HAPPY HOLIDAYS . . .

. . . FROM ALL OF US AT
HIRSH HORN'S WEAKLY BLOW!

A HOLIDAY GREETING FROM THE EDITOR

As Editor of Hirsh Horn's Weakly Blow, it is my obligation to wish each and every one of you a lucrative and terror-free Holiday Season! It has been two or, possibly, three months since we launched this blog and dozens of readers have hit us, on purpose or by accident, several times. We have achieved many achievements, including a donation from my aunt and a death threat from a gun nut, or "firearms enthusiast" as he prefers to call himself. Hirsh Horn's Weakly Blow is not afraid of controversy and we will not back down from a position of principle, merely because a firearms enthusiast has threatened to "separate [our] souls from [our] liberal [bottoms]."

On a personal note, my aunt and self have MOVED OUT of the basement of the DuStentch Ammonia and Households Solvents Packaging Facility in Brass Castle, NJ and now live somewhere far away from there. Also, I remain single and would like to meet a nice, plump lady. Please try to remember that information, because love is the true meaning of Christmas and many other holidays.

Once again, on behalf of myself, my aunt and our 16 cats,

HAVE A YULETIDE CHRISTMAS

AND A RESOLUTE NEW YEAR!

Conrad Coleridge, Editor

And now . . .

A HOLIDAY MESSAGE FROM

HIRSH HORN

PUBLISHER of HIRSH HORN'S WEAKLY BLOW

Thanks Kenrod! You folks don't know me yet, but you will. And you will like me . . . or you'll regret it.

HA! I'm kidding. The truth is, you will like me because everybody does. What the hell is not to like?

Like Kenrod said, Happy blahblahblah. My name is Hirsh Horn and I pay the bills around here, which is why the sign upstairs has got my name on it. Don't worry, I can afford it - I'm President and CEO of DuStentch Ammonia and Households Solvents, Inc. I've got seven plants all over South Jersey and about 300 employees. Most of 'em are Guatemalan or something and over the weekend I gave out Christmas turkeys to every last one of 'em. You may not believe it, but some of those people never saw a turkey in their lives. It feels good to give 'em one and watch 'em look surprised, 'cause that's what the holidays are all about and blahblahblah. People like to get free food and turkey only costs ten bucks a bird if you buy 300 of 'em.

Anyway, I hear this blog thing is working out okay and according to my wife, who's always got something to say about every damn thing, I should tell you the story behind how it got started and also make a Statement of Principles. So, here comes all of that:

The story behind this thing is that Uncle Sam's Internal Revenuers will reach into your pocket and take whatever they can get as long as there's a coin or two jingling around down there, next to your balls. So instead of lettin' them have it, you might as well spend it in the interest of the public interest, by buying girl scout cookies or paying for a soccer team or whatever the hell. So, if you're like me, you make the same damn mistake you always make and you ask your wife what to do and she says you should publish a bleg or a blog or something. And you say, What the hell is that? and she says, Well, you get a writer to make up articles once a week, like in the Burlington County Advertiser. So, okay.

Now, mind you, I didn't get to be CEO of DuStench by doing things half-way. If I'm gonna do something at all, I'm gonna do it right. So I set out to find the best damn writers in the world!

But I couldn't. I don't know any damn writers and I'm glad I don't. So I forgot about the whole thing for a while, but then my wife started yapping about it again. She met somebody whose son is a college boy, and she's a nag, my wife, so I listened to her again and met with this snot-nosed kid who's too lazy even to put on a tie. I ask this mutt, as politely as I can, if he wouldn't mind doing a little writing for Hirsh Horn's Weakly Blow, in the interest of the public interest. And what does he say? He says he wants ten bucks an hour and he wants health insurance and he wants, get this, an "editorial budget."

And I'm thinkin' to myself: What in hell . . . ?!

Because there is no effin' way I'm gonna pay some crumbum writer more than the minimum wage. I've got Guatemalans all over South Jersey and every last one of 'em gets the minimum wage and, believe you me, they are happy to get it. And here I am, trying to publish a blog, even though I'm still not sure what the hell it is, in the interest of the public interest, and along comes this university brat who's worse than Uncle Sam's Internal Revenuers. Put yourself in my shoes - what would you do?

I'll tell you what you would do. You'd say, Why, you little thumb-sucking three-card-monte hustlin' college boy son-of-a-bitch! How fackin' old do you think I am? And then you'd sock him in the throat.

