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The Tarzan and Jane Dialogues

“Oysters or Chestnuts?”

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The scene: A tree house in West Central Africa

Tarzan: Welcome local Apes and Orangutans from across the river and all the cousins from England.

Jane: Yes, indeed, we are all very happy that you have made the journey to our crowded tree house.

Tarzan: Yes…very happy.

Jane: Well, Tarzan, it’s time to carve the turkey.

Tarzan: Where my knife?

Jane: I have a special electric knife, dear. It is much easier.

Tarzan: But tree house have no electricity.

Jane: Please Tarzan; just go along this one time. Everyone is expecting us to be modern, up-to-date.

Tarzan: Tarzan throwback, not modern. Not like modern. Tarzan cooperative. Tarzan wear shirt. That enough.

Jane: Tarzan, you do the honors with the bird. Just cut along the dotted line…

Tarzan: Where dotted line?

Jane: It’s a joke, darling. There is no dotted line on poultry. Cheetah! Stop playing with your food and bring another bottle of palm wine, please.

Tarzan: Cheetah not playing with food. Monkey mashing bananas.

Jane: Whatever for? We have sweet potatoes, grilled eggplant, stuffed bird, cauliflower, rolls, pumpkin pie and giblet gravy.

Tarzan: Monkey waiting for gravy. She like to cover bananas in gravy.

Jane: Oh. Well, thank you all for coming. Let’s make a toast. Tarzan, could you see what’s taking Cheetah so long with the wine.

Tarzan: Monkey not real deep….like wine right out of the bottle, gravy on bananas and swinging in trees. Not much else.

Jane: Let us be thankful for all we have. Oh, and here comes the palm wine. What are a little gravy-soaked bananas among friends, heh?

–Lady Greystoke

“Thanksgiving in Turkey”

TRAVEL ’20

Continued from in front of you

so that Bob (is that his name?) and I and the kids were pushed down onto the pavement and told to keep our eyes to the ground as the entourage passed by, snaking its way toward Mount Ararat and the grave of the Apostle Paul.

“Hey, mom,” said little Bennie, “says in this brochure that Turkey is larger than Texas. Is that for real?”

“No, stupid, it’s just all that jihad propaganda,” piped sister Beatrice from the pruned position. “Where did you get that brochure anyway?”

“Shut-up bitch,” said little Bennie. “Nobody’s talking to you!”

“Now kids, let’s try to put our hatreds aside. We’re miles from our hotel and not out of this yet,” said Dad. “These people are naturally friendly and engaging. They just have to get to know us. I thought St. Paul was buried at Lookout Mountain…”

No, that’s Buffalo Phil, fool,” said mom.

Finally, and not without more fanfare, the procession passed. The strange men in robes told us to get up and walk to the east and we would find true enlightenment…and our hotel.

“I wanna see Noah’s Arc,” said Beatrice, “and the ancient city of Troy. What a beat vacation. All my friends in Chicago will laugh at me if they find out I came all the way to Turkey without…”

“Wait, Daddy,” I said to my husband, “isn’t that the road to Istanbul, or is it the road to Constantinople? They must sell ottomans there. I just have to have an authentic Turkish Ottoman or I’ll just die.”

“What about dinner?” whined Bennie. “We’ve been here three days and I haven’t seen a taco anywhere. Today is Thanksgiving. Where’s the stuffing?”

“Now Bennie,” said my husband, whose name eludes me just now, “this isn’t America. One has to adapt. Sure, all of these rugheads wish they were in America, the land of the free, but they aren’t. They’re marooned here in Asia Minor…have been for centuries. I thought you liked the filberts in barley sauce that mom cooked up last night.”

“I want pizza,” screamed Beatrice much to the chagrin of a large angry crowd that had now gathered, blocking our exit from behind one of a hundred mosques that crowd the cobbled square. “I hate filberts!”

“And where is the football!” demanded little Bennie. “Don’t these Tartar savages know that it’s Thanksgiving?”

“I hate tartar sauce too,” mumbled Beatrice, “and Kurds and whey…

“Stop!” cried daddy. “Look a fez stand right out here in the middle of nowhere. I think we should all take home a fez as a souvenir from this lovely trip. Say there sahib. How much for four fezzes…is that the proper term? Yeah, four…and don’t try to screw me. I’m an American and I have rights.”

 At that he pulled out a U.S. fifty which the man selling the fez hats quickly grabbed and stashed in his robe. He smiled and then let go of the hats.

“Those hats look stupid,” said Beatrice, and for once her little brother agreed. We must have looked quite the sight wandering down those snarled filthy streets, sipping a Raki looking for some familiar signs of home.

“I have to pee,” said Bennie.

“We need to find a halkevi, or house of the people. Surely they will have indoor facilities…

“And cleanliness,” I crisply quipped.

“And a make-up mirror,” added Beatrice.

“And some good old American toilet paper,” smiled Daddy.

“We could ask someone,” I said melodically, swept up in the worldly banter of a man I no longer knew.

“None of these bozos talk American,” said Bennie

“Turkish isn’t so hard to learn,” said Dad as he wagged his finger at a would-be thief. “The Turks borrowed many Arabic and Persian words during the Ottoman Empire, then Kemal Ataturk changed the whole shootin’ match over to the Roman alphabet in 1928.”

