PG 13: The Smell of Victory...You Know you're From Venice If!

Star Date: July 23, 1969. (continued saga and finale)  The Grand Overture of the "Venice Plague."

It was a full two days since the Apollo 11 had landed on the moon and we had witnessed - "The One Giant Step for Mankind" and the Jamboree had officially come to an end. The 1935 National Jamboree in Washington DC had been cancelled because of the polio epidemic and I couldn't help but think that cancelling this Jamboree might not have been such a bad idea, considering the plague that had arrived from Venice California - likened to an abhorrent yet virile virus known as Troop 32. As it turned out, the infection spread throughout the 34,225 other boys who attended the Jamboree, but most ended up surviving - considering the head trauma, the stitches, our E.coli bacteria, the greatest prank of all time and the aggregated psychological torment that will likely require years of psychiatric counseling.

On the very last night after the amazing fireworks display... it was time for another orchestrated raid by the notorious "White Angels." (For those who are just tuning in, "the White Angels" are a band of rowdy Boy Scouts - making late night raids in nothing but their tightie-whities (that is butt-tight underwear) and a cacophony of masking tape that made us look like Zombies from hell.  One of our Senior Patrol Leaders gave us the brilliant  idea and the permissive wink-of-the-eye that created "culpable deniability" while saying, "But I would never tell you to do this. Because it would be wrong!"  (wink-wink)

Dego didn't want to borrow Chronister's underwear and decided that he would go on the raid with us in his "Birthday Suit."  Dego was older than most of us pre-teen pubates and was proud of his generous male endowment and was always looking for a good excuse to flaunt his stuff and taunt those of us still waiting for a single hair to show up under our armpits. After some argument, he conceded somewhat and decided that instead of going on the raid stark-naked, he would have Ronnie tape up his private parts with the masking tape - which I knew wouldn't end so well for him. (He didn't seem to care about the consequences... as a matter of fact - I think he was looking forward to it! Sick! Right?)  

                                      "You know you're from Venice if!"

Our "Saturday Night Massacre" began at 2:51am  in the wee dark hours when everything had settled down and was quiet in the Boy Scout compound. The raid began as we quietly invaded several camps in our immediate vicinity and stole every Idaho potato we could find. We gathered and amassed our vegetarian plunder in small mountain just outside the front tent flaps of the KYBO patrol. Armed with Idaho's finest spuds we sneaked, snaked and snuck out in groups of three towards the massive parking lot that was filled with those disdained luxurious travel-coaches of the other "Regular" Boy Scouts. One boy in each group shoved the oversize potato into the opening of the exhaust muffler.. the other kid hit is with a brick, a rock, a bat...or anything heavy enough to beat the potato solidly into round exhaust pipe - while the third kid served as a look out.  It took us a couple hours and by 5:00 we had managed to cover the entire parking lot. Hallelujah!

We didn't want the proverbial smoking gun to point in our direction so we stacked the excess potatoes, bricks, rocks and sticks across the field in the camp of the troop from Beverly Hills.




As 300 Boy Scouts at Farragut State Park (those anxious kids who hoped to  receive their "bugle" merit badge) unnaturally forced out an ear-piercing wake-up rendition of reveille on tortured bugles... it served as a covering for the horrifying screams from the tent of the KYBO patrol, as the boys exuberantly pealed the tape off from Dego's hairy underparts and also from his dangling thinga-ma-giggy that had been wrapped like a mummy.












We broke down camp and loaded up the Troop 32 Scout Bus for the long ride home back to Venice.



We fired up the old carbon monoxide spewing beast and watched the normal kids climb aboard the nice buses and smiled as if we liked them. 

We watched and gladly inhaled the fumes of our glorious beast as the buses of 20,000 Boy Scouts chocked and sputtered and coughed and flat-out refused to start. Alan played his rusty bugle as we laughed and sang a victory celebration from Creedence Clearwater - capped off with Dego and Cockrell flashing their bare-buns in a "full-moon," pressed up against opposite portholes of the beloved old scout truck from Venice. 

We bellowed in an awful cacophony like the squealing of 24 rats who had their tails caught in a door.    

"There's a place up ahead and I'm goin'

Just as fast as my feet can fly

Come away, come away if you're goin'

Leave the sinkin' ship behind

Come on the risin' wind

We're goin' up around the bend

Bring a song and a smile for the banjo

Better get while the gettin's good

Hitch a ride to the end of the highway

Where the neons turn to wood.." 

