Yellow 6 - Philip Loyd

.
Yellow 6
a germaphobe’s tale
sometimes keeping your head
means having to lose your mind
The world has gone completely mad. But of course you knew that. What you didn’t
know is exactly how mad. Case in point: check out this recent news article from the LA
Times. This is what the article tells you.
Los Angeles, CA – A man was hit by a car and
killed early Sunday while crossing the 110 Freeway
on foot, the California Highway Patrol reports.
The collision happened around 4:30 a.m. on the
southbound lanes, north of Century Boulevard.
CHP officers arrived to find the man in the
road. The car, a 2000 Toyota, was on the right
shoulder of the highway. Its driver, a 36-year-old
Los Angeles man, was not injured.
The driver says he was trying to avoid hitting
two people who were running across the freeway. He
wasn't sure where the second person had gone.
"He kept running," the driver told officers.
The accident is still under investigation.
What the article doesn’t tell you is that this was no accident. The man crossing the
freeway wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t hopped up on goof balls, and he wasn’t just trying to get
to the other side. The truth is much more disturbing than that.
And it’s not the only case. In November, a Santa Rosa man stepped out onto
Highway 101 and right in front of an 18-wheeler Big Rig, just as casually as walking out
his front door. In December, a Connecticut man was struck by a car trying to cross the
Secaucus Bypass in East Rutherford, NJ. In January, a Texas man was mowed down
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
while crossing the Eastex Freeway in front of a Home Depot. All three men died at the
scene.
From Boston to San Diego, Seattle to Miami, people are running out into traffic at an
alarming rate these days. And it isn’t restricted to just the United States. One girl in
England was even run over at the famous Abbey Road Crosswalk. You know, the one
the Beatles walked across. Think these are all just accidents? Think again. Something’s
gone wrong with these people’s brains.
How do I know? Because my good friend Zigmund Poshpeshul is a neurologist.
Better yet, he moonlights down at the county morgue. Here is what Ziggy told me.
In the case of the Los Angeles incident on the 110, Ziggy says he found no traces of
alcohol or drugs of any kind. What he did find shocked even him.
Turns out the man was suffering from a rare condition known as Urbach-Wiethe
disease. What the disease does is to rot your brain, at least that part of your brain that
deals with fear. How did Ziggy know this? When he examined the man’s Amygdalae
(that’s the part of your brain that processes fear) he found them to be hardened and
decayed, like a pair of dried-out almonds. But the story doesn’t end there.
While it’s commonly believed that Urbach-Wiethe disease is hereditary, Ziggy is
convinced there are more sinister elements at work here. In short, he believes the cause is
a rare strain of bacteria that eats away that part of your brain. Germs.
“It’s not so far fetched,” says Ziggy. “We now know schizophrenia is brought on by
germs, as well.”
It’s Ziggy’s hypothesis that this particular germ, unidentified as of yet, causes an
infection in the brain very similar to parasitic meningitis, but particular to the amygdalae.
2
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Meningitis, by the way, is one of the causes science fiction writers often site when
explaining how zombies are created.
And this isn’t the only case. Ziggy says he found similar brain rot in a North
Hollywood man who was killed while trying to cross the I5, a Glendale man who was hit
by a truck while trying to cross the 210, and a Montebello man who was hit twice while
trying to cross the 60 Freeway.
Colleagues of Ziggy’s all across the country confirm similar findings. In Texas, a
Houston man was killed when he was hit by a car on the Southwest Freeway. In Oregon,
a Milton-Freeman man was killed trying to cross Route 11. In San Antonio, a man was
struck multiple times while trying to cross Loop 1604. In the San Antonio case, seems
the man resisted being put into an ambulance and instead chose to dive headlong into
traffic. In none of these cases was alcohol or drugs discovered in the victims.
What was discovered (and you won’t find this in any news article) is that in every one
of these cases the victims were found to be suffering from Urbach-Wiethe disease, a
condition widely believed to afflict just five persons on average every year. The
problem, says Ziggy, is that he knows personally of 47 such cases already, and that’s this
year alone. If the cause was indeed hereditary, then why the sudden increase? Now you
see why Ziggy is so concerned.
So am I saying that there are a bunch of zombies out there along America’s freeways
running out into oncoming traffic? You didn’t hear it from me; but crazier things have
been known to happen. Truth is, if you ask me these men just had no personal bubbles,
that’s all.
Whatever the reason, it seems to be an epidemic. If you don’t believe me, go ahead
3
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
and check it out yourself. Do a search for something like “hit by car crossing the
freeway” and you’ll see these articles are everywhere. Everywhere.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, our amygdalae seem to be working just fine and we
have to face our fears every day. Want to know what I think? If you ask me, while it
may be true some kind of germ is eating away at these people’s brains, it’s sadness that’s
killing them, plain and simple. I think these people are stepping out in front of traffic just
because they’re lonely.
You don’t even want to know what my friends think.
4
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
He wondered, as he had many times wondered before,
whether he himself was a lunatic.
--- George Orwell
5
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
part 1: the friends
6
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the insanity virus
Want to know the real reason why the polar ice caps are melting? It’s not what you
think.
It’s not carbon emissions, deforestation, solar activity, Milankovitch cycles, or any of
the other reasons they want you believe. The real reason the polar ice caps are melting is
because they are currently the staging areas for a microbial invasion force from another
planet.
That’s right. Alien pathogens from the planet Germanicus are right now massing at
the North and South Poles and the combined heat from more than a googolplex of the
little buggers is what’s causing the ice there to melt at an accelerated rate. At least, that's
what my friend Thurston Howard tells me.
How much is a googolplex? Count all the grains of sand on the Earth, all the drops of
water in the oceans too, all the stars in all the galaxies, add them all together and still you
won’t even come close to the size of the bacterial expeditionary force amassing itself at
both ends of our planet.
Do I believe it? I believe Thurston believes it, and that’s good enough for me.
Despite his many shortcomings, Thurston is by far the smartest person I know. Thurston
Howard is also, unfortunately, a stage-4 germaphobe, which means just like with cancer
there's little to no chance for recovery. All his friends call him Thirsty, although the
nickname to this day still eludes me. Thurston doesn’t drink at all, not even wine with
dinner.
I remember the last time I saw Thurston. I must have been ringing the bell ten
7
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
minutes before he finally came to the door, and even then he only cracked it open just
enough to pass me a bottle of hand sanitizer.
He made me wash thoroughly before letting me in. As soon as I walked through the
door though, he ran back into his bedroom where apparently he was holed up.
All throughout his living room, dining room, and kitchen there were empty cans of
Lysol everywhere. There was the distinct smell of bleach and a white film caked all
across the floor. It took some doing to get into the bedroom, but when I finally did I
found Thurston standing there, stripped naked. He was rubbing hand sanitizer all over
his body. He was literally dripping with the stuff. It was a disturbing sight to say the
least. Hell, even on his best day Thurston looked no better than John C. Calhoun.
When he finished, he threw the bottle to me. "They're coming after us," he said. "If
you don't suit up, they're going to get you too."
Thurston works for the Pillars of Hercules Insurance Co., The Herc. Being in the insurance
game, he’s privy to all kinds of gruesome goings-ons. The life insurance racket is one of the
most ghastly jobs you can have without actually getting your hands dirty.
I tried to move closer to him but when I did he jumped into bed, pulling the covers up
over his head. Personal bubble.
Hiding in bed and pulling the covers up over your head is a big thing with
germaphobes. I think it all goes back to childhood, when pulling the covers up over your
head kept the boogeyman away. I guess the logic is, if it's good enough for the
boogeyman, then it's good enough for germs.
I asked him: Who are They, and why are They coming?
"We got it all wrong," he said from beneath the covers. "All these years, we've been
8
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
playing right into their hands."
I asked him again: What in the world was he talking about?
That’s when he told me about the army of highly trained bacteria from the planet
Germanicus. It was only a matter of time until they began their all-out offensive against
the human race. Thurston is the kind of person who is always on to something big.
"They've been softening us up for over a century now," he said, sticking his head out
just above the covers. "Appertization, pasteurization, antibiotics; it was all Their idea.
Now, the final stage of their insidious plot: hand sanitizer. Once the human race has put
enough distance between itself and the germs of this world, once the human body is no
longer capable of producing antibodies on its own, that's when the main assault begins.
Before Earth even knows what hit it, the conquest of alien pathogens from the planet
Germanicus will be complete."
I asked him: If hand sanitizer is the problem, then why was he soaking himself in it?
"It's too late to be philosophical now," said Thurston. "The damage is done. As long
as I keep myself wet with the stuff, I'll survive. I suggest you do the same"
I looked in the corner of the room and there were boxes upon boxes of hand sanitizer.
"They're going to start pulling it from the shelves." he said. "You'll see. Any day now
the government, infiltrated by infectious agents from Germanicus itself, is going to initiate
a total recall and pull all hand sanitizer off the shelves, the walls, the tables, everywhere.
That's how you'll know the invasion has begun in earnest."
I asked him: Why attack at all? What are they after?
"Our water, of course," he said. "Don't you know that? The whole galaxy is after our
water. It's the scarcest and most valuable commodity in the entire Universe, and we've got
9
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
oodles of it."
Before I left he asked me to toss him another bottle of Purell, the refreshing gel.
Thurston did in fact have a point about the whole hand sanitizer thing, antibiotics too.
Unfortunately, he was completely off his rocker.
That was the last time I ever saw Thurston. They carted him off to the loony bin soon
after.
While it looked like things had surely gone from bad to worse for poor ole Thurston,
maybe the booby hatch really was the best place for him. There's a new theory being
tossed around in medical circles right now that's gaining real traction. It's called the
Insanity Virus, and it could explain a lot about Thurston and others just like him.
While the cause of schizophrenia has been for a long time believed to be genetic, even
environmental, this new theory puts forth the proposition that the disease may be in fact
brought on by a virus. Germs.
A leading researcher found that schizophrenics show signs of inflammation in their
white blood cells, the ones that are supposed to fight off infection. One woman who
thought she was going mad actually discovered she had developed a rare autoimmune
disease that is known to attack the brain: anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.
One geneticist even places the source of the virus with a lemur-like creature from over
60 million years ago. Once the virus got into the monkey's testes, it was just a matter of
evolution running its course.
So maybe Thurston really was on to something. I mean, there is actually a planet
called Germanicus. Germanicus is a minor planet in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and
Mars. It's classified as main-belt minor planet No. 10208 and is named after the ancient
10
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Roman general, and father of Caligula. Caligula, who by the way is believed to have
suffered from encephalitis, and meningitis, both inflammations of the brain, and was by
most accounts completely mad.
Of course, there is also the Gamma Germanicus star system, but that's located in the
Star Trek Universe. Taken Thurston's state of mind, I just naturally assumed he was
referring to the latter.
11
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the kleenex directive
Did you know that a Norwegian scent artist actually took bacterial cultures from
people's armpits, belly buttons, even their toes, and made cheese out of them? Real,
edible cheese. True story. The odor from Limburger cheese, often considered a delicacy,
and a smelly foot come from the same germ, Brevibacterium linens. I didn't even know
there was such a thing as a scent artist.
Hi. My name is Arlen Schmeck and I am a perfectly normal human being. At least,
that's how I look on the outside. If there is any one thing wrong with me, I guess you
could say it's that I know too much.
For instance, I wish I didn’t know so much about germs. Mysophobia, or Germaphobia
as it is most commonly known, is no small thing. Even though some people often confuse a
germaphobe’s constantly washing of hands with OCD, I know at least in my case that it’s
simply a matter of having too much information in my big fat brain. Like the fact that a
toilet seat has over 70,000 germs, a kitchen cutting board twice that many. The average
kitchen sink has half a million germs per square inch in the drain alone. But none of these
compare to the Titanic of all bacteria traps, the kitchen sponge. The common kitchen
sponge is 200,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat and has more than 10 million bacteria per
square inch.
Germaphobes are not as uncommon as you think. In fact, there are more and more of
them every day. There are even celebrity germaphobes. Everyone remembers Michael
Jackson and his surgical masks, but did you know that actress Cameron Diaz opens doors
with her elbows, and that Donald Trump is terrified of shaking hands? It seems “The
12
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Donald” is most afraid of shaking hands with teachers. Teachers have more than 20,000
germs per square inch on their desks, more than any other profession.
But when it comes to famous germaphobes, no one comes close to the billionaire
Howard Hughes.
Some say he got it from his mother, others believe it’s because of a head injury he
suffered when he crashed his plane. I’d say it was all because he had a big fat brain, just
like me. Whatever the reason, Howard Hughes was almost as well known for being
crazy as he was for being a billionaire, and that’s back when being a billionaire really
was something.
