The Diary of Ashley Miller., 6th Grade, Andrew J. Rosenberg Middle School

April 4th, 2008


Today our choices were taco salad, fish sticks or a peach half with a scoop of cottage cheese and some carrots and raisins in it. Grose! Thank GOD for Rice Crispy Bars and Raspberry Snapple or I would starve to death!

We had another assembly and I wanted to just crawl into the girls room and die because I figured it would be another hour of Coach Denise talking about everyone getting a stomach ache and then finding a flower in their panties. People? It's called MENSTRUATION and that stuff is BLOOD. Sometimes I just want to stick a pencil into each eye and lay down in the middle of the football field and die because special classes for girls are SO STUPID!

It wasn't all bad. I got to sit next to Barry in Earth Science. He's soooo cute and smart. I know his girlfriend could kick my butt and she's already been a teen board model but that's okay. He's so cool and smart that you just want him to be your friend when you meet him.

Well, everybody except Hillary. Hillary HATES him. Every time he gets an answer right or somebody says something nice to him, she looks just like that crazy chick with the big nostrils from that movie where Ferris Bueller is all old and wants to stop her from being student body president. The other day I saw her sitting in McDonalds with this high school dude named John and some of his friends and they were talking about blowing up stuff and she seemed so happy. My friend Beth goes to church with her and said she told their Sunday school teacher she was shot at by Crips at the Lone Oak Mall when she was at Wet Seal. There were some other guys there, too named Dick and George. We all know who Dick is because he drove his Dad's truck to school and had to go home because it had a rifle rack in the back window. Beth says she bets Hillary lets Dick slip her the tongue. Grose!

So the assembly? It was about student council elections for next year. It's going to be Barry against Hillary. Barry got up and gave a speech and it was very nice and then he sat down. Then Hillary got up and as she was climbing the steps, Jon and Stephen started making "bah-boom-dah" noises like they do in the old movies when Marilyn Monroe walks on the screen. Everybody laughed and Hillary got mad and ran back off the steps and grabbed Stephen by the neck pulled him out of his seat and started beating his head against Jon's legs. Then the principal grabbed her and started to carry her out of the auditorium and yelled at us for laughing. It was awesome. We could hear the principal telling Hillary to pull it together outside in the hallway and then Stephen got up and stood on his chair and everybody cheered.
Then Jon put his sweater in his shirt and started saying he was Hillary and this eight grader named Bill yelled that Hillary didn't have any boobies. It was so cool.

Then Barry walked up to the stage and told us we should all be ashamed of ourselves and people started booing and someone threw a pair of socks at him and he sat down.

I got an A in Spanish. Muy bien! Everything on TheN was a rerun. Beth said her sister has boobies and has to sleep on her back so she won't push them back in. I want boobies.

Until tomorrow! Stay sweet!
Ashley!

copyright 2008 Jas Faulkner

What's your Function?

We all have titles that we use to define ourselves as friends, co-workers, family, or significant others. We can spell out relationships using this simple tool of social taxonomy without a huge expenditure of tears and fuss. Slightly trickier are the assignations we give ourselves and each other when it comes to our jobs as friends, co-workers, family or significant others.

With me? No? Let me give you some examples: The latest object of my affection can be depended upon at least once a day to express his amazement that I am from Tennessee and yet I wear shoes, have all of my teeth and can read and write. We're working on this. Alice is my go-to person for all things gracious and traditional. While we were both raised right by genteel Belle mamas, it took far better on Alice than it ever did on me. Big Gay Kevin is still teaching me how to like boys/men/those funny acting things with penises. I've never been very good at the whole relationship-romance-flirty thing and he is there to keep me from punching men on the arm and patiently explaining to them using the farthest limits of my Buddha nature that Bobby Orr is the greatest person to ever pick up a stick, not that Gretzky person. So what is my job?

It's not a huge, important function, but it does make things a little easier in a pinch. I have finally figured out that I am here to supply all of my loved ones with bon mots when they're at a loss for words. I discovered this when I was on the phone with Big Gay Kevin and I asked him if he'd ever seen a Joe Gage movie and would he think it might be more fun to watch one of his movies than the usual fare (Keanu for him, anime or martial arts or something with lots of magical realism for me -or as BGK calls them: "movies we have to freakin' read"). Sorry. Getting back on track...

I asked Kev about Joe Gage and he gasped and got quiet.

"What's wrong" I asked.

"WHERE did you hear about that? Have you ever actually SEEN a Joe Gage movie?"

"Ah, no. What's wrong?"

"Well. They're movies for men. Whooo...like men. And they're not really the kind of movies I'd expect you to know about. I'm a little shocked."

"Really?"

"It's disorienting to hear you talk about Joe Gage. I'm not sure how to put this..."

Now, here's where I would normally plug in some clever turn of phrase that would make them say, "Yes! That's it!" The thing is, I have to think of one for myself. Dang.

"This is a bit like watching a toddler swear and flip the bird, isn't it?"

"Yes! That's it!"

My work here is done.

copyright 2008 Jas Faulkner

Oops!

This morning Beautiful Alice came by and hung out for a bit. She made us both a cup of tea and scooched the dog over so she could sit on the sofa.

"I saw your blog. Nice work! It was funny and Aunt Sylvia was really tickled. The thing is..."

"Yeah?"

"Jas, did you notice anything unusual about the theater or the people there?"

"Not really." I said.

"Sweetie, you're a trained anthropologist..."
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"I'm sorry. I was fighting the urge to run."

"The movie you reviewed? It doesn't open until tomorrow."

"Oh, crap. It was so long ago and I've been mixing up dates all month. So um, how screwed are you?"

Alice sat back against the dog. There was a deep sigh and I wasn't sure if it was her or the pooch.

"Does anybody read this blog? I mean other than your family."

"I'm not sure. Maybe a few friends. Chances are, no one even read that far."

Alice sighed.

"Actually, there were a few people at the paper who read you pretty regularly. I linked them in when you wrote the alternate ending to 'Ole Yeller'."

"That was good wasn't it?"

"Focus, Jas. I'm sorry. They did talk me down. You do spare me having to deal with too much of the Keanu thing and for that, I'm grateful."

"Well, uh, yeah. Yeah! You should be grateful. Who took your aunt to see 'The Lake House'? Hunh? Yeah? It goes both ways."

"You're pushing it, Jas"

"Okay. I do fell bad about this. Really. Seriously and for true. I promise. How can I make this up to you?"

Alice didn't bat an eye. She didn't hesitate. Her delivery of what the proper reparations would be was swift.

"Baked goods."

"Baked goods?"

Yes, baked goods. And make them cute. Maybe even...churchworthy."

"You've got coffee klatch at St. Tabitha's this Sunday."

"YES!" Alice collapsed into a teary puddle of person against O'Neill's furry side.

"Vanilla cupcakes with candied violets?"

"YES!"

I'm sure there's a lesson here somewhere, although the only thing I can take from this tonight is that I should keep better track of my day runner thingie and that there's little in this world that can't be fixed with a good homemade cupcake.

Namaste'
Jas

copyright 2008 Jas Faulkner

What I Saw, Read, Listened To Last Week: Reviews for 3/31 to 4/6

TV My Name Is Earl NBC Thurdsay 8/7pm E/C:eight:bold;">My Name Is Earl NBC Thurdsay 8/7pm E/C:
The writers' strike was a cruel blow for fans of NBC's Thursday Night lineup. There's precious little on TV that doesn't entail sitting through confessionals, eliminations, or exposes and the long spate of reruns meant that a lot of us got caught up on our leisure reading. Okay, maybe it was was win-win situation for both the writers and the fans of scripted television. Never mind. Greg Garcia's My Name is Earl made it's hour-long return last week and the results were a mixed bag.

Let's get to the bad news first: The talking head at the first of the show making cheap slaps at the writers? Please, in the name of everything that is good in the universe, lose that bit. It wasn't funny. The idea that a network wonk would beg us to watch reruns before the "free period" runs out and they have to pay the writers makes me want to either rent the DVDs or just wait until Day 18 to do some online viewing.

Some people at Television Without Pity have posted that they felt the inclusion of the sitcom within a sitcom was lame. (Yeah, I'm a TWOPer. I've even written to Joy and gotten a response, so shoot me.) I have to disagree. A big part of the original premise of the series was based on Earl taking his cues from television. Let's face it, if Earl hadn't heard Carson Daly holding forth about karma, this show would have been about nearly everybody I went to high school with two undermotivated guys hanging out and my ex-sister-in-law the hairy, taller guy's scary ex-wife. I didn't exactly love the sitcom stuff, either, but I understand why they used it. This one time. Okay?

One other gripe. Please pick a character for Catalina and stick with it. One week she's the girl next door who Jumps for Joy, the next she's a stereotypical third-world fish out of water who wants to worship her dark, unnamed gods and rip out internal organs. The first two seasons, Catalina was interesting and fun. Now she seems like the repository for every South American primitive joke the writers can come up with

Now for the good news. Garcia and company are back with new episodes. Hooray for that! The cast is still pitch perfect. Alyssa Milano as Billie is a great addition. As a romantic interest for Earl, her Billie is believable and charming. She's a keeper! Kudos to her and Michael Moriarty for creating the back story that makes me want to keep watching to see what happens.

