Bad Dreams

Where do I go to complain?  Somebody else is obviously getting my share of good dreams while I am left with all their lousy ones.  Is there a Dream Adjustment Bureau available?  I’m getting wary of falling asleep at night.

I used to be like everyone else---some good dreams, some bad, but slowly over time the nifty dreams have skedaddled and left the playing field to the dregs of dreamery.  It started out with me losing my car.  I thought I remembered where I parked it, but it was never there, or anywhere in the vicinity.  I’d try to call my wife or a friend for a ride home, but I could never get my phone to work.  I have had different versions of the same dream at least two dozen times, so it’s getting old.  In real life, I have had my car stolen only once, about 35 years ago, and the cops got it back undamaged in a half hour.  In real life, my phone always works.

Siobhan, the dream expert, says this keeps happening because I secretly feel I have lost my power, but that’s not true.  I never had any power to begin with, although I did accidentally frighten a few people in Mexico with my Evil Eye.  I fear I may have to contact Madame Garbanzo, the Dream Wizard, if this goes on much longer.  I would like to be having dreams about riding through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair or sitting in the Austin Ghetto singing Road to Mingus with John Clay or watching Donald Trump ice-skating on a melting Lake Champlain, but at this stage of the game I would be satisfied with a functioning cell.

Melatonin can cause vivid dreams, mostly when taken in high doses.  Melatonin increases REM sleep, the stage of sleep where dreams occur, and it also releases vasotocin, a hormone linked to dream and memory regulation.  But I take the bare minimum, only 1mg.  Nonetheless, I skipped taking it one night recently and had no bad dreams, perhaps because I barely slept.  A cause for celebration?  Hardly.  When I finally nodded off sometime after six a.m., my phone stopped working again.  As Bob Dylan wonders, how many times must the nightmares fly before I’m allowed to be free?  You know the answer to that one.

Doctor, Doctor, Mr. M. D.---Now Can You Tell Me What’s Ailing Me?

Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, Dream Expert to the Stars, is often highlighted for her engaging and lively approach to dream interpretation.  Lauri is an author and professional dream analyst who has appeared on The Today Show, Dr. Oz and Good Morning America, where she gives real-time interpretations.  Ms. Loewenberg has loads of satisfied customers like journalist Margareta Haggland of Stockholm, who lauds “Having my dreams analyzed by Lauri has changed my life.  Finding out what my dreams are telling me is like a Christmas gift.  My dreams have become tools for me to understand my life and change it for the better.”  Gee.  How can you beat that?  I could stand a little life-changing for the better.  Where do I sign up?

You’re not going to believe this, but Lauri is even willing to take on paying customers like me.  I discovered I could choose a phone session varying from 15-45 minutes to speak to her and have all my questions answered about these troublesome dreams.  A fifteen-minute call costs a mere $45, so how could I go wrong?  I took a look at her calendar and chose an 11:30 option on September 11.  I could hardly wait to start improving my life.

Conversation With A Dream Whisperer

Lauri Loewenberg called at the crack of 11:30, as I knew she would.  If you can’t even manage to call on time, who’s going to pay attention to anything else you have to say?  She had a good telephone voice and a cheerful demeanor and after five minutes you felt like you’d known her for years.  “Tell me the dream,” she said.

I gave her the dream in all of its varying forms, and even added one from the previous night about losing Roxy, our Rottweiler.  We put that one on the shelf for awhile and got down to business on the car dreams.  Lauri asked me a hundred questions, of course, including when the dreams originated, if they were preceded by any cataclysmic events, what things were important to me now, and then to provide a brief review of my life.  I told her 84 years was a lot of ground to cover.  She told me to leave out trips to the mall.

That done, Ms. Loewenberg homed in on my parting with the thoroughbred racing business after 40 years.  She asked me what I liked best about it (the actual races, of course) and why we bailed out.  I told her the closing of Calder Race Course in Miami made profitability impossible for us.  Also, the weight of a hundred calls from trainers with bad news becomes difficult.  A two-year-old stakes contender bucks a shin and misses a $100,000 race.  A good horse races twice and gets a bowed tendon.  Layups get major injuries just running in the field.  Mares in foal abort at nine months.  Foals die of absurd diseases.  Not to mention, we get old and less able to cope.  “So this is a critical loss,” Lauri says.  “Even though it’s now the right thing to do, you’ve lost something that brought a lot of creativity and excitement to your life.”  She moved on to health.

I told her what our lives were like when we met in 1985, what we were doing (a lot) in 2000, 2010, 2020 and now.  Major hikes.  Climbing mountains.  Extensive travel throughout 49 states.  The hikes are shorter now and so are the hills.  Challenges we would have taken on ten years ago are physically impossible now.  “Another major loss,” said Lauri.  “Yes, you’ve adjusted, accepted the present situation and made the best of it, but you no longer have something in your lives that you valued.”

I got the drift.  In addition to everything else, you’re losing friends and family numbers by the truckload; every few days, The Reaper picks off another one.  Octogenaria is a city of unending losses, so persistent they start showing up in dreams.  Could be.

I have never been a big fan of psychiatry because it seems like an exam with no definite answers.  But some people rely on psychiatrists to maintain a stable, happy life, so who am I to say?  To me, dream interpretation is a lot like psychiatry---plenty of questions with a raft of possible answers, none certain.  What Lauri Loewenberg says makes perfect sense, but how can you really know, and even if you do, what can you do about it?

“After your next car dream,” advises Lauri, “sit  down and write about something you gained that same day.  It needn’t be something big, just any small gain.  Make something up if you have to.”  I'm going to do it.  Maybe I gained someone’s trust or made a guy smile or received a flowery compliment.  Everything counts.  Maybe tonight I'll lose a five-spot instead of my car.

All things considered, would I call Lauri again if I had it to do over?  In a New York minute.  She was knowledgeable, funny and helpful.  She made me think.  And she was in no hurry, the call was approaching thirty minutes when I wound it down, twice as much time as I’d paid for with no hint of being rushed.  $45 is cheap for aid to major reflection.  Not to mention, I got a story to tell.  I knew I would, one way or the other.  But I like this story better. 

Out Of The Night, When The Full Moon Is Bright….

….arrives the creative spark of sleep.  Sleep isn’t merely about resting our bodies, it’s about giving our minds the space to explore, discover and create.  When we sleep, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities, allowing our subconscious to connect ideas, find innovative solutions, jab our imaginations.  Sleep plays a crucial role in our creative process, especially in the REM stage, when our brains are processing information, consolidating memories and connecting different ideas.  This can lead to creative insights and problem-solving abilities that are often impossible to achieve when we’re awake.

