Laura Buchholz

It’s just what it sounds like, and it’s a marathon of snakes, 26.2 miles of long slender bodies worming their way through the streets of your town for the big prize, a giant frozen rat on a stick.

Come on down to encourage the snakes, as they’ve been training for this all year long.  All of the 210,529 snakes participating in this year’s events had to enter with a qualifying score, and so you know that these are going to be the strongest, fastest, most exciting snakes to hit the metro area in a long time, and that’s counting the ones in the sewer.

The race starts at 6 am on the dot and will be staged according to breed:  grass snakes, then rattlers, copperheads, bull snakes, mud snakes, king snakes, and a bunch of others listen on the web site (snakeathon2010).

Our motto this year is ‘get bit by the thon’ but we don’t really mean it.  And if you do come down and you happen to get bit, we have medical personnel on hand right there at the race, to cut a small X right over the bite and suck out the venom.  We are dedicated to making this a safe and fun event for all participants, and we very much look forward to seeing you at Snake-a-Thon 2010.  Long pants suggested.

Sorry about all those school lunches that are, all these years later, apparently the real cause of your chronic medical conditions and inability to think positively for more than 30 seconds at a time, but we’ve turned things around, and school’s starting next week so we thought you’d want to know what’s on the menu.

Monday

Granola sandwiches with sprout sculptures perched on top of a sliced apple and served with cat milk. Also: grapes.

Tuesday

Tofurkey shapes with minced squash ropes surrounding three pieces of fifteen-grain bread, soaked in beef broth and topped with one lima bean.  Chocolate milk.

Wednesday

Two-layer salad:  Iceberg lettuce and dressing, served with a bun-free broccoli burger studded with corn.  Optional: two empty pita pockets.

Thursday

Beefalo stew on a rice cake sprinkled with one brussels sprout and half a carrot.  Nonalcololic  bloody marys for dessert.

Friday

Pizza.
If you want something else you should bring it yourself.  We’re doing everything we can back here, and none of us has health insurance.

Sincerely,

The Lunch Ladies

Traci Bansdorf had been in love with Michael Sterncron for over 23 years now, and she was getting ready to finally make her move.   The two of them had been on a date once…once when they were both in high school, the summer they were both about to head off to college.  At least she thought they were dates.  She couldn’t be sure because they had met accidentally in the office organization section at the Container Store, where he was buying pushpins and she was looking for magnets.  “We’re both looking to make things stick,” she had joked, and he had said “hang on a second” because his cell phone was ringing and he answered it.  It was his girlfriend at the time (Trisha)  although Traci was pretty sure they were on the outs and so when they went next door to get coffee after the Container Store excursion, she made it clear that she was available (“I’m not dating anyone seriously right now”), to which Michael said “that’s good” and she wasn’t sure if she should take that as as a good sign or an insult.

Two weeks later she went to Oberlin, and he went to NYU and became a lawyer,  and over the years Traci loosely followed his life as he got married (oh.), had two kids (oh.  still….) moved to Oklahoma for a job (interesting), remarried (oh.) and redivorced (okay!) and now he was coming back home to just “think things through.”  At least that’s what his Facebook update said.

By “make her move” Traci meant that she would simply casually be “available” in certain situations and let him “decide” if he was ready to “move on in a positive direction in his life.”  She also got her hair cut and colored and joined the Silverado gym and lost 8 pounds in a spinning class and went and had a tai chi master press on her meridians, which was supposed to make you immediately appear 15 years younger, and she started reading a lot of classic novels, not to mention the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (not the Economist, though–she had limits) and she decided to have her teeth restraightened, which involved wearing some sort of a headgear thing for 2 hours a day–and she was safe because she knew he was not arriving for another two weeks, and so that Sunday she wore her headgear to the grocery store, and as she was squeezing the cantoloupes and sniffing their bottoms, she heard someone say

“Traci?”

And she turned around and there was Michael Sterncron, standing right there next to the watermelons, and right next to him gripping on to his muscled bicep like it was a tow rope keeping her from plunging over the lip of Niagra Falls, was Trisha.  THE Trisha.  Old Trisha.  Who was now the NEW Trisha.  Trisha had a face that looked newly microdermabraided and perhaps she might have gotten a glute lift and she was dressed in pretty fancy clothes and she was holding a small stack of classic novels:  Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, My Antonia.

