One Giant Leap for Mankind!

Before I had become acquainted with her, I had seen her on the T.V. She had been interviewed by some obscure reporter who was doing an expose’ on extra terrestrial experiences of the third kind, or maybe it was the forth kind. I cannot really remember. I never knew exactly what that meant, “the third kind”, but I do remember the movie with Richard Dreyfuss entitled, “Encounters of the Third Kind,” or something very much similar to that.

Her name was Beatrice VanDerkirk. She was a large and pudgy, two-breasted woman with the complexion of pie crust, before having been inserted into the oven. She was of some kind of Scandinavian decent but it had obviously been many years since she had been mistaken for a bombshell and more recently was more likely to have been mistaken for….well, frankly a ball of pie crust.

She sat on a wooden chair, in the middle of the exhibit, straddling the overstrained antique with her umbrella stand like legs. She wore a blue and white, faded, checkered dress which looked like a hand-me-down table cloth, the kind that grandma used to wear. She said nothing.

I had decided to go to a UFO convention with my friend Thomas. Thomas had seen much in his life as a Peace Corps volunteer, former science teacher and self taught computer wizard. One of the more positive things about Thomas was his open mind. Nevertheless, one of his greatest drawbacks was his open mind. I was intrigued at the thought of attending the UFO convention with Thomas who was plainly brighter than I. I should have, however, been more suspect when I learned the convention would be held in the commons area of a suburban mall.

There were thirty or forty so conventioneers in attendance and all looked like they had just gotten off work from their jobs at the local bowling alley. There was an array of displays of photos of UFOs with all the photos being very amateurish, out of focus or just plain unexplainable. One would think that with all these “scientists” in attendance, at least one of them could have taken a decent picture. I stood before one picture of a flying saucer and the description explained the nature of the structure and the probable use for the spoke-like attachments protruding from the center of the ship. The scale looked odd and against the trees in the background, one could not discern whether the UFO was very large or very tiny, housing little bitty folks from an entirely different universe than ours.

I had heard of the convention on the Art Bell radio program, a program one can only hear between midnight and six a.m. on the AM radio dial. Listeners from all over the country would call at all hours of the night and express their belief that life on other planets existed and that our sole purpose was to do whatever it took to make contact with them. These people never sounded any too bright though as Art had three phone numbers for the listeners to use, one for folks west of the Rockies, one for folks east of the Rockies and then the wild-card line. If you wanted to suffer the wrath of Art Bell, you damned well better NEVER use the west of the Rockies line if you lived east of the Rockies and vice-versa, nor versa-vice which is vice-versa, vice-versa. Not unexpectedly, it would happen that an east of the Rockies listener would call from the west side number and just get reamed by Art Bell. That was one of my favorite parts of the program.

So, the listeners and Art Bell would document extra terrestrial activity which for some reason tended to focus near the area of Roswell, New Mexico where there exists a large ancient crater created by some huge outer space object bashing into the Earth millions of years ago, or as Biblical purist would explain, last Friday at 3:45 p.m.

These same folks were most definitely anti-government wogs, which explains my friend Thomas’s affinity towards them, even though he was himself a career government employee. A U.S.A.F. caption beneath the flying saucer photo I described above claims the fuzzy photo is not that of a UFO, but it is in fact the photo of a hubcap from a 1958 Mercury Zephyr, a car which has never even existed. Thus, the government’s explanation only served to exacerbate the validity or lack thereof in the argument concerning the existence of UFOs. Additionally, the spoke-like objects in the photo were explained by the government to be exactly that. Spokes!

It was now time for the featured event of the convention, a discussion by Beatrice VanDerkirk of her abduction by outer space aliens. Ms. VanDerkirk explains it as follows:

“I was sitting on the back porch after dark. I had just put some pie into the oven. The crust was perfect! That’s when a large glowing disk-shaped object that looked like a hubcap descended over my back yard and hoooovered for about twenty minutes or so”. (“Hoooovered” is how Ms. Vanderkirk pronounced the word we would know as “hovered” and was probably the result of her assumed Scandinavian background or this author’s laziness in not using his computer’s spellcheck feature).