Research suggests that the earliest stage of sleep, known as N1 or hypnagogia, is particularly fertile ground for creative insights.  This dreamy, half-awake state is where we often experience fleeting, imaginative thoughts before drifting off into deeper sleep.  It’s a connection point between our subconscious mind and innovation.  Thomas Edison would nap with metal balls in his hands, and as he drifted off, the balls would fall and wake him, allowing him to capture those creative sparks at the edge of consciousness…one of several dream incubation methods used to harness the creative power of sleep.  Many writers leave a notebook or recording device at bedside to record their dreams upon waking.

Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have developed a device called Dormio, a wearable glove that tracks signs of sleep and can gently guide dream content.  In a 2020 study, they showed that Dormio could effectively guide dreams toward a specific theme.  Is this a great idea, or what?  Instead of losing your car every night, you could stop in at the Moulin Rouge or head for the beignet counter at Cafe du Monde.

Participants in the study were prompted to dream about trees while wearing the Dormio device.  The results showed that those who received these tree prompts were significantly more creative in problem-solving tasks compared to participants who napped without prompting or stayed awake.  “One of the goals of our group is to give people more insight into how their brain works, and also what their cognitive state is and how they may be able to influence it, says Pattie Maes, a professor in MIT’s Media Lab and one of the lead researchers in the study.  Maybe you’ll even write an iconic ditty.

Legendary songwriter Paul McCartney takes minimal credit for inventiveness when it comes to creating his famous song, Yesterday, which came to him in a dream.  He woke up one morning with the melody playing in his head and rushed to a piano to play it before it faded from memory.  “I like the melody a lot, but because I dreamed it I have trouble taking credit for writing it,” he says.

James Cameron, director of Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time, confesses it all started as a dream.  When Cameron was a young man, he had a very vivid dream about a bioluminescent forest filled with glowing trees and strange, beautiful creatures.  The dream stuck with him for years, eventually inspiring the stunning world of Pandora in Avatar.

Maybe Bill shouldn’t give up on his mysterious automobile losses.  Just think, BK’s dream cars could be the victims of hovering UFOs which suck them up into their bellies like so many prairie cows in Kansas.  Bill could secret himself in the trunk of an appetizing auto and, when the vehicle was safely inside the UFO, pop out and get a few shots with his iPhone camera for his new movie, Coneheads II.  Hey, the ETs went along with it for Morons from Outer Space, they’re not so fussy.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com  

We Need A Hero!

“I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight!”----Steinman & Pitchford

The Avengers are a big deal these days.  Their Endgame movie is the highest grossing film of all time, earning just under $3 billion.  That’s “billion,” with a b.  Spiderman is still big and the new Superman film is raking it in, and we don’t care one whit.  We couldn’t give you the maiden name of anyone in the Avengers, the Web-spinner is a silly kid and there’s no kryptonite left on Earth, so things are too easy for Superman.

Everyone was oohing and aahing about The Black Panther movie a few years ago, so we went to see it, and it was terrible.  Worse even than Freddie Got Fingered (2001), The Last Airbender (2010) and Raise the Titanic (1980).  Superhero movies these days are all about non-stop fighting with monsters or people from outer space like the Black Swan, who destroys universes because he’s bored.  Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, was just a piker compared to this guy who is now being challenged by a team of utllity infielders called The Illuminati.  Who cares?

We older folks need a real hero, a mean old cuss faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  After all, there are true villains in the world coming after our Medicare and Social Security, running our grape pickers out of town and setting the national guard on poor little Schenectady.  This is a job for bad, bad ElderMan, baddest man in the whole damn assisted living facility…badder than old King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog.

ElderMan could straighten things out in a hurry, smashing in the White House door and pulling out the President’s tonsils.  Who’s going to stop him---the Secret Service?  They couldn’t even shut down a punk kid from Bethel Park who couldn’t make the rifle team in high school.  After that, he’d rush over to the Veep’s office, make him put on a tutu and spin him around DuPont Circle.  No politician could survive the shame.  Who’s next?  That’s right, the milquetoast Speaker of the House, who is really Caitlyn Jenner in disguise.  ElderMan has a special weapon he uses on fading hypocrites.  He calls it his Stamp of Irrelevancy, which he plunks on enemy foreheads with all his might, sucking every smidge of credibility from his victims.  After that, of course, he’ll have to go home for a Pabst Blue Ribbon to replenish his strength.

Think of all the good a hero like EM could do.  His flock of histoplasmosis-ridden pigeons could be trained to leave a sea of poisonous droppings on the vehicles of Robert Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem and Tom (the ICEman) Homan.  His Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Brigade (OCPDB) could eagerly scoop up messy Steve Bannon, tie him to a post and shave all the hair off his body, leaving him a laughingstock for the tough guys he seeks to impress.  Best of all, Elderman’s occasional sidekick, Michael Demiurgos, The Archangel, could be summoned to battle Steven Miller, aka Satan, in a no-holds-barred, loser-leaves-town cage match on ESPN’s family of stations.  One Tombstone Piledriver by The Archangel has been known to break necks and shorten careers and Michael would be such a topheavy favorite Vegas wouldn’t even have it on the books.

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No, you fools---it’s ELDER-man!”  Helen Mirren could be Lois Lane.

Ashrita the Great

Heroes

Etibar Elchiyev of Georgia once balanced 50 spoons on his body by using his secret weapon, his “magnetic skin.”

Ashrita Furman holds the world’s record for balancing a running lawnmower on his chin for over three and one-half minutes, easily outlasting Jay Leno.

Sanath Bandara of Sri Lanka once wore 257 t-shirts at the same time.  Okay, so a few of them were quadruple extra-large.

In 2007, Kevin Shelley broke 46 toilet seats with his head in one minute., although the airport wasn’t very happy about it.

Wim (The Iceman) Hof owns the world record for being submerged in ice, clocking in at nearly two hours.

Japanese gazelle Kenichi Ito set a record for the fastest 100 meter dash on all fours with a spectacular time of 25.71 seconds.  Try that sometime.

Peter the Great, the Russian tsar had a passion for dentistry, often pulling his own teeth or those of his unlucky courtiers.  He kept his fabulous collection of not-so-pearly whites in a box on his mantle.

The Connecticut Leatherman, an eccentric vagabond of the late 1800s, walked a 365-mile circuit through New England every 35 days for roughly 30 years wearing a full-body leather suit.  He rarely spoke, though an observer once heard him whistling the Bohemian Rhapsody.

Unlikely Heroes

The eccentric eighteenth-century American businessman Timothy Dexter, who prefaced his name with “Lord” to impress people, was famous in his day for apparently absurd business ventures which often bore fruit.  Though barely educated or even literate, Dexter called himself “the greatest philosopher in the known world” and even built a statue for his garden to attest to the fact.  The statue was a massive wooden structure which carried the inscription “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world.”  In all fairness, Dexter also built 39 other statues of men like George Washington, William Pitt and Napoleon.

