All Entries Tagged With: "Western"

HB 86 Angers Realtors

(Crested Butte) House Bill 86 which would prevent realtors from running pictures of themselves and/or their dogs in print advertising has created the expected ruckus within the ranks of the profession. Saying that the restrictions would place agents at a distinct disadvantage when attempting to reassure buyers several local realtors have already filed suit.

“We have to show a human face, even if its been lifted,” said one aging beauty here. “The potential buyer wants to believe that we are honest and trustworthy and that we’re not jacking up prices just to make a larger commission. The dog thing has been dynamite. It presents us as loving pet owners. Nobody can resist a Golden Retriever.”

In recent years realtors have taken to running pictures of dogs in their display ads in an attempt to create a positive perception of themselves as god-fearing, dog-loving, average Joes just out to make an honest living.

Muffy Hollandaise, a local realtor on Elk Avenue, said she does not expect the proposed ruling to affect her bottom or bottom line.

“If they won’t let us put our mugs in the ads we can simply run pictures of little kids or grandmothers. If they can the dogs we’ll just run cats instead. There are lots of cat lovers out there with a down payment. Maybe erotic shots would do the job. They seem to work for the fashion industry and successfully market beer to fourteen-year-olds.”

Primitives, who once roamed the earth without the concept of private ownership of land, still fear that a photo threatens the subject with the loss of his soul.

“Bucolic beliefs like these are ridiculous and have no bearing on realtors or our rights in a free market system,” said Hollandaise.

– Susie Compost

Congressional Recess Nets Cuts, Scrapes

(Warshington DC — Playground Press — March, 2017)

Noon’s Congressional recess resulted in several scraped knees, an assortment of banged up elbows and at least one bloody nose according to hall and playground monitors here.

Empty swing after Congressional recess gets ugly

The most serious incident involved a freshman Senator from Colorado who was hit in the head with a brick, allegedly tossed from a nearby housing project. Of added concern was the condition of a State Representative from New York who fell face-first off the monster slide and lost a front tooth.

In other minor action, 13 congressmen from several different states have complained of having their lunch money stolen since Spring Break while an unnamed Senator from Maryland was reportedly hit by a bouncing “spit ball” check while he stood in line at the water fountain.

Readers may recall last month’s blotter where two Capitol pages engaged in “a frivolous and ferocious fistfight” over the swings with both of them falling into the gravel and tearing their trousers.

As the final bell rang the situation remained hopeless for most incumbents who returned to their assigned seats to complete the afternoon’s lessons.

– Gabby Haze

The Ersatz Presidency

A One-Act Play

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming and detour from our usual exclusion of all things Trumpesque because of the overload of issues generated by his presence at the helm. Our policy has been no avoid giving the President attention just like one would do with a mad child.

Scene: The Tower of Babble in NYC

Richard Wagner’s “Dien its das Reich” is playing in the background.

Steve Bannon: No you don’t understand! The orange hair stays. It’s all part of the distraction. He needs to keep the hair. It is such a magnificent smoke screen and it keeps too much from going over his head. I demand he keep the hair!

Will Hurd (R-TX) “The wall is a 3rd century solution to a 21st Century problem”

Jeff Sessions: I tried to dye my hair orange to match the President’s mop but it came out a kind of fool’s gold color. Now will the rest of the Cabinet and House GOP follow suit?

Kellyanne Conway: The Democtars are listening to us on the microwave. The shipment of red ties arrives in the House tomorrow. Then we will see who is loyal and who is not by color of the noose around their necks.

John McCain: What about the Russian dressing? This is blue cheese.

Will Hurd (R-TX) “The wall is a third century solution to a 21st Century problem”

Ted Cruz: What’s that? I missed it. I was talking to God.

God: “Why do you act like this Ted?
Why do you tell the sheep that you talk to me.
We have never talked. You are a hateful fake

Donald “Don’t Call Me Don” Trump: We appear to have accidentally pulled federal funding from FOX NEWS. It’s fantastic!

Mike Pence: My heart is with the GOP. I await my ascendency. My eyes are on my bank account. My soul is in an Indianapolis dumpster.

Ivanka Trump: Buy my line at Wal-Mart

Steve Bannon: Can I borrow some shampoo? I left mine in the War Room. Why is do I look like a wino? Why is my hair always dirty?

All: Trumpty Dumpty Putin and Lie, grabbed the girls and made them cry.

