All Entries in the "Lifestyles at Risk" Category
Hug A Farmer Program Must Establish Clear Goals Says Developer
(Montrose) The much praised Hug A Farmer campaign, adopted here this spring, is under fire from a Telluride developer who feels the concept has lost its direction. Saying that farmers are enjoying all the hugs while ignoring their crops, Al Asphalt is calling for a moratorium on the program until County Commissioners can take another look at its current status.
“I’m putting in a strip mall south of Montrose and the last thing I need is a bunch of loved up farmers getting in the way,” said an angry Asphalt. “Why don’t they go away and plant some corn!”
Local country music standouts, The Pickle Sisters, are soundly behind the Hug A Farmer promotion which continues through harvest.
Asphalt has angered many in the agribusiness due to statements that Montrose does not need agriculture.
“We don’t grow anything up in Telluride and look at the big houses and all the cash that’s floating around town,” he quipped. “Now do you really think we could gather all that wealth by growing onions and potatoes?”
Asphalt subscribes to the Divine Right of Money, a theory which has taken American society down the path of love, happiness and financial security.
“Do you really think money grows on trees?” he asked.
Meanwhile local farmers, accustomed to receiving the affections of most local residents, have decided to disrupt Asphalt’s development by parking tractors in the way of heavy machinery and running cows up and down Highway 550 at peak traffic times.
“Enough development. Enough chains. Enough greed,” said Melvin Toole, who claims to have 400 acres in dynamite up Dry Creek Basin. “We have a downtown that is economically stressed and these charlatans keep building sterile buildings on what was once good pasture. Who’s gonna grow the food? Maybe the gov’ment can save us. We don’t know. Where are our elected officials when we need them?”
Toole went on to say that he and many other farmers enjoyed the hugs, and even a few kisses, but that they needed the local population to storm the offices of the powers that be and demand an end to the sprawl.
“Don’t these people pay any attention to their own damn lives, and the future of their kids?” he quacked, “or are they only interested in plastic consumerism.” –
– Uncle Pahgre
Excelsior to institute feedlot flights
(Nucla) Excelsior Comet, “The airline without chairs” is now offering a peasant class to passengers from Nucla to Naturita this spring. The experimental flights are priced at about half of existing economy class on most mainstream transports.
Although little else is known about the service, it is expected to be of he no frills variety. Daily jaunts are void of oxygen masks, parachutes and tiny bags of chemically induced pretzels and peanuts common to economy class.
“The innovative caste is quick and easy and gives economy travelers someone to look down upon,” said an executive baggage handler over in Naturita.
Excelsior retains the right to deny service to disruptive passengers but will no longer throw trouble makers out of its planes mid-flight.
The shuttle breakthrough reemphasizes the annoying mainstream airlines barrage of mindless, parrot-like announcements about smoking in bathrooms, approved electronic devices and appropriate life vest use over Nevada.
– Ophelia Fairheart
DOW poised to rebrand “highway deer”
(Denver) The Colorado Division of Wildlife will be reclassifying many herd animals this month in preparation for summer viewing season. The personnel restructuring seeks to relocate often raggedy backwoods deer to areas closer to motorways while appointing the boring road deer to more remote spots where most tourists do not go.
“The idea is to place the more playful, acrobatic animals in full view of visitors keeping to the main arteries.,” said one DOW source.
“These are the deer tourists see while driving. We need them to do something besides stare and eat grass.”
The DOW feels that their wards in the mountains jump and play all the time but that the tourist does not venture far from the confines of tourist bubble coordinates and may have a diminished experience in Colorado.
“Besides creating a positive natural experience for city folk the project allows deer to see a little more of the world.”
Acknowledging that an increased safety hazard may lurk in the shadows of the program officials feel the deer will adapt to the newer surroundings and avoid busy highways.
“We’re not monkeying with migration patters, water sources or dropping animals in downtown Denver,” said the source. “We’re all in the entertainment business here in the Rockies and out summer guests love to see wildlife from the perceived safety of their vehicles.”
Elk, moose, bear and lion will not be affected by the move.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Joe Stalin
Declan’s first baseball game!
Three generations of baseball fans: Kevin, Kyle and Declan Haley enjoyed a 23-5 route of the New York Mets by the Washngton Nationals on April 30
TOOLE TURNS COUNTRY
by Princess Irm Peawit, Music Editor
(Nashville) A man who made millions penning revolutionary songs in the Sixties has turned his attention to the country and western scene. Melvin Toole, a former street musician and experimental percussion protege for such standouts as The Monkeys, Donnie Osmond, Tom Jones, Charley Pride and the late Lou Reed, has finally arrived.
Leaning heavily on heart-wrenching lyrics and repetitious, pounding twang, Toole has captured the hearts of country and western fans from Branson to Bemidji. His overnight success has startled the music world and left other, less responsive writers in the dust.
