The Soapbox Derby

A couple of my old friends from college are the parents of twins, girls in both cases. The thing is, I didn’t have to start thinking of them as old friends until these four bundles of joy came along. Once they did, the aging process seemed to accelerate pretty rapidly.

Cindy sometimes refers to her daughters as Itchy and Scratchy. And poor Brandon can spin harrowing tales of bubble gum-encrusted hair and at least one emergency room visit. (Here’s a hint: His girls were playing piggy bank.)

So I figure my college friends, and their equally exhausted spouses, would agree with a bumper sticker spotted recently on Redbud Drive:

Discover Wildlife … Raise Twins!

Moving from parental to spiritual, here’s another one that showed up on South New Hope Road:

Never Drive Faster Than Your Guardian Angel Can Fly.

Sounds reasonable to me. Still, I wonder if the message could be customized for individual drivers … like, say, Danica Patrick:

Never Drive Faster Than Those Dopey, Adolescent Commercials Can Trivialize Your Talent.

And finally, we have a bumper sticker spotted on Franklin Boulevard:

Make Jobs, Not War.

Unfortunately, the past several years have burdened us with elected officials who fancy themselves supremely qualified to do both.

And on that cynical note, we say goodbye for now and renew our standing offer. If you see a blogworthy piece of bumper flair in your travels, by all means share. You can post it on this here blog or e-mail a JPEG image to bbridges@gastongazette.com.

Until next we meet, laissez les bon temps rouler (let the good times roll, in New Orleans and everywhere else).

As Bill Clinton was inexorably closing the gap in the 1992 campaign, President George Bush tossed a chunk of rare red meat to the values lobby by saying we needed families that acted more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. A retort was not late in coming.

“But we are like the Waltons,” Bart protested. “We’re waiting for the Depression to end, too.”

Ouch. The Secret Service wasn’t quick enough to take that bullet.

So we can see that even in its infancy, “The Simpsons” had enough cultural cache to draw the attention of the leader of the free world. On the eve of its 20th birthday, the show remains a touchstone for America and the rest of the universe.

As a tribute, I humbly offer this “Simpsonized” portrait. You should be able to find a program on Facebook to do one of your own, or try one of the various Simpsonize sites on the Web. It’ll turn a “D’oh!” into a “Whoo-hoo!” in no time.

If you’re a serious fan, check out gastongazette.com and Sunday’s print edition for even more shenanigans.

Happy anniversary, Simpsons! God bless America and God bless Springfield.

I hereby resolve to be a more active blogger in 2010; not necessarily a better blogger, but one who blogs with greater frequency. Which means more reports on mullet sightings, fantasy baseball and, of course, bumper stickers.

Like this one, spotted recently on South New Hope:

YOU WERE WILD ONCE … DON’T LET THEM TAME YOU

Turns out it’s a quote attributed to the flamboyant American dancer Isadora Duncan. But when I first read it, I unconsciously checked my hair for cowlicks.

Then there’s this one spotted on Gaston Day School Road:

I ♥ THE POPE

It makes me wonder, though. What kind of sticker would His Holiness display on the Popemobile? Hmmm …

* Keep Honking … The Swiss Guard Is Reloading

* My Other Car Is Also Bulletproof and Resistant to Chemical Attacks

* Damn, I’m Infallible!

Oh, well. Perhaps if there’s ever a Vatican III, the subject will come up.

In the meantime, feel free to share any blogworthy pieces of bumper flair you encounter in your travels. Post them in this here blog or e-mail a JPEG pitcher to bbridges@gastongazette.com.

Until next time, say your prayers and watch out for cowlicks.

No offense to Jimmy Stewart, Ralphie or The Grinch, but nothing says Christmas like a flightless Arctic waterfowl and a cat suffering from projectile hairballs.

The Gazette recently polled its readers about their preferred holiday viewing. Sadly (but not surprisingly), “A Wish for Wings That Work” didn’t make the list. This unheralded animated special featuring characters from the old “Bloom County” and “Outland” comic strips is something I watch every year about this time (my own copy, on VHS of all things). It chronicles the heroic quest by Opus the penguin to score a pair of wings for Christmas. With him on this journey is longtime associate Bill the Cat, a brain-fried feline who communicates almost exclusively through the word “Ack.”

