Sugar Walls And Alter Calls

You haven't lived until you've heard a minister at his pulpit facing his congregation read the lyrics to Sheena Easton's song Sugar Walls. I damn near died, straining to hold my laughter in.

"Where I came from there's a place called heaven
That's the place where all the good children go
The houses are of silver, the streets are gold
But there's more where you come from, my sugar walls

Blood races to your private spots, that lets me know there's a fire
You can't fight passion when passion is hot
Temperatures rise inside my sugar walls"

He Pauses in his reading, peaking out over his glasses and adding "I think we all know what she's talking about here when she says Sugar Walls." Oh indeed we did though before his reading I'd never bothered to think about it.

He continued reading in the most unsexy but emphatic pulpit pounder voice, "Lemme take you somewhere you've never been
I could show you things you've never seen
I could make you never wanna fall in love again
Come spend the night inside my sugar walls

Take advantage, it's alrightI feel so alive when I'm with you
Come and feel my presence, it's reigning tonight
Heaven on earth inside my sugar walls

chorus
I can tell you want me, it's impossible to hide
Your body's on fire, admit it!
Come inside Come inside my sugar walls
Come spend the night inside my sugar walls"

He had just discovered this bit of filth apparently and it had opened his eyes to the threat that our society currently faced. Our childeren were in danger as the forces of evil took over the air waves. And perhaps the funniest part, at least to me at the time, was that none us had listened to Sheena Easton in years. She hadn't recieved radio play in ages. I wanted to bring him Big Black's "Songs About Fucking" and watch him die on the spot of cardiac arrest. Unfortunately I'd left that one sitting out and one of my mother's friends read the tilte outloud at a PTA meeting so into the trash it went.

His beautiful rendition of Sugar Walls was just the start of his sermon. Where the hell was he gonna go from there? Yep, you guessed it, he was leading us toward a good old fashioned book burning, well, record and tape burning mostly.

He covered horror films, combat boots (I was wearing a pair), and of course pop music. Literature is about the only thing he didn't hit on. I guess he was too busy checking up on Prince and Freddy Kreuger to see what we were reading. I have a feeling Judy Blume would not have pleased him.

He invited everyone to come back that evening and to bring any offending records or tapes that they would want to destroy in church bonfire. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I called my friend Jim who insisted we attend. My poor mother agreed to take us, not realizing we were going mostly for the freak show appeal. If there was gonna be a geek biting the heads off of chickens we'd have been all the more excited.

Evening falls and the minister says the bonfire can not happen that night but that he would collect the offending material and it would take place as soon as he could get clearance. He then launched a truly great piece of preaching describing the way a population hates, then tolerates and finally embraces. He could have been describing the way society responds to facism, but no he was talking about witchcraft, satanism, homosexuality and sin in all it's sexy forms. He used the analogy of boiling a frog slowly, as the frog will jump out if the water gets too hot to fast. Boil the frog slowly, is a favorite expression of mine to this day.

His sermon ended with an altercall. The church's way of utilizing peer preasure. A few kids responded and as he continued a few more followed. He wouldn't give up. On and on he went until finally the critical mass hit and everyone decided to join the crowd hugging and weeping at the alter, everyone that is except Jim, me and my poor humiliated mother. This man was on fire and would not give up. With us the obvious recipients of his message he ranted on and on until finally Jim whispered to me "If we don't get out of here now we'll be on the recieving end of an exorcism." I nudged my mom and we all stood. The minister was now bouncing up and down in true, deep south, bible thumping fits of ecstacy mistakenly believing we were walking into the light, and you can believe the fire and brimstone rained down as he realized we were acutally headed out the door.

We never returned to this church, in fact my church daying days were drawing to a close in general. I heard from friends that the good minister did not return either and the bonfire never took place. I was relieved to hear that the majority of the church establishment recognized insanity when they saw it.



Post script:
And now, an embarassing confession.
My brother John, quite the evangelical himself did have to stop me from burning my Pink Floyd tapes once at Christian Camp. I was about 14 and on fire for the lord. I had decided Floyd had to go. John kneeled down next to me and said "No. Don't do that." and left. I figured he probably knew what he was talking about and Dark Side Of The Moon went back in my pocket.

Reality Television...........

How I Lied My Way To Fame And Fortune On National TV!

I received the call at work. I was boxing up a guinea pig for a spoiled fat child named Earnest.

