Guns, tomatoes and government goons

Let me apologize in advance to the people who read this column every Sunday hoping for a little levity about Bigfoots, aliens and such. I’m afraid my subject this week is no laughing matter.


Once this newspaper is published on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, I may not be heard from again. I’m hoping that, in appreciation for my alerting you to the horrible danger you are in, someone will remember to ask the musicians to play “Rhymes and Reasons” by John Denver at my tasteful outdoor memorial service, should the government allow one to be held. I would also like bagpipes — no more than seven — to play something rousing and patriotic after the 21-gun salute, if it’s not too much trouble.


I know you are asking why the government would provide soldiers for a 21-gun salute if it’s not inclined to allow the memorial service in the first place. Well, it probably won’t. I imagine a few of my friends and family will volunteer to serve as the honor guard. Just bring whatever guns you happen to have laying around, and please drill somewhat beforehand so as not to disrupt the sombre occasion with clumsiness and inadvertent firing.


Probably it would be a good idea not to invite the relatives with whom my branch of the family is currently feudin’ if there are going to be a lot of guns there, but that’s your call.


I have no particular fancy for flowers, but I understand if you all wish to show your deep and abiding grief by laying garlands of roses — blue, please —  across the base of the white and gray marble monolith which I expect will tower — quite against my wishes, as I am a humble sort — over the assembled grieving mobs. Under the etched words, “Our greatest hero, Ken York, was taken too soon by the goons of Homeland Security who could not allow the truth,” I hope you will find comfort and solace for your loss.


My friend and colleague, Fines Massey, may be delivering a few short remarks, possibly referring at times to the binder which I have provided him. Please do not be put off by his attire should he choose to wear that of a priest; his ordination is legitimate, according to the website from which I procured it for $17.95.


I doubt there will be any remains to dispose of, but if there are, my wife, Joyce, knows my wishes. I would like to be composted, of course. A return to the earth from which man was crafted is my intent.


It’s not a difficult process; just dump the remains on the ground and throw some leaves, sawdust and whatever kitchen scraps you might have on the pile. You’ll have to turn it with a pitchfork once every couple days and liberally apply compost activator. As you know, urine is the best compost activator, plus it adds nitrogen to the mix, which is always good. I can’t imagine there will be any shortage of donors.


I suppose if I could choose, I would ask that the finished compost be used to grow heirloom tomatoes. Brandywines are still my favorite, but I find Arkansas Traveler is also a good tomato. I doubt I’ll be able to dissuade you all from gathering on the anniversary of my demise each year and solemnly consuming a tomato sandwich with lots of mayonnaise on very fresh white bread. It’s pretty good if you slap a fried egg on there, too, and a couple slices of crisp bacon can make you forget you are grieving.


I must be realistic and recognize that my passing may move many in the community to push for a name change for our little Ozarks city at some point. I beg you not to do so, but if you do, please consider that “York City” would be a logical choice, even if at some far flung future date its origin should be so obscured by time’s passage as to cause many to believe it to be the original for which New York City was named. There’s certainly nothing you or I can do to prevent that here in the 21st Century.


But I digress. Now, as the bottom of this column edges ever closer, I come to the dire news which I must impart:


Homeland Security is replacing us, one by one, with robots that will do the bidding of its secret masters. Arm yourselves with squirtguns, for they haven’t yet waterproofed their malefic creations, so they short out easily. Squirt everyone you know, and then run! 


Jumper cables attached to the ears may also destroy the robots, but be careful not to do this to someone who might be human, as they get angry and slap you repeatedly. I also should mention that Joyce wasn’t a robot as of Friday.


Ken York is the assistant editor of The Daily Record. Past columns and other writings may be viewed on his blog at http://ken-york.blogspot.com/.

Monkeys don't try to spare your feelings

I hope when the aliens come they can’t read our minds.

