Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The Stockbrokers Hung by the Chimney? How Fair!

Everybody who has just survived the holidays wave a tinsel encrusted finger in the air. The annual orgies of food and civility are hereby declared over. You can still be gluttonous, but you don't have to share. For the seventy-third straight year, the stores have predicted gloom and doom about the amount of holiday spending that they expected, but they are rather silent since. Now stay there.
I had my worst Christmas since 1973, which means I had a decent day. I am the only person on Earth apparently, who can get through any holiday ever experienced and NOT get wrought up and wrung out over it. All through my life at least everybody I ever met has fits or longer spells of insanity about the nicest day of the year! I have gotten a gift I thought was cheap or in bad taste, and it hasn't caused a strain nor an outburst nor even a snivel yet. The poorly cooked food I encounter about once or twice in three decades(because I plan well!), is just a reminder to hope the weather doesn't suck ashtrays next year as it did this past. I sure want some pumpkin pie right about now.
The next few holidays are Great Men In History holidays, rather than get loaded and wake up in the Aspidistra like some presidents holidays. Maybe we can get a holiday dedicated to effective drunks, such as Ulysses Grant or Bender. We had Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday, so they combined them to make Presidents Day and the unions wrangled another federal holiday for Martin L King so that at least 8 times a year the government does what it is supposed to. "Only necessary workers need to report to duty" is a very telling phrase; many in government would like to hear the expression rather less often than we in the pricvate sector.
How many people do we have managing the horseradish or snowglobe industries anyhow? The world is incredibly more complex now that anybody could be Somebody! and the power has shifted to each person from its former concentration on three networks and one or two of the five castes of people back in the 50's and 60's. Witness the whole panoply of different arts, sciences and populations engaged in hundreds of new hobbies and able to talk to aficionados across the globe, instead of the humdrum banality of 1966 politics dissected by toadies in narrow lapels, on Meet the Press and Hope One has a Heart Attack to Liven Up a 'Live' Broadcast, Even Funnier Than When That Horse Peed on Jack Paar.
There are webpages for every perversion, pet peeve, poetic perfidy or alliterative asshole. Networks abound that tie together thousands of fans with their co-enthusiasts, social hierarchies, argot, costumes, videos and you've never heard of hundreds of these demimondes, markets where billions flow that no government yet constituted can control with any effectiveness. We have arrived.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Do Bishops shortsheet the Pope?

So those crazy kids at the radio station are at it again. The announcement of the new train service in Phoenix has the jokers out. They start talking about this event and behind the announcer's voice we hear the Grateful Dead singing about..."Driving that train' high on .." and the rest gets garbled so the word cocaine isn't heard. I don't know if they are trying to make somebody get upset but they are always doing these things. I swear the other day the list of snow closures included Mercer Island Meshugga Academy. Later lists said Mercer Island Yeshiva Academy as it is supposed to be. A few years back I heard several times this PSA: "Hi. I am Doctor Benjamin Dover and..." an announcement to get screened for colon cancer ran. I heard this several times and passed the word to others to listen so I have witnesses. Thus we are treated to another in the long tradition of screwing with your co-workers, a world-wide phenomenon. Back in the Age of Rocks And Little Else, Thag told Ogg to go get him a left-handed pebble so he could make an arrowhead and Ogg promptly went off and told the boss that Thag was picking on him. So they killed Thag and ate him. Nowadays we don't eat the offender, we sue the pants off the richest company with a product under our workshop roof, often the advertisers in the morning paper in the coffee room. Back in the Age Before the Internet, as we called the ancient times of the Seventies, I witnessed a truly epic scene of New Boss Harassment, an excellent way to degrade guys who get promoted according to the day they got hired.The second shift started after we left, so they hadn't got out of the shop, and we had about six minutes to go before the whistle went off and we started salivating...er...leaving for the bar..er...home. The new boss in question had obviously NOT been paying attention in 'Being Authoritative' Class at Leadman school. He was haranguing these typical American workers with "You guys are ticking me off. You aren't being good workers and you're ...blah blah blah". The next thing you know he had a foam coffee cup taped on top of his hardhat and TWO cigarettes had been surreptitiously placed in the cup, so he looked like Etna or Vesuvius. The entire crowd, about fifty people, was laughing heartily at the spectacle. I and others went up as he walked around and said such hilarities to him as "You're hot tonight. You're really on fire. You're SMOKIN" To which he replied in the only way possible-by looking like a complete dipshit. After five minutes of this the whistle blew and we left. I think he is still hiding in the restroom out of embarrassment. I heard this next one and if it isn't true it deserves to be. A pair of jokers were always getting after one another, down on Harbor Island in the city of Seattle. It is a truly blue collar area, with shipyards, scrap metal operations, battery reclaiming, and such pleasant spots. The Victim was Mr X, the son of Mr X was the relayer of the tale who worked with his Dad and saw this happen and Mr Y was the perpetrator. X had planted a turkey in the trunk of Mr Y or vice versa and the trick I will soon relate was either the revenge or the impetus for the turkey stink bomb. By the way, planting large and decay-prone items is a great thing for enemies OR friends. Remember that the next time you want to get even or liven up the hunting camp. It seems that the victim was in the habit of leaning back in his chair during lunch. He propped his chair back against the wall and was on two legs of the chair when he popped open his lunchbox and instead of a couple of tuna sandwiches and an apple the contents consisted of an extremely agitated seagull which, after liberation, came out QUITE angry and remonstrated very vigorously. The victim, whose letter I forget, proceeded to levitate up the chair and wall more enthusiastically even than the seagull had, hollering all the time.True or not the picture you have just burned into your brain will last forever. Now that we have a plethora of video cameras it is up to you to pack a seagull into your boss's lunchbox soon as you can. Be sure to put it on youtube so we can all laugh at the mope.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

