Category Archives: Day-to-Day

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

Unbelievability and Aging

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Aging & Bin Laden Diaries

Aging Eyes, Aging Mind

As I went up the escalator on my way to work, and choosing not to take the crowded stairs full of desk drones like me on their way to an office job to be humiliated by having to work off debts incurred by shopping too frequently online and at Costco, I noticed the derriere of the person in front of me.

It was a woman, she couldn’t have been more than 20 or so, who had managed somehow to insert herself into a pair of jeans, so tight and form-fitting that spandex would have looked loose and flowing by comparison. I know what you’re thinking. He’s about to launch into some depraved diatribe about lascivious thoughts and reminiscing about his misspent youth. You’d only be partially correct.

You see, aging very clumsily and ungracefully as I am, my capacity for unholy thoughts has eroded over time, not unlike the Grand Canyon. It was once, millions of years ago, a vast plain, grassy, verdant, lush, rife with life. In the intervening eons, it has become a dry, barren place with many canyons, little water running through it and many stones. Come to think of it, that’s a great metaphor for my kidneys and the attached kidney stones (another quirk of aging and poor genetics).

But I digress.

Diminished But Not Defeated

Aging has made me think differently, largely due to diminished mental and physical capacities, and multiple frayed telomeres — due to refined sugar abuse — on the genes that control my sanity and body hair (they are interlinked and march in lockstep it would seem).

Back to the astoundingly tight jeans. This woman obviously felt the need to wear something that would make her feel good and perhaps even attractive in the minds of many men. Ok, fine. But my next thoughts were around her physical health. Encumbered breathing and a lack of circulation must have ensued three minutes after she zipped up those jeans. then I thought, maybe it isn’t fashion, maybe she has a medical condition like those post-op patients who have to wear those circulation stockings to keep the blood from descending to her feet thus preventing swollen ankles. Could be.

However, the father in me then took over the runaway freight train of thought and it led me to think I would kill my daughters if they ever dressed like that! It’s not that I would prevent them, I’d merely freak out and shout and holler. Paradoxically, it’s unbelievable and unfathomable that a person with my dark track record and multiple damaged, recessive genes could have such protective thoughts of my daughters and concern for others as opposed to my once default mode of launching into some pornographically themed tour de force. Parenting messes you up and alters your universal truths you held so dear.

Truth, Shmuth

What does this have to do with the theme of this installment of the comic once labelled as “the purest form of libel and a pretext for annexation anytime I feel like it” by President Vladimir Putin while skinny dipping in the Volga with his concubine? Like the subject of alleged (and highly fictional) secret diaries of Osama Bin Laden I make reference to, who knows what is truth anymore? It’s whatever we want it to be if we ignore fact-based science and don’t watch Cosmos.

What would have been considered once to be an absolute truth (e.g. I’m a pure deviant) may only partially be true now that children have crushed my will to engage in acts that could have led to procreation for fear of the results (more debt). What was once utterly unbelievable (butter isn’t so bad for you after all, mom) is now maybe sheer truth. Or not.

Then again, I am doing a comic about fake Bin Laden diaries because I couldn’t think of anything better to amuse you with so what do I know.

May peace, or at least stalemate, be yours and mine,

Henry Druker-Kissinger

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

Panic In the State of Travel

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Stanko & Tibor - The Fake Diaries

Travel Panic

My Dearest Readers,

Many of you thought I was dead or buried or lost in the woods again. Some of you even had a party to celebrate the fact you hadn’t been bombarded by a comic/blog in months. The tears of joy were flowing like beer at a keg party. Well, it’s time time to disappoint you and at the same time spin a yarn of truth from my past travels. You can read it here or read the comic first, shake your head in disgust and then read the blog. Pick your poison.

As I was exiting the metro the other morning, I had a near death experience that involved another human being. OK, “near death” might be too strong, but there would have been a head wound, or massive contusions had I not ceded to the greater force, bi-pedally barreling toward me. Like most people, I wanted to beat the rush up the escalator so I could walk relatively unimpeded toward my place of work another 10 minutes away. You know what I mean, you are going somewhere, fighting the current of humanity rafting along at different speeds, each to his or her own, and sometimes, there is a counter-swimmer coming at you, unswerving, unflinching, filled with primordial purpose and not letting anything or anyone get in her way.

Yes, I said ‘her’ because it was a person of the female persuasion who nearly steamrolled me as I exited the metro car. Her height matched mine, her girth I would estimate was slightly greater by a percentage of 10-15%, despite wearing slimming black clothing. So much for that fashion theory. Regardless, gender isn’t important to the story, but it does give me some time and material to work with as I fumble for the next sentence.

Out-thought

You know there are those computers like Deep Blue from IBM that can out-think humans, as if our mushy brains were mere amoebae? Well, in this particular instance, I can tell you Deep Blue would have lost to me on this do-or-die calculation. It took less time than an electron traveling at the speed of light for my addled brain to recognize, calculate, panic, interpret and react to a ‘what if’ situation that, had I misread, would have left me bloodied and in a wheel chair with severed tendons, and no doubt with months worth of psychological scarring requiring some kind of therapy (either drug, shock or both) to cure.

Traveling Electrons Or Packets of Data Stupidity

Just before leaving the metro car, I thought for a brief second that we desk drones are not unlike a stream of data packets or random electrons being magnetically sucked along by the great universal nuclear forces of nature — namely, work, debts and the need to get laid, promoted or not fired so we can afford to eat Pop Tarts and buy useless electronics that discourage copulatory activities in the bedroom. We course along from place to place, occasionally bumping into other electrons, usually with a purse or a backpack and questionable hygiene. Like packets of data following an Internet Protocol through some giant metaphoric coaxial cable controlled by a soulless cable company gouging us monthly, we live only to reassemble at another end place, as biological data, semi-ready to spew out baseless facts, questionable opinions, faux expertise and highly unworkable ideas. Kind of like CNN since Ali Velshi left.

