Author's Note 7/18/25: Lori and I will be traveling quite a bit the rest of July and August, so loyal Laughable Feast readers will be treated (or subjected) to a few weeks of summer reruns. Some of you have seen these golden oldies before, and hopefully they have stood the test of time.
Soon we will be flying for the first time in eight years, so it seemed apropos to start with the Up With a Twist essay Fear of Flying. And since we are flying to Las Vegas, the following week will be a repost of Leaving Las Vegas. From The Way Back you will have the chance to read two stories – Freeze Frame and naturally The Way Back – both of which give you an indication of how hellish my family vacations were; two more stiff Up With a Twist drinks – I’m Just a Caveman and Free Bird – and a repost of Slack Tide from The Claustrophobia of Wide Open Space.
I hope all of you are having a wonderful summer and will indulge us in this short vacation. New posts will resume on September 5th.
Can I tell you something?
Most Caucasian humans, which I am an approximation of, have somewhere between one and three percent Neanderthal DNA. Anthropologists tell us it’s because there’s stuff in there still useful to the human genome, such as development of the digestive and immune systems, and also the brain.
The last part seems counterintuitive, but I suppose it’s the reason we have such an appetite for things like monster trucks, blooper reels, and deep-fried Twinkies.
Native Africans, on the other hand, have zero Neanderthal DNA, and while it’s tempting to point to this discrepancy as the root cause of systemic racism, it more likely explains that they developed fine without it and we just like oversized trucks and Twinkies. Anthropologists also tell us Neanderthals may have gone extinct because they mated with Homo Sapiens, which doesn’t reflect well on us and is certainly a cautionary tale for people who hook up online.
But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.
I do trust the science but still suspect I’m more Neanderthal than most. Perhaps as high as eighty percent. Reasons abound for my certainty that pure primordial plasma courses through my veins, but the most incontrovertible evidence is that I like to watch American football. In my defense, I do cringe at the sight of “big hits” – often making audible empathetic noises – and get a bit squeamish watching replays of horrific knee injuries that the play-by-play announcer has warned me not to watch. There’s also the fact I don’t own a cell phone, but that technically classifies me as a Luddite, which I am not. I have nothing against the textile industry.
Nor am I a Troglodyte. No doubt some, or probably most, Neanderthals were also Troglodytes, but I don’t live in a cave, I live in a condo.
And while I’m not exactly a social butterfly, I do successfully interact with other human beings for a wide variety of reasons including but not limited to enriching cherished friendships and buying groceries. So don’t call me a Luddite or a Troglodyte, or even a Neanderthal. I fancy myself more like that old Phil Hartman character on Saturday Night Live, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Compared to my prehistoric ancestors, I’m a slightly more suave, urbane, erudite, and well-dressed Neanderthal that just doesn’t understand your modern ways.
To give you a more complete picture, my father was of pure Swedish descent, and my mother was half German and a smattering of other European stock, so drawing on rusty math skills it stands to reason I’m half Swedish, a quarter German, eighty percent Neanderthal, and God only knows what else.
God knows, and now so does 23andMe and the scads of other scammers peddling genealogy DNA test kits on the world wide web, but I’ve never asked them. No disrespect to the millions who do, but I don’t want to spend 200 clams for a spit test just to find out I’m a mixed breed and have a distant cousin in Malmö who wants to meet me. So, I really don’t know exactly what I am. Like everyone far removed from our Neanderthal forefathers, or the Garden of Eden depending on which pet theory you hold true for how we got into this mess, I’m nothing more than a human fractal with an infinitely complex genetic design. One perhaps with closer family ties to Eric the Red than some, but actually maybe not because that guy got around.
I know you’re thinking, ‘okay, so you’re unfrozen and outwardly modern but you sure sound like a caveman to me’. Yup, and so are you. Aside from the fact you probably have more than zero intellectual curiosity about your lineage, and may not find American football even remotely interesting, or eat your Twinkies straight out of the wrapper – just for the record, I’ve never deep-fried a Twinkie or eaten the result but they’ve gotta be delicious and I gotta try one before I die – you and I are not that different.
We all wear the thin veneer of civilization as if it’s a thick suit of armor, impregnable against the malignant forces of human and physical nature, but underneath we all tremble in fear of our own worst instincts.
Not to mention the guy wearing no shirt or shoes and carrying a machete who’s sitting next to us at the bus stop muttering to himself.
Look, I’m no expert, but biologically speaking none of us are very far removed from the missing link, or all the located links for that matter. And if you don’t speak fluent biology and want to speak community or society or culture or politics, we aren’t that far removed from our knuckle-dragging, club-wielding forebears either. You beg to differ? Please then explain to me the persistence and prevalence of war, famine, torture, hate, human trafficking, child abuse, racism, sexism, ageism, or any of the other atrocities that are hallmarks of man’s inhumanity to man. Or at least explain Donald Trump.
Guns, germs and steel may very well be the reasons why some societies thrived and conquered others but now it’s really all about clothes, cars and computers.
Take away those things and who are we? We’re naked humanoids traveling on foot and scratching our heads because we can’t find IKEA. Savages by any other name. We wear all kinds of clothes and accessories ranging from rags to Rolexes. We drive anything from donkeys to DeLoreans, and we all, even the rag-wearing donkey drivers, carry around computers in the palms of our hands. In fact, we seemingly use our opposable thumbs for nothing else, except assembling IKEA furniture of course. And we all pretend that makes us civilized.
Whatever the distribution of wealth is on the planet and however it came about is not the point, but I expect by now you’re reasonably wondering what the hell it is. Well, I’ll tell you.
We should celebrate our Neanderthal heritage – or whatever prehistoric branch of the family tree of man we fell off of – but if we fancy ourselves anything more advanced than cavemen, perhaps we should act like it.
Survival of our bloodline, whence it came and wherever it may lead, no longer requires bludgeoning to death anyone or anything that does not belong to our tribe. Survival of the species may, in fact, require cooperating with all the other tribes. Is that really too much to ask?
Thanks for listening. Talk soon.