 Happy Monday (New Year’s Eve) everybody. The last day of 2018 and I can tell you I’m glad to see it go. Hope you had a great Christmas holiday, we’re in the homestretch now. Just have to make it past midnight tonight. That’s when the clock resets and you’ve another 365 days with which to achieve something, anything. Get off your collective butts and get out there! Okay, okay, enough with the cheerleading. By the way, we here at The Compound are still operating from a deficit of fruitcake, so if you received a few tins from various relatives who had no idea what to get you, drop them off here. We’ll keep the gates open over the next few days. As many of you know, I’ve been convalescing over much of December. While it was my intent to work on some projects during my recovery, I soon discovered that was neither practical nor smart. So, I’ll be mondo busy here over the next few weeks trying to catch up. If you’re planning to stop and “chat” when you drop the fruitcake, you’ll likely find yourself talking to one of The Compound mutts (Compound Ready Alert Force, as we call them). Drop the fruitcake and drive away. The ankle you save may be your own. We thank you! Friends, did you get all that you dreamed of in terms of Christmas gifts? Probably not unless you’re Fearless Leader, of course. He got the best gift anyone could have given him. Namely, a Federal judge who issued a ruling that Fearless Leader’s narcissistic, moronic, and altogether untrue tweets are mere speculation and political opinion as opposed to a basis for confirmation, interference, and/or obstruction of justice. How’s that for a rigged system? We all learned the hard way from the seemingly endless O.J. Simpson (he’s out and creeping around now, you know) fiasco that a person can get away with just about anything and/or get the result they want if, 1) said person has enough $$$ to buy enough attorneys (insert your own attorney joke here) to beat a dead horse to a state of more dead (read as, get the verdict you want), and/or; 2) you find a sympathetic jurist who will steer things your way. And, yes, I realize I’m probably not being very fair here. I’m sure the Federal judge who issued that ruling was probably not overly sympathetic. Perhaps he just enjoys waking up in the morning to Fearless Leader’s late-night tweets. Word has it though that he did receive one of those special White House fruitcakes with a gold presidential seal stamped on the top of the tin. Okay, I’m making that part up. The point here is that for those people/organizations (mostly media) that have filed suit against Fearless Leader trying to get the courts to declare his tweets as confirmation of various sundry government conspiracies are doomed. The attorneys involved will have to go back to defending deranged, psychotic clients with whom they later sleep (oh, it happens). Trump wins. Let the Twitter feeds continue! Speaking of Twitter feeds, you know, every year a new holiday tradition on Twitter plays out, to wit: people tweeting about the most bizarre gifts that they receive at Christmas. This year was no different, so we thought we would close out the year with some of the worst. Let’s see, there’s the woman who received a shower curtain emblazoned with an image of Jeff Goldblum’s face (above). Have to admit it’s a bit creepy. And, what’s with the bonus image of a gorilla in the lower corner? Oh, there’s the roll of toilet paper that comes with Trump’s visage on each sheet. Sorry, but that one seems both practical and humorous. There’s the red sequined throw pillow that includes images of Nicholas Cage. Again, somewhat practical and I guess humorous. At least, in this case you aren’t wiping you a** with it. Nick Cage has become the Kevin Bacon of the late-2010’s for some reason. Personally, I enjoy his work. How about a 2019 photo calendar of defecating dogs? I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP! It’s very popular. Oh, speaking of weird calendars, the hot item in Japan right now is a calendar of nothing but shirtless photos of Vlad (the Poot) Putin. WTF? Okay, I’m going to work on a 2020 Compound calendar to issue next year. You’re all getting one! Hmmmm. There’s the Judge Judy prayer candle. That’s wrong on so many levels. A “People of Walmart” adult coloring book. Now that I have to find. One poster received a Barak Obama Chia Pet. Just turn that over in your head a few times. One of those rubbery stress balls that you can sit and squeeze all day…these are made to look like a male scrotum and are called “Stressticles”…again, just so wrong. Oh, and the crème de la crème, how about a bar of soap made from fur? Excuse me while I go barf. Anywho, I hope everyone got what they wanted. If not, regift it next year (they won’t remember). Happy New Year! That is all!  Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Stop the presses (always wanted to use that line)! Great coogley moogley! O’ the humanities! Is there no end to this nightmare? Grab your magnifying glasses, it’s about to get weird(er)!
