The Dude Ranch, and it's Glorious Art Installations

As I have previously mentioned, the Dude Ranch is not what you'd call a "normal" household. There is random junk all over the place - for a while if you were to ask where the coffee was, you would have received the honest answer of "In the kitchen, in a top hat". More recently I was struggling to find a pillow, which I eventually found in the bath.

There was also a time when Vegatrain and I were battling modern art installations. He started by affixing about 4 cans of air freshener to the bathroom wall. I responded with this piece of soapy genius:

I call it "Dishes". Basically I realised that of the dirty dishes, there seemed to be two of just about everything. And we had two drying racks. So, yes. I washed them and then arranged them as they were intended to be arranged. I am sure I was channeling a higher dishwashing power with that one.

The success of this installation was clear in that no-one touched it for several days, despite the fact that there are four of us, all of whom eat food on plates. I suppose we decided we could sacrifice that in the name of art.

-Smackie Onassis

Cast of Characters

If you have been perusing my blog without reading the introductory post, you may have noticed that I refer to people by code names, for reasons of both privacy and hilarity (Meattrain is particularly adament about never revealing his true identity, like the meat-based superhero he is). It has been brought to my attention that the code names I am using are becoming increasingly ridiculous. Personally, I think they have remained at a pretty consistent level of ridiculous, but that's just my opinion.

However last night, while trying to sit out a particularly awful migraine, I started coming up with some potential code names. What I ended up with instead was a list of characters that I would love to see combined in some kind of mildly plausible fictitious setting. They started almost reasonable (for me, at least), but very quickly got more and more ridiculous.

Cast Of Characters:

Little Johnny Applesauce

Baxter Isafence

Jason Faceonacup, the mug collector

Abe L. Trolleycopter

Sasketchiwa Johnstone, the beef haunter

Clones 'The Cloner' Clonington and his seven piece one man band

Holy Jeremiah Heel, the street walker

Lonesome Jim Hula-hoop, the solitary hero

Gentle Dolly, the village proctologist

'Colonel' Ipswich Von Beardington, the clean shaven bus-driver

Old Man Crimestalker, the vigilant vigilante

Beans McGee, the ventriloquist with his charming off-sider;

"Raphael", an allegedly sentient tin of beans with a keen interest in politics

This entry is my written promise to create a piece of fiction that includes every one of these characters. I will probably do it later today, even. I'm not going to lie to you, the idea excites me, just a little bit too much.

-Smackie Onassis

Neck Roberts

I could probably explain how the whole Neck Roberts thing began, but it still most likely wouldn't make a lick of sense*. However, I can have a go at telling an abridged history of the Neck Roberts phenomenon. Because it is a phenomenon, let me assure you.

I was in a local pub when I came up with the idea, as I was examining the display of free postcards. You know the ones, little rectangles of advertising, usually with no room to actually write a message. I honestly think that I might be the only one who has ever actually bothered attaching a stamp to these and sending them on.  But I hadn't, before Neck Roberts.

There I was, examining the postcard collection for any winners. As I often do, I ended up going away with a handful of them. They were doomed for the recycling bin, like so many of their free postcard counterparts, until I absent-mindedly started writing on them. 

See, Neck Roberts was a name Vegatrain and I had come up with a few days before. I think I briefly made it my display name on facebook, for no real reason. If anybody called me on it, I planned to just pretend it had always been my name and I didn't know what they were talking about. Luckily, my friends know me well enough at this point to not even bother attempting to call me out on being an absurd human being. At first I would just label whatever I was doing as 'modern art', and see what I could get any with. Now, I don't even need to. Most people in my life have made their peace with the fact that I don't make much sense a good majority of the time.

Anyway, somehow in the course of that night, I started writing on those postcards. I took a common expression/advertising slogan, replaced one word with the word 'neck', signed it as Neck Roberts and sent them to a guy I went to high school with. Whom I haven't seen in a year.

Later, I asked him if he'd received them. He admitted that he had, but hastily tried to change the subject and pretend it had never happened. Not so fast, pal.

The next incident occurred few months later when I was in Melbourne visiting a friend. We were out and about when I came across a veritable treasure trove of free postcards. Again, I wrote on them, signed them as Neck Roberts and sent them. If you're wondering just what exactly I have been writing on these cards, here are a few examples:

Top of the neck to you!

A neck is for life, not just for Christmas

Have a nice neck!

Necks - it's what's for dinner.

And so on. There have been a few separate batches now, and every now and then that friend from Melbourne texts me new neck-related phrases, which I store away for future reference. The recipient (always the same guy) is still trying as hard as he can to pretend this is not happening which, if I'm being quite honest, just encourages me to do it even more.

Neckfully yours,

Smackie Onassis

*Come to think of it, the saying "lick of sense" doesn't make a lot of sense itself. Licks are for delicious ice-creams, not abstract concepts.