When that moment of deep thought passed like methane from my behind and the doors slid open and I leapt out of the metro, I was confronted at that very next moment by a woman, large of breasts, dark of dress and quite cross-eyed, wearing a tight bun hairdo that only emphasized her pale-skinned face thusly emphasizing her dark pupils peering at the bridge of her nose as she focused intently, crazed, maniacally on getting into that metro car I had just got out of so she could make it presumably to her place of work, or more hopefully to the eye surgery clinic.

Calculations, Calculations, Calculations

In that fraction of a second it took to realize at a primordial level, a level that is probably beneath that of the synapse and maybe even molecular, I was facing down a force with bouncing, prodigious breasts that needed a higher cut top or a tighter bra, and laser-focused eyes (one of them being particularly askew) with beady, robot-like middles. Somewhere a calculation took place in my cerebral cortex, and maybe a partially shrunken frontal lobe, involving force, velocity, height, weight, violent determination, body mass index and body hair.

The interpolation and extrapolation of these variables resulted in a part-cerebral, part gut-level decision. You see when two utterly opposing forces confront each other, with one of those forces barreling ahead like a runaway locomotive and the other convinced he’s justified in cutting off the dude to his right in that hipster suit with those massive headphones on, something elemental happens.

What that was I’m not sure, but a recessive gene kicked in that made me deft like Baryshnikov for but a moment, able to avoid potential disaster, and I twisted my body and slid aside at a 63º angle to the left purely out fear and knowing I would get tackled, crushed and trampled by someone whose sole intent was to make it to that metro car before the doors closed.

Nature’s survival mechanism worked flawlessly that day. There was no male hubris (I lost it in a poker game when I was 16. I bet the house when I had a pair of twos, a 3, a 7 and that card from the manufacturer with the rules of poker on it) to cloud my vision, and thusly butt heads (or in this case, breasts) with a dominant life form where the outcome was certain. Discretion wasn’t so much the better part of valor, rather it was the only way I could make it work relatively unscathed.
Lovingly,
Sir Monty Halfwit of Bumspankashire

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

Hibernation Consternation

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Stanko & Tibor - Back

Dear readers of the written word (way easier to read those than the spoken ones, I am told), you have been warned, alerted, messaged and poked. The hibernation has ended, and the resulting consternation begins. Let me elaborate in between bites of my Oreos.

Hibernation

It has been quite some time since I last enlightened (a.k.a. polluted) the world with yet another tour de force of the artistic/comedic kind, and many of you had very quietly (a little too quietly) suspected that I had either given up the ghost or was suffering from the early onset of death brought on by a pronounced case of cyanosis from being left out in the emotional cold.

Come to think of it, the lack of concern about this hibernation is troubling, because you all should have been flailingly up in arms over the fact that I was virtually no-existent in the virtual world of cartooning and comedic buffoonery. Then again it was a very cold winter here in North America with snow, cold, wind, snow and I think some frosty snow.  That could have prevented the frantic arm-waving, although my mom told me it’s a great way to warm up and make other people think you’re unstable so they leave you alone at shopping malls.

Which, had I listened to my mother like a good boy and done like she instructed, would have made my most recent excursion to Costco, that hell hole of a money-sucking armpit that knows just how to get me to part with cash using crappy lighting and industrial sized packages of cheese sticks, less horrendous and eye-wateringly painful. Waving my arms with reckless abandon would have probably had a parting of the Red Sea effect just long enough for me to get through the dairy section unmolested by people of questionable hygiene habits to get the 4 liter bag of milk my kids devour like Rob Ford on crack.

But I digress.

I did not truly hibernate, nor did I truly retreat into a cave. I just took some time to see what it would be like to be a leech on society. Not as bad as I thought.  To be honest, so many of the past months were spent in a creative cocoon of sorts, time I used to learn, to draw, and to write ideas for this blog/cartoon. Ideas and sentences and paragraphs that will to some degree wind up in edited form in the soon to be published e-book that covers the last 5 or so years of Stanko & Tibor, the tome that brought shame to an entire family, and a lot of money to highly trained psychiatrists and paranormal psychologists trying to figure out what the hell makes me tick.

Consternation

As for the consternation part of it, no doubt will I expound upon topics of such great import, such earth-shattering significance, such gravity-altering force that it will shake the foundations of science, art, home gardening, basket-weaving and philosophy to their very cores. It will fill minds with synapse-provoking anxiety and mental disquietude, not unlike being on a roller coaster when that listeria-filled hot dog leads to diarrhea that kicks in when you’re at 3.5g and there’s nowhere to go.

Topics such as modern dentistry, body hair, productivity and global warming as it relates to male pattern baldness and DNA will be explored to a degree unknown by people outside of a mental institution or on serious meds. There was also an idea for something akin to the fake Hitler diaries, but using Bin Laden and maybe a goat as a love interest. I haven’t sussed that one out yet, but with my sugar intake of late being best described as ‘prolific’, ‘shocking’, ‘like Rob Ford on crack’ and ‘pronounced’, it won’t be long before I have a battery of ideas to assault you, the dear reader, with, and hopefully create some of the aforementioned consternation.

So let’s get right to it. Enjoy another installment of the creation that Neil de Grasse Tyson calls “cosmic doo-doo” and my lawyer calls “probable cause.”

Hauntingly handsome and devilishly hairy,

Rocco Druker

 

 

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

Hands and iPads

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iPad & First World Problems

 

To the readers of this visual rag often used as shock therapy on societal deviants, or when printed on paper, as a resource for papier maché or to line bird cages and stuff walls as cheap insulation, please read on and hang on.

