Category: Humor

Electric Earth, Humor

How Science Works

An article I read this morning made my fingers reach for the keyboard. It’s posted on the Independent, titled “Scientists Discover 280-Million-Year-Old Fossil Forest in Antarctica.” It is a good illustration of how science works to bury critical thinking and reinforce it’s rigid belief system.

The article claims a discovery of 280 million year old tree fossils in Antarctica. It’s not much of a discovery. Fossils of trees were discovered over a century ago by the earliest explorers of the continent. These modern scientists just found a new batch. It’s not that newsworthy, but there is is a mystery behind it, which makes it intriguing and a good subject for a fluffy science article.

There is no good explanation why forests grew in Antarctica in that time-frame, because according to ‘accepted theory’ of plate tectonics and continental movement, Antarctica was still the at the South Pole 280 million years ago.

The mystery is, how could forests grow where there is six months of near total darkness? The Antarctic gets just one day and one night a year.

Never mind the cold and ice – that can be explained away – can’t you guess? By none other than CO2 induced global warming! But the dark can’t be explained by dinosaur flatulence.

So, these scientists claim the trees had to survive half the year in darkness, and so went into some kind of arboreal hibernation. In the words of the lead scientist, “These trees could turn their growing cycles on and off like a light switch.”

This is a determination made from a fossil impression in rock. It’s conjecture, although it sounds perfectly plausible, based on belief in prior science that says the solar system looked essentially the same as it does today, and that Earth’s attitude in orbit was the same, and Antarctica was at the south pole.

These are all assumptions. Scientists base new assumptions on old assumptions with such confidence, they don’t even consider other alternatives. Since I don’t have any confidence in their foundational assumptions about the solar system, I don’t think this is very satisfactory.

Let’s just throw out prior scientific assumptions, and start fresh and see where it leads.

First, there is an assumption these fossils are of leaves that needed sunlight. There is no way to prove what fossil leaves survived on by looking at an impression in rock. What if these ancient trees lived on something else?

Maybe they lived on Dark Energy, soaking it from the cosmos, and perhaps, even expelling Dark Matter, like modern leaves expel oxygen. Now this is a hypothetical that could lead to some real answers for cosmologists, since they are desperate for a source for the dark stuff. Isn’t this biological hypothesis founded on a cosmological hypothesis as circularly valid as assuming trees turned themselves on-and-off because Earth’s orbit never changed?

Unfortunately, we don’t know of any trees anywhere that live on Dark Energy. We don’t know they don’t exist, but since we don’t know that Dark Energy exists either, we just can’t say. If fossils in Antarctica are the only data point to vaguely imply the possibility, it really isn’t a good hypothesis.

Let’s proceed in agreement with the researchers that these fossils are like trees today, and work with sunlight and CO2 instead of dark energy and dark matter. Could it be possible that the forests grew in normal sunlight? That would mean, somehow, that Antarctica wasn’t at the south pole.

This is an interesting possibility. It flies in the face of all the assumptions I don’t like, because I don’t see one shred of evidence the Solar System hasn’t changed. All the evidence suggest something weird was going on not that long ago.

Look at Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. They are all in absolute turmoil, storming and spewing electromagnetic energy. If the solar system hadn’t changed since the “late bombardment”, 2 billion years ago, all the planets should have quieted down into somnolence by now – like Pluto – their internal heat dissipated to cold dark space.

So are tree fossils evidence of a different polar alignment in the past? Possibly, but there are other possibilities, too. It’s possible Antarctica moved, or that crustal displacement took place, shifting the skin of the planet. If Albert Einstein took the possibility of crustal displacement seriously, and it is recorded that he did, shouldn’t we too?

You see what I mean. There are many possibilities.

It’s also possible Earth was once a satellite of a brown dwarf, orbiting inside a plasma envelope of a warm glowing Kronos, as recorded in myths of the golden age that preceded a great cataclysm. That environment would allow forests to grow at the poles in year around light, as well as the equator, all areas of Earth receiving the soft glow of a plasma sky.

This is my personal favorite, of course. It’s the primary theory in the Electric Universe community on Earth’s pre-catastrophic origins. It explains forests in Antarctica, as well as many other mysteries about our planet. In fact, if one looks at all the work by EU theorists, there is a whole body of evidence to support the theory.

There are many points of evidence for crustal displacement, too. Truly, none of us were around to see what was going on when trees grew in Antarctica, and that is really my only point. A priori acceptance of unproven theories to constrain new theories is bad science. That is how a house of cards is built.

As a Natural Scientist, I try to avoid prior assumptions. They play a part in providing context, but they can’t be used as foundational fact. What is needed is a physical model based on verifiable classical physics. The model I use is electricity.

