All Entries Tagged With: "Silverton"
Alaska’s Renaissance Man
(Juneau, Alaska — 52 Poster Review — September 26, 2016)
Jeff Brown has been entertaining himself for decades. Fortunately he’s been entertaining the rest of us as well. But why does this seemingly normal, former Coast Guard sailor and Groucho Marx aficionado insist on hanging the hilarious posters of biting satire all along the Gastineau Channel?
No one, last of all Brown, can answer that question.
Maybe he’s a futuristic super hero or maybe he’s a lunatic but that’s no way to talk about a man that was recently recognized for lifetime achievements by the Alaskan Governor’s Awards for the Arts.
Maybe, as many fear, it is Brown’s attempt to take over the world.
“This guy has no boundaries,” said a former colleague at The Juneau What, a funny paper published here some year ago. “He redefines multi-media.”
Jeff is an accomplished musician, does public radio shows for children, creates crazy postcards, publishes Real Alaska Magazine and produces traveling magic shows. He also founded the Alaska Folk Fest and established a growing worldwide celebration of the wonderful world of balloon animals. (He is the standing balloonist laureate).
“Look! It’s him! The one in the invisible clown suit! Grab him! Catch him before he gets away!”
Impacted by such groups as Firesign Theater, Jeff sounds a lot like a guy that has just won a prestigious award. Whether he is in Juneau, Sitka or Ketchikan people know him as the man with the big imagination.
“What inspires a person to twist a balloon into a shape of a moose or take photos of someone vacuuming a glacier or run for mayor in a gorilla suit? asks writer Ed Schoenfeld in a recent piece on Brown.
You’d never hear it from Brown but let’s hear it from him anyway:
“I guess it all centers around making people happy. That’s kind of what I’ve given myself as “job in life”: to make people smile and to make their lives a little bit easier to live,” he said.
About the only thing Brown hasn’t done is sell hot dogs.
“Never sold hot dogs,” he said.
-Melvin Toole
IRS Takes Two Weeks Off
Ogden UT — Here Today Bulletin — September 25, 2106
In a drastic break with tradition the Internal Revenue Service and its Political Arm, The Department of the Treasury will take a two-week vacation starting in late May. Although the details of the adjournment were of corpse top secret, we have a few details to share with our readers.
The entire staff will fly to northern South Dakota where agents will be trained in the ancient art of turnip bleeding, using leeches and other parasites as allies in their hold work. Getting blood from the local turnips is considered a rite of passage within the taxing cult.
Last year gold agents discovered a stash of tax money buried out back that had been forgotten or discarded in 1994. Not knowing what to do, he and several of his accelerated counterparts set it afire. Due to the stank, clammy mold that had formed on the currency it took an estimated 3 weeks to smolder into molten ash.
Citizens who owe tax or citizens classified as fiscal/political prisoners should remain at home until the summation of this well-deserved furlough. Persons awaiting trial or sentencing are asked to pay up and avoid further inconvenience. The vacation, bankrolled by undocumented funds collected from the bowels of agency coffers, is the first of its type since 1935 when the entire Treasury Department visited Constitution Hall in Philadelphia on the way to apprehending Al Capone up in Chicago.
– Estelle Marmotbreath
“…when I reached Grafton Street, the pavements were like the top of an oven and I was glad for the high stool in the pub for the safety of the soles of my feet.”
– Brendan Behan, The Borstal Boy
Bad rosin bags blamed for losses
(Denver Rockies Sideline Report September 23, 2016))
Decomposed, often spoiled rosin bags handled by the Colorado Rockies’ relief staff are being blamed for a string of blown saves at Coors Field.
The bags, filled with powdered resin from pine trees, are designed to enhance a pitcher’s performance while on the mound. However, according to baseball experts “the employment of rancid or bad rosin can have adverse effects causing inconsistencies, lack of concentration and general wildness on the part of otherwise stable hurlers.”
The problem, says the front office “is particularly acute in the later innings when relief pitchers are most active especially when afternoon heat or evening shadows come into play.”
Officials within the Rockies’ organization have been searching for some explanation as to poor pitching performances of late which have all but taken the club out of contention before the All-Star Break. Plans to secure new rosin bags are in the works but with plummeting attendance figures and a demanding payroll it will be weeks before they can be secured. Selling advertising space on the bases and charging extra for mustard at the hot dog stand has been discouraged by the league and can’t relied upon to provide new revenues.
Asked why the presence of bad rosin bags has not resulted in a breakdown in opposing bullpens, a Rockies’ spokesman said he was looking into that.
“Maybe they bring their own,” he said, “or loading up the ball with chew or some other controlled substance when the umpire isn’t looking.”
“I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.” – Nancy Mitford
Wear loose clothing and carry water!
An important message from Jeff Brown, Real Alaska Magazine
Montrose Rancher Eats 99 Pancakes
(Montrose, CO — Pomona Peeper — September 21, 2016)
Spring Creek rancher Ed Hempleman will no doubt be skipping breakfast for a while, maybe forever. After consuming 99 pancakes, or flapjacks as he calls them, in just three hours, he has the right. The saga began at Red’s Gravy Heaven on North Townsend when Hempleman and a few buddies began bragging about their appetites.
“Once I ate a steer in one sitting,” said one liar. “Then I had desert!”
“One September I ate a field full of potatoes,” snapped another.
“That ain’t nuthin’ howled a third. “My daddy ate up all the rainbow in the river from Gunnison to Delta, then took mom out for sushi.”
Arrogance led to challenges and soon a pancake-eating contest was set for the next morning. (Pancakes being easier to count than steaks and trout.) The match drew 13 participants eyeballing the $500 prize put up by Aunt Jemima Orchards of California Mesa.
The rules were simple: Every contestant would eat in 15 pancake increments and would be given a five-minute break between plates. Whoever ate the most pancakes from 8 – 11 would be declared the winner. If the competition ends in a tie there will be no sudden death overtime.
We pick up the play-by-play live from Red’s: lined up in a trance behind their designated stacks, they looked like plumped birds on a wire, dangling from plate to plate until just Hemp leman and 77-year-old Harvey Birdseed of Pea Green were the last pan-cakers standing. Then, like the egg scene from Cool Hand Luke, Hempleman began stuffing pancake after pancake into his gobbler, leaving Birdseed in his battered wake…
Already jerky eating, potato eating and pie eating contests are slated for the county fair. Proceeds from the event were not announced. Organizers say that the leftover 1000 pancakes would be donated to fill all of the chuckholes between Cahone to Gypsym.
“These people are gifted athletes,” cried one microphone man. “The public just doesn’t know.”
– Small Mouth Bess
“Never trust a man who agrees with you. He’s probably wrong.” – traditional cowboy saying