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For those of you planning to pull pranks on the ice cream truck driver this summer, here’s a tip: If one of your pranks involves climbing a tree with a well-crafted dummy and hurling it in front of the approaching ice cream truck, it is usually a mistake to set it on fire first.

When I was a kid, my neighborhood had a high turnover rate for ice cream truck drivers. The reason, of course, was that my cousin Steve and I, who lived just one street apart back then, were constantly planning crueler and crueler pranks to play on them. Each new ice cream man quickly learned that when he got close to Steve’s house, he needed to step on the accelerator and speed by as fast as possible thus shortening his time in the “Hot Zone.”

Like most twelve-year-old-boys, we started out with the classic water balloons and dirt clods, and then advanced to more elaborate, sophisticated pranks such as those requiring various types of illegal fireworks.

But, then we got the dummy idea.

There are two proper methods to throwing a dummy out of a tree and into the path of a moving ice cream truck: a.) Face-up-horizontal as if some knucklehead accidentally fell out of the tree to die a horrible screaming death beneath the truck, or b.) Face-down-horizontal as if someone purposely catapulted out of the tree to commit an ice cream truck related fantasy suicide.

We went with “suicide.”

But, first, we had to build the perfect dummy. We started off with old clothes, which we stuffed with other old clothes; then we used one of those white, Styrofoam wig-stands for the head and used sticky double-back tape to attach a Freddy-from-Scooby-Doo Halloween mask for the face. Gloves and shoes completed the form.

One of us, I think it was Steve, thought it would greatly enhance the effect if we saturated Freddy’s upper torso and head with Raging Rocket High-Octane Barbeque Starter Fluid then light it off just before we tossed the dummy out of the tree.

It’s funny how it never occurred to us that this was a bad idea until the exact moment the dummy erupted into flames.

We were sitting in the lower branches of the tree which hung about four-feet above where the roof of the ice cream truck would eventually pass. As the ice cream truck approached, Steve let go of the flaming upper torso leaving me holding the knees pressed against a limb and causing the dummy to swing down to stare directly at the ice cream truck driver.

The plan was for both of us to let go of the dummy at the same time so it would fall just in front of the truck, but I momentarily froze in the wake of the tall flames—hesitating just long enough for the truck to get underneath before I snapped-out-of-it and dropped my half.

I can only imagine what this looked like to the ice cream truck driver: He’s slowly driving along, minding his own business blasting Pop-Goes-the-Weasel from his loud speaker, when the flaming upper torso of a body swings out of a tree upside-down; the friendly smile of Freddy quickly melting and distorting into a rictus grin shouting fire like a blowtorch.

As it turned out, the dummy landed square on top of the ice cream truck, lying on its back with its arms spread out, blazing away. We watched as the truck made its way down the street, turned the corner, and continued on its regular route to deliver treats. The flaming body, now appearing as if the driver placed it up there on purpose, sent a confusing message to those wanting ice cream. I doubt he sold many ice cream bars that day.

We never found out if the burning dummy did any damage to the truck, nor did we ever play another prank on that guy. In fact, if we heard Pop-Goes-the-Weasel, we just went in the house.

One of seven black widow spiders I found along the back fence of my house.

Black widow spider venom is fifteen-times as toxic as that of the prairie rattlesnake. This is why yesterday I was somewhat alarmed to find seven of them (black widows, not rattlesnakes) building a cobweb amusement park along the back fence of the Dead Rooster Mansion.

They are resistant to all non-flamethrower style insecticides, so the only way to get rid of them is to physically smash them with a proper black widow extermination device. My personal favorite is the handle of a TaylorMade r7 CGBmax 5-iron golf club. The correct method for using this high-tech instrument is to hold the club-head in your hand like a pistol grip while pointing the tip of the long handle a few inches from the offending creature, then smoosh.

You have to be quick though because black widows can sense danger and vanish quicker than Dick Cheney’s signature on a charity donation. They escape into knot-holes, under loose boards, or worst of all—and this is where I learned that wearing nothing but short pants and a t-shirt while trying to slay highly-poisonous black widow spiders with a golf club is not such a great idea—they can leap onto you.

I squished the first six spiders in heroic fashion and without a hitch, but the seventh one, obviously skilled at club-handle evasion tactics, unwittingly managed to become part of the meanest hoax ever foisted upon me.

I blinked and she disappeared. I can only believe it was an elaborate prank of nature when, at the exact moment the spider vanished, it was precisely the exact same moment in which an apple blossom drifted from a nearby tree and wriggled its way down the back of my t-shirt.

OK, as you can imagine, my reaction was elaborate. I could feel what I thought was a black widow spider—probably with newly sharpened fangs dripping with highly toxic super-venom—jump down the inside of my shirt!

I could feel its spindly legs; I could sense its anger; I could hear it breathing!

But fate was not satisfied with the intensity of this cruel practical joke. No, it had to do more; it needed a witness.

It turns out that while this nightmare was unfolding for me, my brother, David, had stopped by for one of his surprise visits. When he couldn’t find me in the house, he walked out into the backyard just in time to see me lurching around the lawn wielding a golf club as if I were trying to slay an invisible dragon.

