Von Braun a Magician

 Von Braun Was Also . . .

a Magician!

           

 Historians have finally found the key to the enigmatic photograph above depicting Wernher Von Braun’s capture/surrender[1]—it’s hard to say which—taken when he fled from the Russians and raced toward the advancing Americans to give himself up before the end of World War II and before he could be shot by the Gestapo for cowardice, desertion, funny arm, a totally camp hairdo, crappy missile production methods, and theft of a military vehicle driven with one arm while saluting.

For decades war buffs have been dumbfounded by the question of why the squad of GIs in the above photograph could so charmed and amused by a high-ranking Nazi SS prisoner disguised in civilian clothes at the end of a global conflagration that destroyed a conservatively estimated fifty million people, all to please a strutting buffoon. In fact the contrasting photo to the right shows an American GI of the very squad that captured Von Braun in a different and likely more common mood while guarding captured Nazi officers in uniform. Men like the GI in this picture had just had an engaging tour of a couple of concentration camps. Well, we now have the key to the conundrum of the funny first picture:  A magic coin trick!

Investigative reporters for Rocket City Blues have tracked down Corporal Eddie Pilzer, probably shown second from the right in the top photograph, now still hearty in his 92^nd year and living Las Vegas, Nevada. Pilzer reports that immediately upon capture Von Braun began asking the squad of GIs for a deck of playing cards so he could show them some tricks.  When the corporal flatly refused—“Go fuck yourself,” the Yank somewhat bluntly remarked-- the Nazi major never stopped smiling. From the moment he appeared riding in the stolen car he was smiling and he smiled right through Pilzer’s recommendation that he perform an act that the cast would make somewhat more awkward than it would usually be. And without a blink or a frown, Von Braun boldly claimed to be an itinerant magician, produced a shiny coin, and performed a magic trick.  He flipped the coin between his fingers so quickly and smoothly that no one in Pilzer’s squad could tell which side of the coin was up!  

“The guys were kind of dazzled,” recalls Pilzer. “No sleep in three days, lots of dead, lots of friends shot up, the stinking camps, no food, and here was this weird Kraut with his big hair and his smile and his arm get-up, and before we know what’s happened, it’s like a party, right on the spot. Gave us some gum and a cigarette to share. Usually we had the gum and the cigarettes. Usually toward the end they had shit.”

Pilzer was uneasy, he recalls, and “the party just stopped for a bit when this squad of British SOE military intelligence agents arrived, took stock of the situation and decided to pour gasoline on the captured major and set him on fire. I didn’t say anything,” recalls Pilzer, “but the rest of my squad objected that their captive was a magician.” Taking that claim with a bit of impatience, “those Brits drove off pissed, some of them laughing at us, and shouting ‘Yer mums weren’t in London! Get stuffed Yanks yah fooking poofs!’”  Finally, Pilzer remembers, Von Braun “made the party go again in a snap” and told the GI squad he had “still more tricks than they could imagine.”  

Magic Roman Coin

Certainly Von Braun was as right about this as about so many other things to come.  In fact, his coin trick charmed no less than an entire city in Alabama, the American military Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even US presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, although the latter was known to spit out his chew, as they say, after meetings with the amazing rocketeer.  Admittedly the coin trick failed to catch the fancy of Elie Wiesel or the investigators for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, who were, to be sure, distracted in the latter 1940s by what they then thought were somewhat bigger tricks.

Our favorite immigrant, scientific smarty, Father of the ICBM, prophet of stuff to come including some big ticket items, and now . . . a magician. How many different ways will this man dazzle us?

"History is not memory." -- Michel Foucault           

---

[1] Von Braun was himself somewhat unclear in his account of what he was doing in civilian clothes (a capital crime) and a stolen German truck. Some years into his life in Alabama, he referred to his action as Die Verwandlung, or, in English, “the metamorphosis.” However, perhaps because he wished to avoid any implied parallel with Franz Kafka’s story Die Verwandlung, in which the protagonist reports his transformation from a man into a cockroach, the rocketeer later referred to the episode as "Die Ubertragung” a somewhat less loaded term for “transfer”, as in a bus ticket that enables one to go from one place to another or to any place he pleases without paying the price.

Governor Bentley Defends Womanhood!

Governor Bentley Defends Womanhood!

