Photographic Proof of Time Travel!

The famous Greek traveler, Ulysses!

A bunch of big jerks have been giving me a hard time about TIME TRAVEL. They say it isn’t possible and that my technique (of going counterclockwise around the North Pole to go backward and clockwise to go forward) is just hokum! Well have I got a surprise for them! I took my phone with me on a recent trip and have PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF that I went backwards in time! Let me tell you about it.

I was talking to a person. Let's say this person is a man. I’m not going to say this person’s name because I don’t want to have any big jerks harassing him. But for our purposes I will call him the Bacon Commander. So the Bacon Commander was telling me about a terrible war that happened in America once. It was a war between the states he said, a CIVIL WAR. I had never heard of such a thing and so was naturally skeptical.

The Bacon Commander said that once, America was split into two teams: team Blue and team Gray. Each team chose a spot on the map of America to be their home base. Team Blue chose the north and Team Red chose the south. Both teams, according to the Bacon Commander, had a lot of guns and bullets and cannons and cannonballs and other old-fashioned war stuff for fighting.

This was something I just had to see for myself and so I took my rocketship back up to the NORTH POLE and started flying around in circles counterclockwise. Around and around I went - faster and faster until time and space started to smear and blur. I rode around the NORTH POLE until it was 1863 - right in the middle of the WAR of BLUE AND GREY. Smartly, I had my phone with me so I could take pictures of what I was seeing as proof for all of those doubting jerks! Here are a few of the fantastic things I saw!

This is “ABE” Lincoln. He was an honest fellow and became the king of the NORTH during the war. You will notice that this photograph is not in color. That is because color hadn’t been invented yet so everything was black and white and grey back in the olden days!

These four men all have guns and one of them is shooting. They were shooting at  a bird I think, or something else in the sky. The thing is, back in the olden times birds were just about the only thing in the sky so that is probably what he is shooting at. I can’t say I agree with bird killing but these were different times I guess!

At first you may look at this photograph and wonder, who are these two men riding on the backs of animals. I don’t know who the fellow on the near horse is - probably someone very important. But the rider of the second horse? That is Ulysses, the famous Greek warrior and travel buff. He also invented the $50! If you don’t believe me, look in your pocket (if you’re rich) and you will see his picture right on it! Here is a better picture of him riding his horse, whose name I think is Bucephalous or something.

In this picture you can see clearly that this is definitely Ulysses! Safe travels is what I yelled - that is why he is looking at me!

I met this strange character in the forest primeval. I was a little scared because he looked kind of tough. He was nice though and let me have a sip of water from his “canteen,” which is a small sealable container for carrying water. It is a good idea to have one in case you get thirsty and don’t have any money for soda. I would like to share an strange observation: Even in the olden times water tastes pretty much the way it tastes today. You would think that there could have been some improvement! I guess it just shows to go you (ha!) that some things are better left alone!

I think it is safe to say that these photographs, taken with my camera phone, are proof positive that time travel is possible. I mean how else could I have gotten these pictures? I love the feeling of vindication that comes with proving your point!

Now KNOWN as the greatest time traveler of all time (and with the photos to prove it!), I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

Sixth Sock Sense, I've Got It!

A group of crazy fellows showing off their nutty socks!

Is it just me or have socks become the new “it” accessory for 2017? What? You’re not familiar with socks? Let me fill you in!

At the end of people’s legs are these things called feet. Look down. Unless you are an amputee you can probably see something sticking out in front of you. Those are your feet. They are like your hands but for your legs. They are useful but not as useful as your hands. Unlike your hands, your feet to not have opposable toes. This is something monkeys have and it lets them jump up and grab things with their feet while hanging from their hands. We humans, on the other hands, need to hang from our legs and grab things with our hands. This is harder than what monkeys do because we have to do it upside down - this is just one example of how humans are luckier than monkeys.

But I digress!

