Author Archive for M. Toole

The Jumpers

   A feeble, forlorn figure sits in a rocking chair near a severe drop-off into a massive canyon. He has trouble moving due to the flock of medals pinned to his worn out government issue, camouflage bathrobe. He carries the rank of four-star general. He has a large, large archduke mustache — one that would make Pancho Villa proud, and is wearing a shiny, spiked helmet fashioned from a Prussian staff bedpan with a cavalry chinstrap reminiscent of the Light Brigade tightly latched.

     Next to him is a burned out tree like the ones that once dotted the meadows of Flanders and the woodlands of Tarawa. Adjacent is a rusty cannon and a pyramid of cannonballs. The wind is blowing hard like a death chant during burial duty. There is a red-stained sun and a dark moon hanging above.

 

ACT I

General: I long for the day…of the cavalry charge, sabers held high, cutting our way through the flesh of men and horses, our mustaches waxed, our black mounts — no quit in them, their nostrils flared, their hooves like razorblades in the dust. Bullets whiz by from the trenches, squeezed off by expendable men who are about to die.

(Enter Maude, pushing a baby carriage)

Maude: Oh I didn’t see you sitting there so close to the edge. Doesn’t this wind make you crazy?

General: The wind is not the culprit, wench. After all the years and all the glory looking death in the teeth I can only sit here in this chair, unable to move under the weight of all these medals, unable even to even rock back and forth after charging across continents. My wooden chair. My wooden prison. My only future is the wind’s cold chant.

Maude: I know the feeling. I can’t move much either in a metaphoric sense. My life is without highs and lows, just the same every day. Mundane, fruitless, quietly desperate and alone, terribly alone.

General: If you are so fruitless tell me who is in the stroller?

Maude: Oh him. It’s my son Lemmings, named after his absent father, a man I never knew but have soon forgotten.

(She wheels the carriage over to an angle where the general can look inside).

General: But. Maude, the carriage is empty.

Maude: What! How do you know my name? What has happened to my boy?

General: Could have been Shiloh, could have been the Somme. You yourself sent him off. Tell me. Are you alone in the world?

Maude: I already told you that I was alone, terribly alone.

General: Solitude in birth and again in death. It’s all that we know. Where we came from and where we go has not been addressed by the enlightened and the level-headed.

Maude: My life is shit. I never have enough to eat. My lovers have all been killed in the wars to end all wars. If I had any direction in my life I would still not have the shoes for it.

General: Then what will you do?

Maude: I shall maintain. All of us on earth must maintain.

General: And why must we all maintain?

Maude: For future generations if for nothing else.

General: (Laughing) For future generations? Ha! They don’t care about you, about how you are today. They would not blink if you died and blew away.

Maude: I am lost. My soul is lost! (lamenting)

General: A lot more than your soul has been lost. If I could move under all this weight I’d jump right now and find all of the answers that have eluded me. I used to love being a general…the nice warm bed in the rear, the pretty maps, the firefights far away brought close to home in my binoculars, the power…All nice and orderly. No blood. All nice and clean. But it’s all gone. All I have left are these medals.

Maude: And your bathrobe. Don’t forget your bathrobe and pajamas. Without them you’d have to carry your medals around in a basket and nobody would ever see them.

General: The planet is exploding. People eat rats.The wars rage and there are still soldiers left standing. You’d think someone would run short of bullets.

(He tries to scoot his rocking chair closer to the cliff).

Maude: Life is defined not by the feast but by the famine.

General: It’s worse. Your life will never mean a thing, even to you. Walking around with an empty baby carriage will bring no peace. The only way to pace is over the cliff, Maude.

(He gazes over the cliff dramatically. She begins to cry.)

Maude: My life will not improve? I always thought my life would improve. I seek the light of heaven but only find the shadows of hell.

General: There is no devil below. I have seen him on the battlefield.

Maude: Darkness?

General: Who told you there was light?

Maude: God

General: God who?

Maude: You’re a sick old man with medals on his bathrobe. I’m leaving. Sit in your wooden chair alone.

(Maude wheels her carriage around, throws back her head as if to rid herself of the general and exits).

General: Now there, my friends, is a prime recruit for the jump. She’ll be back. Weak and brittle like the little boy soldiers at Argonne. They never knew what hit them. All those pretty uniforms soaked in blood and black trench mud. I understand them and salute them for their courage in the face of the German guns. Flesh against hot metal fired into the sky.

(He begins to sing).

General (singing): Oh look on the Assyrian armies, the Romans and the hordes of Tamerlaine. Survivors of the battle marching backward, then forward to ordain. Boom!

Angel: Who is that singing?

