Go ahead, Drain the Lake - Newby

Ever tried a locust taco with Guacamole?

What is up with all the recent transplants always wanting to come into Lake with all their great new ideas, totally upset the balance of peculiar we've all become adjusted to and then move on to some greener pasture to despoil like a swirling horde of mutant locusts with crazy-tipped wings laying waste to all in their path?


The mysterious lands beyond the hills must be filled with unaccomplished messiahs looking to make a mark.

It happens over and over here so there are plenty of examples. Nitwits drive into the county, set up shop and immediately set about changing all the stuff that brought them here in the first place. Sometimes they even enlist the indigenous Lake Countians in their efforts to help gain some destructo-traction.

I wasn't actually thinking of the ancient Indians but what the hell, they were here first so they've seen this crap happen first hand and they saw it before we had all those nifty laws to prevent really horrific stuff from being de-rigeur so those folks really got their hats handed to them.

Take them that want to turn the lake into a dustbowl for example; they think that draining and dredging the lake is a fantastic idea so it could be more like lake Tahoe. Point of fact Lake Tahoe is a 'dead' lake so basically these folks are the grim reaper's cheerleaders whose goal is a zombie lake where once the carp were free to suffocate and wash up on shore at will.

Somebody needs to stand up for the dead and dying carp!

Then you've got Francis with his peculiar brand of change and freakshow entourage riding Tom's Crazy Train and turning law enforcement on its ear to create enough chaos so that the big pot growers can do their thing with impunity.

News flash for Francis - Tom and the other pot growers were doing just fine before you sued Frisco and moved up here. Anybody else think its curious that Francis shows up and Tom gets busted?

Don't laugh, its paid for.

Let's not forget the grifters arriving by night that show up in the midst of all the misguided wanna-be do-gooders to take advantage of the situation like that Rowland Mosser guy who hosed the seniors over there on the Northshore by ripping off a Senior center. He should have picked a bigger target since according to his facebook page he still hasn't managed to get moved out of that singlewide trailer though he did score 15 minutes in the papers while the old DA was poking around in his colon.

Instead of focusing on this clear newby-itis sypmptom the Spelunkers Sanity Squad thought it might be wise to focus on the causes for this behavior.

The roads leading into the county come to mind.

Evidently Caltrans is in on the newby plague since they keep fixing up those ingress roads in spite of Mother nature's best efforts to grind em back into dust. So maybe those of us that like things calm and quirky need to take a page from the Newby Handbook and go exert our will over the rest of the state by establishing some 'no-repair' zones on the roads that the newbies use to invade.

Closed for remodeling,
come back much later.

That would limit access to those that really really want to be here and turn away them that want to recreate this place to be more like wherever they just escaped from. If it was so freakin' great wherever you came from then what the hell are you doing here?

Or maybe we could set aside a portion of the county to contain the newcomers till their cancerous brains adapt to 'the way things are' here in paradise. My vote would be Clearlake since that town is already deep into the crazy. Set em loose in Clearlake; if they survive for a decade then give em a hall pass into the rest of the county and see how they do.

Maybe I'm backwards or even a little provincial wanting things left alone but there really is something nice about a dearth of turmoil.

Walking the Plank for Fun and Profit

Francis says he really does want a new Undersheriff to help do his work so he can spend more time doing other stuff like running his blog. The way it is right now the clowns running his blog are so stoned all the time they just don't make any sense and the blog message is losing focus.

The message is supposed to be what a great guy Francis is but mostly he has to spend a ton of time deleting all kinds of other posts that don't support his thesis very well. Sometimes they even show him in a bad light.

So he says he's gonna hire somebody to help out.

Cap'n Francis readies the plank for candidates.

Right now he's got a job posted on the county web deal but its promotional only so chances are nobody is gonna go for it since they'd have to go back on probation again.

Just ask Perry or Basor about how cool probation works.

Since anybody eligible for the job  has to be a) more experienced than Francis and b) currently a member of the DSA or a correctional officer its a safe bet to say they won't have the job for long and will probably wind up suing Francis like all those other guys.

I've got a hunch this job will soon be posted outside the promotional deal so some cop who doesn't have the Internet or talk to other cops might wander along and stumble into Francis clever pirate trap.

