‘Why don’t people break chairs over each other’s heads anymore?’

Local Man2Guest commentary by Noah Swayne:  This morning, I got out of bed, donned the old coonskin cap, and, as my daddy used to say, took a shower. 

Then it dawned on me: why don’t people break chairs over each other’s heads anymore? 

In the old days, when a barroom brawl broke out, before it was over, one of the combatants would pick up a chair and slam it atop the other guy’s head.

So, what happened?  From what I can tell, the kids aren’t even being taught fundamental chair slamming techniques, so if a barroom brawl broke out – well, good luck, is all I can say.

The world has gone to hell.

Apr 24

No True Equality Until There are Mattress Sales on Martin Luther King Day

judgepCommentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

As it turns out, today isn’t so special after all.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and there are no mattress advertisements to celebrate it as there are on Presidents Day when we honor two dead white men.

Imagine a TV ad featuring a cartoon of Marin Luther King’s face saying, “I had a dream — because I slept like a baby on my Excelsior Beauty Sleep Mattress®.” 

By any measure, that would be a great commercial. Sadly, we, as a society, haven’t reached that point where Dr. King is deemed a worthy salesman for mattresses. 

And that, dear readers, tells us everything we need to know about race relations in America in 2011.

Jan 16

Carbolic Smoke Ball Flashback: December 6, 1941: “Nothing To Fear About the Japanese Except Fear of the Japanese Itself”

judge-2Commentary by the Hon. Rufus Peckham, Editor of Carbolic Smoke Ball - The State Department is up to its old shenanigans, concocting all manner of artifice to goad, cajole, wheedle and incite the gentle and peace-loving people of Japan into attacking the United States of America. Less than two weeks ago, our Secretary of State Cordell Hull unilaterally demanded that the Japanese withdraw all its troops from China in an attempt to provoke a Japanese attack.

The Japenese will, of course, never attack the United States of America, despite whatever geo-political legerdemain the State Department manufactures, and you heard it here first.

I have studied the Japanese closely for many years, their quaint ways and inscrutable customs, and I am certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Japan would immediately drop any designs it has on mainland China if it meant militarily tangling with us. The fact of the matter is, the Japanese care not a whit about whether they lose face in the international community by backing down when pushed. Trust me on this one.

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Dec 7

Religious Woman: Where Have All the Shirtless Young Men Gone?

swayneCommentary by Rosacea M. Swayne – As a deeply religious woman, I detest all the sex, sex, sex on television nowadays. You can’t turn on the “boob tube” without being inundated with sweaty naked bodies of the mixed gender variety writhing in sinful, premarital and carnal passion for the prurient pleasure of Americans who insist on being chronically aroused.

Television has become a 24 X 7 electronic Viagara, a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity.

The purveyors of these shameful exhibitions, and the viewers luxuriating in them, are all going straight to hell, each and every one, and you heard it here first.

I grew up in a time when morality held sway, thank you very much. Back then, on a hot day like yesterday, a girl wouldn’t need to watch these dirty things on television in order to be exposed — IN A HEALTHY, RELIGIOUS WAY — to members of the opposite sex. All she had to do was go outside and there they were in all their shirtless wonder.

I can still picture it: lithe, muscular boys in their late teens frolicking in the majesty of their budding manhood; perspiration highlighting their well-toned pecs; their sweat-soaked shorts accenting tight, beautiful asses and vibrant genitalia. We didn’t need HBO AND ITS UTTER FILTH; we were exposed to sexuality in RELIGIOUS, MORAL, HEALTHY WAYS because our imaginations supplied all we needed to know about what each of these boys looked like completely naked — from the size and shape of their penises down to the dimples in their asses.

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Jul 9

Hear Da Judge: Christmas Gift Edition

judgegifts2

Dec 19

Hear da Judge: Thanksgiving Edition

Nov 25

Carbolic Flashback: November 27, 1623: “The First Thanksgiving Heralds Thousands of Years of Peace and Brotherhood Between the White Man and The Indian”

Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, The Honorable Winthrop Peckham

Rejoice, my brothers, for the harvest is rich, and our men have labored mightily.  My lone regret is that I was unable to participate in the back-breaking labors attendant to the harvest this year, inasmuch as I was felled by the gout, coincidentally,  just as I was last year at the time the physical labor was most intense.  But, just as last year, miraculously, now that the harvest is ended, I am entirely well, and I shall not want this winter thanks to the labors of others.

Tonight, in profound THANKSGIVING for this bounty, I invite Squanto, he of the Patuxet tribe, and some 90 braves to join us for a feast of turkey, eel, and fowl that I fervently pray will become an annual rite of thanksgiving for the gifts spread at our feet. Fittingly, I have resolved to call this annual rite “THE FEAST OF TURKEY, EEL AND FOWL.”

I anticipate that in years to come this feast will be celebrated with parades that include giant balloons, senseless family squabbling, inexplicable overeating, and the solidification of rigid gender roles which dictate that the women serve the men, who shall do nothing but eat and fart.

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Nov 25

“Is It, Like, Any Wonder People Don’t Come Downtown Anymore, With the Veterans Day Parade Cluttering Up Our Streets?”

TeenCriticCommentary by Noah Swayne, Jr., Carbolic Teen Critic

When I’m not knockin’ boots with the GF or waitering at BRAVO! making some serious cheddar, I’m downtown chillaxin with my boys, fo’ shiggidy my weeble! 

But downtown is shitty on Veterans Day, dude.  I mean, is it, like, any wonder regular people like me don’t come downtown any more?  It seems every year on Veterans Day, the dilapidated, ratty-looking veterans of yore gimp along Main Street, cluttering up our central thoroughfare (h/t to Ms. Douglas, English Lit, for that cool word) with their war-mongering nostalgia and such. Thus will it be today as we observe yet another Veterans Day parade.

Like, yawn.

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Nov 11

Tips For The G-20 Summit

G20Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Founder, the Hon. Rufus Peckham:  Many of you are heading to Pittsburgh this week to protest or otherwise celebrate the G-20 summit, which starts Thursday.  A number of you have written to ask about proper etiquette when meeting foreign dignitaries. 

You’ve come to the right place.

Approach the dignitary with your head bowed and your palms facing toward them so they know you’re not packing heat.

Curtsey (especially the men), and then turn your head into your sleeve and yell in a loud voice, “Danno, I need back-up!”

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Sep 22

Commentary: The PGA Owes It to Arnold Palmer to Let Him Win One More Tournament

judge-2Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Founder Rufus Peckham - Today marks the 80th birthday of golf’s greatest champion, Arnold Palmer, and every decent American should be damn mad about it. 

You see, “The King” (yes, dear readers, Arnie was royalty long before Elvis, the white guy who sang black,  or Michael Jackson, the black guy who turned white) retired from professional golf with scarcely any fanfare, much less the hoopla he deserved.  This is how we treat our champions?

I have a proposal to honor the man who still has more charisma in his little putter than all the current crop of colorless golfers combined, including the temperamental Woods kid: let him win one more tournament. 

Just hear me out.   Would it kill the PGA to give the proud but decrepit veterans of “Arnie’s Army” one final thrill on their way to that 19th hole in the sky by letting The King pull out one last tournament?

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Sep 10

Burger King Finally Gets Tough With Infants

judge-2Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

A St. Louis Burger King franchise has come under fire for enforcing its “no shoes, no service” policy against an infant. The shoeless 6-month-old was politely asked to leave due to her blatant disregard of the restaurant’s policy.  The restaurant was later criticized for going “too far” and apologized to the child’s mother.

In fact, the restaurant didn’t go far enough. It should have called the cops to forcibly remove the young scofflaw. The failure to insist that young people follow rules is destroying America and everything it stands for.

Why should this child be permitted to flout the rules the rest of us must obey? If deceased Chicago White Sox outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson sashayed into Burger King to get a WHOPPER® without wearing shoes, how do you think the people in the restaurant would react? I’ll tell you how: they’d go running out in horror because “Shoeless” Joe has been dead for 58 years.

Maybe that’s not the best analogy, but you get my point.

Aug 7

Guest Commentary: “My Husband Found the Missing Link, So Why Do I Have The Sneaking Suspicion He’s The One Who Lost It In The First Place?”

carolmadGuest Commentary by Rosacea Lugosi-Hurum - When I first heard that my husband, Jorn Hurum, the supposedly brilliant paleontologist, found the “missing link,” the fossil that bridges the evolutionary split between higher and lower primates, I just shook my head and sighed.  “Let me guess why it was missing,” I said.  “Jorn lost it.”

You want to know how I knew?  Because Jorn’s a man, that’s why.  And like most men, he would lose his own meat missile and spunk holders if they weren’t attached to him. 

You think me too harsh?  By way of example only, at this very moment he’s missing his wallet, the key to our house, his wedding ring and my umbrella.  In our house, we don’t need a document destruction service.  If we want to make a document disappear, we just give it to Jorn and no one ever sees it again.

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May 26

Carbolic Flashback: February 13, 1929: “Blessed Be The Peacemaker! I Have Arranged a St. Valentine’s Day Reconciliation Between the Capone and Moran Gangs!”

judge-2Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

Tomorrow — fittingly enough, St. Valentine’s Day – at 10:30 a.m., seven members of ”Bugs” Moran’s North Side gang will meet with four members of the Al Capone gang at a garage located inside the SMC Cartage Company on the North Side of town. At that time, in that place, these men shall, once and for all, iron out all their differences, and, lo, there shall be peace in Chicago’s gang lands!

If you’ve been living under a rock the past few years, you might have missed the news that for some time, Messrs. Moran and Capone have been battling for control of the lucrative Chicago bootlegging business, with a considerable death toll. Many have tried to stanch the blood-flow to no avail, until I became involved.  

You see, this meeting was my idea. I convinced both sides that murder generally is bad for business. I rarely take credit for my behind-the-scenes efforts to bring healing to a scarred world, but I can truthfully say that I have never been more proud of anything I’ve done. Many are talking about a Nobel Peace Prize for me, and, yes, that might just be appropriate here, because this meeting was anything but easy to pull off.

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Feb 13

Guide for Men to Survive Valentine’s Day

judge-21Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so you know what that means. . . .  I’m glad you do, because our male readers and I don’t.

Let us be candid at the outset.  The sole purpose of this holiday is to torture men, much like the victims in the “Saw” movies — not by waterboarding or electric shocks – by forcing us to express our inner “feelings.”  As if we had any.  Dick Cheney himself could not have devised a more effective torture for men, and that’s saying a lot.

It’s futile to fight it, guys, but there are three principal ways to survive it.

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Feb 13

Tips to Get the Most Out of Trip to Washington, D.C.

judgep1Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

Many of our readers are in Washington, D.C. with me for the inauguration, and as a service to them, here are my tips to help them get the most out of your trip.

Only fools will actually head to the Capitol Building later this morning to watch the swearing in (even Mrs. Obama won’t be there — she will be with me, at a cheap motel on Wisconsin Avenue). Go to a warm bar and get blasted instead.

After that, head over to the Lincoln Memorial. If you can’t tell which building it is, just pull out a penny and look at the back, stupid. By the way, every ninety minutes or so, Honest Abe spews boiling water from his ears, so wear a raincoat.

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Jan 20

Tattletale Mark “Deep Throat” Felt Dead at 95

feltObituary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, the Honorable Rufus Peckham

Traitorous FBI agent W. Mark Felt, who in 2005 slithered out from the excrement of prevarication that encrusted his wretched being to reveal that he was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame, is dead, finally, at 95.

