Brain Farts Brain Fart brain farts brain fart brain-fart brain-farts brainfart brainfarts LEO Louisville Eccentric Observer parody lampoon satire Louisville Kentucky Kevin Gibson kgramone@aol.com kgramone humor
Brain Farts was a weekly humor column that ran in the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) from mid-2000 until the summer of 2002. It was, well, eccentric. And occasionally satirical. And sardonic. Some liked it, some hated it; some just didn't get it, and that's OK. There were times when I didn't get it either. I've compiled here some of the archives from Brain Farts for the enjoyment of friends, family and anyone else who happens by. I also have written some new Brain Farts, and added some links and other trivialities that you shouldn't be too concerned with.
Unless you're as bored as I am.
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Brain Farts: Hasta La Vista, Siesta |
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By Kevin Gibson |
A friend told me that the government of Mexico had recently eliminated the siesta from the workday.
The siesta, of course, is a tradition of Spanish-speaking (and a few other) countries in which folks go home after lunch for a long afternoon nap. Under the new Mexican law, passed last year, government employees would be required to come in at 7 a.m. and would be off work at 6 p.m., with a one-hour break for lunch.
I discussed this with my friend, who fears widespread siesta-banning could spell "revolucion." (Accent over the "o.") So I made the observation that "banning the siesta in Mexico is like banning television in the United States."
We shared a moment of contemplative silence, and then I wondered aloud, "What's worse: TV or marijuana?" This is when the conversation got interesting.
My friend (who, it bears noting, is the same friend who told me a few months ago that corn will be the downfall of modern society) opined that both are potentially bad, but for different reasons. Obviously, television melts your brain and turns you into an idiot.
Also, he said, if you smoke a lot of marijuana you end up watching a lot of TV, "because that's the only thing that will voluntarily keep you company." So the more pot you smoke, the more TV you watch, and the more TV you watch, the more you turn into an idiot.
"At least watching TV doesn't make you smoke marijuana," he said.
Then I remembered that he once told me that society breeds depression. He was telling me then that he'd just come off a batch of antibiotics (I'm not going to say why) and that this particular antibiotic had been known to cause depression. But not as much as our society,
You see, we all toil very hard but get little in return in the way of direct reward or justification. And our individual happiness is interdependent on everyone around us, taking away our direct responsibility for most things and therefore robbing us of our feeling of self-reliance. In a more primitive society, for instance, if you hunt, you get food. If you farm, you get food. You survive. Direct contribution, direct payoff.
Sure, we still have responsibility. But what total responsibility do we really have? We even have garbage collectors who dispose of our waste for us. If we didn't, we would be sad - but it would at least force us to take responsibility, and we would empower ourselves to find a solution, thus making us feel self-reliant and important again.
My friend really is filled with insight, isn't he? Or maybe he makes up all this crap, just to screw with me. What day is it?
E-mail the writer at kgramone@aol.com. And be nice to him. He doesn't need your criticism right now.