Huckabee: With Lost Weight, I Could Be My Own VP

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas.  Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who has used his 110-pound weight loss to generate sympathy in a long-shot quest to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, today proposed to serve as his own vice president if elected.

Mike Huckabee

“A hundred and ten pounds ain’t peanuts,” Huckabee said to reporters outside his headquarters here.  “If I lose maybe ten more pounds, you’re talking a Jimmy Carter, maybe even a Harry Truman.”

Harry Truman: Pound-for-pound, the greatest president of the 20th century.

Huckabee is touting the idea of dual office-holding as a way to reduce the federal deficit.  The Vice President is paid an annual salary of $171,500, has an expense account of $10,000 and a $90,000 entertainment budget, lives rent-free in the Blair House and is entitled to free coffee refills in the White House cafeteria.  Huckabee says he will forego all of these benefits if elected, and will also work nights and weekends for the presidential salary of $400,000.

John Nance Garner:  He didn’t really say “spit”.

The vice presidency was once described as “not worth a warm bucket of spit” by John Nance Garner, who was thirty-second vice president from 1933 to 1941.  On his last day in office his staff presented him with a silver bucket filled with spit, and Garner cheerfully admitted that he had been right.

Janet Huckabee:  “Yes, those slacks make you look fat.”

The notion of dual office-holding came to Huckabee when he was admiring himself in the mirror in the first weeks of a low-carb bacon, heavy cream, egg white and belly-button lint diet.  “I said to my wife Janet ‘Look, I’ve lost ten pounds!’,’ Huckabee recalls, ”and she said ‘Turn around, you’ll find it.’”

Lavoisier:  “Do I smell popcorn?”

Under the First Law of Thermodynamics, first propounded by French chemist and teen pop star Anoine Lavoisier, matter can neither be created nor destroyed.  As a result Huckabee’s “lost” weight remains available to perform the functions of the vice president such as attending funerals of third-world dictators and flying to natural disasters in which fewer than one hundred people die.

Other Republican contenders criticized the idea, saying it was essential to the nation’s security to have a different individual in each office.  “If the president dies, the vice president takes over,” noted former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.  “If the vice president dies the Speaker of the House takes over.”  What happens, a reporter asked Romney in the hope of tripping him up on a question of constitutional law, when the Speaker dies?

“You go to Radio Shack,” Romney replied with composure, “and get a new one.”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Boston Pub Regulars Seek Reparations from London Mayor

DORCHESTER, Mass.  Mike Doyle’s Kinvarra Pub in this gritty Boston neighborhood is the sort of “third space” that sociologists say is essential to bringing community and a sense of belonging to urban residents.  “You can tell them sociologists they got that one on the nosey,” said pub regular Ernie Sullivan with a laugh.

The Kinvarra

The parochial character of this particular watering hole doesn’t mean its customers aren’t up on world affairs, however.  “Oh yeah, we watch the news every so often,” says Sullivan.  “Sometimes when we’re changing the channel from the Bruins to the Red Sox in the spring Mike will hit the wrong number and we’ll get CNN.”

London Mayor Ken Livingstone

It was just such a fortuitous slip of the remote control that alerted the Kinvarra’s patrons, who are overwhelmingly Irish-American, to London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s recent apology for his city’s role in fostering slavery, and the suggestion that he might be amenable to the payment of reparations for the suffering endured by its victims.  Livingstone has similarly apologized to Palestinian Arabs for their expulsion from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by Israelis in 1967, and to the French for several sarcastic remarks he has made about mime Marcel Marceau at cocktail parties over the years.

Marcel Marceau:  Apology accepted.

“That’s the right thing to do,” says Sean “Butchie” McGrath.  “But what about me?” he asks.  “Where do I go to get me reparations?” he asks, and his friends chime in that they’d like to share in the bounty as well.

“As long as you’re handing them out, we’d all like reparations.”

Why, this reporter asks, does a crowd of American citizens think that they’re entitled to receive compensation from the Mayor of London?

Oliver Freakin’ Cromwell

“Oliver Freakin’ Cromwell,” Butchie McGrath replies without hesitation.  “Cromwell invaded Ireland in the 17th century, and killed me great-great-great-great-great grandfather Liam,” he says as his eyes grow misty with tears.  “I lost the paperwork on it,” he adds, “so they’d have to take my word on it.”

