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

The Burkini Conundrum & Other Garbage

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Stanko & Tibor - The Burkini Conundrum

Dateline: Late, late, late summer, in a dimly lit basement -  and a stinky, humid one at that. Reason enough to go to bed early.

The Burkini Conundrum (Not Really)

Very recently, there was a local Pokemon Go gathering and barely sentient people were milling around a public spot, blindly moving about like a school of geeky loser fish, in order to grab imaginary, virtual objects using a smart phone. No one was speaking, people were just staring at their screens. I am told there was fair bit of drool too.

What’s the message here? It would seem that reality sucks so bad, only some kind of virtual reality game with ZERO meaning for the greater good is the next best replacement for reality. And when you think about it, creating distractions that have nothing to do with reality is deeply embedded in human nature. It’s why we built the Coliseum, casinos, brothels, movie theatres, the Internet or why heroin and cannabis are still such popular drugs, and why the Mayans used cocaine. Day-to-day drudgery.

Unintelligent Design

So now we focus on The Burkini as a distraction, because the Olympics were too boring. Not enough Zika? Way too much Ryan Lochte? Have our collective mood-altering prescriptions run out? We need to argue over something that really isn’t worth it?

I’m starting to think the human brain is a miracle of Unintelligent Design. Let’s explore the following suppository. Not wait. That’s gross. Supposition, yeah that’s it. Shut up and read on.

I dare you to explain (intelligently) how any of the following could exist if there was actually intelligent design:

  • I have a spine like a melted accordion
  • I get pimples from eating ONE onion ring, which is highly unjust
  • When it’s warm outside my privates stick to my skin and I’m therefore uncomfortable for 3 months a year
  • IKEA gets away with selling crap furniture at exorbitant prices
  • People are STILL opposed to vaccinations
  • Why hasn’t Gwyneth Paltrow been imprisoned for criminally excessive stupidity
  • We humans commit genocide semi-regularly
  • Donald Drumpf
  • The burkini, and the banning thereof

None. None Blacker

And why are there black burkinis? Like it isn’t hot enough at the beach as it is that you need to suffocate the woman not just emotionally but physically, too? Why doesn’t it come with a built-in head shade? Or a heat expulsion flap? That is not intelligent design.

And if intelligent design actually existed, then why did a bunch of French bureaucrats decide to take time to draft legislation to ban it when maybe they could have spent the time, I don’t know, giving food to the poor? Or making cheese and wine free for a month? I think unintelligent design is the accurate descriptor.

Wisdom of the Masses

It’s like everyone is being guided by this invisible force of collective stupidity. Like a Simpsons episode. There could be a more complex, biological reason too, although the Royal Society for Semi-Legitimate Science and Bellybutton Gazing refuses to hear me out.

Maybe when humans are in close proximity to each other, like at an election rally, a night club, a public swimming pool, a sporting event, or in bed, our chromosomes cancel each other out if there’s an even number and we’re reduced to blubbering idiots. Or if there’s an odd number of chromosomes, the dominant chromosome with the lowest IQ wins and guides the pack. Like at an Australian Rules football match. Or a gathering of religious snake-handlers.

So where does this leave us? With no resolution for the burkini conundrum, nor anything of merit worth reading. But if you did take the time to read this, you have wasted a full 2 minutes of your time that won’t ever be returned, and I have fished through your wallets while you weren’t looking. Lots of unused condoms in there.

Cogitatively coagulated,

Isosceles of Sucrose

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Monsters Are Everywhere

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Stanko & Tibor - Monsters

Dateline: A basement, in a metropolis, middle of summer, hot humid, sticky, smelly, and that's just my underwear. I am kidding, of course. About the metropolis part.

Monsters Come In Different Forms

If you actually managed to drag yourself from your booze-soaked, carbohydrate-laced stupor and read the 8 magically drawn and skilfully penned panels containing not a single reference to Brexit, Donald Trump, acts of terrorism, the US election farce, chances are you noticed the dialog was a little weak and in no way related to the most recent events.

Then you probably thought: What an irresponsible monster of a comic-drawing human he is! He cares not a whit (nor does he have a wit) for the burning issues flooding our media, nor does he enlighten us with his commentary or grossly questionable wisdom. Monster!

Well, you’re right that I can be a monster, but not the way you think. I am more of a morning monster, when I haven’t had coffee.

Monsters Everywhere

There are monsters all around us. In the media (do we really need more coverage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions? It’s painful watching hoards of sycophantic, rabid, mental patients — with hats. A convention hall full of monsters filled with ego, piss and vinegar. And no doubt beer and hookers and the Republican convention. I am sure it was light beer,  hummus with crudités and cocaine at the Democrat shindig. Come on, there were Hollywood types there.

