Category Archives: Frustration & Complaint

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Which Way Is Up?

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STanko & Tibor - Absurdity for AllWhich Way Is Up?

Troubled by a world gone crazy around you? Not sure which way is up?  Tired of the world’s major and minor religions, but also turned off by atheism’s dogmatic approach to facial hair? Are you angry at vegans because you know they’ll outlive you AND they act like the moral high ground, but you’re not quite angry enough to spike their food with meat juices and melted butter?

I couldn’t care less. But not because I don’t care — I really do. Just not now. I am just really tired. I don’t know which way is up. Or down. Or left or right. And don’t get me started on anything that’s diagonal or perpendicular.

But I do know I need some quality sleep.

Absurdity Is Up, Sleep is Down

A very large tranche of absurdity has been served to us this past year or so, and we all know the source – Trump’s America. It’s a bad place right now, but having just come back from a vacation overseas to Europe, where people are equally displeased although more demure about it, it did give some distance to think about it a lot less. Maybe it’s European indifference or snobbery. Or the heat. My goodness, the heat! It was as if the Earth has moved 2 miles closer to the sun.

Since it seems the world is on its head now and will stay that way for a long while, maybe it’s time to admit that up is down, and fat is slim. Maybe this summer’s global warming has finally fried our collective global brains. Maybe it’s a time for change. Which is usually a good thing, except in this case where the right and the left hate each other, the people in the middle are seen as weak for wanting — of all things — rational compromise! Scum. Filthy, filthy scum.

So what are we to do about these “divisionary” politics that drive us apart, cause tempers to flare just as the ever necessary moral air conditioning craps out?

How should I know? I am still really tired and I still can’t tell which way is up or down or whatever direction. I need ice cream, and some MAJOR distraction in the form of comics, or morally ambiguous Japanese anime.

Derisively derelict in my duties
Master Sargent Blake Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Tattoos and Small Talk

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Small Talk & Tattoos Small Talk And Tattoos – Both Suck

While watching Planet Earth II, I had way too much time to think — the cerebral version of small talk — and I came to many conclusions, most of them faulty and derived from excessive medicines taken to deal with this persistently painful kidney stone.  Somehow from the plight of African Sahara tiger pack hunting a giraffe due to desperation, I managed to get to why tattoos have become the new version of small talk, and elitism among animals. Let me explain.

You can barely be in any conversation nowadays that doesn’t move from small talk to a full-on argument of some kind, be it about politics, sports, arts, carbonated beverages, baked goods, or knitting (the English vs Continental practices are much more violent than you’d think).

Since the explosion of the tattoo as yet another stupid means of self-expression (it’s called a t-shirt people!), we have had to endure way too many shows about tattoo artists and people who think they are somehow even more expressive of their inner-selves by having someone jab a filthy needle beneath their skin, repeatedly, that is filled with pigments and solvents – and pay a lot of money for it. (That used to be called a heroin addict.)

I’ve seen people compare tattoos, compare who suffered more while getting the tattoo, explaining ad nauseum how it represents something meaningful to them — yet keep it hidden beneath clothing. If you’re truly proud of your corporal  decor then get a tattoo on your forehead. Or your cheeks. Show me you care to go the extra mile. That’ll generate some small talk in the office. Especially at job interviews and pick-up time at the children’s daycare.

Animal Small Talk

As the second half of the Planet Earth episode moved along, I realized that a lot of animals are dumb. Let’s take the African Ibex. They may well be the male fashion model of the animal world. Handsome but short on IQ. They get chased and killed by lions, face drought all the time, and can’t wear hats due to those giant horns.

If I were an African Ibex, which would NEVER happen because there is no chocolate or cinnamon danish in the desert, I would have probably said to myself after year one: “Ok, time to move to the city, get an apartment with air conditioning, be within walking distance of a cafe and a bakery, and get some kind of cushy office job. Something with computers, especially if I can figure out the hoof-on-keyboard issue.”

What do you think the discussion around the waterhole is every other day when the Ibex come to gather? Probably something like this:

Ibex 1 (Steve): “Hey, it’s pretty hot out there. Bet you could fry an egg out there.”