“If that Cromwell guy ever shows his face in here, I’m going to pop him one!”

McGrath and his friends suffer from what pathologists have come to refer to as “Irish Alzheimer’s”, a variant of the degenerative disease characterized by loss of memory.  “They forget everything–car keys, social security number, children’s birthdays–except the grudges,” says Dr. Philip Mainwaring of Massachusetts General Hospital.  “It’s hereditary, and there is no known cure.”

“You might plunk him down in front of a Notre Dame football game to ease the pain.”

While Livingstone has been eager to apologize for just about any historical wrong, he has hesitated to commit himself on Anglo-Irish affairs, and some say ethnic and religious prejudice is the reason.  “If he apologizes for Cromwell, he’ll have to apologize for the Potato Famine,” says Anthony Waugh, an expert in Anglo-Irish history at Oxford University, referring to a 19th century catastrophe in which more than a million Irish died from hunger while absentee English landlords exported food from their plantations in Ireland.  “There aren’t enough crisps and chips (potato chips and French fries) in England to pay off that debt.”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Self-Mutilation on Rise as Demand for Inspirational Speakers Grows

CHARLESTOWN, Mass. Over the course of his life Butchie Dorr has tried a variety of techniques—some legal, some not—to keep his body and soul together. “I scalped tickets for awhile, then I caught on as a bus driver for the T,” the Boston area’s public transit authority. “Then I went out on disability for a couple years until they snuck into the bowling alley one Tuesday night and caught me playing candlepins.”

After scuffling around for a few years, Butchie is excited about his latest career change; he has signed on with Face Time International, a local speakers bureau, and will begin a career as a motivational speaker—as soon as he can figure out how to lose an appendage without killing himself in the process.

Butchie

“If you want to be a successful motivational speaker these days, it is essential that you be blind, paralyzed or somehow disabled,” says Paul Welch, president of Face Time. “Top speakers can make a lot of money, but with Butchie we’re going to start small and see where it goes.”

So Butchie is sitting in his kitchen, facing a speaking engagement tonight at the Young Presidents Club of Boston, an organization of local executives. The title of his speech? “How I Overcame Adversity to Be the Man I Am Today”, an emotional account of his recovery from the injury he will inflict upon himself today.

“I read in the Wall Street Journal there where that blind guy who climbed Mt. Everest makes two mill a year,” he notes with approval as he rubs alcohol on his finger. “I’d like to get me a piece of that.”

With his wife Doreen by his side, Butchie makes a fist with his left hand as he prepares to stick his right index finger in the maw of a Rival brand electric can opener.

“You ready?” Doreen asks Butchie. He purses his lips and, after downing a shot of Jameson’s Irish whiskey in one gulp, nods his head. Doreen takes Butchie’s right hand, steadies it in the narrow space between the white plastic body of the machine and the cutting wheel, counts down “One-two-three”—and slams the chrome handle down.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Butchie screams, and pulls his hand away immediately.

“Lemme see,” Doreen says as she holds her husband’s hand up for inspection. “Nice,” she says with admiration. “Good clean cut, real ugly lookin’.”

Butchie continues to scream as Doreen holds his hand under cold water from the kitchen faucet, pats it dry with a paper towel (”Bounty—the Quicker Picker Upper!” Doreen says with a laugh), then wraps a piece of gauze around the gaping would. “Let’s get you taped up,” she says as she secures the oversize pad with a piece of white adhesive tape. “Okay, what’s next?”

“Now I gotta climb something,” he says as the white bandage on his finger quickly turns red.

“I’ll drive you up to the Monument,” Doreen says, referring to the granite obelisk that sits atop Bunker Hill, site of one of the most famous battles of the Revolutionary War.

The Dorrs’ 1994 Toyota sputters up the street and Doreen drops Butchie off at the curb. “See you later,” she says.

“You ain’t gonna come wit’ me?” he asks, a pained expression on his face.

