Dr. Mehmet Oz has some serious bona fides. He went to Harvard for undergrad, University of Pennsylvania for medical school and is a professor of surgery at Columbia Medical School. He has been blessed with a TV show and an advice column, as well. More importantly, Dr. Oz is also a shill for anyone that is willing to pay him to endorse shitty medicine. The good doctor makes a lot of cash doing all of this despite the poor quality of the actual advice he is giving.

Dr. Chigger also likes money and would like all of the titans of industry out there with holes burning in their pockets to start sending in the endorsement deals. He will even consider the ones that Dr. Oz turned down! You would be foolish not to take this offer. For those that are still unsure, see how Dr. Chigger handles some of the same questions people have asked Dr. Oz in his advice column on Oprah.com.

Q: Do chickens and cows get cancer? And if so, is it dangerous to eat cancerous meat? 
A: Sure, why the hell not? Everything seems to be able to get cancer. I’m sure cancer could even get cancer if it wanted to. Such is the way of the world, am I right? Fortunately, we have ways to fight cancer like eating Jujyfruits and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. When added to a healthy diet, these wonder substances can magically help your body rid itself of cancer.

Of course, we can’t go schmearing fake butter and gelatin candies all over our delicious filet mignons, so what do we do with cancerous meat? First, remember what your mom told you and cut the bad parts off. If cutting will leave you with nothing, then you may have to go for a different approach. It may sound counterintuitive, but when the cancer can’t be cut away, try blowing some smoke at it. I recommend Marlboro Reds for their smoky good flavor or Marlboro Lights if you are watching your figure.

Q: Is there a natural way to ease my allergy symptoms?
A: What would you say if I told you that one of the best ways to ease allergies has been right in front of your face the whole time? Your nose knows what I’m talking about. If you want the sniffling to stop, just remove the real culprit: your nose. Doctors are calling this a miracle cure for allergies and the procedure itself couldn’t be any easier. All you need is a towel, a 1.75mL bottle of Svedka Vodka and my patent-pending nose removal device, NoNo’s. Simply drink the Vodka to the point of numbness before removing your nose with the NoNo’s device. Next, hold the towel against your face until the bleeding stops or you lose consciousness, whichever happens first. When you wake up, your nose and allergy symptoms will be gone, and you will love your new carefree lifestyle!

Q: Is there an easy way to naturally elevate my mood?
A: Tired of being down in the dumps, huh? Depression is a big problem in the modern world, and science is only just now starting to come to grips with how this disease and other mood depressors work. Back in the ‘80s, I would have told you to do some coke and watch an episode or two of Doogie Howser, M.D. if you wanted to feel good about the world. While Neil Patrick Harris may still be able to bring a smile to your face, cocaine seems to have lost some of its mystical powers over the last 20 or 30 years.

Kids these days like their Molly to help them get loose. Obviously, that drug isn’t necessarily natural, but rest assured, there are real natural and newly legal alternatives to illegal drugs. Thanks to a recent rebranding and a subsequent oversight by the FDA, my No. 1 best-selling (and formerly banned) herbal ecstasy supplement is about to be re-released into the market under the new brand name “Dr. Chigger’s Good Golly Miss Molly.” These wonder pills are full of all the things that make you feel good and that fall into the cracks of the patient couch at my illegal psychiatry practice. We also add just a pinch of agave syrup to make them taste great and justify the high price.

Q: What should I look for on a sunscreen label? 
A: Five simple words: “Endorsed by Dr. Bocephus Chigger!” Nothing else matters.

-Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

It’s like they want us to be confused. Sure they tell us ahead of time, but it’s not like we can really prepare for it. So we forget the warning and fall into our usual routines until, bam! It’s time to change the damn clocks again. And with that, everyone’s day is ruined. The government calls it daylight savings time (or DST), but it doesn’t seem to be saving us much of anything.

So, what’s with this clock shuffling? I think DST is a big inside joke on all of us. It’s like that time your friends changed your clocks and made you get up an hour earlier for work. That was funny once, but what if your friends kept doing it? And, what if, one day instead of setting it forward, they moved it back, instead? If that happened, I think we could all agree that your “friends” are assholes and they shouldn’t be allowed in the house anymore.

