All Entries Tagged With: "Silverton"
Bering Straight Bridge Scrapped
(Basura de Blanco, AK — Murdoch’s Spill — May 2016)
One of the last legacies of former Governor Sarah Palin, for years relentlessly squashed by the Obama Administration, has mercifully been put to rest. The proposed toll bridge over the Bering Straight has been defunded.
The suspension structure was supposed to have connected the Chukchi Peninsula to the Seward Peninsula about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The cost was estimated to be over $140 million and the construction was to employ most of Palin’s extended dysfunctional redneck family.
Progress studies soon proved that the amount of travel between the two spots would never recover the investment “in a million years”, factoring in a possible spike in population, dire global warming and the discovery of gold in both of these locales,” said one Treasury official on the scene.
Palin was recently in the headlines after a dinner with Donald Trump and her hands-on familiarity with domestic violence. She did not return our phone calls Thursday.
“We’d be far better off building a bridge between New York and Moscow and putting the entire Palin clan in jail,” said the official.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
“When she said “I hate your hair, not referring to the color or the style or even the texture but to each individual follicle, I knew the gig was up.”
– Melvin O’Toole, lamenting on lost romance.
Smartest Sheep by State
1. Wyoming
2. Colorado
3. Utah
4. Montana
5. Nevada
6. New Mexico
7. Idaho
Source: Mutton on My Mind
By MacGregor the Bridge Builder,
Watergate Press, Santa Fe, NM.
TOOLE TURNS COUNTRY
by Princess Irm Peawit, Music Editor
(Nashville) A man who made millions penning revolutionary songs in the Sixties has turned his attention to the country and western scene. Melvin Toole, a former street musician and experimental percussion protege for such standouts as The Monkeys, Donnie Osmond, Tom Jones, Charley Pride and the late Lou Reed, has finally arrived.
Leaning heavily on heart-wrenching lyrics and repetitious, pounding twang, Toole has captured the hearts of country and western fans from Branson to Bemidji. His overnight success has startled the music world and left other, less responsive writers in the dust.
The diamond-studded cowpuncher, who will be appearing at Roscoe’s Gumbo Shack this weekend, is known for such classics as Okie from Muskogee, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Coal Miner’s Daughter and I Walk the Line. Intertwined with old favorites will be selections from his newest compact disk entitled Thank You Jesus For Driving Her Out of Town, which is now available on the Testosterone Brothers label.
Check out these lyrics from the title song: My honey done left and I can’t get it right, She once held the candle and now it’s a knife. I’m eating the day and drinking in the night, still casting away but I can’t get a bite.
Note the impeccable rhyme sequence in the second line. It reminds one of Toole’s earlier accomplishments in the classic Amazin’ Grace, which he wrote on the back of a discarded seed catalog he found in a dumpster in 1979:
Amazin Grace, how sweet though art, I’d have fought with Robert E. Lee. I once was lost but now I’m found. I was blind but now I see. Incredible! Toole blends the enlightened jolts from his own spiritual roller coaster with a fine appreciation for seizing psychotic parameter and his willingness to keep fighting the Civil War. Since creating the song Toole has pocketed millions awarded in law suits against mortuaries and private individuals for unapproved use of the piece at funerals, and in rare cases, at weddings and barmitzvahs.
Toole with his drummer, Tokyo Jose on the South Platte in 1990.
His pop, cash generating hit If You’re Really Leavin’ At Least Your Momma Won’t Be Hangin’ Around My Double Wide No Mo’ is a weak attempt at humor amidst the pain of separation from his accountant while out on the road.
In an early version of his top selling album Nashville Skyline Toole seduces his audience with lines like: Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed. Lay lady lay, stay while the blight is still ahead. His mind is dirty but his hands are clean and you’re the only thing he’s ever seen. Wow! Toole’s images grab epic helping of pathos and the constant frustrations of the jerkwater male in the 21st Century.
In addition to writing soul searching lines Toole has also managed to make his mark in literature turning prose into poetry and poetry into a quintessential tour de force unequaled by all others with the possible exception of Hank Williams and Johnny Paycheck. His recently completed play, called Hamlet is expected to be yet another box office smash. (It opens under the stars at Pea Green Constabulary in August).
