The time has come for an honest reappraisal of our lives. To examine the tangled skein of our life's thread and say, "Gee, maybe I have been a little harsh." And while I'm all alone on this one (the good people of Department Lemur like being hardened and intractable, it's what gives them their edge, baby) I am still giving it my best shot - not the half-assed, feeble efforts I employ to reamain employed. I will become a Nice Guy, even if it kills you. And then you'll realize - as I did long ago - that "Joe Versus The Volcano" wasn't such a bad movie after all. It's time to make that life-altering jump into the Big Woo, brothers and sisters!
 

"Yes we're gonna have a wingding / a summer smoker underground / it's just a dugout that my dad built / in case the Reds decide to push the button down." The same strangely enchanted period in American history that inspired Steely Dan's Donald Fagen to pen "New Frontier" also informs Greg Knight's Patio Culture, a site lovingly devoted to 1960s suburban life. It's all here - "Batman," "The Time Tunnel" and "Leave it to Beaver" on the tube, the abject cruelty to insects in the name of research and, naturally, the long and hazy nights on the patio, where dad grilled up honest-to-God beef steaks while sipping his martini and smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes right down to the filter. Knight's recollections are poignant - don't miss his ode to Martin Denny - yet rich with sly humor (a recipe for "9 Day Cole Slaw" carries the Faganesque rejoinder: "I have no idea why it's called that. Maybe it had great shelf life in case the Russkies dropped the Big One"). What else would you expect from a generation that came closer to the threat of total annihilation than almost any other in American history? Put that on the grill and smoke it!
 

If Ronald Ecker's And Adam Knew Eve site had existed years ago, back when I was a regular churchgoer, we wouldn't be having this conversation. ("Have I mentioned lately," one of the Lemur overlords once said, "my strong opinions on the separation of church and everyone who works for me?") Ecker's "Dictionary of Sex in the Bible" (an electronic version of his book) is everything it appears to be as you avert your eyes before it - a listing of every suggestive (and downright lurid) passage in the Big Book. And believe you me, Japeth, there's a lot of 'em. Read the prophet Hosea's account of his time in Samaria, surrounded by "adulterers" that were "hot as an oven." I don't even need to tell you about Sodom and Gomorrah - more salt for your margarita? - but it's here, too. And did you know that Lot's own daughters got their old man drunk and seduced him? Ecker's scholarly account of these Biblical events is tasteful and free of conjecture - amazing, when you consider the amount of high-handed hanky-panky going down. Makes Larry Flynt look like a rank amateur! Needless to say, if I'd found Ecker's book years ago ... I might still be going to church today.
 

I was master of all I surveyed. Gleefully I looked down upon my creations, gadding about without purpose, and with calculated magnanimity I gave unto them The Light, which they followed everywhere. Then Ma called out, "Dinnertime, Bonzo!" and I threw a bandana over my tank of Sea Monkeys, because I never missed pork chop night. Delightfully tongue-in-cheek yet ever-so-slightly psychotic, The Sea Monkey Worship Page offers a comprehensive shrine at this staple of your childhood. There are suggested names for your Monkeys, poetry about their care and keeping, a short list of celebrity monkey-housers from late Saturday Night Live alumnus Michael O'Donoghue to Brooke Shields and a FAQ, which explains why you would spend your idle hours staring at a tank full of a variety of brine shrimp: "They have three eyes, they breathe through their feet, and they have a replacement guarantee."
 

"I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use 'Imeldific' to mean ostentatious extravagance." Sure, who else? It could only be Imelda Marcos, the woman who made shoe fetishism dirty, the aloof First Lady that referred to herself as the "star and slave" of the Filipino people and refused to dress down for her public. ("I get dressed because I know my little people want to see a star," she told the Los Angeles Times. "Other presidents' wives have gone to the barrios wearing house dresses and slippers. That's not what people want to see.") Benito Vergara offers Imelda's "wit and wisdom" at face value - saint or vampire? - and lets the public draw their own conclusions. (Vergara includes a rapidly-growing "hate mail" archive.) Sure, it's a little gauche, but all the best sites are. I have only five pairs of shoes, myself.

Oh yes, baby, my head is clearing. I see the purpose of the universe so clearly defined ... to get you to sign up for my mailing list at the link below! And I thought it was to sponge as many free cocktails as I could in this life. Goes to show what the old third eye will do for you! Peace out!