Sex with Picnic Table part of a Trend?

The incident is the latest in a spate of bizarre sex crimes involving inanimate objects.

Sex with Picnic Table

ref http://people.monstersandcritics.com/bizarre/news/article_1397513.php/Ohio_man_arrested_had_sex_with_picnic_table

An Ohio man was charged with four counts of public indecency after he admitted to having sex with his patio picnic table.

Authorities in Huron County, Ohio say 40-year-old Art Price Junior confessed to repeatedly having sex with the table between January and March of this year.

NBC affiliate KALB in Alexandria, Louisiana report that Police in Bellevue, Ohio were tipped off after someone anonymously taped one of the incidents then gave the recording to police.( Now it comes out that the tipster reportedly provided 3 DVDs to the police, showing the table-desecration as it happened.

Admits Guilt

Price fully admitted to police that he had sex with the picnic table both inside and outside his home.

He was freed on a $20,000 bond.

Charges dropped

As the story is still being reported on the internet,(including a photo of the man) Huron County drops the Felony indecency charges against man accused of lewd behavior with picnic table. However other charges may be filed, Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said.

Art Price, Jr., 40, was arrested March 20 after officials at a school near his home complained that he was engaging in lewd behavior with a picnic table on the deck - and submitted video evidence. He was charged with four felony counts of public indecency. But Mr. Leffler said the evidence didn't support felony charges, and his office would re-examine the case.

Some comments on the story included:

1.How do you have sex with a picnic table ?

2. I don't think this against the law in San Francisco.

3.He stuck his pee pee in the hole where the umbrella goes.
That's the only logical way. But...there is nothing on the other side.
or inside. It's a hole in a table. How can you possibly have a good time like that?

4. If he stuck his junk in the umbrella hole, maybe his dog was waiting on the other side. Otherwise it's like the previous comment, there's nothing on the other side. With a dog, he would get a lick without seeing it, then use his imagination... Aauuaaggg! This is whack!


The story in some publications linked to a story from last year where a man was arrested for having Sex with a bicycle.

Sex with a bicycles

Robert Stewart has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

Stewart was discovered in his room by two cleaners at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, south west Scotland, in October last year.

Admits Guilt

Mr Stewart admitted to sexual breach of the peace in Ayr Sheriff Court, where depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers.

She said: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

"They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down.

"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

Both witnesses, who were extremely shocked, notified the hotel manager, who in turn alerted the police.

Mr Stewart was placed on the sex offenders’ register.

More sex with bicycles

That story links to an unnamed man in Sweeden who was arrested for sexually satisfying himself on the seats of women’s bicycles. (Ref: http://www.thelocal.se/10178/20080229/ and http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2008/03/an-overwhelming.html)

The 36-year-old man was charged for sexual molestation and damages after police found traces of his semen on the saddle of a woman's bike, according to the Östersunds-Posten newspaper.

The man was first reported in the spring of 2006 when police found sperm during an investigation involving a slashed bicycle tire.

The breakthrough in the case came after a woman reported seeing the man carry away her bicycle and then start rubbing up against it.

The man was arrested last July and taken into custody.

Sex with a bicycles

The 36-year-old man has confessed to the crimes, explaining that he felt an overwhelming calm wash over him when he approached women’s bicycles and smelled the handlebars.

These reports brought attention to another story of being discovered in the act of bizarre sex involving inanimate objects.

Sex with Vacuum cleaner (Ref:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article868092.ece)

A Polish worker was caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital's staff canteen.

A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its "nose".

According to the Sun, the contractor was supposed to be locking up the building site near the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital where his firm is refurbishing administration offices.

The security guard, suitably horrified, told the man to "clean himself and the hoover" before asking him to leave and informing his bosses.

His excuse

When later questioned by his employers, the man said he was vacuuming his underpants, which was "a common practice in Poland". He has since been fired.

The man's employers, HG Construction, told The Sun: "That behaviour is not acceptable, though it gave a few people a laugh".

Henry Hoover is described on a cleaning website as "famous for its looks, but under its fascia lies a powerful, reliable vacuum cleaner ready to go time and time again."