“Hello Pet Hut, How can I help you?”

“Hey Keith, Wanna be on TV?”

It was Brett, my old roommate who’d gone to Hollywood to achieve his dream of being a starving actor. He’d failed horribly at the starving part and was getting gigs regularly, so I knew he was serious.
“I’m there, what’s the gig.”

“A woman named Sara is gonna call you and ask you about a conflict you would like to resolve on a courtroom TV show. You tell her about the conflict. She loves it. She brings you to Hollywood.”

“Great, what’s the conflict?"

“You’ll think of something. I gotta go.”

And with a click, I was back in the land of Earnest who was feeding his Guinea pig a chocolate bar. I was horrified for the sake of the varmint, but touched to see Earnest willing to share something so dear to him.

Brett had previously set me up with a gig pretending to be a series of weird characters who call in to morning D.J.s. I’d always wondered where they found such bizarre people and was a bit disillusioned to know they were just big fakers like me, getting up at 4 in the morning for a quick fifty dollar phone call.

I tightened the screws on my thinking cap as I cleaned up various species of fecal matter and sold many animals, which were to be fed to other animals. Interesting that I got into this line of work for my love of animals. No conflicts were coming to my mind.

The phone rang again. “Pet Hut. Keith speaking.”

“Hi Keith this I Sara Branagon, with CDC productions.”

“Hey Sara. Brett said you’d be calling to make me a big T.V. star.”

“Well great! So does anyone have a conflict with you that you’d like to sort out on T.V.?”

“Well, lot’s of folks have conflicts with me Sara. I’m that kind of guy.”

“Well why don’t you pick one and tell me about it.”

O.K. here it goes, I thought to myself. I had to think fast. OK, I’d gone to a record store with my roommate Patrick and he found a rare partridge Family album that some idiot had marked fifty cents. Patrick didn’t have any money so I bought the record and we shared it. I now had an opportunity to sell the album for two grand but Pat’s furious that I’d even consider selling it and is now not speaking to me.

“Oh, this is perfect, so you stopped living together over this conflict?”

“Um, yeah, he moved out.” Wow talk about leading the witness.

“Are you sure the record would sell for that much?”

“I can bring you appraisals.”

I was praying the record really was worth something. The story was fake of course, all but the record and Patrick’s passion for it. The record had a great gimmick in that it came with a plastic Partridge Family shopping bag, the name of the record being, “A Bagful of Hits”. Patrick’s copy was in mint condition and included the shopping bag.

I knew she was making the decision right there on weather we were Television worthy and I had to give one final push.

“You’d love Patrick. He’ll be great on the show. He dresses like a cowboy, and does cowboy rope trips and loves the Partridge Family.”

“He dresses like a cowboy?!”

“Yes he does.”

“Keith I’d love to have you on.” Yes!!

Sara transferred me to her producer where I retold the whole story going into extra detail regarding Patrick and his cowboy outfits.

“Can we fly you and Patrick down tomorrow?”

“Yes sir.”

Patrick had not as of yet been informed of his pending fame. I got off the phone with the producer and dialed Patrick franticly, leaving my customers and critters to fend for themselves.

“Kitchen”

“Patrick, we’re going to Hollywood to be on T.V.”

“Yah, Yah, Yah, What are you talking about.”

I told him all the details and he grew as excited as I. Then just as were about to say our goodbyes I remembered.

“Uh, hey Pat.”

“Yeah.”

“I told them you’d dress like a cowboy.”

“You what?!?”

“I had to make you sound interesting. I told ‘em you dress like a cowboy all the time.”

“What did you tell them you dressed like?”

“They knew I was interesting, besides you do dress like a cowboy.”

“Not all the time. Not on national T.V.”

I was laughing hysterically as I hung so to better attend to a kid whose hand was being engulfed by a hungry python.



Patrick and I got together to get our stories straight and to make arrangements to be driven to the Airport. We flew coach; this didn’t help to make us feel like big stars at all. However when we got to the airport and the diver holding the sign with our names and the name of the studio was there to meet us we felt a definite twinkle. From twenty feet away we announced proudly for all to hear, least of all the driver. “Yes, We’re Keith and Patrick, Here for our Television debut.”

