Author Archive for M. Toole
Too much executive direction, too few tenants
(Mañana — July 19, 2016) According to a recent study completed as part of Traffic Pattern Summer here, the number of Executive Directors in town equal the number of empty storefronts…exactly. The formula, new to science, suggests that while titles abound, real work is delegated at best and often neglected in favor of power plays and petty politics.
“The square root of the number of days planning relative to the number of hours operating are severely lopsided,” said Edwin Cerro, of some sociological or psychological think tank in Peach Valley. “Then if we add the infinite value to the primitive mode we get the definitive chaos that defines life in the 21st Century. Get it?”
Cerro went on to insist that postulates exhorting the use of hallucinogens to make it through the day or eating genetically modified fast foods are not acceptable language at the dinner table.
“The multiplier, number 4, is a mysterious footnote to the astral proceedings conducted at a lunch stand near Stonehenge and in the beehives of Ballyferriter. In short we don’t know what it means but it does clearly combine the critical division of the Universe into equal and passive parts while moonbeam traffic patterns remain a recipe for disaster.
In a related story plans to build a series of roundabouts over the river and through the woods at the local golf course have come to a sudden halt as neighbors screamed down local officials, driving them out of the neighborhood with bean poles and battle axes.
“There is nothing circular going on as golfers pass the fairway on their way to the green. Even the Giant Carnivore Cottonwoods stand straight and in a row,” said Cerro. “The merchant class will not put up with this tomfoolery.”
Susie Compost
Leaf-cutting marmots likely culprit in pot stink
(Crested Butte – Sweet Smell Review – July 18, 2016)
A late summer invasion of hungry leaf-cutting marmots is blamed for the increase in marijuana odor that has some residents upset here. Complaints about excessive smells emanating from personal marijuana growing operations are on the rise and the county is prepared to act.
According to local biologists the locusts-like rodents chew on the leaves and the biting releases industrially pungent blasts of pot odor. Although not thought to be dangerous to humans, the olfactory status has been calculated as registering somewhere between baby powder and a busy feedlot.
Authorities are perplexed, with many hinging on two preliminary actions. The first is to rid the area of these mutant marmots. The second is to leave town and begin a new life elsewhere.
It is not clear why the rodents like to chew on the leaves or the state they are attempting to achieve. Scientists believe they have run out of other more traditional sustenance and are desperately attacking the marijuana grown in town.
Pursuing valid solutions to this classic multi-use issue is further clouded by across-the-board confusion as to what constitutes a legal growth effort. People who grow for personal consumption are not regulated like commercial pot producers and often it is difficult to determine what is what with regard to the six-plant per person rule.
One rogue town council member suggested spraying the affected areas with the smell of money to quell the protests. Other concerned citizens are firmly against this toxic approach preferring to deal with the marmots more humanely, by approved trap and release methods.
“Everyone likes the smell of a ten or twenty especially with the masses wandering Elk Avenue this time of the year,” she said. “It’s either that or we go back to burning coal which these leaf-cutter marmots detest.
Chaos at the legal level has spurred dire consequences for citizens not fond of the often-strong aroma on marijuana plants in heat. They are virtually surrounded by pot. Many complain that they cannot even smell their own car boxes or something burning on the stove.
“I didn’t realize there were people out there that found the smell of cannabis to be offensive,” chimed a longtime merchant. “They could be smelling exhaust fumes, landfill wisps or bad water like many other communities. The pot is harmless at this stage.”
Once again the scenario swirls around a case of a small number of greedy persons taking advantage of the lax laws and intruding on the rights of others. Vegetable garden laws are desperately needed in this municipality. People can’t police themselves. Transient mentality and a strong smell of bud pervades the day. Simple enough on paper a tough nut to crack in the midday sun.
“These types are a lot like out contingent of bad dog owners,” said the merchant. “They don’t train their dogs and they continually fly under the radar of personal integrity.”
– Fred Zeppelin
Arañas ganancia tres asientos
(Weblander – Arácnido Follies – July 17, 2016)
Arañas Western Slope han ganado tres escaños en la Cámara de Colorado y pueden empujar a un senador pro-araña de acuerdo a los informes que se arrastran y correteando en este centro cultural. Según el Censo de 2010 la población de araña estado ha disparado (crecimiento del 23%) a ganar el Partido Arana un aumento dramático en la representación.
Conversaciones susurradas escuchadas en sótanos oscuros y espacios angostos todo los Rockies sugiere que los animales de ocho patas pueden estar planeando ejecutar un candidato populista de la Casa Blanca en 2016. Las arañas tienen durante siglos sufrieron de un problema de relaciones públicas severa: Los seres humanos tienden a aplastarlos siempre que entran en las casas de los lugares de negocio.
