The years that through my portals go.
---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Didn’t like 2023 much? Time for a do-over. This is your annual opportunity to retire to your Cubicle of Inspiration, pull down all the shades, pick up pen and paper and thoughtfully compose your plan for the new year. You are not going to the gym three days a week for the next twelve months, so let’s just get that out of the way. Be happy, eat healthier, get a better job, help out at the soup kitchen? Yeah sure, we’ve heard it all before. You might as well promise to learn Mandarin, maintain a zeppelin or cross the U.S. on the back of a camel.
First of all, you’ll need a partner in crime. Someone who will not let you abandon your plan at the slightest inconvenience. Take Gina Hawkins, for instance, who has decided to walk the endless hills and dales of the Appalachian Trail this year. No, we’re not kidding. Gina did not just get out of bed one morning and say, “Wow, get me a bus ticket to Springer Mountain, a box of Clif bars and five gallons of trail mix, I’m off to see the wizard.” No, she enlisted the help of experienced trekker Richard The Relentless, who will point the way, crack the whip and carry a few tins of canned ham on his back for celebratory occasions. In case you’re not aware, the Appalachian Trail hike takes about six months for first timers, a little longer if you take along a pointed stick to help keep the trail tidy, as Gina intends. Among other things, this adventure is the acid test for personal relationships, so if in a few months you see Ms. Hawkins riding solo on date night at the One Love Cafe, you’ll know the hike went up in flames somewhere south of Harper’s Ferry. But hey, best of luck to the intrepid wayfarers, at least they have a spectacular New Year’s plan. All you need is one if it lasts six months.
How about you, Bill? Well, I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles, or at least I think I do, but this is the year of the Paris Olympics, which means overwhelming crowds, no seats at those cute sidewalk cafes and Arabs blowing up the squash courts, so I think I’ll pass. A good friend of mine is visiting all the major league baseball parks this summer, but I’m allergic to Oakland, they shoot people in Baltimore and baseballs hit the roof in Tampa, which is an appalling transgression of the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Besides, Siobhan says she will shop for rocks in all these places while I’m at the stadiums and our little house already has more rocks than the 60-acre Mount Airy granite quarry, so that’s a problem. Maybe I’ll just toodle over to Gary Borse’s heliport and watch the ships come in. Perhaps write a song, like Otis Redding did.
We here at The Flying Pie are open to suggestion, of course. If anyone out there is planning to explore Madagascar, visit a few simmering volcanoes or attend the Lawrence Welk Show revival, please advise so we can take immediate evasive action.
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| The West Coast has its Burning Man...Florida has GatorMANia. |
Quo Vadis?
One of the primo requirements for a happy life is having something to look forward to. Everyone is guaranteed Christmas, one birthday a year, the first day of baseball season and International Talk Like A Pirate Day, but you can also create your own event. For instance, a few weeks ago, Glenn Terry invented Flying Pig Parade Day and not only did Glenn have a walloping good time, so did several hundred other people. In 2024, provocateur Will Thacker will present the First Annual Oviedo Snake Olympics, Gary Borse is organizing Alien Appreciation Day and Randall Roffe is finally presenting his long-awaited musical comedy Micanopy Madness---Love and Lust In The Sordid Antique Shops Of A Small Town, starring Anna Marie Kirkpatrick and Cracker Billy.
What about the first Florida Burning Man extravaganza? Truth be told, that miserable escapade out west gets tackier every year and 2023 found thousands of squabbling festival-goers marooned in quicksand up to their navels in the Nevada desert. That will never happen in the green grassy fields between Williston and East Bronson, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day. Of course, your plan needn’t be a colossus, a simple half-acre bonfire will do. Just encourage everyone who has anything they’ve been pining to get rid of to drop it by. You’ll have a five-story pile of burnables in no time.
Your first step in planning a worthy project is to identify your goal, like, say a Zombie Invasion of The Villages. Then you have to list your resources and assign tasks like (1) obtain plasma, (2) decorate volunteers, and (3) bring body bags for the heart attack victims. Next, establish a clear timeline, definitely before the 2024 Presidential Election to eliminate as many Republican voters as possible. Finally, identify potential obstacles, like Villages Security, the neighboring police forces, etc. and send them scurrying on a diversionary issue to the Redfish Run Executive Golf Course with a very loud but mostly harmless bomb on one of the vast empty fairways. They’ll be gabbing about it for years in previously boring Lake County. You know that song Holding Out for a Hero? They’ll be talking about you.
