Susan:
A Sojourn on Bailey I sland
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:41:06 -0400
Christian plays dirty - he has made tea for me as a bribe. I've raised him well I think. He'll go far.
Alan:
October 3, 2006 9:37 PM
A Sojourn on Bailey Island
...put together a dirty little sneak with a babe who'll sell out for a cup of tea and the entire situation can go farther than anything any of us could even begin to imagine...or view on any regularly scheduled television programming for that matter...the horror, the horror...Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam...
Susan:
Oct3/06
A Sojourn on Bailey Island
I like to think time spent with Uncle Steve, Aunt Jan and his cousins in the wilds of Hastings County has had some effect on the boy's development. After all, how many 12-year olds come home to the beaches with a sawed of pellet gun - 22 calibre no less? Aren't you glad we didn't teach him about model rockets that dropped egg bombs? You know there is still time - what are you doing for Thanksgiving?
Susan:
Wednesday, October 04, 2006 1:40 PM
Subject: RE: A Sojourn on Bailey Island
lets' keep the record straight - he was 4 years old when Jan gave him the shotgun!
Rob:
A Sojourn on Bailey Island
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:42:50 -0400
How is he at golf?
Alan:
October 04, 2006 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: A Sojourn on Bailey Island
...if he's good at it I've got a plot line we can work him into really nicely...."One stormy Saturday afternoon a black-hooded stranger arrived in Virgil ON. Samantha Whales instinctively knew he was trouble. For Virgil ON, that was really saying something."
Alan:
Sunday, October 29, 2006 7:46 PM
Subject: Quest 07 - The Twisted Back Road
One stormy Saturday afternoon a black-hooded stranger arrived in Virgil ON. Samantha Whales instinctively knew he was trouble. For Virgil ON, that was really saying something.
He got off the bus in front of the restaurant. He stood about six foot five, and was dressed entirely in black. His dark eyes glared like coals from under the black hoodie that was falling down over his brow. Samantha noticed right away the famous outfitter’s trademark: Sister Tommy’s Surf Shop…Everything is Temporary, the Smiling Nun smiling at her, kind of Mona Lisa-like, thought Samantha. She noticed one other feature. The stranger’s arms were unnaturally long, more in proportion to Thing’s than a normal human’s. Under his left arm he was a carrying a black skateboard with the Smiling Nun on the toe. He had no other baggage.
Samantha recoiled, not quite in horror, but in a dizzying mix of repulsion and attraction. She sensed an irresistible magnetism that kept her from running away. The stranger stepped toward her. Samantha stepped back, toward the restaurant door, ready to escape inside.
At that instant Mother Teresa ambled through the door, her rubber boots making their familiar ‘squooshing’ sound on the threshold. She took a long look at the stranger, eyeing him critically up and down.
"#@%**#!!", said Mother Teresa. "Get yer ass in gear, you lout. We got work to do. I'll put ya up in the help house till it's done." The stranger followed politely.
“Who the hell are you?”, said Mother Teresa as they walked to her parked car. The car was a pre-war Bull-Nose Morris that she’d found abandoned in a shed on Bottom Line. It reminded her of the Auto-Union that the young Oberleutenant had driven into the village in the old country so many years before. The Morris had about twelve horsepower, and a back axle that was about to disintegrate into tiny filings, but it got her around town, and hauled the groceries home.
“My name’s Christo”, said the stranger.
“What the #$%^* kind of name is that?”, said Mother Teresa.
“It’s not my real name”, said the stranger.
“Well what in the #@%&** is your real name!?” said Mother Teresa.
“Christopher.”, said the stranger.
“Well why in the #$%%^* don’t you use it!?” said Mother Teresa.
“I choose my last syllables carefully. I keep some, throw away others”, said the stranger. “I have limited loyalty to last syllables.”
“#@%%*!”, said Mother Teresa. “Other than the tortured **%$#* alliteration, that’s about the most juvenile *&%%# thing I’ve ever heard. How old are you?”
“Fourteen”, said the stranger.
“Why are you here?” said Mother Teresa.
“I’m a sk8r”, said the stranger. “I figure I can get a job at Sister Tommy’s. That’s why I’m here…I work so I can sk8, and I sk8 to work. It keeps me centred.”
Sister Tommy’s had opened the week before to a lot of fanfare. It was the latest of a growing chain of board, clothing, and paraphernalia stores that in five short years had spanned the globe.