The driver looked unimpressed and led us to a nice black four door. I don’t know much about cars, make or model, but this was not a limo. It wasn’t too many notches down though and we were pleased. We asked the driver a million and one questions about famous people he may have driven and he told us a million and one stories about how bad traffic was in L.A. He seemed more impressed with his shortcuts and coping strategies for L.A. traffic then with his experiences with famous folk. L.A. was at the time in the midst of a public transit strike and supposedly traffic had been made worse than usual by it. I was embarrassed to have no idea what to tip the driver, and so I decided, hell with it, I’ll just ask him. “Say is there any standard scale for tipping you guys?”

“Yeah, but that’s o.k. Whatever you want.”

“Well, what would be the norm?”

“About ten dollars if I treated you o.k.”

We gave him ten dollars.

We were staying at the Hollywood Holiday Inn, which is not an impressive inn at all. The only exciting features it had for us were that it was free and walking distance from Mans Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Stars, Johnny Legends Hollywood Book and Poster shop. We took off to see the sights immediately. This part of L.A. seemed to roll up its sidewalks at night just like any other town. The only thing open were the sex shops and the doughnut shops. Of course, if you have sex and you have doughnuts what else do you need?

We found the stars in the sidewalk that we most wanted to see. Groucho Marx, Will Rogers,
Steve Allen, Dave Bruebeck and more. Then after some doughnuts, no sex, we headed back to the hotel to try to sleep despite our excitement and sugar highs.

The next morning I called Sara to tell her we’d arrived safely.

“Hey Sara how much do you tip the drivers.”

“You don’t. We take care of them, why?”

“Oh no reason.” I’m a rube.

Patrick got into his cowboy outfit. I must do Patrick justice by explaining this is no mall country and western store cowboy gear. We are talking super deluxe vintage cowboy gear that would’ve done Hank Williams proud. His shirt on this occasion featured a hand of playing cards equaling a royal flush on each shoulder piece. The boy was in rare form.

I myself could’ve passed for Keith Partridges stunt double with my long flared out greasy hair and super 70s shirt.

We had heart burn breakfast and terrible coffee at the H.I. lobby café, and waited for our driver to pick us up at eight. We didn’t normally see so much of this side of noon voluntarily but there was no hope for sleep, we were hyped.

The driver arrived. This time a Middle Eastern man who’d just arrived back from his honeymoon. He had many great stories about famous people and never mentioned the traffic. Apparently he’d driven the judge to the taping earlier that morning. He dropped us off at the studio and pointed us towards our set. The studio looked just like in the movies, beige buildings with brown doors, and people moving about with great intent, one of whom led us to Sara.

On the way we passed the set of Soul Train. We could not resist stopping to bust a move on the stage. I did some old school break dancing moves I’d learned from Soul Train as a kid, Patrick did his rope tricks and we mustered up a few weak Don Cornelius impersonations.

Sara seemed to fall in love at first glance. She knew a cowboy when she saw one. “You must be Patrick and you must be Keith.” Hands were shaken all around and then she led us to our separate dressing rooms where we’d be prepped individually for the taping.

My room was equipped with bottled water some snacks and a TV where I could watch the episode currently taping. A boys mother, a hairdresser, was charging him with a lack of morals for cutting his own hair after he tired of her forcing him to wear a mullet. The audience sided with the young man and cheered and hissed accordingly. The judge agreed and not only awarded the kid cash, but asked mom to please relinquish the grounding she had issued. She relented, just as a beautiful woman entered my room to see if I needed make up. She said I didn’t and while this was flattering I wished I’d needed lots of make up. Not one to give up too easily I pointed out some missing buttons on my shirt. She took the shirt to be mended. I got bored and snuck off to see Patrick. I found him receiving a make over. That bastard.

“Hey you get the hell out of here. You’re the enemy.” He hollered.

“Yeah well I didn’t need any makeup on my pretty face.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re a lost cause. Me and Johnny Depp, we get make up.”

He’d beaten me, and in front of the pretty makeup girl no less. I went back to my room.
Sara came by and we discussed the taping. The conversation was very strange. She would actually suggest little details to the story, which she obviously knew was bullshit, but it was understood between us that this never be acknowledged. Things got stranger still when an intern brought me legal forms to sign, one of which stated that “Morality Tales" did not feature “made up” or “bogus” stories, and furthermore, anyone caught faking it, could be charged for the expense of one days taping. I signed away.

