Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

Yes, dear reader, the results are in and they are not particularly good. Apparently we are all aging,  at least according to the experts, many of whom have been studying the phenomenon for so long, and are as a result so old themselves, that a certain amount of skepticism regarding their data is unavoidable.

Nevertheless, the aging process, also referred to as Personal Entropy Affliction (P.E.A. for those of us generally too short of breath to actually say Personal Entropy Affliction) is by and large incontestable.

As we may recall, all systems move inexorably towards a state of maximum disorder. And while this may be fortuitous on cosmic scales, as it enables temporary pockets of life to pop into being, on the human scale there is pretty much a zero upside. The arrow of time, in other words, is the friend of no man.

Noted Gerontologist Mindy Middlemarch focuses her research on what she refers to as the 'two-pronged assault' on the human life form.

Prong one concerns the gradual, though persistent and, to be perfectly honest, irreversible breakdown of the physical body. Things start to hurt, stop working or, in some cases, simply fall off. There is also the unpleasant tendency for things to mysteriously turn into other things, for which teams of specialists are standing by to provide names.

 A normal human head, for example, can over time take on the appearance of a lumpy, discolored root vegetable.

78 year old man:  So, Doc, can you tell me what the hell's going on here?
Highly trained specialist:  The explanation is fairly complex, quite likely beyond what your current intellectual status will allow you to fully grasp.
Man:  Still, I'd like to hear it.
Specialist:  Well, if you insist. You're suffering from an aging-related phenomenon, the precise medical term for which is Potato Head Syndrome.
Man:  Oh dear God!  Can it be treated?
Specialist: Afraid not.
Man: So what's my prognosis?
Specialist: Hard to predict. You may remain a potato, or progress to the engorged turnip stage, or, in the most extreme case, you could end up resembling a rotting pumpkin.
Man: That's terrible!
Specialist:  True, but look on the bright side. You'll be a big, scary hit come Halloween.

Prong two deals with the deterioration of mental faculties, or as Dr. Middlemarch graciously  characterizes it, the metamorphosis of the mature mind. "Old people don't necessarily lose their minds," she says. "Rather they undergo a critical divergence with temporal reality, what I like to call acute memory displacement, frequently accompanied by a slipping out of sync with current cultural paradigms."

Say what?

Take, for example, the curious case of John P., an 86 year old living in the more or less exact epicenter of the memory-impaired Mid-West. John can recall in exquisite, some might say excruciating, detail the first time he kissed a girl, some 70 years earlier - the contours of her face,
her aroma, skin condition (two tiny pimples on her chin), the tensile adaptability of her lips,
the torque of her trembling hips  (T = r x F), the formulation of her tongue (reluctantly inserted into his mouth for precisely 2.7 seconds), the color of her bra (pale blue, glimpsed furtively while her eyes were closed), the sound she emitted during the kiss (a high-pitched, almost squeaky moan), etc. 

What John cannot recall is which of his five dresser drawers contain his underwear.

Even curiouser is John's apparent disdain for the laws of probability. Statistically speaking, on at least one of every five days, based entirely on random choice, John should be able to put on a clean pair of boxers.

According to Agnes, his wife of 66 years, John has now gone 137 days without the benefit of clean undergarments.  "The situation has become fairly desperate," she tells us.  "He's gotten a lot more stubborn in his old age, refusing to look in any more than one drawer per day, and of course he always gets it wrong. I pretty much have to hold my nose whenever we're in the same room."

When asked to comment on Agnes' assertion,  John says,  "I have no idea who this woman is, but I'm pretty sure she's been stealing my underwear."

*Shown a faded photo of his elementary school class, John was able to correctly name 29 of the 32 students.  However, when handed a framed photo of himself and Agnes on a recent vacation to Orlando, Florida, and given three chances to identify it correctly, his answers were ...
  a) a Biblical artifact   b) a one-way mirror   c) a piece of fruit.

I don't know about you, but I'm really starting to like this guy.


Next time:  How millions of elderly Japanese attempt to stave off dementia by driving  automobiles at unbelievably slow speeds, and the extent to which this practice is responsible for the alarming increase in depression, high blood pressure, heart palpitations and sudden brain aneurisms in the younger Japanese driving population.

