Humor: Fueled by Petrol

Voters will head for the polls tomorrow in what appears to be record numbers. Not only are many Tucsonians voting who normally spend election day with more fruitful pursuits, but we are hearing that they are more informed than ever before.

Of course, this is due entirely to the widespread use of Media Advertisements and clever posturing.

To see how this will affect tomorrow’s election, we took to the streets this past weekend and asked the voters how they will vote.

“Me?” asked our first interviewee, Silas P. Horsenrider, whom we found perched on a bar-stool in one of Tucson’s oldest and most revered beer-joints, “I’m not voting for any of them City Hall guys who wasted all that money an Rio Nuev-bo. That’s for sure.” When asked who he would be voting for, Silas said simply, “Them other guys.”

The consensus was heavily in favor of “Them other guys” in the bar, so we left and sought other demographics.

At the Mall, we felt, we would find a better cross-section of Tucson-a-cana. Our first subject was clear on her views.

“We have to elect someone who knows what Tucson needs for the future. Someone who has their finger on the pulse of the economy. Someone who lives in my neighborhood.” When asked where she lived, our subject declined to elaborate, but her Hummer had gate-pass stickers for one of the more exclusive gated Tucson Communities. Her body-guard was of Eastern European descent.

Next we tried to pick the brains of some barely-legals who were haunting the food court.
“Election?” several said, in lock-step unison. “Election? Is it time to vote again? Is Obama winning?” We left the next leaders of America and went out into the parking lot.

“Officer!” We had spied one of Tucson’s Finest, on a bicycle. He wheeled over and took our I.D., ran a “wants and warrants” and gave us a ticket for standing in the street. Then he asked us what crime we would like to report.

“The election, officer. The election. How will you vote?” This we shouted from the curb, as we had learned quickly to stay out of the street.

“Election! If we had more policemen, I would have time to run you in for interfering with the vote!”
We scurried away, hoping to escape a Federal Rap.

The rest of the day went much the same. Wherever Tucson voters were accosted, the results were similar. When voting, Tucson Voters tend to vote for themselves.

We predict the groups that have the least work to do on election day will carry the vote.

Everybody else will be too busy trying to make ends meet to get out and vote for a new crop of “Urban Planners”.

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To read the rest of “Alien Abduction, go to WWW.JimmyPetrol.com

(Alien Abduction notes, Continued from 19 Oct ‘09).

I tried to keep my mind from wandering to the Macabre as I made my stealthy way down the gentle, forested slope toward the unmistakable scent of BBQ. The noises began to sort themselves out into two groups; one the sounds of humans in general disorder and complaint, the other clear, light, mirth-some voices. Aliens! ‘Till now, I had not heard them speak. But it was easy to tell the Alien voices from the human’s. For one thing, they sounded like happy, contented voices….like the voices you hear at a really fine restaurant in between contended champing and lip smacking. The two groups seemed to be at odds, one so happy, the other so lame and discontent.

The winding trail I was following led gently down into the large depression. As I went deeper into the glen, it became more and more like an earth-side county park. Strewn about in little glades and clearings were what looked like picnic tables and benches, albeit the sort that you might get if you had a contest and all the artists with saws and plaster got busy out-designing each other to win a prize. Here was a bench shaped like a large “U”, there a table high in a tree, with convenient limbs padded and used for the benches. How you would get plates and food up there I could not guess. But it all was pretty interesting, not to mention that I was in a forest aboard a spacecraft. All this tended to rather occupy my attention and so it was a surprised Jimmy Petrol that suddenly burst out of the dense little forest and into a clearing filled with Aliens.

They all had their backs to me, so they didn’t see me right off. The clearing was actually a shore; just beyond there lay a little lake, full of water and out about fifty yards, an island with humans all lined up around the edge. The aliens were all standing around laughing at them. A few male Aliens (who looked very much like the female Aliens, but with a more stocky, shorter build) were standing right along the shore, holding ropes attached to what looked to be life preservers. The life preservers were floating in the water in the vicinity of the little group of humans, but none of them seemed inclined to be rescued.