Monsters in government? Well of course. You see what’s happening in Turkey? A coup that was relatively bloodless? What a sham. Why else does anyone watch military coups if not for the blood and terror? No wait, I am confusing that with Game Of Thrones.

But there are monsters even in places you wouldn’t think: The bathroom!

Leggy Monsters

So, the other morning, pre-coffee, I was standing in the shower when all of a sudden, some kind of monster, a filthy, creepy-crawly  with more hairy legs than a two Southern European soccer teams combined, ran across the base of the shower — mere centimeters (or inches if you prefer, you troglodytic Imperial monsters) from my toes.

It was the stuff of nightmares. You couldn’t tell what the head or the tail was, it swivelled and dashed across the floor of what is supposed to be a clean surface meant to wash away the physical sins I engage in (if wiping my filth and Oreo-covered fingers on my pants counts).

How something so tiny yet horrifying could affect me more deeply and traumatically than the Democrats, the Republicans, a military coup combined is something to behold. What does it all mean? What kind of lessons can I derive from this? Here are some:

  1. I’m a colossal coward
  2. I’m easily disassociating from reality and network news — without meds
  3. I should cut down on the Oreos
  4. I am really reaching for material to write about

Having said that, and given that something animated and totally unrelated to today’s events is about to start on TV, it’s time I bid you fans adieu!

I am off to battle the sleep monsters. They will win.

Drowsily dull,

Brutus son of Gordus the Impatient

Crime, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

The Plan To Save America

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The Plan to Save America by Stanko & Tibor

Dateline: A June eve, colder than late October, my TV is now tuned to animation so I can ignore reality.

The ECT Plan

Another mass shooting, another terrorist attack, another reason there should be widespread, reckless, rampant use of electro-shock therapy.

Shock therapy is a grossly misunderstood and maligned tool for social equilibrium and lesson-imparting. Sadly, electro convulsive therapy (ECT), or ‘buzzing the brain goo” to the layman, has been given a bad rap in movies and the press as a way to “solve” difficult psychological issues such as aggravated fruit fondling, underground gerbil hurling competitions, spouse nagging and as a crowd control method at pop music concerts riddled with hormone-laden youth.

I say ECT could be used to settle the upcoming American election. Why you ask? Of course you’re not asking, because no one is reading this rant, except for the 4 incarcerated inmates at the Super Max Prison for Wayward Yoga Teachers. The “downward dog” takes on new meaning in that joint. But I digress.

ECT for You and Me

Let’s face it. Anyone who willingly votes for Donald J. Trump, be they male or female, young or old, rich or poor, tall or short, fat or slim, has essentially shown themselves to be in need of ECT-realignment of the cranial matter. I don’t mean it to be a punishment either. It’s required to restore some form of mental calm and synaptic equilibrium that is apparently sorely lacking in the country that somehow is responsible for the “infomercial”, yet gave us such gems as rock ’n roll and the blues.

Now before you say “you’re a lefty pink loving Hilary fan” — I say thee nay. I also think all her supporters should be subject to group ECT, preferably in an ankle-deep pool with 5000 piranha. They too are a little too fervent, especially those Bernie booster contingent whose idealism and dedication to the cause of fairness make my stomach turn and a little bit of acid reflux happens. Too much strident do-gooderism before breakfast is a little like having only dry whole wheat toast with low fat yogurt for breakfast — every day. And we know where that hellish scenario leads to: people wearing Birkenstocks with black socks, a definite sign of the apocalypse. The only way that is rectified is double ECT doses.

Fixing Democracy

So where does that leave us? Give up on democracy? Well, not at the municipal level. But at the federal level, I should be made benevolent leader for about 6 months with a team of Hawaiian surfer maidens as my staff, ready to zap anyone with an ECT if they so much as question my desire for beef or pork ribs.

Here’s my plan to fix everything:

  1. Ensure that all people across the country have unlimited bagels and chocolate and cinnamon danish to eat ever day. And we’d even make allowances for gluten-free danish until we could find an island to move the gluten-intolerant to. Not Hawaii. That’s for me.
  2. We move the US armed forces, every last one of them, to the Britain where they take over the island and stop the British from telling everyone what’s “proper spelling” and remove all the journalists and tabloid owners that make a living reporting off the Royal Family and place them all on the St. Kilda Island in the Outer Hebrides. Win-win for all of humanity.
  3. While everyone is still groggy from the post-ECT zap, we move everyone who wants to own a gun or hunts with a bow and arrow to the southern half of the country. Everyone who wants gun control and government mandated hugging and kisses we move them to the northern half. Each group gets access to the west and east coasts on weekends. Then we have the millions of illegal Mexican immigrants dig a deep trench about 100 miles wide, spanning from east to west, fill it with water and man-eating alligators and sea mines, so no one has any great desire to cross.

