BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

THE PUF REPORT: Part 5 of 5

Meet “Paducka.” He’s a Pirate Duck, and as you can see from the picture he is also a bit of an antenna adornment for E Kay’s Evilmobile. (Given the curve in the antenna, you may also have noticed that  in this particular snapshot he has a headwind blowing up his duck butt at about 80 MPH.)

I’m sure you are probably wondering why anyone would name a Piratized Rubber Duckie something like “Paducka”. I mean, after all, he’s both a bath toy and a spyglass wielding Pirate, so shouldn’t he have a more nautical, salty, scary, eye-patchy, sword wielding, buccaneerish name?

I dunno, something like “Yellow Beard”… No, wait, that was a movie… Okay… I’ve got it… How about “Duck Billed”… Or better yet, “Captain Jack Mallard”?

Still no, eh?

Well, I can understand that. But, of course, I still haven’t explained why he has a name like “Paducka”… If he was made in Pennsylvania, that might make a bit of sense, but from what we can tell he was injection molded somewhere in Taiwan. Therefore, I suppose “Peking Duck” could have worked, considering… But, no… We have a tendency to pick names that reflect a moment or place in time. Such as one of our rescued cats being named “Asphalt” because we plucked him, half starved, from the middle of the highway.

Okay, okay… Stop chasing the chickens, or ducks as it may be. I know, I know…

So, why did we name the antenna bobble “Paducka”? Simple. Someone at PUF impaled him on our antenna while we were in Burns, Tennessee, but we didn’t notice he was there until we reached Paducah, Kentucky.

Seriously. We didn’t. It was this sudden, collective, “WTF moment” as soon as he was noticed. Shortly afterward, when we made a pit stop, we also found three different sized skull stickers affixed in the corner of the back window. Kind of like the Daddy, Mommy, Offspring “family” stickers you see on the Soccer Mom Mobiles.

I guess skulls not only fit for Pirates, but for the Evilmobile too.

Speaking of Evil, have a look to the right. For all of you who never believed me about the whole Queen Bitch of the Whole Fucking Universe thing, there you go.  E K and Kristin Madden wearing their official QB of the WFU t-shirts. Now, if that isn’t evil (X2) looking for a place to happen, I have no idea what is. The only way to make it worse is for Morrison to throw on her shirt and get involved – as well as all of the other QB of the WFU’s the Fearsome Threesome have inducted into the order over the past year.

So… About the whole “She Loves Me” thing… It actually ties right in with the evilness of the E K, but I’m sure you had already figured that out. But, to properly tell the story I have to run after this pullet over here.

You see, when I sleep at night I kinda look like a lazy F-15 Pilot. What I mean is, since I’m sleeping I obviously don’t look like I’m flying (and let’s just forgo any nocturnal joystick jokes here, okay?) However, I do have a face full of gear that would suggest otherwise. With regard to the flying thing, not the joystick… Sheesh.

The thing is, I have a wicked bad case of sleep apnea, and it’s not just because I’m a fat guy. It’s also because something is wrong with my brain. But, we already knew that. So, anyway, in order to actually sleep and not spend the night drifting in and out as I snore, snort, gasp, gulp, and otherwise just quit breathing altogether, I have to use a CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)… Basically it’s a fancy, medical grade, regulated air pump that forces my body to breathe while I’m asleep.

I’ve been attached to one of these for several years. In fact, I even own two. One that stays home, as well as a travel sized model that bops around the country with me. I first discovered I needed it when I woke up in the middle of the night to find E K kneeling on my chest with one hand clamped around my nose, and the other hand over my mouth. She says she was just trying to make me stop snoring, but I’m still not entirely sure about that… Especially since I still occasionally wake at night to find her sitting on my chest again, crimping the hose, then letting it go, then crimping the hose a little longer, then letting it go, ad infinitum… All while grinning this evil, wicked grin and giggling.

Let me tell you, it can be just a bit disconcerting…

…As can a sudden pain in your shoulder that seems to come from nowhere.

Yeah… We’re back onto a new chicken. But, it’s the correct chicken this time.

I felt the pain, not entirely sure what it was. Given that it was in my left shoulder, I was understandably concerned. For some reason I was also somewhat dazed, even though the pain was in my shoulder, not my head. I seemed to recall there having been some manner of noise that accompanied the discomfort, but I was damned if I could figure out what it was. I looked around, saw nothing but asphalt slipping past the window, E K behind the wheel, and Johnathan & the O-spring in the back. Since there wasn’t a repeat, I allowed myself to relax.

When it happened again, I was much more cognizant of the hollow, but no less frightening noise that sounded something like, “SKKKRXXXXX SluuuuuuuuggggBnnnuuuggguh SNORT SCHNORT SKRNNNNNRRRXXX OUCH Whaaaaaa?”

Yes. Somewhere along the road home, I fell asleep in the passenger seat while E K endeavored to make the Evilmobile reach the necessary ground speed to become airborne. Since I don’t have a D C adapter for my CPAP, not to mention that I wasn’t intending to fall asleep in the first place, much snoring ensued. E K, wanting to keep me alive so that she could torture me some more did the only thing she could do since she was also occupied with driving.

Yeah, she yelled Slug Bug and hit me.

You know, I never did see the VW. Something tells me it was just an excuse to reach over and smack me. But, I actually find that to be a bit heartening. I guess I must be growing on her, because she’s never felt the need to have an excuse to hit me before…

More to come…

Murv

THE PUF REPORT: Part 3 of 5

As a rule, PUF always has a mascot.