“Naw—I gotta take the kids to hockey, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Butchie says, recalling that his twin boys, Sean and Kyle, have a tournament game tonight against archrival Somerville. “Well, see you later. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” Doreen answers, then adds wistfully, “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Butchie replies, and he makes his way up the hill to the Cleopatra’s needle that sits at the heart, if not the liver, of this blue-collar town just north of Boston.

Butchie sizes up the monument and begins his climb, stopping every now and then as his finger begins to throb. “Must be the altitude,” he tells himself, and indeed by the time he is halfway up the internal iron staircase his heart is racing and his bandage is more red than white.

He finishes after a half hour’s stop and go progress, and allows himself a peek out the narrow windows at the skyline of Boston off in the distance. “This was tough, but it’s gonna mean a better life for my family,” he thinks as tears well up in his eyes like morning dew on the skin of a Vidalia onion.

Butchie takes the Orange Line subway into Boston, where he gets off at the Old State House, the site of the “no taxation without representation” speech that stirred the hearts of the colonists. He stops and asks for directions to 60 State Street, where a roomful of high-powered business men and women awaits him.

After a few moments of difficulty getting past the first-floor security guards, Butchie is on his way to the 34th floor, where floor-to-ceiling windows provide him with some perspective on how far he’s come today, literally and figuratively, from his tough neighborhood to the rarified atmosphere of a private dining club.

“Mr. Dorr?” Butchie’s reverie is interrupted by Barton Hicks, the club’s executive director.

“That’s me—in living color!” Butchie replies enthusiastically, eager to begin his new career.

“I think we’re just about ready for you, if you’d like to take a seat at the dais,” Hicks says.

“The what’s-is?”

“The dais—up there,” Hicks says, pointing to a table set in front of a window on the other side of the room.

“Sure—wherever you want to put me.”

Hicks and his featured guest make their way up to the rostrum, where the executive director silences the members’ chit-chat by tapping a fork on a water glass.

“Ladies and gentlemen—if you wouldn’t mind, I think we’re ready to begin today’s program. We have with us today a man who has overcome virtually insurmountable difficulties in his life, and who can serve as an inspiration for us all. Please welcome—Mr. Butchie Dorr.”

The assembled tycoons applaud politely, a foreshadow of the thunderous applause that Face Time’s inspirational speakers usually generate by the time they’ve finished their stirring tales of how they beat the bad hands that life has dealt them.

“Thank you very much,” Butchie begins. “I really appreciate that. Geez, I feel kinda underdressed,” he begins, noting that the audience is wearing business suits and dresses while he has chosen a Hollywood Choppers jacket that he bought to celebrate his first gig.

“First of all, let me start by saying, none of youse has nothin’ to be ashamed of, cause down deep in side of youse is something that you couldn’t sell for all the money in the world.” He pauses for effect, and every eye in the house is on him.

“You can’t bottle it, you can’t wrap it up and tie a bow around it, cause it’s,” Butchie pauses to check a 3X5 note card, “ee-phem-er-al.” Impressed by his own eloquence, Butchie smiles before continuing. “It’s the human will, which, like Schopenauer said, is what the world is, along with representation.” Face Time provides all of its speakers with inspirational and high-toned anecdotes and quotes that they can use to dress up their speeches.

“I mean,” Butchie continues, “just this mornin’ I was sittin’ in my kitchen when I nearly cut my freakin’ finger off! And not more than like twenty minutes later, there I was, climbing the Bunker Hill monument. Now if that ain’t inspirational, I don’t know what is.”

Butchie checks his notes but he has dropped one of his cards on the subway, and so skips over the meat of his planned presentation and ends up looking at his concluding remarks.

“And so I says to youse, if you don’t blow your own bazoo, there’s nobody gonna blow it for you. Thank you very much, and be sure and tip your waiters and waitresses,” he concludes, using a line he understands from comedy clubs is the traditional peroration used when speaking in refined settings. The assembled members, who are not allowed to tip the help under club rules, exchange puzzled glances.

“Thank you very much Mr. Dorr,” Hicks says a little nervously as he glances at his watch and sees that he has twenty minutes left to fill. “I’m sure Mr. Dorr would be happy to answer any questions you may have,” he says to the audience.

“Sure,” Butchie says. “Fire away!”

