Suffering The Benz

I became road kill during Joannie’s recent pickin’ party in Pennsyltucky. Several friends conspired to have an early surprise 40th birthday party for me. When they rang the bell to gather everyone, I came up out of the pond dripping wet, unsuspecting, only to be subjected to assorted and sundry humiliations. There was a Penguin Pinata, Pin the Penguin on the Telly and assorted silly hats. One of the coolest features was a birthday cake that had a picture of me on it from college (still can’t figure out why my eyes were so strangely dilated in that photo …)

The Penguin motif has its origins in my college days at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (an academic slum south of Erie, PA.). I was known to maraud around campus wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey and ranting about false class consciousness. In fact, during one ill-fated assignment for Gary’s film class, I screamed Ginsberg’s “America” at the camera while wearing full Penguin regalia. That was the infamous John Baker Show, which was censored by one of Gary’s right-wing classmates. He “accidentally” didn’t record the sound, resulting in a pretty funny silent movie. Glad that’s not still floating around.

Anyway, the party was great and it’s nice to know I’m loved. Or at least that my friend are willing to bring me forth to make sport of me …

For more photos of this august event, click here …

This story is too strange. Apparently, a couple of NFL players and their wives where have a nice, happy fondue when tragedy struck. I guess I shouldn’t make fun of it since it sounds as if a few of them were hurt pretty badly, but fondue? “It happened so fast,” one of the players told the Florida Times-Union. According to the Sporting News, the player “said they were moving the fondue pot when it slipped onto the tile floor in his house.” Wow. Another reason to just say no to fondue …

But these turkeys aren’t wild. The party at Joanne’s was to include a turkey roast. Ryck ordered three 25-pounders a while ago, but the birds were no where to be found the day before the party. The store was offering a few paltry 12-pounders, which definitely wouldn’t work for what we had in mind.

So after calling all over the place to find three big birds, we finally turned to Judy, who tracked them down in no time, thawed them in her bathtub overnight and had them ready to cook on Saturday morning. She and husband Tim roasted the turkeys to perfection, then served them up to the hungry crowd.

For photos, check out this page.