First of all, Happy New Year. As I write this, I am laboring under the nastiest of heads colds and sinus infections this side of the universe. If there were a pressure gauge to detect the pounds per square inch, or for the metrically inclined, bar (no, not an alcohol kind of bar, you Philistines), I could crush diamonds in my sinuses.

More importantly, please read the rantings, ravings and ramblings herewith written when I was in the kitchen after I had a mighty strong cup of coffee.

The Battle for Our iPads

There is a battle going on, one that none of us foresaw, one that could and may well shake the very foundations of democracy. Or dermatology. You see, I discovered either an unintended consequence or much more likely a dastardly cabal of a plot of a conspiracy not long after I got my iPad. Before you roll your eyes in derision and disbelief, go get a drink of something alcoholic, preferably several glasses worth, or take another mood enhancing pill, or sniff some glue. Then come back and you will see that what I am about to propose isn’t as preposterous as it seems.

Now that you have sufficiently impaired your judgment, I can reveal this evil plot unto you, much like the prophets of yore who often had the word of truth revealed unto them, usually after starving themselves for weeks, hiding out in a cave and subsisting on dates and dripping water, or getting hammered on a giant biblical bender, or they smoked some “magical healing herbs” and had some kind of weird dream.

The Source

Not so long ago, some health authorities in North America began preaching frequent hand washing as a way to prevent the spread of germs and microbes. “Wash your hands repeatedly”, they said, “otherwise death would come stalking at the pizza restaurant or meat counter.”

So, we as germophobe North Americans began the installing of hand sanitizers and soap dispensers at every possible corner and venue, to the point where airlines will give you free hand sanitizers but charge you extra for using the toilet. But there’s more to this crackpot theory. Not much, but enough to justify at least one or two more paragraphs, while I sip my coffee.

Simultaneously with this campaign of fear and sanitization, the iPad was introduced. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

So what do the iPad and obsessive hand washing have to do with each other? If there is one thing I hate, and I am sure many other OCD and equally chemically imbalanced people do as well, it’s having a tablet screen, or a smart phone with filthy fingerprints and grease streaks all over it.

[Note to reader: My father is not among those who are troubled by filth on his screens or his glasses. In fact, he is the polar opposite. It’s a miracle he can see anything through his glasses or on his iPad as they are both covered with a layer of grease so deep and impenetrable that this filth slick has since been added to the accidents of the Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill as long-term environmental disasters. But I digress.]

It’s so disgusting to see a screen like that, we can do two things to remedy this: 1) clean the screen every minute of every day, 2) we can wash our hands 24 times a day and rid ourselves of the natural oils we produce that keep our hands from cracking open.

Greece and Grease?

Ah, but therein lies the conundrum that has plagued mankind since the well documented and infamous lamb and chicken souvlaki salmonella outbreak of 538 B.C. that had rivers running brown and wiped out most of the  Mediterranean trade and tourism for 6 weeks due to a questionable food stand next to the Acropolis managed by a hairy guy named George:

Do we wash our hands to make sure our tablet screens are grease and microbe-free, and then buy gallons, liters and vats of scented and unscented hand creams to a) keep the natural moisture balance nature intended us to have and b) keep the stock prices of Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble and Beiersdorf (makers of Nivea) at all-time highs? Or do we live with the grease and oil smears on these devices and pray we don’t misread our emails from the penis enlargement pill salesmen and click “Buy Now” accidentally (or just tell everyone it was an accident and take shipment wearing a hat and dark sun glasses)?

Plots, Cabals and Conspiracies – It’s True I tells Ya

Before you answer that with a swift and violent click of the Delete button and a review of your junk filter settings to block this site forever, consider this well validated fact: I was told by a guy I met at the doctor’s office renewing his anti-psychotic prescription, who heard it from his estranged lover, who knows a psychic out in L.A. named Shamu Xamu, who read somewhere on the Internet, that Steve Jobs used to smoke marijuana with the U.S. Surgeon General together with a bunch of nervous Jewish grandmothers concerned about their grandchildren’s dietary habits.

It is said Jobs had invented a tablet-like computer and a phone that showed up greasy finger stains and streaks like nothing else before, and that the users would become addicted to these devices like heroin with a cocaine chaser and possibly put off having sex with their significant others just to surf the Web and play Solitaire and buy crap on Amazon.

This cabal of Mr. Jobs, the Surgeon General and the nervous Jewish grandmothers saw a way to correct society’s ills and make a killing. They would convince the world subtly that these devices were indispensable, but at the same time, the unending smears and greasy finger marks would compel their addicted OCD users to wash their hands 34 times a day so the screens would be clean, yet as a result of the dry, oil-free hands, these addicts would be forced to purchase billions of bottles and tubes of hand cream and hand sanitizer to keep the balance of a clean screen and healthy, microbe-free hands in check.

Mr. Jobs, being the savviest of this twisted conspiracy, delivered unto us the iPad and iPhone, and simultaneously invested heavily, very sinisterly, in companies that manufactured these moisturizing and sanitizing agents. Then post-release of his hypnotic i-Devices, the uptick in hand cream sales soared. His wealth and power were virtually limitless. Then he died because of his vegan diet.

Not so crazy at it sounds, eh?

Churlish and girlishly yours,
Consuela the cleaning lady Druker

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

Everyday Fun In My Underwear

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To ye who have landed here, either intentionally or accidentally, to read the irrational, you really should update your GPS to avoid such places, but please keep reading.

Guilt - Stank & TiborAs my left arm heals slowly from the flu shot I received, with that oh-so lingering ache as a sign that medical science might prolong my life, I vaguely recall the needle puncturing the skin and then the muscle with what I hope will defend me against the tide of ever evolving strains of the flu. I thought to myself (as opposed to out loud as my doctor has recommended), is there a better way to ensure I have a strong immune system and prevent illness? As that warm, 2-second injection of liquid into my body took place, I winced and was happy it was over.

