Don't Read This!

Playing in the background: Steve Roach and Patrick O'Hearn, "Desert Excursion" from Fever Dreams

Oops, too late, you already did. Okay, read this blogpost, but do me and everybody you know a big favor and don't read Governor Sanford's love letters.

In case you missed this one, Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, disappeared for a week last week. His staff thought he was variously hiking the Appalachian Trail, off writing something somewhere, or possibly just lost his cell phone. After various explanations failed to make any sense, he admitted he'd flown to Argentina to have an affair with "a dear friend." (Well, one would hope so. I mean, you're gonna swap bodily fluids with somebody, you ought to at least know each other's last name.)

I realize we've heard this story a few times before (Clinton, Spitzer, John Edwards, Gary Hart, Rev. Jimmy Bakker, etc. etc. and back in time all the way to Emperor Nero) but for some reason it never gets old. There's something about being at the height of fame, wealth and power that makes some (male) politicians decide to throw it all away and go chase skirts. I don't know why this is. David Isaak tells me that no man would go to all the trouble of becoming governor or president or mayor unless he wasn't sure, on some level, that it would make it easier for him to get laid. Not being male, though, I have no way to confirm this. I guess it makes as much sense as anything else.

This time around, though, the media's managed to get hold of some of Governor Sanford's love letters, or rather love emails. And yes, he did send them from his official address (all together now, HOW STUPID IS THIS GUY??!!) and therefore they are public record and so the press has every right to splatter them all over Times Square and everywhere else. But, honestly, I wish they wouldn't. I also wish people would not read them, which is a hopeless wish if I've ever had one.

Luckily, I have not sent very many mash emails in my time. Well, I might use the word "SMOOCHIE!!" quite frequently in my missives to Joan, but I don't rhapsodize about her lips or her eyes or, uh, anything else, either. I'm kind of shy that way. I'm also kind of positive that anything sent out into cyberspace exists for all eternity, and even if somebody doesn't see fit to read it and fire you or publish it on the front page of some newspaper, it will still be dug up by God's angels and read into your Permanent Record when you get to heaven (says the Buddhist). But even if I did, and it got connected to some crime or other and therefore became public record, I'd hope other people wouldn't actually want to read them. I mean, that's kind of the mental equivalent of watching somebody walk around his bathroom, doing karaoke in his underwear. Who wants to see that? Even my cat has the good grace to cover her eyes when I burst into Bess, You Is My Woman Now. Course, she may actually be covering her ears.

I read a couple of the snippets from the CNN article, which more than convinced me I didn't want to hear the rest of 'em. Anybody who sends his girlfriend something like, "How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure" ain't exactly Shakespeare. But even if he were, I'd still gently encourage curious readers everywhere to just skip em, already. Just because somebody's walking around his bathroom singing karaoke in his underwear in front of a glass window doesn't mean you have to look. Be warned, though; if you do, you might see something that will haunt your nightmares forever. Like a hairy armpit or something. Eesh.

Totally overshadowing all of the above is the death of Ed McMahon, which is totally overshadowed by the death of Farrah Fawcett, which is even more totally overshadowed by the death (just this evening) of Michael Jackson. Rest in peace, y'all, and if celebrities could please quit dying long enough for me to catch up, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.