Category: Humor

Having the Relatives Over

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Farmer Cthulhu in His Fields

So, this week, in the middle of all the usual crises in Dunwich I got a visit from the First Selectman.  I was out in the fields when suddenly the shadow of a five-hundred-foot eldritch horror darkened my path.  Now tact is always the key survival trait when dealing with the First Selectman.  So, I greeted him respectfully and asked him to what I owed the honor of his attention.

He got right to the point.  His kin were having a visit to Dunwich and he wanted to make sure they had a nice stay.  Well, when Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep come to town, they’re bound to be hungry from the interdimensional transit and will expect something substantial with which to restore the tissues.  So, Cthulhu wanted me to arrange the menu.  Since Dunwich is a farming town, I suggested cattle.  He gave me a shake of his cephalopodic head and reminded me that all three visitors were obligate anthropophages.  Well, that would make this a tricky assignment.  Even though I’m regularly fed up with most of my neighbors, I’m not really comfortable with them being eaten alive by monsters from beyond space.  And I especially don’t want to be the one feeding them to the hideous entities.  But neither did I want to be next on the menu for refusing.  So, what to do?

Well, it took a little work but by the creative lowering of our fairground fees I was able to attract and book the Democratic Socialists of America’s New England political rally for that weekend.  And wouldn’t you know Graham Plattner was the keynote speaker!  Now without a doubt an oysterman would provide just the tang of New England cuisine that the First Selectman’s family would find irresistible.  My plan is to let the rally reach a crescendo of communistic agitation and then use a couple of fire houses to marinate the crowd.  I gave the First Selectman his choice of sauces; classic Worcestershire cocktail, garlic butter, Bang Bang or a Remoulade.  Being old fashioned he went with the garlic butter.

I know, I know.  What kind of heartless monster would feed his fellow humans to creatures of cosmic horror.  I did think a while about it.  But then I remembered that Bernie Sanders and AOC were also supposed to be attending.  So that seemed to assuage my conscience.

But today I had new pangs of guilt.  I mean Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep have never caused me any harm and here I was feeding them some of the most toxic creatures on the planet.  I mean, what if they got really sick.  It would be my fault.  At the very least maybe I should provide a photo of Plattner to the Great Old Ones and warn them that he probably had at least a sixty-proof rating and anyone with an alcohol problem should probably steer clear of the pugnacious oysterman and stick to something a little less spicy.  Well, anyway, the First Selectman seems pleased with the menu.  That’s something.

Loan Them Smokey the Bear

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So, we’re heading into day three of the yellowish/brownish/greyish-sky world.  Apparently, Canada is burning to the ground and we’ll be buried in a five-hundred-foot pile of ash by sometime around Labor Day.  Well, it’s for a good cause after all.  Once all of the Canadians have been incinerated, we can proceed to frack all the hydrocarbons out of the ground and turn the Great White North into a theme park of some sort.  Of course, the only Canadian I knew well was actually a great guy.  He was a French Canadian and he had a fantastic sense of humor and was a great fan of American pop culture.  And he was amazingly honest.  He was a great believer that Quebec should secede from Canada and was bitterly disappointed that his countrymen voted No on the referendum.  But his pride in his French identity remained strong.  Until, that is, his company transferred him to the Paris office.  It was like a dream come true.  But when he got there and tried to embrace his long-lost French brethren, they told him quite insultingly that he wasn’t French, he was “North American!”  His heart was broken.  But he rebounded and from then on, he recognized himself to be a North American.

Well, I hope he’s still living here in the States because based on the weight of ash weighing down my roof, I have to assume the only thing left uncarbonized up there is Hudson Bay.  Now I know that Canada has embraced physician assisted suicide so hopefully one of the prescribed methods is roasting because that would be relatively economical at this juncture.  I mean all you have to do is head northwest and eventually you’ll find the flame wall and after that it should be fairly simple to achieve unalive.

But I mustn’t sell Canada short.  It did give us John Candy and the SC TV troupe.  Interestingly, they always portrayed Americans in their most popular movies so I don’t know if it was their Canadian-ness that made them so funny.  And I guess we also got Mike Myers from them too.  And they have oil, coal, gas, gold, uranium and lumber so Canada used to have a lot of potential before it burned to the ground.  I’m sure Trump will figure out a way to monetize what’s left of it.  Whatever that idea will be, it will include branding the enterprise with the name “Trump” somehow.  Although maybe instead he’ll rename it West Greenland because he really liked the whole Greenland acquisition idea.