General: Who is that not singing?

Angel: My wings, my wings are broken and I will soon fall. I have come to view, to examine the abyss.

General: (scooting frantically closer to the edge of the cliff but smiling as if nothing is out of character): You have come to the right place my angel friend. Perhaps you can no longer fly with the birds or the bombers, but you can still descend gracefully.What’s it like being an angel? Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

Angel; I’m not just an angel, I’m a fucking archangel you wrinkled, rocking decoration of death. Can’t you see my brilliance, my aura?

General: Can’t say that I do…A navigational streak of light in a sea of wind and darkness. Righteousness has gone for a walk. Your wings are all saggy. Have you ever been in the army?

Angel: I said I was an archangel. What do you think archangels do for a living, sell bathrobes? I was the point man in the pre-ancient showdown with Lucifer and his boys. We kicked their asses but they never were defeated. They never really went away.

General: No one ever really goes away. No one really ever stays either. No soldier eagerly vacates his line to charge the enemy in the morning.

Angel: Could you move away from the cliff. I’d like to make a clean jump and the last thing I need to remember is the face of a madman in a rocking chair.

General: An archangel jumping to his death? Interesting.

Angel: Move or I’ll take you with me.

General: Please do.

Angel: Stop! You just don’t realize what I’ve been through, what I have seen since Beelzebub started running his mouth and pissed off the Big Three. Did we cast out the wrong angels?

General: All the more reason to jump.

Angel: An angel without wings is like a morning without light, a champion without victory, a dog without a tail.

General: You’re right. You’re hopeless. Why not just jump? Things are not going to get better. What is your name, angel friend?

Angel: Estragon sometimes.

General: The spacemen are arriving any day now. All the more reason to hurl oneself from the heights!

Angel: I have no future and I am tormented by my past. The present gives me no peace. No one cares. There are no answers. I have no options.

General: On the contrary you do. It’s just a few steps and down.

Angel: There’s no soul left in you is there? You sit there in your rocker with your medals, waiting for some god or the other to apologize.

General: I have no need for apologies, only recognition. I am a soldier. I have no need of a soul, just a good saddle. I was cavalry you know.

Angel: You are raving mad but you will be gone soon. I must find my way away from here. The cliff answers nothing and I don’t like the sound of splat. I have no quarrel with mortal man or gods or even Lucifer anymore.

(As he leaves the general furiously tries to scoot his rocking chair closer to the cliff without success).

 

ACT II

General: Freud jumped. Marx jumped. Caesar jumped. Joan of Arc in flames! Robspierre watched as his head fell downward into a pretty whicker basket. A breakfast of figs and a dinner of loaves and fishes. Where is the real prophet? Wait…who’s there?

Young Soldier in baggy uniform: It’s only me, your Excellency. Jimmy from Iowa. Do you like my uniform? It’s just like the one my grandfather wore when he got hit in Korea. I never knew him. I think I’ll grow into it over the next few wars.

General: I was in Korea but I didn’t die there.

Soldier: I will be a hero. I know it. Just give me the chance. All of my family were heroes. I know all the patriotic songs and battle slogans by heart.

General: For the glory of it all. For the glory of the jump. Are you here to leap?

Soldier: If ordered, sir.

General: We jumped out of airplanes flying higher than this little cliff. (He manages to scoot closer to cliff this time). You can’t even see the bottom. What’s the big deal? Let’s jump together, tandem, for the glory of the nation! He tosses one of his medals over the side.

Soldier: I didn’t hear it hit.

General: Nor will I hear you.

Soldier: I’m not here to jump. I have my whole life to jump. Sure, things could be better but I don’t think jumping will fix anything.

General: Don’t be so sure. Put the cork back in the bottle and get a running start. It will be over in no time.

Soldier: Throw another medal you bitter fool. I’ve got to go before I’m late for the next war. Adieu.

(He warmly greets the Arc Builder on the way off stage)

Arc Builder: Greetings General. I am here to build an arc and I’ll be needing your rocker. Do you want some help jumping?

General: An arc builder? Why? There is no flood up here. Salute the Centurion! Throw your grenade.

(He tosses another medal off the cliff)

Arc builder: The flood is down there. Here, let me help you scoot…

General: Wait a minute. Why are you here? Who are you? Are you a spy?

Arc builder: I am the arc builder. Don’t you recognize my arc builder’s hat? I have come to help you jump.

General: Discarded puppets with broken strings.

Arc builder: What? What’s that you say? All the puppets have broken their strings?

General: I was cavalry. I was looking through my field glasses. All I saw was smoke. The whole world wakes top hungry. Everyone is a meal in the jungle.

