We're All Going To Die

In 1938 a group of actors staged a radio adaptation of a story written in 1898 by H.G. Wells. It was called “War Of The Worlds” and depicted an attack on planet Earth by a band of marauding aliens. Martians, I believe they were. They’re the worst.

The show was broadcast on Halloween night, and despite a precautionary introduction and admonitions at station breaks that the play was a work of fiction, Americans went bonkers. Well that’s understandable. We’re a touch gullible, with short-term attention spans, and most surely some of the Philco dial-twiddlers had missed the briefings.

But the truly sad aspect of the story was not that people wigged out like a coup full of chickens picking up the scent of fox. The pathetic part was that Americans looked out their picture windows and saw the Martians with their own damn eyes.

In 1986 the respected “news magazine” 60 Minutes aired its own brand of hocus pokus entitled “Out Of Control” wherein the show’s producers purported to reveal how the Euro-automaker Audi had conspired to kidnap owners of their 5000 Class car by causing the vehicles to spontaneously shift into drive and then forcefully accelerate without the consent of the driver. The show’s technicians, in preparing for the story and to assure that some good video would be had, rigged the test car to behave as reported for the cameras. Now that’s entertainment!

Naturally, it wasn’t long before anyone involved in an accident involving an Audi 5000 was looking to blame it on the car’s evil intentions. You know what came next, right? Enter the shysters.

Why do I mention these two seemingly disconnected events? Because I’ve reached my mid-fifties and have my fair share of medical anomalies. And I love the taste of Crystal Lite.

Crystal Lite is a powdered drink mix that makes use of the synthetic sweetener aspartame. Aspartame has pretty much no calories, and it is an ingredient in several products I enjoy because of my genetic heritage. I am drawn to fat, salt and sugar. Aspartame makes things taste fabulously sweet without the oft-cited concerns for problems like diabetes and dental caries. You know what comes next, right? Enter “Dr. Janet Starr Hull”.

In my attempt to acquire rational information on the possible medical side effects of aspartame, I kept running into this human roadblock: “Dr. Janet Starr Hull.” She seemed to own the copyright on the word “NutraSweet”. How is it that one person could come to wield such power? I Googled her name but only came up with her own entries. How could she not exist beyond her own carefully coiffed resume? How could no one have anything to say about her but she herself?

I lost my interest in aspartame and went in search of this doctoral degree recipient from Clayton College of Natural Health, a now defunct institution of once questionable learning in Birmingham, Alabama known on at least one occasion to have certified a dead cat as a member in good standing of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants. Perhaps the feline had met the school's requirements while still alive.

I began to lose patience tracking down any critical investigation of this crusader for the common consumer, she who claims to understand all the intricate and dynamic conditions that govern the human body. She seemed to be making money hand over fist on simpletons she’d whipped into a sucrose frenzy, while beating Google at its own game. She’d scrubbed the Internet clean of any contrary opinion of her.

Then it dawned on me: On her websites she constantly hawks the lid-blowing expose/diary she’d written, entitled “Sweet Poison: How The World’s Most Popular Artificial Sweetener Is Killing Us – My Story”. Odds are if you make it all the way through the title your aspartame consumption rate is relatively low, and you may have some time left.

Amazon carries the book, along with actual reader reviews. Real criticism! And sure enough, there among the doubtlessly planted ad copy (You owe it to yourself…) and uncritical dotings of soccer moms (This book saved my little Jordie’s life!) were the lonely voices of informed thinkers who smelled the stink of a snake oil salesman and called her on her faux science.

Hull’s panacea comes in the form of a “detox” kit, an elixir of pixie dust and pep talk CDs. She has claimed to heal herself of Grave’s Disease in thirty days all by her lonesome simply by giving up aspartame. You will need her kit, though, to do it yourself, an autographed form of which you may purchase for $59.95, plus shipping and handling. 


You may also have your hair analyzed by the good doctor online for $180. I assume there is more to that than shoving your head up against your laptop’s USB port.

Hull claims on one of her websites that there are “… over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption. It seems surreal, but true. How can one chemical create such chaos?”

