I like big portions and I cannot lie

I suspect you've read the news and heard all the jokes, so I won't go on too much about the article in the International Journal of Obesity last week where a couple of researchers analyzed 52 paintings or otherwise artistic renderings of The Last Supper and established that from the year 1000 to the year 2000, Jesus and his disciples appear to have, shall we say, lingered a little longer in the buffet line. The size of the entrée - who even knew they used that word back then? - went up a Biggie 70 percent. The bread only bumped up 30 percent, which makes sense, because everybody knows that just fills you up. Plus, when it's the host's body and all, you really want to mind your manners.

As usual, the fun is in the details and digressions. I was delighted to learn simply that a magazine called the International Journal of Obesity even exists. And an international edition, no less! You'd think the United States could pretty much run that show on its own. (Then again, the N in NASCAR stands for "National," when I get the impression all those guys come from the same two counties in South Carolina.) I've seen a more specialized magazine called Big Butts on one of the higher shelves at the barber shop, so I shouldn't have been surprised by a more general International Journal of Obesity, but there you have it. Even better is the research methodology. Apparently very few painters worked from such an angle that you could see the nutrition information on the labels, and different paintings come in different sizes and approaches, not to mention food had to evolve a bit over the course of a millennium. The researchers needed a constant. But what? Use your heads, someone said. Use your own head, someone responded. Use the apostles' heads, they compromised, and they compared meal size to mug size, and next thing you know they had themselves an article.

But really, we could have expected the supersizing. It's the nature of art to exaggerate serially. Each auteur slightly, subtly outdoes his predecessor, and before the community catches on, Jesus is eating at Old Country Buffet, Spinal Tap's amplifiers go up to 11, and the women in the Rumple Minze schnapps ads are slung with breasts like dirigibles.

All in all, the news of this study made me think less of food than of another art-world truism: There are really only a few immortals, but the business is crazy with goof-offs taking Drawing 101 for an easy credit. I had a chance a few years back to knock around Italy and managed to tear myself away from the bicycling long enough to check out some art as well. Of course, the Last Supper was everywhere. But what struck me was not how much they were eating, but what. More often than not, it was some kind of barely identifiable, plucked rodent-like creature, resting supine on the platter with its feet sticking cartoonishly in the air. All the main course lacked was little X marks where the eyes go and tweeting birds circling overhead, but apparently that had to wait for a later enlightenment. And by that time, maybe the cooking had improved as well, which offers a pretty workable hypothesis to explain the increase in portion sizes.

Maybe I should write a paper on it. If the International Journal of Obesity won't run it, I'll try Big Butts.

Pissing in

When Lyndon Johnson became president and decided not to fire the (to put it mildly) aggressively difficult J. Edgar Hoover, he summed it up with, "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in," maybe the second-best presidential quote since Reagan survived a long battle getting some arms sales through Congress and declared "I feel like I've just crapped a pineapple."

But, as usual, I digress.

As a, uh, whatever I am, bloggist, I guess, I'm used to standing inside the tent pissing out, as it were (though I don't wear dresses, but then, maybe J. Edgar didn't shave his legs, so we're even). But this past week, Bob pissed in, and with some very worthwhile and supremely readable thoughts. He writes:

First, I love both Frazz and your blog. Second, please don't be an idiot.


You talk about not being impressed with overuse injuries like stress fractures because they're usually a result of bad judgment, yet you're exercising really bad judgment yourself. You've got soreness, which you ignore, followed by a severe shooting pain, which you're going to ignore in a different way by working around it.


Do yourself a favor and go to a good orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports injuries, get a diagnosis, and then find a good physical therapist and get it taken care of. If you don't nip this in the bud, you may end up with surgery and restricted motion and you won't even be able to do the freestyle.


Orthopods and physical therapists are getting more and more specialized; really good ones are often hard to find. Look for someone who regularly treats the problem you have, keeps up to date on research, and is willing to try different approaches to solve your problem. Don't be afraid of switching doctors or PTs if you aren't getting results.


