No one is guessing Erik’s favorite beer, so I’m going to give you a short list. Remember, only one guess per person, and those of you who have already guessed can try again.

Shiner Bock

Lone Star Long Neck

Fat Tire

Blue Moon

Dos XX

St. Pauli Girl

Samuel Adams

Red Stripe

Corona

Modelo

Be sure to email me your answer rather than post it as a comment. Good luck! Now, enjoy this post.

Me: Tell us about circumcision.

(Pause. I can hear a soft giggle from Jamie.)

Me: I know this is going to be a fun one.

Jamie (laughing): He’s grabbing his crotch, and he just yells out like total Tourette’s, “Genital mutilation!”

Jamie and I both laugh hard.

Jamie: He just shouted it out really loud.

Erik: Don’t touch my dick!

Me: Don’t worry. Nobody has. You’re like your dad. Okay. Go ahead.

Jamie (Laughing again): He’s like pretending to pet it!

I laugh.

Jamie: Totally closed, by the way. Pretending to pet it.

Me: I hope so! Jesus!

Jamie (to Erik): Yeah, I got it. Go away.

Erik: It’s not right. It’s some stupid theory that without your foreskin, your penis is cleaner. Well, fucking learn how to wash your penis.

Again, another profound pearl of wisdom from him.

Erik: Hey. Hey. Teach your child how to wash their penis! You don’t have to fucking cut the skin off for that!

Me: You know, when I woke up this morning, I never thought I’d be talking about washing penises. That’s the last thing I would have thought.

Jamie laughs.

Me: Now I really need another cup of coffee. Okay, Go ahead.

Jamie: He’s cracking me up!

Erik: Just because there was one religious dud who said everybody has to do it, it’s so stupid.

I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for this last remark. Sigh.

Me: How can we bring spirituality into this topic? There’s none, right? I mean—

Erik: Well, it has to do with religious beliefs, and it was an easy way to separate visually who believes in what. It was just like burying the cross. It’s like, “Let’s go mark our fucking cattle,” Mom.

Erik: Go out there, and burn the shit out to them. Let’s go cut some penises.

Me: Harvest time!

Jamie (laughing hard): He’s cracking up! He loved that. He loved that.

Me: Don’t they do something with foreskin now like use them for skin grafts, something like that? They do something with little baby foreskins.

Jamie: Oh, my god.

Me: For real. I don’t know what it is. I can’t remember, but they use them for some reason. Maybe they make little baskets or lampshades; I don’t know. It’s some medical reason.

Jamie: That’s gross. That skin should stay on the penis. It’s there for a reason.

Me: I know!

Erik: It plays peekaboo for a reason.

Jamie (bursting out in laughter): Oh god!

I laugh.

Erik: It’s to protect the penis. If evolution had decided that the penis needs to be out rather than in, that foreskin would have started shrinking centuries ago. That’s how long we’ve been cutting that shit off.

Me: And I never thought we’d be talking about the evolution of the foreskin either.

Jamie giggles.

Me: This morning is full of surprises. Okay, anything else about penises that you want to talk about, Erik?

Erik: No, but should we talk about the—

Jamie (to Erik): No! No, we shouldn’t.

Me: Come on. Be brave, Jamie. Be brave!

Erik: Trimming the labia, because that’s the same thing. That labia is there to protect the vaginal hole, right?

Me: Mm hm.

Again, another subject I thought I wouldn’t’ broach at 8:00 AM.

Erik: To keep out cooties and bacteria and shit.

Jamie (giggling): Cooties.

Erik: Girls need those; guys need theirs, and it doesn’t make you more enlightened or smart or connected to God. That’s is all such a crock of shit.

Me: Maybe it’s some sort of control issue, controlling the masses somehow.

I’m referring to the fact that I believe some of what’s in the Holy Books was created by men in power as a tool to tame the masses and civilize humanity.

Erik: It is, and you know religion never gave that release either. It never got you closer to God. In fact, it told you how to believe in God and where you stood in relation to God. It never allowed you to develop a one-on one-relationship with God.

Me: Which is pretty much a one on one relationship with yourself as part of the whole.

Erik: Amen!

******************

Here’s the link to my interview with Edge Magazine:

INTERVIEW