A compendium of oddball observation, misinformation, shout-outs, put-downs and pointless harangues from Constable Dooley, uniformed—if altogether uninformed—chronicler of history, society & celebrity
Friday, March 18
Swedish Meatballs
Thursday, March 17
Ain't Patrick's Day
Celebrating a Deathday™ (March 17th, 1762): St. Patrick himself died on this day, or did you think those vomiting collegians and parading ballbag pipers were celebrating his bloody birth? Well, you’d be wrong and not for the first time. Something else you may not know about the patron saint of Shamrock Shakes® is the long forgotten tale of how England stepped in to save Patrick’s sorry arse from some awful business in Ireland, only to have him turn his back on the Queen and return to his native land when it plaid suited him. ‘Tis why I am no fan of the sainthooded man, nor his home-brewed green beer. I can think of a shiteload of Patricks more worthy of a parade than he. To wit: Patrick Swayze — People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, when he was alive — giantine basketball bouncer Patrick Ewing, showering Southforkian Patrick Duffy — aka, Bobby Ewing, no relation to Patrick, i.e., Ewing — Butch Patrick, jelly-haired Addam’s Family junior, Patrick McGoohan, sharply-dressed Avenger, Patrick Stewart of the ever-enterprising Starship, and of course, Patrick the Starfish, sidekick of the Square-Panted Sea Sponge named Bob. But the Patrick I would most like to see honored with a parade or honorary street or alleyway signage is the titular "Patrick" in the horrifying documentary from 1978. As our station house VHS copy proclaims, “He’s in a coma. Yet, he can kill.” And with swift and sinister aplomb! I’ve watched this police procedural on many a Patrick’s Day and have marveled at the flatlining coma killer's ability to outfox the doltish security staff in the mental ward. Though Dr. Roget and Nurse Jacquard nobly attempt to nurse Patrick back to proper well-being, everyone else is asleep at the lobotomy switch. In any event, may the luck of the English or Irish be with you as we celebrate the Anni-hearse-ary™ of ole' St. Patrick, who died for your sins on a Celtic cross, as it were.
Wednesday, March 16
These Snyder's of Hanover Pretzels are making Dee Snyder of Hanover thirsty
Tuesday, March 15
Yours Truly O'Dooley & The Wearing O' The Green
As is our tradition, Yours Truly O'Dooley™ and the station house squadron are officially paying no nevermind to the daft ole' ditty, "they're hanging men and women for the wearing of the green" — surely a tall tale told in the wake of rebellion or an honest English mistake — and festooning the shanty with kelly-coloured tinsel, streamers and shamrocks, non-offending "Erin Go Braless" buttons and, importantly, a plentitude of Irish Spring®, a fresh-scented deodorant sudsing agent non pareil, one that will give the bloody Corona® beer brand viral contagion its due. May celebration and blessings rule the livelong days all week. Happy Saint Paddy's, Citizens!
Monday, March 14
Stand-Up Checks Out
Celebrating a Deathday (March 14, 2014): Humorist-turned-authorist David Brenner penned his last sorta funny joke on this day, and then called it a day. A
leisure-suited long-nose from the cream cheese capital of America, Brenner was
a frequent guest and, later, guest host on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if there ever was one. Carson, a
chain-smoking, plaid-suited womanizer, treated Mr. Brenner like his own son,
until his own son rolled his motorcar down a bloody embankment and died, after
which Carson treated Brenner like someone else’s son whom he couldn’t stand.
When Mr. Carson packed up his Viceroys® and his liquor cabinet and stumbled off
into the sunset, never to be heard from again — excepting the barrage of late
night commercials for the mountainous 800-VHS collection of his ancient
television programme — Mr. Brenner disappeared from the broadcast landscape,
turning up in shite hole comedy clubs, alongside next generation arse-wipes like
Dennis Miller. He later turned to book writing, penning in quick succession,
the harmless, if unspectacular, “I Think There’s a Terrorist in my Soup,” “I
Think There’s a Hole in the Exhaust Pipe,” and “I Believe There’s a Stain in my
Undershorts.” All said and done — or possibly sad and dumb — Brenner was a likeable, capable funnyman who, alas, succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 78. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™ to David Brenner, pride of Philadelphia, Freedom,
PA, home of Steak-umms® thin-sliced, steak-like meats.
