 I know most of you come to read this blog to see what or whom I’ll lampoon today. Not today. I have a harangue.
Can someone please explain to me what the hell has happened to Oklahoma? I mean, I leave the state for just under 40 years, I come back and everything is a mess. The state can’t figure out how to pay its teachers a decent wage. I don’t care who you are, if teachers begin running out the door for a state that actually understands the importance of education what are you left with? A bunch of undereducated idiots whose only expertise is using their thumbs to type text messages faster than they can speak. Oh, and I suppose they’ll have to start stealing to get the devices to type those text messages on since they won’t be able to get a decent job because they couldn’t get a decent education. Oh sure, the state and even local economy is crying poor because the oil/gas sector is in another of its cyclical slumps. Nobody saw this coming? Seriously? Oil and gas has been very good to Oklahoma. There’s no doubt about that, but it doesn’t appear to be sustainable. Will it bounce back? I’m sure it will, probably stronger than ever, at least until the price falls off again because technology makes it easier than ever to create a glut of oil on the market. So then, the drilling companies, the oil companies, and all of the ancillary businesses that feed the industry start laying off workers. People who essentially become stranded here on the island. They have scarce money to spend and consequently don’t do much to drive up sales tax collections. So the city tends to ignore them. That’s truly the most surprising thing to me since returning to this area - the level of poverty that appears to be pervasive. I recently sat through a presentation by a church-based charity focused on food security that indicated that traffic through their doors has increased by nearly 50% in the past year alone. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I do recall thinking it was more than one-third of the city’s population. AND, that’s one of three such charities in this city alone. There is a teacher here in the local area who goes onto the internet seeking donors so she can purchase equipment to give her students a leg up technologically in one of the poorer schools in this city. That’s sad in a way. I applaud her initiative and effort. It’s also an indication of the haves and have nots in this city. So the superintendent of schools goes up in front of the press smiling and proudly showing off remodeling improvements to area schools…while his teachers are having to beg for cash for equipment? Oh, I know the remodeling of the principal’s offices in all of those schools probably comes out of different pool of money. Stupid me. I don’t care how clean and shiny the damned restrooms are…if the students don’t have the equipment with which to give them a leg up. You know, I read recently that the average Oklahoman reads at a 4th grade level. Does that bother anyone? And, the dumbasses in the state legislature can’t figure out how to retain teachers? It’s only going to get worse. And then, there’s the unbelievably unethical behavior that is pervasive throughout the state government. Take for instance (and I’ve mentioned this a lot in this blog) the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that accepts cash “donations” from the very people they’re supposed to be regulating. Apparently, it’s legal. Otherwise, that somewhat shady Oklahoma Attorney General would be launching some kind of investigation…maybe…course he has his own issues. I sure would like to know what that guy does with his so-called evidence fund to which he makes regular deposits from the Oklahoma Tobacco Trust. Nobody will talk about it. Ohhhh…and then there’s the morons in the State Legislature. Who in a frenzy of conservative moves set in place a ticking time bomb years ago that provided mandatory tax credits and exemptions and sundry cuts, bing, bang, boom. Her Royal Highness Mary of Fallin gleefully signed whatever the dummies in legislature sent her, probably with a pen dipped in the blood of the latest Democrat slayed for her personal amusement. NOW…it’s become a priority for those same morons to reverse those tax credits since they have a $1 billion hole in the state budget. Talk about shortsightedness at the cost of popularity. And, of course, reversing or killing any hope of a tax credit will discourage any other industries possibly interested in doing business in Oklahoma from coming here. But, you know what? Despite all the hoorah crap about priorities and getting things done, it won’t happen. The dumbasses have screwed off so much with fluff, pet legislation that 1,700 active bills from the last legislative session will have to be dealt with this session. Add that heaping pile of crap to the 1,725 bills that have been filed for this year’s session and you now have a total of more than 3,400 bills to get through. Think they can do it? Nope. Not before they begin their seven-month paid vacation. No way. The legislative leadership is broken…oh sure, they’re swell guys, but they won’t get it done. Oh, and the bills that became laws last year? Well, there was the law making it legal to possess and carry switchblade knives. Yeah, that was special. Maybe HRH is hoping we’ll all kill one another and not notice she and her gang of atavistic thugs are stealing the Kingdom’s treasury blind. This is insanity at a level I’ve personally never seen…anywhere. Even the days of Marion Berry as “Mayor for Life” in D.C. were more orderly than the cesspool of partisan politics we’re living under. Just sayin’. P.S., I'll try to be funny again tomorrow...I promise.  I’ve always kind of thought of Florida as being some place kind of special. I lived there, in Pensacola, for several years many, many years ago. People always referred to that coast of Florida that touches the Gulf of Mexico as the Redneck Riviera.
