“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Samuel Johnson said that, and it explains why he was seldom invited to dinner parties. He’d drink all the sherry, shit in the guest bed, and all the pets would wind up with a wicked strain of VD. But he was onto something, of that we can be sure, because people make beasts of themselves on a regular basis. There is no end to things that we will do to ourselves in a vain attempt to distract ourselves from the fact that we are human. Like watch the Love Boat, for instance. Continue reading