(He starts to scoot toward the cliff again and the arc builder breaks into a wide grin)

Arc builder: Let me help you, general. Let go of the chair. We’ll just pour you out like molasses from the jar. Let go of the chair…But first let me wash my hands.

(He washes methodically, sharing his smile with the audience, then throws the wash cloth over the cliff).

Arc builder: Are you ready for your solo flight? I’ll bet they didn’t teach you this dance move in the cavalry.

General: Why don’t you jump if it’s such salvation?

Arc builder: Oh, I have already jumped. So have all the others. You are the last one to leap. Go on…just a little further. There is no devil below only restful darkness. No black, no white. No good, no bad.

(The arc builder begins hammering planks of wood together).

Arc builder: I’ll wait. You’ll jump before long.

(Enter nurse from the nearby rest home)

Nurse: Oh there you are general, talking to the clouds again. You shouldn’t sit so close to the pond. I know you like the ducks but you could fall in, besides it’s time for your medication. – Kevin Haley

 

DOW Wants in on Drone License Fees

(Deer Trail, CO) Threatening to sell drone licenses to this year’s hunters may or may not be legitimate. Either way it has caused quite an uproar at the Colorado Division of Wildlife, who want a piece of the local action if there is any.

According to town fathers and mothers in Deer Trail, the announcement that the municipality would begin selling drone licenses this fall was meant as a political statement and never as an actuality. Several say they wanted to protest the country’s policies with regard to unmanned rockets, spying and assassinations of suspected terrorists, including US citizens. Others say our government has lost its sense of right and wrong and is engaged in deplorable acts on our behalf.

“The fact that the national media picked up on our tongue and cheek plan further indicates that there are a lot of people out there highly concerned about the clandestine nature of our government these days,” said councilperson Bettie Clonne of Deer Trail. “And now it appears that another parasitic gov’ment agency wants in on the spoils.”

Clonne, which rhymes with drone, went on to suggest that it would be impossible to sell drone licenses since those unmanned weapons are not all that prevalent in Colorado skies and because drones are not wards of the state like deer and elk. In addition they remind us that one cannot eat a drone which creates other problems with morality of hunting in general.

“We realize it is a federal offense to mess with federal property, even though in essence it belongs to the people, doesn’t it?” she asked.

The government has expanded its drone programs to include domestic surveillance which worries civil liberty proponents as to the future of robot war and intrusive technology.

“Don’t shoot it unless you’re going to eat it has always been my mantra,” continued the source. “I haven’t seen any trophy drones up there and the drone is not calculated on the basis of points on the antler since there are no horns, just a ball of metal.”

Meanwhile the DOW, who used to offer hunting licenses at a reasonable fee for instate and out of state sportsmen, has continued its greedy march to the destruction of hunting in Colorado. Years ago everyone shared in the profits, – merchants, outfitters, communities – now most of the money ends up going to the DOW. Today’s  average hunter is now urban, unskilled and rich with expensive gear and no soul for the hunt. This is what happens when fees are not in keeping with reality. Less hunters mean less money spent on dinners, hotel rooms and services.

Still the thought of bringing down an unmanned drone is tempting to some. The possibility of actually hitting one with an elk rifle is all but impossible anyway. They travel fast.

Most people in Deer Trail agree that all the hoopla over shooting down drones will blow over after the season is concluded. However the feds and the state will still be here helping us to become more robotic and less human.

What tales will they tell around the campfire in the years to come?

“I was so busy field dressing the first clone that I din’t see the second one coming right at me. Thankfully my old buddy Earl had a bead on it and blasted it out of the sky. I don’t know if the meat can be recovered but it was a damn fine shot. Things sure are different out in the woods then they were when I was a boy.”

– Rocky Flats

 

US Musicians Orchestrated Cairo Coup Says Ex-Drummer

(Alexandria) Musical unknowns may have orchestrated the military coup in Egypt which brought down the democratically elected government of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood. According to a drummer who used to play with the Sons of Sinai, a rock band, members of the group were highly instrumental in the actions that changed the leadership here in early July.

Although the United States denied direct manipulation in the events that led to the military takeover, it shared no denial or hastily concocted comment on the alleged seizure of power.

Dubbed Operation Musical Chairs by cynics here and in Washington, the effort has been downplayed with the primary security and diplomatic agencies disavowing any knowledge of the action. Most say that if synthesization occurred, it was without their consent.

“None of these developments followed the normal chain of command,” said a former bass player now overseeing CIA high notes in the Mideast. “It was not our perception that aggressive means like these had been implemented.”