Over the years since, whenever I’ve visited Florida’s Gulf Coast, things haven’t changed much. You just have to be wary of the four H’s…and no, not the “positive youth development and mentoring organization” – 4-H. I was a member of that for more years than I can recall. My biggest takeaway was becoming a certified (not kidding here) 4-H meat judge. For years thereafter, I would walk into a supermarket and begin judging cuts of beef…too much marbling, not enough marbling, color is good, color is bad…I’m ruined for life. The woman who taught the course was with the OSU Extension Office in Cosmic City. She had it in for me. Course I wasn’t helping myself. I would panic whenever she called my name as we were doing the meat-flash slides where you had two seconds to identify a cut of beef projected on the wall. I don’t think I ever made it to a 4-H meat judging contest, I wasn’t fast enough on the meat identification portion. Still, she certified me…couldn’t fail something in 4-H, the extension officer would get a reputation as a failer. But, I digress… Nope, I’m talking about the Florida 4 H’s here, things to avoid while in the Sunshine State: 1) Hurricanes (generally, you have some warning and can get the hell out of the way unless of course you make your living as a TV weather guesser and want to do your weather report while holding onto a lamppost in 110 mph winds); 2) Humidity (almost impossible to avoid unless you choose to live your life indoors and only venture out at night, like a friggin’ vampire – which brings us to number 3); 3) Highway Serial Killers (this seems to be a very Florida sort of thing and makes hitchhiking in Florida impossible, not to mention lethal); and, 4) Hillbillies (they’re everywhere, you just don’t see them…inbred, old-school Floridians who switch from producing ‘shine to meth depending on their markets and the availability of anhydrous ammonia). Now, I suppose we can add yet another H to the Florida quadumvirate, which I suppose will turn it into a quintumvirate. The fifth H will be hawks, or more specifically, kestrels, which are technically falcons, but falcon doesn’t start with H and it’s my blog so if I say a kestrel is a hawk, then a kestrel is a hawk. Nuff said. For those of you who are ornithologically challenged, the kestrel is a small (about the size of a large robin – no jokes about this large Robin, if you please) bird of prey found in areas of Florida. There was an article on the Huffington Post web site about some idiot, we’ll call him Hapless Homeowner (ah ha, another H to add to a…ummm…sextumvirate – sounds dirty, huh). Hapless Homeowner finds what he thinks is a “tame” kestrel in his yard. He saw the bird sitting in his yard. It didn’t move when he approached it and picked it up to take inside his house. He told Animal League people that he thought the bird actually liked him because it was acting strangely calm. Okay, cue the sappy orchestral music, we have a ‘70’s wildlife film in the making here. Girl travels to Africa to live among a pride of lions and record their every bowel movement for 10 years of her life…only to be eaten by the pride and made a part of their bowel movement. See where this is heading? So Hapless Homeowner names his new pet, Homer (ugh, there’s the seventh H in our Florida septumvirate), and sets about making himself famous. He posts Homer’s pic on Facebook, which comes to the attention of the local animal rescue organization, which immediately informs Hapless Homeowner that it is illegal (not to mention really stupid) to keep a live kestrel as a pet. Hapless Homeowner agrees to hand the bird over to animal rescue people in exchange for them not ratting him out to local law enforcement. Bet he was trying to stay off the law’s radar…probably one of the aforementioned ‘shine/meth entrepreneurs (who’d been sampling a bit too much of his product). Guess he’d never heard Tony Montana’s motto, “Don’t get high on your own supply!” The animal rescue people show up at Hapless Homeowner’s home to collect the wild predatory bird of prey (stick with me here). Here comes Hapless (we’ll call him Hap from now on, we all seem to be on familiar terms by now) carrying the bird and bleeding profusely from the lower lip. In fact there’s a largish chunk of his lower lip that’s missing. It seems ol’ Hap saw the animal rescue people pull up to his hapless household and decided to give the bird of prey a goodbye kiss. Seriously. What a dumbass. Probably a good thing he didn’t try to turn a Florida gator into a pet (the amphibious reptile, not a college student – although that would fit if you were a Florida Highway Serial Killer). According to the animal rescue people, the bird probably flew into the side of Hap’s house and was stunned. That explains its calm mental state until dumbass tried to kiss it. Okay kids, pray tell, what have we learned today? 1) Never try to kiss a bird of prey or any other WILD animal goodbye. They’re very resentful when you kick them out the door. 2) Florida is a strange and savage place with more ‘shine/meth entrepreneurs per capita than anywhere in Oklahoma. 3) Next would have been octumvirate – I know you were wondering. 4) When dealing with wild animals that find their way into your hapless life, there’s a phrase in Latin that may help, “surculus rutrum clausa” which roughly translated is “shoot, shovel, shut-up”. 5) Stay the hell out of Florida!  Happy Thursday everyone! We’re on glide path for the weekend when I can work on all the other crap I’ve taken on, but don’t seem to have time for during the week. The only great thing about this weekend is that we’re looking at temps near 60 on Sunday. I smell a motorcycle trip! Who’s in? Oh, wait…forgot…I have play rehearsal on Sunday. Sigh.
I’ve been watching the Presidential election stuff on TV lately and keep asking myself the same burning question…who the hell would want the job? It sucks! Seriously…by the time you get to your last year in office, the media and the dumbasses in Congress have labeled you a lame duck. That starts everyone plotting ways to sabotage anything you hoped to get done in your last year that may qualify as a legacy. While President, you’re stuck on the White House grounds. You don’t dare take a step outside the fence without a phalanx of Secret Service around you, lest one of your deranged “fellow citizens” or a dumbass from Congress tries to do you harm. You’re under constant media scrutiny. They criticize everything you do, calling you an embarrassment to America. So who the hell wants the job? Even if ego doesn’t play a part and you’re genuinely interested in change, you’ll never get there. The morons in Congress will block or subvert everything you try to accomplish. Sure, you can try an end run and issue an executive order, which starts the pundits on TV declaring that you have violated the constitution. The whole things ends up in front of the Supreme Court, which will dink around with it until after you leave office. You get mashed up with someone as your Vice President that you wouldn’t have invited to pee on you if you were lying on the ground afire. Chances are, your VP is either a dumbass plucked from Congress, a war criminal, a criminal criminal, or someone no one ever heard of who has photos of the House Speaker in a very indecorous pose. You enter your job with dark hair, still looking relatively youthful and vibrant, but after the first four years of being awakened in the middle of the night because the Pudgemeister General in charge of North Korea took a crap at 4AM (“The President must know!”) you come out on the other end looking old and grumpy. Again, who the hell wants the job? So it is yesterday as I was watching the spectacle from Tulsa where The Trump dropped into the Sooner State for a quick campaign visit with The Darling of Wasilla (henceforth we’ll call her The DoW). Unless you’ve been doing long-haul trucking to the Pacific Northwest and back over the past several days and missed it. The DoW endorsed The Trump day before yesterday. That’s likely to be a big deal for him. Earlier in the week, her son, an Iraq vet, managed to get himself arrested in Wasilla on domestic violence and weapons charges in an incident involving a woman. As she's introducing The Trump to Tulsa, she makes comments about “the elephant in the room”…namely her son and his arrest for beating up a woman, and…get ready for it…somehow blames Obama for what her son did. Huh? Wow…you know years ago, in a speech I wrote for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I was able to tie calf roping to nuclear submarines. Seriously…at the time, I thought I was a genius…which I am, but I digress… I suppose in the big picture of things you can tie together/blame anyone, anywhere for whatever ails you. Her implication was that her son came back from war a different person and that Obama is to blame for returning veterans not getting proper treatment. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. Honestly, it kind of reminded me of that series of YouTube videos called “Thanks, Obama!” The latest one can be found here. If you’re at work, you may want to keep the sound way down. I’m not even sure I understand why The DoW) is on the stump for The Trump. Ah, wait…what do you bet he’s promised to make her Secretary of Defense!? It’s going to be a long year. I’d better stock up on the Jack Daniel’s.  I suppose most of us…certainly me in particular…dreamed large when fantasizing about how we would have spent that $1.5 billion lottery jackpot last week. Yep, I had it all planned out.
