Youth Part 2

Apparently, even though it’s really illegal to have your own particle accelerator in a regular American basement, no laws exist clearly stating this fact. So my friend Alan spent a few weeks at a military base while it was decided what would happen next. Of course, none of us knew what was happening at the time because Alan was not allowed to be in touch with anyone. I guess they thought Alan might be part of some larger conspiracy and they didn’t want him conspiring while they figured out what was going on.

After all the activity died down at Alan’s house , I began to worry about him. Would we ever see Alan again? Finally, one day I got a call from someone who sounded like Alan, but not exactly. It was his voice I thought, but something was missing. Usually, in everything Alan said you could hear a constant sort of questioning – almost as if he wondered whether you believed him when he simply was telling you something normal, such as how much he liked a movie he just saw or the fact that he was planning to take up a new hobby such as model rocketry. But this familiar quality was missing in the Alan who called me several weeks after the particle accelerator incident. We made arrangements to meet at the TGI Fridays at the mall.

The guy I met looked like my friend Alan and sounded like my friend Alan, but he certainly didn’t act like my friend Alan. What first concerned me was that we always ordered the large beers at TGI Fridays. They have a couple of sizes and we always ordered the ones that are like almost two beers, but in one glass. But this time Alan ordered something called an Arnold Palmer. He just said to the bartender, “Arnold Palmer, please.” I said, “What?!” Alan said, “I just ordered an Arnold Palmer.” “You mean the golfer? You ordered the golfer?” I asked. “No, it’s a drink called Arnold Palmer. It’s got lemonade and iced tea in it,” Alan said and turned to look at me in way that made me shudder.

I turned and looked back at the bartender and he was mixing an Arnold Palmer with zero concern. It was as if people came into TGI Fridays and ordered Arnold Palmers everyday. I asked, “How do you know what’s in an Arnold Palmer?” The bartender looked up and said, “I’m sorry?” I asked again, “How do you know what’s in an Arnold Palmer? Do a lot of people order Arnold Palmers?” “Sure,” he said and shrugged. “It’s a popular drink.”

I looked at Alan who was looking straight ahead and then back to the bartender who had returned to his drink making. Suddenly I felt as if I was in a movie and that I had cotton in my ears and that I was weightless. How could I not know about a popular drink called Arnold Palmer? “Okay,” I said, “Are you guys putting me on?” Alan turned and said, “About what?” “About Arnold Palmer being a drink!" I said beseechingly, "How could I not know that there was a popular drink called Arnold Palmer?!” Alan and the bartender looked at each other and shrugged. Alan said, “Maybe you just missed it.”

Something had happened while Alan was away. Something had happened to Alan and to me and to the whole world and to everything. "Alan," I said. "What's happening?" "We're having a drink at TGI Fridays, just like always," he said. "Oh no. This isn't just like always. Don't try to tell me that this is just like always. Everything is different. You've never ordered a drink called Arnold Palmer. And you've never just sat there and looked straight ahead at a bar. Something is going on. Something has happened."

Youth

Aging is a hot topic lately with such a large portion of the American population entering the later phases of life. It seems that all media is filled with stories about retirement, investments and how getting old isn't so bad. Everyone I know talks about aging. Except my friend Alan. He’s one of those guys who seems unaffected by age; year after year he looks as he has since college.

Alan and I met for lunch downtown the other day and he was acting strangely. As he looked at his watch for the 50th time I began to wonder if he wanted to be elsewhere. We ate lunch silently and Alan left abruptly after paying the bill. It was curious for him not only to act so furtively, but also to pay the bill without calling attention to his generosity. What I didn’t know was that Alan had a date with destiny. Turns out that Alan has been conducting medical experiments on himself for years, and he never told me or any of our friends.

From what I now understand, when atoms are split one of the particles is sent backward in time. An electron flies away from the atom and actually travels backward in time for a millisecond. Alan figured out a way to inject massive amounts of these particles into his blood stream. He invented a particle accelerator with a syringe on one end. As atoms would split he'd funnel the backward time traveling particles into the syringe and into his system. This process counteracted the process of aging in his body. Alan had created his own fountain of youth.

This was all very incredible. It was also very illegal. Regular people are not supposed to have particle accelerators capable of splitting atoms. Especially not in their basements. That day I had lunch with Alan downtown he was on his way to tell his story to a newspaper. The story came out and Alan was famous in days. He also was arrested and apparently in big trouble.

I was shocked. Why would Alan put me in such danger by having a particle accelerator in his basement? Think about it – he probably was radioactive. And since we spent so much time together, probably I am radioactive, too. I mean, sure it's great that his experiment worked and that he looked great and everything but you just don't do that to friends.

Religion

Lots of people feel compelled to succeed in life. They are pushed ever forward by the desire to be the best they can. And why not? Religious people often say that the most pious thing a person can do is to use fully the gifts given to them by God. You show God appreciation for your gift by using it. After all, God went to a whole bunch of trouble picking out a talent that suits every person on the planet, and that's a huge effort.

On the other hand, if the talent is ours, if it truly is a gift from God, then it's ours to do with as we wish. Gifts with strings attached are not much fun to receive.

My friend Alan once gave me a croquet set. It was a really nice set including a durable storage rack with wheels. After I unwrapped it he stood there shifting his weight from one foot to the other -- that expectant posture communicating, "Okay, I'm ready for mine." But I didn't have a gift for Alan and he got all bent out of shape. For the rest of the party he just sulked by the fireplace and spoke only to guests who gave him a gift. I'd be really surprised if God acted like that.

Certainty

A mathematician once said that the greatest danger to humanity is certainty. Man is capable of committing terrible acts when a warped or paranoid point of view is backed by certainty, he argued. Funny that a mathematician would argue against certainty. But I suppose being certain that four plus four equals eight is not a dangerous point of view.

My friend Alan says that we can’t be certain about anything, too. Although I am pretty sure he argues against certainty not because of a deeply held philosophical position, but because it’s fun to challenge people expressing utter certainty. When someone states an opinion with total conviction in a conversation his eyes sparkle and then he’ll ask, “Are you sure? Are you really sure? Can any of us really be one-hundred sure about anything?” Inevitably, the person with the strongly held opinion will restate their certainty. That’s when it gets fun.

We were at the bar in a TGI Fridays once when Alan got into it with a guy about the war, or something. Alan did his “are you sure” routine and the guy reasserted his absolute certainty. So Alan asked, “What about giving right-of-way to wailing ambulances? Are you certain that’s the right thing to do?” The guy agreed. Then Alan asked, “But what if the ambulance rushing up behind you in traffic contained the bullet-ridden body of the Antichrist shot by international undercover monks? What then?!” The guy was confused. “Sure, let the ambulance by so that doctors have more time to save the Antichrist because you were certain that ambulances have the right of way!”

The guy looked at me and I shrugged. Alan sat there smiling and then pantomimed shooting a basketball and celebrating the successful shot just as I had a mouthful of beer. I hate it when he does that.

Friendship

The human race is distinct from all other mammals for a number of obvious reasons; speech, memory, reason. However, a trait that truly makes us most different from all other creatures is friendship. The ability and desire to form lasting bonds with humans other than a mate just to enjoy conviviality is conspicuously human.

Friendship did not start out as a social arrangement, however. Homo Sapien were gatherers to start. Food was whatever could be found and it was usually vegetables and fruits. At some point it was discovered that eating the flesh of animals helped Homo Sapien to gain more weight. With another ice age coming this was important. But it was difficult for one man to catch and kill animals large enough to produce much meat. So he was forced to become social and cultivate friendships with beings other than his mate to catch animals.

Often I dream of my friend Alan and I trying to catch a wild boar together in the scrub brush. We are both running and alive, collaborating to outwit a lesser mammal. The prehistoric air is flowing though our long hair and we are one. But then Alan falls in a hole breaking his leg. And I leave him there because, you know, survival of the fittest, baby.

