All Entries Tagged With: "Western"
MY WALL STORIES (continued)
I remember Los Ticos from years ago when I was visiting my Colorado friend, Rex Jones, in LaPalma, Costa Rica.
One resident in the small town had a tall skinny mustache reminiscent of the most hated man in the world. And of course the locals called him Hitler. The nervous, 90-pound, mustachioed stand-in was the local pharmacist and he sold cocaine to the few tourists that wandered into town. It quickly appeared to me that he may have had a thirsty nose too.
He scampered around the town from his Garcia Pharmacy to the local bar (called the Machete Club by some). One day he got careless or neglected to pay off the right people and was arrested for trafficking and an assortment of lesser crimes.
When the people told me about his demise they were neither happy or sad. It was in the stars.
Rex and I then headed back to his place because “We got it going on.” The rest of the day we spent chasing monkeys away from his banana crop. Later we visited a friend whose son had just returned from a year-long student exchange in Minnesota. We asked if it was cold for him up north. He smiled and said You betcha!
These days Costa Rica is overrun by American tourists and the people are probably less friendly due to the invasion. As always it’s a mixed bag with some natives benefitting from the growth and others not able to keep up with rising prices.
My Latino Wall Stories
I remember once when my daughter and I traveled to Mexico to visit some friends who had moved there from Colorado. As we passed the border we both let out an individual sigh of release then looked at each other laughing at the simultaneous relief. We were no longer in Babylon.
Sure Mexico was no paradise. One had to keep an eye out. There was chaos on the border but not inside the heads of the residents like in the other America. We drove to the Immigration Office to show our papers. The local kids were fascinated with my German Shepherd who had gleefully enjoyed the ride from the Rockies from her optional shelter in the back of my pickup.
The kids were afraid at first but then when she started licking them they squealed in joy. They were ecstatic at the presence of this fury visitor. I let them feed her and give her water. They were in heaven and so was she with all these little kids around. Sweet girl.
Meghan went in first and I stayed behind the watch things around the truck. It would make a few minutes to get her passport stamped. It was taking longer than it should and I shot a few glances at the tin office while I played with the kids.
“Come se llama? I said. Que bueno! Me gusta su nombre.”
When my daughter returned she was laughing and looking back at the office. She was obviously pleased but blushing ever-so-slightly. She greeted the kids.
One of he immigration men had told his compadres that she was his next wife. Thinking she was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed gringa and didn’t speak the language he had gone on and one to the delight of his friends. The she dropped the hammer.
“Tiene una casa, señor? Donde nos viviremos después? No necesito mucho pero yo quiero muchas ropas y un caro simpatico.” (Do you have a house? Where will we live? I don’t need much just a lot of clothes and a nice car)
It blew his shorts off. His friends were stunned and then exploded into laughter. Like all civil servants the world over they deal with boredom. They were well entertained.
When it came my turn to go to immigration I walked in and identified the prime suspect saying “Hijo!” and attempted to embrace my new son-in-law much to his dismay. It brought the place down. Meghan said she could hear the laughter from the parking lot. They got so carried away I had to twice remind them to stamp my passport.
Clown strike threatens very social fabric of the nation.
Although unreported in the mainstream media the bitter clown strike has reached another plateau at 2 months without laughter, a cheap bit, a slapstick fall, even a smile. Clowns all over the Western Hemisphere and in Grand Junction walked off their jobs back 61 days ago, seemingly unnoticed by of the woolgathering public.
The clowns have released a list of grievances against humanity all of them the condemning the anger and sadness permeating the globe. They are currently holding an abandoned warehouse complex in the bad part of town where a coquette government has been inhabited by strikers with giant feet, red noses and flowers that squirt water at people.
“This comes at a bad time for humor on the planet,” said a grease-faced youth named Zippy. “People don’t always need money, or cars or bombs or breakfast linen but they damn sure need clowns.”
The power void left by the baggy-panted comics ripples forced smiles at a time where we need loud laughter. Scabs are expected to be employed by early next week if the various parties do not come to some agreement. One major stumbling block appears to be the defunding of Jester State, the once prestigious college that has been training clowns since the Depression. The feds say the school is no longer accredited and has therefore forfeit its fiscal support.
