Morning Satirical News

Night Beat: Love is the morning and the evening star

Night Beat

Love Is the Morning and The Evening Star

by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

The Star-Gazer's Monday morning bulldog edition will carry a story headlined "LOVE-IN STUNS CHURCH OFFICIALS," describing the vast crowd of spiritual pilgrims who attended the Church of the Painful Now's annual "Love Sunday Festival of Praise."

The sanctuary was packed to the belfry when the Reverent Cotton Mouth, resplendent in his deep blue robes, strode to the pulpit, and said to the hushed crowd, "And what is love? It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. Brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you only a man of God can pen such words about love, not the carnal, but the divine."

Mouth, who begins every "Love Sunday" with those lines, was the catalyst for a festival that, according to highly indoctrinated lay sources, met the needs of a "people no longer willing to hum a love manta that includes the words 'lie down, I think I love you.'"

After the service, Director of Christian Education, Sharon Falconer, explained that participants would be randomly sorted into five groups to discuss various aspects of love based on the following original themes that came to her while she was lying in the clover letting the joy of nature flow into her heart, or words to that effect:

• Love is the morning and the evening star.
• To be in love is merely to be in a state of perpetual amnesia.
• Three things can't be hidden: coughing, poverty and love.
• Don't threaten me with love, Baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.
• Love means never having to say you're sorry.

As Providence would have it, Mayor Clark Trail and I were sorted into the "Love is the Morning and the Evening Star" break out group which met in the Purple Platter's famed Mona Lisa Room "where our food provides enough gas to make you smile."

Host Coral Snake Smith and his staff were on their best behavior, claiming that unlike the "stiff and colorless Presbyterians in the White on White Room, we were all predestined for flank steak rather than the meatloaf surprise." Smith, who only had to serve three of the steaks from a dustpan, was not caught drooling on any of the meals.

After we were well watered, fed, and toweled dry (as needed), our break out leader Lulu Baines suggested that love "is good anywhere and any time, and that's why it's like the morning and the evening star, as the good reverend said. Let us meditate on that while we get our just deserts." She motioned to Smith, who brought in a cart filled with banana splits.

"I swear," said Trail, "I've heard that morning and evening star stuff before."

"Cotton Mouth says that every year."

"Could be," said Trail, diving (figuratively) into his banana split. "It's just so familiar."

I ate the cherry off the top of my desert and slid the rest of it over next to Trail who was acting like he couldn't stop after one.

"Mayor, I heard Burt Lancaster say those lines 49 years ago."

Danny Martin, who was there with his wife Laila, leaned over, dripping whipped cream on the sleeve of his Dockers Suede Sportcoat, and said, "This Lancaster, was he a preacher?"

"He was playing one at the time," I said.

"So Mouth didn't write those lines at all," said Trail.

"But Mouth was right when he said only a man of God could have written them, don't you think?" asked Laila.

"That's a question for Ms. Baines," I said. "She knew Elmer Gantry about as well as anyone could."

"So Gantry wrote them," said Danny.

"Gantry was a figment of Sinclair Lewis' imagination," I said.

"Oh, now I remember that novel," said Trail. "Gantry steals those lines from an agnostic, but whenever he says them, they sound heavenly and pure."

"That's all that matters, then," said Laila, "that the words sound heavenly and pure. That will cover up a lot that is"--she blushed when she said this--"carnal and sordid."

"It's sort of like PR," the mayor. "PR can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

"You're right as rain, Clark," I said.

"Spin," said Danny, "love is just spin, is that what you're saying?"

"I thought sex was spin," I said.

"Spin and a whole lot of bounce," said Clark, "unless you're really drunk and don't know what you're doing or who you're with."

Danny and Laila stood up in unison and moved their chairs farther and/or further away. "Sorry, Mayor," said Laila, "but we don't want to hear about sin while we're discussing the morning and the evening star, great preachers like Gantry and Lancaster, or anything else that might make poor Lula Baines feel like a two-dollar hooker."

"Clark, those kids must have been born yesterday," I said.

"Sometimes I wish I could go back to yesterday," he said, finishing up my desert and starting on Danny's. "I wish I could go back to being either naive or stupid rather that stuck in the 'lie down, I think I love you' phase of development. What about you, Jock?"

"I got sorted into the wrong group. For years, I belonged in the perpetual amnesia group, but then I woke up and found myself filled with regrets. My shrink, Dr. Lucrative Angst, told me to make a list of all the people I loved but never told I was sorry."

"Love means never having to say your sorry," said Clark.

"When I said that to Angst, he said it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard," I said.

"Really!"

I poured two fingers of Scotch out of my pocket flask into my empty iced tea glass. Angst was never as helpful as a wee dram. When Lulu Baines stood up and said, "Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy," I ducked out the side door as though I needed to use the restroom.