A elderly, grey-haired man in a boxy suit raises his hand and rises slowly.

“Yes—Mr. Isham,” Hicks says graciously.

“I just want to know,” he begins in a frail voice, “how much did the club pay you for that wagon-load of bull you just dumped on us?”

Hicks helpfully repeats the question for members of the audience who didn’t hear it. “Mr. Isham asked how much Mr. Dorr was paid.”

“Eight hundred fifty smackers,” Butchie replies, “and believe me I can use it. I got no tread on my tires and we gotta drive my kids all over creation for their hockey,” he says with a smile, expecting laughter to follow. Hearing none, he continues. “Next question.”

A prim-looking woman in a knit skirt and jacket ensemble rises. “What exactly is your disability—I don’t believe you told us.”

“Ain’t that the way it always is—you forget the most important part,” he replies sheepishly. “I cut my finger in the goddamn can opener this morning—hurt’s like a bitch too.” He notices that the women’s face turns a lighter shade, and adds, “Excuse my French.”

“Anybody else?” Hicks asks. “No one? Well, thank you very much, Mr. Dorr, for those moving remarks. We have a little token of our appreciation for you.”

“Oh, geez, you didn’t have to do that,” Butchie says modestly. “The check is gonna be enough.”

“No, this is for you,” Hicks says as he hands him a Steuben glass figure of Don Quixote astride his spavined horse, Rocinante. “May you continue to tilt at windmills the rest of your life.”

“What the hell is this thing?” Dorr says with a mock-quizzical look on his face as he holds it out at arm’s length for inspection.

“It’s Don Quixote de la Mancha, who exemplifies the man who dreams an impossible dream.”

“Donkey who?” Dorr asks before fumbling the statue and dropping it to the floor, where it shatters into pieces.

“Good Lord!” Hicks exclaims. “That cost $350!”

“Christ amighty!” Dorr yells. “Somebody get the Dustbuster!”

Cpyright 2007, Con Chapman

Outsourcing Declines as Indian Males Discover Fantasy Cricket

BANGALORE, India.  Vijay Hazare appears to be working at his computer at a call center in this southern Indian city, but his impish smile betrays a secret.  “Today is draft day in my fantasy cricket league,” he says as he taps out his first round pick, Gulabrai Ramchand, a wicketkeeper for the New Delhi Mets.  “I hope to field a team that will crush its opponents like Shiva!” he says, referring to the Hindu god of destruction.

Hazare and other Indian males like him are part of a trend that threatens to undercut the gains his poverty-stricken nation have made by attracting American businesses with the promise of a highly-educated work force that is satisfied with low wages and no health insurance.  Outsourced service sector work can be mind-numbingly boring, and Hazare and his colleagues have discovered what many U.S. males call their number one fringe benefit–the ability to waste time at desk-top computers with fantasy sports leagues, NCAA Final Four betting pools and other sports-related diversions.

Fantasy sports leagues play a significant role in the low productivity of American male workers in white collar jobs, according to Claude Thornton, a researcher at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  “Your average U.S. man who uses a computer at work spends 26% of his day checking sports scores and making fantasy trades.  Another 24% is spent on lunch and coffee breaks, 40% is spent fantasizing about the receptionist, and 5% going to the bathroom, leaving only 25% of the day for actual work.”  When a reporter pointed that out these figures didn’t add up to 100%, Thornton became defensive.  “Picky, picky,” he said as he ended the interview.

“Your blouse is not back from Bangalore yet.”

Most jobs outsourced to low-wage countries consist of tasks that do not involve face-to-face customer contact, but the pressures of globalization may force more personalized types of service offshore as well.  “My dry cleaner lost a button on one of my blouses and I had to go to Bangalore to get it,” complained Marci Mangel-Lipton, a Newton, Mass. housewife.  “If I hadn’t bought it on sale it wouldn’t have been worth the trip.”

“You’re silly mid off?  I thought I was.”

Cricket is a game similar to baseball that is played in many countries such as India that were once British colonies.  There are twelve players on a side, many with odd-sounding names like “deep fine leg”, “silly mid off” and “short mid wicket.”  A game can take several days, causing the decline and fall of entire empires when players do not return to assigned military posts.