If I can conceive of an electrical circuit that can produce the fossils of Antarctic forests, then I can can conceive of an explanation that is plausible. It doesn’t mean it’s true, but it’s physically plausible. And when I do this, everything seems to fall into place. Corroborating evidence emerges to either modify, or confirm the concept, until it becomes not only plausible, but likely.

If an electrical model can be applied to explain everything from cosmic filaments, galaxies and stars, to tree fossils in Antarctica, climate, and ancient mythology, what results is holistically cross-verified theory tied directly to conventional, applied physics, which is reproducible and verifiable. That’s the beauty of the Electric Universe.

Incremental, reductionist, uniformitarian, consensus science is a house of cards because its foundation is loaded with bad assumptions that are taken for granted to be true. The scientists in this research have made a perfectly rational conjecture that the forests knew how to hibernate, because Antarctica was at the South pole and only receives six months of light. Trees already do this to an extent as they loose leaves in winter. Nothing far fetched about it.

The problem is the assumption that the solar system was the same 280 million years ago, or whenever it was these trees grew, and that it was even necessary for the tree to hibernate in the first place. The planetary scientists are changing their story every week, as new evidence from space crushes their theories about the solar system one after another.

There are multiple theories on why Earth is still as hot as it is. What we don’t know about the other planets dwarfs the meager knowledge we have. We do not even understand comets, or asteroids. There is no reason to have confidence in the consensus solar model, yet terrestrial science does this without blinking an eye.

These scientists are basing their work on a crumbling paradigm, a house of cards already trembling. And yet they tout this unverifiable conjecture as a “discovery”. The science journalists and other science guys and gals, including teachers, will now quote this as fact, never questioning that there might be another answer. It’s a shame, because it gives false confidence in what we think we know, and limits everyone’s curiosity about things that we are a long way from understanding.

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Humor

A Science Parody

“If I can model them, they exist…” quote from a theoretical physicist, asked about unicorns.

“I never met a proxy for climate I didn’t like. It’s the real climate that won’t cooperate…” quote from a climate scientist.

“Astronomical alignment…strange coincidence,” quote from an archeologists.

“Whatever they say…” quote from a man on the street.

Views from an EU Skeptic…

I am new to the Electric Universe. Since declaring myself a science writer, of course I’m skeptical. Let me tell you why.

According to the EU theory, the ancients left messages that awhile back, Saturn bussed Earth and Mars into this crappy neighborhood to diversify with gas giants.

This does sound like archaic thinking on integration – today, if we needed to diversify with gas giants, we’d change local zoning laws and make them come to us.

Given this air of plausibility, I had to check the theory out. So, I started with the highest authority I could find. Unfortunately, Jon Stewart had just quit the job.

I called Oprah, because her guest was the world’s leading celebrity expert on being an expert. She put the super-smart astrophysics populist on the line. He said, “Electri-what – never heard of it.”

I said, it’s the thing that makes your phone work.

He said, “My phone works because time dilation in a black hole gravity-well provides a direct link via wormhole to a parallel universe where I’m speaking to an alternative version of you that split away at a past quantum decision node.” He said we were communicating “via entanglement,” but the conversation hadn’t actually happened yet.

“Your universe may be full of this electro-whatchamacallit”, he said. “There are always new universes bubbling up and trying new things.” He then insisted I look around my universe because he was missing one of his socks.

Apparently the wormhole collapsed because I heard a click, then silence.

Having failed to get information from either the celebrity expert, or the smartest man in the world*, I turned to the truest authority of all. Reality TV.

Kim and Kanye took my call with polite patience.

“Can I Rap it?” said Kanye, after I explained. Kim broke into song,

“Oo-oo-oh, electric universe

I love that name ‘cause it’s so perverse

Tickle my booty with an electric thang

Shoot your plasma in my pootey-tang!”

Kanye put his hand over the phone, I think, because I heard thumps. Then the wormhole must have collapsed.

I realized asking popular celebrities about technical matters might be the wrong tactic, since – as I now learned – celebrities live in a parallel universe. I’d always heard that, but never took it literally. So, I turned to the intellectual elite.

I could not reach Al Gore, but the Science Guy answered and gave me a lesson in real science I’ll never forget.

At that moment he and ‘The Man’ were rounding up a few dozen 747’s to fly staff, the press, any interested parties with good cameras, and a cargo of 15 million gerbils for emergency relief to the State of California.

I learned the Governor, also an elite, had declared a state of emergency after earth scientists at UC Berkeley revealed in a recent peer-voted paper (‘Blue Ribbon – Most settled new science discovery of 2015’) that California’s climate change induced drought was causing accelerated sea level rise.

Simple deductive reasoning told them if it wasn’t raining, the water had to be somewhere. The heroic earth scientists immediately formed an expedition that pedaled to the distant shores of Marin County to take measurements.

When the peloton of PhD’s arrived, they were shocked to find the Pacific Ocean actually lapping upon the beach in wave upon wave of excess water.

