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Advice For The Young

Although I'm always pleased whenever young people approach me seeking advice about what they should do with their lives, I have to confess that this isn't an easy question to answer, especially since I have always been the type of guy whose one and only flaw is that, when it comes to caring about the concerns of others, I guess that, sometimes I just care too much.

(A doctor once told me that my heart is four times larger than that of the average male.* **)

Since I respect these young, inquisitive souls so much, the last thing I want to do is to bore or patronize them with a predictable platitude, such as "follow your heart."

Such advice always sounds empty, obvious, condescending, and absurd. Think about how it sounds to a hip 18-year-old. "Follow your heart to where?"

One might as well advise them to "follow their kidneys."

High School Seniors are quite adept at detecting when elder is feeding them a Happy Meal-sized portion of steaming horse shit.

Maybe that's why my advice is so highly sought after by America's best and brightest teens. They've heard from their own respected peers that for well over two decades I've made it a practice to never bullshit anybody, and that practice extends even to fuck-witted teens.

So, what do I advise these folks?

Well, first, let me say that, when it comes to giving advice, one size does not fit all, unless you're advising 18-year-olds. Then, it's pretty much "six of one/a half dozen of the other." Anything goes. Just don't confuse them with profundity. They'll get plenty of that in freshman philosophy classes.

I tell each and every one of them that they should "play it by ear."

For whatever reasons, this advice always resonates.

The looks of gratitude I receive after uttering those four short words would be truly humbling to a less confident man.

Yes, there are tears, embarrassment, and nervous laughs, or girlish giggles. And, I've got to admit that sometimes the emotions that are expressed make the moment feel feel a bit awkward and even kinda creepy. Especially when the teen is stoic and I'm the only one emoting.

But there are also the rewards. The bear hugs. The heartfelt "thank you." The friending on Facebook.

And is there any better feeling than that of watching someone, whose life you've just transformed, walking away, feeling better than he or she ever thought possible?

Of course, there are, but not many. ***

When the young one is halfway down the block, I usually cup my palms around my mouth and then shout out a cheerful reminder: "Don't forget! You owe me now! Big Time!"

I love helping people. It's just who I am. I guess you could say that by helping other people find their callings, I wound up finding my own. And I guess you could also do a lot of things. Just do us both a favor and don't come to me for suggestions.



* Rick wasn't technically a practicing medical doctor. His degree was in something to do with government, or poly-sci.

** A Male Howler Monkey.

*** Here are just a few feelings that are better:
all orgasms;
an epic bowel movement;
winning (while someone, who bugs you, loses);
finding a magic lamp;
vending machine drops two candy bars for the price of one;
meeting a leprechaun.

The Real Reason Why Bush Attacked Iraq

We've all heard many theories about the real reasons Bush launched his insane war on Iraq, but there is one that hasn't been mentioned ... until now.

I put all the pieces together this morning.

My theory was inseminated a few nights ago, when Michael Jackson's body was finally buried. I was tinkering around in my bedroom with Flickr photos, while CNN was providing background noise. Out of the blue, I thought, "What about Bubbles?"

During the endless coverage devoted to Michael Jackson, I hadn't heard a peep about the late entertainer's NBFFA (not best friends forever afterall).

I googled.

Rest easy. Bubbles is still alive. He's now living in a Florida chimp sanctuary.

It turns out that Michael had banished him from Neverland after the chimp became too physically aggressive. Bubbles was immediately and unceremoniously dispatched to a local chimp sanctuary.

Depressed. Exiled. Fallen from grace.

He became understandably despondent. Who wouldn't? One day you're the toast of the town, posing for one of Jeff Koons's six million dollar sculptures, and the next, you're discreetly farmed out to a glorified petting zoo.

In 2003, Bubbles attempted suicide.

The news of his failed attempt was hushed up, but the psychiatric experts at the local sanctuary concluded that Bubbles would be better cared for in the Florida facility.

The experts were right. Bubbles is alive and, by all accounts, happy.

*****

This morning, I'm reading a facebook comment from a friend, who, in a playful, yet somewhat wistful way, confessed that she frequently wishes someone would "whisper sweet nothings in German" into her ear.

My first thought was, "Well, honey ... join the club."

But upon further reflection, I stifled my base instincts, and offered up a morsel or two of some somewhat helpful advice.

I suggested she seek comfort in the healing works of the legendary Las Vegas animal entertainers, "Siegfried and Roy."

It is a little bit embarrassing to admit this, but I wasn't 100 percent certain of the correct spelling (although I was fairly confident about "Roy"), so again, I used the google.

On wikipedia I learned the grisly details of Siegfried's tiger mauling during a sold-out Las Vegas performance in 2003.

