Ask the Last Honest Colo-Rectal Man

Q: Is it harmful to retain flatus (hold in farts)?

A: This is a matter of some historical disagreement. For centuries, people believed that "retaining flatus" was bad for the health. Emperor Claudius even passed a law legalizing farting at banquets seemingly out of concern for poeple's health--though it is notable that the law, as written, only applied to cowmen (half-cow, half-man) who weren't allowed into banquets without explicit authorization from Bovinia the Cow Goddess of Mount Oraple. Then in medieval times people believed that retaining flatus for too long would attract witches. This would have been unequivocally bad but it was thought that witches (and, in limited circumstances, dwarves) were the only ones who could cure you if the Black Knight cursed your chickens. However, they often demanded bread up front or took a percentage interest of the rights to your cobbling proceeds. Then among certain strata of Elizabethan aristocracy it was thought that farting was a decidedly plebian undertaking, and so, in deciding to retain flatus as a demonstration of their sophistication and grace many were later thought to have stunted their growth and hastened the mumps. It was subsequently theorized that the mumps came from gypsy lotharios who did not sleep nearly enough yet still didn't make any meaningful attempts to find any work except in widwifery which they were clearly not qualified for by disposition or training. Today it is an article of faith that retaing flatus helps create jobs.

One wonders how Thoreau's legacy as a transcendentalist and rugged individualist would be affected if people knew just how much he loved the tub.

Excerpt From a Suddenly Renewed Correspondence with an Erstwhile Fat Friend

"...Well I'll be dipped in marmalade. Hi ya, big fella. Glad to hear everything's alright. I hope you're not so big as to block out the sun for the nice aussies/kiwis who've played host to you for these past years. I can still remember that smell of slow death that came from your room every morning and thinking of the way your face swelled when you slept in tents does the same to my heart. Come home to us. Remember the way we'd blend like waters until we couldn't tell where you stopped and I started except by noting that you were the fat one and I was the one you were sitting on..."

Are we really so blind as to think that the strategic value of the middle east has nothing to do with all those genies and their luscious melon breasts?

Another Day in the Presumably All-Canine Canadian Province of Labrador - Chapter 1

The sun was a flaming frisbee as it rose. The Boulevard Rue des Poulet looked as it did seven years ago--enough time for a single revolution of the planet but not enough to gain the support of enough bulldog-proles to unseat Rusty the Poodle King--the last time Chi Chi walked its lengths. He knew the scrutiny of a daylit walk in the capital city spelled trouble for one of his past. But since the disappearance of Ladybird (a.k.a. Wiggles), his friend and lover, he knew a sense of abandon and resignation that almost welcomed a brand of trouble that might bring with it the diminution or outright end of his pain--and besides he loved the smell. As Chi Chi walked he felt a gathering unity in the pull of his hunger, his heartache, and what might well have been heartworm; in the bent reflection of the sun in the now-broken shop windows, and tumbledown shacks beyond, he saw the fleeting radiance and splendor that had gilded the capital city years ago inspiring in all its denizens some kind of ecstatic impulse to just sprint and sprint until they had to lie down on one side, their chests heaving and tongues darting, the nip of water they had just lapped up from the communal fountain, commemorating Rex the founding father and kibble-giver, now on the pavement around their faces in almost its entirety. These images raced through his head with similar frenzy. Illusory as they may have been they only stopped when Chi Chi would have to attend to a persistent itch where his neck met his face or when he thought he smelled news on a tree or fence. He thought he smelled something of note several times yet their was no news--the entire province seemed to have lost its bone yet no one knew where to look; the Poodle-King's sleight of hand had worked; the Bulldog-proles seemed to have forgot almost everything, again, contenting, and seemingly sustaining themselves, with whatever they could find whether it was a scrap of turkey roll, an empty bottle, discarded lightbulb, or styrofoam popcorn packing pieces. Indeed, their had been no news for the year since Chi Chi became a self-imposed exile--living with a nice family in Halifax. He didn't blame the Halvorsons for thinking he was a compelling refutation of the logic that mutts are smarter. They'd tell him to come, he'd stay. They'd tell him to stay, he'd pee. Chi Chi had never known mediocrity in any form. But to say that which follows from a sapping of the will to live is not mediocrity would render the term entirely useless. However, the Halvorsons never seemed to care and arguably loved Chi Chi more for his failings, for the couch he destroyed, for the Easter ham that could not be resurrected. And it was this feeling that dogs were essentially good and worth fighting for that compelled him to return. However, this was not the sort of goal the completion of which would usher in a subsequent period of unfettered elation. This was something Chi Chi thought the world deserved before he left it.

