Harrumph File #079 07.31.2011_ Carnies & Carnivals In General (Official Harrumph Files alert…this is not a test.)

     There’s one phrase in the English language that is sure to bring fear, trepidation, panic, and nightmares to every parent who hears it.  Yes, you know it and I know it, and every parent out there dreads hearing it from their children: “Mom, dad… the carnival’s in town!”  You may remember saying it to your parents yourself when you were just a wee tike many moons ago.  You didn’t know it then, but you surely know now what a fine line you walked between this world & the next as you entered that big top.

     You see, children just remember fun things like popcorn, cotton candy, elephants trumpeting, trapeze artists, and fun houses where they can look at themselves in mirrors stretched out one way or another.  You, as a parent, see the other things.  You see behind the scenes.   You see the hidden side of the carnival; the dark side; the evil side.  You see the clowns for what they truly are.  You see the carnies, chain smoking “camels” into an early grave.  You recognize that that elephant in the center ring is not just a happy creature bringing joy to crowds of spectators but is actually a time bomb waiting… plotting… for the perfect moment to explode into a human-crushing rampage.

     That’s right, what I’m saying is that carnivals and circus’s are devices of the devil, peopled with freaks and rejects, feeding off of the innocence of children and the weakness of parents for their own prosperity.  Children don’t understand the danger of lions and clowns.  Children trust that snake charmers and elephant handlers actually know what they’re doing.  Excuse me, when was the last time you saw an ad for “elephant handler school?”  Do lion tamers have a framed certificate on their wall from the “Lion Tamer Academy (a Phoenix program)?”  No, they don’t.  And, you know, parents can only hear their child say “I wanna go to the circus, I wanna go to the circus, I wanna go to the circus” so many times before they just give up and take them.

Clowns & carnies...jeeze!

     And what about the carnies?  Who are these people?  We know what they want.  They don’t just want our money (which they do,) they want our children.  Their “I’m gonna run away and join the circus” ad campaign was very successful in the 60’s & 70’s.  They “target” our children with their yummy popcorn swimming in oily butter (which, by the way, leaves permanent stains in minivan seat covers,) fried “anythings-on-a-stick,” cotton candy which miraculously melts in your mouth, hot dogs literally made of dogs, and the Pièce de résistance, square bricks of pink popcorn… drool….

     These people are evil, make no mistake about it.  They want everyone to “run away” to the circus, this way they can sift the freaks out for more sideshow attractions and turn the rest of the unfortunate creatures they capture into… more carnies.  They don’t care about the future of mankind at large.  They only care about their future.  They envision a day when big-top circus tents cover the globe!  They don’t want us to go to Margaritaville, they want us to go to Carneyville.

            Or perhaps it is more insidious than that.  Perhaps they don’t believe in the future of mankind at all.  After all, carnies are barely human as it is.  Remember, it was Armando, circus owner in “Escape From The Planet Of The Apes” which brought down… errr, which will bring down human civilization and will lead to the rise of the planet of the apes back in 1971!  A planet where apes evolved from men?  I think not!  I echo George Taylor as he said so eloquently in the original “Planet Of The Apes” (not the crappy remake,) “Get your stinking paws off me you damned dirty carney!”  Harrumph…

Harrumph File #078 07.24.2011_Apocalypse Now Redux Redodo

   The backyard.  Shit.  I wasn’t even in the backyard yet.  Every time… I think I’m gonna wake up in the backyard. When I was done after the first time I scooped it up it was worse.  When I was there I wanted to be inside the house. When I was inside the house all I could think about was trying to stay out of the backyard.  I’ve been sitting here in this room for 2 hours waiting for a mission... getting softer.  Every minute I stay in the house I get weaker.  And every minute “Charlie” squats out in the grass, he gets stronger. Everyone gets everything he wants.  I wanted a mission... and for my sins I got one.  It was a real choice mission. And when it was over, I’d never want another…

    “I watched a snail... crawl along the edge of a straight razor.  That’s my dream.  That’s my nightmare.  Crawling, slithering... along the edge... of a straight razor... and surviving.”  “But we must scoop them. We must shovel them.  Log after log.  Stool after stool.  Pile after pile.  And they call me a poop scooper.  What do you call it when the poop scoopers accuse the poop scooper?”  The voice was haunting.  I couldn’t get it out of my head.  I knew the only way I could get it to stop was to throw on some old shoes, grab my shovel, and head to the backyard.

Coleman before he lost his head.

