Hope and (spare) change

Mister Boo
Mister Boo feels the torpor of the unemployed.

As the coronation of King Socialist Muslim I proceeds in DeeCee, word on the streets in Bibleburg is that job growth locally is confined to pitching greaseballs at motorists through drive-up windows, answering phone calls from pissed-off Comcast customers and blowing shit up, in part because the locals are too fucking stupid to sell legal weed.

The good news is, gas is cheap for anyone who wants to leave town in search of greener pastures.

The local unemployment rate has been at or above 8.9 percent for three and a half years, and would be more like 12 percent had not some 4,000 Bibleburgers given up looking for work altogether, according to the Gazette.

Interestingly, local number-cruncher Tom Binnings of Summit Economics LLC estimates that 24 percent of Bibleburgers are self-employed, “making money where they can and finding a way to survive, but not much more.”

That number seemed steep at first, until I started thinking about most of the local folks I know. A couple are educators, one has a gummint job, and a few are private-sector employees, but a substantial percentage of the others is self-employed: artist, screen printer, construction contractor, bike-shop owner.

We’re not all struggling to survive, but I’m certain we’d all like to be doing better. Thing is, how do we get there? Ranching the view doesn’t put beans in your burrito, blowing shit up seems likely to go out of fashion if DeeCee ever gets serious about reining in spending, and cheap gas isn’t much of a solace if you have nowhere to go.

After Oprah, what?

From the creators of “Jersey Shore” comes “Redneck Riviera.” Conceived by Ron White (“They Call Me Tater Salad”), it stars Lone Star Staters Lance Armstrong, former President George W. Bush, Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry, Jessica Simpson, Randy Quaid, Meat Loaf, Vanilla Ice and Gary Busey as a potted palm.

In the first episode, Randy Quaid Skypes from Canada to bet Meat Loaf that Jessica Simpson can’t suck a golf ball through a garden hose from Mustang Island to Port Aransas. Meanwhile, Gov. Perry challenges President Bush to a tongue-wrestling contest, and Lance Armstrong wonders over a succession of Shiner Bocks how Oprah would look in a blonde wig and whether Club Fed-Three Rivers has a runway long enough to accommodate his private jet.

Friday Funnies

Ah, Black Friday: The gift that keeps on giving. As some Walmart employees are agitating for a living wage, Sears customers in San Antonio are throwing hands and drawing firearms. Some people clearly did not enjoy enough mood-altering tryptophan on Thanksgiving.

At the higher-end shops, meanwhile, those mannequins you’re inspecting are inspecting you right back, with cameras and facial-recognition software not unlike that used by les flics. Hey, there’s one … whoops, nope, it’s just Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, here’s something to leave on the shelf, no matter where we are in the shopping season. And fuck Weepy John Boehner and the horses’ asses he rode in on.

Friday Funnies (preview edition)

Livewrong
Think Big Tex will suit up on Friday?

Some folks are expecting The Cyclist Who Shall Not Be Named (TCWSNBN) to ‘fess up on Friday in Austin, during a fund-raising hoo-hah marking the 15th anniversary of Livestrong.

Alas, while Bob Dylan famously noted that “even the president of the United States/Sometimes has to stand naked,” I don’t see The Boss pantsing himself in front of all those yellow rubber bracelets. Anyone who wants to see that hard ass in the cool breeze is gonna have to take an active role, and they’d best pack a lunch, ’cause Big Tex plays for keepsies.

My fabulously uninformed opinion is that he’ll use the occasion for yet another spirited defense of the indefensible, maybe launch a line of yellow rubber crucifixes, and fight a bloody, noisy delaying action until the last lawyer sprawls dead at his feet. I don’t see surrender. I see the Alamo.

Let’s assume for argument’s sake that he’s as guity as a yellow dog caught collar-deep in a trash can full of chicken bones, bacon grease and Benjamin Franklins. Where’s the percentage in coming clean now? The UCI has yet to weigh in — Fat Paddy and Lyin’ Hein are still trying to get their big-boy pants screwed on, I expect — and then there’s always the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

And besides, the only people who would buy a weepy mea culpa at this point are the Walking Deadstrong, that hard core of soft brains who, if they saw him mainlining EPO in a porta-potty at a sprint tri’, would blame Greg, Betsy, Tyler, Floyd and Obama, in that order.

I’ve been wrong before, and often in spectacular fashion. But I don’t see Big Tex coming clean until the End Times are truly upon him, which will be when the money runs out. Then he’ll “write” a tell-all book, hit the rubber chicken/morning talk show circuit and get back on that gravy train.