The Divorce Joke

Don't be in too much of a hurry to leave the Very Lonely Planet. Get some rest, find your bearings and stabilise yourself emotionally. The timetable of mourning varies for each person, ranging from 12 minutes to extreme scenarios involving two or even three weeks. Unless you're divorced, in which case you've been so emotionally violated that the only way you'll ever recover is to remarry out of spite before your ex-wife does.

You've read the book, you've bought the soundtrack, now see the movie! Thrills, chills and excitement abound as our hero struggles with pain, heartache and supra-intelligent chimpanzees, his every action documented in luscious 70 mm. Dolby THX means weeping, deep sighs and ape noises never sounded better. This film stands in proud opposition to the dozens of date movies released each summer.

So grab your buddies and run, don't walk to a nearly empty theatre near you. Rated G: No nudity or suggestive scenes. (Why do they call it suggestive scenes anyway? They're not suggesting anything, they're shagging). No violence or swearing either. Just good old fashioned whining. And lots of it.

Roger Ebert believes that Karl Krucshank's SuperBad Adventures on the Lonely Planet of the Apes is "a film with actors, many of whom are in ape costumes."

Some guys, the ones with "all the luck" are comfortable inhabiting dual spheres of influence. These men are able to hop on the bus marked "unscheduled sexual encounter" and engage in brief, furtive, guilt-ridden and essentially meaningless whoopee avec a potentially disease ridden stranger without a second thought. These "one-night stands" disgust most single guys, since we're never on the receiving end. They also disgust us since these men often use their Very Lonely Planet accommodations to extract sympathy from women. They pretend to be single guys, but reveal themselves as "creeps" that give the rest of us a bad name. There are wanted posters of these Joe Isuzu's of love tacked up in every lonely post-office on the planet. Those caught with dual-citizenship between Earth and the Very Lonely Planet will have a snarky little felt pen mustache added to their passport photo and receive a merciless beating with a rusty shovel. Be on the lookout for clues or "tells" that differentiate garden variety single guys from these compost heap shysters. If the man you're with smiles often, can't name the North American or world capital of the Very Lonely Planet (Dismal Swamp, North Carolina and Disappointment, Australia respectively) and isn't drenched with Lost Cause For Men, he's probably a phoney.