Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster

I apologize to readers for my recent absence. The cause: My inspiration, an advanced reptile (who, like me, is unaccountablly telepathic) has absconded! One day in May I realized that Robert, the only remaining friend I have in this universe, had left the airwaves silent for too long. I trekked out into the Mojave toward the gila enclaves I knew, and found them gone, i.e., all the gila monsters were gone! Not just Robert. What a sock in the gut. When it comes to sentient beings other than oneself, you never know how much you need them until they, you know, dump you.

I guess Robert did dump me. Why else would he not have messaged my cerebrosphere, something he was never shy about?

Of course I don't really know. Maybe a cosmic mudpuppy seeking telepathic caviar on the planetary surface dive bombed the gilas and slurped them up.

Whatever, now my consciousness is as alone as the other 20 million human consciousnesses on the other side of the San Gabriels, where there were precious few gilas to begin with.

Does all great poetry come from the pain of an isolated soul? Where does bad poetry come from? The same place? Go figure.

I wrote a poem while sitting on Robert's favorite rock:

Lipitor Sunrise

by Harry the Human

I found my father in the dead zone late last night

He had concluded that everything I thought was right

Was it you? Or was I the one who was uptight?

Mom was simply out of sight

She was not in the dead zone

She had traveled to a space her own

one we had not known

Let us pray to ancient Egypt's God of the Animal Mind

to give a reassuring sign

that in the final unity you don't find

existence sparked by eating your own kind

I did get a clue to Robert's whereabouts in a dream. I was walking at night in downtown Santa Barbara. Results from the U.S. midterm elections were flashing from store windows. The sidewalks were crowded with college students and inland families. I found that no matter which direction I walked, I was going the wrong way, everyone was walking against me and I had to continually dodge them. Then...

"We got tired of dodging" came a familiar voice, seemingly from a lamp post.

"Robert!" I cried,"Where are you? Why don't you have to dodge anyone?"

"Because there is only the one place, and every soul is in it and of it."

"Really?" I marvelled.

"Yes, it's boring as crap."

Sorry to leave readers hanging, but this is my progress so far. I'll get back to you soon with more findings as I investigate the plight of the increasingly elusive Mojave gila monster.

Love poem for Robert

Since Robert's absence, I continue to sit on his favorite rock at night, trying to come up with the kind of poetry that, I like to think, once pleased him, like this from last night:

Nematode

By Harry the Human

Oh brillig was the slithy tove

All mum with crap that he had sold

So on he went, as we are told

A goal in mind, a windy road

A nematode, but I digress

Our subject still a wilderness

Wherein such souls as look askance

At superficial happenstance

Can waddle in the cosmic dance

And ask the question should the chance

Present itself, or even not

For questions ask their own true selves

Forgiving answers to themselves

And truth be told I need more rhymes

Not once not twice but three more times! 

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Unsex me here

I had a falling out with Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster.  We had been sharing thoughts amenably until I unwisely mentioned Yuval Harrari's book on the next stage of human evolution, Homo Deus, recommended by my friend D.L. (see "Lasken's Log" at https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/) which predicts that in the near future, in our command of ourselves and our environment, we'll be godlike.  Robert told me gila monsters attained this "godhood," or "awareness" as he calls it, long ago without the fanfare humans require, which I was willing to accept, but then he asserted that humans could not attain godhood because we're too fucked up and don't want to be aware anyway.

"What do you mean we don't want to be aware?" I asked, "What else would we want?"

"What else?  You want to have sex with each other night and day." Robert has learned a lot about humans.  "At least gilas have a season for mating and male combat.  You have one season: mating and male combat."

"So what?  As I've told you, we humans are evolving out of this. Soon we'll be able to modify our physiology with a limited mating season, and with the free time we'll evolve."

"As if!" Robert snorted, "If you're any indication, I won't hold my breath."

