Fast Eddie Friday...... Pedo Elves want to stuff something in your kids stocking.

Great day in the morning, is nothing sacred anymore? Have we come to this?
For those of you with spawn, I regret to inform you that no longer will your mini you's be able to mail letters to the North Pole, or at least they won't get a response. The little town of North Pole, Alaska, where the thousands of volunteers answer letters addressed to Santa in the North Pole every year, will likely have to shut down their program after the U.S. Postal Service enacted stricter regulations on the national program when a sex offender was discovered among the volunteers in Maryland last year.That's right, you read correctly. Those fucking elves are up to no good. I can't say I'm surprised, I never trusted elves, even that friendly dentist wanna be in the Rudolph cartoon. The pointed ears, the beady eyes, and those freaky curled up shoes. They have Pedo written all over em.


While the Postal Inspectors are at it, I'd like to suggest they take a Look at Mr. Kringle. Seriously, think about it. Here you have this old fat guy, kids sitting in his lap while he is disguised in a fake beard and ensconced in red velvet. He gives "Presents", to kids he doesn't even know. He breaks in to houses, creeps around, steals milk and cookies, and probably roots through the dirty clothes hampers.


Or maybe, the USPS is just overreacting. They are afraid to let someone in Alaska have access to some kids name and address in San Diego, or Kansas City. I guess they have a kid shortage in Alaska, or the tots wear so many layers that the pervs just can't get the little tykes down to their underoos fast enough. Whatever the case may be, one thing is clear, Govt. shot callers are morons. We aren't talking about Chester the Molester being a camp counselor, or some creep on the Internet pounding on his keyboard and potentially contacting some local kid in his area. What we have are tens of thousands of letters, from all over the world, letters that parents sent, letters that the kid will show to his parents. There is a difference between erring on the side of caution, and total stupidity. I'd like to give props to the US Postal service for highlighting that difference.


Speaking of stupid, anyone care to explain the latest coup at city hall? Abe Lincoln meets Tim Burton, Mayor Mark Funk-en- stuff has managed to get 6 council members to oust the City Manager. On the surface it might even be warranted, but that's not what disturbs me. What bothers me is that these same council members , approximately a year ago, gave the city manager a fat ass contract, in spite of the Mayors objections. In fact you could say they did it to spite Mayor String Bean. They say politics make strange bedfellows, and it seems to be true. The mayor and the city council have been fucking this city from day one. Talk about knocking the bottom out. If Kansas City had Ovaries, they would be bruised from all the hammering.

That's it for this week. Stay safe. See ya Monday.

Just because there is snow on the roof, doesn't mean there isn't a filter in my furnace.

I'm as much of a man as I ever was, period, end of story. Of course that's like the guy who dresses up in the Hamburglar suit for commercials , saying he is as good an actor as ever. Here's the thing, since I hit that half century mark back in July, I'm getting fucked up emails for erectile dysfunction, penis growth tablets, and electric Snuggies. I even got some shit from AARP. To be honest it's starting to wear a little thin. Sure I've got a few white hairs in my beard, okay, my beard is entirely white, but that's nothing new. My beard turned white in a matter of months, courtesy of the multi count federal indictment I was hit with back in the great fall of 95. I'm tempted to use the old adage about snow on the roof and fire in the furnace, but that one doesn't really work for me, seeings how my roof , or head, has no shingles, hair.

Oh Snap, here goes MM on another of his unintelligible rants. Wonder what brought it on this time?

Allow me to fill you in Skippy.

I think my white goatee is giving people the wrong impression. Cashiers are talking to me in that special tone of voice, the one reserved for blue haired ladies who dip themselves in perfume so noxious and over powering that it makes you feel faint just standing in the same room. The voice people reserve for the dull witted, the feeble minded, and puppies. I've considered dying the goat, but then I'd just look like some third rate Vegas Magician, or an out of touch broken hipster, never that. I've shaved it off, but then I just look less menacing, and more Elmer Fudd-ish. I could go out and buy a Kanga hat and a yellow sport jacket, but we already have more of those types running around than we need.