Hughes was famous for burning his clothes, peeing in jars, even sitting around naked
for months on end. He also believed his TV emitted germ-latent rays that would infect
his body and had an airplane-grade air filtration system installed in the truck of his car.
But he was most well known for his attachment to Kleenex.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but germaphobes have a real devotion to Kleenex. Even
now, in the age of hand sanitizer, still Kleenex holds a special place in most every
germaphobe’s heart.
Most of you have heard the stories of Howard Hughes wearing Kleenex boxes around
for shoes, but did you know he also stacked them up and rearranged them in every
conceivable combination? It was as if he was thinking of building a fortress out of them,
which happened in real life, by the way, with a man in Waco, Texas. The man actually
built an entire house made out of Kleenex tissue boxes. True story. Of course, if you
know anything about Texas you know that there’s a lot of hot air down there. The first
strong breeze that came along sent the man’s dream house to the wind. That’s exactly
13
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
why you don’t build a house out of paper boxes.
Another man in San Francisco, California actually made what he thought was a suit
of armor out of boxes of Kleenex. Now seemingly impervious to germs, he got the
notion that he was some kind of superhero crime fighter. He wasn’t, and somebody
shredded him right there on the street one night. Germaphobes aren’t just scared of
germs, they usually have a long history of serious mental illness as well.
The worst of all was the Birdman of Bonny Doon, who actually made himself a pair
of wings out of Kleenex boxes and launched himself off a cliff. I don’t have to tell you
how that one ended up.
But the truth is most germaphobes maintain an allegiance to Kleenex because it was
the first disposable facial tissue to ever come along. Before Kleenex, people were
condemned to shoving their faces into the same filthy, bacteria-infested handkerchiefs
over and over again. Kleenex saved them from all that when no one else would. It’s a
loyalty normal people just wouldn’t understand.
If Hughes was well-known for being a germaphobe, he was even better known for
being a shut-in. In fact, he’s got to be the most famous shut-in of all time, hands down.
Shut-ins are a special breed. Being a shut-in does not necessarily mean you’re
agoraphobic, but it does mean you’re crazy. It’s not the same as a hermit, who might live
out in the wilderness or in a cave somewhere, or even a recluse, who simply shuns
society. Shut-ins are a special breed.
In 1966 Hughes went to Las Vegas where he checked into the Desert Inn. He stayed
there so long in fact that he bought the place and remained there, holed up for the next
four years. He never left his room, not even once.
14
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
The reason why people become shut-ins is varied. The only thing they really have in
common is that they never leave home.
Thurston was a shut-in. He hadn’t always been, though. But then again, becoming a
shut-in is not something that happens overnight. It comes to a man gradually, then
suddenly. Like bankruptcy.
Or perhaps it was the inevitable truth about Kleenex itself that sent Thurston over the
edge. You see, it’s out in the open now that Kleenex, the hero of the germaphobe, has
itself jumped into the hand sanitizer racket. Doesn’t surprise me. Why? Because heroes
aren’t created, especially not out of tissue paper.
15
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the chinaman button
If you think Thurston is nuts, you’ve got to meet my friend Nathan Neiderhoffer.
Nathan has what you might call a very active imagination. I wouldn’t say he has a big fat
brain like Me and Thurston and Howard Hughes, but he could stand to drop a few pounds.
Like me, he loves movies. Especially mind-fuck movies like Marathon Man, The Man Who
Knew Too Much, and The Manchurian Candidate.
Nathan works in finance. He’s a bagman for a big investment bank who spends most of his
time down at the Stock Exchange Building over on Spring Street. Because he works in
finance, he thinks about the Chinese a lot. A LOT. For people in his line of work, fear of the
Chinese is quite common. They even have a clinical term for it. It’s called Sinophobia.
“Been to the movies, lately?” said Nathan. Nathan practically lives at the movies. It’s his
little escape. Some people drink, some people drug; Nathan goes to the movies.
I told him I had not. While I love going to the movies, it’s both a creative and financial
challenge for me. Only about one in twenty movies are even watchable, no matter how good
the trailer looks. In fact, the better the trailer, the worse the movie. At least, that’s been my
experience.
“Specifically, been to an AMC theater lately?”
I explained to him that if I had not been to the movies, I had not been to AMC. Nathan,
like all my friends, doesn’t listen to a word I say.
“Well, next time you go, pay special attention to the little introduction they put on there.”
Introduction?
“You know, that little short piece they produce that comes between the previews and the
16
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
movie.”
It’s called the Pre-Roll.
“The one telling you to shut the fuck up?”
Ah, yes. The one that says Silence is Golden.
“No. That’s the old one. They got a new one now.”
New one?
“Yeah. Pay close attention next time you’re at an AMC theater. Notice how much red
there is in their little pre-show production. The little helmet guys with devil’s horns: Red.
Instead of Silence is Golden, now it says Report Suspicious Characters. All in red. Wanna
know why?”
Here we go.
“That’s right, it’s because AMC is now owned by the Chinese. The Dalian Wanda Group
bought AMC in 2012 and now it’s the largest theater chain in the world. Over 200 million
Americans go to AMC theaters every year. 200 million. That’s a lot of empty heads to fill.”
Well, I thought, maybe AMC is owned by the Chinese now and maybe they are splashing
commy propaganda all over the silver screen. But the joke’s on them. Americans are too
stupid to be brainwashed anymore. Ha!
And anyway, who cares? They serve booze there now, and at least they’re not stingy with
the butterstuff like all those other cheap wads.
But movie theater infiltration is the least of Nathan’s worries. Moving on to bigger fish,
now Nathan says he’s uncovered yet another sinister plot by the Chinese to take over the
world. He says the same thing at least once a week, but this time, he says, this time it’s for
real. According to Nathan, it’s the evil plot to end all evil plots. Here’s how it goes.
17
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Nathan says the Chinese now have a new secret weapon: their minds. Nathan says he has it
on good authority that the Chinese have been developing the power of mind control, like in the
movie Village of the Damned. He says they have been working on it for thousands of years in
fact, and that they are just now ready to unleash its awesome power on the rest of the world,
especially the United States.
“Think about it,” says Nathan. “Where do you think the Chinese got all that money
from? Certainly not from selling knockoff Rolexes and counterfeit Viagra.”
Makes sense.
“The truth is,” says Nathan, “they don’t really have any money at all. They’re just
using their minds to trick everyone into thinking they do. I mean, who needs money
when you’ve got the power of mind control. The Chinese are clever like that.”
Right, I thought. Like Confucius.
Nathan went on to say that the Chinese have all kinds of sinister plots going on. An
old one, in fact, goes all the way back to the 1970’s when the world’s oil supply was
running dangerously low. Back then the Chinese had a secret miniaturization program in
place. With it they could shrink themselves to microscopic size. While the original
intent wasn’t anything sinister at all (the plan was to miniaturize the entire population in
an effort to conserve natural resources), they later discovered that being no bigger than a
germ made them into great spies, that is until unsuspecting Americans started breathing
them into their lungs. Anyway, the whole program went the way of the Irish Elk when
that TV cowboy Ronald Reagan got into the White House and deregulated the oil
business. That’s when the bottom dropped out of energy prices and there was no longer
any need to conserve. Deregulation is just a nice word for describing oceans of dirty,
18
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
gooey oil pouring out of the ground, and keeping the world drowning in it for the next
thirty years.
While the Chinese abandoned their miniaturization project, apparently they were still
working on mind control. They had always been working on mind control. It had been
an ongoing comedy of errors ever since the days of Confucius and Sun Tzu, who by no
coincidence lived at almost exactly the same time. No one knows exactly when the mind
control program actually began, but I’d bet you dollars to donuts it stared right about that
time.
“And now,” says Nathan, “I’ve got it on good authority that they’ve finally perfected
it. At least enough to move forward with their plans for taking over the world.” First
America, next the whole world. That’s what Nathan says. These days, all world
conquest must first go through the United States. After that, says Nathan, the rest of the
world will be a piece of cake.
According to Nathan, the Chinese plot to take over the world has already begun.
Stage 1 was to fool Islamic Fundamentalists into thinking they had a shot at defeating the
United States, or at least sending them packing. The Chinese did this by supplying the
terrorists with an unlimited supply of pirate satellite dishes, thus exposing them to
episode after episode of The Kardashians, Real Housewives, American Idol, and Jersey
Shore, turning their brains into mush until they were thoroughly convinced that pushing
the Americans around was going to be a piece of cake. All they had to do, the Chinese
convinced them, was to bomb the United States, hit them right where they lived, and the
Americans would all go crying like those girlie men on those house-flipping and
hairdresser shows. Once the Chinese had saturated the terrorists’ brains with enough bad
19
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
American television, they could have pretty much convinced them of anything.
You see, the Chinese had cleverly used the terrorists as decoys to move American
military assets over to the wrong side of the world, just as they had been using the North
Koreans to test their new underground weaponry. Those explosions, the ones in North
Korea that everyone thinks are nuclear bomb tests, they aren’t bombs at all. What are
they? We’ll come back to that in a moment.
You see, the Chinese are a crafty bunch and had been spying on America from the
inside ever since the middle of the 19th century. Through their spies, initially under the
guise of railroad workers, they learned that the one thing you first have to do if you are
going to defeat the Americans is to separate them from their guns. Nobody loves their
guns more than Americans, and by the last count the Chinese figured that there were at
least 300 million guns in all of America, with at least a trillion bullets. Do you have any
idea how many a trillion bullets is? When you’re talking about a trillion dollars, that’s
just some abstract concept in your brain; when you’re talking about a trillion bullets
flying, well you’d better get the hell out of the way and fast.
No one had ever before beaten the Americans with guns. The Vietnamese actually
beat the Americans by allowing them to use their guns on them for target practice. The
Chinese were not going to go down that road. They had tried it with the Japanese, to no
avail.
But now, finally, the time had come. The Chinese were poised to attack. Here’s how
Nathan says it will all go down.
The Chinese invasion of the United States will come suddenly one morning in the
wake of a tidal wave. A huge tidal wave, like in the movie Deluge.
20
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
You see, the Chinese have been fooling around with ways of making earthquakes for
some time now. All those underground explosions in North Korea, the ones the whole
world thinks are nuclear tests, they aren’t nuclear bombs at all. Through the power of
mind control the Chinese have discovered how to create their very own earthquakes and
they’ve been running tests all over North Korea for some time now. Their first successful
test on foreign soil came in 2011 in Japan and that was a pivotal moment because Japan
is where the attack on America is set to begin.
But if you think the Chinese are going to conquer America with earthquakes, you’ve
got another thing coming. To get to America first the Chinese will have to go through
California, and earthquakes to Californians are more an everyday occurrence than the
common cold. No, the earthquake itself will merely be a catalyst for the real first wave
of the attack: a tidal wave. Some people call them tidal waves, others call them
Tsunamis.
Here’s how the whole thing plays out. The Chinese are going to create an earthquake
one morning on the east coast of Japan in a fishing village called Choshi, right there at
the mouth of Tone River. Chinese mind-control spies also trained in the art of
miniaturization will hide themselves inside a crate of soy sauce, about ten million of them
with a combined size no bigger than the common flea. Then, by joining their ten million
microscopic heads together as one, they will create an earthquake right there on the east
coast of Japan.
What’s even more clever about the plan is that there are earthquakes in Japan all the
time, so no one is going to even think twice about it. No one is ever going to imagine
there are ten million germ-sized Chinese mind-control agents all gathered together in a
21
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
crate of soy sauce, and they certainly aren’t going to suppose that the earthquake is the
precursor for a tidal wave that will carry these ten million miniature Chinese warriors
surfing all the way across the Pacific to the shores of America. In fact, in the wake of the
earthquake, while the whole world is watching the city of Tokyo burn (like in Godzilla),
that tidal wave will begin moving slowly towards the United States and the California
coast. No one will even notice it, save perhaps for a few fishermen off the coast of
Midway Island. All the death and destruction in Japan will not only serve as a
distraction, it will be payback for Nanking. The Chinese never forget.
Even better, when that tidal wave hits the California coast it will surprise no one.
Californians are used to big waves. In fact, if there is any response at all from the
Americans in California it will be to go and grab their surfboards, like in the movie Surf
Party.
But what the Americans will not be expecting is that when the water washes back, as
the miniaturization process wears off, there will be ten million Chinamen standing there
on the beach with subjugation on their minds. And it is their minds they are going to use
as weapons. The Chinese have never been very good with guns, anyway. Just ask the
Japanese.