TO BE CONTINUED...

THINGS I’D HAVE ERECTED IF I WERE KING FOR A DAY:

1. obelisk
2. bust
3. arena
4. abstract, sculpted rendering of my fortitude/virility which to the lay eye looks something like an ostrich and a comb
5. ziggurat
6. youth astride a prow representing victory on the top of a pylon surrounded by hippocampi--half horse, half sea creature thought to like plankton in their feed.
6. snack shack

Excerpt From An Immodest Proposal

"...How about a rendezvouz? How bout breathing deep the bold bouquet of brotherhood? How bout drawing long on the frothy flavors of good fellowship and fraternity? How bout singing a song that cant be silenced--a song who's ony words are "we are here; we are now; we are"? How bout setting sail on Nicolai's warm winds as he reads to us his paper on the homoeroticism of the title, Moby Dick? How bout reenacting all those nights when Lil Gapper would claim he was "unclean" and beg us to douse him in soy milk? How bout retracing all those gentle steps we trod to save Guy after he had accidentally swallowed a spork, again? How bout us?.."

"Thirty spokes join together in the hub. It is because of what is not there that the cart is useful. Clay is formed into a vessel. It is because of its emptiness that the vessel is useful. Cut doors and windows to make a room. It is because of its emptiness that the room is useful. Therefore, what is present is used for profit. But it is in absence that there is usefulness."

The ancient masters have debated the meaning of this saying since time immemorial but it probably just means that it's ok that you're stupid.

Without her I'm just a guy thinking about how he should have eaten the last of the cheese and crackers before he left but since he didn't he's surprised that he has to poop.

The Untold Story of St. Louis

As the sun slowly rises under the arch we cannot help but think of the exultation and enthusiasm that must have dawned in the first explorers as they thought they had finally reached the end of this great nation only to see the sun set on those hopes as their worst fears were all too clearly true--they were only halfway across. True many of those self-same explorers grew disenchanted and hardened at this and went on to lead mean lives on the river, stealing what bits of sandwich and hooch they could from those around--though they could never steal back what was so mercilessly torn from their own breast--and eventually were unable to stay afloat in the rising waters of their own shame. Though their lives proved desperate and fruitless a city was born.

Excerpted Intimations of Divine Order from Youthful Memories

...Weekends like that force us to ask ourselves whether we are really bound by our predetermined fates or only by the limits of our imaginations. Was it long written in the stars that I was supposed to run headlong into that salad bar? Was it just an understandable misstep punctuating a night of fancy? Did the dark one in his fondness for chicanery move it closer with a wicked hand? Is there some grand design that choreographed the weaving blows that Gentleman Johnny and I exchanged like a skilled seamstress? Was it for the sake of dramatic flourish that he waited until our second round to put molten lava in my veins and steely death in my eyes? Why did he not do the same for Gentleman Johnny , instead deciding that he should be stopped--knowing, no doubt, that whomever weeped for Gentleman Johnny, weeped for treachery and deceit? Will we ever know? Well, it seems like an awful coincidence if I weren't put on this earth to have told Jerry Joe that his dance, rehearsed as it was, looked like a clipped goose trying to take flight ...