Where have all the kazoo bands gone, long time passing?
List Of Days
Maybe you’ll travel this year. Let’s not hear any flimsy excuses, last year Sharon Yeago went to Colorado to visit her daughter despite an ongoing battle with long Covid. Even more impressive, old Circus pal Danny Levine called in November to announce he was heading for his beloved Italy for a couple of weeks with a friend. No big deal, you say? That’s because you don’t know he’s carrying a large case of Parkinson’s with him. Excuses are for sissies. If you’re bereft of ideas, here’s a list of notable days to help you out, some of them available from the comforts of your own lawn chair.
January 18---World Quark Day. At first we thought this was World QUACK Day, which would be much better. Just think of it—everybody waddling around town quacking and eating small fish and frogs. Who wants to celebrate a fundamental constituent of matter? Not us.
21---Grandmothers Day. Now we’re talkin’! Who doesn’t want to pay homage to grandma? First, everyone will have to go down to the retro shop and purchase the proper nanawear (and don’t forget those granny glasses). Next, you’ll need your rolling pins, those pies aren’t going to make themselves. After that, painful as it may be, everyone is required to put a Lawrence Welk LP on the turntable while making a funky quilt. And don’t forget the schnaps, grandma wants her schnaps.
23---National PIE Day. Need we say more?
26---Toad Hollow Day Of Encouragement. Storyteller Ralph Morrison inadvertently created this day with frequent mention of Toad Hollow in his tales. Morrison was a devout optimist who believed that every day is a good day to spread kindness and cheer and to encourage his fellow man to persevere. There’s talk of a small parade in Gainesville with co-marshals Judi Cain and Vicky Bordeaux twirling batons and handing out uppers.
27---Thomas Crapper Day. Where would we be without Plumber Tom, who perfected and promoted the modern toilet? In the shitter, that’s where! The day is best celebrated by TPing the trees in the town square, like they do for special occasions at Auburn. Or you can find your favorite Republican political candidate, stick his head in there and flush.
28--- National Kazoo Day recognizes a valuable musical instrument that anyone can play. If you can hum, you’re a potential kazooist. The little fellers have been making music for 200 years in the United States and are often used by Mummers in their gaudy parades. Bill Killeen is taking kazoo lessons daily to be ready for the day when he is finally appointed Captain of the Ferko String Band. You think we’re kidding, don’t you?
29---Curmudgeons Day. Smoke-in at Chuck LeMasters’ house. BYOJ.
30---Yodel For Your Neighbors Day. For anyone who thinks yodeling is a lot of tomfoolery, you should know that the practice originated in Africa about 10,000 years ago as a way to keep the cattle together. The Pigmies still use it at feasts, as do many other cultures in the world. Currently more famous as a Swiss or Bavarian art, yodeling is often heard at American country music events and southern livestock auctions. For those heretics who think yodeling isn’t very cool, you should know that Janis Joplin once yodeled with bar owner Kenneth Threadgill in Austin, Texas in 1962. Okay, she wasn’t very good…so what?
31---Gorilla Suit Day. Don’t lie, you’ve always wanted to wear one, and why not? Gorilla suits have been in vogue ever since the days of Tarzan movies (starting in 1918) when actors used them. Even the always cool Marlene Dietrich wore one in the 1932 film Blonde Venus. In 1963, cartoonist Don Martin, famous for his work in Mad magazine, initiated National Gorilla Suit Day in his collection Don Martin Bounces Back, in which Fester Bestertester suffers a series of incredible assaults from gorillas and other beasts in various suits. Martin wrote the story as a satire of the greeting card industry. “It’s only an excuse for gorilla suit manufacturers to sell their products,” Fester famously complained.
Pick one or more out for your January enjoyment. And never forget the words of your favorite Roman poet, Horace: “Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.” Which loosely translated means, “You got ONE shot, Barney. Use it wisely!”
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
