10 Top Scariest Creatures of the Desert Southwest

INTRODUCTION

The Palms Springs Desert Museum recently took a survey identifying those creatures most feared by the public. In order of scariness from ten to one (one being the scariest), the Museum found:

10) black widows
9) scorpions
8) mountain lions
7) coyotes
6) tarantulas
5) wood rats and mice
4) Gila monsters
3) bats
2) bees
1) rattlesnakes

Some fears are misdirected; rattlesnakes kill only 12 or so people a year while others are dead-on. Bees kill more people (53 annually) than the remaining nine animals combined. Think fear of wood rats or mice is irrational? Think again. The deadly Coccididmyosis Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) is spread to humans through rodent urine and droppings. Of the 30 cases diagnosed annually, the fatality rate is 40%. And just because snakes kill infrequently, do not step on a Mojave rattlesnake; their hypodermic fangs inject both neuro and hemo toxins.

As a master desert naturalist, interpretive guide and docent at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, I live and work in the hottest, driest place in North America outside of Death Valley. I’m around most of these creatures on a regular basis, sometimes up close and personal. Let’s explore some of their scariest behaviors and see why people shouldn’t provoke wildlife. Come, join my world.

POSTSCRIPT (after you have read the profiles)

I hike over 1,000 miles annually in the California desert, never missing an opportunity to explore nature’s wonders. If you want to enjoy nature and stay safe – actually, none of us gets out of this alive, but your end won’t likely come from wild animals – simply arm yourself with a healthy respect for these amazing creatures. And never utter the famous last words, “Give me another beer and watch this.”

Alcohol

The Immortality Placebo

Safe Senate Seat

Distress Sale: BUY IT NOW Price $1.5 million
This is a limited time offer: Auction ends soon (removal from office) so act now.
NO RESERVE

One (1) United States Senate Seat for the State of Illinois



Be part of history, buy the seat held by such famous Americans as Abraham Lincoln.

Attain all the rank and privilege of the senate without having to campaign; just let you money do the talking. Avoid having to lie, cheat, and steal. And avoid those awkward fund-raising moments and bending over for special interests.

One complete set of Lincoln Logs thrown in as an added bonus.

MUST BE AN ILLINOIS RESIDENT TO QUALIFY

Whose Last Supper? An Interview with Maus von Trapp, Ph.D.

[this is an MFA writing assignment asking for 500 words on how something works]



Zoophobia is the deathly fear of spiders, insects and dare I say it… rodents! I’ve conquered my zoophobia with confrontation therapy using, or trying to use, mousetraps. However, after sustaining numerous, albeit non-life-threatening, mousetrap-induced injuries caused by my klutzy “peanut-butterfingers,” I developed machinaphobia, Greek for fear of machines.

Phobia confrontation worked for me in the past, so to cure myself of machinaphobia, I tracked down and interviewed the man who invented the dreaded modern mousetrap, Professor Maus von Trapp. He’s of the famous von Trapps featured in the movie, Sound of Music.

The Interview (over veinerschnitzel supper at Bridgett’s German Restaurant, Yucca Valley, California)

Fuchs: Herr Doctor, what prompted you to invent the modern mousetrap?

von Trapp: Cats! Back in olden days, everyone used cats to eradicate mice and believe me, we had plenty of cats. You might as well have renamed Deutschland “Katzland.”

Fuchs: I don’t understand. What’s wrong with using cats?

von Trapp: I’m allergic to cats!

Fuchs: I see. So you kind of had to invent a “better mousetrap,” so to speak?

von Trapp: Scheisse! I hate that expression! How would you like it if everyone tried to improve your invention? You don’t hear millions of people trying to improve the wheel, do you? In fact, only a fool would reinvent the wheel.

Fuchs: Indeed. Well, we have only 294 words left, so could you please describe the parts of a mousetrap?

von Trapp: Yes, my invention consists of a:

1) platform/wooden base plate
2) holding/locking bar
3) bow/hammer (spring loaded)
4) spring (attached to the bow/hammer), and
5) bait plate with top-mounted clasp/latch

Fuchs: How do you set the trap?

von Trapp: Apply peanut butter (the “last supper”) to the bait plate. Move aside the holding/locking bar. Carefully pull back the spring-loaded bow/hammer until it touches the platform/wooden base. Hold it in place with your thumb. Pull the holding/locking bar over the bow/hammer until it reaches the bait plate. Then ever so gingerly engage the end of the holding/locking bar to the bait plate via the clasp/latch (located on top of the bait plate).