Sister Tommy
was a local hero, and a bit of an enigma. The deep tan and blond hair suggested
years in the sun, and the bowed legs suggested decades of agile flexing, riding
high rollers at Lopes Mendes and hanging ten under the pier at Long Beach. It
was widely believed that he’d grown up somewhere in the region, then left
for parts unknown to seek adventure and freedom. But the quiet drawl that sounded
vaguely Californian or Australian was hard to pin down. Some reported an economical
use of language typical of long hours spent in solitude on deserted beaches;
others reported long hours of poetic story-telling reminiscent of the greatest
beach slams. Some said Tommy had been a surfer all his adult life. Others insisted
he was a retired civil servant who’d finally broken out of the box and
was now living high on life itself. The thing that puzzled everyone the most
was Tommy’s choice of the now-famous ‘Smiling Nun’ trademark
with the cryptic ‘Everything is Temporary’ logo.
At the media scrum arranged by the local buy-sell weekly for the grand opening Tommy had assured the entire Board of Trade that, “There’s a lot in life that’s temporary. But the Sister Tommy Surf Shop will be here on Main Street for ever!” The Chairman of the Board of Trade was secretly sceptical of this, given that the village was about fifteen hundred miles from the nearest beach, but kept his mouth shut. Main Street needed some long-term leases.
Mother Teresa and Christo pulled up in front of the help house. Like all the help houses in the village, Mother Teresa’s had been built decades ago. It was covered in tarpaper, and the shingles were curled back and discoloured from years of high winds and heavy rains. The front stoop was a concrete block, and the door bore the scratch marks of generations of racoons trying to get inside.
There hadn’t been a migrant farm worker stay in the help house since Mother Teresa chopped down her last cherry tree to heat her own house during the frigid winter of 1970-71. The last occupant of the help house had been an Asian day-labourer who was passing through town on his way to somewhere else. That was in ’92 or ’93. Mother Teresa took pity on him and let him use the house till he could get out of town. Eventually he ran off and married a Russian stripper from The Falls. “Either he’s paying for it, or he’s the luckiest #@&$* bastard alive”, said Mother Teresa.
Inside was one large room with eight bunks built of scrap lumber and thin sheets of plywood nailed into the two sidewalls. A moth-eaten wool blanket was folded at the foot of each bed. Two bare 40-watt light bulbs hung from the rafters. A plastic pail stood on a beat-up chrome table leaning against the front wall beside the door. A rusted hand pump fed the pail; a wooden box sluice allowed the pail to be drained through the wall into a shallow ditch that had been cut down to the road. Beside the pail was an electric two-burner hot plate plugged by a frayed cord into a corroded wall socket. An extension cord snaked across the floor to an ancient portable television with a pair of bent rabbit ears on top. One corner of the house was partitioned off. Inside was a one-holer with another wooden box sluice that emptied into a shallow ditch that had been cut across the rear yard toward the creek. The walls of the one-holer were covered in fibreboard; giant holes had been knocked out of it, probably by vicious kicking.
“It reminds me of home”, said Christo.
Rob:
A Sojourn on Bailey Island
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 04:21:47 -0500
Gotta love
the way bloggo swearing symbols automatically convert themselves to linked email.
The <mailto> tag just seems a natural for blue language. That could be
the biggest hole in the universe of them all. Imagine if all the email and text
messaging and blackberry flapping just formed itself up as nowhere <mailto>
commands and flew away into the ether. Talk about hitch hiking through the universe.
Click on Mother Teresa's outburst and see where it getsya. "What heading
Captain?" asks Sulu. "Out there, Mr. Sulu, just out there." Email
is like that. The Blog is like that. It hits your monitor or pda or cell and
rebounds "out there".
The rest of the week was "out there". I sat in the Angel's Arms on
friday amid the din of people relieved to be finally away from their offices
and all the bullshit. The day for me had started with a far out conversation
with a US customs official about American Diet Pepsi tasting better because
its made with rain water. The highlight of the afternoon at the Pantry Office
was my window view of Brigit the Bitch neighbour trying to kill a possum inside
her garbage can. The possum prevailed by literally freaking Brigit out somehow.
Then a client asked "allus I wanna do is fuck these people up, can I do
that?" "Oh ya, in this universe that is one thing you can easily do."
