Faster than a speeding bullet, the year 2016 whistled down the track, eradicating everything in its path. When it fitfully arrived at the station, it carried the remains of every famous person in the world, or so it seemed. Entertainers were special targets this time, falling in droves under the iron wheels. To make matters even worse, explorers at the North Pole discovered a long lost body in a block of melting ice, put an electric blanket on it and went for coffee. When they heard the sled dogs bark, they hastily returned, but it was too late. The monster was loosed on the world, snarling mighty threats, poisoning the wobbly minds of its citizens and ascending to the throne. A black cloud filled with anger, fear and doubt settled over the Earth. Doom arose from his bunker, put on a new shirt and began to advance on a fretful planet. Was the Apolcalypse finally at hand? Tune in next year for another exciting reflection. We hope.
But hey, everything in 2016 wasn’t bad. Bill and Siobhan got married after 30 years of carrying on and the Cubs finally won the World Series. Marty Jourard’s long-promised tome on the 1960s/70s Gainesville rock scene (Music Everywhere—The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town) was published and the author rode into town on a burrow as his disciples laid palm fronds in his path. Bernie Sanders arose from the depths of recognition and reminded us that it’s still possible to be inspired by a politician for all the right reasons. And Fairfield, Florida got helicopters!
Yep, Richard Helms and Greg Poe moved in just down the road and before you knew it they brought a couple of bright, shiny helicopters onto the scene, darting hither and yon, dive-bombing the goat herds. Sometimes, when they want to show off, they flit over to the Adena Springs country club for breakfast or skip off to Cedar Key for dinner. If you’d like to avoid those long, crowded security lines at the airport, you might want to invest in your very own helicopter, a bargain with your 5% discount, at only a cool million. Richard has no shortage of planes, even flying Siobhan’s brother Stuart and wife Mary to Las Vegas for the big Killeen-Ellison nuptials in his modest jet, if there is such a thing. After the wedding, the party grabbed dinner, Ubered to the airport and was back in Fairfield in time for bed. Obviously, not everybody is having a bad year.
2016—Helicopters take over Fairfield.
Other Highlights Of The Annum
2016 was also the year of the scary Jade Helm conspiracy. Or it would have been if it ever happened. Colander-wearing Radical Republican conspiracy theorists (i.e. “nutbags”) in Texas thought planned U.S. Government military maneuvers scheduled for their state over an eight-week period were a mere prelude to a national takeover of Lone Star territory, as if anyone would actually want it. I mean the place is full of pit vipers, sagebrush and retired talk radio hosts, you couldn’t even trade it back to Mexico for Michoacan and an autographed color photograph of Oscar De La Hoya.
This was also the year Texas legalized “open carry,” which allowed citizens to pack heat at the public library, the Little League games or anywhere else a severe reckoning might pop up. On the first day of open carry, one proud gun-toter was robbed of his weapon by another who just loved the look of the thing. Not many people have actually been shot yet but that’s more a factor of bad aim than evil intent on the part of the neophytes. Until things quiet down, state authorities have posted “No Parking” signs around the Alamo.
2016 was also the year the dreaded Zika virus was going to take over the world, leaving us with a glut of big-headed, brain-diminished babies. The scare receded over time but we still got stuck with the king of big-headed, brain-diminished babies when Donald Trump was elected president. Yes, that’s right. Of the U.S.A. Trailer parks all over America held giant victory parties while the polling industry, which had predicted a Hillary Clinton rout, went into hiding, babbling incoherently. On the positive side, fourteen nitwit Republicans were crushed by Trump on his way to the White House, although several were later offered jobs with the new administration shining shoes or polishing the Senate silverware. Principal suckup Chris Christie was allowed to open a lemonade stand on the White House lawn, where sales were reported middling.
A small group of crazy bastards took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon for a few weeks, citing extreme boredom and the lack of major adult entertainment parks in the Pacific Northwest. Their leader, Ammon Bundy, does this sort of thing every time his wife makes him sleep on the back porch. The invaders were eventually captured by law enforcement authorities with little harm done if you don’t count that little bit of unfortunate business with Lavoy Finicum. Lavoy, the busy father of 11, made the mistake of thinking he was playing a part in a western movie and told the cops he would never be taken alive. He wasn’t.
