All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category
Happy Bulgarian Saint Patrick’s Day in Vietnam
Our friend Anton discusses the beauty of green beer in front of his Shangrila Restaurant in An Bang Beach, Vietnam
Montrose Man Still Talks to Potatoes
(Spring Creek UPS) Melvin R. Toole hasn’t been the same since the Spanish American War where he was a 10-year-old drummer boy. Having been wounded and separated by his regiment at San Juan Hill, he claims to have survived three months in the jungle on a crop of Irish potatoes.
“I don’t know who planted the spuds but I’d sure like to thank them,” said Toole, a spry, alert 127-year-old , who withstood the ordeal as a young man of 17. “He has visited Ireland and Peru (where potatoes were first established as a crop) in search of answers. He has found few.
“People just stare at me,” he whined. “Don’t they understand the intimacies of all this? Can’t they let an old man have some peace?” 
Today the veteran seems satisfied carrying on extended conversations with local spuds.
“I can’t really call them dialogues,” said Toole. “but one never knows what’s around the next corner. I just want to find someone to thank and all eyes are on me.”
– Princess Irm Peawit
RESTRICTED BAGPIPE SEASON IRKS LOCALS
(Gunnison) A Division of Tartan announcement that bagpipes would be prohibited from the field in sectors 67 and 68 has drawn the ire of many citizens groups here. For decades bagpipers participated in three distinct seasons with in-state residents having first shot at bellow licenses without incident.
Back then, before the feds started fooling with the seasons everyone knew what was expected of him. The deer and elk were prompt. The hunters were polite. Autumn arrived in splendid fashion with double-reed melodies reverberating from hunting camps from Baldwin to Yahoo City.
Today, bagpipes are banned in the woods due to a misconception on the part of authorities that elk tend to be hypnotized by the ancient sounds. Although the practice of calling prey with bagpipes is documented in the annals of Colorado hunting lore there is not one shred of proof that elk, or even deer have responded in person to the overtures.
“Why do you think there aren’t any elk in Scotland and Ireland today?” asked one Tartan ranger who asked to remain off record. “It’s because the Celts seduced them with the pipes and blasted them to kingdom come,” he probed. “Then they served them up with potatoes and carrots, and onions if they had them. Where do you think the term corned elk comes from?
The controversial symphonic hunting techniques, still preferred by the great unwashed, are expected to continue despite warnings from the gov’ment. Already several country and western artists have recorded bagpipe renditions of popular hunting tunes and the hot cakes are selling like discs.
“They may have outlawed bagpipes in the woods but boom boxes, generators, TVs, RVs, ATVs, gourmet chefs and secretaries are still OK,” said one record promoter. “Let them try to dictate individual musical tastes. We’ll have the FCC all over them.”
– Tommy Middlefinger
Clown strike threatens very social fabric of the nation.
Although unreported in the mainstream media the bitter clown strike has reached another plateau at 2 months without laughter, a cheap bit, a slapstick fall, even a smile. Clowns all over the Western Hemisphere and in Grand Junction walked off their jobs back 61 days ago, seemingly unnoticed by of the woolgathering public.
The clowns have released a list of grievances against humanity all of them the condemning the anger and sadness permeating the globe. They are currently holding an abandoned warehouse complex in the bad part of town where a coquette government has been inhabited by strikers with giant feet, red noses and flowers that squirt water at people.
“This comes at a bad time for humor on the planet,” said a grease-faced youth named Zippy. “People don’t always need money, or cars or bombs or breakfast linen but they damn sure need clowns.”
The power void left by the baggy-panted comics ripples forced smiles at a time where we need loud laughter. Scabs are expected to be employed by early next week if the various parties do not come to some agreement. One major stumbling block appears to be the defunding of Jester State, the once prestigious college that has been training clowns since the Depression. The feds say the school is no longer accredited and has therefore forfeit its fiscal support.
The clowns say the school is valid if only for the affect on children and dreamers. They say the nation will suffer without them.
“Who will set laughter in motion? Who will take the funny fall from the tightrope into the net? Who will run from the rogue elephant? Who will smile at just the right time to let the kids in row one know everything is really all right?” asked one orange-haired bumbler.
Both sides expressed concern that nobody will be laughing up his sleeve if the conflict goes to the Supreme Quart. They agree that the damage has been done and that a whole lot of hugs will be needed to set things straight again.
– Betsy Guffaw
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.