The beers arrived at our table and Alan talked to me about something. All I
could hear was the noise of the din and his mouth was sort of moving in slow
motion. There was something about a lurker wondering if I was "back in
the blog" with Clive Crump and the Rockton Glider Club. Alan said "oh
no that's real". Leah looked at me and said "he's tuned right out"
but I wasn't really. I was wondering if in fact I wasn't back in the blog but
in a different dimension - a sort of sidebar of the universe. Then I noticed
a sort of Ferengi-like beady-eyed shortass staring at me from the bar. OMG it
was the Virgil CEO and he was a tad freaked to lock eyes with me. "Holy
crap look who's at the bar" I said without thinking. Alan said "remember
the shotgun blast of Queen Anne cherry tarts that lifted the Clerk’s toupe
right off his head and glued it to the wall?" Jeezuz H. Christ, Alan was
sort of in a side dimension too. Leah started to choke on her fish and chips.
Laughter. Alan said "do you want a big whack on the back?" Then we
noticed "the town groper" at the bar and sure enough he comes over
to our table and lays hands on Alan. Then he looks at me and his face falls
a yard. I remember him as a nutbar in a former life and he knows it.
I am beginning to think that much of the time the blog is actually running along
with us in a parallel universe. I mean, the blurt by Mother Teresa below (Get
yer ass in gear, you lout. We got work to do) is incredibly similar to the first
lines of the blog from three years ago - "Fire up my bunsen burner, you
lout, and let's get some action".
The blog is indeed running and will soon be online from a few months of saved
classic posts dating back to "my day at the kazoo" and jazz to kickstart
downtown Welland. The content may produce some real shock 'n awe. The question
at hand is where and how to put the portal on the current page and how to structure
the universe inside that outside link. You can akshee go inside the outside
ether in cyberspace. We can add some metablockers in the tagging to fool the
Google spiders and listbots. Akshee it would be cool to have a totally secure
door to the parallel universe available to casual surfers and those who know
where to look. Sort of like the ank in The Net.
Btw, to complete the parallel illusion of Friday, I spied Mother Teresa in VirgilON.
Orange tractor has been ruled off the road by the head shit in Public Works.
She was out walking, with a cane and gris gris bag wearing her old blue ski
jacket and oversized white toque. She'd gone down an orange concrete driveway
by mistake and was clomping back out to the main road. She wears Welly boots
and sort of clomps them down after planting her heel. She had the face of an
unhappy camper.
Alan:
Sunday, October 29, 2006 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: A Sojourn on Bailey Island
...as you were writing this I was in a deep sleep, dreaming of the Sister Tommy Surf Shop, newly established on the Main Street of, where else, Virgil ON...
At the media event held by the local buy-and-sell weekly to herald the grand opening Sister Tommy told the assembled members of the Board of Trade, "There's lots of things in life that are only temporary...but the Sister Tommy Surf Shop will be right here on Main Street for ever!" The Chairman of the Board of Trade secretly thought that was unlikely, given that the nearest surfing beach was over a thousand miles away, but he didn't say anything. Main Street needed a few long-term leases.
Rob:
A Sojourn on Bailey Island
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:54:16 -0500
I think we should have our own studio space to create this stuff full time.
Alan:
Sunday, November 9, 2006 9:29 PM
Subject: Quest 07 - The Twisted Back Road
Trouble at Sister Tommy’s
Christo got the job he wanted at Sister Tommy’s Surf Shop no problem. He just walked in and started working the floor. Within six weeks he was store manager, in daily contact with the person he called The Supremo, Sister Tommy himself.
Christo’s strength was his ability to sell a board and related paraphernalia to every latent sk8r in the village. Turned out there were quite a few of them. In fact there was an entire generation of young villagers who were just waiting to break out.
The first to come forward were the offspring of the local chapter of Bikers for Christ, an extremist evangelical sect inspired by the Harleyite Order of Born Again Christian Bikers concocted by the novelist Thomas Pynchon. The locals had misunderstood Pynchon to be some new kind of messiah. Their children, with the help of Christo and the enormous forces of the Sister Tommy retail empire, had set up their own gang, Sk8rs for Christ. The Christ part was a sly reference to Christo, their main man in the breakout business, and by association, Sister Tommy.