    I went to the backyard wearing shorts and a t-shirt, a pretty common sight back there.  They said it was a good way to pick up information and move without drawing attention, and that was okay.  I needed the air and the time.  Only problem was I knew I wouldn’t be alone.  They were mostly just kids—hairy beasts with one or two of their four feet in their graves.  One of ‘em—the one they called Coleman—was from Shingletown.  He was wrapped too tight for the backyard.  Probably wrapped too tight for Shingletown.  Jasper was a famous epileptic from the valley east of San Francisco. 

Jasper catchin' some 'rays.'

To look at him, you wouldn’t believe he’d ever had a fit in his life.  ‘Pez… Princess Pez’ was from some south Tracy shit-hole and I think the light and the space of the backyard really put the zap on her head.  Then there was the chief—Little Pirate.  It might have been my mission, but it sure as hell was Little Pirates’ backyard.

Pez... "Princess" Pez.

    “My orders say I’m not supposed to know the destination, so I don’t.  But one look at you and I know it’s gonna be hot, wherever it is.”  The voice in my head knew where it was going.  I was close... real close.  I started on the west end of the lawn, searching, stepping carefully.  Always looking over my shoulder... they could be anywhere.  There are many moments for ruthless action—what is often called ruthless but may in many circumstances be only clarity—seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it—directly, quickly, awake.  I am beyond their timid, lying morality, and so I am beyond caring.

"Little Pirate," Chief of the boat.

    It smelled like slow death out there.  I’ve seen the horrors... horrors that you’ve seen.  The squishing sound that you hear after you’ve made your last “clean” step.  The indiscriminate “bombing” of the free—fire area near the maple tree.  It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.  Horror.  Horror has a face.  And you must make a friend of horror.  Horror and terror are your friends.  If they are not then they are enemies to be feared.  They are truly enemies.  I remember once out in the backyard.  Seems... a thousand centuries ago.  We went out to scoop.  When we left the backyard this old man came running after us, and he was crying.  He couldn’t say.  We went back there... and “they” had come and arranged all the logs.  There they were in a line—a line of little logs.  And I remember I—I—I cried.  I wept like some grandmother.  And I want to remember it.  I never want to forget it.  And then I realized... like I was shot—like I was shot with a diamond—a diamond bullet right through my forehead.  And I thought “My God, the genius of that.  The genius.”  The will to do that.  Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.  And then I realized... “they” were stronger than me because they could stand it.  That they had the strength—the strength... to do that.  If I had 10 divisions of “them” then my troubles in the backyard would be over very quickly...

   They were gonna make me a major for this... and I wasn’t even in their friggin’ army anymore.  Everyone wanted me to do it.  “Them” most of all.  I felt like they were out there waiting for me to shovel them away.   Even the jungle wanted them gone.  And that’s who they really took their orders from anyway.

    The horror... the horror... Harrumph…

    “This is the end…beautiful friend.  This is the end...my only friend...the end.  Of our elaborate plans...the end.”

Harrumph File #077 07.17.2011_Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert!

     So, the know-it-all “nanny” police, who obviously know more than you & I about every detail of our own lives, are at it again.  Fat kids are to be taken away from their parents and sent into foster care.  The reason given is that, just as if a child was malnourished, allowing a kid to get fat is just as “neglectful” and dangerous to the kid.  Therefore, the parent is not taking the best interests of the child into account, and the child would, obviously, best be raised by… the village. 

     Well, this is pretty obvious, you say.  If a parent is not putting the child’s interests first and allowing the kid to be put in harm’s way, the child would be best served by being removed from said environment.  We don’t want our children to suffer from things like diabetes and heart disease, do we?  Well, as parents, we do want what is best for our kids.  We want them to grow up healthy and happy.  However, be careful of the “slippery slope” being created by the know-it-all state before YOU end up on the receiving end of a notice from Child Protective Services.  What?  How can this be, you ask?  They surely won’t take my kids away from me, you say!  After all, you opine, my kids aren’t fat or malnourished.  Well, maybe not, but just think about something.  After confiscating all the fat kids, who will they focus on next for state protection?

     According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year U.S. emergency departments treat an estimated 135,000 children ages 5 to 18 for sports-related brain injuries.  Yes, all your little football players running around out there stand the risk of life-altering brain injuries or even death from the simple act of plowing into other little football players on the field.  Or perhaps that 30 inch baseball bat your kid’s swinging over the plate will break and shards of white ash will go through the infield like grapeshot from a pirate’s cannon.  No, we can’t have our children’s health risked by these “dangerous” activities.

