Pandora Highway

The thing that surprises me — and even shocks me — about Earthlings is their self-destructive cat-fascination with technology. The biggest case in point is the Internet.

In 1995 the entire world embraced the great and powerful "Information Highway", knowing damn well that they were opening up a Pandora's Box that would eventually destroy their world culture. Like ostriches, they hid their eyes from what they had done but, when the coast seemed to be clear, they rushed headlong into it and wallowed in it like swine. The few who didn't were soon swallowed up by those who did.

So, why am I using it? I sincerely believed that I could find and utilize one small segment of the all-seeing, all-knowing World Wide Web and get a friendly, poignant, even entertaining message across to those who could pull themselves away from the Web's glitter long enough to listen.

I was wrong.

The Hell You Say

I know I overplay the excuse that being a Martian in my past life is why I never really fit in, here, on planet Earth. But it's the only reason I can come up with for being clueless most of the time. On Earth, having no clue almost always means that you can't be trusted with important decisions or with money but it often means that you're the sucker everyone's gunning for. On Mars, where there was only one meaning for everything, including deception, being clueless meant you were a government employee. I miss the simple life.

Once again, I've gotten off the track. Being a former Martian among billions of Earthlings never gets any easier. And trying to explain to Earthlings how their Earthling ways are often illogical is like being a Vulcan in the middle of a food fight. Who's going to listen to logic when you're having fun flinging Jello across a crowded room?

Still, after nearly six decades of living on a planet that's spinning out of control because no one knows that it's spinning out of control, I've noticed that a lot of people on this planet don't say what they mean when they talk to other people. A lot of them don't mean what they say, either, but that's a horse of a different color. Here are a dozen examples of Earthlings not saying what they really mean:

1. Common saying: "That's a horse of a different color."
True meaning: "You have no clue about what I just said."

2. Common saying: "Hey, that looks good."
True meaning: "Can I have some of that?"

3. Common saying: "No, I'm fine."
True meaning: "If I don't need a drink how come you do?"

4. Common saying: "Don't go there."
True meaning: "Shut the hell up."

5. Common saying: "I could care less."
True meaning: "I couldn't care less."

6. Common saying: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
True meaning: "Shut up and eat. It's free."

7. Common saying: "You're lookin' good."
True meaning: a. "You look like hell but I feel like being nice to you." b. "It's about time you cleaned yourself up." c. "You look better than I do. I want you dead."

8. Common saying: "Hey, baby!"
True meaning: a. "I hope you're not an undercover cop." b. "How much?" c. "Get in the car."

9. Common saying: "I can't believe it!"
True meaning: "I believe it. I just don't like it."

10. Common saying: "You gotta love her."
True meaning: "Why does she do that?"

11. Common saying: "Don't give me that."
True meaning: "You're absolutely right and that pisses me off."

12. Common saying: "Not right now, thanks."
True meaning: a. "Never in a million years." b. "Wow, your timing really sucks." c. "Are you still here?"

So, do I think I'm Mr. Perfect? Am I saying that I never utter one of these deceptive sentences or other sentences like them? Of course not. All I'm saying is this:

13. Common saying: "When in Rome do as the Romans do."
True meaning: "Geronimo!"

Just a friendly reminder from Science Fiction for Thinkers.com, the publisher of Michael Casher's Kindle Editions. The textual content of the Little Green Man from Mars blog is copyrighted material created and owned by science fiction author Michael Casher. This blog is also part of The Four Bloggers of the Apocalypse, available in paperback and as a Kindle ebook. This book is Michael Casher's first book of blogs, sold at Amazon and at many other online booksellers worldwide. Thank you.

Little Red Man from Earth

Earthlings are always poking fun at people from Mars. The little green man from Mars has been an object of derision ever since Hollywood started excreting cheesy B-movies in the 1950s about men from Earth blasting off to Mars in rocket ships shaped like perfecto cigars with fins.

I was just a kid slugging my way through an unwanted Appalachian childhood when I saw my first "space movie" on the Late Late Show (which used to be a wee-hour movie show and not a stupid talk show). The rocket would turn around and land on its fins and then take off again after the spacemen had aggravated the Martians to the point of murder.

Being a former Martian with a dwindling memory of that previous life, I can assure you that we Martians had our own ideas of what an Earth-devil spaceman would look like. I ran across this animated image the other day and just had to post it here because this is the perfect example of a little red man from Earth. Why does he look like he's in hell? Beats me. Did any of you Earthlings ever wonder if any little green man from Mars was happy or unhappy or well-fed or if he could carry a tune?