First thing, despite advice from so-called experts to take a six month cooling off period, I would have spent some of the cash. I would have bought the Sutter Ranch, just west of Fargo. What remains of the place is roughly 13,000 acres and has been up for sale since summer. The asking price is $19 million, but that’s nothing to a nouveau riche billionaire with more money than sense. I spent some time there as a kid, it’s beautiful land with a lot of water “features”…creeks, ponds, etc. There’s a lot of trees as I recall. Lots of wildlife…paradise really. Believe me when I tell you that the terrain in Oklahoma over an expanse of 13,000 acres can change dramatically. What would I have done with 13,000 acres? Good question. I would divide it into four parcels, I think. Open a largish nudist resort on one of the quarters with guest cabins, meals served at a lodge, swimming pools, movie stars, sun screen, ahhhhh... That would be fun, at least until the morons on North Lincoln Blvd. in OKC passed legislation making it a felony in Oklahoma to be naked outdoors (oh, it’s coming people). They’re such a bunch of buzzkills. Two of the quarters I think I would turn into a native grass preserve, maybe turn a few bison out on it. Give people some sense of what it was like to be here prior to the Land Runs. Course, I’d have to figure out how to keep the naturalists away from the naturists, but on 13,000 acres I can’t imagine it being that tough. The last quarter I think I would raise cattle and produce to feed the naked people at the nudist resort. You get hungry being naked outdoors. Even after buying the entire ranch, I’d still have enough to keep the place up and buy a helicopter to take me to the “office” every day from the Compound (it’s only five miles away). And, actually, the helo would have a very practical purpose because I could use it to find naked people who wind up lost and being chased by angry bison. I tell you…I’ve got to find some way to buy Sutter Ranch. If you have $19 million you would like to invest in my idea, let me know. Immediately following the mega jackpot drawing last week, the internet was abuzz about a woman (pictured above) in Tennessee, who set up a Go Fund Me account online, declared herself a big loser of the Powerball jackpot and was trying to get people to give her money to cover her losses. She actually said in her profile that she had spent all of her family’s money buying Powerball tickets because she just knew she was going to win. Mind you, she never said just how much she spent on lottery tickets, but you got the impression that she and her kids would starve now. When I initially saw a news story about this person, I thought, “Sheesh, what a loser. She spent all of her family’s money on Powerball tickets and is now crying poor because she didn’t win?” It occurred to me that if ever there was a person who deserved to wear a t-shirt that read, “The world owes me a living…” it was this woman. I carried on debates in my head about a generation of entitled dummies…blah, blah, blah. But then it occurred to me that there was an element of genius in what she was doing. Seriously. I mean, if she could get people to drop cash into her Go Fund Me account, good for her. Soon thereafter, I went back to minding my own damn business and wondering how many towels I would have to buy for my 3,000 acre nudist resort. But then, I saw an article on Huffington Post about that same woman. She had actually collected $800 in Go Fund Me donations. It turns out the whole thing was a joke…she declared it so. Go Fund Me then declared a foul and shut down her account and refunded the $800 to the donors. I keep thinking that maybe she’s on to something. Maybe Cosmic City should try to do the same thing since they’re in the hole on their current budget. It’s gotten so bad, the City Manager replaced the cashews and pistachios in the bowl in his office with stale, generic brand peanuts and only doles them out at one nut per visitor per visit. Things are tough all over, me thinks. So, if you’re up for adventure and have $19 million that you don’t know what to do with…give me a call. I’m good at helping people spend their money!  In a Universe that is ever changing, it’s always been good to know that there are a few constants. You know, those few things that you can always count on.