It's Christmas, Eh?

Christmas is here, as you can tell by the people stuck at the airport. They are stacking them up until a jet can take them to another airport to wait for a flight back home. The ice and snow have made it so slick that you can fall from Seattle to Boston quicker than you can fly. The Canadians have finally perfected their weapons of mass ice encrustation.
The radio has been having its 'Driver to Driver' calls coming from two types-those who say they know how to drive in the snow and those who bitch about the fast divers. The rest of the news is about the 4000 wrecks so far this week. Think how many wrecks we'd have if the bad drivers had been out there.
For a city that is as far north as Montreal, Seattle is signally unprepared for anything related to weather. Our buildings have collapsed, I think I heard that three structures plus a tent have fallen down under the weight of the snows. The only deaths so far have been a cow and a calf in a barn full of cows at a dairy farm. The tent was over a skating rink, one kid was taken to a hospital but seems to be fine. Even our disasters are mediocre. No firestorms, no tornadoes, no hurricanes, just cold and snow and a dead cow. We manage to yawn our way through all the natural destruction everybody else gets. We are sort of an antiBangladesh. That's a country that knows how to slaughter the crowds with nature. The year begins with fires and floods, then moves into massive earthquake season followed by the typhoon and tidal wave days, with a few disease epidemics year-round. The last guy to die of old age was twenty years ago-he was twenty years old also-how ironic. Tell a Bengali about Revelation and he'd try to get a flight there for vacation. They have few wars in Bangladesh, the water and heat rot the guns too quickly. Plus no old people to start them and nothing to steal thereby. They had been part of India, but even the Hindus couldn't take the destruction.
We in the northern climes have to have tyrants slaughter us to reach such efficiency. Russia and China, Germany and Korea, could have spent the last century being poor Canadas, with hypergeeks building supercomputers out of Commodore 64s and rebuilding cars with three screwdrivers and a pair of pliers, but they had to get political and slaughter the rich and intelligent and productive. Then, when they wonder why they can't produce and have no money, they can trot out fake rockets and eat them. Meanwhile, the Canadians have been perfecting the giant frozen air mass and are gelling our brains. The brain freeze is NOT caused by Slurpees but by the Nanooks up North. While we're all rolling around on the floor holding our heads they're slipping into the country and seizing the products they can't grow there-hillbillies, armadillos and catfish. Pretty soon no more soulfood. Everybody will be eating frozen dinners that taste like cutrate airline meals. If everybody joins the NRA they'll remember that they left the iron on and go home. And take the Arctic air mass with them. Please. Have a happy holiday.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

They Shoe Horses Don't They?