From my own point of view, if I was looking for a way to renovate a carbonized Canada, I think I’d give the whole thing back to the Indians.  Why not.  It’s enormous and loaded with valuable resources and the people living there are annoying, so give it to the people who they’re always saying they stole it from.  If they feel so bad about their theft then let them assuage their guilt and finally shut up about it.  But the deal will be that they’ll have to do a much better job of putting out forest fires.  We can loan them Smokey the Bear.  Seems fair.

A Special Message from the First Selectman

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Good morning my fellow Dunwichians.  I come to you today with a heavy heart but a firm resolve.  I’m sure that all of you are aware of the enormous scandal that has unfolded over the allegations that have swirled around my old friend Graham Platner.  As you all know he and I go way back to the early days of the oyster farming craze of the twenty teens.  After all, as a cephalopod I naturally gravitate to shellfish eating pursuits.  And for many years we’ve made the rounds of the New England dive bar circuit.  Of course, he was entering them looking for drunk chicks and after he was done I would rip the building from the ground and swallow all of the organic contents.  But we were always very chummy.  He would show me his death’s head tattoo and I would show him my keychain with the skulls of anybody who didn’t get out of my way that week.  But we were always good pals.

But things have gone too far.  His disrespect for women has crossed a line.  Now, sure, I’ve had my moments of ribaldry with the fairer sex.  That time I crashed the Smith College orientation day and ate the whole freshman class in a swimming pool full of barbecue sauce was a bit “forward” of me but I maintained the highest levels of decorum, always keeping my pinky fingers outstretched and never talking while chewing.  And I did send an apology to the Dean of Students for neglecting to get a pool pass in advance.  But in my heart, I’ve always been a true gentleman and have never disrespected women.

So, it is my sad duty to condemn Graham for his awful behavior and shocking actions.  As the political head of the Dunwich Democratic Party, I must take the sad but necessary action of cancelling Graham Platner’s status as keynote speaker at the Dunwich Labor Day Jamboree.  And I must further demand the return of all the free passes to the rides and attractions that have already been mailed to him.  These passes represent a value of over eleven dollars and are much sought after by patrons of the event.  I would hope that Graham would have the decency of mailing the passes in time for their use at the Labor Day festivities.  He may have sunk into sexual moral depravity and criminality but at least let’s hope he hasn’t also become a selfish jerk too.

But as much as it is my sad duty to denounce Graham for his outrageous behavior, I feel it’s also necessary to extend the hope of redemption to this lost soul.  During the Middle Ages the Church of Rome was famous for their carefully calibrated table of alms linked to indulgences for various terrible sins.  In the same vein I’d like to offer Graham the chance to pay alms to Dunwich for the indulgence of his offences.  I think three tons of oysters would cover the moral lapses in question quite nicely.  If he could convey the alms to my refrigerator by the end of July, I think we could see him attending the Labor Day Jamboree as a “prodigal son” without too much squawking by the gals, in my estimation.  Think about it Graham.  I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, amigo.

Even a Man Who’s Pure at Heart

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SS – Good evening xe, xer and all the ships at sea, this is your intrepid reporter Snott Smelley here on my Substack; “The Smelley Report!”  And tonight, I have an exclusive interview with that rising star of the communis…, I mean of the progressive wing of the Democrat party Gland Splatinher.  Good evening Mr. Splatinher.  May I call you Gland?

GS – Hello Snott.  Sure thing.  I’m just a simple oyster farmer from here in the heartland of Maine trying to strike a blow for just plain folks like myself.

SS – Well, Gland, things seem to have gotten complicated out here on the campaign trail for you lately and I thought maybe you needed to have a high-profile platform to get your side of the story out.

GS – Well, thank you Snott.  Yes, as of late, my enemies have been weaponizing the news reports to spread lies about my past.  They’re painting me as this angry, drunken, Neanderthal who brutalizes and rapes women on a regular basis.  The truth is that I have no more than 5% Neanderthal DNA and there is absolutely nothing regular about my attacks.  They’re completely random and completely justified.

