All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
SHOPPE FEATURES VICTORIAN MORALITY
(Ouray) Along with the ice cream cones, the horseback strolls and the jeep rides this mountain town is offering something truly unique this season…a taste of what it was really like back then. Victorian morals.
Although alive and well in places like Latin America this vague moral code has fallen from favor up North Clashes with latter day puritans, the emergence of a consumer middle class and purges peppered with guilt have all but driven this method of living from whispers in the hallway to denials in the alley.
The shoppe itself, aptly called Prince Albert’s Emporium, is named after the husband of Queen Victoria. In it the history buff will find flags from the Opium War, portraits of the queen, works by such great novelists as Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Williams Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde and Sean O’Casey are there too.
The most fascinating items on display include a cuckoo clock once owned by Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone’s first real estate license. Proprietors Judy and Ed Balfour, along with their cousin the Marquis of Salisbury say the shoppe is doing well with most requests having to do with the surprising social structure of the time.
“The Victorians were very good at towing the line during the day and letting it all hang out after dark,” said Balfour. “The same gentleman who wouldn’t think of going to town without a tie and walking stick had a mistress in the closet. Victorian ladies, who believed chalk-white skin to be a sign of affluence and station might spend the entire afternoon immersed in novels like William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair which satirized English society life.”
“When winter comes we head to Rio de Janeiro,” he said, “where we operate our other business, Ferdinand and Isabella’s Boutique, which focuses on the social mores attached to the Spanish Inquisition.
“In South America, where Victorian thinking is a day to day occurrence, we had to think of something out of the mainstream. Judy and I think we’ve hit a home run with all the heresy accessories, replica torture chambers, a wide assortment of hair shirts, and gifts of intolerance masked as nationalism. One particularly interesting treasure is a copy of the first Index Librium Prohibitorum translated into Yiddish. We think both stores promote the idea that no matter how hard society demands we play it straight there is always room for a little fun.”
– Jack Spratt
“Democracy and stupidity just don’t mix.” – Alex Hamilton
Team Garbage Leaves Town
Principles at Team Garbage have allegedly absconded with two backhoes, a signature 5-speed Henway and assorted petty cash according to flies on the scene. The refuse collection package offered service to the elite wherein their garbage would be dropped in more desirable locations within the landfill schematic. Appealing to snobbishness and boredom the designer garbage industry would have to wait for now, as the wealthy concern themselves with regional consuming so as to create more local garbage.
We had interviewed one former client, known around here as simply “Ego”.
“They never came by the restaurant when they promised they would,” he said. “They would pull the garbage truck up into our parking lot at dinner hour and leave it idle,” he snorted. Their drivers would arrive unannounced demanding payment and helping themselves to the back bar while they glared at diners and waited impatiently for their money,” he raged.
Team Trash says Ego owes them $450,000 for services rendered from 2020 – 2021.
“You don’t want your trash down the hole with the debris of the great unwashed do you?” asked the promotional leaflet circled heavily in Gunnison in 2020. “The fledgling company had offered preferred rendezvous pickup, valet parking, private refuse plots, Lucky Landfill Points, 24-hour observation, elite fly control and gated access.
“I guess nobody in Gunnyville is ready for these kinds of class distinctions,” one owner had sobbed over Cattlemen’s Days last summer.
“The rich may let us down from time to time but that group is still the best option for making a quick buck all along the stupid scale. You sure can’t count on the poor.”
Business Update
In a last minute development Bigfoote Tofu and Tattoo has brought down the final curtain after a solid two months in business – According to a hastily scribbled note on the window: “Gunnison just wasn’t ready for our progressive services”
Public notice: Mystic Road to Salvation Unltd. will cease sponsorship of all cockfights and rely solely on electric vehicles to get back and forth to Eternal Life responsibilities in Paradise as of 2035. Rev Rooster.
“Batten down the hatches – Katy bar the door with a river view? Fisherman’s Wart Bar and Lounge has reopened. Our very casual to lewd Lush Hour is from 2 – 3 all day long! You’ll never drink on dry land again! Coming in June: Fisherman’s Wart Bar and Lounge Two, located directly across the river. Ask about our pontoon food wagons. And, hey, wanna slam a few for the bar ditch? We paid off the cops —so down the hatch!
“So it’s not hard to see where the MAGA right’s admiration for Putinism comes from. After all, Putin’s Russia is autocratic, brutal and homophobic, with a personality cult built around its ruler. What’s not to like?”
– Paul Krugman, in NY Times
apology – We mistakenly referred to a local gin mill as the Fisherman’s Wart when it is actually the Fisherman’s Wharf. We apologize for this honest mistake and continue to assert that the typo had nothing to do with the outstanding advertising bill from the Fisherman establishment.
FISH HOUSE DAYS
The following conversations took place while Toole was employed at Gossman’s Dock, Montauk, New York in 1972.
The cast was as follows: Jackie: Jacqueline Onassis;
Mick: Mick Jagger; Billy: Billy Joel; Carly: Carly Simon; Melvin: Melvin Toole
The scene opens early in the morning on a sunny day in July with a large crowd gathered at the entrance to the fish house. Some are there to spot a celebrity. Others are there simply to buy some fish.
Mick: How’s the flounder today?
Melvin: Quite good. We just hauled it in this morning. Probably the best catch we’ve had all week. I can let you have it for $8.99 a pound since we’re loaded with it.
Mick: Ducky. I’ll take three pounds. Got any steamers?
Melvin: Can’t you read the sign? No steamers.
Mick: Oh, yeah. Well give me some little necks then and a cup of Manhattan chowder.
Melvin: For here or to go?
Mick: Whatever…
Mick leaves with his fish meeting Carly on the way out the door.
Carly: Nice looking flounder.
