Well, kids, your old Uncle PT got himself a boatload of letters from his latest blog “I Am Mr. Barnum”. A soggy, moss-covered, hole in the hull Titanic amount of letters.

Your Uncle PT has decided to reach into his big boatload of soggy letters and publish a random one – just for you kids at home! 

IMPORTANT NOTE: For the following letter to make any sense at all, you must read “I Am Mr. Barnum” first. I’m not saying that it’ll make any sense even then, but at least you have of fighting chance. 

OK, into the mailbag, boys and girls….  

Oh, here’s a good letter on nice stationary. It smells of magnolias. This letter comes to us from a Miss Zelda Robbins of the Bridgeport Artistic & Culture Committee.

http://www.bridgeportwv.com/arts_council.cfm 

(The following letter is reprinted in its entirety without edit or editorial comment – Scout’s honor.) 
 

My Dearest Mr. Barnum, 

Let me make my formal introduction to you in your general direction.

I am Zelda Robbins. As you certainly know, I am the reigning board member of the BACC, Bridgeport West Virginia Artistic and Culture Committee. 

We at the BACC are deeply and heartily worried and dismayed by your investigative reporting writing “I Am Mr. Barnum” in which you wrongly depict the BACC as a strange and rather ungodly organization.

The ladies of the committee: myself, Violet Wilkes, Amelia Perricott, Livia Jackson (Mrs.), and our gentleman board member Dr. Albert T. Cotthollan III take great and humble dismay at your wild and airy insinuations and allegations concerning improprieties at the BACC. Bridgeport, WV. is our home, and the heart of our chosen mission to promote the arts and culture of our fair city.

As you know, but neglect to mention in your writing, the BACC has done wondrous things to lift the spirits and souls of our morally bankrupt and artistically challenged town.

Here are but a few examples of our good works: 

1. The BACC brought Kenny Rogers himself to play at the opening of the Kenny Rogers Roasters located on Route 170, at the corner of Stonewall Avenue. That’s right, Mr. Barnum. The Gambler himself. 

2. The BACC held a bake sale to raise funds for the 4^th annual One Stroke Painting Juried Show held on Mother’s Day. It is true that we had to leave Bridgeport for Leesville to buy our bulk cupcakes, but is it our fault that there is no Costco in Bridgeport? True, we had to use BACC funds to renew Violet’s Costco card when her credit card was denied (that Violet, such an artiste’, but not so good with the numbers, God bless her). Anyhoo, the One Stroke Painting show was a big hit.  You might have mentioned that when you accused us of spending funds meant for Bridgeport out of Bridgeport! A GOOD investigative reporter would have. 

3. Just who do you think fought city hall and got the Chanukah thingee removed from next to the nativity and Happy Birthday tree in front of the town flagpole? Ya betcha! Wondrously guilty as charged! Next year, a living nativity in front of the library trailer, God willing! 

4. The BACC Broadway Comes To Bridgeport was a joy to behold! The middle school’s production of Le Miserable went better than expected, considering what happened to the gymnasium after the Pentecostal Snake Handler services earlier in the day. 

5. February’s Black History Tuesday had low attendance, tis true. You can lead a horse, but… fiddle dee dee J 

6. Day Camp. We’re all about the day camp. Touch-a-truck and Build-a-Jesus were FABULOUS! Our Sacred Arts & Crafts camp for the girls included activities such as What Would Jesus Draw?, Jackson Pollack’s Finger-paint Guide to The New Testament (for pre-schoolers), and Pin the Tail on the Heretic Piñata. 

7. Restoring dance to our vibrant arts scene has been difficult since our beloved Arthur Murray Dance Studios closed in 1994, but we keep a good thought and a spring in our step for the day that dance returns to Bridgeport. 

8. As you well know, our town is the birthplace of Stonewall Jackson, the great Civil War hero. Our sponsored annual 4^th of July Stonewall Festival is a real boon to our economy, even if every year we are forced to suffer the throngs of “single” men who crowd our streets in their short shorts and bare torsos looking for something called a “tea dance”. We have plenty of festival tea parties, but no tea dances. Our tea parties are attended by many fine single and divorced ladies, but none of the single men seem to be interested in attending these events. Men. Go figure. 

9. Of course, we at the BACC know only too well that is not just about One Stroke Painting and macramé crafts in the modern day art world. We embrace the raggedy edges of the arts as well. We recently sponsored a premier show by local “outsider” lady artist kAry/L Kuntz who takes polaroids of her unkempt pussycat in public restrooms along the interstate and mounts them on men’s bloody sleeveless undershirts. Her show was called “The Wife Beater Monologs”. We at the BACC believe that just because some art isn’t our cup of tea doesn’t mean it isn’t someone else’s cup of whatever it is they like to drink with their biscuits. Viva la Difference, we say!

10. We have recently rebounded from our setback of hiring our first committee executive director. Perhaps we were a bit blinded by the light to hire a lady from the distant state of Connecticut to take the 15 hour a week position as a commuter. Once she realized that the commute was over 1,500 miles each way, she rescinded her acceptance of the position. Live and learn ladies, as I always say.

Our new director Waldo Williams comes to us with a fine arts reputation as assistant manager of the AC Moore Art Emporium in Wheeling, WV. He’s been on the BACC payroll for six months now, and although none of us have actual met or seen him, we’re supremely confident that he is making great strides in meeting our mission of lifting the artsy souls of Bridgeport to celestial heights!

As you see, we at the BACC have been a bunch of busy beavers! 

I’d now like to address several of the wild and reckless statements in your writing. 

You write of “ripping the collective a**h*le of the BACC open wider than that of Jabba The Hutt at an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet”.

Shame. I don’t know this Jabba fellow of which you speak, but as my old school shed mama used to say, “West Virginia don’t cotton to no Mexicans”. Mr. Barnum, must you play the race card? 

And your disturbing pledge to bring a troop of toga-wearing hooligans to our next board meeting to perform some stunt can only lead to bad feelings, my friend. A little word to the unwise: perhaps you are not aware that this ”Spartacus” movie you love so well was written by a known Communist and starred Kirk Douglas (who is indeed a communist and a Jew). Can’t you be nice? 

So, in an effort to be civil and civilized, The BACC offers you a cordial invite to meet with us in our office in the back room of the J. C. Penney store in the old Main Street mall. Unfortunately, the Penneys people are currently using our space for garden furniture storage, so we may have to meet with you across the street at the IHOP.

The ladies of the committee meet every other Tuesday at 8:00AM. You are welcome to join us for flapjacks and coffee – on the BACC!

