If you thought extravagance was out of season you should have seen the quasi -antiquated wedding party at the west-end of the bikers-only trailer park last weekend. More than 35 bridesmaids smiling like out-of-context hemp addicts lined up alongside the public shower facility and at least 3,000 family members and friends were in attendance as Paula Lou Henderson and Dave Bob Grindstaff said their vows before evangelist Rev. Convulso Dude Aronowicz.
The clothing on these people was nothing less than rhetorical. Women were decked out in outrageously stylish see-through cellophane fir-wraps that showed everything but revealed nothing, leaving park personnel to wonder whether the late-singer Robert Palmer was scheduled to appear at the event. More than one elderly gentleman in town for the extremely holy communion wore coonskin hats, on their private parts. And some of the children were heard to whisper during the ceremony, "We have to go to the pharmacy, please."
Things became particularly unpredictable when the lead server among the kitchen crew announced she was 10 months pregnant and quite sick, frankly, of being with child while also being with the responsibility of directing a team of 140 inexperienced topless waiters. "I am out of here," she spoke from a makeshift gurney as medical technicians whisked her off to the Betty Ford Center For Defrock Physician's Assistants. "Tell those redneck beatniks they can get their own elk jerky."
In the interest of visitors to this website, this barely employable writer took it upon himself to leap into the void and assume supervision of the wait staff, including this one gal, Trudy. Gertrude as I called her had about as much business being there as I would have running the thing-a-ma-jig in a Norwegian surgical suite. I made Trudy a greeter after realizing she was allergic to perspiration.
"Just sit there and say 'You're wearing too much makeup,' to people," I instructed. "Just take it easy, real easy, ya'all hear?"
No one knew who hired the male stripper. He just showed up with an entourage of Michael Jackson look-alikes. They were haughty and smelled heavily of garlic extract. A few burly Heaven's Disciples escorted them off the property. They were relieved of their weapons, asked a few more questions and eventually tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere where they were forced to watch continuing looped footage of highlights of Richard Nixon's congressional career assembled by the Daughters of the American Revolution citizen's disinterest group.
The shared relief was palpable. You could cut the absence of tension with a plastic spoon. As a matter of fact, I did just that.
"Wait a second, son," the minister said to me just before the groom took the ring from Mickey Rooney. "Aren't you ... aren't you ... Jackson Friggin' Browne?"
I didn't think I could laugh so hard without basically disintegrating. Between gasps, I figured, shit-ski, if I chortled that hard for too long a time I'd run out of tears and my T-shirt would get gangrene. And my organs would be all shook up to the point I was peeing in not only my own pants but also in the pants of other cooperative but essentially misdirected members of my astrological sign, Pissies. My jaw was so sore from chuckling I thought my ears were going to have to take a brief nap and my cheekbones might take-and apply for welfare or at least some form of governmental assistance. I got so much extraneous oxygen on my teeth they began to foam over with unwanted sediment and I began to burp involuntarily.
I went from totally discredited to permanently barred from the Province.
"If I was Jackson Browne do you really think I'd be here without a guitar," I asked the last sane person I saw, the Unibomber. He said I could call him "Ted."
I did.
"Ted," I said. "Why?"
"Because," he answered. "Because I could."
I looked at him like a woman peruses the fine print of a popular wine cooler label. I took as long as possible, probably two or three years. He wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't either.
When I was ready I told him what I wish someone had told him before he started sending mail bombs to people engaged in high technology weapons systems and other alleged big brother enterprises.
"The end doesn't justify the means," I said, paraphrasing Emerson and really having a lot of fun in the process.
"The end preexists in the means. Think about that next time you're watching 'CSI-Miami.'"
He looked at me with the stare of a crazed and demented ex-patriot. I can still hear his words. They limit my productivity and haunt my inner child.
"You're no Jackson Browne," he said, almost as if he knew what he was talking about.
"You're more like ... the father from 'The Brady Bunch.'"
