Today’s post comes from the elected representative of all of Minnesota’s water surface Area, the Honorable Loomis Beechly.
Greetings Constitutents!
I see that Presidential Candidate Milt Romney is going to announce his Vice Presidential pick through a special Veep App, and he’s offering his followers and adherents a chance to be among the first to know by downloading the software pronto!
That’s super clever! Social media is the future – at least that’s what I hear people saying around the old water cooler and over the backyard fence! Any politician who has something that people really desperately want should be like Mint Romney and have an app written to deliver it. By doing it that way, current and would-be office holders can get a head start with all their digital socializing – collecting names and addresses and matching those names up with pet issues and hot buttons so they can tailor their campaign pitch to appeal to each individual voter.
That’s where we’re going – political marketing on a person-by-person basis. Of course, selling any candidate is super-difficult because most politicians don’t have anything that the people really want.
I know I don’t.
One exception would be if I suddenly had a bunch of money to hand out.
Or if I had some good-paying jobs to bestow on people. But if I had those, I’d probably want to set up a patronage system where bootlickers and sycophants would give me campaign contributions to get the jobs for themselves or their relatives.Aside from forking over really sweet gifts like money and jobs, politics is pretty much all about inside baseball. I don’t think your average app consumer is going to get very hyped up about being the first one to know whether the Veep is Pawlenty or Portman. How could anyone? The news just isn’t that compelling.
One thing politicians do have that people find fascinating – we have the ability to create gaffes. So don’t say Government can’t produce anything!
Gaffes are small or large-sized mistakes that turn into content engines – drawing eyeballs to websites and even old-style analog media platforms. I have no idea what I just said, but I’m told that a good gaffe can be worth millions to the media company that’s ready to exploit it. And one great Gaffe Fact – they’re always part of the GDP (Gaffe Domestic Product). Even if you manufacture a bunch of gaffes overseas like Mutt Romney just did, they’re always going to be American made.
And that’s why I’m thinking I should create an app to serve that need – a Gaffe App. Think of it – the Loomis Beechly Gaffe App would notify you whenever I’ve insulted a foreign head of state or belittled an entire city or nation, or if I’ve made policy off the cuff, or if I said something incredibly stupid or misinformed or if I just got somebody’s name wrong! The information would come to you so fast, you’d know I’ve goofed up even before I do!
I’m not sure Miff is savvy enough to come up with that kind of technical innovation, but I think I am! I just don’t know if I’m as good as he is at creating the gaffes. But I’ll try, because I think an Amercia that produces things is the kind of place I want to be from, no matter where I say or what I go!
Your Dedicated Public Servant,
Loomis Beechly
Have you ever produced an app-worthy gaffe?
If not, try to identify all of Congressman Beechly’s gaffes in today’s post!
Trail Baboon 
You can be gaffe-free as you vote for Mini-sota Donut Ice Cream at http://www.kempsnextflavor.com/ and https://apps.facebook.com/kempsfavs/contests/ You can vote every 24 hours as can all of Representative Beechly’s constituents in the 9th District.
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well done. but i have to check back at 24 hours and 1 minute later than yesterday. 7 something i think.
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Or over and over again on Facebook………….
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not my facebook
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Miff Romney, heh?
Rather than “Lommis Gaffe App”. How about “. Loony Gaffe App just for MN.
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For one whole day, we’ll be kept guessing which gaffes are real and which ones are intentional. Is an intentional gaffe even possible?
