Morning Satirical News

Octopus Books Launches TDP-or-Else Publishing Program to Control Reading from Cradle to Grave

Gig Harbor, Washington, December 10, 2011 - Octopus Books launched its new TDP-or-Else publishing program today with a billion-dollar treasure chest filled with enough loot to temp even the shyest of authors into a restrictive contract that keeps their books out of competing stores and online bookseller websites.

"We firmly believe that Tentacle Direct Publishing (TDP), when combined with our Octopus-only author's contract, will provide the best cradle-to-grave entertainment service for readers," said Octopus Books founder and chairman J.D. Rock.

According to informed sources, TDP-or-Else "has the potential for harming everyone who reads, writes or sells books except for Octopus Books."

Yet Rock and his two primary business partners Hank Flag and Roger Henry discounted such objections from competing Internet booksellers and independent bookstores as "cry baby stuff" at the company's annual sardine roast where the new publishing program was unveiled.

"We think we have enough bounty to keep authors loyal to us and to understand that it's not in their wallets' best interests to shack up with other booksellers," Rock said.

Publishing insiders said that once Octopus Books is finished building its from-here-to-eternity corporation, publishing insiders will be a thing of the past.

Speaking off the record, the president of a bookseller association said that Rock, Flag and Henry modeled Octopus Books after such famous vertically integrated cartels as Standard Oil and Paramount Pictures.

"Such companies control all aspects of the supply chain from the devil to the deep blue sea," the association president said.

In spite of recent cries of "Gig the Octopus" and "Eat a Tentacle for Lunch," many long-starving authors and industry outsiders are viewing the bait dangling on the end of the line with "guarded naïveté."

"Now every author can be a contender," said emerging author Terry Malloy ("Calm Weather Tails"). "Octopus Books is really the only game in town and as soon as the small fry realize this, we can get onto writing great stories and controlling the readers' habits."

In a white paper published by a suddenly failing independent publisher whose name has not been released pending the notification of next of kin, author Ida Minerva wrote ''With Mr. Rock’s genius for detail there went a sense of the big and vital factors in the publishing business and a daring in laying hold of them which was very like military genius. He saw strategic small-fry publishers and mom-and-pop bookstores like a Napoleon and he swooped on them with the suddenness of a Napoleon."

When asked about Minerva's book, Rock laughed and said, "Now there's a little writing gal I liked to wrap my tentacles around."

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--Story by Jock Stewart

 

 

Fabricated Life Stories, Inc., Comes to Town on a Wing and a Lie

Junction City, October 24, 2011--Three months ago, Robert L. St. Ives had another name and an identity that nobody would sneeze at. His longest term of employment, not counting the License Plate Shop at State Penitentiary 666,was 38 minutes as a produce washer at the old A&P Grocery on County Road 3724.

Today, Robert L. St. Ives is a Rhodes Scholar with a high-profile job as Dean of Admissions at Albino College.

"Even though I'm dean of admissions," St. Ives said, "I'm not admitting anything that may have happened before I got my new life, compilments of Bob and Ray at Fabricated Life Stories, Inc. (FBL)."

St. Ives had to hitchhike all the way to Dallas to purchase his new life with $100,000 in funds from a variety of undisclosed sources and locations. Today, thanks to some well-placed favors, Bob Smith and Ray Jones are moving the corporation's headquarters to the former crack house behind Ghost-of-a-Chance Cemetary on Deadline Road.

According to the ABOUT US page on FBL's website, Smith holds a PhD in advanced basket weaving and Jones holds a PhD in alumni physical education coordination.

"We provide hope to the hopeless, clues to the clueless, and new lives to people who botched up their former lives," Smith said. "Our work is so thorough and above verifiable reproach, that everyone from the Social Security Administration to Homeland Security believes all paperwork flowing out of our vast network database."

According to sources who didn't know they were being taped, "FBL Certificate Holders have such flawless, fabulous and highfalutin credentials, they inevitably succeed wherever they're hired based on their celebrity status alone."

Local psychiatrist Puer Aeternus said that even though paying for a new identity at FBL has a dark side to it, most of those who use the company's services spend the rest of their lives growing into the lives that were fabricated for them.

"They become what they are pretending to be," Aeternus said.

Smith and Jones explained to local ministers who "had reservations about dancing with the devil" that 98.6% of the facts available via the Internet are variously massaged, tweaked, ramped up or totally fabricated."

"Lies tend to cancel each other out, leaving us with Pure D truth," said Jones.

"He's wrong," said Smith, "but that's why you can take what he said as gospel."

According to Chief Kruller of the Junction City Police Department, most of the residents of the former crack house behind the cemetery were "given a free ride" by FBL and how hold positions of trust in the community.

"Only in America," said Kruller, "could a man be who was wanted for grand larcency on the first of the month be the president of the bank on the last day of the month."

FBL's move to Junction City will be completed during the dark of night on October 31 when, sources say, "honorable people will be inside their houses with the blinds closed."

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Story by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter for the Star-Gazer. For a free Jock Stewart "Jock Talks Satirical News" e-book, click here.

UNCLAIMED FRIGHT Coming to Town on Halloween

story filed by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Junction City, TX, October 2, 2011--Unclaimed Fright, the mega-corporation founded by de-archetyped Jungian analyst Frederick Anima in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco during the "heady days of the Vietnam War," announced plans to turn the former Border's Book Store on County Road 3724 into a super-sized Primal Scream Center (PSC).

Anima (prounced enema) said that Junction City presented Unclaimed Fright with "overly ripe demographics" for the company's famed electric chair PSC intervention therapy because Albino County is a "seething mass" of humanity with no sense of personal responsibility.

