String Cheese - Article XXVIII

Keep reading, we’ll keep writing

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 12.15.09

This week’s String Cheese is a bit of a departure from my usual foray into the absurd. There are plenty of things going on lately to poke fun at.

The whole Tiger Woods debacle has created an endless source of comedy fodder for the best and worst of comedians.

A couple crashes a White House dinner party and eats all the little cocktail weenies before someone questions who they are.

The war in Afghanistan is intensifying while Osama Bin Laden is hiding out as a short order cook in Roswell, New Mexico.

Brett Favre plays for the Vikings.

Instead of writing something dumb, I’d like to take the time and write a “Thank You” to all the beautiful, brilliant, intelligent and talented people who enjoy my columns.

I feel a great sense of gratitude to each reader who’s taken the time to let me know how they either laughed at my article or had difficulty reading it in the restroom.

I’ve done what I set out to do which was to intentionally provide humorous content to balance out the non-funny content unintentionally supplied by the public at large.

I’m not saying that all of the news is bad. However, there is a lot of it. At least my senselessness doesn’t hurt anyone. Well, most people aren’t hurt by it.

Of course, none of this would at all be possible without my editor Vanesa Brashier who first went out on a limb to give me a forum for my ramblings. It’s hard to grasp the amount of work she does. She not only puts three papers together, but she’s a mother, a wife, and when there’s a little extra time she sleeps.

Really though, I told her that if she didn’t run my column I would toss a sack full of live kittens into the lake. Needless to say, they sank. But she felt bad for me and decided to run my column anyway.

In case you were wondering, I got the name String Cheese from two places. First, I’m a stringer, which means that I contribute articles but I’m not anywhere nearly as astute as Wukman. Secondly, how I write is “cheesy,” so I put the two together. It was either that or an advice column called “Dear Scabby...”

Another reason why I wanted to say thanks to all my readers is because of their support for our paper. This last year has been a bad year as iconic newspapers stopped their presses and dropped off the journalistic landscape.

As we continue to compete with alternative sources of news and entertainment, I appreciate those loyal readers who continue to choose the Houston Community Newspapers. See, HCN was also smart by having a copy of the paper online so that no matter where in the world you are you can get your String Cheese articles.

So if one were thrown into a Turkish prison, at least there’s a way to stay connected back home. Believe it or not, there are people from all over the world who read our local paper!

As for my String Cheese articles, as long as someone will print them, I’ll write them. Throughout history, humor has been the looking glass for which the world is scrutinized. As life throws us curve balls, I’ll do my best to show readers how to step into the pitch and take a free base. My motto is this: humor first, spelling and grammar second, and redeeming social value, rarely.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to the Curry Brothers (Kyle and Clay) who are using my articles to teach a young hunting dog to make potty on the paper.

Again, thanks so much for your support and continued reading and I hope that you pass the Cheese along to your friends and loved ones.

If you’re interested, follow me on Twitter @ArynCorley or contact me at aryncorley@gmail.com.

Who Let the Dawg In

We decided to let the dog in because this global warming is causing temperatures to drop. In order for a coon hound to stay inside it must first be bathed. Once a dog is bathed it releases a funk that will make Ralph Lauren "ralph".

Even as I write this mini article, my dog is resting his head in my "nether regions". Apparently, this is how they say "hello". Since he knows me already, I think he's just being very forward. Of course, I had him fixed several months ago so it may be he's envious that I still have my...

Speaking of golf balls, this Tiger Woods thing is spiraling out of control. Where Tiger went wrong is he left cheating out of his pre-nup. I'm sure that his wife, Elin, wouldn't have been so upset if she'd known up front that Tiger was on the prowl. Gatorade has dropped Tiger from their ads. Nike is remaining steadfast, however. In fact, they've shown support for their pitchman by changing their slogan to "Just Deny It." Tiger will undoubtedly rebound and come back bigger and stronger than before. If he does, I hope he wears a hockey mask and carries a machete.

As the healthcare debate rages on, and more troop deployments to the Middle East are imminent, Congress is mustering to figure out how Tareq and Michaele Selahi infiltrated a white house party. As James Bond already knows, you only need two things to crash a party: a tux and a pretty girl. I bet if you rip the latex mask off of Michaele Selahi you'll find that she's actually Roger Clemens. Even if the duo are dragged in front of the lazy eye of the legislative branch, the couple plans to plead the fifth amendment. Wait, is that the one which states, " Thou shalt not enter a taxpayer funded party uninvited?"

Finally, there's a great furor over the accidental release of the TSA screener manual. The sensitive government document supposedly reveals the inner most secrets of the TSA. Now anyone can practice the ancient art of looking at an 85 year old woman and knowing if she's a terrorist. There's also a special section dealing with people who have foil wrapped cucumbers stuffed in their trousers. I wouldn't know anything about that.