They immediately deduced their deduction was proof of an abruptly accelerated sea level rise, since proxy analysis of salt encrustations above water line indicative of past wave action solidly confirmed the current state could only be generated by an influx of excess water.

This finding was confirmed by scientists at JPL, who empirically demonstrated the volume of excess water in the ocean precisely correlated with their estimates of lost rainfall, which made the science double settled.

Since the Governor had already deployed the National Guard to confiscate gluten and arrest purveyors of GMO’s, he could not deploy them to bail the ocean.

He declared a state of emergency to access federal relief funds for the construction of a ten-billion dollar, ratepayer funded, loan guaranteed, tax incentivized, DOE over-funded, biomass power plant to generate 0.5 Watts of renewable energy to offset the drought causing CO2.

Algae that grow extremely fast on gerbil excrement fuels the plant, specifically designed by the UC Davis Free-Range Organic Engineering Department to offset enough CO2 to calm the waters and halt the impending floods.

California gerbils could not be used, however, because that confused the CO2 models. Al Gore generously offered to use some of the Governor’s emergency funds to bring gerbils from Tennessee, where wind power and GHG offsets had already been purchased to negate regional gerbil emissions.

The Governor needed gerbils right away. I could not interrupt this important work.

I’m left wondering. Shouldn’t these smart, powerful and admired people also be curious about a theory that explains so much with such specific evidence – a testable theory so elegant that it is actually comprehensible?

Nah! If there was anything to this Electric Universe thing, these would be the first people to say so. I have got to go now…Ancient Aliens is on.

A.D. Hall

* As of this writing there is still no ‘smartest woman’, but there is an international diversity task force studying how to revise the IQ test by replacing multiple-choice questions with multiple-choice emoticons. Actual questions were determined to be unjust micro-aggressions that skew results and often leave subjects with PTSD.

Electric Earth, Humor

Requiem for the Big Bang

You live in a new Age of Enlightenment…you just don’t know it yet.

Let me tell you why, and what it means to you.

For over a century, scientists have dumped billions of your tax dollars and tied-up countless intellectual resources researching the structure and origin of the cosmos. The result has not shed light on anything.

To the contrary, they have shrouded the truth in dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and big bangs. They invent theories of parallel universes, multiverses, many worlds, quantum foams, and rolled-up dimensions that no one can detect – and tsk-tsk that only they are damn smart enough to comprehend it.

Do their theories sound like reality? Do they resemble anything we actually see, or experience?

They say miracles don’t happen. They say the universe exploded from nothing without any reason. They say the more matter you have, the smaller it gets, until it disappears in a ‘black hole.’ These sound like miracles to me.

It’s also depressing. They tell us everything we see is only 4% of what is there, because the rest is made of stuff we can’t touch, see, measure or even imagine. They say only they have the intellectual authority to comprehend, so just shut-up and give them more money to study it.

Doesn’t this picture of the universe leave you cold, bleak and disconnected – understanding less – not more about it?

If their theories were used cars, we’d have solved the energy problem because we’d be driving mathematical constructs – things without wheels or engines.

Today there are scientists with a new theory – and this one works – it has wheels!

They describe a universe full of light, life and promise. A universe that is comprehensible, based on theories we can test, see, and that time and again, produce astonishingly accurate predictions. It is known as the Electric Universe.

In 2004, the Thunderbolts Project launched to explore the Electric Universe. The Thunderbolts Project is a group of scientists and scholars who are making sense of our universe and the role humans play in it. They are also making sense of our ancient history. That means your place in history and the cosmos, too.

They have taken science out of the dogmatic paradigms of invisible mathematical concepts to look at the universe as it really is – and discovered its beauty – coursing with real energy and real purpose.

Led by plasma physicists and a growing number of scholars, Thunderbolts has taken a fresh look at space and realized – hey, it’s full of electricity. Everywhere astronomers look, they see evidence of electro-magnetic forces at work.

The standard model of physics ignores the forces of electro-magnetism, relying instead on the idea that gravity is the only architect of the cosmos. But electro-magnetism is trillions of times stronger than gravity and we can see it at work. Why does mainstream science ignore it?

Mainstream science doesn’t understand plasma.

Plasma is everywhere we look in space – stellar nebula, stars, solar winds and galaxies. Plasma rains down in the beautiful displays of polar auroras and lightning, right here on earth.

It is a fundamental state of matter – along with solids, fluids and gasses, there is plasma. It is a charged soup of electrons, protons and ions. And plasma conducts electricity.

Why don’t mainstream physicists account for this in the universe? Because if they started finding real answers we’d stop paying them to make-up imaginary stuff.

The Electric Universe does not throw the applied science we know and depend upon under the bus. Gravity still keeps us stuck to the earth. We still have E= mc2.

It simply discards the unworkable and unreasonable theories of magic in cosmology and seeks to understand what is really out there. And boy is it working.