I was taking it all in when a couple of Aliens closest to me turned and began taking me in. They were busy gnawing on BBQ ribs and didn’t stop. They said something Alien over their shoulders and some of the other nearby Aliens drifted over to take me in as well.

All in all, I was quite confused. Why were the humans so standoffish? It looked like they were trying to avoid capture; indeed, now that I had been spotted, a few on the island took to waving in my direction and yelling “Run, run!” The Aliens just kept chomping on ribs and, I am not kidding, corn on the cob.

Of course, the whole thing was too “Alice in Wonderlands” for me to understand. I couldn’t have been more confused if I had been reading the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal; everything seemed to be twisted all out of shape and context until almost anything was believable!

Eventually, I spied the food-pile and cook- fire. Around it were a couple of Alien men, cooking ribs and corn. Next to them was a good old-fashioned picnic table. From where I stood I could make out the “US Forest Service” burnt into its wooden legs. The humans continued to yell, the fishers cast and re-cast life-preserver lines, catching nothing, and the rest of the Aliens kept gnawing and chatting.

Seemingly free to do as I pleased, I trickled over towards the foodstuffs. The Aliens let me by, some smiling down at me, others ignoring me. When I got over to the table, one of the cooks popped a plate in my hands and slapped a couple of beef-rib looking articles onto it. An ear of corn was quickly added. I ignored the strident yelling coming from my fellow ex-patriots on the little island,  sat down under a small Oak tree and dug in.

The party went on much the same, but eventually all the ribs were gone and the Aliens were laying around in little grassy areas just like JP. I could see the humans out on their little island; they were less agitated now that the Alien guys had given up on the life-preserver-fishing idea, but they were talking in little groups and pointing at me. It looked like any human committee meeting I had ever seen….it might take them days to reach any kind of consensus! I ignored them and picked my teeth with a handy stick.

The Aliens were having a similar talk, pointing at me from time to time, eyebrows raised, voices hushed. Eventually a delegation appeared at my doorstep; one of the cooks and a female somewhat older looking than the rest. She was still very Barbie-like, in that she was easily seven feet tall and willowy. They smiled down at me, so I thought I would play the humble guest instead of the frightened prey as my relatives on the island had chosen.

Rising, I smiled back up at them, and clasping my hands together in Oriental Fashion in front of me, I gave a little bow. I am happily at your service, I meant to say.

“We wonder why you are not with your kind over on the little island?” It was the woman Alien who spoke. Her eyes sparkled and the corners of her mouth were turned up in a quizzical smile. Her escort, a young male of only about six-and-a-half feet, cocked his head and raised one eyebrow.

Thinking quickly, I thought that it might be advantageous to distance myself from the stranded humans. They were, I noted, stranded and taunted with fishing lines. They were all lined up along the shore, silent now for the first time, staring with wild eyes at our little conference. They reminded me of the herds of Zebra and Gazelle you see on “Wild Kingdom”, all standing in a bunch watching a former relative being eaten by lions. Perhaps I would not be human today.

I shot my delegation a puzzled look, with one eyebrow raised as well and asked, “My Kind, your grace? Do you mean those Apes across the little water?” They widened their eyes in obvious surprise. I had them going, so I kept on.

“I am from the World of Shadows, your grace, far from this planet. I am only here to observe these primitive creatures. A spy, they would call it here. I come to be here to watch and see that they do not become a threat to the Galaxy.”

This seemed to set them back a bit. They exchanged quizzical looks, lowered one eyebrow and raised the other. The male was the rasher of the two; he bit.

“From what World do you come? And why are you not afraid as the other Apes? Why do you eat our food and mix with us without fear. Indeed, I am told you have already made a sexual suggestion to the Ship’s Queen. Are you dim-witted?”

The male was obviously miffed over my earlier attempts to engage in a scientific study of the Alien’s anatomy. Perhaps he was jealous.

“Ah, you have heard, then, that I am a great Scientist. When I first saw that I was among a race of Gods, I was naturally eager to document the physiology of such a creature.” I eyed him up and down, smiling. He blanched and walked away, back to a little group of males at the shore edge who had gone back to fishing for humans with the life preservers. They were yucking it up to a great degree, which seemed to agitate my former fellows. They had gone back to standing in little groups and talking loudly.

