Jalen's Statement

Jalen the Cat, who is still recovering from his heat stroke two days ago, issued the following statement this morning:

"I'm Yuba Post Contributor Jalen the Cat, and I should be dead.

"It was a very traumatic experience but I feel like God does make everything happen for a reason and it gave me a time-out in life just to find out what was important and what I want to do, figure out who I am.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city."


Jon Corzine, Paris Hilton, and Mayor Bloomberg have not yet commented on Jalen's situation.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

There once was a pie quite delicious -
so flavorful, tasty, nutritious!
Still it was a surprise
To baker Kelly's eyes
When Jeff finished it so expeditious(ly).


Photo by Jeff Richardson. June 20th, 2007. Brooklyn, NY.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

The Yuba Post Recommends

The Yuba Post recommends reading The Great Gatsby for the first time since high school. Not because the book is fantastic, which it is, but because you can then rent the 2000 A&E adaptation of the novel and truly appreciate its awfulness. We guarantee you won't be able to sit through the whole thing. Unless, that is, you're laughing the whole time. Paul Rudd plays Nick, and it's not hard to imagine that, after every line, he's thinking to himself "Wow. This film is going to be horrible and embarrassing and I hope I never have to watch it." The main culprit is Toby Stevens as Gatsby. Say what you will about the Robert Redford adaptation, but at least he understood the role. Stevens overacts so poorly, in such a ridiculous manner, that eventually you just start keeping you finger on the rewind button every time he's onscreen. That's right, rewind button. In every scene he has at least one line delivery that is so hilarious it's worth seeing twice. (Incomprehensibly, the IMBD page for this film has a discussion post about how great Stevens is in the role.) But, of course, the badness cannot be attributed completely to one man. Credit should also be given to... well, basically everyone, but particularly the person who decided that insultingly gratuitous flashbacks should be used as often as possible. Oh insultingly gratuitous flashbacks - how we cherish thee.

So, reread the book, and in the meantime put this film on your Netflix. We guarantee you will completely regret it (but in a good way).

Jalen's Column: Post Postponed

The editors of The Yuba Post regret to announce that this week's Jalen's Column has been postponed due to illness. It appears that Jalen the Cat was working on today's post when he collapsed with a nearly fatal heat stroke.



A spokesperson for Jalen reports that he is recovering quickly and expects to be back posting within 20-25 naps (approximately 1 day). Also, Jalen does not expect this incident to count towards his nine lives, and considers himself still on number 4.

One witness to the scene has quoted Jalen as blaming "my lazy, [expletive deleted] humans" for the collapse, referring to the fact that they have not yet purchased an air conditioner for his apartment. Temperatures in New York today reached the high 80's and humidity was at 85%.

Because the World Needs More Coney Island LimerickPics

At the Mermaid Parade cheer and leer
At the women who wear no brassiere.
At their pasties and paint
I'd stare without restraint
But I can't see a thing from back here!


Photo by Jeff Richardson. June 23rd, 2007. Coney Island, Brooklyn.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

LimerickPic Trilogy: Episode III

The hot dog contest (Coney Island's)
Reminds me of Scots at the Highlands.
The larger look tougher
But smalls make them suffer
And... Jeff, put down the damn camera! I'm reciting a limerick here! Enough with the stupid pictures already! ...You know what, just forget it.


Photo by Jeff Richardson. September 4th, 2006. Coney Island, Brooklyn.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

LimerickPic Trilogy: Episode II

I went to the island of Coney
With Matt and with Jeff my old crony.
I practiced speed eating
For future competing
Against Kobayashi the phony.


Photo by Jeff Richardson. September 4th, 2006. Coney Island, Brooklyn.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information

LimerickPic Trilogy: Episode 1

We traveled to Coney Isle duly,
'Twas Dinger, Jay-ar and yours truly.
Hot dogs with chilicheese,
Onions and ocean breeze
Combined for a stomach unruly.


Photo by Jay-ar Kelyman. September 4th, 2006. Coney Island, Brooklyn.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

Kelly's Travel Column: Yuba is not like Paris

Yuba is not a town known for its tree lined boulevards, its dimly lit, cozy cafes, or its riverbank booksellers. In fact, the only thing Yuba is known for (other than that rash of freakish natural disasters in 1974) is the now defunct Yuba Trading Post. Perhaps our readers imagine a derelict building, tucked in among some woods, rich with the history of a small town in Northern Michigan.


This is not the case. It is a boring square building with some boarded up windows.

(Actual photograph).

Actually I think it might be a paintball store now. In short, there is no romance in Yuba. And, no surprise, the Editor in Chief of Yuba's #1 newspaper is not particularly sentimental.

