Ash, holes

Fire on the mountain? Nope. Smoke from Canada.

The haze around here lately is courtesy of our neighbors to the north, who continue to be on fire.

Down south, Georgia finds itself contending with an unnatural disaster, as a conga line of douchebags waltzes in and out of the Fulton County sneezer after cutting bond-and-release deals of various weights.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla supervises the landscapers.

Here at El Rancho Pendejo we have our ongoing landscaping project, which involves neither conflagration nor sedition.

As it enters an extended ditch-digging/pipe-laying phase I thank the gods that I stumbled into journalism, much of which can be done sitting down, in the shade.

Still, I’d gladly stand for hours in the Georgia sun if I got to see the Tangerine Turd get printed and mugged, especially if he came off looking half as frazzled as Rudy the Mooch. Dude looks like a drunk goat trying to shit a rusty tomato can.

Post holes

Taking the long view between hill repeats.

I knew my internal scribe was out walking a picket line with the Writers Guild of America when I considered titling a blog post “Maui wowie.”

Clever? Maybe. Funny? Most definitely not.

It’s been a bit of a rough patch for an old newsie who doesn’t give a fiddler’s fart about Barbie, the Iowa State Fair, Taylor Swift, a fish-slapping dance involving Zuck and Schmuck, Hunter Biden, or the latest freakout over artificial intelligence. (Texting Jesus? Seriously? Dude’s only been Holy Ghosting you people for a couple thousand years.)

We’re just 13 days into August and already I’m being served Halloween-related ads as I shamble around the Internets in search of inspiration.

But I’m having trouble envisioning anything more horrific than getting chased into the ocean by the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century and hearing later that some blogger made a lame joke about it.

Just a sec; gotta block this Jesus dude. He wants to know why the poor sods in Lahaina didn’t just walk to the mainland instead of jumping into the sea.

“That’s what I’da done,” he texts.

“Not with those holes in your feet,” I reply. “You’re not seaworthy anymore, skipper. More leaks than Ginger Hitler’s White House.”

Hah. Nailed it.

Biden in ’Burque

Mooned again.

The prez is coming to town today, but he hasn’t texted me, so I don’t suppose he wants to hang out, maybe go for a bike ride, drop a hint or two about the cell he’s having prepared for The Defendant on Gitmo.

His motorcade is likely to play hell with the already-chaotic Duck! City traffic, which resembles nothing so much as a fire-ant colony remodeled by M-80.

Maybe his SS detail can thin this perpetually stampeding herd of road-ragers during the presidential visit. They could probably use the target practice, and for sure we could use fewer hotheads with lead feet.

Dogfights, flies, and hummingbirds

Our backyard hummingbird shower.*
*Hummingbird not included.

The GOP pestilential dogfight is shaping up into something like “The Lord of the Rings” as reimagined by Charles Bukowski with an assist from William Gibson.

Thus we get Scum Baggins, Douche Baggins, Colostomy Baggins, and so on.

In this Bukowski-Gibson cyberpunk edition the Shire is a casino built on a Superfund site, a former dogfighting venue called Slobbiton.

The Wizards are all off somewhere dicking around with AI, social media, and first-class-only rocket flights to nowhere special for the Elves (Dwarves can’t afford a ticket).

The Rings of Power are not limited to the Elite — they’re Watches of Power, and can be acquired by anyone with the do-rei-me — but all they do is let you answer the phone that’s perpetually in your hand anyway and tell you to get out of the La-Z-Boy for a couple minutes every hour, you great fat bastard. Mostly the Ring-wielders use that time to go to the fridge for some tasty Boar’s Head snacks.

Speaking of pigs’ heads, at some point our revised narrative careens off piste entirely into “Lord of the Flies” territory. The Wizards and Elves get voted off the island on charges of being woke, trans, or both; everyone left is some variation on Jack or Roger (though George Soros makes a brief cameo as Piggy); and the Royal Navy never turns up to set things aright because THIS IS AMERICA BUDDY! YEAH, BABY! USA! USA! USA!

All things considered we’d rather watch a sprinkler in the back yard. Now and then we get to see a hummingbird enjoy a brief shower.

Clif Blok’d

Writer’s Blok(s).

Clif Bar has killed off two of my favorite Bloks flavors, Citrus and Cran-Razz.

Of course, that’s not how Clif — owned since August 2022 by Mondelez International — phrases it. Clif says these flavors are “retired.”

“Retired,” me bollocks. I’m retired. But I’m still available. Wave a fistful of greenbacks at me and see what happens.

Hel-lo, sailor. …