No shit, “Doc”. I have an even better factoid for you. Breathing oxygen is associated with every health side effect known to mankind. I know! It seems surreal but true!

Hull is not alone in the wilderness. No, it’s a crowded wasteland out there. Synthetic bad! Natural good! Electromagnetism bad. Magnets good. Homeopathy, healing crystals, Reiki, guardian angels…

You want to know what’s bad for your health? I'll tell you what's bad for your health. It's lending your ear to any self-proclaimed Messiah out there with a mail-order degree, Photoshopped mug shot, and one more goddamn bridge up for sale.

Can You Hear Me Now???

I'm touched. Really, I'm overcome with emotion. My cell phone company, out of the goodness of it's megalomaniacal heart, has sent me a gift. Okay, a voucher for a gift. Okay, for a gift that isn't available yet. Soon maybe. While supplies last. But I do have the brochure already.

It's a really special gift, or it will be, I'm told. It's a micro cell gizmo that multiplies the signal strength of my cell phone in my home by a lot. You do the math. What's a lot times zero bars?

When that fateful day comes, I might be able to send and receive calls. Until then I have an iThing, which means, of course, I have AT&T. Which means I continue to pay for a landline, because people occasionally wish to communicate with me using voice technology that has been around since Bell summoned Watson to his rumpus room.

Somebody at AT&T named Dana sent me a note thanking me profusely for being a loyal customer with a choice, which makes me wonder who's been slipping mushrooms into Dana's marijuana brownie batter. Did no one tell Dana I have no other carrier choice since Deb got me my iNotaphone after I'd unfortunately waxed effusive over all the things it can do other than be a phone? And that were I to go back to my previous carrier, AT&T would sue me for early termination? Termination of what, exactly? I'd like to know. Give me a call sometime and explain it to me, Dana. Here's the number: 516-509-5700. Yeah, it'll be ringing off the hook now.

You say sue isn't the correct term for what phone companies do to us? Fee sounds more accurate, does it? A fee for giving up on nothing? For losing faith in Tinkerbell? For deserting a company that's already in breach of contract? For tiring of watching my money spent on painting the nation tangerine, as if a wishfully Photoshopped "coverage" map actually makes the system work? For growing sick of ads featuring the lesser Wilson brother extolling the multi-tasking potential of AT&T's system? Hey, watch me multi-task. Observe as I pull hair out of my head with one hand while I bang the phone against a telephone pole with the other.

What I'd like is some reliable single-tasking, if you catch my drift, AT&T. I gave up my pager last millennium under duress from family and friends, who wondered when I'd enter the modern age. I finally made it there, and now I'm inviting you to join me.

Oh, Sweet Jesus, GOOOAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!

I was waiting for some spackle to cure while my wife escorted her grandmother to a dental appointment. Every hair follicle on me was coated with a layer of white micro-dust, pasted there by my own sweat after a first round of sanding. I was waiting for a second layer of “mud” to dry so I could go at it again. Is there any better time to try to appreciate the game of soccer? I think not.

So I fired up Nanie’s TV. Mind you, I wasn’t looking for a soccer game. Like I said, I was waiting for spackle to harden. I’d been repairing some water damage inside the small closet of a back room she never uses. How she spotted the crumbling wall behind the stacks of eight track tapes, discarded remotes and World’s Greatest Grandpa baseball caps I’ll never know, but the discovery was grating on her the same way it does when her preferred supermarket won’t honor an ancient coupon found under the stove for 15% off a pint of Half & Half.

This kind of repair job calls for some serious distraction. After watching a divorced couple argue their respective cases against each other concerning a day care bill mailed to the guy by his ex mother-in-law on Pre-Menstrual Bitch Judge, I happened upon a quarterfinal match between the Netherlands and Uruguay. I don’t know where those places are either, but I still thought to myself, World Cup? Maybe I ought to give this shit another try.

