All Entries Tagged With: "Ridgway"
SPANISH ARMADA SINKS OF IRISH COAST AGAIN
(Skibbereen – July 29, 1558) The entire Spanish fleet “the pride of Calais” has vanished in a violent storm approximately eighteen nautical miles off the southwest coast of the Republic of Ireland. According to a flagship call for help followed by a desperate distress signal from the few ships still afloat.
The renowned Armada was reportedly headed for England with the intention of invading that island nation. It was not clear how many lives have been lost to date since 16th Century ships’ logs were far more focused on weaponry, food and rum than on the lower element of human that inhabited the decks and galleys or were chained in their benches in the downstairs recreation area.
The Spanish military disaster represents the fifth in as many centuries. In 1588 the first “Invincible Spanish Armada, despite fiscal and spiritual support from the Vatican, was defeated by Sir Charles Howard of Great Britain. Nine short years later the Second Armada lay scattered by storms at St. George’s Channel.
These two incredible navel defeats were paid for with silver extracted from the lucrative Potosi mines in Bolivia. It is estimated that over 200,000 Native laborers died in the effort in the icy climate at over 4000 meters.
But did they learn anything? Apparently not since in 1644, with over 800 ships at his disposal, Manual Rudolf of Bavaria took the wrong left turn at La Coruna de Mariposas, landing his entire force waist deep in shark-infested waters on the Bay of Biscay. French villagers encouraged the sharks. All were lost.
Then in 1709 Italian, Hernando Cortisone, in an attempt to circumnavigate the swollen floodwaters of the North Tejo, landed on Gibraltar, which he claimed for the Queen of Denmark or the Duke of Marlboro, no matter. He was immediately arrested and jailed by the British colonial forces, where he roosted on the rocky peninsula, his ships reduced to firewood.
With the coming of the modern era Spanish navel thinking remained firm to its convictions and to the past. In 1889, during the lingering hangover from Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, an expeditionary force, including several thousand Serbian demolition experts and a host of well-endowed Flamingo standouts in reserve, set out for Lisbon. The plan was to seize the oil fields at Falmouth and continue up the Thames to a rousing victory. Instead the convoy ended up in northeast Brasil three months later and was eaten by Dutch headhunters out on the weekend. England was spared again.
Today, with the most recent military snafu freshly piling up further carnage in the nautical pasture, Spanish picaroons have vowed to descend on Dover beaches “by the next century or sooner.” For those of you keeping score at home that’s only 85 years away.
Meanwhile the London Stock Exchange has seen brilliant gains, unsurpassed during recorded history. (Yesterday the exchange registered an unparalleled 141- point explosion in heavy trading just before the wire.)
Most brokers on the floor at the time the Armada ran aground admitted that they had not known about another attempt to invade their shores. Mass reaction moments after the freak announcement ran from horrid mumblings to the ever-popular “Good Show Old Man” and “Chin Up Matilda”, a pip saying borrowed from the Australians.
The final demise of Spanish sea power came crashing down in the late afternoon as thousands from Dublin to Cork watched from their barstools. By nightfall a flotilla of cold-water pirogue boats had already swooped in and made quick work of any survivors. By morning there was no indication that the fleet had ever existed. Before nightfall the pirogues, under a Carthaginian flag and seriously overloaded with Libyan crawfish, clumsily capsized only inches from the crowded, seedy harbor, sending hundreds of momentary victors straight down to the ocean’s floor. `- Kashmir Horseshoe
Renegade Speckled Trout Continues to Hold Texas Couple
Special from Angler’s Angles – June 25, 2015
(Sapinero CO) The desperate speckled trout currently detaining a young Texas couple at a deserted alpine cabin near here. Police with rockets assault rifles and armored vehicles have surrounded the locale but are reluctant to charge fearing the welfare of the kidnapped people.
“We are also quite concerned with local neighbors including Gunnison sage grouse, lynx, moose, snow monkeys and a poorly defended prairie dog village to the west,” said one nervous deputy about to see his first action on the force.
