Thursday, March 14, 2024

Tales Of Mexico, Chapter Two—The Day That Don Jose McCallister Jumped Off The Moctezuma Bridge


On our first two trips to Mexico, we took the bus and left the driving to them.  After all, the native drivers knew the way to San Jose, had experience dealing with sheep in the roadways and had lived through many bouts with the dreaded eight-lane traffic circles called circulacions.  The best thing I can say about the experience is that we survived despite taking several mountain curves on three wheels and being pummeled by free-ranging goats and chickens who refused to stay in their seats.  Mexican bus drivers have no fear of death by rapid descent and few limits on livestock.  They will also stop along the way to discuss world affairs with passing compadres.  I decided to put my faith in Jesus and give Mexico driving a try. 

On my first trip solo, I opted to rent a vehicle from Nacional.  A six-cylinder car, at least, so I could make it across the mountains from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta.  “We only have small cars, Senor, but you can drive to Vallarta no problem.  My sister does it all the time.”  Well, then.  I can do anything your sister can do.

Remember the story of Little Black Sambo, where a quartet of vain tigers chase one another around a tree until they turn to butter?  That’s what it feels like to be on a Guadalajara circulacion.  You will never get off until, after forty or so rotations, you scream Banzai! and cut across seven lanes of traffic to the first outlet you see.  It’s like being inside a drier at the lavenderia and hoping your owner will rush in and rescue you.

Once free of the city, the drive to the coast is very pleasant.  At least until your tiny car overheats and leaves you stranded in the middle of nowhere.  This was in the pre-cell phone era, so nobody was being summoned to the rescue.  Less than three minutes after catastrophe struck, however, a carload of Mexican revelers came wheeling around the turn and noticed my dilemma.  There were no gangs kidnapping gringos in those days but I still didn’t know what to expect.

“Ah, you have a broken fanbelt, Senor, is what I think,” said the first rescuer jumping off the running board.  Apparently, this is an ongoing local issue because when the driver opened his trunk there were several fanbelts of every dimension in there.  They put one on, poured in some radiator water from a gigantic jug and waved adios.  Things couldn’t have gone any better if the Cisco Kid and Pancho had pulled up.  A few hours later, I saw the same crew in a rowdy Vallarta bar and bought them a round of beers.  In gratitude, the leader of the band went out to his trunk and brought me back another fanbelt “por si acaso.”  I kept it in my suitcase for the next ten years.  You never know.


Plaza of the Mariachis, Guadalajara


On The Road Again

Born to be wild, Harolyn and I drove all over Mexico on subsequent journeys, navigating the big cities and tiny towns alike, avoiding travel after dark following our first experience with a meandering herd of goats out for a twilight stroll.  Then one day, a fellow named Rick Nihlen, who owned a head shop in Tallahassee, suggested we rent a van, travel to several towns on their respective market days and haul the resulting load back to the States.  Sure!  What could go wrong with that plan?

Like Hank Snow, we’ve been everywhere, man. To Oaxaca and San Juan de los Lagos for blosas, to Taxco for silver, to Puebla for onyx, to Patzcuaro for little painted boxes and to Guadalajara for high-quality, low-priced leather jackets which sold like chimichangas to the Gatornationals crowd.  We swam in dangerous currents in Acapulco, haunted the fabulous shops and antique dealers of Tlaquepaque, got sick from bar ice cubes in Vallarta and slept in a straw hut in Yelapa.  And then there was the bridge on the river Moctezuma in the small town of Tamazunchale.

Finished our buying extravaganza and on the way north to the border, we reached a narrow bridge which featured the sign, “Un solo carril,” meaning the width of the span could tolerate only one vehicle at a time.  In the distance, barreling down the road from the opposite direction, was a determined, beat-up dumptruck the size of the Titanic returning to the local quarry for another load.  Despite being further from the bridge than us, the driver flashed his lights, which apparently means “I got dibs!” in Mexican driving etiquette.

Rick Nihlen ignored him and proceeded onto the bridge, which was habitated by sightseers and a lone fruit dealer with his cart of offerings.  Outraged at our lack of manners, the dumptruck roared onto the bridge and right at us.  “Move over as far as you can,” I warned Rick, “he’s going to hit us.”  Harolyn asked “Is it time to scream ‘Eeek! yet?”

Ahead of us on the bridge, chaos reigned as bystanders fled and the fruit vendor dived into the river.  The hills were alive with the sounds of pineapples and watermelon flying through the air, a substantial amount of it covering our windshield.  Needless to say, the vendor’s cart was transformed into smithereens and the back of our VW bus took a serious glancing blow.  Excited (sometimes angry) little Mexicans were running everywhere, stirred up by this unusual catastrophe.  Thankfully, the fruit man slogged out of the river in reasonable condition. What a mess!  And where was John Morgan when you really needed him?



Back Home Again In Tamazunchale

There were but two cops in Tamazunchale, neither of which spoke English.  Unaware of the flashing lights rule, we were furious with the idiocy of the truck driver, who was just as mad at us.  The police chief bade us all come down to the station to straighten this mess out and separated us from the trucker once there.  Sitting atop a desk at the  station was a local nino about ten years old who had learned English at a mission school and would serve as translator.  I delivered my diatribe and the chief replied.  “Chief says you will have to wait a few days until the circuit judge gets here,” advised the boy.

“WHAT?  I don’t think so,” I told the lad.  “We’re waiting for a substitute rental and we’re getting out of here.”  This bad news did not meet with the chief’s approval and he waved his arms and danced around a lot.  “Chief says if you don’t stop yelling at him he put you in jail right now.” 

Oh.

Well, I certainly didn’t want to be in there with mother rapers and father stabbers, like Arlo.  We decided that discretion was the better part of valor, as it almost always is.  The traveling judge, it turns out, would take three days to get to town, enough time to learn more than we ever wanted to know about the charming municipality of Tamazunchale.

The first thing we discovered is that our hotel had no air-conditioning despite the town’s average July afternoon temperature of 96.  Orchids hold conventions there and thousands of exotic butterflies show up for Spring break, so it’s hot.  Not hot enough, though, to stop the net-carrying lepidopterists from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.  The streets were full of them, bobbing and weaving as they chased the nimble butterflies hither and yon with only occasional success.

There was, you’ll be happy to know, one movie theater in town.  Appropriately enough, El Fantastico Mundo de los Jipis was playing that weekend.  That would be The Fantastic World of the Hippies at the Royal Park Cinema in Gainesville if they ever had the savoir-faire to show such art films.  I looked “jipis” up in the San Luis Potosí phone book and it defined the word as “scroungy, dead-broke American kids looking for mushrooms.”  That would be about right.

Otherwise, we slept, ate and complained.  Our hotel owner, a gracious American who had fallen on bad times and wound up with the hostelry, took us on a tour of the town.  We learned that Tamazunchale, which sat at the convergence of the Amajac and Moctezuma rivers, consisted of 354 square kilometers and the population inside the city limits was roughly 24,000 people and six vehicles.  The name of the town comes from the Huastec language and means “place of government.”  T-town was the Huastec capital in the 15th century, but in 1522 that rude Hernan Cortez busted up the party with his troops and Indian allies headed by a nephew of Cuauhtemoc, last ruler of the Aztecs.  Don’t say you never learn anything about the state of San Luis Potosi when you read The Flying Pie.

