04/17/2005 - 04/23/2005

Seymour Butts, Nobel Laureate

I hadn’t cranked up the software when he died, but I’ve been meaning to write down this apocryphal story about Saul Bellow. (Whose work I disdain, btw, but more on that later, after the funny.)

There was this woman I knew for awhile, through my Dad. I think she was dating his Friend Shu, but I’m not sure. Anyway, she had been involved with the University of Chicago. How? Hell, I don’t know. I was probably 16 when I heard this story. She might have been a former English grad student -- and I think she was -- but at the time my gearloose memory tells me she was involved in one of those “Ivy League Dating” businesses. (More on that later, too.)

Anyway, this woman -- let’s call her the Blonde -- claimed she had dated a lot of the “old men” in the English department at U Chicago. These guys, of whom Bellow was the Grandmaster, and I think Allen Bloom was the Grand Poobah, were all known (the Blopnde said) for dating chains. One woman at a time would cruise through their line of aging intellectualism, going out to dinner, listening to the great men pontificate, and then sleeping with them. And each of them would go to the same church Sunday morning – Episcopal, I think. Bellow was the last link in the chain of brain and cock. But he apparently didn’t sleep with all of the women who worked on the Chain Gang. If he did fuck ya, then you knew you had conquered in whatever silly way it mattered.

The Blonde described her experience on the Chain Gang, and then told the story of her dinner date with Bellow. The scuttle butt was that he didn’t like being complimented on his novels, because 1) suckups are unpleasant dinner companions; and 2) how were you, a lowly graduate student (and unsaid, but obvious, a woman) qualified to make any comment at all on the work of the Grand Master?

Yet at the same time, if you didn’t mention the books, he would also be offended. It was like the worst possible version of sitting for Oral exams. (There’s a sex joke hiding there somewhere, but I can’t quite read the map to it.)

The Blonde had prepared and planned for the dinner, yet all her preparation seemed to be wasted. Bellow stared at her stonily through the entire dinner, barely grunting as she carried the entire conversation by herself. Politics, literature, sports: no topic engaged him.

Finally, exhausted, she fell silent, only able to stare at Bellow over the post-meal drink.

At which point, Bellow said, “I’ll bet you’ve never slept with a Nobel Laureate before.”

I don’t remember if The Blonde she said she stormed out in a huff or not, but since she was telling this story to a group that included her current boyfriend, she might well have. But even at the time, all I could think was: That is the BEST pickup line I have EVER HEARD!

Officer Not Your Friend

Thinking about L&O: Sex Crimes reminds me one thing my Dad, the former urban prosecutor, taught me: never talk to the cops without a lawyer. Not for any reason.

“Are cops that bad?” I asked him at the time. We probably first had this conversation when I was 16 or so, years after he had finished working as a prosecutor.

“No, not at all. Maybe about 5% are really good, honest guys who are doing it because they care about justice. And maybe 2% are real scumbags; evil pieces of shit. But the rest of them are just doing their job. Which means they don’t give a shit about you. If you fit what they want, they’ve don’t really care if you’re guilty or not. You’re guilty enough.”

“Oh.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re bad guys. But they’re not your friends either. And they’ll lie in a second about why they want to talk to you. So always get a lawyer.”

“What if they say it’s an emergency or something?”

“That’s almost always bullshit. If it’s an emergency, you’ll know it without them needing to tell you.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Never admit to anything.”

In a similar vein, my Dad can’t stand cop shows, because they always glorify cops as they piss all over the 4th Amendment. The Sipowicz character on NYPD Blue was always a scumbag, more interested in pounding on suspects instead of justice -- even after he sobered up. Even the smoother characters, like Briscoe on Law & Order, are exactly the kind of cops my Dad was talking about. Nice enough guys, doing a hard job, but not on your side. But the very nature of these shows means these cops (and prosecutors) are presented heroically, as doing the right thing in virtually all circumstances. Which is basically nonsense.

Doing a hard job, but not on your side. Which is why you always call a lawyer.