Let me splain what brought all of this on. I was on my way to meet with my soon to be editors yesterday. Man do they have their work cut out for them. So I stop to get gas, I'm in a hurry, the pump wont take my card. So I run inside, have the 20 something under achiever stop texting for three seconds to scan my card for 20 on pump 4. The scan takes, I decline a receipt, then head for the pump. Well the pump still won't come on. I go back in and tell little miss congeniality that her shit ain't workin, and she says she will have to scan my card again. I reply that no she wont be scanning my card again, double dipping my account, and causing me to make repeated calls and trips to the bank to get one of the charges removed. Then she does it, starts talking really slow, like I'm wearing a football helmet minus the face mask, like I might start drooling and evacuating my bladder right there at the counter. She repeatedly calls me sir, then tosses in a couple of Dears just for good measure. Lets just say the conversation deteriorated from there, she worked her minimum wage magic, and viola', the pump worked. But the incident, the talking to a puppy voice, kind of fucked up my day.

I head down to the City Market area, meet with my soon to be employers, who are like half my age. While I'm there, they need a picture for my Press Pass. I detest having my picture taken. While there was a time when I had a pretty good cut to my jib, hard living, incarceration, and a less than sunny disposition have not worn well. I'm no great shakes in the looks department, and that never translates well to still photography. Why do you think The Pitch hid my mug behind a dollar store Santa hat with attached beard, made from an Albino Muskrat pelt, when they ran me on their cover. So I trudged back home, yelled at my girlfriend, kicked the dogs, and slapped the shit out of Oscar, our Cockatiel for good measure.

Now it turns out that I may have been .....wr.....wro....wrwr...wrong. Seems like maybe that 20 something cashier at the local shit n git didn't get my card scanned right the first time, and I inadvertently got away with not paying for that 20 bucks worth of Texas Tea. There was a time in the not too distant past when I would have chalked it up to Karma, and kept my 20 beans. But I'm in a transitional period, and I'm trying to play by the rules and regulations that most of you L7's play by. In other words, I'm gonna have to do the right thing. While giving back the 20 bucks is no biggie, I'm dreading the prospect of being assaulted with the slow, talking to a wobble head voice, that I know is waiting for me. Maybe I'll mail em a check.

60 should be a real hoot, I can't wait.

And the race is on............

Anyone following the Heather Ellis vs Walmart case? No? Well I can't say I blame you, but you really should be , it's turning into quite the spectacle. This is the little case that could, or wishes it could, go national. The drama is set in a little town in the Missouri Boot Heel. it's a living breathing John Grisham novel. Here is the official MM condensed version, just to get you cave dwellers up to snuff.

Heather Ellis is a young ,black, school teacher, who is married to a Highway Patrolman. Make a note of that, I'll be coming back to it. Heather was in a Kennett Missouri Walmart with her cousin. They were in different check out lines. Heathers line isn't moving fast enough, so when her cousin gets to the register, Heather leaves her line, cuts in front of other customers, tosses her stuff on the conveyor with her cousins, and pissing off everyone else in line. These are the only facts of this hot mess that everyone agrees upon. At that particular moment in time, Heather is doing what people tend to do every now and again, she is being rude and inconsiderate, no class, but not a crime either. Chances are all of us have committed a faux pas or three in our lives. I was a thief, and not for nothing, but stealing money that doesn't belong to you is pretty rude. So I'm not going to get drawers in a wad over a little line cutting.

Let me just state for the record, I haven't spent much time in Kennett, in fact I've never laid a single foot in the Missouri Boot Heel. But just as I don't need to go to France to know that they wear beret hats and horizontally striped shirts, just like that mime fella, I also know that folks in the boot heel tend to be rustic, country as a chicken coop. I believe the county seat for Kennett is Nabisco or Keebler, not sure which, but I'm certain it's cracker country. I don't base this on some lil Abner hillbilly stereotype that I heard perpetuated on the local news. Instead I base my opinion on the dozen or so guys I've done time with who were from the Boot Heel. You could do a sociological study of the inmates in any joint, and you would get a better feel of the people from each area than you will from the US Census. Take the criminal convictions from the equation, and discount the occasional parent killer or cannibal, and convicts are pretty much like all of you L 7's. So the guys I knew from that region of Missouri were mostly ill educated, meth users, farm equipment thiefs, and racist to their core. I'm making this long drawn out point to say that there are some racial elements in the Heather Ellis case, but not quite like Ms. Ellis and her supporters are claiming.

