Personal Problem

Lycanthropy: is a psychological disorder where a person believes that they are, or have been transformed into, an animal (usually a wolf) and then acts accordingly. Every few years the public seems to re-discover it's fascination with vampires and to a lesser degree, werewolves. I never "got" the whole vampire thing. I never understood what all the flap was about. In my mind, vampires are very overrated. Blood is not sexy-- ask any nurse or paramedic. I have always preferred the werewolves. However, the attacking and maiming of people is an unattractive aspect. What appeals to me instead is the idea of shape shifting into a physically superior animal form. That strikes an atavistic chord within me. How cool would that be to leap and run unhindered through the forest? All of this reminds me of something I witnessed during my visits to South Korea. The Koreans like to exercise early in the morning. People go outdoors and do all manner of things from playing golf, to martial arts. As the sun is rising you can see Korean men running up steep hillsides while yelling at the top of their lungs. How wonderfully cathartic! We should try that here in the States. Why should the Koreans have all the fun? Maybe I'll start a club.

One Fine Day at the Banjo Shop

Continuing with our "signs" theme from last week...

I was going to write a long piece about how awful it must be for employees at guitar stores who must listen to amateurs violate the same old rock riffs day after day. Then I wondered if a similar thing occurred down at the local banjo shop as well. I was then going to impress you my loyal readers, with trivia about the enormously popular bluegrass instrumental "Dueling Banjos", which was featured in the 70's film "Deliverance". For example; the soundtrack itself had a guitar and a banjo "dueling", and not two banjos as the title would suggest. Also, this hit song spawned many imitations and parodies such as "Dueling Tubas". This would then demonstrate my solid grasp of modern music history, and useless information. I was going to write about all that stuff and then decided...why bother?

Signs

It is human nature to seek out ways to get our individual needs met. The three guys in today's cartoon have chosen to use signs to accomplish that end. As a former sign maker myself, I know that the most effective type of signs are those that convey useful information or influence behaviour. Signs at their worst are unnecessary eyesores. Love 'em or hate 'em, I believe that the world would be chaos without signs. Feel free to quote me on that. Where would we be without signs to offer us valuable suggestions like; Stop, Right Turn Only, Handle With Care, Eat Here, Bridge Out, Clothing Optional Beach, Don't Put Your Lips On This, and so on?

Cowboy Music

I have never been much of a fan of Country music, especially it’s latest incarnation. But you have to give a tip of the hat to the old school country music songwriters. They had a great sense of humor, and they really knew how to turn a phrase.

Cat-A-Lanche

A few years ago, a comedian named Rich Hall was briefly famous for his creation of “Sniglets”. A Singlet is defined as, “Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but probably should". Sniglets are a clever form of word play often involving a pun of some sort. I have written a number of my own Sniglets over the years. One of my favorites is “Cat-A-lanche”. Allow me to explain. There was a time when I lived in a two story townhouse with my first wife. We had a bunch of critters back then. We had two dogs, four adult cats, and five kittens. Our house was in a constant state of happy chaos. For example; whenever the doorbell rang, all nine cats would run down the stairs en masse to see who was at the door. This was really fun to watch but a little hazardous if you happened to be navigating the staircase at that time. I found that the best strategy was to stand still, hold the banister, and watch as the river of cats flowed around and past me. I named this occurrence, a "Cat-A-Lanche". Good times.

Rude Dolphins

I have not been feeling very intellectual lately, perhaps it is due to the nutty weather we're having. So, the obvious route to take for this week's post is a little low-brow humor. Besides- it's just bodily functions, and I'm using dolphins so that makes it cool. Ben Franklin once said that if flatulence was odorless, we would treat it no differently than a sneeze or a burp. A wise man indeed.

Foundling

I have always had a great interest and fascination with monkeys and apes. When I was but a wee lad, I really wanted a pet monkey--but what kid doesn't? When I was in Kindergarten, our classroom had a kid-sized play kitchen and living room. We used this space to play "House", with my classmates filling the roles of a Mom, Dad, siblings, aunt, uncle, etc. There was limited room so not all the kids in my class could play at once. I created a role for myself as the family pet, "Monkey". This way I would be included anytime the other kids wanted to play "House". Everybody liked Monkey and it gave me the freedom to act silly, misbehave a little, and get away with it completely.

Growing up I read all the Tarzan books, saw the movies, and watched the TV show. I wanted to be the Lord of the Apes! I was a big fan of the "Planet of the Apes" movies too. When I was a teenager I read Jane Goodall's book My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees which inspired me to become a Primatologist. I studied everything I could find on the subject of primates and their behaviour. In a few years I had amassed a knowledge base in preparation for college. As you can guess, I did not become a world famous primatologist. Despite all the camping I had done as a Boy Scout, perhaps the jungle life was not for me after all.