These ten million Chinese psychic soldiers have also been trained in what is known as
the Art of the Dragon. In short, it is the type of mind control that puts unimaginable fear
into the minds of those with idle brains. Being that the people who live in California
already have minds that are made out of mush, the whole thing is going to be a cakewalk
for the Chinese.
The word cakewalk, by the way, comes from an old African-American dance
22
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
competition where the winner would literally “take the cake” home with them. The
Chinese spell cakewalk 走步竞赛,though if you were to ask any Chinaman what it means
he’d simply direct you to the nearest bakery.
From the opening moments of the invasion, everything the Chinese have seen on TV
will prove correct. All their reconnaissance will be spot on. The people of America are
docile, and dumb, and they will run screaming for their lives as the Chinese round them up
like so many ducks. The invasion will go off without a hitch, just as planned.
So where will the American military be during all of this, you may ask? Well, they will
of course respond, but remember most American soldiers will be on the other side of the
world fighting the terrorists, and as for their military hardware, their planes, their missiles,
their satellites, all the things they rely on so heavily nowadays instead of good ole blood
and guts, you have to remember that all these things are now operated on parts that are
made in, you guessed it, China. And all these things, by no mere coincidence, will begin
malfunctioning at the same time.
The United States military, in all its glory, with all its pomp and circumstance, with
all the songs playing behind it as it sets out for battle, will begin falling apart before it
even gets halfway down the road.
All of a sudden planes will start falling out of the sky, missiles will veer way off
course, and those oh-so important satellites they rely so heavily on will begin
broadcasting pornography on every frequency. Not soft porn, mind you, but the hard
stuff. Asian porn!
So it all starts falling apart. The pilots, who don’t remember how to fly the planes by
themselves any more than they remember how to ride a bike, will all drop like dead birds
23
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
from the sky. No one will notice what’s going on anyway because now all able-body
American men across America will hypnotized by hardcore Asian porn. Every redblooded male in America will be busy either wanking his willy or fetching his credit card
to sign up for the limited-time porn discount the Chinese are offering. The Chinese aren’t
going to just take over America, they’re going to turn a profit while doing it.
With America now coming apart at the seams, it’s right about this time that the
laypeople of California realize they are all on their own, and that the Chinese have set to
rounding them up in quick fashion. The Chinese know exactly where they’re going,
they’ve been tracking American reality television for years. First they will round up all
the hairdressers, interior decorators, fashion consultants, realtors and put them into
reeducation camps. Next they will go after the Hollywood stars. They will go straight
for all the Kendras and the Real Housewives of Orange County, but it’s the Kardashians
they’re really after. The Chinese State Council loves beautiful women, especially ones
with big butts, and they’ve been dreaming of this day for a long time. With all those big
round asses, there will be plenty to go around. As for Bruce Jenner, they’ve already got a
cage ready for him at the Beijing Zoo.
While the plan seems to be going along perfectly, what the Chinese do not notice is
that there is weak link in their chain. There is always a weak link, no matter how good
your plan is. In this case the problem lies with Chinese Intel. Intel is always off, way
off, no matter how good you are. For the Chinese, the problem with their Intel will stem
mainly from weaknesses in their reconnaissance efforts.
You see, the Chinese have been planting spies in America for hundreds of years now,
but it’s been very slow moving with constant setbacks. The problem quite simply is that
24
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
there is something extremely infectious about America. No matter how well trained the
spy, he always seems to get corrupted by all things American. That’s why the Chinese
finally made the fateful decision to rely on television, not boots on the ground, and this of
course is where everything goes wrong. It’s been proven time and again, you cannot win
a war without boots on the ground.
The Chinese, according to Nathan, will inevitably wind up going down that same
road the terrorists did, too much time watching American Idol and Dancing with the
Stars, not enough time spent watching Walker, Texas Ranger. It’s understandable
though, I guess. I suppose if I thought the whole of America really was like Sister Wives
and Teen Mom I’d go on the attack too.
In defense of the Chinese, I guess if I were them I wouldn’t believe there was really
such a man as Chuck Norris, and that he actually lived in a place called Texas. But there
is such a man, and there is such a place, and the Chinese will be taken completely by
surprise when one day that same man, Chuck Norris, and what looks like a million dune
buggies come racing across the Mojave Desert straight toward them. Why dune buggies?
Because dune buggies will by then be the last reliable form of transportation made in
America. On top of that, they require no microchips, computer software, or satellite
uplinks whatsoever. A dune buggy is just an engine and four wheels, all gears and guts,
and can hold up to ten shotguns at one time.
The Chinese will never know what hit them. Suddenly out of the blue will descend
upon them a million Texans with this crazed looks in their eyes, all of them having a
barrel of laughs with the poor Chinese as they hunt them down like dogs. Back home,
the Chinese State Council will be left scratching their heads, wondering what went wrong
25
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
and why no one had bothered consulting the Japanese on the whole matter of attacking
America.
And if it wasn’t bad enough being lassooed and hog-tied by a bunch of cowboys from
Texas, in the wake of it all, behind all the dune buggies, will come a second wave, an
armada of Mexicans coming down from the Devil’s Backbone armed with rakes and hoes
and hedge clippers and all sorts of gardening tools. They might be bringing up the rear
carrying nothing more than landscaping gear, but I can assure you it won’t be yard work
they have on their minds.
You see, according to Nathan, the Texans will promise the Mexicans they can have
California back when they ‘re finished mopping up. And they’ll stand by their promise,
too. To any sane, flag-waving American, California is all but ruined anyway, so far in
debt now that it just isn’t a viable enterprise any longer.
The Mexicans will jump at the chance, and as for the Texans it will be a once-in-alifetime opportunity to finally be rid of all those Mexicans. The Chinese invasion of
America will be the best thing to ever happen to Texas, Mexico too. Even better, it will
give them a chance to go on a long overdue killing spree.
How did Texans get mixed up in all this craziness, you might ask? Well, if there’s
one thing scares Nathan even more than the Chinese, it’s Texans. Texas has more than
its share of violence, and serial killers too. After watching movies like The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre and The Town That Dreaded Sundown, it’s no wonder Nathan is
scared of Texas. Terrified is a better word. Nathan says he has it on good authority that
they even hang sheep down there.
Anyway, that’s how Nathan says it’s all going to go down. Like I said, my friend
26
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Nathan works in finance, spends most of his time at the Stock Exchange Building over on
Spring Street, and way too much time thinking about the Chinese.
27
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
habanero hopping
If you think everybody’s just paranoid, maybe you’ll change your mind when you
hear what’s going on in the world of food and drink. In one case, seems a few select
brewers plan on taking the hops right out of their beer. That’s right, no more hops. It’s
hops that gives beer its delicious, smooth flavor, but more importantly hops is an
antibacterial agent introduced in the middle ages as a healthy alternative to contaminated
water supplies.
No joke. Word has it that more than just a few brewers plan on replacing the hops in
their beer with a thing called Reindeer Lichen. If you think Reindeer Lichen sounds
awful, wait till you hear its real name: Cladonia Rangiferina.
You know what a Lichen is, right? It’s a microorganism that comes crawling out of
fungus. That’s right, fungus. They’re replacing smooth, delicious hops with a fungus.
True story.
If you think that’s weird, wait till you hear what they’re doing with marijuana these
days. Medical marijuana was just the beginning. Now they’re sneaking pot into the food
supply, and I’m not just talking about cookies and brownies. According to Kara Nielsen,
Culinary Director at the Sterling Rice Group, cannabis oils are being added not just to
baked goods but sodas and even coffee. Talk about your morning jolt. USA Today
reports that a company in Washington State is planning on producing its own brand of
marijuana coffee. The company also says it will sell marijuana sodas with flavors
ranging from lemon ginger to pomegranate. Even the founder of the new marijuana
coffee and soda company isn’t sure exactly what the results will be. "We recommend
28
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
people drink half the bottle, wait an hour to see how they feel, and then continue drinking
the rest," says the owner.
But all of these pale in comparison to what my friend Wags Wagglestein says is
going on over in West Hollywood now. It’s called Habanero Hopping, and it’s all the
rage. Wags in the entertainment industry. Wags is the kind of person who is always in on
whatever is going on. He’s a ticket taker over at Grauman’s.
Habanero Hopping goes on in what are known as red-hot chili bars, and they’re
everywhere along the Strip these days. Just like with all the trendy underground clubs,
there are no signs and mostly you enter them from back alleys; but Wags says he knows
where they are nonetheless. Wags is the kind of guy while not exactly hip, is hip to
what’s going on.
Of course like with any so-called hip club they all have obvious names, like
Jalapeño’s, Serrano’s, and Cayenne’s, but my friend Wags says the place he goes is the
one they call Scoville’s. That’s actually not a bad name, if you think about it.
So why are the red-hot chili bars all the rage? According to my friend Wags, just like
so many trends that start in LA, it all got started as some kind of health kick.
You see, chilies are actually known to have all kinds of curative properties like
lowering blood pressure, reducing cholesterol, warding off strokes and heart attacks,
treating colds and fevers too. Chilies even act as a preventative to many types of cancer.
Chili peppers have been used medicinally for centuries. Hot peppers were one of the
first plants domesticated in the Americas. Archaeologists believe people in Mexico were
eating chili peppers as early as 7000 BC. When people eat hot chilies, they experience
pain in their mouths and throats. The nervous system reacts to the pain by releasing
29
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
morphine-like endorphins. Endorphins create a sense of euphoria similar to the "runner's
high" that some people get from exercise. People who regularly eat chilies will find that
they develop a tolerance to the heat and will have to eat increasingly hotter foods to get
that same high. And you see, therein lies the problem. Although their healthy, they’re
addictive as well. Anything in too many doses can be bad for you, even deadly. Just like
the woman who drank too much water, held it in too long, and died from her bladder
rupturing; all for the sake of winning a $100 contest. I bet you didn’t think drinking too
much water could kill you, but it can.
Chili Peppers have also been used to treat arthritis, sports injuries, other kinds of
chronic joint and muscle pain. You’ve heard of the arthritis medicine Capzasin, haven’t
you? It’s a complete ripoff and just one more reason why Big Pharma is against people
using natural remedies right out of the ground.
Hot chili peppers have also been medicinally proven to aid in the human body's
process of digestion and protect against stomach ulcers and the ravages of alcohol.
Contrary to the popular belief that ulcer sufferers should avoid spicy foods, a report
published in Digestive Diseases and Sciences concludes that chili peppers increase the
blood flow in the stomach's mucous lining, which in turn helps in the healing of stomach
tissue. Chilies also protect against the side effects of aspirin and chili eaters develop
fewer peptic ulcers than those who eat plain foods.
Everyone knows that Americans are overweight, but did you know there is actual
research proving that adding chili peppers to your diet can help your body burn calories
faster (up to 45 calories more per meal), and speed up your metabolism as well. Chili
peppers are an excellent substitute for the fat and salt in your food. Fresh chilies offer the
30
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
highest source of vitamin C available from any vegetable. Surprisingly, fresh, uncooked
green chilies provide up to eight times the amount of Vitamin C you can get from either
an orange or a grapefruit. Chiles are also a great source of vitamin A.
Believe it or not, even with all this scientific proof about how healthy hot chili
peppers can be, there are still those who oppose the use of them and I’m not just talking
about the pharmaceutical companies.
Those in opposition say that downing chili peppers in excess can lead to
inflammation of tissues in the throat and stomach, increased heart rate, even exacerbate
stomach ulcers. Remember that key term: in excess.
Even so, that’s not what really has people so concerned. No one is worried about a
little heartburn. It gets much weirder than that. If you’ve never heard the term
Walloping, you’re about to. Get ready to be introduced to such crazy new trends as
Hyperventing, Noosing, Tailpiping, and of course Hourglassing. These and more are all
the rage down on the Strip, and we all know all the great trends get their start in LA.
Ever wonder where all that heat comes from in chili peppers? Contrary to popular
belief, the heat comes from the vein of the pepper, not the seeds. The seeds just happen
to live next door. The heat comes from the active compound in the pepper known as
Capsaicin.
According to Wags, the hottest spot on the Strip is a bar called Capsaicin’s. He
admits he’s never actually been inside, says it’s harder to get into than Studio 54. He
does say, however, that one night while hanging outside he did see Danny Trejo and Luiz
Guzman, easily the two ugliest men in show business.