Fuchs: Oh my God, that sounds very, very scary.

von Trapp: The mouse isn’t scared at all, the trap doesn’t appear predatory to a mouse.

Fuchs: I meant to me.

von Trapp: Check please!

Fuchs: I was, uh, only kidding. Do continue. We have 105 words remaining.

von Trapp: The mouse nibbles at the peanut butter on the bait plate. Its movement disengages the holding/locking bar from the clasp/latch atop the bait plate, thus releasing the spring-loaded bow/hammer. Traveling at nearly 500 miles per hour, it slams shut in 1/18000th of a second; even the fastest mouse hasn’t a chance. To put it in human terms, say a missile followed your car. By the time you glanced at your rear view mirror, you’d be dead.

Fuchs: That’s reassuring. Well doctor, Dankeschön.

Von Trap: Auf Wiedersehen! And young man, get some help.

Driving home from Yucca Valley

That seemed to work; I’m now machinaphobia-free and enjoyed a wonderful supper... What? What’s that? A flash of light in my rear view mirr....

Fuchswörterbuch

The Fuchswörterbuch defines "Aerlingus" as:
Oral sex between two airplanes.

Gucci "Hysteria"

Gucci HYSTERIA COLLECTION, hysteria bag in python (actual snake) $4,590

I noticed the price, $4,590 for something to hold money. Personally, I'd spend $90 and stuff the bag with my $4,500 savings. But there's no explaining i) the female brain (buying a product named after "hystera," Greek for uterus) or ii) people with more money than brains.


Based on the following definition of "hysteria," the name makes perfect sense:

1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or
uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.

2. A mental disorder characterized by
emotional excitability and sometimes by amnesia
or a physical deficit, such as paralysis,
or a sensory deficit, without an organic cause.


I'm introducing my own line of handbags, the "Dementia Collection," a cheap plastic or paper knockoff with prices starting at $10,000. Customers will most likely forget their purchase, thus necessitating additional purchases.

The only question is: paper or plastic?

The Walnuts

A good friend of mine, Ron Zastre, asked me to review his new novel, The Walnuts. Ron is the Rube Goldberg of bizarre situations, creating for his characters a series of non-stop escapades.

The novel begins when an alien spaceship dumps its cargo, a human-appearing "man." He befriends a group of earthlings who behave in a singularly human manner; they are a bunch of screw ups. In a subtle shift in POV, human hijinx is seen through alien eyes. We travel from inside to outside the human "fishbowl," then settle inside the fishbowl's glass where human and alien perception intertwine and become one.

The non-stop hilarity would make the worst misanthrope laugh out loud!

Ron would be disappointed if I didn't add the following:
Available at Amazon.com

The Nutcracker – Mouse Queen’s Revenge

SYNOPSIS

St. Petersburg, Russia, December 18, 1892
(Action takes place on this one day and in real time with the events of that evening).

ACT I
Ivan, age 15, studies violin at conservatory. He seeks camaraderie with his care-free friends, but his overbearing father, concertmaster at the Maryinski Ballet, thinks Ivan should be more disciplined. Ivan spies from afar the lovely ballerina Catherina, also 15. Father, however, drags Ivan to the final dress rehearsal before opening night. Ivan sits in the musicians' pit next to father, turning his pages. Father wants Ivan to become a professional violinist. Tchaikovsky conducts.

We meet the strange Drosselmeier and his balletic pet mice. To the opening night ballet audience he is a cast member, an old man with a black eye patch and mystical powers. In reality, he possesses supernatural powers, but is easily manipulated. His only love is not for Natasha, his evil, wanna-be ballerina grand daughter, but for his pet mice.

Love-smitten Ivan watches Catherine outclass Natasha at the final audition. But Natasha is not finished; she will stop at nothing, including murder, to secure the role of “Clara,” the girl whose dream is the Nutcracker ballet. Ivan inadvertently manages to lock horns with macho-Boris, the arrogant 18 year old bully who plays the Nutcracker.

Natasha plots to kill Catherina on-stage, opening night. As originally choreographed, the mouse king almost "kills" Clara, but she is saved by the Nutcracker who "kills" the mouse king. According to Natasha's plan, and at her behest, Drosselmeier will grow his two favorite mice into 8 foot monsters, the “king” mouse will don the seven-headed mouse king costume and he will actually try to kill Catherina/Clara, but there is one complication. . .