Their predictions so far are astounding.

  • They explain the surface features of Pluto, Mars, Mercury, Venus, our Moon and the rocky moons of Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto, as well as features found here on earth which still baffle and cannot be adequately explained by mainstream science.
  • They explain the nature and behavior of comets, and made predictions that have been verified.
  • They explain how stars and galaxies form in a Universe coursing with electricity.

The theory is solidly supported by the evidence we observe without needing to imagine invisible dark matter, dark energy, dark elves, or any other phony flavor of the day.

Not only do their theories predict the behavior of our universe, they explain the greatest mystery of mankind – our ancient history.

Dating from the end of the last ice age, cataclysmic events in the sky and on earth were recorded by our ancestors around the world in petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, megaliths, pyramids, obelisks, legends and archaic texts we have struggled to understand ever since. Science says they are just stories, made up by our ancestors to scare the kids into bed.

Mainstream science says the alignment of megalithic structures, like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid were just so the builders would know when to plant crops. Why would they need huge boulders to do that?

They didn’t. They were recording events that rocked their world – literally. And these were electro-magnetic plasma discharges and a rain of planetary debris.

That is why mythology is full of fire and brimstone raining from the sky. And global flooding, fiery dragons and the heroes that battled them, which live on as ancient legends around the world. It was a cataclysm that nearly wiped out mankind, and we’ve been suffering the trauma ever since.

The Electric Universe brings into focus what is really happening in our universe with elegance, clarity and simplicity.

It is no more mysterious that the computer screen in front of you. Okay, so that’s a mystery to me, too. But any electrical engineer can understand it, and so can we. Its stuff anyone can comprehend.

You don’t need to be an Einstein, or Hawking, with an IQ big enough to dream-up things that don’t exist. And you don’t need to keep sending those guys our tax dollars. Go to Thunderbolts.info to find the real story for yourself. You will be amazed.

A.D. Hall

Humor

An Open Letter to Visitors from Biker Entourage

Pardon my French, but Sacre Crapeaux! It means holy shit…I think. Bells ring in my head, addled as it is. Eureka! I have found my spiritual home.

Bikerentourage.com

Is it possible? Biker Entourage is motorcycles, psychedelics and the people who ride them? I feel more interconnected than a DMT flash. I feel more resonance than a 998 Desmocedici at 8500 rpm. I feel both!

Psi-rider…mount your café racer for a ride in my brain!

Take the on-ramp to my Cerebrum. Ignore the Temporal Lobe…it is closed for repair.

Beware off-camber twisties in the folds of the Frontal Lobe. There are potholes there.

Add power…add speed for the sweeper ahead,

Drag your knee in Basal Ganglia and up-shift with throttle-wide in the Corpus Collosum,

Do a wheelie in Medulla Oblongata, if you like, and burn rubber in the Occipital Lobe,

But, red-line the Hypocampus and downshift drift the Amygdala, echoing a thrum upon the Pons.

Then park in level C of the Cerebellum. I’ll meet you there.

I feel how I imagine a ride to the shooting range with Hunter S. Thompson – or pubbing with Peter Egan and Terence McKenna. Those things aren’t possible for Terence and Hunter, bless their souls – they will never know the experience of reading me, or having a beer with me.

But we can! Yes, you and me – reader and writer – as I still live and write. This can change at anytime, as you well know how it is with writers and motorcycles. But once written, it lives forever…and thereby my heart feeds you, as I feed on you like a parasite, too.

I digress. You are probably wondering who in hell I am. I am A. D. Hall, a writer and a traveler. May favorite rides are a Ducati S4RS and Mescaline – so visceral and erotic.

Psilocybin and scooters are a close second. The elves like scooters. I’d love to own an Indian and take Ayahausca some day – it seems a marriage of the gods, no?

I live in Arizona, which is psychedelic in itself, especially this time of year. I think the temp is 111, as I write, which means I can go outside for fifteen minutes and experience hallucinations. I do this on the scooter – the Duc would fry my legs. It produces total, irrevocable madness within twenty minutes, so I am careful.

As the swamp cooler blows a moist chill on my sweaty neck, and the cheap Canadian whiskey I bought last night yields it’s last precious ounce into my cup, I almost weep with joy. The emotion is real, if exaggerated – that’s what whiskey does to me – but let this be known; I wish to join this community.

I wish to pledge my considerable writing talent as a voice – to you, to us, and to those out there who have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s my humble opinion they need to understand. The whole world needs to understand.

Who can engage one’s mind with spiritual botanicals, or race two-wheeled on a smooth, curved mountain road, and still be bothered to commit jihad, or send thousands of troops to their deaths in foreign lands? It’s inconceivable. So like Jesus, we have a message. It is as important as his – the “do unto others…” one.

