Tag Archives: absurdity

Bread and Opinions

bread and opinions bread and opinions bread and opinions bread and opinions bread and opinionsbread and opinions

Bread & Opinions: Similar in a Bad Way

Having just made a pile of bread crumbs from way too much bread stuck in the freezer I was thinking, pre-coffee I might add, that bread in all its myriad forms is quite similar to opinions we form as humans (and semi-humans like Putin and most of the MAGA crowd). It’s uncanny in a way how similar they are. Let me digress.

Fresh bread, untoasted of course, is a thing to behold. Depending on the quality of the ingredients, the skill of the baker and the recipe, you can mix  a pile of disparate ingredients into a dough, let it rise (or not, depending on the bread) and bake it hopefully to perfection for near-immediate consumption. (With maybe fresh butter if you’re not lactose intolerant, or if you indeed are lactose intolerant and don’t mind passing a ton of gas.)

Underbaked bread isn’t as bad as you think but be prepared for gaseous emissions from the  gluteal region.

Overbaked bread is usually worse, as the crust is either too thick or it tastes burnt. That’ll give you heartburn and I have enough of that already from looking at my credit card bill.

“Smart” Opinions

Opinions–good, bad, otherwise–are quite similar to bread in all its stages of existence. And underformed and underbaked opinions are no different. They’ll give you a stomach ache and useless worries, kind of like when your anxious, almost 84-year-old mother tells you you’ll get sick if you eat that! You usually eat it to spite her, but that’s another story for my many, many therapists and parole officers. But I digress again.

Take artificial intelligence as an example. People have formed all kinds of underbaked opinions on how it’s going to take over the world, make us redundant to the robots and set off a unintended nuclear war because billionaire douche bag Elon Musk said so.

Wrong.

A.I. is at its root a really good effort to predict a result or behaviour or action using energy-intensive servers and chips together with computing parameters to determine a likely outcome, based on whatever crappy, biased data it’s fed by the ‘data scientist’ (who doesn’t even wear a white lab coat! How can he/she/they/it be a so called ‘scientist’ without a lab coat and not being part of a shady ‘institute’? That’s my opinion of course, and it’s right.)

We don’t know what to make of A.I. yet as it’s still early days. ChatGPT and the rest of those generative A.I. bots are largely one-trick ponies that do nothing to tackle problems like drug discovery and modeling exceptionally complex structure. Not yet, at least.

Just take comfort in the fact that large, faceless, opaque, borderless, unruly, semi-lawful corporations and countries are at the A.I. helm with a deep profit motive or nefarious spying activities, and little government oversight or any regulation or forethought.  Like all problems, it’ll go away if we ignore it.

Mouldy Opinions

Like a bread, opinions can grow stale quickly, and if left in a dark, moist place, grow mouldy rather quickly. Those opinions, whether they contain non-GMO wheat harvested by virgins, healthy nuts, or even fancy-ass spring water from a depleted water table can turn green and thus smell up your garbage bin or worse, spread to other parts, thus requiring a severe clean with borax, thus using more water and cleaning products to pollute environment.

A good mouldy, stinky opinion is the rationale used by the founders of ‘Animaid Café’ a.k.a. ‘Hooters for incels‘.  (Thanks for sharing, Lars.) It’s perfectly fine to have young women dress up like servile, sexually objectified maids to entertain male clients with café foods. The world needs more of that as opposed to funding the NHS. Unsurprisingly, business is booming. Manchester males, you can be proud that you’re funding and perpetuating a place you think is ‘cute’ and ‘harmless’…

Anatomically Speaking

Opinions, however, should be more readily likened to a specific anatomical structure, namely, the ass hole. As stated by many hairy and sleep-deprived wisemen over the ages, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, some are smelly, some are not, some are hairy, some handle spicy foods better than others, and not too many people like discussing them in public unless they’re a specialist. (See any talk show on cable TV in the last 50 years.)

Opinions, unlike bread, are also like mouths, another orifice from which a lot of crap spews, albeit in less solid form than the aforementioned exit point. Yes, everyone has a mouth, unless it has been sewn shut by Chinese and Russian secret police, and much uninformed blather gets puts out in the universe (or metaverse if you can’t deal with reality, you coward).