Chained to his desk.

But that doesn’t discourage Vijay Hazare as he presses the “enter” key on his computer to pick Rahul Dravid, a “square short leg” on the Calcutta Hurricanes for his fantasy squad, “Vijay’s Vipers”.  “If I must be chained to my desk all day,” he says as his office manager checks the lock on his leg shackle, “at least let me have some fun!”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Today Show Salute to Summer of Love Soured by Bad Acid

NEW YORK.  It was forty years ago today–or at least this month–that San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district was the focal point of what came to be known as the “Summer of Love”, with psychedelic drugs, casual sex and anti-war politics mixed together to form a potent brew that some say changed America forever.

Corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets, San Francisco

Yesterday, four decades later, NBC’s Weekend Today revisited that time of youthful innocence with near-tragic results as the show’s co-anchors, Lester Holt and Campbell Brown, ingested some bad LSD–lysergic acid diethylamide–the hallucinogenic drug that fueled the art, music and visionary thinking of the 60’s.

” . . and you say colors will appear to be more vivid?”

Weekend Today is a news and talk show that sometimes includes unscripted demonstrations by chefs, and it was this type of feature that the show’s producers had in mind when they invited a sixty year-old former hippie who goes by the name “Universe” to serve as “tour guide” for an LSD “trip” for the show’s co-hosts.  “We checked the guy and he seemed legit,” said NBC executive Thomas Henderson.  “He wore sandals and showed us a copy of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Anthem of the Sun’, an album so bad you have to be stoned to listen to it.”

Anthem of the Sun:  Possibly the worst album of the psychedelic era.

“Universe” gave a tablet of LSD to each co-anchor, and after a few minutes of polite chatter, Holt began to grow alarmed at the crush of tourists who press up against the windows at the Rockefeller Center studio where the show is taped.  “What do those people want,” Holt is heard saying with alarm.  “Where is Keokuk, Iowa?”

“We came all the way from Bemidji, Minnesota!”

The drug overtakes Campbell Brown a few minutes later.  “I feel different,” she says tentatively as “Universe” urges her to elaborate. “I feel as if I have found the keys to the doors of heaven,” she replied in a dreamy tone, “and I can see the face of God–who is our next guest,” before a technician cut to a commercial for Poli-Grip, a denture adhesive. 

“This is wild!”

LSD is illegal, although it was used by the U.S. government in a series of experiments on unsuspecting housewives during the 1950’s to simulate the effects of a possible Soviet takeover of America using mind-control drugs, according to Department of Defense archivist Leonard Holmes. ”It was one part genuine defense preparedness,” Holmes notes, “and one part ‘Let’s see what would happen to June Cleaver if she got totally stoned out of her gourd.’”

“I was craving something sweet, so I baked a chocolate cake.”

LSD is often confused with the Mormon Church, whose official name is the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, sometimes referred to by the abreviation “LDS”.  Individuals who ingest LSD before joining the LDS often suffer psychotic reactions at church-sponsored ham-and-bean suppers.

NBC filled the remaining ten minutes of air time with highlights from past shows, including a performance by the largest collection of xylophone players ever assembled in one spot, and a champion baton-twirling squad from Muncie, Indiana.

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Ask Mr. Postal Service Person

Everyone loves the daily walk down to the mailbox to get letters from friends, unless you’re being foreclosed on or something, which is not really the US Postal Service’s fault. 

  

The US Postal Service is here to serve you, the people who make it possible for Mr. Postal Service Person to retire in just 1,432 more work days, as if I’m counting.  Last year, several postal patrons wrote to me with questions, and when I received their letters yesterday, I immediately sent them the following helpful responses:

 

The Big Bopper

Dear Mr. Postal Service Person:

I recently purchased some 39 cent stamps and now they are no good since it costs 41 cents to mail a letter.  Nobody told me this beforehand–what am I going to do with the sheet of ”Big Bopper” commemorative stamps that I bought just before the price increase?

Ewell Pickens, Paducah, Kentucky

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes:  “I’ll play first base, third base, outfield–anywhere but Philadelphia.”