Fractally Divergent Fiction From The Northern Tier

Here at the Flatulent - sorry! - Fictional Dog headquarters in - if what appears to be going on outside is any indication - I'm guessing Siberia, we're positively giddy to announce the launch of the ...

 2014 F. D. Short Fiction Contest

We've already had at least a couple of people express vaguely ambivalent interest.  One person (presumably), who claims to have chemically self-induced a comatose state in order to avoid having to deal with the "exhaustive and ultimately dehumanizing" frivolities of the holiday season, is eager to write about the experience. Although, as by presumed person's own admission, there is ... "like zero recollection" of said experience, we are somewhat dubious that the minimum 25 word requirement can be met.

Which is a pity because, if you're anything like me, you're dying to know just how dumb and/or twisted a presumed person has to be to choose a coma over spending a few hours with the family.
 Then again ...

A woman living in an area of the U.S. currently in the grim grasp of appallingly frigid weather conditions has submitted a story entitled (possibly) "The Morning My Eyeballs Froze" Unfortunately the sheer volume of blurry typos in this otherwise gripping saga renders it inappropriate for publication, even for a blog which promotes itself as alternative, radically predisposed and mostly immune to mockery.

The first sentence of the story should suffice to make the required point:  

"Duh withermam sayed oon Teebee dat tit wus 90 bellows ouchsighed, bud thuse porple allweeze exaggurrut, I onery waantud to git thr stupoid noisepooper, fur Gawd's saakee."

(Clearly, attempting to type with frozen eyeballs is not without its challenges. But a definite A for effort.

  Furthermore, we are willing to speculate that the most likely object of her quest was a newspaper, although it cannot be entirely discounted that a noisepooper is an actual thing that someone might consider risking an icy death to acquire.)

*Note:  While there are no implacable restrictions on content, it should be kept in mind that, all indications to the contrary, A Fictional Dog is a family oriented blog. Accordingly, entrants should proceed with sensitivity, bearing in mind the time-honored advisory,  sleek artistry over gross banality.

Erotic entries are, of course, welcome, sex being the topic that most of us keep reading stuff all the time in the hope of happening upon. But again, a certain amount of self-imposed discretion goes a long way.

For example:  Last year's entry,  Coitus With A Reality TV Co-Star, was a scintillating, irony-soaked romp, both a sexy, social critique and a good old fashioned screw-fest.

On the other hand, All You Bitches Is Crazy Whores, was little more than a muddled, misogynist rant, neither relevant nor sexy, about as stimulating as a speech by Michelle Bachman.

So Get Busy Writing!

All entries should be between 25 and 78 words.

Winners to be announced on the Spring Equinox.

Once again, the first place winner will find him or herself on a flight (economy class) to Pyongyang, where he or she will have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of playing a game of one-on-one basketball with none other than Kim Jung Un.

The pudgy Kim is apparently incapable of jumping, but reportedly has a killer underhand foul shot.

*A word of caution:  Last year's contest winner won the basketball game at the buzzer with a highly improbable 30 foot bank shot. He has neither been seen nor heard from since.

 

Entropy For The Entire Family

Or ... the late night ruminations of stray cats prepping for the holidays

Entropy, for those of us who opted to do drugs and carouse with crazed, exquisitely uninhibited females rather than finish our high school homework assignment on thermodynamics,  is an unassailable physical law regarding the inevitable disintegration of functioning systems in time.

All systems, in other words, from the biggest (the universe) to the smallest (the quantum fluctuations that enable the cells of our bodies to maintain the integrity required for life) are driving on a one-way street towards ultimate breakdown.   Order  t>  Disorder.   No U-turns allowed.  No refunds.  No trying to go retrograde when you think nobody's looking.

The ultimate end zone of entropy is considered achieving a state of complete equilibrium, no further heat exchange possible (much like a Japanese house in winter), the potential for generating any further useful information nil (think of the current U.S. government).

Fortunately, even entropy entertains a sense of irony  (the official term is entropic irony).

We exist (in varying degrees and to the extent we are willing to take the concept of existence at all seriously) because of entropy. Within the current state of the universe's rush towards icy oblivion are the optimal conditions to support the fragile, living ecosystem of planet Earth. We are, in a sense, tapping into chaos, harnessing the ongoing disintegration to create a tiny, albeit temporary pocket of order.  We are, in other words ...

