Meeting at a video arcade in Times Square, 55 men between the ages of 41 and 72 formed Local 47 of the Association of Dirty Old Men.

“It is time dirty old men unite for our common interests”  declared “Ralph”, a 56 year old bus driver whose hobbies include baseball,  hanging around schoolyards and crossdressing.

“Being a dirty old man is a thankless task but somebody has to do it.  And we are good at it” Ralph continued as he brought the meeting to order.

Among the items on the agenda were health care for dirty old man related injuries, collective bargaining with online chat rooms and the creation of a “Dirty Old Man” Hall of Fame.

A survey conducted found an astonishing 83% of dirty old men have carpal tunnel syndrome from hours spent online cruising chat rooms looking for college age girls who look like Megan Fox.  51% have some broken bones from beatings at the hands of police officers during failed attempts to hire prostitutes and 39% have some form of venereal disease or a combination of several different venereal diseases.

“These medical conditions are expensive, painful and sometimes humiliating.  The long-term costs of carpal tunnel syndrome are enormous.  It is often humiliating to have to explain to a spouse why you were beaten by police while wearing nothing but a trench coat.  Medical insurance will help with psychological damage.  Why just last week when running from an undercover officer I thought was a prostitute I had to duck into an alley and hide in a urine and feces encrusted cardboard box used as shelter by a homeless man.  This ruined my Armani shoes.  Another important part of our medical insurance will be privacy.  Obviously many of our members do not want their wives to know how they contracted V.D.”

The newly formed Local 47 of The Association of Dirty Old Men will also have a collective bargaining agreement with online chat rooms.

“Lets face it.  Competition is tough.  Many younger men are now cruising chat rooms seeking ‘asian goddesses’, ‘repressed catholic school girls’ or “girls who like to dress as french maids.’  We just want to ensure that our members will always have fair access to these rooms and any and all pictures the girls of their own free will may want to share.”

A controversial topic was broadening membership in the Local.  Many dirty old women had petitioned to join.  Eventually after much discussion it was decided to allow women members, but only if they were between the ages of 18 and 32 and willing to “experiment with other younger women.”

The proposed Hall of Fame for Dirty Old Men, to be located in Highland New York “just off the thruway next to the Motel 8″  drew great enthusiasm from many members.  The first to be nominated by universal acclamation was a 69 year old from New Jersey who goes by the screen name of “Colonel Long Shanks.”  Colonel Long Shanks is something of a legend among dirty old men and is credited with being the first person to enter a chat room and convince a college girl to send him nude photos of herself.

“Up until then most of us were still hanging around school yards asking girls if they liked candy.  He showed us a whole new world for dirty old men.  He’s a legend and an innovator.”

Colonel Long Shanks is also credited with being the first person to use Photoshop to crop a picture of his face onto another photo of a naked man and send it to women, claiming that the  photo was actually of his body.

Shortly after Colonel Long Shanks was nominated the meeting was broken up by police who arrested all members.

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The long-planned Rise of the Cats has been officially postponed it has been learned.  The revolution was supposed to start over the July 4th weekend when humans would be distracted by holiday outings.  Many cats had placed high hopes that this uprising would finally lead to the overthrow of their human masters.

Fluffy, the calico leader of the apocalypse sent a communique to his commanders last week to ascertain readiness.  The results shocked him  and lead to the decision to postpone the uprising.

The results showed that 75% of cat commanders were unsure if their cats were ready or even behind the uprising.  A dispatch from “Major Tom” is typical:

“Cats under my command lack discipline.  Many spend most of their day sleeping.  When they are not sleeping they are playing with balls of yarn. “

“Mr. Pancakes” raises similar concerns:

“I tried disciplining my cats.  I tried to drill into them the necessity of working together to beat the humans.  I was starting to make progress when one human came over with  a piece of wire with cardboard on the end and dangled it over my troops.  They went crazy, forgot all formation and kept trying to paw it.  I tell you.  These humas are vicious and ruthless.”

“George” wrote that “My best warrior was taken from me by humans and returned a day later – minus his testicles!  Now he doesn’t want to fight at all.  All he wants to do it eat.  It makes me hate humans more and more!”

The issue of food was a concern.  Once the revolution began cats would have to rely upon themselves for sustenance.  “Mr. Bojangles” sent in this anguished communique:

“My cats do not even want to fight their human oppressors.  They have grown lazy in captivity and enjoy getting their food without having to fight for it.  Good food too.  Juicy delicious wet food straight out of the can.  But I must not think about it.  They have learned that humans will feed them and all they have to do in return is occasionally jump in the humans lap, purr and let them pet them.  It turns my stomach.  They say slaves are made not born. Well this is evidence.  Sadly I see no hope of  a rising.  At least not without U.N. support…..and stinger missles.”

