All Entries Tagged With: "San Juan Mountains"
Long Nights Astrograph
(General Horseshoe, incorruptible alchemist, star gazer, cosmic peasant and slave to the solar system takes no prisoners in the following appraisal of your very existence. We are not at all sorry if anyone is offended, upended, rebuked, ambushed or otherwise uprooted by these brave evaluations.)
CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)
Watch out for Libras, Pisceans, Aquariums and other Capricorns and never trust the rest of them. Stop beating your head against the wall. Try using a small club or lead pipe instead to reach empty space between your ears. Cut to the quick when dealing with matters of the heart and soul. Pay attention to your body. Cardiac arrest has been found to relieve stress in laboratory rats. While conditions look encouraging for Capricorns this month, your lack of initiative will make you the sad exception. Don’t take any crap off loved ones. Helping friends can become a tedious commitment. Tonight: Cows in the barn.
AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 19)
Attempts to expand your knowledge are certain to net success, considering the jumping off point. Your restless ruler, Mercury, is slowly moving in reverse and headed for that new Dodge pickup across the parking lot. Although there is no insurance in life, you’d better get some quick. Opening doors for strangers only encourages them to come in. Venus or Mars will be devoted at least until the cash runs out. Money spent on the utterly trivial allows welcome relief from bothersome debt priorities. Don’t get ruffled. Tonight: Develop a foolproof opinion on gay marriage, illegal aliens, democratically inspired political torture and the expansion of nuclear weaponry.
PISCES (February 20 -March 20)
Devoting one’s time to material gratification means you should have more than the next person. Don’t get fresh with kick boxers. Spawning was last month. This month is snagging season. Wouldn’t you like to spend the winter with the other frozen foods? It’s impossible to go with the flow on the end of a hook. Garner advantages. Those fins look damned industrial. Examine your inner charm: You are always clean you rarely drool. Avoid predictable feeding habits. Your cold-blooded lifestyle may insulate you from more than you had once imagined. It’s all genetic. Tonight: Skip the chips.
ARIES (March 21 – April 19)
When dealing in financial matters keep a stiff upper hip or you could get caught with your pants down. The potential for a long, happy life awaits you but only if you make it through this afternoon. Spend equal time contemplating your inevitable destiny and your increasing density. Take advantage of insomnia. Sensual jogging is great for some but be careful not to pull a muscle in your libido. Using words you don’t understand is all right if you’re only talking to yourself anyway. Improvise despite inclinations to bull forward. Damn the torpedoes especially the one headed for your starboard side. Tonight: Roughing the kicker is only a five yard penalty in Canada.
TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)
Early indications are that golden opportunities have passed you by. What good is drastic self-improvement if nobody is watching? Look before you leap but never through rose-colored glasses. Buying people off could be better than putting them on for size. An old lover will hit you with his or her cane by mid-morning. Today is a great day to have your picture taken with a bowl of kibble. Repel nightly fears of household appliance breakdown. Be sure to drain all rum, vodka and gin bottles this month as these are summer concoctions and really should not be consumed in colder weather. Tonight: Congregational strolls with a handgun.
GEMINI (May 21 – June 20)
It’s far too late to gain over-achiever status for 2019. Embrace adverbs under the mistletoe but keep your dangling participles out of the plumb pudding. Flapping tongues lead to curious rashes through the 15th. Sleeping in your car will not validate dreams of travel. Try letting the air out of your ego. It’s tough to maintain eye contact while plucking one’s eyebrows. Look both ways before crossing your vortex. Keep a bullish eye on the market for sales on ground beef. Learn the difference between on the street and in the street. Tonight: Too many political prisoners spoil the stew.
CANCER (June 21 – July 22)
Pigeons may mistake you for a statue. Dogs may mistake you for a fire hydrant. Stay away from garbage cans when those noisy trucks are in that neighborhood. Break bread but not promises. Fixing things that are not broken is a much easier approach to the demands of general maintenance. Chicken lips make great stocking stuffers but long legs are far better. Your intrinsic stoned age instincts are in full swing this week. Hunt and gather till you puke. Go ahead and lie to yourself. Everyone else is doing it. Tonight: Examine the roots of Icelandic rap music.
LEO (July 23 – August 22)
Assignments that are difficult in the beginning should be left till the end. Maybe they will just go away. One-on-one relationships could spell double trouble unless someone else does the math. Venus (planet of love and seduction) will enter your 8th house of secrets and intimacy on Tuesday. Spend Monday mucking out your bathroom or the visit will be short-lived. Neptune and Pluto will ask you to co-sign a loan for an aircraft carrier. Read all pine frint carefully. Fill your dance card for the winter before the band breaks a string. Tonight: A suave, sophisticated fish wants to get his fins on you.
VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)
At press time we have received little indication as to your plight for the month. This could be very good news or a disastrous turn of events depending on your altitude. The only option is to turn up the bass, and the salmon too? Let us know what happens. You’ve got to learn to think on a different plane but get to the airport early to assure a window seat. Homeland security officials are still looking for their butts in a windstorm. Watch out that they don’t grab yours. Resolve consumer inefficiencies. Change is important…Look there’s a dime on the ground! Tonight: Panhandle at the mall.
LIBRA (September 23 – October 23)
Lighting a fire under someone is only an expression. Republican neighbors will invite you to dinner. What could they possibly be having? Ambition is better left to the motivated. Time-sharing your emotions will prove to be a very poor investment. Keep things penned up until spring. Evaluate all unwanted bowl movements early in the day then go back to bed. How can you see yourself as a super hero when you don’t even own a decent cape? Be tolerant of the frustrations that you bring out in others. Running around the end could leave you with terrible field position later in life. Tonight: A surprise punt on third down will fool only the slower cheerleaders.
SCORPIO (October 24 – November 22)
Your keen imagination creates worthless fairy tale delusions in the face of bad Japanese horror films. Snow White vs. Godzilla? Don’t expect much tail wagging in a dog-eat-dog world. Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how. Come on a safari with me. That bad singing voice and little tequila will come back to sting you. Use caution when working with unfamiliar tools such as your brain. Try a little sex appeal or at least brush your teeth. Household decisions should always be made right there in your house. Time spent under a flat rock can be beneficial. Tonight: Call your sister in Cleveland.
SAGITTARIUS (November 23 – December 21)
The stress of Christmas and New Year’s are finally over and now the pressure is on for Ground Hog’s Day. When will it all stop? You know very well that it will stop and that frightens you too. Get used to “not going anywhere”. Embrace it. Travel plans could be interrupted by coal trains. Integrate with the front gate, lawn furniture or pieces of the fence. If you stay indoors you won’t need sunscreen. You are more adept than a pack rat but more inept than a church mouse. In the game of life stay with the picture cards. Tonight: Is guilt trips hyphenated?
Amazon Acquires Christmas
(Montrose) Faceless on-line merchandising giant, Amazon, has reportedly purchased Christmas. .The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, sent shock waves through major stock exchanges already paralyzed by news that the Afghani Poppy Cartel had been admitted to the Wall Street’s exclusive market.
What this often-hostile buyout could mean for the age-old tradition of Christmas was not clear at the time of the report. Already most retail giants and the credit card companies have sought to placate the new owners with sales and other promotions aimed at selling more junk to the consumer.
What the communications concern will do with Christmas for the rest of the year was not discussed.
“We just hope they don’t ship it out of the country do to lower overhead and a workforce that will toil for less than the traditional employees at the North Pole,” said one consumer advocate.
In reference to the Afghani quotes many brokers here say they under the assumption that it was poppycock, not poppy stock that was being considered. All agree that margins for the agricultural commodity have risen sharply since peace gestures with the Taliban. Poppies are cultivated all over Afghanistan with each pretty flower containing high quantities of opium that is then processed into heroin.
“When the demand is that intense in U.S. and European markets, it will soon be reflected in ridiculous profits for some war lord or the other,” said a source on the floor here. “We just hope he’s an ally in the war against terror.”
– Princess Irm Peawit
SANTA TO TEACH SEX-ED
(Ridgway) Santa Claus has been hired to teach sex education here starting in January according to educators here. In compliance with guidelines set down by the Trump Administration the curriculum will be based on half-truths, superstition, misinformation and outright lies permeated by faith-based interests and aimed at keeping this segment of the population in the dark about such hushed topics as birth control and good health.
Santa was chosen both because his very existence is based on a myths and because he is free most of the year.
“All those elves must mean something,” said one teacher, “Our message here is abstinence. He’s got the credentials but can he whitewash the “blackboard” in accordance with the administration’s educational yardstick.”
Although there is no solid evidence that Santa was in any way involved with the procreation of the over 400 elves that live with him, he is seen as a father figure by many which may further qualify him for the teaching position.
– Pepper Salte
Elf Profiling Nets Viagra Bust
(Christmas Island)) Police here have arrested a dozen elves charging them with smuggling. The contraband, three kilos of viagra, was discovered during a routine stop. The elves say they were victims of profiling. The cops say their brake lights were out.