Dexter was born of poor but humble parents in 1747 in Malden, Massachusetts.  He had little schooling and dropped out of school to become a farm laborer at the age of 8.  At 16, he became a tanner’s apprentice and moved to Newburyport.  In 1769, he married a rich widow named Elizabeth Frothingham and bought a mansion with her money.  Dexter set up a shop in the basement, where he sold moosehide trousers, gloves, hides and whale blubber, while Elizabeth opened a shop which sold notions.  You remember notions.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, Dexter purchased large amounts of depreciated Continental currency, virtually worthless at the time, but at war’s end redeemed by the new U.S. government at one percent of face value.  Massachusetts, however, paid its own notes at par.  Lord Dexter’s investment thus netted a sizeable profit with which he promptly built two ships and began an export business to the West Indies and Europe.  Not bad for a grade school dropout.

His rivals, aware of his lack of education tried to bankrupt him, advising him to send bed warmers used in frigid Massachusetts in winter to the tropical West Indies.  They laughed when he sat down to ship, but Dexter found a huge market for the bedwarmers when plantation owners bought them to use as ladles for the molasses industry.  On a roll, he next sent woolen mittens, which Asian merchants scooped up to sell in Siberia.

Okay, his enemies, said.  Let’s see if he can ship coal to Newcastle.  As luck would have it, Dexter shipped during a miner’s strike and the cargo was sold at a premium.  On another occasion, his rivals suggested he ship gloves to the South Sea Islands.  Dexter’s ship arrived there just in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese merchants on their way to China.  Is this beginning to look like the Roadrunner vs. the Coyote, or what?  Lord D. exported Bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean islands and again made a profit as Eastern missionaries needed the Good Books and the islands had a rat infestation.  He also hoarded whalebones by mistake but wound up selling them as corset stays.

Through it all, Dexter’s rivals continued to ridicule him, but Timothy D. soon saw the value of cornering the market on goods others deemed worthless.  He didn’t mind acting the fool.  Snubbed by high society, Dexter bought an enormous house in Newburyport from socialite Nathanial Tracy and tried to emulate Tracy’s prominent mansion.  He decorated the place with minarets, a golden eagle on top of the cupola, a mausoleum for himself and all those giant statues.  Dexter also bought an estate in Chester, New Hampshire, where he asked to be called the Earl of Chester.  Children who obliged got a quarter, adults got dinner and drinks.

Despite his lack of education, the Earl took it upon himself to write a book about his life called “A Pickle for the Knowing Ones” that contained 8847 words but no punctuation.  Seeking to please, he followed up with a later edition, at the end of which were a vast array of punctuation marks, inviting readers to “peper and solt it as you please.”

Dexter staged a fake funeral to see for himself how people would react to his death.  About 3000 people showed up to mourn.  When he did not see his wife cry sufficiently, he revealed the hoax and after the ceremony whacked her with his cane.  Concerned about his legacy, Timothy Dexter enlisted the services of Jonathan Plummer, fish merchant and amateur poet to write a remembrance in verse.  Like so:

"Lord Dexter is a man of fame;
Most celebrated is his name;
More precious far than gold that’s pure,
Lord Dexter shines forever more.”

Burma Shave would be proud.

Antiheroes: Snap, Crackle & John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey was director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan.  Then he invented corn flakes and life changed a bit.  Kellogg became a holistic wellness freak and promoted a bizarre regimen, starting with the Yogurt Enema, which should be performed daily.  Harvey had a special machine that could pump 15 quarts of water into a person’s bowels.  He recommended a daily pint of yogurt, half to be eaten, half to be administered with the enema, which he believed would “wash out” intestinal bacteria.  He also had a large number of vibrating machines, including a wooden vibrating chair that shook violently to “stimulate the bowels.”  Hey, John Harvey---did you ever hear of Metamucil?

John’s fascination with the nether regions knew no bounds.  He was a big foe of masturbation.  Kelloggs’ Corn Flakes were actually invented to deter the practice.  Supposedly, eating bland foods would not incite children’s passions whereas spicy or well-seasoned foods would cause an unhealthy reaction in their sexual organs.  If the Corn Flakes didn’t work, he had other solutions.  For boys, he advocated the tying of hands or putting a cage over their genitals, which was very inconvenient during Little League games.  For girls, he recommended more barbaric surgical interventions or the application of carbolic acid to the clitoris.  Good thing for him Gina Hawkins wasn’t around at the time.

All things considered, we’ll stick with Popeye.

That’s all, folks…

bill.killeen094@gmail.com    

Rise Of The Influencers

Some people will tell you that “Influencers” are a new thing but we had them back at St. Patrick’s grammar school.  Every so often, Gerald McDonald and a few pals would form a chorus line, arms around one another’s necks, and move forward high-stepping and singing “Get out of my way or I’ll kick ya.”  And if you didn’t, they did.  Gerald McDonald was a major influencer in our schoolyard.

Kathleen Carroll, the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, always looked like she’d just stepped out of a commercial for hygienic living.  Clean as a whistle, crisp as a cucumber, smart as a whip and always wearing matching socks, she’d march down the street, draw a hopscotch box on the pavement with a piece of chalk and even the female-dissing boys in the nabe would line up to jump around like fools.  Kathleen Carroll was a major influencer in the neighborhood.

Brother Robert Eugene, a handsome young stud in the Marist Brothers religious gang, was my freshman home room teacher in high school.  Brother Eugene was tough, didn’t like wise guys.  One day, big Victor Nastasia, the fullback on the freshman football team, took issue with Brother R.E. and stood up in an aisle to confront him.  The Marist Mauler slapped him alternately on both sides of his face until Victor was all the way back to the lockers and crying.  Brother Robert Eugene was a major influencer at Central Catholic High School.

Now, we have a different kind of Influencer, defined by Wikipedia as “an individual who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos and updates.”  It’s important than an Influencer have no particular talent at anything else, otherwise he or she would be a singer, ballplayer or alligator rassler with influence, but not a pure Influencer.  So where did they come from, where will they go---tell us about it, Cotton Eyed Joe.

The First Influencer

Journalist Taylor Lorenz claims that Julia Allison was the first true Influencer.  In her book “Extremely Online,” Lorenz details how Allison invented the concept of being a content creator a decade before the art caught on.  Allison started her career in 2002 writing a dating column in the Georgetown University student newspaper under her actual name, Julia Baugher and soon attracted the attention of magazines such as Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, which published her articles.  After graduation, she moved to Manhattan, became a columnist for AM New York and auditioned for parts in pilots and reality TV shows.

Rebranding herself as Julia Allison in 2005, she started a blog in which she posted details of her daily life and dating, along with pictures of her outfits.  She promoted herself with links to her blog in comments on Gawker stories and on its tip line, then in 2006 attended a Halloween party thrown by its founder and editor Nick Denton, wearing a “condom fairy” costume, a dress made of condom packages.  Gawker ran a harshly critical article about her and refused her requests to take it down.   Allison retaliated with a blog photo of her butt captioned “Dearest Gawker, Kiss my ass.”

