Hello, my little chickadees!
I was so grateful to be able to spend some time with Virginia, Cici, and Addie, this past week when they came up from Texas. I can never get my fill of seeing any of you kids, or the grand kids. I wish I saw more of all of you . . .
Well, as I cast my feeble thought back over the past week I really don’t come up with much to write about. Adam has been very good in giving me rewrite assignments -- I’m still saving up to get a pair of new glasses!
Did I mention before that they now take attendance at the pool at Provo Rec Center? Only 19 people are allowed in the deep water pool at one time for our morning exercise class -- so you have to make a reservation (which I forgot to do for this coming week -- drat!) Sometimes the instructor actually asks people who are already in the pool to get out if they don’t have a reservation. I’m usually on the stand-by list, and usually get to go in. I sure love to go swimming == it’s usually the highlight of my day.
This morning I did a prose poem called “The Government School.” I emailed it out to about forty different reporters. Didn’t hear anything back from them -- except one, who apparently didn’t like it and tersely replied only “Pls remover from list.” That made me kind of peeved, so in revenge I made up a nonsense thumbnail biography of him and posted it on my largely inactive blog. I feel much better now.
Here’s the prose poem that reporter Gregory Zuckerman had such a problem with, and then a copy of his faux bio I posted on my blog:
We were working in the cook tent, my friend Maria and I,
when the bloody men appeared.
At first I took them to be
new roustabouts,
or maybe reporters from
the local rag.
I've noticed in the past few years
that journalists are getting more and more
frowzy and fly-blown.
Things, I guess, are tough all over.
Anyway.
They asked for beans and tortillas.
With scowls and threatening motions
with their forks and spoons.
Mental midgets,
I thought to myself as I served them.
'Bloody idiots' Maria whispered to me
as they took their tin plates to a picnic
table and silently wolfed down their food.
When they left I felt like a sentence of death
had been lifted from me.
I didn't like anything about them.
'Who were those guys?'
I asked Trey when he came in for
an early lunch.
Since he owns and operates the show
he gets to eat whenever he wants.
"What guys?" he asked.
"Those rotten looking guys that just left"
said Maria. She is sweet on Trey,
and gives him extra gravy on his
mashed potatoes.
"They're from the government school down the road."
He took his tin tray back to his trailer.
I could tell Maria wanted to follow him back to
his trailer for some hanky panky,
but there were thirty-odd people expecting lunch
in an hour, so I couldn't let her go.
The entire student body from the government school
came to the matinee. Their clothes were shabby
and sullen.
They didn't applaud anything
except when the elephants defecated.
They didn't buy anything
except sour pickles on a stick.
Their eyes were angry blue marbles.
When they left, trooping out like a chain gang,
they left behind pamphlets about their school
under the bleachers.
I told the crew to throw them all away
with the rest of the trash.
But Maria kept one to read while
we got dinner ready before the
evening performance.
That's why she didn't get the potatoes
peeled in time.
"Hey" she said to me while we ladled out
the stew that evening,
"That place up the road is a government school
for journalists -- they're being trained to sit
quietly and take notes of what the President
and his Cabinet says all the time."
"Any money in it?" I grunted back, my back
beginning to ache.
"Sure. They make good money when they can
start a war or make minorities feel insecure. It's all
in the pamphlet." Just then Maria dropped
the ladle into the stew -- again.
"Oh, get out of here!" I yelled at her in
deep frustration.
She flounced out.
And left the show.
Didn't even say goodbye to Trey.
I didn't hear anything about her
for several years.
During that time I quit the show
and went back to school.
Now I'm a corporate lawyer in
New York.
That's when I met Maria again.
She enrolled in that government school
after she left the big top.
Got her own radio show and started making
powerful enemies.
She hired me to dig up the dirt on them;
which I did.
So they all became her friends.
She starts a new war about once a year;
usually in South America.
Then goes down to conduct peace negotiations
and give away powdered milk and blankets.
She tells me she misses doing the Spanish Web.
**************************************
A noted author, as well as a respected journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Zuckerman began life as a tree surgeon. It was only after he became infected with Dutch elm disease that he decided to find a safer career and became a reporter.
His first job was as a cub reporter with the Washoe County Impediment -- a weekly paper in Nevada that printed mostly lost animal announcements and ran large ads for the Aetherius Society.
After five years apprenticeship he found work as an obituary writer for the Dracula Fan Club newsletter.
Then he hit the big time with his first book: "Public Enema Number One: The Fallacy of Prune Juice." It topped the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks in a row.
He began work at the Wall Street Journal, reporting on ticker tape parades, in 2008, and has gone from triumph to triumph ever since.
His honors include the Heim Potts Award for Best Punctuation; The Tilden Medallion for Most Consistent Parchesi in an Amateur; and the prestigious Miller-Cockleburr Citation for his work with displaced ground sloths.
His hobbies include growing club moss, cheating at crossword puzzles, and carving darning eggs out of soapstone.
It’s all basically nonsense, so I don’t understand why Zuckerman wanted no more contact from me. Guess you can’t please everyone. You may have noticed that the prose poem (which I entitled “The Government School) is kinda autobiographical. Although I doubt you can actually learn anything truthful or useful about me from reading it. I am growing quite fond of ambiguity in my work.
Other than that, my apple dumplings, there’s not much to report here at La Maison Tork. My older brother Billy is forwarding me tons of political nonsense by email, which I’m ignoring, and a Wall Street Journal reporter, Bob Davis, who really likes my work, sent me a complimentary copy of his new book, Superpower Showdown. It’s all about the trade war between Trump and China, which is not something I’m very interested in, so I find reading the book slow going -- I’m only on chapter three. Still, it was a nice thought.
Guess I’ll eat some beans and rice and then take a long Sunday afternoon nap. Then watch Netflix and/or TCM until it’s time to go to bed. What an exciting life I lead!
Love, dad.