Capsaicin’s is owned by none other than the one and only Blair Lazar, creator of the
31
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
hottest hot sauce in the world: Blair’s 6AM. It serves everything from Pepperoncini (one
of the mildest peppers known at only 500 Scoville Units) to the Habanero (the hottest
known naturally-occurring chili pepper at 300,000 Scoville Units). Capsaicin’s has a
wide array of natural-born peppers in between, like Scotch Bonnets from the Caribbean,
Cayennes from Louisiana, Serranos from Mexico, Rocotillos from South America, and of
course Jalapenos, the Budweiser of Peppers. All of these register at sometimes hot, but
manageable levels when it comes to Scoville Units.
A Scoville Unit is quite simply a test for capsaicin, a sort of a thermal Richter Scale
for oral heat. All hot peppers contain what are known as capsaicinoids, natural
substances that produce a burning sensation in the mouth. They are known to cause the
eyes to water and the nose to run, and can even induce perspiration. Capsaicinoids have
no flavor or odor, but act directly on the pain receptors in the mouth and throat. The
primary capsaicinoid, capsaicin, is so hot that a single drop diluted in 100,000 drops of
water will produce a blistering of the tongue.
That’s how they measure which is the hottest pepper, if you’ve ever wondered. It’s
not the pepper that makes you scream loudest or pull out your hair, and it’s not the pepper
that makes the most smoke come out of your ears that winds up being the hottest. It’s the
one that still blisters your tongue even when diluted with a predetermined amount of
water. A lot of water.
Capsaicinoid content is measured in parts per million. These parts per million are
converted into what are known as Scoville heat units, the industry standard for measuring
a pepper's punch. One part per million is equivalent to 15 Scoville units. Bell peppers
have a value of zero Scoville units, whereas habaneros--the hottest natural peppers-32
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
register a blistering 300,000. Pure capsaicin, by the way, has a Scoville heat unit score of
16 million. Now that’s hot. Hot enough to burn a hole right through your tongue.
Capsaicin’s serves all the hottest peppers nature has to offer, and even those
mutations produced by the hand of man. While a habanero is the hottest naturally
occurring pepper in nature, leave it to the human race to always try and get the upper
hand on God.
Capsaicin’s serves such monstrosities as the Carolina Reaper. At 2.2 million Scoville
Units, it’s seven times hotter than the habanero and according to the Guinness Books of
World Record, the hottest pepper on Earth.
Capsaicin’s serves most every specialty pepper known to man, such scorchers as the 7
Pot Douglag, the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, and the Naga Viper. Capsaicin’s has been
known to turn many a man into a mouse, sending them either screaming out the door or
curled up on the floor like a baby. But the good people at Capsaicin’s are also well
known for doing everything they can for their customers. At Capsaicin’s, tomato juice is
not just everywhere, it’s complimentary. For a Habanero Head, there’s no better way to
fight off the demons than with a nice tall glass of tomato juice. Serving water, why that
would just be barbaric.
You see, the acid in tomato juice counteracts the alkalinity of the capsaicin. The
archaic and cruel practice of drinking water to counter the effects of the chili was long
ago discarded as the capsaicin is an oil, and we all know what happens when you try and
mix oil and water.
While Blair’s may be known for its wide assortment of rare and tropical peppers like
the Red Savina and the Bhut Jolokia (also known as the Ghost Pepper), it’s most famous
33
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
for its own specialty homemade brews like Blair’s 4 & 5AM Reserve, four and five
million Scoville Units respectively. Look on the special shelf behind the bar above the
cash register and you’ll see bottles like Blair’s Caldera. Caldera comes in at a whopping
10 million Scoville Units, hot enough to produce noticeable spice in over 1 million
gallons of water. If you’re ever lucky enough to get a close look the bottle, you can even
see the pure capsaicin crystals.
But all else pales in comparison to the king of them all, the legendary Blair’s 16
Million: Reserve Crystals. Blair’s Reserve Crystals comes in at an almost unbelievable
16 million Scoville Units. Why unbelievable? Because at 16 million Scoville Units,
that’s as hot as it can ever get. That’s right, Blair’s 16 million is pure capsaicin, the Holy
Grail of hot peppers. It’s also the hottest thing known to man.
No one has ever tried the Reserve Crystals, nor will they ever. It is believed if they
did, it would simply melt their tongue right their on the spot. You see, there are ordinary
chili bars and then there is Capsaicin’s, home to connoisseurs, aficionados, and
sophisticated habitués of all kinds.
But if all this sounds crazy enough, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Even crazier than
what’s going in is what’s coming out: what eating all these red hot chili peppers makes
people do.
Ever heard of Hotspotting? There’s no reason you should. It’s just one of the things
the kids down at Blair’s and the other red hot chili bars along the Strip are doing these
days.
Hotspotting is the act of touching a chili then touching oneself, either on the eyelids
or the underarms or God forbid, even the genitals, all for the desired effect of burning
34
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
one’s self, all just for the thrill of it. Sounds crazy, huh? It’s just the beginning.
How about Walloping? Ever heard of that? Walloping is the act of hitting oneself
over the head, either with an object or even by ramming one’s head through a wall. A
good walloping causes the pepper eater to become disoriented, even lose consciousness.
Tomato juice will do nothing to remedy a good walloping. A nice nap is recommended.
Hourglassing is a more amiable pastime. Hourglassing is the more relaxing function
of standing on one’s head, just to let the blood move from the bottom to the top. At a red
hot chili bar you will often find the bouncer Hourglassing at the door as you walk in.
Etiquette dictates in this case that it is OK to greet the bouncer’s feet instead.
Hyperventing is exactly like it sounds. Remember, kids these days are more health
conscious than ever, so the old ways just won’t do. And with all the STDs floating
around out there now, it’s only natural they would try and find something to replace
traditional sex as well. Hyperventing is just that thing.
Hyperventing, quite simply, is the act of hyperventilating. It’s a way to make
yourself dizzy and dopy, all without the harmful side effects. In many cases,
hyperventing has replaced kissing as a method of light petting.
Remember, LA is the birthplace of health crazes like organic food restaurants and
aerobics. More kids these days are laying off the cigarettes and exposing themselves to a
more natural, chemical-free way of getting their carbon monoxide fix. It’s called
Tailpiping and it actually goes on in the parking lots, right outside the clubs. It works
like this.
A kid, usually a teenager, might ask the owner of a car if he or she will please leave it
running while they are inside the chili bar. Most people say Yes. It’s just common
35
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
courtesy.
Then a group of kids will stand behind the car taking turns breathing in the carbon
monoxide. It’s considered much healthier than smoking cigarettes, cheaper, and nonaddictive as well. It’s something that’s bound to catch on everywhere.
And then there’s Noosing. For those who like to hypervent and miss the human
companionship of heavy petting (and more), now there’s Noosing. In fact, in a world
where kids are becoming increasingly more health conscience all the time, Noosing is
quite often seen as a substitute for the more risky sexual intercourse.
Noosing is everything that having sex is, minus the harmful and sometimes deadly
STDs like Herpes and even Aids. You still get to meet a beautiful baby in a bar and take
her home, but then instead of exchanging bacterial and germ-infested bodily fluids you
hang each other by the neck—with a rope--from the rafters, or maybe from the stairs if
you don’t happen to have any rafters, all this while the other one watches on.
If this doesn’t sound intimate to you, all this hanging around all night, Wags says he
has it on good authority that it is as sensuous as it gets. Standing there watching while
your partner gets the life literally choked right out of them, oftentimes face to face, is
more intimate than you can ever imagine.
In the old days they might have called it autoeroticism, even asphyxiation, but then
again in the old days it was usually followed by masturbation and ejaculation, spreading
dangerous and deadly disease all over the place. Noosing is lovemaking made clean and
the natural next step to Hyperventing. Most say that it’s even better than the real thing.
“It’s a trend that’s bound to catch on,” says Wags.” “That is, unless Big Pharma and
the government shut it down.”
36
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
According to Wags, some of the people running across freeways these days are
actually Habanero Heads. My friend Ziggy says he cannot confirm this, however.
So why, you may ask, do people put themselves through all the pain of eating hot
chili peppers, or rubbing them then touching their eyes or genitals? It’s for the same
reason other people take drugs and drink alcohol. It’s not for the pleasing effects, that’s
just what they want you to believe. The truth in fact is quite opposite.
The real reason people frequent the new hot chili bars is for the same reason they
drink too much, take drugs, it’s because they enjoy killing themselves, and slowly at that.
Thurston likes to quote one of his favorite authors who said, Beer, of course, is actually
depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.
For some humans, there seems to be this strange attraction to killing one’s self. It’s
like being unable to resist walking into the light, or oncoming traffic. Some, like my
friend Thurston, say it’s because human beings are not from this planet in the first place,
and that they’re always trying to get home any way they can.
Thurston says that the human race originated from another planet on the other side of
the Galaxy. He says humans came to Earth a million years ago and infused their spirits
into the bodies of what were then known as humanoids. He says it has taken a million
years for their big fat brains to fully integrate with the indigenous bodies of the
humanoids, and that explains why technology and the human race has evolved so quickly
over the past hundred years. Oh, and this one other thing Thurston always says: You ain’t
seen nothing yet.
Thurston has the biggest, fattest brain I ever saw. If his whole body was a brain, he
would be a hippopotamus. No, a walrus.
37
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
But Thurston defends his theory about humans, humanoids, and alien super-beings
from another planet. “It’s all right there in the Bible.” says Thurston. “They wrote it all
down for everyone to see, you just have to know how to read between the lines.”
Wags says he’s not so sure about all that. For him, it’s all just about kids just being
kids. “It’s what kids do,” says Wags, “I don’t think you have to bring aliens into the
whole mix.”
“Besides,” says Wags, “Thurston is completely mad. You know they’ve got him
locked up in an asylum, don’t you. Something about alien invaders and the Chinese.”
Yes, I knew. But Wags got it wrong. The Chinese, that’s Nathan’s thing. It’s easy
though to get Nathan and Thurston mixed up sometimes; they do both work in business,
after all.
38
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
main course: earth
Thurston called from his padded cell the other night. I’m not sure how he got hold of a
phone, but I’m not surprised either. Thurston is clever that way.
He says he’s discovered how and when the bacterial invasion force from Planet
Germanicus made its way to Earth. He claims it all started back in the 1950s, 1952 to be
exact, and that Germanicus and these germs in particular are not from our galaxy or
universe at all.
He went on to explain that there really once was a major planet called Germanicus, that
it had actually been located inside a galaxy that was inside a universe that was under the
fingernail of a an alien who came crashing to Earth back in the year 1952. That particular
alien came from the Planet Twinky, a terrestrial body located in the Galactic Bulge of our
very own Milky Way.
Creatures from Planet Twinky were known simply as Twinks. Unfortunately for these
Twinks who were out on an intragalactic hunting trip, they had come to Earth armed with
nothing more than a set of forks & knives.
Thurston and I used to watch a lot of sci-fi movies back in college. All kinds. I love
watching movies, especially the old-timey ones from the 1950s like War of the Worlds,
Invaders from Mars, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I love all that stuff from the early
days of science fiction, before it got so serious.
These particular Twinks were taking an interstellar joy ride one day when suddenly
they came across what looked like a big blue marble. They were looking for water, and
boy did they find it. When they ran a scan of the planet, through a highly sophisticated
39
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Twink procedure known as a Doodlebugging, they discovered that the Earth was nearly
70% water: all 326 million trillion gallons of it. They were so ecstatic they nearly wet
themselves.
70% water? Do you know what that means? That means living, breathing organisms.
That means food, and lots of it. Moist, meaty creatures in abundance and all you can drink
to wash them down.
Never before had these Twinks come across a planet with so much water. Truth is, it
was rare they ever came across water at all. There were only a few planets in the entire
galaxy that even had water. In fact, the last planet they’d come across with any water at all
was 30 light years behind them. There was no life on it worth mentioning and the water
there was so hot it would have been boiling, if it hadn’t already been frozen solid. Now
looking down at this big blue wet kiss called Earth, these Twinks could hardly contain
themselves.
They did, however, in all their excitement adhere to protocol, running the standard
orbital scans for any traces of exhaust fumes or space debris. There was none whatsoever.
Do you know what that meant? That meant it was suppertime.
Their spaceships came down from the sky like a meteor shower, making big splashes in
the waters off the west coast of America in the Earth year 1952. From their peeping
devices high up in outer space they saw herds of humanoids so pink and so plump, the
Twinks started to drool. But what the Twink hunting party didn’t know was that they were
in for a very rude How do you do.
The Twinks came walking up on the shore at a place called Huntington Beach, armed
with nothing more than common cutlery; and promptly, without even the slightest
40
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
hesitation, they were slaughtered. Huntington Beach is a small township located on the
surfing side of a place called Orange County, California. What these Twinks did not know,
and what their high-tech sensors could never have picked up, was that in 1952 Orange
County had a higher percentage of Republicans than the Earth did water. The Twinks,
armed with nothing more than ordinary tableware, never stood a chance.