Metropolitan Tamazunchale

Here Come De Judge!

Just when we were about to jump off the Tamazunchale Bridge in a fit of boredom, the face of justice arrived in town.  It was only three days but it seemed like a butterfly’s lifetime and probably the sole occasion we ever looked forward to appearing in court.  There were no quibbling lawyers, no yawning juries, just us and the truck driver there to tell our stories.  And justice was served.  The judge, in a fit of enlightenment, ruled that both drivers were at fault and neither owed the other a single peso.  Both, however, had deprived the fruit vendor of his means to a living and each miscreant would contribute an equal amount to the reconstruction of the fruit cart and replacement of inventory.  Nobody complained and the fruit man danced a merry jig out onto the street.

The smiling police chief came over and shook hands with everyone, twice with Harolyn, who he was convinced was an unannounced American movie star.  The fruit peddler blessed us with the pineapple of friendship.  The American hotel owner delivered a large case of water.  The smiling and nattily-attired representative of the car rental company brought forth a shiny new bus.  The kid from the mission school was a temporary stowaway, but we dumped him off at the next pueblo.  Harolyn felt so bad about it, she opened her blouse and flashed him on the way out of town.  “Always leave them smiling,” she said.



That’s all, amigos y amigas….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

  




 

Thursday, March 7, 2024

The Grand Finale



“My friends from over the ages, let’s take one more walk down the alley….join me for the Grand Finale.”---Bill Killeen

In September of 1967, two characters who didn’t know any better opened the Subterranean Circus in an old fertilizer warehouse on a nondescript sidestreet in Gainesville.  The dust was thick, the lighting poor and the electrical wiring was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but the rent was right---$75 a month.  Bill Killeen and Pamme Brewer stepped inside, parted the cobwebs and smiled in unison. “Paradise!”

And Paradise it was to the hundreds of thousands who dropped in over the next 23 years to buy hippie gear, solicit political support, find long-lost friends or barter for weed in the parking lot.  While runaway kids across the nation headed for The City by the Bay, Florida runaways lit out for Gainesville, the exotic psychedelic land of free love, cheap music, endless crash pads and ample marijuana.  The blacklight room in the Circus was the ultimate stoner shrine where wide-eyed hippies went to worship.  Wise men like Eastern-religion-favoring Dick North were available for life counseling and body painting, primo salesman Danny Levine, a certified minister of the Universal Life Church, could marry you on the spot, agrarian hotshot Chuck LeMasters would sit you down and explain why your crops weren’t thriving.

Then one day, the Circus opened a clothing store next door called Silver City and hippie males could suddenly dress as wildly as women, and they did.  The traditional clothing stores in town fell by the wayside, overtaken by young entrepreneurs selling bellbottoms, hiphuggers, Nehru and Cossack shirts, opaque angel dresses, sandals, beads and what-have-you, with the Sub Circus always leading the way.

All of this was not entirely approved by the Straight World, which attacked with scorn and derision, rocks thrown through windows, laws to prevent sales of drug-related paraphernalia and allegedly obscene books and posters…like, say, those from the obviously perverted Kama Sutra.  Police raids ensued, trials took place, but for a very long time the hippies always won.

Nothing lasts forever except for memories, and the ones possessed by denizens of those times are strong and steady.  They sharply remember those days of wine and roses and $15 lids and love in the afternoon, almost every afternoon.  They recall those surreal acid tests at the band concerts, the helter-skelter love affairs, the freedom to chart their own courses for better or for worse, the certainty that they had created a brave new world which would stand the test of time.  They remember, and now and then they return to spend poignant moments at the scene of the crimes, and they pause to wonder what might have happened to all those friends and roommates and lovers and ex-wives and husbands and one-night-standees.  And then, on one fine day in May of 2022, they got to find out.



The Last Tango

Bill Killeen, who missed the olden times and lost friends as much as anyone decided that the year 2020, a little over 50 years from the summers of love, would be a propitious time to empty his wallet  for a magnificent Homecoming of those old store workers and customers lost to the ages.   Then Covid struck, routing the nation and taking two years to settle down.  In the meantime, there was plenty of time to dot and cross all the appropriate letters, to lay the groundwork, to find a few bands to play music from a long ago era, to search out the right place to meet and greet, to find the right time between too hot and too cold and hotels too crowded.  Despite the slings and arrows of occasionally outrageous fortune, the long-awaited Last Tango In Gainesville finally dawned on May 20, 2022, and it was a hallmark day in the lives of those who were there.  They laughed, they cried, they slapped their foreheads in wonder as old friends emerged from the mists, some barely recognizable, as The Impostors played Strawberry Fields Forever or Nancy Luca sang American Girl or The Relics belted out Age of Aquarius.  Of all the places in the world one could be, none were better than this special afternoon and evening in swooning Gainesville, Florida.  If you weren’t there for the hugs and tears, you’re sad and disappointed and irked and penitent because such a day never was before and never will be again. 

Unless…..


The Grand Finale

After the ball was over, Heartwood major domo Dave Melosh congratulated Killeen on his great success and said, “I’m hoping you’ll do it again some day.” 

“Call me back when I’m 85,” replied the ringmaster.   “Let’s see if the boat is still afloat.”  Apparently, the vessel yet rides the waves.  Bill turns 85 in November of 2025 and Dave is waiting by the phone booth, contract in hand.  If all works out, he’ll get his wish.  But if The Last Tango is truly the last, what comes next?  Ah, what is that new sun rising above the mountain.  It looks like The Grand Finale to us.

Since the Last Tango was advertised as a reunion for crew and customers of the Subterranean Circus (which meant just about everyone who was in town in the Glory Days), there were some who were wary of showing up at the party.  Others, unaware of the event or oblivious to its sheer magnificence, took a pass and have been slamming their foreheads into the furniture ever since.  Now, everybody gets another chance.  The Grand Finale is a reunion for every lost soul, prodigal son, wayward daughter and criminal on parole who ever walked the special streets of Hogtown.  We’re asking all of our readers to get the word out to the four corners of the Earth; to California dreamers, to Sasquatch chasers in the Pacific Northwest, to hermits marooned on the Kamchatka Peninsula, to Marty Jourard, sleeping in Seattle.  It’s your last chance for a ribald hookup with Marianne in the back seat of your Studebaker, a final dalliance with the first guy who fed you LSD, a last look at the Old Town before it devolves into Sterileville.  If you’re wondering whatever happened to the nubile Shirley, Naked Jeannie, Rod the Biker or fey Police Chief Wayland Clifton, maybe you’ll finally find out.  True, we’re missing a frightening number of the old gang and more will fall through the gaping cracks in the next 26 months but others will hold on for dear life to make the journey to the ancient shrine.  If you’re short on weed, down in the dumps, living in a festering boxcar in a Montana railyard and looking for something to live for, now you’ve got it.  Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy, it’s the right time and the right place.  And as the bard once advised, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.  If you’ve still got any.


