Da Gang A Six

Da 'Gang a Six'.....January, 2014

Rocky bangs on the Senator's door.....Bam...bam...bam!

"Hey Rocky..ain't you supposed to knock po..litely!"

"Dis is my po..lite knock kid."

The door opened and there stood the Senator himself.

"Ah...Rocky...isn't it"

"You got a good memory Senator, dat tarp bill was a long time ago." Rocky began to giggle, an odd sight for a pudgy, stout, bowling ball of man.

"Heh heh, sorry bout dat but I put a few 'Bills' in a tarp in my day but never a tarp in a Bill. Dis is my friend T-bone. I'm learning him da trade."

"Well, Rocky...and... T-bone...what can I help you with? I have to be present for a roll call in ten minutes."

"Heh heh" Rocky giggled again as he lifted his fat hand to his mouth..

"Something funny in dat...er...that... Rocky?"

"No...Well yeah. It reminds me of da roll calls I used to have to show up at in da pen. Dem was good times."

The Senator's eyes rolled and he looked around to see if his secretary was in earshot. She wasn't.

"Once again Rocky, what can I help you with?"

"Well, da gang a six sent me over here with a gift." He giggled again and apologized. "Sorry bout dat again, but I bin in a lotta gangs in my tirty-tree years on da street, and even a few in my tirty years of being incarcerated for crimes I never admitted ta doin, but I mean deez guys are more like dos' hucksters dat roust ya up to see da bearded lady at da circus. Know what I mean....but I guess dey are pretty good at scarin old ladies." He stretched out his hand with the envelope. "Its tickets to da opra."

"The Opera?"

"Yeah, its Rigoletto. Dats my favorite."

"You're...you're a fan of the opera?"

"Yeah. Well just dis one. I like da part where the guy stuffs the body in da sack. I been dere...know what I mean?."

The senator looked around again and said hurriedly. "Thank you Rocky and If I can, I'll try to make the opera but we have been awful busy lately with budget talks."

"Oh, I don't tink you'll be busy dat day." He pulled a large handful of envelopes out a bag that T-bone was carrying. "I got free tickets here for all da Democrat Senators, and even a few for dose udder ones. Da 'gang a six'...heh heh...says dere's a good message in dis opera and dey 
wants to make sure everyone gets dat message."

"Well thank you again. Good-bye."

He started to close the door but Rocky stuck his foot in it for one more comment.
"You know. I bin tinkin about runnin to be a Senator."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm gettin too old for dis business. Such is why I am learning T-bone here. Da next time I gotta deliver tickets or a dead fish or sump'm, it'll probably be T-bone here. I figger if Al Franken can make it, den I can"

The Senator nodded and said " You may have a point there," and was about to close the door but could not help but asking. "Ah, Rocky. And what state would you be ...runnin...in?"

"Ya mean ya get to pick one? I tink I might like to be da Senator from Las Vegas?"

With this the Senator did close the door.

AND AGAIN...

Bam...bam...bam!

The door opens at the senator's home.

"Well...Rocky....It's been a while. I thought you were going to retire?"

"And so I did Senator. I been sittin' in my easy chair for over a year watching dat Jerry Springer. In case I ever have to woik for him."

"You mean on his television show?"

"No, if he becomes a Dem Senator."

"It was....T-bone....wasn't it, who was supposed to replace you?"

"Hey, you remembered T-bone! He had a very unfortunate accident and I had to come back to woik."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, so was he."

"What happened?"

"....Ah....He slipped on a patch of ice."

"Rocky, we haven't had any ice yet this fall."

"Did I say ice. I meant leaves...a patch a leaves, but dey was goin to...lay him off...heh heh... anyway for he had a nasty habit of asking too many questions."

"Questions...like what?"

"Like.....where'd you get dose shoes....or....got any gum on you. Our motto is 'ours ain't to wonder why, ours but to do and lie'."

"Ah...Alfred Lord... Tennyson!"

"No... Dingy Harry... Reid."

"Well anyway, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this time?"

Rocky reached in his pants pocket and pulled out a snub nosed 38 and the senator immediately stiffened.

"Hey hey, no worries Senator I'm just looking for...." he pulled out two bolts...and a half-eaten tuna sandwich..."here dey are"... holding two pennies out to the Senator.

"Two pennies?"

"Yeah....two cents. Senator H. saw your comments on television yesterday, you know where you said you were just putting your two cents wort in on dat fiscal cliff thing...heh heh."

"What's so funny?"

"Oh dat....fiscal cliff....It makes me tink a da good ole days when my woik day would offen end up at da edge of a cliff."

"And the two cents?"

"Well, da Senator says dat dis is da two cents for your comments and if you should ever feel da need to give your two cents worth again....dey will be da last two cents you ever get from da Dems....heh heh. Dat guy may look like a prune but he really got a sense of humor...get it...'cents'  of humor?"

"I get it Rocky. Thank-you again....and aah...Good-bye."

