Goose’s Note: This originally appeared on the pre-blog Goose’s Nest in July of 1998. I will be porting them over from time to time for those who would like to read them; I hope you enjoy reading them and reminiscing – I mean, we all play foxy bingo (www.foxybingo.com) and watch old re-runs for the nostalgia, so why not blog posts?

The faded and poorly lettered sign out front proclaims that this building on Williams Street in St Augustine, Florida is the “Tragedy in American History Museum”. The writer in me automatically smoothed that crudely constructed name into “The Museum of American Tragedy” while my cynical side translated it as “Tourist Trap! Grab Your Wallet”.

As was obvious from the first steps inside, the museum is the story of one acne-scarred man, his quest to build a shrine to morbid curiosity, and his forlorn hopes of making a killing off of the Kennedy assassination. Prominently posted in the foyer are newspaper articles detailing his numerous battles with City Hall over the original zoning permit. Irony rears when The St. Augustine City Council terms the proposed museum to be in bad taste – this in a city that houses such monuments to high culture as Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, The Fountain of Youth, and the completely fake Zayorda Castle.

Believe It or Not, a judge had to rule that bad taste was not against the law in St. Augustine.

In the front room is an old white ambulance that has several notarized and framed documents hanging in the windows to assure you that what you are looking at is indeed the vehicle that transported the dying Lee Harvey Oswald from the basement of the Dallas City Jail to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

The second vehicle in that room belonged at one time to a man who used it to drive Oswald to his house to pick up some “curtain rods” and take them to the Texas School Book Depository. This valuable car (“used to carry the death weapon!”) was sold to the owner of the museum for the princely sum of $10 in 1964.

At this point, I believe that our man’s money ran out. The next room holds a Lincoln Limousine from the White House that is the “same model that was favored by President Kennedy when he participated in parades”. Kennedy may have sat in the car at one time, but the hard facts are lost to history — what an American tragedy. I hope he did not pay much more than $10 for this car, too.

There is a jacket that might have been worn by James Dean, but the original owner who sold it to our man is not sure. Just so it looks authentic, the original mailing carton used to ship the jacket to the museum is included in the display. Yes, we are pulling out the “Tragedy Helper” from the pantry here at the History of American Tragedy Museum.

We also have run out of things to see inside. In the backyard are several plaster cows. Maybe the eating of beef is a tragedy of the American Diet, maybe the owner is really a Hindu sickened by the daily bovine slaughter in America, or maybe, just maybe, he got them cheaply at a yard sale. In any case, the cows are looking stupider than their live cousins.

Jane Mansfield’s death car is next to the cows — an udderly unintentional visual pun. Before she was brutally killed in an auto accident, as the accompanying newspaper articles point out, Miss Mansfield was a Hollywood sexpot famous for titillation — she never bared her voluptuous breasts in public. If you are reading this, Lindsey Lohan, please pay attention.

There is also a car just like the one that Bonnie and Clyde were in when they were killed. To make things more authentic, the owner had the car shot full of holes — that must have been fun. He did resist the temptation to pour ketchup on the interior. Why he resisted I do not know – that is obviously a story reserved for the History of American Mystery Museum.

Credit Where Credit is Due: The picture of the museum comes to you courtesy of the Whatahoot blog where you will find many, many pictures of the museum in its hey day. A hat tip to them for preserving a vital part of well, something or the other.

Really ironic: As releases of CIA documents in the late 1990’s show, Oswald wasn’t the assassin of JFK. He was just a patsy manuvered into place to take the blame and be killed.

It was a massive display.

The cardboard wheel on the ground was blowing off two hundred and fifty dollars worth of gunpowder and other cool stuff making big booming blossoms of color in the twilight on the beach at Saint Augustine the night of July 4th, 2007.

Bright blue stabs of light were cutting through the rockets red (and green and blue and yellow) glare. Blue stabs reflecting off the sunburned faces of the vacationing revelers as they cheered and screamed. Blue stabs from the Police SUV parked near the offending, illegal, and abandoned wheel of fire.

What would John Adams think of us? To celebrate the Fourth of July properly, most of us (and our children) break the law… with fireworks. The Adams quote I am referring to is from a letter to his wife, Abigale, about the document that was going to be declared the next day.

“[The Fourth]… will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

One important thing they left out of that document of John’s and the Constitution. They did not give Americans the right to bear fireworks.