With a cover up like this; deniability; The Smoking Gun, midnight raids "The Saturday Night Massacre" and learning how to pass the buck.. someone in our group was bound to go into politics.

See ya later Bill Gates...and the rest of you suckas!

                                 Venice Rules!



 

Bill Gates and the Naked Zombies part 2

Star Date: July 18 1969    2 more days until the Apollo 11 lands on the moon and four hours from the time eight naked boys are loosed at Boy Scout National Jamboree.

(Continued).

Last time, the brainiac nerd from Troop 186 named Billy, gave me the high grades on his tracking skills course, and so, I couldn't hate him...right? He got all excited and started telling me how this tracking thing was like some-kind of logic flow chart - the kind of code they use for programming computers.  I didn't even know what a computer was and had no idea what he was talking about - but he was passionate about it.

I liked the little nerd, but unfortunately their troop from Seattle had incited the Flaming Arrow Patrol (of my Troop) which has by now become known throughout the Jamboree as the notorious KYBO Patrol (KYBO: was a military term that meant Keep Your Bowels Open, which had evolved into a derogatory slur against our less-than-illustrious patrol that had requested to be near the outhouses because poor Cockerel was still working through a bad case of "prune induced" diarrhea. In my best guesstimation he still had about 12 pounds of pasty spaghetti he had to pass through the lower part of his intestines - NO, but seriously!).

"Not gonna lie" These guys in the KYBO Patrol were loud, they smelled and they were filthy dirty. The hoity-toity types from Seattle who set up camp right next to us resented our Troop from Venice and got into a verbal sparring match. THIS WAS NOT GOING TO END WELL.  Later that night after the speech from Jesse Owens and the message from Neil Armstrong aboard the Apollo 11 from outer space, the KYBO patrol had big plans for Troop 186 - when I use the word big - it is not a metaphor - I mean "BIG!"  

During the wee hours of late muggy night the KYBO Patrol decided on a raid. Only, they thought that instead of dressing up and disguising themselves they wanted to do that raid as what they called the "NAKED ANGLES." I heard all the whispering in their tent and I quietly sneaked out of mine to see what they were up to.

I pulled back the flap of their tent to see 8 naked bodies putting tape on each other. I knew it was going to hurt coming off - but more power to them...right! This would be the first time ever in the history of the known boy scout universe for a naked raid at a Jamboree. Troop 32 was about to go down in infamy!  I tried to talk them out of the naked part for the sake of our Scout Masters and managed to get them to concede to what I called the "White Angels" and to at least - go in their "Tightie-Whities." Then everyone scrambled and borrowed skin-tight skivvies, if they didn't have any, and went on the 3:00 am raiding party. You talk about the Living Dead or attack of the Zombies this was it! The time had finally come; an event that inspired many a horror movie to come. (Only Chronister read something in an encyclopedia about pixies and wanted the Flaming Arrows to go marauding as something he called "Manic Pixies" everyone thought it was stupid and shot that idea down) "Manic Pixie Hot Mess" I thought that idea would never fly!

First things first! The "White Angels"decided to mess up the Indian Tracking course. By that - all of the kids thought it meant destroying tracks, adding new ones and littering the course with trash and other stuff you can find at 3 am in the morning... all except for "Dego."  When his patrol set off to mess up the course... somehow what got stuck in his brain was "to mess on the course." Now that our stools (except for Cockerel's) had some firm consistency to them, Dego threw the owl scat into some bushes and replaced it with the biggest stinkiest pile of human byproduct imaginable.

Next, the practically naked boy-scouts (if you could call us that) cut the ropes of the tent stakes and pulled Billy from his tent. They pants'd him and gave him a "pink-belly." Pretending to be Zombies, they said they were going to eat his brains and poop them out in the morning. After what Dego did, the boys from Troop 186 thought it just might be true.

As the baby boy of the"Wolf Pack" and perpetual underdog to my older brothers torturous shenanigans there shouldn't be any question in anyone's mind as to why I had this felt need to stand up for the underdog.