Thankfully, AMTRAK doesn't use screeners. In fact, people may soon be able to carry guns in their checked bags onto a train. Finally, someone has come up with a way to deal with those obnoxious businessmen in the "quiet car".

String Cheese - Article XXVII

Don’t mock my smock

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 11.23.09

Picture this: you feel chilly and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s not the type of chill felt by Eskimos or men who live with menopausal women, but it’s still pretty annoying. There’s nothing you do can stop it. You’ve turned up the thermostat. You’ve built a fire on the living room floor. You even poured jabanero sauce all over yourself. Nothing works. Thankfully, someone invented a cure.

It’s a blanket, but not just any blanket. It’s a blanket with sleeves.

It’s called a Snuggie, and like bacteria, they’re everywhere.

I wonder, though, if this is a passing fancy or the answer to the plight of thousands who don’t know how to use flannel shirts.

The commercial shows everyday folks over the age of 40 who are blissfully enjoying the comfort of a sleeved blanket. These people are so happy and warm they don’t even care that they look like Gregorian monks. I guess when you’re suffering from chill, fashion sense is the first thing to go. One of the claims in the ad is that the Snuggie is “... great for college.”

I’ll say. No professor would dare fail you for wearing one in class for fear of having a spell cast on him.

The main selling point for the Snuggie is that it gives you the freedom to use your hands. I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt trapped like a bait shad laying underneath the heavy and oppressive quilt that my grandmother made with her arthritic hands. Although I’m warm and comfortable, I’m forced to work the television remote with my tongue. Plus, when I have to go to the bathroom I just go in the bed, couch, or wherever I happen to be parked.

Snuggies come in three colors: royal blue, sky blue, and secret society red. I wish they had one in solid black to go with the enormous wooden scythe I have in my garage. I could wear that black Snuggie while chopping weeds in my subdivision. However, that might be a bad idea given the number of retirees who live in the neighborhood.

While it may seem like a revolutionary idea, it’s not. People have been doing this for hundreds of years. They would take a deer and cut the head and feet out and wear the hide like a shirt. The idea worked like a charm until a bunch of guys got shot during hunting season. In Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” everyone is wearing a Snuggie. Including the Big Man himself!

Whether I’m at the grocery store, the hardware store, or my local cabal, there’s a Snuggie on the shelf waiting to go home with some lucky consumer. I can’t go anywhere without seeing a Snuggie for sale.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about just stay up really late some night and watch a channel that has mindless drivel as its entertainment. That shouldn’t be hard and the Snuggie commercial isn’t easy to miss, either.

I’m glad there’s a remedy for such an affliction. Being chilly versus freezing is a terrible thing because it prolongs discomfort for an unspecified period of time. Whereas, at least when a person freezes, death brings an end to the discomfort.

All that notwithstanding, it’s extremely difficult to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians in a semi-cryogenic state.

String Cheese - Article XXVI

Guy rules are man-datory

by Aryn Corley
Updated: 11.18.09

It takes more than rewiring to become a guy.Being a guy requires a healthy dose of macho laced with a slight touch of immaturity. I ought to know. I’ve been doing this for a few years and I’ve gotten somewhat good at it.

The recent gender re-assignment of Chastity “Chaz” Bono lead me to think about what comes next for the former female. This article is for anyone deciding to leave womanhood to wander aimlessly through the woods of “Dudeland.” It’s also important for one to know how to earn its currency: “man credit.”

Man credit is that which makes other men look at you with an approving frown and corresponding head bob. If you’ve ever been to a car show, you know what I’m talking about. I hope this information is extremely helpful to make the transition to guy-hood complete and rewarding. I realize I may be giving away some closely guarded secrets, but it’s for the ultimate good of humanity.

I think.

It’s very important for a guy to be able to handle insects and open jars. These two skills are the only things keeping us teetering on the edge of extinction. Otherwise, we’d helplessly fall into a dark chasm of obscurity filled with yummy, creamy gravy. A woman will place a long distance phone call to have a guy come over from Europe to scoop up a dead cockroach. Jars present an interesting conundrum because, technically, it is a piece of machinery. Being able to kill spiders, make babies, and open the pickles makes us guys only a tad more useful than a Swiss Army knife.

Goodbye, Prada. Hello, Mossy Oak. The bright colors of spring and the subdued hues of fall must be thrown out the window in favor of camouflage. Color coordination is very easy when you dress like a tree.The key to a guy looking nice is having a woman who knows how to tell him how ridiculous he looks when he picks his own clothes. Guys must never shop alone for apparel unless he’s buying Garanimals. Stay away from biker leather unless you actually ride a motorcycle. Loincloths are dicey. Everything goes great with a NASCAR cap.