Governor Robert Bentley, seen here with his curiously preoccupied wife Syntyche, has announced the formation of the Alabama Commission for the Defense of Womanhood and Christian Family Values, delivering as their first assignment the abolition of what he described in a press release as “the so-called c _ _ _ _ _ _ s, a lie, a damnable lie, and so long as I have breath it will no longer exist in Alabama.”

On the day of his Inauguration as Governor, Bentley, an ordained Babdist minister, famously delivered a sermon in which he said that those who have not accepted his Jesus as their personal savior “are not my brothers and sisters.” At first it was thought that the Governor was simply making a distinction between his actual or putative brothers and sisters and most everybody else. But the Governor tried to correct this impression the next day when he said a bit grumpily that he intended “to be everybody’s governor” but “not everybody’s brother,” to the relief of quite a few Alabamians.

The elimination of the clitoris from Alabama may be a tough field to plow, since there are a lot of them around, quietly going about what clitorises do, although now some of them may be startled to learn they soon will not exist. But the banning of the clitoris in Alabama will be feasible, the Governor hopes, if it is done by stages. First, “l“- “i”- “t” –“o”-“r”- and-“i” will be eliminated, just leaving “c” at the bow, so to speak, and “s” at the stern. Then the boat will simply sink, and along with it the little man.

The Governor’s project has caused a buzz among national political leaders, and Carl Rove has expressed his interest, although he has advised caution, since he says the clitoris is—or rather has been—less well known in Alabama than anywhere else in the nation except in his own state of Texas or maybe in the city of Colorado Springs, and so it would be easy to get rid of it here in Alabama but not in, say, California, where it was discovered in 1964.  

In any case, the disappearing of the clitoris in Alabama may become a hot button issue in this election year, and if as seems certain it rings the bell among the Republican base, three or four independents from, say, North Dakota, may take an interest and rise to the occasion as well.

If “clitoris” becomes “c _ _ _ _ _ _ s” and then “_  _ _ _ _ _ _ “ and finally just silence does that mean it’s gone, totally?

It makes you think.

Hospital Authority Announces New Baggage Policy

Rocket City Hospital Authority

Announces New Baggage Policy

       The Rocket City Hospital Authority has announced that effective September 1 it is putting in place a baggage fee policy for travelers on its now iconic Hospital Shuttle Train shown here traveling to one of its four terminals. Thomas “Tom” Thomas, Authority spokesperson, says that travelers should expect to pay a $25. per bag fee “to bring our customers’ travel plans in line with what they can expect at the airport.”

The Hospital Shuttle has not been without controversy since it was disclosed that the little train had to run back and forth without passengers for one calendar year in order to meet the requirements of the hospital complex’s insurers. “We didn’t want anyone crushed under the wheels or carried crashing down onto Governor’s Drive if the bugger didn’t work,” said Mr. Thomas, adding that such a mishap would be less than optimal at a hospital facility.

The year-long trial without passengers drew some tart remarks from some staff and patients, who for example called the shuttle “The Little Train that Might” or “Mystery Train of the Dead,” but most were at least inclined to find the little vehicle amusing. During the last election cycle, one wag suggested the train should be named the “Dr. Parker Griffith Shuffle,” because “you get on it thinking you are going one way but then it goes the other way and in the end it is just terminal.”

The train, or infelicitously named “people mover,” was produced by the Otis Elevator company, a fact which Mr. Thomas wants to underscore, since patients and visitors to the hospital “should find confidence in Otis and in knowing their shuttle is a kind of elevator that goes sideways.” And it has, he added, provision for “Local” and “Express” speeds, the latter useful for staff in pursuit of patients with unusual reactions to anesthesia or less than desirable lab reports. The train also has a caboose with tastefully consistent colors that is hooked up once a day for the coroner’s run.

Mr. Thomas wished to press upon our readers that the baggage fee system is flexible. “Children’s bags will be free if the children are riding on their parents’ laps, and terminal patients can arrange for next of kin to pick up their bags in a timely way. Bags left at the terminal terminal will be available for repurchase in Scottsboro.”

This is technology. It saves us from being run over at the hospital.

Porterhouse Experiment

ROCKET CITY BLUES

SPACE NEWS!

 “You could do something Joey. You could die.”     
 --Richie to his brother Joey in A History of Violence

Our Rocket City Blues Science Team once again gets the scoop and dumps it right in your lap, fresh from SPACE!

