Author Archive for M. Toole

NEW TAXES EXPLAINED

“…and of corpse, we have the late tax and the early tax coupled with everyone’s favorites the noise tax and the quiet tax,” said Minderbender.
“After that it is quintessential to the continued workings of unresponsive government that these pinholes be wiped out or otherwise deprogrammed from the knees up,” he smiled.
In support of his flamboyant economic theories Minderbender hurled the smile tax and the frown tax into the fray followed by the proposed frankfurter-on-a-roll tax, you wanna drive your pickup around all day tax and the innovative bi-partisan franchise tax on new oxygen, education, medical shortcomings and military adventurism/distraction tax. He completed his monologue by asking those still facing the front of the room if any of them had information as to the movements of what he called bothersome renegades living up in the hills.
For more turn to NASA RESCINDS LUNCH on Page 45

DUSTINGS OF THE SAN JUAN

Composted by Oral Waters

Scoffs at Mandatory Legislation
JUDGE RULES ON CREDIT CARD FEEDING
(Ridgway) A local magistrate here says the care and feeding of credit cards should be a personal matter and up to the individual debtor. Furthermore, she ruled that credit card abuse did not fall under the jurisdiction of Sociable Services.
Heralded as a major verdict for personal freedoms by many there are still those who would have liked to see more regulations.
“If the consumer decides not to feed his card for a month that should be his business,” said Melvin Toole, a band saw repair analyst from Log Hill. “We already have the feds looking down our shorts at every turn as it is. Why would people want more government interference?”
The judge’s conclusion may have more extensive ramifications than first presumed due to a recent disclosure that Bill Clinton had put the Kosovo campaign on his Master Card back in the Nineties. Insiders say the Cheney-Bush team did the same in Iraq.
“People just don’t realize that credit card purchases are the same as buying an item with cash,” said Toole. “The only difference is compounded interest.”
Despite the ruling most consumers continue to be kind to their plastic. According to a nationwide survey over 80% feed their cards, (generally in the morning) 70 % take them for a walk everyday and some even grant them a paid two-week vacation each year.

TOURISTS PLAN TO STAY
(Ouray) In a sharp turnaround from previous summers visiting tourists will remain in town long after the September deadline. People who were once written off as weekly wonders will now be residents.
The population explosion is expected to jack up the county census figures by about 300% according to service agency statistics. Already highway crews have begun the tedious exercise of widening minimal access roads and paving dirt paths.
“I never thought I’d see the River Road under blacktop,” said a source from the state highway crew.
The first pilgrims will arrive Thursday in the form of a small communal group from Tucson, followed by a church bus from Wichita Falls. Then all hell will break lose in July when refugees from the heat in armored personnel carriers and land dinghies of all shapes and sizes.
The first arrivals will be temporarily housed at the local high school until they locate permanent housing.

Oooooooh…Popeye….
POPEYE-OLIVE OIL WEDDING PLANNED FOR JUNE
(Norwood) Comic book icons Popeye T. Sailor and Olive Oil have announced that they will be wed at sometime during this year’s Tequila Festival this summer.
“It’s about time after a 70-year affair,” squinted the sailor, pipe dangling from his oversized lips. “I figured it was about time to make an honest woman of Olive.”
Oil will wear the combined ensemble of peasant dress and work boots that has become her standard over the decades. Her hair will be in a conservative bun accentuated by loop earrings. Her intended will be dressed in his sailor suit.
“Popeye is concerned about the removal of several erotic tattoos,” whined best man/caterer Wimpy (no last name given), “that he got in Singapore during the war.”
In a surprise announcement it was learned that former U.S. Attorney General (and Hero of Waco) Janet Reno would stand in as maid of honor. She and her current beau, Bluto, will fly into Montrose they day of the nuptials on their way to a gun show in Grand Junction.

 

Chief Ouray Named After Town

Red Mountain Dig Smashes Long Held Version

(Ironton Park) Archives exhumed from the old jail here suggest that the town of Ouray is older than previously believed and that Ute Chief Ouray was named after the mining settlement and not the other way around. According to the data Ouray was settled in 1830 by Neapolitan fur trappers from Santa Fe.
“The discovery throws our historical perspective out the window,” said D. Mickey Ratshoe Bennie, a local museum piece. “Now all the books will have to be rewritten. This really jerks my chain! Fortunately we have an idle, motivated populace that has already rolled up its sleeves and jumped into the fray.
Although the town had no charter and few dwellings in 1830, it was called Ouray, an Italian word for a preferred method of boiling pasta at higher altitudes. Three years later, when future chief, Ouray, was born in Taos, his mother looked up…saw pasta cooking over an open fire and named the lad. At the time she did not know he would become a celebrity or that the aforementioned confusion would occur.

