Garnering the Sedona Vote
Candidates will promise almost anything to get elected. Below are some of the political favors offered to gain the confidence of Sedona’s voters: Sponsor weekly Oak Creek Brewery Nut Brown Ale keg parties at Airport Vortex with free parking Turn Fort Hyatt over to Indians and convert it to a casino Outlaw the construction of future timeshares unless they pay a bed tax plus impact fee Declare Cornville a Canadian province and allow the importation of pharmaceuticals for seniors Make Harmonic Convergence a national annual holiday Change Tlaquepaque’s name to A Sort Of Mexican Village Specialty Shops Hold a dedication…
Crossbreeding for Fun and Profit
Sedona Excentric World staff members take a look at yet another look at television shows being filmed in the Sedona area. This couple sent in their photograph to win acceptance in Rimrock Arizona’s version of “Trading Spouses.” Shown here are Louigie, the Chihuahua and Birdie, the young Orange Tabby. Louigie’s mate, Crystie, and Birdie’s Rocky, are off having their own photo shoot. After reading an article in the paper, shown in photo, asking for contestants to submit a photograph and biography on each applicant. While the previous “Trading Spouses, Meet Your New Mommy” television shows, broadcast on FOX, focused on…
Horoscopes for October 27-November 2, 2013
ARIES (March 21 – April 19) This is not a good time to change your diet. The economy just can’t take the shock of the closing of yet another all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. TAURUS (April 20 – May 20) November is the month for watching football, family gatherings, big meals, raking leaves and dragging winter clothes out of mothballs. Spring will be here soon. GEMINI (May 21 -June 20) Just when you think your luck has changed, you get a letter explaining the all expenses paid luxury vacation for two weeks to New Orleans expires in two weeks. CANCER (June 21…
INSIDE THE NEWS by David Fidelman
SPELLING BE NEWS: A Minnesota high school has issued yearbooks with the name of the school misspelled on the cover. What should have read Moorhead, is Moorehead. The errant “e” is said to have come from the same person who taught former Vice President Dan Quayle how to spell potato(e). It’s a good thing politicians don’t want to spend money on education. After all, a mine is a terrible thing to waste. BRING ON THE NOISE NEWS: Years ago, Germany’s Chancellor Merkel’s husband filed a complaint on an open-air theater group performing opposite the couple’s apartment in Berlin for violating…
Curmudgeon Corner
cur-mudg-eon (cur-muj’un), n. [origin unknown] 1. archaic: a crusty, ill-tempered, churlish old man. 2. modern: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner. This month’s subject: STUPIDITY “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.” Bertrand Russell “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Albert Einstein…
Grapes and the Grill . . . by Joel Mann, Staff Wine Tasting Guy
Arizona has one definite advantage over many places – the ability to grill outdoors for most of the year. Now that the summer heat is finally starting to die away, it’s becoming prime grilling season too. The typical Americana fare that makes it way over a bed of coals does not usually conjure up images of fine wine however. While ice cold beer is often a great accompaniment to a juicy piece of meat cooked over fire, don’t underestimate the potential for a nice glass of vino to go with your grilled meat and seafood. This month, I’ll delve into…
The Big Picture Page
The Sedona Excentric Special Task Force investigates the power of laughter. Many studies have proven that laughter is indeed the best medicine, but the staff of the Sedona Excentric went the extra mile and studied the effects on other species in the animal kingdom. Touring the coast of northern California our crew took a handful of Excentric papers and visited the seal kingdom. Attitudes displayed among the seals seemed to range from lethargic to bored. Basking in the sun one sunny morning, they were entertained with readings from the papers. Like many…
No News from Doodlebug Island . . . by William F. Jordan
If current thinking among social scientists is correct, there is roughly 20% about the nature of everyone else we won’t or don’t like, but since that leaves 80% we might like, residents of Doodlebug Island view the whole matter optimistically and tend to minimize what might be perceived as shortcomings. Vanity being what it is, however, we ascribe greater acceptance levels to ourselves, thinking that if people only knew us better or could read our heart we would score in the late 90’s or approach the 100% that more nearly describes our own opinion. Nor am I immune to such…
Frankly Fanny by Herself
Dear Frankly: I have been dating a woman with three children for a little over a year. I’ve been invited to go with her to her sister’s wedding. I thought we’d go in together on a gift. She told me that she and two of her kids already bought a gift. She says I have to get her sister a present by myself which at least equals the cost of my meal at the wedding reception. I feel excluded and wish she had consulted me first. What should I do? Puzzled…
Doug “Rabbit” Sutherland, Minister of Reality
CARPET MILL Long, long before all videos Went viral, to a flaw, There was an old time “movie short” That everybody saw. It showed a huge contraption in A carpet making mill, And, up above, a catwalk where A worker took a spill And fell into the workings where It gobbled up his hide And wove him into throw rugs where He peered out, stupefied! I thought it was a lesson in How not to live a life– A sort of cautionary tale To save us pain and strife. In other…
Sedona Proposed Improvements