Now, the thing about the mascot is that it changes every year. I’m not entirely sure what the first few mascots happened to be, because while I have been headlining the fest for something like 8 years, I came into the mix somewhere around the time of PUF #3.

Back in ’01, when #3 happened, the “mascots” were sheep. Not real sheep, mind you. Nobody wanted to clean up the sheep poo.  So, real grass eating wool makers were replaced by the next best thing – life-sized cardboard cutouts made in their likeness. But then, they eventually progressed not only into cutouts, but plush stuffed animals and plastic toys as well. Which is one of the things that drove the mascot diversity PUF is known for today. Even so, I believe sheep were still the mascot in ’02, as to this very day I have a nubbly little plastic novelty toy sheeplike thing that was somewhat of a party favor handed out at the fest.

The picture above is obviously not a sheep. It was taken in ’08, when aliens invaded PUF. Although, now that I think about it, sheep and little green men might have gotten along just fine. Well, maybe not gotten along per se, but I’m betting the alien dudes would have had some fun with the sheep. What the sheep would have thought of that is anyone’s guess. I suppose it would largely depend upon the individual sheep and… well… things we simply won’t go into here.

Uhh… Ahem… So, moving right along…

Of course, the point here is basically to illustrate that the mascots have become an important – and expected – fixture at the Festival. To that end, I’d like to offer the following quote directly from the Festival Organizer herself,  Tish Owen. In her book, Chasing The Rainbow: Facilitating A Pagan Festival Without Losing Your Mind, she states:

WHY ARE THERE ANIMALS AT PUF? – We really have no good answers to that question, except that it amuses us. We did not start out with an animal mascot or even a name. But over the years, we have had too many bagels donated, cooked pigs, a sheep incident, the fire, the accident, the flood, and then we just started adding the animals for fun. Then at some point, someone started killing the mascots and it has devolved. We have had: bagels, sheep, pigs, penguins, flamingos, Chihuahuas, and flying pigs!

There have been more, such as the aliens, since the publication of her book. And, as you can see here on the right, she wasn’t kidding about the mascot killings. A poor, inflatable blue-green dude met his demise on the road right outside the VIP cabin one night. The scene was odd since no cars had come by for several hours, yet there it was, flat as the proverbial pancake. It definitely made us wonder if it was perhaps a “staged accident”.

But, at least in this case the particular end met was a bit more swift. Among other victims of the “serial mascot killer” another alien was found in the walk-in freezer in the dining hall. It was frozen solid, and still had a… well… there’s simply no delicate way to say this… It still had an “anal probe” protruding from its rectal orifice, which prompted site investigators to conclude that the green dude had been tortured as well as frozen to death. Of course, this theory led to… Yeah, you guessed it… An Alien Autopsy.

Sometimes there have been notes from the killer. Sometimes not. I think it largely depends upon the particular killing – that being whether it was one of the planned murders, or merely an opportunistic sort of hack and slash.

Still, there are times when the method or arrangement of the corpsified mascot remains is a message unto itself. For instance, during the year of the flying pigs many a winged swine met a horrible and terrible fate. One in particular was the little piggy who had none. In point of fact, the reason he had none is because he was the roast beast. He was even layered between two slices of breand and served up to Tish herself in her lunch one day – ostensibly so she could “taste test” the roast pork that was to be served for dinner that evening. It’s quite possible you heard her laughing when she unwrapped the sandwich, no matter where you happen to reside. We definitely heard her from one end of the campground to the other, and many points beyond.

By now I’m sure you are wondering just exactly what all this has to do with “dingles”… Well, nothing at all really. But, we’ll get to them eventually…

This year, 2009, was a first for PUF mascots. You see, instead of sheep, or frogs, or chee-hoowah-hoowah’s, we had Pirates. That’s right, Pirates. Not Pie Rats. Although, Pie Rats could possibly be fun. But, I digress…

Since the mascot was actual human being type of people it made things a bit more difficult on the “serial mascot killer”. After all, if you “kill” a stuffed, plush penguin, all you do is make a mess. If you actually kill a festival attendee who is dressed as a Pirate, the sheriff shows up and there are hard questions demanding answers. Therefore, miniature rubber duckies with pirate garb molded onto them served as the victims. Them, and Peeps. Yeah, I know, it was sort of like Peep sacrilege, but what can ya’ do?

Anywho, moving right along, this year’s PUF had a fantastic lineup of guest authors. Kristin Madden, Dorothy Morrison, Raven Grimassi & Stephanie Taylor, Moi, and even Christopher Penczak. (Can anyone see where this is going?)

Well, just in case you haven’t caught on just yet, think about the following… Pirates are the mascot, we are a bunch of authors who like hanging out together, because we are authors we make a living with words, and we all  pretty much have severely warped senses of humor… And, we’re punny… Very punny… Ya’ there yet?

Yeah… We dubbed ourselves the Pirates of Penczak…

But, even through the “bad pun groans” wafting from my PC speakers I can still hear you asking, “But, Murv, what the hell does all this have to do with a dingle? And, moreover, what the hell is a dingle anyway?”

Well, to answer the first question, not a damn thing.

To answer the second, you’ll have to ask Raven and Stephanie, because you see, all I know is Raven won’t let Stephanie go into the dingle by herself…

More to come…

Murv

The next installment in THE PUF REPORT: Part 4 of 5 – Food, Glorious Food…