YEAR TWENTY-ONE

THE DONALD.

I got a job working in New York City for a few months on CELEBRITY APPRENTICE.  I only saw Donald Trump in person like five times when he would stick his head into the Post Production room.  (Yes, he's really orange.  I should have bought an orange ladle.)  Obviously, The Donald needed to be a Snakespoon.

The hair is just one giant feather.  The nameplate says "MR. TRUMP  Yer FIYED" as he points at you... at yeh....  Whicheveh.

If there were awards for this kind of thing, I feel this would be in the running for something.  I don't know what, but something.

YEAR TWENTY

POE.

I wrote a play called NEVERMORE.  I spent years on it and I finally, after a very long involved process, produced and directed it at a small theater in Hollywood.  I'm very proud of it and it was a great experience.

The family came out to see this one as well, fortunately!  Alas, my grandparents wouldn't be able to make it, so I filmed it one day and gave them a copy.

And that year for Christmas: yup.

This is actually a scene from the play where Edgar Allan Poe finds himself being bricked up, a la CASK OF AMONTILLADO, in a wall.

First, this is pretty impressive workmanship.  I wish my show had looked this authentic.  Alas.....   And yes, there IS a spoon back there, he's just wearing an Edgar Allan Poe mask.  I liken this to people who want to just wear store-bought masks on Halloween instead of using make-up to create a character.  It's a shy spoon.  He likes the dark.  Fortunately.

Do note the raven up top.

And let me pause to say YEAR TWENTY!!??  Seriously!?  We've been dressing up spoons for TWO DECADES!?

God, I love my family.

YEAR NINETEEN

KNIGHT OF THE SNAKESPOONS

The year I got Pepe the Snakespoon, I was with my family at a kitchen supply store - you know, one of those Hammacher Schlemmer-type specialty stores - and I saw this really cool metal soup ladle that had a strainer in the front of it.  It looked just like a knight's helmet and visor.  Luckily for me, I have a family tradition of dressing up spoons.

....I pause briefly to really take that in and think about what other, more normal, people think about us.

Ok, I'm over it.

So naturally, I bought the thing and kept it at home.  Next came the horse, the lance and the flag.

Now I'll be honest here.  This is merely "okay."  I really think more could have been done here.  Although I seem to recall him having arms and he was holding the lance so perhaps its just the photograph that's not doing it for me.....

But the feather is a winner.

YEAR EIGHTEEN

PEPE THE KING SNAKESPRAWN.  SPOON.

I am a VERY.  Big.  Muppet fan.  And after MUPPETS FROM SPACE came out, Pepe the King Prawn became my favorite Muppet.  For obvious reasons.

So after years of hearing me do Pepe impressions, Gram makes Pepe into a Snakespoon.  And really, it's pretty genius.  I mean, adding a lower jaw since the rest of the spoon makes the mouth work perfectly?  And multiple arms in the coat?  Inspired.  The eyes are perfect, the hair is perfect, it's just great.  Bonus points for the colored tinsel on his head.

And note the frog on the floor next to the tree.  I told you it was a thing.

YEAR SEVENTEEN

AAARGH!  JACK SPARROWSNAKESPOON!!

"Pirate" had been on the list of Snakespoon ideas for years, but after PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN came out, it was mandatory.

Again, this is more of an Aunt Holly Snakespoon.  I think I did the hair, the teeth..... I can't even remember, but I KNOW she did the clothes.  And the peg leg.  And parrot.  And the hook.

So, okay, this isn't actually Jack Sparrow.  But pirates were big that year and I know this guy was involved in the movie somehow.  Probably just as an extra.

And I like how he's framed in that lovely half-circle of garland.  Very Christmassy.  (As most pirates tend to be.)

A BRIEF PAUSE

BRIDAL SNAKESPOON

There was one year where we had two Snakespoons.

My sister's friend Wendy LOVED our Snakespoon tradition and wanted a Snakespoon of her own for her wedding.

And so:  Bride of Snakespoon.

YEAR SIXTEEN

WHERE....?

Oooookay.

This is a story better told than read.  So I advise you to call me right now and I'll tell you the story.  But until you find my phone number.....

When I moved to LA, I had no car.  (Or job or apartment or friends or money or clothes, or...... but that's another story.)  I had to take the Metro.  I was living in Koreatown and I took the Metro subway downtown to go to the library.  (I had no TV or computer either so my days were: take the bus to work at Rizzoli's Bookstore in Beverly Hills, then come home and read all of Shakespeare's plays as I listened to the books-on-tape productions that I rented from the downtown Library.)