For me, one of those things has always been Waffle House restaurants. The first one I ever visited was the old Waffle House located – literally – under the Mississippi River Bridge in West Memphis, Arkansas. They’ve since moved that location further back, but I think it’s still only about a mile from the bridge in West Memphis. What I always liked about Waffle Houses is that no matter where in the U.S. you were, you could always count on things being just so. By that, I mean, consistent delicious coffee. A BOWL of grits made to perfection, not too thick, not too thin…just right! And, wherever you stumbled into a Waffle House, you could do it 24 hours a day! I love this country! In fact, as I write this, I realize that the only thing I don’t think I’ve had at Waffle House is a friggin’ waffle. That’s kind of odd, huh? Eh, I’m sure they were masterpieces too. You may have noticed that I’m using a lot of past tense words here. Sigh…I’m afraid Waffle House is on the slow slide to grits hell. I recently came across a couple of articles of weird occurrences in Waffle Houses across the country. But, before I delve into those messes, I will tell you that I found myself in Oklahoma City early yesterday morning. There’s a fairly new Waffle House on Meridian Ave there, so in the interest of investigative blogalism, I decided to take a seat inside and have some breakfast. Hey, I’m doing this for you, people! I can sum up my visit in three words – too much drama. So it appears that I arrived as the shifts were shifting. The guy behind the counter doing the cooking was actually one of the managers as it turned out. It seems the morning shift cook was late. There were a couple of waitresses finishing up their pre-shift breakfasts. The late night cook was at the counter next to me having his post-shift breakfast. In the middle of it all, I look out the window and see a guy in a bright white…I’m talking nuclear flash white here…Tommy Hilfiger coat getting out of a bright white Lexus and come strolling in. He’s the morning cook. They must pay real well at Waffle House. He’s complaining about how cold it is and that he needs something warm in his stomach before he can cook. A female manager is following him up and down behind the counter nipping at him for being late, saying things like, “You have a job…for now…do it,” and “You’re a grown ass man with a car and you can’t get to work on time?” Mr. Late to Work for the most part ignores her, getting himself a tall tumbler of orange juice and carefully hanging his Tommy Hilfiger coat. When she’s out of earshot, he starts mumbling to the other employees about her. I hurried through my breakfast and got out of there before someone started shooting. Well, I tried to hurry through my breakfast. Yeesh…hopefully the manager who was doing the cooking is extremely good at something else. Cooking ain’t it. The bacon was overdone and the grits…my goodness…the grits were just…awful. But, then I don’t know why I would expect anyone in Oklahoma (except me) to be able to cook a pot of perfect grits. As southern as we all like to claim to be (at times, when it suits us), there’s nary a grit eater among us. That was enough for me. I determined that Waffle Houses, one of those constants in MY Universe is rapidly devolving into a gritless franchise the likes of which only a Denny’s could exceed. It was then that I realized that the other stories I had heard about Waffle Houses must be true. Take for example, a story that comes to us from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (I’ll bet they know good grits), wherein a woman (pictured above in her mug shot) presumably dining at a Waffle House in Kennesaw, GA stripped naked and went on a rampage, punching one woman in the face and breaking her nose, and then heaving plates of food everywhere. Bet she stripped naked so as not to get any blood or egg yolks on her clothing…smart move. The real trouble began when the cops showed up and she began throwing plates at them. While trying to subdue her, she managed to scratch one of the cops’ face…uh oh. In the end, she was charged with aggravated battery and damage to a place of business, assault, obstruction, and OF COURSE public indecency. Well, I’m happy to say, that my visit to the Waffle House on Meridian didn’t involve any female nakedity though that would have more entertaining than listening to Mr. Late to Work muttering complaints as he slung overcooked, dried out grits into a bowl. The next incident, which occurred only days before the naked Waffle House romp above took place, involved the firing of two Waffle House employees who were apparently styling hair using kitchen equipment at a Waffle House in Arkansas. This one comes to us from the Huffington Post web site. Two customers, just minding their own business and trying to enjoy their Waffle House breakfasts (probably with really good grits), discovered hairs in their meal…ooooooooo bonus! They looked up to see one of the cooks dipping her hair into a water pot on the stove and then drying it with one of the towels they use behind the counter. One of the customers managed to get video of the incident and handed it over to a TV news department, which of course ran it. Waffle House corporate in Georgia, where the grits generally come with a slab of ham and redeye gravy, immediately fired the two employees involved and then dealt with an investigation by the local health department. Let’s see what we’ve learned today, shall we? 1. Waffle Houses are going to hell. 2. Nobody in Oklahoma (except me) can make a proper bowl of grits. 3. Meridian Ave in OKC is a freak parade until the sun comes up. 4. I’ve obviously done something wrong in life that I don’t wear Tommy Hilfiger jackets or drive a Lexus or work at a Waffle House.  Friends, welcome to the Thursday Dumbass Outlaws edition of Cosmic City Blog.