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why would you need to add one? ol mert has enough on his own
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i was the rookie sales guy and was asked to be the stooge in the booth at the gambles hardware show dealer convention in the minneapolis convention center. this was in the day when the lines for the pay phone were long and the buddies at the watering hole after work let out was the main focus of the day. well on day 3 of the trade show the buyer of the product catagory decided to grace us with his walk about. he stopped and shook hands and sake dhow it was going. i told him we were doing fine and it wasnt nearly as bad as the i was told it was going to be. he looked shocked and appaleed and in a few seconds i realied what i had just said. i started sweating bullets wishing i could hit the replay button but thats the punch line. you can’t. thats what being the rrookine sales guy is all about. i am afraid mitt is looking to put in some pretty serious learning curve stuff at the expense of the good old u s of a. he is a twit with a brain that makes w look like a top percentile candidate . i saw him on tv in isreal after he had had his world famous trip to england to impress the undecidided with his candor and thats how i roll kind of corn cob, and he looked like death warmed over. i think mitt would be a good candidate for the dead pool. the contest where you are awarded for every year under 100 the person is who you forcast will die this year. mitt looks like he is caving in to the pressure and so far he is the only one supplying the pressure. what will happen when there is something to be concerned about. we all know he wont be asked to be involved in the decision making process but i would think ther has to be somethin inside that tells you to wake up and smell the coffee, maybe not. i wasnt there at age 20 and mitt is not there today.
lost one to heat storke yesterday on the moving of stuff from the storage center to the warehouse. today should wrap it up. and they say it is going to heat up. the good news is it will be a high of 80 for my daughters wedding on saturday. the bad news is the bachelor party/card game in my garage on thursday night will be another hot one. a barn fan would be a help. i think a barn fan is an item that would help in most situations. mitt could have it with him and just turn it on whenever he is tempted to speak. it could drown out the sound of his voice and do him a huge favor. mitt trying to yell over a barn fan could be just the missing formula the gop is looking for. remember the guy in the corner of the saturday night live tv screen that was there for the hard of hearing and instead of using sign language he would yell real loud. well mit could have someone in the corner while he was yelling unrecognizable sounds and the person in the corner could be the kar rove plant. i think the party leaders would be very happy with that. off to the salt mines. ill check back.
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Another amazing post, tim. You did leave me wondering, however, who or what you lost to heat storke yesterday Hope it wasn’t one of your employees or a family member.
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Employee I am afraid. Hindsight tells me I shoulda seen it comin but I missed it
At closing time we were going back to empty the rental truck and call it a day and he went into a dizzy fainty mode that ended up with muscle cramps painfully kicking and an Iv in urgent care being required . Gotta drink water!!!!
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Major oops! Sorry about that. Hope he is fully recovered.
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Have a great “Daughter’s Wedding”, tim.
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Yeah, tim, you just sort of tossed in “daughter’s wedding” as the reason for the massive cleanup. (maybe you mentioned it before but I missed it).
Have a wonderful time at all the festivities.
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Dale, you’re priceless! What a fun rump! I love the alternative spellings of Mr. Romney’s first name, very funny. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason Mint Romney seems particularly appropriate. Hope all of Loomis Beechly’s constitutents appreciate what a fine representative they have. Christian Mihai, please feel free to chime in; we’d all love to hear what you have to say.
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I loved “Muff” the best.
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And speaking of muffing… should have been an “i” instead of a “u”… “Miff”
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He’s also being called “Myth”; “Rmoney”; “Runfromney”; and a host of other appropriate names.
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Frankly, I didn’t come up with anything nearly as funny as PlainJane’s “what a fun rump”.
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Didn’t think anyone noticed.
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Next time I see Dale I will have to pay close attention.
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hee hee hee
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Good morning. I have a recent a gaffe to report that was more something I did than something I said. I really out did myself on this one. I asked my wife this morning if she remembered any of my gaffes and she said how about yesterday.
I thought that my gas gage was broken because I was sure that I had filled my tank with gas and it still read empty. My wife had the car she drives in for repair and used my car to go to work. I told her the car had plenty gas and the gage was not correct. Well, guess what, it was correct and she ran out of gas a few blocks away from home.
It seem that I really didn’t put any gas into the car last time I was at the gas station. I thought I had paid for a tank of gas with my credit card at the pump, but apparently i didn’t lift the handle that starts the pump. I checked the level of the oil in my engine and then took at look at the gas pump which was showing the amount of gas pumped by a previous customer, not me. Then left the station thinking that amount of gas was in my car.
How could I do something like that? Well, I can. Maybe my first name should be Muff.
