All Entries Tagged With: "Western"
September in the San Juans
Photo by Delinda Austin
Rockies’ scouts in Gaza in search of relief pitching
(West Bank) Sticks and Stoned September , 2016)
The Colorado Rockies front office has sent a company of scouts to the often-embattled Gaza Strip this week in hopes of signing a few short relief pitchers. The preponderance of strong young arms in the region coupled with a chronic lack of opportunity has created a buyer’s market there.
“Many of these potential hurlers stare down tanks and assault weaponry armed only with rocks,” said Emile Turlo, a former coach for the Asheville Tourists who now makes a living developing new talent. “Constant violence and desperate economic conditions here have created a glut of raw players far more comfortable with the a soccer ball than a baseball.”
Turlo confirmed reports that his team would not be looking at Israelis to fill the void on its pitching staff.
“They are too busy building new settlements on Palestinian land to play at sandlot assimilations,” said Turlo. “It’s pretty tough establishing a curve ball with a rock, especially when one is lugging around an AK-47.”
– Kashmir Horseshoe
DuPont Circle color
Georgian edifices near DuPont Circle in Washington DC on a hot, sunny afternoon.
BORED OUT OF MIND
by Jonathan Lowe
“Insecurity,” repeats Bernard Grossman unequivocally, “is what makes the world go round.” (Love, of course, has shriveled completely out of contention). It is insecurity, says Grossman, while on a lecture tour at $6000 per hour, which has been inculcated into the American psyche to the exclusion of everything-objectivity, perception, all the major emotions, sanity, and even so called common sense. I caught Grossman’s lecture at Purgatory Junior College high in the Rockies after having read a circular which was stuck in my windshield wiper at the Perimeter Mall (where I’d been to see “The Fly” at one of those theater multiplexes which play second-run specials—a ticket and popcorn for a buck fifty).
I figured I needed a highbrow change of pace since my brain had appeared (to me at least) somewhat flabby on my most recent CAT scan. The $14 fee and the hard seat notwithstanding, I was determined to enjoy the evening, and before introductions were even completed I’d already forgotten that “Robot Monster” was playing across town for aback—which included the privilege of choosing sides in the bloody Cola wars of the Nineties.
Thanks to Grossman’s reacting to his own introduction with applause (not to mention his exaggerated facial tics and the ability to make clearing his throat sound curiously like the swirl of water in a toilet bowl), I soon no longer regretted the fact that my wiper blade had failed to dislodge the advertisement in question, even after twenty consecutive sweeps. And so, with a growing sense of anticipation, I awaited the opportunity to exercise my long dormant brain with the help of a man who had earned honorary degrees in physics and parapsychology from Upper Volta University and had gained a GED from Mickey Rooney Institute of Burbank.
What follows is a brief summation of what Grossman sees through his red, road map eyes as he stares out across the experience of eighteen months since the publication of “Grossman’s Guide to the Galaxy” (a book that not only rocked the scientific community because it described the Andromedian Galaxy, but which enabled Grossman to -achieve his more practical dream of being interviewed by Robin Leach on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”.)
Grossman On Astral Projection “Looking down on your body is very difficult to achieve, as you may have suspected. While many people hate their bodies, they have yet to master this skill. Simply loathing what you look like will not work in most instances. You have to be able to do it with your eyes closed. Once you learn to do this, however, all that remains is really despising “where you are”.”
Grossman On Aliens “There is an Intelligence at work in the Universe and it’s damn well not us. Of all the planets my consciousness has visited I have yet to witness a similar form of life. Is this an accident I ask, or rather by design? And what will happen when this Intelligence decides which Designer Aliens are “in” style and which “out”. Will we bipeds really become the rage in space? Of course if all of this IS by chance, then I suspect that the galaxies are merely cells in the body of this other Intelligence. In which case Black Holes can be thought of as cancer cells associated with not getting enough fiber in the diet. My attempts at mental projection in order to communicate with this Being (if it exists) have been blocked by what may be its blood/brain barrier. Optically, of course the telescope on Mount Palomar can only see as far as the walls of its intestines. Viewing is difficult due to the presence of gas.”