The regular suspects were also back in good form. Eddie Steeples as the enigmatic Crabman/Darnell/Harry wasn't given too much to do this episode, but he turned in a very good performance as a foil for Jamie Pressley's Joy. Pressley, as has been the case over the past two seasons, is often the heart of the show. However crude Joy and Darnell may be drawn by the writers, there is so much fine detail that Steeples and Pressley put into their performances that you can't help but feel the desire to emotionally invest in their stories. They were the standouts in a very strong ensemble.

The script was good, if uneven. The best cameo of the night was the reappearance of Josh, the truck driver as Earl's escort to the afterlife and and best laugh of the night came from an unnamed supporting player. Here's my approximation of it:


Joy: Can't we get a real doctor? You know. One of them Jew Doctors?

Doctor: Didn't you know? Indians are the new Jews.

Darnell: I thought it was the Koreans.

Doctor: They wish!

Overall, Earl shows a lot of promise. I'll be watching to see if they (and the other shows on NBC's lineup deliver.



Books The Clumsiest People In Europe: Or Mrs Mortimer's Bad Tempered Guide to the Victorian World by Todd Pruzan 2005 Bloomsbury Press and Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre by John Lahr 1996 Dial Press:


Todd Pruzan's Favell Lee Mortimer is hardly the sort of person you'd want to have as a traveling companion. On the other hand, reading her impressions of the people she met while traveling abroad is an unadulterated, if evil delight. The Clumsiest People In Europe: Or Mrs Mortimer's Bad Tempered Guide to the Victorian World is one of those books that will make you alternately gasp then laugh, then call up your friends to read them passages. It is so tempting to share passages here, but I won't because it always takes away from the shock and pleasure just a bit to find a really good part that you've already read out of context.

The mock travelogue/clueless fish out of water thing is nothing new. What sets this book apart is the earnestness of Ms Mortimer's fact-free opinions regarding her travels coupled with the impression that she honestly sees her words and actions as an expression of noblesse oblige. Pruzan manages to make such crude ignorance funny mostly by making Ms Mortimer so horrible. It's like reading a Westview ethnographic monograph by someone who no longer gives a damn. Well worth a look.

John Lahr is one of those rare writers who can get to the heart of what makes performance work. In Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre, he manages to get under the skins of an amazing array of people who work on or write for the stage. This is indeed a mixed bag. You'll find interviews with Bill Hicks, Tony Kushner and Dame Edna (Barry Humphreys), thoughtful reviews of productions of works by Tom Stoppard and Edward Albee and meditations on the careers of Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman among many others.

There are many reasons to like Lahr's work. He has a genuine love of what he's covering and is knowledgeable enough to do so in a manner that balances his enjoyment of what he's seeing with well-informed observations. He also manages to stay out of his own way. This is important because it makes him the perfect audience by proxy through which we can have a clear idea of what the work is really about. While theatre fans will get the most enjoyment out of this book, anyone with an interest in pop culture and arts and letters in the 90s' will get a lot out of it.



Music Putumayo Presents: World Hits 2007 Putumayo World Music:

Putumayo anthologies are the musical equivalent to Chia Pets and Sea Monkeys. Either you get it and enjoy them enough to own a few (well, in my case nearly all of them) or you don't and see them as cheap, tacky, sanitized versions of world music for suburbanites and stick to raw field recordings from Nonesuch and the dearly departed Ellipsis Arts label. The World Hits collection isn't going to change anyone's mind if they're predisposed to disliking Putumayo's CDs. To longtime fans, this one delivers exactly what the company motto promises: music "Guaranteed to make you feel good!"

The two quibbles I have with this CD are the title and the fact that entire continents are not included in what is implied to be a global sampling. South Africa is the easternmost country represented in this collection. "World Hits" manages to completely leave out any examples of J-Pop, Bollywood, and a number of other music movements and styles that have as much universal appeal and recognition as the tracks they chose to include. These are indeed hits that have roots all over the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Africa; but the newest track was first released in 1994 (Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry's "7 Seconds) and the oldest track dropped in 1963 (Mongo Santamaria's "Watermelon Man"). To me, "Hits" indicates that the contents are going to be pretty current, maybe 5 years old at most. Putumayo stumbled on naming this one, missing out on the opportunity to use the qualifiers that would make room for a more current collection of hits later on. This release should should have been called something like "World Gold".

Aside from the those concerns this is a pretty good collection. If your musical interests are pretty eclectic, you may already have most of the tracks on this disc. For those who are building or rebuilding their libraries, this is a great way to get your hands on Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger's turn on "Don't Look Back", Jimmy Cliff's gorgeous "The Harder They Come", Miriam Makeba's dancable "Pata Pata" and Santana's lush guitar work on "Oye Como Va". Out of eleven tracks, there's only one real clunker: Kaoma's "Lambada". It seems anemic compared to the richness of the other ten songs.

I generally love Putumayo's collections and have found their themed discs as satisfying as the ones they've devoted to specific countries or regions. This one feels a bit like a training disc for someone who has listened to very little outside of what corporate radio has to offer. "World Hits" is fun and a keeper for lazy Saturdays in the back yard, but not nearly as challenging as some of their other titles. If this does whet your appetite for more, I suggest checking out their Lounge and Groove series.


DVD Haiku Tunnel 2001 Sony Pictures Classics:


If Mike Judge's "Office Space" could be considered Dilbert's laid back Texan college roommate on a beer buzz, "Haiku Tunnel" would have to be it's wound-too-tight New York cousin who lost his Prozac, the number to his new doctor and quite frankly most of his adult composure. Nine out of ten paralegals, former paralegals and legal secretaries who have seen this movie find it strangely cathartic.

What starts out to be a boilerplate piece where the underlings take on The Man, complete with the usual twittering about how lawyers are a pretty homogenous bunch, turns into something that eventually resembles a harrowingly buddy caperish "After Hours" as much as it does a workplace comedy. I almost hate to talk about the payoff because it will give away too much of the movie. Let me just say that the only person who needs and gets any sort of redemption is the lead and in showing that you see that no one else really needed a redemption arc because they were all pretty nice people to begin with.

Some people might find "Haiku Tunnel" to be a bit cloying because of the lack of venom. I liked the good-natured looniness and the human scale of the comedy. No buildings blew up, no one bilked anyone out of a million dollars and no one died or was committed. Heck no one even got fired. All that happened was people pitched in and handled a small crisis and then they got on with their lives. In the bizarro universe that is what we see onscreen, this is pretty uncommon. The fact that it's entertaining and -Dare I say it?- a bit of a feelgood film, makes this a rare movie you shouldn't miss.


Movie Street Kings 2008 Fox Searchlight Pictures:

Okay, here is a review of "Street Kings" for my friends Sylvia and Big Gay Kevin. You have them and the guy who writes Crazy Days And Nights to thank or blame. A few months ago, he posted a picture of Keanu Reeves, who was making a movie called "The Nightwatchman". The first thing I did was make two mental notes: 1.) Send Syl and Kev a link since they both think at some point they are going to be Mrs. Reeves. 2.) Be sure to have cholera the week "The Night Watchman" comes out so they will have to find another disinterested third party to take them to see it.

And then one day Sylvia called to tell me there were pictures from the premiere of "Street Kings" and "Ooh! Let's go see it! It has Forest Whittaker and Hugh Laurie!" That was so dirty. She knows I would pay to watch Forest Whittaker and Hugh Laurie read the phone book. Let me requalify that, I would pay to watch Forest Whittaker and Hugh Laurie make out, read the Nashville Yellow Pages, make out some more and then read volumes 19 through 27 of the Tennessee Code Annotated. Little did I know that I would be watching a big, loud testostofest while sitting between Big Gay Kevin and Sylvia, who would alternately gasp and then hoarsely whisper, "LOOK at those ARMS!" Let me just say at this point that if Mr. Reeves is into furry gay redneck dudes from Alabama or foxy 83-year-old women, he's money if he ever comes to Nashville.

Here's the thing. I don't really have anything against big loud testostofests. "Point Break" is one of two dozen discs I would take if I ever lost my mind and did field work in Papua New Guinea and they had a hut with electricity. It's the most adorably blockheaded movie ever made and deserves acclaim for being the adrenaline-addled bemulleted gem that makes people alternately want to read the densest book on semiotics they can find and bungee jump over the Cumberland River. I don't even have anything against Keanu Reeves. He's a decent actor who has picked some interesting scripts (Thumbsucker, Tune In Tomorrow, My Own Private Idaho, I Love You to Death). It might be the nutty Keanu love from my two best that makes me want to run the other way when I see his mug in a preview.