Back to the Walmart debacle. Ellis claims the workers at Walmart, the customers in line, the management, and the police all used racial slurs towards her. For cutting in line. She also claims that the cops just up and jumped her out of the blue when they got outside. The cops say Ms. Ellis grew agitated, refused to leave the property. Upon being told she was under arrest, she allegedly snapped, crackled and popped like a rice crisp, busting one cop in the eye, and splitting anothers lip. Here's the rub, Walmart has more security cameras than Midtown convenience store. Ive got to believe that the whole thing is going to turn up in court. I also tend to think that no matter how country the law may be in Kennett, they have looked at those security tapes. I believe Ellis will be convicted of the charges based partly on those tapes.

There have been a couple of marches in Kennett, some NAACP members, no leaders, just a few card holders, and some activist out of New Jersey. No Sharpton, no Jesse Jackson. That says a lot about this case. If anyone in their right mind thinks that big Al and rev. Jesse wouldn't be all over this thing like white on a Klansman's hood if there was some substance to Ellis charges of racism, well you've got another thing coming. The Klan or some group of hillbillies with rebel flags have shown up at the march, calling cards allegedly from the Klan have been found on the ground. Ms. Ellis claims a cop threatened her by showing her a Klan card. This is the kind of shit that Al and Jesse live for, so where are they?

The media and Ms. Ellis camp have done their best to blow this thing up. The headlines read, School Teacher faces 15 years for cutting in line at Walmart. The truth is, she isn't on trial for cutting in line, she is on trial for battery on the police. 15 years !!!! While she is charged with crimes that carry up to 15 years, that's a highly unlikely sentence, rarely in this type of case would a first time offender draw the maximum. Remember when I said she was a teacher, married to a highway patrolman? At the time of her arrest she wasn't married, she was a student, but the implication of a teacher married to a cop being put on trial, has a better impact than say a three year old case against a college student.

There really doesn't seem to be any evidence of racial discrimination, or racism in the case, that is until the Ellis camp introduces it. Then the crackers jump out of the cabinet. You can bet your NAACP button that there is no short supply of racists in the Missouri Boot Heel, they are as thick as fleas on a stray dogs back. If a group of blacks march, you can count on the racist crowd showing up, and you better believe Ms. Ellis and her supporters were counting on it. Even the appearance of a couple of dozen rebel flag wavers didn't bring out any heavy hitters, no Sharpton, no Jackson, nada. Another seldom reported fact in this case, Ms. Ellis could have taken a plea for a misdemeanor, basically a ticket, she refused the offer. Her father, a minister, asks "Why would she plead guilty, she is innocent". The Ellis camp came itching for a fight. A young woman, a seemingly decent person albeit one carrying a huge chip on her shoulder, blew a minor incident in to a major felony. Now the wheels have been set in motion, and I'm willing to bet she wishes she had kept her cool, not played that card so quick.

It's easy for me, a middle aged white guy to sit back in my chair and dismiss Ms Ellis claims. It's easy for a handful of folks to claim racism, especially in a part of the country that is rife with it. Maybe the problem isn't race, maybe it just comes down to perception, a hyper sensitivity brought on by ones life experience. In a country divided by race, especially in a place like the Boot Heel, racism is alive and kickin. But in this case, that dog just won't hunt. I figure Ms. Ellis will be convicted, but won't see a minute in jail. I don't believe she should either. I think she has just painted herself into a corner, maybe she was having a bad day, shit escalated to the point she couldn't turn it back. The irony in this case is that it most likely didn't begin as a racially motivated incident, but when the accusation was made, it brought the people and groups out of the woodwork, and race became the issue. Like the river card in Texas Hold Em , that one card, in this case, the race card, changes the entire hand.
So the trial is under way, and in the words of an obscure R&B group from back in the day, "Let the sideshow begin".