Ibex 2 (Juan): “Did you guys see Lenny get mauled by that lion yesterday? Brutal.”

Ibex 3 (Trent): “Man, it’d be great if there was more food and water like in the city. We could really use a Starbucks or even a McDonald’s out here. Hey Steve, how do my horns look today? Pretty sharp, I bet.”

Animal Elitists

Giraffes on the other hand, they are the elitists of the animal world. Ever see that extra long neck and those colorful tattoos? They get to eat off the top of the tree, ad don’t have to share their leafy wealth with the commoners (a.k.a. the lions), and they have colors those dirt grubbing lions don’t. They only engage in small talk way up high where no one but the other giraffes can hear them, looking down on the others. Sheer animal elitism, I tell you.

Where does all this  digital small talk leave us? Are we any the wiser for knowing that Ibex are shallow and dumb? Are we richer knowing that tattoos should now be printed/scribed/subcutaneously jabbed on the face and worn proudly for all to see? Is anyone still reading this really long rant as the pain in my left side increases from a 3 to a 7.5 on the wince scale? I am most certainly not. I think I checked out mentally at least 15 minutes ago.

Boy, I really want some chocolate danish.

Lots of love,
Gilgamesh of the North Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Love and Ugliness

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Stanko & Tibor - Love and Ugliness

Love and Ugliness

People* often** ask me why I don’t like to take pictures of myself when confronted with the opportunity to take a “selfie.” I won’t go into the narcissistic, socially-destructive, morally corrupt value of the “selfie” here, as this isn’t what this post or comic is about. There are more practical reasons why I don’t “love” myself enough to take a photo of, uh, myself.

Having recently been nominated in the Oscars category of “Most likely to repulse a member of the opposite or same sex if seen naked,  partially clothed, or even with a bathing suit on”, I decided that I’d be kind to the greater bulk of non-visually impaired humanity and not take any photos of myself that could have potentially caused retinal damage if they were to be spread across the Internet for others to witness.

Ugliness – Physical and Other Kinds, Too

We put too much focus on the physical ugliness of human features, such as faces, hands, feet, bellies, and other kinds of appendages, and not enough on the metaphysical kind. (Note to reader: I don’t really understand the meaning of the word “metaphysical, even when it was explained to me with puppets, but I’ll use it here anyway.)

There is ugliness that transcends the physical and makes its way to the less tangible parts, like the spleen and the soul of a person. It bubbles its way to the surface in the form of either name-calling, bullying or electing people with inferiority complexes who feel they have to have a comb-over that requires a team of NASA engineers and enough hair product to fill an oil tanker. Sort of like that odious bag of genetic pus, Donald Jerk Trump.

He’s not the only metaphysically ugly person on the planet by a long shot. Putin comes a close second, followed in third place by Wayne LaPierre, but I won’t get into a Top 10 list just now as I recently had a strong coffee with breakfast and I can feel the caffeine stirrings in the lower-intestinal region. Safe to say, people who are ugly on the inside are out there en masse.

Love Thy Self – Just Don’t Overdo It

If there was a way to turn all that ugliness into love, maybe the world would be a better place. Or maybe it would help reduce global warming. Let’s look at this scientifically for a moment.

It takes approximately 461 kilojoules (approximately 437 BTUs) of physical and mental energy to come up with a nasty insult that demeans another person’s religion, race or choice of hair styles. (Less if it’s an indiscriminate insult like calling someone “jerk face” because he just cut you off in traffic while texting and driving.) Multiply that by the number of insults and inflammatory comments, alternative fact-based observations hurled on websites, on TV and in print, and you come out to approximately 14 quadrillion BTUs if you’re only considering the American media. Add in the Chinese, Russian, German, French, Mongolian, Indian, and Luxembourger media outlets, and you’re at close 15 quadrillion BTUs. That’s a lot of heat.

Now let’s look at the energy required for love. One love-making energy unit, scientifically known “a soiree of sweaty debauchery”,  between two (or more) mutually consenting people, usually under the influence of alcohol or other psychotropic substances, requires approximately 208 kilojoules, (197 BTUs) and is usually over after 6 or 7 minutes of heated squealing, including foreplay. That’s less than half the energy needed for spouting ugliness.