Living On Entropy

The human mind, presumed still functional for at least a small percentage of the global population, flies directly in the face of entropy. Even the dumbest, most reactionary thoughts are anti-entropic in nature (Tea Party members take heart). Not to mention that ...

Entropy Can Be Fun

Consider insanity, by one definition essentially an amplification of  entropy within the brain.
And yet by all accounts the insane majority is having much more fun than the sane minority. The sane are often too terrified of all the insanity raging around them to even leave the house.
Therapists, those at least willing to make house calls, advise their sane patients to get over themselves, hop aboard the crazy entropy train and start enjoying life while it lasts.
Needless to say, there are numerous examples of ...

 Entropy Being Employed To Make Life More Interesting & Zany

*Many of China's cites are currently encased in an unrelenting, lethal smog. Not to worry. The spin doctors at the Ministry of Entropic Disinformation have published a list of reasons why the ongoing smog is actually good for the Chinese public. Things like ...

The deadly smog promotes solidarity
It reminds the people that everyone is equal
It is a happy sign of China's growing industrial might
It makes people funnier (remove masks to laugh only at your own risk)

*In the edgy Disneyland satire state known as North Korea, exalted chubby-boy leader Kim Jung Un has began purging senior Party functionaries, including members of his own family. The official explanation is that these "depraved" individuals have not been clapping fast enough at party events (the accepted minimum rate is 100 distinct claps per 60 seconds).

Kim's elderly uncle, whose military style hat is so large that satellite surveillance photos often mistake it for a nuclear reactor under construction, offered the excuse that the inevitable entropy of his aging body has rendered him incapable of maintaining that level of clapping. This was dismissed as yet another example of insidious "Capitalist Propaganda" and the old geezer was reportedly shot.

*An overweight newlywed in Colorado pushes her equally overweight husband off a cliff, claims ...

"Entropy Made Me Do It!"

*A fourth grader in Georgia sets his teacher on fire while she's writing the formula for the Second Law of Thermodynamics on the blackboard, claims a video game made him do it. Besides, science is boring.

A congressional sub-committee has already launched an investigation, based on the supposition that violent video games promote entropy in young children. Tea Party member asserts that teaching science breeds sociopaths.  "Video games don't maim and kill people, physics does!"

Meanwhile, the cats are howling outside the window, warming up to sing the songs of the ...

 Winter Solstice

Happy Holidays To All!

  

Ask The Dog / A Brief, Occasionally Sordid Q & A With The Mentally Challenged

Q: When is a bit not a byte?

Ans. When it's a nibble.

Not to be confused with a bite to eat.
As in:  Care for a bite?
           Maybe just a bit, you know, something to nibble.

Q: The word nibble is curiously similar to the word nipple. Is there any verifiable linguistic and/or semantic link between the two?

Ans: Aside from the fact that throughout all of recorded human time the nipple has been an irresistible object of those bent on nibbling, absolutely none.   

Q:  Why do I always feel depressed this time of year?

Ans. 1:  Hey, who doesn't?

Ans. 2:  Basically, it's all in your head. Chemistry, as they say, rules the roost.

A renowned scientist is a wheelchair once said:  'Our entire existence is electrochemically determined from birth, but as doing the math corresponding to the vastly complex neuronal interactions in the brain is beyond even my big brain, the illusion of free will is maintained.'
Of course, he was more or less compelled to say this. 

Ans. 3:  SAD.

Hardly credible, you say. By definition, a depressive is generally incapable of any emotional response, sad or happy, valid or otherwise.

Not sad, you nincompoop,  S.A.D., as in Seasonally Affected Disorder, often manifest as an irrational fear of winter.

So you're suggesting I'm not only depressed, but also some sort of fearful phobic?

Slightly redundant, but yes.  You're a fear-mongering, afraid-of-his-own-shadow, scaredy-cat, phobic depressive. You're also beginning to annoy me.

Ans. 4: Christmas music; its month-long, non-stop, all-pervasive proliferation.
Seriously, how many times can you be subjected to Bing Crosby singing White Christmas before the only thing you want to do for the holidays is strangle Santa Claus?

Q: My girlfriend and I have been going through a rough patch. What can I get her for Christmas to let her know I still care?