Allison carefully crafted her online identity, including staged photos intended to appear candid.  In 2010, she moved to L.A. and co-starred in Miss Advised, a reality show which ran for one season on Bravo.  In 2018, she moved to San Francisco, worked on a book called Experiments in Happiness and became a change activist.  Unfortunately for Julia, when she began her influencing business, no one recognized it as an occupation.  There was no language to talk about what she was doing.  Back then, many people, including some media, resorted to misogyny.  Allison was often villainized and brutalized by journalists, pundits and online trolls who couldn’t imagine the imminent rise of the Kardashians.  “I was born 20 years too soon,” she sighs.

Early Influencers like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian on MySpace, Twitter and Instagram are often cited as pioneers of the Influencer marketing phenomenon, leveraging their celebrity and personal brands to build massive followings, demonstrating the potential for social media to shape consumer behavior.  Allison was the exception which proves the rule “The Early Bird Gets The Worm.”

“But I’m not whining,” she swears.  “It’s happened to plenty of other people.  Look at Emiliano Zapata.  Nobody rocked the mustache like Zapata--- extremely bushy and full and always expertly groomed.  Zapata’s mustache became the symbol of the Mexican revolution for Christ’s sake, but does he get any credit?  No!  I guess I can live with my fifteen seconds of fame.” 

Lyle: "It isn't easy being green."

The Wacky World Of TikTok

If you’re looking for advice from Influencers, there’s a nest of them over on TikTok.  Stephanie Baker, aka Mermaid Serenity will feed you content about her life as a mermaid in Hawaii.  Lyle the Therapy Gecko dispenses all manner and make of life coaching while dressed in a gecko onesie.  Bumble Pree is an avid promoter of adult diapers, Laura Jenkinson creates chin makeup, Sister H will discuss life at the nunnery and Captain Cream (who we sort of like) will show you innumerable ways of using whipped cream for fun and profit.

Creepy Razy is a musical artist bent on creating spooky and eerie ambient music, sometimes with a Halloween theme.  The music is designed to evoke a sense of unease, making it suitable for such things as horror movies, haunted houses and Bill Killeen’s 85th birthday party.

Seniors might enjoy 92-year-old Dolly Broadway, also known as Dolores Paolino of south Philly, who will regale sympathetic oldsters with curse-laden videos of Dolly enjoying alcoholic libations.  Dolores is famous in the City of Brotherly Love as the ultimate nightowl, spending every night out prowling the streets until all hours and indulging in various risky shenanigans while almost never getting arrested.  In her daytime life, she has been a hotdog wrapper at sporting events and an Avon lady for 47 years. 

The most famous influencer on TikTok is Khaby Lame, with 162.1 million followers as of June 29.  Khaby is a Senegalese-Italian fellow known for his humorous reactions to overly complicated “life hack” videos, using his signature facial expressions and simple, relatable solutions.  His silent, often comedic videos have resonated with audiences, leading to a massive following and turning him into a global sensation, even though you never heard of him.

Glenn Terry casts his pearls before swine.

Local Color

You might not at first think of them that way, but there are significant influencers in your very own bailiwick.  Chuck LeMasters, the creator of “Jonestown Chic,” is one of ours.  LeMasters personifies the term grumpy aloofness while keeping an arms-length distance from nosy sycophants, defining what art is not on Facebook, cultivating the best weed in five states and pissing  in the open windows of automobiles belonging to people who procure their pets at any location that is not a rescue.

Glenn Terry, though a latecomer to the local scene is an influencer and avid rabble-rouser.  Terry conceived and executed Gainesville’s annual post-Christmas Flying Pig Parade, a humorous cacophony of marching left-wing fanatics of every stripe banging on pans and promoting their causes while decked out in scandalous costumes.  When the parade is over, Glenn retires to his War Room to plan weekly demonstrations against tyrants, Teslas and Town Hall absentees.  Terry gave lie to the expression “You can’t argue with an empty chair,” when he did just that after Representative Kat Cammack failed to show up for a back-and-forth.

Wild man Will Thacker is an absolute influencer, first from his flying machine which soared over Gainesville when he plied his trade as DJ #1 on Hogtown radio back in the sixties and seventies, then as an animal advocate and snake hunter who travelled the world trying in vain to kill himself.  Once, during a hunt in some Asian backwater, Will’s snakemobile was ambushed by bandits looking for loot in all the wrong places.  Thacker tossed one pissed-off cobra out of the car, routed the villains and went merrily on his way.  One of the chastened thieves freely admitted  “Influencer?  No doubt about it.  I was influenced to take up a new career as an Adidas rep.”

‘Twas Ever Thus.

In Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love, there is a nondescript small man named Leopoldo Pisanello, a middle-class clerk on a visit to Italy who suddenly finds himself the center of media attention for no apparent reason.  Pisanello is stunned at the unexpected fame, hounded by paparazzi, interviewed about the most mundane details of his life.  The public is star-struck, crowding around him, following him everywhere, instantly adopting anything approved by Leopoldo.  He becomes an unwilling influencer, thrust into the sometimes nonsensical nature of celebrity culture.  At first, Pisanello is terrified, but then grows into the role, accepting its accompanying perks and pleasures, but eventually grows weary of the unrelenting storm, avidly searching for a way out.

Then, out of nowhere, the media’s fancy is distracted by a new man.  They flock to him, abandoning Pisanello in the process.  The  once-swooning public no longer cares what Leopoldo eats or wears or thinks.  Amazed at his good fortune, Leonardo bounces down the street to his wife, thrilled to be free.  But not for too long.  Eventually, he pines for his recent glory days, starts glomming onto passers-by to announce to them a few of his favorite things.  Nobody cares.  Pisanello is yesterday’s newspaper, gone with the wind.  Woody’s storyline highlights the wonderful contrast between the man’s previously unremarkable existence and the sudden unexplained phenomenon of his celebrity, only slightly exaggerating the path of the influencers we see in today’s society.

Madeleine L’Engle’s priceless phrase, “Show them a light and they’ll follow it anywhere” has never been truer than it is today, when that beam has to be no stronger than a blinking flashlight.  The masses still avidly await The Second Coming and they’ve obviously lost their patience.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com  

  

Things We Learned So Far This Year

It’s that other type of lip filler.

Increasing numbers of women are getting their labia majora “puffed,” according to reliable sources who know about these things.  The procedure involves injecting dermal filler or transferring fat into their goodies to restore plumpness.  Groan if you like, but doctors claim the procedure could soon become as ubiquitous as boob jobs.

“One day it’s going to be a household type of thing, where we talk about it the way we talk about breast implants,” says board-certified urologist Dr. Fenwa Millhouse in an interview with Allure.  “Labia puffing has grown significantly in popularity in just the last year.”

The cosmetic procedure is meant to make dowdy old labia majora, the outermost part of the vulva more plump and youthful, according to Millhouse.  “I’ve had women in their twenties get this procedure because they feel their labia majora are very underwhelming, and certainly peri- and postmenopausal women get it as well.”

