Sunday, October 17, 2010

My 2 Pink Flamingos

this morning i awakened to 2 blaring facts: one, my coffee's not strong enough and two, my new dog is a very picky eater... taking matters into my own hands and appeasing both her and i, i padded my number 4 filter with more "major dickinson's" and i piled her bowl with some chopped up pieces of organic chicken breast with minced garlic from saturday night's dinner. both of us were seemingly satisfied and ready to greet a sunday... looking out my kitchen window, wondering if life could in fact get any more colorful, i noticed my spearmint taking over the very sand where my 2 pink flamingos proudly stand... what is the correlation between trailer parks and pink flamingos? the origin? and why in the hell did i place 2 in my front yard? i began taking my thoughts to google, with every intent of finding an answer. (isn't it ludicrous how we trust google more than we trust our own family?) so this is entertaining...there is a game out called
"Trailer Park Wars" that puts you in charge of a mobile home community. (LOL NOW THAT IS IRONIC!) Your goal is to make your park more attractive than your competitors' parks by including amenities such as the Skeet Range, Hot Tub, and Tapped Beer Keg. You also want to attract desirable tenants to your park while at the same time dealing with the lowlifes and deadbeats that inevitably drift in. Scoring is performed in each round of play, with victory points tracked by miniature plastic flamingos that you accumulate and "arrange attractively around your trailer park". Game ends when the last victory flamingo is awarded. Perhaps this was my subconscious intent... to make my yard more attractive than the surrounding yards, if you can call them that! Then of course many of you might remember baltimore director John Waters's outrageous 1971 debut Pink Flamingos. it burst onto the filmmaking scene like the ample flesh of its drag-queen star through the seams of a lamé dress! of course, i felt unsatisfied with my google answers and in continuing my quest for understanding my own destiny, i stumbled upon the lyrics (chorus) of billy ray cyrus' song...

Burn down the trailer park
Shoot the pink flamingoes out in the yard
I can't live here since she broke my heart
I'm gonna burn down the trailer park

of course, being a recovering "adult child of a country western music alpha addict father" i have never even listen to a word of mr. cyrus' music! but i must admit a liking to his chorus, especially on a bad day here'at the park!'
in the late fifties, america was yearning for more vibrancy in their normal everyday lives. hence, the pink flamingo became very popular lawn decor. it was associated with lavishness, as a vacation to warm climates like florida were popular in the late fifties, and so the flamingo hit it big! As a matter of fact, they are still one of the most popular lawn ornaments to date!

sipping my cup of "wake-up", i am well aware of my delight, tickled pink actually to know i am still in with the lavish "in crowd!!!!" seize the day!

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