"Figuratively speaking," said Anima, drawing a stick-figure hangman game on a large flip chart, "at least 98.6% of county residents are hung up with fears. They are literally being scared to death by everything that goes bump in the night, but won't admit it."

Puer Aeternus, chairman of the Junction City Psychotherapist's Club interrupted Anima's presentation thirteen times--based on security cam footage. He shouted, "You've got that right!" six times and hit Anima in the head with a spit wad seven times.

After being subdued by police and given 5cc of Valium, Aeternus explained that while Texans are "mean sons of bitches" on the outside, they live in a state of denial about their fears on the inside.

According to a Junction City Psychotherapist's Club white paper, Albino County needs a massive "infusion of sanity" that will not be found by screaming for hours in one of Unclaimed Fright's mock electric chairs.

"Primal Scream Therapy is a meaningful intervention for patients with neurotic disorders," said Anima. "We've simply enhanced the process to keep the cost to the patient well within the amount insurance companies are willing to pay. It's widely known that insurance companies think talk therapy is 'just paying for friends,' so we cure folks in our unfriendly, 'Old Sparky Electric Chair Room.' Patients are taught to own their fears with reasonably safe jolts of persuasion from an old car battery and leave feeling much better about the outside world."

Anima said that the company's award winning and highly controversial "GOT FRIGHT? CLAIM IT HERE" advertising campaign will begin running in the obituary section of the Star-Gazer next week.

An informed source for the nearby Saint James Infirmary, speaking on condition that he would not be referred to as the "Boss Shrink," said that it was "unlikely" that any of the "therapists" working for Unclaimed Fright would be allowed to commit anyone other than themselves to the infirmary.

Unclaimed Fright officials promised that its PSC would keep neurotics off the streets with the same effectiveness that the state's lethal injection program keeps criminals off the streets.

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Got unclaimed laughter? Put it to good use by reading Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, the comedy/satire about Junction City, Police Chief Kruller, and the seething mass of fictional humanity of Albino County.

Minister challenges 'Lust in All the Best Places'

by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Junction City, TX, September 28, 2011--Zeke Quick's tragic story about two star-crossed lovers who experienced passion on a hot tin roof only to end up end up with hot crossed buns, Lust in in All the Best Places, was ripped off the PS93 library shelf faster than a wet bodice on a steamy afternoon.

Arnold Pratt, the self-appointed pastor of the Church of Randon Saints, asked the school board to remove the novel from the library during Banned Books Week as a way of "spitting in the eyes of readers who have nothing better to do than read sordid books."

After a meeting at an undisclosed location late last night, the Junction City School Board voted 5-2 to remove Quick's book because it included a "highly explicit" list of the best places in Texas to experience lust without getting caught.

Principal John Phillips said that the Reverend Pratt cited as evidence a printout of questions his (Pratt's) son Billy posed on his (Billy's) Facebook profile.

"He wanted to know where his friends were doing it," Phillips said. "He was stealing his questions about farmer Jones' haystack, old lady Wilmont's basement, and a 'steamy swamp' on County Road 3724 right out of the novel."

Upon investigation, police said nobody was having sex in old lady Wilmont's basement except old Lady Wilmont.

"Bless her heart," said librarian Lucile Edmonds. "She used to date Zeke Quick when he was a student here many years ago. But he shouldn't have told, especially in my library where students in the Pulp Fiction class are crying for something practical to read."

Informed sources said that several members of the school board were observed cavorting in the aforementioned haystack after the meeting.

Glen Jones told reporters that he was cutting together an eye-popping video compiled from his security camera footage.

"All but one of the school board members look better with their clothes on," said Jones. "You can decide for yourself, though, when I upload my 'Haystack Hooters' video onto YouTube at high noon tomorrow unless the book is returned to the library."

An emergency session of the school board has been called for late this evening in "that little love shack in the Great Abysmal Swamp two miles past the covered bridge."

Quick, who was busy autographing another box of books for the library "just in case they were needed" said--off the record to avoid libel problems--"Pratt, Phillips and Edmonds are jealous that the fictional characters in the book are more normal than they are."

"Zeke always did think he knew everything," said Edmonds after slamming down a few shooters in the faculty lounge. "The reason I don't want that darned book in the library is because the publisher used a candid photo of me and coach what's his name on the cover."

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You can find more absurd stories from Jock Stewart on Kindle in "Jock Talks Outlandish Happenings." It's a hoot and a half and only costs 99 cents.

The e-book is also available on Smashwords in multiple formats.

 

Organized Crime Eyes Rising Sagebrush Revenue

Reno, Nevada, August 9, 2011--Vinnie "Big Bonanza" Romano is finally a happy man. While sales at his International Romano Cheese Company are merely modest, street sales of his sagebrush products are finally going up in smoke.

According to sources who claim their lives "wouldn't be worth a played out silver mine" if they talked openly, Romano moved from Detroit to Reno three years ago when he realized the Sagebrush State was "a place where the big cheese in a well-organized family" could corner the sagebrush market.

"The landscape around Carson City, Virginia City and Reno is badder than the Badlands," Romano purportedly told his friends around a Vegas roulette wheel before there numbers were up. "But look at all the damn sagebrush, ripe for the picking."

Romano set up a factory in an abandoned silver mine near Virginia City in spite of the fact nearby signs told him the place was dangerous. The plan: to introduce a new product called Nevada Rubbed Sage that would steal business from the venerable McCormick Company.

Factory manager Mario Bruno sent gangs of sagebrush thieves out into the bad Nevada landscape to bring the stuff back to the mine by the light of the moon and a few well-placed flashlights. Beneath the rotting timbers where men once became rich extacting silver from the earth, Bruno's machines hacked, chopped and rubbed sage before depositing it into thousands of .5 ounce bottles with silvery labels.