Now if people across the world spent much more time committing acts of love than hurling ugliness everywhere, we’d see numerous benefits such as a) people spending less time in front of screens, thus using less of earth’s precious natural resources, b) much more napping due to the aforementioned energy expenditure, and when you’re napping you’re pretty much carbon neutral, and c) an increase in chocolate danish consumption (as a means to replace the love energy you burnt off).

Win-win.

Scientifically and doctrinally yours,

Professor Yengeny Schmutz

* = people in this case are confined to my parole office, my court-mandated psychologist, psychiatrist, shock therapist and the civil servant who sentenced me to 30 years of hard labor in the form of marriage

** often in this case refers to the regularly court-designated sessions with the aforementioned people in order to keep me in check

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Harass Or Be Harassed

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Stanko & Tibor - Harass

A Climate of Harassment

So, everyone is getting fired on the male side, politicians, actors, journalists – sadly not any American Presidents, oh the irony  –  and the end is not in sight.  Many men, particularly those with hair, are getting called out for obvious and long-term bad behavior. Harassment galore.  Everyone knows it’s here, it’s not a secret. The cat’s out of the bag. The other shoe has dropped. The chickens have come home to roost. The butcher got his finger in the pickle slicer. No, wait. That last one is from a dirty joke my uncle likes to tell. Skip that.  It all kind of reminds me of the inexorable march of global warming.

You see, sexual harassment and global warming are very much linked in ways you can’t begin to imagine. Only I can, really, especially since the sugar high has just kicked in. Global warming, just like sexual harassment, has many causes, many deniers, and many people saying it’s not their fault. So we are left with the question: How do we slow it down? Or stop it? Or if you’re the racist hypocrite Roy Moore or Donald Trump, or you’re in the fossil fuel business, how do you give less of a shit about it?

Let me answer the global warming angle first because it’s way easier. Sources of rising global temperatures are rife. Anything from too many gas emissions from cattle and sheep grazing in fields in order to satisfy our desire for meat, to coal-fired power plants in China, to gas-guzzling SUVs, to ever increasing consumerism driving up the number of shipments delivered by the UPS/DHL/FedEx folks of the world.

Some say the pace of global warming has even been accelerated by children – by far the least innocent people on the planet – with their devotion to devices with screens that need to be powered with electricity from questionable sources AND the raw crude needed to make the plastic to encase and ship these devices. It’s always the children’s fault. However, another source of heat emissions is staring us in the face every day, and yet we ignore it: It’s bald-headed men.

Regardless of culture or religion or geography, or even shoe size, there are bald men everywhere. The scientific reason why they emit so much heat – and the solution thereto – are patently obvious. Let’s look at the background, shall we? I was informed as a kid that we lose 30% of our body heat from our heads. I had to wear a hat in winter on top of my then existing hair to stay warm. I was responsible for keeping in the heat, and I did, thus sparing the planet somewhat. Therein lies a key answer to slow global warming.

Back in the follicle-rich days, when I’d work out, or dance or chase after something shiny or with breasts, I’d sweat into my hair that would then be trapped in the follicle grease, and drip down the back of my neck and sully my collar. The heat was redistributed from head to neck to clothing, never to be released into the atmosphere.

But as age set in, life began to hurl many indignities upon me, such as heartburn, stress, children, and other worries. As a result, my hair thinned, my pate was exposed for anyone taller than 5 feet and 5 inches (165cm  to you metric types) to see. Since then it has been heat escape on a grand scale. (Note: much hot air used to come overwhelmingly from farts. Still does, but now we have to deal with hot air from the head, too.)

The Solution

Fret not because there is a solution: Solar-powered, air-conditioned toupees. With built-in smart phones. Brilliant, no? You’re probably wondering how I got from global warming to toupees. The answer is simple: my mother cooked with lead pots, poor genetics, mixed medications and a strong propensity for foods with made with industrial sugar. Mix them all together and voilà! But I digress.