SS – Justified?

GS – Sure!  If you just listen to the latest story about me, it’s crystal clear that I was “black-out drunk” when I showed up.  Well, that means I was not responsible for my actions.  This puts me in the same category as Larry Talbot when he becomes the Wolfman.  Sure, he tears his victims limb from limb but when he wakes up, he has no memory of his killings.  So, ipso facto, he’s innocent.  What my opponents are trying to do is paint me as more like a Count Dracula that is fully cognizant of his attacks and drains his victims of blood in the unholy quest for eternal life.  My enemies are intentionally trying to conflate werewolves and vampires.  But this couldn’t be farther from the truth in my case.  In many ways I’m more of the victim than these accusers.  After all, they had the chance to block me on Kik but encouraged me instead.  Basically, they were painting a pentagram in their palms as far as I’m concerned.

SS – Well, Gland, that’s all very interesting, but how will the voters of Maine view this situation.  Word is that all of the Democrat power brokers have turned on you and demand that you drop out of the race including Bernie Sanders who when he heard of the latest accusation broke into Yiddish and had a minor stroke.

GS – That’s where you come in Snott.  With the long reach of your platform, I can get my story out.  With your 300 million viewers I can get public opinion on my side and crowd fund my campaign to shout down the haters.

SS – Well I think there’s been a mistake.  I said I had 300 viewers.  You must have thought I meant 300 million.  But I didn’t.  But don’t worry, those three hundred are super loyal viewers and have netted me more than eleven dollars of super-chat money several times this month.

GS – Three hundred?  Three hundred?  What are you, an idiot?  My cat videos get a thousand times that every day.  Eleven dollars?  I’m going to need eleven million dollars in lawyers’ fees to keep me out of prison on the assault charges.  If you were in the same room with me right now, I’d finish you.  Don’t ever contact me again you loser.  (The feed closes)

SS – Well folks, you heard it here first.  Gland Splatinher will be using the Larry Talbot defense in his upcoming campaign and subsequent assault trial.  This is your humble servant Snott Smelley signing off and wishing you a safe, seen and centered tomorrow.

All in All, Very Entertaining

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Ah, July First.  The end of winter here in Dunwich and the season of heat and oppressive humidity.  Glorious!  All week the grandkids have been swimming around in the pool which mercifully opened this year without a leak in the liner.  Last year ended with two patches applied and a warning that when winter ended it might be time to replace the liner; a very expensive and difficult procedure that would tax the almost non-existent competence of our local pool professional (and I use this word extremely facetiously) to its limit and beyond.  I told Matt, the pool guy. that I would think about replacing it in September.  But I’m not sure.  I might roll the dice again in 2027.  We’ll see.

I’m off from work for the next week and a half and I’m almost as giddy as a school boy on the first day of summer.  I walked around and checked the milkweed to see if any monarch caterpillars were chewing on the leaves.  While I didn’t find any, I did see a monarch butterfly flitting around the yard and took that as a good sign.  I also haven’t seen any preying mantis egg sacs or baby mantids anywhere and am starting to believe that the mantids that I bought the last few years aren’t capable of surviving the Dunwich winter.  I’ll have to look into that.  I have seen them naturally occurring in the area but I was hoping that my seeding of the area with egg sacs would have made them more prevalent.

Camera Girl has now completely conditioned her pond fish to expect a feeding at about six in the evening after our dinner.  Tonight when she arrived at the pond the water was already in motion and when she tossed in the food pellets it reminded me of what used to happen on the old Addams Family television show when Morticia would toss a leg of lamb into the piranha tank and the fish would roil the water for a few moments and a glistening white bone would be ejected at high speed out of the tank stripped clean.  That’s kind of like what her pond looks like at feeding time.  The damn things actually make audible noise.  I wouldn’t want to be an innocent grasshopper or cricket that accidentally fell into that death trap at feeding time.  It’s slightly unnerving.

I’m currently using my push mower to cut the grass in the fields and it’s taking many hours.  I’ve been too unmotivated to change the oil on the riding mower so I’m paying for my laziness.  But I figure it’ll help me achieve my summer weight loss goal.  If nothing else I’m definitely sweating off an enormous amount of water which must be good exercise for my sweat glands.  I noticed that I was having to double cut the grass to get it right.  But then I discovered that pulling it backward over the grass did a much better job so I dragged the mower behind me backward all the time.  Of course, you can only use one arm when dragging it behind you, so I came up with a routine to alternate arms.  And that had its own subtleties.  All in all, hand mowing was very entertaining.  A good first day of summer.

