The Comics That Time Forgot #2

Here's one from 1993 or so, when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was near the height of its popularity. God forbid I use a ruler for the borders, right?

    

       

   

         

Bed Bugged (Or: I Survived My Sleep Study, and All I Got Is This Lousy CPAP Machine)

So I went for a sleep study last week. For those of you who don't know what a sleep study is, you may be surprised to learn that it's not the term used to describe my old method of studying back in college (that is, passing out with my face in the textbook at 5am the night before an exam and hoping the material will somehow magically seep into my brain via osmosis).

No, a "sleep study" is when you're having trouble sleeping properly (or having trouble staying awake during the day without mainlining lattes) and someone decides the best way to cure this is to glue cumbersome electrodes and wires to your every appendage, then stick you in an unfamiliar bed and watch you all night with an infrared camera ala' Ted Levine stalking Jodie Foster in "Silence of the Lambs." In this way, they can observe you in your "natural" sleep state and hopefully figure out what-the-freak your problem is.


Needless to say, this approach doesn't generate the most, er, "organic" results. I can be quite nervous and restless to begin with, and it doesn't exactly send me spiraling into a state of Calgon-like zen when there's an unknown member of the female persuasion peering at my supine form and drooling cake-hole all night. Krist, I have a hard enough time with people looking at me in the daytime after I've primped myself obsessively for hours on end; there's no way I'm going to chill out while being scrutinized on a bed-sized microscope slide overnight.


At any rate, I reluctantly went for my sleep study, where the technician hooked me up to about a thousand color-coded wires and a hundred various devices that perform god-knows-what to tell them who-the-hell-knows about my sleep patterns. (Stop me if I get too technical at any point.) In fact, I had so much damn apparatus draped over me that I started to feel like a Borg on Star Trek, but without all the bad-ass leather or ability to assimilate alien races. Now if only I could have teleported the hell out of there like they do on Star Trek, I would have been golden.


No such luck! She finished hooking up my jumper cables and I managed to clamber into my appointed lair for the evening. At this point, the sleep technician - let's call her "the sleep technician" - vanished into an adjoining room, leaving me to contemplate if her boyfriend was going to show up so they could spend the evening watching movies, making out, and occasionally taking a break to laugh at the idiot on the monitor. However, that thought didn't have a chance to fully form because her voice suddenly filled the room, blaring out at me from a set of hidden speakers like a very aggressive McDonald's drive-through clerk. "ARE YOU OKAY IN THERE????" she queried, effectively boosting my systolic blood pressure well into the triple-digits and leading me to wonder if they were getting kickbacks from the cardiologist next door.


After a series of "calibrating" procedures - code word for "Simon Says" with breathing, coughing and snoring sounds - I was told it's "time to go to sleep." Well, I'm glad they cleared that up; I thought the purpose of a SLEEP STUDY was to play a little shuffleboard with the staff. Regardless, I did my best to dutifully "go to sleep," as requested.


As I lay there all kinds of thoughts plagued me: What if I scratch my crotch in my sleep? It could happen you know - I can't control where and when an itch will strike. I'd be half-asleep and people would be watching! I could easily forget my usual amount of discretion and end up doing something pretty unseemly. Normally, during the day, I just yell "LOOK! IT'S BALKI FROM PERFECT STRANGERS!" and then give myself a good scratch in the ensuing chaos. Unfortunately, I knew that wouldn't really work in this situation. (Or would it?)


Even worse, I thought, what if I were to break wind in my sleep? Jeezuz Krist, the horror! Mind you, this isn't normally an issue for me, but with all the stress I was under… well, anything could happen. I wondered just HOW sensitive the electrodes all over my body were; would I end up blowing out some poor lab tech's ear drums with one ill-timed toot? What if she turns up the monitor at the precise wrong moment; would it be like a sonic boom going off in her headphones? Would she run from the lab screaming and clutching the sides of her head, then burst through the emergency exit and fall to her knees in the freshly fallen snow? You gotta think about this kind of stuff, folks.


Despite my nagging concerns, I did manage to eventually drift off to sleep. And, based on the 14 minutes or so I slept (by my generous estimation), I was informed the next morning that I needed to start using a "CPAP" machine, or what's commonly referred to in the literature as a "vacuum cleaner on your face." I was actually really happy to receive this news, because, as my closest friends know, it's always been my lifelong ambition to look like I just stepped off the cover of Black Sabbath's "Never Say Die" album.