And you know I’m glad I did, because I got to witness the first and what may be the only actual live soccer goal I’ll ever see in my life. Coming in the first half of what had up until that point naturally been a scoreless match, it was a strike of startling suddenness and miraculous luck. The scored-upon team, realizing it now faced insurmountable odds, ceded victory and headed en masse for the Johannesburg pubs.

Just kidding. But I fooled some of you, didn’t I? Because let’s face it, after the initial curiosity phase subsides, this is a sport that in America couldn’t draw an audience running up against the game show Find The Needle In The Haystack Using Just Your Pee Pee. Come to think of it, I may be on to something. I must make a note to contact my agent.

The only truly satisfying aspect of the game is the histrionic display of players who, felled by puffs of wind, writhe on the ground as if they’ve been struck by lightning. I’ve known two-year olds who exhibit more thespian restraint than these clowns. In fact the only effective use of the arms are made as these whiplash victims implore the heavens for righteous retribution.

This is what happens when you don’t get what you want, which in the case of a soccer player would be a visual sighting of the opposing goal, ball in tow. It’s the same thing experienced by a hungry child harnessed to a high chair an arm’s length from his pristine birthday cake: abject futility.

Everyone knows what’s wrong with soccer. If you happen to be a Martian passing through or a recently-defrosted Frozen Man, here is the short list:

A) Nothing ever happens, but that doesn’t keep them from trying on a field the size of Kentucky.

B) When the players are allowed the natural use of their hands, they throw like sissy girls.

C) Incompetent refs make the impossible more so.

D) The average final score is nil:nil.

E) This interminable game does not end even when the clock runs out.

F) Those damn vuvugizmos.

G) I’m sorry. I just came to after passing out. What was I talking about?

How would I fix the world’s favorite game? Here’s how. End the world.

Failing that…

A) I’d use American commentators. Let’s face it, nothing says, “We don’t care” like the sound of a couple of Limeys talking gibberish while a gaggle of foreigners in culottes run aimlessly about, spitefully tripping each other at midfield in order that no meaningful play develops. At least listening to Joe Buck ruminate on how bad it hurts when his daughter kicks him in the shins could burn off some clock time.

B) Make the goalie play like the rest of the team, i.e., he can’t use his hands either. That should put some points on the board. And believe you me, points need to be put on the board. Put him in uniform with the rest of his mates too, the prima donna. There can only be one Ronald McDonald.

C) None of this “injury time” malarkey. A crowd needs a countdown, if only to drown out the damn vuvuthings. What meager sense of drama that might be wrung from this game with a view of the clock winding down is aborted by the ridiculous inclusion of extra time known only to the corrupt ref. It’s bullshit.

D) Two words: instant replay. Duh. And once you’ve installed your cameras you can smugly show American Baseball umpires how it works, Rest of World.

These are reasonable requests, and I personally would like to see more draconian measures taken, to whit:

• Give these guys military-style helmets with spring-loaded pistons on them.

• Since he already dresses like one, make the goalie an authentic Hooters waitress.

• Instead of those ridiculous post-it notes, give the ref a beefy nightstick. Then we’ll see some real wielding of corrupt authority.

• Using newly instituted instant replay, when a player has been caught faking an injury, each member of the opposing team shall be awarded a free kick to his nuts. No protective use of the hands, Cyrano.

• Oh hell, just blindfold them all. Then well see some real contact.

• Finally, the vuvukazoo, while allowed, may only be played through the anal sphincter

That’s my list, which I suspect will be ignored. In any event if these measures are adapted I won’t be there to appreciate them. That lady judge is kind of hot looking when she gets all righteous on her litigants.

Post Script: The World Cup is now over, after a stirring match between Spain and the Netherlands which ended in a zero zero tie at the end of regulation play, ditto at the end of the first overtime period. The world was put out of its collective misery in the second overtime period when a goal was accidentally scored by Spain. The scorer was so stunned he began to disrobe on the field, despite a rule forbidding such practice. I kid you not, there is such a rule, made necessary by the kind of behavior that crops up among gangs of hopelessly frustrated athletes.

