Category: Blasphemy

Bike wash

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Not a great photo, but it gave me the idea for the headline, so … winning?

Ah, October in Duck!Burg. The temps have dropped, the rain has stopped, and the streets are alive with the cars of eejits.

I enjoyed a near miss on a fast descent the other day. I was braking (and signaling) for a left turn when a motorist halfway-rolls the stop sign at the street I planned to enter, glancing only to her left.

Well, shit. I’ve seen this movie and I don’t like the ending. Couldn’t turn in front of her, as I could have had she yielded the right of way at the stop sign. And I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of ripping the turn on her right side, because while she appeared to be about halfway into a left turn I couldn’t see if she had the left blinker on. The right most definitely was not on. And nobody in this town uses their turn signals anyway, not even the cops.

So I hit the binders, come to a stop, and shout “HEY!”

Well, then she saw me, if the deer-in-the-headlights look she pasted on her face was any indication. I was signaling my turn, wearing bright colors, and rocking a bright headlight as per usual, but if you don’t fucking look at me you won’t see any of that Sammy Safety shit.

I’m not big on driver education, what with everyone being armed these days, so rather than doing a war dance in my broken-down old Sidis I settled for the Universal Headshake of Disappointment — left, right, left, mmm, hmm, hmm, you stupid, stupid motorist — and went about my business. A cyclist has to keep the Third Eye wide open and way out on its stalk in these parts. Periscope up!

Speaking of feckin’ eejits, early voting began yesterday and we’re looking forward to receiving our ballots via uniformed federal employee and casting the moneychangers out of the national temple.

Unlike the Swamp Thing besmirching the Oval Orifice with its wet Mickey D’s farts we do not vote by mail, we just get our ballots that way. Then we fill them out at the kitchen table, screeching blasphemies as though the candidates were dumbass motorists rolling stop signs.

“Yeah, fuck you! Eat shit and die! That’s right! Go get a job in the private sector, you Brooks Brothers butt-kisser! Oh, wait, you can’t, because the private sector expects results! Boom! Now, piss off! Die, die, die!”

Etc.

Then we walk our ballots up to the neighborhood polling place and thank the workers for their service.

This year the herd-thinning process will be a breeze because anyone still claiming to be a Republican after two years of Swamp Thing v2.0 is not only a taco short of a combo plate but a clear and present danger to what little remains of the Republic. Christ knows the Democrats are bad enough.

But we don’t want to be hollering like that at our polling place. We don’t want to frighten any fainthearted types from the other team who may be coming, however belatedly, to their senses. The Republic needs all the help it can get.

After the deluge

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Speckled spectacles.

You probably can’t see the scattering of raindrops on my sunglasses, proof that I chose wisely when I decided to go for a run at 7:30 this morning instead of waiting to see whether the skies cleared.

The forecasts from the National Weather Service and Weather Underground were for … well, frankly, they were for shit. No common ground. One declared that it was already raining (it was not) and might be doing so again later. The other? “A chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after noon.”

Well, there’s always a chance of something happening somewhere. It’s what makes life worth living. There’s a chance that Jeebus might come back, give Orange Julius Caesar a sandal right in the ballroom, and deliver a new gospel over his squealing carcass: “This is not what I had in mind at all, y’all.”

But I’m not betting the rancho on it.

I did catch a few sprinkles on my run, mostly on the return trip. But they added up to bupkis on the rain gauge.

So naturally I’m sitting here wondering whether I should’ve gone for a ride instead.

But, chance being the fickle bitch that she is, Jeebus is probably waiting out there to give me the other sandal in the chamois and proclaim, “Nope, not him either. Sheesh, you people and your false prophets. Do I have to hire a babysitter every time I step out for a couple thousand years?”

Smoke ’em if you got ’em

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments
“Does that mean new pope or new SecDef?”

I see The Media have a couple new chew toys this morning — a brain-dead SecDef and a completely dead pope.

That should fill The Void for a nanosecond or two.

Now we await the various conclaves. If we see black smoke from the Pentagon, that means that SecDef Yog-Sothoth has burned his Signal passwords and has gone back to using NextDoor for all secure communications involving war plans, pub crawls, and no-strings hookups.

White smoke means that Baby Daddy Musk has sent him on ahead to set up shop on Mars.

Red smoke from the Office of the Vice President means that Hillbilly Boy has failed to convince his god that he had nothing to do with his pope’s death, even though he was one of the last people to see him alive.

Fwooosh! Straight From servicing Beelzebozo to serving Beelzebub in one seriously hot DeeCee minute. Not exactly upward mobility, is it? Sure as shit ain’t the golden escalator Beelzebozo rode down back in 2015, either. More like that elevator ride that Mickey Rourke took at the end of “Angel Heart.”

And the pope? Well … Dad was a ring-kisser, Mom was a Presbyterian, and I turned out to be neither. So I haven’t paid much attention to Holy Mother Church since 1978, when I was still a newspaperman in Bibleburg and we burned through a couple of popes in a month.

If I recall correctly, which is unlikely considering the circumstances, we had finished newspapering for the evening and had retired to Jinx’s Place for cocktails.

A late arrival burst in, as they will do, and told us the pope had just died.

“Catch up,” we replied. “That was last month.”

“That was the old guy,” our informant revealed. “This was the new guy.”

And soon we had a new new guy, to be dubbed “J2P2,” because back then newspaper people knew how to treat anyone who claimed to speak with God’s voice, whether they were in Vatican City or DeeCee.

Dress-code violation

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Today’s text comes from the Book of Levi’s.

I broke one of the Commandments today: “Thou shalt not wear pants before Halloween, or the first snow, whichever comes first.”

Just where this Commandment falls on the list I can’t recall. I know it didn’t make the top 10.

Socks are a no-no too, at least indoors. Outdoors it’s: “Thou shalt not show thy gnarly, pale-ass, old-white-guy feet in public unless there is a beach or a pool nearby.”

In my defense, I will say only that this morning’s temperature was just above freezing and it was either pants and socks or fire up the furnace for the first time this fall.

I chose to save the planet. You’re welcome.

Nopocalypse

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
No snow, and no Chihuahuas, neither.

AND THE GREAT WEATHERPERSON spake unto the People, saying, “Place thy Shovels where thou canst Find them in the Dark, for I shall send a Snowpocalypse to thee, yea, even unto the Upper Reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, wherein roam the Purse Dogs from which it takes its Name.”

“And they shall be Sore Vexed, for their Darling Little Aztec-Themed Sweaters and Tiny Suede Booties shall not Warm them and keep their Feet Dry in this, the Hour of their Need. And they shall Tremble and Yap and Bite the Hand that Feeds them, which is to Say it shall be the Same Ol’, Same Ol’, only Colder and Wetter.”

But the promised Snowpocalypse failed to Eventuate, and the People grew Restless, having Armed themselves with Shovels, Snow Blowers, and Strong Drink, and endured many painful Bites from their Chihuahuas as they stuffed them into the Cutest Miniature North Face Gore-Tex Insulated Jackets with wool Paddygucci Beanies and Itty Bitty Sorels.

“What gives?” they enquired. “Where it at the Snowpocalypse?”

And lo, the Great Weatherperson answered in a Voice like Thunder, proclaiming: “Ho, ho, got you again, didn’t I? Check the Calendar, dummies. April Fool! You might get a little Rain if you’re Lucky. Gotta run; these Chihuahuas don’t make Themselves, y’know.”