The Winds of Change and the Minimum Wage

It’s been a while since I’ve reported as I’ve been busy with a great number of investigations. Now that the economy has improved, I was thinking of hiring some help in my investigative endeavors until I spoke with my newly elected Republican representative from Texas, Louis “Gomer Pyle” Gomert. Shoot, I’m not even from Texas and don’t now and never have even considered it a legitimate state. That’s beside the point. Until the recent elections in Kansas, I always found the most solace in Texas with knowing that I was smarter than elected officials from that state, thus my personal interests could best be protected there. Anyway, I digress. Now, there are things I admire greatly about Texas, Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett. Unfortunately, that about sums the whole deal up. See, I sat down in the Buffalo Turd Café in West Pecos the other day with Louie Gomert to discuss politics and the economy and such. Louie is really feeling his oats these days…both of them. So, he’s decided to buck the trend which has been gaining strength across the country with those wanting to raise the minimum wage. Even Arkansas raised their own minimum wage. Louie sees things differently. He is proposing that we LOWER the minimum wage by about a buck fifty per hour. At this point I was pretty sure I would hear the logic following to state that this would help the working poor by enabling the wealthy employers to hire more folks. I disagree with that philosophy as having once been a small business guy I full well know that one doesn’t hire more people merely because they have more money to do so. Nope! They hire more people because they have more customers for their goods and services. Without more customers, hiring more people is nothing but welfare. There’s not much profit in that unless you’re a private contractor who gets a gig with the government after you make a sizable campaign contribution to someone…well, like Louis Gomert. So, realizing my mistake, I became glued to Louie’s explanation for his wage lowering proposal. See, there has been a significant drop in the cost of gasoline over the past six months ago or so. This has resulted in an unexpected, and according to Louie, an unearned windfall in the pockets of the undeserving poorer of our society and they have done nothing to earn it. Therefore, per Louie, we should lower the minimum wage to an approximate equal amount of the savings garnered by these low wage workers via gasoline savings. This would result in a net benefit to the wealthier employer who would not need to hire more folks because it would do nothing to increase the number his customers. Furthermore, it would bolster the coffers of the government because they would no longer need to grant such excessive tax breaks to these employers in exchange for campaign contributions. The poorer would be just as poor and who cares? Not Louie and that’s for sure. As the sun set over the Buffalo Turd Café in West Pecos, I left Louie and pondered what this country was becoming or has become. I rolled down the window and sucked some West Texas dust knowing I’d never return, while Lyle Lovett occupied my CD player with the words “But the winds of change, They fill the air, And you can't set your hat down Just anywhere.” From the ballad, Don’t Touch My Hat. Yippee, ki yay, git along little doggies and all that……..

COCKFIGHTING COMES OF AGE

I just found this article in the news and it conjured up old memories of my past.**** http://www.businessinsider.com/romanian-princess-irina-walker-krueger-arrested-for-cockfighting-2013-8 **** I never knew any princesses and I do know times are getting tough all over the place due to free trade, global warming and Area 51. But, the idea of a princess getting all wrapped up in a cockfighting ring brings home the fact that the world economy had really turned everything all topsy-turvy and in some cases has even had a leveling effect on the status of various folks. One look at the last princess of Romania yanks at the chains of my heart as this very beautiful woman has resorted to the primal sport of cockfighting which heretofore I was only aware of due to the experiences of my long lost friend from South of the border, Pedro.

