Cowabunga!

Hey, kids, why should L.A. have all the fun?

If your idea of “fun” is having Cadet Bonespurs go all Rolling Thunder on you for having an overly noisy barbecue, that is.(Sorry, Waymo.)

“Let a hundred Stooges bloom!” as our Dear Wiseguy, Chairman Moe, has taught us. While that fat toddler plays with his (our!) Army men in DeeCee this Saturday, there will be a No Kings rally in The Duck! City. And judging by the map of scheduled events there is probably one in your neck of the peckerwoods, too.

No torches, no pitchforks — just a nationwide woo woo woo woo woo. A virtual finger-poke in that toddler’s piggy little eyes.

If he tries to get tough we’ll break out the big guns: The Groucho Marxists.

And remember, kids — when you’re smashing the State, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart:

Hello … you must be going. You cannot stay, I came to say, you must be going. It was a shame you ever came, you best be going. …

Time to flip the bird?

The oozlum bird, lifted from godsandmonsters.

Is it time to replace the bald eagle as a symbol of what used to be the United States of America?

Not with the turkey, which Benjamin Franklin considered “a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”

Rather, with the oozlum bird.

The oozlum, clearly a cousin of Ed Abbey’s fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird (see “The Monkey Wrench Gang”), flies backwards. This is either so it may admire its own lovely tail feathers, or because while it has no idea where it’s going, it likes to know where it’s been.

And when startled, it will fly in ever-tightening circles until it vanishes up its own asshole.

Though the oozlum clearly has the chops to be our national symbol, it must be noted that the bald eagle remains a distressingly apt depiction of the modern American character. In criticizing the bird’s inclusion in the Great Seal back in 1784, Franklin actually made a strong case for it in 2025. In a letter written to his daughter, Sarah Bache, Franklin wrote:

“Bad moral character … sharping and robbing … a rank coward.” Good ol’ Ben. Still giving us the bird after all these years.

After the deluge

Splashed stucco with a side of piñon.

We got 0.28 inch of rain yesterday in about 28 seconds, so, ’ray for us.

The deluge will not resolve our water issues, though it ended the struggles of at least one poor soul whose last known address was a washout down near Edith and Roy.

We stayed indoors where it couldn’t get us. Well, mostly.

Herself took her chances with an early run. I held out hope for a bike ride, and if I’d moved fast I could’ve had one, too.

But fast is not my speed. So instead of risking a good soaking I dithered, waffled, and procrastinated, and then finally tottered out for a short run and never even got my shoes damp, though at one point I was jogging up a sandy arroyo that feeds into that long flume ride downtown.

Then, later that afternoon, boom, down it came.