I know, I know - I gotta watch my temper. You can get in a lotta trouble, sockin' a kid in the throat. But, listen, I've got the best effin' lawyer in Jersey on a $3 million retainer and that kinda money buys a lot of justice. Try reporting one of my plants to OSHA and you'll find out what I mean.

So, after I punched-in that fella's windpipe, I thought to myself: Well, Hirsh, satisfying as that was, you've still got to find some fruity intellectual namby-pamby to write this blog of yours. And then my secretary, Tamika - nice gal, she's from Newark - Tamika reminds me that there's a guy named Kenrod that lives in the basement of one of my plants. And this guy's a writer - a good one, too, for all I know. So I rang him up and, oh boy, was he game! No health insurance, no "budgets" and, you can be damn sure, no ten bucks an hour.

I just let him write whatever he wants, which is why he writes mostly about himself - or so I hear, anyway, I never read this crap.

Alright, what else? Oh, yeah, my pain-in-the-ass wife - I call her The War Department - says I have to state my principles. So, okay, wait a minute. I think I gave my principles to Tamika and she put 'em somewhere.

Okay, here come the principles:

As publisher of Hirsh Horn's Weakly Blow, it is my duty - and I'll let you in on a little secret, it is also my pleasure - to see to it that the decent, hard-working people of this community, if there are any, aren't robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates or any other kind of pack of something. And I'll let you in on another little secret: I think I'm the man to do it. You see, I have money and property up the wazoo - I mean it. Let's say I lose a million dollars this year, publishing this effin' thing; and then let's say I lose another million next year and the year after that. At the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll probably have to close this blog in . . . sixty years!

HA! Ha, ha, ha! Sixty years! Good one, right?

So, for the next sixty years, I guess, I'll be . . .

. . . feistily yours,

Hirsh Horn, Publisher

Charles "Chuck" Hirshberg wuz here & thanks everyone else who wuz, too!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

-cc-

MY KINDA TOWN: A WEAKLY BLOW MIDWESTERN MISADVENTURE

Destination . . .

. . . CHICAGO!

A few months ago, I received an email from one Robbie Fulks, esq, a talented singer, songwriter and guitarist whom I have long admired.

From time to time, Robbie invites various musicians to the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago where he puts on concerts that he later broadcasts on his XM Radio* show, "Robbie's Secret Country." His email informed me that on December 9, he intended to devote one of these concerts to the music of The Carter Family, a subject upon which I am an expert, or at least a blowhard. Would I be willing to come to Chicago to be interviewed on stage? If so, he was prepared to pay me the astounding sum of $300; and if I would condescend to appear at a second concert on the same day, the gratuity would be correspondingly doubled.

Now, talking is one of my favorite diversions and rarely do I receive this sort of encouragement, so I said 'yes' without hesitation. On December 8, I jetted to the City of the Big Shoulders, landing at O'Hare Airport at precisely noon. Despite the cash windfall Robbie was about to lavish upon me, I was in an economical mood and made one of the greatest errors of my error-filled life: I decided to take public transportation from the airport to my hotel.

Nearly a week has passed and I am still recuperating from this ordeal, but the healing process has been hastened considerably by an exchange of emails with Alison Perona, Inspector General of the Chicago Transit Authority, which I reproduce below in its genuine entirety:

Dear Inspector General:

How are you? I am fine. I live in Boston and recently visited Chicago for the first time in many years. I decided to try your service from the airport and it was, I think, an unnecessarily distressing experience, which I know you did not intend and would not wish to see repeated.

Here is what happened: After retrieving my suitcase from baggage claim, I followed the signs to the subway and stepped up to a pass-dispensing machine to purchase a pass. I had five twenty-dollar-bills and $1.75 in change. As you probably know, the subway costs $2, so I put one of the twenties in the machine and asked it for a $2 ticket. However, the machine did not give me a ticket. It simply looked back at me as though I was stupid and reminded me that I had just given it $20, which I already knew. Fortunately, a nice man came up behind me and said: "That thing don't give change." Not being from Chicago, I reached for my wallet and pulled out a credit card, only to hear the same nice man (and he was a nice man, as you shall soon see) say: "It don't take credit cards neither." Looking about me, I saw a gaggle of out-of-towners like myself, staggering around like zombies, holding out large bills and begging Chicagoans for change. Fortunately for me, the nice man was nice enough to give me a quarter.