“I’m sorry, you have the wrong person,” said Traci, and she dropped the melon, which splattered on the floor, and as she bustled out of the produce section and out the door, she slipped a little bit on the melon, but she did not fall.

It’s true, I’ve been in a lot of movies.  Escape from the Pound, the Lost series (Lost in Yellowstone, Lost in the Rockies, Lost in the Florida Keys, Lost in the Badlands), The Person Whisperer, Go Hurry Up, Sit Stay Bark–and countless others that I’m sure you’re aware of so I don’t have to mention them here.

The tough thing about being an actor is that basically you’re just waiting for someone else to make a movie.  Nothing is up to me.  People know I’m the best dog actor in North America, of course–I’m hardworking, bright, and I can read, write, and speak English–but me working depends on someone else writing  movie with a dog in it.  And as you can see from this gracious home I live in with my bitch Connie, things have worked out pretty well for me.  For us.

Honestly though, what I really want to do is direct.  I’ve been working on a screenplay.  I guess you could say it’s autobiographical.  It’s called (working title) In Case of Fire and it’s about how when I was younger, I lived with a family and one night there was a fire, and I smelled it first and so I woke up the whole family and got them all out of there safe.  Which was great, but then because the house burned to the ground and the family had to go live in a subsidized apartment for the next two years while they went through the whole process of insurance and whatnot, they couldn’t keep me and so I ended up in the pound.  Yeah.  So I’m working on that. I guess what I learned from that whole experience was, Don’t Expect Anything.  If I had it to do over today, would I still save the family, knowing what I know?  I mean, I guess I would.  I would just feel differently about it while I was doing it.  And I might just go straight over to the neighbors’ house instead of assuming the family was going to take me along.  You’ve got to take care of yourself first.

Do I regret my time in the pound?  No.  It wasn’t ideal, and yet the pound is where I really met all the characters that inspired me to become an actor.  Zup, the fat Chihuahua who knew how to stand up on his hind legs and walk like a person—Socks, the beagle mix who howled from 2 to 3 am every day and would only eat the cheese off the top of his food, not the rest of it—Cary, the wolfhound who was mostly silent but when he said something—look out.  It was going to knock you over every time.

And I learned patience in the pound, I suppose.  I also learned how to bite when I need to.  And how to make a newspaper on a concrete floor feel like a real bed.

No, actually, I don’t hear from the family.  I hear that they’ve moved on, and gotten another dog.  Actually a couple of them.  Smaller housedogs, you know, the hypoallergenic kind.  The kind of dogs that are actually more like cats.  Maybe they just don’t want to remember the fire, I don’t know.  For me, it’s like, hey, life happens–you look at it and you go ‘okay’ and you keep going.  But I guess some people feel differently about it.  Some people need the comfort of cat-dogs and I guess, who am I to judge?  I’m just a dog. And not even a hypoallergenic one.

Anyway that’s all in the screenplay.   I’m in talks with my agent right now, who is showing it around at studios.  We’re generating some buzz and that’s never a bad thing.  Speaking of buzz, I need to get some coffee in me.  And Connie is making some sausage links with toast, so I should get over there.  See you at the movies–

Clark

Look, don’t tell me I’m a workaholic.  I’m an ant.  This is what we do.  What? An intervention?  Bite me.  Look at yourselves, why doncha?  All your legs waving aimlessly in the air like that.  Do something!  Go move some leaves or something.  Dig a burrow.

Get off my back.  Better yet, get on it.  All seven of you.  Every one of you get on my back, and I’ll carry you to Oconomowac.  I can do it, you know.  I may look lean but I’m freakishly strong.  I’ll heft all seven of you PLUS that garden hose over there.  I dare you to dare me.

Hazelden?  Please.  Eat my thorax, I’m not going to Hazelden.  I don’t care if they DO have an insect wing, and I didn’t even want to say that because it’s such a bad pun.  If you’re going to be in rehab, I think people should at least have the respect not to give their units a silly punnish name.  And I’m not going anyway so it doesn’t matter.

Look, I’ve got this under control.   I can go on vacation at any time.  Really.  I may LOOK like I’m lifting a ceramic mug on my back while we’re speaking, but in fact if you were to enter my mind right now, you would find it to be very calm and still.  And that’s what power is all about.  Stilling your mind and equanimity and acceptance and I can do that while lifting this mug, damn it!  Uuuunnnnngggghgh!  By the way I read that in the Power of Now.  Have you guys read that?  Well maybe you should before you come in here and judge me for being the way I am.

Stop crying you idiots.  Help me build this anthill.  I want to make it 15 stories and there’s going to be a weight room and a pool and a scotch bar and then outside here, a little miniature golf course and up on top, a cigar room, and then over here will be a 15-car garage.

Put yourselves to use for once.  If we all work together on this, we can have it done in 9 days flat.  I know this because I’ve done it before.  By myself.

This is who I am.  Now are you going to join me or am I going to have to mangle your antennae with my gnashing mandibles?  I thought so.

Congratulations, you live in one of those cities with a crapload of lakes in it!  I bet you’ve been wondering, “how do I judge all these lakes that are all up in my face everywhere I turn?  How do I know what is the best lake for me to go to, and how do I know which lakes I should definitely avoid, at the peril of losing my dignity and my carefully cultivated, albeit fragile, sense of self?”

Well you are in luck.  Because Clipper, our local underground publication written by ambivalent undergraduates who might switch their major to business, has compiled this handy Guide To The Lakes, so that you can make an informed, reasonable decision without suffering shame and regret on the other end of your weekend getaway.  Ready?  Let’s choose a lake!

Lake Almond (B). If you like tiny swimming areas with fifteen teen lifeguards lording it over you while you try to get your legs wet, this is the lake for you.  The good news is that bathroom facilities are pretty good, and the ice cream truck almost never leaves.  In fact, he only leaves to use the nice bathroom facilities, but he’s a pretty dehydrated guy and so that hardly ever happens.  Plenty of parking and beach blanket rental if you forgot yours.  The first 30 minutes is 12 dollars, each additional 1/2 hour after that is 2 dollars.

Lake Obese.  (C+) It’s not what you think.  Obese is a Native American word (pronounced “oh-be-say”) that means “he who lights the fire and skins the buffalo”.  Unfortunately, despite the name there are no campfires allowed at Lake Obese, and no bar-be-ques allowed, so this is not the lake for you Labor Day picnic.  There is, however, a rather steep and shocking drop-off about 14 feet into this lake, and in fact nobody has ever measured how far down this lake goes.  Also there may be some sort of aquatic monster in it, the city is looking into it.  The swimming area is well tended, though, and it’s only in the shallow part, and there is only a slim chance that a monster that lives so deep down would come up to the surface for anything.

Lake Pencil.  (A-) Lake Pencil is named for the fact that it is a very long, skinny lake, and in fact, now that we think of it, it might actually be more of a river.  Hang on a second—-yep, there’s a current in there.  But we’ve been thinking of it as a lake for so long that why stop now?  Besides, Lake Pencil is gorgeous and has more rope swings per square mile than any other lake (OR river) in North America.  Don’t believe us?  Then why don’t you go out and do the research on your own.  Go ahead and do it.  I hope you’re independently wealthy.

Lake Infinity. (A+/-) Lake Infinity is, as you know, the largest, coldest, scariest, creepiest, deepest, most temperamental lake that exists anywhere that we’ve ever heard of, including Mars, who we only THINK had lakes at one point.  And yet, we’re glad it’s here.  It’s called Lake Infinity because you can’t ever see the other end of it from anywhere else you stand on the lake.  And it’s so cold there’s really nothing you can do with it.  Sort of like how infinity is so large that, yeah, it’s a nice concept, but what are you going to do with THAT?  Sometimes it’s best to just forget about it and have a sandwich.  Which are allowed on Lake Infinity, although if you’re going to make a hot press sandwich, forget about it, because Lake Infinity’s Park Rangers will TAKE YOU DOWN if you even THINK about bringing that hot press gear near the lake.  It’s not allowed.  But otherwise, have fun.

As you know, there are tons of other lakes around here, but we’re going to just treat it like Fringe Festival coverage.  Ease up people, a little coverage at a time.  After all, we’re only getting paid $8.94 an hour.   And a lot of us are in night school at the Pembert School of Management at night.  So.

Rachel Burnike was a super-athlete best known for almost completing many extremely difficult physical challenges, such as nearly swimming the English Channel, almost summitting Mount Everest, nearly finishing the Leadville 100-mile footrace through the mountains, and dogsledding just about all the way across the Lambert Glacier in Antarctica.

