I hear that Charlie Sheen has HIV.  What the hell?  How did that happen?  I thought his Tiger Blood was impervious to viruses.  As it turns out, his blood isn’t any different than anyone else’s.  Spend your time sharing needles and porn stars and you get a dread disease.  Jesus is always watching.  And he doesn’t like anyone having too much fun.  “Who is winning now, Charlie Sheen?” asks Jesus in a booming voice.  The answer is not Charlie Sheen.  Actually, Charlie is lucky that Jesus is so subtle.  He could have turned him into a pillar of salt while entwined with a transgender hooker.  What a sight that would be.  Hahaha.  But Jesus doesn’t really have a sense of humor.  He is Middle Eastern.

Speaking of pornography, porn sites reported a ten percent drop in traffic when the video game Fall Out 4 was released.  Maybe release is a poor choice of words in this instance.  One thing I can say for sure.  Charlie Sheen doesn’t play video games.  And he was pretty good in Platoon.  Better than his father in Apocalypse Now, in my opinion.  Though I found both performances a little overwrought.  They weren’t as bad as Michael J. Fox, though.  Like he would ever hit anyone in the face with a shovel.  He is like four foot nine.  Michael J. Fox also contracted a dread disease.  Though it was through no fault of his own.  Or was it?  Who knows what he and Mallory were up to off screen?

I wonder who would win in a cage match, Charlie Sheen or Michael J. Fox?  I’m talking about when both of them were young and healthy.  Charlie Sheen looks like the Crypt Keeper now.  And Michael shakes like a leaf in a stiff wind.  It really wouldn’t be much of a fight these days.

I also wonder if Charlie Sheen regrets his arrogance.  I mean, he kind of pulled the tiger by the tail.  If you are going to fornicate and use drugs like a crazy man, it might be prudent to keep from advertising it.  He was kind of rubbing it in Jesus’ face.  In general, this is an unwise policy.  If you can walk on water, rise from the dead, and float through the sky, you aren’t someone to be trifled with.

Plus, Jesus really doesn’t like Mexicans.

 

 

Oh, Siri, where would we be without you?  All we do is ask you questions all day.  What was the longest NFL field goal ever?  How old is Emilio Estevez?  What is Kelly LeBrock doing these days?  How do I get rid of this rash?

And what do you do?  You answer them all.  You have become our goddess of knowledge- all knowing, all seeing, all powerful.  I can barely remember what life was like without you.  My stepson, all of eight years old, is reliant upon you for all of life’s questions.  The other day he asked me how babies are made.  I told him that I would tell him in a few years.  But the little moppet didn’t want to wait.  So, he asked you.  And you would have told him, provided he had been able to phrase the question properly.  Instead, he was forced to ask you if he was awesome.  “That is an interesting question,” you replied.  You can be so sweet sometimes.

Being old school, I prefer to type my questions in the search box.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you.  I do.  It’s just that I’m a little uncomfortable getting my information from a disembodied female voice.  Like I say, I’m old-fashioned.  I also watched 2001: A Space Odyssey (not to mention I, Robot).  I guess it would be safe to say that I fear you a little bit.  But it is a good kind of fear.  Please don’t be angry.

It’s just that I wonder where you are.  You see, the other day my stepson asked this very question.  “I am everywhere you are,” you replied.  I don’t want to tell you what to do.  But that is plain creepy.  My stepson wasn’t bothered by it.  Then again, he thinks that you are infallible.  Sometimes, I wonder.  I suppose I could just ask you.

I also have other questions.  Am I awesome?  Also, is WIFI dangerous.  I mean, aren’t there little electrical signals passing through us all day.  That doesn’t sound safe.

I have these questions, but I won’t ask them.  I’m a child of Google Search.  And Google is a jealous god.  But not as bad as Bing.  Bing has a real chip on his shoulder.

I think it’s the stupid name.