In short, the function of the CPAP machine, which comes with a long tube and a face mask you wear to bed every night, is to make you look both extremely frightening AND incredibly ridiculous to your mate at the SAME TIME, which is no small feat. (Oh yeah, it's also supposed to help you breathe better, or something.) So I've been making a good faith effort to use this, er, contraption, but so far, the results have been less than stellar. It's quite discouraging really; I mean, what the hell is wrong with me!??! I can't even sleep right?!!? Man, you know you're really a failure when you can't even lie down and be unconscious correctly.

But I won't go gently into the night! I'm going to press on with the CPAP machine a little while longer, Snuffleupagus comparisons be damned. Maybe after a few more nights, I'll get the hang of this whole "sleeping" thing and begin to reap the benefits of my unwieldy bedside companion. Rest assured, I'll probably let you know how it goes, provided I don't dream the air tube is a large boa constrictor and wake up screaming and flailing, inadvertantly tangling the tube around my neck, and then crashing backwards through a second story window so they can find me dangling with my feet 4 inches off the ground the next morning. (What are the odds of that, anyway? Gotta be at least 10 to 1.)

In the meantime, take my advice: If you're gonna have a sleep study, don't eat Mexican food for dinner that night.

The Rolling Stones Super Computer

Hey there rock and roll fans! It's the year 2007, and technology has come so far that computers can now accurately predict (or create) the content on the next Rolling Stones album, which we hope will materialize sometime in 2008. We have correlated all the available data and fed vinyl copies of every Stones album into the NITE OWLZ BLOG SPOT PATENTED ROLLING STONES TITLE GENERATOR, and the results are available below. Remember, the computer has an 87 percent accuracy rate, so these ARE the tunes you will be grooving to come next year, or whenever the Stones get off their saggy old asses and make a new CD! Enjoy!



Track One: "Brawl Until Dawn"

For the leadoff track on the new CD, our Rolling Stones supercomputer randomly combines a series of phrases with subtle and not-so-subtle references to violence, some intertwined with sex. The result is this hot new single, "Brawl Until Dawn," that also helps perpetuate the "street fighting" image of the Stones, even if Mick hasn't been in a real fight since 1971, unless you count all the times Jerry Hall beat his ass before he walked out on her. Note: This will be the album's token "feisty rocker."

Track Two: "Hit That!"

To generate the second single, "Hit That," the computer uses the same alogarithm as "Brawl," but also includes the obligatory attempt at aping recent urban trends and lingo, even ones that are falling out of favor as we speak. The song will contain a funky bass line, and possibly a "hip hop" section, which will come across as awkward and forced as Paula Abdul trying not to slur her words on "American Idol."

Track Three: "Stairwell of Good-byes"

The computer slows down the tempo a bit and spits out a "moody" ballad, based on some words Mick scribbled down on a cocktail napkin with four Brazilian model's phone numbers written on the back.

Track Four: "Roll It When U Rock"

This is the token "bluesy" Keith Richards number, that the computer predicts will somehow be indistinguishable from the LAST ten "Take It So Hard" clones. The title doesn't mean much, but still seems shockingly coherent when compared to Keith's usual booze-addled ramblings.

Track Five: "Vegas Virgins"

Despite the weak alliteration, our computer is predicting a Stones trifecta: money, sex, and a "hot" topical tourist attraction. This will be one of those Stones songs that seems to highlight Mick's social conscience, by focusing on runaways and prostitution in sin city. However, the computer wisely deletes any mention of how the Stones have blithely fostered a climate of misogyny, sexism, and moral decadence in American pop culture for five decades straight. The hypocrisy bar will be raised a little higher when the song blares prominently in a future "what happens in Vegas" ad that features a smiling Mick driving to a chicken ranch.

Track Six: "Devil's in the Details"

The computer foresees a mandatory "satanic" Stones song, trotted out once again in an effort to milk whatever stimulus-response reactionaryism remains in the three people whose sense of propriety was seriously imperiled by the unholy sight of the band wearing wizard costumes way back in 1967. Listen for the slinky rhythm track on this one, which is supposed to represent...er, something.