The older female Alien remained. She was silent for a time, her eyes squinting a little, head cocked to one side, arms crossed over her chest. She seemed as if she was about to start tapping her foot and give me what for. But she didn’t.

“I see that you are impossible, Jimmy Petrol.” At first I thought that she must be psychic, but then I remembered that I still had my old Fedora on my head. In the band was the ever-present press card, with my name emblazoned across it in bold letters. But she could read English!

I said nothing, waiting. Usually when a woman starts talking about me being impossible, we are at the crux. Things could go one way, or they could go another. Sometimes, being impossible led to all sorts of nice things that were impossible a few moments before. Sometimes it meant that my interview was over. Clearly, the male Alien was of the latter opinion. I stood a little straighter, looked her back in the eyes, and tried to give a twinkle with mine. I batted my eyelashes, Geisha fashion. I licked my lips. I summoned up all my manly courage and looked her up and down, approvingly, and braced myself. Often, I had been slapped for this exact behavior.

My delegate laughed a light, Alien laugh. It spoke of relief and humor. I relaxed my frame; there would be no slapping.

“Your grace,” I began, quietly, “might we go away from all these gawking Apes?” I gestured across the water and made a wrinkly nose. “The Apes tend to chatter so. It will detract us from our mutual Scientific investigations.” She started, eyes doing the widening thing again for an instant. Then she laughed again and relaxed.

“Yes, Being from the World of Shadows, we will go. But not to engage in the “Scientific”. Rather the contrary. We need a publicist. A liar. You fit.”

And with a toss of her head she led off. I followed obediently, in the tracks of my Cougar.

Image via Wikipedia

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(Alien Abduction, Continued from 16Oct09)

It was a mother of a ship. My “escorts” kept tight hold of my arms, fairly carrying me as we went bumping along the corridors. After the first couple of blocks I gave up on the foot dragging method of passive resistance; it made no difference to my escorts whatsoever. One of them did give me a little look of approval when I started to ambulate instead of play “sack of potatoes”, but that was all.

From time to time I tried to make conversation with them, but they didn’t seem to be interested in talking about themselves, like Earth women are. I asked about their families, boyfriends, where they had their hair done, whether they had offspring; in short, all the old standards. But no dice. They weren’t biting. In fact, until I got onto the topic of sex, out of desperation more than actual hope, there was no reaction to my queries at all.

All I said was, “So tell me about your reproductive habits. Is there any way I could document them for my scientific colleagues on Earth?” I didn’t really think they understood English. Which meant, of course, that they were from some provincial part of the Galaxy; surely English was the Galactic Standard, after all. I mean, Manifest Destiny and all that, what?

But they had no problem with English after all. I had been having a hard time keeping up with them. They had legs that must have been four feet long…they had a stride that had me pumping my little hams at a rate that made me feel positively like a toddler. I had been busy examining these Barbie-like appendages when I made my innocent and scientific inquiry into the Alien reproductive life when we coincidentally reached the end of a long hall way.

We stopped, the doors buzzed open and I was booted through them; those legs could kick!

I stumbled forward, narrowly avoiding another face-plant. My escorts stood on the other side of the portal, smiling down at me with the same sardonic smile I had  suffered at the hands of their probable “Captain” or leader. They didn’t seem to be angry, but there was a definite air about them that there had better not be any funny business. The doors slid shut and I was left on my own in a part of the ship quite distant from my entry point at the staircase.

The surprise was that it wasn’t a cell. In fact, it looked just like the rest of the ship. I wandered along the corridor; there were passageways along it at odd intervals. Some went on, turning or terminating at lift doors. Most went only a few feet and met a blank wall that I suspected contained an unseen door. There were signs along the way, but I could make nothing out of them as they were in an alien tongue.

I went along quietly…why I had been let loose was a mystery, but it seemed obvious that I would not be able to get back into the other part of the ship. The doors I had been booted through were fast shut and would not open even to “open sez-a-mee”. The only course was to wander on until something happened.