I figure the northern lefties will all hug and sing Kumbaya while the folks in the south will fire off their arms in sheer joy like it’s an Afghani wedding.

My guess is the people in the south will quickly kill each other because heat makes you do stupid things (see Middle East for reference), thus thinning the population, while the people in the north will nag each other to death with political correctness and too much health food and regulation, thus thinning their population, too.

When both sides of the divide are severely weakened after too much fried food in the south and too much organic buffalo cheese in the north, then we put them back together, hold an election and see if they have learned anything.

Chances are they won’t have learned a thing, but it would be a great social experiment. Especially since I don’t live there.

Oh and we lock Hilary and Donald in a closet, both naked, for 48 hours and see who comes out alive, because I don’t want to do any more comics about this buffoon. I need new material.

There. Problem solved.

Disgustingly cookie-filled and partially sane,

Jonah Buzzer Boy Druker

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Mr. President, Meet Mr. Crazy

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Stank & Tibor - Mr. President

Dateline: May on a nice evening. Some place where the warden can't get me.

President Secret Agent

I would make a terrible secret agent, let a lone a president of a country. Let me explain. I spend too much time online and using social media, so I am easily traced, not a good spy quality to have. Furthermore, I hate sea food. It hates me too. If you’ve ever seen a spy thriller, there is often something happening down at the docks where it smells like fish — disgusting. I’d gag and complain. Or it takes place at some sunny seaside resort where the macho protagonist is eating a shrimp cocktail. The excludes me as my gout would explode after a few bites. How many secret agents do you know have to take anti-gout medication? Probably none.

I can’t imagine me doing one of those Mission Impossible slide-down-the-heat-pressure-sensitive-chamber on a wireline. I’d get dizzy and vomit, thus setting off the anti-vomit alarms, the dogs would come running, and I’m scared of them as it is, and I would be shot on site.

Worse, if I were merely threatened with torture, I’d spill the beans without hesitation, provide diagrams, videos and the credit card numbers of the other agents. I’d even drive the enemy to their houses if it meant avoiding a car battery to the testicular area.

To top it off, I have allergies galore. If I were a secret agent and I had to put up with one of the Bond villains petting his puffy, hairy cat, I’d either be wheezing and sneezing my head off or worse, I’d be all dopey from the antihistamines I’d have to pump into my blood stream to negate that evil cat. They’d catch me in a second.

So I decided not to pursue that career knowing I don’t have the “right stuff” to become a secret agent.

Not the Right Stuff

Along the same line of thought, I think Donnie Trump really doesn’t have the right stuff to become president. And not because he’s a colossal jerk-bully-ego maniac. I’d argue those qualities are highly useful for being the leader of the 32nd most indebted nation on earth. It takes some ego and bravado and general jerkiness to tell other nations what they are doing wrong while yours steadily increases its purchase of weapons after each mass school shooting where defenceless children are involved.

Also certainly not because he’s a womanizer, because there has barely been a two-term president in the past 100 years who wasn’t. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton (all free-loving Democrats, I might add), and I am sure I am missing some of the older ones. Seems to be a must-have on the curriculum vitae. But I digress.

No, it’s most likely that Donnie the Dingdong Trump doesn’t have all his cookies baked, metaphorically speaking. Either too much hair dye has seeped into his brain or a recessive gene kicked in a while ago.

He is an effective sociopath, heaping blame on others when he screws up (Trump Steaks anyone?). He says whatever comes to his mind. Which is usually is a sign of advanced craziness. (See: North Korean leaders for reference) That “quality” might be fun on a TV reality show or at a dinner party where there is free shrimp and booze, but not so much in delicate political situations.

Chinese Food

Somehow I think if he does become, dare I say, the President of the US of A, I can foresee some bad feces happening. Like at a State dinner with the Chinese prime minister. I’ll bet you he’d lean over to the Prime Minister’s wife and say something like “How come all you Asian women have small breasts?” Or something like “I nailed an Asian broad once – I was not impressed. I thought you guys invited the Kama Sutra.”

No doubt come dessert time, he’d make a crack about fortune cookies and pull the corners of his eyes to make them more “Asian” shall we say. Then we’d have a real shot at World War III. Heaven only knows what he’d say if he were visiting Russia.

Half a Brain

How can a man who clearly lacks mental stability, a social filter, and a has a greater sense of self-worth than his own misrepresented wealth be able to handle the responsibilities of the President of the USA?

