Twinky Defense.

I haven't eaten a Twinky in years, but, all of a sudden, I want one.
In case you haven't heard, Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, announced that they would be laying off 18,000 employees and closing the doors on their Twinky plants, not to mention cutting off our Hohos, Ding Wings or whatever else they call that stuff.

Some people probably think this is a good thing. After all, don't Twinkies make us fat? Haven't the Food Police been crawling all over elementary schools to keep our kids from eating such treats? There's even a boogeyman involved. Years ago, some sleazy lawyer tried to defend a murderer by blaming the crime on his client's consumption of "junk food," a case which became famous as "The Twinky Defense," which reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, probably in The New Yorker: 
A conservative talking to a cop says, "I tried marijuana once. It made me want to rape and kill."
It sounds like a liberal saying, "I used to eat Twinkies. It made me so fat I might die someday." (News flash: Oh yeah, you WILL die).

We're surrounded by ridiculous people.

Aside from being a great investment for my pocket change when I was ten years old, Twinkies fuel my memory in other ways.Once, in the fifth grade, one of my classroom compadres, Jerry, showed up at lunch with a large, brown paper bag full of Twinkies. No doubt, the little thief had stolen money somewhere. And, although the Twinkies were delicious, we couldn't eat them all, so we launched into a Twinky war in the basement of the school, smacking the cream-filled goodies into each other's faces. We got caught and punished by the stern principal of Sacred Heart Academy, and I regretted the waste of sweet treats.

I don't know whose fault it is that Twinkies will be gone. We can blame the inefficiency of the company management, or we can blame GREED. There's always GREED. Company GREED and labor union GREED.

Could be a GREED war.

All I know is that a treat for kids might no longer be available, and it's a treat capable of earning billions of dollars--as long as no one gets greedy.

Just thinking about it makes me want a Twinky.

Backdrop.

Here's the mural in my sister Loretta's dining room, by T. St. Laurent, 8' x 10', painted on textured wallpaper. When I dipped my brush into yellow paint, Loretta gave me my only instruction: "No yellow!"
That's okay, it worked out fine. Now, there's a side table three feet high standing in front of it.
That's okay, too. When you have worked in the theater for many years, you understand that the backdrop is less important than the props and the actors in front of it. It's the setting and ambiance which count.
Works for me.

Ticks.