Thanksgiving, life-saving power naps and feverish dreams in a desert kingdom

My arrival coincided with the arrival of a group of comics from the states. Badly jet lagged and delirious, I slept through it all...thankfully, because my attendance might have set off a chain reaction possibly altering the universe as we know it, and not for the better...(I'll explain later).

Roughly the same time I was making my way across the world, so was a merry band of B-List comics, whose achievements included appearances on HBO. I'm glad I succumbed to feverish dreams in my tent rather than listening to jokes. In addition to the shock to my system from unpacking and getting acclimated to living in a tent in a desert faraway from all the creature comforts of the states, the sensory overload from listening to American stand-up would have been a supernova explosion inside my brain.

The next morning I wandered about my new surroundings, disoriented, with long unkempt hair undulating in the desert breeze. My newly acquired facial scruff was an eyeful for the uniformed men and women. I felt stares from the multitudes cast in my direction, making me feel like an unwanted drifter passing through a frontier town. Then, unexpected and awkward smiles would sometimes accompany the ostracizing looks. I was at a loss. A couple days later people worked up the nerve to congratulate me on my performance. I was asked why I hadn't left yet. "I just got here," I said, "what's the hurry to get rid of me?" I gave awkward and vague responses like this, then sensing the awkwardness I walked away awkwardly. After a few more bizarre encounters like this, it dawned on me I was being mistaken for Tom Vrab, one of the comics on the USO tour. Prior to this trip I lived in a universe devoid of any Tom Vrab. It was a huge revelation to discover I had a clone spawned in another universe where I'm well-known for comedy... If only I'd stayed awake to watch his set that first night, I could have confirmed the likeness and the possibility we were one and the same person, and maybe after buying him a beer and engaging in some sharp-witted banter, he could've gotten me a gig in the entertainment industry and out of this tent in the desert... On second thought, with all joking aside, there was something rather discomforting about all this! It's possible, I suppose, that we are the same person from separate parallel universes, whose meeting, because of a space-time anomaly, would have triggered a violent chain reaction tearing a gaping hole in the fabric of space-time, and unleashing a super massive black hole ultimately capable of destroying existence as we know it... and America, which would be in line with al-Qaeda's plans. The whole purpose of the USO tour was in fact to support the troops by making them laugh, so that would have really looked bad if they brought about unparalleled destruction that night instead of spreading joy to our heroes in uniform. What a relief I slept through the act and didn't meet Tom that night. I heard he killed, but in the "funny" sense, not in the "terrorist" sense. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but maybe this was all an elaborate al-Qaeda plot, utilizing the latest theories in string theory and astrophysics to cause parallel universes to collide, and unleash unknown cosmic forces in order to undermine American foreign policy. My nap might have saved us from this terror. Suck it al-Qaeda!

I don't see the resemblance personally, other than

the long hair and the scruff (and choice of head gear), but I do have a working hypothesis that neatly explains all of the confusion. For now we'll just refer to it as the "hybrid-sasquatch" hypothesis. To the untrained eye of a civilian, people in uniform can be hard to tell apart. A point brought home early on when I was supposed to meet a sergeant for lunch in the chow hall, and failed to find him in the sea of uniforms and short hair. It's amazing how much someone's hair length and hair style sets them apart from their fellow humans. This situation was never a problem while serving in the military of course, because you familiarize yourself with a myriad other traits to distinguish your brothers (and sisters)-in-arms. To compensate for reduced powers of sensory discernment, your retina develops a finer sense for subtle physical protrusions accentuated by shorter hair length, like flaring nostrils, dangling nose hair, droopy ear lobes and the cranial fingerprint itself, a person's unique misshapen skull (we all have malformed craniums as it turns out, only exposed by a shaved head, and kept well hidden by a thick mane). Three years on as a civilian, my skills of detection are dulled. I was ashamed of my lack of perceptiveness in the chow hall, and instead had to content myself with eating alone in the office.

Similarly, for those in uniform, long haired, care-free hippies from the west coast are such a rare sighting, that the section of the brain responsible for storing and recalling facial data hasn't fully developed to make sense of the facial features inherent to our particular, sasquatch-hybrid, sub-species of homo-sapiens.

