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| Sizzlin' Summer |
| POSTED JUNE 1, 1999-- MARK
MY WORDS, this is going to be Budd Rugg’s Summer to shine! I’m a Taurus, and
on my birthday my horoscope was positively percolating with high hopes and optimism:
"Dreams are in reach, and an ongoing project’s conclusion is finally in sight.
Get rid of unnecessary aggravations. You’ll get to the bottom of a mystery." You
can’t possibly imagine how satisfying it was to read those words after the year I had
just lived through; last year’s horoscope was straight out of the Reader’s
Digest, as drab as a ratty gray terrycloth robe. "Resist temptation," it had
scolded. "Don’t let your mind wander, and keep a close watch on spending. Take
care of projects around the home and yard." Perfect, I thought, poor Budd
Rugg gets stuck with some suburban Puritan for an astrologer. Emboldened by the
stars I gave my notice at the ElderRest Care Center where I had spent six unhappy months
tending to the needs of some very dear but also very difficult residents. You can well
imagine how depressing it is to live or work in a place where hearses come and go like
taxi cabs at all hours of the day and night. I couldn’t stand it! The psychological
hardship was compounded by the fact that I was working overnights, so fat chance I was
going to run into any of my media celebrity friends at the Roseville Perkins at seven in
the morning. Ever since I walked away from a vocational school cosmetology program 15
years ago –I was just too nervous to cut hair!-- I have struggled to find meaningful
employment, and I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I was apparently put on
this earth to be nothing but Budd Rugg. For the last week I have been taking long walks through neighborhoods where I like to imagine my media dream friends live. Sometimes I have inside information, which I would never, of course, share with anyone. Through their television-lit picture windows all the houses look in the darkness like restaurant lobster aquariums, and I can only imagine the people in there, beached and exhausted on their couches or in their beds, staring at Don Shelby or Pat Miles or Colleen Needles. What must that feel like, to know that untold thousands of people are gathered around their televisions looking at you? If just once in my life I could experience that feeling I think I could die a happy man. One night I thought I saw Kim Ode emerge from a house and get into a car, and I was instantly weak in the knees. I wanted to shout out, "Thank you Kim Ode! Thank you for your powerful three-part series on the aftermath of Littleton! Thank you for helping us to heal and to understand!" The appearance of WCCO’s Hometown News in my mailbox was perfectly timed, arriving as it did on the very day I gave my notice at ElderRest. It certainly helped to stoke the high hopes I have for the summer ahead, and I have spent many a pleasant hour engaged in fantasies of fly fishing with Cathy Wurzer, baling hay with Bill Carlson, and sitting out on a patio deck somewhere with Dennis Douda, Chandra Michaels, and Cindy Hillger, eating turkey legs and kabobs off the grill and gorging on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (Chandra’s personal favorite). For several years now my best friends have all been old women, but recently my oldest and dearest friend returned from a difficult sojourn in Branson, Missouri, where he had spent several years working at an all-you-can-eat buffet while trying unsuccessfully to break into Yakov Smirnoff’s show. We hope to finally get to work on a project we have been kicking around for years, a script based on the life of former Twin Cities super-journalist David Carr. For those unfamiliar with that harrowing and ultimately heroic story, suffice it to say that I for one think that Carr’s extraordinary life –a Phoenix-like tale of one man’s brave triumph over personal demons and hardship—is tailor made for Touched By An Angel. It has all the elements of a first-class drama: drugs, despair, cancer, single parenthood, and perseverance, and if Touched isn’t interested, well, I’m sure it would make a dynamite made-for-television movie, and Carr’s current high profile in the Beltway certainly can’t hurt our chances. Otherwise, as I say, Budd Rugg is going to have a busy and gratifying summer. I still have high hopes of landing a much-coveted assignment as one of the Pioneer Press’s Store Troopers, and at some point later this summer (perhaps coinciding with the State Fair) I intend to name the first annual Mr. And Miss Sizzle Beach, an honor to be bestowed upon the local media celebrities who do the most in the coming months to arouse Budd Rugg’s interest and raise his blood pressure. A short list of the early frontrunners would certainly include the following: SCOTT MILLER –George Hamilton has nothing on the dapper and immaculate Pioneer Press scribe. BOB YATES –I love it when mildly effeminate Thurston Howell types come on all rakish and manly and breast obsessive! PAUL DOUGLAS –He likes his iced tea VERY strong! JOYCE LAMONT –Who better to host the Sizzle Beach coronation barbecue? As ever, the hostess with the mostest! BETH EWEN –the hugely talented Corporate Report editor recently won NINE Page One Awards, and is clearly in a league of her own! I would pay to live in her shadow! KATEY BOO –I love her! I LOVE her! I LOVE HER! I’m sure as the summer rolls into full swing other worthy candidates will emerge, and the competition will surely be fierce. And that "mystery" my horoscope alluded to? The one I’m supposed to get to the bottom of? Perhaps Budd Rugg will manage to uncover the answer to a recent query from a reader: Why is it, exactly, that the StarTribune’s Jim Souhan is known as "The Fluffer" to his colleagues? What could that possibly mean? I’m crossing my fingers that we will cross paths often this summer, and please remember, IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU! As always, send any and all invitations, entreaties, gossip, and idle speculation to your dear friend Budd Rugg at buddrugg@cursor.org
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