previous  |  main  |  index  |  next

December 7, 2003 i told you so Under a veil of secrecy, and a smart-looking leopardskin pillbox hat, I left these pages in October to pursue other endeavors.  When the endeavors turned and began pursuing me, I decided to return to this journal.  But first, I owe my readers an explanation for my absence.  What follows is the truth as I know it. I wrote, directed, and starred in an off-Broadway musical entitled I Told You So.  It's the story of a middle-aged faith-healer who, against the advice of his pet cockatoo, leaves his congregation in hopes of parlaying his love of organ meats and undercooked poultry into a lucrative fast-food business.  Along the way, the ambitious preacher, Lewis Gizzard, meets and falls in love with a beautiful, young heiress to a Cornish game hen fortune, the lovely Tyson Ann Sweetbreads.  Unfortunately, the love is unrequited and Lewis is driven to madness and murder.  On death row, his last meal is a delicious cockatoo friccasee. The musical was met with mixed reviews.  The lines were drawn between those critics who became violently ill and those who merely loathed the production, often without gastric upset.  During the third performance, as I was belting the polka-inspired aria "This Tripe is Ripe," a bohemian animal-rights activist jumped on stage shouting "Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?" whereupon she assaulted me in front of a packed house.  I later learned only two witnesses agreed to give statements to the police and one of those witnesses felt the attack was provoked.  Before that night, I believed the pen was mightier than the sword, and it might be; but it's not mightier than a rusty icepick wielded by a menopausal vegan. I refused to press charges when I discovered the vegan's woodchuck query was not, in fact, rhetorical.  We've become pen-pals despite the restriction her straightjacket imposes upon her dexterity.  With a bit of luck and a lot of medication, I'm hoping she'll see my next play, Sixteen Bean Soup.

©  2003 by the beastmaster