Now, I’m not saying we should limit opinions to what I believe is fair, correct and acceptable. Who am I kidding? That’s exactly what I want. Me and a few of my closest friends and family. Get together once a week over fresh danish and coffee, maybe a nice plate of fruit and if they’re fresh –and not toasted — a dozen bagels.

Now I’m hungry. Well, that put a screeching halt to this rant. Thank goodness too.

Sincerely hungry,
Chef Jon

Who should be responsible for policing stupid opinions?

Disinformation or Misinformation – You Choose

Disinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You ChooseDisinformation or Misinformation: You Choose

Disinformation or Misinformation – You Choose

Recently scientists with nothing better to do than make stupid science jokes calculated that the earth hols approximately 20 quadrillion ants. That’s a lot of zeroes, fifteen to be exact, and a lot of critters. And some really bored scientists.  It’s also an interesting piece of information.

According to the article, for every human alive on the planet, there are roughly 2.5 million ants. When I read that nugget of info, I thought this must be some kind of misinformation created by the  cabal of chemical companies that sell pest control products like Raid or the Pop Tarts I so fondly consume like a junkie.

My next thought wandered and meandered for a bit before it settled on the war atrocities in Ukraine. Wouldn’t it be great if we could take maybe 100 million of those ants and smother them all over that psychopath Putin after having been dipped in dark molasses. It should would make for some great reality TV as well an Internet meme.

The Source of Mis- and Disinformation

After all, one cannot think of that war, and its absurd, cruel justification, without coming across the words misinformation and/or disinformation. Sure, you could use the word “lies” but that would mean I have to rewrite the title of this blog and it’s too late in the day for that.

Where and when did misinformation and disinformation start? Was it in the time of the cavemen? Sorry, cave people – I wouldn’t want to offend their powerful media lobby. There were certainly cave women, cave children and no doubt sexually ambiguous cave people. Then again with all that body hair and animal furs, how could you tell one  caveman apart from another? But I digress.

No one knows for sure where and when disinformation started. Some historians believe that disinformation started about 315,000 years ago in per-historic times when a Neanderthal named Unk in cave 36b told his mate Gwendolyn he spends his Sunday nights down by the river fishing and contemplating the meaning of life. In reality, he would double-back and go to cave 17 to play poker with the boys and watch strippers. Poor Neanderthals — always getting a bad rap — lots of misinformation about them out there.

What Information Is True?

Since we as media-consuming modern people no longer can tell if a story, an article, a news report or a Bugs Bunny cartoon is genuinely true, and not some made up story meant to confuse us while the Russians try to sell us expired borscht, how do we know what to believe? What information is actually true?

Here is my advice:

  • If someone with an eye patch and a limp named Manny says “here, eat this, it’s fresh”, be very careful.
  • If the story you’re reading online is authored by someone named Vladimir P. or Donald J. T., take heed.
  • If you’re financial advisor says “You’ll make a killing with crypto! Trust me” then run away and call the police.

That’s about all the wisdom I can spare.

Wishing you peace, joy and a year’ supply of fresh danish.

Utu the Powerful

What disinformation have you propagated recently?

Human Organs For Rent: Use Them For More Than Just Living!

Huamn Organs - Right to Be WrongHuman Organs for Sale – Is It Right?

Note to reader: The following few paragraphs are really quite absurd, which is normal. It's meant to set the tone. Foreshadowing, they call it.

Much has been written about the absurd and confusing nature and rules of English spelling. Silent letters, irregular conjugations, irregular pronunciations, and nasty homonyms like there, they’re and their, or the dreaded triumvirate of right, rite and write.

The fact that we need computer programs to correct authors from using the wrong word speaks to our poor education system and to the fact that people are stupid and too lazy to proofread their work. I never do.

But the one that gets me is why we spell wrong with a ‘w’ when ‘rong’ will do. What do we gain as a people, as a nation or even as a species by adding the damn ‘w’? It’s sheer waste to employ a letter that probably didn’t even want to be used, probably because the printers union sneaked it in there as part of backroom deal. Letter inflation is everywhere.