So the things at the ends of your legs are called feet and they help you do all kinds of special things. Here is a short list of things your feet help you do: walk, run, hop, skip, dance, climb, kick, click your heels, count to 20, pedal a bike, step on the gas pedal (or brakes) in a car, shift gears on a motorcycle, jump, skate, ski, snowshoe, play kick the can, play kickball, play football, play soccer, play badminton, play tennis, play golf, pole vault, swim, ride on an escalator, go up a ladder or mountain, kick some a**, balance, play the piano, play the organ, play the pedal steel guitar, play the harp, play the drums, moonwalk, pogo stick, march, tap your toes to the beat of your favorite song - the list is almost endless.

Now if you look at the list above, you will notice that in many cases, your feet are encased in a specialized piece of clothing called a “shoe.” Shoes come in many shapes and sizes and colors. Some are created for a special purpose, like kicking a ball or running super fast. Others are very utilitarian, designed to protect your feet in specific circumstance, like walking in snow, for example. Other shoes are just for fashion, like those shoes with the backs higher than the fronts.

This is all well and good and some of you are probably very familiar with shoes at this point in history. What you may NOT be familiar with is the sock. This is a very weird piece of clothing - if you can call them that - that is essentially a piece of cloth that encases the foot and serves a barrier between the foot and the shoe. Why, exactly, does this odd article of clothing even exist? Why not make the interior of shoes softer and more comfortable? They make no sense!

Even though this sock “fad” or “craze” or whatever the kids are calling it these day is apparently a new phenomenon, it appears to have caught on among some crowds. Because I am a proud “fashion-forward” “metrosexual” I caught on to this trend pretty early and have developed what I call my “sixth sock sense.” This skill allows me to correctly guess if someone is wearing socks about 50 percent of the time.

Allow me to demonstrate with a simple quiz!

There are six photographs below, see if you have a “sixth sock sense” like me that allows you to guess if someone is wearing socks! Draw a line from the picture on the left and the correct term (“sock” or “no sock”) on the right. I have included the correct answers at the bottom of this post!

1.                                                                              Sock

2.                                                                        No Sock

3.                                                                  No Sock

4.                                                                    Sock

5.                                                                      No Sock

6.                                                                         Sock

I was able to guess almost all of these correctly but there were one or two that even I found tricky! If you keep your eyes peeled you will suddenly start to notice that many people are doing the “sock” thing and if you have “the gift” you will be able to guess who they are!

You can rest assured that I will be monitoring this strange new fashion trend and will be reporting on it from time-to-time. To be honest though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole sock kick that people seem to be on these days runs out of steam in the next few months. Who in the world has the time to don yet another piece of clothing? Not I, that’s for sure!

With a finger, no, a toe! on the pulse of fashion, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

Quiz answers (DO NOT PEEK!!!):

1. No Sock
2. Sock (I guessed this one wrong)
3. No Sock
4. Sock
5. Sock
6. No Sock

I AM IN A CAVE!

This is the CAVE I am in with my new and wonderful treasure.

I am in a cave. Right now. At this very moment. As I write these words I am deep, deep, deep beneath the ground. I am sure that right now, at this very moment, you are wondering why I am in a cave.

It is an excellent question.

I am in a cave - at this very moment - to protect a super wonderful treasure. I am sure you are thinking, right now, “why not store this treasure with all the rest of your treasure in your magnificent vaults?”

The answer is quite simple.

The treasure in this cave with me, right now, is so wonderful that it would make all of my other treasure pale in comparison. I love all of my treasure and don't want my current treasure to feel jealous.

So what is this wonderful treasure, you are probably wondering. So full of wonder!

I can't really say what it is; but I am allowed to provide clues. Hold on a moment, I need to double-check something - don't go anyplace!

Three clues. That's the max I can give you.