No ma’am, no sir! I’m not comparing myself to Him. I am but a disciple, no matter how arrogant my tone. That is a consequence of the cheap Canadian stuff…like I said. But the mission – the mission – let’s not lose our thread.

It is to Trip Others – a term I now coin – unawares, into a forced psychedelic experience for the betterment of mankind. My idea is to create and weaponize a psychedelic toenail fungus that pumps psycho-actives into the bloodstream, like a tic delivers Lyme disease, but with altruistic intent. Then disperse it in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Washington and other strategic places.

I am thinking of a Dr. Scholl’s type delivery system of our own patent, or perhaps Korean nail salons. There are many details to fix, and talks with the Koreans are not going well. Are there podiatrists among you?

San Francisco, Paris and London won’t need it. Those places are already enlightened – unless they want to volunteer. I figure, once we know how to make it we can grow enough for everybody.

That includes your city, Gotham – New York, New York! Grimy Atlantis of the Millennium. I have spent good times there. High times. If only I lived closer, my first instinct is to join you on a ride, side by side, somewhere Upstate to look for Bigfoot. We’re teaching him to ride out here. But let’s speak of that another day. Today, our topic is the Purple Armageddon.

Bikes are the instruments of distribution, of course. We can go any place on earth with the right, dual-sport bikes, and escape, too. You know traffic in these big cities. A rush hour attack and we own the split-lane! Get it? Is the picture coming to focus? Rebels with a cause – that’s us!

I implore you. I don’t have the mycological knowledge to do it myself. Nor could I be a lone superhero like Ewan McGregor, riding the globe dispersing the stuff and still get the coordinated mind-meld that’s most effective.

It will require a common temporal battleground, a Megiddo of the conscience. If we can get all of the world leaders into the same “room with the elves” – problem solved – that’s the plan.

That’s why a community like this needs me, for this kind of brilliant idea. So, now that we’re together – tell me how I can help you, so you can help me – let’s work together. Who is the Shaman of this new family of mine? Call me.

Before I close and let this sink in to your minds – I’ll assume it is momentarily stressed at the audacious criminality of our venture – let me say, fear not. The utter logic of it will eventually take hold and you will gleefully go forward, a battalion of ghost riders; Knights Templar of the Psychedelic Apocalypse – keepers of the Grail of Enlightenment – Onward Psychedelic Soldiers…Marching as to war!

Even if your ultimate fate is crucifixion in a stuck-up, unenlightened world, rest assured, I will carry the torch. I am shielded from crucifixion by fixion. A linguistic inoculation that protects me as a writer.

So relax, and let me offer a diversion while your mind assimilates. I published a book of complete and utter nonsense about a character that is struck by lightning in a thunderstorm while on an Amanita Muscaria trip, and the consequences that flow from this profoundly dark and damaging experience.

Why don’t you take it to the beach this summer, as the Psychedelic Apocalypse gathers headwind. Enjoy its hallucinogenic, raunchy humor where the characters happen to – have you guessed, yet – Ride Fucking Motorcycles! Yes, that’s right. I wrote a novel specifically for you! Ain’t that the fuckin’ tits?

It is my modest gift, for the listed price at your e-book retailer. Just follow my links below and see my website, other writings of mine, and the book: “Lapse of Reason.” It’s my debut novel.

Such synchronicity – meeting on the very brink of my book’s release – the world in crisis and needing us – social media to bind us – are the result of long-term psychedelic brain modification, on my part, yours, and the elves, without a doubt.

Trip safely my friends, and feel free to share your favorite psychedelic with me (in a plain brown envelop with no return address). Adios for now. Our plot shall thicken!

Thank you.

A.D. Hall 6.25.15

https://andrewdhall.wordpress.com/welcome-2/novel/

Humor

Ten Things to Think About Blogging That You Haven’t Thought Before

I blog. I never set out to do this. It’s a requirement though, a machine sub-set routine I must initiate to flow attention to the novel I wrote. That is my job, writing novels, I thought.

It turns out that writing novels is only half the writing. The rest is all about traffic to your book in the age of Social Media and that’s business.

Fine. I can write creative posts. Apply my craft and try new voices in short form with direct feedback from the reader. It sounds like a good idea for a writer hungry to learn.

So I’ve been researching. It seems the way to do this is guest blog, which this is, and I thank the host for this opportunity. The host is me. I’m posting to myself. I just wanted to show how polite I am.

I’ve been reading blogs of other writers, looking for places to join or contribute, thinking that is where I can meet others of my ilk.

I have had trouble, and that is what I want to talk about. I see some great writing, but it’s dry, business-like. Everyone speaks as themselves.

Why shouldn’t writers of fiction, write fiction? Even when they’re not!

Isn’t it the task of the fiction writer to weave a reality? No one said that reality can’t be real. Go ahead. Fill the reader with facts and lists of Ten Best Things. Tell them what they need to know.

