Author Archive for M. Toole
REGIONAL SHORTS
Power Company Meeting Filled With Electricity
(Ridgway) The annual meeting of the San Miguel Power Cartel was filled with electricity last night as principals juggled controversial proposals as to the mandatory adoption of solar energy in Ouray, San Juan and San Miguel Counties. Other subjects discussed were a three-day work week for employees of the cooperative, the use of golf carts on service details to Hastings and Horsefly Mesas. Other downtown sources appeared intent on embracing fossilized ideas from the winter. At the close of the meeting, in keeping with the newly emerging windmill technology, a particularly extended passage from Cervantes was read and everyone fell asleep, only to be awakened when the pizza arrived.
PAGAN BIGGIES TO CONVENE HERE IN AUGUST
(Telluride) Leading pagan gods will assemble in this festive burg August 2 to discuss the future of Heathenism in America. Gods and goddesses already committed to attend the three-day seminar include Pan, Bacchus, Vishnu, Thor, Venus, Cuchulainn, Zeus, Rahsheeman, Buddha, Hera, After Six Jah, Ra, Finn McCool and the late great James Brown.
In return for free parking and discount lodging, the gods have promised heavy snows for the next three winters and divine intercession in building further roundabouts in the middle of sacred wetlands.
After an intimate chicken fried steak buffet the participants will convene to the Telluride Golf Corpse for closest-to-the-pin tournament sponsored by the recently reorganized Disappointment Valley Optimist Club. Limited tickets are currently available through any local working the crowd. If you are a god or goddess and would like to attend ask for an application at any merchant.
Ceiling on Tattoo Parlors
(Montrose) The local elected council has passed a sweeping ordinance that would severely curtail the number of tattoo parlors allowed to operate within city limits. Citing an explosion of tattoo and body piercing establishments the council voted unanimously to curtail further operations of this type.
“The existing parlors are not a problem nor considered a nuisance since they fulfill a need and pay taxes,” said one voting member. “we just don’t want to see the place turn into another Grand Junction.”
Already several appeals have been filed by tattoo parlors just outside the city limits who say grandfathered operations represent unfair competition in that they receive special consideration on city contracts.
Sand Baggers Criticized
(Gunnison) Persons engaged in sand bagging/flood control along the Gunnison River at Dos Rios have come under fire for irregular stacking methods by an architectural review committee from Parlin.
Saying that the stacks of sand bags interrupt access to the river at many points, the watchdog group further contends that the bags are not to code and that the baggers have not secured the proper building permits necessary for their venture.
“Many didn’t have protective footwear, helmets or flippers,” said one neighbor, concerned over a shoddy job.
Meanwhile the sandbaggers, who, for the record, take acceptance to the negative name reference, insist that emergency conditions dictate precedence and that adjudicated water laws overrule existing local statutes.
County officials promised to sort out the matter just as soon as the dry season arrives.
Phone companies promise louder beeps
(Pea Green) Telephone company CEOs, hiding from consumer contact in this quaint little jerkwater heaven, have decided to increase the decibel level of all “reminder recordings” by the first of the year. They insist that the obnoxious blasts experienced when one gets a wrong number or fails to follow dialing procedures correctly are not punitive. Many corporate human resource teams have reached out and reminded consumers that there are many deaf people amid the company’s clientele.
“That which is designated as politically correct must take priority,” said a QBest executive, who pulls down millions per year with incentives and bonuses. “We’re just poor, old country boy public servants “Years ago we didn’t see a lot of handicapped parking and now it’s everywhere, kind of like green space, only the asphalt is black.”
compiled by Armando Tinkleholland
Gout Club Disbands for Summer
Voting members of the Benjamin Franklin Gout Alliance plan to spend their summer reading 500-page historical novels about families they care nothing about and cannot even escape through, no matter how they till their furrows.
Neophyte members will continue cultivating black cherry trees and fermenting apple cider vinegar to bottle in the fall.
With any luck and lower uric acid levels, the popular support group should reconvene in time for The Annual Tawny Port and Unhinged Protein Rendezvous held as part of the popular Heany Tick Festival in November.
Civic duties and hosting arrangements, dedicatedly fulfilled for decades by the gout club will be handled by the recently paroled elements of the Disappointment Valley Optimist Club.
– Gabby Haze
Fifteen Seconds of Fame…
The waddling slider grip proved effective
Wilhelm “Tobacco” Roosterwande loaded up the ball. No one debates the fact. What is particularly alarming and somewhat amusing is that he used horse apples in his final “salsa of saliva”.
The baseball slid 10 ways to Sunday. He happily loaded the ball without paying the price until finally he got busted in 1904, but not until 699 strikeouts had been recorded, and at a record pace.
