I don’t know what I was smoking when I wrote this – but I’m thinking that it might be neat to get some more! From early March 2004…

“YOUR TENT WEDDING”

So my sister (yes – there is a female version of Bonehead) tells me that she was not all that pleased with my last Bonehead review. She thinks I’m getting too dark – and shedding some negative feelings on what is otherwise a happy time for all the brides busily planning their pending nuptials. Perhaps she has a point.

Then Christine asks pointedly when I just might get around to discussing wedding planning in this little forum she so graciously offers to me. Looking down from my soapbox I ask her if she feels I’ve strayed too far away from a groom’s point of view and am now simply voicing random babblings that have nothing at all to do with helping young ladies and gentlemen plan their wedding. You can probably guess what her answer to that query was. Needless to say, my fee for the Valentine’s Day Massacre article was also a source of great questioning.

So as it is March I’ve decided that it’s better to tone down my roar, and proceed with a slightly more gentle approach to this column, like a happy little lamb, happily welcoming the coming Spring!

Ah yes, Spring! When the flowers begin to peek up from their long hibernation and the grass begins to turn green again. When the breeze grows warmer, and…so they say, a young man’s heart turns to fancy. There’s nothing quite like a wedding on a sunny day in early Spring. Today, we’ll talk about some of the great opportunities that you have to exchange the vows which will bind you and your spouse together forever, outdoors.

Nature, in its own infinite wisdom, is unpredictable. Like a box of chocolates, or a Mother-In-Law going through menopause, you never quite know what you’ll get. Sure, in your dreams you have visions of committing your eternal love, and your future husbands eternal earnings (and internal organs) under the pink and white blooms of the old birch tree next to the old Mill Pond. The sweet scent of fresh lilacs and rose fill the air as your guest’s hearts swell in the warmth of the Springtime sun. Oh, isn’t it all just dreamy!

Fact is, sometimes the weather can work against you and before you know it, you, hubby, the clergyman and your guests are getting dumped on by hail the size of softballs and your old Aunt Ida’s hairdo looks like someone slapped a drowned cat on her head. Yecch! You wonder…how can you prevent your outdoor wedding ceremony from turning into a typical Long Island beach erosion scene. Bonehead solution…cover it up!

Yup – cover it up. Get a tent! Get a tarp! Get a few boxes of Hefty trash bags and keep your cousins from out of state busy by having them duct tape a whole bunch of them together. Concerned because you think that a tent looks tacky? Worried because the white tarp doesn’t match your wedding dress? Well, here’s the best part – it’s retractable! Sure, if you don’t need to cover up – just go topless! No need to cover up the sun if it’s shining, but if it’s cloudy and threatening rain – you’ll be prepared. It’s simply a precaution.

Still not sure if a cover up is the best way to go? Let’s look at it from another angle. Say you’re Janet Jackson. You’re performing at a fairly popular cultural event; lots of people are watching you trying to determine if it’s you singing, or a tape recording. Suddenly, you’re greeted by a young singer who’s been artificially inseminated into our cultural mainstream who, in a friendly gesture, extends his hand for a shake, but suffers a temporary mental malfunction and rips part of your top off, exposing your breast to the world. What should you do? Cover up!

Maybe you’re still a bit concerned as to how a tent wedding would go over with your friends and family. Let’s try this analogy: Pretend you’re a major media executive, who oversees the words and deeds of the talking heads all of us see and listen to everyday. If some of the words or topics those opinion-shapers discussed caused some of the general population to actually sit back and think for themselves, that would sort of be like rain on your wedding day. All of your guests would get wet and would be sad, causing mass catastrophe and terrible declines in stock value. Damn, if you only had a way to keep everyone dry, and in line, if only you had a tent. That’s it, a tent! An all-important media executive cow-towing to the political correctness of Newspeak and thought control by doing the same thing a resourceful bride to be would do – erect a tent. Cover up! The media executive fires, stifles and reels in the opinions and free speech of the influential voices who toil beneath him. A forward thinking bride and groom-to-be in planning their outdoor wedding contact Ira the Tentmaker ahead of time to keep everyone dry, just in case. Then if it rains – they just have to cover up!

Imagine if you held your outdoor wedding on an exotic beach. Perhaps an Island in the Pacific like Guam or Pyong Pen, or maybe an exotic locale close to home like Speonk. Now imagine that the bright spring day at the beginning of the ceremony turns suddenly dark and gray – and your guests are running for their lives when the beach is hit with a Tsunami. Sure, the wedding video would be a blast to watch, but the cake and ice sculpture would be a total loss. To avoid a potential disaster on the beach – you’d need a really heavy tarp for some major cover up.