Dear Ewell:

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”  He also said “Three generations of imbeciles is enough” and ”If a horse won’t eat it, I won’t play on it.”  No wait, that was Richie Allen.

 

Anyway, if you haven’t figured out by now that stamp prices are only going to go up, why don’t you take your business to Federal Express and pay eight bucks to send your stupid mail?

 

Dear Mr. Postal Service Person:

Whatever happened to Mr. Zip, the friendly cartoon character who helped introduce zip codes back in the 60’s? 

Allison de Vries, Pottsdam, New York

 

“We’re offering free flying saucer rides today if you sign up for a MBNA Mastercard!”

Dear Allison:

Mr. Zip retired and returned to his boyhood home in the Alpha Centuri galaxy.  He periodically visits the US to abduct human subjects in and around Roswell, New Mexico.

 

Reba the Mail Lady

Dear Mr. Postal Service Person:

Why is a male employee of the Postal Service called a “mail man”, while a female is called a “mail lady”, like Reba the Mail Lady on Pee Wee Herman?  To be fair, shouldn’t a “mail man” be called a “mail gentleman”?

Bob Rouchka, Tarkio, MO

 

“I just closed my eyes for a minute, okay?”

Bob–

Good point!  The precise term for the friendly person who naps in his truck down the block from your house so he can s-t-r-e-t-c-h his route to cover a full shift is “letter carrier”, which is a unisex term that can be applied to both men and women.  “Letter carriers” are required to select a gender at the beginning of each workday so as not to unduly disturb the vicious dogs you people keep in your front yards, like you’re a bunch of crack dealers or something.

 

John Ratzenberger as “Cliff” on Cheers

Mr. Postal Service Person:

It must be hard for you to deal with the stereotypes such as “Cliff” on “Cheers”, the postman who seems to spend all his time drinking beer and yakking when he should be out delivering mail.  Are you ever tempted to “go postal” on somebody who makes a cruelly insensitive remark about your work ethic?

Norbert Downing, Fell’s Acres, Vermont

 

Ultimate Fighting Championship match

Norbert–

Why did you have to bring up “going postal”?  What was the point of that?  And why are you still watching Cheers?  It went off the air years ago.  What is it with you–you think you’re so freaking special. 

 

Non-violent UFC employees

A study by the Brotherhood of Letter Carriers found that postal workers are no more likely to engage in workplace violence than hockey players or Ultimate Fighting Championship employees.  Except for the round card girls, who are quite bodacious, by the way.

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

With Atheism More Assertive, Religions Form New Ties

BOSTON.  Atheism is hot right now, according to Dan McCarthy, sales clerk at Sheehan’s of Boston, a religious goods store, who sometimes spends his lunch hour checking out what people are buying a few blocks away at Borders, the retail book giant.  “You’ve got several best-sellers on atheism out right now,” he notes sadly, referring to books such as “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “God is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens.  “It’s enough to make me mad, if anger wasn’t one of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

Borders in Boston

But religious leaders say the newly assertive form of atheism is producing an equal and opposite reaction; a growing willingness among the major faiths to drop their ancient enmities and work together to combat godlessness.

Galileo:  “Fat lot of good it does me.”

“It really started with Jews for Jesus,” says Father Paul Pelletier of St. Columbkill’s parish in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, referring to the evangelical organization that seeks to convert Jews to Christianity, “but without the Spanish Inquisition” he adds with a chuckle.  He has formed a new group–”Catholics for Copernicus”–named after the 16th century Polish astronomer whose conclusion that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe contradicted accepted religious dogma.  “In retrospect, we really shouldn’t have thrown Galileo in prison for teaching this stuff, but what can we do, other than say ‘My bad’.”

Filene’s Basement:  “I saw it first!”

Just a few blocks away, Prudence Williams, a well-dressed woman in her 40’s, is walking down the steps to Filene’s Basement, the world-famous discount store where shoppers fight for bargains like hockey players.  “I’ve never been here before,” she notes as she does her best to conceal her distaste for the disorder that surrounds her.  “I usually shop at Talbots,” the upscale women’s store, “but I’ve joined PROPS,” an acronym that stands for “Presbyterians for Off-Price Shopping.”  Prudence greets her lower-class shopping partner, Donna Maria Alberghetti, a Catholic from Boston’s Italian North End, who will try to convince Prudence, who lives in a wealthy suburb, that “It’s all right to wear bras and panties that have been pawed over by fifty million other women.”

