American Chimpanzee

I. I am the Lord, thy God, thy iPhone. Thou shalt have no other smart phones before Me. II. Thou not shalt not make unto thee any graven images.      Except on Facebook. III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.      On the other hand, sayeth whatever thou wants about Trump. IV. Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy.      In fact, take the rest of the week off as well. V. Honor thy mother and thy father, lest they kicketh you out of their house. VI. Thou shalt not kill, for thou art a pansy. VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery, unless the opportunity presents itself. VIII. Thou shalt not steal, unless it's on the Internet, in which case, thou shalt consider it free. IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Then again, who else are you going to bear false witness against? X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, unless she be-eth REALLY hot. Further, ne...

If you’ve read the Raising My Father stories over at the Desert Diary section of Dessert Exposure magazine, you know that my much older and less attractive brother takes care of our elderly father. He does this without complaint. At least I think he does it without complaint. I quit listening to him years ago.     There are times, however, when my brother and his family travel out of town on vacation and are unable to take him along. This is when I’ve had the pleasure of taking care of my father. Let me stress that it is indeed a pleasure, because, if my brother happens to read this, I want him to think he got the better end of the taking-care-of-your-aging- parent deal.     It was during these adventures that I came to the conclusion that my father should be a private investigator, and I'm not just saying that because he sports a bushy mustache, drives a red Ferrari, and has an old war buddy who flies a helicopter for a living. N...

Schrodinger's Cat Theory as it Applies to Health and Clam Chowder   Those of you who have read the Desert Diary section of Desert Exposure--the premiere magazine of art and leisure in southern New Mexico--know that my brother takes care of our elderly father. How elderly? Well, his Social Security number is #1.      My brother got this honor when we had a family meeting to discuss who was best suited for this task, and he was the only one who showed up.      I, myself, had the pleasure of having my mother-in-law move in with my family and I for a blissful few months. Blissful, because they were so few.      What my wife didn't tell me was that her mother would be an additional person we'd have to take with us wherever we went. To dinner, on vacation, even our romantic date nights weren't safe. Let me tell you, that's not the kind of third wheel a man fantasizes about.      Not me, of co...

I write this to you because, as a fellow warrior, you're the only one who can understand.     Have you seen the movie Full Metal Jacket? It takes place in the sixties and is about the Viet Nam war. It was directed by Stanley Kubrick, whom I've always found pretentious and over-rated, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway…     There's a scene in it where a young prostitute is trying to drum up business by telling some American soldiers, "Me so horny. Me so horny. Me love you long time." The scene was so moving that the rap group Two Live Crew wrote a tender love ballad about it, also called Me So Horny. Well…     I told you that to tell you this:     I was recently at an Asian restaurant, and I innocently asked the cute little Asian waitress what the soup of the day was.     "Miso, honey," she said.     That immediately sent me into a Viet Nam flas...

Somewhere... in the cosmos...   "You sent for me, sir? "Yes, Clarence. A man down on Earth needs our help." "Splendid! Maybe then, sir, maybe then I'll get my wings?"      It was Christmas Eve and President Obama was sitting in the Oval Office brooding. Come the new year, he would be out and a new president would be sworn in, but there was so much left to do.      So much left to do.      Like every president who served before him, he worried about his legacy these last few days in public office. Was he too hard on Israel? Too easy on radical Islam? Should he have secured the border and fixed the ailing economy? Was it wise to bring potential terrorists possibly disguised as political refugees into the country?      Well, it was too late now. History would judge him by the results of his efforts, not by the nobility of his intentions.      "O...

In a world where the Taliban throws acid in the faces of young girls and women to keep them from going to school or getting an education, it's refreshing to read a newspaper article about Muslim women in the United States learning how to defend themselves against Americans.      When a press-hog like the then-15-year-old Muslim schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai grabs all the headlines for having the good fortune of being shot in the head (for being an education advocate in the Muslim country of Pakistan), let's all remember she survived what should have been a fatal gunshot. Besides, she didn't choose to be shot. In fact, given the choice, I'm sure she would have chosen not to have been shot.      What kind of hero is that?      Even the Nobel Prize committee, while nominating her for their Peace Prize, didn't feel she deserved to win. Instead they gave it to President Obama for... for...      Well, I rea...

A new priest arrived at the Vatican and was put in charge of the elderly priests who had spent their entire lives copying the Bible. He couldn't help but notices that they were copying by hand copies of the Bible that had already been copied by hand, and reasoned that this had probably gone on since the time of Christ.       He immediately requested an audience with Pope Francis, and, when it was granted, he told the Vicar of Christ, "Forgive me, Holy Father, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren't copying somebody else's mistakes?"       The head of the Roman Catholic Church considered what he was told, and answered, "You make a good point, my son. I will take one of these new copies down to my personal office and study it against the original document."       And he did exactly that. ...