Free Bird
You don't really know how many people listen to NPR until you start walking around with a pink flamingo hanging from your neck.
That's what I did, anyway, Tuesday evening, for reasons of my own.
It turns out that there was a story just that day on All Things Considered about the pink flamingo factory, and how it was closing. And in the great game of free association that life often becomes, I became a trigger for the memory of that story for many people, and through the evening, they felt impelled to relate it to me.
My own relationship with pink flamingos started when I bought the farm. I signed a covenent with the folks I bought it from, an interesting little document where I agreed to not log, not hunt, not build a trailor park, etc. But before I set my quill to paper, I insisted upon one more inclusion: no pink flamingos. (It's there, you can go to the Madison County courthouse and look it up.)
Years ago, Van Halen famously put a clause in their touring contract: There was to be a bowl of M&Ms backstage, and all the red M&Ms were to be removed. It was their way of seeing if the venue had actually read the contract or not.
I, like most organic farmers, am hugely influenced by Van Halen, and did the pink flamingo thing just to see if the lawyers were actually reading the thing. And because I thought it was funny.
The other thought I have about pink flamingos was what an artist/activist friend once said. She lived in Georgia in a trailor near a defense contractor (that's all I can tell you.) She worked on her art, and monitored the comings and goings inside the plant (that's all I can tell you.) And she had pink flamingos everywhere.
"Who decided they're tacky? Who's the culture police?" she'd ask in Georgia drawl.
Oh, and about me and why I choose to hang this burden around my neck.
I was wearing rubber boots and an old rain slicker. And a bird around my neck. I was the Ancient Mariner.
That's what I did, anyway, Tuesday evening, for reasons of my own.
It turns out that there was a story just that day on All Things Considered about the pink flamingo factory, and how it was closing. And in the great game of free association that life often becomes, I became a trigger for the memory of that story for many people, and through the evening, they felt impelled to relate it to me.
My own relationship with pink flamingos started when I bought the farm. I signed a covenent with the folks I bought it from, an interesting little document where I agreed to not log, not hunt, not build a trailor park, etc. But before I set my quill to paper, I insisted upon one more inclusion: no pink flamingos. (It's there, you can go to the Madison County courthouse and look it up.)
Years ago, Van Halen famously put a clause in their touring contract: There was to be a bowl of M&Ms backstage, and all the red M&Ms were to be removed. It was their way of seeing if the venue had actually read the contract or not.
I, like most organic farmers, am hugely influenced by Van Halen, and did the pink flamingo thing just to see if the lawyers were actually reading the thing. And because I thought it was funny.
The other thought I have about pink flamingos was what an artist/activist friend once said. She lived in Georgia in a trailor near a defense contractor (that's all I can tell you.) She worked on her art, and monitored the comings and goings inside the plant (that's all I can tell you.) And she had pink flamingos everywhere.
"Who decided they're tacky? Who's the culture police?" she'd ask in Georgia drawl.
Oh, and about me and why I choose to hang this burden around my neck.
I was wearing rubber boots and an old rain slicker. And a bird around my neck. I was the Ancient Mariner.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
-Sam Coleridge
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
-Sam Coleridge
1 Comments:
At December 21, 2006 6:36 PM,
Anonymous said…
Damn, you're cool.
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