ABC After School Special Kid

ABC Afterschool Special Kid

By Jason Goldtrap, November 12, 2020

Hi. I'm the ABC Afterschool Special Kid. I'm just like you expect I'm in a wheelchair and I'm blind and deaf and I have A.I.D.S., which is hard to fight due to my anorexia. My parents are getting a divorce and I'm homeless and my Dad's in prison, my Mom's an alcoholic, and I'm being bullied because I'm an African-American who dances ballet.

I am running for class President while experimenting with marijuana even though I'm secretly an undercover cop who stole the answers to tomorrow's big exam and I'm the only one who stutters but not when I'm ice dancing around the wounded deer I found in the woods.

My girlfriend wants to be on the Little League team but she can't get away from her secret life of being an overweight, dyslexic, illiterate, Muslim, teen singing sensation who is giving birth to a mixed race Crack baby covered in birthmarks and she's actually a dude but I'm comforted by my guardian angel disguised as a retired Jewish circus clown.

We both became accidentally launched aboard the Space Shuttle where we showed the astronauts and their guests the Harlem Globetrotters that you don't have to be pretty to succeed while helping them set up a non religious and allergy sensitive, Christmas tree that can be recycled.

Beware Story Bear this Christmas

Rivergate Mall: Story Bear

By Jason Goldtrap 2003

Be vigilant this Yuletide season for an enormous, fury ogre I first encountered at Rivergate Mall in Nashville, Tennessee, 1991. I was a clerk at a jewelry stand; ready for my 9am to 9pm shift.  It was a frosty November morning in Music City. Retirees were strolling past the Cheese Barn. Good–natured, tattooed men with criminal records were emptying the trash. All the world was at peace when what to my wandering eyes did appear but an 18 foot tall, gray furred Story Bear.

He loomed over the fountain squared court in front of the JC Penny’s, wearing a green bow tie and a red Santa’s cap, complete with chromium blue eyes that eerily followed you in a mishmash of Charles Dickens and George Orwell.  And then its voice blared from a dozen wreath laden speakers: “Hello, I’m Story Bear”. He spoke in a warbling, Barney Fife-esque vocalization. “Would you like to hear a story? One time, I saw Santa Claus.” He began singing “Up on the roof top” in an  off key tenor with a slow, plodding beat-  reminiscent of a cow dying from a bowel obstruction.

The most hypnotic aspect of Story Bear was that both his mouth and eyelids were wildly out of sync. At no point, not even by accident, did they match. Even between the blessed but brief pauses between songs, the robot’s jaw just continued opening and closing.

“Can I be your friend? I like having friends. Feliz Navidad”- an attempt to make sure the audio water-boarding was multicultural.

After a seemingly endless abomination of the “12 Days of Christmas” the show abruptly ended. For 60 seconds, there is serenity and employees of The Gap or the Great American Cookie Company could breathe easy, until the nightmarish nineteen minute show started again, meaning, they were treated to this musical, sugar plum homicide twenty-seven times a day.  Each second, the clock would tick tock closer to that magical New Year’s morning, when the evil ursine  is disassembled and crated back to Perdition from whence it came.

In conclusion, if you see Story Bear at your local mall be afraid, be very, very afraid

.

Dorothy Tweets from Oz

Dorothy Gale's Tweets of Oz by Jason Goldtrap

Sultry day in KS. I dress like I’m 12 but I'm actually 17 because I don’t want to get any more marriage proposals. #KansasIsBoring

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Farm life is dull. There must be another world #SomewhereOverTheRainbow

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Na-Un! Almira Gulch just took Toto for chasing her cat. #CatsAreEvil

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Forget this crap, I’m running away!  #ManicMondayPanicMode

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Good gravy, Kansas goes on like forever. Maybe I’ll go to St. Louis and meet a guy on a trolley. #KlangKlangKlang

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Met Prof. Marvel (he’s not a super hero) hoping to meet Chris Evans at some point. #EyeContact Weather looks bad.

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Um, everyone on the farm ditched me and locked the cellar. Got to hide in the house.

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Being in the middle of a tornado is a bit freaky deaky.

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Where’s all the sepia? What’s color? #DontThinkWereInKansasAnymore Also, I killed somebody!  #NotMyFault Ooo, nice shoes.

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Just saw a lady float in through a bubble. Says asked if I was a good witch or a bad witch. I replay “Neither.” “Only bad witches are ugly.” Um, cha! #ReadyToRumble

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Yellow Brick Road? Talk about government waste. Why can’t she just fly me there in her bubble?

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Talking Scarecrow? Yeah, why not? I once dated a guy with no brain so I can handle this.