GHOST WRITERS FRIGHTEN TRIBES
(Placerville) Ghost writers, allegedly in the employ of the San Juan Horseshoe, have been scaring the daylights out of stone age tribesmen camped on the edge of the San Miguel River here. The primitives, at first hostile, have taken to worshipping the spirit scribes, bestowing them with lavish gifts of gold and tellurium.
A longtime policy at the paper calls for the hiring of a skeleton crew of ghost writers for the summer so as to pursue historical documentation with minor embellishment.
According to publisher General Kashmir Horseshoe (CSA 1861-1863; USA 1863-1865) retired it is far easier recording local history when one is surrounded by a staff that actually lived during the prescribed period.
“Our agenda calls for first-hand accounts, not hearsay as practiced by so many other annal sorcerers,” spat the general. “Besides, we don’t have to pay them anything.”
Peculiarities like this tend to become debauched by chroniclers and then blown out of proportion by local plebeians already upset by news of spring riots in Purgatory and strikes in Limbo. Chanting “Let us out or send us down,” unruly mobs of poor souls in both places are still out of control. At press time local authorities are cautious not to draw parallels to the two separate incidents, preferring to call the whole charade a paradox.

Reverend Ralph

by Mark Tulin
College students have so much spare time that they don’t know what to do with, and are liable to stumble into anything. I was no exception. Last Saturday at 10 a.m. I was wandering around campus when I stumbled upon a famed healer conducting a religious service. I figured I had a couple hours to kill before lunch time so I walked into the First Mongolian Church at Pugh and Elm Streets.
Once inside an old stone church, I was greeted by happy organ music. a blonde girl in a shocking pink dress was pounding out “Rock of Ages” on the organ and had the congregation singing. The people were divided up into two sections determined by their degree of ugliness. I took a seat next to a toothless black woman with loose brassiere straps.
Soon Reverend Ralph, the healer, took to the podium. He was a short person with jet black hair and a fat squirrel face. He smiled up to heaven and sneered down to hell. I sat quietly and listened as he told us how sinful the world is today with all the crooked doctors, politicians and travel agents. He said that there are more sexually deranged children and grandparents today than in anytime in our history.
With forceful hand gestures and derisive language, the Reverend got the people jumpin’. He had everybody shouting hallelujah and waving their hands. And when Reverend Ralph said to let the spirit move you as it will, one woman fell to the floor and started to twist violently and muttered papal obscenities. Being a pre-med student, I thought she was an epileptic having a grand mal seizure. so I put a coat under her head and tried to get her mouth open so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. I stuck a number two pencil between her teeth.
I asked for help but no one responded, so I went back to my seat thinking that it was right and proper to convulse on the gothic church floors.
After I sat down I watched the people embrace the holy spirit. I couldn’t help but feel excited. I stood up and sang the “Song of Psalms” off key and blurted out Amen at inappropriate intervals. I enjoyed being a fool.
Then the Reverend requested us to love thy neighbors better. I held hands with a large, toothless woman and kissed her gooey lips and told her that I loved her and Jesus, in that order. Anything Reverend Ralph said to do, we did. If the Reverend had said to put all our money on goose eggs, all of us would turn bullish on geese. what this lead to was this, Reverend Ralph compelled us to remove our checkbooks and write him a check for twenty bucks. He also accepted Mastercard and lowered the asking price to as little as “anything you got.”
After his henchmen collected the donation buckets, Reverend Ralph came down from the stage to heal his congregation.
First to be healed was an old woman unable to walk. Reverend Ralph approached this tiny white haired lady and asked her if she believed in the healing spirit. When she said she did, she shut her eyes and prayed. Then the Reverend said, “With the power of God invested in me I command the pain in your legs to disappear.” He shouted “Whammo!” and slapped the lady on the forehead. Reverend Ralph told her to walk, and to everyone’s surprise, the old gal started to strut like a mummer down Broad Street.
The second person to be healed was a middle-aged man with an upset stomach. The Reverend asked this pencil-thin man to believe in God’s healing power. the Reverend rubbed the man’s belly and ordered the nausea to disappear. Reverend Ralph promised the man that he would feel better when he got home that night, provided he didn’t eat any stuffed peppers.
It was another miracle by Ralph, but I was hungry and could only last for one more healing. The next hotdog, er person, was a long-haired teenager with a mental problem. He thought he was a rabbit. Not a furry tailed bunny rabbit, but the kind that works on fuel and has good gas mileage. The Reverend told the boy that there was no diesel motor under his hood, but a lie planted there by Satan. Reverend Ralph told the young man to say a prayer. Then the Reverend boxed the boy’s ears and shouted “Whammo!” The boy dizzily spun around, and after regaining his balance he no longer made loud, clanking engine noises.
After the charade, I got up and left. I passed the old woman who miraculously regained the power to walk. I looked into her face and I detected no insincerity. She had an angelic smile which led me to feel guilty for leaving the church without making a contribution. For a moment I feared that I wouldn’t be saved or be let into heaven, and as punishment, I would have to spend the hereafter in front of the pearly gates shining shoes.

