WESTERN RHYMES: BOOZERS 'N BAMBOOZLERS

HAIR OF THE DOG

Well, Shorty and Bob came by last week

And we was a-sittin on the porch jawin'

When my hound came by with a squeak

Then let out a howl and commenced to runnin'

He was after somethin' we ain't seen yet

But he got our curiosity up, you bet

So we all got up and thank God we were slow

'Cause what he was after, we really didn't want to know

I called him Chase, 'cause that's what he did

But this is one time, I wish he'd remained hid

He had cornered a black kitty with a white stripe

And boy, let me tell you, after that he was ripe

Well, Shorty said he'd heard that bathing him

In some kind of juice would benefit us and him

I found a half-gallon of grapefruit juice in the larder

And we started in to wash him down, but it got harder

That's 'cause as we was about to give it a better try

Wouldn't you know, that's when the well went dry

With no water to rinse off that juice and spray

Bob, just grabbed the first thing handy in the way

Well, it just so happened to be a bottle of Smirnoff,

100 proof, but what else ya gonna do to wash it off?

And you know, it did the trick pretty darn nice

If I do say so myself, and it also killed his lice

But now, we're stuck with a stinkin' wet hound

My wife's gonna come home and do a quick turnaround

Shorty finds a bag of salt we use on walks in wintertime

He says he's heard it repels water and breaks down enzymes

So he dumps a good amount of that salt on Chase

And we all start rubbin' it in to his fur, avoiding his face

That's when the wife came in and took a picture for her blog

And said: "That there is one genuine, authentic Salty Dog!"

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DOORS

What's a feller supposed to do
When he can't figure out which door to choose
Standing there in desperation
Hoping for some consideration
Should he use door number one or number two

It's not like a Television game show
The poor feller's just gotta go
But someone was cruel
With signs for the stool
And labeled them so no one would know

Standard signs for each gender
"LADIES" or "MEN" from the vendor
Are replaced by humor
For the unwary consumer
Likely to become a "wrong-door offender"

Sometimes it's simple to figure out
"COWBOYS" or "COWGIRLS" leaves no doubt
But confusion ensues
A wrong door might amuse
Or cause one hell of a shout

Sometimes it's frustration
When a feller is in desperation
Holding back
A bladder attack
And premature urination

Sometimes it's a good guffaw
When your teeth don't need to gnaw
No need to worry
You're in no hurry
Just laugh at the chutzpah

When comfort rooms are outside the gate
The owner makes it easy to decide your fate
Men, first tree to the right
Ladies, left, out of sight
All others need to go straight

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JIBBERDING AND WHIPSTICK MATCHUP

When it comes to matches, this one takes the prize.

No matter who wins, the thrill is in the viewers eyes.

And that's you. You get to be in the front row seat,

While we watch together to see which takes the defeat.

Now this is the contest to see which of the two wattles is best,

The Whipstick from the East or the Jibberding from the West.

Now, you got to know your stuff before you make your bets,

'Cause this could go either way and that's not just a guess.

Either one could come out on top and the ref will be watching.

He's a former gunfighter with handles that still need notching.

The handbill tells it all - A Matchup Between Two Big Wattles,

But why did the crowd throw everything including the beer bottles?

Now, you'll start to understand the confusion blunder.

When they brought that event up from down under,

Most of the crowd thought sure it was a misprint,

A spelling error and not at all what they meant.

They assumed it was going to be a Poetry Event,

Just like the last time the venue held it in the tent.

Cowboy poetry from two big waddies is what they read,

Even though that is not at all what the handbill said.

Well, now a contest between two acacia plants,

Is a lot different than two cowboys with a word dance.

No wonder the crowd went wild and out of control.

Seems defensible enough for people with their role.

From out behind the curtain, came our two cowboys,

But barely a word said could be heard above the crowd noise.

Each was holding a small plant as they stood opposed,

And right then and there, the whole fraud was exposed.

The crowd finally knew it was not to be a cowboy poetry show.

Instead they were an experiment as a focus group from the git-go.

Thought they were at a town meeting to decide the best waddie,

But, acacia didn't hear him, he said, "do you want the West Wattle?"

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ROCKS ON TABLES

In a little desert town out in Arizona
Down around the Southwestern border
For as long as I can recollect
Rock hounds come to reconnect

The town absorbs the impact once more
Millions of people camped on the desert floor
RVs, tents and converted buses
People, dogs, cats, and horses

The idle rich, the curious and the bourgeois
All come to buy, sell or trade. Polished or raw
Barrels of rocks dumped out on the ground
Vendors of all sorts peppered around town

It's a place called Quartzsite down on I-10
Hi-Jolly's there, in a tomb, where he's been
Resting for more than a hundred years
While rock hounds visit and drink their beers

Gems and minerals and lots of desert sands
Tourists dance and listen to the local rock bands
Cactus, creosote bushes and lizards soaking sun
Warm days, cold nights, but nothing stops the fun

Rocks and people compete for space and air
If you go to buy or sell or just gander at the fair
Don't get bamboozled by hook or crook or by chance
There's more rocks on tables than what we got on the ranch

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NAMES

What's in a name anyway?
The name game that children play
Some are thought out well
And some you just can't tell

Names of companies you know
Names of places where you go
Sometimes very easy to understand
Some are cute and some are bland

But those that miss the mark,
Those with the wrong earmark
Are the ones you question
When they make the wrong suggestion

Painted boldly on the side of the tank
The company's name that stank
As if the idea came to them wondrously
Passmore Gas & Propane Company

Ask over and over until you know for sure
The name is on the building and on the brochure

It's another example of the wrong name syndrome
Is this the: Amigone Funeral Home ?