Our friends in Congress love this tired-ass joke and have strung us along for years with one bullshit excuse after another to keep daylight savings time going. When it first started, the government told the people that it was about war conservation. Congress decided that states could set their clocks forward in the summer months to (theoretically) reduce their consumption of resources that could otherwise be diverted to the war effort. Basically, there weren’t any yellow flag pin magnets to put on your car back then, so they messed with the clocks instead.

Of course, that is not what I heard when I was growing up. I was told that we observed daylight savings time for the sake of the farmers. I was led to believe that the entire nation was forced to get up an hour earlier in the spring for the planting season and got to come home in the dark in the fall for the harvest. This was supposed to maximize the amount of daylight hours the farmer could work and thus, maximize his output.

That seemed to almost make sense, but no one could explain to me why the rest of the country needed to run on farm time. Why don’t the farmers just get up earlier when they need to? Isn’t that what the rest of us do for work? I don’t see how my involvement in their schedule is necessary. If your products are good, I’ll buy them no matter what time of the day they were harvested. That’s how this is supposed to work; you are the farmer and I am the consumer.

Last time I checked, there were a lot more consumers than farmers, and yet, nothing has changed. We’ve even taught our computers to update their own clocks for us, allowing our own madness to become digitized. For the luddites out there who hurt their fingers winding fiddly old clocks back and forth every year, daylight savings time must be a nightmare. Does no one think of the humble clock store purveyors? Where is the government when they are forced to reset all of those clocks?

Some people have caught on to the DST bullshit and have opted out. According to Wikipedia, pretty places like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and somewhere called the Northern Mariana Islands naturally get more sunlight than their mainland counterparts. DST simply doesn’t have as much impact on their number of daylight hours. No one is looking at their watch in Hawaii, so who gives a shit what time the rest of the country thinks it is? That’s kinda why you are there.

Arizona is the only other state to currently opt out of daylight savings time, and that’s a scary thought. It’s scary because I actually agree with something Arizona did as a state and it kills me to admit it. We are talking about a state that didn’t celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day until 1992. It’s still a state where machine guns are legal, but Mexicans of any form are not. As if that weren’t enough, Arizona is also the state that gave us John McCain, who we can blame for unleashing Sarah Palin on the world. Despite all of these awful things, Arizona can still say that it is right about at least one thing, daylight-fucking-savings time.

DST needs to be abolished, if for no other reason than to take that bragging right away from Arizona. Even if you don’t find Arizona to be a nuclear test gone wrong like I do, we can at least agree that we shouldn’t let Congress continue with these games. This time trickery must stop this instant, farmers and war effort be damned! This is America, Jack. We should have the freedom to experience time as it actually occurs. So quit fucking with my damn clocks already!

– By Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

As a child, I abhorred sleep. I think bedtime in my house was around 9 o’clock, which was just way too early for me. As soon as I could hear my mother’s footsteps hit the end of the hall after tucking me in, I’d sneak out of my room in my yellow Knight Rider onesy and crawl under the dinner table until I could see the TV. I’d lay there and watch until my parents caught me, and when they did, I’d pretend to be asleep to evade punishment.

As an adult, pretending to sleep sounds ridiculous. After a long day of work, I am exhausted and in need of rest; pretending just isn’t going to cut it. It’s as preposterous as pretending to eat. I’m dying without either one, so there is no need to bullshit. I need real sleep and lots of it, so give me a comfortable bed, a nice pillow and some blankets, and I am a happy man.

It wasn’t always this way. But for a few blissful periods, I have not slept well for some time. Longtime readers can probably imagine that it is hard for me to quiet my brain long enough to fall asleep. I’ve tried soft music, aromatherapy, eye masks, melatonin, alcohol and other things to help me catch a few winks, but nothing seemed to work with any regularity. I dreaded the thought because of the expense, but I knew there was one more thing I could try to find sleep. It was time to get a new bed.

I last bought a mattress in 2006, and it seemed good at the time. My bed before that had been one of those extra soft pillow-top numbers, which contributed significantly to my eventual sciatica diagnosis. Sleeping in that soft bed made my leg burn from ass to toe, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I got a firm mattress to keep my jacked-up leg in check, and it wasn’t bad at first. My back was feeling better than it had in a while, and with the additional assistance of acupuncture, my sciatica was under control in no time flat.

Life was good, at least for a little while, but these last couple of years or so have been a bit rough. After eight years, that old bed, she ain’t what she used to be. My literal pain in the back was one of those spring-jobbies and the dents from my ample behind were firmly etched into its surface. No amount of mattress spinning would fix it. Even if I figured out a way not to fall into a mattress crevasse, I would still have to contend with the squeaks.