But do it with style. Use your voice. Create a drama, points of view. Don’t just lay your bloody thoughts out like the thing you left in the commode this morning. Write the thing!

I just thought I’d see more of that among the literary crowd. Where do thoughts fly like angels, with emotion and prose? Damn it! Will somebody please point me in the right direction?

Thank you.

A.D Hall, 6.30.15

Humor

Green Chile Werewolves
Friends, it is my passion to cook. I am not a particularly subtle cook. I like to spice it up.

I also don’t go in for fancy dishware and the like. I like to cook. So I’m posting something informative with a recipe of mine. You must try my Green Chile Werewolves. I will get to the recipe in a moment.

I warn you, this dish is clean, simple, but hot. Mighty hot. I think of it as a manly dish. That’s what brings to mind my topic: Manly cooking.

I know, cooking channels everywhere have male cooks, chefs and eaters. Probably more than female, I don’t know. The cooks are all mixed, the eaters are all male. There is no shortage of gluttonous women, but they don’t do it. It’s a manly thing.

Females never eat pickled bat guano in Thailand, or shove one hundred fried habanero-stuffed turkey balls in their pie-hole in under thirty-minutes. I never see “No Flicking the Jalapeno” plaques or trophies in the bitch-cave commemorating nacho-eating contests.

In fact, I’ll just get to the point. Eating is the only manly thing I see men doing. Their cooking sucks. Its too feminine.

I have no issue with the babes. They do feminine cooking and they should. A dish should be proud of its gender, and so the cook should be proud of the gender they give it. But it should be their-own gender.

I am not getting into the matter of that Jenner fellow…gal I mean. He’s another issue entirely – one that confuses me. No, I wish to speak about good-old, manly cooking.

Now here’s the thing. You’ll say, don’t men barbeque? Of course, and grill too. These we may set aside as particular male obsessions, in fact. But it is a narrow specialty.

I ask, who among men is out in the world doing the hard work of true, honest peasant cuisine in the very heart of darkness?

Out there, where there is no foam food. Out there, with a big knife and spoon, a bowl and iron pot, and the flames of Dante’s furnace the only tools.

There was a man of great talent once, who forged meals in such a way. Let me tell you of him.

He was a gentleman, his talent as a cook well known. But that is not the key here. This man had something else; an indefatigable curiosity and manly joy for life. Yes life!

For he recognized that food is the very essence of that joy. It is communion, and delicacy, and drinking, and pleasure, and drinking, and fun and glorious! And it’s even better with a drink.

That man is Keith Floyd. Did you know him?

Keith Floyd was the original manly cook. No one before or since has honored food in such a way. Articulate-smart-funny-tasteful. But he didn’t suffer fools. He made one of himself with regularity, and never tried to hide it. Such honesty in a man transcends mere cooking!

The BBC program, ‘Floyd on Fish’ was his first. I believe it to be his best and the only place to start, if you are so inclined. It was he I watched in my youth, and from him I learned the essentials.

If you’re a man and can’t cook anything except meats, learn from Floyd. Find him on You-Tube.

Now grab a beer, let’s cook Green Chile Werewolves.

Green Chile: One pound of pig meat.

One 32-ounce can of whole Green Chilies.

One 14-ounce can of chopped tomatoes.

One, big as you dare, can of chopped jalapenos.

A big onion.

A handful of garlic.

Stock – you should already have stock from scratch. I don’t have time to get into that now, go buy chicken stock.

Werewolves: Cheese – you call it, pick your mold. I like a blend of Mexican stuff, fresh made. You may not have it where you live. Longhorn Colby mixed with Jack always works.

Big flour tortillas. Be a man and spring for the kind sold raw. Cook them yourself. If you’re a pussy, go ahead and get them made and packaged.

Have some good olive oil on hand. Now let’s cook.

Chop that pig meat into chunks. Use a cleaver, or machete – make fast work of it.

Turn your blade on the onion and garlic. Chop it rough. Throw the pig in a cast iron oven with some oil. Fire it up. Season it. Brown it. Throw in the onion.

Wait – no garlic yet. Let the onion get soft. Now garlic, throw it in and turn the fire down so it doesn’t burn.

Give it salt and pepper. If you like chile, add your favorite.

Let it simmer while you open all those goddamned cans. Dump them in the pot when you’re done. Chop those chiles first and sop up the mess. Add enough stock to make it swim.

Now stir the thing and put a lid on it. Let it cook for a good long while on a low burn, just watch the thing doesn’t char. Grab another beer.

Your going to cook again when the wolves are ready, but let that damn pot cook while you have a smoke, or something. Smoke the right thing and the timing will work out perfect.

Shred your cheese. Cook the tortillas under-crisp in oil. You want them bendable. Roll that cheese up in tortillas and put the damn things in a greasy pan. Those are the werewolves.