Cloning

Biologists love cloning. I suppose it might be because it’s great fun creating new life in a nice clean lab rather than going about it the messy and old-fashioned way. The amazing part is that cloned life is absolutely identical to the original organism. And we’re not talking simple one-celled organisms; biologists created a completely new sheep in 1997 named “Dolly” by cloning, and it was genetically identical to the sheep from which it was cloned. Not sure why they chose a sheep to clone since sheep are all identical anyway. Apparently they are not identical to biologists. Probably shepherds have their favorites, too.

The real reason biologists love cloning, however, is because of the ethical issues surronding human cloning.

Most thinkers involved in the debate over whether humans ought to be cloned agree that cloning humans is unethical. However, biologists secretly want nothing more than to clone humans. They're like boys with matches; they know it’s dangerous and that terrible things might happen. But that’s exactly why they most want to clone humans anyhow. Biologists are dying to clone a human. Every biologist that you read about or see on television is trying to act all grave when talking about how serious an issue it is when considering cloning humans. But you can see in their eyes that they're just peeing in their pants because they want to clone a human so badly. They can't stand it.

Without a doubt, some day a human clone will be made. And as it crashes down the street creating havoc and taking over the world you can be sure that the biologists will be standing there sheepishly, hiding beakers behind their backs and pointing at the chemists as if they did it.

Nutrition

Have you ever noticed that the most nutritious part of any food is also the least desirable? The rind, the stem, the membrane, the organ -- the disgusting part of fruits, vegetables or meats is always the bit that contains the best vitamins. It's maddening to be reminded this by nutrition-conscious people. I believe that most of them really don't know for sure whether they are right. They just assume that a food is nutritious if it has a revolting part.

My friend Alan once went on safari in Africa. He met friendly cannibals who were willing to chat about the cannibal experience. This surprised and delighted Alan because he's a big contributor to public television. Their discussion ranged over a number of topics and inevitably arrived at food. The cannibals were very frank about their favorite parts and what sorts of recipes were most popular. Alan was interested to learn that the cannibals' only complaint about their diet was that the most nutritious part of the human body is the hiney-hole.

I guess deep down inside -- no matter how different cultures may appear from one another -- we all share similar concerns.

Modern Medicine

Medical doctors lead double lives. Their profession is saturated with tradition; when graduating from medical school new doctors recite an oath created by the father of medicine, Hippocrates, who lived in Greece around 400 B.C. Yet at the same time medical technology roars forward as it creates newly synthesized medications and advanced therapies.

In this time of change it would seem that doctors might themselves suffer from a crisis of identity. That's why there are several growing movements demanding that medicine return to its roots. Many doctors and medical professionals believe that ancient healing methods such as acupuncture, herbal therapy and spinal manipulation are superior and more humane than modern methods.

My friend Alan went to an alternative care physician for his hernia. He wasn't sure what to expect but Alan always has been interested in this sort of thing; he was the first person I knew who stopped eating bacon. Anyway, the doctor recommended against surgery for the hernia and suggested Alan undergo a sacred therapy that had been practiced for centuries and was currently enjoying a renaissance in the East.

Alan was excited and agreed immediately but things didn't turn out as he planned. I don't know exactly what happened because Alan wont talk about it. But it turns out that this doctor was practicing something called the "Kiss and Make It Better" method. I suppose this practice is based on the centuries-old tradition of mothers kissing the wounds of their young children to stop their crying. Anyway, the doctor kissed Alan on his hernia and Alan punched the doctor in the mouth.

Later, after showering incessantly for two days, Alan joked that the doctor couldn't treat his punch in the mouth with the Kiss and Make It Better method since it's impossible to kiss your own mouth.

I am no longer Pluto

My friend Alan and I went bowling one afternoon not long after his relationship with Lana was over and “I am Pluto” folded. It was my idea that doing something out of the ordinary – such as bowling – might shake loose Alan’s depression. I stood in the lane setting up to bowl as Alan sat doodling absent-mindedly on the score board thing that projects your scores onto a screen over the lane. Alan wrote Lana’s name into an empty player box.

“Watch this Alan,” I said brightly and bowled the ball down the lane. I knocked down a few pins and thrust my fist in the air in an exaggerated gesture of triumph. Turning back to see Alan’s reaction I noticed that a crowd of elderly men – all in matching bowling shirts – were lined up looking with faces of dismay at the screen over our lane. Alan had scrawled “bowling sucks” across our score card and it was projected for all to see.

It was suddenly and remarkably silent for a bowling alley. Another afternoon bowling leaguer joined the group staring at us before I managed to stammer, “Bowling doesn’t suck.” Thinking I was speaking to him and without looking up, Alan said, “Bowling does suck.” I hissed, “Alan. Alan!” He looked up to see me rooted to the spot and then turned around to see the assembly of white-haired men lined up looking more disappointed than anything. Three lanes away a ball stuck ten pins soundly.

I met Alan's grandfather at one of his family reunions years before. Alan admired the man and when we arrived the old fellow was rocking in a chair on the porch telling his great grandchildren stories about his life. He described in graphic detail how his great grandfather was drawn and quartered by Indians. Of course, this story was inappropriate for the younger relatives and they were led away from the porch.

As the rest of the crowd went inside the house one by one, the old man tried to think of a good memory to tell as he looked around feebly. Soon he was left to sit alone with Alan and me in the fading afternoon light. I felt bad for him wanted to remain there.

We were quiet and Alan’s grandfather sat for a time and it seemed he was trying not to cry. Then slowly he began to stand up. I watched him transfixed. His thin arms quivered as he pushed up from the chair. A wisp of the old man's white hair lifted and fell in the breeze as his lips trembled and his eyes filled with determination and tears. The afghan draped over his legs slid to the floor as he stood and he wasn’t wearing any pants.

Another bowling ball rolled loudly down a lane. Alan’s response to the upset bowlers was similar to his reaction to the skinny white nakedness of his grandfather; he looked at me and murmured, “Wow.” Then he jumped up and said loudly, “You want to see why bowling sucks? I'll show you why bowling sucks!” Alan plunged his fingers into a ball and rolled it down the lane. Immediately it was a gutter-ball. He wheeled around and proclaimed, “It’s because I suck. That’s right, I suck.”

My friend Alan and I have been in a lot of scrapes, but this one was way too close. Finally, a few of the old men turned to look at each other bewildered and they filed away silently and shaking their heads. With a great sigh of relief I quickly moved to scribble over Alan's "bowling sucks" and sat down relieved.

After about a minute I said, "Alan, you know you don't suck." "I know," he said. We bowled two games, drank some beer and I could tell Alan was feeling better when he began considering whether he should steal the shoes.

I am still Pluto

First it was the local media that picked it up and then it grew bigger. Alan’s new idea struck a chord with many people; “I am Pluto” t-shirts and bumper stickers were everywhere, people were meeting at public spaces and forming "I am Pluto" chapters. Alan was asked to speak at several of these events and he was treated as a celebrity.

Alan and I were having lunch one day during all this and he seemed excited and happy. A woman at the restaurant recognized Alan and approached our table. She appeared to be in her mid-50’s and was wearing an “I am Pluto” t-shirt. “I just wanted to tell you how much people appreciate your work,” she said to Alan. I laughed suddenly without thinking. Both she and Alan turned to me and angrily demanded in unison, “What?!” Embarrassed, I stammered, “It’s just that Alan started this whole Pluto thing because he felt unappreciated like, you know, like the former planet. And now he’s appreciated because he made a big deal out of being unappreciated. I just thought it was funny. Sorry.” They both looked at me blankly the same way my dog does when I say his name. After the woman left I could tell that Alan was annoyed with me.

Alan began an “I am Pluto” website and blog for people who felt unappreciated, which became very popular. It was surprising how many people in the world felt unappreciated. Of course there were the occasional wise guys writing in and pulling pranks such as calling on Alan’s followers to join the “I am Uranus” group for people who feel like assholes. But generally, Alan was enjoying a time of great recognition and he was glad.