It was almost psychotic and my PTSD adrenaline addiction didn't help things either - when incited, I was always like that mother you hear about who could lift a car off her baby. I let them have their fun, but when they began to drag the poor kid over to Dego's "leaning tower of Dooh-Dooh," I Intersected their path and tried my best to derail their plans (this is what I would have wanted from a parent or a neighbor or anyone who I felt cared)...so I cared - sue me! I lied to them and told them that the MP's were on the way and punctuated that by telling the hairless Zombies that, "The nerd was safe.. because...How can you eat his brains... WHEN HE DOESN"T HAVE ANY!"  Then I laughed  in hopes of priming the pump and began howling in laughter, believing they had gotten the best of Troop 186 and scattering in victory.  I watched as eight pair of white-clad buns scurried back into the tent of the KYBO Patrol.

I checked on Billy to see if he was okay, but didn't want to say much because I could see he was embarrassed. The poor guy. I don't think he's got what it takes to become an Eagle Scout and knew that this Boy Scout thing just wasn't for him. I helped him up as he mumbled under breath that, he'll get even. That somehow he would show those guys. I knew exactly what he had felt like mainly because of what I had waiting for me when i got back to my house.

He said something about computers again and about making a bazillion dollars and about taking over the world. "I'll show them" he said... I wasn't too sure about that...(to be honest, I wasn't too sure about the future for computers). Then I saw the look in his eye and figured that it might be good to keep his signed piece of paper.  Who Knows!  Maybe someday, we will all have giant super-computers in the basement of our homes.  Right! Pshaw!  That would be like portable phones you could carry around with you... like that will ever happen. What are you going to do strap a phone booth on the top of your car!  - Not very likely.

Time to write another letter home I guess...

for you Android People Shocking Blue Write Me a Post Card

Hello Muddah.. Hello Faddah... "When I get home remind me to tell you about the White Angels some time and if you see Tommy Blaser and Jeffery and Kippy and Michael and Kevin Lennon running around the neighborhood, tell them it was better that they weren't here. I think the trip would have changed their outlook on world.

Venice Zombies And Little Billy Gates pt 1

Star Date: July 17th 1969 (continued)

Unfortunately, Boy Scout troop 186 from Seattle got the unlucky pick of the short straw and had to set up camp next to us.  AND, what made things worse is that this snooty group of "cake-eaters" arrived in one of those expensive travel-coaches and didn't have to poop behind bushes and wipe off with pine cones like we did.

This automatically made them the ire of "THE KYBO PATROL." Ronnie and a couple of the kids from the Flaming Arrow Patrol overhead the Seattle kids whispering some snide comments about having to set up camp so close to the troop from Venice - and that was all it took.

Don't tell Ronnie and Chronister and Cockerel this, but in reality, the "The KYBO Patrol" looked like dirt bags and smelled even worse! When I heard all the plans for retaliation, I felt sorry for "silver-spooners" in troop 186.

They had a kid named Billy, who was a year older than me, and petitioned his scoutmasters that his troop show off the type of skills representing the Indian culture of Seattle that required the use of brains. The freshman with glasses wasn't so much into hiking and knot tying and other normal boy scout stuff. The Scout Masters liked his idea and ran with it.

In a demonstration of  Indian tracking skills, they created a 100 foot long sand course that had to be interpreted. I didn't dare tell the other kids in my troop, but I actually liked it.  It had foot prints and pokes and various paw prints and all kinds of things in the sand that told a story.  At the beginning of the Troop 186 "skills demonstration" a kid handed each camper a piece of paper and golf pencil to write down their observations. You had to identify the foot prints of various animals that crossed the path and the ones the tracker was following - get this -  they even had an owl scat (don't know where they got that?), but I dug it and felt like I did pretty good at it (no, not the owl poop - I dug the course)!

The thing I guessed right was the part about how it was a barefooted Indian who used his bow as a hiking staff which had made the round indentations and how he was followed by a three legged companion.

At the end, you had to turn your paper into the little brainiac nerd, Billy, who read your interpretation and gave you a grade. The little nerdy kid was impressed that I got the part about the limp and the staff and the three legged dog and gave me the highest score so far. Obviously, this made me feel good about myself and couldn't help, but like the scrawny, little four-eye'd geek from a rich suburb of Seattle, who had signed my "Indian tracking sheet!"    

HOWEVER, it was the owl-scat thing that triggered the vindictive imagination of the KYBO patrol which would take place - later that night, well after dark.