The Best Defense – Poison

But I still hadn’t devised a new way to keep my defenses up that doesn’t involve shots, sprays, exercise or pills.  However, I may have unintentionally been taking the Rasputin route, with an Asian twist, building up my immunity through exposure to poison.

Having eaten at many a Chinese food restaurant in my life, and never having gotten very violently ill from ingesting unidentifiable meats in batter or peanut sauce at places that didn’t have sanitation or hygiene in their top 10 priorities, I like to think I have inoculated myself to some degree against some forms of salmonella or other food-borne sicknesses.

In fact, one of my friends stated unequivocally that these acts of bravery simply called “eating Dim Sum” have gone some way to making sure that when the next bio-terror attack comes my way my immune system will say “hey, that looks like the bacteriophage we saw after he went for the Lucky Dragon $8 lunch special. No biggie.”

And Fiber Made It Good

I took the additional healthy step to try to eat more fiber in all its forms (fruit, veggies, meats, cake, beer, and maybe some pizza). This is in an effort to balance the bad stuff I ingest, and as fiber is wont to do, help it exit my digestive system more easily. I even took a risk and bought these fruit bars, no nuts, no chocolate, no granola. Just fruit. Granted, one box of bars has the equivalent of a football field’s worth of processed sugar cane in it, but if it didn’t, I can’t imagine why anyone in the Western Hemisphere would eat them.

Furthermore, I can’t figure out why the producers of these bars have to give the flavors stupid names, like Wildberry. What is that? Are these berries that are ADHD and can’t sit down when in class? What makes them so wild? Bad parenting that led to them getting tattoos or something? Should they have been sent to military school for ‘re-education’? Are they the berries that broke free from the conveyor belt at the food processing plant, as they feared a life as a sugary concentrate that would be shipped to Costco outlets across the country? Did these wildberries roll madly for freedom across the filthy factory floor, but were scooped up at the last second by the minimum wage labor from Mexico only to be put back into the concoction that is my fruit fiber bar? Whatever, they are tasty.

Success Leads To Upset

So far my plan has worked as my toilet time is less fraught than it used to be. Which has given me time to focus on other things, such as the label on the back of my underwear. (I know, you were thinking I would say something like giving my time to charity, or digging a well in Africa to hide the bodies.)

Everyday Fun In My Underwear
Click to enlarge (if you dare)

It seems someone in the marketing department had a brainstorm of an idea after consuming no doubt some heroin and a vodka chaser, and decided to put a marketing slogan on the underwear label that reads “Everyday Fun.” (I noticed this piece of ‘guerrilla marketing’ as I pondered the beautifully laid tiles and grouting  work on the floor while on the toilet as there was no reading material afoot, not even my iPhone.) I don’t know about you, but the last time I had ‘everyday fun’ in my underwear was probably when I was 13 and grabbing at myself all the time and I didn’t stop until I turned 16 when I went on a date with a live girl who frowned on that kind of  behavior in the movie theater.

But really, who thought of everyday fun and underwear? Men’s underwear isn’t usually a fun subject. It’s utilitarian and practical. Men don’t often put ‘fun’ and ‘underwear’ in the same sentence unless said under-briefs are a) edible, and b) the male’s partner in events of a copulatory nature is open to experimentation and quirky tastes.

To be even more blunt, what goes on in men’s underwear every day is more like a small scale war in the Middle East, what with all the gas-passing and fart bombs being dropped. Not to mention the stains a.k.a. “racing stripes” that require industrial strength detergents, ancient spells and dark potions to remove the soiling. So how did everyday fun get into this, I’d like to know?

I’ll bet if you interviewed any pair of men’s underwear on any given day you’d hear things like “It was horrible. He went jogging in the summer heat, no talcum powder, hadn’t showered that morning either. And he sweats — everywhere! Then when he stopped, and I hung there, praying the end would come soon and he’d toss me in the washing machine, he sat on a park bench, crossed his legs and squished me against his privates. The horror, the horror…” (Cue sound of uncontrollable sobbing, and then a shotgun blast as the camera fades to black)

So, the lesson here is to be careful when and how you eat fiber, treat your underwear nicely because it ain’t fun and games down there, and if you do eat lunch at the Chinese restaurants I do, bring penicillin or close your eyes tightly if you ever walk through the kitchen. You’ll wish you didn’t.

Stylishly direct, fashionably blunt, and always yours,

Coco Chanel Druker IV

 

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint

Move Along Now Mr. Artisanal

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Mr. Artisanal

If the literate among you are reading this, it means the therapy hasn’t worked properly. But read on in any case.

The great Greek philosopher Heraclides, a student of Plato and a man known to like his ouzo cold and his lamb kabobs hot, gave us the insightful quote “The only constant is change.” Some say he was a great thinker, others say he was a genius.

He was an idiot.

Heavy Research Into Gender Reassignment

After much clinical research in an unlicensed basement apartment below a tattoo parlor, which itself was below street level, as well as heavy number-crunching from numbers I randomly came up with when I fell asleep on my key board, the ultimate, dare I say Platonic truth is that change really isn’t the only constant. Stupidity is. Let’s examine the evidence.

While I was in the hospital today with my father, as he recovered from being sliced open and butterflied like a 77-year old package of recently boiled Coorsh or Schwartz’s smoked meat so they could restore his porous, crooked spine to a state that could support his Dilaudid-filled body again, we talked about what would be his next operation. I suggested instead of his knee or his personality, maybe a gender reassignment operation. Then it dawned on me — why the heck do we call it “gender reassignment” when “sex change” was a perfectly apt description?