The trouble began when Alan’s relationship to Lana the receptionist began to sour. All during the “I am Pluto” phase Alan dated Lana whom he met when he mistakenly barged into the International Astrological Union to complain about Pluto’s demotion as a planet. She soothed him during that difficult time, and then she found Alan’s new-found fame exciting. Before long, though, Lana began to tire of Alan and the entire “I am Pluto” affair.

She and I were chatting one day while waiting for Alan to join us for a couple of mojitos. Lana was a very attractive lady and I could see that she enjoyed the attention of men passing by us at the bar, many of them surprisingly large and muscular. She said to me, “You are a friend of Alan’s, I can talk to you.” “Yes,” I said blinking. “I need a man who is proud of who he is. A man who does not care if others appreciate him.” “I see,” I said. Another large bar patron strolled past and smiled at Lana. As she slowly turned to return his gaze, Lana said, “A man who is Jupiter, not Pluto.”

Just then, Alan entered the bar wearing an “I am Pluto” t-shirt and holding a string tied to a small white helium balloon floating just over his head. The balloon also read “I am Pluto.”

It took Alan months to get over Lana. He even tried to win her back wearing t-shirts that read “I am Jupiter.” Some of his followers saw him wearing this shirt and were confused. A cell phone photograph of Alan standing out front of the International Astrological Union in his “I am Jupiter” shirt holding a string tied to giant helium balloon was circulated on the web. The “I am Pluto” movement was in serious trouble.

Read the exciting conclusion of "I am Pluto" in next week's My Friend Alan.

I am Pluto

Scientists recently demoted Pluto from planet status to something called a “dwarf planet.” Astronomers belonging to the International Astronomical Union contend that if Pluto were to remain a planet then many more bodies similar in size to Pluto that orbit our sun would also have to be designated planets.

Lots of people were upset by Pluto’s demotion, including my friend Alan. He said angrily over a beer, “You grow up thinking you understand the solar system and then a bunch of self-important science smarties think they can just come along and change the whole deal. What the hell?!” His closing exclamation drew the attention of several at the bar and Alan quieted down.

Later on, it was obvious that he had not stopped thinking about the plight of Pluto, and Alan blurted out, “Who in the hell do the members of the International Astronomical Union think they are anyway?” When we were asked to leave by a bouncer Alan put his hands up in that “don’t-touch-me-I’m-leaving” gesture.

Several days later Alan discovered that not only had Pluto been demoted, but that it also was renamed to “134340.” Alan went berserk. He drove directly to the offices of the International Astronomical Union – a surprisingly unimpressive building given the organization’s name. At the receptionist’s desk he demanded to speak to the person in charge. Turns out Alan was at the International Astrological Union; The International Astronomical Union is headquartered in France.

Just as he was about to get very angry, out of the blue the receptionist asked Alan for the date of his birthday. Such a personal question from a stranger startled Alan. He told her his birthday and then the receptionist went into a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about Alan’s starsign and how it influenced events in his life. In a soothing voice she told Alan that the indignity of Pluto’s demotion angered him so because he himself felt unappreciated. Of course, this wall all Alan had to hear. It was as if the universe suddenly made sense to him -- damn right, nobody understood him.

Not only did he fall in love on the spot with the receptionist, but he conceived of a new movement to give power to all those who felt unappreciated. Within a week Alan had printed 100 “I am Pluto” t-shirts and he began his campaign. Local journalists were curious at first because they thought Alan might be one of those space-wackos who wear tin foil-lined hats. But Alan went strait from being a news story to being a guest on the local morning show when they discovered “I am Pluto” was a new self-help movement. Alan was a hit.

Read more about Alan’s new adventure in the next installment of My Friend Alan.

Inventions

Pythagoras was a great mathematician. He first discovered a relationship between musical harmony and mathematics. Dividing a single stretched string into equal parts produces harmonious notes. What a fantastic discovery! The chords which sound pleasing to the western ear correspond to exact divisions of the string by whole numbers.

Then Pythagoras discovered geometry. As if the whole music thing wasn't enough.

Thomas Edison was the same way. He invented the light bulb and phonograph recording. After lunch he came up with motion pictures.

It's generally agreed upon that Pythagoras and Edison were great men. Sure, they were brilliant and the world is a better place because of their efforts. But what about those of us who have a notion to invent and discover? There's nothing left. They hogged all the big stuff.

My friend Alan is certain that he could have invented something great such as the light bulb. Would Edison have been any less great if he invented one less thing? No. Alan leaves the room in a huff when ever Thomas Edison comes up in conversation; he has a real chip on his shoulder over the light bulb.

At one of those innovation and patent trade shows Alan met the guy who invented the spoon-and-fork-combination thing that is popular among picnickers. Alan tried to convince the inventor guy that he could have invented something great like direct current. But instead, Alan persisted, this guy’s potential was wasted on a strange plastic utensil since Edison already invented it himself. The spoon-fork guy just laughed at Alan and got into his limousine.

Alan does have a point, though. When someone invents a great thing or makes a tremendous discovery they should be stopped. Only one great invention per person, that's fair.

Speed

Einstein got his idea for the Theory of Relativity when riding the train one morning to his job at the patent office. On a whim he imagined that the train moved at the speed of light. The trip to his office normally took several minutes to make as it crossed a large city square. But at the speed of light, he realized, it would take less than a second to get to his destination. So if he looked at his watch at the moment he arrived at work, the second hand would not have moved –no time would have passed since he began his journey. Einstein realized that man's concept of time was relative after traveling at speed of light in his imagination. That's also why his hair was permanently messed up.

My friend Alan drives fast. He says that it's simply because he's got so much to do. But speeding is breaking the law and I think it's wrong. I asked him when we were driving to go bowling once why all the time he was tailgating other motorists. He just laughed and asked, "Motorists!? Do you think of yourself as a motorist when you're driving? When I'm driving, I'm still Alan."

By the time he finished what he was saying I forgot what I had asked him. Bowling was fun though.

Death and Dying

Obituaries are sad because a life in summary seems small on paper no matter how great a person might have been alive. Plus, obituaries often include needless information; frequently you will see an obituary that reads something like, "Mrs. Jackson, aged 97, died of liver failure.” Is it necessary to specify the cause of death when a person dies at the age of 97? Unless a 97-year-old dies skateboarding or on board a famous ocean liner that sank, an obituary that reads, “Mrs. Jackson died. She was 97," is plenty.

My friend Alan once was off work for several months due to a workplace injury. After weeks of not working – when the fun of not working wore off -- he began to feel ashamed for drawing workers compensation when he wasn’t hurt badly. He began to wonder how history would treat such a freeloader. He began to think about his obituary.

At first he wrote several versions himself, and sheepishly he showed me one. I asked him exactly when it was that he toured with Cirque de Soleil. He said that he was learning to juggle and planned to audition soon. When I told him that newspapers often check facts before printing articles he got totally angry and grabbed the obituary out of my hand and crumpled it up.

Since he couldn’t come up with an obituary that satisfied him, Alan began to wonder about his funeral. Over a beer one afternoon he asked me whether I would come to his funeral. Even though it was a stupid question I assured him that I would. Alan did not seem satisfied.

The next day, Alan rented an apartment across the street from a busy cemetery. It was his plan to observe as many burials as possible during the month he rented the apartment to give him a good idea of how many people would be a good showing at his own burial. Alan had plenty of time to watch burials since he wasn’t working. He started a journal to keep track of the number of people attending burials, the sorts of caskets used, the amount of flowers.

After only a few days Alan became dissatisfied with watching burials from across the street. He couldn’t hear what was being said about the dead person from that distance. So he got a black suit and put it on every morning and wore it all day so that he’d be prepared to walk across the street and mix into the crowd surrounding the gravesite. Every night for two weeks he’d talk excitedly with me about the lives of the people whose burials he attended. He even showed me how proficient he’d become at crying on command. “Watch this,” he’d say and he’d weep convincingly.

