Monday, April 29, 2013

20 Signs Your Relationship Isn't Working Out

1) She reminds you of Amy Fisher without the gun.
 
2) You rent a porno for your bachelor party and she's the star.
 
3) When she goes to a restaurant, she doesn't leave the waiter a tip, she leaves him her phone number.
 
4) She keeps telling you, "I like my men like I like my coffee," and you're not African-American.
 
5) When you quote Will Rogers' "I never met a man I didn't like" to her, she goes, "I know exactly what you mean."
 
6) Your name is Mitch, and she tells you her new nickname for you is Chuck.
 
7) Whenever she goes to the bathroom, she doesn't come back for hours...
 
8) ...and she's wearing a different dress.
 
9) She french-kisses your dad.
 
10) She french-kisses your mom!
 
11) Your grandfather has her on speed-dial.
 
12) So does your grandmother!
 
13) The circus comes to town. Just to say hello.
 
14) You wonder why Rosie O'Donnell keeps leaving her messages.
 
15) She refers to Charles Manson as "a close, personal friend."
 
16) In one episode of the cartoon Scooby-Doo, SHE'S the Scooby-snack.
 
17) She wins a hot dog eating contest without even entering the contest.
 
18) To her EVERYTHING'S a phallic symbol.
 
19) The cops are always pulling her over for a "breath-alyser" test.
 
20) She keeps sending President Obama pictures of her "State of the Union."
 
 
American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
   

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Dear John (4-25-13)

Hard Core Advice From
Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie


Dear John,
     I need help, and I don't know where to turn. I am divorced and have a 37 year-old son who has never married. He lives on his own, except when he's in trouble. Then he moves back in with me.
     The problem is my son is a liar, and has been ever since he was a teenager. He even lies when telling the truth would be better for him. I punished him every way I knew how when he was growing up, but nothing worked.
     My son has been in trouble with the law, and is now in trouble again. Of course, he tells me he's innocent. I got him out on bond, and offered to get him help, but he refused, so I told him there would be no more money from me, and I no longer want to hear his lies. And then he talked me out of an additional hundred for lunch "and expenses."
     I don't know why he's the way he is. He's extremely good-looking, and women constantly swoon over him. He'll end up using them, and then dumping them. Please tell me what to do. I love my son, and it breaks my heart see him do these bad things.
     --Heartbroken

Dear Heartbroken,
     Sounds to me like your son has a future in politics.

Dear John,
     My father recently moved to an apartment with no storage, and I was left with ten large boxes of memorabilia. Going through these boxes brought many tears of remembrance and new insights into the lives of my parents and grandparents.
     My problem is now what to do with these things. I can scan the pictures and the letters, but what about great-grandma's wedding dress, mother's christening gown, and the dear soft curl of hair from my childhood uncle who taught me the "find-the-candy" game?
     I don't have much storage room, and my children told me that they certainly want "that old junk," yet it doesn't seem right to throw them away.
     What do other people do with treasured items that have no value beyond sentiment?
     --Soft-hearted.

Dear Soft-hearted,
     They throw it out.

Dear John,
     My wife and I are having a disagreement about laundry. When you buy new clothes that are still in the plastic wrapping, should you wash them before you wear them?
     --Curious

Dear Curious,
     Why do you bother me with such nonsense?
 
 
Confidential to Too Many Questions:
When your child asks why it's raining, you can answer, "Because God is crying," and when she asks why God is crying, you can tell her, "It's because of something you did."


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
 
   

