Dick Summer Connection

We all have a lower reptilian brain. All of us including you. I call mine my “Wee Beastie.” When it gets sexy it becomes my “Whee Beastie.” I call my “Whee Beastie” Rumplstilkin Pfarphenugen. “Pfarf” for short. As I warned you in today’s podcast, Pfarf is a powerful and dangerous little guy. Your whee beastie is too, so don’t ignore him. Whee beasties don’t like ignorance. Whee beasties work hard to juice up your life. For example, if you live in an apartment with thin walls, or a neighborhood where people leave their windows open at night, you will probably hear in the middle of some night a woman’s voice shouting “Oh my God…yes, yes, yes”…and if it doesn’t sound like a prayer, you can be pretty sure that somebody has opened a cage, and let her whee beastie out to play.

Today’s podcast is about your lower reptilian brain. Everybody has a lower reptilian brain. Including you. Scientists say your lower reptilian brain is part of your limbic system. I like to think of mine as kind of a friendly little wee beastie. I call my wee beastie Rumplestilskin Pfarfenugen. Pfarf for short. Pfarf causes problems for me sometimes. He can be a problem when instead of being a simple wee beastie, he becomes a whee beastie. He becomes the whoopee maker in my life. He tends to wiggle my ears when my Lady Wonder Wench walks into the room wearing only her two piece…that’s what I call her bedroom slippers. And that makes her laugh. Laughs very easily become lustful. So get the picture. Yesterday I had an early, important business appointment, and ten minutes before I’m supposed to see my client this beautiful woman is standing there wearing just her “Two piece”…her bedroom slippers…and she is laughing…which causes severe…wiggling…see what I mean? Pfarf is a powerful and dangerous little guy. Your wee beastie is too, so don’t ignore him. Whee beasties don’t like ignorance.

Today’s podcast reveals that “Young men are 4 times more likely than young women to get kidney stones.” Right. More injustice. Young men get kidney stones, young women get diamonds. See what I mean? Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Dogs are a man’s best friend.  “27% of Facebook users say they have checked their facebook page while using the bathroom.” My lower reptilian brain keeps telling me if that percentage ever exceeds 50% we should perhaps no longer call it FACEbook.

Today’s podcast explains a problem. My lower reptilian brain just went on maximum overload red alert, sitting here in my big, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room. Actually my fanny is sitting here in the chair, it was my brain that just exploded. That happens fairly frequently when I watch the day’s news on TV. It’s the kicker stories at the end of the newscasts that get to me. Riots, threats of nuclear war, and another politician caught where his hand shouldn’t be…maybe in a financial cookie jar, or on a lady’s personal anatomy…I can deal with those things. But it’s the stories at the end of the newscasts that sometimes light the fuse on my lower reptilian brain.  As you probably know, they’re called kickers. Here’s one from today: “A new medical report says many men are having allergic reactions to a certain brand of latex condom. The allergic reaction causes severe swelling” My lower reptilian brain keeps yelling…”So what’s the problem”…a condom causes swelling. At my age that could be a benefit.

So why are there so few pilots that the airlines have started cancelling flights? Today’s podcast says the answer is Testosterone. A 52% drop in testosterone in young men over the past 30 years has cut heavily into the ranks of pilots. Why? Men seem to be able to separate information, emotions, relationships and things like that into separate boxes in our brains. Women tend to link everything together. That gives the advantage to a man when the plane is getting smacked around in bad weather and he just found out his girlfriend is pregnant…again. Most women think flying a plane must be exciting. Here’s a secret, it’s beautiful but it’s not exciting if you do it right. But if most ladies find it exciting…that works. I like stuff that works. I guess it’s because most ladies think flying an airplane is exciting that most pilots are guys who talk about flying when they’re around women, and they talk about women when they’re flying. I really loved flying my little airplane. But I really hate having my airline flight cancelled because you young guys aren’t sexy enough anymore. 

T.G.I.F so it’s time for Dick’s Details from today’s podcast. Dick’s Details is a bunch of totally unimportant stuff for you to stuff in one ear, so you can squeeze the important stuff that’s causing you grief out the other ear, and you can get upgraded to first class on a direct flight to the destination called happiness. 5,483 people checked into hospital emergency rooms last year with what were called “Pillow related emergencies.” Sounds like a strange way to describe a pregnancy. A pillow related emergency. If the answer is “a brick” what is the question? I’ll tell you in a minute. The smart guys in the white lab coats tell us that women blink almost twice as much as men. That’s probably because many women can’t believe what they see guys  doing. One in four Americans are not sure if the earth travels around the sun, or the sun travels around the earth. Those people should not be left unsupervised. Thirty five percent of people watching TV yell back at the screen. I have a feeling the percentage is much higher for people watching one of the all news networks. 52% of Americans say they’d rather spend a week in jail than be president. Probably just as many Americans seem to feel that it would be appropriate to do both these days at the same time. If the answer is “a brick” the question is, “What’s red and bad for your teeth?” Bricks are bad for your teeth. If you bite one, your dentist will probably tell you you need a crown. If he says that to you, be humble. Tell him, “No…a crown is too excessive. Just a short burst of cheering will do fine.”  Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

A little housekeeping here. If you like the podcasts, or the spoken word story CDs, or my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot please tell a couple of friends, because they might like them too, and you’ll be doing me a favor. Thank you very much.