And it didn’t take too long. I was to learn later that the doors I had been passing were crew quarters; the corridor I was in led eventually to what I can only describe as a City Park. The metallic floor of the ship gave way to actual dirt, the corridor terminating at a trail-head or path that meandered down into a deep depression filled with trees, bushes and all manner of flora. There were even birds. From down amongst the groves of trees I could hear the sounds of an odd, musical laughter, intermingled with more human sounding voices. The humans didn’t sound as musical. Point of fact, they sounded distressed. And in the air was the faint smell of Bar-b-que.

I felt faint. I was among Cannibals! Well, not cannibals actually, since they were Aliens, but close enough! Were these Barbie-like creatures merely Galactic Gourmands? Were the sounds of human distress I could here from this idyllic park-like place the last, protesting sounds of lunch? I shuddered. My mind thus far had been focused on my scientific duty to explore these oddly attractive Alien anatomies. I began to rethink my scientific duties. Perhaps a more furtive observation would be called for.

But I was hungry; it had been a long time since I ate all those ribs back at Petrol Central in the Think Tank. Maybe they were serving vegetarian too. I hoped so, fervently, as I begin to pick my way down the dirt path toward the sweet, smoky odor of the Alien picnic.

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(continued from 15Oct09)
The thing to remember, I told myself, is to never panic. After all, if you are hallucinating, having a little fit will only call attention to yourself and wind you up in the loony-bin sooner rather than later. And, I thought, taking a look around me, if you are not hallucinating, then you had better show a little courtesy. After all, when captured by Mongols, a wise homeowner extends a hand and begins to negotiate.

Of course, my hand wasn’t having any of it…all my limbs would do is a little shake, rattle and roll, so to speak. And who could blame them?

The problem was, of course, that my surroundings surrounded me to an alarming extent. And not only were there the oddly shaped walls of a spaceship all ’round, but interspersed into the scenery at regular intervals were oddly shaped Aliens.

Not terribly, oddly shaped, mind you….not built along the lines of reptiles or any of that rot you see at the cinema….just odd in such a way as you might consider a trans-gendered human. The things that looked like human females, while equipped in much the same was as human females, were larger than they ought to be. They stood at nearly three meters, towering over my generally ample frame. Alien bosoms met my eye at the same height that human females generally glared at me. Remembering my manners, I raised my gaze and met the Alien Eyes of what I hoped were Alien women, considering that our conversations, if held at close range, would offer me the somewhat more pleasant view of Alien breast instead of the generally unpleasant sensation human females generally give me when glaring in my direction.

And their eyes repaid inspection even more than the previously mentioned portions of Alien anatomy (mentioned purely for the purposes of scientific examination. My keen reporter’s instincts made note to continue an anatomical examination of these strange beings as soon as possible. Science, I thought, must be served !).

But the eyes. Hard. And laughing. And happy and firm all at once, just like the only Earth Girl that had kept me longer than a woman keeps a cat. Open, inquiring eyes that drew me towards them. Hypnotically, I glided toward the nearest, tallest of the local Fauna. Too close, I lost sight of her magnetic eyes, her oval face setting like the sun behind mountainous breasts. I backed up, craning my neck to get back into her eyes. My field of vision was beatifically full.

She smiled, showing teeth that were neither pointed nor missing, perfect rows of ivory set in a jaw as firm as the eyes. I smiled back, letting my gaze rise and fall with her breathing, rhythmic, entrancing, a perfect excuse to get another load of those hooters. I became eager to continue our interview, with the aim of further anatomical investigations bubbling to the surface. But I remembered my profession and began at the beginning, with the words; science would have to wait until I had decoded this Alien’s method of speaking. Until I understood them culturally, there was little hope to advance Earth’s scientific understanding of these amazing specimens.

“Greetings !” I breathed out softly, giving my captor my most sincere of looks, using the tilted-head and narrowed eye smile so effective when dealing with the human female. I was in my element. In no time, I would have this Alien’s name, rank, serial number and Internet address. The warm smile, I thought, had never failed me with Earth Girls.