Let’s start this properly by cueing the Theme from Dragnet. What is it with people that they feel compelled to steal from others? Are things that bad? I mean we’re seeing a huge spike in crime in/around Cosmic City alone. It’s even worse elsewhere. Take, for example, Dumbass #1, in Philadelphia. We’ll call him Evil Snatcher (you’ll see why in a second), who is in a convenience store on S. Broad St in the heart of Philly, seemingly shopping. Evil Snatcher spots a Buddhist monk standing at a lottery machine with a wad of cash in his hand. Yes, I said Buddhist monk…orange robes and all…a Holy Man. Evil Snatcher walks up to our Naïve Holy Man and grabs the cash out of his hand ($350) and runs out the door. Naïve Holy Man to his credit got into a scuffle with Evil Snatcher in the parking lot, but was no match for the South Philly brute. I’m guessing Naïve Holy Man wasn’t a Shaolin monk otherwise Evil Snatcher may have found himself getting kung fu’d straight up the ass. Now, here’s the weird part of this story…as if a Buddhist monk buying lottery tickets in downtown Philadelphia isn’t weird enough. Haha…sound like the start of a bad bar joke, huh? “Soooo…this Buddhist monk in south Philly goes into a convenience store to buy lottery tickets…” Apparently, someone in the store got a description of the car (very nice Mustang GT) and the car’s LICENSE PLATE NUMBER and passed it the police. Oh, and they also got a great image of him on store surveillance (suitable for framing – nyuk nyuk). For whatever reason, the cops can’t find it or him. WTF Philadelphia PD? Eh, maybe Evil Snatcher will turn himself in…hrrrrmph. Just sayin’… Robbing a Buddhist monk? Seriously? Why not kick the Dalai Lama in the nuts and get it over with? Obviously, Evil Snatcher has never heard of Karma…he’s got a mountain of it about to roll down on him, me thinks. But, I still can’t get my head wrapped around a Buddhist monk buying lottery tickets. Suppose that $350 was alms given to him for the poor? Talk about turning virtue into vice. But then again, why is this a surprise to cynical ol’ me? History is replete with Holy Men Gone Bad or at least doing really unexpected crap. More Dragnet Theme! Dumbass Outlaw #2 comes to us from Port Richey, FL where our next dummy, we’ll call him Captain Deposit, goes into a Bank of America and inquires with a teller about opening a checking account. Captain Deposit produces his ID (dumbass!) for opening the account, but things go off the rails when he is unable to come up with the $25 minimum deposit to open an account. Dang! What’s a criminal in training to do? He leaves. No harm, no foul, right? Not so fast. He comes back an hour later, goes up to the same teller, who likely is still holding Captain Deposit’s account application, but now Captain Deposit changes into Captain Withdrawal (stay with me people, this doesn’t happen very often). He announces that he’s robbing the joint and the altogether too cooperative teller (Captain Withdrawal had no gun) hands over a fistful of cash. Captain Withdrawal leaves said bank…frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t just go out and come back in as Captain Deposit and open that account. He’s walking down the street counting his dough – cuz that’s what you do when you make a large withdrawal to ensure the teller didn’t accidentally drop any of your cash. A cop sees a guy walking along counting a huge wad of money and wearing a Captain Withdrawal uniform. The cop stops him to have a chat. He figures out that the wad of cash is exactly the amount taken from the bank (cops in Florida are smart that way – anyplace else the officer would likely have offered the crook a ride home, it’s a bad neighborhood after all). In the end, I’ll bet it was the Captain Withdrawal uni that tipped off our clever crime fighter as to what he really had there. He was charged with robbery WITHOUT a weapon. Oh…AND, he was hauled off to Land O’ Lakes Detention Center…where I’m guessing the bars are made of non-salted butter! Okay, boys and girls…what have we learned today? 1. The outlaw life is tough. The cops are always looking for you. Oh sure, you may think you’re smarter than Officer Seemingly Friendly, but they have lots of electronic gear they can rely on to bring you down – not the least of which is a Taser. Give it up…go work at Arby’s. There’s no Tasering and at least you get all the leftover meat you can eat. 2. Robbing Buddhist monks is a bad idea. It would be your luck to get a Shaolin foot up your ass and then have him drive away in your car running over your sorry self still lying in the parking lot holding your ass. A little old fashioned Karma coming down! 3. If you’re going to use the old case a bank by pretending you’re going to make a deposit bit, for Pete’s sake, don’t show the teller your ID. Simply ask if they charge a monthly service charge and when the teller says they do (they ALL do), tell them your credit union doesn’t and then walk out in a huff. 4. The only place better to be incarcerated than a joint with buttery bars is maybe the Willy Wonka Correctional Center where no one actually eats their way out without getting a serious case of the diabetes. 5. Stay the hell out of South Philly and South Florida! Be safe citizens!  Cousin Fred and I have recently learned that Chick Farris, the Hollywood television developer who holds our very lives in his hands is now trying to decide between our reality show concept wherein naked people search for the Bigfoot and another show, a game show I guess, where people at the start of the show are given a bag full of enema fluid.
Ah…western civilization marches…um, forward I guess. I have to admit the other concept would be kind of fun to watch. The camera trained on the person’s face. Somewhere around 10 minutes into the show they start sweating and making weird scrunched up faces. Now doesn’t that sound like great family entertainment? Hopefully, there is audience participation wherein the audience votes for who will blow out first. Cousin Fred doesn’t see the humor in it though. He was outside yesterday building his partially enclosed shelter around Helkat One’s trailer and muttering something about enema’s and shitty situations. I went outside to help hand boards up to him as he assembled the roof sub-structure. I tried to assure him that there was no way that network television or even a cable television would put the enema blowout game on air. But, on to more pressing issues… Friends, of all the stuff you might be tempted to kiss, what is the weirdest? Seriously, if you’re thinking of something and it doesn’t make you cringe, it doesn’t count. According to an article on the Huffington Post web site, a Chinese tourist visiting Thailand found out the hard way that it’s best to keep one’s lips to one’s self. Said Chinese tourist, a young woman, was visiting an animal park on the island of Phuket (pronounced phoo-ket, you perverts), a nice resort area…when it isn’t being overrun by tidal waves. There was an animal handler nearby who was handling a reticulated python and offered audience members the opportunity to kiss the friggin’ snake. Now, we all know, from various CCB postings that Mr. Robin has issues with crap that goes bump in the night like bats, rats, and SNAKES. It’s one reason Mr. Robin is always armed while on the compound…the other reason is the guy parked in the unmarked sedan about a half-mile down the road. But, I digress… So Stupid Girl kisses Friggin’ Snake and guess what? Friggin’ Snake didn’t want to be kissed. Friggin’ Snake grabs hold of Stupid Girl’s nose and won’t let go. Two animal handlers are tugging on Friggin’ Snake, probably dragging Stupid Girl around the park by the nose, but still the damned thing won’t let go. After a great deal of effort, they managed to pry the snake from her face. Finally, she’s free! Stupid Girl goes to the hospital where a number of stitches are applied to her nose to close the wounds…hopefully she got a tetanus shot too. The animal park paid her $4,000 US for her trouble and gave her a fake rubber snake souvenir. After all, nothing says we’re so sorry you were mauled by our snake like a fake rubber souvenir made in China. Now, see…something like that would make for great television. You could turn it into an updated version of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (YouTube it, people). I can envision it now. The scene would open on our Marlin Perkins look alike (the real MP is dead) cowering behind a boulder while his trusty look alike assistant Gorilla Jim (just checked, the real Jim Fowler is 83 now and probably not into wrestling reptiles) works to free the snake from some previously unwitting female tourist’s face. Fake Marlin’s voiceover would run while video shows him hiding behind the boulder, ready to jump out once danger has passed, “I’ll hide behind this rock while Jim tries to pull a snake from the face of a previously unwitting female tourist. Oh my, Jim has freed the previously unwitting female’s face from its serpentitious clamp and now has its serpentine body wrapped around Jim’s neck and chest. How will he escape?” Video shows Marlin constantly raising above the boulder to make quick checks on Jim who is turning increasingly blue from the lack of air. Back to Marlin voiceover, “Oh gosh, it looks as though Jim’s a goner! What to do? What to do?” Okay, that previous bit is only funny if you’ve ever seen Wild Kingdom and/or watched Johnny Carson make fun of them. If you have the time, it’s worth watching on YouTube. The show ran for 25 years with hundreds of episodes. Let’s see what we’ve learned here. 1. Enema games shows suck, no matter how fun it may sound at first. 2. Nobody should be kissing snakes except for Alice Cooper, a trained professional who has decades of experience doing weird shit with snakes. 3. Stay the Phuk out of Phuket. Bad stuff happens there. 4. Marlin Perkins was a bad boss, but a reality show king!  Friends, I’m sure you’ve heard of a shotgun wedding, but have you ever heard of a shotgun funeral? And, no I’m not talking about someone waging violence at someone’s funeral…although that can be kind of funny in its own way.