Before the month ended a cemetery worker recognized Alan and confronted him about his constant attendance at burials. Alan told the guy that it was no big deal - he just knew a many people in town, and they all seemed to be dying lately. Because he always speaks loudly, several people attending the burial turned to shush Alan as he defended himself to the cemetery guy. Alan panicked and took off running.

If you’ve ever run through a cemetery you’ll know that it’s not easy to get up to top speed as you navigate the many headstones. It’s like one of those obstacle courses. Well, it wasn’t but a few yards before Alan fell headlong over a smallish monument to someone named Sherman who died in 1967.

Alan jumped right back up from behind the Sherman headstone to discover that everyone at the burial had turned to see the commotion behind them. He said that his first thought was to do the sign of the cross, kiss his thumb and then turn to go with his head bowed, which he did. I guess the cemetery worker was so impressed with Alan’s piety that he just let him walk away.

Up Late

Many species of mammal are nocturnal. They sleep during the day and become active at night. Zoologists say the reason this trait evolved was to achieve an upper hand in hunting. Species such as big cats are endowed with the ability to see in the dark and this gives them an advantage over other species that can not see very well when the sun is down.

My friend Alan is a big huge animal rights activist and feels that this is an injustice. Hundreds of species of small animals can not see in the dark and they are slaughtered every year by crafty panthers.

Alan feels this is unfair and his passion for the plight of these unfortunate animals was so intense that he initiated an animal rights campaign called "Light the Jungle." His organization hoped to install powerful flood lights throughout the jungles in Africa and Asia. As the sun would set each night, the lights automatically would switch on to illuminate the jungle floor. This would level the playing field, he thought, and save millions of small and disadvantaged animals normally gobbled up in the night.

It was tough for Alan to get any support. I made a modest contribution because Alan is my friend. But a group of people calling themselves environmentalists believed that Alan’s plan would do more harm than good. Not just because it would upset the natural order of things, but also because the plan would require lots of electricity and long extension cords. Alan believed this point of view was short-sighted. So what if a few giraffes tripped on the extension cords? At least giraffes don’t sit huddled and shivering every night in mortal terror of being devoured.

Before long Alan gave up his quest. We met for a beer on the night "Light the Jungle" officially folded. Alan was dejected and felt that he had failed his little friends vulnerable in the night. Luckily, all he had to do to close down the operation was to throw out the Light the Jungle letterhead and business cards he had printed.

He was hunched over the bar and shaking his head. To comfort him I played some of his favorite songs on the juke box and before long he perked up and we split an order of chicken wings. Alan just loves chicken wings.

Protest

Some people I know are very anti-nuke. They have strong opinions about nuclear bombs and believe that all nuclear weapons should be banished from the earth. Humanity's place on this planet changed for the worse after World War II when America exploded the first atomic bombs, they feel.

My friend Alan loves big explosions. Growing up he always was the kid with the firecrackers. And it seemed that he was working constantly in his garage to create explosives. I wondered how his parents didn’t know.

Once Alan made a bomb in a film cannister and we went out at night to blow it up on the field at our school. It had snowed that day and school was cancelled. We thought it would be cool to blow a big crater in the snow. When we got up there and the school custodian was outside shoveling snow we chickened out. But so that it wasn't a total waste we wrote "I hate school" in the snow with our pee and broke a bottle.

These days, whenever we’re together with our anti-nuke friends and the conversation inevitably turns to nuclear bombs, Alan always says that he’d love to see all those big explosions going off at once. He says, "Can't you just see the looks on children's faces? It would be like the best and biggest Fourth of July ever."

This really makes my anti-nukes friends mad. They yell back at Alan that nuclear weapons are dangerous and they can kill us all. And then Alan says that knives are dangerous, too. He'll say, "More people are killed every year by knives than are killed by atomic bombs." Just when my anti-nuke friends are getting really red in the face Alan asks, "How come there isn't an anti-knife movement? Hmm? How come?" When they begin to sputter in anger Alan starts jumping up and down, shaking his fists in the air and shouting, "Stabby! Stabby! No more knives! Stabby! Stabby! No more knives!" It's so hard not to laugh when he does that.

Freedom

Important dead people were buried in the floors of Enland's churches for centuries. It’s a terrifically smart idea to bury people inside a church because when you visit someone’s grave and it's rainy you don’t have to stand outside and feel even more depressed than you would normally when visiting a grave because also you’re wet.

I once stood on John Locke’s grave inside a church at Oxford. He was the philosopher who said that mankind possesses inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of property. Many people believe that these three items are the basis for modern freedom. I was deeply moved to stand on John Locke’s grave at Oxford, and since freedom is really important I would have bought a t-shirt, but none were for sale.

Once when we were teenagers, my friend Alan conducted a freedom experiment. He came up with this experiment one day after showering. It was his idea that freedom actually meant nothing touching you – no clothes, not even the ground. Purely on a whim, he jumped up in the in the bathroom after towelling off. Because of the exhilaration of the first jump he even took off the puka shell necklace that he never took off because he said girls liked it. With absolutely nothing touching him Alan jumped up again and again that morning and he called the feeling ‘real freedom.’

I thought that this was a cool idea when Alan told me about when we were teenagers. But he never told me why he quit with his freedom experiment. Recently we were having drinks and hot wings, and Alan said that he liked the feeling of real freedom so much that he began wondering how he could remain aloft naked longer.

One morning after showering he went into his room in a towel, climbed up on top of his dresser and planned to jump from his dresser to his bed. This was a pretty good jump and he would most certainly be in the air longer than simply jumping up in the bathroom. Just as he leapt, Alan said, his mother came into his room without knocking to make sure he was getting ready for school. Naked in midair he scrunched up into a ball to cover himself in front of his mother. When he landed on his bed, his “jewels” as Alan always calls them, were between his legs and the force of the landing on his side caused his legs to smack together. Alan said that his landing hurt him so much that he immediately barfed.

Alan went on to say that he felt weird around his mom for a long time, especially since she even helped him clean up the barf. She wasn’t mad or anything. But it was hard to explain to her what he doing, Alan said.

Luck

There's a sticky problem in the behavioral sciences that no behavioral scientist likes to admit. It's that most behavioral research is conducted by asking questions of its subjects. Chemists don't ask particles why they act as they do when heated. Not in public, anyway. But if they did, they would encounter the same knotty issue that plagues behavioral researchers; questions influence answers.

The reason questions influence answers is because we all want to appear virtuous and intelligent in front of others. My friend Alan once was selected at random to be a Nielsen television home for one week. He was asked to keep a diary of his viewing choices for the week and send them back into Nielsen for compilation into national ratings. We were watching “America’s Funniest Bloopers” and he wrote “Masterpiece Theater” into the diary. I asked Alan why he did this and he explained that he had planned to watch Masterpiece Theater, but as he switched channels an overweight woman falling off a horse into a mud puddle caught his eye, and he was hooked. It wasn’t as if Alan was lying; he meant to do the right thing.

So what if you were asked this question; "Would you rather be highly skilled at something or lucky?" How would you answer? Probably that you would want to be highly skilled. After all, that response indicates virtue, a willingness to work hard and a care for quality -- the things for which we humans are supposed to strive. But would you actually rather be lucky? Heck, there's millions of skillful people living difficult lives.

But then on the other hand, think of someone you know who is adept at some complex task. Have you ever noticed that knowing serenity in their eyes? That thoughtful calm? It can make you envious. Now think of the bozo down the street who hit the Lotto. Who would you rather be? Skill takes time, luck happens. Mastering a physical or mental task is sweaty work. Finding a Picasso at a yard sale isn't. If you ask me, I'd rather be skillful. That's if you ask me.

Life

Life was in the form of single-cell organisms when it first began on Earth. These organisms were microscopic and multiplied by dividing themselves. After consuming enough nutrients to reproduce, the cell would simply yank itself in half and the two parts would go their separate ways.