I was fitted for a cordless body microphone and it was explained to me that the mics on the podiums were as bogus as my story. As soon as I was wearing that mic. I had to go to the bathroom. I have a horribly shy bladder and doing my business with the mic. on was a little unnerving. Singing to myself helped. “If ya want my body, and you think I’m sexy, come on baby let me know.”

I washed my hands in the sink next to the plaintiff from the next case.

“So are you moral or immoral?” I inquired.

“Well that’s for the judge to decide. But I’m here ‘cause my former friend who once was a shining example to me has become a dull flicker.”

He spoke like a preacher, and although I think his conflict with his friend was real, he was preparing to act pretty phony. They must have gotten him straightened out before taping however. I watched him perform and it was spell binding. These two men hated each other. I only hoped Patrick and I could be as entertaining.

My intro was recorded. As I entered the court my voice would be heard announcing, “My name is Keith Lowell Jensen. I know how much this record means to Patrick, but I have a chance to make us two grand. He’s my best friend, but that’s just too much money to pass up.”

I took a few take before I got it just right. I was asked to say two thousand instead of two grand as not everyone knew what a grand was. I felt this was a bit ridiculous but then again this was daytime television.

One more trip to the bathroom (damn that free water) “If you want my body”, and then I was led to the door through which I would enter immortality. I stood waiting anxiously, having to go to the bathroom again. People were scurryin’ every which way with headsets on. The woman waiting to usher me in was told she was needed on the set. She walked in and they sang happy birthday to her. This relaxed me a bit. She came back looking unwillingly pleased, and shut the door. The music started, the door opened, I entered the set. I could hear my voice telling my tale of Partridge Family fanaticism and money to be made.

I reached the front with a sneer on my face. Patrick and I had agreed ahead of time, I was to play the jerk and he the sweet romantic. We were splittin’ the money either way.

Patrick entered while his voice told of his love for all things Partridge and this album in particular. The judge entered, a good-looking black man in his early forties. He opened by addressing Patrick.

“Patrick, do you know that you’re dressed like a cowboy.”

Patrick had not prepared to be picked on by the judge since I was to be the antagonist and I think this threw him a little.

“Yes, sir I am.”

Patrick gave his story the Judge interrupting when the Partridge family was mentioned to state that he was a Motown man himself.

When it came time to question me his honor inquired as to where I was when Patrick found the album.

“Sir I was in the Motown section.”

I went on to make fun of the fact that Patrick dressed like a cowboy, was poor and worked in the kitchen of an old folks home all to great effect. The audience was hating me.

“Where do you work Keith?” inquired the Judge.

I flashed my best deer in headlights, before responding, “At a pet store.”

Well I know how hip it isn’t to work in a pet store, but this one brought the house down more than I’d anticipated and the insulted look on my face was partially sincere. Patrick felt much better with everyone laughing at me, as I declared loudly, “but I’m the assistant manager.” to defend myself. This had the “but I’m the head burger flipper” feel it was meant to have, and my rhythm like Patrick’s fell into place.

We dealt with the question and answer section, the majority of the audience attacking me and defending Patrick. The weirdest part was that everyone seemed to believe us and several people kept giving me advice even when the cameras were off.

One man in particular kept calling for my attention, “Hey buddy, Hey. That’s your friend man. Friendship’s worth more than money.”

I tried really hard to ignore this big bald ball of sweetness and was relieved when the cameras were back on and I could comfortably slip back into being a jerk. The judge issued his ruling.

My conduct was declared outrageous, Patrick to receive one thousand dollars. The host of the show was fulfilling the head-full of air stereotype to the fullest. When she came to interview me regarding my feelings on the decision I told her that I was happy that Patrick now had a thousand dollars and could buy my interest in the record from me.

“I don’t think you understand. You lost.” She confusingly informed me. I looked at her confused, having understood and responded accordingly to the fact that Patrick had been rewarded a thousand dollars.

Someone yelled cut and they retaped the interview. These seekers of truth then coached me on how I felt about the judgment. I was to say that Patrick and I were still friends and I was glad to see him have some money, and glad he got to keep his record.

Patrick then was interviewed and said, “Well Keith, I guess you finally get your 5o cents back.”

His closing interview was perfect, but I still felt mine was out of character and weak. Oh well, I had 500 dollars and a free trip to Hollywood. I wasn’t complaining.
I was on National T.V.

