told me the good news was he had over three grams of some very high-quality cocaine we could split on the trip, and if I couldn’t give him a ride, then he’d have to take a bus, and do all the cocaine himself.

I’d have given him a ride anyway, but this was good news because this meant I could do my part, as a friend, to keep him healthy by not allowing him to do all the coke himself. By relieving him of this burden, I could make his transition to a drug-free life so much easier since he’d be checking in after only snorting HALF AN 8-BALL of top-shelf toot instead of the whole thing.

My only ride was an ancient Honda 750 motorcycle. It was a nice enough night, so….hell, why not? We left around 10 p.m., making numerous stops so I could snort half of my stash to help my good friend get well.

By the time we got to the place, you could have peeled us off the ceiling. At 5 am, we sang “Heartbreak Hotel” as loud as possible. The residents were thrilled. The person admitting him to the facility immediately recognized that we were both coked to the gills. It’s not unusual for people to show up in various forms of disarray. The admissions guy shook his head and said if I didn’t get out of his sight in thirty seconds, he would call the police. He laughed when he said it, but I took him seriously enough to get out of Dodge.

In retrospect, I can see how this whole adventure was a bad idea overall, and many things could have gone sideways. I understand that. I do.

The good news is that he walked away clean and hasn’t touched the stuff since.

(Neither have I, now that I think about it.)

Back to Amsterdam…..

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were fabulous. The crowd was fun. Jeroen kept talking over the music to impress the women with his avant-garde hoo-ha. After about three songs, the women scattered in all directions, looking for true love elsewhere. Duke was flirting with a gentleman wearing gold-glittered short pants, white knee socks, and a muscle shirt with a picture of Cupid carrying a rifle. Hannah and Linda, who interrogated me earlier, stood next to me. Linda was fondling a guy she found in the crowd.

Jeroen jumped in and tried to impress Hannah and Linda by assaulting them with ten minutes of excruciating verbal diarrhea about something. Linda, before she took the opportunity to molest the guy she was with, told me Jeroen had just asked her to act in the avant-garde movie he was writing. She turned him down. I asked her why she said no. With a straight face, Linda said it was because she didn’t want to have sex with a horse.***

That’s what she said. I’m not making that up. 

Hannah decided it was time for her and me to dance to the music, which was a lot of fun. We recognized we shared one fundamental characteristic:

We danced like shit. 

It was just awful—horrible, unspeakably, unforgivably wrong. We knew we were terrible dancers. We tried until we stopped. We laughed too hard to keep dancing.

Linda walked over to us, turned to me, and said, “I think my friend want you to do sex on her.”

So, yes. Hannah and I slipped away. We did sexing on each other at Linda’s flat and then, for giggles, in Linda’s canoe. Fortunately for her, I was shit-faced. A rewarding experience was had by all.

During one of our more exuberant moments, we capsized the canoe. Even in the freezing water, Hannah insisted we continue exchanging recipes (so to speak) while clinging to the side of the canoe. 

I found this very impressive on her part. I mean, that’s dedication. Something that comes from the heart.

Or somewhere.

—END OF CHAPTER ONE—

Next Chapter

* Yes, I realize the Indigo Girls were not a going concern in 1977. I was using humor to make comedy. I attended a few Indigo Girls concerts.** At one, they did one of the greatest versions of “The Weight” ever. EVER.

** I noticed a fundamental behavioral difference between women at Indigo Girls concerts and women at all other pop/rock concerts. It relates to public bathrooms. I’ve seen behavior enough times that I can comment on it. 

At any significant event, the line to the women’s bathroom can be, at times, a hell of a lot longer than the one to the men’s bathroom—no great insight on my part about this. 

There are times when a woman recognizes that if she tries waiting it out in the line to the women’s bathroom, then horrible things might happen, and she’s forced to come up with Plan B. Sometimes, Plan B is to race into the men’s bathroom before nature takes a gruesome turn for the worst.

And, fair enough. Women must deal with a lot already. So, sure. If it’s either using the men’s bathroom or having an accident in front of a few thousand spectators, come on in. You’ll be doing everyone a favor by going ahead with Plan B. Men don’t lose any sleep about it. It’s not like we spend much time socializing in the men’s bathroom. We focus on getting out of there as fast as possible when we’re in the men’s bathroom. The women’s bathroom line can get long at an Indigo Girls concert, where 10% of the attendees are men. It’s not unusual for more than a few women to resort to Plan B.

Which brings me to the behavioral difference.

At a non-Indigo Girls concert, women tend to kick the men’s bathroom door open and yell, “Woo-hoo! Look at me! I’m in the men’s room! Aren’t I cuuuuute?! I’m soooo cool! Get outta my way; I gotta go potty right now!!! Woo-who! I got, like, the worst case of diarrhea, like, ever! This is so awesome! Aren’t I cuuuute?!?!”

In case you’re curious, the men in the bathroom are never impressed by this. Our inclination is not to stop what we’re doing and to tell the woman involved to stick her head in the toilet.

Women at an Indigo Girls concert will knock on the door, open it about two inches, and politely say, “Yes, hi. I’m so sorry but, um, I have a bit of an urgent situation. May I come in and use one of the stalls? Only if it’s okay. I understand if you’re uncomfortable. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t normally ask, but this is a tiny emergency. But, please let me know if you’d prefer I not…..”

To this, we men will stop what we’re doing (to the degree we can), cover any offending parts, and say, “Yeah, okay.”

I told my niece she should mention all this in her gender studies class.

She didn’t seem anxious to take me up on the offer. 

*** Is “avant-garde” French for “needs therapy?” Have you ever seen an avant-garde movie? I saw one. Once.

Once.

There may have been a plot. It was hard to tell. At one point, a woman was killing young girls and taking a bath in their blood, which led to the discovery that the Pope had a daughter who amused herself by having sex with her brothers, uncles, cousins, and any other family member who happened to be in the neighborhood.