It must be because of his mastery of the unispheric brain. Simply, it means one half of your brain is working hard, and the other half is asleep. Ducks do that when they are sleeping so predators don’t kill them when they are nodding off. Donnie The Brain Boy Trump I think only uses half his brain most of the time while the other half is asleep (or dreaming of how he could trademark his ego.)

Whatever the case, he does look a fair bit like a hairy mole.

Stunningly dull and forever yours (unless I owe you money),

Miguel Confucius Druker

Are you a hairy mole?

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

Trump Vs. The Empire

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Trump v. Empire

When will primary season be over? There's an election afoot, and that causes discomfort in many. Mostly it causes gas.

 Who Is More Evil? Hard To Say

If find the whole thing a little ironic. No, wrong word. Bizarre is le mot juste. Right now, everyone I know who’s following the American primary race is actually rooting for The Empire and not the Rebels. Let me explain.

The so called Establishment candidates, Hilary Bitter Clinton, and I guess Lyin’ Ted Cruz, are in a pitched battle for the leadership of their respective parties, to get a chance to become The Head Banana of the United States of Bananas. They are battling who? The Rebels: Bernie “Trotsky” Sanders, and Donald The Disassociated from Reality” Trump. And let;s face it – they are rebelling against the empires that are their parties.

So what is a person to do when Evil is Good and Good is Evil? The answer is simple: Eat. A lot. Preferably chocolate danish. And cinnamon danish will do in a pinch. But there are side effects to constant eating of life-affirming sugars and dough.

Unnatural Emissions and Omissions

Everything I eat makes me gaseous and bloated. No matter whether it’s carbs, fibre, protein, sugar-based confections like those delicious petroleum-laced snacks made by a faceless conglomerate that has various safety violations and a few environmental crimes under its belt, or even bacon, which technically speaking, is its own food group according the Grand Council of Baconistas.

To alleviate this blight, everyone says I should do a ‘cleanse’ and avoid all matter that causes gases to form in my belly. There are several problems with a cleanse. First of all it sounds like something a religious, fascist zealot would do, so right there you lost me. Second a ‘cleanse’ involves denying myself of things I like. Self-denial is something people who have too much time and wealth on their hands do. I don’t have the time to deny myself stuff because that would mean cleaning out the pantry.

And a cleanse is something vaguely associated with cleaning, an act I loathe because it means I have to wear rubber gloves and be exposed to chemicals that, while shifting my brain into an altered state where conversations with inanimate objects tend to be quite hysterical, tend to have a deleterious effect on my relationship to reality, and thus my wife.

Make  Me

Worse than that, why would I want to clean anything? Isn’t that why there are cleaning ladies? And by that I mean no disrespect to the legion of cleaning men, although that term does seem like a bit of an oxymoron, given the males I know. Unless, however, it’s a neat-freak man, with obsessive compulsive issues and no readily available medication, living in a clean apartment with fresh cut flowers.

Dare I say, it goes against my genetic code to deny myself those things which will lead to the joy of the palate and the bloating of the belly. Come to think of it, the DNA testing results from that guy with a limp and a patch over one eye in the back alley near the strip club was a little suspicious. The results came back with the proper 23 chromosomes, but 4 were still dormant, hence explaining my deep desire to nap every afternoon after lunch.

Well, seeing as this is all too absurd for even more words, I will cleanse my palate with something sugary and cleanse my mental pallet with some sleep.

Mightily Manly and Majestic,

Little Lord Fauntleroy Druker

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Trump, Rump, Dump, Chump, Sump Pump – Rhyming Crap

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Stank and Tibor - Loving Trump the Drumpf

Trump, Rump, Chump Dump, Sump Pump – Rhyming Crap

It wasn’t long ago that Donald Trump was the butt of many jokes. A rich butt, but a butt all the same. Now, Herr Hair Piece has made life a little scarier with his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and of course his subsequent attack on the — dare I say — The President! None of which is news, of course, as every one and his brother (or sister) has been glued to the TV, radio, mobile device and anything else that reports the so called news these days. You can’t escape it, much as I would like to.

Trump Rhymes With ‘Rump’

It’s not rocket science as to why small-fingered Trump is so popular – and it isn’t his vouching for cuts of Grade ‘A’ beef, so beloved by men with a subconscious wish for an early coronary and preceded by a fine bout of colon cancer. (I think if If he vouched for a mediocre rump roast, it would have hit a little too close to home for him, but apt it would have been, indeed.)

