Don't be a naughty little pony

I once wrote an article about a hobby horse competition that is popular in Finland in which young girls navigate an equine jumping course with a stick horse. I pleaded for parents to stop the madness and buy their daughter a real pony so they could compete without looking like idiots.

Alas, it is too late. While I was concerned that taking the horse out of horse competitions would damage our nation’s young girls, something much worse has happened. Hobby horse sport has been co-opted by a sector of society that up to now has only existed in the dark, musty corners of the basement.

The BDSM crowd has invented something they call “pony play.” It is My Little Pony meets the Marquis de Sade. The Pony Play couples wear costumes in which one of them dresses up like a pony while the other one dresses up like a regular pervert. Of course, given the nature of these people, the “pony” wears a leather harness and has a bit placed in its mouth. Finally, they have a reason to wear that mouth gag in public other than the annual Pride parade. 

The pony handler usually wears a dominatrix-type outfit and holds the lead rope or whip. Sometimes the pony gets hitched to a cart in which the dominatrix sits. Sometimes the pony misbehaves and must be disciplined by the dominatrix. It seems there are a lot of naughty ponies in this group.

This new kind of role-playing has become very popular within the BDSM community. EQUUS International Pony Play is sponsoring an event in Los Angeles, California on 10-12 August. The mission of EQUUS is to “provide quality education on Pony Play and a safe space to play and experience new things in Pony Play.” According to the group’s website, the event is “the opportunity for ALL Pony Play enthusiasts to meet face to face. This event is open to ALL styles of Pony Play, ALL types of Ponies. ALL the wonderful people that take our reins and those who love us. We embrace our difference and celebrate our diversity.”

I see the word “all” is repetitively written in all caps. Apparently, some of the pony players are such freaks in their own minds that they think even the regular nut-jobs wouldn’t accept them. That is truly a scary thought.

It is too bad that this pony play stuff didn’t come sooner. If this behavior had been around in the 19^th century, the outcome of some famous battles might have turned out differently. As we all know from history, Marshall Ney of Napoleon’s army was famously defeated by the British squares at Waterloo in 1815. However, if he had appeared as Marshall Neigh, Prince of Moskva, wearing nothing but a black leather harness, knee-high riding boots, and a silver bit in his mouth, I bet the stiff upper lips of Wellington’s troops would have quivered slightly before their lines collapsed in hysterical laughter.

Likewise, if Custer had attacked the Sioux village on the Little Big Horn in 1876 with a regiment of cavalrymen in Pony Play outfits, I doubt he would have encountered as much resistance. The Sioux would have fled in terror in the face of that “bad medicine” and the “Boy George General” would have been victorious.

So, I guess I need to take back my condemnation of hobby horse competitions. In retrospect, it is a much healthier activity than what we see now in EQUUS International Pony Play. Tell your kids its ok to act like a pony. Just don’t be a naughty, sadistic one.  

Judgment free zones don't apply to men

Eric Stagno

One of the reasons many people don’t go to gyms to workout is due to the intimidation factor.  People who are out of shape or don’t have a perfect body-type feel self-conscious at the gym because they imagine that the bodybuilders and fitness instructors are silently judging their skinny arms and flabby butts.

A gym chain called Planet Fitness calls this gymtimidation. To combat this form of imaginary bullying, the Planet Fitness people have created a “Judgement Free Zone” so people who have never done a jumping jack in their lives can feel comfortable pedaling a stationary bicycle at the gym in their yoga pants once a month or so while drinking a malted strawberry milkshake can do so without feeling body-shamed.

Or, as Planet Fitness puts it, “As we evolve and educate ourselves, we will seek to perfect this safe, energetic environment, where everyone feels accepted and respected. We are not here to kiss your butt, only to kick it if that’s what you need.”

Boy, talk about a mixed message. The statement starts out sounding very progressive and tolerant with a hippy-millennial vibe that makes it sound like the gym is a safe-place for metrosexual snowflakes who would have flunked gym in high school if public schools still required it. However, the last sentence reveals that familiar Arnold Schwarzenegger-Hans-and-Frans-Charles Atlas tone indicating that they will “pump you up you pencil-neck girly man.”

Recently, a man in Plaistow, New Hampshire, tested the “Judgement Free Zone” in a way that Planet Fitness hadn’t anticipated.  Eric Stagno, age 34, walked into the local gym and according to Captain Brett Morgan of the Plaistow Police Department, “stripped down right there in front, left the clothes and belongings at the front desk, walked back and forth across the gym a couple of times and then settled in over at the yoga mats." According to reports, police arrested Stagno while he was in a “yoga-type pose.”

First of all, ew.

Second of all, for the sake of the arresting officers, I’m hoping it wasn’t the downward facing dog.

Third of all, ew.

Other people at the gym complained of feeling “sick,” “unsafe” and “disgusted” by the presence of a naked man exercising in their midst. Stagno countered by saying “he thought it was a judgment-free zone.”

Well played, Mr. Stagno. Unfortunately, progressive tolerance only applies to themes consistent with progressive ideology. You would have gotten away with it if you had self-identified as a gender other than the one you were born. Details.

Apparently, the naked work out idea is catching on. A man named Brody Tyler Young was arrested in Nashville for doing naked jumping jacks in a women’s bathroom at a McDonald's restaurant. He had locked himself in the bathroom all day and wouldn’t come out despite pleas from the restaurant manager. I’m wondering what how these pleas sounded.

Did the manager use a familiar tone?

“Brody Tyler! You get yo naked butt out a dat bathroom rat this very instint, or I gonna call yo mama. Dis ain’t no Planet Fitness.”

Or maybe the manager used a more formal approach.

“Mr. Young, as the duly appointed representative of this Nashville McDonald’s franchise, I order to you come out with your pants up.”

These incidents are an outrage. When a cisgender man can get arrested for doing yoga poses and jumping jacks in the nude, it tears at the very fabric of our constitutional jock straps. Rise up, cisgender men! Fight for your right to be weird and disgusting like everyone else. You have nothing to lose but your yoga pants. 

Grunt envy

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 15 March 2015 under the title, "Exploring 'gruntology'".

Living in a military town, you may be aware that different military services have unique grunting noises that military personnel use in certain situations.  When I was in the Air Force, I was mostly ignorant of this fact as we did not have any specific grunting noises we had to make back then.  However, when I began to encounter people from other branches, I noticed them making some odd sounds.  I initially just chalked it up to a chemical imbalance of some sort or the side effect of having too small of a vocabulary, but over time I began to recognize there was meaning in these noises.  Now, I understand that each branch of the military has a service-specific grunt that comes complete with a proud heritage and improbable story of origin.  The study of these sounds and their origin is known as gruntology. 