Distrust of strangers has always been part of the local culture here, especially on December 26 when the island is deluged with Christmas refugees like exhausted elves and cynical reindeer.
We don’t know what will happen to the elves, and frankly could give a damn. It was the headline that had potential.
If Santa intends to maintain his position of grandeur during the holidays, he must control his entourage. Every year citizens are subjected to foul language, brawling and petty theft. Last December we even observed three elves taking a leak off the roof of our newsroom.
Now, as many of you are aware, there is a big debate about elves in prison. Liberals whine saying the proportions indicate disparity of economic opportunity and outright racism. Crap.
The last thing we need to go with the Christmas hype is a bunch of crude little men, often inebriated, roaming the rooftops. Santa, dude, control your wee helpers. We are well armed and tired of their arrogance.
-Tommy Middlefinger
Holiday Schnapps…
Santa Pledges to Modify Guilt Trips in 2020
In closing up shop for yet another Yuletide, the jolly old elf reflected on Christmases gone by and those yet to come. Overwhelmed with emotion he bid a tearful goodbye to several retiring reindeer and elves and promised to make Christmas 2020 the best ever!
“One category that needs help is the persistent guilt related to the naughty or nice restrictions that have been firmly in place since the turn of the last century.
“These Victorian principles of trust and honor have no place in out modern world of baggy boxers, aging baby boomers, Boneland Security and video game massacres,” said Santa. “If we are going to keep pace with this whirlwind world we must adjust our parameters and see that our traditions continue to reflect a meaningful experience for all. Within this framework we must never revert or retreat from our stated goal – which is happy children all over the world!”
In closing Santa reiterated his views adding that he will simply leave the guilt trips up to the churches, television and government, three failing institutions that create fear within the population.
“These entities are performing quite crisply and do not need any help from our sector at this time,” he said. “Negative is contagious. Most people are guilty enough and afraid of a bundle of superficial bugaboos. Anyone laying guilt trips on my elves or reindeer will be cut off from the gifts parade, if you get my drift.”
– Tommy Middlefinger
Colombians Wake Up The Baby Jesus
(Jardin) While enthusiastically celebrating Christmas, my neighbors here have succeeded in waking the Baby Jesus from his slumber. The noise, somewhat deafening at times, began on the 24th and continued well into the night only to be continued early the next day.
“The only reason there was any peace on the morning of the birth was because most of the people were either in church or behind closed doors hiding from the local priest who counts heads in the pews,” said Pilar Chevere who takes to hiding in caves during the holiday season (aka “the most wonderful time of the year”).
In addition to the rumba, church bells chimed loudly; leading the town’s agnostics to blame the entire incident on the intrusive and poorly timed ecclesiastical ding-dongs.
The parents of the child, Joseph and Mary, allegedly from nearby Ciudad Bolivar, were not particularly happy about the turn of events but they said their son was muy tranquilo and that he was coaxed back to sleep with traditional carioles in both Hebrew and Spanish.
Three Wise Men, who arrived in town today, marveled at the attentiveness of such a small infant. They had missed the actual birth due to the fact that they were visiting several very profitable children’s prisons near the US-Mexican frontier. They had initially feared he might be incarcerated in one of them.
Gold, frankincense, myrrh and earplugs, given to the baby as baptismal gifts, caused quite a stir in this coffee town while farther north these commodities finished well on Wall Street sending the daily stocks index through the roof. Although some 20% of the children in the US do not get enough to eat the economy is booming.
The visibly worn out parents, exhausted after the long trip from Medellin, asked for quiet, hoping that things would settle down after the New Year.
-Dolores Alegria
Many plan to leave decorations up all year
(Manana) Many residents here say they will leave their Christmas lights up until next holiday season despite wavering public opinion and long-held traditions to the contrary.
“It’s just easier to leave everything where it is than monkey with lights, wreaths and even Christmas trees,” quipped one reveler whose yard features three Santa Clauses, eleven elves and eight tiny reindeer. “Back in the days of real trees this was an impossibility but thanks to chemical advances in the petroleum industry we now have fake trees that do just as well in the living room as in the closet.”
It was not known if these improvements would affect county tax appraisals and property values soon to be established in early 2020.
– Fred Zeppelin
A BEAT NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the castle
Not a digger was stirring
It was just too much hassle.
(Most of us had been down at Golden Gate Park diggin’ the music and were wasted.)