I used to work with a woman who came from a huge Italian family in Ohio someplace. At the head of the family were five brothers, none of whom got along particularly well with any of the others. At some point, I believe it was in the 90’s, one of the brothers died. His remaining four brothers, all well into their 60’s I’m guessing, agreed to act as pallbearers. At the funeral Mass, all of the brothers were gathered in the section reserved for family of the deceased, though none was talking with any of the others. As they rolled the casket of their deceased brother down the aisle of the church, all appeared somber enough. No one was exchanging glances or saying anything. Outside the front of the church there were several steps down to the sidewalk where a waiting hearse was positioned for the trip to the cemetery. The brothers lifted the casket off the roller thing and start down the steps. One of the brothers makes a comment that one of his brothers takes offense. Offended brother dropped his corner of the casket and moves back to punch the offending brother who drops his corner spot to defend himself and a fight ensues. The casket falls onto the steps and slides down the steps, coming to a stop with a thud at the bottom. All four living brothers are now punching one another and swearing loudly on the steps of the church. The Priest is trying to break up the melee, no luck there. The cops escorting the funeral had to get involved to restore order. That’s a true story. Obviously, I’ve missed out in life. I don’t recall attending a funeral with that much action. But, I digress… I saw something on Huffington Post yesterday that made me think about writing this posting. And, while I realize it’s seldom fun to think of your own mortality, this put an original twist on things…or, did it? In a place called Hurricane, Utah (probably named for Ezekiel Hurricane), the son of Vietnam vet who had recently passed away, spent a great deal of time packing his father’s ashes into 50 shotgun shells. The idea he had was for family and friends to visit an outdoor shooting park in Southern Utah, where they would take turns blasting dad out the barrel of his favorite 12 gauge (a Wake of sorts in a dry state like Utah). There was a comment in the story that the father enjoyed visiting the sports park and shooting his guns. The local funeral director commented that it was a fitting tribute…uh huh. Funeral director would like say anything as long as the check clears. Just sayin’. That story got me to thinking…first of all, does it strike anyone else how weird this must have been for the son? Or, even weirder for the family and friends shooting the dad’s remains into the air? Let me explain… I found a number of articles online that kind of, sort of explain how to do this. There was even one from NPR entitled “Ashes to Ammo”. For those of you not into the DIY thing, there is a company in Alabama called Holy Smokes (what else?) that will do it for you. But it seems that the son did his own loading of the shells. That’s the part that kind of freaked me out. For those of you who don’t know the anatomy of a shotgun shell, you have a primer encased in brass on one end. The body of the shell is thin plastic though shotgun shells used to be made of heavy paper coated in wax. The primer is what ignites the powder, which expands upon ignition and shoves the wadding outward against the shot (looks like little BBs), which in turn explodes out the end of the shell which is crimped…blah blah blah…quail falls down. Ah, dinner! So, in this particular case, in place of the shot, we have Dead Dad. So, Dutiful Son is packing his father’s ashes. I can’t imagine. He’s there, presumably wearing rubber gloves and a face mask, packing Dead Dad’s ashes into the ends of those shells. Wonder what he did with the little fragments of bone and teeth that are left when someone is cremated? See what I mean? The whole thing is kind of creepy. And what if you’re one of the “lucky” 50 (remember, he made 50 shells) who get to shoot Dead Dad into the air? Think you’re off the hook? Yeah, maybe, but only if the wind doesn’t shift and blow Dead Dad’s essence back into your eyes, mouth, and nose. Oh…and who will clean the shotgun once the shootin’s done? Nothing says eternal love like a Remington oil swab with bits of Dead Dad stuck to it. But even those two items can’t beat the weird burial customs we find in Tulsa where it is apparently customary to carve up the embalmed corpse. Tulsa is a strange place. What’s next? You put your deceased on a raft in Ft. Supply Lake, set it ablaze and let it drift around the lake burning where it’s a hazard to navigation to drunken water-ski demons? No, the water of that lake is reportedly toxic enough without adding your dearly departed to the goo. The Nephew is doing a lot of long haul trucking lately. I’ll bet you could slip him a few bucks to open the window as he’s rolling down the road and spread your slobbery old aunt across three or four states. The cemetery in Cosmic City is filling up fast and can’t be expanded (too many high end houses surrounding the place – guess the neighbors are quiet). So it’s up to us to come up with unique ways of disposing of the remains you get dropped into your lap. We at CCB will give that some more thought. Let us know if you have any brilliant ideas.  Friends, since the inception of Cosmic City Blog last March (time flies when we’re having so much fun, don’t you think?) we at CCB have worked hard to find new trends in American culture that you might otherwise miss. Unfortunately, often our research on said trends exposes the extent to which our collective DNA is coming unraveled like so much gluten-free pasta.