Why do I enjoy this little show so much? Well, it’s got absurdist humor, endearing characters, hilarious dialogue and an overall message that’s sweet but not syrupy. And as far as I know, it aired only one time - as opposed to every hour on the hour each December. (Whenever you take something great and affix the word “thon” to it, you risk devaluing the currency.)

For what it’s worth, you don’t hear a curmudgeon like me offer endorsements very often. “A Wish for Wings That Work” is one of those rare exceptions. Trust me - you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll go “Ack.”

Thanksgiving … an occasion that evokes thoughts of turkey, cranberry goop and pumpkin pie. This year, however, I had to make room on my plate for a small helping of cyclone.

At around 5:30 p.m., on I-85 South outside Lexington, my return trip from a family engagement in Greensboro turned weird. A sudden wind gust tugged at my car, and then it started raining leaves — at least it seemed that way. As the dead foliage whirled in front of my headlights in thick columns of red and orange, I took note of this apparent gale warning and braced myself.

It was a good thought.

For the next 50-odd miles of interstate, nature let me and the rest of the unfortunate travelers have it. Not just the rain, which came down in sheets and curtains. It was also fat chunks of hail that plummeted out of the darkness and thwacked into our roofs and windshields. It was rumbling thunder and lightning that illuminated the horizon.

Hail, thunder, lightning and torrential rain — in late November, no less. It made for one grueling ride back to Gastonia, and I haven’t felt that grateful to get out of a car in quite some time.

But that’s life in the Carolinas, where the phrase “Temperate Zone” can lose all meaning very fast. If you don’t like the weather around here, just wait 15 minutes.

“Think good thoughts,” said the bumper sticker. Unfortunately, my mind was too busy designing a sticker for the minivan that had rolled a stop sign and almost given me a front-end misalignment a few miles back. Like this: “My kid is an honor student. Obviously, we adopted.”

But in the spirit of good thoughts and the thinking of them, let’s try to focus on things that inspire rather than annoy. Tomorrow is Veterans Day, for example. And not too long ago, I spotted a bumper sticker that reminded me what it’s like for all the people waiting and praying through stateside vigils: “Half of my heart is in Iraq.”

If at all possible, let’s try to do something for that driver and everyone else in a similar situation: Think good thoughts.

That’s all the time we have for this installment of Bumper Crop. But if you spot a blogworthy piece of bumper flair, feel free to get in on the tomfoolery. Post it on this here blog or e-mail us a photo (bbridges@gastongazette.com).

Join us next time when we’ll investigate reports of a new sticker spotted on a congressional SUV at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport: “My other car is parked legally.”

Everybody has a favorite old song, but sometimes I wonder what happened after the music stopped.

Did the man really find a simpler place in time when that midnight train arrived in Georgia? Did them good old boys actually die on the day they were drinking whiskey and rye?

Well, maybe the following item from a 1973 police blotter will answer one of these burning questions:

Chicago Police Department Incident Report

COMPLAINANT: Leroy Brown
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Stands about 6-foot-four
NICKNAMES/ALIASES: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Treetop Lover, Sir
OCCUPATION: Gambler
REGISTERED VEHICLE(S): Lincoln Continental (customized), Cadillac Eldorado
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Fancy clothes and diamond rings; Complainant reportedly enjoys waving the latter in front of people’s noses

LOCATION OF OFFENSE: South Side (described by local residents as the “baddest” part of town)
DATE OF OFFENSE: Friday about a week ago

NARRATIVE:
Complainant was shooting dice when, at the edge of the bar, he cast his eyes upon a female customer named Doris (described as a nice-looking girl). Her jealous husband noticed the Complainant allegedly messing with Doris and decided to teach him a lesson. The trouble soon began.

Husband and Complainant took to fighting. Husband prevailed in the altercation, despite Complainant’s possession of .32-caliber handgun concealed in his pocket (allegedly “for fun”) and razor concealed in his shoe. After the two men were pulled from the floor, one eyewitness described Complainant as looking like a jigsaw puzzle missing a number of pieces, possibly a couple.