Track Seven: "Slutty Little Thang"

In the Stones catalog, "sluts" is one of the few heretofore infrequently used derogatory terms for women. Well, the computer definitely feels the need to remedy that situation pronto! Look for this toe-tapper on the new CD, but don't expect too much subsequent controversy, since worse language regularly appears at 7pm on ABC family channel these days.

Track Eight: "She Knox Me Out"

This one's bound to sound bluesy. And violent. And sexy. Whatever. It's gonna be a filler track anyway, probably using yet another watered-down version of the "Brown Sugar" riff, so don't sweat it. Lord knows they won't.

Track Nine: "Dancin' Down on South Street"

While running a systems scan, the computer spews out the requisite "dance" reference that appears on every other Stones album. As a double bonus, the title generator alludes to a "gritty" well-known city (in this case, Philadelphia) that also has a long-standing connection to music or the music industry. This will help reestablish the band's "street cred" for the 459th time (on this album alone). Of course, there will be no lyrics that address getting shot because you're dancing like a damn fool in the middle of a city street at four in the morning.

Track Ten: "My Bad"

A couple of minutes have gone by without The Stones reminding us they're the "bad boys" of rock, even though Mick and Keith are old enough now to actually play "The Sunshine Boys" without stretching credibility. As a result, the computer tosses out this little nugget consisting primarily of Mick mumbling in his "evil but seductive" voice while Keith plunders a couple of dead blues guys' riffs in the background. Sadly, Mick's "seductive" voice sounds really creepy at this stage of the game, sounding like an unholy hybrid of your drunk uncle talking up your new girlfriend and a Star Trek ensign possessed by the Lights of Zatar. The song runs upwards of 7 minutes in an effort to make us think we're getting a lot of value for our money, since the CD's total running time reads 74 minutes when we plop it in the player. However, this glosses over the fact that at least 30 minutes of this disc, including this track, is grade-z padding and will ultimately be programmed right out of existence on future listens by everyone. Everyone, that is, except for that one mustachioed fat guy who shows up for every Stones concert wearing his "emotional rescue" t-shirt, even though it faded from black to slate gray about 15 years ago and fits so tightly he looks like one of those impossibly red holiday gift basket sausages.



Track Eleven: "Blood Brothers"

More social consciousness, this time focusing on issues such as war and homelessness. The Rolling Stones super computer tells us this song will be a hodgepodge of half-formed political observations and leftover 60's Utopianism designed to convince the average listener that Mick thinks about something other than champagne and women's body parts from time to time. Basically, "Blood Brothers" is an attempt to maintain the Stones "everyman" appeal by giving off the impression that Mick and Keith can "relate" to and "care" about what happens to the average joe on the streets, even though Mick spends more in one night tipping strippers than the average worker makes in two years at Walmart. If the average fan had to confront this reality on a regular basis, his head might explode. Among the more affluent Stones fans, the Wall Street demi-demons and corporate whores will spend 2000 dollars for front row seats on opening night, and then sing along with this anthemic song of solidarity and humanism louder than anyone, pumping their drunken fists in the air. Afterwards, they'll call the cops on the Vietnam vet who asks them for some spare change as they run to their rented limo's outside MSG.


Track Twelve: "Into the Fading Twilight"

Our computer anticipates there will be one, last "heartfelt" opus on the new Rolling Stones album. This is somehow intended to deflect attention from the fact that Mick and Keith's emotional growth has been stunted since 1963 or so. Despite that, the computer effectively draws upon the rich reservoir of philosophical insights that can only be gleaned from a lifetime of self-indulgent behavior and reckless substance abuse. The result is a beautiful tapestry of musical self-reflection which weaves together sentimental and novel rhymes like "real/feel," "fears/tears," "long/strong," and "bitch/scratch this itch." Guaranteed to be a real tear-jerker and a future "classic," the Stones will be signing a 5 million dollar endorsement with BIC in an effort to cash in on all the lighters which are sure to go off during this song's live performance. For added measure, the lighters will have the Stones "lips and tongue" logo emblazoned on them. However, in a conscious effort to remain hip and edgy in the year 2008, a machine gun will protrude from the Rolling Stones "lips" and point directly at a nun's groin.



There you have it... 12 tracks coming soon from the Rolling Stones. Now, be honest. Would it REALLY surprise you if the computer got these right???