Monday, August 22, 2005

Just When You Think You're Loony...

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Are your car keys missing again? Did someone hide the crossword puzzle? You've got fairies, my friend. Hey, would you rather have cooties?

Fairies are just looking for respect, and perhaps a joke or two now and then. They especially love spontaneous puns. Shower them with spontaneous puns and you'll never lose those car keys.

First, I want to thank my wide readership for the outpouring of sympathy, job offers, and downright grants since I posted the news of a scarcity of goat-judging opportunities. I'm so touched! But don't worry about me. I just realized there's no Tarot Card reader in my little town! Opportunity knocks!

I've also been thinking. I know this sounds silly. But maybe I could be a writer. Seems like they have the good life, all right. Just sitting around banging on a computer all day. Does anyone out there know any writers?

Which brings me to the subject of today's little essay.

Every now and then, a quirk of DNA or a poorly-completed job of parental nurturing unleashes on the world a certifiable lunatic.

Mind you, I've got a soft spot for true lunatics. My mom had bipolar disorder in the pre-lithium days, and I can remember being dressed up for dinner because Queen Elizabeth was coming to see us.

Mom's problems pale, however, against the wild, weird life of Hunter S. Thompson.

Have any of you heard of this guy? He took every kind of drug on the planet (without reading the prescription inserts) and committed every kind of mayhem that leaves you one inch shy of the docket, and then he wrote all about it for bestselling books.

Hunter S. Thompson would be a good "Exhibit A" in Pastor Dobson's Hall of Shame. Alas, Thompson was straight, or he'd be the perfect demon for the Dobson corps. As it is, he ranks right up there.

Awhile back, for reasons unknown, Thompson shot himself through the head while his grandchildren romped in the other room. Now there's a fond old memory of grandpa to recall way down the line!

Thompson's will commanded that he be cremated and his remains shot out of a cannon.

Seriously, could I make this up?

Apparently the celebrated cannonball of Thompson ashes recently sailed into the sky, viewed by an appreciative audience that included Johnny Depp and Sean Penn. I didn't get an invitation. If I had, I think I would have gone ... just to see Johnny Depp.

This is just my opinion, but having your ashes shot out of a cannon is not the most terrific send-off. When are we going to see a really great funeral? I mean one where the deceased is placed on a barge, floated out into a river, and then the barge set on fire by archers on shore, shooting flaming arrows?

Keep your cannons, and especially your Absolute Zero freezers, so you can be thawed out and go rocking on when medical science improves. But the barge and the flaming arrows, now that's a great goodbye. Not only that, but it's the favored send-off of the bored gods. You'd be sure to have a superb turnout of fairies for that one!

So Hunter Thompson died as he lived, a small thinker with a finite imagination, no religion of any sort, not the kind of bloke you'd want to cart home to meet the folks at a family reunion.

His post-human cannonball appearance does make you think, though. Like, I'm no spring chicken. Maybe I'd better get the old will out and review the specs.

Now, where do I find a barge?

REST IN PIECES, HUNTER S. THOMPSON

From ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Hey! I just found my car keys!

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