Author Archive for M. Toole
Rastafarians for Mondale to Evaporate
Natty Dread News – November 13, 2014
Decades long activist cluster, Rastafarians for Mondale, is set to disband as of the end of the year. Known for its dogged, often reckless pursuit of its ill-defined sense of justice and magical feel for the absurd the RFM will be missed by many.
In utter disarray after the crushing defeat in the 1984 Presidential elections, the group reemerged stronger claiming a membership of at least 6.
Advocates herein say the demise of the RFM is linked to the constant attempts by the Right to discredit policies and goals expressed since the 70s.
“At this point our political focus will be to try to determine why middle class people vote against their interests,” said one former chief of the organization. “These frightened Americans are blaming liberals for their problems when they should be looking at the corporate feudalism that’s just around the corner. Throw in a little racism, sexism and xenophobia and you’ve got a neighborhood blockhead party shouting tiny, small ball solutions for social enigmas that they fail to understand.”
How the Rastafarians for Mondale will affect the 2016 elections is not clear since it has yet to forward an agenda on the issues.
“One thing’s for certain,” said the above source. “We won’t be voting for Hillary.” – Mickie Marvelous
Fox News Available in Suppository Format
Latent FCC Approves of Forced Delivery
(Special from Perth-Colona Network — November 13, 2014)
(Rocky Mountain Empire) Viewers can now access FOX news broadcasts by suppository it was announced today. The solid medical preparation, conical or cylindrical, is designed to be dissolved like common inserts so as to promote and facilitate access to the news at all times of the day and from expanded angles of the human body.
“We don’t want to dwell on the graphics or personal biology here,” said a cartoon character disguised as a journalist at the network. “Most people get the idea or will if they are game,” he chuckled. “As with all breakthrough technologies there will be some confusion at first but the adoption of this news feed is really quite simple.
The executive said the instructions are printed in extra large type to accommodate the needs of older people, who make up a large percentage of FOX loyalists. He admitted that the network’s audience is often slow to grasp content the first time around and that the personalized and capsulated version would give them the opportunity to digest the headlines at their own pace.
Persons who are sight and hearing challenged will also find the suppository helpful in that video size and audio capacity can be controlled right there by dosage and length of time it takes for the fast breaking glycerol or “what you need to know” gelatin news to dissolve in the viewers system.
“More and more we find that our audience has trouble chewing or swallowing,” said the executive, “and the news in suppository form could provide a quick and more logical alternative to actually paying critical attention to the world around them. Sure they swallow our take on current events and may even digest parts of it but not without discomfort. We will continue to chew the stories and features for them,” he said.
Although the official suppository issued by FOX is fear-based it will enter the blood stream and ultimately the consciousness without distraction. Most of the medication is produced only in black and white and is served up in language even the slowest can comprehend. Systematic and local acting medications are nothing next to the heavy mental and verbal laxatives spewed by the news professionals currently on the air.
Viewers are reminded of the 7-point embrace of the FOX information flow: 1.) Wash your hands and brain thoroughly 2.) Lie on your side 3.) breath deeply 4.) Remove confusing wrapper installed by the Obama Administration 5.) Lubricate projected probe area fully 6.) Adjust daily dosage to explain reality. 7.) Enjoy.
With a little common sense, interested Americans can secure a smooth, consistent flow of our news. Viewers awaiting Parrot Checks, payments by FOX to viewers and listeners who repeat ignorant observations, juvenile conclusions, rumors, concoctions, untruths and slanted opinions while engaged in political discussion, will be pleased to note that the recompense should be arriving this week just in time for the late summer sale at Wal-Mart. – Fred Zepellin
“Thanksgiving in Turkey”
TRAVEL ’14
Continued from in front of you
so that Bob (is that his name?) and I and the kids were pushed down onto the pavement and told to keep our eyes to the ground as the entourage passed by, snaking its way toward Mount Ararat and the grave of the Apostle Paul.
“Hey, mom,” said little Bennie, “says in this brochure that Turkey is larger than Texas. Is that for real?”
“No, stupid, it’s just all that jihad propaganda,” piped sister Beatrice from the pruned position. “Where did you get that brochure anyway?”
“Shut-up bitch,” said little Bennie. “Nobody’s talking to you!”
“Now kids, let’s try to put our hatreds aside. We’re miles from our hotel and not out of this yet,” said Dad. “These people are naturally friendly and engaging. They just have to get to know us. I thought St Paul was buried at Lookout Mountain…”
Finally, and not without more fanfare the procession passed. The strange men in robes told us to get up and walk to the east and we would find our hotel.
