A VIEW CLASSIC...I LIKED IT, ANYWAY WELL, THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN has officially fallen off the wagon and the mountain too. He passed away last night, the cause of death being he fought the law of gravity and the law won. It is believed that a contributing factor was the old man’s ongoing love of hard cider. No word on who it is or why it should have an opinion at all in this case. Investigators with the New Hampshire Highway Patrol commented unofficially today that they believed the old man was probably intoxicated last night and fell off the side of the mountain in a drunken stupor as he was returning home from a town meeting. Thousands of his fellow Granite Staters will mourn the popular old man, who was known for his homespun New England folk wisdom and his sharp opinions on the presidential candidates that come every leap year to New Hampshire. He once compared the candidates to a horde of locusts, but without the locusts' charm, wit, and savoir faire. In his later years he softened on the subject, allowing that the quadrennial hordes of officeseekers were a good way of remembering that the Olympics would be on the television soon. The Old Man of the Mountain is survived by his wife, Anna Purna, three sons, and several grand and great grandchildren. Callers are requested to send donations to the Sierra Club in a loo of flowers. Funeral arrangements by Slate Gravel, Inc.

THE NEW YORK METS HAVE THE SECOND LARGEST PAYROLL IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL and those guys cannot find their asses with both hands. Proof positive that economics aint everything, folks.

FROM MAY 31: WELL, the city of Beacon is now 90 years old and today a major modern art museum is opening here. Dia:Beacon is opening in the old Nabisco plant down by the train tracks and you can read about it in the New York Times, Poughkeepsie Journal etc. I havent seen this many out of state plates in years and Main Street is crowded with people, including one guy dressed up in a chicken suit trying to haul the passersby into Planet Wings. I cant imagine where all these people are parked, since Beacon is not chock full of free parking. Our happy little burg is now a major attraction for art and antiques. You wouldnt think that a small American city could base its economy on selling Grandma's old furniture and art that no one understands, but you would be wrong.

AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE: SENATOR ROBERT BYRD AND REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN, the man with the most aggressive nostrils in the US government, are shocked, shocked, mind you, that President Bush's flight out to the Abraham Lincoln, might have something to do with politics. These two are obviously too high minded to stay in Washington, a well known pit of iniquity that politicians have been known to infest on a regular basis.

FROM REUTERS: British pathologists removed the brains from tens of thousands of human corpses over a period of 30 years without the permission of the victims' relatives, the government acknowledged on Monday.

Scotland Yard is currently looking for said brains and is investigating rumors that the brains were last seen in the Labor governments of the 1970's. A spokesman for the Yard said that if the missing brains were in government at that time it would "explain a lot of things we were not sure about previously."

In other political news, the Speaker of the Texas State House of Representatives ordered the police to hunt down and find missing Assemblymen in order for them to vote on a new budget. Those representatives still in Austin have been locked in the House chambers for five to ten years, with the chance of parole after two years. In a related development in New York State, Republican Assemblymen are holding the state budget hostage in a Dunkin Donuts shop across the street from the capital building in Albany demanding that an amendment making Republican Assemblymen relevant be added to the budget. The tense standoff has lasted seven hours, with the Dunkin Donuts shop being surrounded by the Albany Police Department, the New York State Police, and the FBI. The assemblymen have barricaded themselves inside the shop and are threatening to harm the jelly doughnuts if their demands are not met. Police negotiators are on the scene trying to spare the doughnuts and maybe get some free coffee on the side.

A PREDICTION ABOUT HILARY'S BOOK: In 2008, when she is running for President, Mrs. Clinton will be asked about the Lewinsky matter, and Lanny Davis will quickly interrupt to point out that this is old news, dealt with in the autobiography Mrs. Clinton published in 2003, and that we should all move on. I do not wish to sound cynical, but if biographies are the lies other people tell about you, autobiographies are the lies you tell about yourself

The United States Supreme Court ruled today that libraries that accept Federal aid must place filters on their online computers in order to block children’s access to pornography. The American Library Association denounced the ruling, saying that kids have as much right to drop their quarters into the computer slot as everyone else. Many librarians are furious with the ruling, as free copies of Harry Potter and cheap porno are the only reason many kids come to the library anymore.

BELGIUM HAS REPEALED the law giving it jurisdiction over damn near everything that can possibly go wrong on this planet because, in the words of one Belgian legislator, the whole idea was really just too silly for words. Belgian sources denied that American pressure had anything to do with the decision to make the change and said the King is feeling much better now that Mr. Rumsfeld has let him out of the headlock.

A 14 YEAR OLD GIRL in Scottsdale, Arizona, has apparently beaten her little sister to death with a copy of the newest Harry Potter book, claiming that her sister annoyed her so much while she was reading the book that she finally snapped under the pressure. Spokesmen for the entertainment industry blamed the crime on the baleful and incredibly malign influence literacy has on the younger generation and claimed that this tragic event would never have happened if the girls had been watching Sex and the City instead

TEACHING THE TEST: Every senior in the Beacon City School District has failed the state mandated math exam, an exam they must pass in order to receive their diplomas. Consequently, there will be no graduating class this year. Students celebrated by burning down the new high school with the teachers inside.

THIS JUST IN: Four striking pay toilets were arrested today by Poughkeepsie police officers after threatening to kill nonunion urinals that crossed the strikers’ picket line. The twelve week old strike centers on a wage dispute between toilets and urinals. The mostly nonunion urinals want equal pay and benefits with toilets. A spokesman for the United Rest Room Workers, the union representing the toilets, claims that equal pay for urinals is unfair to toilets, given “that urinals can only handle half the population half the time.”

THE STATE OF ARIZONA burned down this week, despite the claims of those Arizonans in a state of denial.

WELL, the archives from The View from Mount Beacon have recently been spotted selling crack on a streetcorner in Los Angeles. The FBI and Blogspot have been notified.

A PASSING THOUGHT: I wonder how many ambulance drivers turn on their emergency lights just so they can drive through red lights?

WELL, here I am in new digs. The problems with The View from Mount Beacon having proven utterly intractable, I'm officially closing it down and trying again with this one.