Los arácnidos esperan que su mayor visibilidad en la capital presentará su situación en una mejor luz y de prensa para la plena autonomía. Los intentos de aliarse con grupos escindidos de insectos han fracasado estrepitosamente debido a la arrogancia de araña y la danza de la cadena alimentaria actual.
“Nos gustaría recordar a los aliados y potenciales aliados que no somos los insectos”, dijo uno de los organizadores.
– Emilio Frijole
Cattlemen’s Day’s Rodeo Starts tomorrow
The 116th Cattlemen’s Days PRCA Rodeo runs from July 14 – 16. Come on up or over to Gunnison and join in!
Labor Department Suggests Stupid Days
(Washington — July 12, 2016) A new federal program, aimed at relieving work-related stress and decreasing employee absenteeism, will be implemented by 2018 if the U.S. Department of Labor has its way.
The plan, dubbed the Stupid Agenda, calls for the assignment of five stupid days per year per employee. The plan will be tested next month at more than 200 factories and mills throughout the country and a final approach will be determined by summer.
“If I guy wakes up in the morning and he can’t get it together, he can just call in stupid,” said one human behavior analyst. “It’s like calling in sick but you don’t have to lie.”
The analyst went on to say that several industries already honor mental health days and vacation days but pointed out that these excuses leave a lot of gray area unexplored.
“Of course we expect that some employees will take advantage of the new program and take all of their stupid days in a row,” he sighed. “It will be up to the individual business to police its own shop and regulate the extension of stupid days to people who really don’t deserve them.
According to unconfirmed sources here the federal government has been engaged in a secret stupid day exchange since about 1972. In fact, most of the major decisions that have been made since then were formulated over the phone by top level officials who had called in stupid.
“It’s about time we caste off the yoke that tells us we were put on earth to labor,” explained the government spokesman. “The concept of stupid days serves as a reminder that when it really comes down to it, life is rather silly at best.”
-Dinty Moore
Blue Collar Force March Sends Shock Waves
(Bland Junction Peeper – July 11, 2016)
In 1880 the Tabeguache and the Northern Ute bands were removed to their reservation in Utah. It was affordable housing in the most primitive sense. Troublesome Utes, who had been silly enough to think they could maintain the nomadic lifestyle that they had enjoyed for centuries, were finally out of the hair of mining and development.
Today, due to a severe disparity of wealth, a shortage of land here in paradise and an overpopulation of the seasonal privileged, the local workforce is being evicted. Many have already been escorted across the Grand River for settlement on worker’s utopias in the Beehive State.
These destination retorts are not called reservations in 1997, nor are they referred to as relocation camps. The actual name for the centers has been thrown into the laps of several local realtors who promise to have concocted a workable term for the arcadias soon.
“We didn’t know the gov’ment could write a treaty on us,” said one of the uprooted workers. “We’re not even Indians.”
The wage slaves, who have been gradually pushed out of Western Colorado along with old ranching families and persons who do not fit the mold of the New West (cash only) will join others who have failed to cut the mustard.
“If you don’t show up with pockets stuffed with cash there’s no place for you here,” said Major McCook, the officer in charge of executing the controversial relocation orders. “Inheritance is popular, especially if you’ve got your eye on one of those cozy $500,000 cottages that dot the pristine landscape around these parts. We’re seeing more and more of the jeunesse doree’, fashionable, wealthy young people who have come to play in the Rockies. This whole enterprise is nothing personal and hardly political. It’s just business.”
Some of the more caring rich, a foggy minority group that gives to charities and drinks white wine before the fire, have expressed concern over the plight of their fellow citizens.
“We do so hope they have an enjoyable excursion and that they learn to love Utah,” said Muffy Hollandaise of Aspen. “We can’t imagine being poor or having to work all week long just to pay rent on a trailer…and it’s summer vacation and all. I remember reading about this kind of thing back in college…Charles Dickens, I think. But it all worked out in the end.”
Other fringe groups say the working class deserves to be removed since most never made the right investments and insisting on working for low wages so as to live in Western Colorado.
“Some of them even went so far as to spend every penny they made just surviving,” said Rex Montaleone, an unemployed millionaire living in Telluride. “How awful. I just hope it doesn’t affect our domestic labor pool. Maybe we should have waited until after ski season to send them packing.”
As of press time some 10,000 workers have been marched into Utah with many more scheduled for departure this month. Interested participants and students of history are encouraged to observe the massive exodus from points above the river where dinner and cocktails will be served.
A hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner, featuring a tongue-in-cheek presentation of lower middle class cuisine, will be held at the local Immigration and Naturalization Office here to determine how and when to begin construction of a mass transit system from the utopias to the workplace on this side of the river.
“We will not tolerate tardiness when it comes to employees,” said one proponent of the divine right theory.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