The words “gender reassignment” sound like a kind of operation where the doctors would reassign his sexual bits to different parts of his body. Maybe they’d put his penis on forehead? His testicles could go underneath his armpits? That would be quite the reassignment. But had I used the now passé “sex change operation” I would have been calling it what is it. I fell prey to being stupid and using something abstract to describe something concrete.

Ugly Women

So why does this qualify as stupidity? First of all, my father would make a very ugly woman if he would have a sex change operation. He doesn’t have the legs for it, he gets 5 o’clock shadow, and he can barely walk in flat shoes let alone anything with a heel. But I digress.

Stupidity rears its ugly head not just in medical descriptions, and more prevalent of late, idiots on the Internet trying to commit stunts of bravery and stupidity in the name of fame (or infamy). Through a form of vocabulary abuse and trickery, us North Americans let ourselves be abused by the various marketing departments into buying crap because of how we name it. The biggest idiocy perpetrated is the word “artisanal” being attached to any product to make it seem more unique, more handcrafted. And to be able to charge 20% more for nothing.

Abuse of Art

Artisanal bread? Well, it could be hand-crafted by some bread fetishist who failed out of fine arts. Artisanal jams, jellies, fruit, cheeses, meats – maybe, but it’s a stretch. How much artistic handcrafting goes into meat, I ask you? Is the salami you bought beveled and shellacked in such a way as to elicit the word “craftsmanship” or are you looking for something salty, fatty and garlicky that goes well on rye bread with some mustard when you’re at the meat counter of the deli?

Lately I have seen “artisanal” attached to items that I don’t think genuinely qualify as being passionately created by a skilled craftsman (or craftswoman). For example, they attached artisanal to the following: men’s undershirts, power tools, condoms, paper, tampons, hand towels, aluminum foil, and I think I saw “artisanal iPhone” somewhere recently, although I could be mistaken.

I think this could all be summed up by examining the word artisanal itself If you look at its constituent components, it reads “Art Is Anal” which I think we could all agree upon after at least five or six shots of ouzo is pretty ass-backwards and yet tellingly creative of me. Furthermore, if we return to our original statement from Heraclides, an ancient Greek guy, who most likely hung around the boys locker room rubbing his hands in glee like a perverted Benny Hill character, we can see where the “anal” part of “artisanal” comes from. On a tangentially related note, my therapist cousin pointed out to me some time ago that this word is made of “the” and “rapist.” She aid it, not me.

That, my dear readers, and those who pretend to read to avoid discussing banal subjects with their significant other over breakfast, was a truly artisanal use of language. I think I will burn in hell for this post.

Smitten like a sex kitten,
Bartelby T. Scrivener-Druker upon Tyne, Just South of the River Thames Near Yon Burning Garbage Fire

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

Healthy Self-Defense

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Stanko & Tibor

To you the readers who are forced to read this as part of your plea bargain,

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about health issues in the family. Who’s got it, who doesn’t, who’s flaunting it and who knows nothing about it. Turns out some of us in the family are more into health issues than others. Why, even I, the junk food eating guru to the stars, have embraced a device to help me monitor my physical activity (it keeps sending me a message saying I’ll be dead soon if I don’t stop watching TV), as well as my sleep patterns and duration of said sleep (which are, respectively, dangerously erratic and woefully short).

Am I relying on technology to help me? No, it’s just a toy I can use to talk about at non-existent parties I never get invited to. But it has come in handy on those when I did do exercise or managed more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep without “the night terrors.” Yet this toy is merely an external device to help me look at things differently. It takes knowledge to be able to make choices that better me and my health, and you have to be careful about what people tell you is good for you.

5 Death Foods – No Bacon Cheeseburgers However

Most recently I was informed there are 5 things I should avoid eating to live a healthier life. Oddly, they skipped over the bacon cheeseburgers, so I am good with that. However, one of them was strawberries. Apparently, due to the high usage of pesticides and their residues, we shouldn’t eat that many of them. Which got me to thinking (because of too much caffeine and free time, really). I concluded I would be remiss – nay, dare I say,negligent and irresponsible to NOT feed strawberries to my children.

I see it this way. Rasputin long ago knew that by ingesting small amounts of poisons, he could build up an tolerance to them thus leading a long and fruitful life without fear of dying from the hemlock-laced vodka handed to him  by his enemies. Look how well that worked for him. He now has his own Wikipedia entry!

By illogical extension, I would be a responsible parent if I let my kids have all the strawberries they could ever eat, thus giving them the chance to build up this tolerance to these poisons. Kind of like increasing your alcohol tolerance when you were university. By the end of your first semester, you could drink a keg of beer and only have a mild hangover.

Furthermore, it would be wrong of me as a parent to deny them the preservative-laden junk food I eat if I want them to live a long time. Is there a risk of cancer? Well, sure, but I could just as easily get hit by a car being driven by a cancer patient fleeing his chemotherapy on the way to eating a bacon cheeseburger. See how logical it all is?

I would still insist my kids eat veggies and other healthy options (also probably covered in dirt and bugs and pesticides) but there has to be balance. They need a good self-defense against the evil-doers of the fruit world.

Poison Control
Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputin

Fencing

Speaking of self-defense, why is fencing still an Olympic sport? I think there are maybe 26 people in the world who still do it, and frankly, I am not sure what societal benefits it brings. Wrestling makes sense. We need that sport for homo-erotic entertainment and it comes in handy when your child runs away from you and won’t take his or her medicine. The decathlon also makes sense to keep. I often have to run distances to avoid the police. Frequently, I want to toss a javelin at people I don’t like, so I should be prepared for that discipline. But fencing?

The 4 Truths

First of all, they have masks, so no one can poke an eye out. Mega-Sissies. No one wears a mask when fly fishing and you can easily poke an eye out there.

