BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival

Subject: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:06 PM

A sussuration of surf on warm sand as the morning breaks over the wide bay bordering the hundred-some acres of the Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo Carnivale. The boardwalk snakes along the edges of the white-sand beach, where pale blue waves roll into ragged lines of gentle surf and the gulls sing fragments of Gaudeamus to the surf's slow rhythm. From a hundred small trailers and cabins parked along the northern boundary of the park, the smell of bacon sizzling and black coffee dripping mingles with the sounds of banjos, 12-strings, and bazoukis tuning up for a day of merriment. Four hundred folkies of various sizes are rolling out to start a day of hilarity and hijinks, although some of them have been up for hours tuning up the rides -- the Death Defying Circle of Fifths, the Flat-E-Terror-Trip, the amazing Tunnel of the Lost Chord, the pulse pounding Journey to the Relative Minor, and a score of others. Others have been opening the stands for food, games, love and magic along the boardwalk -- the incredible "Dylan Back On Pitch" game, The Rick Fielding House of Endless Harmonics, the BSeed Fortune and Forgotten Lyrics Guessing Stand, the JenEllen House of Love and Animal Husbandry, LEJ's Highdrammer Walk, and MBO's Heartbreak Hotelarama. Swanno is doing death-defying dives from the high board. Couples break into songs, strolling in the early light, in perfect thirds of heart-straining beauty. Laughter joins the smell of sunlight and jasmine along the sand. There are special spots all over the landscape, joined by paths among verdant tropical growth and bathed in delectable breezes perfumed by the airs of a thousand distant lands.

Talk a walk down the boardwalk. Look!! What's that????? Amazing....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:12 PM

Golly. It's Matty Groves and Lord Arlen, much to the dismay of Lady Arlen, strolling hand-in-hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:26 PM

There's a tidy little open front tavern tucked under a stand of eucalyptus, with comfortable stools along the bar and separate tables alongside the hut. The smell of a brewery wafts through the clear air, with promises of things to come. An adjacent gravel footpath is spanned by a crudely-joined arbor with a smallish hand-lettered sign hanging from the top that says "Mudcat Tavern: Pacific door." The trail disappears around the back of the hut.

A duck sits at the edge of the path idly watching people stroll by.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:36 PM

It sounds so inviting. I guess it's time to saddle up and ride in from my home on the Bar F Ranch.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:54 PM

Is it ok if I skinnydip along the beach here?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 05:57 PM

Is there a fencing piste? Someplace where singers and swordsfolk can meet and mingle?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:31 PM

As it happens, you need only find the Bobert's Bucaneer World house, which is about a quarter-mile that way, just past the Lake of Forgotten Lyrics. Follow the sound of the Arrrghs and you can't miss it.   Choice of weapons at the door.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:33 PM

Can we gamble ? Is there a casino ? With a floorshow ?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:39 PM

(So, if we sing, you won't slice? Kind of a variation on the shooting at the feet to make one dance? **bg**)

Come on, come all, let Madame Siezeall tell your
Fortune, foretell your Futures, Reveal your Soul's Mate!
Madame has lived for over 200 years and SafeKeeps the Records of Lifetimes.
Who were YOU?!
The King of Arabia? Queen of Sheba?
Madame Siezeall reveals All to you!

Come one, come all! Only a tenner and you will KNOW the Great Things you are destined for! Begin your New Life, today. Open your Palm for Madame, Cross hers with Silver and All will be Revealed!

*here, you! Get back, unless yer willin' to pay!*

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Pamela Bereft
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:43 PM

Noticeable immediately, due to the enthusiastic crowd of worshippers, is the William Shatner Mudcat Shrine where one can plunk down a few hard-earned dollars for 8 x 10 glossies of their hero, Sweet William, action figures of same, and books written by Mister Shatner. There will be a draw this evening to see which lucky purchaser gets to receive a free signed copy of the new album, "Hasbeen"! Rumours are rife that "the man" himself may make a surprise appearance, which is why I am here! At last my dreams may come true. I know that when he sees me, and looks into these blue eyes which are only for him, that my destiny by his side will be secured for all time. (sigh!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:51 PM

I...knew...at my age, I shouldn'ta...tried to ride that damn...roller coast...coast...coasterrurrrp.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:57 PM

And over there is the Catspaw49 Parfoomery. Unbelievable fragrances redolent of hills of sweet fresh grass and honeysuckle....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 06:59 PM

Ahuh; sweet fresh grass processed through a clydesdale, maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 07:17 PM

Sir Catspaw himself will be barking for shills at the Parfoomery this afternoon.

"Woddizzit? They dunno woddizzit! Come one an' come all, come ye ladyes and ye gennulmens, and lissen to my song...."

Braawwwwwwmp!!!

"It wuz found ten miles from sea, five miles from land, and science has guaraynteed there is none other like it on any known planet or asstroid. Step up to the Parfoomery and take a gander at the incredible Jovial Ambergris Entity! He walks, he talks, he crawls on his belly like a reptile!! Your mom won't tell ya, yer pa won't tell ya, but by Gum we're heah to SHOW ya!! Step up, step up, it's a wonder, yes, a wonder of the World and it is here before you today and may never come again!! Take yer hands outta yer pockets, son -- don't fiddle with the unemployed!! Yank my doodle, it's a dandy, folks, and you will not be disappointed or we will show you the very exclusive Egress into the bargain. Step right up, step right...."

Braawwwwwwmp!!!

"...up and put your nickels where your minds are! You know you wanna, you know you gotta, and no-one is gonna stop ya!! Step right up!!!.....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 07:25 PM

What IS the definition of folk music anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 07:42 PM

You won't find any folk music in a carny L.H. ... but I heard you can see a bearded woman there.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 07:50 PM

Oh, joy.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 07:52 PM

Yeah .... want some cotton candy?

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:03 PM

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to see Little Egypt do the famous dance of the pyramids!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:09 PM

(*sigh* C'mon folks, flesh out those characters and let's get a good storyline going here!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:14 PM

You want some cotton candy Kat ??? It's good, it's a nice shade of blue.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,North Ontario Observer
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:14 PM

A stranger slouches in....he's a youngish man, probably in his middle to late 20's, sporting greasy blonde shoulder-length hair and a poorly trimmed mustache. He has a heavy five o'clock shadow which looks to be a pretty permanent condition, and a hand-rolled cigarette (or a doobie?) drooping from his lower lip, with a very long ash on it that looks about to fall at any moment, but never does. His clothes are dirty, old, faded, nondescript, and decidedly "working class". He wears an insulated maple leaf logo baseball cap on his head, with the words "Go Leafs Go!" on the front and "You're Followin' The Flippin' LEADER, Eh?" on the back. His faded and oil-stained lumberjack jacket, which once was blue and red plaid, but now is a bewildering melange of old stains of god knows what sort of crud, both organic and inorganic, is zipped open to disclose a stinking yellow pullover of some kind on which are emblazoned the words: "I'm with the Idiot", with an arrow under them pointing to the left, and another below that pointing to the right, just in case. He also has a button on his coat which says: "Free Sex!   Inquire within (pants). Girls only!"

He looks around at the general scene before him and smirks.

"Flip me!" he remarks to no one in particular, taking a short drag on his cig. "This is what they call fun? I seen better in Sudbury on a Monday night! Buncha flippin' yanks. I bet not one of 'em can play air guitar half decent, eh?"   

Shane McBride, the most famous citizen of Blind River, Ontario, has arrived.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:15 PM

You are mistaken, s6! The Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo Carnivale. is ALL about folk music. Here, look around you!! The gallants and the damsels of every persuasion and tuning a beginning to gather in the arm nooning sun, on greens among the jasmines and under the shade of palms, and on stretches of beach where no-one minds what you sing or what you wear, or don't, as you sing it!!

Just over there you can hear the strains of the MArvelous Mudcat Madcap Membership Merry-go-Round, which plays Rick Fielding's own strains as it rides folks through the Chamber of Merriment on undulating sea-serpents, white stallions, pegasi, hippogriffs, buffaloes and ostriches. Just now, old RIck is singing one of my favorites -- "When We Gather Once More".    And over there, under the palm, surrounded by voluptuous women with fire in their eyes, Big Mick Lane is singing the sweetest version of Parting Glass ever recorded. And there's Wyowoman!! She's finally learned the chords to "Night Rider's Lament"!! And a voice like an angel, too!!

Come on down this way, and see what you can find to love listening to. These folksingers between them know every song ever worth singing twice!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:17 PM

Oh no ... betcha he going to roll some kid for change. No, look he's too busy running the ferris wheel. Look at him he's disgusting, but ya gotta admit he fits right in to a carny.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:19 PM

(THAT's what I'm talking about! GoodonyaShane!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:24 PM

I dismember bein' this bored once. Yeah. When was it? Musta been in histry class back in 7th grade. Yeah, it was. They was goin' on about the golden spike and all that and Sir John A. McDoneld, the flippin' goof who was the first, like Prime Ribister in this country, and he was 3 quardrs pissed about 98% of the time which explains why they would end up with a country that don't rightly know which flippin' end is up and has 2 offishal lenguages..one of which ain't English! Bad flippin' idea. It has caused a whole lotta trubble, lemme tell ya. The FRogs think they own half of my town! That's a laff and a half, eh?

Lookin' around, I don't see anyone here who looks like an Ozzie Osbourne fan. Nope. This is sad. Not one metalhead in sight. Where can a guy get a free beer and some action around here?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:27 PM

I dunno ... going to start walking down this boardwalk away from the midway and the likes of Shane ... down over there, it certainly looks nicer .... whatzat I hear down there ... sounds like some guy whining the blues away ... playing some accoustic in simple 3 chord structutures ... but it sound nice!!

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:35 PM

A lonely and standoffish, lanky fellow with long tangled brown hair sporting occasional glimmers of gray, materializes among the jacaranda, carrying an old, scarred Dreadnought. He watches, shaking his head with wry amusement, as the sardonic Canuck in the woebegone, outmoded Identity, tries to put some moves on a fine, high-cheekboned, lovely lass with fire in her eyes. It is Peg; she listens to his line, gives him the sunniest smile in all creation, hugs him once and proceeds to sing to him in a lilting, piercing, heart-rending alto, a song of truth and long-lost illusion, of sunrises a world away and moonlight in ancient hills, of horseback rides in dark, fog-lain paths by a long-forgotten sea, of love on moonlit sands and hope restored with the touch of a gentleman's hand -- all these things were in her sweet song.

The surly, barbarian minded man was struck dumb -- or perhaps it was his natal condition -- but in any case he watched with his jaw so low-slung that his half-burned cigarette fell on the ground. And then, as though seized himself by some ancient moor-born mist, the sallow-faced grease-stained hoser from Onario melted into a gauzy shimmer, and disappeared as the last beautiful note of song drew to a close.

Little Hawk -- for it is he who watches this unfolding with amaze -- fingers his old guitar thoughtfully for a few minutes, lost in thought, and then, with renewed energy and purpose, swings the mighty Martin to the ready and unleashes a few baritone arpeggios.

"Come you people, around me, wherever you rooooooooam....." he sings. His words break through the dappling sunlight under the eucalyptus, and filter through the jacaranda, and spread for hundreds of yards to the ears of a hundred smiling and entranced folks...and for a few lines, there are not one but a hundred voices taking up the song...

"For the times, they ARE ac-chaaaaaaaangin..."

And the singer, finding himself the sung-to and the song in one, smiles in renewal.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,North Ontario Observer
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:37 PM

Shane tries giving the eye to a succession of passing females. Most of them seem oblivious, but one glares at him and stalks off. An obvious rebuff!

"Flippin' skank," he mutters, discarding his cigarette butt and digging in his jeans for another. "I wouldn't flip her on a dime if she begged me for it!"

A thorough search turns up a crumpled packet of tobacco. Shane sits down on a handy bench and expertly rolls himself another cig. All the while he is scanning the scene for useful possibilities, such as...a loose woman, a free beer, a discarded issue of Penthouse, something which which to while a way those empty hours that one is forced to spend in the hungry years that precede "Freedom 35" and a life of leisure in the company of Shania Twain and the Rolling Stones' concert crew...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:49 PM

FUNNEL CAKES
         $1.50

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:53 PM

An old coot from the midwest strolls the midway; he's at least clean, but not at all stylish, in old jeans and sneakers, a vintage checked shirt, and a faded tan sailor cap. He pauses in the crowd listening to the barker in front of the hootch cootchy show. "Ill be derned", he thinks; "I haven't seen one of those in a carnival since I was too young to go in one anyhow. Now do I or don't I. Judy'd kill me if she thought I did, but I always wondered if the shows ever amounted to anything. Heh; 'Liz the Squeak'; that's a funny name for a hootchy-cootchy dancer."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:54 PM

By the way, it's a little known fact that all food items sold at carnivals, fairs and arts & crafts shows are made from the same basic ingredient. Funnel cake dough. It doesn't matter what it's being sold as, it's really just a funnel cake in disguise. You think that's a Polish sausage smothered in onions and peppers? Think again. Yep, you got it, it's a funnel cake. Blooming onion? Hah! Funnel cake.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 08:55 PM

The times will never stop changing. Change is the most undeniable aspect of existence. But we struggle and try to hold it back, clinging to the familiar, trying to arrest the river in its flow.

I have a Yamaha guitar that I have owned for over 10 years, and it has exactly one tiny mark on it. One that no one would ever notice, but I remember the night I banged it into a mike stand, and it got this tiny little mark on the side of the neck, on the white binding. You'd think it was new if you took a quick look.

I have not managed to preserve myself quite so well as I have the guitars, but have done not too badly.

There's a Martin too, but it's almost new. Sounds like a million dollars, that one.

Singing, singing, singing. Must've sung a million songs. I want to hear Angels sing again. I heard that a couple of times, back in the 70's.

Still have no idea why that happened, but there was no mistaking the sound when you heard it.

Shane is the compendium of the small-town Ontario lowlife, a species that haunts cheap bars and downtown sidewalks, harassing women, committing petty crimes, getting arrested, dealing dope, and living in misery. When you have that little really going for you, a rich fantasy life can put a bit more of a glow on things. What is likeable about these guys, though, is...they are more or less innocent. They basically just don't know any better.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Bert
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:00 PM

Aaaannd here comes Bert. Fish and chips in a newspaper in one hand, cotton candy in the other and a stick of rock in his pocket. Pssst! want some dirty postcards?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:06 PM

Shane? Heads up! There's a guy here with dirty postcards.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:12 PM

Got any of Mata Hari?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:20 PM

Somehow I have turned up in this blissful garden away from the sleasy midway and the likes of the carny Shane ... maidens, jugglers, clowns, cotton candy, and the bountiful sound of music of harps, mandolins, and guitars ... ah ha I say, I wish I had brought my Taylor with me .... puuuffft ... all of a sudden it is at my side ... and what a weird place this is I say to myself ... really weird.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:20 PM

Mata Hari !!!! .... LoL ... very good L.H. .. very good.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:32 PM

She was pretty hot stuff in the days of dirty postcards.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:34 PM

The shadows swerve and seem to tango to the rhythms of a small trio reviving childhood Calypsos. Down the midway, the House of Harmonic Reflections and ANcient Passions is doing a land-office business. Spaw's fevered carny pitch is drawing a number of curiosu passer-bys in to see the Ambergris Entity, and Stilly's Sterling Stout stand is swamped with thrsty tipplers of all ages.