The Last Word

In the glorious wake of The Last Tango, people like Nancy Kay wrote suggestions on their Facebook pages that read “Let’s do it again and help Bill pay for it next time.”  That’s not a bad idea, these things don’t come cheap.  Instead of direct contributions to the cause, however, we’d like to sell out the next two Hogtown Oprys in May of this year and next.  All proceeds after the Opry bills are paid would go directly to The Grand Finale and would determine how big that event would be.  Make no mistake, on May 17, 2026, there will be a spectacle, but will we have a Noon to 5 p.m. celebration with a couple of bands or a blast that will stretch out late into the evening?  Will there be sword-swallowers and fire-eaters and merrymakers arriving in clown cars?  Will there be mariachis and loud explosions and doobie tosses and streakers running through the downtown streets, high on life and and/or psychedelic products?  The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.


That’s all for now, folks, but stay tuned.

bill.killeen094@gmail.com



Advisory:
Yes, Marvin Nunley and the rest of you compadres, today was scheduled to be the second installment of our Mexican tale.  Pardon the interruption, but something came up.  We’ll be back next week with south of the border shenanigans galore.  That’s really all, amigos and amigas.



   

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Ponce de Leon, We Are Here


David Sinclair, the last word on longevity research, has come up with a chemical cocktail which helped reverse aging in mice within one week.  Sinclair, an internationally recognized expert on aging, is a researcher in the department of genetics and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School.  The new discovery works by rejuvenating old cells within muscles, tissues and some organs.  The results, published in the journal Aging, underscore that aging is a process which can be reversed and is not inevitable.  Sinclair’s latest discovery adds growing interest to the fast-blooming field of Aging Medicine.

“We’ve previously shown that age reversal is possible using gene therapy to turn on embryonic genes,” claims Sinclair.  “Now we show it’s possible with chemical cocktails, a step towards affordable whole body rejuvenation.”

In research over the course of three years, Sinclair’s team at Harvard observed mice taking six cocktails that can reverse key hallmarks of aging by rejuvenating senescent or older deteriorating cells “without erasing cellular identity,” Sinclair says.  “Studies on the optic nerve, brain tissue, kidney and muscle have shown promising results, with improved vision and extended lifespan in mice and, in April of this year, improved vision in monkeys.  The new discovery offers the potential to reverse aging with a single pill, with applications from improving eyesight to effectively treating numerous age-related diseases.”  Okay, asks Elon Musk, so what exactly is it?


What It Is

The new cocktail consists of a variety of molecules, including valproic acid, an anti-seizure medication used for migraine and mood disorders, and a drug used for cancer with anti-aging properties.  Sinclair says the team is preparing for human cellular trials using gene therapy to reverse aging and confirms that human trials will be available within a decade.  Said Sinclair, “There’s a race now between many groups to show chemicals can rejuvenate cells like gene therapy can.  We envision a future where age-related diseases can be effectively treated and injuries repaired more efficiently…where the dream of a whole body rejuvenation becomes a reality.”

As for Sinclair, himself, the 54-year-old professor keeps a relatively strict daily schedule to stay healthy, which includes green matcha tea, polyphenols in a couple of spoonfuls of morning yogurt and an occasional bite of 80% dark chocolate.  He considers himself phenotypically ten years younger than his actual age, as measured by metabolism, organ function and inflammation.  “A lot of us think that when you’re in your twenties, you are impervious to aging and illness, but what we know now is that the epigenetic clock starts ticking from birth and that what we do in our twenties does affect our ultimate longevity,” he says.  “Biological age is a much better representation of health status than birthday candles.  Candles don’t tell you how well you’ve been living or how many years you’ve got left.”


David Sinclair’s Regimen

1.---Take Resveratrol.  Wine-drinkers like this one, but neither the grape nor supplements found in most health stores provide enough resveratrol to make a difference.  If you do find an adequate supplement, overdosing poses a risk for side effects like nausea and vomiting.  According to the reliable Cleveland Clinic, you’re more likely to benefit from a whole food source than a micronutrient in supplement form.

2.---Skip Breakfast.  Not me, boys and girls.  But Sinclair eschews morning dining to put 16-18 hours between significant meals (I think 14.5 is enough, but nobody asked).  Research shows that this type of “intermittent fasting” may lower the risk of diabetes, heart disease and dementia, three of the cornerstones of aging.  Fasting, of course, is not for everyone and can pose a health risk, not to mention triggering those who struggle with eating disorders.  Experts recommend starting with smaller fasts, making meals which are highly nutritious and staying hydrated.

3.---Avoid Sugar.  Sinclair turns down sugar and meat, focusing on a plant-based diet.  A typical dinner consists of rice, almonds and couscous, which doesn’t send one into swoons of delight.  “I rarely eat anything other than plant-based and nut-based foods, including milk,” he tells Gentlemen’s Quarterly.  Nor will he have a glass of wine, despite all the plaudits for the Mediterranean Diet.  “I’m off dairy and alcohol, as well.  Very rarely will I eat or drink any of those things, perhaps at a celebration.”  He guiltily admits to an occasional french fry.  “This diet made a huge difference in mere months to my blood biomarkers and epigenetic age,” Sinclair avows.  “When I switched to the new diet, I got my memory back, as well.  I’d been unable to remember phone numbers and key codes easily, now it’s simple.  I feel I got back my 20-year-old brain.  I just thought it was old age, but it wasn’t.  It was my lifestyle.”



The 2000-Year-Old Man

The Renaissance philosopher Montaigne quipped that “death has us by the scruff of the neck at every moment,” but maybe he was wrong.  While immortality might seem like the stuff of science fiction, it’s increasingly becoming the focus of real science.  Back in 2013, Google launched Calico, a biotech firm whose objective was to “solve Death,” and the race was on.  PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel immediately pledged to “join the fight” against death and several other prominent techies jumped on the bandwagon.  In 2021, Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos (who also owns the Washington Post) invested heavily in Altos Labs, a company preparing to rejuvenate cells in order to reverse disease.  Now there’s even a clinical-stage veterinary company called Loyal which is developing drugs intended to extend the lifespan of dogs.

We’ve been trying forever to live forever.  One of our species’ oldest stories is “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” which deals with that very longing.  Etched on clay tablets four millennia ago in Mesopotamia, it concerns King Gilgamesh, a wild bull of a man with gigantic muscles and a colossal ego.  Forced to confront his own mortality after the death of his best friend, the King cries to the heavens, “Must I die, too?”   In his grief, he morphs into a Mesopotamian Peter Thiel and sets out on a mission to overcome death.  He fails, of course, but uncovers his own Truth along the way:

“Humans are born, they live, then they die, this is the order that the gods have decreed.  But until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair.  Love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.  That is the best way for a man to live.”

Ah, but the rest of humanity didn’t get the memo.  The first emperor of China, Quin Shi Huang, who ruled in the third century B.C. was hellbent on living forever.  He was so terrified of death, he outlawed any discussion of the subject in his court under penalty of….well….you know.  One day. an enigmatic sorcerer named Xu Fu claimed he could grant the emperor immortality with his “elixir of life,” available only on a remote, magical island in the East China Sea.  Obsessed with living forever, Quin took up drinking the new concoction and died at age 49 of mercury poisoning.  His last words were “Where’s the damn FDA when you really need them?”


