Archive for the ‘Looking Back’ Category
I figure by now most of you are tired of hearing about my Texas trip and I understand completely. While I understand I still have one more day from the that trip I need to tell you about. It was my final day in Dallas before my ill fated flight home.
The day started with an omelet cooked superbly by my nephew and was filled to the brim with diced jalapenos. If that doesn’t get your heart started then there’s something very wrong with you. We then took a cruise in my nephew Mustang. It’s a car he’s spent a great deal of time and money getting as perfect as possible. It is one beautiful machine and it rode like a dream and was as fast as lightning.
While cruising around the metroplex we did a little people watching and ran into a mobile Texas furniture store parked in a mall parking lot. We saw a number of these vehicles during my short visit and it fascinated me. It’s definitely not something I’m used to seeing here in Maine.
We eventually arrived at the Texas Land and Cattle restaurant and I was really looking forward to another excellent meal. I wasn’t disappointed.
As you would expect the interior was all Texas all of the time. These two wall decorations and this saddle display were very cool and brought home the western ambiance in a big way.
The meal was a piece of soft and tender smoked sirloin with jalapeño sauce. The asparagus was cooked perfectly and was almost as tender as the sirloin.
We finished the meal and made our way home because I always need my beauty sleep before I go a-flying. I wasn’t really looking forward to my flight even though I’ve flown hundreds of times. I just hate flying and airplanes in general. That’s one of the reasons I liked skydiving so much. I’d rather jump out of a plane than depend on an unknown pilot to get me down safely.
This last photo was taken at Reagan National airport in DC at 3:00 am the next morning, where I was sleeping on the floor of the terminal. It’s the ceiling of the terminal from that perspective. I couldn’t sleep so a snapped a few pictures.
UNITED AIRLINES SUCKS
I’ve spent the last few days complaining about United Airlines and the terrible time they gave me while traveling. So today maybe I should calm down and thank my nephew for being such a good host. I’d hate to make people think that my entire Memorial Day weekend had been totally ruined because of an unfortunate incident when it really wasn’t.
I managed to drag my camera around with us during my visit and took a few hundred photos. I thought I’d share some of them with you today, These first few are of the highlight of the trip as far as crazy delicious food was concerned. The name of the place is The Hard Eight and this was the line at the entrance when we arrived. You could smell that barbecue for miles around.
As we waited in line the smell of cooking meat was overwhelming and as we approached the grill station it got even worse. This is their outrageous version of a menu hanging on the wall.
And then you walk to the grill and see this.
You can almost smell it just by looking at these pictures. You choose your meat, it’s placed on a tray covered with wax paper, it’s weighed and priced and then your off to the dining room to choose your side dishes.
We enjoyed the band playing C&W music as we ate and OMG was it incredible. We ate until we couldn’t move and then just sat there to enjoy the atmosphere for a few minutes. The prices were reasonable and I’d recommend this establishment to anyone going anywhere near Dallas. It’s barbecue heaven.
This was just day one of the trip and I have many more photo’s that will follow in the next week or so. I also feel somewhat obligated to introduce all of you to my new best friend and Texas bedmate. She made me feel right at home and actually snored and kicked less than my better-half does in Maine. Her name is Pepper.
Thanks for a great time Mike.
I was cleaning out some old boxes of papers a few days ago attempting to rid my home of old junk and a host of bad memories. These boxes contained books, papers, and other assorted BS from one of the worst employment experiences of my life. It was two years of hell on earth for me and went a long way to making me the confirmed cynical SOB I’ve become. Even after all the time that’s past it still pisses me off as much as ever.
Most people don’t like to name names when talking about their past bad experiences but I have no qualms at all. Some of you’ve never heard of the Hechinger Corporation and I’m happy to let you know that it no longer exists. It was a small family run hardware business that grew into many hundreds of stores across the country. The company’s philosophy, as directed by the Hechinger family, seemed to be more interested in liberal causes and making political contributions than actually making money or being successful.
I then worked for a big-box home improvement company called HQ (Home Quarters Warehouse). It was a small, dynamic, and a fun place to work. It was expanding slowly and steadily across the US and everything was coming up roses. That was until the failing Hechinger company made a hostile stock buyout in an attempt to keep their company afloat. Instead of absorbing everything good from HQ and eliminating the bad from their own company they decided to go the PC route. That decision was the beginning of the end for both HQ and Hechinger. Hechinger began attempting to change the way in which HQ did their business, eliminated many of HQ’s talented upper level management members which began the slow and painful process of killing a vibrant and successful company. At the same time they acquired Builder’s Square Company and proceeded to destroy them as well.