“I wanna see Noah’s Arc,” said Beatrice, “and the ancient city of Troy. What a beat vacation. All my friends in Chicago will laugh at me if they find out I came all the way to Turkey without…”
“Wait, daddy,” I said to my husband, “isn’t that the road to Istanbul, or is it the road to Constantinople? They must sell ottomans there. I just have to have an authentic Turkish Ottoman or I’ll just die.”
“What about dinner?” whined Bennie. “We’ve been here three days and I haven’t seen a taco anywhere. Today is Thanksgiving. Where’s the stuffing?”
“Now Bennie,” said my husband, whose name eludes me just now, “this isn’t America. One has to adapt. Sure, all of these rugheads wish they were in America, the land of the free, but they aren’t. They’re marooned here in Asia Minor…have been for centuries. I thought you liked the filberts in barley sauce that mom cooked up last night.”
“I want pizza,” screamed Beatrice much to the chagrin of a large angry crowd that had now gathered, blocking our exit from behind one of a hundred mosques that crowd the cobbled square. “I hate filberts!”
“And where is the football!” demanded little Bennie. “Don’t these Tartar savages know that it’s Thanksgiving?”
“I hate tartar sauce too,” mumbled Beatrice, “and Kurds and whey…
“Stop!” cried daddy. “Look a fez stand right out here in the middle of nowhere. I think we should all take home a fez as a souvenir from this lovely trip. Say there sahib. How much for four fezzes…is that the proper term? Yeah, four…and don’t try to screw me. I’m an American and I have rights.”
At that he pulled out a U.S. fifty which the man selling the fez hats quickly grabbed and stashed in his robe. He smiled and then let go of the hats.
“Those hats look stupid,” said Beatrice, and for once her little brother agreed. We must have looked quite the sight wandering down those snarled filthy streets, sipping a Raki looking for some familiar signs of home.
“I have to pee,” said Bennie.
“We need to find a halkevi, or house of the people. Surely they will have indoor facilities…
“And cleanliness,” I crisply quipped.
“And a make-up mirror,” added Beatrice.
“And some good old American toilet paper,” smiled Daddy.
“We could ask someone,” I said melodically, swept up in the worldly banter of a man I no longer knew.
“None of these bozos talk American,” said Bennie
“Turkish isn’t so hard to learn,” said Dad as he wagged his finger at a would-be thief. “The Turks borrowed many Arabic and Persian words during the Ottoman Empire, then Kemal Ataturk changed the whole shootin’ match over to the Roman alphabet in 1928.”
“How does he know all that?” whispered Beatrice in my direction.
“Daddy was once a Middle East expert in of the Bush Administrations, dear,” I explained.
“It’s worthless information about a country that prefers figs to cranberry sauce, olives to pumpkin pie…”
“Shhhhh,” Bennie. Here come the mashed potatoes!”
As I looked up I saw thousands of men in the street. There were Turks from Ankara, Turks from Izmir, Turks from Cyprus. All were working together pushing a massive vat of freshly mashed potatoes, thinly veiled in Seljuk mohair, toward the largest of the mosques to the east of the square.
“Wow, dad!” said Bennie.
“Where are all the women?” asked Beatrice.
“Maybe they do celebrate Thanksgiving in Turkey,” I flinched.
“Look, kids. Look! It’s the march of the turkeys,” said Dad. “Look, honey, their coming this way. It’s going to be a wonderful holiday just like I told you. Honey? Honey? Hey, kids, where’s your mother?
“Oh, she was forced into that black Mercedes by two Turkish men who have been following us since yesterday,” said Beatrice.
“What? Forced into a car? gasped Daddy.
“Relax, man she’ll be back for dinner,” said Bennie.
– Luanne Julienne is a free-lance writer who lives in a big house in Connecticut. In addition to writing travel articles she raises amphetamines, which are then sold to collectors in New York
Malfunction TV to Resume Broadcasts
News from “River City” – November 13. 2014
One of the Bland Valley’s top two television stations has promised to return to the air “pretty soon”. Owner and general manager Alvin Rabbit-Tears promised reporters that ZYX Television would be back up and running after technical problems shut her down last week.
“It wasn’t deliberate or nothin’,” said Rabbit-Tears.
The problem as outlined by engineers, was caused when one of the techies in Montrose accidently disengaged the amalgamated-core direct electronic feed to the direct transducer transformer, and a power drop occurred in the transitory remission relay center.
“The instruction book was all in Chinese,” whined Rabbit-Tears, “and we don’t have anyone around here that speaks Chinese.”
Civic leaders, who for decades have been trying to figure out how ZYX ever secured an FCC license, contend that the station is run by fifth graders and viewers should be a little more understanding of problems that might crop up. Many say the entire problem was caused when the night janitor tripped on the main power cord, effectively shutting down the operation.