We at the BACC like your gumption. You remind us of Abraham Lincoln! (No insult intended, haha.) We’d like you to get involved in the BACC!

If you wear a carnation in your label at our meeting, it will help us identify you, as the IHOP gets awfully crowed after 7:45AM. 

In closing, my Dearest Mr. Barnum, I hope that we can look forward to putting all this negative poop behind us and securing your cooperation in spreading the good works of the BACC. Looking forward to meeting you at the IHOP one fine Bridgeport Tuesday morn! 

Yours in Bridgeport, 

Miss Zelda Robbins

(end of letter)

from the essay “Fried Chicken Little: A Culinary Fable”
“The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity” by Delman Mangrove 

(photo of my Mom courtesy of Lizzy Jay, Children’s Party Entertainer Extraordinaire.)  

Mom always told me the best things.
She told me that clowns are evil.
She told me that “nice don’t feed the bulldog, buster”.
She told me that people afraid of their own shadow probably have the physique of Alfred Hitchcock.
She told me that there’s safety in numbers, but that everyone ends up with less pizza that way.
She told me that good boys are a nickel a dozen, but that a bad man is worth a romp in the hay any old night of the week.
She told me that people who think they should never eat oysters in a month with an “r” in it are morons. “Oysters can’t even spell, for Chrissake. Now run to the corner store and get mama a pack of Chesterfields and some Lotto tickets. And bring me back some winners, for once.” 

Mom told me lots of good things, but what she told me the most was that I was the center of the universe.

In the past week, I decide to shake off the winter doldrums and take Mr. Barnum out of mothballs. Poor P.T. was looking a little sad and shabby hanging there in the closet next to my extensive collection of vintage Hawaiian shirts. I decided to take the old Delman Mangrove quoting bastard to the local dry cleaners for a little one hour Martinizing with a Febreeze chaser and extra starch – lots of extra starch.
And then came Facebook.

In case you’ve been buried up to your appendectomy scar in snow for the past week and haven’t heard about the interesting developments with the fledgling Bridgeport Arts and Cultural Council, I’ll fill you in with the Cliff Notes version.
The BACC hired a Fairfield-based artist and his Fairfield-based art design firm to create the BACC web site and a series of 12 posters celebrating Bridgeport history. (That means P.T. Barnum and 11 other things that nobody knows what they are.) The BACC is a grant and donations non-profit created in 2010 with the sole purpose of promoting Bridgeport artists, arts and cultural venues. Keyword: BRIDGEPORT. Bridgeport. Not Fairfield, not Greenwich, not Intercourse, PA. Bridgeport. And the BACC hired a non-Bridgeport artist and his firm to do the only two public relations/marketing projects they’ve done since their inception. No Bridgeport artist was paid. No reinvestment in a Bridgeport tax paying business was made. Favoritism and artistic nepotism took the money out of town.

Mr. Barnum – and several other Bridgeport citizens asked the BACC about this out-of-town hiring on the council’s Facebook page. (Their official web page is only a one-page placeholder. Monies were paid, but no website content exists to date.)  

http://www.bridgeportarts.org/
The BACC repeatedly deleted all related questions and comments from their Facebook page. Day after day. New comments and questions. Day after day, all these comments and questions were deleted by the BACC.
 

(INSERT YOUR OWN FREEDOM OF SPEECH RANT HERE)
 

With all that fresh extra starch in his collar, Mr. Barnum
http://www.facebook.com/phineas.t.barnum decided to… how should I phrase this delicately… decided to publicly rip open the collective asshole of the BACC leadership wider than that of Jabba The Hut at an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet 

Fast-forward one week…

Blogs are being written about Phineas T Barnum on Facebook.

Offers to appear on local cable programs are pouring in.

News 12 Connecticut wants me to co-host a weekly show called “Pet Peeve Talk” with Lauren Collier. My biggest pet peeve is Lauren’s hair. 1978 called, Lauren. Farrah wants her ‘do back. 

Mr. Barnum has received 5 marriage proposals and 352 offers of eternal friendship on Facebook and one email request from some poor soul stranded in London who needs my help to transfer funds into my bank account, then re-transfer half of those funds to a secret account at the National Bank of Fredonia. All he needs is my banking account number. 

I’m seriously considering a Glee guest-starring role as Curt’s cranky bipolar uncle Petey who sings Journey songs with the voice of a drunken angel. 

Rachel Maddow calls me at all hours just to say “Bitchin’!” and hang up. 

A line of “The Many Loves of Mr. Barnum” American Girl dolls is in development. 

The Black Rock Stop n Shop has instituted an official “Your money’s no good here, sir” policy for me. 

I’m in negotiations to do a nude photo spread for Muckrakers Monthly. 

Bill Finch still hates me. 

And.. the Bridgeport Arts & Cultural Council has graciously agreed to meet with concerned Bridgeport artists and citizens to discuss issues raised by me and other Bridgeport citizens on Facebook.

Here’s more about it from Lee Steele’s excellent blog:

http://www.leesteele.com/2011/01/registry/ 

 This meeting will be held on February 22, 2011 from 6-8PM at the BACC offices located in the Arcade Building in downtown Bridgeport. 1001-12 Main Street.

 (Yeah, I know – downtown Bridgeport after dark. Be sure to put the Club on your Honda, kids.) 

What a difference an asshole and a week make! 

So you see that it’s been a long and heady week – becoming the center of the universe and all. 

Now that I’m officially the center of the universe, there’s a few things that I, your new ruler and all-being, would like to have you, the little people, do for me in the coming weeks.

1. Whenever you meet Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch at the grocery store or lottery ticket kiosk, I request that you do the following: Walk right up to him, wrap your arms around his waist and grab his buttocks firmly, yet lovingly. When he gasps, shove your tongue down his throat, give him a big sloppy man kiss, and say, “Mr. Barnum loves you”.
Bill Finch hates me. As the new Gandhi, I believe that we must battle hatred with love.

2. On February 21, 2011 at precisely 12:00PM, the entire world must Google “Phineas T Barnum” & “Facebook”. This will bring me to the top of Yahoo’s Trending Now list, giving the world a break from the current trend favorites “Jessica Simpson dumbass”, ”Mel Gibson talking beaver hand puppet”, and “Todd Palin affair Madame doggy style hahahahaha”.

3. Everyone must perform at least one senseless random act of violence against a clown. Clowns scare me. Once we’ve rid the world of clowns, feel free to take out all mimes. A mime is a wonderful thing to waste. Then, and only then will we talk about ridding the world of Yoko Ono music.