NASA acknowledged today after about a month and a half of dicking around that the Porterhouse Deep Space Mars Expedition has returned to earth from its eleven-year journey. The capsule was rushed to Rocket City’s Marshall Space Flight Center where it was cracked open to the murmurs and then to the uneasy silence of hundreds of engineers in lab coats. You have to wear a lab coat if you are doing this sort of thing, watching scrolling data for like 100 months with just hour-and-a-half piss breaks and some Mr. Coffee and maybe takeout.

Initially NASA spokespersons had little to say about the implications of the mission, which was to see what effects protracted deep-space travel will have on human spacepersons like you and me. After some pressure and even some provocative goading, a reticent Marshall Space Flight Chief Col. David ‘Dutch’ Stewart said,

“The team are at this point somewhat less than elated, in fact they are a little troubled, some of them totally bummed, by the implications of what we found in the capsule vis-a-vis a manned or rather personed expedition to Mars at least maybe for now.”

Following his remarks, Col. Stewart presented a slide show that included a shot of the mission capsule being rocketed into space in 2001, and two ‘before and after’ shots of the capsule payload.

Exhibit A below shows the 1.9 kilogram Porterhouse steak sent speeding toward Mars at the outset of the expedition. Exhibit B on the bottom shows the Porterhouse or what might be the Porterhouse after its eleven-year journey to the Red Planet and back.

Asked about the transformation of the robust Porterhouse into a kind of carbonized shit smudge Col. Stewart said that,

“For now we’re thinking cosmic rays. For a human crewperson we now think a voyage to Mars and back would be the radiation equivalent of maybe standing four blocks from ground zero in Hiroshima on a sort of Lazy Susan and spinning around for roughly, say, five or maybe six hundred consecutive thermonuclear explosions.” Or “for the ladies,” he added, “this trip to Mars will be like passing out in a tanning bed for 17,000 years.”

Sexy long missions like the Porterhouse Deep Space Mars Expedition always end with a touch of dismay. A couple of guys drop dead at the consoles, the monkey comes back a total asshole, a crewperson or two they move to Taos and start taking hallucinogens, another one she grows a beard.

This mission is no different.

Col. Stewart ended his remarks on a personal note:

“The cosmic rays. We were thinking last year maybe one of those lead aprons they put over your nuts when you get your chest x-rayed. But fuck it I’m not going. Are you going? I’m not going. We could probably scratch up some psycho around here to go but I’m not going. Not a chance.”

This is outer space. It is very very big but a great deal less than almost everything.

House Repubs to Abolish Death Benefit

DC Doodling

House Republicans Vote to Abolish

Social Security Death and Burial Benefit

In a vote deemed “largely symbolic” like virtually every House vote since 2008 and neither more nor less imbecilic than the rest of them, House Republicans have unanimously voted to eliminate the $255 Death and Burial Benefit established in 1936. The action was spurred by Rep. Darell Issa (R Ca), a former car thief and Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who only last week became aware of the benefit when his wife died.

The move was hailed as “revolutionary” and “forward looking” by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R Va) who had done his math. “This decision will save each American taxpayer up to $11.43 over the next eighty four years, reduce the deficit, and stimulate small businesses. This “so called ‘death tip’ paid for by hardworking men and women is actually a free ‘life tip’ for the dead people “without regard for quality of the service”, he added.

The American Association of Funeral Parlor Operators was somewhat dismayed but, doing the K street shuffle, characterized the House vote as “monumental”. Their spokesman has said,

“We have long been supporters of Rep. Issa, whose family, like ours, has been dedicated to repositionings for modest profit, in his case not of the dead or the apparently dead, but of misplaced cars. We also support Rep. Cantor, although with that name he is probably a Jew. We’ve had some problems with the Jews, we get squeezed with the quick burials, 24 hours, what’s the big hurry.”

Rocket City Blues has not had quite enough time to respond thoughtfully to this modification of Your Social Security Benefits, which will be announced through a mailing titled “A Modification of Your Social Security Benefits” in one of those envelopes where you fold over and tear one strip off on your left, then one on your right, then maybe the top or the bottom, you’re not sure, so you put your finger in the bottom, something rips, your mailing is fucked, you toss it. I know you do. And then you get it back out of the trash because it could be a check for one of those group action law suits about exploding cars or for some piece of crap that broke and they are hoping that with the odd envelope you will just throw the check out. But no.