Fictitious Job Posting

Hey unemployed folks! Great news, there's a job open at the Sheriff's Department and the pay is fantastic!








So if you are more qualified than our Sheriff -- who isn't? -- and you already work for him you can go work more closely with him.

How does that sound? Some of the benes include lotsa yelling and tantrums working for your new boss and you'll get to take the blame for everything Francis screws up. And there's plenty of that to fill your days. Of course if your under an IA, voted for Mitchell, are a Corrections Officer or a member of the DSA you aren't welcome to apply.

Just kidding, like Francis has any intention of hiring somebody that has more experience than he does like it says in the job posting on the county website.

He's not looking to hire. 

He's just covering his butt since that massive foulup when he begged the BOS for an undersheriff so he could get Baxter's votes.

Some stuff doesn't fit

Let's look at a few examples of things that just don't fit together in groups. Some things just don't fit when you stop and look at em but sometimes it's kinda hard to tell right away so the Spelunkers Grouping Squad put together a simple test to help folks learn how to identify stuff that fits in a group and stuff that doesn't fit in a group.

Here's a video prepared by spelunker investigator Cookie Monster that helps explain it better.


Some of these are tricky so we'll start with the easiest ones. Now remember, there is no such thing as a wrong answer but there are complete boobs that might have trouble and we don't want to hurt their feelings so keep your answers to yourself. No cheating!

Okay, let's get going. Now take a good long look at these pictures, but try not to get hypmotized, and try to figure out which thing in the picture is not the same as the others.

A) Eating stuff

B) Animal stuff

C) Religious stuff

D) Outdoor stuff

One of these things is not like the others.

D) Cop stuff. Now this is the most important test because choosing the wrong one could mean the difference between life and death so you want one with strong experience, outstanding management skills and the ability to work well with his staff. Be careful now and pick which one of these doen't fit.

What we have here are three respected lawmen, one was even the first Hispanic Sheriff, and one pretender. Clue: the pretender has a moustache and used to sell drugs in Florida.

Poobah, meet POBR, POBR, Poobah.

Darkness and rage have settled into the king's brain like a ravenous, bloodthirsty jackal with a paper-shredder.

Francis responds to lawsuit

Francis grew bored of the lack of attention he was recieving lately so he opened up the mail and POP! There was a special letter just for him.

But this is no ordinary letter from some affectionate friend that hasn't discovered email or figured out how old-school writing a letter is, this one came from a member of that gun-totin' posse some folks call 'deputies.' You can tell the posse from the jailers since the posse has guns and the jailers only have a key on their sleeves.

Seems this Deputy Corey fella isn't much for that old-school letter writing deal either since he had someone else write if for him. What the heck does esq mean anyway? I'm gonna start signing hsg after my name and that one is clear enough 'high school graduate' but esq, wtf?

So esq dude helped Deputy Corey write this letter deal and mail it to Francis with a stamp. I just can't stop wondering who licked the stamp. Then things went all to shit because it wasn't a love letter or even nice at all. It explained to Francis that he's f'ed up again and something fierce enough to have to go stand up in front of one of those judge people unless Francis can get either his bff Tom Carter or maybe County Counsel to pony up for him and lay some dough across that deputy guy's palms.

I guess Tom won't be able to help out unless that deputy guy is willing to settle for a slightly used fake train.

According to nameless gossips posting stuff on one of Francis' fan blogs he's looking at something like $75,000 clams. Now that's what I call a king size payday!

Gratuitous product placement. 

Seems the apprentice learned from the master, way to go Corey! Poobah Francis hisself scored some serious change when Francis sued Frisco for being racist, some things never change, and whaddya know he got the dough even though most folks thought he'd painted a naughty symbol on his own locker just like somebody did down in Middlesville lately. I wonder if Francis knows who painted that one?

Sadly Francis took a bunch of that money, used it to buy himself a hovel down in Middlesville and we've been stuck with him ever since.

Too bad Francis didn't pay attention to Corey though since Corey did real good on that Seargent's test while Francis just couldn't seem to talk his way out of it. Then Corey went on and solved some icky crime and made himself famous so Francis had to show him not to try to upstage the Pooobah by kicking sand in his face.