     How about kids that participate in motocross racing or white water rafting?  What about round-the-world sailing, wood working, lawn mowing, javelin throwing, walking to or from school? All of these things are potentially life threatening.  If your children participate in any of these activities, and many more too numerous to list, perhaps you too are negligent.  And finally, what about driving a car?  Kids normally get their license around 16.  We tell them to be careful.  We tell them not to text and drive.  We tell them not to speed.  And then we put them in a 2000 pound death machine that can travel at speeds over a hundred miles per hour and give them the keys.  How is that different from giving them a cheeseburger & fries?

     You see, what this really comes down to is money.  Specifically, health care costs.  And the public is looking for someone to blame for spiraling health care costs.  Well, we can’t blame the football players for running up emergency bills because, well, they’re just playing a game and you know, getting outside & playing is good for you.  Besides, it’s “all-American” and such!    We can’t blame the round-the-world sailors because they’re just trying to set new records.  We can’t blame teen drivers because if you raised the licensing age to 21 or even 18 people would have conniption fits and talk about their rights being denied, blah, blah.  So, we only have one group left to blame, fat people.  You eat a lot, you get fat, you have health problems.  It’s your fault health care is so expensive.  You see, fat people are the last group that aren’t “protected” under the constitution.  You can make jokes about them.  You can laugh at them for falling down on dancing shows.  You can blame them for everything.  It’s “open season” on fat people because you’re all afraid to make jokes about anyone else.  You can’t “hate” any other groups, but it’s still ok to “hate” fat people.

Stand before the man and receive your number!

     Well, as a friend of mine from back in the ‘hood used to say, “Homey don’t play that.”  Health care costs can’t be traced to one particular group or segment of society.  And, as I usually do, I am offering a solution to our high health care costs.  In order to fix the problem we have to look at the totality of it.  In order to see the totality of the problem we have to look at individuals… every individual.

     I propose that we form a special government board (because we all know that only the government does everything right and fair,) and this board will be responsible for assigning each U. S. resident a number (see, I’m even including “illegals,” how magnanimous of me!)  This is your health number.  Every single thing you participate in will be assigned a “risk” factor.  The totality of your risk factors will determine your health number, which will dictate what portion of your health care costs you are responsible to pay.  And don’t even think about lying to your case worker.  Forget to mention that you like to indulge in a little surfing when you get out to the islands and you’ll be on the receiving end of “capital justice,” ChiCom style with a single shot to the head.  Hey, drastic times call for drastic measures!  We’ll use a simple scale of 100 with 100 representing you having to pay everything and zero giving you a complete free ride (since you don’t participate in “dangerous” activities.)

     For example, if you are a fat guy, a risk factor of between 5-20 will be assigned to your health number.  The amount assigned will be determined by how much excess weight you carry.  Pretty simple, right?  But wait, let’s also assign other risk factors to you.  Do you play football?  Add 3 risk factor points to your health number.  Round-the-world sailor?  Add 8.  Do you own an exotic pet like a chimpanzee?  A chimp is gonna cost you 7 points.  Too much you say?  Well, just be glad you didn’t buy that cobra you were thinking about…25 points.  Heck, even a pit bull runs 2 points.  Skydive for fun?  Add 5.  Race cars for a living?  That’s another 16.  Like to go for a bike ride every now and then?  It’s a point for every 25 miles you ride in a year.  Oh, and if you like to ride in a densely populated city (as determined by yet another government panel,) it’s triple points.  Enjoy a night out on the town with a glass of wine or a beer for an additional point per six-pack or bottle you consume per year.  And, if you get lucky, “wink, wink,” that’ll cost you 20 points per partner over the first in a year… half points if you use condoms.

            I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  You see, our lives are an amalgamation of risk factors.  You may not be fat but if you jump out of an airplane for fun and that one time out of a thousand you’re the guy who kisses the ground too hard, your corpse is still going to run up an emergency bill on par with the fat guy’s stent surgery.  And while they try to breath some life back into your fractured husk of a body and are adding up the hospital bill I’ll go ahead and have that Whopper & fries you passed on before you got on that plane.  Harrumph…

Harrumph File #076 07.10.2011_It’s High Time We Did Something About Mars

     “Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:29 a.m. EDT, July 8, 2011 on the STS-135 mission and final flight of the Space Shuttle Program. Atlantis’ final flight will cap off an amazing 30-year program of exploration, which launched great observatories, built an International Space Station, and taught us how humans can live, work and thrive in space.”  This is how, on their web-site, NASA announced the end of the Space Shuttle Program.  Just a hum-drum paragraph that had as much passion as someone saying something like “Who spilled milk in the refrigerator?”