FINAL NOTES:
Doris’ husband remains at large. South Side residents continue using superlatives to describe Complainant’s badness and meanness (i.e. King Kong and junkyard dog). Any officer venturing down there had better just beware.

… Well, that’s all the time we have for The Soapbox Derby. Tune in next week to find out if Rikki ever lost that number.

An economy still trying to stagger upright … overseas military engagements … renegade kid balloonists taking to the skies at will. But it turns out the government did not have enough on its plate after all, because now the Federal Trade Commission wants to regulate bloggers, tweeters and Facebookers.

The FTC actually voted 4-0 to establish rules that require these online magpies to disclose any financial relationships with products or companies mentioned in their posts. I wish I were making this up, because if I had an imagination that fertile I could make a bundle selling ideas to The Onion. (But I couldn’t blog about it without the requisite disclaimer, of course).

When I heard about this, it got me thinking: Shouldn’t I get ahead of this wave and go all full disclosure while the disclosin’s good? So I backtracked through my previous posts and came up with the following action items:

Arrogant Bastard Ale In the blog post recapping last year’s Idiot Convention with my college buddies, I mentioned the fact that we treated ourselves to a few pints of this potent beverage on a dare. And since we did actually purchase the stuff (Brandon the CPA still has a spreadsheet with the receipts, I’m sure of it), wouldn’t that technically constitute a financial relationship? Or at least a financial fling? These are G-Men we’re talking about here, so I’m not taking any chances.

Alt-Country and Lo-Fi Rock Numerous Soapbox Derby posts have made reference to the author’s Uncle Tupelo and Black Keys addictions. Ergo, I am prepared to release copies of all credit card statements denoting Rhapsody music downloads. (Right Said Fred? Heh-heh. How did that get on there?)

The Mullet Last October I blogged about a potential comeback for the infamous hairdo also known as Ape Drape, Hockey Head and Frankenstyle’s Monster. Turns out that my one of my musician buddies used to rock the mullet back in the day, and on one occasion I wired him some money when he encountered car trouble during an out-of-state gig. So from a legal standpoint, I subsidized the lifestyle that spawned his Mississippi Mudflap in the first place.

So there you have it. Confessed, disclosed and — fingers crossed — absolved. However, I must point out that when our government forces its citizens to divulge such personal details under threat of sanction, we’re coming dangerously close to living in a police state … just like the fine folks at Arrogant Bastard Breweries have warned us about.

I hope you’re happy, Uncle Sam.

* A recent road trip took me through a fairly rural corner of Tennessee. During one five-mile stretch, I passed an Antioch Baptist Church and a roadside bar called The Do Drop Inn. Because of my familiarity with the Charlie Daniels Band, I started getting real nervous about flat tires.

* Some days you just want to stay holed up in your Batcave, watching “Mad Men” and eating smoked almonds. When the Batcave days start to outnumber the non-Batcave days, you might have a problem.

* This morning I saw one of the groundskeepers at a local cemetery on a tractor hauling flowers from one part of the facility to the other. He had to wait for a break in traffic on a very busy road, then gun it across four lanes with a trailerful of mums rattling behind him. I decided that every time my job seems difficult, I would think about that guy on the tractor.

* The Food Network is missing out on a huge demographic opportunity - a cooking show for men specializing in chili and nachos recipes. They could call it “Cooking with Gas.”

* Madonna is dating a guy named Jesus. I think we all saw that one coming.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the recession is probably over, but a bumper sticker spotted in Gastonia reads: “On my way to work. Please kill me.” Sorry, chief. Looks like we still have some productivity issues.

And so begins another puckish installment of Bumper Crop, the feature wherein we chronicle the good, the bad and the weird that people are sporting on their chrome.

Retired. Don’t ask me to do a damn thing
Would that include turning off your left blinker?

I fish, therefore I lie
Ironically, the most honest bumper sticker I’ve seen in a while.

God must be a Broncos fan. He made the sunset orange
Yeah, right. And Jay Cutler is the prodigal son …

If you see a noteworthy piece of bumper flair, by all means share it. Post a comment on this here blog or e-mail a JPEG pitcher to bbridges@gastongazette.com.

Until next time … don’t ask me to do a damn thing.