A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy
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Wednesday, December 31, 2003
looking back
Ok. This is the year ending blog and a good time to sum up. Let's take a nostalgic look back at the major events in Ithaca during 2003.
Ok. Let's take a nostalgic look back at the major events in Ithaca during the last century.
Ok. Let's adopt a slighty longer perspective. Let's take a nostalgic look back at the major events in Ithaca between 1000 and 1900 AD.
Well, if you look back even further, you'd be able to point out that sometime in the year 150,000 BC Gropey the Dinosaur stubbed his toe on a boulder in the vicinity of Fall Creek.
Otherwise, nothing ever happens in Ithaca, producing a strange distortion of time shared by most of Ithaca's permanent residents. Some Ithacans report that they remember a time when Ithaca wasn't gorges. Yes, the sensation of time lapsing is oddly warped so that we're tricked into thinking that the space of time between the disappearence of the last dinosaur and the election of Carolyn Peterson as mayor is about a week. On the other hand, we're led to believe that December lasts 200,000 years around these parts. Go figure. Well, it does mean that you usually have another 75,000 years of shopping days before Christmas.
Maybe 2004 will produce some major events. Let's see. Happy New Year.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:36 AM
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
onward christian baristas
What, you ask, ever happened to the Golden Calf Cafe? The controversial 12 Tribes cult that plopped $1.2 mil down to buy the Ithaca Fitness Center and the Home Dairy building? Did they find the ithaca community so much more "holier than thou", so intolerant and moralizingly self-righteous that they chucked the idea of opening a new cult center in Tompkins County? Judging from the tone of recent letters to the editor in local rags, you might have come to the same conclusion. Ithaca is not exactly opening their arms to the fuzzy apostles of venture capitalism. Some of the letters that Ez read were downright mean-spirited and sounded like a thinly veiled rehash of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Like the Tribes were going to start abducting and turning Christian babies into muffins or something. Imagine that. Go in and order some Mate with a Christian baby biscotti.
So the 12 Tribes decided to host a community forum at the Holiday Inn to greet and meet the local community and dispel the growing cloud of negative publicity. Weren't they surprised when the only people that showed up were the Loaves & Fishes crowd. Yeah, everybody started filling up their pockets with the free baked goods and plastic tableware. They're the only people that ever show up for anything that's free in town.
So what's the status of the infamous Golden Calf Cafe? From what Ez can see, it's looking more New Jersey baroque all the time. Like a theme park for the United Fruit Company. Rain forest chic. Ez hears that they've got some poor brainwashed artist type chained to a paint brush, cranking out the cult's own version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling with Eugene Earl Spriggs as the creator handing a cup of life-giving Mate to Adam. This is going to be one weird restaurant. A cross between Night of the Iguana, the Greatest Story Ever Told and Elmer Gantry. The waiter comes out looking like Charleton Heston playing Mad Dog Earl. How strange is that?
If you're in doubt about how whacked these folks really are, check out their website. http://www.twelvetribes.com/
Now a word about tolerance. People in Ithaca shouldn't throw stones. Look around. The two tallest structures around Ithaca house the Mental Health and Social Service establishments. That's right, folks. That 8 story building on Green Street is, yes, you've guessed it, the Tompkins County Mental Health Department. Not General Motors. Not Prudential Insurance. Not Wrigley Chewing Gum. Ithaca boasts more social workers, more ex mental patients and more people per capita below the poverty line than Detroit . In Ez's book, at least, Ithaca hardly resembles Pleasantville. We should be more tolerant, don't you think?
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:46 AM
Monday, December 29, 2003
autopsy nights
Nobody around Ithaca is fooled by the balmy late December weather. OK, a few dreadlocked boneheads were careening around the Commons shirtless yesterday. Smoked a little too much Salvia or is that Saliva, eh? What the fuck is Salvia anyway? All the headshops along botiqueland boulevard are advertising it.
