American Chimpanzee

 I was thinking about mansplaining.       Is there even such a thing?       I mean, men mansplain and women nag. Isn’t that just the normal order of things? For example, when I give my wife directions, I know to stay away from words like “turn ”  and  “ left.”       I know it’s a cliche, but, besides nagging, women also can’t keep a secret. Men can, but that’s mainly because we’re not listening to anything we’re told.       “You only hear what you want to hear,” my wife once complained during a fiery, but mostly peaceful, discussion.      “Yes, I’d love a cold beer,” I answered.       That ended the argument, but that also ended her talking to me for a few days after that.       Can you believe she once got mad at me because I followed her directions of taking the sheets from the dryer and putting them on the bed?    ...

First stop on our vacation was Universal Studios.       My family and I hadn't been there since two decades before The Great Toilet Paper Shortage, so I wasn't prepared for how it had changed.       To get there we had to drive through the area where L.A. had been rioting just the week before. Remember, kids, rioting is hard work, so don't forget to stop and smell the teargas.       Myself, I was hoping to liberate a big screen TV that was being unlawfully detained by the government, but apparently California cleans up nicely after a riot. When President Trump sent in the National Guard to settle things down, Gavin Newsom must have given them all brooms and told them to sweep up the place.       The last time we went to Universal Studios  in the early George Bush 2000s we stayed at the Holiday Inn owned by the lovely actress Beverly Garland. I remember her most for playing the mother of Laura Holt ...

  IKEA      Man, that’s a big store.       We don't have one in the town I live in, so we stopped on our way to the slap-dap-happiest place on earth.      "You can eat there," I've been told. "And it's cheap! "      Well, cheap is my middle name, only I spell it E-d-w-a-r-d.      IKEA has gooey chocolate cake for $1.49. I didn't have any. While it was as inexpensive as promised, it was m ore like undercooked chocolate cake. Besides, while my heart might say yes to chocolate, my jeans say, "Have a salad instead."       They also have vegetarian meatballs. With peas, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. They were  $3.99. I've never had vegetarian anything, but for that price I’d give them a try.      Sylt Lingon?       I don’t even know what that is.       Is it anything like the rock band Baruca Salt?      ...

  INDEX Once upon a time I wondered how some old friends of mine were doing.    These were my old friends:       The Man Who Fell To Earth novel by Walter Tevis / movie by Nicolas Roeg        Stranger In A Strange Land novel by Robert E. Heinlein        2001: A Space Odyssey novel by Arthur C. Clarke / movie by Stanley Kubrick         Alien movie by Ridley Scott / screenplay by Dan O’Bannon        The Odyssey by Homer       Space Oddity song by David Bowie        Major Tom song by Peter Schilling       Moby Dick novel by Herman Melville        Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan movie by Nicholas Meyer / screenplay by Jack B. Sowards       Sorry, couldn’t fit Star Wars in there....