This time, however, it was different. While the Tall One gazed down at me, the corners of her mouth turned up in what in an Earth Girl would be the kind of sardonic smile a guy gets when one lights the candles and turns down the lights, several of her minions picked me up by the armpits and carried me backwards, dragging me bodily away from my specimen and delaying, I thought, my scientific examinations indefinitely.

In their grip there was no vacillation, no question. We were going away. The Tall One said nothing, my new friends made no effort at voice production and we were gone. Around a corner and into a lift, swooshing away into the bowels of the ship we went, with me twisting my head left, right, left and right, with nothing to see but bosoms and nothing to note but my plight. I was beginning to think that perhaps I was the one who was going to get examined in the name of science, My crest, recently rising, fell. Crestfallen. I hung between my escorts and began to plot my escape. Silly of course, since I had absolutely no information whatsoever with which to plot. So I gave up and went back to turning my head left, now right, now left again. At least I could continue my scientific examination of these beings….and I began to catalog their basic measurements; by my conservative estimate, they averaged a height of two and one-half meters, with a bodily circumference of 36”, 30” and 34” estimating in the Earth fashion from top to bottom, leaving nothing out. They were, as I have already noted, somewhat mannish in build, being a little thinner in the hips than the Earth version and rather to tall, which I think conspired to give them the look of the Earthly transvestite or transsexual. But as we whisked along the corridors of the great ship, there was no hint of mannishness about the portions of my captors which I could see as I continued to turn my head, left, right, left and right. No hint of that at all.

In spite of my pitiful situation, my male endocrinological system bucked me up with a juicy release of testosterone and I stumbled along with them as best I could, hopeful again to be able to advance Earth’s scientific knowledge at a later, more propitious time. I could but smile and hope.

(From JP’s Alien Abduction notes)

The thing is, a guy never knows when he’s in the soup until the water boils.

So it was for me. There was nothing remarkable about the night the Cerrilian came for me. The air was typically warm, ten-o’clock-in-the-evening Tucson air. The night sky suffered from the same meteorological condition Tucson is known for; severe clear. Not a cloud or breath of wind to cool the brow of the intrepid reporter.

I had been sitting in the Piano Bar at the Old Pueblo Inn, my sharp reporter’s instincts alert for signs of an Economic Recovery. The Administration had been selling Military Futures (in the form of US Treasuries) to foreign governments for months and the Think-Tank had sent me out to see if the high rollers were rolling again. My instincts told me that only when the wealthy Socialite and Well-healed Banker returned to the Piano Bars for clandestine meetings with hopeful Personal-Assistants and Cabana-Boys could we say that the money was flowing to any extent.

But of this genre of economic indicator I saw nothing. The Socialite was clinging fast to her Banker. The Banker’s Eye studiously avoided those of the buxom Hostess and wait staff. My tattered Fedora warned them away from my meager bank-book and I was left with only the coy attentions of of the rather light-in-the-loafers Cabana Boys left twiddling straws at the bar.

Tipping my barmaid a lavish 17 percent for my third refill of hot cocoa, I wandered out into the poolside garden area. My mind was dull; the sad spectacle of matrimonial loyalty I had witnessed inside pained me greatly. The wealthy, I knew, used to doing whatever, whenever and to whomever, must be suffering enormously. And the poor Cabana Boys, one of whom had followed me out into the night, were hard pressed for rent and party funds. Obama, try as he might, had lost sight of these unfortunate demographics. Depressed, I wandered out into the byways and gardens of the Old Inn, gazing into the clear night sky and wondering aloud where it would all end. Would Havana Cigars be the next necessity to fall by the wayside? Would hemlines drop to the pavement, a sad testimony of the futility of temptation, now that the wealthy could not afford the diversions of the flesh?

Wandering, staggered as I was by the enormity of the American financial crisis, I chanced to glance heavenward. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. The Cabana boy ran into me, having been gazing upward himself and not noticing I had stopped to gawk.

Above us hovered a phantasm, a shimmering staircase, complete with cloudy upper reaches disappearing into the dark, clear sky. It was dropping, extending and glowing faintly. I could see through it, the gardens and buildings a ghost behind a ghostly stairway.