The oldtimers know that winter is just getting warmed up. In another few days Ithaca will once again be encased in a frozen jello mold of dirty snow and ice. Waiting for mister groundhog. Like some fuzzy godot. A few idiots will leave their xmas lights up until April to fool themselves into thinking that there is something to look forward to in life.
Ez knows there is nothing to look forward to. No pancake dinners. No holidays on ice. No terrorist attacks. Nothing. This is Ithaca in winter. Hunker down.
Well, at least, we have tv. Hyperreality in a box. Let your brain fall asleep. And you can always look forward to the Thursday night lineup. Autopsy night.
What's the story with the sudden revival of medical examiner shows? Tell the truth now. Didn't you used to like to watch Quincy? Despite the bozo they got to play the loveable coroner, that show had merit. Except they never showed the good stuff - you know - lacerated heart muscles, eyeballs rolling around Las Vegas parking lots, headless torsos buried in the desert sand. At least you could imagine Quincy cutting a chest open. You could hear the whirring sound of a buzz saw rippling through a cranial shell even if you couldn't see it.
Now things have changed. This is the 21st Century, post Patricia Cornwall. TV shows everything right down to the bloated frat dude lying in the tub, looking like a rotting Pillsbury doughboy after being dead for three days. CSI, CSI Miami, Cold Case. Finally, there's something worth watching on tv.
To get us through the winter. To get us through the miserable vacuum of small town life. The Russians drink gallons of vodka. The Laps cuddle with their reindeer. What do Ithacans do? Watch tv, visit the mall and listen to the sounds of their mufflers rusting. Ezra curls up with a good autopsy program.
And Ez has begun to experience new career stirrings. You don't have to go through all that med school bullshit to be a coroner, right? You don't have to deal with those twinges of conscience like real doctors do when they prescribe $120 purple placebo pills to dying children just to make a living. When you're an ME, the patient doesn't feel a thing. Often the patient doesn't have a face let alone anything resembling a pulse.
Ez is looking around for a good forensic pathology school. Maybe he'll turn the spare bedroom into an autopsy lab. Advertise in the Pennsysaver for body parts.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:46 AM
Saturday, December 13, 2003
Happy new year!
You've all been waiting for Ithaca Sucks' 2004 predictions. Wait no longer! Get in your zingy new SUV, beat up Volvo sedan, rusted out VW bus with the panoramic dayglo scenes from the life of Jerry Garcia on the side, and head out while the going is good. Because 2004 isn't going to be any bed of roses around Ithaca. We're talking Apolcalypse now. Armageddon. Trouble up ahead. You know. Another bad year in a town where reality is a nasty little secret.
Predictions
12 Tribes Buy out Ithaca. Yep, those masters of the heterdox do it again and make a $125 million offer for the whole kit and kaboodle. Not satisfied with the Ithaca Health Center and the Home Dairy, the Tribalists makes Mayor Peterson and the Common Council an offer they can't refuse. And you know what, her honor accepts! Cayuga Lake is drained and replaced with millions of gallons of Mate Factor. A city ordinance is passed, requiring all men over 17 to wear a beard and women to wear long dresses. Upstate New York Gothic! Everyone in Ithaca has to work at least 15 hours busing tables, washing dishes and working on the construction of a 400 ft high golden calf.
Cornell University changes it name to Larry Ellison University. The computer mogul drops $6 billion on the table and CU gets a makeover. Statues of Ezra Cornell are torn down all over campus , Day Hall becomes the Oracle Center, the football team changes their name to the Larries. What those people on the hill won't do for money.
CU scientists clone the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Thousands of plump, fluffy dough boys graze peacefully on the slopes of the Plantations. The Bush administration hands LEU (Larry Ellison University) a big contract to send a couple of hundred dough boys over to Iraq in a pilot program to replace relcalcitrant Shi-ites with more compliant marshmallow-like citizens.