Last year, everybody got a drone for Christmas. In 2016, they started flying them around. Drones were everywhere, diving into crowded marathon fields in Massachusetts, crashing down on the White House lawn, buzzing bicycle delivery riders and dropping into Starbuck’s for a quick caramel brulee latte. In Canada, prison guards spotted a drone dropping contraband into the exercise yard and in Dublin a drug-carrying mule drone crashed into an overhead wire, dispensing its load to excited parties below. In the Netherlands, the clever Dutch got tired of all this foolishness and began training bald eagles to swoop out of the sky and snare drones in their mighty talons. This didn’t sit well with PETA, which is insisting the eagles work shorter hours and get more fish.
Kim Jong-un was back in the news again, complaining that nobody was inviting him over for tea and basketball despite several undisguised hints from Pyongyang. Kim wants everyone to know that if they won’t come out and play, he’ll be back home building hydrogen bombs and then they’ll be sorry. Kim admits he’s having a little trouble with his launching capabilities. A few bomb-carrying rockets have exploded shortly after liftoff and another one went the wrong way and blew up somewhere in Lithuania, although nobody noticed yet. Just in case, Dennis Rodman has been dispatched to Vilnius with a full complement of hwagwaja flower cakes.
Murph the Surf turned up again after all these years, playing a banjo at the Honky Tonkin’ Opry in nearby Micanopy. Seems murder doesn’t carry the same cachet it used to, so they let Murph out of the pokey after a puny 14 years. Maybe it was because the old jewel thief found Jesus in there and now he’s a new man. We drove out to see him at the Opry one night but there was no Murph to be found, only a barnful of hooting Christians tapping their feet to the music and barking at the moon. To say this was a frat party for radical Christian right-wing lug nuts might be overstating it just a bit but if somebody dropped a bomb on the place Trump would have lost the Florida vote. If anybody walked into this seething hive of backwardness with a Hillary shirt on, he would have been stoned to death in a trice. Once the whole affair devolved into a mess of jingoism and “amens,” Siobhan and I edged out the back door before we were discovered and burned at the stake. On the way to our car outside, one of the congregation asked us if we’d been saved. “Sure have,” we told him, “but just barely.”
2017—Blogger ponders career change.
Back Porch Bill & The Sidewinders
Funny how these things happen. Life is unfolding in a perfectly logical direction, straight as a Kansas highway, then all of a sudden the Cosmic Road Manager throws you a curve. On a whim, a parent decides his kid might get a kick out of a chemistry set for Christmas; twenty years later, his offspring is Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Scientist Bruce Banner goes to work one day with no plan greater than to bring home some chitlins for dinner. Next thing you know, he gets caught up in a blast of gamma radiation and turns into The Incredible Hulk. Maybe you’re a mere tot rocking in your cradle, not a care in the world. Then pops comes home from work, tells you the planet is blowing up any minute, stuffs you into a rocket and lights the fuse. Before you know it, you’re flying around someplace called Earth and people are calling you Superman.
That’s the way it was for me, a sleepy citizen of rural America, tending to my horses and pecking out a blog column every week. Then the missus goes to an art fair, falls in love with a curious musical instrument and buys it for a Christmas gift. At the same time, my sister sends along a t-shirt with Killeen the Legend embossed on the front. Looks to me like Obe Wan Kenobi might be trying to tell me something. Like “Bill, go forth and plunk.”
I’ve always been of the opinion that only a foolish man ignores the omens and signs sent forth from the depths of the Realm, so I learned a little bit about these cigar-box guitar things, began playing around with my new instrument, started looking ahead to my future life in the music business. Got a few country boys together who could play a little and even found ourselves a name. We’ve played a couple of cockfights and one dirigible launching and the customers seemed to like our stuff fairly well so we’re looking forward to bigger and better things. Once we get a little money coming in, we can start paying Freddie, the banjo man, and he’ll be able to give up his night job and get to our gigs before intermission. It’s tough saving all the banjo tunes for the last half hour.
So there you have it. If any of y’all find yourselves in need of some good feces-kickin’ music, you know who to call. We’ll keep ‘em up singin’ and dancin’ til all hours. And for all you Jewish folks, we’ve already learned Talkin’ Hava Nagilah Blues and With God On Our Side, so remember us when Bar Mitzvah time comes around. The expanded Hava Nagila revue in full retinue is, of course, slightly extra.
That’s all, folks….
