Bless Me, Todd Rundgrend, For I Have Sinned

According to a recent Twitternet™ posting from self-described "superfan" Agnes Ravatn of Spoettrup, Denmark, “Todd is God," and so 'tis we begin this day with a Prayer of Catholic Contrition to 1970’s nerd messiah Todd Rundgrend: Oh my Todd®, I am partly sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins, because of thy justly punishment and/or drum banging. But most of all, because they offend you, my Todd, who art all good and deserving of the vinyl record store dollars that kindly listeners elect to bestow upon you. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace and multi-instrumentalist production skillsets, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin — whilst pledging to police a "virtual" club appearance featuring a revolving trio of sidemen 'longside you on your interminable, synthesized guitar-soloing journeys. I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghostly Spirit, A Wizard, A True Star and Creative Force behind the curious musical foursome known as Utopia®. Amen†

You Can't Spell "Carpenter" Without "Carter"

Today in Side-Gigging, Do-Gooding U.S. Presidential History™ (January 22, 1977), Foreman-in-Chief Jiminy Carter — with lust in his heart, a tear in his eye, a gleam in his smile, a plug of Red Man® chaw in his jaw, a pack of Black Jack® gum in his overalls, a Bible™ in his toolbox, a Craftsman® hammer in his toolbelt, masonry nails in his mouth, starch in his dry-cleaned Carhartt®, a knot in his neckerchief, a careful bend in the brim of his cap, a light dusting of AquaNet® in his feathered hair, a penny in his loafers, a peanut butter sandwich in his lunch pail, a flexi-straw in his milk glass, an approval rating in the job site toilet and a Fred Rogers’ earnestness in his demeanor — issued a pardon to the nation’s Vietnam War draft evaders. ‘Twas an act that some — such as impish, friendless, 15-year old crybaby Sean Hannity, fresh off his umpteenth schoolyard beating — saw as evidence of cowardice, though tell that to the 20-something males who thought they’d be living out their dying days in bloody Canada, the coldest, most barren land this side of Siberia, unless you were fortunate enough to be canoodling under the covers with one of the Heart sisters. Also on this day in history, Italy legalized abortion. I’d like to deduce/invent a connection — the War on Birth? — but will leave Blaze® TV conspiratorialist Glenn Lee Beck to draw, or rather, venn diagram his own inconclusions.

 

Oh Dear-ierre

Spend enough time patrolling the bloody Twitternet™ and you learn that the world isn’t such a big, bad place. We are all the same, each of us the creation of a sturdy-jawed Higher Power whose picture graces our front hall and who requires a 10% tithe of pre-tax income, plus canned goods and gently-used London Fog® wear come holiday. We are all a collection of molecules and US Cellular structures, a deoxyribeyednucleic mashup of chromosonal something-or-others. We are skin and bones, citizens, some more skin than honed, and we're all desperate for Mommy's love, Daddy's approval and a young schoolteacher's admiring look that stirs something in our developing underbelly. White, black or a confectioner's milk chocolatey brown, we are all the very same deep down under our genuine Louis Prima® cotton drawers or giantine lacy unmentionables.

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free milk at last!

As I Understand It™, today is MILK Day® across the pond, a national holiday celebrating the life of a humble dairyman who had a dream that all men and women, regardless of the colour of their skin or the contents of their pantry, might well enjoy the fruits of a bossy milk cow's labours or something. 'Twas his dream that all milk — whole, skimmed, non-fatted, 1%, 2% or buttered — would be created with equal degrees of protein and pasteurization, if varying measures of cream, and that on every third Monday in January, lactose tolerant citizenry of all stars and stripes would come together to enjoy milk's calcium richness for free. Alrighty, Almighty, America. Today is the day! Hoist a tumbler high and drink to your fatty heart's content!

