Monthly Archives: November 2014

November 28, 2014 · 5:33 am

Missile Hidden In Blacktip Island Steeple

The Our Lady of Blacktip Cathedral steeple, shown tilted toward Havana, has the small Caribbean island’s residents up in arms.

The Our Lady of Blacktip Cathedral steeple, shown tilted toward Havana, has the small Caribbean island’s residents up in arms.

Documents leaked on the internet this week, revealing the Our Lady of Blacktip Cathedral’s steeple is a disguised United States tactical missile aimed at Cuba, have shocked residents of the small Caribbean island.

“To bring something like that to Blacktip, to keep it secret, it’s unconscionable,” said local activist Harry Pickett. “This is a 21st Century proxy war. Blacktip Island’s on the front line.

“And if our steeple’s aimed at Havana, what does Havana have aimed at us, the Morro Castle lighthouse?”

Conspiracy theories mushroomed last year when island residents noticed the steeple tilting and the cross rotating during a diplomatic spat between the Washington and Havana. The leaked documents give credence to those theories.

“People been talking about the hand of God moving the cross from time to time,” resident James Conlee said. “Now we know it’s not imagination, not superstition. That steeple does move. But it’s the hand of some guy named Vern doing the moving, and with a joystick.”

“This certainly solves the mystery of why those pasty-white repair men with short haircuts are always hanging out around the church,” government watchdog Wade Sloote said. “It wasn’t for spiritual guidance. It was for guidance systems.”

The revelation has fueled concern other Blacktip Island landmarks might also be hiding weaponry.

“That new cell tower leans a good bit,” local Dermott Bottoms said. “There’s cylinder-shaped coral heads on the reefs, too. And some of those casaurina pines the boobies nest in are awful missile-looking.”

The news, combined with revelations last February of fish-shaped surveillance drones on popular island scuba sites, has island business interests worried.

“First it was mechanical sergeant majors spooking divers. Now this,” Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort general manager Kay Valve said. “Our phone lines are jammed. Our guests are going ballistic.”

Meanwhile, the Caribbean island’s religious leaders are urging tolerance.

“It’s not like anyone’s fired the missile. The Americans are just storing it,” said the former-Reverend Jerrod Ephesians. “And they’re paying us out the wazoo in storage fees. It’s a windfall for the church, and for the local economy.

“Plus, last spring Cuba tried to invade Blacktip. It’s not like those Godless rat-bastards don’t have it coming,” Ephesians said. “This is an eye-for-an-eye, Old Testament sort of situation we have here. We’ve taught our hands to war and our fingers to fight. The Church Militant’s alive and well on Blacktip Island.”

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November 21, 2014 · 5:48 am

Blacktip Island Players to Stage Medieval Favorite

The Blacktip Island Community Players will perform a modern version of ‘The Somonyng of Everyman’ on a partially-submerged stage on the Caribbean Island’s west coast.

The Blacktip Island Community Players will perform a modern version of ‘The Somonyng of Everyman’ on a partially-submerged stage on the Caribbean Island’s west coast.

The Blacktip Island Community Players will perform the classic Medieval morality play ‘The Somonyng of Everyman’ November 21 – December 6 in their annual Fall Extravaganza.

“We felt ‘Everyman’ offered the perfect run-up to the December holidays,” said director Doris Blenny. “We made some slight changes to the original script to make it more relevant to our modern audience, though.

“The original had too much preaching and navel-gazing, so we tarted it up with a boat chase, a shootout and a stage-clearing sword fight finale.”

The characters have also been modernized.

“Death? Fellowship? Good Deeds? Who wants to watch that?” said Kay Valve, who plays the title character. “We substituted the Seven Deadly Sins to give it some zing.

“We made them island-specific Sins, too,” Valve said. “Sins we run into every day, a lot of times before lunch. Or breakfast.”

In addition to Valve as Everyman, the cast includes:

  • Alison Diesel as Sloth
  • Gage Hoase as Lust
  • Edwin Chub as Gossip
  • Wendy Beaufort as Rum
  • Lee Helm as Stupid Questions
  • Mallory LaTrode as Buffett
  • Clete Horn as Speedo

The play will be performed in its original Middle English.

“Aside from the plot and the characters, we wanted everything as authentic as possible,” Doris Blenny said. “We’ve had the cast studying Middle English language CDs for weeks.”

In a break with tradition, this year’s Extravaganza will be performed in the surf behind the former community playhouse.

“We had no choice,” Edwin Chub said. “The crowd burned the theater last year, and we’ve no money to rebuild the place. We managed to piece together bleachers on the beach, though. And performing in the sea does speak to our island heritage.”

Audience members are strongly encouraged to wear waterproof clothing as well as goggles or a scuba mask.

As ever, the production has been aided by local volunteers.

“We’re especially grateful to the school children who captured all the frigate birds for Gossip’s big entrance,” Mal LaTrode said.

Alcohol consumption is banned from the venue. Theater-goers will be given Breathalyzer tests prior to admission.

“They’ll find ways to sneak it in, though. They always do,” Blenny said. “That’s what sparked last fall’s ‘Tora, Tora, Tora!’ debacle. And the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ melee the year before that.

Background music will be provided by local country-western band Duck on a Junebug.

Proceeds from the play will go to Habitat for Humanity of Blacktip Island.