The Tarzan and Jane Dialogues

Part XXXVII    “Upwardly Mobile”

(The scene opens in a tree house in West Africa. Tarzan is finishing the breakfast dishes as Jane pours over some figures in preparation for a loan officer’s meeting down at the local bank.)

Jane: I like you in that apron, dear.

Tarzan: Keep loincloth clean.

Jane: Don’t forget to take Boy to daycare, pick up my laundry and feed the elephants.

Tarzan: Cheetah already get laundry. Most of it belong to monkey anyway.

Jane: I just adored the wildebeest meatloaf last night. What do you have planned for tonight’s meal?

Tarzan: Tarzan plan leftovers

Jane: What? I work overtime at the bank and I come home late to leftovers?

Tarzan: Tonight boy’s night out on town.

Jane: Like hell. I have to work late and someone has to watch Boy.

Tarzan: Cheetah stay with boy.

Jane: Cheetah will be working with me as a financial consultant. We have new programs to kick off next month and she’s the best in the business.

Tarzan: Tarzan go out when Jane and Cheetah come back.

Jane: Oh, I guess that will work. Don’t forget that Tuesday I fly to New York to meet the stockholders and then on Friday I’m off to Brazil to finalize the construction of those condos.

Tarzan: Jane worldly. When come back?

Jane: I’ll call from Rio. Don’t forget to water the plants and no poker parties. The last thing I need is to come home to a tree house that smells like beer and cigars. Can’t you just have a nice Tupperware party like the other housewives?

Tarzan: Tarzan not housewife. Besides Tarzan win all the bananas in last game. Buy Jane new dress to wear to bank banquet with money.

Jane: You are such a sweetie…OK on the poker but no cigars in the tree house.

Tarzan: Jane not wearing that outfit.

Jane: Why not?

Tarzan: Colors no match. Eye shadow all wrong.

Jane: Really? Well I’ve no time now to change or I’ll miss my car pool.

Tarzan: Car pool? Jane go swimming. Ha Ha. Careful of crocodiles.

Jane: Now where did I put my briefcase?

THE END

Tune in next time: Tarzan serves chicken-fired antelope steaks, one of Jane’s favorites.

ROCK SOUP

Mouse for rent in Montrose. No cats. 249-CHEZ.

Important: Will the people who were swimming in Bus Barn Lake Monday please call the Gothic Biological Warfare Laboratory as soon as they’ve had their lunch. Also, need a ride to Shiprock any Friday night through July. Sarah, Deplorum Springs.

For sale: Nice business suit and tie worn only once during visit to the United Nations in 1959. Call Fidel Castro collect in Havana. Price negotiable.

Want a six-foot chocolate statue of your Aunt Pearl? How about a nice birdbath fixture or mom, dad and the kiddies? Stop by the Russell Stover Bunker in Montrose for personal molding. No limit to configurations! Extensive castings weekdays only. Also looking for models for Halloween, Cinco de Mayo and Easter assortments. No Irish.

WIN A NEW CAR! Enter the Gracious Tipping Lottery simply by leaving a decent tip after you eat in Western Colorado! That’s right. Recognize good service with an appropriate gratuity this season and your name automatically goes on our master list. (Disclaimer: Many contestants could win a kitten, a barking ticket or a high pressure time share weekend getaway instead of a car.)