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I loved spending time with my rancher friend, Larry, who owned 30,000 acres of prairie in north central Montana because he had such a distinct way of talking. We were bouncing along over his land once in a ’65 Ford truck with a gas gauge that sometimes worked but only sometimes. Larry explained it made him nervous when that gauge registered low because “A guy don’t know if the gauge is right or just cryin’ for sympathy.”
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Well at least you now know that your gas gauge does work.
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Fun story, Jim. But what happened when it came time to pay? In spite of the amount on the display from the previous customer, wouldn’t your printed receipt for $0 be a signal that something was truly wrong?
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Jim may have hit the button requesting no receipt. I do that frequently because I’m disinterested. In most things.
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i had that happen with the family on the way to orlando in the big ol van. we pulled through chicago at 5 in the morning in december and got gas on the indiana side. i put the pump in went inside and bought the girls some coffee and when i came back out i was done with my shift and did the crash and burn in the back. it was 33 degree rain and coming down mercilessly. my son was up and he was about a mile down the road but i was almost comatose already because of the all nighter i had done. i told him the guage sometimes doesnt reset when you leave the car running at the pump. it reads low but when you shut the car off and restart it goes to full. my wisdom was absorbed and we drove on through the ice storm for another 50 miles or so until we ran out gas. i did a replay in my mind and decided that an ever vigilant gas station attendant decided we should not be allowed to pump gas if there was no one standing in the rain watching the pump ( i and the girls were in getting gas which only left 3 or 4 in the vehicle also the van was runnignwhich is a legitimate no no but heck its cold and i have a groggy crew readying for another 16 hours on the road if we are lucky. the result was waiting for 4 hours in the middle bum fork indiana for highway patrol ( not their job) aaa coming when we can (figure out hw to get someone to you) i wanted to go hitchike to the nearest town where it may be but the family freaked about me getting in the car with strangers in the rain.( too many episodes of csi and law and order these folks) so instead of arriving 16 hours later, we were in atlanta 16 hours later feeling a little gritty. that may have been the trip that had the passangers window do a reverse explosion with million degree air beating on freezing butt cold windshield in chattanooga. i thought a rock hit us but it was a flawed piece of glass i am pretty certain. blue tarp and duct tape fixed that one but we had to stop every hour or so to retape for 700 miles. we had the window repair people waiting for us in orlando to fix the window so we could leave the vehicle in the parking lot without fear of getting ripped off.
geeze talk about off topic. memorable trips to forget.i ll bet if i looked i would find a gaffe or two in there. you all found them already.
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This could be a new Vacation movie! Who should play Clark?
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This gas station almost never keeps the receipt printers in their pumps in working order and I didn’t want to go inside to get one so I didn’t ask for one. In fact, I must not have put my credit card into the slot on the pump because the pump was still showing the results of the last sale when I put the spout back on the pump. Apparently I was way off in space and not thinking at all about what I was doing.
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While I’m sure I have had many (and remember the embarrassment in one or two cases, though not what I did to bring it upon myself…self preservation memory loss, I think) – what leaps to mind is someone else’s gaffe visited upon me. I was out at Renaissance Festival in “civies” for a wedding – a summery dress that wasn’t to dressy for the dust of the site. I hadn’t worked out there for a couple of years, so was sort of able to be incognito as I wandered the grounds. Walking past one of the (obnoxious) pickle barrel guys, he shouts out to me that “a woman in my condition could use a pickle.” ….And, pray tell, what would that condition be sir? ….Well, he begins to fumble, you know, um…in the family way…”No sir, I am not pregnant. I am just fat,” says I. Oh…then he didn’t know what to say. Then it dawned on him that he recognized me from when I worked out there and his embarrassment only grew. I told him sotto voce as I passed never ever to say something like that to a woman unless you knew and had proof – do not assume pregnancy, ever. I doubt he ever will again.