Grossman On Entertainment “Humans are unique, and particularly in that they alone have developed extremely short attention spans. (Only a hummingbird’s is shorter). This is the direct result of the advent of the 30 second TV commercial. Searching the fossil records, we discover that prehistoric man may have taken as long as three months on a single cave drawifig. Today we pride ourselves on how many subway cars we can vandalize in three minutes. And even best sellers these days have titles such as “The One Minute Lover”. In fact without music videos and special effects we become bored after exactly 84 seconds. Last year it was 92 seconds. When the countdown reaches zero, someone will push the BUTTON as soon as the batteries in their Sonny Watchman die.
Question: If an ancient race with solutions to all of our problems arrives on earth, will we have the patience to listen-or will we put them on TV and judge them by the Neilsen ratings?
Grossman On Love “The major problem with love is that because of high divorce rates of recent decades, homo sapiens have come to realize that they can probably fall in-love with just about anything and anybody. So now it has become harder to fall in love, even over a candlelight dinner. Unless, of course, it is too dark to see what is going on? (Finally) Grossman On Insecurity “The reason insecurity is so important during our present state of evolution is because we’ve finally realized that we’re not so big after all. It all started about the time Galileo took out a comprehensive insurance policy on his new telescope. It will end on the day when we suddenly wake up to the realization that there are more lawyers on the planet than non-lawyers.
Epilogue
At home, later the same evening I practiced flexing my new mental muscles, an with incredible strain eventually managed to float my consciousness out the window and high over my house. But after a minute and a half of this I became inexplicably bored, which I suspect was not only because it was too dark to see what was going on in any neighbor’s fenced-in pool. Was this really the final frontier? I asked myself bleakly.
Quickly dodging several quite common birds, I returned to my body, changed clothes, a cruised over to see “The Rocky Horror Picture Shove for the 37th time, making a mental note to sue Grossman for at least a refund. But when I came out of the movie there was a second leaflet stuck in my wiper blade. Grossman, it said, was moving to the Wimpton Com-munity Garden Club & Civic Center for a limited engagement. (Obviously, though, he knew from where the bulk of his audiences would continue to come.). I decided to drop the idea of a lawsuit and buy another ticket when I saw the subject: “Intermediate Projection-Getting Higher Than A Kite”. There was also an order form attached for Grossman’s second offering “The Missing Link”. The blurb went, Tor an examination of cave art, travel back in time with the professor 2 hill-lion or 20 million years back. Apparently like the multitude interviewed by Robin Leach, Grossman wasn’t too sure about the decimal point
CREATION OF THE IRISH MADE EASY
“Small chins and all!”
Despite desperate genetic reshuffling and stodgy literary denial, it remains clear to the cultured that the Hibernians (Irish) have inordinately small chins. The Italians have big mustaches, the Africans have curly hair, the Incas have enlarged lungs and the Russians have large foreheads. Everybody looks in the mirror. Everyone goes on. This little story offers the real truth of the matter but does not attempt to tie small chins to large thirst.
The day that the Creator made the Irish was drizzling and a bit chilly. He had made the Italians and the Chinese the day before without incident, and sent them on their way. He had made the Brazilians and the Egyptians Tuesday while completing the Indians, the French and the Nigerians on Wednesday, or was it the other way around?
Sitting down at his favorite bench in his favorite chair, he closed the shop door so as not to be interrupted. This creation business was not to be taken lightly, even by the Creator himself.
After laying out the parts of the first Irishman on a clean piece of parchment paper he began. He took the torso and the legs and glued them together. Then he added the arms and the head. This was the easy part. The interior work would be more difficult since he had not paid attention during high school biology, preferring to meditate on the mysteries of the Universe and the curious fate of this obstacle of rock that he called Earth.
He carefully placed the kidneys and the liver, then oiled the knee and elbow joints and added hair in the appropriate spots. After several hours, the Irishman was coming together. His head was secure but he had yet to create a suitable face.
“I know I have plenty of blue eyes lying around,” he thought, and maybe a little more red in the hair, then some well-placed freckles. Yes! Freckles!