4. Personal note to Bridgeport Police Chief Joe Gaudett: It’s time to replace the Bat signal with a neon sign of me.

5. My birthday is coming. Starting an internet meme about me would be a nice gift.

6. During sex – think only of me – unless you’re Speaker of the House John Boehner’s pay-for-play pal “Pat” If you’re “Pat”, think of death, the only thing worse than your current position.

7. When commenting on your Facebook friend’s endless amount of “cute” baby pictures of her kid who looks like a cross between Gollum and Robin Williams in that movie Jack where he had that old-age kid disease, remain polite and comment “cute, but he’s no Mr. Barnum”.
Politeness is key to our new happy society. Especially when commenting on the rat ugly children of your virtual friends. 

8. Please challenge the status quo in your stodgy workplace by hanging colorful posters declaring the February 3^rd “Take a Dead Relative to Work Day” a company-sponsored event. It’s all about team building in the business world, you know. Just because your boss’s Uncle Bert is dead doesn’t mean he’s not part of the extended business family. 

9. Immediately stop naming your dogs Phineas. Imagine my pain and humiliation each time I walk the streets of Bridgeport to an unending chorus of “Here Phineas”, “Bad Phineas”, “Don’t shit on the neighbor’s lawn, Phineas” and “Please stop humping the nice lady’s leg, Mr. Barnum”. 

10. Lastly – and most importantly – all Bridgeport artists, art lovers and Bridgeport lovers in general are hereby given a personal invitation to attend the Bridgeport Arts & Cultural Council open meeting on February 22, 2011.

The “official” stated purpose of the meeting is to discuss issues of geographic boundaries, inclusion, transparency, and the use of council funds for the hiring of non-Bridgeport artists and firms for council business.

But, as the center of the universe, I know better.

It’s all about me. The BACC wants to throw me a little party! Quite sweet of them, actually. 

So, you’re all officially invited to my party on February 22^nd at the BACC! (But it’s a surprise; so don’t let them know that I know.)

 Fascinating Factoid about me:

There are really only two things in the world that I really love: Surprise parties and gladiators. I just love gladiators. My walls are filled with Russell Crowe posters, and my Mom gave me the complete Lego Spartacus: Blood and Sand Action Play Kingdom for Christmas. And, I’ve seen the Kirk Douglas/Stanley Kubrick Spartacus movie 683 times.
Woohoo - lightning strike! Why not combine my two great passions – surprise parties and Gladiators – into one rocking mid-week funfest? 

So, when you all attend the BACC meeting (Surprise! Oh, you shouldn’t have!), you should come dressed as a gladiator! That’s right; a sandal wearing, olive oil-dripping mega-pectoral, toga clad, card-carrying gladiator!

And when the BACC leadership offers the Bridgeport artists in attendance a more inclusive and profitable place in the BACC agenda – based of course on the lone condition that the artists identify Mr. Barnum - each of you can stand, and in your best gladiator voice cry, 

“I’m Mr. Barnum” 

“I’m Mr. Barnum”                                   ”I’m Mr. Barnum”

                   “I’m Mr. Barnum”

                                                                     “I’m Mr. Barnum”

A sea of Mr. Barnums. An ocean of Phineas. A tidal wave of PTs. 

It’ll look a little something like this:

Click on image to see video

 Now that’s a party! A Spartacus Partycus! Break out the Birkenstocks – it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. See you then!
So that’s the report of the first week of the new world. In closing, I can finally and humbly say that Mom was right.

I’m Mr. Barnum. I’m the center of the universe. 

Click on image to see video

Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
Blogus Ridiculum
PT 
http://www.facebook.com/phineas.t.barnum

Who Do That Voodoo?: Part Deux Deux

Here’s the latest breaking news on my family Voodoo saga: 

We’ve spared no expense in keeping our creepy ass neighbors from committing additional acts of creepy ass Santeria Voodoocity on our property.

We’ve installed high tech, high priced heat sensor devices on every inch of our property. These specific devices were used in the film “Alien vs. Predator”, or so it was claimed on the eBay auction I won last week.

Now, no raccoon or stray cat can set paw on our property without setting off an elaborate system of lawn sprinklers and a 200 Db alarm warning system that I’ve customized to shout “Die, Zombie, Die” in my own voice. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider the possibility that Voodoo zombies may have no actual body heat, rending the device useless against members of the undead persuasion. 

On a more practical note, we’ve installed an anti-Voodoo wall arrangement in our front hall. 

The Front Hallway Wall of Anti-Vodoo

Brazilian House Protection Fetish

$49.95 from Uncle Hoodoo's House of Voodoo

While three of the four masks aren’t officially Voodoo-related in origin, the fourth is a super powerful Brazilian household protection fetish I purchased online for $50 from Uncle Hoodoo’s House of Voodoo in New Orleans.

Be it the heat sensing security system. The anti-Voodoo wall of terror, or a combination of the two, I’m pleased to announce that there have been no further acts of Voodoocity on our property. Although, I must attest to the fact that the neighborhood raccoons have taken to bringing their food around for a nightly washing under the sprinkler alarm system. The water bill is going to be monster.

But, while our Black Rock backyard has remained secure against headless chicken attack, downtown Bridgeport has once again been the site of Voodoo activity.

 http://hubpages.com/hub/826paranormalinvestigatesoccult

I don’t actually mind your run of the mill, mainstream chicken bones and pin dolls arrangement, but the addition of Matchbox cars and Dunkin Donut cups is a bit gauche for my tastes. (Something tells me that this particualr curse altar is directed at Bridgeport’s finest.) 

Stay tuned to this blog for future Voodoo updates. 

And now In closing, I’ll leave you with the words of the great Delman Mangrove essay “My Waitress is So Slow That I Think She’s Dead” from his essential “The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity”.  

“Don’t just stand there like a Zombie, Lucille. Run around like a chicken with your head cut off, and get me my omelet.”

Blogus Ridiculum

 PT

“You do something to me.
Something that simply mystifies me.
Tell me, why should it be
You have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live ‘neath your spell.
Do do that voodoo
That you do so well.
For you do something to me
That no one else could do!”

“You Do Something To Me”
Cole Porter

I love to pick on Bridgeport. Bridgeport, the three-legged junkyard dog barking at shadows from behind the safety of a rusty barb wire fence. Bridgeport, the wobbly one-legged drunken man on the street corner waving at every beer truck that passes by. Bridgeport, the single winged bird dangling from a dead tree branch.