The same principle would be at work if you were fortunate enough to experience two or more sasquatch sightings in your lifetime. For instance, one in the Cascades and one in the Rockies (a geographic distance far enough away that two sasquatch phenotypes, like fur thickness, are different). Although, to the untrained eye, even sasquatch gender would be totally indistinguishable.

Not to get too sidetracked, but have you ever wondered why the legendary Bigfoot is just assumed to be male? Has the same gender bias in the English language, whereby masculine pronouns and constructs are the default (as in "man"kind), already infiltrated objective thinking in the burgeoning field of cryptozoology? Such a misogynistic bias could set the field back a hundred years or more, much in the same way dinosaurs were long thought to be fat, lethargic lizards lumbering about the Mesozoic era for 250 million years instead of the awesome stealthy bird-like raptors with large brain cavities capable of higher order thinking for savagely bringing down their prey in packs; an awesome scientific fact that inspires and terrifies 6 year olds the world over with its awesomeness. What would we do without scientific truths like this. Come on scientists, get this stuff right the first time! Logic dictates that 50% of the breath taking sasquatch sightings are of females. Where does this gender bias come from? The same bias applies to sasquatch's interstellar cousin, the wookie, whom we rarely, if ever, think of as female! Is it the body hair? In an era of increased gender equality awareness, our daughters are in dire need of such uplifting affirmations of feminine awesomeness that come from knowing Sasquatch's legendary greatness equally applies to them.

As if my first week here could be anymore spooky, (if you're keeping count, it already involves the crossing of parallel universes, cryptozoology, and terrorists utilizing obscure predictions made by string theory and sci-fi novels to undo the very fabric of the universe and America) Tom Vrab also resembles Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers. So, by extension, I must also look like Pau Gasol, minus the height. Is Pau from the same sub-species as me and Tom? Tom even works it into his routine:

The most unnerving, and at the same time hilarious bit is Tom's impersonation of a heart-broken Chewbacca. It had me laughing out loud longer than the bit itself, then crying hysterically like a little girl for hours because the profound truths it spoke about the human condition shined brighter than the sun:

Anyone who's had their heart broken can relate to the agonizing cries emanating from deep within the mighty Chewbacca's soul; they transcend comprehensible syllables, conveying existential pangs of annihilation and despair. This is the immortal sound of a wookie that didn't get closure. His female wookie counterpart did not tell him the truth, and we all know honesty and openness is necessary for closure...even Chewbacca, a sentient being capable of ripping the limbs off his foes, got his spirit crushed by a woman. Female wookies are fearsome beyond reckoning to be able to inflict so much pain on the Mighty Chewbacca. I hope I don't negate all the high minded talk of gender equality, but if I were to add to the bit, Han Solo would give Chewie the following words of solace, "I know, I know fuzzball, she was a bitch, you deserved honesty from her all along, but try having a princess confess her love to you shortly before being frozen in carbonite and then getting sped across the galaxy only to be a wall ornament for Jabba the Hut's perverse amusement! Then you'll know the meaning of heartache!" As it turns out, being treated insincerely by a woman is a close second to being frozen in carbonite and then getting sped across the galaxy in that humiliating state, only to be put on display and jeered at by Jabba and his henchmen (Just look at the frozen Solo's facial expression to better understand Chewie's anguish).

So, there you go, there's no other good explanation for all these events that have transpired other than the hippie-sasquatch, hybrid hypothesis. It explains just about everything! There exists a wanderlust creature resembling sasquatch (or a wookie), that engages in activities like basketball, comedy, and running and is endemic to the west coast of the United States. This noble creature is known to universe hop on occasion.

The only thing the hypothesis fails to adequately explain is why I'm living in a tent in a desert on the edge of the planet. I'm a long ways from the lush natural habitat of Oregon. Less than a month ago I was hunting mushrooms in a forest.

As one more order of business, I'd like to wish everyone who happens to read this blog a happy thanksgiving, and especially to Tom, my other self from a parallel universe. I wish I could cross over into your universe to see what it's like... keep up the good fight with your comedy. Together we'll defeat the terrorists and their nefarious goals. Who knows, maybe someday we'll stumble upon an anomaly in the fabric of space-time allowing us to grab a beer together without bringing destruction to the universe, and then we can swap tales of all this weirdness.

(Pics of the hybrid-sasquatch in its natural habitat along the west coast engaging in its various activities i.e. performing, sports, and generally looking like a scruffy dork)