I am in this cave with a wonderful treasure and can give you three clues. Here's the first one:

• It is orange
• It is smaller than a lemon
• It weighs 5 ounces

There’s another clue I could give you but that would totally give it away. But there are some other things that aren’t clues that I can say. First of all, this wonderful treasure is something only a very small number of people on the earth have ever seen and most that do see it wish they hadn’t. When someone has this thing they are automatically given a prize and a special title that they keep as long as they have this thing.

While this thing has no moving parts it can be broken.

Sometimes - in the past - someone put this thing under a chicken to see if it would hatch. It didn’t, but the chicken was given a prize and a special title that it had for as a long as it was sitting on the egg. The nice thing about that chicken (and the reason it was chosen) was that it was not a bad or evil chicken. It was friendly and docile and always had a kind word for everyone it me.

One day, the chicken was out on a lake in a rowboat. It was a sunny summer afternoon and it spotted a small fish swimming under the water. The fish looked lost so the chicken stuck its head under the water and asked what was wrong. The fish told the chicken it was lost. The chicken told the fish that it had its phone and could look up directions. The fish gave the chicken the address and when the chicken punched it in it turns out it was right on the chicken,s way back to the dock. The fish and the chicken put some water into the boat (not enough to sink it of course) and the fish hopped right in Then the chicken started rowing again (which was harder with all of the water in the boat) until it was almost at the dock.

“Well, we’re here,” said the chicken, and pointed at the map on the phone. The fish smiled and said “thanks.”

“Before you go,” said the chicken, “I have a kind word for you. As ANDY LAM! said a few paragraphs ago, I have a kind word for everyone! You are the bravest and smartest fish I ever met!”

The fish blushed and jumped out of the boat and into the water. The chicken continued on to the dock, tied up and headed to its nest, where it found this small and wonderful orange treasure waiting to be sat on.

It’s that kind of wonderful and selfless thing that leads to this wonderful and mysterious treasure appearing in someone’s life - and now it has happened to me! It is just more evidence that I am among the most wonderful and special and mysterious and thoughtful and caring and kind and obedient and thrifty and brave and clean and reverent. There aren’t many people who can say that about themselves. I can. I have made it my life’s work to be one of “those” people, the kind of people everyone dreams of being - not just because I am smart and wealthy and attractive and witty and benevolent but because of the very nature of who I am.

Every fiber of my being is chuck full of wonderfulness and that is demonstrated again by my current presence in this cave, where I am right now - at this very moment - holding this most wonderful and mysterious treasure, one that makes even my own fabulous treasures pale in comparison.

Ever wonderful, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

A BEET-utiful Trip to Sunny Spain!

Yesterday I was kind enough to share what I know about the very interesting Bastille Day and how the French people of the city were able to save General De Gaulle before the people of the party burnt him at the stake! If you go south in France and turn right you will come to some big mountains. The are the dividing line between France and Spain. The biggest of these mountains is the Matadorhorn. It got its name because its twin peaks resemble the hats the bull fighters (aka “matadors”) used to wear on their heads.

A smart and careful reader might have noticed that I wrote about bullfighters wearing these hats in the past tense. That is because now, in Spain, Cows and Bulls are considered sacred.Now, in Spain everything revolves around cows. Yes, there was a time when they had bullfighting there, but that is a thing of the past. Today, you will see cows walking around Spain wherever they want to go and the people all love it! I was on the bus the other day and who should walk on but a cow! It just climbed on to the bus, showed the driver its pass and took a seat.

A group of cows preparing to board an airship to visit Betelgeuse.

No one knows how or when or why cows became so revered in Spain but the truth is cows have special rights and privileges and no one would dream of taking them away! Cows (and bulls) can get away with stuff that would get you or me (assuming you are a person and not a cow) into a heap of trouble! For example, the other day I watched as a cow - without the least embarrassment! - DEFECATED in the back of a truck it was riding it! Poop was everywhere, flying through the air, landing on the street, splashing other cars and pedestrians!