Now pour that stew on the wolves when it’s ready. Throw the pan in a hot oven for a while, until it gets bubbly. If you put some extra cheese on top – see it gets browned.

That’s it. Take them out and let them cool. Then feed your people.

I did this recipe for you men. Now, go get my book. Women won’t read it.

Thank you.

A.D. Hall 6.29.15

Humor

Ginger’s Post

IMG_1747[1]Welcome to Ginger’s Post. Actually, I write and she edits – she has final say. Therefore, this writing space is named for her. Ginger, as you may already suspect, is a dog. She sits in my lap streaming editorial comments as I write. Most of her comments pertain to cheese, and I must fight her on this constantly. I tell her we will write about cheese another time. She does not seem to care. She wants me to stop writing and give her cheese…okay!

This is Ginger’s entrée into the world of social media. I’m sure someone will be quick to say: dog blogging is so pre-millennial. Is it obsolete? Should we twitter? Ginger doesn’t know. She’s looking at me with watery, Spanish drama queen eyes. Is it because of my uncertainty, or does she want more cheese? Never mind…I know the answer.

This first article is hers because the editor-in-chief insisted – of course. She has something to get off her chest about dog intelligence. She believes people misunderstand. People will argue her point, but it’s not an argument people can win, because people can’t argue about dogs with a dog. She knows that, which gives you some idea of how smart she is.

Ginger says the problem is that people look at dogs through people eyes. She wants you to see the dogs’ perspective. Before we dive in to that, however, a little about Ginger. Ginger is a mutt – part Chihuahua, and the rest is anyone’s guess. Whatever she is, it’s a strange combination. But it has created the most intelligent dog in the world, I kid you not; and that is the point of this article. She wants to set the record straight.

All dogs are smart compared to the average human. Every breed falls somewhere just above the mean of human IQ – no smarter than the average woman, but at least one standard deviation above the average male. We can all agree the debate is over about that – it’s the human perception of relative dog IQ that Ginger says we have wrong.

We see the smartest dogs as the dogs able to do a lot of things. Guard dogs, water dogs, bird dogs, sheep dogs; even lion hunting dogs – Rhodesian Ridgebacks are bred for that. But they are not very intelligent dogs, claims Ginger. A dog can get killed hunting lions.

“Why,” the dogologist asks, “does she say that? Such bravery, comprehension and acuity to the master’s direction is an amazing display of intelligence,” or something to that effect…I’m making this part up.

Well, the reason those dogs aren’t smart is because they work. Sure it takes smarts to do work, but if they were smart about working, says Ginger, they wouldn’t be at the bottom of the employment food chain, working for meals and a chain-link pen. There would be Bill Gates-dogs and Facebook guy-dogs. Googleionaires are popping up all over, but no dogs. And don’t mention Rin-Tin-Tin, Lassie, or any of those big actors. They got scale wage in Hollywood – the industry with the worst income inequality in the world.

To find the smartest dogs you have to look at lap dogs. Remember, get out of your human head and enter the dog’s world. Trainable dogs seem smart to humans, but training leads to following direction, which leads to work, which we’ve already established dogs are not that smart about. No, trainable dogs are not the smart ones, it’s the entitled little yappers.

Not every lap breed is super smart, either; don’t mistake this. Just like people, there are the successful copycats – oh my, that’s not a good choice of words – the not-so smart, but cunning emulators, such as the Pug and Dachshund, whose refinement is only hide deep. So, one must pick through the breeds like weeds. One must understand how they take advantage and use their intelligence, indeed look into the very workings of their mind, and then it is evident which the smartest dogs are. Watch a tiny lap dog when a big dog is around and you will see what I mean. It’s the little Napolean who is the boss.

The miniature poodle is a good starting point. Extremely smart dog. Notice first, the miniature poodle does no work. This is actually the primary sign of true canine intelligence, contrary to human consensus. Poodles are entirely ornamental. They are useless, except for being cuddly, cute balls of fur with a flicking tongue.

This is intentional on their part. They haven’t just outsmarted working dogs by becoming treasured accessories to wealthy, doting, elderly women who overfeed them and carry them in a purse. They have even outsmarted the cat.

How, you wonder, is this possible – smarter than a cat? Cats are masters of the universe, having enslaved humans to feed, and care for them, so they can do whatever they damn well please. We all know the rat-chasing thing is only for their amusement.

SAM_0175But they live filthy lives, skulking about gutters and eating fishy things. They are utter sociopaths, unavailable for emotional support when you need it, and always ready to give you that haughty look that says you’re an idiot. Their finest display of affection is a dead bird on the doorstep – now just what does that mean? No one depends on a cat. Just watch when the can of tuna is opened. This makes cats…well, dispensable when it comes right down to it. Just leave them outside for the night and let the coyotes do the rest.