     Now, this is how I would have announced the end of the program:  “Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:29 a.m. EDT, July 8, 2011 on the STS-135 mission and final flight of the Space Shuttle Program.  No longer will we transport Americans into space aboard reliable American-built vehicles, but will have to rely on rickety made Russian pieces of crap that they’ve put together from boxes of old pinball parts.  NASA stands ready to watch ChiCom astronauts go to the moon from the safety of our living rooms.  We partner with other non-space faring nations as we watch India, Germany, and even *shudder* France exploit the mineral riches of the asteroid belt, Mars, and perhaps even as they tap the energy of the sun itself.  Damn, it’s great to be second best!  But you’ve got your food stamps and your universal health care queues so I guess we can’t complain.”

     Well, I’m complaining.  Look, I hate it that America has turned into nothing but a “gimmie, gimmie, gimmie” society like Europe.  When more than half the population is on the “taking” end of the system, they’ll just keep demanding more and more of the pie and their numbers will grow as if it’s zombie apocalypse.  The way things are going, pretty soon “basic” human rights are going to include cars, cable TV, air conditioning, and a monthly ice cream cone allowance.  And I’m getting downright pissed at all the class-envy that’s going on.  There used to be a time when Americans aspired to being in a position where you could ride in a corporate jet.  Nowadays, people practically want the government to shoot them down… that’ll teach those evil millionaires and billionaires!

     What we need now is not class-envy.  We do not need division.  What we need is something to bring us together.  Something to remind us that we are Americans!  We are not a second class country like Spain or Bangladesh (oops… those are actually “third” class countries… how about Canada or India?)  Anyway, we need something like NASA to save our country from the after effects of post-colonial greatness.  After all, we don’t want to end up like Britain, do we?

     So I say it right here, right now:  It’s high time we did something about Mars!  And NASA will lead the way.  When we needed computers, who did we turn to?  NASA.  When we needed rockets, who did we turn to?  NASA.  When we needed tang, who did we turn to? NASA.  So now, it’s time to turn to NASA once again.  We’re going to need bigger rockets, bigger ships, landing craft, drop ships, lasers, independently targeting particle-beam phalanxes, tactical smart-missiles, phased-plasma pulse-rifles, RPG's, sonic electronic ballbreakers, nukes, knives...sharp sticks.  And NASA will be the way we get them.

Isn't this much cooler than that monstrosity we've got up there now?

     Think of it as a great crusade.  First we build our own space station.  A giant wheel like in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”  We don’t need no stinking international crap.  We’re Americans and we’ve been going it alone since the beginning!  Then we return to the moon and establish a base.  From there we move on to Mars itself!  After all, Mars is just sitting there, staring at us… and laughing.  I know, I’ve seen the pictures of the face on Mars.  Soon that Martian face will be replaced with a monument that will dwarf Mount Rushmore!  Yes, I can see it now!  American faces!  The faces of Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and whoever is the next guy to become president!  All looking down from Mars and laughing.  Laughing at the ChiComs, the Indians, the Russians, the French and the Germans, and all the rest.  Mars will be ours!  All of it’s resources, all of it’s riches, all of it’s secrets!

     We can become great again!  We can avoid the malaise of Britishdom!  We can remain strong!  We can remain number one!  Bring our troops home from Afghanistan!  Bring our troops home from Iraq!  Bring our troops home from Libya (if we have any there!)  Bring our troops home from Germany… and send them to Mars!  The rest of you can have the Earth, we claim the stars!  Harrumph…

Harrumph File #075 07.03.2011_My Hometown Has Finally Legalized Fireworks

     So, I’m sure you all remember a time, oh say when you were 9 or 10.  It was late June… school was out, the days were long, you rode your bike all over town exploring various dry storm canals or culverts; playing “combat” with your buddies; checking out what was new at the hobby store; having a giant burger and chocolate shake at the local Dairy Belle, then pedaling home at sunset to play “dodge the car lights” with your friends who lived in the neighborhood.  And, as you hopped on your bike for the trek home, holding the latest P-47 model in a bag on the handlebars, that’s when you saw it.  Twenty-five feet wide, ten feet high, five feet deep.  All plywood and two by fours with chicken wire windows, a huge sign proclaiming it was “Safe & Sane,” and chock-full of every imaginable sparkling, spinning, fire-spewing, smoke-generating pyrotechnic ever designed by the evil genius mind of man.  Yes, they even had snakes…

     Unfortunately, you were over the city line where fireworks were legal, and last you checked the fire chief of your town decided long ago that fireworks (yes, even snakes) were nothing but a menace to society and that if you wanted to see fireworks then you should go to the Giants game or the county fair this weekend but in no circumstances were you allowed to bring those fireworks that were being sold four blocks away from your house into his town!  Yeah, right.