Monday, April 22, 2013

The Boston Marathon Murderers

Almost immediately after the second Boston Marathon murderer, 19 year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured, the news media began making excuses for him and setting up his defense.
     "He's only 19."
     "He was influence by his older brother."
     "How would YOU like to live with the name Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?"
     Why all this sympathy for the cold-blooded young killer? I have no idea. An early morning radio co-hostess implored her listening audience to have compassion for him.
     "He's so young," she pleaded.
     Fortunately, the actual host of the program, being a guy, showed a little more common sense.
     "He may be 19," he reminded her, "but he still knows the difference between right and wrong."
     I agree. For all we know, the surviving brother was the mastermind of this terroristic act of cowardice. It's not impossible that Dzhokhar was the puppet master and his 26 year-old brother, Tamerlan, was the puppet. The impossible is always probable, and the probable is always possible. (Man, I'm so smart I even impress myself sometimes.)
     For example, 19 year-old kids in the 60's were given stiff prison sentences for doing nothing more than smoking pot. Prison. For pot!
     Furthermore, I recall once listening to the radio talk show of Michael Reagan, President Reagan's son. It was many years ago, and I don't know why I was listening to him, since I don't like him or the horse he rode in on, but that day I must have had a gun pointed to my head. He was crying crocodile tears about how he was molested by an older man when he was a boy.
     I immediately felt sorry for him. Nobody deserves that. Not even a Reagan. And then he let it slip that he was 17 years-old at the time.
     Say what? At 17, he was a young man, not an innocent boy. Once you get into your upper teens, you're no longer a helpless victim, you're an active  participant.
     So, excuse me, I'll save my compassion for the actual victims of these traitors to America and to their Muslim faith.
     On the amusing side, the sexily cute-as-a-button actress Zooey Deschanel was named as one of the bombing suspects by a 24-hour TV news channel in one of their bottom-of-the-screen scrolls. If she actually was a suspect, I bet it was because law enforcement agents were anxious to conduct a full-body search on her.
     Speaking about the news media, I found the contortions of various news media outlets to avoid referring to the two murderers as Muslims amusing. Every other sentence had a reference to their Chechen ethnicity, but their religion was like Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort, in that no one dared say its name.
     Chechnya was quick to distance itself from the two murderers, as did their uncle. I couldn't blame him.
     He still had to live next-door to his American neighbors.

A Rebuttal by El Paso Times Newspaper Reporter Marty "See You" Schlader

     I've thought about it long, I've thought about it hard, and then I thought about Ron Jeremy, but that's neither here nor there, except in Ron Jeremy's case, where it can be here, but it can also be over there.
     These are hard times we live in. Whether you want to start at the Oklahoma City bombing or at the Columbine High School massacre or something more recent, like Lindsay Lohan's career. We now live in a world where things just don't make sense.
     One thing I do know is we should not rush to judgement. Even Adolph Hitler, the exterminator of six million Jews, enjoyed painting pictures of puppies and kittens and clowns crying.
     What's a few less Jews?
     Thank you.