...

So now I’m hanging with no brain, no heart, no courage. #SingleLife Wish Iron Man could join us. #RobertDowneyIsHot

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Lions, tigers and bears. Oh my. Except the Lion shouldn’t be a problem. Can’t he just convince the other lions not to eat us?

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The witch is shooting fire balls at us. #SuperMario I’m calling #911.

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I keep hearing #PinkFloyd #DarkSideOfTheMoon in the background

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Emerald City is awesome. But it is so far to walk. Taking nap in a field of poppies.

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Oh great, another weirdo smoothing up to me. Big green head, no body #SingleLife

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Um, can’t you just let me borrow a bubble thing to fly home. #OzLife

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No way! Don’t like flying monkeys. #BuildTheWall

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Get your own shoes, witch. Ever heard of #Amazon

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Toto just ditched me. Gee, thanks. #FriendsDumped

Me :(

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No brains, no heart, no courage guys are I are running around the witch’s castle. What comes next? Thanks, but #LetsJustBeFriends

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I just killed another witch! #BadDay

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Remember how I’ve always said I wanted a charred broom stick? Me neither.

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And to top off this cherry sundae of garbage the Wizard is fake and the balloon left without me. 

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Um, you know you could have told me about the clicking heels thing like 2 hours ago.

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Back home, it was all a dream. Drag. #KansasIsBoring.

Abraham Lincoln

On Facebook I saw a post which asked, “If you could sit on a bench and speak to anyone from history who would it be?” My answer, Abraham Lincoln. As I imagine it, as I would sit on a bench, a ray of sunlight would illuminate the bench and from an etheral mist, he would appear and take his station beside me.

"Are you Abraham Lincoln?"

"Yes."

"No seriously, are you Abraham Lincoln?"

"Yes, son, I am he."

"Are you THE Abraham Lincoln?"

"Yes, yes, I am Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America."

"Are you Abbey Lincoln?"

"No, that was a Black Jazz singer. I am ABRAHAM Lincoln; born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, February 12, 1809, I was President during the War Between the States."

"So... you're Abraham Lincoln, the guy from the penny?"

"Yes, yes, I am Abraham Lincoln. I delivered the Gettysburg Address. There's a big memorial of me in Washington D.C.. There's even an aircraft carrier named after me. There was a stupid movie about me hunting vampires for some reason. I married Mary Todd who quite vexed me with her spending habits. John Wilkes Booth shot me at Ford's Theater. As I slipped from this mortal coil, my John Hay said 'Now he belongs to the ages.' My visage is carved in the mighty stones on Mount Rushmore. I know all of that because I, even I, AM Abraham Lincoln. Are you now satisfied with my identification, my fellow citizen of the Republic?"

--pause—

"Yes."

"Good, good, good."--The Great Emancipator sighs.-- pause-- "As long as I am here, and you know for certain that I am Abraham Lincoln, do you have any more questions for me?"

"Only one question." 

"Go ahead."

-- I clear my throat-- "If you could sit on a bench for an hour and speak to any in history, who would it be?"

--The re-encarnated Commander in Chief scratches his farrowed brow before he answers, "Thomas Jefferson. I would ask him, what think he of this American Experiment." He nods. "Yes, yes, that is what my soul would seek, his assessment of this union."

--a few moments of silence.--

"If I could speak with Thomas Jefferson I would ask him the same thing."

"That is a admirable query." –

"Nope, on second thought, I'd ask him... are you Abraham Lincoln?" JG 2-23-2016

Oomph Loompa 2020

Oompa Loompa doompadee dot

Don't fight the cops and you won't get shot

Oompa Loompa doompadee ding

Why set fire to a Burger King?

What do you get with immorality?

And wink and a check from the DNC.

Better be wise and not waste money.

Think for yourself and you'll be free.

Living in a Red State.

Oompa Loompa doompadee doo

Stay six feet apart or you'll get rona too

Turn off Facebook and exercise

Or you'll Oompa Loompa doompadee die

I Hear America Purring

I Hear America Purring 

By Jason Goldtrap 

 September 10, 2020 

I hear America purring, the varied trills I hear, 

Those cats of mechanics who jump into tool boxes, each one getting in the way as it should be,

The delicious milk of the momma cat, or of the feline leaping to the bed just in time to be swallowed by sheets fresh out of the dryer, or of the girl sewing with a kitten who keeps stealing her yarn and hiding it under the couch, 

Each taking what belongs to them and to none else because it is in their home and has their scent, 

The day what belongs to the nap—at night when dead birds are placed on the porch. 

 All purring, all warm, content with territory and family.