Is That Necessary?

(To see any of these images larger, click on any human ear within any graphic)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Manly Men.

I was at a crowded bar on New Year’s Eve 2012, sitting at a booth with a group of friends. I hated this bar because it was too crowded and the music was too loud and most of it was hip hop, which I cannot abide, so I was not having a very good time. As we sat at this booth, facing the crowded room and watching the various people doing their New Year’s Eve thang, a 20-something couple worked their way to the spot more-or-less right in front of our table. They were squirming around against each other engaged in something that could only barely be called dancing, and pawing each other like young, horny primates, which they most certainly were. It wasn’t pleasant to watch but it was understandable. Just then, the male primate decided to go get another drink, leaving the female to hold their spot on the floor. After he left, the female began moving to the “music” by herself, eyes cast down to the floor, her lips protruding in one of those I’m-cool-and-I’m-concentrating-on-what-I’m-doing “O” shapes. Then her entire body began to convulse.

For a split second, I was tempted to jump to her aid, put a stick in her mouth, lay her down on the floor, and call 911. But then I realized she was “twerking.” Twerking is a term that means to shake your buttock flesh up and down without tensing your glute muscles (try it, it isn’t easy) so that the twin blobs of flesh bounce freely up and down very quickly, not unlike two water balloons on the back of a flatbed truck on a bumpy road.

I fully realize I am not in the demographic that this activity is meant to attract (and I most certainly found it anything but attractive) but I was reminded of some kind of animal mating ritual like birds puffing up their feathers and dancing, and I suppose that was the point. What I think our species fails to recognize is that it is the male of most any species that will mate with anything and the female that chooses based on suitable qualities for reproduction. That is why in the rest of the animal kingdom the male virtually always does the impressing while the female pretends to be unimpressed until she makes her choice.

With humans that is still true in most cases (the male driving a “cool” car with very loud bass speakers that broadcast a “hoompa-hoompa” noise is one example of a classic mating call) except that many females of our species also attempt to impress and attract males with various “sexy” outfits, and now this bizarre activity we have named “twerking.” From my viewpoint, the whole spectacle is very National Geographic.

PALEOZARRO: From 1999 comes this old piece of office comedy. This was a year-or-so before I began coloring my comics on Photoshop so that accounts for the garish colors and comparatively simple lighting scheme.