Lil also picked up on the emerging demographics. She set up a tattoo parlour in the back of the shop. Lil had learned about tattoos in one of her previous phases, and was not about to miss an opportunity to put her skills to good use. She even put a tattoo on Sister Tommy himself, the Grinning Nun – Everything is Temporary logo applied in gorgeous tones of pastel blue to his left buttock. Then she gave Tommy her famous Two Chakra Tune-Up. The Tune-Up left Tommy beaming, and enthusing to anyone who would listen, “I’ve had those two chakras all my life, but I’ve never had a tune-up like that before!”
By injecting a sense of fun and frivolity into village youth Christo was systematically weaning them off their dependence on their weekly Bible readings for inspiration and guidance to the back roads of life. When Lil asked him why he would want to do such a thing, Christo replied only that he had “a problem with god-based religions.”
To which Lil could only say, “Then you’re SOL, theologically speaking.”
But Christo wasn’t worried. Had he heard of such a thing, he would have been better suited to an operation called The Church of the Here and Now. The Church of the Here and Now was run by a charismatic named Grant Or David out of the basement of a rooming house in the Bay Area. The rooming house was located in the same general neighbourhood as the football stadium. Worshippers were able to take on gallons of sacramental ‘brown growlies’ at the Church before and after home games, and any other time during the off-season.
Christo’s hours spent on Bay Area paved surfaces and sk8board parks had not allowed time for in-depth study and contemplation of the world’s many and varied religions. His knowledge was based on what little he’d heard from other sk8rs. For many of them, their knowledge in turn was limited to first-hand experience with an operation run out of an overdone hodge-podge of old stone buildings in the center of Rome, Italy. Christo understood that these buildings were in the same general area as a stadium for re-enactments of X-Box battles between True Believers and wild animals or heavily-armed dudes who’d “rilly been working out.” Christo was not aware of the time difference.
It was questionable whether Christo could find Rome, Italy, on a map, let alone demonstrate a credible understanding of the religion. In addition, he was not familiar with the peculiar spin put on religious belief by the local congregation. This spin had it that the Bible consisted of a meaningful series of true stories that should be played out word-for-word by each successive generation of believers. The re-enactment should take place with dramatic feelings of guilt and fear, otherwise something dreadful would happen.
Christo, on the other hand, understood that the Bible was put together much like a blog, or Wikipedia, from random and unconnected submissions by anonymous contributors. Readers could make what they wanted out of it, and if they had something to add, that was OK too. Whenever they wanted they could log off and go to the fridge for a Red Bull.
He distilled his understanding of the prevailing myth-based system into a terse, “Why would anyone listen to that weird nazi pornographer who says he knows it all? That guy deserves to have his nose rubbed in it…by girls.”
To which Lil could only say, “Why indeed.”
The sk8rs understood “that weird nazi pornographer” to mean Pastor Jehuda Mennon of the local congregation. This insight created wide cracks in the edifice of belief, wider than the widest cracks in the worst of the village sidewalks. Before long they were cartwheeling into a ‘post-death-of-God’ scenario of Kierkgaardian proportions. Some replaced the Smiling Nun images on the toes of their boards with likenesses of Camus, Sartre, and Edith Piaf. Some re-wrote the logo to read, “Everything Rilly Is Temporary”. Others substituted, “Je ne regrette rien”.
The village adults did not take this well. Confusion turned quickly to anger. Their anger turned quickly in the direction of “that sk8r from out of town”, and Sister Tommy’s Surf Shop. Before long their shared outrage would take them to a showdown with the Village Council.
Little did they know that even more startling revelations would follow…revelations that would shake their beliefs to their very foundation.
Alan
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 9:09 PM
Subject: RE: The Twisted Back Road
...as intimated by Rob, new copy is attached. You'll want to save it to your
hard drive so you can read it over and over to pick up all the nuances and details.
Careful readers will notice:
- the expression
'twisted back road' has now been successfully used in all three episodes of
Quest '07
- another slam has been administered to the Accounting Profession
- the gratuitous word play on Samantha's name has been resurrected to very good
effect.
I really have no idea where this is heading, but I have a feeling something
is going to happen at the Farkin Barn. Now that Lil and Samantha have opened
the micro-brewery in the former stable, Jezebel Mennon has arrived with her
leather skirt askew, and Kierkgaard himself has made a welcome and timely appearance,
can Anna Karenina be far away?
Stay tuned. And Virgil ON!!
