Groundhog Day-ja Vu
February 2nd is Ground Hog Day. In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the local folk gather round for the bizarre celebration of yanking a groundhog named Phil from his hoggish abode and determining whether the lil’ f@#ker can see his shadow or not. If he does, legend has it that there will be six more weeks of winter. Yeah, and monkeys will fly from my fat Polish dupa.
Tradition is sometimes strange and this certainly is a wacky one. The people of this little western PA town get all worked up as they gather in Gobbler’s Knob, dancing, eating, and celebrating the existence of the pudgy little quadruped. The town has a little over 6,000 residents, yet a good 40,000 people have turned out for this yearly display of celestial prognostication. It’s pure fun and merriment, so what could be the possible harm in that?
Enter PETA, the self imposed animal rights group who perform asinine stunts to gain attention and take it upon themselves to throw buckets of blood on fur wearers while screaming the words “Murderer, murderer!” Seems that smack in the midst of the world’s outpouring of help towards the Haitian people, the sanctimonious psychos of animal land have decreed that it is a torturous act being committed by the holders of the Pennsylvania celebration, which dates all the way back to 1886. You see, they no longer want to exploit fattie Phil… and get this… are you ready… I swear to God, I ain’t making this up… they want the ‘real’ Phil replaced by a robot.
According to PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman, an animatronic Phil “would attract new and curious tourists” to Punxsutawney’s annual event.
“Hey honey, ya think the robot’s gonna see his shadow this year? Yer not sure? You mean you don’t care? I understand.”
The fanatical folks of PETA have once again proved that they have bats in their collective belfry, which I would imagine are being harmed and may be replaced by robots as well. William Deeley, president of the groundhog club, said that the animal was “treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania”. What I’ve personally heard is that Phil is set up in a pretty swank little place to live and even rooms with a female hog to keep his loins in perfect working order. I hear he even has his own hoggy little humidor to enjoy his favorite smokes. No, really, that’s what I heard. Where did I get this info? I don’t know, are you questioning my journalistic sources? That’s not cool and you know I’m sworn not to reveal my source. The nerve.
Of course several channels on TV are running ‘Groundhog Day’, the Bill Murray film from 1993, where Pittsburgh weatherman, Phil Connor relives the same day of his life over and over and over until the powers of the universe determine that he get things right. I did a little web search and the movie’s writers 
and producers estimate that Connor spent maybe ten years or more repeating that same day in PA. If that were me, I would have found the nearest smokeshops and herfed until my friggin brains imploded. You could smoke twenty cigars in a day and wake up the next morning without your mouth tasting like a garbage dump fire. I actually just looked up a list of Cigar shops in the Keystone State and while none reside in Punxsutawney, some are close enough where you could hop in the weather van and get there before the blizzard sets in. I’d pack some sandwiches, grab a local broad or two that I tricked into thinking they sat next to me in high school English, and smoke premium cigars until Sonny and Cher sung ‘I Got You Babe’ one more time.
So, Happy Groundhog Day to you all and let’s hope the pudgy fur ball is shadow free again in the 2010.
Tommy Z
JR Cigars Blog With the Zman