You nice people probably wouldn’t have a problem. Your first reaction to any situation is invariably positive, wholesome and, if need be, sympathetic. I can’t help but compare your positivity and goodness with my own sarcasm and downright uncharitable nature.

If someone tells a nice person that Aunt Jill has passed away, he coos something like, “Poor thing! She’s with the Lord now.”

When I’m told the same thing, my first thought is “How can you tell?” or “Not surprised, since she’s been saying she’s dying for 50 years.”

I don’t say those things aloud — anymore. Instead I mumble something like, “Poor thing. She’s with the Lord now.”

Telepathic aliens would nail me to the wall for the things I don’t say. (Unless they had taken the time to get to know Aunt Jill, that is.)

I have a young friend, Paula, who is so nice that probably her first, unexpressed thought is actually nicer than what she comes out and says. I think she censors herself the other way, probably because people in the past have suspected sarcasm where there was none. She always find the good in people, looks on the bright side, turns the other cheek and blah blah blah. I’ve tried to get her depressed and cynical about the world, but it never takes.

Mind-reading aliens could be a little dangerous. The last thing I need is a little green guy named Skirzuk following me into Walmart and telling everybody what I really think of them.

He’d point at a woman and say, “You’re wearing pajama pants? In a store? What happened, did you accidentally sleep in your dress clothes?” He’d point at a guy and say, “That dude’s balder than I am, and that rug ain’t fooling anybody. Get a hat, you loser.”

That would get me beat up a lot. What’s worse, when the people came to beat me up, Skirzuk would tell them that despite my impressive defensive posture, I don’t really know kung fu.

Eventually, the world might be a better place with Skirzuk and his intergalactic cronies running around. They say honesty is the best policy. We might get to a point where we no longer need Skirzuk’s clan. Folks would just say what was on their minds naturally without considering the consequences, like I assume monkeys must do. I have never had a monkey try to spare my feelings.

I’m guessing a lot of our leaders wouldn’t get re-elected, but the tar and feathers industries might experience a boom, and that means jobs, jobs, jobs!

***

Joyce and I have a new grandson on the way, and we’re coming up with potential names. The last name starts with a “Z,” so we’re all coming up with “Z” first names (I’m not sure why). My submission, “Zebulon,” has been rejected, but that’s no big deal, since the primary role of the step-grandfather is to dub the poor child with a nickname that sticks despite the wishes of the unfortunate parents.

I pointed out to Joyce that the little guy is going to have the initials, “Z.Z.,” which could prove very funny should he ever suffer from narcolepsy.

You have to be careful with the initials when you’re working with a “Z.” You can’t name him “Edward” or “Ethan,” because if he grows up to be a little gullible everyone will call him “EZ.” Likewise, you can’t name him “Ken” or “Keith,” because if he marches to the beat of a different drummer, people will laugh and say he’s “KZ.”

“Ulysses” is out, unless you want Homeland Security watching “Uzi” all his life.

I think anything starting with an “F” or “S” is safe, but I have to think about it some more.

Why is the gov't secretly making beer for Bigfoots?

I like reading on the Outdoors page of our local newspaper every Thursday about the critter of the week, usually one that's rare or endangered. But while the article always gives a lot of info about habitat, lifespan and whatnot, it almost never has a recipe.

I'm not saying I would ever intentionally hunt down a protected species, knock it on the head and throw it in the deep fryer. I'm just saying if I should happen to stumble across a recently deceased Bigfoot, I'd like to know the best way to handle the opportunity.

Nobody on the Internet has a decent Bigfoot recipe. I think that's why our little corner of the Ozarks is overrun.

I can't claim I've seen any around our place myself, but they're there. When your min-pins start barking every 10 minutes for what seems like no reason, you've either got a Bigfoot problem or your little dogs are stupid.

I admit to wondering whether it wasn't the dogs being a little daffy, but there's other evidence. Seems like whenever Joyce and I both have to work, when we get home, some critter has dragged trash all over the place.