The cacophony that arose from that bed from any movement could wake up the dead. It sounded like a jackhammer on a trampoline. It sounded like rabbits fucking on an old rusty teeter-totter. It was unbearable. If the noise didn’t get you, the movement would. If anything touched the bed, I would be bounced awake immediately and alerted to its presence.

While it started out good and at least lasted as a sort of security system or death rattle, that old bed had finally lost its usefulness. The Sandman needed his dues and thanks to a fortunate event, I had the money to rest easy again. A new bed would be purchased and the subsequent sleep obtained from it would be glorious!

Mattress shopping is sort of an odd experience. It may be the only place that loitering is encouraged. Go ahead, lie down on whatever you want. A room full of white rectangles of varying rigidity awaits you, but it’s hard to know where to start. You need an expert and hopefully the store has one on hand.

Be forewarned: these salespeople, while helpful, may seem sort of creepy. It’s an inherent part of the job. They are supposed to walk you around the store and watch you lay down on beds to figure out what you like. They will tell you to get comfortable while they stare at you and ask questions. The only other time this sort of relationship exists is in a psychologist’s office. It can be a bit unnerving, but don’t fret; they are just there to help you find the bed of your forthcoming dreams.

That’s how it went for me, at least. I went the Tempur-Pedic route this time, and I’m loving life. This thing is like sleeping on a cloud. My new bed is softer than a Drake song played at low volume in a candlelit room, but because of the memory foam, it’s also supportive like a Drake song when you are feeling down. It’s the best of both worlds really.

I used to hate going to bed, but now I can’t wait to lie down. I don’t know how I did without this wondrous bed of mine for so long, but what a fool I was to try. Falling to sleep is no longer a problem. I feel tired the instant my body touches the mattress now. I guess I finally figured out what my mom was trying to teach me all those years ago. Bedtime really is good.

Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

Why should kids get to have all of the fun? Let’s face facts; being an adult pretty much sucks. When work and bills aren’t filling our days, we are busy preparing for tomorrow’s work or worrying about yesterday’s bills! That is why it is imperative that we all blow off some steam from time to time. Now, you could go somewhere romantic with your hubby or out for a night on the town with friends, and both would be great fun, but why not try something you haven’t done in forever? Why not build a slip and slide?

I say “build” because you can’t buy one in your size (at least not the adult version of you). Believe me, I checked. While that slippery yellow strip of plastic seemed to extend across your entire backyard as a child, in reality, it was only 16 feet long. Somebody should have sued the makers of Crocodile Mile, the lying bastards. So unless you like grass-stained rug burns, I don’t recommend your standard issue Slip ‘N Slide or any of its kin for your adult fun.

Not to worry though; this is not a difficult project! A trip to your local home improvement store should satisfy nearly all of your needs. The hardest part of this will be steering that flatbed cart that those types of stores seem to favor. I just want all of the wheels to point in the direction that I am pushing the cart. Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, grab your cart from hell and zigzag your way to a roll or two of opaque plastic painter’s tarp, a hose (or two, depending on the situation at your homefront), sprinkler heads for said hoses, and 10 to 12 tent stakes. You are also going to need a hammer for the tent stakes and something to cut the plastic if you don’t have it already. To the cashier at the store, you look like any other person preparing to complete a weekend project that’s been sitting idle for too long. Little does she know, you are about to build one badass, muthafuckin’ slip and slide!

The first thing you need to do is crack a beer. If you are doing this right, it’s hot outside and nothing helps projects like this more than a little booze on the brain. Go for something refreshing like a pilsner, lager or pale ale. Once your drink is half gone, you can work on this slide thingy.

Start by unrolling your plastic sheet to the desired length and cut it with your knife. Don’t be shy; unlike penises, the longer this baby is, the better. Take your tent stakes and strategically place them around the edges of your plastic tarp. Put your sprinkler heads on your hoses and let her rip. Voilà: slip and slide! Throw in a barbecue and some music and you have yourself a proper slip and slide party.

If you want to make it real dope, you better grab eight to 10 bags of sand at the home improvement store and some duct tape if you don’t have it already. With that, you will build a mighty splash pool that will take this ho-hum slide to something that would make Napoleon shit his pants in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure!