The diamond-studded cowpuncher, who will be appearing at Roscoe’s Gumbo Shack this weekend, is known for such classics as Okie from Muskogee, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Coal Miner’s Daughter and I Walk the Line. Intertwined with old favorites will be selections from his newest compact disk entitled Thank You Jesus For Driving Her Out of Town, which is now available on the Testosterone Brothers label.
Check out these lyrics from the title song: My honey done left and I can’t get it right, She once held the candle and now it’s a knife. I’m eating the day and drinking in the night, still casting away but I can’t get a bite.
Note the impeccable rhyme sequence in the second line. It reminds one of Toole’s earlier accomplishments in the classic Amazin’ Grace, which he wrote on the back of a discarded seed catalog he found in a dumpster in 1979:
Amazin Grace, how sweet though art, I’d have fought with Robert E. Lee. I once was lost but now I’m found. I was blind but now I see. Incredible! Toole blends the enlightened jolts from his own spiritual roller coaster with a fine appreciation for seizing psychotic parameter and his willingness to keep fighting the Civil War. Since creating the song Toole has pocketed millions awarded in law suits against mortuaries and private individuals for unapproved use of the piece at funerals, and in rare cases, at weddings and barmitzvahs.
Toole with his drummer, Tokyo Jose on the South Platte in 1990.
His pop, cash generating hit If You’re Really Leavin’ At Least Your Momma Won’t Be Hangin’ Around My Double Wide No Mo’ is a weak attempt at humor amidst the pain of separation from his accountant while out on the road.
In an early version of his top selling album Nashville Skyline Toole seduces his audience with lines like: Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed. Lay lady lay, stay while the blight is still ahead. His mind is dirty but his hands are clean and you’re the only thing he’s ever seen. Wow! Toole’s images grab epic helping of pathos and the constant frustrations of the jerkwater male in the 21st Century.
In addition to writing soul searching lines Toole has also managed to make his mark in literature turning prose into poetry and poetry into a quintessential tour de force unequaled by all others with the possible exception of Hank Williams and Johnny Paycheck. His recently completed play, called Hamlet is expected to be yet another box office smash. (It opens under the stars at Pea Green Constabulary in August).
Often beginning his concerts with the ever-popular Stand By Your Man, Toole usually picks a young woman from the audience to help him with the rendition. In fact, if Toole would simply have avoided young women from the start he might be able to pay his electric bill today. But what does it matter in retrospect?
Some surprises: If this press release is correct Toole will be unveiling a new songs such as: If the Lord Done Forgive You, I Guess It’s All Right By Me, Porcelain Wall Flower, Ruby, Ruby Ridge and I Really Want To Punch Out That Feller By the Jukebox.
Known for lengthy performances Toole’s most recent public appearance lasted over 24 hours which still breaks down to about five dollars per hour at the current ticket rate. In the event of a sellout Toole has promised, in the fine tradition of George Jones and Jerry Jeff Walker, not to show up at all. Enjoy the show.
We’ll leave you with yet another barrage of clever lyrics penned by a man who has seen the penthouse and the gutter often within a time span of minutes. It’s called I’m On the Choppin’ Block With You:
Your corrugated lips,
those over-rated hips,
Your face in the morning dew,
I should have seen you comin’,
Honey, I’m on the choppin block with you.
Those late nights at the slaughterhouse,
You think I had no clue,
Too bad you’re still in high school,
I’m on the choppin’ block with you.
Fallen angels through the smokescreen
Vegematic rendezvous
Your dog may have the mange
Of all the vegetables I chose you.
The day we met we parted
As you stirred your magic slew
Just stop what you got started
Before my toes turn blue.
Honey, I’m right here on the choppin’ block with you.
What is the missionary position on UFOs?
What if space travelers land on earth? Does this contrast with existing religious beliefs practiced since the Dark Ages? How will the good folk respond if long-held beliefs collide with stark reality that there may be other heavens and earth out there in the Universe.
Leading missionaries say it all comes out in the wash which sounds like creative culture, the pretense to start creating new ancient folk tales and rules for the kneel-bent tribe.
Proof of other living creatures wandering around, might put the final nail in the coffin of earth-centered religions or propagate new directions for the spiritually assimilated.
Beings from other balls of rock have either been watching us or not, and we don’t know for how long either. Would we have behaved as humans if we knew there were cameras in the cosmic parking garage or strung over the satellite rainbow curtains that grace my house.
The authorities suggest stocking up on food and water in case of a Hollywood-infused alien invasion. I just figure on staying around home hoping they don’t land in the pasture near my bunker. A lot of starmen in my yard is more than I need right now.
– Finn McCool
“The Americans saw the Vietnamese peasantry as potential victims of a global Communist ideology. These poor Vietnamese saw the Americans as creators of garbage and debris from which they could build houses.”
– Fire in the Lake by Francis Fitzgerald
