Author Archive for M. Toole
TVs for food program progressing nicely say officials
(Yellow Jacket, CO) Residents and visitors alike in Montezuma County are encouraged to trade in their unwanted, used and unsafe televisions for food. A stray cat to the many heralded guns for food programs, this new plan promises discretion, privacy and a fair price for one’s unwanted or unneccessary television set.
For decades social scientists and educators have screamed for television control but lobbyists and money have consistently snuffed out their pleas. But today in a small Colorado county activists have succeeded in getting some 300 dangerous televisions off the streets.
“The gov’ment seems only too happy to ignore us,” said one activist. “They say television is an entertainment tradition and provides the most sophisticated communication known to man. But we all know that it is the catalyst in the “Numbing of the Nationals”.
The Numbing of the Nationals is a secret gov’ment agenda which calls for the lowering of the IQ some twelve points by 2030 while raising testosterone and diverting significant natural hormones.
“Without television the gov’ment could never pull it off. People would function at a much higher level during evening hours and find that there is better entertainment inside their heads than on the tube,” continued another acutely unreliable source.
Concerned with what they say is approaching French Revolution Levels* and zombie standards in many neighborhoods throughout the country, leaders here shared the common consensus.
“Today television is probably much more harmful than alcohol, drugs or firearms,” said Ashly Toallas-Towel, a pretend county commissar. “If the feds really wanted to control violent behavior they would look toward the TV screen for some answers. Relationships, family, success and yes, handguns are depicted as options of no consequence. TV sends the wrong message plus too many hours gives the viewer a fat ass to boot.” she stressed, wandering about the tiny town selling monogrammed doilies, dumpster items and donuts.
Apparently the status of the targeted television sets is not important. But like a classic weapon exchange certain models will demand more at the grocery. For instance a regular 19-inch color set might bring a bologna-velveta-canned beer menu while an Flatscreen HD set may net groceries for the T-Bone-lobster tail-nice bottle of wine taste.
“We don’t care if they work or not. There’s nothing on worth watching until Bronco season anyway,” said an alleged deputy. “We just want these things out of houses same as we want unhinged gun wavers off the street.”
It is estimated that everyone in the county owns at least two weapons, not counting threatending farm implements and dynamite from the mining days. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
“Here we need our guns for protection from wild animals and the federal government. It’s the televisions we’d like to be rid of,” continued the deputy.
Critics of the program insist that it is just the beginning of “full government control over every aspect of our daily lives.
“Criminals don’t trade in televisions. It’s responsible television owners doing that!” said an unidentified spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Boob Tube Alliance. “How you gonna watch American Idle or NASCAR without a TV set in your house? What if an intruder forces himself in demanding to watch the five o’clock news? C’mon. Then it will be to late to tune in and you’ll be sorry.”
The relinquished televisions will be destroyed nightly so as not to fall into the hands of terrorists or bankers,” peeped former TV star Melvin Bedwetter Toole, who moved to Yellow Jacket after a career portaying cowboys on the silver screen.
“Local arsenals are inadequate to throw back a gov’ment gone mad anyway, so we might just as well sit down and eat up,” he sighed eyeballing a plate of elk steaks, wild asparagus and smoked kokani. “I myself plan to eash the whoile mess down with a bottle of wine from way over in tropical Paonia.”
In a somewhat related development the United States Congress today announced that it is in unanimous agreement as to the implementation of stricter gun control measures, for the Africa, Australia and the Mideast.
– Susie Compost
*Reminder: The Storming of the Bastille will be reenacted for the 45th years running on Saint Partrick’s Day in the local baptist church and at St Kevin’s Aviary.
POACHING RAMPANT IN SENIOR SET
(Montrose) Incidents of poaching have reached epidemic proportions here according to behavioral scientists at the ocassionally renowned Pea Green Academy. Researchers expect matters to get even worse with winter’s weather to the Rockies.
“One only has to look at the daily supplies in our grocery stores to realize that something is wrong,” winced one scientist who prefers his eggs cooked over-easy with a side of home fries. “These perpetrators think they have a right to poach at will. Most of the hard-boiled element won’t even consider legal channels such as the scrambled version or the more organic raw egg, right out of the brown shell.”