(The heretofore beautiful princess Irina Walker Krueger of Romania as seen above). **** Like the beautiful princess, my friend, Pedro, too is an immigrant. Immigrants have provided us with a cultural stew of music, arts, cuisine and sports…like the sport of cockfighting. This never used to be here. But, now we got us a new sport. Years ago, I had this friend names Pedro. My friend named Pedro is a bad ass, but, he’s my friend. I knew him in my younger days, when I lived for some time as a child and young adult in Costa Rica. So, I went over to his apartment and I said to Pedro, “hey Pedro…(cause that’s his name)….you wanna go to a cockfight?” He says, “Sure man, I’ll go get my protective cup.” I said,“No Pedro, not that kind of cockfight. I mean the kind they do with chickens.” He says, “Oh!” Chickens can serve a practical purpose other than food. When I lived in Costa Rica as a child, I would go to a little back alley market with my uncle who would take me to a cockfight. These were between roosters which are men chickens. Cock fighting seems to be illegal here because of animal cruelty issues, yet boxing is legal here as it is also in Costa Rica. It’s odd that this country sees sport in people beating the brains out of each other but we must protect the chickens. Sometimes, the chickens would die. Then, if you owned that chicken, you could still eat it which is what some people said that’s all they’re good for anyway. So, afterwards, I go to this cockfight with my friend, Pedro, and the crowd is full of men and a few roosters. There is one really big cock fight going on and the men watching are worked up into a mad frenzy, shaking money and little pieces of paper, what they call markers here. As the chickens became more excited and the fight got more violent, so too did the men become more excited and then the chickens got even more excited than the men who too got more excited and some of them started to fight with one another. So, in this circle, you had the chickens fighting and outside the circle you had the men fighting. Just as the fighting chickens worked the men into a frenzy, the fighting men worked the chickens into a frenzy and the next thing I saw was the chickens went berserk and were pecking each other and everything else in sight, including the men. The money and markers were flying everywhere as were the chickens and the men’s fists. Then, some guy starts screaming because a chicken pecked his eye out! I heard Pedro in the pile of men shout that he wished now he had brought his protective cup, but I didn’t know if that was because of the men or the chickens. Things kind of calmed down and they would have taken the guy with the pecked out eye to the hospital, but we didn’t have a hospital so they just took the guy home. As near as I could tell, most of the men went home without their money which would have happened anyway except the people who did go home with the money were probably not the ones who had a winning chicken. and that was wrong. I don’t think the chickens were any stupider than the men who lost their money. The chickens caused a riot and really screwed up the day for most of these men. I think those chickens got ate, which probably would have happened anyway. The very next day, I went over to Pedro’s and we had dinner….fried chicken. I didn’t ask no questions.

AT THE HOME DEPOT

I shouldn’t have laughed. But, when I pulled into the parking lot at the Home Depot, it hit me. The first three parking spaces in each row were designated for disabled people. I’m not talking about the first three spaces only. Nope! I’m seeing the first three spaces in all of the rows which must have totaled 12-15. That’s three spaces in each row times 12-15 for a total of at least 36 disabled parking spaces right there up front. I never park up front. I enjoy walking and I even enjoy more parking away from everyone else so I don’t return to my vehicle suffering numerous door dings from the oversized cars parking in the disabled spaces. What really strikes me is that the only people I ever see parking in these spaces are fat people, not just overweight people either. Shoot, we’re all, almost all, overweight. What I’m talking about is really great big fatty two-by-fours! When they get out of their big cars, it is necessary for them to drive their door as it opens as hard as they can into the car next to them because they need the extra inch that the ding provides in order to get out of their car. Otherwise, there just isn’t enough room. Is seems there must be a rush of these disabled folks descending on the Home Depot who are all worked into a frenzy re-roofing their homes and doing jobs involving heavy lumber and large appliances. Disability for these large folks does not interfere with doing things other than walking 30 feet into the store. Once in the store I went to grab a cart, but the darned thing was huge and heavy. Then, I noticed it had a locomotive attached to it. On the surface, this made some sense as many items in the Home Depot are large and heavy. These large turbo powered carts were not to provide for the weight of items, however, these were to carry the significant weight of the folks who needed the assigned parking spaces. I grabbed a regular cart and wheeled down to the back of the store to grab some cardboard boxes. I’m moving. Just as I tuned into the cardboard box isle, I was blocked by two of these super powered carts. Each cart was occupied by a person who appeared to have had Hippopotamuses transplanted to their asses. They were so wide that the entire isle was blocked and I couldn’t even walk past, let alone maneuver my regular sized cart. Normally, I could get my cart past a large fork lift in this isle. But, (no pun intended), these two people had sets of buns, that’s four buns total, which entirely blocked the isle. I had no hope of getting to the boxes from this direction so I wheeled the cart around and rolled all the way through the appliance section and attacked the box isle from the other side. However, by the time I arrived, the large people had moved, pulling one in front of the other, and now the entire side of the isle with the boxes was blocked. Sure, I could now push my cart down the isle which I heretofore couldn’t even enter, but now I couldn’t get to the boxes. I excused myself and indicated I needed to grab a couple of boxes. These two folks turned out to be quite nice and apologized, with the man stating that it was quite a coincidence that they were blocking the only thing I needed to get to. It struck me that they were so big that I could have gone all the way down to the lumber stacks on the other end of the store and they STILL would have been in the way. He started up the locomotive attached to his cart and a giant puff a black diesel fumes poured from his exhaust pipe…actually the cart’s exhaust pipe, not his, thank God! His cart rumbled about five feet down the isle.. Anyway, I grabbed my boxes and left. On the way out of the store, it struck me that these two people had been wearing camouflage pants. (Not both of them wearing the same pants but each having their own set of camouflage pants). What on Earth were they trying to blend in with? I just plain cannot figure any of this out. One thing I do know for sure is that I will never make it a habit of eating potato chips for breakfast. As I approached my truck, I saw a pair of disabled people pulling into one of our regular peoples’ parking spaces. That really burned me up….

