A coworker sent me a neat video today during work hours – an Evian commercial featuring freakishly coordinated, athletic, and rhythmic toddlers. (Watch the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs) Even with dementia stalking me, I can still muster enough mental wherewithal to distinguish between reality and fantasy and realize that it was just special effects. But damn it looked real…and let me tell you, the thought of a tribe of physically advanced uber toddlers overrunning our homes and neighborhoods like some unstoppable invasive species of plant sends chills down my spine!
These Mini Mes were dancing and leaping and prancing and breaking dancing and skateboarding and weaving their way through traffic and I could go on and on but you don’t want me to – all around an unwitting metropolis. Yes, they were still cute, much in the same way a pit bull puppy is cute – big, bright eyes, a hint of slobber under the chin, and an adorable little grin to mask the fearsome and deadly jaws, which nicely complement the soft, pink, pinch able baby fat rolled sweetly over the flesh tearing toddler limbs.
I am reminded of the movie trailer for “Surrogates,” a new sci-fi movie about cyborgs taking over the world. I think my pulse rate actually lowered as I yawned through what passed for movie highlights. Cyborgs just don’t frighten me. But then the image of a break dancing cherub who looks just like my know-it-all cousin’s kid popped into my head and I shuddered. Chest thumping, I reminded myself that toddlers cannot do the things they do in this video, but it was no good. There is something existentially disturbing about a chubby little cutie pie flying around like Tony Hawk turned vampire. I keep expecting the little guy to jump out like the white rabbit from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and sink his little baby teeth into my neck!!! Chucky, what are you doing? Chuck…..y? CHU......argghhhh!!!!!!
Still shuddering. OK. I was just walking down the street and passed a fawning mother taking her unsteady toddler for a walk. I gave Uber Boy a firm shove in the small of the back and he fell right over and began to cry. I watched nervously, bracing for a sudden assault…nothing. The wimpy little mench just cried as he waited for his apoplectic mother to pick his punk ass off the pavement after she finished bludgeoning me with her 30 lb. Louie Vuitton knock off. Despite the deep contusions, I’m feeling much better.
Believe The Captain when he says: Never serve your children pure bottled water – always mix it with something, preferably barley and hops.
Yours soothing his swollen face with an ice-filled Louie Vuitton,
The Captain
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Drinking Helps the Brain
It’s been some time since The Captain commented on the contents of a news article, but when a Myrmidon first class made an impassioned plea (my words, my embellishment, my unreality) to provide my keen, coy yet bizarre take on a New York Times article about a scientific study that threatened to topple the paradigm of social drinking, I couldn’t refuse. It seems they know about The Captain at the Jewish Home for the Elderly, because that’s where this all started. I quote from an email from the Director of Day Services at the home to said Myrmidon: “The Captain may enjoy this report. Anything to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.” Naturally, I was flattered, being called upon to do the serious work of finding a cure for a disease I dare not try and spell, a task for which I am underwhelmingly qualified. For posterity, here is the dramatic plea for help from my loyal reader: “The Captain, I think this just supports your cause on drinking. Although I think ‘moderate’ is not in your vocabulary. Anonymous.” Anonymous understands I am not a literary icon without a cause, especially when that cause involves drink. Sidebar: Anonymous is becoming a very popular name, as I am receiving a good many emails from Anonymous’s – I think it’s Greek name…But Anonymous is correct about one thing. The Captain knows not the meaning of “moderation.” I know you all agree that I live far from the moderate norm on the fringe of society, not to mention sanity. So now onto the art of healing, Captain style!
Aging: Moderate Drinking May Help the Brain
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
People over 60 who consume moderate amounts of alcohol have a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, according to a large review of studies. Why wait 'til you're 60? Start moderating today! Conversely, if you are over 60 and have been dry your whole life, screw moderation and go straight to excess before it's too late.