I wonder where Deputy Corey will do when he gets his money? I guess I should hurry up and go make friends with him pronto so he knows who's got his back and stood by him during all the tough times but also really really needs a giant new flat panel TV for that big blank space up there on the wall of the singlewide. If I squint my eyes just right I can even see it there but its like the volume is turned way down because all I hear is some tweakers out back arguing about some kinda business etiquette.

Ostriches and Tabouli

Seems like this shitty, gold paved Wall Street, economy is making all kinda folks suffer except for my GOB banker buddies that got so much in bonuses they bankroll me with the money that slips between the cushions on their Ostrich skin couches. Those other poor slobs unlucky enough to base their means of support on front companies for drug dealers around here are really feeling the pinch.

Things aren't so bad up in the 'Emerald Triangle' further north where the really expensive herb is grown but here in Lake we just aren't seeing those kinda results. Evidently the green grown here just doesn't compare. Take that and the Ephedra crackdown courtesy of that weenie Tony Farington and its no wonder the global economy tanked.

Take Upper Lake for example; as an aside does anyone really know why that is two words? Seems kinda pretentious to the spelunkers linquistics staff but it is what it is. I guess they just hafta do that because Lower Lake did the same thing, except Clearlake is only one word while the puddle is two. More confusing is that the Chamber of Commmerce in Clearlake is the 'Clear Lake' chamber. Now is that for the water of for the city? And why would the bass need a chamber of commerce?

DIY Decagon

Hmmm... Oh yah, consider the devastated economy and its affects on business of all sorts and let's go look at Upper Lake - what I call the 'Douchebag Decagon' when juxtaposed with the 'Emerald Triangle' - Upper Lake used to have a thriving drug dealer front store named Olivia's but it seems like it closed down in the last month or so.

My hunch is that was probably noticed by Dr. FeelGood up there on Main street but he seems to be doing just fine nonetheless.

Might have something to do with the economy or maybe it was the fact that Olivia's was a front for that convicted pot dealer Tom Carter who was using it to distribute his greener wares when he wasn't out being a pillar of the community and turning the youth on. He's a smart guy, figured out that marketing to kids created a more long lived customer base.

But that wasn't how I found out. I was up there searching out some couscous to go with that tabouli stuff that Muabladar likes so much but damned if Olivia's wasn't shut down. No couscous!

I hear Tom still sells some kinda organic stuff from there for the 'in crowd' but the place isn't open for us regular public types anymore so I'll probably have to grind up some garbanzo beans with garlic for pies and put em out on the window sill to see if the smell can lure Muabladar back.

I got to wondering about that other business Tom runs over there in Lakeport at that swanky barbershop Sarah Donna's next to the Post Office and figure it will probably be gone soon too because of the economic harshness of having the Feds crawl up your butt.

That doesn't bug me so bad since they charge too much and it feels kinda queer over there. Probably why Tom gets his hair permed, not that there's anything un-manly about a guy with a perm and a dye job mind you. Though I bet his recent bracelets worked as a freaking cool accessory and you know what they say in the 'big hotel,' "accessorize, accessorize, accessorize."

One thing does kinda bug me and that is that Francis didn't do something to help keep Olivia's open since he's Tom's bff. I mean really Francis is 'king ah the wurld' but he can't even help out his bestest bud the Mayor of Upper Lake?

Who's got travel plans?

Seems like we've all been suffering some kinda creepy delusion where we thought Francis was the Sheriff but thank heaven we've all just been dreaming.

And not one of those cool dreams where you wake up refreshed and feeling great like one of those neato flying dreams but more like some dark and terrible dream somebody else came up with like in that trippy movie Inception.

Kinda seems like I just woke up from some messed up, horrible dream inside a dream and it turns out the old Sheriff is still the Sheriff since he's still in charge of scheduling vacations and stuff according to Francis. Unfortunately the old Sheriff isn't doing such a bangup job at scheduling these days but who can blame him since he hasn't been back to the office for around six months?

Clearly the scheduling snafu isn't Francis fault, he's a complete buffoon who shouldn't be entrusted with the simplest of intellectual chores involving other people so obviously the old Sheriff blew it with Francis' staff and got their vacations cancelled this month with three weeks left in July...

Holy shit that was the dream too! The old Sheriff isn't the Sheriff anymore and here we are stuck in freaking limbo with the whack job that wants us to think this is reality and the fucker still can't handle scheduling or taking responsiblity for his foulups. The worst part is Francis doesn't even care that he's screwed up the plans of guys that work for him.