And how do we know there is letter inflation? How do we spell ‘write’? With a useless ‘w’ just like ‘wrong’. If that isn’t proof of a right-wing plot then I don’t know what is.

How simple would it be to spell write without the ‘w’ — you know — rite? Sure, there’s already a word with that spelling and it has a completely different meaning, but changing up the spelling would reduce dictionary entries by a full word and save spell-checker developers at least one line of code. While we are at it, let’s cull ‘right’ too. Rationalize and reduce. Do we really need the ‘gh’ in there?

Personally, I think it’s a plot by the Chinese or the Russians to confuse me. It’s working. And I ‘m right, so leave me alone.

Absurdity Is the Norm

What does any of this have to do with the wildly absurd idea of human organs being for rent? Because I came up with another absurd idea, that’s as equally bizarre as English spelling rules.

The idea for this episode came from an opinion piece in Wired magazine about every damn thing in the world being for rent so we can all make some spare cash. Clothes, houses, cars, scooters, nipple clips, beds, office spaces, hardware, software, sexual encounters, you name it.

So what’s to prevent us stupid humans from going one step further and renting out our organs to the highest bidder? Yes, I said organs. It’s clear we are morally neglectful for not having monetized those silly inner hunks of genetic materials to earn some spare cash to spend on yet another service/device we don’t need but really want.

Only a crafty, savvy business person can see the potential of renting his or her organs, and resulting income potential that it would generate. You have two eyes, right? Rent one out to a blind guy for a day, give the gift of sight – for a price. Once the blind guy is hooked on vision, then you have a long-term customer.

Same goes for you kidneys. Do you really need both of them all the time? Couldn’t you rent one for a day or so? Why be so selfish with your organs? Don’t you see you could pay for that trip to Europe with a week of rental time.

Just think of how many heavy drinkers would shell out real money for your  kidneys or liver for just a few hours of alcoholic debauchery? Lots, I say. And there you go – your retirement fund is set!

Let addicted smokers use your lungs for a few hours so they can have that last deep draw off a cigarette or cigar, knowing full well, you have given them joy and they have given you money. Really, it’s a form generosity.

And you’re driving the economy, too, not like some kind of lazy, socialist lay-about.

Driving Sales

Notice I didn’t say selling organs. That would be economically inefficient because you’re not getting any long-term revenue out of them. Bad business model.

And what’s worse, if you sell your organs as opposed to renting them, and someone wants to return them due to natural defects or they don’t color-match their other organs,  the seller may have died, so you’re left holding the bag, as it were. Too risky a business proposition. Renting is safer.

The entire global economy now is based on maximizing usage and efficiency, as well as being green. Reuse those organs, and put them to good use if you’re just sitting around. Contribute instead of consume.

Use your organs for more than just living.

Suspiciously coherent and awake,
Ayn Rand Druker

Go Insane, It’s OK

Insane Isn't So Bad


Go Insane – It’s OK

Why does insanity have such a bad reputation? Why do we treat it like an affliction that is to be cured or treated, when in reality, insanity is pretty much the norm every day we live our lives.

The USA has an insane president, plus a bunch of insane southern states who think the insanity they perpetrate every day is pretty normal. Trade wars are good for farmers. Bankruptcy only makes you stronger. Besides why would you want to cozy up to democracies when dictators are just so much more social and non-judgmental, and usually have a stable of fancy sports cars?

You can also label China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and let’s say Italy, as being insane. Collective governmental madness. Like a bad fungus, it’s spreading. And anti-biotics won’t fix it either. Insanity is the new norm.

Conspiracy Theory = Insanity

Chances are, if you have complete and utter faith in a theory about why the world/social media/banks/the dark state/movie reviewers are all out to keep you from greatness, chances are just as good that your family has an extra helix of DNA where the insanity gene is dominant.

Let me cite some recent examples:

  • You ever watch those TV shows on cable about extraterrestrials and how the government is covering it up? And the so called experts making their case? Insane.
  • Flat Earthers? Insane.
  • Anti-Vaxxers? Criminally insane and should be forced to live on Jupiter until they come to their senses.
  • People who strive to be popular on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube? Deeply and narcissistically insane.
  • People who prefer cinnamon danish to chocolate danish? The worst kind of insane.