Guys are beasts complete with hair and grunting. Beasts eat meat. Guys are no exception. If it was cool to be a vegetarian as a woman, the opposite is true for guys. If you want to instantly lose man credit, be a vegetarian who drinks flavored water. To earn copious amounts of man-cred learn how to hunt and eat the cutest animals in the forest. If you can bag Thumper, Flower, and Bambi with nothing but a chainsaw, then you are well on your way to legendary status.

Spanish television. ’Nuff said.

Confucius once said, “Man who ask for directions is lost.” Under no circumstances are guys supposed to ask for directions. Why? Simply, put... just because. Guys aren’t lost when we drive around for hours cussing and blaming city engineers for poor traffic configurations. If we hit the OnStar button in the car it’s because the woman on the other end sounds attractive. It’s hard to be lost when everything is just around the corner.

The sense of humor between women and men are at opposite ends of the spectrum. If gender reassignment is truly successful, then Will and Grace stops being funny. Lifetime television starts to become a powerful sedative. What emerges is a fascination with rude bodily functions. Even though I’m 30 years older than my son, we’ll both die laughing with every “Bronx Cheer.” When a guy has grandchildren, he is instantly imparted with the knowledge to practice the fine art of posterior-digital actuation control. Elevators suddenly become fun houses.

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. “Uh...”, as an answer to the question “Do you know what day it is?” is a subject worthy of a doctorate thesis. I wish anyone wanting to be a guy the best of luck. Sometimes, it can get a little crazy.

However, there is one cardinal rule which must always be followed.

Leave the lid up.

String Cheese Article - XXV

Peace prize appears less noble

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 10.20.09

I know a lot of people who are confused and riled up about President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The fine folks over at the Nobel Prize Award Center claim that the President’s “intentions” for peace were good enough to award him The Prize. I think they gave it to him because they really love irony.

Who can blame them? Irony is funny. I’m a big fan of it.

As soon as the president accepted his prize, he went right back to the war room to plan the next attack on Afghanistan. This is pure comedy folks! Frankly, I think the Peace Prize should have gone to Michael Vick for his extensive work with animals. A very persuasive argument could have been made to give the award to Taylor Swift. Nothing screams “peaceful intentions” like the restraint she mustered to keep from bashing Kanye West with that microphone.

However, this isn’t he first time The Prize was sacrificed at the altar of ironic comedy.

In 2007, a Polish social worker, named Irena Sendler was nominated for her efforts by smuggling out 2,500 Jewish children from Warsaw during World War II. These kids were headed for concentration camps. So, doing what they do naturally, the Nobel Prize peeps gave the award to Al Gore for raising awareness about global warming. Say what you will about the Nazi’s stealing children, but melting ski slopes are just awful.

Most people think Ghandi won a Nobel Prize for his hunger strikes and refusals to use violence to prove a point. Sadly, he did not win a Nobel Prize for Peace. Thankfully, Yasser Arafat won one in 1994. I’d hate to think the terrorist leader would walk away from this earth empty-handed. Perhaps if Ghandi had picked up an AK-47 and instead of telling everyone to “eat nothing” he told them to “eat lead,” he’d be lauded as one of he most brutal peacemongers in history.

The 14th Dalai Lama won the Prize in 1989 partly as a tribute to Ghandi and the other part falling under the Susan Lucci Rule (14th time is the charm).

Winners of the prize receive a medal that has on one side three naked guys hugging and on the other a profile of Alfred Nobel looking like he wants to join them. The monetary award is 10 million Swedish kronor, which converts to about $23 bucks and change. Winners also receive a really classy T-shirt that reads “I’m a Nobel Laureate... you?” in Gothic lettering. All shirts are pre-shrunk, hypoallergenic and made in the USA.

Winning any Noble Prize entitles the recipient to a certain amount of bravado as well. We never hear about Nobel Prize laureates getting busted for shoplifting or getting drunk and starting bar fights because they are given a pass.

If you find yourself winning a Nobel Prize, you can pretty much stop paying for lunch. If David Letterman had won the Nobel Prize in Comedy (I wish), there wouldn’t be any scandal.

I hope this trend of awarding prizes to “controversial” figures continues. I hope it also spills over into the other Nobel categories.

Nobody deserves the Nobel Prize for Economics more than Bernie Madoff. Sylvia Browne should get the Nobel Prize for Physics because she talks to dead people. Oh, wait, that’s “Psychics” not “Physics.” My bad.

The Nobel Prize for Literature?

Well, I do know a certain humor columnist...

String Cheese - Article XXIV

Jury is out on lawyer shows

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 09.22.09

Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, I captured a genie and she gave me one wish.

I use the pronoun “she” because I’m envisioning someone very attractive like Barbara Eden or Laura Bush. Oooh, yeah!

I digress.

Most people would have a problem deciding what to have if they were given the means to have anything in the world. Not me. I know exactly what I’d ask for.

Would I wish for more money? No. More money would launch me into a new tax bracket and make me very sad. However, it would be nice to hear from all of my long-lost relatives.

