THE POODLESHOOT THIS TIME

NOVEMBER 29, 2003

 

This November marks the 5th Annual Island Poodleshoot and BBQ. This year the Event was enlivened by the introduction of live decoys employed by the mother-son team of Lynn and David Lindberg of Pleasanton, assisted by David's lovely wife, Patty. A notorious Black Mambo Poodle was brought in restrained and under a phalanx of armed guards to a specially prepared holding tank. A large percentage of East German Schnapperhund and South American Cogere-Cojones Whippet in its bloodlines made the beast nearly tractable with higher than average intelligence, otherwise the entire affair would certainly have to have been called off due to the breed's natural atavistic viciousness, developed and preserved from prehistoric times as a consequence of its onetime habit of fighting dinosaurs for scraps.

It is an animal little changed since those times.

The plan was to stake the Mambo near a walking path in Washington Park while Patty was to feign involvement with a special Reese Witherspoon Vanity, done in shocking pink and set upon wheels for mobile deployment. David and Lynn were to crouch with flamethrowers and explosive nets nearby. Our dear Patty was not left undefended in these seemingly precarious circumstances, for a secret compartment was prepared beforehand with a loaded Smith and Wesson .45 caliber pistol and a 500,000 volt electric riot baton. The Mambo was kept quiet in the meantime by feeding it liberally with live Corgi's, which the Mambo devoured most daintily.

Everyone else made their respective preparations according to their own likes and dislikes, as well as taste for BBQ, and so the time led up to the start, delayed only by several lengthy toasts proposed on the part of Jim Kitson, of Santa Clara Avenue, in honor of the USS Hornet, the American Armed Forces, Our Island Home, his good friend Thomas, Mexican Independence, Nancy Pelosi and the staunch Democrats, each one of the Kennedys, plus a few causes too arcane to remember, the whole affair jolted forward and was announced via a hearty blast upon the Traditional Silver Kazoos.

The line of hunters then moved out into the field under a grey sky and the day began quietly while a selection of musicians performed at the main stage bandstand located in the middle of the baseball diamond. A real crowd pleaser was the Barbershop Quartet that performed selections from the works of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. Musical accompaniment was provided by Tobi Tucker on tuba, Eugene Gallipagus on kettles, Professor Schickele on Hardart with Inflatable, Robert Fripp on broomstick-washtub bass, and Chad Chadwick on the Banjo-Bandsaw Anomaly. Mr. Chadwick's 20 minute solo on the Bandsaw Anomaly can only be described as sublime.

All were well supplied with liberal portions of warm toddy punch, supplied by O'Brien's of New Orleans.

Once again, the Island Yappydog Walker's Association had been redirected by stratagem. This time, it was let out at the Eagle's Hall that a Benefit to Free Martha Stewart was holding a raffle for a donated life-sized portrait of Elvis as Jesus, holding a big-eyed doggie with one arm and embracing a sad-eyed clown with the other. All done tastefully in velvet fabric. Raffle was to be held in the newly dedicated Brittany Spears Shopping Center in Turlock and word had it that the Famous Dame might appear.

They fell for it like rats on moldy cheese and the Island was free of trouble for a while.

And so the day passed pleasantly to the sounds of live music and the occasional shotgun blast, hand grenade, and the particular report of the Mac-10 going full throttle, as it is wont to do in East Oakland and other parts.

Mr. Neil Tarkieff brought in a nice one impaled upon a saws-all from Johnson Tools and Julee Coover came successfully out of a melee that erupted in Pagano's illegal parking-lot/storage facility when a brace of Norwegian Blues cornered her and Toni Savage behind the new illegal fence. The plucky pair climbed up onto the towering stacks of manure and cement -- also illegal -- with the snarling hounds snapping at their pumps. From this vantage point, Toni proved the vigor of her name by hurling sacks of hardware stock down at the curs, managing to brain three of them before John Maio, Director of the Altadena Playhouse, came out of the house dressed and made up like Kagemusha, which so astonished the enemy they fled before him and the tide of battle turned in favor of the armies of the White Rose and the enemy fell as leaves of grass before the wind.

At the end of the day, all the tired little hunters came trundling back with their kills or their wounds, as happened to be their luck. Jim Kitson smoked a fine one stuffed with a goose inside his special Poodle-smoker, fed with fires stoked by bundles of cigars from Cuba.

The odor was curious, to say the least, but at the end of the day, a fine time was had by all and we all had a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat and we all went to bed and went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning. When we got a call from Officer O'Madhauen.

But that is another story.

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