VOLUME 10 : BALLS!
A Special Double Edition
Many months have passed without a DDMMDI publication. For the record, it wasn’t my fault (it never is)—Christmas and New Years and typical being a human dealing with existential bullshit, all played disruptive roles. I humbly accept my faults, and so should you.
Moving along. Prepare yourself! This month, big, round, life-changing revelations will be bouncing off your head. These revelations will come in the shape of balls, literal balls. Pour some Baileys into that coffee and march with me as we pull the veil and shamelessly expose the universe for what it really is.
As the audacious Venetians would cry on the battlefield… “Coglia! Coglia! Coglia!”
USEFUL THINGS NOT EVOLVED FOR HUMAN USE
Once upon a time, I was asked to spend a weekend up north babysitting some ducks. It just so happened that a little time away was exactly what I had needed. I packed my bags, jumped into my jeep, and before you knew it, there I was, alone, in a forest, with some ducks.
Like any reasonable person in this situation, I decided to take some mushrooms.
In retrospect, it was a terrible idea.
Here’s what the all-knowing internet has to say about mushrooms:
These compounds evolved long before humans.
Their adaptive function is unknown; hypotheses include:
deterrence of predation,
no function (biochemical byproduct),
ecological signaling.
No evidence suggests these compounds evolved for human use.
Not evolved for human use indeed. Ancient unknown compounds don’t fuck around. I was just looking for a little creative inspiration. Instead I had spent the night struggling to process a lifetime’s worth of ecological signaling.
Anyone who’s subjected themselves to this knows that a good part of the night is generally spent contemplating your stupid decisions. Unfortunately, there’s no turning back. You struggle through it, eventually fall asleep, have unhinged dreams, and question everything in the morning.
That said, excluding the relentless nausea and traumatizing emotional instability, wonderful, profound realizations can happen. For example, socks are pretty cool.
There’s a left one and a right one, yet the two together make one! The oppositional duality of socks represents one of the most ancient universal balance mechanisms. Right there on my feet was a true and clear manifestation of Yin and Yang. Up and down, fast and slow, creation and destruction, even life and death.
Unfortunately, before the secrets of the universe fully revealed themselves to me, I was distracted by this knot in the wood paneling of the ceiling:
And here we can see why this will be the last time I’m asked to babysit ducks:
The take-home to this tale is that drugs are both bad and good. Also, penises are pretty funny, but not on the ceiling.
THE SHAMELESS HISTORY OF BALLS
PART ONE: THERE WERE NO BALLS
One day, during all of the nothingness, there was a really big bang. As far as bangs go, this one must have been damn sexy. Nothingness was motivated enough to get off its ass to make something of itself.
If you’ve ever wondered what the lovechild of banging nothing would be, it’s hydrogen and helium.
PART TWO: THERE WERE BALLS
Helium was pretty chill. Hydrogen on the other hand was psycho. Regardless, these two had mad chemistry and things got hot real fast. Long before porno, there was stellar nucleosynthesis—nothing would ever be the same.
A few minutes later (insert obvious sex joke here), the smoke cleared and outer space existed—a hot, opaque, rapidly expanding soup of particles and light. All that space wasn’t empty, it was filled with cosmic farts, some bits of gold, and planets.
Planets were round, and for good reason. The universe, already getting tired of existing, chose the path of least resistance. Spheres, being the laziest shape in relation to gravity, became the standard.
For a little while, not much else was going on. This is sometimes referred to as the cosmic lonely period.
PART THREE: ALL THE BALLS WERE BALLING
All that sitting around and doing nothing got boring real fast. Existence was getting restless. It was time to party.
If you were looking for a hook-up, the universe there and then was the place to be. Oscillating, vacuuming, inflating, spontaneous microwaving, and after-glowing were just the appetizer. All things eventually came to be. Including you.
OPTION B
It is only fair to point out another creation story making the rounds. As this story goes, there was this guy who was always there, and one day he decided to make everything, and it took him six days. As far as stories go, that’s not so bad, it’s the later parts that get uncomfortable. For example, he’s always watching you. Creepy.
Well, one way or the other, you are here. For now, that is worth celebrating. What about when you’re gone? Well, that might just be worth celebrating as well.