The
villagers’ unhappiness with Christo led them straight to the front door of
Sister Tommy’s. Early one morning a crew of hard-ass men and their
supportive women showed up with jackhammers and started breaking up the sidewalks
that led to Sister Tommy’s. The idea was that if they could deny their
sk8r/offspring access to the Surf Shop the scourge would go away.
They
had progressed two blocks in every direction, completely demolishing the sidewalks
in their wake, when a small group of sk8rs came rolling up beside them on
the roadway. One of the sk8rs put on his best Mel Blanc and, grinding his
teeth in imitation of a carrot being masticated with mouth open, said “What’s
up, Doc?”
The
villagers stopped their hammering and looked at the sk8rs. The sk8rs looked
back. It slowly began to sink in that taking out the sidewalks wasn’t going
to do the job. The crew gave up and went home.
After
several days of fulmination a new strategy came to light. They would act in
the time-honoured tradition of Virgil ON. They would take their complaint
to the Village Council. The Council would take care of it on their behalf.
The
usual barrage of letters to the editor of the weekly buy-and-sell followed.
Recriminations were launched, justice demanded, and a return to normalcy threatened
with language that could not be considered veiled. The party lines were humming
with unusual intensity as word of the complaint spread from neighbourhood
to neighbourhood.
On
meeting night the usual barrel fires were lit in the parking lot and a cordon
of pick-up trucks encircled the village hall. The villagers were devouring
hot dogs cooked over the barrels and swigging cheap local wine out of bottles
lined up on the tail gates of the trucks. The councilors had to run a vicious
verbal gauntlet to get inside and carry out their various democratic duties.
When they entered the Chambers they found a surprise. It was not a pleasant
surprise.
Someone,
identity unknown, had entered the Chambers and done some decorating. Each
of the pew-like gallery seats was tagged with distinctive graffiti and a Roman
numeral indicating its order from the front. Behind the Mayor’s dais towered
a wall mural the likes of which the villagers had never seen.
Death
skulls with M&M’s (Plain and Peanut) streaming out of their open jaws
like machine-gun bullets, leering elflords opening tins of Chef Boy Ar Dee
Spaghetti with medieval swords, silver wolves howling at a black moon encircling
the face of Avril Lavigne, twinned lightning bolts appearing as stigmata on
the up-turned palms of a pudgy leather-clad Christ, rampaging dinosaur skeletons
chasing a bicycle courier across a busy intersection, Keanu Reeves with bared
fangs about to devour a pyramid of Lune Moons, a bearded wizard electrocuting
a telemarketer, hobgoblins with hula hoops, scar-faced dwarves bearing battle
axes and dressed in tutus, a phalanx of Roman legionnaires storming the Bastille,
swastikas in place of the stars in the Star Spangled Banner, enraged pickerel
jumping at fishers and devouring their TimBits, anarchists in gas-masks carrying
hockey sticks, Persian cats duct-taped to two-by-fours, grinning rats clamping
clothespins on the cats’ tails, a brooding likeness of Mel Gibson blowing
a kazoo, umlauted runes rising from the pages of TV Guide, mushroom clouds
forming over the local high school, vineyards overrun by clumsy Bay Area day-trippers
carrying chain saws and PEZ dispensers, flaming pick-up trucks (with and without
chrome bumpers), a silhouette of a toothless Stephen Harper sucking on a malted
milk shake, and a come-hither likeness of a buxom Condi Rice on a jet-powered
sk8board all swirled in a cloud of puce-coloured gas from the eviscerated
gut of a sleeping possum. The possum was about head-level if you were looking
at the Mayor, Big Jake Mennon, from the gallery.
Big
Jake was the first into the room. “You know”, he said to the Village Clerk,”
I kind of like it!”
The
rest of the Council shuffled in looking bewildered and out-of-sorts. Then
the doors were opened and the public stormed in. They took their seats in
the pews and tried to elbow the sk8rs back into the vestibule. Christo and
the sk8rs lunged at the last pew and managed to liberate it from some angry
farmers who were late arriving from the fields along Bottom Line.
The
village staff were the last to enter, and took their places. They sat on bar
stools off to one side of the Mayor’s dais. A statuesque blond joined them.
She was attending in her capacity as Acting Director of Innovative Positions
and Partnerships. Big Jake had joked that he didn’t want a “passive director
in that position!” She was dressed in a blue pinstripe, ruffled white blouse,
and stiletto heels. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulders. She crossed
her legs after sitting down.