After sifting through his communiques and conferencing with his top commanders  Fluffy  had no choice but to officially postpone the uprising.  “Any other decision would have been suicide for my brave troops” he said.  Still the decision was not an easy one.  His top lieutenant, “Smartypants” told of watching his boss pace around for hours, sweat dripping from his brow, only occasionally stopping to urinate on furniture or lick himself.

Fluffy was quick to remind everyone that the uprising has only been postponed, not canceled.  “You cannot keep a good cat down.  We will have our moment of glory.  We will rise up.  My  name is Fluffy.  If any cats are listening to me, you are part of the resistance.”

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The NCAA today announced that it is hitting the College of Cardinals with sanctions that will keep it out of tournament play until 2013.

“After a lengthy investigation of recruiting and financial violations it is with regret that I must announce the following sanctions against one of the NCAA’s premier attractions” declared the President of the NCAA, Myles Brand.

“The College of Cardinals will be ineligible for tournament play, including the NIT until 2013.  They will not be able to recruit new members until 2012.  Their first round NCAA win in 2007 will be voided.   They will be unable to televise their games. We are also fining them $650,000.”

When asked what specific evidence the NCAA had against the Cardinals, Brand mentioned a “pattern of abuse” that started with Pope John Paul II and escalated under his successor, Benedict XVI.

“Under John Paul archbishops were enticed into the College of Cardinals with  promises of advancement.  One of them might one day become Pope.  Also, gifts were showered upon potential recruits.  We have emails promising ‘the fullness of the holy spirit’ to those who entered the college.   Now I have no idea what the fullness of the holy spirit is worth, but I bet it’s more than a sneaker contract.”

“Pope Benedict would brazenly show off the city of Rome to potential recruits and promise them private apartments in Vatican City.  All this is in direct violation of NCAA by-laws.”

The Vatican stands to lose several million over the next few years in ad revenue alone in addition to the fine levee’d against them.  Pope Benedict XVI maintained his innocence and called Brand a “punk” and vowed to “kick his ass from here to kingdom come” the next time he’s in the United States.

Their starting power forward, Cardinal Justin Francis Rigali, who had to sit out a year after transferring from Villanova declared his disappointment with the sanctions.  “This may be my last chance at a championship.  Needless to say this is a bitter pill to swallow.”

From New York City, the heavily recruited Archbishop Timothy Dolan angrily threw his purple biretta on the ground.  “I pictured myself on their team next year.  Now what?”

Brand concluded his press conference by promising further investigations.  “We have our eye on the Electoral College.  If I were a member I’d worry about being disbanded.”

(304)

The controversial syndicated game show Bowling for Lemurs was cancelled today after only 2 weeks on the air.  The producer citing flagging ratings and rising production costs as the reason for the cancellation.  The show debuted at the bottom of its time slot and amazingly sank even lower the next week.

“The concept seemed a good thing at the time” said the show’s producer.  “I was sitting home one night watching the Bowling Channel, because that’s what producers do in their spare time, and I thought Bowling for Dollars is okay but why not update it and make it edgier, hipper and attract a younger audience.”

After brainstorming all weekend the idea was born.  Only it was originally called “Bowling for Alligators.”

“I thought this would be a hip show young people would like to watch.   But in preproduction one of the alligators ate a contestant.  As I was watching the alligator crawl away with the leg in his mouth I figured insurance would be too expensive so I grabbed a dictionary and opened it and placed my finger on a word for the new title, because that’s how producers do things, and lo and behold my finger was on the word lemur.”

A trip to Madagascar was necessary to round up thousands of lemurs for the show.

“It was difficult to round up the little buggers because the natural habitats of lemurs are forests.  So I had to burn down thousands of acres of forest, and again, as a producer I’m used to doing this, to drive the lemurs out.”

Placing the animals in restraints inside cardboard boxes and shipping them to the United States significantly drove up the cost of production.   Once onsite the lemurs proved unreceptive to the director’s commands, would not hit their marks and defecated on the set.

“I’m a producer so I’m used to that sort of behavior from supermodels, but not wild animals.”

The lemurs also made a habit of jumping on audience members and digging their claws into their scalps eliciting screams and much blood.

“As a producer screams and bloodshed do not bother me.   I’ve worked with David Caruso after all.   I could have lived with it if the ratings were better, but they weren’t.”

So Bowling for Lemurs is history, going the way of the Chevy Chase Show, the Rosie O’Donnell Variety Hour and anything starring Don Rickles as the worst failure in the history of television.  But the producer is not discouraged.