Over the past few months CCB has posted posts (posted posts…I’m a genius) for a good number of incidents connected to Walmart. Let’s see there was the woman who shot up with the meth and went joyriding through a Walmart Supercenter on one of those electric carts they provide while eating a roast chicken and sucking down a bottle of wine. Then there was the dude who broke into the manager’s office of a 24-hour Walmart and stole some electronic items. When the cops caught up to him in the office, he told them he was there looking for an application because he wanted to apply for a job as a “mystery shopper”…hard to believe, the law didn’t buy it. Oh…forgot, that knucklehead had a gun on him that he said he got from a “skinny black dude” at Dunkin’ Donuts. Let’s see there was the woman who went into a Walmart and proceeded to steal 131 pair of women’s underwear. At that time, we sent an investigative team (okay, it was just me) to the Walmart Supercenter in Cosmic City at 3AM to see if it was even possible to find 131 pairs of female undies in a Walmart. We’ll never know. I was apprehended by the Cosmic City Police and given a police order to stay from the women’s intimates section of Walmart for a period to last “in perpetuity.” Oh, and let’s not forget that Walmart Supercenters were at the center of a huge conspiracy last summer about a government plan to shred the constitution and have the military take control of us all. They were supposedly using tunnels that connected Walmart Supercenters all over the south. CCB has done a total of 10 posts that mention or focus deeply on Walmart. Why? Why indeed. I’ve asked, granted in a mostly rhetorical manner, all of you to visit Walmart in the middle of the night to view the freak parade for yourself. Have you? Probably not, if you have any sense of self-worth and don’t need a pack of 24 banana-flavored tortillas. So, as I see things it falls upon me to study this phenomena of the dumbing-down of America’s collective consciousness with Walmart Supercenters at the epicenter. Therefore, I created the Institute for the Study of Irretrievably Stupid People Frequenting Walmart Supercenters, or ISISPFRW for short. It’s a good thing that I don’t have a real job anymore and am able to do mindless studies like these…you can thank me later. Sacks of cash or incredibly expensive gifts are always appreciated. The first task for ISISPFRW, will be to embed a team of crack researchers inside the seamy underbelly of Cosmic City’s Walmart Supercenter. It won’t be an easy task given that there is an apparent hiring freeze currently in place. So, we’ll work on embedding our team of professional researchers. We’ll be reporting their findings as soon as…well, who knows. But, we’re on it. Now you may be asking yourself, “Self, why would Robin be picking on Walmart today of all days, which is Walmart Appreciation Day worldwide?” Well, first of all, I did not realize that it’s Walmart Appreciation Day. Frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’m telling you people there’s something unseemly going on there and CCB plans to get to the bottom of things! Beyond that, there was a new story from our friends at Huffington Post involving a Walmart that I simply couldn’t pass up. It seems that the trouble started for the lovebirds pictured above when Mr. Romantic on the left decided to propose marriage to his girlfriend on the right inside a Walmart in Bay City, Michigan. She actually looks kind of normal, I mean sure it’s a mugshot, not a glamor shot so we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. But for someone who looks almost normal, it begs the question what she sees in Mr. Romantic. Guess it must be slim pickins in Bay City, or maybe she’s incredibly nearsighted. Nah, I doubt that…I mean the guy doesn’t look as though he stars in AXE Body Wash commercials or anything. Surely, she has a sense of smell even if she can’t focus her vision a foot in front of her. We’ll call her, Ms. Skankalicious. Let the misadventure begin! While in Walmart, Mr. Romantic buys an engagement ring for his forever girlfriend, Ms. Skankalious, and pays all of $29.62 for it. Wow, Walmart stores in Michigan are obviously the place to find huge discounts on fine jewelry in America. Mr. Romantic, unable to contain himself until they can even reach the parking lot falls to one knee at the jewelry counter and proposes to Ms. Skankalicious. She accepts. Now the thing I don’t get is that the proposal and acceptance were broadcast over the store’s PA system. How is that possible? You suppose some well-meaning store employee keyed the mic and put it down in front of them. And, we at CCB also wonder if said alleged well-meaning employee had to hold his/her nose? Other store customers began clapping for the happy betrothed couple. It was quite a scene. All of it caught on store surveillance cams. Isn’t that frigging special? Isn’t love grand? Anyone want to bet that Ms. Skankalicious’ father was out buying a box of 12 gauge buckshot as this was unfolding? HA! Maybe he was in the Walmart at the time buying his buckshot. Me thinks Mr. Romantic had better hit the door running! Just sayin’! Oh, but the story doesn’t end there. Oh no… Sigh...cue Theme from Dragnet. So, apparently the couple decided they needed to treat themselves to a bridal shower (from the mugshot looks as though both of them needed a water shower, but I digress). They visited a nearby Spencer’s store (those are still around?) where they were spotted shoplifting a Bride-to-Be thong, an edible thong, some oral sex candy, and a vibrator. But wait, there’s more. So later that day, a Spencer’s employee spots Ms. Skankalicious near a Taco Bell and calls the cops who promptly swoop in and arrest her. No wait, it doesn’t end there. So they find Mr. Romantic in the Food Court of a nearby mall asleep on one of the tables. He said he fell asleep while tying one of this shoes. Too much oral sex candy I’ll bet. Okay, so Mr. Romantic was in the Food Court, why was Ms. Skankalicious hanging around the outside of Taco Bell? These questions and more to be answered by ISISPFRW when and if we’re ever able to embed them in the steamy rectum of Walmart (also known as the north produce area). Okay, let me just jump in here with a very loud “HA!” One more time, “HA!” I won’t say I told you so just yet. Okay, actually I probably will later in this posting, but for now, “HA!”