The liberal elite, who for 35 years sought to dupe Western Civilization into thinking that the Watergate cover-up and rampant criminality of the Nixon administration were somehow “wrong,” staunchly opposed any felony charges being brought against turncoat Felt for betraying the commander in chief.  

No less a moral authority than G. Gordon Liddy declared Felt guilty of violating the ethics of the law enforcement profession when he fed information to Bob Woodward that helped topple the Nixon administration.  (It is, of course, completely beside the point that Felt was sneaking around parking garages with Woodward because of the criminal actions of Liddy and his ilk, not to mention the President of the United States.)

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Dec 19

Hear da Judge: Office Party Edition

Dec 9

Carbolic Flashback: December 6, 1941: “The Only Thing We Have to Fear From the Japanese is Fear of the Japanese Itself”

Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, The Honorable Rufus Peckham

The State Department is up to its old shenanigans, concocting all manner of artifice to goad, cajole, wheedle and incite the gentle and peace-loving people of Japan into attacking the United States of America. Less than two weeks ago, our Secretary of State Cordell Hull unilaterally demanded that the Japanese withdraw all their troops from China in an attempt to provoke a Japanese attack.

It won’t happen. The Japanese will, of course, never attack the United States of America, despite whatever geo-political legerdemain the State Department employs. You heard it here first.

I have studied the Japanese closely for many years, their quaint ways and inscrutable customs, and I am certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Japan would immediately drop any designs it has on mainland China if it meant militarily tangling with us. The fact of the matter is, the Japanese care not a whit about whether they lose face in the international community by backing down when pushed. Trust me on this one.

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Dec 6

Jesse Jackson’s Proposal to Cut Off Sen. Obama’s Testicles May Go Too Far

Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Founder Emeritus, The Hon. Rufus Peckham

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been a titan in the American sociopolitical milieu for forty years.  Like every titan, he’s been beset with sneering, green-eyed troublemakers whose sole mission in life is to destroy him. 

Take, for example, the whiners who bellyache that, contrary to Rev. Jackson’s claims, he was not on the balcony with Dr. Martin Luther King when Dr. King was shot. 

And this is a big deal – exactly why?  So, it slipped Jackson’s mind that he wasn’t on the balcony - sue him!  Things slip my mind every day.  Just yesterday I forgot to put out the trash and the recycling bin.  So, you see, being on the balcony with the era’s leading civil rights leader at the time he was shot – or not being on the balcony - is not the sort of thing one would necessarily remember.  As I always say: If forgetfulness were a crime, the jails would be filled with senior citizens, and prison rape would be a thing of the past. 

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Jul 14

Carbolic Flashback, June 4, 1968: “Live from the Ambassador Hotel”

Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Editor, The Hon. Rufus Peckham

I am bursting with excitement as I write this! I am in Los Angeles today because I am coordinating tonight’s victory celebration for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. I predict the Senator will score a decisive victory in today’s California primary and that we’ll have reasons-a-plenty to celebrate tonight. 

The Senator’s aides wanted the party to be held at the Beverly Hills Hilton because they claimed the “security” is better there, but I prevailed and the party will be here at the Ambassador. (I thought the Senator might enjoy being here because this is the same hotel where Nixon wrote his Checkers speech in 1952.)

Anyway, there is no necessity for “security” of any kind. Up and down the state, the Senator is beloved by everyone. Did President Kennedy have need of security in Dallas, except for one lone nut? The President was beloved by everyone except for Mr. Lee “I Hate President Kennedy” Oswald. I am happy to report that Mr. Oswald is resting six feet under the earth, thanks to Mr. Jack Ruby, so he will not be a threat here tonight. I gave the Kennedy people my word: if the Senator has any need for security at all, I’ll provide it myself. And you heard it here first.

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Jun 4