The Last Word™

Issue #486 March 2015

How cool people plan roadtrips

Who can deny that roadtrips are among the coolest pastimes ever to grace the big, mean industrializedworld? Nobody. That’s who. And also idiots.

In April, I plan to go to Madison, Wisconsin, for the Cincinnati roadmeet. This requires intensiveplanning. I hadn’t intended on going, until I discovered that there likely won’t be a Cincinnati meet in Cincinnatithis year, and that’s when I got my planning face into gear.

The first thing you have to ask is, how does one get to Madison? Madison may be part of the big, meanindustrialized world, but Campbell County is part of the big, mean primitive world. It’s enough reason to gnawyour own face off in frustration, no doubt. And I bet you’ll do it too! So I had to scrape up enough dough for a bus

ticket. In an effort to avoid a repeat of the disaster that nearly destructed the St. Louis roadmeet, I ordered a ticketfrom Megabus, not Greyhound. That was tricky in and of itself, for Megabus’s website appears to offer no routefrom Cincinnati to Madison. But I pulled one over on the Far Right by getting a ticket from Cincinnati toChicago, plus a ticket from Chicago to Madison—with a long layover between. Apparently, you’re neversupposed to do this—because the website doesn’t make it evident that you can or should do this. I don’t knowwhy Megabus’s website doesn’t make it easy to do this, because they’re just losing business by not doing it. Theymake people think you can’t cobble together a route by buying 2 routes—and they can forget about getting thebusiness of folks who won’t read a map and don’t know what cities might be on the way from Cincinnati toMadison.

What’s more poopymost is that these routes don’t run that often. So I had to stretch out the trip over 2nights and invest in lodging. Quite frankly, my health is so poor that I don’t expect to be able to sleep on the buseven if I could find a good overnight route, and I don’t have the energy to wander around Madison instead ofsleeping and stay awake throughout the entire trip. As you know, I have severe, permanent nerve damage causedin part by a vitamin deficiency. I told the rest of the Roads Scholarin’ kick-ass crew that I found a relatively cheapmotel with a perfect location. I proposed making this the roadmeet’s official inn. But before that could happen, theprice of a room there mysteriously doubled, forcing us to settle instead for a different hotel 9 miles across town.

But luckily, Madison has city buses. Their transit system dwarfs TANK hands-down. And that’s evenwithout the totalitarian Tea Party trying to cut off TANK service to the Cold Spring park-and-ride. Madison alsohas an extensive bicycle rental program, but April in Wisconsin can’t be counted on for good cycling weather.

My big worry for this trip is just getting to the Cincinnati bus stop in time when I embark. I have to be inQueensgate by 7:35 AM—Daylight Time, no less—on a sure-to-be-rainy Friday. The bus stop used to be muchcloser, until local nobility complained that they didn’t want to see the bus near their loft. So if I miss the bus anddon’t make it to Madison, the aristocracy will have once again contributed to my dashed hopes.

Another great worry is that nobody will rip any bunker blasts. Every real roadmeet I’ve been to has beenlivened up by at least one instance of flatulence during the meet itself. Will it be an SBD? Or perhaps anuproarious LAP? Or how about an amusing one-cheek squeak or a long-lastin’, cool-blastin’ rodeo roo? Inquiringminds want to know!

In the meantime, I’ve been beefing up my Madison itinerary. The roadmeet is on a Saturday, but I’ll havetime for my own walking tour on Sunday. Madison even has a free zoo, but I don’t know if I’ll have time to visitit. It’s a shame I can’t stay for good, for Madison is on the short list of places I’d most like to relocate to (alongwith Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis). Also, my Chicago layover on the way to Madison may give me time tosee the pawn shop from Hardcore Pawn: Chicago.

What? You don’t want me to go to Madison? Tough toilets. I’m going to Madison.

People watch ‘Sesame Street’ when they’re too old for it

If you’re between 50 and85, this message is for you: 4 outof 5 dentists recommendwatching Sesame Street whenyou’re too old for it.

As I’ve told you before,when I was about 10, myafternoon cartoons kept beingfoolishly preempted by a localstation, which led me to lament,“I’ll go back to Sesame Street!”My parents got mad, because Iwas too old to be Sessifying ourhumble digs. Later, in 6th grade, Iwas utterly floored by the factthat a classmate sent fan mail toLuis.

