Sacred Ducks, Heretic Cow and the Moscow Fox

Yeah, Klecko was fine dining the other night. He and Sue McGleno went to a swank joint called the Mission American. I really dig that they have tall backs on the booth seats, tall enough in fact that you can be cut off from the rest of the diners.

So we're looking at the menu's and after Sue McGleno scopes out the dessert options, she turns and starts asking me questions concerning which entree I'm going to order.

Wives can be wicked insane you know, I've been going to restaurants with her for 30 years, and in all that time, Klecko has never divulged what he was ordering until the server comes to officially take the order.

So now she's cradling what appears to be a fish bowl of Merlot and sinks deep into the interior of the booth.

After a long sip she turns with an inquisitive look in her eyes and asks "Are you going to order the rabbit? They have a special where you can get it served 2 different ways."

Now....I've never really pushed my personal Klecko/religious views on anyone, but after 3 decades of laughter-love and longing, you'd think a girlio would remember..........

"Danny Klecko doesn't eat passive animals!"

In the Pauline Epistles, what is it, the book of Philippians Ch 2:16ish where he discusses how we all have to work out our own salvation?

In Kleckoland, one of the quickest things that will send a thug to hell is eating rabbits or ducks, because they are "passive animals."

Klecko doesn't expect this to make sense to anybody, because he doesn't much understand it himself, or feel a need to impose this culinary theology on anybody else, it's just his own deal.

Of course Sue McGleno, being a wife and lover of watching her doltish husband trip over the boxes in his mental warehouse poses the question.....

"What about lamb, sheep? I've seen you eating gyro's all the time. they are passive, are they not?"

It's hard for Klecko, because he gets what she is saying, and cannot defend against this question with logic, but he retorts none the less....

"Shut up and quit attacking my Food Religion! I do eat lamb, and I feel convicted by it....but it is not a Food-Hell sin, it is more of a Culinary-Bad Karma dealio. If I eat lamb, I won't go to Hell, but instead I will probably loose my car keys or the power will go out."

Sue McGleno realizes that she has won this battle, but then a look in her eyes reveals to me that there is the possibility that she might desire more.

She might want to win the war.

I have a publicist, her name is A-10 and she collects her full time paycheck from the Minnesota Historical Society. Before landing that gig, she worked at some new age publication that produced ghost, vampire and Wicca literature.

If you ask her what her personal spiritual deal is, she shuts up and reveals nothing, but if you piss her off, she loves to send you voice mails indicating that she is going someplace really awesome, with cool people whose name are not Klecko.

Or if your perception doesn't line up with hers, don't be surprised if your droid belches out a text that says "HEX".

I have been asked by more than one of my friends if it makes me nervous as a recovering Catholic - Polish Jesus guy to be affiliated with somebody who sees things from such a different perspective.

My response is always "Not at all. I love A-10 and she loves me." Sometimes I think people freak out over stuff like that.

Now......it might be an issue if we had to teach a Sunday school class together, but we don't. I love A-10, and she love me. Life is really that simple. Like Bono says....Coexsist.

However, we did have a (pardon the expression) COME TO JESUS moment last spring.

During my April Retail bake sale I was making dog biscuits. they are always one of my better selling items. I always sell them at break even prices, if not a loss.

So for the April one I made Peter Rabbit Chinese Bunny biscuits. I got a deal at the Restaurant Depo on Chinese rabbits, and A-10 and her posse barraged me with bloody bunny Facebook posts.

A-10 also lives with a domesticated rabbit who also sent me terse e-mails as well.

My critics called me out and asked "Klecko, how can you fear going to hell for eating passive animals and then turn around and bake them for the entire K-9 nation to devour?

Dude....it's called the food chain. As we speak some Daddy-O is over in Bombay being all noble, but when a cow crosses his path and he stops and honors it, respects it, he's being sincere to his belief system?

But me, a Pollack, if I see a cow I'm going to slam it to the ground as if I were Hulk Hogan and eat the flesh off of him while the old boys still breathing.