Inaugurals Addressed

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history — January 19, 1937 — that Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt was inaugurated to a second or third term across the pond, or reflecting pool, as it were. A former governor of New York City or possibly State, and a close ally of the finest statesman in all of recorded history — Winston Churchill — Roosevelt is best remembered for kicking Nazi and Kamikaze arse around the block in WWI or II, for his progressive New Deal policies and for writing that infernal election hymnal, "Happy Days Are Here Again!" Stricken with polio as an adult, Roosevelt remarkably overcame his handicap — he was said to be capable of stopping his wheelchair "on a dime," the very coin his visage would later grace — and he is considered to be the last of the great American presidents. Indeed, Roosevelt gave his bloody life for the job, dying just months into his fourth or fifth term in office. His heralded tenure was followed by a string of unlikely standard bearers, including Truman, the high school graduate, Eisenhower, the highwayman, Kennedy, the ladies’ man, Lyndon "Bird" Johnson, the Texan, Richard N. Milhaus, the rubber-faced crook, Jiminy Carter, the lustful peanut farmer, Reagan, the bad actor, Bush, the church lady, Clinton, the dress stainer, W., the mission accomplisher, Obama, the islander and Trumpeteer, the celebrity realtor. All were inaugurated on this day — January 20th — and some even had the audacity to have their likeness chiseled — or possibly, PhotoChopped® — into the side of bloody Rushmore to make it official. But not Franklin Eleanor. Unlike more recent inaugural celebrations — which feature booty shaking pop stars, play-by-play from Brian Steve Crest and the aforementioned sculpturing — Roosevelt's inaugurals were family affairs, held on the White House lawn and featuring an egg toss, balloon animals, potato sack races and a simple lunch of hamspread sandwiches on Nancy Martin® white bread, Libby's® canned fruit cocktail and Otis Campbell's Tomato Soup®.

Daniel's Day

Well I’ll be an Orangutan’s Auntie! If ‘tisn’t oft- celebrated, celebrity sentence-rememberer Daniel Dave Lewis! Where might you be headed on this blessed day, Daniel Dave? Perhaps to your beautiful launderette to hand wash your lacy unmentionables? Or a waxing salon to soften the shadows on your chiseled visage? Or, perchance, to a vintage apparel shop to procure a silkened scarf for your aging neckline? What’s that, you say? The costume and costumed jewelry provide you with necessary cover from shutterbugs, overeager fans and the fatal attractions of Glenn Close—who won’t be ignored, Dan, not after that funny business on the lift whilst the cunning linguist’s missus was out of town! Ahh, Daniel, my brother—as Sir Elton once warbled—you are older than me—metaphorically, of course. Your eyes have cried—convincingly so—‘tis why you’re a star in the face of the sky; however, candidly, methinks you’ve overplayed your shape-shifting, actoring hand this time as there are surely others more suited to play whatever role you’re awe-dishing for, but that being well said, you always carry yourself with a confidence that belies a lame, left-footed thespian, so who bloody knows? Carry on then, Daniel Dave Lewis. We hope to catch your chameleon-like skills at a picture show soon! Perhaps Ford’s Theater, as we think of it. 

Føkk Deg, Roald Amundson

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history, January 17, 1912, that Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott survived immeasurable odds to become what was thought to be the first man to reach the South Pole — only to discover that the underhanded Norwegian Roald Amundsen had conspired to set a course that found him arriving on site a month earlier, handily beating the noble Englishman. Adding grievous insult to injury, a dejected Falcon Scott and his four heroic comrades tragically expired on the return trek, whilst the wretched Weegians revelled from midnight sun-up to sundown, guzzling glögg, howling at the moon and flagellating themselves like undignified, pagan beasts. To commemorate this day of devious triumph, all of Britannia extends a proper, one-fingered salute to the scheming Viking brute: "Føkk deg, Roald Amundsen, you filthy Nørsk køllesugeren."

Cracker Peril

Celebrating a Deathday™: Cracker Nation lost its Cracker-in-Chief on this day (January 16, 2012), when Mr. Dan Evins, founder of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store®, passed away. He was 76. Cracker Barrel, I'm told, is quintessentially red, white & blue and the red-suspendered, white-skinned, blue-eyed Evins, bless him, was all that as well. The Ritz® brand cracker lover opened his first Cracker Barrel store in 1969 in the soda cracker white environs of Lebanon, Tennessee, the flakiest, crackerest state in all of America. Cracker Barrel took its name from the empty cracker barrels that country store patrons played checkers on whilst sitting on their Wrangler® cut-off trousered arses jawin' about the things crackers love most: the Andy Griffith Show, Hardley-Davison motorbikes, Moon Pies®, moonshine, farmers' daughters, biscuits 'n gravy, sodie pop, shotguns, shotgun weddings, shotgun dee-vorces, Friday Night Lights, Geoff Foxworthy, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwear, the Dallas Cowboys, the Nashville Predators, Family Fueled, Wheel of bloody Fortune® and theme park oddity Dolly Parton’s bosom. Evins is survived by 600 cracker-patroned locations and — presumably — a family of crackers who loved him. The station house is breaking out the Velveeta® and Nabisco® saltine crackers in Mr. Evins' honour. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, Citizen Paleface.