I was suddenly weary of Robert's superior species routine.  I needed a break from him and the familiar human conversations at the Family Dollar Store, so I decided to spend that night in San Diego.  I booked a cheap hotel on the waterfront, filled my 2007 Camry and set out.  

The trek began on the lonely 138, hugging the desert foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, then turned south on the 15 through Cajon Pass, to San Bernadino and on to San Diego. It was about 5:15pm when I checked in.

The main objective of my trip was to walk to Balboa Park and see museums, but it was too late for that, so I booked a cheap hotel and headed to the Gaslamp District for dinner.

Young and old lined the sidewalks up Broadway.  I dipped into random mentalities and found thoughts that reminded me of a poll conducted during the Clinton/Trump presidential race that indicated that if only women voted, Clinton would win, and if only men voted, Trump would win. This time the brain waves were too complex to easily decipher.

These meditations soon gave way to hunger, but most of the restaurants were crowded and geared towards couples, where I would have been a sorry spectacle eating alone.  Finally I found a relatively quiet bar that served dinner.  An attractive waitress in her mid-twenties greeted me at the bar with a big smile.  She said her name was Trina.  She was wearing cut-off jeans that had been carefully tailored to cover as little as possible.  A few more beauties assembled, hanging around in the background as Trina grilled me on what kind of martini I wanted- dirty? with a twist? Bombay gin?  Each time I selected, she grinned from ear to ear and said, "All right! Good choice!"  I dug into her mind and found that she was toying with the idea that I might be sugar-daddy material.  Realizing how glum my dinner would be without such illusion, I allowed the fantasy to play out, mostly a passive exercise of my avoiding mention that I live alone in the desert and my best friend is a gila monster.   Thankfully sleepiness came upon me by 9:00 PM and I slipped into relief and darkness in the hotel room.

By 8:00 AM I was dressed and seated in the hotel dining room for the minimalist breakfast (included): reconstituted scrambled eggs, a tiny selection of cheap pastries, coffee.  A TV screen on the wall forced everyone to hear Trump and Harris excoriate each other for unforgivable faults. I checked the minds of my fellow breakfasters, mostly mid-level management on business trips, men and women, some alone, some with others. The TV news had a vague pull on their attention- but only out of anxiety that someone might expect them to be informed; almost the entirety of their focus was on the infuriating eggs and the equally infuriating nature of the coming day.

Twenty minutes later I was walking uphill on Cedar, sweating already in the unseasonably hot morning.  Turning left on 6th I walked along the ridge of Cabrillo Ravine.  The El Prado bridge took me over the ravine (which these days accommodates the apocalyptic roar of Highway 5) to a complex of museums and a rough reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theater, built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.   I hung a left into the Globe Theater courtyard, which was filled with several high school classes on field trips to see Macbeth.  

"Unsex me here!" yelled an agitated boy as he prodded a girl with a plastic sword.

"Mr. Anderson," called the girl to a fortyish man in tasteful slacks and short-sleeved shirt, "Brad is harassing me!"  

"Calm down, Brad!  Leave Terry alone, and remember what that line is supposed to mean!"

"I do, Mr. Anderson," Brad said mockingly with a leer, pointing the sword towards Terry, now at an ambiguous 30 degrees, "It means Lady Macbeth wishes she were a man, so she could be strong and have any idea what to do."

With this basically correct interpretation Brad leapt towards Terry, the sword behind his back, calling "Gotcha!" as Terry screamed in shock and delight.  Mr. Anderson looked around to see who expected him to do anything, saw only me, and went back to scrutinizing a clipboard.  

Mr. Anderson might have further instructed Brad that it's Macbeth who lacks resolve and doesn't know what to do.  Here's the context for Lady Macbeth's line:

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty.

From this we learn that in Shakespeare's time it was thought that "direst cruelty" was a male trait, not normally found in women.  Quite a change in 400 years!