Take your roll of tarp and tape together 6-foot strips of plastic until you have a 6-foot square sheet. Make another square just like the last and tape it to your slide. Open up the sandbags and pour a barrier around the inner radius of your plastic square, leaving an opening for you to slide through and into the splash pool.

With your sand walls shored up nicely, slap the other plastic square over the top and tape that top layer to the rest of the slide. Make it nice and smooth. Your ass will be sailing over this tape shortly, so you don’t want any snags. Finally, pin your splash pool down with some more tent stakes and get some water in there because it’s time to slide, baby!

I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to avoid sprinklers, so it’s a nice change of pace to frolic in them. Hitting that wet plastic for the first time makes you feel like you were 8 years old again. Try out your styles. Are you a head-first, belly slider? A feet-first, baseball slider? Some sort of suicidal hybrid feet-first, belly slider? Do what works best for you. You don’t need to be an athlete to slide. If you can slip and fall, you can slip and slide, though you may be better off with a little extra body fat for cushioning.

Which brings me to my word of warning: I won’t lie to you; the next day is going to be a little rough. You may have felt like one on the slide yesterday, but you aren’t a kid anymore. Your old broken down adult body is going to be sore in many strange places. Maybe you will bruise a rib or two or pull a muscle. You will definitely have grass all over your house if you let people come inside to use the bathroom. Oh and then there is that hangover. On the upside, the backyard won’t need to be watered for a while and you were free of all your adult troubles, even if but for a moment. It will be totally worth it; I guarantee it. Now let’s show these punk-ass kids how it’s done!

–Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

Be afraid! Be very afraid! Nature’s answer to population overgrowth is on the loose and preparing to strike. A 1500-ton abandoned cruise ship is adrift somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and it’s been commandeered by a nation of mutant cannibal rats hell-bent on destroying the human race (or at least eating all of our garbage).

There have been a lot of rumors about where the rats are going and what they plan to do when they get there, but this intrepid reporter was able to get an exclusive with the leader of the rat army, General Fievel Mousekewitz.

Bocephus Chigger (BC): General Mousekewitz, thanks again for agreeing to meet with me. It’s been a long time since we spoke last on the set of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. It would appear that a lot has changed since then. The readers of Submerge are very curious to hear what you’ve been up to and also what your intentions are with this fine vessel and its rodent occupants.

General Mousekewitz (GM): Please, Bocephus, the pleasure is all mine. It has been a long time, old friend. I hope you are enjoying your stay on our finest ship, The Rattuson. I trust the crew has left your supple flesh alone thus far? I’m afraid they’ve grown tired of eating each other, and with the prospect of man-flesh on the horizon, they can be quite unruly.

Let me begin by saying, we mean you no harm. We merely hope to bring about the deaths of the current heads of the world’s major financial institutions. We are assembling an armada of rat-filled cruise ships and soon there will be no stopping us. It’s going to be great!

BC: General, those are serious words. Why have you decided to risk another collapse of the world financial market? What have we done to you?

GM: First off, did you see Fievel Goes West? It was a travesty! Those bastards over at Universal ruined my film career right when I was getting started. I gained so much weight after that bomb that I looked like a possum and no one would hire me again! All they left me with is my identity as a rodent.

As if that weren’t bad enough, people are now calling the heads of Wall Street rats, and that’s just wrong. Those assholes have eaten more garbage and spread more diseases than I’ll ever be able to. Being put in the same company with them makes me sick. So I say we kill the bastards. Unfortunately some of the rest of you might just end up getting caught in the crossfire, which is actually great news for us. We are rats after all; eating dead animals is kind of our thing.

BC: General Mousekewitz, I must say, I am appalled by what you have said. Fievel Goes West was not as bad as you make it out to be. Dom DeLuise put on an Oscar-worthy performance in his reprisal as Tiger. You also looked great in that cowboy hat. But hey… I’m no film buff. And while I can’t agree with what you are doing, I can’t say I blame you for being mad about comparisons between rats and bankers. I wouldn’t want to be compared to a banker, either. The thought of it alone sends shivers up my spine.

GM: Absolutely wretched creatures, aren’t they. I’ve even tried pissing on them and they still taste like shit. That’s why The Rattuson is heading to England. We are going after the head of Barclays Bank for his role in manipulating LIBOR. After that we hope to find a vessel small enough to head up the Rhine River and lead an assault on Deutsche Bank in Germany and UBS in Switzerland. After that, it’s back to the States for some choice words with our friends at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank and most importantly the head ass wipe, Jamie Dimon, from JP Morgan Chase. Oh, there will be hell to pay!

