All Entries in the "Reflections on Disorder" Category
OUR REGION
with Melvin Toole
Much of Colorado Now Wyoming
(Cowdrey) High winds are blamed for the forced transfer of about 500 acres from Colorado to Wyoming according to meteorologists here. The land, mostly topsoil and road dust, is now in the custody of Wyoming serfs who intend to raise cattle on it.
“At approximately four o’clock Colona time an estimated 498 acres of Colorado crossed over the sovereign border of the State of Wyoming, effectively joining the Commonwealth of Wyoming” said a spokesman for the U.S. Weather Service. “At this time we do not expect topographic maps to be altered or a military response of any kind. We will not know the appropriate action to take until the surveyors have completed a primary charting of the area in question.”
Angry Coloradans from Crook to Cortez are demanding action. Already militia units, backed up by the Air Force Academy marching band are operating along the border. Carpet bombing has been ruled out since the area in question is covered with thousands of tiny throw rugs.
“There may be a lot of threats and some saber rattling in the Colorado House,” flinched the weather service source, “but we don’t foresee land troops or a naval blockade at least this morning.”
Calmer heads in the legislature suggest that since the land was not taken by force, the intelligent approach is simply to sit back and wait for a good north wind.
ANARCHISTS CONTINUE TO HOLD LAUNDROMAT
(Lake City) The Lost Sock Laundromat remains in the hands of desperate anarchists who seek to redefine political and social stability in this once peaceful town. The squatting troops, numbering at least four, aided by subversive elements on Henson Creek, insist they can hold out until hunting season.
The situation has gained national attention as Janet Reno and 25,000 FBI agents are currently surrounding the site. The feds, embarrassed by violent overreaction in places like Waco and Ruby Ridge, have yet to make contact with the anarchists. They have, however, created a shortage of bologna and ammunition in Hinsdale County.
“We’re pretty sure these rascals are mixing colors and whites and leaving laundry in the dryers longer than what is acceptable in modern society,” said one Dalhart tourist as she washed the family laundry on rocks near Lake San Cristobal. “Some of them aren’t even using fabric softener.”
At press time there is a lot of dirty laundry in Lake City.
“Thank goodness for the T-shirt shops or we’d all have to go around naked,” continued the Texas woman. “This episode has been on the rinse cycle far too long.”
Consumer Group Claims Shock Electric Company
(Ouray) San Miguel Power Company has been accused of using “old electricity” in its wires and of illegal recycling of power by enchanted wind instruments. According to a story in The Pea Green Peeper San Miguel Power has misrepresented its product, selling used electric current as if it were brand new.
“There is no truth to these cruel accusations,” said Oral Waters, legal council for the power company. “They are only the work of angry men who have invested thousands of dollars in generators only to realize that Y2K is just another crock of bird paste. We ferment all of our own electricity right here below Box Canyon Falls. We can prove it. We have the receipts.”
July 31 Competition Canceled
(Gunnison) The annual bloodletting involving the Class A Woodstock Geezers and the Extreme Barbecue Gladiators has been called off since it could rain. The match will be moved to Parlin and played as part of a doubleheader on August 4. Persons who have purchased admission slips for the games will be shuttled to Parlin from evacuation points all along Tomichi Creek. Others unable to attend the event are encouraged to sell tickets at designated shoulders along Highway 50. Scalping will not be tolerated without note from one’s barber.
ASYLUM TO CLOSE FOR REPAIRS
(Delta) The Pea Green Psychiatric Hospital will close for repairs from July 21 to August 31. Inmates, patients and staff will be released on the morning of July 20 so crews can prepare for the long needed overhaul of facilities there. Most seriously ill clients of the asylum will be placed in local government positions since many of the regular employees have taken summer vacations. The remaining patients will be driven to Ouray and Telluride where they will roam the streets until the work has been completed.
Smoke Jumpers Save Burning VW
(Ridgway) 700 battle-hardened smoke jumpers dropped into town the other night just in time to avert what might have been an undetected disaster. The jumpers landed on North Cora Street just as a Volkswagon bus caught fire. The blaze was quickly brought under control prior to the arrival of 400 more fire fighters from the region.
“It’s a good thing those smoke jumpers showed up or we might have lost the entire town,” said fireman David Houtz who reportedly made over $10,000 selling gin and tonics to the crowd.
ARE YOU RIGHT WITH GRAMMAR?
by Edwin R. Whom
Today most Americans cannot spell, make correct change, take responsibility for their own actions or tell us where Canada is located. It is sad. But where, you may ask, did the tragic breakdown first occur? I’ll tell you…It was in the subject of grammar. It is the mastery of this elusive study therefore that stands as the hero of our legacy, the bastion of rock and roll lyrics, the saving grace of the culture. Tread lightly ye rudimentary heretic!
In the following sentences identify the subject, the predicate, all adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, action verbs, prepositions, articles and dangling participles.
1. A penniless Lorain could not find her way out of the suspended paper bag only because the Gypsy prince had relieved her of the master key, among other things.
