All Entries in the "Hard News" Category

Postcard from the Butte!

WHISKER CUT-OFF LOOMS

(Gunnison) The final deadline to begin seeding new growth winter beards is Friday, December 27 according to the Colorado Division of Facial Hair in Denver. This includes goatees, pork chop sideburns, ducktails and shanties but not mustaches.

Although considered overly strict by neighboring states and commonwealths, the beard legislation, passed last year after intense lobbying by shaving cream companies, the razor consortium and lots of little kids who object to kissing their stubbly dads, brothers, uncles and grandfathers.

“We don’t feel we have the right to dictate the presence of a mustache in one’s own home, especially in the male population,” said Martin Dilemma, a former barber, sheep sheerer and herbage advocate from Lake City. “As so far as other hair legislation goes, we will hold the line in 2014!”

Dilemma, celebrated as an eccentric, often appears at town meetings and public hangings in a streaked mohair suit with camel tooth gloves, alligator hair shoes and a lavender sheepskin peruke accented with the tail feathers from a local magpie.

“And that’s in July,” said one rebellious beautician who specializes in radical facial plumage at Netty’s Coiffures and Body Piercing here. “Why can’t these people let the citizenry be responsible for mowing its own lawn, so to speak?”

Already local watchdogs report 43 new beards started Monday with an expected 50 or more getting off the ground by the weekend. Authorities warn that once a beard begins, it stays until July 4.

“No exceptions will be made. Beard lovers have had the entire hunting season to walk around looking like winos without anyone gawking at them. Now it’s time to shave or get off the pot!”

– Princess Irm Peawit

 

FBI To Investigate Broken Campaign Promises

(Washington) The Federal Bureau of Investigation has penciled in an assortment of raids aimed at prosecuting politicians suspected of reneging on campaign promises.

Following the most recent elections the law enforcement branch has logged countless complaints from citizens as to abuses from the podium to the social arena. Since 1980 the FBI has been compiling endless reams of video tape featuring politicians in the heat of campaigning. It now appears a strike is imminent.

Armed with clear evidence of outright lying and insider misrepresentation the FBI admits that it will not be able to investigate every complaint. Instead it will focus on the heart of exploitation from the White House to the Congress.

“We can’t bust every two-bit politician who’s promised his constituency that he will slay the dragon for them,” explained one FBI agent. “We’d have to build more jails or legalize more drugs to make room for the new inmates.”

Operating on the age-old adage that if his/her mouth moves he/she is lying the FBI is conscious of red flag behavior such as baby kissing, mindless glad-handing and pork barrel appointments. In addition fiscal records have been confiscated where heavy-handed special interests have contributed vast sums to a candidate.

“A politician’s benefactors want something back for their money and we’ll be on the lookout for good-old-boy-ism and cronyism in Washington. Hopefully it will send a message to all the jerkwater charlatans holding office across this great land that we mean business.”

Breaking political promises is lying but if the poltroon electorate doesn’t wise up that sociopathic behavior will continue to flourish as part of our dilapidated system.

“The uninformed voter is a danger to himself and others,” said the source. “That’s why these parasites continue to get elected.”

– Melvin O’Toole

 

Jericho Bob

by Anna Eichberg King

 

Jericho Bob, when he was four years old, hoped that one day he might be allowed to eat just as much turkey as he possibly could. He was eight now, but that hope had not been realized.

Mrs. Jericho Bob, his mother, kept hens for a living, and she expected they would lay enough eggs in the course of time to help her son to an independent career as a bootblack.

They lived in a tumble-down house in a waste of land near the steam cars. Besides her hens Mrs. Bob owned a goat.

Our story has, however, nothing to do with the goat except to say he was there, and that he was on nibbling terms, not only with Jericho Bob, but with his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, and it was surprising how many old hat brims and other tidbits of clothing he could swallow during a day.

And Mrs. Bob truly said, it was no earthly use to get something new for Jericho, even if she could afford it; for the goat browsed all over him, and had been known to carry away even a leg of his trousers.

Jericho Bob was eight years old and his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, was nine. They were so much alike that if it hadn’t been for Jericho’s bow-legs and his turned up nose, you really could not have told them apart.

A kindred taste for turkey also united them.

In honor of Thanksgiving Day Mrs. Bob always sacrificed a hen which would, but for such blessed release, have died of old age.  One drumstick was given to Jericho, whose interior remained an unsatisfied void.

Jericho has heard of turkey as a fowl larger, sweeter and more tender than hen, and about Thanksgiving time he would linger around the provision stores and gaze with open mouth at the array of turkeys hanging head downward over bushels of cranberries, as if even at that uncooked stage, they were destined for one another. And turkey was his dream.

