Tito, Get Me A Defibrillator.

First of all I would like to quell the rumors of Michael Jackson’s doctor requesting that the paramedics transport Michael to the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.  This is absolutely not true.  Really. 

This Jackson thing sure caught me off guard. Upside though is that he’s in a better place now and with Farrah and Bubbles to boot.  His much overrated passing has been flooding the local radio stations, newspapers, and yes, silkscreened tees. I kid you not, the memorial T-shirts have hit the streets. Can it be that there are people pushing portable silkscreen carts up and down the back streets of Hollywood looking for celebs to go tit’s up so that they can have the tees ready for the first news van?

And then there is the tremendous TV coverage.  It’s so out of control.  There wasn’t half this much hullabaloo when my childhood kung fu hero David Caradine died a few weeks ago: Just a few shots of him hanging in the closet with his jammie exposed.  Now, if you ask me, that’s just wrong.  But, I took it in stride, I didn’t rush out and purchase every copy of Kill Bill that I could find.  And yet the number one seller on iTunes today was everything Michael.  Music stores have sold out and book stores are Michael-less at this very moment in the City of Angels.  Who would’a thought. 

So…

Instead of talking about death and mayhem today I thought we would pursue a timeless query. Something that you have always wondered about, something mysterious, something one could even call delectable in its own right.

 Yes, I’m talking about…

 What came first, the egg or the chicken?

And let me tell you… you can’t just Google this shit and come out with anything solid.  I tried and what I have found isn’t very convincing. In fact, it’s nothing but a big guessing game. However I had a few hours to spare this morning so I thought I would look into this dilemma. Here are the top three speculations.  

First up: The Chickie-baby zygote theory.

In nature, living things evolve though changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken.

So far sounds like sheer babbling bullshit to me. Then they go on to say;

Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.

 

Non-chickens?  WTF? Before the first true chicken there were NO chickens. How can non-chickens get busy and come up with a chicken egg?  That would be like two consenting adults mating and coming up with a gulfalos. Therefore if that were the case, would we then be non-gulfalos? I think not. We are human beings, and as Billy Preston once said. “Nothing from nothing is nothing.”  In other words, if non-chickens had anything they would have a non-chicken and that pretty much takes us back to square one.

Then there is this little ditty. I call it the evolution of math.

 Chickens hatch from eggs, but eggs are laid by chickens, Cultural references to the chicken and egg intend to point out the futility of identifying the first case of a circular cause and consequence. A literal answer is somewhat obvious, as opposed to the logical fallacy of the metaphorical view, which sets a metaphysical ground on the dilemma. So, to understand its metaphorical meaning better, it could be reformulated as follows: "Which came first, X that can't come without Y, or Y that can't come without X?"

That just gave me a freaking headache with all that crap about circular cause and consequence and X needing Y and whatnot.

Again, square one

And last, from the UK,

A team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.

Ok we’re off to a good start here, some trio eh? And then they go on to say:

Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.

Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.

(We’re slipping back to square one kids but hang in there, I’m going somewhere with all this)

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear. The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said.

"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first. "The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns.

Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens.

(But where did they come from? Now we’re getting into some serious spin.)

He told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents.

"I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said.

"If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg."

(Thus giving credence to my Non-gulfalos theory)

Bourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp.

He said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs."

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So my question at this point would be: Where in the hell did the first eggs come from?

Well after pondering this for most of the morning, I played out my thoughts and  took a nap and lo and behold the answer came to me in a dream.

The very first eggs came from the fucking Easter Bunny.

Comments

[Sandy]

So then, the Easter Bunny must have crossed the road with a non-chicken to get to the other side...??
sandy

[Sandy]

Forgive me - it's late...
sandy

[Stephanie]

The last line of this entry made me laugh out loud. Good one!

[Alice]

You were right this was a good one and worth waking up to read.

[Sasha]

That was great, Alvin. I actually knew about MJ before I got your text. I saw it on Facebook of all places. I have never actually been an MJ fan. I was more disturbed by David Carradine's death, too. Remember that other actor who strangled to death and was found in a similar position/situation? You've got to watch that auto-erotic strangulation....it's dangerous!

[Alvin]

Sasha: Yeah, I've not really known more than a handful of MJ fans, but now, everyone's one. Go figure. And the other cat that died in the throes of autoerotic asphyxiation was Michael Hutchinson from INXS. Another embarrassing moment in celeb history. Hell, I would hate to die with just the porn I have in the house, much less hanging with my tongue and jammie hanging out. Sheesh.

Alice: Thank you, and thanks for the kick in the ass to get a post up. ;-)

Sandy: No, need for forgiveness Sandy, anything is possible on God's Blue Marble, she does have a sense of humor and that's what makes her a cool god.

Stephanie: Yeah, that last line caught me off guard, and I wrote the damn thing. Thanks for stopping in.