Which all begs the question: is insanity native to the genetic code or do we learn this behavior from watching too much TV, drinking Kombucha and believing what’s on social media?

Technology to the Rescue

It turns out it doesn’t matter what the source is because we can’t cure it. The bigger question is how do we identify it and thus use it to my advantage.

Given all the bio-metric hardware and software out there, I say someone shiftless and smarter than me invents a fingerprint reader that can instantly detect insanity. Stick your fingers on the little scanner and within seconds you get an answer determining whether or not you should be the leader of a major country, or whether you should stay on reality TV shows and never be allowed to breed.

Something like a 1-5 scale with 1 being the lowest level of insanity, “the bookish accountant in the actuarial department” and 5 being the highest level, “Donald Trump.”

The only possible risk to a fingerprint insanity analyzer is that it gets hacked and you find a way to substitute your own fingerprints with those of the Queen of England, thus allowing you to pass without suspicion at cock fighting matches and porno theaters.

So what can you take away from this lengthy diatribe that — as well as being proof of a wobbly circadian rhythm and proof of  lead ingestion as a child — has been scientifically enlightening and not terribly entertaining?

When the crazies think everything is normal, that’s when you know it’s OK to be insane. And get some good meds and chocolate danish to handle the stress.

Loyally yours,
Aristotle Ventius Druker, Slayer of Logic, King of Nothing, Protector of the Afternoon  Nap

Which Way Is Up?

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

It’s Getting A Little Absurd Out There

Absurdity - It's The New Normal


Absurdity, Thy Wellspring Is POTUS

You know what he highlight of my day is? Is it being thankful that I didn’t pass away in my sleep? A fresh cup of coffee perking me up as the day starts ? A tranquil ride to work where no one has thrown themselves in front of the metro car yet again? Seeing the shining faces of my family and friends? Wrong.

It’s going to bathroom at work and knowing that I’m the first person to use the toilet. No one else has been near the seat since it was last cleaned. (I know you’re wondering “but how does he know?” Perhaps best if you don’t ask.) Absurd, isn’t it, that an unmolested toilet seat is the highlight of my day. No doubt about it.

But since the election of Emperor Trump, and the installment of Steve “Goebbels” Bannon, absurdity is the New Normal. That someone made a fish tribute to President Trump is just the start of the immense weirdness about to befall the globe.

[Note to reader: This particular blog rant is not absurd in and of itself. It merely serves to point out that absurd is now par for the course. Or this blog rant is proof, and is perhaps yet another reason to have me committed to an institution with darkened windows, staffed by thick-fingered, lightly moustachioed, hulking Eastern European nurses who chiefly rely on ECT as a method to “socially readjust undesirable behaviour”. But I digress.]

It will be four years of mind-bending, constitution-challenging, Dali-eque representations of alternative facts, all emanating from the uncontrolled, unmuzzled mouth of the POTUS, and the mind of the of his righthand man.

Almost makes you wish you Bush-Cheney was back in the Whitehouse, doesn’t it?

Unsettlingly imbalanced,

Enzo di Tutti Capi Druker

Truthfully Lying Inaccurately

Bin LAden Diaries II

 

Fractious and Foolish, Not Factual

Upon cleaning the house and removing debris, junk, garbage, refuse, detritus, jetsam AND flotsam, not to mention papers from the kids’ school year that could serve as proof they are intelligent if we were ever to sell them on the black market, I decided to do something foolish, childish, immature even. I asked my wife why she’s keeping empty, massed produced canisters that once held tea. Painful, disdainful and solitary confinement-treatment silence reigned for intolerable minutes, with no discernible peep from the significant other, who, for reasons still inexplicable some 15 years later after agreeing to sign the contract that bound us in unholy matrimony, decided to fulfill her end of the bargain and marry me, I can only assume, on a dare from I’m guessing someone she once called a friend and now sticks needles into via a voodoo doll.