Trump the Rump is a bully, plain and simple. A charismatic shmuck of a bully, but a bully all the same. That’s why so many people love the guy – they’re afraid of him. Or strangely he’s adored and lauded for “telling like it is”  – which is usually code for “I won’t use logic to assess that statement because my rage-related hormones are boiling  like a thin beef broth over an open flame.”

Bullies and blowhards make all kinds of false statements backed by nothing more than bluster (Wow, I used a lot of ‘B’ words in that last sentence. Amazing I didn’t use ‘ball-busting bastards’ – I must be losing my edge.) This aspiring presidential rump is one of the best at beating up (verbally) on anyone and everyone. How nice.

Trump Rhymes With ‘Chump’

It’s quite shocking that a stylish bully like Donald Fart Face has made it this far, because in essence he is a chump. For those who don’t know the word, a chump is defined as “A stupid or foolish person; a dolt.” Oddly, it’s also defined as “A short, thick, heavy piece of wood.”

Foolish he is not, how else could he get legions of people to do his bidding by punching people who disagree with him? Maybe he really is short, thick, heavy piece of wood, originating from a genetically manipulated cross between dog wood (hence his bark) and pond scum that has been poisoned by toxic sun tan lotion? It would explain his stubby fingers…

Trump Rhymes With ‘Dump’

If he is elected the Republican presidential nominee, despite the party’s best efforts to derail him, and goes on to defeat Hilary Clinton in the general election, I think he stands a good chance of having the White House redecorated to look like a Vegas Casino. I can’t really tell you why I believe that. Maybe it’s the spicy Thai chicken I had that’s clouding my brain and making me pass wind.

Since the Trump style involves a lot of gold, hair product, and no doubt a Trump-endorsed male cologne probably made from gasoline and cheap Amaretto, there will be an industrial smell about his presidency. The kind of smell used to mask a city dump.

 Trump Rhymes With ‘Sump Pump’

How one gets to a sump pump from a Trump isn’t as long a twisted journey as you’d think. This kind of pump is used to remove excess liquid, usually from a flooded basement. Where sewage tends to back up, like after a torrential rainfall of crap. Not unlike that which spews from Donald’s mouth on a regular basis as he spits bile and filth at those who oppose him. Nice. How dictator-like.

And it’s not just me who finds it amazing that this chump of a sump pump clump of orange hair masquerading as a human has inspired so many people to come out and vote. He’s certainly tapped into a vein of anger that the Republican elitist jerks neglected for, oh, 30 years or so. Maybe we shouldn’t be so amazed that Trump is where he is given his skill for oratory and showmanship, and his keen ability to reason and use logic like a 4-year old pissed off at the playground.

Enough ranting for one evening. I have other more important things to do. Such as eat marmalade-filled cookies that contain something akin to heroin, hence my predilection for spending actual hard-earned cash on something I m sure is made from petro-sugar, sawdust and chocolate-flavored styrofoam.

Swimmingly swollen,

Field Marshall Druker of the Azores

PS – Happy 80th Birthday, Dad

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

May The Text Be With Ewe. I Meant ‘You’

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Stanko & Tibor - All Text

Dateline: Somewhere north, dreary, rainy, late December, late afternoon, late for my latte, late with the latest comic. Must text my thoughts before the medication wears off.

To Text Or Not To Text. I’d Say To Text

First off, I haven’t seen the new Star Wars flick yet, but when I do, you can be sure there will be a comic about it. Probably something involving interspecies fondling, I’d reckon. However, until then, not an ounce of text, not a drop of sweat or electronic ink will be expended on the subject. But if Star Wars had used sheep as the actors, I think they would have gone with “May the Force be with Ewe.” Just a random thought from having taken a LOT of sinus medication late.

So often it is the case that we have reduced our lives from speech and complex sentences to this thing we call “text messages.” We are racing for the ultimate in brevity and at the same time, stupidity. It’s remarkable how with the advent of texting, we mobile device-addicted, semi-sentient, 23-chromosomed monkeys have managed to simultaneously make communication more efficient by reducing it to the textual version of grunts, and at the same complicated our lives with all the misspelling and consequent misunderstandings and inadvertent embarrassments that we transmit from device to device.

Silence Is Golden. But Gold’s Value Has Plummeted

In theory all this texting leads to less speaking, thus removing from the world vast amounts of noise pollution, and potentially thwarting the release of CO2 from all the exhaling we do when we speak. In theory, it should lead to more silence and less blathering and bleating.  And as the saying goes, silence is golden. But have you seen the value of gold in the last 6 months? Dropped like a stone. Why, Star Wars movie tickets for opening night had a higher market value.