Reading the article was, in itself, a horrific experience. This was truly an awful scene. Gruesome. Disgusting.

And that was before I came to the part about the mauling.

These two gentleman make for what some people call "a strange kettle of fish."*

****

See the pattern?

Bush launches the Iraq War in 2003. Bubbles attempts suicide in 2003. Siegfried gets severely mauled by his favorite tiger in 2003.

There is only one logical conclusion. During 2003, there was some sort of cosmic event that triggered the brains of Earth's animals to malfunction, go haywire, do things that defy rationality.

I can't pinpoint the event, but evidence of it is still all around us.**

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.

The Old School ... Good day.



* I've always been troubled by the phrase: "strange kettle of fish." Certainly, it should be: "kettle of strange fish."

** Iraq, Florida, Las Vegas, Dallas, etc.

Lyrics from a song by PULP

Susan catches the bus into town at ten-thirty a.m.
She sits on the back seat.
She looks at the man in front's head and thinks
how his fat wrinkled neck is like a large carrot sticking out
from the collar of his shirt.

She adds up the numbers on her bus ticket to see if they make twenty-one,
but they don't. Maybe she shouldn't bother going to school at all, then.
Her friends will be in the yard with their arms folded on their chests,
shielding their breasts to try and make them look bigger,
whilst the boys will be too busy playing football to notice.

The bus is waiting on the High Street when suddenly it begins to rain
torrentially and it sounds like someone has emptied
about a million packets of dried peas on top of the roof of the bus.
"What if it just keeps raining," she thinks to herself,
"and it was just like being in an aquarium except it was all the shoppers
and office-workers that were floating passed the window instead of fish?"

She's still thinking about this when the bus goes passed Caroline Lee's house
where there was a party last week.

There were some German exchange students there who were very mature;
they all ended up jumping out of the bedroom window.
One of them tried to get her to kiss him on the stairs, so she kicked him.

Later she was sick because she drunk too much cider.
Caroline was drunk as well;
she was pretending she was married to a tall boy in glasses,
and she had to wear a polo-neck for three days afterwards
to cover up the love-bite on her neck.

By now the bus is going passed the market.
Outside is a man who spends all day forcing felt-tip pens into people's hands
and then trying to make them pay for them.

She used to work in the pet shop,
but she got sacked for talking to boys when she was supposed to be working.
She wasn't too bothered though, she hated the smell of the rabbits anyway.

"Maybe this bus won't stop," she thinks,
"and I'll stay on it until I'm old enough to go into pubs on my own.
Or it could drive me to a town where people with black hair drink
Special Brew and I can make lots
of money by charging fat old men five pounds a time to look up my skirt.
Oh, they'll be queuing up to take me out to dinner..."

I suppose you think she's just a silly girl with stupid ideas,
but I remember her in those days.
They talk about people with a fire within and all that stuff,
well, she had that alright.
It's just that no-one dared to jump into her fire;
they would have been consumed.

Instead, they put her in a corner and let her heat up the room,
warming their hands and backsides in front of her,
and then slagging her off around town.
No-one ever really got inside Susan, and,
and, she always ended up getting off the bus at the terminus
and then walking home.

"Inside Susan" by Pulp

A Blog Post Concerning The Practice Of Masturbation In Humans

"In my opinion, neither the plague nor war has had more disasterous effects for mankind than the miserable habit of masturbation."

Dr. Reveille-Parise (1823)



I've got a crazy hunch that the good doctor was doing something incorrectly.

I'm not very mechanically-inclined, but pounding my pud was one endeavor that even I was able to quickly master after one quick read of the instruction manual.

Once I grasped that "beat" didn't mean "beat" as in: "a pummelling with my fists," I took to masturbating like a hotdog to a bun. People today can write openly and freely in their blogs about the pleasures of self-pleasuring, but it always wasn't so.

During the Victorian era, many respected experts that that masturbation was evil. This is chiefly owing to the fact that most scientists and medical professionals were primarily of half-wits and simps.

They thought that donning the slick mittens would lead to insanity.

They spent a lot of time and money devising all sorts of contraptions that would inflict pain whenever one took matters into one's own hands.

Imagine my surprise when I read that graham crackers were invented by Sylvester Graham (1794 - 1851) for the purpose of ridding teens of the desire to become better acquainted with their own pleasure factories.

The gentleman who started Kelloggs cereal, John Harvey Kellogg (1852 -1943 ), was this country's most famous nutter on the topic of sex and masturbation.

Though he and his wife were married for over 40 years, they never fucked. Not once. (Probably not even a blowjob! How sick is that?)

They didn't even get down to business on their honeymoon. That's because Kellogg spent that time writing: Plain Facts For Old and Young, a book that extolled the joys of healthy living.