Would I wish for immortality? No way. The thought of sitting in a post apocalyptic wasteland explaining to a cockroach about how Paula Abdul had gotten elected president, then launched a whole arsenal of nuclear missiles at the world in a final act of retribution against Simon Cowell, to me, is depressing. Yet, not as much as the thought of the cockroach actually finding the whole story interesting.

If I had the power to wish for anything in the world, anything at all, I’d wish for one thing: another lawyer show on television.

I think this would be a very thoughtful wish. Sure. World peace would be a noble thing to ask for, but when everyone’s not fighting how are we going to be entertained? Ending world hunger is pointless when those villages and shanty towns don’t even have cable television. As soon as you take away a person’s hunger, that person will fight you for control of the remote.

In the morass of mindless entertainment, there has got to be room for at least one more lawyer show.

Every channel has a lawyer show these days.

My kids were watching Sesame Street the other day and Big Bird was being cross examined by Oscar the Grouch.

There’s also a new show called “Law and Order: Mattress Tag Unit.” I don’t know what the onomatopoeia is for the Law and Order show but it sounds to me like: “CHONG CHONG!”

My wife likes a show called “Drop Dead Diva.” It’s about the ghost of a woman who comes back into another woman’s body and practices law. Wow. A loophole around the state bar exam. Why pay for years of law school when all it takes is a metaphysical mix-up? If I were to be reincarnated, I would probably come back as a set of veterinarian’s latex gloves. The really long ones.

Anyway, my law show would be better than anything ever seen on television. It would be in real time, too. Forty-five minutes plus commercials is way too soon for legal disputes to be settled. The episode regarding copyright infringement would last at least seven years.

In Hollywood, there’s an old adage: Too many chefs spoil the broth. But, if one of those chef’s is Charo — it’s all good!

I’d have Charo and a cast of about a hundred actors (all of whom have legal troubles of their own. Yes, I’m talking to you Gary Coleman) all pretending to be attorneys. The difference between a mob and an ensemble is subtle. Since the show would also need to appeal to a younger generation, at least one of the lawyers would be a vampire.

Finally, my show would have take place in some hip and trendy place. New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle have all been played out as story locations. Still, there remains one place which has yet to be tapped by the legal profession.

The moon.

String Cheese - Article XXIII

Bomber orders shot of Scotch and freedom

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 09.03.09

Go easy on the Scots.

Recently, the Scottish government decided to release from prison a Libyan terrorist named Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi because he’s been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. The Scottish medical professionals have only given him three months to live.

The convicted terrorist was tossed into the hoosegow for the bombing murder of 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. The sentence was life imprisonment.

Usually when someone is sentenced to life imprisonment, at least in America, it means that you are going to be eating really bad jailhouse food and kissing your “cellie” goodnight until you give up the ghost. Your chances of getting out of prison are about as good as NASA offering Paris Hilton a full-time job.

However, the Scots have a loophole. Apparently, if you’re convicted of a heinous crime, and are sentenced to life imprisonment, you must remain in prison for the remainder of your days or until you develop prostate cancer. Whichever comes first. It’s a lot like a car warranty.

The Scottish National Party claims they released Abbie the Terrorist to return to his homeland of Libya on the grounds that they felt compassionate toward him.

Wow. That was nice.

I wonder if Abbie was given a complimentary Sean Connery DVD or a shirt that reads “I did prison time in Scotland and all I got was this lousy T-shirt... and cancer.”

As a result, there has been an outcry of anger directed toward the Scottish government for this action, which some are calling “The DOH! heard ’round the world.” The blogosphere and Twitter are blazing with people encouraging others to boycott Scotland by not traveling there and to trade in Scotch whiskey for Budweiser.

How is it that the Scots are able to show compassion for such a vile criminal? William Wallace, the champion of Scottish independence, and Mad Max look-alike, was one of the most fierce and ruthless adversaries the Brits ever knew. Compassion was not in his vocabulary. If he knew what was going on, he'd drop a haggis from under his kilt.

Before focusing on what a terrible PR blunder this is for the Scots, we must remember the things that made them so important in the first place.

Scotland is the birthplace of golf. Some guy thought it would be better to hit a ball with a small stick instead of tossing it into a hole. As a result, Scottish retirees had something to keep themselves occupied.

Scotland is also the home of the Loch Ness monster. There’s nothing like a local mystery critter to bring a little tourism to the area. Personally, I think the Loch Ness monster is nothing more than a Sasquatch with a sock on its hand. Totally fake.

Finally, if the Scots hadn’t come up with that cool, see-through tape, Christmas would be a total drag. Although, I must admit, it’s really funny to watch a kid try and open a present completely bound in duct tape.

Before we serve the Scots their heaping helping of crow, we’ve got to let the bagpipes warm up.