Another admits to Vacuum Sex

Comic Russell Brand, 32, has also admitted to a session with a vacuum when he was 14.

He said: “I saw Henry sat there, he was looking at me. Now whenever I hear that name, I have a guilty little smile.”

Links to Man Arrested For 'Having Sex With Lamp-Post'
Saturday, March 15 2008 (ref: http://spankwagon.net/index.php?topic=wtf)

A 32-year-old man has been arrested in Wiltshire for allegedly simulating a sex act with a lamp-post.

A police spokesman said officers were called to a road in the town of Westbury on February 16 after they received a report of a man acting indecently outside a block of flats "occupied by several young women".

When they arrived they arrested him on suspicion of outraging public decency. The man was released on bail, but following an investigation into the incident and several interviews with witnesses - including children - he was recalled for questioning. He has since been re-released pending further inquiries.

The Wiltshire police spokesman said: "We are awaiting a decision as to whether there should be a prosecution".

Which links us to two stories about Sex with the Pavement

In 1993, Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs.


Another who had sex with the Pavement was Steven Marshall. Marshall a TEENAGER who tried to have sex with the PAVEMENT in a busy street claimed yesterday it was a drunken prank — and escaped being put on the sex offenders’ list.

Motorists looked on in shock as Steven Marshall, 18, hauled down his trousers and started to simulate sex on the floor.

Marshall — drinking while taking pills for arthritis — also carried out a vile sex act in front of a horrified female taxi driver in Galashiels, Selkirkshire.

He admitted a charge of public indecency at Selkirk Sheriff Court and got 12 months probation.

Sheriff Drummond commented: “This was bizarre. Anyone who lies on the road in the daylight, is significantly intoxicated and is partially undressed has a problem.”

But Marshall will NOT be put on the sex offenders’ register after Sheriff Drummond accepted the June offence “was not primarily sexually motivated”.

This linked to a story about Sex with automobiles:(Ref: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1127072wong1.html)

Canadian man sanctioned for lewd public acts with cars

A Canadian man with a bizarre sexual fetish involving classic cars was sentenced last week for several acts of public indecency.

Sandy Wong, 45, was arrested three separate times earlier this year for masturbating on the hoods of autos, including a Mini Cooper and a $50,000 BMW sedan, which was on display at an auto show.

sexually aroused by a certain type of car

During an interview with a court-appointed psychiatrist, Wong explained that he is sexually aroused "by a certain type of car...like a '67 Camaro, '55 Chevy Bel Air." He added that he was particularly attracted to a vehicle's "roof top...it's curved like a woman's body, the sex appeal, it felt good."

car owners should not purchase such enticing vehicles

In his report to the Edmonton Provincial Court, an excerpt of which you'll find below, Dr. Curtis Woods noted that Wong "irrationally opined" that car owners should not purchase such enticing vehicles since they tempt him to "pleasure myself."

cognitive defects with a under functioning thyroid gland

According to cops, Wong mounted the Mini Cooper outside an Edmonton pizza place and proceeded to "tuck, rub and bounce his naked genitalia" on the car's hood. Woods noted that Wong has been described as mentally challenged and attributed his "cognitive defects" to being born with a under functioning thyroid gland.


Admits Guilt

As first reported by the Edmonton Journal, Wong pleaded guilty to an assortment of charges and was sentenced last Friday to two years probation and 90 days in jail (which he had previously served). Wong, whose rap sheet dates back to 1989, also acknowledged a sexual preoccupation with women's feet and motorcycles.

Sex with a Fence?

Daniel French, 24, made "sexual motions" towards metal railings in Leicester Square Gardens after being challenged by police in the early hours of Sunday morning, Westminster Magistrates' Court was told.

"He said words to the effect of: 'I'm going to have sex with that fence'," said Philip Lemoine, prosecuting.

Leicester Square is a hub for drunken revelers at weekends

"The gardens were locked and police asked French to leave. He was drunk and there were some sexual motions - drunken silliness - to the railings."

Mr Lemoine added: "French said he had a relative who was a solicitor and would teach the police a lesson."

