From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Fun in the Summertime!"---A Play in One Act
[The beach. Around Noon.]
Dad: Hey, kids! I got our food!
Kids: Yay! Cheeseburgers! Hot dogs! French fries! We're starving!
Dad: Here's your lunch, Susie. Here ya go, Bobby. Wendy…catch!
Wendy: Thanks, Daddy!
Dad: And, of course, here's your lunch, Mom.
Mom: Thank you, dear.
[The family unwraps their lunches.]
Bobby: Daddy! This is a dog turd on a bun!
Wendy: Ooh! I got a human finger.
Susie: I got worms and a dead bird. Yuck!!!
Mom: This is just chunks of glass between two pieces of sheet metal! What kind of lunch is this???
[Dad sighs, then folds arms]
Dad: Okay, okay. Look, I understand you're upset. I do. I myself had to accept a mudflap on whole wheat slathered in antifreeze. I am not happy with this lunch. I believe we as a family can do better. But this was the best we could get under the circumstances and the time constraints. But I assure you, family, it could have been worse.
Mom: How could it have been any worse?! You brought back dog turds and dead birds and a human finger, fer god's sake!
Dad: Look. I know it's messy, and getting your lunch took far too long. But the proprietor of the Psycho Clown Café wanted me to hand over the keys to our car before he'd give us our lunch. Can you believe that? I mean, I'd already given him our credit cards like he demanded, and he wanted our car, too? I told him emphatically that he was not getting our LeSabre! It is off the table!
Mom: Well, thank heaven for that.
Dad: Instead, I forced him to accept a downpayment on a new Porsche, which he did, but grudgingly.
[The family stares blankly at Dad over the sounds of seagulls flying overhead and waves lapping at the shore. In the distance, a dog barks.]
Dad: So let me be clear. This lunch does not contain everything I wanted. It's not perfect. I believe that we'll do better next time, and I'm confident the Psycho Clowns will meet us halfway. But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the nutrition we need, and gives us a strong incentive to get a balanced diet before the end of the year. Besides, we should not lose sight of the fact that we gained something as well.
Mom: And what would that be?
Dad: We're at the beach, honey. We're at the beach!
Note: Any similarity to actual persons, living or otherwise, should be purely coincidental.
Music by Phillip Glass
Psycho Clown Café T-shirts available in the gift shop
No flash photography, please.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Note: There is now a new funniest punchline in the world: "We are going to make MySpace cool again." Please update your comedy routines accordingly.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next round of Wisconsin recall elections: 6
Days `til the 20th annual Midwest Reggae Festival in Nelson, Ohio: 9
Factor by which whites have more in net worth than, respectively, blacks and Hispanics: 20x, 18x
(Source: Census data)
Percent chance that this extraordinary imbalance is on any government or business radar screen at the moment: 0%
Amount that natural-health company Tom's of Maine offers its employees towards the purchase of a hybrid car: $4,000
(Source: The Maine Sunday Telegram)
Number of e-reader devices sold last year: 10.3 million
Expected number that will be sold next year: 19.6 million
(Source: The Boston Globe)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 182 (including 3 False Prophets and 1 daring escape from the rapture zombies). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Despite Congress's best efforts to thwart the attempt, a job was actually created in America.
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CHEERS to dodging a wet sponge. PHEW!!! It's all over---the debt ceiling has been raised and America has been pulled back from the brink of default. Better yet, now we know exactly what to do to prevent this from happening again: give Republicans everything they ask for, when they ask for it, how they ask for it, and never, ever ask why. (Aren't you glad we cleared up that uncertainty?) And guess what happened on Wall Street? The Dow plunged 89,000 points before recovering 88,754 of them. And Gladys the cleaning woman sincerely apologizes for unplugging the Dow computer system in the middle of the day so she could vacuum the break room. It happens!
JEERS to---please pardon my French---fucking Republican idiot asshole bastards who don’t know a goddam thing about anything. Remember when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Washington, D.C. recently and the right-wingers were having spontaneous orgasms just being in his hawky, hunky, Rapture-inducing presence? Remember how President Obama suggested that any negotiations between Israel and Palestine should involve the "1967 borders with land swaps?" Remember how everyone---including Netanyahu and the traditional media, in full condescension mode---skewered the president for that, calling him a crazy sumbitch with absolutely no knowledge of history? Well, to quote Thomas Friedman (cuz it makes me look smart-thinkin'): Suck. On. This. Meaning, this:
Israel will resume peace talks based on its 1967 borders if the Palestinian Authority stops seeking U.N. Palestinian state recognition, Israel’s leader said. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said his organization would abandon its efforts for a statehood vote if Israel agrees to the 1967 borders and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the new Palestinian state. Israel will agree to both of these terms, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said late Monday.