Take Me Out To The Tar Pits

When I heard my wife, who can’t tell the difference between a shortstop and a hot dog vender, discussing a recent baseball blown-call controversy with her grandmother, who is a Yankee fan, I just sensed it did not bode well for the Tigers. Sure enough, a quick trip to Googleville brought up the image of a bemused Venezuelan pitcher named Armando Galarraga sporting a big D over his heart and a sweet smile of bemusement on his face at what had just been done to him.

What had been done? He’d been robbed. And beaten, and pissed on. Not so much by the umpire who’d admitted he’d inexplicably “kicked the shit” out of the call (Inexplicable? Let me explicate it for you. It was an electro-chemical glitch in the softening folds of the cerebral cortex of an aging man hopped up on adrenaline. I get them all the time) but by the game itself.

One could postulate on the impetus for the ump’s call. Perhaps he’d grown tired of the current spate of perfect games being tossed. This was (not would’ve been, was) #3. Perhaps it was because he, a native of Ohio and probable fan of the Indians since childhood, didn’t want to see his Tribe ignominiously taken down. Whatever the input data, the output went something like, “Omeegod, ohmeegod, ohmeeGOD, SAAAAAAAFE! OMMINA OMMINA OMMINA!!!”

But you know, as everyone and his grandmother has since observed, most of the principal characters have exhibited laudable grace throughout the debacle. They may even have taught us something about life (it frequently sucks), and it could be argued that more good will come of this mess than the mere addition of another statistical anomaly to the already bloated books of America’s favorite pastime.

It is still an abomination. And the problem is with the mindset of the men who adjudicate the game, which isn’t a game so much as a monstrous business, the business of entertaining its fans. Games are what kids do in the back yard, and even kids have the common sense to call a do-over when they’re not sure of what just happened. See, kids understand the fundamental notion of justice.

There are times I just hate old men, and I’m one of them. Chief among our disreputable traits is how we cling pathetically to any semblance of righteous authority as our faculties dribble from our drawers into an embarrassing puddle for others to mop up. Observe as the squad of umpires resume their field positions, admonishing all to behave as if nothing iniquitous has just taken place. A member of their goon squad has just raped a civilian and it’s, “Move along folks. Nothing to look at here. Everybody back to your popcorn.” Union thugs, all of them. Have I mentioned that I hate unions, and I’m a member of one?

The first photo used to validate the proper winner of a horse race was taken in 1888. This is not a typo. 1888. My dead father, who sired me at an advanced age, wasn't yet around to have had a shot at processing the negative.

Is any further consideration required? Of course not, except that it's fun. Even hockey, a frostbitten battle contested by brute monsters with nobody watching, assures itself that wrongs are righted. When not employing primal bloodletting, it uses this thing called modern technology. Does this change the nature of the game? Yes. It makes it better. Even the fans (I lied. There are some), cave-dwellers all, wait patiently for the proper call to be announced. Goal!!! Justice served. Toss the octopi.

We watched a while back as the ensconced powers of football attempted to make instant replay fail. I remember zebra’d officials huddling for days, faces planted in cardboard tunnels, pondering over what we’d seen for ourselves fourteen times between commercials (I’m thinking they were actually playing PacMan), attempting to bore us into submission while still fudging the call, as if to convince us, “See? It doesn’t work.” What didn’t work was their preemptive, petrified mindset, the pussies.

The Winter Olympics are now a memory, and what I remember most was the technology that showed racers competing with timepieces armed to the microsecond, the contestants’ progress against phantom adversaries measured by a light bar. Fascinating. How else do you do it, when the virtually identical efforts of professional athletes, and they’re all professionals after sixth grade now, surpass the limits of human senses to measure their performance?

Baseball has managed to carve some progress out of its calcified history. The American League has even made the controversial call of replacing the anemic pitcher (a phenomenon I still truly do not comprehend) at the plate with a more accomplished, hence entertaining batter. A travesty, you say? Have another jumbo beer.

A fellow named Don Denkinger knows full well what a bad call can do. One of his during the 1985 World Series in all likelihood awarded the championship to the wrong team. There’s a headline for you: Wrong Team Wins World Series. Great copy, bad business plan. Mr. Denkinger has chimed in on the subject, and he wants to see change.