The stockings were flung on the floor and the chair
Grab me my pants, there’s a party up there.
(Despite chronic fatigue the cat upstairs was making some kind of racket but soon he’ll be cool since his woman gets off work by seven.)
The horn men were nestled with notes in their heads
While visions of reefer waltzed with second hand threads.
(The North Beach Good Will has just scored new duds, the kind afforded by clotheshorse jazz musicians who seem to be between gigs.)
And momma comes home to see all this crap
She settled his brains and I don’t hear a rap.
(As expected the lady upstairs arrived home at the usual time and found her man engaged in extra-curricular diversions with an assortment of new friends. A gunshot. Another.)
When out on the highway there arose Dharma batter
The straights cruised on by engulfed in their chatter.
(Why do you want to show up to work everyday when there are places in this very galaxy that you have never been?)
Away to the window I flew like jack flash
Pulled down the Venetians, securing my stash.
(I wanted to see if the cat upstairs was alive or dead but I thought I’d better hide my stash before the North Beach Gestapo started asking a lot of questions.)
The moon and the rest of the ash-ridden snow
Convinced me that midday was too late to go.
(This place is nowhere. With a little luck and the right boxcar I could be in Mexico City for the New Year.)
When what to my wandering mind should appear
But San Francisco’s finest from the front and the rear.
(Somebody in the building must have called up the heat when they heard the shots. They were everywhere, responding in their noted Zen vigor in this neighborhood infested with home sapiens of the discarded variety.)
At my door an old sergeant, with stick of the night
I can’t wait till morning…it’s exit…stage right!
(My duffel bag lay packed in the corner. Once on my back it was out the door leading me to more tolerant horizons.)
More rapid than accurate I headed uptown
Grabbed a bus for the freight yard and waited around.
(The midnight train ride down the coast to LA would be a cold one but I could sleep on the beach in Santa Monica in the morning.)
A weathered old brakeman called out in the rain
If you’ve got ample dollars you’ll be riding this train.
(The tired, old drunk wanted some bread for letting me ride the boxcar. I promised him some Mexican grass and offered him a hit off my Thunderbird and, cursing, he wandered off.)
As wilted, dry leaves before hurricanes fly
I am one with the boxcar, fused to the Pacific sky.
(Finally headed toward Southern California, I polished off the wine and fell asleep despite the chill and the cold metal floor.)
So up through the mountains steel coursers they flew
With a cargo of nothingness as their time clock punched two.
(We hit the Coastal Range in the middle of the night as the full moon made another cameo appearance.)
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The brakeman, another…resenting my spoof.
(The railroad cops didn’t appreciate my travel arrangements for the evening and when we stopped at Salinas they tossed my ass off the iron beast and into an unlikely Christmas Eve.)
As I brushed my self off and was turning around
Down the tracks dragged a hobo not making a sound.
(I had just seen this bum down in the Tenderloin last week. He was snoring away in a skid row hotel lobby, too drunk to make it up the stairs to his two-dollar flop.)
He was dressed all in rags from his head to his foot
His clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
(A bad dream Kris Kringle in the freight yard of America’s last brush with culture?)
His meager belongings he’d thrown in a sack
He smelled like a junkie and let out a hack.
(His personal hygiene didn’t improve with closer proximity.)
His face was one wrinkle, all haggard and hairy
He clung to Wild Roses and a jug of sweet sherry.
His droll, little mouth was drawn up like a bow
The fuzz on his chin gray as winter’s So-Ho.
He rolled up two smokes, “To you I bequeath”
The smoke pouring out from his cave on no teeth.
(The cat had played out his future in baggy pants and shoes force-marched through an alcoholic haze.)
His poker face deluded, bad loser still game
He choked when he spoke but he spoke just the same.
Uncapping his prize he delivered a belt
And I grabbed for the bottle, in spite of myself.
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Out there in hell’s freight yard the hobo dropped dead.
(Time had run out for this earth-bound angel who had never spent Saturday mornings mowing his lawn in the suburbs or driving kids around in a new Ford Station wagon.)
I picked up his dreams, locked tight with no key
Next stop: Potter’s Field for this snarled refugee.
(A watchman helped me cover him and called the cops. There would be no heartbroken relative to identify him, no one to cry at his grave.)
Then catching the time, I watched for a freight
Skillfully boarding, make LA by eight
Back on a boxcar, I slept on my duffel
Agonized at the thought of that wino’s last shuffle.
But desolation’s despots on angles take toll
One long ago Christmas deep deep in my soul.
– Paradise Stolen, 1959