Often beginning his concerts with the ever-popular Stand By Your Man, Toole usually picks a young woman from the audience to help him with the rendition. In fact, if Toole would simply have avoided young women from the start he might be able to pay his electric bill today. But what does it matter in retrospect?
Some surprises: If this press release is correct Toole will be unveiling a new songs such as: If the Lord Done Forgive You, I Guess It’s All Right By Me, Porcelain Wall Flower, Ruby, Ruby Ridge and I Really Want To Punch Out That Feller By the Jukebox.
Known for lengthy performances Toole’s most recent public appearance lasted over 24 hours which still breaks down to about five dollars per hour at the current ticket rate. In the event of a sellout Toole has promised, in the fine tradition of George Jones and Jerry Jeff Walker, not to show up at all. Enjoy the show.
We’ll leave you with yet another barrage of clever lyrics penned by a man who has seen the penthouse and the gutter often within a time span of minutes. It’s called I’m On the Choppin’ Block With You:
Your corrugated lips,
those over-rated hips,
Your face in the morning dew,
I should have seen you comin’,
Honey, I’m on the choppin block with you.
Those late nights at the slaughterhouse,
You think I had no clue,
Too bad you’re still in high school,
I’m on the choppin’ block with you.
Fallen angels through the smokescreen
Vegematic rendezvous
Your dog may have the mange
Of all the vegetables I chose you.
The day we met we parted
As you stirred your magic slew
Just stop what you got started
Before my toes turn blue.
Honey, I’m right here on the choppin’ block with you.
Just Ducky in Danang
Last call for Danang!
Vice Squad Strikes Gold, Parrot City in Flames
Special from The Gladstone Gladiator (May 1, 1884)
(Parrot City) The dark side of the mining boom came to light tonight as contingents of local deputies, backed by Pinkerton agents and remnants of the Colorado State militia staged a midnight raid on brothels and opium dens here.
Their expenses paid by railroad interests the small but hallowed army was silent moments before the strike. They are one as the new abolitionists joined by a young reporter from this paper, a foul-smelling circuit judge and an anxious undertaker from Silverton. They move on the sweaty gulch under the eye of a band of Utes peering from the painted ponies of their last hurrah.
Not since the Civil War have such perverse conditions existed unchecked by civilized men. Upon entering the muddy hollow that has come to be named Parrot City it becomes apparent that one must keep a firm hold on anything of value.
Swaying residents, drunk from rapid fire fermentation, stand in the doorways of makeshift tar shacks watching for the slightest weakness, a blink, on the part of the regiment. A nickel for a beer. Four cents for a life.
The first order of business is to close down and torch the ramshackle Mule Billiards which doubles as a house of ill repute. Since January this dump has hosted several murders in its debauched halls. Miners, heavy with gold dust and momentarily rich in ore from surrounding claims are systematically fleeced here and then thrown out to the rutted streets to survive the frigid night in their skivvies.
Run by Polly Singleton, The Mule will be the first to go. Hallelujah. Watch it go up in flames. Watch the rats scurry to retrieve their lives as the flames creep higher into the frosty spring night. The sun seems to have stayed up in the sky just a wee bit longer to catch the finale. Ashes to ashes. Purification. On to the next den…
That same night there was gunplay out at the Shamrock Mine, some fourteen miles from the main from Sullivan’s Ditch where my father was last seen packing ore onto his bare-boned burro before the descent to the flats and on to the assay office over at Lake City. Some people here say he never made it down the mountain, that a slide got him and washed away his treasure. Others say he was bushwhacked by bandits that roamed the ragged heights. I believe they did him in and took his precious cargo of life. I’m certain his murderers sleep in Parrot City tonight.
When we reach Shamrock a loud explosion distracts us from our holy mission. Light in the sky. Handguns blaze. We return the fire. We can’t tell who is who. Now they’re all cold on the ground. We lost one of the Pinkertons to foot blisters but otherwise reported no casualties. After a meal of army rations we head back to town to continue sterile purge of the infested gambling halls.
