At Home in Hespeler

From the Cambridge Citizen
**************************************

The meeting of the Hespeler Town Council was called to order. The mayor (unofficial, unelected) took the chair.

“You all saw it,” the mayor said, thumping the table, spilling Jim Hillis’ double-double. “My wife got me up at 4 o’clock, so I know damn well I saw it.” The mayor was clearly angry and frustrated and was warming to his theme. “A royal wedding is supposed to be a happy thing, a joyous occasion. I wanted to declare it a holiday for all of Hespeler. What the point is of being mayor if I can’t declare a holiday, I’ll never know.” The mayor, in his white suit and white top hat, looked like a man who should be capable of declaring a holiday.

“I got up at 4:00 AM to watch our future King and his consort be married, and what’s the first thing I hear: The Queen will make Prince William and Kate Middleton The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after the wedding. Bloody Cambridge,” he swore. “We all know what that means,” he pointed around the table. The assembled mass nodded, knowing what was next, what was always next. “Might as well call them Duck and Duchess of Preston and Galt for all we’ll see of them here in Hespeler. ‘Oh no,’ they’ll say when the couple come to visit, ‘you can’t go over there. The roads are too small, the downtown too dangerous.’”

The meeting threatened to descend into havoc for the volume of the agreement. “The Prince of Breslaw he’ll be calling himself next,” was heard above the din. The mayor banged his gavel, which was really the butt of a broken Hespeler hockey stick, to restore order.

“What’s needed,” continued the mayor as if he was never interrupted, “is a Duke of Hespeler.” The volume of agreement was almost as loud as the volume of disdain had been moments earlier. This time the mayor, a practiced orator who knew when to quiet a crowd and when to speak over one, yelled above the council.

“Which part of town, after all, has a bar called the Duke and Duchess?” This was a masterstroke, which almost brought the assembled meeting to fever pitch. If not for the mayor’s practiced audience control, the meeting would have been over, with a round of drinks at the Duke and Duchess on the taxpayers of Ayr an almost certain ending, if only Hespeler town council (unofficial and unelected) had any taxing powers, in Ayr or otherwise.

“Who should it be,” asked a councillor (unofficial, unelected), who was well coached by the mayor and hoping for a seat on the Hespeler Senate, if and when they could ever establish a Senate in Hespeler.

“Kirk Maltby,” yelled someone in a Detroit Red Wings shirt.

“Tim Brent,” yelled another, dressed in Maple Leaf blue.

“Kirk Maltby has 4 Stanley Cups,” said the first. “What has Tim Brent done?”

“Anybody can win Stanley Cups playing for Detroit,” said the second. “Tim Brent scored 8 goals for the Maple Leafs. You know how many guys play for the Leafs and never score 8 goals?”

“That guy who rights that Home in Hespeler blog,” said another.

“Too political,” answered one. “Too conservative,” said a third. “Too ugly,” said another, finally creating unanimity.

“It occurs to me,” said the Mayor, “that it doesn’t have to be someone local. It may even be too our advantage to have an outsider. What about Prince Harry?”

“Your brilliant Mayor,” the councillor/Senator-in-wanting up-kissed.

“Perhaps he’ll bring that Pippa with him,” said another.

And so it was that when Jim Hillis returned with his coffee, he was told he had been volunteered to approach “that blogger fellow,” who would be asked to write to Prince Harry informing him he had been chosen Duke of Hespeler.

The meeting, then being adjourned, retired to The Duke and Duchess to discuss the inequity of not being able to impose a tax in Ayr.

Humour Hespeler

It’s time to come out: four years ago I anonymously began a satire blog called The Canadian Folk Collective. I decided to roll anonymously because I didn’t want what was written there, which was meant to be fictional and over the top, with what I wrote here. I wrote about five posts, and never got back to it, although I often thought about it. Even had a few false starts along the way, but after Snow ball fights at David Suzuki’s Global Warming Tour Finale in March 2007, I never updated it again.

In November 2006 there was a couple of controversies going on around Remembrance Day, the white poppies and the guys who peed on the cenotaph at Remembrance Day services in Ottawa. In response, I wrote a post at the Folk Collective called Wearing White & Piddling on the Cenotaph:

Ottawa – Remembrance Day

We were invited to play at the cenotaph and accepted with some reluctance, as these ceremonies tend to be more conservative than we are comfortable with. Tippy was out of the hospital and doing fine, but had been told to drink lots of fluids. As such he arrived with a 2L jug of water, and spent most of this time drinking it.

We had been asked to provide a short show before the vets parade arrived at ten-thirty. This we did, playing from our repertoire of war-based material. Unfortunately, we only play anti-war songs Ballad of the Green Beret, Give Peace A Chance that sort of thing. Apparently this crowd was more in the mood for Battle Hymn of the Republic than Eve of Destruction.