According to chief marketing goon, Bill Smith, McCormick's sage is imported from Croatia which "last I heard, is unAmerican. Our home-grown product will help the poor Carson City and Reno economy while undercutting McCormick's $2.98 price."

Introduced at $1.00 a bottle three years ago, initial sales of Nevada Rubbed Sage were brisk even  though Trader Joe's, Safeway and Walmart refused to carry the product.

"Who are you going to trust to rub your sage," quipped Romano, "sage from a company founded by a guy named Willoughby or a jet-setter named Vinnie?"

Vinnie's rubbed sage hit the fan, informed sources believe, on Thanksgiving Day 2008 when everyday families dipped into mama's best turkey and dressing and realized that the ground up and rubbed sagebursh growing on Nevada's bad-looking landscape tasted bad.

Sagebrush expert Rider Purple explained to reporters gathered around a Nevada Rubbed Sage outlet on U. S. 395 that while the toxic sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, smells like common sage (Salvia officinalis) when it's wet, it "tastes lousy and bitter and more or less like weeds on a plate."

After trying "weeds on a plate" as a green-oriented, natural-sounding, family-friendly slogan for his Nevada Rubbed Sage, Romano concluded late this summer that his rubbed sage was simply rubbing people the wrong way. According to uninformed sources, he said, "hell, maybe we can get those turkeys out there to smoke it."

To the chagrin of the legal and highly taxed cigarette companies, sales of Vinnie's Bad Smokes have been brisk.

--Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

This e-book parody of “helpful hints” newspaper feature articles is inspired by "In a Flash," by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel and by "Morning Satirical News," a weblog by Malcolm R. Campbell. Available for only 99 cents.

 

 

 

 

 

Night Beat: Andy Williams no longer sings 'Loon Liver'

Got up this morning and heard a raucous cacophony of screeches, hisses and flutes outside the window. Sounded like the crap we used to hear on the first day of band practice back at Sam Houston High School.

Since I'd fallen asleep in my clothes--just in case--I grabbed my Glock-17 out from under the currently un-used guest pillow and ran out on the desk to investigate. The world looked normal which meant it probably wasn't.

"I love that big old gun of yours," said my sexy neighbor lady Label Ranks who just happened to be peeking over the fence.

"Thank you, Label."

"Stop calling me Label. The name is Mabel Franks."

Franks? No wonder she always looked at me funny. Before I bought a pair of hearing aids yesterday for the reasonable price of $57,000, I never could hear the letters "M" and "F." Every time I walked into the press room at the Star-Gazer, the purported employees shouted, "Uck you, lover ucker." Always thought they were daft.

Turns out, I was deafer than I knew.

"Sorry, Mabel, but today is the first time I've been able to hear much of anything other than gibberish."

"Two years of my sweet nothings have been wasted on you. Is that right, Jock?"

"Right as rain."

"Pity," she said, lighting up a cigarette that I'd always called Larboro, prompting fast food clerks to scream "Uck you." I never saw the humor in it as the time. "So, what's up other than your gun?"

"The racket," I said, wondering if she were deaf or daft.

"What racket?"

"That crap in the trees."

"Birds, Jock, the joyful song stylings of your fine feathered friends."

"They sing?"

"They do."

"My goodness."

I ran inside and called Lucinda at the Star-Gazer.

"Birds," I shouted. "They sing. The bird books are right. All those italicized words describing what birds sound like are true. They (both the sounds and the birds) are right here in my yard."

"You finally bought your hearing aids."

"About 57 grand just to hear birds sing, to learn my neighbor's name isn't Label Rank and to realize the guys in the press room never did yell 'Uck you' when I pressed the red button to stop the presses like they do in the old black and white movies."

"You haven't heard a word I've said for years," she quipped. "I wanted to liven up our sex life with a little conversation, but you always ruined it singing that gosh awful Loon Liver."

"Ah, Baby Cakes, it's my favorite song."

"Here, listen to this MP3 file of Andy Williams singing your favorite song."

The lyrics, which began on the top floor of the Star-Gazer building downtown made their way from one cell tower to another, bypassed the fine feathered friends in the trees, and reached my cell phone as a very celestial rendition of the humorous song about loons I'd been singing to girl friends and hookers ever since the comedy Beak Ass at Tiny's came out in 1961.

"My goodness, what has Andy done to our song? Moon River, wider than a mile? What is that about? Send in the loons." I spat on my new hearing aids and put them back in my ears. No help. Same new lyrics, lyrics that made a mockery of everything I knew and loved.

"Indeed," she said. "Other than you, there isn't a loon in sight."

"I'm guessing the movie never was called Beak Ass at Tiny's was it."

"Maybe yes, maybe no."

The thumping noise tangled up in her voice was starting to get irritating. "What's the deal with the jungle drums in the office?" I asked, not wanting to know.

"That's my heart beating, Jock."

"You have a heart?"

"Yes, and it starts beating faster and faster whenever you say those naughty words 'Loon Liver.' It's a conditioned response. Those words usually mean I'm about to get lucky."

"Hold that thought," I said. "I'm already in the car."

"You slept in your clothes again, how crude!"

"Crude!" I exclaimed. "I liked it better when I thought it was lewd. I'm taking my hearing aids out as soon as I get to your executive suite."

"Please do," she cooed.

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Jock Stewart appears in the novel "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" by Malcolm R. Campbell as well as a series of cool e-books.

Malcolm R. Campbell is also the author of "The Sun Singer," "Bears; Where They Fought," and "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey."

What's the sound of one cat clapping?