I’m getting off my main point which is this. Political Correctness has always been in my cross-hairs since the day I started blogging. Experiencing it first-hand is not fun and not something I’d wish on my worst enemy (well maybe on my worst enemy). It’s a dangerous tool when used by people who care more about being PC than caring about people. I was one of the unlucky few who survived the slaughter and the Hechinger brainwashing machine kicked in almost immediately. I was forced to attend a steady stream of team building seminars, personality testing, and spent hundreds of hours getting my head filled with their liberal PC BS.
For over a year they attempted to change my approach to my job and how I did business. I wasn’t about to change because I’d been very successful for years at what I did and they had not. They kept the pressure on me with all of their PC crap until I simply lost it. While getting my first annual evaluation from my new bosses, I stood up from the table, told them I thought they didn’t know what the hell they were doing, and begged them to just fire me. Being the PC idiot’s that they were, they spent the next hour trying to convince me that I should calm down and relax. I ranted and raved for most of that time and again begged them to fire me. They wouldn’t do it and abruptly ended the session.
I think they felt they could save my non-PC soul, convert me to their way of thinking, and lead me to the promised land. The next day I was given a better than average evaluation, a decent raise, and sent on my way. Any good businessman will tell you that if an employee begs you to fire them and you have just cause, JUST DO IT.
Anyway that’s why I continuously bitch and complain about PC issues. If the minor issues are ignored by intelligent thinking people more will follow.
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
So as I’m delivering these books and papers to the trash what falls at my feet but a book I hoped never to see again. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey. He was god almighty to the Hechinger Company and they beat me over the head for more than a year with his books. If I never hear the term “paradigm” again it will be too damn soon.
YOU’VE BEEN WARNED Once AGAIN
I mention my better-half in this blog often. With Mother’s Day approaching I thought a salute to her would be appropriate. She’s raised her three children, seen them graduate from college, and watched as they moved on with their lives. She is and should be proud of such a major accomplishment. Now since her nest has emptied it was time for the next stage of her life with me to begin. It was time for both of us to readjust to a new and different style of living.
As I’ve gotten older I find myself looking back and reminiscing at odd times. I have many wonderful memories that I reflect on occasionally and that was always part of my master plan. Growing up I decided early on to build an archive of memories that I could enjoy after I was too old to create new ones. I always pictured myself sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of my home looking back at all the fun I’d had in my life. I looked forward to the day I could mentally relove any number of women and remember them as being even better than they actually were.
My normal approach to living was if something looked interesting I just jumped right in and tried to experience it. Why not? I was slowly filling up my mental filing cabinet for use after my retirement. It made for a pretty cool life all in all but there were many bumps in the road as well. That was to be expected and those not-so-great memories also made their way into my mental “vault”, to lamely quote from a few Seinfeld episodes.
As a young and middle aged man I saw life in my sixties as something totally different from what it actually turned into. When I was thirty I felt twenty, in my forties I felt twenty-five, and in my fifties I felt thirty-five. It was in my mid-fifties when I first met my better-half. I’d heard the term “better-half” used for years by others but I just thought it was something people said to convince themselves they’d found that elusive soulmate we all search so diligently for. Little did I know that I would all of a sudden become a real believer. One can never know when that thunderbolt will hit but OMG when it does, it really hits hard. Things haven’t been the same since we met and I’m all the luckier for it. I felt like I was sixteen again both mentally and physically which was more than just a little scary at first. But I adjusted.
I was forced into retirement much earlier than I ever thought possible thanks to the downsizing of the state government here in Maine. I was afraid my master plan had been seriously compromised. Now I’m sitting on that famous porch of mine with my better-half, my cat, her grandson, his parents, and all of the new memories we’ve been creating over the last decade. The vault is full to overflowing, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I see many more terrific years ahead of us.
Of course, I’m writing this to brag a little but also to let all of you know that life can be good regardless of your age. My fantasy now is to sit on that infamous porch when I’m In my nineties and hopefully remember the things I’m experiencing today, tomorrow, next week, and next year. I imagine I’ll be feeling like a man in my sixties then which should be a weird and amazing turn of events. It’s incredible how our minds work to help us to adjust to these constant life changes.
It will happen to you too . . . . . . . Wait for it!
AND A HUGE HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO MY BETTER-HALF.
