Tag Archives: health

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

Meat-A-Mucil: The Ailment for What Cures You

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Meat-A-Mucil: The Ailment for what cures you

Magical Cures

Watching international darts the other night while I procrastinated heavily with regards to my other work (taxes, filing, laundry, child-harassing, dish washer-filling), I was amazed and mesmerized at how Chisnell skillfully and deftly defeated Whitlock in a duel between overweight, sweaty, tattooed, proletariat, brush-cut, high functioning alcoholic, white males in the O2 arena in Dublin, Ireland. The call of “One hundred and eighty” (three treble 20’s for the uninitiated) rang out repeatedly throw after throw, as litres, gallons, pints, and no doubt kegs of beer were inhaled by the dart tossers. More amazingly, thousands upon thousands of people, all –including children– under the influence of vats of booze, with pickled livers, and at best possessing double-digit IQs had piled into an arena to watch what the commentators called “true sport.” All I could think was this fermented yeast bread-and-circuses diversion cures the daily misery that is the life of those who are dart-obsessed.

I won’t get into the slippery slope of an argument about darts being ‘sport’ any more than poker is, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are both are frequently broadcast on sports channels across the globe. How competitive knitting hasn’t made it on to the roster of programming still eludes me.

Ever More Slippery Slope

How did we get from the topic of darts to the idea of “Meat-A-Mucil”? Well, truth be told, it’s an idea I borrowed from my friend Lars, who will no doubt sue me at some point for mentioning his name, or more likely for having electronically acknowledged our friendship in a public forum that no one reads, except for the mentally ill, the socially outcast and the genetically corrupt. But I digress.

As I was watching the aforementioned dart spectacle, there was a commercial for yet another miracle cream that will make your joints healthy, free you of pain instantly, give you a longer life, make you handsomer, taller, etc. As always it was pitched by some guy who claims to be a doctor, but looks like he was recently released from medium security prison for something akin to selling stolen goods. Trustworthy he was not, but people seeking a cure for anything, be it baldness, bladder control, belligerence, or birthmarks shaped like a South Pacific atoll, will give into the pain and lay out cash for something of dubious origin usually in a tube. Heck, if some company made a tube of Oreos or my mother’s lemon squares, and its side effects included instantaneous human combustion, I’d lay out cash for a tube now.

New Products

With that millimeter-deep thought in mind, I thought that the world could use a new kind of product to counter all the bad press vexatious vegans and vile vegetarians give meat-eaters. Hence Meat-A-Mucil. Sounds vile? Sure it does. But so does “processed cheese spread” and that stuff sells by the boatload among people with broken tastebuds and 22 chromosomes. Look, meat-eaters can’t help themselves. Their incisors need honing and chewing on a steak bone, or a bacon cheeseburger, or an ostrich steak with fries. And maybe a little cheese cake as chaser. It has been clinically proven in a remote lab with little or no peer review, or actual scientific equipment, that carnivorous activity answers a need as primordial and ancient as watching TV to avoid talking to your spouse.

Sure, carnivores could rationally give up ingesting huge quantities of flesh-based protein in an effort to save their bowels, or maybe reduce the effects of run-off from industrial cow factories. Or to impress that free-loving vegetarian honey with low standards. But why start now? I’d have to write about something else.

It’s late and I am cranky.

Heretically yours,

The Swami of Salami, the Guru of Goulash, the Maven of Meat

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, 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

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Best Wishes for a Happy 2013

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20130101-223058.jpg
After two long, food-filed and belly-expanding weeks of vacation and after having grown enough of a beard to look like short, semi-Semitic and semi-sentient Grizzly Adams, but who lives in suburbia and whose only contact with bears is his character in a cartoon often referred to by political pundits from all sides of the house as “the toe scribblings of an idiot”, I return to work, filled with positive thoughts and some trepidation at the year staring me in the face.

No sooner has 2012 disappeared, fiscal cliff and all, than suddenly I am confronted with 2013 and its emails, meetings, discussions and no doubt some kind of mediocre pastries left over from a customer breakfast that will do more damage to my waist and arteries. New Years resolutions regarding better health never meant much to me, because breaking promises to oneself is way too easy, and frankly, to make a promise and then break it takes money, strength and time, three things I need way more of, not to mention self-discipline and hair on the top of my head and not on my back and shoulders as nature and my genes seem to want to do.

But I did promise myself to at least finish the chocolate and other sugary confections we gathered, purchased, inherited, found, tripped on over the holidays. I wouldn’t want to endanger others by giving it to them and thus be the cause of a clogged artery or spiking sugar level. I know, you’re saying to yourself “what an unselfish guy, eating junk food so others can’t.” It’s about all I can muster at this late evening hour.

So to keep this short and sweet, I created this little drawing on the iPad to wish you all a happy, healthy and sweet 2013. Hoping your ’13 is lucky and plucky. It will be over before you know it.

With hugs and kisses and butt-squeezes,
Shogun Jon