But why? Why would such advanced and highly intelligent creatures like these Twinks
travel thousands of light years to invade an unknown planet armed with nothing more than
everyday kitchen utensils? Well, according to everything they knew, everything history
had taught them and all the wisdom of the known Universe, there was no way a species that
had not yet even achieved space travel could be anything but easy prey. There was no way
a creature like that on Earth, which had not even once poked its head above its own
atmosphere, there was no way such a creature could have developed weapons enough to be
any sort of a threat to anyone. Boy, were those Twinks wrong.
The logic behind the Twinks’ thinking made perfect sense to anyone on planet Twinky.
In fact, it made such sense that it would be the same as if one earthling were to walk up to
another and say to him, “The sun will rise tomorrow, and it will rise in the east.” Only a
lunatic would make such a proclamation, or an idiot, and it would have been the same on
planet Twinky.
The logic was of course that no species not yet even capable of space travel could ever
be so armed to the teeth and possess such weapons of mass destruction that it could literally
wipe out an entire civilization in one fell swoop. It was unheard of. It had never happened
before in the history of the Universe. Just the thought itself was ludicrous. But
unfortunately for the Twink hunting party out on intragalactic safari, it was true. The
41
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Twinks had stumbled upon the only species in the entire Universe that had placed wanton
destruction above interstellar enlightenment. They had come across the only creature in the
Universe that believed wholesale slaughter was its God-given directive.
And it was from these dead Twinks that the microbial invasion force now amassed at
both ends of the Earth spawned, from the Planet Germanicus which existed under the
fingernail of one of these dead Twinks himself. Thurston was quite sure he had it all
figured out now.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the story he just told me was the same story I
told him 20 years ago. It was a story I’d written back when I thought I was going to be
Isaac Asimov. I called it Main Course, Earth: An Intragalactic Guide to Big-Game
Hunting & Dining Out. It was a great story. Unfortunately, I never did actually write it
down.
42
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
fakes, phonies, freaks & geeks
I can’t stand TV. I can’t stand all the commercials, the talk shows, the dance-offs, the
sing-a-longs, the ding-a-lings, the housewives and the house queens too. I especially
can’t stand the TV news. I can’t stand it, but I watch it all the time.
Where do I even start? Have you ever noticed how TV newsmen are all bad actors,
TV newswomen barbie dolls? There’s this one local newscaster in particular named Mitt
Fray. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s the anchor for the local Action News Team on
Channel Whatchamacallit and he’s as fabricated as Frankenstein himself. If you look
close enough, you can even see the stitch marks.
I don’t know what it is that draws me to him. Maybe it’s because he’s so fake, such a
fraud that in him I can see the loneliness of a fellow traveler. Maybe I just feel sorry for
the poor schlub.
Whatever it is, strangely enough I feel like we are friends even though we’ve never
actually met. Want to know something? And this really is sad. I think Mitt might
actually be my best friend in the whole world. What about all my other friends? What
about Thurston and Nathan and Wags and Ziggy? In reality, those guys feel more like
members of some fucked-up club I belong to than actual friends.
But Mitt, now there’s something real going on there. Sure he’s a phony, but he’s my
phony. In truth, I doubt anyone else out there knows what a pretender he really is, and
it’s exactly this special secret we share that’s what makes us quite simply inseparable. So
no matter how much I can’t stand TV with all its awfulness, there I am every night tuned
in to see how my old friend Mitt is doing.
43
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Mitt’s the kind of man who likes using the word palpable all the time. And victim,
that’s his favorite word in the whole world. He’s the kind of guy who speaks of
compassion and caring too much, way too much: like he’s reading it from a script. His
sympathies are such that it makes me wonder whether after so many years now he wears
his feigned concern like so much scar tissue. I sometimes wonder if he speaks to his wife
and kids with such kindness and caring, as if every considerable event in the Mr. TV
Reporter household is a Hallmark moment.
Sadly, the awful truth is probably that Mitt’s time at home is spent mostly in front of
the television, his relationship with his wife estranged, his kids alienated at best. All I
can say is, Thank God, at least he hasn’t hanged himself like his next door neighbor Mr.
TV Game Show Host.
But Mitt is my friend, and in his defense he really isn’t so much different than anyone
else on TV. The way I see it, they all look like a bunch of Jack in the Boxes anyway. I
sometimes think their exaggerated features seem oddly like a series of pulleys and levers.
There’s this other TV newsman over on channel such-and-such I like to watch
sometimes, although we’re not friends, not like Mitt and I. He’s always going on about
some tragedy, someone murdered or raped or some kind of horrific accident or horrible
disaster. This particular newscaster must have been on television forever, I often think.
He wears big-framed glasses and a frosty-top toupee that’s always just a bit off-center,
not that he cares or even knows. What a freak!
I sometimes think of sending a letter to the editor, then I realize even if someone did
tell him he was wearing ladies’ glasses and his hair was about to fall off it probably
wouldn’t matter: he was hard of hearing, legally blind and senile, probably ever since his
44
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
days on radio. He shouts into the microphone, and although his producers turn him down
he is still way too loud.
Though he must have been quite the lady’s man in his time, nowadays I imagine he
goes home alone and sits in front of the TV eating peanuts until he passes out. It won’t
be discovered until a long time from now how many people on TV actually suffer from
acute mental illness brought on by extensive and sustained periods of deep depression. I
often wonder why more newscasters don’t completely crack up right there on live
television itself, like Peter Finch in Network. They would, except that there’s something
much more sinister going on.
Ever seen a TV newscaster in real life? It’s like some cartoon character just walked
right off the screen. Same thing with TV game show hosts. Problem is, they’ve been in
character so long it’s nearly impossible for them to get out. The only way for them to
break free is to sink into a deep, deep depression.
That’s why they drink so much. You would too if you had to hold a pose all day
long.
The sad truth is, the only time they can get back anywhere close to the reality is when
they’re shitfaced. Unfortunately, this new reality for them is more like treading water
than it is walking on land.
If you don’t believe me, do a search of your own sometime. You have no idea how
many TV newscasters are arrested all the time for things like drunk driving, public
intoxication, methamphetamine possession, stealing prescription medication, brawling
with police, even choking their wives. One TV anchorman was arrested in the
Minneapolis airport for drunk & disorderly while on his way to rehab. Even TV
45
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
newscasting legend Sam Donaldson was busted for DWI at the ripe-old age of 78.
If you think the men have it bad, wait till you hear about the women. TV
newswomen not only drink like fish, they’re the biggest cum guzzlers in town. For TV
newswomen, alcohol alone just doesn’t do it. The only way they can truly slip back out
of their TV characters, according to Wags, is to get down on their knees.
Wags knows the bars where the TV newscasters hang out and he tells me that all the
women are total sluts. According to Wags, getting a TV newswoman to blow you in the
bathroom is a piece of cake once you prime her with a line of cocaine first.
While the TV Newscaster/Cartoon Character theory is a good one, I believe there are
even darker forces at work here. Just like cops, TV newscasters spend all day surrounded
by the worst elements in life. Corruption, murder, rape, these are just a few of the
horrible realities that make up a TV newscaster’s everyday existence. They spend all day
talking about who killed whom and who stole what, and when they aren’t reporting bad
news they’re making it up. No one can spend that much time lying through their teeth
and not need a drink afterwards. Lying is a way of life for most TV newscasters, but I
don’t think that’s true for my good friend Mitt.
OK, so Mitt’s a poser. So what? There are worse things in life than being a man
whore for the camera. As for the fact that he looks and acts like some kind of robot, my
friend Andy Roidenowsky says there’s a good reason for that: because he is one. Andy is
my geek friend who works in computers.
“Ever wonder why his voice is so pronounced?” says Andy. “Why it sounds so
rehearsed? Ever wonder why his face is so smooth, more like latex than human skin?”
I always figured it was just because he was in show business.
46
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
“Ever wonder why he has five o’clock shadow even first thing in the morning?”
So did Sonny Crockett.
“But the big one, the thing he does that really gives him away,” says Andy, “is how
he moves his head from side to side when he speaks, just like a robot. Watch closely and
you’ll see, especially when he jerks it all of a sudden. Just like a robot.”
I always thought he was just having a mild seizure.
Another thing, says Andy. Ever wonder how TV newscasters, as much as they drink
and as much as they smoke, ever wonder how they seem to live so long? Walter Cronkite
and Andy Rooney were 92 years old when they died. Mike Wallace was 93. Andy says
the answer is easy. “It’s because they were robots, too.”
Andy isn’t just a geek, he’s the geek. He’s the kind of guy whose clothes are always
wrinkled like he slept in them, his hair always mussed like he just woke up. If Thurston
is always on to it and Wags is always in to it, then Andy is always out of it. His mind is
always off in outer space somewhere, like he’s in another galaxy, even when he’s not on
the job at Radio Shack.
Andy claims that it’s not just TV newscasters but politicians as well who are robots,
cyborgs to be exact. According to Andy, the government, in conjunction with the secret
Silicon Valley firm CompuKind, first started testing cyborgs as a viable alternative to
humans back in the late 20th century. The program in fact got its beginnings in
Hollywood. It was an easy choice to start in the land of make believe as the first cyborg
prototypes were very limited in their fuzzy logic systems capabilities and posing as
movie stars meant all they had to do was to learn their lines. With so many people in LA
having plastic surgery at the time, their latex-covered faces fit right in. No one ever
47
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
suspected a thing.
The next step was also an easy one: politicians. With fuzzy logic memory systems
still in their early stages, huge gaps in the cyborgs' memory chips blended in easily with
the politicians' style of double-talk and revisionist history. After Model #RR08281910
won the presidential election in 1980 though, says Andy, They decided it better to put the
project on hold. Extreme memory leaks eventually lead to a complete shutdown of the
memory capacitor altogether, and with Model RR08281910 always in the public eye the
margin for error was razor thin . People, especially in the press, were becoming more
and more suspicious all the time.
On top of that, Model RR08281910 had problems with power storage and the
batteries had to be recharged at least twice a day, usually before noon. A rogue model
from that batch, Model #AG06211940, which had always had problems with a stiffness
in its struts, almost won the presidency in the year 2000. Though memory problems
would always plague these models, developers had solved the power issues in the
batteries and Model AG06211940 only had to be recharged once per day. The fix
however brought on new problems as the new batteries now ran too hot and needed two
release valves, one at the front and one at the rear. In fact, it turned out to be a good thing
Model AG06211940 lost the election. The power issues as related to the batteries created
a problem with too much carbon-based emissions. You couldn't have a president going
around emitting carbon-based gases uncontrollably; it would be unseemly. In the end,
the only way to shut down Model AG06211940 was to stuff its face with cheeseburgers
and chili fries until eventually its circuits overheated with one last violent explosion of
carbon-based methane gas.
48
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
According to Andy, the program was revisited briefly in the year 2002 but abruptly
halted when in 2008 Model #RB12101956 had a complete and total breakdown of its
fuzzy logic system and threatened to expose everything. It wasn't discovered until later
that the developer of that particular model had done most of the design work (especially
that of the outer shell’s head) late nights while on large quantities of bad coffee at
Shoney's Diner, and that the head of the model, also known as the governor of Illinois,
looked exactly like the Shoney's Big Boy.
Somewhere in the mix there were tests on the media, newscasters in particular. Why
newscasters? Because it was commonly known that newscasters would do anything.
At best, says Andy, people on TV news are totally insane. Why? Because that’s what
years and years of being in front of a TV camera will do to you. Even short-term
exposure has been known to cause temporary insanity in people. Take for example a
football game. What happens when the TV camera passes in front of a group of people?
They go nuts. There they are, acting just as normally as Ward Cleaver himself, when
suddenly the camera passes in front of them and they lose their minds completely,
screaming and yelling, pulling up their shirts and climbing all over one another. After
the camera moves on, they return to their normal selves. “See what I mean,” says Andy.
“TV cameras cause insanity and lead to complete mental breakdowns including deep
depression and in some cases suicide. It’s all right there for everyone to see.”
But the whole thing goes a lot deeper. Andy firmly believes that Fray is a holdover
from the days when They were doing cyborg experiments on newscasters as well. “It’s
hard to tell the ones who are insane from the ones who are cyborgs,” says Andy, “but if
you look close enough, if you look long enough, you can see it in their mannerisms.
49
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
How so, I asked?
“Well,” said Andy, “one way you can tell if they’re a robot or not is if they are just
too emotional, too concerned and too compassionate. “One of the major components in
the cyborg media series was its sympathy setting, a mechanism that somehow seemed to
take on a life of its own.”