The aftermath

The same day they showed our episode on network television a clip of Patrick and I arguing was shown on “Talk Soup” on the E network. The show was seen by many of our friends, including one who is still angry with me over my mistreatment of poor Patrick. I still sell varmints to spoiled children and Patrick still works in a kitchen, but like many fools before us we are planning our return to Hollywood where we will await the spoils of fame we had oh too small a taste of.

Workin' at KFC

Looking for that first job, sixteen years old, it was turning out to be harder than I thought. So many other pimple faced kids wanting the same dignity destroying, minimum wage paying job I was after.

I went from fast food joint to fast food joint. At one grease pit I actually made it past the application stage. They invited me to come back on Thursday at 2pm when they did interviews. I got there and took a seat along side a half dozen other hopefuls. A plain looking woman wearing the dress shirt that separates the lifers from the polo shirt wearing hopefuls introduced herself and sat down to talk with the first person in line. I listened in, hoping to get a few tips and heard the obese applicant explaining that she'd just gotten out a recovery home and was trying to start a new life. Dress shirt lady asked if she was doing Alcoholic's Anonymous. She was. And wouldn't you know it, our executive burger flipper is anonymous too.

The rest of us are given a rousing thank you for coming to the interview and told that the position is filled!

What the hell? I wish I would have protested. I wish I would have asked how she could be so sure that we weren't all recoveries screw ups too. Hell maybe we were even bigger jerks than this girls. Hell, I could have been a heroin addict or a molester of puppies, if she'd just given me a chance. Line me up some coke, I'll show you what a moron I am. Here look, I'm touching myself write now, I've got problems really! Instead I took a seat in my mom's car and told her what happened.

And she, in her maternal wisdom advised me to shake it off and keep applying. She drove me to the next bout of humiliation.

My friend Robbie, a drug casualty and a victim of insane parents called me that night to tell me he'd gotten a job at Der Wiener Schnitzel. Now this stung. Sure, Robbie had a car and so was able to get a job in the next city, where his reputation was less well known, but there's no way he should be employed before me. After having the shocking revelation that stupid people don't know their stupid I began trying to insure myself of my intelligence based on comparisons folks whose IQ I was more sure of. Robbies was sub-monkey so it did my self esteem no good at all to have him succeeding where I had so far failed.

I went out the next day with renewed determination and drive. We stopped at the local KFC, though back then it was still called Kentucky Fried Chicken, and there behind the counter was Greg Weston. Greg was the hippest guy I knew. I had a few classes with his little brother, Brooke who would've made a great frat boy had he gone to college. Instead he was a really hyper stoner who was forever searching for the perfect way to call you a fag. I tried to be as cool as a KFC cup of cole slaw as I approached the counter and asked for an application. Julie handed me the application and I said hello to Greg only after it was in my hands so that my intent of my visit would be absolutely clear. Greg was perfect.

"Oh, you're applying for a job. Julie, this is Keith, he's a friend of my brother's." I said hello to Julie and didn't mention that I didn't care for Brooke much, and Brooke regarded me as just another probable homosexual. "Do you actually want to work here or do you just have to fill out applications for school?"

No, oddly enough, I wanted to work there. I really wanted to work there. I wanted to be able to buy endless piles of cassette tapes and to be able to go out to eat without my parents. Amazingly enough I wanted to put on the horrid beige and brown uniform and paper hat. I wanted to wear the name tag. I wanted to take another step towards independence, towards being a grown up.

"I really want to work here!"

"Well, put my name down where it asks how you heard of Kentucky Fried Chicken, only put Chance. My name's Chance now." Damn Greg was cool. Way too cool to be a Greg. He was definitely a Chance. I handed Chance my filled out application and restrained the desire to skip out to my mom. I hopped in the car with a big grin and told her that I had an in.

I was interviewed by Jim, who owned 51% of this franchise location. The interview, which he conducted from a white three ring binder was a series of questions like, "If a co-worker was stealing money would you:
a) Tell them to stop.
b) Mind your own business
c) Tell a manager

This was pretty easy, but then they got tricky. What if the thieving co-worker took care of his ailing mother? Woah! Heavy. What if it wasn't much money, just a few buck here and there! I must have survived their amazing psychological wizardry because a week later I was hired.