The trout, a suspected member of a radical upstream splinter group, has threatened to drown oil workers Jim Bob and Ethyl Alcoone of Midland if authorities do not release the over 100,000 trout held at Roaring Fork Hatchery at Almont. A note to the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office reads:
“Unless my brothers and sisters are set free there will be blood in the water. Don’t waste your time trying to bait me with half-gilled concessions and soggy intentions. I am no sucker. I will settle for nothing less than fish tanks, a charter jet, relocation to fish-friendly nations and full autonomy.”
The slippery perpetrator, a viciously anti-fishing mastermind is blamed for organizing hit and swim attacks on the Taylor River and harassment of anglers on Blue Mesa.
Police are attempting to reason with the fish and plan to drop worms and salmon eggs as a gesture of good will. The couple is surviving on trail mix. Police have warned local wildlife that aiding and abetting is a serious crime punishable by firing squad or worse. Residents are urged to stay clear of the unidentified region (maybe Wyoming would be nice?) and telephone authorities if they notice suspicious speckled trout engaged in odd, out-of-water behavior in the vicinity. – Estelle Marmotbreath
Elvis Appears to Carne Canyon Widow
Shavano Sun and Mailer – June 25, 2015
Most women would be thrilled to have a rock and roll legend visit them in the bathroom but not the reclusive Beverly Lupac. In fact she’s had about enough of it all.
Back in March Beverly arose from a deep slumber, wandered into her two-tone bathroom, gazed into her two-way mirror and there he was: Elvis Presley right there in the zoomed in make-up circle. At first she thought she was dreaming but upon reentry she saw him again, combing his hair.
“At first he didn’t speak but just smiled in that “Elvisy kind of way,” she said. “Then he asked to borrow some hair cream.”
Then he thanked Lupac, asked if he could sing her a song, crooned a verse from Blue Hawaii and melted back into the glass.
Shaken, Lupac rushed to her neighbor’s house to share the strange encounter with Ira Synge-Toole, a former typesetter for this website when it was a newspaper. While at first Toole scoffed at the preposterous pandering of a pop star pertaining to the porcelain presence she quickly came around when singing resumed from Lupac’s bathroom.
The two women, armed with a can of outdated mace and a 34-inch Louisville Slugger, went back into the Lupac house. They made their way to the bathroom all called out “Elvis! Elvis! Come out. Come back.”
Nothing happened. After about a half hour Toole became disenchanted with the entire operation and, saying The Days of Our Lives was about to begin, left.
Lupac then journeyed into her spacious, well-lighted kitchen to prepare lint and kidney pie when a voice crooned Fools Rush In. She turned around half-aroused to see a life-size Elvis standing before her in nightclub attire. This one was a talking Elvis. He asked her about her life in Carne Canyon but she couldn’t think of any interesting answers. The conversation dragged. There she was with the King and she was tongue-tied. She could tell him about her peach harvest or the day the dog got knocked up outside the barn
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You Ain’t Nothing But a Corn Dog
News Flash
(Bennytowne Plaza) Uninformed sources somewhere around the corner have vaguely insisted that the clandestinely whispered rumors of dubious plausibility may be nothing more than sheer innuendo. Moreover, equally uncorroborated critics of the current control modes vehemently suggest that forces from the other side may be engaged in a system of sabotage wherein unclear rumblings and tepid projections land on deaf ears and newly swept sidewalks. This public embrace takes on the personality of those wishing to disguise the issues as only possibilities, and not died-in-the-wool lethargies bordering treacherous ponds of drooling quicksand and pea-brained, yet concise, summations.
That said the situation remains much the same with hordes of promiscuous paparazzi clogging the doorways, hiding in potted plants, hang from window ledges and infiltrate the sanctity of public urinals and private beaches, exhibiting the restraint of crippled harlots. The prize: A television news anchorship in the great Midwest! This newspaper will of corpse bring you each imperative detail and every mumbled conjecture as it comes out of the oven. Forward!