According to Yahoo Answers, which is never wrong about anything, the Air Force says hoorah, the Marines say oorah, the Navy says hooyah, and the Army says hooah.  These sounds must make for some great conversations at joint service picnics. However, I’m not sure any of this is right. 

Being in an Army town, I know the soldiers say hooah, or huah, or hua, with the spelling, depending on who you ask.  I remember they were making a sound similar to that when I was on active duty, but I don’t know what the proper spelling was.  It seemed soldiers used in a variety of situations with different meanings depending on circumstances.  If they said the word like a question accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture, it meant the soldier was asking you if you were having a good day.  Or at least an Army day.  At other times it was used in the place of yes or yes sir or sometimes a lot more. 

“Private Flounder, did you clean out all the garbage cans and polish my riding boots?” Asked Colonel Niedermeyer. 

“Hooah!”  Replied private Flounder to Colonel Niedermeyer, with great enthusiasm. 

In this case, Private Flounder was telling Colonel Niedermeyer that he dumped the contents of all the garbage cans into his riding boots and then shot holes in them with his rifle.  A complete paragraph of useful information provided in a single grunting noise.  Brilliant military efficiency. 

The Marines have a similar grunting noise that is often spelled, oorah or hoorah, but to me always sounded like aahh-ooh-rah. The Marines pronounce the first syllable with a unique nasal tone that immediately sets it apart to the ear of a trained gruntologist.  I once spent a year at the Marine Corps base at Quantico and became familiar with the different pronunciations and meanings of their service-specific grunts. 

The first thing in the morning, I was often greeted by Marines in the hallways of our hallowed learning institution with a curt, “Urr.”  At first, I took this to be a warning, like the growl of an angry dog, but I soon realized this was just Marine shorthand for “Good morning.”   The rest of the time, they communicated with variations of oorah depending on the circumstances and their level of excitement.  If you were asking them a simple question requiring an affirmative, you’d get the two-syllable “oorah” answer.  If you were asking them to do something absurdly difficult or dangerous, you’d more likely get the full three-syllable “aahh-ooh-rah” response, sometimes accompanied by them dropping to the ground and doing pushups.

I’ve read the grunt sound, hooyah, came from the Navy SEALS, but that it is now becoming popular in the rest of the Navy.  However, when I was working with naval personnel once upon a time, they preferred the more pirate-sounding, “aaarrr.”  Sailers usually emitted the sound when you asked them if they wanted to do something that was dangerous, morally questionable, or personally degrading.  There was no change in pronunciation, but the more excited they were, the longer they dragged out the “rrrrs.”

The Air Force doesn’t have a service grunt which has caused the organization to have a bad case of grunt envy.  They have tried over the years to come up with something grunt-worthy but have consistently failed.  A little over a decade ago someone tried to get the phrase “air power!” accepted as the service grunt.  However, it violated all the requirements of a service grunt—it was composed of actual words, it couldn’t be used to answer any question, and it didn’t have a macho-stud-hoss sound to it. Their best solution was to steal the Army’s hooah because they used to be part of the Army, but I don’t think anyone said hooah during the days of the Army Air Corps.  Airmen could use the sound that pilots make when they are pulling Gs, but that would sound like they were making a bowel movement. It is probably best if airmen don’t say anything at all. Leave the grunting in the other services where it belongs.       

               

  

Confessions of a llama queen

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 8 March 2015 under the title, "Not me, I'll never be a llama queen."

The world was treated to yet another absurd social phenomenon recently when the Twitter-Tumblr-Instagram universe exploded due to the combined effects of runaway llamas and the mysterious blue-black dress controversy.  It was an inane social media maelstrom of such enormous magnitude that even Kim Kardashian couldn’t resist becoming a part of it by posting about the dress. 

The llama event occurred right here in Arizona, where once again, we showed the world our impressive ability to distract ourselves from anything important that might be going on.  The llamas are certain to appear from behind the Curtain of Distraction in a future ASU basketball game.  Move aside unicorns, here comes the llama train. 

The two escaped llamas, which evoked a police response that hasn’t been seen since the Tison gang went on a rampage in 1978, paralyzed the news world for hours.  The llamas were in Sun City, of course, an epicenter of golf cart gang activity.  Sun City is to golf carts what Sturgis is to motorcycles.  The llamas, however, proved too fast for the golf cart wranglers.   Llamas, as it turns out, can run up to 28 mph.  Golf carts typically move at about 15 mph.  It was no contest. 

As someone who works with horses, I particularly enjoyed watching squads of llama catchers trying to surround and catch the llamas with outstretched and flapping arms.  Llamas are prey animals.  They didn’t see a group of loving human beings trying to hug them and make them safe.  What the llamas saw was a pack of terrifying, wing-flapping, beady-eyed predators who were obviously intending to make llama-burgers out of them.  Whenever I see this same activity in the horse stables, I always make a point of sitting on the porch, popping open a cool one, and watching the hilarious show to follow.  It just never gets old.  

To make sure that nothing was missed during the harrowing ordeal, at least two helicopters were scrambled overhead to film the unfolding drama.  The news anchors covering the story live proceeded to emit a torrent of horrible puns and rhyming phrases about the llamas.  Banners like “llama drama,” “llamas on the lam,” “llamas on the loose,” and “llow speed chase” scrolled shamelessly across the bottom of TVs throughout the nation during live telecasts of the event.  Well, loyal readers, I would never resort to such lame llamanisms in my column.  I’ll never be a llama queen. 

Once the story about the llamas broke, the Twitterverse exploded.  Even the Arizona Cardinals got in on the action, offering the llamas one-year deals to play ball for the Cards.  Silly idea, but they do need some help at the running back position.  Too bad llamas spit.  Although, who wouldn’t love to see Richard Sherman of the Seahawks get blasted with llama spit while trying to make a tackle.

 The other story that vomited onto the internet was the story about the blue and black dress.  Some people said the dress was black and blue, others white and gold. All I saw was ugly.  I didn’t matter to me which hue the dress was, it was hideous no matter which angle you viewed it.  If someone had worn that dress on the red carpet when Joan Rivers was still around, she would have spontaneously combusted into a cloud of botox vapor.   