All right, then. There you go.

Who Gives A Hoot?

My memories of a previous life on Mars are fading more and more each year. One day my Martian memories will be so faint, selective and sporadic that I'll convince myself that I never even had a previous life on Mars, that my first time around was right here on planet Earth, along with the rest of you.

But since I'm still believing that I once lived on Mars when it was a wonderful big green, red and blue marble in the blackness of interstellar space, I still benefit from the Martian sixth sense that allows me to feel and smell a lie whenever I encounter it.

Want proof? When I was seven years old I thought it was really odd that a skinny pyramid with an eyeball on top of it is on the back of a one-dollar bill. Not even grown ups thought about that back then. By 1970 most of them still weren't even aware of that ridiculous pyramid and that even more ridiculous eyeball. By 1980 some people knew but no one cared. By 1990, a few more people knew about it but even fewer people cared about why and how it got there. By 2000, nobody gave a hoot.

And all that time, while I was wondering and puzzling and thinking about that idiotic pyramid, we Americans were too preoccupied with the daily business of eating, sleeping, buying, selling and procreating to notice the little owl on the front of the one-dollar bill. That's right, a teeny-weeny little owl perched between a leaf and the number "1" at the top, right-hand corner of the front of the American one-dollar bill. Wow, just being able to describe where it's located is a successful exercising of my limited Earthling free will.

As a former Martian (yes, I still believe in me), my biggest concern is not primarily where these disturbing images came from or why they're on the one-dollar bill or who even put them there. My biggest concern is that they've been there since 1935 and millions and millions of people never even noticed or cared if they did notice them. And that's the scariest thing about my having to be an Earthling the second time around. Being so easily deceived and controlled, over and over again. And being surrounded by people who just don't give a hoot.

It's no way to treat your fellow citizens and certainly no way to run a planet.

Finger Etiquette

Little Green Man knows he doesn't have any real video-making skills but that doesn't seem to stop him from documenting Appalachian life on planet Earth. So, just watch this silent documentary and humor the old guy. Then maybe he'll go away for good.

In this video, Little Green Man shows you how to control your finger in public.

"Finger Etiquette"

A Little Green Man Video

TC

Noisemakers

One of the biggest differences between my former life on the planet Mars and my current life on Earth is the noise factor. Even when the vaporized Martian seas were being sucked into outer space by the powerful gravitational pull of Nibiru (Planet X) thousands of years ago there was less noise on Mars then than on any given day on Earth nowadays. Contemporary Americans alone are noisier than the combined earthquakes that struck Mars in the aftermath of Nibiru. It appears that Earthlings — and especially Americans — are addicted to noise even more than they're addicted to speed.

Take the current Fourth of July weekend in the USA. In addition to the many, splendid displays of professional fireworks that will be set off by professional pyrotechnicians, there will be a hundred times that amount set off in back yards and alleyways and thrown from speeding vehicles all across the land. Babies will be rocked in their cradles at one in the morning by the M-80s and quarter sticks of dynamite that unimaginably replaced the firecrackers and cherry bombs of yesteryear. After all, nobody believes that bigger is better more than an American in the flyover with plenty of disposable income.

Americans who are addicted to speed and noise at the same time will mount their noisy ATVs and their Harley Davidson motorcycles and tear through villages and towns all across America while the babies and kids and seniors try to rest up for another day of celebrating their independence from Great Britain 234 years ago. When approached about the horrific thundering, burping noises emanating from their Harley Hogs, a Harley rider will almost invariably say, "Hell, I don't hear a thing." Thinking and hoping that you will be so dumb as to accept that as any kind of answer. On the other hand, an ATV rider in America the Beautiful is as unapproachable as the Queen of England. While the British are still in awe over a royal family that plays and never works, Americans are hopelessly bedazzled by noisy, bad-boy youths who don't care about anything.

When Americans run out of the bombs that replaced the traditional firecrackers and sparklers and they've used up their motorcycle and ATV gas money for the week, they'll forget about their speed addiction for a moment and make noise with the only means left to them. Whooping and hollering for no reason or for any reason or all reasons seems to be America's newest national pastime. As the smell of black powder drifts over them and the engines of their Harley Hogs and four-wheelers slowly cool with that tick-ticking sound, overfed moms and dads and kids will cheer for their favorite NASCAR drivers and WWE wrestlers and baseball teams and insult-comic sitcoms like sailors on a three-day drunk.