But what’s to be said about this Bud Selig character? I say he’s a dirty-diapered sissy-boy with his diminutive nuts in a sling over some antiquated notion of purity. In the halls of jurisprudence judges are allowed to overturn the most sacred of decisions, those made by a jury of one’s peers. The nerve of those guys, huh? They know how to spot a bunch of angry men screwing the pooch.

Speaking of things sacrosanct, I remember the use of the word by some goober of a political commentator in reference to our Constitution. You know what, numb-nuts? The Constitution serves the people, not the other way around. When it is found deficient we amend it, which we the people have been doing with amazing alacrity since John Hancock conspired to use up all the available space on the document.

You want to live nostalgically in some bygone era, Cy? Lubricate more heavily while you lounge in front of your plasma wall. And if you really care, hop into your Studebaker time machine dialed into the pre-TV era, when America migrated to the ballparks to watch a bunch of white guys stumble around on a patchwork of divots and dirtballs. Now those were the good old days. Maybe we could get the umps to agree to a pay cut commiserate with the sport’s Golden Era.

I for one do not wish to see Mr. Joyce’s call overturned. It is too late for that. The train needs to pull away from the station after you’ve torn the conductor a new back door for closing his in your face. What I wish to see is the game repaired. Other sports need it as well. Get rid of the PAT in football. It is a useless forgone conclusion. Oh yes it is. Get rid of anything that runs poorly, like that Studebaker. And since it’s the season, start with baseball.

Where Is Al Gore? A Rebuttal

While reading my local paper The Port Washington News, I happened upon what appears to pass for an op-ed piece these days. It was penned by a Robert McMillan ("Where Is Al Gore?" Friday, 12 March 2010 00:00), who describes himself as “Of Council” with a local legal firm. I discovered on a Google search (this from a Massachusetts government site) that “of council” might mean he’s “the guy down the hall who is available to discuss cases over coffee.” When not being consulted on a pro bono basis, Mr. McMillan apparently spends time freezing his golden years off in Florida, and he’s not too happy about it.

Mr. McMillan opens his argument thusly: “Again, let me state that I am not a scientist.” This is an interesting if grammatically oblique way to begin, but I guess that’s his modus operandi. As it turns out his argument should’ve ended right there, but then Mr. McMillan has time on his hands to hone his style, which involves muddling over selected “facts” he’s chosen to champion.

Mr. McMillan claims to value the facts. He is mistaken. What he values are selected statistics that support his personal world view, in a kind of “If the glove don’t fit…” strategy. And so in an effort to discredit the overwhelming evidence presented by credible science that shows causative links between human activity and whatever phrase he would choose to pick for climate change (Please do pick one for yourself, sir, and I’ll oblige you. Thomas Friedman, in his intensely researched Hot, Flat and Crowded has coined the charming term “global weirding,” but at 448 pages I suspect it contains more facts than you might wish to digest), he embarks on an ad hominem attack of one of the political Right’s favorite targets, Al Gore.

McMillan begins with an a priori assertion that mankind’s contribution to global warming (I am comfortable with the term, as it accurately describes, on a global scale, changes that can have interesting side effects on local environments), and by extension the very question of global warming, is absurd. Absurd? Thanks for your assessment, counselor. As you like to mention, you’re not a scientist. Cream and sugar?

Our dedicated layperson then goes a-hunting for a scapegoat, metal detector at the ready. His first salvo is the veiled implication that old Al pretty much dreamt up this bogus crisis on his own, the sore loser. But the kicker is the once widely disseminated, and debunked, assertion that Mr. Gore claimed to have “invented” the Internet. It is one of those despicably effective strategies used by political hacks on the mentally infirm: that of the fallacious, distracting personal attack. Is this about Mr. Gore, sir? Hey, it sure is if it means a lower tax rate on my Boca condo!

I don’t know which is the most culpable transgressor when it comes to the dissemination of statistical garbage - disgruntled simpletons, their pied pipers, or newspapers caught in the dare I say evolutionary throws of technological change. But I would encourage the staff at the News to consider that while there are at the very least two sides to every legitimate argument, not all merit equal soapbox time; certainly not those posited by individuals unqualified to join the debate. Think “myth of the six million” if that helps.

