The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: A Few Miuntes to Remember Those Who Serve

Take a few miuntes today to think about those who serve. Brave men and women who stand a post in Iraq, Afganistan and hundreds of other places around the globe. 

Minimum wage laws do not appy to them. They don’t get overtime or scheduled coffeee breaks. They buy our freedom with their toil and blood.

If you see a service man or woman today say, “Thank you.” 

Enjoy this poem by  Charles M. Province, veteran and biographer of General George S. Patton

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: The Best Halloween Ever!

I grew up in a small town in eastern Kentucky. The world was different then, more innocent. It was still three weeks until JFK was shot. We were in Viet Nam but only as advisors. Nobody had ever hijacked an airplane; suicide bombed a pizza parlor, or asked what the meaning of “is” was. Parents weren’t as worried about perverts and molesters stealing or killing their children. Halloween  wasn’t the big deal it is today either. We made up costumes from stuff we had around the house and off we went into the night. We used to go trick-or-treating alone for hours covering many neighborhoods. 

There was one house, however, that never got a visit from a ghost or pirate. That was the old white house on the corner of our street. It sat way back off the street in a grove of huge dark pines. The house and the yard were not kept up very well. All of the neighborhood kids told stories about the old guy who lived there. We wondered about the strange laughter and other sounds that came out of the house from time to time. It commonly agreed upon by evert kid under sixteen that he was an ax murderer. We all believed that he had ax murdered his wife and was just waiting for his next victim to come knocking.

On this particular Halloween I was ten years old. Me, my older brother and two of our friends had gone out earlier and had made quite a hull. The four of us were returning to Iroquois Avenue with our pillowcases full of candy. We stopped under the street light out in front of the old white house at the corner to check out our loot. We looked into the bags where a wealth of candy corn, sweet tarts tootsie rolls and candided apples were piled up. Then we all turned and looked at the white house. The pale blue light of a television illuminated one window far off in the trees.Someone wodered aloud what an ax murder would give out or Halloween.

 Suddenly my brother started walking towards the three cement steps which led to the long sidewalk and into the pines. 

“Don’t do it” we cried!  “He’ll chop you up.”

All we could hear was the sound of my brother’s shoes on the sidewalk and then a knock on the door from the darkness. The door creaked open and the old man’s voice floated through the night air.

“ Wha do you wan?” The ax murdererasked.

“Trick or treat!” my brother demended

“Trick’er treat?” the old guy cackled.  “Jes a sec.”

There was silence and then the screen door opened and shut, followed by footsteps from dark which got quicker as they got closer. My brother broke out of the trees and into the protective halo of the street light. He opened his pillowcase and on top of his candy was a five dollar bill!

I couldn’t get to the door fast enough. I ran through the pines and bounded on to the rickety old porch. I pounded the door and the old man answered.

“ Wha do you wan?” he rasped as the then strange smell of alcohol on his breath wafted over me.

“Trick or treat!”

“Trick’er treat?” the old guy cackled.  “Hold the phone.”

He walked away from the door and into a back room. He returned in a few seconds and I opened my bag. He placed something on top of my candy and I ran down the path and into the light. I opened my bag and there on top of my candy was a tomato!

When we got a little older we learned that the old man wasn’t an ax murderer but an alcoholic. His wife had died some years before and he had found what comfort he could in the bottle. The yard, the garden and the house didn’t matter to him any longer.

 I never did figure out what happened that night. Was he just drunk and giving out whatever came to mind at the moment or was it part of his twisted plan. To the first kid brave enough to come to the door, he’d give something great, five dollars! To the next greedy punk he’d give a lesson with an old tomato! Halloween has never been the same for me since.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Even The Mob Needs A Day Off!

Dear Fellow Conspirators

I am taking a few days off and enjoying one of our great American traditions, celebrating labor by doing absolutely nothing. Mrs Right Wing Nut Job and our son are having a little stay-cation right here in flyover country.

Enjoy your long weekend, we will resume the struggle on Tuesday.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Sherrod Brown “Responds” Again!

I dropped our elusive Senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown two more letters asking him to visit us in Southwest Ohio at a public town hall.  Recently he took me to task for saying he had not responded to my many letters, here is a typical “response” from the Senator.

“Thank you for sending me your comments. They have been recorded and will be reviewed by my staff. We endeavor to send everyone an individual response, but this is not possible in every case. If you have any immediate questions, please feel free to contact any of my offices via phone. “

I have phoned all of his offices several times and no one can ever give me any information as to where and when the Senator will appear.

BTW  The Senator is in the process of producing a series of astroturfed “public forums” around the state. They are not anounced beforehand on his website as his staffer told me they would be when I phoned, the are not open to the public, and they are bussing SIEU folks into fill the halls. Maybe he is having his friend the Diabetic Judge help him judge the character of the folks who get invited to the events.

My wife is currently trying to get her Social Security card replaced. Three phones calls with twenty to thirty minute waits and a trip to our local SS office where there were fifty to sixty people in line. That was to get a document replaced! Makes you really look forward to national health doesn’t it.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: A Great Laugh…

 

If you want a great laugh read the latest post at IowaHawk.  ( A Wise Latina…) I don’t care what your politics are if you don’t find this a great funny read you, my friend. have lost your funny bone!

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy returns tomorrow with a fresh post!

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Driving, Baseball and Golf

Dear Readers

My son and I are still on our father/son baseball, golf and goofing off vacation. So far we have hit four hotels, three baseball games and four golf courses. We had a seven hour drive today to the very top of Michigan and he slept the whole way. 1200 miles and we are half way. Tomorrow we are hitting the Brewers and Cardinals day game and then meeting an old friend from when I used to work for a living.

Back soon with some new political stuff

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Bob and Tom on Monday

Dear Readers

I will be appearing on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom Radio Show on Monday and be seen on the WGN TV either that night or the next evening.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Local Interest Only

The VRWC has been involved in a little local community organizing lately. Our local school superintendent had been getting a little out of hand with his liberal agenda.

 His blind devotion to an agenda led him to allow his hubris to overtake his good judgement and our schools suffered. I started a campaign to have him removed and this morning it was announced that he had resigned.

This wasn’t personal. I am sure the guy was a good father and has many supportes but the fact is that our schools went way down under is leadership. If you want to know more check this link: http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/superintendent-and-school-district-separate-147786.html

All politics is local, the movement toward reclaiming our country from the Marxist/socialists does not start in Washington but on Main Street.

Back tomorrow with a new piece of wider interest

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: I Love/Hate LA

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is stepping away from politics for a day to report on my trip to Los Angeles.

I lived in Southern California for twenty years. Ever since I was a kid growing up in the backwashes of Kentucky I wanted to see the golden west. When I was in high school I had a dirty grey UCLA t-shirt that I wore to in wasn’t fit to wipe the Turtle Wax off my ’59 Rambler American. I wanted to see the Hollywood sign. I wanted to check out the girls the Beach Boys were always singing about. I wanted to be in show business. Unfortunately, when you grow up in small towns in rural Kentucky and Ohio it usually isn’t one of the options they present on career day.

I finally got to see a little of California in 1975. I had graduated from college the previous years with a degree in Education. I was teaching at a university run elementary “lab” school and finishing my first year of graduate school. I was offered a job teaching in Australia and found myself in San Francisco a few weeks later on my way to the land down under. I only had a day and a night there but it was everything I had imagined and more. The motel had a bar with a window into the pool like in the movie “The Right Stuff.” I went to see Chinatown and the Golden Gate. I walked around the Haight and looked at the dying embers of the hippie generation all dirty faced and grimy hands, strung out on speed and heroin.

The next time I saw California was on my way back home two and a half years later. I had friends living in LA and I stopped to visit for a few days. They took me to the new hot club called “The Comedy Store.” David Letterman was the MC that night and I remember Jimmy Walker and Jay Leno performed. I went back the next night and stayed for four hours. I knew that I wanted to be a stand-up comic. I skip ahead a few pages and let you know I ended up living there for twenty years and have been doing stand-up for over thirty. I even managed to land a few acting gigs when all the real actors were busy.

Last night I was back in LA for the launch party of a web site that I am working for called “The Gloomers.” (www.thegloomers.com) I won’t bore you with a long explanation but it’s part animated cartoon, party comedy and part social networking website. We had our party at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. I was also supposed to be at a business meeting for the site in Orange County at 3:00 PM. That where our love/hate story begins.

If the weather is clear the flight into LA always gets me pumped. As you descend from the east across Palm Springs you see Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear off to the north. You then fly over an enormous sprawl of city that reaches from over seventy miles east to west from San Bernardino to the ocean and over a hundred miles from north to south from Ventura to San Clemente.