There are no hours, here, and there are no years. The spirit of Mudcat past ripples down the sun-dapples as surely as the spirit of Mudcat present rises up to meet it, singing tenor and bass runs around its mellow melody.

Mick has started a whole hootenanny of union tunes over past the Frenetic Fret-Fingering Fangdoodle ride, and you can hear their merry challenge echoing against the gentle sea.

Which side are you oooooon?
Oh, which side are you on?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:34 PM

So I have been told ... LOL !!

Those cards should keep the sleasy slag Shane occupied for a while.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 09:40 PM

'Scuse me, suhs, but ah ain't from around these parts, and I feel just abit out of my element. Nevah been on the weyest coast befoya, nor the tropics neither. Is theaya somewheres here a southern hillbilly woman like me can just kinda hangout--'til I get a feelin' fer the place....The Ferris Wheel? Why yeyus, I believe would enjoy that. I might commence to singing as we go 'round 'n 'round. That be awright with y'all?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 10:02 PM

The eagle is hurt, her feathers are ruffled,
Make no mistake, she is coming fer yoooooooouuuuuuuu....
I'd finish this song if I knew all the words,
But since I don't I guess I am through.

It's really, really hard to play a trumpet and sing at the same time, but he's managing it.

Somehow.

And he doesn't sing very well, either.

But then, there's a lot of caca-phony to drown it out. It nearly drowns out the sound of his jingling spurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 10:03 PM

Just keep your skirts drawn tight. There's them around here what likes to stand below and look up as you go round.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 10:05 PM

Excuse me ma'am ... ya, go up to the ferris wheel ... the guy operating it can help you with everything you want or need.

Jeeeesh .... my mother told me never to hang out at the carny.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,#24
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 11:37 PM

My God. I haven't been anywhere like this in such a long time, not since my first small town County Fair, the summer before I began High School. It's so...so innocent, so quaint, so inviting. So Nice. It's a flashback to that long-ago time, before gangs, before drugs, before politics, before punch clocks and responsibilities and deadlines and mortgages, before infidelities, before positive biopsies and negative feedback, before dreams were dashed and unlimited possibilities were squandered, before my weakness let fear eat its way into the inviolate and irreducible core of my heart. It's such an epiphany to see through these eyes once again, I love it. Thank you for inviting me Amos.

The afternoon meanders into evening and the sky takes upon itself a deep blue hue more imperious than the sea's. The lights strung above begin to glow a warm, embracing yellow-gold, not that damned urban pink of today. But the crowd jostles, and even tho Neil reminds me "all my friends are there," it begins to feel lonely. Then I see...her. Long brown hair with bangs over her brows, exquisite, probing brown eyes that in an instant lock onto mine stripping away my armor of self delusions, and yet, tho leaving me defenseless, seek not to wound, but instead hint at approval. Of me (of all people), of the Real Me.

Emboldened, we explore together. We fearlessly walk the Not Quite Totally Tuned Twelve-String Tunnel of Terror.We put a nickle in, then stand on, the Pentatonic Scales to get our weight and the little card with our fortune on it. At last we make our way thru the Big Brazilian Forest over to Rick Fielding Field where we find the nightly ball game stuck in it's Suspended 7th Inning Stretch. We spread a blanket out under the stars. Sleep comes easily, and with it the chance to dream some more...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 11:41 PM

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 11:50 PM

An this song just starts to come out of me ...

Saw a man with the jinx in the third degree
From trying to deal with people--people you can't see
Take away, take away, this house of mirrors
Give away, give away, all the souvenirs
We're all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world
The flat old world
The street is a sideshow from the peddler to the corner girl
Life is a carnival--it's in the book
Life is a carnival--take another look

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 12:04 AM

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down:
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return; we can only look behind
From where we came,
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 05:37 AM

This just doesn't sound like Blackpool to me Bert!
Now where did I put that "Kiss me quick" hat?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 06:59 AM

Ugh! Oh! NO! Stopped at the top of the ferris wheel, and I forgot to take my Dramamine....Ohhhhhhhhhh.....Nooooooooooo....That poor couple down there on the blanket!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: gnomad
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 07:16 AM

Enter one overdressed bloke, dark suited with topcoat and briefcase. His beard looks out of place on him, though right for the tavern. He and Shane look at each other warily; Shane because he mistrusts all suits on principle; gnomad because he is in his weddings, funerals and interviews kit and has concerns for its safety. They each withdraw slightly, gnomad is relieved that there is (so far) no sign of jello-wrestling, in fact the place is pretty much pristine.

"Folks, I am thinking of rejoining the ranks of the gainfully employed, and am on my way to discuss the idea with a prospective employer. Hence the unacustomed tidiness of my garb. You need not fear, I am selling nothing, nor am I snooping for anyone.

What I would like is a large coffee, chewable strength, no sugar, nothing to make it white. A nice sunny table and a bit of something soothing on the fiddle would help too. Thank you."

He props the briefcase against a table leg, picks up the coffee and heads towards the sunlight, intending to ask the duck if it knows Geoff from Pontefract. He is just in time to see it making for the foot of the stationary ferris wheel, he resolves not to follow until things get a bit less messy.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 07:22 AM

Over there in the corner is the busker...

"Oh, Lawd, Dick Cheney, Bam-ba-lamb (2x)
Dick Cheney went a huntin', Bam-ba-lamb(2x)
Bagged himself a lawyer, Bam-ba-lamb(2x)
But he hasn't died yet......
Dick Cheney where'd you shoot from?"


Don't applaud, throw money!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: gnomad
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 07:33 AM

gnomad starts, checks his watch, then relaxes. His memories of the quest to meet JohnInKansas have not quite made him late.

He still has the banner with the strange device as a souvenir (in his briefcase) but accepts that for this year at least the pancakes on Shrove Tuesday will have to be made the usual way, not by Prof. Branestawm's pancake machine as he had hoped. He still believes that John is the man to make it, though, and the quest nags him gently.

He heads for the exit.

"Thank you for the break, guys. Wish me luck. Oh, and if that duck happens to come back by, you might want to check him for a concealed banjo before providing him with a Speckled Hen, on me. No, I mean the beer, MrsDuck wouldn't approve of anything else. Put the change in the tip jar OK?"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 08:39 AM

Is the creative chocolate eating contest still on for 7 pm? I'm suppossed to be the technical assistant to the judges and Identify the various elements of the cometition.

and someone rumoured there was a "record your own CD" booth somewhere around here - anyone seen it?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 08:43 AM

Whew! Missed the couple. Hit the duck, tho'.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 08:55 AM

On the ground at last!

Look! There's jimmyt and Allan C right outside of the "Tattooed Lady's" booth.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:09 AM

A final blast of the trumpet comes over the six-story-high speakers, and an announcement....

Laid
ease &
gentilemen,
Goys &
Burls!
the
bookmobile has
arrived and is now
open for business!
Over a quarter
million books on
folk, blues, jazz
and other such
music! Over a
million recordings
and the stuff to
play them on, from
wax cylinders to
telepathetic
stereo! All of your
fave raves of the
past, present, and
future! Come one,
come all, and learn
that you’re not the
first one to play
“rosin the beau” in
12/8 and the key of
E#! Everyone
welcome except
shane, who owes
more than he can
ever pay in library
fines! See officer
dana, the library’s
security officer, in
her tight leather
uniform! Marvel to
her tassel
twirling! Come one,
come all (except
shane, unless he
pays his library
fines) to this
informational
marvel of the age!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:11 AM

As well they might be! This tatooed lady is reputed to have every single model of guitar Martin ever made tatooed on her person somewhere, including a large twelve-string cleverly drawn around her Dreadnought...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:15 AM

Who owns that salmon pink tent on pitch 404? I did hear a rumour that he was royalty descended from a long line of blues blooded Pennsylvanians.
Could it posssibly be HRH Max Spiegel?
Oh be still my beating heart, our Raison d'etre is amongst us, the common people.
Your Majesty we are not worthy, especially that Jessup chap!
Exits walking backwards and bowing.
Giok [a humble denizen]

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:27 AM

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that? Could you repeat it, only a little louder?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:49 AM

MMario, I've been looking for you. Wanna join me for a Bloody Mary down in the Willow Garden Cafe and Little House of Horrors? I want to hear more about those chocolate comets.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:59 AM

I'm with you! We should be able to get there before the Poxy Boggards scheduled set. Have you heard their rendition of Happy Jack's Undrinkable Ale?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 10:01 AM

HAPPY JACK'S UNDRINKABLE ALE
Lyrics and Music by Stu Venable
Copyright 1992 Stu Venable

Good sailors sing songs of lassies and bravery and fortune
How the sea fills their hearts with the courage to do mighty deeds
But I'll sing a song of a sailor I met in Jamaica
Who tested the bravest of brave in all seven seas.


Happy Jack's undrinkable ale

One mighty sup puts the wind in your sail

It's Happy Jack's undrinkable ale.
Our captain once tried a tankard of Jack's mighty potion
He seemed all right so we all went off to bed
We woke to the screams of our captain way up in the crow's nest
He tried to fly with the wind and he ended up dead.

Chorus
This ale was as dark as a night with no moon in December
As bitter as a man who lost his pizzle in May
As strong as six horses, as bitter and evil as Judas
Ask the worldliest drinkers of Jack's, they'll most surely say.

Chorus
I sailed with a lad who was tall and as wide as a mountain
One half a pint put this sailor down upon one knee
We watched as he turned as white as the high cliffs of Dover
And threw-up old Jack's as a gift to the mighty blue sea.

Chorus
I once tried a thimble of Jack's demonic invention
But for the spinning I felt that I was all right
I woke with a chicken, two ducks, a lamb and an oxen
By the looks on their faces I must have had a good night.

Chorus

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 10:11 AM

Out in the cerulean bay, around the Point of Sharps, comes a cloud of white canvas and sparkling brightwork, taut lines humming in the afternoon shore breeze. The ratlines are festooned with bright-eyed folkies who have heard about the goings-on. Joe Offer stands to the helm, expertly gauging the wind and schooning her into the bay under the expert eye of Skipper Morse.

It is The Mudcat Schooner, one hundred and twenty feet of sheer nautical precision and grace, a poem in canvas and line, varnish and brass. She swoops down the bay to a point just a cable's length from shore, swings gracefully up into the wind, her canvas rattling down and her wide-tooth hook splashing down, into the sandy bottom. She sways ahead, to the scope of her chain, pauses, and lies back as the anchor digs in.   With a a gentle shudder, she lies to her anchor, home.

The summery afternoon air echoes with the combined voices of all hands, lining the rails and skittering down the lines to the deck, in four clear parts of sweet harmony:

Awaaaay-O! The Mudcat!
The Mudcat Schooner-o!
The Mudcat takes you anywhere
That you could want to goooooo.....

The decks rapidly wahsed down, the canvas furled and tied, the booms chocked and the hallilards taut, lines coiled and neatly made ship-shape, the schooner readies for a stay on the hook.

A few hands man a block and sway up a boom, which rapidly lifts away a long and graceful liberty boat, and then another, laying them alongside as neat as a librarian's pencils, bright white against the pale blue water. Oars are broken out and manned, and soon boatload after boatload of tanned and ready Folkies comes sweeping in and unloading at the beach, carrying mandolins, tambours, bagpipes, mouth harps, blues guitars, Dobros, 12-strings, banjos and tuners.

They scatter among the paths of the great carnival, the grog shopes, the midway pitches and the boardwalk displays of food, magic, music and affection.

At her hook with only an anchor watch on board, the great schooner nods in grace, talking things over with the gentling sea.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 11:05 AM

A scratchy CD from old transferred recordings is heard playing from the carnival grounds parking lot picnic area. A pickup truck is parked next to a table under the trees, doors open so the speakers can be heard for some distance around. A barbecue grill smokes on the other side of the table, where a nice slab of salmon is nearly finished. The songs, all recorded by John Dwyer, are not arranged according to political correctness. The laughter and applause throughout indicate a live performance recording.

Ah, Carnival, the perfect opportunity to bring out non-PC favorites. When the bawdy Zulaika comes on, the sound is turned way up.

Zulaika was fair to see
A young Persian maiden was she
She lived in Baghdad
Where all men are bad
But none was as bad as she
She lived in Baghdad
where all men are bad
But none was as bad as she

Her husband was very old
With millions in silver and gold
He kept her locked in
Away from all sin
For Persians are terribly bold
He kept her locked in
Away from all sin
For Persians are terribly bold

On her head she wore a tur-ban
Which came from the fields of I-ran
Where no one could see
She kept a small key
Which she threw out again and again
Where no one could see
She kept a small key
Which she threw out again and again

The first time she threw out the key
It fell by the old banyan tree
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked her lover Ali
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked her lover Ali

The next time she threw the key out
It fell by the old water spout
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked her lover Mahout
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked her lover Mahout

She threw out the key once again
Expecting her lover Sulieman
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked a whole caravan
She sighed and she cried
The door opened wide
And in walked a whole caravan

The leader he bowed his head low
Expecting her answer to know
The most of you say
Zulaika did say
But children and camels must go
The most of you say
Zulaika did say
But children and camels must go

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 11:37 AM

Crewmembers from the Mudcat Schooner ready to make the evning long and never still, crowd around Stilly's Sterling Stout Stand tavern, carrying away large mugs of brown stuff, tall glasses of magical Reisling, and shots of amber single malt to put in their coffee. The gaiety is infectious.

Under a banyan tree, shadowed from the twinkling torchieres that have lit themselves by evening, a portly aging man in baggy faded levis and a bright green Pendleton, strums merrily on a large Ukelele, and bellows out bawdy lines in a worn but still serviceable baritone.

I'm the Sheeeeeik of Aaaarabeeee (with no pants on!)
Your love beLONGS to meeeeee! (with no pants on!)
At night, when you're asleep (with no pants on!)
Intoooo your tent I'll creeep (with no pants on!)
The stars that shiiiine abooove, (with no pants on!)
Will light our way tooooooo Luhhhhhhve! (with no pants on!)
You'll rule this land with me, (with no pants on!)
I'm the shake the shook the Sheeeeik of Aaaraby!!! (with no pants on!)

Several lithe and comely lasses from the Mudcat Schooner stroll by, plucking tunes on mandolins in harmony. They pause to laugh at the man's funny song, and blow him affectionate kisses as they stroll onward under the boughs of spice trees. The old and portly man winks merrily at them, and watches them meander onward, and sighs deeply.

If yooou like Ukelele lady,
Ukelele Lady like-a you....,

he strums and sings softly as the moon rises over the bay, coloring all the merrymakers in its benevolent glow.

If you like to linger where it's shady
Ukelele Lady linger too ---oooo--ooo!

The smell of roasting mastodon whiffs through the trees, a faint counterpoint to the lingering scent of jasmine and love amongst the tropic shrubs. MMario is readying up a feast just past the Mudcap Mudcat Members Merry-go-Round, to the left of the Gaelic Goddess' Bards and Songster Decathlon tent. Just follow your nose. MMario is a masterful chef... and bon appetit!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 12:03 PM

rainbow at mudcat harbor in the rain (opposite Point Sharp) http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/rainybow1.jpg


leaving mudcat harbor (by the old Amos lighthouse) http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/rainbowships.JPG




The fog lifts on the bluffs above mudcat carnival near mudcat falls

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/daisyfalls.jpg


Close up of Amos lighthouse at night http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/lighthouse51.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 12:08 PM

Still can't take your malt as god intended then Amos?
G

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 12:15 PM

(Nice to know yer payin' attention, Oatmeal!)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:13 PM

Made you it thunk, for that dead I is?"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:19 PM

MM:

We're counting on you for a hearty barbecue of mastodon, accompanied by free-wheeling balladry at the Endless Food and Song Big Top just across Frailing Waters Creek. Don't stand aboot!! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:25 PM

shorry, 'Mos! Didn;'t see you stannin ther. ahm no' staddin aboot- ahm pragdictedly naw stannin' a'all!

dah barbar-hic-queue sauce for the mazzdadondon is parti-hic-ular-ularlee good today.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:45 PM

Well, since he's already marinated, and of a size, p'raps we'll barbecue MM instead....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:50 PM

naht m'fal'.

wahz JANie! - She forshed me t'drink bloody mary's! 'n the' I foun' thish shingull mal' barbarbar sauuz bu' the' wahz levted-ohverz.

coudden le' id go wahzsht,no?

wahz onlee a coubble of pindz.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 03:05 PM

Terribly sorry, Amos and the rest. It never thunk a great good lad like Leo couldn't handle a leetle bit of tomato juice and vodka. Myself, I just feel good and relaxed now--ready for to glide along with some nice harmony now. Course, it's Darlin' Corrie's white liquer I be used to drinkin'. That vodka's more like spring water, you know?

Nevermind--I've got a little mountain remedy I can mix up that 'll have the chef back in shape in no time---MMario! Come back here!

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Loooooooooooooooooooooooong John Sliver
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 03:41 PM

Avast, me hearties! Look to west'ard! See her! Sailin' into the bay now, mountin' 64 guns an' crewed by the best throat-cuttin' bully boys that ever plundered the Spanish Main, and every man-jack of them wantin' a little shore diversion, if ya take me meanin'. Arrgh! Flitter me mains'l if she isn't the old Queen Anne's Revenge, full rigged an' ready fer action and captained by the noble Captain Charlie himself!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 03:46 PM

Queen Anne's Revenge Thass when you eat too many carrots, ri' and then you turn oh-wrenge!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 04:45 PM

(Mind your hands bring only their musical instruments ashore, Mister Sliver. WOuldn't want to spoil a nice folk-gatherin', now....)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,Saucy Sal Silver
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 05:32 PM

"ee'll haf nowt ta do,but play the strings, if I 'af anyting to do wid it!" Saucy Sal sauntered down the gangplank, swishing her petticoats, all eight of them, under a silk skirt of scarlet red. She sashayed, slowly, thrusting her tightly corsetted bosom ahead like the prow of the ship she'd just left. Long John would be lucky to keep his ears, or other parts, if he thought he was going to play around on her!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 07:39 PM

On a park bench, under the biggest banyan tree, lies a woman in worn, rolled-up jeans and an old t-shirt that says "Nitro High School Wildcats Class of '69." Her cheap Walmart workboots stick straight up in the air and you can see her men's white crew socks with the worn out elastic rolling over the top of the boot. She yawns and stretches, slowly sitting up, vaguely wondering if she has been snoring, or merely drooling as she napped. It's Janie, the southern hillbilly woman.

"Uhmmmmmmm....I smell that barbeque" she says to no one in particular. "Ol' MMario must a sobered up!"

"Oh my, lookee there at that beeyoutiful sailin' ship out there in the harbor. When did it arrive?" She looks around for some one to ask. She sees a mild looking blue-eyed man in a disreputable hat walking down the Midway. She is about to call out "Bro' Joe" when her eyes widen in amazement at the sight behind him.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 09:47 PM

From the fort on the top of the hill across the bay a twenty-one-gun salute is fired in honor of the doings, and as the smoke from the old 36-pounders drifts away the soldiers, resplendent in red and blue uniforms and faux-bearskin shakos wander over to join the crowd.

Down the gangplank of "Queen Anne's Revenge," the scummiest vessel that you've ever seen, walks the Captain and his crew -- except for the cook, of course, who's in the scuppers with the staggers and jags. They greet the soldiers affably and start to pass around bottles of ardent spirits as two of the crew begin to play a button box and a ukulele, respectively if not respectably.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 04:31 AM

Then down the gangplank comes a man playing a banjo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 05:59 AM

Run for the hills!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 12:32 PM

STEP RIIIGHT UP, LADEEEZ AND GENTLMINNN!
I can guess yer weight, innybody's weight, within two pounds.
I get it right, it costs ya a mere dollar; just a dollar.
I get it wrong, you go home a winner.
If I'm wrong by more than two pounds, you pick a nice prize off one of those bottom two shelves.
But, ladies and gents, that's not all.
If I'm wrong by more than 5 pounds, you get that beautiful Estaban guitar right there.
But that's not all!
If I'm wrong by more than 10 pounds, you get to choose a Martin or Gibson off the third shelf.
But that's still not all; lissen up now!!
If I miss your weight by more than 20 pounds, you take home that hand-made, inlayed,
GRIT LASKIN GUITAR right up there top-center.

You, the gentleman in the green shirt; how about you?
How about you, little lady? What's that shirt say? Nitro Wildcats? Hey, I don't have much experience
guessing wildcats; just look at those guitars.

Just one dollar, just one dollar, folks, for a chance to win one of these beautiful guitars!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:10 PM

As the long night of merriment wanes, and the early hints of a new dawn color the fringes of the wide bay beyond the shores of the Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo Carnivale, the ringing of zithers and autoharps, banjos and twelve-strings fades as the rowdy celebrants succumb to their night's indulgence in brown stuff, Reisling, Shiraz, single-malt, and bluegrass. Out on the pier a lone banjo-player watches the dawn begin its promises, and the thin but strong notes of his slow-plucked banjo drift over scores of sleeping folkies.

Amaaaaaaaazing grace!
How sweet the sound.
That saved a wretch like meeeeeee!....

Around the Point of Sharps, a slow chuffing sound begins to make itself heard. An early lobsterman out on his rounds? A herd of blue whales drawn to the merrymaking?

As the first rays of sunlight break over the horizon, shifting the sea's broad surface from a midnight purple through a silvered blue to the pale transparent aquamarine of its day job, the faint outlines of a broad, squat vessel can be seen plowing a furrow in the waters a few miles off the Point.

Her outline is unmistakeable to the lonely banjoplayer, who lights a small cigar, sips from a silvered flask, and smiles in recognition.

Her giant stacks unleashing clouds of white smoke and her giant side-wheels churning a broad foamy wake behind her, she chuffs slowly into the bay. You can barely make out the figures on her -- a Gambler leaning lazily against the promenade deck rail, a sweaty boilerman just outside the engine room hatch on the quarter, a bevy of lovely belles of assorted hues gathering outside the salon to watch the merry Mudcat shoreline heave into view.

The steamboat Albert J. Hansell has come to join the party.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:18 PM

I preferred waiting on the levee for the Robert E Lee, but now the levee's been a teensy weensy bit damaged I'll make do with this American excuse for the Waverley.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:21 PM

An ancient mariner finds a nice sunny spot on the broadwalk and sets his kit bag down. Watching the pretty girls walk by he sighs a wish he was twenty years younger and sits down on the warm planking. Opening up his lunch bag he munches slowly on a generously filled lobster roll; taking the occasional swig from a brandy laced bottle of springwater.

After lunch it's time to do a little busking and make enough money for a warm bed, or a train ticket back to Halifax. He rummages around his kit bag and pulls out a couple of wooden dolls he got from a Jowla bin in Liverpool. When he was a young man he used to watch Seth Davy sing on the corner of Bevvington Bush and make these dolls dance on an old plank of wood for money passers by would throw in his hat. When Seth died they were thrown into a dustbin and the mariner retrieved them for old times sake...

The mariner put out his hat and says "Well Seth Old Chap lets see if these dolls still have some magic in em mate"...The mariner sings and makes the dolls dance

WHISKEY ON A SUNDAY or COME DAY, GO DAY
(Glyn Hughes)
Chorus
da da da daaa
Come day, go day
Wish in my heart it were Sunday
Drinking buttermilk thru the week
Whiskey on a Sunday

He sits in the corner of Bevvington Bush
On top of an old packing case
he has three wooden dolls that can dance and can sing
And he croons with a smile on his face

His tired old hands tug away at the strings
And the puppets dance up and down
A far better show than you ever would see
In the fanciest theatre in town


In 1905 Seth davey died
and his songs were heard no more
The three wooden dolls in a jowlah bin ended
and the plank went to mend a back door

But some stormy night when you're passing that way
And the wind's blowing up from the sea
You'll still hear the song of old Seth Davy
As he croons to his dancing dolls three

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:22 PM

oh- how lovely to watch the dawn ---

wait - that's not dawn! It's a flaming Kestrel!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 03:33 PM

Who set that bird alight?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 03:55 PM

Diaghilev to music by Stravinski and choreography by Fokine.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 03:59 PM

Fokine-A! It was the Mojo Woman on the Albert J. Hansell who done it. I am really amazed it is still burning. Perhaps they have made an annual commemorative event of it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 04:35 PM

Janie brushes right past Bro' Joe, intent on getting a closer look at the steamboat and that seabird all afire up at the wharf. She waves off the barker wanting her to waste a dollar on trying to win a counterfeit gi-tar. (Maybe she shouldn't have been so hasty--he don't know just how heavy those workboots she's a wearin' really are, what with the steel toes and all.)
    She is nearly running as she approaches the wharf, afraid she'll miss something. But a voice singing, and the sound of little feet tapping, clogging, pull her to a halt. She looks around and sees an old man over on the edge of the boardwalk. He's singing a song she remembers her grandpappy singing, and he's got a couple of those little clogging dolls dancing on a 1x6, much like the one grandpappy had made for her when she was just a youngin'.
She glances toward the wharf, but moves across the midway to stand in front of the old man and his dolls. She watches and listens, foot tapping. Finally she steps forward and commences to clog along with the dolls. She stops when the old man does, and for a minute they just grin at each other. Then she tosses her dollar in the hat and moves on down to wharf, hoping that bird ain't burned out yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Bert
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 05:01 PM

The spirit of Mudcat past ripples down the sun-dapples... Ye Gods Amos! you after some kind of award? And it's Albert L. Hansell if you must know.

Nah! Emma B It's not Blackpool were at Saahfend ain't we. Right on that open sewer wot's called the Thames.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 06:26 PM

Off in the distance is the sound of a steam calliope playing a Sousa march....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 07:28 PM

The old man lets his voice rest a bit, and just lets the dolls step to the strains of "Under the Double Eagle".

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 09:30 PM

All the while muttering under his breathe, "First the damn trumphet, and now a Sousa march. What the hell is happening to folk music!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 09:54 PM

You ever ride a carousel to "Blowing in the Wind" or "Barbara Allen"?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 10:04 PM

Robert E Leej leaned against the railing, allowing the smoke from his cheroot to trail across the stern and disappear in a riot of sunlit water-drops thrown aloft by the paddlewheel. He taps the leather bag stowed securely in the pocket of his waistcoat, feeling the resistant weight of a cluster of gold coins. The cards had been good to him, the champagne crisp, and the fair lady never noticed when he had slipped out of her boudoir, clutching a rather extravagant emerald pinky-ring in his fist.
He grinned as he looked out over the long string of tents, marquees, pennants, hot-air balloons and assorted jetsam that had been erected along the beach. As the Hansell eased into the dock and dropped the gangway, he made his way to the walkway, tipped the brim of his plantation hat to a dark-eyed lady, and singing "O I come from Alabamy wit' a banjo on my knee", was lost in the carnival crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 10:09 PM

Never ride a carousel at all if I can help it. Same effect as the Ferris Wheel. This o' hillbilly is just loads of fun at a carnival!

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 10:22 PM

Robert E Leej thought he'd pulled a fast one. But Bro' Joe had spotted him right away. He knew this type. In fact, he was pretty sure he knew this particular man. Now Bro' Joe was all-in-all a pretty tolerant fella. He'd keep an eye out for this guy, but not go interferin' unless it was absolutely necessary. It wasn't like he hadn't warned everybody that they still needed to watch out for themselves and use appropriate caution, it bein' a midway and carnival an' such as all that.

"I don't know, though," he thought. "Maybe I should tag along after him for awhile."

He turned and began to follow Leej as he moved down the boardwalk. Then he noticed a circle with campfire singing off to the side. He forgot all about Robert E. Leej and headed for the singing.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 08:58 AM

The morning sun lifts itself over the lapping blue bay, casting tenuous shadows on the forms sleeping here and there on the beach in affectionate twos and even threes. Morning business is lively, as some tune, some stare bemusedly into large mugs of black coffee from Ron-Ron's Java Specialties of the World stand (Do do Ron-Ron!), or stagger down the sandy paths to Jen Ellen's House of Love and Animal Husbandry for a tall glass of Mojo Woman's Sure-Fire Hangover Remedy.

From the shade of the promenade deck, a lean and handsome gambling man stepped onto the gangway of the Albert L. Hansell, noticing with a small smile the hasty overpainting on the large gilt name-plaque on her superstructure. Ole Spaugh never was one for middle names, he thought wryly. He flexed his shoulders and trimmed his calfskin vest, pleased with the chink of gold eagles in the secret inner pocket. Yes, this had been a good trip, clear from the broad delta of the Mississippi to this hidden bay and island of delight in the middle of an unknown sea. He'd done well at the tables, and the beautifully matched, engraved derringers in his left and right inner pockets and not been needed once.

He strode ashore, delighting in the rich breakfast aromas and musical sounds rising from the Boardwalk and the far-flung Capo Carnivale. He thought of Robert E. Leej, had seen him wandering onto the beach a short while back, and wondered what the old cuss was up to.   He made his way along the boardwalk, passing with a smile a gang of early songsters around a campfire, and followed his intuition down the line of the bay, smiling at the beautiful demoiselles along the way, hearing and seeing everything, and missing nothing. That was how you survived, as a Gambler. Miss nothing, and be ready for anything. And he would have it no other way.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:59 AM

The ancient mariner has been very fortunate, his hat runneth over with silver coins and bank notes from all corners of the world (but predominately with US presidents on em)

Hoisting his sea bag and slinging it over his left shoulder with the ease many years of practise can give you he wanders towards the tavern where his shipmates from the schooner Mudcat are.

Ahoy Mates! He smiles at the lovely barmaid, and orders 10 jugs of Best Bitter   She frowns and asks the mariner don't you mean a jug and ten glasses? No Lassie ten jugs one each fer me and me mates.
Having a party she asks? No Lassie just a quiet drink with some old friends. He winks and leaves her a large tip....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 10:11 AM

In the corner of the tavern, shaded from the morning sun by the hanging sign outside bearing the Stilly's Sterling Stout, Tipples and Tupples sign, a small and foxy lady stands with a fiddle at her chin.

She notices the transaction between the comely barmad (none other than Stilly herself!) and DTAM, and tapping her foot, launches into Whiskey Before Breakfast, sensing intuitively it was the most appropriate of all her many songs. The drinkers nod, sway and tap their feet in appreciation.

The doorway fills with a tall shadow, and an impeccably dressed Southern gentleman wearing a Panama hat slouches in to the bar.

"Robert E. Leej, at your service, ma'am," he says softly to Stilly.

"A shot of good sippin' bourbon would suit me. And if you have any information about this I woudl be most grateful to know of it..." He unfolds a parchment form from his inner breast pocket and shows her the carefully inked black and red images inscribed there on in delicate steelpoint.

Stilly shakes her head, and gives him his bourbon. He wanders among the tables. For some reason, she watches his progress carefully, almost nervously. Ignoring the calls of customers,she doesn't take her eyes off him for a second.

She doesn't notice, therefore, the quiet form of the Gambler watching these peculiar goings-on from the doorway. He nods quietly to himself and slips back into the shadows, and moves on down the promenade.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 10:49 AM

Since "Queen Anne's Revenge" drove headlong and under full sail into the bank, it's grounded rather firmly in the stinking black mud, probably never to sail again. The crew have long since disembarked by sliding down lines attached to the bowsprit.

Still, a long figure treads the deck, smoke rising in the still morning air from the slow matches burning around his hatbrim. The sunlight glints off the ribbons in his curly black beard -- and from the evil, maniacal glint in his eyes.

Off in the distance, the calliope changes to a Gregorian Chant -- the "Dies Irae".

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:55 AM

The more musically astute (at least those without hangovers) notice a sudden but subtle shift in the tones of the calliope. It seems to have sheifted from gregorian to byzantine. Could it possible be....

The eyes of the devilish captain narrow, and his lips turn up in a thin smile. "Ah," he thinks to himself. "My old nemesis, El Greko, must be here, along with his crew of Byzantine Babes."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:46 PM

El Greko and the Byzantine Babes, having slipped to the top deck of the Albert L. Hansell, surround the calliope player with an unmoving wall of disapprobation and stern demand.

Cowed, the poor, raggedly dressed po'boy at the triple keyboard, confesses, overcome with remorse.

"I did it. It was that Bluebearded Teach feller over on the man-o-war. He offered me a doubloon, and he lit all these sulfur matches in his beard and threatened to behead me if I said anything!!!"

El Greko reaches into an overstuffed fanny pack and draws out a wad of greenbacks.

"Doubloons, be damned, lad. Here's twice their worth in good American buckaroos if ye can make that monster machine of yours play in flatted thirds and other devious intervals and rhythms unknown to Western ears.

And sure enough, given the right incentive, the po' boy finds it in his clever fingers to rap out the theme from Back to Istanbul with remarkable dexterity, and El Greko and the BBs slither off down the gangplank pirouetting in the best belly-dance tradition.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 02:52 PM

"GENTLEFOLK OF ALL PERSUASIONS!!" booms the loudspeakers (for the Norteamericanos) and tannoys (for those from the Old Sod).

"Step right up to the Midway where you will see sights never before seen and which will never be seen again! See the Bearded Lady! See her shave right before your eyes!! See the tattoed banjo player! Yes, tattoed by with every single banjoist joke known to man or woman! Tattoed as a punishment by the savages of Lowereastside, from whence he escaped with his life hanging by a thread! See the fire sword swallower, the only woman in the world who swallows flaming swords! And over in the tent next to the Dragon, you'll find a true marvel of the Age: the last living Chicago Cub who played in a World Series! Come one, come all! For only twennty-five cents (of the country of your choice) you will see the marvels and wonders you have never dreamed of!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 02:59 PM

Anyone willing to keep an eye on the barbecue pit while I catch the 4 pm matinee of 'East Side Story - the Musical' ; I hear they have a new arrangement of 'there's a couch for us' that'll knock your socks off.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 07:15 PM

One of the boiler hands from the steamboat gladly takes the chance to cool off by the barbecue for a while. He turns the mastodon steaks slowly on the giant spit, grinning at the pretty damsels wandering around wearing little more than their instruments in the warm midday sun, doffing his ragged kerchief and grinning gappily as they wave and walk on by.

From the back of her tavern, Stilly rolls out a gigantic cart laden with plates, trenchers, napkins and cutlery, and a feast is set out in front of the barbecue for those who need to line their stomachs against the assaults of strong drink and stronger hilarity in the evening ahead.

From the shade of a nearby banyan, the Gambler appears, fingering the gold coins in one pocket, and he leans over to Stilly for a whispered conversation while she lays out the settings. She shakes her head nervously, looking around to make sure she isn't being watched from some quarter, and speaks rapidly to him from the corner of her mouth. He thanks her, straightens up and vanishes among the shadows once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:46 PM

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it....

The phrase crept through the back thoughts of Charles Stonewall Delacroix, Gambler, as he watched the modern merrymaking folkies swarm to the groaning board laid out for them.

He thought back on how time had unfolded itself to this delightful confluence. A time long ago stirred within him, and a century raced into view in his mind's eye. He let the memories of the past unfold -- his early days on the river, followed lightly in the stream of mental images by recollections of his disappearance, his amazing encounters across time and space, and how it happened that folk music was saved from tyranny in that long ago place and time.

He watched the fruit of his labors, as a young woman wearing a hand-made mandolin struck up a fine duet with a shaggy lad playing a Taylor with some skill, and harmonizing sweetly to Lorena.

It matters little now, Lorena,
The past is in the eternal past;
Our hearts will soon lie low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.
There is a future, oh, thank God!
Of life this is so small a part---
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod.
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart.

His eyes moistened, and he drew himself together, remembering the new risks which made it necessary for him to be here, watching, seeing everything.

Innocence, he thought. They have no idea of the risks they take and the dangers into which they are standing even as they sing.

Through the trees, he again caught sight of the form of Robert E. Leej strolling toward one of the distant amusement rides, and thought again of the mysterious parchment, with its fine red and black lines, that Leej had shown the tavern mistress. He hastened crosslots in back of some shrubs and disappeared behind the banyans in hasty pursuit.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:05 PM

Hmmm. That was some nap. . . last thing I remember I was grilling salmon and listening to bawdy songs in the pickemup truck. . . turns over and goes back to sleep . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Once Famous
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:11 PM

Little Hawk said I would have fun here.


?!

This thread qualifies for the Joe Offer rubber stamp:

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:14 PM

Canadians are known for their dry sense of humour, Martin. What I really meant was that this thread would bore the shoes and socks right off your feet...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Once Famous
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:24 PM

You are right about that.

Dry sense of humor?

What humor?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:32 PM

we spell it.. humour .. Martin.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:03 AM

Shane wanders forlornly about, trying to find just one sign of real North Ontario culture, one Death Metal workshop, one Ozzie cover band, one wet T-shirt contest, one really dumb girl with majorly visible assets and not much good judgement, one replay of Hockey Night in Canada...in a sea of sophisiticated, cosmopolitan, multi-cultural folkies.

"I feel like a stranger in a strange flippin' land," he mutters disconsolately. Then he brightens up for a moment. "Geez. That'd make a good title fer a book..."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: number 6
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:05 AM

What the hell would Shane know about a book ... I doubt whether he can read.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:14 AM

He has ambitions as a writer. He figures it's a good way of getting paid without really working... (grin)

Didn't you know that he writes a humorous column for the Sudbury Sapsucker? Officer Dana got him started on it when he was in the pen, and he has kept it going since, earning a few bucks on the side. His readers fall into 3 camps: those who think he's an incoherent idiot, those who think he's a brilliant comic pretending to be an incoherent idiot, and those who embrace his idiotic hoseristic values themselves. So far it seems to be working out okay. It's Trailer Park Boys for readers.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: GUEST,The One
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:59 AM

The Boys from Brokenback Mountain strike again.
Mr. no wit, passive aggressive, wannabe Guru and his plebeian Buddies, the Mouth and the Hanger on.
Mr. no Wit manipulates yet another nightly mission to seek and destroy anything that takes away from himself and the sad fools he uses to vent his very obvious repressed anger. The Mouth was a gift from the dark side for him. A no brain who could be whipped into a frenzy on command and a Yes man. Perfect combo. A Mac Donald's Unhappy Meal of sorts.
Mission unaccomplished as usual however.
Meanwhile in the distance Folks are starting the arrive on the Boardwalk oblivious to the nocturnal antics of a few sad men.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:00 PM

The Gambler felt a cold wind sweep through the continuum, and he turned around to see what could have caused it. The day was bright and warm, the blue as blue, the music as fair. But something was surely stirring in the vibes, and it wasn't good.

He saw a dog-eared mustachioed acne-ridden folkie sidling toward the barbecue, carrying a Japanese guitar. Something, he knew, something was wrong with the fellow--not quite right. Delacroix' eyes narrowed in thought.

With a few swift steps, he came up behind the folkie in the black slouch hat and dog-eared jeans jacket.

"Excuse me, friend....". The man turned, and Delacroix looked him in the eye.

"Have you seen the Heron?"

The man's jaw dropped as fast as the cheap Japanese guitar, as he grabbed for something in his pocket. Too slowly, as it happened; In a half-second Delacroix had closed with him, and muffled by their bodies the sound of the silvery tooled derringer going off against the man's chest was muffled, and drew no attention.

The Gambler stretched the now lifeless form out against a jacaranda tree, with its hat over its eyes, and the Japanese guitar laid over the entry wound. Just a hung-over folkie, sleeping it off.

He slipped the man's knife from the jacket pocket, and heard a crisp and dusty rustle. In the inner pocket, he found a piece of parchment, looking as ancient as Karnak, but undamaged by time. He looked briefly at the strange red and black lines engraved on it, and slipped it into his own pocket behind the second derringer.

He noticed, but ignored, a small card that fell from the dead man's pocket. Wet with blood, its type was obscured. ".....bson,Agent Provacateur and Bassi...", it read.

Robert Stonewall Delacroix turned and headed for the Albert L. Hansell, leaving the cold, sleeping form to its rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:25 PM

Nice...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 02:08 PM

humor should not be spelled humour on an American website.

And some of you should not forget it is an American website.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 05:44 PM

"Anybody know where MMario got off to? I'm hungry as a bear!" exclaimed Janie, as she walked up to a group of sleepy, hung over songsters sprawled around a campfire. "I ain't never eat mastadon before and I am eager for to try some. These here funnel cakes is awlright, I guess, but they don't stick long in yer stomick." She was busy trying to brush the powdered sugar off her chin and t-shirt.

"Anybody up for a little gospel singin', seein' as how tommorrow is Sunday, and from the looks of it, some of you has done enough sinnin' the last 24 hurs that you better get an early start on repentin'."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 09:39 AM

Jeri turned over, gave Janie a dead-eyed stare, then pulled her jacket up over her head to block out the light. Sinsull Who Does Not Snore kept right on snoring. Gutbucketeer, who DOES snore, sat up and grinned.

Kendall, Jacqui and Amos were already up. Mugs of coffee in their hands, engrossed in their own conversation, they completey ignored the scene around the ashes of the campfire.

Charlie Baum popped out from behind a tree and cheerfully sang a Yiddish folk song. Carly sat up and immediately joined in.

In the distance, the calliope started up with "Stars and Stripes Forever." Rapaire, looking quite swashbuckling in his 3 Musketeers Hat with a rapier at his side, jumped up on the picnic table and began playing the flourishes on his trumphet. The Brits threw paper cups at him, but his mission was accomplished. Everyone was up.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 09:56 AM

Sated with rich food, folkies disperse to all corners of the Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo-Clinching Carnival, some to take the languorous Swan Boat Ride through the winding tunnels of the Mystery Tune and Lost Chord Cruise, some to meander past the stands sniffing the jasmine, the quaint incense, the bright-colored scented soaps, or admire the hand-made jewelry on offer. Not Joe Offer -- he doesn't wear that stuff.

Two wrinkled men steer across the clearing behind the barbecue to resume a bluegrass session, one carrying an elegant Silver Lady, the other an worn but beautiful D-28. They step over the ankles of the still, prostrate form leaning against the jacaranda tree, its hat gently laid over its eyes.

"Sleeping off a bad night, pal?", one remarks as they step over, heading for the gathering.

"Don't bother him," the guitar player rejoins. "Believe me, we're better off with him sleeping it off. I played with him for a while when we first got here, and if ever there was a candidate for an asshole costume, it's that guy."

The sun in early afternoon made bright whites and dark shadows of the gingerbread along the quarterdeck of the Albert Hansell as the Gambler came out of his stateroom and moved down the deck to the door that led to Robert E. Leej's quarters. He took a small folded card, engraved with his name and station, out of his pocket, and wrote on it briefly with a small pencil stub.

Urgent we talk; call on me at any hour. C.S. Delacroix

He tucked it under the brass number plate on the door, annoyed that the man he most needed to talk to was not answering his knock.

He returned to his own quarters and sat on the small bench against the wall, and cleaned and reloaded his silver derringer. You never know, he thought, when you are going to want one primed and ready.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 11:17 AM

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, a freds turned on a hyperspatialtransdimensional warpviewer, scanned for a bit, and then called his friends and genetics to see what itshehe had found. A steamboat, a sailing ship beached in stinking black muck, a carousel, a gambler -- they all gasped in amazement and chuckled at what fools these Earthlings be. Still, they wished that the labrador retriever would come through without injury; not that they were animal lovers, but because they needed the genetic material....

And back on the Boardwalk, a black lab chased seagulls....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 12:59 PM

One of he/she/its decided to lock on to the labrador with a tractor beam. Why take a chance on it being destroyed before they had a chance to use its DNA? Moving targets presented no problem, the quark sight was really quite reliable under most circumstances. They might get a seagull also, but--what the hey....

The a fred flipped the switch on the tractor beam. The beam travelled across space and time, zeroing in on the labrador. Nanoseconds before the beam would have captured the dog, a skinny fella in a black hat with a steel resonator guitar stepped into the line of fire. The beam deflected off of the shiny resonator at an oblique angle, and locked onto the apparently still sleeping honcho under the jacaranda tree. The body of the fella dissapperated in less than an instant as the particles began their long journey
up through space.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 02:01 PM

Through the bluegrass and marching band music, came the sound of the caravan.
The North Gypsy Caravan of Color, all pulling in at the west end of the beach.
Their buses and trailors loaded down with firewood and fiddles, dulcimers and drums, pigs and pipes, bangles and barrel organs, tamborines and a tipsy sailor with his pet bandicoot, they had picked up along the hyway. The tipsy sailor said his name was Fillmore East, so they took it as an omen to go to the west.
The band parked and started to unload and set up camp, raising the (freak) gypsy flag, announcing their arrival.

Zeak of Zerkel starting for the boardwalk to invite one and all to the drum circle tonight, followed by the sultry sounds of Isadora of Isanti playing her customized concertina in the key of C sharp. A concert sure to stun all senses!