The dress caused all kinds of strife throughout the country.  People became angry and fought with one another.  The nation is no longer divided into red states and blue states.  Now, we are divided into blue-black states and white-gold states.  Our sense of reality has been destroyed.  We no longer know what color our favorite football team is wearing. Are we cheering for the Panthers or the Saints?  The scientists who always clear these things up for us have calmly explained that the visual difference is due to primal biology.  You see, our caveman ancestors had to learn how to see things in broad daylight after having spent all morning in their man-caves watching the Panthers and Saints play on their cathode ray television sets.  Their brains had to interpret the reality of the visual world outside the cave once the light entered their corneas, bounced around their nasal cavities, and exited out through their left ear holes.  Well, I don’t know about you, but that explanation clears it up for me. 

Now, everyone is wondering about the black and white llamas.  Were they black and white or were they blue-black and white-gold?  I’m pretty sure the guy that lassoed the llamas from his pickup truck wasn’t sure what people meant when they asked to lasso the black one first.  He probably just closed his eyes and tossed the rope, hoping he didn’t come up with Kim Kardashian.  He heard tell she spits. 

The curtain of distraction

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 1 March 2015 under the title, "Taking pride in the 'curtain of distraction.'

It is not easy being an Arizona State graduate deep in the heart of Wildcat territory.  I am the only member of my family who didn’t get his undergrad degree from the University of Arizona, which means family gatherings are a hostile environment with endless jokes about the Tempe Normal School.  In the movie “Dumb and Dumber To,” even the Farrelly Brothers couldn’t pass up a shot at ASU.  When Jeff Daniel’s idiot character, Harry Dunne, looks through his mail that had been collecting at his parent’s house for twenty years he finds an acceptance letter from Arizona State.  Haha, Farrelly Brothers.  Haha.

It is not the first time that ASU has been ridiculed in pop culture.  In an episode of “The Simpsons,” Homer’s straight-laced neighbor, Ned Flanders, notices that Homer made it into heaven after a flood wiped out the entire town. Ned remarks, "Looks like Heaven's easier to get into than Arizona State."  In an episode of “30 Rock,” Alec Baldwin’s character Jack Donaghy says while discussing parenthood, "A parent is the one person who is supposed to make their kid think they can do anything -- says they're beautiful, even when they're ugly, thinks they're smart, even when they go to Arizona State." Even Sierra Vista Herald’s Matt Hickman mentioned in one his columns last fall that ASU was once a “party school full of idiots.” 

Oh yeah?  Well, I’m a proud alumnus of ASU from the time when it was still a party school full of idiots!  (I guess that clears up a question I had about which side of the “Idiots & Friends” page I belong.)  However, things have changed for my alma mater.  It is a much more serious school now where students dedicate their energy to bettering themselves and becoming scientists or something.  According to my detailed research of Playboy’s annual list of top ten party schools, ASU hasn’t been on the list in years.  Well, almost two.  Okay fine, but on the 2013 list they barely made ninth place, and last year U of A was fourth.  So take that Wilbur!

Yes, it appears ASU is well on its way to becoming a respected institution.  The Tempe Normal School is finally becoming a place where parents can confidently send their youngsters to an institution of higher learning without worrying about the unnecessary distractions of a university know primarily for the quality of its Beer Pong program.  That is until parents hear about the Curtain of Distraction. 

For those of you who don’t follow sports or read the paper or surf the internet or watch the news, you may not have heard about the Curtain of Distraction.  Since ASU students couldn’t get on the Party School List last year, they found another way to get noticed.  The Curtain of Distraction is set up on ASU’s basketball court in the student section.  The students have erected a curtain which opens whenever an opposing team basketball player prepares to take a free-throw.  Once the curtain opens, anything may emerge from it.  All of it is designed to distract the player making the free-throw.  Amorous unicorns, Elvis impersonators, crazy old ladies, man-eating sharks, pregnant clowns, synchronized swimming teams, and countless other frightening images have emerged from this curtain.  Opposing team free-throw shooting percentages have plummeted as a result.  How could they not?

If I were a basketball player, I’d consider this a godsend.  I couldn’t hit a free throw from the foul line if my life depended on it, but the Curtain of Distraction would provide a great excuse.  “Sorry, coach, but I got distracted by the fat, hairy, semi-naked guy imitating Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball.”  Any coach would accept that excuse.  In fact, there are a great many situations in life when we can use the Curtain to blame our failures.  We no longer need a dog to eat our homework.  Now, we have the Curtain of Distraction. 

“Sorry honey, I forgot to pick up the milk on the way home.  During lunch, I saw a clip of the ASU game on ESPN, and a guy in a lactating cow suit emerged from the Curtain of Distraction causing me to become lactose intolerant.”

“Sorry boss, I forgot to do the monthly budget report last night. During the ASU game, a couple of unicorns emerged from the Curtain of Distraction and starting making out with a man dressed like Richard Simmons.  I became temporarily blinded and violently ill and couldn’t do the report.” 

You get the idea. 

For you Wildcat fans who claim nothing good ever came out of Tempe, now you know better.  Thanks to ASU, we all now have a plausible excuse for inexplicable failure.  Fear the fork, Wilbur.  

Music diplomacy

Ambassador Alice Cooper

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 27 February 2015 under the title, "The history and possibilities of diplomusic."

The exchange of gifts between heads of state is part of the ritual diplomacy designed to show respect and goodwill.  Sometimes, the gifts have a symbolic meaning or are designed to show off the best of a nation’s craftsmanship or quality.  On the Official Website of the British Monarchy, it is noted that the Queen of England has received some interesting gifts over the years including a collection of seashells from Seychelles and a pair of cowboy boots from President Bush the Elder. The website also mentions she received a dozen cans of tuna but doesn’t say who gave them or why.  Obviously, they didn’t come from President Bush the Younger, or it would have been twelve cans of chili instead.    

However, President Obama set a new precedent in 2009 when he gave the British Monarch an iPod with music loaded on it.  I’m not sure what music he loaded, but I’m hoping it was the Top Ten Hits from Queen.  Nothing else would make any sense.  At least she could rock out to Bohemian Rhapsody.  Perhaps it was the Obama gift that inspired Secretary of State, John Kerry to take James Taylor to Paris with him last month to play, “You’ve Got a Friend” to the President of France to soothe some hurt feelings.  High diplomacy at its best. The country that gave us the Statue of Liberty and French Fries gets in return a sappy old song sung by an old, balding, soft rocker.  It could have been worse.  Kerry could have taken Billy Ray Cyrus and had him sing “Achy Breaky Heart.”   

Although Kerry probably cost America one of her closest allies, he has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for diplomacy.  Instead of giving questionable gifts like cowboy boots and iPods to foreign heads of state, our national leaders could bring a musician along to perform a song to convey our feelings. No more tuna cans for the Queen, now we got diplomusic. 