But enough of that. Let's talk about "Street Kings". It is big and loud and the script is a shade smarter than most cop thrillers. Everybody in the cast was good and right on pitch. BGK thinks Laurie was miscast. I disagree. As a sort-of antagonist, he hit the marks in every scene. I was also quite impressed with Cedric the Entertainer. Let's face it, I expected good performances from everyone else, but Cedric floored me. He's really good! Would I watch this this film again? Probably not. But I do want to see everyone in it again, possibly together and maybe with Sandra Bullock along for the ride.

My next movie? "The Forbidden Kingdom" which will hopefully have lots of airborne battle scenes and Jet Li and Jackie Chan flaring their nostrils at each other in Mandarin or reading from the Nashville Yellow Pages.


Namaste!
Jas


copyright 2008 Jas Faulkner

An Open Letter To Teachers On Behalf Of The Token Artistic Kid(s) In Your Class

It's getting to be that time of the year and two things have more than likely occurred:

1.) Your budget for schoolroom decorations has not gone as far as it should have and the stuff you bought earlier to hang on the walls and bulletin boards seems a little skimpy.

2.) You now know which kids in your class can draw or paint fairly well.

It is probably very tempting to see Number Two on the list as a solution to the problem presented by Number One. This would also be a good time to realize that resisting temptation is not just the right thing to do, it will possibly firm up those upper arms and give you strong nails and a glossy, bouncy hair. Okay, I'm lying about the last part; but really, try not to turn the need for a pretty bulletin board into an Americanized version of the in-betweener sweatshops in Asia that draw all those animation cells for The Simpsons.

Of course, you're probably thinking that this can't possibly apply to you. Oh no! That snooty Ms Reese down the hall should take a gander at this, but you? No no no no no no no. Hmmm. Let's take a look at some of the myths associated with The Classroom Artist.

1.) They LOVE doing this! What they love is doing this when they know it will lead to a good grade, something they can take home to Mom or Dad and the rush that comes from normal classroom competition that they can win. When they're trying to do what you asked and you are standing behind them, framing their work in your fingers like a Spielberg manque and muttering that you're just not feeling it; keep in mind that they aren't either, and the next thing they will be drawing is a cartoon of you being eaten by a velociraptor while they and their friends cheer.

2.) They love making something that other kids will see and enjoy now and in years to come. I'm going to speak from personal experience. Here's the situation: We've all had fun making the really great collages that you've asked us to make. In fact, everyone was anxious to take them home so their parents could see them. Everyone but me. Was I ashamed of my collage? Are my parents the type of people who would make fun of my creative efforts? Did I neglect to finish my collage? No, no and no. My collage was whisked from my desk and sent to the lamination shop. A day later, it reappeared in the glass showcase in the front hallway of the school, where it would languish for a month until the Thanksgiving decorations went up. I would visit it the way some of my classmates would later visit their boyfriends in the county lockup. For weeks I asked my teacher when I could have my collage. She finally snapped that she laminated it so it was hers now and to quit asking about it. The next collage I made was a depiction of my teacher being eaten by Idi Amin while my friends and I cheered.

And the ugliest myth of all...

3.) Making art for the class creates a sense of accomplishment and gives that withdrawn little mouse with a Marks-A-Lot some social capital. Face it, I'm doing them a favor. Where do I start with this one? Here's the thing: You are not doing that student a favor. You are asking for a personal favor. You're asking them to expend their time, talent and more often than not their own supplies to help you on a professional level. Do you work for free? Okay then. As for social capital, most of us already have that. We mousy types are communal voiders who hang with other mousy types when you're not torturing us in an effort to get us to exhibit some self esteem in class. Push us to create dioramas of the pilgrims laying the groundwork for genocide and the next thing we will create will be a picture of you being eaten by Ron Jeremy while my friends and I giggle like fiends.

The bottom line? Be nice about it. Ask, don't demand. Don't loan us out to other teachers like we're equipment that you own. For goodness' sake, don't throw a pair of dull, right-handed childrens' scissors, a black chisel-tip marker and two pieces of dented, dirty poster board in the hallway floor and expect Guernica by the time the bell rings. On second thought, Guernica is probably exactly what you will get. You've been warned.

copyright 2007 Jas Faulkner

There's Always Room For The Obligatory Pictorial Essay Making Fun of Vintage Cookbooks

Everyone else is doing them, why shouldn't I? Maybe because everyone else is doing them? If everyone decided to strip down to their underwear and jump into the Cumberland River, would I do it, too?

The cruel fact is that not only am I caving in to peer pressure, but I am doing so because I am once again my alter-ego, Phlegm Grrl, and cinema-therapy isn't doing the trick. Over the past three days I've wept copiously over "Finding Neverland" ("Kate...Kate...You find happiness with Johnny Depp and drop dead? Where is the satisfaction in that?!?!?!"), "Omhide Poro Poro" ("Taeko...Taeko...You won't be happy until you ditch the cubicle job in Tokyo and stay on the organic soy farm with Hiro. Where is your head? See? They're playing "The Rose" and all the cute little characters are scampering around your feet. It's a sign, Taeko. Go back to Soy Boy!") and the baby penguin that got eaten and his keening parents in the Antarctica section of "Winged Migration"("Bad raptor! You suck! You suck, mean bird!").

I needed some relief. I needed a cheap laugh. So I started looking through the cookbook shelf in the kitchen. All of them had some entertainment value, but the dessert books made some of the biggest leaps from kind of sublimely cool to ridiculous. Here, let me show you what I mean:

This first image is from a 1982 cookbook by Judith Olney called "The Joy of Chocolate".



It's actually a cake with chocolate leaves that were cast from real cabbage. Pretty neat, hunh? Then I flipped through and found this:



Okay, the bag itself, which is made of chocolate cast from a paper bag, is very cool and the fruit looks tasty. Maybe I'm off-base with this, but it seems like the pudding, which looks a tad lumpy and well, poo-shaped, is a bad choice. It turns the whole thing into something a young Jacques Torres might have left on the front porch of a cranky neighbor before ringing the bell and running.

Another example, one that will probably insure that you will never again take anything I write seriously, can be found in the 1983 "Farm Journal's Complete Cake Decorating Book". Actually, there's a lot to love about this book because it's all about pretty, tasty desserts that can be made without having to take months of decorating classes. We're not talking about the stuff you see coming from Texas Culinary Bronwen or Collette. These are the kinds of cakes that would make your mama very happy at the Mother's Day brunch at church.



Then, I moved on a few pages and my evil inner ten-year-old giggled like a fiend over this cake:





I'm sorry. I really am.

No I'm not. It's funny. The only thing that would have made this funnier would be if I'd found it in "Favorite Desserts of Presbyterian Women of Northern Alabama" I've already promised Big Gay Kevin that I'll make one for his bachelor party if he's ever allowed to legally marry.


Of course you know I'm saving the best for last and here it is:





It looks cute and Bradylicious and all, but I have serious doubts that anyone in the General Foods test kitchens really cared whether kids in the late 70s' would want "Amazing Magical Jell-o Desserts". In fact, I think there was a lot of toking and giggling going in in that test kitchen and the result was a book intended for stoners who love to cook when they get the munchies.

Take a look at this:




Would you even think of making this, much less eating it if you weren't in some way impaired?

And this?




It screams, "We were out of spray cheese and Fritos and we ate it and hey, maybe your kid will think it's ice cream and eat it." Come on. Those cones are grounds for a visit from the TBI and Children's Services.


Not everything in this book is bad, but I suspect that the stuff that is fairly decent was probably cannibalized from "General Foods' Presents School Cafeteria Treats For Boys and Girls".

Here is "Ship Ahoy".




And Dr. Cosby is right. You can't go wrong with "Puddin' Pops"!



But what are we to make of this?



Where is ice this color? Love Canal? Chernobyl? Planet Zarquon?

and then there's this:



In the cookbook, it's called a "Banana Wobbler". It looks exactly like one of the things that Stewart From College brought to Beautiful Alice's bachelorette party that caused him to have to write a letter of apology to the groom's mother. But that could be my inner ten-year-old working in overdrive again.

And the holiday recipes in this book...They're the stuff of kiddie nightmares, especially the Easter dishes.



These are not eggs, they're "eggs". That's right, someone at the GF testing kitchen actually cast cloudy gelatin in real eggshells and made those things. Imagine being the kid who finds those at the Annual Easter Egg Hunt. Honestly, if Easter makes you feel this mean, just skip this step and give your kid balut. (Warning: not for the squeamish!)

There was also HeckBunny:



You just know there's some demented Sunday School teacher from Lubbock doing hard time after a suckerware box of those was intercepted by the deacons.

Speaking of evil handiwork, there is a running theme in this book which looks like someone came up with a bright idea and everyone just ran with it. I imagine that person's name was probably Nathan. Nathan had always been the slacker of the GF Test Kitchen Crew. He was nice enough and he always shared the wealth whenever he was holding. As a chef? Well, let's just say that his parents thought a year of culinary school would scare some sense into him after he got kicked out of MIT for earning the nickname "Anything That Moves" and causing his room mate to gibber and drool during Fall midterms.