In the summertime I'm always reminded of why Mars banned noisemakers of any kind several millennia ago and why extraterrestrial sentinels from beyond Earth banned Astronauts from the moon in 1972. They knew far in advance that golf ball litter was only the beginning and that a species so addicted to speed and noise would eventually be addicted to power as well .

Faster and Faster

I know that evolution demands change. Nothing in the universe can stand still for very long and survive. Not only is it one of the most basic tenets upheld by man and nature, it's pretty much universal law throughout the cosmos. Stand still and you'll get run over. Refuse to grow and learn and life will pass you by. Fail to evolve and you'll soon become extinct. Even most Earthlings will agree with this. That's why nothing remains the same on this planet for more than a few weeks anymore.

It used to be that if you already had something that came out last year you'd die to have this year's whatever-it-was. Nowadays (archaic word nobody uses anymore except me and people who like classic English literature) nobody wants it if it came out last month. Last month is like the Neolithic period to everyone on Earth. Today is what's hot. Today sells. And tomorrow is even better because tomorrow's stuff will get your foot in the door before anyone else. Everybody on the planet wants to be first in line. Second in line is like something from last year.

That's why speed is so important to Earthlings and especially to Americans. The faster anything gets done the quicker you can dispense with that and move on to tomorrow's whatever-it-is. The faster you go, the sooner you'll get there. Slow is for sorry losers who can't pull their dopey heads out of yesterday so they can look ahead to tomorrow. Earthlings are irretrievably addicted to speed. And there seems to be no end in sight.

I'm deadly serious. "Faster and Faster" is everybody's motto today. A hundred years ago Earthlings had cars and roads and going 25 miles per hour was fast enough for most people. But twenty years later people couldn't wait to do 40. 40 mph got you there faster. Then it was 55. And now people are trying to break ground speed records in their family SUV's, going to grandma's for Thanksgiving by way of the interstate at 80 miles an hour, despite the posted speed limit of 65. Grandmas are doing 75 in their SUV's to get everything for Thanksgiving dinner from the Walmart Super Center of their choice. College kids are racing back to campus from spring break in their second-hand Toyotas with the pedal to the metal. Faster and faster. Turning their cars into speeding bullets aimed at the person in front of them.

Nobody thinks you should ride an escalator up or down these days. You're supposed to walk on them so the speed-addicted louts behind you can get to where their going sooner. You can hear them talking about how pokey you are and how you're in their way. But you can't understand exactly what they're saying because they're talking so damn fast. Just like the people on TV and in the movies. If you want to know what they're saying to each other you have to turn on the close captioning. Then you need to be a speed reader.

I don't know where it will all end. Being a former Martian with a waning memory of my previous life on the fourth planet, I don't have any Martian speed data to compare contemporary Earthlings with. Except for maybe one salient detail. It seemed to me that whenever Martians walked and talked and drove faster, it was because they were truly in a hurry to get someplace. On the other hand, it's clearly evident that Earthlings are doing everything faster and faster as they evolve because they're addicted to speed. They really don't care anymore than the Martians did about getting anywhere sooner. They just want to feel the incredible rush that goes with rushing headlong into the future as if the present were somehow outdated and boring, like yesterday.

Well, everybody else can have their speed trips. If I did everything as fast as everybody else I'd be afraid I wouldn't get to where I'm going at all. I'd be dead. And dead people don't go anywhere.

A Noose By Any Other Name

A rose by any other name wouldn't smell as good. Even a stubborn former Martian like me understands the meaning of this old Earthling saying. It suggests rather poignantly that a name can alter the true nature of just about anything. Call a rose a cabbage and it won't smell nearly as good. That's only human nature.

So why is it that so many Earthlings fail to see that a necktie is nothing more than an elaborate noose? According to the dictionary a "noose" is "a loop with a running knot (as in a lasso) that binds closer the more it is drawn." No truer words have ever described a "necktie", as well. And yet men all over the world are having their necks forced into nooses and some are even willingly putting nooses around their throats in order to keep their jobs, political offices, respect and their women. Some men will even spend far too much money on the nooses Earthlings call "neckties" just to compete with one another for being able to afford designer nooses.

I keep thinking about the part of the definition of the word "necktie" that refers to a lasso. The irony of human life will undoubtedly be the most salient memory I'll take with me to my next life. I think it's terribly ironic that the cowboys of the old American West used lassos for their cattle-herding jobs and never once thought about wearing one around their own necks. And yet, thanks to whiskey, firearms and a reckless spirit, many of them found themselves dangling from such an instrument at the end of their wild and wooly existence.