Toupees are the answer no one saw coming. In addition to trapping the cranial heat once affixed to a person’s head, and thereby  eliminating a source of global warming, with some keen engineering, we could actually make these super toupees absorb the sun’s heat to then power mini-air conditioners to cool overheated male scalps across the globe. Tack on a smartphone or a similar device with a screen and you’d keep men distracted AND comfortable year round. With a screen in front of them, men wouldn’t have time to play with themselves either. Win-win.

Now some of you in jail are naturally discussing among yourselves ‘Why not just wear wooden caps, pith helmets or baseball hats to cover our masculine heat-emitting heads?’ Because you’d look like a dork if you were wearing a baseball hat at formal occasions, such as weddings, funerals and annual prostate exams. Same goes for pith helmets, although they do possess a level of practicality during the aforementioned prostate exams – you can grab on to the edges of the hat for dear life while the doctor uses his index digit to probe your posterior.

All I ask of you dear reader, is to think about for just a bit, and then send me money to investigate the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of these environmental life-savers. You know, like $50 a person would be a good start.

Wishfully waiting for wampum,
Jose Jimenez Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Shoot! This Is Not The Happiest Post

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Stanko & Tibor - Shoot

Shoot

I can say this won’t be the most uplifting post I have ever tapped on a keyboard, mostly fuelled by chicken soup and residual chocolate danish.

Too much death from guns and hurricanes lately. Some of it man-made, some of it “natural” disasters. It’s clear that it’s “too soon” to have any discussions about gun control, you know, while people are being slaughtered by law-abiding gun-owning citizens. Heaven forbid.

Having the power of life and death over others is pretty heavy-duty, and not exercising that power is not as hard as you’d think if you have half a brain. Obviously there are a lot of people with not even half a brain, which might explain how these gun nuts can get their hands on a literal (not figurative) arsenal of weapons and then use them for target practice on the worst offenders known to humanity – innocent people.

It seems they needed killing because… well, there was no reason they needed killing. The vast majority of people do not need killing. Some do. Hitler needed killing. People who are trafficking humans  need killing. Drug lords need killing. People who believe that killing will make them “one with god” or who call others “infidels” don’t need killing. But maybe they need life in the electric chair on a medium current.

But most of us don’t need death and killing. There’s too much death. Or there are too many people having babies. Too much sexual potency that I am clearly not a part of. I wouldn’t know what that is anymore. Perhaps it’s a question of these sick people feeling a) very important, or b) very impotent. These words sure sound similar, but there is just a minor difference. I’d wager to say it’s option ‘b’ more likely. So take a damn Cialis or Viagra and stop killing people with your “cocked” weapons.

The Question and Answer

Does this surfeit of population and double-surfeit of guns mean we need more death? Probably not.

My solution: Everyone should forcibly given an Internet connection, a subscription to Netflix and Amazon Prime, and then forced to watch every TV show out there until their brains are mush. And unending supplies of chocolate or cinnamon danish, with maybe some mild, brown bean coffee.

I told you this wasn’t the happiest post I have ever made.

Sheepish, sleepy and persnickety,

Carlos “The Platypus” Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Smoking Angry

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Smoking Angry

Smoking Angry – The Lot Of Us

Lately, I think a lot people, everywhere, are smoking angry. There doesn’t seem to be a limit to it, wherever you look. I am not just talking about the putz of a POTUS, but just about anything you can think of.

White nationalists, a.k.a. Nazi-sympathizing fascists, North Korean insanity, international trade disputes, Scaramucci, Kenyan post-election violence,  Venezuela’s descent into an even worse dictatorship (is that possible?), the continued use of tofu in cooking. The list is endless.

And this can’t be good for the general health of the globe. Why, all this stress, all this violence, all this vitriol and bitterness – I’m afraid it will lead to more people taking up smoking.

Now if you’re the type to ask “smoke what?”, well, then I will let you, dear reader, decide if that is to be a legal cigarette, a pipe, a bong, a raft of Cuban cigars, a funny cigarette (for a little while longer), a brisket, a pork shoulder, some bacon, a freshly caught Pacific salmon, or even a caper or two.