Reactions

Ed Brault 

It looks like New England is getting even more heat than here in South Carolina. I do remember a few HOT summers up in Danvers, and sweltering near DC when I was in college. Here we just expect it, do the yardwork before the Sun clears the trees, and keep in the shade and A/C until dusk.
If you think your wife’s fish pond look like the Addams Family, you should see the Great Ocean Tank at the SC Aquarium. 50 species totaling 550 various sized critters from all levels of the Food Chain, roiling the waters as we toss sixty pounds of mackerel, squid, shrimp, and smelt on the surface. The sharks are polite, they know they will have a separate dining service an hour later. Our 240-pound sea turtle, on the other hand, is the Diva of the Tank, and even the feeding frenzy parts before her as she glides over for her smelt-cicles (she loves it frozen, nice and crunchy). We do NOT have divers in the water at feeding time, although we do occasionally have to go in to recover a Chum Bucket that got loose from its line.

 

TomD

BNN is the Answer to the Current Epidemic of Despair

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The Baby News Network (BNN) is a comedy channel on YouTube that features as its centerpiece Baby Trump.  And as far as I can tell it is the solution to the plague of depression that has engulfed our times.  It’s just absurdity piled on absurdity but the smile it produces is certainly real.

I noticed this about Trump back during his first campaign.  His bluster and exaggeration are hilarious and actually endear him to the voters.  I mean, it’s obvious he’s talking trash and employing P. T. Barnum tactics in almost every circumstance imaginable.  But the fact that he is doing it against the people who hate us and, in our defense, makes it enjoyable.  And the fact that we don’t hold his trash talk against him drives his opponents crazy.  I once had a leftist get exasperated when she pointed out he was exaggerating some accomplishment and I started laughing about the story.  I told her that the exaggeration was what made it fun.  She just walked away shaking her head.

And this kind of humor always appealed to me.  In fact, back during his first term I used to do some Trump humor.  But the funny thing is the reality is usually funnier than the stuff I’d make up.  So, I watch some of the BNN whenever I see something that strikes my funny bone.  Of course, it doesn’t solve any of the real problems we have fighting against the Left day in and day out.  But laughter is valuable.  Enjoying something witty is helpful.  So, I’m linking these videos to help lift the mood of the people who come here to find something interesting and hopeful.

I hope someone enjoys at least one of these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SODT

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Therapist – So let’s welcome our new friend Scott Pelley and start by going around the circle and introduce ourselves.

Acosta – Hi I’m Jim and I’ve hated Trump for about ten years.

Pelley – Hi Jim

Moran – Hi I’m Terry and I hate all haters!

Pelley – Hi Terry.

Lemon – I’m Don and I’ve hated Trump since I was a kid and saw what kinds of atrocious ties he wore.

Pelley – Hi Don.

Reid – I’m Joy and I’ve hated Trump from the womb.

Pelley – Hi Joy.

Cuomo – Hi I’m Chris and I don’t hate anyone.  I’m just looking for a new gig.  Scott, what’s available at CBS.

Pelley – Scoundrel!

Therapist – So who has had a breakthrough this week?

Lemon – Me, me, pick me!

Therapist – Okay Don what would you like to share?

Lemon – Well, it came to me last night that in just two years this whole nightmare will end and the world will go back to the way it was in 2015 and I’ll be rich, famous and sassy again.

Therapist – Why do you think that?

Lemon – Well, obviously Donald Trump will be out of office and the Democrats will be in charge again and they will reverse all of Trump’s damage and restore all of us to the glamour and wealth that we enjoyed under Barack Obama.

Therapist – Does anyone else believe that?

(Everyone’s hands go up immediately)

Therapist – (rubbing his face with both hands) I see we still have a lot of work to do here.  As much as you feel that Donald Trump is the root of all your problems you must realize that this is a very different world from 2016.  Things have moved on.  Your industry has changed.  The internet has disrupted journalism permanently.