Local henboys agree that a few bad eggs often spoil it for everyone else but add that as long as the guilty get off with “just a slap on the hand” the problem will continue to grow. They alluded to a group of indicted poachers strutting around their cells like Bantam Roosters just prior to a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.
“One has to consider the fact that the older poachers cannot chew that well and a poached version makes for a far more pleasant morning meal,” said citizen’s advocate Henrietta Perdue of the National Association for the Advancement of Chickens and Poultry (NAACP). “If one really wants to get to the root of the problem he must look beyond the feathers. It’s all supply and demand! Don’t chastise the chicken farmers. The problem lies within the infrastructure here in our cities and towns, she cackled.”
Perdue claims that if seniors did not desire poached eggs there would be no profit in chicken ranching and this contraband would disappear from circulation in a matter of months. An ardent follower of Pol Pot, Perdue’s other solution is to force all the seniors, as well as the chickens, from the cities out into the rural parts of the country for reeducation.
-Rocky Flats
“Yeah, they said that it’s not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein, which is pretty much like saying it’s not a crime to have brunch with Jeffrey Dahmer.” — JIMMY FALLON
How Bunny Stoked* the Cold War
(Big Corn Island, Nicaragua)
Sometime back, 53 years ago to be exact, a poor fisherman hauled in a large square-fish* just off the beach at Sally Peaches, hid it for a somewhat anxious, yet appropriate period, then magically negotiated with certain Colombian couriers for a finder’s fee and a guarantee that he would be left alone to spend his reward.
The rules here stated that if the cocaine smugglers reneged and did harm to one of the “locators” there would be no more negotiations. The unearthed commodity and its finders would adopt a tight lip approach and make other arrangements to unload the merchandise elsewhere, leaving the original cocaine cowboys with a knee-breaking loss of money and face.
Like all good things the shelf life of this shaky compromise was temporary. Bunny was lucky. His timing was perfect and slid under the radar as the cocaine trade was ridiculously lucrative and the cartels went to war with themselves. It was far better to make new millions than chase beach bums and rookie hoodlums in search of old losses. Besides that, there were evil competitors to murder, a bigger challenge with a bigger purse.
The square fish discovery had propelled Hector Conjejos, or “Bunny” as he came to be called, from a net mender to a high roller. He shared his bundle all over the island and built a pink hotel on the spot of his find. No one was surprised when he called in Bunny’s. The now wealthy fisherman had become quite popular with the island ladies with all that loot at his disposal.
“Bunny got real handsome almost overnight,” said Renelle Downs, a longtime resident of Southwest Bay, in her carefully drawn-out Creole. “He be nice enough but he still funny lookin’ to me.”
But it was one lady Bunny desired — the stunning Beatrix from neighboring Little Corn Island, who had it firmly in her head that she would soon go to New York and be a model. Despite the fact that Big Corn itself was becoming a fashion-shoot destination she would never be satisfied hanging with Bunny in the islands while Gotham called. Even with Bunny’s unending attention plus a daily fare of crab and champagne it was only a matter of time before she flew the coop.
He had to act before she vamoosed and left him on his knees in the sand. If she was set on New York he would have to reinvent himself. The old Bunny, no matter how charming and rich, just wouldn’t do this time around. Beatrix was the prize and certainly worth the effort. He had never been to New York but the city’s skyline was already being etched to his ego.
***
Bunny began poring over fashion magazines on the veranda of his adjacent pulperia. He must have looked a sight all dressed up in a yellow jumpsuit and cowboy boots but nobody said anything. After all, it was his hotel. In addition, Bunny had been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth and could have easily kicked their assembled asses.
Some days Beatriz would join him in the hammock digesting styles in vogue from Rio to Rome. Their conversation glided from Paris to Milan with Bunny expounding on trends and fads, sans the barest of credentials. He seemed to delight in heady squabbles as to the absence of wool from the Caribbean wardrobe and why grass skirts never caught on in Mongolia.