Yet, the best course of action may not be to take up smoking in its various forms. Some would suggest exercise to combat the smoking anger. They’re idiots. Others suggest yoga and meditation. Colossal idiots. Retreating into tequila and massive chocolate and/or cinnamon danish consumption? Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.

The Ass That Launched A Thousand Shits

Perhaps getting to the source of the problem is what we need to do to alleviate all this hatred, this anger, this smoking cauldron of negativity. Mostly that would mean getting the POTUS impeached and then thrown into a vat of angry lesbians. But that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

We’re left with an ass in charge of the body politic. And I can assure you every time that ass fires off an alternative fact-based tweet, a misguided missive, a cantankerous comment, there are a thousand people in Washington who utter the word “shit!” He’s gone and done it again, he’s angered up the blood real good.

Retreat, Fight or Nap?

Left with another 3+ years in office and lots of hate-filled, environmentally-destructive and freedom-of-speech-depriving legislation to pass, the options left to the inhabitants of those sort of United States are threefold: retreat, fight or nap.

If you’re the scaredy-cat type, you retreat, try and flee to Canada (hey, it’s cold, people, and Prime Minister Sissy Pants still hasn’t legalized weed yet). If you’re smoking angry, you fight. Well sort of. There’s this #resistance thing going around, but let’s face it, President small-hands was actually duly elected in a democracy (with a lot of fake news, it seems). That leaves you with one option that I am quite fond of: Naps.

Will it bring about change? Nope. Will it fill the airwaves with inspiration and action? Not a chance. Will it lead to less smoking anger and potentially some ruffled sheets? Highly probable.

The Moral

What’s the moral of this story? If you can find one, you’re on more mood-altering medication than me, and you really should take a nap after eating some delicious chocolate babka that will put you into a coma once the sugar-high wears off.

Pontificatingly parochial,

Mozi The Mooch Maldonado-Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Go Into the Weeds! Rid Us of the Ants!

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Into the Weeds with Stanko & Tibor

Emerging Insurgents in the Weeds

Having returned home from work, I passed the tiny, patchy patch of grass and other weeds that co-habitate in front of my place of residence like filthy hippies after a bong hit. Laying about, intertwined and generally useless.  And what was circulating among those invasive weeds? Even filthier six-legged insurgents keen on crawling into my house to search for food that I, or more likely, my filth-generating children, undoubtedly left behind in various nooks and crannies. Ants. Big, small, black, dark brown, far too numerous to count and some were so large they even made a squishy noise when I crushed them.

No matter what I try to keep the garden free of ants, those semi-sentient drones keep coming back and always find ways into our house to eat the scraps of food we have dropped all over the kitchen since we foolishly agreed to host for my many greedy,  usurpatious relatives. That I love, of course.

Dumb But Multitudinous

I cannot understand how, over the eons and millennia of evolution,  that neither the ants nor the weeds have gotten any smarter. You crush them, rip them out, spray them, poison them, curse them while shaking your fist — they don’t learn their lesson. Actually, it’s probably a good thing that the ants haven’t really become any smarter because I think they would have found a way to take their revenge on me for having smooshed so many of their kind over my life. I could well imagine some A-student and Mensa society ants huddling together in a hive, with ant-sized smart boards, notebooks and a PowerPoint presentation having devised a plan to drop a bowling ball on my head. But I digress.

Weeds, conversely, I haven’t killed enough of. You rip them out by the roots, you spray them with illudium phosdex or gasoline, you curse them with a shaman’s fervour, and still, they don’t listen. They come back every week in spring and summer, every year. You’d think one of them would have spread the word to the others by now, but no. Stubborn and relentless.

POTUS Fabric

Neither ants nor weeds are wanted. Anywhere by anyone. They are invaders and despoil beauty. Just like the current POTUS, yet they (and he) still persist, in every garden, every city, every country, continent and country.

Yet accept them we must. We have no choice as they are part of the fabric of life. As we all know the fabric of life isn’t smooth cashmere with a satin liner and Merino wool. It’s more like an itchy, discount wool blend with a polyester weave, surrounded by a lovely layer of wet burlap. Furthermore, this fabric has not been well tailored, there are loose ends, it’s a hideous pastel color, probably mauve and green, and is ill-fitting and creates tremendous lint balls.

