What Zebra’s, Bonobo’s, Baboons and Professor Sapolsky have in common

What Zebra’s, Bonobo’s, Baboons and Professor Sapolsky have in common

Let’s start at the end and the beginning at the same time, Professor Robert Sapolsky
, author of “ Why Zebra’s don’t get Ulcers”, points out that even though Zebras are essentially mamals like humans, they do not tend to get diabetes, heart disease,
or ulcers for that matter and they and Professor Sapolski are pretty relaxed about it, so that's what they have in common. The difference between a less relaxed huma and and a Zebra might be that while a Zebra might shut down it’s immune system and digestive system and speed up it’s heart rate to run away from a lion once in a blue moon, humans tend to launch their stress responses on a permanent basis. It’s important to note that someone’s stressor might be somebody elses way of calming down. Not everybody likes to skydive, surf big waves or snowboard off of unchartered mountainpeaks in Alaska, but some people do so quiet joyfully. Nevertheless, industrial work stress is severe and if it is just trying to look likie you are doing something when u get paid to do nothing essentially. Enormous stress. Robbing banks kind of stress.
Bonobo’s don’t have that many choices for stressors or stress relief, but they tend to have a reputation to know how to let five hang.In the rare case that they do have a problem-they make out. Three ways, if necessary. A little penis fight or clit rubbing session and they are all set. They know they have enough resources to last thru the day and there’s really not much reason to fight over a Banana if there is hundrets more growing right over your head. But Bonobo’s get agressive in captivity. Who would have thought? While most animals just get lethargic and arrange themseves with their captor’s in a smart way that get’s them priviledges like extra fish, Bonobo’sget pissed off. They might think it’s not so cool to have to stop making out at the Zoo just cuz a bunch of children and old ladies are watching. They know their Ryder said nothing about a PG-13 audience.
Bonobo’s are smart. They know that those monkeys that get around the jungle the most have the best stories to tell and the most interesting foodstuffs to share.
Back to Robert Sapolski. he’s about as entertaining and funny as a biological neuroscientist could be, lectures at Stanford University and spends every summer for about 25 years with tribes of Baboons in the Savanah of Africa. He tells us that
it takes them only about 3 hours to forage for food, so they have another 9 daylight hours to drive each other absolutely mad and miserable. Prof. Sapolski has a meticulous way of keeping track of these monkeys hormone and seratonin and whatnot levels and notes their ranking in the tribe as well as who is doing what to who.
In an epidemic of tuberculosis one summer half the Baboons died and he noticed that the ones that had died were the ones that had been very high or very low in ranking. In other words, the monkeys that had to constantly guard against challange from below and the one’s that would have to act as punshing bags for whoever lost a fight were the one’s with the weakest immune system and had no reserves of energy left to fight of the disease. The one’s who run off to sulk alone in the woods did not do well either.
The one’s that had a buddy to pick their lice and rub their back survived. No stress. I gotta go out more. You dig?

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject Post 5

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject Post 5
I got the first feedback about the Biodrux blog from Valentina, who commented that not only from reading my blog but also from seeing me change moods she was convinced that the mixture must be working. I am glad I am not imagining things. Now I only hope I won’t have any other monkey but a Bonobo sitting on my shoulders when the pills run out.
Talking about depression, I also recently dicovered that my man-struation is cloosely related to the moon phases. On a waxing moon I am full of ideas energy and enthusiasm. It all leads up to an explosion of energy around the full moon.
To be followed by a period of recovery after the full into the new moon. The best time to start projects seems to be the new moon and this last moon I literally felt like someone put a shift stick from neutral into drive Autobahn By the way, we are in the lunar moon of Challenge in the Mayan calendar ;-) U dig?

Dinner at Tiffanys on 7th Street

My new downstairs neighbor is this really proper young lady, whose dad helped her move in and washed her windows. She is facing the little ‘courtyard’ (basically a cage, too small to have a fight in) outside my building and seems to have gotten a key to it. When I just left the building, I smelled crepes, heard classical music, and saw my neighbor sit there with her dad, munching away on a nice dinner with a bottle of Wine, right next to the trashcans and two doors down from that family that keeps their dogs outside their basement apartement, where Hasso and Chiquita piss and shit at their own leisure. mind u, when I moved into the building 14 years ago, there was a guy selling dope until 6 every morning in the same spot where girlfriend and her dad were having dinner now. This was a cool block.m the laundromat was the hottest dope spot in the city. This town has become so boring. Paying the rent. Gentrification. You gotta love it. She likes my piano playing, it’s the best on saturday mornings. makes me wanna snort some heroin and play my fender bass thru that Rumble-Amp on friday night. maybe. not. I am getting to old for rebellion for its own sake. shit. did I say old? U dig?

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject 4

Biodrux Guineapig Post 4

Lost track of what day of the experiment it is. Got distracted having to good a time and
maybe forgot to take the little suckers one or the other time. Hey, i did not say my Guineapig body was a blank piece of paper that u can just get a clear picture out of.
It’s more like a kaleidoskope, colorfull, but undefined. And so fun to look at introspectively and with loving kindness while u are staring a whole in the floor. Arrghhh!
Well, I can’t say the Biodrux are not working for me, but I have not had an epiphany like , this is just what my abused, aging body needed to make it out of the valley of death and destruction that is the abuse one has enjoyed in 18 years of living in the supposedly most happening place on the global grid. New York City.
I got interrupted here by some junkie who is urging me to dig up some change for
his Ponzi scheme, gotta go, U dig?

The Biodrux Guineapig Blogject

Day 15 I neglected my duty to report to the Biodrux. For good reasons. I was too busy running around and getting sorted out for my most recent recording session with my band ' Senor Bonobo'. I even forgot to take the damn pills for a few days. Nevertheless, I can report that my mood has been more upbeat and my energy levels more stable since I started taking the little helpers. I can't report an absolute absence of feelings of doubt, hopelessness and depression, but all in all the last couple of weeks have been a good run for me. I wrote some new material for a session that got planned with 2 weeks notice and was able to pull thru of two days of recording without throwing in the towel when Murphy's Law hit with full force. I have noticed a edge of clarity when practicing sight-reading and playing instruments I am not so familiar with. Tennis is another area where I can sense a certain increase in clarity, longer rallies are possible and I am more focussed on the ball than the thoughts in my head. U dig?