Can you just imagine how much texting went on by all those hard core fan boys and girls before the official opening night? Real communication, like where people talk to each other? I doubt it. Well, until the movie started and then there must have been millions of people humming the movie theme and simultaneously wetting themselves with joy. Which probably limited some of the texts.

The human need to text, to let one’s thoughts run free through the electronic ether, seems to grow unabated. Those thoughts, about as deep as a thimble, escape virtually unchecked, and more often improperly corrected by the smarter-than-thou auto-correct feature every so called “smart phone” has enabled by default. We get the meaning across sometimes, and other times the word “important” is somehow auto-corrected to “incontinence.”  This does not help out in the world of intercultural business communication.

Steady As She Goes

The outcome of this need to communicate intense brevity – without the use of our voice boxes, and instead replaced by our not terribly dextrous fingers on tiny keyboards – will lead us all to ruin. Why do I say that?

Because by having taught my mother to text (so she doesn’t call us as often to ask if I put the chicken back in the fridge, lest it develop deathly bacteria), we have enabled her to write to us ever more frequently, ever more pointedly, knowing full well that when we hear that “bling” indicating a text has come in, we will rush to the mobile device, only to shake our heads in bewilderment when the words “Just wanted to see how you’re shoeing” appear, and we roll our eyes as our blood pressure spikes.

Happy Holidays.

Steadily unbalanced and virtually yours,

Jean-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Druker

Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

It’s The Hair

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Stanko & Tibor - Choke on the Hair of the Dog

Dateline: Somewhere in North America, late October, autumnal arboreal shedding continues unabated, and I'm blubbery...

Foibles and Shame and Hair

I have said many horrible things in my life, where I was informed in no uncertain terms, I should feel shame for my words and thoughts. It was inevitably followed by a threatening, wagging forefinger (or sometimes a middle finger, usually in traffic or at the dentists office for making improper jokes to the hygienist) and  then by the keen, verbal, jagged, moral dagger meant to spotlight and enhance the moral shaming: “How can you live with yourself?”

A valid question, indeed. Could I live with myself? Could I live with the shame, the embarrassment, the gaseous and noxious fumes? Would I be able to live with myself knowing what a monster I am and look myself in the mirror every day without recoiling in disgust?  

Well, I think I could live with myself, but there would have to be a few conditions: 

  1. I would have to have at least a queen sized bed, preferably a king sized bed, if I had to live with myself. I snore like a choking, drowning bear, and move around and twitch like a tortured frog having a minor epilepsy attack (or so I am told by my significant other). So if I had to live with myself, there would need to be space between me and myself during sleeping time.
  2. I would have to be allowed to cheat on myself if I am getting frisky and my other self was busy playing something on the iPad or watching sports, or more likely, something animated with cartoon violence. Which would probably be often as I am in the habit of gravitating toward anything that I can poke and touch, has flashing lights and movement. Kind of like a stripper. But I digress.
  3. If and when I would get into an argument with myself, let’s say over who left the toilet seat down, or whose filthy, racing-striped underwear was littered on the floor for 3 days running, and I won said argument, I should be allowed to gloat for a full 24 hour period, and write the word loser in toothpaste on the bathroom mirror.
  4. There would have to be someone to clean the house at least weekly. I shed like a cross between an Akita and an Alaskan Malamute (sadly from the top of my head more so than elsewhere) and I like to cook and eat breads with thick crusts and many seeds. The ensuing mess is normally pretty bad, so imagine if I had to live with myself, it would be not just doubly filthy. Nay, I say triply filthy due to the synergistic effects that occur when hair and food bits mix. (I read that somewhere in the scientific journal known as the Weekly Ass when I was waiting at the proctologists office.)

So where does that leave us? Certainly no better off than 4 paragraphs ago. But it does make me wonder about human foibles, in particular body hair.

Fear & Loathing

Why do we North Americans fear body hair so much? Why is it that as soon as it falls from our bodies after hair brushing, towel drying or oral sex, that these hairs are suddenly like a piece of animal dung covered in plutonium? We are repulsed by body hair as if it had become a slimy, sick crawling creature, ready to pollute our environment. What have these detached, aimless, free-range hairs done that merits such a visceral response that there is a minor upchuck in our throats when we have to fish them out of the sink or shower drain? Or they lay in a quiet, filthy pile of dust in the corner of the bedroom? 

(Actually, we are sent into acid reflux convulsions when we see how these hairs have decided to run wild and grow out our noses, shoulders, and if you’re a really unlucky male, above the crack of your butt. But I digress again.)