I attended orientation where I, along with many other newbies from neighboring cities watched a film detailing the life and accomplishments of Colonel Sanders, founder of KFC and the genius behind the top secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices. I was most disappointed to discover that I would not be trusted with this secret. The spices would come to us pre-mixed.

I finished my orientation and took my place on the prep line. I made pies and filled cups with cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and other gooey stuff. I hate to think how many pounds of chocolate pudding I ate. Never mind minimum wage, all the chocolate pudding I could eat meant I was a rich man. At first I'd save it until my break but eventually I learned how to sneak a few bites behind the line. Then I figured out I could fit a whole Chicken Little in my mouth. All I needed was for the boss to turn his head for a second and I was fed. These miniature chicken sandwiches were the only non dessert item at KFC that I didn't get totally sick of within the first month. Bless you Chicken Littles.

I did well enough on the line, or the boss noticed food costs rising, so I got moved up front to the register. I loved dealing with the customers. Having real live people to talk to made the time go much quicker than communing with styrofoam cups all day. Sure sometimes we'd run out of chicken and people would get pissy but I never took it personally. Insult KFC, insult me, insult my mother, it means nothing. I guess I was concieted enough to just enjoy the more interesting customers the way you'd enjoy teh monkeys at the zoo. When monkey's fling poo I don't get offended. When monkey's call my mom a whore because I don't give them chicken it's not personal.

I was trained on drive thru next. I don't care what anyone says, turning the mic on your drive thru headset on when you flush the toilet is funny, no matter how many time you do it. Your co-workers here it, the customer at the drive through hears it. You say "Welcome to KFC, I'll be right with you." And then you flush. They assume you didn't mean them to hear it. It's comedy gold I tell you.

So, I was quickly discovering that despite my best intentions I just didn't have it in me to be a model employee and I was having way more fun being a screw up. Chance had long since disasociated himself from me. They moved me back to the deep fryers.

At this point I'd done every job but dish washer and bisuit guy. The biscuit guy had to be 21. It seems a youngster mixing up some biscuit dough at a KFC somewhere stuck his hand in the bowl and had it torn clean off. Jim went into great detail describing the way the dough turned pink as the powerful mixer just kept on mixing, but he swore it wasn't his KFC.

Our biscuit guy was Bradley and Bradley was some piece of work, lazy, overweight and totally unambitious. Exactly the direction I was heading. When not actually engaged in the act of making biscuits Bradley would sit and stare at his mixing bowl. We'd be slammed.

"Bradley, can you bring some slaw from the walk in?"

"Is that making biscuits? No, it's not. I'm the biscuit maker. If you need biscuits made, let me know." and then Bradley would stare at his bowl as everyone else ran around sweating grease.

I dreamed of one day having Bradley's power.

For now I got the hang of the fryer. These giant deep frying machines had to be vented and some genius designed the vent to blow toward the operator. As if teenagers didn't have enough trouble with their skin we were now spending hours with hot grease steam blowing in our faces. My cloths and shoes got so soaked in grease that my mother took to laying cardboard over the car seat when she'd pick me up from work. I'd bring two plastic KFC bags to put over my shoes.

My felllow grease faces were Brian and Tony. Tony was absolutely insane. He loved to sneak up behind me and break a chicken leg next to my ear. The sound of bones cracking and the way it made me cringe seemed to give him no end of joy. I didn't think it was nearly as funny as making one's coworkers listen to the toilet flush.

Tony taught me and Bryan a great trick. First you dip your finger in the chicken batter and then you dip it in the flour, with the eleven herbs and spices just like you'd do with the chicken. Then you'd add a second and third coat and finally you'd put your finger in the hot grease. If you held it there until you started feel some heat you'd pull out a Kentucky Fried Flangee. You can guess which finger Tony prefered to fry.

Of course it ws just a matter of time before someone put two fingers in making a crispy or original recipe peace symbol. Then three fingers and finally, I decided to do my whole hand. For we three fry cooks this was the most exciting day of our lives. We chilled the batter and flour for increased tack and to allow a longer submersion in the fryer. I applied the coats carefully avoiding clumbs which could flake off and expose some skin. And then... the moment of truth, I dipped my hand in an inch at a time. I waited longer than ever, waiting until I felt my skin turning pink until... Ladies and gentlemen, I am an artist. My hand looked like a big, gorey, bubbling, burnt, um, hand. So I grabbed myself around the wrist and ran into the dining room with a horrified shocked look on my face. As several diners jumped up to assist I took a bite.