Try to stay positive. Soon you won’t have to deal with these envelopes. Your kids, no way.

The Social Security Death and Burial Benefit was put in place in 1936 when for no evident reason sharply increasing numbers of dead people appeared abandoned along the roads, dumped behind gas stations, or tossed in rivers, especially in the South and also in the Midwest but a little less there because the rivers were dried out. There is not much sense in dropping off somebody in a river who has died if there is no water to wash that person away or cover them.

Watch in these pages for a follow-up featurelette,

What To Do When You Are Dead:

Money Saving Tips for the New America.

This is history. This is how almost everything works.

Your Job Is Your Joke

The Rocket City Comedy Corner

Your Job IS Your Joke

      

Close but no cigar! Sigmund Freud, who famously connected jokes with salacious thoughts in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, got it somewhat wrong. Because if you think about it, jokes have much more to do with your job description than with things you may be thinking but maybe not. Who knows.  Anyway, we at Rocket City Blues don’t have this “unconscious,” no way.  We think

your job is your joke and your joke is your job.

For example, a neurosurgeon might say,

So this patient comes in with a brain tumor the size and consistency of a squash casserole. “Doctor doctor, she says, I need a  brain transplant or I will die!” You say, “Calm down. Step over here to my replacement brain display case. On the top shelves,” you tell her, “we have plenty of expensive brains, those are men’s brains. Down on the bottom shelf, those are women’s brains, they’re cheaper.”

“I’m shocked,” says this woman, very angry. “Why do the men’s brains get top price, and the women’s brains go cheap?”

“Calm down,” says the doc. “No offense,” he says. “This is easy. The women’s brains are used.”

By contrast, a nurse in cardiac surgery might say,

So, an hour and a half late and wearing tassel loafers and plaid golf shorts, in walks Doctor Dickhead. The first nurse he verbally abuses. The second he gropes. The third . . .

Well, you see where this is going.

Engineers, they generally go for knock knock jokes:

“Knock knock” says the engineering student.

“Whose (sic) there?”

“I Dare You.”

“I Dare You who?”

“I Dare You to make me take English.

Police persons generally go for jokes about violence and horror, which they live with every day and for which they are paid not enough:

So this guy is parked along I-65, he’s gut shot with 357 Magnum, and he has his license and his registration but you guessed it no proof of insurance.

Your soldier might say,

So this Haji, maybe he’s eight, nine, whatever, comes up pushing his bicycle and there is no chain on this bicycle and the rear tire is flat. He has a package, a basket. Charlie squad’s point man says “waste him”. But a cat jumps out of the basket. The boy drops the bike. He chases his cat. No joke. I’m too young for this shit. I’ve always been too young for this shit.

Your Rocket City space buff might say,

So Wernher von Braun, mum on the slave-labor rocket factory with hanged workers dangling from cranes and death rates higher than Auschwitz and mum also on the unmanned flying terrorism project, Wernher makes a mental note to freshen up his resume and then he says to the squad of GIs who have captured him,

“Hey, you got a job for me?”

This is comedy. This is what makes life sometimes almost bearable.

Rocket City Signage Mystery

Rocket City Signage Mystery

The appearance of the sign above in several yards, alongside a detour service road in the North Parkway Improvement Project, and—quite a few of them—in a ditch near the quarry has caused some confusion at Rocket City Blues.  As Bugs Bunny would say,  “What’s up?”

Either “Loretta Spencer Huntsville’s Mayor” has been cutting work way past the ‘personal day’ quota or she has been—to use a euphemism that had a little currency maybe ten years ago—‘working at home.’ Then again, it’s just possible “Loretta Spencer Huntsville’s Mayor” has tried to get into the Office of Mayor Tommy Battle one too many times and has been thrown out onto Fountain Circle by the staff. I think this would have been after warnings.  Tommy Battle Huntsville’s Mayor is, after all, a gentleman. Next time somebody should call the police.

Although it’s perfectly clear that ‘Impersonating a Clergyman’ is not a criminal offense in Rocket City or, for that matter, in any of the Gulf States, plus Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, part of West Virginia,  and probably all of Utah, Impersonating a Mayor might just be a crime. In any case, we need to work this out.