So, when the girlfriend of said Editor came home this evening and said ...

"Pop Doyle, I saw such a romantic thing today! I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and I sat on a bench to tie my shoelace, and the sun was setting, and the sky was open all around me, and then I looked down and saw these words written on the bench: 'She said yes!' ... Isn't that great?"

... she wasn't really expecting much.

She also wasn't expecting him to say,

"I think graffiti vandals should be locked up for life."

The Limerick Post

We came across a rival newspaper's website today (we assume they're a rival because they have a news website and it's not called The Yuba Post). It's called The Limerick Post. I think you understand why they garnered our attention.

But we're not worried about losing readership - their limericks are TERRIBLE! The rhyming and the meter are all over the place. Barely recognizable as limericks, really.

Community Forum

Where we ask the questions and you (the community) give the answers.

Q. If a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it, where was everybody?

Jalen's Column: Video Blogging

Jalen the Cat here. Writing this column can be a real pain in the tail because of these tiny keys. I mean, for the love of Leo, can we get a paw-sized keyboard anytime soon?



Anyway, I've decided to try video blogging instead. Let me know what you think.

Obituaries

We're sorry to report that, AGAIN, there were no deaths this week.

C'mon, Yuba. Work with us here.

The Yuba Post Honors Fathers

The Yuba Post would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the fathers that are reading this. As a sign of that gratitude, we urge our readers to call your dad with the time that you would normally use to peruse our stories.

Happy father's day.


Editor's Note: The weekend news desk at The Yuba Post has uncovered evidence that the malicious attack on our website perpetrated this past Friday may not have been an isolated incident. The weekend editorial staff decided to hold off publication of the full story until crucial details can be confirmed, but Yubans everywhere should expect a detailed report in the near future.

Letter from the Editor

The entire staff at The Yuba Post offers its sincere apologies to the good people of Yuba for the previous day's entry, Rapid City Is The Bomb!. Rest assured that the despicable words that were published had nothing to do with our staff or our writers. Yesterday's post was the unfortunate result of a hacker who gained access to our systems. The Yuba Post does not, in any way, hold the opinion that the town of Yuba "sux," nor that its citizens are unemployed or alcoholic. And The Yuba Post only moderately thinks that The Yuba Post itself "sux" as a online publication.

The police have not apprehended the hackers as of now but an investigation is underway and we are optimistic that justice will prevail. Anyhow, we all know what "blog" - if you can call it that - was responsible and which ignorant, vacuous, malodorous town they represent, so we here at The Yuba Post have decided to take the initiative and even the score. Of course, being Yubans, we're not going to sink to their level but will instead take the high road and respond with a witty, biting retort:

A Haiku
Rapid City pride -
Gravel roads and dusty shops
Or oxymoron?

PS - The Yuba Post could have removed yesterday's entry from its website but it was decided that leaving it online would save us the trouble of actually writing a post ourselves. Again, we apologize.

PPS- Tomorrow's post will be handled by frequent guest columnist and lifelong Yuba Post devotee M. Ryan Kundinger. Take it away Dinger...

RAPID CITY IS THE BOMB!

THE YUBA POST SUX! yOU ALL SUX!
NOBODY IN YUBA CAN EVEN GET A JOB BECAUS YOU ALL JUST A BUNCH OF LOSERS AND DRUNKS. yOU KNOW ITS THE TRUTH SO DON''T EVEN TRYA ND ARGUE YOU LOSERS!

RAPID CITY ROCKS YO!

THIS SITE IS TOAST!
gO sLOTHS!

Notable Quotable

"Rise up, IB Bangin!!!"

Guest LimerickPic

As you might have guessed, The Yuba Post receives bags and bags of email everyday from its readers. Almost all of it is ignored, of course, as we really only check our mail for sweepstakes invitations and the forthnightly Yuba Trading Post catalogue. Recently, however, something caught our attention: Poemin' Jerome, the Poet Laureate of Acme Township, sent us a LimerickPic. It references one of Jalen the Cat's previous columns, and thus might be categorized as a "LimerickPic Response" - the first that we know of. It is presented here for your reading pleasure:

The bus has a cat named Macavity -
That purple thing's such a depravity.
Subway's my game.
Tokey's my name.
I live down here with all the ga-ravity.

Photo by Poemin' Jerome.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information (though Poemin' Jerome made no such contact).

Paparazzi Cellphone Video

Sometimes, it seems, it's okay to wake a slumbering giant.

Update (and Links!)