Thanks to all of the kind neighbors who helped get my boyfriend’s head and shoulders out of the chamber of commerce toilet bowl last weekend. Red is currently at St. Roscoe’s for observation and feeling fine. He was able to watch the Rockies all weekend. We’ll never forget you.

Dear Dandy Home Alarm Company: Thanks to my trusty .357 and my even trustier German Shepherd I won’t be needing your services effective immediately. If you doubt my sincerity just try to get into my house. No courtesy callers. Sir Otis of Liver.

The San Juan Horseshoe is no longer financially capable of transporting the residents of Colona to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro in February. Instead a day trip to Mesa Mall has been arranged for interested parties. No wee-mails.

Carved from local butter: Custom signs for every non-occasion. June Special: PLEASE WIPE SHEEP BEFORE ENTERING signs in buffed mahogany spread. 2 for $5.

Summer rental: Tamerlain’s Bedpan: $450 per month plus first and last. Also parting out Joe Stalin’s mustache and upper dentures thought to have once traveled as consort to Alexander the Great. Hemingway’s liver: 1/2 off through Bluegrass Festival. Will trade Benedict Arnold’s egg poacher for reliable used car. Mack the Hack, Sawpit.

Lost: Pair of snowmobile boots at the old St. Lazare Station last February. If found please respond directly to Claude Monet. Small reward in francs.

Now at local groceries: Yuppie Beans! Designer beans for people who never had to eat the damn legumes because they were hungry and broke at the same time. So what if the peasants have to eat leaves, sticks and pieces of cotton. Now everything is in order – a friend.

Ever wanted to hunt ducks on skis? All the beautiful people are doing it! Opening soon: SKI WETLANDS, an environmentally lucrative, four season reclaimed recreational facility. Call us today for the deluxe tour. We’re in the Jello Pages.

Anger management counseling Tuesday evenings at your local library. Bring boxing gloves, mouth piece and concise beating instrument. If you’re all pissed off you’re no good to anyone. Guaranteed results or at least a damn good beating from fellow classmates. Dr. Simon Lackluster, Heartbreak Hotel Terrace, Goodenough Gulch.

Improve tunnel vision without surgery. Dial 7.

I will scrape your windshield on cold winter mornings while you go back to bed. Deadline for new customers is July 5. Tongue depressants, wheelbarrow photography, foot massage. Mack the Hack, Sapinero. Over 600,000 miles without major chromo-dynamic malfunction.

Gay yucca plant would like to meet others of same persuasion for perennial relationship. No plastic geraniums, gourds, fungi or thallophytes please. Blind Box 499, Horseshoe.

EGO REDUCTION. Simple surgical methods. Satisfaction final. Group rates. Dr. Simon Lackluster, Director of Excremental Medicine, 222 Penal Enlargement Terrace, Big Pickup Springs, CO. We accept Plastercard!

Licenses janitor needed for Edith Bunker Nashville Forest. Must show proof or transportation and get along well with trees. Call the Department of Interior Request Line to schedule battery or awfully painful shots and marginally annoying Predator Compatibility Testing. Can you read maps? We’re also looking for an anal-incentive desk squatter to write grants, establish cohesive lunch hour sing-alongs, and tell us what to do tomorrow. College grad preferred. No Protestants. Fin and Gland, Denver.

Need a Maid: Just someone to keep my house clean, cook my meals an go away – Neil, Topanga Canyon.

Why rent in Hell when you can buy? What do you care if it’s a thirty year or fifteen year mortgage? What does the man on TV mean about “the eternal investment”? If you’ve answered “yes” to three or more of the above questions we want to talk to you! Let’s face it friend…You’re here for the duration and your financial future is at stake. This offer is in no way associated with Ol’ Scratch Time Shares International. For more information send us your complete name, address an sociable security number. We promise not to sell mailing lists unless it is in the best interest of the client.

Upwardly mobile pawn seeks kings, queens, knights, bishops for summer romance. No rooks. Checkmate services, Wimpton.

If we don’t have your food to your table in less than 24 hours it’s probably cold. Offer void during World Cup matches. Grady’s Gravy Heaven. Now at Bland-Terminal Mall, Aspirin.

