Angels and Demons Play Red Rover

They're all arrayed for the greatest battle ever in cosmic history, the battle over my precious soul and the world. Oh yeah, nothing small. Sometimes I think I'm nothing. Then I realize, Dad mabbit, I'm as good as they get. Except for the bad teeth.

On one side, wearing gold trimmed wings and hoisting flaming swords, are the illustrious angelic forces. The opposing side has the demons, also illustrious in their own way, bringing the fragrance of cinder to the proceedings. I'm in the chariot with the one true deity Krishna, watching to see if Red Rover will break the line.

Because this is something like the Ultimate Contest -- so important that the Magic Butler's ascent to Heaven is frozen in place till it's decided -- each side is especially rapt. Red Rover has the life of the spirit racing through his spine, from his Eilo bottom to his Meniggesstroeth top.

Lately, of course, I have been friends with the demons. Demons 1. Demons 2. Hence, the battle, as the angels are very much against that sort of thing. Yet how often the angels have helped me! Hedgerow 1. Hedgerow 2. But who knows whether a similar alliance with demons wouldn't have kept me more well-rounded? Whatever, they both appear jealous, so it's one or the other, with my proxy in the fight, Red Rover, running the line. I believe the score is something like 50-50 out a best-of-100, with the deciding run ... NEXT!

The big difference in the last run is that Krishna has told me that many in the struggle will perish. So if I'm rooting for either side, it should be the angels, since those are the spirit of my body parts they represent. But the demons are old friends and acquaintances. So I'm torn.

Are angels better than demons? That's the question. For all their so-called goodness and assistance, it sure seems like angels are quick with resentment and a superior attitude. Whereas demons, always kicked down, seem to be thankful for every dry morsel you throw them. On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln thought the angels of our nature were worth lifting up. But he's the same guy who killed vampires at night. Which hardly sounds like a fair fight, right when they're sleeping. So Lincoln sucks.

People who like angels are supposedly the strong. Strong? Think again. Every little old lady I've ever known, who couldn't get her walker out of the quicksand-thicket of short carpet had angels on her curtains and TV. What kind of strength is that? And people who like demons are supposedly the weak. Weak? Don't they break chains in the tombs? If they're so weak, what are we doing chaining them there in the first place? I'd like to be that weak! I'd join the carnival and make money in the freak show.

Angels, for all the good we think they do, have big heads. And insinuate themselves in lots of situations for personal gain and favors. Ever read Guideposts magazine? Those same ladies with their stuck walkers are always having angelic visitations. That has to be an ego trip for angels, as much as having these gals on a leash and giving them a nasty tug every little whip-stitch. "I give you doily, you give me article."

This stuff is constant for these ladies. And every one of them has a framed color 8 x 10 of a precious dog, now dead. I ask, if angels are so good, why didn't they spare their dog? Selfishness. The dog always noticed them there and barked their heads off. But with the pooch out of the way -- prematurely -- the way was clear for them to move in. One last thing: Ever seen even one of these 8 x 10s where the soft-focused dog wasn't strangely cross-eyed? I'll tell you why: Angels ran 'em ragged.

I haven't got time for the many virtues of demons. Except, next time you see a guy under a bridge out like a light, with a stolen bottle, now empty, think of the peace of spirit of that dear soul. He knows he'll wake up -- probably, hopefully not -- and there'll be a nice, kind demon there somewhere, sleeping in the hottest part of the campfire, who'll help him forget today as well. I never heard of a demon killing a beggar's dog. Just the opposite, in fact; in the absence of a campfire, a very warm spot for sleeping is inside, right next to a dog's heart, with its soothing beat.

OK, back to Red Rover. The angels blow in a prolonged chorus their several conch shells. Eilo blows Saddlesore and Wart answers with Toadpee. Cheetah sounds Harlot, Amen on Overbite. Asterechme delivers a sustained blast on Clarity, Tricky comes in on Dicky. And, finally, Chaos deafens everyone in the valley with his terrible sounding of Kontrol, only to be trumped by Meniggesstroeth delivering the greatest blow ever on his conch, the redoubtable Einstein.

