Author Archive for M. Toole
The Tarzan and Jane Dialogues
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The scene: A tree house in equatorial Africa
Tarzan: Why Tarzan no have last name?
Jane: Because you were raised by apes, dear, and none of them have last names.
Tarzan: Tarzan have tree house worth millions but no last name. Maybe Tarzan buy last name.
Jane: Now darling let’s be thankful for what we have. Just three months ago we built this tree house out of cardboard and tin and now it’s worth a fortune. Who would ever have guessed that the Djiboutis would have put in a ski area. I recall that only last year Chief Kingfish was afraid of front-end loaders and thought cranes were the work of the white devils. Now they’ve even got hotels with snotty staffs and a one-way gondola to the Fountain Village.
Tarzan: Tarzan not like gondola. Prefer swinging through trees.
Jane: So when do we close on the tree house? I can’t wait to buy some new clothes and take you to London.
Tarzan: Tarzan not like clothes. Not need shirt in jungle. Tarzan not have last name. Bank say have to have last name to open account, cash checks, build spec houses.
Jane: Isn’t it wonderful! All we did was hang out in our tree house for a few months and now we’re rich. I had no idea you were such an astute businessman, dear.
Tarzan: Tarzan pay attention but still no have last name. Even Cheetah have last name. Tarzan saw it on credit cards.
Jane: Cheetah has credit cards?
Tarzan: Monkey have cards and cell phone too. Why Tarzan not have credit card?
Jane: What does Cheetah buy?
Tarzan: Lot of bananas.
Jane: And who, dare say, does she call on the cell phone?
Tarzan: Other monkeys with cell phones and credit cards. Cheetah broker. Monkey plans to knock down jungle and build custom homes for rich people from the city. Cheetah say rain forest overrated, not need all these trees.
Jane: But if they knock down all the trees where will the monkeys and birds reside?
Tarzan: Affordable housing has been discussed, Jane.
THE END
WHAT I’VE FOUND OUT
Grandfather clauses are only as good as the grandfather himself.
Guinness always appears in the plural form. Attempts to employ in the singular are grammatically and socially incorrect. It is akin to trying to drink only one. The word is similar to deer and hops, as in the incorrect usage: deers and hop.
Murphy gas can cover Ballyhops in springtime and the mountains are green over Bantry.
I don’t trust the government, the media or my 3-iron and I don’t rely on the cops.
If all politicians were professional wrestlers the conventions would be worth watching.
The Heeny Tick Festival has had its fiscal difficulties over the past few years.
On British television they have a program that presents actual hospital operations live each day. In Ireland they bet on the outcome.
West Texas may have been shorted on landscapes but more than makes up for it in beautiful women.
Praying is perfectly legitimate in casinos and bingo parlors. The gov’ment hasn’t regulated that freedom yet.
If the feds drain Lake Powell they will have no place to put all that water.
The Luddites were right. So were the Lombards for that mattter.
If the Creator were inclined to invest in humans again he/she might be planning to send a daughter next time around. Why not let her give it a try. What could go wrong?
Vegans are not within the target audience of the Slim Jim Company.
With the recent sale of a 1955 Cadillac Sedan de Ville to Hector Maria-Perez of Santiago de Cuba there are now more vintage Yanqui cars in that country than in the U.S. This shameful disregard for cultural priorities has been documented by everyone from Diana Shore to Edsel to the American Automobile Club. If Roscoe Ortega can come up with the down payment on a 1959 Lincoln Town Car this weekend it is feared the Cubans may enjoy a two-car lead by the All-Star break.
If the Ten Commandments serve no secular purpose (as a federal judge ruled recently in London, Kentucky than what constitutes secular?
Thanks to the millions of dollars spent to take the recent census we can accurately determine that no one lives on Duckwater Peak in Eastern Nevada. In addition very few persons reside on nuclear test sites there either.
Bad actors make bad Presidents.
Harvesting wild asparagus in local ditches works better during the daylight hours when consistency, plumpness and maturity of the stalks are easier to determine. Picking the vegetable on private property often works better at night, under the cover of darkness, when land owners are fast asleep.
In the restaurant business it’s always better to have more customers than cooks.
There is no doubt that the Utes had nuclear capability back in the 19th Century. They simply lacked the technology to deliver the big one. Had Colorow been the chief instead of Ouray (who like many modern day “leaders” was never officially elected by the populace) the Meeker Massacre would have been served with mushrooms.
There are never mosquitoes, leeches, provincial governments or patriotic expectations on charter boat brochures for the African Queen.
It’s easier to bring down a charging bull elk with a butter knife than catch retreating fruit flies with chopsticks.
If rodeo bulls used steroids we’d be forced to contend with deep-fried Rocky Mountain oysters the size of lasur peas. At that point the USFDA would step in and demand that the whole mess be wrapped up in mounds of plastic, complete with enhancement injections, health inspections and official manuals covering such subjects as hand washing techniques and the proper conduct when using fly swatters.
Poor people are generally lazy and do not want to take advantage of the multitude opportunities afforded to them in a free society.