2. In his tiny head Cal was still the everyday left fielder even though he had not signed so much as one autograph since 1956 and, off the field, was often mistaken for a hockey puck.
3. Suddenly Ben’s peruke slid into the jello salad exposing him for exactly what he was–a confused, though not unattractive, after hours parasite!
4. Maureen didn’t enjoy rats but was often overheard to say, “Mongoose make suitable companions after a flash flood or other tropical storm.”
5. A tentative Maurice tossed down a quick domestic six-pack before heading off into the harsh Montana swampland and into a horizon known locally as Alberta.
Reverend Ralph
by Mark Tulin
College students have so much spare time that they don’t know what to do with, and are liable to stumble into anything. I was no exception. Last Saturday at 10 a.m. I was wandering around campus when I stumbled upon a famed healer conducting a religious service. I figured I had a couple hours to kill before lunch time so I walked into the First Mongolian Church at Pugh and Elm Streets.
Once inside an old stone church, I was greeted by happy organ music. a blonde girl in a shocking pink dress was pounding out “Rock of Ages” on the organ and had the congregation singing. The people were divided up into two sections determined by their degree of ugliness. I took a seat next to a toothless black woman with loose brassiere straps.
Soon Reverend Ralph, the healer, took to the podium. He was a short person with jet black hair and a fat squirrel face. He smiled up to heaven and sneered down to hell. I sat quietly and listened as he told us how sinful the world is today with all the crooked doctors, politicians and travel agents. He said that there are more sexually deranged children and grandparents today than in anytime in our history.
With forceful hand gestures and derisive language, the Reverend got the people jumpin’. He had everybody shouting hallelujah and waving their hands. And when Reverend Ralph said to let the spirit move you as it will, one woman fell to the floor and started to twist violently and muttered papal obscenities. Being a pre-med student, I thought she was an epileptic having a grand mal seizure. so I put a coat under her head and tried to get her mouth open so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. I stuck a number two pencil between her teeth.
I asked for help but no one responded, so I went back to my seat thinking that it was right and proper to convulse on the gothic church floors.
After I sat down I watched the people embrace the holy spirit. I couldn’t help but feel excited. I stood up and sang the “Song of Psalms” off key and blurted out Amen at inappropriate intervals. I enjoyed being a fool.
Then the Reverend requested us to love thy neighbors better. I held hands with a large, toothless woman and kissed her gooey lips and told her that I loved her and Jesus, in that order. Anything Reverend Ralph said to do, we did. If the Reverend had said to put all our money on goose eggs, all of us would turn bullish on geese. what this lead to was this, Reverend Ralph compelled us to remove our checkbooks and write him a check for twenty bucks. He also accepted Mastercard and lowered the asking price to as little as “anything you got.”
After his henchmen collected the donation buckets, Reverend Ralph came down from the stage to heal his congregation.
First to be healed was an old woman unable to walk. Reverend Ralph approached this tiny white haired lady and asked her if she believed in the healing spirit. When she said she did, she shut her eyes and prayed. Then the Reverend said, “With the power of God invested in me I command the pain in your legs to disappear.” He shouted “Whammo!” and slapped the lady on the forehead. Reverend Ralph told her to walk, and to everyone’s surprise, the old gal started to strut like a mummer down Broad Street.
The second person to be healed was a middle-aged man with an upset stomach. The Reverend asked this pencil-thin man to believe in God’s healing power. the Reverend rubbed the man’s belly and ordered the nausea to disappear. Reverend Ralph promised the man that he would feel better when he got home that night, provided he didn’t eat any stuffed peppers.
It was another miracle by Ralph, but I was hungry and could only last for one more healing. The next hotdog, er person, was a long-haired teenager with a mental problem. He thought he was a rabbit. Not a furry tailed bunny rabbit, but the kind that works on fuel and has good gas mileage. The Reverend told the boy that there was no diesel motor under his hood, but a lie planted there by Satan. Reverend Ralph told the young man to say a prayer. Then the Reverend boxed the boy’s ears and shouted “Whammo!” The boy dizzily spun around, and after regaining his balance he no longer made loud, clanking engine noises.
After the charade, I got up and left. I passed the old woman who miraculously regained the power to walk. I looked into her face and I detected no insincerity. She had an angelic smile which led me to feel guilty for leaving the church without making a contribution. For a moment I feared that I wouldn’t be saved or be let into heaven, and as punishment, I would have to spend the hereafter in front of the pearly gates shining shoes.
The Tarzan and Jane Dialogues
Part XXXVII “Upwardly Mobile”
(The scene opens in a tree house in West Africa. Tarzan is finishing the breakfast dishes as Jane pours over some figures in preparation for a loan officer’s meeting down at the local bank.)
Jane: I like you in that apron, dear.
Tarzan: Keep loincloth clean.
Jane: Don’t forget to take Boy to daycare, pick up my laundry and feed the elephants.
Tarzan: Cheetah already get laundry. Most of it belong to monkey anyway.
Jane: I just adored the wildebeest meatloaf last night. What do you have planned for tonight’s meal?
Tarzan: Tarzan plan leftovers
Jane: What? I work overtime at the bank and I come home late to leftovers?