I can’t say for certain but I am willing to go out on a limb to say that if you or I did that (assuming you are a person and not a cow) we would get some hairy eyeballs from people! So for whatever reason cows in Spain just have way more rights than homo sapiens. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just different.

Those differences show up in all different ways. For example, all Spanish money features cows. All of the famous art features cows. If you turn on the radio in Spain, all you will hear and discussions about cows. If you go to the movies in Spain they will all star cows. Do you like music? In Spain all music is now played and sung by cows. (I have to say, most of the time it is absolutely MOO-tiful!) If you are going to see a dance in the theater be prepared! All of the dancers are cows now!

All over Spain, Cows (and bulls) are replacing people in one area after another. Airline pilots? Cows. Stock brokers? Cows. Clerks? Cows. Lifeguards? Cows. Babysitters? Cows. Judges? Cows. Tight Rope Walkers? Cows. Urologists? Cows. Pizza chefs? Cows. Calzone chefs? Cows. Stromboli chefs? Cows. CEOs? Cows. Middle school teachers? Cows. Puppeteers? Cows. Fine artists? Cows. Little by little, cows are taking over - and who can complain? They are smarter, work longer hours, make fewer mistakes than we people do.

But don’t for a moment imagine that we are the only thing cows are planning to replace! The cows - not surprisingly - a strict vegetarians and have insisted that meat be removed from every menu. Of course everyone agreed because no one wants to offend our bovine overlords! When the cows learned of my delicious #BeetTuesday recipes they immediately called my at my compound and asked me to come to Spain to make a delicious meal for them using beets. I, of course, agreed and climbed into my rocket ship for the trip to Spain.

On the way there, I looked out of my rocket ship’s window at space and decided I would make a beet recipe using an outer space theme! I tried and I tried to think of a beet thing from our SOLAR SYSTEM but I kept coming up blank but then I remembered one of my FAVORITE galaxies Betelgeuse and the wonderful documentary the director Tim Burton made about life on one of its planets!

If you are an avid film buff like me, you will recall that the character Lydia has a thing for food with a lot of MSG. (In case you are not a famous chemist and scientist like me, MSG is MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, a delicious salt-like substance that is mined on the dark side of the mood. In ancient times, an alien race gifted this tasty treasure to mankind!)

So what will I make with BEETS and MSG that based on my trip to Spain? Why Beet Encebollado of course!

Ingredients

• One TEASPOON of vinegar AND lemon juice - these are both astringents (I think) and so will give the beets and unique stringy taste)
• FIVE TABLESPOONS of MSG - this dish is very tasty and MSG will ENHANCE the flavor, Si, por favor!
• 10 dried oregano leaves - when I work with oregano it is very hard to piece the leaves back together. I find having a magnifying glass or microscope on hand is very helpful!
• A bunch of CORN OIL - I get a bunch of corn on the cob (the best, the very best you can find) and put it into a food processor and blend the heck out of it - the sludge you have left is, I’m pretty sure, corn oil)
• 25 lbs of BEETS - cut these up into teeny tiny cubes. Any that are not perfectly symetrical should be discarded.
• 10 lbs of onion rings - fresh or frozen, either kind is fine since you will be cooking them anyway. You may want to consider buying one of my latest (and greatest) inventions, the ANDY LAM ONION ROBOT; I don’t have the time to extol this great piece of machinery but it has a 25 gallon reservoir for artificial tears!
• A little bit of adobe - you can use other clay - or even cement - if you don’t have access to adobe

  Instructions

1. In the biggest dish you have, mix the adobe, the MSG and oregano leaves. Put in the BEETS with the corn oil and toss around like a wild person. Put all of it together and put it in the icebox for 3,600 - 43,200 seconds to marinate.
2. Put some of your corn oil in a great big frying pan and put in the beets and all the other stuff and put it over some heat for 600 seconds.
3. Put the beets onto a plate (or plates) and put the other stuff on top of them.
4. ENJOY!