Truth be told, I've never gone to a love-in without ending up feeling all loved out, and seriously, I needed something more real than the morning and the evening star and hoped I was predestined to find it under the sweet angels heading in my little black book

In fact, my actual heading is "sweet angles," but spinning those phone numbers as "angels" made them more heavenly and pure.

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For more Jock Stewart lunacy, pick up a copy of my comedy/thriller "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," released in August by Vanilla Heart Publishing.

What's in it for you reading a book about me?

Night Beat

What's in it for you reading a book about me?

by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

County Road 3724, October 31, 2009--I was making a birdie putt on on hole 13 of the west side Hot Balls Miniature Golf Magic Land during the pre-Haunting Halloween Special, when a guy shouted at me from hole 14, "Hey Jock Stewart, that's in it for me reading a book about you?"

He was playing two balls, one for an imaginary friend, and he eight-putted both of them into the mouth of a crocodile guarding the magic castle.

'Absolutely nothing," I said as I sat down to wait for him to either clear the hole or let me play through.

"I keep getting my balls caught in all the wrong places," he said, introducing himself as one Mr. David Farragut of 1864 Torpedo Road in Mooresville.

"If I had your name, I'd be saying damn those teeth, full speed ahead," I told him.

Farragut smiled, indicating with his sad brown eyes and his slouching posture that he'd heard all the David Farragut jokes before.

"I got thrown out of the East Side Hot Balls for saying that," said Farragut. "It was another 18-ball day because I lost a ball on every hole."

"That's got to hurt," I said. "Let me tell you something. I've been there and I've done that. But I didn't get a tee shirt. Instead, some guy from Georgia wrote a book about me. At first, I was really pissed. Then I started waxing philosophical--figuratively speaking, of course--and wondered if a book about me was really a self-help book for you."

"How do you figure that?"

"I figure that with old-fashioned math," I said. "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm still a working stiff, getting my three squares a day, keeping a roof over my head, staying more or less sober, and actually having a few laughs. I've screwed up in all the ways a man can screw up, so you don't have to. My life is a road map that demonstrates what not to do and why."

"Really?"

"Right as rain."

"So, hypothetically speaking, how would you get your balls out of the crocodile's mouth and end up with a good score here on hole fourteen?"

"I make up my score as I go along," I said. "That said, I'd fish out those balls with that rake in the sand trap and write down 'two under par' and move on."

Farragut stood up, brushed himself off, and transformed before my eyes from a spineless wimp into a man with the bearing of an admiral, a man who didn't care which side his bread was buttered on because rules are essentially a hobgoblin of little minds, excuses for the weak and the powerless, and rationalizations of those who shed crocodile tears 24/7 while the rest of us race ahead at flank speed on a full tank of guile.

"Mr Stewart," he commanded, "commence to play through with my compliments. Once you're out of sight and out of mind, I have a bit of raking to do."

"You're too kind, I said. Then I picked up my gleaming white ball, spat on it, and said, "I hex you in the name of the granny the conjure woman."

One shot, which might have appeared lucky to the uninitiated, and the ball went right into the hole.

"So you're into witchcraft, then," observed Farragut.

"Not at all," I said, "but the spirits don't know that."

"Now that's guide," said Farragut as he picked up the rake and headed for the crocodile.

"You broke the code," I said, "and the book about me will help you break it every day of the week and twice on Sunday."

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Breaking News: FEDs Closing Down Cat Bootcamp

Albino County, October 20, 2009--Drill Instructor Boots Anderson slips quietly into barracks #3724 five minutes before Reveille on a cool Texas morning. The humidity is 68%, the pressure is 30.05 inches, the dew point is 56 degrees, and the 100 felines at the Albino County Rat Army Boot Camp are blissfully sleeping in the calm before the storm.

Anderson scowls at the mess, the random hairballs, the shredded up bunks, the tipped over litter boxes, the complete lack of military grade standards of cleanliness and ambiance, "as though a tornado hit the freaking place during the long hours between taps and dawn," he muses poetically.

And then it hits. Anderson slings the open, CinchSak (R) 39-gallon lawn and leaf bag of empty cat food cans against the wall. Two hundred eyes pop open, one hundred pairs of ears go back, growls, snarls echo throughout the austere structure. Manx cats comprise company 816, so the denizens can't turn tail and run, opting for caterwauling instead, the kind that makes Anderson's skin crawl as though he's covered in fire ants, the nasty buggers.

"Atten-HUH," bellows Anderson, though it does little good. He hates himself when he resorts to trickery, but the corps demands it or Manx Company is not going to be wearing cat's pajamas on graduation day. So, he puts a smile in his voice when he utters the disgusting words, "Food Time! Would my pretty little kitties like an itty bitty ditty bad of treats?"

The cats assemble smartly in the long center aisle between the rows of bunks. Their bearing is is straight and true like those perfectly posed goddess-style cats in art from ancient Egypt. 