Bridgeport is home, and home is certainly an easy target for a lazy slob like me. No one abuses and torments weaknesses more expertly than family, and Bridgeport, with all her faults, failures and foibles, is family.
We have everything here that you could want in a city. Plenty of good and occasionally great restaurants. A persistent and scrappily enduring art scene. We have a great beach for the living, and another beach exclusively for ghosts.

http://www.michaelraleigh.com/flash/beach.html

And now, Bridgeport has Voodoo! That’s right, boys and ghouls, I said Voodoo! Capital V, four “O”s and a “D”, good old fashioned, cut the head off a chicken and rattle them rooster bones in the air like you just don’t care – Voodoo! Santeria Voodoo, no less.

We have achieved “Voodoocity”! (And I’ve copyrighted that word, so use it at your own legal peril.)
On April 22nd, Voodoo reared its latest ugly chicken head with an appearance in downtown Bridgeport.

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-police-investigate-apparent-Santeria-457864.php

And it’s not the first time. There are more headless goats in our local cemeteries than you can shake a mutton leg at.
And now, here in the jolly month of June, Voodoo has come to Black Rock. And not just anywhere in Black Rock.
Imagine if you will, finding yourself starring in this unlikely scenario where you come home from a hard day of pretending to work to hear this phrase from your wife.
“Come out in the backyard. Tell me if you think this is what I think it is”.

But, first, let’s take a brief detour to check into the current status of my Life Bucket List:
1) Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Check.
2) See the Olympic torch handed off in three different states – by complete chance. Check.
3) Place a call to the Bridgeport police to report a creepy ass Voodoo contraption hanging in my backyard. Check.

That’s right – a Voodoo curse contraption hung in my yard by some unknown creepy ass neighbor. No joke here. Serious as a surprise party

Actual Voodoo Bird Hanging From My Actual Shed

Extreme Closeup Of Extreme Voodoo Bird

Another Exciting Angle of Exciting Voodoo Bird

Note the mummified, single-winged bird carcass. Note the neatly tied white ribbon noose around the bird’s scrawny neck. Note to self: this is the creepy act of a creepy person or persons – either working alone or as part of a team. I’m not sure which freaks me out more – one 12 foot tall Santeria Voodoo priest working alone to hang a curse contraption from a hook on top of my thirteen foot shed, or two 6 foot tall Santeria Voodoo altar boys working as a team to hang a curse contraption from a hook on top of my thirteen foot shed. At least the 12 foot tall giant Voodoo dude makes for a cooler story – and gives me a reason to include this picture of my favorite movie zombie.

My Favorite Zombie

Let me clearly state right here that I have a long and complicated personal history with all variety of monstrous and mythical creatures.
Elves, dwarfs, mental midgets, hobbits, leprechauns of cereal and non-cereal types, trolls, giants, harpies, yeti, unicorns, werewolves, satyrs, succubus and incubus, kraken, ogres, minotaur, hell hounds, griffons, the Jersey Devil, golems and ghouls, spooks and specters, haints, changelings, and several mutations of republican. And I have engaged in more whistled walks down the streets of Ghostland than Murray, Ackroyd, Ramis and Ernie Hudson combined.

Banshees. I’m originally from Chicago. And Chicago is lousy with Banshees. Bunches of Banshees so thick that you need to swat them away like flies. Banshees of all shapes and shoe sizes, standing around on the Chicago street corners, wailing and engaged in all manner of histrionics. Loud and pesky creatures, those Banshees. The kind of demons that look pretty darn good at last call.
Many a lonely, drunken Chicago guy has fallen into a closing time tavern stupor and awakened to find himself married with four kids to a Chicago Banshee. Bad girls, those Banshees. The kind of girls Mom warned you about – if your Mom was Anne Rice.

Hobgoblins. Been there, done that. I’ll not re-tell those tales.

Vampires. Nothing but Goth teens with thumbs bloodied from excessive text message suicide threats and angst-ridden cries for help because their monthly minutes are all used up. It’s like an episode of DeGrassi with extra blood. I bitch slap ‘em and move on.

Zombies. I’ve met thousands of them in corporate America, and dozens more working behind the counter of airport car rental kiosks. Slow moving and generally placated with donuts. Best left to the silver screen or the big hill at Calvary.

But Voodoo? Curses and dead birds hanging from backyard sheds Voodoo? Never. Not until this week, anyway. The week I began my life in the land of Voodoocity.

I’m no stranger to the ways of Voodoo, but all I learned about it comes from late night cable movies. I’ve seen White Zombie with Bela Lugosi 16 times, and The Serpent and The Rainbow at least 42 times. (The Scott Bakula scrotum-piercing torture scene never gets old.) And of course, I can recite chapter and verse dialogue from the Val Lewton classic “I Walked With A Zombie”. Seen if 73 times.

White Zombie!

I Walked With A Zombie!

The Serpant and The Rainbow

But “real life” Voodoo? Honestly, the very concept of “real life” scares the hell out of me. Add Voodoo. You do the math.
In my current, apparently sane and stable life, I am the Safety Captain for our Black Rock street. I’m duly authorized and highly trained in dealing with the kind of natural and unnatural acts of crime one routinely encounters in Bridgeport, but battling supernatural crime and general hocus pocus isn’t in the job description.

The real safety captain job description is as follows; “Phone the police”.

Night One: A Virgin in The Land of Voodoocity

What follows is the actual transcript of my phone conversation with the Bridgeport police dispatcher:

PT: “Um, hello police. Um. There’s a Voodoo curse contraption hanging from my backyard shed. Can you send over a patrol car?”

Dispatcher: “What?”

PT: “Um, there’s a Voodoo curse contraption… well, not so much a contraption… that would be more like a Rube Goldberg thing… a voodoo device. Or maybe like a mobile. One of those baby crib hanging thingies, you know? Anyway, this voodoo…”

Dispatcher: “Sir, have you been drinking?”

PT: “Of course I’ve been drinking. There’s a voodoo curse whatever hanging from my shed. I need to calm my frazzled nerves and dull my current toxic exposure to Voodoocity. Hey, I like that word!”

Dispatcher: “Sir, are you the gentleman who called twenty minutes ago about Zombies in his front yard?”

PT: “No, but. Zombies, really? Kind of an odd coincidence, don’t you think? You know, Delman Mangrove wrote that there are no coincidences, only “happy accidents” Wait, no, that was Bob Ross, that TV painter guy”.

Dispatcher: “Sir, it’s a week night in Bridgeport, and we anticipate a rash of crimes, accidents, domestic violence calls, any number of hostage situations, SWAT teams storming the homes Al Qaeda operatives and the women who love them, public nudity sightings, and fistfights at tonight’s city council meeting, so we really don’t have time to play games with…”

PT: “I understand how busy you are with the zombies and naked people and politicians and all, but there’s a voodoo curse thingee hanging from my shed. A dead bird in a ribbon noose. It looks like Baby Doc’s TV Christmas Special out there.”

