IZZY AND THE SNOT DRAGONS

IN THE NEWS NEWS
By Ted Colin
Hurricane Gilligan is really gaining strength in Lake Michigan and will soon hit the coast of Little Manitou Island. This will be the sixth hurricane to hit Little Manitou Island this season. The Skipper, The Millionaire, His Wife, The Movie Star, And The Rest, was all named Lake Michigan Hurricanes that struck poor Little Manitou Island. The animal called the Manitou is an endangered species here in Michigan although; there are millions of them in Canada. In fact, in Michigan the Manitou used to be Manithree but, soon they may become Maninone.

BUSINESS NEWS
By Tim Colin
The stock market has been fluctuating a lot lately so I’ve been going to the casino. Every Saturday morning I pick up beer cans out in back of the county building where the judges and officials park. I then turn in the cans at the gas station. Then I take my found money and head to the casino. I usually lose most of my money but, at the end of the day I have enough to buy something to eat. That is certainly better than putting your money into a 401k.

SPORTS I CARE ABOUT
By Tim Colin
Our local minor league baseball team, called the Beach Bums, has done really well this year and will most likely be in the playoffs. So good luck Beach Bums.

The Detroit Lions are currently playing a game resembling football so; I don’t want to jinx them by saying too much. I guess this year most of the players understand they were hired to play football and not dodge ball where when you have the ball you immediately try to throw the ball at your opponent and try to hit him with it. In dodge ball you of course have to stay well away from the ball if someone throws it at you. The lions have been the undisputed champions of dodge ball for several years. In addition to playing dodge ball well the lions have observed the rules to dodge ball in most of their games. For example, physical contact with the opposing team is illegal in dodge ball and the Lions defense has followed that rule quite well over the years. In the defense of past Lions teams perhaps, the players on the other teams had cooties. Well, like I said I don’t want to bring up past Lions teams in case it might jinx the current team. I do wish the Detroit Lions well this season.

PSYCHIC NEWS
IZZY AND THE SNOT DRAGONS
By Madam Mystic Misty Merkel
When you live in a trailer park like I do you come across all kinds of strange stuff like dead people, werewolves, vampires, killer snakes and space aliens. Other than what I just mentioned, people in trailer parks live pretty much normal lives. The one exception to that rule is the late Izzy Snotkowski.

Izzy is a local legend here in Northern Michigan. Back in the 1980’s he had a heavy metal band called Izzy and The Snot Dragons. Izzy’s band went on tour all over the world and opened for such bands as The Nooner Specialists and Telly Titus and The Sea Monkeys. In fact, Izzy had an awesome band and I went to see them several times. There was always something special in the air at his concerts. His music is said to have transformed many a young mind. I think that maybe my psychic abilities grew out of my experiences at his live concerts on the green in downtown Grelickville.

Now Izzy was not only a magical man when it came to heavy metal music but, he was also a biker. He was especially good at performing stunts at local fairs and backyard functions like birthdays, weddings and getting home from prison parties. One day back in 1989 my boyfriend (soon to be husband and former husband) got out of jail and his parents through him a big party on their farm. My boyfriend knew Izzy really well so Izzy was honored to perform a stunk on his bike at the party.

Izzy and my boyfriend went way back so Izzy decided to do something special for entertainment at the party. My boyfriend’s parents had a railroad track that went right across their farm and every evening at 8:15 p.m. a train would run through the farm. Izzy decided his trick would be to run his motorcycle up to the track and then jump on the track right in front of the train and run his motorcycle ahead of the train for a quarter of a mile and then jump his bike off the track before the train ran over him. Well, the stunt went badly from the get go for as soon as Izzy’s bike jumped onto the track the train hit him which turned Izzy and his Kawasaki into sushi.

That was the most tragic get out of jail party I had ever attended. It is ironic that the tragic end to poor Izzy foreshadowed the tragic end to the relationship that I and my boyfriend had for the day after the accident my boyfriend and I got married and we hated each other every single day afterwards. Just thinking about that man right now makes me want to break something and then call the cops.

Anyway, Izzy used to have a trailer over on lot nine. Because the trailer was haunted by Izzy’s ghost no one would rent it so, Izzy’s family burned it down one Halloween night and collected the insurance on it. The fire was blamed on a neighbor kid named Justin and Justin spent a few years in the pokey for it. It seems Justin was known in the neighborhood as the kid who liked to play with matches so everyone assumed that he was the arsonist who burned down Izzy’s trailer. This is a clear warning to all the kids out there that you should not be caught playing with matches or you’ll be blamed for burning something down.

What really sealed Justin’s fate was when the jury found out that Justin wet to bed. They assumed he was an arsonist since everyone knows that people wet to bed in an attempt to put out a fire they started in a dream. Playing with matches and bed wetting got Justin five years in Jackson penitentiary.

After the charred remains of Izzy’s trailer were hauled away someone else rented the lot and put a brand new trailer on it. It was not long before that trailer too was haunted so the owner and his family abandoned the trailer in the middle of the night. Several more trailers were tried out on lot nine but everyone moved out within a few weeks. Finally, the last trailer that was abandoned lies empty to this day. The only thing is that every night at midnight the entire trailer park can hear Izzy ripping through chords on his electric guitar like he did before he became a ground hamburger with Kawasaki shoestrings fries along side the railroad track.

In the trailer park we have come to view Izzy’s late night riffs as a sort of trailer park taps. It’s goodnight to the day and goodnight to all those old heavy metal bikers

OUTDOORS NEWS
By Mike Colin
The squirrels are plump this year and the old guys around town have really thick whiskers so it’s going to be a hard winter in Northern Michigan. The Lumberman’s Almanac predicts stuff is really going to get deep up here in Michigan. The head of the Back Forty Whisky Still Keepers Association said that he knows the upcoming winter will be long because when his still blew up last week he could not see his shadow. In fact, he couldn’t see anything until he came too after being in a coma for three days. The doctors said the still explosion didn’t cause the coma but it was what the guy drank before it exploded that caused him to pass out for three days.

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
By Gerrard
Well summer is over and it’s time to go back to school. My mom told me that it was time for me to go back to college and get a career. She said I should be out living above ground instead of in her basement. She even cut my allowance in half to try to get me to get serious about getting a “real life”. I told her I had lots of friends on Facebook and Myspace but, she said it was time I outgrew my Dungeons and Dragons stage of development and met some real people in the real world. I told her I watched Real World every week.

Well, I tried to enroll at the college but, all they had left was some culinary classes. I didn’t know what type of culinary class to take until I found one called Ginsu Knives for Ninja Warriors. That class sounded kind of cool but before it started I was told that the number of students was too great so I was cut from the enrollment.

Well, enough about my personal tragedy for I must now talk about the movies. Of course since my allowance has been cut in half I can’t go to the movies anymore so it is hard for me to comment on them. All I can do is comment on the trailers I see on TV. From the trailers all I can say is who are all those old guys playing heroes and why are they in better shape than I am?