(Okay, talk about making the top ten list of cliches you never want to hear again as long as you live. The Rough Patch. Frequently employed in TV cop shows, after a body turns up, cops naturally suspect the boyfriend / girlfriend / spouse, always begin their interrogation by saying, "Sorry to ask, but how was your relationship with the deceased?"  The invariable response:  "I don't deny we've been going through a bit of a rough patch, but things were definitely getting better.")
 

 Unless you are referring to a minor skin irritation, Please stop using this expression.

Ans:  Give her a free pass to sleep with other guys. Your 'rough patch' is to her most likely a brain-numbing, energy-sucking, beyond all hope, existential dead end. She's looking to replace you, and this will enable her to do a bit of comparison shopping without having to be constrained by conventional feelings of guilt. The upside is that even as you become little more than a vague memory as a lover, she will continue to refer to you as a friend.

Stay tuned for  Ask The Dog / Part 2

 

Mayhem at the Mall / with Muzak

Discerning observers of American culture, or more accurately the bizarre mutation American culture is in the process of degenerating into, cannot but be aware of the recent surge in what the media calls "yet another shooting incident at the mall".  One a week, always at a different mall, seems to be the norm, and taking into account that there are like a billion malls in the U.S., this trend is likely to continue for quite some time - assuming the rules continue to apply, one attack per week, no mall can be hit more than once,  approximately 20, 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, who even knew there were rules about this? Is there perhaps an online handbook?

Procedures and Restrictions for Random Gun Violence at American Malls

At first glance it seems logical:  heavily armed psychopath with vague grudge and major Mommy/Daddy issues seeks large audience in confined space upon which to inflict his special brand of insanity. Except it's no longer particularly special. You might think that the would-be maniac murderer with even a smidgen of intelligence could figure out that the whole mall thing is already passe, that he is merely enabling at this point the perpetuation of a fairly blatant cliche.  Ho-hum.  Not much glamour in that.

Or is there perhaps more going on here....

Are Malls Natural Magnets For Monsters?

Malls burst onto the American landscape in the early 60's, at a time when, counterculture hijinks notwithstanding, Big Business was working out the details of what has been referred to as the 'commodification'  of the American psyche; basically turning all aspects of life into a product and reducing one's existential choices to the bare minimum: consume or be consumed.

"The real world - assuming such a thing ever existed - was subtly manipulated in a simulation of the real, in which all priorities were preordained, one's presumed needs could be readily met and the natural inclination to question was subsumed in a never-ending deluge of eye-catching gadgetry."

Of course, back in the good old days of blissful consumerism, the only monsters in malls were zombies, and then mostly in the movies. The modern descendants of these undead mall trawlers tend to be living, large and overweight, plodding through malls the size of small cities, with brain-cell-destroying music humming in their heads, eyes fixed on the next big, juicy sale. Instead of feeding on each other, they feast on fast food while buying all the useless (though apparently essential) junk they can carry.

Let's face it, even without lurking lunatic killers, malls are scary places.

And yet, despite the ongoing spate of 'shooting incidents' people continue flocking to the malls.

This can perhaps be explained as a function of the rapidly shrinking attention span of the general public, combined with a chronic deterioration of short and long-term memory.
  A young woman questioned outside a mall immediately after 'yet another incident' told her interviewer,    "Like I could never imagine nothing like this ever happening here."

(in case you're wondering, the interviewer did not point out the obvious no-no of the double negative)

Or it might be that people, sensing the slow-motion demise of their consumptive souls, actively seek out these danger sites, willing to risk death in a effort to feel ... something ... anything, really.


 And how long before the malls pick up on this trend, sniff out a new source of potential profit?

Today Only!

Between 10 A.M. and 12 Noon, Psycho Shooter on premises

Come early for a good hiding place

Survivors of the impending carnage entitled to a 5% discount on all subsequent purchases

Fortunately (or not) for the rest of us, the news media never tires of these events, managing each time to achieve unprecedented levels of near-hysterical fervor in their reporting. CNN apparently has a team of roving correspondents capable, in theory at least, of getting to any major mall within five minutes after the shooting starts.

At which point the interviewing begins.

CNN:  So you heard the shots.

