TESTICLES ON TRUCKS

I know, I know...

This is the second consecutive post where I am writing about the testicles, penises or otherwise. I should instead be blogging about Beirut, about George Bu-shit and his veto, about the Indonesian tsunami.

Instead, I bring to you now word of yet another phallically oriented phenomenon that has migrated to Canada from the Excited States, as evidenced in this (edited) story from The Canadian Press:

EDMONTON -- It takes mighty big balls to drive a truck in Alberta these days.

The latest in prairie chic is to dangle enormous, plastic, fake testicles from beneath the rear bumpers of pickup trucks.

And while one might think the balls are the ultimate expression of manhood, retailers in Edmonton say a surprising number of women have been purchasing the pairs.

"It's redneck Alberta," said one truck retailer who didn't want her name used.

"We brought them up on a gag last Christmas and we've ordered quite a few. They've been selling like hotcakes."

The testicles come in different colours to match the truck and are also available in brass and chrome. They cost between $40 and $50 and are available in smaller sizes for motorcycles.

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Having been born in Alberta and lived there for almost 15 years, I can attest to its redneck ways. If any Canadian province is ready to join the States, it's right-wing, pro-business, conservative Alberta.

I've never gotten this thing about people projecting their personalities through their cars, young punks revving up their big-shot V8 hemis at a red light..."ooohhh, you da man!"

OK, I can see the personalized licence plates...But do people ANYWHERE really need to have giant balls attached to their bumpers to prove their manhood? Or is to make up for their lack of same?

And hangin' that low, I wouldn't stifle a chuckle if the dangling gonads rubbed the ground a bit or got swallowed up by a famous Canadian pothole or two on the highway...

BABOONS HAVE BALLS

BB and I recently visited the "Wild African Safari" not far from Hamilton, Ontario, in Canada's beautiful Golden Horshoe region around the eastern Great Lakes.

There were lions and tigers and bears, oh my. (OK, only lions, giraffes, rhinos, llamas and a bunch of prey animals). But no creature was as bold and endearing as the baboon (aka to BB as the bamboon).

Being the daring adventurers that we are, and seeing as it was not my vehicle anyway, we hopped into BB's Tracker, donned our pith helmets, made sure we had a full tank of gas and 30 days worth of food and water, and set out.

No way we were going to go in the big white sissy buses. We were going to experience this first-hand.

I wanted to hear monkeys screeching and glimpse exotic birds flying and caw-caw-cawing as I had many years ago upon entering India from Pakistan, thus making me feel I was Rudyard Kipling or at least Baloo the Bear.

Instead, once the huge electronic gates opened to grant us entry in to the game reserve, we couldn't hear a dang thing and the only animals I could see or sense were the mosquitoes and sparrows. Harumph.

We trekked on around the bend, me in the driver's seat and fumbling with my camera. "Roll your window up," BB ordered. I wondered if this was like some sort of Bermuda Triangle, where vehicles entered and were never seen again.

I complied with the window command -- it WAS park rules. We passed a few water birds as we snaked up the winding road. I had warned BB: "Don't expect animals to come up to the vehicle the way they showed it in the brochures."

We wound around the bend, slowly. Other touristy types behind us, clearly unable to read the directions asking motorists to FORM TWO LANES PLEASE, tail-gated me as I led our now four-vehicle convoy.

We passed some llamas, some breed of African cow, a few other birds and some monster water buffalo something-or-others with the biggest horns I'd ever seen. Some walked right up to the Tracker, snorted and then went on their way.

Snap. Snap. Snap. "You roll the window down and I'll snap and then roll it back up," I suggested to BB. It worked, kind of.

Then it was up to the lions, predictably snoozing under a man-made rock enclosure. The big male raised his head on cue, let me get a pic of his big mane and all, then went back to sleep.

We rolled along into an area filled with more trees, and that's where we met the most amazing animals of all -- the baboons. They came out of the bush like zombies in those scary movies.