In New York, you swipe a MetroCard or put in a token, go through the turnstiles and voila: subway ride.  In Los Angeles, you bought your ticket at a kiosk which apparently gives you one-way or roundtrip tickets.  And these tickets expire.  So I bought a one-way (I was broke and bought the cheapest one, not really getting that I should BUY a roundtrip) and went downtown.  On the way back, some policemen walked through the subway checking tickets.  They checked mine, said it was expired and charged me $75.

I couldn't pay $75.  That was insane.  So they told me I could take it to traffic court.  Which I did.

I went downtown early in the morning and was ushered into traffic court with five hundred other people.  I sat down in this sea of humanity and the bailiff stands up and says "All rise, Judge (I Have No Idea What His Name Was) presiding."  Into the courtroom comes this nebbish, balding, very Jewish guy in his late forties with a look on his face that just screams "Kill me now what has my life come to?"  He sits down and starts to take these traffic court tickets.

A long time passes.

A case ends and he looks down at the next case.  Staring at the card he say, "Jose Luis Rodriguez?" (or something)  A Mexican guy stands up, takes off his hat and holds it in front of his chest as he looks up at the judge.

The judge looks at the ticket.

He looks over the bench down at the Jose.

He looks back at the ticket.

Staring at the ticket he says:

"And where are the chickens now?"



I don't remember anything else.  I was practically stabbing myself to keep from laughing.  To this day, it makes me laugh.

Well, I apparently hadn't told this story to my family.

So years later, I told them.  And they laughed until they cried.

And the next year, this was the Snakespoon:

Short of the chickens, this is exactly what he looked like.  The head is even at the perfect angle.  I also appreciate that he doesn't have eyes.  It just makes the look.

YEAR FIFTEEN

GRAM AND JULIUS


This is a photo of my grandparents:

how cute are they?

And here are their Snakespoon counterparts:

'Nuff said.

But do note the bunny slippers.

YEAR FOURTEEN

THE FROG PRINCE

When I graduated from college, I got the lead role in a children's theatre touring production of The Frog Prince.  It was way fun.  I had rehearsals up in New Paltz, New York, which is my version of heaven, and toured the state of New York with the show until ending at the Kennedy Center in DC.  My family lives in Baltimore so getting to the Kennedy Center was pretty easy and everybody got to come and see the show.

From that point on, everything was about frogs.  Gram would send me frog cards, frog jokes, etc.  Why it took her so long to get around to making a frog Snakespoon is beyond me, but here it is several years later.

Do note the golden fangs, the eyelids and what I think is a Crown Royal cap.  Also note the melted Wicked Witch of the West on the ground beside him.........

Okay, so, if the Frog Prince is supposed to be me (because I'm the Frog Prince, remember), then why not throw in some other things from my childhood while we're at it?  At least, I'm assuming this was what was going through her head when she put the Wicked Witch there.  You see, when I was  a kid I was OBSESSED with that scene and would sit with my Aunt Holly (and possibly my Mom and Aunt Lulu) and say "Okay, draw the Witch.  Now draw Dorothy.  Now draw Dorothy with a pail of water.  Now draw Dorothy throwing the water on the Witch.  Now show the Witch melting JUST A LITTLE.  Okay, now draw the Witch melting a little more.  Now a little more.  Now just draw the hat and cape on the floor.  Okay.  Now.  Draw the Witch.  Now draw Dorothy........"  I guess I enjoyed REEEAAALLLYY  SSLLLOOWWW animation.

So I assume that's what she's doing there.  Melted in the Frog Prince's bog.

YEAR THIRTEEN

THE SNAKESPOON IN WINTER

I was rehearsing a production of THE LION IN WINTER that was opening in 2004 and as a surprise to the rest of the family, my Aunt Holly and my parents got plane tickets and hotel rooms for everybody.  So for the big reveal, it was only fitting that I should make a LION IN WINTER SNAKESPOON.

Note that he's holding the program for the production.  Note also the tail sticking out from under the robe a la the Cowardly Lion in WIZARD OF OZ.  The "mane," by the way, was a sponge.  And while it might take most people a while to figure out that it IS a lion, this will always look to me like Bill the Cat dressed up as Annie.

YEAR TWELVE

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, SPIDER-SNAKE?

