The Caveman Always Knocks Twice

There was a headline over an article I saw on the Internet the other day, which said the following:

"Neanderthals had sex with humans, says DNA".

According to the article, which I briefly scanned, a scientific study done by researchers at some snooty college someplace had determined, through the study of DNA from very early humans, that it's likely that these early humans had sex with Neanderthals, as the two strains of the human evolutionary chain passed each other coming and going, like ships in the night. The article contained all sorts of facts and graphs and such, all aimed at showing that, even in the early stages of their tribal development, humans (guys) were basically the same hopeless horndogs back then as they are today, tens of thousands of years later.

And I have a feeling that most of the woman in America would tell you that the headline is still applicable today as well.

Sadly, women have no appreciation for how difficult it is for guys to be proper "gentlemen", and the really sad thing is that, even if women walked around without makeup, without doing their hair, with shapeless clothing that revealed no hint of gender or voluptuousness, men would still be the disgusting, drooling reprobates that we've always been, going all the way back to Neanderthal days.

Slaves to your libido, man, thy name is hopeless.

According to a report in the newspaper The West Australian, the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the region has effectively "banned" residents from using the name "Lucifer" for their newborn children, as well as other proposed names such as Messiah, 89 and King, by refusing to register any birth of a child with those names. (The report did note however, that in 2008, the agency allowed one couple to name their newborn twin baby boys "Bensen" and "Hedges", but Lucifer, sorry, folks, that's a no go.)

I just thought you guys would want to know that. (Hey, you New Zealanders, you guys rock. "Lucifer"? "Bensen & Hedges"? Cool.)

For you loyal and faithful followers of His Popeness, John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church, you will recall that the Harley Dog and I were recently sent by the Bored Of Elders of the AJATTWC on one of our frequent "missionary" trips to the Pines Of Phillip, down near New Zealand, to interview both the director of their national health organization, Dr. Gary Indiana, to learn more about the ban that he has placed on the sale of geckos, the small, green lizard that has become the symbol of Geico Insurance, over the Internet to be used as a treatment for impotency, as well as the owner of a three-legged pig that was allegedly involved in a miracle. (The pig, not the owner. See my post from 7/19, for these stories, as well as a brief discussion as to why "Flaming Iguanas" would be a great name for a rock band.)

After we had completed all of our assigned duties, (including having dinner with Petras Moss, the Filipino farmer who owned the miraculous pig; Mrs. Petras served a delicious ham, with fresh vegetables and homemade biscuits, and there's still two to go, and unless you read the post from 7/19, that won't make any sense to you), we packed up our gear and boarded my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding (RU Kidding for short) for what should have been a quick return trip to the headquarters of the AJATTWC, located in the bucolic and mostly confused San Fernando Valley area of LA (pronounced LAH). Given that LA and the Pines Of Phillip are fairly close for a vessel equipped with HyperAromaDrive (it's only about six inches on my world map), it was supposed to be a quick trip, no more than an hour and a half or so, or about the same amount of time it took Justin Bieber to become a non-issue.

(Oh, and speaking of the music industry, using the term "music" in Justin Bieber's case very loosely, what a shame about Amy Winehouse. I thought her music interesting, but did not particularly like her as a person. Nevertheless, what a waste, and how sad for her family.)

Anyway, we were just passing over the Sargasso Sea (yeah, Pope, and you can't tell this is all made up or anything; the Sargasso Sea is in the North Atlantic, you doofus, and we were returning over the South Pacific, which, by the way, was the name of a really great musical from back in the late 50's..."some enchanted evening..."; thank you, Rogers and Hammerstein), when the voice of our pilot, Captain Art Sencrafts, came over the intercom.

"Pope, you, Mike and Harley might want to buckle in now, it looks like we're going to run into some unusual turbulence as we make our reentry," he said.

I turned to my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one who does all the Hanes underwear commercials), who looked back at me with what I suppose was the same quizzical look I had on my face on his face. Harley looked puzzled too, but then, Harley always looks a little puzzled.

"What's this all about?" I said, as we buckled into our "boost" seats.

"Beats me, maybe there's some weather thing over LA," Mike responded, as he turned to help Harley with his special harness.

""Weather thing over LA"? Since when are there "weather things" over LA in July?"

"Yeah, well, who knows, may..." Mike's sentence was cutoff, mid-word, when the ship suddenly lurched to the starboard side and then made a steep drop, like the floor had fallen out from under us.

We came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the drop, and then lurched again, this time to port, and then the ship seemed to right itself and level off; problem was, looking out the portholes, we weren't in upper stratosphere of Earth, where we should have been. Instead, we were cruising right along, with a dark, starless night outside, and no planet below us. In fact, it didn't look like there was ANYTHING outside the windows.

It was as if the Earth, all the stars, all the planets, all the nebulae, and the platypuseses, everything was gone. Then I blinked, and everything dropped back into "normal" mode.

Just then, Captain Sencrafts burst into the passenger cabin. "Is everyone all right?" he asked us, a little wild-eyed.