BC: Well generally, I got to say, I think the readers of Submerge are quite relieved. There have been rumors about a ghost ship full of disease-infested, cannibal rats ready to destroy the human race, and people were obviously worried.

GM: Yes, clearly there has been a misunderstanding. While we may be on a ghost ship full of disease-infested, cannibal rats, we have no intention of destroying the human race. We’re just after the assholes with the $5,000 suits and the garbage that is unfit to eat because it is practically still fresh. What a wasteful bunch of pricks!

BC: Well I really can’t disagree with you there, General. Clearly, they are truly the lowest forms of life on Earth whose only purpose is to prevent the rest of us from obtaining our dreams and goals. Thanks for your time General Mousekewitz. I don’t think I’m alone when I say, give ‘em hell, sir!

Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

Richard Pryor has a plan to fix our economy. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s actually known what to do since 1985. The economy is jacked, but there is still hope: we can inherit our way out of this mess. Democrats rejoice: a minority thought of this idea! Republicans, remember who was president in 1985? That’s right, RONALD REAGAN! It practically came from Reagan himself, in a way. So now that everyone is on board are you ready for the idea?

Brewster’s Millions stars Richard Pryor as a down-on-his-luck, minor league baseball player named Montgomery “Monty” Brewster. Like most of America, Monty was broke, unemployed, and locked up in a holding cell after a bar fight. Fortunately for him, a stranger showed up to bail him out and fly him to New York. As it turned out, Monty’s Great Uncle Rupert, whom he had never met, had just died and left him a sizeable inheritance.

Uncle Rupert’s will decreed that Monty, his only living blood relative, could choose between $1 million in cash or Uncle Rupert’s entire $300 million fortune. To get the $300 million, Monty would have to first spend $30 million in one month. There were further restrictions that limited the amount that could go to charity. Monty was told that if the money he spent ended up earning him money, he would have to spend that too. At the end of the month he could not have anything left to show for the $30 million. Finally, he was not allowed to tell anyone that he had to spend the $30 million in 30 days, which, of course, led to comedic results.

Now you might be wondering how some guy inheriting a bunch of money is going to help the economy. The key to our salvation is not in the fact that Monty inherited the money but that he had to blow $30 million in a month. In order to spend that much money in 1985, Monty had to stay in a nice hotel, buy a bunch of ridiculous shit, gamble, throw parties, play an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, run for mayor of New York City and hire people to help make all of that shit happen.

Are you starting to see where this is going? Economists keep telling us that in order to turn this shit show around we need more people working so that they earn more discretionary income that can be spent in various ways in the free market. More demand for goods means more supply needed, which means even more jobs; at least until the whole thing collapses in 25 years and begins devouring itself like an Ouroboros before we start over again. Good ol’ boom and bust, right?

If we are destined to keep screwing ourselves every few decades anyway (and with this Congress we seem to be), then what do we have to lose? Under the Brewster’s Millions Plan, your Uncle Sam will randomly select members of the public who earn less than $100,000 per year to be given the same offer as Monty with a slightly reduced payout of an additional $50 Million for those able to blow the $30 million in 30 days (let’s not get greedy now!).

Random people around the country who had never dreamed of having so much money will now be required to blow it in one month. For the first time in their lives, they will be spending their way to millions. Think of how good some of them would feel to finally not worry about money, even if only for a month.

And the joy won’t be restricted to the individual. As the rules stipulate, all the money must be spent, and some of that is bound to help local businesses in distressed communities. All that money changing hands would surely lead to more jobs as well. Monty himself hired several personal assistants, a photographer, two interior decorators (one of whom was also an attorney), a financial advisor and a squad of bodyguards throughout the course of the movie. He was a one-man jobs program!

When Monty wasn’t employing half of New York City or buying things from the other half, he was running for mayor on the “Vote None of the Above” ticket. Much like today, the other candidates were horrible, and Monty thought we might be better off with neither of them. If we can’t use Montgomery Brewster’s ideas to fix the economy, perhaps we can use his idea to fix the people that got us into this mess in the first place. After all, if a hilarious, yet potentially world saving movie like Brewster’s Millions can’t get Congress’ attention, maybe losing their jobs will.

By Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

There comes a point in every person’s life when they just have to go. Be it college, a job change or that your parents booted you the day after your 18th birthday, we’ve all got to move sometime. Moving to a new place is a big change that requires big adjustments, but change can be good. Of course, before you can enjoy the change of scenery you’ve got to get there first.

Finding a new place is a nightmare. I don’t own a home, so my experience is restricted to renting, but I doubt buying a house is any easier. Craigslist makes house hunting better than it used to be, but even they are at the mercy of those posting the ads. Whether it’s old or poor quality pictures, unclear terms, funky restrictions or lack of price, many posters try their hardest not to rent you their house.

It may not seem like it at first, but eventually you will find a place, and that’s when the real “fun” begins. The first leg of your new journey is called packing, and the name of the game is boxes. Now, you can buy boxes, but that shit is crazy expensive for something you won’t need in a week. No need to do that when every store, restaurant and office you see receives and discards boxes on a daily basis. You’ve just got to go out there and get you some of that brown gold! You might even find yourself dumpster diving shoulder-to-shoulder with professional hobos hoping to find something decent before the box crusher renders them useless.

By the time you finish packing, you will be a box master. Unfortunately, when it comes time to actually move, your boxing know-how will be of no help when you find yourself staring at an overstuffed couch stuck in your front doorway. It probably won’t be the last time you are left wondering how in the hell you got a piece of furniture into your house in the first place.

In all the hubbub of the move, you will likely break your favorite things, lose important things and find things you never knew you had and have no use for in the present (hello, fifth grade report card!). You will hurt your back, smash your fingers and leave yourself covered in bruises and tiny cuts. You will hit your head on the trunk of your car at least twice. The further you move, the worse shape you and your belongings will be in when you get there.

Just when you get all of your stuff in the new place and you are ready to collapse, you will have to go back and clean your old house. You need to do a good job, because cash is on the line. By the time you finish, you will swear to yourself that you will clean the oven and fridge more often at your new place, but hopefully your old digs look as good as possible.

A good return on your deposit may provide a much needed monetary cushion, but the utility companies will soon do their best to help lighten your load. If you move within the same town it might not be so bad, but switching cities is a nightmare. Prepare yourself for $50 install fees for such difficult tasks as pushing a button, flipping a switch or screwing in a cable.

If they don’t drain your wallet, they will drain your patience. Good luck getting your Internet set up if your choices are AT&T and Comcast. The two companies almost have a third of a brain between them. AT&T is willing to spend a week installing boxes and running cables only to tell you that the wiring in your house (which had presumably worked for the person living there two months ago) needs to be replaced at your expense. Comcast will get you all set up only to accidentally cancel your account the next day.

Moving won’t be dry hands, band aids, prescription meds, Internet deprivation and Top Ramen forever. Eventually, everything will work out, and you will get settled in. You don’t always get to choose why or where you move, but you do get to choose what happens once you get there. Moving is a chance to reinvent yourself…to escape those ruts you’ve been stuck in for years. You’ve just done something that was exciting, depressing, exhilarating, exhausting, well planned and chaotic, all at the same time. If that doesn’t shake you out of your haze, then more (or less) medication may be the answer.

By Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

Women are so complicated. Not only do men not know what they are thinking or why they think as they do, but we can’t even figure out what to call them. Men keep it simple: your options are sir or mister and they work interchangeably. It doesn’t matter if a man is married, widowed, old or young; sir or mister will do the job. But women just couldn’t let themselves be defined by two measly catch-alls. There are no less than five ways to address the matriarchs of our society and deciding which one to choose can be a minefield full of hurt feelings.

Every woman starts out as a Miss. A miss is an unmarried woman, and for many, the default option when you don’t know the woman in question. I believe the origin of the term comes from the fact that men regularly try to catch them and miss for one reason or another, though don’t hold me to that. Absent any information on the woman in question, miss is may be the route to go, but what’s the fun in that?

Now if there is a miss in your life that you hope to make a Mrs. someday, referring to them as miss is not going to help you stand out. Everyone calls them that already, and you need to make a good impression. Perhaps I’ve read too much Game of Thrones, but I’ve dusted off an old chestnut and replaced my misses with lady or if you really want to be formal, m’lady (if you are low born) and my lady (if you are high born). In these go-go modern times, a bit of old-fashionedness goes a long way. No girl wants to date some dude, but a gentleman caller who calls her my lady…now that’s something special.

