I used to write Friday stories when I was bored. I can’t do that today. A, I’m not bored, and B, it’s Saturday, so Saturday story, since I feel like writing what Bud LaCore, a reformed tire salesman, used to call “drivel.”
Once there was a frog named Baron, which made him feel a little better about being a frog. Baron was not your standard green frog, he was sky blue and did not hop, rather he danced, always. Baron, the sky blue frog lived in a cupboard in the concessions area at the Gallo Center for the Arts in downtown Modesto. He found this most convenient, as he believed himself an officionado of all things artistic, and he had a crush on Lynn Dickerson. Beside that, he got to see stars, like Kenny Rogers, who used to be a star, but is now a dried up wrinkle, well, according to Baron. Or Kris Kristofferson, who has always been an outlaw, but is now an old fart outlaw, but a heck of a singer. Or all those Elvis impersonators they have this weekend. Baron thinks they’re even better than Elvis was in person.
He dances into the auditorium under one of those rolling chairs the old folks ride in, and cops a place under the curtain for whatever performance is on. Now this all sounds like the perfect life for a sky blue, art loving, dancing frog, BUT Lynn Dickerson is fastidious when it comes to the Gallo Center, and when she found out that Baron was not only watching performances without paying admission, but a dang frog (“who cares what color he is”) she ordered an all-out raid on anything inhuman at the center. She wasn’t even impressed by his crush on her person.
Baron considered moving to the State Theatre, but he really likes to have a beer a the F&F across from the center, and he just couldn’t see dancing down J St. that often, given that some of the night folks might think he was dinner, even if he was blue.
Soooo, he wrote a letter to George Lucas. He had heard George was coming for Graffiti Summer, and explained his plight. Lucas did not believe there was any such thing as a blue dancing frog. (May I enter the story for a moment? This from the man who invented Chewie and all those clowns in the bar on Moss Eisley? Seems like a blue frog wouldn’t be that much of a jump. hahahahhahahha) OK, back to the desperation of Baron – and he tore up Baron’s letter and used it to start a forest fire. Lucas never does anything on a small scale. Baron, however, is as tenacious as he is blue, and he also phoned, emailed and sent a carrier pigeon (a friend from his days in the research lab at Cal something or other) pleading with the great George to go to bat for the lowly blue frog with Dickerson.
So finally, Lucas couldn’t stand the incessant communiques, and he called Dickerson and told her if she’d leave the little blue guy to watch his performances, he, Lucas, would write and produce a new movie about a blue frog, and she could do the premiere at the Gallo Center.
I imagine it’ll win an Academy Award, Spielberg is going to direct, and it just goes to show … it just goes to the show. That’s it.
Saturday Story