Junction City, June 24, 2011--Albino County homeowners from Prairieview to Moorseville are reporting a "disturbing upsurge" in cat vandalism in spite of the best efforts of county commission chairman Dick Cheshire's Cat's Cradle Task Force.

According to spokesmen for the sheriff's police, incidents of hairball vandalism, shredded rare books, missing parakeets, torn furniture and midnight caterwauling outside bedrooms where innocent children are reading exotic books under the covers with flashlights are up 330% since the last time anyone checked.

"It's a catastrophe," said Cheshire as he admitted that "little cat feet" had depleted the task force's budget of $350,000 in only three weeks. "Our finances smell like a bad litter box."

The latest known incident occurred before dawn at the home of Coralie Poodlestone of 666 Dante Street in Mooresville where the scalloped apron rail and sweeping cabriole legs of Baker provincial draw table were "shredded to smithereens." A note next to a broken dining room window said, "What's the sound of one cat clapping?"

Two weeks ago, a group calling itself Cats is Us sent an e-mail to the editorial department of the Star-Gazer, claiming responsibility for the violence. While the Sheriff's Department has asked the newspaper not to release the full text of the message, Editor Lucinda Trail said that the message was typical of the kind of "cat and mouse acts that run rampant through innocent communities like unclipped claws through a cat lover's arms when pet stores and veterinary clinics become so obsessed with booze and reality TV that they forget to close their doors when night flies into town like little crows' wings."

Poodlestone said she believes cats from Cats is Us are targeting homeowners in her neighborhood due to the Man's Best Friend Acres sales department's "hazardous preoccupation with homeowners having doggy sounding last names." The Rex family at 75 Dogrun Avenue and old lady Fido at 387 Broken Leash Road discovered, when they went outside to take a leak this morning, that their yards were covered with hairballs and empty tuna cans.

According to Cheshire, the county's crack philosophers are trying to figure out the answer to the sound of one cat clapping riddle. "So far, the answer is 'nothing,'" Cheshire said with a grin that hung there in the air long after he had left the building.

Sheriff's Police detectives label the demands of Cats is Us "excessive and out of sync with the traditional kinds of demands made by garden variety kidnappers and other hooligans.

"All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws," explained Bill "Cat's Eye" Morgansterne. "They want what we can't give them and don't want what we are offering which, if I do say so myself, is a cat’s pajamas kind of deal."

According to Trail, all of the notes received from Cats is Us and copycat gangs indicate that the "litter will hit the fan" if the demands are not met prior to the dog days of August.

"I feel like a detective on a hot tin roof,"Morgansterne admitted.

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Click here for more wild stories from the famed Star-Gazer.

Autopen Signs Patriot Act Extension While President in France

Washington, D.C., May 27, 2011--An autopen, purportedly acting with Presidential authorization, signed an extension of the Patriot Act on the other side of midnight before many of the unconstitutional portions of the law expired.

White House insiders, who may or may not have been standing inside the White House at the time, claim that the autopen will serve as "a marvelous scapegoat" if and when the law is used improperly.

Jefferson Thomas, president of Where Have All the Freedoms Gone, said that the administration will probably never need the plausible deniability provided by the autopen because the government won't tell the public how the law is applied.

"You can be arrested for breaking the law," said Thomas, "but you'll never know for sure whether you did or you didn't because whether or not you'll be arrested for breaking the law is classified. Privately, many law makers laugh at just how Kafkaesque the Patriot Act and its enforcement really are."

While President Truman used an autopen to answer mail from people who didn't know where the buck stopped, the autopen has enjoyed White House priviledges as far back as the administration of Thomas Jefferson. In those days, the autopen was called a polygraph, a notion that proved inconvenient in later years to those trying to use the pen to sign things they didn't believe in.

According to political analysts, autopens are responsible for most of the nation's laws due to the fact that most elected Representatives and Senators don't have the time to properly frame, much less read, prospective bills in either house of Congress.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy jokingly told President Obama after the law was signed that he was quite sure an autopen has been responsible for most of the insulting things the French have said about the United States after "you Yanks saved our butts in the 1940s."

Patriot Act Enforcement Tsar Bill Smith (not his real name) said that most Americans don't need to worry about the freedoms that have been abridged by the law because they weren't taking advantage of them anyway.

"If you don't know you're free," he said, "you might as welll be in chains."

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For more Jock Stewart, sample the "Jock Talks" series of satirical e-books available on Kindle for only 99 cents each. The latest, co-authored with Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, is "Jock Talks Lightning Safety."

This parody of “helpful hints” newspaper feature articles is inspired by In a Flash, by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel and by Morning Satirical News, a weblog by Malcolm R. Campbell.

Zeidel, who was struck by lightning twenty-two years ago, recounts her true story of the event and its aftermath in her e-book In a Flash. Campbell, who has seen lightning outside the window, uses his “Jock Stewart” alter ego on his weblog to satirize real and/or imaginary events. For legal reasons, Zeidel and Campbell warn that while real lightning has probably occurred in Zigzag, Oregon and on Mt. Hood’s Zigzag Glacier, the story you are about to read is as fictional as a bolt of lightning in a fabric store.

Use of this volume as a lightning rod has not been authorized by the NOAA National Weather Service.

 

 

 

Minnesota GOP Seeks Pencil-Necked Weasel Bounty

St. Paul, Minnesota, May 4, 2011--While Minnesota residents are accustomed to the occasional "ha ha" that flows out of the state capitol building, they were alarmed to hear that the cute, pencil-necked weasel is likely to loose its legacy funding.

As House Republicans re-examined whether or not legacy funding for arts and cultural groups needed to be re-examined, the Majority Leader stated that he hated "pencil-necked weasels."