People are strange. The things they do are strange, puzzling, amazing, and sometimes truly stupid. Today is just a day of musings and questions. There doesn’t seem to be logical answers for some of the things I see and hear every day.
I was shopping recently and discovered something odd and surprising. I found a rack of "duct tape" for sale in many and varied colors and patterns. There was some with tiger stripes and another covered with green shamrocks. Cool right? What’s the effing point?
My first reaction was why fancy duct tape?, and is it really "duct tape" or it is just "duck tape". I was always sure it was "duct tape" until I saw a recent TV commercial selling "Duck Tape". It looked the same as the good old standby stuff but it had a flashy and cool cartoon duck as it’s logo. So what do I ask for at Home Deport? Where do I find the Duck Tape? I’m then forced to deal with that stupid blank stare you get when one of their employees has no clue. Most people love duct tape and use it for damn near everything. But why? That leads me into my next unanswered question.
Have you ever skydived? Everyone knows that it’s one of those things that’s just so damn exciting and dangerous that everyone says they’d like to try it. I thought that at one time years ago and set out to try it myself. I spent a portion part of a day being trained on how to jump out of a plane. Stand in the door, look down, pee your pants , and jump . . . asshole. It wasn’t a college course but it was required by our local politicians and insurance companies before you do something stupid. That way everyone is protected if and when you hit the ground at full speed. I went up, jumped, came back down and rode an adrenaline high for hours. Just guess what the two things my memory has retained about that entire experience. The first thing was something I noticed as I climbed into one of the worst looking aircraft on earth. The entire interior surface of the plane was covered in duct tape (not duck tape). It looked like the pilot preferred using duct tape instead of doing regular maintenance. I thought at the time this was done specifically to help motivate idiots like me to jump out of that freaking death trap. It was apparently done so you didn’t snag anything like your chute as you moved to the open door to jump. Silly me.
The second thing that stuck with me was the young blond Scandinavian women with the tight purple skydiving outfit who was hanging around the airfield that day. After my extensive two hours of training she approached me with a business proposition. She offered to skydive with me wearing a camera helmet and to tape my entire jump from start to finish for only $150.00. She was extremely hot and I wanted to appear courageous so I signed up and gave her the cash. She slithered into the plane with us and sat across from me all smiles and moist hotness. During the flight to 14,0000 feet I fantasized about first doing the jump, surviving, and then possibly jumping her later. I knew I’d need help to drain away all of that excess adrenaline and she could certainly take care of that. That fantasy ended rather quickly when she cut the loudest and most disgusting fart I’ve ever heard, looked at me and smiled. Even the pilot of the little two seater turned around to see what all the noise was about. It took a few hours to get that stench out of my nostrils and it was just the additional motivation I needed to get the hell out that plane. She took a pretty good video of me on the way down and strutted away from the landing never to be seen again. Those are my two main memories of that day, duct tape (not duck tape) and blond bombshell farts. What a life.
My last inquiry into people calls into question their ability to recognize and identify when someone is feeding them a line of BS. As I’ve mentioned in the past, in another lifetime I was a state police officer in Pennsylvania. One of the downsides to being a rookie cop is being stuck with all of the crap traffic details the more senior officers don’t want to do. There’s a state park called Moraine Lake near Butler, Pennsylvania that is a huge tourist draw during the summer months. Unfortunately the only entrance and exit to the public beaches is from a nearby interstate highway. It became so congested at times on Saturdays that the backed up traffic would become a public hazard. This required a few of us rookies to spend our day standing in the hot sun telling citizens to keep moving because the beaches were full and there was no place to park. This required them to drive five additional miles to the next exit just so they could turn around and drive back for another try. There weren’t many happy folks after that and on a normal Saturday the station would receive hundreds of complaint calls from pissed off beach goers.
On one specific Saturday I was sent out to the park in mid afternoon after traffic had already been rerouted for hours. There was a veteran cop there which was unusual and he seemed to be in charge. I found out later he was there on a punishment detail for some infraction he’d committed a few days before. For the first time in history there were almost no complaint calls being received at the station. I found out why just after my arrival at the park. That veteran officer was telling each and every car that came by that "there were sharks found in the lake and the beaches were closed, keep moving please." Not one person questioned him or called the station to verify his story. The funniest thing was the rumor about lake sharks being mentioned in a local newspaper the next day. I was amazed then and still am.
That’s it….I just had to ask these question and I honestly never expected a reasonable answer to any of them.