“Be that as it may,” strained the manager, “but the trouble was severely compounded when highly trained technicians from the network center found discrepancies in the schematic design infrastructure (no one could find the plug) and were forced to perform a complete diagnostic analysis (They began moving the main studio furniture around) before they could isolate the faulty component (They found the plug) and inserted the power correlation device. (They plugged it in).
“We don’t expect our viewers to be able to follow all this specialized jargon,” said Rabbit-Tears, “any more than we might expect the readers of this newspaper to understand why rocks come in different sizes.”
– Mario Swervo
Tom Turkey’s Lament
A Shorter Than Expected History of One November Day
by Lamont Montague
Tom Turkey was born on August 17 and, all things considered, that’s quite an accomplishment for any bird as stupid as a turkey. It is doubtful whether his father was present at the birth and probable that no one would have cared either way. His mother was a middle-age (by turkey standards) hen who has since disappeared from the barnyard. He was named “Tom,” which has been an appropriate name for turkeys since prehistoric time.
As a young turkey Tom played all the turkey games. He learned to gawk and twist his neck around into the most contorted positions. When the thunder rolled he learned to plea up with all the other birds of his type, usually causing a few of his fellow birds o smother. Life in the barnyard wasn’t exactly what one would call exotic, but it would simply have to do.
“The turkey, while notably the most ignorant bird in the Western Hemisphere, does fill a void in the culture. Take the Pilgrims and the Indians for instance. I dare say if it had not been for the stupidity of the turkey those miserable colonists would have stared to death for sure.”1
Tom grew quite quickly and, because the owner of the turkey farm had not provided exercising equipment, he grew very fat. Although he had feathers and was in every sense a bird he could not fly. He couldn’t even jump. Despite these handicaps Tom developed mature relationships with some of the female birds. Most of them were as dumb as dirt as well, but a “well-read turkey is no good to anybody.”2
The summer passed all too quickly. One day Tom and his breast friend Fred were gobbling about the barnyard when it began to rain. Most of the turkeys froze. They were frightened and amused at the water falling from the sky. The men who watched over the turkey farm began to herd the birds into shelter. Unfortunately all the turkeys didn’t make it and drowned while staring up into the clouds. Tom and his friend, Fred, were quite puzzled as to the disappearance of some of their fellow gobblers but they decided not to dwell on these matters.
“In 1778 Benjamin Franklin proposed legislation to the Continental Congress which would have made the Wild Turkey the national bird of the newly formed United States of America. Many of the delegates laughed and others stormed out of the chambers to inform the press of the old gentleman’s demise. As history tells us it was the Bald Eagle not the Wild Turkey which was proclaimed the national symbol and that is precisely why we don’t eat pork chops on Thanksgiving Day.”3
Many other catastrophes befell the turkeys that fall as a few were wiped out by a fire in the hen house and another by a falling tree limb, but one incident outweighed the others in the fright category. On September 28 a young turkey, who had been born on the same day as Tom, was lost in a pile of falling leaves. No one realized that he was missing and in an attempt to procure nourishment he choked to death on an aspen leaf.
like all youngsters Tom and Fred dreamed of running away to sea or of hopping a freight to California. Their dreams never got off the launch pad, though, as the dumb bids had enough trouble just finding their way to dinner. By the first week of October they were gaining two pounds per week and the turkey ranchers smiled as the two young turkeys paraded around their roost. That’s when they first met Spike.
Spike was likable enough, as roosters go. He had an arrogant stroll and a threatening glance for anyone who even looked like he might cross him. He looked on the turkey as one might look on an English Ivy plant.
“Hey, you dumb birds, get away from my fence,” shouted Spike one day as Tom and Fred stumbled around the barnyard. They just stared back at the large rooster, afraid to take another step. Spike was surprised and mistook their stupidity for courage.
“Well, I’ll be,” mused Spike. “Maybe you guys are different from all the rest. Come on over here,” he gestured. “Share some of my dinner.”
Tom and Fred gobbled over to where Spike was standing an cautiously began pecking at his healthy serving. They ate attentively for a few moments until Spike asked them how they liked the meal.
“Why, it’s delicious,” said Fred.
“Yes, delicious,” echoed Tom in agreement. “And there is such quantity.”
“Would you like to eat like this all the time?” asked Spike
Both the turkeys nodded excitedly.
“Well, you can. All you have to do is act important like I do. Be somebody. Quit gawking and gobbling and slouching. Stand up straight!”
The two birds stiffened on command.
“If you don’t wake up this could be your last Thanksgiving, boys,” smiled the rooster.