I'm suddenly full of fear, fearful of losing either side. I have personal reasons. I need all these lugs in my life. And, if a bunch of them are gone, it'll throw the balance of nature all out of whack. You know what the Eternal World Soul Motor sounds like, of course: Chugga, chugga, chugga, wheeze, chugga, chugga... If it's out of whack, it might be Chugga, chugga, clink, wheeze, spitz, chugga, fizz. No good. Something exactly like that, sounding minor when you read it, could be the destruction of everything.

Krishna, though, called me to silence. Saying, "You are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these others. Nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul. Therefore, get up with determination ... and let Red Rover run!"

With that, I'd learned my lesson. I basically live by two undying principles: 1) Don't pull a gun unless you're prepared to use it; and, 2) See No. 1. So I waved my flag and Red Rover was off! It was one of those slow-motion sequences, where we see Red Rover with a slow-motion head of steam. The demons are in slow-motion, too, jumping in sequence like pistons.

On the angels' side, in slow-motion, they have that look of, "I pity the po' fool who even thinks about it!" Red Rover looked like he could read Meniggesstroeth's stern mind and had his first taste of fear. I saw Krishna reared back, his mouth open in slow motion; I could see his teeth weren't that great either. Could he be in Amen's corner?

O! Damn! That's it! Guys with bad teeth stick together! I opened my mouth proudly and threw my power in with Krishna's -- Even if it meant self-destruction, we went for it! Red Rover felt our will and veered off his path, turning for the weakest link, the nexus right there between my bad teeth and sensitive testicles, breaking through the angels and winning a stunning victory for the demons!

That's about it. Not much left. The Magic Butler escaped to Heaven, so that's good. The earth opened and consumed me and Krishna. The angels and Red Rover all died. The demons jumped on the rented horses and got away. The world ended. And Red Rover's cross-eyed picture's still on display at the Pleasant Girdle Home for the Female Infirm, located on a chunk of earth flung into outer space.
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Meniggesstroeth, Asterechme, Amen, and Eilo, are the angels of the brain, right eye, teeth, and testicles, respectively, according to "The Secret Book of John," found in The Nag Hammadhi Scriptures, edited by Marvin Meyer. Krishna's quotations are selected from Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, translated by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. 

They Thought Dentistry Was Some Kind Of Hoax

I was stunned to find out about this. But a little research, and it didn't take much, shows it's absolutely true. Dentistry started out with a great deal of suspicion. We're only lucky the first dentists stuck with it.

People tend to be skeptical. Full of doubt. But it's nothing now like back in the olden days, in the earliest days when man had barely made progress. Thomas Edison had to literally hit people over the head with the light bulb before they saw the light.

I was at the dentist's office just yesterday, and my dentist had only enough time to tell me the bare essentials of what went on way back when. Years ago, it seems, they didn't even believe dentistry was a true thing. Of course those who really thought it over -- the first pioneers themselves in dentistry -- saw it was logical: If you can tie a string around your tooth and pull it out with a door knob, surely a professional could help you with it.

And that might have been the problem. The average guy would obviously think, If I can do it myself why would I pay someone else to do it? Everyone has a sadistic baby brother who'll help out in a pinch, and he's built up enough animus, of course the rest of us are willing to help him, too, and how! They weren't thinking of root canals, crowns, or wisdom teeth, that are tough enough to ruin the knob, etc.

And not only that, they had a teaching from the Bible -- they being pious -- that suggested that when it came to teeth you just left well enough alone: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few... (Ecclesiastes 12). The verse more or less says you use your teeth till they grind themselves to powder, then you spit the powder out.

But a few of the pioneers, the first men into dentistry, somehow had their consciousness raised, then struck out to convert others. And I would say they were ultimately successful, because as far as I can see, today there's more dentists than gas stations. We're crazy about our teeth, straightening, whitening, braces, polishing, cleaning. It's actually a little ironic. The first dentists were mostly doing extractions, but that's the one thing that's hard to get today. For some unspecified reason, dentists want you to keep your teeth...

I have the ad pictured above to show one of the pioneers, a certain Dr. Witless, who really has to receive a lot of the credit in proving people wrong. Look at that, he was giving away $1,000 worth of dental care just to prove the point that unrelated third parties could do dental work!

