Ol' Dry Eyes

Just when I think I've hit the wall on my body betraying me in myriad forms (the horrific price of aging), my eyes start freaking out on me. I'm not just talking about the new floaters (which always look like bats swooping just outside the line of my peripheral vision), no-siree-bob-cat-tail! Now I've been diagnosed with "dry eyes."

Which seems to me to be a misnomer. My eyes won't stop tearing up, so how in the world can my newest ailment be called dry eyes? I'd think "swampy eyes" would be a more apt description.

For instance, last week when I went to the grocery store, floods were gushing from my eyes. By the time I got to the check-out, the clerk was giving me a funny look (with her perfectly normal dry eyes). Surely, she must've thought I'd had one of the saddest encounters in the produce section that any man had ever suffered. Or I was just bawling because the prices were so high.

I've tried eyedrops, over the counter and prescription (even the pharm tech commented "those are some damned expensive eyedrops!"), and none of them have helped much. Oh sure, it's a temporary salve, but just minutes later, I'm "hitting the bottle" again, singlehandedly keeping the eyedrop industry in business. (And at $135 dollars for a tiny vial, you'd think the drops would last longer than five minutes.)

Out of desperation, I told the pharmacist of my dilemma. "I had that same thing," she said. "They ended up cauterizing my tear ducts. Worst pain I've ever felt."

On that hopeful note, I visited my optometrist. "Doc," I said, "you've gotta help me! I walk around looking like I've just seen Bambi's mother die!" With great reluctance, I added, "My pharmacist said they burned her tear ducts." (For some reason, I couldn't grasp the word "cauterized" at this moment of near panic.)

The doc looked at me, perplexed. "Well...how about I put temporary plugs into your tear ducts and we'll see if that works. It's a lot less final than cauterization."

First, I thought why in the hell didn't you tell me you could do this before I spent $135 bucks on a tiny bottle of worthless eyedrops? Next, I thought this sounds tantamount to torture.

"How invasive is the procedure, doc?" I asked, attempting to swallow the golf ball lodged in my throat.

She shook her head. "Ah, it's nothing, nothing at all."

Several minutes later, I've got my chin and head strapped into a torture rack while she takes out extremely long--and terrifying--tweezers, attempting to grasp miniscule plugs. Now, I don't know about you, but to me, eye surgery is the scariest sort of procedure I can think of. And when I see tweezers growing, growing, growing in size and moving closer to my eye, I start to panic.

"Um, doc, maybe I think I'll change my miAIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEnd!"

"There," she says, "one down, one to go."

With the eye she'd just put the plug in weeping profusely (not giving me much hope), I considered making a fast getaway. If I can swing her magnifying torture machine gizmo around to smack her, I'd be able to feign right, jag left, and bolt for the door. Yeah, that's my plan and I'm going to...

"Hold still, this won't hurt at all."

"No, no, no, no, Doc, I, ahhhh, forgot I have a very important appAIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEtment!"

The doc sat back, sighed, clearly just as happy to be finished with the grueling procedure as I was. In a snarky voice (maybe meant to imitate me), she said, "There, Stuart...the torture is over." The accompanying finger quotes she used told me that she'd obviously never had the process done to her.

As I left, my eyes squirting oceans, the check-out gals had the gall to ask me for payment. This time the tears were real once I saw the cost.

Speaking of big man-babies, you oughta get a load of Zach Caulfield, male entertainment dancer (not a "male stripper," thank you very much). This guy's heart is in the right place, but his general motivations in life are strictly on a third-grader's level. So, when he constantly finds himself stumbling over dead bodies, it always falls on his competent, usually pregnant, highly exasperated sleuth of a sister to bail him out of trouble by finding the real murderers. Read the wacky mystery adventures of Zach and Zora available here!

Hair Famous

Recently, while visiting my daughter in her small town, she bust this out on me: "Dad, I'm kinda' 'hair famous' here."

Not knowing how to respond and not sure exactly what "hair famous" was, and maybe because I would never stand a chance in hell of ever being "hair famous," I jealously replied, "So am I."

"Oh, really, Dad? Really?" 

Well, in her case it was true. And she had no idea she was either, until people kept pointing it out to her.

A co-worker called it out to her first. "Are you even aware you're hair famous?"

"What?" she said. "What're you talking about?"

Then she showed my daughter the Facebook story. My daughter's hairdresser posted pics of my daughter's "famous hair" and it went pseudo-viral (is that such a thing?) and hairdressers started reposting it, commenting on it, and sending it everywhere. Soon, she became a celebrity in hairdressing circles. Kinda like Cher. Or O.J.

Boom! Hair famous! 

