All Entries Tagged With: "Western"

Hiking Trails Widened For Growing Population

Melvin “Two Horse” Toole tries out some of the wider hiking trails set to open this spring

(Denver) The U.S. Department of Posterior has announced plans to widen existing hiking trails by next summer. The move is in compliance with current statistics as to alarming obesity in this country.

With over 40% of the population classified as obese and another 30% deemed overweight, the forest service says it is only responding to the needs of the majority. The agency has decided that if fat people want to hike they should be given the opportunity.

Common sense might indicate that if people took a weekly hike they might loose weight.

“We are not about to be bogged down by logic,” said a USFS official. “We don’t need people getting stuck on narrow trails or destroying the natural landscape. Wider trails don’t hurt the thinner mountaineer.”

The trails will be expanded to about the size of a sport utility vehicle and groomed so as to play down vertical relief.

“We realize that some of our constituents are larger than your average SUV but we can’t tear up the entire forest,” said one source who requested anonymity. One problem is that federal agencies are uncomfortable using the F word, preferring to describe this portly clientele as corpulent, beefy or well-upholstered.”

Fortunately, according to local sources people who live in the Rockies are in better physical shape than their fellow citizens in, say, the Midwest where the potbelly rules.

“It’s a lot like the millions of unused handicapped spaces and the federally imposed alcohol levels for motorists,” said the source. “The feds respond to whatever special interest screams the loudest.”

In developing countries, where people spend their days trying to get enough to eat, hiking trails are ample at present. Nutritionists, however, fear a drastic change in that status as fast food concerns begin popping up in African and Latin American capitals. Trails in many of these locales are often groomed and maintained by government military vehicles chasing guerrillas through the jungle. In other nations, where fat is a virtue, the wealthy wander well manicured gardens or spacious avenues, insulated from the peasantry.

Many of these pleasant redoubts were constructed with foreign aid funds earmarked for the great unwashed.

“The first order of business is to study general usage of the trails by the group in question then start removing snow,” said the USFS spokesman, “but right now it’s time for lunch.”    – Suzie Compost

SNOWBOARDERS MUST WEAR HAIR NETS

(Crested Butte) Snowboarders on the slopes here will be instructed to wear hair nets while snowboarding as of February 20. The action comes on the heels of numerous complaints as to the behavior and activities engaged in by this developing minority group.

“It has nothing to do with personal hygiene or long hair,” said a spokesman for Crested Butte Mountain Resort. “It’s…it’s a health department code thing, or something. We couldn’t ignore all the complaints. We almost lost a pizza and coke group from Moline this morning,” he gasped. “Hey, running a major ski area ain’t no stroll in the park.”

Critics of the new regulation say that the kids are all right.

“The snowboarders could be out robbing convenience stores or stealing cars,” said Moms Maplethorpe, 97, the oldest semi-living telemark ski instructor. “These are nice kids out to have a good time. If they threaten the flatlanders by their lifestyles, that’s just tough guano, baby.”

As of yesterday a lengthy compromise has been proposed which calls for separate but equal slopes for both the snowboarders and the skiers at peak times such as Christmas and Spring Break. Contact at Paradise Warming House would be limited and potential lift partners would be thoroughly screened by the lift-operators upon boarding lifts.

“Something has to be done before the situation deteriorates even further,” said the spokesman. “Our status in the real estate world is in jeopardy.”

Other ski areas have undressed the problem simply by building bigger and better lifts, as in the case of Vail and Aspen, which have built support facilities such as Beavercreek and Buttermilk to handle the overflow caused by the separation of the two opposing concerns.

According to lawyers for the snowboarders, who refuse to take the matter lying down, this is a clear case of harassment. A class action suit is pending, dude.                                                               -Uncle Pahgre

Bathrobe Day at Monarch Slated for February

(Garfield) The fifth annual bathrobe ski races and snowshoe rally will be held at Monarch Ski Area February 2 – 5 according to unreliable sources here. Any skier arriving in a bathrobe can compete for prizes with the top ten qualifying for the grand prize of a night — a $400 bar tab in Salida.

Interested participants should report to the bunny hill no later than 8 am on the designated ski days. Skiers should bring all necessary athletic gear, including eye protection and sun screen. Approved accessories including gloves, face masks and hats will be provided.

Otherwise it’s just bathrobes!

All entries will be reviewed at race time by judges encased in wool, goose down and Goretex. Herbal stimulants, open containers, dogs, body paint, suggestive tattoos, and leg coverings are prohibited as are knee pads, lip balm, tarnished political slogans and New Age underwear.

Monarch shocked the ski industry in 2009 with the introduction of bathrobe skiing in Colorado. Although popular at first, people quickly lost interest in light of nude skiing and other questionable diversions common to the winter sun. The actual sport, which requires both taste and dexterity, has been saddled on the back burner since the Winter Olympic Committee banned the event in 2010.

“It just proves that skiing is part athletics and part fashion show,” said an organizer of bathrobe skiing here. “Was the Olympic Committee afraid of its image or just a little skin? Maybe both.”

For more information contact any member of the pajama patrol.