Rustic Rebel of Rayville climbs out from behind the wheel of one of the buses, streches, yawns, throws her clothes of in a flash and makes a mad dash into the sea. It's been a long overdue trip for this one...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 02:13 PM

Robert E Leej waited for the footsteps to fade down the hallway before slowly opening the door to his quarters. He saw the card from Delacroix, closed the door, read it in silence. He then took a piece of foolscap from his writing chest and scribbled a note. It read
"Charley old friend,
I say this to you with thoughts in mind of the many kindnesses you have shown me through the years, of the bloody miles we traveled together in the late lamented rebellion, and of the many poker pots we have split amicably since those days. I am aware that you have been making certain inquiries. So are others whose malicious attention you have attracted. Even now, you are followed. Please, Charlie, leave this matter be. You must not involve yourself, as it holds the greatest threat to your life, your soul, and your honor. I am duty-bound to warn you from this course of action that will likely involve me in direst disaster, and you, should you be foolish enough not to desist.
Having said all of this, I am fairly certain, due to the same bull-headedness that made you charge the Yankee line at Antietam with a minie ball in your shoulder, that you will make the wrong decision and plunge headlong into this peril. If this is your decision, then I wash my hands of the consequences. Meet me at eight this evening at the Great Oak in the wood behind the Whizzy Wig Gospel Tent. Mind the pale, ginger haired fellow who will attempt to follow you.

Regards

Robt L Leej"

Leej folded the note, sealed it with candle wax, and strode down the companionway to the Hansell's Tavern. There he saw a cabin boy, whom he tipped with a two-bit piece, saying "go fetch Mr Delacroix, lad." Soon, the boy returned with a puzzled and perturbed Delacroix in tow.
Delacroix strode up to Leej, saying "what's this? Summoning an old comrade in the manner of a King, Bobby!" Leej smiled and handed the note to Delacroix, saying quietly "I trusted no one to take it to you. Read it, then burn it." With this, Robert E Leej tipped his hat and strode toward the entrance, stopping to place his hand firmly on the shoulder of a pale, ginger fellow who had just entered. "Bartender. Give this jovial-looking fellow an absinthe. Actually, make it two." The green liquid was served up, and Leej fixed the man in his glance, clicked glasses in a toast, then drank, casting a quick glance toward Delacroix. "Excellent!" said Leej, placing a folded bill on the bar. "Now, I really must be going, but see that this fine fellow gets two more of the same." Leej turned his back on the baffled pale man, smiled at Delacroix, and left.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 02:23 PM

From the water's edge comes a gurgling, whistling sound and one eye, an eye the size of the clock face of Big Ben, peeks above the waves.

The brouhahahahahaha has reached down into the deep and awakened...Architeuthis (Archie to his friends), the Giant Squid.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 03:31 PM

A tanned young folkie, deck-hand of the Albert Hansell, sat on the gray, weathered beams that marked the boundary of sand and boardwalk, changing strings on his scarred but sturdy Martin. He hummed as he rolled the old set into neat coils and tucked them away for emergencies. A, D, G...the afternoon sun was pleasant on his shirtless form and his legs beneath the ragged cutoff jeans he wore, and he hummed a shanty to himself as he worked.

Ye bully boys of Liverpool, I would have ye to beware
And when ye sign to a packet ship, no dungaree jumper wear.
But have a good donkey jacket, all ready to your hand,
For there blow some cold nor'westers....!!!!

He looked up in astonishment as the waters of the gentle surflline seemed tp part with shimmering awe, revealing the form of a beautiful and bounteous woman wading out from a swim. Her ringlets, plastered to her fair brow, dripped graceful rivulets of sea water onto her gleaming, suit-less shoulders. The boy's jaw began to drop as he took in the monumental eloquence of this shimmering form.

He nearly choked on his next words, a mixed gurgle and shout driven by fear and infatuation in roughly equal volumes. "Looo...looo..loook OUT MISSSS!!"

He leapt to his feet, tearing across the sands at a surprising clip. From the slightly darker water behind the beautiful lass, a froth and a rippling sound broke out, and a huge, writhing tentacle, lined with suckers and dotted with barnacles, snaked through the warm after noon air, seeking and sensing....

He tore past the puzzled but beautiful damsel, who only began to shriek after she followed his flight past her into the shallows behind her. He slugged the leading tip of the nearby tentacle as hard as he could, feeling it was futile, but knowing he had to do something. The giant, serpentine form veered away and then back, sensing and seeking revenge. In an instant it had begun to wrap itself around the sturdy deck-hand's shoulders, blistering his tan hide with sucker-marks and barnacle scrapes. The woman screamed louder, numbed with terror, as a second tentacle loomed out of the deep and writhed toward her.

Struggling to free his shoulders, the lad twisted mightily and got one arm free. He looped the used B string rapidly, once, twice, around the base of the massive snakelike arm; and gritting his teeth wrapped the ends around either hand and drew tight; tighter and tighter. The blood began to spurt from the cuts in his handfs where the wire dug in, but he closed his eyes and heaved harder on the ends, and the wire cut surely and deeply into, and finally completely through, the foul tentacle at its thickest part.

A spray of ugly dark blood spouted from the shorn stub, which thrashed angrily. A storm of heaving waves, froth and flying tentacles began at the surface just a few yards off shore, and with a huge hissing and screaming sound the body of the giant monster through itself into the air, landing with a towering splash of water and dark clouds of blood, and thrashed its way into the deep waters, away from the shallows along the tip of Point Sharp, thrashing and foaming the surface as it went.

The lad staggered ashore and put one hand on the lovely woman's trembling shoulder as they watched the monster's wake disappear beyond the point.

"Are...are....are you all right, ma'am?", he asked timidly.

She looked at his lacerated shoulders and bleeding hands, and at the bloody stump of tentacle still slopping in the surf-line, and she looked at him.

Still dripping seawater from her naked form, she smiled....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 10:26 PM

Uh.....lessee.........uhmmm......

And THEN what happened?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 10:32 PM

Scenting the blood of Archie's amputated arm, a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), fully mature and full of aggression, swims into the harbor and straight for the squid!

"Ladeees AND Gennlemen! Come one, come all, to the Beach to see the greatest combat ever seed in these parts! A whale of a whale versus a giant squid! A sight rarely seen and never before by human beans! Drop what you're doin' and come to the beach! Admission is only one thin US dollar!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 10:58 PM

The ancient mariner loads his Colt Commander and straps the Galco holster and double mag pouch on. Holstering the Colt in cocked and locked condition, he adjusts the knife on his left side and checks his cutlass. This place can be downright dangerous guess I should take a few precautions before venturing around here....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 12:09 AM

The water explodes! Great sheets of spray, tinged red with the blood of the two mammoth marine monsters, reflect rainbows over the heads of the awe-struck crowd. Never had they even imagined a sight like this! The first human beings to see this epic battle between ancient foes! Levithan and Kraken, the world seemed composed of nothing but flukes, tentacles, and those immense sheets of scarlet-tinted water!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 09:00 AM

In the stunned silence a voice was heard, "Hey, somebody ought to write a song about this!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 09:56 AM

Awed by the incredible spectacle off Point Harp, the deckhand the the wind-drying folkie lass stood in the sand, his hand still on her shoulder, until the battle had waned and the heaving seas of the battleground had calmed. Then she turned and smiled again, and said, "I really should get my clothes on. What will people think? And you need some first aid. Let's head over to Jen's. She has just what we need, I am told, to put things right. I'm parked over on the west edge, near her place."

The boy, his normally placid mind already overburdened with love, terror, pain and adrenalin, nodded mutely.

"You were a hero, you know. I can't think about what might have happened if you hadn't been there tuning your guitar...."

They strolled back down the boardwalk, a dramatic ripple in the tides of people going to and fro by the great bay. In the sunlight. In the afternoon. At the Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo-Clinching Carnival...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 10:01 AM

Queen Janie commands and i obey over the hills and far away.....

If you'll gather 'round me children
A story I will tell
Of Delacroix the gambler
Oh the Mudcat knew him well.

It was on the Carnival broadwalk
It was Saturday afternoon
His friends a drinking in the tavern
As on the decks he strode.

There a scruffy folkie approached him
In a manner rather rude
threatening him with violence
and the gambler he pursued

The folkie grabbed a long knife
And the gambler grabbed a gun
And in the fight that followed
He laid that folkie down.

He took to the steamboat Albert Hansell
He knows a life of shame
but no crime in Mudcat city
was added to his name

As through this world I ramble
I've see all kinds of men
Some will rob you with a Six gun
And some do it with a ballpoint pen.

All your life you travel
As through your life you roam
You won't never see old Delacroix
Drive a folkie from their home.

with suitable appologies to Woody Guthrie fer hijacking his song Pretty Boy Floyd

Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 10:04 AM

(LOL DTAM!! Nice to see you in top form!)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 10:07 AM

Yours, Aye cap'n Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 11:15 AM

Mean while, Janie has moved to a bench near the center of the midway. Her eyes are closed and she basks in the warm sun, feeling quite pleased to have been called a Queen. "If I were a Queen," she muses, "I'd make that old mariner an Admiral."

"I wonder if I dare try to ride the 'Holy Modal Harmonica' attraction. Do Queens puke?"

She opens her eyes and gasps in shock. "Greatgawdallmighty, lookit there--it's a nekkid lady coming right down the midway--not a stitch of clothes nor an ounce of shame upon her!" Passers-by glance at the nude young lass, then turn to gape at the hillybilly woman making such a spectacle of herself.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 11:29 AM

Meanwhile out in the bay, the sperm whale is seen hoisted above the water by four rigid tentacles. The whale is spun around, first clockwise and then counterclockwise, and finaly SLAMMED to the surface! The crowd goes mad! And then, as two tentacles breach and begin to shake each other in the traditional manner, they vanish -- pulled straight down by...something!

And the surface of the water roils and boils and two huge heads break the surface.

The combatants, bloody and beaten, look at each other and their gaze softens...and they are still.

And to the delighted surprise of the crowd, the sea creatures turn to the open ocean and swim away, fluke in tentacle, their anger spent and replaced by something far nicer....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 11:34 AM

Robert E Leej puffed a cheroot and sipped a glass of Madiera as he watched the horrific struggle in the bay. Suddenly, an idea took bloom in his eyes and he drained the wine, heaving the stogie into the corner of his mouth. Leej stripped off his swallow-tail jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and borrowing a boat-hook from one of the crewmen, began to fish about in the gory brine. At last he had what he had sought and, dropping it into a bucket, made his way to the tavern where he found Delacroix, and his the man who had been following him, were gone. He spoke a few words to the bartender, then handed him the bucket.
Leej returned to his room, where he busied himself with cleaning and loading his two-shot Derringer pistol, and reviewing his plans for the evening. He had not been long at this when a knock was heard at the cabin door, and he opened it to usher in a steward with a rolling cart, upon which stood a silver bucket holding Spanish Cava on ice, and a large covered dish. As the steward closed the door behind him. Leej seated himself by the cart, popped the champagne, and lifted the lid of the dish, disclosing the freshest, not to mention largest, plate of calamari he had ever had the pleasure to behold.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Pied Piper
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 12:08 PM

Meanwhile overhead at 10,000 feet a Hercules transport plane with the logo of the Confederate air force circles, as a crack team of Mudcat neo-cons prepare for the jump.
Their leader crew cut and boot blacked gives them some final encouraging words
"Lets get down there and kick us some whinin' liberal Ass"

The bay door swings open the wind howls like a hammer and one by one they are gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 01:53 PM

Focused on their jump and fear they would instill upon landing, they realized half-way down that it would have went much better if they had remember their parachutes....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 02:32 PM

You'd better miss me boys i'm no liberal, glide west young men......

The ancient mariner passes a fresh towel to the lovely young naked lady who is now trying to open the door to a ladies changing room to retreive her clothes surrounded by some dangerous looking men who were chasing her down the broadwalk.

"Stand Fast" he steps in front of the men and his hand drops instinctively to the Colt .45 "The lady don't need your company in there"   The mob becomes angry some of them are reaching inside their pockets for weapons when the mariners eyes menace them into innaction He says very firmly "If you draw a weapon boys don't blink cause you'll die in the darkness if you do" Only one man decides to try; out of his pocket comes a snubbie .38 S&W revolver
The .45 fires three times two bullets concentrated dead centre in the mans chest and one large hole appears in the mans forehead he is dead before the body hits the broadwalk.

That's called the Mozambique drill boys, anyone else need a demo?

The crowd quickly fades away.... The mariner sits down and waits for the police to arrive....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 03:19 PM

"So, you say this man drew on you while you were defending the naked lady?", said the Marshall, sucking thoughtfully on the left handlebar of his droopy moustache.

"That's keerect." replied the old salt, who was wiping out the barrel of his .45 and refilling the mag. "She hadn't asked fer their company, and when I suggested they stand off a ways, he took serious exception. Unfortunately, my serious exception was a little faster than his'n."

"Wal, I guess it was self-defense, in the course of chivalrous activity. So we won't be pressing no charges, Mister Mariner. 'Round these parts, that's considered commendable, not culpable. But I would suggest you keep your peace and your piece in the future; we don't want to start no gun-waving foolishness, you understand."

"Perfickly, Marshall, and thanks very much. APpreciate your quick and accurate judgement in the matter."

The old sailor slipped the hogleg back inhis saggy sailor's torusers, and tipped his hat to the Marshall, who turned to oversee the trash collectors hauling a large black plastic packageover to their dumptruck.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 04:45 PM

"Pretty small place when the Marshall and the supervisor of Public Works are the same person," remarked a cocky looking young man with tatoos all up and down his arms and torso.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 05:44 PM

(The Marshall was just making sure the body was being treated with appropriate respect, Janie!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 06:07 PM

Meanwhile, several splashes are heard off in the distance -- splashes that stop the screams in, so to speak, mid-air.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 08:46 PM

The sun dwindled down to promise a kiss to the far horizon, over darkening waters lying still in late afternoon shadows. The shadows lengthened slowly as the hours ticked by, the sounds of music rising and fading as groups formed and unformed along the treeline within earshot of the Albert Hansell. In the dining lounge, Charles Stonewall Delacroix pushed himself away from a warming and fulfilling plate of buffalo steak, haricots verts, baby fried potatos and a fine Italian sald, lit a cheroot, and gazed out the window at the shadows. He drew a turnip-stem winder from his waistcoat pocket, and thought for a moment, gazing at it. His date with his old companion was in an hour and a half.

Throwing a silver dollar down on the table cloth and throwing back the dregs of Hennessy from his brandy snifter, he strolled out onto the prom deck and back to his stateroom. The door locked behind him with a firm, satisfying click. Dropping the key in his pocket, he drew the shade over the small porthole and lit the kerosene lamp suspended in a bracket on the wall. He took out the parchment he had lifted from the Heron agent posing as a bassist, now strangely disappeared , and studied it in the flickering light. It looked something like a river, something like a religious vision, and perhaps something like a blueprint for a steam engine he had once seen in an old blacksmith's shop in Cairo, Illinois, where they were trying to repair a low-pressure piston ring that had cracked. It was intricately drawn in extraordinarily fine lines, some red as blood from a newly cut artery, and some as black as a Heron's burnt-out soul.

HE ondered the matrix of numbers laid in fine rows in the lower right corner --he couldn't figure it out. 1..4..5..4...6.5...1...6.5...2.5...4...on and on for about twelve rows... He wrestled with cyphers he had seen during the war, but none of them seemed to match it. He sighed and returned it to his coat pocket, straightened his four-in-hand and shrugged it off, readying hiomself for his rendezvous. He puffed thoughtfully and hummed a snatch of a tune he had heard earlier in the day...

'Tis dust, to dust beneath the sod,
But there -- oh, there!--'tis heart to heart...

He doused the glim, unlocked the door, and made his way slowly toward the gangplank in the early evening shadows, watching, seeing everything and missing nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 10:08 PM

(oh hell, Amos--I'm just proved what an ignorant ol' hillbilly I really am:?)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 11:51 PM

"Damndamndamn." Janie stomped her boot in sorrow and anger.

A man had just died because of her. Sure, he had been an ass, but if she hadn't been so stupid, the stampede never would have occurred. And there was that poor purty nakkid girl thinkin' it was her fault. And that feisty old salt with a death on his conscience, even though he knew he had no choice.

It seemed like a really bright idea at the time. (It must have been those brownies she had eaten earlier in the day.) She'd seen the gleam in them menz eyes when they looked at that nekkid girl. She seen their ears perk up like hounds' around a bitch just going into season. And she saw all of 'em looking at her like she was crazy when she started hollerin' about the girl.

"Uh huh!" she had said to herself. "Iff'n I take off my clothes, why, some of them menz might look at me like that. THEN I bet I could git somebody to sing with me. Maybe play a little guitar too, and let me sing a solo."

"YEHYUS!!!" She dropped her drawers, yanked her t-shirt off, and twirling it over her head, gave a rebel yell. Mayhem broke out. All them menz turned and started hightailin' it down the boardwalk, putting as much distance between them and her as they could. That poor girl and the young man with her thought they was all comin' after the girl.

Yep. And now a man was dead. It was all her fault.

She hurriedly reclothed herself and headed for the water. She may as well throw her lot in with the neo-cons.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 12:55 AM

In a secluded corner stands a wild-eyed stranger, gesticulating and ranting, saliva running out of the corner of his mouth. A small crowd of bemused spectators huddles together for psychic protection, wondering just what he is on about. Some of them even wonder just what he is on, beside the soapbox.


"Not obstante to become it only thus an inferior to modify, who line to consider. It is not perhaps the best solution for those of that which (now or it it with the line of forum radiates), until the deep one - with him it is discovered that the existence prefers, or this best felt of the new causes for its requirements becomes betruebt?

That this one time totality - it does not consider really much, as not advised, in the manner, this modification suggested, of which they are not with this happy current forum - then, it this one those, if you that the freedom of our forum to be evaluated can be imposed, (slot-machine of the entry converts) that deep it this one is been later there and prepared the day had.

In much however this classroom imposition of the opinion of the minority was, which it used very that we had. Is it perhaps a moment for a modification with this one? Is that with (majority of the aspects) the general polemic of the forum you it perhaps happier something than maximum in his place of the installation all we must, those if have certified of that which is not happy - outward journey the other to wait?

During the moment too little - all to have to us run with small number a choice to contribute, if us to continue, our forum in weak or current numbers. This one that it, does not stop wishing - elsewhere freely it's that it go."




Sorry, you said FUNhouse...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 09:45 AM

It is a simple but effective strategem to survey the meeting ground well before the meeting. The Gambler, smililng and nodding at the smiling and laughing folkies sipping beers and picking songs along the boardwalk, strolled quietly, and in an opportune moment slipped off at an angle through a row of lilac trees, and made his way through a deepening woods, keeping his bearings by the sound of the merriment behind him, and the faint glow of the remotes Wizzy Wig Revival tent and its small campfire far ahead. Lowhanging oak branches scraped his fine Stetson, and vines threatened to entangle his calfskin boots, but he moved with a grace and a silence one would not expect in so urbane a figure.

From the edges of the wood around the revival campsite, he moved silently back, paralleling the normal footpath; and as he expected, closer to the boardwalk end of the footpath, he saw the gingerheaded man from the saloon searching the trail. He waited for his moment. When it came, he moved in swiftly behind the man, drew one arm tight under his throat from behind and with the other gently placed the end of a derringer against the footpad's right temple.

"Ah believe, sir, that you and I have a rendezvous to keep over this way a bit. Move wrongly and your head will be split open."

That cold baritone whisper stopped the ginger man in his tracks; the click of the derrinfer's hammer reinforced his desire to cooperate, and Delacroix met little resistance leading him into the deeper woods, where he tied him to a young oak with the man's belt, and muffled his snarls and curses with the torn remnants of the man's shirt.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 10:02 AM

LADIES AND GENNELMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS! Let me direct your attention to the bay, where the Champeenship Badmitten Match of all time is being held between a Sperm Whale and his (or her -- you go check) partner, Archie the Giant Squid! See them loft parachutists over the small island with the lighthouse! See them bat the jumpers back and forth! Who will be the winner? Or is this just a match for fun? Only one thin dime to see all this excitement of a match you will never again be privileged to watch! Come one, come all! Place your bets in the small tent to the left."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 11:00 AM

A teenage girl with a Seagull Grand guitar slung over her shoulder, and a pet polar bear on a long chain strolls towards the ancient mariner. The bear is testing the air his nose twitching towards the restaurant where the smell of fresh Calamari is wafting in the breeze.

"Hullo Bear" the mariner pats the bear affectionately on the head and receives a soft nuzzle in return. "Sorry I don't have any seal flipper pie for ye but MMario ran out of flour and lard yesterday.

"Hello dad" says the girl, the mariner kisses the girl and says "what brings you here looking for me Emma?" I brought the boat here dad, you need to sail home to England i'm afraid Granma passed away and the family want you in Brighton for the funeral. The mariner grabs his seabag and wanders down the dock with his daughter and the bear in tow arm in arm...

Off to a not so jolly England, will be thinking of you all when i'm on the Palace Pier mates, carry on with the fun TTFN

Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 03:09 PM

(Unbearable, I allow) Welcome, young lady!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 03:24 PM

MMario chases after the mariner and his pet Ursus maritimus. "DAVE! - you fogot your pies! I hid them because the Squid was looking hungry."

Since the mariner pauses not, MMario flings several dozen seal flipper pies, discus style after the bear.

"Can't have the bear getting hungry - it's the only natural predator of man.:"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 03:38 PM

The bear scarffs up the pies in single bites and waves happily at MMario.... "Thanks MMario MMate" shouts the mariner, but I really do have to catch the tide... See you again one day.... Bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 05:33 PM

Rustic Rebel of Rayville was overwhelmed but not deterred from attraction. After the strange encounter with the squid, the young deckhand and the showdown, she managed to make it back to the saftey of camp.
The gypsy camp on the west shore was teaming with excitement. After watching with awe the adventure of the whale and squid it was the right time to bring forth their own spectacle.
Nina and Neville of North Branch were hooking the pigs up to the wagon, that was already loaded with "the gift", when Rustic Rebel of Rayville returned to camp.
They had all watched in terror as the large squid pursued her and watched on with delight as the young deckhand saved her life by a tentacle and a B string.
"We must go to the boardwalk and find this brave young man."
Rustic Rebel of Rayville felt very glad that the camp was in agreement to what must be done. She knew it was good and just for all involved. The entire troupe was ready to go.

Everyone following the pig-drawn wagon were in high spirit. The verbunko's music began. There were pan pipers and piccoloists, dancers and drummers, violinists and virtuosos. Nearing the Mudcat Carnival and Boardwalk they began to search for the young deckhand.
They were indeed quite a spectacle themselves, with a wagon near bent with a large covered box, being pulled by pigs (What? you thought they were for the spit?!), and the merry band of colorful, fanciful people of all ages, emerging on the carnival site.
It didn't take but a whisper from the wind to lead them to the spot where the young lad had found himself some refuge and proper care of his wounds. He was delighted to see the lass he had saved from the sea and almost equally delighted to see this strange entourage encircle him, not missing a whimsical note of the piccolo nor pan pipe.

The head gypsy-Moth of Mankato stepped forward, bringing the wagon up to his side, "Young lad, we brought this gift to share with everyone at this fine Mudcat Carnival, but in light of recent circumstances, if we may be so bold and presumptuous, we the family of the Gypsy Caravan of Color , in honor of your heroism and courage would like you to have it".
Moth of Mankato turns to the wagon and pulls the drape off of the large box, exposing a large aquarium. No sooner had the veil been lifted a large wail of water springs forth and from the wake spirals none other than-Dolphin Boy! He whisles, he laughs , he spins and flips in the water, coming back to a swim-still, he spits water into the face of the deckhand.
Moth of Mankato says, "This is Opo. Named for the god of the ocean." Opo Squeals when he hears his name. "We have been a fortunate people to be blessed with Opo," Opo spits more water and laughs. "But we know it is Opo's destiny to be with you."
"Opo's strong sense of liberty and freedom, his love of music and his need to an unrestrictive lifestyle had brought him to us. Now we feel his love for the sea and need for the water has brought him to you."

The young deckhand was, to say the least, overwhelmed with such a gift. Dripping with Opo's spit he grabs him out of the aquarium and thanks all the people around and runs to the sea.
Here he is pictured as him and Opo hit the waves, being met by his new family.

The gypsies all clap and dance and make music on the boardwalk.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 07:48 PM

(BRAVAAA!!!! BRAVA!!!!)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 10:06 PM

Janie, who had decided not to join the neo-cons after all once she saw them being batted around by those big flukes and tentacles, scuffed along the shore for awhile, skipping pebbles across the inlet. Twice she heard noises from deep in the woods behind her. Once she heard a muffled cry, but since there were folkies everywhere and from all over, she just figured some young couple had slipped away into the woods for a private little interlude.

    Finally she put her unhappy thoughts behind her and headed back to the boardwalk, just as the Gypsy band began moving among the crowd, drawing all who came near into their revelry. As she drew near, a small group waved her over to join them in a sing-a-round.
She eagerly joined the group. Looking around to see who was in the circle, she happened to notice the tall 'fancy man' from the steamboat--Deverot? Devilrote? Whatever--emerge from the woods into the clearing behind them.

    "Wonder what he's been up to?" she thought. She noticed a small scratch on the side of his face-it looked like he may have tangled with a briar. His hat was slightly askew and had a few small leaves clinging to it.

    She turned away and joined the group on the chorus of an old Riley Puckett song.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 10:49 PM

Sighing at the untimely leaving of the old salt, the Man From The West realized that someone would have to fill the bill for the gunfighter ballads and the burden had fallen upon his shoulders.

He squared them and bag in hand entered a dressing room.

Stripping to his undies (basic black), he pulled on a pair of boot socks. Foxed trousers, medium gray in color, were pulled on and a dark red cotton shirt was tucked neatly into the waistband and secured with a lightweight "ranger" belt. Black books with medium heels were jerked on over the socks.

He stood up and carefully tied a black silk neckerchief around his neck; this was followed by a black vest. A gold stem-winder watch, secured by a gold chain, went into a vest pocket.

He reached again into his bag and brought out a matched set of .45 caliber Colt's revolvers -- the "Single Action Army" model -- with gutta-percha grips. He laid them carefully on a chair and retrieved from the bag a set of well-worn plain black leather holsters set in a belt glistening with the brass of extra cartridges.

Strapping on the holsters, he picked up the revolvers. Balancing one in each hand, he executed a quick Border Shift, a Forward Roadagent's Spin, and a Reverse Roadagent's Spin. Holstering a pistol in the left holster, he carefully loaded six cartridges into the remaining weapon and holstered it and then loaded the one in the left hand holster.

He sighed again, pulled on a pair of tight black goatskin gloves, snapped his bag shut and locked it, and strode out into the sunshine, an aura of menace in his every move.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 11:31 PM

ROFLMAO!! You guys are just the best!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 12:10 AM

He dusted off his Stetson and his boots as he reached the main path, mingled briefly with the crowd, and then veered back down the trail leading to the Whizzy Whig Revival Tent. An uproarious, glorious harmony was busting out the seams of the old Army surplus big-top, and loud clappings of hands and cries of jubilation brightened the night.

But he passed by, circling around the back of the tent, watching the shadows of the celebrants leaping within, and moved into the darker shadows of the forest, circling slowly until he came to the unmistakable, huge sheltering form of the giant oak.

He settled among some smaller scrub a short way back, checked the seating of his derringers in their inner pockets, and settled down to see what number the whimsical wheel of Fate would settle on this night.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 02:51 AM

As Delacroix waited quietly, he suddenly felt the barrel of a pistol against his back, and a voice close behind that whispered "pork chops." Delacroix replied "and mustard greens! Damn you Bobby! You scared hell..." Leej barely suppressed a laugh, saying "be quiet, boy! I couldn't tell it was you. Dark as pitch in these woods."
Delacroix then smiled and said "tell me about the code."
Leej puffed his cigar, breathing smoke out with the words.."what code?"
Delacroix reached into his pocket, producing the paper with the strange figure on it. Leej paused, then quickly took the paper, striking a match over it. Delacroix heard Leej's sharp intake of breath, then was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders and spun in a circle. "This is it, Charlie!" Leej said with suppressed glee, "you found it, you son of a possum!"
Delacroix grabbed Leej by the lapels of his coat whispering "found it? Found what!"
Leej chuckled as he tossed away the match, sticking his scorched thumb in his mouth. Then he pulled out another very similar paper. Holding them one atop the other in one hand, he lit another match behind them with the other hand and Delacroix watched as the black lines coiled together and the red lines meshed. "Do you see, Charlie? It's a map!!"
Then Leej quickly blew out the match as the two heard the sharp snap of a branch somewhere near by.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 10:02 AM

They were still, and then the giggles told them that it was just another couple -- probably from the Revival Tent -- seeking a place for a little private corps-a-corps.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 10:20 AM

Over at the sing-around, Willie O. was just finishing up a lovely ballad in waltz time. Janie had stepped back from the circle and was doing a little waltz step by herself just out of the firelight. As she glided to a stop a hand touched her elbow and gently pulled her back a little further from the gathering.

"I want to introduce myself," said a short robust woman. "My name is Theresa Terrific and I am Chief Streak of the Society to Reinstate Emancipated Anatomies Kavorting Ecstatically Raw (STREAKER). I want to thank you for your actions in support for our principles that I witnessed earlier today."

Janie gaped at the woman, stunned into complete silence.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 10:41 AM

Chief Streak of the Society to Reinstate Emancipated Anatomies Kavorting Ecstatically Raw ? You are wacky, Janie. You fit right in.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 11:07 AM

LOL!! Loverly, loverly!! Concur, Janie.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 12:10 PM

With a squishy "THUD" a body landed nearby and both men jumped. Screams, male and female, punctuated the dark.

Another THUD and another body.

Peaking out from the bushes, he saw that the sperm whale was tossing the now-comatose parachutists up into the air with its tail and the squid was batting them shorewards with a tentacle.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 02:53 PM

Delacroix shook his head in amazement. "Dang!! A map in layers!!", he whispered.

"Bobbie, we got some closer inspecting to do, but I don't want to do it where anyone can see it. I think I know just the place. C'mon..."

And the two dangerous veterans of a distant time and an even more distant war-zone slipped through the woods, skirting the main throughfares and attraction. Delacroix motioned his friend forward past the Love and Animal Husbandry station, slipped behind the Capo Canoodles and Banjo Bagel stand, and around the end of Bobert's Bucaneer Theater, and came to a halt at the edge of the darkened tunnel that led into the Mystery Tune and Lost Chord Cruise, a cavernous opening which, when open, led couples in small, swan-shaped boats into the caverns under the hill past dioramas of sweet and scary scenes from folk music to the whispering of mysterious dulcimer sounds. It was closed at this late evening, but Delacroix reached down and thrust his hand into the bracksih water at the tunnel entrance and groped briefly, coming up with a loop of thin, dripping chain.

"A friend of mine is the Bos'n here." he said softly. "Watch."

He tugged three times on the chain, and there was a distant "click" in the depth of the black tunnel, as of a lock opening. He hauled away on it, running the loop back into the lagoon, and shortly a scarlet-hued swan-boat bumbled into the lagoon from the recesses of the tunnel.

"This is how he gets to work to start the ride up," the Gambler whispered. He steered Leej into the far seat and clambered in after him, hauling the swan boat slowly into the darkness.

They sat in pitch darkness hearing the splash of the chain behind and the faint Aerolian whispers of the wind-harps that provided the Tunnel Ride's sound effects. Gradually, a small, dim light appeared against the pitch darkness far ahead.

"That's his operating house...".

The swan-boat bumped gently against a short wooden brow extending from a stone floor carved into the wall, into which a small shack had been built. The lantern which acted as their homing beacon hung from the outside of the shack.

Their footsteps muffled by lapping water and the distant moan of wond-harps, the two men moved into the small but comfortable shack, Delacroix carrying the lantern, and settled at a small deal table in a pair of wooden chairs. Charles rustled under the mattress of a small bunk built in along the far end, and produced a small bottle of what looked to be first-class moonshine, clear and potent.

"Now, my friend," Delacroix said, smiling. "Let's see what this is all about..."

Robert E. Leej smiled, and shook his head. "You sure do have some innerestin' friends, Charlie. Comes in handy, I reckon."

He brought out his half of the parchment document, and Delacroix brought out his, and they bent their heads over the strange cryptic marks in the glimmering lantern-light.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 07:03 PM

"I didn't mean to startle you so," said Theresa, with an amused expression on her face.

"I...er...no...it's just--gosh, I was feeling so bad and embarrassed," stammered Janie, "and now you come along and...."

"I understand completely," Theresa interrupted. "That's why our society exists. Streaking is a subtle art, though most people don't realize it. When I saw you swing that shirt over your head and give that rebel yell, I knew you could use a little coaching."

"But-but" Janie searched for words.

Theresa, still holding Janie's arm, began steering the two of them down the boardwalk. "I began my own career in streaking in the 1970's. When I heard about this gathering of folkies I just knew I'd find some free spirits among you who would appreciate the art of streaking. I'm not a singer myself, but there was a song written about me and how I got my start in streaking. It got a lot of radio play. Of course that was before I changed my name from Ethel."

Janie, still quite speechless, allowed herself to be led on down the boardwalk. Near the terminus of the walk the crowd thinned out considerably. Theresa guided Janie over to a bench near the Mystery Tune and Lost Chord Cruise attraction, and sat down.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 11:05 PM

Once seated on the bench, Theresa bent and began to rummage around in the large tote she was carrying. It was made of a canvas-like synthetic material. Large hibiscus flowers in day-glo orange and pink were printed on a chartreus background. "Ah, here it is," she said as she straightened up, pulling a large scrapbook out of the bag. Used tissues with red blots of lipstick tumbled out onto the ground. "I thought you might want to see my 'credentials.'

"M'am, I think there has been a grave misunderstanding here." Janie jumped up from the bench and began speaking rapidly. "I ain't no streaker, leastways not until today and that wasn't really streaking and I never woulda done it if I hadn't wanted someone to sing with so bad and if MMario hadn't slipped me them funny tasting brownies." She began backing away from the woman as she spoke. "They be waitin' fer me to git back to the song circle--Dani and me's gonna sing a duet...."

Theresa looked at her calmly for a moment, stood up and removed her clothes (all but her nikes), and without another word took off streaking down the boardwalk, back toward the main crowds.

Janie shook her head, no longer sure she wanted to be here. Thoughts of them ol' Appalachian hill's was lookin' mighty comforting to her right then. She wished she was like Dorothy and could just close her eyes, click her ruby slippers, and be home.

"Well, that ain't a gonna happen," she thought. "That's a different fairy tale." She turned to walk back to the song circle, not realizing she had backed right up to the edge of the canal that led into the tunnel. Shrieking in surprise, she fell backward into the shallow channel. Immediately she sat up, trying to scramble out of the canal before anyone saw her. She'd made enough of a fool of herself on this trip. Once out she sat on the ground, quickly removed her boots and emptied them of water. She heard a sound, and looking up, saw two men--one of them that Devilrot feller--emerging from the tunnel in one of the swan boats. They looked to be as startled at finding her there, as she was to see them glide out of the tunnel.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Pied Piper
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 06:38 AM

Pied Piper awoke and stared up at the man shaped skylight that wasn't there yesterday.
The fenestrator lay in a mangled lump at the foot of the bead leaking life juice onto the Palm matting.
The air felt stale like it had already been breathed and he stepped outside contemplating the rococo intricacies of cause and effect.
The sun being well over the yard-arm he fetched up a bottle of Duvel from the water but, opened it with his teeth and went to lie in the hammock under the shade of the mangrove trees, not a little disschuffed at the mess he'd have to clean up later.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 09:38 AM

Down by the water, he's firing his pistols at...a high clay bank.

"Watcha doin'?" a passerby asks. "Seeing if you kin still hit the ground?"

"No. See those flies sittin' on that rail fence at the base of that clay bank?"

"Hmmm...you're missin' what yer shootin' at then."

"Nope," he says, squeezing off another shot with his left hand and then doing a Border Shift with the pistols and squeezing off another. "I ain't aimin' at the flies."

"Well then, what in thunderation ARE you doin'??"

"Ain't none of them flies ever gonna become daddies," he replied and cranked off another shot.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: JenEllen
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 04:04 PM

The sun was bright in the noonday sky when the quartet reached the front porch of the House of Love and Animal Husbandry. The Carnivale was in full swing, and this little shack wasn't too far from the center of the action, but the cluster of trees around the place provided a shelter of sorts from the storm. The Albert Hansell was docked within view, and the bar next door had Kestrel Light on tap. Who could ask for anything more?

JenEllen pushed open the door and wiped away a few of the vacant cobwebs. "Ugh," she muttered to herself, "vacation starting with cleaning is a stone drag." However, it wasn't too long before she was wrestling open old windows and letting the sea air in.
"You gotta see your mama every night
or you can't see your mama at all.
Kiss-kiss, Mama. Treat her right, or
She won't be home when you call.
Mama don't like that kind of man
Does his lovin' on an installment plan
You gotta see your mama every night
Or you can't see your mama at all…"

During the time that JenEllen was busily tidying up the joint, Angus was busy running from window to window, snuffling at the tantalizing array of aromas coming in the windows. The cats, thoroughly satisfied with their Certificates of Completion from Madame Seizemore's Correspondence School for Psychics, were busy taking turns holding down the various pieces of furniture in the House of Love.   They planned on using their advanced skills over the vacation by reading minds and quickly jumping in the lap of anyone sitting in the House of Love who thought for a moment that they might get up.

Their little vacation from the Land of ThreeDee was interrupted by Angus the WonderDog, who in fine form, heard the obvious knock at the screendoor and hurdled the couch to see who his new friend was going to be.

"Hello?" said the young woman at the front door. "Anyone home?"

"C'mon in." replied Jen, "and YOU," she admonished the still-woofing hound "Go park it."

The young woman entered the HOLAAH (aside for a minute: I LOVE that! "Holaah!") dressed in the most hideous poncho-type beach cover-up that Jen had ever seen. She was madly scratching her arms and legs and appeared to be ready to cry.

"Are you okay?" asked JenEllen, immediately feeling like an idiot for asking.

"Sandfleas." replied the scratching woman, who was by this time using the doorjamb as a back scratcher. "I can't seem to get rid of the damn things and the lifeguard told me to come here."

"I have just the thing!" and with that, JenEllen reached into the cupboard and pulled out what appeared to be the latest bestselling beach read of the year, but when open it unfolded into a miniature replica of the Boardwalk and Carnival grounds, complete with amusement park and taco stand. JenEllen held the book near the woman's arm and as if by magic, the fleas marched right down the woman's hand and into the book. They began ordering food, buying cotton candy, and riding all of the rides.

"How amazing!" said the young woman. "And you mean to tell me that I can keep this and watch them play?"

"Nope." said JenEllen, slamming the book shut. "They'll get bored with this soon enough. I suggest you give this book as a present to someone you don't like very much."

"Oh, like the crazy aunt that gave me this poncho. Gotcha. How much do I owe you?" asked the still-astonished young woman.

"Oh, a gazillion dollars should cover it."

"I only have five bucks and a dirty postcard."

"That'll do."

After they shook hands and the young woman left holding her book at a cautious distance from her body, JenEllen retreated to the kitchen and taped the postcard to the fridge among last year's models. She then took the fiver and tucked it in Angus' collar.   "Good boy! Now go get us a funnel cake!" Angus bounded out of the yard and towards the boardwalk.

Wonderful hound that he was, he bought two and ate one on the way home.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 04:19 PM

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!!!!!!

Welcome back, Jen!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 04:25 PM

AND angus!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 05:07 PM

Theresa Terrific continued her jog along the boardwalk. She ran in rhythm to the calliope, the flash of the lights in the heels of the Nikes emphasizing the downbeat. People gave her cheerful waves as she ran by, her no longer young breasts and buttocks bouncing with the beat. She was secretly a bit disappointed to not be causing more of a stir, but all-in-all she was glad she was here. That foolish Janie woman was apparently one of the few in this crowd who weren't free-spirited. Uptight ol' hillbilly--kinda of reminded her of her husband. Briefly she wondered where he was and if he ever thought of her. The last she had seen or heard from him was that night in the high school gym--must be close to 30 years ago--when she set herself free. "FFRREEEEEEEEEE I tell you!" She remembered so well how good it felt, following that young streaker across the boards of the gym floor, the old man hollering at her from the bleachers to get her clothes back on.

She was beginning to feel a little winded and knew it was time to circle back and retrieve her clothes and bag. No point in running back down the boardwalk--that would take all the art out of the streaking. Instead, she crossed over to the woods, passing behind the funnel cake stand, and headed back in the direction from which she had come, following what appeared to be a deer trail.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 05:20 PM

She passed near a clay bank, and a fellow with a two-gun rig fixed up for cross-draw waved absently as she passed.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 05:59 PM

"Looks like a map of city streets," said Delacroix. "These black lines run at right angles, like a grid, but warped in places like a topographic grid. Maybe it's a map of San Francisco."
Leej sipped the brandy and turned the map slightly."Then what are the red lines, and the dots and bigger circles?"
"I don't know, Bobby, maybe the dots are buildings..banks, or armories, or something...maybe the circles are ...I don't know...bigger buildings."
"The red lines and these heiroglyphic symbols, then. The lines seem to link the dots and circles." Leej turned the sheets another 90 degrees.
"Where did your half of the map come from, Bob?"
"A few years ago I was in Baltimore staying at a hotel outside the city. Some distance from my room was a Tavern frequented by local merchants, travelling freight haulers, and distinguished by a remarkable paucity of gambling men. I became a regular participant in the poker games there, and on acertain night I decided to stay late, reap a very large pot, and make my way home near midnight. i had noticed two men standing at the bar earlier. One fellow was a short, stocky, mustachioed man who was discreetly observing the other, a tall rather cadaverous individual in a cape and bowler hat. Both men had been drinking through the night, and both had left some time before the game had broken up.
I was cautiously making my way back to my room with one hand on my pistol, half expecting some disgruntled poker player to attempt to rob me of my winnings, when I saw a movement in the shadows and heard a low moan. Producing my revolver, I advanced into the gloom, nearly stumbling over the body of the short man. He had been stabbed several times in the chest, but his eyes were open, and he tried to speak to me. 'My watch pocket' was what I thought he said. Reaching into this pocket, I found a badge. The man was a Pinkerton Agent. With a struggle, helifted his left arm and opened a bloody hand. Inside was clutched this bloody paper. I took it from him as he pleaded 'they are coming. They have to be stopped.'
I took the paper and cut a fast trail to my room. Late that night, I was awakened by a sound. As I lay listening, I determined that the sound was the slow turning of the doorknob, and the stress of the door against its lock as great weight was placed against it. In silence, I dressed, gathered my bag, and made my way through the window and into the street.
In the remaining years, that night has never been far from my mind, and I have lived the life of a hunted man, Charlie. I don't know who they are, but I know they are evil and would have killed me as they several times attempted. And I know that this map holds the key to their identity. And I know that, in this happy carnival where all seems pleasure and gaeity, they have gathered to perpetrate their awful plan."
Delacroix sat back in his chair, taking another cigar from the box."And I suppose, "Charles said,"that its too late for me to excuse myself from this little soiree." Leej snapped a match into fire and lit Delacroix' cigar, then his own, and said "of course. You're already in too deep."
Delacroix' eyes lit up. "Good. Let's get back to the map." Charles eyed the lines again, then suddenly said "Casseiopia." Leej's eyebrows were lifted in puzzlement. "This shape. It looks like the constellation Casseiopia." Leej peered at the shape through the cigar smoke, then walked quickly outside.
Above, the sky was freckled with stars from horizon to horizon. Charles followed, pointing to a brightcluster. "Casseiopia!" Leej exhaled smoke and said softly "I'll be damned."

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 08:17 PM

Theresa's path takes her past a small knot of people just outside the revival tent. A few of the men try, but fail, to make sense of the fleeting glimpse they get of the complex tattoo on her right buttock. None of them makes out the pattern of stars forming the constellation of Casseiopia.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 10:07 PM

good one, FP!

J

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 11:25 PM

"Casseiopea? A lot to tell about that one. Anything you want to know in particular?" The old man, wrapped in a generous sweater, was rocking in a handcarved rocking chair that served his writing table, and cahair and table both seemed older even than he was. He drew on a faded, yellowed meerschaum whose bowl was the form of a leapinng catfish, intricatly carved.

"I'm not sure, sir." said his visitor. "Perhaps if you began with the general view..."

The old professor rocked forward and back.

"Well," he started, "The story is along this wise. Long ago, in Ethiopia, Cassiopeia had been the wife of Cepheus and the mother of Andromeda. Because she thought herself more beautiful than the daughters of Nereus, a god of the sea, she challanged the anger of the god Poseidon. To punish her, her daughter was chained to a rock of the coast as a sacrifice for a sea monster. Andromeda was saved from death by Perseus. (Publius Ovidius Naso: Metamophoses, IV, should you want to look it up.)"

"To learn humility, Cassiopeia was banned to the sky. A contrite Poseidon put both father and mother in the heavens. But because of Cassiopeia's vanity, he placed her in a chair which revolves around the Pole Star, so half the time she's obliged to sit upside down.."

"Her leading star is s an iirregular variable star called Alpha Cas; but it is also called Shedir a word which in old Arabic translates as The Breast.   Her second, Gamma Cas, is called, in ancient Chinese, Tsi , which means the Whip. Highly variable brightness, attributed to throwing off giant shells of burning gas at irregular intervals."

Eta Cas is a double, while Iota Cas is a triple, but hard to detect.

Their region of the sky contains a lot of diffuse nebulae, too, such as the diffuse nebula NGC 281, and the planetary nebula NGC 7635 all of which are quite mysterious to us down here."

The professor paused, and squinted over his pipe.

"One other thing. Omicron Cas has a faint companion although some deny its existence because it is hard to see; but the word among those who have the equipment and the patience is that the faint companion has been behaving most irregularly of late, putting out streaks of thin blue light at odd intervals unlike anything we have ever observed -- they look coherent, almost artificial, ridiculous as that may seem."

Charles Delacroix thanked his informant profusely, and strode into the summery night, following the long trail along the shore from the Portsworth University campus, along the curving shores of Point Sharp, and back to the bay-side festival grounds and the relative comfort of the Albert Hansell. He knocked on Robert E. Leej's door, and rapidly relayed what he had learned. The two of them went forward to open well-deck and stared with intense curiousity at the remote "W" form of Cassiooea. high above the dwindling moon.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Pied Piper
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 06:02 AM

Magdorit the Splendid sank back into his bath of liquid Chlorine and relaxed contemplating his immanent arrival at the small planet detected 10 years ago by the Empyreal Astronomer Ploktic the Unbending. The journey had not been to long and had given him a chance to improve his score at Wossassas.
Before making the final approach he directed his sensors back to his home world 610 light years away and wondered what, if anything this new planet would have in common with Zigandafu.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 08:22 AM

"Bobby, I have an idea."

"Last time you came up to me and said that, Charley, you walked us right in front of a blue-belly with a Gatling. Nearly killed us. You remember that? You remember what I told you ... 'No more goddamned ideas...'? You recollect that?"

"Robert E. Leej, shout your mouth for a second! This is important. Look here at this part, down here in the corner -- those numbers.
1, 5, 2, in a row, and then 6, 3, 7 and then 4.5, 1.5, 5.5.

You know what that is?"

"If I knew, goddamit, do you think I'd be squatting over this table staring at 'em?"

"Hey! You remember on your way into this place from the west side, there's a big circular statue garden, right? Those modern things?"

"What the hell, Charley?! You gone off the deep end here?"

"You remember what they call that? With those big tuning fork statues like things around the edge?"

"Some damn stupid name, I guess. I ain't too interested in sculpture right now, Charley."

"No, Bobbie. This is the clue we've been looking for! That walk around the sculptures place and this code here have something in common!"

"What would that be, Mister Pinkerton?"

"Think, man!! They call that garden with the weird statues in it the Circle of Fifths".

Charley watched Robert E. Leej's jaw drop, something he rarely got to see.

In a single instant, the two men were on their feet, checking their derringers, and striding back out onto the quartdeck and down the gangplank.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 09:02 AM

Theresa paid no attention to the group at the revival tent. She was thinking about the guy with the guns she had walked past just a few minutes ago. There was something familiar about him. "My husband used to be good with guns," she mused. "I wonder why hubby keeps popping into my mind. I really haven't thought about him at all for years and years."

Thinking of the gunslinger also reminded her that the guy she had hired, that bass player from Chicago, had never shown up. Well, his fee had been cheap and she hadn't really like the looks of him anyway. Still, she was going to need somebody. Once she was dressed she would go back and check out that gunslinger by the clay bank. She might not need anyone, but it wouldn't hurt to know if his gun was for rent if she needed it.

Back at the mouth of the Mystery Tune and Lost Chord Cruise, Janie couldn't decide whether she was mad or relieved. She wasn't up for introductions in her current state, but either she was invisible or those men were deaf and blind. They got out of that Swan boat, stepped over her like she wasn't even there, and strode off. They didn't ask her if she was ok or needed help or anything.

Although she didn't feel quite right doing so, she looked in the streaker's tote, hoping to find something she could use to dry off.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 09:43 AM

Having finished castrating flies -- and having used up all his ball ammunition -- he started reloading his pistols and his belt with hollow points.

Nothing better, he mused. A hole about 2/5s of an inch going in and about the size of a fist going out. Lots of tissue damage, lots of hydrostatic shock.

Damn, he thought. I'm getting too old for this.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 10:29 AM

Janie gave a sigh of relieve as her hand clutched a bright;y striped beach towell. When she pulled it from the bag, a photograph
fluttered to the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 11:52 AM

The flip side of the photograph was printed with a Reese's Cup logo and said '5 points.' "Yum, Reese's Cups!" Janie murmured. She decided to look through tote more thoroughly in hopes of actually finding a peanut butter cup. She lifted the scrapbook from the bag, noticing this stuck in a pocket on the front cover.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 01:06 PM

The two friends, derringers in hand, slipped through the heavy underbrush surrounding the Circle of Fifths stauary park. They could make out vaguely in the gloom the circle of beautiful stainless sculptures that surrounded the periphery of the formal garden, each towering about eight feet, in various curves that shone even in the muted starlight. They were variously formed, and swayed gently in the light on-shore breeze -- some had rounded hemispheres in twos or threes sculpted into their tops, and others had frustrums gracefully carved at their heads in similar numbers.

"See, Bobby? The bumps and points? Those are sharps and flats. They make the Circle of Fifths. The one with the perfect circle on its top must be the center point, the "C" note....", Charles whispered.

They stayed silently alert for a number of minutes, and the quiet breeze lulled them with their warmth in the dark. A sudden sound of a large form movig through shrubbery startled them both into full alertness.

A rounded, pale form moved into the starlit circle, moving slowly from column to column around the Circle, as though seeking something.

"Hey," Charles whispered, "Isn't that the gal who was running around starkers earlier?"

"Shhh..", repsonded Leej. "Looks like she's still doing it."

The heavy woman was, indeed, doing some sort of trotting dance around the central front column with the circle on its top. She slapped it on one side, and then on the other, and then did a kind of starlight sashay around the circle. The column she had slapped began to oscillate, and a pale blue light, pulsing lsightly, started to glow around its base.

She moved around to the column with two of the rounded hemispheres.
Two flats...lesse--D-flat?, Charles thought. She repeated the ceremony, and a blue glow and slow ringing began emanated from the tall sculpture. She moved on, from D-flat to G, then across the garden to a column with six sharp points on it, back to one on the other side with two points on it, slapping and dancing.

She stopped her dance and faded into the shrubbery. The men watched as the blue glows at th ebase of each column expanded and formed into coherent beams, joing each other across the circle to form lines. One by one, the ringing columns extended their lights.

The final pattern was unmistakable, glowing in brightening, shimmering fluorescent blue light in the night, forming the pattern of a huge letter W.

Their amazed focus was disrupted by the growing harmonic tones coming from the five columns the strange streaker had activated with her weird ritual; like the growing hum of a planetary tunning fork, the humming, rich with overtones both deep and high, grew and grew in the night.

It was beginning to hurt their ears, when a sudden flash made them forget their discomfort. The night sky, sprinkled with beautiful stars, was suddenly shadowed with a huge grim black circle, floating overhead, acres in size, and a brilliant flooding white, mysterious and etheral, pulsing brilliance which switched on in the night sky.
Charles Stonewall Delacroix, Gambler, felt his own jaw dropping as he estimated the size of the huge disk that was suddenly illuminated. It stood off into the night sky, easily a mile or so above the ground, and yet it seemed to be thousands of yards in diameter.

"Bobby," he said. "I think they're here, and I think we're in trouble again, compadre."

Bobby leapt into the circle, pulling his second polished silver derringer out of his pocket. He kneeled in front of the vibrating column in the peak of the glowing blue "W" form, and holding the gun by the barrel, carefully slid the silvery butt across the point where the blue lines emanated.

The gun heated up fast and he snatched his fingers away. The lines sparked and scattered at random angles from the polished gun butt, wrecking the neat pattern the woman had started, and sending streaks of semi-coherent blue lightbeams in a thousand different directions.

Overhead the huge disc veered suddenly, yawed a full 180 degrees and tilted sharply downward on one side, and began skittering downward, as though no longer able to steer.

A red heat surrounded it as it began a violent slope through the thickening atmosphere, slicing downward and eastward at an acceleration neither man had ever imagined was possible.

Beyond Point Sharp, about five cables from shore, the gigantic disk, moving faster than a bullet, collided with the inflexible and welcoming surface of the gentle rolling sea, with a sound that broke the atmosphere like lightning striking abedroom door. Steam towered and the cracking and thundering of huge explosions penetrated the brains of a thousand sleeping folksingers and half the students at Portsworth University; huge seas rose up and began their long march to shore, hidden in towering plumes of electric smoke and hot steam.

Slowly, the incredible tumult of angry waves, red-hot steam and molten metal subsided. The Albert Hansell rose and fell uncomfortably as the residual of those gigantic waves found their way into the shallows of the bay and reached the pier. AT anchor, the Mudcat Schooner bobbed and horsed frenetically for a while as they passed under her keel.


By morning, the sea was again blue, and calm, the stink blown clear by the rising gentle breezes, and the folkies who gathered for breakfast were swapping tales of the terrible thunder that had awoken. Someone struck up a bluegrass rendition, and Don't Let Your Deal Go Down echoed up and down the boardwalk. The morning was full of music, and it looked like fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: MMario
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 01:18 PM

Out in the waters, the receding tide exposed a large expense of broken and crumpled metal - warming in the sun - which the local seal, sea lion, otter and selkie population quickly began taking advantage of, basking both in the newly shallow waters around the huge new shoal and on the sunwarmed expanse of metal itself.

A few spots steamed gently still - and a very few spots still spat the occasional spark of short-cicuiting energies - which the sea mammels all steered quite clear of.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 02:12 PM

Strange, thought the mariner as he carefully placed the Zeiss micrometer screw sextant in it's box. No sign of atmospheric phenomena.

He was calculating the boats position by using sights of the planet Venus, and the stars, Schedar and Sirius. The mariner was referring to an optical illusion; as he looked through the spotting scope of the Zeiss, Venus appeared to glow with a blueish pulsing light as a meteorite (or what he thought was a meteorite) flashed across the bow of the 45 foot ketch Wandering Star.

47 30 North and 030 03 West was the final centre point of his observed fix. He smiled and called down to Andrew (his son)who was busy repairing a minor fault in the satellite TV system below decks. "Yer damned GPS must be low on electrickery Andy mate, according to my sextant it's two cables off". "Yeah right dad, not even the pencil tip is that accurate on the chart this far offshore so we can live with that eh?" Andrew laughed and thought to himself, I installed all the bloody modern electronics available, and the old fart still gets up at 0400 hrs just to do sights.

Down in the galley, Emma has made tea for herself and Andrew, and a hot steaming mug of Tim Hortons coffee for the mariner. " All hands, Breakfast is ready". Hearing her voice, the polar bear rolls out of his huge hammock slung between the main and mizzen masts and shuffles over to the galley, two lovely codfish and a pound of seal meat lie ready for the bear."Thank God you've woken up bear" said the mariner, "yer bloody snores had every whale fer miles coming up complaining of the noise keeping them awake"

The mariner checks the autopilot and radar, looks all round the horizon which is clear of traffic, before heading to the galley. Halfway across the Atlantic en route Brighton Marina, England, the entire crew of the Wandering Star are enjoying a fine weather day and some good food together.......

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 02:13 PM

Paul Newman as Robert E. Leej
Robert Redford as Charles Delacroix
Kathy Bates as Theresa
Dolly Parton as Janie
Billy Bob Thornton as Shane

What a TV series!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 04:25 PM

The Gambler woke with a start and glanced at his old-fashioned stemwinder by the side of his bunk. Two in the afternoon!! Well, it had been a long night, and worth every minute to watch that strange craft crash and burn in the deeps off Point Sharp. He smiled, and rolled himself onto his feet.

In the salon, Robert E. Leej was starting in on a late order of ham, grits, easy-overs and 'taters when Delacroix slipped through the kitchen door, carrying a carpet bag and a duffel sack that bulged in a number of dimensions.

"Wanted to say thanks, Bobby. That was mighty quick thinking, and we all owe you a big debt for coming up with it."

Leej nodded, dismissing the sentiment. "Ya do what ya gotta, if you can," he muttered philosophically. "Spaugh tells me we're casting off this evening, back to the Delta. He reckons the hurricane season is well over."

"Yeah, well, y'all have a real nice trip, Bobby. I won't be sailing with you."

"What?? What the hell. I thought I'd be able to take you for all that gold you took off the rubes on the trip out here! What you got in mind?"

"Well, I got me a date with the astronomy fellers over to Portsworth University, around the point. I get the feeling I need to learn a lot more than I know about the stars nearby here."

He clapped his old comrade on the shoulder, checked his derringers and his four-in-hand, and shifted the duffle bag onto his shoulder.

"But I promise I'll catch up with you, old friend. No mistake."

And Charles Stonewall Delacroix, Gambler, left the salon, the Albert Hansell and a lot more, and turned his footsteps toward the future.

Finis

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Janie
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 05:03 PM

EPILOG

The Mudcat Funhouse, Midway and Carnival closed for the season. There were some whose lives were radically changed by the experience.

MMario--While serving mastodon barbeque, MMario met a famous San Francisco folk singer and restauranteur who offered him top pay to become the chef at a new restaurant he was going to open on Half Moon Bay. Once he received assurances that he could have any time off he needed to perform at Ren fairs, MMario packed his bags and moved to the left coast.

DTAM, his daughter Emma, son Andrew, and the bear all made it safely back to England, saddened by the death of his mother, but united in their strong love and family closeness.

JenEllen, glad to see the crowds leave but sorry the funnel cake was gone, enjoyed a full two month vacation at the House of Love and Animal Husbandry with the cats, Angus, and a number of interesting people who stopped on their way through.

After seeming her dreams dashed in the sea, streaking lost its magic for Theresa. She and the old gunslinger fell in love and got married. They live in a xplit-entry house with brick and vinyl siding in a suburb outside of Cleveland.

On the last day of the carnival, Janie saw an African-American dance troope give a rousing performance. After the show she introduced herself to Azizi, the artistic director. She now works in a donut shop in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh to pay the rent, and takes African American dance classes at the University of Pittsburgh. Occasionally she streaks down the main thoroughfare in Shadyside.

The bass player from Chicago was never seen again.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 06:03 PM

200

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Pied Piper
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 07:29 AM

POST SCRIPT

Empyreal Commander Magdorit braced himself as the life pod decelerated.
He had been taken completely by surprise by the attack, and was feeling not a little embarrassed and angry, not least because he had thought it unnecessary to put up the shields.
The landing was smooth enough and the encounter suit would protect him for 48 hours until he found a receptacle for his mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Carnival
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 07:09 PM

Refresh with appplause