WOMBATS DIDN’T GET THE MEMO
No discussion of creation and the laws that define all things reasonable in the universe would be complete without mentioning wombats. Wombats look like someone tried to draw a random animal but did a bad job. No two pictures of wombats are the same. Sometimes they look like hairy pigs who love you:
Other times they look like horror-beavers who hate your guts and relentlessly stare with beady black eyes into the depths of your soul:
However, the most troubling thing about wombats is their poo. The uneven and elastic intestines of wombats somehow managed to develop outside of the natural laws of the universe, and they have achieved the implausible. These little freaks actually shit out cube-shaped poop. Take a moment to let that sink in.
So be warned. The next time you see a cute little cubie thing on the ground, it’s likely wombat shit. If you dare to touch it, you will disappear forever.
Wombats and their ungodly feces do at least offer a valuable reminder. The universe, with all of its bullshit laws, can go fuck itself sometimes. Rules are for the ruled. Be a rebel, bend that spoon, drop a cube-shaped deuce.
THE SUN IS A BALL OF POO
It’s impossible to have a serious conversation about balls and poo without bringing up dung beetles (I’ve tried). Long before toilets, we had dung beetles to thank for cleaning up all the poo. Dung beetles absolutely adore poo, and we should be thankful for that.
Ancient Egyptians with all of their woo woo mystical knowledge revered the dung beetle. To them it was a symbol of the sun god Khepri, who rolled the sun across the sky. Except in this case, instead of the sun, it was a little ball of poo.
If you’re wondering where all the dung beetles are going with their balls of poo, it’s quite magical. Their little beetle brains have space antenna that receive important messages from the Milky Way. These messages download cosmic navigating instructions. With mighty legs, and a will of iron, they roll all the poo in straight lines, far far away, until it rolls off the edge of the earth.
And that is the story of where all the poo goes.
NAUGHTY BIRDS AND BEES
In the 1600s there was a guy named John whose dating life was suffering worse than mine. Subsequently, he developed a pervy fascination with the sexual escapades of things that weren’t human. As fate would have it, he lived near a bee hive, and also there were some birds. With that, birds and bees became the first peanut butter and chocolate, except sexualized.
Predictably, another poet named Sam was deeply moved by John’s socially inept coping mechanisms. Sam wrote some light-poem-porn about spring and referenced birds and bees.
The philosophers were feeling left out so put their two cents in. They proclaimed that bees pollinate and that that’s very ‘male’ and birds lay eggs and that that’s very' ‘female.’
For some reason, we’ve kept this awkward tradition alive and teach it to our children in school. This is probably why your kids are confused.
BIOLOGY IS JUICY
Alongside the plethora of information in these art releases that makes no sense, I’m an expert in anatomy and physiology. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows the story of human bits as well as I. You probably think it’s complicated. It’s not—let me summarize. Biology is basically a bunch of bags and tubes, and these contract and sometimes squirt juices. Outside of that the only other variable is the degree of squishy bits to hard bits. You now understand biology.
THE FUNNEST BAGS OF THEM ALL
Gonads are fun little bags we carry around in our bodies filled with pervy chemicals. They’ve been around for millions of years, and they’re here to party.
Biological Definition of Gonads
Gonads (testes and ovaries) are:
reproductive organs
responsible for gamete production
endocrine structures producing sex hormones
Their form is governed by:
embryological development
tissue differentiation
vascular and hormonal requirements
To maximize transportation of juices, gonads utilize tubes. When it comes to efficiency, tubes are the way to go. When it comes to juices, these aren’t just your regular old juices, these are the savory juices of life.
Gonads were just the first step in an epic series of physiological miracles that will forever inspire childish jokes. The gonads of males decided they needed some space and dropped themselves into bags that hang between the legs. This is called testicular descent, and it’s pretty funny. The decision to dangle out there for the whole world to see was a bold move. An Achilles’ heel with potential consequences.
Males love to talk about how big their balls are. Even if they don’t outright proclaim it, symbolic signs are everywhere. Males and their testis aren’t complicated. They simply want everyone to think that they have the biggest, most awesome balls in the universe. That’s all.