Oh, yeah…happy Friday everybody. Blah, blah, blah…enough with the niceties – on the with the show, this is ittttttt! Okay, okay…calm, calm, calm. Deep breaths. Out with the love, in with the snark. Okay, we’re ready. I open my newsfeed this morning. I’m all bleary eyed, sucking down coffee, thinking about how far behind I am on various projects. Hating life in general. When…whoa…what’s this I see? There’s an article about some troll farm in Russia that is suing the Mueller investigation over claims that it (the Mueller Gang) are illegally holding stuff that belongs to said troll farm and won’t allow the company to look through it. Huh. So, let that sink in first. An allegedly illegal troll farm is suing a U.S.-sponsored entity for holding onto stuff delivered to the Mueller Gang in an as-yet undescribed manner? Can they do that? Sure, why not? Actually, nowhere in the story does it say the troll farm actually handed over the materials. So how did the Mueller Gang get it? A disgruntled troll farmer (we’ll call him Farmer Boris) perhaps? But then I read on. It turns out that at the heart of the suit is a - and, I’m quoting here, “nude selfie” the Russians want back, or at least inspect. The Mueller Gang refuse to return it saying that it’s evidence. No word on who exactly is nude in said selfie. Oh, please, please, please, let it be Fearless Leader! Oh, oh, oh…maybe it’s Fearless Leader and Vlad the Poot being all naked together and watching Russian porn! Okay, I’m getting way out in front of this thing. The story on the newsfeed actually raises more questions than it can possibly answer and being that we are nowhere near being a legitimate news source, we can speculate until the cows come home (read as spin conspiracy theories). First, here’s what we know. The company, based in St. Petersburg, Russia, is called Concord Management and Consulting. They are an alleged company of social media trolls who use a phalanx of hackers and social media junkies to spread information and/or disinformation. According to the Mueller Gang, the group has allegedly been up to its collective ears in using fake social media posts to sow discord in the U.S. Of course, Concord Management and Consulting (hereafter CMC) is denying that. Or, are they? Conspiracy Theory #1: While there’s no mention of how exactly the Mueller Gang came into the materials, presumably at some point in the past someone at CMC handed it over. Perhaps in an effort to demonstrate Russian transparency (cough) they handed over too much, that is, stuff they didn’t intend to hand over. And, let’s say someone high up in the Russian government got wind that there was a compromising nude selfie because someone among the Mueller Gang leaked that tidbit to someone in the U.S. government who wants CMC to get it back. So, CMC was directed by someone in the Russian government to file suit…a rather stupid and futile move frankly…in a last-ditch effort to quash the selfie as evidence in the Mueller Gang’s report. Conspiracy Theory #2: But the foregoing presumes someone in the Russian government actually gives a crap…that’s not likely. Maybe, just maybe, the Russians are pissed off at someone high up in the U.S. government and are trying to force the Mueller Gang’s hand to reveal information about the selfie to the public prior to the report’s release. Conspiracy Theory #3: So, let’s be realistic here. A digital file, any digital file (if it actually exists), once it’s out of your hands is open game. So even if there is a legitimate concern on the part of that band of cyber pirates in Russia to get their stuff back, who says they’ll actually get it back? It’s not like there are any one-off photographic negatives involved here. That kind of, sort of points back to the stupid Russians shining a 10-gazillion watt light on the selfie in an attempt to force the Mueller Gang to reveal its existence. Conspiracy Theory #4: The selfie doesn’t actually exist. This the Mueller Gang fishing to see who pops up and raises the most fuss about an alleged nude selfie. Hahahaha…stupid Russians. My goodness, I love a great conspiracy. Stay tuned sports fans, this could turn into something HUGE…huge I’m telling you! Or, it may just be another dead end to nowhere. That is all!  Happy post-Christmas Thursday everybody. Hope you’re all well and have figured out a way to pay for all the stuff you bought your loved ones. If not, don’t worry, there’s still 363 days before you do it again…you’ll be fine.
Hey, speaking of uplifting messages, how about Fearless Leader? Am I right? First, he cancels a 16-day golfing vacation to his exclusive resort down in Florida so that he can spew his “o’ woe is me…I’m all alone” tweets in protest of those darned Dems not giving him the $$$ for his wall. Then we see photos of him sitting at his desk in the Oval Office forcing a smile for the camera as he signed a two-foot stack of bills into law – even though eagle-eyed observers observed that the pages were all blank. Dedicated wife flew back to DC to be near Fearless Leader’s side on Christmas Eve. She’s so dedicated to him. Why exactly, no one is sure, but she’s dedicated dammit. Next, we’re treated to the two of them manning the phones as the kids called into NORAD to get updates on Santa’s location. <phone ringing> NORAD, this is Colonel Smith. Santa’s location? That’s classified, you have no need to know. Hey, where did you get this number anyway you little creep? Wait, I’ll put you through to the White House, make you their problem. Please hold. <another NORAD-type> Weren’t you kind of harsh on the little kid, sir? <Colonel Smith> That was no little kid, it was Putin! We witnessed Fearless Leader berating a little kid (no it wasn’t Vlad the Poot) over their belief in Santa Claus. Yeah, I know, he was trying to funny. Kind of like your weird Uncle Carl playing the Pull-My-Finger game. Hahaha, it’s all fun and games until Uncle Carl sharts (an actual verb, look it up). Let’s see…then we hear not much more from Fearless Leader until he shows up in al Assad Iraq to answer his critics about never visiting U.S. troops overseas during his first two years as president. Good for him, but then some well-meaning idiot in his entourage tweets out footage that turns out now to have been highly classified. Dumb ass. But, wait, there’s more. Then, he snubbed the president of Iraq as he blasted out of the country as quickly as he appeared – this despite his claims that ISIS has been totally crushed. He blamed that on his wife and his concern for her safety. <cough> Next, he makes a