“I once saw his curveball break a foot, then drop to socks line.” said longtime teammate Tyrone “Pop” Fly who was often pressed into service behind the dish when things got wet and sloppy.
Although passed by for Cooperstown, Roosterwande has remained an icon for upcoming spit ballers, toddlers, old farts and anyone who drools.
Do Putin Blinis Signal Warming with Biden Administration?
(Moscow) A dozen gourmet blinis addressed to the White House arrived this morning accompanied by a congratulatory card from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Are they just a simple gift or is there a hidden agenda? Regardless, officials in Washington are playing it cautiously, sending a generic thank you card back to Red Square and eating the treats.
Many see the gift as simply a friendly gesture, an attempt to put diplomatic niceties on a more personal level. Others perceive the blinis as the first step in thawing out the damaged relationship between two of the world’s superpowers.
“These are the real thing,” said a Russian ex-pat who owns a bakery in nearby Pikeville, Maryland. These are St. Petersburg blinis renown as the finest, even by people in Moscow. This is like a Nathan’s at Coney Island, a Po’ Boy on Bienville Street or clam chowder at Fisherman’s Wharf.”
Not to be confused with blintzes, (Jewish cigar-shaped pancakes) blinis have been enjoyed in Russia since Sviatopolk the Cursed. They are not new to America, having been confiscated from the mail during attempts to sabotage the US Postal Service prior to the presidential election in 2020.
It is not known how or if President Biden will respond but insiders say he is planning to invite the Russian leader for a tour of national parks and a ball game at Coors Field in Denver. The two met in Colorado years ago, on a wild asparagus safari, when Biden was a congressman.
His journey to the United States as a front man for Russian vodka was kept under wraps over security concerns and copyright infringements. At the time he was acting in a support function as prime minister. In reality, Putin has been running the Kremlin sideshow since 1999.
Despite all the heralded friendship Putin managed only to fax Trump a bowl of tepid borscht that was mistaken by White House security to be “vegetable in nature” and destroyed.
“The only vegetable we need around here is out in the Rose Garden,” one since dismissed security officer was overheard to say.
“The expense incurred was quite substantial with the blinis,” continued the Pikeville baker. Overnight from St. Petersburg is not cheap. “Putin is known to be tight with his money. We call him skryaga, but not to his face. Recipients of his Bolshevik generosity couldn’t even fill a tiny gulag cabin in Yakutsk.
Former President George W. Bush got invited to the Georgian Black Sea resort of Batumi and Putin reputedly sent a box of cigars to then President Bill Clinton in 1998.
– Opal Ebilskivers
PGA Approves Shock Treatments
The Professional Golfers Association today announced that it would approve the use of controversial and somewhat archaic shock treatment to correct poorly planned chip shots and pathetic, lunging putts.
Stressing that the procedures would be strictly a last resort therapy and only administered in dire situations with prior knowledge of the despondent linkster/patient.
“It’s come to this with some of our clumsier golfers,” whelped one empathetic course pro with a flair for words: “For 18 holes flailing almost swan-like in their hoop-swings they look like crippled, crotchety windmill vanes, missing a blade or two. Their chips mimic fresh, trembling chantarelles in a whirling blender, while hurried putts look like the work of sheep forced over a steep cliff, and that says nothing of follow through.”
The PGA did not return our phone calls. A recorded message did not undress the shock treatments but did remind all golfers to replace their divots.
– Algernon Birdie-Duffer
Summer ’21 to be juried event
(Colona) Persons vacationing in Western Colorado next season will be doing so by invitation only according to a resolution adopted last night by Colorado Brie Country. While most tourists will be invited back, the roster will be determined by a jury of residents who will make all final decisions on the matter.
“Once the final invitation list is released there will be no exceptions,” said Jack Spratt of Gladstone Amusements. “This is an occasion where less is more. We think the people included in our official observation of summer will experience a more meaningful vacation without the fringe element in attendance.”
Spratt chose not to comment on rumors that the United States Border Patrol will be employed to keep intruders out of the inter-mountain region through September. Unreliable sources here and at the foot of Storm King insist that the feds have been invited in.
“They did one crack job at keeping illegal Latin American immigrants from walking into Maine,” said one member of the jury. We think they can do the same for us.”
It was not clear how this decision would affect restrictions on water grabs by the Confront Range next spring. At present any exchange must be approved on a bucket-by-bucket basis until that region realizes that growth without water cannot be tolerated on either side of the Continental Hayride.
– Zorro DesPlants
“When poor people are rude and ignorant we write it off to bad breeding. When rich people are rude and ignorant we write it off to bad breeding. It is separate but equal bad breeding.”
– Paula Parvenu
