All Entries Tagged With: "Gunnison"

Dependence on foreign toilet paper nets dire proviso

(Washington) The White House this morning warned Americans of the inherent dangers lurking when trade imbalance and personal hygiene clash.

Sketching a dark future, President Trump told supporters that everything was terrific minus this one small caveat. He urged people to conserve stockpiled rolls and produce twice as much as last year. He praised the oil and linoleum industry and sang praises for those brave pioneers extracting the popular product by clear-cutting trees and drilling holes into the earth.

“And here’s to all of my compatriots sitting in public stalls, trapped in unfamiliar plumbing schematics, waiting in the rain for toilet paper,” he said, blasting the Chinese once again. “We are firmly in control here.”

A formal press release (on a roll of toilet paper) is expected by tomorrow. Critics are calling for a plunging on the domestic crisis and a complete flushing of initial response brokers and curious stock portfolios.

When asked by a reporter if he could reassure his constituency Trump responded by smiling, “Ask the Chinese”.  This reference to China was the latest promo for a coming installment of The Oriental Scapegoat, a new virtual TV drama where contestants shoot out the eyes of tin Chinese bogeymen who are spinning around in a circle while Trump looks on. The pilot program has received rave reviews in television audiences from Naples to Naperville.

You say Corona, I say Colona

Who would you most like to be quarantined with for three weeks? What a question. How about for three months? That might be a bit taxing. How much toilet paper would one need to encourage a pleasant ambience?

The Federal Government has released new procedural implementations:

Wash your car 3 times a day that way your hands are clean.

Pray with Mike Pence for guidance

No gum chewing in public

Wear clean underwear at all times (you know why).

In the event of nuclear germ fallout get under your desk and cover your head.

Stay at least 800 yards away from strangers

Self-quinine for three weeks or so

Sell unlatching sox before the market crashes

Terminate all international travel since the airlines aren’t operating anyway.

Avoid touching yourself.

Apply snake oil when anxiety peaks

Don’t call us – We’ll call you

Read Quarantined With Your Ego. How to deal with your self-conceptions in a world facing apocalypse.

Update: Several leading opinion polls indicate that less than .01% of all Americans who has raved on about creeping socialism will turn down a stimulus check when it arrives in their mailbox. This includes churches that have lost millions in tithing with closures and social distancing.

*After earlier hopes were dashed, it appears that virus does not affect pine beetles.

In closing you are all invited to the Corona Beer Rebranding Party scheduled for July 4 at the Manana Grange. Suds and Social Distancing is the tantalizing theme and risqué costumes are encouraged. CEOs of the beverage company will reach out into the country’s pocketbook with their team. Many will have recent bonus checks stapled their foreheads.

Tainted currency source of virus in US

Bulletin: Deep State of Emergency

Citizens are urged to avoid unnecessary contact with paper bills of all denominations. Higher denomination currencies seem to carry germs more contagious than ones and fives. Get ride of them all. Credit and debit cards are not completely safe either. Treasury notes and gold are the most lethal.

Bag it up and drop it at Department of Fiscal Fermentation, Mirrors and Security, 33 Whinnerah Ave, Colona, CO 81403. You should receive a receipt for the transaction in 300 days or so.

Returnee Talks of Hereafter

(Banana Contento) A longtime shell shearer says he’s died and come back for another go round. The local man, whose name was not given, told stories of indirect lighting, great halls, boiling cauldrons of soup and cloud gatherings for tea at three (formal attire mandatory).

In addition he said the place was laid back and no one needed money. Beer was free and the first meal was beans and rice. People spent an hour a day engaged in chores such as pumping clouds and filling feather pillows, he said.

“We wanted to keep his identity secret until the story could be further investigated,’ said a local police spokesperson. “All we need is some pandemic over time travel or heaven’s gate and we’ll never again see a peaceful day.”

The returnee is being held at the Center for Diagnostic Space Dancing, according to an interview a local radio talk host Buster Rutledge of KRAT who was denied access to the facility Friday.

“The whole thing is a hoax. He’s some liberal,” claimed Rutledge, who recently won the Medal of Fodder for finally getting off drugs. “This guy has never been out of the county much less in the Great Beyond. This all reeks of another Democrat attempt to discredit the President.”

Readers may recall when a Colona man, Billy Blastoff returned from Great Beyond in 2018

“It’s a mirror of this world. An enchanted mirror, “ he had said. “Everything is the opposite — a perfectly reproduced reflection. The abyss rather ominous, no?  No more madness – No more sense.