(Oh, and: the Chris Meloni character on L&O: Sex Crimes is just awful: the Kenneth Starr of TV cops, only heavily armed. He would have been the first guy to instigate things at Abu Ghraib. Just a foul, foul character. I pray for him to catch a bullet every time I watch that show.)

Never as Aware as I Think I Am

The Orlando Child Abuse Show reminds me of a conversation I had with my folks a couple of years ago. This was back before I had dumped cable, so I was watching Law and Order: Sex Crimes on (I think) USA, one of the unending marathons of that show. I tuned in for the last ten minutes of a show about a kid who had been raped by a priest or a coach. Then I watched a whole show about, I dunno, international child porn. And right before that show ended, they put up a promo for the next show, which would cover the charming topic of teenage hookers.

Remote. Off button. Pick up book.

But I got to thinking about the weight of all those awful (in many senses) story lines. L&O: Sex Crimes has been on for a long number of years. Could there really be that many different stories about underage abuse? (Obviously, this was before I had spent a lot of time in Orlando.)

So I called up my Dad, who had been an assistant prosecutor in the Calumet Region during the 70s, and I told him about the three-in-a-row child sex crimes marathon. I continued: “Can there really be that many child sex cases, even in New York. Dad, you were a prosecutor in Hammond in the 70s. Hammond must have about 90,000 people in it. How many of these kind of cases did you prosecute a year?”

Dad thought about it. “Around 20 a year, I guess.”

I was surprised. That seemed like an awful lot, I told him.

“Keep in mind, I was one of three assistant prosecutors. And that’s just the cases we brought to trial. At the time -- and I’ll bet this is still true -- you only took one of these cases to court if you had no doubts and irrefutable proof. Because you were going to ruin somebody’s life. So with that kind of proof, most guys didn’t want to go into court, so they plead out. And sometimes if the cops were sure, but there was no evidence, they would just beat the shit out of the guy, and tell him he was dead the next time.”

“So you were seeing how many of these cases?”

“Maybe 50 a year. And like I said, there were other prosecutors.”

Gobsmacked. Jaw hanging like a marlin on a rumpus room wall. After ten years in New York and five in Chicago, I thought I had a pretty clear sense of how depraved the world could get. And here were my parents, once again proving that I will likely never know as much about the world as they do.

I was about to say so to my Dad, when he continued, “And that doesn’t even count the bestiality cases. Hey Nona! How many bestiality cases did you see a year at Legal Aid?”

“Why do you want to know?” I heard my Mom ask.

“Your son is shocked at how many weird sex crimes there are.”

“Oh.” Mom thought. “Four or five a year, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Dad said to me. “That’s about what I saw. Four or five a year.”

“Bestiality.”

“Sure.”

After we were done talking, I realized how much more horrifying L&O: Sex Crimes could be.

Local News: What about the children?

On the local NBC affiliate, I believe the first ten minutes involved the following stories:

- The 5 year old who was handcuffed by cops

- A guy whose self-righteous neighbor put up flyers accusing him of being a sex offender, even though the flyers show a different person. Turns out the neighbor may be arrested for doing it.

- A flasher who committed suicide after people in his neighborhood put up his "sex crimes" description, with "CHILD RAPIST" added to the sheet in huge black letters.

- And the Florida Legislature passed the Jessica Lunsford Act, which does some additional thing about sex offenders. Minimum sentences, I think. (Checking…) yeah, 25 years to life for certain offences, and then when they get out they have to be monitored by GPS tracking systems. GPS tracking!

- Finally, they finished up the child abuse and sex offender show with a story about a child rapist who followed his victim from Florida to Kansas.

I’m sure they must have done a story about the Michael Jackson trial, but I gave up on TV for the night after that. The Fox affiliate replaced the Simpsons at 11 with A Current Affair, so I’ve been trying the local news. Hideous. Chicago news is pretty good. Sure, it chases murder and mayhem -- “if it bleeds, it leads” -- but they seem just a little less unrelenting about it. In the 80s, I used to read a ton of splatterpunk stories involving cannibalism and zombies and awful awful things, but 10 solid minutes of child abuse and falsely accused sex offender is more than my poor brain can take.