So here's the scenario: One of the more Type A chefs, we'll call her Denise, approached Nathan and said something to the effect of, "Look, you've been here three years and you haven't come up with anything original. This is easy. It's a gimme. Kids and Jell-o products. Give me something, anything I can use."

So Nathan sighed heavily, disappeared into the walk-in freezer for three hours and came out with this:



To which Denise said, "What the-?"

"It's food and it has a face. Kids love food with faces on it. See? Choo choo! Here comes the jell-o with the face!"

There was a long pause as they thought about this. Then they realized that it was late and it made sense, sort of. So there were lots and lots of foods with faces added to the book:









And there was much rejoicing until everyone remembered that NASA Dave, the government wonk who was there to make food tubes for astronauts, had totally missed the discussion. So they presented him with this:


"Cute face" he said.

"What face?" they all deadpanned and then NASA Dave muttered something about things just not being the same since Nixon stepped down and went home.

And with that, I'm signing off. I want some Jell-o. Their strawberry-kiwi and raspberry flavors are like buttah!


copyright 2007 Jas Faulkner

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is ready to take on 2007. Let's assume that it's going to be a banner year for everybody. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that.

There's not a whole lot to write about at the moment. Everyone seems to be happy and busy right now. As of January 4th, I'm still keeping to my resolutions. That might be a record for me.

I hope everyone got what they wanted this holiday. There wasn't any particular thing that I wanted or needed. The experience of giving my family and friends stuff that they like was pretty neat, but then it always is. I'm not sure how to describe what I wanted. An experience? Some sort of cosmic gift? That sounds too grandiose. Maybe what I was hoping for was some kind of quick cosmic nod. Being oversaturated with news and weary from the angry rhetoric that has started to feel like ambient noise, I wanted a glimpse of something that was bigger than myself, older than my soul and a reminder that there is still beauty and sublimity to be experienced.

I got it early morning on December 23rd while driving on Highway 109 in Sumner County. To be exact, I was going over the Cumberland River on the Veterans' Memorial Bridge when I noticed the shadows moving across the hood and windshield of my car.

I looked up to see a flock of Canadian Geese flying in V-formation. They were following the curve of the river as the sun rose. Because the bridge is so high up, they were flying close. Since there was no one else on the road at that hour, I stopped for a moment. Another flock flew over and then I looked to my left and saw wave after wave of geese all flying in that same V formation. Some of them were flying close enough that you could hear their voices and the swoosh and rustle of their wings. I wish there was a way to convey how magnificent it was.
I stayed there as long as I could and then reluctantly continued my drive when I heard another vehicle coming up the road.

And that was that.

Did I say I was keeping my resolutions so far? Yes I did. I wasn't even going to make resolutions and then group of us got together and watched "Akeelah and the Bee" on New Year's Eve. Aside from the fact that it was easily the best movie I saw last last year, it included a quote from Marianne Williamson that I hadn't heard in a long time that really hit home.

"Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be so brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God: Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~Marianne Williamson

I'll be the first to cop that I usually avoid self-help books because huggy-boo new age thinking makes me squirm. But there's something to this. It's the sort of thing that I've tried to instill in my nephew and the kids I taught and cared for and that I've quite frankly lost sight of myself over the last few years.

So what's the point in all this? If I'm going to type out this much navel-gazing, there should at least be a lesson. The lesson was seeing the need to get over myself and get out of my own way. Being humbled and quieted has allowed for clarity and peace and happiness and real drive that isn't based in fear or desire. It was the perfect gift.

copyright 2007 Jas Faulkner

First Comes The Yard Sale, Then Comes The Delousing...

A few years ago, I found myself possessed of way too much stuff. I made an attempt to deliver it to the local GoodIntentions and was greeted frostily by a drop-off manager who had just been snookered into taking fifteen liquor boxes of garbage from some yuppie in an Escalade. Not nice. But still, my boxes and bags were full of clothes, shoes, books, records, and all kinds of household sundry-type stuff that people dig at the GoodIntentions. The Drop-Off Brahmin sniffed at my boxes and bags, declared the two he'd looked through acceptable and then snapped his fingers so two of his eunuchs could carry them into the store. Cheered by the approval, I started to unload the rest of my stuff.

"Wait just a minute, Missy! I have to look through those, too."

"Every one of them?" I was incredulous.

He stared at me and didn't so much as twitch when a fly landed on top of his forehead. Now, that was zen. It was also very unfortunate because I had to be somewhere very soon and had no time for each bag to be inspected and approved. I offered to leave everything there and they could throw away what they didn't want. No dice. So, I went back home with everything minus the two bags of stuff they'd taken in and got on with my day.

When Big Gay Kevin suggested a garage sale, it seemed like a good idea. People would get to dig for cheap thrills and I could pick up a little money. It sounded like a plan to me and settled on the following Saturday.

The Friday before, I made some signs and went to the intersections closest to my house to put them up. As I was putting up my last sign, an older man pulled up to read it. A lot of people had been doing that and then pulling away, sometimes shouting a cheery "See ya tomorrow!" so I didn't think much of it.

"You got computers?" he asked.

"No," I said, "It's mostly clothes, books, some movies and music and small household stuff."

"Well, lemme go see what you got."

I was taken by surprise by this. "You mean right now?"

He chuffed and said, "Well, yeah. I'll follow you home and check out your stuff."

Two things came to mind: everything to be sold was in a box or a bag to be put out tomorrow and this guy gave me the creeps.

"Ah no." I said "Thanks, but I've got some stuff to do so it isn't a good time. You're welcome to come tomorrow when I've got everything out."

"I won't come tomorrow." He said in an odd challenging way that I couldn't place at first, but realized that it was the same tone my nephew used when he would tell me I was no longer the coolest aunt ever for not getting him a Slurpee AND Angry Angry Beavers Bubblegum Cards.

"Oh, well." I said and gathered my tools and got into my car and drove away.

The hours on the sign said the sale lasted from 8 to 2. At Kevin's behest, I added "No Earlybirds Please!".

At a quarter to six the next morning, I went out to get my paper and saw a van with Indiana tags parked in my driveway. A short, sparkplug-shaped woman wearing an "I Heart eBay" shirt was trying to force open my garage door.

"May I help you?" I asked. For those of you not familiar with Tennessee manners and mores, "May I help you?" means "I don't know you, you're scaring me, and I'm about to get my big strappin' male cousins to escort you out of my personal space."

"You need to let me in so I can look at your stuff."

I was a hardened pro by now.

"No can do!" I said breezily, "The sale starts at eight. You're welcome to come back then."

"I won't come back!" she snapped. I shrugged and went back to my porch.

She glared at me and bellowed at the van, "Beverly! Start the van! We're leaving NOW!"

I saw the van lurch to the right as the sparkplug climbed into the van and poor, put upon Beverly, who was saddled the double challenges of marriage to the sparkplug and being given a woman's name, pulled away. Sparkplug rolled down her window and barked, "I'm not coming baaaaack!" as they rolled down the street.

Oh, but she did come back. And so did the creepy guy from the day before. And so did a number of other very original souls who I had no idea lived in my part of the state. I also got to know my neighbors better, made a little money and got the phone number of a man who wanted to be called if my neutered male dog ever had puppies.


copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Welcome to my Organ Recital

This is yet another post about woman stuff, so if you're male and reading this, you might want to stop right now and find something else to read. Why not take a look at Keith Olbermann's Countdown site ? Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

Okay, here's the thing. I went to Dr. Al Gore for my annual checkup. His real name isn't Al Gore, but he looks so much like our former Vice President that I've wondered if they're kin. To his credit, he has never rolled his eyes and sighed at me. This is no mean feat since he's been my doctor since 1986. He also managed not to make a locked box joke during my first pelvic exam, for which he deserves credit. But I'm digressing...

During this visit, I asked him about the absolute lowest age someone could reasonably expect to start menopause. (You see why I sent the guys over to Olbermann's site? They should be thanking me.) There's a good reason for this. I was sure I was going through menopause in 2000. I had a job where I had to do mulitple things like run a bitchy meme and come up with five to six fresh political jokes five days a week and was also told that the gig would run through the end of the election. Well, we all know how that worked out. Sometime around September, I stopped menstruating. I also stopped eating regularly and sleep became a hobby to be revisited whenever I could remember it. I thought it was due to me running out of eggs. Dr. Gore thought it was the stress of slipping into a persona that just wasn't me to entertain the masses and trying to find something funny about an election season that could have been scripted by Mencken on crank. When I when I went back to working with shelter kids at the first of the year and started merrily cycling, eating and sleeping again, we concluded that he was right. Score points for him for not being insufferable about it. Digressing again...

So I asked him about the Big M for real this time and he told me it was still a way off but that I needed to consider kegeling because the continual seasonal coughing thing I do this time of the year could cause the muscles that hold my stuff in to weaken. What? WHAT? I mean, I've joked about coughing up a lung or leaning over and feeling one of my eyes pop out, but now there's the very real possibility that I could cough and push out my uterus? What the...? Oh, that's just gross.