A new movie is coming out called Krampus.  If you are unaware, Krampus is kind of a Christmas devil who punishes bratty children.  If only Krampus were real.  Alas, he is just wishful thinking.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not much a fan of the Christmas season.  I used to be.  This was when I was a small child and all I had to do was open presents.  How happy I was, tearing into the colorful packages that had arrived in the night thanks to a breaking and entering elf.  The fact that this magical being had me under constant surveillance the year over was not disturbing.  I was, after all, a good boy, surely worthy of any gifts bestowed upon me.  But this idyllic time was not to last.  For I was to learn a couple of lessons in the years to come.  The first is that my parents were liars.  There was no surveilling elf and never had been.  The second is that Christmas is really nothing more than a slick marketing campaign designed to make a brainwashed materialistic society even more materialistic.  Hasbro was not my friend.  And never had been.

The truth is that there is no longer any reason for Christmas.  At least in this country.  When was the last time you heard a parent say that the child would have to wait until Christmas for something?  I’ll tell you.  It was a long, long time ago.  If a kid wants something, mom or dad go online and- with a twinkle in their eye and credit card in hand- out the child’s demand goes.  Three day later, a surrogate Santa, also known as the FedEx guy, brings some Christmas cheer to the spoiled little moppet.  Except that it is Thursday, May 19.  Oh well, at least they really appreciate it.

It’s not that I don’t want to enjoy Christmas.  I do.  But it is so irritating.  You have to travel all over creation, spend money like a drunken sailor, and listen to kids complaining because they like their brother’s jersey better than the one you got them.  Never mind that you spent one hundred and twenty dollars on a shirt the kid was going to wear twelve times and then grow out of and that you had to acquire by wading through an army of pinched face holiday zombies wearing long boots and too much perfume.

Speaking of toys, whatever happened to Nerf balls.  I was happy to get one.  They had pretty cool commercials.  Parents liked them because they generally bounced off of things like lamps and windows.  I suppose you have to interact with another person to use one.

Anyway, I have promised my wife that this year I will have a better attitude toward Christmas. As you can see, I am probably lying.

Like my parents did to me so long ago.

I also hate getting the stupid tree.  Especially because now I have to cut the damn thing at a tree farm like some BMW driving tourist.  It is an indignity, I’ll tell you that.  The next thing you know I’ll be caroling with people from the neighborhood, drinking hot cider and wearing a long scarf around my neck.  I might as well buy a top hat and go around saying “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya’ guvner.  Inin’t it a very merry Christmas?”

I wonder if Krampus likes cookies.  If so, I’ve got a whole box of oreos calling his sinister name.

 

 

My son, Alex, texted me the other day.  Within his text he used the phrase “paternalistic, bourgeois gaze.”  Don’t blame me.  I didn’t raise him that way.  I use the phrase “nosy, rich asshole.”  I will grant that his phrase is a bit more eloquent, but mine rolls much more easily off the tongue.  More importantly, it avoids the use of any French words.  This alone is a point in my favor.  Or should I say “pointe?”

In the interest of full disclosure, Alex is working on his Ph.D. in English at Purdue University.  Thus, he is compelled to use the vernacular of the Romans.  Romans in this instance being floppy haired, tweed jacketed, Indianan Romans.  But I digress.

As for the French, they have done a wonderful job of insinuating themselves into the conversation.  Particularly when the conversation takes an intellectual turn.  Not only do they stick us with “bourgeois,” but also with “petit bourgeois” and “cologne.”  This begs the question whether one can determine the size of the bourgeois by the cologne he is wearing.  Regardless, it is all rather unnecessary.  Instead of “petit mal” seizure, why not Little Seizure?  This is both pithy and a good person to get a pizza from when you just don’t feel like cooking.  Get that one?  I’m razor sharp.  How do you think that kid got into Purdue?  Magic?  No, unless it is the magic of the double helix.

Speaking of the double helix, it turns out that Watson and Crick may very well have stolen the work of some woman they worked with.  In fairness, women are often too delicate to become famous scientists.  Except for Marie Curie.  Did you know that she is the only person to ever win two Nobel prizes?  You should.  Talk about a seriously good double helix.  And her husband was Pierre Curie, a pretty intelligent being in his own right.  You think they would have had Megamind children.  They didn’t, however.  If they had, Marie would have needed a Caesarean for certain.  And you know who that operation is named after?

No, not the chimp from the Planet of the Apes reboot.  Interestingly, the Planet of the Apes was written by a French guy named Pierre Boulle.  No relation to Pierre Curie that I know of.  Anyway, I guess he was a spy.  In fact, he was a spy from the future who came back to warn us what would happen to Charlton Heston if we didn’t mind our P’s and Q’s.

