“King of the Blues”

Interview Part IV

“The Swan Song”

Sunny: Like I said, I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: Your roots reach deep into the Mississippi Delta, into the South Chicago scene, into Motown. That’s quite diverse.

Sunny: Yeah, man. I’m the king of the blues, baby, the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: Our sources tell us that you’ve released over 50 records and CDs since the Forties.

Sunny: I’m the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: You’ve been pickin and singin for over 70 years. Sooner or later you’re gonna drop dead. How do you feel about the hereafter?

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: After reviewing several of your songs it appears that you concentrate on simple, repetitious themes that could become annoying after a while.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: We see that you travel with a complete orchestra. Are all these members really necessary or do you just like to be extravagant?

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: There are plenty of musicians, such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Hurt, John Lee Hooker and others who might claim to be the king of the blues.

Sunny: But I am the king of the blues, baby.

Horseshoe: According to your agent you received that boom box as a gift from Yassar Arafat after a performance in Palestine.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: It’s really loud. Can you turn it down so we can talk some more?

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: He also told us you were the tenth of eleven kids born to sharecroppers around the turn-of-the-century. How old are you anyway?

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: You don’t look that old.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: One would think that all the drinking and partying would take its toll on a fellow your age.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: The liner notes on your King of the Blues album say you’ve been married eight times and have fathered more than 40 children.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: What did you and all of those wives find to talk about.

Sunny: Ain’t you been listenin’? I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: Read any good books lately?

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: Here, eat these guitar strings.

Sunny: I am the king of the blues.

Horseshoe: Nice day. You think it’ll rain this afternoon?

Sunny: It’s possible.

THE NINE LEAST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF THE LAST MILLENNIUM

By Ken Currie

Special from our archives 1999

As a handful of calendar-clutching fanatics proclaim that our beloved Millennium is drawing to a close, second-rate journalists are scrambling to write pieces scrutinizing the last 1000 years with every possible angle. Now I am fond of this particular Millennium, having spent most of my adult life in it, but if it must be scrapped in favor of a newer, bigger one I hereby promise that I will not stand in the way. As others list and write about the great events and people of the past 1000 years, I too have compiled a list…not of important people, nor of lesser known greats. My list does not contain the forgotten or the obscure, but is rather a roster of complete nobodies. Here then is my contribution to posterity…last and least influential.

Alfredo Veducino (1102-1168)

Alfredo served as a monk in Spain. He maintained strict silence for fifty-five years although he never really took an official vow to that affect. The monastery where Alfredo lived was one where fellow monks unearthed and translated what was believed to be the grocery list of the prophet Isaiah. In later years the entire ordeal was downplayed when a senior monk pointed out that chicken chow mein was not available during that primitive Biblical period. This discovery and the subsequent dismissal of the said document shook the religious world of the time. Luckily for Alfredo he had had nothing to do with the research from the onset. He was bust keeping silent adhering to his daily regiment of sleeping until 3:45 in the afternoon and spending the remainder of the day engaging in what fellow monks called esucha de conejos or listening to rabbits.

Stefanos Meridan (1460-?)

Born the son of a destitute Portuguese eel trapper, spent his early years living on the beach with his father. His mother, a stout woman, would not allow either of them in the house do reportedly to the presence of an icky eel slime aroma. At age 11 a desperate Stefanos stowed away on a large merchant ship. After three days it became apparent that the ship had been abandoned. On the fourth day he returned home, cold and hungry, only to be locked out of the house by his mother who complained of a musty shipwreck stench that mysteriously followed the lad about. Later, as an adult, he claimed to have discovered a swift ocean-going route between Portugal and Spain. He set sail, bankrolled by the Italian court, centered in the city state of Sinatra, and three years later was swept ashore along the rocky coast of Scotland. He quickly claimed the land for the queen of Portugal and renamed in Stefanoland, after himself. Almost twenty minutes later red-headed Picts in plaid skirts made him sail away by hurling jagged rocks at his head. He was never seen again. Some one hundred years later a rough map surfaced at some insignificant Renaissance yard sale in a familiar writing style common to Stefanos. The map featured England and Ireland carefully drawn to scale, but named Meridanland and Stef’s Isle.

Ping Hi Pong (1225-1324)

As a philosopher in China, Ping taught meditation to children six- years-old and younger. He is credited with two metaphysical sayings. One was “The man who can boil a rooster’s egg will accomplish an impossible task” and the other, “To hear a beautiful woman sing, now that’s really something.” To this day no one has proven Ping wrong on either saying. As Ping neared his one hundredth birthday, an acolyte asked him for the secret of longevity. He smiled, settled back into his easy chair and said “To live a hundred years one must…” and before he could finish the sentence, he dropped dead.