I did flip channels first, and got to see a "shark attack" story, about the school of sharks that has slowly been working its way up from Palm Beach to the Space Coast. But then I flipped again, and got to see the story about the Mom who rented a Disney tape that had been recorded over with " The Voyeur #5". (No relation to Mambo #5.)

I should have just watched the Appliance Direct guy.

Crazy Pope Stories: Ethnicity

One of the things the news folks mentioned is that Cardinal Ratz, now Bennie 16, is the first German pope since the 11th Century. So I got to wondering how many different ethnicities have been pope.

Obviously, Romans. But does Peter, papa numero uno, count as Roman or ethnic Jewish or Judaean? And then popes like Dionysius are Roman, but born in Greece (they think). Pope Miltiades was supposedly born in Africa, but that could make him a lot of different backgrounds. Lots of folks claim Gelasius 1 as African, as in black, but he also considered himself Roman. Pelagius 2 might have been a Goth, even though he was born in Rome.

So let’s just pass over (roughly) the first 1000 years of Popes. Because for that time period, we’re pretty much talking Romans citizens, shading into being Italians.

According to Wikipedia, we’re basically talking about just a few nationalities:

Italian, obviously.

Dutch (1)
Adrian 6 (b. Adrian Florisz Boeyens), 1459-1523 (After him, all Italians until JP Dos in 1978.)

German (6)
Gregory 5 (b. Bruno), 996–999
Clement 2 (b. Suidger of Morsleben), 1046–1047
Damasus 2 (b. Poppo), 1048. (Poppo el Papa!)
Leo 9 (b. Bruno of Eguisheim-Dagsburg), 1049–1054
Victor 2 (b. Gebhard, Count of Calw, Tollenstein and Hirschnerg), 1055–1057
Benedict 16 (b. Ratzo Rizzo), 2005 -

French (16)
(Obviously, the Avignon Papacy is why this number is so high.)
Silvester 2 (b. Gerbert of Aurillac), 999–1003
Stephen 10, (b. Frederick of Lorraine), 1057–1058 (Also counts as German, but I’m part French, so I’ll put him here.)
Nicholas 2 (b. Gerard of Burgundy), 1058–1061
Urban 2 (b. Otho of Lagery), 1088–1099 (Starts the First Crusade)
Callixtus 2 (b. Guido of Vienne), 1119–1124
Urban 4 (b. Jacques Pantaléon), 1261–1264
Clement 4 (b. Guy Foulques or Guido le Gros), 1265–1268
Innocent 5 (b. Pierre de Tarentaise), 1276
Martin 4 (b. Simon de Brion), 1281–1285
(Avignon Begins)
Clement 5 (b. Bertrand de Gouth), 1305–1314
John 22 (b. Jacques d'Euse), 1316–1334
Benedict 12 (b. Jacques Fournier), 1334-1342. (Another exmaple of a sort-of Inquisition leaqder, who went a long way to stamping out the Cathars.)
Clement 6 (b. Pierre Roger), 1342–1352
Innocent 6 (b. Stephen Aubert), 1352–1362
Urban 5 (b. Guillaume de Grimoald), 1362–1370
Gregory 11 (Pierre Roger de Beaufort), 1370–1378
(Moves the Papacy back to Rome, where Italians riot to get an Italian elected again. Cheaters.)

Portugese (1)
John 21 (b. Petrus Juliani), 1276–1277

Spanish (2)
Callixtus 3 (b. Alphonso de Borgia), 1455–1458
Alexander 6 (b. Rodrigo Borgia), 1492–1503 (May be the most corrupt Pope ever!)

Really, though, does anyone think of Rodrigo Borgia as Spanish?