As evening drew on, a walk down the beach resembled coming ashore at D-Day. People were setting off their rockets in their front yards and pointing them over the beach. Falling from the sky onto the beach were all the itty-bitty pieces of paper and wood and hot sparks and Oh HELL! DUCK!

There were also some massive explosions on the ground that could have only come from elicit dynamite.  Federal Law outlawed Cherry Bombs, M-80’s, and Silver Salutes as having too much gunpowder in them. Gun enthusiasts with their own supplies of gunpowder have since started “rolling their own”. Instructions are on the Internet. No, I am not putting my liability insurance at risk by posting a link.

Some die-hard down the beach had gotten his hands on professional class B mortar shells and was busy blowing it all up as fast as he could. He was burning money — right at three thousand dollars by my estimate — and having the time of his life.

Like most laws banning something everyone is going to do anyway, Florida’s fireworks laws are a study in lunacy. You are allowed to sell any firework not declared illegal by the federal government even if it is banned in Florida. The person who purchases the fireworks agrees to only blow them up where they are actually legal.

Tell that to the cops on Saint Augustine Beach who beat a retreat down to the pier so as to be out of harms way.  They could arrest all of us, but I doubt there would be room enough in the Castillo de San Macros to hold us all.

Instead of parking cops on the beach, they should have gone with an Ambulance, EMT’s, and a cooler full of spare fingers.  You can be hurt with fireworks. Really. Eleven people died and 9600 were injured in 2006 according to some do-gooder organization. I’ll be damned if  I give these people’s name or a link to their website, so you’ll just have to take these numbers on faith.

Danger is part of the charm. We Americans have scrubbed the continent clean of most hazards by killing anything living that threatened us and bulldozing what was left. This has left us bereft of the joys of random danger. Not to worry, being Americans, we can make our own randomness especially on a day to celebrate being rash and rebellious.

The newspapers in 2007 dutifully noted the number of fireworks injuries the next day by calling around to the local hospitals and the usual cast of characters commented on it one way or the other. What is always missing from these stories is the victims happily telling their friends how they “damn near burnt off my finger” on the Forth.  That is the truth that the media can’t handle.

Today is June 1st, 2009. The Fourth is looming.  Lay in your supply now, BUT don’t spend ALL your money just yet.  Everything they don’t sell by July 4th will be On SALE July 5th!

Stock up now for New Years – you scofflaw.

edited June 2 because I misspelled fourth as forth. and a hat tip to my Modern Foreign Language expert Grady Lacy.

Gay Marriage: You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.

People who crossed the country to get to Massachusetts or New Hampshire to be Gaily Married did not stay in Massachusetts or New Hampshire: they went home. Home where Gay Marriage does not exist and where the legal machinery required for Gay Divorce does not exist, either.

The unhappily married couple has to go back to Massachusetts or New Hampshire and establish residency before they can be divorced. Does this sound like a new reality show or what? Set it in a boarding house for divorcing gay people and call it “Separate Beds and Breakfasts”. If I see this on Bravo next season, they’ll hear from me.

Even if our gay couple live in a state where they can get divorced, the IRS tax codes do not recognize Gay Marriage. They will tax all property division; so whoever scores more stuff also pays more taxes. It takes a Government to spoil the age old practice of “marrying up”.

On top of the opprobrium in certain quarters for Gay Marriage comes the general, centuries old, stigma of divorce.  If you thought that Evangelical Churches were all against Gay Marriage you ain’t seen nothing yet. They are really, really, really, against divorce. As it says in Matthew 19:2: “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder”, or woman either. If Adam and Steve do manage to get married by a priest or preacher in the name of the Holy Trinity, then they better damn well stay married. If this seems illogical to you, then you don’t understand your conservative religions.

Couples getting divorced in these churches are often shunned by the congregation. There is nothing for them to do but quit their current Evangelical Church and go join two different Evangelical Churches. The new churches will welcome them to the Singles Programs they run to help people deal with divorce. It’s open to everyone who was divorced elsewhere.

Evangelical Churches are not the only places who do not support Gay Divorce. There is a funny video on YouTube where a guy walks around the Castro section of San Francisco asking people to sign a petition to support Gay Divorce. No one signs. Not even the gay people. Are you for divorce? Of course you are not — no one is.

