Twenty-two Dead and Children Delighted by Snowstorm

nowstorms blanketed the east coast early last week, stopping work in hundreds of towns and cities and creating countless traffic accidents. In the worst cases, 22 in North and South Carolina were killed in storm-related incidents. Schools were also closed in a number of states, thrilling children from grades kindergarten through 12.

"This is a terrible tragedy, the worst thing that's ever happened to us," said Raleigh, North Carolina security guard Cindy Macon. "We've lost power and had to leave our home. The whole family's been staying in a shelter and I can't afford to miss work, but they've closed everything. We're broke and destitute."

"Hooray!" said Evansville, Indiana schoolboy Ricky Teegan. "Snow's everywhere and they closed school! I hear they're probably going to be closed tomorrow, too. This is the best thing that ever happened to us!"

1.2 million homes in the Carolinas were left without power, and power companies are projecting days will be needed to make repairs. Sledding and snowball fights were also rampant in the area, as well as other snowed-in areas throughout the United States.

"We were going to go ice skating at the lake, but the ice was too weak," said Lakewood, Tennessee teen-ager Jamie Farnsworth. "No luck at all!"

"Our son was killed when his car broke through the guard rail and landed on the frozen lake," said Naomi Marquette of Toquin, Ohio, through thick tears. "The police said he survived the crash, but… he broke through and drowned in the water. The ice was too weak."

Greenville, South Carolina police chief Jim Walters said of the snowstorm, "Several houses in the area have lost power, and there have been at least twenty-five car wrecks at last count. But even worse, I hate to think of the impoverished and elderly people in town who can't afford to heat their homes. Once the roads are cleared and everything starts back up like normal I imagine the calls to pick up frozen bodies will start pouring in."

"It's fantastic," said Washington, D.C. college student Mitch Kursky. "I woke up at eight and just turned the radio on. School's closed! I turned up the thermostat, wrapped myself up in the blanket, and went back to sleep."

Initial snowfalls Tuesday and Wednesday covered much of the east coast, and though the snowfall ceased and the snow began to melt by Wednesday evening, extreme temperatures turned the melting snow into ice, creating even more road hazards and danger for travelers, as well as ice balls for snowball fights.

Echoing city officials across the country, Albertville, Illinois mayor Jean Harper advised residents, "Please stay at home if you can, if you are unessential at work or are sanctioned by employers. The storms may have lessened, but the roads are still extremely hazardous in some areas."

"I'm so glad I have the day off," said Caton, West Virginia middle school teacher Ned Murphy. "I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet day all to myself. A quick drive out to rent some videos ought to give me some entertainment. I think I'll order some pizza, too. If they take longer than an hour to get it to me, I get it at half-price."

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Over the course of my life, any time I've had a gripe about the way things were going or if I had things that I thought were unfair, my mom was always there to remind me that there are people out there who have it worse off than me. No matter what your problem is, there's always some poor S.O.B. out there whose wretched existence made yours look like a complimentary trip to a Bangkok whorehouse.

My mom's the undisputed master of this line of reasoning. No matter what happened when I was growing up, she always had some reason why I should be happy about it. Any time I took the guys to meet Mr. Bike Frame after riding my Huffy into a gopher hole or a curb or something, while I was on the ground in the fetal position, writhing in pain, she always reminded me that at least I didn't have spinal meningitis. I'm not kidding! Needless to say, that's not the kind of thing a guy wants to hear when he's just had his family jewels knocked back into his earlobes, so I spent a large portion of my childhood years sucking on a bar of Ivory soap.

But she never faltered. Your dog got hit by a car? That's a piece of cake compared to having cystic fibrosis. Pulled a 300 on the SATs? That'd make your day if you had hooks for hands. I don't know where she got half that shit. Every once in a while I'd catch her blatantly making something up, like the time in Jr. High when I got kicked in the nuts by a mule and she told me it was better than having Herkemer's Syndrome. I asked her what the hell that was and she just muttered something vague about having your bones itch and said I didn't want to know the details.

To be perfectly honest, I never really appreciated my mother's philosophy when I was growing up; actually I thought she was sick in the head. But now that I'm older I'm really starting to understand where she was coming from. It's taken me a long time to find my purpose in life, but now I think I've really found it. I'm here to remind people that no matter what kind of foul shit is going down in their own lives, hey, at least their last name isn't Fagerbakke.