Ms. VanDerkirk continued, “…well, after awhile, some smallish aliens, which I call beings of another kind, came out of their ship, down a ladder and proceeded to come upon the porch where I was sitting. At first, I had assumed they had smelled the baking pie from their mother ship. But, after awhile, and without saying a word, about a dozen or so picked me up, chair and all, and took me aboard their ship. Then, they closed the door, and the ship took off. Before I knew it, we were in outer space.”

“The spaceship seemed much bigger on the inside”, iterated Ms. VanDerkirk, “and, in addition to myself and the aliens, there were about 8-10 head of cattle. No cattle mind you, just the heads. As I was saying, it’s a known fact that outer space aliens have been mutilating cattle for years and getting away with it. Had I the presence of mind, I would have started to take some notes at this point, but my mind was back home, concerned with my unattended pie and I had completely neglected to bring a pencil and notepad."

“The ship was stocked with T.V. dinners and obviously the creatures had planned on a long voyage. Also, their food wasn’t exactly like ours, but that could have been a result of the meals having spent a long time in the freezer. The aliens were very accommodating with their food and being much smaller than most Earthlings, well, at least smaller than I, they possibly didn’t need the same calorie intake.”

“ While I was eating some frozen pork fritters, or the space version thereof, the ship zipped off and upwards into the sky above the weather. For awhile, I could look down and see some of the more identifiable landmarks on the ground such as Orville Johnson’s Country Buffetteria. Then it faded from sight. In no time at all we were passing by other planets and universes. Then, it happened. I started to feel woozy and became very sleepy. I think my hosts slipped me a mickey, although I never have been quite sure just what a mickey was. Anyway, shortly thereafter, I lost consciousness. And was neither able to rationalize on a high level, nor cipher without using my digits as place holders.”

“Several hours later, I awoke. Once I regained my faculties, I realized what they had done to me. Yes, they had had their way with me in the Biblical sense. SEX! It was a strange sensation. For, they did not have regular sex with me…not the kind we’re used to…I mean the kind I used to be used to. Once upon a time I mean. No, they had DIGITAL SEX with me. It was very highly advanced. Version 2.0…I believe. Anyway, they burned it to a disk and I’ve never made it public. In fact, I’ve even been afraid to watch it myself. Many months later, after returning to Earth, I offered the disk to the government for research purposes. They said they didn’t want it, that they didn’t really believe it. And besides, they didn’t even have computers yet that would read CDs. I’ve thought Nixon was an idiot ever since and it will be a cold day in hell before I’ll ever vote for another Quaker. Ultimately, I mailed the disk to L. Ron Hubbard and have never seen nor heard anything about it since."

“Anyway, I started to digress. I could tell the alien had an eye for me, although I retained some concern in that given he had three eyes, the other two appeared to roam. After our carnal encounter, of the third kind, we shared a smoke and a cup of coffee. It was freeze dried coffee, yes, I believe that’s what they must use in outer space. Folger’s it was I believe.”

The dialog of Ms. VanDerkirk seemed to have started to ramble and we in the crowd started to sense that we may just be dealing with a complete lunatic here. I observed one of the bowlers in the audience begin to scratch his arm pit beneath his bowling shirt with a bit of a frenzy…so much the pack of Camels he had rolled into his shirt sleeve fell upon the floor, dislodging the cigarettes from within the pack. Several others in the crowd scrambled for a free smoke, aggravating the man even more. He began to sputter and quiver a bit as I heard him shout to the lady, “ F-f-f-folger’s you say, Folger’s? And, where pray tell do aliens buy Folger’s in outer space I must ask?”

The look on Ms. VanDerkirk’s face at once became stoic. Her attempting to process what he was thinking and at the same time trying to formulate a believable answer caused her to freeze in time. She could sense she was about to be outed as a pasty old fraud. There had been no aliens, there had been no freeze dried Folgers and in fact, there had been no digital sex!

“I brought my children here to find out about the truth and all I got was a pack of lies about freeze dried coffee and digital pornography. I think you have some explaining to do you fat old bore!” shouted the soccer mom.