The analysis, which appeared in the July issue of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (I bet if I read this periodical when I was drunk I'd find it funny. I think I just dared myself - do you ever do that?), reviewed 15 studies that together followed more than 28,000 subjects for at least two years. All the studies controlled for age, sex, smoking and other factors. It's a twofer. Studies indicate that having sex regularly is good for your health; since consuming alcohol increases your odds of having sex in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed, it follows that the more you drink, the healthier you become. The studies variously defined light to moderate drinking as 1 to 28 drinks per week. Let’s extend the far limit of moderate to 28 per diem and call it a day! Compared with abstainers (Alcohol? Sex? Both? Note to conservative religious groups who are keen on abstaining: your religion may be dangerous to your health. So stop abstaining and start partaking!! If I have offended folks with this statement, who cares? They all likely have dementia!), male drinkers reduced their risk for dementia by 45 percent, and women by 27 percent.
The researchers acknowledge that studying the effects of alcohol on dementia is complicated by issues like beverage type, standards of quantity and individual behavior that may interact with alcohol to affect mental acuity. This is not very complicated: the beverage type is your favorite booze, the quantity is a shitload, the behavior is irrelevant short of law-breaking, and, speaking from personal experience, you don't need mental acuity to interact with alcohol, just a large plastic cup. But there is ample evidence from other studies that moderate alcohol consumption can increase HDL, or “good cholesterol,” improve blood flow to the brain and decrease blood coagulation. All three factors may reduce the risk for dementia. You health freaks should start making your instant oatmeal with beer or whiskey.
Still, the authors warn against drawing premature conclusions. “The overall safety of alcohol use in later life,” they write, “needs to be evaluated in relation to all of the available evidence” about its health effects. When I read this I hear, "When alcohol doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger."
NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Believe The Captain when he says: moderation is for virgins.
Yours warding off Dementia with a large plastic cup,
The Captain
Aging: Moderate Drinking May Help the Brain
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
People over 60 who consume moderate amounts of alcohol have a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, according to a large review of studies. Why wait 'til you're 60? Start moderating today! Conversely, if you are over 60 and have been dry your whole life, screw moderation and go straight to excess before it's too late.
The analysis, which appeared in the July issue of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (I bet if I read this periodical when I was drunk I'd find it funny. I think I just dared myself - do you ever do that?), reviewed 15 studies that together followed more than 28,000 subjects for at least two years. All the studies controlled for age, sex, smoking and other factors. It's a twofer. Studies indicate that having sex regularly is good for your health; since consuming alcohol increases your odds of having sex in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed, it follows that the more you drink, the healthier you become. The studies variously defined light to moderate drinking as 1 to 28 drinks per week. Let’s extend the far limit of moderate to 28 per diem and call it a day! Compared with abstainers (Alcohol? Sex? Both? Note to conservative religious groups who are keen on abstaining: your religion may be dangerous to your health. So stop abstaining and start partaking!! If I have offended folks with this statement, who cares? They all likely have dementia!), male drinkers reduced their risk for dementia by 45 percent, and women by 27 percent.
The researchers acknowledge that studying the effects of alcohol on dementia is complicated by issues like beverage type, standards of quantity and individual behavior that may interact with alcohol to affect mental acuity. This is not very complicated: the beverage type is your favorite booze, the quantity is a shitload, the behavior is irrelevant short of law-breaking, and, speaking from personal experience, you don't need mental acuity to interact with alcohol, just a large plastic cup. But there is ample evidence from other studies that moderate alcohol consumption can increase HDL, or “good cholesterol,” improve blood flow to the brain and decrease blood coagulation. All three factors may reduce the risk for dementia. You health freaks should start making your instant oatmeal with beer or whiskey.
Still, the authors warn against drawing premature conclusions. “The overall safety of alcohol use in later life,” they write, “needs to be evaluated in relation to all of the available evidence” about its health effects. When I read this I hear, "When alcohol doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger."
NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Believe The Captain when he says: moderation is for virgins.
Yours warding off Dementia with a large plastic cup,
The Captain
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