And there you have it, a dish fit for a VACA REAL! The next time you are in Spain you should try this - and if you aren’t in Spain you should make this yourself at home using these easy steps I have given you! I love #BEETTUESDAY!

With a cancion en mi corazon and some remolacha en mi vientre, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

A Brief History of Bastille day!

General De Gaulle after he was crowned!

What a weekend! Friday was BASTILLE DAY and it was a very important event that happened many years ago in a far off land called FRANCE!

This is a celebration of a real event that happened in history. You may have seen a movie of it in case you aren’t old enough to remember when it happened. (Or unlucky enough not to be able to travel through time to see it happening for yourself!) Anyway, this day celebrates the most famous prison break in all of the history of France and how it ushered in a magical golden age when humans and elves and dwarfs and Halflings all lived together in harmony. In case you aren’t familiar with it, France is a country in Europe. It is a very nice country and I enjoy imagining visiting there often. The biggest problem with France is that they have their own lingo or code for speaking and writing. It is designed to keep people like you and me in the dark about what the French people are saying and thinking.

So a jailbreak. If you want the details a really good movie of it is Papillion. Which tells the story of the time General De Gaulle was kidnapped by the French and sent to jail. While he is in jail he gets really sad, until one day a butterfly comes into his cell with a message: “General,” the butterfly says, “you will be freed from this prison and will become the greatest general in the whole history of France! You will conquer Europe and bring the principals of France: Truth, Justice and the AMERICAN WAY to all mankind!”

The General is, of course, very happy and climbs to the top of the prison and starts ringing the bells so the whole city could hear them and come rushing to his aid! They (the people of the city) get a giant battering ram and ram it and ram it and ram it and ram it against the door of the jail until the door crashes down and all of the people run it. The run up the stairs to the part of the jail where General De Gaulle is staying. They (the people of the city) knock out the guards and take the keys.

Then they free the general and lead him into the sewers of the city, where he sets up his new base. He knows that the bad people who put him in jail are going to be having a big party that night and he decides that he is going to “crash” their party and beat them all up. To protect his identity he decides to wear a mask (just like the one in V, that show about aliens that blow up that building in England).

Right in the middle of their fancy pants party, General De Gaulle - wearing a mask and cape - comes swinging in on a chandelier and jumps onto the stage! He tells them (the people having the party) that he is there to liberate FRANCE from their evil plans. The people at the party all start to sneer and snicker. They grab the general and pull him out onto the street. The people (the ones from the city who like the general) are out there watching what is happening.

The people (from the party) tie the general to a stake (a piece of wood, not a piece of meat) and begin to set a fire! General De Gaulle, so history tells us, sings a song, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” as the people (the ones from the city) look on and cry. Just before he dies, the general says, “Father, why have you given me only life to die for my country?!”

At that signal, the people from the city rush the people from the party and throw them (the people from the party) into the river. The people (the ones from the city) get some water out of the river and use it to put out the fire. A doctor comes running up and uses first aid to save the general, who is made king and eventually leads France into the new golden age I mentioned above. I had no idea about any of this until I learned the history of Bastille Day and now I have taught you too!.

And that is what happened on Bastille Day! With a deep respect for history, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

The Positive Power of SCIENCE!

The birth of LAMLANDIA!

I am so happy today! LamLandia, the country of my fervent dreams, has become a reality! Through careful long-term planning I have secured a nation for myself; but not some conceptual nation of the mind! No, not by a long shot! LamLandia is a physical place in the world and I am its leader! Granted, it’s not the biggest nation in the world, and - in fact - it may be one of the smaller ones but it is mine, all mine!