It was springtime, and the hens were being a credit to themselves. The goat in the yard, tied to a stake, was varying a meal of old shoe and tomato can by a nibble of fresh green grass. Mrs. Bob was laid up with rheumatism.

“Jericho Bob!” she said to her son, shaking her red and yellow turban at him. “Jericho Bob, you go down and fetch de eggs today. Ef I find yer don’t bring me twenty-three, I’ll…well never mind what I’ll do. but you won’t like it”

Now Jericho Bob meant to be honest, but the fact was he found twenty-four, and the twenty-fourth was so big, so remarkably big. Twenty-three eggs he brought to Mrs. Bob, but the twenty-fourth he left sinfully in charge of the discreet hen.

On his return he met Julius Caesar Fish, with his hands in his pockets and his head extinguished by his grandfather’s fur cap. Together they went toward the hen coop and Fish spoke, or rather lisped (he had lost some of his front teeth):

“Jericho Bob, tha’th a turkey’th egg.”

“Yer don’t say so.”

“I think i’th a-goin to hatch.”

No sooner said that they heard a pick and peck in the shell.

“Pick!” a tiny beak broke through the shell. “Peck!” more break. “Crack!” a funny little head, a long bare neck, and then “Pick, peck, crack! before them stood the funniest, fluffiest brown ball resting on two weak little legs.

“Hooray!” they shouted.

“Peep!” said the turkeykin.

“It’s mine!” Jericho Bob shouted excitedly.

“I’th Marm Pitkin’th turkey’th; she laid it there.”

“It’s mine, and I’m going to keep it, and next Thanksgiving I’m going ter eat him.”

“Think yer ma’ll let you feed him up for thath? Julius Caesar asked triumphantly.

Jericho Bob’s next Thanksgiving dinner seemed destined to be a dream. His face fell.

“I’ll tell you wath I’ll do,” his friend said, benevolently: “I’ll keep him for you, and Thanksgivin’ we’ll go halvth.”

Jericho resigned himself to the inevitable, and the infant turkey was borne home by his friend.

Fish. Jr., lived next door, and the only difference in the premises was a freight-car permanently switched off before the broken down fence of the Fish yard; and in this car turkeykin took up his abode.

I will not tell you how he grew and more than realized the hopes of his foster-fathers, nor with what impatience and anticipation they saw spring. summer and autumn pass, while they watched their Thanksgiving dinner stalk proudly up the bare yard and even hop across the railroad tracks.

But alas! the possession of the turkey brought with it strife and discord.

Quarrels arose between the friends as to the prospective disposal of his remains. We grieve to say that the question of who was to cook him led to blows.

It was the day before Thanksgiving. There was a coldness between the friends which was not dispelled by the bringing of a pint of cranberries to the common store by Jericho, and the contributing thereto of a couple of cold-boiled sweet potatoes by Julius Caesar Fish.

The friends sat on an ancient washtub in the backyard, and there was a momentary truce between them. Before them stood the freight-car, and along the track beyond, an occasional train tore down the road, which so far excited their mutual sympathy that they rose and shouted as one man.

At the open door of the freight-car stood the unsuspecting turkey who looked meditatively out on the landscape and at the two figures on the washtub.

One had bow-legs, a turned-up nose and a huge straw hat. The other wore a fur cap and a gentleman’s swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up because they were too long.

The turkey hopped out of the car and gazed confidently at his protectors. In point of size he was altogether their superior.

“I think,” said Jericho Bob, “we’d better catch ‘im. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Yum!”

And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.

“Butcher  Tham’th goin’ to kill ‘im for ‘uth,” Julius Caesar hastened to say, “And I can cook ‘im.”

“No you ain’t. I’m goin’ to cook ‘im,” Jericho Bob cried resentfully. “He’s mine.”

“He ainth; he’s mine.”

“He was my egg,” and Jericho Bob danced defiantly at his friend.

The turkey looked with some surprise, and became alarmed when he saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.

“I’ll eat ‘im all alone!” Jericho Bob cried

“No you sha’nt!” the other shouted.

The turkey shrieked in terror and fled in a circle about the yard.

“Now look yere,” said Julius Caesar, who had conquered, “we’re going to be squar. He wath your egg, but who brought him up? Me! Who’th got a friend to kill him? Me! Who’th got a fire to cook ‘im? Me! Now you get up and we’ll ketch ‘im. Ef you say another word about your egg I’ll jeth eat ‘im up all mythelf.”

Jericho Bob was conquered. With mutual understanding they approached the turkey.

“Come yere; come yere,” Julius Caesar said, coaxing the bird.