Sex is forcing airlines to cancel flights these days. At least partly because testosterone is drying up at a startling rate in American young guys. And 96% of pilots are guys. Today’s podcast explains that the airlines are screaming for pilots so they can stop cancelling flights. The smart guys in the white lab coats are telling us that the main reasons that testosterone is drying up include poor diet, smoking, and exposure to toxic chemicals. But the biggest factor is stress. Guys are under a lot of stress these days. So are women, but women run mostly on estrogen, not on very much testosterone. One of the things I like best about my Lady Wonder Wench is that she is one sex, and I’m the other. It’s simple. I like simple. I AM simple. More and more people are making sex more and more complicated now. And I say, God bless them too. But I like simple. One of the greatest lines from a Broadway Musical, is from My Fair Lady, when Professor Higgins says, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man.” Well Professor, go for whatever sprinkles your donuts, but I like women exactly the way they are. Although most of them are not flying airplanes.

Sex is now forcing airlines to cancel flights. Today’s podcast explains that’s because there aren’t enough pilots. Remember, 96% of pilots are guys. Testosterone is a key ingredient for being a guy. There has been a 52% drop in testosterone in young guys over the last 30 years. Airlines are screaming for pilots. And the problem isn’t just chemical, it’s in attitudes too. Guys like to read maps. Women would rather read faces. Both maps and faces need reading. But maps are more important when you go flying. Only 4% of pilots are women. So next time your flight is cancelled and they say it’s “a mechanical problem,” you can smile smugly, wink at the person at the desk, and tell her you know the real problem is sex. 

My flight out of Philly was cancelled. I think it’s because of sex. NOT ENOUGH PILOTS TO MAINTAIN THE SCHEDULE. Mainly because not enough women are learning to fly. There are lots of theories about why there are so few female pilots. My theory is in today’s podcast.Women’s brains are set up differently from men’s. Women’s brains certainly aren’t inferior to men’s brains, but they really are different. For example, how many smart women do you know who have an occasional problem distinguishing the difference between right and left? I’d say most of them. Ask around if you think I’m kidding. Also, a woman’s sense of balance is more sensitive than a man’s. And it’s always handy to keep your balance when you’re streaking across the sky almost at the speed of sound, trying to figure out if you should turn left or right to stay on course. So I guess it’s to a great extent the differences between men and women that has me stuck here at Gate D14 at Philly International.

The Man/Woman thing is constantly interesting to me. In today’s podcast, I blamed women for having my flight from Philly cancelled, because women refuse to learn to fly, leaving it up to us overworked, underpaid, constantly harrased men to become pilots. As I mentioned in today’s podcast, 96% of pilots are men.  The airlines are screaming for pilots these days. But over the past 30 years young men have lost 54% of their testosterone, which is a key ingredient for becoming a guy. Only 4% of pilots are women. So I think that’s one reason we have fewer pilots than we need. Which is why my flight from Philly was really cancelled. Today’s podcast caught the attention of one of our most important huddle members, Carole M. Carole is a heavy duty RN among other things, and she knows what she’s talking about. I also mentioned that women often have a problem telling left from right. I really thought you should see what she wrote:

Hi Dick. Just wanted to comment on your thoughts regarding why there is a lack of testosterone among men these days. You’re quite right about the chemicals. What you probably don’t realize is that the main bad actors are called “hormone disruptors”. The best known one is called Bisphenol A, or BPA for short. This product is in most plastic bottles and it leaches into the drinks (including water!) that they hold. These particular hormone disruptors mimic estrogen – and that is a serious problem. Not only is there a dearth of testosterone among men, but now there is too much estrogen! Some years ago, Harvard medical school did a study to test what the effects of BPA leaching into bottled water might be having on those who drank it. They got a cohort of male and female college student volunteers (who were paid for their trouble.) First, they were given filtered water to drink that had been tested for BPA (zero percent) which was in stainless steel bottles. After several days of drinking only this water, their urine was tested and showed no BPA in it. They were then all given the same brand of bottled water (plastic bottles) to drink. After the end of just one day, they got urine samples and tested it. Findings were that there was a SIXTY percent saturation of the urine with BPA. Imagine how many people today are unaware of this! I myself had no clue until I had contracted breast cancer. The oncologist I went to see told me that from that day henceforth, I was to never again drink from a plastic bottle – and he explained why. I then began doing some research, and I have to tell you – that didn’t make me happy. Just try going into a convenience store to purchase a drink without sugar or artificial sweeteners that is not in plastic bottles. Rots o ruck!!

As for me – NEVER had difficulty determining right from left – but then, I’m not your average Sheila (as they say down under)!! Many years ago, I used to see a gynecologist on the upper west side around 79th street and Central Park West. One day, before I got on the exam table, I noticed a sign on the wall to the left that said: “No, Your OTHER right side!!!!” I asked about that and he,while laughing, explained that he’d tell his patients to lie on their right sides, and they would promptly life on their left, facing the wall with the sign. I’ve always had an aversion to women drivers – maybe that explains it!!!

Carole