We have been quiet for a while on this blog. And I have not heard a thunderous complaint, so I’ve assumed it is fine with everyone who already has way too much to read. But make space in your web site consumption schedule because we are about to ramp up the 4 Dudes Gameday series again. And this year we will go beyond Longhorn football while, of course, remaining true to our core focus. Talk to you soon!
(Part 1 of a serialized story I occasionally improv with the boys at night)
Paul, Luke, and Evan Laningham woke early one morning. The familiar theme music of their 3 Dudes Adventures was already playing, so they new this would be an action packed day. Quickly they dressed, loaded their backpacks with peanut butter sandwiches and fruit leathers, strapped on their light sabers and Supersoaker guns, and quietly made their way out to the driveway. Their little Peg Pergo Gaucho Jeep waited pathetically in the driveway. Their Mom had picked it up on the side of the road, a discarded, worn electric toy car that had weathered one too many storms in someone else’s yard. It looked worthless to the untrained eye, but the 3 Dudes knew it would transform into a magic flying machine as soon as they put a Gummy Worm into the key hole and started it up.
Luke jumped in the driver seat, Paul riding shotgun, and Evan in the back to cover any intruders form the rear. For where they were going, they would need a driver with ice in his veins and two sharpshooters with eagle eyes. The were headed to … PLANET TEETH!
Luke fired up the Gaucho and jammed it into Fly 1. The Gaucho leapt off the ground and rocketed up above their house, the blast sending Tux the cat somersaulting across the lawn and into one of the bubbling fountains. Evan screamed his usual “YEEEEHAAAAWWWWW!” as they picked up speed, rocketing up through the clouds and barely missing some Monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico for the Winter. One did collide with the Gaucho and took up a seat neat to Evan. He said to the boys, “Dudes, my name is Larry. If you don’t mind I’ll tag along, since I like peanut butter sandwiches and I smelled them in your backpacks.” The boys agreed and gave Larry a toothpick to use as a sword in case they fell into Harm’s Way, a canyon on Planet of the Teeth where bad things always seemed to happen.
About halfway there, Paul asked to drive, Luke said “no,” and a scuffle ensued, sending the Gaucho into a momentary tailspin while the boys worked out their issues. Finally they calmed down with Paul in the driver’s seat and half a peanut butter sandwich up his nose. Luke was now riding shotgun, but wearing one of Paul’s shoes for a hat and his shirt was on backward and inside out. They apologized to each other, did a quick head butt, and everything was cool.
Suddenly, a bright orange planet zoomed into view, and they realized that in their distracted state they had not realized how close they were to their destination. Paul jammed the breaks and 60 seconds later, and a ball of flames, they landed in Harm’s Way, hair slightly singed but none the worse for it. The Dudes quickly jumped out of the Gaucho and assumed defensive postures with weapons at the ready. Larry stayed behind, working on a peanut butter and Nutella quarter-sandwich. The Dudes had not gone more than 10 paces from their interstellar jeep transport when they heard the familiar and eery sound of “CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!”
It was their nemisis, Moley, king of the Teeth, freshly flossed and shoeless, but as frightening as ever.
(to be continued…)
Johnny Mann has been leading singing groups since the 1960s, has won two Grammys, and his sound became the standard in radio call letter jingles. His album, Alma Mater, has been a favorite of mine since childhood when I would listen to it play on my great-grandfather’s stereo. Mann’s rendition of the The Eyes Of Texas is still one of the most moving I’ve ever heard. Seems apropos to share it today. Hook ‘em Horns!!
Chicken has been the subject of songs and humor since, at least, the advent of the blues. It’s even a funny word to say, especially when you go with a lazy, suthun pronunciation with more of a “g” sound in the middle — “chiggen!” Great New York sax player, Bob Berg, used to do a tune he called “Live at the Chicken Shack.” It was a totally groovin’ shuffle. Any song about chicken has to be a shuffle.
One of my favorite moments in chicken humor is the dinner scene in Blake Edward’s 1968 film, The Party. Peter Sellers is sitting low at the long, crowded table because they were out of chairs. As he struggles to cut into his Cornish game hen, his chin just above the table and elbows high in the air, the roasted bird slips off his plate, takes flight, and lands with a perfect perch just inside the tiara of the beehive-haired woman sitting across from him. She has no idea it is there, goes on with dinner conversation, and Sellers gazes on in horror. The first time I say that movie, and that scene, I laughed so hard you’d have thought I was choking on a chicken bone. It was the movie that ran after the evening news, back when that was common in the pre-cable and VCR days. My parents were asleep in the next room, and I laughed hysterically into a pillow so I wouldn’t wake them up.
During my college years I created a lot of silly phone answering machine messages with my brother, Doug, and good friend Paul McKee, a great jazz trombonist and Woody Herman alum. Seems we were preoccupied with chicken then as well, with half of our answering machine songs featuring chicken-inspired titles and lyrics. Rainbow Trout seemed to find its way in there a lot as well. I cannot explain this affliction, but here’s a sample.
… have you ever really seen a moose in a house? Well, there it is. Somebody has taken this whole song thing too far.
http://library.thinkquest.org/3784/Adventures/Living_room_moose_smaller.jpg