He had his issues with sex, but he was an especially zealous campaigner against the evils of masturbation.

Why?

Basically, it's because the man who invented corn flakes was out of his bleeding gourd.

Kellogg felt that doodling with ones privates was a recipe for destroying a person's physical, mental moral health. (He tried to make himself sound more knowledgable by going into specifics, claiming that masturbatuion cause: cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions (?), impotence, epilepsy, dimness of vision, and insanity.

He would often startle complete strangers by sternly admonishing them with this little conversation starter: "A masturbator literally dies by his own hand."

My guess is that Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg didn't get invited to many parties.



Kellogg worked relentlessly on the rehabilitation of all masturbators, but he was even more fervent in his desire to nip it in the bud early on.

How?

Easy!

Through the miracle of mutilation! (To the genitals of America's boys and girls.)

often employing extreme measures, even mutilation, on both sexes. He was an advocate of circumcising young boys to curb masturbation. In his
“A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision," he wistfully recalled in his opus, Plain Facts for Old and Young, "especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed. ”

But, what about the girls? Don't you worry about a thing. Kellogg's got them covered, too.

"In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.”

Kellogg boasted that he had personally performed a clitorectomy on a 10 year old girl who was afflicted with the urge.

Like a kindly and wise old uncle, he'd dole out advice to parents who were worried about their kids engaging in the "solitary vice."

To these folks, Kellogg would, in his neighborly way, recommend that they "bandage or tie the kids' hands, or have ma get out the needle and thread, and then just sew the foreskin shut. Better yet," Kellogg said, "simply cover their genitals with patented cages."

Stopping adults from playing with themselves was a harder sell. With the men, Kellogg felt he could appeal to their intellects and common sense.

But what about the women?

So obsessed was he with stopping them from masturbating, Kellogg launched several big ad campaigns devoted to the subject. The method he recommended to America's self-pleasuring-crazed adult females, might seem to be a bit self-serving to our jaded 21st century eyes, but that's just because our senses have been dulled through excessive wanking.

If you're an adult woman and you want to stop pleasuring yourself, here's what you do: take lots of baths in cold water; give yourself a daily enema with cold water, and eat a spare diet that includes Kelloggs cereal in cold milk.

Later in life, Kellogg became an advocate of electrical shocks to the genitals as a "modern way" of jolting some sense into folks who, for whatever reasons, just couldn't quit themselves.

Let's Keep Killing Trees

Do bloggers have feelings?

Let's be honest: most of them don't.

They're pathological parasites, utterly incapable of empathy.

I'm not like those bloggers.

I have feelings.

I care.

Maybe that's why I do feel the occasional twinge remorse or mild spasm of guilt.

What could I be feeling guilty about?

You're looking at it.

While there can be no doubt that blogging revolution I'm leading is great, I do feel sad about the victims I leave in my wake.

Yes, I know that all revolutions, throughout history, have had victims. It's a sad, but inevitable, consequence of being so revolutionary.

If I were a magician I'd create a world where there were fewer victims as a result of my actions.

I would, for the sake of continuity, always win, but I'd make it so that no one would lose.

I win; but everyone else consistently ties for second place. No losers, ever.

Sadly, in today's world, my victories often come at the expense of others.

Right now, my blog is killing newspaters and magazines around the world on a daily basis. (The stench of ink and blood is everywhere.)

Some have claimed that what I'm doing is equivalent to a massacre.

That charge is absurd.

I'd say my actions are more akin to those of a cunning serial killer's. (One who travels wherever he wants, whenever he wants, dresses properly for every occasion, and seems to always have all the latest high-tech gadgets, a massive arsenal of firepower, and ready access to the world's sexiest women.)

The problem here is that I don't want to harm these periodicals.

Yet, it often seems that each time I peck at my keyboard, I might as well be bringing my hammer down upon another nail in the collective coffins of the publishing world.

It's a heavy burden I'm carrying.

I don't want to live in a world deprived of newspapers and magazines.

Luckily for everyone, I woke this morning with a bold new vision as to how we can all pitch in to help out the world's remaining newspapers and magazines.

WARNING: Now, don't get yourselves too excited. What I'm proposing won't be enough to save them. They're still going to die, but we should at least make an attempt at doing whatever we can so that they might be able to exist as comatose vegetables for a few years longer before they expire.

The plan?

I want everyone who reads this blog to think about maybe possibly considering buying a newspaper or magazine once in a while. Think of it as "throwing a dog a bone."

I'm concluding this blog post with a couple of examples of what you'll find inside of each.

The first is from a butter magazine. The second is an article from a newspaper. They may be dated, but, then again, let's not kid ourselves, they were already dated by the time they hit the newsstands.

(FYI: Newspapers and magazines can be purchased at many down-market stores.)