I've wanted to be Spider-Man since I was four.  I've wanted them to make a Spider-Man movie since I knew they could make movies.  I remember the rumors about James Cameron writing a Spidey script and possibly directing it (I read it and thank God THAT never happened) and when I heard they finally found a director and a star, I was immediately disappointed by both.  But hey, once he put on the suit, who cares?

I was on set for SPIDER-MAN for one day as an extra.  It was hell.  I DID get to see the Spidey and Green Goblin costumes while there, however.  And even then it was obvious that the Green Goblin was ridiculous.  (I swear I won't go on a fanboy rant here.)

I watched SPIDER-MAN..... five times?  Six times in the theatre?  Then I got it on DVD that November and would sometimes just watch the splash screen which had a loop of Spider-Man swinging through New York City.  I have issues.

When I went back to visit New York after September 11th, they had just decided to pull the section of the movie that they used in the trailer where Spidey captures a bunch of bank robbers and traps their helicopter in a web between the Twin Towers.  (That trailer still gives me goosebumps....)  In the original poster, there was  close-up of Spider-Man up on a tall building with the Twin Towers reflected in his eyes.  They immediately recalled those and blurred the image.  Which I think is ridiculous.  BUT I found an original in a poster store on Bleecker Street and it hangs in my room to this day.

(this one)

That year, Gram made a great Spider-Man Snakespoon climbing up a wall.  

Unfortunately, nobody knows where it is or where a picture of it can be found.   Alas.  It had batting for webbing and everything.

So here's where you get to use your imagination, kids!  And if we ever find it, I promise to post it for you.  ; )

YEAR ELEVEN

2001.

I was living in Los Angeles and sleeping in since it was my day off.  The phone rang and my pal Dave who lived in NYC said "Turn on the TV."  I sat for the next I don't know how many hours staring at the Twin Towers as they slowly and inevitably fell to street level.  I was able to talk to my Mom since she was in Pittsburgh but getting through to anybody in New York (where I had lived for the previous five years) was impossible.  And then Mom tells me my Dad's okay, which scares the hell out of me since I didn't know he might NOT be okay.  He was flying into DC and there was concern that he would have been on the flight headed to the Pentagon, but fortunately, no.

It was very weird that week.  I only knew a handful of people from New York who lived in LA so the blase-ness with which many Los Angeles residents were taking this was infuriating to me.  I spent Sept 21 with a friend at a local Italian restaurant on Melrose called Frankie's - Frankie and 90% of his clients were from New York and so that was a good place to be since we all intuitively understood what we wanted to say to one another.  But the next night I had to work at my pan-Asian restaurant in Santa Monica and every time I had to wait on another table of people laughing and having fun I just got angrier and angrier.

A few good things came out of this horrible tragedy - decisions I made to do things that I wouldn't have done if not for September 11th.  And it was obvious what the Snakespoon that year would have to be:

I couldn't get them any farther down on the map or it would fall apart, ironically enough.  Note the eyes are American flags.

Things got peppier the next year.

YEAR TEN

MY OWN SNAKESPOON GONE COMMERCIAL, I CAN'T STAND IT!  AAUGH!

I was lucky enough (via some well-placed nepotism) to land a job in a Baltimore Energy commercial.  It was my first TV gig (if you don't count the truly awful local kids TV show I was on in Connecticut -and I know I sure don't) and was really fun.

I learned a lot on that job.  I was supposed to unveil this huge lightbulb that I'd "brought home" in my big red pickup truck because I'd chosen my own energy company.  The director came up to me and said, "Give me a look that says, 'Wow, this is big!'"  (Which was original since the slogan of the campaign was "THIS IS BIG!")  That was the only direction he gave me - over and over, "Gimme a look that says, 'Wow this is big!'"

We did a bunch of takes and I was berating myself since it was obvious that I wasn't giving the director what he wanted.  I tried to use the ol' Strasberg method and re-experience what it was like when I first saw the New York skyline....  I tried to imagine myself transported back in time and seeing a T Rex... anything to get the emotion that would convey what he was looking for.  And even after they wrapped, I got the feeling that I hadn't done it.

Then I saw the commercial.

It was full of other people looking at the lightbulb with cheesy, over-the-top, bulging-eyeball stares that might just as well have had spinning bow ties below them to point out just how CRAAAAAZY BIG THIS THINGS WAS!  HOLY COW IT'S A HUUUUGE LIGHTBULB MARTHA!!

