All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
“Don’t Encourage Them.”
Even though there are at least seven pubs open in Clifden during the winter months, I found myself back on the same bar stool at Griffin’s around 8 pm. The music was unbelievable. Two men and two guitars and the whole bar singing the chorus…kind of those rebel songs…. The West’s’ Awake…The West’s’ Awake. Tearful tunes sung loud to drown out any of the old sadness that the Guinness may have missed.
Don’t get me wrong. Ireland seems a happy place today.
At a break I wandered up to the small bandstand asking the singer, “Does your mother know you have such a fine Irish voice?”
“She’ll be here in a 1/2. You can ask her yourself,” he said
Only six of the town’s pubs have live music every night. On Tuesday night they are all packed…sippers and shooters and football nuts and some guy intent on reading Joyce in the corner.
“My dad is playing up at Lowry’s and my brother is part of a band over at Malarkey’s,” continued the singer. “Mom’s holding down the stage on her own up the street at the Central until about 10. We’re all playing together at Mitchell’s on Saturday. Will you still be in town?” he asked as if we were cousins.
“Guinness isn’t cheap but socializing is free so you need to find the balance. That way you come home with a few coins at least,” said 88-year-old Mr. McCrery, a local farmer who still works his land and has been a fixture at Griffin’s since 1950.
I don’t have to get back to Dublin until Monday. I think I’ll hang out in this absolutely charming town and catch the whole family performing together. I know I’d kick myself if I didn’t, and besides I’m supposed to go fishing with a retired Cork policeman who tells gold medal lies about his 30-year career with a straight face. Imagine that.
– Kevin Haley
BONUS:
Q. How could a person spend the entire day walking the streets of Dublin City without passing so much as one pub?
A: Go into all of them
Horseshoe Lotto Fraudulent, Misleading Says State Treasurer
(Denver) Persons stupid enough to buy a San Juan Horseshoe Lottery ticket have about 1 in 30,000,000 chance to win any loot, according to state data reserves and unreliable casino sources up Confront Range canyons.
The State of Colorado, which would not release highly sensitive information on winning percentages in its popular Lotto programs, is investigating the Horseshoe for evidence of misdoings including possible extortion and kidnapping.
“The Colorado Gaming Commission was not amused by these ham-fisted and proletarian attempts to swindle the good people of Colorado and Wyoming. Never mind that the state has allowed gambling to diminish mining history and quality of life in palaces like Cripple Creek and creating cute little Disneylands and Bransons right in our midst,” said one former hardware store owner, turned Black Jack dealer in Central City.
“That entity (the Horseshoe) has no right to portray lotteries as the magic solution to social injustice and poverty. That is our job,” said an official release from Denver.
-Susie Compost
Cartoons Mutiny at Colorado POX
(Spoontowne) Leading cartoon activists will take over reporting responsibilities at POX News as of March according to Rupert Murdoch, billionaire owner of the network.
The gradual change, slated for summer, snowballed in December and the fallout hit the screen in February with the now much publicized on-air mutiny. POX is concerned that it is embracing reliability in content as well as telling both sides of a story, according to an industry spokesperson.
“These adherences to professionalism and fleeting journalism have put our entertainment badge at risk,” said the source. “Entertainment has always been the flagship here with lots of editorials replacing the news.”
POX figures cartoons can read the daily stories as well as humans at half the price tag. News casts have already taken on a different light with the heralded replacement of Sean Hannity with Plucky Duck and Tucker Carlson with America’s favorite blue-hair: Marge Simpson, who will act as anchor on what continues to look like a sinking ship.
All POX, CNN, MSNBC and even PBS talking heads will continue to wear liar’s collars while on the air to insure that the American people are getting at least a scoop of the real poop.
“One cannot build a solid ship or any structure to last when it’s built on a foundation of lies and misinformation,” continued our media spokesperson. “This is not conjecture. These people are pretenders and frauds.”
Imagine tuning in for a news program with duel anchors Bill Hemmer and Louise Becker from Bob’s Burgers. Maybe Peppa Pig and the Incredible Crash Dummies could do the weather. Stewie Griffin, the baby from The Family Guy might do well chipping in with updates on former demigods and spoiled children.
That leaves Shaun the Sheep to formulate policy applicable to all local POX stations.
At present only a few ex-broadcasters have applied for the Unilateral Liars’ Amnesty that retroacts back to 2014. The possible hang-up is a stipulation that requires them to prove rehabilitation and promise to tell the truth at all times.
– Fred Zeppelin
The author of this piece cannot afford a television and subsequently gathered data and info for this story from Wikipedia, ask.com, answers.com, how.com and by conversing with pre-schoolers.
Interview with a recently discovered poet
Pico Clyde-Sarena, for decades a remote, frazzled voice in the world of supercilious verse, has finally reached the mainstream of world literature. We were fortunate to have been granted this interview with one of the most persistent and provocative figures of our time.
Horseshoe: Why are all of your poems the same length?
Paco: It’s the size of the fecking pad, man. I bought 2000 legal pads in March and I’m already down to six or seven. I start at the top and fill space with my words until I reach the bottom…then I have lunch.
Horseshoe: So it appears you have a rigid daily discipline. Do you write everyday?
Paco: No. I only write on Wednesdays.
Horseshoe: What do you do the rest of the time?
Paco: I make plum wine. Then, three weeks later, I drink it
Horseshoe: That’s quite a combination…poems and bodegas! Do you see a metaphor here?