Bigfoots are partial to potato chip bags, peanut butter jars and styrofoam cups, and sometimes they play mean tricks. We've found Gizmo, the matriarch of our canine clan, with a peanut butter jar stuck on her head more than once.

The reason I know it must be Bigfoots is that the mess is both inside the house - usually on my side of the bed - and outside. No animal without opposable thumbs would be able to open the door.

I think Bigfoots also terrorize the chickens when we're not home. Thelma, Louise, Lucy and Ethel all show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. No matter what you do around them, they're convinced you're trying to kill them.

Try to fill their water dish outside, and they go flapping and squawking away in a panic. Scatter some feed in their pen and they almost have heart attacks. "Aaaahh! He's trying to kill us! Again!"

I can't imagine that they're idiot chickens. They've all done well on standardized tests, at least the multiple choice parts. Ethel's the only one who's any good at essay questions. We home-school.

Something has those chickens scared, and it's Bigfoots, mark my words.

There's a recipe on the Internet for Bigfoot burgers, but it calls for ground beef. What kind of idiot makes Bigfoot burgers out of dead cow meat? I wrote an angry letter to the website, but I haven't heard back.

Lots of recipes are out there for Bigfoot beer. The only thing that I can think is that those recipes must come from some secret government program.

It only makes sense. A normal person like you and me would take pictures if we captured a Bigfoot long enough for it to taste-test beer. Probably, once the Bigfoot was a little tipsy, we'd put it in a dress and try to teach it to ride a bicycle or something. Or let it loose in the courthouse. Oh man, I would pay to see that.

Come on, you know you would too.

Whatever we did with it would no doubt make the papers, if not CNN. Since that hasn't happened, the Bigfoot beer brewers have to be the only ones in the world humorless enough to get a Bigfoot drunk and not eventually break some kind of law.

That just screams "secret government program" to me.

Heroic columnist sacrifices morning donuts to spread wisdom

Sometimes I'm just walking down the street on the way from the office to the courthouse to see if any of the county office holders have donuts this morning and I'm stopped by a total stranger who recognizes me as the guy who writes that seldom-understandable but totally hilarious column in the local newspaper.

"Hey," the person says. "You're that guy in the hat."

I don't always realize right away that the person is talking about the mug shot in the newspaper which shows me in a hat.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm the guy in the pants and shirt, too. But then, so are you. Have a great day."

Sometimes the person looks down at himself, nods in new understanding, and allows me to continue on. On those occasions, it's likely the person really is just acknowledging that I am wearing a hat when the person sees me on the street. It's helpful on those days during which I have forgotten how I am dressed.

Other times, however, I am detained further. "No, I mean in the newspaper. You're that guy with the hat in the newspaper."

When the person says that, it's difficult to confuse the source of the recognition. Of all the guys whose faces appear in the newspaper, I am the only one in a hat.

Bill O'Reilly, Kirk Pearce, David Sirota, Bob Clark, Fines Massey, Francis Skalicky -- All those guys shamelessly flaunt their full heads of hair in their mug shots in their respective columns. To them, I just want to say, get over yourselves.

So you've got hair. I lived only 26 miles from Cincinnati when the Big Red Machine won the Series back-to-back in '75 and '76. Who would you rather be?

Book reviewer Roberta Page looks pretty good in that sombrero she usually wears when she comes into the office, but she doesn't wear it in her mug shot. So I'm the only hatted head in the newspaper.

When people on the street say I'm the guy in the newspaper with a hat, I know they must have seen my column. I immediately check their hands for weapons.

"Oh," I say nervously. "Well, thanks for reading, or at least for looking at the pictures. And I'm not going to pick on Indi-- I mean, Native Americans any more. I'm unarmed, by the way, and the sheriff's only two blocks that way."

"No, no, no, it's good," the person says sometimes without pulling a knife. "You're really funny. How do you come up with that stuff?"