Bryan Johnson, would-be immortal

The Believers

Peter Attia is a Canadian-American physician and the founder of Early Medical, a practice that applies the principles of Medicine to patients with a goal of lengthening their lifespans and simultaneously improving their healthspans.  Attia has played a key role in promoting the benefits of nutritional ketosis, intermittent fasting and strategic exercise as powerful tools for enhancing longevity.  He is also host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering health and medicine.  His approach to longevity is one of the most conservative and realistic, paying particular attention to diet, caloric restriction, protein and muscle.

Bryan Johnson is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and writer who has made significant contributions to the field of biological longevity.  He is the founder and CEO of Kernel, a company which aims to develop advanced neural interfaces to treat neurological diseases and enhance human cognition.  Johnson is also the founder of OS Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage science and technology companies.  Blueprint is a protocol developed by Johnson and a team of doctors which aims to measure all of his 70 organs and then maximally reverse the quantified age of each.  Johnson will publicly document his protocols and results, allowing the public to be passengers on his longevity journey.

Aubrey de Grey, one of the grandfathers of longevity research, is an English author and biomedical gerontologist who has made significant contributions to the field of biological longevity.  He is the author of “The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging,” and co-author of “Ending Aging,” and is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today not to die from age-related causes.  De Grey is the founder and chief science officer of the Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit that aims to extend human lifespan.  He has proposed a framework called Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), which aims to prevent or reverse age-related damage in the body.  The SENS approach involves repairing or replacing damaged cells, proteins and other molecules in the body that contribute to aging.  De Grey’s work has been widely recognized and he has received numerous awards for his contributions to the field of anti-aging research.



The Rest Of The Story

Immortality….life-extension…. or anti-aging, as researchers soberly put it….is the next Big Thing.  Estimates put the industry’s worth at a staggering $610 billion by 2025.  Interested parties are faced with the formidable task of sorting through mountains of promises to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Can we get a little help from Consumer Reports here?  The companies doing this work are all new and untested.  There is no Sears & Roebuck offering money-back guarantees, and the goods and services they offer are not cheap.

Would you like to send in a blood sample to determine your biological age?  Someone will be glad to help you out for $550.  For quite a bit more, clinics like Cenegenics, headquartered in Las Vegas with 30 offspring nationwide including Jacksonville, will provide you with an all-day session which includes compiling a complete medical history and lifestyle assessment, a lengthy physical evaluation, DEXA Scan, VO2 Max test, CIMT test, neurocognitive assessment, muscular strength evaluation, coordination test, diet advice and a partridge in a prune tree.  The doctors are charismatic and very professional.  If you’re Bill Killeen, they’ll tell you to reduce your carbs, take Testosterone (which I do, in small injectable amounts) and Human Growth Hormone (which I don’t).  My experience was over 20 years ago in Vegas at a cost of $1000.  Today, the same service costs five times that much, about the same as an executive physical at the Mayo Clinic.

All of us---except me and Woody Allen---are going to die.  If we don’t really mind, no problem.  If we do, we’ve got options.  The medical community tells us that animal studies suggest that a 10-50% reduction in normal calorie intake will increase human lifespan.  Staying physically active, avoiding smoking, moderating alcohol, eschewing chronic stress and nurturing your social circle all help.  Having something to look forward to is critical, and you’ve go that taken care of with The Flying Pie every Thursday.  But you might want to keep an eye on those wild and crazy guys obsessed with life extension.  The human body might not tolerate eternal life whatever the enhancements, but who’s to say it won’t tolerate 120 years with a little help?  Obviously, included in that assistance will be the ability to remain physically viable, to enjoy a reasonable lifestyle.  Motivated researchers are working on it, massive sums are being applied, significant discoveries are being made.  You’ll want to hang around for “The Very Last Tango, No Kidding” in 2035, right?

Don't worry, we'll have plenty of robotic assistants and a fleet of those electric wheelchairs with lights.



 That's all, folks...

bill.killeen094@gmail.com




Thursday, February 22, 2024

Thank God For Optimists


“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.”---Helen Keller

“My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.”---Henry Rollins

In a world that is falling apart all around us, what would we do without optimists?  Perhaps retire to the chummy shores of faraway Pitcairn Island, hitch a ride to the planet Zelda in one of Gary Borse’s Identified Flying Objects or march to the top of Diamond Head and swandive into oblivion.  Optimists make lemonade from sour little citrus balls, wrap your damaged Achilles tendon and send you back into the game, remind you that relief is just a swallow away.  Pessimists, on the other hand, shuffle their feet, spit on the ground and run the surrender flag up the flagpole at the first hint of cumulonimbus.  Optimists make the world go ‘round, pessimists pull over to the curb and apply the parking brake.

Ah, but I am a realist, you say, neither a foolhardy Charlie Brown nor a depressing Friedrich Nietzsche.  We say you realists are just pessimists in disguise, people with pocketsful of “I Told You So!” buttons to hand out on convenient occasions.  Were we realists, we might accuse our valued friend Gina Hawkins of folly for thinking a raw recruit like herself could march the 2190 miles of the testy Appalachian Trail without sneaking onto a Greyhound from Blairsville, Georgia to Millinocket, but no, we hold our tongues and help pack her knapsack with trail gruel, Clif bars and hard liquor.  Just to be on the safe side, of course, we’re asking her to place a tracking device in her underwear.  There’s pessimism after all, and there’s sensible caution.  It is not at all cynical, say, to have medics on call, the helicopter warmed up and the extraction team practicing midnight crisis techniques.



The Appalachian Trail; What You Should Know

“You become an informal clump, a loose and sympathetic affiliation of people from different age groups and walks of life, but all expecting the same weather, same discomforts, same landscapes, same eccentric impulse to hike to Maine,”---Bill Bryson

The storied Appalachian Trail, which extends from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to faraway Mount Katahdin in central Maine, has lured headstrong youngsters, earnest trekkers and crazy fools for decades, many of them seeking to escape the stress of city life, reconnect with nature, test themselves against the many hardships the footpath doles out daily.  Others, like freshman hiker Jason Candide of Omaha, do it impulsively for the glory.  “I want to hike The Trail just to say I’ve done it,” he relates to three-time thru-hiker Frank LaMotta.  “Then you’re a fool,” said Frank.  “You won’t last a month.”   Even an optimist needs a Plan.

Only one hiker out of every four makes it the length of the Trail, a mammoth five-to-seven month undertaking which takes careful preparation.  Rookie hikers tend to carry too much food and water, too many or too few clothes, not practice enough in difficult circumstances.  It’s generally agreed among experienced hikers that 30 pounds is all you want to carry on your back for ten or more hours a day.  The Approach Trail is difficult, surprisingly so to new hikers.  After two or three days, sore knees and weary Achilles tendons are common; slow and steady wins the day.  Veterans advise starting out at eight miles a day and working up.

