Some students in the dark nether region of Utah known as Happy Valley–aka Utah County–have FINALLY figured out how people make babies. And they are pretty steamed about it. I understand. The first time I heard the story I was pretty disbelieving myself. “You put WHAT WHERE?”

But enough is enough, I mean REALLY. Pornography at Gold’s Gym? Who woulda thunk it? (Hear that thundering herd? That’s all the Trappees rushing out to get a membership.) Apparently, they are up in arms about music videos and movies shown at the Gold’s Gym that is close to BYU.

Dallen Johnson says, “I’ve had to leave, honestly! There have been four times I’ve run out of the cardio cinema because of racy and inappropriate things being shown, things I personally view as pornography.”

Jesse Yaffe says, “Once you are a member here, you basically don’t have the choice anymore. You’re forced to watch indecent material because it seems everywhere you go there’s a TV. They’ve got the Gold’s Gym membership network, and certain videos they play are extremely indecent, and some are outright pornography.”

I would like to finish writing this blog post, but every time I read these comments I break out into peals of loud, guffawing, unattractive laughter.

Honestly! He had to RUN OUT of cardio cinema FOUR TIMES? I would think his cardio would be, um, elevated to an even more intense level. Dallen is a SLOW LEARNER. I have to KEEP GOING BACK because I just can’t believe how APPALLING all this is… Dallen should take his sanctimonius little self back to cardio cinema and get a REAL education, because it might help him to understand exactly HOW to remove that STICK that is lodged up his wazoo.

And Jesse? Oh, Jesse, I’ve been there. I understand the whole “once you become a member you have no choice.” But see, YOU? You have a choice. DON’T watch. That’s a choice.

It’ll be interesting to see if Gold’s Gym becomes God’s Gym, and caves to the pressure…

And this? This was my favorite. It’s their FOURTH demand….

*Install blinds on the aerobics room to block the dancing, which is very provocative.

Muwwahhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. By all means, because YOU can’t control yourself, please, let’s make sure that no WOMAN provokes you. Do these idiots not realize how stupid they sound? Of course not…

So, I’m writing this new book for St. Martin’s (that’s my dad you hear in the background, keening and wailing because YES there are Mormons in this book! Good Mormons, bad Mormons, and Mormons who need to take a bath! Not really. I made that part up.). And it’s of the dark Mormon suspense tradition that I started with WIVES AND SISTERS. You know, the one that has people so pissed off at me, because I don’t portray Utah as one big happy-slappy STEPFORD village of idiots. Oh wait. That’s my interpretation.

But my Mormons are real people, and some of them are good, and some of them are pretty fucking stupid, which makes people irritable, because once you have the gospel, your brains are supposed to be enhanced, instead of boiled like soup.

But hey, I tell it like it is. Back to my story. I am writing this book, which is dark suspense, and in the midst of it comes–are you ready for this?–the copy edits of POINTE AND SHOOT, the third book in the Jenny T. Partridge Dance Mystery Series.

Well, howdy. So I have to seesaw between Natalie R. Collins, dark, angry “axe to grind” suspense author and Natalie M. Roberts, defender of dance, dance teachers, and the right to shake your booty–as long as it’s done with great technique. (The secret? Ballet, folks. Lots of ballet.)

Any minute now I’m going to start speaking with a British accent.

Okay, Mike Huckabee is succeeding in sufficiently creeping me out to a point where I want to lock him in a room with Tom Cruise and let them claw each other’s eyes out. I mean, SERIOUSLY.

Did you SEE this? Didja? Good God. No, I would say, BAD GOD, rather literally.

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

Romney, along with his Jesus Jammies, is looking better EVERY day. The Hucksterbee? Scary.

My comments about Mitt Romney’s win in Wyoming were NOT an endorsement of Mike Huckabee, and I wanted to make that clear. I’m just NOT all about the evangelists. Sorry. Fundamentalism in any form gives me the heebie jeebies, almost as bad as when Tom Cruise opens his mouth and spiders come crawling out. If your mantra is “My God is better than your God,” please don’t stop here at Trapped. We are busy putting away our Christmas presents and making New Year’s resolutions, and we don’t have time for all that bullshit.

Just to make sure you know I don’t “heart’ Huckabee, check this story out.

Even editorialists and columnists at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state’s dominant (and Republican-friendly) daily paper, use words like “petty” and “thin-skinned” to describe Huckabee. Then again, he’s compared hard-hitting (and accurate) news reporters for the Democrat-Gazette to the press fabulists Jayson Blair and Janet Cooke. He called liberal columnist John Brummett of Stephens Media “constipated” when that early admirer commenced some gentle criticism. His administration paid $15,000 to settle a suit filed by Roby Brock, the host of a public TV news show whom Huckabee’s people tried to force off the air for his critical commentary.

Then there’s me. I’m the editor of an alternative weekly, but I began covering Huckabee when I was a columnist for the now-defunct daily Arkansas Gazette in 1991, and Mike and I have been on the outs pretty much ever since. He once called me and the Memphis Commercial Appeal bureau chief “junkyard journalists” for our reporting. He also compared me, in print, to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and, I’ve been told on good authority, has wished aloud for my early and violent demise.

Holy crap. Uh, Mike? If you can’t take the PROVERBIAL heat, get the hell out of the kitchen!

The presidential race always brings to mind the saying, “The lesser of two evils.” Who the hell wants to pick a lesser evil? I hate politics.

(I’m just going to go on record here to say that if I HAD to pick the lesser of two evils, the lesser evil WOULD be Romney. Let’s see how many people, pro and anti-Mormon alike, that can anger! Not to mention the SoBaps…..

Okay, well not freakier. He’s just a freak. But THIS was quoted in Gawker. It comes from a promotional video for the Scientologists, and they are scarier than the Mormons, because when I link to THEIR scary videos, they don’t disappear. This one is, apparently, no longer available.

When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind…. We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures. Now is the time. Being a Scientologist. People are turning to you. If you are a Scientologist, you see things the way they are, in all their glory, in all their complexity… It’s rough and tumble. It’s wild and woolly. It’s a blast. It really is. It is fun. Because damn it, there is nothing better than going out there and fighting the fight, and suddenly you see — boom! — things are better. I want to know that I’ve done everything I can do, every day… I do what I can. And I do it the way I do everything.

Tom be needing him some electric-shock therapy. Do you think Britney “Trainwreck” Spears is privately a Scientologist? Maybe Tom intervened, and convinced her she did not need those nasty meds…..