Tarzan: Tonight boy’s night out on town.
Jane: Like hell. I have to work late and someone has to watch Boy.
Tarzan: Cheetah stay with boy.
Jane: Cheetah will be working with me as a financial consultant. We have new programs to kick off next month and she’s the best in the business.
Tarzan: Tarzan go out when Jane and Cheetah come back.
Jane: Oh, I guess that will work. Don’t forget that Tuesday I fly to New York to meet the stockholders and then on Friday I’m off to Brazil to finalize the construction of those condos.
Tarzan: Jane worldly. When come back?
Jane: I’ll call from Rio. Don’t forget to water the plants and no poker parties. The last thing I need is to come home to a tree house that smells like beer and cigars. Can’t you just have a nice Tupperware party like the other housewives?
Tarzan: Tarzan not housewife. Besides Tarzan win all the bananas in last game. Buy Jane new dress to wear to bank banquet with money.
Jane: You are such a sweetie…OK on the poker but no cigars in the tree house.
Tarzan: Jane not wearing that outfit.
Jane: Why not?
Tarzan: Colors no match. Eye shadow all wrong.
Jane: Really? Well I’ve no time now to change or I’ll miss my car pool.
Tarzan: Car pool? Jane go swimming. Ha Ha. Careful of crocodiles.
Jane: Now where did I put my briefcase?
THE END
Tune in next time: Tarzan serves chicken-fired antelope steaks, one of Jane’s favorites.
From the Ballroom to Hell
Equally a sin for both sexes
by T.A. Falconer
Ex-Dancing Master
The most accomplished and most perfect dancers are to be found among the abandoned women. Why? Because they are graduates of dancing schools.
If any should wish to ascertain the truth of this, let him ask the girls themselves.
I have for several months been working in a Mission of Los Angeles, and where I have before seen causes at work, I have now had ample opportunity of seeing the effect, and I have often heard some of these unfortunate ones cry out in bitter anguish: “Would to God that I had never entered a dancing school.”
The following 200 were cases of girls who are today inmates of the brothel whom I talked with personally. They were frank to answer to my questions in regard to the direct cause of their downfall, and I gathered that these were ruined by
Dancing school and ball-rooms 163
Drink given by parents 20
Willful choice 10
Poverty and abuse 200
I know of a select dancing school where in a course of three months eleven of its victims are brothel inmates today.
I have, in preceding chapters, spoken chiefly of the harm that comes to women from dancing, and have shown how vile men make use of the privileges the waltz and its surroundings afford to lead once pure girls to impurity and often to crime. But do not think for a moment that because I have here thus spoken, that I hold the women blameless or the dance to the man harmless.
While the woman is more often disgraced in the sight of man, I believe that in the sight of God the sin o dancing is equally a sin for both sexes.
A girl is often ensnared into intoxication and thus into greater sin by vile men, but she is not wholly excusable. If she goes to a ball she must take the consequences. Every woman has a God-given instinct which teaches her right from wrong, and she cannot but know that to indulge in such emotions as the modern waltz fosters is wrong.
It is a horrible fact, but a fact none the less, that it is absolutely necessary that a woman shall be able and willing to reciprocate the feelings of her partner before she can graduate a perfect dancer.
So even if it be allowed that a woman may waltz virtuously, she cannot, in that case, waltz well.
It matters not how perfectly she knows and takes the steps, she must yield herself entirely to her partner’s embrace and also to his emotions. Until a girl can and will do this, she is regarded a scrub by the male experts.
I would that young women who dance could just once be “behind the scenes” when young men meet after an evening’s dance to discuss it together, and hear such remarks as “that Miss ….. is a perfect stick. I would not give a fig to dance with her. You can’t arouse any more passion in her than you could in a putty man. To waltz with such as she is not what I go for.”
Or, another says: “Ah, but that beautiful Miss Smith is a daisy. She is posted. This waltzing is the greatest thing in the world. While you are whirling one of these deer creatures, if you do the thing correctly, you can whisper in her ear things she would shoot you for saying at any other time, but she likes it all the same. They take to it naturally enough if they are properly taught. If you don’t know just how it is done, go to a dancing master, or any professional dancer. They know, and they will soon let you know. You will soon become a waltzer, and this find out what there is in it.”
Such remarks, and worse than these (remarks unfit to publish in this plainly written book) are made, my fair young ladies, after the ball, about you by the very young men who, at the dance, you thought so nice and who are so considered. I am ashamed to say in by-gone days, I have been among these young men myself, and I know that to hear them give free expression, loose-tongued, to the lewd emotions and sensual pleasures in which they indulge while in your embrace is almost as common as the waltz itself.
I repeat what I have said before, that I do not refer to rough, uncultured men, but to those who are looked upon by society as most polished, refined and desirable young men.
If it be true that a woman, however innocent in thought, is the subject of such vile comment, if there is the barest possibility that it may be true, is it not also true that if she is possessed of a remnant of delicacy, she will shrink from exposing herself to such comment, and flee from places of dancing, as from a den of vipers?