The turkeys looked at each other. Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving? What is Thanksgiving? It sounds pleasant enough but by the tone of Spike’s voice they couldn’t help but feel that there was a missing link. They thought about asking Spike but were afraid that they would blow their favorable status with the influential rooster. So they just smiled in agreement and attempted to strut like a rooster looking even more awkward than before. However, Spike’s words continued to haunt them all day and late that night the two turkeys discussed their recent experience.
“Do you think that Spike character is on the level? asked Fred.
“Why sure,” said Tom. “Look at how he lives. He’s free to roam the entire barnyard. And just look at the food he eats!”
“Well, what do you think he meant when he said this could be our last Thanksgiving?” Fred was trembling, but he wasn’t cold.
“Oh, he was probably just pulling our leg,” replied Tom trying to shrug it off.
The two continued a circular discussion trying to decide what this “Thanksgiving g” thing might be. Soon they were fast asleep; thinking is a big drain on a turkey.
“Whenever you have more than two turkeys discussing anything more technical than a bowl of pea soup you have the potential of a full scale disaster. The only hope is that they are free spenders.”4
As the first snow fell on their miniature world Tom and Fred wound their gawky way through a multitude of fellow turkeys still at odds about this thing called “Thanksgiving.” At first they were very worried about what Spike had said, but as the days wore on and nothing became of it, they soon put it out of their minds.
“The memory of a turkey is in direct proportion to the size of their brain cells. The storage capacity approaches zero as the amount of data to be stored increases. In other words, their brain goes on the blitz. That’s how they can remain so carefree.5
They came across Spike one day sitting happily on a water trough near the entrance to a hen house.
“How are you boys doin’ this afternoon,” he asked sharply.
“Oh, doin fine,” snapped Tom.
“It’s gettin’ on toward Thanksgiving you know. Maybe it’s time you boys made a break for it.
There it was. That word again. Spike laughed knowingly as the two turkeys stood completely still in apprehension of the rooster’s next enlightening bit of information.
“I can get you out of here before you’re somebody’s main course,” offered Spike.
“Main course?” asked Fred. “What do you mean?”
“A ‘Thanksgiving Turkey,’ you turkey!” Spike was beginning to realize that the two were as dumb as the rest.
“You mean……oh no. You couldn’t mean that. You mean…..they’d……eat us?! quivered Tom.
“You got it,” yawned Spike.
Well, as one might imagine, a turkey has little chance of making a decision of any kind, much less of this magnitude. Tom and Fred were very upset by this revelation but decided that a breakout was not the answer.
“I’ve never even been outside these gates,” said Fred, “in all my life.”
“What would we do on the outside without the rancher to herd us in and watch out for us? Who would show us where the food is? We had better take our chances here. Besides, nothing has happened to us yet,maybe you don’t know what you are talking about.”
This was quite a bit of reasoning for a turkey and a bit bold, too. When Spike began to get ruffled Tom and Fred retired to a nice, warm sunny spot for a quick nap before dinner.
As the month of November crept onward Tom and Fred became almost catatonic. They stopped eating altogether and avoided the pompous Spike who had returned to making fun of their confusion.
Tom woke up on November 15, which happened to be a cold, foggy sort of day. After a thorough search of the yard Tom noticed that Fred was gone. Tom didn’t know if Fred had taken Spike’s advice or if he was in preparation for the first phase of dinner. Spike was no help at all. He simply laughed at the troubled turkey, who gawked and gaped and stumbled and gobbled all over the barnyard in search of his friend.
Tom spent much of the next week in a complete void. Fred was gone – that was for certain. Spike was still strutting his stuff and all the other turkeys continued their gobbling opera.
One morning Spike startled Tom by speaking to him.
“Come over here, boy,” whispered the rooster.
“Well,m I see that you made it through Thanksgiving. That must be pretty embarrassing.”
“Wha?” asked Tom,” You mean it’s over. I’m not going to be dinner after all?!”
“Well, not now, anyway,” sneered Spike. “That reminds me….have you ever heard of Christmas?”
1 From Thanksgiving – The Revenge of the Tourist State by Montague Lament III, pp.67-68. Dog’s Nose Publishing House, 1981.
2 From Cranberry Sauces I Have Known by Montague Lament, Jr., pp. 39-41. Mashed Potatoes Publishing Inc., 1973.
3 From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Montague Lament, pgs 3-5, Pumpkin Pie Press, 1945.
4 From Mincemeat Fever by Lamont Montague, Esq., pg 6, Ronald McDonald Publishers, 1966.
5 From Turkey Brains and other Appetizers by Dontague Mamont, pp. 1106-1198, Julie Childs Publishing Co., 1984.