Backstage, Ivan figures it out, but none of the adults believes him, nor does Catherine who thinks he's nuts. So Ivan must save his beloved Catherine against her will. He overpowers Boris, steals his costume, finds a real sword, and goes on stage to battle the rodential beast. The ballet audience is unaware of the drama unfolding on stage. Ivan appears to kill the monster mouse per original choreography, but in saving Catherina, he creates another mortal enemy, the 8-foot Mouse Queen. Catherina still thinks Ivan is crazy, she's unaware that he saved her life.

INTERMISSION AND ACT II
On and off stage during intermission and Act II, the vengeful Mouse Queen pursues Ivan and Catherina. Again, the ballet audience is unaware of the on-stage drama. The pursuit is choreographed to a popular version of the Nutcracker. It’s not until the very end, when the young couple is lifted on a sled above the stage, that Catherine realizes that Ivan was right, but it’s almost too late. The Mouse Queen and a wounded, but still alive Mouse King, are in hot pursuit. The Queen jumps into the sled to kill them both, but the Queen falls to her “death.” Catherina kisses Ivan, they are safe and in love. The ballet audience never knew what happened.

FINALE
Catherine and Ivan take their bows to thunderous applause. Along the footlights, the two "dead" monster mice have been transformed back to cute normal sized mice; they kiss and take their bows. In the musician's pit Ivan's dad gives Ivan a standing ovation.

COMPLETE SCREENPLAY

I’m not Skinny, You’re Fat! The Politically Incorrect Diet Book

................................. Man Pointing by Alberto Giacometti

[This an excerpt from a draft of a book I wrote in 1998]


Introduction

Call me Ectomorph. My Popu used to say that I was “Tin. Tin like a tootpick.” He serenaded me at meals, “Eat totala, eat!” The other three grandparents weren’t much better. Each engaged in the same battle cry of their ancestors, “EAT!” These 19h Century Europeans knew the value of fat. They were intolerant of me, a skinny kid who, transported to the Russia of their youth, might not survive the winter. “If only he were chubbier, he’d be alive today.” Of course the Bronx of the 1950’s was a harbinger of the 1960’s urban strife and poverty, but famine was never a real issue. So I grew up with guilt imposed by ancestral fears. Sounds more like Catholicism than my native Judaism.

Now at age 44 I’m still a mutant, at least by our cultural norms. Traveling through America, I sometimes feel like Gulliver in the land of giants. Last summer my daughter (she’s skinny too) and I visited Augusta, Maine. The local population is, well, how should I say it? Obese. The back of a pick up truck is a perfect fit for the average woman, 4x4. Now unlike us skinny people, these folks aren’t malevolent or misanthropic. So I know they meant no harm when they lifted their faces out of bacon cheeseburgers to think, “Two Jews out of the concentration camps.” But this was genuine concern, not anti-Semitism. I’m sure they honestly believe that a six-foot man weighing 145 pounds needs hospitalization. In fact, it’s a frequently held belief that being overweight is healthy because if you go to the hospital and lose weight, you’ll survive. Of course, being overweight guarantees your trip to the hospital, if you’re lucky.

The self-help industry focuses attention on making fat people feel good about them selves. Where does that leave me? Well, the Surgeon General’s height and weight charts now offer some solace, some justification for my existence. Back in the 1960’s I was off the charts. But since then, the charts have been adjusted several times so I now have the government’s blessing of normalcy. Paradoxically, while everyone grew fatter, the charts grew slender so more of the population is now off the charts. Continued at blogowitz-unabridged

Buying the rope to hang us with

Karl (not Groucho)Marx famously said that the capitalist will "sell the rope that hangs him." I think Karl didn't fully plumb the depths of the capitalist heart.

He didn't really understand American consumer capitalism where the capitalist will BUY the rope that hangs him.

Manifest Destiny

The manifest destiny of the white man is to rape the earth and leave it for dead.

American Airlines Announces Pay Toilets

Dallas/Ft. Worth. American Airlines announced today that it will install pay toilets on all domestic flights in an effort to recapture the costs associated with flying shit. Tokens will be available at $1.50 each, one can be used for number one and two for number two. Asked about the impact on the traveling public, American's spokeman for defecatory initiatives, John Commodious, said "it's perfectly fair as full bladders and intestines of 300 pound Americans often weigh over 30 pounds per person." Adding that "With 160 passengers, that's a lot of shit!"