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
    

Friday, April 19, 2013

A Very Special Milestone

More than my close personal friendship with President Obama--the man who once saved my life in 'Nam. More than my Pulitzer Prize, which I once imagined could make for a good bludgeon for an aggravating ex-wife.* Even more than my seven Olympic Gold Medals and one Nobel Peace Prize** for humor. More than all that is this: My 200th post on my Aw, Nuts! blog site. An achievement, I might add, which coincides with another amazing milestone:
     My TWO MILLIONTH HIT!
     I consider this the greatest accomplishment in my life. A life, I might add, that's been incredibly well-lived. You haven't lived until you've wrestled a bull to the ground on the streets of Pamplona, Spain . Or dodged the bullets of vicious drug lords in the alleys of Juarez, Mexico just for fun. Or caught something that, fortunately, could be cured with a shot of penicillin, in the brothels of Viet Nam with your best friend whose name you can't mention because he's now in a position to sic the IRS on you.
     Somehow, I feel obligated to make this particular posting special in some way. Special for you, and special for me.
     That's why I've decided to use this platform to announce my candidacy for Mayor of El Paso in the coming May elections. I made this decision only recently, after much begging from various local leaders, Mexican drug lords, and the Illuminati, which, for the record, doesn't exist.
     "But I'm not a member of the Masons," I told them.
     "Doesn't matter," they said.
     "I was never in the Skull & Bones," I continued, in the interest of full disclosure.
     "Pish, posh," they assured me, making rude noises with their lips.
     "I once wrote a fictional humor column for the El Paso Times, which was later discredited for being fictitious."
     "The what?"
     To my wife I said, "I've asked God not to do this, but He didn't listen to me."
     "Yeah, well, I've got a headache," my wife said, "so I'm not listening to you either."
     What are my qualifications? you might ask. Well, I don't mean to brag, but, first and foremost, I am not George Bush. There are a lot of things I'm grateful for in life, and not being George Bush is one of them.
     My qualifications are as follows: Isaac Asimov--a close, personal friend of mine who, sadly, died back in... in... well, I can't remember when he died, but I'm sure he's dead, because he's never tried to collect that money I owe him. Anyway...--and myself once had a contest to see who could write the most books, and between the two of us we wrote over 500 books!
     When it comes to political experience, let me remind you that Obama only has 143 days more in the Senate than I do.
     In the 1984 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, I came in a respectable third. I was only 13 electoral votes away from coming in second. Walter Mondale only won one--ONE--state more than I did.
     And, finally, I'm a minority. That should count for something.
     What will be my platform once I'm elected? Easy. First off, instead of giving benefits to the gay community, I'll legalize gay marriage. This will be a boon to the El Paso economy, and I sincerely believe that the gay community has the right to suffer just as much as the straight community.
     Next, about Downtown parking, as mayor I'll have my own reserved parking spot, so it will no longer be a concern of mine.
     And then I'll get rid of the electoral college, because, as I discovered in 1984, it's not really a college at all. It's more of a trade school for the mentally unambitious. I'll install an election by popular vote, because that's what the majority of people seem to want anyway, and if there's one thing I've learned from my life in politics, it's that you've got to kiss the majority's tukis.
     Do I have the authority to do this? Who cares? I'll do it anyway, just like New York's Mayor Bloomberg.
     Locally, I'll institute a new voting system. We'll go back to paper ballots, and in the ballot there will be a little slot to insert the paper currency of your choice. One dollar will equal one vote. Five dollars will equal five votes. Twenty dollars will equal twenty votes. You get the picture. You've heard the saying, "Put your money where your mouth is"? Well, here is where you'll see it in action. And you'll no longer have to try to remember which school you're supposed to cast your vote at, and then when you get there, find out that it was some place else. I'll place all the voting booths in a spot familiar to all El Pasoans: Chico's Tacos.
     I'll reinstate the draft. Let's get rid of those jerk-hole kids*** who wear their jeans hanging below their butts.**** Do you know what reinstating the draft means? It means more young girls for us older guys. Do you know what it means for those dopey kids who wear pajama bottoms for pants in public? It means they'll have a job, a salary, and work experience that companies can ignore. I'll keep half their salary in the special overseas account I have in the same overseas bank Mitt Romney keeps his money in, and their funds will be returned to them once they are honorably discharged from the armed services. That way they won't re-enter the private sector dead broke, like you after ObamaCare. Another military rule I'll implement is that they won't be able to marry for their first four years of their hitch.
     Unless they're gay.
     What will I do for illegal immigrants? I'll bring back the Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy from the Clinton Administration, except I'll call it, Don't Get Caught/Don't Get Deported. I feel a moral obligation to do this, because, after all, who else is going to do my lawn? Will these almost-Americans have the rights and benefits that come with living in the greatest country in the world?
     No.
     My abortion compromise is this: You can abort your unborn fetus, as long as you can do it without murdering the unborn baby snuggling lovingly in your belly.
     On the day I'm sworn in as mayor, I will declare the official language of El Paso to be Swedish. In addition to that, all citizens of El Paso will be required to change their underwear every half hour, and they'll have to wear said underwear on the outside, so the EPPD can check. And, furthermore, all 12 year old boys will become 18 year-old boys.
     That's a special favor to the new Pope.
     And, finally, as your mayor, my first order of business will be to save the Asarco Smokestacks and El Paso's City Hall from being destroyed.
     What?
     They were imploded this past weekend?
     Nevermind.


Vote Jim Edward Duchene
Your Write-In Candidate
For Mayor



American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene

*An aggravating ex-wife who, I must add, suddenly had to move back to the foreign country she came from, and was never heard from again.
     I wish her well.