If yesterday's mission statement-proclaiming post didn't clue you in, today we're making it official. Many of you know that The Yuba Post originally went online in "beta-mode" status, meaning that our readership was deliberately limited. Somewhere over the past few weeks, this beta-mode status completely evaporated, giving way to enormous, worldwide fame. Given this situation, we have no choice but to officially declare an end to "beta-mode." ...Here it goes:

This is the end of "beta-mode."

But - and this is terribly important - do not assume this new, "official" status will imply an improvement in quality. The last thing we want is raised expectations. Keep them low. Very low.

Also, now that we're no longer in "beta-mode," please feel free to share this blog with whomever might be interested. That is, if you can find someone with Internet access who doesn't already check our site daily. On that note (and in an attempt to make "official" mode different from "beta-mode") we've recently added some links to our favorite websites on the sidebar. Don't miss the Yuba map, where you can see Yuba in all its Google-map glory. And for movie and music reviews, The Static and CineZig will keep you up-to-date on all the new Yuba releases. We've also linked to the blog of famous Yuba socialite Yurpa, where you can read all the latest town gossip and also eat cupcakes. Finally, our financial manager, Nik Frank-Lehrer, has demanded we link to his blog, threatening to flee to Madagascar with our funds if we refused.

What is Yuba?

Yuba is a small town in Michigan's Northern Lower Peninsula, located in Acme Township along highway US 31. There are very few people in Yuba and almost no businesses. No school, no traffic light, no post office. Some might describe Yuba as a ghost town, or even a wasteland. Many drive through it everyday without ever realizing it's there. To them, Yuba is just a quick dip in the road, just a patch of land bordered by two green signs.

But Yuba is so much more. And it is the proud job of The Yuba Post to report on this unseen side - on the vibrant, hidden metropolis that lurks just out of sight. With hard reporting, breathtaking photojournalism, and an abundance of LimerickPics, the real stories of Yuba will be told.

This is the mission of The Yuba Post.

One Month of Blogging!

Yesterday, The Yuba Post celebrated its one-month anniversary of daily blogging. This is a tremendous achievement and we're all very proud of ourselves.

Of course, The Yuba Post has been around for more than just one month. Actually, it has been providing news and obituaries to the good people of Yuba for centuries, albeit in a number of different forms. Before going digital, The Yuba Post was a daily newspaper delivered to subscribers once every fortnight, fourteen papers at a time. This format was introduced in 1974. Prior to this, distribution was done through daily phonograph recordings, available for listening at specific booths in the Yuba Trading Post. This experimental news format was an immediate failure, though it lasted nearly ten years, from 1965-1974. Before this, and for the majority of the 20th century, The Yuba Post was a daily newspaper delivered once a year on New Year's Eve, 365 issues at a time (366 during leap years). Other news delivery formats used by The Yuba Post over the years include such varied methods as pigeon carriers, nautical flags, semaphore flags, smoke signals, and braille engravings.

Of course, the original Yuba Post was an actual post that the good people of Yuba actually posted news items to. This was constructed in 1763, and its erection was recreated in the famous drawing by Yuba's most prolific painter, Artist Unknown:

The Posting of Yuba by Artist Unknown.


Posting on the Post was abandoned during the US Civil War in favor of musical ballads, but taken up again briefly during The Yuban Civil War. And, of course, everyone knows the stories of the bizarre female cult that utilized the Post during Prohibition, as captured in this controversial photograph:

And not many people know that the original Yuba Post is still in existence today, still in its original location, just up the road from The Yuba Trading Post, faded and forgotten by most but still carrying the proud memories of a small town in its lonely, rotting fibers.

Terror Alert Status

The Sheriff's Department of Yuba has updated the town's terror alert to "off-white," which in the Department of Homeland Security's system means: "No risk whatsoever of terrorist attacks, under any circumstances."


This is the lowest Yuba's terror alert has been since last November, when the level was raised to "Aquamarine" following the disappearance of the sheriff's dog.

Beer of Liberty

Is it just us or do the bubbles atop this beer look like an abstract rendering of the Statue of Liberty?

And this wasn't even an American beer (or a French beer) - it was a Japanese beer!!

For those in Yuba wanting their own Beer of Liberty, simply travel to the neighborhood of Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA, and order a cold Asahi from Cube 63, a very nice, though somewhat pricey, Japanese restaurant.
(But don't make the trip just for the food, since equally delicious sushi can be bought locally at Yubasabi.)

Photo taken June 7th, 2007.

The Williamsburg Book Club

While most book clubs focus on reading,
The Burg's has a different proceeding.
These ladies share passion
For reading and fashion;
The former is clearly receding.