Slightly Addled Eyewitness:  Uh, yeah, I guess.

CNN: What did you think?

S.A.E:  Like I thought it was you know like a joke. Like maybe kids playing with guns.

CNN: Is there a large law enforcement presence?

S.A.E. 2:  A what?

CNN:  How many police do you see?

S.A.E. 2:  Oh yeah, there's like a million cops. And a helicopter too, up in the air, like flying around. 

So what may be glean from all this?

1) People who frequent malls are generally not very bright.

2) More importantly, it turns out that the Mega-malls of the modern era are the near perfect venues for Americans to indulge in their two favorite pastimes:   Shopping & Shooting. 

Good morning, shoppers

Incidents of psycho-shooters terrorizing malls have reached near-epidemic proportions

Should you have to suffer the anxiety of wondering if you'll be the next random victim?

Why not purchase a handgun, shotgun or semi-automatic rifle today at one of our mall gun shops?

The first one hundred rounds are free!

You owe it to yourself and your family.

Gain some peace of mind.  Shop armed!

Defeat Of The Wackadoodles

One good thing to presumably come out of the most recent US political dance with mindless absurdity is that the voting public will wake up to the utterly vapid (though no less dangerous) nature of the so-called Tea Party.

Def:  a group of  primarily white, mostly unattractive, evangelical-fueled, self-serving hypocrites, who employ magical (i.e. delusional) thinking to promote a standard (i.e. imbecilic) Christian fundamentalist political agenda.

Ex:  The Affordable Care Act must be repealed because Obama is a radical Muslim, Leninist, Satan-worshiping Socialist intent upon robbing us of all our God-given liberties. Just ask Sarah Palin. Or, if you find her intellectual prowess intimidating, Michelle Bachman.

And this is one of the more tepid claims from the lunatic, Born-Again fringe. 

Note: Sarah did take time out from her campaign to hunt and kill for "sport" everything in Alaska walking on anything more than two legs (because the Constitution says she can), showing up at a conservative rally to remind the faithful that Obamacare "Death Panels" are already busy sifting through potential candidates for early eradication.

"Yeah, but that will just be the poor, gays, Muslims and illegal immigrants, right?"
"One can always hope, but I wouldn't count on it."

But then hold on a minute ... the morons who voted these people into office remain morons - once a moron, always a moron - strenuously impervious to the hard facts, easily swayed by the manipulative bible-thumping fanatics. What are the chances they will be able to figure out the whole Tea Party sham?

Take Earl Shuck, recently laid off from his job at the toxic waste disposal plant, living in a trailer in western Kentucky with his wife and eleven kids, all of whom suffer from some sort of physical and/or mental illness, possibly the result of proximity to numerous toxic waste dump sites. Even if he could afford it, Earl wouldn't be able to find a health insurance plan accepting those with pre-existing conditions. Yet Earl continues to vehemently oppose the Affordable Care Act.

"What precisely is your issue with Obamacare, Earl?"
"It aims to steal away my freedom, plain and simple."
"Your freedom to do what, exactly?"
"My freedom to, uh, well, you know ..."
"You mean the freedom to be able to pray to Jesus each night with a fully loaded .9mm under your pillow?"
"Hey, some liberal homo-sexual could bust in here in the middle of the night hell-bent on engaging in immoral, ungodly acts . No way he's leaving alive."
"And the AK 47 standing next to the front door?"
"Something wild walks by outside, I got an obligation to blow its head off. The Bible says so, don't it?"

Have the walking dead secretly infiltrated the Tea Party?
It would sort of make sense, as zombies, by definition, have no need for health insurance.

Amazing what people who read the Bible can find lurking therein.
One Christian conservative talk show host recently claimed that Obamacare is clearly alluded to in the Book of Revelations, as one more ominous precursor to the End of Days.

Talk about delusional.

At least the Catholics confine their opposition to the issue of health insurance covering the cost of birth control. Because the single most important requirement of good Catholics is to procreate lots more good Catholics. I mean, imagine sex without having to feel nervous, guilty and depressed at the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy. It's crazy. Under those conditions a person could almost enjoy it, which would most likely constitute a sin, no doubt prompting a new round of nervous, guilty depression.

Ain't religion great?