Not until millions of years later did an organism develop the knack of sexual reproduction. A fancy green algae named spirogyra was the one. How or why it occurred is a mystery to scientists, but the world was never the same after spirogyra appeared. Old-fashioned and frumpy cell dividers stood by and ceased all flagellation as they caught sight of sexy spirogyra doing it.

In high school I felt like a cell divider. I would go to dances and see the good-looking kids dancing on the gym floor and making out in dim corridors. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. My only solace was I hoped that some day - since I wasn’t a single-cell organism – I would not have to tear myself in two to reproduce.

My friend Alan wasn't so resigned. He was much more determined than I was to get satisfaction spirogyra-style. So all during high school dances Alan would ask girls to dance and he would try to make out with them. Eventually, he would be with me on the bleachers watching. It was difficult for Alan because he was more afraid of having sex alone than I was having sex with an actual other person. His father had told him that all sorts of horrible things happened to boys who did. I think that's why Alan spent so much time in detention during high school; he always discharged a school fire extinguisher just before leaving dances.

Gratitude

There are necessities in everyday life that did not always exist. Objects such as keys, paper clips, pop-tops cans and hair brushes had to be invented by someone. Engineers stewed for years coming up with the perfect design for paper clips. In fact, many heroic and frustrated lives were spent on conjuring and constructing paper clip designs that didn't measure up to the one familiar to us today. Yet we take these things utterly for granted. Is this wrong? Will this collective ungratefulness haunt us later? Probably not. It's human nature. Who has the time to ponder origins of the little things in every day life? Philosophers, maybe. But they spend their time on concepts more lofty than wondering how we should appreciate zippers and pencils.

That's why my friend Alan started a museum of ordinary things. His idea was that this museum would display lots of regular stuff and give explanations of how they came to be. An institution like this could make us a more appreciative society, Alan thought. I remember how optimistic he was as we moved a display case in the new museum before it opened. He thought that his museum could ignite a new pervasive feeling of gratitude among people and possibly lead to a more peaceful world. "Remember how nice people were to each other after September 11? People were nice to each other for once," he said. "They were polite to other drivers on the road – it was great. That’s what this museum can do."

At first, no one came. That was bad enough. But then it became funny to come. Kids would come in groups of friends and giggle all day long at the displays. Then it became cool among smug artist-types to go to Alan’s museum and they would take pictures of each other in front of various exhibits wearing their turtlenecks and high top sneakers and they would laugh. They bought museum t-shirts by the handful.

Alan was not happy. The response to his museum was the exact opposite of what he had hoped to accomplish. He would stand by clever ironic types and listen as they dramatically read aloud the history of the wooden clothespin and he would clench his fists in silent rage. For Alan, this was war.

What he did next was genius. He actually was making good money on the admission paid by all the ironic types. And since he didn’t have to worry about tight security for the displays, his overhead was low. So he put in a sound system and piped in country music – not the sad old kind of country music, but the new uplifting patriotic kind. And he hired a bunch of skinny models to walk around and serve cheese cubes with tooth picks in them. Alan's museum was a hit with tourists and the sniggering bohemians stopped coming.

I don't think I've ever seen Alan so happy. "Game, set and match," he said one night as he closed up the place on our way to get dinner. The best part was that he finally was selling all those extra large museum t-shirts that the artist-types didn't buy.

The Weight of the World

Has the world gotten heavier as it's aged? There are billions more people than ever before and that has to weigh a lot. But then again people eat lots of heavy food and turn it into energy that weighs nothing. So does it balance out? All the new plants in a garden weigh a lot. And there's millions of gardens all around the world. Have gardens made the earth heavier?

But then, there's the physical law of conservation -- that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It seems that this law necessarily mandates that the earth weighs the same amount as it did when it came into being. That means for every new baby born somewhere on the planet, something weighing the same amount has to be eliminated. Is this an automatic process? One would hope. If not there would have to be something like Celestial Bureau of Weights and Measures that enforces the law of conservation and it would have to be the largest bureaucracy in the universe. Imagine the paperwork needed just to track a moth burnt in a campfire, and the pursuant forms needed to trigger equal moth weight creation somewhare on the planet.

I suppose once in a while a clerk at this bureau gets lazy and decides to skip some paperwork by simply creating another identical moth. Or even just popping the vaporized moth right back into existence. It could happen since people don't pay moths much attention. Who would be the wiser? Giving cats nine lives was a cost saving measure by this bureau I'll bet.

If this omnipotent agency actually exists, my friend Alan probably has a friend there who could arrange one of those sweet deals where you come back as your favorite animal. Of course there would be the small detail of having to weigh the same amount as your favorite animal. A really fat person couldn't come back as a bird. Unless the bird had stayed aloft its entire life. Then I suppose you could get around the weight issue entirely.

Graves

Burying dead bodies has been a sacred act for centuries. The Bible describes Abraham making the first ever recorded land deal for the purpose of burying his wife. It was a nice little field with a cave near Hebron and a steal at four-hundred shekels. The Hittites were astonished at this price. Even Abraham's wife, Sarah who was not yet dead at the time of the purchase, had a strong reaction to the deal. She claimed that her eternal resting place should cost a great deal more, and for Abraham to bargain on the price proved that he didn't love her so much. Sarah went so far as to insist that Abraham pay more. She was buried shortly afterward.

Years later, the tradition of placing a headstone at the grave site came into practice. Its purpose was to keep the dead body in the ground. Family members worried that the deceased would rise up to take care of unfinished business. While walking the earth, the dead would create much mischief and scare the crap out of those whom had not made their peace with the deceased. Back then, companies that manufactured headstones had slogans like, "Keep your loved ones in their holes."

Today, headstones can be beautiful. My friend Alan collects pictures of unusual and finely crafted monuments to the dead. Except, when he snaps the photos he stands right on the grave. I feel that this was disrespectful and, once when I went with Alan to a cemetery, I asked him not to do that. To show me how silly my request was Alan started to dance on top of someone with the last name Milloy. I felt deep down that this was way out of line, but Alan is such a good dancer I just relaxed and enjoyed it.

Blue Skies

Man once believed that the sky overhead was blue because everything beyond our atmosphere was blue. Space was showing through, man thought, and just by nature was a pretty shade of blue. As we learned later, however, space is simply nothing and has no color. There had to be another explanation for the blue sky above our heads.

As Galileo discovered more about optics, he taught us that light emitted from the sun is all colors at once. But some of the light is refracted by molecules of air, dust, moisture and other stuff as the sun streams through our atmosphere. The blue and violet rays are scattered easily because of their short wave lengths. Red rays are longer and pass through without being refracted. That's why we see the sky as blue.

To this day, blue skies possess strong meaning for man. It's a popular notion that blue skies mean good fortune and no worries. Life is good when skies are blue. On the other hand, clouds mean doom is near and that we should worry and wring our hands. We wish clouds would never darken our skies. But that’s just not realistic; if the skies were blue all the time the earth would never receive any rain. Food and flowers wouldn't grow and then we'd starve.

Farmers must think that television weather people are nuts. And not just because of their goofiness and forced familiarity. It's that they are so excited by good weather. They're just bursting to tell us that it's going to be clear and fair. "Yet another beautiful day out there," they might say with pride during an especially long sunny spell. Meanwhile all the crops are parched and dying. Imagine how a farmer must feel as his crops fail from drought while he sits alone and watches a suspiciously friendly weather girl chirp about how lucky we are to have yet another beautiful day.

Some sunny day a TV weather guy will be giggling with excitement in front of his map while the top story is about rioting at the supermarkets because there's no food. Starving and rioting all on yet another beautiful day. Most regular people are excited to meet television personalities. But I bet a farmer would punch a weatherman if they met. Probably knock him on his ass.

Reflections

Most full-length mirrors are about five feet in length which is longer than necessary for people of average height. That's because when you look into a mirror, the angle your eyes can see is equal to the angle of reflection. So if you are six feet tall and you hang your mirror with the top edge at six feet high on your wall, your mirror only needs to be three feet long to see your shoes. No matter how close or far away you stand from the mirror, your shoes will always be showing.