French, of Verity Way, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, admitted being drunk and disorderly after a night out in the West End, but angrily denied making romantic overtures towards the fence.

Claims cops provoked

"That's not right at all about the fence. I was surrounded by three big police officers. I felt I was being bullied and wanted to go home. They were pushing me against the fence and trying to provoke me," he told magistrates on Monday.

"The suggestion that I was trying to do something sexual to the railings is disgusting."

French was sentenced to serve the time he had already spent in custody since his arrest - meaning he was allowed to walk free from court.

Fetishism

The term "fetishism" was coined in the late 1800s. It originates from the Portuguese word feitico, which means "obsessive fascination".

There is a degree of fetishistic arousal in most normal individuals who find particular bodily features attractive.

However, fetishistic arousal is generally considered a problem when it interferes with normal sexual or social functioning and where sexual arousal is impossible without the fetish object.

Fetishism is characterized as a disorder when there is a pathological assignment of sexual fixation, fantasies or behaviors toward an inanimate object.

Inanimate object fetishes can be categorized into two types: form fetishes and media fetishes. In a form fetish, the object and its shape are important, such as high-heeled shoes. In a media fetish, the material of the object is important, such as silk or leather.

Mostly male

Male fetishists may be unable to get erections without the presence of the objects. Nearly all fetishists are male, though some women also exhibit fetishism.

Causes

The cause of fetishistic behavior as a pattern of sexual gratification cannot be explained easily.

Some theorists believe that fetishism develops from early childhood experiences, in which an object was associated with a particularly powerful form of sexual arousal or gratification. Other learning theorists focus on later childhood and adolescence and the conditioning associated with masturbation activity. Studies show that fetishists have poorly develop social skills, are isolated in their lives and have a diminished capacity for establishing intimacy.

Profile

Behavioral learning models suggest that a child who is the victim or observer of inappropriate sexual behaviors learns to imitate and is later reinforced for the behavior. Compensation models suggest that these individuals are deprived of normal social sexual contacts and thus seek gratification through less socially acceptable means. In the far more common cases, involving males, the patterns suggest that causes stem from doubts about ones own masculinity, potency, and a fear of rejection and humiliation. By his fetishistic practices and the mastery over an inanimate object, the individual apparently safeguards himself and also compensates for some of his feelings of inadequacy.

Treatment

Almost always the treatment must be long-term if it is to be effective. Treatment approaches have included traditional psychoanalysis, hypnosis, cognitive and behavior therapy as well as pharmacotherapy. Some prescription medicines help to decrease the compulsive thinking associated with the paraphilias. This allows concentration on counseling without as strong a distraction from the paraphiliac urges.

Increasingly, the evidence suggests that combining drug therapy with cognitive behavior therapy can be effective, although research on the outcome of these therapies has been incomplete and often appear not to have been successful.

Drugs

More recently, a class of drugs called antiandrogens that drastically lower testosterone levels temporarily have been used in conjunction with these forms of treatment. The drug lowers the sex drive in males and reduces the frequency of sexually arousing mental imagery. Increasingly, the evidence suggests that combining drug therapy with cognitive behavior therapy can be effective.

The level of sex drive is not consistently related to the behavior of paraphiliacs and that high levels of circulating testosterone do not predispose a male to paraphilias. That said, hormones such as medroxyprogesterone acetate (Depo-Provera) and cyproterone acetate help decrease the level of circulating testosterone thus reducing sex drive and aggression and resulting in reduction of frequency of erections, sexual fantasies and initiations of sexual behaviors including masturbation and intercourse.

Hormones are typically used in tandem with behavioral and cognitive treatments. Antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) have also successfully decreased the sex drive but have not effectively targeted sexual fantasies.

Assisted aversive conditioning

Research suggests that cognitive-behavioral models are effective in treating paraphiliacs: Aversive conditioning involves using negative stimuli to reduce or eliminate a behavior. Covert sensitization entails the patient relaxing, visualizing scenes of deviant behavior followed by a negative event such as getting his penis stuck in the zipper of his pants.