So here's my first question: Is it really true that your subway machines don't give change or take credit cards? Because I have lived in Boston, New York and Washington, three cities that, in many ways, have nothing on you, I'm sure, but all of which allow commuters to both use their credit cards and receive change for large bills.

Now, here's another pickle I'd like you to think about: The train ride from the airport to my hotel in Rogers Park took an excruciating two-hours-and-twenty-minutes (this is not a typo.) I spent most of the trip recalling cliches about slowness - "slow as molasses in January," "I'm coming, and so is Christmas," etc - and there were several annoying incidents along the way that dragged out the journey even further.

For instance, just three stops into the trip, we were all hustled out of the train and loaded onto a tightly-packed slow-moving shuttle bus where I was forced to listen to a very nasty man fulminate against illegal immigrants. He said that unless Mexico stopped "sending us" illegal immigrants, we should invade it and remove its leaders. Evidently, he believes this strategy is working so well in Iraq that we should try it out on other countries that threaten our security by being poor. Please find this man and waterboard him.

Anyhoo, eventually the bus rolled up to the next stop and unloaded us and we waited another ten minutes for another train that moved along at an average speed of, I'd say, 6-1/2 miles-per-hour. That train, however, was like the Georgia Mail compared to the train I transferred to, I believe on the cheerlessly-named "Brown Line." What was truly impressive was that this Brown Line train achieved extraordinary depths of slowness while skipping as many stops as it stopped at, much to the fury of my fellow passengers, most of whom were Chicagoans and probably deserve better.

So here is my second question: Is there some way that you could let me know when these various annoyances are corrected, so that I can return to Chicago under more pleasant circumstances?

Many thanks for your kind attention to these questions. I am sure you will appreciate that they are offered in a spirit of friendly encouragement.

Very truly yours, etc.

I am delighted to report that, in less than 24 hours, I received the following reply:

Dear Mr. Hirshberg,

On behalf of the CTA, I apologize for the inconveniences you experienced on your trip to Chicago.

The CTA is currently engaging in massive reconstruction and improvement projects, most notably on the Blue and Brown Lines. If you check the CTA's website http://www.transitchicago.com/, you can follow the progress of these projects.

I have forwarded your e-mail to the relevant departments so that all of the issues presented can be reviewed.

N.B. The President's authorization to use "extreme tactics" on enemies of the United States does not permit the CTA to waterboard obnoxious customers, no matter how annoying they are.

Alison Perona
Inspector General

Needless to say, I was more than satisfied with every aspect of this reply - except one, which I called to Ms. Perona's attention in a subsequent email, to wit:

Dear Inspector General:

I could scarcely have hoped for a more prompt, professional and gratifying response to my email of 12/13. However, I do wish to call your attention to one unfortunate bobble on your part. You wrote: "The President's authorization to use 'extreme tactics' on enemies of the United States does not permit the CTA to waterboard obnoxious customers." I am sure that is true, for the time being. But please note that the President's policy authorizes ENHANCED tactics of interrogation, not EXTREME ones. Waterboarding is an enhancement, not an extremity.

Nonetheless, your email has greatly enhanced my impression of Chicago in general, and the CTA in particular.

Gratefully yours, etc.

It only remains for me to recount to you, the interested reader, the remaining highlights of my visit to Chicago. On Sunday morning, I dressed in conservative blue, found the Old Town School of Folk Music and asked to be taken to Mr. Robbie Fulks, which was accordingly done. Robbie was leading a small ensemble in a song called "I've Got a Home in that Rock" and enjoying himself hugely; but the moment he turned his head in my direction, his enjoyment evaporated. It was obvious that he did not recognize me and would have been happy to continue not recognizing me for the rest of his life.

This was understandable and, indeed, typical. My appearance is such that it produces unsettling sensations in strangers, especially women. Indeed, it happens so frequently that I rarely become rattled in these situations. I was quite sympathetic to Robbie, as my face-and-figure pose particular problems to a professional entertainer who has committed himself to appearing with me on the stage. On the other hand, I had exchanged enough emails with Robbie to optimistically consider him my friend. But on another hand, I realized that I had only actually met him once, at my ex-brother-in-law's wedding seven-or-eight years ago.

"'It's me," I explained, extending my hand aggressively, "Charles 'Chuck' Hirshberg."