A typical full blown douchebag blames that kinda crap on somebody else. Maybe there's a support group for that that can stop him before he starts flipping up his collar and calling every gal 'babe.'

But deep down inside we know this isn't real like its supposed to be. This is some utterly crackerdog swerve on reality that just won't hold and those incredibly unlucky shmos working for him get to suffer for it.

Francis says next month is the same deal and he's got more of the old Sheriff's staffing issues to deal with. I guess he'd better figure it out lickety split since next month he has to go to court to face a lawsuit from those same COs he just pooped on while blaming it on the old Sheriff.

Ain't that a coinkydink.

Roy Cohn's Connecta Dot Challenge

Our favorite crew of Francis' propaganda bloggers and local pot growers has decided the best way to make the county better is to dream up freaked out,hazy hallucinogenic connections about folks and put their names on the Internets. Seems they think that if your name is on the Internets you must have something to hide so the propagandists are hard at work to connect those dots and reveal that some people might not taste good or something.

Those folks with their names on the Internets don't seem too fearful of Francis though so lately they've been taunting Francis on his own blog where some kinda death squad is disappearing the barbs and making big fun of him elsewhere on the Internets where the jabs don't evaporate.

Francis and one of his safety conscious sayings.

The problem Francis wants to fix with this whacky scheme is that a whole other crew has beaten him at the blog game and out blogged em by around 500% then put up an official facebook thingy with a call to action.

Those guys don't want Francis to be Sheriff anymore, they told him so on the Internets and made fun of him at the same time.

So Francis' propaganda bloggers one-upped everybody and took a page from Joe McCarthy's book, they even have a Roy Cohn character to help keep things real. Roy was Joe's bff just like the whole Francis and Tom deal back then they called Roy 'citizen cohn' as code for Joe's boy toy so now I guess we all know why Francis' propaganda bloggers call themselves 'citizen' don't we. How about it Citizen Carter? Who's the pitcher, who's the catcher? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Evidently the plan is to post people's names as supporters of a recall effort in the hopes that the thrill of all American Freedom-of-Speech could be stifled so Francis doesn't have to know that most of the folks he works for, that'd be us taxpayers, aren't one bit happy about how fubar his work is. They threaten to expose all those folks but it just doesn't look like the facebook likers are hiding since they went ahead and put their endorsements on facebook in the first place.

As far as the dirt Francis' propaganda blog pals have dug up I'm less impressed than I am with that vacuum I made outta paper towel rolls and duct tape. They pointed out that somebody doesn't taste good and somebody else works at the same place as her main squeeze. The really juicy dirt they dug up is that for lots of those folks the "last name explains it." That must be some kinda secret code since I don't have a clue and don't know any of those people. Evidently lots of em work for the jail and stuff so that's a good thing.

They even found somebody who got a DUI, just like Bruce.

From what I understand about facebook, and I'm a caveman, you have to like a page before you can find out who else likes it so that means that some bozo at Francis' propaganda blog likes the recall page. They outta keelhaul that traitor!

Course the really strange part in all this is that Francis and Tom outta be diametrically opposed since Francis is supposedly a law man and Tom just admitted to being a big time criminal.

That new facebook page seems to have really rattled Francis' cage though so he's compiling a hit list right there on the Internets where everyone can see it. Now I'm no lawyer but if I were and some of those folks named on those pages were to come griping about some kind naughty thing the Sheriff did to them I'd probably figure I could buy a new Yacht or one of Shirley's floating anti-crime islands with the retainer after I sued the pants off the county.

Clearlakes Criminal Island Solution

Crime fighting superhero island deployed.

Floating island specialist Shirley Howland has imagineered a cure for what ails quasi-city Clearlake and her plan is nutty enough it just might work.

The way it works, according to Shirley, is that you put a bunch of floating islands around the shoreline and it stops crime.

Evidently she got the idea from Supervisor Jeff Smith somehow. Poor Jeff, must really suck to have Clearlake happen on your watch.

So these islands are pretty trick, they float around stopping crime and letting the ducks and stuff have a place to crawl out of the muck from time to time.

Not being a criminal mastermind like Howland I'm a bit unclear as to how the islands prevent the baddys from doing naughty stuff that police don't like.