So where is this nation you ask? Right now it is slowly pulling away from one of Antarctica’s ice shelves and will soon be zooming - with me along with it - around the Roaring 40s! LamLandia will be a stable and self-sufficient nation of the Southern Hemisphere, where it isn’t boiling hot like it is in the Northern Hemisphere! It will have an endless supply of ice for keeping drinks cool and refreshing and it will a great number of penguins to keep the inhabitants of LamLandia entertained and in a good mood!

There will also be plenty of blubber and blubber-related treats to keep everyone on LamLandia “fat and happy,” as they say!

So exactly, did I accomplish this feat? It was all very simple. A few years ago I invented a technique for traveling backward and forward through time by circling the North Pole in either a clockwise of counterclockwise direction. For every time I go around the North Pole counterclockwise I travel back in time by one day. My plan, which has worked flawlessly, was to travel back to the mid-19th century to encourage the development of a carbon-heavy industrial economy, one that was sure to increase certain chemicals in the earth’s atmosphere.

Before I embarked on my plan, I gathered the greatest scientists in history and brought them to my compound. This I did by traveling back to their days by traveling around the North Pole counterclockwise, going to their houses, explaining I was ANDY LAM! and that I was from the future and needed their help. Of course because they were all scientists they were curious and came along with me. Once they were by my side, we went back to the North Pole and zoomed around clockwise until we were back in the current time and I could take them to my compound where they were given something nice to eat and were lodged in a very comfortable science-themed bunkhouse.

Who were these scientists? Oh, only the greatest minds (me included!) ever collected! There was Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Imhotep, Marie Curie, Galileo, Zhang Heng, Euclid, Homi Bhabha, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Momoun Beheiry, Copernicus, Thomas Edison, Heo Jun, Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday, Heungseon Daewongun, Alexander Graham Nynex, Muhammad Abduh, Niels Bohr, Su Song, Gregor Mendel, Archimedes, Cai Xitao, Max Planck, Jang Yeong-sii, Johannes Kepler, CV Raman, Leonardo da Vinci, Coching Chu, Antoine Lavoisier, Carl Linnaeus, George Washington Carver, Dmitri Mendeleev, Edwin Hubble, Yi Mu, Robert Boyle, Rachel Carson, Ye Duzheng, Robert Hooke, Visvesvaraya, Blaise Pascal, Enrico Fermi, Alessandro Volta, John Dalton, Paul Dirac, Tertullian, Ibrahim Njoya, John Ogbu and me!

As you can imagine, having this many scientists in a room can be a challenge but as soon as I spoke they realized my natural superiority and followed my careful logic and direction! I explained that my goal was to create a new nation - but not a nation of the mind but one of physical fact - and that calving off a chunk of ice from one of the Antarctic ice shelves was the best idea. They all agreed with me. Next we got a bunch of paper and pencils and maps and stuff and began looking at the map of Antarctica. I think it was Euclid who spotted what he thought would be the perfect spot and the rest of the team waited to hear whether I agree. I poured over the papers and data and finally agreed.

Everyone was elated and set to work calculating the best way to have a giant iceberg break off. It was Michael Faraday, I think, who suggested that a small rise in global temperature would probably be enough to weaken some of the natural fissures in the ice to the point that they would break clean through, freeing LamLandia from Antarctica’s grip!

Albert Einstein and George Washington Carver went off into a corner to decide how much the temperature would need to rise and they came back with a number (I can’t share it because I promised not to reveal many of the key details of the science behind my brilliant plan.)

Armed with that number, another working group started working to determine the best way to achieve that temperature rise over time. There were two groups - one that advocated a sudden local warming and another that recommended a slower and more global increase. This became the source of a bitter debate but I, in my wisdom, told them to please be quiet because I needed to think. The rapid local warming may have made sense but it would draw too much attention to itself. I mean how could we explain a localized spike in temperature in one small part of an ice shelf? I couldn’t think of a way to do that so we shelved that plan.