Reid – That’s a lie!  MS-NBC will be begging to get me back.  I’ll have a ten million dollar annual and I’ll have a bigger office than Maddow that closet racist!

Cuomo – Don’t you mean MS NOW?  And why would they want you back after what you’ve been saying about them?

Reid – Shut your face Chris, you always were a closet racist.  All of you are closet racists, even you Lemon!

Lemon – Girlfriend, have you gone crazy?  We can’t start attacking each other.  That’s what Trump wants.

Reid – Oh shut up.  I’m sick and tired of blogging on my sub-stack.  Nobody reads the damn things and so far, this month I’ve made eleven dollars and forty-two cents in subscriptions.  (breaks down crying) I want my old life back.   WAAAAAAAAAH!

Therapist – Please Joy, don’t slip into that mode of thought.  We mustn’t dwell on the past.  We must embrace the future and new opportunities.

Pelley – He’s right Joy.  We all have a bright future.  We don’t need MS-NBC or CBS.  We’re smart and we’re strong.  We have skills and are only waiting for the right opportunity to put them to work.  Listen, all of you, I’ve decided that it’s time to start something big.  Why, with all the talent that’s gathered right here we could set the journalism world on fire.  Why, Jim and Terry could be our Washington correspondents.  Don and Chris could handle the entertainment desk and Joy you handle the social justice watch while I can be the executive producer.

Cuomo – What kind of venture capital can you put together?  Can you cover a two year burn through?

Pelley – I was hoping we could all cover our own expenses until it got up and running.

(Everyone including the therapist start laughing maniacally and cross over into tears.)

Therapist – Scott, thanks for that moment of levity.  It’s really important to keep a sense of humor during depression.

Pelley – But I wasn’t kidding!

Therapist – Well then, you’re not ready for this group yet.  SODT stands for “Survivors of Donald Trump” and by definition, you can’t be completely delusional and say things like that.  Why don’t you try hanging out with Kamala until the crazy wears off.  Close the door on the way out, will you?

Snott Smelley – Journalist

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Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.  And it goes without saying (although I will say it) good evening too to Ms. America and to all the pronouns that represent the gorgeous mosaic that is America in 2026.

I come to you tonight, not on the Sunday, 8pm 60 Minutes program where I belong but from my “man cave” in the basement of my home.  I have followed various YouTube videos and purchased the hardware and materials to assemble my very own television studio.  I will “upload” this video to YouTube, as the kids say, and get my story out to the world.  You might think that the recent interview with the New York Times would have set the record straight about the outrageous, fascistic and catastrophic events going on at CBS but I sensed that just as at CBS, the New York Times is now also being censored by the Trump administration and I must get the word out before the thought police have a chance to shut down all dissent.

And because I was trained in the Socratic Method in journalism school, I will structure this podcast as an interview between me and myself.  For the sake of clarity, whenever I am asking the questions as the interviewer, I will wear a hat with the letter J on it to show I am the journalist.  And when I am answering the questions, I will wear a hat with the letter S that stands for “source” and also Snott since that is my name.  Here we go.

J – Thank you, intrepid whistleblower for daring to blow the whistle on Donald Trump, The Ellisons and Bari Weiss while they lay waste to a once magnificent journalistic miracle, 60 Minutes.

S – Thank you for acknowledging my bravery and for building this state-of-the-art studio on such short notice.

J – What was the hardest part of speaking truth to power during your harrowing ordeal with those destroyers of free speech and haters of freedom of the press.

S – I would say that the worst of it was not being allowed to document my firing for an upcoming segment of 60 Minutes.  I would say off the top of my head that truth dies in darkness and unless I’m allowed to produce a fourteen-part series that covers every facet of the coup currently being perpetrated against this land of liberty I can’t see the world surviving for more than a few more weeks.

J – Will you make this series available to the American public.

S – I’m glad you asked that question journalist.  At the bottom of this video there will be a post office address.  If you send me a check for $1,400, you will receive a full set of 14 DVDs (or VHS tapes).  Or you can send $200 for each episode separately but that will be less economical.

J – That seems like a very fair price to pay.

S – Yes journalist, because what they will be paying for is freedom.  And who can put a price on freedom.  Although I guess that price is $1,400.

J – Thank you Mr. Whistleblower and good night, America and good luck.