I was telling my wife about a news story, can’t recall it now, about recent events concerning something vaguely important. The topic of the news item seemed timely, but now forever blanked irrelevant. Her response to the news story was, “baloney skins.” Thrown off guard by visions of commodity meat and Vienna sausages resulted in my nervous laughter. I realized then, everything we believe or think we know is unfounded, like mystery meat. To accept the truth in news stories or advertising for whatever stupid product or activity is a pointless exercise. A moot point concerning details about facts. The lack of credibility is stuck in a pile of baloney skins. You’d imagine that would slice everything up nicely? Not even close getting to the meat of the matter. The deepest cut is always the best.
I looked up the phrase “baloney skins.” I discovered what it means, sort of. The first definition was found in the Urban Dictionary. It states, “The cheapest tires you can get.” The second meaning was, “very large aureoles, commonly found on overweight women.” That was politically incorrect of them to print that one! Last, “the skin color that’s achieved through too much spray tanning on white people.” Now I was confused. My wife’s definition of baloney skins is bullshit. And bullshit is suitable as far as anything resembling daily news or advertisement goes.
Much like the flesh tone color of bologna in a long tube. Hit up your deli counterman to buy bologna by the whole chub, as opposed to pre-sliced rings by weight. Those skins around the edge of your bologna may be plastic. We're smoking the complete shebang today, so aim for around a three-pound entire chub of bologna. A healthy glow of baloney skin. It’s like a super-duper jumbo hot dog. Flashback to a prison meal, two slices of green baloney sandwich on Wonder white bread, a dollop of mayo, with a square slice of yellow plastic cheese on top. Mental note, avoid prison lunches.
Baloney skins and hot dogs fit right into the human brain’s concept of a meat eater’s existence. We are what we eat or what we think we’re eating is mere phony baloney. The Germans are expert makers and purveyors of stuffed meat sausage varieties. From bratwurst, knockwurst, weisswurst, it’s a meaty proposition. Germany boasts 1200 kinds of sausages, some argue 1500 different wurst varieties and includes not only sausages, but any type of smoked, cured, preserved, or processed meat stuffed into a synthetic bladder tube or traditional variety of animal’s intestines.
I give you the infamous meat clown (pictured above). Talk about your favorite baloney skin treat. It’s a roll of baloney embedded with smiley clown face. Children love to pluck out its eyes and mouth and munch them before wearing the grisly mask leftovers on their faces, in the manner of the American serial killer Ed Gein. He liked to dance around, mumbling prayers to Jesus under a full moon, while banging on a metal pot. He always performed the ritual naked, except for a skinned face flesh mask on his face, the sewn fashionable skin of some woman he admired. Watch out! It’s an American tradition.
I digress, while ingesting only the finest cuts of meat. Compliments of my local neighborhood butcher shop down by the abandoned strip mall. That location where nothing makes sense anyway and there’s never enough time left for information about the way to the final destination. Searching for the cheapest tires, meanwhile staring at all shapes of aureoles. In the waiting room at the spray tan salon, rifling through old magazines looking for pertinent news of the day. A holy bible in braille, a searchlight in the night. A way out of the madhouse cornball maze. Lost in the supermarket without a shopping cart. Up the lazy river of deceptive advertising promoting truthfulness in honest journalism.
You fell for the old switcheroo, phony baloney. Taking into account your merciful gods of futures and options, investing in pork belly stocks and sacred meat barrel market commodities. The buying and selling of meatless souls fluctuates between heaven's high prices and hell's misfortune. A place where hungry ghosts go for the good-news scoop, and the cheapest tire deals. Thank goodness we’re saved by money and born-again discounts. In the famous last words of Jesus Swartz, I call baloney skins.