The biggest thing I learned on that shoot was that the professional world was not going to be nearly as professional as I had thought/hoped.

But it was still a total blast!!  My mom and Aunt Holly were there, as well as my favorite producer Mary Holland, and we had a ton of fun.  My first contract, my first commercial, my first truck.

And obviously, Gram had to make the next Snakespoon into the scene from the commercial.  Yes, that's me holding my contract.  Brilliant.

YEAR NINE

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO.....

Isn't she cute?

So this was a year that I must confess, I had far less to do with the snake construction than my Aunt Holly did.  I'm not sure if it was because I had just moved to Los Angeles and hadn't gotten around to it or what, but the bulk -if not all- of the snake spoon credit this year definitely goes to Aunt Holly.

Gram always wanted to be an actress and has two grandsons who were foolish enough to choose that as their career as well, so I figured we owed her an Oscar for creating those two performers.  (I can all but guarantee this was not my thinking at the time, but it sounds good so I'm going with it.  So there.)

Though, Gram really deserves an Oscar for the night we played Scattergories and she had to make us guess a famous person.  After getting flustered because of the time constraint (a true Gram trait), she opened her eyes wide and held out her arm as if she was holding something, shook it back and forth and said, "IIII've got a knife!!"

Nope.  Nobody got it.

So she tried again.  Doing the exact same thing.  "IIIII've goat  knife!"

Time!

"Who was that supposed to be?"

"Jack Nicholson!  From The Shining!"

Of course it was.  One Oscar, coming up.

PS.

Remember when I said most of the credit goes to Holly on this one?  Yeah, so that means I can't explain whether the Oscar is at a podium, holding a sword, is using a jackhammer, or is intensely Christian.

.... But Intensely Christian is a great name for something.  Maybe a really potent Christian Dior perfume.....  anybody know how to get to his publicist?

YEAR EIGHT

ARNOLD THE SNAKESPOON

I'd wanted a basset hound for years.  Specifically, I wanted a basset hound named Arnold.  (I have no answer other than it's just what I knew his name should be.)   Finally, when I was in high school, we got a Newfoundland.  

.....

Yeah.

But then, the year AFTER I went to college, we also got a basset hound.  And yes, we named him Arnold.  And he was awesome.  Especially when he would jump around in the snow like a bunny.

So Gram made Arnold the Snakespoon so that I could bring him to college, as the actually basset was not allowed in my dorm room.

Not only is this super-cute in general, but the ears and choice of using a Santa hat are particularly good.

YEAR SEVEN

THE ANGEL SNAKESPOON

Okay, you could argue that this is still a Christmas themed spoon.  But then again, this is actually a ladle.

See, here's what happened: after we retired the first bent spoon, we had to find ways to bend other plastic cook spoons in order for the "snake" aspect to work.  And yes, even weirder than spending hours dressing up a plastic spoon and giving it eyes was the time spent with blowtorches (swear to God) trying to make plastic spoons bend so that you COULD dress them up.    One year we succeeded in burning one so badly that it was completely unusable - or so I thought.  It turns out my sister took it and made it into the Phantom Snakespoon of the Opera - bubbled, grotesque face and all.  (Don't have that photo yet.  I'll post it if it's ever found.)

In the meantime, we had to make do with plastic ladles or things of that ilk.  This MAY actually be the last spoon that we successfully bent.  I DO recall that the two fangs are also made of filed down plastic rather than the white paper that I often used.  And yes, the blue eyes sparkle.  I'm quite fond of this guy - something about his simplicity.

Ah, simplicity.  It started to go right out the window after this.....

YEAR SIX

SNAKESPOON OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Needless to say, we kept this one.  In fact, I think we've kept all of them from here on out.

Gram wins for the most elaborate Snakespoon ever.  And UNDER the great blue robe are two tiny characters: Ignorance and Want.  Yes, my grandmother pays that kind of attention to detail.  I wouldn't be surprised if the presents contained actual gifts.  And come on - the actual candles on the crown!?  Amazing.

Note that at this point, the "spoon" part is almost totally obscured by the rest of the costume and we're just taking the "snake" part on faith.  This is something that will come to a head much later on.

And so ends the round of "Christmas" themed Snakespoons.  From here on out, it just gets.... weird.