Assisted aversive conditioning is similar to covert sensitization except the negative event is made real most likely in the form of a foul odor pumped in the air by the therapist. The goal is for the patient to associate the deviant behavior with the foul odor and take measures to avoid the odor by avoiding said behavior.

Thought stopping

Thought stopping is another technique used to control fetishism. The therapist first determines the patient's other types of other attractions and fantasies. The therapist asks the patient to think about the fetish fantasy; once the fantasy is conjured, the therapist yells, "Stop!" At this point the patient immediately switches to the earlier agreed upon fantasies. This process is repeated several times in the presence of the therapist.

Sources: * National Institutes of Health* National Library of Medicine
* Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
* PsychNet-UK

For further reading (humorous)

There is a web site http://www.unclemelon.com/consumer_inanimate.html

where Uncle Melon and his staff examined 12 inanimate objects for their potential use as sexual partners. The evaluation included ease and pleasure of use, availability, orgasm efficiency and post-ejac clean-up.

Art censored at High School leads to Litigation

Tomah High School Student's Artwork Censored

A Tomah High School student was punished by his teacher because he had the audacity to include an image deemed objectionable in a drawing he made as an assignment for an art class.

His drawing included a cross.

(also reported on Fox news here)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

"We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message."

...According to the lawsuit, the student's art teacher asked his class in February to draw landscapes. The student, a senior identified in the lawsuit by the initials A.P., added a cross and the words "John 3:16 A sign of love" in his drawing.

His teacher, Julie Millin, asked him to remove the reference to the Bible, saying students were making remarks about it. He refused, and she gave him a zero on the project.

Millin showed the student a policy for the class that prohibited any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit claims Millin told the boy he had signed away his constitutional rights when he signed the policy at the beginning of the semester.
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The suggestion that a public institution can ask you to sign away your constitutional rights is very questionable.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District- see below)
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The boy tore the policy up in front of Millin, who kicked him out of class. Later that day, assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students' rights.

Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students' rights.

The boy received two detentions for tearing up the policy. Jackson referred questions about the lawsuit to Gaarder.

Sometime after that meeting, the boy's metals teacher rejected his idea to build a chain-mail cross, telling him it was religious and could offend someone, the lawsuit claims. The boy decided in March to shelve plans to make a pin with the words "pray" and "praise" on it because he was afraid he'd get a zero for a grade.

The lawsuit also alleges school officials allow other religious items and artwork to be displayed on campus.

A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students.

In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Man" is displayed at the school's entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school's hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board.

Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges. (Side note: Medusa is the guardian of terrifying places, either the nocturnal borders of the world or the Underworld. She reappears in this role in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, IX, 55-7) and Milton's Paradise Lost (II, 611). Guarding the doorway to the world of the dead, she prevents the living from entering.)

A.P. suffered unequal treatment because of his religion even though student expression is protected by the First Amendment, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday.

Comments:

A.P. was out of line when he ripped up the policy in front of art teacher Julie Millin, even if she may have taunted him by claiming he had signed away his constitutional rights. In any case, that was not the proper way for A.P. to handle the dispute.

At least from the information provided in this article, my criticism of A.P. pretty much ends there.

It sounds like Millin and assistant principal Cale Jackson weren't willing to give an inch. This notion that the cross infringed on other students' rights is absolutely ridiculous.

Why would they care about A.P.'s drawing? Are they so fragile that they can't handle viewing a landscape that includes a cross?

Of course not.

I think it's ludicrous to claim that the image of a cross in any way infringed on other students' rights.

Does anyone really think that a student's drawing of something that benign in art class would be treading on the rights of others?

That's nuts.

Art is about creativity and personal expression. While I can understand the school's prohibition of violent, bloody images, I can't understand getting bent out of shape over a cross, or a Star of David, or symbols of other religions.

If as the lawsuit claims religious items and artwork are displayed at the school, then the school's reaction to A.P.'s drawing seems far too heavy-handed and terribly inconsistent.

It appears to be very selective religious censorship. Moreover, there's a problem with a school policy that equates graphic depictions of violence with religious symbols in artwork.