The Creator went to work without delay. Seven days was not a long time to create an entire world, especially when one was yet to have a work force to perform the heavy work. He placed the eyes and the forehead, the ears and the nose, the eyebrows and the cheekbones. Then he came to the lower part of the face—the jaw, the mouth and the chin.
Molding the jaw the Creator sat back and admired his art. This one was coming together quite nicely. In a matter of minutes, he would move on to the Spanish and the Polynesians. The he added the Irishman’s mouth with immediate repercussions.
“A fine day to you Holy Father!” said a tiny voice from the bench. “And you’re doing such lovely work here. I just thought I’d take this moment to thank ye for all of the fine creating you’ve been doing. Why we’d be nowhere without…”
“What?” whispered the Creator. “Someone is talking and I have yet to add the voice boxes or tongues!”
“An Irishman doesn’t need all those accessories to carry on a conversation,” said the voice now clearly traced to the unfinished Irishman on the workbench. From the land of saints and scholars it is. We have the gift of blarney. After all, your lordship gave that to us. Just throw a little stardust and I’ll be on my way.”
“All right. That’s enough bejabbering. There’s a lot more to creation than simple stardust. Keep you face still so I can finish the chin. I cannot complete your chin with your lips a flapping. Keep quiet and I’ll be done with you and send you on your way like the others.”
“I like your style. You have a distinct talent for creating people but why did you leave so much water on the planet? With the population on the rise one day land will be at a premium and not all that salt water will be needed. Had ye thought that one out Holy Father? You with the long white beard and the piercing eyes. Had you thought about all that salt water…
“Stove it Irishman! I will not have any more of your babble fouling up my workday. Now shut up or I’ll sew that trap closed!”
“Now you wouldn’t do such a thing would ye? How about I bring some nice cabbages by in the morning. The price is god this time of the year. No? My uncle Paddy sells fine horses. We could go for a look if you like. They’re worth every penny he’d be asking. Maybe you’ll be needing a mount like St. Paul or Joan of Arc? Paddy’s name is O’Neill if that means a thing to you.”
The Creator grabs for a round of thread, grabbing the Irishman by the neck.
“Wait! Wait!” said the Irishman. “Not the needle and thread! No! I can behave!”
“Well see that you do. I cannot get the chin in place when your mouth is moving. I am not interested in cabbages or horses this morning. I only want to move on to the Spanish and the Polynesians…”
“Fine peoples all of them. Clean people!”…
“Can it,” said the Creator eyeballing the thread. Don’t move. I almost have the chin in place.”
“…and they are a lot better than those leprechauns and pucas that ye built. No criticism implied your lordship, but those fairies need a good talking to, arrogant bastards. Maybe you could…”
“That settles it. I will be sewing your lips shut! Then I’ll put you on an island in the North Atlantic Ocean where you can’t bother anyone!””
No, please I’ll be quiet. I’ll be a quiet as a little mouse sitting on your bench. As quiet as a shamrock. As quiet as the ould sod itself. Real quiet. Don’t you think my ears are a bit large for the rest of me?”
“No more talking until I am done or I will skip the damn chin and send you off like you are with a big mouth and only a tiny chin. You will go down through the ages without the final piece. You deserve to go chinless with such a mouth on you.”
“…and so what if we go without chins? We have mouths, good teeth blue eyes and big ears. We have the gift of words. You have made us that way. Why punish us now for what you have done? By the by, when do you expect to get started making Guinness?
“That does it. Get off my workbench. You are finished as you are! Go ye forth into the great abyss CHINLESS!
“One last thing, sir…before I go I’d be wanting to talk to you about changing the venue, you know, the location of the Emerald Isle.”
“What’s the matter with the present locale? It may not look like much now but after the Druids and the Celts show up it should be a roaring good time.”
“Oh no it looks lovely to be sure. It’s just the proximity to England. Surely, they will be trouble there. We would prefer somewhere warmer like Corsica or Sardinia. Go ahead…Skip the chin and deliver us to the Mediterranean!”
– Kevin Haley, September 2, 2016
Mural in Penasco, New Mexico
Mural depicting local cooperation on a sunny day in Northern New Mexico