I’m reminded of this every time a news outlet feels the quaint urge to find out what the “man on the street” is thinking. Not too much beyond the sports scores, it turns out, and yet somehow editors feel the compulsion to get to the meat of a Star Wars debate by soliciting the opinion of Joe the Plumber. I tell you what: I’d prefer Joe just sticks to the task at hand, i.e. my leaking toilet, thanks a bunch.

Let’s use a simple analogy to explain Mr. McMillan’s argument, since I know his fans appreciate simplicity:

Bob has recently received a call from his primary care physician, whom we’ll call Dr. Al, just for fun. Dr. Al (the kind of scientist who tends to cause agita in his more venerable patients) is concerned about the results of a blood test performed on Bob. Bob’s total cholesterol count is on the high side, as is his LDL. Forget that cholesterol hadn’t yet been “invented” when Bob was a kid. Bob feels just fine, and even remembers that as a youngster he found himself more frequently out of breath than he does now. When he pricks himself, Bob bleeds smooth red blood, with none of that cottage-cheesy stuff depicted in pharmaceutical cartoons in the waiting room mags.

Dr. Al wants Bob to change his eating habits, alter his sedentary lifestyle, and he wants to put Bob on prescription medication. Bob still doesn’t know what LDL is, but he’s heard some scary things about Crestor from his four hundred pound neighbor, Eddie. Anyway, why can’t he just take an aspirin, which doesn’t require a prescription, costs almost nothing, and is about twice the size (ergo twice the efficacy) of the prescribed medicine? Plus, the folks at Bristol-Meyers (yes, Bob has his own scientists in his corner) say their aspirin is the best. The whole thing is just… ABSURD!

What’s with Bob’s principled stand against his doctor’s advice? Simple. Bob hates exercise, and loves his South Florida morning expeditions to Cracker Barrel for the hefty he-man combo, which he now must don a cardigan for, doggonit, because the Sunshine State is too damn cold!

And so are all the other states right now, as Bob falls victim to his own argument. He states, ipso facto, “We often forget that there are climate changes every 10,000 years or so...” Really? Does it not dawn on him that this uncontested fact, hardly obvious from a glance out the picture window, is fodder for his argument due to the remarkable research of the very scientists whom he now dismisses because of a Tallahassee cold snap?

Because yes, there are cycles, and there are cycles within cycles, and there are other cycles overlapping those. Then there are peculiar (to the simple-minded) anomalies that might lead one to believe just about anything, such as that there are angels in the sky protecting us from our own worst impulses. It gets complicated, and requires studied attention, not casual disdain. The challenge is to observe and identify the various cycles, understand the regular ones and their periods and interplay, and note where something new and different is insinuating itself.

Sometimes you have to pay attention to people with more experience than you, much as you’d rather just lounge carefree under a palm tree downing gin and tonics until everything starts to feel warm and cozy again down in the Everglades. And I don’t mean the “scientists” at Bristol Meyers, and I certainly don’t mean our political leaders, if by them you mean Sarah Palin and her ilk. Because gosh, she knows everything is gonna be just fine, what with her excellent Tundra view of the future.

And yes, I have engaged in an ad hominem attack, because I believe Mr. McMillan advances an argument bereft of intellectual merit. But if he thinks it imprudent to honestly weigh professional opinion until more compelling information surfaces, he’s certainly free to wait for a sign. Like, for instance, a fibrillating heart.

We need not fear for our ex-barrister. After a career of twenty-eight-hour billable days he’ll always be able to afford a plot of land on the high ground, regardless of the present sea level. Those we should worry for are our poor print journalists, who have spaces to fill with, something… controversial, to stir things up, and generate ad revenue. Because that’s good journalism.

Take heart, Anton Publications. The Flat Earth Society is still in business, and I’m sure they’d be willing to fill a few column inches for you. Just look to the western horizon. There, for anyone with a pair of eyes and a lick of common sense to see it, lies the end of the world, at Co-Op City.