It was about this time mob rule was nearing a take over of the New Centre Mall when my friend Thomas who had wondered away from the seminar blurted out the statement that nearly caused a riot. Thomas had become weary of the old woman and had ambled over to a display of pen and ink sketches which had been put on display by the convention sponsors. These of course were really amateurish renditions of the imaginations of fools. All of the drawings showed aliens to have had two legs, two arms and one head, much like Earth people except some had three eyes or fingers. Why pray tell would beings who had evolved in completely differing environments and different sets of circumstances look so similar in nature to us? Bears and whales and bugs are Earth creatures. Yet, they are not like us so why a being from a zillion light years away would look so similar to us was perplexing. Well, leave it to Thomas to notice one glaring and distinct difference. He blurted out loudly, “Why do none of the aliens have any genitals?”

Parents herded their children. They shot daggers at Thomas with their looks, some even giving him the stink eye. Within a few moments, a public service announcement came over the mall’s intercom system insisting that all patrons of the mall exit the premises at once. Closing time was 45 minutes away. Crowd control must have been the answer. It was the only logical answer. Why close so early?

And so it was. We drove back to our homes in the city, saying not one word to each other. That was over a dozen years ago. I have not seen Thomas since our drive home that night. We simply lost interests in each other’s interests. Although before the drive was over, I had glanced out the passenger window of his ragged old Buick and peered into the night sky. I don’t know for sure what it was that went zipping by at a hypersonic speed, but it looked for all the world like the hubcap from a 1958 Mercury Zephyr, a car that did not exist, followed closely by an Air Force plane. To our left was a field with several headless cattle. The smell of freshly baked pie permeated the air. Still…… Thomas and I said nothing.

The Lottery Just drives me NUTS!!!

Have you ever gone into a convenience store on your way to work, to pay for the gasoline that you’ve already pumped, only to be standing behind Wilfred Brimley’s retarded brother who is buying a fist full of lottery tickets. You’re in a hurry and this fool is spending his fortune from the sale of black market food stamps to invest in the capitalist system. And, once he buys them, he doesn’t move aside to scratch them off, but instead stands right there and scratches them one-at-a-never-ending time, never quite hitting the jackpot, but invariably winning another ticket or two so he can stand there even longer.

What makes matters worse is that he smells like my friend Willie did when he got stuffed into a trash can behind the Do-Drop-In in DeSoto, Kansas back in the 70s after his hippy butt decided it would be interesting to drop into the biker bar and have a beer with the boys. Instead, he found himself floating in a stew of stale beer, moldy French fries and half smoked cigarette butts which all things considered was better than having become the wife of one of the bikers, which he came closer to than getting the desired beer he sought.

So, you call the boss and tell‘em you’re going to need a couple days off because you’ve run into a jam and it’s got nothing to do with Grape Nuts. Now, I’m always hesitant to stop someone from going over to the dark side as there may be very personal and religious reasons for them doing so. I remember once stopping a guy in a truck stop from buying a $20 lottery ticket. I told him that his chances of winning were slimmer than being struck by lightening and that the whole scam was a ruse on the part of the state to tax stupid people who were supported through an array of handouts and welfare programs to placate them, that it was a way for the state to get that money back, and he would only see his family suffer his obvious loss of the $20. He thanked me and stood aside talking.

As we stood there, an obviously successful business type who had driven up in a Mercedes and looked for all the world to have more money than God, approached the counter and plunked down his $20 for the ticket that would have been the poor soul’s who I had just saved. BINGO! Just like that the business man hit a $40,000,000 instant winner and walked away joyously. I’ll never forget the look on my new, now ex-friend’s face.

He has to this day probably never considered the stress that all those winnings would have placed on him and is ignorant of how happy I probably made him. Of course, it could have been worse. I could have found myself in Willie’s trash can or worse yet, become his new sister-in-law.

HOBOKEN MAN STANGLED BY O’REILLY, LEFT HOMELESS:

Last week, O’Reilly was on his game. He was yelling for a good two hours, bashing the secular progressive enemy, of which he can name about two members. He took credit again for winning the “War on Christmas”, and has revived this obscure but nevertheless mythical event so he can march into battle and declare victory again, never mind he was never able to do so in a U.S. Military uniform while appearing to be of an age eligible to have thrown his considerable abilities into the Vietnam war. But, in days of great American heroes like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, etc. who needs to have been in the military to understand how to fight a war.

Ultimately, when one takes the battle from the media, into the home of a private citizen, it’s time to call one out and demand accountability. Thus, Mr. O’Reilly owes Frank Funderburke of Hoboken, New Jersey (Joisey to natives) an apology and one should be demanded damned fast!