If it’s dry, trail runners are an option, but waterproof hiking boots are often better for the cold, wet, sometimes snowy days ahead. A survey of thru-hikers who walked the Trail in 2022 found 86% favored trail runners for the majority of the hike, a surprising statistic which has stood the test of time.  91% of respondents who began their hike in trail runners said they were happy with their choice, while only 64% of trekkers starting in hiking boots were satisfied.

Okay, so now you’ve thoroughly researched the hike, drastically improved your physical fitness level, bought the right equipment and adopted the proper attitude.  You’re a lean, mean hiking machine and you’re ready to go.  But have you thought about the bears?



The Bears

“Black bears rarely attack.  But here’s the thing.  Sometimes, they DO.  All bears are agile, cunning and immensely strong, and they are always hungry.  If they want to kill you and eat you, they can, and pretty much whenever they want.  That doesn’t happen often, but---and here’s the salient point---once would be enough.” ---Bill Bryson

Much of the Appalachian Trail is black bear habitat.  Bear populations are increasing in all states and bear encounters are on the rise on the A.T.  Brigid Bell’s thru-hike took an unexpected turn on May 9, 2023, when she was bitten by a black bear while exiting a privy in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be afraid,” claims Bell.  “I knew it was useless to run, but I definitely picked up my pace.”  So did the bear, who lunged forward and bit Brigid on the upper buttock.  She jerked her body forward, pulled away and walked calmly toward the safety of a nearby shelter where other hikers, armed with rocks, began throwing things at the bear, eliciting a temporary retreat.  Bell said her training as a 911 dispatcher kicked in, allowing her to remain in control of her actions.  “I was probably the calmest person in the camp,” she says.  Brigid even had the presence of mind to take a few pictures of the bear.

Although black bears tend to shy away from humans, bears which have had access to human food often lose their fear of people, learning to associate hikers with tasty treats.  Bears willing to approach humans are not easily deterred and have to be rehomed in remote areas or, in the case of especially aggressive bruins, euthanized.  Wildlife experts say, “A fed bear is a dead bear,” which hardly seems fair, so hikers are drilled about feeding them or leaving unsecured food where wildlife can access it at night.  Sections of the A.T. are periodically closed to overnight camping in response to reports of excessive bear behavior, especially one seven-mile stretch near the North Carolina-Tennessee border which is often beset.  All that said, from 2000 to 2019, there have been only nine actual deaths via black bear attack in the entire lower 48 states.  By contrast, in 2017, 89 people were killed by hornets and over 250 died while taking selfies.  Maybe someone should come up with a Selfie-Spray.



The Optimist Hall Of Fame

“The Socialist is the greatest optimist in the world.  He never sees anything but victory ahead.  Even where the vote is small and outward indications might to the average beholder carry little hope, the Socialist sees nothing but ultimate triumph.  No one but he has ever planned for a world free from want or steadfastly believed that his ideals would be wrought into a fact so glorious as to excel all the utopias of which man has dreamed.”---Anonymous, 1908

Think you’re a diehard optimist?  You’re not even trying.  Let’s take a look at the competition.

1.---Don Quixote.  In a cruel world full of stoic realism, mockery and violence, this man’s childish idealism and determination to fulfill his dream is impossibly optimistic.  And, as it turns out, just plain impossible.  His creator, Miguel de Cervantes, once said: “Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”  But Don Q.’s little known sense of humor eased the frustration.

At the end of each daunting episode, D.Q. and his faithful Spanish companion Sancho Panza rode to the top of a hill on their horses, then pulled up to let Don Quixote tell a bad joke.  “Oh, CISCO!”  recoiled his partner in mock horror.  “Oh, SANCHO!” replied his compadre, breaking up in hysterics.

2.---Roberto Goizueta.  On April 23, 1985, this CEO and Chairman of Coca Cola announced the shelving of the iconic Coca Cola formula and its replacement with a substitute called New Coke.  Shortly thereafter, suburban Atlanta villagers arrived at the Coke plant bearing pitchforks and torches and threatened to burn the place down if their beverage rights were not restored.  Roberto and his boys caved and the original Coca Cola was revived.  New Coke lost the company $4 million in research and development and $30 million in unsold inventory.  Apparently, fifty million times a day, at home, at work, or on the way, there’s nothing like a Coca Cola, nothing like a Coke.

3.---Roy Brown.  Brown was a hotshot designer with the Ford Company in 1954, when he began creating the Edsel, which was intended to be the “it” car for the nation’s middle class.  “We don’t think so,” said John Q. Public  of the unattractive gas-guzzler which had an X-rated grille, oil leaks, hoods that stuck and trunks which didn’t open, and Ford lost $350 million.  Cisco and Pancho rode to the top of a hill and threw Roy off a cliff.

4.---Adolph (Mr. Potato Head) Hitler.

“Hey, guys, the war seems to be going well, let’s drop in to Moscow for some stroganoff and Stoli.”---Der Fuehrer

Somebody get this guy a map and a winter weather report for the Soviet Union.  The sheer scale of the Eastern Front where his invasion of the USSR took place was daunting, to say the least, and the weather didn’t help.  German forces were ill-prepared for the bone-chilling cold, which presented logistical challenges, equipment failures, numb digits and a colossal loss of morale.  The Russian army, on the other hand, was accustomed to the conditions and used them to their advantage.  Hitler’s invasion also diverted crucial military resources from other fronts, including Western Europe and Northern Africa and pushed the Russians into an alliance with the Allied Forces, significantly shifting the balance of power in favor of the Allies.  Best “Oopsie!” ever.

Shortly after the Soviet fiasco, a crack team of U.S. Army commandos secretly captured Hitler and replaced him with Charley Chaplin, who eventually ran the Nazi war machine into the ground.  Now you know….the rest of the story.



Facts About Optimists

1.---Optimists Live Longer.  Look it up.  Research has consistently linked optimism with overall health and longevity.  Optimistic thinkers have lower rates of hypertension, heart disease and cancer, as well as lower rates of mortality in general.  Optimists tend to exercise more, sleep better, eat healthier and refrain from smoking.  One large 2019 study determined that optimists have a lifespan 11% to 15% longer than average unless they are rulers of Germany.  Optimists are more likely to live to 85 or older, a fact which applied independent of variables like socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration and healthy behaviors.  When given a poor but manageable health prognosis, pessimists are more likely to become fatalistic and see only an inevitable death sentence, while optimists recognize the severity of their condition but are more likely to take steps to cope with it.

2.---Optimists Have Better Love Lives.  Ask around.  Optimists have higher quality, longer lasting romantic relationships, according to researchers from Stanford University.  These results hold even when only one partner is an optimist.  Psychologists believe optimism leads to a greater sense of perceived support from a partner, which helps couples fight fair.  When asked about a point of contention in the relationship, both optimistic thinkers and their partners were more likely to say that the other partner was invested in making the relationship better.

3.---Optimists Are More Successful.

Just as optimists seem to be more resilient outside the workplace, they are also resilient on the job.  Even if their bosses don’t recognize that they’re doing good work, optimists are able to keep performing well.  People who are optimistic also seem to have better job security, according to the 2019 study.  People who are optimistic about their careers are more likely to succeed at work and to feel satisfied with their jobs.  Optimistic managers may be more effective at helping others be productive and achieve their goals.

