from the archives

Good scam while it lasted, Susan. Oh boy, you won yourself a Mayberry, oops, I mean a Newberry, as in the John Newbery Medal for outstanding contribution to children's literature, which means not good enough for a grown-up, which might as well mean a Mayberry. Oh, look at fancy little Miss Susan Patron, all dressed up in her fancy society clothes with her fancy Newberry Medal, oh yes, I wrote 'The Power of Lucky' all by myself - it's for ten year olds. Well, you make me ill Miss Fancy Pants, with all your oh-so-impressive Newberry money and your pretty new blue car. I hear you live in San Fernando. That's really not that much of a drive for me, particularly on the days when I don't work which are more frequent than I would prefer but I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that, would you Ms. Prissy Pants, you and all of your Newberry fortune and the blood of ten year old lambs dripping all over your comfy bedroom carpet. I can just imagine that you never thought that a real adult would ever actually read your vile and stupid book, did you Ms. Suzy Slut? But I did, I read and I took notes, but only one page worth of notes because by the time I was finished with that page I was already prepped to heave and besides it was happy hour. But it wasn't a very happy hour that I spent thinking of you and all the filth you spewed. And that was only on the first page, as I previously noted. If you have the stomach for it, examine with me what happens on the very first page of this child-targeted blue book. A little ten year old orphan - ironically named 'Lucky' - is listening through a hole in her wall when she hears some pervert say that a rattlesnake bit his little dog Roy on the scrotum. Merciful heavens! For those of you not versed in obscene language, I must reluctantly tell you that 'scrotum' is the street term for balls. Pardon me, but if you strive to be a good parent like I do, it's important that you know exactly the type of pornography our children are being assaulted with day after day. Where to begin? Little girls do not know about balls, nor do they have any reason to know about balls, but presented in this sort of come hither manner it is a certainty that their curiosity will lead them to find out about these fuzzy pink sin orbs one way or another, possibly by examining the very same sort of animal that the 'author' has mentioned, a little dog named Roy. I found myself pondering whether this Roy was an oh-so-clever allusion to the Roy of Sigfried and Roy fame, as this would add yet another layer of depravity to an already sordid tale, and since I am able to imagine this, it must be so. If there is anything that little girls hate and fear, it is rattlesnakes with their phallic shape and love of biting and spitting, indeed, their love of all things oral. And if there is anything little girls love it is cute little puppy dogs, although in this case the animal has obviously not been fixed since the author takes great delight in relating how it was bitten on the balls, balls which no ten year old girl should ever have to read or think about. And what about that hole in the wall? I have a sinking sordid suspicion that this may have been a 'glory hole'. It would just seem logical since this is an orphan, after all, and she must provide for herself in some depraved manner or another. Thank god that I did not venture on to page two. I shall never know for sure, because in a fit of righteous indignation I ripped 'The Higher Power of Lucky' asunder, and shredded it into a million pieces which I soaked in bleach before mixing into a blend of fertilizer and plastic explosive, which I used to blow up the busted Frigidaire in front of the Colson's old farmhouse, the same refrigerator inside of which I used to play hide and seek in lo those many years ago, but those innocent days are gone to me now. - Feb, 2007