products of a diseased mind

What the...

2009-10-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

It takes something extra special for the staff at PODM's Norway desk in Jackserhier Rhode Island to stop downloading porn, sit up and take notice of something but the news out of Oslo was just the ticket. With award season in full swing our president has pulled a rare two fer, the Olympics for Chicago and the Nobel Peace prize. With Roman Polanski likely to receive the Los Angeles District Attorney's coveted "Life Time Achievement Award" at ceremonies later this year at Corcoran, Americans can't help but swell with astonishment at this recognition of our cultural and political leaders.

To put this honor into perspective only two sitting presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson have taken home the gold from Oslo. Roosevelt of course brokered a peace treaty between Japan and Russia that ushered in an era of peace that lasted until September of 1945. Thanks to TR's efforts neither country has engaged in any serious conflicts since. Wilson was honored for his efforts on behalf of The League of Nations, the international organization that has prevented war since 1920.

Jimmy Carter won the Nobely in in 2002 for wearing a sweater, rolling over for the Ayatollah and turning Hati into the smooth running democracy it is.

America's Veeps Charles Dawes and Al Gore have won the esteem of the Nobel committee as well. Dawes won for the coincidentally named Dawes Plan that enabled Germany to stabilize its economy and worked like a charm until January of 1933. Gore picked his up for discovering the internet, global warming and losing Florida in 2000.

Since its inception the Nobel prize has honored the men and women that averted World War I and afterwards honored the people that helped avert World War II. Its a tribute to their efforts that the sixty years since have been marked by international harmony and accord.

We at PODM salute the Nobel committee for its continuing tradition of recognizing the well meaning and ineffectual people whose efforts on behalf of the cause of peace have wrought such disastrous consequences. We salute Mr. Obama for his many achievements in this arena and confidently expect his efforts to have similar outcomes.

Sexual Healing

2009-09-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

What a great year it has been for piquant celebrity sex with David Carradine passing at the end of a rope with a handful of junk to Mackenzie Phillips revealing how much of a daddy's girl she was, its hard to imagine how anything could top that. We are jaded, the weekly release of sex tapes, nudie pictures and interesting sexual felonies has rendered us insensitive to all but the most spectacular rutting by our celebrity overlords.

I've been waiting for the Farrah Fawcett boxed set of sex tapes to be released, you know there has to be a library of them lying around, but her reputation is in ethical hands of Ryan O'Neal so I'm sure nothing nothing tawdry will see the light of day.

Take the case of Roman Polanski a convicted rapist of an underage girl. Many of his friends in the industry have informed us that in their opinion that thirty years of being a fugitive from our killjoy justice system is punishment enough. Apparently the statute of limitations runs out whenever a successful director might be in the mood to cast you in his next movie if he gets to walk on whatever crime he committed.

Unfortunately some people have failed to see the poignant plight of Polanski who after all only drugged a thirteen year old girl in order to sodomize her. Who hasn't dreamed of talking a teenager into taking nude photos under false pretenses then taking advantage of her in the home of a celebrity friend. It was only by the accident of birth, wealth and lying about potential career possibilities that Randy Roman found himself in the situation where he could succumb to the charms of a child that was clearly asking for it.

If our intolerant justice system has its way the artist and pervert Polanski might find himself in one of our institutions for men where physically superior star struck convicts with scripts to sell might take advantage of his sweet sensitive nature and turn him into their catamite play thing against his will. It could cost thousands of cartons of cigarettes to prevent our Roman from experiencing sodomy from a different perspective. Having unwanted sex thrust upon you (Or in Roman's case, into you.) is never okay, unless you are a thirteen year old girl confronted by a powerful celebrity that needs to butt slam you.

Little Miss Attila has taken the contrarian point of view and pointed out some flaws in the Polanski advocate's logic. Europe, specifically the French have officially condemned our provincial insistence that rapist and child molesters answer for their crimes, a position that we ignore at our peril. We at PODM abhor conflict and would like to offer a compromise in order to avoid an international firestorm. God knows Los Angeles can't afford anymore firestorms especially a French one that could devastate the restaurants and coffee houses of Brentwood and Bel Air.

Roman Polanski is fond of Europe and was a Polish national at sometime in his past what would be more appropriate that he serve his time for child rape in Polish custody according to their laws and customs. I'm just saying...

9/11

2009-09-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

The Bravest by Tom Paxton

Bukharin

2009-09-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

A bit of luck this week, I've finally got the Obama program into my stupid, racist, fascist head and I didn't have to spend anytime in some American Gulag or have my head wrapped in a plastic bag so a member of the American Volunteer Service (Or Young Pioneers or whatever they're calling the Obama Youth.) doesn't have to waste a bullet.

I get it. Its time for us conservatives (I don't know how I got to be conservative, I'm the most profligate person I know.) to step out of the way with our woolly headed slippery slope arguments and let the Progressive Express chug through on its way to creating heaven on earth even if it looks like heaven is a siding in Auschwitz. Fun fact: Totalitarians love trains. Under our hapless old democracy Amtrak has become a bumbling embarrassment to European intellectuals and emblematic of failed transit policy, maybe one of the Czars (or Tsars) will make it run on time.

My liberal friends tell me there is nothing wrong that can't be fixed with the application of more money. Health care will be administered by the same kind folks that made Medicare the smooth, efficient, trouble free operation it is, maybe with the velvet touch of the IRS thrown in just to leaven the fun. There might be some bumps in the road, the government seems to have trouble with simple things like handing out free money for clunkers but I'm assured the details will be worked out just as soon as they hire some more bureaucrats.

I'm confident our representatives and senators are studying, researching and reading every detail of the health care bills to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

I am holding my breath to see how they tidy up the messes at the Departments of Education and Energy. We are so close to being energy independent and getting our kids educated. If only rich conservatives would only be a little more generous and get out of the way. With a couple or three more trillion dollars our bureaucrats will get back behind their desks and begin fixing the organizations they have run into the ground.

They need us to shut the f**k up. (When did we start spelling fuck with asterisks?) Hopefully the administration is busily consolidating its power so it can crack down on the recalcitrants and cranky kulaks that fail to understand that all this is for their own darn good. With all their critics safely tucked away they can deliver on the promised change they believe in.

Which brings me to the tragic-comic life of the bright, well meaning, idealistic, hypocrite and cynic Nikolai Bukharin. As everyone knows Buhkarin was an intellectual apologist for Communism and crony of Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky as well as Zinoviev, Kamenev and other people you've never heard of. He wrote a lot of propaganda justifying the worst of the Bolshevik program then enjoyed a laugh or two with his politburo buddies when it turned out he was bullshitting. He had an unfortunate habit of jumping on bandwagons late and not getting off in time which caught up with him in 1929 when he disagreed with Stalin on the NEP (That's the New Economic Policy for you in the back row.) and lost.

Later on he was tried and convicted for being an asshole that Stalin got tired of arguing with but he kept at it, writing long letters to Stalin ("Koba, why do you need me to die?") in which he argued that the revolution was great, killing millions of Kulaks made sense and of course counter revolutionaries had to die but not him. Stalin considered what he had to say then had him shot, packed his lovely wife Larina off to the gulag for twenty years and kept the letter in his desk until he died either as a memento of their friendship or as a handy source of a good laugh.

I always think of Buhkarin when the politically correct sands of the progressive program shift. My progressive friends always assure me that that sort of thing just can't happen here, dissent will never be criminalized and they'll get it right this time. Of course they will, they're bright, well meaning and idealists but then again most have no idea what a kulak is and have never heard of Buhkarin.

Sara Jane, Squeaky and John

2009-08-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hi I'm back. Due to injuries incurred during a work related Fijian strap match... Ahhh... Who am I kidding, nobody is reading this.

Investigative reporter Oscar Alonzo Welderhunt is investigating the scandalous availability of free Internet porn. To date he has filed thirty eight servers with research material, developed an awesome tennis serve and an equally awesome bone crushing handshake. Although disabled by carpal tunnel syndrome recently, after the the wrist transplant he expects to get back to work on the article which he is determined to complete within the next sixteen or seventeen years or until he finds a girlfriend.

The release of Squeaky Fromme sparked some interest from the over medicated editorial board at the PODM news center in Bizquick Washington. It is believed that for the first time in history we have three unsuccessful presidential assassins walking around free, four if you count Arthur Bremer who took out presidential hopeful George Wallace in the prelims! Squeaky, Bremer and Sara Jane Moore are free as birds that are being monitored by their probation officers and John Hinckley continues to get more unsupervised walking around time from the wacky house he's in.

With this kind of talent on the streets we think there is one possible outcome: A Reality TV show, bad news for Republicans and good news for NBC. Squeaky is the star of course, she seems as wacky as the day she went in and of course she has a supportive family. Sara Jane is less telegenic but who can forget Estelle Getty in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Hinckley has the Jodie Foster connection and the looks that made him the heart throb of the sedated distaff inmates at St Elizabeth's Hospital. And he has a song out.

Arthur Bremer is the wild card in this deck of jokers, the court said he was sane but he's been quiet and you know what they say about the quiet ones. As of now the show is untitled although "Run for Your Life", "One in the Pump" and "The People's Choice" are top contenders, "The Assassinettes" was scrubbed once Bremer became available. Keith Olbermann is a lock as MC.

Of course this begs the question:

Has anybody here, seen my old friend Sirhan -

Can you tell me where he's gone?

He shot some people and the DA called it wrong,

But I just looked around and he's gone.

A correction

2009-07-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

As hard as we try at PODM sometimes we make a mistake. In a previous post we ended an interrogatory sentence with a period. This cannot stand. Embale Privot, Editor in Chief of Punctuation was reassigned to the PODM call center in Fetlock New Jersey.

In other house cleaning news, researcher Roswell Bentadene has taken a leave of absence to address a personal issue. During the all night Wite-Out huffing party we traditionally hold while we put an edition to bed he incorrectly identified the author of the Harry Potter series as Henry Rollins, the correct author is of course Henry Rawlinson.We apologize for any confusion that might have caused.

We at PODM expect nothing less than excellence from our staff if you don't count some hygene issues, chemical dependency and other mental health problems. We hope you'll continue to make PODM your number one source for irrational, bizarre and irrelevant commentary.

The Children's Hour

2009-07-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so tardy posting, I could plead the exigencies of employment but in fact I was catching up on my napping. A big shout out to my researcher Roswell Bentadene, who despite being disappointed that the stimulus package that PODM received didn't cover his promised bonus, still made his usual yeoman like effort at fact checking.

I am shocked, shocked I say to find that my old friend John at Write Enough is dropping good money (Well, American money anyway.) on the latest Harry Potter opus. For those of you that have been living under a rock these films are based on the bildungsroman novels of Henry Rollins, former lead singer of Black Flag, and concern the efforts of a group of apprentice wizards and witches attending Hogwarth Prep to recover a magical ring of fire stolen by Gollum and Valdemorte. Apparently they use their magic powers to defeat evil and allow Frodo to destroy an army of muggles, a plausable enough concept, but danger lurks in the details. These are adolescents armed with supernatural powers and we all know what has happened to Smallville since those strange teenage visitors from another planet started setting up shop.

Its a conspiracy to subvert our values and distract us from the actual danger young people with supernaormal abilities actually represent.

Have we learned nothing from British horror movies from the sixties? If Village of the Damned was such a fluke why make Children of the Damned? When I hear apple cheeked youngsters waxing rapsodic about witches and wizards I recall that Twilight Zone Episode where Billy Mumy wished everybody into the cornfield and The Lord of The Flies and am terrified! You may scoff, guffaw and chortle at my concern, just rent The Children of the Corn, parts 1 through 666 and be afraid, be very afraid.

We at PODM have no problem with actual magic. If someone wants to sit around and make quarters come out of someones ear for drinks and then hit on bored housewives who think a night at the Magic Castle is a night out, that is all well and good. In the hands of children though its like giving your credit card to a Democratic legislator and telling them to have a good time.

Isn't it time we returned to our traditional values regarding witchcraft and burned a few of the lovable tykes at the stake.

As told by an Idiot

2009-07-04T00:28:00.000-07:00

I am writing this from a hospital bed in the PODM ward of the the PODM wing in PODM Memorial Hospital in Biglanyard Pennsylvania due to injuries received while changing a tee shirt with a knife in my hand. I urge my readers not to attempt this at home and especially not to attempt it while driving. And talking on the phone.

We are saddened by Sarah Palin's resignation earlier especially for the many commentators and pundits who found her such an easy target for their contradictory billingsgate. I am haunted by the vision of the wise old men and women of the media having their heads explode due to an excess of spleen they cannot vent. With only Bush, Chaney and Conservatives under the rubric of Republicans left to abuse what will they do, what will they do?

The biggest loser has to be Todd S.Purdum who just dashed off a 10,000 word piece on Palin for Vanity Faire full of the predictable obloquy and ad hominem attacks usually seen only at PODM and the reasoned discourse of progressive blogs. Mrs. Palin's resignation renders all those sandbags he dropped kind of irrelevant. All that detail and and research he could have lunched on with his like minded friends friends wasted. Of course there is hope, liberals never tire of beating a dead horse, recalling Nixon and Reagan here, provided the horse is thoroughly dead and they can gather in sufficient numbers to club it safely.

Mr. Purdum, who displays an eye for detail regarding feminine apparel, (No ad hominem attacks here.) tells us:

...Palin makes her way slowly across the crowded ballroom—dressed all in black; no red Naughty Monkey Double Dare pumps tonight—

Well that should disqualify the women! Not only does she own two pairs of shoes, she actually wore something she thought was appropriate for the event. Thank God the Republic was spared the horror. Later he asks:

What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency?

So unlike Joe Bidden I suppose who is only "casual about the truth" when it comes to speeches by Neil Kinnock. Bidden of course piled up many years in the Senate where he administered his office staff and provided us all with many amusing gaffes. Palin by contrast administered a city and state, albeit not one as robust and big as say Arkansas or Delaware but a state none the less. I guess being Vice President requires more of a record than the Presidency as exemplified by that office's current occupant. If only she had gone to Harvard.

When Purdum runs short of innuendos about trouble in the McCain/Palin camp he harvests second hand anonymous quotes:

...news organizations were reporting that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a “diva” and a “whack job.” Many of the details that led to such assessments have remained obscure.

I'll bet. There's a lot more about abstinence and abortion, the shibboleths of Purdum's audience. Apparently they believe she got a pass based on her looks but just isn't up to men's work. He tells us she comes across as arrogant, uppity and disrespectful. I wonder if Purdum were profiling a man he might consider those traits strong, decisive and visionary but Palin of course is "erratic". There is speculation about her postpartum depression which would raise an unholy howl across the land if it was done to a Democratic woman. He mentions her passing consideration of the abortion issue on learning her amniocentesis results contained abnormal cells but can't resist delivering a stern back hand to her for believing that abortion is wrong even though her actions were consistent with that belief.

Its a long tedious read but instructive on how to construct a meandering hatchet job.

I always liked Palin she was different from the usual crop of political phonies that strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more. I can't speculate about Purdum's agenda except that he did it for the check, figuring there was a well of animosity he could pander to.

I think the elite hate Palin because she actually is the genuine article, an American citizen with all her foibles intact, thrust upon the stage without being vetted by our rulers who had opinions and ideas that didn't fit their narrative. Palin is like us with all our attendant failings and concerns and voiced them in the face of withering criticism. Palin is like us except in one area, she has courage. She kept her family together, how quaint. She was true to her beliefs and rose to a high level in her second career only to be mocked by hand wringing hypocrites and mediocre entertainers, how unexpected. Whatever her failings her story deserves to be told, it is a tale of an America alienated from their political suzerains, full of sound and fury, perhaps signifying nothing but waiting for a better idiot than Purdum to tell it.
.

Jacko in the box

2009-06-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hi I'm back, employment ain't what its cracked up to be.

In all the brouhaha over the deaths of Billy Mays and Gale Storm I missed an event that went unnoticed by the media. Pop icon, accused pedophile and endless source of morbid media curiosity Michael Jackson, seen here shortly after his death, passed away on June 25th to an out pouring of grief unseen since the death of Princess Diana, another denizen of tabloid Valhalla.

Mr Jackson will be sourly missed, he gave us many fine examples of pop anthems to unrequited teen love, a piquant outlook on child molestation and terrifying bits of terpsichorean excess that in a lesser human would have prompted a diagnosis of shaking palsy. Would any one today be moon walking or rhythmically grabbing their crotch without the pioneering choreography of Michael Jackson. Step back Jerome Robbins, Balanchine, Hermes Pan, Agnes DeMille, Martha Grahm (She also invented a popular cracker), Isadora Duncan (She worked for Telefunken.),Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, Bob Fosse and Deney Terrio, step way back, a new Colossus has joined the pantheon.

Sadly we at PODM must raise a few quibbles. (Actually it was Senior Editor Emeritus Franklin Erasmus Buzzkill, address all complaints to him at: PODM World Headquarters in Kitschaskiny Florida.) In the past we have lost more than a few immortals of Pop, two Beatles, God knows how many Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendricks, Jim Morrison all exited in interesting and untimely manners. Lets face it Cass Eliot, Karen Carpenter and Michael Hutchence departed this vale of tears in a manner less mundane than heart failure. Bobby Fuller inhaled gasoline and Lynard Skinner died in a plane wreck. (Plane crashes are a fairly common cause of Rock and Roll deaths but I included them to give my spell checker a work out.) I could go on but I'll let these guys do it.

Of course Michael Jackson was no ordinary Pop star despite Mr. Buzzkill's curmudgeonly complaints and the tributes continue to pour in: Wal*mart has declared that in Jackson's honor they will have little boys pants half off this month (I know its an old one but when are we going to get to use it again?) and from beyond the grave Farah Fawcett claims she asked Saint Peter to help young boys everywhere, so he killed Jacko. Reggie Jackson (No relation) has claimed he was honoring Michael while playing right field because both Jackson(Michael) and Jackson (Reggie) wore a single glove for no apparent reason.( Yeah, I know its another old one but again, when are we going to get to use it in the future?)

Fortunately Mr. Jackson's legacy is in the capable hands of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (no relation) so we can rest assured nothing exploitative or self serving will occur. Time has stopped at Neverland, fortunately not at bed time which we are reliably informed is when the big hand touches the little hand. So until we find the stone rolled back from Mr. Jackson's tomb and he moon walks across the reflective pool, farewell Michael farewell.

Other members of the Jackson family, Stonewall Jackson(No relation), Shoeless Joe Jackson(No relation), Andrew Jackson(No relation), Jackson Browne(No relation), Kate Jackson(No relation), Samuel L. Jackson(No relation), Phil Jackson(No relation), Shirley Jackson(No relation), Milt Jackson(No relation), Jackson Pollock(No relation), Randy Jackson(No relation), Glenda Jackson (No relation) and Henry "Scoop" Jackson(No relation) could not be reached for comment.

No word yet if Jackson will be buried beside long time companion Bubbles.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Porlock

2009-06-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

On the advice of counsel I am pausing posting on PODM, or as he said, "Some things are better left unsaid". I am actually going to earn a living although that depends on what your definition of "earn" is. In the meantime I'll be working on several unfinished projects in my Porlock File, things currently incomplete because of unwanted, irritating and trivial interruptions such as visits from bill collectors, the death of bizarre cultural icons (?) and opium salesmen. Okay some weren't that unwanted.

I grow old... I grow old...
Do I dare to take a stroll,

In rooms where women come and go talking of former DHS secretary Thomas Ridge,
Who went visiting Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

A Walk in the Park

2009-06-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I posted a comment on Mark Sanford's alleged gambol in Appalachia, it was full of brilliant snarky comments about this tempest in a tea pot. In light of recent developments (He was in Argentina with a girl.) I attempted to up date the post including comments like "The Bull of the Pampas" and "In Patagonia, Mark Sanford a stately pleasure dome decreed..." and in a move characteristic of the staff here at PODM, promptly lost it.

Our regular readers may find our usual incompetent hijinks risible but the uninformed may go huh, especially if they bother reading any of my other posts. Sadly it was choke full of the sort of witticisms and libelous fun PODM is known for, if any litigators or aggrieved parties actually downloaded a copy please forward it wrapped around one of the bricks you throw through the stately smoked glass doors of the PODM International Building in Whitlow Minesota.

FTC you later

2009-06-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

The usually serene Little Miss Attila seems a bit shupoofed about the proposal to have the Blogosphere regulated by the alert, competent and efficient folks at the FTC. This is reasonable as she blogs regularly and is trying to make a living at it, we at PODM have a different view and look forward to being edited by the same folks that write those griping government publications overseen by the lawyers at the FTC. This is sound allocation of resources by an agency that was able to track down Bernie Madoff after mere years of being told about his operation by a succession of snitches and handled ENRON so well.

Who hasn't stayed up all night with some government page turner like Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens , How To Protect Kids' Privacy Online: A Guide For Teachers or the ever popular quarterly Litigation Status Report . I'm sure they will improve the quality of discourse on the web especially at PODM where we are only doing this because its part of the terms of our parole.

This regulation is desperately needed to prevent the tens of dollars consumers spend on the blogs they read from being siphoned off by unscrupulous sites. Remember free speech is a right only if no one is willing to pay for it.

Not a cough in a car load

2009-06-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

All the talk about health care has caused me to investigate taking up smoking again. If seventy percent of my income is going to go to pay for a bloated universal heath bureaucracy I want to get my monies worth.

I always enjoyed smoking, it was one thing I was truly good at. It helped me concentrate, gave me something to do with my hands and made me look grown up, best of all it provided me with an impetus to get out of bed while I hacked the tar out of my lungs. I, of course, abandoned my carcinogenic friends for health reasons but if the government is picking up the tab, who cares?