“I didn’t know you had such an interest in my future profession,” she would say.
Bunny explored her green eyes and slender figure and just sailed along, smiling wide.
He read everything he could find and even travelled to Managua to attend several beauty pageants studying theme, atmosphere and learning how to build a proper standup runway.
One morning a tall thin European bellowed a greeting while Bunny was having coffee on his pink porch. When he reached the steps he introduced himself as Sergei Cassini and said he was on Big Corn doing a fashion shoot.
“I was searching for some props and the lady at the desk sent me over to talk to you,” said Cassini. “She also said you a sort of fashion icon and astute in the ways of the world.”
“Did she then? said Bunny
“I’ll be needing an old fishing boat, a beater sure board, an oak barrel and mess of coconuts,” said the man.
“Come up and have a drink,” said Bunny. “When will you be needing these essentials and where? I will see that you have all that you need for your work here. Cassini, heh? I know that name.”
“My brother is Oleg, the famous designer. I guess I’m riding on his fame but only when the iron is hot and fashion shoots are profitable. Otherwise I am in New York with business responsibilities there.
“Oh, what kind of business Mr. Cassini? asked Bunny
“We have Russian restaurants in Brighton Beach. Do you like sausage and kraut? How about blinis?”
“I like bikinis,” laughed Bunny.
“Don’t be fooled by the Italian surname. We are Cossacks. Our mother was Countess Marguerite Cassini and her husband, our father, was Count Alexander Loiewski, a Czarist diplomat. His maternal grandfather Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini, had been the Russian ambassador to the United States during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
“In 1917,” he continued, “the family was forced to flee our native Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power. Aristocrats were not on their post-revolutionary dance card. We left a houses, land and bank accounts behind, finally settling in Italy where the family began using Cassini instead of Loiewski. That was long before my brother went to work for Paramount Pictures and later created the Jackie Look. “Better than most-Second to none” was his mantra.”
Bunny listened, floored by his good luck at meeting this well-connected filmmaker. The next day he delivered the props to the filming site along with a mess of crabs and beer compliments of his restaurant. Cassini thanked him and invited him to stick around.
“That’s quite a trove of magazines,” said Cassini, when the two met up the next day on the porch. You may have the best resource library in Nicaragua. Are you chasing a dream?”
“No. I’m chasing a slender 115-pound beauty that wants to become a fashion model in New York. I figure if I bone up on the ins and outs I might find work, maybe as a designer or a photographer.”
“Have you thought of writing? All of the magazines on your table pay for features and critiques,” said Cassini. New York is home to a better class of writers than Hollywood. Anyone can take a photo and write a review but it takes real talent and insight to detect the wrong crease or a poor button selection. It’s the little things that separate the critics from the bumbler. The pay won’t be much at first but it doesn’t look like you need the money.”
Sadly, Bunny had the literary ability of a leopard slug. He was hard pressed to write – even about fishing, a profession he had embraced for decades until that splendid afternoon when the square-fish surfaced on Sally Peaches.
“To me, the void is most apparent when analyzing and assessing the fashion scene in more remote circles,” continued Cassini. Everyone writes about the hot spots but nobody talks about the hidden agenda.”
“The hidden agenda?” asked Bunny
“The subtleties of an arena not known for compelling attire or cutting-edge design, you know like Eastern Europe, North Korea or Canada. Imagine a piece on Hungarian swimwear or Canadian snow boots. It may sound less than inspiring, but nobody’s doing it,” he smiled.
Bunny was speechless. He hadn’t thought much of this plan all the way through. He was, after all, literate and owned a camera. Maybe he could pull it off and capture the lovely Beatrix in the shuffle.
“I’d be interested in pursuing that,” he said to Cassini who was now on his third Flor de Cana of the morning.
“It makes the most sense. But first you’ll need a nom de plume…something familiar…something very American,” he pressed rubbing his hands together slightly.
“How about John Wayne?” asked Bunny
“Now that might attract the kind of attention that we seek,” said Cassini. “I like it. Now you just have to be a little haughty, a little snotty and a bit impetuous to pull it off.”