Politicians don’t willingly vote for things that most people HATE. If it took from the 1950’s to the 1970’s to liberalize the divorce laws in this country for Heterosexual marriages, what kind of time line are we looking at for Gay Divorces?

I was about to say, thank God no children are hurt when I realized that the latest fad is to marry gay and then adopt a child. There are no laws for Gay Marriage Custody, either.  Not only does Heather Have Two Mommies,  she also has a drinking problem because her mommies hate each other, can’t get divorced, and can’t get a court to agree to custody.

The messy and very human process of realigning every law in fifty states will be with us for a while.  There is an opportunity here.  I think that my former hometown of Remerton, GA should pass some laws on Gay Divorce and become the Gay Divorce Capital of the South. They are needing a new business model anyway.

There are few jobs in America so vacuous as that of the Beauty Pageant Emcee. For many years, the post was has been held exclusively by Daytime Game Show Hosts and Local Radio-TV Personalities. It is with some trepidation that I reveal that I, too, am part of this pantheon. I have hosted beauty pageants. I know no shame.

I began my career as the sacrificial lamb for the Alpha Zee Delta “Miss Beautiful” pageant in college. It was one of those men-dress-up-in-drag things where men act like women, or; more accurately, how a woman would act if she’d just drunk a case of beer and chased it down with a bottle of paint thinner. Watching the contestants attempt to grope the Emcee was considered part of the fun. I now publicly thank my father for providing the genes that made my long arms possible.

The winner of the contest was an out-of-the-closet homosexual who faked an orgasm while writhing on fake zebra pillows to the song “Pillow Talk” by Sylvia — an act so tawdry that no one doubted he was a shoo-in for the title. I must confess that for days after, I felt unclean and took extra showers to try, like MacBeth, wash off the spots.

In appreciation of my work, they gave me a cigarette lighter with my initials engraved on the side. I still have it in a box of strange odds and ends that hold the history of my earlier life. It is there to remind me to always ask for cash up front.

From that beginning, I moved up to a few “serious” pageants — very, real, serious pageants. There is something twisted about women who allow surgeons to rearrange their body parts in the hope of winning a loving-cup and a lifetime supply of Toni Home Permanent. It is one of the wonders of the age that a beauty queen is considered the girl-next-door while Howard Stern is considered a freak. A few of those scenes and I was done with them.

This is why my regular gig for a long time was an Annual Future Homemakers of America Beauty Pageant. It’s like pageants used to be before silicon implants – pure, wholesome, down home fun. I did this gig for over ten years until either scheduling killed it or the organizers read a blog entry where I made fun of it.  The best thing of all was that in just one evening’s dose, you could fulfill the minimum adult yearly requirement for irony as set by the US Government.

While each contestant walked down the runway, I would read a card about her life that was mostly true. Her activities and her prospects were all carefully “spun” for best effect using clichés that are rounded at the edges from use. For instance, if she said she wanted to be a pediatrician it means she wants to get married and pregnant and not necessarily in that order. If she thanks her parents, it is for eating cat food for twelve weeks to pay for her gown.  If she uses the phrase “Enjoys Talking on the Phone” for an activity, that means she has no talent and less wit.

Every year someone would aspire to go to the local state university and major in Cosmetology — no matter that doing hair is taught at Beauty College and not at a state university. I was wicked once and changed that to Cosmology — creating a philosopher-queen at a stroke with no one the wiser.

After the runway, the singing by someone who really shouldn’t have, and the announcements of semi-finalists it is time for “The Question” aka “The Moment of Truth”. I would pull a slip of paper from a cigar box and read the question inscribed, twice,and, if she does not faint, she answers. If she is smart, she answers with the soggiest of platitudes while keeping a perfectly straight face.

There was the night, and it will stay with me forever, that one would be queen took a chance on the truth she knew to be true. Her question was: “What is more important: book learning or common sense?” I know, I know, but in small rural towns in Georgia this is actually considered a debatable issue.

Staring down at the judges she came out with a spirited and courageous defense of common sense and its superiority to compulsory public school education. What made this so delicious was that each judge on the panel was a teacher. They stiffened like they had been struck. And they had been. The crowd went wild over this recitation of every rationalization they had ever uttered to defend the C’s and D’s on their report card. Rationalizations they had not only used, but had taught to their own children.