Shoe if you Must...Just Shoe me.. The President has Been Shod. I woke up to a news report of some dipshit shoeing the president at a news conference. I had to rush to the computer to claim priority for the puns we will endure for a few days. Comedy owes much to our collection of mopes, halfwits and thieves in politics. Of course the foreign crowd is even better at times. They have no messy laws against many of their scurrilous intrigues. Here we have a few that are obeyed, and facile judges when we want to stretch the words of our forefathers into allowing things that make them spin in the grave. People who like sausages and politics should never watch either being made. Though sausage making rarely involves dead humans, except in Uganda and Chicago. The inventor of mortadella was married to a woman named Della until she "...ran away somewhere. Go away, I have to finish making this new recipe." Regardless of ingredients, we have more choices about sausages than politics. Happily we don't have sausages holding us at gunpoint so that gangs can strip us of everything we own. As a libertarian I get to lampoon both 'sides' of the aisle when they strut and bombast, take credit for the sun and the stars, rob us and tell us it is for our benefit. The left have spewed such 'liberal' gems as "only the police and army should have weapons" and the right has supported such 'conservative' goals as destroying Habeas Corpus and jury trials. Neither side, when victorious and fully in charge of a city or state, has been anything other than imperious thieves. They install as much of their platform as they can, and the result is that both end up with vicious police states that jail the poor, increase paperwork, 'plan' cookie cutter style corporate neighborhoods where Mom and Pop work for McSwillers and Booger King. Picture Hollywood and Oakland versus Utah and Mobile. Their respective 'leaders' are sanguine and content-they are so busy counting the pelf they don't see the mess they have built. I grant that freedom can be messy and requires that people pay attention, but I like Switzerland and Hong Kong much better than Sweden and Vietnam. At least there is some comfort in knowing that we are actually in free markets now and the government is moot when it comes to most things. They are just good at hiding their weakness for the time being. After subjecting the public to corporate hegemony and the corporations to excessive taxes and interference their one 'solution' is to hand them more cash and hope that things straighten out. Remember that shoes don't kill people, so next time use a gun. Plus they are easier to get, cheaper and when you try to run afterwards the pebbles won't make you go OW OW OW.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Boat Peephole

Some guys express their midlife crisis with a sports car or a floozy but I went for a boat. Ah good times-spending the day drifting into the distance trying to figure out the intricacies of a marine steering system, or trying to get back to the dock with the transom about to separate and send a borrowed and expensive outboard to the bottom when it fails. I managed to avoid that actually occurring. The worst part about losing a loaned motor is that you get to buy one and not own it!I once stood at the bow of a boat and held it, while two friends spent an hour pumping the water out so we could get off the beach and start fishing again. I found out how far my leg can bend backwards when a wave pushed the boat into me. The day started off the way these local morons always say it must-getting out on the water before the first streaks of light are in the sky and we fished, as always, until about one PM when we caught a few fish.I contend that it is better to sleep until noon and go out and catch the fish at one PM after a good 16 hours rest, but what do I know?The law has decided that drunken boating is dangerous, so we can't have fun anymore. I suppose drifting in a boat, passed out for 3 hours in the main shipping lanes was NOT safe-I woke up in one piece! The greatest actual danger I faced was trying to discreetly pee over the side without falling in after I came to.Remember, never go fishing with one Baptist-he'll drink all the beer. Take two and they'll keep an eye on each other.If you really get masochistic take up duck hunting. Nothing says stupid as much as going out at 4 AM to sit in a sleet storm to shoot greasy birds. Now that steel shot is mandatory it is even easier to break your teeth. The dentists must have gotten that law passed.Another thrill is waterskiing. My brother tried it and looked like somebody was dragging a beluga whale to its death. One day we were out and a guy went skiing naked because he had no swimsuit. He did okay even when we headed for the only boat in sight. After embarrassing him a little we headed back across the river and he was skiing way to the right(port) and the left(cabernet), and so on. When he was way out to the side and zipping along about thirty, the pilot steered right at him and the line just went slack. He turned the boat just in front and gunned it. I had time to think twice "He's not going to hold on" when he DID and went airborne for at least twenty-five feet, with his little wee-wee flapping in the cold New England air. He hit the water like a corpse off the back of Bebe Rebozo's yacht. If I'd had a video camera I'd be able to retire. Just to top the day off we untied the boat while skibum and pilot went for gasoline. We ended up paddling against the current for twenty minutes while the entire restaurant laughed at us-we couldn't get the last thirty feet back to the dock until somebody towed us as the motor wouldn't start.But it will all be better if I can just get another boat 5 feet longer-then things will change!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

It's Magic when we Merge

Dear Gabby,

As a trite and unoriginal writer I have decided to write a fake advice column cuz I think it would be easy to get humor out of the pathetic lives of those who need help. I also figure that they would write half the words and I'd only have to look in the dicshunary a couple of times a week. How did you get started in the advisin' bidness?

Yours Turly
Phineas Mole

Dear Phineas,

You have the idea! Just convince the hoi-polloi that you can solve their dilemmas and once a week a courier will come to your house with a check and swap it for your measly few words. I and the little lady sit around laughing at these simps. We get tons of letters full of money, and assorted offerings of vegetable nature and then crack up for hours. It's better than TV by a mile. Americans will step over dead humans for hours and send thousands to a cat that got stuck in a tree overnight.