“Besides brushing up on my grammar, where would I begin?” queried Bunny drifting off on his new status before he so much as picked up a pen. “I don’t know anyone in New York.”
“I could make a few phone calls,” offered Cassini. “I have people in the business that come into my restaurant a couple of times a week,” he winked. “I’ll ask around.”
***
The next day, when the men met, Cassini was full of enthusiasm.
“We have friends who might be interested in reading your stories. They are in New York. They are always looking for feature pieces from the little known sectors of the globe. They are Russian like me, and vehemently anti-Soviet,” he continued.
“Do you have any problem writing scoops and anecdotes that ape the Politburo box suits and mock peasant dresses that hang like curtains that have seen their last performance?”
Bunny thought for a moment, then he thought about Beatrix.
“Not on your life,” he said, suddenly feeling a part of something big and exiting.
“Good. Your first article might talk about bad haircuts or what happens when the Soviet leaders try to grow beards like that fellow in Havana, said Cassini, wheels a-turning. My friends up north have files of photos and eager editors. You’ll have more support than the Lend Lease Act.”
Over the next two weeks the two concocted a symbiotic plan that would win the hand of Beatrix and give the Soviets a black eye in the garment world. Before he knew it he was on a conference call with several of Cassini’s friends and assorted editors.
“We hate the Bolsheviks,” said one. They can’t even make decent pelmeni and their shchi tastes of sawdust and the blood of White Russians!”
Another chimed in saying the Soviets spend the day mainlining borscht and chasing their vodka with pickled cucumbers. How gauche. If they ever offer you kasha tell them you have already eaten.”
He began a weekly column from his porch, comparing western and Eastern European styles even though he had never been there.
Reporting all the rage, propped up by a slew of media goons at Coney Island, was the new Bunny.
Meanwhile his associates in New York had hit a home run with ventures like Minsk Coiffures, an elite Carib-Berezina line of exotic exercise clothing and private label deck shoes dubbed Sevastopol, Yalta and Trotsky after Czar Nicolas’ hamsters.
“Hey, we’re not…you know…” said Cassini pushing his nose to the right with his thumb like Bunny had seen in the gangster movies.
“We’re not the mob but sometimes they eat here. Sometimes they watch out for us. Sometimes we do some work for them.”
Meanwhile, back on Volga: At first the Kremlin potato heads liked all the cultured attention until they figured out Bunny was making them out to be bozos.
“Who is this John Wayne?” they demanded at the United Nations.
References to Spud noggins in someone else’s suit may have tipped the cabbage cart. He had struck a nerve and would soon go to New York. He would have the beautiful Beatrix, who was now hedging on her grand designs of moving to New York. She had lost her spunk. Her smiling green eyes drooped. He also noticed that she had gained quite a bit of weight from the lobster and Flor de Cana.
Finally the two journeyed to New York together. Bunny was a sight in his yellow suit, Tony Lamas and Montecristi Amalfi while a trimmed down Beatrix looked delicious in a lavender suit and white silk scarf. They passed the time making fun of the clothing worn by other passengers and ordering bottles of mispronounced wine.
Pen in hand, Bunny was like the bad aroma of a Wahoo fart. No one escaped his volcanic eye. He slammed Aukland wool caps, red shukas from Nairobi, jute sarees in Kolkata and white knee sox in Cleveland.
Then he went back at the Soviets – an easy target especially for someone with no taste or knowledge of the subject at hand. These pathetic scribblings led to much publicity and became the source of great black market, underground humor in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia in the 50s. Even giggling Albanians, not known as yarn spinners, shared Bunny’s commentaries.
“It was almost like the articles hit the mark because they were so poorly written,” said Cassini years later.
Meanwhile up in America then President Eisenhower was having none of it. Prior to Cuban Missiles and Sputnik, a moneyed Bunny was embraced under the umbrella that protected Somoza Regime, the Panama Canal and particularly the US-owned United Fruit Company. Keep Commies out of the banana trees and all of that Latin-America policy mumbo-jumbo was the order of business.