(Editor's note: We suspect everything up to this point in this column has been a lie, kind of a long-winded introduction to whatever is coming. We apologize, but this columnist works Saturdays, so it's more trouble than it's worth to fire him.)

"How do I come up with this stuff? I'm glad you asked," I say. Motioning, I entice my companion to join me, sitting on the curb with our feet in the gutter, and I explain how humor works.

Jokes are written backwards, I explain. You start with a punch line and build a path to it. The easiest is the venerable knock-knock joke. About anything that ends with an "oo" sound can be made into a knock-knock joke easily.

Take, for example, "shoe." With the "oo" sound, all you have to do is come up with something that ends in the "shuh" sound for the name of the person knocking.

It doesn't have to be funny. The funny part is that you trick the person into saying something like, "Have you see my shoe?"

But don't do it like this: "Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"Have you seen my shuh."

This doesn't work because the door-answerer can guess it and doesn't get tricked. But if you substitute "Ahviyah Seenmush" as the knocker's name, the result can be glorious!

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"Ahviyah Seenmush."

"Ahviyah Seenmush who?"

"Yeah, it's right there on your foot, you stupid moron!"

(c. 1974 Ken York. All rights reserved.)

That one has cracked up generations of third graders throughout the U.S., and several fifth and sixth graders in Arkansas and South Dakota.

(Editor's note: The opinions expressed by columnists absolutely do not reflect the opinions of the newspaper. We love and respect our four Arkansas subscribers. We don't know anyone from South Dakota, but we're sure they're fine people who eventually might become readers if we REFRAIN FROM INSULTING THEM.)

Another standard form is the "What do you call a ..." joke. My best joke of all time is, "What do you call a dandelion climbing up a rope?" The answer is, " A self-rising flower."

Get it? Flower? Like, self-rising flour? Get it?

I came up with that one when I was a teenager, watching Mom bread some unidentifiable pork pieces for frying. The flour is kind of bland-tasting until it's been fried in lard, by the way, and no one knows why. It's weird because lard by itself is also bland-tasting, but when you combine the two and add meat -- magic!

Any word you can change to sound like something else is the nucleus of a joke. "Lunch meat" becomes "launch meat," which is the punch line to every astronaut's sandwich joke I have ever told, and there have been many.

As I explain the science of humor to these people, often I see the light of comprehension dawning in their eyes. Some of those folks have gone on to have brilliant careers, using the tools I gave them.

In their younger days, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ellen Degeneris, Larry the Cable Guy, Bob Hope, Jeff Dunham and countless others all have sat beside me on that curb to glean what they could and take it out into the world.

I guess I'm kind of like a humor guru, like an aescetic old man in a cave on a mountain who sits, Native-American-style before a blazing fire, waiting for young grasshoppers to make that climb to attain wisdom. Figuratively speaking, I mean, since we're really just sitting on the side of Commercial Street with wet feet if it's been raining.

(Editor's note: We can't prove it, but we're pretty sure Bob Hope never came to Lebanon, God rest him. The rest of it could be true, though.)

Humbly, I don't try to blackmail those guys into giving me a bunch of their money because I taught them everything they know, at least not since Larry stomped on my kidneys and Ellen threatened to marry my sister.

My reward is just feeling good for being able to make the world a little funnier place.

(Editor's note: Funnier? We didn't realize this was supposed to be a humor column. Cancel the assignments for the articles on the aliens and Bigfoots. This guy's full of crap.)

I truly do think I hate Martha Stewart

Just for the record - and this tip is for all you married fellows out there - it's almost never good policy to say a woman's name (besides your wife's) in your sleep. It inevitably leads to a conversation you probably don't want to have.


This happened to me. Friday night, I was cozily asleep beneath two thick blankets, probably with a dog in front of my stomach and another behind my knees. Apparently, however, it wasn't visions of sugar plums that were dancing in my head.