refueling stop at an Air Force base in Germany where he erroneously told troops that his new budget would give them a 10% raise, the first raise of any kind in nearly a decade. Yeah, not so much. There’s no money in the budget for raises. He probably wanted to make certain there wasn’t a riot before the plane could be refueled and he could get the hell out of there. So, here we are two days past Christmas wondering what the hell just happened. Haven’t heard this morning where Fearless Leader is now. For all we know, he diverted Air Force One to Florida where he’ll take up golf, eating guest leftovers, and watching Russian porn (a special holiday gift from Vlad the Poot). Of course, in the meantime, Vlad the Poot issued footage that showed him sitting at a consul during the test launch of Russia’s new hypersonic intercontinental missile. That was followed by Vlad announcing the missiles are ready for deployment. Isn’t that grand? I bet Fearless Leader shows up at the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin' Eve show in NYC this year. He’ll shove Dick’s preserved corpse out of the way, kick Ryan Seacrest in the nuts, and take over, regaling us all with tales of how he could have been the greatest rock n’ roll star the world every knew except he couldn’t sing or play anything. He’ll play on everyone’s sympathies and they’ll send him cash, so he can finally build his wall and be a somebody. Please donate, help Fearless Leader, won’t you? By our calculations, if every man, woman, and child kicks in $18 – a mere eighteen dollars – he’ll get enough to build that wall! Let’s help him, please! Tthhhpppptttt! I don’t know about you, but I’m headed for The Compound hidey hole. It’s getting exponentially weird and increasingly dangerous out there! That is all!  Welcome to Friday everyone. Another week down, another looming large over the horizon. I know, I know, just call me Mr. Sunshine.
I made an offhand comment the other day that I was rather looking forward to Fearless Leader’s vacation to Florida that was supposed to start today. I figured that without adult supervision around him in DC, the tweets would be both monumental and entertaining. But now, amid the maelstrom that envelops lives in Jerusalem-on-the-Potomac, he is threatening to cancel his vacation and remain at the White House. So much for unbridled tweets, I thought. Then it occurred to me…he’s either fired or otherwise run out the door all his adult supervision so that leaves a tight pack of sycophants who all titter at his Twitter ramblings. Okay, go or no, we’re back on! Frankly, though, Fearless Leader belongs in Florida. Seriously. You dedicated followers this stupid blog may have noticed in the past that a lot of our posts focus on the weirdness that is Florida. We've even explored why it is that so many oddball occurrences emanate from down there. If you think I’m kidding, try Googling the phrase, “Florida man” and see what happens. You can interchange that with “Florida woman” and get nearly the same result. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the humidity. Who knows. But weirdness is an organic growth industry down in that part of the world. And, it’s not just the people. There is an increasingly menace from non-native invasive species that are growing large and taking charge. Pythons, for instance. It seems that people in Florida who raise pythons as “pets” (yeesh) are either turning them out in the wild when they become too big for the one-bedroom apartment. Or maybe the giant snakes are escaping (again, yeesh). The problem with having non-native species running amok is that they tend to throw the natural order of things into chaos by eating the native species and removing said cog in the wheel of order. In fact, it’s gotten so bad down there what with a great environment for being a python and opportunities o’ plenty for breeding that pythons are taking over the place. The Florida Wildlife Commission has for years had a phalanx of contractors willing hunting the damned things to counter the ecological upheaval their introduction into places like the Everglades creates. This past Sunday things slithered to a new height when one of the contractors managed to bag a new state record, a Burmese python that measured 18 feet (pictured above)…great coogley moogley. The contractor said that he spotted the beast and grabbed it by the head. For his trouble said snake began wrapping itself around his waist. He managed to drag it (all 150 lbs.) back to his truck where he soon disposed of it. So, you see…weirdness abounds in Florida. I’m not making it up. Whether it’s a Trump family Christmas, some naked dude directing traffic in a busy intersection, a woman calling 911 for the cops to deliver her beer, a dude beating the crap out of his son for eating all the Cheez-Its, or an invasive species that someone left on the side of road…Florida is the center of the universe for weird. Stay the hell out of Florida! That is all!  Hey hey, it’s Thursday. Another week whizzing past. Probably not a good thing since you have sooo much to do to get ready for another stinking family holiday. Hopefully it won’t turn out like last year when the cops showed up to find your weird Uncle Carl rolling around on the front lawn as he attempted to strangle his son-in-law James (don’t call him Jim or Jimmy or Jimbo) after Carl accused James of hogging the Mexican brandy (good stuff). Oh sure, James and your cousin, Buttercup (can’t make up that name), won’t be there this year, but don’t expect an easier time of things. Weird Uncle Carl is only too happy to discuss his sundry medical conditions which include open sores (which he’s only too happy to show everyone) on his legs from a case of MRSA he swears he contracted in the local ER during a visit to determine that he had NOT had yet another in a long series of “heart attacks” over the years. He’s considering legal action, you know. Ahhh, family. Gotta love ‘em, am I right? Me…I’m here waiting to hear something from Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont now that I believe they’re making their way to Florida to spend the holidays stalking the Hairdressing Hydrologist Gigi outside of Fearless Leader’s fabulous resort. Oh, by the way, I’ve decided to host a Facebook Live event the day after Christmas. It’ll be a Fruitcake Telethon. It finally occurred to me that it’s probably the day after Christmas that people look at all those tins of molecularly-dense confection they received from relatives and business associates and think, “Now what the