YEAR FIVE

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE

I'm not gonna lie - things get a bit hazy here for me as far as what happened which year, but I'm pretty sure the Ghost of Christmas Future came next.  First, it was thematic.  Once you open that door to A CHRISTMAS CAROL, you've got tons of options (I still want to make a Snakespoon Marley door knocker.... maybe I'll do that for next year....) and the ghosts are the obvious choices.  Plus, I love the single snaggly fang going on here.  It reminds me of Aunt Taminella in the Henson "Frog Prince" movie. 

I wasn't savvy enough to do decent lettering or use stick-on letters for the gravestone, but hey, I did this one on my own and my craft skills were still at a low point.  Still, this is one of my favorite Snakespoons.

YEAR FOUR

EBENEEZER SCROOGESNAKE

Now this........ THIS is how you dress a spoon.

The eyes have been replaced, the nose filed down.  But the hat!  The coat!  The glasses and hair!  The "BAH! HUMBUG!" banner!  The subtle use of the chains that Scrooge forged in life hanging from his arm!  And he's standing in the snow with a tiny lantern on the ground that is PAINTED YELLOW TO LOOK LIKE THE REFLECTION OF THE LIGHT!

This was it.  I couldn't undo this.  It was too good.  It was time to retire the Snakespoon.

Well played, Gram.  Well played.

YEAR THREE

FROSTY THE SNOWSNAKE

Just looking at this Snakespoon, I can tell you that I had help.   It's a little too good for me to have done it alone.  Please do note the double buckteeth fangs directly under the carrot nose.  Also note that the craftsmanship has shot through the roof compared to past seasons.  Note, too, that I was not smart enough to create a base for the snowman to stand upon and so one of my ingenious relatives decided to stand him up in a cup, as if he was made of golf balls and Santa had just made a snowman hole-in-one.

I thought this was truly amazing.

Little did I suspect............

YEAR TWO

Well, it was less of a contest than an Annual Passing of the Snake Spoon.  And now the stakes had been raised.  If Gram had painted it gold, I had to go the next step: costumes.

The first was Santa Claus.  Sadly, my family hasn't unearthed a photo of the Santa Claus Snake, but I can assume it was still rather rudimentary.  Probably just the gold Snakespoon wearing a Santa hat.  Or it could have been a dazzling display of arts and crafts genius resulting in a gold spoon that had been moulded into the exact likeness of Edmund Gwenn from MIRACLE ON 34th STREET..... but since I was probably more interested in, well, girls, probably not.

The following year, Gram countered with a thematic response:

Rudolph.

There have been worse pictures taken of me in my life, but I have burned most of them and CERTAINLY wouldn't post them on the internet.  However, as this is possibly the only copy of the Rudolph Snakespoon that exists, I'm taking one for the team.

Note the still rudimentary design: the original eyes, one dyed pipe cleaner as antlers, and I'm assuming she added the black tape around the handle since I really can't explain why I would have put that on for Santa Claus the year before.  

It is worth noting that this is the last year that the Snakespoon truly resembled a spoon for quite some time.  Because the ante had been upped.  Time to take it to the next level.

YEAR ONE

Please try to ignore the glasses.


So, apparently I have a very bad memory about how this all started.  But the main components were this:  My grandmother (whom we call Gram) was visiting.   Mom was cooking dinner and made the mistake of leaving a pink plastic cook spoon too close to the electric hotplate.  This resulted in the spoon warping and bending.  So now the spoon looked kinda like a snake. And was now terrible for any kind of practical use.

I started to use the spoon as a puppet, bobbing up and down along the side of the table.  This was apparently comic gold, as we all laughed harder, particularly Gram.  "It's Norma, the Spitting Cobra!"

Now Gram (whose real name IS Norma) is laughing so hard she can't breathe.  I vaguely recall feeling the same way.  It was stupid, but amazingly funny - a phrase that accurately describes many, many things in my family.

After that night, I decided that I wanted to relive that experience.  So I created two eyes and a tongue out of paper and pasted them in the spoon.  I wrapped it up and waited until Christmas morning after all of the rest of the presents had been opened.  Then I gave it to Gram.

Success.  The hysterical laughter started all over again.  This was the first time I'd ever pulled off a multiple-month-long joke and it worked perfectly.



One year later.

Look, it was funny, but not so funny that I thought about it all the time.  I'd long since forgotten about that joke.  I was more interested in turning sixteen, girls, music, girls and girls.  So when Gram gave me a special box at Christmas that year, I thought nothing of it.....

Until I saw that she had given me back the spoon, only she had painted it gold.

Score one for Gram.

And so began the Annual Snake Spoon Contest.