The often unreliable source spoke under the conditions of anonymity due to roll playing and secretive meanderings about the Capitol. He assured reporters that his office would begin to get down to the truth of this matter “someday soon”.

“We don’t want people going around thinking the United States is intentionally intruding into the business of another sovereign nation,” said the shadow mouthpiece. “I cannot say any more at this time. If the puppet masters knew I was talking to the media I could lose my head and endanger my family.”

The drummer in question who first blew the whistle on the whole mess has not been seen or heard from since he first came out with the initial accusations. He is believed to be safe and in the custody of the Justice Department at an unidentified penal installation out of the country.  According to sketchy details released by his attorney he (the drummer) played with the alleged musician conspirators for only a few gigs “and would have had no knowledge of any clandestine activities of the other band members.”

It is not known how long he will be held in protective custody.

“Everyone knows drummers can’t be trusted, not with vital information, not with money and certainly not with the girlfriends or wives of the others in the band,” said Eva Holesumme, a former lead singer with the Sons of Sinai.

Considering the millions in foreign aid given to the army (and certainly not to the people) it could be easily argued that the US might have had the power to encourage or discourage a takeover by the military. Many political watchdogs on both the Potomac and the Nile conclude that it would be implausible to think the Americans had no influence with the ruling generals. The longtime fiscal balancing act all but dictates that the Egyptian armed services would be called on to pay an outstanding debt someday.

“If one entity pays another entity that kind of money the receiving entity is liable and, logically speaking, might likely be controlled or predisposed by those purse strings,” said Omar Silte, of the Fairness to Egypt League, headquartered in Washington. “One reality is clear enough: The Egyptian military did not act contrary to US interests and thus jeopardize its payday. The refusal to use the word coup is only a gov’ment sidestep to insure the bucks keep rolling into the army’s coffers.”

Both Holesumme and Silte, himself a gifted percussionist, recently disappeared while walking their dogmas near the White House over the weekend. Police called the two incidents “unrelated and probably the result of petty crime or the unseasonably hot weather”.

Suspicions of US involvement came to a head soon after the exchange of power in Cairo according to multi-national journalists working there. Several pointed to precedents set way back in 1953 when democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddeq was melodiously deposed in Iran and the Shah brought back to the throne. His crime: Nationalizing the oil companies so that the Iranian people, and not British Petroleum, might benefit from that natural resource.

“We can talk about the jazz quartet that brought down Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 and the seemingly progressive folk group the undermined the existing government in South Vietnam in 1963,” said a reporter for Al Jazeera. “Maybe  we could peek in at other incidents involving the woodwind quartet that successfully rid the world of (Our boy) Saddam Hussein. Then we have Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in 1954  (quick strike United Fruit piano sextet) and (our other buddy who knew too much) Manuel Noriega (Subliminal Navy Glee Club). Guzman’s crime was redistribution of land to the peasantry…. land stolen from the people and set aside for corporate interests in the United States. The other two criminals were set up/created by the US and taken down when they got too big for their britches.”

The shameful list goes on. The Kingdom of Hawaii (Marching band, 1893), Brazil (Big band, 1964), Cambodia (Choral choir, 1970). All music to the ears of the plutocrats in Washington.

Another scribe reminded readers that to musically galvanize another country’s power base is an intrusion of irreproachable dimension and is illegal under international law.

“As one can see by the evidence presented after the Egyptian coup d’ etat (the action that wasn’t labeled as such by the US) the track record of the United States is nothing short of totalitarian,” continued a reporter for the London Times.

“Since 1945 the monkey business carried out by the United States government in the name of its citizens has been ineffective, incurious and flat immoral,” continued the newsman. “It is the policy of a ruling party in bed with the wealthy and dedicated solely to the betterment of their pocketbooks. If someone (even its own expendable citizens) or some country gets squashed that’s just collateral damage — The rich made plenty of money and therefore the action was a victory! Meanwhile the American people continue to believe that their country has its heart in the right place when it has little if any heart at all”

– Kashmir Horseshoe

     

 

Scientists Discover Four New Species at Nuclear Site

(Richland, WA) Biologists here have found several new species of plants and insects while exploring parts of the government’s Hanford nuclear reservation that had been off limits since 1945.

“We are very exited. It may be the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience something unique in our otherwise workaday world,” said botanist Katy Betz of Bellingham.

The new plant was discovered when botanists noticed bladder pods, which usually bloom in May, blooming in July and August. This particular plant was 75 feet tall with silver hairs, yellow flowers and an insatiable appetite for the small fury creatures (also unique to modern science) that roam the facility’s floor.

The new insects, numbering two distinct species themselves, were once members of the leaf cutting group but are now much larger. They feed on plant juices and the blood of carnivores. They look a bit like cicadas on steroids.

