…my true love brought to me Seven Dedes drinking, six punters paying, five golden things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
No surprises today, after all it is New Year’s Eve and some of the Dedes like to party :). HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends. May 2016 be full of fun and laughter and all your wishes become true!
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me six punters paying, five golden things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
In the original carol, the true love had send presents up till now. Strangely after day 5 it changes to activities that can be watched or joined. On the sixth day “Six geese a laying” were sent. Having backyard chickens I definitely would value the laying fowls. My present of course was different: Six Dedes showed up with bundles of money. Maybe they had found the geese from the original song and they were of the kind that laid golden eggs. Or maybe the Dedes adopted the Chinese custom to repay debts before the New Year so they can start with a clean slate. Pity only that it was some sort of monopoly money, God knows where they found that.
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me five goldend things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
This time I get it! This is soooo typical Dede, they always come up with a cheap, homemade solution. In the original carol, the true love sends five golden rings. And what does L’Artiste do? He rummages through the recycle box in his studio, finds five odd things and spray paints them gold. Ah well, I guess it is the thought that counts!
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me Four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dread tree.
These four chums threw away their beautiful and very useful black robes, sorry Rae! (Rae made the frocks for the Dedes, so they got bodies). And now they are sitting once again heads only on their sticks, just as they were invented. Three of them seem to be very happy to be No bodies again. Only Bad Conscience, the one in the front, looks uncomfortable. But why do they bring me their frocks? Does this mean they want to slip back into oblivion. Do I push them too hard?
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
Three strange friends? What is this about? Aren’t all friends strange to some degree? One of this crowd is obviously severely depressed and they found the skeleton in my closet. Maybe they want to remind me of one of the Dede’s mottoes: Embrace Diversity! Or maybe it is a hint I should appreciate my friends more!
Previous presents
Mouse, the practical one, suggested we should do another project together. That always helps. Something along the lines of the Super Dede competition we did leading up to Christmas three years ago. We always have brilliant times when we work together and all our differences seem forgotten. Of course this year we are a bit late and Christmas is already upon us. We won’t be able to pull anything off before the 25th. Then someone suggested the Dedes could recreate the famous english Christmas carol “Twelve Days of Christmas.” It has such a catchy tune and as the lyrics are so dada, it fits the Dedes to a tee. I am pretty sure you know the carol: it starts off with “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me one partridge in a pear tree” and then it continues for twelve days and every day the true love brings a new present, such as maids a milking or pipers piping, as well as all the previous ones. So the list gets longer and longer.
Mouse printed out the lyrics and here is the original list of presents:
According to various sources on the internet the song has a catholic background and the gifts refer to some features from the bible. For example, the four calling birds are four apostles. Other sources say it has french roots and that catholics appropriated it when they weren’t allowed to practise openly in England between mid 1500 and 1800. Anyway, the Dedes had the idea to bring all these gifts to the readers as they wanted to give something back. But when they saw what they have to organise their excitement plummeted. For example, they could organise eight maids to do the milking, but they only have one cow. Where would they get a partridge or swans? We don’t have any of those in the Dede community. When they looked on the internet to find where they can source everything, they found out that each year since 1984 PNC Wealth Management calculates how much it costs to buy all the presents mentioned in the song (Christmas price index). In 2015 the cost amounted to a whooping $154,000 US dollars (compared to $61,000 in 1984). Needless to say, the Dedes can’t afford to buy them and what would we do with a partridge in a pear tree anyway.
In the meantime, they have spent so much time on the research that they don’t want to let go of the idea and last night I found them huddling over the list discussing alternatives. I am curious!
I can assure you, the Dedes are wrong, I wasn’t slack in the past months. I just had an energy-sucker of a job. I have recently resigned from this absolute terrible workplace. Let me rephrase that, the job as such wasn’t terrible, to be honest it was my dream job. I loved the students and every minute of teaching, but the school was suffering from a bullying culture, created by a bunch of alcoholics. One of them also showed very strong signs of a cluster B personality disorder. I only realised how much the situation sucked me dry – particularly my creativity – once I had resigned. It was an, how can I say that… “interesting” experience and I am surprised that I got to my age without having come across such a dysfunctional workplace before. Unfortunately I am very loyal person and often stick around longer than I should, because I so believe I can make a difference. Not!
Okay this was my rant for the day!
I hope the Dedes understand now why they have been a little neglected lately. And they were right, they didn’t get as much attention as they deserved. My first peace offering to them was, that I set up a new zazzle product for sale: An apron with the image of Milky Bar Devil presenting his delicious hamburger bun – the cover shot of The Artist’s Survival Cookbook. My old mate Devil got all emotional after he’d realised I am back on board. He shook my hand and said we should renew our pact. I didn’t know we had one!
It’s so typical. First the Dedes insult me, then they send a peacemaker to say they are sorry. Obviously they weren’t entirely serious about sacking me as an artist. I am not sure whether they had a meeting last night, as I was out with real friends. So they had the chance to discuss our relationship without running the risk of me eavesdropping. Anyway, today Fairy Godmother brought me a bunch of flowers she picked from the garden. She apologised for the rude behaviour of her peers yesterday. At first I thought it was very sweet, but then I had the feeling it wasn’t heartfelt. They must realise that they need me as much as I need them. Maybe they are aware that I might drop them if they continue to treat me as if I was their lackey. We are in it together. Sure enough, she then added “but there is a bit of truth in what they said yesterday.”
“I know” I admitted. “But honestly, I don’t know what to do anymore. You guys expect the impossible.”
“Look, I can see where you are coming from” said Fairy Godmother in a conciliatory voice. “I’m in the same boat. Everybody expects me to work wonders too, but it is evident that I have hit a brick wall on more than one occasion” and she pointed to her forehead. “You simply have to keep going!”
“I need more support from you, though. You have all these wonderful ideas but you just dump them on me and you never stick to anything!”
“What do you mean?” Fairy Godmother asked surprised. “Don’t forget we are only puppets!”
Now my dear readers. What do you think? Are they an ungrateful bunch or what? Does anyone have an idea what I should do with them?
Now we are at this stage again…. the Dedes are getting impatient with me! We had the big book launch, which went very well, thank you. And then they went quiet again. It’s coming up to Christmas and the Dedes will soon have their fourth anniversary. When I reminded them of that and asked what they wanted to do to celebrate it, Snotty Nosed Prince thew his hands up in disgust. “Four years! We should be more well known by now. What have you done in all those years, girl?” And he had support from the others. “You are useless as an artist, I think we should sack you!” Loudmouth crowed angrily and didn’t waste any time packing my suitcase.
I couldn’t take it anymore, “Well,” I said when I left the studio, “writing a book is the easy part, marketing it is much more difficult.” Personally, I think they should be a bit more supportive and come up with some ideas themselves. After all, I am only one person and there are 64 or so of them.
In the beginning the Dedes and I had a care free life. I did workshops and wrote every morning between 7 and 9, before I trundled off to work.
Looking back at the early days with the puppets, they clearly express my attitude: “There are no real dramas! So, get over it.”
And then I lost two major contracts in my design business, and my part-time teaching job – all at the same time. Tja and everything new I touched seemed to turn to custard straight away. This was a new experience for me!
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