Had I announced myself as his blind date, Robbie Fulks could not have been more disappointed. He stared at the neck of his guitar in an agony of embarrassment as he shook my hand.

"It's been a long time," I pointed out, helpfully.

"Ya," he mumbled, "since our, um, . . . wedding."

I tried changing the subject. "Am I dressed okay?" I asked.

He looked at my clothes and snorted: "You're over-thinkin' this."

For the next few hours, Robbie energetically avoided me until it was time to invite me onstage for the interview, which went rather well, I thought. Robbie is unnecessarily tall and I am imprudently short and the audience seemed to enjoy the Mutt-and-Jeff aspect of our conversation. So at the end of the second show, when Robbie invited me on stage to sing a verse of "Worried Man Blues," I thought he had begun to accept me. I had a slight cold and sang my verse in a gruff, down-home growl that the audience applauded with great sympathy. A few days later, I wrote Robbie, asking for a recording of my performance. He replied thus:

"The channel on the mike you sang through was not turned on. You can hear your vocal a little bit as bleed through the other mikes. But mostly, you can hear me laughing sinisterly, like Eddie Murphy, through a mike that is on."

Ah, well. At least that explains the audience's enthusiastic applause: They couldn't hear me.

----------
*XM is a satellite radio service that works like this: First, you purchase a special XM radio receiver for about $600; then you pay a fee of approximately $600 a month, which may seem like a lot, but you get to listen to your choice of 46,000 channels, each of them broadcast by satellite to ensure perfect stereophonic clarity. A rival service, Sirius Radio, charges twice as much and offers only 23,000 channels, but one of them features Howard Stern. Decisions, decisions . . .

-cc-

ANNOUNCING THE WEAKLY BLOW'S . . .

2007

MASCOT of the YEAR!
OSCAR

"New Mexico Guns' gun-toting,

left-handed, NRA-Supporting mouse"

That is Oscar's actual Official Designation - verbatim!

His motto:

"The principals of New Mexico Guns are

Christ-centered and Scripturally-focused."

English is not just the only language I know; it is the most accommodating language I know. No thought is too preposterous to be expressed in it, in a hundred different preposterous ways. So whenever I am unable to extract a sensible meaning from a sentence of English, I try to stay cool. It may take several hours of reading and re-reading but there's usually a needle of coherence to be found 'neath the haystack of jumbled words. Of course, sometimes the meaning that emerges is even more preposterous than the dross that covered it - and Oscar's motto is one of the most delightful specimens of such a sentence that I have ever discovered.

To be sure, Oscar stumbled briefly at the outset - I'm fairly certain that the word principles was called for, rather than principals. But the heart of his motto, the fervent declaration of a Christ-centered, spiritually-focused love of firearms, is spot-on and beautifully expressed. Is it not?

I am quite serious about this, a little bit. Just now, I stopped typing and saw in my imagination a great, unfathomable chasm - The Grand Chasm, I call it - that represents the philosophical distance between Oscar's human creators and me. In fact, I truly believe that I have more in common with an Irish Wolfhound of my acquaintance . . . .

SAGE

Food-focused, self-centered mascot

of

Vicki Constantine Croke,

Author, Journalist, Hardly-Bitten Newswoman

New Mexico Guns, the organization that Oscar guards with such Christ-centered, left-handed vigilance, is devoted to protecting the Second Amendment to our Constitution (you know, the one that calls for "a well-regulated militia.") It does so by providing a variety of courses in the use of firearms, including "youth classes" for pre-kindergartners at a fee of $50.00 per child.

After all, did not Jesus say, whilst He walked among us: "Suffer the children to come unto Me"?

Mindful of Christ's many exhortations to charity, New Mexico Guns also offers "significant discounts to non-profit groups, such as the Boy/Girl Scouts, organized ministries, volunteer chaplain programs, or private and home schools that receive no tax support, etc."

I am certain that New Mexico Guns is a sincere enterprise. I mean, just look at Oscar - that mouse was summoned from yarn with meticulous care by someone who loved him. What amazes me is not that I disagree with its values, but that those values are completely incomprehensible to me. And evidently, that's just to be expected, for on the New Mexico Guns homepage, just a few inches beneath Oscar's portrait, reads the following:

"Oscar and our training pictures say much more (i.e., 'a thousand words') than most may initially comprehend."

Amen to that!

-cc-