Saturday morning, Joyce told me what I had said, quite lucidly, between my episodes of log-sawing.
Now, it's probably good policy, if you're going to say another woman's name in your sleep, to pick one that you dislike, one that no one in the world could ever accuse you of having secret feelings for.


At least I got that part right.


According to Joyce, in my sleep, I said, "Martha Stewart's dead! What are we going to do?"


I seemed quite aggrieved, not sarcastic at all, Joyce said. I remember nothing of it.


When she told me this as we were driving to work Saturday, I could only burst out laughing. Martha Stewart? It might as well have been Leona Helmsley.


That didn't keep me from breaking into a light sweat, however. No matter how innocent you are, when you are confronted with evidence implicating you, particularly when that evidence comes from your own subconscious mind, it's natural to get nervous, I think.


I really, really do hate Martha Stewart. Really. So why was I dreaming about her? Joyce must be wondering that, too.


"I hate Martha Stewart," I told Joyce, maybe a little too loudly, just to make sure she heard me.


It was a conversation we had had before. Neither of us can tolerate anyone who worries about matching curtains and napkins.


Joyce also laughed about it, so it looks like I'm OK. We agreed there was no telling what is going on inside a human head. I made sure I brought up the sleep-talking a couple more times on the way to work, just so Joyce wouldn't think I was avoiding the subject.


The name I uttered really couldn't have been better than that of Martha Stewart, from my perspective. Not only is she snooty about linens, but she's a crooked cheater on her stocks. Martha Stewart singlehandedly brought down K-Mart, if you ask me.


If Martha Stewart and I were shipwrecked on a desert island for 30 years, my marriage vows would be entirely safe. Martha wouldn't be, though, since I probably would bash her brains in with a rock and eat her on day two, maybe before even trying to catch any fish.


I need to say a little prayer of thanks that I didn't sleep-talk about Oprah or Judge Judy. Both of them are pretty cool (and I'm saying this with strictly platonic admiration), so I think I would be in a lot of trouble.


I figure if I write an entire column about how much I hate Martha Stewart, I pretty much should be in the clear with my understanding, forgiving wife. I might mention this again next week, just to nail it down and get all this behind us once and for all.


In the meantime, I'm going to have to keep it colder in the house so I can justify covering my head with the blankets so Joyce doesn't see the duct tape over my mouth.


I probably won't be able to sleep anyway, though. I'm not going to be able to stop asking myself, what if - deep, deep down - I really do like Martha Stewart?


Ken York is the assistant editor of The Daily Record. Past columns and other writings may be viewed on his blog at http://ken-york.blogspot.com/.

Teach the 1-percenters to reproduce

All the Occupy folks have got it wrong.

I've decided that America's troubles derive from a lack of fertility at the top. Seriously, all us 99-percenters have no trouble reproducing, sometimes, probably, a little too much. Statisticians say we'll be 99.3-percenters before the end of 2014.

Back during the '60s, we might have been 75 or 78 percenters, but since then, our group has apparently grown wildly while the super-rich people, sadly, have been unable to maintain their numbers.

We ridicule the 1-percenters as elite, crazy-moneyed tyrants when actually they are just kind of bad at getting the opposite sex to give them the time of day, if you know what I mean. You would think the billions of dollars they have would help, but no.

Maybe they should ask their maids and butlers about how all that stuff is supposed to work. I think ivy-league prep schools ought to offer some kind of education on the matter, but I reckon them boys are too busy teaching Latin and Machiavelli and all that.

That's why I have set up a non-profit foundation to provide instructional videos to the elite wealthy guys and gals who need them the most. We couldn't afford to hire moonlighting health class teachers or commission animated birds and bees for the videos, so we just compiled stuff we found on the Internet that more or less pertains to the subject.

So far, the foundation has managed to anonymously mail more than three educational VCR tapes to the richest people in America.

I'm hoping that the video effort will stimulate an increase in the number of babies born with silver spoons in their mouths during the next few years. When those kids grow up, there will be a huge increase in demand for maids, butlers, gardeners, waiters with exotic accents and sychophants, and that means jobs, jobs, jobs!

We'll be 98-percenters within three generations, if my math is right.

***

It really makes me paranoid that not one of my bosses has ever uttered a word about whether I am allowed to attempt to write a column for the newspaper. It's an eerie, 16-month silence, now.

As many angry phone calls and irate letters and as much general derision on the local Internet forum as I have generated, I would have expected someone to say something, either in support or admonition.

Instead, I go to work every day and everyone pretends everything is fine. Just fine.

***

Not to brag, but Joyce and I now have an outhouse with electricity. Over the summer, we built a cute little shed with an actual wood floor and put a light in there.

I know, I know -- It's only going to make my property taxes skyrocket, but I managed to hide the structure partially behind some pieces of a satellite dish I salvaged from a dumpster last year, so I don't think the county assessor has been able to see it from the road so far.

Thanks to my pals, the Mayans, it's not going to matter if he sees it next year. We're all going to swallowed by moon-sized intergalactic fish before the next tax bill comes due.

Fun things to do with caution tape

There's a roll of caution tape in the back of my car, calling to me.

Joyce found it at a yard sale a few weeks ago. She didn't buy it for any particular reason except that she knew I would want it. I think it cost a dollar.

I was thinking about using it last week on the bottom step of the house, which finally had broken all the way. Instead of fixing the step, it would be funny just to string up the tape.

The only one besides us who would have seen it would have been Dad, who visits us most Sundays. Truthfully, the busted step was kind of his fault, in a way. I would have fixed it two months ago, but every week he has provided a progress report on its demise.

September: "That bottom step's getting a little loose."

October: "I almost fell coming up them steps. That bottom one's awful loose."

November: "I see he ain't got around to getting that step fixed. Somebody's going to break a leg."

December: "That bottom step's gone. Did you see that step's gone? Is he gonna fix it?"

Dad tends to ask Joyce about my intentions while I'm sitting right there at the table across from him. Sometimes I feel like answering, "I don't know what he's planning to do about it."

I don't know about you and your dad, but when mine says "north" I head south. It's been that way since I was 10 or so. That doesn't mean I haven't had cause to admit he was right at least half the time.

The caution tape on the step would have given him apoplexy.

But the little dogs prevailed upon my better nature Saturday morning. Gizzy and Gadget couldn't make the initial leap to get onto the second step, so we were having to go outside and get them every time we let them in.

(The little dogs believe an hour has been wasted if they haven't been out and back in at least three times.)

So now that the step is fixed (and I can't wait until Dad sees it Sunday), I don't know what to do with the caution tape, but I have ideas.

My first thought was to caution-tape the cubicle of my colleague, Fines. I could have done it Saturday afternoon so his week could start off on the right foot Monday morning. I'm off Mondays, so I would have missed his reaction, though.

I guess it would be fun to just string caution tape across any door in town and wait to see how the people who want to go in and out react to it. Would a family not cross its own threshold if caution tape were blocking the way? How long would they wait?

It's probably illegal to use caution tape for a practical joke. If we were allowed to do that, then people would no longer respect caution tape, and they'd be falling down open manholes and into wet concrete all over the place.

***

I zoomed in as far as possible on the new legislative district map on the state's website and discovered my house is cut in half. Indeed, the line runs right down the middle of the bed. Joyce, Eureka Stripe and Gizmo are in the 129th District, and Ben, Gadget, Sally and I are in the 123rd.

You can't tell me it's a coincidence that the only two bleeding heart liberals in Falcon are now in different districts. This is proof of the kind of gerrymandering that the judicial panel was supposed to protect us against. It's obvious to me that Joyce and I must have intimidated the powers that be as a cohesive voting bloc.

The good news is that if somebody we don't like gets elected in 2012 in one of the districts, we can just move the bed.

***

I guess I'll just use that caution tape as a garland for the Christmas tree when we get around to putting it up.