If you end up with an MRI on the shoulder, make sure the radiologist who reads the MRI does lots of shoulder MRIs. Believe it or not, this is more or less a specialty and can be a problem.


Four decades ago, my podiatrist sent me to the best orthopedic surgeon in town with the admonishment "Always remember, there is no minor surgery, only minor surgeons." This is a great rule of thumb to follow with all medical treatment. Treat yourself to the best, and get that problem taken care of.

Bob is right. And hopefully my response reassures Bob more than it makes it think I'm arguing. I haven't had my sports doc look at it. Not because I don't want to, and certainly not because he's anything but the very best, but because he's a little busy at the moment being one of the most important people in the state of Michigan right about now. He's the team physician for Michigan State University basketball program. But I did talk to my swimming coach, who, as an Olympic and long-time world-class IMer, has seen probably as many shoulders as my doctor. And a friend of mine is physical therapist to a number of world-class athletes himself, and he's weighed in as well. And everybody knows I'm an old fart out to have fun, not some elite ready to risk all for some brass ring. I'm resting the joint, correcting the faults that caused the problem and carefully making sure all systems are go.

And while one of my strongest desires right now is to not be the blowhard cartoonist-author-guy who pulls out of the event because his shoulder hurts, that's exactly what I'll do if I have to. Because an even stronger desire is not to be the one that had to get pulled into the boat with a bad shoulder in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.

In spite of Bob's plea, I can't promise not to be an idiot. But I sure don't want to be THAT idiot.

Thanks, Bob. You're number one in my book, so to speak.

Do as I ... something ... not as I ... now I've lost track

Sandy is one of my best friends and favorite people. We've known each other since high school, and I still can't run faster than her. She's smart, too. She runs this line at the bottom of her e-mails:

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.

I'm remembering that now, because I apparently haven't been the best example this week in the comics.

Right off the bat, there's today's strip (above) popping up right in the middle of my rotator-cuff issues, which have to be in part due to a certain acceptance of pain. But mostly it's due to some bad form, and when I put bad form in my strips, it's a horrible warning rather than any kind of example. But I love this strip. It's already a classic in my own mind.

Even if I stole it. I spend a lot of time explaining to people that creativity is a matter of making something in a new form, which is totally liberating, and not a matter of making something from nothing, which is totally impossible. Years ago, Sparky Anderson, manager of the Detroit Tigers and the rare linguistic bumbler in Yogi Berra and Casey Stengel's league, said, "Pain don't hurt." He didn't mean it like I took it, I'm guessing, or even like he said it, but it's been a great code to live by as long as I can remember which types of pain really do and don't hurt.

But that just caps off practically a full week of subversive stripping.

After Sunday's strip, a new friend admonished me:

Taking a marker to a UPC code like that with the idea that it will code for another item is wrong. The UPC system has internal controls and check digits to prevent this. A general misunderstanding of this technology is what led former MI AG Kelley to get "item pricing" laws enacted. We all pay more in the long run for that.

Duly noted, though I defend myself thusly: I'm good at thinking up funnies, but I'm a little slow with other innovations. Don't look to me to invent the next Velcro. (Though I did come up with this: Tear off a piece of a tortilla; smear it with almond butter; either drip honey on it or dab it into a pile of brown sugar, and tell me if that doesn't beat anything that comes in cellophane.) Anyway, there's no way I can be the first to think of this, and clearly I wasn't if the UPC system has those safeguards in place. And if we were saved by Frank Kelley, who retired as Michigan Attorney General 12 years ago. But such a spirited defense makes it sound like I don't appreciate the feedback, which I truly do.

Not that it looks like I heeded it, when the very next day I begin a series on destroying appliances:

then

and then

Now people everywhere are going to have to shop for new dryers while their kids run through Big Willie's Appliance Mart with Sharpies finishing off what's left of the economy.

Please, parents: Let your kids keep reading Frazz. Just be sure to teach them the difference between a good example and a horrible warning before they destroy everything.