Excuse the mess....

Maybe you noticed the change, maybe you are one of the people who keep emailing me with complaints, and sending me your bills from the Lasik clinic. After over two years of listening to you ingrates pissing and moaning about the black background/ white text, I'm changing shit up. But MM the change is as dull and plain, as the other look was retina burning and annoying.
Quit your bitching, this is only temporary. Since I don't want cartoon blue birds or note pads and sea shells on my template, I'm working on having some geek fix up a template for me. So just hold your horses, put up with the current look, or I'll go back to a template with a background as black as my ex wives heart, with text so dazzling white, your face will melt off.

Anyway, any of you who have ever told me to change the template, should now be able to sleep better at night. You were heard, I hope you will shut your soup holes and return to posting smug comments. The next person who complains in an email, gets bombarded with Farm Porn and Nigerian emails promising millions.

To be honest I've been sick of the old look for at least a year, I just hate to cave in to reader demands.

I've got some other news that I've been sitting on. I don't want to jump the gun on this, and I can't reveal too much, but I'm going to let you all in on a little news. Beginning Dec. 1st, you will have to venture to another site to read my pearls of wisdom. It may be a once a week thing, or possibly more frequently. I've yet to iron out all the details, but it's a paid gig, and I'll expect my traffic to follow me. Otherwise I'll turn this site into a mommy blog, or something equally repugnant. I can't reveal much else at this point, as I don't want to piss in my Wheaties before I get em in the bowl. Suffice to say, like me, it's kind of a big deal, and should make me even more annoying and opinionated than I already am. I'll still be doing whatever it is that I do here, so don't get your shorts in a wad.

Now, it's on with the show..................

Fast Eddie Friday....A sheet aint a parachute, no matter how much you wish it was.

People love to tempt fate and then act all surprised and shit when it doesn't turn out well. When I was a kid my family lived in Oklahoma. From about the time I was one until we moved back to KC when I was about seven. We lived way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, I'm talking little house on the prairie, or more exactly, little trailer house on the prairie. My folks were young, just starting out, pops drove over the road. I watched these shows back then, like Sky King, and Twelve O'clock High. One of them, I don't recall which, had an episode where they were dropping shit out of a plane, attached to a parachute. Now, we had this big ass hole in our red dirt yard, the old man was going to put a new septic tank in there, but hadn't gotten around to it, so it was just a big fucking hole, about 12 feet deep and 12 feet across. My parents had warned me not to be dickin around by this crater, which was like telling me to jump right into it. My sister and some little girl up the road convinced me that I could parachute into the hole if I tied a sheet to my trike. Seemed like a good idea at the time.


Now, I knew that I wasn't supposed to be playing around that hole in the ground, and I'm pretty sure I knew that the parachute theory wasn't a good idea. So I did what you would expect, I took a sheet off of the clothesline, tied it to my trike, and prepared to pedal my dumb ass into the gaping chasm. My sister convinced me that speed was the most important factor in making this thing work, so I backed up a good distance to build up sufficient speed. My sister volunteered to help me get up to speed by pushing me a little ways to get my momentum going.
I remember her hands in the middle of my back, I recall lifting my feet off the pedals, and the pedals slapping the soles of my shoes as she pushed me as fast as possible. As I was nearing the hole, I seem to recall having an epiphany, I realized this wasn't such a great idea. I think I told her to stop, I might have heard a giggle. Next thing I knew I was at the bottom of the hole, arm twisted funny, my mother picking me up and carrying me up one of the steeply sloped ends of the hole.