**Which, incidentally, makes for a good doorstop.
    
***Unless they have rich parents.

****When Justin Bieber wears his pants below his butt, you know the fad is dead.
    

Monday, April 15, 2013

Dennis Rodman & Kim Jong Un

Whatever happened to the United States?
     At one time we were the baddest munkafunkas on the planet, and we fought the biggest, evilest villains in the world.
     Adolph Hitler in Germany, who exterminated six million Jews just for looking at him cross-eyed. Hitler almost brought the world to it's knees. His only mistake was partnering up with Italy. If you want to lose a world war, make sure Italy is on your side.
     Khrushchev in Russia, who, with Cuba's Fidel Castro secured firmly in his hip pocket, almost started a nuclear world war. Thank God for President Kennedy, who had some free time between episodes of cheating on his wife, and was able to bring the whole sordid affair to a peaceful conclusion. And thank God it was referred to as an affair, otherwise Kennedy might not have had any interest in it at all.
     Where are men like JFK now, when we need them?
     Why, they're EVERYWHERE! Only now they're women. I base that last statement on a new study I've just heard about that found that women prefer tall men with large penises, and if they can't find a tall man with a large penis, they'll settle for a short man with money... who has a tall friend with a large penis.
     But I digress...
     But now, as our foot is firmly planted in the 21st century, we have North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who came into power the old fashioned way: His daddy died. If there was any doubt concerning his ready, willing, and able-ness to succeed his father, those doubts were easily erased by the popularity of his hit single "Gangam Style."
     Just kidding. "Gangam Style" was a huge world-wide hit for a SOUTH Korean pop star called Psy. I know Psy. Psy's my friend. And Kim Jong Un is no Psy. He's like a shorter, uglier Psy, only with less musical talent... if that's possible.
     Why Barack Obama thought it would be a good idea to send former basketball player, Dennis Rodman, as an ambassador of goodwill to North Korea is beyond me, but we all know what happened next. After his visit, Dennis Rodman went home, and then Kim Jong Un threatened to vaporize that home. With a nuke.
     How did all this come to pass? Well, I'm glad you asked, my friend, because not only did President Obama--the man who once saved my life in 'Nam--send Rodman to North Korea, but he also asked me to go with him. As a chaperone, of sorts.
     "I need someone there who can understand the Korean language, and then report back to me about what was said," my old comrade-in-arms explained to me.
     "Are you sure?" I asked him. I couldn't believe he was really considering sending The Worm on a diplomatic mission.
     "Sure about what?"
     "About sending Rodman to meet with Kim Jong Un."
     "Oh, I thought you were talking about me sending my underage daughters by themselves to the Bahamas for Spring Break."
     "YOU'RE SENDING YOUR DAUGHTERS TO THE BAHAMAS FOR SPRING BREAK?"
     Let's just say our conversation took an interesting detour, but the long and short of it is I went to North Korea, and, let me tell you, Dennis Rodman did nothing wrong. The problem was the English language in general, and American slang in particular.
     Kim Jong Un walked into the waiting area where we were busy, um, waiting, and he was accompanied by his official interpreter.
     After the proper introductions, Kim told us that he really had no need for an interpreter. He insisted he could speak perfectly good English, and that the only difficulty he had was with words containing vowels.
     "I'm good with y," he boasted, proudly.
     As far as anyone was concerned, I was only there as Rodman's flunky, and the fat, little North Korean dictator treated me as such, by ignoring me. No one knew that Korean was one of the seven languages I was fluent in. Eight, if you count the language of love.
     Rodman is the kind of guy who gets comfortable quickly, no matter where he's at or who he's with, a bad habit he developed after years of getting his butt kissed when he was in the NBA. He quickly plopped himself down in the tiny furniture, put one long leg up over the arm of the plush wing-back chair he sat in, lifted two fingers in his right hand in a peace sign, and greeted the diminutive world leader with a casual, "Peace, dawg."
     I looked at Rodman, surprised at his faux pas. Kim Jong Un and his interpreter looked at each other in shock. None of us could tell who Rodman was looking at from behind the dark sunglasses he wore.
     "What did he just say?" Kim Jong Un asked his interpreter in Korean. He misunderstood what Rodman had just said, and wanted to confirm his misunderstanding. "Did he just call me a dog?"
     Keeping his eyes lowered, the interpreter could only nod. He knew better than to be the bearer of bad news.
     Even sitting down, Rodman towered over both of them. I think they were intimidated, Kim Jong Un especially, because he took a step back so that he stood slightly behind his interpreter.
     "You... ah... well?" he asked in his hesitant, broken English.
     "Oh, yeah, man... I be bangin'," Rodman said, with a nonchalant flip of a hand.
     "What?"
     "You know... bangin'." He made a gun-firing motion with his right thumb and fore-finger.
     Kim Jong Un turned to his interpreter.
     "What did he say?"
     "I'm not sure," the interpreter answered. "Something about shooting."
     "You mean, like shoot-shoot, bang-bang?"
     "That's what he said."
     The little dictator turned back to Rodman.
     "You... treated... well?"
     Rodman broke into a big smile.
     "Oh, yeah, man. It's been the bomb."
     Kim Jong Un and his interpreter looked quickly at each other again, concerned, their eyes wide. As wide as Korean eyes can open, that is.
     "The... the bomb?"
     "Oh, yeah. The bomb." He mimicked an explosion with his big hands and long arms, and made the appropriate sound. "Boom!" he joked.
     "You... you... good?"
     Rodman laughed.
     "Oh, yeah, man," he said. "I'm the bomb, too."
     The interpreter mumbled something I could barely hear under his breath. It sounded like, "Oh, man, am I in for it now."
      "And... your President? He... bomb... too?"
     "Aw, man, you don't know the half of it. That guy is so dope." Rodman made the explosion motion with his hands again, only bigger this time. "BOOM! Now he's the bomb, K-Jong. He's the bomb."
     Kim Jong Un looked at his interpreter, who still wouldn't meet his eyes. He was so unsure of himself, he even looked at me. When he got no response, he turned back to his interpreter.
     "Bomb?" Kim Jong Un asked him.
     "Yes... bomb."
     "Boom?"
     "Yes... boom."
     "K-Jong?"
     Dennis Rodman cut in.
     "Hey, man, it's not cool speaking that Korean ching-chong-chit in front of me. Don't be a playa hata. That's whack, man."
     "Whack?"
     "Yeah... whack."
     "What did he just say?"
     "He... he just threatened to hit you, excellency."
     "Whack?" Kim Jong Un made a karate chop motion with his hand. "Like this?"
     "Yes," the interpreter said, imitating the karate motion. "Whack! Hit you."
     I didn't want to blow my cover, but I felt that I had to intervene in some way. I gently took Rodman by the arm, and urged him to his feet. Man, that guy's tall. The room seemed to darken and shrink as he stood, physically taking up more space.
     "Maybe we should go," I told him. It wasn't a suggestion.
     "Go?" Rodman said in surprise. "I just got here."
     Again, Un spoke in his broken English.
     "You... go? Oh, so sorry. Come back when you not stay so long."
     "Thanks, little man," Rodman said, and then bowed. Even bent in half, he was still twice the size of Kim Jong Un. "This has been dope, man. Phat."
     "What did he just say?"
     "He just called you a dope, your excellency," the interpreter told him. "And FAT!"
     "Fat? He called me fat?" Kim Jong Un shrieked, finally angry. "Arm the nukes!"
 