I never celebrate Easter. Since it’s supposed to be a religious holiday and I’m not in anyway religious, I choose not to celebrate. As a kid my Mother celebrated anything and everything remotely religious due to her strict Catholic upbringing and education. I had no choice in those days so I went along as best I could but only as far as partaking of the more secular side of things . . . chocolate. My Easter memories as a child are all about candy and eggs but not much religion.
My Father was a living and breathing agnostic who side stepped religious matters religiously but even he couldn’t side step all of the holidays. Another of my fondest memories of Easter was the year my parents bought my sister and I white rabbits. They were all cute and fluffy and I clearly remember trying to get one of those little buggers from beneath our old refrigerator on Easter morning. They eventually grew up to be rather large adult bunnies forcing my Dad to build a large hutch in the backyard to house them. There was always a stream of complaints from him about feeding the damn rabbits or cleaning out the damn cage etc. etc. etc. Who knew it would all end in murder.
One lovely summer day we returned home from playing with some of the neighborhood kids just in time for supper. We were seated at the table ready to dig in when I found out just how much my Dad really didn’t like those rabbits. He had dispatched the little darlings earlier in the day and they were placed on the table as the entree. Needless to say my Mother, Sister, and I fled the scene with my Father left sitting there with a puzzled look on his face. He just didn’t get it at all.
I still don’t celebrate Easter and I never eat rabbits under any circumstances. It’s creeps me out to this day.
Have you ever had a really long term close personal friend? They’re a rare gift and in most cases are never really appreciated until their gone. My best friend was named Dick and he passed away approximately 15 years ago. He is partially responsible for another of my crazier Easter memories from our childhood. I’ve written in the past about the 1955 Birdville Elementary School Easter Egg Hunt fire. It’s a really funny story that I may repost again in it’s entirety on another day. Let it be said that Dick and I traumatized the Easter memories of a entire elementary school that year. A small lit cigarette turned into a raging inferno that burnt down a two acre field next to the school where the teachers and parents had hidden all of the Easter eggs. The field was burned, the eggs were cooked, and so were we. We paid a really heavy price for just a few minutes of stupid.
So now you understand my hesitation to celebrate even the silly secular side of this holiday. I hope you all enjoy your Eater celebration with your family and friends in whatever manner you choose to celebrate it. For me it’s just another fun day here in paradise. Pass the chocolate please.
On any given day I enjoy relaxing. It’s taken me a lot of years to learn how to relax after spending my working life as a six day a week workaholic. Even as a high stress workaholic I was able to relax but it was just as hard to make time for that as the job itself. I knew when the job and my bosses needed to be ignored and occasionally paid a price for doing just that. I was also ridiculed at times by my workaholic co-workers but I knew where my limits were and tried never to exceed them. Disconnecting from the everyday grind for me was the path to good mental health. I’ve always used the light-switch analogy and have advised more people than I can remember to go home at the end of the day, turn off the work light-switch and just relax.
I watched for years as retail management pushed associates into completing long lists of tasks and if they weren’t accomplished correctly the associates were then criticized for their lack of customer service skills. It was a vicious cycle that produced “task oriented” people in large numbers with a terrible customer service (people) attitude. Associates became brainwashed and unable to feel good about themselves unless their long list of tasks had been completed at work and at home.
“Stop, smell the flowers, and relax.”
I’ve been personality tested by my employers on many occasions. I’m was always considered an “A” type personality who was a great multitasker, knew how to accomplish the goals set by the corporation and to “get the job done”. Little did they know that doing their tasks was the easy part of my day but getting their tasks done quickly and making time for myself was even more difficult. It was a full time job trying to survive my full time job. I was always successful in the job but when I had down time I used it. When I was relaxing I put tasking out of my mind completely and that skill helped maintain my somewhat healthy outlook on things.
I’m now retired but I live with someone who is totally task oriented. She works a full time retail job and she has a difficult time relaxing when she gets home. She feels like her day is a total failure without a long and completed “To Do” list. I’ve been trying desperately for years to get her to turn off that “light switch” when she gets home but have only been moderately successful. I’m nothing if not persistent but she can be just as hard headed as I am. It’s a battle I’ll keep fighting because it needs to be fought.
While personality tests and reading about personality types has been regarded by some as self-indulgent navel gazing, there is a real value that comes from identifying our natural tendencies. Every personality has strengths and weaknesses, and understanding what yours are allows you take advantage of those strengths to overcome the weaknesses.
I was surfing around the Net yesterday and discovered the following list of suggestions to assist those task oriented individuals in their attempts to relax. Balance in life is more important than most people think but many people talk about reaching a balance but never actually try to accomplish it.