“He’s on our side,” they liked to say after reading one of his vile and disparaging articles like Ivan Goes To The Beach and the newest on the Red Army’s Tatar Woolens (Tartan in the real world..
But what really stoked the competitive fires is that Bunny was a scratch golfer having picked up the game from Crimean seamen who often waited out storms in Bluefields, on Nicaragua’s Pacific mainland. They taught him to putt and chip like a pro. Everyone knew Ike couldn’t resist playing nine or maybe eighteen. Bunny now had even a better friend in the White House.
It was on that Eisenhower-induced trip to the US that Bunny and Beatriz met the famous Russian dissident and tailor Yakov Yakir, who had just competed his new Vicuna Wool spring collection from a Leningrad (now St Petersburg) jail cell. Yakir, the acclaimed inventor of the Kerensky G-string was momentously freed for a highly anticipated fashion show featuring Anouska Lebedev, the legendary model and sometime niece of former president Boris Yeltsin.
One day a phone call from New York was a stark reminder – “We see a way you can further embarrass the Reds”, said the groveled voice on the other end of the line …and so part in loyalty and part in fear he kept up the fashion pieces only this time with digs, daggers and booby traps certain to belittle the Soviets. His favorite locale was the beach.
“They resembled wobbly walruses in cheap polyester,” he wrote. “Their fur hats made everyone else at the beach itchy. They dared not approach the sea for fear that the suits would disintegrate with contact with salt water. Small birds sought out the material to build makeshift nests while sand crabs would not approach.” he puffed. “Some paraded around in painfully brief Speedos looking like puffy marshmallows wrapped in Kalamata leaves.”
The Kremlin reaction was now swift and merciless. Troops were repositioned on the Chinese border and vodka prices went up. Political enemies were sent to Siberia. Many feared a repeat of the bloody Stroganoff Skirmishes between Poland and Czarist Russia in the 18th Century.
“Who is this John Wayne?” the Soviet bosses screamed.
Soon fashion critics all over the world were swimming to Bunny’s sloop anchored in Peconic Bay near East Hampton. His articles were now being reprinted in Turkish as well as the romance languages. What was harmless chatter in most ports became mean and slanderous indictments levied by a culture at odds with Russia since Mahmud of Gazni in the 11th Century.
Now a golf widow, Beatrix fell in love and married the singing bartender at the Clare To Here Pub, located on the first floor of Bunny’s Upper East Side apartment building. Opting out as a model she moved back to Little Corn Island with her new husband and opened a dive shop/tiki bar at Fowl House Beach. She hasn’t seen Bunny in years.
Footnote: History buffs continue to deny this and many other stories appearing on this website. They cannot, however, deny that when the Soviets went into Afghanistan in 1979 most of the troops were wearing white after dark, and khaki from the Caucasus. The regiments were often outfitted in kaftans and terliks with matching yushmons from the spring Breznev collection… and that validates my account and about buttons up further conclusions on this end.
And Bunny? In his own words: “I’ve had about enough of blacktop, taxis, overpriced pizza and cold weather. This high-roller literary life isn’t for me. I’m going fishing for a long, long time. “Just punch my ticket for Sally Peaches,” he crooned to passersby in an unnecessarily dramatic off-Broadway sort of adieu.
*Originally entitled “Provoked the Cold War”, the language of the article has been toned down so as to placate the Red Chinese and their godless allies. (Testosterone Brothers Press, Boston 1949.)
– Kevin Haley
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Local Attorney Sues Self for Millions
(Lake City) A local lawyer has filed a $3 million lawsuit against herself in District Quart this morning. The document alleges that she “willfully did seek to diminish fiscal potential” which then did irreparable harm to herself and her cats.
Wathena Savoy, a failed denture maker who turned to the law in 2013, sat unmoved as the preliminary hearing proceeded. She then confronted the court loudly, accusing herself of spending her grocery money at the local bar.
She then went into a clever charade explaining how she spent over $2000 on lottery tickets (to win $20) and has maintained constant credit card debt over $70,000. Later, last spring, she drove her sparkling new 2014 Henway off Slumgullion Pass after allowing her insurance to expire. The jury sat stuned when Savoy demanded the death penalty for her actions but later agreed to a plea bargain and two nights in the somewhat recently remodeled Gunnison County lockup.