Christo
nudged the sk8r who was sitting beside him. “Who’s the blond?”
“That’s
Samantha Whales”, said the sk8r.
Big
Jake called the meeting to order. His nephew Jorge, who had been born in Uruguay,
and had trained as a Champagne Music Maker with Lawrence Welk, was
asked once again to lead the singing of the national anthem.
As
council meetings went this one was pretty typical, to a point. There was a
huge amount of shouting from the gallery. The sk8rs were derided on no uncertain
terms, just as any outsider would be if asking for a special favour from the
village. Big Jake had to bring his mallet down several times to restore order.
There were angry demands to deal with the Surf Shop, and the sk8rs,
and the new decorating job in the Chambers. Someone wanted to know who was
responsible for painting over the vistas of pastoral fields, herds of sheep,
rainbows arching over green hills and winding brooks, and vineyards heavy
with the swelling of grapes, that the villagers themselves had painted on
the Chamber walls to reinforce their own unique vision of Virgil ON.
Christo
stood up at the back of the room and volunteered that he, and his friends,
had redecorated the Chambers. They’d done it as a symbol of the angst that
had set in with the breaking up of the sidewalks. He pleaded for calm. All
the sk8rs wanted was a place to call their own where they could drink Red
Bull and practice their stunts, out of the way of traffic and the myriad dangers
of village life. His plea was met with hoots and heckling.
Someone
shouted, “Deport them all to The Falls!” The crowd gasped.
The
Falls had a special place in village mythology. It was at the core of their
spiritual beliefs. Starting from their fundamentalist origins, the villagers
believed The Falls to be on the yellow-brick road to Babylon. It was a place
where young people would lose their virginity, and old people would lose their
dignity. It was the epitome of everything bad and unwholesome.
The
Falls was also at the core of their geographical beliefs. The villagers understood
The Falls to be located just out of sight over the nearest hill. You got to
it by following the twisted back road that crossed the abandoned barge canal
over an aging plank bridge. Few had ever dared to cross the bridge, let alone
take the road over the hill.
Deporting
felons and deviant young people to The Falls was a favorite village custom.
Many young people over the generations had been deported to The Falls, and
never seen again. Deportation was taken very seriously. That was because many
of the elders themselves were eligible, on a national level, arising from
what they considered ‘lifestyle choices’ they made in the old country during
the Second Big War (Der Zweite Groskrieg).
Christo
had heard of this custom. As was his custom, he was not afraid. He simply
announced, “The Falls does not exist.”
The
crowd gasped again. Murmurings and mutterings filled the room. Christo carried
on. He explained that Miss Whyte-Badger, the schoolteacher, had heard of The
Falls many decades ago from her elementary school children. Curious, she had
asked the Ministry of Education and Speculation (MES) to provide her with
teaching aids on the subject. They had come back empty handed.
However,
a diligent researcher at MES contacted a colleague at the Ministry of Archeology
and Roots (MAR) asking if they had any information. MAR sent out a team of
trained archeologists to investigate. The team came back with no evidence
of human settlement, either pre-contact or post-contact, in the area reputed
to be The Falls. Historically, The Falls did not exist.
By
this time officials at other Ministries had become curious. Experts at the
Ministry of Taxes and Overspending (MTO) wondered why they had never received
any tax money from The Falls. MTO sent out a team of crack auditors who were
unable to find any evidence of financial mismanagement, although their heavily-footnoted
report was qualified by the disclaimer that it was subject to Generally Accepted
Principles of Accounting Practice. A Geographical Survey was sent out from
the Ministry of Geography, Sand, and Gravel (MGSG) to see if maybe they could
find some sign of human activity interfering with non-renewable natural resources.
This team also came back empty handed.
All
this fruitless investigation eventually became a matter of public record and
media debate, much like the sensationalism about unidentified flying objects,
space aliens, and breast enhancements for Parliamentarians. Finally a crew
was sent from the Bay Area Works Department to investigate. They found only
vacant fields, and not a single sewer hook-up. That proved to be the clincher.
By engineers’ deduction the argument went something like this: no sewers,
no toilets, no people, no city. The Falls, it was concluded, did not exist.
“Well
if The Falls doesn’t exist, why have we been talking about it for all these
years?” a voice asked from the middle of the crowd. “Ya, why’s that?” came
an echoing chorus.
“Because”,
said Christo, “There is a place called The Falls. But it’s not what you think
it is. The Falls is the strip club owned by Mr. C out there on the highway
across from his donut shop. You men have all been there.”
The
crowd gasped a third time. Then they fell silent. Many of the supportive women
fainted. In truth the men of the village had been there. They’d just never
paid attention to the sign. The shock of this revelation was to change village
life forever.
Big
Jake had to bring the mallet down again to signal a change in topic. In his
trademark booming voice, with accompanying twitches and oddly effected mannerisms,
Big Jake allowed that he liked what the sk8rs had done to the Chambers. “Brightened
them up”, was the way he put it. “Given us all something to think about. And
enjoy. Just like those pictures we’ve all seen of the Sistine Chapel!”
He
directed Samantha to work with the sk8rs to see what could be done. Samantha
announced that she was already on it, had a location scouted out, money in
the budget, would set up an Advisory Committee with Sk8r Representatives to
help with the final design and programming, and if Council wanted (looking
directly at Christo) a Sk8r Representative on an Administrative Monitoring
Body to work with her right in her office.
Christo listened intently. He noticed Samantha’s unusual inflection around the word ‘body’. When she finished Christo leaned into his seatmate and said, “That Samantha wails!” His seatmate said, “That’s what I said.”
Sent: December 7, 2006 8:33 PM
Subject: Mau-Mauing Mazda
The subject line is taken from a piece written by Tom Wolfe some years ago, Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Wolfe’s piece was a rib-splitter about taking on a desk-bound bureaucrat.
In my world Big Brother has never been the government, rather it’s been General Motors, General Foods, General Electric, and corporate outfits like that. Mazda is apparently about 33% owned by Ford, so that puts it in the Big Time as far as the corporate world is concerned. And may place Mazda somewhere in the escalating Ford Death Spiral, but who knows.
The attachment details a recent saga arising from a routine service on my Mazda. The saga devolved quickly into a spoof in which I fed the cast lines and they replied unscripted. I couldn’t resist writing it up and sending it to High Places.
There’s a barb in there about Don knowing something about Nissans. In fact, before he worked for Mazda Canada, and Mazda US, Don worked for Nissan in the US. So let’s see what, if anything, he says. I don’t actually expect a reply to this letter. But if I get one I’ll pass it on.
There’s also a reference to an Anniversary Card. The card was followed up as recently as today with an invitation to come in and meet my new Personal Sales Representative, and follow the progress of the construction of the new dealership on Scott Street, scheduled to open in the Spring. Just in time to buy a new car, get it? I guess one hand really does not know what the other hand is doing, in some places anyway.
Now that this is out of the way we can all get back to Virgil ON. I believe I can see the Sisters of Stella appearing in a sleigh through the blizzard. Just in time to collide with Anna Karenina who’s way over the speed limit in the troika. Sister Tommy himself is watching, arm in arm with Jezebel Mennon, from the loft door of the Farkin Barn. It’s going to be quite a pile-up!
Stay tuned. Or as they used to say, Zoom Zoom!…
Susan
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 21:17:07 -0500
Brilliant!
I am dying to hear the sequel. May we not send this along to Rick Mercer as
well?
Alan
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:38 PM
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda
Hey!
Send it anywhere you like!
In the midst of the saga Cheryle Thompson disappeared on vacation to Florida,
to return as Cheryle Slattery, new wife of Al Slattery, the franchise holder.
This lead to nasty speculations around the cafeteria table about goings on
in the grease pit after hours on Fridays. Terri went bug-eyed and nearly choked
on her chopped egg sandwich. One of the boys recollected that Al may have
been a Ford dealer once, until he was run out of Welland during a re-org of
the 'dealer network'. The world is small, and life is full of cruel stories.
Particularly about car dealers.
In the midst of the obnoxious speculations about the Peyton Place that may
be St. Catharines Mazda Lalita Paray told us what must be the strangest story
I've heard about a letter to a company president. She wrote to the president
of Acura, in Japan, after her car disappeared. Turned out it had been stolen
by someone working in the dealership when she had it in for servicing. It
was found by police in a container in Montreal about to be loaded on a ship
for 'overseas delivery'. Lalita got a letter back from the president himself,
promising it would never happen again...
Rob
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda
Christo and three of the Sisters of Stella read the letter. The Sisters were a little shaky, having never read anything quite like it and chilly from standing in the back alley of Sister Tommy's learning how to smoke Rothman's cigarettes. Apparently they preferred Rothman's to the American Turkish blends. Christo checked some Mazda ripoff blogs and found so many bloggers ranting about unecessary repairs by Mazda dealerships.
<They tried to tell me I needed a water pump, timing belt and crankshaft sensor and it would cost $1,200.00. Of course I took my car and left! I had the water pump changed about four months ago, so I know that was a lie, and when my mechanic changed the water pump he said the timing belt looked good.>
Thing came into the shop to pick up his custom toefoot bindings and he read the letter too. As Thing gestured wildly to part 3 of the letter, a thought balloon appeared which said "You can't trash trash until you spend a lotta cash!!"
Rob
Subject: Up up up, greenbelts, edges and beer nuts
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:32:47
relevant
<clip>
At home I munched my beer nuts and unexpectedly bumped into the work of Jacek
Yerka, of Poland, "best artist" - 1995 World Fantasy Award. Many
things all started to make sense. Yerk's stuff makes sense - brilliant almost
impossible sense. And then I knew that somehow returning to the Farkin Barn
makes sense too. The place gives meaning to the quest for edge. What is the
edge anyway? We know its temporary, but what is it? Where is it today? Does
it really exist - does it evolve in reality? Where does the Farkin Barn fit
into this mental chemistry? I'm heading for the *real* greenbelt next week.
How does it all fit? I know one thing. Never panic.
Alan
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 8:20 PM
Subject: RE: Up up up, greenbelts, edges and beer nuts
...when Samantha, Lil, and Jezebel Mennon installed the micro-brewery in the
former stables of the Farkin Barn they had no idea they would bring Literature
and History to a stunning communion. Much like a flying fried egg meeting
a space/time continuum. Lil deadpanned, "I'll take my space/time continuum
over-easy."
Rob
Samantha
wasn't so lucky. The Stella nuns talked to the press and an interview could
not be avoided.
Alan
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 8:49 PM
Subject: RE: Up, greenbelts, edges and beer nuts/QuesT 07
QuesT
07 – The Twisted Back Road
Jezebel Mennon
Thing was sitting at the bar in The Angel’s Arms, whiling away time. The banana boat, heading full steam down the Rat River Seaway toward The Bay Area with Clintia on board, had been in a collision with a cigarette boat during a Poker Run. Now it was sitting in a dry-dock at the east end of the lake. The propeller had been damaged. As the propeller had been cast in Romania, and the boat was registered in The Emirates, it was going to take a while to fix. Its arrival in The Bay Area was way up in the air. Thing thought he knew who’d been at the wheel of the cigarette boat, and was planning some pay-back.
The village council were sitting at their usual table. As usual, they were squabbling over the outcome of the evening’s council meeting.
Thing was alternately tuning in and out of the discussion, which oscillated between tedious and bizarre as it progressed. The root cause was, as always, a wicked combination of strong liquor and useless intelligence quotient. The standing joke around town was that the numerical value of the council’s intelligence quotient was equivalent to the alcohol content of the liquor.
When Big Jake Mennon got drunk on liquor he tended to lament things he couldn’t control. On this particular night it was his sister Jezebel.
Thing characteristically tuned in to any conversation as soon as it turned to women. This is what he heard Big Jake say.
“Jezebel was always such a good girl. She went to the Bible readings every Friday night, and Bible study every Sunday. Right through the twelfth grade she wore her hair in pigtails. She wore the school uniform proudly.” The council nodded in recollection.
“Then she went to that post-graduate high school up there on the hill. Brick, or Brack, or Bruck, or whatever the hell they call it. That’s where she changed. They have these books up there, and make the girls read them. What the girls read gives them a load of bad ideas that aren’t good for men!” The council nodded in affirmation.
“It’s a damnable place. They have these elevators up there. And the girls ride around in them naked!” The council gasped. Junior Mennon choked on a gulp of liquor.
“They ride around in them naked, but covered in whipped cream! God only knows how they wash it off.” The council looked thunderstruck.
“When she came back from that school she wasn’t wearing any undergarments.”
“What?” said the council unanimously.
“She wasn’t wearing any undergarments, those clothes Revan calls ‘foundations’. She hasn’t worn any ‘foundations’ since.”
“Lord God Almighty!” shouted Junior Mennon.
A thought bubble appeared over Thing’s head. It said, “Praise the Lord!”