Tag Archives: inspiration

Abusive Thought

To the readers of this rag, be warned — It’s Super Bowl weekend in America, and more crucially, a fractured circadian rhythm leading to intense sleep-deprivation and a reduced chocolate intake are the source for this rant.

Having survived what has been a winter that can best be described as bi-polar, in all its meanings, I have come to the conclusion that Mother Nature is an abusive parent. I think she is either a raging alcoholic who was jilted by a lover at a young age or she is going through some kind of menopause, given the extremes in heat and cold we have experienced recently.

So this begs the question, is Mother Nature an abusive parent because of us and our bad behavior over the centuries letting animals crap in streams and rampant pollution we have emitted through nuclear waste and McDonald’s Happy Meals that were made with industrial grease and oils?

Or are we rebelling against our mother, after she has acted like an obsessive tiger mom who has imposed strict guidelines, with occasional beatings and earthquakes and floods, as well as curfews meant to keep us on the straight and narrow so we could get into that Ivy League college that she could brag about to her friends over tea? Are we humans rebelling against mommy, sort of like running away to San Francisco, living in a filthy commune, getting tattoos and smoking opium?

Given how old nature is, probably a few billion years old at least, it’s hard to say, we can’t find her birth certificate anywhere in the filing cabinet, and given that she is well past her peak, maybe we should stick Mother Nature in the garage instead of a proper nursing home? You know, between the car and the water heater tank at the back wall, where the spider webs and snow tires are? It certainly would be cheaper than a nursing home, and I could invest the difference in ski vacations and dividend-paying stocks.

So, now that you have wandered away from the computer because you are disgusted by the supposition above, I ask this question: What does this theme of abusive parenting have to do with this episode of Stanko & Tibor, the 21st century’s answer to the question “why haven’t the secret police banished this cartooning buffoon to Devil’s Island?”

I couldn’t really answer that given I am wildly sleep-deprived as of late, and sadly, I can’t convince my wife to buy the industrial chocolate chip cookies I need like heroin.

So keep warm, wear a hat and mitts, drink plenty of fluids (distilled or not), and give mom a bear hug.

CIA Director J. Edgar Druker

Fit To Be Fat

Any time there is a new calendar year, be it Chinese, Gregorian, Latin, Jewish, Muslim, Mayan, Shinto, Hindu, Zoroastrian (I can’t believe Zoro had his own calendar), there will be resolutions of things to fix, to correct, to make right again —  for things that have gone, very, very wrong. Shockingly wrong. For example, swearing you’d update your web browser or email filters to make sure this web cartoon is met with a swift and violent Delete action, be it from your hard drive, your soft drive (a.k.a. your actual memory in your brain) or from the universe itself.

And what does this train of thought have to do with the crass comedic constant known as Stanko & Tibor? If you give me a minute to take a swig of my port wine, I’ll come up with something.

But what of these resolutions to resolve what you’ve done wrong? You know you can’t catapult the neighbor’s cat for crapping on your lawn and tearing up your garden, even if that would be the just thing to do. You can’t just suddenly stop eating greasy cheeseburgers, laden with thick, smokey slices of bacon and slathered in mayo and other forms of natural artery lubricants, knowing full well that could cause mass unemployment in the beef, statin research and cardiovascular medical industries. What would the poor heart surgeons do for a living? They’d turn to crime and back street bypasses.

So look around you as I have looked around at me, and resolve to be a better person this year by possibly dropping a few pounds so your trips to Costco’s clothing section become less frequent. Or maybe, gain some weight in order to keep the poor Chinese laborers employed at a 1$ a day, lest they be terminated (literally) by their profit-focused employers.

But whatever you don’t look down. Big mistake. I couldn’t see what lay below my expanded belly except for the tips of my feet. And worse, I had my glasses on and could see the myriad dust weevils swirling about the wooden floor that hadn’t been swept, vacuumed or mopped in well over 3 weeks.

So take this episode of Stanko & Tibor for what it is — the beginning of a terribly tenuous storyline involving weight gain, weight loss, resolutions of better health and probably some offensive lines about the smells one encounters in a gym.

May the gods of dieting be kind to you and may all your ice cream sandwiches be consumed without anyone seeing you and emitting an angry scowl that contains enough kinetic energy to produce an actual sound.

Hugs and kisses,

Master Trainer Yan van Damme on his Tam Tam Druker