He then wrote down a URL for me to get instructions on how to kegel and blithely moved on to other topics while my mind was racing about what would happen if I dropped my freaking uterus. I was imagining waking up to find a collection of internal organs I had kicked to the foot of the bed in the night or worse, being in line at the bank or post office, coughing hard and getting a pantsfull of what should have remained inside of my body.

I let this anxiety get to me for about a week and finally called him to ask if there was anything else I could do to keep those muscles toned.

"It's not a big deal. You're getting a little older and it's time you paid more attention to details like that. Did you think your bladder was going to shoot out the next time you coughed?" he chuckled. He. CHUCKLED!

I wanted to say, "Yes, Dr. Gore, it has worried me for some time and when I got up to let the dog out to pee, my uterus just fell right the heck out. I've got it sitting here on a salad plate. Should I put it in a baggie of milk and bring it to you?"

What I said was, "Oh, no. That's just silly. Ha ha! Just doing a follow up."

"Well, good. Say hi to your mom for me!"

So that was that.

I'm not going to squeeze everything out like a cannoli in a kid's fist and life is good. Now I'm going to go see what Keith Olbermann has to say.

Peace,

Jas


copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Yeah, I'm the Freakin' Lorax...Siddown!

Most of the time I've really loved living in Nashville, mainly because it's a green, pretty city. To be accurate, I actually live in what used to be a small burb just outside of Davidson County whose main drag consisted of an Eisenhower-era Rexall, Nadine's Taxidermy and a family-owned hardware store that looked like a set piece from a community production of "The Music Man". Then the population started booming and quite frankly, a newcomer would be hard pressed to tell my once-little town from Franklin or Gallatin or Murfreesboro. Don't get me wrong, I think change and growth can be good things, but I am concerned about the effect this is having on indigenous flora and fauna.

Critters used to be abundant and there was a sort of respect and forebearance between the animals who called this part of Tennessee home and the bipeds who demanded to drive on it. It wasn't uncommon to see foxes, raccoons, muskrats and possums wandering around Gallatin Road when I came home after a long, late working night at the Opry. Herds of deer roamed the farms and could be seen running through the trees at the Army C of E Dam and Marina. Now those are rare sights. Even rarer are some of the plants that used to grow by the bushel in the forests and fields around here.

I'm starting to think that the credo for Tennessee has gone from "The Volunteer State" to "Ooh lookie! A tree! Let's kill it!"

This is going to sound really dumb, but one of the things that has bothered me the most about the building boom is how it is affecting the turtles and tortoises around here. There used to be more wetlands and there were plenty of snappers and loggerheads paddling their way through the cattails. They're interesting to watch and good for keeping the insect population in check. I'm sure there are still some around, but fewer wetlands mean fewer turtles and that's a shame.

Tortoises are a different story. There seem to be plenty of them, at least for now, but they have no place to go. When the weather changes you can see many of them squashed on the road as they wander around looking for food. The thing about tortoises is that they tend to stay on the same square acre or so their whole lives. When they get a mind to go in a direction, they keep going every time you set one down no matter how many times you interrupt his progress. So if a tortie thinks there's food across the street, he's gonna go and there's really nothing you can do unless you want to pick him up, carry him on across the street and hope he doesn't get confused and walk back into traffic. You can't relocate a tortoise to a new, quieter place and expect him to be happy. If he can, he'll meander back home. I know this from way too much firsthand experience. I've also lost a few perfectly good shoes that landed in the beds of pickup trucks driven by rednecks who swerved to hit the tortoise I'd just tried to keep out of traffic. I'm not proud of that.

I'm also not proud of the fact that I once attempted to use tears to keep a Metro Nashville police officer from writing me a ticket when I was stopped in the median just past a busier part of Gallatin Road to assist a tortoise. Mama didn't raise me to act that way, but at the time, I didn't have a choice.

I saw the tortie, pulled into the median and picked it up. Okay, I took a minute to pet it and talk to it. It was enough time for me to get careless about how long I was there and the next thing I knew, flashing blue lights. It was Metro. Crap. The cop strode around my car and started to tell me I needed to put my hood up. Then he saw the tortoise.

"Lady?" he said

Oh crap oh crap oh crap. I could not afford a ticket. I worked up a quiver in my voice and said, "I'm really really sorry. I'll move my car. I was driving by and he was starting to go across the street and turtles are really nice and they don't hurt anybody. See?"

I held up the tortoise for him to see and it responded to my call to bond with nature by hissing, pulling into its shell and peeing down my arm. (There has been some argument as to whether tortoises pee. This one did. Or if it wasn't pee, I don't want to know what it was...)

The policeman sighed, told me to take my turtle and please move my car or I would be towed. I thanked him profusely, offered to let him pet the tortoise (he declined) and drove to the shoulder so I could release him into the field next to the road and watch to see that he didn't wander back into traffic and get smashed.

So, where ever you are Mister Tortoise, I hope you had a good life and thank you Mister Metro Police Officer for either being nice enough to let me move the tortoise or afraid enough of the crazy hippie lady to let me do my thing.

Peace,

A Shame-Faced Jas

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Studies Show That Southern Women Really Are As Mean As Snakes

There's this misapprehension everyone seems to have that Southern Women are docile creatures with big hair and Daddy issues who need nothing more than an endless diet of frou frou and a fainting couch. Did I mention that we all grew up wanting to marry our horses or Atticus Finch? Well.

I will cop to having big hair and quite frankly, I've always looked for the same qualities in a man that I could find in my late, much beloved horse. But a fainting couch? Frou frou? Most of us are more like Ellie Mae Clampett in spirit than Scarlett O'Hara. Think about it. Ellie Mae got to climb trees and hang out with all those cool critters by the cee-ment pond. What did Scarlett O'Hara ever do other than throw hissy fits, tease those pitifully inbed Tarleton twins and pine after that meally-mouthed Ashley Wilkes? I would go so far as to say - Gentlemen, would y'all please go into the other room and see what's on ESPN? Thank you. - I would go so far as to say that Ms. Scarlett was stuck in pre-sexual adolescence and was probably deathly afraid of orgasms, bless her heart.

Beautiful Alice would probably disagree on the grounds that she loves Scarlett. In fact when we were in college, there was a job announcement that got passed around asking for candidates to assist the docents at the Margaret Mitchell house for the summer. The flyer mentioned that the docents were actors who dressed as characters from "Gone With the Wind."

"So that means that someone down there is pretending to be Scarlett?" Alice stared incredulously at the flyer.

"I guess so," I said.

"But I'm Scarlett." she said in a deadly quiet tone that made one of our more Indiana Jonesish classmates scoot away from her.

"Honey," I said, "You're Alice and you're here in Kentucky. That girl was probably born and raised in Georgia."

"Hunh." She said. "Well, I'm just going to have to go to Atlanta and jerk somebody baldheaded."

I have to admit that I don't get that way unless someone wants to mess with my dog, my family, my friends or anybody whose work I like.

One of my ex-boyfriends will attest to the last item on that list. We were at The Beale Street Blues Festival when some intoxicated yuppies started screaming "You're fat!" at Etta James. ExBoyfriend Who Looked Like Liev Schriber pinned my arms and shushed me until a retinue of bikers a couple of rows ahead of us made their way back to the yuppies in an outreach effort towards peace, understanding and enhanced music appreciation.

The bottom line is that we're aware of our humanistic connections with each other and we're not afraid to use them. Say Tom Stoppard is a linguistic arriviste and I'll get my big, strappin' boy cousins after you. Make fun of my dog or Kevin or Alice and we're going to strip to the waist and duke it out in the parking lot. Did you say "Your Mama"? Do you see this Mephistophelean death stare? And we don't end our sentences with prepositions, Bitch.

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Bunkered in on De Debbil's Night

It drizzled rain all night, so trick or treaters were sparse. I called upon my rights as a Phlegmsponge-American to pass on the fun this year. We kept the lights off in the front of the house and basked it the blue glow of scary movies.

I figured it would be a quiet evening and nobody was really missing out, so the guilt I'd experienced that morning for not setting up The Punkin Patch* pretty much went away. Around 6:45, O'Neill went a little bonkers. I knew the preteen across the street was going all out and figured he could hear them. When he kept barking I peeked out the front window to see two sets of parents and about five kids standing in my driveway. The parents were carrying those heavy-duty lanterns most people use for camping or power outages. I shrugged and went back into the living room, assuming they would eventually figure out that we weren't participating this year and move on to houses that were lit, decorated and had people standing on the porch with bowls of goodies.

You know what happens when people assume. A minute after I sat back down, everyone in the room jumped out of their skin as bright lights flashed into the living room windows and multiple fists banged on the locked storm door as all five of those kids screamed "Trick or Treat!" over and over. A quick straw poll by the BFF, his boyfriend and co-BFF, my mother and the dog concluded that since I was the sickest, sounded like Regan from "The Exorcist" and looked like Binkley from Bloom County, I was the best choice to go to the door.

I opened the wooden door, not wanting to open the glass door and thus spread my flu-cooties and the munchkins began pawing and clamoring. One of the dads pointed to the handle of the storm door and urged me to open it. I shook my head.

