'Puter's Travelogue: America's Great Lakes

'Puter and Czar attended Lake Suuperior's Walleye
Festival last February. The young woman pictures
was the deckhand assigned to our boat.  Czar insists
he has never seen a woman more at ease handling
24" of aquatic fury impaled at the sharp end
of a six foot gaff.

As followers of our Twitter feed know, 'Puter has traveled extensively throughout the Great Lakes Region. By "traveled extensively," 'Puter means he has stumbled from the Castle's portcullis to the Leaping Peacock's adamantine-topped bar and back countless times. Since many of you will never have the opportunity to visit the Great Lakes Region, 'Puter has decided to share his vast storehouse of knowledge with you, the unworthy reader.

For those of you not up to date on your geography, which judging by his Twitter feed, 'Puter assumes is most of America, there are these bodies of water that are really, really big and full of fish and stuff. The Great Lakes are bordered on the North by Tuktuyaaqtuuq (literally, "it looks like a caribou"), Inuvit Region, Northwest Territories, Canada and on the South by Perth, Western Australia, Australia. The Great Lakes Region's eastern border lies near Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, while its western border cuts directly through Greenwich, England. Ignorant people refer to this western border as the "Prime Meridian," but those in the know call it by its Great Lakes sobriquet "Brenda."

Before traveling to the Great Lakes , the savvy traveler learns the names, locations and some pertinent facts about each of the Great Lakes, so as to avoid offending the natives, or worse, embarrassing one's self. Here's a primer for the first-time visitor to the Great Lakes region.

There are about six Great Lakes, give or take: Gitche Gummee; America's Aquatic Wang (not to be confused with Florida, America's Terrestrial Wang); Two or Three Lakes Named After Indian Tribes GM Didn't Name Cars After; Emerson, Lake (and Palmer); Baikal; and Ricki.



The results of Czar's ill-advised kayaking
expedition on Gitche Gummee

·         Lake Gitche Gummee is the largest of the Great Lakes, and easily distinguished from the rest because Gitche Gummee is shaped like Abe Vigoda’s nose. The traveler can reach Gitche Gummee any of several means, but ‘Puter’s favorite is to hitch a ride on an iron ore freighter headed out of one of several Wisconsin ports. If you’re traveling by automobile keep a look out for the wigwam of Nokomis (it’s by the shining Big-Sea-Water Park), and hang a quick right.  Pass by Chalstrom’s Bait and Convenience Store, then roll up the windows and lock your doors until you get through Duluth,* which is a meth-fueled hotbed of larceny and bestiality.  For goodness’ sake, whatever you do, don’t stop for any reason. Duluth’s natives have been known to kill a man just to watch him die.  Soon enough, you’ll be enjoying yourself beside Gitche Gummee’s piranha infested waters!

Here's China's aquatic Wang, who,
judging by the looks of the festering
sores on her back, was recently
swimming in America's Aquatic Wang

·         America’s Aquatic Wang (“AAW,” for short) is the pride and joy of Poles and other Eastern European Slavs who got too big for their britches and were shown the door by their countrymen.**  All other right-thinking people consider it the crappiest of all Great Lakes, and not only because God shaped America’s Aquatic Wang like, well, an aquatic wang. AAW is most famous because the aforementioned Slavs decided that it’d be a great idea to dump all their sewage directly into the Chicago River, which emptied into AAW.***  Imagine the Slavs’ surprise when dysentery, yellow fever and hepatitis ran amok! Rather than stop dumping raw sewage in the Chicago River, the Slavs decided to reverse its flow, causing the Chicago River to flow eventually into the Mississippi, making Chicago’s prolific fecal output St. Louis’ problem. To this day, it is legal to shoot a Chicagoan on sight in the City of St. Louis.