Photo taken at the Frank-Lehrer residence. March 4th, 2007. Williamsburg, MI.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

The Other Williamsburg

am New York, a daily New York City paper (published on actual paper, not computer screens - i.e. not eco-friendly like The Yuba Post), had an interesting story a couple of weeks ago about Williamsburg, our neighboring village to the east. Why a New York City paper was doing a story on Northern Michigan is quite a mystery, but we thought we should bring the article to your attention due to Yuba's dangerous proximity to the actions being described. The story is so shocking, in fact, it made the cover of the issue, published on May 14h:


It appears that a disturbing trend has been gaining popularity amongst the normally good people of The Burg. In short, they've been forming bizarre, cult-like book clubs. This image from am New York's coverage was particularly shocking to our editors:


Not only are these Williamsburg women in a book club where they dress up and take pictures of themselves, but two of them are the mothers of Yuba Post staff members. Regular contributor Jeff Richardson and financial manager Nik Frank-Lehrer claim to have had no prior knowledge of their mother's actions. However, the editorial board of The Yuba Post has decided it is in the best interests of our publication, and of the town of Yuba, to part with the services of these two employees.

If you have any information about similar books clubs existing within Yuba territory, please contact The Yuba Post immediately.


All images from am New York republished without permission.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for copyright lawsuits.
And hurry, because this article says he's just been fired.

Community Forum

The Yuba Post Community Forum: where we turn things over to all you glorious readers.

This week's poll question:

What is your favorite thing to do in downtown Yuba?

The Sports Page - NBA

Last night, the Yuba Foons were eliminated from the National Badminton Association playoffs with a loss to their arch rivals, the Rapid City Sloths. The Sloths won the series 4 games to 2 and will now advance to the NBA finals. The Foons, named for Yuba founder Joe Foon, are the only professional sports team remaining in Yuba and their loss has ended another year's hopes of bringing a championship back to the town.

After three straight losses in the series, Match 6 seemed within grasp for the Foons until play actually started and the Sloths won every point. In fact, the Sloths opening serve completely silenced the Yuba crowd's chants of "YU-BA-FOONS", and most of the bleachers had emptied before the point ended. Making matters worse, the entire Foon squad was ejected midway through the match for applying pine tar to the birdie. Following the ejections, the team received numerous delay-of-game violations when no one served. These violations persisted until the umpire called the match for lack of light.

Lifelong badminton fan and regular Yuba Post contributor Jeff Richardson was reportedly so disgusted with the loss that he vowed to give up watching the NBA completely. It should be noted, however, that this is the same thing he said after last season, and also after the eleven out of twelve seasons before that when his team didn't win the title.

Yuban Homesickness

The skyline of New York is thrilling,
The reach of the buildings is chilling.
But there's nothing quite like
Horizons from a hike
Through Yuba when tractors are tilling.

Photo by Jeff Richardson. January 27th, 2007. New York City, NY.
"LimerickPic" is a trademarked format by Yuba Industries.
Contact Nik Frank-Lehrer for licensing information.

A Yuba Post Special Report: June

Today in Yuba it is the first day of June.

To celebrate this achievement, our interns have rigorously researched important information about the month. We call it...

Everything You Need To Know About June
-June is the sixth month of the year in the Yubagorian calendar.
-June contains the summer solstice. This means June is the first month of summer AND the last month of spring. No other month has ever managed to have both spring and summer in it, though not for lack of trying.
-Many famous people celebrate their birthdays in June. Like maybe Sean Penn or Alanis Morrisette. We don't know who exactly, but many famous people must have been born in June. Even more if you count the dead ones. Maybe George Washington was born in June... except his birthday is around President's Day, which isn't in June... So maybe another dead president. David Palmer maybe.
-June is tied with July for having the fewest letters of any month except May.
-June is Brandon Hall's favorite month. He loves all 30 days of June. He just does.
-Intrepid explorer James Cook completed his first voyage around the globe in June of 1771.
-June was named after the Roman goddess Juno. Juno was the sister AND the wife of Roman god Jupiter, which is not something we approve of here in Yuba (despite what certain lowbrow Rapid City blogs might imply).
-A Google search for "June" yields over 700,000,000 hits. A Google search for "the yuba post" yields 3 hits.
-In the Northern hemisphere June is a good time to get a deal on long-sleeve shirts.
-June is Jake Ziegler's least favorite month. He hates June. He despises June. You see, he had a bad experience in June. And we could even tell you what it was all about - even though it's all very personal and private and stuff - since Jake would never find out because he'll never read this article since the word "June" is in the title. That's how much he hates June.
-In Rapid City, MI, June is known as the "Marry-My-Sister" month.
-There has never been an officially recognized LimerickPic written in the month of June (though this may change).