I went to the CVS drug store (How ironic yet disturbingly apropos.) to purchase a deck of tobaccoy goodness and discovered that buying cigarettes these days is quite the adventure. Back when I was introduced to the leaf by a young Marine stationed in Subic Bay, (Ahh to be young and foolish with 30% of my lung capacity intact again.) smokes came in two varieties toxic and and extra toxic. My brand of choice was Camels, lung cookies the way God intended, unfiltered and liberally dosed with added nicotine.

These days Camels come in a bewildering number of styles and flavors, some with filters, some in tins like Altoids, some mentholated and with all sorts of names. Here's a list I cribbed from Wikipedia:Camel Filters, Camel Filters 99's, Camel Lights,Camel Lights 99's, Camel Menthol,Camel Menthol Lights,Camel No. 9,Camel No. 9 100's,Camel No. 9 Menthe,Camel No. 9 Menthe 100's,Camel Regular,Camel Special Lights,Camel Signature Infused,Camel Signature Robust,Camel Signature Frost,Camel Signature Mellow,Camel Turkish Gold,Camel Turkish Royal,Camel Turkish Silver,Camel Turkish Jade,Camel Ultra Lights,Camel Ultra Lights 99's,Camel Wides,Camel Wides,Lights,Camel Wides Menthol,Camel Wides Menthol Lights,Kamel Red,Kamel Red Lights,Kamel Red Menthol,Kamel Red Menthol Lights and others.

Marlboro's were less daunting but still came in an impressive variety of types. Marlboro was always a favorite of mine because I rather fancied myself as a cowpoke that needed oxygen.

I finally chose Marlboro Mediums, so named I gather because they help you get closer to dead people.

PODM does not believe in tears

2009-06-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

No crying over this slice of The Onion. Apparently the good people at The Onion have been reading PODM! While the person profiled is fictitious I think they've grasped the fundamental editorial philosophy we embrace here. In the words of Emma Lazarus, "give us your tired, your poor and we at PODM will mock, ridicule and trivialize everything they believe in, hold sacred or love. It is gratifying to see our work appreciated by one of the top 500 or so humor sites on this back water we call the web.

Knotty but Nice

2009-06-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

The casual reader of PODM might think, based on recent postings, that the site was some sort snarky military misinformation center for dummies which in fact it is. We at PODM like to think we embrace the whole spectrum of human ignorance, the triumph of stupidity over the obvious and the agony of watching stunningly straight forward and easy concepts going down in flames. We don’t limit our selves to misstatements of fact, callous mockery of the wretched or flamboyant flourishes of rhetorical wreckage, sometimes we just cop a squat and crap allover something good, sound and sensible.

That said, I know nothing about military things, unless you count the Civil War, (Currently I am in a conundrum over why Lee had to be informed about the unmarked road that lead to a point on the Eleventh Corps’ right flank at Chancellorsville. They had been occupying the ground since Fredericksburg and Jackson had Jedidiah Hotchkiss mapping the Shenandoah Valley since spring 1862. Was Lee remiss in not having a thorough topographical survey done of the area behind the Rapidan River fords and does this hint at the sloppy staff work that characterized Lee’s performance at Gettysburg?.) British Naval strategy of the War of 1812 (The British severely underestimated the difficulty of maintaining sailing ships on blockade station when their bases in Bermuda and Halifax were so widely separated.) and Custer’s Last Stand (Don’t get me started). It is also clear I know nothing of composition because if I did I wouldn’t have put three lengthy parenthetical thoughts in such a short sentence.

At least that’s settled and now for sex.

The respected thespian David Carradine passed recently under circumstances that can best be described as awkward. It appears that Mr. Carradine was done in by and has done for auto erotic asphyxia what Clinton and Lewinsky did for the blow job and Anderson Cooper did for tea bagging, thrusting (perhaps an inappropriate term) an unexpected, unwanted and unnecessary subject onto the public forum for discussion.

I know nothing about auto erotic asphyxia except that Albert Dekker, also died while enjoying its lethal pleasures as did Michael Hutchence the lead singer of INXS. It is notable that these three were performers, the various authors and politicians that died in the throes of Eros had the courtesy to die while another person was present.

I for one applaud our celebrities when they pause in their effort to demonstrate the drab banality of our tepid little lives by pursuing outlandish forms of public sybaritic debauchery. By spending a quiet evening enjoying a session of vigorous masturbation that went disastrously wrong Mr. Carradine has once again confirmed to me how sheltered a life I‘ve led. I don’t know why he would do so in Bangkok where if you have American money the prime minister will bring a girl to your room but if we have learned one thing from this tragedy it’s that auto erotic asphyxia requires a spotter.

Know your knots.

Several of the Blogs I read are exorcised of the David Letterman/Sarah Palin imbroglio most contending that political family members should be off limits where smutty lewd comments are concerned. I’d like to point how much fun these folks are to ridicule. Billy Carter, Margret Truman, Lou Hoover, Lemonade Lucy Hayes and Nell, the late wife of Chester A. Arthur all provided the humorist of their time with filthy off color material. Who can forget Wilson Mizner’s immortal jibe, “That Florence Harding... What a slut!” which brought down the house where ever he played. Aren’t we risking the rich national tradition of calling our leaders’ spouses skanks, sluts and round heeled pigs that would blow a poodle for a quarter and give ten cents change?(Too much?)

Are we to forgo the hours of risible fun the Kennedy’s provide with all their associated wives, mistresses, children, cousins, in-laws and organized crime connections? How about Pat Nixon, Betty Ford or Martha Mitchell? Nancy Reagan took a few for the team and Barbra Bush was a stand up gal, even if her husband did put her portrait on the one dollar bill.

Bill Clinton of course kept the focus off Chelsea with his unprecedented string of howlers but even he gave us a stupider brother we could all laugh at. One of the Bush girls got up-skirted by the paparazzi, we haven’t seen that kind of thing since Hustler printed those shots of Jackie Onassis.

I suppose it seems unfair to go after Sarah Palin because she is so much like ourselves and unlike the pompous, self important royal families we coronate every four years. You can imagine her leaning over the back seat to give Bristol and Willow a couple of whacks when they won’t stop fighting. It’s hard to picture Lady Bird doing the same to Luci and Lynda. Also Palin has achieved the impossible, successfully balancing the demands of a career, a husband and a family, something feminism promised but couldn’t deliver. To jibe her about her family’s idiosyncrasies is a little like teasing Lance Armstrong about his testicles.

We are gambling with our entertainment future here. If we don’t want people to make fun of the relatives of the clowns we elect, maybe we shouldn’t vote for people that come from circus families.

"Non, je ne regrette rien" pas de deux

2009-05-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

Whew! Sometimes the gainful employment thing just gets in the way of regular blogging, I hear some people do it for a living but I know that's crazy talk.

I showed my daughter a video send up on Bonnie Tyler's immortal classic "Total Eclipse of the Heart"on Write Enough. I thought it was hip, funny and original but her reaction served as an convenient update of how out of date and passe I really am.

At any rate some days the fish just jump into the barrel and invite you to go dynamite fishing, that would be the case of this item of interest. The French it seems have ventured out side their borders and set up their first new military base in fifty years. I imagine their last one was on some unfortunate Pacific atoll as they've been reducing island paradises in that region to radioactive rubble since about then.

Their new base for La Force Frappe is in Abu Dhabi which I am reliably informed is named after what Fred Flintstone said when he started his car, it will increase their presence off the pirate ridden Horn of African at least until some Somali buccaneers capture their navy. This action begs the question why would such a risk averse military ( And lets face it they have very good reasons to keep their army and navy away from potential adversaries.) venture so far from the protection of Belgian Army?

With the French emphasis on speed and flexible response, I believe that by pre-positioning their men and material at, as it were, the sharp end of the spear, they serve as a force multiplier for bulky conventional arms mixes that can be called up from allies or even Metropolitan France. By maneuvering in tandem they can advance on multiple axis until they are cut off, left without supplies and forced into a degrading, humiliating surrender. In other words it keeps them from having to wait for some Persian Panzer column to make its way from Tehran so they can rollover.

The outcome of this effort will probably be either they sink one of our ships accidentally or we sink one of theirs not so accidentally, having the French as an ally is a lot like having Barney Fife for a deputy, he has a badge but you don't want to give him more than one bullet.

Passages

2009-05-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

We here at PODM would like to pause for a moment to mark the passing of a man of the people, a man of vision, a man that will be missed. I refer of course to Velupillai Prabhakaran, seen here in happier days in his official portrait for 26th annual Tamil Tiger smörgåsbord, golf tournament and pointless violence awards banquet brochure.

Prabhakaran was a shy, quiet and unassuming murderous thug as a child and didn't commit his first murder/assassination until1975 when he was twenty one. He founded the LTTE ( Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to establish a socialist state for ethnic minority Tamils and like every good socialist immediately started killing anybody he could get his hands on. He piled up an estimated 100, 000 bodies during the course of his war for the liberation of disinterested Tamils and turned a once prosperous island paradise into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Liberal ball washers have noted his many innovations in the field of terrorism, female suicide bombers, forced conscription of teenagers into his army and the air, sea and land capability of his liberation army. The L.A. Times described him as "innovative and ruthless" a description usually reserved for the founder of a successful business empire based on a clever kitchen utensil. I guess the headline, "World well rid of Maniac" is reserved for Dick Cheney. The Christian Science Monitor wonders whether the the LTTE can continue with out a sadistic charismatic mad man to lead them. The Guardian laments that Prabhakaran's vision of an earthly socialist heaven was "tantalizingly close" but holds out hope that overseas Sinhalese will support some other psychotic megalomaniac and keep the good times rolling.

Adios Velupillai Prabhakaran, you never missed a meal but your obsession with a socialist home land for Tamils impoverished them, killed off their best hope for the future and guaranteed a generation of repression in retribution for your "liberation" army's excesses. You sowed the whirlwind baby and got for it precisely nothing.

Bulletin: CVA needs new lunatic to run asylum

2009-05-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

In news that reinforces my conviction that the left is playing with a deck that has less than the usual compliment of cards, prominent member of Iraq Veterans against the War and Colorado Veterans Alliance (CVA) founder Rick Duncan, nee, Richard Glen Strandlof apparently made a few trifling additions to his resume. He claimed to be a USMC Captain and graduate of the Naval Academy who was in the Pentagon on 9/11 then severely wounded in Iraq.

The good people at The Gazette in Colorado Springs noted these discrepancies:

The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., said the school has no record of a 1997 graduate named Rick Duncan.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Amy Malugani found no record of Strandlof or his alias Duncan serving in the Corps, and that the unit Strandlof claimed to have served with in Iraq doesn't exist.

But wait there's more:

The group said it found that Strandlof had been a patient in a mental hospital in Washoe County, Nev., at the time of the roadside bombing in Fallujah, Iraq, that he claimed left him severely wounded.

The blog This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here noticed that besides claiming to be the gay commander of a Marine Battalion Rick said an Iraqi IED was responsible for a plate in his head, his hip replacement and the loss of a finger. They also observed that Mr. Duncan, nee, Strandlof still had ten fingers left despite the loss.

It appears that Mr. Strandlof's transparent deception was either a desperate plea for help by a troubled individual or he was just plain stupid.

Members of CVA did contact the FBI when they noticed the discrepancies in his story I wonder if it was the fingers that tipped them off. The guy's history was a complete fabrication that he parlayed into fund raising and lots of news coverage, it seems the "Main Stream Press" was completely gulled by this charlatan, you would think due diligence would require fact checking, like maybe just a little, like some maybe. It couldn't be that his anti-war narrative dovetailed with their preconceived notions about the war, could it?

Here's a summary of his lies according to The Gazette:

Graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in 1997
Commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps, attained the rank of captain.
Survived the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.
Served three combat tours in Iraq.
Severely wounded in a roadside bombing in Fallujah.
War injuries resulted in his having a plate in his head, synthetic ribs and a hip replacement.

Oh yeah, and they're investigating if he embezzled $25000 in funds he raised to send packages to soldiers in Iraq.

Vatican Mafia

2009-05-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so tardy posting, I’m in a Fijian Strap Match with the jack booted Scientologists at Earthlink over my Internet service. I believed the money I sent them was supposed to allow me to get on the Internet occasionally. They disagree and think I sent it because they are nice people. It appears that Earthlink is winning.

That said I am gratified that Hollywood has broken its creative drought as far as villains go, I am of course referring to the Vatican in the movie extracted from the Dan Brown masterpiece “Angels and Demons”. With all the talk about fire, air, water and earth I thought perhaps an eighties Funk band Earth, Wind and Fire had taken over the Holy See but I was wrong , it was just some bullshit to put into the mouths of the Illuminati, the dark masters that control our lives and are doing such a splendid job of running the world.

It’s understandable why Hollywood latched onto the Catholic Clerics as arch enemies of good, they wear a bewildering variety of hats, they swish around in menacing floor length cassocks while behaving like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen.

I love baddies, when Anthony Hopkins growls “Oh Senator… Love your dress…" to Diane Baker in "Silence of the Lambs" I get all fertumlt. For a long time baddies have been rogues; rogue cops, rogue CIA, rogue businessmen, even rogue terrorist as in Alan Rickman’s remarkable slice of ham in "Die Hard". Of course that franchise hosted a remarkable bunch of rogues; rogue mercenaries in "Die Harder" , Alan Rickman’s rogue Euro-trash brother Jeremy Irons in "Die Hard 3" and finally a rogue computer geek in "Die Hard 4".

I am not referring to “The Rogues” a fine piece of televised fare starring Gig Young, Charles Boyer and David Niven, so shut up.

It’s been a while since Hollywood cast a member of a readily recognizable denomination as evil incarnate, usually it’s limited to rogue priests bent on blowing smoke up Damien’s ass prior to the Apocalypse, crazy Protestants like Carrie’s mom or bigoted fundamentalist that don’t understand that kids gotta dance. I am okay with that if it keeps them from making the movies they want to make.

Hollywood treads delicately around the racial character of baddies as well. Over the years whole categories of baddies have vanished like Indians as in Native Americans that ambushed the wagon trains and India Indians that ambushed Victor McLaglen, Cary Grant and David Niven in “Gunga Din”. If you don’t count WW2 era movies involving Key Luke there hasn’t been a decent purely Asian baddy since Fu Manchu. Modern war movies make the Japanese seem like bumbling allies that accidentally bombed the Arizona and we over reacted when we declared war on them.

Terrorist are okay baddies as long as they are Irish or vaguely European with just a hint of German because they’re all Hitler loving, bat shit crazy, militarists, but an Arab terrorist is verboten, that’s a word I heard Euro-terrorist use. As far as Hollywood is concerned the guys that hijacked the planes on 9/11 may as well have been members of the Skagerrak Liberation Army.

If villains belong to an obvious racial group, they are immediately branded a Mafia, as in Jamaican Mafia, Russian Mafia and Japanese Mafia. In Movies like The God Father and The Sopranos the actual Mafia, the one with Italians in it, the Mafiosi are complex characters, usually likable and not evil cut outs with one dimensional motivation. Tony Soprano was a concerned father as well as a murderous thug when he dispatched Big Pussy, whereas the Russian Mob would be just as soon send Viggo Mortensen over to gut you like a cat fish in front of the kids. This is possibly because the real Mafia does business in Hollywood and one doesn’t bite the hand that is stuffing money into your pocket.

You have to go back to Murder Incorporated to find a really reprehensible Jewish baddy and even then Peter Falk played Abe Reles. It's hard to picture our beloved Lt. Columbo as a soulless psychotic even knowing as much as we do about him now. Of course Jewish actors managed to play baddies by impersonating other ethnic groups that they shared an affinity, like Abner Biberman as Chota in the afore mentioned Gunga Din. It's similar to the shared affinity Hollywood recognised between the Chinese and Swedes when they cast Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.

Black people got to be the best of baddies first in that racist peon “Birth of a Nation” Woodrow Wilson adored, except that all the black baddies were white guys in black face which seems like an insult and a jip. There weren’t any good black baddies after Melanie got ambiguously bothered in Gone With The Wind until Danny Glover played a serial killer on a train and Densel Washington played a rogue cop.

Oh yeah and Candyman. And the five or less players in those Dirty Harry movies and something Robert Hooks did in the seventies, without IMDB I’m screwed. Damn you Earthlink!

Aloha Akbar

2009-05-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Good news for Religion of Peace fans but especially those in Hawaii, the lickspittle state legislature in an outstanding case of toadying for potential tourist dollars has declared September 24th "Islam Day". At least I hope its old fashioned toadying, I pray they don't actually believe the justifications put forth.

The bill seeks to recognize "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" that Islam and the Islamic world have made.

Aside from creative beheading, spontaneous spousal abuse, IEDs, suicide bombings and Cat Stevens I'm stumped. I know they invented alcohol and Hashish, for which a grateful world applauds them, but its been a millennium or so since they've wowed us with anything. I hope they get on their horse and come up with something soon because if Vince is right about those ShamWows the era of invention is drawing to a close. I don't hold out much hope, if it weren't for Brits and Americans showing them where (and how) to suck oil out of the sand, they'd mostly be remembered for having some great beach front property and buggering TE Lawrence.

I suggest we go nation wide with this "Islam Day" thing its way too much fun for Hawaii alone. We could hold parades where they can deplore the Great Satan, behead their female kin and blow up national monuments. I think its been a long time coming since we have days where we honor Christians and Jews for "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" they made to a little thing I like to call Western Civilization.

Oops! I've just been informed we don't have any Christian or Jewish days, something about the ACLU and the separation of church and state.

Apparently Christmas is OK because it is devoid of Christian content, and Easter squeaks by because commemorates the miracle where our Savior made a bunny lay eggs to call attention to global warming.

I always thought religion was a matter of personal conscience but thanks to the Hawaii state legislature I realize just how wrong I have been. I am glad to stand behind people that consume a diet based on legumes then kneel down and pray five times a day facing Mecca, and not just because I enjoy bashing sincerely held religious views, they are the only folks I know that take more breaks a day than UAW workers and Obama is putting an end to that.

Of course I kid, I send up these prayers for tolerance in the hope that the boobs who don't get it will see the title of this Blog and understand it is satire, and the ones that do get it will realize I mean every snarky, sarcastic word.

Ling Carter

2009-05-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

The long time editor in chief of Interesting News Items, Ling Carter, has left a comment on our article that gave a long term perspective on Swine Flu, Pirates and Torture, titled We're All Dead. We at PODM appreciate that he took time out of his busy schedule to give us his opinion, we know that with his interest in professional badminton, jurying numismatic competitions and his on going work looking for a cure for gingivitis he has little discretionary time especially for a publication like PODM which is generally considered unfit to lick the boots of anyone on the Internet.

The firm that audits our circulation cites Ling for increasing our readership by 25%, it rocketed from 4 to 5 readers when he commented. Perhaps more worrisome, while the audit does count several of the voices I hear in my head it doesn't include the dog I got from David Berkowitz that tells me what to write about. I assume he's a regular reader.

We're All Dead

2009-04-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

The one thing I’ve learned in 47 years of blogging is you have to jump on a subject as soon as it surfaces or every other blog will have it covered better and funnier than you have. That’s why I’m jumping on Swine Flu now I figure there will be two or three days of interest in the pandemic before millions start dropping dead in their tracks and it all becomes passé.

But first these two farts in the whirlwind: The pirate guy and torture.

You may remember the pride of Poopchute Somalia, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse Whatever, he was the blood thirsty but incompetent cut throat his fellow cut throats sent to the USS Bainbridge to negotiate ransom for the release of Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama. After some American Seals finished the preliminary negotiations with his compatriots, Mr. Whatever thought he had won an all expenses paid one way ticket to the Federal Court in New York City and showed up states side with a big old grin on his face beneath his saucer shaped eyes and jug handle ears. He apparently neglected to read the small print on the ticket stub.

Prior to his arrival my friends and boon companions had been inclined to call down the wrath of Hell on the Pirates of the Horn but the photos of Mr. Whatever won their hearts and cleansed their minds of any common sense so suddenly it was like talking to a bunch of girls that decided Richard Ramirez or some other serial killing psychotic was dreamy. He was after all accused of the second most forgivable crime of our time, abducting and threatening an American. (The first most forgivable crime is the killing of Americans; we after all drove them to commit the crime with our dysfunctional foreign policy and arrogance. Of course it’s still a heinous crime but it would be patriotically remiss not to place all the blame on the dead Americans who after all are symbolic victims as compared to the real victims, the hijackers, who suffered… I could go on forever but I’ll let some one at the Huffington Post do it instead.)

From Monster to 90 pound teenager with jug ears, saucer eyes and big ass grin all in one rendition flight, apparently he was less pleased when he heard the charges he faced and started crying like the grinning, jug eared, saucer eyed 90 pound teenager he is. I’m sure he’ll cry just as hard when he discovers how popular grinning, jug eared, saucer eyed, 90 pound teenagers are on Rikkers Island.

He’s in New York now represented by only his public defender and how many battalions of attorneys the ACLU has been able to put on the case in short notice. In other words he’ll be out in no time.

I’m sure his defense will involve cruel and unusual treatment which seems to be the only sort of treatment the United States dishes out these days. Mr. Obama and Mr. Chaney are in a pissing contest over some memos that Mr. Bush received from counsel regarding torture, specifically water boarding. The public argument seems to be whether torture of any kind should be used at any time or just when Jack Bauer deems it appropriate. There is concern whether our use of torture will infuriate our enemies and cause them to be less restrained in their use of beheading, suicide bombing and IEDs. I suspect it will be agreed that the United States will torture only when it has to and our enemies will only behead and bomb innocents when they want to.

The best thing about this exercise is the frequently stated concern by both sides about how this will affect the ability of lawyers to do their job. They may want to make this appear to be about national security but it’s really about the Lawyer's Guild protecting its work product.

Now, the Swine Flu. In1919 a great flu swept across the world and killed 40 million people, you’ve never heard about because it happened during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson but he didn’t do anything about it so it must not have been too important and besides you went to public schools.