This is the mirror industry's dirty little secret. For years now they have been selling us more mirror than we need, except for the abnormally tall, of course. Think of all the wasted mirror footage hanging uselessly on walls across this great proud land built on thrift. Even the most parsimonious Americans own way more mirror than they need.

It's ironic that mirrors are esteemed for always reflecting the truth; mirror manufacturers have lied to us for centuries simply to line their own well-tailored trouser pockets.

My friend Alan did some heroic work to expose this corporate charade. Through intense lobbying he was able to involve the National Basketball Association in his campaign called "Not So Much Mirror." As part of the NSMM campaign Alan convinced several of the tallest basketball stars to do public service announcements informing the public that even a five-feet tall mirror is too much for a man of seven feet. NSMM initially made great headway until all the lawsuits.

Misguided activists inspired by Alan's crusade against mirror waste were entering homes and smashing full-length mirrors. They smashed every mirror they could find until several of the more radical mirror-smashers began to experience periods of extremely bad luck. They had shattered so many mirrors that the seven-years of bad luck for each began accumulating until their lives were shattered, too.

Alan’s organization was sued out from under him by mirror-smashers claiming to have been turned into zealots by the Not So Much Mirror campaign. Alan was so dejected that he took down all the mirrors in his house because they made him sad. As a result his hair is always badly combed and occasionally he has spinach in his teeth.

Reality

How we perceive our world has a lot to do with how the world actually is. That may seem to be an unnecessary statement of the obvious, but not if you consider separately the two components of the statement. There's our perception of the world and then there's the world itself. Which is the real thing?

The first and most famous philosopher to work at understanding the question of reality was Aristotle. He beleived that our perception of the world was the world. In other words, because we can see things around us, they exist.

This approach has its limits, of course. Take for instance the tree falling in the forest question; Eastern thinkers question Aristotle's point of view by asking the supposedly unanswerable proposition, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well of course it does, we think. But how can we ever know for certain? Budhdists have pondered this for centuries.

My friend Alan believes he knows. He was camping alone a few weekends ago in a very secluded area and a tree fell about 20 yards away from his campsite. He quickly looked around and there was no one there to hear the tree at all. But according to Alan the tree not only made a sound it scared the crap out of him. He was so excited by this that he packed up all his new Coleman gear and rushed back to town.

We met for a drink downtown. Alan was behaving smugly; he believed that because of his great luck in the forest he had answered the age-old question that had stymied eastern philosophers for centuries. Our waitress was Asian and every time she visited our table Alan smiled slyly up at her and chuckled in a very self-satisfied way. She left our table confused so I told Alan that just because she was Asian didn't mean she knew about the tree falling in the forest question. He didn’t care, though.

Flight

Airplanes weigh a lot, yet they still fly. The trick is to get more air underneath the plane than above it. This is accomplished by creating lift; the speed of forward motion combined with the shape of wings shoves air downward. In turn, the wing and the plane it’s attached to are shoved upward. Complex calculations on speed, weight and aerodynamics are required in aircraft design and, in most cases, have been done long in advance of your commercial flight.

You can see what happens when this calculation goes wrong in those old grainy black and white movies that show the maiden flights of curious flying machines at the turn of the 20th century. After the machine flops to the ground, the pilot wrestles his way out of the wreck and looks at the smoking heap as if he's already trying to work on a solution. Actually he is using every bit of his concentration to pretend that he isn't hurt because he knows that the camera is still running. So he stands there scratching his head as if recalculating while the compound fracture in his leg fills his boot with blood.

It's the same way in everyday life when someone trips and falls down in public; others rush to their aid and the first thing the fallen person says with exasperated insistence is that they are okay, even if they are not.

Once, my friend Alan and I were at a street fair in the summertime. There was calliope music and popcorn and food. Kids ran through the crowd with their faces painted and balloons bobbing along behind. I stepped on a bratwurst and slipped, fell hard on the cement and twisted my ankle badly. Over and over again I just screamed as loudly as I could, "Oh my God! Jesus Christ, my ankle is broken! Ahhhhh Jesus!" Because I don't think its right to lie about your feelings.

Time

Geologists say that millions of years ago all the continents were connected. The Americas, Africa and Asia were bunched up in one large cluster and the rest of earth was covered by water. Slowly, the land masses spread apart and moved across the globe in a phenomenon known as continental drift. The continents still are moving at the same speed today. It's just that we can't see the movement because it is so slow.

Massive changes occur all around us that are imperceptible because of their speed. Two weeks ago I returned to my childhood home. I didn't stay long. In fact, I just stopped my car for a moment on the street in front of the small house in which I grew up. Two children were playing on the small front yard that seemed enormous to me when I was a child. As I sat in my car I realized how much things do change. I remembered my friend Alan and me running and chasing one another from one side of the yard to the other. Our jackets were unzipped and our noses were running but we didn't care.

As I watched those boys and pondered how it seemed like an eternity since I was their age an old woman walked toward my car. I recognized her as Mrs. O'Donnell, the neighbor who treated me so kindly years ago. I got out to say hello to her. Her expression was unchanged. I told her who I was and asked her to recall the many happy hours we spent together on her patio. A flicker of recognition lit in her eyes. She tilted her head sideways as if to get another angle on me. Finally, she said that she always knew I would turn out to be a pervert. Sitting there in my car watching those innocent boys playing in the yard – it was disgusting, she said.

Before I could protest she turned and walked away toward her house. I was devastated. She was dear to me and I had to put things right between us. So I got back in my car and drove slowly forward. She was standing at her mail box looking through the envelopes. I pulled up right beside her and blasted my car horn and sped off.

In my rearview mirror I could see my childhood home becoming smaller and more distant. And I could see Mrs. O'Donnell's mail fluttering down, landing like doves and gathering around her motionless body.

Nothingness

Eastern artists believe that their work should have space in it for viewers to fill. If it's too complete, if it leaves no room for interpretation, then those who view it cannot take an active part in understanding it. A water pitcher's clay form is not its essence; the empty space inside is what makes it useful. Similarly, good art allows beholders to enter the work and be in it, artist from the east believe.

That's why I love donuts. Not only are they delicious, but they're profound. Just think – a piece of fried dough is not a donut if it doesn't have a hole in the center. It's the negative space occupying a donut's middle that creates its essence. In other words, nothingness and donutness are synonymous.

If you quiet your thoughts and concentrate on the nothingness all around you, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, donuts appear everywhere. Amazing realizations will come as you meditate; the cavernous space filling the Mall of America is simply vast donutness. The volumes of air inside the Houston Astrodome are donutness.

Moving through space astounded and delighted by the swirling donut space all around you is a delicious way of life, especially when your favorites emerge from the void. Like the kind with sprinkles.

Rain

Rather than the fancy teardrop shape we normally associate with raindrops, rain is round. That's because the sphere is geometry’s most efficient shape since it contains more volume for surface area than any other shape. So with their elastic nature, droplets of falling water naturally become spherical.

Not until dripping from gutters or running down windows does rain elongate into a teardrop shape. This is when rain becomes meaningful to people with poetic natures. If you're out in it, rain is just wet. But if you can be dry and look at it and maybe drink some special blend of tea, then it reminds you of tears and you can conjure up all your sad memories and believe that the whole world is crying for you.

Once when my friend Alan and I were having lunch at a little cafe downtown, the clouds thickened and went darker. As we ate rain began to fall. At first it just dotted the sidewalk out front with splotches. Then it picked pace and poured. The rain streamed down the cafe's front window like thousands of tears. Alan and I fell silent as we ate.

Soon the rain stopped and the clouds thinned and the sun shone through. Alan and I left the cafe feeling that something important had happened to us, like we had somehow changed. As we walked Alan said it was the rain. I think it was the four beers each.

Convenience

Humans are self-maximalizing creatures. Whatever requires the least effort and produces the greatest result is the best way for us. It’s not that we’re lazy; our evolution as a species owes much to our self-maximalizing nature, in fact.