Of course, there are plenty of married women out there, and how dare you not recognize their holy union by calling them miss! Putting up with our manly bullshit until death or a quickie divorce entitles them to some extra letters, so you better not miss (literally). Once married, that default miss becomes a misses (or Mrs.). I believe the entomology of this term reflects an end to all the misses from suitors in the past.

And when that one suitor who won out in the battle to make a Mrs. manages to die (possibly due to exhaustion from his efforts), m’lady becomes a Ms., pronounced, mizz. This is now often used in place of Miss if the marital status of the woman in question is “unknown or irrelevant,” according to Miriam-Webster. I believe this zz sound reflects that man in her life now sleeps with the fishes. Calling someone a Ms. without having some personal information about the woman in question can be problematic. If her husband is still alive, you may be saying that you wish he were dead because he is an awful man or because you would like to swoop in on his wife. Though less likely, you may also be saying that this woman looks old, and surely, her man must be dead by now.

And why say it that way when there is already a perfect way to refer to an old woman? We call them ma’am, and you best be careful how you use this one. For some, ma’am is akin to sir and is meant as a sign of respect. These people are also known as men. Referring to a woman as ma’am, in my experience, usually leads to a dirty look, followed shortly thereafter by, “How old do you think I am?” It is a widely accepted belief that no woman wants to be old, and ma’am is the term that makes them feel that way. Again, I am not sure of the precise origins of the word, but given the reaction of women to be called ma’am, my guess is that it is a shortened form of the word mammaries, which as we all know tend to sag with age. Outside of the phrase, “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am,” you are probably going to want to avoid this one.

Regardless of what they want to be called, I think we can all agree that women are beautiful and deserving of one of the many names we have available to call them. We men just need to know what you like. I think I can speak on behalf of all men when I say we will call you whatever you want, just let us call you. Ok, lady?

– Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

I told the doctor I’ve been feeling different for the past week or so. He checked my pulse, dilated my pupils, lit up my ears and began asking about my symptoms. “An increasing desire to work out, strong national pride, an eye for fashion and a sudden interest in sports,” I said. After asking where I’m from and checking my hormone levels for any irregularities, Doc came to the conclusion that I, in fact, had acquired Olympic fever.

It made total sense. The 2012 Summer Olympic Games hooked me from day one with its bizarro opening ceremony. The English are brilliant! The dancing sick children were a nice touch, but I was more enthralled with the overall message. Who knew the solution to our healthcare problems was to set loose a swarm of Harry Potters’ Mary Poppins’ own Valdemort and his minions? Thank you for showing us the way, Danny Boyle.

Once the games began, I started my search for the weird events. Fans and haters of Mitt Romney are probably aware that his wife’s horse is competing in dressage or “horse dancing.” I also saw a track event called steeplechase, where runners jump a few hurdles and hop over a wall into a moat, leaving them to run the rest of the next lap with soggy feet. I didn’t know adults still played field hockey, but after seeing the beautiful Dutch women’s team in their sexy school girl uniforms, I’d encourage all adult women to pick up the game.

The uniforms are part of the reason people watch the Olympics. There are perfect bodies in tight and/or skimpy clothing. The gawking potential is equally divided amongst the sexes, so for every hot field hockey girl, ladies get one spandex wearing, canoeing gold medalist with a boner.

Looking past short skirts and spandex dicks, these athletes need to be recognized for what they are: inspiring. Many of these Olympians spend their entire youths training for just one event. The odds of success are infinitesimal, but they push on because they believe in that remote chance.

Oscar Pistorius of South Africa believed in that chance, despite being a double amputee. Pistorius ran in the Men’s 400 Meter using prosthetic “blades” that were strapped to what remained of his legs. While he didn’t move past the semifinals, he did receive both a warm welcome and a fond farewell from the crowd and his fellow racers, one of whom even traded nametags with him at the end of the race. It was nice enough to warm even my jaded heart.

I noticed other changes in myself. I was proud of Team U.S.A.’s accomplishments, and I even began rooting for our country instead of just staring at the train wreck that we usually see when the Stars and Stripes are involved. I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel that way.

Of course, it’s easy to be proud when we are actually kicking ass. We beat ourselves in women’s beach volleyball to take silver and gold, killed it in women’s gymnastics and have managed to sweep up 20-plus track medals. Our greatest success thus far has been swimming, in which, at last count, we had won 30 medals.

