Sunday, December 10, 2017

Trump and Bibi's gifts

After Trump's surprise announcement to move the embassy to Jerusalem, Netanyahu -Bibi- has tweeted back to the President that he is sending the Wailing Wall to Washington D.C. The Radiant Elephant Community is happy to release the following private tweets.

"You can do what you want with it" Bibi wrote to Trump, "you can even place it at your Marl-a-Lago golf club. You could charge an extra fee to have golfers practice choking down on their shaft to drive the ball over the 19 meter Western Wall. Get it? 19 meters, it was built in 19 B.C. that one meter for each B.C. LOL!" (@therealBibi)

"But they'll never hit it over the wall"
(@therealDonald)

"That's the point: it'll be an exercise in frustration!"
(@therealBibi)

"You're the man, Bibi! I'll invite all those sorry Dems and I'm gonna put 100 cutouts of nasty, wicked Hillary -that sore loser- along the wall and we'll print and stuff a million of her private emails into the cracks of the wall and have 'em drive my Trump balls from Marl-a-Lago to Jerusalem!"(@therealDonald)

"And add some groping clowns and Marl-a-Lago will be more popular than Graceland!"
(@therealBibi)

Although the dismantling of the wall can take years experts say that most likely a replica will be built, sent over, and Trump won't know the difference.

New female film roles

After Lord of the Flies has successfully been recast using only young girls, a few other male producers have decided to remake films such as Rambo, Apocolypse Now, A Fistfull of Dollars,Seven Samurai and others, are taking the same approach. Here are a few scenes from the following rewritten films.

Humphrey Bogart in Maltese Falcon is recast with Miley Cyrus, a tough, attractive detective. When Spade (Miss Cyrus) meets Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) who offers her $5,000 to find the black falcon, Spade starts twerking so fast that Cairo falls unconscious allowing her to go through his belongings.

Clint Eastwood, in A Fistfull of Dollars, will be replaced by Taylor Swift, who in the final dual scene will be sporting a Mexican poncho and two knitting pins in her hair. Taylor shoots and stabs the last of the Rojo brothers (Sieghardt Rupp played by Kate McKinnon) with a knitting pin through the neck. Then, puffing on an electric cigarette she counts the bodies that will offer her a handsome reward.

In Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando who played Colonel Krunz is replaced by Beyonce, the queen herself. She bathes in a Dante's Inferno hot bath with soothing salts from the Heart of Darkness. Tension mounts until she forces Willard and other prisoners to bring intoxicating amounts of carrot and red beet juice. The juice has so affected Willard's skin (Willard is played by Lady Gaga) that she goes diving in the rat infested river looking for her telephone. Then she gets out, punches Krunz's 6 pack belly, breaking her nails and yelling 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, you're an ugly, mean bitch!"

Ramba, played by Katy Perry, returns to a small town in the state of Washington after spending 10 years competing on TV baking shows. She goes to see an old pastry chef friend only to find out that he had died from a rare form of bacteria caused by using massive doses of whip cream. She feels riddled with guilt knowing that this was the first man who taught her how to whip an egg. In a diner, she runs into a sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy is replaced by Aidy Bryant) who is balling out a waitress (now a waiter played by Kevin Spacey) because he/she dislikes the lemon meringue pie. Ramba gets ups and stuffs the remaining pie down the sheriff's throat. A thrilling chase scene ensues where Ramba, (Miss Perry sporting a camouflage miniskirt) runs to the woods. The following scene is perhaps the greatest woman hunt chase scene in film history: officers and helicopters in the hundreds swarm to catch or kill Ramba but, using her advanced pastry skills she takes them down one by one. Finally, the helicopter with sheriff Teasle spots her and just as Teasle points her M16 to shoot her (the scene is in the dark but the officers have infrared gear), Ramba pulls out a giant canister of whip cream and from 20 feet shoots a wad into the face of the pilot causing him to loose control and crash in the burning forest.

More films are certainly to follow such as Dirty Harry which will be called Dirty Harieta and Death of a Salesman now Saleswoman.




Monday, September 4, 2017

Is my sponge cake spongy enough?

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Boll Weevil Love

Boll Weevil Love by James Lang

13 years ago I caught a glimpse of my future wife at Eagle Pass, right on the Tex-Mex border in 2004. She was working for a similar environmental protection agency or "agencia" as the Mexicans say, which for years has been failing to eradicate the boll weevil that attacks cotton fields and both sides of the border. So if you want to hear my story you're gonna first hear about boll weevils because everyday I get up that's what I do: I fight and hit 'em little critters with everything I got. Now you may think it's an odd job to have to be in a combat mode for a critter that can easily rest on the head of a pin, but if you saw all the damage to the cotton fields in Texas it's no joke; no joke at all. 