Paul Koestner, a citizen of Port Washington with a view of Co-Op City, is not a scientist either, but then it’s a free country, after all.

Yoga For Bank Tellers

Hello, I’m Spirit Song, and this is one in a series of Yoga Sessions For The Searching Soul. Today we’ll be doing a set of stretches targeting those muscle groups used by bank tellers.

But you needn’t be a bank teller to participate in this session. Any searching soul can enjoy its beneficial effects. All you need is a yoga mat you can purchase with any major credit card by dialing the phone number shown below. In the mean time, you can follow along from your floor, or bed if that feels more comfortable. I recommend the bed.

The one thing to remember is to always breath. Proper breathing is essential. If you do not breath, you will die. I will remind you throughout the session to keep breathing.

Let’s begin. Start by sitting upright, centering your torso over your buttocks. Now spread your left leg out and away from your center. Extend the thigh. Notice how my thigh is extended away from my groin area. Now tuck the toes of your right foot into your crotch. If you can’t make it all the way, that’s okay. Just breath deeply as you stare at my crotch.

Raise your right arm over your head and allow the hand to roll over and cup your left ear. Breathe in as you do this, unless you already have done so, in which case you should now breathe out. Continue this cycle of breathing unless I indicate otherwise.

Now take your left hand and twist it behind your back and up as far as it will go. Hold your hand in this reverse half-prayer position as you continue to force it to rise up in a slicing arc between your shoulder blades. This is called the “pleading supplicant” position. Don’t worry if you can’t go as far as I can. Just remember to keep breathing, or you will pass out and possibly not regain consciousness.

Now, with your right hand clutching your left ear and your left hand in the “ninja assassin” position between your scapular crevice, bend forward until your forehead is pressed heavily against the floor, in the “shamed eunuch” pose. Hold this position for as long as is humanly possible. Work to your edge, not over it. How will you know you’ve reached the edge? If you’ve ever given birth to twins or attempted to rob a bank for the first time, you’ll know the edge when you feel it. In the mean time, you might like to watch me as I search for my edge.

Don’t be concerned if you can’t go down on the floor the way I can. If you wish, take careful note of the supple contours of my body as I demonstrate. Breathe in... and out. Repeat. Notice how my ribcage undulates rhythmically. Yours should be undulating as well.

Come to an upright position, again centered over my buttocks. Now spread the right leg outward, mirroring the direction of the left, forming the “life funnel” position. The two diverging thighs are now in dynamic tension. Separate them as far as they will go. Again, don’t be surprised if your body looks nothing like mine. Take a good look at my life funnel. Any resemblance to yours? I seriously doubt it.

Now interlock both hands, raise them up, over, and behind the back of the neck, arching your chest outward as you tilt your head back, into the “welcoming waif” position. Rock forward. And back. And forward again, breathing all the while.

Now repeat this series in reverse. Or just watch me do it for you as you massage those parts of your body needing special attention after all that stretching.

If you’d like to view different sessions depicting my bodily contours in other positions, you may order any of the many videos produced for this series.

Just always remember to keep breathing.

Death By Ikea

Listen, this is a misleading title, because I know IKEA didn’t initiate the slaughter of the English language. But the blanched bastards did perfect the art of saying absolutely nothing while indulging their artistic egos in useless pencil doodlings.

Perhaps it stems from the shame any Swede must feel for his mother tongue, the sound of which resembles the gurgling boil of a lung-shot sniper victim as it trips off the tortured muscle. Just try to pronounce the name of any featured product while meandering along the show floor maze that accounts for half the lost citizenry featured on America’s milk cartons. It’s the surest way of clearing your sinuses, and makes Hebrew sound lyrical in comparison. La Chaim.

I’m not sure when the primal crawl back to the cave began, but I think the wunderkind Steve Jobs had something to do with it. We are now, a few short decades since the conception of the shit-faced Happy Mac, awash in icons for every desperate message possible, from that of the low coolant alert to the suggestion that I might have just been exposed to radioactive contamination.