Death By Waiting Room

I'm in the waiting room while they are giving my truck an oil change. It's over 90 degrees outside and it's either sit in the waiting room and face the TV or go out and sit on the curb......or maybe just walk home and tell them to keep the car. I'm thinking about it.  It gets worse. I'm actually watching the game show......a six foot tall pink bunny rabbit just hopped around in glee as he or she won a motorcycle. Now a lady in pink punk hair is yelling and screaming for some reason. The following are two past posts on this peculiarly American form of torture:


Death By Waiting Room

        Wow...torture...I'm sitting in the waiting room of a car dealer while my vehicle is being repaired and the television is 24 inches from my ear (the only seat available.) Governor Pence is being interviewed....no, interviewed isn't the word......interrogated is the word. The encouraging news in this is that I glanced up at the man opposite me and he in turn glanced over to me and just shook his head. One young man has ear buds in....smart man. Another is giving a death stare at the television. He looks an awful lot like Jerry Stiller from the King Of Queens. Hmm...I better not say anything.

         It's getting worse....the announcer just said that Senator Lindsey Graham is coming on to give insight on something or other. I guess I'll have to listen to that. I hope there's nothing to that Stockhom Syndrome thing.
         Oh no!......"Hello....I'm Hillary Clinton...and I approve this message." Is this worth it? I mean what's a little 'check engine' light?  OK, the political ad is over. I don't care what these folks think of me with my fingers in my ears. Now there's a segment on childbirth. Please...I mean do we throw 'kidney stones' at you all the time. Have you ever seen a television show when the man is behind a door screaming?
         Lindsey is on now.....(who names their son Lindsey.....It can't even be shortened.....Lind.....Linds) ...."Ah thank that Hillary is right awn theece." They're treating Graham very nicely. That's because he's a senior member of the junior members of the UniParty. The term  UniParty comes from Professor Angelo Codevilla. We essentially have one major political party in the United States...the UniParty...consisting of the senior partner Democrats and the junior partner Republicans.
         I look up at the giant TV over my right shoulder.....I can see the facial pores on the interviewers face. Whatever happened to 'Honey, adjust the rabbit ears while you're up. I can't tell if it's the television or if it's snowing on Bonanza." I don't want to see Joe Biden's hair plugs.
         I look at my watch......it should be another 30 minutes! I'd rather wait for Godot! I don't know if I can handle it. It's cold outside so I can't take a walk. I'd settle for a rerun of That 70s Show or even Jerry Springer! I could go out to the showroom and buy a new car. Let's see.....30 minutes in a waiting room....or $30,000...30 minutes...or $30,000....tough decision...
The door opens...
"Special Dog? Special Dog?"
I jump out of my seat "Here....here!"
 "Your car is done....everything's O..."
"That's great....give me the keys....thanks.....bye."

Cell Block C

        Generally, waiting rooms are nothing more than torture chambers with a Bunn coffee machine. I have never in 67 years been in a waiting room where I didn't leave thankful that the cell door was opened and someone said "get out before I change my mind!" It doesn't matter what kind of waiting room. Hospitals are the worst....a doctor comes out and says...."It could go either way." Automobile garages are second worst....."yep, the transmission is bad alright." Employment offices come after that..."sixty-seven years old...is this correct sir?" They're all bad....well there's probably one out there where a man would come out and say..."you are correct sir, this is a winning lotto ticket, your million dollars will be in the mail" but all the others came from the original blueprint of the Marquis de Sade.
         So today I'm in yet another waiting room. I'm not going to mention what I was there for so as to protect the innocent, and I'll also change a name and a few other minor details. I'm going to be here for about an hour so I walk outside the office to say hello to a man, I'll call him Joe, that I had previous dealings with. He's a great guy and I just wanted to take the opportunity to say hi. I do so and return to the naked chair in my cell that is next to the Bunn coffee machine.
        The television is on....as it always is....is there some kind of law that waiting rooms have to have televisions? My Apple watch begins sounding an alarm....beep beep beep "attention! your blood pressure is high...attention....your blood pressure it high!" I take it off and put it my pocket. What's playing?....a classic movie....nooo....Leave It To Beaver....nooo....A Gaither Family Reunion....yeah that'll never happen. The Price Is Right is on......The Price Is Right is always on in these waiting rooms!
         That voice that gives me nightmares shouts...."Suzie  somebody or other...come on down!" The camera scans the crowd of hundreds of Americans that reminds me of a Barnum & Bailey poster. Where's Suzie? Here she comes dressed as....I don't know what it is....it looks like that fluffy thing that my wife keeps on the kitchen sink to wash the plates off with. It's bright blue and her face scares me.   Did they let her drive here....are her friends watching over her from the back so that she doesn't pass out or hit her head on a lighting boom while jumping up and down?
        How do I get serious in this post? Actually it's not hard. I have tried in the past to make humor out of these waiting room incarcerations but there is real sadness in my heart. How did we come to this point where our citizens watch this nonsense....many watch every day.... and some get depressed if they miss it. What makes someone actually subject themselves to this absurd juvenile grand waste of precious time? Our nation crumbles before our eyes and this is how we entertain ourselves during the collapse!
       I try my best to block out the banter from the host and the contestant, and Joe comes into the room to get a cup of coffee from the Bunn coffee maker. "Hello again Special Dog" he says, and then glances over to the television. Is he going to feel my pain and empathize? Or is he just going to shake his head, pour his coffee...say good-bye and leave? No, He looks at me and tells me that he went to that show last fall. My lungs barely operate. What did he mean, is there a one-way mirrored room on the set for doctors to observe the contestants? "I was a contestant...I was up on the stage." I'm sure that my eyes glazed over as he continued. "I won a car!"
       Why do these things happen to me? What do I do? There are other people in my cell. Do I stand up for truth, life and the American Way and say..."batten down the hatches man...this ship is going down!"? I thought briefly of saying...."No comprendo...sprechen sie something else?" I like this gentleman. I summoned up all the courage that I have....which apparently isn't much...thought again about our once God-fearing nation that is sinking beneath the billowing waves in this tempest...sent directions first to the right side of my mouth and then to the left to form a smile and said..."Hey that's great! I'm glad that you won such a big prize!" And I was glad for him...for he's a nice man.... and he may need an extra tank of gas in the days ahead.