What did poor Rapunzel, who by the way was named after a type of lettuce, do when she had to sweep up her shedding hairs? How did her prince charming deal with her shedding? She was lionized for her strong, long hair, but in today’s society she would have been a leper if she carried around that lengthy mane. Or at least called a filthy hippie. 

Did these natural fibers not once keep us warm, or shimmer in the light after being washed with shampoo and tamed with conditioner, all in an attempt to not look so greasy to our significant others, or more likely, to catch the eye of that office mate you’ve been staring at surreptitiously from behind your cubicle or at office functions meant to force camaraderie and team spirit?

Backward Unto the Fur

Yet even as we are sickened by an excess our body hair, or worse, loose, unattached body hair of indeterminate origin, we still need it. Sometimes.

We have an entire segment of the fashion industry dedicated to the removal and subsequent re-application of animal hair (and skin) to create what are known as fur accoutrements. Hats, coats, vests, mitts, boots, tea cozies, and underwear. Call it fur if you’re like, but it’s hair to me. And we pay big money to have it draped all over us. Or have paint thrown on it by anti-fur activists. Gross. I hate paint.

Hairy Malfunction

Think of your pubic hair. Evolutionary scientists and unrepentant perverts alike have long speculated as to the function of pubic hair. The main theory is that it is there to alert its owner and the world around said owner that hormones will soon be raging and the body is evolving into something with sexual needs and wants. It’s beginning to become fertile.

These hairs are beacons for their owner and to others looking to get a “quickie” in after the kids go to bed. They are, in a way, pointers. Why do you think the pubic hair on male and female privates is shaped like an upside down triangle? It’s saying “hey! down here is where the action is!”

Yet, as we age and our bodies change usually for the worse with wrinkles, flab and folds, the pubic hair is still there. But seldom is it viewed or touched anymore in the way it was first meant to. And I mean seldom. Like maybe once every crop rotation kind of seldom. Maybe pubic hair has the same bodily function as the appendix or the spleen, in that it still hangs around but has really become a useless attachment. A relic of a former era, like a signpost on a deserted, barren highway leading to a ghost town that gets the exceptionally rare, wayward visitor in search of once past glories. 

More likely, our hair, pubic or otherwise, is there to remind us the human body is not always such a lovely thing to look at once it ripens, especially in daylight, imperfect and faulty.

Carl the Coiffeur  

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

Heroic Lies and Other Black & White Untruths

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Stanko & Tibor - Heroic Lies

Dateline: Mid-August, it's a heatwave and simultaneously election season. It's too much for a bear to soul.

Heroic Lies

As the thick, dare I say pasty fog of sleep cleared and I managed to roll out of bed, turn on my iPad and read with some amazement the latest Chump von Trump zinger about who’s really a hero (clearly not that sissy pants John McCain III), I started to understand a bit about universal truths and universal lies. You just can’t have one without the other.

I won’t get into the “death & taxes” universal truth argument because you can avoid paying taxes as long as you’re heavily disassociated from reality due to a pill or heroin addiction, have a crafty and crooked accountant who makes you look poor, or you have a printing press. Kind of like Greece pre-Euro crisis/national emasculation.

And what of death? Is it a universal truth? Or a universal lie? Is it all darkness? The big sleep? Or is it just a phase before we boogie on down to Hades for some eternal, unpleasant sun-bathing with only half a tube of Bain De Soleil SPF 4? To be honest, I am not too keen to find out personally, given my genetically built-in fear of it, and the fact that I am a bigger sissy than John McCain or that delicately prune-like Herr Hair von Trump.

Infallibly Fallible

Having coincidentally thought long and hard (maybe 15 seconds or so) about the lying as a coping mechanism and the infallibly fallible politicians we have to choose from in democracies when election time rolls around, I have decided to use my web-based bully pulpit to give this installment of the comic that now is down to a readership of three — one of whom is heavily medicated to prevent unintended and unscheduled naked jaunts through the park again, and the other two, conjoined twins battling fiercely over gets to wear the sole part of pants they own before head off for a job interview as a WalMart greeter — a message!

It is universally true that politicians will lie any chance they can get. They can’t help it. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t vote for them. No one really wants to hear the truth anyway. So deal with it. We get lied to all the time by people in power. It’s the basis for a functioning political system and the accompanying bribery machine that makes it all work so smoothly.

Let’s be honest about lying for a moment. We non-politicians aren’t a whole lot better. We lie every minute of every day. We lie to our lovers (‘Of course I’ll leave my wife for you’), our spouses (just ask the members of Ashley Madison), our bosses (‘Oh it wasn’t me. Frank in Accounting must have screwed up the TPS reports. I heard he’s off the wagon again’), our children (‘Of course you’re as smart and pretty as your sister’), our religious mentors (‘I have no idea who peed in the holy water, Father Mike’), and especially to cruel dentists when they ask if we floss regularly. Of course, I do.

