Podunk – Too Small for Ambition, Too Stubborn to Disappear
In this Edition:
Shut The Gate Anti-Fracking Coalition
de Sade Smoothie Operator
Operation Defenestrate D. Mann
Run Him Out Of Town
French Home Invasion
Shut The Gate Anti-Fracking Coalition
Intrepid reporter, Mark D. Mann has been appointed to the Shut The Gate Anti-Fracking Coalition Strategy Committee. Mann was enlisted because of his media skills and work with government and industry whistleblowers, preparing their evidence for the Integrity Commission and generating hundreds of mainstream media stories.
Local Podunkian Milburn Drysdale was not happy that Mann was no longer taking orders from him and things began to get petty. The Drysadle’s grievances went something like this – Milburn would find something to complain about and enlist his wife Margaret to confront Mann about it. For example:
° When Mark D. Mann poured a glass of rare French wine, Margaret Drysdale complained that Milburn said the glass wasn’t big enough.
° When Mann invited Milburn for dinner at the Podunk Bar & Grill, Milburn spent the entire time on the phone.
° When Mann sat down for dinner with Milburn, Margaret complained Mann inadvertently sat in Milburn’s seat. (Who knew that Milburn had dibs on that chair?)
Add these atrocities to the already odious crime of blocking Gigi La Grange on social media, and the Drysdales had every reason they needed to destroy Mann’s life, run him out of his home and out of town.
Things were getting petty and weird, and were about to get much weirder in Podunk.
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Margaret Drysdale … de Sade Smoothie Operator
Intrepid reporter, Mark D. Mann was in Podunk attending to some business and called Milburn Drysdale, who invited him to stay the night at his mansion on the banks of the Podunk River. The night seemed to go well, and as everyone was going to bed, Margaret Drysdale offered Mann a smoothie nightcap.
About 2am the tummy rumbles started and Mann spent most of the night on the lavatory dealing with a very runny poo.
Later in the morning, Milburn and Mann concluded their business, and Mann got ready to leave to go back to look after his dying aunt in the city. Margaret offered Mann another smoothie and waved goodbye.
By the time Mann got to the Ten Mile Truck Stop, the tummy rumbles started again, and Mann had to make an emergency pit stop. This was much worse than the previous night, and Mann spent the next ten hours unable to venture more than a few steps away from the truck stop lavatory.
About 2am, finally Mann arrived in the city to find his aunt on the floor of the bathroom. Emergency services were called and so began the procedure for a hip replacement operation. Aunt Heather never fully recovered and died not long afterwards.
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Operation Defenestrate D. Mann
This week, intrepid reporter Mark D. Mann was crossing on a pedestrian zebra strip in town, when he heard a car approaching. Instead of braking, she hit the accelerator.
If Mann hadn’t stopped walking, she would have hit him. As it was, she missed him by 20cm. Repeating, if Mark D. Mann hadn’t stopped walking across the road, she would have hit him.
The woman drove down the street to the post office, parked, got out and did her business in the post office. As it so happened, that’s where Mann was going. When she came out, he was walking in.
She exclaimed “I didn’t see you!”
“Yeah. Right” was his reply.
“I DIDN’T SEE YOU” she yelled.
“Lucky I wasn’t a school kid then,” Mann replied.
Mark D. Mann has never seen the woman before, and didn’t know who she was. She was dressed in tghe hippie clothing favored by the denizens of the Grubby Gossip Shoppe. Perhaps it was just a random coincidence.
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The residents of Podunk are queuing up to swap a month’s salary for the device. … contact Coach Doctor Woo McHealy
Run him out of town
Walking into Podunk, Mark D. Mann noticed two men glaring at him, pointing at him and whispering. The older man seemed angry as he relayed some gossip to the younger bean pole who became enraged. Mark D. Mann crossed the street at the pedestrian crossing, only to see the younger man run across ahead of him.
In what felt like a scene during the shoot out at the Not OK Corral, the young skinny streak of misery came running towards Mann, shoulder down ready to ram our intrepid reporter. The main thought going through Mann’s head was “how am I going to get out of this without hurting this clown?”
At the last nano-second, Mann turned sideways and the fool went whooshing past. There were plenty of witnesses around, so Mann continued walking to his destination without looking back. The young fellow followed behind, but was ignored completely and the situation diffused.
Mann had never seen these two men before but he now knows them as Roger Vanman, the elder man who has a white van covered in protest stickers, and the argy-bargy boi is Rob Sillicar, a former heroin addict who drives an old shit brown Celica.
Other car boys that have joined this mechaphilia gang are Chris Amsterdam Roadster, a silly old fool who drives a BMW two-seater thinking he’ll score a sugar baby, and Bongo, the drummer boi trying to score brownie points by helping the feminazi run people out of their homes.
Given the recent outbreak of strange behaviour, the Podunk Weekly Bugle these details, just in case things escalate in the future.
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French Home Invasion
The residents of Podunk didn’t realise that Frenchman L’Strange Le Petomane did drugs until one day, he walked into town, sober. Divorced from his family after telling his daughter that if she was ever raped, lay back and enjoy it. L’Strange Le Petomane did drugs. A lot of drugs.
Le Petomane, a member of the Podunk River Water Action Group and resident of Triple Peaks in the mountains above Podunk, discovered that Mark D. Mann was doing the media for national environment group Stop the Gas Wells so he started calling in to tell him how to do it.