Sunday, March 13
Lucky, Charmed
Yours Truly Dooley's — the deadbeats and miscreants have taken to the Arnold "Al" Gore Memorial Misinformation Superhighway™ with wanton abandon on this, the heathen's unholy day. Whilst Twitternet™ trolls scheme and pillage, our station house patrollants are responding unkind, taking to the chatrooms and squalid Stumblr™ pages like foot soldierers at an unsanctioned — unmasked, it should be noted — gathering of longhairs (pictured). We are forging into valleys of dank darkness with chins up, shoulders back and ballsacks tucked. Let mirrors shatter and black cats scatter! Godless, luckless brazen be damned! Friday the 13th is our lucky day!
Saturday, March 12
Girls Will Be Girl Scouts
Friday, March 11
Fine And Dandy
Today we take a celebratory pull on the moonshine jug in honour of the quintessential southern rock front man, James “Jim Dandy” Mangrum of the band Black Oak Arkansas. Born and baptized on this here day, March 11, 1948, Master Dandy was raised a proper — gun-totin’, kin-bangin’ — Southern Baptist in the town of — I’ll be bloody damned — Black Oak, Arkansas, who left high school early, but not empty-handed, as he absconded with the entirety of the marching band’s instrumentation and nearly ended up in a prison cell as a result. Alas, the rock ‘n roll gods took mercy on the southern-fried shite-for-brains and he received a suspended sentence, after which Dandy skeedadled, taking his scrawny, dope-tokin’ arse to the Hell’s Kitchen of Dixie — N’Awlins — where we imagine he spent his time warshing dishes, bustin’ cherries and makin’ bail, before music again came a-callin’, this time in the form of a vintage warshboard he commenced to scratch and thwap away at it whilst a-howlin' at the moon. ‘Twas a god-awful racket that was destined for the radio airwaves! Master Dandy arrived shirtless in mid-'70’s Lost Angeles, where he and his bandmates officially came to the public’s attention, thanks to man-crushing music impresario Don Kirschner. Ol' Jim Dandy's trademarked yowlin' and sweaty, spandexed gyratin' were a hit on television's Rock Concert®, where his repertoire of drunken, uncouth stunts included simulated coitus with his beloved laundering board. Dandy and his ditchweed-bogartin’ bandmates released a heap o’ tasty platters — “High as Hell on the Highway to Hell,” “Ridin’ Miss Daisy,” “Shootout at the Waffle House,” and “Lawd Have Mercy, My Balls Are On Fire!” — their big-bellied, halter-topped fans eatin’ it up like barbecued gizzard po’ boys. Dandy would become the unlikely blond-haired prototype for a legion of crotchless chaps-wearing look-alikes (including younger brother, David Lee “Sloth” Mangrum). Adored by trailer trash men and women alike — I’ll confess to having a soft spot for the platinum-maned geezer myself — he is 74 today. Go, Jim Dandy, Go!
Thursday, March 10
Kansas Pity
If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history (March 10, 1891), that an
undertaker in Topeka, Kansas by the name of Almon Strowger patented the
Strowger Switch™, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit
switching. Now, if that random factoid leaves you unimpressed, imagine being a
citizen of Topeka or Toledo or countless other sleepy hamlets on either side of the pond that are home to obscure invention or fifth-tier industry, and
every time your town was Yahoodled™, people were reminded that yours isn’t the
home of personal computing or motorcar production or shipbuilding — no, your
town’s claim to fame is bloody strowger switching, and ‘twill be forever and
ever, amen. Bloody hell, if I were from Topeka, I’d endeavor to expunge all
data on the Twitternet connecting Almon bloody Strowger to my hometown. I’d
hack into Wikipedialyte and relocate him to the Missouri side and no one would
be the Budweiser™. Of course, my efforts to disassociate from the heralded
circuit switcher would likely be thwarted by some wanker from the Topeka
Historical Society who'd be on the mourning telly trumpeting the tale of the
funeral director who took a break from pumping corpses full of formaldehyde to
design some rotary dial gizmo, and then he'd
invite everyone out to the commemorative Strowger Switch Days Parade, where they ask that you keep your intelligent phone apparatus out of plain sight, as the
ladies of the Strowger Society frown on the telecommunications advancements
that have made the work of their beloved Almon Strowger more or less obsolete.