Thinking I was goofing around, he said, (and I believe this is pretty close to the exact quote), “You look like you completely swallowed one of those poisonous frogs that, when you lick’em, cause you to hallucinate.”

“There’s a black widow down the back of my shirt!” I screamed.

After seeing the genuine look of terror on my face he decided that maybe he should try to help me.

Cautiously, he pulled back the collar of my t-shirt and took a look. After seeing the apple blossom, but without passing up an opportunity to further torture me, he said, “holy crap! There is one in there…and, it looks totally pissed, like it wants to bite you!”

The blood drained from my face.

David, who by this time could not contain himself, began laughing hysterically. “No, man, I’m just messing with you—it’s just a flower or something.”

I felt the golf club in my hand, gripped the handle tightly, and brought it up to the “swing” position.

David stopped laughing.

I never did kill that final spider, but I know the general area she’s hiding, so eventually she’s a goner. Right now I’m off to get some margarita mix…and, possibly a beekeepers outfit.

Screenshot of USA Channel’s Character Fantasy which aired last Saturday, March, 22^nd featuring yours truly starting a new fashion trend for television stars: The Semi-Peeved Hot-Air-Balloon-Chasing Scumbag Look.


I sometimes work as ground crew for hot-air balloon companies. This means I set-up, inflate and chase hot air balloons in and around Temecula Wine Country in southern California. When they land, I pick up the passengers and pilot and drive them all back to the original launch site. I also have to pack up the 700+ lb balloon and load it back on the trailer. Although I get paid to do this, I mostly do it for the intense physical exercise.

So, three or four times a month I get a call to chase balloons. Last month (February), I awoke to a 5:00 a.m. phone call from Dominic at D & D Ballooning: “Hey, Bill, How’d you like to be on TV? I think it’s going to be on TBS this time.”

He thought it was “TBS,” but I’m guessing he misheard and it’s going to be on PBS (like last time I was supposed to be on TV) and it will probably be broadcast in an area we can’t even get on our local TV’s.

I look at the clock and consider turning it down and going back to sleep, “OK, let me wake up a minute and I’ll be there.”

“There’s no time for you to wake up, they want the balloon up and ready to film in an hour!”

I’m not too worried about skipping my shower, not shaving and looking like crap because, as I learned many times in the past, the film crew rarely films ground crew personnel; they are there to film the balloon, the passengers, and the pilot. Besides, no one watches PBS anyway.

I arrive at the launch site which, this time, happens to be Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula. I see Dominic and another pilot, Hunter, have already started to unload everything from the truck and unpack the balloon. “They want to film the inflation,” says Dominic. “So, let’s just get it hooked up and ready for when they get here.”

Dominic had just spoken to the producer on the phone and now has a few more details: It is not, as I suspected, TBS; however, it is not PBS either, it is for a show called Character Fantasy on The USA Channel and we are all DEFINITELY going to be on camera. I look at my reflection in the truck window and my hair is not too bad, but there’s a few pieces sticking up, so I quickly run to the restroom and run a wet comb through it. The sprigs of hair don’t want to stay down so I really get it wet and finally they—sort of—stay put.

By the time I get back the film crew is there and it’s time to start cold inflating the balloon. The way this is done is we fire-up a couple of high-powered fans, open up the mouth of the envelope (the big colorful fabric part of the balloon) and start moving air into it. So, there I am, holding open the fabric skirt with freshly wet hair standing in front of two high powered fans just before the cameras start to roll. And—lucky me—this is going to be nationally televised.

By the time Dominic starts adding fire from the burners to get the balloon to stand up my hair resembles a wild combination of Albert Einstein and Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. Lucky for me, the camera guy is laughing so hard he can’t hold the camera still enough to film my hideous form.

Somehow, I managed to escape any shots of me with the horrible hairdo but I wasn’t out of the clear yet; after the flight and after I sweat my balls-off recovering, packing and muscling the heavy balloon back on the truck, it was time to drive back to the winery to shoot the opening sequence. In other words, we are supposed to act like we just arrived to do the pre-flight instructional portion of the “balloon lesson” in which Tobie, the girl with the fantasy of being “a hot-air balloon conductor,” learns how to fly a hot-air balloon.

By now my hair is all sweaty from the physical labor and on camera it appears all greasy-looking. To the television viewer, since this is the opening sequence at the winery, it looks like this is the way I normally roll. They also got as many shots of me looking confused as possible. The reason I look confused is because during filming, they interviewed us in turn and the other two guys that went first had wonderfully prepared lines and I was going to look like an idiot. I was not confused, but amazed at their speeches. I was also realizing that the other guys have already revealed everything there was to know about hot-air ballooning and there was going to be nothing left for me to say. I’ll just look stupid. No problem.

Again, I lucked out. They cut all on-camera speaking lines from me and Hunter. Whew!

But right now, as I write this on Tuesday morning, I am getting ready to go to Hollywood for a movie shoot. The producers are keeping everything secret except to say that it involves a simulated balloon crash, several naked women and a nudist colony (God, I hope this isn’t a porno). I swear that is all I know. That, and they said one of the naked women is a “well-known actress that I can’t reveal because then I’d have to kill you.” What a cliché!

I am not supposed to be on camera, I’m only there to work on the set. But, just between you and me, I’m trimming my toenails for the nudist colony scene, just in case…