Wounded animals are dangerous. Stay away from wounded animals – This message paid for by your Colorado Division of Wildlife, 86 Bad Neighborhood Vista, Denver.

Wocal West Home looking fow secuwity guawd. Send resume to Elmer Fudd, Head of Secuwity, Wambwing Wake Viwwage, Montwose.

Will trade new hunting rifle for Streisand tickets. Lorenzo of Tin Cup. Lost: King size waterbed on Ohio Pass. Reward. Call me on my smell phone.

Jake Brake Cologne – The right scent for the over-the-road warrior who hopes to make it down to Ouray before dark. Available at Red’s Mountain Pass, Otto’s and other fine eateries with large parking lots. Bottled under the strict supervision of her majesty, Mother Cline.

Found: Small Good Neighbor Spam doggie sweater at the top of Lizard Head Pass. Half turned over to authorities in Dolores County, the other half to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office in Rico. Keys to 75-foot RV tossed into woods. Glad to have been a help.

Local meatball seeks young tomato for clandestine relationship. I hate pushy frogs, drive a cab-over pickup and like to sleep late on Saturday mornings. My brother is available too. References. Stop by Apocalypse Trees and Shrubs, on the Indian Massacre Highway in South Manana.

Will trade 1961 Topp’s Roger Maris baseball car for righteous bungalow in San Miguel County. Rookie Pete Rose for condo in Ouray. Have 1964 Fleer Ken and Clete Boyer cards as well as team cards of the Cardinals and Yankees. Will swap for 40 acres on Spring Creek Mesa. Perfectly preserved Don Newcombe, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Clem Labine staff card. Willing to part with this gem for small ranch in Hotchkiss. Many other sports treasures too. Ted Turner Cardboard Land Company.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTER CUFF LINKS almost in time for Father’s Day. All Jewelry by David is non-edible. It is created with jewelry tools on a silly bench with intruders always on premises intent on opening my bar without the advantage of laser support or common sense. Party-O Ventures.

LEARN TO FLY THE BIG RIGS! Classes now forming. Budget Airlines, Denver and Cheyenne.

Will wash your car all summer in return for long distance telephone privileges in your home. Got any sisters? Whitewater Walt. Watch for me in the bar ditch along Highway 50 or at any used food outlet.

VOODOO DOLLS for the links. Tired of watching others putt well while you miss the cup? Works great on drives and even at the 19th hole. Marie Laveau, NOLA.

For sale: Humor publication drawn and quartered in Rocky Mountains. Current publisher seeks to pursue life of crime including outdoor activities, indoor activities, childhood fantasies, adult conversation and lewd afternoon cocktail parties. $180,000. Includes all fixtures human and otherwise, one-of-a-kind office furniture, water cooler, life-size Baja Porky Pig Sheriff Savings Bank, picture of Slim Whitman at the Garden of the Gods, seaworthy filing cabinet used only once on the beach during the first Normandy Invasion, reconditioned outboard engine, what’s left of the air freshener dispenser, Havana cigar box stuffed with plutonium Disney figurines. Will trade for high paying snow removal position in struggling Caribbean democracy and $175,000. No checks. Serious buyers only. 30% to peruse over three sets of books. Melvin Toole Ponga Brokers, Box 615, Gunnison, CO 81230.

I retired at six-years-old. So can/should you. Send $25 for kit to Melvin Toole c/o this rattle sheet.

Devious drunkard seeks small, beat up trailer for use during the warmer months. Will be constantly late on rent and leave the whole shooting match a mess when autumn arrives and I go hunting and then back out to sleep in the woods. References on request. Will Also consider caretaker position unless I decide to go to Mexico for the holidays. Warren of Wexley evenings at Apocalypse Liquors, Wimpton Circle.

FOR SALE: CRESTED BUTTE SKI AREA. Serious inquiries only. Does not include meat division or latest snow making technology. Market price.

Rasta Charter Pulled

(Telluride) The National Association of Rastamen has terminated the charter of the local Rasta tribe on the grounds of racial conflict. Historically the religion, which considers the late King Haile Selassie to have been a deity, has also been Black. In addition the philosophy that has emerged is dotted with reference to white devils and a serious distrust for Western Europeanism.
“We found out that our precious tribe in Telluride were a bunch of rich white kids trying to be radical. Silly, huh? We pulled the charter. It’s cut and dry. No discussion,” he stressed.