Some people have seen the signs “Loretta Spencer Huntsville’s Mayor” when driving, and, being perplexed and distracted, they have collided with pets, children and roadside trees. It’s worse than texting. At least when you are texting you know what you are intending to do. But with the “Loretta Spencer Huntsville’s Mayor” signs, you are just totally caught up in a what-the-fuck moment.  And then:

BAM!

There go your insurance rates. Call the lizard.

Kiss a Physicist Delayed

Notice: “Kiss a Physicist Today” Rescheduled

            The celebratory “Kiss a Physicist Today” scheduled by Rocket City Blues for Saturday, July 8 has been deferred. The day seems to have passed unnoticed, and, due to a somewhat tepid response and a bit of confusion, the event will be rescheduled as

Kiss a Physicist If You Want

Maybe Around 4:30 on a Friday Sometime

Next Month

Watch for confirmation and guidance in these pages. We don’t want any conflict with

Hang a Banker Day

 which is a matter of somewhat more pressing urgency and is coming up real soon. Besides, we are getting complaints along the lines that Rocket City Blues should “get off this physics, I didn’t take it” and “more fizz and less physics, more fizz and less physics” and so on.  

Higgs Boson and the Standard Model

Physics Update: Higgs Boson and 1970s Standard Model Getting It On

            The science staff at Rocket City Blues tell us they are delighted to report that the Higgs Boson particle, recently outed as a dude, is dating the 1970s Standard Model shown above. But as for me, I’m not so keen on this development.

For a time, high energy particle physicists were concerned that the Higgs Boson might not show up, leaving The Standard Model a little unsure of herself, although why, I can’t tell you. But everybody--at Fermilab, CERN, the UARocket City ED Non-Collider, all the places--has sighed with relief that the couple have hooked up.

For those who were born, say, after 1985, and who therefore don’t recognize the Standard Model, Wikipedia will as always straighten us out. We quote verbatim:

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, which mediate the dynamics of the known subatomic particles. Developed throughout the mid to late 20th century, The Standard Model is truly “a tapestry woven by many hands” because it was cobbled together by many brilliant minds, sometimes driven forward by new experimental discoveries, sometimes by theoretical advances. It was a collaborative effort in the largest sense, spanning continents and decades^[1]. The current formulation was finalized in the mid 1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, discoveries of the bottom quark (1977), the top quark (1995), and the tau neutrino (2000) have given further credence to the Standard Model. Because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results, the Standard Model is sometimes regarded as a "theory of almost everything".

To this remarkably sweaty piece of prose, we at Rocket City Blues say, What is this? The Big Bang of Metaphor? The Wikipedia guy says The Standard Model is “a tapestry” made “by hands” and then that it’s  “cobbled together “by . . .  minds”, many of them, only to be “driven forward” sometimes by “advances”?  And then they sent her out to do some  “spanning [of] continents and decades”? She must be about 17 and maybe 115 pounds in this shot. And she’s certainly not dressed for travel.

Physicists should date a little earlier than in their 40s. Maybe start in high school. That would help.

You never tell a girl she is a theory. Tapestry maybe, you might get away with that if the mood is right, but you do theory, you’re history.

Rocket City Blues sympathizes with these many brilliant minds working up a sweat and offering more credence to the Standard Model. But for me she has all my credence right away. And then some. So let’s cut the crap about “the top quarks” and the “lower quark.” This is not science. This is self-evident. And you never tell a girl that she is “finalized”, even if your grant is running out.  And you never tell her she is “almost everything”. She is totally everything to me and she always will be. That’s what you say.

I would quit collaborating with those many other guys.  I’d get out of the lab, pronto.

To hell with the Boson. Let him go back where he came from. And the same for Higgs the meddling old fart who introduced them in the first place.

What was I doing in the 70s, reading?

It is too late. It is always too late.

This is physics. This is why everything finally is sad.

WeAculpa

WeAculpa: Corrections and Apologies

            Rocket City Blues has been hit with surprisingly heated, even enraged, and possibly threatening requests for apologies, corrections, and retractions following July 11’s post, The House of Representatives To Do Self-Examination. It’s no excuse but maybe an explanation to say that two of our staff are adjusting their meds, which might account for some problems of punctuation, spelling, misquoting, and managing tone. But more important, we think that

some of you people need to calm down. Just calm down, would you?