hell am I going to do with so much g***amn fruitcake?” That thought coincides with the sudden realization that you may have picked the wrong time to try out the El Gordo Supremo Diet that everyone is talking about. Well, we at CCB have the answer! It’s the first annual Fruitcake Telethon broadcast live from The Compound! You don’t even have to think about driving said Heaven-sent fruitcake all the way out into the country. Hell, we’ll come pick it up from your house. More on that to follow. By the way, if you have a sliver of talent and have interest in appearing on our Facebook Live broadcast, let me know. Must give the people something for their donations of fruitcake you know. Friends, as you long-time, dedicated followers (we’re up to six now) of this stupid blog know, we here at CCB have long held a special place in our hearts for The Bigfoot. We’re constantly on the lookout for news items and the occasional anecdotal information about Bigfoot sightings and encounters. That’s why a small article that went through the overnight newsfeed caught our eye. Unlike confirmed sightings and encounters with The Bigfoot, this piece was almost too bizarre to believe, but then again, we’re pretty gullible. It seems some fellow up in Montana was out in the woods setting up targets for shooting practice when he noticed (keen observer that he is) a bullet impact a few feet to his left immediately followed by another that whizzed past him on the right. Clever fellow that he is, he moved into deeper cover and then began working his way around to the area whence he believed the shots had come. There he confronted a man next to a black Ford F-150 pickup holding a hunting rifle. The shooter claimed to have thought his target was Bigfoot. He actually made the statement, “I don’t target practice — but if I see something that looks like Bigfoot, I just shoot at it.” Hmmm. Me thinks that if you mistook another human for Bigfoot and/or missed with two shots from a hunting rifle, you need: 1) corrective lenses and/or; 2) target practice. Our shootee just let it go at that (huh?). Someone else informed the police about the encounter and they sought out said shootee. He refused to give police a description of the guy and said he didn’t the tag number of the Ford pickup. Turns out there was woman who also claimed to have been shot at by someone in a black Ford F-150, though she didn’t say anything about Bigfoot. What we've learned here today:
Let’s be careful out there! That is all!  Happy Wednesday everybody! I hope you’re well and all cozy comfy in your workplace.
Me, I’m holed up at The Compound still searching for news of Cousin Fred’s criminal trespassing on the grounds of the White House and/or new footage confirming he is still free. Late yesterday, it was the latter. Apparently, Cousin Fred has decided on a new strategy that, on the surface, appears to appeal to Fearless Leader’s fondness for things Russian while at the same time kiss his a**. He was videoed over in Lafayette Park dressed as everyone’s late-19th-century mad monk, Grigori Rasputin. Friend Lamont was standing next to him dressed as the fictional character, Dr. Zhivago. The banner they held aloft was in Russian and read, “Поддержите товарища Дональда, по крайней мере он еще может пописать.” Frankly, I’m afraid to plug that into a Google translator. As the camera locked in on the two, Cousin Fred leaned forward and shouted, “No collusion! No collusion! Witch hunt! Witch hunt!” Well, at least I knew they were still outside a federal lock-up. I was satisfied and went back to watching John Wayne movies and drinking beer. But then, late last night, I received a text from Cousin Fred, the first I’d heard from him since sometime around Thanksgiving. It read, “The blue fish swims south in muddy water.” My cousin, James Bond. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the message in Cousin Fred’s cryptic message. He and Friend Lamont are breaking camp in Lafayette Square and headed south for Florida where Fearless Leader will commence at 16-day vacation over Christmas. Isn’t that special? I immediately tried to text him back, but he had already turned his phone off. Sigh. This won’t end well. At least, Fearless Leader is supposed to head south on Friday. There’s so much going on in D.C., who knows when he’ll actually get out the door. Let’s see, there’s the whole Trump Foundation being shut down by the New York attorney general who branded the organization as a corrupt enterprise with illegal activities going on (there’s a surprise!) daily. Then Fearless Leader’s pals at CNN have turned up a document showing his signature on a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow days after the Ghoul Giuliani said no one ever signed the document. Oops. Umm, then there’s the whole Fearless Leader publicly declaring that he will personally review the military’s case against a former Green Beret officer who allegedly committed murder in the Afghan war zone by offing a reported enemy bomb maker. This set all the legal experts to chattering that it’s interference and blah, blah, blah. I’m just going to lay this out there…I’m glad Fearless Leader is taking an interest in the case. To quote the character, Captain Willard, from Apocalypse Now, “…charging soldiers in the field during wartime with murder is like handing out tickets at the Indy 500…” Unless there’s a lot more to the case than what has been publicly released, this seems ridiculous play on the military’s part. And, yes, I get it…the Army figures they must make an example of this poor guy, otherwise you’ll have every other soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine over there going all Bruce Willis on the bad guys. Hmmm… He (Fearless Leader) has even backed down from his initial tough guy stance on building that stupid wall in order to avoid a government shutdown. Hey, who ran off with Fearless Leader? This isn’t him! The only thing Fearless Leader really has going for him this week is that the criminal justice reform measure that son-in-law Kushner has been steering through legislative waters for more than a year now, has finally cleared the Senate and is expected to be on Trump’s desk for signature this week. Actually, the 16-days in Florida will be interesting. Fearless Leader, left unchecked by adult supervision, will let his thumbs go wild on Twitter. There’s no telling what will spew forth…it’ll be entertaining, I bet. That is all…  Hey hey everybody! CCB is back from the post-surgical world and ready to deal, so let’s get started. Shall we?
Just a quick update on things here at The Compound. Eh, how the hell would I know? I’ve been a virtual blob for the past week drinking beer and watching John Wayne movies. Life is seldom better than that, I’m telling you! There’s still no sign of Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont since they left The Compound some time ago in search of the elusive Hairdressing Hydrologist Gigi. Neither is answering their phone. Not surprising given the last thing they want is for the Secret Service to start pinging the phone to get a fix on them. News footage from Lafayette Square across from the White House shows they’re still camped there, though they’ve taken on some clever disguises. Well, so to speak. In footage I saw yesterday, Cousin Fred was dressed as a pest control guy splattered with fake blood. Friend Lamont was all dressed out as a giant termite. Their “protest” banner read, “Stop the Mindless Slaughter of Our Termite Brothers!” Eh, everyone needs a cause, I reckon. This won’t end well, I’m afraid. Friends, over the years there’s one thing I’ve learned…nope that’s it, just one thing! I’m very narrowly focused that way, you know. I’m likely to live and die knowing only that one thing I’ve learned. That one thing is that you can never (NEVER) trust the initial or sometimes even the secondary media reports about an event. Still with that one thing you can cover so much other stuff. My narrow focus opens up to whatever the morons in mass media decide to cover. This is genius, if you think about it. Genius! Think about it, dammit! Those first few reports are generally filled with inaccurate reporting because whatever version of Clark Kent is rushing to get the story out before the punks at Channel X rush to broadcast with its own version. Small wonder Fearless Leader gets so freaked out about fake news, am I right? Okay, I’ll get hold of myself…the day I start sympathizing with that fool is the day I fold up the CCB tent and go home. But, I digress… Earlier this month, we reported on a couple of landscapers who were doing a job at a client’s home and went inside to take a break where they were soon: a) watching porn; b) pouring syrup and other sticky sweet stuff over their naked bodies, and; c) doing the nasty. Now because we at CCB take the long view on keen media analysis, we raised the pertinent questions, to wit: “…Nowhere in the report of this was there any mention of whether the homeowners were upset over the shenanigans by landscaping professionals inside their home or the apparent misappropriation of syrup and blueberry jelly…” Insightful, ain’t we? The hook in this story was that the female participant (we referred to her as Ms. 2Pot – I don’t remember why) called the cops because the male participant (we called him Sticky Buns) was showing the video of said event around town. Cops gave him a chance to erase said vid from phone, which he of course refused (he was a local celebrity now) and was promptly arrested on a charge of voyeurism. Okay, that was then, this is now, and there’s an update to the story. So, it turns out that the two are landscapers, but on that particular day there was no landscaping going on. Makes sense, I guess…who the hell does landscaping in December in Connecticut for Pete’s sake? But the alleged dirty deed did NOT take place in a client’s house. Nope. It was Sticky Buns’ house and Ms. 2Pot (still don’t recall how I landed on that moniker) was there to help him move. Sticky Buns, as it turns out, was being evicted from his home. She had been outside (hence, the initial reports that they were landscaping) helping him load cord wood into a trailer when he disappeared. She went inside to find him naked, pouring syrup on himself, and watching porn – so that much is true. AND then…wait for it…after being released on a $50,000 bond, Sticky Buns immediately runs home and calls Ms. 2Pot’s friend and tells her to tell Ms. 2Pot that she had better drop the charge or he would “out” her name to the media. That brought local PD back to Sticky Buns’ door where he was arrested on fresh charges of tampering with a witness (suppose he’s a distant cousin of one of Fearless Leader’s thugs?) and violating a protective order. Now he’s back in jail held in lieu of a $150,000 bond. But wait, there’s still more. It turns out that Sticky Buns had the cajones to stand in front of the judge and announce that she (da judge) couldn’t put him back in jail because he was due to appear on the Howard Stern Show the next day. I’m sure Sticky Buns will enjoy landscaping the prison yard before it’s all over. Let that be a lesson to you! Not sure exactly what that lesson is, but there’s a lesson in there somewhere! That is all!  Howdy everyone! Hope you’re well and loving life…no really. I know it’s unusual for me to be so magnanimous with the pleasantries, but what the hell? It’s the holiday season and all, right? Had a good weekend here at The Compound. It was quiet, for the most part. Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont are still off-site racing pell-mell around North America in pursuit of the elusive hairdressing hydrologist Gigi. I have the idea that they’re camped out at Lafayette Square in D.C. directly across from what has become Fortress Trump. Lafayette Square, in case you’ve not been there, is where all the odd, quirky people with an axe to grind against the sitting president camp…literally camp out…as they protest one thing or another. Cousin Fred will fit right in. I was watching CNN Saturday night and they were doing a report that included a quick sweeping shot of Lafayette Square as part of a much larger story about the White House. I swear I saw a sign over there that read, “Free Gigi, you orange Hostess cupcake!” But I may have been wrong. I tried calling Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont, but the calls went directly to voicemail indicating that their phones are off, probably to keep the Secret Service from pinging them and then raiding Lafayette Square. Speaking of Fortress Trump, if only 10% of the talking heads on television know of what they speak, the (political, possibly legal) world is closing in and rough seas are ahead (Navy talk) for Fearless Leader. It started last week with the announcement that John Kelly would be leaving as chief of staff by the end of the year. The heir apparent, Pence’s chief of staff, Nick “the Stick” Ayers, made it clear he doesn’t want the job (who would?). That led to predictions of a collapse of the White House when Kelly departs. I don’t buy that. It’s been my experience in professional life (hey, I wasn’t always a moronic blogger with little or no moral compass) that no one is truly indispensable. You may think you are. Other may think you are. But no matter how important you are to an organization they’ll find a replacement. I think the more telling piece there is that after weeks of speculation that Pence’s CoS would step in to the position, he feels compelled to announce he’s not interested. Eh, Stick is a relatively young man with a moral compass. Probably doesn’t want to be tainted with whatever stink the implosion of Fearless Leader’s White House may bring. Welcome to D.C. Anyway, the Sunday talk shows were filled with people predicting everything from impeachment to indictment (after he leaves office) to former officials all but begging the American public to vote Fearless Leader out of office in 2020. Hence, the White House, long considered the People’s House, is now Fortress Trump. In the meantime, Fearless Leader keeps tweeting that “everything is great” and that everyone currently huddled inside Fortress Trump is having “a great time.” Again, hmm… As you long-time followers of CCB know, I always like to end these posts with a nod to the weirdness of humanity…there’s a lot of that out there! I was going to talk about a woman with super long blonde eyelashes in Ohio dumping “red hot” grease on her live-in lover (for no apparent reason, by the way). But that seemed too pedestrian. So, instead, we’ll look in on an artist from Denmark whose photographs taken around the world are famous… (dare I say, sometimes infamous). His name is Andreas Hvid. And, the Egyptian government is after him for climbing the Great Pyramid at Giza taking photos (and video, there’s video of the action) that includes shots of he and a female having sex atop the structure at sunset. Okay, let’s stop there a second. I have to be really honest, the thing that struck me about the photo (edited – to keep Facebook off my ass - version posted here) is the seeming beauty of Cairo in the background at night. The place is a slum, believe me. I had the opportunity to visit the site years ago. I’m glad I did. It is definitely something to see. To get there you must travel through mile after mile of high-rise run-down apartments on either side of the road where light doesn’t get through unless the sun is directly overhead. And then, suddenly, you emerge into the desert with the pyramids in front of you and the Sphinx – which is nowhere near as big as it looks in photos by the way. The poverty and all that accompanies it is behind you, before you are the manmade (or alien-made if you watch enough episodes of “Ancient Aliens”) that you’ve only seen in books or on TV. And, there to the right, is a real surprise. A Holiday Inn. I’m not kidding. The place had rooms with views of the pyramids. Who knew? I told myself then that if I ever traveled back there, I would stay at the Holiday Inn. But enough about me. So, Friend Andreas and his presumably witting accomplice climb to the top of the Great Pyramid (455 feet) as the sun is setting. They shoot video. They take photos. They descend. And no one is any the wiser. Until said Friend Andreas posts the photos and vid on his website (www.andreashvid.com) just in case you want to see for yourself – perverts). At that point, the Egyptians get involved and they aren’t happy. Describing his actions as disrespectful, disgraceful, etc…they (the Egyptians) have referred it for prosecution, but Friend Andreas is long gone, checked out of the Holiday Inn and looking for his next spot to “dis.” This will likely be the last post of CCB for a few days, but I’ll be back to things as soon as possible. Oh, if you’ve not yet viewed the first episode of our new video series “Confessions of an Insolent Hash Slinger: Cooking with Mr. Robin” it can be found here: http://www.cosmic-city-blog.com/confessions-of-an-insolent-hash-slinger/episode-1-ranch-style-beanseat-a-bean That is all!  Happy Friday everyone! We’re back live!