Sources close to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) stated categorically that only three species of the vast Mustelidae family are running wild and free in the state, the short-tailed, the long-tailed and the least.

Assistant Weasel Tsar Matt Chancellor stated that the purported pencil-necked weasel "must be something out of the mind of a cartoonist or a representative who doesn't know a true weasel from a hole in the groud."

Revamped legislation flying the Elephant Banner introduced by the House Legacy Funding Division Panel includes a "Pop Goes the Weasel" rider that mandates a new competitive bidding system in which weasels will now have to compete with other elongated predators for state monies.

Lawyers examining the 25,000-page bill for "meaning and general sense," told reporters they found no references to pencil or pencil-necked.

The proposed bounty has "law enforcement agencies in a dither" since the weasel--including the short-tailed species better known as the ermine--is already unprotected in the state.

Noting that most of the state's predators are in and around the capitol, Head Predator Control Officer, Dean Bleistift, said that "the new bounty plan is likely to put Minnesota arts in the toilet along with the weasel."

An International Weasel Society white paper noted that "nature doesn't normally place weasels and elephants in the same habitats because those sweet little critters would be randomly trampled while the Elephantidae family is busy grasping at peanuts."

Clarifying the proposed arts funding bounty legislation, a leading Republican said, "Every night when I get home, The monkey's on the table, Take a stick and knock it off, Pop! goes the weasel"

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Potentially related news: "Pencil-Necked Weasel" Neil Gaiman Bites Back

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Story filed by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter. Download Stewart's free "Jock Talks...Satirical News" e-book from Smashwords.

 

Harding: 'Spirit of Teapot Dome Pushing Up Oil Prices'

Blooming Grove, Ohio, May 2, 2010--With oil prices on the rise, members of the Warren G. Harding Seance and Spook Association (WGHSASA), asked the ghost of the former President at his annual Walpurgis Night appearance if he knew "what's up with big oil?"

"The Spirit of Teapot Dome is pushing up oil prices," said Harding (1865-1923), "and this time out, none of my friends are going to take the fall for it."

Harding, who is often called America's least-effective President, has appeared to paranormal people on the thirteenth floor of the historic Argus Hotel in metropolitan Blooming Grove near his birthplace every Walpurgis Night since 1924.

When the former President appeared to be a no-show for his yearly Not Nostrums, But Normalcy meeting with CIA operatives, thrill seekers and Presidential hopefuls, WGHSASA members lit an extra bonfire on the hotel balcony and began changing the immortal lines of writer John Hodgman:

Fiddle, diddle, fiddle fee,

Teapot Dome has come for me.

Fiddle, diddle, middle, me,

Harding's corpse will come for thee.

Harding, who materialized dead-center on an overstuffed couch, shouted, "Who interupts my sleep tonight when the powers of darkness are abroad in the land?"

"It is I, Master, your humble servant, Mikey De Wolfe, president of the Blooming Grove chapter of your fan club."

"What have you to ask of me, Mikey?"

"We are concerned about Benchmark oil for June delivery prices as reflected in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and on the ICE Futures Exchange in London," said Mikey.

"Mikey, dear boy, you must always remember my credo, Not Agitation, But Adjustment," said Harding. "As you ponder oil prices, ponder where the oil is and who has it."

"Big oil has it, Sir."

"Have they really?"

Harding leaned back on the couch and seemed to fall asleep. When Hodgman's immortal lines failed to hold him to the earth plane, Mikey and other WGHSASA members served the traditional post-seance snack of Alaskan King crab to all who had gathered at the Argus.

On-the-scene historians reminded reporters that the meal is a brave tribute to a former President who, some say, died of bad crabs in San Francisco during his 1923 cross-country "Voyage of Misunderstanding," rail trip.

According to well-placed insiders, "Big Oil" representives attending the seance where "white faced" during Harding's pronouncements. One grey haired man dropped his teapot.

According to Old Maxie, the elevator boy at the Argus, the hotel doesn't have a thirteenth floor.

"But every year they come here," he said, with a grin on his face, "to re-enact Odgen Nash's most famous epic, A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor. As Nash said, conversations like this are 'table talk in hell.' Let's depart in peace in a spirit of Not Experiment, But Equipoise and let our dearly departed Presidents lie."

Mikey laughed when Maxie said that.

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--Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter for the Star-Gazer. Download his free "Jock Talks...Satirical News" e-book from Smashwords.

 

Royal Wedding to Hurt Junction City's Economy

Junction City, April 26, 2011--Local businesses will be locked down and shuttered this Friday by order of Mayor Clark Trail to allow citizens who escaped from the United Kingdom to watch the Royal Wedding festivities without fear of getting a pink slip from the boss. Numbers crunchers estimate the local holiday will cost the city as much as $50 billion at a time when the economy throughout the region is already in need of hospice care.

Trail, whose ancestors served carefully as Groom of the Stool to multiple English kings, proclaimed Friday as Kate and Willy Day in honor of the wedding experts say will save the monarchy from indifference.

Albino County Baseball Stadium will provide complimentary breakfast scones and luncheon haggis for wedding enthusiasts who want to "share the joy" with up to 50,000 other fans and the 160 by 72 foot Score-a-Tron high definition television screen.

Local dignitaries, including the Mayor, Chief of Police Kruller, Main Street Book Emporium owner Jim Exlibris, Investigative Reporter Jock Stewart, and the Reverend Cotton Mouth of the Church of the Painful Now will officiate at an on-the-field wedding ceremony for Mack Smith and Edna Jones. As winners of the Star-Gazer's William and Kate look-a-like contest, Smith and Jones will, through the magic of television, take their vows alongside the royal couple. The ceremony will begin at 5 a.m. local time.