Why foolish, you ask? What stupid spouse of the male variety would ever do such a thing as to question his significant other on matters of emotional nature when he knows pursuing this to a logical (read: NOT an emotional) end would/could/should, nay, will with absolute death-and-taxes certainty lead to elevated blood pressures, voices and no doubt to a withholding tax on acts of a sexual nature for an indeterminate period of time? (Think in terms if business quarters — like “Q2 and Q3 were barren with transactions evaporating south of the Mason Dixon line, and principal shareholders sorely disappointed ready to revolt and appoint a new board” — and you’ll get the idea.)

This marked difference is not so much the Mariana Trench depth of division between the male and the female. I am sure gay couples are this stupidly, erratically emotional too. I’d say rather it’s the difference between being single and married, or at least single and shacked up with another inmate under the auspices of “for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.”

Rampant Single Stupidity

You see when I was single I would do stupid things galore from keeping pre-historic underwear and old beer bottles to ancient car magazines and punk rock albums I no longer listened to just because I couldn’t bare the thought of cleaning up, let alone tidying anything, as that would have detracted from my  cartoon-watching time. But now the wheel has turned and the shoe is on the other glove (I told you, logic has nothing to do with this rant). I am cleaning up after my kids and need help logically keeping things in order, including it would seem, empty tea canisters with no monetary value, but high clutter value. When I was single, logic and order played no role in anything I did. No one questioned me except my parents who were legally forced to admit they loved me and provide shelter, clothing and food once the court order became effective. In fact, the word logic wasn’t even in my vocabulary (I was a very poor student).

Yet somehow, the lessons of life stuck, and my university major in “space optimization so I don’t trip going down the bloody stairs” is paying dividends but is upsetting those who I require help from when asking why we should even keep a freaking tea canister when we have enough crap lying around the house. I could try and apply abductive reasoning to gain that moment of clarity, but that will piss off someone who just sighs in misery and thinks of melting down her wedding band to fund a trip back to the old country.

The World Goes Around, But How?

Speaking of scientific theory and fact-based decision-making, I may have discovered what makes the world spin around, and I don’t think Sir Issac Newton’s theory of gravity or the sun’s magnetic pull are correct. You see, applying logic to places where I am allowed (note: NOT to cleaning up the house to rid it of excess tea canisters) I realized that when half the world is awake, standing up and moving around, the other half is lying down, sometimes sleeping, sometimes doing bad things on their iPads, mostly horizontal, and without the help of Viagra or Cialis, not terribly erect. So the theory goes, those that are lying down, or at least having sex in boring positions, have lowered their center of gravity sufficiently to allow those on the other side of the globe to sway the earth with their higher centre of gravity, kind of like a ball filled with liquid, as it rolls around.

The sleepers and the “having boring sex lying downers” aren’t putting any momentum into the earth, while those moving about vigorously, particularly proctologists on call, truckers high on caffeine pills, lecherous politicians, sweaty plumbers and strippers dancing at clubs (not all mutually exclusive groups by the way) are making the earth swing about on its wobbly axis. Hence I have solved what makes the earth go around, in perfect imbalance, if you discount years of science and sex and money as other explanations.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking — he’s totally lost the plot this time, but let’s be honest. If I am prevented from throwing out legitimate crap from the house and left to think about these things because of the aforementioned withholding tax, I can’t be held accountable for these scientifically steadfast theories that will be borne out after I am dead or when I bribe the Nobel counsel with strippers and chocolate.

Lastly, what does any of this have to do with the latest and greatest posting of the Stanko & Tibor comic, frequently cited in criminal testimony as a decisive factor that led to mass fruit fondling incidents at supermarkets across the globe? Well, like the outlandish plot line and dialog you no doubt read in the comic and then forwarded it to publishers all over the globe in the hopes of helping me get discovered (or incarcerated), we humans are interested in the lives of others, no matter how ridiculously untrue or bizarre those stories may be, because our daily lives of tea canister shifting and arranging have robbed us the will to think for ourselves.

Wishing you many sleepless nights
Sir Issac Einstein von dem Hinterland Druker

Move Along Now Mr. Artisanal

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

Efficient Evasion

Given the rapid approach of the American elections and Halloween (I think the two are interrelated) I present you, the above-average reader, with a bit of wisdom, philosophy and down-home cooking to get the rabble roused.