CALM.THE.FUCK.DOWN!

O.K. now. We are doing our best. And everything is not our fault.  We will take this pile of stuff one by one. Just please stay calm.

(1) The staff of Rep. Spender Bowcuss writes that the speech we referred to in our last post was not in fact about federal subsidies for kudzu but rather for okra. We apologize. Also, the congressman’s staff point out that it is “not very nice to make fun of peoples (sic) names since they din’t (sic) have no (sic) choice in the matter when they were just bornt “(sic). We agree. Rep. Buttkiss is probably a very nice man, and, as we know, there is always a little Baccus in each of us, though not so much Spenser unless you are an English major. Lots of people in our region, especially politicians, are named for the eminent writers and literary characters of the past. There’s Homer Barron. There’s Artur (sic) Davis. There’s Byron Scrugg. And Shakespeare Shitstake, of the famous Opalika Shitstakes. Respect.

(2) The staff of Sen. Dick Shelby seemed to be irked about a point of feasibility, claiming that “a snorkel can’t be used that way.” We disagree.

(3) One reader up in Tony, Alabama and seventeen in Cullman claim that the illustrative image at the fore of the feature proves that we are “big city Leftists because the funger (sic) is pointing to the Left.” Well, in respect to the finger, we had something else in mind.

Several complaints addressed the “DISCLAIMERS” section of the feature, to which we may say that sequence is almost entirely corporate boilerplate for which we bear no responsibility whatsoever. To be sure, there might be something objectionable in the line, “Maybe your health care provider is a dick,” so we’ll address that and another thing that is not our fault.

(1)         The line at hand or rather, more specifically, the term in hand could be in some sense read as sexist, since your doctor could be a girl doctor. In fact, my doctor is a girl doctor, and she is terrific, a saint. And probably the vast majority of primary care health providers are women, since the boy doctors are all going for the big bucks in heart surgery and oncology where the dying people are old and have some money. Probably too most of us would not be calling a girl health care provider or for that matter any female professional a dick. Maybe Ayn Rand, or Margaret Thatcher, or Leni Riefenstahl, but mostly no.

Well, back to the point. After a little reflection our readers may be sympathetic with our editorial practice as regards the somewhat bad word at hand. In our opinion, the “bad” in the semi bad word is contextual. After all, Dick Clark? No problem. Dick and Jane? Everybody there is terrific, and Puff too. Dick Cavett? Smart though maybe Smartypants. Spotted Dick, the canned English comfort food? Pretty funny, but they are British and they like it.  Moby Dick? A very big, big one.  And finally we come to Dick Cheney.  Certainly not as big as Moby Dick. In fact, kind of withered and crooked.  After he flunked out of Yale in his first semester and putzed around in Wyoming for a while, Dick Cheney slipped into Washington and served another Dick, Dick Nixon, famous for saying right on TV “I am not a Dick.”  Having learned the practice in the highest places, so to speak, Dick Cheney went on again, this time to slip into the Halliburton company, famously engaged in global dickery, including a certain fail-safe device on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

But to return to my point again, if some of our readers want us to be entirely non-sexist in our remark about your health care provider possibly being a dick, we would have to use for balance with “a dick” the other word, the bad word. Which is perplexing, in a way, since referring to someone as a “dick” will generally not get you thrown out or even mildly disliked. In fact, people will usually think it’s funny. But the other word is bad. Now, in Britain, especially in Scotland, if you are in a pub and there are a bunch of guys getting hammered after a soccer game, you will be sure to hear at least one of them call another that bad word. But they don’t always seem contemptuous or mean when they use the bad word, and if they are not already good-naturedly punching the daylights out of each other, they seem to like being called that. The bad word. We at Rocket City Blues are uneasy with the bad word, but we have nothing at all against its signified. In fact Mother Nature made us very happy with that, the signified and the referent and the whatever. It’s all good. Think about it. We do a lot. However, we’re not using the word. No way.

(2)         Finally, as also regards the Disclaimers section of the last post, several readers complain that if you are dead, you cannot telephone a law firm, and that is true.

This is language. This is how everything works.