In the meantime, it was a historic day for the Boy Scouts as we heard Jesse Owens speak to all 35,000 of us who gathered in the massive Friendship Arena, but even more cool than that - was that Neil Armstrong sent a message to us from space on the way to the moon.

WHAT!?

“I’d like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho at the National Jamboree there this week and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes.”  


Never before in the history of mankind has anything like this ever happen for the Boy Scouts and I was there!  And, never before in the history of the Boy Scouts of America has anything as terrifying as what the KYBO patrol did later that night ever happen before...and unfortunately, I was there!

NEXT: THE VENICE ZOMBIE ATTACK!
                               Check in next time to see if little Billy Gates will make it out alive?

Hello Muddah... Hello Fadda... you thought it was bad the last time I wrote... Well you won't believe this.

         Wait until you hear about what "Dego" did!

I guess I should add this to my: "You know you're from Venice If"  list.

The Venice Infection Continues to Spread

Star Date: July 16, 1969       10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."BLAST OFF" 

I know dad will be upset because I wasted an extra penny on this post card with my 6 cent Apollo 8 stamp, but I felt like I had to splurge since they launched the Apollo 11 today with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as humankind was on the verge of taking its first steps on extraterrestrial soil.   Yuri was the first human into outer-space in 1961 and the USSR had been way ahead of us in the Space Race. But now, the good 'O USA was about to finally leap into the lead!  Yee Haw! We were winning so I spent the extra penny on postage.

By this time, most of the pooping business had calmed down and we were regular again - well I don't know if "regular" is a good word to describe our troop from Venice.. but our bowels had certainly settled down.

When we rolled into Farragut State Park in Idaho to meet up with the other 35,000 Boy Scouts we were sweaty from fighting and smelled like an outhouse evidenced by the flies and mosquitoes in tow and also couldn't walk in a straight line - dizzy from carbon monoxide.

 It was pretty obvious that we were far from "regular."

We were like an infection spreading across the Midwest - more like the Bubonic Plague actually.


My adrenaline addiction helped me beat all the kids in the wrestle-mania staged in the back of Scout Truck and so things were looking up. I couldn't fight Cockerel, because he had diarrhea so bad and when our Scout Masters asked those in charge if we could camp next to the outhouses they graciously acquiesced to our request.

 "Wasn't that kind of them!"   Uh Huh!  

I was part of the Hawks patrol, thank God, because the Flaming Arrow patrol had Cockerel, Ronnie and "little Wiener" who staked their claim right next to the KYBO's.  In Boy Scout language or in Military language (I'm not sure which), KYBO was some fancy code word for the outhouses...it meant Keep Your Bowels Open! Seriously! I thought they must have read about us in the newspaper or something, because if there was anybody in the world that had their bowels open it was Troop 32!

It was embarrassing, really!  Those guys not only looked like they lived in KYBOs, but smell like it too! I pitched my tent as far-away as possible because I thought I might die from vomiting - you know my SuperPowers!

I felt a little sorry for Venice California because I think we had just soiled (that was a pun) their laid-back beach-city surfer reputation!  Anyway, if I could sing an ode to express the way I feeling right now in "Allan Sherman" style, it would go something like this:


Hello Mudder, hello Fadda
Here I am at camp "Diarrhea"
All the boys are overflowing
They say we'll have some fun when we stop pooping.



I saved the life of, naked Cockerel
he almost drowned from constipation.
You remember "Little Wiener"
He got gut-rot from last night's spaghetti dinner.

Now I don’t want, this to scare ya

But Cockerel now has "prune" eruptions

You remember the "Salton Sea" fuss

The Highway Patrol brought him back to us

Take me home, Oh Mudda, Fadda

Take me home to good ‘O Venice

Don’t leave me here in the back of the scout bus

or I might die from puking my guts up

Chronister smells like a bag of dog poop

And attracts all mosquitoes

Flies are attacking our dirty shirts

And everyone here has the “Hershey Squirts” 

Dearest Fadda, darling Mudda

How are my precious older Brothers?

Let me come home if you miss me

I’ll even let the hippies torture me!

Yellowstone was just okay

We made it out alive yesterday

I beat up Kissel, "Rollie-Pollie" and the Venice High Wrestler

Now I’m the champ, gee that’s better

Mudda, Fadda, kindly disregard this letter. 

for android users Allan Sherman: Hello Muddah Hello Fadda