"Even though we'll be standing on home plate here in our sweet little town," said Jones, "we will be at Westminster Abbey with William and Kate in spirit even though Kate shunned us by not replying to our e-mails about the joint wedding."

Earlier this week, stadium groundskeepers announced that their supply of red carpet only stretched as far as second base, a fact that "seemed damned appropriate" according to Smith's Facebook page. However, Anglophiles at Mega-Mart Carpet Outlet in Prairieview stepped up to the plate with enough carpet to cover all the bases.

Trail, now divorced, married his former wife Luncinda at the Albino County Baseball Stadium during the seventh inning stretch of the championship game between the Mud Hens and the Mooresville Tailgaters, said that he thinks the "royal spin" on Friday's stadium wedding will increase the odds for many years of wedded bliss for Smith and Jones.

Just prior to the ceremony, as screaming fans get their first glimpses of Kate's and Edna's dresses, the Junction City Wal-Mart will release the name of the designer along with sketches and photographs.

After the home plate ceremony, Mack and Edna will travel down the vacant and almost-bankrupt Main Street in Mark Trail's old hay wagon pulled by the champion horse Sea of Fire. Fans at the stadium will simultaneously view both the hay wagon and Kate and William's horse-drawn carriage via the split-screen feed on the Score-a-Tron.

During a breakfast, hosted for 650 guests at City Hall by Mayor Trail, Mack and Edna will step out on the loading dock at 7:25 a.m. local time to greet the crowd. According to former gossip columnist Monique Starnes, "yes, my sweets, there will be kisses both here and on the palace balcony."

"It will be a Disney-Style, fairytale day for all of us," Trail said, "even though Mack and Edna will not be allowed to honeymoon alongside William at Kate at the Great Barrier Reef due Mack's fear of fish and other complications."

While the British Monarchy has declined to comment on Junction City's home plate wedding, local officials are hopeful the Queen will give TV cameras a discreet wink and a nod during the exchange of vows as a sign of good sportsmanship.

---

New from Vanilla Heart Publishing, Jock Talks Strange People is available as an e-book on Kindle and in multiple formats at Smashwords for only 99 cents. Along with Jock Talks Outlandish Happenings and Jock Talks Politics, this new e-book features the collected satirical posts from Morning Satirical News.

For more information about the new series, see the Jock Talks web page.

Some of Jock's favorites include, "Mimi Saint Croix Gets Epitaph to Die For," "Publisher Fires Author for Spitting on Sidewalk," "FEDs Closing Down Cat Bootcamp," "Coral Snake Smith Voted Off Survivor Samoa," "FEDS: 'Eat an apple a day or we'll fine your ass'" and "City Gets in Bed With the Mob to Save Library"

Night Beat: Group Therapy Focuses on Women to Avoid

Eight out of ten of the "date-damaged men" (DDM) in my encounter group claim to have experienced Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and/or high levels of DDM confusion after reading an online article called "5 Types of Women to Avoid."

Dr. Miles Milltown aimed his encounter flash light at me two minutes after the group began. Jock, what are your feelings about "The Player's" list of women?

"I'm more concerned about the use of the '5' in the headline. Editors with any training know that numbers less than ten have to be spelled out," I said.

Milltown wrote out a new prescription for Meprobamate and sailed it across the room within the loving arms of Tranky, his favorite sock puppet.

James, not his real name, said that his own experience told him there are more women to avoid than the garden variety Smart Asses, Gold Diggers, Ms. Rights, Psychos, and Rebounds on the list.

Killer Women

"My number one woman to avoid," he said, "is the killer. I dated a killer once and every night while we were having sex, the cops busted in to ask her for an alibi."

Mark, which may or may not be his real name, said, "Well they caught both of you with your pants down, so what kind of alibi did they need."

"Caution, gentlemen," counselled Milltown. "Let's be nice, or I'll make you talk to the sock puppets again."

"I thought she was going to kill me," said James. "Of course, I wanted her to, but therapy and and drugs have shown me how wrong I was."

"Thank you for your honesty, James. Can anyone else here identify with James?"

"If I had more Xanax, I would feel better about agreeing with James," said Stan (not his real name). "But I feel really anxious when 'women' and 'killing' are used in the same sentence. I had to go into the psych ward just last week after hearing somebody on Entertainment Tonight say that a popular starlet was wearing a 'Killer Dress.'" 

"I feel your pain, Stan," I said. "I once dated a woman who wore a killer dress."

"What happened?"

"I got killed," I said. "I'm only a shadow of my former self."

Diseased Women

"Is it just me," said Mark, "but shouldn't we be avoiding diseased women?"

"I dated a girl named Sue Syphilis once," said Mark, "even though I knew it was a rash thing to do at the time."

"What happened?" asked Stan.

"I got VD?"

"Valentine's Day" asked Stan.

"Yeah, I got it on Valentine's Day."

"I feel your pain," I said.

"Do you really, Jock," asked the shrink.

"Actually no," I confessed. "I'm just playing nice to avoid those dirty sock pupets."

"I don't see where that guy gets off making a list like that," said Glen (not his real name). "It gives people like us the idea that all other types of women are safe, and just now we've added two more types, killers and diseased women."

"What do you mean by 'People Like Us'?" asked James.

"Guys."

"Right," said James. "Women are the fall of man. I read that in the Bible so it must be gospel."

"If I can play God for a moment," said Dr. Milltown, "how can we make this a better world for all of you?"

"We can put the killers in jail," said Stan.

"Women with VD need to be honest about it so we know what we're getting before we pay for dinner," said Mark.