Dispatcher: Sir, what’s the address?”

In my chardonnay-drenched state, I had forgotten the primary lesson that must be known by every street safety captain. The Bridgeport police only respond when gunfire and/or public nudity is involved.

So of course, the police never came.

Night Two: Déjà vu in The Land of Voodoocity

Rule II in The street safety captain handbook is: “Never call the regular police dispatcher. That’s for losers. You’re connected now brother. Call the Special Enforcement Officer on duty. It’s like the velvet rope for amateur crime fighters like you!”

What follows is the actual transcript of my phone conversation with the Bridgeport Special Enforcement Office:

PT: “Um, hello officer. Um. There’s a Voodoo dead bird curse contraption hanging from my backyard shed.”

Officer X: “What?”

PT: “Wait! Did I just see some bare ass out there? Wait! Was that a gunshot? I think that bird is packing heat!”

Officer X” “Nudity and a gun? What’s the address?”

Of course, it’s Bridgeport, so they still never came.

Night Three: Reflections on Yet Another Night in The Land of Voodoocity

I guess that I’m like many voodoo curse victim virgins. My first thought is to blame myself. It’s what psychologists may some term the Stockholm Voodoo syndrome.
What might I have done to drive some desperate Santeria Voodoo practicing neighbor to my own back yard on a kind of Haitian jihad? Here are my top three reasons:

1) My practice of re-enacting the resurrection of Zombie Jesus every Easter morning since I was nine years old.
http://bridgeportintheknow.com/wordpress/?p=432
It never dawned on me that this could actually piss off Christians and Voodoo worshippers alike.

Our Zombie Jesus Easter table setting - 2010

2) The neon bar sign placed in our front window announcing “Happy Zombie Jesus Day” to the passing world?

Our Easter Front Window Neon Sign

3) Or could it be my occasional habit of screaming out the back window at neighbors for a myriad of neighborhood safety infractions ranging from late night dog barking to the loud playing of Barry Manilow tunes during Antiques Roadshow.

Who can say? The actions of the street safety captain are so interconnected and self-multiplied in the fabric of daily life that we can often fail to see the stitches.
Still, I always try to find deeper meaning to all the goofy and creepy shit that seems to find its way into my life, especially here in Bridgeport. And how can there not be some deeper metaphorical significance to a creepy ass voodoo contraption hanging from my shed? I mean, come on, if I can find the significance of a show tune singing mermaid in Black Rock Harbor, voodoo in the backyard should be a cake walk, right?
http://bridgeportintheknow.com/wordpress/?p=112

I determined long ago that the universe (at least my square centimeter of it) is ruled by the whims of a twisted comic god who loves nothing more than placing a lifetime of emotional and psychological banana peel landmines along your own personal path. Eventually, falling on your ass three times a day for life becomes the metaphorical equivalent of facing Mecca for prayers.

You know that god I’m talking about.
The god who makes a man wait for decades to find the girl of his dreams, only to discover that she’s a raging psycho with more issues than People Magazine.

The god who introduces a woman to Mr. Right quicker than you can say “Mystery Date” just so she can waste half of her life learning that Dream Boy’s a sociopathic highlight reel of a Cops “Wife Beater” marathon.

The god who tells you that living past thirty is for suckers and fools, so blow your life on the short term, because the long term implications will never arrive for you and your good looking young corpse.

The big schoolyard bully in the sky god. The god of self-inflicted pain, humiliation and riotous slapstick humor. The joy buzzer, whoopee cushion, flaming bag of dog shit on the porch, fuck with you because it’s fun god.

The voodoo dead bird contraption hanging from my shed god. That god.

So what is my own personal school yard bully comic god telling me this time? Could it be that he’s telling me that the ghost of the past is never truly gone, never truly dead? Even when you bury it over the years and beneath the miles from then to now? Even when time and distance somehow finally allows you to cut yourself a break from the guilt of years of denying friends with the wave of a hand, and bedding banshees with a twelve pack of beer and a case of bullshit?
Even when the past ends up hanging from a white ribbon noose above the shed of the little house near the water where you once believed that the schoolyard bully in the sky would never find you?
Yes, even then. Especially then.

I think now of this line of verse from one of Delman Mangrove’s few known poems, “Ribbon of Time”
“Out of the past, into today. Fuck you future, if I may”

Here in our little house by the water, I had come to think that the past was done with me. I see now that the past has only just begun. Perhaps it wasn’t all the Zombie Jesus schtick that forced a collection call on my overdue bad karma account. Perhaps it wasn’t the Zombie Awareness month proclamation that led a crazed Santeria Voodoo neighbor to hang a curse in my backyard.

Perhaps it’s just my time to be the punch line.

“I’ve an axe to grind against religion since my Druid-hating father sacrificed our Christmas tree to make a point about religion being nothing more than superstition. Don’t get me started on what happened to his wooden leg the following Arbor Day.”
Delman Mangrove
From the essay “Come Down Off The Cross, We Need The Wood” from his essential work “The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity”
Here’s hoping that I fare better than Delman Mangrove’s father’s wooden leg. I’ll be wearing my favorite Voodo-repellant Hawaiian shirt 24/7 just in case I require a little extra safety zone.

My Anti-Voodoo Shirt

Anti-Voodoo shirt closeup

In closing, if I’ve learned one lesson from my schoolyard bully in the sky god, it’s that nothing pisses people off more than constantly reminding them of the mistakes of the past. And if you’re going to piss someone off – you may as well do it in neon!

The neon sign in our front window - June 2010

Thanks for the learning, school yard bully god! Thanks creepy voodoo neighbor!

“Who Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well?
I know who do. Do you do?”
From the poem “Cole Porter Is Reading My Mail”
Delman Mangrove

Blogus Ridiculum
PT

If you didn’t hear in advance about the 9/11 Tea Ba Party held on Baldwin Plaza, you’re not alone. Apparent the word was spread on this so-called grass roots event only on back pages of Republican comic books and on the blogs of Ann Coulter fanatics. (Same thing, really.)

You may have heard about the results of that particular tea party in the Connecticut Post, but have you seen the footage of the wonderfully creative protest conducted during Coulter’s speech by a local resident who shall only be referred to here as “Cougar”? I don’t want to out Cougar in this blog. As you’ll see, a bunch of guys with necks thicker than Zsa Zsa Gabor’s accent may already be searching for “Cougar”with a good old-fashioned lynch mob mentality.