Wednesday, March 9
Let Us Prey
Tuesday, March 8
Brew Ha-Ha
The man they called “Mr. Coffee,” restaurateur Giuseppe “Joe”
DiMaggiano died on this day, March 8, 1999. Born in 1914, the son of
“Eye-talian” immigrants, DiMaggiano was a native New Yorker whose father
operated the popular “Yankee Clipper” barbershop in Little Italy. Young Joe
spent his after-school hours at the shop, sweeping up head and nostril hair
clippings and flipping through nudie mags, but alas, he didn’t acquire his
father’s affinity for shears and such, preferring the minestrone ladle in his mum’s
kitchen. Mother and son began concocting recipes that became the basis for
their DiMaggiano’s casual dining menu, sold from a storefront lunch counter
below the family's second floor walk-up. After his foray into minor league
baseball fizzled, DiMaggiano dedicated himself to the restaurant, expanding and
franchising the renamed Maggiano’s Little Italy®, where he enjoyed goodly
success serving family-sized portions of traditional fare, which is to say,
red-sauced slop, along with his signature “Joltin’ Joe” percolated coffee.
Hippy dippy folksinger Bob Dylan is said to have penned the lyrics to “One More
Cup of Coffee (For the Road)” on a DiMaggiano napkin and 'twas here that Joe
got the notion that if folks could brew their own bloody coffee at home, they
wouldn't suckle bottomless cups of his brew, whilst weaseling another basket of
free bread. He commissioned the engineers responsible for the famed “Turbo
Encabulator®” to design a device that used gravity to pull water through a
heating section and then dripped hot water over his Starbuck's™ coffee grounds
into a carafe below. He named the system “Mr. Coffee” and, just like that, the
failed baseballer had finally hit a “home run.” His line of Mr. Coffee®
machines produced a remarkably flavorful cup of "Joe" and he soon
found himself to be somewhat of a celebrity, squiring pin-ups and actresses
like Lee Meriwether, Olivia deHavilland, Marlene Dietrich and probably Rita
Moreno. But ‘twas Arthur Miller’s ex-bird Norma Jean Desmond to whom he really
took a fancy and they eventually married and enjoyed, one hopes, a long,
caffeine-fueled life together. Joe would go on to create a succession of
products bearing “his name,” including a Mr. Coffee Juicer, Mr. Coffee
Breadmaker and Mr. Coffee Erectile Enhancer. He later sold his coffee empire to
a young Howard Schultz who has himself enjoyed some success with the
trademarks. We raise a cup of “Joe” in memory of “Joltin’ Joe” DiMaggiano on
this day. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, Citizen Brewmaster.
Monday, March 7
Onan The Barbarian
As I Understand It™, the Catholocists are fully a "weak" into the Lenten season and with Ash Wednesday® in the rear view and the foreheads of the faithful adequately ash-tagged, it can only mean one thing: Suffering. Churchgoers have a penchant for suffering, if you'll forgive us for saying, and suffer mightily they will for forty days, fully a month and more of abstaining from that which gives them pleasure, yet threatens to be their moral undoing: Malted liquor, corned beef, tobacco, Tombstone® pizzas, crossword puzzles, bowling, bumper pool, Off-Track Betting (OTB), karaoke and coveting — which is to say, sexting — the neighbor's spouse; whatever one's pleasure, Lent is the time the religulous say, enough is enough, we're offering it up to you, Oh Lorde™. Take, for instance, young John Thomas. It seems that Master Thomas — in a practice common among school lads and digital marketing professionals — has been pumping out the precious fluid of his immortal soul nightly. His weakness for shillelagh shellacking has shamed his mum and dad and cost him his bloody eyesight. His IQ has summarily plummeted in six months and the fulsome pubis growth engulfing his left hand requires daily stroking with a razor blade. Alas, any sort of stroking leads to no good — according to Pastor Ron at "The Lorde Is My Savior But Not Yours Christian Fellowship Church" — as John Thomas is a complusive, serial Onanist. His story came to our attention in a disturbing series of postings circulating the Twitternet™. Pictured here with Pastor (and real-life Uncle) Ron, John Thomas and the God-fearing flock at The LIMSBNYCF Church are asking for prayers this Lent and the station house is of a mind to oblige: "Dear Lorde of wafered communion hosts and horrible, sweet wine on high. Keep John Thomas’ hands — and Ron's hands — off John Thomas' John Thomas for these 40 Lenten days so that his vision returns 20/20 and he's in fine form for the colored egg and jelly bean hunt on Easter Sunday. Yours Truly, Citizen Spiritualist Dooley®."