“I came back on my bonus ticket*,” he continued “to pick up my fish-eye lens and some sox for all my new friends. It can get chilly in the Evermore.

After a bonafide Wizard of Oz exit in the presence of thousands of disturbed citizens his hot air balloon floated up into the sky and away. He hasn’t been seen for weeks.

*A Bonus Ticket appears to be a premium granted to people who were good on earth but have no desire to return and stay here. They get one quick visit to attend to unfinished business.

-Estelle Marmotbreath

Reasonable Briefs…

Vermouth Trees Endangered

(Hell) Due to the extremely high fire danger down here the only remaining cash crop, the vermouth tree, appears headed for extinction. After months of no rain and infestation at the hands of temperance beetles, the trees are on their last leg with little bark left and even less soul. Experts in the field, unable to save the trees, pointed the finger and made excuses while the people of hell continue to watch their paychecks dwindled down to toothpicks.

“If these sonsabitches catch fire we’ve all had it,” said one of hell’s rangers, formerly employed at the Ridgway Reservoir. “When one mixes these dry conditions with the extreme heat spontaneous combustion may be only a moment away.

Local officials blame the situation as much on last year’s chronic stretch of dry martinis when little of no vermouth was consumed allowing the vermouth trees to produce more olives. The same exact things happened in Iraq in early May effectively shutting down the wineries there and sending Sunni vineyard workers into a tailspin. Does one stay the course with gin or switch policies and embrace vodka?

People here think she’s a no-brainer.

Meanwhile sagebrush poachers continue to strip the Hadesian countryside clean of the fragrant bush which, when combined with vermouth and a little pinch of guilt, is sold upstairs in heaven as an aphrodisiac.

Vatican Warns of Blogging

(Rome) The Vatican today warned its faithful to stay away from the growing practice of blogging. Saying that the habit is immoral and distasteful a leading cardinal threatened excommunication to persons who continue to blog. The Blogging is known to cause blindness and madness according to many in the morality industry.

Other Names for The Boogie Man

(and The Boogey Woman in different cultures)

La Chula Chaqui

(ghosts in Peruvian Desert)

Would approach a lone rider at night during a blinding sandstorm and hurl him from his horse onto the barren ground where he would often trample or beat the hapless victim until first light.

El “Homem del scan”

(Child stealer of Bahia)

The sacking man or the bag man takes disobedient children along to live with bands of madmen. Known in Brasil, Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, and Mozambique. He or she creeps through open windows at night and lives in damp basements, embracing the light of day only to do evil. He kidnaps naughty children in broad daylight and carry them away in a sack. Depending on regional variants, he either sells the children or eats them.

The Coco

(Latin American poltergeist)

Monster who visits the confused and disoriented, the self-defeated and people frightened of new things. Appears in black or bright red at sundown and stays all night. Lives under beds and in dark closets. A bugbear. Often used to refer to groundless, irrational, illogical or exaggerated fear.

Buga Buga

(Constant nightmare in Northern Europe)

A shadowy, amorphous ghost who hides in dark places in order to frighten unsuspecting victims. He’s more of a nuisance than a danger, and his power is easily neutralized by bright light. Netherlands. Other known whereabouts: Belgium, Germany

Bokkenrijders 

(Vengeful marauders in Italy and Spain)

These creatures of fright are ghost robbers riding on flying goats. These boogies were  actively created by thieves in the 18th century to intimidate and terrorize local farming communities. Haunts southern Europe and South America. In Northern Europe he often works as Saint Nicholas’ evil sidekick.

Baba Yaga

(Cold, cruel and deadly)

A Slavic witch of the Russian forests. She lives in a shack that stands on giant chicken legs, rides around in a flying mortar and carries a giant pestle. Unpredictable with humans, she is just as likely to help you as eat you. 

H’awouahoua

(The most horrible presence in North Africa)

A terrifying Algerian monster – the H’awouahoua is described as having a body composed of conflicting government entities and eyes that are blobs of flaming bullshit. It only votes by party line and spend most of its elected term getting reelected.To top it off his coat is made from the clothes of the many children it has eaten.

Tokoloshe

(The Wizard’s Helpers in South Africa)

Tokoloshe are water sprites who do the bidding of evil South African wizards. They can become invisible by drinking water then pouncing on and grabbing at children. One might protect himself from Tokoloshe while asleep by placing a brick beneath each leg of your bed. That will keep them at bay while rituals take control. Final banishment will require the services of a witch doctor.