"So you're not a lost cause after all, you lousy, good-for-nothing curs, you miserable excuses for ratters, you sloppy-as-dogs critters, you alleyway varmints. You Siamese." He adds that for good measure, knowing it's a low thing to say to a Manx.

At this moment (05:25 central), the emergency doors at the far end of the building are kicked open and the Feds, damn their lousy timing, crash into the room with assault rifles, mace, snarling dogs straining on leashes, and enough spotlights to make the cats' eyes look like his chaotic collection of old marbles before his brother lost them to Dexter Smith in the school yard before the cat got his tongue.

"General Mark Sirius, Homeland Security SWAT Tsar," shouts the dog-eared fat officer who rolls into the room like like a basset on a acid.

"Are you serious?" yells Anderson.

"If you don't believe me, read my name tag, you wussie cat lover. We're shutting down this operation until we sort through the litter and totally understand what kind of shit you people are into in this county."

"Do you have a warrant?"

"Warrant, why would I need a warrant when I've got guns, dogs, mace and the Patriot Act backing me up? Stand down, I say, for Mark Sirius is sitting in the cat bird seat today."

"It's a little late for that, General, the cats bugged out when you busted in," says Anderson.

"What the hell?" Sirius doesn't look like a cute doggy in the window now. "How did they manage that?"

"Training, General, plus they got those little cat feet; they slipped out like fog."

"Cats or no cats, we're shutting you down. For one thing, it just ain't right, even in Texas. I know what you're thinking, Anderson. You're thinking all we do at Homeland Security is make life difficult for honest, everyday people. Not by a long shot. We've been studying cats, from cat dancing to catamounts to catacombs."

"So what," says Anderson, grinning like a Cheshire cat that's starting to fade into the woodwork.

"I'll tell you what, mister smiley face, you organize cats, you gotta a catastrophe. You think you can control them, but you can't. You whistle and they keep on disobeying your commands, telling secrets, spying, sneaking in under the radar. That's just anarchy, the kind of cat's cradle trap our enemies are waiting for us to get our fat paws stuck in while our pants are down."

Sirius is stoked like a cat on a hot tin roof, but he's not wagging his tail now because Anderson has faded away  into the Texas morning, a morning when the winds are gusting to 23 mph, a morning when the old general should head to the dog house early and hang his head while his masters tell him Sirius is a bad puppy for not putting all those cats in a great big hat and bringing in for questioning.

Anderson laughs from a nearby tree. Once the FEDs leave, it will be back to business as usual. All he has to do is open a can of tuna and the troops will pass in review, soon, if not smartly, the sorry flea-bitten strays.

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For more Jock Stewart absurdity, take a free peek at the first two chapters of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" on Smashwords and see if that wags your tail for you.

Your favorite noir reporter is in hot pursuit of horse thieves, murderers and a full bottle of Scotch in this mystery/thriller with a dash of comedy.

Boss Day Gag Sends Editor to Hell

Junction City, October 16, 2009--When Star-Gazer senior editor Edward Anderson accepted a luncheon invitation from purportedly grateful employees celebrating boss day, he didn't expect to end up in a pine box with a one-way ticket to Hell.

Anderson, who's resting comfortably in a Hell, Michigan sanitarium after waking up in baggage claim feeling "a little crazy," told reporters he doesn't know who put him in the cheap coffin because he was blindfolded and drunk when it happened.

Star-Gazer city editor Alice Chambers said that while the newsroom staff had taken Anderson to the Purple Platter for his boss day lunch, they lost track of him during the food fight.

"After Monique Starnes thew a raw egg, all hell broke loose," said Chambers. "Anderson's always been an outside-the-box kind of guy, so it's hard to imagine him in a pine box unless somebody thought he was dead."

According to Anderson's wife Marcie, "My Ed wasn't dead when he left the house this morning."

Junction City coroner Morgan Slab said that she wouldn't have done an autopsy on Anderson unless she was fairly certain he was dead.

"Anderson's always been out to lunch even when he isn't out to lunch," Slab said, "but dead is a little more grave a condition than absentmindedness."

A spokesman for the Charon Acres Sanitarium in Hell said that while Anderson appeared to have "lost his marbles," he wasn't missing any vital organs. According to sanitarium statistics, many bosses end up in the "looney bin" on October 16th each year and "it's no big deal."

Hugh McNaughton, a security guard for the newspaper, told police that he saw Anderson leave the building with at least 120% of the newsroom staff at high noon.

"In my experience," said McNaughton, "there's usually a yellow-bellied weakling in a group that size that turns stool pigeon whenever the chips are down. But they weren't down, crime-wise at least. If you ask me--and you did--I think Anderson wandered out in the alley behind the building and fell into that joke coffin we keep ready and waiting on the loading dock. It could have happened to anybody."