Excerpt From a Chain E-mail

"...If you're receiving this forward you have already been chosen for bad luck. You have no way of telling when this curse will manifest itself. I would stay away from anvils, dynamite and reptile houses in the zoo. Feel free to forward this to whomever you like, you little tomcat..."

Excerpted Quote From a Guy Who Gets Things Done

"...Well then perhaps I can do my Tongan fertility dance to try to bring an end to this rain by instead making Fat Bobby as fertile as the Mississippi Delta..."

Excerpt From an Advice Column

"...I agree. You wouldnt have such sensitive nipples today if you hadn't rubbed them with turkey grease every night until you were 12..."

Excerpt From a Fan Letter

"...Thought maybe you'd like to be the celebrity front of our organization here--the national order of yaffet kotto enthusiasts (kotto refused--we're looking for a fresh face anyway as we near the new millenium). Something tells me you've got just the spunk to make the hearts of those who'd stand against us go all-a-twitter. Well mull it over. Now back to the majesty of that dream within a dream that's sometimes called plankton..."

Common courtesy and propriety are the prince's real jewels, you fucker.

20 easy ways to make your own fertilizer at home

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WHAT FOLK WISDOM MIGHT INSTRUCT ONE TO DO IF LIFE GAVE THEM PRODUCE BESIDES LEMONS:

1) When life gives you broccoli relax and enjoy nature’s intestinal broom

2) When life gives you pineapples feel free to brain passersby

3) When life gives you mushrooms there’s romance in the air

4) When life gives you pre-washed miniature spinach look for changes at the office and/or hang on for the ride of your life.

5) When life gives you yams go ahead and accept that you need a stronger under-arm deodorant than most.

6) When life gives you passion fruit, be sure not to miss Dogs With Jobs on Animal Planet—they sure seem only too happy to work, what’s your problem?

7) When life gives you blood oranges you will be betrayed by someone close to you—that is, unless you get them first.

8) When life gives you sprouts go ahead and make lemonade anyway—it’s a burst of country-fresh refreshment.

POSSIBLE BEGINNINGS TO THE MARCH OF EVENTS WHICH ENDED WITH THE ENTRYWAY OF MY FORMER BUILDING BEING BEFOULED (if they were fancifully chronicled):

1) As she stepped onto the veranda a warm wind whipped across the street picking up the faint scent of shabu shabu…

2) Vance Diddlehopper had always thought of himself as somewhat of a beau brummel…

3) At first blush, the idea of reconstituting someone’s colon with fiberglass seemed the stuff of science fiction…

4) “Why no, I never have rolled my own sausage,” replied Anderson…

5) Shwartzberg had known nights like these before--high dew point, low barometric pressure, hanging cloud formations--and they'd always spelled trouble of a strange sort...

6) Bhuela Jenks stopped as she noticed herself mouthing the lines she'd rehearsed and then decided to say it one last time: "You're out of the gastrointerology game for good Dr. Splotznik,"...

"Just last week I murdered a stone, killed a stick; I'm so bad I make medicine sick.
I tustled with an alligator wrestled a whale, handcuffed thunder threw lightning in jail."

-Muhammad Ali

dodgeball v. bombardment

In dodgeball hitting an opponent in the face is sufficient to sideline them. In bombardment, you hit someone in the face and they're still in, which, to the industrious or the depraved affords the opportunity to repeatedly hit the weak in the face without them having any hope of finding sanctuary by being forced to sit out.

Excerpted Memories of a Past Birthday As Gleaned From Thoughts the Following Day

Well, another one hung on the line. The confetti and streamers that winded through the air are now settled on the ground; the smell now begining to subside; those that passed through it now in agreement that it was human feces; the finery now put away or replaced; the french horns now silent...

The Tojo Chronicles September 1, 1912

All of this writing has given that little voice inside my head (that sounds like my Bubby but who i call Tojo) an opportunity to be a bit of a roust-about, unmonitored as he is in my need to train my focus on more pressing matters. Today, he told me to tell a girl that I didnt like her shirt. I didn't, in fact, like her shirt but Tojo told her it made her look like a post-apocolyptic ostrich hyena cross-germ. Her response was surprisingly favorable.