Now at 5 or 6, whatever I was at the time, I knew that trying to float like a feather to the bottom of that hole was a bad idea, and if my sister hadn't pushed me into the fucker, I probably would have pussied out at the last minute. More importantly, I knew I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the hole. I tempted fate, and it bit me in the ass by way of a broken arm. I spent the next 30 years or so tempting fate, and more often than not, it worked out none too well. I'm not alone in my stupidity, and that makes me feel a little better. The latest folks to tempt fate, then act all surprised when it doesn't go well, The Hyde Park Homeowners Association. Rather than just take their lumps, they want to spread the pain.

Stay with me, I'm actually heading somewhere with this.

For those not familiar with this ongoing hot mess, allow me to enlighten you. One of the loudest voices in the movement to "clean up" a stretch of Armour road is local blogger Toellnor Tells it. Now I'm not out to trash this guy, I don't have anything against him personally. I do have a problem with what he wants to see happen, and at whose expense. Toellner and his cohorts have a beef with section 8 housing, more to the point, they don't like the fact that some buildings along Armour are entirely dedicated to section 8, just as they have been for as long as section 8 has existed. If they have their way, all the folks living in these buildings will be dispersed through out the city. The thinking being, if we get rid of section 8 buildings, spread the people out, it will reduce the killings, crime, drug traffic, and prostitution. On the surface, that sounds like a great idea, sort of like parachuting with a sheet sounds like a good idea to a kid.


I don't know how long these people have been in the midtown area, my time there dates back to the 1970's, and while I've lived in Independence for about 5 or 6 months now, Midtown will always be near and dear to my heart. The problems with uprooting hundreds, maybe thousands of folks who currently live in the area seem to either be ignored by, or totally unimportant to the small handful of people who are calling for it to be done. Toellnors theory, although he may take exception to my view of it, is that this stretch of midtown can be a bargain hunters paradise if they can just get rid of the riff raff. In order to get rid of the riff raff, they want to get rid of the section 8 housing. Sounds good so far, yes? No, not so fast Scooter. The majority of section 8 folks are poor, black, elderly, disabled, single mothers, etc. In other words, they are honest folks with no money. Many of these people have spent their lives living there, they may not want to be uprooted just so a handful of white folks who bought a whole lot of house for relatively little money, can take a Birkenstocked stroll along the tree lined streets without the locals making them nervous.


This theory, and the movement behind it has more holes in it than a Simi Valley porn set. For starters, that particular stretch of road is no more prone to crime and violence than any other area in the city that is made up of mostly poor, mostly minority residents. Getting rid of section 8 isn't going to stop crime in an area that is bordered by Troost. The crime problem isn't about section 8, it's about poverty, lack of police presence and resources. If you move these people out, against their will, crime isn't going to go away. It will however be dispersed to the outlying areas, or wherever the people are forced to move. In other words, if crime is bad on Armour, lets just share the misery with the rest of the city. Never mind that the rest of the city already has crime problems, and forcing people to spread out, will only spread crime out along with it.


My biggest issue isn't about the crime being spread out. My issue is with the arrogance of a handful of people who believe that their wants and needs trump those of the poor and disadvantaged. They don't care about the effects and repercussions of forcibly relocating people, they only care about turning this stretch of road into their own idyllic pipe dream. Midtown has always had more than it's share of bad actors. Midtown was a high crime area in 1975, and it's a high crime area today. Forcing poor folks out isn't going to change that. The people who went in and bought a whole lot of house for relatively little money knew what they were getting into. It's not like they assumed Midtown was a Mission Hills annex. I'm all for cleaning up the bad element. I'm all for revitalizing depressed areas in this city, just not at the expense of the people who have spent their lives in the area. If the Hyde Park people really want to clean up Midtown, they should be 6 feet up the mayors ass. I've yet to see them picketing in front of city hall or the police station. They should drag the building owners into court, make them hire security. There is a long list of things that could be done, forcing the poor to bend to their will ain't one of them. All I've seen is pseudo concern on the nightly news, false claims that they want to make the area better for everyone, while they work to displace people who have lived in the area long before the majority of the Hyde Park Home Owners ever set an earth shoe on Armour road.

Moral of the story; Don't move into a high crime area, then act shocked when you encounter crime. A sheet ain't a parachute no matter how much you might wish it to be.