Gabby

Dear Gabby

Luckily I caught the printer before he started running this edition so I get to ask another question. How is it that you can answer a question from a new letter from a previous correspondent?

P. Mole

Dear P,

This is a little known fact about the media: we are omniscient. Right now I can tell that you are sitting at a PC, and wondering how I could answer a letter from a respondent when the whole idea seems absurd at its root.

Gabby

Dear Gabby,

You truly amaze me, and, I am sure, your other 15 readers.

P. (Diddy) Mole

Dear Gabby,
I just keyed your car . I am your neighbor and I get sick and tired of all the laughing and partying you clowns do all night.

P. Ode

Dear Pode,

That sound you heard wasn't a firecracker. I hope you saved a receipt for that dogfood.

Gabby

Dear Gabby

I am Lieutenant Rollins of the Tomah PD and you're under arrest for shooting that dog,.

LT. Rollins

Dear Lt Rollins,

He had a knife.

Gabby

Dear Gabby,

Hey can I get a little help here? My daughter is having trouble in school and my son is dancing with cocaine and my wife is turning out to be a real weirdo. I have three separate infestations of lice and I am sporting a hump with a whistling mole. The gargoyle that says she is my neighbor has dumped human remains in the recycling. I can't get Hannity OR Coombs to stop talking; they are on every channel selling tourmaline statuettes of Idi Amin in a bobsled. Please send help or something.

Marion Morrison

Dear Mari,

I am in the dayroom playing pinochle with a psychopath-you do the math.

Over and Out

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Marching into Tomorrow ...sometime this evening

So I am back already. I have to comment on computers and the Internet or I lose my license. I still don't know the nuances and just tried to start a new blog when I wanted to write another post to this blog.
It is ever easier for the small guy to reach an audience-would that they have something profound... even interesting...dare we ask for humor AND intelligence? The long-suffering audience is now evermore able and motivated to ignore the schizoid dementia of our sex-obsessed but repressed media watchdogs. Here in cyberland we face no censure for letter combinations which are'offensive', though a recent move to get the word chink removed from our vocabulary comes to mind. No more nippy air either. It is pathetic that while we jail people for market decisions we see danger from words such as tit. When Ms Jackson flopped that bad girl out in realtime the prudes had third degree vapors. I believe the fine was about $750,000 which seems to me to be the same revenue the broadcaster would have earned had the boob been a politician. It was, of course, not LYING, so it wouldn't have had the same deleterious effect of the politico's emanations.
Why can't we have some more of that particular exposure and less of the drug/hostages/media circus hoo-haw. The interest in TV would grow, and the suicide rate would fall. Nobody pays any attention to political criminals when they themselves are guilty of the same crimes so nobody really cares unless an areola is visible. The weenies could fret and sputter and generally act like the meatbrains they are and the regular folk could laugh at the numbnuts and go back to gnawing winkles. Get the CGI(cool graphics initiators?) to do this-repeat the episode of the flagrant and wanton hussy-but replace her nipple with a Budweiser logo. WHAT an IDEA. I want money for this.
If you see an ad with Janet Jackson and a titattoo of General Mills I started it and I am getting robbed. Maybe they will stick to round logos. Starbucks could do it and really twist the irony nipple-they altered their logo because...get this... the mermaid had a (gasp) navel. They could advertise ski resorts if they adorn Dolly Parton.
I am having bizarre visions of glowing tattoos-Christmas lights under the skin-or fields of red, green and blue dots, ready to shine with the commercials of 2015-sky cars and rockets-or toilet 'tissue' and 'feminine products'. They could point an arrow at the model's crotch-in her own skin-"Need help down there? Chasing away the good guys? Use Whoopy brand scrubbers for that Fresh Aura you Demand". The music would have to come from a speaker lodged ...never mind.
We would get insulin programs which would light up the region where today's shot should go. No need to carry a flashlight when your nose gleams like Ted Kennedy's on St Patty's Day. Drunks could have sensors installed that would save them and us from their driving. "WARNING ALCOHOL CONTENT APPROACHING SENATORIAL LEVEL DANGER DANGER."
Next we can develop glasses that WE wear that changes people into talking creatures of our own twisted imagination. Tune your mother-in-law's face out and replace her mug with a red river hog's anus-though you'd probably confuse her with James Carville after that. Cartoons, sexy babes, movie stars, wild animals and then no more gaping at the mutant across from you at the terminal. You could even cut down on the psychoactive substances that are wreaking havoc on your chromosomes, not that little Othmar isn't a paragon of humanly stature and comportment.