Things don’t always go as planned. Many, many of you have asked me why the last episode of Stanko & Tibor, with its deft and delicate introduction of the Mother of All Mothers, is being followed up by a non-sequitur dealing with politics, reality and the denial thereof. Actually no one has asked me that but I’m sure if any of you were to actually read this delicately drawn artistic tour de farce you would have wondered aloud and scratched your head your over your breakfast (thus shedding dandruff flakes into your corn flakes) “what the hell is this guy on? Can’t he complete one dang story line without going off on a tangent? Is he unwell in the cranium ?”

First of all, my cranial imbalances are strictly related to high fat foods I eat a lot of and having been choked as a child for excessive procrastinating on writing thank you cards.
Secondly, tell me which one of you has not left a room in your house thinking “I have to get X” only to arrive a few short seconds later asking yourself “why am I here again?” (And I don’t mean the existential “why am I here?” You’re here because your parents didn’t use birth control when they were at the night club.)

My point is that life is a series of random events and non-sequiturs and this cartoon is proof of such. As is the impending US election where facts are scarce, fiction is rampant, vitriol is viral, and non-sequiturs and absurd statements seem to be the norm, not to mention Mitt Romney’s son saying he wanted to punch President Obama after their debate. Nice Republican thug thinking.

So if you ever wander in your thoughts like I do, particularly when I am the wheel, then you may find yourself at the crossroads of absurdity and hilarity, or in other words at Stanko & Tibor.

Be well, lose some weight for me as I can’t seem to rid myself of the avoirdupois on my belly, and spend quality time with your loved ones. I did, and now her urge to drown me has abated mostly.

Forever yours until I stop taking my heart pills,
Monsignor Druker

Lies and Replies

Before I get into who’s fault it is that I can’t seem to lose weight by wishing it away, I’d like to dedicate the inspiration for this episode to my dear uncle Mel, may he rest in peace. No wait, I just had supper with him, so that might be a bit premature. Whatever, ’twas his idea that he generously donated to me for this episode, and I merely provided the dialog, the artwork, the editing and the man power.

Often we hear the question asked “what would I do if I could do it all over again?” Or the more acute “if today was your last day on earth, what would you do?” Usually the answers involve more premarital sex, drinking and debauchery, and probably something unholy with the boss you always hated and an electric cattle prod.

What does that previous paragraph of depravity have to do with this latest installment of the digitally delivered diatribe cited by many prominent publications, such The Guardian, Time Magazine, Der Spiegel, the Asahi Shimbu, The Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post and The Mississippi Mudslinger as being “Reason No.3 Why Free Speech Should Be Revoked and Replaced With Hot Needles to the Eyes”?

Simple, actually. It presents us with the thoughtful question of “if I were to shuffle off this mortal coil, would I have left a legacy rich in love and generosity, or would I be merely a comma in a footnote in Appendix F at the back of the book of life?”

I really can’t answer that question because as I write this, I am eating icy cold chocolate ice cream to beat the sub-tropical heat in my non-tropical city and it’s giving me a total brain freeze, so rational thought is at a premium right now. However, it could be because of the 2 Pop Tarts I ate last night while editing the dialog for this particular episode. (Hey, don’t judge me! They were on sale and I had a moment of weakness. You would have done the same.) It’s possible that the petroleum-sugar combo that is used to forge one of these tasty saccharin death treats made in the fires of corporate hell finally broke one of my sets of chromosomes. Thus explaining the wordy nature of this episode of Stanko & Tibor.

One more thing – the last 2 episodes have revolved right around my family, and this last one with the appendix reference is based in reality. The same guy who managed to escape 4-wheeled death a few weeks ago also managed to have an emergency appendectomy, purely in an effort to get attention. He is so childish sometimes.

However, I promise this comic will return to it’s highly factual and timely humor in the next installment. Provided I am not called to the hospital again or eat another Pop Tart.

Always faithful, always yours, always overtired,

Dr. Giovanni Drukerini