The Chattanooga Saloon. Roulette wheels and keno. The devil’s picture book. Whiskey, soaked chips, courtesan champagne, tiny rooms of sin sag the ceiling above. Stains of the boom. Costumes of deplorable mirth!
One staggering poker face draws on a Pinkerton gun slinger. Dead-eye shot! He drops to the hard wood floor never again to shuffle a deck. Another thinks about it, fingering his leather holster but decides to exit through the back alley into the night.
We disarm the lot and detain wicked in the parlor awaiting further instructions from Rev. Chivington, who should be arriving from Capital City this very night.
But wait…they’re hanging the inmates of the Parrot City calaboose! They’ve had no trial! Shouldn’t we wait further…”The boys are just having a little fun,” says a former Union sergeant. “Let them be. We’ll cut ’em down after we’d scared them a bit,” slurs the judge.
Then it was on to the hash parlor, the China Belle opium den where men fancy the foggy dreams of demons and narcotic fantasy, wasting away until the dehydrated dawn comes looking for another handout. Unfortunately there is no one there. They have been warned of our coming and we set the block of leaning shanties ablaze in their absence. It makes a dandy roast on a cold morning. They called the district Parrot City’s Rec Center. The damned at play in the alpine meadows of the Lord!
The Pinkerton bullies are getting itchy for a fight. We’ve met little resistance in our attempts to muck out this hole. Several of the men are headed back down Corduroy Street in search of holdouts. Someone has set fire to the Chattanooga. I wonder did our prisoners get out or face hell’s own fire right here on earth? No report at mid-morning. Witches burned at the stake? The tools of their misdeeds the kindling of vengeance.
Out in the street it is clear that the victims of the necktie party are still in flight, dangling from the noose. Unclaimed souls stranded in space, scarecrows of the swift sword. Fodder of decorum.
Suddenly there is gunfire coming from the upstairs of the Henson Hotel. Somebody’s got a rifle up there. Three of our men are down bleeding in the dirt street. Another is hit.
“Take cover,” screams the sergeant himself holding his belly. “He’s up there,” points one of the deputies, close to tears at the scene. “I can see the rifle!”
The firing subsides and we began the tedious chore of closing in on the balcony assassin. Creeping slowly on all fours I slide along the cupola and into an empty hotel room. The exchange of fire continues, while in its lapses I can almost hear my target breathing through the thin walls of the 19th Century. I hug the hallway wall making my way through barricades as the shooting subsides. I force the door my revolver hip high. There’s no one there.
Surveying the room one more time. Then I pull my handkerchief as a flag of truce and carefully approach the open window. A flurry of bullets greets me there.
Waking up heavily bandaged in a hospital cart I scribble my story while the ghost of John Brown speaks to the righteous of our next engagement. They’ve got excitement in their eyes. A pretty nurse tells me I will likely survive my wounds.
Three weeks later Parrot City is up and running again, a new cast of characters roaming its seedy streets, the mines giving birth to mounds of the evil ore.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
What is the missionary position on UFOs?
What if space travelers land on earth? Does this contrast with existing religious beliefs practiced since the Dark Ages? How will the good folk respond if long-held beliefs collide with stark reality that there may be other heavens and earth out there in the Universe.
Leading missionaries say it all comes out in the wash which sounds like creative culture, the pretense to start creating new ancient folk tales and rules for the kneel-bent tribe.
Proof of other living creatures wandering around, might put the final nail in the coffin of earth-centered religions or propagate new directions for the spiritually assimilated.
Beings from other balls of rock have either been watching us or not, and we don’t know for how long either. Would we have behaved as humans if we knew there were cameras in the cosmic parking garage or strung over the satellite rainbow curtains that grace my house.
The authorities suggest stocking up on food and water in case of a Hollywood-infused alien invasion. I just figure on staying around home hoping they don’t land in the pasture near my bunker. A lot of starmen in my yard is more than I need right now.
– Finn McCool
“The Americans saw the Vietnamese peasantry as potential victims of a global Communist ideology. These poor Vietnamese saw the Americans as creators of garbage and debris from which they could build houses.”
– Fire in the Lake by Francis Fitzgerald