While we might reasonably have been able to figure that out, I don’t know how we could be expected to know that Stevie’s poppy would give offense. Stevie had bought a white poppy from some guy in Edmonton, as a symbol of peace. He explained to Stevie that the white poppy told people you believed in supporting our troops by not sending them to war. The white indicated her pacifist views, while still supporting the young men who, frankly, are not smart enough to know that they are pawns of the imperialist intentions of the ruling elite.

But the Vets and other members of the Legion somehow found this quite sane view insulting. As soon as services where over, Tippy went to one to ask where the bathroom was:

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the toilet is?” Tippy asked an older gentleman.

“Hey, what do you think your doing wearing that white poppy?” he yelled at Stevie.

“I am supporting our troops, by supporting the peace.” she answered very reasonably.

“No really sir,” said Tippy. “I drank a big jug of water…”

“You support the troops by supporting peace?” he asked incredulously. “Do you have any bloody idea what the poppy represents?”

Stevie was ready for this one. “It represents the brutality of war, it’s blood red colour a symbol of the blood of our children that has been left on the field of battle.”

“If you could just tell me before…” Tippy tried again.

“You have children fighting then?” he asked.

“No, I have no children,” said Stevie. “I mean our children as in the collective young of the country.”

“Well George over there, he has a son who was lost in battle, let’s ask him what he thinks. Oy, George,” he yelled. George came over, and he said, “this one here says your William shouldn’t have been fighting, but was too stupid to realize it. What’s more that he is collectively all of ours, not just yours.”

“Oh?” he said looking at us. “You cried when William died then?”

“No,” we said. I was about to say “Sorry for your loss,” or some such, when he said “How about a good swift kick in the groin then, and you can get an idea of the hurt, although I’d have to stand here kicking you for the next six months to give full effect.”

“No thank you,” was all I could muster, when he said to Stevie. “So you would wear your cowards poppy in honour of my son, would you?”

She was about to reply, when I heard someone yelling from the other side of the cenotaph.

“What the hell are you doing?” someone yelled.

Tippy came running around with his pants lowered. “I’m sorry sir. I drank a big bottle of water, you see. For medicinal purposes,” he was saying. As he ran out, we saw an old vet, about 75 years old, running after him and belting him over the head with a cane.

“What happened?” the fellow we were talking too asked, and the old fellow with the cane said: “he was pissing on the memorial.”

“Don’t worry,” said another gentleman with a camera, “I got pictures.”

Humour, Remembrance

Ernie and the Cookie Monster explain the Bernie Madoff scandal.

h/t those guys at Mitchieville

Funny., Humour Bernie Madoff, Bert & Ernie, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Jimmy Kimmel, Market, Savings, Sesame Street

Humour, it's not easy being green, Stephane Dion

P. J. O’Rourke.

The writer/humourist did a nice job of breaking down Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in last years On the Wealth of Nations: Books that Changed the World. It’s a difficult book to handle, and O’Rourke did so deftly.

For that, for his years of satire, (many a blogger, myself included, knows how difficult it can be to write satire) happy birthday, and may you have 60 more.

Birthday Wishes, Great Writing, Humour

My pal Gerry Nicholls has quite a funny column on Stephane Dion in today’s Sun: Let’s replace Dion with a carrot.

My favourite bits:

Stephane Dion wants to move the Liberal Party to the Left.
A carrot is good for your eyesight.
Advantage: The Carrot

Stephane Dion is a former academic with a keen interest in constitutional affairs.
A carrot is an inert piece of vegetable matter.
Advantage: The Carrot

Stephane Dion has a green plan.
A carrot is actually organic and has a green stem and feathery green leaves.
Advantage: The Carrot

Read the rest here, with Sheila Copps less amusing, slightly more personal re-jab comparing Harper to a rutabega here.

Never mind the politics, someone pass a slab of meat.

Gerry Nicholls, Humour, Silly Politicians

It’s probably an oldie, but thanks anyway to Ron for sending this along:

Little Melissa comes from Chance Cove Newfoundland and attends first
grade.
After school she tells her father that they learned about the history of
Valentine’s day.’Since Valentine’s Day is for a Christian saint, I was
wondering if I gave a Valentine to someone who was not, will God get mad
at me for giving them a valentine?’
Melissa’s father thinks a bit, and then says ‘No, I don’t think God would
get mad. Who do you want to give a Valentine to?”

‘Osama Bin Laden,’ she says.

‘Why Osama Bin Laden,’ her father asks in shock.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I thought that if a little Newfoundland Christian girl
could have enough love to give Osama a Valentine, he might start to think
that maybe we’re not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit.
And if other kids saw what I did and sent Valentines to Osama, he’d love
everyone a lot. And then he’d start going all over the place to tell
everyone how much he loved them and how he didn’t hate anyone anymore.’

Her father’s heart swells and he looks at his daughter with new-found
pride. ‘Melissa, that’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard.”

‘I know,’ Melissa says, ‘and once that gets him out in the open, our
Canadian Soldiers can shoot the fucker.

Wonder if Dad choked on his granola bar?

