Category: Orphans

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Secretary of State Rice: Is tongue hockey far behind? 

One guilty pleasure on my unemployed mornings is to surf the morning front pages across the world on Newseum. The Brazilian front pages have most recently caught my eye(s) not that I understand what they say but for the scantily clad women on many of the P1s. On one front page last morning there was what we used to call a “nekkid” woman hiding her assets save for a little bit of the top of her ass(et). It seems even hardliners like Condi Rice get into the free spirit of Brazil as this photo from today’s Diario Catarinense shows her appearing to kiss that country’s foreign minister. Such, sex — for lack of a better term, could liven some of our dull front pages such as the The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. It also might sell a few more newspapers.

If President Bush can pardon a turkey at Thanksgiving, then Mayor George Wangemann of Gainesville, Ga., can damn sure pardon a chicken. That is, in fact, what the mayor did, according to Access North Georgia.

Wangemann pardoned a chicken named “Cletus T Clucker” as part of the opening ceremonies for something called the First Annual Corkscrew Festival held Saturday. Apparently, this was some sort of wine festival that had a chicken cook-off, minus Cletus, said the story by writer Fokes Link (surely a nom de plume). The Daily Planet-Studebaker Power Quote of the WeekTM is from Mayor Wangeman explaining how Cletus seemed less than impressed:

“After the pardoning, I tried to pick him up,” said Wangemann, “I thought I was going to be scratched and pecked at, but he ought to be grateful for being pardoned.”
He said that the chicken would be returned to the farm, “So, at least he’s pardoned for a day or two.”

So what is next in this burgeoning epidemic of political amnesty for feathered creatures? Will emus go free? Will pigs fly? And perhaps we should check the campaign contributions just to see if maybe Tom DeLay has been secretly pocketing money from PETA!

Fish and whistle, whistle and fish 
Unemployment is making me CRAZY!!!!
I am sitting here, thinking about the song from 1967 called “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman.” It was a tune by some guy called Whistling Jack Smith. Yes, it was a whistling song. No, I can’t whistle it.
But in obsessing over some song of which I cannot even remember the tune, I have uncovered the motherlode of basic information about whistling songs courtesy of wikipedia.

Brother Bones recorded the whistling version of “Sweet Georgia Brown” used as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters.
Muzzy Marcelino whistled the hit theme to the 1950s airplane drama, The High and the Mighty.
Whistling Jack Smith had a hit with “I was Kaiser Bill’s Batman.”
The “Colonel Bogey March” was whistled in the film Bridge on the River Kwai to avoid the song’s vulgar lyrics.
“Whistle While You Work” appeared in Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
“The Fishin’ Hole” (theme to The Andy Griffith Show) by Andy Griffith. It has become a cultural icon associated with the image of Andy Griffith and Ron Howard. Andy and Opie Taylor walk on the dirt road with their cane poles on their way to the “fishin’ hole” and whistle the tune. The music was written by Earle Hagen and Herbert Spencer, and the lyrics were by Everett Sloane.

The liquor store in which I shopped in Waco had a cockatoo that did a great whistling version of the Andy Griffith show theme. I also remember a band called “The Dishes” used to do a rocking version of the song. That was about 20 years ago during my college days in Nacogdoches, Texas. I don’t remember the lyrics to “The Fishin’ Hole.” If you remember them, please don’t tell me. I have enough whistling around inside my brain to last way through REM sleep.

I received an e-mail ad this morning selling “smiley faces” for my e-mail. I don’t know what I would do with a smiley face. Perhaps I could send one along while inquiring about a job. Or maybe I could send it along with any hate mail I might dispatch to help soften the blow.
www.roadsideamerica.com, the Web version of my favorite travel guide Roadside America, has this observation in its listing of smiley face water towers across the country:

Smiley Face water towers can be found from Atlantic coast towns clear out to the Great Plains. We’re not sure why the phenomenon peters out short of the Rockies.

That Wal-Mart smiley face gives me the creeps. It seems as if it wants to inject its zealous spirit into the souls of the American shopping public while it surreptitiously picks your pocket. The result: “I’ve been robbed but I’m happy as hell.”

It seems like the Republicanistas of the Texas Legislature are hell-bent on keeping the state safe from homosexuality. The House banned same-sex marriages today. Perhaps they should remember what Charlton Heston always says: “When they outlaw queers only outlaws will have queers.” Think about it. (Even though Charlton probably didn’t say that exactly. Or at all).

But there sure is a lot to ponder for the future of the great state of Tejas. Last time I flew past Dallas the skies looked like a slightly more artistic version of dog crap. And do you know what the water is like in many of the streams in Texas? It’s probably good that you don’t. And, I wonder if the Rio Grande is actually going to reach to the Gulf of Mexico this year as it has failed to in past years?

But by God, though, we won’t have HOMO-SEX-u-als nagging us as we cough and choke on the putrid air and gasp as we drink water from which cows would turn up their noses. All of you Lege members who pushed so hard for “Christian values” should be REALLY proud when you go home after sine die. Really proud.