-
Schedule time to focus on the people around you and commit to setting aside your To-Do list during that time.
-
Consciously make eye contact when your husband, partner, or children speak to you so that they have your full attention. Be attentive and focused.
-
Go anywhere where you can just enjoy being with your family without the distraction of things that need to be done.
-
Look for opportunities to get things done in smaller chunks rather than saving them all up to do at once.
I take and make time to do absolutely nothing. Some people call it meditation and others (task oriented people) call it loafing. Regardless of the name it’s total down time where the mind can rest as well as the body. Just a few minutes a day seems to work for me. I admit I have my work cut out for me with my better-half but I refuse to give up the fight.
RELAX DEAR!
I thought today I’d show you a few photographs I took during my travels yesterday. Even though it’s winter and freezing cold with snow piled just about everywhere, I needed to get away from the house for a few hours. I reverted to my old habits, took my camera, and began my search for some old cemeteries.
“A cold and wintery resting place.”
One of the things I like best about living in New England is the number of ancient cemeteries that are scattered throughout almost every community. It seems that every large family back in the 1600’s that owned property maintained a private cemetery for their family members. Almost all of them have survived but most are difficult to visit since they’re away from public roads and on private property.
“This shows how old the cemetery really is. These folks were buried here before those trees existed.”
I became quite the cemetery visitor when I lived in southern Massachusetts back in the 1980s. My ex-wife and I owned a small gift shop and as part of that business I painted landscapes of local cemeteries and sold them in the shop. For a time I could be found creeping around the older of the cemeteries with a supply of T-shirts to stretch over tombstones to do gravestone rubbings. A great many people thought the idea of owning a T-shirt with their family name on it was edgy and cool. They sold like hot cakes. On one occasion I was visited by the local police in a cemetery where they questioned me as to my activities. Fortunately I was able to explain things to them and avoided arrest. Within a week I had supplied one of those officers with his own personalized shirt and was never bothered again.
“The day was too bright and made the names difficult to capture.”
I just love cemeteries, the older the better. It’s a quiet and serene place to spend a hour relaxing and reading old epithets. Yesterday I found a few within a short drive from my home that were accessible and not covered in snow.
“I tweaked this photo with software but still couldn’t get the names readable.”
I can’t wait for the return of Spring and Summer weather so I can search out a few more of the isolated graveyards and add their photo’s to my collection.
I’m a former Vet who is now in his sixties and I fondly remember most of my service time both in the United States and overseas. I received the following email from my nephew in Texas, also a former Vet, and it made me laugh out loud. The fact that some of it makes good sense is beside the point. I did a little editing to clean it up some and here it is. I’m considering sending a copy to Mr. Obama. He’s always looking for a good program or two to shove through Congress. I use the terminology “shove through” in the most respectful way, of course.
Send to All Vets over 60 Years Old
I‘m over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You currently can’t be older than 42 to join the military. They’ve got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they should be sending us old guys. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35.
Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. “My back hurts! I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry”, we’re impatient and maybe letting us kill a few assholes that desperately deserve it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.
An 18-year-old hates getting up before 10 a.m while us old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell. Besides, like I said, “I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up and killing some of those fanatical S-O-B’s.”
If captured, we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.
Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house and away from all the screaming and yelling.
They could lighten up on the obstacle course as well. I’ve been in combat and have never seen a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor have I ever done any pushups since completing basic training. Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy too. I’ve never seen anyone yet who could outrun a bullet.
An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start up a conversations with pretty girls and he has yet to figure out that a baseball cap has a brim used to shade his eyes, not the back of his head. These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them into harm’s way.
Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten cowardly terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with bad attitudes and automatic weapons coming towards them. A gang of old mean men who know their best years are already behind them. Look out.
P.S. How about recruiting Women over 50 especially those in menopause. You think men have bad attitudes, OMFG. If nothing else, put them on border patrol, they’ll have it secured the first night.
Yikes!
I thought today I would address an issue that seems to have become an accepted illegal activity in parts of our society and other societies in the world. You see it almost every day on TV, in many movies, and in everyday life if you travel to Nevada and Las Vegas. It was also responsible for kick-starting the career of one of America’s most famous actresses, Julia Roberts. It’s known as the world’s oldest profession and I suppose I’d have to agree with that because I can’t prove otherwise. It’s just an excepted fact that almost anywhere at any time in history when you get more than a few human beings living together it’s quite possible one of them will be or will become a prostitute.
