Today I learned CPR, so I’ve been concentrating on the song “Stayin’ Alive” pretty intently. When someone needs your oxygen, you have to slam it into him, forcing him to live, dammit, live, but without cracking any ribs or sternums. Easier said than done, but evidently this is key, because the instructor kept telling me to lighten up. It seems that while tiny, I am strong as the dickens, like a gnat on crystal meth. Either that, or my mannequin, who I dubbed Manny Ken, was a real wuss of a latex torso, a possibility I refuse to entertain, as I think I could have a satisfying, committed future with a rubber half-man. Come to think of it, maybe I already do. Anyhoo, you have to do 30 pulses in a given amount of time, and that time turns out to be approximately the 4/4 time of the 8 bars that come before the first chorus of the iconic song of a tightly pantsed, heavily coiffed and platform shoe sporting generation. “Stayin’ Alive” not only has the proper time signature, but it’s also mighty easy to remember if you are breathing life into some poor, unconscious schlub; eyes on the prize, right? It is important not to get too cocky, though; if you go with the more assured “I Will Survive,” you will probably kill the hapless victim who counted on you to resuscitate him. The first part of that song is fatally slow, for melancholy affect. In that case, your love [for said hapless victim] will be like bad medicine. Even if the dude you happen to be rescuing is Jon Bon Jovi himself, and he calls out to you, “I need a respirator cause I’m runnin’ out of breath/ you’re like a generator wrapped in stockings and a dress*,” be aware that you will surely stop his heart if you pump him full of Gloria Gaynor, glass-half-full kind of gal though she is, and, given the blaze of glory that Bon Jovi is for 80’s rockers and fans of fabulous golden manes, that would truly be, as the Bee Gees poignantly moaned, a “TRAGEDY!”**

Bonus just because somebody invented this: Puppequin!