With such a rigid policy on religious symbols it would be nearly impossible for students to tour an art museum.

According to Tomah High School's Course Description Booklet:

The main goal of the Art Department is to provide a variety of visual experiences for the student to relate art to his/her own experiences and culture.


If that's the main goal of the Art Department, then Millin is failing as a teacher. She's actively preventing A.P. from relating his artistic expression to his "own experiences and culture."


I wonder how Millin would have reacted if A.P. drew inspiration for his project from Piss Christ, Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix submerged in his own urine. (see bottom of post for more on this)


In that case, would she have defended A.P.'s right to express himself and relate his art to his own experiences and culture?

http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2008/04/tomah-high-school-students-artwork.html
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Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District,

393 U.S. 503 (1969) was a United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a decision defining the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's disciplinary actions violate students' First Amendment rights

In December 1965, Des Moines, Iowa residents John Tinker (15 years old) and Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old) and their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) decided to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth) in protest of the Vietnam War. The school board apparently heard rumor of this and chose to pass a policy banning the wearing of armbands to school. Violating students would be suspended and allowed to return to school after agreeing to comply with the policy. Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt chose to violate this policy, and the next day John Tinker also did so. All were suspended from school until after January 1, 1966, when their protest had been scheduled to end.

The case

A suit was not filed until after the Iowa Civil Liberties Union approached their family, and the ICLU agreed to help the family with the lawsuit. Their parents, in turn, filed suit in U.S. District Court, which upheld the decision of the Des Moines school board. A tie vote in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit meant that the U.S. District Court's decision continued to stand, and forced the Tinkers and Eckhardts to appeal to the Supreme Court directly. The case was argued before the court on November 12, 1968. School board was not challenged.

The decision

The court's 7 to 2 decision was handed down on February 24, 1969. It held that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. Justice Abe Fortas wrote the majority opinion, holding that the speech regulation at issue in Tinker was "based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to this Nation's part in the conflagration in Vietnam," and, finding that the actions of the Tinkers in wearing armbands did not cause disruption, held that their activity represented constitutionally protected symbolic speech.

Justices Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II dissented.


Black, who had long believed that disruptive "symbolic speech" was not constitutionally protected, wrote "While I have always believed that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments neither the State nor the Federal Government has any authority to regulate or censor the content of speech, I have never believed that any person has a right to give speeches or engage in demonstrations where he pleases and when he pleases." Black argued that the Tinkers' behavior was indeed disruptive and declared, "I repeat that if the time has come when pupils of state-supported schools, kindergartens, grammar schools, or high schools, can defy and flout orders of school officials to keep their minds on their own schoolwork, it is the beginning of a new revolutionary era of permissiveness in this country fostered by the judiciary."

Harlan dissented on the grounds that he "[found] nothing in this record which impugns the good faith of respondents in promulgating the armband regulation."

Subsequent jurisprudence

Tinker remains a viable and frequently-cited Court precedent, though subsequent Court decisions have determined limitations on the scope of student free speech rights. In Bethel School District v. Fraser, a 1986 case, the Supreme Court held that a high school student's sexual innuendo–laden speech during a student assembly was not constitutionally protected. Fraser qualified Tinker in making an exception for "indecent" speech. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, where the court ruled that schools have the right to regulate, for legitimate educational reasons, the content of non-forum, school-sponsored newspapers, also limits Tinker's application. The Court in Hazelwood clarified that both Fraser and Hazelwood were decided under the doctrine of Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators Association. Such a distinction keeps undisturbed the Material Disruption doctrine of Tinker, while deciding certain student free speech cases under the Nonpublic kkkkkkForum doctrine of Perry. In Morse v. Frederick, the Court held that schools may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school-sponsored event, even those events occurring off school grounds, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use

from Wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District.

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For some reason the `tag' John 3:16, brings to my mind a person once known as the `Rainbow man."