Here’s the link to the actual footage of the protest at the Bridgeport 9/11 Tea Bag shindig. Enjoy, and turn up your speakers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abg01gokXqY

And here’s late breaking news!

Following on her successful 9/11 Bridgeport Tea Party Tap Dance, Ann “Your Feets Too Big” Coulter has been signed to Dancing with The Stars!

My source at the network has slipped me a copy of her her audition tape.

Maybe for her actual show appearance, she’ll do The Hokey Pokey!“You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You put your right hand in,
And you shake it all about,
You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it’s all about”

Here’s the link to that Colter audition tape:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBQpmWZ3ckg

Blogus Ridiculum
PT

“Jesus was a carpenter’s son. I’m the son of a woodshop teacher, although I suspect he’s not my real father.”

- from the essay “Come Down off the Cross, We Can Use The Wood”
Delman Mangrove

The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity

“Our Fire Department personnel were concerned that the decades-old buildings on Pleasure Beach posed a significant public safety hazard, especially after one of our deputy chiefs witnessed several kids running from one of the buildings during a routine … visit to the island. At the behest of our Fire Department, Burns Construction Co., which was doing some work on the island for the Town of Stratford, used their equipment to push the two buildings over. All involved recognize that the work should have been done with a demolition permit in place. We will take appropriate action to ensure that this situation does not occur again in the future. In the meantime, the Public Facilities department is determining how best to dispose of the rubble left from the buildings on the island.”

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch statement on the Bridgeport Fire Department’s spontaneous and non-permitted demolition of the historic Pleasure Beach carousel and bumper car ride.

“Two days after it was discovered that two structures once housing amusements at Pleasure Beach were demolished without the apparent knowledge — or permission — of top city officials, Mayor Bill Finch said Friday the structures were “pushed over” free of charge by a construction company hired by Stratford to tear down abandoned cottages on adjoining Long Beach West.
Finch, who a day earlier said flatly, “We don’t know who did it,” said that a deputy fire chief determined about a month ago the abandoned and deteriorating wooden structures that once housed the carousel and the bumper-car ride were in danger of collapsing.
In a prepared statement issued Friday, the mayor said that he had learned the city’s Fire Department gave Burns Construction Co. the green light to tear down the buildings on the 35-acre beach.
Although Finch said he was in the dark about the last-minute demolition, he said he isn’t concerned that the Fire Department had failed to inform him. “I wasn’t completely shocked. I was uninformed,” he said.
“In a way I’m kind of glad they are down,” Finch said. “They were probably never built to code. They were carny buildings.”

Connecticut Post 09/05/09

Ah, Bill Finch. Bridgeport’s self-proclaimed “Green Mayor”. The mayor in charge of making Bridgeport shovel-ready for all those juicy stimulus project dollars.

Apparently Mayor Finch’s most pressing concern with this unauthorized Pleasure Beach action is what to do with the huge pile of wood left behind by the demolition. I guess that huge pile of wood creates a fire hazard. Most tellingly to the true nature of the mayor, being “uniformed” doesn’t completely shock him. It shocks me less than a joy buzzer in a candy bowl of electric eels.

Before we delve into the Case of The Shovel-Ready Mayor, here’s an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published memoir “My Life In The Black Market Government Cheese Trade”. Hopefully, this story will shed a bit of metaphorical light on the conditions that led to the non-permit destruction at Pleasure Beach. Sometimes it’s a long journey from one story to another, and sometimes you barely need to move a leg to get there.

Now let’s enter the Way Back Machine, boys and girls…

Back in my days at Chicago’s Lane Technical High School, all students were required to take four semesters of shop class. Being completely disinterested in any tool that didn’t grow on me, I developed an uncanny ability to worm my way into being appointed the shop tool room helper. This assignment allowed me to pass the class without doing any actual work. This practice worked well in electrical, machine and auto shops, but not in woodshop.

Our woodshop teacher, Howard Woodson (really), was more a hands-off kind of instructor. He spent the entire semester alone in the locked tool room, smoking his pipe and tossing out the occasional woodworking implement over the top of the security cage to an unsuspecting student who may not have been adequately trained to actually catch a ballpeine hammer spinning in mid-flight.

We were left to our own devices in woodshop. Mr. Woodson would remind us of his presence with the occasional verbal rant on poets who romanticized trees and assorted tree bi-products. He particularly hated Joyce Kilmer and Robert Frost, often shouting from the tool room, “Frost, that Yankee pantywaist. Good fences, good neighbors, my good ass! Melville, now there was a real writer. Saltwater of the earth, he was. Knew more about wood than a thousand high-falutin’ Hollywood ventriloquists gone to meet their maker.”

These outbursts were usually followed by a cry of “Heads up, pantywaists. Here comes a hacksaw”.

We were busy beavers in woodshop. As we had no set course curriculum, we were free to create anything from wood that struck our subversive or capitalist fancies. Some boys created chako sticks to beat the crap of either other in their best Bruce Lee mode. Some boys created one-hit hash pipes or bongs from the trunk of a small tree. Me, I was running a black market artificial limb business from lathe #4.

My Chicago neighborhood had a tragically high percentage of limbless Korean War veterans who were fed up with the endless paperwork and poor quality replacement limbs from the V.A. A large group of these vets attended our church and hung out at a local drunk bar posing as a VFW hall. I first encountered this high congregation of wounded local vets when trying to earn some money by shining shoes in every drunk bar in the area.
One of the limbless vets responded to my shoeshine sales pitch by saying “Forget my shoes, kid. Got any lemon Pledge for this termite-infested government issue cardboard leg of mine?”

I remembered that moment as I stood unsupervised in Mr. Woodson’s woodshop – lightning struck, a cash register rang, and a new business was born!

I sold my artificial limb creations at a reasonable price, used only the finest oak and teak, and best of all for the vets: no paperwork and no questions asked.

It was a good business for a high school kid. I carried my finished products home in a battered clarinet case, and no one was the wiser. Sure a few kids on the bus treated me like a band geek, but that’s the price of visionary entrepreneurship.

But the heady days of my black market limb business were not to last. One bleak February morning, I arrived at woodshop to find that Mr. Woodson had burned down the entire shop while he slept and smoked. It was rumored that when the fire department arrived, Mr. Woodson was still locked in the tool cage. He immediately began taunting the firefighters with cries of “Let it all burn, you axe-wielding pantywaists. Towards thee I roll, thou all destroying but unconquering whale. To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee”.

That last part probably went right over the heads of the firefighters. Great guys in a crisis, but not so much for the classics.