Welcome to Oklahoma…where we’re all going to die! The first winter storm of this winter (fall) is nearly upon us and the sheer volume of shrill panic being spewed forth by the media is reaching an apocalyptic level heretofore unknown. First, of all we here at The Compound will likely not see anything. The forecasts now have this monster (that the weatherguessers now say isn’t so much a monster anymore) moving south of us. But with the storm not turning into the beast that the “computer models” first predicted, news producers have taken matters out of the hands of the weatherguessers and put it in the hands of newscasters who are running interviews with random garage mechanics about the winter weather kit that you should include in your car, a common ingredient of which is a chocolate bar. Really, a chocolate bar? Suppose you could put the said choco bar beneath your tire for traction. Then there’s video of empty store shelves with maybe a loaf or two of bread on a shelf. Curiously, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the background shot of that footage. Gee, wonder if some overzealous producer had his/her crew clear the shelves for the dire report? Sorry, my cynicism is showing. Let me zip that back up. For those of you dedicated multitude (all three or four of you) who follow this blog with some regularity, I am happy to report that I passed my stress test yesterday with flying colors. The nurse who called me yesterday informed me that there is nothing wrong with my heart and I have a very strong heart muscle. See…all that clean living I do has paid off! Let that be an example to the youth! Actually, after receiving the call from the heart doc’s office yesterday I ran out and found the greasiest ribs money could buy and savored each one. <burp> Glad that’s behind me. On to bigger and better things, I reckon. Take for instance, the case of the distracted landscaper and his altogether willing accomplice co-worker in Connecticut who…well, wait a second. I need to set the stage here. Okay, all of you who were listening to music in the late 1980’s please raise your hand. Hmmm, seems to be a few of you who didn’t die of airway constriction from too much nose candy or froze to death wearing a beige linen suit as you raced around town in a Lamborghini that no one could figure out how you paid for. The music of the 80’s kind of sucked. Oh, sure, there were gems. There was the Talking Heads, (maybe) The Cars, and a few others early on, but then things began descending into chaos when it came to rock bands. There was the Led Zeppelin rip-off Whitesnake…the anti-ha band, Hell Toupee…and, of course, Def Leppard. For purposes of this post, we’ll focus on Def Leppard, the band with the near-naked drummer with one arm (that was the most interesting thing about the band). Sometime in ’88 or ’89 – remember, I was always living a clean life, so things then are a blur – DL issued a tune called, “Pour Your Sugar on Me” a song filled with lurid lyrics and an oddly sensual beat. The only thing good that came from the late-80’s was the emergence of Grunge…the LAST GREAT ERA (says me) of rock that lasted well into the 90’s. But, more on that at some later date… Why am I bringing up ghosts of overly commercial 80’s music now? Well, it sets the stage for today’s people-being-bad post…aka, the landscapers in Connecticut (remember them?). So, this 52-year-old landscaper (we’ll call him Sticky Buns) is working a job and decides he needs to take a break. He enters the home of the client for whom they’re doing the work. After some time, his partner on the job, a 48-year-old female co-worker (we’ll call her Hot2Pot) begins to wonder what happened to Sticky Buns. She enters the home and discovers Mr. Buns is watching porn and has slathered his naked body (hopefully he washed his hands first) in maple syrup. Song break…"I’m hot and sticky sweet from head down to my feet, yeah!” Ms. 2Pot later told police that she became irretrievably turned on by the sight of Buns slathered in syrup and asked to “join him” on his break. I know, I know, sounds like plot line for a bad 70’s skin flick, but there you have it. Love and/or lust ensued. Soon some blueberry jelly was added to the mix. It was a dentist’s wet dream, I’m telling you! Once the break was over, the two (presumably) showered and went back to work. But then, Sticky was found sharing a video of the encounter with his pals down at the local bar that he had surreptitiously recorded. And of course, Hot2Pot learns of said video and goes to the police telling them that the video was made without her consent and she wants to press charges. The alleged police go to Sticky and insist that he delete the video from his phone. Sticky refuses to do so (way to “stick” to your values Sticky) and is consequently arrested on a charge of voyeurism. He’s out of jail now on a $50,000 bond, awaiting trial. Nowhere in the report of this was there any mention of whether the homeowners were upset over the shenanigans by landscaping professionals inside their home or the apparent misappropriation of syrup and blueberry jelly. Interesting, no? That is all!  Here we are, it's Thursday. I tell you, these weeks just fly by. We're still under the gun here in Oklahoma for what all the giddy weatherguessers guess will be a lifetime snow storm. Now is the time to panic. Buy gasoline, toilet paper, beer, and milk...pile it all in a heap and set it afire. We're all going to die! Me, I'm headed to OKC for my next turn on the medical merry-go-round...it's a stress test and I was up most of the night studying...I'm without caffeine and feeling pretty stressed! We'll be back live tomorrow morning, but in the meantime, I'll keep the thread from yesterday going with another post from September 2016.