"Women need to spell out numbers under ten according to the Associated Press Style Guide," I said.

"I thought that if a woman was only fifteen, she had to spell that out, too," said Mark.

"Very true," I said.

"What have we learned from our sharing tonight?" asked Dr. Milltown.

"That it takes a lot of meds to get mixed up with women," I said.

There was general agreement on that, whereupon Dr. Milltown gave each member (in good standing) of the group 200 miligrams of Equanil to ensure that all of us got home safely, that is to say, without falling prey to the Smart Asses and other dangers walking the streets.

--Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Survey Shows 77.5% of U.S. Citizens Unaware of Libyan Civil War

New York, New York, April 13, 2011--In a stunning announcement made in the middle of Times Square during rush hour this morning, Dumbing Down America Surveys (DDAS) announced that slightly more than 75% of Americans don't know that NATO, France, Britain and the U.S. are conducting military operations in Libya.

"I blame news editors for the dumbing down of America," said DDAS president Mary Worth. "Today, while the Libyan Civil war rages on, the two biggest stories are UNEXPECTED PAIR SENT HOME ON 'DANCING WITH THE STARS' and PIA TOSCANO SENT HOME FROM 'AMERICAN IDOL.'"

Interviews conducted during the last 20 days showed that more "every day Americans" recognized the important names such as Pia Toscano, Jennifer Lopez, Chelsea Kane, Kirstie Alley, Sugar Ray Leonard and Anna Trebunskaya than names "deemed unimportant" by print and online news editors, including Ban Ki-moon, Moussa Koussa, Moammar Gadhafi, William Hague and Alain Juppe."

"Most online news editors--and I use that term loosely--are using Trending Now algorithms to determine how much weight to assign to prospective news stories," said Worth. "Bloodbaths on 'American Idol' and 'Dancing With the Stars' have a higher interest level among news consumers than bloodbaths in Ajdabiya or Tripoli."

According to highly placed linguistic sources, the Libya, problem is as much a spelling issue as anything else. Experts say that most Americans think "Libya" ought to be spelled "Libia." Others are still confused over regulations pertaining to the spelling of the Libyan or Libian leader's name.

"Over half the American public does not realize that Gadhafi and Kadafi are the same person," said Spelling Bee champion Arnie Campbell. "When the UN, NATO, the OED, or the NY Times decreed some years ago that Kadafi's name would no longer be spelled with a 'K', folks assumed that Kadafi died and that some new guy took over."

The American News Entertainment Association claims that news and entertainment editors are not responsible for the purported dumbing down of America.

"We give our customers what they want," said Edward R. Murrowless. "They sure as hell don't want Gadhafi. Just look at the pictures of that guy. He looks like some hideous corpse off of 'Bones' or 'NCIS.' In our business, we gotta believe the customer is always right because if we don't believe they're right, we're going out of business and then we won't have any customers and nobody will know squat about Pia Toscano, Jennifer Lopez, Chelsea Kane, Kirstie Alley, Sugar Ray Leonard and Anna Trebunskaya."

Mary Worth said that, for "today's Americans," real news is celebrity-based, reality-show based, cleavage-based and dirty-secrets based.

"If you're living a down-in-the-dumps life in a dead-end job with a home the bank is going to foreclose on while your insurance company tells you health care costs are out of sight, you are not going to feel better reading about a civil war in some country where people don't know how to spell," explained Worth. "You want to feel better and that's what quality news does for you."

DDAS analysts told reporters that if people in politics, crime, war and other old-fashioned kinds of news events spent more time with personal trainers, hair stylists, make-up artists and personal managers, the civil war in Libya would be on the front page and the all-important "trending now" list on Yahoo.

"If Gadhafi looked really fabulous, the war in his country would be all the rage," said Murrowless.

-

 

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New from Vanilla Heart Publishing, Jock Talks Strange People is available as an e-book on Kindle and in multiple formats at Smashwords for only 99 cents. Along with Jock Talks Outlandish Happenings and Jock Talks Politics, this new e-book features the collected satirical posts from Morning Satirical News.

For more information about the new series, see the Jock Talks web page.

Some of Jock's favorites include, "Mimi Saint Croix Gets Epitaph to Die For," "Publisher Fires Author for Spitting on Sidewalk," "FEDs Closing Down Cat Bootcamp," "Coral Snake Smith Voted Off Survivor Samoa," "FEDS: 'Eat an apple a day or we'll fine your ass'" and "City Gets in Bed With the Mob to Save Library"

News of Blunders from Around the World

• Admitting once and for all that the French are deathly afraid of what they cannot see, the Burqa Control Tsar implemented France's controversial burqa ban. "We are a country of bear-headed sissies," he said.
• Presidential hopeful Donald Trump continues to push for the release of President Obama's birth certificate because the uproar distracts people from making coments about his (Trump's) hair. Informed sources said that Trump considered wearing a burqa to conceal his hair, but that would have kept him from enjoying the air, the ambiance and the white surrender flags flying bravely along the Seine.
• Top administration officials who want to retire, change jobs, or "run while they can" admit to playing a high-stakes game of musical chairs. Every Monday morning, White House band director Thomas Dorsey plays a rousing version of "Rolll Me Over in The Clover" while grown men and women bump and grind from chair to chair.
• According to highly misplaced Pentagon officials, the U.S Military-Industrial Complex is having second, third and forth thoughts about pulling out of Iraq by the end of 2011. "Not only has the war been a windfall for arms makers, red-tape salesmen and casket supply houses, pulling out on schedule will simply open up an unstable country to rogue vacuum cleaner operatives," said Bill Smith, who claimed that "Bill Smith" isn't his real name. "If we leave, those poor people are really going to get Hoovered over there."
• Officials in the Florida panhandle town of Two Egg claim that one of their eggs has been stolen. "We've got a hard-boiled detective on the case," a spokesman police headquarters said.
• Illegal aliens threaten to boycott Georgia if the state enacts "Arizona style" immigration enforcement legislation. They've written the governor to ask if they can persuade him to make a deal.
• Spectators following Tiger Woods at the Masters this year chanted "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night" as his birdies started stacking up like cord wood. "Bill Jones," who led the chant on the final hole, admitted that he "didn't have a clue" what it meant, but he remembered hearing it in "old lady Johnson's English class."
• While touring a strip mining operation at an undisclosed location, GOP strategists admitted that they "don't mind screwing over the environment to save a buck" because most of them will be dead and buried before "things really get bad."