The clowns say the school is valid if only for the affect on children and dreamers. They say the nation will suffer without them.
“Who will set laughter in motion? Who will take the funny fall from the tightrope into the net? Who will run from the rogue elephant? Who will smile at just the right time to let the kids in row one know everything is really all right?” asked one orange-haired bumbler.
Both sides expressed concern that nobody will be laughing up his sleeve if the conflict goes to the Supreme Quart. They agree that the damage has been done and that a whole lot of hugs will be needed to set things straight again.
– Betsy Guffaw
Renaissance Man in Dalat
Ahn Vo Trinh Bien, owner and chef at Artist Alley Restaurant in the Central Highland’s city of Dalat, Vietnam is a painter and musician of note, as well as a former teacher of literature. His gourmet alley eatery resembles Soupcon Bistro in Crested Butte. A little difficult to find the food is worth the search.
Ghost of Col. Sanders Haunts Chicken Plant
(Wimpton) He prowls the coops of the processing plant dressed in his white linen suit, a cadaverous, ghastly smile across his pasty face. His goatee is death-white too and almost starched, his glasses slip down his nose as he makes his nightly rounds.
He casts no shadow as he monitors the last hours of the feathered inhabitants.
Sightings have become almost commonplace here with reports of this Kentucky Colonel’s intrusions.
“We saw him one dawn after a night of plucking,” said Andrea Capone, who has worked at the processing plant since flunking out of Lee Harvey Oswald Middle School back in 1966. “He was real creepy and didn’t touch the ground. He just drifted through walls, clucking to himself.
Para-psychologists say the appearance of apparitions such as the Colonel are rare but do occur often in places linked to traumatic memories and unresolved guilt.
“We’ve had almost 300 reported sightings since summer,” said Dr. Wince Ardvarke, of Cal Amari College. “Certainly all of these witnesses can’t be crazy.”
Ardvarke, Professor of Macabre Economics at the well respected Pacific Coast institution gained fame after recording a posthumous conversation with the ghost of Jean Laffite on the River Road near New Orleans in 1980. He is author of the best selling novel Phantoms in the Pudding (Testosterone Brothers, Boston) in which he clearly states:
“Why are people so surprised at the presence of ghosts like these roaming around after dark. Do they think the afterlife is so glamorous? Imagine sitting around playing cards or dominoes with a bunch of pale riders all morning then shuffleboard with more spooks in the afternoon. Anyone would want to break free of this bond and do a little exploring.”
Ardvarke laughed when asked by one cynical reporter if ghosts were dangerous.
“No more dangerous than eating a diet of grease-fried chicken and instant mashed potatoes,” he said.
Local police have promised to increase patrols in the vicinity as well as around the nearby turkey processing plants buzzing with pre-holiday activity.
“Who knows,” cackled one officer, “we might even see Miles Standish or that Longfellow character out for a stroll looking for giblet gravy.”
– Gabby Haze
Hell Building Special Chamber for Racists
(Hades) The hammers and saws are singing amid the dirt, the rats and the deplorable heat down here. Crews start at dawn and work far into the night behind closed doors and sagging ceilings. In about three weeks, according to unreliable demons “new tortures will be the featured acts on Saturday Nights.”
For decades evil sources say they have been working on a new concept in the field of morality management. Although no one was talking for fear of retribution, we pieced together a framework of sorts that will greet racists as they enter the hellish gates for eternity. Readers are reminded that no remorse or justice is in play, only the rampant desire to make men miserable.
“We don’t care what kind of animals hess racists are on earth,” said one devil. “We just want to stick them with out pitchforks!”
The actual facility, stainless steel, with no windows or doors will see temperatures into the low 120s. Bad country music, FOX News, plates of Peruvian guano cookies and the smell of freshly cooked Kimchi will flow through the cramped and dangerous halls. Evangelical racists who have earned a lofty spot in the scheme of corporal punishment, will do the cooking and cleaning while torments and agony rage about them. Racists in denial will take out the trash, clean litter boxes, install drywall and wash windows forever.
– Alfalfa Romero