 
American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
 

Saturday, April 13, 2013

The News From El Paso

I'll begin my commentary on the news from El Paso, by talking about the man who once saved my life in 'Nam, President Obama. I can't tell you how proud I am of him.
     "Why?" you ask.
     Hey, how about you let me do the reporting here.
     The reason I'm so proud of my old brother-in-arms is that he's returning a whopping 5% of his salary back to the United States Treasury. So, for all you Obama-haters out there, let me do the math for you: Instead of being paid $400 thousand, he'll only be paid $380 thousand. It's a testimony to his superior monetary abilities that he's able to afford to send his girls to the Bahamas for Spring Break. If he can do that with his money, imagine what he can do with yours.
     Now why would a loving, caring, responsible parent send his underage daughters to the Bahamas where there's a gaggle of drunken college students celebrating their drunkenness and looking to get lucky? Especially when the U.S. economy is still in the toilet, and millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, their como se llama?
     How about you just mind your own business.
     Security!
     Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester cuts. I asked various members of Congress why the sequester doesn't downsize their perks and benefits.
     "Ha, don't make us laugh," they laughed.
     Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Pentagon to brace for further cuts in spending, and said that the military needs to make fundamental changes in the way it operates to cope with new fiscal realities.
     "With North Korea threatening to attack us with nuclear missiles," Hagel explained, "this is the perfect time to downsize our military."
     "But, Secretary Hagel, why don't we just downsize our politicians instead?"
     "Ha, don't make me laugh," he laughed.
     The first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer--a $2 billion, 7.5-ton instrument--which is aboard the international space station, have offered support for the theory that exotic dark matter might exist, but not that it actually does exists. Hey, give me two billion dollars, and I can come up with the same conclusion.
     Good news, folks! In a report from the Labor Department it was revealed that the United States has gained eighty-eight thousand new jobs. If you can say, "Do you want fries with that?" then you're set for life, my friend.
     Up in Santa Fe, New Mexico there was a story about an ex-shoe-salesman who tried to cut off the big toe of his girlfriend with a cigar cutter. He had previously been accused of biting off part of her toe, in, what one can only assume to be a passionate moment of toe-sucking. It was the third attack by Daniel Anaya, 27, on his now former girlfriend, who had moved to Albuquerque and had obtained a restraining order against Anaya after two previous toe-biting incidents. First off, if a girl moves to another city to get away from you, then the relationship is over, buddy. Accept it. And, secondly, Anaya's ex-girlfriend's TOES should have taken out that restraining order. When Anaya attacked her with the cigar cutter, she was able to fight him off with a fork. Man, if you can be fought off with a fork, then you just don't want it bad enough.
     Tango Blast, a prison gang that's considered to be this state's biggest threat with over 10,000 members, surpassing the Texas Mexican Mafia, a fierce Jewish gang (What? Did you think they were Hispanic? That's because you're a racist.). At least that was the conclusion according to the Texas Gang Threat Assessment report released by the Texas Department of Public Safety. If you want my opinion, how threatening can a gang be, when it's named after a flavor of Gatorade?
     Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was murdered in Afghanistan by fanatical traitors to the Muslim faith. What makes this newsworthy, is that she's the first American Diplomat to die in the job, since last year's attack in Benghazi.
     "Ben who?" I hear you asking yourself.
     Exactly.
     Three soldiers and three civilians were also murdered. Smedinghoff was part of a small group on their way to donate books to an Afghan school, when the attack occurred.
     When are we going to learn to mind our own business, and why do we continue to send our women to a part of the world that hates women? Ms. Connie Lingus, a representative for the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), had this to say about the continuing violence and subjugation of women in the Middle East: "I was assured that the Muslim terrorists who committed this heinous act consider these deaths a form of late-term abortion, so, from a pro-choice standpoint, we have no problem with it."
     And, finally, in a local story, a motorist called 911 on his cell phone to report 34 year-old Mark Luna, who is an El Paso man, and was asleep at the wheel of his car, engine running, and with his foot on the brake. Essentially stopped in one of I-10's westbound travel lanes.
     When the police arrived, they gently woke him up and sent him on his way. They then immediately arrested the good Samaritan who made the 911 call, for using a cell phone while driving. After taking him to jail, they bravely returned to work ticketing speeders.
    