     Well, you know the rest of the story.  You still had eight bucks left over from shopping in the hobby store (you were saving it until you had the twelve bucks to buy that really big B-17 model) and since fireworks dealers are kind of like carnies anyway, you decided that the B-17 could wait ‘till Christmas because the Fourth of July only comes around once a year and those piccolo petes are only 99 cents each and you can also get four boxes of sparklers (eight to a box and in different colors) for a buck!  Man, you would even have enough left over to get a bag of six smoke bombs (that kind of look like hand grenades and maybe you could throw one to cover your movement the next time you’re playing “combat” with your friends and it would be sooo cool and you could claim to be Sgt. Saunders and everyone else would have to be just regular squad members or even, uggg… Germans!)

     Anyway, after you got home what did you have to do with your now-illegal booty?  Put it in your strong-box of course!  You had to lock them up because you had to wait until the actual “fourth” to set them off.  You see if you set them off on the second, or even the third of July, the cops were out there looking for you.  Everyone knew that.  Everyone had heard about some kid who was still in jail from last year because the cops caught him on the third of July setting off one of those cool cardboard tanks that shoot sparks out of the gun barrel.  Every kid knew that you had to wait until the fourth because then everyone was doing it and the cops couldn’t arrest everyone!

Patton?  Ummm...no.

     And if you waited until the actual holiday, even your parents couldn’t tell you that you couldn’t light them off!  It was some kind of constitutional amendment or something.  And, even though your parents might tell you something about “blowing your hand off if you’re not careful” they still came outside to watch you set off the piccolo petes and roman candles, and even they wanted a sparkler (green for dad, blue for mom.)  But, you know, the joy was always tempered because you still had to keep one eye on the end of the street for a police cruiser so you only had one eye to watch the fireworks with.  All because of that sour-apple fire chief who hated fireworks.

     So now, even forty years later, we’re still buying our contraband over the county line, still teaching our kids to keep one eye on the fireworks and one eye on the street corner for that cruising police car… but wait!  What is that?  What can that possibly be going up in the parking lot of the local supermarket?  The familiar lines, the chicken wire, the smell of plywood, and yes, even the small packages of snakes in the front row.  The firework carnies, the wads of cash in hand, the “Safe & Sane” sign, even that huge “Block Party” box of fireworks that you remember from so long ago.  And here, in my own hometown!  Could it be that that old fire chief has had a change of heart?  Perhaps the piccolo petes are even safer & saner than they were forty years ago?  Maybe kids now-a-days are just more responsible than we were way back when.  No, it turns out that it’s really none of those things.  The fire chief still hates fireworks (no one ever found out why) even if he did retire ten years ago.  Fireworks can still blow your hand off if you’re not careful.  And as for kids today being more responsible?  Don’t make me laugh.

     No, what really is driving the legalization of fireworks is… the taxman.  Yes, the hometown honchos finally realized that they could make a little bit of scratch from all those roman candles and block parties.  Yet another “dumbing down” of our culture.  First it was getting straight “A’s” just for showing up at school; then it was trophies for everyone on little league teams; then rounding off “Pi” to 3 because it’s too hard to calculate the circumference of a circle using the actual value of “Pi;” now it’s the hometown selling out for a buck or two to help pay for that downtown transportation center that has yet to have a train or bus pull into it.

            And buying the fireworks is just not the same anymore.  There’s no thrill of opening your “strong-box” and showing your friends your treasure.  Heck, if you buy them you just throw the bag on the kitchen counter until the fourth… anyone could see them sitting there!  There’s no newspaper story of a kid being sent to the pokey, or of anyone having their thumbs blown off.  You don’t have to post a sentry at the street corner for cops and you know, those cool tanks spewing sparks from the gun barrel are actually pretty lame.  Even snakes don’t sound very fun anymore.  *Sigh,* think I’ll go to the Giants game or the county fair this year.  Harrumph…