The flu virus is very mutable that’s why you have to get a new vaccine every year. Its also very contagious and air born unlike hemorrhagic fever which is conveyed by fluid contact or Zommbieism which can be spread by the bite of a zombie or skin contact with certain unspecified chemicals the Army experimented with back in the sixties.

There is no effective treatment for the virus beyond moderating the symptoms; Medical Science has been too busy with Acid Reflux, Restless Leg Syndrome and Male Pattern Baldness to look into something as mundane as lethal flu. Because the virus is so mutable and so small when an infected person sneezes in your face you're exposed to millions of varieties of infectious particles some virulent and some not. If you get a moderate case you live otherwise you may die, its the luck of the draw, 36,000 Americans die of flu during a normal season. Dying of flu can be as pleasant as drifting away in the swirling hallucinations of flu caused pneumonia or as distressing as coughing up blood and necrotic lung tissue. Either way you’re screwed.

There are effective ways to control the spread of epidemics especially quarantine. Quarantine as you all know is derived from either the French, Italian or Latin word for forty and refers to the number of days your ship sits in port before anyone one or thing can get off if your port of origin had plague in it. It implies that the place doing the quarantining can prevent the quarantined from off loading their ship load of plague ridden goodness, this flu originated in Mexico, you do the math of the likelihood of closing that border.

Quarantine requires the suspension of all your rights and privileges as a citizen to be effective, fortunately Mr. Obama will have no qualms in that regard. An epidemic is the situation the word emergency was meant to describe, not some foreclosed houses in Palmdale, but it requires brutal determination to limit its destructiveness. We’ve been here before and I don’t mean in 1919, in the 1980’s AIDS was killing gay men and many cases were linked to sexual behavior in bath houses so public health officials proposed closing the bath houses. This offended activists who didn’t want their God given right to buggery infringed and twenty some years later over a million are dead, more are infected every year and the band plays on.

Hopefully this swine flu will just be a blip in the history of flu, in 1919 when it took seven days to cross the Atlantic on a steamer it managed to kill 40 million. I don't see how it can get any funnier than that.

It's in our Jeans

2009-04-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

I was alerted by an article on the Little Miss Attila blog about an article by George F. Will in the Washington Post in which he rails about the ubiquitous tide of denim on the sartorial landscape. He is clearly against America's preference for jeans and would prefer it if we all grew up, started wearing dockers and put on a tie, this from a man who wore bow ties until recently. His conversion to cravats suggests he finally learned to tie a four in hand necktie and could eschew the clip ons. That leaves Dave Garroway, Louis Farrakhan, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and Tucker Carlson to be taught the Windsor knot.

With so many bad choices Americans can make; T-shirts that say I'm with stupid, baseball caps caps worn backwards by people that clearly are not catching the next inning, hoodies with the "designers" name as motif and the tramp stamp tattoo, why Will decided to blast jeans as an example for the decline of Western Civilization seems odd. One clue why is in the opening sentence, "On any American street, or in any airport or mall...", this rhetorical flourish shows Bill has never been on an American street, an airport or mall in living memory but still wants to be considered one of the folks. He disparages running shoes as well but not so vehemently, perhaps he wears them around the office and changes into the Ferragamos when he's getting into a cab.

He suggests we adopt Fred Astaire as our fashion exemplar, I'm sure Bill will be wearing spats, a top hat and tails the next time he catches a Southwest flight to Vegas.

The adjective that frequently jumps to mind regarding George Will is fustian and I am afraid this column falls into that category. I suspect he was trying to be funny but like Anderson Cooper joking about the homosexual act of tea bagging while displaying a more than a passing knowledge of the practice, the article reveals more about the author than the article intended. In this case Will comes across as a second rate Mencken, a curmudgeon but without the Sage of Baltimore's quaint anti-semitism and racism.

(Anderson's tea bagging references were meant to disparage the recent Tea Party demonstrations but also managed to expose our media elite's familiarity with gay sub-culture. It'll be fun to hear what they have to say about felching when that subject comes up.)

Mr. Will takes a nuanced view of things, his baseball book, "Men at Work", celebrated the work ethic of professional ball players, a class of people notorious for their slovenly and outlandish clothing, without once mentioning the fact.

Mr. Will thinks Jeans wearing Americans are unauthentic unless they toil in the soil or are panning for gold, there may be other professions that can wear denim but the only one he mentions wranglers on the old Chisholm Trail, it may be time for George to get out of the office and see what other things Americans do for a living.

Celebriticans

2009-04-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Our long national nightmare is over, Fran Drescher is going to Washington. Finally our nation's issues and concerns will be addressed in an annoying nasal hiss by an irritating, pretentious shrew other than Hilary Clinton. Following the demise of that fine piece of television, "The Nanny" and the equally fine "Shacking Up", Fran contested with Caroline Kennedy for an appointment to Hilary Clinton's vacant Senate seat. As you may recall New York Gov. David Paterson confronted with such an embarrassment of political riches appointed Kirsten Gillibrand to the seat, apparently because Jamie Foxx and Madonna hadn't thrown their hats in the ring .

After the debacle Fran found herself working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens until her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes.What was she to do, where was she to go, she was out on her fanny. So over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffield's door, she was there to sell make up but the father saw more, she had style, she had flair, she was there, that's how she became the Nanny. Who would have guessed that the girl we described was just exactly what the doctor prescribed? Now, the father finds her beguiling, watch out C.C., the kids are actually smiling, such joie de vivre, she's the lady in red when everybody else is wearing tan.The flashy girl from Flushing, the Nanny named Fran.

But aside from that, the "entertainment" "industry" and politics seems to be a natural meld, people in both require baths of gratuitous applause after mundane accomplishments, unearned respect for limited attainments and the trappings of dignity overlaying what is essentially a job in the carny. Ms. Drescher is a fine actress and no less qualified than Mary Bono Mack, Al Franken or Nancy Pelosi to be in congress, its just sad we couldn't look a little harder to find someone better. The hacks already elected get their opinions from the same tainted well of agenda driven media hype that Fran does, so nothing will change except that the conventional wisdom will be brayed at us in a voice that has all the charm of the noises baby seals make when they are being clubbed to death by Canadians. Fran, like her erstwhile compatriots, has no original ideas to press, thank God, or agenda higher than how to look her best in the official portrait but I can't think of anyone I know that isn't smarter than Fran, although I assume she's smarter than Mary Bono Mack, Al Franken or Nancy Pelosi.

What are we to make of Kal Penn, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Al Franken who decided to run based on a high opinion of their own opinions? Not much, a high opinion of their own opinion is what drives the claptrap in Washington right now, with celebriticans at least the claptrap will be delivered by better looking people. At least the world which Jay Leno described, politics being Hollywood for ugly people, will cease to exist

Whatever the celebriticans keep marching along collecting unearned public office like those gift bags they get for attending an award show. It's reward for their contribution to the passing circus that keeps we the people stupid, passive and docile.

Of course if Kinky Friedman or Jessie Ventura run for anything, I'm there.

It's called Swat Valley for a reason or the softer side of Muslim extremists

2009-04-04T01:33:00.000-07:00

The Religion of Peace is back in the news recently and this time it's video of a young woman receiving a well deserved thrashing at the hands of the Taliban . Unfortunately our Taliban friends have gotten a lot of this fundamentally wrong. I have reviewed the video and made a few suggestions. Please bare in mind I am a graduate of the Vienna Institute for the Disciplining of Young Girls for No Apparent Reason so my opinion carries some weight with the international bodies that jury competitive wife beating. Our motto at the Institute was: "One for fun, one to stun and one just to show them you mean business."

1) The men are dressed in flowing robes with what looks like a giant cinabon on their head. That's fine for late night or being in Stanley Kubrick's immortal film "Eyes Wide Shut" with all your Scientologist friends. (Actually try that, you might enjoy it.) Next time leave the robes at home and go with a casual leather jodhpurs and jack boot ensemble, maybe shirtless with a leather hood to lend an air of menace. Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like a shirtless man in a leather hood wearing leather jodhpurs and brandishing a cat-o-nine tails.

2) There are no degenerate European aristocrats in formal evening wear in the audience! What, there wasn't a team of Italian soccer players nearby you could dress up? Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like a shirtless man in a leather hood, wearing leather jodhpurs and brandishing a cat-o-nine tails in front of an audience of degenerate European aristocrats in formal evening wear.

3) The guy with the whip was way too uninvolved. He needs a name like Gunther or Dieter and to have a maniacal look in his eye. Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like a shirtless man named Gunther or Dieter in who's eyes you detect a maniacal glint even though his face is covered in a leather hood, is wearing leather jodhpurs and brandishing a cat-o-nine tails in front of an audience of degenerate European aristocrats in formal evening wear.

4) The victim was a good choice, a naughty seventeen year old girl is just the sort you want to bring down your whole repressive regime on. Nubile is always best when you are trying to make a serious point. Unfortunately you missed a chance to score with western observers, when you let the girl wear slacks and a burka. I repeat a burka, its hard to believe anything happens under a burka let alone something naughty. For truly global impact, the girl should have been dressed as a Japanese school girl, had her skirt pulled up and panties pulled down to reveal garter belt and stockings, her hands tied behind her back then bent over a high school desk and spanked. Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like a shirtless man named Gunther or Dieter in who's eyes you detect a maniacal glint even though his face is covered in a leather hood, is wearing leather jodhpurs and brandishing a cat-o-nine tails in front of an audience of degenerate European aristocrats in formal evening wear watching a naughty Japanese school girl who has had her dress pulled up and panties pulled down to reveal a garter belt and stockings, her hands tied behind her back then bent over a high school desk and about to be spanked. Or maybe it's just me.

Earth Hour minus one

2009-03-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

I enjoy protests which is what Earth Hour was supposed to be as opposed to the fatuous publicity stunt it is. It reminded me of when everybody held hands across America back in the seventies or eighties or nineties, which ever decade it was when Americans were out of their pea sized, drug addled brains. Oh how often I have wished I could have arranged for the last person in line to grab a high voltage line and we all could have learned the importance of being in contact with someone who was well grounded.

Earth Hour was supposed to raise awareness or protest or speak truth to power about global warming or climate change or global cooling or pollution or conservation or animal cruelty or something. (I think I could be persuaded to oppose animal cruelty if PETA would persuade more models to walk around naked in protest. I'm just saying...) At any rate we are supposed to turn off the lights to remind us to stop using oil and other fossil fuels which will make the lights stay off all the time, which would just about solve everything.

Now I love to protest, I wouldn't be what I am today, a bitter, middle aged man without employable skills if I hadn't been protesting during college instead of studying. Speaking of protests, what's wrong with kids these days, sure they're opposed the war but I didn't hear about any coeds gunned down at Kent State this time around. You're all a bunch of slackers! You aren't going to generate many good songs that way, it takes a body count to get Crosby, Stills and Nash off their duffs and writing.

I love protests and marches, its away for you and your friends to demonstrate (Yeah, I know.) your sincere and principled concern for an issue you don't want to waste any time doing something about. You get to hear people no more qualified than yourself lecture you on the urgency of a crisis they had no idea was going on until their basic cable package started including the Discovery Channel. Its activism lite, you don't have to go to meetings with skinny bearded guys or intense chubby women and best of all you can shave. Protests keep police crowd estimators employed and gives politicians parades they can get in front of and pretend they're leading.

I'm not a nut bag, OK maybe that isn't completely true but I don't advocate spilling tankers full of oil on sea birds no matter how much fun it is. Oil is a complex compound we have turned into a myriad of products, there is no organic analogue for Plexiglas or PVC so conserving this limited resource is a good idea. The problem is not that we are using it up at an unreasonable rate or doing stupid things with it, hydrocarbons are one of the most recyclable things around and even its most disposable products have secondary uses. (Think about that when you are picking up your dogs poo, although if you live by me I know you don't bother.) The problem is there are too many people using fossil fuels and until somebody addresses how we reduce the numbers sucking on the straw, pollution, congestion and fossil fuel usage will grow no matter how many lights we turn off.

I hope Earth Hour and Earth Day get to expand into an Earth Month where everybody does without fossil fuels for the good of the planet, ah the bliss of no electricity, no fertilizer, no transportation, no food. We could follow that up with Earth Year and discover the kind of lives our ancestors enjoyed without heat, clean water or a life expectancy. Behold a pale rider? Hell's Bells that's how we'll all have to get around without fossil fuels, it'll be like the best Christmas ever and we'll all get ponies because we'll need them to get where we want to go. It could be followed by Earth Famine Decade or Earth Destitution Century to put some natural order back in our civilization, after all why should Islamic Fundamentalist get to be the only ones living in the sixteenth century. I'm sure the Earth will appreciate it.

A Very Special Olympics

2009-03-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

The President of late has run afoul of the parents and advocates for children that go to school via the short bus. Imagine my surprise when I learned we were all supposed to take the Special Olympics seriously, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean what are we to make of kids in wheel chairs being tossed into pools and told to swim or that competition where you ski and shoot and ride a horse, oh wait a minute that’s the Pentateuch or Biathlon or whatever and real people do it in Finland.

I assume that one solution would be not filling the little tykes in on what all the laughing behind their backs was about, thats what we did with Clinton and Bush. After all there should be a place where adult liberal sophisticates can safely snicker at the unfortunate with out being upbraided for being the callous bigots they are. With George Bush out of Washington how are Bill Maher, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert going to keep coming up with bright, fresh, politically savvy original material? They’ll have to mock the stumbling, drooling and funny looking folks that haven’t been elected to Congress yet, that’s how.

Now I have nothing against Down’s Syndrome athletes competing in whatever they choose, except curling and synchronized rowing because they clearly have an intelligence edge on the folks that do that for real. A very good friend and second most flamboyantly Queenie homosexual I ever knew, Waylon Flowers once told me “Don’t Taunt The Wretched!” and I have always tried to follow that advice. (Actually it’s more like a 500 way tie for second for the Queenie crown, sorry Waylon.) Although that begs the question, who is more wretched: the kids who are just having fun or our gifted President who it seems could medal at the next Special Olympics Spontaneous Public Speaking competition, although Biden is certain for the Gold.

From now on I will refrain from using Idiot, Retard, Imbecile, Shit For Brains, Moron, Hydro Cephalic Crap Head, Quarter Wit, Half Wit, Nit Wit, Melon Headed Nit Wit, French Brained Nit Wit head, Boob brain, Bean Brained, Bungle Headed Moron with a side of Retarded, Mullet Headed B B Brain, Stupid fucking Asshole Nit Wit, Badger Brain, Taco Flavored Doritos Nit Wit Bubble Brain and Dummy when referring to the challenged folks at the Special Olympics. I will reserve these words for the dim bulbs and pellet heads in the general population that aren’t in the Special Olympics and when I’m driving.

I hope we can now watch the Special Olympics with new found gravity and watch the equestrian sailing, rhythmic weight lifting and ice fishing finals with the seriousness they deserve except when that vacuum headed shit melon Bob Costas is doing the commentary.

Presidents' Day

2009-02-07T01:16:00.000-08:00

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, you can see it in the eyes of children and on the faces of their parents, it is a special season and it only comes once a year. It’s Presidents’ Day, the holiday where we honor our chief executive by giving them the same birthdays, like race horses and English Royalty.

It kind of hacks me off that I never get write about this holiday because I’m busy doing my taxes, (That’s right, I’m not an Obama cabinet selection.) and if ever a holiday deserved 3000 over wrought and sarcastically ironic words from me its Presidents’ Day.

Both of you who are reading this have probably suffered through my Presidents’ Day Song Medley and know how enthusiastic I am about boring people into a coma with facts about obscure presidents; like how Franklin Pierce kept a small shaved monkey under his desk that he would introduce to dignitaries as his son. (I’m kidding; Pierce is not an obscure President.)

This is an important holiday with lots of history attached; it’s more than just an excuse to hold a white sale although for the life of me I can’t think of another reason right now.

It used to be that we only had to remember Washington and Lincoln, conveniently born within a few days of each other during Black History Month and each with a special place in the hearts of black Americans, one for freeing slaves beyond his control and the other for freeing slaves he controlled albeit after his death. But there are forty two other presidents to be remembered, (Let’s settle the Cleveland issue once and for, Cleveland was a pair of identical twins both named Grover and the Baby Ruth bar was named after his daughter who went on to have a spectacular career with the New York Yankees setting many batting records.) and not all were born in February or even memorable in their own time ( Garfield during his own bullet shortened term was referred to by members of Congress as: “That guy a disappointed officer seeker plugged.”) so a remedy was needed.

Briefly, celebrating every President’s Birthday was tried, but it was a logistical nightmare, Calvin Coolidge was born on July Fourth and Chester A. Arthur’s birthday frequently conflicted with Columbus Day. Also it was thought that taking the additional 42 days off each year would undermine the economy; postal workers, government officials and GM workers disagreed and continue to observe the extra holidays to this day.

At any rate our dark overlords cobbled together Presidents’ Day, conflating Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays into one nameless pointless holiday to ensure bankers and bureaucrats weren’t over worked. My imaginary family and I will celebrate this year in the traditional Presidential manner, I will make promises I have no intention of keeping, pretend I care about the lives of others and hit on cocktail waitresses when Hilary isn’t looking.

So enjoy your Presidents' Day, it has no songs associated with it, no parades, no games, no events, you don't even get to plant trees but enjoy it any way and please join me in promoting a new holiday, Vice-Presidents' Day on July 11th. Its the day sitting Vice President Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton and the last time one of these non-entities did anything useful while in office.

The Tortoise, The Ant and The Country Mouse

2009-01-27T01:12:00.000-08:00

I got a complaint about the last post I put up about three children and their miserable fiery death. They said it was a bit angry, I said the Blog is called Products of a Diseased Mind. They said I had a responsibility to moderate my writing for the impressionable, I said if I haven't driven someone to a tower with a high powered rifle, a bucket of chicken and a can of Brasso, I haven't done my job. They said if I had the courage of my convictions I shouldn't hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, I said thats what the Internet is for, to insult, offend and slander people anonymously.

We could have gone on like this but as Finch in the Sham Wow commercial says: "We can't do this all day," so I scraped my tale about a Labrador Retriever that gets sucked into the intake manifold of an F-16 and gets his doggy guts blasted over the tarmac like so much puppy chutney and posted this family friendly chestnut from the slush pile.

The Tortoise, The Ant and The Country Mouse

In a land far away, at a time just past now, in a bar called Ye Olde Coach House, that was noted for its cool quiet calm as opposed to anything “Olde” or coach like about it, three characters from various fairy tales, parables and morally uplifting stories gathered to relive the past. The tortoise, the ant and the country mouse would regale everyone around the bar with accounts of their long past achievements eventually boring their fellow patrons beyond mere tears and causing them to repent their lives.

The quality of an evening at Ye Olde Coach House could be judged by the number of times the discharge of a firearm punctuated the night. Almost nightly one or more customers would end the torment of listening to the biographical ramblings of a reptile, insect and rodent to seek a happier destiny by punctuating his skull with a bullet. In another time or place Ye Olde Coach house might have suffered for patronage in light of its sinister reputation but there were always more recruits willing to test their mettle for the cheapest well drinks in town.

Normally a reptile, insect and rodent wouldn’t have much to discuss much less drink about except as it related to who was going to eat whom but this is a fable and the county it takes place in is notoriously lax in its supervision of alcoholic beverage serving establishments since most of it revenue comes from servicemen on leave.

Each animal had a moment in the spotlight, and taken applause from a hypocritical public who demanded moral rectitude from their icons while they wallowed in a sump of comfortable corruption. To refresh your memory, the tortoise had won his famous race against the heavily favored hare through a combination of persistent plodding and sustained effort. The ant had thriftily stored up wealth for the long lean winter unlike his careless friend the spendthrift fiddling grasshopper. Despite the blandishments of his city cousin, the country mouse had turned his back on the material appeal of the city fleshpots for the wholesome values of the country. They were held up individually and collectively as icons of virtue and like Roman conquerors they returned to receive their praise from the mob. Unfortunately at the time of their triumph no slave rode in the chariot with them, holding their laurels above their heads and reminding them that fame is fleeting.

The fleet of fame had definitely sailed for these guys, they were has beens. They still got invited to appear on telethons and sometimes they were hired as guest attractions by the local triple A ball team; having them stand around and shake hands was cheaper and safer than giving away beer or bats. An unbiased observer would agree their time had passed; the bloom was off the rose and their glory days were long passed. If Arthur Miller were writing this they’d all have been traveling salesmen.

What made their pathetic lives even more galling was that their counterparts, the hare, grasshopper and city mouse had all gone on to success in other fields. The hare had gotten some coaching and gone on to lead his team to the league championship an unprecedented six times while having sex with an astonishing number of partners even for a rabbit. The grasshopper was so successful in his music career that on his last world tour he had filled Wembley Stadium and for an encore led a swarm of other like minded grasshoppers and locusts that denuded Somalia of its grain crops, causing widespread devastation and starvation. The city mouse had established a fabulously successful publishing empire anchored by a magazine he edited that featured photos of nude young female mice and generally lived the life of a degenerate Italian playboy except that he was rodent vermin and spread the dreaded Hanta virus in his feces.

The three spent their lives waiting and discussing their past with who ever came through the swinging doors. They complained about how unfairly life had treated them. But mostly they drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank. And drank.

One day a man named Hickey came into their saloon to drop off some ice and exposed the petty meaninglessness of their drab empty lives with irony and biting insights. Incensed they fell upon the interloper, killed him and then devoured the still twitching corpse. Normally that would have been the end of it but the death of Hickey started them thinking: Their lives were indeed dead and meaningless except for the earlier specified triumphs. After some soul searching accompanied by a commensurate amount of drinking they discovered the psychological roots of their existential ennui:

A.) Incestuous relations with an insane prostitute mother.

B.) A drunken, abusive religious fanatic father.