“How does he know all that?” whispered Beatrice in my direction.

“Daddy was once a Middle East expert in of the Bush Administrations, dear,” I explained.

“It’s worthless information about a country that prefers figs to cranberry sauce, olives to pumpkin pie…”

“Shhhhh,” Bennie. Here come the mashed potatoes!”

As I looked up I saw thousands of men in the street. There were Turks from Ankara, Turks from Izmir, Turks from Cyprus. All were working together pushing a massive vat of freshly mashed potatoes, thinly veiled in Seljuk mohair, toward the largest of the mosques to the east of the square.

“Wow, dad!” said Bennie.

“Where are all the women?” asked Beatrice.

“Maybe they do celebrate Thanksgiving in Turkey,” I flinched.

“Look, kids. Look! It’s the march of the turkeys,” said Dad. “Look, honey, they’re coming this way. It’s going to be a wonderful holiday just like I told you. Honey? Honey? Hey, kids, where’s your mother?

“Oh, she was forced into that black Mercedes by two men who have been following us since yesterday,” said Beatrice.

“What? Forced into a car? gasped Daddy.

“Relax, man she’ll be back for dinner,” said Bennie.

– Luanne Julienne

Ms Julienne is a free-lance writer who lives in a big house in Connecticut. In addition to writing travel articles she raises amphetamines, which are then sold to collectors in New York

FOOD: Cross-dressing your bird for the holidays.

It’s that wonderful time of the year again and we’re on the cutting edge that runs its fickle jagged line between tailored lines, gender faux pas, blatant foppery and gaudy plumage.

Bright and cheery outfits are popular and trending for most birds, the descendants of those known cloths horses, the dinosaurs. However real designer accessories can be difficult to secure leaving one’s perfectly stuffed and roasted turkey feeling quite naked, even in the company of top-hatted mashed potatoes and tuxedoed yams.

We suggest lose-fitting cheesecloth, solid vegetable patterns, giblet blends, floor-length drumsticks and basting…lots of basting.  The rest is just arm candy.         

Always remember: Even an educated turkey cannot fly and many still prefer polyester. Issues involving the separation of dark meat from white meat, as well as the use of yoga pants with leftovers, remain not nice conversations at the holiday table.

It can be like pulling feathers to get them to dress up any other time of the year with the possible exception of the Fourth of July.

Across the bird world parrots, puffins, starlings, ravens, Peruvian condors, Blue Amazon flummery and other less appetizing breeds do not do well in the oven or in the fashion arena. Raptors and birds of prey are uncooperative. But they can be convinced to cross-dress if they think it will disguise their real motives.

Next time: Fruitcake Yurts for Lent.

-Beth Kampachi

Turkey Lottery Cruel?

(Montrose) The proposed Turkey Lottery, slated for Thanksgiving 2021, has played to mixed revues and reactions here and in other rural communities across the Colorado.

Saying that the birds already encounter enough stress this time of the year, one critic of the concept called the measure inhumane. Supporters of the bill insist that it will create a sense of justice and put a vast segment of the turkey population out of harm’s way, for now.

Here’s how it will work: The birds are assigned numbers based on birthdays and then draw for positions relative to the holidays. Lower numbers will designate the dinner table while higher numbers will earn a reprieve for the year.

“It’s as fair as anything else,” said Dag Katz, architect of the lottery. “This way the condemned might get their lives in order before late November. The saved can go on without fear of the  swan song and a side of mashed potatoes and cranberries.”

Vegetarians were not consulted on this matter and plan to boycott the entire issue.

“What rubs my chops is that nobody has consulted the sweet potatoes or the yams,” said

continued Friday   

Ponder, fodder, scowl…Elections and such.

Capsulated from “What you were Better Off Not Knowing” by Marta Chaco

Question: Where do rats go after leaving a sinking ship?”

Answer: After a period of self-medicating, many become lobbyists.

By 2021 most politicians will be well past safe use expiration dates, clearly marked on left ear tag. Throwing them out is the first baby step toward establishing strict term limitations. Other “leaders” passed cut-off limits but embraced the cessation of chemical impact agendas and continued to show up at the Capitol. Elected officials found to be conducting business after calendar rendezvous engagement (CRE) could forfeit lifelong pensions, state-of-the-art health care, diplomatic impunity, secret cervix protection and free caviar on Fridays.

Bottle Shoot Canned Due to Lethal Climate

The 3rd Annual Foggy Bottom Bottle Shoot has been cancelled due to Corona virus, at least that’s the official announcement, according to sources under the dome.

Others insist that open hostility between Democrats and Republicans in the House, where many of the members are armed, will lead to violence.

Proponents of gun freedoms think that it’s OK to shoot adversaries while gun control advocates might make an acceptation to otherwise peaceful philosophies and pull the trigger.

DO YOU THINK THIS IS PART-ISAN OF THE PROBLEM?

2000 George W. Bush Reverses Clinton Guidelines

2008 Obama Terminates Bush decrees

2016 – Trump Abolishes Obama policies

2020 Biden Overturns Trump Executive Orders

2024?

“IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN.” -Kermit the Frog

Jome Sick For Jardin