Pictured: Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario,
the soulless and quasi-evil members of
the Great Lakes Family

·         Two or Three Lakes Named After Indian Tribes GM Didn’t Name Cars After are the red-headed stepchildren of the Great Lakes. Nobody in the family likes them, everyone suspects they’re the result of Mom’s drunken one night stand with an overweight Barry Manilow impersonator and, as we all know, ginger kids have no souls.  All that said, if you happen to be on the run from the law, or an anthropologist studying peoples too dumb to leave after all meaningful employment opportunities have died, the TTLNAITGMDNCA lake complex may be for you. The cities bordering the TTLNAITGMDNCA lake complex are a who’s who of failed industrial cities damned by a shift away from manufacturing and confiscatory Blue State tax policy: Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Oswego.  The list is long and distinguished. ‘Puter would avoid the TTLNAITGMDNCA lake complex altogether but for the fact that he actually lives there.****

Sometime, late at night, if the wind is
just right, you can almost make out the
sounds of a stoner jamming on a Moog
synthesizer rising from the depths of
Emerson, Lake (and Palmer).

·         Emerson, Lake (and Palmer) (“ELP” to its friends) is a recent addition to the Great Lakes family.  Not much is known about the origin of this lake and its inclusion in the Great Lakes’ hydrological structure. It is known that in the summer of 1970, the Great Lakes were ending their gap year European backpacking tour of Europe. It is also known that the Great Lakes didn’t get too much farther into Europe than Amsterdam, their port of entry, as they spend far too much time sampling the wares in Amsterdam’s coffeehouses. Geologists also know from the fossil record that on the Great Lakes’ return trip home, they had a two week layover in the Cammel Laird shipyards on the Mersey in Liverpool, as the steam boilers on their frigate were torn down and rebuilt.  That’s all anyone knows with certainty about that era in the Great Lakes’ formation. However, geologists hypothesize that during the Great Lakes’ Liverpool layover, left with nothing to do but make fun of the local football club’s ineptitude, the group wandered off to the Isle of Wight Festival and got totally baked listening to ELP perform Lucky Man. Geologists believe it likely that during a backstage shrooms ‘n’ acid fest with ELP, the Great Lakes convinced the band to immortalize themselves as one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. To ‘Puter, the geologists’ theorem fits, because as every schoolchild knows, sometime during the overnight between August 31 and September 1, 1970, ELP formed in its current location, shocking the region’s inhabitants, especially those unfortunate enough to be located at what became the bottom of the lake.*****

Vladimir Putin swims in a most manly
fashion in Lake Baikal, a Great Lake
solely because of Mr. Putin's unquestioned
williningness to slaughter innocent lakes
to get his way.

·         Lake Baikal is the farthest east (or west, depending on your viewpoint) of the Great Lakes, located in Russia’s Siberia, near the Mongolian border. In reality, Lake Baikal isn’t a Great Lake at all.  Lake Baikal is only called a Great Lake as a result of Russian Mafia intervention. Early in January, at a cocaine and vodka filled Christmas party in Moscow, capo di tutti capi and tiger-rasslin’ strongman Vladimir Putin drunkenly insisted Lake Baikal was not only a Great Lake, but in fact the Greatest of All Possible Lakes.  Kurdish regional crime syndicate boss Aslan Usoyan foolishly challenged Mr. Putin’s characterization of Lake Baikal, calling Mr. Putin an alcoholic ублюдок and an unreformed выродок.  The next day, Mr. Usan was shot and killed by a sniper as he left a local restaurant after a light lunch of vodka and vodka.****** Hearing the news, the Great Lakes immediately assembled in conclave to determine a course of action.  On unanimous vote, the Great Lakes resolved Mr. Putin was a crazy-assed bastard who would kill them in their sleep and mail their entrails to their mothers if he did not get his way. As such, on a 6-0 vote (with ELP abstaining as it was totally baked), the Great Lakes resolved to text Mr. Putin to state that in their opinion, Lake Baikal was most certainly a Great Lake. To this day, none of the Great Lakes have suffered any unfortunate lead poisoning incidents like the one that befell Mr. Usan, and Lake Baikal proudly wears the title of Great Lake. Because of its violent origins, remote location and frigid climate, Lake Baikal is the least visited of all the Great Lakes.

