Danehy

So, I’m in this shopping mall in Las Cruces, New Mexico …

I won’t bore you with the details as to why I was in that part of the world, but I’m walking through the mall, going to get a cup of pretzel bites from the Auntie Anne’s for my son and daughter (who had accompanied me to that part of the world).

In one of the storefronts was a T-shirt with a picture of Danielle Bregoli with her stupid catch-phrase under the picture. I couldn’t take it.

Therefore, at the top of my list of stuff I have to get done before the temperature hits triple digits for the first time this year is I’m going to start a GoFundMe account so that some hard-working and deserving teenage girl can find Bregoli, catch her outside, beat her sorry ass, and then (in one’s best Queen’s English) say, “How about that?”

If you know what I’m talking about, you’ll probably want to contribute to the fund. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, count your blessings and don’t Google it. Save yourself from the blood pressure spike.

Other things that have to be dealt with before summer opens its gaping maw of sweat stains and jock itch, which, at the “Hottest (fill In the name of the Month) Ever” pace at which we’re going, might just be next week:

On the way home from Las Cruces, we passed through Columbus, New Mexico and had to look at that ridiculous sign announcing the turnoff for Pancho Villa State Park.

As many of you know (and members of the Tucson City Council choose to forget), in 1916, Mexican terrorist/bandit Pancho Villa invaded the United States and killed American citizens. That actually happened; there’s no debate about it. It is therefore somewhat surprising that the state of New Mexico would name a park for him. I man, it’s doubtful that there is a statue of William Tecumseh Sherman anywhere near Atlanta and I’m guessing that there isn’t a Hitler State Park near Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

Why, then, is there a statue of that bitch in the middle of Downtown Tucson? I’ve written about this before and I’ve even communicated with a couple City Council members. (One of them, quit astonishingly, actually considers Villa to have been a dashing and romantic historical figure.) Last year, I made a poster that read “Pancho Villa Raped Children” (he did) and taped it to the base of the statue. It was there for a few days but then somebody finally took it down.

I’m not a vandal or a thief, so there’s not much I can do. I’ve been hoping that a frat house at the UA would steal it and put it in their backyard. That’s what John Belushi would have done. I’m going to figure something out because that thing is an abomination.

Oh, before I forget (and this has nothing to do with the rapidly approaching summer). I got a couple breathless emails taking me to task for referring to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (and doesn’t that phrase send a shiver down your spine!) as “stupid.” Well, she is. Remember that country bar scene in 48 Hours where convict Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) is pretending to be a cop? He yells out to a room full of white folks, “I’m your worst nightmare. I’m a n—– with a badge.”

One of my biggest nightmares is of a stupid person with an agenda, some money and a little bit of power. That never works out well for us common folk. As I told the emailers, it’s okay to support her, but she’s still stupid. It’s along the lines of “I have an uncle who’s a hopeless drunk … but he’s still my uncle.”

Anyway, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine summed it up perfectly. When she was being questioned by a Senate committee during her confirmation hearing, Senator Al Franken (rather uncharacteristically) tossed her a beachball of a question. Nonetheless, she froze up and then gave the wrong answer. Recounting that exchange, Taibbi wrote that DeVos “looked like a duck trying to read a parking meter.”

I’m going to learn how to fly a drone so we can follow State Rep. Phil Lovas (R-Peoria) around. He’s the chair of the House Rules Committee and he refuses to give a hearing to a bill that passed the Senate by an overwhelming 24-6 margin, one that would ban the use of cell phones by new drivers for the first six months they have a license. I’m actually surprised that such a bill doesn’t pass every legislative body in the United States by a margin of everybody-who-showed-up-to-zero.

Lovas says that he is “personally ambivalent” about banning the practice by teenagers of texting while driving. After dropping that Moron Bomb, he really stepped in it by continuing to talk. He’s afraid that if young drivers are banned from texting while driving—that’s a phrase that should not even exist!—it will then be easier for the ban to be extended to others. Hmmm. About whom might he be speaking?

I sincerely, really, really hope that while Lovas is out driving around and texting someday that he gets crashed into by a young driver who is doing the same thing. And I hope my drone films the whole thing.

This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2017.