Many of those swimming wins were sucked down the bowl of one Michael Phelps. Phelps plans to retire after these games as the world record-holder for the most Olympic Medals won. When asked why he wouldn’t return in 2016, Phelps told his NBC poolside interviewer that he had traveled the world, but had only seen black lines at the bottom of swimming pools. If that was my life, I would probably take bong loads in the off-season too.

Some people can’t wait until the off-season, though. Seventh place U.S. judo participant, Nicholas Delpopolo, just had to “accidentally” eat that bud brownie at his homey’s house before he left for the Olympics. He was expelled for testing positive for THC after he had already lost.

The Olympics can be a cold-hearted bitch like that, but there are things that can make it more fun. Serena Williams showed the world that gold medal winners should C Walk after they win. We could give out medals for that too!

If dancing ain’t your thing, maybe we could take the original Greek idea and throw in a little Roman Coliseum action. We could add snake pits for the gymnasts, sharks in the pools, lions on the track and humans vs. humans on the gun and archery ranges. Or if that’s too nuts, we could just have regular people doing the events next to the pros so people at home can see what being an Olympian truly means.

-Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

It’s the land of opportunity, or so we’ve been told. When this country began, people held a romantic belief that a poor immigrant could come to America and through hard work alone, become a rich man. That’s right, anyone with enough moxie could hit the big time! It was supposed to be a perfect place. Even immigrant mice at the time sang, “There are no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese!”

They called it the American Dream and it stood for the idea that every man could achieve success through hard work without being hindered by his class, race or creed. Those early Americans hoped for fairness in an otherwise unfair world. It was a great idea, but it rarely held up to close scrutiny.

Rags to riches stories are the exception to the rule. If it were the norm, we wouldn’t be having a yearlong protest against 1 percent of the country. For all the Mark Zuckerbergs, LeBron Jameses and Leonardo DiCaprios in this country, there are millions of John Q.s who end up working at McDonald’s, Wal-Mart or Applebee’s. Now, some of those people are surely lazy and find themselves cleaning pee off a slide for good reason, but many of them work their asses off (sometimes at multiple jobs) just so they can feed their kids and pay rent.

Poverty isn’t easy to break free from. Those kids at home have a good chance of being poor when they grow up too. The schools in their neighborhoods are underfunded and overcrowded so their first 12 years of education are going to suck, if they even graduate. Without a scholarship of some type these kids won’t likely go to college because they can’t afford it. Without a college degree their job options will be similar to those of their parents; places where hard work might let a person attain such illustrious titles as head waiter but that won’t offer much toward upward mobility. It’s hard to dream when you don’t have time to sleep.

If class doesn’t get you, maybe racism will. It took this country over 100 years to declare an end to slavery, another 100 years to end blatant segregation and another 54 to elect a half-black president. Despite that progress, racism still exists. According to the Center for American Progress in the second quarter of 2011, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was nearly double that of whites. The Department of Justice has found that, by 2007, the number of African-Americans in prison was about five times greater than the number of whites. It’s hard to dream when you are locked in a cage.

When the color of one’s skin just isn’t enough to keep them down, maybe their choice of religion will. At one point or another, everyone hated the Catholics, the Jews, the Quakers, the Protestants and the Mormons. Now we’ve decided it’s Muslims we hate. We profile them at airports and panic when they leave their bags unattended for a second. We won’t let them build mosques in our cities and yet, we call them extremists. It’s hard to dream when people keep telling you that you are going to hell and they won’t let you pray.

Despite its faults, we still chase some form of the American Dream today, only now our dreams tend to ignore the whole fairness and equality thing and just jump straight to the cash. We’ve devolved into a society where reality stars are more important than presidents and we pay bank CEOs millions of dollars to steal from us. In rewarding these idiots and assholes, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that we too should be rich without having to really work for it.

We want the huge house with the oddly shaped brightly colored couches. We want a different $50,000 car to drive for each day of the week. We want clothes, ho’s and 40 oz. We want enough money so that we can swim in it like Scrooge Motherfucking McDuck! We want it all, and we want it because we can juggle while we tap dance, we can burp the alphabet or we have a mole that looks sort of like Justin Bieber.

We need to remember that dreams aren’t reality. They are jacked-up, usually nonsensical but sometimes insightful creations of our subconscious minds. The real world is out there and it needs your help. It’s hard to dream when there is nothing left. Eyes open, wide awake!

By Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com