Anyone who's swung by lately has noticed the large dumpster alongside the curb in front of Casa de Clockwork, the Andy Gump outhouse just on the other side of the back fence, the dueling radios wafting Bill O'Reilly from the contractor's truck parked out front and mariachi music from his crew's little portable out back. Damn, you must be thinking, those do constitute improvements at that fleabag Clock flophouse. But, no, those aren't the actual improvements; those are just some of the bonuses that come with a residential remodel. (For a real treat, might we suggest the soothing sounds of stucco being chiseled from the wall separating your bed head from the backyard.) Once it's all said and done–if it's ever said and done–there will just be more room for this Cranky Chronometer to clutter up with shit, and if you suspect we stole that comedic thread from George Carlin, you win the pony. But after the dumpster has been hauled away, after Mr. Gump comes to collect his shittery, after O'Reilly's done yammering in our front yard and the workers are “ai-yi-yiiii'ing” to tunes in someone else's backyard, we will be left with a larger home, a larger mortgage payment and the same sucky front yard. Fortunately, a product has come along to spruce up the landscape as much as the rest of the abode. It's Athen, Ohio, resident Sam Girton's new and improved George W. Bushgnome 2.0. Picture Pappa Smurf without the white beard and with Dubya's mug, and you've got Sam Girton's new and improved George W. Bushgnome 2.0. The 10-inch ceramic yard gnomes come in “traditional” gnome attire (where do you get that? Gnome Depot? Yuk-yuk! We'll be here all week…), or they can be spiffed out in stars and stripes or military camouflage (what, no Mission Accomplished flight suit?). They retail for $29.95 each and can be ordered at www.bushgnome.com. According to Girton, half his customers are Bush haters and half are Bush lovers. Who knew it'd take a gnome to bring this great divided land together again?
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.