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Anna, I had a similar experience at the Renaissance Fair many years ago. I ran into Joyce Yamamoto, and old friend of mine out there. She was in costume and tending her pottery shop. I hadn’t seen Joyce in several years, so we chatted for a while, catching up on each other’s lives. I congratulated her on expecting and asked when she was due. She responded, I’m not pregnant, only fat. At that moment, I felt like a complete idiot, but I have never been tempted to assume or comment on anyone’s pregnancy since. Learned that lesson the hard way.
Another gaffe I remember clearly was a comment made to me by someone I didn’t even know. My mother had just passed away, and a friend had sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to my place of employment. As I was leaving work that evening, carrying the bouquet through the lobby, some guy called out to me ” Who died?” He apologized profusely when I responded “My mother;” I can’t imagine he has ever tried being funny
using that line again.
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Dave Barry’s rule, Anna, is you don’t say anything about a woman being pregnant unless you see actual baby parts dangling out of her.
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An excellent rule…
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… and never, ever ask “Who died?”
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and here I was thinking the Veep App might actually involve Mr. Romney soliciting the advice of the populace-silly me. I should have known it would be just another way to receive a decree from on high.
Most of my gaffes are just too embarassing to reveal here, sorry.
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i keep thinking that mort may actually be the first pres to die in the midst of an election race. what then does pawlenty take over or do you go back to number two in the run off? murk just seems to be looking like he is on deaths door. racoon eyes pale palor sweating at the temples like he is trying to keep us all form knowing he is ready to implode. bush look lame reading childrens stories on 9/11 may be one of mitchs good days. he would look like the guys coming out of the 35w bridge collapse compared to lost in the ozone w.
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I work in an industry where a lot of golf is played. Many years ago (in the decades), when I was a much younger pup, I was out with a client at Torrey Pines near San Diego. We were waiting for the pro to come give the client a little tour and so we were standing around idly near the front desk of the pro shop. There was a huge fish bowl full of ball markers; I picked one up and said “if you stick these on the golf ball, doesn’t it make it fly funny?” Luckily this was a client who appreciated my other areas of expertise and forgave me my golf ignorance.
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Here’s a writen gaffe I love: Many years ago in a school building that no longer stands, my principal had a document on her desk that needed to be sent to the superintendent’s office. Before doing so she managed to spill a little of her coffee on it. The note she attached read, “Sorry about the stain. I got laid on my desk.”
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Ha ha ha!
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That’s a winner!
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bet she remembered to move the coffee next time
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I have done a lot of dumb stuff but I don’t think I’m inclined to gaffes where I’ve said the wrong thing. It was probably a gaffe when I asked Harry Truman why he bombed Nagasaki instead of an unoccupied atoll. I didn’t mean to be a smartass, but the little guy from Missouri thought I was and he had a spectacular meltdown that made it obvious I had pushed one of his buttons.
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Totall OT, but I’ve had an interesting morning. My roommate went out for an early walk and found a baby squirrel on the sidewalk. There were crows lurking close by, so when she realized he was alive she brought him home rather than wait for the parents to reclaim him (we nicknamed him Harry Potter, the Squirrel Who Lived). When I got up, she told me we had a visitor, and while I was looking around for yet another bat or wasp she opened a shoebox to show me this tiny fetal creature. He was pretty lively and vocal for having been possibly snatched from his nest and then dropped on the pavement–or maybe because, who knows? She got some hydrating solution (salt and sugar in water) into him, and we got him warmed up with an impromptu hot water bottle–abandoned baby animals usually die of hypothermia rather than hunger–then took him to the wildlife rehab center in Roseville. If he survives the first 24 hours he’ll probably be okay, so we plan to email for an update in a day or two. Only one of the cats even noticed anything was going on, much less that there was a prey animal in the house; she was far more interested in the fringe of the scarf Roommate had lined his box with. Mighty hunters, our cats are!
Also, for those of a traditional cast of mind, happy Lughnasadh!
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Aaaah, the Wildlife Rehab Center… we know it well!
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My family rescued a squirrel of similar size. Nutsy survived his first days indoors on a diet of oatmeal. He did well until he bit my father’s thumb, and that got him the old heave-ho (up an oak tree in a park).