You don't even have to know a thing about be, beyond my name, to know that I didn't have an easy time of it growing up. All my life, I've been like some kind of nickname magnet. You can try to surprise me with something new, but I'd advise you to save your breath, I promise I've heard them all: Froggerhockey, Fan-of-Balki, Faggotbacon, Fag-bot, Fuckerbacker, Fingerbecky, Shag-her-buddy, Fizzledick, Dr. Lousy Lay, Sir Fucksafreshman, Tommy Hatesajew, Dildo on Wheels, The Cunnilinguist, Tom the Racist Wonder, Tommy Comesponge, Mr. Nazi-cock, Tommy Two-Minutes, Tommy Knockmeup, The Back-door Bandit, Tom Thumbs-a-stranger, Tommy Inchworm… the list goes on and on. I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones, too, you can email my mom if you want the complete list.

The point is, I got stuck with the Spruce Goose of bad last names. And for a long time I thought that was a curse, you know? But now I realize it's a blessing. Just like how Superman got super-powers and used them to help out humanity when it got in a pinch, Tom Fagerbakke got a super-shitty last name and he's going to use it to raise humanity's spirits. No matter who's pissing on your parade or what kind of crap life is trying to pull, all you have to do is stop and reflect on the fact that your last name isn't Fagerbakke, and that kind of puts it all in perspective. Sure, maybe your wife left you for your boss and your mom joined a cult and your son just got into Weird Al Yankovic, but you know, at least you're still doing pretty good in the last name department. So maybe everything isn't as bad as it seems, right? Feel better?

No need to thank me, it's the work I was born to do.

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it's overtones, there's some kind of tone problem, of that much I'm sure. Maybe I wouldn't be right in referring to it as an "article" when it's more of a "ranting letter," but it's very chilling to realize.

The writer of this letter, Earl Chico of "Behind the Walgreens" (as the letter signed), suggests that CDs are nothing more than tiny records. I hadn't thought much of it before, but once this was brought to my attention I rifled through Ramrod Hurley's CD collection and studied each Enya and John Tesh offering closely. By God, Chico's right! They are tiny, circular, there's a hole through the middle, they're flat, and they're played through an expensive piece of stereo machinery you can purchase for high mark-up. I can't tell you how surprising and unsettling this has been to me.

I have never enjoyed recorded music, hence the live band I keep on staff at the commune offices to play my favorite tunes whenever I beckon. Some complain they interfere with the work of the staff, but when Nacutchacokov wants to pay all the bills maybe I'll start taking his big fat advice, until then I run things my way. But I stray like a wife longing for sexual satisfaction from the topic.

CDs and records are basically interchangeable—what does this mean to you? If you're like other Americans and have spent countless dinero replacing your LP collection with squat cassette tapes, then replacing those with CDs, you've been screwed. Screwed hard! "Ouch, quit screwing me!" I say to the recording industry. Not me, of course, given my distaste for recorded music I've mentioned, but you, they're screwing you. Still doing it.

The fact is "digital" technology is no more real than the time machine. Sure, it's a nice fantasy we've come up with, but until scientists conquer the quantum field theorem we're not going to have real digital technology. I could explain that further but I'm afraid it would take up several thousand columns and I don't plan on living that long. Suffice to say all we're using now is the height of analog technology.

From my research into this, which has included asking several session bass players and drum programmers, CD making merely involves recording vinyl LPs at full size and then shrinking them to CD size. The most expense involved, compared to the making of an LP, is not the shrink ray technology, which is fairly easy and inexpensive, but in painting the LPs with silver reflective paint.

Why all the trouble? It takes no elaborate imagination to explain that, readers. Money, pure, green and sexy. Why would anybody buy a 30-year-old Dylan record they kept in pristine condition if the technology never changed? With all this talk of "digital technology" and "re-mastering" and such they can sell you a copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band six or seven times over. Why "CD" itself stands not for "compact disc," it's all an insider joke. "Collectin' Dinero," readers, that's the truth.

It's not over yet. It'll never be over. The next logical step is selling you "Super CDs," which will again just be analog LPs in shrunken CD form they've enlarged to a giant size with Expando Ray technology, which is what they're working on now. Shrinking things is easy—restoring them to full size, aye, there's the rub, to quote Shakespeare, or Lil Duncan.

So while America continues its love affair with throwing their money down the toilet on recorded music, I clap my hands and the commune office band plays "Purple Rain" while I sit back, laugh, and point my proverbial finger. Which is basically my regular finger. Ha.

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