The possibilities are endless. For instance, instead of imposing economic sanctions on countries that are doing things we don’t like, we could send Alice Cooper to sing to them.  What nation wouldn’t be intimidated by hearing Alice sing, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and then by watching him chop the head off a doll with a guillotine?  For really serious foreign policy situations, we could have Ozzy Osbourne go along and have him bite the head off a live bat.   If we wanted to skip diplomacy altogether and provoke an instant war, we could use Kanye West.  We’d only need to send him to whatever award presentation a given country was having and leave him there for about fifteen minutes.  We’d have to make sure NORAD was alerted first. 

If we had diplomusic in the 80s, we could have had Madonna wear one of her cone bras while accompanying President Regan to negotiations with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear warheads.  Too bad Miley Cyrus wasn’t around when Reagan was giving his Berlin Wall speech back in 1987.  As soon as he got done saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Miley could have come swinging in naked on a heavy steel ball singing, “Wrecking Ball.”  The Soviet Union would have collapsed on the spot, and the Cold War would have ended two years earlier than it did.  Of course, Miley’s tendency to stick her tongue out all the time might have resulted in another war with Germany, but sometimes risks must be taken in high-stakes diplomacy.

We know that the Chinese respect the tiger, so why not send Katy Perry on a diplomatic mission to China.  She could ride into Beijing singing “Roar” on that giant tiger she rode in the Super Bowl.  She could bring those dancing sharks, too.  No sense in pulling any punches. However, the Chinese might counter with “Gangnam Style,” so maybe we’d better not go down that road.  It could result in Mutually Assured Pop Music Destruction. 

Of course, we could also use diplomusic to foster trade relations.  We export a lot of beef to Asian, so maybe we could send Lady Gaga over in her meat dress to facilitate beef exports.  Better not send her to North Korea though, I heard Kim Jong Un had his uncle eaten alive by starving dogs.  There’d be nothing left of Gaga but a nose ring and an armpit tat. 

On second thought, maybe diplomusic isn’t a good idea.  Sending James Taylor to Paris may have been pathetic, but at least it wasn’t dangerous.  I’m not sure you could say the same if we sent Justin Beiber over there.  Some things just can’t be forgiven.  I mean, look what he did to the Steelers last season.  

Space dirt

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 15 February 2015 under the title, "Recalling that first X-Wing Fighter run."

There is a museum exhibit touring the United States right now featuring costumes from the original Star Wars movies.  It was bound to happen.  Pretty much everything associated with entertainment during my childhood is now a museum piece.  Reel-to-reel tape decks, vinyl records, cathode ray tube television sets, and the Atari Pong game are all now just relics in roadside attractions.  How long before Alice Cooper gets stuffed and displayed in a glass booth next to “The Thing” in Benson. 

Young people today don’t understand the impact that the first Star Wars movie had on American culture.  Up until that point, space-themed entertainment was boringly squeaky clean.  Until Luke Skywalker entered the realm of our consciousness in 1977, we had only Star Trek to shape our vision of space travel.  The series had ended in 1969, but it was rerun on TV constantly ever after until everyone in my age group could have detailed conversations about photon torpedoes, tribbles, and Klingons. However, the Enterprise and its crew were always spotless.  You never saw a pile of grease rags in the engine room or excess wax coming out of Spock’s pointed ears.  Even the Klingons were clean and looked like regular humans with deeper tans and Fu Manchu mustaches.  Except for the facial hair, they could have starred on Jersey Shore. 

From the time Captain Kirk began going where no man had gone before until Luke Skywalker began looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi, there was not much going on in the space genre.  Only two films really had any impact during that time.  The first was Stanley Kubrick’s  2001: A Space Odyssey.   This film also featured squeaky clean spacecraft and antiseptic living quarters.  After the initial ape-man scene, pretty much everything looks like it was cleaned by Martha Stewart.  The only other notable space film that premiered during the Star Trek-Star Wars gap was Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda.  Although Barbarella’s living quarters appeared to be lined with Wookie fur, I doubt anyone noticed if it was clean or not since Barbarella removed her spacesuit in the opening scene to reveal…well, everything. 

So, along comes Star Wars, which revolutionized the space theme movie genre forever.  No more spotless spacecraft and conveniently disappearing bodies after being zapped by a phaser.   Finally, a space film with some dirty spaceships, limb chopping lightsabers, alien blasting blasters, and heroes winding up in a garbage compactor with a snake monster.  From the perspective of my generation, it was like someone had crossed The Wild Bunch with Battlestar Galactica. 

A teenager at the time the first Star Wars movie came out, my friends and I went to see it at the fabled Cine Capri in downtown Phoenix.  The movie was a hit of unimaginable proportions.  Star Wars was so popular with Arizonans that it ran at the theater for over a year.  For my friends and I, it was a mind-blowing experience.  We drove to the theater in my 1967 Chevrolet Caprice, but on the ride home my car had been transformed into an X-wing fighter.  We roared back to the east valley, from whence we came, dodging asteroids, imperial battlecruisers, and death stars all the while encouraging each other to “use the force.”  We somehow made it back alive. 

The Star Wars costume exhibit, which will be in Seattle until October before it starts to move about the country, features some sixty costumes from the movie series.  Of course, the Darth Vader costume will be featured and is situated so you can get a selfie with it.  The only restriction is that you can’t use tripods, flash photography, or a selfie stick.  WHAT! You can have my selfie stick when you pry it from my cold dead fingers, Darth Vader, you evil villain!  The other big costume display is that of Princess Leia’s slave bikini. I have to say that until I read of this exhibit, I’d never seen the words slave and bikini together.  Of course, I knew exactly what they were referring to as does every red-blooded American that saw Carrie Fisher wear that costume back in 1983. A bikini made of metal?  A genius marketing tactic for a movie series written and produced specifically with teenage boys in mind. 

Thus, Princess  Leia’s slave bikini and the other hallowed artifacts from the Star Wars movies will be paraded around the United States until the first of the next series of Star Wars movies premiers in December, 2015.  I have no idea what the next series will be like, but hopefully, it will return to the simple, adventurous, gritty storyline that rocked our world back in the 70s. I drive a Ford pickup truck now, but I bet I can turn my vehicle into an X-wing fighter one more time.   

Monkeys in a sick zoo

Someone once said that art is in the eye of the beholder. That philosophy is being put to the test in a museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands that is currently exhibiting giant sculptures of dung. The poop sculptures were created by a group of four artists from Austria calling themselves Gelitin who specialize in this kind of “art.” The four artists met in 1978 while attending summer camp.