US House to Do Exams

US House of Representatives to Do

 Self-Examination

            The US House of Representatives—for our European readers, formerly an organ of governance but of late  performance art for rednecks, simpletons and venial bastards of every variety imaginable—has voted with a modest majority to perform medical examinations upon each other. House Ethics Committee Chairman Daryl Issa (R CA), a former car thief, announced today that on the coming August 1 “We’ll just pair up on the House floor and perform prostate exams on each other. This will prove that Obama’s Big Government takeover of doctoring is  socialist and too expensive. Americans just want to take care of themselves.”

            Rocket City Blues has learned, through its contacts in DC, that what Paul Ryan (R Wi), 15-year-old prodigy and chairman of the House Budget Committee, has tagged the “you do me, I do you” program in fact erupted somewhat spontaneously in the House several months ago but was deferred when more than adequate supplies of lubricant were mustered but only a few pairs of sketchy looking latex gloves. Dismayed but never discouraged, Rocket City’s own Rep. Mo Brooks (R Al), gamely stepped forward to say, “We don’t need gloves. I’ve done it. Saves even more”, but the remark elicited only scattered applause.

            In fact, some in the House were vocal in their opposition to the performance of mutual prostate examinations, perhaps in part because the House activities are all televised, even when somebody like Rep. Spencer Bachus (R Al, and seriously, that is his name) is holding forth in support of kudzu subsidies at 1.15 am to  nobody but an audio tech who has fallen asleep. Democrats in particular were heard to complain that they have been “bending over too much already,” which may possibly have been intended as a joke, and even a few Republicans objected, pointing out that “everybody in Congress gets really good coverage, even dental.”

            There are always spoilsports, even in Congress, and Senator Al Franken (D Mn), rudely stated that advice on technique “might be had in the Senate. Dick Shelby (R Al) has had his head up the ass of the insurance and bank  lobby so long he wears a snorkel.” Order was only partly restored by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who pointed out that “there are ladies present,” a remark that caused a measure of confusion.

Disclaimers. Prostate cancer is a medical problem that should be taken seriously. Self examination or mutual examination is not recommended. See your doctor. The actions described here performed by professional drivers on a closed circuit. Do not try at home or without adult supervision. May cause certain side effects. Unplug all appliances before taking this medication. Consult your doctor if you have any of the following symptoms. Do not drive or operate heavy machinery if you get hammered on this medication. Not approved for use by children or nursing mothers. Do not attempt if you are pregnant, HIV positive, or have an immune deficiency disorder. Not for resale. If prosthesis cracks, shatters, or impales you in the groin, seek immediate medical assistance at the nearest VA hospital, although not the ones that are closed. The other one. Dispose of unused capsules safely by wrapping them in a sealed plastic container and mailing them to your daughter who cannot afford them. Your health care professional may just be the only person who cares about you at all, but they know that you know that they know you are shit out of luck. May cause impotence and protracted weeping. Wash hands after use. If you or anyone in your family took this medication and are dead, call Boswick, Burns, and Bell LLP. Be sure to tell your partner. Discontinue use if suicidal thoughts persist. If suicidal thoughts persist, shoot yourself. No claim of superior legal services intended. Move to Canada. Not to be taken with other NCAIDS. If your head begins to explode, place an index finger in each ear and scream loudly. Help should come, although  next week. Remember: Only you can prevent forest fires. See your doctor if drooling worsens or you trip over your uterus. May cause projectile vomiting, wheezing, or sudden death. Make sure this is not anywhere in the record. In the event that you experience an erection lasting more than four hours, call Bristol Palin. Excluded coverage if injury results from act of God. If rash appears or breathing stops, consult your health care professional. You did what? It’s where? In the event of soreness, inflammation, funny walk, or pain level nine on a scale of one to ten, seek your orthopedic surgeon at gated community but you are not getting through the gate no way. May be addictive. May cause certain sexual side-effects, including hair tongue, extra nipples, and chemical castration. The Social Security Administration wishes to inform you that funeral and burial insurance coverage is $250. Since1936. Your health care professional may be a dick. Coverage limited or suspended if by acts of Congress. See your financial advisor soon. Brownsboro establishes 911 service. Sold only for the prevention of venereal disease but not so good for some of the new ones. See your doctor if you are dead or lightheadedness returns. 911 service by subscription only. Consult with your insurance company about extended coverage packages. Certain previous medical conditions may not be covered. Please use your keypad to enter your group number. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals not responsible for misuse, overuse, underuse, or use. Always wear a condom. Sorry. The identification numbers you have entered are in error. Ambulance or hearse fees not covered. Not intended to prevent pregnancy. See your family doctor, or, if your family doctor is working night shifts at the Emergency Room or at Starbucks, see your cousin who was a nurse or your uncle who was a medic in Korea and is not dead yet. Sorry, what was that response? . . . Sorry, what was that response? . . . Sorry, what was that response?