Happy Monday, everybody! I’m here in New York City, on-scene (well, actually less than 20 miles away) for the debate tonight between the two most known presidential candidates. It’s going to be fabulous…you’ll see! Arrived here Friday afternoon. There’s not been a sign of Cousin Fred, so far. I couldn’t seem to get him off The Compound to come to NYC with me. He told me he was going to try to get inside the county jail to see the Francesca. So I guess I’m on my own here in the Big Apple. Truthfully, I don’t miss him too much. I’ve not had a moment alone here in the Southern Living Magazine suite at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan. It’s been non-stop partying…er, working. Friday night things were pretty low key. I had dinner with the virginal vegan Brooklynn Hodensack, my handler, sent by the magazine to ensure I don’t bankrupt the publication with late-night parties and the like. True to her descriptor, Brooklynn picked out an Iranian vegan restaurant for dinner. The weird part was, the owner is an Iranian Catholic named Gladys (only in NYC). I had a vegan chili (very flavorful) served over a bed of organic brown rice. The restaurant served no alcohol, so I was glad to get back to the suite where I discovered the place stocked as I previously requested. Saturday afternoon, I headed over to the debate site on Long Island. There, I received my press credentials, although the people from the Trump’s campaign were eyeing me suspiciously. The Queen of the Unindicted’s people informed me it would be a cold day in hell before she would agree to a one-on-one interview. They did tell me, half-jokingly, that Clinton the First would make himself available. Ooooh, am I happy I agreed to that! What with the Trump’s threat on Saturday afternoon to put Gennifer Flowers in the front row of the debate tonight, I knew it would make for an interesting interview. Of course, he’s only inviting Flowers to attend the debate because the Clinton side announced they’re inviting Mark Cuban to sit front and center. Cuban has apparently hinted that he will make faces at the Trump during the debate. This is going to be great television people! Must see TV! Right here! Hell, this could push the idea of holding presidential debates back into the dark recesses of television archives. Saturday night found the suite filled with students and faculty from New York University, Columbia University, and Hofstra University (where the debate will be held). There was even a cadre of faculty from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It was a delightful evening of meaningful intelligent conversation against a backdrop of esoteric jazz music. This was truly the cream of what I used to refer to as East Coast Intellectual A**holes (a term of endearment, for me anyway). Interestingly, there wasn’t a Trump supporter among any of them. That disturbed me greatly. After all, you need all sides of a political set-up in order to leave the best taste in your mouth. So, I had the virginal vegan Hodensack start dialing for rabid right wingers and prepared to start blasting Ted Nugent tunes. To her credit, and my delight, she found a flock (her term) of about 50 members of the Rockaway Beach Molto Conservative and Social Club at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club having their weekly meeting. The promise of free booze and barbecued cocktail wieners with toothpicks sticking in them had the herd…er, flock…moving our way. By 10PM, the suite was rocking with everything from “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” (actual Ted Nugent tune) to “Kind of Blue” (actual Miles Davis tune)…interspersed with spirited (more like, spirit-induced) discussions of whether the Trump is harboring a plan to build a wall to keep those pesky Canadians from crossing the border and/or whether the Queen of the Unindicted has been purposely building tunnels beneath the border with Mexico to bring in more voters. The highlight of the night was Rudy Giuliani showing up around midnight in a ball gown and red slippers. He kept asking people who they thought was the fairest belle of the ball. That was followed by Clinton the First at 1AM, who kept working through the crowd telling all the young women to call him Uncle Bill. I had the chance to ask Uncle Bill if he was there for his interview. He chuckled and said, no. That’s it, nothing else. He spent the rest of the night avoiding me and having his one-man security team do its best to block my every advance. It’s now 4AM Monday morning and the party is finally beginning to thin out after more than 36 hours. I need sleep in the worst way, but for some reason the door to my bedroom in the suite is blocked by something. No telling who’s in there. The virginal vegan Hodensack’s door is also blocked, but by a brutish looking bodyguard Southern Living sent over to protect her. The remaining intellectuals are lined up on one side of the suite reading from the 17th century work by John Milton, “Areopagitica” and then discussing his relevance in a 21st century world (it is zilch, zero, nada, by the way – trust me, I have a degree in Literature). That was only after an early Sunday evening’s stirring round of conjugating verbs in dead languages. The team on the right from Rockaway Beach is watching old Ronald Reagan speeches on YouTube and weeping inconsolably as they guzzle Brown Derby Beer (they sent out for it). By the by, as we promised last week, we are herein today, fulfilling a semi-promise to reveal signs of the coming apocalypse. Oh, it’s coming! First, we revealed a dent in the nation’s supply of fast-food. Now comes the second sign, namely, the rise of the rule-benders. They’re everywhere. It seems that two women in the township of Mehoopany in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania (I couldn’t possibly make any of that up) got into a confrontation at the Mehoopany Dandy Mart (MDM). It seems that Kimberly (mugshot above) was smoking a cigarette while pumping gas at the MDM. Poor innocent Tami (who has likely never broken a rule, let alone bent a rule), began yelling at Kimberly to put out the cig while they were both pumping gas. An argument ensued – O’ how I wish I had video of that – and poor innocent Tami threw water at the cigarette. Tami then got into her car and started to drive away when Kimberly leveled the gas nozzle and sprayed Tami inside her car with gas. Eh, gas is cheap right now, you can participate in such shenanigans and not feel like you’re wasting money. Tami, drenched in gasoline, stops her car, gets out, but before she could beat Kimberly senseless with the gas nozzle, she slipped in the spilled gas, fell down and broke her arm. Kimberly is in jail now facing assault and other charges – hopefully one of which is smoking while fueling. We are currently hard at work on our new CCB-associated web site, www.countdown2armageddon.com. Get ready, people…to be shocked, amazed, and bewildered all in one sitting. That is all! |
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