– Marlena Diaspora

JUST A LITTLE OFF THE TOP AND WATCH THE EARS

by Uncle Pahgre

“Omnibus notum tonsoribus.”

(Every barber knows that) – Horace

“This is a man’s world.”  – James Brown

      Did you ever wonder where the late James Brown got his hair cut? Was it in some fastidious beauty salon in Atlanta or New York, or some dusty, corner barber shop along the roaring Salkehatchie in his home state of South Carolina?

We presume he went to the barber shop — a place where those of his gender can let relax and converse in one of the few male havens not under siege by the righteous forces of political correctness.

Most of the people who pay attention to the comings and goings in this country have expressed concern over the direction it is headed. They have used terms like breakdown of traditions, social decay, moral collapse and detachment in a futile attempt to categorize just why we can’t all get along. History tells us that the ancients had similar concerns. One of the first references to barbers (barbe translates as beard in Latin) was in Rome, where barber shop was hallowed as a place of gossip and discussion.

The surviving social icons become even more important when we consider the homogenization of life and they mass-hype that is becoming inherent to our culture. We need something to hold onto. We need something constant, something real and consistent, like the corner barber shop.

Hey, we know there are plenty of these hideouts left all over the country but we also know that most of these redoubts are squarely in the path of progress. Someday all the scissors in the world will be wielded by some McDonaldlike hair cutting corporation in New York or Chicago. Straight razors will come with warnings and disclaimers. That barber that boys knew as a kid will be gone, his son selling paint at Wal-Mart. Stop.

Most males that have evolved past rudimentary stone age thinking are aware that this is not a man’s world. Why would men want it? James Brown is simply taking poetic license, isn’t he, or did he lose that too in another scrimmage with the cops?

Our only contention is that barber shops are healthy, nostalgic escapes for males. Since men make up roughly 47% of the current population, it stands to reason that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Most men would rather get a good follicle chop at the hands of a tobacco chewing ex-Marine than go under the scissors of some bimbo who doesn’t even know the Dodgers left Brooklyn. Sorry, but sometimes the truth takes no prisoners.

I remember the first time my father brought me to the barber shop on a Saturday morning and I was accepted into the inner sanctum. It was my bristly coming out party, a babe in the barber chair, my one-and-only whiskered debutante ball. No women were allowed, not even a nurse who might bandage up a sliced ear or heaven help us, an botched Adam’s Apple.

Speaking of nurses, did you know that the barber pole represents the bandages wrapped around a barber chaired patient prior to bloodletting? Barbers were surgeons before King Henry IIIV prohibited such procedures. He also forbade surgeons from barbering. For centuries barbers had to make ends meet by cutting hair and pulling teeth. Finally the law was rescinded during the reign of George II. 17th century barber, Jacques Jasmine, supplemented his income by singing to patrons. A Provencal poet, he is known as the last of the Troubadours. He is also known as the Father of Barber Shop Quartets, or at least we think so.

Saturday morning was never like this. Imagine a little kid, primed for a buzz cut, swimming in that giant revolving chair. The barber wraps tissue paper (also known as barber paper) around his neck, followed by a draping in a semi-immaculate, often pin-striped sheet. Then he looked at the dad for instructions anxiously waiting for the word buzz.  Then the scissors flew. (Editor’s note: If the child in question had the devastating fortune of going to the barber shop with his mother this subtle exchange never happened and the language was sterile. The unfortunate experience was known to have led to serious psychological problems down the road.)

But in this man’s world, customers spoke freely, spit tobacco and passed wind, making no attempt to edit their colorful language. I’m sure 90% of the boys who grew up in the Fifties learned to curse in barber shops. A clandestine pile of dirty books was stored under the Popular Mechanics and the Sports Illustrated, the latter still years away from its heralded swim suit issue. Etiquette, if you weren’t shaving age, was to keep your trap shut unless someone asked you something.

Witch Hazel was in the air. Personalized shaving mugs hung from above the mirror. We even had an altruistic trimmer who would make lots of scissor noise above the heads of bald customers, whack the curly locks off wailing babies and marvel at the manly sideburns thriving in the pre-pubescent peanut gallery.

The Cincinnati Reds were on the radio and everyone smoked at least three cigars at the same time. Sure, some of the ball games were on TV but barbers hated TV since they couldn’t watch a double play unfold and administer a symmetrical flat-top at the same time without a one act taking the backseat.

The conversation between barber and customer was sacred, like the lawyer-client or priest-confessor privilege. It ran from politics to romance to cars to sports. One always knew he had made conversational strides when the barber kept talking, after the sheet was removed and the Brylcream applied.

One sullen barber, who has probably been six feet under for some time, was famous as a roustabout. He had been carrying on a romance with the bottle since his twenties. The inside joke in our barber shop was to yield to a newcomer when that barber’s chair opened up, especially if he needed a shave. Soon that straight razor looked like a  wobbly guillotine, the prestigious and effective hair loss apparatus employed during the  later stages of the French Revolution. Lord only help the customer who wanted his nose and ear hairs trimmed too.