Sorry.

Von Braun Civic Center a Rocket!

For Sure. The Von Braun Civic Center is a Rocket

An Honors History student at the U of  Rocket City has uncovered a treasure until now hidden in the archives of Huntsville’s history, a trove of design sketches for the soon-to-be constructed Von Braun Civic Center. The file, once in the possession of the now defunct architectural firm Smyth, Tuckett, and Hairdryer, LLP, has in it the image reproduced above, which, astoundingly, proves that the Von Braun Civic center was intended all along to be a rocket. 

The student, checking out his find at the Army Missile Command, was initially told by Col. Quentin ‘Quickfire’ Johnson, “No way. It’s too fat. Too short.” But when our student pointed out the Civic Center cum Rocket is in fact “no fatter or shorter” than the missile represented in Rocket City’s former logo, Johnson hesitated. “Maybe, maybe not.”

            The Civic Center, beloved venue for dozens of gun swaps, childrens’ beauty pagents, and sales events for bass boats and obsolete computer parts, has long been thought to have unused capacities inherent in its design. “Where am I,” people were often heard to say. “Where’s the fucking restrooms?”

            Given the implications of the design sketch, the Civic Center’s board of directors have ordered that the facility will be shut down from July 13 through July 16 to check to see if there might be a warhead in the dome. That matter being settled, the ice in the main hall will be melted and the usual 461 tons of dirt will be brought in to prepare for this years’ Tractor Pull and Motocross Race scheduled for July 18.  The band Alabama will provide the music during the Pulls and Races.

            We are thrilled to know it’s just possible that a great many of us in Rocket City will soon do more than reach for the stars. We’ll be going up there. Or at least in that general direction.

Rocket City Airport Receives Award

Rocket City International Airport Receives Award

            The Association for Securing Tariff -Free Zones for Weapons Sales announces that Rocket City International Airport has received its First Prize Award for Most Lethal Ambience in a Public Space.

            The ASTFZWS’s award is granted to “the public space that consistently and colorfully presents commercial images directly or indirectly suggestive of the most mayhem, violence, and lethality that can be imagined per square yard.” The awards committee stipulates that the devices and instruments imaged should be “presented in such a way as to imply that they are (a) in some sense associated with the viewer whether in fact they know that or not, (b) that they are incapable of failure or misuse, (c) and that they are easily sold to just about anyone anywhere without tax or tariff or public review. “

            At the awards ceremony on K Street in Washington, D.C., General Samuel ‘Boomer’ Turgidson, USAF Ret and Chief Consultant for the ASTFZW, remarked the intense competition for the award, noting that a certain soccer field in Afghanistan, a disused warehouse in Belarus (part of the former Soviet Union), a two-block area in front of the Wailing Wall in Israel, and an international airport in Yemen had been very close contenders for the award. But General Turgidson, recalling to the amusement of all present the “Iran-Contra matter” as what won the distinction of “International” for “Rocket City Airport,” went on to explain that the mega-TV playing Fox News 24/7 for every waiting flier, the montage of Nazi weapons engineers, and the almost total absence of non-violent imagery-- except for a spaceman hanging by a cable over the restrooms and two pictures of golf courses -- were the decisive factors that brought the prize to Rocket City.  “Walk in and you’ll think you’d already made your flight and maybe something has happened and you’re at an airport in Syria or Saudi Arabia. Walk out and maybe you’ll think, “No way I’m ever going back in there. No way,’” he quipped.

            Never without accolades, Rocket City is internationally known as a recession-proof haven for economic vitality. Among recent awards the city has received is the prize for the North Parkway Improvement Plan, hailed as the Most Protracted Infrastructure Project in North America since the Erie Canal, the Engineering Watch Award won not in fact by engineers, who have better things to do in Rocket City, but by two city policemen who noticed that the newly completed Rocket City jail was about to pitch over and fall into the creek bed on which it was built, and the Murdoch Prize for the metropolitan area with population over 300,000 slowest to notice it no longer has a daily newspaper.