Millions of Americans have seen Rollen Frederick Stewart, a.k.a. "Rainbow Man", who achieved notoriety during the late 70's by appearing in the crowd at thousands of televised sporting events wearing his trademark rainbow-colored afro wig. Later -- after he became a born-again Christian - - he added a sign reading "John 3:16". Over the years, grabbing the attention of the media became an obsession for Stewart. He abandoned his home and marriage to roam the country living out of his car, studying TV Guide each week in a never-ending quest to stay televised...with tragic consequences. (This, above, from Amazon description of a documentary about him)

Rollen Frederick Stewart's problems started during his childhood in Spokane, Washington. His parents were alcoholics. His father died when Rollen was seven. His mother was killed in a house fire when he was 15. That same year his sister was strangled by her boyfriend. A shy kid, Rollen got into drag racing in high school, married his first love, and opened a speed shop. But his wife soon left him. Crushed, he sold the shop and moved to a mountain ranch where he became a marijuana farmer, tried to grow the world's longest mustache, and watched a lot of TV.

In 1976, looking for a way to make his mark, Rollen conceived the idea of becoming famous by constantly popping up in the background of televised sporting events. Wearing a multicolored Afro wig (hence the nickname "Rainbow Man"), he'd carry a battery-powered TV to keep track of the cameras, wait for his moment, then jump into the frame, grinning and giving the thumbs-up. Rollen figured he'd be able to parlay his underground (OK, background) celebrity into a few lucrative TV gigs and retire rich. But except for one Budweiser commercial, it didn't happen.

Feeling depressed after the 1980 Super Bowl, he began watching a preacher on the TV in his hotel room and found Jesus. He began showing up at TV events wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Jesus Saves"-type slogans and various Bible citations, most frequently John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," etc.). Later accompanied by his wife, a fellow Christian he married in the mid-80s, he spent all his time traveling to sports events around the country, lived in his car, and subsisted on savings and donations. He guesses he was seen at more than a thousand events all told.

This brings us to the late 80s. By now Rollen had gotten his 15 minutes of fame and was the target of increasing harassment by TV and stadium officials. His wife left him, saying he had choked her because she held up a sign in the wrong location. His car was totaled by a drunk driver, his money ran out, and he wound up homeless in LA. Increasingly convinced that the end was near, Rollen decided to create a radically different media character. He set off a string of bombs in a church, a Christian bookstore, a newspaper office, and several other locations. Meanwhile he sent out apocalyptic letters that included a hit list of preachers, signing the letters "the Antichrist." Rollen says he wanted to call attention to the Christian message, and while this may seem like a sick way to go about it, it wasn't much weirder than waving signs in the end zone at football games. In any case, no one was hurt in the bombings, which mostly involved stink bombs.

On September 22, 1992, believing the Rapture was only six days away and having prepared himself by watching TV for 18 hours a day, Stewart began his last "presentation." Posing as a contractor, he picked up two day laborers in downtown LA, then drove to an airport hotel. Taking the men up to a room, he unexpectedly walked in on a chambermaid. In the confusion that followed he drew a gun, the two men escaped, and the maid locked herself in the bathroom. The police surrounded the joint, and Rollen demanded a three-hour press conference, hoping to make his last national splash. He didn't get it. After a nine-hour siege the cops threw in a concussion grenade, kicked down the door, and dragged him away.

About to be given three life sentences for kidnapping, Rollen threw a tantrum in the courtroom and now blames everything on a society that's "bigoted toward Jesus Christ." A cop who negotiated with him by phone during the hotel standoff had a better take on it: "With all due respect, maybe you look at a little bit too much TV." For info on the Rainbow Man documentary, write Sam Green, 2437 Peralta St., suite C, Oakland, CA 9460
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971107.html
******************


Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer who has become most notorious through his photos of corpses, as well as his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported to be the artist's own urine.


In Melbourne at the time of the controversy Serrano said:

"I started that work as an attempt to reduce and simplify a lot of the ideas and images that I had been doing up until that time. I didn't do it to be provocative, I did it because damn, the colours would look good, you know. [clapping and cheering] I mean, sometimes I just feel like what I do has the simplest answers, but they're not good enough. People want more of a story and I try to give them a story, but sometimes I have to say: look, you're reading too much into this."
(http://www.artsandopinion.com/2004_v3_n4/pisschrist-2.htm)