That's why I wear nothing but swimming trunks - the kind with the built-in underpants. Men's swimming trunks are the ultimate garment because they've got the underpants right in them.

Convenience stores are a great help, too. My friend Alan and I were on our way to a little get-together one evening and needed to pick up ice and snacks for our host. As I was deciding between the 8-pound bag and the 16-pounder, Alan began a conversation with the cashier. Alan had noticed this person's unusual name on his nametag and Alan just loves to find out where people are from - it's sort of a hobby for him. Just as kids in a car search for license plates from different states, Alan likes to collect chats with people from foreign lands.

Alan asked the cashier where he was from and it sounded as if the fellow said, “Souvlakia.” Alan remarked that he’d never heard of the country and thought that Souvlakia was a Greek dessert. The man behind the counter said that, no, it wasn't a dessert at all. In fact, he went on to say that the average temperature of Souvlakia is quite cool that there's not so much sand.

Alan stood silently beside me as I paid for the ice and the music in the store played.

Names

Names greatly influence how we feel about people. We assume that a guy named "Nick" will be much cooler than a guy named "Norbert." This is terribly unfair, of course. That’s why nicknames are so important; nicknames give us the chance to rename someone based on their true character. After all, you know exactly what to expect before you meet a guy nicknamed "No-Neck."

Certain ancient cultures have known this for ages. A Native American tribal custom is to take a name later in life that signifies a certain talent or favorable trait. A name such as Running Wind means so much more than, say, Phil. Probably a guy named Running Wind runs fast or never stays anywhere long. Maybe he moves quietly and invisibly. Phil, who knows?

Once when he was traveling out west, my friend Alan met a real Native American in an airport. They chatted for a time and, according to Alan, found great common ground between them. Alan said they became so close, in fact, that this Native American revealed his own authentic tribal name to Alan, which is something done only with intimate friends, apparently. This man said his tribal name was 'Frequent Flyer.' What a coincidence to meet him in an airport, I thought.

Alan said that the Native American man then gave Alan his own tribal name, which according to this man, is another sign of intimacy. He named Alan “Squinting Nipples.” Alan, of course, was very proud of this.

When I asked Alan what Squinting Nipples meant he told me that the Native American man defined it as “he who sees with his heart.” That's nice. But I think the name means "he who bothers nice Native American person at the airport."

Opera

The process of human communication is a miraculous thing. How we use words, body language and tone of voice to exchange ideas and emotions is highly evolved and complex.

Take the word 'stop' for example. You can say, "Stop!" very urgently to a person punching you in the head indicating that you would like the punching of your head to continue no longer. On the other hand, you can also say, "Stop ..." with a smile and a flip of your wrist when someone is complimenting you and it means to please continue. How we use our voices often carries as much meaning as the words we chose.

Opera singers are good at this. Everything they sing sounds so dramatic. I went to the opera once with my friend Alan. I don't understand Italian but Alan does, so he told me what the singers were saying as the opera progressed. This one opera guy was singing like his heart was breaking right before us. His performance was so emotional that it drove me to tears.

Still sobbing, I turned expectantly to Alan after the big crescendo to discover what tragedy had befallen the hero. Alan told me that he was singing about how he likes his bath warm but not too hot, and how you just can't get good prosciutto in Tuscany. I felt dumb for having cried but, boy, that guy could sing.

Wisdom

Seeing for yourself the great expanse of the Grand Canyon is a life-changing event. The canyon's enormity and the strength of the forces that created it are so huge that there is no way to see it and not feel different about your self. Niagara Falls causes the same reaction; you feel smaller and humble.

My friend Alan has plastic souvenirs from these two landmarks. He displays them proudly on his mantle. At a small gathering he once threw, another guest asked about the significance of the chintzy objects over his fireplace. Alan's chest filled with pride as he took them in hand. As he described his feelings about The Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, all other conversations quietly died down. Alan was so emphatic about his descriptions that he was impossible to ignore.

He told of how he went to these places as a younger man searching for meaning. The great hidden truths were locked in these places of geological wonder, Alan felt, and he believed he discovered their keys. Life was not about the fantastic, Alan told us, it was about appreciating the everyday. Witnessing the enormity of The Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls revealed to him that there is wonder in everything, no matter how insignificant. You just have to look.

You can imagine the effect this had on his party. Some guests were hugging and weeping while others just simply sat and smiled with the contentment of true wisdom. As I was beginning to see Alan's point, I noticed that he was gone from the room. All of us were so focused on what we had learned that he left unnoticed.

Together we all looked excitedly through the house for Alan. Was he gazing at the fish swimming languidly in his aquarium? Was he staring deeply into a piece of wheat bread to discover its complex surface? Where was he? We found him in the den trying on all our coats.

Vulnerability

When are you at your most vulnerable? When your heart is broken? When you are incapacitated by illness or injury? I think it's when you're in the shower.

Sometimes when I'm in the shower and the rushing water is loud enough so that any noise from outside the bathroom is just barely audible, my imagination runs wild. I think, "What the hell was that?! Was my front door just kicked in?!" Then I’ll turn off the shower and stand silently and soapy for five minutes until I am sure I was imagining the sound.

I tried to overcome my shower fear for years and finally discovered a solution. I installed those little cameras all over my house and hooked them up to monitors installed in my shower. I spent all my savings but there is no better feeling than taking a long hot shower and watching my tranquil house.

Some believe that you're most vulnerable when you sneeze. Even though it's only for a moment, you are totally disabled. It's impossible to keep your eyes open, your body convulses. And if it's a whole string of sneezes, forget about defending yourself. You are at the mercy of the world when you sneeze.

Americans say "God bless you," because they are concerned that you will be killed when you're sneezing. Germans say, “Gazuntheidt,” which roughly translates to, “Weakling!” The French say, “A vos souhaite,” which means, “Don't get any on me, idiot.”

An obscure Buddhist sect worships the sneeze. Sneezing is meditation to them. They believe that it's the only time a human completely loses attachment to self-consciousness. The ego vanishes in the moment of a sneeze, they believe. And when the ego is gone that's when God is present inside you. The sneeze is divine to this sect.

My friend Alan traveled to their monastery during his search for meaning in the 60's. He said that the monks sat cross-legged in their cavernous temple. All around them reverence filled the thick silent air. At their feet were sacred hand-gilded bowls full to the brim with black pepper. The head monk at the front would say the sacred word and all the monks would take a pinch of pepper and snort it up. As they all sneezed the divine spirit filled the temple and each one of them. They would repeat this ceremony for twelve hours at a time.

Alan decided not to join that sect after all. But he did bring back one of their sacred bowls that he actually uses to serve pepper on the dinner table. He's not found a salt bowl to match it and I know that bothers Alan.

Pop Music

In evolution, species develop better survival skills because of natural selection. But the process is slow with most organisms. Humans, however, have developed rapidly because we are the only species that carefully considers mate selection. We choose with whom we want to reproduce because of the traits they possess, and we look for smart, capable, strong, attractive and caring. As a result, these traits dominate the species since they are most often reproduced and humanity improves with every generation. With elk, on the other hand, alive and in heat are suitable traits in a mate. And look where elk are.

I think about this every time I hear another love song on the radio. No matter how vapid the lyrics might be, no matter how clichéd its girl seeks boy theme, it's still about why humans are the most evolved species. When you think about it this way, pop stars really are the most important torch bearers for humanity’s continued development. To hell with scientists and philosophers, it's the pop stars whom epitomize humankind’s greatest achievements.

My friend Alan hates pop music. He’s convinced that “that crap” on the radio is shallow and base. I believe his opinion of pop music is the reason why he has remained childless all these years. While he dismisses the latest hits as “that crap” and listens to his “serious” music, I know that the top ten are actually messages compelling the listening public to go out there and improve our race.