Nearby I found the irresistibly named "Museum of Man," full of beautifully composed models of pre-modern hominids.  My favorite was Lucy, the famous three-million year old adult female. She was about as tall as a seven year old modern human.  Her upper arms were long for swinging from tree branches, but her legs were humanlike, designed for upright walking.  I gazed into Lucy's sad brown glass eyes, sending my thoughts I wasn't sure where to ask for her statement. Finally Lucy responded, though to me or from me I couldn't tell: 

We were a kind of you; we walked along the forest floor for vast generations until you killed us.  You will never know our forest floor, our philosophy, the throb at the heart of the universe that beat through us and our forest floor.

I was sorry I asked.

Next was Heidelburg Man (named for a jawbone found near Heidelburg, Germany).  He reminded me of my grandfather, who had an all-purpose store in North Dakota - the broad forehead and wide lips, the wise patient expression, the random hair. H. Man was the first hominid to live in cold climates and hunt big game. The jawbone from Germany was 400,000 years old. There seemed no way to know from the extrapolated head and face if H. Man was as over-sexed as Homo Sapiens (Latin, "Man the wise"), but since we're thought to be direct descendants of H. Man, it would stand to reason. What else about H. Man stood to reason? Without loincloths, how were such things handled?  Were they handled? Are these questions important?  Would a Trump survival or resurgence clarify anything other than that patriarchy is in peril?

When I got home to Pearblossom around 4pm it was 115 degrees, and my little berg got one of its rare mentions on L.A.'s local news. To unwind and celebrate my refreshing vacation, I wrote a poem:

Unsex me here

By H the H

Do it now, you gods of men!

Genetic rules did not intend

the tools and hard drives in my den

to sport and rule outside my ken

Nor women in this feisty round

a key to being have they found

No logic to the urging sound

of gametes playing lost and found

Unsex us here on this fine day!

All coming after then can say

our species finally had its say

and Robert, just coyote prey!

Friday, July 22, 2022

January 6 from Joshua Tree

Sorry for my lengthy absence, but I'm really getting into estivation! Seriously, if you faced roasting in the great outdoors while staring at the apocalypse day after day, versus sensuous engagement with cool sand under a rock, which would you choose?

To clarify: I don't want to hear about it anymore- the collapse of human civilization, our role as collapsees, the brightly packaged new humanoids buffed to a shine, waiting to replace us. I don't want to hear about it anymore unless the story is delivered honestly, so that, say, David Muir of ABC would come on my dusty TV at 6:30pm and say, "My fellow humans, we have secretly longed for our downfall for so long that it has, regrettably, started to arrive. There's an old saying, 'Be careful what you wish for.' My fellow American humans, won't you help me reverse our wish? Altogether, say with me: 'I wish none of this was happening!'"

Anyway, that's my excuse for choosing shaded bliss, but last week, on the evening of July 21, 2022, I was jolted out of slumber by a blast in the early evening of telepathic energy shooting over the San Gabriels from all of L.A. County, down to San Diego and up to San Francisco and Portland and beyond.

I was in Joshua Tree National Park (130 miles southeast of my homebase, Pearblossom) at the time with my desert companion, Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, who taught me how to estivate there, thinking it would be a productive venue because of the therapuetic effects of Joshua trees. Robert says they have strong "auras" (from Greek "breeze, breath"), the closest English word Robert can find for the gila term, Krrrech-ack sput sput sput.

Joshuas are highly conscious (they are aware, for instance, that they may be gone soon). It was the Joshuas who alerted us that night to the telepathic tsunami.

You probably made the connection that July 21st was when the prime-time January 6 Congressional hearing was, and the burst of mental energy from the population was the spreading realization that a political shift of dynamic proportions had taken place.

I'd like to share the following brief exchange I had with Robert about the hearings:

Me: This unified, highly polished and possibly effective hearing has, for now, saved the two-party system. Democrats have reasserted their relevance, and they are now the rational seeming party even though, other than working to contain Trump, they are doing...well...not much.