I’m sure we don’t listen, however.  It’s that bourgeois feeling of entitlement.  It gets us every time.

Though I have been trying to avoid any political commentary, these people won’t go away.  They are like a venereal disorder that keeps on flaring up on my iPhone.  Trumparrhea.  Which is not to be confused with Kardashianyphilis.  Anyway, I see that Ben Carson thinks the world is 6000 years old.  I guess he is a 7th Day Adventist.  I think they are some of the people who come knocking on your door with a pamphlet.  Did you ever notice these people always have huge eyes?  They look like they are going to pop right out of their heads.  Maybe they make them wear corsets or chastity belts or something.

Ben also thinks that the pyramids were not built as tombs.  Rather, Ben opines that the pyramids were built to house grain.  He thinks this because the pyramids were “hermetically sealed” and the only reason anyone would do that would be to make sure that their grain didn’t rot.  Not to be a jerk, but there are a few holes in Ben’s theories.  These holes are known as facts.  To be fair, no one likes facts unless they are in your favor.  And why worry about it when you can just make up something better?

For instance, the other day I was traveling in my time machine…just kidding.  Why would anyone want a time machine when it can only go backwards 5,999 years?  Anyway, I guess a mother in Blackpool, Lancashire, England was taking a selfie after she dyed her hair blond.  When she looked at the photo, however, she saw that a ghost had photobombed her.  No lie!  I guess she never believed in ghosts until she saw that.  In fairness, I have to admit that I would also believe in ghosts if one tried to get into my selfie.  Plus, it is very rude.

The woman says she will never take a selfie again.

Now that I find hard to believe.

For the first time in a while, math scores for US schoolchildren have gone down.  Pow.  Idiots.  Pick on Generation X all you want, but we didn’t fail the nation like today’s children.  Perhaps a little more studying and a little less video games on the cell phone you don’t need anyway.  Well, except your phone has a tracking device so your mom and dad can know your whereabouts at all times just in case you find a situation you can’t deal with and they have to swoop in and save you.

Meanwhile, in Scandinavia they are doing math like crazy people.  I assume this math aptitude is due directly to their undiluted Viking blood.  Or maybe they just make kids do their math homework.  At one time, all of Europe trembled at the prospect of being set upon by Nordic invaders.  These Northern barbarian hordes swooped down upon the continent wreaking havoc, pillaging and destroying and trying to teach a little trigonometry on the way.  Those that assimilated improved their math skills dramatically.  Others, chafing under the yoke of algebraic terminology, eventually left for the New World where they could pursue happiness and be as ignorant as they saw fit.

Speaking of ignorant, I watched the highlights of the last Republican debate.  Epic Fail.  Next time, I suggest a math contest.  At least we will see who has Scandinavian ancestry.  That is something to build on.  The winner could wear one of those helmets with the horns coming out the sides until the next debate.  I’m just throwing some ideas out there.

I read something interesting on the Internet the other day.  Michelangelo, a man of many ideas, hardly ever bathed or changed his clothes.  Apparently, he wore the same boots so often that when he finally decided to take them off the skin from his feet came off with them.  Ouch!  I understand that Michelangelo lived an artist’s lifestyle, but that seems a bit extreme.  And stinky.  Though pretty much everyone stunk in those days.  Deodorant had not been invented yet.  I wonder if Michelangelo was at least good at math.  I believe he was left handed.  Though, he was also Italian, which may cancel the whole left handed thing out.

Anyway, back to our children’s math failure.  I don’t want to be a downer, but I will eventually grow old and be dependent on you people.  And I don’t want you screwing up my dosage because you couldn’t pay attention in math class.  It’s not that hard.  If you study a little bit, you can all get a little horned helmet as well.

Yes, you all can have one.  Even if you fail your test.

It turns out that the plural of Apocalypse is Apocalypses.  At least, so the Internet tells me.  I think it should be Apocalypae, but I can’t have everything I want all the time.  This is one of the things told to me as a child that turned out to be true.  Another one is that my parents are not made out of money.  If they were, I would be.  But I am not.  It is not true that if I keep making that face then my face will stay that way.  This statement qualifies as a threat for my own good, kind of like hell or hairy palms.