Fountains will be redesigned to spew sewer treatment water. Dry Creek Road will be renamed Sometimes Flooded Way. Capital Butte will become Bureaucrat Butt. Stutz Bearcat will soon be known as Kia Sedona. Steamboat Rock will begin to offer sunset dinner cruises. Bell Rock will be turned into a domed ice hockey stadium. Sugar Loaf will be downsized and reduced to Low Carb Butte. Courthouse Butte will be partitioned to the new City Hall. Snoopy Rock will be picked up for not wearing dog tags. The Two Nuns Formation will be questioned and released. Slide Rock will require “Slippery When…
KOZMIK KORNER BY LUSH GUMBALL
Q: I read a lot of stories about people who saw monsters or ghost or other things that go bump in the night. Most of them are recollections of events that happened in their distant past and many of them seemed to happen when they were children. Could it be they have clouded memories or perhaps overactive imaginations? If they had these experiences, why didn’t they share them at the time of the happening? Wouldn’t that have given their stories more credibility, even though they were children? A: I don’t know. The horror stories that happened in my household as…
Horoscopes for October 13-19, 2013
ARIES (March 21 – April 19) After constantly being rejected by members of any sex, you decide to call one of those 900 phone sex lines and will be told, “Sorry, I’m just not in the mood.” TAURUS (April 20 – May 20) Concerned with your weight gain and lack of energy, you will become a vegetarian, only to learn that vegetarian is an old Indian word for “crappy hunter.” GEMINI (May 21 -June 20) Your ship will finally come in this month. Unfortunately, it’s cargo will be one of the six percent checked by Port Authority and confiscated as…
Hell, According to a Chemical Engineering Student
The following is a real question given on a University of Arizona chemistry midterm examination, and an actual answer turned in by a student. Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic(absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One Student however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they…
Pondering What If’s
It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers. James Thurber Littered with flotsam and jetsam, there’s a front porch in uptown Sedona that has much in common with a beach. Yes, a beach in that one never knows what or who will wash up on it–day nor night. According to somewhat reliable neighborhood sources, the latest sightings include two bible salespersons, a water conservationist, the last Ralph Nader supporter, the last Liberal, a poet named Portlin, some unemployed UFO pilots and two former City Council counselors. At other times, assorted ruffians, banjo players, a convicted…
Festival Fever . . . by Joseph G. Evrard, Staff Kentuckian
Climb aboard Boys and Girls, we’re off on another adventure to discover some of the more offbeat and wacky festivals people have dreamed up to celebrate local talents, promote indigenous products and rake in those ever-popular tourist dollars. As we travel across our great land we’ll catch a glimpse of the impossible, see a healthy dose of the improbable and maybe even encounter the unthinkable. Let’s go. Our first stop is high in the Colorado Rockies in the small town of Gasp. The town was so named because that’s all the original settlers could do. By the time they had…
That Really Bunches My Panties by Brendon Marks
I recently received an email from my niece relating how the spiders took over her condo while she was away. The final straw was when she discovered (with her face) a spider web across the door between her condo and garage. Regardless of how you feel about spiders and their chance for survival, in this instance, you have to admire their resourcefulness. Even though my niece is petite, had they been successful, they would have had enough for three square meals a day for a year. This made me think about bugs in general. Despite all of our insecticides,…
Perfect Tolerance for Problems
Age and experience have taught me that I have a perfect tolerance for problems–those belonging to other people–and I have an entire collection of solutions that I stand ready to advance when opportunity presents itself. Not for nothing have I practiced the counseling techniques “I hear you saying. . .”, or “Go with that . . .” or “I feel your pain .. .” But little of this mattered much during a recent visit I had with Paul Murchison, Principal of the Doodlebug High School. Paul is normally the picture of affability; so when I ran into him at the…
Automotive Breakdown
Apologies to the old Buick ad; “this isn’t your father’s fan belt”. The venerable old V-belt has been long gone and in its place is a ribbed flat belt often called a ‘serpentine belt’. These ribbed flat belts often use both sides of the belt to drive the engine accessories as they wrap and snake around the pulleys they drive. They are longer lasting, and use less horsepower to drive the accessories we have all gotten quite used to; power steering, air conditioning, and the ever important alternator. Water pumps are often, but not always, driven by the timing belt….
SEEING IS BELIEVING . . . By Bishop, Excentric Authentic Scrivener
Optimism consistently outruns the water supply…………………………..Wallace Stegner Once upon a time it so happened in Cornville, Arizona that an invisible man dropped by a dental office to make an appointment. When told by the receptionist just who was in the waiting room, the dentist snapped “I can’t see him.” Ludicrousness aside for a moment there is more than meets the eye to that dentist’s crack. It is said in West Sedona salons that truth is the child of time. Undeniably, gentle reader, the dentist’s refusal to see, when applied around the Verde Valley, and up and downtown Sedona, suddenly takes…