Robert: Harry, you child! Why does it take a gila monster to wake you up? The daily vicissitudes of human political systems do not matter to gilas except as local readouts of the planetary forecast, which as of this morning was: Critical disruptions across the Earth's surface starting Thursday afternoon and continuing over the next eon."

Sorry, I should have warned readers that Robert is, in human terms, an extreme cynic and pessimist, though he asserts that his mentality is standard for gilas and has served them well for 20 million years.

I don't have much more to say about my epiphany, such as it was. If I or Robert get any further earth shattering insights, we'll crawl out from under our rocks and make sure the news gets to you.

Until then, pleasant dreams!

Sunday, August 22, 2021

Meaningless dreams

If Sigmund Freud were sitting across from me, I'd ask him what he thinks meaningless dreams are about.  Of course he would answer that a meaningless dream by definition is not about anything, that sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar."  "Dr. Freud," I would press on, "I'm having dreams about things you might term 'cigars' because they don't represent other things.  For instance, I dreamed of a door that was partially open, with a view to the street.  And I dreamed I rubbed my fingertips over the smooth surface of a desk.  Oddly, these dreams were vibrant in unearthly ways, but they were drained of extended meaning -the partially open door and the smooth desktop were...just those.  Dr. Freud, am I having meaningless dreams because of what is happening in Afghanistan?"

Dr. Freud might wonder why his repose should be disturbed by my question, then he might remember that in life he posited a referential universe, where things are predicated on past events, almost Newtonian- where things cause other things- even Einsteinian- where things are relative to other things.  A cigar is never just a cigar, especially for Freudians, I would argue to Freud.

I would stop arguing with Freud when I realized that the conversation itself was a meaningless dream.

When I taught elementary school, a music teacher showed me how to train kids to sing a round.  The trick is that the two groups need to look in opposite directions while singing.  Here's what I taught my second graders to sing in a round:

Row row row your boat

gently down the stream-

Merrily merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream.

At the time, I wondered if I was teaching something radical, an explicit doctrine that life is a meaningless dream.

Full disclosure:  The above encounter with Dr. Freud actually happened, in my head, and it turned out he was not so easy to dismiss, for he reappeared, seated beside me in my living room, reading my mind, to admonish me: "Harry, you are indulging in wishful thinking!  You want life to be a meaningless dream so you can escape from the reality of Afghanistan's collapse, which weighs on you."

I stared at the self-induced simulacrum for a few moments.  Freud regarded me back while puffing on a cigar (which, to my consternation, turned into a flaccid penis as he palpated it, the white silky smoke an obscene addendum).

"What wishful thinking?" I asked (defensively, as Freud might have noted).

Freud replied, "If the world is a meaningless chaos, then you are not responsible for things going wrong in it, and you are not responsible for things that are going wrong inside you, things that are thrusting about of their own accord, oblivious to human dictate.  You get the picture?  You're out of control."

I got the picture all right.  Looking down at the dining room table I saw the headline of the morning paper: "'What was it all for?' ponders a town of Marines."  They are wondering what America's involvement in Afghanistan was for.  I wanted suddenly to have an out-of-body experience and return to my long ago second grade class, singing with them, "...life is but a dream."

Dr. Freud puffed at me, white plumes of suggestive smoke, then said: "America's post-war policies were not a dream.  They have become meaningless, as far as meaning goes, but there is meaning in the meaninglessness."

I couldn't disagree with an idea stated so clearly, but before I could respond, Freud became transparent and faded away, leaving wisps of smoke to clarify his thought: American foreign policy has been real, and that is its only meaning.  We did not conquer evil.  We did not determine our own evil or goodness.  We did not do anything except wage war.

I felt a familiar mental buzzing and knew that Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster was approaching my desert door.

"Robert," I thought in his direction (for new readers, I'm a telepath, retired to the desert), "I sense you.  Have you been eavesdropping on my thoughts again?"