Twat do we owe displeasure?

The Daily Mash® — a generally reliable UK news source on par with America's bloomin' Onion® — is reporting that a recent study indicates some "80 Percent Of Men Are Twats," which is bloody news to no one, least of all Yours Truly Dooley®. In my estimation, the percentage skews well higher, as an accounting of the men who cross my digital pathway reveals an endless stream of twats — arsewipes, nitwits, nobs, know-it-alls, knuckleheads, dickheads, morons, plonkers and prats. Twats, the lot of 'em. Jelly-haired twats, bearded twats, thieving twats, backstabbing twats, right-winged twats, left-limbed twats, anonymous trolling twats and twerpy anchorman twats like that moustachioed Matt Glauer buggerer (pictured) whose two-faced lechery besmirches the work of honourable, properly broad-shouldered broadcasters like Ron Burgundy. Their tell-tale twattery is no recent phenomena either, as grown men of no character have exhibited what the millennials call "douchey" behavior since Neanderthals bounced boulders off one another's noggins. The footnoted source of the aforementioned twat-istic is the "Institute For Studies," which we'll assume is a dopey "think stank" like "The Heritage Confoundation™," an association of pale-skinned mouth-breathers of which we  guesstimate 100% of the male members are twats.

Up! With People!

Well, as I live and breathe the vestiges of industrial, wartime pollution! If this isn’t a fine how-do-you-do across the ages! Tip-top of the Tuesday morning to you, citizens of the previous millenia! Mum always said that strangers are friends you haven’t met yet, so allow me to introduce myself: I am Doyle "Dooley" Johns, Internet Patrolman™. I have been dutifully attending to these digital pathways for some time now and am always encouraged to see a cheerful assemblage of new faces. I must say that your outstretched, stiff-armed wave has a curious salute-like quality to it. A salutation, come to think of it, reminiscent of the Queen Mother’s — hand rotating in semi-circular fashion, as though warshing the windows — not that the Queen would. Warsh windows, haha! No matter, today is your day, good-hearted patrons of the past. Your open-armed welcome to all races and creeds is the sign of polite society; something in short supply of late! I wish you good day, GodSpeedo® and gracious Sieg Heil smiles. Yours Truly, Constable Dooley.

Carol Wayne's World (Party Time! Excellent!!)

Celebrating a Deathday™: Platinum-blonde sweater-filler-outer actress Carol Wayne died on this day, January 13, 1985. The famously full-figured foil on 70's television's "Tea Time Movies with Art Fern" was born Bootsie Nightingale in the Second-Tier City™ of Chicago, and departed in her late teens for a top-heavy turn as a showgirl at the Tropicana Orange Mango® in Las Vegas alongside her leggy, look-alike sister Nina (later of “99 Luft Balloons” fame). Wayne then pointed her high beams west where she met the likes of "feature film freak" Art Fern, a loud-jacketed lothario cut from the same plaid-patterned cloth as "Tonight Show" phony Johnny Carson. Fern was more car dealer than movie reviewer and, for her part, Wayne was the willing sidekick, cooing and battling her eyelashes and heaving her outsized personality at the jelly-haired, moustachioed Fern, but somehow it all worked. Wayne was Matinée Lady in over 100 episodes of Fern’s show, the two of them bumbling their way through reviews and sponsorships with dumbbell appeal. ‘Twas a far cry from most on-air critics — chatty misfits named Gene — not to mention the legion of keyboard-pounders nowadays who fancy themselves Cecil B. DeMillionaires but couldn’t film so much as a children's birthday party themselves. Ms. Wayne bid adieu to movie reviews and went on, like so many B-level, C-cupped celebrities, to appear in harmless nonsense such as “I Dream of Jeannie (With the Light Bottle Blond Hair and Exposed Midriff),” “I Spy (A Serial Abuser In Sheepskin Clothing)" and "I Love Buggery, American Style.” Alas, in 1985, with her television career in decline, the thrice-divorced Wayne went on vacation in Mexico with an actual bloody car salesman — not Art Fern, but a ne'er-do-well named Ed Durston – and never returned, as she was found dead on the beach of a questionable drowning. It turns out in years prior, Durston was involved in another celebrity tragedy: He was the boyfriend of Diane Linkletter, daughter of Art (Linkletter, that is), and was in her apartment when she attempted to fly out a window with little success. Two more unhappy endings in the hell-on-earth that is Hollywood celebrity, if you ask Yours Truly Dooley®, but let's not shed too harsh a light on the dearly departed Ms. Wayne’s special day. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, darlin’.