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
 
                   

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Dear John (4-11-13)

Hard Core Advice From
Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie


Dear John,
     I took a job at a local bookstore after my position as a special ed teacher was downsized. Now I have a "special ed" problem at work.
     A woman comes in here once a week with her son, a mentally challenged adult. The son is big and heavy--okay, he's fat--and his mother is small and fragile. Every time they're here, the son has a meltdown. Today, he threw himself on the floor, blocking the checkout lines, and wouldn't get up.
     I'm used to dealing with special needs kids in a school, but not with full-grown adults in a retail establishment. Would it be wrong to tell his mother we cannot accommodate her son in our store the next time they show up? I realize if we bar him, it makes us look mean, but we have a business to run.
     A member of our staff suggested to the boss that we make them leave, but I advised against it. If we can't get him to go voluntarily, we would have to physically escort him to the sidewalk, and he would probably struggle like a drowning behemoth. If he gets hurt in the process, we'd be sued. I also advised against calling the police, because things could get even more physically rough.
     I suggested to the boss that we wait for the next time they come to the store and politely refuse entry.
     Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with these adults when they are on an outing to our store?
     --Stuck

Dear Stuck,
No.

Dear John,
     A family member recently had a going-away party for their son two days before he was supposed to leave for boot camp. Many of us gave him gifts. The kid decided the night before leaving that he had changed his mind, and wasn't going after all. Should he return the gifts and money?
     --Curious

Dear Curious,
Yes.

Dear John,
     Please tell "George" to appreciate his nosy neighbor. Years ago, I had one of those. She noticed everything and would alert us to any strange activity in the neighborhood.
     When I got divorced, her kitchen became a place to unwind. She always had a pot of coffee going.
     She has since died. She was so busy paying attention to everybody else, that she didn't notice when an intruder broke into her house. I heard the screams, but I'm Italian, if you get my drift. But I know she is watching out for her neighbors in Heaven.
     So tell "George" to appreciate what he has, because he'll miss it when it's gone.
     --Sentimental

Dear Sentimental,
Okay.

Confidential To Desperate:
Whatever.


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
 
                   