"I have," thought Robert.

I opened the door and Robert trudged in.  I picked him up and set him on his favorite cushioned chair, recently vacated by the founder of psychoanalysis.

"Robert, what are your views on my conversation with Dr. Freud?"

Robert was dismissive: "Freud's motivation was to prove to his mother that he was a success; that's what I think."

"Ok, but...what about meaninglessness?  Do gilas ever get upset by the thought that everything is meaningless?  Like if a coyote eats one of you, does that make life seem meaningless?"

"No, we don't approach existence like that.  The meaning of a thing is the thing itself.  We don't complicate the picture with intellectual ornament."

"Ornament?  Robert, I know you follow human news.  Look what's happening in Afghanistan.  The events do not stand in isolation.  They have meaning, and that meaning is that the entire post-war foreign policy of the United States, in which it has tried to adumbrate an identity as the world's central super-power, has crumbled, and Americans now have to collectively acknowledge that we don't know how to rule ourselves, let alone the world."

Robert spat, his usual preface to impatient remarks: "Harry, gilas do not care what is happening in other parts of the world, because we are present in our part of the world.  If humans could tolerate presence where they are, you would not need to project yourselves to places where you are not, like countries other than your own, or parts of your own country that are not where you are."

"I could retort that gilas are provincial," I ventured.

"Ha!" Robert telepathically barked, "At least we have a province.  You humans live apart from the Earth in an artificial environment, your population so compressed that you must numb your claustrophobia with drugs.  You might as well be on Mars already."

We became silent.  After a moment, Dr. Freud returned, materializing in the middle of the room. He regarded Robert curled on the chair, picked him up, then sat on the chair, placing the telepathic lizard on his lap.

"Hi doc," said (thought) Robert.

"Hi Robert," said Freud, "Nothing surprises me anymore, not even you.  In fact nothing in the afterlife is surprising because there is no expectation of particular outcomes.  The real afterlife is more like the ancient Greek's Hades than current versions.  It's like swimming in an ocean of Thorazine."

"That should ensure that your perceptions are impartial," I observed.

"I think it does," said Freud, "and that gives me confidence to share something with you: my belief that President Biden was set-up."

"Duh," said Robert.

"Dr. Freud, forgive my associate.  He thinks the meaninglessness of the world gives him carte blanche to be rude.  Please elaborate on your findings."

"No problem," Freud continued, "the President was assured by advisors that there was virtually no chance that the Taliban would take over Afghanistan after a U.S. withdrawal, but in the same week that Biden publicly repeated this view as his own, the Taliban took over, with no apparent resistance. Biden was blindsided, seeming incompetent and clueless.  The desired outcome of this subtle coup is that Biden will take the fall for the loss of Afghanistan, its economic collapse and the catastrophe for women, if not for the entire lost cause of America's post-war years back to Vietnam.  Whatever cadre comes to power after Biden can then pose as innocent, like pool contractors who skimp on the rebar, but when you try to sue them, they've gone bankrupt and are operating under a new name."

Dr. Freud stood up and placed Robert back on the chair.  He gazed at the desert through my one large window and said mournfully, "Robert is right: The motivation for my career was to prove my worth to my mother (and of course overthrow my father).  One time I read her a passage from Civilization and its Discontents that I'm fond of:

A civilization that leaves so large a portion of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.

"My mother's comment was, 'Feh!,' (a term she reserved for the most useless ideas), 'Why would you write something like that?'"

Robert groaned, "You humans with your mothers!  You really should try egg-laying. "

Robert finally left, and Freud's apparition followed.  It had been a stimulating conversation, but I felt something was missing.

Could Freud have told me more?  I went back to my frayed copy of Civilization, finally finding a line that relaxed me enough to take an afternoon nap:

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.