Second, they wear masks (yes, I’m repeating myself, but I am struggling for material to write), and they taught me in management school, never wear a mask unless it’s Halloween, you have an unhealthy fetish for 17th century French garb and you’re going the ball that evening, or conversely, you’re firing someone and they might spit in your face.

Third, they are all in white, which increases dry cleaning bills – especially if they manage to draw blood (although with those sissy epee thingies that look like they could use some Viagra, I can’t see how). Or if they’re eating a sausage with mustard and sauerkraut before the match. The percoehtylene needed to clean that would be astronomical! The damage to the environment from the dry cleaning alone should ban the sport.

Banking On Fencing, Are We?

Lastly, when am I allowed to use fencing in daily life? I can’t use it at the bank because they have this thing about wearing a mask in a financial institution.  Doesn’t work at the passport office because I’ll lose my place in line if I parry a thrust from some one cutting in line and I lose my footing on the carpet. I can’t use it at work as it’s considered a menacing management technique in meetings and during performance reviews. And let’s not talk about the bedroom! If I say I am “wielding a sword-like device” one more time, I’ll be on the couch again.

What does all this have to do with anything? Without  a healthy self-defense, we’re left only with self-offense. That, my friends, makes even less sense that the crap I wrote above.

Unflinchingly, undyingly and ungainly yours,
Jabba Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Interlude to The Commandments

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Stanko & Tibor - Winterlude Interluds

To my fondest adherents (mostly they are incarcerated),

So much is made of laws and customs and social morays, how without them it would be anarchy, chaos, or like shopping at Walmart on a Saturday morning when the grannies and families are out for bargains at the cost of someone else’s blood. I am not sure we really heed these laws and customs, or even “best practices” (there’s a load of crapola if I ever heard one). Bear with me while I bare down on the imagined argument I am about to lay out (figuratively, of course, because if I were to lay it out literally, it would involve using a lot of paper or white sheets and a movie projector and I don’t have a permit for that).

A common refrain I think I hear in my family as we either age or have sinus infections is “that’s how wars are started.” This refers quite simply to one party having misheard the other and a minor argument has ensued or shouting. Or the shouting is needed to repair the miscommunication because we’re all deaf or listening to something way too loud on our respective i-devices that Mr. Jobs gave us before he the cold finger of vegetarian death claimed him.

My point being miscommunication and mishearings are often at the heart of what’s wrong with the world (that’s not counting religious or political zealots, both of whom seem to like raising taxes). Oh sure, there have been some horrible occurrences in the past when the message was loud and clear (yes, I’m referring to Hitler, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Apartheid, Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, or the owners of many sports teams).

Yet so much death and violence and ugliness could have been spared had we all just listened to each other, or turned on our hearing aids.

10 best practicesLet’s suppose for a minute that the story of Moses getting the word of God on Mt. Sinai actually happened. There are people out there on the globe who scoff at this story, others who believe it wholeheartedly, and many, many somewhere in Mongolia fondling an ox, or on a beach resort in Bali too blasted from the hedonistic hellishness from the night before to really give a rat’s ass about this. But let’s take this as a basis for Western culture’s biggest misunderstanding: The 10 commandments

I contend without any formal training or guidance, and possibly with one glass 10-year old of port too many and 23 nights too few of proper sleep that if we posit that Moses did receive the commandments lo those many weeks ago, he must have misunderstood something. If Hollywood is to be believed, when Moses was up there on the Mount, there was thunder, lightning, a burning shrub (most likely from the lightning, or maybe God tossed a lit cigarette uncaringly out of a cloud – smoking was much more acceptable back then).

It would follow logically that Moses, who by that time must have been dehydrated from climbing Mount Sinai without a Sherpa guide or oxygen tanks and a North Face jacket, was a little dizzy and maybe took down the commandments by shorthand and couldn’t read them afterward. Or more likely, in state of not having had a coffee on the Mount, misheard what God said due to early morning grumpiness. Or he went deaf from all the thunder and shouting and had to read God’s lips.

My theory is that “Thou shalt not steal” was really “Thou shalt not eat veal” given that, unless it’s cooked properly, preferably with garlic and lemon, it’s not one of my favorite meats. Especially if it’s overdone. Furthermore, I have a funny feeling when God said “Thou shalt not kill” I think God really said “Thou shalt not spill.” Let’s look at the facts.

Humans kill all day, every day, for good reasons, for no reasons, for money, sex, fame, women, sports cars, for accidental rollator theft at the old peoples’ home, not to mention because of boredom in South American, Russian and Asian dictatorships. If that commandment in particular were meant to be heeded, we’re doing a pretty crappy job of it. Frankly, if we killed more, and more selectively (I’m talking to you Mr. Neighbor’s Cat Who Craps On My Lawn Just Before I Go To Mow It, and Subsequently Step In Its Droppings) world over-population wouldn’t be such a hot topic at the dinner table, right after “Can we order Chinese instead of having leftovers?”

If my theory is right, and “Thou shalt not kill” was a typo or miscommunication, and should have really been “Thou shalt not spill”, it would explain why my father would throw us death looks at the dinner table when we were kids and we knocked some liquid over. I think dad wanted to kill us then. Furthermore, have you noticed how bent out of shape people get when they spill milk? They cry over it! Even though we have developed a coping mechanism in the English language to deal with that fact. We tell people not to cry over it. Easy.

To underscore my point further, what happens when there’s a chemical spill somewhere? Everyone goes nuts, the media are all over it, some environmental lawyer with poor grooming habits is on every talk show and the victims of the spill are helped and cared for. Yet, when a politician runs over someone after an all-nighter with a hooker, no one bats an eyelash. But spill hot coffee on a dictator’s lap when he’s planning an assassination and there will be hell to pay.

