Lost My Way on the Slow Gray Train Ned Nedmiller, Duke of Hazzard
Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2001 This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller
Story" by Rolando Burf. Continued from last week.
And it might still be that way today if it weren't for one Nedriff Nipplebelt Nedmiller.
When Ned heard of the buffalo problem, he locked himself in his laboratory, pronouncing
that he would not appear again until he had the solution. Neighbors wondered at the
strange noises coming from Ned's lab at all hours of the day and night: the singing
of saws, the burping of crows and the vague smell of a swimming pool on fire. Someone
called for a constable when a rumor circulated that Ned was melting down school
children into paraffin wax, but just as the fuzz was about to knock on Ned's door, the
man himself flung open his doors and announced to the world that their problems were
over.
The device that Ned presented to the world looked like a cross between a smallish piano
and a largish dentistry utensil, on wheels. It had a crank on one side and a flared
cone on the other. And on top there was a mannequin head wearing a hat. On the side,
hand-lettered in on it's black surface in black paint (or so he told the people), it
said "Ned Nedmiller's Framjambulous Laughing Machine".
Refusing the spectators' pleas for a demonstration, Ned hopped aboard the Laughing
Machine and rode it west, toward the Plains. It was a four-week journey, but thanks to
the help of a flock of pelicans, and Ned's invention of a land-sail, it only took him a
month and a half. He arrived to find the Chinamen, sitting about and scratching their
heads, as a stoic buffalo stood, motionless, at the eastern termination of the Walking
Rail.
Without saying a word, Ned positioned his Laughing Machine in front of the buffalo,
wet his thumb to check wind direction, and gave the crank a furious crank. Laughter of
every size and denomination, every type and at all points along the spectrum of sanity,
poured forth from the laughing machine's cone. Chortles, titters, guffaws and even
silent shaking filled the air. Three times the laughter produced by a fart in Congress
spilled out of the Laughing Machine. Laughter so contagious that all of the Chinamen
began to laugh along, and those who had yet to drop their tools and daydream now
dropped their tools and doubled over in laughter.
The buffalo first looked at Ned (who nodded) in a confused fashion for a moment before
it began to laugh. For those who have never heard a buffalo laugh, I suggest climbing
inside an industrial textiles washing machine, starting up the cycle, and then letting
loose the warthogs you've been hiding in your pants. Then you'll have bigger fish to
fry than wondering what a buffalo sounds like when it laughs.
The buffalo laughed and laughed until finally it collapsed onto it's side and shook with
buffalo laughter. Ned promptly shut off his laughing machine and when the Chinamen had
recovered, they went about their merry task, building their Walking Rail all the way to
New England. Ned accompanied them the rest of the way, providing laughing machine support
whenever they came across buffalo, brown bears or hillbillies.
When they finally arrived in New York, Ned and the Chinamen were given a tickertape
parade, and a recording contract with Capitol Records. In a show of gratitude, the Mayor
of New York gave them all complimentary tickets for the maiden voyage of the first luxury
liner built entirely by the blind, the Titanic.
The problem was, the Titanic was sailing to New York, not from it, so Ned and the
Chinamen quickly hitched a ride on a grand blimp called the "Hindenberg 2: NO SMOKING"
all the way over to England, where they were just in time to ride the Titanic back to
New York.
Ned and the Titanic were like peas in a pod, and he entertained the guests and crew day
and night with his inflatable pacemaker and a metal box that he claimed to contain
Spain. He was voted "Best Grandmother" on the Titanic and was given a commemorative kick
in the head. Unfortunately, these blissful days were not to last.
Out of nowhere the "biggest skeeter this side of the Rio Grande" latched onto the ship
and started "jimmyin’ open the fuselage with his tremendous skeeter-beak". Ned knew that
time was short and heroism was in high demand, so he leapt into the fray with only a
freakishly large Q-tip and a loincloth on his side. When all was said and done, "them
skeeter" had been swabbed into submission and nine months later Ned would unexpectedly
give birth to a small Laotian boy named Ring-rong, who would go to work in the diamond
mines, and was years later buried under a landslide of engagement rings. Unfortunately
for all aboard though, at that moment some joker pulled the plug on the Atlantic and
"them Titanic" went down the drain, never to be seen again. Ned survived only by holing
up in the belly of a whale named Tim, who later washed up on the shores of Costa Rica,
proving his long-standing claim that he was allergic to Danes.
Over a hundred years later, the Walking Rails are still the mode of trans-continental
transport preferred by most 10 year-old runaways. None of this would be possible without
Nedrum Nightynight Nedmiller, and it's truly time that the city of Pasadena, California
erects a gigantic knee brace in his name.
Milestones
the commune's scratch 'n sniff look at last year's office potluck
Opportunities
Pants a Capitalist
Free Virus Baggies
Take a Kitten, Please
the commune book selections
the commune's Bear in Rearview
the commune's Big Book of Duke
Faces of the commune
the commune 100: Leaders and Revolutionaries
the commune 100: Traitors and Noodledicks
FAQ Shwartz |
Site Map's Somewhere in the Glovebox |
Search In Vain |
Contract Ick
Privacy Police |
Terms of Gary Busey |
Reprints & Persimmons |
Press Eject Now
Check His Nipples, He May Be the King
But in truth, when one truly studies the unpublished crumbs and discarded scraps of History, an entirely different story comes into focus. It is the story of Ned Nedmiller and the Laughing Machine.
Please Hamlet Don't Hurt 'Em
It’s a day that will live in infancy forever and never, that damnable day the Kaiser gunned down ol’ JFK.
Rubber Ain't My Brother
Time to set the record straight, Pop'n Fresh. Who's in the kitchen with Dinah? Neddikins Nedmiller, them's the cat! Surprise!