Friday, June 4, 2021

Robert evolves humor

I hadn't talked to Gregory, leader of The Army of the Young (prominent on the U.S. West Coast and spreading) since the pandemic started, so I thought I'd contact him and catch up.  Gregory is a political operative and messianic twenty-something.  I figured he'd have a lot to say about post-Trump reality.  It turned out he didn't. [Gregory does have a lot to say- and you'll get a peek at the 2044 U.S. Presidential election in his piece, "Gregory's Army of the Young", above].

As we had last time, we met in Bakersfield, the midway point between Gregory's community near Marysville and mine in Pearblossom, at America's only remaining Woolworth's.  We sat again at the vintage soda fountain.  

It had occured to me that Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster might be a cogent contributor to our conversation, as he has an uncanny understanding of human politics.  Gregory is not entirely comfortable that I associate with deities and sentient reptiles, so I hid Robert in my "man-bag" and told him to wait for an appropriate moment to reveal himself.

Gregory sighed quietly, it seemed to me, when I asked him his thoughts on "post-Trump reality."  He took some time to answer.

Harry, he finally said, I'm sorry, I don't entirely enjoy thinking about things the way I used to.  I know I'm the head of a political movement and so on.

Yes, that sounds difficult, Gregory.  How are you going to handle your followers?  Are you going to conceal that you don't like thinking about things anymore?

For now that's the plan, yes.

So...why don't you like thinking about things anymore?

Well, because a political movement is based on optimism, and, somehow, in what you call the "post-Trump reality," I'm not optimistic.

You mean...you are...

Yes, I'm pessimistic.

Silence ensued as we digested Gregory's words.

Gregory, I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do?

No thanks, Harry.  Pessimism is just an emotional/intellectual state after all.  It will pass.

Like optimism.

Exactly.

Gregory, if I may ask, what is it about our post-Trump reality that has caused your pessimism?

Of course you may ask, Harry.  I think it's the way Trump took on all our sins- not in a Jesus sort of way, where you die for everyone's sins- but in a self-indulgent way where you actually commit all the sins most people can't get away with, making fame and fortune for yourself and wreckage for everyone else.

Then why aren't you optimistic because America is able- for now- to contain Trump?

Because just as a focus on Satan as the prime and ultimate source of evil can be counter-productive, diverting our attention from more local evil (or as I call it, malpractice) so too can associating Trump with every wicked political trend spread a protective shroud around other causes and effects.

What do you think of President Biden?

He fits a Central Casting call for "Nice older gentleman," the perfect two-dimensional cutout to lure us into war. The battle against Trump is a diversion. 

Agreed, but why can't you just celebrate this limited victory for what it is?

It's too limited.  

Gregory ordered a root beer float, which struck me as somewhat optimistic.  I got a Diet Dr. Pepper.  I don't even want to think about what that meant.

Gregory, what do you want Biden to do?

Honestly, Harry, there's not much he can do.  The world is filled with millions of young people who have little hope of gainful or meaningful employment.   The default option is to send them to war, that or convert them to soylent green. And look at biotech and AI. Humanity is going to be refashioned by scientists, and much of the human race will become obsolete by its own hand.  There's nothing anyone, including a president, can do about it.

Gregory, some people would call that optimistic.

Yes, Gregory smiled, but Harry, we're not among the elect.  I know you are a psychic with unusual connections to the, what shall I call it...spirit world? 

At our last meeting (see "Older posts" below), Gregory was seriously unnerved  by a cameo appearance from Betty the Coyote Creator Goddess. 

But, Gregory continued, do you see yourself welcome in the coming age?

I'm not sure I'll be up to code. 

None of us will be up to code.  Remember the "savages" in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?  They were people who still reproduced sexually.  "Mother" was a dirty word.  The savages were kept in concentration camps in the desert.  And don't forget climate change.

Let's hear it.

In order to keep the planet habitable, 20% of the fossil fuel that remains in the ground will have to go unused.  That is not going to happen.

I don't know, Gregory.  Greta Thunberg's movement has proven enduring.