We uncovered this story while doing an investigation of upper scale homeless shelters where we lunch every Thursday because of a spicy but delightful Gazpacho in the offering or to uncover anyone feigning poor personal hygiene.

As Mr. Funderburke explains it, he had been a fan of the Factor” for years. “I liked the “no-spin-zone” approach to political discourse”, said Funderburke, where anyone in disagreement with O’Reilly was hollered at and tagged with an array of odd but insulting names. “The man is pure genius and if anyone disagrees, just ask him.”

So, as Funderburke watched from the comfort of his wheeless double-wide, his life began to become unraveled. “I had a bag of Mr. Kinkles under one arm and a beer in the other hand, the one on the other arm. As I reached into the bag for another potato chip, I was watching O’Reilly hawk some more of his paraphernalia. He’s got his books, Culture Warrior, Kids are Americans Too, he’s got his T-shirts, bumper stickers. I even became a premium member and got the underwear with the scratch-and-sniff O’Reilly skid marks. I had it all. Well, I thought I was in the club. But, while watching, I jammed a Mr. Krinkle under the finger nail of my middle finger, and I don’t know, but I think it was because of the salt that the finger started to sting.”

Funderburke continued….”O’Reilly , I usually call him Bill, was really going off on George Soros, his head was getting really big and it looked like the studio was about to explode. So, I pull this middle finger out of the bag and hold it up, right there in front of the T.V. It was an accident, it was. Had I not jammed my finger into that Mr. Krinkle, I’d still be in my living room.

Funderburke continued: “Well, I happened to glance at the T.V. Time seemed to just stand still. Bill isn’t talking and looks mad as hell. There I am flashing my throbbing middle finger at the screen. Next thing I know, the red starts to rise in Bill’s neck and his head now is the size oh a melon….not a small melon, but a water melon. Then, he sets down his notes, stands up, and walks right through the tube and into my living room. Whoever even thought that was possible?”

It was here I was starting to get just a little bit suspicious about Funderburke’s story, because I’ve never seen O’Reilly use notes. So, I took a breather and got up to fill my thermos with some extra Gazpacho. You see, soup is free at the homeless shelter and I always try to find a way to sneak some home. I’m not about to contribute to homeless obesity.

When I returned to the table, Funderburke had regained his composure and appeared to have come into a large plate of garlic bread sticks which he was cramming into his mouth like there was no tomorrow, and he was really worked into a lather. He’s waving his arms about his head and spewing chewed up garlic sticks everywhere.

“O’Reilly started bitch-slapping me all around my own place. He was screaming names at me, calling me a secular progressive and a pin-headed liberal. Then, he told me I was a Kool-Aid drinker! I don’t think he was being very fair or balanced.”

“He grabbed my brand new copy of the Hoboken Yellow Pages and began to whack me upside the head. I felt like I had let a Jehovah’s Witness into the double wide and he was knocking me about with three pound edition of the Watch Tower. There was beer everywhere and he bag of Mr. Krinkles went flying and got all ground up in the carpet with the beer and cigarette butts. I always regretted smoking after reading about what happened to the Johnsons twins. Anyway, it was here I passed out. I don’t know how long I was out and I don’t remember seeing O’Reilly leave, but a few hours later, I came to.”

“So, lying on the floor, on my back, stuck in a mix of potato chip starch, beer and ashes, the place smelled like pure hell. But, the smell could have been my 350 pound wife standing over me. She pulled her cell phone out of the crease in her obese earlobe and started screaming. I told her bout the whole O’Reilly deal. She said, ‘ I’ve had enough you miserable son-of-a-bitch’, which was actually quite a compliment because you have to be a man to be a son-of-a-bitch and she never considered me much of a man. As for O’Reilly, he won’t return any of my calls.

“That’s how I got to be homeless,” Funderburke iterated.

As for me, I don’t know whether to believe the guy or not. It all sounds fairly logical, but I have nevertheless decided that free Gazpacho is getting just a tad bit expensive for my taste. And, just o be safe, I won’t be watching any more of the “O’Reilly Factor”.

Illegal Immigration Problem Solved.