Last night i dreamt of a beagle and the great pacific northwest. Dreams of beagles have foretold romance for me in the past but they carry with them an unmistakeable warning to stay away from broths or bouillon cubes. While in the pacific northwest water-wonderland, don calloway--a fat, boyhood friend who once told me that if you ever run out of things to say to a girl "just ask her what she likes to eat,"--was injured when his legs gave way beneath the weight of his toiling mass as he tried to run along a brook. But I had no time to be a gloomy gus about it with all that water to splash around in!

Dear Sir:

I live alone. This is by my own design as I don't like people touching my things or eating my mild cheese spreads. Please don't take me for a misanthrope. It's not that I don't trust my fellow man. It's just that I won't give them the opportunity to betray me again. Still, I would entertain the idea of receiving guests into my apartment--one at a time, with sufficient advance notice, so long as they bore gifts (or at least greeting cards or paper towels).

The problem is since no one has been in my apartment since I took my oath to secure the borders of my efficiency or die trying, I really cannot be sure if it smells. To be sure, I find a pleasant odor commonly curling through the air which is no more objectionable than a piece of toast or chicken Ala king. Indeed, I have always thought of myself as invariably sweet smelling, descended from a long line of softly musky lawmen and notaries. But I've found, as I'm sure you have, that the human condition affords us a great capacity for acclimating to foreign effluvia. In short, I feel that I cannot trust my own sense of smell. But, I would be simply mortified if I finally put down my arms to welcome back into my inner sanctum those whom I had summarily banished all those years ago, only to see a look flash over their cursed little faces of having smelled something foul--because who are they to stand in judgment with their mean little lives replete with wrist-watches, mouth wash, 3 alarm chili, tropical fruit medleys, and upright vacuums?

My question is: is there a way of determining if my apartment smells without inviting someone in for their opinion? I appreciate your counsel.

Faithfully Submitted,

Phylis Stein

long-distance hurler

THINGS THAT MAY HAVE TRANSPIRED WHILE MY EYES WERE JUST MOMENTARILY FORCED SHUT BY THE SURGE OF A COMING SNEEZE (as they may explain the state of things in front of me just after—i.e., a guy giving me a dirty look):

1) man across from me realized that he had not cried since he was a boy and quickly sought to hide from an ocean of feelings that had gone unexplored for a long time by giving me a look of disapproval.

2) man shot out of my nose landing across from me and was immediately filled with a sense of anger at being detached from the comfort he had known while living in the womb-like, cozy confines of my inner sanctum.

3) man across from me suddenly seized with the unmistakable fear that he may never be loved the way he loved others could only glare at the essential cruelty of life which he saw inexorably issuing from my nose.

4) man across from me, who had only just noticed me, immediately assumed that I had taken, and now wore, his favorite shirt which read “what part of bad don’t you understand?” The look which flashed across his face at this revelation finds sufficient explanation in the shirt’s message.

5) man across from me filled with a sense of hope at finding fleeting sanctuary from my look of disapproval could only feel anger once I trained my sights on him once more.

6) man across from me was quickly reminded how much he hates people who lack the discipline to stop sneezing.

7) man across from me was reminded of how he used to pinch his nose when he'd sneeze until his equilibrium was forever ruined forcing him to sit while he pees.

Communism: there's a reason why it's called 'the party' . . . pretzels!

Guess which hand?

Well don't just sit there; go get some juicy melon for your self.

"...You're not using your loaf, Phylis; it's in there like the lonesome in a coyote or the pucker in a persimmon--you can't just take the fat out of milk."

Some say that they really don't have that much in common--except, that is, that they both speak to the best parts of every single one of us. What?

a. tattoo removal; mole removal
b. Balki; cousin larry
c. time travel; egg salad
d. squirrels; scrimshaw