Leftovers

There was a time when I knew a group of young men who thrived on a chemical diet. Their guru was named Ricky, and I heard this story from him. One Thanksgiving the troop decided to embibe some substances and head over to the National Arboretum to take in the trees, particularly the conifer division which they nicknamed "Pepperland" after the Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine.

...Raise the Song of Harvest Home

From listening to Rick's tale, I learned that the defined outlines of the trees could turn into a 1930's Looney Tunes cartoon where the plants would march across the skyline and do all sorts of interesting things; that and it's isolation guaranteed that the crew would remain undisturbed while taking in the visuals. They had their day of haze and hiliarity, the sun had set and they made haste to depart, only to realize the gates had been locked and they were in for the night. The way Ricky told me the story, one of the guys nicknamed Animal was clutching the bars of the gate, crying and saying, "I've got to get home and eat turkey." For some reason that story has stuck with me: Animal, drugs, tears and turkey...oh yeah, and singing trees.


Rick had a lot of good stories. One time he had taken a lot of acid ( the lysergic type) or some other mind altering combo, and his father went to him in the middle of the night, asking that he move his car in the driveway, so that Dad could leave for work early the next morning. Rick went outside in his underwear to shift cars around, and the next thing he was aware of was he driving down a road and seeing a sign that said "Welcome to Pennsylvania."

To quote Rick: "FOO!"

I have a lot of Thanksgiving stories. Most of them are sad. I went to see the new Christopher Guest film For Your Consideration last night thinking I was seeing a comedy. During the course of this film a small budget production originally called "Home for Purim" builds momentum and evolves into a retitled film called "Home for Thanksgiving." I watched this spoof on Hollywood where a cycle of hope for an Oscar and fame becomes a story of starry illusions and broken dreams. I came outside the theatre to see a blaze of Christmas lights with a half dozen signs of warning. Happy Holidays.

There's something incongruous about Christmas lights
with cautionary warnings