Debt Basement
This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.
There’s been a steamin’ heap a palaverin’ lately about that dad-gummed debt ceiling what’s got everybody so jumpy.
I do intimately understand what it feels like to run out of the do-re-me, with assorted service providers threatnin’ to cut off my essentials in no uncertain terms as described by letters delivered in those pretty pink envelopes, stuffed into my armadillo mailbox.
Now if I was the guy or gal who had to pay the bills for the U.S. Government, I can only imagine what it must be like to get a phone call from some angry Chinese guy who will not take “无” (no!) for an answer. I reckon it might be kinda hard to explain to this Oriental knee-cap breaker why you’re late on the payments when, on the other hand, you spent about $250,000 on some ivy league geek who’s tryin’ to figure out how Americans use the Internet to find love.
Speakin' of bills, may I note that the upwardly mobile cost of water and power has come as quite a shock for me since my uprootin’ and transplantation to Southern California a bunch of years ago from my home in Paint Rock, Texas. The way things are a-goin’, any day now I expect to get a bill for breathin’ air, along with some handy hints on how to cut down on my body’s need for oxygen.
But despite my low wages from lawn care and the big balance on my Sears credit card, I’ve never thought of my debt as a ceiling. I think of it more as a basement, cause that’s where I arm wrestle with my bills on an old teacher’s desk that once belonged to my grandmother by the name of Bessie Lou Allison. She taught me that when the weather turns especially ornery I should beeline it to the root cellar. So my basement seems like the appropriate place to preside over the redistribution of my wealth.
I don’t know why these here boys in D.C. can’t just get along long enough to raise that ceiling. In the good old days all us neighbors would just naturally pitch in to help build a barn. But here we’ve got a big storm a comin’ and these politicians can’t even agree on what kind of barn they need! They’d better get their gal dern hammers out and start nailin’ the gosh dang thing together pretty gal dang dern soon I tell ya.
As for me, I’m gonna follow my granny Bessie Lou’s advice and run for cover. I'll be in the basement, at least ‘til the storm blows over.
~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved
Water On The Brain
This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.
This gal-derned California drought has gone done and impaired my lawn care business (Julio does the mowin’ and I do the blowin’.) what with people yankin’ out their grass and replacin’ it with rocks and dirt and other Death Valley style landscapin’. I have yet to figure out what kinda alternative service to offer my customers. I’d considered swimmin’ pool care, but folks are drainin’ them things too.
It’s as if we all woke up one mornin’ kinda like a bunch a’ Gregor Samsas, but rather than bein’ transformed into giant cockroaches, we’ve all turned into drought-tolerant, heat-seekin’ lizards.
Now I must confess the desert has a certain desolate beauty about it and I do have a bleached cow skull hangin’ in my guest bathroom, but galldangit we oughta be able to sport a bit of cool green grass for the grandkids to play on before global warmin’ makes everything charbroiled and crispy.
When I was a little bitty kid growin’ up in Texas we useta see pictures in magazines of Hollywood movie stars havin’ fancy cookouts on greener-than-green backyard lawns while playin’ croquet. Now that I am permanently relocated to California, livin’ within spittin’ distance of the Hollywoodlians, not far from the Pacific Ocean, which, dagnubit, is pretty damn big and holds more than a bucketful of water, I do feel kinda bad about whole neighborhoods plantin’ cactus and scrub.
Seems like my lawnmower may go the way of my typewriter, which is up in the attic collectin’ termites along with my taxidermied mongoose and cobra tableau. I just might hightail it back to Texas if it gets much drier here. I hear they’ve had plenty of rain there in some parts.
~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved
Alabama Bound
This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.
Looks like some of them Alabamian heterosexuals are gonna make a Custer’s Last Stand against lettin’ people in love tie the knot--people who just happen to be of the same sex.
I do believe it’s a kind of Custer’s Last Stand, cause despite their convictions that this world is only about 6,000 years old, Fred Flintstone had a pet dinosaur and the Apocalypse is right around the corner, I can’t see much future in it.
I don’t reckon it’ll take much more than a few years from now for the rights of guys and gals and gays to marry gays and gals and guys to be pretty much the law of the land. Hell, anybody semiconscious can see which way the wind’s blowin’.
I suspect them Alabamian probate judges know good and well they’re fightin’ a losin’ battle. But as long as they’re holdin’ elected office, elected by dinosaur-ridin’, science-denyin’ creationists, they will no doubt put up a fuss-and-feathers fight, cause after all, election time is always right around the corner.
Yup, those anti-gay-marriage Alabamians will likely hold their ground, just like their hero, the late Governor George Wallace did back in 1963 when he stood in front of the entrance to the University of Alabama tryin’ to keep out black kids. Yeah, they’ll hang on just long enough to get re-elected. Then they can always change their minds should the prevailing winds change direction.
Or maybe just like Custer, some will fight on no matter how doomed their cause. I suppose that’s what last stands are all about.
~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved
Road To Nowhere
This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.
Some of my pals reckon that since Rick Perry might be fixin' to re-launch his bid to be an official presidential contender I’d automatically climb on board the Rick Perry covered bandwagon train, especially since he was reared in Paint Creek and I was sprung from Paint Rock.
Now Paint Creek is just a couple a Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Merle Haggard CDs (in my automobile CD player) north of Paint Rock on Route 83, though you might need to throw in a Tammy Wynette if you’re travelin’ with a big thermos a coffee the way I do. Like so many other things in life, it all comes down to bladder dependability.
When I was just a little critter, we used to take Highway 83 north on our way to visit kissin' cousins in Canada. You may or you may not know its nickname, which is: “The Road To Nowhere.” It was a pretty rough ride in the old days before improvements in pavement technology. Now ain’t it a peculiar kind of knee-slapper that Texas Rick took that “Road To Nowhere” all the way to the governor’s mansion in Austin, and now is settin’ his sights once again on the White House?
I’d be just as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine to see another Texan as commander in chief, but I’m kinda suspicious of all this evangelical stuff he’s bringin’ to the table. I don’t know if he’s said it yet, but it seems like he’s pretty close to confessin' that it was God Himself who suggested another run for the White House. It kinda gets my hackles up when I hear folks claim they’ve got a private line to God. (What in the heck is wrong with the party line the rest of us all use anyhow?) Next thing you know they’re either pickin’ your pocket or hooked up with some fancy gal of ill repute, or both.
If Texas Rick was on that long and lonely Route 83 when he spontaneously combusted and got instructions from God, I’d like to know if he was travelin’ with a big thermos of coffee. Cause if he was, there’s a distinct possibility it was not God tellin’ him to make another run for the White House. Could be, it was only his overactive bladder suggestin’ a run for the outhouse.
It'll be interestin' to see just how rough the road to the White House turns out to be for this good old Lone Star boy, considerin' that pesky indictment. Looks like that pavement is kinda sketchy.
~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)