C.) Inability of society, family and/or self to accept homosexuality.

D.) A&B but not C.

E.) B&C but not A.

F.) A&C but not B.

G.) All of the above

H.) None of the above.

This galvanized our unlikely trio and they resolved the next day to start running guns to worthy Central American revolutionaries. Like latter day Ernest Hemingway’s they would all take notes and keep diaries and any one who survived the adventure would see to it that their story got told. Of course their wives, creditors and employers frowned on this sort of behavior so after sheepish apologies they shook off their hangovers, abandoned their crazy dreams and continued their lives of noisy desperation.

In a more forgiving culture they might have carried on like this for years but fortunately this occurred in a land where the personal right of every person to carry a hand gun was respected. After one night too many, the barkeep, tired of mopping up after suicidal patrons bored to despair by the endless self examination and angered by the trio’s incessant boasting about killing his dear friend Hickey, snuffed them all. The jury didn’t bother deliberating; many recalled Hickey as valued member of the community and a friend, while the deceased victims were an insect pest, an animal valued primarily as an ingredient for stew and an unpleasant but un-endangered species of turtle. The barkeep was released with the thanks of the court.

The three little children that died miserable fiery deaths

2008-12-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in an airliner flying above the Great American Desert there were three naughty children. They enjoyed kicking the backs of the seats of people that had never done them or their people any harm. Despite the patient pleadings of those people and stern warnings from their drink and drug addled mother they continued their naughtiness.

“They can’t throw us off the airplane,” said Jimmy the oldest most repellant boy. “We’re up too high!”

“They can’t give us a well deserved beating because they aren’t relatives and they stand to do some serious time, child abuse laws being what they are, if they lay a finger on us!” Said Maria, the noxious middle girl.

“Lets run in aisle and throw some of the tasty seasoned bits of fried dough, corn chex and pretzels the airline provided at passengers who paid full fair for their tickets.” Said Hector, the imaginative youngest cur and unholy spawn of Satan.

Soon the three naughty children were frolicking in the cabin and people many rows away came to despise them. An elderly woman undid their shoelaces and gave them a razor sharp pair of scissors she’d smuggled on board to hold while they ran around the cabin. The sky Marshall gave them his service revolver to play with in the hopes that an accidental discharge might kill the loathsome creatures. Everyone in the airliner offered controlled substances to the mother to sedate the noisome pack but she gobbled down the collection of opiates and horse tranquillizers herself and fell into a stupor. Various kinds of English and Spanish commands were tried to control the unruly trio but it was to no avail. They continued to annoy the paying passengers.

Because of air traffic delays caused by personnel cutbacks that saved money the airline could pass onto their executives in the form of well deserved pay raises, the airliner had to stay aloft for far longer than was expected so the three naughty children got to play long into the evening being hopped up on caffeine, sugar and Ritalin. For hours they played, kicked, and screamed until the youngest finally filled his pants with a partially digested broccoli and beans mixture that oozed out of his huggies and down his legs. This was the cause of much hilarity among his siblings.

All good things must come to an end however and in this case the airliner had pushed away from the terminal with just enough gas to get from Chicago to L.A. Because of cutbacks and labor troubles this fact wasn’t noticed by the cheaper if somewhat lesser skilled replacement workers now in charge of noticing things like that. The airliner was soon plummeting like a rock through the clear desert sky. It got very quiet in the cabin as the all too reasonable pleadings and prayerful wailing of adults replaced the insane rantings of children.

Some one or some thing must have heard because the temporary secretary that had replaced the striking pilot in this case was able to land the 737 with minimal damage even though she’d only been given 24 hours to study the manual and was only certified on Word for Windows.

Safely on the ground the three naughty children surveyed the cabin and began scampering through the debris and playing with the oxygen masks that hung down from the ceiling. They splashed through the residual jet fuel that had leaked into the cabin as the other passengers evacuated. A quiet man who had been in the row just in front of the kids, tossled the eldest’s hair and told them to stay in the plane until their Mom came to. “Do anything you want.” He said, “the planes a write off anyway.” He gave Maria a lighter he had modified to be not so child proof. He left the plane and shut the emergency exit behind him.

The passengers danced around the subsequent fire in celebration of their good fortune as the superstructure burned with a steady blue flame until it was a pile of twisted metal. The only injuries were to rescue workers who tried to enter the burning wreck to save the children. They were inadvertently clubbed by irate passengers who mistook them for baby harp seals in firemen’s turn outs.

AUSTRALIA

2008-12-16T22:52:00.000-08:00

Australia of the antipods, a blessed sun kissed land of beaches, great stands of explosively combustible gum trees and an odd looking collection of endangered agricultural pests is populated almost exclusively by descendants Irish settlers who sought their fortunes in either farming, prospecting or on parole.

The Brits selected it as a penal colony because they felt that the prospect of internment in its moderate climate, good air and clean water would terrify into good behavior any inmates dispatched there. When compared to the drafty, foggy and tuberculosis ridden climate the inmates were used to it was indeed terrifying, so terrifying in fact many never returned. Its only when you see the acres of pink Irish flesh basted in SPF 1000 sun block then burned to a ghastly crisp on Bondi that you realize the Pommy bastards might have been on to something.

Among the charms of the island continent is that death comes at you from a variety pack of different sources. Australia which is Latin for Southern Land means “Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here!” when freely translated from the aboriginal languages. It’s a wonderful place of great beauty and grandeur and some of the most dangerous flora and fauna on the entire planet.

One of Auz’s proudest claims is that it is home to nine of the ten most poisonous snakes on earth. There isn’t a cobra or rattlesnake in the top ten so unless you happen to be in southern Africa and step on a black mamba, you aren’t ever likely to stumble across anything as venomous as anything playing in Australian snake league. And what a large league it is, of 400 or so native species of snakes the majority of Australian snakes are venomous, the only place on earth that can make that claim

Although they make asps and sidewinders appear almost cuddly Australia’s killers have homely even prosaic names. Although being bitten by something called a Death Adder is pretty alarming, how bad could the bite of a Collett’s snake be? Well almost instantly fatal in fact, like wise the Taipan and both Brown Snakes. Yes, it seems that two species of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes happen to be called Brown snakes.

Thanks to either incredibly bad luck on the part of two Mr. Browns who independently discovered how lethal the snakes they were handling were thereby earning the distinction of having the species named after them or a profound lack of imagination on the part of Zoologist, two of the world’s deadliest reptiles have identical names. They could have named one the Khaki Colored Man Killer or Taupe Death Dealer but no, Brown Snake was good enough! I imagine this is a problem when a man goes to a doctor complaining of snake bite and the doctor has him describe the snake.

“Brown,” the patient answers and the doctor tells him to come back in a half hour and he’ll know which anti-venom to give him. The patient wonders why it should take so long to identify a snake and the doctor tells him it if he’s still alive in half an hour they’ll know he was bitten by the less dangerous of the Browns.

Of course there are many other deadly animals in Australia some surprisingly convenient for tourists and the unwary Australians to stumble over. There are huge salt water crocs that denizens of the out back are fond of poking at. There are a variety of man eating sharks swimming off shore, including the Great White, the species popularly credited with eating one of Australia’s prime ministers. Most heads of state have security details that rehearse scenarios to see how they’d react in a given situation; I wonder how many have to rehearse what to do when the old man wants to go for a swim?

Of course in Australia a critter doesn’t need to be big to kill you! Sydney is the home range of the Funnel Web spider, it’s about the size of you fist but it has the largest fangs of any spider, period. There is none of that bullshit about percentage of body size these fangs are bigger than camel spiders or tarantulas carry. The nice thing about the species is it’s aggressive, particularly when it has loving on its mind, it will attack a full sized human under the misapprehension the human is after its girl. Fun Fact: Female Funnel Webs live in holes that bare an uncanny resemblance to shoes, at least to Male Funnel Webs, so be sure you shake out the espadrilles before you put them on when visiting down under.

And don’t forget to check out Redbacks and White Tail spiders on your way to the morgue or the aptly named Paralysis Tick if hiking in high grass is your thing.

Of course you are only likely to encounter Funnel Webs in Queensland, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne but when you head down to their famed beaches death can stalk you in exciting new ways. Lots of dangerous things lurk under the waves, including more lethal snakes, blue ring octopuses and a venomous snail but aren’t considered interesting because they live to far out at sea to rack up a decent body count and their victims usually drown in terrified agony and are ripped to shreds by voracious sharks before they’re missed.

So lets just consider the killers of waders, Stonefish and Toadfish are considered the most dangerous fish on earth and freely available to be trod on in the surf. Victims of the Stonefish’s sting have been known to beg to be killed rather than endure the agony of the injury.

Varieties of jellyfish float on the gentle tide. Portuguese Men O’War or blue bottles if you prefer trail long strands of tentacles studded with stingers that inflict painful wounds and inject toxins. Fortunately the treatment for the agonizing injury is fairly mundane, just apply vinegar or urine to the affected area, it may or may not work. So if you see a bunch of Auzi’s peeing on one of their ilk, it may or may not be what it appears to be at first glance.

Ordinarily the Portuguese Man o’ War is the top of the stinging order when it comes to bobbing lethal blobs of goo but the Auzi’s go one step further and have box jellyfish, all species of which are venomous but with one variety deemed to be the most venomous animal on earth. That’s right the capo d’tui capo of venomous creatures great and small and it wasn’t discovered until some one stumbled ashore screaming “something bit me!” and then died. It is microscopic and apparently so lethal its copious previous victims were presumed to have had heart attacks and drowned. Fortunately medical science has discovered an anti-venom for this mini man killer so a victim of its sting can make a partial recovery with a minimum of disfigurement and surgery if he makes the agonizing ride to the hospital in time.

Urine is of no use for treating the Box Jellyfish sting but do pee on the victim anyway, you'll enjoy it and the victim will probably be dead in a short time.

Of course death stalks the tourist in Australia no matter where you go or what species you encounter. The Emu, a flightless bird is the third largest and most dangerous in the avian order. It has bad eyesight and an evil temper which when combined with its gently curious nature has produced some notable encounters of the last kind. Typically the bird will wander over to the unlucky tourist apparently interested in his head wear or whatever until it comes into visual range, realizes it’s a human he’s been stalking and in flurry of feathers and claws, guts the poor traveler like a catfish.

I could stop here but I won’t because in Australia death hides where you least expect it, kind of like a lethal Candid Camera. Australia has one of the very few venomous mammals: the platypus. Most venomous mammals are small shrew like creatures, not dangerous to man and very rare, Platypus are large, common and lethal. The males have a spur on a hind leg that is connected to a venom sack, the nice thing is when a male has hooked a victim he voids the entire sack into the victims blood stream since the Platypus has no control over the process.

I hope you found these tips handy if you fancy a trip down under. In spite of their incomprehensible English the Auz are a fair dinkum bunch O’lads with more euphemisms for vomiting than any other country on earth. So loosen up in this land of firsts, mosts and deadliest, set your mind at ease, sit back, relax and enjoy Australia until a Dingo eats one of your children.

Telethon

2008-11-29T02:34:00.000-08:00

Recently I was involved in an archaic form of entertainment(?), the telethon. A telethon, in case you've been in a coma on a distant planet without cable for the last seventy years, consists of people begging and screaming at you to donate money between musical or comedy acts that make you wish they'd get back to begging and screaming at you for money.

Telethons differ from pledge breaks on Public Television in that the pledge breaks interrupt nothing entertaining, just the usual BBC documentaries and dreary BBC costume dramas where as nothing stops a telethon.

In the past these endless juggernauts of entertainment mediocrity aimed to wipe out diseases, cerebral palsy, arthritis and muscular dystrophy spring to mind. I have participated in telethons for Muscular Dystrophy, Arthritis and Easter Seals although I never understood why a concerted effort against piniped aquatic mammals was necessary or how they ever became associated with the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. And let me say with added emphasis I have nothing against the people fighting cerebral palsy but they never asked.

Lately with Arthritis apparently eradicated and Easter Seals exterminated I help out on the MDA or Jerry Lewis Telethon and a relative new comer on the Telethonic scene, the Armenia Telethon. It is a valiant and successful effort to raise money to pay for infrastructure and educational facilities in impoverished areas of Armenia.

Armenia is a small country in the Caucasus that has a view of Turkey (The Country) from every window, this would be less distressing if the Turks hadn't spent the best part of WW1 trying to exterminate the Armenians. To put it in perspective the Armenians regard their occupation by the Soviet Union as more or less benign, Stalin and Communism were apparently less lethal to the average Armenian than a determined Turk so we are talking some hard backed persecution vets here. At any rate, for 12 hours on Thanksgiving they raise money in prodigious amounts for their homeland, paying for new roads and schools so the Russians and Turks will have new things to destroy next time they decide to go Genocidal.

All this Telethon talk has reminded me of the time I did an Amish Telethon. We had to go door to door but we raised eighty seven dollars and a barn.

You see the Amish don't have telephones or television, so they'd have to go next door to a Mennonite family that had those things to call in. I'll explain the Amish in a latter blog.

Good Bye Columbus

2008-11-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

As the Holiday Season draws to a close and by Holiday Season I mean the one between Halloween and Veteran's Day, my friends and I like to reflect on the various civil liberties and protections against unwarranted government intrusion that have fluttered down the old memory hole like a non-person being excised from history.

There is a curious universality to this, my right wing and lefty friends agree that secret government cadres are working against their particular political wing by compiling dossiers on their Internet porn preference and listening in on the politically dangerous telephone conversations they have with their Mom. I think this is a promising trend, it shows the government is using foresight and will be in a good position to help the right or left wing, which ever one wins, round up their Kulaks of choice.

The black helicopters, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, Illuminati, the Masons (either Pamela, James or Perry and possibly Mason Reese and Mason Williams) Tri-Lateral Commission and Skull and Bones are stipulated by both right and left wingers as bete noires of their personal liberty, although I must have missed the passage of The Personal Liberty and Freedom Act since I still have to pay taxes and I 'm still not allowed to shoot my neighbors. My Commie and Wingnut friends are never the less convinced that the above stated groups' purposes are diabolical, that their given public raison d'etre is duplicitous and they're really dedicated to taking away the same liberties and freedoms that the left and right wings are so fond of taking away from their opponents.

Somehow the Rockefellers and the Jews are at the center of this universe of conspiracy, either as creatures of the United States government or the United States government being a creature of theirs. Since the Rockefellers are sort of the Beverly Hillbillies of World Domination with Nelson or David in the Jed Role and Happy Fitler (The trampy Philadelphia girl Nelson married after he divorced Mary, although not as trampy as that Megan chick who was blowing him the night he died.) as Granny I'm thinking maybe they've been in charge all along although judging by some delicatessens I've been in, it takes a Jewish mind to master chaos.

I had very serious doubts that our Government would be able to take away very much in the way of personal liberties, the Patriot Act, the Library Snooping Enabling Act and the We Want to Know How Many Times You Downloaded "Opps I did it again" And Shared It With Your Cousin Act not with standing. So far they haven't they haven't been very good at taking away Personal Liberties even from Al Quiada (This is America damn it, a Q its followed by a U no matter what the stinkin' Arabs say.) of the five hundred we caught and released about 450 have turned up fighting us again in either Afghanistan or Iraqu.

I thought we had little to fear that our poor incompetent Liberal democracy would turn into the soul destroying oppressive nightmare depicted in Orwell's 1984 unless Americans suddenly became law abiding. (By the by, I did put on my INGSOC jumpsuit the morning of January 1, 1984, faced the Telescreen and participated in two minutes of very satisfying hate over the continued sabotage of Oceania's war effort by the followers of Emmanuel Goldstein, just in case.) I always figured lefties were better at that sort of thing, since the giants of their pantheon, like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and the guy in charge in China that had tanks run over all those students over in Tienanmen Square, are all giants because they are standing on mountains of dead Kulaks, the sine qua non of consensus left wing government.

But I would be wrong. Behold the new face of Big Brother, the nice lady in the lavender but business appropriate suit at the top. She's Helen Jones-Kelley and she just got thirty days of unpaid quiet time for peeping at Joe the Plumbers records with out a legitimate reason. She is head of Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services and like any good bureaucrat she was just exercising due diligence, investigating a private citizen that happened to ask Barack Obama a pointed question. She was particularly concerned that Samuel J. Wurzelbacher owed child support, received public assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes. Although Inspector General Tom Charles disagreed Ms Jones-Kelley denied her search of Joe the Plumber's records was politically motivated since she did the same thing to any Ohioan who happened to surface on national media. With past practices and precedents like that that guide her she dumped the whole weight of government on the poor dumb idealistic shmoo.

She's probably back at the state capital by now, investigating anyone she feels she has a good reason to investigate because she's a good person that wants to do the right thing. So she's busy doing the right thing and poking around in lives that have done nothing wrong except attract her attention letting the ends justify her means as she goes along.

I love Big Brother.

Res Politicata

2008-10-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

According to reports lately received in California some kind of election is occurring beyond the far horizon. It is apparently between an Octogenarian and an Octoroon, I don’t know what those words mean but since between them and their running mates they have eight legs they are an Octoped. That is not important right now.

Lately political discourse has left me with many of the same questions African Americans have after seeing a Lawrence Kasdan movie, specifically: “Why are all these rich spoiled crackers carrying on like that and what is it they are carrying on about?” I have no idea.

I recently wrote a lengthy satire on our two year long electoral process based on Richard Henry Dana’s immortal yarn about merchant seamen called Two Years before the Mast. It was called Two Years before the Election and was 85,000 words of brilliant narrative about a lad who signs on as a volunteer for a Chicago politician and two years later, after learning the ropes of election rigging, emerges as a master politician albeit a corrupt Under Secretary of Commerce presumptive.

Having never read the Dana book my work was ambitious on too many levels and was largely incomprehensible to those who read it. This effort was reminiscent of my attempts to popularize Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher and immortal author of "Fear and Trembling" in a sit-com. We got as far as the theme song, some jokes about the James Gang (William, Henry and Harry James, Harry wasn't much of an intellectual but he played a mean trumpet and was married to Betty Grable.) and a scene in the Long Branch public Library where Soren learns he can't take out "A Critique of Pure Reason" because some Hegelians have taken over the town. Fortunately my hard drive exploded before it was finished and I walked away with nothing to answer for although I now know how Lawrence Kasdan feels.

Of more concern are the propositions on California’s ballot which are as a rule in support of the trial lawyers full employment act. Usually they are about innocuous things like how much we should pay the state to dump asbestos and mercury in our back yards so the kitty cats will have a safe place to be wild but this year is different. A prop 8 seeks to prevent men from having a legally binding contract between them before they engage in anal or oral sex.

As much I enjoy watching men dress up in tulle before they can have sex and then watching them spend years in civil court trying to untangle a property settlement, which is, after all, what love is all about, I think Prop 8 is a terrible infringement on every man’s right to butt slam any anus that strikes your fancy.

I think that fostering marriage between men is a threat to other fundamental relationships. I am not talking about parenthood; we all know that issue, as in children, is impossible in these cases unless you’re a lesbian with a turkey baster and a male friend with romantic notions about turkey basters. No, I’m talking about the deepest attachment humans can have, the relationship between a captain and his helmsman.

Imagine my chagrin when I heard that a gay marriage ceremony and reception had torn apart the poorly maintained mask of civility between Kirk/Shatner and Sulu/ Takei. Will we will never again hear the words, “Set a course for Ipana 7, Mr. Sulu,” or the immortal response, “Aye, aye Captain!” Never again will we see Kirk and Sulu transporting down to investigate new life forms with Kirk investigating any attractive blue or green females and Zulu checking out the local bar scene to see if the men sing Karaoke and ejaculate in each others mouths. Of course Sulu is older, legally married and goes straight home after work so nothing like that could possibly happen now.

As we all know heterosexuals only engage in sex after getting legally wed, it’s the law you know, check it out its in all the literature. The marriage institution remains popular because quality masturbatory aids are so hard to find on the Internet, heterosexuals are compulsively law abiding and they enjoy the lengthy court proceedings that are required to extract themselves from wedded bliss.

Now I have many male friends and almost none of our activities involve showering and massaging each other, putting our penises in each others body or dressing up real smart and making snarky comments about whoever isn’t present. But I’d like to think that if ever that changed I wouldn’t have to go through the trouble and paperwork of marrying somebody just to smoke his dick. Vote yes on Prop 8 and keep government out of gay sex unless it involves Mark Foley, Larry Craig or Barney Frank. Do your homosexual friends a favor and keep gay sex freely available for the Priests, users of public restrooms and American Idol winners that enjoy it without the crushing burden of Government regulation.

Non, Je ne Regrette Rien

2008-09-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

The best and brightest of French engineering suffered a major set back in their race with the Mayans to end the world. The Mayans famously renowned for their prowess at pyramid construction, skill at ball games involving severed human heads and carving big impractical pocket calendars out of stone had predicted that the world, or at least this cycle of time, will end on December 21, 2012. The French gamely took up the challenge and constructed a machine that, at least some people think, could end world before the Mayan imposed deadline.

The Large Hadron Collider is a 27 kilometer (17 miles for those still using God's ordained system of measures) ring tunnel designed to let scientist observe the destruction of atomic particles by smashing them together at nearly the speed of light. In other words its exactly the same as the time you put all those firecrackers in your cousins model of the Forestall and blew it up by ramming a model of the Bismarck, similarly packed with explosives, into it except its in a big ring in France surrounded by super conducting magnets at or near absolute zero, operated by CERN an acronym no one has figured out yet, funded with billions of euros and you're not hiding it from Mom or are high as a kite from huffing the airplane glue fumes. One possible side benefit to the reams of information we will reap by having Frenchmen smash things is there is a minuscule chance, and by minuscule I mean a one in three chance, they will accidentally create a black hole that will swallow the world.