But it’s all the fabric we have, so bad parts are there as well as good parts.  Like ants and weeds, we can’t only have the good parts, we have to accept the bad.

Conversely, the ants and weeds that support the current leader of the free world and a bunch of hotels is something everyone has to learn to live with. There is no presidential pest removal service. Well there is, but you have to wait four years to replace him legally or find incriminating photos of him with a Russian prostitute.

Relentless Patience

To remove weeds and ants, one must have patience, perseverance, a large sum of money, a diet high in fibre and chocolate danish, and the ability to take defeat gracefully and with dignity. But stomping and cursing, foaming at the mouth and unspecified acts rage confined to your bathroom only are also helpful in dealing with this intractable problem.

So be sure to accept the situation, do not fly off the handle, unless you know you can win, deal with the unpleasantness as best as you can, and please, for me, destroy some weeds and ants.

Chronically imbalanced and low on sugar,

Facundo Thiago Salvador da Costa Gonclaves Schmidt

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Name Calling and Other Policies

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Stanko & Tibor - Name Calling

Name Calling – Because It Works

A simple yet universally true observation of human behavior: Whenever you are walking anywhere, any place, and there are others afoot around you, you say to yourself “what’s with this moron who is walking too slowly and blocking my  progress?!! Idiot.” Conversely, the person who flies past you at a much greater pace, on his or her way to somewhere important like the toilet or the casino, is inevitably met with the thought “why is that jerk face in such a rush?? What a bipedal asshat he is.” You resort to name calling.

It’s such a natural human behaviour to apply a derogative label to someone you don’t agree with or think is somehow making your life worse. It also applies to people who don’t agree with your view on life, or politics, or any other facet of existence. You call them names because we cannot all just get along. But why do we do it, when we as a species really ought to be trying to chill out and not be so aggressive?

Name calling is so liberating and energizing! Don’t like someone’s religion? They are zealots. They are atheist? They are dirty heretics. Don’t like a country’s leader? Call him (it’s almost always a ‘him’ except for Eva Perón and my 9th grade math teacher) a filthy fascist! Or a dirty communist. Or an inbreed. Or a buck-toothed, cross-eyed yokel. (Note: yokels per se aren’t usually blessed with good access to dental care plans , so that’s not really a fair name calling strategy.)

Whether it be political, financial, sexual or religious orientation, humans have come up with some kind of nasty name to call the other person. And man, does it feel good!

Name Calling – Creativity for All

Name calling is not just convenient for letting off mental steam, and not just because it lets anyone feel superior to anyone else by demeaning the other person. Name calling isn’t just for the short-temepered, uneducated boobs among us. It’s a wonderful form of creative expression open to all (except probably the deaf & mute contingent). As proof, there’s a fantastic Shakespeare Insult Kit you can peruse online. It’s WAY more useful than working at your day job. I’ve heard. Dare I say, it’s a form of abusive art. Kind of like this comic. But I digress.

When have you ever not felt elated and all tingly about calling someone a nasty name? Never, that’s when. It’s such a great outlet. And less costly, most of the time, than shooting a gun. So it could be said that shooting off your mouth is less damaging than shooting off your gun. But I’d have to do some in-depth research involving a gallon of whiskey, some cheap ammunition and profanity-laced episode of Archer to be sure.

Some of the most creative, hurtful, demeaning descriptors I have ever heard were uttered by my father, usually while in traffic. In fact, I seem to recall most name calling and epithet hurling occurred where there were many humans in a crowded space. My goodness – if name calling is a result of high human density, that would explain why genuine New Yorkers are such jerks. I can barely imagine the name calling that goes on iat Costco on a Saturday… such a commercial use of words.

Words Matter. Mostly.

And words do matter, people. Concepts we verbalize or print have tremendous power. If you’re branded “a fat bag of gaseous impotent rage” (a.k.a. Prezeedent Donnie Trump), you’re not going to like it.  Call Vladimir Putin “a soulless, conniving killer who’d murder his own  grandmother if she looked at him crooked” then you’d merely be stating a fact, which is not so much name calling.

