Asheville Food Not Bombs blamed for latest homeless ordinance
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PRITCHARD PARK, SATURDAY — Running low on food due to a drop in contributions, the local nonprofit group “Asheville Food Not Bombs” has been forced in recent weekends to distribute bombs to homeless people in Pritchard Park.
“As our charter states, we overwhelmingly prefer to distribute food to the homeless,” said a spokesperson for the group. “However, our stock of donated food is reaching dangerously low levels and we have been forced to distribute some bombs to make up for the shortage.”
Though their work is greatly respected by most in the community, some downtown merchants are complaining that the weekly assembly of bomb-wielding homeless people is adversely affecting business.
“I have to dedicate one of my hostesses to laying down heavy suppressing fire while my other hostess ferries unarmed civilians below the fire-line into my restaurant,” said one downtown business owner.
Others contend that the nonprofit is just facilitating the underlying causes of homelessness.
“When you just give away free bombs to the disenfranchised, they have nothing else to work toward, ” said one shopper downtown while hiding behind a lamp pole. “You take away their motivation.”
A press release from another Pritchard Park organization, “Booze Not Food or Bombs,” says that it too is facing severe shortages that might force the group to distribute mouthwash or vanilla extract, “unless some of you start coming off that spare change already.”
Writers’ Workshop closed after author severs arm on table saw
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ASHEVILLE, MONDAY — It can happen to even the most well meaning writers — one minute, you’re tinkering around in the writers workshop and then suddenly, you’ve burned your own face beyond recognition.
Writers workshops are the backdrop of over 3,000 serious injuries each year, statistically placing them between Alaskan fish canneries and crystal meth kitchens for the number of injuries per capita.
“We had a poet, too proud to ask for help, who went reaching for a metaphor last year and hit his own damn foot with the nail gun,” said Writers Workshop of Asheville director Stephen Faraca. “For the first few months they come in here, we tether new writers to each other in case one of them slips and falls out of the rafters.”
Unfortunately, struggling short story writer David McAllister hadn’t totally familiarized himself with the hazards of Asheville’s Writers Workshop, creating a dangerous environment for himself and everyone nearby.
“He went to use the industrial log-splitter and leaned a stretch of awkward sentence structure against a live fuse box, damn near killing everybody,” Faraca said. “Thank God he only sawed his arm off.”
Last week, we incorrectly reported that the Asheville Film Festival will be bestowing its Lifetime Achievement Award upon screen legend Jimmy Baio for his work in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training. The recipient of the coveted honor will actually be Bobby Di Cicco (Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence). We apologize for this error.
Dear Arnold,
I caught my 10-year-old watching horrible porn on his computer. I’m mortified and worried about the effect this will have on his psyche. What should I do?
– Anne
Dear Anne,
You should be concerned. Horrible porn can really damage a child. If they show too much guy and not enough girl, it really messes with your head. Now I’m not too smart about computers, but this guy I know keeps telling me to go visit something called big booty lovers dot org. I keep asking him — what the hell is an org?
Will you be my friend? Loving home needed for adorable six-month-old kitten. I love children but hate toddlers. Also pre-teens. I’m a regular purr-box! I’m fixed, so what is it I’m spraying everywhere? Pick me, pal!
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Don’t leave me alone too long with the elderly, as I have sucked the breath out of two already. They call me Mr. Kisses!
I’m litter box trained, but it’s a moot point since my poop never clears my rear-quarter fur clumps. My breath smells like hot feathery baby-bird death. I like lots of little kisses on my whiskers!
Keeping me off of food-preparation surfaces is like trying to keep the rain out of a river. I’m super playful! Catnip brings out a real dark, ugly side of me.
I’ve completed kitty-chemo for feline leukemia but don’t worry — I come with a specially designed body-wig made of donated clippings from Barb’s Brazilian- Hot-Wax Shack. I love cuddles!
I see dead people and, judging from by reactions, you’ll know that death is a never-ending hell. Take me home, buddy!
PUBLIC SERVICE
Mumpower releases more specific criteria of desired homeless photos
Not entirely satisfied with submissions he has received from the public thus far, City Council member Carl Mumpower has issued a new set of detailed guidelines for his initiative to collect photographs of homeless people in Asheville.
According to his press release, any citizen-submitted photograph of the local homeless population should include the following:
• Morally reprehensible acts caught on film should be colored with a hot sense of desperation, like they would do anything for a little bit of nasty money.
• Dribbles of soup running down homeless cleavage.
• Stockinged feet prominently featured in picture.
• Middle-aged homeless women in sexy domestic situations, i.e. bending over shopping cart or cleaning infected wounds.
• Suggested scenarios include young runaways smoking crack for the first time while being spied on by a whitecollar, well-dressed middle-aged voyeur who is pleasuring himself in a Miata.
• Homeless people engaging in antisocial behavior, such as aggressively taking unsolicited photographs of passers-by.
• Public urination on a glass coffee table with a psychologist-looking person lying beneath it looking up, with homeless stockinged feet on either side of his head.
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