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Steve, apparently your squirrel not only survived, but thrived.
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Ha! Gotta wonder how you found this!
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Gotta be Nutsy. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
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ROTFLOLAWM!
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happy lughnasadh to you. i saw the apples are realy red early by my work. made my mouth water this morning. honorin the lughmeister, making apples….
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I’m the gaffe-master of all times. Which is to say that I’ve too often said out loud what others are only thinking. At age 6, the insurance adjuster was standing with my dad by his Cadillac convertible, assessing the long tear on its canvas roof. He turned to me, asking, “Little girl, do you know how this tear got here?”, to which I offered, “Oh yeah – my daddy took a knife and put it there!”
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Cb, I wouldn’t count that as a gaffe if it was the truth, but it probably didn’t make your dad very happy.
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Milt Romney! Hoooot! You’ve got us Fisheries types laughing our fins off, Dale!
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MIG said her gaffes were too embarrassing to reveal. I think this one is, too, but I think this Baboons are a forgiving bunch.
During or shortly after college, I went to visit a friend (C). Her husband (J) had recently shaved his ever-present mustache. C’s comment (prepare for possibly un-PC words here) was, “I wanted him to shave it so i could see if he had a hare-lip under there”. It was supposed to be funny, I think. I must have thought the comment at least interesting if not funny because after my trip to see C & J, I went to see a mutual friend (S). I told S what C had said and then realized that, in the conversation with us was another person whose roommate and good friend did, in fact, have a cleft palate.
I have felt crummy about it ever since.
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As tim’s said above, that’s life, you don’t get to press the replay button once it’s out of your mouth. You learned something that moment, Lisa and I’m sure you’re long since forgiven.
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or heck the worlds full of people and you dont have room in your life for all of em anyhow, heck with em if they cant take a jole
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Two stories: When I was a little girl – I think about two – my dad was a groomsman in my uncle’s wedding. I have been told that I said (rather loudly) “I don’t WANT my daddy to get married.” You can imagine it caused a little bit of a stir.
Then once upon a time I was at a company golf outing. The manager of my group loved golf and had color coordinated golf clothes – yellow shirt, yellow pants, yellow shoes, yellow hat. A woman I know (I was so glad it wasn’t me!) asked him, “Are your balls yellow, too?”
That could have been in some sort of app, for sure!
As to any gaffes I might have made more recently, you’ll have to ask the eighth graders I teach. Their memories are much better than mine for things like that!
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Funny – makes me remember a time I was cooking at The Ole Store in Northfield. The owner of the grocery store/butcher shop/restaurant would often bring us items from the butcher shop that weren’t bad yet but hadn’t sold and needed to get cooked. One day he brought over a big piece of lamb that needed to become something soon. My friend and I were throwing ideas around for all the things we could make from this lamb and I tossed off “spaghetti and lamb balls” — honestly it wasn’t until the words were out of my mouth that I realized what I was saying!
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johnny carson had arnold palmers wife on the show and she said that before a match she would kiss her husbands balls for good luck. bet that makes his putter go straight was johnny’s response.
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A gaffe aND A LAUGH
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Evening- Raining here!
A long time ago, when I was but a wee, innocent lad… at a theater party, one of the ladies that ran the theater had a bottle of wine but no cork-screw. We discussed various ways of getting the cork out including possibly threading a screw into the cork, then pulling it out with pliers.
We both got distracted with other things and then later when I suddenly remembered the wine bottle, I walked up and asked her “Did you want a screw?”
I was so young. While I stared innocently at her, she raised one eyebrow and smiled a devilish smile until I realized what I had said. I’m sure I turned bright red and I ran from the room.
I’m over that now. And she doesn’t scare me anymore. And I also know you push the cork into the bottle in these situations.
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Good story! And a good description… I often feel that I used to be much younger and less careful with my mouth! Long ago and far away…
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the correct reply would have been “no but id love a galss of wine.”
cute story.
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