Now your mind is probably really racing. What gauge of tarp thickness would be best to ward off a tidal wave? Should the anchors for the tent be cemented into the sand, and if so, how deep should the poles go? How would you be able to tell if there’s jellyfish in the punch? Maybe you need another Boneheaded analogy to ease your mind of this burden.

This time, think of yourself as a high ranking political figure. Since most politicians seem to possess the ability to channel the spirits of our founding fathers, you’ll have no trouble assuming that you actually played a role in the forging of our countries Constitution. Now, in your district, your constituents are restless. They’re growing tired of so many government regulations, control and bureaucracy that they’re acting out and trying to live their lives as if they had minds of their own. They feel that if they wish to view a pop stars booby over and over on their Tivo they can. They feel that if they want to download porn, old Metallica songs and Martha Stewart bomb-building tips off of the internet they should be able to. The land under your watch is growing closer and closer to imploding under the burden of its own freedom that you have no choice but to cover up! But this time, a simple tent won’t do. No sir, it’s a tidal wave you need to ward off, and distract from its path of destruction. So you need to construct a barrier of infinite strength and solidarity. You need to turn the focus of the destructive wave away from your wedding guests. You need to make one topic larger than the Tsunami attempting to tear down your society. How do you cover up????

Marriage.

Yes, marriage. Put marriage on the minds and tongues of everyone. Have your radio and TV announcers talk about nothing else – because, as a politician you know, you can control the media. Marriage. The ultimate wall.

Now marriage has been an institution for thousands of years – and half the time, it actually works out for both parties involved! So how could the discussion of marriage cause all of society (or your beach wedding guests) to become so distracted that they don’t notice the pounding surf hitting the sides of the wall? Simple. If you’re an astute politician, you’ll create diversion by alternately declaring marriage both legal, or yet, unconstitutional if it’s the marriage of a gay couple!

Shock! Horror! And your guests won’t even notice the ugly grey tarp strung up over them as a tent.

Perhaps some of the ills of society are being corrected right now as you read this article. Our brave leaders have determined that the ultimate sin perpetuating our society right now is the unholy union of two people who love each other and wish to be together. Some have determined that only a man and woman can feel that with members of the opposite sex. Society says otherwise, and many have vowed to change that belief. But all you hear about is the arguments between those who favor gay marriage and those who are against it. Perhaps I’m a Bonehead, but my belief is to let people do what they want, if they’re happy, let them be. More happy people just makes for a better place for all of us. Do you plan on asking the government for help in choosing your wedding song or how to help Uncle Lou avoid a hangover after too many Scotch and Soda’s? Of course not, and chances are if you did, they’d lose your paperwork anyway. So why should the government be stepping in and saying who can and cannot marry who they want?

They do it, because they’re building a tent for their outdoor wedding. They’re covering up!

They create a hot button for society to focus on, while they slowly chip away at those other freedoms we’ve come to enjoy. Mind control – how can gay marriage and Martha Stewart be the ONLY thing that seems to be happening? If you listen to the news – that’s how it appears. Newspeak – there are so many new interpretations of the seven dirty words and taboo topics that we all think, talk about, but God-forbid they’re discussed on the radio or network TV. If there’s no new News, and they keep feeding us all the same information over and over, there won’t be any room for thoughtcrime. The media control knows what’s good for us, and they know that Janet Jackson’s tits are going to send us all to Hell.

Interesting how the concept of marriage is the sacrament chosen by modern society that is placed as the pawn for the growingly prophetic novel written in a prior one.

Unless words have specific, precise identifiable and common meanings how is it possible to conceive of ideas such as freedom, oppression, resistance and the like? If it is no longer possible to formulate abstract ideas and communicate them then action and creativity are no longer possible and control is absolute and complete.

In 1949 George Orwell imagined a very large tent wedding taking place on a windswept beach, sometime in the early Spring of 1984. Sadly however, his story of that wedding is much like a car alarm. Considering the current social climate, one can’t help but make that comparison. Oh sure the car alarm is a nifty thing, maybe you hear one right now, but who’s paying attention to it?

Exactly no one.

Plan your wedding, it’s something to do, that’s good. Just don’t be boneheaded and never peek outside of your tent.