Talbots shoppers:  “So I asked the salesgirl, ‘Haven’t you got something a little more expensive?’”

Jewish leaders, historically wary of efforts by other faiths to proselytize their people, say they welcome efforts to strengthen the Judeo-Christian tradition.  “We know for a fact that Jesus was Jewish,” says Rabbi Ari Goldstein of Temple Beth-Shalom in Brookline, Mass. “After all, he lived at home until he was thirty, he went into his father’s business, and his mother thought he was God.”

Holy cow.

It’s not just Western religions that are getting a makeover, says Professor Martin Paulsen of the Duquesne University School of Theology in Pittsburgh.  “At a recent international symposium I learned of ‘Buddhists for Beer and Bowling’, a group for members of that faith who seek enlightenment in worldly things,” he says, ”and a new organization called ’Hindus for Hamburger Helper’.”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Pro-War Folk Singer Finds She Has Stage All to Herself

BOSTON.  For Sharon Elliot, the “Eureka” moment of her life came a few years ago at the National Association for Campus Activities convention, a showcase for entertainers seeking bookings on the college circuit.

 

Sharon Elliot:  Indistinguishable from other folk singers, only more so.

“I was a month behind in my rent and desperate,” she recalls, “but when I showed up to audition there were probably forty other female folk singers just like me–long stringy hair, peasant dress–the full Judy Collins.”

 

“I’m more sensitive than you are.”

Faced with daunting odds, she was inspired by a woman standing in line behind her practicing “The Cruel War”, a song from the Civil War about a young woman who cuts off her hair and joins her lover on the battle lines.  “I thought to myself, I need something that will make me stand out from the crowd,” whose anti-war conformity hung in the air like tear gas at a peace demonstration.

 

“Iraq, Iran–one little letter separates them.  Let’s drop a big bomb and like totally decimate them.”

So she stole the march on the woman who inspired her, launching into a spirited rendition of “The Cruel War” with lyrics she improvised on the spot to emphasize the song’s implicit martial theme.  “It really is about crushing the other side like a bug, so you can return home and make love in a  field of daffodills,” she says.

 

“Where have all the flowers gone?  Killed them with Round-Up Weed Killer, every one . . .”

The reaction from the audience of college booking agents was surprisingly favorable.  “We’re looking for balance in the programs we offer,” said Maitland Jamieson of Vanderbilt University.  “For every wimpy post-adolescent androgynous wussy boy like John Mayer we book, we like to have someone with a more positive view of civilian casualties.”

John Mayer:  “Me and all my friends, we’re all misunderstood.  They say we stand for nothing, but actually we’re in favor of making a lot of money and having bodacious babes slobbering all over us.”

Elliot walked out of the convention with a solid list of gigs, and has since parlayed her contrarian approach into a moderately successful career playing out-of-the-way colleges that have a hard time paying for big-name acts with predictably left-wing views.

“Sharon is sensitive, but she makes an exception for the Taliban and al Quaeda.”

At Bethany Baptist College in Otterville, Missouri, a crowd that represents over eighty percent of the total student body crammed the school’s gymnasium on a recent Saturday to hear Sharon open her act with a cover of The Gap Band’s 80’s hit “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”.

 

The Gap Band:  “Sharon’s cool with us, although she should consider shaving her legs.”

“Sharon’s message is you can’t love everybody, which is what my momma always told me about dating,” says sophomore Krystal Muller as she snuggles next to her boyfriend Lyle Dunham.  “Some people really need to be wiped off the face of the earth, or else why would God make Tomahawk missiles and stuff?”

 

Tomahawk Land Attack missile:  Wicked awesome!

Eliot hopes that she will soon enter the rarified altitudes of celebrity where she will be referred to simply by her first name, like Prince or Cher, and make enough from commercial endorsements to cut back on a grueling concert schedule that has her on the road for two hundred dates a year.  “I’m talking to Round-Up Weed Killer about doing a voice over of ‘Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?’”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

FAQ’s About Gerbil News Network

Readers of this column are constantly bombarding us with questions.  Look out–here comes one now!  (Just kidding.)  In order to make your reading experience more enjoyable, and to reduce the time we are forced to spend dealing with actual human beings, we have created an “FAQ” feature.