Donald The Don

Well, maybe not everyone lies. Maybe that walking piece of chum Trump is telling it like it is. Maybe all Mexicans are drug lords and/or criminals, John McCain isn’t really a hero and all of the women on The Apprentice flirted with him – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected. Could it be that Donald, future ruler of the world, has stripped away the veil of lies to tell it like it is?

More likely his hair dye has pickled his brain.

Lovingly exhausted,

Ombudsman Druker of the 3rd Precinct

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

Your Guide to True Crimes, True Idiots

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Stanko & Tibor - Crimes & Idiots Galore

True Crimes

Driving home this evening in my creaky, achy minivan, trying not to notice the criminally exorbitant price of gasoline in my fair city, I heard on the radio that the national bureau of statistics had calculated that the rate of violent crimes in the country had dropped to its lowest point since 1991. Well, I thought, that is a pretty good sign of a society that is not totally going into the porcelain crap collector.

Yet that was followed by a more sobering fact that non-violent crimes had indeed increased in number and frequency, and showed a mild yet consistent trend upward. What made the report truly interesting and surreal was something I hadn’t really considered as a crime statistic before.

A Little Extra Death

Let’s differentiate between non-violent crimes, such as fraud, property damage, identity theft, excessive fruit fondling, and the violent ones, like breaking-and-entering (which sounds vaguely sexual), robbery, Pope-pestering, rabbi-rousing, wearing a pink polo shirt with checkered slacks, manslaughter, murder and pet-kicking.

But we now we have a new category of crimes being counted: terrorism. Just think, blowing up people and places is considered a crime that’s counted among the stats now. When I was growing up writing your name in pee in the snow was considered a violent act. Especially if you misspelled your name or only used lower case letters. Now it’s the ideologically-driven, indiscriminate murder of civilians that police have to count. Like they don’t have enough paperwork to do and African-Americans to physically abuse, now they have to deal with terrorists when they file a report.

Etymology and Cheap Segues

Interestingly, the etymology of the word idiot is Greek: idiōtēs (“person lacking professional skill”, “a private citizen”, “individual” – if that last descriptor is true, then we’re all idiots. Seems about right).

More critical to this fractured, late-night rambling, I thank the literary gods for that etymological deus-ex-machina because I had no clue how I could segue in the next paragraph from crime to the Greek tragedy occurring in Europe, and the subject of this inane comic some of you read when questioning whether you want to continue living or not. (Coincidentally, in a recent Reuters poll it was revealed that the expressed desire to commit suicide and/or vomit after reading my blog/comic has stayed steady between 99-100% among my loyal readers.)

Actually, come to think of it, now that my sugar levels are spiking, if we are speaking of true crimes and true idiots, Greece’s inhabitants and especially its politicians, and most of Europe fall under those descriptors.

Corruption Matched Only By Idiocy

Marvelling at the complicated corruption and financial extortion and ineptitude that is Europe and a bankrupt Greece, one has to wonder who is the bigger idiot, Greece or Germany, the bankroller of the EU.

If we had to define Greek attitudes toward paying taxes, acceptance of bribery monies, nepotism and backroom deals, we could generalize and say they wilfully and knowingly committed fiscal self-fornication for many a decade. When they entered the Euro Zone, they now had a rich Onkel to bail them out.

So when the proverbial περιττώματα hit the fan, some German banking sucker would fork over some cash at exorbitant and usurious rates figuring Greece was good for the dough. Little did those fat, corrupt German bankers know that the Greek skill and penchant for pissing away the money of others was comparable to that of drunkard on heavy diuretics at an ouzo factory. (Btw – I love hurtful national stereotypes. They make writing this crap much easier.)

Simple, Idiotic Answers to Complex Questions

Now that we have all watched this criminal Greek tragedy while Iran was negotiating a sweet deal to continue funding terrorism and simultaneously build a nuclear bomb pretty much unfettered, a simple yet moronic solution presents itself in this episode of the comic once referred to by Pope Francis as “the devil’s dung.”

Bomb everything, pave it over and put up a Wal-Mart. Violent, arbitrary, Neanderthilic and a wholly unnecessary overreaction? Sure. But so are Fox News and shopping at Wal-Mart on a Saturday.

No, I say we follow the simple, direct, armed approach. It has specific, measurable and attainable goals, as was taught to me in management classes. Which I mostly faked my way through as I was playing with my phone.

Everlastingly exhausted and mentally dull,

Alexis Nikos Druker

It’s free humor for the immature