Mecca in The OC

I landed at 1:20 and was supposed to be at a meeting in Santa Ana, which is 34 miles away in an hour in forty minutes. If you had never been in LA you might think. “Piece of cake.” You would be wrong. I avoid checking bags if possible when I fly to LA because the wait at baggage claim can be forty or fifty minutes. I sprint out to the curb to wait for my bus to the rental car lot and the first detail I had forgotten hits me. The loop through LAX is a mini third world of traffic. Every rental car company, hotel, parking lot, shuttle service, taxi company and tourist attraction within fifty miles has “courtesy” vehicles which circle the airport loop endlessly. You throw in several thousand private cars and limos and you have a perfect double decked oval of airport gridlock non-stop 24 hours a day. Of course, the bus I am looking for doesn’t show for ten minutes even though every other rental companies pass me by several times. I am standing there in the exhaust filled air thinking, “I should have renter from Budget.” “I should have rented from Hertz.” “I should have stayed home.”

I am in my car and driving at 2:20PM which isn’t bad for LAX, an hour from walking off the plane to driving off the rental car lot. Again, if you had lived your life is some normal place like Kansas or Wisconsin you might be thinking, you have 34 miles to drive and forty minutes to do it, no problem, But this isn’t a normal place, this is LA. I creep south on the freeway and arrive in Santa Ana an hour and fifty five minutes later.

the meeting I was supposed to be at is just wrapping up and I hop back in a car to drive back to LA for the launch party. Two hours later we have traveled the 43 miles to the Strip. I am totally engaged in my, “I remember why left here,” frame of mind as I help set a few of the final details for the party at the House of Blues. Folks start arriving and I relax a bit and soon I realize that I am hosting a party at a world famous night club for all of my old LA and Orange County friend and it’s not costing me a dime, “I love LA.”

At 9:30 it’s down to the Improv on Melrose where I have arranged for a comic friend from the Midwest to do a short set. I introduce her to the staff there and when I am sure things are set I jump back in the car for the seventy mile drive to south Orange County where I am staying.

At 11:45 I am pulling off of the freeway somewhere in the OC and into the greatest burger joint in the world, In and Out! My friend Jay and I wolf down a couple of Double Doubles animal style and then call it a night. A scene from the movie “Patton” comes into my mind where George C. Scott is looking over the death and destruction of a battlefield and in sad voice says, “God help me, I love it so.”

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy A Reaction and Reply

Readers

Here is a little e mail I got from a nice, fair minded, liberal,  enviroweenie in reaction to my “Earth Day Scam” essay. I have redacted some information to protect him. I have included my reply.

I hope you enjoy it!

Jeff

 

I don’t mean to be blunt, but if that article was serious in any way, then … You are an idiot. Freedom of the press is one thing, making up BS and spreading it around is another. You should lose your job. Serioulsy.

________________________________
Kevin X. SXXXXXXX
XXX Program XXXXXXX XX  Management
XXX XXXX Services andXXXXXXXX
xxxxxxx.xxxx (o)
xxxxxxx-xxxx (f)
kevin.x.xxxxxxx@xxxxx.com

Dear Kevin

 

I am not sure what you mean? Is your opinion an official opinion of XXXXX( the company he works for), a company in which I am a shareholder? Maybe I should have a word with your superiors about using my companies IT service for your political agenda.

 

Also, let me help your communications skills, when you said, ” I don’t mean to be blunt” that is exactly what you meant to do, so as a professional writer let me advise you to stick to your day job or learn what words mean. Words like “idiot” are important too! The definition of an idiot is someone with an IQ of less than 25 and a mental age of 3. Since I can operate a computer, teach at a university and am more facile with language than you it must be apparent that I am at least a moron. Please let’s be fair! A secondary definition of “idiot” is someone who engages in foolish or silly behavior, like writing angry political letters from his work computer. By the way, you misspelled “seriously”, try the spell check for professional communications!

 

It’s also interesting that you chose to insult me with an ad hominem attack rather than give a reason for your dissatisfaction. This is a reaction I find to be typical of leftist activists. You are in good company, Janeane Garafolo, Sandra Bernhard, Keith Olbermann, and Rahm Emanuel.   

 

Furthermore, I am a comedian and the piece was a satire. It is very funny but you don’t see the humor because the environmental cause is a religion for you. I am not trying to convince you or convert you but simply to hold you and your absolute faith in the green movement up to ridicule. As a conservative and Christian I am used to getting it from the left but as a comedian when it is well done I can laugh because I have a sense of humor, something you may lack. You may want to consult a good therapist.

 

Now get back to work and make me some money or I tell the guy who has a bigger cubicle than you what you are doing on company time. 

 

 

Jeffrey Jena
Comedian/Writer
www.jeffreyjena.com

 

ps  I will be posting your letter and my reply on my blog and at the Conservative web site Big Hollywood. Enjoy!