Crucify Jesus for 2 Bits.

Fritz the freak was a life long street performer and circus freak show regular who lived in the 40s and 50s, A creative genius inventing gimmick after gimmick, today people would call him a performance artist.

Fritz the freak and Zelda, the tattooed lady traveled together in a small trailer with the circus. They loved to smoke reefer, drink  beer and listen Yankee games on the radio, the forever to be remembered Yankees, the era of the Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Reese and Harry Rice. The team that is still playing ball up in Heaven.

Fritz and Zelda didn't have any kids, but they had a pet boa constrictor they called Popeye, because of his abnormally bulging red eyes. Zelda would wrap Popeye around her body, wearing a two piece aloha swimsuit. Marks passed by gazing at her tattooed body. She had tattoos of crosses, knives, American flags, skull and cross bones, hearts, born to raise hell, moons, guns, stars, angels and naked women. 

  

They also kept a pair of toy poodles as pets, whose hair they colored pink, to match the art deco interior of their trailer, with red velvet curtains, yellow tousles accenting the pastel rice paper shades on their hula doll lamps, always keeping the interior dimly lit with yellow light. Walls and ceiling lined with dried bamboo, making a small space expansive, the freaky lovers living free, getting high every-night on dope, balling and having a ball in their little piece of paradise.

Freaks like Fritz and Zelda in the 40s and 50s, artist, performers and Bohemians, broke most of the time but enjoying every second of life to the max, 3 per-centers, breaking through the culture mold, whose life was a reminder that artist are the happiest people in the world, because they live life sensually from the heart, preferring the world of the illogic to the logic life of going to worship everyday at the bank or stock exchange. 

One night Popeye their pet boa swallowed one of the poodles, a bulge in Popeye's throat, Zelda pleaded with Popeye, kissing him, whispering words of love to him, after a few minutes Popeye spit Fee Fee out, Zelda gave Fee Fee mouth to mouth resuscitation and brought the little pink poodle back to life. Zelda put mean old Popeye on her lap and gave him a spanking like she would give to an unruly child. Popeye never dined on poodle again and stuck to his diet of live rats and chickens.

In the winter the circus would go south, to Devil's Cove, a pirate hideaway in the 18th Century, a brackish water cove fed by hot springs, hidden away in the bush, a refuge for freaks and circus performers, where they could sharpen their chops and party.  Christians or normies thought the cove was haunted, afraid, leaving the playground to pirates and freaks.

Fritz the Freak, Zelda, Popeye and the poodles relished their time at Devil's Cove. They would swim  at midnight with the pets, blue water reflecting the light of the moon.  Popeye was a great swimmer, the poodles would chase him but could never catch him. The Boa and the poodles bonded, and the poodles would clean Popeye with their tongues like a baby. Zelda and Fritz the Freak were madly in love, the pets and the circus freaks were a happy family, outcast, stared at by mainstream folks in town, hardly caring, happy to live in the aura of their handsome art deco, ganja, freaky life love.

Fritz the Freak had an ideal for a new act that would be the act of all acts, a bit that would bank roll the couple for life. He went to the local hardware store in town, buying a small generator, wires, pieces of leather straps, large spikes and long thick pieces of wood to build a crucifix. He would call the act, Electrical Crucifixion. 

Fritz knew that the average circus mark was sadistic under the veneer of normality and would pay and pay again to push a button and send electrical volts through wires wrapped on his body, shocking him as he played it out, grimacing and glowering in pain.

Every bit in the freak show, needed an extra gimmick or hook to make it a hit. Fritz the Freak would wear a Jesus costume, white loin cloth, beard and long hair. He put together a crucifix with a wood stump to rest his feet on and would use the horizontal cross bar with straps to rest his arms on. Wrapped in electrical wire,  delivering electric shock to Jesus on the cross for 2 bits, any 4 year old kid or grandma could crucify Jesus electronically. It was brilliant and Fritz knew it.

Fritz had the act together by the time the circus left Devil's Cove and headed north. Both Fritz and Zelda were curious to see how the marks would react to "Electrical Crucifixion". The act was ahead of it's time to say the least and would have made it in the 21st Century as performance art in MoMa  or a modern art gallery in New York City.

Opening night was a kick for Fritz the Freak and Zelda. People were lined up for blocks outside the freak tent standing in line to shoot volts of electricity through Jesus. Folks handed over fist fulls of dollars for tickets, venting their inner sadism on Fritz, enjoying watching Jesus suffer for 2 bits, everyone of them a regent of the Romen guard. Fritz and Zelda would go on to make thousands off the bit and could retire after a few years in Devil's Cove.

Bumble Bees and Baseball Glove Romney

tuesday or doomsday, January 15, 2008

Bumble Bees and Baseball Glove Romney

,, Bumble Bee Days


The bumble bees clammer on the saw edges
of gladiolas.

Lemon-rusty honey bees drone in the ears
of hollyhocks.

Two leaves of a poplar drift among the 
watching asters.

Carl Sandburg


I gotta tell ya folks about the empty feeling I get when one of the "league of clowns" running for President of the United States, Mitt (baseball glove) Romney prostitutes himself to his own constituents, lies to the jobless to better his own lot " we will bring back the jobs in Michigan if I am elected!" Both "Mitt" and the jobless who believe his lies deserve their fate. Mitt will be blownout of the race by next week, and the jobless will stay on welfare as they watch their wives get fat on food stamps and bio genetic food substitutes. 

Dear jobless in Michigan, don't believe the hype, just wait for the spring and focus on the stuff of life that will calm you aching heart; bumble bees, gladiolas, aster and hollyhocks!

Maybe thinking about bee keepers and field hippies in clover or poppy feilds at harvest, taking a puff and well! 

Look to the truth of Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson and Carl Sandburg, smoke ganja or poppy seed for inspiration, sell dope if you are out of work, and keep lying phonys like Romney out of office!