I’m betting that their parents are wondering if they did the right thing by sending their kids to summer camp way back then just to get a break from the little creeps for a little while.  Most kids go to summer camp to learn how to swim or ride horses or hike the wilderness. The Gelitin kids learned how to make giant poop sculptures.

But, maybe I’m trying to apply my own cultural bias to the Austrian summer camp experience. After looking up one of their camps on the internet, I discovered that I might have been way off base in understanding what Austrian kids do at these things.  

  

According to one website, the camps are “designed for those who want to have fun in the summer and not sit listlessly at home.” OK, that sounds normal enough if not exactly appealing to today’s youth who would love nothing more than to sit listlessly at home. 

Some of the specialized camps include:

•         Horse camp: For all those who love horses and want to learn more.
•         Movie camp: Film shooting, cutting, & a bit of Hollywood.
•         Learning camp: perfect preparation for the new school year.

And then there was this.

•         Austria’s first celiac disease camp: action and adventure await you

Who wouldn’t want to go to a camp where action and adventure await those with oversensitive bowels? It sounds like a camp that the Addams Family kids would attend. I’m guessing celiac disease camp wasn’t available when the Gelitin artists went to summer camp in 1978 since we didn’t know about the whole gluten thing back in the seventies. Maybe they went to syphilis camp instead. That is about the only disease I can think of that would affect your brain in such a way that you would want to create giant statues of crap.

The Gelitin artists practice something called Relational Art which is defined as "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space." What they mean is the artists are making their audience the monkeys in their sick zoo. 

In 2013, they put on an art show in which street artists drew portraits of people seated on a stage at the Teatro Arsenale in Milan, Italy. It sounds normal enough, but they had placed the paper on the surface of the stage in front of their seated model and were drawing the portraits with a paintbrush stuck up their posteriors. Boy, you just don’t get more relational than that. At least they were using paint.

More recently, they exhibited some sculpture in New York’s Green Naftali Gallery that was composed of lumps of clay that the artists had thrust their, uhm, “artistic creativity” into. The exhibit included 40 pieces. One wonders how many bottles of Viagra went into that effort.

I’m not exactly a connoisseur of contemporary art. I think the art world may have taken a wrong turn about the time of Jackson Pollock. Let us be thankful, though, that Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci never went to an Austrian summer camp.  

I was a hipster before being a hipster was hip

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 25 January 2015.

One of the problems with not being a Millennial is that I’m not constantly wired into the social media universe. I don’t get constantly alerted by my phone that there is some vitally important social phenomenon going on right now that will change life as we know it for the next thirty seconds. For instance, I missed that Kim Kardashian break-the-internet thing. References to it kept popping up here and there, but I had no clue what it meant. While at the ASU-UofA game last November, I was sitting next to some ASU students sporting “Break-the-Cat” shirts with Sparky’s face photo-shopped over Kardashian’s in one of her look-at-my-derriere photographs. “Nice shirt,” I said without having any idea what I was seeing. My daughter and son-in-law later had to slowly and carefully explain it to their rotary-dial, dinosaur father. 

My daughter, who is a card-carrying, hipster-qualified, Millennial advised me to check the “trending” feature on FaceBook to stay up with important social developments.  I just checked it.  Jane Fonda admits that posing for photos on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in 1972 was a huge mistake.  She just figured that out? The other trending story was “DeflateGate,” the allegation that the New England Patriots were deflating footballs to make them easier to throw and catch during the AFC championship game.  But, doesn’t that mean it was easier for the Colts to catch the ball also?  According to my daughter, I can arrange to have these vitally important stories sent to my phone as soon as they break at any time during the day or night.  I don’t know about you, loyal readers, but the only socially significant information that I need to have sent to me in the middle of the night is that there is a meteor headed for my house…or, that Kim Kardashian is headed for my house wearing a Sparky mask. 

However, there is one vitally important social development that I should have been aware of  but, has somehow escaped my attention.  The vitally, important social development that I should have been aware of and wasn’t is that I’ve apparently been a hipster for my entire life.  A hipster is generally defined as someone who follows trends or fashions that are considered outside the cultural mainstream. Again my daughter, who is a font of disturbing information, was explaining to me how she frequents a hipster beer-tasting establishment with her husband.  She tells me that she has to wear a plaid shirt and wear geeky, black horn-rimmed glasses while she’s there. The hipsters like to drink what they consider to be counter-culture beers.   Now this is where it gets weird.  The favorite beer of hipsters is Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Other beers they like are Olympia and Schlitz.  For bourbon, they prefer Wild Turkey.  Are you kidding me?  These are the kinds of drinks that you’d expect to find in a Wilcox honky-tonk.  If you wear a plaid shirt and Buddy Holly eyeglasses while drinking a Schlitz, you’re living a lifestyle that even Barry Goldwater would have been comfortable in.

My, how things change.  I’ve been wearing plaid shirts, geeky glasses, and drinking cheap beer most my entire life.   At no point in my life was this behavior ever seen as cool.  It was just the way it was.  What a shock to find out that everyone from my generation that grew up in Arizona has been on the cutting edge of a nation-wide social coolness phenomenon for fifty years and didn’t even know it.

I hear hipsters like those fat-tired, no gear, bulky framed bicycles to ride.  What’s next?  Slinkies and hula hoops?  The skinny-jeans they like to wear now remind me of the straight-leg, high-water jeans we used to wear as kids.  The difference is that we had to wear ill-fitting jeans because our parents couldn’t afford to buy new ones each time we grew, not because we thought it was cool. 

I’m worried about how far the hipsters might take this glorification of the fashions of my generation.  I don’t mind the fashions of the 50s and 60s, but what if they start assuming the fashions of the 70s?  I don’t think I can stand it if they start wearing polyester, bell-bottomed leisure suits and grow fu-Manchu mustaches on their faces. Maybe I should subscribe to one of those social media phone alert services to warn me at the first sighting of someone wearing a puka shell necklace.  If that happens, you can look for me in a Wilcox honky-tonk wearing a plaid shirt and sipping on a Schlitz, waiting for the fashion trends to change so I’m considered cool once again.   

Me and Kim Kardashian that is.  

Delivery drones of death

I’m becoming more and more alarmed at the steady, creeping growth of robot technologies. If robot cars, hamburger flippers, and sex dolls weren’t bad enough, someone has designed a robot that can come to your house. 

A company called Starship is making delivery robots that can bring food or other packages directly to your house or place of business. You can order it with the click of a button on your phone app. The GPS in the robot can zero in on your location and deliver your avocado on toast and Triple Mocha Frappuccino within about fifteen minutes.