But there’s adultSesamoids too.

I was leafing throughAmazon and stumbled upon areview of a classic Sesame Streetbook. The review appeared to be

posted by a grown woman. It reads in part...

“This was one of my very favorite books as a child. Unfortunately, my copy got destroyedin college when our basement flooded. After half-heartedly hunting on the internet for severalyears, I finally decided to grab this copy.”

That woman is a true Sesamoid. Apparently, she took her favorite Sesame Street book with her when shewent away for college. Now that’s maturity! After the tome got (keek!) ruined, she went through the trouble andexpense of buying another copy.

Some of the drawings from that early Sesame Street book are reprinted on the Intertubes, and they’remuch edgier than what you see in more recent Sesame Street offerings. In one hilarious drawing, Cookie Monsterappears to be storing an apple in his mouth—like a squirrel. Another drawing shows Bert in a dress. The artworkback then was livelier and more humorous than it is now. Most drawings of the Sesame Street kick-ass crew todaymake them look like Lucky Charms marshmallows. When you’re a kick-ass crew, you should look like a kick-asscrew. Especially when you’re the Sesame Street kick-ass crew.

You’re never too old for the ol’ Ses!

He’ll have to make the best of things...It’s an uphill climb...

Rotating IP addresses strike again, as people continue to vandalize Wikipedia. Isn’t that entertaining?Alan Hale Jr. is best known as the actor who played the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. In true Wikipedia

vandalism fashion, someone vandalized his Wikipedia entry. For no apparent reason, someone added this tidbit toHale’s entry...

“He had a terrible time ejaculating.”

But that’s nothing compared to what happened to poor ol’ Don Knotts. Knotts—best known as BarneyFife on The Andy Griffith Show and Mr. Furley on Three’s Company—has also suffered vandalism to hisWikipedia article. Someone edited Knotts’s entry by claiming that he spent his Army years “stripping for money.”This claim is unfounded. Hilarious, perhaps. But unfounded.

Even Trapper John isn’t safe from the amusement of Wiki vandalism and sensationalism. The entry forPernell Roberts—who played Adam Cartwright on Bonanza and the title character on Trapper John, M.D.—wasaltered to claim that Roberts was “the only child of Mr. T.” The vandal in this case failed to account for the factthat Pernell Roberts was born years before Mr. T.

Maybe Kent McCord will pick his nose in public.

My oh my

I’m waiting to see how long it takes for the Evil Empire to screech that I referred to photos that I took as“my” photos.

They hate the word my if I use it to refer to something that I truly own. I’m going on 42, and it’s just nowsinking in that I have things I can call my own. I’m used to being but a peasant—a serf.

But I just posted Twitter messages about “my Grand Rapids photos” and “my online class.”Allow me to predict the argument that the Tea Party thinkpol will make that they’re not really “my”

photos. According to them, if a person with less money than them owns something, it must be ill-gotten—even ifthey worked for it. They think that if someone like me uses their own money to buy something, the item actuallybelongs to their employer—because according to Team Tyranny, people like me deserve to make even less moneythan we do, and we only make as much as we do because of minimum wage laws. And because I don’t rightlyown my camera—according to the Tea Party—I don’t own the pictures taken with it.

That’s their “logic.”Team Tyranny has a very hypocritical, illogical, warped view of property rights. They believe in “property

rights for me, not for thee.” There’s a county in Texas, for example, that’s one of the most right-wing in America.Yet the county seat is a company town where almost all real property is owned by a large ranching company. Ifthe Tea Party is for property rights, why do they support this? I remember my grandmother telling me thatcompany towns were common in her day but later outlawed. When were company towns legalized again?

The Far Right hoists high the ensign of aggrieved privilege and entitlement. If anyone is crying that theywant special treatment, it’s those who compose the Tea Party. These are people who claim that America’seconomic troubles are caused by poor people hoarding money. I can’t imagine they actually believe it—but they

say it, because they want everyone else to believe it.My!

The Akron car pooper

Did the Phantom Pooper relocate to Akron?Folks in Akron, Ohio, have been caught up in a stinky situation. For the past 3 years—since 2012—

somebody has been defecating on parked cars throughout town. Nineteen cars parked in driveways have been hit.The mystery shitter seems to strike between 5:30 and 6:30 AM.

Will this feces brigand ever be caught? If poo.

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