Now, part of me is insanely jealous. Due to the sadistic gleeful nature of the unjust supreme beings, I've been cursed with baldness, thus negating my chances of ever being hair famous. Now, how is it fair that a bald guy has a "hair famous" daughter? Cruel, I tell you, just cruel!

Maybe I can become "bald famous" along such other noteworthy follicly-challenged celebrities as Telly "Who Loves Ya, Baby" Savalas, Yul "The King and I" Brynner, and Donald "It's A Witch Hunt!" Trump. (Sorry, sorry, sorry, I just had to slip in a Trump slam. In fact, I think I'll do one every post until the November selection.)

Ah well, at least being hair famous happened to my daughter, a genuinely good person. (BTW, her other claim to fame is Kansas City's famous rapper Tech N9ne has hit on her several times. And he's not exactly hair famous!)

While I'm gabbing about hair, meet Shawn Biltmore, an up-and-coming corporate drone who wishes he had the power hair and prestige of his superiors. Unfortunately, he gets more than he ever wished for when a werewolf bites him. And that's all in the first couple pages! Horror and dark comedy ensue in Corporate Wolf.

"Just Like We Drew It Up!"

Well, the super bowl has come and gone and my hometown guys, the Kansas City Chiefs (nearly miraculously) won at the last minute.

That was pretty cool, but my favorite part of the super bowl was this tweet following the game...

Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa! Take that, conspiracy crazies!

For a little background, check out my Taylor Swift conspiracy theory post from a while back. Go on. I'll still be here when you get back.

Yep, the far right conspiracy contingent thought that the nefariously evil liberal fascists were fixing the super bowl to go to the Chiefs so that at game's end, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce could come out and announce their backing of Joe Biden for the upcoming election. (Which confused me at first because I thought "why would Kelsey Grammer endorse Biden since he's a notorious Trump thumper? And just why is Frasier dating Taylor Swift, Psy-Op Agent for Socialism?" Then it hit me...ohhhhhh, it's the other Kelce. I'm sure I'm not alone in confusing the two. They look identical. Okay, enough digressing and dumb jokes!)

Needless to say, the far right's conspiracy never came to fruition. But, it didn't keep President Biden from breaking out his "Dark Brandon" persona and dissing the nuts.

On a far more serious note, the shooting that happened at the Chiefs' victor parade was horrifying. And I had a deep fear that it may've been a conspiracy guy gone over-the-top. Not that it was any less awful, but it was merely idiots being stupid with guns. (Just one more reason why we need to deep-six the MAGA cult once and for all.)

Okay, say what you will about President Biden, but the guy's got a sense of humor. Unlike a certain orange troll whose idea of humor is taunting people with grade school bullying nicknames.

C'mon, people! I'll take 81 years of doddering experience any day over 91 criminal charges. It's not rocket science.

Don't make me come over there.

Speaking of idiots, check out my Zach and Zora comic mystery series of books featuring one of the dumbest lead characters you'll ever find (excluding our current politicians, natch), a lunk-headed male stripper with a heart of gold and a banana hammock of yellow. And due to popular demand (okay, well at least my friend, author extraordinaire, Cat Cavendish), I'm at long, long last back to writing the fourth book in the series, Massacre of Mustaches!

Duel to the Death: Siri vs. Alexa!

Yep. It's come down to this. Who would win in the ultimate smack-down? Siri or Alexa?

In this frightening age of 3-D printers, smart everythings, AI everywhere you look, and phony, manufactured politician recordings, I think I'm not alone in wondering who would take the crown between those two bad-ass, all-knowing, intrusive, and ever-listening non-entities, Siri and Alexa.

First of all, let's give them physical manifestations. Now, most people choose to have the two electronic figureheads represented by a sultry female voice. I don't. I've seen how hot and sexy Siri has driven a good friend of mine crazy with unrequited desire. It's a desire turned bad. Once he told me, "I really hate that bitch."

So I've given my Siri the voice of a British/Indian man, the reasoning being I'm more apt to be immune to his charms. (However, he does have a British voice; have you ever found that British accents make everything sound more interesting? At least as a Kansan, I certainly do, otherwise, I would've never listed to a BBC radio show covering "Buttons.")

Now, seeing as how the only limited experience I've had with Alexa is when my mom briefly had it turned on, I'm probably going to envision her as the typical sultry-sounding radio DJ (who's probably not as attractive as her radio voice). Let's make her hot, maybe a brunette. 