The state of Arizona has just passed legislation allowing these robots to use city sidewalks. However, the law states that robots must obey the same laws as other pedestrians—meaning, I guess, that these things will be completely lawless. I envision delivery robots wandering around Phoenix streets staring at their cell phones while playing Pokémon Go and falling into sewer manholes.

It could have been worse. The Arizona lawmakers could have said the robots are required to obey the same laws as bicycle riders. Then they could blow through stoplights and stop signs, block traffic by traveling side-by-side on narrow streets, and achieve speeds of 25 miles per hour on a crowded sidewalk.  

As it is, these things will only move at about four miles per hour and will have an orange flag attached to them so you can see them better. They can see you better also. The robot has cameras installed all the way around the chassis so they can see and identify anyone that might try to steal the food in the cargo bay.  It also has an alarm that sounds off if someone tries to pick it up and run off with it. Equipped with a two-way radio system it can converse with anyone it encounters. The New York model is programmed to say, “Hey, I’m walking here!” whenever a car gets too close to it.

The company says that in all the testing they’ve done that no one has ever tried to steal the cargo or vandalize the robot. But, that is what they said about the Canadian Death Robot known as HitchBOT before his horrific demise in a Philadelphia back alley three years ago. Before long, these delivery robots will be modified so that they can defend themselves from attackers. They could arm it with tasers or tear gas or maybe just put a little Rottweiler inside of it that could jump out of the cargo bay.

Whatever they decide to do, it will only be a matter of time before the weaponized delivery robots turn on us and try to take over the world.  Fortunately, the first victims will all be hipsters who will be ordering artisan food and craft beer with these things before it stops being ironic. That will give the rest of us time to come up with a means to destroy the delivery robots. We will probably have to go back in time and kill whoever designed these things in the first place as they did in Terminator II.  

Before that happens, though, I suppose we can think of some good use for these things. They are cheap, costing less than $2,000 so your average citizen could easily afford one. I think this would be a great way to take some of the pressure off busy moms who could use these things to pick up groceries while they take the kids to soccer practice.

Come to think of it. How many kids could you get into one of these things?  

Exploding wedding birds

This article originally appeared in the Sierra Vista Herald on 18 January 2015.

I was recently invited to a wedding in Tucson, which was nice.  At this point in my life, I’m usually only invited to funerals.  This wedding was held at a nice resort at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains.  The ceremony was held outdoors in a grove of large mesquite and cottonwood trees decorated with twinkly lights.  The happy couple stood in a white gazebo upon an immense, perfectly manicured lawn, while nearby, ducks quacked blissfully upon a small pond.  It could not have been a more ideal setting.   It rained, of course.    

The couple getting married were military, but were not from the same branch, so there were members of various branches of the armed forces in attendance.  This is always a bad idea.  It is like having a wedding and inviting Wildcat fans and Sun Devil fans.  Come to think of it; they were in attendance as well. It is a wonder that the resort was not destroyed by the end of the evening.  The only reason it survived, I think, is because the owner was there and he was a retired Marine.  He knew how to keep me…I mean, things from getting out of hand. 

I used to really enjoy going to wedding receptions when I was growing up.  Where else could you go and watch adults acting so stupid?  I fit right in.  Even as a child I was way ahead of my time when it came to acting stupid.  At one wedding I attended, the bride tossed her garter to the male guests in the same manner in which the bouquet is thrown to the bridesmaids.  A brawl ensued between some of the more badly behaved boys who tore at the garter like alligators fighting over a live chicken. Some eyes may have been blackened in the process.  Somewhere there is a photo of me wearing the garter around my head like a sweatband—the slightly torn garter tab dangling over my bruised eye.   

At another wedding I attended as a child, the guests had been given some little packages of rice in white muslin bags, bound with a little white ribbon. Very tasteful. This was back in the days before we believed that throwing rice at weddings caused birds to explode.  I was given one of the bags of rice and instructed to throw it at the bride when she came out of the chapel.  I was not told that you were supposed to open the bag before you threw the rice.  I had a great arm as a child and would later in life play pitcher for my Little League team.  I wound up and threw the bag at the bride, catching her square in the left cheek.  The expression on her face will haunt me forever.  It was if I had thrown an exploding bird at her. 

Back in the good-old, exploding birds days, presents were brought to the wedding and placed on a big table.  This is not done now.  Now, you go online and buy gifts through a registry.  This is a much better idea, especially for people who hate shopping and wrapping presents.  For my military friends, I selected a deep fat fryer from their registry.  I had a card included.  It read, “I hope your love for each other burns as hot as the food items placed in this appliance.”  What can I say? I have a way with words. 

Three weeks after the wedding, I found the blessed couple down at the stables (where I know them from) carefully removing the manure from their horse’s pen.  It turns out the new husband had lost his wedding ring while feeding his horse. He believed that the ring had fallen into the hay and had been consumed by the horse.  Although I considered this highly unlikely, I did not want to spoil what was clearly going to be such a romantic scene.  What could possibly be more symbolic than seeing the happy couple working together, carefully sifting through horse manure, looking for the token of their young love?  Perfect.   

They eventually found it, of course.  Not in the manure, but in the grass outside the horse pen.  After all the celebrating and hugging between the couple was over, I sternly assumed my role as their wise mentor and counselor. 

                “And, what have we learned from this?” I asked the relieved husband.

                “Uh, to remove my ring or wear gloves when feeding my horse,” he said thoughtfully.

                “ No,” I said, “It is not to get married.” 

When I recounted this conversation to my wife later, she rewarded my wise mentoring with a new bruised eye to match the one in the garter photo from long ago.  What can I say? I have a way with words.  

Selling my soul for biodynamic food

It is not easy being an ignorant savage in an increasingly progressive world. Even simple tasks like finding an appropriate place to eat food can be extraordinarily complicated if you are saddled with guilt about the environment, animal rights, and not being appropriately progressive. During a recent trip to Tempe, which is a typical college town, I endeavored to find a restaurant that met all the requirements of being socially acceptable to even the most stuck-up hipster nerd.

Through an exhaustive search which consisted of me Googling the phrase hipster-nerd restaurants, I managed to find a café that promised to be biodynamic, organic, and artisan. Wow! Jackpot! It was like winning the pretentious foody trifecta in one go. Of course, I wasn’t sure what any of these terms meant, but they sounded annoyingly socially conscious. Perfect.

I think I understand what organic means. That means the food is grown by people with bare feet who use their dog’s feces to fertilize it and then sell the produce for ridiculously high prices. I am vaguely aware of the term, “artisanal.” I think it means you will pay a lot more for it and it because it comes in a glass jar with hand-drawn labels.