So, maybe the irony that the Earthling necktie is the natural destiny of the human male on planet Earth is not so ironic after all. What a pity. I hope my next time around is on a planet where all the people are either female or else they have no necks at all.

"Tapper 2"

Redneck raconteur "Tapper" goes for his second fifteen minutes of fame. Does he make it? See for yourself.

Little Green Man presents
"Tapper 2"

Click here for "Tapper", the first "Tapper" video.

TC

Scare Tactics

Living on planet Earth is a pretty scary experience. I think it's probably always been that way and no doubt it always will be a dangerous and unfriendly place for the most part. I mean, you never really know when a bomb is going to drop out the sky on you or when some crazy dictator with a big rocket might decide that today is your day. People get held up on sidewalks in most big cities these days and your local convenience store isn't so convenient anymore when you're walking in on a customer with a gun shoved into the clerk's face and no place to go but the interstate. Then his problems become your problems and you wind up on the six o'clock news either dead or sealed in duct tape awaiting your fate. So, why, I ask myself, with all these regular, scary, day-to-day happenings at their disposal, why do Earthlings have to scare the pants of themselves by making up asinine scary beliefs to have to worry about?

For example, why would anyone in their right mind fuss over whether or not it's bad luck for a black cat to cross your path? Cats are free to walk just about anyplace because, for the most part, they're not the large, territorial and often vicious carnivores that dogs are. So, if a black cat walks in front of you on the sidewalk, who gives a shit? Don't start looking over your shoulder for inevitable trouble. Just go about your business and be glad that the kitty cat is not a Great Dane that hasn't been fed recently.

And, I don't know, maybe I'm just being practical, but it seems to me that if you break a mirror you should be more concerned about cleaning up the pieces before anyone gets cut and not very interested in what terrible fate may befall you for the next seven years. Besides, it's fairly easy to prioritize your fears if the mirror you broke is not your own and especially if it belongs to someone a lot bigger than you. In that case, whether you opt for worrying about the future performance of your stock portfolio or immediately focus your attention on locating the nearest exit is pretty much a no-brainer.

And why in the hell should people make the effort to throw salt over their shoulder after spilling it in the first place? It seems to me that your luck is going to be a lot better if you only have one mess to clean up instead of two. On the other hand, not walking under a ladder makes perfect sense to me when there's a lot more space to walk in that's not under a ladder. In this case, I'm not so much concerned about the possibility that anyone who walks under a ladder might be inviting bad luck because people who walk under ladders instead of anywhere else are simply asking for the sky to fall on them anyway. But, if it did, they'd probably be stupid enough to think it was just raining.

Also Gone But Not Forgotten

Today is still Washington's Birthday, whether or not anyone still celebrates it.

Happy Birthday, George Washington.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Today is still Lincoln's Birthday, whether or not anybody still celebrates it.

Happy Birthday, Abraham Lincoln.

Easy New Years Resolutions

I often wondered why Earthlings liked to make New Years resolutions when they rarely stuck to them. It reminds me of when I was a boy and a practicing Roman Catholic and we were pressed to give up something for Lent, like candy or soda pop or swearing. Nobody could give up those things, so why did we pretend that we could?

American grownups were the only role models I had for making New Years resolutions and they didn't help me much as a kid. Men would often pretend to give up drinking as a New Years resolution, which meant not drinking whiskey and beer, and sometimes they'd say they were going to quit smoking. Of course, I never knew any grown up man who made good on promises like these. They were just as unrealistic as a teenager giving up potato chips for Lent. Get real.

Now that I'm a grown up man myself and well past my prime, I've gotten hip to the secret behind New Years resolutions. Not being Catholic anymore, I won't have to worry about Lent later this winter. But, if I did, the same secret would work for that as well. And here it is: simply vow to do something you'd naturally and easily do anyway or, if it involves not doing, then simply vow to not do something you would not do anyway.

I made a list of 10 Easy New Years Resolutions that will definitely work for me and maybe some of them will work for you as well.

1. Start balancing your checkbook
2. Start holding the door open for others, especially women and children.
3. Start coming to a complete stop at Stop signs.
4. Start treating others the way you'd like them to treat you.
5. Start wrapping your used gum in its own foil instead of spitting it out in the parking lot.
6. Stop saying "vis á vis".
7. Stop using the "f" word in every single sentence.
8. Stop tailgating the poor bastard in front of you because he obeys the speed limit and you don't.
9. Stop getting drunk and running naked through the back yard.
10. Stop getting drunk and running naked through the front yard.

Why make the new year hard on yourself if you don't have to?