Mitt was definitely way to sympathetic, I’ll admit that.
How come they never cry, I asked Andy? How come if they’re so emotional, you
never even see them cry?
“Simple,” he said. “No tear ducts.”
Makes sense.
Whether there’s really anything to Andy’s theory, I cannot say. What I can say is that
I like Mitt. Mitt is my friend. As for all those other TV newscasters, I really couldn’t
care less. While his show of compassion may be ratcheted too high and over rehearsed, I
still believe it’s genuine. I really believe that deep down inside he does care. And No, I
do not believe he is a robot.
As for myself: sure I have a big fat brain, and yes I know I think about things way too
much, but I’m just looking out for myself, not like all my other friends who are out there
running around like chickens with their heads cut off, spitting out conspiracy theories like
they really were members of normal, everyday society.
50
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
tv happy land
TV is the worst. If they make one more crime-scene show, one more series about
doctors or lawyers, one more sing-along or dance-off, I’m going to throw my TV right
out the goddamn window. I mean it. Just how many dumb reality shows about pawn
shops and lumberjacks and the Amish do they really need, anyway? You know why the
networks love reality shows, don’t you? It’s because the actors come cheap. It’s all
about the bottom line.
But still, like everyone else I continue to watch TV, no matter how much crap they
continue to put out. Hell, they could show someone sitting on the toilet all day and I’d
still watch.
Why? Because TV is a drug. It’s just as addictive as any narcotic. If you don’t think
so, just try getting off it sometime.
Remember the good ole days of television, when even if someone sold shoes for a
living and made just minimum wage he could still afford to own his own home and
provide for his family? I call it TV Happy Land. TV Happy Land was a magical place
where even if you had a job you never really had to go to work. And even if you did, it
wasn’t anything like a real job at all.
In TV Happy Land, yes of course you went to school but it was just the fun parts,
never any real class or homework at all. In TV Happy Land, you never had to go to the
bathroom, either. Ever. Even on Star Trek, millions of light years from home, not once
on that 5-year mission did they ever show Captain Kirk taking a piss. I wonder
51
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
sometimes what color Spock’s pee might have been. I remember Bones saying that his
blood was green, but he never even once mentioned what the color of his piss might be.
In TV Happy Land, you never had to worry about paying bills and even if you did get
six months behind on your utilities, they wouldn’t cut you off. Tell me where that
happens in real life? In real life, you get two weeks behind on your electric bill and
they’ll juice you faster than you can say Nikola Tesla.
In TV Happy Land there was never a mortgage to pay and somehow even if you got
years behind on your property taxes, the government would not foreclose on your home.
I don’t suggest trying that in real life.
In fact, in TV Happy Land you never had to worry about paying for anything. If
you’re car needed fixing, if you needed new clothes, no matter what the situation, when
paying for something all you had to do is reach into your pocket and pull out whatever
amount was there. Some how, some way, it was always just the right amount.
In TV Happy Land you could live in a junkyard, a ghetto, even a war zone, and still
live a life filled with fun and hilarious hijinks. Go take a trip down to the projects
sometime and let me know how many happy families you stumble upon; go sign up for
the military and let me know when you come across the laughter zone.
But TV Happy Land is all but gone now. It’s been pushed aside by freak shows and
all those programs where they’re screaming at you all the time. The days of your
television as your friend are all gone now, although sometimes late at night, when I’m
surfing those channel way up high, I can still find little bits and pieces of it. Nonetheless,
TV as that happy place, those days are gone forever.
52
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Getting back to reality, now that we’ve established what degenerates newscasters are,
it wouldn’t be a complete conversation if we didn’t talk about TV weathermen too. The
depravity of TV weathermen is the stuff legends are made of.
Of course we’ve all heard the story f the TV weatherman and the gerbil. Right? You
know what I’m talking about. That’s right: gerbiling. Gerbiling is when someone shoves
a tube in his butt and lets a gerbil walk right up it into his ass.
The reason for doing this, of course, is to derive sexual pleasure. According to
folklore, the gerbil (if you don’t have a gerbil handy then a hamster or a mouse will do)
will then begin gnawing at the person’s rectum wall and prostate gland, producing a
heightened sense of sexual pleasure and in some cases instantaneous orgasm. The gerbil
eventually suffocates inside the anus and is duly expelled.
The story of TV weathermen and gerbils is more well known in some places than the
oldest and dearest of nursery rhymes. The only thing is, none of them are true. And not
just with weathermen. None of the stories about gerbiling appear to be true---with
anyone---and all seem to have gotten their start from an article back in the 1980s. The
story went like this:
A
26-year-old
male
arrives
at
the
ER
complaining
of
rectal
bleeding.
He
is
too
embarrassed to provide an accurate history but
provides the examing doctor a clue: "There might
be something stuck in my rear end." Examination
reveals a non-tender abdomen, but a rectal exam
shows blood coming from his anus. A speculum exam
reveals
bloody
stool
and
a
dead
gerbil.
Apparently, through the cardboard tubing from a
paper towel roll, the rodent had been forced into
his rectum.
The idea is that as the gerbil suffocates, it
scratches and claws at the lining of the rectum,
providing an intense sensation to the patient. The
rodent should then have been defecated, but the
swelling and bleeding had caused the retention of
53
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the animal. The patient required pain medication
and antibiotics after the animal was removed, but
was then allowed to go home.
Who was this man? Like Christopher Columbus or the first man on the moon, he was
the first into uncharted territory, the man who, unwittingly or not, was the source behind
the urban legend of having a gerbil up his butt? Rumor had it at the time that it was a
Philadelphia newscaster, or even actor Richard Gere. Both turned out to be untrue.
Other urban legends include the story of Vito Bustone and Kiki Rodriguez of Lake
City, Florida. The story was attributed to the LA Times and UPI. Both claims turned out
to be false.
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big
mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the
gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in
the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital.
Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner Andrew
"Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency
treatment after a felching session had gone
seriously wrong.
Felching is the act of sucking semen from the human anus with a drinking straw
while the semen is still deep inside the rectum.
"I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and "I
pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped
Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual,
Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd
had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he
wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube
and struck a match, thinking the light might
attract him."
At a hushed press conference, a hospital
spokesman described what happened next. "The match
ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame
shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair
and severely burning his face. It also set fire to
the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn
ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the
intestine, propelling the rodent out like a
cannonball."
54
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a
broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while
Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to
his
anus
and
lower
intestinal
tract.
This account has been widely discredited as well.
While no actual report of gerbiling has ever been confirmed, people do have a habit
of shoving all kinds of things up their butts, everything from candy canes and cell phones
to a vibrator and salad tongs. In the case of the vibrator and the salad tongs, one was set
in to rescue the other and became trapped inside as well. What will they think of next?
Again, none of these accounts of sticking things up people’s butts actually involved
TV weathermen, but that does not mean the weatherman doesn’t have his problems too.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, WPTV NewsChannel 5 weatherman Rob Lopicola was
arrested for having sex with boys he met on Craig’s List. According to an affidavit,
Lopicola was charged with the following: one count of unlawful sexual activity with
certain minors, one count of lewd and lascivious battery, one count of computer
pornography and child exploitation.
TV Weatherman Fred Talbot of ITV was found guilty on two counts of indecently
assaulting two teenage boys and sentenced to five years in jail. KARK-TV meteorologist
Brett Cummings was found sleeping in a bathtub next to the naked body of a 24-year-old
man. What makes this story even more disturbing is not just that the young man was
wearing a dog collar, but that he was dead as a doorknob.
And the list goes on and on. WSVN Channel 7 weatherman Bill Kamal received a
five-year prison term after being nabbed in an online, sexual solicitation sting. Kamal,
going by the online screen name morethandick, found out the hard way when setting up a
meeting with an alleged 14-year-old boy for sex that it was not a 14-year-old boy at all,
55
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
but undercover cops. WFOR-TV meteorologist Michael Koolick was arrested and
charged with four counts of obtaining controlled narcotics by fraud.
New York television meteorologist Bill Evans was arrested for brawling with his
wife. TV Weathermen Jeff Baskin of FOX 16 and Keith Monahan of KARK were
arrested for fighting outside their Little Rock, Arkansas TV station. Seems the two
decided to "take it outside" after a disagreement over a Saturday weather forecast. When
spotted duking it out on the TV station's front lawn, it seems other newscasters from the
station decided to get in on the action. A street brawl ensued, a la the movie Anchorman.
San Diego TV weatherman Joe Lizura pled guilty to lewd conduct when seen
masturbating through the window of an office building. ABC 57 News, chief
meteorologist Jamie Martin was arrested for driving while intoxicated and leaving the
scene of an accident. Oh the poor TV weathermen. All they ever wanted to do was help
people out by letting them know whether it was going to rain or not. Unfortunately, like
so many others, they fell under the spell of the TV camera, and slowly but surely lost
their minds.
If you think TV newscasters and weathermen are bad, I’ve got one for you you’re
simply not going to believe: TV kid-show hosts
That’s right, not even children’s television is safe from all the sikkos out there in TV
Land now. Remember folks, this is not your parents TV. TV Land today is a cesspool of
perverts and reprobates. If you drain the swamp these days, you’re not going to find the
Creature from the Black Lagoon but condoms and needles and dead bodies instead. Yes
mom and dad, it’s a sewer out there.
56
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Back in my day, kids shows were sacred, even if there wasn’t much to choose from.
All they really had when I was growing up besides local programming was Captain
Kangaroo and Sesame Street. That was pretty much it. But there was nothing dark and
mysterious about either of those shows. About the worst thing that ever happened on
Sesame Street was when Snufflapagus' parents got a divorce.
Not anymore. Today, not even kids shows are off limits, much worse than the
Sesame Street controversy over whether Bert and Ernie were actually gay lovers. What
I’m talking about is depravity at its finest.
To begin with, who do you think the hosts on those kids TV shows really are,
anyway? I can tell you right now, they’re not nursery school teachers. If they hired real
school teachers for those shows they would wind up looking like Nancy Culp, and
nobody wants that.
So they hire actors, of course, and if you’ve ever spent any time with actors you know
they are right there at the bottom of the degenerate pool. They drink too much, they drug
too much, and they’ll do just about anything. But we’ve only just scratched the surface.
It never bothered you how happy the hosts always are on those kids shows? How
they are always smiling all the time? Think about it. Nobody is that happy. Anybody
who smiles that much has got to be psychotic.
What do you think happens to those people when the lights go down? You think they
walk around smiling like that all the time? Of course not. It’s the exact opposite.
Case in point: Paul Reubens. You know who Paul Reubens is, right? If you don’t,
then maybe you know him better by his TV name: Pee Wee Hermann. Remember him
now?
57
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Everybody remembers when Reuben took his little pee wee out and started playing
with it in a porno theater. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Pee Wee Herman was by no stretch the first TV kids show actor to go off the rails. In
fact, loose and lurid behavior was present from the very beginning of television itself:
The Howdy Doody Show. No, Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob Smith did not have a gay
love affair, but if you’re old enough you might remember a character from the show by
the name of Princess Summerfall Winterspring.
Princess Winterspring was played by teenage actress Judy Tyler, the same Judy Tyler
who played opposite Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock. On the Howdy Doody Show,
Princess Winterspring was the epitome of wholesomeness and purity. Offstage, she was
anything but.
Although just 16, Tyler was married. Colleagues remember her most for her offscreen drinking binges and foul mouth. She was known for taking it all off on many a
nightclub table and giving it up to just about any cast member who asked for it. Even
Clarabell.
In 1957, now on her second marriage Tyler died in a car crash along with her husband
in Rock River, Wyoming. She was just 23 years old.
If you think this was just one girl gone astray, however, you don’t know the rest of
the story. Stephen Davis (son of Howdy Doody Show director and writer Howard
Davis), says lewd behavior ran rampant backstage on the show and was the norm, not the
exception. According to Davis, cast members positioned the puppets in pornographic
positions on a regular basis. Remember, we’re talking about actors here.
58
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Did you know that Clarabell was played by none other than Bob Keeshan himself?
That’s right, Keeshan was the shows first Clarabell before moving on to become Captain
Kangaroo.
So you see, TV kids shows and scandals have been going on ever since the very
beginning. Nothing they do in show business surprises me anymore.
Ever heard of Jamie Theakston? He’s the ex-host of the children’s program Live and
Kicking. Theakston was canned from the show when it was found out he had a bondage
session with three hookers.