Chore Enough, It's Farm Assist Day!

As I Understand It™, today, January 12, is something called "Farm Assist" Day. Seems curiously timed given the inclemency of the season, but who are we to quibble? Strap on your dungarees, hike up your Wellingtons and commence to implemental farm assisting, citizens. (CORRECTION: We're now being told that 'tis, in fact, "Pharmacist Day." The station house regrets the error, but encourages you to support your nation's farm communities by eating food grown in the ground or something. And if you happen upon a white-smocked chemist, give 'em a wink and a smile.)

Oh, that's Rich!

Celebrating a Deathday™: An actor named Richard Simmons died on this day (January 11, 2003), but not the Richard Simmons you're thinking of. Born in 1913 in St. Paul, Minnesota, this Richard Simmons was a stalwart, good looking, middle class cuss who fell into acting after traveling the world working on freighters and tankers and the like, eventually landing a gig as a studio hand in Lost Angeles. As the story goes, studio 'tard Louis B. Mayer spotted the manly, mustachioed journeyman breaking in an Arabian horse on a Hollywood lot, offered him a screen test, and he was off to the races (sans horse). Simmons landed a host of swarthy male bit parts in MGM movies, but finally struck gold in the mid-1950s when he starred in the TV series, “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.” Canadian Mountie Sgt. William Preston ably patrolled the wilds of the Yukon, Jack, with his horse Rex, his dog King and his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot, battling the elements as well as Gold Rush criminals. The uniformed "Sergeant Preston" was on the air from 1955 to 1958, and enjoyed a goodly run in syndication after that. Alas, in Simmons' golden years, another Richard Simmons would enter the spotlight — the frizzy haired, sequined exercise goofball of the same name — and one can just imagine the frustration that the one-time, machismo Canadian Mountie felt every time he turned on the telly and was subjected to “Richard Simmons” shaking his athletic-shorted fannie to the camera, or every time he introduced himself in public as “Richard Simmons,” and people would say, “The Sweatin’ With The Oldies Richard Simmons?” He probably had to explain to every bemused Arthur Treacher's waitress who eyeballed his credit card that, “no, I am not THAT Richard Simmons, I am THE Richard Simmons, Sergeant Preston of the Bloody Yukon!” Perhaps it was for the best, if his family will forgive me for saying, that he later contracted dementia, leaving him oblivious to the effrontery of “which Richard Simmons are you?” Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, then, to 50’s actor Richard Simmons, who passed away at age 89 on this day in Oceanside, California. The other Richard Simmons, one supposes, is carrying on with all the usual nonsense, bless his shart-stained undies.

Patty Cake and the Baker Man

I don’t know who they are, where they're from or what they were up to, but I don’t bloody like it. I wouldn’t like it if I knew them and knew what they were celebrating, or if I merely knew someone who knew them and was on hand for the festivities. I wouldn’t like it if I was offered assurances that all was well and fine and that doting, muscle-bounded dads everywhere were photo bombing their babies after dropping them into vats of whipped cream or pulling them out of frosted, layered cakes. I wouldn’t like it as I am wholly unimpressed with the thought, let alone image, of some plonker bare-handing a bare-chested baby child and posting the results Instagramatically ‘round the Twitternet™. Call me old-fashioned — better yet, pour me one, haha — but ‘tis my belief that if you want to properly portray your beloved pudgeball as a princess, you doll her up in a fancy dress, attach a dime store tiara 'top her curlicued noggin', then make your way to the nearest Olan Mills® Portraiture Studio, where they set the strobe lights and shutter speeds and commence to photo flashing. You exhibit good judgment and leave the premises with your dignity, along with a delightful assortment of glossies to share with family, friends and station house associates, in any combination of portrait sizes: 8x10, 5x7, 3½x5 and, not insignificantly, billfold.

