MORE INSANITY.....

—1) ......ON THE SILENT PLASMA-BABIES AT THE VAUNTED CANANDAIGUA YMCA

I am blasting away on the exercise-bicycle at the Canandaigua YMCA.
The “Young and the Screaming” is on one of the three silent wall-mounted plasma-babies, closed-captioned of course.
Young Victor Studley nonchalantly enters the steamy boudoir of mega-cleavage Victoria.
“Hi Vick!” she bubbles.
“You’ll never guess,” she says. “My so-called friend Sabrina is having an affair with our dad.”
“That’s not possible,” Victor loudly exclaims. “They’re 30 years apart.”
“She said he’s very charming,” Victoria says.
“I hope they’re not sleeping together,” Victor says, making tortured faces symbolizing angry frustration.
“UGH! I don’t even wanna think about it,” Victoria screams.
(A little background here — go back about three scenes.)
Victoria and Sabrina are sharing a cushy leather sofa in Sabrina’s house in front of a crackling fire.
“I think I should tell you; Victor and I are seeing each other.” (That’s gray-haired Victor Sr., Victoria’s dad.)
“Whore!” Victoria screams. They start fighting — arms flailing and canines bared.
“Outta my house!” Sabrina screams.
Victoria departs outside into the frigid cold without a coat and lights a cigarette, looking dazed and confused.
(Fade to black. Time for an ad.)
Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson are sitting together in a cushy leather coach on a beach. Seagulls fluttering overhead; waves crashing.
“We don’t agree on much,” Sharpton says.
“You tell ‘em, Al,” quips Robertson.
“But we do agree on one thing. Tell ‘em, Rev,” says Sharpton.
“And that’s saving the planet.”
An ocean-wave partially inundates the sofa.
(Cut to next ad.)
We zoom in on a small nugget of coal. A three-pronged electrical cord gets plugged into the nugget, and the whole scene lights up.
“Clean coal,” the announcer says: “America’s clean energy-source.”
“Um,” I think; “there’s a whole area of Wyoming dedicated to ‘clean coal.’ Giant earth-movers are transferring overburden, so other giant machines can harvest the giant layers of coal underneath. It’s called the Powder River basin.”
15 or more 100-car trainloads of coal per day lumber out of the area to deliver this so-called “clean coal” to gaping generators with incredible insatiable demand.

—2) ON THE HIGHWAY.....

I have left mighty Weggers, and am driving up the Canandaigua 5&20 bypass, which was built years ago to get traffic out of Canandaigua, and avoid a railroad-overpass with only 10-feet 6-inch clearance. That bridge has already skinned the tops off quite a few trailers, usually distributing their load all over the surrounding area.
Every few months the mighty Mezz runs a trailer-into-bridge shot. Last time I wasn’t carrying my camera, and I was on-the-scene even before the local constabulatory.
I am accelerating up the hill in the right-most of two lanes, and a tiny yellow Suzuki sport motorbike is in the passing-lane; well back.
All of a sudden, a plaintive “Beep!”
I glance in my outside left rearview mirror, and Grandpop (who is the spitting image of George A. Palmer — “Earthly friends may prove untrue.......”) is merging his faded Chrysler minivan back into my lane, riding my rear-bumper like the Intimidator.
Suzuki has managed to get him to stop merging into him.
Grandpop looks angry and embarrassed: embarrassed that he made such a mistake, and angry that motorbikers even exist. “Them Ne’er-do-wells; too independent, I tell ya! Shouldn’t even be on the road.”
Suzuki passes, changes lanes (quite safely), and accelerates away.
Sounded like one of them V-twins; probably the one I saw a couple years ago at Lake Country Physical Therapy. Small and modern looking, but still twin exhaust cannons.
Grandpop then passes in his minivan, continuing up the road with his left-turn signal still flashing, probably from his mistaken encounter with the motorbike.
Grandpop is wandering all over the highway — he’s in both lanes; but at least he passed without sideswiping me.
Sure enough, on his rear-bumper, “Bush-Cheney ‘04.”

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.

“George A. Palmer” was the founder of the Morning-Cheer Christian radio broadcast; popular in the Philadelphia area in the ‘50s. His radio theme-song was the hymn “Jesus Never Fails,” which starts “Earthly friends may prove untrue.......” He was fat, ornery and difficult. He also founded Sandy Hill, a Christian Boys camp in northeastern Maryland I frequently attended, and was on the staff of. (He also founded a Girls camp, a camp for teenagers, and a conference-ground for adults. —Everything but the camp for teenagers was on Chesapeake Bay; which meant great canoeing.)

An “intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.

Right after retirement, I was a patient at “Lake Country Physical Therapy” in Canandaigua.

RE: “Exhaust cannons.........” —About six years ago, the standard fitment for motorcycle exhaust was large cannon-shaped mufflers mounted beside the rear tire. Now it’s more often under the seat, to allow a motorcycle to be tilted even farther into a turn.

“Bush-Cheney ‘04” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker for reelection. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.