It’s quite clear to me now that the 10 commandments should really be renamed to the “10 best practices”, because if they were true commandments, and there were real consequences with eating poorly prepared veal, there would be some kind of bad-ass payback in the form of locusts or reality shows being banned from television. Furthermore, if you believe in a god, he or she or it is a pretty hands-off manager, and not in the good way. You get your marching orders from some lower-level manager, then god is off who knows where playing golf or at a bar in the Caribbean with the top salesmen, and when it’s time to give feedback on your performance, you’re usually dead. So what good is a bonus then?

I won’t even get into “Remember the Sabbath Day” – I am sure it was “Remember to take a bath every day.” Those ancient Israelites must have stunk after being in the desert and sweating and fornicating. The least they could have done was wash their privates and armpits. But no, Moses had to go and take a perfectly good commandment on hygiene and he made up the word “Sabbath” just to confuse the vitamin and water-depleted freed slaves so he’d have a day off to watch football. There went millennia of good hygiene and the birth of smelly Frenchmen.

What does any of this have to do with the latest installment of Stanko & Tibor, the illustrated dialectical Karl Marx once used as a beer coaster when he was hitting on the busty waitress at Das Bierhaus? Not much except that try as we might, communications will be missed thus leading to wars, and killing will go on unabated, and sadly it won’t be that cat that is forever in my backyard dropping fecal reminders.

Master Plumber and Part-time Electrician
Zsolt “The Volt” Tesla-Druker

 

 

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

Labor Every Day

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Stanko & Tibor - Labor

The Day of (Hard) Labor

Upon leaving the house, I made sure to pack all the essentials before my self-imposed health walk: keys, wallet, watch, and most importantly, my iPhone with headphones. Made with love and labor in China, where every day is (Hard) Labor Day!

Back to the iPhone. The toy of toys. And just as I was about to leave, I grabbed it with headphones and cable dangling perilously, but being in such a rush it slipped from my hands, not unlike a wet bar of soap in the shower (not prison, so save your rectal-wrecking comments), it popped in the air and then I began what felt like 20 minutes (was 3 seconds at most) of facial, bodily and emotional contortions as I tried desperately to prevent it from hitting the ground, and thusly prevent my toy of toys, my pride and joy (you thought I was going to refer to my kids? really?) from a premature death or dismemberment.

My daughter saw my face and body motions and couldn’t believe the physical lengths I would go to in order to keep The Device from tumbling. (Note: The ‘T’ and the ‘D’ are capitalized because capitalization in English generally denotes that some thing or person is so special, it’s deserving of a visual cue to the reader so you know it isn’t just some common, lowercase lay-about. It’s why when you read ‘Superman’, you think of a do-gooder dude in tights, and not some guy behind the counter at the hair salon who is “just super!” Oddly, words I have used like ‘spouse’ and ‘kids’ remain in lowercase. Go figure.)

Action!

Anyways, back to the dynamic action. Being forced to place my muscles and bones in positions usually in the domain of the Cirque Du Soleil pretzel benders, I could actually feel my body and face react like a dyspeptic, apoplectic mental patient losing grip on his favorite stuffed animal, and the earth shattering panic it would cause at not having the thingy in my grasp. (Control issues, anyone?)

In those few seconds I must have done more yoga stretches and danced such a jig of inebriated complication than I have done in years, since I was achy and had back spasms after The Device actually did tumble to the floor, albeit at a decelerated rate of speed thanks to deftly stretching my left leg at a 68º angle, extending my hairy foot at a 45º angle, using it as a cushioning agent so the The Device deflected off it, and then landed several feet away, none the worse for wear. My near cranial aneurysm notwithstanding.

Toys and Rollators

Which brings me to my next point. Assembling toys and rollators for children and parents respectively. Toys for all age groups require some assembly, and I, as a middle aged mensch, need to be able to do this job, lest I show myself to be incompetent to my generational bookend familial attachments. Besides, if I left assembly to my kids, a small war would ensue after ignoring them for a full 10 minutes and checking my Device for non-existent emails.

As for the assembly of the advanced (grumpiness and age, maybe intellect) adult toys for my dad (I never heard the word ‘rollator’ until I saw one with an article description on the side of the box next to ‘Made with the finest prison slave labor in cell block 23 in China’ sticker. The rollator is a slick looking, three-wheeled walker used by spinally reticent and bald men to scuttle about freely in shopping malls and your finer homes. Who knew?

Let’s be honest, what choice did I have about assembling the thing? I couldn’t say no to the man who raised me, primarily on beef, to retain and cherish the phrases “people are stupid” and “my soap is better” (he is a freaking genius!), who bestowed upon me words of filth and Impressionist quality obscenities like a 19th century master would to his eager student, in the name of being able to express myself in meetings, or while hanging with the boys or in front of my children, usually in a car stuck in traffic.

Monetary Value of Children: Low ROI?

Which brings me to the last point in this sleep-deprived diatribe: Kids. Should we be having them intentionally or not? How do they stack up in the “value vs efficiency” equation? Can you see where I am going with this? If you can, that means my blinds are open and you have very good binoculars, and you can see me strut around the house barely clothed, you filthy pervert. You sicken me. But I digress.

So do children test the theory of “are they really worth the money?” But the same can asked of smartphones, 2-seat convertibles, motorcycles, maple fudge, 300-watt car stereo systems, high-priced prostitutes, high-priced designer clothing that isn’t marked down more at least 45%, politicians, gluten-free baguettes and several other objects I can’t think of without another beer or a good night’s sleep. The answer is a clear ‘yes’ – I’m referring to the things that aren’t kids, the jury is still out on those little rodents. If you can develop and emotional attachment to it, replace it, get a guarantee on it or have an irrational, vein-in-brain-busting fit if it breaks (especially the politician), then of course it’s worth the money.