THE END

Happy Bulgarian Saint Patrick’s Day in Vietnam

Our friend Anton discusses the beauty of green beer in front of his Shangrila Restaurant in An Bang Beach, Vietnam

Horseshoe Will Check Emotional Baggage

(Gunnison) In keeping with regulations set down by the Homeland Security Agency the San Juan Horseshoe will check the emotional baggage of all readers at the time of boarding. The procedure, much like that at the airport, is particularly interested in bombs but will also be looking for people smuggling cynicism into the paper as well.

Indications that potential readers harbor ill will toward security charades will be reported to the authorities immediately while any uncooperative attitude such as whispering, laughing at security personnel or negative body language will likewise be noted.

“We are particularly offended by persons rolling their eyes in response to questioning and chewing gum while in line,” said General Kashmir Horseshoe, publisher of the paper. “Last month we discovered Saddam Hussein’s mustache attempting to sneak onto page 4. As it turned out the thing was in search of political amnesty but the very thought of terrorist activity sent shivers down our spineless accounting department.”

Readers accustomed to easy access will be inconvenienced with the boarding times lengthened by only a few minutes. Persons who fight the system will be detained and very likely denied entry altogether.

“We don’t care if you have a ticket and have never committed a felony,” continued Horseshoe. “As far as we’re concerned you are all potential terrorists and have no rights. The very fact that you might be reading is an indication that you do not support the efforts of the Trump Administration and should be deported.”

The paper will reportedly hire some 10,000 security people to man various departments where subversive element may attempt to gain entry. Subscription and advertising costs are expected to skyrocket but as Horseshoe says, “Unlike the gov’ment we cannot operate within a deficit spending mode. The new expenses are bad enough but what’s worse is going through all those suitcases. Our people aren’t trained for that sort of thing.”

-Paula Parvenu

Banshee Baby-sitter

My father was never canonized, but he did function in the capacity of usher at church every Sunday. Despite the fact that he was never sainted, or knighted for that matter, it was common knowledge within the halls of our Irish Catholic household that he exhibited great patience.

That virtue has not always been associated with the Celts, however according to his siblings my father had been a peaceful, forgiving boy who extended the benefit of the doubt and looked at the brighter side of life.

He would need all of these attributes.

The oldest of seven kids during the Great Depression, he served in India during World War II and returned to a United States that had just defeated the bad guys and was primed for the spoils of victory.

Enter Mae Sullivan. Wait. First, enter my mother Veronica Catherine. You see, she married my father in 1946 and he married her back that very same year. As was often the custom of the time along with her dowry came her mother. That’s your cue, Mae.

She was only going to live with my parents until she got settled. After all, the culture shock of departing her native Brooklyn for the Ohio frontier (rampaging Indians and all) might have had adverse affects. It would be all right.

Mae Sullivan was one of those stocky, kind of pudgy Irish women. She stood about 5’2″, lost her husband (a New York cop) at an early age, and was no stranger to work. She had opinions on every subject whether she had bothered to collect any data on the issue or not. She loved to mow the lawn at high noon and get into other people’s business. I once remember getting up one morning to answer nature’s call only to return moments later to a bed already made up for the day. Thanks, grandma.

From the time we were infants my sister Maureen and my brother Brian realized there were other people in the house besides our parents. There was Mae and, if you possess any imagination at all, there were all kinds of other wee folks running around.

“You can’t see them, but they’re right here in the room,” she would whisper. “There’s the little people and the wizards too. They won’t hurt good little boys and girls, now will they?”

That kind of talk scared the hell out of all three of us and, if the truth be known still gives me a bit of a chill. Saints and poets be preserved! It’s probably a blessing that Mae was a teetotaler or we may never have survived childhood.

Despite the inconvenience and the conflicts (the Irish sometimes disagree and often raise their voices to make a point) there were some advantages to having Mae Sullivan on the roster. No, she couldn’t cook but she always filled the freezer with ice cream and other treats. No, she didn’t help with homework, her paltry eighth grade education was a source of frustration to a woman who was highly capable and quite bright, in a sort of dull sense of the word. No, she didn’t create anything close to tranquillity in the household in fact her classic Irish temper fanned the fires of normal tensions that surfaced.