Paul Glover joins Smith, Barney as a day trader. Ithaca's feisty anarcho-Green activist decides to put his experience running the Ithaca Hours currency program to work in order to make some real money. Wall St meets the Farmer's Market. Paul junks his bike for a BMW and picks up some Armani threads.
Wal-mart opens up a 200,000 retail megacity. All the other retailers in Ithaca go belly up. Ithaca discovers its destiny in the bosom of that old smiley faced price chopper.
Have a nice day!
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:05 AM
Sunday, December 07, 2003
The Ithaca Sucks Holiday Catalogue
FAQ
Will my gift arrive in time for the holiday?
Definitely not. If you live in Groton or Newfield, your gift will most likely arrive around Easter. Consider giving the one you love an assortment of Ithaca Sucks chocolate ground hogs.
Can I use PayPal?
No, Ithaca Sucks only accepts Ithaca Hours .
Do you have a website?
Glad you mentioned it. Log on to www.ithacasucks.com
Do you test your products on animals?
As a matter of fact, all of our products are tested first on unsuspecting human subjects who think they are attending a potluck dinner to raise funds to send
Paul Glover to Iraq permanently.
Recently I bought an Ithaca Sucks Magic Tofu Squeezer from your catalog. When I tried it for the first time, it reduced my block of tofu to a fine powder like substance. What should I do?
Add water.
Contact Us
Don't bother. This webpage is operated from a remote site in Hunan Province in China.
Without further adieu, our Winter Holiday Catalogue
Ithaca Sucks Magic 108ft Bungee Cord $125 Ithaca is Gorges, right? They're not only nice to look at. Now you can have fun leaping off the Stewart Ave bridge and impress your friends and the Ithaca Police with your derring do. Want to get back at an someone who's broken your heart? Tell her you'll meet her at the bridge at a given time, show up wearing the IS Magic 108 ft bungee Cord under your coat. Give her one last tearful hug, then plunge to what she will assume is your undeserved fate. Surprise! Then, after you make bail, have a romantic dinner for two at the ABC Cafe.
Small print disclaimer: The Ithaca Falls is only 92.5 ft high.
The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Glover $18.95 Learn the political secrets of Ithaca's legendary community activist. Paul tells how he managed to garner only 488 votes in the last mayoral election after living in Ithaca, the most progessive city in the US for 25 years. Learn how to make a fortune peddling play money and be nominated as a potential candidate for President of the United States.
The Best of the 60's Video Collection $275.00 From the Cornell 10 takeover of Carpenter Hall to the New Age Bubble, it's all here in this 12 volume video record of the tumultous 60's. See intimate cameos of Mollie Katzen using Hamburger Helper to make those delicious tofu dishes back in the early days of Moosewood Cafe. Actual footage of hippie orgies. Never before seen film clips of Paul Glover as a young, struggling anarchist trying to pick up college chicks. Catch the excitement as the Greenstar founders sell their first bag of organic macademia nuts. Find out how Ithaca became the whacked out place that it is today.
Rogaine for Activists $19.95 Is your pony tail receding? Let's face it, even progressives start to lose their hair eventually. It's an embarrassing fact of life in the real world and, even though Ithacans spend 99.9% of their time denying it, this is the real world. Now you can have the same head of hair you had when you rocked the boat back in the 60's.
Authentic Shinto Altarpiece from Quanan Province $18,995. Ok, you started out collecting plastic Buddha statues in the 60's. But, now you've accumulated a little nestegg selling bagels and lattes to yuppie college students, dabbled with a psychotherapy practice and a Reiki studio, moved up to real estate. You're comfortable with who you are, an aging pseudo-progressive with a geying ponytail who drives a BMW and wears $1200 hand-stitched sandals. It's time you started collecting authentic Asian treasures to decorate your modest $3.5 million nest in Cayuga Heights. Now you can own a one of kind solid gold Shinto shrine pilfered from a temple deep in the backwaters of China. Comes with 6 replacement bulbs.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:08 AM
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