I have more than once wet myself at the entry to a public restroom door after an overly long stop to figure out if I might possibly bust in on a woman with a dress hiked to her hips. By all means, compadre, have fun with your paintbrush, but follow up with any common word for “guy”, capiche, puta?

Jesus H. Christo, I’m starting to feel like a damn ditto-head. If you can’t read the language of the road, you should not be behind the wheel of a three-ton projectile. You passed the driver’s test, n’est pas, Horst? Stop! No Left Turn! Your Lights Are On, and when you try to start it up in the morning you’re going to get nothing but that clicking noise.

Note that when you are driving toward Miami, the sign says “Miami”. It’s not a Peter Max caricature of pink flamingos shitting on flamboyant Cubans from the tops of palm trees. So why must I consult my owner’s manual when a light on my dash begins to glow, seeming to indicate that my car would have really good reception were it a cell phone?

If you can’t spell, put a voice chip in my ride, you ancient, white, bankrupt assholes. What would it cost you for the technology now? Eighteen cents? A Tonka toy gives me more usable information about itself than my Beemer does. Hell, I’ll pay extra for a sexy hooker voice to coo at me: “Meine liebe schein, you just left your key in my ignition hole, and I’m holding on to it until you give me a super-fine wax job!” Miss Leni can come bundled with the deluxe interior lighting package for all I care.

An idiot light on my dash announces that I am an idiot. I have no idea if my brakes are preparing to fail or if my car is just happy to see me. And the Bavarian Uber-Tinkers whoforcenitalltogetherfrompeecesundparts won’t let up with the crypto-messages. Masters of micromanagement, they terrorize me with an alarm that goes off when the ambient temperature drops to 37 degrees Fahrenheit. You know why? Because water can freeze on a bridge surface at that temperature, given the proper atmospheric conditions.Wunderbar! And dunkeshein for the tip, Hans! Now how about a foghorn when der dew point matches der wind chill, just for shites und giggles.

When they do speak my language, it’s still cryptic. “Check Engine” for what reason, exactly? Oh, that’s right. Only a certified wizard with the proper magic wand can tell me for a cool C-note that the last grease monkey to fill the tank didn’t tighten the gas cap to Arian specs, der Dumkopf!

Back at the fjords, minimalist Euro-designers have decided there’s no point in attempting to speak to its New World consumers. It’s as if they intended their merchandise to be assembled by preschoolers. How much could these global entrepreneurs possibly be saving by not printing the words, “Make sure you don’t tighten the screws too tightly, because we used inferior materials to manufacture the piece of shit you actually intend to let your newborn sleep in”? And how do you say, “Bite me, Sven, you lazy lingenberry swiller,” in precious little icons that will take him half the next war to decode?

I know one thing. These guys are so cheap that if there are eight hundred fourteen pieces of hardware included in your Skrotum business hutch kit, you wont have a single sparelockenvasher left over once it’s finally assembled, so you know some braided ponytailer will be logging overtime counting every last piece out into hermetically-sealed snack bags. What they gain by saving an ounce of hardware they must certainly spend on the going meeneemuummwagen at theweejeetfaktorie.

I’m guessing the problem is this: these guys have chopped all their fingers off in the woodshop trying to figure out how to make furniture that requires only a hex wrench and three times the amount of Elmer’s glue they provide to assemble. As a result, there’s nobody around able to type out legible instructions, so they get their dyslexic kids to draw the pictures during lunch break at the branestormskoolen.

After the three days it took me to construct a kitchen pantry puzzle from the Smegma line, cockroaches commenced to dismantle it with the corrosive effects of their excretion. Next time I think I’ll just take out a home equity loan to have some Ethan Allen monstrosity delivered in one fully assembled piece. The tip for the deliverers alone would pay for a double bed from Stockholm, but who cares? It beats the cost of three years of therapy.

There. I’ve had my say. Now all I have to do is save this thing. No, that’s clip. Shit, that’s paste. What’s this? Undo typing? Damn! You know what? Screw it. Just screw it. Try saying that with icons.