 

 

 

TheSpoof.com - Spoof news, satire and parody.

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Night Beat: If only I dreamt of Jeanie with the light brown hair

Last night, I dreamt I'd fallen on hard times and had once again been forced to take a job as Britney Spears' cook.

I had just placed her morning bowl of cheese grits and jalapeno peppers on the breakfast nook table when she ran through the room trying to get her pink slippers away from my dog Duke and, as expected, knocked the grits off on the floor making the kind of mess no man wants to see at that hour of the day.

"Oops! I did it again," she said.

If only I had dreamt of Jeanie with the light brown hair.

Jeanie is the new receptionist at the Star-Gazer, hired two weeks ago when our former receptionist, Margaret, was deported for being a Canadian with no quickie marriage prospects.

When Jeanie moves through the newspaper office as though borne like a vapor on the sweet summer air, my hard-boiled, ass kicking colleagues resort to poety--the kind of talk no man wants to hear in the city room on a busy news day.

While eating the last Krispy Kreme doughnut in the breakroom, sports editor Caspar Kent said, "Jock, I dreamt about Jeanie again last night."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Kent."

"Let me tell you one thing for sure," he said, wiping the glaze off his lips with a paper towel Jeanie left on the table," if Jeanie were a Canadian about to be picked up by the INS for having an expired Visa, I'd marry her in a New York minute."

"We don't have New York minutes in Texas," I reminded him.

"Whatever," he grumbled. "So, Stewart, you still having those genie nightmares."

"All the time, Kent."

He was, of course, referring to the genie I found drowning in a bottle of Slivovitz across from Jimmy Pew's old Gulf Station that day I played hooky from old lady Jones' algebra class. Needless to say, when he sobered up as much as humanly possible from way to much of the plum brandy, he offered me three wishes. As a red-blooded American boy, I asked for a cool date for the prom, a muscle car, and dreams about living in celebrities' houses.

The fool jumped back into the bottle after granting my last wish. Go figure.

I took Jane Smith to the prom in my new red Impala. We both threw up on the back seat and I never saw her again. After the prom, the dreams began. I was Doris Day's pool man, Faye Dunaway's roofer and Julie Andrews' social secretary before I graduated from high school.

In the years that followed, I wanted to dream of Barbara Eden in her sitcom costume, but instead I had nightmares about pressure washing Agnes Moorehead's driveway while Elizabeth Montgomery twitched her nose at me from her red Camaro SS.

A few days ago, reporter Tim Cooper's 1997 Saturn wouldn't start. Being the chronic good Samaritan even though that's how I met "my genie," I drove him all the way out County Road 3724 to his home in Mooresville.

"I dreamt of Jeanie with the light brown hair againt last night," he said as we passed the kudzu patch where I rescued my ill-humored genie from the plum brandy.

"Wonderful news, Tim"

"We were tripping where the bright streams play."

"Wonderful news, Tim."

I wasn't listening because (a) I was distracted by Britney's recent comment that I'd be making grits for her till the world ends, and (b) the fact that I still had that half-full bottle of Slivovitz under the seat.

"I gotta tell you, Jock, I long for Jeanie with the daydawn smile, radiant in gladness, warm with winning guile."

I pulled over a few miles past State Pen 666 and said, with as little guile as possible, "let's drink to her daydawn smile."

Tim looked like I felt on prom night when Jane Smith told me in the back seat of my bright red car that we would always be together.

"I'd like that, Jock. You're a true friend. After I laughed at you when you told me Brintney said, 'Baby One More Time' after you scrubbed grits and cheese off the front porch of her house, I thought you'd never again give me a ride home when my Saturn wouldn't start."

"No problem, Tim." I handed him the bottle. "Why don't you take the first swig."

As he removed the lid from the rare bottle of Troyanska slivova, I got out of the Jeep and walked over to the roadside view sign that explained the wonders of the architecture of the prison where those in solitary confinement claimed to hear spirits sighning like the wind and sobbing like the rain.

Yes, I know, handing Tim the bottle with all those wishes inside, was a terrible thing. But, truth be told, I never forgave him for laughing at my incarcertation at Britney's house. Now, I would have the last laugh on the summer air.

-

New from Vanilla Heart Publishing, Jock Talks Strange People is available as an e-book on Kindle and in multiple formats at Smashwords for only 99 cents. Along with Jock Talks Outlandish Happenings and Jock Talks Politics, this new e-book features the collected satirical posts from Morning Satirical News.

For more information about the new series, see the Jock Talks web page.

Some of Jock's favorites include, "Mimi Saint Croix Gets Epitaph to Die For," "Publisher Fires Author for Spitting on Sidewalk," "FEDs Closing Down Cat Bootcamp," "Coral Snake Smith Voted Off Survivor Samoa," "FEDS: 'Eat an apple a day or we'll fine your ass'" and "City Gets in Bed With the Mob to Save Library"