Please help me solve this Rebus.

The Game Room
101

Just email him.

102

Thanks, I have. I will report anything I learn.

103

I think the answer is Reince Prebus.

104

I meant Priebus! Jebus!

105

Can you explain that?

106

Let me half-explain it, and see if the rest of you can figure out the other half.

So, Priebus: the puzzle has a pepper shaker marked with a P, followed by an equal sign. What does the whole thing equal? Why, a rebus, of course. Hence P.+rebus, or Priebus.

If this seems implausible, consider the time context of the OP: early March, 2011. In that OP, **Fofer **says he’d been puzzling over the thing for weeks. Now, we’ll note that Reince Priebus was elected as head of the RNC in mid-January of 2011, and so was in the news at that time. It’s also worth noting, in this context, Post #78 above. I quote: “According to reviews of the bookstore in question, the proprieter is a bit of a hipster with political themed art on display. Maybe some political message in there?”

107

Okay, so how are you getting Reince out of Gorbachev, an eye, and subtracting bugs?

108

In the cold light of a new day, the solution I had doesn’t seem very satisfactory to me, and won’t be very satisfactory to the rest of you, either. The main problem is that it’s totally at variance with the clues given in the OP. Now, I’m a bit skeptical about those clues, in the sense that they don’t seem to have helped one iota with the solution of the puzzle. That said, any solution that disregards them entirely won’t be taken seriously.

So the safest course here is just to admit I was wrong. Sorry!

109

I have heard nothing regarding the answer yet.

110

/brainstorming . . .

This being Colorado the “flies” could refer to fly-fishing bait. These can be poppers, emergers or nymphs depending upon the configuration. There are also dry flies and wet flies, though that’s not really a synonym. If he got really esoteric (which seems possible) could be a million things - here for some examples.

111

I found this post, also by Fofer on Reddit, with just a few more clues:

112

If the OP had to push just to get hints, I seriously doubt the guy is just going to give away the answer.

I also cannot come up with any vulgar name a kid would call a prominent birthmark.

113

The only slang I can think of for a birthmark is “witches’ mark” which doesn’t fit the nickname bit.

Do Coloradans use “waste” to mean “spill” or is that just a DC thing.

114

Shitstain?

115

Gorbachev was nicknamed Mecheny in Russia, which translates as the Marked One. (Or just “Marked”)

116

Never mind, I saw this was mentioned earlier, didn’t read thoroughly enough. I was just thinking of the Mark of the Beast when I made the connection.

117

Time for a bump!

118

Returning to the subject of the second rebus (because maybe it will tell us something about how the guy’s mind works), there is a clear image of it at Tome Traveling: Book Nerds' Big Day Out (aka Book-a-palooza)

Direct link to the image

SpongeBob - some cartoon character + rat or mouse.

119

Cartoon character seems to be from Archie comics. Girlfriend of Moose.

120

I think the “cartoon character” is supposed to be his black eye, not the character itself.