The Cabana Boy stood agape. “Angels !” he breathed, falling to his knees in an automatic response. I ignored him and watched as the foot of the staircase came to rest in the center of a small courtyard a few yards ahead. With a deep breath still drawing, I charged ahead, my Fedora squashed into one hand and my pen and notepad in the other I flew towards it, making all the time my once lithe frame could muster. Already I began to regret the last years of pie and donuts.

But I made it. I reached the staircase at a dead run and bracing for the fall I knew in my heart I was about to take, I leapt upon the first tread and….surprise !… it was solid! I ran with all the speed a man who loves pie can muster, up the stairs, through the growing mists of darkening clouds and into a blackness which chilled me to the bone, but on I ran, climbing and puffing with equal measure.

Heaven, I thought, would not be likely, when considered as a possible destination. Rather more likely was the loony bin…even as I flew up the staircase, I had no illusions. Clearly, I had slipped the bonds of sanity and would come at last to the ending my dear old Grandmother had promised; the padded cell, three inedible meals a day and all the Thorazine I could eat. Sad, I thought, to give her the satisfaction of being right, but there you are, I thought. There was nothing I could do. Here I was, here was a staircase from the heavens, and up I went, into the night and onward toward my daily dose of Thorazine.

Then in the darkness I reached the top of the stair, unknowing, and flailed through the air as I tried to continue up stairs that didn’t exist. I flew forward with a momentum and found myself crashing onto a floor, cold and metallic. Behind me I felt a rush of air and heard the thump like that of a car door when it closes. There was an acceleration that pinned me to the floor for several minutes. I must have blacked out from the G-forces, because when I next looked around me the lights were on and I was surrounded. I struggled to my feet and took it all in.

To be continued Friday…..

Image via Wikipedia

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Not to make to much of it, but the past weeks have taken their toll on our intrepid reporter, me. What with the Alien Abduction, Escape and Rescue, I was ready for a bit of rest and recuperation.
But life is not like that; typically, when it rains it pours….so I was not too awfully surprised to find the Feds at my door once more, shortly after I returned from the Corn Field In Question with my notes.

Everything might have gone well enough, had I but noticed that these notes, the precious currency of diligent reporting under the most trying of conditions….if I had but noticed that they were not actually in English.

Happily ensconced in the Petrol Central Think Tank, reading aloud from my notes and quite oblivious to this new twist in an already tortuous tale, it came as a surprise that my devoted staff could not read these notes. They were, as it turned out, in Cerrilian. And oddly enough, even though I have spent precious little time in Pentecostal churches, I find that I now “read” in tongues.

Yep. You got it. I am the only one who can read the Alien Abstracts, as I have chosen to refer to them. Pity that they are not written on golden plates; with a little more sparkle I could start a religion and get my own state.

Be that as it may, what happened was that dear Kat, upon being handed a page or two to read, made a foolishly loud remark that she thought the notes were written in Arabic.

“They’re all in Arab!” she exclaimed loudly enough for the Feds from Homeland Security, who had bugged Petrol Central, to hear and act upon.

In shorter time than it takes to eat a rack of ribs in a hot tub, I found myself once again in the hands of our trusted public servants. Standard procedure, it seems, in all cases of Alien Abduction, is to bug the suspected Abductee to ascertain that no switcheroo or ragymazzo has occurred. In short, they were suspicious of anybody who could read Cyrillian. Or for that matter, Arabic.

But now I am out. Free on bond. Sort of. Rather fell off of a Navy Cutter just out of Havana and now I write these revelations from a dim, basement apartment, the guest of my old friend who had sailed to Cuba in his Buick to procure medical care. (12June’09). As you may recall, the Chief of Police in Havana had found it so amusing that the US Navy had “repatriated” my American friend to Cuba that he put him up in his basement and kept his as a sort of mascot. My poor friend was forced to attend a depressing number of Cuban State Functions and told me that even Fidel had sanctioned his tenure as Havana’s Token American. Apparently, Fidel is getting on in years and is not as sharp as he once was; he seems to be under the impression that Micheal Moore accidentally left my friend behind during the filming of his movie “Sicko”. Or perhaps Fidel is too sharp to believe that the US Navy could have mistaken my friend for a Cuban , even if he was sailing around in a Buick,.