Humour

What’s funnier?

(click for full sized image)

or

(click for full sized image)

Because according to the Sun, they ran with the alternate, unoffensive to Nutjobastinaians cartoon last week, because:

Sometimes a cartoon can be funny and even useful. Sometimes it isn’t. We made the switch and ran the funnier strip.

The two cartoons you see above are this weeks Opus, presumably the safe one was used for the same reason. (which maybe explains why the Sun’s weekday comic page has become pathetic this summer).

When I wrote that piece on Wednesday, I noted the Sun once was edgy, gutsy paper, and now they’re a bunch of cowards. Out of a sense of fairness, not being sure why they didn’t post the original cartoon, I didn’t post that.

New events lead me to change that decision.

Humour, opus

I was going to take until Monday to come back, bring things back to life with a bit of a bang. However, when it comes to messin’ with Opus, my outrage knows no bounds. I was content to let others run this story, but nobody seemed to notice the local angle. First off, the controversy. Many papers, citing Islamo-whackisim did not run this cartoon last Sunday.

(Click on image for full size)

Our local Opus carrying rag, the Tardy Toronto Sun, managed to sneak under the radar but also did not run the cartoon. Instead it ran this one. If you look in the bottom left corner of frame #2, you will see the date 8/26/07. Presumably, Mr. Breathed issued two different cartoons this week, and we Canadians got the second rate one. Too bad, but I can’t help but wonder if the Sun would have ran the first one if they had it.

(once again, click on image for full size).

Note: This post has been altered from it’s original.

Humour, opus

After reading this quote in this story:

…one nudist I met offered me a tour. (He knew the area well — he happens to also work for the NCC.)

I thought “thank God Gerry Nicholls isn’t with them anymore.”

Then I realized they meant the National Capital Commision, not the National Citizens Coalition.

Whew!

Gerry Nicholls, Humour

Last week I was driving south along Townline Road here in Cambridge, toward the site of the new RIM Centre, home of the Waterloo Predators (Names are based on pure speculation and is not to be taken as fact; Site location, however, is based on conjecture, and may be treated as such). This section of Townline is a two lane road, yet some guy on a motor bike travelling north was passing in the centre of the road, between cars. Which brings me to one of the funniest stories of the week:

About 40 motorcyclists from across the province held a rally at Queen’s Park yesterday calling for stiffer penalties for motorists whose actions put bikers’ lives at risk.

“Bikes have a right to share the road and we need to cut down on the carnage,” said Brian Burnett, provincial vice-chairman with Bikers Rights Organization Canada. “The province set up new laws to stop street races. We want to see changes to the Highway Traffic Act regarding the usually lax charges laid in regarding tragic collisions with bikes.”

The group took part in a Fallen Riders Memorial Awareness Ride and held a ceremony for 67 bikers killed on the road since the late 1960s.

Burnett said as many as 40 bikers can be killed on Ontario roads every year.

Because I’m responsible for clown boy passing cars in the middle of the road. Or that guy last year who was driving on a 410 exit ramp at over 200 KM/ hour.

I have always been amazed that I am not allowed to drive to the grocery store at 40KM/hour, without a seat belt, but these guys can drive 100KM/hour on the highway with, as cousin Eddie would say, “nothing between the ground and my brain but a piece of government [approved] plastic.”

With that in mind, they should be careful what they ask for. When Dalton McGuinty sees that 40 bikers a year number, he will be looking to ban bikes; that’s how he solves problems. But really, should they be asking for greater protection from drivers until they have done more about the lousy bike riders on the road. They are out there, they are a legion, and anybody who drives regularly sees them everyday in the summer. It’s not all of them, certainly not, but it’s enough.

But none of that is why the story is so amusing. It’s the last line that makes it so:

The biker group also wants the province to strike down the mandatory helmet law.

Dalton, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, Funny., Humour

The Washington Posts Gene Weingarten had a great column, appearing in todays National Post, entitled “Much to Paris Hilton’s embarrassment…” (sorry, no link available). It covers phrases not found in google, some of which are hilarious. A googlenot (Weingarten ‘s phrase, not found on google) is what he calls them:

“Much to Paris Hilton’s embarrassment”
“Caviar ‘n’ taters”
“Next, boil the toast”
“Please accept these underpants as collateral…”
“Hey, this tastes like aardvark”
“Wearing only a codpiece and a sombrero”
and my favourite
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidociousesque”

Look for that last one to make it into my repertoire of lines, and if your at dinner with me, don’t be surprised if you hear “Hey, this tastes like aardvark.”

I found a few of my own

“fat, ugly Shania Twain”
“he rode his bike up Mt. Everest” (Surprisingly, however, “bicycle up Everest” had a hit, as in “IE6 and Javascript: Slower than me riding a bicycle up Everest.”)
“brilliant Jean Charest”
“dolphin in the headlights”
And finally
“Weingartenisms” and, in fairness “Hespelerisms” & “Gardinerisms”.

Humour, Paris