We never learned what happened to Mr. Woodson. He was simply gone and never mentioned again. I didn’t really care. All I knew was that a half-dozen pre-paid limb orders were lost in those woodshop perdition flames. I ended up losing my ass paying back those vets. I took a job at McDonalds where I forced to wear a paper hat and was routinely told that I wasn’t “golden arches material”. Still, that job was my entry into the black market secret sauce trade. But, that’s another story.

So – what does this tale of Mr. Woodson’s woodshop have to do with the case of the shovel-ready mayor and Bridgeport’s demolition of the historic carousel and bumper car rink at Pleasure Beach? Nothing. Nothing at all. The Pleasure Beach demolition is unrelated and unaccountable to anything other than the unfathomable workings of Bridgeport politics.

EXCEPT- for that fresh pile of wood lying on the very spot where the Pleasure Beach carousel and bumper car rink so recently stood in defiance of the elements and years of neglect.

We’ve already seen that the future of that pile of wood is apparently Bill Finch’s primary concern in this matter. What to do? Hmmm, let’s think outside the box, shall we?

Here’s a solution, Mr. Mayor. Donate and deliver the wooden remains of Pleasure Beach to a local high school woodshop for the benefit of a new generation of teen entrepreneurs. You can even use the fire department to deliver the wood. Firemen love to deliver “Toys for Tots” to local tykes each Christmas. Why not branch out to local lumber-deprived shop students with a “Timber for Teens” campaign?

Think of it as an investment in the community, and in your own political future, Mr. Mayor. One local woodshop student entrepreneur may be the only one left to provide you with a limb to stand on when the voters cut you off at the knees in the next election.

Bill Finch has a shovel-ready mayoralty. Let’s use that shovel and bury it.

And I alone am left to tell thee…
Blogus Ridiculum
PT

I recently heard on NPR that the crypt located directly above the space occupied by the late Marilyn Monroe is currently up for auction on eBay. Current high bid: $4.5 million dollars. The current 20 year crypt occupant is being moved out by his widow to make the mortgage payment on their Beverly Hills mansion. Times are tough for the living and the dead alike. The perfect economic conditions to pick up tremendous real estate bargains at a fraction of their previous valuation!

Marilyn Monroe’s eternal resting place in the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park is the home to numerous Hollywood legends such as Natalie Wood, Mel Torme, Merv Griffin, and Kevin Costner (oh, wait – sorry, just his career is dead. Waterworld should have been named “Eternal Dirt Nap for Costner’s career”).

In light of the huge interest in securing neighbor rights to Marilyn, I’m stepping out of character today to solicit you, dear and well-heeled reader, to join together with me in a daring and GUARANTEED financially successful investment opportunity.

The great Mangrove was right again – land + death = financial security!

My new company, Sleeping with The Stars, LLC, will serve as a land management company empowered to buy the “proximity locations” of celebrity crypts and cemetery lots, and make them available to star-struck citizens on a rental and time-share basis.
Here’s our business plan in a nutshell: Sell a celebrity “proximity” crypt once, make $4.5 million. Rent a celebrity “proximity” crypt repeatedly and make 100X $4.5 million. Do the math!

An important element of our business plan is an acute awareness that the outright sale of permanent residence of a celebrity proximity crypt usually involves dealing with dead people. Let’s be frank: No one likes dead people. We don’t like the way they look. We can’t stand the way they smell. And dead people are notoriously hard and unbending negotiators. Super salesman Dale Carnegie called it “The Rigor Mortis Factor”.(Of course none of this pertains to zombies. Zombies are cool. And zombies are easily manipulated in a business deal. Just note had badly Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch gets taken in the revised Steel Pointe deal.)
So, dear potential investor, by creating an administrative mechanism of celebrity proximity time share and short-term rental options for the living, Sleeping with the Stars, LLC eliminates the following profitability obstacles.

1) Elimination of the dead from the deal.

2) Time share and rental revenues spread our reported income across the fiscal year, allowing for more creative opportunities to “accidentally” under-report cash surplus on a regular basis – due to “accounting errors”.

3)Time shares and nightly rentals allow our star struck clients to spend a limited amount of time around their favorite celebrity without learning the hard way that all celebrities quickly become demanding, self-centered, psychologically unbalanced, and deadly dull.

Which brings us back to Marilyn Monroe. The currently available crypt right over the silver screens greatest sex symbol Marilyn Monroe? In the words of former CIA director George Tenant, this is a “slam dunk”.

The Marilyn proximity crypt is the golden goose of venture capital, my friends. What red-blooded American male doesn’t want to spend a night on top of Marilyn Monroe? But only one night! You don’t want more than one night on top of Marilyn. Just ask Jack Kennedy.

So, after we pool our combined financial resources and win the eBay bid on Marilyn’s proximity crypt, we’ll use our pre-paid rental income to secure the rights to other valuable celebrity proximities. And, as a company unafraid of the future of land and death, Sleeping With The Stars, LLC will actively pursue the perpetuity crypt proximity rights of still living celebrities.

Time is running out to get in on the ground floor of this eternally profitable business opportunity.

Send your investment payment today to mrbarnum@sleepingwiththestarsllc.ru. PayPal only please!

Financial Disclaimer: This is not a necrophillia-contingent offer. Past performance of living celebrities is no guarantee of future performance of dead celebrities.

Let’s be honest. All your hard earned investing ended up in Bernie Madoff’s 9’x 12’ cell for the next 150 years. It might as well end up in a 9’x 12’ crypt on top of Marilyn Monroe – if only for one memorial night.

“Marilyn was lying all alone.
With an empty bottle by the phone.
Kennedy was not around.
She was cold when she was found.
But she’d gone where goddesses are sleeping.
Where the molten tongues of flame are leaping.
Or where the angel’s hearts are heating.”

“Get Started, Start A Fire” by Graham Parker

Blogus Ridiculum
PT

As many of you may know, Mr. Barnum has been away from Bridgeport through most of this underwear-soaked, mosquito-infested summer.

I’ve been doing secret work for the government. But, now the economic salvation stimulus campaign “Cash For Clunkers” has ended after successfully putting millions of underemployed Americans behind the wheel of a new Japanese car they can’t possibly afford.
Only now can I reveal my important, highly covert role in the Obama administration’s plan to rid the streets of Studebakers and the highways of Hummers. I was possibly the most successful uncover operative since Chuck Barris worked for the CIA.
Many more details of my adventures to are to come, but let me quickly reveal that my key role in the covert “Gone in 60 Seconds” segment of the Clunkers program repo unit was critical in removing hundreds of rusted Chevys and Fords on cinder blocks from the front yards of rural Arkansas, West Virginia, and from the front lawn of Bridgeport mayor Bill Finch. (The only “green” thing in the garage of the “green mayor” was his rusted Earl Schieb repaint 1970 Buick Skylark Belair complete with 8 track player.)
Throughout my months on assignment with Cash For Clunkers, I was often reminded of my previous covert government work for the Reagan administration.