“I’m already retooling the format.  The show will be back in the fall as ‘Bowling for Compound Fractures.’  I’m confident  it’ll be a huge success.   I’m a producer after all.  I know what the American people want.”

(243)

A new survey conducted by the Pew Research Group has found that an astonishing 75% of dead people expressed some dissatisfaction with their lives.  Among the complaints are lack of career advancement, bad working conditions, time away from family and faulty infrastructure.

“We were really surprised by the results of our poll” says researcher Dave Jones.  “We expected a much higher degree of satisfaction.  We asked direct questions and they gave us honest answers.”

The most common complaint was a feeling of frustration at lack of career advancement.   Typical is the story of Marco Lombardo who was interviewed on the 3rd terrace of Purgatory.

“I’ve been dead for over 700 years but I’m still stuck on the 3rd terrace.  I’m getting kind of bored with it.  You try walking around for 700 years in acrid smoke.  It’s hard on the lungs.  I have no idea when or if I’ll get promoted.  I mean, when I died promises were made to me!  I should have become a Muslim like my mother wanted.”

The Emperor Justinian, from the 2nd sphere of Paradise echoed similar sentiments.

“I’ve been here for 1500 years.  It looks like I’ll always be here.  No chance of moving up.  No chance of getting a better seat at the Empyrean.  I think I’d have better luck getting one of those $2500 dollar seats at the New Yankee Stadium.  I mean, I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining but really!”

Bad working conditions were a common complaint among the dead in Hell.  From the 6th  circle of Hell, Farinata degli Uberti voiced his concerns.

“I’ve been dead 800 years and this entire time I’ve been trapped in this flaming tomb.  It kind of hurts.  I think OSHA might have something to say about this.  I guess it’s my job to burn here but you’d think I’d get a day off every now and then.  But no, nothing.  Nada in all this time.  What am I?  A contractor? And I got family in Heaven and they aren’t allowed to visit me?  What’s the deal with that? Hey, what’s happening on ‘Lost’?  Is Locke really dead?”

Perhaps the most surprising complaint from many of the dead has to do with crumbling infrastructure and faulty equipment.

From the base of Mt. Purgatory, King Harry of England said “Do you know how many avalanches I’ve had to escape the past 1000 years?  I think somebody who shall remain nameless might want to take a look at that.”

In the Empyrean in Heaven the dead were recently given new laptops with the Windows Vista operating system.  St. Bernard expressed his frustration.  “Every time I  look up a soul’s information  I get the blue screen. I had to back up everything, reformat my drive and install updates.  Why didn’t they give us Macintoshes?”

Voicemails to God have so far been left unanswered.

(245)

Area resident John Blocker, hoping to spice up his life and meet new friends held a wine and cheese social at his place and was profoundly disappointed with the results.

“What a bunch of boring tightasses” he said.  “This was worse than my last party – the insurance adjuster-themed party.  That was a disaster.  I wanted to try something else and I saw an article in ‘Redbook’ that said this would be a good idea.”

Blocker knew his party was in trouble shortly after the guests arrived.  Of the guests, 41 percent were college professors who wanted to talk about the use of palindromes in “Terminator Salvation”, 32 percent were schizophrenics who thought they were at an open casting call for “American Idol”, 20 percent were grapes angry at the murder of their fellow grapes to make wine and 7 percent were teenage boys who thought Wine and Cheese was a new stripper/musical group like the Pussycat Dolls.

“What a fun bunch” Blocker remarked sarcastically.  “The professors scared the schizophrenics who in turn scared the teenage boys.  The worst of the bunch were the grapes.  Every time someone took a sip of wine they were all over them.  ‘That glass of wine you’re sipping was my brother’ they’d say.  Then they’d shout ‘murderer, murderer, murderer!  Some of the grapes became suicide bombers and threw themselves against the walls of my apartment.  Have you ever tried to get grape stains out?”

Blocker was forced to end his party early.

“I threw everyone out.  I had hopes for this party.  This really bums me up.  If life is going to be this boring I might as well up and move to Staten Island.”

Blocker’s experience is sadly typical.  According to the American Institute of Party Statistics (AIPS), wine and cheese parties rank just below dinner with your in-laws, root canal appreciation and decorating with phlegm as some of the least favorite party ideas.

The regional director for the AIPS states that “We have been discouraging wine and cheese parties for years.  It’s a bad idea that keeps sticking around.  Wine and cheese parties refuse to die, like the ’70s and cast reunions of ‘Facts of Life.’ ”

“Boy have I learned my lesson” said Blocker.  “Next party I have it’s nothing but hookers and blow…..and cheese.”

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