Dr. Susan Block posts: Hi Gene, Some people that were at my show Saturday night just brought your column to my attention. https://www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=5839

I want to clarify something important. In your first paragraph, you compare my show to a “lynch party.” At a lynch party, a person is murdered. These guys were only yelled at. No one touched them in any way. Craig Gross emailed me on August 18, asking me to have him and Mike on my 9/11/04 show because a NY Times reporter was writing about them, and they felt this would be a “perfect time” to go on my show.

I replied that they were welcome to come, but that I had a LOT of other guests on the show that night, so we’d have to squeeze them in between the artists and porn stars. They accepted those conditions without question. They also talked to one of my producers, David Ross about the show, telling him that they were asking us if they could be on our show because they wanted something “exciting” for the NY Times reporter, and they knew my show was “exciting.” Gene, I have had orthodox rabbis and priests on the show before, and sometimes they make special requests, like “covering up” nudity, or doing their interview in chairs instead of on the show bed, and I do my best to honor those requests, if they are made in advance.

Mike and Craig made no such requests until it was time for their segment, at which point it was too late. Indeed, it was well nigh impossible to accomodate their desires without insulting my other guests. Of course, Mike and Craig were also my guests, and I made a large space for them on the bed, shooed the clowns to the corner, made the porn stars go to the other bed, made sure they were comfortable, and then gave them an opportunity to express their views. Many people here vehemently disagreed with them and said so, sometimes yelled so. Please keep in mind that there were about 75 people here in the studio, including a rock band and a bunch of clowns, so there was a lot of yelling in general all night.

But no one harmed Mike or Craig physically or even got “in their face.” We do practice Ethical Hedonism here. If anyone harms someone or comes close to behavior resembling a “lynch party” here, they will be removed from the studio immediately. With all the real murder and mayhem going on in the world today, I think it is important to make the distinction between a “lynch party” where people are killed and a Dr. Suzy Show/Party where the only form of aggression is raised voices.

I would appreciate your making this clarification in your next column. While I’m writing you, I’d also like to invite you on the show sometime. I can’t promise that nobody will yell at you. But I can assure you that no one will hurt you, let alone lynch you. Seriously, I’d like to have you on some Saturday when it’s convenient for you. Oh, and thanks for comparing me to Cleopatra. I assume you didn’t mean it as a compliment, but she’s one of my role models. peace through pleasure, art and revolution,Suzy

Gene sez: My dear Dr. Block. The first rule of obfuscation calls for dragging in semantics and arguing literal definitions when other sets of meanings obviously apply. Like with you going on the defensive about the Cleopatra remark. Under the general sets of circumstances, I would have used maharani, but Cleopatra’s easier to spell. So, quite frankly, I think the analogy’s perfect, but it sounds to me like you want to assume otherwise when nothing but a colorful simile was intended.

And a similar game is being played with the appearance of the XXX Church on your show, and your apparent chagrin to my describing it as a lynch party. Frankly, I’d like to see what the New York Times’ take will be on it if there is one. But, for the moment, I’ll play along and concede that, yeah, there were no horses, no lassos, no Gabby Hayes chuck wagon masters spittin’ “tobackey”; and no bodies swayin’ in the wind.

By those cliches, there was no lynch party. But you and I both know there’s a broader definition to include the sucker play, the three card Monte, the loaded dice, the shakedown where the rube walks out of town wearing the rain barrel. And Mike and Craig were the Salvation Army walking into a Barbary Coast Saloon.

Frankly, I don’t know Mike or Craig from Lucy and Ricky, so it’s not with any sense of duty bound honor or commitment that I speak in their defense. But fair play is fair play. Come on. What little chance these guys had to speak was met with the hoots and guffaws from the peanut gallery. One guy Mario, I believe, was even making grunting monkey sounds. And, by the way does ethical hedonism countenance blasphemy? Because some of the Christ comments were outrageous even by old Roman procurator standards.

Put it this way, if mainstream media was there to cover this story, you certainly gave ’em a show alright. You just sent a message to the moral majority that the adult industry is still walking on its knuckles and swinging from tree limbs.

With all due respect.