Gonads in women had different plans. After setting up a cozy little baby-making-love-bag, they started the clock. Female gonads don’t mess around. At the end of the month, if there isn’t a baby in the bag, shit hits the fan.
Most female mammals actually don’t menstruate; they have an estrous cycle, which means they reabsorb everything instead of spilling it out everywhere. Sort of like when you throw up a little in your mouth but then just swallow it.
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
For all the seemingly complicated things going on with gonads, it’s actually only a little complicated. It’s all about love. Also, bags and tubes and juices. The beautiful story of gonads.
LEMURS ARE A FUCKING MENICE
Northern giant mouse lemurs need to calm down. The massively, intrusive balls of these primates, which are 5% of their body weight, are so stupidly large that they trip over them. Don’t get too comfortable—tripping on balls is just the beginning of this freaky gonad-fest. Lemurs don’t recognize each other by faces or smells or sounds, they only know balls. Their brains are hard-wired for balls—it’s all they know. Balls everywhere. A plethora of balls. An endless ocean of balls. Balls as far as the eye can see. Balls deep in balls. Balls until the end of time.
With such humongous cojones, lemurs need to keep themselves busy. They don’t have a ‘mating season’ like other boring primates. When you’re a lemur, the whole year is orgy season. Don’t let those big, round, cute eyes fool you. These things just wanna get into your pants.
Other than this, there’s not anything interesting to say about Lemurs. They eat bugs and shit.
THE EVOLUTIONARY ART OF COMPENSATING
When balls were being handed out, howler monkeys were at the end of the line. Howler monkeys are New World primates that belong to the genus Alouatta. These things have a set of bagpipes that would make even the drunkest of Scottish bagpipe champions cry. However, evolution keeps a tight leash on biological resources, you get balls or you get vocal cords, not both.
These rockstars with their engorged vocal cords are all talk but no game. But hey, good on them. Sing little guys, sing your balls off.
MEATBALLS ARE BEAT BALLS
A quick history of meatballs.
One day in ancient Persia, around 300 BC, some guy had a bad day and decided to take it out on some meat scraps. Afterward, his wife was impressed at how beat the meat was, so she spiced it up and they called it kofta, which means ‘to beat.’
Inspired by dung beetles and their rolling poo-balls, meatballs rolled their way into Italy and developed a crush on pasta. Italians thought meatballs were cute, but not on their pasta. If you are ever in Italy, do not ask for meatballs on your pasta or they will kick you out of the country.
Heartbroken, Meatballs rolled onward, finally arriving in the West, where it just so happened that the pasta was lonely and boring. To impress the pasta, meatballs doubled in size, because, bigger balls.
That did the trick, pasta and meatballs thus became a national treasure.
It’s important to remember that although meatballs are great, sometimes meatballs aren’t meatballs. If you missed out on the “Morgue Meatball” scandal, don’t worry, I've got you covered. In 2022, a news report claimed that a woman was fired for bringing meatballs made from human testes stolen from a morgue to a cook-off. The story quickly went viral and cemented itself as a new horrifying urban legend.
The lesson: just because you beat balls doesn’t mean you get meatballs.
RUINING DRAGAN’S PHOTOS
Of the many inappropriate childhood exposures contributing to the shaky foundation that defines me as an adult, movies were la crème de la crème.
To pass the test, movies needed to contain at least two of the following criteria: Apocalypse, fart jokes, creatures, aliens, battles, artiness, or complicated philosophical messaging that I didn’t understand but assumed was deep.
This month, I was brought back to one of my childhood favourites. Perhaps one of yours as well? If not, it’s OK. I guess that just means you were a loser.
Time to vandalize one of Dragan’s photos.
THE ORIGINAL
NEW AND RUINED
You can see more of Dragan’s photography, untainted by my hand, on his official Instagram page.
AN ENDING TO THE BEGINNING
At the end of every good journey, is the beginning of another one. Hopefully this next one will not involve mushrooms.
Just remember, usually poo is round, sometimes it’s square, but luckily little beetles are there to roll it off into outer space where it floats around, like little planets. Little planets of poo. Also, ancient Egyptians were obviously high.
Like a true selfless hero, I am willing to suffer through existential torment for you. In return, your gratitude is ok, but your money is way better. To ease my suffering, consider giving me money.