 

Q:  What does “FAQ” stand for?

A:   “FAQ” stands for “frequently asked questions”.  It also is short for “free along quay”, a Frenglish trade term that means the seller of Jerry Lewis DVDs must make them available to the buyer on the “quay” (wharf) at the named port of destination, cleared for import.

 

Q:  Can I ask another question?

A:   You just did, and you can’t have a third–there are lots of people waiting.

 

Q:   I rarely see references to belly-button lint in this space.  Is this omission intentional?

A:   Gerbil News Network Decency Guidelines prohibit explicit references to dandruff, belly button lint or dry, flaky skin.

 

“Stop it–you’re killing me!”

Q:   So you will not be using the headline “Dog Nearly Itches to Death”?

A:   Not without proper historical context.

 

Woodchuck:  “I am so sick of that question!”

Q:  How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

A:  Zoologists at the University of Michigan-Upper Peninsula estimate that if a woodchuck could chuck wood he or she would chuck enough wood to heat all the red-headed women in Vermont, laid end-to-end.

 

“If I have but one life to live, let me live it as a redhead!”

Q:  Why are they laid end-to-end?

A:  Gerbil News Network Terms of Service do not permit me to answer that question.

 

Ulysses S. Grant:  First in war, first in peace, and first trick question in U.S. history.

Q:  Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?

A:  It is not the same person who wrote Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

 

Composer of several of Beethoven’s symphonies.

Q:  If you were in a house with all four corners facing south and a bear came up to the window, what color what it be?

A:  White, because you’d be at the North Pole.

 

“Got to do my ab crunches if global warming is going to turn the North Pole into a beach!”

Q:  I recently posted a comment on this site and was deluged with credit card offers and emails offering to improve my sexual performance.

A:   And you’re complaining?

Q:  Aren’t you supposed to answer questions instead of asking them?

A:   That is correct.

Q:  This hasn’t been very helpful.  Is there an 800 number I can call to get a straight answer?

A:   Did you purchase the extended service plan?

 

Operators are standing by.

Q:  You’re going to charge me for customer service?

A:  To answer that question, I will need a major credit card number.

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

Osmonds’ Tribute Brings Music of Hendrix to New Audience

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah.  The Osmonds, the wholesome musical group known for its family-friendly fare, hit the State Fair circuit this year with a new repertoire that came as a shock to long-time fans; an entire set devoted to the music of Jimi Hendrix, the acid-rock guitarist who has come to be recognized as the one genuine musical genius of the “psychedelic” era.

“Manic depression–has captured my soul!”

“In retrospect, Jimi was right,” says Donny Osmond, the only Osmond brother who has forged a successful solo career.  “Drug abuse apparently can be of valuable assistance to an artist during the creative process.”

“Let me stand next to your fire!”

The Osmonds are members of the Mormon Church, a denomination whose members refrain from using stimulants and depressants, including alcohol, tobacco, coffee and cola drinks.  According to music industry legend, the Osmonds were booked to appear at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the event that launched Hendrix to prominence, but decided not to go on after Donny Osmond went backstage.  “Guys were doing Coke, Pepsi–even Mountain Dew,” he recalls.  “I went back to our bus and had a Sprite,” the refreshing lemon-lime soft drink.

This is your brain. 

  

This is your brain on Yoohoo Chocolate Soda.

Hendrix died in 1970 in a basement apartment in London under circumstances that have never fully been explained.  He choked on his own vomit after a night of drinking wine and taking sleeping pills with his girlfriend Monika Danneman, but a subsequent autopsy listed the cause of death as Yoohoo Chocolate Soda. 

“I could really go for a sugar-free, decaffinated cola drink right now.” 

“We’re thinking of doing a little experimentation before we go on at some of the bigger venues,” says “Little” Jimmy Osmond, the youngest member of the singing family.  “Like maybe drinking a Diet Coke really fast through two straws.”

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman