Claudette Ravages Texas Coast Like Mean-Hearted Woman in Blues Song

weet mercy! Texans are still rebuilding their shattered lives after last week's "just plain cold" brutalizing of the Galveston Bay area by heartless hurricane Claudette.

Like an insufferable tropical cocktease, that hurricane moved in and out of the Gulf of Mexico with threatening promise until attacking the Texas coastline with unrelenting moxy. Damages were estimated easily into five-digits, possibly six with the option for seven, and over 30,000 Texans were left without power. Electric power, not power in the Marx-Engels sense.

It was a double-decker sadness sandwich for residents of the Texas coast, who found their homes and livelihood torn up like the love of a good-lovin' bluesman. Ol' Claudette, she knocked over houses and blew down powerlines with a blow from those puckered-up metaphorical lips of hers and left all Texans lower than low. Some residents were desperate for electricity and shelter again, and even though Gov. Rick Perry promised disaster relief and the American Red Cross offered help to those hit hardest by the storm, it was little consolation after being so brutally used and abused by a hard-hearted bitch with a max wind speed of 85 mph.

"I lived in that wreck that used to be my house all my life," said 10-year-old Bob Phelps, a part-time investment banker and pretend Indian. "Claudette rolls in here like a storm and leaves everything all busted up. A lot like a storm, very much so, really. And all this debris, it's just like the inside of my little ol' heart."

Some grief-stricken residents, like cat fancier Elvin Harper, hoped Claudette would follow earlier predictions of losing intensity before reaching the coast.

"I had friends who said she was just a pretty coastal wind, but I knew better," said Harper, searching through cat debris to salvage what he could. "That hurricane was no good, and she messed Texas up good. It just ain't right, I'm telling you the truth."

Used to being turned inside out by tough-lovin' women, local blues players were among the first to recover from the storm. Though electricity was still out in the town, renowned blues legend Galveston Larry had words none-too-kind for the Category-1 storm in an all-acoustic set at Victoria tavern Benny's.

"That Claudette, she's a tough-lovin' woman," Larry advised, seeking a harmonica affirmation from fellow musician "Luckless" Gary Woodland. "She done rolled in over me, all up and down me—you hear what I'm sayin', Gary? And she flattened my trailer like thousand-pound anvil. Just like in Bugs Bunny cartoon or something."

Despite the poor simile, most residents suffering the aftermath of the tropical storm could identify with Larry's feelings.

"It's just sad, wrenches your insides all up," said steel worker and aspiring dancer Clara Gumption. "You can run into good weather systems every day of your life, it only takes one bad one to ruin it for everybody. But I don't hold no grudges. My main concern is getting on with everything, not cursing Claudette to Hades. She'll get what's coming to her some day, she's going to stroll into the wrong town and get herself messed up like she done to Texas."

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Did I mention I had to break down and get a job? Yeah, turns out the New Mexican tit isn't as milky as I had assumed and they actually expect me to drag my own load here. What a bummer. But the upshot is that I'm not entirely sure what it is I do at my new job. Hard to get too stressed out when you have no idea what's going on.

I'm working for a company that makes the nameplates that go on a certain brand of walkers for the elderly. I couldn't make that up. I'm in the office, but downstairs there's a warehouse full of boxes of little metal tags that say "GERIATRIX" on them. I wandered down there once when I was trying to find the can and it was like remembering a Twilight Zone episode where you can't quite remember what the twist was. But I did survive my brief foray across the white-collar/blue-collar divide, possibly because my fuchsia shirt denoted me as a neutral party.

I definitely started here on the right week, since yesterday I just got paid to attend the company picnic. The pic-a-nic (I've been possessed by the spirit of Yogi Bear lately) was a raging blast, before it was over the lawn was soaked with keg beer and vomit. Frumpy CEOs and buttoned-down executive-types got naked and rode the mechanical bull, which turned out to actually be the third-shift supervisor from shipping. There was a contest to see who could hit a marshmallow the furthest with a golf club, and traffic was stopped on I-25 due to an unusually heavy marshmallow coating in the right three lanes. I ate three chicken sandwiches and an orange dreamsicle, then spent the rest of the afternoon practicing stomach-stretching yoga postures to keep food from squirting out when I opened my mouth to speak. Viva la picnic!

My access card stopped working today. I feared for a second that Big Brother may have made me an unperson for my transgressions against the greater good, but it turns out there's just a server down. This seems to only effect me, so it makes me feel pretty cool to think that I have my own server. I wonder if it could bring me a club soda? *ding ding* Stewardess!

So far I've gotten in twice with other people, and once I snuck to the back door and did the secret knock and some Hispanic guy let me in. Next time, I'm going over the wall with both guns blazing. Either that or I'll just hang around by the door until someone with a working card decides to go in. Still undecided on that one.

So between the pic-a-nic thing and the access card thing, so far I've managed to go three days without learning what my actual job is here. I'm hoping to make it a month, but hey, you know I like to dream big. And in two hours I have my half-hour nap, which should seem like a thick, juicy, two-pound steak to an underfed Ethiopian boy. Come to think of it though, I could also go for a thick, juicy, two-pound steak, which would seem like a long nap to someone who stayed up too late bowling last night.

Tonight it's me and the bed 'til the cows come home. Then, it's me, the bed, and the cows. The possibilities are needless. I mean Endless. Yeah. But seriously, the thing that gets me through the day is remembering that no matter how long the day is, I know that it will end with me naked in bed, with about a half-dozen codfish. Wait a minute.

Though Mr. Timeclock tells me that I have an extra 15 minutes from Monday (though I think this is bullshit and I have at least an extra hour, but it's not been good to argue with Mr. Timeclock since his wife left him, he can be a little rough around the edges), so I should be able to cut out of here like a pair of retarded left-handed scissors at 5:15, for an arrival time at Umbrage International Apartment of 5:35pm. And you can be sure my tray tables will be in their upright and locked position (any idea how to get the tray tables DOWN in my car?) and I most certainly won't be locked in the lavatory, smoking a blunt and leafing through a porno magazine, with my socks hung over the smoke detector, muffling its cries for help.

God, I hope that clock isn't fast. And I hope a guy in a big fiberglass Droopy Dog suit gets elected president and his inaugural speech consists of grabbing the microphone in both oversized paws and shouting "LET'S GET LOOOOOADED!!"

We've all got to hope.

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I've never been forthcoming about the commune's history, I freely admit. As far as I was concerned, how we got here isn't an issue. I prefer not to dwell on the past, unless we're talking about the time-traveling carpetbaggers who foiled the Bay of Pigs invasion. When it comes to the commune, where it came from is better off unknown, like the creation of hot dogs. Until recently, that is. With the death of my father Duke Bagel, and the impending legal action by my brother for control of the commune, it's quite clear I need to establish why the commune is mine, no matter what paper and lawyers say.

Unfortunately, this involves the unpleasant history between me and my father, which is the major reason I've not discussed the commune openly with many people before now. It is true my father owned the commune, legally, the original commune and therefore the name and likenesses. To an extent. Father was a wealthynaire, the exact figure of his wealth unknown to virtually everybody. Who knew there was so much money to be made in smoked buffalo meat? Well, my father did. It was no mere accident he began selling the delicious product just before the animal was declared endangered. It was a risky illegal venture, sure, but there's no money to be made in playing it safe, he always used to say.

I was not a blood relation to Duke Bagel, which is to say Duke himself did not give birth to me. I was adopted, a nasty a-word right up there with abortion and Agnes Moorehead, for me. But after my simple beginnings as an island boy, Duke adopted me into the fold and made me a Bagel, just as sure as he was, and always told me I was no better or worse than my brother Gay, except for we were entirely unrelated.

Still, despite my deep affection for the old twisto, I had my destiny set before me. I knew conspiracy and intrigue and getting the truth to the American people would be my path, and not buffalo smoking. This caused a rift between my father we never recovered from. The buffalo smoking empire was left to Gay, his protégé, while I only received one thing from my father, some forgotten old commune once owned by a dumb Indian, which is to say the native couldn't talk, though just between you and me he wasn't all that bright either, to lose it to my dad.

the commune, as it was called, has been mine since that day. If there is any doubt, its humble origins as a refugee from the white man, until a white man swindled the found out of it, was only the starting place. Once I took custody of the commune, a throwaway gift from my father, it was my idea to draw people in with news and columns written on the back of other brochures. From there I found my true calling, and though the names and faces have changed over the years—except for loyal medicine man Sully, who has been our Marketing VP since day one—we have kept spirit to the simple beginnings I created and kept true to one ideal: People will believe anything, if only you tell it to them.

Well, of course, the buffalo smoking empire mostly went down in flames over the years through mismanagement. Gay, in his infinite direct opposite of wisdom, refused to admit mango-flavored smoked buffalo had no future, and entirely screwed himself out of the industry. Dad may have been senile in his final years, but no one was senile enough not to notice. He wished me well in a letter written on a prostitute he sent me, and all but started clearly the commune was mine. And he was proud of me, sort of.

However, this is not enough for Gay. Even if he is my brother, though unrelated, I will not roll over in the interest of family peace and allow him to wrest from my control what I have worked so hard and worked others into their graves to build. the commune is all that I have in the world, and the millions I made from our underground casino, and I refuse to give it up. Or the casino. If Gay wants to take it from me, he's got a fight before him.

And now, I request a moment of silence for my dead dad. You can talk if you want to, but make sure you write and tell me you were silent for a bit. I appreciate it.

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