Ken Parham:  

After my scholastic crowning-achievement of being voted "Most Likely to Become a Fugitive", I utilized my "world-class, collegiate-preparatory, Christian private education" to its full potential by bouncing around the circuit as a rodeo clown. Ultimately too large to fit into the barrel, I suffered a rather serious "workplace-related mishap" (severe blunt-force trauma to the posterior and subdural hematoma...sorry, too much CSI). I'm always amazed that simple fractions elude me but I can solve complex equations in the analytical geometry of "donkey basketball". I spent several months in a narcotic-induced episode of H.R. Pufnstuf. I had a complete recovery (if you consider an onset morbid fear of "Cracker Barrel" restaurants normal). Did you ever notice this peculiar phenomenon at Elliston: the better the football player, the lower the class number (12-4), (12-5), (12-6); the better the basketball player (boys & girls), the higher the class number (12-1), (12-2). After recovery, I took a non-accredited correspondence course in "shoe cobbling"; only to discover that everything in our credit-based consumptive economy was now "disposable" (including high-quality men's & women's dress shoes). Ditching my non-refundable cobbler's tools, I hired-on as a "roadie" for the "Starland Vocal Band". Although counter to my Christian upbringing, I saw no problem in working for a band that glorified intercourse in broad daylight...as long as it didn't lead to dancing. (Ironic, considering my frame of reference in school was that "teacher/student relations" were "within the norm"). I know, I know: what happens at Elliston stays at Elliston. Anyway, I was unaware that the lead singers were in the midst of a very nasty divorce; the result, no doubt, of their daylight shenanigans and doing the devil's work through "bubble gum pop" bile. However, I digress; the first rule of fight club is never talk about fight club. Known as "Mr. Burnt Sienna" (because no one wants to be "Mr. Pink"), I was then employed as a "contractor" for a large, family-operated business; the only work available for someone with no appreciable skills and a lot of "anger issues". Incidentally, the older I get, the more disturbed I become that Elliston's cheerleaders had a "routine" to the Eric Clapton song, "Cocaine". I wonder if they've updated their routines to add crack and meth cheers. Given the degradation of our society, I wouldn't be shocked to find that their pep rallies now have a government-sponsored "needle exchange". After faking my own death, I then managed to get another roadie gig with the band "Paper Lace"; too naive to know that a group can only go so far with a Top Ten pop song about the "Prohibition Era". My first exposure to "Christian charity" was when I was 6 and got my head stuck in the balcony railing above the Fellowship Hall. The adult Sunday School class just looked out the window and laughed; they never moved a muscle to help me. You know, crying and asking to be "saved" in order to get out of trouble might work 7 or 8 times at Elliston, but it doesn't work once with an Arkansas State Trooper. As fate would then prove to be as unpredictable as an analogy about fate being unpredictable, I got a position on Senator Al Gore's Tennessee staff. Now, I'd like to claim that I helped him "invent the internet", but that would be an outright lie (on both our parts). I did, however, help him invent Gummi bears, urinal-cake advertising, fiber optics, "Hello Kitty", cage fighting, astronaut diapers, hanging chads, Sham Wows and a flying car that runs on non-dairy creamer (to be unveiled by Gore after the Rapture). After faking my own death again (Gore has a "body count" just like Clinton), I headed out west to seek my "fame and fortune". I had always wanted a career in...Expand for more