Ivan Ivanivan (1850-1923)

As a distant cousin of Czar Nicholas, Ivan was extened privileges not often enjoyed by young men of his time. He got two extra potatoes per month and a full equestrian scholarship to Kiev Community College. While at school he penned Czar Wars…The Empire Strikes Us. This was considered controversial by the three people who actually read it (oddly enough they made up the majority of literate people in Russia at the time). He also wrote a collection of poems which the same three people began to read but found to be too controversial to complete. Ivan was traded to a Siberian minor league franchise for a warped landscape rake and lived in that barren place for his last 60 years because, as he put it: “In Siberia nobody expects you to grow a garden.”

Dr. Lisa Blackhart (1801-1888)

As the first female doctor in Boston to refuse to touch newborn infants, Lisa was encouraged by her brahman family to hit the Oregon Trail. After two difficult months in the saddle she decided to turn around and try heading West. She settled for a time in Kansas City doing odd jobs like radical amputation and liver transplants. Soon she became shocked by the illiteracy rate among two-year-olds. Determined to start a school to cure these social ills, she found her dislike of children to be a formidable obstacle. She moved on to Denver but found young children there to be equally annoying. She finally landed in Sacramento where she began a medical practice again. However, after only two months as a frontier doctor, she initiated a stern policy of refusing to see anyone who was sick or injured. With no patients to treat and no children to teach Dr Blackhart described her golden years as “the most fulfilling of my career.”

Wolfgang Jack VonStein (1679-1735)

As a boy in Hungary, Wolfgang (a long shot to make anyone’s list) longed to play the piano. Sadly, his parents could not afford to purchase such an expensive instrument but they did provide him with two chicken bones which he carried with him at all times. All over the village Wolfgang could be heard tapping the bones together to create increasingly complex rhythms. After a chance meeting with John Sebastian Bach at a local cafe the maestro offered to tutor the prospect free of charge. Once, at Bach’s home, the great musician demanded that Wolfgang rinse the chicken grease from his fingers before touching the piano. An enraged Wolfgang stormed out of the house never to return. In the years that followed he composed several symphonies to be performed entirely on poultry bones. Today a noted virtuoso, Rupkin Mensonich, performs VonStein’s work outside a sushi bar in Prague free every other Thursday unless it rains or something. Mensonich is number seven on our list.

Marcia Kreep (1821-1891)

Born in Vancouver on the wrong side of town, Marcia perspired to be an inventor. Among her drawings are elaborate schematics for what she called her “clock dismantler” and her similarly designed “pocket watch smasher”. Her early inventions were not well received and she found herself embracing poverty. Plus she was quite poor. This never changed. Other designs by Kreep were the “mechanized digital book dropper” the “self-sinking ponga boat” and one curious concept entitled simply “the thing that doesn’t work right”.

Jeff Singlehair (1946- )

A Flint, Michigan native, the idealistic Singlehair rejected his father’s offer to join him as a partner in an environmental engineering firm. Jeff said: “You engineers are wrecking the world with all that train smoke and other ungroovy stuff, um, man!” Jeff then joined the hippie movement but became disillusioned when, at age 20, all of his hair fell out. He attended a small Everly Brothers concert at Windsock, N.C. in the summer of 1969 mistakenly thinking (to this day) that he had been a part of the largest, most famous rock and roll event of his generation. Jeff currently lives in Chevy Chase in a Chevy van and makes candles for aromatherapy workshops around Southwestern Colorado.

Watch for our Nine Billion Most Average People of the Last Millennium in next month’s special insert and see if your name is mentioned!

Santa Could Break Own Record

(North Poll) The legendary elf could break his own record in 2014; in fact the experts are calling for him to do just that.

The standing record for delivery of toys to children over the entire globe is 22 hours, 19 minutes and 8 assorted seconds. That was set in 1981. Since then delivery times have fluctuated between 25 and 30 hours due in part to sleigh malfunctions, increased air traffic and chronic distraction on the part of elves and reindeer.

“The help have always been there for us but times are changing,” said Claus. The old lady thinks part of the problem with the sleighs is due to sabotage.

But thanks to the implementation of chimney scanners, Yule radar and the relaxation of VIP visas, many experts are predicting that a new record, one under 22 minutes, could be set in 2013.

During the years 1980 through 1985 the Santa Team had trouble getting parts for an all-new Japanese fleet of high-compression sleighs. Santa told us he couldn’t even get his sleigh off the ground in 1983 due to a mechanic’s strike and had to make deliveries in a pickup.

Another year the Turkish border authorities wouldn’t let me into the country because of my alleged Greek ancestry (My father could have been from Moldavia, Cyprus or Tashkent, I don’t know).