So there you have it…the weeks of silence are done with…..JP is safely harbored by the delicious Cuban People, just off the coast of Florida. Nightly he steps out to Carribean Tangos in exclusive nightclubs full of bronzed and beautiful natives. There are ample funds on the Petrol Cash Card and it looks like Internet access, at first problematic, will be supplied from here on out by an American Cellular company just licensed to provide services to Cubans.

And now for the harrowing tale of my Abduction, as told to myself from notes not written on golden tablets and sadly, somewhat soggy from the swim to this Tropical Shore.
Wednesday…..Jimmy Takes the Bait!

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

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For those of you who are just tuning in, Jimmy Petrol went missing two weeks ago, turning up naked, muddy and clueless (not abnormal, I guess) in a cornfield in Iowa.

The F, B and I brought him home and as soon as he had consumed a nauseatingly large portion of ribs (in the Think Tank, much to the disgust of the rest of us), he took off for Iowa.

And now he is back, long toes dangling in the Think Tank, reading what he claims are notes of his time away from home, which he cannot remember. He says he knew he wouldn’t have been anywhere interesting without taking notes, so he went back to the cornfield and what-do-you-know, he found a little metal box just outside the “crop-circle” the Feds found him in and in it were pages and pages of handwritten notes. Jimmy’s handwriting. He has one of those rolling, out-of-kilter-schizophrenic writing styles that makes you go all cross-eyed when you try to decipher it, but it is distinctive and  it looks like his, all right.

But we aren’t really doubtful; whatever JP says is usually good, for veracity, anyway. He isn’t really smart enough to lie effectively, which is why we always beat the pants off him when we play poker down here at Petrol Central on Saturday nights. We’d feel bad, cheating the simple fellow, but the fact is he never pays us, so we take it off of him kind of smooth-like, in a friendly game of cards every payday.

So there is the lead-in, as they used to say down at the City Desk, when people used to roam the halls of the Citizen, halls haunted of late only by the pregnant fullness of an abandoned city….there is only our Fearless Leader, Mark and empty halls and cold, dark places still furnished for all the people who used to get fed at the Citizen trough.

And in the place now is only the Citizen Server, humming along nicely, waiting in automated expectation for Jimmy and all the rest of the absentee Staffers to file stories. The Ghost Paper of Tucson, buzzing in the wires of all your homes, waiting to leap through the air at Starbucks into your laptop and onto your retinas, only a click away, closer than the print edition when it used to lie soggy in the driveway.

I’ve got to stop. Petrol will be furious with me for all this wordage. He will tell me I write like a Romance Novelist, that nobody gives a damn that our Fearless Leader works all alone in a huge, darkened building. And maybe so….and I, for one am glad to work at Petrol Central rather than even the old Citizen when it’s buildings and payrolls were populated. We are an island. The Island of Dr. Petrol.

Oh, boy…I’m ….oh, shit…here he comes. I don’t care…..I’m pressing Publish….we never get to write anything….always research, phone calls, pizza runs and clean the hot tub, Kat. Well, presto….now I’m Published!!!!!

This is Jimmy Petrol. I caught the Bad Kat trying to publish this mess you just read and decided to go ahead and let it be. What the heck. Maybe she’s the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Maybe if I don’t let her write a lead, no matter how long and soupy she makes it, maybe she’ll do something worse. So there you have it. Kat and the Soupy Lead.

And she took all the space.

So you have to wait. In a couple of days, I will be on, without any lead-ins from Bad Kat, with a transcription of a set of rather strange notes. Seems I was Kidnapped by Aliens, but I don’t remember whether I was or not. But I wasn’t drunk, and I wrote all these funny notes…all about things that I don’t understand and couldn’t imagine (Kat would say I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up).

And it’s all going down right here, in the quiet halls of the Citizen, via Sam the Server who lives in the room right next to Fearless Leader. See you soon.

Image via Wikipedia

Stay Tuned as Jimmy Regains Himself…after his ordeal, being Kidnapped by Aliens and then “rescued” by Federal Agents, Jimmy is toning up mind, body and spirit. Soon, he promises to bring to you the revelations written in his “notes” taken during his Alien Abduction, of which he has no conscious memory.