As one who thinks being perched on the event horizon with one eye on the singularity and the other on the rest of the universe red shifting away into infinity is the perfect metaphor for my life,

(shit, thats the way the universe appears to observers who assume we're in an expanding universe not being sucked into a collapsing black hole which would produce identical observations. Note to self: call CERN and see if anyone answers the phone.)

I love these little ambiguities, particularly when I'm being reassured by engineers from a country that produced the Renault.

Things were going swimmingly at CERN, they were running tests, everybody looked smart in their clean white lab coats and invitations to the end of the world gala had gone out when a power bus melted down and pooped the party. A power bus by the way is usually a charged bar or power supply that other devices get their power from, they are usually bars of copper or iron, how they melted one at absolute zero I can't say. At the very least we will have to wait till April to find out if the French have created something at least as lethal as their grooming habits and sexual practices.

Anyone can laugh at himself...

2008-09-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Ike beat up on Texas so bad they're changing it's name to Tina.

Richistan

2008-08-23T01:24:00.000-07:00

You have got to see this! I was listening to NPR (Don't flame me, I was only listening to learn the enemy's plans. And where do you think Rush gets all his material?)

At any rate I was listening to a show called Market Place, its supposed to be your superficial market round up show but they were discussing the recent brouhaha over how many houses McCain owned. They got around to pointing out that both McCain and Obama have done pretty well then brought up a book called Richistan by Robert Frank. Mr. Frank divides the rich into Upper Richistan (Over $100 million) and Lower Richistan (Over $10 million) anybody below $10 mega large is merely affluent.

As an example of some one living in Upper Richistan they offered Ed and Edwina Rogers. The Rogers are "Super Lobbyist" so I assume the made that large pile lobbying, if so maybe things are even more out of control in Washington than we all suspect. I'm sorry I can't be more snarky, Mrs. Rogers comes across as a pleasant, down to earth lady with just one tiny little quirk. She wraps gifts in money.

Not Republic of Tonga notes either, she uses American dollars, the old lucky buck, the diaper, the green back, add your own favorite nickname. She buys rolls of dollars from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and cuts them into the appropriate sized squares for whatever trinket she is wrapping.

I know its just paper, just paper backed by the full faith and credit of the United States and we all know what a joke that is! She made the money honestly, undermining the integrity of politicians so she can do with it as she pleases. I'm sure the Fed is happy to print more, so where's the beef?

A commentator on the Market Place was troubled by the piece:

Mr. Frank has wonderful credentials, with numerous awards to his credit and he is a well known expert in economics. Right? So he needs a second job as a political hack for the Left? How come?

Of course Mr. Frank wasn't involved in the video piece he just wrote a book about the rich but he's correct about Mrs Rogers' practice about using dollars to wrap stuff. If you ever needed an image to get people on the barricades this one fills the bill. If you ever needed a metaphor for a dysfunctional economy this is one to put next to the wheelbarrows full of Wiemar Republic notes the Germans had to push around to purchase bread or Marie Antoinette suggesting the sans culottes eat cake. We all know how Hitler and Robespierre used those metaphors and how that worked to the betterment of man.

At a time when people are losing homes, we are losing our manufacturing base and shipping billions to oil sheiks and rogue states for oil perhaps its time to be a little circumspect in the vulgar displays of wealth.

Ah who am I kidding. It's Thermidor! I'll see you on the barricades.

Rusty the reluctant reindeer

2008-08-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Rusty was a caribou, a species of deer that roams the frozen white expanse of the tundra steppes above the Arctic Circle in North America. Thanks to the extermination of their natural predators, wolves and the like, caribou now migrated across vast expanses of the far north with nothing to worry about except Eskimos, drunk Canadians on snowmobiles, Americans taking pot shots from helicopters and Australian nature show hosts working out their reptile fixation. Consequently encounters with non English speakers other than Inuits had generally been benign, leaving the younger untested members of the herd to suffer from or indulge in, depending on your point of view, a certain unrelieved naiveté as they munched on acre after acre of lichen and moss.

Caribou are not, as a rule, an ambitious species, beyond becoming the occasional hunter’s trophy or featured extra in a National Geographic Special, they aspire to be nothing more than the wandering ungulates they are by birth. By any estimate this should have been the golden age of the caribou; abundant pastures, no predators and a trend toward global warming that promised even more pastures. What more could a Caribou desire than a mouthful of moss and/or lichen, the prospect of more of the same, plus a bunch of other Caribou asses to follow all the while being left in peace by species that otherwise would be trying to make a meal of you.

This equation failed to take into account Rusty, a young Caribou, who while living in a Caribou paradise, wanted more. Rusty stood out in the herd. As an adolescent he was a troublesome Caribou even for a subordinate bachelor male Caribou. He acted out in the usual subordinate bachelor male manner, i.e.: challenging dominate males for breeding privileges, scent marking territories clearly not his own, smoking and drinking while being sullen and uncooperative. His elders were prone to accept this as normal adolescent behavior but Rusty insisted on taking it a step further and began hanging out at salt licks, leaving his antler velvet lying around, playing music and writing bad poetry.

It is of course our human nature to be tolerant, particularly of youthful artistic adventures. Isn’t the judgment of poetry ultimately subjective no matter how jejune? Aren’t opinions rarely germane across generational divides and after all might this not be the first effort of what might presage a Caribou Renaissance? All fearfully and frighteningly true but then consider this exemplar:

I have big antlers on my head,
They go from ear to ear,
And every time I go to bed
I know that I’m a deer.

Remember this was written in snow with urine. It’s enough to make any thinking critic reconsider his convictions about the length of Buck season. Even if the career of e.e.cummings hadn’t already made you reconsider your position on gun control or something by Edna St. Vincent Millet hasn’t inspired you to Aztecesque fantasies about ripping her still beating heart from her chest and devouring it in front of her dying eyes, insipid doggerel like Rusty’s could drive a reasonable person or literate caribou, of whom there are none, to violence.

The caldron of emotional magma that lurks under the thin basaltic surface crust of civility that governs relations amongst the literary elite ruptured with astonishing vehemence. An editor at Harpers had to be restrained from beating Rusty to a pulpy death with an annotated copy of “The White Goddess”. Had a Department of Fish and Game warden not chosen that moment to pitch an article on an imaginary revival of interest in the work of Robert W. Service, its unlikely Rusty would have survived. Rusty would have been a former Caribou.

A more easily discouraged even numbered-toed ungulate might have given up after being battered by a book that thick but not Rusty, he continued to bleat out his deepest, darkest, most secret thoughts and dreams in poetical verse much to the annoyance of all involved. Rusty decided musical accompaniment was what he needed to properly get his message across. His hooves precluded any virtuosity on stringed instruments and keyboards and the expectoration of cud hopelessly fouled the spit valve of any wind instrument he played, so he abandoned those haphazardly mastered instruments and took up the drums. He was soon an above average percussionist, as it required no musical talent. Still Rusty was a songwriter and at the urging of his band he, like Karen Carpenter before him, left a sandwich on the tom-tom and moved from behind the trap set to the microphone and center stage.

The tundra has been described, not frequently but often enough, as “Starved for Entertainment” so except for an occasional road company of Riverdance or other rhythmic Irish tap dance extravaganza Rusty didn’t have much competition. Soon he was playing at all the Caribou functions, the annual kick off the migration party and mixer, the annual Bucks-defending-their-harem-of-females-for-breeding-privileges Festival and of course the Halloween Dance. It was at the latter that Rusty heard the music that changed his life.

Rusty and the band, an accordion player from Banff named Pierre, were on a break when the DJ put on the seminal classic, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. It turned out that the plucky little French Canadian Pierre had lived among the Seminoles after being shunned by his more fastidious people for consorting with caribou and had learning the Creek dialect spoken by the Floridians. He was able to translate the song, originally written hundreds of years before by Cherokee sachem and alphabet inventor Sequoia and then popularized by sportsman and baritone Gene Autry.

The song spoke volumes to Rusty. The classic tale of a young reindeer finding his heroic destiny as the pilot, captain and first among equals in an intrepid band of Reindeer as they magically transported their jolly old elf on his appointed rounds captivated Rusty. He listened to it endlessly, as it was exactly what he wanted to do.

Rudolf’s condition prior to finding his calling was particularly evocative to young Rusty who identified with his outsider status and isolation. He too had been laughed at and called names, he too had been excluded from games, Caribou games in his case not reindeer games but still he thought the parallels were uncanny. The final proof to cross his well antlered if dim little mind was that he, Rusty, shared a first initial with Rudolf.

Rusty accepted the story at face value having little in the way of education. Caribou are rarely well schooled being migratory cervidae with no fixed habitations, literature or language, at best they are as literate as an L.A Unified School District graduate. Rusty had no idea what Christmas was, who this Santa character was, where he might be located beyond a general “North Pole” address and how to get in touch with him. He also conveniently forgot that he was lacking in three key assets that Rudolf possessed: A bright red nose, the ability to fly and that he was, after all, a Caribou and not a reindeer.

He was munching on lichens growing on a mountain of Joseph Campbell literature dumped there by an unscrupulous publishing baron when he had his epiphany. He was fairly certain that Santa was not located on the migratory route of his herd. He would have to search further a field than he’d previously thought if he wanted to pursue his dream. He would be alone for the first time, a risky venture for him or any other herd animal that relied on numbers for protection. Finally he decided that his life as a Caribou would be blighted if he didn’t at least try to locate Kris Kringle and the indomitable band of reindeer he hoped to call brothers.

He decided to go to Paris.

He stowed away on a tramp steamer called The Harbor Queen sailing from Halifax and headed to Europe. This is no small feat for a four legged, antlered, 300-pound artiodactyla and speaks volumes about the quality of the intoxicants being used by the merchant marine even if the ship was laden with a cargo of fine quality hat racks destined for the best hat rack emporiums of the continent. After about the third day at sea the crew changed from their street clothes into their “boating outfits” and Rusty found out why it was called a tramp steamer. Shortly thereafter he was discovered hiding in a cargo hold and brought before the skipper, a man who went by the nom de mer: Captain Scabbard.

The captain was furious to discover Rusty had stowed away and vowed to make him work his way across the Atlantic. After being dressed like an English schoolboy and thoroughly caned, Rusty learned that there was more to being a sailor than just working on a ship. After a solid couple of hours of “heave hoing”, and “yo ho hoing”, the afternoons amounted to pretty much straight “hoing” and then there were the preparations for the evening galas and musicales the crew threw every night before raffling off the privilege of tucking in the cabin boy. Rusty soon got into the swing of things aboard the Queen; it was, after all, rutting season, and soon he became popular with the captain and crew in a way only a Caribou can be popular with sailors.

The men of the Queen filled Rusty in on a number of details that weren’t covered in the song and they put a face on Santa, not to mention Dancer, Prancer, Donder, et.al. They told him about the forgotten Reindeer, Chet and Dave imprisoned in the nineties for money laundering, of Santa’s associate Major Hummel that handled elf interrogation and Ingrid Clause, Santa’s evil twin sister, she bitch of Arctic. They told him Santa lived in the far north of Scandinavia and that a people called the Sámi or Laps kept reindeer and supplied Santa with replacements whenever Vixen and Dasher were laid out by Peppermint Schnapps or whatever gorge turning alcoholic concoction they drank to forget their drab tepid lives. He should ask for Sven if he ever got there because he was in their words, “Personally working the pimp hand, for the Reindeer hook up.” What ever that meant.

With his new knowledge Rusty was more determined than ever to get to the North Pole and immediately jumped ship under the misapprehension he was in Helsinki while in fact they were tethered to a Sunoco Refinery in Marcus Hook, near Chester Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before Rusty discovered that the natives had only rudimentary knowledge of Finno-Ugric languages and so after soaking up the atmosphere in that exotic port he tried to sneak back aboard the Harbor Queen. Unfortunately his souvenir trinkets and keepsakes short-circuited and began to buzz and vibrate madly, making a frightful racket.

Captain Scabbard was again furious and only partly mollified by the gift of an afghan hand knit by the happy Keystone State inhabitants or the hand massager cunningly shaped to get to all those hard to reach places and insisted that Rusty appear in the crew’s home movies, even though by doing so Rusty would have to forgo any chance of national political office.

A much more mature and sophisticated Rusty arrived in Helsinki some time later. The movies had been stolen and released by a mail order company and although Rusty sued the royalties barely covered his legal expenses. His manager had absconded with the rest leaving Rusty with only the income from the web site, his clothing line, his book and the movie deals.

A worldly-wise Rusty stepped onto the quay and turned his face into the biting wind from the north. Instinctively he knew his way; he strode confidently forward. The quest for his identity and destiny was about to begin and all because, in all his travels, in all his meetings, no one had ever told him there was no such thing as Santa Clause. He hitchhiked north; no mean feat for a thumb less four-legged animal on a strange continent. He thought of the life he had left behind; the migrations, the lichen, his band, Pierre, and wondered what would become of him.

Eventually a sympathetic French truck driver, coincidentally also named Pierre, hauling little tiny cheese balls with a laughing cow on the logo to the snack cheese starved far north, stopped and picked him up. He promised to take young Rusty with him in exchange his company and some cruel but inventive sexual favors. Rusty readily agreed having dealt with the tastes of Frenchmen before and explained the nature of his quest while pulling on the tawdry, ill fitting stockings and garter belt Pierre provided.

Pierre had never heard of any Scandinavians named Sven but after taking a long drawl on his Gauloise he remembered a Sámi named Irv who might agree to take him into his herd. It was a start, thought Rusty, still as clueless as the day he started about the mythological nature of Santa Clause and likely to stay that way if he relied on Pierre to smarten him up. In his fools paradise he thought perhaps he could pay his dues in another Reindeer herd and graduate to the majors later. At least it would get him away from Pierre, he could deal with the sex but his breath would knock a buzzard off a shit house.

Rusty was frantic with anticipation when Pierre turned his Semi off the highway and into the little town of Hemet Finland. Pierre got out of his truck and exchanged blows with a lanky local fellow. As disturbing as that image is to the impressionable, it was different than it sounds, and uglier. Apparently this was Irv, and Pierre had actually run into him with the truck, that’s right he hit a Sámi with a semi and every time they had met since they engaged in fisticuffs dancing around each other until one is beaten nearly senseless.

Irv, who appeared a bit fragile for a Sámi, seemed to get the worst of the “Lap Dance” and after some shouting, gesturing and intimidation by Pierre, reluctantly agreed to take Rusty into his herd. Rusty took it as a good sign that not just anyone got to run with the reindeer. Irv’s point of view was somewhat different; a deer in stockings and garters, accompanied by a Frenchman, particularly at this time of year, was somehow tainted in the simple folk wisdom of his people and probably should be handled with rubber gloves and a full haz-mat suit.

Never the less Pierre had prevailed so he showed Rusty to his stall or biohazard isolation ward as they called it in his quaint native Patois. After a lengthy quarantine, purges, emetics and a battery of blood test that came back negative Rusty was put on a rich and nutritious diet of oats and hay. Rusty was famished and was too busy eating to try to explain to the none caribou conversant Irv that if he ate like this for long he’d be too overweight to guide Santa’s Sleigh some foggy Christmas Eve. He didn’t even notice when Irv secured his feet to the floor. He paused when Irv cinched a good leather strap around his genitalia but having spent time with Pierre he assumed nothing could surprise him. He barely felt the razor sharp edge of the gelding knife as Irv drew it across his testicles.

Afterwards Rusty lost all interest in poetry and becoming one of Santa’s Reindeer; he just ate and ate. Soon he was plump enough to provide Irv’s family several hearty and nutritious meals. As Joseph Campbell observed: “Follow your Glee.”

A Landmark for PODM

2008-07-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

Its been a great ride at Products of a diseased mind, since 1957 we have provided fiction and commentary that nobody noticed, nobody wanted and nobody read. We are proud of our record of over fifty years on the Internet without a single comment and pledge to continue putting out more of the same uncalled for postings that no one is clamoring for on the web.

A modest proposal

2008-07-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

Recently, and by recently I mean something that I still remember that happened in the past, The Supreme Court or SCOTUS as no one calls it, issued a landmark decision on a Washington D.C. law banning handguns. It found the D.C. law unconstitutional based on the second amendment. The amendment reads as follows: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

After much comment by the POTUS (President of the United States), SOTUS (Senate of the United States), HOROTUS (House of Representatives of the United States) the various factions resumed the name calling and bull shit slinging necessary to keep the game going, namely the future employment of anti-gun nuts. No one in their right mind believes that criminals are going to obey any gun law, any more than illegal aliens are going to start obeying border and immigration regulations when tempting, lucrative fruit harvesting and house keeping jobs are available. Unless of course we can convince both groups to become elected politicians at which point obeying the law becomes optional.

In an effort to stop the madness I have a modest proposal. Below are a few alternate amendments that I hope will spark a national debate equal in depth and wisdom that the Second Amendment debate has generated.

A healthy, hearty breakfast, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to make and eat pancakes, shall not be infringed.

Style, affordability and comfort, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to buy quality foot wear shall not be infringed.

Lethargy, sloth and ennui, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to watch c-span’s coverage of the House of Representatives shall not be infringed.

Lethargy, sloth and ennui, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to watch The Golf Channel shall not be infringed.

Absorbency, thrift and quality, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to purchase ShamWOWs from Finch on late night TV shall not be infringed.

A vigorous, abundant sex life being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the middle aged men to sing about the wonders of erectile dysfunction remedies shall not be infringed.

Geeks, freaks and tattooed ladies being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the women to drink and smoke during pregnancy, shall not be infringed.

Lion tamers being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to have whips, wear jodhpurs and protect themselves with chairs, shall not be infringed.

Baseball, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to not see accounts, rebroadcasts or recreations of a ball game with out the express written consent of the commissioner of baseball, shall not be infringed.

Monkeys, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep the filthy things in cages shall not be infringed.

Roadside attractions, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to collect string shall not be infringed.

Professional wrestling, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to watch fat guys in Speedos fighting masked Mexicans with folding chairs shall not be infringed.

Lawn furniture, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to furnish their patio shall not be infringed.

Fringed buckskin jackets, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to have fringe on them shall not be infringed.

Low hanging fruit

2008-07-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

I apologize for following up a rant about the town all the surviving kids from The Lord of the Flies moved to with another rant ripped from the headlines but this was hard to resist. The brilliant comedian Jay Leno called politics show business for ugly people and apparently the military, at least the top brass, has become a category of show business for people of another sort as well.

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

Don't ask and don't tell anybody General but I have some fabulous swatches and color samples you should see. What course at the academy covers this?

Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.

Who do these guys think they are, congressmen?

The internal Air Force e-mails, provided to The Washington Post by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit Washington group, and independently authenticated, make it clear that lower-ranking officers involved in the project have been pressured to create what one described as "world class" accommodations exceeding the standards of a regular business-class flight.

"I was asked by Gen. [Robert H.] McMahon what it would take to make the [capsule] . . . a 'world class' piece of equipment," an officer at the service's Air Mobility Command said in a March 2007 e-mail to a colleague, referring to the mobility command's top officer then. "He said he wanted an assurance . . . that we would be getting a world class item this week."

I can't wait to see how they've tricked out their Humvees when they tool up to the red, white and blue carpet at the Military Awards Dinner to pick up their Patsy. The Patsy, short for Patriot, is the award given to the best military procurement officer every year. It is a gold statue of a naked taxpayer covering ambiguous genitalia with an empty wallet.

Maybe we could drop a few of these comfort capsules on insurgents, preferably with the Brass strapped in and see what effect that has on morale. Its good to see the Pentagon has gotten the word about fiscal responsibility and stopped buying those $500 dollar hammers and toilet seats.

curiosities

2008-07-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Dean Swift

I came upon this interesting tidbit here and thought it bore reviewing, it is quoted at length below. I have removed some extraneous clap trap about the national issue of homelessness by the estimable Michael Stoops, with my apologies, as it was not germane to the point I am making.

BOLINAS, Calif. — Ricky Green wandered into this town some months ago, a stranger just a bit stranger than most. He had shed his middle-class respectability — a job as a graphic artist in the 'burbs — strapped a guitar over his shoulder and landed here on what he told people was "a spiritual journey."

Bolinas seemed like a good fit. The unincorporated town of 1,600 on the Pacific coast is Marin County's most blatant throwback to the Summer of Love, a hippie haven that is bent on stopping tourists from spoiling its laid-back groove.

The 33-year-old Green, prone to age of Aquarius-speak about the moon and the stars, already looked sort of like a local.

As one resident, Bill Boman, put it, "He had this Jimi Hendrix vibe."

But Green never quite meshed with the Bolinas social fabric. The night of June 23 proved how much he remained an outsider, in a liberal enclave stubbornly averse to strangers.

Six young people — including two juveniles — allegedly attacked and stabbed Green with a viciousness that is forcing Bolinas to search its soul for meaning.

"I'm not surprised that an incident like this happened in Bolinas," said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. "We have found that these kinds of incidences happen everywhere. There was an incident just last month in Cleveland. It's no longer a big city thing."

"Why are these attacks happening?" Stoops said. "The main reason is that you can't go anywhere in society without coming across homeless folks. And there is this antipathy or scorn towards them."

Detectives are still investigating the Bolinas attack. But by all accounts, Green confronted a group of young people that had been drinking. He was angry about an altercation another homeless man had the day before with some youths.

Apparently he pointed out some contradictions in their anarcho/syndicalist position, vis a vis the homeless.

The attack happened on the beach. Green was stabbed multiple times and pummeled with a skateboard, flashlight and bottles. While he was down, the mob kicked and jumped on him.

Sheriff's investigators said up to 20 witnesses watched the beating, but no one stopped it.

Apparently a committee of locals observed the action and collectively decided that Mr Green's opinions were deviant enough to warrant intervention and re-education.

Green, found semiconscious and bleeding profusely, was airlifted to a hospital in Santa Rosa, 50 miles away. He spent nearly two weeks there recovering from lacerations to the head and body.