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The News From San Antonio

I live in El Paso, Texas, and I read the El Paso Times morning newspaper.
     Don't ask me why, but I came across the Friday (4-5-13) edition of the San Antonio Express-News newspaper, and I decided to read it. The news has been so bad for so long, even I'm not sure why I wanted to give myself a double-dose of it. Here are a few items that caught my attention:
     The San Antonio River Authority is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a feature-length movie that they will show on Saturday... for free! I thought that was very generous of the SARA, whose initials happen to spell out the name of a girl I used to date who was also... for free! We do the same thing in El Paso. In fact, the last time I saw a free movie it was at Album Park on a very cold night. By the end of the picture, not only was Captain America frozen solid, but also half the audience. I read further down the article. The free movie the Authority was showing was a 70-minute documentary called "Sustaining and Enriching Life in South Texas: The Story of the San Antonio River." No wonder the movie was free.
     Who'd pay to see that?
     I've since heard through the Texas grapevine that they had a full house that night. After a slow start, the audience was herded in by gunpoint.
     There was a small article about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency is giving Texas $31.2 million for fires. I wonder how much they'll shell out for my ex-wife's hot flashes? Which ex-wife? All of them.
     I was happy to see a column by Froma Harrop, whose column also appears in the El Paso Times. I didn't read it here, either.
     There was an article from the Associated Press about a University of Rochester professor's hypothetical question about last month's conviction of two high school football players in Stuebenville, Ohio for the rape of a drunken 16 year-old girl. His hypothetical question was (and I'm paraphrasing here): Is it really a crime if you commit it on a drunken 16 year-old who theoretically isn't harmed and has no recollection of it? Professor Steven Landsburg really needs to know, because that's the only way he gets sex. Hypothetically.
     Ms. Connie Lingus, a representative of the National Organization of Women (N.O.W.), had this to say about Professor Landsburg: "He's liberal, a Democrat, and pro-choice, so we have nothing to say." It reminds me of that brave 14 year-old Muslim girl, whose name I'm too lazy to look up, who was shot in the face and almost murdered by some fanatical traitor to the Muslim faith, just because she was fighting for the right for ALL Muslim girls to receive an education.
     "Was she denied her God-given right to have an abortion?" Ms. Lingus asked. "No? Then we have nothing to say."
     In another Associated Press article, I learned that after two centuries the West Point cemetery is almost full. When General MacArthur said that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away," he must have been lying.
     Some students at Coelho Middle School in Attleboro, Massachusetts cried when they had their lunches taken away from them by a worker for the district's food service provider, because the kids didn't have the money to pay for it. How young were the school children? Well, they were young enough to cry, I'll tell you that. What bugs me the most about this story, besides what they did to the kids, is that Massachusetts is filled with liberals and Democrats who keep wanting to raise my taxes, so that they can "help people." I suggest they start by helping their own kids.
     And, finally, famous movie critic Roger Ebert has died. I would have been sadder upon hearing this news, except I thought he had died years ago. If you think that's cruel of me, then I suggest you look at all the pictures the various news media outlets are showing of him. Instead of showing Roger Ebert when he was healthy, they prefer to show the deformed, cancer-ravaged face of his last years. I guess cruelty sells.
     That's it, folks. All things being equal, I still prefer my news from the El Paso Times.


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
 
                   

Sunday, April 7, 2013

It's Gross, Dad

Buzz Adams, of KLAQ's morning radio show, told a funny story a while back. In fact, it was such a while back, that the much-missed Teresa Provencio was still his co-host. But that's neither here nor there. Well, it might be here, but it's definitely not there. Not even a little bit.
     The story he told was about a thirty-two year-old man in a bar who was enticed by a woman to go outside for, apparently, a quick tryst. Unfortunately, it was not ecstasy that waited for him, but, instead, the woman's accomplice.
     The victim made a break for it, but the only thing that stood between him and escape was his impaired sense of fashion. He wore his baggy jeans so low below his butt, that, when he tried to run, they fell to his ankles, tripping him. As a result, he was taken advantage of, and not in the fun way he had hoped for.
     When I drop my teen-age daughter off at her high school, I see a number of teen-age boys dressed in a similar manner. All fashionable in a Don't Ask/Don't Tell kind of way.
     "Do girls like the way that looks?" I once asked her, honestly curious.
     "It's gross, dad," she answered, rolling her eyes. It's hard to tell what she meant by that, because, to her, everything is gross.
     Every generation has its own style. From the zoot suits of the 40's, to the polyester suits of the 70's. The 90's began with the grunge look, but that soon morphed into the urban hippity hop look, and that's where boys showing their derriere became popular, especially with the members of NAMBLA.
     I've heard that this particular fashion had its origin in prison. In prison you're either the one who wears his pants up, or you're the one who wears his pants down, and I'm sure it's no fun to be the one who wears his pants down.
     It gave the Don't Ask segment of the prison population easier access to the Don't Tell segment of the population, if you get my drift.
     Upon leaving prison, the men who wore their pants down brought that same, sad look along with them, where it was enthusiastically adopted by urban males who thought it was a cool gangsta-outta-prison look. Sadly, it was more of a San Franciscan-outta-Christopher Street-with-a-gerbil look.
     Does the fact that this fashion caught on in urban areas mean that there are more blacks in prison than whites? Hey, you're not taking me down that road to the P.C. police station, buddy.
     The pants-below-the-butt look has stubbornly hung around about twenty years past what should have been its expiration date, and doesn't seem to be leaving us anytime soon.
     Like I said, every generation has its own style. This one's happy to be stuck in the 90's. Let me give them a head's up: When Canadian Justin Bieber has adopted your sense of style... you know it's dead.
     On a similar note, years back I noticed teen girls walking around in public wearing boxer shorts or pajama bottoms. I thought it was a cute look, that is, until a few months back. I was getting an old-fashioned hair-cut at an east side barber shop, when in came a grown man wearing pajama bottoms. He was also wearing a dark leather jacket, t-shirt, and tennis shoes, but... pajama bottoms?
     I felt sorry for him. Obviously, he couldn't afford a mirror.
     I've since seen other males, mostly teens, walking around in broad daylight wearing pajama bottoms.
     I don't ask... and they don't tell.
 