According to informed sources, Anderson has been shipped to Hell, Michigan in a coffin for the last five boss days in a row without any suspects being found.

"The baggage handlers remembered me from last year," said Anderson. "They gave me a sack of airline nuts and then called Charon Acres. I felt rather touched."

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For more Star-Gazer craziness, pick up a copy of the comedy/thriller, "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" available in paperback and on Kindle.

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Our Readers Respond: naah naah naah naah naah, Mr. Stewart

Dear Editor--You must be a first class twit covering a story about Jock Stewart's so-called chances of getting a Nobel Prize for that tripe he wrote why he was drunk and/or stoned.

I have no clue who the hell winner Herta Müller is, but Jock, you old coot, hearing thats a gotta hurta.

Just don't come crying to me for sympathy after what you did to me in that silly Sea of Fire business. All I got to say is naah naah naah naah naah, Mr. Stewart.

Yours Sincerely,

Marcus Cash, Editor Emeritus

666 County Road 3724

Yours Sincerely,

Marcus Cash, Editor Emeritus

666 County Road 3724

Stewart on Long List for Nobel Prize

Stockholm, Sweden, October 7, 2009--While names like Bob Dylan and Maya Angelou are being bandied about in literary circles for a Nobel Prize, an obscure reporter from Junction City, Texas was discovered in the short part of the long list by literary sleuths.

Nominated by fate and/or unknown individuals, Jock Stewart is given a 1000-1 chance of taking the prize, while the odds for Dylan are 25-1 and the odds for Angelou are 100-1 according to a London odds maker.

Reached at his home late today, Stewart was asked if he expects to see his own name in the headlines tomorrow when the prize is announced.

"When pigs fly," said Stewart.

Stewart's nomiantion encompasses his books Worst of Jock Stewart and Twice Wed Tails as well as some 100,000 Night Beat columns from the Star-Gazer.

According to Lucinda Trail of the Star-Gazer, "Stewart has gotten screwed out of the Pulitzer for years because the newspaper has been run like a drunk tank. While getting a Nobel is small potatoes, he would certainly be willing to accept it."

According to an Nobel insider who would only give his name as Lars, Stewart has a lot of friends in Sweden because he "tells it like it is even if that means making it up."

Some Nobel laureates were "shocked" and "disgusted" to hear that a libertine like Stewart might be anywhere near the prize.

"If he wins, we'll have to kill him," they joked to reporters loitering around Kornhamnstorg, the waterfront square in the Old Town.

Stewart said that he only wants the Nobel if it knocks Dan Brown off the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Otherwise, "the Nobel plus $5.00 will get you a cup of Joe at the best coffee houses."

Bob Dylan and Maya Angelou could be reached for comment but neither of them said anything about Stewart that could be printed in a family newspaper.

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For more about Jock Stewart, see "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire"

Night Beat: Waking up in LA

Los Angeles County, October 3, 2009--I woke up this morning fresh out of The Glenlivet without a clue that a dry mouth was going to be the the least of my troubles in a city that boasts 1000 crooks for every pastor.

While suffering through breakfast at a sad diner on Valley Boulevard that didn't serve grits, I got a frazzled call from Chocolate Heart Publisher editor William Klee.

"Better sit down, Jock," he said before going through the normal pleasantries of the first telephone call of the day.

"Pica and I are both sitting down," I said cautiously, "trying to eat a bloody breakfast without any bloody grits. You'd think the City of Industry would have a grit factory. You'd think a guy could come in for a decent cup of Joe and order himself a steaming pile of grits--bloody, choked, and smothered."

"Trudy's already told you about the burglary, right?"

"Klee, I haven't talked to Trudy for weeks, not since she sent me a note telling me I can't spell any better than a den of thieves."

"Jock, don't start," snapped Klee. "A bunch of assholes broke into the Chocolate Heart storage facility and stole most of the books we were taking to the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday. When I get my hands on them they will be bloody, choked and smothered."

I ate several fork fulls of hash browns to try and calm my nerves and it worked about as well as throwing a drowning man an anchor.

"Any leads," I asked, "other than the presumption the burglars are assholes?"

"Nary a one."

"When the hell did you start saying 'nary a one'?"

"Just now, Jock. And let me tell you another thing, we're still going to open our booth, we're putting smiles on our faces and mouthwashing away the last traces of Johnny Walker on our breaths, and we're going to be there for our authors, for our people, for writers everywhere across this great land of ours, and when Clint Eastwood comes up and says, "Sell me a book, punk," we're going to shout, "Do you feel lucky?"

A waitress named Barbie, who previously told me she was going to star in the sequel to "Play Misty for Me," topped off my coffee cup. When she smiled fetchingly at me for reasons unknown, I said, "Whatever you do, don't mess with my publisher."

"Oh my Lord, you're Jock Stewart."

"Ged rid of the bimbo," shouted Klee, loud enough to be heard out on the street where several assholes were trying to fence books for enough money to buy some band candy. Barbie ran and hid behind the fry cook who didn't know how to prepare grits or even what grits were, though he thought he'd heard of the movie "True Grit" that starred a bunch of old people.

"You were saying 'nary a one,' Klee," I reminded him.

"I don't have clue as to why," he said. "But now you know what it's like to wake up in LA."

"You've got that right," I said, and we both hung up, in ill humor at how easily an ugly town can turn on you and chew you up and spit you out while you're trying to put one foot in front of the other even though you don't have a clue as to why.

"More coffee, hon?"

"I'll be probably be drinking this swill until the cows all become whoppers the same size as those the thieves will try to tell when the police catch with them."

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Coral Snake Smith Voted Off Survivor Samoa

Upolu Island, Samona, October 2, 2009--Disgruntled patrons of Junction City's Purple Platter Restaurant watched Survivor Samona in horror Thursday evening as their host and famed local restaurateur Coral Snake Smith was voted off the Foa Foa tribe under the mocking gaze of host Jeff Probst.

Moments after the debacle, the five television sets inside the restaurant were covered with meat loaf gravy indicating a high level of disgruntlement.

Speaking on condition of a free omelet every day for the rest of his life, Smith said that he had planned to find the hidden immunity idol and "go the distance" for the $1,000,000 prize which he was going to donate to the orphans of Albino County after paying off a few gambling debts.

"Every season," said Smith, "the program has an obvious bad guy on it, a guy the audience sees immediately, but that the players in camp just don't seem to notice even though he sticks out like corned beef hash on a coffin during granny's funeral. This year's guy had it out for me and nobody gave a flaming lizard's ass about it."

Informed sources close to the hidden immunity idol said that they didn't know "what the hell" Smith was talking about when it came to purported obvious bad guys. In fact, he and/or she claims Smith was voted off the team because he kept doing spit takes all over camp whenever somebody did or said something unusual.

Purple Platter owner Lucinda Trail told reporters she believes Smith was voted off the team because he was vocal about the skimpy outfits being worn by females on the show.

"People are tuning in to see the kinds of tits and ass that they never get to see in real life," said Trail. "They've had two challenges in a row where swim suits had a good chance of being ripped off."

Smith, who remains in seclusion in a secret room above the restaurant with close friends and family, said that he will never show his face in public until the program, taped during the summer, wraps up at the end of the season and fades with other minutiae into the past.

"Coral Snake Smith is a dear friend of mine," said reporter Jock Stewart. "But he dug his own grave when he refused to play the role of the old guy nobody expects to go all the way."

Billy Jensen, president of the Survivor Texas fan club, noted that when one player tells another player, "I'll do everything I can to get you into the final four," one is supposed to be grateful rather than saying "if that's the best you can do, consider me the enemy."

Jeff Probst was unavailable for comment.

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If you're in West Hollywood Sunday, October 4 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., stop by the Vanilla Heart Publishing booth (E14 - The Field) and check out the great books on display, including "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

Night Beat: Gossip Columnist Throws the Book at Reporter

Night Beat
Gossip Columnist Throws the Book at Reporter
by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Junction City, September 24, 2009--I remember the exact time Prairie View Tribune gossip columnist Monica Starnes barged into my living room, threw a 220-page book against the side of my head and shouted, "Heavens to Betsy, Stewart, this bloody book makes me look like one of the girls at the House of the Rising Sun."

"The book wasn't bloody until it sliced into my right ear," I snapped. "Now hold your horses while I finish watching my story."

The day in question: Friday, September 18. The time: 3:59 p.m.

My teddy bear Pica and I were sitting in the recliner watching the final episode of my favorite soap opera, The Guiding Shadow. Suffice it to say, I was depressed before my on-again-off-again flame showed up unannounced like bad news and relatives. I had just watched long-time characters spending their last rainy afternoon together walking through Greenwood Cemetery reading the names of former cast members off the crumbling tombstones. It was their all-time best tear-jerker episode.

As the credits rolled, Shiva and Gosh stood next to each other in a tornado on the road out of Winterfield and decided to split up for the rest of their lives.

Story of my life.

"I can't believe you like this schmaltz," snapped Monica. She turned off the TV and handed me a paper towel from the kitchen roller. "Here, hold this against your face until it (your face) stops bleeding."

The book, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, purported to be a comedic thriller. "Stewart woke up this morning with an industrial strength hangover," the opening line said.

That could have been about any day of any week, but it was in fact a libelous and possibly true account of Monica (aka Monique) and I ending up in bed together after an office party.

Monica sat on the arm of the recliner and leaned in close. "How do they know this stuff about us, Jock? Are they Feds or spies with hidden cameras?"

"I don't know, Baby Cakes, but what I'm reading so far is funny as hell," I said.

"That's because you come off as the gruff-but-lovable knight in shining armor while I look like the bad girl in town," said Monica.

I flipped open my laptop and Googled the author, one Malcolm R. Campbell of Two Egg, Florida, 'The town where your neighbors are always sunny side up.'

Campbell, who was raised by panthers in Tate's Hell Swamp on the Florida Gulf coast was a widely known hack writer and author of such novels as Lust Under the Billboard, Speed on Square Wheels, and The Lost Thimble.

"Several informed, but aggressively shy sources have already told me that you wrote this novel under a pseudonym because you were angry about (a) The Guiding Shadow going off the air and/or (b) what happened to us while the mayor's racehorse was missing," announced Monica as though she were dictating her next column.

When it came to "us," the story was more about what didn't happen even though we spent so many rainy days together, providing support and shoulders to cry on as we stumbled between the growing number of tombstones in our lives, so many, in fact that fate--the true guiding shadow--laughed its ass off whenever we thought we might catch a lucky break unlike Shiva and Gosh on the show and just be happy, happy in a little white cottage with a picket fence and some kids to call our own no matter who the father was.

"That's balderdash, or words to that effect," I told her, as I laughed at a scene in the novel about Coral Snake Smith's sloppy eating habits.

"But my friends are calling, Jock, telling me I'm a real louse for losing you," said Monica.

"They got that right," I said.

"This is why we broke up," she said. "I come to you for a little Southern comfort and you give me an ice storm of commentary."

She stomped out of the house, leaving the front door open so I could hear her burning rubber as she slapped the shit out of the gears on her Porsche.

"You handled that well," shouted Pica, in a sarcastic tone that always made me want to spit nails.

"Thanks," I said as gruffly as a knight in shining armor is duty bound to respond to evil doers throughout the realm, "you're no sweetheart either."

Truth be told, I knew I was lying to myself. While I would go through the motions of calling lawyers to ask about suing somebody sometime for libel or invasion of privacy or for flat out politically incorrect yarn spinning, I was flattered by the final weave of my new look and feel in the public eye.

As with most fiction, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, took liberties with the pure, unbleached facts of my life. But that's covered by poetic license, I'm sure of it.

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 Ask for Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire at your bookstore or find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.

Readers Looking for 'The Lust Symbol' Ravish Bookstore

Junction City, September 18, 2009--Angry, and apparently horny, shoppers tore apart the Main Street Book Emporium at high noon today looking for a book purportedly called The Lust Symbol.

Owner Jim Exlibris, who accidentally promoted a one-hour half price sale for Dan Brown's new novel The Lost Symbol with a 48-point Century Gothic "'LUST SYMBOL' REDUCED FOR HARD-UP READERS" headline, said that he could only blame himself for the misunderstanding.

"I just a country bookseller, not a advertising specialist or a bloody proofreader," said Exlibris. "I've never seen anything like it, so many people in heat at the same time. They ran through my shop like bulls from Pamplona trying to find The Lust Symbol. They tripped over a life-size cardboard cutout of Dan Brown next to my display for The Lost Symbol without even noticing it."

Police, who were enjoying lunch-time doughnuts across the intersection at the Krispy Kreme are being criticized for failing to respond to the bookstore riot.

"We presumed the whole thing was just customers having fun," Chief Kruller. "Sure, we thought there might be porn involved, but the FEDs handle all of Junction City's porn.

Witnesses report that Exlibris escaped from the mob, ran across the street, threw a copy of The Lost Symbol against the side of Sergeant Wayne Bismarck's head, and screamed "arrest somebody, dammit, they claim I'm hiding all my lust from them."

"Nobody's ever thrown the book at me before," Bismarck said.

According to local bookmakers who serve as police consultants, Exlibris "has a lot of priors" when it comes to misleading advertising. Main Street Book Emporium entries in the police database include advertisements for books called Bone With the Wind, Jane Error, The Hell Seekers, For Whom the Belle Rolls and the Handmaid's Tail.

Friends of the Library board members Hilda Meek and Anna Van Landingham, who were in the store to pick up a box of books Exlibris was donating to the lost readers program, said under interrogation they believed the purported “lust for lost” misprint was a publicity stunt.

“We make proofreading mistakes at the Public Library all the time,” said Meek. “Last year when we promoted a ‘fun at the pubic library ball,’ we feigned embarrassment and everyone ended up having a bang-up time.”

Police warned Exlibris to improve his proofreading skills or else.

City Issues Business License for 'Crack House'

Junction City, September 13, 2009--The Junction City Council approved a business license for Jim Krackcorn's new "Crack House of Mirth and Spirits" at the corner of Corn Dolly Street and Blue Tail Fly Avenue during an emergency called meeting this morning at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant.

While wolfing down his Smoke House Breakfast, compliments of the taxpayers, Mayor Mark Trail explained to council members that the city's Planning and Development Department (P&D) referred the license application to the city fathers due to the use of the word "crack" in the name of the proposed lounge and comedy club.

Krackcorn, a former stand-up comedian from the Lone Star Comedy Circuit, told the council that while his liquor license was in place and his certificate of appropriateness had been approved by the Historic Preservation Commission, P&D was "sitting on his application" because the department's director didn't approve of his establishment's name.

"It's a triple pun off my name and the intersection of Corn Dolly and Blue Tail Fly," said Krackcorn. "Crack-corn is slang for chitchat and corn is slang for whiskey. Cracking jokes while cracking open a bottle of my best stuff is what my business is all about."

City Attorney Mary Cornball asked Krackcorn if it was possible for people to get the "wrong idea" about the products being sold from the words "Crack House" in the lounge's name.

"With a name like Cornball, you've probably put up with cornball jokes your entire life," said Krackcorn. "But you stood by your name. You kept it after you were married even though the wrong kinds of people get the wrong idea about you the minute you introduce yourself."

After acknowledging that was quite true, Cornball noted for the record that her husband, Carl Scheizkopf, urged her to "stick with the devil she knew."

When Trail asked if anyone in the audience was there to speak in opposition to Krackcorn's application, it turned out that most of those in attendance were folks from places like Hell, Michigan and Intercourse, Pennsylvania and Two Egg, Florida who were vacationing in Albino County and just stopped in for a bit of breakfast.

Reformed Junction City drug tsar Robert "Tombstone" Satterfield told the council that while "no respectable cocaine supplier" would display the name "Crack House" on his crack house, he was concerned about the subliminal message the bar's name would "brainwash into the minds of easily duped people such as kids, old people and yellow dog liberals."

According to informed sources, Krackcorn doesn't care.

A motion to deny Krackcorn's application, made by Gerald Cornwall (D, Ward 12) failed for lack of a second. Subsequently, Francis Mayhew (R, Ward 2) moved for acceptance. Krackcorn's application was approved by voice vote with one abstention.

After the meeting, Krackcorn held up a bowl of grits and thanked the city for its hospitality. When reporters asked him why he picked the long-vacant St. James Infirmary and Morgue building for his lounge and comedy club, he smiled and said he liked the the neighborhood.

"I'm calling my waitresses Corn Dollies, my dart board will feature the political ass of the week, and I'll be serving free Blue Tail Flies on open 'Open Mike Night' to whoever does the best stand-up routine," said Krackcorn. "We'll specialize in drinking humor and political humor, as in, 'What's a Blue Tail Fly?' Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you it's either a blend of cream, white crème de cacao and blue curaçao or it's what you get when a blue dog runs like hell from a yellow dog. Ba-da-boom."

The mayor and council members left via the kitchen door with large doggy bags filled with leftover corn dogs and were unavailable for comment.

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For Jock Stewart in novel form, laugh your ass off with "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," new from Vanilla Heart Publishing.

Jock Stewart Gets Interviewed

On a dark and stormy night when 98.6% of the prospective listeners were huddled in their homes with the power out having sex or looking out the window in case their spouses came home earlier than expected from bingo and bowling, the Lady in Red interviewed me on her Books with Liver program. Here's a rough approximation of what happened.

LIR: Our guest is a hack writer named Jock Stewart who stepped in when our real guest got the green apple quick step and had to leave in a hurry.

JS: Oh goody. I'm happy to be here, yaddda yadda yadda.

LIR: Your Night Beat column has been labeled as a "piece of crap" by journalists throughout this great land of ours where you can still call a spade a spade even when your heart isn't in it. Tell us why the hell you started writing such a column in your local newspaper.

JS: One day, Zeke Smith said "screw it" and threw his Underwood typewriter off Piksun Cliff during Junction City's annual Lemming Race and Social Jubilee. Then he followed it down along with 238 other former citizens who also said "screw it."

LIR: Then what happened?

JS: They smashed up all to hell. So did the typewriter, which was a real pity. Making a long and bloody story short, the Star-Gazer's publisher Marcus Cash told me to take over Smith's column or I'd be "out on my ass." I called my first effort 'SMITH DIES WITH FRESH TYPEWRITER RIBBON" and the thing unfortunately was a hit.

LIR: Let me read you a review of your column from a source who refused to give me his name: "Jock Stewart can be counted on to fill up twenty column inches with material that's too good for lining most bird cages." What makes your column different than the other columns out there in newspapers that haven't gone our of business yet?

JS: The main difference is that I don't write any of those other columns.

LIR: Great. So lemme ask, how did you get in this business anyway?

JS: When I came home from the Navy for some well-deserved R&R, a vile rumor got started that I had been knocking up women and not paying their child support. My dear old daddy said the best cover story in existence is the one a man writes for himself. So, he stole some money from Clark's IGA Grocery down on County Road 1234 and packed me off to journalism school where I learned how to turn a nasty lifestyle into a career.

