What’s Up? by Henry Hackett

Howdy folks. Henry Hackett here. You may be wondering why there haven’t been any new diatribes by Crabb in a few days. Then again, maybe you haven’t, but I have taken it upon my own self to update the situation.

First off, forgive the crude self-portrait on your right. Since Mr. Arteest hasn’t been available, I was forced to scribble my own version. I ain’t no Norman Rockwell, but I believe I have captured my personality better than I am usually portrayed. I am much more handsome in person.

Now on to the latest poop: After the election, Crabman went into a deep funk. I don’t know why it matters to him, being that he don’t like either party very much. It’s more like withdrawls. Now the countin’s done he doesn’t have anything to bloviate about, so for days he just stayed in bed eating Cheet-os and watching zombie movies. After the munchies ran out he was forced to go to the store and saw that the world had not ended. The sun still come up, the leaves still fall, and there aren’t any roving bands of staggering meatbags trying to take a bite out of him, except in front of the Grand Fathered Inn. In other words, life is goin’ on as usual.

He hasn’t been through as many of these slug-outs as I have. People been sayin’ one or the other side is dead and gone ever since they started doing these elections. We Americans love a good fight, and you can bet that after lickin’ their wounds the losers will be ready for a rematch down the road. It might not be so if the winners kept all their promises and everything worked out just the way they said it would. For all their book learnin’ and charts and projectin’s, reality usually bites ’em in the behind.

Bein’ an old white guy, I’ve seen plenty of change. It’s scary, but you do your best to go with the flow and not sink into stagnant water. And it’s always best to do what you can to weather such floods. They say that hope floats, but it don’t hurt to stock up on life preservers.

For instance, there’s a big brou-ha-ha over the bankruptcy of Hostess. People are swarming into every grocery and convenience store from coast to coast in an effort to grab their last Ho-Ho or Twinkie. I’m ahead of the curve. I started hoarding them years ago during my survivalist phase. When the other idiots were stocking up on freeze-dried lentils, I was buying up cases of Twinkees and stashing them down here in the Skeptic Tank. They have a shelf-life of two hundred years, you know, so they are the perfect food substitute for any prolonged war, drought or financial crisis. . Now I am going to get rich auctioning them off on E-Bay. Who’da thunk it?

Anyways, back to Crabb. He seems to be coming around in the last few days. He turned off the TV and locked himself inside his mancave studio, where he makes up these outlandish stories. It finally occurred to him that that is his calling. There are always new chapters to document before the last ringing of the Great Bell, and his fertile imagination is bubbling back up to the surface. I know. I can smell it.

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23 Responses to What’s Up? by Henry Hackett

  1. Robert Lovejoy says:

    Dear Mr. R. L. Crabb. I once saw you at Safeway. Recognized the man in flesh from the cartoons. You looked at me and had a weird twinkle in your eye, as if my not-quite-normal appearance was amusing you. I did not say hi, but I agree. Your self portraits do not do the real R. L. Crabb justice. You are better looking and shorter in the flesh.
    You are an old white guy. No argument here. But, you are NOT an old angry white guy. You can catch those types on MSNBC. Depression keeps us old white guys from getting too angry. Count your blessings.

    • rl crabb says:

      If you saw me in Safeway, it must have been before I became an “old white guy” as I have not entered either local establishments in many years. I take that back. I have been in there once or twice in emergency situations. My last major intrusion into Safeway was in Hilo, Hawaii when the wifey and I were on our honeymoon. We had a room with cooking facilities, so we decided to save some money instead of eating out at the expensive restaurants every day and went to Safeway, where we stocked up on deli seafoods for the “Hawaii experience”. At the checkstand, they asked if we had a discount card. Answering in the negative, they signed us up immediately, and since I don’t shop at Safeway at home I gave them a phony name.
      A year or two later, I did have occasion to buy something at the then-new Safeway in Glenbrook. I still had the card in my wallet, so I handed it over to the clerk, who swiped it and said, “Thank you, Mr. Manley.” I had forgotten that my alter ego in Hawaii was Rex Manley, international adventurer. Haven’t used the card since.
      And by the way, I’m not angry, just annoyed.

      • Robert Lovejoy says:

        Mr. R. L. Crabb; world adventurer into the forays of other dimensions. I am fairly certain it was you standing outside downtown Safeway a couple of years back near the door where they keep the pumpkins and hoodlum juveniles. Could of sworn it was you (or your evil cartoon twin) standing there like a leprechaun observing the ebb and flow of humanoids. Or, I could have been experiencing another one of those flashbacks from the Timothy Leary days. I did notice green onions chasing music notes across the parking lot just to your left. My, my, excuse my rude manners. I forgot to say “Hello Mr Crabb, looking rather splendid there lately.”

        • Michael Anderson says:

          Mister Lovejoy,

          Have you been romping about the foothills practicing mycology the past few days perhaps? It would explain a lot, i.e. your present writings. If so, our old friend Lick would be proud of you (as well as Mister Bloom).

          Michael A.

          • Robert Lovejoy says:

            Mr. Michael A. Your fancy words had me confused until I just looked up the meaning of that word mycology. Sounds kind of Latin, but I think I may have comprehended the essence of your riddle. No, I have not turned over any cow pies in Oregon pastures looking for magic mushrooms since Mt St Helens blew. Bloom must be a reference to a marijuana cigarette. Its be awhile since I smoked any stems and seeds or bought a 10 dollar lid. No, some of us are just born with an imagination, some more gifted and vivid than others. I am simply honest enough to state what I saw and some people who saw them musical notes and nine foot green onions that day remain silent for mysterious reasons known only to themselves.
            I am just trying to cheer up Mr Artees during his hour of need and Holiday blues.

            Oh, I used to have some problems with organic plants. Old saw bones diagnosed me as being a paranoid schizophrenic after the last time I was strapped down in the back of the meat wagon. What, me worry? Doc says we are all better now. BTW, who told you to mention mycology? Who was it. Who?

          • Michael Anderson says:

            It was the magic mushroom police, in the garden, using the butcher knife.

          • Robert Lovejoy says:

            I knew it! See, they call me paranoid until I am proven right. The mushroom police in the garden. I heard they moved to these parts, now we have proof. Do they still have that pink poodle with the sun bonnet wearing a cute turquoise one piece Dale Evans bathing suit? That dog has a nose that can sniff out fungi a mile away. There is something about that dog when she wags her tail I find most intriguing and mesmerizing. But, back to Mr. Artees and his funk.

      • Rex Manley, Crabman, Crabby, Earl Crabb…You have more aliases than a Nigerian Internet scamer.

        • rl crabb says:

          Kenyan, George. Somewhere I have a birth certificate.

          • TD Pittsford says:

            Sure you do. And so does Barak Obama but neither (the REAL ones anyway) are readily available. It is my suspicion that one of you is from another planet, if not an entirely different galaxy. I won’t even try to guess which one.

  2. RobertL 1144am – Well said Mr Lovejoy. As another old white guy, I don’t want to get angry but my stash of depression is getting low. Any ideas for replenishment?

    Also waiting for my friend Sir Robert of Crabb to get back in the saddle and again lead us in the charge down the middle.

    • Tom Odachi says:

      “…but my stash of depression is getting low.”

      I never heard the term “depression” used in place of “chronic”. At any rate, I feel for you George. (but I know where you can get some more “depression” to deal with that anger:)

  3. Steve Enos says:

    If one is seeking “depression” fixes or “chronic’, or pills or meth or even the big “H” just go on down the the downtown Grass Valley Safeway shoping center. It will only take a few minutes to get what you need as the shoping center is THE center of Grass Valley’s public drug dealing.

    • Michael Anderson says:

      Steve,

      Nancy Reagan says “Just Say No.” Isn’t that working yet?

      Michael A.

      • Ryan Mount says:

        Yeah, just like “abstinence” sex-ed. Works like a charm. Not. Maybe we should just go back to scaring young adults with hairy palms and going-blind warnings. Like this: If you have underage sexual relations, you’re Left foot (specificity is important) will fall off and you’ll have to live with your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s angry stepfather who has a mane of back hair.

        BTW, with regards to downtown, it’s more like the Bermuda triangle that starts at the Salvation Army, then to Safeway, and then darts over to the Circle K and then back to the Salvation Army. Yes you can score anywhere within that domain, but do you really want to?

      • TD Pittsford says:

        Michael, it never had a chance. It was kind of like saying. “Please drink responsibility” to alcoholics, or the current ads about the dangers of tobacco sponsored by the Dept. of Health and yet the tobacco companies are still receiving subsidies to grow the “weed of death”. Not many heeded Nancy’s warnings just as the latter two are being all but ignored. It’s a funny old world, ain’t it? It gets even funnier when politicians are involved.

  4. Michael Anderson says:

    Henry,

    I just posted this over at RR, but I thought it might resonate here a bit as well. Please tell Bob I’m sorry if he thinks it’s too much of a non sequitur:

    “Paul Emery and Steve Enos,

    I’d like to perhaps stretch a metaphor here. I’d like to suggest that just as those folks who were unwilling to accept that their farming practices in the Dustbowl counties had to change (become more sustainable), so are some Republicans unwilling to accept that some of their practices are also no longer sustainable.

    Public Enemy #1 in this regard is no other than Grover Norquist. His time has certainly come and gone. How can we tackle tax reform in a bipartisan fashion w/o some taxes going up? As Ronald Reagan would say, “answer me that, Batman!” Sure, go after loopholes. But you are also going to lower taxes on some people and raise taxes on some other people. This is the definition of reform.

    Grover Norquist is a stick-in-the-mud old poopy bottom, and the American body politic need never hear from him again. Good riddance, just like the Plains idiots who continued to shallow-plow in straight lines during the Great Depression.

    No-Tax Pledges are yesterday’s discarded Depends. New baby Norquist, meet today’s bathwater.

    Michael A.”

    • Greg Goodknight says:

      Since Norquist’s people still have a healthy majority in the House, he ain’t gone and won’t be anytime soon. He won, too. You’ll just have to deal with it.

      The Feds take in two trillion dollars a year, and spend 3 and a half. I gather the spending is continuing to accelerate. Two homey phrases that come to mind are “When you’re in a hole, stop digging” and “What can’t go on forever, doesn’t”.

      The golden goose can’t give up an extra 1.5 trillion a year even if Norquist did a 180 and starts believing in that hopey-changey thing, and that’s not going to happen.

      • Todd Juvinall says:

        Well said GG. Grover is the boogeyman to the left and he does a good job trying to keep people to there promises. What is amazing is the government spends a trillion bucks more than they bring in and the left tries to make it his fault for not allowing them to rob us. Now if the left would do a Grover on the spending side, we would have a perfect balanced budget storm.

      • Michael Anderson says:

        All I’m saying is that with the folks on the no-revenue-cuts side all dug in, the folks on the no-spending-cuts will also continue to stay dug in. Norquist needs to take his ball and go home so those who are willing to explore complex details can get to work.

  5. Todd Juvinall says:

    Unlimited spending offset by tax discipline promises. No brainer. Grover is an American hero.

  6. Steve Enos says:

    TD and when the word ‘hero” is applied to Grover it has no meaing at all…

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