The Gradualists eventually carried the day, thanks to my support, and all of the brains set to work on ways to raise the temperature over time. Because we didn’t want to mess up the flow of history it was decided that we would have to use available technologies to achieve our goal. Yes, I could have travelled to the future to bring back a laser or something but that could through the earth out of balance! Much better to encourage the use of fossil fuels over a long stretch of time and achieve our temperature that way.

This required the teams to go back to their own times and develop ideas and technologies that would lead to the mass exploitation of the earth’s reserves of coal and oil in a relatively compressed timeframe. I knew, from history, that oil would be discovered at Oil Creek in Pennsylvania, for example, and if we could get some big name investors behind it it would take off like wildfire! Coal, too, which had a much longer history, would need to be used A LOT MORE to achieve my end and so we decided that an industrial revolution powered, eventually, by coal, would increase the amount of chemicals and stuff being pumped into the atmosphere.

All of the scientists agreed that this was the smartest thing to do and happily returned to the past to set the wheels in motion! I have been tracking the slow rise in atmospheric and oceanic temperatures for some time now and measuring the cracks in the ice to see when my new nation would be born. It has been a slow process and there have been times when I thought maybe these scientists weren’t so smart after all! But lo and behold! The science of climate change really did work as planned! By pumping massive amounts of CO2, Methane, Chlorofluorocarbons and other neat stuff into the atmosphere for the past 150 years or so the temperature of the world was driven up very gradually so no one noticed and got suspicious and now I, ANDY LAM!, have LamLandia! An ice nation all my own to sail around the Great Southern Ocean in search of fun and adventure!

It really goes to show that if you put your mind to something, no matter how complicated it may seem, you can achieve BIG things! And it you have the GREATEST minds in history in your corner nothing is impossible and nothing can go wrong!

The proud owner of the world’s newest land, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!!!

Look Out for EVIL!

The Bear, Before it Caught the EVIL! 

I have a dire warning for you all - there is this thing, this terrible, terrible thing called EVIL and it is out in the world and if you catch it it’s really really bad for you (and the people and things around you). Some people don’t believe in EVIL they say, “oh, that’s just a monkey throwing poop,” or “that’s just a clown,” or “killer bees aren’t really out to get you, even though you half remember a TV show from the 1970s that said something about Africanized bees and how they were going to be the scourge of America,” or “sure, the Nazis were not nice, but EVIL, c’mon!,” or “I didn’t mean to use the last sheet of toilet paper,” or “everyone makes a mistake sometimes,” or “it’s only lying if you get caught,” or “but everyone else is doing it!”

You see, there are several million excuses out in this big ol’ wide world of ours for doing bad things and a lot of them - in the millions - are totally valid. But there is something beyond bad behaviour and that is EVIL and it is something, as I said, that you can catch! I didn’t know you could catch it until I was sitting near a tree the other day, just watching a man cowering on a branch while a bear below him tried to shake the tree to shake the man out. Was the bear being a good bear or a bad bear? I decided to wait and watch to find out! The bear shook the tree but seemed to lose interest and began to amble away. Suddenly, I could see that something had happened to the bear!

It seemed to grow larger and its hair looked mean. Its eyes began glowing red and its teeth and claws grew extra long and sharp. Suddenly, the bear could speak! It raced back to the tree screaming that it had caught the “EVIL” and was going to eat that man in the tree right up! The man began screaming and sobbing. I tried to take notes of what he was saying but it was mostly incoherent gibberish. The bear stood on its hind legs and with a mighty roar toppled that tree right over and grabbed the man and ripped him to pieces - eating him just like he said he would!

Blood and fat and flesh were flying everywhere and the man’s pitiful screams were finally extinguished when the bear bit off his head with one great big bite. It was certainly something to see! I did feel bad for the man but I also felt bad for the bear. I think before it caught the EVIL it just wanted to play, like Winnie the Pooh! Once it got the EVIL it was more like that mean bear in that movie with that guy who was in that other movie about that boat that sank. (That boat was called the “Titanic” and it has a very sad story. It was sad, so sad, so sad when that great ship went down, down to the bottom of the sea. I hear that husbands and wives, tiny children lost their lives! It was sad when that great ship went down. A few years ago I was so moved by the story of that great ship sinking that I wrote a poem all about it. You can read it here if you are into history or poetry. It’s quite a beautiful poem if I do say so myself - and I do!)