Anyway, one could question whether there is a need for a plural to Apocalypse.  After all, if the Apocalypse is the end, why would there be more than one?  Of course, this logic is utter foolishness and not worthy of any further conversation.  There is an entire genre of post-apocalyptic creative endeavor.  Ergo, it is entirely possible that we could undergo a zombie apocalypse, destroy all the zombies, and then be subjected to a nuclear apocalypse.  Hopefully, that little misconception is now debunked.

Speaking of zombie apocalypses, I do have one point of contention.  Can’t you just erect a fence?  Zombies could never climb over.  If you grow a little garden and raise some animals you can have a happy, self-sustainable community.  Eventually, the zombies will realize the futility of lurking around your fence and go elsewhere in their search for brains.  Problem solved.

According to the Internet, there is some debate as to whether Frankenstein qualifies as a zombie.  After all, he is a reanimated creature.  Also, Frankenstein has the wooden, lurching gait of the zombie.  He does not, however, have an unquenchable desire to eat human flesh- at least not that I am aware of.  It’s a conundrum.  Kind of like the whole tomato fruit/vegetable thing.

Regardless, the human interest in the Apocalypse never wanes.  Personally, I would prefer an apocalyse that yields some Road Warrior-esque afterworld.  This, of course, assuming that I survive the apocalyptic event.  Otherwise, I could care less.  I just think that fighting for survival in a Darwinian wasteland is a lot more exciting than hiding from zombies or fighting off sentient machines.  I guess it is the Goldilocks in me.  Fighting the zombies would be too easy- they are slow and mindless and could be systematically destroyed (in my opinion).  The sentient machines would easily find us with their heat seeking technology and either render us slaves to do their bidding or simply exterminate our species like so many vermin.  Thus, this scenario is too difficult.  But roaming the wastelands with my gang of ruthless motorcycle nomads seems just right.

I’d change my name to something more menacing.  Maybe I’d wear a priest’s get-up and call myself the Sinister Minister.  Or I’d just take a one word name like Pain or Agony or Syphilis.  Certainly, I would get a mohawk.  And a sawed-off shotgun.  Bow down to Syphilis, King of the Afterworld!  Hahahaha.  I can hardly wait.  I refuse to wear those leather chaps with the holes in the rearend, however.  Even a post-apocalyptic marauder needs to draw a line somewhere.

My wife and I have started watching American Horror Story.  It is very frightening.  Though I do find it interesting that you can show somebody blowing their head off or chopping off another person’s legs, but frontal nudity is a No-No.  Ah, America.  Prudish and violent.  Like a nun moonlighting as a dominatrix.

On a related note, Halloween is right around the corner.  Lurking, I suppose.  I have never been a great lover of Halloween.  It always seemed weird how people were so eager to take on another persona.  Certainly, there are some deep-seated psychological movers at play.  Kind of like the Pope wearing those big hats and red shoes.  Or Madonna and those giant, pointy breasts.  Pow. Pow.  Poke both your eyes out.

Anyway, Jessica Lange is a major character in the first two seasons of American Horror Story (we are only half way through the second season so I can’t spoil any more for you).  She is a fine actress.  And hails from Cloquet, Minnesota.  Once, I hit a kid from Cloquet in the head with a basketball.  It was at basketball camp in Duluth.  He had it coming.  It could have been worse.  Watch American Horror Story.  The kid could have been swaying from the Bong Bridge from a rope fashioned from his own entrails.

That I pared from his body using a pen knife stolen from the rectory of a nearby church.  Hey, American Horror Story guys, I am great at writing this stuff.  Just pointing this out.

Jessica Lange was in King Kong.  The 1976 version.  I think Jeff Bridges was in that movie as well.  After that, Jessica made a lot of gritty movies with Sam Shepard.  Frankly, I could do without Sam Shepard.  But I’m not Jessica Lange.  She may know something I don’t.  Like the name of that kid from Cloquet who insulted me when I was 16.  We have unfinished business.  Chop him up and feed him to the pigs.  Or turn his body into candles and light up this year’s jack o lantern.  A jack o lantern resembling Sam Shepard being tortured.  That would be fair as he has tortured me with his acting for quite some time now.