Dr. Shazia Malik, a UK-based obstetrician and gynecologist, told Metro UK that labia puffing is often desired by women looking to regain a youthful, fuller appearance after aging, weight loss or childbirth.  “Many women seem to address perceived imperfections or asymmetry,” she explained.  “Aside from the aesthetic improvement, labia puffing can also increase confidence, particularly in intimate situations.”

An anonymous 36-year-old puffette told Allure she underwent the procedure after giving birth to “restore volume and feel sexier.”  Another woman said she had it done because her vagina was “looking like a very old, worn-out gym sock.”  Nobody wants that, right?  Millhouse talks about one enthusiastic patient who was particularly ecstatic at the upshot of her procedure.  “She observed the results, turned around and said ‘I’m getting turned on just looking at myself.’  How do you beat that for a satisfied customer?”  Good question.  We can hardly wait to see the TV ads.  Hey, they did it with Charmin.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?

Because the Thai police will come right over and lock you up, that’s why.  A Chinese couple, Oh Zhihang, 67 and his partner Lin Tingting, 35 found this out after setting up a tripod, stripping themselves naked and doing the Nasty Dance on the pavement in Pattaya, Thailand recently.  Shocked onlookers watched as the fun couple went to town in broad daylight in public view, police swooping in after being alerted by a busybody security guard who photographed the proceedings.

After the walk of shame to the police station, Zhihang protested that he did not know public sex was illegal in Thailand.  “I am a photographer,” he said, “and I travel around the world taking nude photos in various locations.  I have visited many countries where I have done the same thing.  I apologize to the Thai people for damaging the image of Pattaya.”  The shocking sex act comes just days after a feisty Russian couple was filmed in sexual acts on a beach in the same city.  “At least the Russians were halfway submerged in the water,” the cops report.

Pattaya is 100 kilometers from Bangkok and is widely known as a party town, apparently for good reason.  Nonetheless, the cops are appalled.  “The super circus comes to town this weekend,” reported a police spokesman.  “What’s next---the flying trapeze?”

Down The Stretch They Come!

Move over Kentucky Derby.  An enterprising startup has announced the launch of the world’s first sperm race, in which samples went head-to-head on April 25 in Los Angeles to raise awareness about declining male fertility.  The unusual contest was organized by Sperm Racing, a group of young moguls who raised over $1 million to back this veritable Breeders Cup of creative juices at the famous Hollywood Palladium before thousands of odd spectators.

Two competing schools, the University of Southern California and UCLA fielded microscopic swimmers for the inaugural, which took place under a tiny camera which tracked the progress of the sperms as they attempted to cross the finish line,  Three races were held to determine the overall winner, with play-by-play commentary provided during each heat.  There were also instant replays, leaderboards and betting through approved parlors.  “Sperm racing isn’t just about racing sperm,” reported startup co-founder Eric Zhu, author of The Sperm Racing Manifesto.  “It’s also about turning health into a competition.  It’s about making male fertility something people actually want to talk about, track and improve.”

Maybe some people, Eric.

“When You’re Dead, You’re Dead.”---Joe E. Brown

“Maybe not.”---Dannion Brinkley

Despite what you believe about an afterlife, nobody really knows, right?  Except maybe good old Dan Brinkley, who was struck by lightning and survived.  The chance of being struck by lightning is less than 1 in a million, but that’s only important when you’re the 1.  “It went into the side of my head above my ear,” Dan relates.  “It threw me up in the air, I see the ceiling, it slams me back down.  A ball of fire comes through the room and blinds me.  I am burning.  I am on fire.  I am paralyzed.”

Brinkley was taken to a hospital via ambulance and doctors there declared him dead.  He woke up 30 minutes later in the hospital morgue, always a disappointment.  He said his soul temporarily left his body.  While explaining what happened to him when he flatlined, Dan described what many people expect when they die---a light in the distance and a flashback of one’s entire life.  But Dan didn’t stay dead long, he recovered.  Two long years after the incident, Brinkley learned to walk again.

“There are signs of normal brain activity found up to one hour after resuscitation,” according to Dr. Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health.  “We are not only able to show the markers of lucid consciousness, but also that these experiences are unique and universal.  They’re different from dreams, illusions and delusions.”

Brinkley says he has learned “you don’t die, you learn you are a spiritual being, you’re not going to Hell.  Nobody dies, it never happens.  It’s not a part of the nature of reality.”  Okay, Dannion, if you say so.  You put a lightning deflector on your house, though, right?

What If They Opened A Zoo And Nobody Came?

Toco, the human collie, is sad today.  Alas, it seems that not many people share his interest in pet-amorphosis and Toco may have to close his bizarre zoo due to a lack of ticket sales.  The Lassie masquerader went viral in 2023 after dropping more than sixteen grand on a hyperrealistic custom collie suit to realize his dream of becoming man’s best friend.  He quickly amassed over 60,000 followers on YouTube where he frequently posts footage of himself going for walks, fetching sticks and frolicking on the lawn with other humans in sheepdog costumes.

All this led Toco to believe there was a market for a place where anyone could become an animal and “fulfill their wildest dreams,” according to the dog-man.  He opened the Tocotoco Zoo, where people can spend over $300 to don, say, a lifesize Alaskan Malamute costume with jaws than can open and close.  The zoo is located in Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo.  Initially, the attraction was a smash hit, booked months in advance, but sad to say the novelty seems to have worn off and reservations are…well…in the toilet. 

“Please come,” pleads Toco.  “If you’ve ever considered life as a dog, this is the time to find out if you have what it takes.  The cost is reasonable for 180 minutes of lifechanging bliss.  And after all, you can’t put a price on ecstasy.”

Don’t forget to bring a certified human to clean up after you.

Forget It!

Bullied in high school?  How about that weekend as a fraternity pledge where the members dressed you up like Olive Oyl, stuck a funnel up your butt and force-fed you a six-pack of Budweiser?  Remember the time you lost that winning $100,000 lottery ticket or washed your hands at the track, erasing the $50,000 winning trifecta you’d written on your left wrist?  Can you ever live down that humiliating date with Sarah Huckabee Sanders?  Try as you might to forget, you’ll be forever haunted by a boatload of life’s most devastating experiences, your ultimate punishment for naivete, carelessness or plain bad luck.  Or maybe not.

According to Dr. Johathan Rasouli, a neurosurgeon at Northwell Staten Island University Hospital, you---like Jim Carey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind---might be spared by a brand-spanking-new memory-erasing medical procedure.  There are now three cutting-edge methods that can mute and dampen traumatic memories now being used to help people with depression.

“Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is like wireless jumper cables for your brain, but a lot more precise,” says Rasouli.  “It’s a noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic fields like MRI to stimulate specific parts of the brain, usually targeting areas involved in mood regulation.”  Patients have a magnetic coil placed on their scalps, which sends pulses to specific areas of the brain.  “It is primarily used for treatment-resistant depression,” comments Rasouli, but researchers are now exploring its impact on memory recall, emotional processing and addiction.”  The theory is still in the early stages of testing, but doctors feel that targeting certain brain circuits can change how people access their memories.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a “brain pacemaker” which is currently used to treat Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, epilepsy, OCD and major depression.  Small electrodes are implanted directly into specific areas of the brain, where they send electrical impulses to the structures that are involved in movement and mood.  “Some studies show that DBS can influence emotional memory, reward processing and even reduce traumatic recall,” claims Rasouli.  In the future, it could be used to mute traumatic memories, though it’s invasive and unlikely to become a casual outpatient procedure anytime soon.

Finally, there is Propranolol Therapy, which uses a beta-blocker medication usually prescribed to treat high blood pressure.  Researchers have recently discovered that Propranolol can “dampen the emotional punch of memories and thus be used for therapeutic purposes,” claims Rasouli.  “This is probably the closest real-world analog to the Eternal Sunshine concept, but with no actual memory deletion.”  Instead of erasing the memory entirely, this “sleeper hit” makes it feel less vivid or depressing.  “When taken before recalling a traumatic event, propranolol reduces the intensity of the emotional response, essentially reconsolidating the memory with less emotional weight,” the doc asserts.  “Currently, it’s being used for PTSD, anxiety and phobias.”

Good to know.  Maybe I can finally dislodge those terrible memories of coming home from college to discover my mother had given away my entire comic book collection, which included Superboy, Volume 1, Number 1, which is worth a startling $23,000 today.  Maybe I can forget those ninth-inning rallies by opponents when the Red Sox closers forgot to throw baseballs and served up cantaloupes instead.  Maybe I can get rid of the day I tackled massive Paul Higgins on a kickoff return and was left motionless in a pile of dirt.

But then again, maybe I’ll keep those memories.  My mother told me adversity breeds character, and she was rarely wrong.  Considering the amount of disasters I’ve encountered, I should be banking an awful lot of the stuff.  If I could just get back that picture of Janis Joplin trying to teach me to play the autoharp….

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com 

Hair & Optimism

“I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratsy, matsy, oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming streaming, flaxen, waxen…HAIR!”---Galt MacDermot

Who doesn’t?  By age sixty, 85% of men experience significant hair thinning, and no matter what Rogaine and Propecia tell you, there’s nothing you can do about it.  Ancient Greeks rubbed their bald heads with a mixture of dates, dog’s paw and donkey’s hoof.  Celtic cures involved mice in a jar.  Native Americans turned to yucca juice.  Throughout human history, there have been a number of existential quests---for knowledge, for peace, for riches---and for a cure for dreaded baldness.  So far we got nuttin’.

Don’t tell anybody, but those crafty devils out West at UCLA have been poking around in the abandoned Hair Gold Mine for a long time now and they finally dug up something that could be the mother lode.  The scientists have identified a small molecule that, when prompted, can waken long-slumbering but undamaged follicles.  The researchers have named the transporting molecule PP405.  In scientific terms, this molecule is isolated and applied to a protein in the follicle stem cells that keeps the cells dormant.  This inhibits the protein and the stem cells are moved to awaken.  Lab work on the molecule has been going on for a decade, only arriving at human trials in 2023.  In those trials, researchers found that application of PP405 as a topical medicine onto the scalp at bedtime produced promising results.  Though cautious with the actual data, UCLA labeled the results “statistically significant.”  Most important, they believe the treatment will produce full “terminal” hair rather than the peach fuzz produced by the current lotions.

The three scientists behind the breakthrough are William Lowry, professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology; Heather Christofk, professor of biological chemistry and Michael Jung, distinguished professor of chemistry.  All are bullish on the potential of the treatment to reverse pattern hair loss.  “At some point, most men and women suffer from thinning hair or lose it after chemotherapy, infections or other stressors” says Lowry, “and it affects them psychologically.”  The three scientists agree that no product will work for everyone, “but our first human trials in Orange County have been very encouraging.”

Through UCLA’s Technology Transfer Group, which transforms brilliant research into global market products, the scientists have co-founded a medical development company called Pelage Pharmaceuticals.  Backed by Google Ventures, last year the company raised $16.4 million in funding to shepherd further trials and win official clearances, assuming President Trumpy hasn’t dissolved the FDA by then.  “It might take a little while,” says Lowry, but it will be worth waiting for.”

No kidding.  We’re thinking of going back to barber school.

Saving The World

We know, you’re bumfuzzled by the likely plight of the world and your dad finally told you Mighty Mouse isn’t real.  But cheer up, the superhero called Emerging Technology will have a lot to say about the fate of the planet.  Here are some things which should help:

1. Solar Glass. What if every window in a skyscraper could generate energy?  That’s the promise of Solar Glass, an emerging technology getting a lot of buzz in design and sustainability circles, or so they tell us.  Just like it sounds, Solar Glass is suitably transparent window material which also captures the sun’s energy and converts it into electricity.  The big hurdle so far has been efficiency.  High-performance SG cells can achieve 25% efficiency or greater, but maintaining transparency means sacrificing the efficiency with which light is converted into electricity.  But chin up, a University of Michigan team is developing a Solar Glass product that offers 15% efficiency and climbing while letting 50% of light pass through.  According to projections from nearby Michigan State, 5 to 7 billion square meters of usable window space exists, enough to power a full 40% of U.S. energy needs with a Solar glass product.  That’s a big Wow!

2. Fake Meat. Calm down, this has nothing to do with penis enhancement.  It’s all about the atrocious damage to the planet caused by meat production.  The beef industry alone relies on 164 square meters of grazing land per 100 grams of meat and is one of the leading causes of deforestation in Central and South America.  Deforestation leads to unprecedented carbon release into the atmosphere.  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. believes livestock accounts for about 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.  Animals also use huge amounts of freshwater, while the contaminated runoff from industrial livestock operations pollutes local waterways.

We know---you don’t like artificial meat.  The original stuff tasted like bland cardboard, and that was the top of the line product.  The good news is that the latest imitations are surprisingly tasty, especially the newest alternatives from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.  As much credit as these companies get for technological achievement and advanced food science, their real triumph is that they’re making Fake Meat culturally hip, although probably not in Fort Worth.  You can even order meatless burgers now at Burger King and get a meat-free taco at Del Taco.  We’re fearfully awaiting the renovation of the sacred Fenway Frank at our favorite ballpark.

3. Super Batteries. Power is the limiting factor in holding back many green technologies.  Wind and solar, for example, are capable of generating vast amounts of electricity, but adoption of these technologies has been impeded by a major shortcoming; sometimes it’s not windy or sunny.  Electric cars are making huge strides, but until their range increases and charging times diminish, fossil fuels will rule.  Existing battery technology won’t cut it---for one thing, it’s too expensive.  According to the Clean Air Task Force, for California to meet ambitious goals of powering itself through renewables only, the state would need to spend $360 billion on energy storage systems.  But wait!  Is that Mighty Mouse come to save the day?