Semen First Class

The station house extends a maritime salute to first mate Bob "Denver" Deutschendorf Jr. who would have been 85 on this day had he not fallen forever overboard, as 'twere, in 2002. But never mind that, today is about happy remembrances, birthday memes and 85 ill-performing Factory Card Outlet® candles lit in honour of a bucket-hatted semen, first class. Born January 9, 1935, in, one supposes, Denvertown, Colorado, "Gilligan," as he was nicknamed by his tub-a-larded childhood mate and future skipper Jonas Grumby, was a loveable lunkhead who went on to international acclaim in "The Bachelor, Island Edition," aka, "Gilligan's Island." The endearing reality TV showman and object of affections would charm the shorty shorts off of comely shipmate Dawn Wells, not to mention the shimmering teal gowns off statue-etched Ginger Somebody when she wasn't getting busy with that Professor bloke and if it surprises you to hear us posit this, "too damn bad about ya'," as mum used to say. What in blue sky blazes do you think was goin' on 'neath the stars when cameras ran out of pedal-generated juice and the cast, err castaways, and crew were eyeballin' one 'nother 'round the campfire? In any event, today the station house remembers Bob Denver — everyman, ladies' man and funnyman. The bestest lil' buddy in ports o' call 'round the globe, providing many a chuckle and chortle, all the livelong day. Happy Birthday, Chumley!

A War Of Words

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history (January 8, 1815) that the least remembered war in history — the War of 1812® — ended in a draw. With no territorial changes awarded — other than some wonky trade resolutions and “agree to disagree” handshakes and/or whiskey pulls — everyone packed up their bloody tents and sailing vessels and — faster than you could tap out the overseas telegraph message "Bob's Yer' Uncle!" — headed home. ‘Twas the final conflict ever waged between the British Empire and the United States, and to a lesser degree Canada, who made quite the big deal of everything, as this was their opportunity to take a few swings at the nations who mocked their speech dialect. The War of 1812 was also the most ill-named war of all time, as the skirmish only started in 1812, later running through all of 1813 and 1814, before coming to a halt in 1815, fully 32 months later. There had been talk of calling it "The Second War for Independence", but sequels were considered to have less drawing power even then, so 1812 it was. The war was waged in three “theatres,” namely the southern U.S., the Canadian frontier and the Atlantic Ocean, but ‘tis interesting to note that no modern “theatres” or movie houses ever bother to depict the bloody thing, because, honestly, who’d show up? Not Yours Truly Dooley™! Give me a WWII retelling any day of the weekend — “Kelly Heroes” or “Tora, Tora, Tora” or even bloody “Rat Patrol,” starring business magnate Victor Newman of television’s "The Young & Aggressively Sexual" (pictured here), over the interminably slow-moving and confoundingly-named excuse for a war, which is to say The 32-Month War of 1812-1815™. I’d rather watch a Ken Burns pictorial about the Dust Wars, which involved American farmers battling dust clouds and/or tumbleweeds with O-Cedar® brooms, hand-woven carpets and God-fearing Christian resilience.

Morrie's A Jolly Good Fellow

On the docket today at the station house: Tuesdays With Morrie™. Yes, long before that mellow, dramatic inkspiller from Michigan, USA — sportswriter Mitch Albom — commenced to cavorting with his ill and aging professor Morrie Schwartz, Yours Truly Dooley® and the team would huddle ‘round the telly to watch the inimitable Morrie Amsterdam put his office mates through their paces. Mel Cooley, Alan Brady, Rose Marie, Mary Richards and, of course, Dick Van Patten were all targets for his wile. Van P. got top billing, but make no mistake, ‘twas Morrie — the unlikely Dutchman, Amsterdam born and bred — who ruled the roost. Whether regaling us with tales of home hijinks with wife Pickles or excoriating the befuddled Cooley, Morrie was a whirling dervish who delighted all on either side of the pond. Unlike Master Albom, we didn’t pretend to look for — or find — great meaning in our time together, nor did we endeavor to put our feelings to paper. What we did then — and still do when time allows — is laugh our fool arses off. And if we catch back-to-back episodes, ‘tis Two-fer Tuesdays With Morrie™. Amsterdam, right!

