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”

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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.

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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.

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PT

When I was a Catholic schoolboy back in Chicago, my run-ins with the nuns were a regular occurrence.

Once, I was asked what I was giving up for Lent. My reply?

“Religion”. The nun called my Mom.

Another time I told a nun that my uncle was a renowned Hollywood choreographer who had created dance numbers for many of the big budget Bible-based sand and sandal movie blockbusters of the day. I informed her that my uncle, a man who loved musicals, and who surprisingly had never married, had told me in great confidence that both Charleton Heston and Jeffrey Hunter were, what my uncle called “part of the secret sisterhood”. I asked the nun, quite innocently, if she was part of that “secret sisterhood”, and if she personally knew Charleton Heston and Jeffrey Hunter. Imagine her dismay to have sudden doubts about Hollywood Moses and Hollywood Jesus in one crushing moment.

Imagine my dismay when she gave an “F” to my latest brilliant 4^th grade class essay “ The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Religious Symbolism in the Spaghetti Western Cinema”. Even then, I knew that humor was easy, getting away with anything with a nun is hard.

If only Sister Rose Helene (or as I called her behind her back “Sister Rose Hell on Wheels”) knew the real childhood Easter tradition I created at home to torment my mother and grandmother. Each Easter morning, I’d rise from bed and stagger slowly downstairs and into the kitchen where my mother and grandmother would be having Hills Bros. coffee and Cream of Wheat before heading over to church after their hour long pre-communion fast.

I’d move slowly across the kitchen, listless and vacant as the dead. Of course, my mother and grandmother were used to this from me on a daily basis, so I really had to crank up my performance on Easter morning. Then, suddenly, I’d fall dead to the linoleum and lay there lifelessly long enough to milk the moment. Then, I’d leap to my feet in a bolt of supreme energy and shout, “Happy Zombie Jesus Day!”

To which my grandmother would say to my mother, “Molly, it’s a shame all your children lived.” And my mother would reply, “The day is still young. We’ll see about that. More coffee?”

It’s those heartwarming and heartfelt holiday traditions that bring a family together!

And one tradition to which I keep returning to even to this day. This morning, I stumbled listlessly downstairs, entered the kitchen, and shouted to Mrs. PT,

“Happy Zombie Jesus Day”. And it was, and it is, and it will be again next year.
So it is written, so it shall be done.

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PT

Today’s news comes from Lennie Grimaldi’s Only in Bridgeport.
http://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/campaign-and-city-tale-of-two-funds/

The word from the incestual circle jerk cesspool known as Washington DC is that former US congressman from Connecticut Christopher Shays has finally secured himself a new job. It’s only been five months since the last congressional Republican in New England finally got his ass handed to him by Democratic challenger Jim Himes.

We’ve all been in Shay’s penny loafers, haven’t we? You know how it goes. You’re at the top of the pryamid. Long term, steady employment. Enough frequent flyer miles to choke an elephant. One day you’re playing kissy face with George Bush at the State of The Union, then you’re trying to shove your tongue down Barack Obama’s silky brown political throat in those last desperate campaign days, then… boom… you’re unemployed and your campaign manager is charged with ripping off $200,000 in campaign funds. Bottom of the pyramid. You got to update your resume from the old Underwood typewriter days, and hit the pavement in search of a paying gig.

It’s been a harsh winter season of shoe leather to the sidewalk for Chris Shays. Word on the street is that the former Congressman was forced to take a seasonal job working the cash register at the Banana Republican store in Fairfield. But now it appears that things are springing up for Shays. Only five months after being fired by the voters, he’s heading back to DC with a brand new paycheck thanks to House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Only a five month unemployment period in this economy! Proof positive that the stimulus package is working! And even better than the new DC gig is the fact that Shays will apparently have to work only part time for the same approximate salary he received as a member of congress. Now that is stimulus maximus! Perhaps he’ll have free time to work at a Banana Republican store in DC. That’s worth it in employee discounts alone.

Now that he and the other congressional Republicans have finalized their “alternate budget”, John Boehner has found time to appoint Shays to the Wartime Contracting Commission. Shays will review contract issues involving Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to his acceptance of this position, Shays was actively campaigning to become the head of the Peace Corps. His early experience in the Peace Corps apparently qualified him to head the organization, but his more recent experience with Iraq certainly made him much more appealing to the Wartime Contracting Commission.

Which brings us to this section I like to call: “Job Hunting Tips In A Wacky Economy”:

There’s a valuable job hunting lesson to be learned from Mr. Shays, kids. Pick an industry that will never go away, then make sure it never goes away by controlling the industry bankbook. Car industry – bad. Home foreclosure scams industry – good. Family size tent industry – better. War – Bingo!

Also, remember that your most recent experience on your resume is what catches a potential employers’ eye first! So, put that part-time job you had in 1983 at “Uncle Sticky’s House of Adult Flavored Novelties “ at the BOTTOM of your resume. Place your most current job (you know, the one you were most recently laid off from after 22 years) right up top for the eyes of all potential recruiters!

Exception to the rule:

You’d do best to steer clear from this rule if your most recent job reads something like:

Most Recent Experience: A 9’x7’ cell

Most Recent Job Title: Guest of the state

Most Recent Duties: Involuntary sex object

Most Recent Salary: 3 squares a day

In this case, you should focus on your 2^nd most recent position.

For example:

Most Recent Experience: A large private investment firm

Most Recent Job Title: President and CEO

Most Recent Duties: Duping investors, making crank calls to Swiss banks, buying loads of stuff, writing the word “ponzi” in my spiral notebook in lots of cool color pens!

Most Recent Salary: Your 401K

And now back to Chris Shays’ new job in the war machine… I mean the Wartime Contracting Commission where Shays will reviews contract issues for Iraq and Afganistan.
So our old pal Shays’only supposed employment options were Peace Corps or War Corps, huh? Interesting that he chose the one that already involves 4,263 American corpses. As always, there’s little job security in peace. Still, job security aside, if Shays wants to be the cost accountant for an industry that supports death, couldn’t he have just applied for an accounting clerk job at a local funeral home?
So what else is there to write on this subject without turning into a ranting Keith Olbermann impersonator (with much better hair and taste in clothes)?Well, I’ve written this it before, I’ll write it again:Number of Christopher Shays trips to Iraq: (round-trip, first class) - 19.
As of April 2, 2009: Number of trips from Iraq by US military personnel (one way, cargo class) - 4,263.

To quote the title of the Elvis Costello song (written by the great Nick Lowe):
“(What’s so Funny ’bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?”

Not one Goddamn thing, in my opinion. It’s the only thing I don’t find funny in this world.
Still, I find it strangely comforting that government is still an insane asylum where the sins of the past become the job security of the future. And it’s nice to know that the chimp is now in charge of the banana store. Many more round trips for Chrissy, many more one way trips for the grunts. What’s so funny about that?
Well, times are tough. Life is harder. Comedy, however, remains easy as slipping on a banana peel. Sometimes if you don’t laugh, you cry.
And if you’re Christopher Shays, you stay close to what you know. First class. Round trip. Window seat. Right over the cargo hold.

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PT