For a moment the bird gazed at both, uncertain what to do.

“Come yere,” Julius repeated,  and made a dive for him. The turkey spread his tail. Oh, didn’t he run.”

“Now I’ve got yer!” the wicked Jericho Bob cried, and thought he had captured the fowl, when with a shriek from Jericho Bob, as the turkey knocked him over, the Thanksgiving  dinner spread his wings, rose in the air, and alighted on the roof of the freight-car.

The turkey looked down over the edge of the car at his enemies, and they gazed up at him. Both parties surveyed the situation.

“We’ve got ‘im,” Julius Caesar cried out exultantly. “You get on the roof, and if you can’t catch him up there I’ll kitch ‘im down here.”

And with the help of the washtub, an old chair the older Caesar’s back and much scrambling Jericho Bob was hoisted on top of the car. The turkey now stalked solemnly up and down the roof with wings half spread.

“I’ve got ‘er now,” Jericho Bob said, creeping slowly after him. “I’ve got yer now, sure, he was softly repeating, when with a deafening roar the express train for New York came tearing down the track.

For what possible reason it slowed up on approaching the freight-car nobody ever knew, but one fact remains that it did just as Jericho Bob laid one wicked paw on the turkey’s tail.

The turkey shrieked, spread its wings, shook the small black boy’s grasp from its tail, and with a mighty swoop alighted on the roof of the very last car as it passed, and in a moment more Jericho Bob’s Thanksgiving dinner has vanished, like a beautiful dream down the road.

Now what became of that Thanksgiving dinner no one ever knew. If you happen to meet a traveling turkey without any luggage, but with a smile on his countenance, kindly send word to Jericho Bob.

 

Baptized in the Blues Red Hot Experience

Former Gunnison resident, Paul O’Sullivan, who now lives in Minneapolis, has hit a home run with Baptized in the Blues, featuring wife Annie Mack on lead vocals. The blues, often more traditional than innovative, gets a free limo ride downtown on this incredible CD.

The majority of songs, written by Annie and Paul, feature everything from Little Bitty Girl Blues, a fast moving song about growing up hard, to Walking Dead, a song about personal courage and the ability to stand up to it all. Call on Jesus grabs you right in the Bible belt with a bit of well-placed gospel moaning and wailing. Fool to Believe introduces rhythm and blues into the mix.

Perhaps my favorite song Saving Grace, talks about a mother’s love for her child. This powerful piece, written by Annie Mack and Tom Koochie, flows freely with lyrics such as “She speaks colors and laughs melodies. Wisdom draws her close, peace sits at her feet”.

Produced by O’Sullivan, who plays guitar and pedal steel, the work features Tom Koochie (who penned several songs) on guitar; Charley Lacy on guitar; Tim Scriber on bass and Miles Johnson on drums.

Anyone who enjoys the blues should give this CD a listen or two. It’s a lot of heat coming from a cold city up north. www.anniemackblues.com

WHAT I’VE FOUND OUT

There is virtually no mention of motorized travel in the Book of Genesis.

Stuffing a turkey and stuffing a ballot box are relatively simple once one gets the hang of it.

Having instant access to all that data on the Internet will not make you any smarter, especially with a lingering screen saver mentality.

In the recent Presidential campaign nobody catered to the Norwegian vote.

As far as predicting the severity of winter one might be far better measuring the amount of fur on the belly of a snowshoe rabbit as relying on the weather forecast on television.

There is a Burger King (cultural export) adjacent to several 16th Century buildings in central Guadalajara.

Cowboy Sundays last just a little bit longer than other ones.

Very few restaurants feature Canadian-American cuisine.

Ronald Reagan, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon have been rather quiet for quite a while now, although their stunning legacies have been kept on extensive life support.

Uninformed voters who show up at the polls with pencil in hand invalidate the election. Why then do all of our peter pan patriots keep urging them to vote when they are dolts?

The money spent to combat whirling disease at the Roaring Judy Fish Hatchery comes out to just a little under ten dollars per fish.

The purpose of the indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle is to trap the sediments in the wine.

If one’s monthly liquor bill is higher than the GNP of a small Latin American country maybe he/she should find a new interests.

Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was present at the assassinations of three presidents: his father’s, President Garfield’s and President McKinley’s. After the last shooting he refused ever to attend a state function again.

One ostrich egg can make up to twelve omelets.

In ancient Greece it was illegal to project the winner of an election until all the votes were counted. An actual democracy existed there for about ten years. In the United States, where projection is the rule, we have never had a true democracy.

Pirates have a lot more fun than accountants.

If one watches carefully he can detect a slight smile on the pouch of a pelican after dinner, despite his repetitious diet of fish.