How do they do it? Well, I'm no scientist but them things jus lay their eggs on top of the of the cotton plant and when they hatch they jus eat the buds and the plant from top to bottom an' you can holler an' jump up and down all you want but your crop is gonna be Destroyed with a  capital D and if I was an English teacher I would underline it. Oh, one more thing, talk to any expert an they’ll say, “All boll weevils are Mexican.”

Well some of you are saying "Charlie (that's my name), you've been doing this for over 13 years you must be glad This bigshot Trump guy is finally gonna build a wall and all your boll weevil problems are jus gonna go away cause everyone knows boll weevils come from Mexico, and with a wall they're gonna have a hell of a time hopping over it and chomping up our Texas crops. Some people gonna say, “Charlie the wall is about immigrants and drugs.” My take is I don’t git involved with politics. “If the wall works, more power to it” I tell my friends.

So before I get back to talking about my beautiful wife (and don’t ask me if she’s illegal) I would say "Hey, hey, let's do it! The wall’s gonna make it great for cotton farmers! For months I’d be walkin’ and talkin’ the Wall, shooting pool at bars and chuckling to myself how “boll weevil doomsday” was jus’ round the corner.




Her name was Esmeralda and as I said I first saw her in 2004. She and her team were using corn ash mixed with some jalepeno ointment that they were powdering the cotton fields with. It was supposed to be an ancient technique that the Incas used against boll weevils and many Texan farmers jus' scoffed at it.  We were at a meeting where I was presenting how we used glyphosate which is one of the main ingredients in Roundup 'cause you jus' spray 'em fields and you could literally see 'em boll weevils falling off the cotton plants; falling like they were zapped by lightening, I swear.

We wanted the Mexicans to use our insecticide because we knew that to E-radicate boll weevils you have to use a capital "E" and there's no messing around unless you're ready to loose millions in crop revenue. Where was I? Oh, yeh, Esmeralda. We had some meeting on the border with the Mexican farmers to discuss boll weevils and I took a likin' to her 'cause she spoke a little inglese. I won't talk about her eyes 'cause when I think about them I forget everything else I was gonna say. She was a sturdy woman and when she walked into a room there was a lightness about her that was part of her aura. She had dark brown hair, almost black and she shook hands with a firm grip.


Ok, there she was, we were talking about boll weevils and their larva and pesticides. Now you gotta get em critters at the larva stage otherwise it's game over. The problem was nobody in the group knew of the word larva except for Esmeralda. Actually the word in Mexican is the same but you say "la larva". I think that my accent was so strong that they heard "arva" and they jus' didn't get it. So Esmeralda gets up from her chair -there were about 20 of us sitting in a hot room with pizzas and cokes to snack on and under one of the tables a line of red ants was making its way back and forth over the egg white linoleum floor to pick up the pizza crumbs that had fallen- she goes to where I was talking and she takes a green marker and draws the most amazing squiggly larva varmit I ever seen and before my jaw even dropped the whole room was hollering "la larva, señor, la larva!!!" and at that moment I blushed, keeping my eyed fixed on Esmeralda's, and I remember I blushed 'cause I rarely blush and that was probably the time I felt something special for her -not the larvas.

Them meetings kept on going and I always tried to get Esmeralda on the side and invite her for a café con lece but she was ever so shy and always had some family commitment for an excuse and I think it must have been three years of me telling her she drew the most beautiful larvas ever that she accepted my invitation and we went to a local diner one of those with juke boxes stuck at each table.

As the waitress poured us coffee and asked for refills we were talking about boll weevils with passion. Esmeralda insisted they didn’t come from Mexico even though many moved north in search of more cotton.
Then she leaned over the table and with a hard look told me boll weevils move with the wind and there ain't no wall, trench, barrier or force field that we got that'll stop 'em from going wherever they want.
“I hear Charlee, you keep talkin’ up the Wall big time. The critters gonna laugh so hard when that Wall goes up you gonna feel like Humpty Dumpty.”

That was probably one of the low points in my life. I’m not known to be the reflective type, but why, how, had I not considered? Here I am, a born again fool in front of Esmeralda with no smooth reply and nowhere to hide. Good grief!


She must have noticed I was uncomfortable as I was squiggling in my seat, my eyes so screwy that they looked hypnotic, so she changed subject. She talked about her brother, Sebastian, who was arrested crossing the border in an attempt to reach their father who was working illegally, near Dallas, cutting lawns. She didn’t know how to help him out but she was hoping that one day her father and brother would come back to Mexico.  “Things are getting better here Charlee. I just worry if Mexican farmers all use glyphosate then we be in trouble. It may save the cotton but there are side effects.”  We talked on and on until the waitress, in one movement, placed the check on our table and said “We’re closing sweeties!” and I promised Ez that I’d look into getting her brother outta jail.

I didn’t see Ez for some weeks and to be honest I thought that was the last time I would see her after making a fool out of myself about the Wall. I started thinking that maybe, without a wall, we could do even better to beat the boll weevil. Finally one day she called me and said she had a surprise. We met after work at the same diner and she handed over a soft package that I tore open to discover a t-shirt with “greater of two weevils” written on it. I cracked up so hard I couldn’t sit straight. When I got my breath back I asked, “Who is the greater of two weevils?”
“Charlee, you are!” Ez caught me off-guard. She had a great sense of humor and I wanted her to be my sweetheart more than anything else.


One day in July we were playing Frisbee in a cotton field on her side of the border. We were all alone except for ‘em critters that were silently laying larva in the buds. Ez threw a Frisbee like a discus thrower from Athens. She would spin around twice before releasing the Frisbee with an audible grunt. One of my throws got caught in the wind and the Frisbee lifted in the air just as Ez was about to catch it. She tripped, fell down on her head and lay there immobile. With my heart in my throat I ran to her, shaking her body to a point that her seashell necklace made a jingling sound. It was late in the afternoon and if you lay on the ground you got toasted. “Wake up Ez, you gotta wake up! I cried. I wanna marry you, te quiero!” Suddenly one of her eyes opened and she grabbed me with both arms and we rolled in the dusty field, laughing like wild children, with me sneezing ‘cause I was allergic to jalepeno ointment.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Hector's Dandelion Yellow


This poem is dedicated to all retired Crayola Colors and to Derek Walcott’s epic work, Omeros.

Paris took Helen and 
Hector couldn't color Helen
He was trying to get on the list of impresarios  
That included 

Ancaeus, Blanirus, Clytius, Meriones, Nireus, Phidippus and Thoas
All wishing to impress the most beautiful maiden ever 
They were in the Act of showing off their exploits



Wielding swords and chains with the lightness of a bird's plumage
But Hector wasn't dupe
Using his favorite crayon he stroked the lines of her perfect face on his French Canson paper

He took a deep breath, rubbing his beard as if it were 
There forever 
Knowing that his colouring kit and even his olive Trojan soap dish were subjects of foretold retirement  


(Agamemnon hated these colors and readied his army to eliminate 
Purple Mountain Majesty, Macaroni and Cheese and Jungle green)
But it was Dandelion Yellow, the color often he used
A color he proudly wore encrusted under his fingernails
That Hector would die for
Knowing only dandelion could represent Helen's sumptuous hair!


When he dueled Ajax to a stalemate
A fight before their armies that lasted longer than a filibuster 
Recognising the fierceness of his opponent under the last of the sun's rays 
He lent Ajax his favorite color yellow

But Ajax, his skin still shining with sweat
Took it as a gift, calling Hector an Indian Giver and 
Offered Hector a box of Yellow Inchworm 
The latest of Crayola's colors in return.

At first the soldiers rejoiced cheering as Hector held the new
Yellow high in the air with a puzzled face
It was said even Zeus descended from the sky and

Held a large portrait of Big Bird
Knowing it was Hector's intention to offer it to Helen


For her to color in







But Hector needed to know and

Striking the crayon on his skin for a test
His ensuing grimace was so large it eclipsed the sun and the moon and

Witnesses retold how darkness descended beyond Dante's lowest circle of
Hell
Then, a furious scream resounded over the land and the sea

"My yellow-ow-ow" wailed Hector to the astonishment of the armies
Spitting out his gum and unsheathing his sword
"This yellow will not do, I want Dandelion back!"

But Ajax, knowing his advantage
turned and declared Hector unworthy



Helen in dismay, was said to shed many a tear as the Greeks regrouped for another battle.
And Achilles was summoned by Agamemnon 


Without his faithful crayon
Hector's strength was tapped, sapped and ebbed
Wasted like an un-recycled beer can





It was time for Achilles to get into the fray 
Hector was fearless and unfeeling
He took the inchworm yellow in his left hand

But Achilles mortally wounded him before he could do 
Anything
His last visions were of frisbees and yo-yos
2000 years before their invention
"Would these be retired too?" he thought he heard Helen whisper in his ear.

With Hector dead Achilles dragged Helen with such force
His Generals compared him to an 
Elephant  Vacuum cleaner






Still, Helen spat at his face
Achilles then dropped her before a crowd to get stoned
When Menelaus arrived stumbling after a rough night
He drank two hand-crafted chocolate fizzios from Starbucks
To ready him for his divine deed to execute Helen
Menelaus raised his sword but Helen dropped her robe
And seeing such stunning beauty he catapulted her to Sparta to marry and be merry.