The kids, well, that’s a bit of a crap shoot. Homosapiens generally aren’t really good long-term thinkers. We really don’t consider the costs, consequences, ulcers, medical bills and trips to Ikea and Costco that comes with children. We can’t give them back, we get no guarantee, and if you leave them in the parking lot, the police eventually find you even after you have grown a beard and dyed your hair.

What does this have to do with this installment of the comic listed in the Oxford Companion of Deviant and Defamatory Literature Not Worth Wiping One’s Gluteal Cleavage With, Vol. 6? If I knew, I’d bottle it and sell it as a baldness cure or a sexual stimulant and make a killing. But I am not that enterprising, it would seem.

Witchingly and itchingly yours,
Sifu of Seafood (not) Jonathan Izuki Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Pursuit-Of-Crappiness

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Stanko & Tibor: Pursuit of Crappiness

Upon leaving the house, I made sure to pack all the essentials before my self-imposed health walk: keys, wallet, watch, and most importantly, my iPhone with headphones. Made with love and labor in China, where every day is (Hard) Labor Day!

Back to the iPhone. The toy of toys. And just as I was about to leave, I grabbed it with headphones and cable dangling perilously, but being in such a rush it slipped from my hands, not unlike a wet bar of soap in the shower (not prison, so save your rectal-wrecking comments), it popped in the air and then I began what felt like 20 minutes (was 3 seconds at most) of facial, bodily and emotional contortions as I tried desperately to prevent it from hitting the ground, and thusly prevent my toy of toys, my pride and joy (you thought I was going to refer to my kids? really?) from a premature death or dismemberment.

My daughter saw my face and body motions and couldn’t believe the physical lengths I would go to in order to keep The Device from tumbling. (Note: The ‘T’ and the ‘D’ are capitalized because capitalization in English generally denotes that some thing or person is so special, it’s deserving of a visual cue to the reader so you know it isn’t just some common, lowercase lay-about. It’s why when you read ‘Superman’, you think of a do-gooder dude in tights, and not some guy behind the counter at the hair salon who is “just super!” Oddly, words I have used like ‘spouse’ and ‘kids’ remain in lowercase. Go figure.)

Anyways, back to the dynamic action. Being forced to place my muscles and bones in positions usually in the domain of the Cirque Du Soleil pretzel benders, I could actually feel my body and face react like a dyspeptic, apoplectic mental patient losing grip on his favorite stuffed animal, and the earth shattering panic it would cause at not having the thingy in my grasp. (Control issues, anyone?)

In those few seconds I must have done more yoga stretches and danced such a jig of inebriated complication than I have done in years, since I was achy and had back spasms after The Device actually did tumble to the floor, albeit at a decelerated rate of speed thanks to deftly stretching my left leg at a 68º angle, extending my hairy foot at a 45º angle, using it as a cushioning agent so the The Device deflected off it, and then landed several feet away, none the worse for wear. My near cranial aneurysm notwithstanding.

Which brings me to my next point. Assembling toys and rollators for children and parents respectively. Toys for all age groups require some assembly, and I, as a middle aged mensch, need to be able to do this job, lest I show myself to be incompetent to my generational bookend familial attachments. Besides, if I left assembly to my kids, a small war would ensue after ignoring them for a full 10 minutes and checking my Device for non-existent emails.

As for the assembly of the advanced (grumpiness and age, maybe intellect) adult toys for my dad (I never heard the word ‘rollator’ until I saw one with an article description on the side of the box next to ‘Made with the finest prison slave labor in cell block 23 in China’ sticker. The rollator is a slick looking, three-wheeled walker used by spinally reticent and bald men to scuttle about freely in shopping malls and your finer homes. Who knew?

Let’s be honest, what choice did I have about assembling the thing? I couldn’t say no to the man who raised me, primarily on beef, to retain and cherish the phrases “people are stupid” and “my soap is better” (he is a freaking genius!), who bestowed upon me words of filth and Impressionist quality obscenities like a 19th century master would to his eager student, in the name of being able to express myself in meetings, or while hanging with the boys or in front of my children, usually in a car stuck in traffic.

Which brings me to the last point in this sleep-deprived diatribe: Kids. Should we be having them intentionally or not? How do they stack up in the “value vs efficiency” equation? Can you see where I am going with this? If you can, that means my blinds are open and you have very good binoculars, and you can see me strut around the house barely clothed, you filthy pervert. You sicken me. But I digress.

So do children test the theory of “are they really worth the money?” But the same can asked of smartphones, 2-seat convertibles, motorcycles, maple fudge, 300-watt car stereo systems, high-priced prostitutes, high-priced designer clothing that isn’t marked down more at least 45%, politicians, gluten-free baguettes and several other objects I can’t think of without another beer or a good night’s sleep. The answer is a clear ‘yes’ – I’m referring to the things that aren’t kids, the jury is still out on those little rodents. If you can develop and emotional attachment to it, replace it, get a guarantee on it or have an irrational, vein-in-brain-busting fit if it breaks (especially the politician), then of course it’s worth the money.

The kids, well, that’s a bit of a crap shoot. Homosapiens generally aren’t really good long-term thinkers. We really don’t consider the costs, consequences, ulcers, medical bills and trips to Ikea and Costco that comes with children. We can’t give them back, we get no guarantee, and if you leave them in the parking lot, the police eventually find you even after you have grown a beard and dyed your hair.

What does this have to do with this installment of the comic listed in the Oxford Companion of Deviant and Defamatory Literature Not Worth Wiping One’s Gluteal Cleavage With, Vol. 6? If I knew, I’d bottle it and sell it as a baldness cure or a sexual stimulant and make a killing. But I am not that enterprising, it would seem.

Witchingly and itchingly yours,
Sifu of Seafood (not) Jonathan Izuki Druker