COFFEE WITH A FRIEND

I ran into a friend a few months ago and decided to catch up by having coffee with him. It turns out he was quite distraught due to the fact that his marriage of 37 years has just ended with his now ex-wife having tossed him aside for another man. It turns out my friend had known this other individual which is not all that uncommon, I guess. The two had shared many conversations over a period of several years. My friend recalled one time that this other guy had commented that a light bulb had just come on in his head. My friend assumed it meant that the guy was expressing that he’d just come up with a thought. Later, my friend discovered that the guy was really a robot and a light bulb actually had come on inside his head. To this day, he doesn't know if that’s what attracted his ex-wife to this guy or not. My friend has suffered greatly, not only because he feels a lesser man after losing his wife to another. But, given the fact “the other” was a robot, he’s totally demoralized! I told him that in my opinion, the light bulb turning on inside this guy’s head probably was a thought, and the thought was to run off with my friend’s wife. I though this would add a little humanity to the problem. I haven’t heard from the guy since.

WAR ON HETERO-SEXUAL MARRIAGE

It was a few years ago that I recall Bill O’Reilly declaring that he was going to lead the fight against the War on Christmas. It was a war envisioned only by the uber far-right- super-paranoid. They had become convinced that because clerks in large box department stores were overheard saying “happy holidays” rather than “merry Christmas” and because a stock boy named Jesus Rodriguez had allegedly been asked to hide his name badge by some hairball manager who feared customers would be offended by his first name that there was a massive cultural onslaught to wipe Christmas, if not the entirety of Western culture, from existence. This so called war played out with an array of mental pygmies like Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity jumping on the bandwagon as super patriot warriors who were willing to lay down their collective…well I don’t really know what it was as their lives were certainly never in jeopardy…essences to win this greatest of all battles. Shortly thereafter, Bill O’Reilly declared ‘victory” on his radio program upon learning Jesus was allowed to again wear his badge after an abundance of negative publicity hit the store where Jesus Rodriguez worked. As a result of this great victory, we are all the beneficiaries of 30 pound newspapers hitting our doorsteps a full month prior to Thanksgiving as well as an array of tasteless and tacky blow-up yard ornaments depicting such iconic religious symbols as Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Dick Cheney and others, to name a few. As we have become a nation inclined to a permanent state of war, we were to suffer no reprieve from such after the conclusion of this decisive and quick victory in the war on Christmas. I am the proud uncle of a niece and nephew, both very good kids, who have met their soul mates and are scheduled to be married a few mere weeks from one another. At first I thought this quite the coincidence. Upon further examination, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are reacting to the current spate of news concerning the momentum with which various states and the country as a whole are accepting the concept of gay marriage. Now, gay marriage is an issue with which I have no complaint. If folks are willing to fight our wars and pay their taxes, then I’m for letting them marry whomever they wish. What I fear is not gay marriage. What I do fear is the thundering gallop of pandering politicians who will jump on any band wagon in order to garner votes by taking positions which will favor such regardless of what they themselves believe. It is with this in mind that I fear the declaration of the next cultural war, and it will lead to the taking of many prisoners. The war of which I speak of is the War on Hetero-sexual Marriage! It’s bound to happen as we are already going down that slippery slope with the permissiveness of gay marriage, childbirth out of wedlock, individually packed coffee pods, and electronic smokes. When will it end? It’s as if I can already hear these politicians railing against the concept of one man marrying one woman as going against everything in nature as if a horse married a camel or an elephant married a hippopotamus. “If men were meant to marry women, God would have ordained it,” would be pronounced by a mainstream politico most likely from some place like Texas. “Why, it’s akin to full-noodle frontity”, they will proclaim. Rick Perry will be outraged…“I’ve been married to a woman, the same woman, for over 35 years and let me tell you, it was a horrible mistake!” Shoot, even Vladimir Putin is jumping on the bandwagon. Finally, I will go to the marriage ceremonies of my nephew and niece with the comfort of knowing they got in just under the wire, not having to live in the quiet desperation of hetero-sexuals, being men who love women, women who love men, hiding such facts in the closet for the rest of their lives. These may well be the last hetero-sexual marriages allowed in this country. Where’s the humanity? Oh, where’s the humanity??? And, God bless Bill O’Reilly.