Sunday, March 6
Bob's Yer Late Uncle: Remembering Bobby Sherman
Saturday, March 5
Blithering Heights
Friday, March 4
Adam Bombed
Thursday, March 3
Hells Bells We're Havin' a Birthday!
A doff of the double-billed birthday brim to the “Twin Towers of Scottish Letters & Science,” brothers Alexander and Graham Bell. Born conjoined — which is to say, clutching one another’s paws as they hurtled headlong down the exit ramp — March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, the Bell brothers rarely left one another’s side, whether squiring the Hubbard sisters, Mabel (Alexander) and Pauline (Graham), or putzing (Graham) and futzing (Alexander) about the laboratory. Alexander (pictured left or, possibly, right) was inclined towards invention, while Graham (pictured right or, possibly, left) was the food scientist and ‘twas the later’s experimentation with fine-ground white flour and coarse-ground wheat bran which resulted in a delightful, honey-sweetened, digestive biscuit. Originally deemed the “Wise Cracker” by his “Smart Alex” brother, the “Graham® Cracker” was larger than a conventional soda cracker, purposefully designed in an oversized square shape so as to fit "squarely" in the brothers' matching engineer's shirt pockets. That it would later accommodate a square of Cadbury® chocolate and a single, melted marshmallow was not happenstance, methinks, but rather the snacking gods at work, ensuring immortality for what brother Alexander would call the “S'more.” (As in, “Jolly good, let’s have s'more of those melty mallow and cocoa-sweetened treats, brother!”) The brothers Bell would acquire some 18 patents during their lifetime, for such varied inventions as the metal detector, the ripened red "Bell" pepper and something of a crude “teléfono,” but ‘tis the Graham cracker for which they will be most closely associated. Methinks 'twould be a great day to have a s'more and a smile in honour of these two Great Scotts. Brothers Alexander and Graham Bell would have been 173 years young today.
Wednesday, March 2
The Horse Talkerer
If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history — March 2, 1979 — that Mr. Ed died, which makes this a lousy damn day, indeed. A well-hooved American Palomino, Ed was the original horse of a different colour. His popular nighttime comedy "I Am Mr. Ed" aired from 1961 to 1966, and if there has been a finer television series to come out of the states since then, I am unaware of it. Ed was never nominated for an American Telly Award, and I can only hope that the judges who overlooked his thorspian talentry are burning in hell for it. There was no more capable actor — man, woman or horse — on television during that time. I don’t doubt that the great comedians of the 70’s — Benny Hill, Terry Thomas, Wayland Flowers — all went to school on Ed. He spoke fluent English, French and horse Latin, played table tennis and polo (on land and water). He could stitch with needle and thread, operate a ham radio and read the newspaper, the racing sheets and Rona Barrett's Horseplay™ magazine. Ed went to correspondence school and majored in animal science. He had a photographic memory and was capable of memorizing scripts on sight, and of naming all 51 U.S. states in alphabetical order, but only if you gave him a carrot. An accomplished ventriloquist and unicyclist, Ed operated the merry-go-round at carnivals. He was a jackass of all trades and master of fun, a practical joker, but an impractical businessman who received no television royalties — even though he voiced the famous slogan, “This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling" and wrote the bloody lyrics to the show’s jingle — brilliantly rhyming “of course” with “steady course.” Ed dated co-star Connie Hines, but it didn't last long, as the clingy actress wouldn't give the breakout star room to spread his horse wings, so he showed her the door (to the barn). He was a man after my own heart, if my heart had four legs. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, Mr. Ed Wilbur. Long may you run. On basic cable, at odd hours.
Tuesday, March 1
Miss March
I Have It On Good Authority™ — which is to say, a dog-eared, 1967 Farmer's Almanac® — that March will come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. Then again, who's to say the tea leaf readers weren't misinformed and March doesn't come in like a Welsh pony and go out like a malodorous pug? Maybe this year March will come in standing on two bloody feet — Welcome Wagon Lady — and go out on the flat of her back — an obliging southern belle. Or maybe March will come in like a longshoreman and go out like a second hand bookseller. Or in like a Christian Mingler® and out like a conspiracy theorist with a full diaper. Or a seer-suckered country clubber — in — and a perpetually stewed sister-in-law (pictured) — out. In and out. Whatever the case, March is bloody well comin' in. One hopes that it wipes its muddied shoes as it crosses the threshold.
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