In revenge, in high dungeon, and with immense satisfaction the judges marked big fat zeros by her name. Her shocking lack of common sense got its comeuppance from a number two pencil.

The judges were able to act with such impunity because they were imported from out of town. They were not introduced by name and pageant organizers made sure they were ushered from the gym before the winners were announced. There is always the risk that the elegant girl with the charm school manners that they have picked is actually somewhere below the cockroach in school popularity.

Better that they are safely beyond the city limits before her father knows the results of their labor.

My favorite time would be when they gave me the envelope and I got to see what everyone else wanted to know — how it all came out. Lifetime enmities had been known to flow from these results. I have even seen displays of temper right on the floor. The crowd would finally become quiet for the first time in the night as I called out the numbers of the court and then the number of the hapless first runner up.

From there the end was quick. The crowd roars, young girls cry, and I head for the exits patting the pocket with the really important envelope full of carefully folded twenties. The guy who couldn’t even get a date to the Junior-Senior Prom gets to play Burt Parks for the night and is paid in cash. No cigarette lighter. No cross pen.

If I would just quit making fun of it on the Internet, they might even ask me back.

I am a Smart Alec. I believe it is genetic, which is nice because that means I can blame it on my parents instead of me. I practice the craft of Smart Alecey on the blogs of others by leaving comments on their posts. Sometimes I just go overboard and come up with something that I wished I’d saved for my own blog.  Well, there is a Politically Incorrect way to take care of that…

To A Heart Broken Blogger

Over on a humor blog called Blunt Wit , J D has on his sad clown face because his heart was broken. Instead of humor, we get a really pretty, but very depressing post. I decide to lighten his day by leaving a radio commercial spoof

[light music] Romantic Love. Your mom warned you about it. Your friends said not to do it. But you did it anyway. Every day across America, someone turns another person into a mirror and falls in love. life is wonderful until… [cut music]

[funeral bell gong up and then under and long fade]

one day, the mirror breaks and you wake up depressed, lethargic, and changing your status on Facebook and MySpace while listening to bad country music you found on last.fm . Your phone fills up with all the sympathetic text messages from couples who will now avoid you like the leper you are.

It didn’t have to be this way.

[upbeat]

You could have followed the ten steps to cooling romantic love into something you can deal with. Its a new booklet from the Consumer Information Catalog. The booklet is free. Just Write: I Was A Damned Fool, Pueblo Colorado, 81009.

Romance, It Gives Love a Bad Name. [fading]

A public service message from Hallmark Cards, This Station, and the Ad Council®

See, I Told You They Were Out To Get Me

Over at Life is Good, Dana started free associating about all the people who were following her. I decided to come out from the cold and admit to being a member of the agency.

Here at the agency, we prefer to monitor people by the little microphone that was placed in your larynx when you had your tonsils taken out. We know everything about you — even what you scream in your more intimate moments.

So far, you’ve been lucky. But be warned! Cross us and we’ll frame you so quick that you’ll be sitting in prison marking off the days until you can stop being a L.U.R.D.

Yeah, we know you watched Kathy Griffin and know exactly what that means.

Go ahead and act feisty and tell all those fawning blog fans of yours that you are not afraid of us; but, remember, we’re watching… and Helga is waiting for you…

When she posted her Friday Feature about the best comments of the week, I wasn’t there.  Hmm, looks OK to me!

Wait for It

Then there was the rant that began its life as a comment on the Sanity on Edge Blog following someone uttering the standard complaint about Christmas materialism. It set me off. As you can guess, I am very much in favor of Christmas materialism.

After about 200 words tumbled out, I realized that I had something suitable for posting and, selfish charlatan that I am, I cutnpasted it over to here and deleted it off her blog. Sorry, ettarose!

This jewel grew to 500 words with bells and whistles and will automatically post to the world on December 1, 2009.

You’ll just have to wait for it!

Do not worry yourself about the sensibilities of my blogging friends. In this post I have placed hyperlinks that search engines will follow back to their blogs. They will gain extra authority on Technorati and Google. We’re all such attention whores that we’ll endure any amount of humiliation to get better rankings on search engines. How many of your friends can say that?

If you liked this silliness, please consider going over to Humorbloggers dot com and giving me a nice review.  No registration required.  We attention whores need our fix!