Soon to come to this blog – excerpts from my upcoming memoir My Life In The Black Market Government Cheese Trade: A Coming of Age Tale of Politics, Intrigue, Glamour and Gorgonzola in the 1980s.
It’s kind of like Catcher in The Rye with lots of references to cheddar. (Interesting sidenote: J.D Salinger and I are both lactose-intolerant.)
I know – you’re excited. I’m excited. We’re all excited. The folks at the Cheese Oddities Museum in Waukesha, Wisconsin? Not so much excited as nervous. As well they should be.

Until then, here’s a sneak peek of this upcoming major literary work. This tale involves a neighbor circus sideshow geek wanna-be from my Catholic schoolboy days in Chicago.

Enjoy a peek at this tale I like to call “Whatever Happened To Chicken Boy Todd?” (Alternate title: “Cash For Cluckers”.)

Whatever Happened To Chicken Boy Todd?
There was only one strange boy in our neighborhood.
For 4^th grade show and tell, he brought in his vast collection of sideshow geek memorabilia and a live chicken.
He passed out handwritten “Todd The Odd” business cards to the whole class. I still have that card. I keep it in the same cigar box where I keep the unopened pack of Juicy Fruit gum my drunken father gave to me as some sort of bribe when he followed us to Chicago for a handout from the wife he abandoned for a fellow named Jack Daniels.
He wore ski pajamas covered with cotton candy feathers stuck on with Elmer’s Glue. Todd, not my father.
When Todd brought the live chicken’s head to his lips, girls pressed hands over their mouths and Sister Rose Helene fell to the checkerboard linoleum like a taxidermy penguin. But Todd didn’t bite off the chicken’s head. He simply kissed it on the pecker and took a flamboyant bow to his stunned and horrified fourth grade audience.
That’s how he earned his nickname – Chicken Boy Todd. He was also referred in some circles as “pecker kisser”, but that’s another story. The boys in our class had many dreams of their future life. Some kids wanted to be fireman, some policemen, and some criminals. Some wanted to be just like Dad, some wanted to be anything other than their Dad.
As you might guess, Chicken Boy Todd dreamed of becoming a sideshow geek. Only one problem… Todd loved animals too much to eat them, let alone bite off their heads. Especially chickens. He proclaimed himself to be one with the chicken. He idolized Foghorn Leghorn, kept a large coop in his backyard, and named his chickens after members of the 1969 Chicago Cubs.

(Insert passage of time here)

In the 1980s, I heard of a performer who had a brief career in a traveling pseudo-nouveau sideshow performance art troupe. This performer billed himself as “The Vegan Geek”, biting the heads off oddly shaped gourds, turnips, and iceberg lettuces.
Back then, I thought ketchup was a vegetable, so I didn’t attend the show… but I wondered.
Back then, I was peripherally employed as a shadow operative in the Reagan administration, with a special focus on government cheese, and had no interest in things smacking of sideshow subversion.
Back then, I still believed that dreams were things that are often just within your reach. Now, I know that they are always just beyond your reach… often as close as a pack of unopened gum.
Chicken Boy Todd was forever torn between his dream of geekdom and his love of live poultry. He is my constant reminder that it’s our dreams that make us live, and our love that makes our dreams so painful when they slip away. You might wish that all dreams stick to the bottom of your shoe – wherever you go, but some don’t. Some merely go untasted in a cheap cigar box.
There’s not enough room within this tiny tale to tell you about my dream. Funny how everyone else’s dream is so much smaller than your own.

Anyway, this is Todd’s story, not mine.

I wonder whatever happened to Chicken Boy Todd.
I wonder whatever happened to me.

End of Story

As always, the thought of poultry brings me back to the words of the great Delman Mangrove from his essential work, “The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity”.

“Chickens are brave, do-dos are smart. Death is a free ride. Life it is not. Special this week on General Tao’s Chicken. Dine in only. No substitutions”.
Saying # 673 from “My Life in The Black Market Fortune Cookie Writing Trade”

Blogus Ridiculum
PT

Surprisingly, being Mr. Barnum doesn’t pay enough to keep me in the lavish lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. The corporate world, however, has seen fit to allow me to haunt her hallowed halls and wander around her watercoolers.
Today, I again dodged the corporate bullet. 10% of the total company workforce gone at 9:30AM.

They keep shooting, I keep ducking.

In that vein, I’d like to offer all of you a few grains of my corporate survival wisdom. I’d tell you in words, but sometimes pictures say so much more… here’s the link to today’s survival lesson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW4s7TETtJA

Keep your head down and cover your ass. It’s war out there.

Blogus Ridiculum
PT

1) bridgeport public access tv
2) lisa parziale
3) how to shoplift a snake
4) where do they sell stripper poles in bridgeport
5) bill finch bar fight
6) is joaquin phoenix on heroin
7) kevin bacon financial woes
8 who is the candy man
9) stop n shop
10) monkey danger

While this blog has touched on the topics on strippers, Joaquin Phoenix, Lisa Parziale, strippers, way too many monkey jokes, and Bill Finch, I must admit that I can’t quite recall my written references to shoplifting snakes and buying stripper poles in Bridgeport.
Apparently Google is reading the subliminal messages in my words. But hey, whatever brings new readers to this blog, right?
In that spirit, I’m tossing out a few random search phrases to see if anyone out in the web universe bites…

How to make a monkey the recipient of a living will
Raising Zombies for fun and profit
Diary accounts of cavemen
Are Brad’s pits smelly?
Why is Adam Sandler considered funny?
Sara Palin intelligence test
Can too much love really drive a man insane?
The wit and wisdom of John Fabrizi
Car theft rates in Bridgeport (a huge search phrase, I’m sure)
Ben Franklin in ladies clothes
Bridgeport Now the world’s greatest cable access show
Rush Limbaugh naked
Did Elvis like Skippy peanut butter?
Hannah Montana, anti-Christ
How to contribute to Chris Dodd’s doomed campaign
Could Charlie the Tuna and The Chicken of the Sea mermaid mate?
Who invented fake dog poop?
Can angels be trusted with my car keys?

OK, let’s see how long it takes to get some new readers!

PS: If anyone out there does know where to buy a used stripper pole cheap here in Bridgeport, call me ASAP.

Blogus Ridiculum

PT