Gurumapa

(Himalayan beasts now pacified?)

The Gurumapa iof Nepal was a man-eating giant who abandoned his evil ways and enjoys a position of honor in Katmandu in exchange for not eating local kids. He is known to consume an entire water buffalo in one sitting.

Wewe Gombel

(Benevolent, yet frightening witch)

Female spirit, Wewe Gombel kidnaps Indonesian children in order to save them from bad parents. She lovingly cares for them in her nest atop a palm tree, refusing to return them until their parents alter their abusive or neglectful ways.

Namahage

(Japanese ghosts on the New Year)

These Japanese ogres go from door to door on New Year’s Eve, looking for children who have misbehaved that year. They celebrate the season by carrying away children who are lazy or insolent.

Mètminwi

(Island Fiend of little discretion)

This Haitian boogeyman is described as a man with incredibly long legs who walks around towns at midnight to catch and eat anyone who is still outside. His name is a contraction of the French maître (master) and minuit (midnight).

La Llorona

(Wandering murderer searching for peace)

This Mexican ghost of a woman who drowned her children in order to be with a man who ultimately spurned her. Destitute, she drowned herself — but she’s barred from entering heaven until she finds her children. At night, she wanders along the riverbanks looking for them, crying “¡Ay mis hijos!” (Oh my children!) and snatching any child she mistakes for her own.

Socialism

(Frightens the sheep)

This very American spirit confronts the ancient concept of the divine right of the rich to rule. Socialism is not the boogyman that breaks down the door at night with a machine gun and furry Russian hat. That terror is attributed to communism or fascism. Instilling fear in the hearts of the great unwashed keeps the poor from seeking what is theirs while paying taxes and tribute to a rogue government that represents only the rich. Most of the people who are afraid of socialism cannot define the term. These people have been brainwashed into believing that they are included in a Big Boy Democracy when there is not one. Until people stand up to these fictitious soul-eating intruders, the monsters that plague them will continue to marginalize their lives and invade their sleep.

– Fred Zeppelin

The night the little people took over O’Leary’s

By Pat O’Neill

     Straight away let it be said that Irishmen are often prone to hallucinations of mind and spirit.

     I know that, for certain, great grandpa came from Kerry and was well acquainted with lots of leprechauns and many a mermaid.

But I’ll be swearin’ to this tale that I’m about to tell. For, it really did happen. And I’m not one to be makin’ up drivel.

     It was just a week ago tonight that I was rousted out from under the cozy confines of my electric blanket by the post midnight rattle of the telephone.

     On the other end, talkin’ a mile a minute and in all the official language he could muster, was none other than himself, our local police chief.

     “Mr. O’Neill,” he said. “Upon checking the latch of your bar this evenin’ we did notice that you went off and left the lights blazin’ and the jukebox blastin’ one of those Irish songs you insist on botherin’ yer customers with.”

     Well, this was unsettling news, for, although I didn’t dare tell the chief this, I knew as sure as Harp has bubbles that I had doused the lights and unplugged the box when closin’ the joint just a few hours previous. So, keeping my wits about me, I assured the concerned cop that everything was fine and dandy, but that I would drive down to O’Leary’s and check things out my own self.

     Which is what I did.

     And upon arriving at the outer limits of the snoring little town of Parachute, all muffled by a soft layer of new snow, I ascertained that, sure enough, my old brick and boards pub was twinkling wide awake like a tree on the courthouse lawn at Christmas time. A curious thing, in the least. For just hours ago the last whiskey had been spilt and the last human fixture removed from a barstool and sent home to his mad wife and happy dreams.

     Now, it is not that I place any stock those old tales about pukas and banshees or boogiemen, but I thought it’d be to my benefit and safety to approach the old building with a degree of caution. And I did. I sneaked up on the back door with the car lights off and cased the place before doin’ anything rash.

     Just as the chief had said, the lights inside were shinin’ full tilt and the box was blastin’ a reel to beat the band. Takin’ a quick peek through the crack in the door I could see that there wasn’t a soul inside and that all that electricity was goin’ to waste.

     Now it’s not a brave man that I am, but one concerned about hefty bills from Public Service. And so I fit the key in the lock and pushed my way inside.

     The place was empty, spooky almost. The bottles shined in the light and the ghosts of my customers in hard hats seemed to wave at me from their assigned perches along the bar. And then I shut the door behind me.