"I have the flu." I croaked. The fact is, I could have told him I was a pomegranate or that I was Inigo Montoya. It wouldn't have mattered. When you can't talk, people just parse whatever you struggle to utter into whatever it is they want to hear and move on.

"Aren't you going to decorate?" he bellowed at the door. We always take pictures of our kids here." He stared expectantly as the fruit of his loins and their little friends continued to mill around his legs and squeak their palms against the glass in vain hope that I would feed them.

I meant to tell him that I was really sorry, but I had the flu and given the wet, nasty state of things, it just wasn't happening this year. What he probably heard was: "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

"Whut?" he bellowed.

"I'm sorry, I really need to go," I croaked.

"WHUT?" he bellowed again.

One of the smaller kids started licking the storm door where my dog's nose was pressed against it on the opposite side.

"Dude. When was the last time you fed your kids?"

"WHUT?"

I finally mimed and croaked, "I'm sorry. Cough cough sick here. Bye bye." and shut the door as a couple of kids hollered "Bye bye sick lady!"

They trooped away as Big Gay Kevin and my Mom helpfully sang "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch".

I sank gratefully onto the couch and watched what was left of the movie. Thirty minutes later there was another knock at the door. It was a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses. I thanked them through the storm door and told them I was pretty happy with my own set of beliefs, but thanks for dropping by. One of the ladies leaned forward.

"Did you say you were Inigo Montoya?"

I sighed, waved bye and headed back to the couch. Before I could even sit down there was another knock at the door. It was someone from the local Seventh Day Adventist outreach group. They were canvassing the neighborhood to let everyone know about their open house/vegan workshop and taste-in. I thanked them and closed the door.

"There had better not be anyone else on this porch tonight", I said as I closed the door, forgetting to turn off the porch light. Unbeknownst to me, the porch stayed lit and not another soul knocked.



*The Punkin Patch is a tradition I've kept for quite a few years. I have approximately 55 of those fiberglass fake jack-o-lanterns that I've rescued from trash heaps, garage sales, thrift stores and the like and a number of other cute, tot-friendly decorations. My entire front yard is then covered in strings of green lights, jack-o-lanterns and other cute stuff. It was intended as a non-scary place for little kids to get bottles of bubble stuff and enjoy halloween. That way, parents could bypass the more nightmare-inducing yards featuring Jason, Freddy Krueger, etc and the older kids could have their fun with each other and everybody would be happy. Or something like that.


copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Think Pink!

I'm trying to find a delicate way to talk about this and words are failing me.

Oh, what the hell.

This is a blog post about tits. Gentlemen, I love you dearly and you gladden my black little heart and all, but hey, you're excused for the remainder of this post.

Really.

Go see if ESPN Classic has a good movie on. (And for goodness' sake, don't watch "Ole Yeller"!)

Now, where was I? Tits. Okay, we all have two of them. Well, most of us have two of them. And a lot of the time, especially if we're not particularly touchy feelie with ourselves or someone else, it's easy for stuff to go undetected.

That's why I wanted to talk to you about mammograms and the BSE or Breast Self Exam. If you are 40 or over, you need to be getting a mammogram once every one to two years. The BSE is something we need to be doing at least once a month. You can download and print an instruction card from the Susan G. Komen website here. It's easy! You can even do it in the privacy of your own shower. Hey, how often is it that the key to your peace of mind about anything is right there in your hand?

Okay, while we're on the subject of getting to second base with ourselves...well, yeah, your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend could help you, but they need to read the card you're going to print out so they know what they're doing. Speaking of boyfriends and husbands, it's much a rarer thing, but they can get breast cancer, too.

The scary thing about male breast cancer is that with the exception of Fabio's, most moobs (man-boobs, Mom) are going to be much smaller than our boobs; so cancer can spread to the chest wall more quickly. Early detection is pretty important for them, too. Note any changes in the chest area including lumps, skin dimpling, puckering or nipple changes. (Why do men even have nipples?)

Want to learn more? Visit The Komen Foundation's website at http://www.komen.org . You'll find all kinds of useful information about breast cancer dectection and treatment. There is also a wealth of information about ways to support agencies that are working to eradicate Breast Cancer.

And by the way...October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You might have noticed that some of your favorite retailers and products are sporting pink ribbon logos or pink packaging right now. Those aren't Easter leftovers. They're special products indicating that a portion of the proceeds from the sale of that item will go toward funding for breast cancer research and awareness education. So if you're deciding which item to buy, the choice is easy. For the month of October, do the right thing and Think Pink!

Peace!

Jas

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Curbed Service

Please bear with me because I'm going to get on my soapbox for a paragraph. Summer is nearly over and many regions in the US are experiencing slightly cooler weather. It's very tempting to load your best four-legged friends into the car when you head out for errands. What a lot of people don't realize is that it's still pretty warm and your pup could get mighty uncomfortable waiting for you as the sun hits those windows and windshields and heats up the inside of your car. So please think twice and leave your bud at home and maybe bring them a nice organic biscuit or something.

Now, having said that, I've been subjected to two instances of well-intentioned people who just wanted to be sure that I wasn't leaving some creature in my car to roast. Fortunately, it wasn't the case either time, but they were not to be deterred. I salute them and offer their acts of heroism up for your amusement.

The first happened many years ago. My nephew, SproutBoy, was just a tot and had a stuffed platypus that he adored because it was colored just like the shih tzu who owned me at the time. PlattyBooger's permanent place soon became the place next to Sproutie's car seat. I would often forget it was back there until someone asked me about the gray and white fuzz ball in the back seat.

So it's late spring and it's kind of warm. I'm in a hurry to get two boxes of juice pops for the kids we would be subjecting to adventure-based therapy, so I was trying to get out of the car and sprint into the store when the woman loading her groceries in the car next to mine stopped me before I could get too far.

"Don't you think you should at least crack your windows open a little?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm only going to be in there for a minute." I gave a goofy sweeping gesture with my hands that I hoped she would take to mean that I wanted her to let me by.

She took a deep breath and then her lips disappeared.

"It's hot in that car." she barked at me.

"I really appreciate your concern but my windshield isn't going to crack. We're just barely into th 80s tempwise."

She strode to my car and tapped on the back driver's side window.

"What about this?" she snapped.

"What?" I leaned over to see what was upsetting her and it dawned on me that she thought Plattybooger was a live animal.

"Oh! It won't feel a thing!" I chuckled and started to walk away.

She drew a quivering breath and shouted at me "HOW can you be so heartless?"

"Ma'am," I said, "Look. It's not alive" I leaned over and tapped the glass. Platty didn't move.

"It's DEAD!" She began to cry.

A bag boy walked up to see if everything was okay.

"It's dead!" She said again, glaring at me accusingly.

"It's polyester!" I said. I opened the door and took Plattybooger and held it up for her to see, wiggling his pink felt beak and feet at her.

The bag boy blinked at me. "You mean to tell me you're leaving a stuffed platypus in your car with no water and the windows rolled up in 80 degree weather?"

The woman shook her head. "I keep trying to tell her..."

I'd had enough. "I'm going in. The two of you can sort this out any way you want to."

It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if I'd come back to find the woman had opened a carton of milk and a bag of Oreos and was having morning snacks with the bagboy and Plattybooger. She was gone. No one had smashed in a window, but I must have forgotten to lock the back door because Platty was sitting upright with a bottle of water between his front flippers. That'll teach me.

Okay, so what are the odds of coming across similarly inclined but well-intentioned loonies? It was almost ten years later. I had retrieved my dog, a large Old English Sheepdog mix, from his spa day at the groomer's and stopped at a Mexican place to pick up the dinner order I'd called in.

Because I knew it would only take me a few steps and as many minutes to get dinner, I turned up the AC, cracked one back wondow about six inches so he could poke out his snoot and sniff around, clipped off the door key and locked the doors. I was in there maybe three to five minutes when the couple who had been ahead of me in line came back to inform me my dog was shut in a car in the heat. I assured them that it was much cooler in the car than it was in the restaurant and stayed where I was. They left in a huff and then returned madder a couple of minutes later while the counter guy was ringing me up.

"He growled at us! We were trying to help him and he growled at us." The girl looked very angry and a bit shaken.

It wasn't like him to growl at anybody. Then the boy spoke and cleared everything up.

"And he took our tacos."

What? I went outside to find O'Neill still in air conditioned comfort, happily tearing into a bag of tacos.

"Every time we reach in, he growls at us." The girl complained.

"He thinks you're going to take his tacos." I said.

"They're OUR tacos!" The boy corrected me.

"He did leave you a couple." I said. There were a two tacos still in their wrappers on the ground next to a piece of the bag O'Neill hadn't managed to pull into the car when they were probably trying to "liberate" him.

They snatched up their tacos and went back into the restaurant. I saw them point at O'Neill and me as they talked and then I saw the counter guy laugh. Who knows? Maybe they entertained him sufficiently that he comped them some more tacos.

My point, and I do have one, is that it's always a good idea to speak up if you think an animal is in danger. However, use some common sense. The dinner (and dignity) you save may be your own.

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Finding Jesus, Seeing Buddha in the Road and Getting Lost With Chet

I was sitting in the backyard with Legba. It was late and we were enjoying what was probably one of the last remaining nights of the year when everything was still lush and yet the weather wasn't unbearably hot.

A small, squat woman leaned over my gate and waved.

"Yoohoo! Hellooo!"

I waved and then turned back to Legba. He was about to tell me the truth about Robert Johnson and I didn't want to ruin the moment.

"Uh, hi! Hello? Can we talk for a minute?"

Legba rolled his eyes, sipped the lemonade I'd made for him and stared off into the distance. I sighed and got up from table.

As I approached the gate, the woman fidgeted and wiggled like a happy, fat scottie.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"No." she said, using the same tone of voice my dentist's assistant uses just before she's about to do something she knows will hurt like a bitch. "I'm here to help YOU. Let me ask you this. Have you found Jesus?"

Legba dropped his cool act and looked genuinely startled.

"Crap." He said "You mean the Ramirez kid is missing? He's only three. Maybe we should call the police."

The lady cleared her throat loudly.

"My dear sir," she intoned, "I assure you that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not a small Mexican child."

Legba drained his glass and shook his head.

"Sweet Jas," he said as he got up and appraoched the gate, "Given the sudden change in the barometric pressure, the next one is gonna have to be a bit harder."

I took his glass with every intention of filling it with lemonade and a shot of Lynchburg's finest, but I also didn't want to miss a word of the exchange that was sure to follow.

"Now why is it, my dear lady, that you don't think Jesus could be a small Mexican boy? What does Jesus look like? I need something to go on if I'm going to go looking for him."

Legba cocked his head to the side and waited for the squatty woman to respond. She patted her lips with two fingers and cleared her throat.

"Well, I ah, didn't actually mean for you to go looking for Jesus."

"Why not? You asked us if we'd found him. Is he lost or not? And if he is lost, how does a grown man get that way in this day and age unless he's Chet Baker?"

"I think you might have misunderstood..."

"You're about to tell me some little white man named Jesus is lost? In Tennessee? Jas, are you listening to this?"

I smiled reassuringly at the lady. She smiled back at me, hopeful that she had an ally.

"Ma'am?" I said.

"Yes?" She was almost breathless.

"Have you checked in Rhea County?"

"Rhea County?"

"Yeah. It's in East Tennessee, at the foot of the Cumberlands. Pretty country. They had the Scopes Trial there. Now there are a hand full of churches and a Bible college and the home base of some organization that wants people to remember Tennessee's Biblical heritage, which is really kind of funny, because I've read the Bible cover to cover and I've never seen Tennessee mentioned anywhere."

Legba glared at me.

"Girl stop the stupid before you have to see a grown man cry."

"I'm just saying it makes more sense for Jesus to want to be around his people. You see what I'm saying?"

Legba muttered something I didn't quite catch and the lady reached over the fence to touch my arm.

"Are you a Christian?"

Marc Cohen might have sang "Ma'am, I am tonight." but all I could manage was a cheery "No ma'am. I'm Buddhist. I follow the teachings of Buddha. Have you seen him lately?"

"Buddha?" She looked very confused.

"I'll bite," said Legba, "What does Buddha look like?"

There are quite a few fat, cheerful bald guys wandering around. It would be a pity to have their moods ruined by this lady. So I lied.

"What does Buddha look like? Well. He looks like Keanu Reeves."

Legba spluttered and walked back to his lawn chair. The lady looked very distressed and backed away.

"I need to go," she choked out,"But thanks for the chat."

I went in and got Legba a fresh lemonade that would hopefully carry enough kick to loosen up his tongue.

"Keanu Reeves." He snorted. "That little cocksmoker doesn't look a thing like Keanu Reeves. Danny DeVito maybe. Is this strong?" He took a sip. "Oh yes it is. Now where was I?"

"Robert Johnson."

"Yeah, yeah. I met Robert Johnson one night when that little fool was trying to hitchhike to Memphis..."

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Tell Me What's On Your Transcript, And I'll Bet Good Money You Didn't Go To My Alma Mater

 

Somewhere there is someone who has filled out the little slip of paper required to get a transcript, included all of the dates of attendance, name, s.s.n., d.o.b., m.o.u.s.e., included the appropriate funds and their records were shipped toot sweet to the institution of their choice and they went on their merry way and everyone was happy and there were kittens and puppies and sunshine and rainbows and they ate Cherry Garcia until they threw up.

That never happens to me.

I blame myself for a lot of this. You see, I would decide to go to college for all the wrong reasons, be incredibly miserable for a while, drop out and then go back thinking I'd surely grown up enough to get over the desire to be a cowgirl or an astronaut and just get on with my life. Being smart doesn't help. My interests and focus were all over the place and my transcipts look like someone put clothes on a bonobo, gave them a backpack full of textbooks and the keys to a dorm room and sent them school for a few months at a time. Was that really me? Alas, yes. So I can't blame anyone for losing a semester or two when they've had the sorry job of collating all of those lovingly hammered dot-matrix sheets that are supposed to represent my misspent youth. But still... That's my youth they're messing with. They could be a little more careful.

This morning, I had to straighten out a situation with Northwest Mississippi Junior College. I went there because they gave me a full ride marching band scholarship to play the cymbals. No, I'm not making this up.

The thought of dialling Senatobia made me wish I knew someone who could get me a tab of acid. Okay, that's a bit harsh. I'm a one-beer drunk (which also means I was really bad at being an Episcopalian) so maybe I should have chewed on a couple of baby aspirins and leathered up. You see, a few years ago, I was desperate to make everyone happy and applied to law school.* When I requested transcripts from Northwest Mississippi, they were convinced I wanted to go to school in Senatobia and informed me I had to either finish high school or send them proof of graduation.

"I just want my records sent to Our Lady of Perpetual Chagrin School of Law for Wayward Girls. I've sent you the information and the money already."

"But I don't see anything here about your high school..."

"You don't NEED my high school information. You're sending records OUT, not processing me IN. Please, just send my transcripts."

"Young lady, do you want to go to college?"

"Ma'am, I've been to college. I have a degree-"

"Oh, really? What's your degree in?"

"Anthropology."

"What's that?"

Oh, hell. Ask any anthropologist to define anthropology and they'll either change the subject, tell you they don't know or give you a list of definitions to pick from.

"It's monkeys and dead people," I said.

"Do your parents know you're doing that?"

"Ma'am please, please, please, I beg of you. Just send my records to Our Lady of Perpetual Chagrin School of Law for Wayward Girls."

"I'll have to check with my supervisor."

They took all of the info again and then called me back thirty minutes later to say they'd found all of me. Thank. God.

One down, three to go. The most potentially worrisome was my alma mater, Western Kentucky. It's not that I've had any real problems with them as an alumnus. It's just that the last semester before I graduated, something happened that shook my faith in their administrative staff.

Someone from the records office who does graduation review took a look at all of my transcripts and decided, two weeks shy of graduation, to call me and let me know that I needed two PE classes and a speech class before they'd let me graduate. I had majored in theatre most of the time I was at my previous school in Memphis and had tons of dance hours, stage combat and juggling as well as the aforementioned semesters in marching band. She finally relented and allowed for the prancing and crashing. But what about the speech class?

"I'm two credits shy of a theatre degree from Memphis. You mean to tell me nothing on that transcript would qualify as a speech class?"

"I don't see anything on here actually called speech. Just being in the speech and theatre department doesn't count."

I wracked my brains trying to remember what Memphis State called their speech classes for majors. I knew there was one that had the unfortunate abbreviation of anal-oral comm., but that wasn't it. Then I remembered taking a class from a very funny, smart woman who had gotten her start writing speeches for Gerald Ford. Everything came back but the actual name of the class.

"Is there anything from that department with 'political discourse' in the name?" I asked.

"No, there's nothing here I can use."

"Please look again. Is there anything listed that does not include the words 'theatre', 'acting', 'voice', 'dance' or 'tech'?"

"No. Oh, wait. Here's one, but it's not a speech class so you can't use it."

"What is it called?" I asked.

"It's a funny word."

"What is it?"

"I have no idea how this is pronounced." She was getting very tired of me.

"Would you spell it out for me?"

"Oh, all right. R-h-e-t-o-r-i-c."

"Ma'am...?"

"That's not a speech class!"

"Do you have a dictionary in your office? Go look it up. I'll wait."

I heard her set down the reciever and go ask someone what that funny word meant. She interrupted them to explain that I was demanding she count that as a speech class. Then there was a moment of silence followed by urgent sounding whispering and the tippytap of her footsteps returning.

"You're good to go! See you at Diddle Arena (no, I'm not making that up, either) in two weeks! Bye bye!"

She hung up and I went somewhere quiet and chewed on baby aspirin until it was time for my next class.



*Yes, I got in. No, I didn't go. Don't you think there are enough lawyers as it is?

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Mama, He's Rabid: The Child Abuse That Is Disney's "Ole Yeller" (Part One)

Tonight one of my best friends, Kevin, broke a cardinal rule of being a grown-up and having a tv and movie player of some sort of his own so he can watch whatever he wants whenever he wants. Of his own violition, my boy watched "Ole Yeller".

Somewhere there are 35-45 year olds who can watch "Ole Yeller" with dry eyes. I haven't seen any of them, but I'm sure they exist. My one and only time sitting through it was as part of a presentation for all of the fourth graders at Sunset Acres Elementary in Shreveport. We packed into the auditorium for our weekly assembly and were told it would be a movie. These were usually scratchy McGraw-Hill 8mms about rail safety or Bobs-Merrill strips about the dangers of lying. Little did we know what they had in store for us.

In all fairness, I should note that their presentation of "Ole Yeller" was decidedly low-fi. We sat in the dark as the first frame appeared on the screen, followed by the Disney logo and then the advice to "Start here. Click to the next frame at the sound of the tone." We waited as the scratchy record began and we were transported to post-Civil War Abilene, Texas. Now, you'd think that this would mitigate the emotional ending, but it didn't. It has always been my suspicion that "Ole Yeller" was my teachers' revenge on all of us for giving them so many reasons to cry every day. As we wept in the dark, they probably sat in the teachers' lounge, laughed, smoked and passed a flask around. Most of us stumbled into the light swearing to never, ever watch "Ole Yeller" again.

And most of us kept that promise. Except for Kevin. He showed it to his boyfriend, who got depressed and went to bed. Then he called me up and I answered when he was in midsob.

"What's wrong? Did you and Dave get into a tiff?"

"No."

"Oh, honey. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened."

"Dead dog!" (and then more snuffling)

I nearly dropped the phone. "Sophie is dead? What happened?"

Just then something must have caught her attention because, to my relief, I heard her bark.

"Kevin, what is going on?"

"They shot "Ole Yeller" and then Dave got depressed and went to bed."

"Oh, for God's sake! Take it out of your DVD, send it back to NetFlix and promise me you will never, ever watch 'Ole Yeller' again."

"But it's such a good movie!"

"Kevin, listen to me. 'Ole Yeller' is like chicken pox. Only children can endure it unscathed. Watch it as an adult and you run the risk of having sniffly flashbacks, getting too sensitive to live and worse, killing off your libido. Do you want that? Send the movie back. Now!"

"I had no idea. It's in the envelope. Now it's sealed."

"That's my boy. Now get yourself an Otter Pop and watch "Life of Brian. I'm going to bed."

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

Mama, He's Rabid: The Child Abuse That Is Disney's "Ole Yeller" (Part Two)

Someone has asked me to explain exactly what a filmstrip of "Ole Yeller" would be like. Okay, let me get this out of my (and everyone else's) system once and for all. So dim the lights and get out your hankies. I now present:


The Script of the The Last Three Minutes of "Ole Yeller" on Filmstrip

(in Low Definition where available)

Ole Yeller: Wuff! Wuff! Snurgle! Rrrrrrrrr!

(beep)

Mama: Jedidiah! Zebulon! Cortelia! Chlymidia! Lucifer! Abraham! Isaac! Git in the house now!

Isaac: Aw Moooooowm!

Mama: The dawg has th' rabies! Now shoo!

(beep)

Cletus: What are you doin' with that gun, Mama?

(beep)

Mama: Cletus! Get in the house! Yeller has the rabies!

Cletus: Yer gonna shoot Ole Yeller?

(beep)

Cletus: Well, heckfire, that's a relief! I thought you was gettin' tired of us.

(beep)

Ole Yeller: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

(beep)

Mama: Cletus, git in the house now.

Cletus: No Mama. He's my dawg. If anybody's gonna shoot 'im, it'll be me. Give me the gun.

(beep)

Ole Yeller: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

(beep)

Cletus: C'mere Yeller. C'mere boy!

(beep)

Ole Yeller: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

(beep)

Cletus: Yeller? Yeller? This is no time to go pee on the hitchin' post! Aw, crap.

(beep)

BLAM!

(beep)

Daddy: Hi kids! I'm back from the cattle drive and I brought you a puppy!

(beep)

Cletus: That ain't Ole Yeller.

Jedidiah: And the Mrs. Fletcher says you ain't my Daddy.

(beep)

Daddy: What the?

Mama: We need to talk.

(The End)

(Disney Logo)

Theme song plays as weeping children are led out by teachers who are looking very bright-eyed and refreshed.

Ole Yeller

woof! woof! woof!

Ole Yeller!

woof! woof! woof!

Root'nest toot'nest dawg in the doggone Weeeeest!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little presentation. Good night, bright blessings, eat your vegetables, call your Mama and always floss.


copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

The Unbearable Lameness of Being

You know how there's always one woman in every group who has to tell you way more than you want to know? When you were younger, she was always dating one of your best buddies and while she was tolerable when she was sober, get a couple of Seagram's Peach Coolers into her and she'll start discussing why she prefers uncircumcised men and how she always feels more connected to Gaia at certain times of the month. Well, my version of that chick was named Allie and she lived down the hall from me when I was at Tiger High in the 80s'.

One afternoon I was sitting in the hallway with my friend Anita waiting for some addled performance piece prop to dry (art and theatre school in the 80s', enough said...) when Allie came flouncing down the hall dressed like Botticelli's Primavera only with optional patchouli fumes and bitemarks on her collarbone. She stopped in front of us, made two attempts to speak and then squealed.

"Do you want the law students out here with mace again?" I asked.

"Noooooooo," she said, "Lissen lissen lissen! I was at this bonfire party? And there was this big burly biker guy? And I thought he was cute? And since you're supposed to have sex to help the crops? We went into the woods and started fooling around? And he was a girl! Isn't that cool? I'm a lesbian!"

And then she sauntered off, singing "I yam what I yam and I yam a lessssbeeeeyann!" while Anita made horrible faces at her back.

"That's cute. I wonder how many people she's told." Anita shook her head.

"I wonder how much of this she'll remember by the end of the day."

I felt a little bad for her. But in truth I was even more selfishly feeling a little bit sorry for myself. You see, up until that time, I'd done nothing that was rebellious or embarrassing enough to be fodder for my own deep dark secret in the years to come. At the age of nineteen I had already attained the respectability of a thirty-year-old deacon's wife. How sad.

"My hypothetical, socially maladjusted children are going to laugh at me." I looked mornfully at Anita and she glowered.

"You're being a big baby AND you've already got selective memory. Gah!" She started reading the ads on the newspaper underneath the prop.

"You mean the pot Belinda gave me after I stopped eating?"

"It made you very stupid. You told whatshername the voice coach lady she had the biggest feet you'd ever seen on a woman."

"Oh, crap. Did I really?"

"There now. Do you feel suitably ashamed?"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Not really. I mean, where's the scandal? Marijuana will probably be legal in a couple of years anyway."

Anita yawned and curled herself into an enviably perfect lotus postion. "You're just not wired to be debauched. You're going to be a goody two-shoes who fucks her husband silly and pretends she doesn't know what or where her clitoris is in front of the Friends of the Library Guild."

"That's not true!"

"Name one thing about yourself you haven't told me because you are honestly embarrassed."

"Okay. You know how I help with Rowan's coven's circles because I know how to play the drums?"

"Let me guess. You've never had a lesson in your life."

"Oh no. I've had years of lessons. But I've never gotten to play drums."

"So you were never in a marching band? That's actually a good thing"

"I was in band in both high school and that year in junior college in Mississippi."

"There was no music scholarship?"

"It was a full-ride payout, tuition, books, board, the whole schmeer."

"I give up. What's the problem?"

"I was embarrased about the straps and braces making my boobs look bigger so I played the cymbals from tenth grade on."

"Oh, the horrors. I don't know if I can be seen with you. I guess if we ever go to Senatobia, Mississippi, I'll have to pretend I don't know you."

"Anita, this is a very painful part of my past!"

"You're such a candyass. Wanna play dirty scrabble?"

"Freakin' A!"

"I rest my case."

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner

A Woo Woo Pronouncement from Rufus Christ...

I wrote this for an online friend who was having a rough day and posted it on a forum where we chat. Here it is so you, too can experience the cosmic peace that can only come from guided meditations accompanied by new age muzak. In fact, another online friend made an audio file of it here so you can get the full effect:

http://http://web.mac.com/pjane64/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html


(cue Kitaro music)


You are a creature of the universe. God danced on the day you were born so that you could dance and sing and love and eventually unfold into a flower in the garden that is his universe.


When you are sad or have menstrual cramps or want to stab an ex-boyfriend in the eye with a pencil, all of the Care Bears and My Little Ponies get together and bake gooseberry tarts and meditate on ways to heal the cosmos.


The angels told Rod McKuen about you and he popped a boner.


In conclusion: Count the seeds in a pomegranate, laugh at the clouds, kiss a puppy and thank every diety who will return your calls that you're you and not Ann Coulter.


copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner