The Anecdotes of J. Brooks Dann

Girlfriend Weekend: My Pulpwood Queen Odyssey Begins

I first met Kathy Patrick, doyenne of the teeming book club known as the Pulpwood Queens, at the Book Group Expo in San Jose last summer.  Kathy was hard to miss: she was the only person wearing a tiara.  It was a little strange, because, as everyone in the Bay Area knows, you never wear a tiara before Labor Day.

Kathy’s Pulpwood Queen chapters span Texas, the southeast and several other states, a virtual literary empire sending tribute to the seat of power in Jefferson, Texas.  Actually, there are several seats of power, since Kathy’s headquarters is a book store/beauty parlor featuring a multitude of seats for the requisite shampooing, cutting, drying, dyeing and other assorted and sundry activities.  But don’t let the bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoos and platinum dyes fool ya: the Pulpwood Queens are a serious literary force, features in tons of publications and even on ABC’s Good Morning America.

I was flattered when Kathy invited me to be one of the featured authors at the “Girlfriend Weekend,” the yearly book and bouffant bash that attracts hundreds of Pulpwood Queens.  Pretty much all I knew about the Girlfriend Weekend was from this photo.

But then again, that’s pretty much all I needed to know.  I loaded up a couple boxes of books, a pack of Sharpie and hit the road to Marshall, the East Texas town hosting the mega-event.

What happened over the next three days shook me to my core.

More to follow.

Current Events: Stranger Than Fiction

"Top story: Santa Barbara.

Ten thousand acres of wooded residential land were scorched in an instant when a laser canon aboard the Strategic Defense Peace Platform misfired today during routine tests.

It was a day of mourning for the families of people known dead at this hour.  Among them, two former U.S. presidents who had retired in the Santa Barbara area."

From Robocop

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I remember being fascinated by the newsflashes peppered into the 1980’s science fiction classic Robocop (if you don’t think it’s a classic, there’s something wrong with you and/or you’re a female).  It’s amazing how the headlines in our possible dystopian future seem to get more and more possible everyday.

But we can find a fair number of what I call “Robocop Moments” in our dystopian present as well.  These moments make you shake your head in a special kind of disbelief.  It is a two-tiered incredulous: you can’t believe it happened and you can’t believe it happened in the way it happened.

For millions of people, September 11 provided this sort of moment.  Students of world affairs could see a collision course between the world’s lone superpower and the increasingly belligerent forces of Islamic fundamentalism, but the way the day played out read like a script that no team of writers would dare assemble.
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"The president's first press conference from the Star Wars Peace Platform got off to a shaky start when power failed causing a period of weightlessness for the president and his staff.

More fighting in the Mexican crisis when American troops joined in a raid with Mexican Nationals against rebel rocket positions in Acapulco."

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Sometimes the Robocop Moments are generated by the juxtaposition of unrelated events that in our minds get blended into a strange mix by the blur of the daily news cycle, the mish mash of headlines on internet news sites and the crazy cavalcade of panelists on the Larry King Show.  Recently, I experienced a whole Robocop Weekend that no one could have scripted.

Some people who follow this sort of morbid stuff say that celebrity death come in threes.  The passing of the incredibly unlikely triumvirate of Saddam Hussein, Gerald Ford and James Brown created many a strange moment a couple of weeks ago.  One second I’m hearing about the ability of forgiveness to heal a wounded nation.  Then, I’m being bombarded by the extended dance mix of “I’m Black and I’m Proud.”  Finally, I’m assailed by shrill chants of “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada,” the soundtrack of Saddam’s journey to the gallows.

And talk about a scene and scenario so fucked up it could only happen in this Twilight Zone era: the hanging of Saddam.  Even back in the early 90s, I envisioned a day when a defiant ex-dictator would be tried, convicted and sentenced to death.  But I never imagined that trial would take place in a courtroom with a less impressive backdrop than the one I had to appear in when I was ticketed for a seatbelt violation while going 7 mph in my Ford Probe. 

I pictured grandly dressed executioners from the military of a freed republic parading toward the place where Saddam would face their firing squad.  I never considered that a band of guys with Members Only jackets, pleated Dockers and black cowls would try to explain the hanging procedure to Saddam with a series of hand gestures that eerily mirrored the pre-takeoff interpretive safety dance showcased by bored stewardesses around the world.

I always thought the world would see a couple of still pictures of the deceased butcher to verify the coroners’ report on his death.  I never thought for a moment some guy would be able to pull the fake “Oh, I’m just checking out a text I just got” move while secretly filming the proceedings on his brand new cherry red Chocolate phone from Samsung.

Somehow, I thought the executioners would stand silently on their moral high ground and conduct their business with the decorum and seriousness required of their position.  Instead, they descended from that high ground into the deepest sinkhole of morality.  We were entertained by the kind of chants a bunch of WWF Hulkamaniacs would have spewed out had they gotten the chance to hang Randy “Macho Man” Savage at the height of wrestling’s greatest rivalry.

Current events: usually predictable, but sometimes mind-blowing.