Actually, it’s a company called Form Energy, which is developing a miracle called the aqueous sulfur-flow battery, which will cost somewhere between $1 to $10 per kilowatt-hour compared with lithium’s $200 per KH cost.  Form’s solution could help Cali meet its energy targets before the middle of the century, providing a roadmap for the rest of the world.

Cue up Johann’s Ode to Joy, all us Pollyannas are off to the picnic.

The Demise Of Organized Religion

“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”---Napoleon Bonaparte

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”---George Bernard Shaw

Virtually all wars are caused by one of two things---the desire to gain more land or the foolishness of organized religion.  It’s difficult to imagine that tyrants will ever completely disappear, but OR is already on the ropes.  In America, the percentage of citizens with no religious affiliation has risen to 21% in 2021 to 2023, up from a mere 9% in 2000-2003.  In the Western world, Christianity is experiencing a significant decline, with projections indicating a potential decrease in its share of the population.  While other religions are also facing challenges, the extent and speed of decline, particularly in Christian-majority regions, make it a prominent case.

Why is this happening?  There seem to be four primary motivations.  First, many people leave because of cultural stagnation.  They are becoming more ideologically progressive, but their religious organizations are not.  Often, people report intellectual reasons for leaving religions or say they simply outgrew their faith.  Other times, respondents indicate that they cannot endorse the values of their religious organization, including their views on LGBTQ+ individuals, stances on gender or sexuality or pervasive sexism and racism.

Second, some people leave because of religious or spiritual trauma or abuse.  A number have experienced this abuse firsthand, others have witnessed people they love experience trauma.  Still others have left organized religion because of abuses perpetrated at an institutional level (for example, by Catholic priests).  For many, walking away is a bold act of courage.

Third, some walk away from their faith because they have been given theologically thin accounts for the existence of evil in the world or insufficient explanations for why adversity strikes them.  They cannot make sense of what they were taught and their own life experiences, especially if their previous beliefs were framed in a just world beliefs system, which teaches that people get what they deserve.  If there is an omniscient being, you serve it well and something terrible happens to you anyway, what’s the use?  Life seems unfair, god or no god.  Simplistic views of suffering can lead people to leave religion.

While there are undoubtedly many more reasons to get off the bus, Gus, all of the above share a common underlying feature; they involve cognitive dissonance, the disorienting feeling we get when our beliefs don’t line up with our actions.  For many, the tenets they believed no longer fit with their experiences of the world.  Although some people are able to fit these discrepant beliefs into existing belief structures, if the discrepancy is too great, many will abandon their beliefs altogether and look for something completely new.

When you’re mulling it over, you could do worse than to consider Tlazolteotl, the Aztec god of vice, purification, steam baths, lust, filth, and a patroness of adulterers.  Not many requirements and no church on Sundays.

You’ll Live Longer If You Keep On Truckin’.

A groundbreaking study utilizing precise accelerometer data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of the CDC has unveiled a remarkable finding: our daily movement patterns serve as the single most powerful indicator of longevity, outweighing conventional factors such as age, smoking habits and chronic conditions.  The research, which monitored 3,600 participants aged 50-80, delivers an empowering message---it’s not merely about structured exercise sessions, but rather the cumulative effect of movement throughout our daily activities that significantly influences our lifespan.  And you thought Robert Crumb was just fooling around when he told us to Keep On Truckin’.

So Walk on By (don’t wait on the corner), Walk Like an Egyptian, Walk the Line, Walk Away Renee, start Walkin’ to New Orleans, Walk Right In, consider Walking On Sunshine, Take a Walk On the Wild Side, get some Boots that Were Made For Walkin’ and walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown; walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.  Don’t just stand there, do something!

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

Addenda: The column was nestled all snug in its bed, then Dawn Stephenson went and died.

 “Blue skies, smilin’ at me…nothin’ but blue skies do I see.”---Irving Berlin

In these harrowing years of The Great Obliteration, old friends pass daily.  What was different about Dawn Stevenson is she took us with her on the rollercoaster ride that was the last couple of years of her life.  We shared the big dips, the scary turns, the intoxicating full-speed-ahead moments when the car was firmly on the tracks.  Dawn’s last year was like a horror novel you couldn’t put down---the monster was rapping on her window at midnight, then he wasn’t, but as soon as you got comfortable, there he was back again, scraping his fingernails on the glass.  Dawn got every terrifying second down in print.

We rooted hard for her because she was younger than her years and because she was brave and because she got the short end of the stick.  How many people in the midst of a vicious cancer siege have their houses blown apart by a hurricane?  And we rooted for her because she was us, rising and falling and getting back up again to battle a reaper who won’t take no for an answer.

Nobody knows exactly what happened on the final page, or if they do, nobody is talking about it, and that’s as it should be.  Whether you take the final corner on two wheels or sink softly into the sea is nobody’s business but your own.  We will remember Dawn and her desperate fight for a long time because of her frightening skill in depicting the fear that pulsed through her, the exhilaration of her unexpected escapes and her fervent appreciation for the wonders of life.  See you soon, Dawn.  Somewhere over the blue skies of Micanopy, right?

    

     

The Brain---An Owner’s Manual

“The brain is wider than the sky.”---Emily Dickinson

Remember when you were in grade school and Frederick Fotheringay-Phipps, the smartest kid in your class walked in?  “He’s a brain,” someone might say.  It was not meant to be a compliment.  When you were “a brain” at St. Patrick’s Elementary, it meant you were intelligent to the exclusion of everything else…savoir faire, street sense, romantic possibilities and athleticism.  Especially athleticism.  In later years, a brain became a dork, a nerd and a weenie.  The brains didn’t care, they had bigger fish to fry.  And fry ‘em they did, to the eventual tune of higher salaries, bigger houses and cuter wives than their tormentors.  Somebody even made a movie called Revenge of the Brains.

You might want to remember all this because we’re back in grade school again with the same no-neck bullies and nincompoops and troublemakers.  Somehow, they got one of their guys elected President of the United States, for crying out loud, and now, at long last, they’re trying to get rid of the brains.  They’re taking away their public radio programs, bankrupting their fine arts hangouts, wiping out their debate teams.  Don’t worry, though, it won’t work, just like their plans in grade school.  Stupid is Forever.  Sooner or later---and it’s looking like sooner---the principal will catch them waxing his car windows or pantsing a first grader in the men’s room or looking up Nancy O’Connell’s dress, and they’ll be cast off to shop class at trade school or an entry-level job at Jiffy Lube.  It’s coming.  It’s only a matter of time.  The brains are gathering their forces.  As Doctor Seuss famously said, “I like nonsense.  It wakes up the brain cells.” 