Obama was right. Obama was right. Obama was right. Cue the media mea culpas in 3… 2… 1… Never.
JEERS to abandoning your brood. Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) is a mighty, small-government warrior---a fiscal hawk who fulfills his financial obligations and draws a deep and unyielding line in the sand on behalf of bean-counting responsibility:
“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!"
What a man! What a role model! What a---oops---deadbeat dad who owes a hundred-thousand bucks in child support. In fairness, though, Walsh has a very good reason for not forking over the money: they'll just spend it.
CHEERS to reality-based pioneers. Today is John T. Scopes's 111th birthday. He's the Tennessee high school teacher who was taken to court (the famous Scopes Monkey trial) for teaching evolution in class. His gravestone labels him "A Man of Courage"---an understatement if ever there was one. Pay your respects here. It'll drive the creationists crazy.
CHEERS to victories in unexpected places. Love that judicial branch when they take on out-of-control state legislatures! For the second time in recent weeks, Kansas's War on Women™ has suffered a setback. And for that we can thank U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten, who…
…issued a preliminary injunction Monday that blocks Kansas from stripping federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood. He ordered the state to start distributing the money to the agency. […] Marten also agreed that Planned Parenthood was being punished because it advocated for abortion rights. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri provides abortions at its Overland Park offices.
Y'know, when all seems lost, you read something like that and your soul just lets out a happy little sigh. I'm not sure why, but when my soul sighs it always clears everybody out of the room.
CHEERS to the world's greatest living crooner. Look up 'class' in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Anthony Dominick Benedetto, aka Tony Bennett. I met him back in the early 90's when the Saginaw, Michigan radio station I worked at co-sponsored one of his Christmas concerts. He couldn’t have been more accommodating or charming. And he's also quite popular with the species Lumbricus terrestris. Bennett turns 85 today and we wish him many blessings on his camels. We're glad he still wants to be around.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 3, 2006
CHEERS to restoring our appetite. After three years showing the world that our elected leaders are a bunch of petty pissypoos, congressional cafeterias have changed two of their menu items back to French fries and French toast. But why did it take three years to stop this nonsense?
JEERS to hiding your constitution-shredding activities. The "Justice" Department says it'll drop a cluster of bunker busters on Maine if our Public Utilities Commission proceeds with an investigation into whether or not Verizon illegally gave customers' records to the NSA. From The Portland Press Herald:
"Verizon may have broken the law, and the Department of Justice is overstepping its bounds in trying to intimidate the state PUC from investigating the potential violation," said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. "And I do think it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for the federal government to threaten to sue the state, (which is) merely doing its job."
Memo to Alberto Gonzales: Back off or we'll cease shipments of lobster to your country club.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the birth of a legend. It's already been a fuckuva week. Debt ceiling? Clusterfuck. Afghanistan? Clusterfuck. Economy? Clusterfuck. Energy policy, immigration reform, unemployment, personal income, retirement plans? Cluster-you-know-what. Sure would be nice to have something to really laugh about on this lousy humpday, no? I believe I know someone who can help. Thanks to wayback-machine technology, we take you to August 3, 2006, when life was simple, cherub-faced children played stickball in the streets, and Daddy came home to find his slippers, pipe, newspaper and supper waiting for him as the aroma of jasmine wafted on the warm summer breeze. Oh, and this was at the top of the DKos charts:
Since I can't delete my account myself, my only recourse is to be as abrasive and disruptive as I can be UNTIL MY ACCOUNT GETS DELETED. As long as my account remains here, I do not feel comfortable leaving. Is it really such a tough request to delete my account so I can go? Just what kind of website lets you join up but won't let you leave? One that regards people as little more than statistics, that's what. How like the Democratic Party for Kos to view his site's members as little more than statistics.
DELETE MY FUCKING ACCOUNT, KOS.
And, for a brief moment, unicorns romp once again in the Land of Plenty.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Rep. Lamborn Sends Obama An Apology Letter For Equating Him With ‘Bill in Portland Maine'
---Think Progress
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