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November 14, 2014 · 5:19 am

Blacktip Island Bank Robbery Ends in High-Speed Chase

Dermott Bottoms’ photo of Blacktip Island’s bank robbers speeding past. (Photo courtesy Dermott Bottoms)

Dermott Bottoms’ photo of Blacktip Island’s bank robbers speeding past. (Photo courtesy Dermott Bottoms)

An armed robbery at the Blacktip Island Community Bank was foiled Thursday morning due to the quick action of several of the Caribbean island’s residents.

“They busted through the door in plastic ThunderCat masks, waving lionfish spears,” bank manager and teller Penny Argent said. “Said they’d gig me if I didn’t give them all the cash.

“We didn’t have any cash. We never do,” Argent said. “So Lion-O cocked a spear on me, cable-tied me to the desk while Tygra grabbed all our calendars and Cheetara snagged a big box of our promo ink pens. Then they tore out of here like someone set the dogs on them.”

Blacktip Island’s police constable was alerted after locals became suspicious of a speeding automobile.

“Seen that same car fly past three times, I knew something was up,” Dermott Bottoms said. “Me and James Conlee was outside the bank having a breakfast beer when we seen it go by. Then again. And again. That’s when we called Rafe.”

“The robbers were off-islanders who apparently didn’t realize Blacktip Island only has two roads,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “They went around the island three times before we realized it, then it took me four more laps to catch them.

“I might still be chasing them if they hadn’t taken a land crab claw to the left front tire. That crab’s the one deserves the accolades.”

No one other than the crab was hurt in the incident.

Authorities have not released the suspects’ names, though the police report noted numerous calendars, pens and three pole spears were recovered from the suspects’ car.

The robbery has community leaders are concerned.

“This goes to show Blacktip’s not a sleepy little island anymore,” outgoing mayor Jack Cobia said. “Folks are taking their keys out of their vehicles at night now. Some are even locking their house doors. It’s fearsome what this island’s coming to.”

Island business owners disagreed.

“The nervous nellies are overreacting to one isolated incident,” Eagle Ray Cove owner Rich Skerritt said. “That kind of talk’ll just scare away tourists, then where’ll we be? Tourism’s Blacktip Island’s biggest industry. Hell, it’s our only industry.”

Meanwhile, the bank assured account holders their saving are safe.

“We’ve installed security glass at the teller’s desk, and nets we can drop from the ceiling,” the bank’s Argent said. “The lobby floor’s also a trapdoor now, covering a big tank of lionfish. Any would-be robber dodges the nets, sploosh, they fall in and they’ll wish they’d never even thought about bank robbery.”

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November 7, 2014 · 5:42 am

Blacktip Island Launches Surveillance Satellite

Amateur photo of Conchnik 1’s Thursday night launch from Blacktip Island’s Spider Bight space port.

Amateur photo of Conchnik 1’s Thursday night launch from Blacktip Island’s Spider Bight space port.

The Tiperon Island Space Agency Thursday night launched its first low-Earth orbiting satellite, Cocnhnik 1, from Blacktip Island, making the Caribbean island nation the newest member of the world’s orbital launch-capable community.

“This sucker puts Blacktip, and the Tiperons, on the interstellar map,” said Rich Skerritt, owner of Skerritt Communications, one of the project’s underwriters. “Blacktip’s not an isolated backwater anymore. We’re flying with the big dogs now.

“Conchnik was locally designed and built, start to finish,” Skerritt said. “The solid rocket boosters were fueled with weapons-grade rum resin produced right here on Blacktip Island.”

Space agency officials promise Conchnik 1 will provide improved communications, weather forecasting and scuba dive site navigation.

Critics, however, questioned how the fledgling space program was funded and what other purposes Conchnik’s top-secret payload might used for.

“They launch some multi-billion dollar gizmo that’s five times the country’s yearly budget, and we’re supposed to believe they did it out of the goodness of their hearts?” local activist Ledford Waite said. “What kind of communication? And what kind of navigation?

“Who’s to say they’re not funneling all this data to the NSA for a fat paycheck? Or that the North Korea didn’t flat-out pay for this thing 100 percent?” Waite said. “It’s a spy satellite, plain and simple. Well, maybe not so simple – it is maintaining a low-Earth orbit. But that just proves my point.”

Government officials were quick to dispel those fears.

“Conchnik 1’s mission is purely scientific,” TISA spokesperson Dr. Azul Tang said via satellite phone from an astrophysics conference in Brazil. “Could it be used for surveillance? Sure. But in a public safety context. If someone gets robbed or murdered or lost on a dive site, this satellite will enable us to take appropriate action as soon as possible.

“Conchnik was financed by public donations,” Tang said. “School children held bake sales as part of their science curriculum. This criticism is unfounded and harmful top the community.”

Other community members had a more cynical view of the project.

“Skerritt’s a pirate, from a family of pirates, and Led Waite’s been co-opted,” local activist Harry Pickett said. “A satellite manufactured and launched from Blacktip Island? Seriously? There is no satellite. There never was. There’s just a crappy YouTube video.”

“They faked the project, and the launch, to drain the public purse. Everyone in on it’s living it up in South America by now. And with Led and his cronies protesting the so-called satellite, well, it gives credence to the scam.”

Those involved with the program disagreed.

“Conspiracy theories and rectums – everybody’s got one,” Rich Skerritt said. “How in the world could you fake something the whole island saw? These hippies are just worried we’ll be keeping tabs on them.”

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