The problem which has stymied politicians for over the past 35 years has been partially solved at last. Recently, a huge public outcry put a stop to the concept of giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Now, I’ve NEVER heard of any state GIVING a driver’s license to anyone. But, apparently that’s what was in the works.

Well, what has completely escaped me before was the awareness that the reason illegals came here to begin with was to drive! I had always thought it was to work, but in retrospect, it all makes sense. Some of the places they come from don’t even have roads, let alone cars.

As usual, we have only dealt with part of the problem though. If we are going to completely stop the influx of illegals, we can’t just stop them from getting driver’s licenses. We must also stop them from getting cars. So, in order to be effective, we must be willing to execute any car dealer for treason who has been known to be dealing cars to illegals. The car dealers will try to resist this probably by claiming it’s not their role to be immigration enforcement officials. I say “balderdash”. They will say it’s impossible to tell if a buyer is an American or foreigner. Well, it’s this simple…if they are overweight and drive off with one hand on the wheel and the other on a cell phone, they are Americans.

Within no time at all, we Americans will be able to gain back all the jobs that the illegals took from us. You know, the jobs we shipped to India a few years ago that the illegals then came here and took away from us. I never could figure out how that deal worked.

Public Smokers are Really Getting on my Nerves!

So, I went to the doctor recently and he gave me this lung test. When I'm finished, he says it's time I take the initiative to quit spending so much on cigarettes. I told him that I've NEVER bought a cigarette, EVER! Well, he said the inications were quite clear, that I was up to two packs a day. It didn't take long to realize, I'm up to two packs a day from 2nd hand smoke. What kind of a deal is that? I'm gettin' lung disease from a bunch of stinky breaths. The doctor told me I could suffer the same fate as the Johnsons twins. I said, 'Oh, NO!"

Basically, I've always been a live and let live kind of person. But, sometimes what others decide to do while thinking it only affects them, has dire consequences for those of whom they are closest. Such it was with the Johnsons twins.

Al and Jacob Johnsons. They were Siamese twins, thus the "s" on the end of their last name. Al was a great baseball player. He played catcher and Jacob played right field.
Al was a student of the game and lived his life accordingly. Jacob, on the other hand, was a fool!
Infact, considering how they were joined, Jacob actually was kind of “on the other hand”.

Anyway, Al was in bed every night by 9:00 p.m. Jacob was out all hours of the night carousing with hookers and smoking women. Within no time at all, Jacob took up smoking himself and fell out of shape. Al continued to excel and participated in the International Special Olympics in Costa Rica one year playing two positions at the same time. He of course had to drag Jacob around the bases and such, but he was really that good.

Eventually, Jacob dropped out of the sport and became an accountant in New Jerk City. His hell-bent-for-life attitude and lethargic lifestyle resulted in his death at an early age.
Al’s performance suffered quickly due to his despair and having to drag Jacob’s corpse around like a big bag of potatoes. ( I love the word “potato.” Dan Quayle ruined his political future by telling a grade school child he had misspelled the word because the child had left an “e” off the end of it. Actually, the child was correct and Vice President Quayle was wrong....that is unless you want to put an “s” on the end of it. Then you must include the “e” first! The same does not hold true for the last name of Al and Jacob Johnsons. When you want to ad the “s”, you don’t use an “e” first. That’s because it’s their name and the rules are out on names.) So, that's it in a nuttshell. if you don't want to be a siamese twin, it's best not to smoke. Wait a minute! That doesn't make any sense...I'll have to go back to the doctor and ask him what the hell he was trying to say!

BILL O’REILLY RETURNS FROM AFGHANISTAN. Average I.Q. of both countries goes down. (Except in Afghanistan).

Bill has returned from a week long “on assignment”, as he likes to call it, visit. Odd, he would be “on assignment” when he is his own boss, but then he thinks he is everyone’s boss. Undoubtedly, he will be chagrinned that Christmas is not widely practiced there.

Only just last year, he declared there was a war on Christmas, and thus, Christianity. Then he started beating his drums…invited people to come on his program to debate, wherein he usually goes into a screaming rant and calls them names, like pin-head, anti-American and secular progressive (SPs). When challenged to identify them, he comes up with household names like George Soros and Tim Robbins and other highly influential people of this ilk who all hold the rope to the rings in our noses. But, HE has it figured out.