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet…More Powerful Than A Locomotive!…

Your brain is the most powerful and mysterious organ in your body.  It controls everything from your thoughts to your emotions and processes information at lightning speed.  The average person (not you, Pam Bondi) has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day; granted 95% of them are the same ones they had yesterday.  80% of them tend to be negative, but that’s a good thing---our brains are wired for survival, constantly analyzing threats to ourselves or the body politic.  You know that sharp pain you get when you drink something way too cold?  We call it brain freeze or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia if you’re fussy.  That’s the captain up there telling you to knock it off, he doesn’t like the abrupt temperature change.  Interestingly, the brain, itself, feels no pain because it has no pain receptors, but the membranes and tissues surrounding it do and they don’t mind complaining about it.

Even though it makes up only 2% of your body weight, your brain employs a major quantity of energy, consuming 20% of your oxygen and blood supply, making it the most demanding organ in your body.  If your brain goes without oxygen for just four minutes, you begin getting images of Marco Rubio doing the Time Warp.  Five minutes and brain cells start dying, leading to irreversible damage.  That’s why your brain celebrates when you do deep breathing and/or cardiovascular exercises.

Weight Watchers won’t like this but your brain might be the fattest organ in your body if you’re not Jabba the Hutt.  The brain consists of at least 60% fat, which is why consuming healthy fats like omega-3s and 6s in fish starts your brain doing its Happy Dance.  Healthy fats stabilize brain cell walls, reduce inflammation and support cognitive function, so don’t sweat the avocado toast.  Another villain, cholesterol, is always getting bad grades in school but your brain actually depends on it.  In fact 25% of your body’s cholesterol is stored in your brain, where it helps with learning and memory.  Alas, the brain can’t absorb cholesterol from the blood, it has to produce its own, so while too much cholesterol in the body can be harmful, the right amount is vital for brain function.  Tell your doctor this the next time he chastises you for eating at Cheeseburger Cheeseburger! 

Cognitive Reserve

And then there’s (trumpets blare) cognitive reserve, the brain’s ability to improvise and find alternate ways of getting a job done, like figuring out why some people like Ted Nugent.  It reflects how agile your brain is in pulling up skills and capacities to solve problems and cope with challenges.  Cognitive Reserve is developed by a lifetime of education and curiosity.  Nobody talks much about CR but the concept manifested in the 1980s when researchers described individuals with no apparent symptoms of dementia who were nonetheless found at autopsy to have brain changes consistent with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.  These individuals did not show symptoms of that disease while they were alive because they had a large enough cognitive reserve to offset the damage and continue to function as usual.

Since then, research has shown that people with greater cognitive reserve are better able to stave off symptoms of degenerative brain changes associated with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis or stroke.  A more robust cognitive reserve can also help you function better for longer if you’re exposed to unexpected life events such as surgery, stress or the heartbreak of psoriasis.  Such circumstances demand extra effort from the brain, similar to changing gears in your race car.

So how do I get more of this cognitive reserve stuff, you ask?  There must be a secret nectar or some magic beans involved, right?  Sorry, but it’s the same old advice---you have to engage.  Researchers at Harvard Medical School, the biggest of brains, want you to do the following things.  All of them.  No cheating---your brain will know.

1. Eat a plant-based diet like your hippie aunt Hilda told you to years ago.

2. Exercise regularly.

3. Get enough sleep.

4. Manage your stress.

5. Nurture social contacts

6. Continue to challenge your brain.  (And that doesn’t mean answering those ten questions in Facebook that will guarantee you’re a genius.  “What color were Dorothy’s slippers?”  Please.)

Yeah, we know.  You’ve heard all this before.  You heard it before because it’s the real megillah.  The Harvard braintrust advises that these factors are equal parts of a cohesive plan, they don’t work in isolation.  You knew about them years ago, you just wouldn’t cooperate.  And now you’re brain is getting pissed.  So wake up, it’s now or never.

The Care And Feeding Of Your Brain

The speed at which you walk can reveal profound insights into your brain’s rate of aging.  Slower walkers apparently have smaller brains and fundamental differences in crucial structures.  How quickly you can walk from Point A to Point B can reveal a great deal about the inner workings of your body and mind.  New research has shown that the speed at which you walk to class, to the mall from the parking lot or to your seat at the ballgame can predict your odds of hospitalization, heart attack and even (gulp) death.  In fact, a person’s gait speed can even be used to show his or her rate of cognitive aging.  Who knew?  And what does this mean for the pitiful turtle?

Sure, it’s normal for people to slow down as they age, but a precipitous decline in the speed of someone’s gait can indicate that something serious is going on.  “When a person’s normal walking pace declines, it’s often associated with underlying health declines,” says Christina Dieli-Conwright, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. 

“Walking seems like such a simple thing---most of us don’t think about it,” says Line Rasmussen, a senior researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.  “But walking actually relies on many different body systems working together.  Your bones and muscles carry and move you, your eyes help you see where you’re going, your heart and lungs circulate blood and oxygen, your brain and nerves coordinate it all.”

According to Rasmussen, as we age, the function of these systems starts to slow down.  A slower walking speed can reflect this overall decline and be a sign of advanced aging.  This doesn’t just apply to older adults.  In a 2019 study, Rasmussen and colleagues found that even among 45-year-olds, walking speed could predict the rate at which the brain and body were aging.  “What surprised me most was finding a link between how fast people walked at age 45 and their cognitive abilities all the way back in early childhood, said Rasmussen.

The Duke University researchers looked at 904 people aged 45 who were part of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a longitudinal research project which has followed the lives of over 1,000 people born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand.  Individuals in that cohort have had their health and cognitive function assessed regularly over their entire lifespans.

“I was surprised by how much variation there was in walking speed among people who were all the same age,” says Rasmussen.  “You might expect everyone at 45 to be somewhere in the middle, but some walked as quickly as healthy 20-year-olds while others walked as slowly as much older adults.”

The study revealed that 45-year-olds with slower gait speeds showed signs of “accelerated aging,” in their lungs, teeth and immune systems, comparing poorly with those who walked faster.  They also had biomarkers associated with a faster rate of aging, such as raised blood pressure, high cholesterol and lower cardiorespiratory fitness.  The slow walkers had other signs of physical ill health, too, such as weaker hand-grip strength and more difficulty rising from a chair.

Rasmussen and colleagues also found that slow walkers showed signs of cognitive aging, scoring lower on IQ tests, performing worse on tests of memory, processing speed and other cognitive functions.  MRI scans showed that this cognitive deterioration was accompanied by observable changes in the participants’ brains.  Slower walkers had smaller brains, a thinner neocortex (the outermost layer of the brain which controls thinking and higher information processing) and more white matter.  Even the faces of the slow walkers were rated as aging at a faster rate than other participants.  Dang!

“Well, that’s all well and good,” said Tommy Tortoise of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Loggerheads.  “But some of our guys have been hanging around for 150 years or more.  Our motto is ‘Slow and Steady Wins the Race.  Except…you know…on the Interstate.”

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com     bill.killeen094@gmail.com