 So anyway,  this Tea Party politician dies and goes to heaven. The angel manning the gate tells him he can't get in without health insurance.
He doesn't quite get it, being dead and all, but he says, "No problem. I've got a trunk load of cash, courtesy of my dim-witted constituency. I'll just buy some."
"No can do," the angel tells him. "You can't buy insurance with a pre-existing condition."
"What pre-existing condition?" the guy wants to know. "Aside from being deceased, I'm as healthy as a horse."
"You're human," the angel says. "If that's not a disease, what is?"
"So there's nothing I can do?"
"Sorry. If you had died a month ago, before the Heavenly Affordable Care Act had been repealed, you'd already be well on your way to eternal paradise."
"Shit!"


* For a slightly more serious, somewhat less 'fictionalized' take on fundamentalist religion and politics, we recommend Amanda Marcotte, who regularly takes aim at the Christian Right on Salon.com












 

Fall Ball

Back by popular demand - and thanks to both of you for asking -  a few thoughts on the "Great American Pastime."

No, not the pathological American obsession with accumulating weaponry - because, let's face it, the more guns we own, the freer we are. Hey, who needs health insurance when we've got an arsenal in the basement?
 I refer to the other G.A.P.  Major League Baseball! Defying time, possibly gravity, three and a half hour games, the threat of actually falling into a coma while watching, the great plays (which usually occur right after you've left the TV room to pee), the nearly supernatural consistency of umpire incompetence, the sheer annoying magic of it all.

It's October, the one month of the season that makes the previous six somehow bearable. That's right, I'm talking MLB Playoffs. Baseball pundits are quick to point out that anything can happen, which generally translates into the top teams mysteriously choking and some upstart Wildcard entry managing to sneak into the World Series.

(The Detroit Tigers, who should be the best team in baseball, but never quite are. Last year in the W.S. they were swept by the S.F. Giants, a team so far underwater in the standings this year that several of the players heads reportedly exploded from the pressure. How long these now headless team members will be on the D.L. is unknown)

 Forget the bookmaker odds, bet on the long shot, the dark horse, the team that defies the criteria of the upscale marketing demons.
Basically, it pays to root for guys who don't fit the standard profile. Not all that easy, since baseball, along with everything else, has been mostly homogenized, filtered down into a single blurry image of what the giant corporations running the planet have taught us not to only expect, but crave.

Case in point: Both  Miami Marlins' and Tampa Bay Rays' fans - all 237 of them, collectively, on average - apparently feel not the slightest bit of self-referential, irony-laced discomfort watching a game in stadiums named after brands of orange juice.

Still, there are glimmers of the iconoclastic. The Pittsburgh Pirates are back in the playoffs for the first time since your grandmother was in grade school. They're a wild, rough-around-the-edges bunch, who play really well, almost in spite of themselves, in a town in mostly rural western Pennsylvania, of all places.  They also have really cool uniforms.
All they have to do is get past the Cincinnati Reds in a one game punch out, which I'm predicting they will do. Today.

Of course, I'm also the guy who predicted that the entire Tea Party - along with Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian - would be abducted by aliens and transported to an intergalactic penal colony. 
 Just wishful thinking, I guess.

*Highlight of the post season so far:  The elimination of the Texas Rangers. Not sure why, but I have a visceral hatred for this team. It could be the two obsequious twits who announce their games, or the preponderance of all-white, overweight dumbbells in the stands, or possibly Nolan Ryan's fleshy scowl, or the fact that he drags George Bush along with him to the stadium, who sits there looking confused, wondering what time the Dallas Cowboys' game is supposed to start.
 Sayonara, Texas.

 Anyway, this is how I see it all playing out:

National League:
Pittsburgh beats Cincinnati, goes on to play St: Louis, beats them.
L.A. Dodgers beat Atlanta (a good though ultimately boring team)
Pittsburgh beats L.A. for National League Championship.
American League:
Cleveland beats Tampa Bay, goes on the play Boston, beats them.
Detroit beats Oakland.
Cleveland beats Detroit for American League Championship.

Cleveland / Pittsburgh play in World Series.

The odds against this particular outcome, by the way, are astronomically high.
A Detroit / L.A. or  Boston / St. Louis World Series are statistically much more likely.

But then as they say, in the Baseball Post Season anything can happen.