That is the only movement that will count.  The adult movements are weakened by uncertainty.  The moment of Thunberg's vision has arrived.  Yet that 20% will be pumped into the sky.

I sighed. Gregory, your pessimism is getting to me.  I'm a blogger.  People don't want to read bad news unless it's funny.  How am I supposed to make this funny? 

I don't know, Harry.  My calling asks me to be serious, which for me requires optimism.  Looks like we're both in the shit. 

Gee, I wonder what you can do about it, thought Robert (to us) from my "man-bag."  I had almost forgotten he was there.  Gregory gave me a skeptical look.

Gregory, I'm so sorry, I said, I know you aren't comfortable with my outreaches to non-human realms, but perhaps I could change your mind.  May I introduce Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster?

Hi Gregory, thought Robert as he stuck his head out of my bag and stared directly at Gregory, whose look turned from skepticism to disgust.

Gregory, Robert continued cheerily, don't forget I'm psychic.  I know you're not enjoying meeting me.

No...I, I'm happy to hear what you have to say, Gregory stammered, Go on please.

Well, I'll do my best, but I should explain that gila monsters do not have a sense of humor.  I've tried many times to understand what Harry means when he says something is "funny," to no avail.  I do know from my study of human physiology that laughter is a response to the reconciling of the left and right hemispheres of the human brain- which represent, roughly, literal versus figurative thinking- mediated by a bundle of nerve tissue called the corpus callosum that connects the two hemispheres.  As the c.c., which has its own brain, sifts through the streams of the two interpretations of the environment, it often finds esoterically matched analogues, and it has the option to decide if a match is "funny" (from Middle English, fon, fool).  The matches designated "foolish" are sent to humor centers in other parts of the nervous system (there are 15 million).  If enough electric charge accumulates in the humor centers, a feedback loop with the c.c. emerges, and this triggers a spasmodic choking response in the upper body.  The experience, though highly valued by your kind, is mercifully denied to mine.

FYI, Robert, I retorted, what you just said was funny, but, as the saying goes, it was so funny I forgot to laugh.

Actually, Robert, said Gregory, who appeared considerably more relaxed, your ideas are intriguing.  I'm not much of a humorist myself, and I often wonder about laughter.  Since Harry went out on a limb to bring us together, maybe your analytical abilities could help him find the humor in our pessimistic scenarios.

Wow, muttered Robert, another human willing to listen to me.  Life just keeps getting better.  Let me think.

Robert started his purposeful thinking by chewing softly on the rim of my leather bag.  His thoughts were guarded, but sometimes we picked up stray, fragmented sentences.  They were not funny.  

Finally Robert stopped chewing on my bag and looked up, directly into Gregory's eyes.

Try this, Harry, Robert thought, still holding Gregory's gaze:

 A rabbi, a Catholic priest and a pantheist are walking together when they come upon the final 20% of Earth's fossil fuels.

The rabbi says, "Hey you two, why don't you go in with me to buy Earth's last fossil fuel?  Then we'll pull it off the market and save the planet!"

The Catholic priest says, "That's a great idea! Count me in!"

But the pantheist exclaims, "No!  This may not happen!  The Earth God is freezing to death and wants the surface of the planet to ignite and warm him!"

We gathered that Robert had come to the conclusion of his "joke" because he was shaking spasmodically in what I understood to be his first experience of humor and laughter.  Gregory looked pale and a bit disturbed.

Robert, I finally said, Please snap out of it.  That was not funny.

Really?, Robert spat, You obviously didn't get it.

Gregory and I decided not to belabor the point.  We made our goodbyes and headed to our cars.  On the drive back to Pearblossom Robert told me that now that he understands humor he is going to write a book called "Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster's favorite jokes."  He says he will forward the jokes to me as they develop.

The ride home was uneventful, punctuated every few minutes by spasmodic sounds coming from Robert's throat as he worked on jokes for his new book (see the next post for previews).

 

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