Five people have been charged with attempted murder.

Things were going fine until representatives of the capitalist insect showed up.

In Bolinas, where everyone knows, or knows of, the victim and the suspects, the attack is raising hard questions. Bolinas wears its xenophobia proudly. For decades, a group known as the Bolinas Border Patrol has torn down all signs pointing the way to the enclave from Highway One. But now, some wonder whether Bolinas' inbred hostility to outsiders exploded the night of Green's attack.

Others are pondering whether the attack means that Bolinas, despite its barefoot youth, loose-roaming dogs and pony tailed, tie-dyed 60-year-olds, is more like the rest of society than it wanted to admit.

That thought is especially jarring. Bolinas fancies itself special. The town keeps a "free box" outside the natural foods store for anyone to donate or pick up clothes or household items. A few years ago, it passed a ballot measure officially declaring itself "a socially acknowledged, nature-loving town" that likes blueberries, bears and skunks. The town saloon has the word "peace" outside, written in seashells.

Can't we all just get along with people we agree with? Why can't a a bunch of pious self righteous liberals be allowed to segregate them selves? How do you expect us to live in peace and harmony with all mankind if we can't lynch the occasional intruder? What good are human rights and tolerance if you can't beat the crap out of an outsider?

"I knew of Bolinas as a peaceful place," said Boman, a musician who moved to Bolinas several weeks ago. "What has happened to the children of the revolution?"

Almost no one else approached for this story wanted to talk, be quoted or have their name used.

Still in shock, Bolinas is trying to understand what happened and make amends. Anguished town meetings are taking place, with discussions focused on finding solutions to disaffected youth.

But there are some hard feelings for Green here, too.

Derek James, a bartender at Smiley's saloon, approached a reporter to say Green had been causing trouble in town for months. He had been barred from Smiley's for harassing people, James said.

"He was getting into people's business," he said. "I really felt like something was going to happen."

You may not agree with what I say but I'll defend to the death your right to a damn good thrashing until you do. You don't change a man's opinion by silencing him but a smart man shuts up after a thorough beating. How could anyone disagree with that? As Achilles said in an interview with People Magazine: "Its better to serve on earth than rule in Hades."

The other day, fresh out of the hospital, Green was spotted back in town. (He proved elusive, always a step ahead of visitors trying to find him. The Associated Press was unable to reach him.)

Many were relieved to see him back on his beat. But James could not believe the news.

"I know a lot of people in this community," he said, "are not really happy to see him back."

I am always delighted to receive lectures on morality from perfect little people in their perfect little towns, where tolerance is increased by distance. Like fleas, they rely on a host society for their substance and life yet resent sharing it with anyone they deem not their type. I guess the parasites have gotten fed up with their parasites, good luck Mr. Green.

You Might Be a Talaban,If...

2008-07-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

Against my better judgment I’m publishing this post my brother says he took from a military newsletter although it might be from Jeff Foxworthy’s latest album. My Bro was one of the brave men and women defending our country from migratory whales under terrible conditions at Point Magu . He learned just enough in boot camp to kill me quickly but painfully if I got fresh.

He has promised to stop embarrassing the family by appearing in Hair Club for Men commercials if I published it which sold me. Of course I have nothing but the highest respect for Islam and any other religion that keeps women in bags, I intend to study it as soon as I get tired living in the 21st Century. So for the three or four of you that haven't seen this yet, and if you're reading this blog you don't get around much so its probably new to you, here goes.

You Might Be a Taliban, If...

1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.
2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes.
3. You have more wives than teeth.
4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon “unclean.”
5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.
6. You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against.
7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.
8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.
9. You've ever uttered the phrase, “I love what you've done with your cave.
10. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least one.

A Cautionary Tale

2008-07-10T02:26:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a famous school for baking in the City of Venice. Although graced with stunning architecture, enhanced by the clever window treatment the Venetians invented called blinds, and located on a stunningly beautiful lagoon the Venetians were never the less a restless bunch that sought adventure and new experiences especially in the epicurean sphere. The head instructor was famous for sending out master bakers who's culinary master pieces delighted the Venetians. But the bakery business is more than just dough and yeast, you are only as good as your last pie crust and the baking teacher was desperate for something new to tickle their jaded palates.

He sent a young apprentice abroad and when he was done with her he was told to roam the fair cities of Verona, Cremona, Parma, Mantua, Padua, and other places in Italy Cole Porter didn’t mention, looking for the tastiest confections.

After squandering his master’s money in the flesh pots of Rome he was eventually summoned home so he picked up a few things at a Pepperidge Farm store and started back. It was a long trip and the lad got hungry, one by one the bags of cookies and pastries disappeared. As he approached the outskirts of the water sodden city a committee of local luminaries greeted him with much fan fare. The Doge himself greeted the apprentice and congratulated him for his long hard journey. The lad gave the venerable old man his last bag of Florentine Pogens and went to see his teacher.

The baker, seeing he was empty handed asked what he had to show for his efforts. The young man replied: “I am sorry teacher, The Doge ate my homework.”

The people of Venice rioted and caught The Doge, Pietro IV Candiano knocking back the last of the tasty morsels. Furious, they locked him in the palace with his son and burned it to the ground.

Anybody can Blog

2008-07-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve been away from my blog for about six months because I couldn’t think of anything that could make the political process we’ve just been through any funnier. I spent the time going door to door for Hillary Clinton explaining that Barak Obama was an African American. A lot of people didn’t know that.

My reader has been clamoring for new stuff, so I guess its time to clean up the desk: They changed the name of the seventh planet because nobody could say Uranus without snickering, its now called Urectum.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Last minute gift ideas from your friends at PODM

2007-12-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

Motor Oil: Everyone has a car and the lines are short at auto supply stores this time of year. A colorfully wrapped case of 10 w 40 has a pleasing heft and you can’t beat the look on their faces when they unwrap it.

Live Bait: Again the short lines are appealing and it’s convenient for friends that live near a pier. Make sure it’s thoroughly iced and water proof wrapping is recommended for this sure fire holiday pleaser, everyone loves to fish on Christmas Day just ask Scott Peterson.

Fire Arms: Hand guns preferred but long arms will do. Don’t bother wrapping, just put it in a brown paper bag and pass it to your friend outside a convenience store and see what happens. It’s a gift! It’s a gift card that never runs out of cash and works all year long!

Linesman Spikes: Ever want to see the view from the top of a telephone pole? No problem, just don’t touch the high voltage.

Fire Extinguishers: These abundant, free and handy devices are available in public buildings, hospitals and schools; anywhere liability insurance and local regulation require them. Slip one under the coat after midnight mass and you’ve got something for that forgotten somebody on your list. They are especially appreciated under trees where the low priced, Chinese manufactured, string lights arc and the tree goes up in a festive holiday conflagration.

Recently, from our overseas corrispondent:

2007-12-08T04:20:00.000-08:00

A fresh look at an old topic.

Child Custody Landmark Case
12/04/07
Philadelphia (AP) -
A seven-year-old boy was at the center
of a Philadelphia PA courtroom drama today when he
challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of
him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the
judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with
child custody law and regulations requiring that family
unity be maintained to the degree possible. The boy
surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat
him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live
with her.

When the judge then suggested that he live with his
grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.
After considering the remainder of the immediate family and
learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life
among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of
allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with
child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody
to the Philadelphia Eagles, whom the boy firmly believes are
not capable of beating anyone.

Look Out For Zombies!

2007-12-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

A special report on The Armstrong County Zombie Out Break, by the style editor of the Kittaning Herald:

It was just your standard Zombie outbreak in Armstrong County until the government got involved. That spring brought rebirth, the fresh young buds, the new grass in the fields and the reanimated hands of the long dead, poking their way up through the earth, clawing their way to the air, relieving themselves of the restraints of the tomb and going for a hellish gambol amongst the living. The eternal care plots were particularly hard hit this year leading some folks to doubt the wisdom of the extra chemicals applied to those burials.

By ones and twos the Zombies started reviving and pretty soon a goodly percentage of the residents of The Happy Valley Cemetery were out of their crypts, back on their feet and looking for live human brains to eat. Now brain eating ghouls might seem a bit disconcerting anywhere else but they are an old story around Armstrong County. The folks from Brick Church to Kittanning know the drill: If confronted by anyone known to be departed, take your deer rifle or other large caliber weapon and bust a cap in its head and drag the recently resurrected carcass of the dearly departed to the nearest bonfire.

Zombie snuffing a popular Western Pennsylvania tradition:

Until the fuss started, Zombie snuffing was something a father and a son might enjoy, stalking and bringing down the undead as they shambled about in the crisp morning air. Zombies walk real slow and are kind of guileless so even a youngster could pick off a goodly number provided the ammo you selected had the proper heft and penetrating power. The kids might be tuckered after a day in the tree stand plinking the undead but come deer season they'll be ready, willing and raring to go after real game.

The one thing about Zombies you have to remember is Zombies swarm and are attracted to loud noises like shooting, you can knock‘em off all day long provided you don’t take too long reloading or run out of ammo. You capture the attention of enough of them though and they’ll surround you, swarm you and eat your brains. While having your brains eaten might seem unpleasant enough, the aftermath is plain diabolical, the Zombie turns others into their undead type by their bite.

After lying as dead as God intended a person to lie after having their gray matter devoured, the poor soul re-animates and becomes just like them, an undead fiend stalking the innocent until someone hunts him down and sees that the soulless cannibalistic Zombie is devoured in the cleansing flame of a county sponsored bonfire or alternatively put through a wood chipper and reduced to a harmless pulp. Death is the sobering fate that awaits the wretched victims of a Zombie bite no matter how superficial. Despite the efforts of science and the claims of tonics and specifics in the back every gun magazine no medicine has ever been shown to avert the progression of this terrible ailment. Although, one man down in Overmeyer Valley claimed he was bit and recovered thanks to a bread poultice soaked in equal parts kerosene, Raleigh’s Ointment and Epsom salts. His family claims he is doing fine now, excepting he drinks paint.

Zombies, smarter than expected and slow of foot but still brain hungry, shooting seems best:

Folks down state always think Zombies are stupid but it isn’t so, they can talk and do mechanical things depending on what parts had moldered away. A ghoul whose hand has fallen off isn’t likely to sit down and play the piano but he might be able to swing an ax with his good one, to some purpose I might add. Some could still remember little bits of when they were alive and could be proper cunning, even deceitful. A percentage were definitely brighter than Vo-tech graduates, the tragedy being they couldn’t control themselves. Folks said it was a shame because they could have had useful productive deaths if they weren’t just so single minded and easily distracted, especially by fresh brains.

A hot meal of living brains was pretty much all they were interested in and much time and effort has been wasted on the question of what it was about human brain tissue that made it so damned irresistible to Zombies. Cow and sheep brains were just as repulsive to Zombies as they were to any living person out side of France. The brains of other deceased people were of even less interest, which only makes sense considering they wouldn’t be able to congregate and prey upon the living if they were simultaneously devouring each other.

The ones we were able to question said the taste of brains made the pain of rotting go away. It was a pathetic situation really but as much as we could sympathize we weren’t about to join their hellish carnival by giving up our brains to satisfy their cravings. Likewise the Zombies continued their fiendish slathering, chanting “brains, brains, brains” endlessly, ignoring our questions and refusing to understand our reluctance to part with our gray matter. Try as we might, there was no reasoning with them when they had a taste for brains, which was frequent, so instead of wasting the time we just shoot them.

Zombie disposal, an unexpected dilemma:

Originally we tried putting them back into their old graves but they had no attachment to their previous resting place and soon resumed their brain hunger driven ramblings. Eventually they were rounded up and soon every lock-up, livestock pen and silo in the county was filled with homicidal re-animated corpses. They tried tossing the writhing mass into a deep trench and re-burying them but most of them were out and about in no time. Drowning them didn’t work because the folks down river complained it made the drinking water taste funny and Zombies don’t breathe so if they remembered to keep walking up hill eventually they’d emerge from their watery abyss soaked, angry and more brain hungry than ever. Herding them into worked out coal mines and dynamiting the opening was popular until the price of coal went up and they started working adjacent pits. Zombies are persistent tunnelers and more than a few miners got an unpleasant surprise digging away in an abandoned pit. Finally anti-Zombie efforts returned to its roots as a more or less, one on one, man versus ghoul affair followed by a festive bonfire of unholy corpses.

Folks in Kittanning got pretty good about rounding up the annual crop of the rogue ghouls. Abandoned houses with interracial couples holed up inside were the likely places to find them congregated. They’d corner their victims and shortly begin their unholy banging on the walls outside. It's amazing how they can recall that people lived and sheltered in houses but forget what a doorknob is for. Even so the outlook for the living folks trapped inside is pretty grim unless somebody notified the proper authorities. Then the Zombie alert siren would sound down at the firehouse, the men would fetch their weapons and the women would fix sandwiches. Everybody’d muster at the Armstrong County Courthouse and pretty soon the deer stands would go up and everybody would be in their favorite trees popping off trophy-sized zombies all day long.

Now trophy is just a figure of speech, it wasn’t like a deer you were killing and putting the head up in your den. The Zombie you're killing had previously been somebody's beloved old granddaddy before becoming a horrible ghoul so you had to be respectful. Besides most were too far-gone and rotten to go up in a rec-room after they come back from the dead. Also they let out a stink that would knock a buzzard off the shit house and once it was on you the stench was nearly impossible to get out your clothes. It's hard enough to get that smell out of your memory without being reminded of it by a grinning souvenir hanging over the fire place that’s giving you a refresher whiff every time you sit down to watch a game.

Society blamed for undead problem getting out of hand:

I blame society for the hunt getting out of hand. And the liquor. Hunting is hunting and nobody blames the sportsman for taking a nip to steady his hand after sighting a twelve point buck. It didn’t occur to anyone that discretionary imbibing would be a problem but that just goes to show how wrong you can be. Admittedly, some of the men liked to drink too much, and usually got into trouble even during doe season, but where the authorities faltered was, they’d forgot this wasn’t a regulated hunt. Nobody alerted the fish and game department, and as there wasn’t a Zombie Season per se, no Zombie wardens would be coming around to confiscate liquor and making sure folks weren't too lit up to hunt.

It started when the VFW had a contest, all the hunters paid an entry fee and who ever bagged the most undead got a prize. They wanted to put wheel chair ramps in down at the hall so the disabled could to enjoy a Sunday cordial or aperitif, Armstrong County still having the Blue Laws and such, so it was for a good cause. Still some folks didn’t understand that it was in the nature of a charity they were shooting for and got competitive and rowdy. Some ugly accusations were made about some bodies in the count not being technically Zombies when they were taken and there were arguments as to whether a complete Zombie body counted more than a partially dis-assembled one. Some of the boys had just loped off the heads as they drove by and thrown them in the back of their pick up trucks. Of course that just pissed people off as the headless corpses were now wandering around the county, knocking over corn ricks and scaring the dogs and children.

Things got nasty and soon the veterans and the hunters were down rolling in the dust and making a racket, which of course attracted the Zombies and they got pulled into the melee too. Pretty soon Zombies were biting veterans and veterans were biting them back. Since many of the veterans were in states of decay resembling that of the Zombies the hunters didn’t know who to bite. It was an unholy mess but the sheriff kept his wits about him and got the National Guard to turn a flamethrower on the Zombies then run over the smoking remains with their big water truck. Things quieted down after the Zombies got cooked but the Sheriff still had to put down a couple of people on account of they might have been bitten by Zombies.

A clarion call across the republic or fire bell in the night: The Zombie outbreak; a quiet before the storm awakens the sleeping giant of Democracy:

Any way some visiting city people video taped the fracas and the station in Erie ran it although folks in Baltimore told me they saw it too. It caused uproar. Somebody famous out in Hollywood raised a stink because he came from Orchard Run and he might have seen a relative get incinerated on the tape. He was more irate than you’d expect considering the respect the citizens of Armstrong County had shown dealing with his long deceased relative, who had after all returned from his final resting place and became an acknowledged threat to the public health and safety. We treat all the Zombies just like they were our own kin, we might have some innocent fun with the friskier ones but that’s only to be expected, they all get a bullet in the cranium and a decent burning just as soon as we track them down. It turned out the Hollywood fellow was promoting a similarly themed movie.

At any rate he, Mr. Hollywood, has prevailed upon Mr. Tom Hayden, the well known communist from Pittsburgh but lately Democratic Politician of Hollywood, to do something about it. Tom figures there’s publicity in it and seeing how everybody’s forgotten about him being Mr. Jane Fonda, he figures to profit from the turmoil. He pulls some strings and soon got an investigation going which of course woke up everybody in the state capital.

Harrisburg took one look at this and realized that it’s a bunch of Communists trouble makers from New York or Philadelphia, undoubtedly with ties to the Democratic Political machine, making all the noise. The investigators’ cars were all impounded for non-payment of the Out of State Investigator Tax and towed to New Jersey. The investigators were then given twenty four hours to get out of state, a neat trick from Kittanning on foot. They were last seen on a Butler Coach Company bus junket headed towards Las Vegas; it was the first thing out of town.

The Lieutenant Governor sent a carload of Statees from the Butler State Police Barracks to investigate the investigators and by the end of the week things were quiet and the entire ruckus was a faint memory except for some broken bones and a sucking chest wound or two. Folks were pleased when the Statees carted away some bikers, beat up some Negroes, and even got the local kids to stop loitering around the Videomall but meanwhile we got the Zombies everywhere with more coming out of the ground everyday and nobody was culling the herd. The Statees killed a fair number of Zombies and normal people during their day to day function of keeping the peace, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep them from over running Apollo and Connellsville.

The Statees weren’t much interested per se in the Zombies, unless they exhibited Communistic or terroristic tendencies. They rounded up a handful of Zombies they mistook for French Tourists because they were wearing hats but after interrogating them, they released them. However, even that little bit of attention seemed to have a salutary effect on those Zombies which were last seen clawing their way back into their graves apparently to avoid any more questioning by the State Police.

Praiseworthy as the effort was, there were just too many Zombies and too few Statees and more of the former popping up each day. People were divided as to whether the Statees on balance were a net positive or negative regarding the Zombies. Granted they had got rid of a fair number but likewise created a similar amount on account of what they called “normal wastage”, by which they meant the soon-to-be-Zombies, the bonus deceased people they killed in the course of maintaining order.

Most folks were just getting plain impatient and were anxious to get back to the job of snuffing Zombies. There was little hope in that regard while the Statees were eyeing everybody with a gun with suspicion. It got so that totting a shooting iron and giving a little bit back talk would earn you a five-dollar beating and a month in the county lock up. The abundance of Zombies clambering out of the ground caused a lot of grumbling but we came to rue our discontent considering the the whirlwind that followed after we pressed our petty grievances, as it says in the good book, nothing harvests the media like the wind of discord.

The media reaction to Zombiegate: Circus or Firestorm?

Brick Church and Armstrong County were taking a beating from the national liberal press on account of the cable news outlets had picked up the video tape of the First Annual Creek Side Park Zombie Shoot and Potluck Dinner disaster. FOX News called us boobs because we’re all a bunch of dumb ass crackers and need a guy like that Giuliani fellow, to deal with Zombies or as they were calling them, internment challenged Americans.

News crews started following the Zombies to see how they were being treated and decided right off that they were being abused, which spawned outrage in an uninformed nation. The stories continued to pour out until a reporter drew too near, got bit, and turned into a Zombie. Poor Geraldo thought that the Beretta he got in Afghanistan would protect him from Zombie attacks. As Geraldo learned, while he was blazing away at the swarm of lifeless evil dead that buried him and consumed his struggling, writhing body, volume of fire is a fools paradise, you could empty a nine-millimeter clip into a Zombie’s head with out ever coming near his poor old desiccated brain. With Zombies you need stopping power, something big enough to make the head fly apart.

I give Geraldo credit though; he continued to report on the state of what he called the Zombie Nation, live during the Bill O’Reilly Show. He would frequently do his stand up while eating the brains of the interns dispatched by FOX to deliver tapes, per diem checks, plates of Deli food or what ever the folks in New York felt they needed out in the sticks. Geraldo came to believe he was the Zombie king as what was left of his parietal lobes decayed and he departed more and more from this reality. Oddly enough even as he grew madder, he was still able to control his subjects by the sheer force of his terrible will. It didn’t hurt his ratings either; his reports made a big impression and galvanized a nation to action. The response was immediate.

Pretty soon everybody on TV was yelling at one another like they did when Clinton was president. They’re arguing about how the dead are people too and they have rights even though the Declaration of Independence said Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness which being dead kind of nullified. The constitution didn’t say anything about being alive to have rights so all the lawyers and pundits were having a high old time in that legal playground.

Some other TV reporters persisted in trying to talk to the Zombies despite Geraldo’s fate and devised clever blinds and ploys to deceive and protect themselves from the Zombies. Geraldo had taught his Zombie subjects well, they would listen politely for a while but when they surrounded the reporter, they’d eat their meager brains. The producer, cameraman and crew were converted into compliant slaves for Geraldo’s hideous necrophiliac desires, afterwards they were forced worship Geraldo in ghastly cannibalistic rituals until they were ceremonially sacrificed and eaten. It made for great television.

Some people in the Media believed that Geraldo may have exceeded the boundaries of journalistic integrity and he was questioned about it on The Factor. He got so upset at Bill O‘Reilly’s line of questioning that he ate Ann Coulter, who was only there because of her well known resemblance to the undead. The suddenness of it shocked the nation. One minute she’s gabbing away, a pretty little waif like thing, not a care in her pathetic little brain, all worn down as it was by years of ill use. The next minute she’s an unclean ghoul watching helplessly as her gray matter is scooped out of her brain pan by the Geraldo’s withered skeletal hand and popped into his rotting mouth, a morsel barely a big enough to keep a Zombie alive.

