Barbwire by Barbano: Love letters from Miss Priscilla Goodbody

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ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

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   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
   Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
   Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows...
Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

— Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016

By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island.
— Leon Russell, 1942-2016

Love letters from Miss Priscilla Goodbody
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-12-2023 / Expansions in blue.

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The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.

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When we're really embarrassed, we just invent a list.

You've probably heard politicians or economic development boosters smugly assert that "Las Vegas has more churches per capita," a frequent trope whenever anyone questions our morality.

I once tried to find out "more churches per capita than where?" No one could complete the non-comparison. It was just bogus PR spin from tourism promotional types trying to paint Gomorrah South as a family attraction.

I guess the point is we're better than nothing.

We just cannot avoid trying to portray ourselves and something we ain't.

Last week, I saw a news report about the mass exodus of Californians heading to Texas, Florida, Idaho and "no-tax Nevada."

Huh?

Fun spin but a full-blown lie. Nevada may not officially have a state income tax but we make up for it with hidden levies, often called "fees," and high sales taxes which brutalize those of lower income.

Such grinding policies spawn paucity and poverty, leaving schools, health care, parks, roads, first responders and so many other community needs to go begging.

We cannot be far from disc jockeys again sponsoring "fill your favorite pot hole" contests.

I got my first Nevada drivers license in 1969 in a 12-wide mobile home out in a barren Las Vegas field. All I had to do was turn in my fancy full-color laminated California i.d. for a hand-typed piece of heavy paper. No test, no nothing. I dared ask why.

"We've grown so fast that we haven't enacted laws that have been on the books in other states for decades," responded a wise but harried DMV lady.

At a 1981 legislative hearing, the immortal Sen. Ken Redelsperger, R-Pahrump, accidentally uttered unchallengeable wisdom for the ages: "We don't want to be the first to do something."

Not to worry.

For longer than I can remember, I have advised that if you have substantial income, especially without children, you will do real good in these parts. If you don't fit that description and belong to the lower 80 percent, especially with kids, go somewhere else.

Which brings me to the unchallengeable wisdom of a now world-famous everyman named Adam Steelmon who has paid for a Nevada vanity auto license plate for two decades. It reads "GOBK2CA" (Go back to California).

He should get a medal for truth in advertising as his story has gone viral, another public relations coup for the Silver State.

Alas and alack, this poor lout has seen his license plate revoked by DMV censors working for Miss Priscilla Goodbody (see below). Mr. Steelmon has appealed his case.

He told media types that he has only received one negative comment in all those years. Law enforcement officers from Nevada to Texas have pulled him over to say they like his plate.

Unfortunately, as a carpenter from Galilee once opined, a prophet is without honor in his own country.

Legendary Tonight Show host Johnny Carson termed network censors as "Miss Priscilla Goodbody," a proper puritan appellation if ever there was one. She has apparently expanded her enterprise to upgrade Nevada's moral climate.

Carson liked to ridicule the fact that people in commercials could hold up a beer but could not be shown drinking it on camera. Although that's now permissible in this increasingly libertine age, beer advertisers still stick to the old Television Code prohibition.

I remember one spot wherein NBA hall-of-famer Bill Russell held up a brew followed by a thunderous lightning strike. The camera then returned to a smiling Russell holding a less-than full glass. He would still go thirsty today.

So Mr. Steelmon must defend his creativity before our righteous protectors of the public welfare.

At least he's been paying good money to the state for the privilege, which is more than I can say for Nevada's ever-expanding list of corporate welfare queens who are lightly taxed when taxed at all.

So you be the judge. Is "GOBK2CA" any more lewd and lascivious than BUTY, BANGLA, DOBY, DRTBAGG, 69DROP, DOUCME, KRACKO or RNECK, all of which Ms. Goodbody OK'd?

She approved BUCK UP despite objections. The Reno Rodeo Assn. might agree, given their recent "Buckin' Good Time" ad campaign. How RNECK.

Somebody even complained about AFM, probably an application from a member of the American Federation of Musicians union. At least that one survived.

ADVICE TO FUTURE APPLICANTS: Avoid the letter "F" no matter what. Ditto anything remotely drug-related, including marijuana, legal or not.

However, KGRAM somehow got thru the dirty minded and drug-phobic process.

Must have caught Ms. Goodbody in a rare good mood. Perhaps she's lightening up in her old age. Or perhaps lighting up?

GET USED TO IT. License plate abbreviations have become epidemic in the cyberworld of LOL, BFF and OMG. So what does it matter that legions of school kids from LA to New York City can't read?

I can't communicate on a glorified postage stamp-sized TV screen. I'm still hung up on an archaic form called complete sentences. People who think like me are dinosaurs.

Given the evidence on the record, we are going back to the future. Text and license plate abbreviations are already obsolete as we increasingly use the latter day equivalent of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Only today, we call them emojis.

Who needs words when you can just look at the pictures?

All I can add is WTF!

Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

True Confession: I drink Bud Light
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-5-2023 / Expansions in blue.

Thank you all for coming to this meeting, fellow political junkies.

My name is Andrew and I drink Bud Light.

It all started with Hollywood superstar Paul Newman. Although I did a little work for his Budweiser Lightning CanAm racing team back in my motorsports days, my most recent encounter occurred much closer to home.

My refrigerator, actually.

I keep a couple of pizzas in the freezer to consult whenever temptation visits. I always buy Newman's Own.

Even though they cost more, all profits go to charity. The late Mr. Newman's foundation long ago eclipsed $100 million to non-profit organizations.

Even though he died in 2008 ("Paul Newman: Driven Star" Barbwire 9-28-2008), his image still sells very well.

I once had a major New York ad agency fly their chief counsel to Reno to negotiate a Newman racing sponsorship for one of their big time clients. They offered a laughable amount.

"Paul's getting $3 million a picture," his racing partner chuckled when I told him about it.

The most successful movie star since WW2 was not only a good race driver, he was also pretty stylish in the kitchen. His salad dressings were so popular that he started making batches in his Connecticut garage to give to friends.

Pretty soon, they were in grocery stores, then started what is known in the trade as brand extensions. Hence my pizzas and other products.

And so it came to pass late one night last week that I needed a pizza, a desire soon assuaged by firing up a Newman's Own Stone Fired Quattro Formaggi (four cheese) beauty.

And then the humour descended upon me: I needed a beer to go with it. There, in the back of my fridge, was a lonely Bud Light, perfect for the occasion.

Alas and alack, moonhowlers have toppled Bud Light from its well-deserved number one ranking after more than two decades. Thanks to their unpatriotic efforts, a foreign import now rules.

About three months ago, a transgender podcaster named Dylan Mulvaney posted a Bud Light promotional video. Trolls pounced.

Anheuser-Busch had even given Mulvaney a can of Bud Light with her picture on it. String her up!

I have not read any of their viral infections and do not intend to do so.

The results of the insults speak for themselves. Apparently there were a lot of manhood-challenged Bud Light drinkers who possessed loyalty worthy of a pre-teen Donald Trump. (I pity their wives.)

Two Bud marketing execs who had OK'd the Mulvaney influencer video are now on "administrative leave," the term normally applied to cops who shot somebody.

Brand loyalty and sports team affinity is as fickle as teenage crushes.

Wanting to belong remains an innate human tribal desire. Why else would anyone put hyper-expensive Las Vegas Raiders tickets on a high interest credit card to watch guys beat on each other when they need binoculars to see which of the little ants down on the field is which?

But hey, you've bought your way into the tribe which gathers on the parking lot, all wearing expensive Raiders paraphernalia to partake of the body and blood of their gods (hot dogs and beer) before venturing several miles into the holy of holies.

If the Bud bosses had been paying me, I would have risked my job advising them to rise above the bigotry.

Look how Nike hugely benefited as the only corporate sponsor to stand with former UNR/49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he protested America's endemic racism.

Oh, I forgot, we no longer have a racism problem. Gov. Ron DeSatanist told me so. And that pillar of civic virtue, Clarence Thomas, even coined the term "racialism" because racism no longer exists.

Wiseman George Carlin once advised to beware when they start adding syllables.

Shell shock became combat fatigue, he groused. Over the decades, it morphed into traumatic stress syndrome and is now post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Shell shock" perfectly described the damage done to soldiers who've undergone such suffering, Carlin said. Now, we have bloodless "PTSD."

George Carlin lost his lucrative Gomorrah South gigs when he stopped doing the Hippy Dippy Weatherman and held up a mirror to America. He prospered, as did Nike.

Bud's bosses, not so much.

Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth turned into a waffle maker on "CBS Mornings."

"There's a big social conversation taking place right now and big brands are right in the middle of it...not just our industry or Bud Light," he mumbled, adding "What we need to understand is, deeply understand and appreciate, is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands."

How about balls? Macho woman bashers understand brass balls. They don't appreciate soggy soothing suits.

All this reminds me of Schlitz. Ever heard of them? Back in the mid-1970s, Schlitz was the world's largest brewery.

I had several beers with one of their execs in Honolulu in 1974. He was there in advance of their national convention. I tried to use the connection to get a future gathering in northern Nevada but soon confronted the awful truth: We didn't have enough hotel rooms to handle the action.

Not long thereafter, the owning family's corporate CEO, Henry Uihlein, died of cancer. The rudderless company went sideways.

Somebody tinkered with the ingredients of the flagship brand.

One batch was so modified that when poured, it wouldn't create a "head" of foam, which is useless. The 1970s equivalent of trolls went to work. Competitors planted the word that Schlitz was selling (gasp) "green beer." Zounds.

Beer does not need aging or foam, but brewers add ingredients just like detergent marketers. Housewives were used to soap creating bubbles. Detergents, which were much more efficient, didn't do so. But bubbles told housewives that the detergent was working. So they add bubble chemicals to this very day, as do brewers.

It's all a marketing mirage like the beer-broads-bras-macho mystique. I know a Sparks businessman who used to smoke. One day, he was out of Camels. A woman offered him a Virginia Slim, a brand targeted to addict women with flowers on the tall thin packaging.

My Sparks friend recoiled, refusing to put a "Vagina Slime" into his mouth. That's marketing and salesmanship, baby.

Cigarettes and beer are both drug delivery systems. The only real differences are illusions created by the advertising department. Kinda like with politicians.

For me, I will remain a good Christian and enjoy my vices in moderation. An occasional Paul Newman pizza with one Bud Light.

I'm an old marketing and advertising dinosaur, immunized against spin.

Have a Bud Light.

Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet.

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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?

From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.

The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)

The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
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Andrew Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

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