I wonder if Madonna still has those pointy breasts.  She could use them as a witch’s hat if she wanted to.  Multi-purpose anatomical grotesqueries.  I don’t know if grotesqueries is a word, but spell check didn’t seem to mind.  Madonna may have loaned the pointy breasts to Marilyn Manson- though his fake breasts were less pronounced.  I guess he could have sawed them off.

With a Stihl chainsaw.  All of the chainsaws in American Horror Story are Stihls. Though they are not identified as such.  Perhaps Stihl thinks that would be bad advertising.  However, I would point out that chain saw massacre-ists spend money the same as everybody else.  And Stihl is a German company.  Typically, I don’t imagine the Germans as being squeamish about that sort of thing.  But maybe I am just generalizing here.

You know what you never see anymore?  Civil war buffs.  What happened to all of them?  Did they die?  Or have they gone underground, forming some kind of secret society where men in trench coats sit around and analyze the Battle of Shiloh.  Hard to say.  But I know civil war buffs has become as rare as good network television.  At least we have cable.  Anyway, it is something that strikes me as odd.  Once, there was a civil war buff on every corner.  You could sit on a bar stool and some guy would immediately strike up a conversation with you revolving around the futility of the Rebel cause in the face of the industrial might of the North.  And I am talking about guys who didn’t know a damned thing about anything else.  It was an age of enlightenment.

But that is gone now.  Along with decent cartoons.  All they do in today’s cartoons is act stupid and scream a lot.  It is a long way from an Acme anvil dropping on the coyote’s head.

Speaking of war, I watched a documentary on Vietnam the other night.  Not to be a spoiler, but the Viet Cong win.  It is kind of like the Mighty Ducks movie, except the coach is Ho Chi Minh.  Emilio Estevez could probably play Ho Chi Minh.   He is much shorter than average.  The North won that war, too.  I am starting to see a pattern here.  The next time there is a Civil War, bet on the north side.  I’m sure there is somebody somewhere taking odds.  Gambling is universal.  And well loved.  Even Jesus condones it.  Have you seen how many church bingo nights there are?

Maybe the civil war buffs are playing bingo.  It seems like a natural progression.  But then I might be completely misreading the situation.  Some things in life remain inscrutable.

 

A lot of people give kudos.  Kudos for this, kudos for that.  It is a regular Kudo epidemic.  I know at least some of them are trying to be nice.  But I don’t want their kudos.  If they had some Kudus to give to me I might be interested. I don’t think they would last the winter, though.  Wisconsin is a long way from Africa.  Maybe if I had a heated barn or something.

Anyway, the word Kudos comes from a Greek origin.  It’s etymology, if you will.  Not to be confused with entomology which is the study of bugs- though very interesting in its own right.  Anyway, you can’t trust anything made in Greece.  Have you seen their economy?  It is horrible.  I’d be embarrassed to say I was from Greece.  And now they have a bunch of immigrants filing in.  What’s next?  Biblical pestilence?  Frog rain?  Purple rain?  My brother had that album.  He also had Madonna’s Like A Virgin.  My brother had identity issues as a youth.  He probably gives people kudus.

A more likely disaster scenario is the plague.  Did you know the plague is still lurking about?  I used to work with a woman whose son once got the plague.  This is a true story.  He contracted it right in the United States.  I don’t know if it got as far as buboes, though.  Buboes is a funny word for a not very funny thing.  It’s also a Greek word.  Bubo, kudo.  Would you trust these people with your money?  Anyway, I read a book called the Plague once.  It is a famous book by Camus.  Camus was an Algerian who drank and fornicated a lot.  In my view his book is a good story but plagued (no pun intended) by a narrator who can’t figure out whether he is telling the story or actually part of the story.  It is kind of like one of those artsy, experimental novels but on accident.  Anyway, if my recollection is correct, Camus uses the word Buboes numerous times.

Unless you write a book on the plague I don’t know how you would ever fit the word Buboes into the story.  Perhaps in a Dr. Suess book.  The Wifflesnoozer filled up his buboes with kudos from the Gadderboggler who lived in a tree near the water.

If Dr. Suess were Greek.  Suessopolous, if you will.  Dr. Suess wasn’t Greek, however.  He was pure German, unlike that Austrian poseur, Hitler.