I still recall her lifeless, now even more cadaverous looking, body still talking, staring into the camera and offering strange and unnerving opinions as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. When security tried to drag her corpse out of the studio and replace it with another blond talking head with an eating disorder, the ghastly Coulter summoned up strength from whatever demonic pit she had come from and fell upon them.

She dispatched her bubble headed competition and minimum wage security guards with a savage fury, ripping flesh and sinew from living bone, and devouring the remains while her victims’ pitiful pleas and screams rang in the background. The now re-animated Republican Activist then returned to her place on camera with a decidedly non Zombie like glint of vengeance in her eyes, flicked a bit of offal from her teeth and continued to deliver reasoned concise commentary on the events of the day. It was a ratings bonanza.

A healthy lifestyle = More vibrant re-animation? Some say yes.

There was a lot more press coverage but it didn’t come to anything. We had a late frost that year, which made the roads slick and with Zombies wondering around you know there's going to be some bizarre traffic accidents. Harrisburg issued travel advisories that warned holiday drivers to avoid them and gave tips on how to deal with the re-animated dead if you should encounter them. But there were still Zombies wandering around the countryside, nabbing the stray tourist or two, causing all sorts of accidents and generally being nuisances. Eventually they caused a bus load of Adventists to go off a road near Mederer's Falls, killing a bunch that really confounded things as the dead ones were in and out of the grave before the injured ones were out of the hospital.

That’s how it was with Evangelicals, the whole congregation would appear as dead as a post and next thing you know they’d be up and out of their sepulchers wandering around the highways praising Jesus and looking for brains to eat. Some people think it’s because they believe in bodily resurrection but in the Adventist Case, I think it was their vegetarian pre-mortem lifestyle and restraint from spirituous liquors. They were certainly perkier than your average Zombie and in general required a bigger slug to bring down. They were in the county to investigate whether the Zombie outbreak was a sign of the Second Coming. Early on, as we explained to inquiring Pentecostals, the Zombies had been coming round as long as anyone could remember and it didn’t require a special occasion to get the restless dead up and about and milling around.

Human tragedy always attracts the lunatic element and the Adventist Misfortune as it became known, was no exception. Some Australian nitwit tried to tag them with radio collars as they crawled out of their coffins, he thought they might be migratory or something. He didn’t last ten minutes before they ate his brain so now he’s wandering all over the county with radio direction equipment that is fouling up everybody’s satellite reception while he’s molesting reptiles. The sheriff is trying to get permission from their president or premier or head Kanga Roo in charge or what ever, to shoot him, without causing an international incident.

The debate about what to do with the Zombies had by now stretched into bass season and folks started getting upset as more and more opinions kept weighing in on both sides of the controversy. The country was evenly divided over whether to reimburse us for the ammo we expended to keep things manageable and the market roads open or whether to bomb us back to the Stone Age for oppressing the rights of the living dead.

We were hopeful maybe a judge would tell us how far we could go in suppressing the unholy curse. Some folks, taking a tip from the Ausi, had put blinds up just outside of cemeteries and caught the Zombies just as they was hatching out. The game warden thought differently and said it was unsporting and had issued citations in lieu of a hearing and judgment.

Federal response surprises few, worries many.

Little did we know the government was hard at work behind the scenes while all this was going on and in record time they were able to get down to the business of blaming the most expedient party. It turns out the undead come under the Interstate Commerce Commission’s jurisdiction as they move and conduct their business via public thoroughfares. Since they’re dead they ain’t: endangered, protected from any work place hazards, required to be paid minimum wage or eligible for any insurance or pension. They can vote but the guy the league of women voters sent around to register them got ett, so none have ever shown at polling places or on jury roles. They do count towards congressional apportionment so we picked up three seats in the legislature, as did Clark County around Chicago. They could sue in Federal Court if they’d stop eating the clerks and learned to file a proper brief. Congress offered them an amnesty and restoration of their living rights if they agree to pick some vegetables, not bring over any dead relatives from foreign lands or join any unions. No word on how any of this went over as, predictably, anyone whose gotten close enough to ask has been eaten.

It finally dawned on people that as much had been done as could be done without actually doing something. We couldn’t just shoot them anymore as they were back to being citizens, sort of, that just wanted to eat brains but we couldn’t just do nothing either since if you let down your guard for a second they’d nip away with your brain. Finally the FEMA people sent some real Army guys from Indian Town Gap to round up the Zombies for reburial in federally financed re-internment projects, sort of high-rise mausoleums that HUD was building. It was a big fiasco. At first the Zombies would be all docile on the way to the enclosure but as soon as they got together in a bunch they’d surround the Army Guys and eat their brains. But the Army persisted and kept at it until the Zombies ate through a goodly percentage of the force structure and the job was handed over to the Coast Guard, who at least could keep a number of them on boats and in lighthouses. Turns out Zombies are adverse to water and are mesmerized by lectures on boating safety.

Federal response: We’re here and we are going to help you.

While the legislatures met to nominate scapegoats and apply the blame, the President appointed a Zombie Czar, or Tsar, to contain the outbreak. He created a series of anti-Zombie commercials and identified two leading causes of the outbreak: A foreign cartel of Zombie manufacturers and dead people that come back to life. He appeared on Nightline and promised to end the Zombie blight once and for all. A grateful nation turned its weary eyes to the man who promised a final solution to the Zombie problem.

He set up shop in Brick Church and pretty soon there were more federal workers around than you could shake the shovel they were leaning on at. It was like when Roosevelt tried to put a canal from McCann’s Run to Jarvis Creek, we never knew why they did it but folks were grateful for the work. To show our appreciation, we held a parade and barbecue in the Czar's or Tsar's honor which of course attracted Zombies which we of course shot by way of making a demonstration of how we dealt with the Zombie before he got here, sort of a lesson in Zombie history. Imagine our chagrin when our new Czar or Tsar got mighty exorcised, even bent out of shape, by the demonstration. He immediately called a halt to the unauthorized shooting of Zombies and started profiling the residents to see who was the most likely to exhibit Zombie characteristics and who was most likely to exhibit the characteristics of someone who'd shoot a Zombie.

We tried pointing out that the surest indicator of future Zombie behavior was a current state of deadness and the likeliest candidate to shoot a Zombie was any male in the county healthy enough to carry a gun. He ignored us. Later we found out he had a theory about a worldwide Zombie conspiracy that controlled world events by placing indoctrinated Zombies in decision-making positions. He wanted to uncover the evidence here, in Brick Church, and then breed a race of super Zombie Clones he could turn on their Satanic masters and over throw the epitome of all evil. Who says Republicans lack vision?

After he rounded up everybody that was shooting his evidence, he deployed his Special Forces, the specially trained operatives and covert specialists that would get to the bottom of the Zombie menace and crack the case wide open. They silently slipped out of town disappearing into the countryside to track the Zombies to their lairs and uncover their secret plans. Unfortunately later that night his entire cadre of highly trained undercover Zombie infiltrators was eaten and turned into actual overt brain stalking fiends. The Czar, or Tsar, had a change of heart regarding the menace and went back to his Washington DC drawing board to concentrate on stamping the Zombie scourge out at its source, somewhere over seas. He declared the Armstrong County out break contained and left a deputy Czar, or Tsar, in charge.

But the Zombies kept coming. It got so a person with a living brain couldn’t go anywhere in the county without trailing a hungry string of the ghoulish beings behind you like the tail of a hideous kite. You couldn’t get a decent night sleep in certain neighborhoods without them banging endlessly on the doors and windows all night long demanding your brains, it was like Zombie Halloween every night. It was ruining people’s rest. People were forced to ask for assistance as Zombies were everywhere and the citizenry that remained was pretty helpless given they couldn't shoot them. As acute as their distress was, no aid was forth coming since the security forces designated to protect them were deployed around fortresses and gated communities where the Government people lived and worked.

Early on the Government fellows decided that if Zombies ever developed the capacity for strategic thinking they would concentrate their forces and attack Government compounds and installations. We always liked to point out that the Zombie aggregations were kind of ad hoc, at least since Geraldo’s skull had rotted off his brain stem, and the only strategy Zombies were interested in was one that got them more fresh brains. The Government disagreed and to impress upon us with the progress they had made, the Czar or Tsar took a walk down to the new park by the Allegheny and was promptly eaten. They appointed a new tougher deputy Czar or Tsar the next day.

Nothing attracts the vehement and complete authority of an ineffectual government agency as an accessible powerless citizen and since the Government was unable to do anything about the undead, the new deputy Czar, or Tsar set about devising effective regulations for the law abiding living citizens of Armstrong County. They were able to enforce the hell out of those regulations.

Neighborhoods were declared Zombie Free Zones; zones from which Zombies were to be strictly excluded which impressed everyone but the Zombies who wondered about them as they pleased. The Government concluded from this that some citizens were, for their own unclear reasons bringing Zombies into Zombie free zones. Soon conspiracy to commit Zombieness was outlawed, as was aiding and abetting Zombies, the new laws were backed by the full power and authority of the State.

The new harsher penalties reflected the seriousness the Government regarded the offenses and indicated that the powers that be thought the situation was deadly serious. Suspicious citizens were rounded up and placed in compounds. Citizen meetings to discuss the Zombie problem were organized by the government then carefully monitored by the police, as they were a common source of rumors and misinformation that had lead to any number of bad out comes. The community's guns were collected to prevent unauthorized hunting of the Zombies until the Government deemed it appropriate and any resistance was dealt with rapidly and severely, as this was a national emergency.

It was felt that the citizen’s time was better used if it was focused on the job at hand so pornography and abortion were outlawed within the Zombie Zone. A bounty was paid to those who uncovered secret opposition to the government's program and miscreants were re-educated by specially trained government counselors and brought around to a proper point of view by a program they called 101, named after the room they held it in. All incoming literature was carefully screened, broadcasts censored and the local newspaper were seized. When bleeding hearts for the first amendment objected it was pointed out that only commercial speech was being regulated and all other forms of speech remained free as long as no one was willing to pay for it.

Eventually all the Zombies in the ground were up and around but meals of fresh brains were harder and harder to come by, as all the living citizens had eventually come under suspicion and were concentrated in government run camps. The Zombies drifted off into adjacent counties and stopped being much of a factor in county life. Unfortunately the Zombie Czar had become a cabinet level position and was funded annually so even though we weren't exactly Zombie epicenter anymore the restrictions and supervision of Armstrong County remained in place.

Lacking Zombies to pursue in their jurisdiction they concentrated on the citizens they were holding. Questioned, under a special exemption of the Geneva Convention approved by the President’s counsel until they revealed the location of their secret Zombie Cells, some local folks confessed again and again but were kept locked up anyway just to keep things orderly. Of course the expense of keeping us in the camps and passably nourished threatened the solvency of the county so eventually they gave us simple jobs in manufacturing to offset the cost of incarceration.

If you worked hard enough you could even be set free, at least that’s what the sign over the camp gate said although we never heard of anybody that did. A lot of folks didn't even work hard enough to stay in the county lockup, they got sent away to other camps for special handling. I worked hard making inexpensive electronic gadgets we could export to the Chinese but also signed a paper agreeing I wouldn't sue the government or talk to the press if they let me stay. Eventually they let me out under my own recognizance and if I keep my nose clean they'll let me vote again in ten years.

An Epilogue: the final word.

The last of the Media left the county when Scott Baio was accused of shooting his wife and never came back. The government left when their appropriation was cut for domestic Zombie abatement. They issued a statement that thanks to the efforts of these government employees, which they then listed; the curse of Zombieism in Armstrong County was ended. A Zombie special interest law firm sued immediately saying that calling Zombieism a curse was discriminatory. There was some ambivalence about the statement as some folks in Armstrong County were grateful for the government's help but all in all most preferred the Zombies.

People in the adjacent counties hunted down the rest of our runaway Zombies and things got back to normal but things, such as they are, were never the same. You have to get a permit to go after Zombies and there’s a strict limit per hunter. It keeps the situation a manageable size and the Zombies don’t attract as much Government attention. Everybody is happier about that, including the locals, the hunters, the Zombies and even the government. Sometimes we get a few more than our normal crop, when we do we quietly put them in the trunk and drop them off in New York, so far no one has noticed.

We had a bumper crop this year, so even after issuing special permits we had more than we thought Manhattan could handle. With Cats closed, we thought New Yorkers might notice an influx of Zombies downtown if they didn’t have that crowd to blend into. So this year we rounded up the extras and put them on buses. The first lot we sent to Washington D.C. via the Butler Coach Line, the Adventist can take turns spelling the driver. They should be arriving pretty soon.

Mud Flap Girl

2007-12-06T02:36:00.001-08:00

When ever you feel small and insignificant it helps to remember that most of the people ignoring you don't even know you. At least your friends have good solid reasons for avoiding any association. My latest collaboration in a life of noisy desperation:
http://gpemmons.musicnation.com/mud-flap-girl

Another Internet Myth?

2007-10-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

I found this on the internet; my friends with access to a computer tell me it’s an urban legend. I can’t have a pencil or a pen or anything sharper than a Dane Cook script. It’s a drag when you have a point to make.

Two women were at a convention in Atlanta, they’re away from their husbands and had been out late socializing. As they returned the few blocks to their hotel they noticed a large black man walking a big unruly dog that seemed to be following them. Worried and suspicious, they wonder if they should call the police until they see he is distracted by the dog and ignoring them, not exactly a 911 call.

They dismiss their fears as paranoid and embarrassingly racist and walk into the spacious atrium and lobby of their hotel.

The women relax in the relative safety and security of the hotel bar and are enjoying a night cap when they notice the black man and his dog again. He is inside the hotel as well and they become a little nervous but the atrium is well lit and they are surrounded by people, people that don’t seem to share their concern, again they dismiss their paranoia. Still they are women alone in a strange town so they decide to wait in the bar until their possible stalker had turned in.

A little while later, a little more tired and a little tipsier the women finally make their way to the elevators and their rooms. They got on the elevator and just as the door started to close the black man and his dog jump into the car. The dog growled at the now thoroughly terrified women who stared at the black man wondering what would happen next.

The black man said, “That’s it,” very emphatically and with even more force yelled: “SIT!”

The women sat, obediently and quickly, not sure exactly was going to happen next. The black man took one look at the women on the floor and started laughing.

“I was talking to the dog,” he said. “But since you all are so obedient why don’t you come up to my suite and suck my dick?”

They did, it was Michael Vick. He threw the disobedient dog off a balcony and they all shared a good laugh.

Risky Ventures, Music Man

2007-08-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

Risky was a man who sang for his supper and he liked it that way. He was born with the knack to make music and he wandered through the southeast playing it for anyone that cared to listen. He’d stay awhile in some jerkwater little town, play at some juke joint and move on before his welcome was worn out. Truth be told, he was always gone sooner than he ever had to be.

Everyone liked Risky and his music. He made enough on tips to live, he never had to stand drinks and the girls always came around. He wrote his own songs and always seemed to be able to come up with the right piece of music for the occasion at hand. He was the kind of guy men liked and women adored, flinty eyed barkeeps and cynical waitresses would come around after a few minutes of visiting with Risky and be old pals after an evening. Everyone in that part of the country knew him, liked him and had a Risky story to tell.

It was a pretty free and easy life for a young man. He didn’t call anyplace home and didn’t want to. After a month or two in one town he’d catch a bus or a slow freight and head someplace else and if the yard bull caught him he’d just spin him a tune. He’d settle in some flophouse or cheap motel and live out of his beat up old knapsack. A lot of women that fancied him would fix him meals or set him up with some clothes and sometimes share their bed but they knew it was only going to be a little time before Risky heard the siren’s call of the road.

Risky wasn’t his real name, it was Herb Kenwith, but he had called himself Risky ever since he’d left home. The name was kind of a personal joke to Risky but he thought the name was appropriate even though he’d never had anything but good luck on his travels.

He’d had his chances to settle down. Any number of doe eyed girls with rich Daddies had offered Risky a life of ease and contentment but the soul of a wanderer still roiled in him and he always moved on. He left a trail of broken hearts behind him and a song to help them mend and he knew by spring or the next time Van Halen played their county’s fair they’d have forgotten Risky Ventures.

One gal he dallied with, name of Shemar, hadn’t forgotten Risky. Her Daddy was a wealthy record executive in Hollywood but she was working as a waitress in a roadhouse in Mississippi because they had issues. The issues didn’t keep her from telling her Pop about promising young musical talents provided there was a finder’s honorarium and a royalty attached.

Her Daddy’s executive assistant caught up with Risky outside of Tupelo and got old Risky drunk enough to record a demo tape at their facilities in Memphis. When Risky sobered up they were propping him up to an old ribbon microphone and studio musicians were rehearsing their tracks.

Risky sang his heart out and while he did men in suits stood behind the glass and listened. They nodded and made suggestions to the mixer that he ignored and Risky sang on. He sang about years of traveling, about the loneliness he knew and about the brand new hope he felt everyday he saw the sunrise or came to a bend in the road. More and more men in suits gathered behind the mixers console and stared at him through the glass. When Risky finished the men applauded and a pretty little assistant brought him an ice cold beer.

Risky wasn’t on top of the world but he was pretty darn close. He hung around Memphis and was making a pretty fair rep for himself as a song smith while the men in suits finished the demo album. He spent their money and his freely and every day asked to hear the recording. The men in suits always pushed him off, tomorrow they said always tomorrow.

Risky finally had enough of that and demanded to hear what they had done with his songs. With much ceremony they ushered him into a studio and played it for him then they started discussing the video.

Risky was horrified. His songs about the road and regret, loneliness and longing were now sanitized, perfectly harmonized and totally dehumanized. It would be a hit they said, Risky believed them, they wouldn't have those jobs if they didn't know what they were doing. Risky drank a glass of Champagne with the suited men and wished them luck with their venture. He left the studio and walked into the night, their venture would not be Risky's venture.

He would go back on the road; that was where he was happiest. He left the things he’d acquired in his hotel room and stuck his thumb out. He would go north this time, try a new venue, see a different part of the world. His luck held out, he got a ride in no time.

The man who picked him up was headed back to his home in Chicago. He had the same first and middle name as the famous cowboy actor, John Wayne and a last name that Risky didn’t quite get, but sounded something like Gracy. He used the stage name Pogo when he played a clown at kids’ parties and liked to paint portraits of other clowns as a hobby. The authorities later found young men he picked up hitch hiking buried in the crawl space under his house. Risky’s luck had just changed.

His album debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Country chart, but Risky wasn't around to see it...

Roscoe, The sensible sniper

2007-08-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

Any other military trained marksman might have just taken out everyone and anyone they encountered when they went over the edge but not Roscoe. From his vantage point high above the city he saw an embarrassment of riches so he could afford to be selective. He could see far and wide through his high-powered rifle’s scope and in the target rich environment he lived in he had the will to use it.

At first he just took out people talking loudly on their cell phones in restaurants and sidewalk cafes and the initial reaction was positive.

After the shock and terror of death coming from out of the blue wore off, even the aggrieved relatives of the deceased agreed that the city was a better place minus these folks Roscoe snuffed. People began enjoying their meals in peace and quiet again and as civility returned to dinning Roscoe turned his attention to graffiti by picking off a few of the youthful scamps with spray cans. After word got around that urban blight was under control the media types began complaining about the loss of diversity caused by the snuffing out of these budding young artistic talents. A plump, fresh 30-06 round, finding its way into their press conferences, had a calming effect on the debate and offered a counter point to their mewling.

Youths in baggy clothes carrying huge noisy radios when they should have been in school were next to get the Roscoe treatment, then government workers away from their desk during business hours. People who tried to save a few bucks by parking in residential areas instead of valet parking sometimes found a few grains of lead in a lung. The under-worked, overpaid yet incompetent employees of the escrow industry kept their heads down or risked seeing their brains on the pavement. Rude telephone operators at the utilities left their desks at their peril. The guy who invented the telephone answering menu where you have to listen for numbers related to your inquiry died slowly and painfully as did the man who invented those impossible to open and equally impossible to pour without spilling, containers of half and half.

Once a month Roscoe held something he called Freeway Decimation Day. On that day, he would shoot every tenth person that drove by. He didn’t try to kill everyone, he was just making a point: some got wounds, others just shattered windshields, although a single person in a SUV on a cell phone usually rated a headshot. Traffic moved a whole lot faster as people sought out alternate routes and re-considered the necessity of individual trips. The trip planning made driving more efficient so gas was saved; people were happier, it was a big hit.

The city became more convivial and people started to enjoy their newly considerate world. This attitude affected even the police, who despite having a superb ballistics department which enabled them to triangulate Roscoe’s location from bullet trajectories, several eyewitnesses and the license plate number of Roscoe’s car, didn’t really follow up the investigation beyond asking a few people if they’d seen anything suspicious. They universally answered in the negative.

Officially he became known as the town’s “Mad Sniper”; unofficially he was the “Preemptive Samaritan”, or “The Etiquette Enforcer” intercepting and eliminating people that might otherwise make your life a miserable, living hell.

The town folks conspired to help him with his good work and keep his identity secret from the authorities but of course it leaked out and Roscoe became something of a celebrity. Soon everybody knew about him and what he was doing but the fiction that his identity was secret was maintained, not just to thwart the authorities, but also to keep Roscoe from killing those around him for being in the know.

Some people, of course, had to walk close to the edge and run the chance of spoiling a good thing. They’d slap him on the back and wish him good hunting for no apparent reason or thank him for the good work he was doing then make some comment about aiming to please. Fortunately Roscoe was deaf to sarcasm and never became the wiser, he just gave them a thousand-mile stare with his cold dead psychotic eyes, which anyone with an ounce of survival instinct dreaded. Sometimes during his darkest moments, late at night when the lambs stopped screaming, Roscoe would wonder what they knew and thrash around in his bed until dawn. It took a lot of effort to be Roscoe and it took it’s a toll. It was beginning to catch up with him.