Join Jimmy as he tries to understand his own handwriting and explores the sometimes cryptic meanings of notes written by a Jimmy Petrol he cannot remember.

This is a picture of the “Old” Jimmy….watch this space for a picture of the New, post-abduction JP.

The recent disappearance of Jimmy Petrol, reporter at large for the hugely successful newspaper- gone- digital, the Tucson Citizen, has been kept quiet by the authorities for fear of causing a mass hysteria to rival the “War of the Worlds” broadcast by Orson Wells in the last century.
The cause for this caution and alarm has been a matter of great conjecture here in the Petrol Central Think Tank, Jimmy having vanished without a trace nearly two weeks since.

The reporter’s disappearance was reported to the Authorities promptly, barely a week after he quit showing up at the office. At first, of course, we attributed Petrol’s absence with any number of moral excess and quite frankly were busy having a good laugh at his expense when Agent Mulder showed up at the edge of the Think Tank, dour expression and all.

Of course, it wasn’t Agent Mulder at all, but only one of his kin-folk down at the F, B and I. And his expression, though dour, was colorful. His take on the lack of decorum in the Petrol Central Think Tank (read: lack of clothes) was one of brutal and obnoxious scorn. So thoroughly were we chastised that some of us actually got back into the tub out of modesty.

Even after the landlord reported Petrol missing (along with the rent, which shook us up to no small extent, I assure you), the baser elements consistent with the Think Tank went on disparaging poor Petrol in the most shameful, but hilarious, manner.

Whatever the atmosphere in the Think Tank, it became more somber with the introduction of the F, B and I boys into the theme. It was a quieter, less splashy Think Tank.

But it turned out that they had Jimmy Petrol in custody and were just poking around to see if there were some “chargeable offenses” which might induce a judge to allow them to hold JP for a while longer. Remarkable as it may seem, the Agents de Federal actually wanted more of his company; a thing we would have thought impossible a month ago.

Of course, Agent Mulder’s cousin didn’t tell us they had JP until they were reasonably sure we didn’t know anything and that there was no Cannabis on the premises, a thing which even Jimmy won’t allow, being for all the world one of the soberest counter-culture bohemians imaginable.

But they did have him.

The Feds in Iowa had gotten him. They had been busy poking around farms looking for errant Americans who might be buying a tad too much fertilizer or using a little too much electricity, when they had gotten a distress call on the F, B and I Agent Frequency. Of course, they ignored it, as it was the first and only time anyone had ever done anything like that. Plus, of course, it was some lunatic who said he was a reporter for a defunct newspaper in Arizona. Obviously a loony, but the topper was that poor JP claimed to be held against his will in a spaceship parked in a cornfield. Well, the agents were understandably annoyed and quickly called their cousins down at the F, C and C. (The Federal Communications Commission).

So the boys at the F, C and C got out their Spy Snooper van they use to bust “Micro” FM stations which various dangerous elements are always using to broadcast their Socialist Mantra with and went after JP, who was intermittently broadcasting on the F, B and I boys frequency. They were out to free the F, B and I boys of a dangerous nuisance, one which could easily hamper an important investigation into the private lives of farm animals, or worse!

What they got was a loss of memory and Jimmy Petrol

The Cousins from the F, C and C came-to in a cornfield. They had followed the radio broadcast well into central Iowa and then…..nothing.

At least, they couldn’t remember anything, except that they found themselves parked in one of those “Crop Circles” you hear about…and right smack in the middle was poor JP, naked as a Jaybird and reclining in a mud-puddle, staring up into the night sky.

Of course JP doesn’t remember anything either.

But he has his notes. And he says he is going to publish them. Soon.

But right now, he is busy wolfing down a massive rack of beef-ribs inside the Think Tank, a new and disgusting low for even The Petrol.

And he is reading. His notes. And every now and then he laughs. A little, scary kind of laugh which is making all the rest of the Think Tank nervous. Especially since he lied to the F, B and I guy and said he had no notes.

Well, at least he paid the rent.

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