 
American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
    

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Dear John (4-6-13)

Hard Core Advice From
Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie


Dear John,
     I am 55 years-old and have worked at my job for 25 years. A couple of years ago, the company hired a 26 year-old guy. I have been patient, but I am reaching the end of my rope.
     "Doofus" cannot remember what was said the minute he hangs up the phone. He doesn't pay attention to what he is doing. He lies all the time, and everybody know it. He takes on no new responsibilities, which drives me crazy. He just does his work, and then plays on the Internet when he's done. It seems like he's simply along for the ride.
     I have asked him to do some menial tasks for me, thinking that he'd catch on, but he's not exactly grabbing the carrot, and I don't mean in the fun way. I don't think he cares one bit about anyone except himself.
     Even though I am not his boss, I'd like to address this problem with him, but I can't think of how.
     What can I do?
     --Stymied

Dear Stymied,
     Have you tried minding your own business?

Dear John,
     My mother recently took her 13 year-old cat to the vet and found out that she has diabetes that is treatable, but she would have to learn to give her cat shots.
     My mom doesn't drive, so I had to take her to the vet, as well as drive her back home. On the drive home, she told me the diagnosis, and then she told me that she'll probably put her cat down.
     Why would a person think so negatively? My mom's not broke. She can afford the treatments. And I don't see what the fuss is about giving her cat shots.
     What can I do about this situation, because it upsets me every time I think about it?
     --Angry

Dear Angry,
     You can always try minding your own business.
    
Dear John,
     My husband and I got married a few years ago. During our brief courtship there was one habit he intentionally hid from me: online gambling. When he first disclosed this soon after our honeymoon, I thought it was funny and cute. Now that a couple of years have passed, I find myself bitter and angry. We have your usual marital disagreements, but this is the only issue we ever fight about.
     He spends several hours a week playing these online games, and every time we fight about it, he'll cut back or promise to stop, but within a week or two he's back to his usual shenanigans.
     I can't imagine my life without him, but this is driving me nuts. I'm not leaving him over it, so how can I get him to stop?
     --Anxious

Dear Anxious,
     How about you just mind your own business?


Confidential to Confused:
Mind your own business.


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
    

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Obama & Gun Control

President Obama, the man who once saved my life in 'Nam, has been on the road trying to sell to the public his bold, new plan for gun control. Ol' Bama and I haven't always seen eye to eye on a lot of things, but I must say that in this instance I'm 100% behind him and what he calls his Barney Fife Gun Control Law.
     As everybody knows, Barney Fife is America's most beloved and respected law enforcement officer. He served as Deputy to Mayberry, North Carolina's Sherriff Andy Taylor. Sadly, Deputy Fife is no longer with us. He transferred to the great Sherriff''s Department in the sky in a tragic nose-hair pulling accident.
     Under Obama's new law, all gun owners will be allowed to own and carry as many guns as they want, but--BUT!--they'll only be able to carry ONE bullet with them at any given time, and THAT bullet must be kept at all times in the front pocket of their shirt. Said pocket must be a buttonable.
     How much damage can one person do with only ONE bullet?
     Exactly.
     If a mass-shooter has to go home to retrieve a new bullet every time he fired the one in his pocket, well, by the time he got back to his crime scene du jour, all potential victims will have already left, some even stopping for a snack on their way out. Maybe it would even give the police time to show up, and further, that ONE bullet will now be required to cost ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS! to purchase.
     Now, how many crooks have THAT kind of disposable income? I would venture to say very few, if any. That would cause all potential shooters and mass-shooters to think long and hard about what havoc they want to cause, and then decide if they have the kind of cash available to inflict the kind of damage they wish to inflict.
     My friends, surely you can see the genius of our President. First he comforts a crying child at the White House's annual Easter Sequestration, and then he outlines a government-sponsored initiative to map the human brain in an attempt to determine why it is we think we can't be seen as we pick our noses in the comfort of our own cars, AND THEN he decides to give 5% of his salary back to... back to... well, quite frankly, I don't know WHO he's giving it back to. It's not finding its way back into MY wallet, that's for sure. My point is that he's doing all the right things to get his Barney Fife Gun Control Law passed, and he's counting on YOU to do the right thing.
     Contact your Congressmen! Take them out to lunch! When you pay the bill, make sure you leave a big enough tip to make the congressman's stealing of it worthwhile. And then--AND THEN--tell them that as YOUR public servant you expect them--EXPECT THEM!--to pass the law. And when they laugh in your face...
     ...that's YOUR cue to leave.


American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene