BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I happen to like fried chicken…

I mean, after all, I’m from the South. I would probably be disowned by my kin if I didn’t like fried chicken. You see, much like Texas has the “he needed killin'” law, there’s one of those unwritten little ditties in the original South as well. It’s the “I ain’t eatin’ it” rule. Basically, you are allowed one free pass on a regional comestible. In my case I used my freebie on Head Cheese – that gelatinous loaf of aspic and cranial meat that comes from boiling down a hog head.

Truth is, one would think that having grown up on a farm, and therefore having been physically present (and even directly involved) during an actual “chicken running around with its head cut off” incident (several times, to be honest) I would have been more likely to use my “get out of eating it free” coupon on just that. However, I’ve also seen a hog’s head floating around in a soup pot. And, witnessed my grandmother digging the eyes out of the skull… And…

Well… You get the picture. Suffice it to say, in my way of thinking the crazy, bleeding, headless chicken made a far less horrific impression, believe it or not.

So, now that I’ve whetted your appetite, let’s move right along…

This past weekend I headlined at Festival of Souls in Memphis, Tennessee. FOS is a fantastic alternative spirituality gathering put on by Summerland Grove and held at Meeman-Shelby State Park. Incidentally, Meeman-Shelby is where a piece of my luggage now makes its home, but that’s another story… Thing is, this wasn’t my first time at this particular fest, but it had been a few years, so I have to say it was great to visit with old friends once again.

But then there came the chicken.

Now, as I said, I love fried chicken, so when I saw that it was on the menu for Saturday night’s dinner feast, I was to say the least, pretty excited. Granted, we were in Tennessee and not Kentucky, but hey, it’s still the same geographical area, so they oughta know how to fry chicken. So, all good… I was going to have fried chicken… My mouth was all set for it.

Fast forward a bit to Saturday evening. The feast was scheduled to begin after the main ritual for the fest. Some of us – namely Tish and Patrick Owen, E-Mac, Johnathan, E K, and Moi – who were not attending the ritual had parked ourselves at the Group W book signing table in the dining hall. Here we played with pencils, chatted, signed books, talked about the mysteries of the universe, reveled in the lovely fried chicken smells wafting from the nearby kitchen, and watched E K torturing wayward insects that fell into her “you don’t belong here” category.

(NOTE: E K will rescue insects that belong here, but if they are an invasive species, or are just plain nasty and annoying… Well, let’s say it sucks to be them. See “Mistress Of The Flies,” “Missouri Kat And The Scarab Of Doom,” “Eeek Of Destruction,” etc…)

Eventually, the ritual was over and folks began rapidly filing into the dining hall for dinner, and as hungry people will do, they lined up in front of the window, anxious for a plate of chickeny goodness. Seeing the length of the queue, we all decided to kick back and wait for it to die down. So, we continued chit-chatting while E K continued introducing various bugs to the sole of her shoe as she giggled that cute, intensely evil giggle of hers.

However, the kitchen staff had another idea. Not about E K and her bug crunching, more like about us not eating right away. Because, out of the blue… Well… not blue, really… More like out of the kitchen door if we want to be completely accurate… Anyway, suddenly a couple of tray laden folks appeared and placed loaded plates of fried chicken, mashed ‘taters & gravy, green beans, and glazed carrots in front of us. We were also duly chastised for not having walked into the kitchen ahead of everyone else to be served at the head of the line, since Tish and I were the headline authors and everyone with us qualified as our entourage, so to speak.

Well, truth is, Tish and I really don’t buy into that dynamic. There are many authors and presenters out there that do, but we aren’t them. So, if the staff of an event hustles us into the dining hall ahead of everyone even after we strenuously object, we will go. We don’t always have a choice.  But we are NOT about to jump ahead of paying attendees, and we aren’t big fans of folks who do.

But now I digress…

So… Where was I? Oh yeah. At any rate, we were now in a quandary. We were embarrassed that we had been literally served our dinner while many folks were still waiting in line, but by the same token we were hungry. Fortunately, nobody minded that we had been brought our plates, and they insisted that we eat before it got cold. So, we did… And there were these piles of fried chicken. And the fried chicken was not good. The fried chicken was freakin’ EXCELLENT. So very excellent, in fact, that we just kept eating since they had a surplus and they had provided us with monster chicken pieces.

Fast forward again…

Late in the evening we stood about, smoking cigars, chit chatting, watching EKay step on things, and being amused by a field mouse that chased Johnathan around the porch after it had used the restroom. Well, we assumed that’s what it did. It went into the restroom, then came out later and started chasing Johnathan. At any rate, we eventually piled into our room and retired for the night. Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, however, the “incident” happened.

“The Incident”? you ask…

Yes. “The Incident.” We still aren’t positive about the hour of the occurrence, but when sunrise arrived, as usual we climbed out of bed and headed for the restroom. It’s one of those morning things, ya’know. Upon opening the door to the cabin we found “it”…

It being two large pieces of fried chicken affixed to our cabin door with duct tape. We had been vandalized… We had been victimized… We had been the target of a “Drive By Chickening”…

Being a mystery-thriller author, of course I launched a full scale investigation, co-opting whatever I could find in order to process the crime scene. I even interviewed witnesses, one of them being a rather wet and naked young lady in the unisex shower facilities. She seemed to know who it was, but was unwilling to give up the info. Since she was wet and naked, and I really wasn’t all about interviewing her in that state, I was unable to pursue the line of questioning any further.

Later we discovered that we weren’t the only victims. It seemed someone using the very same roll of duct tape had attempted to tape Tish and Patrick into their cabin. Obviously we had a “serial tapeist” on our hands…

While the perpetrator of these crimes still runs free, we are relatively certain we have narrowed things down to a single suspect. During her interview she was evasive, and even offered a rehearsed answer, stating that we had been the victims of Tennessee Hoodoo.

That was when we knew for certain she was lying. Everyone knows that if fried chicken is involved, it’s Kentucky Hoodoo.

So, she might as well just fess up. Otherwise I’ll just have to invoke the Colonel. Trust me, I have a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, and I’m not afraid to use it…

More to come…

Murv

As one approaches middle age, there is a tendency toward bruising… But that would actually be Chuin’s line (See Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins… No, really… See it…)

Where I’m going with this is that when you get older, if you’re smart, instead of just collecting more and more crap, you start to jettison some of the crap you already have. For one thing, it’s less work to maintain your house. For another, it’s less stuff you have to move and/or deal with when you get old and have to go live at the Daisy Hill Old People Farm. And, it’s that much less crap your kid, or kids, will have to sort through when you get all corpsified and gross.

Well, E K and I aren’t exactly youngsters any longer. Granted, E K still looks like one, but me, not so much. Still, being the practical Taurus, The Evil Redhead decided the other night that maybe it was time to get rid of some stuff. Now, while in the past she has been more than happy to give away MY stuff and then wait for me to notice, this time she was in a mood to offload some of her own. In particular, clothes.

You see, her supreme evilness actually has some pretty damn good fashion sense. She recognizes what will most likely come back around, and she stores things away. Probably all part of her frugality. A way to recycle clothing that is perfectly wearable, but has gone out of style. But, as with any sort of squirreling away, eventually there are more generic Rubbermaid totes occupying your basement than you need. And so, she set about culling the hidden wardrobe.

Now, there’s also something else I should point out. E K happens to be pretty damn creative. She also knows how to sew, and I don’t just mean stitching in a hem, or darning a sock. She used to make her own clothing, and still has what was at one time a pretty high end sewing machine.

But on with the story…

Her worshipfulness pulled out a few of the totes and began going through the hidden treasures that were old clothes, sorting things out into what was back in style that she could wear, retro sorts of things that would likely come back into style and that the o-spring might one day want, and those things that were destined for Goodwill. As usual, when one goes through such storage containers, she ran across various nostalgic items. You know, things like her Catholic Schoolgirl Uniform… No… Wait… That’s actually in the closet for adult play night… Ummm… Well…

But seriously… A T-Shirt from the college she attended… Some clothing she had crocheted, sewn, and otherwise made. And, T-Shirts she had screen printed or appliqued.

There were plenty of “remember this?” moments as the o-spring watched on in confusion. At one point E K withdrew a screen printed tee from her teen years that bore a silhouette type likeness of Ian Hunter, front man for Mott the Hoople.

Yes… I can hear the younger folk among you saying, “Mott the what?” After all, that’s pretty much what the o-spring said. And so, it was explained, but she still said, “Mott the what?” so we gave up.

Later in the parade of Tees, The Evil One withdrew a shirt that bore an applique of Charlie Chaplin. While Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople were iconic to us, we were willing to admit that Charlie was likely far more iconic, and the o-spring was far more likely to recognize him.

So, E K showed the spring the shirt and said, “Know who this is?”

The child furrowed her brow and said, “He looks familiar.”

E K replied, “Charlie Chaplin.”

This was when things went south. The o-spring perked up and said, “Oh yeah, he was one of the Beatles, right?”

Obviously, we will be starting an intensive musical education program with her in the very near future.

More to come…

Murv