Ricki Lake's expanding and contracting
shoreline has been the butt of cruel jokes.
Thankfully, the Army Corps of Engineers
has put an end to our long national nightmare

·         Last but not least, adventurous travelers may wish to visit the rapidly shrinking Ricki Lake before the lake is stripped of Great Lakes status. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ricki Lake was a popular vacation destination for Baltimore’s human flotsam and jetsam.  Ricki Lake was famed for its daily parade of horrors, in which white trash willingly traipsed along its banks for the entertainment of vacationing Baltimorons******* who thought themselves better than Ricki Lake’s parading grotesques.  During this time period, Ricki Lake’s shoreline underwent an uncontrolled expansion, as Ricki Lake eagerly gorged itself on everything River Utz and Hostess Creek, Ricki Lake’s primary tributaries, could offer it. After an all-night bender spent guzzling Shamrock Shakes and scarfing down Ding Dongs, Ricki Lake hit bottom. At this point the Army Corps of Engineers staged and intervention, convincing Ricki Lake it had to change or its uncontrolled expansion could rupture its restraining dam, destroying Ricki Lake forever. Today, the Army Corps of Engineers carefully controls the flow of River Utz and Hostess Creek into Ricki Lake. The Corps has also opened Ricki Lake’s dam’s floodgates, rapidly reducing the lake’s spread. However, as a result of Ricki Lake’s ever-shrinking shoreline, the other Great Lakes are considering revoking her Great Lakes status. So, visit Ricki Lake before it suffers Pluto’s fate, and bring a case of Natty Boh, Hon!

 When you’re planning your summer vacation, don’t overlook America’s Great Lakes region. Our Great Lakes have something to offer everyone, even Chicagoans and Baltimoreans, so book your jitney and make flophouse reservations today!

*’Puter’s Gitche Gummee Fun Fact: “Duluth” means “Godforsaken Frozen Walleye Asshole” in Chippewa.

**’Puter’s AAW Fun Fact #1: These cabbage-eating, sloped-foreheaded Neanderthals settled in Chicago, primarily because “Chicago” sounds like “tshchkagus” in their native tongue, meaning “free kielbasa for all.”

***’Puter’s AAW Fun Fact #2: Impress a Chicagoan with your knowledge of their bloody and crap-covered history! Nonchalantly drop into conversation at a Blackhawks game that the Blackhawks are named after a late 1880s Chicago slang term for giant, pierogie filled turds covering the Chicago River like a stinky logjam. When the drunken Slavs run at you, mow them down with your Capone era Thompson submachine gun. Thanks to Chicago’s ineffective gun ban, the wilding Slav Blackhawk fans (but then ‘Puter repeats himself) will most likely be unarmed.

****’Puter’s TTLNAITGMDNCA Fun Fact: Most denizens of this region are pasty skinned, short-tempered and bitter, as lake effect snow and clouds cause the region to receive approximately -4,782.63% of possible sunlight.  When exposed to direct sunlight, many go blind, spontaneously combust or both.  These are the cave fish of humanity.

*****’Puter’s ELP Fun Fact: ELP’s hydrology is composed entirely of recycled bong water.

******‘Puter’s Lake Baikal Fun Fact: Lake Baikal is home to the endangered Baikal sturgeon. Czar insists these sturgeons make the most delightful red vapor when used as skeet on his dacha’s trap course.

*******'Puter's Ricki Lake FunFact: Baltimorons use "vacationing" as a synonym for "chronically unemployed and/or receiving welfare checks." If confronted by an aggressive "vacationing" Baltimoron, offer him a job.  Jobs are kryptonite to Baltimorons. Just look at Nancy Pelosi, a native Baltimoron who's done nothing useful for years, sponging off the public's largesse.