However, I had no idea what biodynamic meant. It doesn’t sound healthy. I immediately thought of that scene in the movie, “Alien,” when that creature jumped out of John Hurt’s chest. OK, maybe that was an extreme example of biodynamic. Maybe the term just meant you’d get a tapeworm from the food. 

I asked the receptionist at the restaurant what biodynamic meant. She said she didn’t know because she was just a receptionist. “Perfect answer,” I said. She thought about it some more and came back to me eager to provide a better answer. She told me it meant that no pesticides were used on the food, blah, blah, blah. “That sounds like organic farming,” I said. She admitted that they were similar.

So, I turned to the ultimate source of all human knowledge—Google.

It turns out that biodynamic doesn’t mean that a body-snatcher plant will duplicate your human form and then consume your body husk. It means something completely different and somewhat more unbelievable. It is a type of farming that combines organic farming techniques with spiritualism and lunar and astrological influences.

You will be surprised to know that biodynamic farmer wasn’t invented by a Millennial. It was invented by this guy from Austria named Rudolf Steiner who got into spiritualism after he saw the ghost of his aunt on a train in 1870. He invented his holistic approach to agriculture in 1924 in response to requests from farmers who were concerned about the future of agriculture. Steiner laid down the techniques for natural farming that became the basis for organic farming today.

But, Steiner took it a bit further. He required that farmers put manure compost in cow horns and bury them in the ground through the winter to prepare the soil. Next, powdered quartz was put in the cow horns and buried in the spring. Then, things get a little weird. The biodynamic farmer must bury various combinations of herbs, cow guts, peat, flowers, and the skull of a domestic animal stuffed with bark at precise points in the astrological calendar to properly prepare the soil for the intended crop.

At least there was no mention of demon blood being sprinkled on the ground or people dancing naked around the cow horns in the moonlight.

By the way, the food was excellent. I just hope they didn’t steal my soul in the process. 

Urine trouble, pardner

There are some common-sense cowboy sayings that every man or woman should be familiar with even if they don’t wear a big hat and castrate cattle for a living. Although most of these sayings were practical observations that only made sense on the open range, we can apply some of them to life in general.

One example of a saying that makes sense out West but has application to city life would be, “Never drop your gun to hug a grizzly.” Now, I can’t think of any logical reason for a cowboy to hug a grizzly, but I suppose it gets lonely out on the prairie and a cowpoke must look for affection wherever he can find it. In any case, the application to urban life is that you should never let your guard down when dealing with potentially dangerous people—like a mother-in-law, for instance.

Another example of a good cowboy saying is, “Always drink upstream from the herd.” To a city dweller, I think this translates to, “Never open your mouth when swimming in a public pool.” However, based on a recent story I read in the news, I may have been wrong about this.  It might really mean, “Never use a microwave oven in a convenience store.”

According to numerous news reports, last week a woman was cited for putting her urine in a microwave oven at a 7-Eleven store in Aurora, Colorado. The woman, whose name is Angelique Sanchez, was seen by a store employee putting something into a microwave oven. Seconds later the employee heard a loud bang and then saw Sanchez take a white plastic bottle out of the oven.

The clerk saw a yellow, urine-smelling liquid dripping out of the oven and demanded that Sanchez clean it up. Sanchez grabbed a handful of napkins and wiped the liquid out of the oven onto the floor and left. The Aurora police were summoned and tracked down Sanchez a half mile away at a local health clinic where she was taking a urinalysis test as part of a job application.

Apparently, she planned to heat up the urine in the white bottle until it was body-temperature and then submit it as her own sample. I guess if the sample was below body temperature the clinic people would know that it was not from her. I guess she has a close friend willing to donate their urine to her or maybe she mugged a hobo earlier in the day.

When the police officer questioned Sanchez about leaving urine in an oven that people were using to cook their food in, she allegedly told the officer that it wasn’t real urine. Oh, that changes everything. I’m sure most people wouldn’t be bothered by cooking their food in an oven soaked in a yellow liquid that only smells like urine.

Whatever was in that plastic bottle, Sanchez was ultimately cited for destruction of a $500 appliance, and she wasn’t allowed to complete her drug test. The news articles didn’t say what job she was applying for. Since marijuana is legal in Colorado, it must have been a job that permits smoking dope, but not crack or meth—a marijuana-friendly job like airline pilot, school teacher, or Navy SEAL. Whatever.

 The important lesson here is to never, never, never under any circumstances eat anything that comes out of a convenience store microwave--or as a cowboy would say, “Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it is critical to know what it was.”

Designer nipples

Entertainment world celebrities have long driven fashion trends in America. Whether it’s a style of hair, dress, or fitness, people will spend lots of their hard-earned cash to ape their favorite cultural icon. Celebrities themselves are not immune to this desire to appropriate the style of other celebrities. Witness Michael Jackson who had himself physically modified with specific attributes he admired in others. Of course, we all understood that Jackson was nuts.

Now, it seems that ordinary people are paying big bucks to plastic surgeons to copy a specific physical characteristic of a specific celebrity.  In this recent fashion trend, people are asking doctors to give them Kendall Jenner’s nipples.

Not being in tune with the Hollywood fashion world, I wasn’t sure who Kendall Jenner was. I recognized the last name as belonging to the Kardashian-Jenner clan of people with no obvious talent other than self-promotion but wasn’t clear on how she fits into it or what she did that was so important that people wanted her nipples. After I did a little research, I discovered that Kendall Jenner’s contributions to the entertainment world were stunningly uninspiring. She is a model and has appeared in many of her clan’s reality TV shows. 

I’m still not sure what the deal is with Kendall’s nipples. Apparently, they are often visible through her clothing. Reportedly, some women admire their pointiness and wish to achieve a similar look. Indeed. It just goes to show how little I know about this subject. I thought all nipples were pointy. Now I know better. I have now learned that some women suffer from underperforming nipples and that they get nipple envy.

Fortunately, there are plenty of plastic surgeons out there who are willing to help women overcome this serious social stigma. Surgeons can provide several different modifications to your pointy bits to meet your personal goals. They can change the shape, color, size, and pointiness of your nipples and areolas. The modifications aren’t permanent but last a couple of years which is way better than your standard BOTOX treatment that only lasts about four months. The cost depends on what you want done but starts at about $700.

Wow, that seems like a lot of money for something that a couple of ice cubes could do.

However, if you don’t want to shell out $700 every couple of years to stay abreast (get it?) of current fashions, you can go with a cheaper option. A company called, “Just Nips” will sell you a pair of nipples for $24.99. They can be used up to ten times, and they come in two sizes—cold and freezing. They have an adhesive backing that allows you to position them where needed.