I would argue strenuously (as long as it wasn’t too strenuous and made me sweat) that humans cannot live without name calling. Many studies have shown that when you try to convince people of your point of view – with facts, no less, the opposite turns out to be the case. They dig in their metaphorical heels and refuse to believe you even more, no mater how much evidence you give them.

So why spend all that effort gathering fake news or real facts to get someone to agree with you? Way too much effort. Stick with name calling and be done with it.

Name Calling Is Genetic

I would argue based on scant research that name calling is genetically built in to humans. Look at the letters of the genetic code: A, U, G and C. And also sometimes T. If you rearrange them, you get “UGAC” – which derives from Bugac, which is a village in Bács-Kiskun county, in the Southern Great Plain region of southern Hungary. [Editor’s Note: He’s not lying, I fact-checked this and he didn’t make this up.] Anyone who knows anything about Bugacian Hungarians know they are the biggest name callers on the planet and must have been the originators of epithet hurling when they were cavemen. See? It’s in our genetic code!! [Editor’s Note: Now he’s lying big-time.]

I’ll bet you that even the sweetest Buddhist monk, the kindest most peace-loving Bahai, the laziest, most rational atheist couldn’t go half an hour without calling someone, somewhere a nasty name.

The Takeaway

So what is the take-away from this scientifically unfounded rant? Is it that the pleasures of a properly uttered series of insulting words is necessary for the human being to psychologically cope with the mass of genetic stupidity that is the human race (at least when there are no firearms present)? Could it be that there is a primordial need to feel better about ourselves by denigrating others with hurtful descriptors? Or have we reached an age in societal development that now forces us to resort to name calling so as to deal with the tsunami of horrible news that floods our airwaves and media? Or are we just all idiots?

Frankly, you’re all a bunch of half-wit morons for reading this swill.

Lovingly short of sleep and full of sinus issues,

Bugac Druker

I call people nasty names because...

Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

My Pain Threshold Is Low

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Low Pain Threshold

My Pain Threshold Is Low

Recently a shard of a kidney stone decided to break free from the pack and to make its way through parts of my body normally reserved for the passing of yellowy water. Sharp, solid objects, narrow passageways blended with a low threshold for pain make for a human who is not able to focus on things that require deeper thought. Or any thought.

What little thought does occur makes itself known in grunts, screams and utterances, both loud and rage filled, interspersed with deep breaths searching in vain for air to fill the lungs of said person who just hollered non-sensical ravings to the maximum extent of his voice box. I had begun to wonder how something so small could feel like an inflated, toxic blowfish passing through my sensitive areas.

But this raises the pertinent question that no one is asking — nor cares to ask — what other topics cause me, and other humans pain? I won’t descend into rants about government, or sitting through awards shows, like the crappy Oscars, or plucking that errant, wild, evil nose hair. No, I am talking about something simpler that causes societal pain across the globe.

Referential Pain

Why is it that when people walk and text or look at their ‘smart’ phones they slow down their walking pace almost to a crawl? I have run into men, women, children, transgender folks, likely hermaphrodites, religious zealots, misguided youth, the aged, and smart and dumb people, who all decided that that text, that email, that Facebook post was so crucial, so vital to their existence on earth, they had to stop in the middle of a moving stream of smelly humanity (one of them must have eaten 14 cloves of garlic, I swear) to whip out their respective devices and cause me to smash into someone else. And then they get mad at me.

Bastards.

Splitting the Brain

I contend, without any scientific knowledge or alternative facts, that it should be possible to walk AND look at your damn phone simultaneously without losing pace and putting on the brakes. What if you were being chased by Peruvian killer bees or an aggressive carpet salesman and you got a text? Would you slow down then? Would you stop and jeopardize your life and those of others around you because your aunt Frannie posted a picture of herself and her new, post-divorce bohunk Raoul on the beach, swilling rum-laced fruit drinks?

How much brain power does it take to walk and use your eyes?  Trump can do it, and sexually harass a woman at the same time, while saying “this is gonna be huge.” That’s three things at once without slowing down.