And from the looks of things, he was more concerned about simply making that point than in doing anyone's teeth any good. When he says, "I'll extract teeth for you ... simply to prove to you that it truly can be done!", notice he doesn't care whether the teeth need to be extracted, he's only doing it to promote dentistry. And just a look at his before-and-after graphics shows he didn't want to leave even the slightest doubt about it.

What do our current dentists think of those olden times efforts? The way I take it, they're amused by the quaintness of it, while also realizing how much better it makes them look. Because we're so used to modern painless techniques that we see the pioneers as barbarians. True, there is still a lot of discomfort today, shots, your jaw propped open for 20 minutes, mouthfuls of sticky stuff when they're making impressions, and the fact that the free floss is a measly 5 yards. But when you think of the olden days, you're happy, and willing to buy your own floss.

We've obviously come a long way. The skeptics are all gone. The so-called Dental Truthers have all died. Thanks to guys like Dr. Witless, who were willing to pull out every single last tooth in their heads, and free at that, to make the point. And, really, if you left the office with nothing but bleeding gums and still didn't believe, of course there's not much he could do about that.

Today's dentists might be amused by the pioneers. But they also owe them a huge debt. They were the ones who led the way, the trailblazers, who gave the practice of dentistry a foundation to build on. And if it weren't for them, just speaking for myself, my smile would look worse than it does. I'd be a mumbling fool. And worse, probably a virgin.

Roger, Copy? No, I'm Not!

On this day of days, if you're into radio, since it's 10-4, I want to turn to the interesting story of Roger, your typical fourth grade schoolboy, whose experiences, as it turned out, were anything but typical.

His troubles began at recess one day when a swing in motion lurched back and knocked out his front tooth. There was no way to reattach the missing mouth appendage, so the dentist had to replace it with a big shining gold tooth. So far, so good. Except for one thing, from time to time he was picking up radio signals, and if the expertise of radio technicians is to be believed, by some miracle he was also transmitting!

To make a long story as short as possible, since we know our readers can't be bothered to spend more than a few minutes on a backwater site like this, the whole thing of him receiving and transmitting radio signals caused a lot of grief.

One day, a day very much like any other day -- trees were well anchored in the park, deer frolicked in their country solitude, accountants were busy balancing checkbooks, and iTunes came out with another update -- Roger sat down at his desk and prepared to take an exam.

They had a substitute teacher that day who didn't know that Roger was an honest child who would never cheat. At the very same time, there was an unusually high level of airplane traffic in that area. And the atmospheric and solar conditions were just right for the maximum sensitivity regarding his gold tooth and its radiophonic capabilities.

Roger sat taking the test, but was bummed out at the constant chatter in his head, the pilots complaining about engines going out, propellers falling off, and so forth. Finally he had to open his mouth for relief, right when one of the pilots said, "Copy?" and the other said, "Roger." Making it sound to everyone like someone was saying Roger was copying.

The teacher came over and checked out the situation, with Roger protesting, "No, I'm not!" She separated him from the others by a few feet. Pretty soon the whole situation built up in the same way, a passenger in one of the planes had some box cutters and was trying to break into the cockpit. The pilot asked, "Copy?" with the response being, "Roger." Other students were covering their papers, while realizing this was out of character for Roger. The teacher separated him even further, moving him very close to the window.

The trouble on the planes overhead seemed to be reaching a fever pitch. Air marshals were engaged in one "helluva" tussle with the terrorists, there was a lot of confusion on board, and many voices were jamming the radios. No one could seem to get a clear channel, with one air marshal now sitting on a terrorist who was trying to ignite a shoe bomb and underwear bomb both shouting into the set, "Copy?! Copy?! Copy?!" All radio decorum was out the window. The control tower wanting to emphasize their presence shouted back, "Roger! Roger! Roger!"

All eyes turned on Roger, who threw up his hands. "I'm not copying!" Can't you see that?" But the class and the teacher were an uncontrollable mob, moving in on him. Roger moved outside on to the edge of the building, on one of those ledges like you see in old movies, and started shouting, "I'm going to jump if you come at me! And I'll take you all down with me!" He shouted that and many other threats, being extremely desperate. All this was being transmitted over the same signal back to all the planes.