4.---Optimists Bounce Back Faster And Stronger.  In a famous study of elite college varsity swim teams published in 1990, coaches told athletes to swim their best event.  After the races, coaches provided false feedback about the results, adding a couple of seconds to the swimmers’ times.  The difference was small enough to be believable but large enough to cause disappointment in the athletes.  Then, they were given half an hour to rest and ruminate on their perceived performances before repeating their events.

On their second efforts, pessimistic thinkers swam 1.6% slower than the first time while the optimists swam 0.5% faster.  In the competitive world of swimming, the difference between the optimists and pessimists was the difference between winning and losing their events.  Optimists use failure as fuel to perform better in the future.  A later study on high-level athletes showed that optimism also helps protect athletes against burnout.

As good old Norman Vincent Peale told us long ago, “A man who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic and undertakes his work with the assurance of success magnetizes his condition.  He draws to himself the creative powers of the universe.”

Buddha suggested “The mind is everything.  What you think, you become.”

From Robert Brault: “An optimist is someone who isn’t sure whether life is a tragedy or a comedy but is tickled silly just to be in the play.”

That’s us.  Call us crazy.




That’s all, folks.  But only for today.

bill.killeen094@gmail.com 


     


Thursday, February 15, 2024

A Moving Experience





Everyone’s looking for a leg up these days and The Flying Pie is here to help readers find it.  If I could just get lucky once, you say….get off to a new start with a dollar in my pocket and a sweetie on my arm, I could be a contenduh.

Well, guess what, pal---Tulsa, Oklahoma wants you!  Billed as “the world’s largest small town,” Tulsa wants bigger.  Since 2018, Tulsa Remote has helped more than 2500 people move to Oklahoma’s second largest city by paying successful applicants to its nifty relocation program a whopping $10,000 to move there for at least a year.  Hell, you could put up with Newark for that long with ten grand in your pocket and a Glock in your sock.  The city will also give you free desk space at 36 Degrees North, a popular downtown co-working facility where you can job-hunt or whittle.

Maybe you’d like Topeka better.  If you’re a talented professional seeking new opportunities, the Choose Topeka program offers an Employer Match Incentive which could pay $10,000 to cover rent and $15,000 towards buying a house in town or anywhere in ever-starched Shawnee County.  The cost of living in Topeka is already 15% lower than the national average.  You could be the first Democrat on your block.

How about Noblesville, Indiana or Frankfort, Kentucky?  Both of them will pay you $5000 to relocate under certain circumstances, but is that enough to live in the exotic edens that are Noblesville, Indiana or Frankfort, Kentucky?  No, it’s not.  There is grave danger that once you move you’ll morph into a pea-brained Republican and grow a foot-long nose.

If you’re a qualified physics or language teacher, you can pick up $13,000 just for emigrating to jolly old England.  The British government’s international relocation program will pay you around that amount to help with moving costs if you’ve got a job offer there in one of the approved subjects.  If it turns out you can’t abide fish & chips or fog and have to return home, you’ll have picked up a bit of an uppity English accent and can quickly get hired by U.S. employers with delusions of grandeur.

Have they got a deal for you in Italy, Danny Levine!  All across the country, villages and towns experiencing depopulation are facing an unsightly consequence---watching conditions deteriorate in their abandoned houses and seeing local businesses close.  In a radical attempt at salvation, some authorities have signed up for a scheme in which outsiders commit to renovating and restoring empty properties in exchange for unbelievable bargains on the asking price (sometimes as low as one euro).  From the Valle d’Aosta in the north to Puglia in the south, a wide selection of Italian real estate is on offer.  Turns out it’s not too late for la dolce vita after all.  Don’t forget to bring three coins for the fountain.


Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Are you lonely?  Hungry for neighbors?  Like the sound of other voices and the smells of food cooking in the hallways?  Then Whittier, Alaska might be the place for you.  In Whittier, almost all of the 200 residents live in the same dwelling.  Instead of a remote log cabin, you get a 14-story high-rise known as the Begich building that everybody calls home.  You won’t have friends from the lower 48 dropping in on you much either since the only way in or out (except by boat) is a 13,000-foot-long combination rail and highway tunnel.  Also on the positive side, you’re sitting on stunning Prince William Sound, which is full of rambunctious whales, Steller seals and calving glaciers.  A terrific alternative if you can’t stand life in the government’s Witness Protection Program.

Everything is BIG in Casey, Illinois.  Twelve of the world’s largest things live there, including a 55-foot tall wind chime (delightful in typhoons) and a 56.5-foot high giant rocking chair, which is too big even for Shaquille O’Neal.  And that’s not the half of it.  Casey also has more than 20 other gargantuas, like the world’s largest cob of corn, a very large crochet hook and a monster taco.  Most of these items are centered around the town’s only stop sign (average size) but the gigantic Golf Tee is up the road at a nearby links.  All this overreaching is the brainchild of one Jim Bolin, who wanted to do something huge for his hometown.  Bolin constructed most of the world’s largest things with recycled materials like old telephone poles with the help of his crazed employees.  If you want to live somewhere different between Indianapolis and St. Louis, this might be the place.  You could be the word’s biggest loafer or the world’s biggest jerk, you'd fit right in. 

You didn’t know this, but the United States contains a micronation within.  The Republic of Molossia in Nevada was founded by James Spielman (King James I) and Kevin Baugh, the Prime Minister, in 1977 and was known at the time as the Grand Republic of Vuldstein.  If you’re eventually accepted for residence you’ll be 1/37th of the total population.  Better take a look first during the official touring season (April 15--October 15), but leave your walrus at home, they’re highly illegal in Molossia.  Also, no onions or fresh spinach, please.  All tourists are escorted, of course, and limited to three-hour visits, so you’ll have to drink your Molossolini on the run.

The demise of circuses has thrown a ton of lion tamers, bearded women and short people into retirement and many of them head for Gibsonton, Florida.  Gibtown, as it’s affectionately known, even has a famous cemetery called Showmen’s Rest dedicated to fire-breathers and sword swallowers who have emigrated to that Big Top in the sky, Many others were buried there after the tragic Hammond Circus Train Wreck of 1918.  Florida has long been a haven for circus people, as Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus wintered in Sarasota beginning in 1927, then at the Tampa Fairgrounds and finally the booming metropolis of Ellenton.  The next generation of circus artists is being trained today at the Sailor Circus Academy in Sarasota.  You don’t want to live anywhere near there, though.  You never can tell where the human cannonballs are going to land.

Oprah says America’s “most unusual town” is Maharishi Vedic City in Iowa.  You wonder why you never knew this, never passed through, never even heard of the place.  As we said, it’s in Iowa.  If, however, you think you might want to live in the Hawkeye State and have found the charms of such as Ames, Fort Dodge and Hard Scratch highly resistible, Maharishitown might be for you.  The city was built by the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, guru to The Beatles, and is a very peaceful hamlet dedicated to the ancient Sanskrit text known as The Veda and its principles.  Every building in the town was constructed adhering to the Vedic fundamentals of architecture, which are meant to bring joy and balance, and we can use all the balance we can get, right?  Residents adhere to unique practices initiated by the guru like Yogic Flying and Transcendental Meditation, both said to promote health benefits like reducing stress and helping achieve an enlightened state.  As the first organic town in the USA, Vedic City allows no non-organic food sales within the city limits, so Colonel Sanders and Ronnie the evil clown are out the door.  Pesticides and gasoline-fueled vehicles are banned but there’s a ton of action on the black market for chocolate. 