It started when he missed a fellow using a leaf blower at eight am on a Sunday morning. Next one person driving the speed limit in the number one lane got away with it and they told somebody and then they told somebody and the floodgates opened. People sensed he had lost his touch and began filling out their deposit slips at the ATM, sneaking into express lines with more than the specified number of items or playing rap music loudly when there were humans present. Pretty soon the cell phones were back and people were talking foreign languages you didn’t understand in front of you while changing their baby’s diapers on a counter where people consumed fast food. In short it was as bad as it ever was.

Roscoe tried to keep up but the sheer volume of work just overwhelmed him. He began missing with such frequency that the rude and inconsiderate came to regard him as no more of a threat than finding a black widow in your shoe or a rattlesnake in your mailbox.

The good people of the town were as worried about Roscoe as much as they missed the happy times. They did what they could to brighten his day like having fresh buckets of chicken delivered to his snipers lair by particularly dim delivery boys. The police dropped off a case of fresh ammo and a new can of Brasso. The other sociopaths in town suggested interesting and creative things he might do or make with his victims, reasoning he needed a hobby, but Roscoe was a sniper and rarely got to take his work home with him. The Scouts and Campfire Girls surreptitiously hung targets on the backs of people deserving his attention but nothing seemed to work, Roscoe had lost it. Civility continued to erode.

One day after he’d emptied a magazine trying to take out someone who didn’t know you can take a right on a red light a frustrated but enlightened citizen took matters into his own hands. The driver may have been wondering what all the honking behind him was about but the last thing to pass through his mind was a 7.62 NATO round in a full metal jacket delivered courtesy of one of Roscoe’s neighbors. First by ones and twos then by dozens and scores they took up arms and began to sort things out in their little town.

At first Roscoe didn’t know what to make of it and even considered taking out a couple of the competing gun men but he saw they were doing good work and relaxed. There were plenty of targets out there and Roscoe was a sensible sniper.

On the passing of Don Herbert

2007-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

Lately the baby boomers lost an iconic figure from their past, Don Herbert, television’s Mr. Wizard died on June 12, 2007. His passing reminds me of the other children’s TV personalities that educated and entertained a generation before Sesame Street and Poke Man. Personalities like Mr. Rodgers, Captain Kangaroo and Bozo are gone now and so are many others that filled the airways. You probably don’t recall them but they were a part of your grandparents and parents childhood.

Admiral Doughnuts

Admiral Doughnuts appeared on The Mr. Waffle Show after producers took his name to mean that Admiral of the Kreigsmarine Karl Donitz was an advocate of a healthy starch and sugar breakfast. Despite being the originator of a number of deadly effective U-boat tactics in World War II and the last head of state for the Nazi regime, he was an immediate hit.

He was always surrounded by the kids of the Waffle Strawberry Shortcake Brigade or the Waffle SS as it became known. Although popular he and Waffle had an acrimonious falling out over how much of the shows content should be devoted to commerce raiding and the employment of Jews. Waffle fired the popular war criminal during an emotion filled broadcast in the winter of 1951, remembered as the show of long knives.

The Admiral got his own show on the National Socialist Television System shortly there after which was equally popular. The program began with the singing of catchy Germanic ditties like “The March of The Kriegsmarine”, “Bombs over England”, or “The Horst Wessel Song” performed by the Jugen Kammeraden Chorus a group of boys selected from the audience for their Aryan appearance and dressed in a snappy black uniform complete with boots, kepi and field pack.

The Admiral instructed the kids on the importance of radio discipline, wolf pack tactics and common sense tips on how to frustrate a sonar search. The kids took away a thorough grounding in discipline, Kriegsmarine traditions and practical knowledge of the type 7 U-boat. The show had a brief history however after the Admiral’s arrest, trial and conviction for war crimes. His attempts to revive the show and broadcast from Spandau prison were unsuccessful.

Comrade Kangarooski

Sponsored by the Daily Worker and the Tuboretski Tractor Works, Comrade Kangarooski was famous for his lengthy monologues on the ultimate triumph of socialism, reading accounts of soviet party congresses and defending the Rosenbergs. He encouraged kids to facilitate the work of their collective, report their parents for revisionist thinking and shoot Kulaks.

He generated viewer participation by holding contests. One, in which he invited children to take a picture of themselves in front of experimental American aircraft, drew over thirty thousand responses. Others included: The best drawn map of a defense installation, Denounce your favorite FBI Stool Pigeon and a scavenger hunt for CIA one time cipher pads. His success was also short lived however, at the height of his popularity Stalin recalled him to Moscow and had him shot.

The Bono the Clown

A rather mundane copy of the immensely successful Bozo franchise this performer only hit his stride when he hooked up with Cher and recorded a number of children’s records. His act never really changed over the years despite changing tastes and venues, his last real success was in California politics which ended after he demonstrated his famous comedy/stunt skiing routine to friends and supporters with disastrous results.

Water Buffalo Bob

Although not technically a children’s TV host this Afrikaans speaking bovine had an international following and a huge fan base. He offered homey advice from his wallow on the veldt but his unpredictable behavior cost him fans and sponsorship when he gored and trampled a number of “The Lil’ Buffalos" the producers surrounded him with. Currently he continues entertaining kids and adults although his appearances are infrequent and limited to a single venue as he was shot in 1974 by a big game hunter, stuffed and had his head mounted on a wall.

Mr. Gein Jeans Farm,

Psychotic, cannibal Ed Gein’s show broadcast from Wisconsin. It was most notable for the overalls of human skin Ed habitually wore.

Rumpus Room with Mistress Yvette

The stern, forbidding and frequently abusive Mistress Yvette held court over a collection of terrified, restrained children she acquired from the foster care system. With her hair up in a severe bun and dressed in a lace up leather jumpsuit accented by astoundingly high stiletto heeled boots Miss Yvette was a daunting figure who wielded an impressive whip. Basically she emphasized good grooming, the importance of discipline and a tolerance for pain. Although never highly rated or popular with children she was adored by television executives that she referred to as her “worms”.

Tea Time with Druggy

The format of Druggy’s show never varied, it was always him and sometimes a guest cooking up, shooting up and getting off. Occasionally Druggy would rant about the difficulty of scoring or the quality of the product scored and then nod off. Originality was never his strong point but very often well known musicians, blues singers and beatnik comedians joined him on the show and provided welcome variety.

The Wisdom of the Big Top

2007-06-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

One day the circus train stopped here and only the clowns got off. They got drunk and trashed the only circus bar in town. I got to know one and during his brief lucid moments he left me these insights about life on the road. I never saw him or my wallet again.

The circus goes on, only the clowns change.

There are many clowns but only one ring master.

The guy with the broom goes it the end of the elephant parade.

No matter how great a clown you are, you don't get to drive the circus train.

I doesn’t matter how many clowns you can get into a car, its how many get out alive.

It takes more than a top hat to run a circus.

If you are riding a unicycle, wearing a tutu and every one is throwing marsh mellows at you, you are probably a bear.

Circus is what you do not who you are, but everyone thinks you’re a clown anyway.

You never out grow your need for peanuts.

Never date a knife throwers daughter.

A good catcher is worth his weight in aerialist.

Circus people do it with jugglers.

Always remove the sword you swallowed before you bow.

You need two hands to juggle, or not.

A smart lion tamer doesn’t drink around the cats.

If you want to be the lead elephant don’t grab another elephant’s tail.

The greatest show on earth leaves town at the end of the week.

If you want to grow a moustache don’t be a fire eater.

A dog act doesn’t belong in the center ring.

It takes more to be a clown than, a fright wig, rubber nose, baggy pants, seltzer bottle, bucket of confetti and a broom to sweep up the spot lights but you need them too.

If you wake up on something soft behind the elephant cage, it probably isn’t a pile of feathers.

Helena, The simpering whore from Montana

2007-05-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

Helena never cared for her profession even though it was the oldest one. Oh sure, she always got hot meals and she worked in the clear fresh Montana air but the bending and lifting tired her and she never ever felt she was very good at it. Every night, after servicing battalions of priapic miners she would simper and wonder if she’d ever be good enough for the life she’d chosen. Even for a prostitute she had remarkably low self-esteem.

Her parents had lost her in a card game to an enterprising fellow that ran some cribs in the Canal Zone. Never the nostalgic type, she threw her self into her new life with enthusiasm and soon the sailors and visitors to that marine cross road were a blur to her. Of course, the first time a girl takes on the crew of a super carrier is always a fond romantic memory but she was touched to discover they remembered as well when they re-named the USS Carl Vinson, “Thanks Helena”. She recalled the time fondly and no matter how many times she was pounded into a mattress by subsequent crews or fleets, she always carried around a photo she and 4000 sailors had taken together outside the shabby hovel where she’d serviced the men and women of the mighty war ship.

The good times don’t last forever though and she was run out of that seafarer's paradise by the Colon City Council who decided that she was detrimental to the morals of the other prostitutes. She moved on to the greener if sooty pastures of Montana where a coal rush was full swing.

Miners had flocked to the Big Sky State where by dint of hard, backbreaking, labor they could earn enough to barely survive. She stood by the coal breaks outside mining camps and asked the miners if she could service them and then pay her what ever they thought it was worth. Frequently they would pay her in coal that they coughed out of their lungs or worthless bits of twine and sticks they fashioned into objects that they told her was money in their Slavic homelands.

All the miners loved her and gave her a pet name. "Little sperm bucket!" They'd yell out whenever they saw her servicing three or four of their co-workers by the mine head gate and then they’d line up to be serviced as well, while devising cruel, humiliating and degrading ways of abusing their favorite little prostitute. The miners were a penurious but inventive group and she often felt as worthless afterwards as the payment they rendered to her.

As she washed their sooty fingerprints from her supple young body she would mewl softly and count her pathetic earnings, barely enough to buy her food and lodgings for the day and never enough to pay for the course of antibiotics she usually required.

"Would no one ever rescue me from this terrible plight?" She wondered in her despair.

Other prostitutes led glamorous, drug addled lives, constantly being beaten and abused by Johns and pimps and if not dead by violence, they were often prematurely old and hobbled by disease. She had been around the world more often than a successful chain letter, she’d seen more strange penises than the Village People’s urologist, she’d swallowed more semen than the Bermuda Triangle, you do the metaphor, she was tired of waiting she wanted hers now.

LeRoi, her pimp, did the best he could by her, setting her up on the lucrative fraternity party circuit, introducing her to Carney folk that passed through town and giving her a sound beating whenever she needed it. But it was never enough. The money she gave him didn't pay for the gas his Lincoln used while he ran his stable of girls, let alone keep him in colorful feathered derbies or the garish fur coats he required. Despite his sentimental attachment to Helena, he didn't think she would ever make a go of it as hooker.

One day while she was taking a break from her day job as fluff girl for a traveling donkey show, she watched, stared really, at a young stranger riding into town. Helena liked what she saw. He was different from the other fellows in the town; he had dark curly hair and clear blue eyes, two, both of them on the same side of his head. When he dismounted and walked into the hotel his knuckles didn't drag on the ground. She could tell he wasn't drunk as there was no colorful pattern of vomit on his shirt, which had the added benefit of making him a good deal cleaner than everyone else she knew. Helena liked the cut of his jib, an expression she had picked up from the fleet and set out to meet the fascinating man.

He was the son of a well to do Boston family sent out west to make a separate fortune. He had a vision of a chain of shoe stores that specialized in selling dance pumps through out the mining country of the Northwest. It turned out they had much in common despite their different backgrounds. He collected scrimshaw; she had done most of the merchant marine in the free world. He ran shoe stores; she had feet. He'd traveled around the world locating master cobblers that could supply the kind quality foot wear he demanded; she'd given an around the world to a cobbler in trade for a pair of vinyl boots that a certain quality of client demanded she wear.

It was magic from the first time they met and soon they were in love. They held hands as they walked through the town, laughed at each other's jokes and gave each other goofy smiles. It never went any further than that perhaps because he respected her, perhaps because he didn’t quite understand what she did for a living. He proposed one night after she explained what could be done with a knotted handkerchief and a bowl of ice. She said yes, they started making plans and soon there were wedding bells in Helena's future.

The whole territory was glad for their simpering whore. Sentimental miners lined up around the block for days on end for one last go at her and just for old time’s sake, they didn't pay her. Le Roi even agreed to give her away; actually he slowed down the Lincoln and pushed her out in front of the church after she had pulled a train in a gang bang by a soccer team made up of degenerate Italian playboys. The experience might have spoiled another woman but Helena brushed off her wedding dress and headed straight to the altar. A few minutes later she left under a shower of rice while the strains of Handle's wedding march rang in her ears. She was a bride.

Their wedding night was so romantic; she only charged him fifty bucks and let him stay the night.

Elegy to the Princes of the Forest in Western Pennsylvania

2007-05-31T02:33:00.000-07:00

I have big antlers on my head,

They go from ear to ear,

And every time I go to bed,

I know that I'm a deer.

You may have seen me in the woods,

In summer, spring or fall,

But probably you've seen me the best,

When my head's stuck on a wall.

A lot of hunters think its fun,

To chase us too and fro,

Don't they know we're just some bucks,

In it for the doe.

So if you hear a gun's report,

In a primal forest's splendor,

One of us is Pittsburgh bound,

Tied to some one's fender.

The Little Lame Bunny

2007-05-31T01:49:00.000-07:00

The Little Lame Bunny was born during a very bad time for bunnies not that there had ever been any very good times for this relentlessly preyed upon species. The race of bunnies he belonged to were even more than normally hard luck having descended from experimental animals that escaped from a lab run by the good people at Monsanto to try out chemicals, cosmetics and germ warfare agents deemed too risky or horrible to test on other species. The hardy survivors of an open air test of a gelatin/nitric acid based hair colorant had followed a charismatic old gray hare to freedom when the product being tested melted their cages and restraints. The ones that had retained partial vision and some liver function were able to eke out a precarious existence in a nearby valley where the company dumped its toxins.

Things had gone as well as could be expected for the feral colony considering the valley was an EPA super fund site and the contaminated soil made the bunnies’ fur fall out in great handfuls. Mountain people occasionally snuck in and culled the herd finding furless albeit toxic rabbit too convenient to ignore. Recently genetically engineered dingoes had been introduced to control the coyotes that had been introduced to control the honey badgers that had been introduced to control the poachers but this had just increased the bunnies’ troubles since they all ignored their intended prey and just ate the rabbits.

The doe, his mother, had warned him to stay close to the warren while he grazed. As a lame bunny he was even easier pickings for Owls, snakes, hawks, alligators, wolves, weasels, stoats, hyenas, jackals, civet cats, raccoons, storks, leopards, bears and any other species that looked to be carnivorously inclined. It had gotten so bad that even the usually inoffensive and placid cow had, after generations of being force fed the remains of other cows, developed a taste for meat especially, you guessed it, bunny meat.

The doe loved the Little Lame Bunny best of all because he couldn’t forage very well and he was, after all, lame and lame is pretty darn cute. Perhaps she understood that his lameness wasn’t even that profound, that a simple surgical procedure would have corrected it. Then and again she might have realized that to perform such simple surgery would involve evolving an opposable digit like a thumb that could grasp a scalpel, then developing a tradition of intellectual curiosity and scientific research that would lead to a spectrum of disciplines including medicine with its supporting technologies: anesthetics and supported ventilation, antibiotics and bio/chemical research, recovery support and post operative care, all of which made the simple surgery possible, a rather tall order for a rodent everybody is eating.

Despite his lameness the Little Lame Bunny needed to eat the same amount of food as any bunny his size and were it not for his gamy leg he would have taken his chances with the other rabbits and foraged far and wide for more succulent grasses and juicy roots. His mother helped him as much as she could but insisted he stay near home and passed on to him all that she could of Bunny wisdom, which wasn’t much since the best syllogism any bunny had ever managed was: “I think I’m a bunny therefore I am eaten.” But she did her best and that may have been on her mind when she saved him from a pack of vicious predators by diving between them and sacrificing her body for his. Or perhaps she was suicidal; just being a bunny would be enough to cause that.

The Little Lame Bunny contemplated her advice as a herd of ravenous Guernsey’s pulled the limbs from her trampled although still living, screaming body. He would have called out her name but even in this anthropomorphic universe a bunny’s life was so brutally brief as to make naming one an exercise in futility. Her experience and subsequent, rather sanguinary, example reinforced his already healthy sense of self-preservation and he kept as close to the opening of the burrow and safety as rabbitly possible.

It finally dawned on the other bunnies that staying close to the burrows was at least a way of putting off the inevitable shredding in fanged jaws that ended the lives of bunnies not fortunate enough to be crushed beneath the wheels of a truck. The forage nearby, though never very good, was even more barren after the other bunnies finished and soon the grass was cropped to the roots around the entrance to the hutch. They eventually wandered off in fatalistic search of other, riskier pastures, some greener, some magenta depending on which aniline dyes were dumped there but the Little Lame Bunny was stuck with grubbing what sustenance he could find in the onerous and foul smelling PCB laden earth near the warren. After his gorge churning meal he’d curl up in his snug rabbit hole for whatever sleep he could manage over the sound of his growling stomach.

While he slept, he dreamed. He dreamed of a plush valley where the grass was naturally green, where all the leaves were edible and didn’t blister your lips when you chewed them. There were no dingoes, wolves or foxes, rabid or otherwise in his land of dreams. The old hare still watched over the rabbits and they grazed peacefully and filled up their bellies with nourishment from the earth. Best of all he walked normally in this perfect world, he could dance and frolic with the other bunnies in the sun light the way it was supposed to be.

But the old hare was long gone and the plush valley was just a dream. Or was it? As the pangs of hunger began to occupy the Little Lame Bunny’s every waking moment, he began to think. No one knew if the old gray hare had ever really existed whether he was still alive or had died, such is the nature of the historical discipline where the oral tradition has collapsed without the compensating development of literature. His mother was dead and there was no one left to ask so he decided to find out for himself.

Under the cover of a night so dark even the owls were bumping into things, he made his way to the top of the hill to the purported burrow of the old gray hare. It was a long and dangerous journey to investigate what was best described as more myth than rumor so he further enhanced his chances by telling the current generation of fledgling bunnies that predators were just bullies and it was best to stand up to them. The younger bunnies respected the little lame bunny and did what he said because he’d out lived most of his peers and assumed in the naiveté of youth that such an old soul must be wise and could only be a fountain of truth. When he subsequently ventured out, the predators that normally lurked in the gloom had so stuffed themselves on a succulent meal of young deluded bunnies that they were in their holes contentedly gnawing on the bony remains of the Little Lame Bunny’s former Acolytes.

The Little Lame Bunny followed a circuitous path to the top of the hill, past where the local children buried their pets to the very tippy toe top of the bunnies’ rather circumscribed world. He found a run down looking hovel hidden in the brush; The Little Lame Bunny held his breath and wondered if he’d found the Old Gray Hare. It looked like a hutch but he couldn’t be sure, the sign on the mailbox that read O.G. Hare, Esq. meant nothing to The Little Lame Bunny since he’d never learned to read. The Little Lame Bunny knocked on the hutch door. A surprisingly youthful old gray hare ushered the Little Lame Bunny into a rather plushly appointed warren and promptly sapped him from behind.

“How’d you find me? What the FUCK do you want?” He explained.

After the immediate effects of his concussion wore off, The Little Lame Bunny told the old gray hare his dream and wondered if such a land really existed. After the old gray hare made sure The Little Lame Bunny hadn’t told any one where he was going, wasn’t packing heat and had no family to miss him, he told him that indeed there was such place but that only special courageous bunnies went there. The Little Lame Bunny was overjoyed for a bit until the old Gray Hare began asking him other questions that the Little Lame Bunny couldn’t answer despite the electrodes taped to his testicles. After several gratuitous jolts or, as the old hare described it: “One for pleasure, one to treasure and one just to show them you mean business!” the Little Lame Bunny had his confidence.

Indeed there was such a land and it was all he had dreamt of and more and the Old Gray Hare would take him there. It was full of all the good things bunnies’ loved; it was so good that no one ever returned from there. As ominous as that would sound to anyone of normal intelligence, let us recall that we are dealing with bunnies here. The Little Lame Bunny was overjoyed and whistled happily as he followed the Old Gray Hare out on to the dismal, terrifying moor.

The path they took was even harder than the one The Little Lame Bunny took to the Old Gray Hare’s hutch and his little lame legs just about gave out. He persevered because he knew a better life had to be just around the corner, if there was any justice in the universe it had to be so, life couldn’t be so cruel. They clambered over fallen logs and scramble up rocks, the Little Lame Bunny never thought he could scale. The Old Gray Hare urged him on, that only work could set him free. He was so exhausted only the vision of a promised land kept him moving. That and the Old Gray Hare’s liberal and enthusiastic application of the lash.

The Little Lame Bunny sensed that the eyes of a thousand predators were watching them as they ascended the trail but he trusted the Old Gray Hare and followed anyway. The Old Gray Hare told him how there was always fresh clean grass to eat where they were going and things they could bring back to make the warren snug and cozy. The Little Lame Bunny would have squealed for joy if a rabbit were capable of making such a sound and the Old Gray Hare’s whip hadn’t just at that moment cut a divot out of his back. The old gray hare led him into a box canyon with sheer walls and no way out before the Little Lame Bunny thought to ask why the Old Gray Hare hadn’t stayed in such a happy place instead of repeatedly making this hazardous trip.

“They won’t let me.” The old hare said as a Coyote howled at the stars. “But as long as I cooperate they let me live and travel back and forth.”

The Little Lame Bunny saw the red eyes of the dingoes closing in on them. “Old Gray Hare, we’re surrounded but you are old and wise, how do we get them to let us pass on to our promised land?” The trusting bunny asked.

The Old Gray Hares eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I don’t know what you’ll do,” he said. “But I usually bring them something to eat.” And in a few moments the Little Lame Bunny understood what he meant.