Anyway, he identifies this non-existent war wherein retail department stores instruct their employees to say stuff like “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas”, and this serves as proof there is a full frontal attack on Christmas and Christianity. Never mind that the Bible never mentions that the act of celebrating Christmas was to entail the spending of absurd amounts of money on plastic and electronic trash in order to celebrate the birth of the Savior….that’s a whole other issue, that is. In fact, Christmas isn’t even mentioned in the Bible at all.

Forgotten in all this mess is the fact that these stores exist to make a profit and rather than turning off 80% of the population with obvious insults, perhaps, JUST PERHAPS, they are trying to include the other 20% of the population made up of Jews, Muslims, Atheists….you name it…Guess that’s why O’Reilly doesn’t own any department stores.

But, what he does do is write books. Then, he hawks them endlessly on his radio show. And, he sells enough to get into the New York Times top 10 list. You can even become a PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER to his newsletter, so you can PAY to receive advertisements for his books. Now, that’s IS quite a deal isn’t it. Then, every week, at least one lobotomized listener will call to thank him for what he’s doing for the country. I want to call Bill O’Reilly and thank him for what he’s doing for Bill O’Reilly. I know he is very grateful for what he’s doing in that arena.

I turned on the car radio the other day and before I knew it, Bill’s head swelled up out of the radio so big I had to escape the car on the side of the road just to breath. Then, it blew up. I remember once Bill said that if George W. Bush wanted to save his legacy, all he needed to do was come on his program and answer some questions. Let’s see: Iraq, illegal immigration, record deficits, F.E.M.A./Katrina fiasco, etc., etc., etc.,…right Bill. All he needs to do is come on YOUR program. It’s all that simple.

Bill O’Reilly has a master’s degree from Harvard University. That goes a long way in explaining the problem with higher education in this country today.

Investigation: FASCISM ALIVE in CHICAGO!

YES, It’s true. Before we begin, a little background is needed. In 1508, Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius to paint the ceiling and other areas of the Sistine Chapel. All of the entire world has stood in awe of the results for over 600 years. Yet, had Michelangelo or the Pope, or both determined that the world could not view these works or reproductions of them, then as sole owners or representative of owners of these works on private property, they had every right to do so. But, as men, they were giants and much too big for such trivialities.

Today, in Chicago, artwork is on display in a public area, bought and paid for by citizens of Chicago by means of confiscatory taxes. Make no mistake about it. This artwork is NOT of the caliber of the works of Michelangelo, and is in fact more suitable for display in a salvage yard, but that is the nature of what we call modern art, in many cases an oxymoron.

Art throughout history has often become important not because it IS important, but because the artist had a wealthy benefactor who promoted a protégé far beyond the level that their talents would have otherwise carried them. So, for many the road to success is nothing more than the road of dumb luck. These are artists who should count their blessings on a daily basis for not being burdened in vocation with the drudgery and quiet desperation of which so many suffer

Now, along comes one Anish Kapoor, the sculptor of a piece called “Cloud Gate” which is akin to a chrome coffee bean turned rounded end up and which is set dead center in Chicago’s Millineum Square, a renovated urban setting which stuck the taxpayers to the tune of $250,000,000 (yes, million!). And that part is fine, I guess. It is cute. What is NOT cute is that the artist, or the city, or BOTH have determined there is nothing wrong with copyrighting the “view” mind you of said sculpture. And, I thought Mussolini was dead. ***@@#$!$!

http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/BuildingDetail/636.php

So, photographer/journalist and I assume citizen of Chicago, Warren Wimmer, was approached by security as he was setting up his tripod, and informed he would need to buy a permit to proceed. WHAT! Permit? What permit? HE DON’T NEED NO STINKING PERMIT. HE’s AN AMERICAN. THEY NEED TO TAKE THEIR PERMIT, SET IT ON FIRE, AND STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T EVER SHINE! And, the good citizens of Chicago should all head down to millennium Park every Saturday morning at 10:00 with their cameras of every make and kind and snap away until the policing authorities of Chicago are sent into a donut eating frenzy.

First, Mussolini made the trains run on time. Then he copyrighted air and water, then he copyrighted the “view”. Then he was pumped full of holes and erected in the town square…where anyone who wanted to took his picture!!!