Polish (1)
JP Dos, 1978-2005

English (1)
Adrian 4 (b. Nicholas Breakspear) 1154 to 1159
Pope Joan (the myth) was also supposedly English

Here's a quick list of the “African” popes. North African, unclear about their skin color

Victor 1, 189-199
Miltiades, 310/ 311-314)
Gelasius 1, 492 to 496

Crazy Pope Stories: Mama, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to be Popes

Pope Dionysius: Not much a drinker, ironically.

Pope Lando: Not a fan of the Star Wars films, except for EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

Pope Cletus: LOVES the Simpsons.

Pope Hyginus: Dirty, dirty Pope.

Pope Hilarius: Hated jokes.

And finally: there have been 5 popes named Sixtus.

Crazy Pope Stories: Pope Joan

No connection to Joan of Arc. But there is a Benedict connection. Bennie 3

No one seems to be entirely sure when the story of Pope Joan/John started, but the first popular form of the story is that after Pope Leo 4 dies in 855:

John Anglicus, born at Mainz, was pope for two years, seven months and four days, and died in Rome, after which there was a vacancy in the papacy of one month. It is claimed that this John was a woman, who as a girl had been led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers. There she became proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge, until she had no equal, and afterwards in Rome, she taught the liberal arts and had great masters among her students and audience. A high opinion of her life and learning arose in the city, and she was the choice of all for pope. While pope, however, she became pregnant by her companion. Through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she was delivered of a child while in procession from St Peter's to the Lateran, in a narrow lane between the Colisseum and St Clement's church. After her death, it is said she was buried in that same place. The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street and it is believed by many that this is done because of abhorrence of the event. Nor is she placed on the list of the holy pontiffs, both because of her female sex and on account of the foulness of the matter.

That’s right: not just a female Pope, but a pregnant female Pope!

In some versions, the crowd, seeing the Pope start to give birth, decides that this is not, in fact, a miracle revealed (related to the Immaculate Conception, perhaps), but instead the revelation of a hoax. So they get Old Testament on her, and stone her to death.

Then Benedict 3 takes over as Pope, and all is well, and all manner of things are well.

That version above is from a translation of Martin Polonus' Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatum.

No contemporary of Leo 4 or Benedict 3 wrote down anything about a Pope Joan, but by the 14th Century, the story is accepted as truth by just about everyone in Europe. Especially Protestant propagandists, who use the idea of Pope Joan as evidence of the depravity of the Church of Rome.

Some people think that Theodora and Marozia are one basis for the legend. Details of Medieval Popes being inspected to be sure they had testicles are debated hotly, though many Popes did apparently sit on an ancient Roman chair (that may have been a bidet), which had a hole in it through which testicles could be checked, if necessary. In other words, the details sound plausible, so many people did and do believe that she existed.

Even though she probably didn’t.

Crazy Pope Stories: Note-y Bennie

I realize that no Benedicts took part in the pornocracy. But it’s still a good story. Bennie makes a comeback with the story of Pope Joan.

Crazy Pope Stories: Pornocracy

So one of the issues that has come up with the selection of Cardinal Ratz as the new pope is that he is not the most liberal of theologians. No married priests, no gays, and definitely no women as priests.

Saying that Catholicism is torn about its attitudes toward women is like saying that Canada is cold, Brazil is hot, and that Florida is full of oddballs. As obviously true as it may be, it barely covers the complexity of the issue. For example, JP Dos didn’t want women priests, but was fairly tolerant of the Virgin Mary cult. As a function of political power, only allowing men to ordain and consecrate makes them the deal breakers in the church. No matter how important Mother Teresa was, she was still (theoretically) secondary to a priest.

Anyone who has been brought up in a religious tradition knows how the female members of the congregation often run everything, with the pastor as ether final arbiter or figurehead. “OK, Pastor Bob. Say what you want about the Holy Ghost, but that ain’t gonna get the bakesale cookies baked, is it?” That’s not how my Lutheran church worked growing up, under either Pastor Jerry or Pastor Joel, but certainly women did a lot of the organizing and the work of running the church.

But when the women actually have a powerful control over the actions of the church, that’s clearly a problem for the Vatican. Maybe it’s a problem of publicity, maybe one of power, but Popes no like times when women tell them what to do.