Paco: I see a lot more metaphors after the wine has matured. Barbie dolls on the in the roux burned like a bat-winged banter master spouting crude recollections. False prophet…False sinner, worse yet. Spoken flowers are only as good as the lover who catches the poem petal. Most miss it surely as it drifts to the ground.
Horseshoe: Wow! That’s hot. What time of the day do you prefer to write?
Paco: Right out of bed works the best. I like to smoke Nicaraguan puros while I mainline Paraguayan mate’ and scramble my oatmeal. That’s when my head is clear and my passion ignited. Some of my favorite works, however have been penned on my way to bed when my head is swirling and my dreams linger.
Horseshoe: Heavy.
Paco: No actually quite light. It’s important for an artist to give himself plenty of leisure time. That way the words flow without the distractions of the mundane.
Horseshoe: Your words are incredible and we see that you are bi-lingual as well. If I may quote from a recent work:
Las estrellas del Sur habla
a me en la noche linda .
Dicen mi nombre, su nombre bella
su nombre bella, su nombre bella.
Su alma, su corizon, su cuelo rico.
Chow dudes. Viva pax.
What do these words mean to you?
Paco: I don’t have any idea. I don’t speak a lick of Spanish.
Horseshoe: It’s kind of like telepathy, no?
Paco: Yeah sure. I can write 700 poems in one day if I drop all pretense and quality control. Most people are afraid of poetry anyway so very few get passed the first line or two. As a beautiful woman once told me: “It’s bad poetry, Paco…but keep slinging it. Sooner or later you’re bound to rhyme something.”
Horseshoe: I see you drive a 1947 Bedford Paddy Wagon. That must have cost a pretty penny.
Paco: It was a gift from one of my lovers.
Horseshoe: do beautiful women like it says in the introduction to Bruin Conspiracies besiege you? Do you read to them all?
Paco: I can’t read. To quote the late Warren Zevon: Poor, poor pitiful me…poor, poor pitiful me…the young girls won’t let me be…poor, poor pitiful me. I wish I’d written those lines, yeah boy.
Horseshoe: Have you any advice for budding poets?
Paco: Write with crayons, that way if you get hungry you’ll have plenty to eat. Just go on a tear and hope nobody reads the stuff…It’s all perception of reality anyway. If it barks like a bird and whinnies like an ostrich then I’d suggest staying far away during mating season.
Paco will be appearing at Vegetable Buddies Bar and Grill in Manana
for a book signing and wine making symposium on May 32 unless it rains.
Man on the Moon Mere Flimflam
(Houston) NASA today admitted that the 1969 landing of astronauts on the Moon was no more than an evil hoax meant to dupe the American public and distract the nation from the Vietnam War, unemployment stats and racial unrest. In a lengthy statement the space administration acknowledged that the entire event was staged right down to specimens brought back.
“The whole echilada was shot near Grand Junction, Colorado, out in the Stinking Desert,” said one NASA source. “We didn’t figure that so many people would be watching and well…things kind of got out of control.”
The desert region around Grand Junction is often mistaken for a lunar landscape which made it the perfect location says NASA adding that the geologic samples too were bogus, having been purchased from Tinkers somewhere between Paradox and LaSal Junction in 1967.
Apparently NASA, encouraged by the public’s profound willingness to be hoodwinked by the gov’ment got carried away and started making outrageous claims and taking credit for such a stunning victory in Outer Space.
“Even the Russians believed us,” said the source.
Coming clean on the grounds that they would not be prosecuted, engineers and technicians here expressed relief that the secret lie had now become public.
“Besides,” said NASA, “everyone working on that operation has retired and the statute of limitations has run out. We suggest that Americans just laugh it off as a bad joke and go see a Star Trek movie or two.”
– Small Mouth Bess
That’s why they call it Wild Cat Creek
Colona Bank Robbed in Broad Daylight
Thieves robbed the Seamen’s Credit Union here making off with an assortment of cash, fixtures and promises according to eyewitnesses on the scene. Actually the crooks couldn’t rob it in the dark since it is closed then.
Police believe the crooks to be hold up somewhere in the town’s little known catacombs which reputedly run from one now defunct whorehouse entry to another. One resident reported activity in Colona’s only church steeple but it turned out to be unruly magpies.
“We believe we have a lead or two,” said one sheriff’s deputy. “If there was a donut shop in town we could integrate our efforts with Montrose and San Miguel Counties,” continued the officer. “As it is there isn’t even a place to get a cup of coffee. This could be a long investigation.”
Colona Restricts Business Hours
Called a feeble attempt to control rampant commercialism in the county’s third economic impact municipality, restrictions here strongly indicate a return to the radical isolationism of the past. Despite its prime location atthe head of the valley and its access to the non-existent railroad, mobilized fathers and mothers here appear to be engaged in a painstaking return to simpler times.
Enter The Knifer Ordinance, which severely restricts the amount of work to be done in the village and outlying region. Although controversial at first, merchants and service personnel have adapted well according to the local drone owners association. How all of this will affect the price of bait is anyone’s guess. Here’s a peek:
The San Juan Horseshoe website has volunteered to cut it’s hours to 11:30 – 1 every other Thursday in support of the civic effort. Justman Sawmill will no longer be open 24 hours although it still is literally – just not to the public. Hours of operation at Knifer’s Garage used to be posted on a utility pole across Hotchkiss Avenue but apparently someone took them down. None of these businesses accept appointments or personal checks.