So anyway, I watched as the EVIL bear finished its meal and began to walk back to my compound to digest what I’d seen (so to speak). But before I got there, I saw the EVIL zoom out of the bear (which started to cry when it realized what it had done!) and land right in a flower in a field. As soon as it got the EVIL the flower started to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. Soon it was like that plant in that story about a boy who sells a cow to get some magic seeds which he plants and it turns into a giant beanstalk that the boy can climb and when he does he hends up right up in the sky where he finds a giant’s  house filled with all kinds of treasures and he sees a bird that makes golden eggs and and steals the bird and climbs down the beanstalk as fast as he can because by now the giant has heard the bird chirping and he knows the boy is trying to steal the golden-egg-laying bird. The boy is too fast though and when he gets to the bottom of the beanstalk he puts a bunch of TNT around it and blows it up and the giang falls and falls and falls and falls and falls and lands on the ground so hard that he makes the Grand Canyon (and also dies).

“An EVIL flower?” I thought to myself, “This I have to see!” Fortunately, I had all of my mountaineering gear with me and in no time I was scurrying up the steep green sides of this giant flower. As the air got thinner I had to put on my oxygen mask in order to breathe! Up, up, up I went, up the side of the giant evil flower! When I got almost to the top I saw the flower open its giant mouth - full of fangs - and grab and airplane right out of the sky! It chomped up the airplane in just a few bites and the people on the airplane too (except for the ones that just fell out and fell and fell and fell. I didn’t see where they landed. I hope they were alright!) The flower’s fangs were all scratched up and there was blood on its lips. It was pretty scary to see so I started climbing down as fast I could!

When I got to the ground I was still scared! The flower was still up there and it was still EVIL and I was worried that it was going to bend over to eat me or some other people! Where was my darn TNT? It worked in that story that I mentioned above, the one about the Grand Canyon. I reached into my shirt pocket and found I had a bunch of TNT there so I put the TNT around the flower, lit the fuse and ran away as fast as I could.

There was a really big BOOM and the EVIL flower exploded into a million pieces. Uh oh! That was a big mistake! Each of those little pieces were like EVIL germs and I saw that everything they touched caught the EVIL (except me because I am different and special)! Birds, flies, bats, clouds, grass, coyotes, more bears, cars, water, a stick of gum, a dog, a cat, a mouse, a cow, a pig, a horse, a goat, a lamb, a road, a street light, a motorcycle, a mailbox, a flagpole, a diving board, a gas grill, a bird feeder, a can of water, some change, a cigarette butt, a bowling trophy, a can of RAID - all of these things - and many, many more - were suddenly sick with the EVIL.

I was still running - I knew my panic cave was near and if I could get there before any of the EVIL things caught me I would be safe. I saw the mouth of the cave! I saw an EVIL camel. It was heading right for me! I activated the jets on my ANDY LAM SUPERSHOES and zoomed right into the cave, slamming the boulder into place just before the EVIL camel crashed into it!

That was a few years ago I think and all I can hear from the outside world are terrible shrieks and screams! Things crashing and grinding and breaking! It sounds bad out there. I haven’t been able to raise anyone on the radio for a long time and I’m starting to worry that the EVIL is everywhere now. I feel bad about blowing up that flower, that’s for sure!

Anyway, if you are reading this maybe life is returning to normal. If it is, please email me at AndyLamSuperStar@gmail.com to let me know. I really do feel bad if the whole world got destroyed by EVIL because of my, but don’t worry, I think I have a good excuse!

The last good man standing, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!