Alan tries to get me to listen to more serious music but I’m afraid of it. If everyone listened to serious music humanity’s continued development would stall. Last time we argued over this, Alan called me an idiot. I told him that if he really cared about his fellow man he'd listen to more pop music. That's when he cried. I think he knows I'm right.

Survival

Fire was precious and elusive to early man for thousands of years. Survival often hinged on whether he had fire until finally he discovered the power to make fire on his own. This was an enormous step forward for man and it triggered an acceleration in evolution.

That's why I feel guilty when I use a book of matches. So many early humans went through a lot of trouble to make fire and I can have it in a snap. Sometimes I don't even close the matchbook cover before striking – the one small step requested of modern man in making fire, and I can't even do that. With no effort I stand on the shoulders of all the humans who came before me. I don't think I deserve this.

My friend Alan was into being a 'survivalist' for a while. He believed that he was better suited for any emergency if he could survive with just his wits and his hands in any landscape. He asked me to go camping with him one weekend. I was about to turn him down when the book of matches on my counter caught my attention. So out of guilt I agreed and he picked me up Friday evening.

We drove to a park not far from my home. He parked and got out. I thought we were headed to the wilderness and I wasn't sure if it was legal to camp in the park. Sitting on the hood of his car, Alan confessed to me that he wasn't really a very good survivalist and he was sure I would turn him down to go camping. So we swung on the swing set for a while and then went home.

In Another's Shoes

Fishing is a curious activity. At any moment millions of people are fishing for enjoyment while - at the same time - millions of other people are fishing for a living. No other human endeavor is like that. Think about it: right now on a bay somewhere humans on vacation are relaxing and having a good time as they try to pull fish out of the water. Meanwhile, just across the bay, other humans are at work sweating and cursing as they try to pull fish out of the water.

I wonder what would happen if all these people switched places for a moment. Do you think that the working fisherman would have a new appreciation for his job? Do you think that the sportsman would see his diversion in a new light? Do you think that everyone would understand each other just a little better if they exchanged places? Maybe. But more likely as they switched boats everyone would get in a big huge sword fight using their fishing rods.

Childlessness

The western calendar is a lumbering thing; it was established by Julius Caesar in 47 BC and has trudged forward ever since. Along the way it has required retooling to keep its progression of days and months in line with the cycles of the moon and stars.

In fact, due to a mistake in the original design of the calendar, ten days were deleted one year by edict of the Pope. It was the summer of 1582 and the Vatican discovered that Caesar's year was twelve-and-a-half minutes too long. Consequently, after centuries of this inaccuracy the calendar had been thrown way off. So Pope Gregory XIII - a man of action - decreed that every year divisible by 400 should become a leap year to compensate. He further decreed that ten days in October of 1582 were to be deleted so that the calendar could catch up. October 4, 1582 was to be called October 15, 1582 and no arguments were heard.

Just like that, ten days of everyone's life was gone. What if your birthday fell on October tenth? What if you had reservations at a hotel in Tunis on the eighth? Of course the jump ahead was a bonus to the imprisoned everywhere.

My friend Alan said he thought the Pope did this because one of his kids had a test at school on a day that was deleted and hadn't studied for it. Alan believed the Vatican public relations machine wanted to avoid the negative attention a Pope kids' failure might bring to the Pontiff, the Vatican and the Church at large. I explained to Alan that the Pope is always celibate and has no children. Alan was electrified by this news because he also has no children and it's not easy for him to meet other mature men who don't have kids. He wanted to meet the current Pope as soon as possible.

Alan started pouring out his heart in letters to the Pope. He wrote constantly and passionately about his feelings and how close he felt to the Pope since every one that Alan knew had children and it was tough socializing. He fantasized in his letters about going on weekend trips with the Pope and maybe getting in some fishing. His letters went unanswered for a time.

After a few months two enormous priests who said they were good friends of the Pope visited Alan. They inquired as to why Alan was so enamored of the Holy Father and he told them it was because he had no children just like the Pope. Then the priests asked if Alan planned to have children in the future. He said that once he met the right woman he would. The priests replied that if Alan would like ever to meet those children he should stop writing letters to His Holiness. They then left abruptly.

Later, Alan told me nervously that the postage to Rome was getting a little expensive anyway.

The Human Spirit

Driving though tunnels and over bridges always fills me with pride. Simply to believe that we could tunnel under rivers and mountains or span great bodies of water with steel and concrete clearly proclaims the greatness of human spirit.

I always have felt this way. Even as a child I was enamored of humankind's ability to build such great things. In fourth grade I built a model of the Hoover Dam for my class science project. It had working valves and I used real water to display its operations.

My friend Alan was jealous because his project didn't turn out. During my presentation he asked me in front of the class whether the Hoover Dam could withstand a serious earthquake. I wasn't sure and while I hesitated to answer he ran up to the front of class and shook my project violently. It started to fall apart and water splashed everywhere. All the other students laughed.

To this day, whenever the Hoover Dam comes up in conversation, I get mad at Alan and I won't speak to him. My wife says that I am being childish. But she didn't work for weeks making a model of the Hoover Dam with working valves and real water in it and everything.

Superstitiousness

How is it possible for enormous ships of steel to float? The sharp prows of aircraft carriers are so thin as they slash through the waves. To the eye it appears that they float in defiance of physical sense.

The secret is buoyancy - but it has to be the right kind. The three types of buoyancy are positive, neutral and negative. Positive buoyancy is floating above the surface; neutral is suspension below the surface and negative is sinking to the bottom.

A ship that floats above the surface is said to have positive buoyancy. This is why everyone on a vacation cruise is so happy. They are in a craft that is described as positively buoyant. Can't you just feel the giddy good feelings on board? "Hey everyone, we're positively buoyant! Yahoo," the captain might say from his table after he's had a few. Standing with his glass raised high he says, "Here's to hoping we’re never negatively buoyant!" That's the silent moment when many guests look at each other in panic, put down their drinks and find wood to knock on as fast as they can. Then they return to their tables and drink to the tipsy captain's toast.

Some guests don't knock on wood because they think superstition is stupid. They're the ones chosen last for lifeboats.

Animal Souls

A scientist once conducted experiments to discover whether living beings had souls. He was a metaphysician trying to prove that life hereafter existed. His inquiry began with animals. In the first experiment he postulated that if dogs had souls they it would weigh less dead than alive because their souls would be gone. So he weighed a living dog, killed it and then weighed it dead. The result? The dog's weight remained unchanged, and the metaphysician concluded that dogs have no soul.

We can chuckle at this silly business now because science has come such a long way since then. Today, hundreds of years later, even lay persons can clearly see the folly in this experiment: the breed of dog used was a poodle and everyone knows that poodles have no souls. We stand on the shoulders of great scientists who lived before us.

My friend Alan and I discussed the dog soul experiment recently when we met for lunch in town. I maintained that the experiment was a flop because its experimental design was faulty. Alan believed that the experiment was a success because a poodle died.

Oxygen

Photosynthesis is a foundation of nature. Rain, sun and carbon dioxide combine to nourish vegetation and then plants grow yielding oxygen, which humans need to survive. Geologists say that after the atmosphere was created by erupting volcanoes billions of years ago, there was no oxygen. It was mostly carbon dioxide. As basic plants grew, their photosynthetic activity gave off oxygen, enough to fill the earth's atmosphere. That's a lot of oxygen. And here we are today, breathing without a care.

Scuba diving is when you realize how lucky we are to have plants making oxygen. If they hadn’t, imagine the daily problems we would experience wearing those cumbersome scuba tanks. Forget trying to fit into a fancy sports car with those things on, try sleeping.

In this context it's clear from where the phrase, "Dumb as a houseplant" comes: plants are giving off oxygen for free when they could be making top dollar. The unused power plants possess is staggering - they could be ruling the world. That's why whenever my friend Alan walks by a tree or a plant he snickers, nudges me with his elbow and points. After we are a few feet past the plant, Alan will say, "Sucker," just loud enough to hear and take a dramatically huge free breath. Then we run like hell.