Poodles have this figured out. They are there for love at the drop of a hat. Try it. Just drop a hat and they’ll wag their tail. Drop anything and they go nuts. If it’s food they’ll eat it, no questions asked. Get down at their level and they will attack you with love. They make you dependent on them without doing anything except hang around eating snacks and smothering you with affection. That is damn smart.

Step up a level on the canine IQ and you are almost at the pinnacle; the Chihuahua. Chihuahua’s are annoying, yet they still manage to do everything the poodle does, only better. It’s the saucy attitude and single-minded devotion to one true love of their life – you – that makes it work.

Did you know aristocrats used poodles as bed warmers? Oh yes. Now here is where you see frightening intelligence. They do absolutely nothing but sleep in a warm bed and that’s their job. But they aren’t working, because they are asleep in a warm bed. And it’s your bed, and you’re keeping them warmer than they’re keeping you. You see how it works?

I know…it’s scary when you think about it like that. You can see it in their eyes. They face forward like a human’s. They bulge with innocent vulnerability; and are big, and brown, and get dewy and can make you do anything they want. This has been laboratory tested against a control group of Yorkshire Terriers, an accomplished lap dog in it’s own right, and the eyes of the Chihuahua have been found to be more persuasive in nine out of ten cases. That is a statistical slam-dunk – and yes, the hair was brushed from the terriers’ eyes.

Ginger is part Chihuahua, and no doubt her cunning ways are founded in those genes, but she is mixed with other strange canine genetics impossible to determine…she is a mutt. Gone is the nervous jitter of the Chihuahua. Gone is the yapping mouth. Thanks to her genetic mishmash, she has all the favored attributes of the breed without the annoying ones. Instead, she has the attitude of a big dog. Indeed, she is not aware she is not a big dog, while at the same time being very Chihuahua.

As a result, she sleeps in the bed and acts as a reluctant bed warmer – she growls if you roll on her. She eats part of anything anybody is eating, never long between snacks. Amazingly, she stays slim. They say six, small meals a day – she has about eighteen. People let her out the door, and in the door, as many times as she asks. She lounges in the sun and she is taken for walks.

Lots of dogs get those things, you’re thinking. What makes Ginger special? Just look. The eyes of Madonna herself, gazing upon baby Jesus couldn’t be more touching. I have handed over my last savory bite of steak to those eyes many times.

IMG_1707That is why I call her a pirate. I’m writing while she’s in the other room, because she does not like to be called that, but she is a thief and I’ll come back to that later. Between her eyes is her nose, which is a feature of incongruence. It is the nose of a hound, with a slight under-bite, stuck on the head of a Chihuahua. This gives her a regal cuteness that she uses in the most incorrigible way. With her nasal length and under-bite, she can bare her teeth in a crooked snarl by lifting her left cheek, which has the effect of telling you exactly what she wants you to know. In other words, she communicates.

I know, dogs communicate, but I’m talking very specific things here. I mentioned she is a pirate, but she does not like to be called that. If I dare whisper in her ear “pirate,” she bites my nose. Every time I speak that word she will do this. It’s not a hard bite – it’s almost a kiss. But it’s not. It’s a love bite she delivers with a snarl that tells the real truth of her feelings, which is a barely contained dervish-like anger. She then chews my hands.

IMG_1729[1]This childlike cuteness melts butter in my heart and will force me to do anything, which is communication of the highest order, and this is when she shows her piracy. She has carte blanche then…requiring cheese, harassing cats, or she steals a toy from the neighbor dog. She steals a toy everyday. She pees and poops and runs to the neighbors, and takes a great deal of time selecting from the pile of toys they keep on the porch for their dog, Cookie, who is just a puppy, and then Ginger selects the finest, newest item and brings it home. She’ll do this in front of Cookie, when he is just begging her to notice him.

If I attempt to take it away, she lifts her left cheek until a bit of teeth show, and says, “Arghh, arghh!” in a very serious fashion, which stops me in my tracks. She knows she will get away with this because she has already conditioned me with the pirate play-anger. Now, how does this imply great intelligence? Well, I can leave a plate of filet mignon sitting on the coffee table within her easy reach, and leave the room, yet she will not touch it. Now we have already established she is a wanton thief, stealing from her neighbor everyday. So, why does she not take the steak? Because she knows she will be rewarded handsomely for not taking the steak. In fact she will get a pat on the head and a big piece of steak anyway. She understands consequence with such subtlety that I am amazed.

She knows she won’t be scolded for another dog’s bone, but take steak off my plate? Now you get a flavor for what I’m talking about. She is a Machiavellian charmer of the highest order. She is also a critic. She won’t write – can’t with the paws, but she edits with her lip. I read my copy out loud, and she “arghhs,” then I fix it. Which brings us back to the name of this blog, which is Ginger’s Post – not Andy’s Post. Outsmarted again!