A demoralized, tearful Savoy broke down and told the judge that she had buried over $25,000 in a coffee can to avoid paying tax on the sum. Unfortunately she got stoned and forgot where she had hidden the loot.
“And now the phone bill is overdue,” she sobbed.
Savoy ended her pungent soliloquy by begging the court for mercy and a few dollars to pay the 15-minute parking meter.
– Peter Pecker
Howdy Law Amendment Travels to Senate
(Barnacle-on-Potomac) Western hospitality is alive an well after three weeks in the House of Representatives. That’s where the populist Howdy Law has been hanging its’ black Stetson since mid-April.
Originally bulldogged into law by the Montrose (Colorado) City Council and quickly approved by the County Commissars, the Howdy Law has received quite a little press since it’s virgin implementation at this Western Colorado town in 2011. Lots of other municipalities and counties have adopted the legislation. Some have written it into city and county ordinances while others have simply encouraged the local population to live by the simple do unto others creed that is inherent to a healthy society.
The Howdy Law, as originally written, simply calls for outward signs of friendliness by saying Howdy to people one encounters on the street. It endorses gregariousness as a way of life and the end result is a happier, thriving population. For old timers it’s the only acceptable way to be, and is therefore comfortable in all social exchanges. For the urban refugee it is restorative and hygienic. It allows the soul to bloom in its new environs.
Now the federals are on the verge of passing legislation that would adopt the Howdy Law as the edict of note and quite possibly the prescription for what ails us as a nation. In most cultures a greeting is basic. Here in the suburb-choked, dollar-days-USA we are more likely to run someone over with our shiny new car than to belt out an apical hello.
At first the local Howdy Law was based on the honor system but after a few months a person could expect a toothless summons for any sign of animosity in the face of such a greeting. To be sure there were those who said their right to be anti-social was being eroded and their civil libertarians soon dove into the fray. A lawsuit was filed and people got hot and haute. Fortunately the paperwork was mysteriously misplaced and the court records allegedly remain stashed under a pile of dog-at-large citations and drunk driving plea bargains in someone’s potato cellar.
In 1996 then Governor Roy Romer signed a breakthrough bill that adopted the Howdy Law all across the state. It became the bible for the tourist industry with dude ranches teaching their little dudes and dudettes to employ it on trail rides and ski areas demanding that their close-cropped employees say Howdy to visitors as many as 2000 times per day.
What these greenhorn mercantilists often don’t remember is that the whole thing started here on the banks of the mighty Uncompahgre River where the concept of Howdy is as natural blue skies as and as sure as sagebrush. Despite rampant growth and questionable land use over the past years Montrose remains a friendly place. Even the cops say Howdy, then they put on the cuffs.
Do some of us think friendly is not cosmopolitan or sophisticated enough? The other evening in what was once a small town I stood in the checkout line at the grocery. There were lots of people there that I had never seen. No one spoke. Were they all from Neptune? Suddenly in my advanced state of Holy Joe judgment I realized two things, 1.) I was the only guy in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops 2.) In my attempt to get on with the purchase of whipped cream and salsa I didn’t say anything to anyone either.
Estrangement often precipitates violence as the disaffected act out their fatal frustrations. We don’t have to bring up road rage or kids with guns to illustrate that point (the chatty noggin on TV does that for us every hour on the hour). Maybe a crisp Hello in there, as the late song writer John Prine put it, could defuse the situation. The feds seem to think so, and isn’t that entity infallible in matters of benevolent dictation, o’ sumpin’.
Enough preaching. If all goes according to plan the Senate will vote on this matter of mandatory greeting tomorrow and the Howdy Law will be in the books (allow six to eight weeks for delivery) before the fireworks light up the skies for the Fourth. In other business, the legislative body will, in what critics are calling another pay raise masquerade, cast a final vote this week on whether to extend the term of a senator from two to four years. How do?
– Kashmir Horseshoe