The other insects seem quite afraid of them,” said Betz.

“And people are worried about the safety of our nuclear programs,” she laughed.

– Dinty Moore

Happy Hour at State Prisons Raises Eyebrows

(Canon City) First it was karaoke, then bake sales to raise money for families of convicts, now it’s a daily happy hour. Since last month prison guards and prisoners have mixed for an hour each day sipping tea-strong cocktails and swilling 3.2 beer. The social hour, catering to all but the maximum security population, has been credited with a distinct drop in hostility toward big house authorities and a decrease in recurring prison violence that has plagued the institution from the onset.

People incarcerated learn to look forward to the simplest experiences to escape from the daily ritual of prison life according to warden Emile Turlo.

“Imagine sitting in a cell all day without free access or socialization,” he said. “Sure most of the inmates get a few hours in the yard and there are mealtimes in the mess hall but overall the system creates long hours alone which are not particularly helpful with rehabilitation.”

Some state Republicans are highly critics of the happy hour saying that prisoners do not deserve these kinds of freedoms.

“When they broke the law they gave up their rights,” said Rep. Owen Blackman, himself a white collar petty thief before he got religion and hooked up with the party. “These people are in jail to be punished not to be wined and dined.”

Blackman is concerned not only because alcohol is served but that the prison commissary has been offering meatless and low cholesterol meals on the weekends.

“What are we doing raising a crop of vegan crooks, a crew of health conscious criminals who might just live to a ripe old age. Why can’t they eat nutritional fast food like the rest of us?”

Warden Turlo told the media that many of the inmates are drug offenders who plea bargained their lives away due to anxious cops and bad legal advice.

“Often public defenders are buried in work and cannot relegate adequate hours to insure that cases are handled properly, that all alleged perpetrators get a fair trial,” explained Turlo. “We get these guys who have been whisked through the system and never indicted. Some of them get two to three years here, where they learn to hone their criminal skills. They come in with the criminal equivalent of a grade school diploma and leave with a PhD in burglary or extortion. What a system!”

One convict, a 22-year-old unemployed Black aluminum can magnate, was busted when police found a roach in his automobile ash tray in 2009. After a “speedy trial” leading to court-ordered confinement he wondered if a plea bargain was the way to go.

“My lawyer told me if I didn’t cooperate with the court I could get ten years, so I plead guilty to a lesser charge and here I am. They told me I’d be up for parole in 18 months but that milestone has passed and I am wasting away within these walls. I think they forgot me.”

In addition to the daily happy hour there are other benefits for prisoners exhibiting good behavior. Work release programs, college study groups, trade school opportunities and ultimately halfway houses designed to pave the way for reentry into society.

“We must decide if prison is primarily punitive or if it is an attempt at rehabilitation,” said Turlo, “and we must be careful not to run short of ice.”

The United States incarcerates more prisoners than any other “free” country in the world. Many prisoners have fallen through the cracks and are now mere statistics in a shameful shuffle where private institutions function as profitable enterprises. Treating convicts as humans might just be the beginning of a new approach to justice.

“Considering the poor performance by most penal institutions a daily happy hour might just be a bright spot in an otherwise dark existence,” snapped Turlo.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

 

Rapture Reservations Rescinded

(Little Rock) The long awaited Rapture, provoking a visitation of divine magnitude, happened last week according to self-styled holy men here. People who missed the festivities were not a part of this grand scheme were probably on the Phony Christian List, say Biblical Cherry Pickers of the Ozarks, a group that has franchised the event.

“If you were not informed of the coming He probably didn’t want to see you or talk to you at all,” said Rev Phil Pharisee, the son of a sharecropper who has amassed an astounding fortune by “catering to fears and selling sugar pill spiritual remedies” according to detractors. “We have yet to translate the Heavenly Code of the Day but we think the problem lies in the love-hate relationship that many born agains have with Israel,” he trembled.

“You are on the phony Christian list,” reiterated Pharisee. “The real soldiers of Christ are at this very moment chilling out in paradise.”

When asked why he was still down here Pharisee smiled, “Some of us must remain here to help the next batch get on the right bus, heh?”

Readers may remember Pharisee who claimed to have negated the theory of evolution in 2007 by pointing to his congregation.

“Look at these good people,” he had said. “There’s not one drop of evolution is any of them.”

*It appears that although these righteous folk don’t particularly like Jewish competition in the Chosen People arena, they are rooting for them in the coming war against Islam which will precipitate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It is then and only then that all true believers and only them will enter the kingdom of heaven. The rest will be relocated to less desirable spots.