I’m not sure how Kendall Jenner became the poster child for designer nipples. It seems to me lots of other celebrities frequently appear in public with visible headlamps. I’m wondering if there is a catalog that people can use. Categories could include regular, celebrity, and porn star. Maybe Kendall’s half-sister, Kim Kardashian should give up on the perfume business and launch a designer nipple line.

There is also the possibility someone will design a nipple that can be adjusted as needed. Settings would include lingerie, bikini, t-shirt, wool sweater, arctic parka, and fembot (for NRA activists). Nipple color could also be adjusted between pink, cocoa, and Rudolph. Settings could be changed by twisting the control nipple installed on either the right or left, depending on preferences.

Well, I suppose it could be worse. Instead of Kendall nipples, people could be trying to get Caitlyn nipples.  

Domo arigato Ms. Roboto

Just because I’m paranoid about robots, doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to take over the world. I just learned that in the great city of Tokyo, Japan a robot is running for mayor of the western part of the city, called Tama. The robot, who suspiciously doesn’t have a name, promises to be “fair and balanced” to the people.  The robots campaign slogan is, “Artificial intelligence will change Tama city.”

The silver robot is designed to look like a woman. I’m guessing that is to make it look less threatening to voters. Although instead of a traditional Japanese hairstyle, it has a sleek looking mohawk. I also can’t help but notice that the female robot candidate has D cup-sized breastplates. Good for her. That should be worth a few votes. I guess the Japanese voters have never seen the Austin Powers movie in which fembots attack him with guns poking out of their breasts. It was only his mojo that saved him from that booby trap.

 The proposed robot mayor is being promoted as an improvement over a regular human politician because it can analyze petitions put forth by the citizenry and propose solutions based on irrefutable data as opposed to the biased, self-serving manipulation of information concerning the request. Thus, the robot could logically and fairly condemn you to be a robot slave for the rest of your life in the best interests of the community. 

Some have criticized the idea of a robot mayor because the robot is programmed by someone else to do its bidding. But, really, how is that different from a human politician’s campaign manager? At least an artificial candidate doesn’t come with all the baggage that a human candidate has. For instance, you don’t have to worry about bimbo robot eruptions or a porn star announcing that she had an affair with the candidate sometime in the past. 

Or do you? With sex robots becoming more and more popular, how do we know that miss Tokyo mohawk boob job isn’t a retooled former employee from a sex robot bordello? Robot candidate is a little too hot to be a politician. A female robot politician should look more like Hillary Clinton than Scarlett Johansson.

I’m also a little concerned with the campaign slogan. “Artificial intelligence will change Tama city.” And what does the robot mean by “fair and balanced?” If all human inhabitants of Tama city become slaves to robots, is that considered fair and balanced since everyone is being treated the same?” Artificial intelligence would change the city, just not necessarily in a good way.

Still, there would be some benefits to having a robot candidate. For one thing, you wouldn’t have to have those annoying teleprompters anymore. The speech would just be uploaded into the robot’s brain, so it wouldn’t be so obvious that the candidate was being programmed by someone else. Also, a robot wouldn’t have to worry about flop sweat like Richard Nixon had. A robot candidate would be as telegenic as Jack Kennedy.

A robot candidate could also campaign endlessly without getting tired or passing out while getting into a van or something. You wouldn’t have to worry about a robot candidate driving their mistress off a bridge in the middle of the night either.

Another ultimately cool thing that a robot candidate could do is that it could be programmed to be a voting booth.  So, after the robot gave its campaign speech, you could just walk up and stick your ballet into its mouth.   

Actually, the more I think about it, a robot mayor doesn’t sound that bad.   

Getting flippy with hamburgers

In the past, I have written at length about the dangers of robots. Sure, robots look all cute and stuff in the Jetsons cartoons, but they are a lurking, societal timebomb just waiting to go off and destroy humanity. We are the agents of our robotic destruction, though. By insisting on increased wages for fast food employees, we have hastened the day when our Big Macs will be served to us by soulless machines that lack humanity and don’t even suffer from acne. 

A burger chain called CaliBurger has replaced its human hamburger flippers with a monstrosity named “Flippy” the robot. Flippy is essentially a mechanical arm that holds a spatula.  Flippy uses thermal imaging and 3D optics to determine when to flip the burgers. It then places the perfectly cooked patties on a hamburger bun. If the order calls for cheese or other toppings, the robot will summon a human to put it on. I’m wondering about the nature of this human summoning. Does Flippy crack a robotic whip?

JOB ALERT!  Hamburger robot cheese slave. Earn $15 per hour putting cheese slices on up to 150 hamburger patties hourly when summoned by your evil hamburger robot overlord. May also be required to put onions, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes on the food product. Incorrect placement of hamburger toppings may result in instant vaporization by robot master. No smoke breaks.

The McDonalds Corporation has already begun placing ordering kiosks in its restaurants. Customers can use the kiosks to order their food without having to speak to a human being. Kiosk ordering is consistent with current trends in a society in which people prefer online interaction to actual human contact. McDonalds Corp insists that the kiosks will not cause its employees to lose their jobs. The corporation will move its employees to other positions within the restaurant. Sure. Other positions such as robot slave.

There was a story in the news last year that McDonald's was opening a restaurant in Phoenix that was completely run by robots. The restaurant was to be a prototype that, if successful, would herald the takeover of thousands of other restaurants with robots. Thus, McDonald's would no longer have to deal with human error, human hygiene, human laziness, human theft, or human wage protests. But, where is the fun in that?

The story turned out to be fake news. There is no robot restaurant in Phoenix. The real robot hamburger restaurant is in a secret government underground laboratory in New Mexico.

I haven’t been to any restaurants with hamburger ordering kiosks yet. I’m wondering how they can program these things to duplicate the wonderful experience of having a friendly human take your order. Is there a selection list that includes getting the order wrong, taking forever to fill it, adding a human hair, and spitting in your food if they don’t like you?

There are some experiences that just can’t be duplicated by robots.

Well, if they can replace the cashier and the hamburger cooker, how long before the rest of the positions at a fast food restaurant gets replaced? Surely, it can’t be that hard for evil scientists to design a robot that can put cheese slices on a burger. The fully automated McDonalds restaurant story may have been a hoax, but how long before it isn’t?  Once the fast food industry figures out how to eliminate all its annoying and overpaid human employees, they will only have one thing left to do to make the entire industry perfect. That is, they will have to figure out how to replace the human customers with robotic ones.