     Laughter and Irish curses rolled over me then. Pipe smoke hung around the lights and small figures began taking shape in every chair and on every stool. Gartered bartenders standing on empty beer kegs were pouring draws and sloshing pitchers about behind the battered mahogany bar. The Wolfe Tones reel that I had been hearing before had changed to enchanted flutes and fiddles, the likes of which my ears had never before been blessed with.

     And I stood there with my keys in my hand and began counting in my head the number of Murphy’s that I’d allowed myself before goin’ to bed and concluded there was only two and that on Grandma Maggie’s grave I wasn’t drunk. Yet, the little people partying there around me paid me not so much as a random glance.

     There were fat roast beefs and platters of fried cabbage soaking in butter and sprinkled with sugar all about and a bottle of my best Tyrconnell on every table. Guinness was running from every spigot like faucet water. Faery queens in crimson velvet and capes of ermine flitted about the dance floor enraptured by the Irish airs being woven from the flutes and strings and bones of a faery band.

     At the biggest table a group of little men refilled their glasses and clapped time to a newly uncorked jig. They were fun-faced little gentlemen, dressed not as pretentiously as the women; in velvet derbies with matching vests and silken knee stockings.

     And, sure as I can’t doubt my own two eyes, there was Liam O’Leary, my great grandfather’s own arrogant leprechaun, sittin’ at the head of the table. On his right sat a sparkle-eyed old man who looked, like me, to be of the mortal persuasion. By the devil, he was familiar to me, too.

     But just then O’Leary eyeballed me standin’ with my feet stuck to the floor by the back door and in an instant the music stopped and the tiny revelers all froze in their tracks.

     Should I not have been caught so dumbstruck, I might have asked to see all their I.D.s.

     “Well O Danny be the divil, if it isn’t the martal bahrkeep, himself,” O’Leary said winkin’ to the old man on his right. “And I see ya got the invitation we sent ya, Pathrick.”

     Beaming at his sawed off cohorts Liam bragged. “What a grand party it is, too, if I do say so meself! Come over here, laddie, and sit by me and your grandfaether. Have a tumbler full of this bad beer.”

     Sure enough, that old fellow was my great granddad, himself, who promptly poured me a glass o’ golden lager beer which, when tasted, kicked magically like stout. This being done the party resumed and from then hence no one paid me any never mind. Except my handsome, gray-headed great grandfather, “Big Pat.”

     For a long enough time he merely rubbed my already tousled head and stared at my soul with his old politician eyes. Family stories had always held that “Big Pat” had had a way with the little people, that his Democratic oratory in the Pendergast precincts had been blessed with the butter of blarney because of his being held in good stead with the magic folks.

     I guess I already knew, even then, that the old man from his place in Heaven — or the furnace room, as the case might be —  had been keepin’ a close eye on me, his namesake, because O’Leary had told me as much on a previous occasion.

     The first time the obnoxious little imp appeared in front of me– long ago in a dimly lit college newsroom — he had blasted me in the name of my departed namesake for bein’ “phony Irish.,” for thinking that my heritage was a pitcher of green beer, not in centuries of suffering and English spit.

     That night grandpa didn’t have to say anything. I knew this was just another small reminder. I knew why I had been summoned the night the little people took over O’Leary’s.

     St. Paddy’s Day was coming soon. The bar, of course, would be done up in banners and plastic party hats. The Jameson and Murphy’s and Harp and Guinness would run like the Shannon. We would surely wax phony Irish to beat the band.

     The old man was in my bar that night to make sure I could still see through the green costumes, the cardboard cutouts and crinkly St. Pat’s hats and know that to be Irish was to be rich. That the people strong enough to have stayed on the “ould sod,” deserved more than a toast on March 17. They deserved a piece of my Irish heart and soul.

     The following morning I woke up on my front porch sharin’ a blanket with the dog, sifting through various excuses (for my wife) and explanations (for myself).

My Grandma’s Irish Stew

Actually this recipe comes from my great grandmother, Mary O’Brien,

who moved to New York from County Tipperary in 1858.

*Fry equal portions of lamb and beef in flour and oil (About one pound of each)

*Add eight medium size potatoes and a dozen carrots.

*Add three stalks of celery, 1/2 an onion and two small cloves of garlic.

*Put ingredients in caste iron cook pot, cover and simmer for twenty minutes.

*Salt and pepper to taste

*Add two fifths of John Powers Irish whiskey

*Simmer for 45 minutes. Serve with soda bread and a keg of Guinness.

If any portion of the above ingredients seems too extreme feel free to cut back on the suggested amounts. For instance: Maybe there are too many carrots for some tastes.

– Kevin Haley