Archive for: July 2016
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Podcast: If I Had A Hammer
If it’s July in Coma that must mean it’s 90 degrees –even underwater with your eyes burning from chlorine, at that the Coma municipal pool. And that pool deck is hot enough to fry some toe nuggets on.
This is Coma News Daily.
The complete internet news source portal for the Town of Coma.
This episode of Coma News Daily is brought to you by Kale flavored liquid ham. It’s the kale flavor that makes it so delicious.
This week we just keep ‘Getting Serious’ and broadcast from a horse barn rather than a bar.
As always you can hear the podcast by clicking play at the bottom of this blog post!
Hosted this week by Jonny Reynolds, who is a real reporter, and Coma’s very own underemployed Private Dick (gross), Marybell Davis, who does not write news but is attractive enough to read it. With news from T.S. John who can no longer prebreak news since he gave up his peyote habit and a news update on the Coma Town Council’s plan to Save the World with their tunes.
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Living: He’s with Me and Two Kids in the Bed
On the Fourth of July in an open field in Coma we celebrated the birthday of America. This was the first celebration for me in the bed of a Dodge 1500.
Like every experience in life, it was who I did it with that mattered: my friend Robert McGuiness and my two boys (eating too much cotton candy).
Last year we actually went in to Fireman’s Field where they show the fireworks but after taking four hours to leave because every car in town was packed in to a place with only two exits we decided to park in a field near the fireworks and watch. There were other people in trucks there, too. One engineering guy brought an entire sound system which seems like overkill in the year of the iphone and ihome.
He was playing some bluegrass music really loud and I thought of Michael and how after he died I thought I would never want to watch firework or other fun things. I thought if I lost him everything would lose its sweetness and hope would dry up.
I look at Robert and he tells me “Stop talking so we can listen to the music.”
The boys are stuffing in the cotton candy and playing legos. They are quiet because we went to a park earlier and ran some spazz out.
A guy walks up wearing a shirt with and American flag on it and says, “You guys want to come sit with us?” Robert shakes his head no and for a minute I think, “If Micheal was still here he’d say ‘yes’ and jump over and have a beer with them and warble the national anthem at the top of his lungs.’
And then I realize Michael is not here, that things change, that we move on.
In the silence before the fireworks I realize–
“Mommy, Mommy!” Johnny screams from the back of the truck bed.
I turn to see that his little brother has thrown up all over the bed of the truck. I look over at Robert and he smiles. He reaches down and squeezes my hand.
As I clean up Jimmy, I hear the guy with the beer gut and the long hair singing. He sings about America. He sings about failure and heartbreak and forgiveness. He sings a song about who we are and what we can be. He sings a song of promise. He is a terrible singer and he sings off key. He doesn’t sing about the barriers to who we are but rather all the things we have in common.
And just as I finish cleaning up Billy, the fireworks begin. Red, white and blue light the sky.
In the middle of the explosions, little Johnny starts singing, “My country twist of thee, sweet lands of liver-ty, of thee I sing…”
Human Joins The Animal Race
Watch out Coma animals, there’s some new competition in town.
Coma resident and former Councilman Bob Smith-Smith over the holiday weekend announced he will run for the legislative body’s animal representative seat. The animal representative seat was created in the spring and is provisionally occupied by Master Splinter, a rat and the “son” of Councilwoman Natalie Peters, until the first election for the seat is held in November.
The Band (or Coma Town Council), pictured here in the 60s, is using the new music to help the younger generations understand how wonderful they were and are. Bob Smith-Smith (middle) was ‘talkin about his generation’ in song regardless of whether or not people wanted to listen.
Smith-Smith, who launched his bid on the Fourth of July, directly addressed whether a human could hold the animal representative seat.
“I ask my fellow Coma residents to declare independence from the notion that humans are anything more than animals–although animals that don’t eat their own bodily waste or each other,” Smith-Smith said.
Smith-Smith joined an already crowded race for the animal seat. Both Master Splinter and Princess Buttercup, a three-year-old Eurasian wolverine, owned by Town Councilman Jax Owen, already are competing for it.
Princess Buttercup was previously known as one of two “reading wolverines” that chewed through steel cages and terrorized Coma Elementary School last year. “People give these Wolverines a bad name. They are super sweet and highly intelligent political animals who can really change the course of policy if you own strong tranquilizers and a taser.” said Owen.
Although neither animal’s campaign responded directly to Smith-Smith’s entry into the race, the rodent candidate tweeted the latest in a series of increasingly incendiary comments.
“My opponent doesn’t believe in cage walls or freedom. Scares the kids. Sad!” the rat tweeted.
In her only response tweet, Princess Buttercup wrote “Hey kids, watch me kick it on Snapchat!!!!” accompanied by a GIF of a dancing bear.
Serious–Part 6: Parakeets in Paradise
The following is Serious, part of a year-long investigative series by Coma News Daily into the disappearance of a former Coma News Daily editor, Don Johnson Michaels.
What do pets mean to people?
For some, a pet is something that vomits throughout your home or that tries to lick your face after eating its own waste. But for others a pet is someone for whom you’d jump out of a plane–and parachute into a strip club.
That was the kind of commitment to an animal companion that a close friend of Don Johnson Michaels exhibited when her pet parakeet died.
Serious recently sat down with that close friend, Natalie Peters, to discuss Michaels’ shared love for animals and whether it could have been connected to his theft of a show pony on the day he was last seen riding away from Coma and laughing like a hyena.
Serious: Thank you Coma Councilwoman Natalie Peters for joining us today to discuss the disappearance of you’re friend.
Peters: Thank you for having me. Any way that I can help provide justice for my friend, Don, is the least I can do for Mr. T.
Serious: Wait, who’s Mr. T?
Peters: Mr. Tweet-Tweet-Tweetybird, who I called Mr. T, was my parakeet.
Serious: Oh, OK.
This year Peter’s has lost three birds to her “bucket list effort’. Butch and Sundance (pictured on the left) were killed by a rogue tabby cat while eating their last steak dinner.
Peters: He was caught and eaten last year by red-tailed hawk while flying outside his cage, which was an item on his bucket list.
Serious: Oh right. And that pet’s death led to your unsuccessful push for an ordinance conferring human rights on Pet birds. Was that something Michaels was interested in?
Peters: Unnecessary bird-on-bird violence is a concern of many people in Coma–unfortunately just not the majority of voters in this unevolved backwards hamlet.
Serious: So, do you think the missing editor’s love of animals could have had something to do with his disappearance?
Peters: I have no idea. Let’s face it, the guy was a little crazy. You know whats not crazy if is my newest pet-related innovation.
Serious: What that?
Peters: Certified comfort rats.
Serious: Comfort rats?
Peters: I have found nothing helps relieve the stress of modern life like 10 or 12 rats crawling all over your body as you lay perfectly still. I’m planning to offer certified rat therapy starting next month to the wonderful residents of Coma.
Serious: That sounds … interesting. But we’re going to have to let you go there because that’s all the time have for this week’s installment of Serious.
Next time on Serious: We investigate the range of conspiracies that local kooks have come up with to explain the disappearance of Don Johnson
Queries and Quislings
Queries and Quislings is an advice dispensary offered as a public service of Coma News Daily and the advice is written by Coma News Daily publisher Davis Montgomery III.
Dear Query Guy,
How do I get that place called Vine to come and film me? I have some really funny ideas for stories but I need someone to film me. How do other people get their videos up there? I’ve called and emailed Vine and can’t get them to respond.
Sincerely Funny
Query Guy:
The subtle vagaries that guide men’s selection of leisure time activities are shot through with an almost infinite variety of permutations and depredations. My initial response to your query is to urge extensive reflection on the nature of man and his place in the universe before broaching an extensive exploration of what Vine is. Is it quite possible that you are not funny and no one wants to see your video. My exploration of Vine has proven that there are more people willing to film themselves than there are people with actual talent.
But I also recall the frequent and enthusiastic advice of my dearest spouse in such delicate circumstances: Hit it with a hammer. Don’t think about it and don’t wait. Just hit that problem with a hammer and hit it good. A hammer will fix anything including all of your problems. It will even fix the fact that you are not funny.
If you have any questions about this advice it is only because you have failed to hit the problem hard enough and often enough with a hammer. This advise is so clear and concise that I am copying most of what I said to the querying woman last week.
Good luck to you, sir.
QG
