This No Weapons Rumble is a Sham, by David Henne

And how’re brass knuckles out but live-tweeting’s in?

Sharing 140 strategic characters with your preppie chums, in real time? Posting Vines on how to properly full nelson unsuspecting Greasers? Sounds plenty weaponized to me.

Naturally our gang ain’t savvy on Socs media.

Now if MySpace blogging were still permitted, we’d be aces. Ain’t a crew around can beat a Grease blogging. Give us a pack of Lucky Strikes and we’d knock off 200 pages about tough Stingray cruisers and gold n’ silver sunsets, no sweat.

Wasn’t long ago you could blog, swing bicycle chains and wield busted pop bottles—all in open-toed shoes. And if your beef was with a crew south of Canal Street you didn’t need prior authorization to book the Rumble Pool.

Course nothing gold can stay, and it wasn’t long before the War Council banned Robert Frost and switches.

Some say heavy regulations went up after that Soc was fatally stabbed. Others say it was after C. Thomas Howell put out Soul Man. Either way, the Council’s gotten awfully protective over its image.

Nowadays? Well we may as well stop calling these rumbles and brand ’em brouhahas, way our original vision’s been watered down. And you may as well head home and hold a hootenanny if you’re watering down rumbles to brouhahas.

Break a wrist mid-cartwheel this summer and it’s no dancing in the fall. Suffer a photosensitive epileptic seizure in April and it’s no strobe lighting at the Mickey Rourke’s Face Memorial Day Rumble.

I’m this close to saying nuts to the whole thing. Glory, the only pugilist specialist on our roster’s Sam “Smashley” Smelkinson. The same Sam Smashley who just got thrown in the heater for a cooler or vice versa.

Mark my words, if today’s rumble didn’t affect seeding for the Dally Winston Invitational, and if I hadn’t already paid the registration fee, you can bet I wouldn’t be in a mile of this turf.

Hear that, War Council stiffs? You can’t regulate Country Time Lonnie Cade. You can ban my diversionary mambo. You can steal the starting five of my New York Knucks. But you can’t take my rumble voice!

… Unless it’s a Silent Rumble. Which are typically reserved for the high holidays. In that case, yes, you can take my voice for the requisite fifteen minutes.

But man oh man, when those fifteen minutes expire? And as long as it ain’t a Casino Rumble? Woo, you better believe all bet’s are off!

David Henne is a writer on Long Island, New York, whose work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Big Jewel, Johnny America, and Yankee Pot Roast. You can follow him on Twitter.

The Humor Section features a piece of original humor writing each week. To submit, send an email to Brian Boone.

This No Weapons Rumble is a Sham, by David Henne