Outside Magazine is furious with her.  They have interviewed her several times and never has she given Kevin Radke, the unfortunate journalist assigned to her case, what he considers to be a satisfactory answer. He has stopped even trying to write up her near-exploits in narrative form, instead opting for the Q&A format that allows him to control the interview and also establish that he, Kevin Radke, is cool and important enough to be casual friends with an athlete like Rachel Burnike, who could have, if she wanted to, finished any of these challenges with ease, except she didn’t, which makes his blood boil, which he won’t show because he’s a laid back liberal journalist.

KR:  I’m Kevin Radke, I’m sure you remember me, I’ve interviewed you several times before.

RB: I sort of remember you, yes.

KR:  I had more hair last year.  A little bit more up front.

RB:  Oh right.  And you were wearing a plaid shirt.

KR:  Maybe.  Anyway what everybody wants to know is, why don’t you finish these races?  Obviously you could if you wanted to.

RB:  Kevin, I think I’ve explained this before, but I’ve found that the best moment in these experiences is not the moment when you set foot on the summit, but rather the five or so minutes before that when you realize that yes, in fact, I am going to make it.   And so I stop right there.

KR: Why not just finish, if you know you’re going to be able to finish?

RB:  I find the joy in life lies in the anticipation.

KR:  So if you summit, then you can anticipate going back down the mountain.

RB:  It’s not so easy as that.  Descending is a letdown.  I like to have something to look forward to.

KR:  As of now you have a lot to look forward to.  Mainly, finishing every single massive athletic endeavor you’ve ever taken on.

RB:  Yes.

KR:  Any one of which you could have easily finished.

RB:  Your forehead is sweating.

KR:  No it’s not.

RB: Yes it is.  It’s just about to drip into your eyebrows.

KR:  Moving on.  I think we have a friend in common. Kyle Lutke.

RB:  Hmm…..

KR: Kyle Lutke holds the record for speed skating across the thinnest ice on the most nearly melted lake in the entire northern hemisphere.

RB:  Oh KYLE!  Yes, I know him.  We went to college together.

KR:  I met him in a photography class.

RB:  We used to have brunch every Sunday when I lived in Philadephia.

KR:  He came to my sister’s wedding.

RB:  Last year he had shingles. That was tough.

KR:  Especially with a new baby.

RB: Kyle has a new baby?

KR: Ha ha!  I win.

RB:  What?

KR: Never mind.

RB:  Are we going to talk about my recent swim?

KR:  What?

RB:  For the interview.  I thought we were going to talk about me almost swimming all the way down the Mississippi River.

KR:  Fine.  But you didn’t finish, did you?

RB:  I almost finished. I got to Southern Louisiana and I got that feeling–

KR:  The give-up feeling.

RB:  I call it the “I can do this” feeling.

KR: And then you gave up.

RB:  I like to think of is as “conserving my energy”

KR:  It was so great to talk to you.  Thanks for coming in again.

RB:  You’re welcome.  I’ll be back soon.

KR: I hope not.

They said a cow could not win the Fringe Festival, and yet here I am, standing next to my Best of the Fest trophy, which I just knocked over with my tail. Could somebody pick that up please?  Thanks.

Not to brag, but this show came pretty easily for me. If you didn’t see it it was called The Hunted:  Confessions of a Bovine Meat Machine, and it’s my one-cow story of how I was bred for meat in a small enclosed space in a small town, and after a long period where I was acting out by eating a lot of grain and belching tremendous loads of CO2 into the atmosphere, pretty much ruining the ozone layer but I didn’t care–finally I broke free and leaped the fence and made a run for it and very stealthily ingratiated myself into a free-range herd I had heard about about fifteen miles down the road.

Why are there flies in here?

Anyway.  A lot of the show is about what I was thinking about as I walked down that long road–the people I met, the ones who offered to give me a ride, the ones that didn’t stop, and the time animal control came and then got one look at me and said ‘forget it’ and turned around and went back to the city.  That’s because I don’t have these big gentle cow eyes all the time.  When I need to, I can be very hard, and my big cow eyes can narrow into little menacing slits, and despite what you’ve heard about cows, I can run very, very fast.  I can also leap about seven feet straight up into the air, and that’s the last time I ever saw the animal control people.