I looked over at Mike and at Harley, and they both nodded. "Yeah, Art, we're fine. What happened?"

"Well," he says, "I calibrated the freem generator to 36.89 prions, and I think I should have been 36.87 instead, so when we came out of HyperAromaDrive, we were "skewed" a little."

I looked at him skeptically. "Skewed?"

"Well, off slightly. Anyway, when we reentered, it caused a drop in the liquid kanooten pressure, which resulted in an unequal zolar level, and that caused the ship to yaw to the side, then down. Sorry, guys, my bad."

Considering how shaken he looked, we all just nodded and went about picking up ourselves and our things, which were all over the cabin.

Art laughed a nervous laugh, as he started to help us clean up. "You guys ever read that story by Stephen King, "The Langoliers", or maybe see the movie?" he asked.

Mike and I both nodded. "Yeah," Mike said, "I've read the book. So what?"

"Remember the part where they first saw the "time rip" and King describes it as kind of like the "aurora borealis"?

"Yeah."

"Well, just before we made reentry, I thought I saw something, like a wavery, rainbow-kind of thing, just off to the south. I tell you, for a moment, it was real spooky. That whole "Langoliers" thing crossed my mind right then, and all I could think was, boy, I sure hope we don't end up in prehistoric times." He ended with a nervous laugh, and rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Back to the time of the cavemen and the Neanderthals, huh, Art?" Mike said, laughing.

"Yeah, bottom of the 4th, two out, Cavemen leading the Neanderthals 3-1, with Aaron Watershow due to bat next...".

I waited until everyone was finished laughing, and then I asked them a question.

"Seriously, have you guys ever known or dated a woman who didn't think all men were Neanderthals?"

Mike looked at Art, and Art looked back at Mike and I looked at Mike, and he looked back at me, and Harley looked at the pantry where we kept the Girl Scout cookies, and to a man, we all shook our heads.

"Nope."

Love and archeology,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Flaming Iguanas (And Hiram, The Three-Legged Hero Pig)

Flaming Iguanas.

Yeah, don't tell me that wouldn't be a great name for a rock band.

Flaming Iguanas.

It could also be one of those real fancy "on-fire" desserts you get in those snooty restaurants where, when the waiter first comes to your table, he introduces himself as "Ferdinand", and tells you that he will be your server this evening, and then hands you the "Kiddie Menu" to peruse, because he can tell, just by looking at you, that there's no way in hell you can afford anything on the regular menu.

"...and our dessert specialty for Tuesday is baked Flaming Iguanas, covered in a rich boysenberry sauce. With pickles."

Okay, none of that has anything whatsoever to do with your Pope Guy's message of the soothing balm of Johnism for today. No, today we're going to talk about "scanning electron microscopes", no, wait a minute, I already talked about that a few weeks ago. How about if we make our topic for today: "Boogers: Gross Expectoration Or Miracle Adhesive?"

Ring...ring...rin

"PJTT...hey, Mike, what's up?...uh-oh...yeah...yeah...so why do we have to go there?......they said what?...that's a long way to go to just for that...oh...no, never heard of him...yeah, we can check out both while we're there...sure...okay, but when HD and I get back, how about we check out a Dodgers game, whatta' say?...yeah, that would be great...okay, I'll call you when we get back...hey, tell the guys in back to start getting the Kidding ready, okay?...thanks...yeah...hey, have you seen my copy of this month's "DDD Beauties"?...okay, maybe Harley has it...later."

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan, (no, not the one that used to live in Chicago); he tells me that the Bored Of Elders of the All John All The Time World Church have a "missionary trip" they want Harley and I to go on. (Harley? He's my roommate, sidekick, sparring partner and backup navigator when we're onboard the Royal Unionship Kidding, my atomic powered rocket ship, which we affectionately refer to as the RU Kidding for short; that's his picture over there --->. Handsome devil, isn't he? Just like his owner. Hey, there's a picture of the RU Kidding over there as well. Fine ship, wouldn't you say?)

It seems that the staff here at the AJATTWC alerted the Bored Guys to a situation down in the Philippines ("Pines Of Phillip"?) that the Bored wants HD and I to go investigate and then do what we can to spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism. (The Bored Guys get paid by the convert.)

So we're off in the morning on the Kidding to the Philippines, to check out the story about...

...not using geckos (you know, geckos, small, green lizards, icons of Geico Insurance) as a medical cure for impotence.

Now when the RRMMJ told me about this assignment, I had no idea why the Bored thought that using geckos to help people who have an inflated view of themselves, well, it just didn't make any sense. Why do they care if somebody in the Philippines thinks they're special? I just don't understand what one...shit, damn phone hasn't stopped ringing all morning.

"PJ...Mike, I'm right in the middle of writing my post for today, what's up?...it's what?..."imPOtent", oh, I thought they were saying "important", for crissake...yeah, that changes things completely...yeah, okay, thanks."

My consigliore again; he tells me I, well, let's just say I had a slight misunderstanding of my assignment.

Since the Kidding is capable of speeds up to and exceeding the Speed Of Aroma, we can make the "jump" to the Philippines in about 1.36 hours, or about as long as it took Lindsay Lohan to screw up after she was released from "house arrest" recently.

Up, up and away...

(Later the next day...)

So we arrived here in the sweltering Philippines today, and immediately contacted environmental officials here to explain why they feel people shouldn't use geckos to treat impotence. We were granted an audience with Dr. Gary Indiana, a Filipino/American doctor who recently was named as Director of their national health agency.

Dr. Indiana told us that he didn't particularly care if Filipino's used geckos to treat their impotence problems or not, but that since an 11-ounce gecko, which is apparently the average size of your average gecko, is right now selling over the Internet for at least 50,000 pesos each, which is about $1,160.00 in good ol' American dollars, he wants this illegal trading of these animals halted until he can figure a way to get in on the action.

I looked at HD, and with a dismissive shake of our heads, bid Dr. Indiana a good morning and got the hell outta' there. There wasn't much either Harley or I could do for this guy.

Besides, that was only one reason we were sent to the Philippines.

It seems as though one of our Bored members, Brother Terry Cloth, heard of a miracle that had allegedly taken place on a farm back in the Filipino hills outside of Vanilla, the capitol of the Philippine Islands, and that was what they REALLY wanted me to check out when we were there.

We already knew the location of the farm where the supposed "miracle" took place, so we hopped on our rented Vespa (hey, collections are down almost every Sunday these days, so you save where you can, okay?), and headed up into the hills.

We arrived at the farm a little after lunch, and when we knocked on the door of the small, but very neat farmhouse, a short, balding man dressed in rural clothing answered the door. We introduced ourselves and explained why we were there. His name, we learned, was Petras Moss, or Pete as he was known in the small village where he resided.

"Oh," he said, "you want to know about Hiram, my pet three-legged pig."

"Was this the animal that was involved in some kind of supposed miracle recently?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, "that's the one. Come on, I'll introduce you to him."

So he took us around back to a pigpen behind the house, and there in the pen was a normal-looking, pretty much every day pig, except for the fact that it only had three legs; it was missing it's front left leg, along with hoof, fur, etc.

"So, Pete, how did Hiram come to lose his front leg?" I asked. (Harley decided that Hiram was too big to eat, and went back to take a nap in the shade of our "chopper".)

"Well," says Pete the Filipino farmer, "that's a great story."

"This was last July; I came out one morning, figured I'd do some plowing that day, needed to bust up the middles, so I went into the barn and got my plow and all the rigging out, and I was just starting to hitch up the team to the plow when a dog-faced water snake (honest, I didn't make that one up, it's indigenous to the Philippines) crawled out from under the barn and spooked those mules somethin' awful. They heaved up on their rear legs, snortin' and tryin' to stomp that snake, and with all the jumpin' around and such, they pushed me right over on my back with the plow right on top of me, and as I hit the ground, I heard my arm go snap, and I knew she was broke, sure enough." He took a moment to look over at Hiram in his pen.

"Yes, sir," he says as he turns back towards me, "ol' Hiram really saved my bacon that day, pardon the pun."

"Why is that?"

"Well, that ol' snake, he's tryin' to get away from those mule's hooves that are landing on the ground all around him, and he turns and starts wriggling right towards me. Ol' Hiram sees this, sees I can't get up with the plow on top of me and my arm all twisted around funny, so he jumps over that fence there around his pen, charges right at that snake, and before the snake could turn to meet him, Hiram gets his snout up under the snake and "throws" that sucker back under the mules, who then stomp the shit outta' of it. So then Hiram runs up on the back porch, snortin' and gruntin' and making all kinds of noise and 'bout that time, my wife hears all the commotion and runs outside to see what was going on and, well, I guess you could say ol' Hiram saved my life that day."

"Wow," I said, "that's an amazing story. Did Hiram still have all four of his legs back then?"

"Oh, yeah, he didn't lose that front leg of his until just this past spring."

"How did he lose his leg?" I asked.

"Yeah, Hiram there, he's a hero in this house, best pig ever," he said. "Don't know that I've ever seen a smarter one than him."

"You know, you're probably right, Pete, but tell me, how did he come to lose his left front leg?"

"We let ol' Hiram start eating his meals with us in the house; figured that was the least we could do for him, you know, since he saved my life and he's a hero and all. Yes sir, that Hiram, he's a special pig, I'll tell you what."

"Okay, right, Pete, but how did he lose his leg?"

"You know, we've had lots of media people out here, asking about Hiram, ever since the accident; he's sorta' our "reality star" here in the village, people coming by, stoppin' to see him and all." ("Why Emm Cee Ay, it's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A...") (Okay, "village, people", get it? Geez.)

"Pete, HOW DID HIRAM LOSE HIS LEG??" I finally screamed.

"Oh," says Pete, "Hiram's a great pig, a hero. You don't eat a great pig like that all at once."

Harley and I returned to the bucolic but always sunny, at least when it's in season, San Fernando Valley the next day.

Love and ham sandwiches,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.