Dateline: Saturday, July 2, 2011, Albert Lea, MN.:
Over a slope encased in concrete comes a purple motorcycle. Sure enough, astraddle it is the Artist Once Sometimes Known As His Royal Badness--except for but that now he’s pretty much been emasculated down to Their (Witnesses’s) Royal (as in Kingdom Hall) Lousiness comin’ on as Goodness--i.e. Prince.
He’s in the ol’ purple waistcoat, ruffle shirt, pointy boot getup, n’ wearing the ol’ jeri curl, and it all still looks pretty good, despite his advancing years. Motorcycle cracks and snarls along, and as Prince approaches the camera in
LONG SHOT, a covered wagon appears, following him.
Piloting the wagon is the rotting specter of Michael Landon, who shrieks, whether at the horrors of death or at the miseries he’s found in resurrection, (e.g. the cluster of economy motels, fast food restaurants, and gas stations crouching like some fattened toad on the dirty concrete before him,) none can say. Next to him sits Karen Grassle, who played his wife on the beloved TV drama Little House on the Prairie, now just short of 70 years old. She is not hot, cuz she never was, and she still wears lotsa gingham, cuz she always did. She gags and weeps and looks generally unhappy about being stuck next to the screaming Thing Formerly Known As Landon.
Scampering around the wagon come 3 adult women who are trying to move with the playful enthusiasm of children, but they appear overheated in their own frontier-style dresses. These are Melissas Sue Anderson and Gilbert and that other bitch who keeps falling and rolling comically as she tries to keep up with the wagon. (Actually, wasn’t she twins? Gotta work around those kiddie labor laws. If so, how to handle this? Have both of ‘em stumble & fall, cutting heads around the wagon, getting up, sniveling, continuing to run? Take turns? Hmmmm.....) Oh yeah, and there was a rotted, dead dog around somewhere too a while back, but he was hit by a car long since. Albert Lea is surrounded by freeway interchanges.
Melissa SA, the one with the freakish blue eyes, which is probably why they had her become blind on the show, calls out, begging for a moment’s rest. With great difficulty, the message is somehow relayed to Prince, who screeches to a halt.
“Where R we goin?” she whines, outta breath.
“Lake Minnetonka.” He grins smugly.
“Wh-what for?”
He looks at them all, licks his chops. “An initiation rite.”
And they move on.
(Note 2 regular readers (all none of u): Casework in Albert Lea and points west r the reason 4 radio silence. Have been gone A WHILE. Back Now w/ even more adventures 2 tell u about crowding the blotter! I’ll try 2 do a better job. See u soon.)