Case in point: the 10th Century Pornocracy. Also -- and probably better -- known as the “Rule of the Harlots”

From 904 and Pope Serguis 3, until Pope John 12 is deposed in 963, two women were considered major players in the papacy: Theodora, and her daughters and Marozia and, uh, Theodora.

Allow Philip Schaff (1819-1893), American theologian and church historian, to introduce us to these ladies:

(T)hree bold and energetic women of the highest rank and lowest character, Theodora the elder (the wife or widow of a Roman senator), and her two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, filled the chair of St. Peter with their paramours and bastards. These Roman Amazons combined with the fatal charms of personal beauty and wealth, a rare capacity for intrigue, and a burning lust for power and pleasure. They had the diabolical ambition to surpass their sex as much in boldness and badness as St. Paula and St. Eustachium in the days of Jerome had excelled in virtue and saintliness. They turned the church of St. Peter into a den of robbers, and the residence of his successors into a harem. And they gloried in their shame. Hence this infamous period is called the papal Pornocracy or Hetaerocracy.

Some popes of this period were almost as bad as the worst emperors of heathen Rome, and far less excusable.

I love that last part. Except for the whole “slaughter their enemies like dogs” part, don’t these women seem like they’d be hellaciously fun to hang out with? Have some wine, fuck a Pope!

(Oh, the passage is from History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073.)

Marozia seems to have the most influence. She was supposedly the lover of Sergius 3, as well as Pope John 10, who gave her titles like senatrix and patricia. She and Sergius are said to be the actual parents of Pope John XI, though many others think he was actually the son of her first husband Duke Alberic of Spoleto. Her supposed affair with John 10 didn’t work out so well, because she and second husband Guy of Tuscany seized power in Rome, had John 10 put in prison, and eventually killed. Marozia was the power in Rome until 932, when her son Alberic 2 had her and Guy deposed and thrown in prison.

As entertaining as it is to think about sex-obsessed Popes -- that is, obsessed with having sex as opposed to making sure no one else has it -- this description of the Theodoras and Marozia seems to stem from the writing of their contemporary and political enemy Liutprand, the Bishop of Cremona. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia is somewhat circumspect about these stories. Speaking of Sergius, they comment:

These assertions are only made by bitter or ill-informed adversaries, and are inconsistent with what is said of him by respectable contemporaries.

That said, the idea of attacking the Papacy by associating it with women has other examples. Like Pope Joan.

(By the way, Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia are the sources for a lot of this information.)

Crazy Pope Stories: Benedict 4 and the "Cadaver Synod"

Benedict 4 had a three year run as Pope, from 900 AD to 903. He's not noted for much, just sort of carrying out the duties of the office. Kind of the Millard Fillmore of Popes. Not bad enough to be the Franklin "there's nothing left to do but get drunk" Pierce, not even bureaucratic enough to have the accomplishments of a Rutherford B Hayes. Even Benedict 5 can be called the William Henry Harrison of Popes, since he died very quickly after taking office (33 days in 964 AD). (Though even that title should really go to Urban 7, the record holder for shortest-ever time as a recognized Pope: 13 days in 1590. Though you could debate Stephen 2, from 752, should hold the WH Harrison title, since he was Pope for three days. But he isn't officially recognized since he wasn't consecrated as Il Papa.)

One thing that Benedict 4 did do was uphold the ordinances of Pope Formusus (891-896 AD). Formosus was one of those political Popes, working with guys like Charles the Bald of France. Anyway, Formosus was political enough that he got on the wrong side of Pope John 7, who threatened to excommunicate him. Eventually, Formosus cut a deal with John 7 where he promised never to return to Rome or "exercise priestly functions". After John 7 died, the next Pope, Marinus 1, restored Formosus to some authority. And three Popes later, Formosus took over the job himself.