What is it about the damn mobile phone that turns us into immobile idiots? Are our brains so weak and unevolved that all motor skills, particularly those that involve humans walking in front of me, have to cease, thus causing me to awkwardly dive to the left and smash into the aforementioned hermaphrodite selling some kind of alternative literature that no one reads?

Nonplussed

This state of affairs leaves me nonplussed and in pain. Metaphorical pain mostly, and physical pain, too. But that last one has more to do with the kidney stones. Clearly it has affected me.

Curmudgeonly and hairy,

Rajiv Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

How To Replace Democracy – Choose Your Price

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Stanko & Tibor - The Price of Democracy

How To Replace Democracy – Choose Your Price

There was a report recently stating that if automobile makers want to reduce the weight of their vehicles, they will have to use more plastic parts because they are lighter. What is a key ingredient used to make plastic? Petroleum, the main ingredient in gasoline. So to reduce the amount of fuel vehicles use, they need to use parts made from the stuff needed to make gasoline. There is a price to pay for progress. Ironic. Or is that coincidental? I don’t know. English isn’t my mother tongue.

The same irony is valid when applied to democracy. To make it more useful, relevant and effective, you need more people to come out and vote. But participation rates in democracies have been going down for lots of reasons that I won’t speculate on here, largely, because I will employ far more profanity than usual, and after all, profanity should be reserved for use in the home, classrooms and inside your motor vehicle, where it’s best applied.

Furthermore, of those who come out to vote, most probably aren’t informed on all the issues and vote with their hearts and not their heads. Or they vote against someone or something rather than voting for someone or some idea. We can identify what and who we dislike more easily that what or who we like. Yet, if they knew the price of not voting, or voting with their hearts, maybe they’d reconsider. Or maybe not.

Solution: Price Democracy

Let’s apply some speculative and questionable pricing theory. Democracy needs to be priced properly for it to have relevance and value. You see, when you put a price on something suddenly you give it value you can calculate. Can you put a price on free speech or freedom? Well, it’s hard, but I’d say it’s worth at least $100, before taxes. Maybe a little more if I can print profanity-laced t-shirts and hand them out randomly. But I digress.

Conversely democracy could be priced in an inverse sense — meaning, if you don’t go out and vote, it’ll cost you some real cash. Like $20. OK, maybe that’s too low. Make it $30. But negative incentives tend not to work. Even if you got a tax break for voting in municipal, state or national elections, most people would skip it anyway because the outcome would suck anyway.

Bundling Democracy at the Right Price

What if democracy and voting came in a packaged bundle?  Much like mobile phones and cable TV subscriptions, if you could sign up for the democracy bundle that meets your budget and needs, you maybe be encouraged to vote.

Sure, right now, I get the right to free speech, and other services like health care, fire and police protection and sanitation. But what if I could get a free movie every month along with my right to vote? Or if I pay more, I could get 5 or more votes for any given election.

I bet if voting was tied to having your Internet connection cut or maintained, people would come out in droves to vote. Vote or we’ll cut off your Internet. That would scare the piss out everyone. On the other hand, if you could get increased upload/download speeds on your Internet connection if you went out an voted, that might be a good incentive. Or free dope.

Discount Democracy

Or better yet, you get a discount on your cable/TV/internet/mobile phone bill for each vote you make AND you get to kick someone at the cable/TV/internet/mobile company where you’re subscribed right in the privates for the crappy customer service and time wasted on hold when you need help with your erroneous and unjustly exorbitant bill.

What about loyalty voting points if you vote for one party every election? You’d get a loyalty card that could trade for privileges like a plane ticket to a warm vacation resort, or your street gets paved before the others in your neighbourhood. That happens now anyway  in a lot of places, but you have to be intimately linked to organized crime, and that means having to fill in my calendar with even more appointments at brothels and cheap motels than usual, and I’m too busy for that.

And if all else fails, we move to a democracy pricing model based on the single model that has shown itself to be more reliable and accurate than any other since academics and computational models became all the rage: We guesstimate the price like on the The Price Is Right.

Insincerely friendly,
Jean-Baptiste Colbert Druker of NDG

How would you improve democracy?