HORSES, MOTORCYCLES and CELL PHONES

I just got back from the eye ball doctor. I had lost my glasses and needed a new prescription. Well, they weren’t working so well anymore anyway. It turns out my right eye has deteriorated badly, which I knew because the glasses were no longer doing the trick. The eyeball doctor said, or so I thought she said, that I had “masculine deterioration”, which you can confirm by how I just spelled that word. For a few moments I thought it was just another of life's unfair deals like why should I go blind in one eye simply because I was a masculine?

Well, it turns out she said “macular deterioration” and not “masculine” and it had nothing to do with being a guy. She asked if I’d ever been a sun gazer or a welder as I had a scar in my eye right in the dead center, and the scar had grown. I said no because it was the correct answer. My left eye is perfect…like I’m 16 years old in the left eye….Who was that Hispanic girlfriend of ex-NFL player Andre "the Jerk" Rison who tried to shoot him and because there’s no justice, she missed. He was an ass. His right eye is probably OK. Her name was something left-eye Lopez. That’s me now…Ralph “Left-Eye” Toynbee. Where’s the money?

So, they took pictures of the inside of my eyes which means they dilate them and then put a big light in there and photograph them. It’s like looking into the sun or welding. Then you go outside where the sun is so damned bright you can see NOTHING and you proceed to drive home. That’s when I saw the craziest thing ever.

At a busy intersection, a guy in front of me is making a left turn. He can barely control his vehicle. It’s 10 in the morning and I figure he’s about to smack right into a sign when he gets the damned vehicle back under control. Of course, he’s talking on a cell phone with the other hand. Now, here’s the clincher……..THE IMBECILE IS ON A MOTORCYCLE!!! Of course, he also had no helmet because in Kansas you do not need a helmet. Kansas is the place where the legislature also says there has been no evolution. In Kansas, they are right. This guy sure hasn’t evolved. In fact, why would he need a helmet? His head already doesn’t work. I haven’t driven a motorcycle for a long time. But, the little I remember about it was that two hands really helped a lot….especially because as the driver, you already have your crotch wrapped around a 50+ horsepower engine.

I’ve never tried that one before and won’t. The closest I ever came was to ride a horse with no saddle or reigns once up near Tongie. I had a boss who had horses and said to come up to the farm and ride anytime I wanted. So, one day I showed up. I’d ridden them enough to feel OK about it but never bareback and especially without reigns. It isn’t very pleasant because on a hot day, they sweat a bit and you’re slopping around in it. So, Kenny, my boss, says the horse is a good horse but stay close to the neck because if I sit back very far, it tends to buck. Well, my God! What kind of a deal is that?

So, I’m out riding across the pasture and am galloping along really good and when you want to turn left, you just pull the mane real hard to the left and the horse turns OK….I felt just like Tonto now. Then my friend Chas, who’s nuts, and has his own horse thought it would be great fun to stick his horses nose half way up the ass end of my horse….which he did! My horse bolts like a bat out of hell and there I go flapping in the breeze like I’m hanging onto a run away lawn tractor or something. (A different story altogether).

Naturally, I have no control over where and when I’ll go up and down on the horse which by now seems about five times bigger than it did when I got on it. Furthermore, had the terror gone on much longer, I’d have been singing soprano in the “They Used to be All Boys” choir, if you catch my drift!