If the Kansas Board of Education banned all Tarzan and Jane movies the Garden of Eden would quickly revert to chaos, green apples and dangerous theories of evolution.
Soccer Moms Against Terrorism will not last since there are no real moms and no real soccer balls…and the terrorists retain lawyers and sport diamond-studded brief cases. It is nothing more than a front for massive development and water piracy both here and along the Confront Range. Martha Stewart has never been a member since she is not really a mom either.
It’s all right to have imaginary friends. The trouble begins when they expect you to pay for the rounds of drinks that they have ordered or for shopping sprees to Cherry Creek Mall. Point of interest:
In the past 200 years not one Tommyknocker has been knocked up within the confines of Colorado..
Real estate prices are down in the Red States because nobody wants to move there. The one noted exception to all of this is Texas, where is has always been about the money.
People in Ridgway don’t wave at each other now like they did in 1975.
The hole in the ozone over Patagonia makes light of the fact that the planet has succumbed to the deeds of its most favored children.
There is very little reason to wear a disguise if you live on an island.
Osama bin Laden was never drafted by the Las Vegas Raiders but the team did produce an offer sheet matching comparable options extended by the government of Saudi Arabia.
Our Broncos: It really doesn’t matter who you hoodwink into playing tackling dummy quarterback without protection. Can you spell OFFENSIVE LINE?
Ignorance is terrorism.
Airline food and hospital food are basically the same in that both enjoy captive audiences and, if consumed regularly, would likely kill you or make you wish you were dead.
Where reality comes into play there is absolutely no reason for the existence of Grand Junction, or Vail for that matter.
Condoleezza Rice is not really a Black. She was just left in the oven to
too long while studying at Stanford.
The inhabitants of concentration camps are rarely offered amnesty, good behavior or not.
Although a marmot has never won the Miss America pageant, several princes and even a few earls have been turned into frogs. Cats sleep all day because it’s the easiest thing to do while dogs bark because they enjoy it.
Beer coolers rarely tear the lids off bears.
Banned books should be sent to Death Row.
Dionysus and Bacchus are the same god. Pan works for both of them on the weekends. None have ever had a mandate that we know of.
Slumgullion is not a federal housing project for impoverished pirates. It’s a beautiful mountain pass that takes one from Lake City to Creede.
And in finale: There have been several Presidents named George but only one named Ulysses. Mocking birds seldom inhabit their own thorn trees. Nefertiti was never allowed to have her own checking account. Woody Guthrie never set foot in a big box store.
– H.L. MENOCKEN
EMERGENCY SUPPLY OF TEXANS SHOULD ARRIVE FRIDAY
(Gunnison) A relief shipment of Texans is expected to arrive here by the weekend according to contacts in San Antonio. The shipment should relieve the drastic situation that has concerned local residents after the ski season culminates. With graduation looming the crisis had threatened to reach epidemic proportions and drive the prices of real estate in the county down to a level based on day to day reality.
It would be at least another month before throngs or second home owners and pedestrian tourists arrive with more credit cards and fewer bags of gold.
“We simply can’t have that with all those parents coming to town,” said Andrea Andromeda, a former coal miner hair stylist turned real estate closer.
The Texans will be unloaded near Chipeta Hall all week with the help of the Texas Rangers, The Bureau of Land Management and a group of land owners in Taylor Canyon. Each new arrival will receive 40 acres, a Stetson hat, a Jeep Wagoneer and a Texas/Venison Dictionary.
-Kashmir Horseshoe
Letters to the Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
How did the barber pole originate?
Mario Suarez
Seville
Dear Mario,
The barber pole with spiral stripes is a relic of the days when barbers were also surgeons. When the London barbers were incorporated in 1461 they were the only persons practicing surgery in the city. During the reign of Henry VIII Parliament passed a law providing that barbers should confine themselves to minor operations such as blood-letting and drawing teeth, while surgeons were prohibited from “barbering or shaving.” It was not until 1745, only thirty years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, that the barbers and surgeons of London were separated into distinct corporations, and the practice of surgery by barbers was not abolished in France, Germany and other European countries until much later. The symbol of the barber-surgeons was a spirally striped pole from which was suspended a brass basin with a semi-circular opening in the rim. The fillet around the pole indicated the bandage or ribbon twisted around the arm in blood-letting, and the basin represented the vessel used to receive the blood. Barbers have retained in a modified form this ancient symbol of their profession. In the United States the brass basin is generally omitted from the barber pole, but it is common in England.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
If a tree should fall in a forest thousands of miles from any living creature, would any sound be produced?
Louisiana-Pacific veteran
Olathe
Dear L-P, vet:
This old question owes its continued popularity to a confusion in two distinct definitions of the word sound. Ordinarily, sound is defined as the sensation stimulated by waves set in motion by a vibrating object. Consequently there is no such sound unless there is some kind of ear to receive the sensation. In this sense, then, if a tree should fall thousands of miles from any living creature, there would be no sound. This is the psychological sense. But in physical science sound is defined as the cause of the sensation; that is, the waves which are set in motion by a vibrating object and which produce the sensation popularly called sound. So the answer to the question is, in the psychological sense of the term, no sound is produced unless there is an ear to hear. But in the physical sense sound is produced irrespective of the presence of a living creature with auditory organs. In the one case sound is a sensation, in the other, the waves which stimulate the sensation.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
How did the Romans add, subtract and multiply with Roman numerals?