What about Melanie Martinez from the PBS KIDS Sprout Network? She was the
host of “The Nighty Night Show,” or something like that. I remember she would come
out dressed in this tight little thing like it was everybody’s business. This was a kids’
show, remember.
Melanie was canned from the show in 2006 after it was discovered she made two
short videos, one about the virtues of anal sex, the other co-starring a vibrator. A
vibrator? Remember, mom and dad, since you decided to let TV be your babysitter, these
are the very people your kids are spending time with: a john with a taste for bondage and
a chick who takes it up the ass. In Melanie’s defense, she was actually pretty hot.
How about Gail Porter of the TV kids’ show Fully Booked? The former model
admitted to being “out of her head” while on the show. Naked photos of her were once
projected on the Palace of Westminster.
Barry Elliot, one of the Chuckles Brothers, was beaten to a pulp by the husband of a
woman who says he groped his wife. Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit form the Captain
Kangaroo show were busted with an underage prostitute in Las Vegas.
59
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Richard Bacon, of the children’s show Blue Peter, was fired after admitting he used
cocaine. John Leslie left the show after repeated allegations of sex scandals and drug
use. Christopher Trace was caught cheating on his wife and eventually became a cab
driver. Peter Duncan had once been a porn star.
The list goes on and on, but when it comes to real-life kiddy show depravity, nothing
even comes close story of Natasha Collins and Mark Spreight of the TV kids’ show See
It, Saw It.
The story itself was printed in The Daily Mail. It goes like this:
London, England---An actress died in her bathtub
after taking five times the lethal amount of cocaine
during a drink and drug binge, an inquest heard
yesterday.
Natasha
Collins,
31,
and
her
fiancé,
the
children's TV presenter Mark Speight, had been
partying at their penthouse flat the night before
her scalded body was found.
The couple, who had consumed wine and vodka and
taken cocaine and a sleeping pill each, had 'ignored
the risks', said coroner Dr. Paul Knapman.
It was not until the following afternoon that
Speight, known to millions of youngsters for the BBC
children's art programme SMart, woke to find his
fiancé dead.
She had got up first to take a bath but is
believed to have lost consciousness after getting
in, leaving the hot tap running.
At Westminster Coroner's Court, Dr. Knapman
concluded her death was caused by the combination of
a 'very significant' amount of cocaine and the hot
bath, which resulted in scalding to 60 per cent of
her body.
It was also discovered that she had a hole in the
septum of her nose measuring roughly one centimetre
across - a sign of regular cocaine abuse.
Recording a verdict of misadventure, he said:
'Even if the hot tap had not been going, the inquest
has heard that this was sufficient cocaine to kill
people anyway. A bad situation was made worse.'
After Miss Collins was found dead on January 3,
Speight was arrested on suspicion of murder and
supplying Class A narcotics. But the death was not
found to be suspicious and he was released without
charge.
60
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
However, he gave up his job, and his career as a
children's presenter is in ruins.
When first asked whether Miss Collins had taken
anything, Speight said she had taken 'a little bit
of cocaine'. He later said they had both taken
recreational drugs before going to bed at around
4am.
It was not until around 1.15pm the following day
that he woke up and found Miss Collins in the bath.
Police found sleeping tablets by the bath and a
bottle of Moet and Chandon champagne next to their
bed. Dr. Knapman, who recorded Miss Collins's cause
of death as 'cocaine toxicity and immersion in hot
water', said: 'In the privacy of their flat, they
had embarked on adventurous behaviour, ignoring the
risks and she has suffered the consequences by the
ending of her life.
Imagine letting these two come over to watch your kids for the night. Think this is
where this story ends? Think again.
After his fiancé died, Speight went on a drug and drinking binge. He was reported
missing for six days when they found him dead, hanging by his neck from the rafters at
Paddington Railway Station. Hanging from the rafters, 60 feet up in the air in the middle
of the train station. You have to admit, Speight died a true showman.
While the world was shocked, it’s really no surprise how those two ended up when
you realize they were actors, not educators. Just look at those two and tell me, honestly,
that you’d leave them alone with your children? They look demented.
61
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
To make matters even worse, Speight’s mother died of a stroke just six months after.
Here’s another little juicy little morsel. So Speight hanged himself, right? So what
did he die of? Asphyxiation? Strangulation? No. It was a broken heart. Mark Speight,
just like Natasha Collins, just like his mother, died of loneliness, plain and simple.
The real question isn’t whether you’re lonely or not. Everybody’s lonely. The real
question is whether you off yourself or not. In this case, they all three opted for the latter.
Sometimes, I guess, it’s just easier that way.
62
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the problem with mirrors
I hate mirrors. I’m not the only one. The wicked witch in Snow White didn’t much
like them either. Mirrors are evil. If you don’t believe me, just watch Candyman,
Poltergeist, or Oculus.
A lot of famous celebrities can’t stand looking at themselves in the mirror, like Nicole
Kidman. Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks don’t even watch their own
movies. It’s the same thing.
Why do I hate mirrors? The truth is, I just can’t stand looking at myself. That’s why
I have no mirrors in my apartment. Not even one. How do I know if my hair is messed
or if there is a piece of broccoli in my teeth? I don’t. In case you weren’t paying
attention, I don’t go out much. Anyway, I cut my own hair with electric clippers, and I
can’t stand broccoli.
I don’t go inside changing rooms, fun houses, and I don’t ride on elevators. Elevators
are the worst because not only am I surrounded by warped, grotesque images of myself,
I’m trapped. I don’t like going to the barbershop either.
Did you know that the first mirrors were just puddles of water with a dark bottom?
Real mirrors came along in 6000 BC and were made of polished volcanic glass.
It’s not just that I hate looking at myself. If you must know, I saw a monster once
when I was a teenager. It was right there in the mirror looking back at me, and I’ve never
liked mirror since.
63
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Just so you know, I’m not one of those who believes in monsters or ghosts, or even
zombies, but seeing is believing and once you’ve experienced the real thing, I don’t care
how much of a skeptic you are, there’s no going back.
I must have been 13 years old at the time, all I remember was I was having this
staring contest with myself in the mirror, sure if I just looked long enough I could outlast
myself. I remember at the time I also thought I could move inanimate objects with my
mind and even achieve flight.
So there I was staring at myself in the mirror: one minutes passed, and then two. h
Have you ever tried staring at yourself, or anything, for a solid minute? Not blinking
even once? It’s not easy. But if you can get past the first few minutes, once you get into
the zone, it’s a piece of cake.
In fact, it’s really cool, like you’re having some kind of out of body experience. I
swear to God, you can actually feel yourself lifting up and away from your physical
body.
Truth is, once you’re in the zone, it’s more difficult to blink than not, not that you’d
want to. Blinking would mean and end to the whole experience.
So there I was in a blinking contest with myself when suddenly I started to see things.
Honest to God, I started to hallucinate right there and then. My face started distorting,
stretching itself up and down like a piece of taffy. My chin was so far down off my face I
looked like John Kerry.
I must have gone ten minutes in all. At times I looked like an old lady, a cat, a pig.
Even a lion. Other times I cannot even begin to describe what I looked like. Some kind
of serpent, demon beast. A monster. Finally, I snapped out of it. I was exhausted.
64
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
I thought I was losing my mind until later I read about the very same thing in a
science journal. Seems like I’m not the only one who’s seen monsters in the mirror. In
fact, it’s a pretty common occurrence.
According to this article I read, people are always looking for other human faces.
Think about it, all the times you think you see a face in a cloud, a tree, your mashed
potatoes. According to scientists, the human mind is always on the lookout for points of
recognition to connect and make faces out of. Honest to God. It’s science.
Remember, your eyes are not a camera. They do not record and relay stimuli the
same way a video camera does.
The eyes do not record events, they simply relay stimuli to the brain which in turn
must decide what is really going on. Remember, the retina in your eyes actually sees
everything upside down. It’s your brain that turns them back upright. It’s your brain that
brings into play common sense.
In fact, your brain pretty much ignores most things it sees. If it’s the same old thing
all over again, the brain just knows what it is already and fpocuses on the more
interesting, newer stimuli. This is why we are sometimes fooled into thinking we saw
something that really wasn’t there. The brain just assumes it was there, like it always has
been before, and sets it into place.
And that’s exactly my point. The brain sees things the eyes cannot. Tell me, who
you going to believe, your eyes or your brain? Your eyes, while a lot of fun to have
around, are no match for your brain. Your brain runs the whole show. Your heart, while
incredibly necessary in keeping you alive, remember, can be shutdown anytime the brain
wants to.
65
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
This is exactly why we don’t see so many things that are out there with our eyes.
what am I talking about? I’m talking about other dimensions. I’m talk about the whole
rest of the Universe.
The brain is an amazing pile of mush and goo. We haven’t even begin to understand
it. Thurston once told me we only understand about .0000001 percent of how the human
brain really works. Sounds about right.
I remember at the time my psychiatrist telling my parents that I might have dementia.
Seriously? Dimensia? Why, just because I see thing in the mirror? If I’d known all that
scientific stuff back then like I know now, I’d have told that headshrinker a thing or two.
Don’t even get me started about headshrinkers. That’s a whole other story.
So, besides the fact that mirrors make me look fat, I have another reason for not liking
them. I see monsters in them, other dimensions, things I’d rather not see. Come on, my
life’s hard enough already without thinking some alien creature from a whole other
dimension is going to come reach out and grab me from inside a mirror. Just one more
headache I don’t need.
Remember in the original Poltergeist movie when the young guy saw himself digging
into his skin and peeling his face off? that’s what I’m talking about. You don’t need
spirits from another dimension to make that happen. Just stare long enough into a mirror
sometime. If you can make it past the magic 10-minute mark, you just might see dragons
and angry spirits where there aren’t really any at all.
Where do you think people come up with all these scary stories, anyway? they’re not
making them up. they believe them. they truly believe these things really did happen to
them. B trust me, when you’re a sane, logical person who can argue with yourself that
66
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
there’s no way demons and demon spawn can actually exist, when you see it, it only
makes it that much harder to deny. Think about it: if you were crazy and knew you were
crazy, then you wouldn’t believe at all. But then again, how can anyone who’s crazy
know he’s not crazy, and not be crazy at all.
Mirrors are truly amazing, but they’re just not for me. Mirrors are what powered the
lighthouse at Alexandria, gave it the ability to beam light as far as a hundred miles out to
see from just a small campfire. It’s a mirror that tells us exactly how far the moon is
from the Earth. Without mirrors, we wouldn’t have the telescopes that see all the way out
into outer space.
But what I don’t get it, if mirrors are so amazing, why do they have to make me look
so fat, and ugly. If a mirror is so amazing, such a miracle, then why can it not do such a
simple thing like make me look like Steve McQueen. That’s all I’m asking, to look like
Steve McQueen. Clint Eastwood, maybe.
67
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
postage due from the twilight zone:
the day all the locks fell off and the
doors came open
I got this letter in the mail the other day. My postman and I have a deal. Most germs
cannot live outside of the human body for more than 48 hours, so he delays my delivery
by two days, then slides it under my door. In return, I always take really good care of him
at Christmas time. Really good care.
So I got this letter the other day that had my address on it all right, but the name was
all wrong. It was addressed to an M Hoyt. I suppose M Hoyt must have lived here before
me. The ink was faded and when I opened the letter I knew why. M Hoyt had indeed
lived here before me---60 years before.
Wow. Airmail. Just like in that Twilight Zone episode where the pilot flies through
the cloud and finds himself 42 years in the future.
The letter itself was dated April 6, 1962. I opened it up and this is what I found inside:
It all started early one morning before it was even light
outside. No one was around. There was nobody there to see
when the lock fell off and the door came open of an old
cargo container down by the docks.
It wasn't until a few hours later that the night watchman
68
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
saw the open door. What he found astounded even him.
Inside was a crateful of guns. Not just guns but automatic
weapons, mortars, grenades, land mines, RPGs, everything you#d
need to start a small war. It was all everyone talked about that
morning.
Around noon, news broke that there was a huge drug bust at
a storage unit over on the East Side. Apparently the lock had
fallen off and inside they found a virtual mountain of
marijuana, enough to get all of Woodstock high. At least, that#s
how they put it.
About an hour later, trunks of cars suddenly began popping
open all over town---garage doors and bus lockers, too. A
veritable treasure chest of contraband was confiscated,
counterfeit and stolen merchandise too.
All told, there must have been hundreds if not thousands of
arrests by midafternoon alone: gun runners, drug dealers,
human traffickers, mobsters, gangbangers, murderers too.
The mayor and the DA were all over the news. A TV
evangelist declared it must be an act of divine intervention. God
69
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Almighty himself had come to clean up the city, just like Sodom
and Gomorra. Praise be to the righteous. By nightfall, however,
the righteous would be a singing a different tune.