At this point, I’m frightened to death and exhausted. The damned horse runs as fast as a car and I’ve rolled all the way underneath his neck and am just hanging onto its upper neck with my arms and have my legs wrapped around its lower neck. I’m contemplating dropping on off but it’s still moving pretty fast and I figure it will just stomp me now. (At least I’m not singing soprano any more). Then, just as I’m ready to give up, it charges to a fence, stops on a dime, hurling me into the fence.

I never did get back on the horse. (I’ve never gotten back on ANY horse). I just walked back to the farmhouse, told Kenney where I thought he’d find his horse and waited for Chas whose future was going to involve taking a real beating from a much smaller guy than he. When he rode up, still on his horse, he was just amazed. He said it was the greatest exhibition of horsemanship he’d ever seen and could not believe I stayed on it in all those positions. He said when I went around the horse’s neck, I looked just like Tonto. TONTO, MY ASS!
I was scared to death.

Anyway, I’ve got a real respect for anything I wrap my legs around that’s stronger than me and no way do I ride a motorcycle and talk on a cell phone at the same time.


RALPH

The HOMELESS GOT MORE THAN THEIR SHARE

An anonymous friend of mine named Norbert was recently confined to Lawrence Memorial Hospital in a semi-private room. Much to his dismay, he spent a week in that room next to a homeless man (or so he claimed) who after a few days began to open up about his personal life. The weather had become much colder and the guy figured out that he could feign some soft tissue injuries which were really hard to diagnose, pretended not to walk, and act desperate. He was admitted to the hospital for observation and had extended the stay to four days.

He further iterated to Norbert, my unnamed friend, that he had pulled such stunts before, having chosen in the past to spend time in jail. By his own admission, he found the experience to have been worse because the host of characters occupying space with him, many homeless themselves, did not live up to his social standards. So, he developed his hospital stunt. By the end of the 4th day, he had become quite a nuisance to Norbert who had decided to turn the guy in to the hospital officials. Norbert had been paying over $400/month for his family health insurance coverage. The weather had improved and the homeless man said the only reason he was now staying was because of the women (nurses I assume) which were nowhere to be seen in jail.

The problem compounded itself when Norbert relayed this scam to officials who were quite skeptical of his story. Norbert had been admitted to the hospital after suffering a large gash near his left eye which he had explained to the admitting desk was the result of being shot by a Macadamia nut or something of a similar nature which he assumed had been fired from a spud gun by a bunch of West Lawrence hooligans.

A spud gun was a prankster’s weapon made from a tube of PVC piping, several feet long and sealed off at one end. A small hole was drilled into the sealed off end so that the prankster could spray the flammable contents of a common aerosol can into the tube. A potato was dropped into the open end and a match touched to the hole in the capped end. This caused an explosion within the tube which resulted in the tube becoming a cannon and the potato serving as the projectile. A good cannon could launch said potato several hundred feet at a high velocity. Norbert had stumbled upon the cannon, a pile of matches and a bag of Macadamia nuts while looking for wild Morels. Apparently, the hooligans had run off to the store for more aerosol and left the rest of their equipment in the field which Norbert was in the process of crossing.

So, a little while later, Norbert claims he was bending down to pick up a Morel when he was bitch-slapped upside his eyebrow by a hard woody object. He heard a loud bang and then lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was disoriented and found to be walking from the field with all the coordination of a sailor just returning from a thirty day R & R sabbatical in Bangkok. He was rushed to the hospital by authorities who had responded to a 911 call from concerned neighbors who complained there appeared to be an injured sailor in the neighborhood.

Well, these geniuses at the hospital told the police who later came to take a report that they discerned that Norbert's story was indeed a fabrication because Morels were out of season. As long as I have known Norbert, I have never known him to be a hunter of mushrooms. He probably doesn't know what the season is. Anyway, the police gave his story no credence at all and upon Norbert's complaining about the homeless guy, the hospital officials decided to kick Norbert out. Whatever did really happen, it was clear that Norbert had nearly lost his eye. Nobody could ever really figure out if the homeless guy was ill, injured or what. For all we know he was only there for the women.

To this day, Norbert has little good to say about the homeless. I cannot totally disagree with him, although I try not to paint with too broad a brush. One thing I am certain of is that homelessness probably cuts into ones dating big time. So, what looks like a remarkably attractive lifestyle with all the handouts and booze can really have a major drawback in another area and people should consider this before deciding to become homeless.