Again, there will be more later in this posting. HA!, I’m tellin’ ya! So we’re off and flying with a brand new year and a fresh Oklahoma legislative session. I can barely contain my excitement. HA! Oh, and I achieve the double bonus this year since it’s also a presidential election year. These blog postings will practically write themselves in 2016! HA! Yes sir, I’m telling you, it’s gonna be great. You’ll see. Sunday night, following dinner, Cousin Fred finally unveiled his latest invention. He told the Wife and me that he had a something new he had invented that he wanted to show us. I noticed the Wife begin to cast furtive glances at the drawer where she hides her filterless Camels for just such news. Cousin Fred reached beneath the table and came up with a plain brown box. From inside he produced something that looked vaguely like an upside down clear glass bowl with a leather strap hanging beneath and two small propellers attached atop two six inch dowels that had somehow been secured to what had been the bottom of the bowl. Wires ran down the dowels from whatever the propellers were attached to atop the dowels. I looked at the Wife, who was beginning to twitch. I looked back at Cousin Fred who was, of course, beaming with pride at his latest invention. Then I noticed that circling what had been the bottom of the bowl were probably eight USB ports encircling the round bottom, which was now the top. I looked back over at the Wife, who had now produced a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from beneath the table and was taking slugs straight from the bottle. She wasn’t going to be of any help. I knew then I would have to ask the hard question. With a deep sigh, I asked, “So, what the hell is this?” Cousin Fred seemed genuinely hurt that I didn’t know. He told me that it was the world’s first wind-generator powered eight port USB hub. I don’t think I changed the expression on my face. I was absolutely stunned. I heard the Wife take another pull on her bottle. She swallowed hard and said to me, “Go on. Ask him. Ask him!” “How does it work,” I asked? “Let’s go outside and I’ll show you!” As devoted readers may remember, his last invention test nearly caused my untimely demise. Reluctantly, I followed him out the front door, imagining that I was making the walk from a cell on death row to the execution chamber. There was a steady breeze coming out of the north that night. It was darned cold too. Cousin Fred instructed me to put the bowl on my head. I kept telling myself that I was going to be fine. Glass doesn’t conduct electricity, does it? The Wife had moved out onto the porch and was chain smoking her filterless Camels and watching as Cousin Fred adjusted the straps. I could hear a buzz from the propellers turning. “Okay, so now what,” I asked? Stupid me. “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the house and returned again with another box. From inside the box he produced several USB devices, some of which I didn’t recognize at first. “My invention allows you to utilize USB devices or simply recharge them no matter where you as long as you can get a breeze.” He continued, “So here we have a Kindle, thanks for loaning that to me. We have a couple of toys that someone might keep on their desk at work and plug into a USB port. There are a couple of USB-powered sex toys that I found on the internet. Imagine, cousin, sex toys that operate from a computer.” As he said this an altogether too-phallic looking thing dropped in front of my face and began buzzing loudly. Cousin Fred continued his plug-and-play. Finally, he asked me for my iPhone, which I handed over very reluctantly. The iPhone was now dangling on the side of my face, just inside my peripheral vision. At that moment, something I had read recently popped into my brain. That most USB powered devices use lithium batteries. I was just about to ask Cousin Fred if he had regulated the charge from his wind-generators, when things dangling around my head began to emit heat and smell funny. The next thing I knew, my cell phone dangling on the side of my face exploded. The phallic sex toy was next, which fired off like an unguided missile launched by deranged North Koreans. Cousin Fred was jumping around me screaming, “He’s going to die! He’s going to die!” The wife, rather nonchalantly walked off the porch with a fire extinguisher that she had brought out onto the porch with her for just such a mishap and extinguished the remaining flames. Fortunately, the glass bowl was made of Pyrex and prevented much damage, though I have what appears to be a sunburn on the lower third of my head and face. I looked at Cousin Fred through the smoke and asked if he had done anything to regulate the power coming from his wind-generators. He smiled and said, “Nope.” Okay, okay, okay…now for the HA! news. It seems that with the New Year, we also now have new state government shenanigans. AND, I can honestly say that I knew this was going to happen eventually. AND, I can also proudly say, that CCB was the first to report it. As you may recall, we here at CCB in the past have raised questions about the Oklahoma Attorney General’s “Evidence Fund” … a veritable slush fund of millions of dollars that he receives annually from the State’s Tobacco Settlement. No one will talk about the Evidence Fund, how it’s used, it’s real purpose…nada. According to a KFOR TV news report, the Oklahoma State Auditor wants to audit the attorney general’s office as they are supposed to do with every state agency. According to KFOR, the OAG’s office has not been audited since Scott Pruitt took office and in fact, the last time was in 2009. OKLAHOMA LAW mandates that the state auditor audit all state agencies. OAG says nope. They won’t allow the state auditor to audit their books and activities. Instead, Pruitt’s office has put out a request for bids for an independent auditor to come in and see what they’re up to. Obviously, an independent audit paid for by OAG can be manipulated…er, guided…by OAG. Does anyone else here smell a rat? Me thinks, the OAG doesn’t want anyone sniffing around in his Evidence Fund and how that $$$$$$$$$$ is being spent. If you read this and have any insights, please give me a call. Oh wait, I no longer have a cell phone. Okay, just send me an email. |
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