By evening, locks were coming undone all over city. You could
hear it in the air, like some kind of strongbox symphony:
briefcases popping, lockboxes springing, even computers started
logging in passwords all on their own.
At the Fidelity Savings & Loan, the front doors suddenly
swung open. The spindle wheel on the safe started spinning
and the big vault there just opened right up. Safety deposit
boxes began shooting out and dirty money began flying
everywhere. That#s when the righteous started to panic.
Down at city hall, court records started unsealing themselves
and file cabinet drawers began spitting out documents.
Suddenly businessmen and politicians started feeling the heat;
cops, prosecutors, and judges too.
Priests fumbled for words to calm their congregations.
The once touted miracle was now deemed the devil#s work.
Everyone#s dirty little secrets were now out there for the
70
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
whole world to see. Husbands hurried home to try and salvage
what was left of their marriages. It couldn#t possibly get any
worse.
And then, right about 10 to Midnight, that#s when everything
stopped and a hush fell over the whole city. Then, one by one,
all the prison cells started unlocking, and the doors swung open.
It just got worse.
The day all the locks fell off and the doors came open.
Cool. That would make a great Twilight Zone episode. All the doors and trunks and
bank vaults just opening up on their own. That’s exactly the kind of thing the Twilight
Zone was all about, inanimate objects coming to life and how humans responded. My
favorite Twilight Zone was always Escape Clause.
71
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
the time machine
Thurston called the other night. I didn’t realize it was three months now since they’d
taken him away.
He called to tell me he was out of the hospital. When I asked when they released him
he told me they hadn’t exactly released him, but that he was out just the same. Right then
I knew, there was going to be trouble. Big trouble.
Thurston says he’s discovered a way to beat back the bacterial invasion force from
Planet Germanicus and that he just needs a little more time to sort things out.
Apparently, Thurston isn’t just a germaphobe and an agoraphobe, but a chronophobe as
well. Maybe it’s just something he picked up during his stay at the laughing academy.
A chronophobe is someone who believes there aren’t enough hours in the day, that
somehow time is just slipping away. In fact, chronophobia is very common not just
amongst inmates but the elderly as well. If you’ve ever spent time behind bars, or are
getting up in age, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
To solve this problem, to get the added time he needs to beat back the Germanicans,
Thurston claims he’s invented a time machine. He says it all came to him one day while
in the hospital.
I told you Thurston was clever. But a time machine? It’s not what you think.
Thurston went on to describe his so-called time machine and even though I listened to
the whole thing, I have to say it was difficult getting through . If Thurston is a mad
scientist, then life is his laboratory.
Now, this is no time machine like you might think of when you think of a time
72
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
machine. It’s not some Everglades Boat-looking device with a chair and a spinning
wheel like in the HG Wells film (the 1960 version with Rod Taylor), nor is it a hot tub or
a Delorean like other movies would have you believe. It isn’t a complex contraption
either, like a Quantum Accelerator. No, according to Thurston his time machine is of the
simplest design. It is at the same time, he warned me, a concoction of the cruelest nature,
like something right out of the Spanish Inquisition. It goes like this.
“The traditional time machine is a contrivance of science fiction that allows the operator
to move either forward or backward in time,” said Thurston. “My invention is neither
contrived nor science fiction. In fact, my time machine was created solely with the intent of
slowing down time, and consists of nothing more than a hammer and a pair of pliers.”
I was used to Thurston’s gibberish.
“You see, time moving too fast is a problem for all of us now getting up in age.”
True.
“Seriously,” he said. “Think back when we were just kids. Remember a time like
when we were in school waiting for the final bell to ring, or in church. It seemed like the
clock just didn’t move. Remember?”
I do.
“Now that we’re older, it’s exactly the opposite, like the clock is spinning out of
control. Want to know why?”
To my surprise, I did.
“Think about it like this. To a five year old, one year might as well be an eternity.
That’s because to a five year old, one year is 20 percent of his whole life so far. But to an
adult, say someone 50 years old, it’s just two percent. It’s all relative. Yes, it’s a getting
73
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
older thing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re losing your mind.”
I had to admit, he was making sense.
“Same thing with God. Yes, he created the whole shebang in just six days, but those
were God days. You and I cannot even begin to imagine how long that would be in
human days.”
A lot of sense. Once again, Thurston had sucked me right in.
“Until now, there’s been no solution to the problem: how to get time under control.
Until now.”
Thurston went on to say that he invented his time machine quite by accident. He said
he tripped and fell and broke his nose while in lockdown and that’s when it first came to
him. He noticed that while in intense pain, unable to breathe normally, time seemed to
slow considerably. “That first day,” he said, “it felt like a week. It’s hard to quantify, but
there was no doubt: time had definitely slowed.
“It cleared my mind and gave me time to do some serious thinking. I was able to then
focus on the bacterial invasion force from Planet Germanicus and how we can get
ourselves out of this predicament.
“Then, just when I felt like was really making some progress, the swelling in my nose
subsided and I could breathe again. Time started ticking faster and that was the end of
that. I knew I had to slow it down again. I also knew, there was no time to wait for
another accident. That’s when I came up with the idea for my time machine.”
Things were abut to get ugly. Real ugly.
“Ever stub your toe?” said Thurston. Thurston live by the rhetorical question. “Well,
think about stubbing your toe, then multiply that by a hundred.”
74
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
I started counting.
“No, a thousand,” said Thurston. “That’s what it feels like when you bash your big
toe with a hammer.”
Here we go.
Not just bash it,” said Thurston, “but smash it. Smash it real good. Break it wide
open and tear the toenail right off. Blood squirting everywhere.”
Sweet Jesus.
“Man, was that painful. But guess what?”
What?
“Yep, time stopped. Plain stopped. Then, when the throbbing itself went down, I
was able to get back to some deep thinking.”
Lord have mercy.
“You really can’t concentrate your thoughts when you’re throbbing in pain, or blood
is spewing everywhere. It’s just common sense.”
Thurston went on to tell me how he took some pliers and began pulling out all his
toenails, then his fingernails. Next, he pulled out all his teeth, one by one, then broke his
nose again. When there was nothing left to break, he began burning himself all over, first
with cigarettes, then with a clothes iron. Crazy thing was, Thurston neither smoked nor
ironed his own clothes. Just like with any scientist, however, no sacrifice was too great
for the experiment. Poor ole Thurston. He really should have stayed in the madhouse.
“All these were great,” said Thurston, “but they were just short-term remedies. What
I needed was something that would stop the clock for good. Time was slipping away and
if I didn’t do something about it soon, it would be too late.”
75
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
There was a pause and Thurston said how beautiful the view was from his window,
how he could see the beach down below and all the seagulls above. Thurston didn’t live
by the beach, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine where he was. Then he went deafly
silent, like he always does when he gets an idea. When he gets an idea.
That’s the last time I ever heard from Thurston. I don’t know what happened to his
time machine; I have to assume it disappeared with him, wherever he went, just like I
have to assume he did finally stop time once and for all. There’s no stopping Thurston
when he sets his mind to something.
I’m really going to miss Thurston. Truth is, I can’t afford to lose any more friends. I
don’t have that many to begin with, and now with Thurston gone, with the possibility of
TJ being shot out into outer space at any moment, with rumors flying around that Mitt
might be sent into exile in Utah, and the real chance that Nathan could wind up in some
Chinese torture trap, that would leave me just one friend left in the world: Wags. I love
Wags, don’t get me wrong, but Wags is a stalker, a real fly on the wall. Wags is about as
much of a friend as the National Enquirer, and that’s on a good day.
To make matters worse, I heard this morning that a case of West Nile Virus has been
reported right here in LA. When it rains, it pours.
It was time to go submariner again. I had enough sick leave and vacation time to go
into hibernation and it was high time I took leave of it. Seriously? West Nile Virus in
Los Angeles? What’s next, a swarm of locusts? I could use a little time machine of my
own right about now.
76
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
a sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ
---John Steinbeck
77
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
part 2: the sad soul
78
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
loneliness: the new germ
So how did I, a perfectly normal human being with just one cross to bear (that I know
too much), come to be associated with such nut jobs? Quite simple, really: we all went to
college together.
We all went to UCLA. Thurston got his degree in business; Nathan got his in
finance; Stanley went to film school; and of course Ziggy became a doctor. Me? Well I
studied microbiology. TJ got his degree in joint rolling.
While all my best friends went on to high-paying careers, I took a different path. I
decided that instead of becoming a scientist, I would be a famous writer. Problem is, to be a
writer you need to have something to write about, and to have something to write about you
need to have something have happened in your life besides sitting on the couch watching
soap operas all day.
I know I said I went to college---and I did--- but the truth is I dropped out after just a
few failed semesters. After that, I was just one of those losers who hung around
pretending to still be going to school. Not even my friends knew.
No one cared. Not even my parents. As long as I didn’t hassle them, they just kept
sending the checks.
These days, whenever anyone asks me where I went to college, I tell them UCLA. If
they ask what I graduated in, I tell them I majored in microbiology. They just assume I
graduated.
79
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Whenever someone asks me where I work, I tell them at the UCLA Medical Center.
They just assume I’m a doctor. I guess I could have been a doctor. I look like I could
have been a doctor.
Like I said before, I’m a bagman over at the Infectious Disease Center over at UCLA.
Before you go getting too impressed, however, you should know that "bagman" is just a
fancy word for garbage man. Actually, Nathan came up with it. Nathan’s clever like
that. He's always coming up with one clever handle or another.
I'm a janitor, OK! But hey, the people at the IDC know practically everything there is
to know about germs. I should know; I clean up their mess every day.
And if you’re wondering how a guy like me with such a full knowledge of germs and
diseases and bacteria can work in a place like that, that’s easy. What better place to know
exactly what’s going down, and how to best prepare against it? And besides, just like
being in the eye of a hurricane, the IDC is the safest place there is when it comes to
avoiding bugs, viruses, and pathogens.
It’s not a bad job. For someone who didn’t even graduate college, I make really good
money. Or maybe it’s just that when it comes to handling germ-filled and bacteria-laden
substances, a good man is hard to find.
And so what if I dropped out of college? So did James Dean. Ben Stiller and James
Franco. too. Jim Morrison only stayed in school to avoid the draft. Even saying you’ve
been to UCLA looks good on your resume, whether it’s true or not. Just ask David
Geffen, who got started in his career with a fake diploma from UCLA.
But my job, as exciting as it sounds, really is quite boring. There is no real human
interaction. The only people I ever see are hermetically sealed and usually all wrapped
80
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
up in hazmat suits. So in reality my life isn’t just boring, it’s lonely. Very lonely.
Did you know you can actually die from loneliness? It’s true. You can die from
being lonely just like you can die from a broken heart. But a broken heart is a whole
different thing, altogether. Dying from a broken heart means at least you had someone,
at some time. What I wouldn’t give to die from a broken heart.
According to recent research, loneliness is a serious health risk, right up there with
smoking. No joke. Studies even show that loneliness is twice as dangerous as obesity.
Take that Frankie Ledbetter.
But even if it doesn’t kill you---which it will in the end---it can make you chronically
ill along the way.
In fact, according to psychotherapist Nicky Forsythe, loneliness is the new germ. No
joke. Just listen to what the good doctor has to say.
“Just as we once knew that infectious diseases killed, but didn’t know
that germs spread them, we’ve known intuitively that loneliness hastens
death, but haven’t been able to explain how. Psychobiologists can now
show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the
molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other
systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not
only makes you sick; it can kill you.”
And she’s not the only one. According to UCLA’s very own Steve Cole, professor of
psychiatry and biobehaviorial sciences, the immune system in lonely people is broken
down over time and it even affects their genes. That’s right, now people’s genes get
lonely. Key gene sets, especially those involved with antiviral responses and antibody
production, they get lonely too.
81
Yellow 6
Philip Loyd
Wow! I mean, sure I thought being lonely was a real bummer, but I had no idea it
was clinical now. I wonder what Steinbeck knew. I think the only thing Steinbeck knew
was that finishing one bottle of booze didn’t necessarily make you an alcoholic, opening
the next one did. Wait. That was Hemingway. Same difference.
All this talk of loneliness was getting me depressed, and the last thing a lonely person
who lives in a high-rise apartment needs to be is depressed. The last thing a lonely
person living in a high-rise apartment needs to do is be thinking of Ernest Hemingway,
too.
…to continue reading, contact the author at ployd77082@gmail.com.
.
Yellow 6
a germaphobe’s tale
sometimes keeping your head
means having to lose your mind
82