Mick: Yeah and its on sale for $8.99 a pound
Carly: All right! (To Toole) I hear you’ve got some nice flounder.
Melvin: Who told you?
Carly: Why Mick Jagger. I ran into him on the way in.
Melvin: Oh. Yeah, and it’s as fresh as fresh can be. Caught it off Greenport. We just got it on the ice an hour ago.
Carly: I’ll take four pounds and maybe some steamers.
Melvin: No steamers (he motions toward the sign which reads: “No Steamers Today”.)
Carly: Oh, sorry. How’s the bluefish?
Melvin: It’s delicious. I had a few for breakfast on the way in from the Shagwong at dawn. Sushi quality, guaranteed.
Carly: I prefer it cooked. I’ll take a pound and a half.
Melvin: That will be $21 with the tax.
Carly: Thanks. See ya.
Now it’s Billy’s turn
Billy: Nice looking lobster. What’s the tariff?
Melvin: They’re $2.50 a pound. The nicest ones are about 2 to 3 pounds.
Billy: OK. Gimme three. Got any snapper?
Melvin: Tomorrow. The boys are out chasing it as we speak. How about some flounder?
Billy: Sure, why not. It looks good. Do you have any steamers?
Melvin: No (forgetting the sign this time) but I’ve got some nice cherrystones and some soft-shelled crab in from the Chesapeake.
Billy: What’s the best way to cook them?
Melvin: Steam them until they open up a little…About seven to eight minutes. Want some mussels to go with that?
Billy: Sure, why not, I’m rich.
Melvin: That comes to $42.59.
Billy: Here’s a fifty. Keep the change.
Melvin: Thanks. Now I can pay my rent.
Toole is ready for a break. He walks out onto the dock to catch a little sun. While doing so he sees one of his better customers stuck behind a gang of one-horse tourists and motions for her to come around through the employee entrance.
Jackie: Gee, I’ve never used an employee entrance before.
Melvin: Good morning, Mrs, Onassis. Are you here to buy fish or look at celebrities?
Jackie: What’s the difference?
Melvin: You’re asking me. What can I help you with?
Jackie: Aristotle is bring home a few business associates for dinner and I just don’t know what to cook.
Melvin: The last time I was on Crete everyone was chowing down on Red Mullet, Grouper and Squid.
Jackie: Got any Mackerel or Cod?
Melvin: (To himself: “Not very imaginative.”) Sure. We have both as well as some fresh-frozen striped bass.
Jackie: What does fresh-frozen mean?
Melvin: Too early to tell. Here’s the cod. It’s from out near Gardiner’s Island and is on sale today for $4.99 a pound. The Mackerel is only $3.99.
Jackie: Hmmmm. I guess I’ll take a pound of each and three lobsters.
Melvin: OK. Will there be anything else?
Jackie: You got any steamers?
– Kevin Haley
“It’s nothing more than a flesh wound…now back to your posts!”
– Confederate General Kashmir Horseshoe to his troops, after a Union cannon ball bounced off the side of his the head during the Battle of Meandering Thistle, May 1863.
Aliens abscond with Senate, House, most of Court
(Washington DC) Members of both Houses and several supreme justices were kidnapped during the final culmination of a particularly boring hearing on dog parks on federal lands in the Capital this morning.
The justices were grabbed first and then forced to watch the juvenile shenanigans in the Senate before being disrobed and taken to comfort zones for reeducation and a forced return to the peasant way of life in the countryside.
Mitch “KY Jelly” McConnell appears crushed beneath the machinery of his own iniquitous schemes. The highly iconic, often colonic McConnell was the victim of the sophisticated McConnell Shift, employed with great alacrity by the opposition.
Everyone knows Mitch can’t hit the cutter, or the slider either. He looks like he is about to break into tears at any moment and yet here he is…in power.
It’s like selling one’s soul to the devil without asking for a receipt,” said one senate page of the entire ordeal.
“They all look the same to us,” laughed one kidnaping intruder from another world… “like a bunch of greedy old white men, mostly” said one confused galactic kidnapper, whatever that is.”
The politicians were whisked away after undergoing brain reassignment surgery (over in Maryland) and a new wardrobe according to decoded messages intercepted by ham radio operators outside Parlin, Colorado. Since a majority were already enrolled in one witness protection program or another, a bureaucratic nightmare was averted.
No official randsom has been discussed.
-Small Mouth Bess
In other news
Rats Outnumber Residents in Trump Apartments
“No, I said the rodents were making strides,” stressed billionaire Jared Rat. “and residents expected them to take over daily operations by 2023. Why must you crucify us. We are just trying to make a profit.”
The building, owned by members of the family, is a sacred testament to the business savvy of ex-politician, Donald J Trump.
The dreaded solution
OP-ED by Joy Stillheart
Sitting alone in my bombed out jockey bloomers, sand dune stiletto clogs, and oxford bag waddle suspenders, draped in a maroon stretch waistcoat , accented in accompanying transparent sparkle-bright yoga tights I have embraced original thought, albeit vague, and certain frightening realizations.
Attached to all the trouble on this planet is one entity. Humans. The catalyst and often the direct cause for what ails us. I sip on my Oh Be Joyful and reminisce about the old days and their old days and the old days of people who are no longer living. I think about the new days for those not yet born.
When overpopulation stares one in the face in Western Colorado imagine life in other worlds where there is barely room to breathe, to move, to reach, to sit, to stand, to be at peace.
My bomb shelter might hold. It might not.
A high percentage of the problems currently facing people are generated by people. We have impossible scenarios in immigration, abortion, weapons, climate change, water, endangered species, racism and intolerance while the rich stockpile and the poor starve. Those still hanging on to the middle remain bewildered which is probably a safe enough place to hide.
The old numbers don’t work anymore. The experiment is a failure. It’s time to ban us.