So food and religion can become conflicted, people can take different stands. I respect the cat from Bombay for honoring something that is sacred to him, but what?????????

Food chain baby, Klecko's eating steak!

So even though I refuse to eat passive animals, I won't impose the no rabbit rule on dogs, are you kidding me?


The Dream of the Moscow Fox

It's springtime - 2008 and I am laying in bed on the 11th floor of the Hotel Bega.

This place is kinda known for being a mafia hotel in Moscow. I have a patio that overlooks the Hippodrome Racetrack. I wanna say that this racing facility originated in 1790 something. Basically when my country was 20 years old.

I'm laying on my back, my head is down on the foot side of the bed and I am so fricken bored that I simply weld my stare on the wall that the headboard rests against.

I am out of Rubles, the Russian government has reviewed my scopes, and I have been out processed. it's raining outside and I don't have a jacket. As much as I love Russians, the most savage thing about their country is that they don't have HBO.

Their television is almost all Russian. CNN has a station, but the news loops for days. I think I have 32 more hours before leaving for the airport. I have not been home for a month. When I am on a Russian scope. I am virtually off the grid. No cell phones, e-mails period. Even by Klecko standards....I'm getting a little TWEAK.

So....now I began looking at this picture on the wall. It has a bunch of Brits dressed in red riding jackets, on horse backs. By their side there is a pack of hounds. I'm not an expert on the hound breeds, but these guys looked like Red tick Coon hounds.

Next I start figuring out the ratio of dogs per horse. the picture was really detailed and before I reached the sum....I fell into that place where you are not awake or asleep, but I did dream.

Klecko seldom dreams, or remembers dreams, but in this case it was like I was watching an IFC film, and the director was some nutty Romanian cat with a spectacular eye for lighting. The scenes rifled by in quick clips, some were black and white, others were in color.

The focal point was a fox. and in my dream I loved that fox as much as a kid loves a Disney dog.

The fox was all merry and skipped through colorful wildflower patches...then zoom----he was pictured in black and white racing down a steep hill. Sometimes the camera pans from left to right, while other times it's an Aeriel shot.

Now my fox friend comes up to babbling broke. it is the crescendo of our animal movie experience. We are one breath away from world peace and....wouldn't you know it, the soundtrack in my dream went silent. You couldn't hear the brook, wind or birds.

The fox looked terrified and I felt sick to my stomach.

Now the scene shifts and I am at a seminar in heaven. Somebody is lecturing, I am not certain if it is God or some Angelic dealio since my folding chair is in a crappy part of the auditorium, it's almost Charlies Angel's like, I'm betting if my dream had a sequel...I wouldn't get to see the face of that deity then either.

In the audience is humans and angels, but none of us look like people who were ever on the inside track of anything important. It's almost like 8th grade detention and we are in the midst of some remedial course that we skipped after heaven's orientation.

But, the voice starts to explain that animals were the original creation. They were to be what gave God an amount of joy that would not - could not be measured.

And that animal kingdom was nothing but majestic. God loved them, but... slowly but surely, while planets across the solar system watched these creations on planetary reality TV shows, the animals got cocky, and demanded new contracts. The apes killed an entire species to vamp their royalty checks.

God was furious, and that's why Men were sent down, to not only break the animals cruel spirits, but to provide for the needs of those who suffered animal emotional trauma from this mutiny.

Then.....BAM!!!!!! Klecko woke up and sat up real quick (like Springsteen does in the "I'm on Fire" video). Dude, I was sweating. I know on TV and books people wake from a dream in a sweat, but for real...that never happens in real life.

That dream Fox, may have had as much impact on me as swimming with the humpback whales in Maui during my holiday last year. It was so vivid and powerful.

So passive animals are kinda a Klecko scene, you'd think by now Sue McGleno would know better than to ask me if I was gonna order the rabbit.

I'd be curious to know what bizarre eating rituals you all are obsessed with.