Children learn that all adults are not really adults. They are just little kids in big people’s bodies. They cannot be taken at face value or blamed for failures of personality. Mae had grown up in a matriarchal family stuck in the 19th Century.
Now it was 1955 and my parents had traveled to Montreal for a little rest and recuperation, leaving Mae to care for the kids. She was thorough. She was capable. She was protective. She was one leaf short of a full shamrock, a couple of spuds shy of an Irish stew.

It was during these baby-sitting adventures that Mae Sullivan felt compelled to teach us about our Irish heritage. She did not let her limited knowledge of history get in the way either. She knew the Irish were the one true chosen people and that the British could be blamed for everything from the potato famine to a plugged up toilet. The stories originated from impulse dotted with mispronounced words and curious summations.

My brother and sister believed everything she told them, but they have always been a bit gullible. I listened closely intent on stopping her monologue to argue a point or confront an obvious embellishment. She never admitted to a thing and threatened to stop the story if I didn’t shut up. She never bulldozed our input with references to an early bedtime because she desperately needed an audience. She never suggested that dessert would not be on the menu for fear that she might not get any either. (You can’t eat chocolate cake in front of toddlers, even if one of them was a little cynic just out of diapers).

My father was marginally amused by Mae’s ranting. He told friends that, sadly, she had been dropped on her head as a child. Then he told them that she had been a victim of an alien visit. We thought that was pretty innovative talk for the mid-50s. Her inability to operate a car, although seemingly inconvenient, was seen by my dad as a gift from some miraculous donor.

“The woman has successfully manipulated life so as to travel from childhood to senility without ever having been an adult,” he would say. Despite her intrusive eccentricity and his guarded annoyance they actually liked each other. At least we think they did.

One night while my parents were still in Canada, Mae told us about the banshee, which scared us more than The Boogie Man, King Kong, Red China, Vincent Price, Sister Stella (our grade school principal) and Rod Serling all put together. She swore she’d seen the banshee hovering above her own mother’s death bed.

It was a good story, although she borrowed heavily from primitive Catholicism, equating the banshee to heavenly visitors of a virtuous state, you know, like Mary, Joan of Arc, Grace Kelly…That wasn’t enough. Saint Patrick was a rabid Dodger fan who loved chocolate eclairs, and the wee people, not a bunch of Jewish shepherds, were in attendance at the nativity scene.

My grandmother went on to inform us that the savior never even set foot in Israel but that he was born in County Cork and was hung by the British after the Easter Rebellion of 1916. The Sinn Fein were the good guys, kind of like Boy Scouts with rifles and grenades. The Pope should be tolerated, she mused, even though he wasn’t Irish.

The leprechauns were not to be taken lightly, and people who worked hard on earth would be taken care of in a heaven that served oyster stew, diet Coke, and corned beef and cabbage every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Probably the most frightening account came during that parental pilgrimage to the Great North. Having grabbed hold of our small fry attention span with tales of dragons, Viking raiders, Saint Brendan, the Galway Races and Brian Boru she held tight.

“And did you know about the witches that take possession of the souls of infants?” she poked. “Mothers must watch their young, especially in the early days of life. Sometimes children go on for years not knowing that their souls have been stolen from them. Then…one sad day the child grows up and is not himself!”

“Not himself?” asked my sister. “How can someone not be himself. Who is he then?”

“We don’t know, but he’s not himself,” answered Mae getting somewhat agitated with the cross examination.

“He can’t be not himself,” said my brother.

“He is not himself, damn it,” stressed my grandmother, her round face growing red.

“Maybe he’s the man in the moon,” I offered, “or Oliver Cromwell!”

“Now that’s a strong possibility,” recanted Mae. “That could well be.”
I think I was her favorite.

“Nobody can be somebody else or he’s not the same person he started with,” snipped my sister defiantly. “Where did you get such a story? How can you scare us like that, grandma? Why would you expect anyone to believe it?”

“Because I said so,” responded Mae proudly, “and I’m your grandmother.

When my parents arrived home late that same night they found all four of us sound asleep in Mae Sullivan’s bed.

“Isn’t that cute,” my mother whispered. “They love their grandmother.”

Love her or hate her…At least that tough old lady might have a better chance keeping the bad fairies at bay.

Mae’s parents had come from County Waterford, on a boat across the Atlantic, abandoning Ireland because they were hungry. They traveled below since they did not possess funds for a more pleasant passage, coming into this country at Ellis Island. As of this morning, none of their descendants has forgotten that.

– Kevin Haley