Monday, Monday With Papa John Phillips Sousa

'Tis "Monday, Monday” and you “can’t trust that day,” as the old song posits. Then again, maybe this “Monday, Monday” — the first of the new year — will be “all I hoped it would be.” Who bloody knows? Who can say for certain what the songwriter’s position was on this day? As I think of it, what sort of wanker sits down at the piano and says, “I think I’ll pen a sad elegy to the first day of the working week”? I’ll tell you what sort — a marching band leader from the hills of Lost Angeles named John Phillips Sousa (pictured here marching, naturally). Memorandum to Master Phillips Sousa: "Oh Monday morning?" Is that all you’ve got, young citizen? A writerly rumination on the calendar offering? No pleas to a long departed galfriend or an ode to race relations or the farm closing down? You’re sticking with the "moon day" theme, as the citizenry from Babylonia so called it? It’s clear you have strong emotions about this day, but is it your contention that "every other day of the week is fine," excepting for Monday? Honestly? You’ve never had trouble befall you on a Tuesday. Never lost a job on a Friday or a sporting competition on a Saturday? You never failed to bring the missus to heights of ecstasy on a Wednesday? Never fallen prey to the oldest of practical jokes — stomping out a flaming bag of dog shite on your front stoop — on a Wednesday? Your mum-in-law never showed up on your doorstep on a Sunday with an over-toasted soda bread in one hand and a host of bloody complaints in the other? Really? Your repeated protestations that “every other day…every other day…every other day of the week is fine” sound like wishful thinking to me, sir. Methinks your felt-hatted hippy band associates — the comely blonde, zaftig mama and moustachioed papa — found your claims suspect as well, but they went along with you capably, swaying in their floral gowns and velvetine pants along to the pre-recorded backing track and wasn't that a sight to see? Alrighty almighty then! We've talked ourselves into it and will follow your lead into the week — if not entirety of the year — with positivity unrestrained. Right! (If not, left-right!)

Jailhouse Crock

This weekend finds the last of the detoxing millennials making bail and departing the New Years drunk tank ready to make amends — which is to say, ready to pay their bar tab and get their drink on anew — woohoo! — the very prospect of revisiting the scene of their crime giving a lift to the grounded jailbird or sullen hound dog, who suddenly get their swagger back like jailhouse rocker Aaron "Elvis" Presley, hips a-swivelin' through the barred gate. Alas, unlike the absurdities portrayed in the (pictured) shows of the previous millennia, few exiting jailants have a movie or record contract awaiting them — they have an actual police record and a string of visits with probationary officers to look forward to. Reason enough to celebrate? Apparently so! Yes, 'twould seem to Yours Truly Dooley® that the latest generation is seizing the day with one hand, whilst lunging for the liquor bottle or bong stick with the other. So bloody be it. I was young once. “I get it,” as the arsewipes like to say. Alas, you won't be young forever, Citizen Cell Mates, and one look at your sorry reflection in the fetid waters of a holding cell commode ought tell you that you're no Elvis "Aaron" Presley, either; you don't possess the fetching snarl, the jellied pompadour, nor the keys to Graceland Ranch, so you best proceed with caution or you'll be "cryin' all the time" upon your return to the pokey. As to the online disorderly conductors in our midst — the blog stalkers, identity thieves, conspiratorial theorists, genitalia flashers, medicinal hustlers, folk song posterers and recipe over-sharers — in other worlds, all those on the station house's Internet watch are Dooley Advised™: "You ain't no friend of mine." I have your number: It's 2020. "Let's rock," lowlifes.

You've Got Mailman!