The pilots and air marshals believed the control tower was also taken over by terrorists and all hope was gone. But just to be sure they were crying out things that couldn't be understood, except for "Roger?!" and "Copy!" Over and and over, "Roger, copy! Roger, copy! Roger copy!" With Roger there on the ledge by now thinking God himself had condemned him.

Such confusion reigned, it was like ... insane.

So we have terrorists in the skies, desperate pilots, air marshals who were threatening to take early retirement, the control tower not knowing who was talking, and a little boy on the ledge freaking out, and a substitute teacher and a classroom of irate children lighting torches for the final showdown with innocent Roger.

Roger didn't know what to do! All life was conspiring against him and he did what had to be done, he leaped to his death. From the sky then, three planes were coming in for a crash landing, smacking into the school, destroying the facilities and destroying the teachers and other students. The only thing not burnt up were some desks that were thrown clear of the flames. And those were already so badly marked with graffiti they were barely worth saving.

I said Roger leaped to his death. I'd love to spare him somehow with a happy ending, but once you've leaped to your death, it's too late for that.

The Gold Standard

I keep driving by places that have signs saying they'll buy gold. And I wonder how that would go, since I still have a tooth-thing, a bridge (I guess it's called), out of Grandpa's mouth. He had to have some other dental work and they took this gold thing out. Now that he's long dead, it'd be OK to part with it.

I keep thinking I maybe should take it in and see what I could get for it. Because isn't gold something like $1,300 an ounce. Whether this is an ounce or not, at least it's something. And it might be an ounce, since a thick letter is an ounce. I could probably put it on the mail scale.

OK, that's one temptation, take it in and sell it. But I'm reluctant for a couple reasons. 1) I don't want these gold dealers to be scoundrels just out to cheat an ignorant public out of their gold. They might fast talk me and next thing you know I'd be walking out of there with 10 bucks. "This is an inferior grade of gold commonly called fool's gold," etc., etc. And, 2) If I sell it now, I won't have it for later if the survivalists are all right and paper money suddenly becomes worthless. This one gold bridge might keep me in groceries for a couple days 20 years from now.

How exactly, though, we're supposed to buy stuff with gold is something I really can't figure out. If I had a big bar of gold bullion -- What? -- am I supposed to carry it around and have chunks sliced off every time I want to buy something? That's no good. How would they give me my change? A few little specks of gold powder? I don't know how it's supposed to work.

Then someday there I am in the store with Grandpa's gold tooth, and they're telling me it's too bad he chewed on it so much because now it's just about worthless. Or there's some other problem. Everyone else is rushing through the speed lane with their piles of gold and I'm standing there with complications. They might even complain there's still little bits of petrified food stuck in the grooves and that taints the purity. No one wants to get that in their change, a piece of 35 year old pork chop.

Kos and McCain's Teeth

The Daily Kos cruelly opined today on John McCain's teeth, saying that they were not all they should be. But I'm looking at the same picture as you, and I'm saying those are fine looking choppers -- at least the upper plate looks great.

The thing about teeth is this: Mine aren't the greatest either. I think I chewed too many licorice sticks, then all the chain smoking, and chewing tobacco, then no flossing, no brushing, no cleaning. I've seriously got plaque a quarter inch deep, in the shallow spots. Like a feather mattress. Like foam rubber. They call me mush mouth. I need the depth finder off my boat to even know my teeth are still there.

But I've got a real good excuse -- bad teeth run in the Slump family. Grandpa Slump spent more time picking his teeth after dinner than it took him to eat. I had a cousin who bit my arm -- they got him off with a baseball bat -- and he didn't leave a mark. Even our dog had bad teeth. We had a sign out front that said, "Please don't hurt the dog."

Grandma's teeth were the exception. Her teeth weren't that bad through the years. But then with old age and everything else going to pot, her gums started bleeding and her teeth eventually crumbled away. She spat out a few, and she even swallowed a couple in her sleep. We checked the outhouse but never saw them again.

Teeth are funny things, really. It's odd. You get that first set, which grow in your mouth at nature's instigation. Then they all fall out. Then nature gives you a couple "permanent" plates. And these you're expected to take care of, as I'm now given to understand.