"Mmmm, mmm, love them eleven herbs and spices."

Miraculously no one narked me off. I went on to wash dishes, write lots of bad poetry while on the clock, drop out school and finally I quit after being suspended for drinking a free soda when I wasn't on duty. Tony was fired a few months before me when he dove through the drive thru window, landing in the car of a customer who had just been rude to the girl wearing the headset and who then recieved the most shocking ass kicking off his life. Bryan quit after the minimum wage was raised, to what he was being paid after three years and as many raises. Chance took on a rich older girlfriend who kept him well stocked in presents including cloths, jewelry and plenty of booze. A few years later he came out of the closet, and probably found a rich older man to take the ladys' place. For all I know Bradley's still the biscuit guy.


Coming soon, tales of my first colonoscopy... with PICTURES!

Christina, service professional 1st class, 4 stars....


I woke up hung over in the back of a V.W. bus parked in a no longer empty parking lot in some sub-urb of Oaklahoma City. Someone was tapping on my window with a flashlight and telling me I needed to pay him four bucks to park for the day or get moving. If the lot had any shade I'd have given him ten bucks, but instead I asked him where I could get some Jo-Jo Potatoes.

He pointed me to a fried chicken drive-in down the street and I started the bus warming. Dan, the owner of the bus and my travellin' companion on this trip woke up and climbed into the passenger seat. He started calculating how much wine we'd actually consumed the night before in ounces. We pulled up in front of the chicken place and after tidying up the bus and ourselves we approached the window.

I needed the only hangover cure I've ever known, a Coke (preferably in the can) and some breaded and fried potatoes. At the window, ready to take our order was Christina. service professional, first class, four stars. After ordering my necessaties I asked Christina about her name tag with it's neat row of stars along the bottom.

"So, I see you got four stars there."

"Yep. I got one for every year I've worked here." she leaned closer, "And when I get my star this year, they're gonna have to start a brand new row."

She was right. There was not room for a single star more on that name badge unless you started another row. I had to this point still never managed to hang onto a job for more than a year at a time and was travelling around the country in a VW Bus spending the last paycheck I'd gotten. I stood facing this woman who was probably a good two years younger than me and yet was going on her fifth year at a job. I of course figured I had something to teach her. Well, okay, she had something to teach me too. Like how to get to Oaklahoma City. I hit her up for directions.

"Hey listen Christina. Can you tell us how to get to Oaklahoma City from here?"

"Oh, you're going to Oaklahoma City! I've never been."

"What. How far is it?"

"About an hour."

"Now Christina, I can see you've worked here for at least four years, and you're gonna tell me that in that four years you never once traveld the one hour drive to Oaklahoma City."

"Well I don't have a car yet. I'm saving up."

"Christina, what time do you get off. We're taking you to Oaklahoma City."

"I Couldn't Do That!"

"Why Not!"

"Well you don't make a big trip like that without some planning. "

I was still hung over, and it did occur to me that I wasn't looking like the kind of guy you jumped into a van with, so I got back to the directions, and the directions Christina gave were as follows.

"Okay pull out of the parking lot here and go back down the street until you come to Main Circle. Make a right on main circle. As you circle around you'll see Oakwood Street, go right past it. Take the circle all the around until you come to Oakwood Street again, make a right and you'll see the freeway to Oaklahoma City."

I thought I understood. "Okay, so pass Oakwood, and then go half away around and pick up Oakwood on the other side?"

"No. You're not listening. Pass Oakwood and go ALL the way around until you come back to Oakwood again, then Make a right."

Dan and I looked at each other insuring that we both sensed the presence of insanity. We thanked Christina and headed out. I came to Oakwood Street and made a right. We were in the kind of neighborhood I didn't think existed anymore. Old black folks sat in front of houses that appeared to have been put together from scrap lumber with tin roofs. We drove for a few miles and seeing no sign of a freeway I turned around and went back to the cirlce and back to the chicken place.

I pulled out of the chicken place and followed Christina's directions exactly. We passed Oakwood, we circled around, all the way around passing the street that would have taken us back to Christina. We came to Oakwood again and made a right. Two blocks later we grabbed the freeway and made our way to Oaklahoma City a little freaked out, enough so that we would not for a second consider going back to investigate.