I don’t need to tell you that fifteen miles is kind of a long way for a cow to walk–a cow who is used to just sitting around and having someone bring him grain.  That’s why I’m so in shape right now.  And that’s also why I want to start my non-profit now for other cows who might be into making long-distance treks like the one I did.  I’m having a fun run next weekend called Lean Into the Meat, and you can choose from 2K, 5K, or 10K distances.  So come out for that, it’s going to be pretty fun.  And we’ve got fresh gas-free grass at the end of it.

Anyway I have a lot of people to thank for coming to my show, you know who you are and I’ll meet you at the party so we can talk in person. But just know that this story is not over, it’s all a part of a journey, and next year I hope to come back to the fest with Part II of the journey ready for you to hear. Please, if you want to approach me for an autograph, do so slowly and from the side.  Otherwise I might kick you.

Thank you for this tremendous honor and I’ll see you next year.

As part of our ongoing efforts to serve you–the cell phone-using public–we at PhoneSounds Inc are constantly updating our stable of quality ear-catching ring tones.  However, progress often means letting go of the old–recognizing what doesn’t work; what almost works but in the end, doesn’t; and what is just plain annoying– and clearing it out of the way to make space for something else.  So in that spirit of never-ending American individualism, we are proud, sad, elated, resigned, and determined to report that we are retiring the following ring tones for the ’10-’11 business cycle:

1.  Cuisinart blender making cookie dough

2.  Car tires spinning out on ice (sounds very similar to #1)

3.  Obese man on mile 2 of a 2-1/2 mile jog (heavy breathing)

4. Lawnmower running over a rake

5.  Four cats shaken up in a cardboard box

6.  Car plunging off a bridge embankment into the ocean and exploding, attacked by sharks

7. The sound of one hand clapping (too faint to hear in public)

8. Chipmunk heartbeat

9. Chunk of glacier the size of New Hampshire shearing off and plunging into the ocean

10.  14 exploding (empty) schoolbuses (sounds too much like #9)

We will be sorry to see our 10 sound-friends leave us.  However, with every temporary screen that falls out of a 2nd floor window, a trap door opens somewhere, and this trap door leads us to our new generation of PhoneSounds ringtones.  In that spirit of joy, independence, despair, and perseverance, we are impassive to announce the arrival of our next-generation ringtones!

1.  Marshmallow exploding in a microwave oven

2. Guy cutting his finger while chopping a zuchhini. (ow, damn it!)

3.  The sound of the New York Subway doors trying to close (bing bong bing bong bing bong) when there is someone standing in the way and the conductor is very impatient.

4. Deli worker unpeeling 14 pieces of salami from the stack.  (thip thip thip thip)

5.  Woman opening a squeaky wooden underwear drawer very slowly.

6.  Child slowly falling over on his or her bike because the neighbors edged their lawn and the bike wheel went right in there.

7.  Meteor hitting the earth and the dinosaur reaction  (screeeeeeee, boom—Aooooooo)

8.  Whales–not singing, but just talking (pass the salt, thanks)

9.  Leaky hot air balloon (flameup…psssssffffffft)

10.  Sandsnake coming for your beach tent.

On the road of your life, are you a driver, a passenger, or someone gagged and bound in the trunk of a driverless car headed for the edge of a cliff?

Does your car have gas in it, or is it running on empty? Perhaps you are the gas pump attendant, continually pumping gas into other people’s cars, before you close up shop at the end of the day and wearily mount your bike to head home?

What kind of a car are you?  Are you a blustery SUV with xenon headlights and automatic warming leather seats and a tv in the back of every seat?  Or are you someone who is still driving a Pinto, and not even a good one but one that looks like it’s been put through a wheat thresher and pummeled by the baseball bats of a very angry youth gang?

Where is your car going?  Back and forth to a corporate park for the pleasure and security of having health insurance and a weekly, reliable paycheck and a soothing beige office with a (mostly) ergonomially correct chair?

Or are you headed out into the woods, off the beaten path and then maybe unexpectedly down a muddy incline where you will have to summon the nearest hermit farmer to tow you out,and he shows up with a cheap bottle of whiskey and a chain saw and what is that for??

Maybe you are driving around just to drive around.  Aimless driving is its own path.

Maybe you have decided not to drive any sort of car.  At all.  And that’s valid.  But who are you calling to drive you around then? And are they okay with that?

Journal it out.  Go.