I’m about to lay a gang of statistics on you about prostitution in the United States and around the world. The numbers listed are estimated figures collected from open source documents published by security agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and media reports. Thank you so much Internet.
Say what you will, prostitution is big business. The worldwide prostitution revenues are estimated to be $186 billion per year and the number of prostitutes working worldwide is estimated to be near 13,265,900.
How many times in recent memory while watching a Olympic sporting event have you heard the chant, “We’re #1, We’re #1” or U S A, U S A. It may be true in sports but it certainly isn’t true in prostitution. Here are the top ten countries by number of estimated prostitutes. As in many things these days, China is leading the pack.
Number of Prostitutes
1. China 5,000,000
2. India 3,000,000
3. Russia 1,600,000
4. United States 1,000,000
5. Philippines 800,000
6. Mexico 500,000
7. Germany 400,000
8. Thailand 250,000
9. Brazil 250,000 children
10. Bangladesh 200,000
And then there’s poor Ireland:
29. Ireland 1,000
It just goes to prove that the United States is losing market share in everything including the sale of sex. Now I’ll list for you the estimated prices for prostitution services in these great United States of ours. I’ve listed poor Bangladesh only because as far as I can determine from the statistics I reviewed that it’s the cheapest place in the world to get laid.
United States Prostitution Price Sheet
$50 to $100 for street prostitute (National Averages)
High-End Escort in Indianapolis: $500 per hour
High-End Escort in NYC: $10,000 a night
Legal Brothel in Nevada: $200 to $600
Massage Parlor: $200 to $400 for oral sex and intercourse
Massage Parlor Worker Earnings: $8,000 to $10,000
Minnesota: $60 for oral sex with minor
Pennsylvania Earnings: $2,000 a week
Portland, OR: $130
Prison Guards: $150 charged by female guards
Santa Ana, CA: Under $100 per act
Silicon Valley: $350 to $500 per hour
Underage Girls: $40 to $100 for 15 to 30 minutes of sex
Washington, DC: $200 an hour
And once again poor little Bangladesh bringing up the rear (no pun intended).
Bangladesh: $0.60
My next statistic includes the top 10 countries in the world by the estimated revenues collected by their prostitutes. It’s no big surprise the Chinese are again the world leader. The United States has dropped to fifth-place in this category behind our former WW II enemies, Germany and Japan. I’m not sure whether that’s relevant but I’m putting it out there.
Revenues in U.S. Dollars
China $73 Billion
Spain $26.5 Billion
Japan $24 Billion
Germany $18 Billion (Legal Industry)
United States $14.6 Billion
South Korea $12 Billion
India $8.4 Billion
Thailand $6.4 Billion
Philippines $6 Billion
Switzerland $4.4 Billion (Legal Industry)
You regular readers of this blog know I’ve spent many hours compiling lists of totally useless information for your review. Today I’ll be supplying you with totally useless information but only about prostitution and prostitutes. Some of these facts are interesting and some are not but here they are anyway.
-
70% of female inmates in American prisons were initially arrested for prostitution.
-
Over 1 million people in the US have worked as prostitutes.
-
77.8% of prostitution arrests are women, 22.2% men.
-
85-90% of those arrested are street prostitutes, who account for only 20% of prostitutes
-
Only 3-5% of STDs are prostitution-related.
-
80% of prostitutes have been sexually assaulted, some raped as many as 8-10 time annually.
-
59% of prostitutes have thought of committing suicide, compared to 61% of non-prostitutes.
-
In a study in London, England 50% of clients were married, or cohabiting.
Male prostitutes sometimes report that their clients include married men who identify as heterosexual.
-
Street prostitution accounts for between 10 to 20% of the prostitution in larger cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
-
The average age of entry into prostitution is 13 years of age.
-
52% of the women stated that pornography played a significant role in teaching them what was expected of them as prostitutes.
-
A Canadian Report on Prostitution and Pornography concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average.
I suppose you’ve noticed by now that I’ve not mentioned any of my own personal involvement with prostitutes or prostitution. While it’s really no one’s business but my own, I’m not the least bit embarrassed to admit I’ve on occasion paid my own way. It was many years ago in a faraway land and it was a “Right of Passage” for some of us servicemen. Of course after looking at today’s prices I’d be forced to travel to Bangladesh to be able to afford it. Don’t forget, I’m on a fixed retirement income and I’m forced to watch every penny but even I could afford $ .60.