In the Italian barber shops young barbers were instructed to shave everyone around the ears and neck. It was believed that this service insured the growth or healthy hair there and invited repeat business when the customer got older. That, according to our reliable source, is why so many older Italian men have tufts of hair on their necks. Ask the shoe shine boy.

From ducktails to dreadlocks barber shops have been a part of our culture since the Sumerians first invented scissors. Remember Figaro, the Barber of Seville. What about Floyd Larson, Mayberry’s main male gossip? These guys knew how to celebrate life’s small treasures. The King of Kansas City knew all about it too when he sang: …I got credit down at the grocery store and my barber tells me jokes. Try that tune the next time you check out at City Market or visit the hairstylist, the only rooster in the hen house.

– Kashmir Horseshoe  

Congress Freezes US Assets

(Washington) In an eleventh hour decision of major proportions for our stumblebum economy, the United States Congress today passed legislation that effectively freezes the assets of its own government. Passing swiftly through the GOP-controlled House, the bizarre bill landed in the Democrat-controlled Senate and, after an hour of heated discussion was approved by an undisclosed margin.

President Obama, who has surpassed his quota of vetoes for the month, is expected to sign the bill into law from the Democrat-controlled Oval Office this morning.

The Republicans, firmly against the bill in the beginning (since it was first sponsored by a Democrat) backed off after it became clear that the private sector would assume a larger roll and in no way be directly effected by the freeze. Democrats assured themselves that even though they would not raise taxes they would continue to mouth concern for the needy, throw money at issues and brace for blowback.

Both sides concluded that the action would save billions in gov’ment expenditures.

“If these brahmans really wanted to save money they would suspend their paychecks, their premium health insurance and their lifelong pensions,” said Rosey Rosebud, a representative from Harlem. “Most are by nature already beyond wealthy when they first run for office and get richer as Mandarin opportunities blossom in the golden years.”

Rosebud simply frowned when asked about the influence of lobbyists and the cancelation of social programs inherent to the these procedures.

Now the combined Congress must vote on an sticky amendment that would ban lobbyists from Washington altogether.

“It’s really a sham,” squawked one lobbyist, his oily pockets full of gifts for cooperative lawmakers. “Don’t these people understand that we run things around here? They can’t simply dismiss us. It’s un-American!”

A nearby senator commented on the uproar asserting that when the end is near drastic steps were often necessary.

“We can’t just go on printing money while the middle class gets squeezed,” he said. The rich are still rich. The poor are still poor. The middle class works two jobs to maintain. The people have unmasked their leaders to find no one leading.”

Although the gov’ment has frozen assets belonging to such distinct entities as Iran, Pete Rose and the Ku Klux Klan, it had never seized its own. The icy funds, initially generated by the IRS and National Park fees, will be stored below zero in an undisclosed location near Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado.

“Even if the assets are frozen they must be protected in the event of a nuclear strike,” said the senator, “far out of reach of the drunken sailor spending. If our government was forced to operate and execute like small business it would have been bankrupt in 1783, a year after it opened.”

Despite the icy solution some in the Congress plan to stay open until petty cash runs out. Most agree that a solution is not on the horizon and that freezing assets does little more than slow down the inevitable shift in policy making and expenditures.

“All of the filibusters and back slapping haven’t worked,” flinched the source. “We can’t wait for the American people to get off their asses and demand fiscal responsibility on the part of their elected officials. The government apple is rotten to the core.”

Democrats here expressed hope that the action would project the Republicans as the bad guys in the 2014 elections while Republicans were confident that the freeze would reflect poorly on the White House and the Democrats. – Kashmir Horseshoe

Anarchists Overrun Antarctica

(Montevideo UR) A contingent of loosely knit anarchists have landed on the beaches in Wilkins Sound in an apparent attempt to reclaim the island continent from the penguins who have called the place home since before recorded history.

According to spy networks the anarchists hope to set up a utopian society there.

Our besieged bureau in Puerto Montt, Chile reports that at least 15 separate groups of debunkers, each with their own craft and dogma, arrived on the icy beaches within moments of each other. None had even a semblance of a uniform or even the same flag. All stood around in the surf ignoring any military precision exhibited by the others. Then, like a flock of songbirds without orders they moved toward the known inland penguin stronghold at the foot of Mt. Siple.

“We have no intention of disrupting penguin life here,” said one unidentified anarchist. We just want to be left alone by the rest of the world. If we cannot flourish here we are indeed doomed.”

Many controlled, though heated, disagreements emerged as to the proper course of action.  Chronic direction as to the exact location of the stronghold further disrupted the forward motion of the invaders. This confusion was highlighted by a loud disturbance when three anarchists fell hundreds of feet into a crevice created by ice and winds of at least 150 miles per hour. At least three one-person search parties met the same fate before the afternoon drew to a close.

By nightfall the entire landing party was forced to huddle together amid dwarf Orwellian pines to keep from freezing since no one had organized a firewood unit and no blankets were included in the haphazard survival list that was never completed.

Tomorrow any survivors plan to take the day off and return to the task at hand later in the week.

– Zorro DesPlants