I think it’s fair to say Formosus had a tumultuous time as Pope. First of all, and comedically, Formosus was forced to crown a guy named Guido (Duke of Spoleto, an Italian city-state) as Holy Roman Emperor. Formosus encouraged one of Guido’s rivals, Arnulf of Carinthia, to liberate Italy from Guido, by marching on Rome. As a result of his successes against Spoleto, Formosus then crowns Arnulf emperor. In your face, Guido!

That’s medieval politics, and Pope Formosus, his predecessors and his successors, were all mitre-deep in this kind of maneuvering.

Formosus dies in 896, and Boniface 6 comes after him. But only for 16 days, making him the runner up for the WH Harrison trophy. The guy who comes after him, Stephen 7, is a made guy of the Spoletans. He’s Guido’s guy, in other words. Except Guido died in 894. but his son and wife, Lambert and Agiltrude, were still holding a grudge against Formosus. So, in the most disgusting brown nose act in recorded history (except for maybe the career of Henry Kissinger), Stephen 7 has Formosus dug up. To stand trial!

Get this. The year-old corpse of Formosus is dressed up in Pope robes, stuck on the Papal Throne, and has to face the same charges that Pope John 7 brought him up on back in 872! These are the charges he already cut a deal on in 878, when he was, you know, still breathing. Worst of all, he gets this public defender Deacon, who is probably getting paid the 9th Century equivalent of minimum wage, and who likely sees which way the Papal wind is blowing. So poor Dead Pope Formosus naturally gets found guilty. Those assembled tear the Pope Robes off the corpse, cut off the three fingers of his right hand (which priests use to consecrate items and people as holy), and they throw his naked bones in the Tiber River.

People are so freaked out by this whole deal that Stephen 7 is put in prison, and then strangled to death. After Stephen 7 dies, the body of Formosus gets re-interred in St. Peter’s, and Corpse Trials get banned by the church. (All this takes place in the 20 days that Pope Theodore 2 is sitting on the Pope Throne.)

So think about it: how crazy have things gotten in your political life when you have to have a rule against putting corpses on trial? All I can say is, Bill Clinton better hope his heart holds out until DeLay, Frist, and Bush are all out of office.

I’ve gotten somewhat far afield of Benedict 4, yeah? I mean, how does he factor in? Right, so all the bishops that Formosus ordained (with his later-severed three fingers) were un-ordained by Stephen 7’s actions. Benedict 4 re-ordains all those guys. And for his three Papal years, things are at least a little bit stable at the dawning of the 10th Century.

Not to last, I’m afraid. After Benedict 4 dies, Leo 5 is Pope for about a month before he is (supposedly) imprisoned and then strangled to death by his successor, Pope Christopher. And then Chris (the only Pope ever named that, so far) is driven out by Sergius 3.

Ah, Sergius 3. As nasty as the Cadaver Synod is, the next 60 years and 12 Popes are seen as so bad that the whole time period is given an overall title that indicates a time of horror and depravity, like “War of the Roses” or the “Star Wars Saga”. It’s called the “Rule of the Harlots” or the “pornocracy”.

Crazy Pope Stories: Cardinal Ratz / Papa Bennie 16

I was epopping with my pals Max and JK about the Pope Carnivale that just ended, and the investiture of Cardinal Ratz as Papa Bennie. So I started looking up the history of why Ratz would have chosen Benedict as his name.

For example, my memory tell me that the recently deceased JP Dos chose that name because Juan Paul Uno, his immediate predecessor, had had such a short term (33 Days) and the name deserved a longer tryout. So that led to 27 years of a Pope named John Paul.

Back to Benedict. Wikipedia provided a convenient list of all the Popes (and antiPopes), and even a specific list of Pope Benedicts. Obviously, Bennies 14 and 15 seem to have the most immediate resonance with someone like Cardinal Ratz, and make for a reasonable journalistic contrast: pacifist (15) versus power monger (14).

But what if 14 and 15 have nothing to do with Cardinal Ratz's choice? What if it's some other Benedict? So I think I'll break up the next few posts into Crazy Pope Stories, starting with stories coming out of the previous 15 Benedicts.