What would Harper Lee say?

What does the restaurant's name convey?

You might think it a bit absurd

If you eat at Tequila Mockingbird

Would you eat the chicken if you really knew?

Would you think the idea a little hard to chew?

This one's covered under the USDA's umbrella

Just be careful when eating at Sam and Ella's

Most women wish to leave a beauty shop very much alive

Whether they emerge with a bob, a weave or a beehive

So you have to wonder just what was on the mind

Of the owner of the salon named Curl Up and Dye

Crass doesn't begin to cover this restaurant's name

A disaster where people burn to death is a shame

You wonder what kind of uniforms are worn by the workers

At the little place with flame broiled HINDENBURGERS

You could drown in the flood of indecency

Flippant and nauseating, we concede

Even if the owners thought the name dynamic

You won't find me eating at the Thai-Tanic

Maybe the worst choice for a name

Comes from the package delivery game

With complete nonchalance, the owners are boastful

Of the shipping company they named Goin' Postal

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GRANDMA'S SPIRIT

Well, I told ya once before about my dear departed granny
And how she was, at the end, about our special cow
Well, long after her departure, her wisdom is still uncanny
And now you'll know just how far we took her advice and our vow

You'll remember it was our younger brother Jr. who gave her the milk
Well, he grew up to be a fine young man and began running operations
He had organization skills to beat all and it is the sugar beets and corn silk,
That begin this tale about how Jr. took advice from the book of Galatians

In our little rural section of the valley there was a temperance movement
Folks were either on the one side or on the other and there was a battle
That's when Jr. found a way to satisfy both sides with a major improvement
And it all came from a business trip he took to a conference in Seattle

Now, the conference was on the value of feeding the by products of sugar beets
Cattle just love the taste, and it stops the stuff from going to waste
Well, Jr. came home and immediately implemented his program for cattle eats
Now Jr. denies it but there are still folks who swear our milk is laced

We know it's pure but what we didn't know is what happens after it's et.
Somehow when the corn silk accidentally got mixed in the beet silo
The sugars co-mingled and began a chemical reaction-interaction set
Producing a mash of sorghums like that which comes from Milo

Then, as it would naturally happen, the cows found the beets and had a feast
The concoction continued it's synthesis reactions first in one gut and then the other.
We had no idea of the magnitude of this freak of nature until we milked the beasts
One taste of the moo-juice and the kittens were doing backflips over one another.

We served it for dinner that night and ended up with the whole family down with the giggles
"The best we ever produced," said Jr. as he reached for another glass and swallowed hard
The next morning, it's off to town - me with my milk and ma with her pickles
The temperance crowd always liked to see us come in early with milk fresh from the barnyard

But the other side always gave us trouble, bullying Jr. 'cause they didn't like our dairy goods
It was usually old man Ferguson and his boys along with some town ruffians to boot
But this day was a lot different. As soon as they started in with the sass from their hoods,
Ma just reached down with both hands and threw a five gallon pail right in Ferrgie's snoot

At first, he was incensed but then he started to lick his lips and his demeanor softened a bit
He was still boilin' on a simmer when he realized that what he was tastin', tasted like more
He said, "well, y'all have got some good cows this year." Then he bought another five gallon hit
And before ya knew it, the whole town, temperance folks and all, were dancin' their feet sore.

Then the gov'ment man showed up to inspect our milking machines
First, this test and then another. And then some double-blind tests to eliminate a goof
They even put a guard detail on our farm with a squad of U.S. Marines
Finally the agent said: "Well, it looks like your milk is gonna come in at 180 proof.

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Farethewell Oh My Beer!

The Pabst company has decided to call it quits
Not on their main brand but on the other
The one they bought way back when - Schlitz
Now the choices will be less bother

One less of the famous brews to choose
A part of Americana gone South
One less decision to make
Leaving fans dry in the mouth

Changing recipes on the ale
Management dealt the deathblow
Bad advertising and declining sales
Now, we're all out of gusto

And that's the way it is
After two centuries in the beer biz
So, now we can all fondly remember:
"When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer!"

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HOW TO INSULT A COWBOY

Asking a cowboy if he needs help,

When none was requested, is the same -

As saying: "You're not very good - Welp."

"I can do better at anything by any name."

If a cowboy asks for help it is because -

The job that needs doin', is a two-man job.

Working alone is what the cowboy does.

Helping a cowboy is like trying to help a plumb-bob.

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THE ORIGINAL LITE BEER

Back in the day when Wyoming cowboys

Weren't quite old enough to buy beer

We came up with all sorts of schemes and ploys

Fake IDs or just a liquor store with a friendly cashier

Coors in Golden, Colorado provided an easy answer

With three-two beer for 18 and older

It was all we could get most of the time, I swear

And oh, how we'd swear and cuss on the way back from Boulder

Pure Rocky Mountain water and not much more

Colorado Kool-Aid and other names not so polite

But it was less risky for a younger teenager to score

Illegal I know, but it was a Wyoming teenage rite

Forced by circumstances to drink second class brew

Insulted by the adult world and learning to make do

Incensed by the lack of taste and body, and how it'd make you spew

But every weekend, it'd be another case of Coors three-two

There were no words strong enough for the disgust we felt

Drinkin' fermented water with a tinge of barley and hops guise

But what else was a teenager to do in the tumbleweed belt?

It rankled our sensibilities, to be drinking a substitute prize

Then along came a nincompoop in the marketing department

Who sold the world on false claims of "good taste and less filling"

They called it "Lite Beer" and hedged off the argument

While we snickered and laughed, knowing what they were really chilling

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BOOZERS 'N BAMBOOZLERS

WESTERN RHYMES

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