A doff of the Red Star Army® cap to our ol' chum Raymond, the Chinese postman. Come hellish high waters, rain or sunshine, Raymond stops at nothing to ensure that all station house deliverables — inkwells, college-ruled tablet paper, eraser heads, typewriter ribbons, floppy computing diskettes, zipped storage drivers, dry cell batteries, crème sodas, sweet n' salty sustenance, Harry-O and David fruits n' nuts, mountainous Toblerone® chocolates, VHS-taped police procedurals (Dragnet, Adam-12), Beano® flatus inhibiting tablets, Lavoris® gargling wash, dental string, cake soaps, Shinola™ boot polish, loop-handled Saf-T-Pop® suckers (for the school-age visitors), Pokemon® trading cards (for the janitorial staff) and True Detective® periodicals (for our interning Academy recruits) — the lot of it — the entirety of our mail-order essentials — arrives in timely, accurate fashion thanks to the never-say-Neverland-Ranch tenacity of Master Ray. You’ve set the tow rope high, Far Eastern friend! We’ll be lucky if we don’t lose you to the circus!

Dead Ringer

A birthday blaring of the Herald's Trumpet™ for Middle Earth® faerie duster,

John Ronald Randolph Robert Reginald Reuel Tolkien. Better known among his legion of eternally man-childish fans as J.R.R.R.R.R.Tolkien, the Lord of the Bloody Ring™ was born on January 3, 1892 in a hobbit-hole in Rivendell — a village in Worcestershire that I'm told was annexed to Birmingham, though I find no record of it. A moment of reverent silence — or bloody indifference, if you're of a mind — for the fanciful, which is to say, torturously long-winded, scribbler.

Giving the daredevil his due

Day Two into the new finds us “Celebrating a Deathday,” for ‘twas on January 2, 2019 when death- defying stuntman Super Dave Osborne left our earthly orbit. Born the son of a car park attendant and actress mum on November 20, 1942 in Indian Wells, California, Stewart David Osborne began defying death as a young lad, leaping from tall buildings—flat-roofed grammar schools—in single bounds. He was later university bound to ply his roundball skills but, alas, discovered white men cannot jump without the aid of a proper catapulting device. After college, Super Dave entered a fast lane of a different sort, enjoying—which is to say, enduring with great shame—a foray into advert copywriting—before Chuck Tayloring it all and turning briefly to law enforcement as a traffic patrolman, where he discovered his talentry for handling a motorbike at great speed. He partnered with ball-capped impresario Fuji Hakayito and commenced to placing himself in all manner of dangerous situations at the Super Dave Compound, where flip-flopped, tank-topped audiences held their collective, menthol-cigarette-tinged breath whilst the great one was dropped from cranes, shot from cannons, pile-driven into the pavement, harpooned in deep water, mauled by circus animals, smashed by trucks, set aflame and Whammo’d in the nutsack, yet he would unfailingly prevail with his trademark “thumbs up,” a mark that Mark Zuckerburger conveniently hitched his sin wagon to. Super Dave was briefly upstaged by one Evil-Eyed Knievel—who appropriated the star-studded red, white & blue ensemble, ‘long with many a high-flying antic—but there would be no equaling ole’ SD, who was idolized ‘round the globe. Whilst we have it on authority, sadly, that the great one left building on this day in history, we take comfort in our undying belief that we’ve not seen the last of this crash-helmeted survivor and remain hopeful for an encore performance. Until then, GodSpeedo, Super Dave Osborne. Gone with Dispirit at 76.

Balls to the Squall

Another year has passed and we’re onto the next, same as ever ‘twas. This year, at the behest of our station house web administrator Sheffield, Yours Truly Dooley is endeavoring to make an official recording of the daily trials and tribulations facing our e-servitude. An electronic diary of sorts, a “diatribery” if you will, and why wouldn’t you? In this, our first installation, we celebrate the indomitable will of humankind in offering an icy salute to the Polar Bears who braved the bone-chilling, ballsack-shrivelling waters of the Atlantic on January 1. Let lesser mortals toast the New Year morn with sugary mimosas, soft scrambled eggs and jellied Pop Tarts! Let them announce their modest resolutions from the comforts of their tidy homefronts! At the same time, let it be known there are others more mighty than they—brothers and sisters who are seizing this day—indeed, decade!— with a dynamic derring-do and a zest for conquest! The triumphant stances depicted in the Polaroid Instagrammatic snapshots on our newsbleed tell a more revealing story, one of giants descending upon our shores in skin-tight, tank-topped Lycra! Sinewy, soaking wet giants who mock the pajama’d mortals in our midst with raised fists and clenched balls to the frigid squall! Bravo & Brilliantine, one-pieced, swimsuited Capitans Courageous!