I guess crooks are afraid of floating islands or something, perhaps all those bad guys are just so enamored with the odd islands they forget to break the law or maybe you use em like little min Alcatraz islands and exile the criminals out there off the shore.

Criminals prepare to leap from bridge to escape crime busting island.

Anyhow, Shirley says that the islands could be a whole industry creating jobs and stuff for Clearlake so maybe she's thinking just hire all the criminals and that way they'll be too darn busy to go cook speed or dismantle bikes or whatever.

Course the downside might be that without all that extra creative time the tweakers wouldn't be able to spend so much time with doodling, puzzle books and ripping off the neighbors.

Rivero's Wranglers

After getting kicked repeatedly in the nuts for opening his mouth and spewing whatever crazy came to mind, Francis has finally resorted to dragging around an entourage of similarly whack-minded psychophants to help keep him calm and tell him what a great job he's doing so he can ignore all those other folks telling it to him straight.

Rivero's Wranglers

A wrangler sighting occurred Wednesday night in Clearlake when Rivero showed up to the townhall deal in Clearlake where lots of lost fools lurched at the opportunity to blather at a captive audience.

The wrangler group included Olga Martin-Steele, Jim Steele, Becky Curry, Ron Green, Jim Swatts Dr. John Zebelean, some tweaker and even God fearin' minister Mitch Rogers who seized the opportunity to start an impromptu revival meeting complete with the Lord's name and all.

-|Lord please don't strike me or Muabladar with lightening, where the hell is Muabladar anyway?|-

Now I'm not for sure if the tweaker was an official Rivero Wrangler but he seemed to recall Frank's time as the Sheriff of San Francisco in the midst of a staccato yammering about kids and prison and stuff.

"And I want to know what you're going to do to help the kids, because..., but, and I was in prison and I know what it means to need things to do and my cellmate... but the kids," said the tweaker.

Respect my authoritah!

The whole sordid mess took place under the sober eyes of actual law enforcement types who didn't seem particularly amused.

While the whole shebang had all the markings of a gathering of the minions from the Overlook hotel in that book 'The Shining,' nobody got totally out of hand and I didn't spot the twins or that freaky seductress that turned out to be a corpse but it was still pretty wierd.

At one point somebody asked what the heck law enforcement was going to do to bring the bizarro-land of Clearlake back into the fold of the sane and Francis jumped up to take the helm. He then gave a campaign speech of sorts. Appears he, like so many others, still hasn't gotten comfortable with the fact that he won the election.

Donny DA missed the party but his name did come up and it seemed to strike fear into the heart of Francis who appeared concerned that Donny was going to hook him up and make him spend the night with his pals at the jail.

Then Francis scuttled back over to the wating wrangler gaggle for some positive feedback. Its a good thing those folks are willing to help mold Francis in their image because he really sucked hard at doing it on his own. Everyboy should have some friends, even this crew.

Finally I have a good idea

Been troubled by what feels like a serious deficiency of clear thinking on my part and all I've been trying to do is figure out a way out of the economic downturn. I know that isn't my job but all those other guys are always on recess so how can anyone expect them to get anything done anyways?

Perusing the local news I noticed that there are a whole lot more cats around than we need. Cats are terrific pets and nice and cuddly but I guess there are just too many to go around.
What is the deal with the excess here? I'm all for lots of good stuff but these are tough economic times and we all need to be creative and try to cut costs.

So this whole cat thing really kinda gets to me, makes me kinda sad.
I'm looking at all those incredibly cute little kittens and wondering how all this stuff could fit together for a better world.

Then it hit me.

People are outta work, cats have no homes and it all just costs everyone more and more every day to support this stupid system entirely lacking in symbiosis. Some older folks are trying to decide whether they can afford more pet chow for their diet or get their medication.

The solution is clear, I got the idea from that movie with that guy where they did that stuff and made those crackers from people. Cats could be food!

Plenty of cats around and plenty of hungry folk too. Its like a match made in heaven or someplace.

Standing out here by my big holiday barbecue watching the meat get hot and slathered in BBQ sauce it occurs to me that this stuff could be any kinda meat and my neighbors seem to enjoy the aroma wafting over the fence anyway.

What a fantastic way to solve a problem, I think I'll invite the neighbors over and discuss it with them over dinner.