Calvin Culass
Montrose
Dear Tom,
It has long been somewhat of a popular mystery how the Romans added, subtracted and multiplied with the clumsy signs or symbols which we call Roman numerals. The fact is the Romans had no convenient symbols to indicate mathematical processes and operations. Originally every process and operation was expressed in words of full length. Their mathematical calculations were never simplified further than to abbreviate centum, 100, to C, mille, 1000, to M, and so on. Figuring was awkward business in the time of Caesar. Practically all calculations were performed on the abacus, an apparatus resembling the Chinese suan pan or the bead-and-frame affairs now used in kindergarten work. The Roman abacus contained seven long and seven short rods or bars. There were four beads on each of the long bars and one on the short ones. The beads on the short bars denoted five. The first long bar was marked I, the second X, the third C, and so on up to millions. Now suppose Caesar wished to write the number 25. He would push up two X-beads and pull down the V-bead on the corresponding bar. If he wished to subtract three from 25 he would push up the V-bead and two I-beads, leaving the two X-beads where they were. There were additional bars for making calculations involving fractions. The Romans were not reputed to be good mathematicians and they contributed little to the science.
Pea Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
Can a Constitutional Amendment be repealed?
Joe Bucky
Denver
Dear Roy,
An Amendment is just as much a part of the Constitution as the original Articles. The only way any part of the Constitution can be altered or nullified is by passing an Amendment, which, in turn, becomes part of the Constitution. Therefore, the only way to repeal an Amendment is by another Amendment.
Pea Green Answer Man
GIN EFFECTIVE CURE FOR GIARDIA SAY DOCS
According to a recent press release from the Armenian Medical Association, the liberal application of gin at regular intervals is the fastest, most effective cure for the malady known as giardia. The findings come after almost thirty years of major yak research conducted somewhere in Asia Minor.
A giardia is known to be the parasite found in mountain streams and rivers during run-off. It enters the ecosystem via the daily deposits of herd animals, angry at the current pecking order and at the human race in general. They blame most of their ills on people and are quite religious in their output capacities.
Symptoms of the dreaded illness include headaches, cramps, diarrhea, fever and other unpleasantness not conducive living the good life.
According to people in physicians’ outfits at Makhachkala Research Institute, juniper-distilled gin acts as a deterrent to the aims of the parasite, often rendering both the intruder, and the host, babbling fools. It is at that exact point that the human body’s red corpuscles kick into fourth gear and effectively exorcise the freeloader from the system. Once extracted he is shunned by fellow parasites and must leave town.
“It’s a lot like watching drunks get thrown out of the bar on Bonanza or Gunsmoke,” said one physician whose only exposure to American culture is through the television set in the emergency room at a local hospital. “It is both an educational and a rewarding sight to behold.”
The researchers went on to warn that the regular abuse of gin could invite other problems such as ulcers, blindness and premature senility, but that this is not likely.
“Just be certain that the gin is iced down properly and served with a minuscule splash of vermouth for proper digestion,” continued the press release. “An olive or two would be of great value as well,” it said.
One local doctor called the entire concept of gin curing giardia “nothing but poppycock” yet was quick to add that if someone was already taking this prescribed medication they would be well advised to complete the treatment.
– Rex Monteleone
“I remember when Cripple Creek and Central City were nice places.” – Susie Compost
Supervivientes como Elkton
(Crested Butte) Un grupo de supervivencia ha incluido a la comunidad de Elkton en su lista de las diez ciudades más habitables de Estados Unidos según Assault Life, una publicación de culto del norte de Idaho. Elkton recibió su nombre debido a su clima agradable, su composición étnica, accesibilidad en invierno y proximidad a una importante zona de esquí del tercer mundo.
Las ciudades no califican para este honor porque apoyen a un grupo sobre otro o porque hayan expresado aprecio por una orientación política o social determinada. Están incluidos en esa lista debido a su potencial previsto para capear una crisis militar. El almacenamiento de alimentos y armas, así como la privacidad para llevar a cabo las tareas de defensa, también fueron consideraciones importantes en la votación.
El grupo que se hace llamar The Lighter Shade of Pale Brotherhood clasificó a Elkton, ubicado a unas siete millas al norte de aquí, en Washington Gulch, como el número tres en su registro anual. Venciendo a Elkton quedaron Deadhorse, Alaska (primero) y Ouelette, Maine (segundo). Otras comunidades que recibieron reconocimiento entre las cinco primeras fueron Grand Isle, Louisiana; Rexford, Montana y Orkney, Saskatchewan, como Pale Brotherhood, dejan mucho que desear en los campos de las matemáticas y la geografía.