“You put in the newspaper that the government is corrupt,” he instructed in his thick French accent. “Right, I’m on it,” Mark replied, “Good idea”.
Boom, boom on the door a few days later, and Mark answered “L’Strange, you’re going to have to phone before you call in. You’ve just destroyed three hours work. I’m fifteen minutes off deadline, have three paragraphs to write, and there’s no way I’m going to get back in the zone now to finish that”.
Indignant, L’Strange said, in his best French brogue, “I go wherever I want!”
“No you don’t L’Strange, this is where I live and work. This is important, please ring before you come around,” Mann replied. “I go wherever I want!” repeated, only louder.
Two day later, there was a loud boom, boom on the front door. This particularly day was 107° stinking hot and Mann was in bed asleep after working all night in the cool so he could sleep away from the heat.
Boom, boom on the side door. By this time, Mann was awake and running around the bedroom looking for something to put on, thinking he was being raided. Boom, boom, boom on the back door, loudly trying every door handle to get in.
Finally, the intruder found the seventh door unlocked and was coming in as Mann was coming out of his bedroom, pulling up his shorts.
“Arrrr!” yelled L’Strange. “Arrrr!” yelled Mann. L’Strange ran away, not to be seen for ages.
L’Strange Le Petomane was one of the first people he met when he moved to Podunk. Him and Margaret Drysdale. It is strange how L’Strange took a sudden interest in Mann’s media work and refused a simple request to phone before coming around.
Letters from Podunk to the Editor
Dear Editor,
I was only being nice to Mark D. Mann because I wanted him to work for my husband – Margaret Drysdale, social engineer and owner, Grubby Gossip Shoppe.
“I should be on that group. Why wasn’t I appointed? Mann takes over everything!” – Milburn Drysdale, Not Happy in Podunk Creek.
Send your Letter to the Editor in the comment section, below.
Legal threats to our legal team: Max Payne, Kane & Hurt, attn: Will Lynch.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidentalish.
Editorial Conference
Mark D. Mann and the editor of the Podunk Weekly Bugle, Paige Turner, discussed the weekly column:
“Hew Dutton just added me to the National Stop Gas Group – he didn’t even ask me. It had nothing to do with the local campaign to stop the gas wells. It was because I was working with the interstate government whistleblower who first alerted us to the perils of fracking, helping her prepare her evidence for her Integrity Commission hearing. We’re generating a lot of national media coverage and that’s what is needed right now.” Mark D. Mann said to Paige Turner, editor of the Podunk Weekly Bugle.
Paige: “Your stories, Mark!”
Mann: “This is true, every word. All these stories actually happened.” (except for this section of the Bugle, which is called a literary device, as the voice of reason)
Paige: “Do you think that the Drysdales …?”
Mann: “… put laxative in the smoothie? I can’t prove it, obviously, all I can do is report the facts and let others decide. She and I know what she did, and that’s all that matters to me.
I had my doubts when it first happened. The next time I saw Mrs Drysdale was a few weeks later on the street, and I started a normal, pleasant conversation.
Suddenly, she glared at me and said ‘The only reason that I’m being nice to you is that I want you to work on coal seam gas’ with her husband.
That’s when I knew. That’s when everything that had been happening to me suddenly fell into place … people that I don’t know pointing me out on the street and saying “See that man there? Everyone here hates him.” People acting strangely and being very nasty.
All I can do is state the facts, and then let people decide if they hate me because of something that I’ve actually done, or if they’ve been told to hate me. Or they’ve heard some story about me being a violent, abusive, sex predator, use roofies, and a rapist. I’ve had a bloke come to my house threatening to kill me, calling me a pedophile. It sounds like they’re obsessed with sex crimes.”
Paige: “Why is she doing this?”
Mann: “I blocked her friend, La Grange, on social media. That’s all”.
Paige: “Faark!”
Podunk Weekly Bugle Archive
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.1 – Introduction. Our first edition, now a collectors item.
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.2 – Coach Doctor Woo McHealy’s Magical Mood Making Machine / Mount Podunk Fire Brigade Weekly Meeting / Bach Flower Magic Drops Treat Cancer / “Soup Kitchen Must Close” / The Evils of Capitalism / Dean Péters Accused of Rape
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.3 – Whinger Starts a Rumour / Podunk River Water Action Group AGM / Sonny Steptoe & wife divorce / “Give me all your money!”
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.4 – Council Elections Next Month / Donna Cabab and The Italian Job / Drysdale’s Birthday Ambush / Leeanne Gilfred Debuts Her New ‘do / Egg Shortage as Chickens Stop Laying / Podunk Arts Collective Meeting
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No. 5 – Podunk Council Election – Meet the Candidates / Donna Cabab, Milburn Drysdale, Maharishi Parwal, Marge Timberlain
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.6 – Podunk Council Election – Meet the Candidates / Dee Bollocks / Anne Dryst / Péter Popoff / Dean East
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.7 – Save The Old Pool – Podunk Divided / One question, please / Popoff & the Art of Litigation / Massive earthquake hits Podunk
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.8 – Mayor Easy Ride to Victory / Podunk Council Election Results / Steptoe and the Misplaced Antiques Consignment / Podunk Fire Brigade Election
Podunk Weekly Bugle Vol.1 No.9 – YOU ARE HERE – Shut The Gate Anti-Fracking Coalition / de Sade Smoothie Operator / Operation Defenestrate D. Mann / Run Him Out Of Town / French Home Invasion
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