On all fours, they just marched towards us, stopping to munch on this or that along the way, some with babies on their backs or clinging to their bellies, others just deciding to have a go at a little sex while en route (as above pic shows).

They had no fear. They leapt on to other vehicles, one SUV behind us a particular attraction to them. One baboon male started tearing the black rubber weather strip from around the fellow's windshield and pulling on his wipers.

We felt a little ignored, to be honest, as I snapped away at the pack of animals paying visits to every vehicle behind us but not ours. Until this little fellow decided to introduce himself.




This mischievous little mammal was just a delight to experience and he made the whole adventure what it was, really.

So much like us, but so innocent and instinctive and curious and full of his own little need to explore the world.

I had a super-duper closeup of him but can't somehow access it at the moment. There was every intention on my part to roll down my window and try to touch him, but these lovely creatures can and will bite and we didn't want to risk having a whole bunch of adults come flying at us to protect the little one.

After about five minutes, we had to move on because a traffic jam was in the making and the baboons' attention was diverted to one of those big white buses, which they quickly converged upon.

We gently rolled on and our little visitor fell off, apparently upset that we were leaving. I snapped many more pictures of other baboons coming and going, and we carried on to see rhinos, giraffes, bison and the like.

But the baboons, for us, were the be-all, end-all. A bold, beautiful bunch of beasts with balls.

TO MY LEGIONS OF READERS

To Southern Ontario, the land of milk and a honey.

Catch you all later...

FARTS AND FUN IN A FAST-PACED WORLD

AS THE WORLD WAFTS BY IN AN INVISIBLE BLUR OF NOXIOUS OVERBUSY-NESS, WE'VE LOST SIGHT OF A TONIC FOR WHAT AILS US.

AS BUSH BUMBLES, WHILE WE ALL TUNE IN TO REALITY SHOWS TO SOMEHOW MAKE US FEEL REAL, AS WE DISCUSS THE LATEST MURDER OR OTHER INSANITY, WE HAVE ALL BUT FORGOTTEN THE ART OF THE FART.

Fart jokes are mostly the purview of young boys, it seems, and that was no different with me. I remember once setting my own personal record while playing hockey on an outdoor rink, shaking the penalty box bench with a fart that lasted, by my count, seven seconds.

The entire team stopped their cheering and screaming and yelling to listen...and at the end, we all broke out in laughter.

Of course, I have now passed on this talent and appreciation for it to my 14-year-old son. My 18-year-old daughter, as usual, shakes her head, says 'Oh, Dad...' and then promptly turns the other way and silently smiles. As if we didn't notice!

My reason for raising this taboo-ridden natural body function today is simply to propose it as a free and natural way to reduce the tension and stress caused by a world that demands far too much of us every day and which offers us little but pap in media-driven coping methods.

The Queen does it. The Pope does it. Certainly George Dubya does it. Even the nonsensical characters on Entertainment Tonight do it. We all fart, and yet most of us pretend we don't, particularly in elevators.

Even women fart. This has been scientifically proven.

So my suggestion is that we embrace farting once again; give it the rightful place it deserves in our lives. We need to laugh a little in these changing, difficult times. We should lobby governments and corporations to make farts a part of the consumer world.

Think about your garage door opener making a fart sound when you pull up the driveway. Flicking on the TV with the remote? Fart. Flushing the toilet? Pffffttttt. Standing around wasting time at the office water cooler, or raging against the driver who just cut you off?

Fart!

Dr. Phil and other pseudo-psychologists could include fart therapy to raise the spirits of their patients. Farts could also be used to spice up the sex lives of struggling couples. Forget Viagra! Ever farted during sex? Of course! Laugh and have tons more fun? Natch.

Farts have been with us since the beginning of time. Much longer than the Bible, the Buck, Jesus Christ, the TV and Bart Simpson. It's time we not only accepted them but adopted them as the one true hilarious constant that they've always been.