Or you can go to Hell.  It’s in Michigan, an almost microscopic enclave dedicated to all things fire and brimstone.  Oddly, few evangelist ministers or Satanists live there.  Hell’s slogan is “More People Tell You To Go To Our Town Than Anywhere!” and it’s hard to argue.  Not only can you be married in Hell, you can even buy a small piece of the landscape or become mayor for a day.  Serious candidates for the office, alas, must retain a lot of patience.  The official website says mayoral elections will be held only when Hell freezes over and like The Twelfth of Never, that’s a long, long time.  Theatergoers will be delighted to know the arts are important here and that Hellzapoppin’! is performed 365 nights a year on the community stage.  To prove you’ve been there, you can send a letter from the Hell post office, where each envelope is singed for added effect.  In case you were wondering, there are no towns in the United States named Heaven but there’s a gullyful of Paradises.  You already know their slogans.



Highly Recommended

If you’re an unreconstructed old hippie from the sixties or seventies, you’ll want a future home where the livin’ is easy and the pot plentiful.  Don’t be misled, however.  The Bong Recreation Area is in Wisconsin, where recreational marijuana is still verboten.  Blunt, South Dakota is not cannabis-friendly having rejected last year’s marijuana initiative by nearly six points.  High Point, North Carolina recently experienced a nadir in cannabis-community relations with the police bust of several local vape shops for selling products like Trips Ahoy and Stoneo cookies.  There’s better news from Roach, Missouri, where voters approved a ballot amendment for recreational cannabis and sales began almost a year ago.

Although cannabis is technically an illegal substance in the Netherlands, for more than 20 years Dutch citizens over age 18 have been permitted to buy and use marijuana and hashish in hundreds of government-regulated coffee shops.  Amsterdam is the home of the annual High Times Cannabis Cup and boasts incredible museums and parks as well as trippy architecture perfect for a giddy stroll around town. 

In Vancouver, British Columbia, police are largely tolerant of pot, thus seed retailers and coffee-shop marijuana can be found with little effort.  Smoking in Vancouver is often done in public places like parks or on the city’s famous Vansterdam Pot Block on Hastings Street.

If you’re carrying and don’t mind the mean streets of Oakland, it’s easy to find pot-peddling coffee shops, stores with growing equipment and even a cannabis college called Oaksterdam University.  Non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries provide pot along with free acupuncture, massage, yoga and counseling for patients with gunshot wounds.  Move to neighboring Berkeley, instead.

Although marijuana use is laughably illegal in Negril, Jamaica, nobody seems to care.  Users of WeBeHigh.com describe the enforcement situation in the city as relatively non-existent.  Dope connoisseur Danny Danko cites Negril for its “pot tourism, sunshine, plentiful weed, reggae music culture, beaches, drinks and spliffs.”  What more could a devoted pothead ask for?  No....you have to bring your own cookies.

Portland, Oregon is home to America’s first Cannabis Cafe and one of the biggest chapters of NORML, whose annual convention will be held there this year.  The city has a bohemian mien and a robust marijuana culture and citizens carrying small portions of weed are rarely bothered by police.  WeBeHigh.com lists several areas where pot can be easily purchased, including the waterfront area and park block. 

Nimbin, Australia, home of the yearly Nimbin Mardi Gras festival, is basically a hippie paradise.  “It’s a must-see pot destination,” says Danko, who professes a great love for his favorite strain of Australian marijuana, Mullumbimby Madness.  Nimbin, which is located in northern New South Wales, has been described as a haven for the country’s counterculture with hippie communes and various types of multiple occupancy residences.  The town has a resident population of 352 but a proliferation of marijuana-related institutions like The Nimbin Hemp Embassy, The Nimbin HEMP Bar and even The Nimbin Museum.  What do they do on a rainy night in Nimbin?  You guessed it.


Say It Ain’t So, Joe!

We started this off with Tulsa, it’s only fair to bookend it with Oklahoma City, which may become home to a new 1907-foot skyscraper called Legends Tower that would become the tallest building in the country.  Or, as Frank Lloyd Wright would call it, “The toothpick in the pie,” a drastically out-of place spindle on a flat, treeless plain.

This foolishness was dreamed up by developer Scot Matteson, who says “Oklahoma City is committed to growing as a major metropolitan area.  The city has invested in infrastructure surrounding the project.  The groundwork has been laid and the time is right for this project.”  A California development company called Matteson Capital still has to secure the approval of local officials, secure funding and find 8000 Okieland optimists to rent space to, but they’re on their way.  We can hardly wait to elevator up to the nifty observation deck and look out to see miles and miles of ….well….nothing.

We’ve been there and you don’t want to move to Oklahoma City, you really don’t.  They burn dopers at the stake there, and books, too.  Wild hogs attack your car tires on dirt periphery roads and tornadoes blow your houses down when the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.  Even Tulsa is better, and they pay you to move there.  Slow down, pardner.  Turn that truck around before it’s too late.


A pilgrim could do worse than a relo to Puglia



That’s all folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com   





       

Thursday, February 8, 2024

The Chicken Report




“Set your chickens free!”---Gilbert Shelton (1962)

Last May, Flying Pie roving reporter and chicken enthusiast Kathleen Knight discovered a bustling chicken training camp in faraway Seabeck, Washington.  This was surprising to us, having once been in the chicken management business and never having heard a peep about any desire for higher education.  Chickens seemed a flighty lot, given to foraging for food, scratching the ground searching for insects and quaffing a few brewskis while watching Ted Lasso on TV.  But Kathy assures us “they are intelligent and emotional animals which demonstrate thinking skills on a par with mammals and primates.”  According to people who know about these things, if you hide an object from a chicken (which we hardly ever do), the chicken will know where it is, which is something even human kids aren’t able to do.

Neuroscientist and chicken maven Lori Marino avers that “Chickens are behaviorally sophisticated, discriminating among individuals, exhibiting Machiavellian-like social interactions and learning socially in complex ways that are similar to humans.”  Who knew?  Like bottlenose dolphins, chickens demonstrate the ability to differentiate between numbers of items and they display the markers of having an episodic memory---being able to recall specific events, like the January 18 firebombing of a Virginia Chick-fil-a, which has become sort of a chicken holiday.

Though their intelligence has not been directly compared, individual analysis suggests that both dogs and chickens are highly intelligent creatures capable of emotion, advanced social interaction and empathy.  Chickens can dream!  Also turkeys, who have been known to dream about dining on humans at Thanksgiving.  Chickens are excellent communicators, able to convey the significance of an event; for example, the call to alert others to an aerial predator is different from the warning to beware a ground predator.  Chickens can understand basic mathematical concepts, but cannot do algebra, sorta like Fonzie.  Chickens can recognize up to 100 people, even if they’re wearing Groucho masks.