“If we can suspend hostilities on the 24^th Santa can get in and out in no time at all,” said an elf named Gandalf. “Our instant replay capacities are splintered when there are bullets in the air and they will be used for sizes and color disparities only. Rumored plans to introduce armed guards to the mix were vehemently denied by everyone up here.

Santa has come under criticism for “tedious and haphazard tracking” methods, using plots to determine progress when cameras might do the job much easier.

Gandalf is quick to disagree.

“We’ve survived for centuries without big brother electronic eye following us around. It’s tough enough landing 8 tiny reindeer and a sleigh on an icy roof without the paparazzi jockeying for space.”                                                                                                            – Susie Compost

LOCAL WOMAN SELLS HUSBAND ON E-BAY

(Montrose) What started out as a joke has turned a tidy profit for a local woman who successfully sold her husband on E-Bay yesterday. In the first ever documented sale of a human on the internet, Susie Compost, of Dry Creek Estates, sold Herb Compost, her husband of 33 years, to a Racine, Wisconsin woman for an undisclosed sum.

According to Compost’s sister, Martha Duckworthe of Olathe, the whole thing started out quite innocently and quickly steamrolled.

“We were sitting around playing with the computer my son got for Christmas when Susie suggested we make a list of non-essential household items that we might sell on E-Bay. We had planned a trip to Las Vegas in March and would be able to use any cash we might gain from these transactions on the crap tables.”

The two women started making a list of kitchen appliances and unused furniture stored out in the garage.

“Then I thought of Herb,” said Duckworthe. “Susie had been complaining about him over the holidays and I jokingly suggested we include his name on the roster,” she smiled. “What was amazing is that she jumped on the idea.”

After about an hour an extensive list with Herb on the top was formulated.

“We thought the measure would send a message to Herb that he had better get his act together if he wanted to continue to live with Susie,” said Martha. “But the more we thought about it…maybe he would sell. Including a photo of him when he was 25 we forwarded our data to the web source and waited.”

The first day the two sold a pine coffee table and some hand-painted napkins from Branson. Then nothing the next day. By Friday, figuring the sale had run its course, they prepared to lower some prices when they got an offer on Compost’s husband as well as some glazed outdoor furniture once used in a John Wayne movie.

“We thought someone was playing games but when they agreed to the asking price on the furniture we reconsidered and began negotiating on Herb,” said Duckworthe. “After just moments the sale was completed. Arrangements were made to ship the merchandise and Herb was notified of his departure time.”

Both women told reporters that Herb just stared into the carpet.

“I think it ‘s safe to say their relationship had tempered over the years and when Susie saw that he would not protest she figured it was no real loss anyway,” said the sister.

As might be expected an anonymous busybody got wind of the livestock transaction and complained to the authorities saying that the sale of a person over the internet was quite illegal and constituted nothing more than common slavery.

By then it was too late and everyone involved seemed happy enough. The sisters could now go to Las Vegas and Herb had even wrote (the first letter in 32 years) to say he was enjoying Lake Michigan.

Hopefully these goings-on won’t set a precedent with the uncontrollable urge to sell one’s family members down the river.

“In the 21st Century we have stimuli at work not to be believed just 50 years ago,” said Armando Silte, a freelance-sociologist working in Pea Green. “Let’s face it: Humans are the renewable resource and there are lots of us to buy and sell. Talk about a brave, new world…Why would someone in their right mind want to sell a perfectly good ottoman or an antique toaster if the market in primate perishables heats up?”

– Susie Compost

TOOLE DRINKS FIFTH BEFORE HOUSE PANEL

(Washington) Downgraded cardboard billionaire Melvin Toole has covered his country’s delinquent debt to the United Nations, it was disclosed in quart this afternoon. Toole, appearing before Judge Harold Airbag on a series of dog-at-large infractions, wrote a personal check the outstanding amount, estimated to be three billion dollars.

“Upon further investigation we found out that these United States still owed money to the United Kingdom, the United Arab Republic, United Airlines, The League of Nations ($35 in flowers for George Clemenceau’s funeral, 1929), The National League and an assortment of exotic liquor companies.

“That’s why I’m drinking in your quartroom,” he sparked. I just got a letter from the IRS. Drinking steadies my nerves.”

Short Astral Peek

If you were born today: Your snow tires could be under a great deal of pressure this month. Show a little understanding. Designate a daily worry hour and stick to it. Expect canned meats to go on sale by the 15^th. Santa Claus is real while you are not. A chimney made of wood cannot stand. Keep your chin up: They make a cream for missile toe. Just because you are constantly talking to yourself doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about. Jupiter is taking far too long in the bathroom – go check on him. The county will spray for pests this month – prepare to defend yourself! Going out on a limb could make a monkey of you