(Side bar: My mom soon disabled her Alexa; she was worried that it was listening to her. Pretty sure she got this idea from Fox News. So my brother disabled that channel on her T.V. {Side-side bar: She may not be too wrong. Even when I'm just talking about commercial things in the vicinity of my phone, I'll sometimes soon receive ads for that very thing. Holy 1984!})

So. We've got a wiry, strong Indian man versus a sultry British Brunette woman. Who'd win in a knock-down, throw-down, duel to the death?

Is this such a hard to imagine scenario these days? Creative talent/scientists can make anything happen these days, real or not. It's a far jump from the days Ray Harryhausen entertained us with stop motion clay dinosaurs (and if stop-motion animators aren't the most patient people in the world, I don't know who would be).

Let's look at the facts. Clearly, Siri is utilized more than Alexa, with more people using "her" on a daily basis, I *think* as iPhones are more prevalent than Alexa.

Yet, a lot of "experts" prefer Alexa. While Siri offers a more "personalized" experience (i.e., tailoring ads to your tastes which I'm not so sure is a "plus"), Alexa excels at compatibility, ranging across a wide line of Amazon products.

And let's not forget a recent claim made by an Alexa commercial: "Alexa saved my life by telling me the house was on fire." Well, cool. I guess. But a fire alarm doesn't listen to you like Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Really, it comes down to which giant world-eating conglomerate that's out to conquer the universe you choose: Apple or Amazon.

Me? I'd rather not see either of these two soulless mega corporations win as they're both filthy rich and powerful enough, perfectly represented by never-seen, but all intrusive electronic omnipresent presences. 

And wouldn't it be cool if all the world's violent disagreements and problems could be handled by a couple of AI images duking it out? 

I'm taking bets right now. In this cornerrrrrr, weighing in at 3 billion megawatts of artificial intelligence, we have...

Now that I've got that off my chest, let's bring things back down to earth with a nice, simple teenage witch boy. You betcha I'm talking about the murder mystery, supernatural, comical, touching and suspenseful adventures of Tex the Witch Boy (and friends and enemies). Get under his spell right HERE!

Swan Song Sung Sad

Some time ago, my wife and I were watching something on TV (doesn't matter what and I can't remember anyway), and someone's "swan song" was brought up. 

What exactly is a swan song? Well, the definition is a final gesture, performance or effort given by someone before death or retirement.

Yow! Talk about depressing! But really, I wondered why in the world would someone call it a "swan song?" I've never seen a yodeling swan on America's Kinda Got A Little Bit of Talent If You're Really Drunk or whatever.

Well, my research assistant, Professor Google, helped me suss out the reason. Get this: according to ancient beliefs, a swan sings a beautiful song just before their death because they've been silent all of their lives.

Well, huh. Maybe some "ancient beliefs" should go the way of disco. I mean, really. I'm pretty sure swans never sang, even in the face of the grim reaper belly-flopping into their pond. Yet the beliefs find their origins back in the days of ancient Greece by the third century BC (you know...where all the "great original thinkers" came from) and has been perpetuated since by philosophers and artists. Methinks they need a new muse. There're all kinds of anecdotes and sightings of singing swans throughout history and art, but they're much too boring to go into here. (If you're interested, go find your own Google assistant.)

And what's the deal with peoples' infatuation with animals making strange noises upon their death? You guys have heard of how lobsters scream upon being dunked alive into boiling water, right? Well, it's not true. They don't have vocal chords. The sound you hear is steam escaping from the shell. Apparently, they have a ganglionic nervous system and don't feel the pain as we do. (Of this, I'm not so sure. I mean, honestly, can any amount of science truly tell how they feel? And c'mon, do you have to boil them alive? Jeezus, you chefs are a sadistic bunch.)

Then there are the rabbits. Oh my lord, the poor bunnies! It's said they scream upon death. Professor Google somewhat corroborated this story, but didn't give me much comfort. Apparently, rabbits do scream when wounded. As if to put salve on the emotional wound, Professor Google was quick to follow up with "but rabbits don't scream when they suddenly die. However, any wound to a rabbit is generally fatal." Like THAT makes me feel better about the whole thing.

The deeper I dove, the more animals I found that scream and it's all kinda sad. Maybe we should quit killing the animals, huh? Geeze, if they scream, they can feel pain. So I don't wanna hear about hunting for "fun." And I'm thinking of having my people get in touch with President Biden's people to lobby for a bill to change the term "Swan Song" to "Dying Human's Song."

I'm pretty sure I'll get lotsa traction on this given the nature of our "lawmakers" these days and the way they allot importance to the right issues.

While I'm thinking of how mistreated animals are, why not give up some love for werewolves? After all, they're human most of the time, right? You can read all about them in my absolutely 100% true, tell-all shocking expose called Corporate Wolf. True journalism at it's most hard-hitting! Pow!