LIR: Your father must have been a loving and inspiring man.

JS: When he put me on the Greyhound for Tallahassee, he said, "You're not going to amount to nothing anyhow, so you might as well be a writer." I always knew where I stood with that SOB.

LIR: Your readers know where they stand with you, too, Mr. Stewart. Could you favor us with a short parapraph from one of your columns?

JS: Here's sentence I wrote in 2006: "There's little or nothing more American than yelling 'kick butt' while waving a turkey leg dripping with gravy in front of a 200-inch flat panel TV shrine in the family room on Thanksgiving Day."

LIR: Ooh, baby, I like it when you say the word "butt." Setting that aside, what are you working on now?

JS: A first class hangover.

LIR: Is that the name of your new gut-busting, side-slitting, brain-damaging novel?

JS: No, it's physical condition, maybe even a disease.

LIR: Oh, so don't share with us. When columnist Monique Starnes was on the program, she shared everything.

JS: Did she tell you what she did in the back seat of Jimmy Pew's Desoto?

LIR: What's a Desoto?

JS: You didn't get squat from Monique.

LIR: Before we mercifully end the show, do you have any tips for would-be journalists out there?

JS: My short answer is "Don't!"

LIR: Don't leave me we dead air here, Mr. Stewart, you and go for longer than a minute, can't you?

JS: My advice is this: When you get out of journalism school, you're going to be full of yourself. I know I was. When I started hitchhiking back home on highway 90, I fueled up for the journey at a burger joint called "Seven Steers." While I was eating, a man came over and said, "Young fella, that smile on your face and ketchup on your shirt tells me you think you've got the world by it's ass." I had to agree with him. Most of you would-be journalists are thinking the same thing right now and that I'm too senile to tell you anything about the who, what, why and where of the biz. So I'll just let you clowns figure it out. Some day or other, those of you with an IQ higher than your age will wise up and wipe the smile off your faces and the ketchup off your shirts.

LIR: When it's time to cash in your chips, are you going out the way your predecessor Zeke Smith went out, gloriously ending it all in a swan dive into the great abyss?

JS: I'm more likely to die in the arms of a woman I just met in a bar.

LIR: How will that happen?

JS: Her husband will have a shotgun.

LIR: Thank you, Mr. Stewart. In wrapping up tonight's Books with Liver, let me say that this has been a real fright. Thank you for sharing so little of your time and insight with us that our program probably hasn't caused anyone out there any real damage.

JS: Words to live by.

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Read more about Jock Stewart in the new thriller/comedy "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" released this month from Vanilla Heart Publishing.

Our Readers Respond: a cry for expensive help

Dear Editor--You must be a first class twit. You don't have to be a trained shrink like Dr. Phil to figure out that any man caught standing over dead bodies every day of the week and twice on Sunday is sending out a desperate cry for help. Robert L. Porter needs professional help and understanding because he's no more psychic than those fence posts at old man Smith's farm on County Road 3816, you know the place where the chickens act funny and none of the outbuildings have ever been painted. Porter needs to go to the kind of shrink who specializes in helping totally screwed up people get over the trauma of falling off the potty seat when they were 15 years old.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Freudy Adler, PhD
2850 Anal Road, Suite 666

Murder suspect turns out to be psychic detective

Murder suspect turns out to be psychic detective

by Jock Stewart

Junction City, August 25, 2009--When police found Robert L. Porter standing over the dead body of Porter L. Robertson in Fairview Park here today and told him to "reach for the sky," he responded, "I knew you were going to say that."

The two officers, patrolman Monty Jackson and sergeant Ralph Morgan were so shocked, they dropped their weapons and started putting up crime scene tape while Porter took pictures of the area that included a bloody hammer and a very angry dachshund. The dachshund was declared a dog of interest in the complex case.

"He definitely had the drop on us," said Jackson. "There was nothing we could do but believe he reached the crime scene via his intuition and random dark forces while we were relying on a 911 call from an anonymous do-gooder."

According to Chief Hank Kruller, Porter has a long record of beating police to crime scenes throughout Albino county.

"Porter has such strong psychic powers, he solved the murders of his wife, business partner, best friend, and two drinking buddies long before police knew the crimes had even been committed," said Kruller.

Porter, who claims to have a 98.6% level of accuracy, told police he has a strong hunch that his former commanding officer Dwight Simmons will be murdered in a dark alley next to an empty wallet during the month of September. Police have stepped up patrols to save Simmons if at all possible.

"If we can't save Simmons, we would at least like to find his body before Porter finds it," said Morgan.

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Read about the exploits of Jock Stewart in "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," a comedy/thriller just released by Vanilla Heart Publishing August 12th.