Kathleen Knight beseeches Flying Pie readers to go Vegan, or if not, just leave the chickens off your menu.  When last seen, she was leading a band of feisty roosters with picket signs parading afront a fading Kentucky Fried Chicken facade, yelling  “Hey, hey, KFC!  How many chicks did you fricassee?”  At least a dozen cars pulled out of the drive-up lane and one shamefaced employee turned in his apron.




The Latest From CNN (Chicken News Network).

Laurens County, S.C.---A man and woman authorities called modern “Bonnie and Clyde wannabes” were arrested yesterday after leading deputies on a merry chase in a stolen car which also contained a dog, a cat and four chickens.  Authorities said that while deputies were on routine patrol, a black Honda sedan with an expired tag blasted through a Gray Court intersection with feathers flying out the windows.  “There was loud clucking,” stated Officer Farrel Byrd, “and the car was traveling at inconsistent speeds and changing lanes left and right.” 

Lauren County police have jailed the pair on charges of theft of a vehicle, reckless driving and contributing to the delinquency of a chicken.

Uttar Pradesh, India---A large number of chickens were stolen after a lorry transporting the birds crashed on a highway in Uttar Pradesh recently.  The accident occurred amid foggy weather conditions in several parts of the country and left dozens of vehicles damaged in the process.

After the crash, commuters reportedly began looting chickens from the wounded lorry instead of helping the injured driver.  Video footage captured by a chicken supporter clearly showed the faces of the thieves as they hastily grabbed the defenseless birds and bundled them in sacks.  The chickens were worth nearly two hundred fifty thousand rupees, which seems like a lot for chickens.  “I am devastated,” said the driver, who wishes to remain nameless.  “This is a great loss of profits to me and my family.”  Asked by a BBC reporter what the damages would be in euros, the victim said, “I don’t know how to translate that.  But I can tell you it’s not chickenshit.”

United Kingdom---Dumb clucks?  We think not!  According to a study published in Royal Society Open Science, the key to interpreting the moods of chickens---and nobody wants a moody one---can be tuning in to the sounds of their calls and clucks.  Suppose, for instance, your chicken has just been jilted by a calloused boyfriend, lost all her money in the futures market or misplaced her Taylor Swift CDs.  How is a simple poultry farmer to know?

The RSOS scientists played audio recordings of hens to 194 participants in their study and 69% could tell the difference between excited birds (those about to get a treat) and displeased birds (those who weren’t) based only on the audio recordings alone.  “Chickens have swear words, too,” claimed one of the study volunteers.  Joerg Henning, co-author of the study, said in a press release, “This provides confidence that people in animal husbandry can identify the emotional state of the birds they look after even with no prior chicken experience.”  Starting with a simple understanding of happiness or disappointment, researchers will probe deeper into clucking in an attempt to discover how a hen feels when the veterinarian’s office doesn’t return a phone call or when her rooster is caught having phone sex.

“If we know these secrets,” says Henning, “we can establish better bird health, minimize divorces and put a few chicken shrinks out of business.”  So the next time you hear a little fracas going on in the barnyard, rush out with your notebook, a pencil and a sympathetic ear.  Try to learn a few clucking nouns and verbs. Strive to determine if it’s still “i before e except after c” and whether an adverb can still modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb.  And always remember, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”  Helen Keller, a noted chicken fancier, said that.




Important Chicken Facts

1.---Chickens invented the pecking order.  The social structure of flocks depends on a hierarchy, which is an order of dominance.  All chickens know their place in this order and it helps to maintain a stable, cohesive group. 

2.---Eggshell color can be determined by the hen’s earlobe.  That’s why there are brown eggs, ecru eggs and the occasional purple and gold eggs at Easter time.  Generally, hens with red earlobes will lay brown eggs and hens with white earlobes will lay white eggs, although there are exceptions.  The nutritional content and flavor of the eggs is the same.

3.---Chickens know their own names.  Not only that, but they know the names of all the other chickens around them.  “Barnie” and “Benedicta” are popular chicken names.

4---Some chickens sleep with their eyes open.  Chickens who draw the short straw will take up positions at the ends of the perches and sleep with open eyes and will turn 180 degrees to allow the other side of their brains to sleep.  Chickens in the middle sleep with their eyes closed.

5.---You can tell if your chicken loves you.  If your chicken relaxes enough to groom or preen itself by your side, consider yourself loved.  Same goes for when they allow you to brush and groom them.  Chickens only allow those they trust to be around them during these vulnerable moments.  Never tickle your chicken.  It’s a deal-breaker.

6.---Chickens like to jump into their hotrods and drive straight at other chickens.  The driver who veers out of the way first is called “Human,” which is highly insulting.  When the inevitable collision occurs now and then (especially in redneck areas), the result is called “Dinner.”



Chicken, Alaska.  It Takes A Lickin’ But Keeps On Tickin’.

“But I’ve seen it all in a small town, had myself a ball in a small town…---John Mellencamp

Well, maybe not this small.  The official population of Chicken, Alaska is currently 12, but the good news is that’s up 5 citizens from the last census.  The actual year-round population is closer to two or three dozen, which includes missionaries and people who got lost in the snow.  There isn’t any electricity in Chicken so you have to have your own generator.  There are also no public toilets, but there is a decorous outhouse.  Mail delivery is a spiffy twice a week and Fedex is just a rumor.  If, for some reason, you’d like to go to Chicken, the bad news is it’s six hours from Fairbanks down a small road, which is closed from October to March when the white stuff piles up.  The dirt lane heading into town is best traversed by a sturdy vehicle with giant tires.  Chicken is close to the border near Yukon, Canada, so a surprising number of bold adventurers driving from Dawson City into Alaska on the Top of the World Highway actually pass through there.

Though Chicken is certainly remote, business picks up in summer when miners and other visitors come to town.  There’s even an RV park and an 800-meter shoestring airport.  “I personally counted over 100 people one weekend last July,” reports an excited long-term resident named Joseph Blaugh.  Metropolitan Chicken actually covers 115 square miles.

There are businesses in Chicken, but not many.  You’ll definitely want to stop in at the gift shop to purchase a t-shirt which boasts, “There’s not a single mosquito in Chicken, Alaska….they’re all married and have large families.”  Believe it or not, there is a music festival in June of each year called (of course) Chickenstock, where all the natives show up in whatever weird attire is handy.  Mick Jagger will not be appearing this year but an Edgar Winter knockoff band is on the card  and Ice-T will be rapping a blue streak.

Right, you want to know about the name.  Seems that in the late 1800s, gold miners in the area kept themselves alive by eating vast amounts of ptarmigan, now the Alaska state bird.  When Chicken became incorporated in 1902, the locals wanted to call the town Ptarmigan, in honor of lunch, but nobody knew how to spell it, thus “Chicken.”

By the way, if you’re so inclined, the entire town of Chicken is for sale, lock, stock and outhouse for a mere $750,000.  We’d have a go at it ourselves but all our money is tied up in Deadhorse.




That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com