"Don't Cha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me"

         It is my habit when I go into a restaurant that has a juke box, that I immediately look for the Pussycat Girls and their song Don't Cha. Yeah that's my kind of music....."Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me....Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" I don't play it but I look for it.
         OK....here's the story. Apparently the Pussycat Girls were a popular American all girl music group at the beginning of this marvelous millennium. Wikipedia says that they were the 80th "most successful musical act of the 2000s," and that it sold 54 million records.
         My son knows me all too well. We were beach boardwalk people as he was growing up. There's nothing I like better than walking a crowded boardwalk on a hot summer day and stopping in the stores to look at hermit crabs and "I'm with stupid" t-shirts. Now if there was a pair of glasses with wild eyes that juggle from side to side then I'd buy them and wear them for at least one length of the boardwalk.....while wearing a fake wig with a long ponytail provides the opportunity for a small but intellectual sociological study on diversity.....and if something has blinking lights! Over the years our son would just roll his eyes. I've been known to sit down behind a player piano in a fancy hotel and pretend to be playing Bach or Mozart or whatever the keys are tapping out.
          Ok again...it was probably 2006 or thereabouts and my wife and I were on vacation in Hilton Head....her favorite vacation place.....not mine because there's no boardwalk. We walked into a very nice retro-type restaurant on the main avenue....there's no 'main drags' in Hilton Head.....only 'main avenues." The crowd is older and very proper as is everyone on this beautiful island vacation spot. We sit down....order....and I pull out some coins for the juke box. Aah....Andy Williams....I love Andy Williams. I push the buttons and the machine plays....very loudly by the way....Don't Cha..."I know you like me...I know you do...I know you do!"
         I look around and....are people staring at me? The song thankfully ends but I'm not going to let these people think that this is my music.....not without my son here anyway. A few more coins and this time I pick Dean Martin....yeah that'll do it. I can hear the linkage working in the juke box and Don't Cha comes on again! I look around again....people are indeed staring at me. I look at my watch. I look up at the ceiling to see if there is a camera anywhere. Maybe we're on Candid Camera?
        OK again....I'm not that smart....I ask my wife for more coins and try again....this time Bobby Vinton.....Roses Are Red probably.....yeah....its Don't Cha again..."Cause if it ain't love it just ain't enough to leave my happy home."  Now if our son was with us I would have put another coin in the juke box. So if we make it to a boardwalk again and my son is there...I'm looking for a t-shirt of that group.....I may even order it before we go to surprise him. He's a lawyer today....and I'm 68 years old....yeah this'll go over big! "

What Famous White House?

         I think that it says something about my opinion on the current state of talk radio when as I sit here with David Webb on Sirius/XM 125 and Laura Ingraham's show on the Internet, that I'm at the computer typing a post on North Korea while listening to Phlash Phelps on XM's 60s channel. Here is a conversation I just listened to....as best  as I can recall the words.... and laughed out loud at:

Caller...........Hello Brucie.....this is so-and-so from Tionesta, Pennsylvania.
Phlash..........Oh Tionestsa.....home of the famous lighthouse?
Caller...........What white house....we got a lot of white houses in Tionesta?
Phlash.......... No....the famous lighthouse.
Caller...........What famous white house?
Phlash..........You've got a famous lighthouse in Tionesta.
Caller...........I've been here a long time Brucie and I don't know what white house you're talking about.
Phlash..........The Sherman Memorial Lighthouse.
Caller...........Oh that Lighthouse!"
Phlash..........And why did you call me Brucie?
Caller...........That's who I'm talking to.....Cousin Brucie.....isn't it?

        At least I learned something. I gotta get back to nuclear war. I'll slide this over to my humor posts in a little bit.