The 1980s and early 1990s were

. . . . good years for me. I served several of the Grand Shovels assigned to the California region, faithfully carrying out my duties to observe the native customs. Occasionally this would involve assignments that took me into some mystifying locations, particularly a valley located beyond the city of Los Angeles. I was sent there in order to bring news of the Terran entertainment industry back to my then master, who as you may recall from previous entries had an insatiable desire to understand the concept of "celebrity". He was particularly fixated by Terrans with large jaws such as Jay Leno. I should mention that my people are not particularly gifted in terms of mandibles (indeed, we are occasionally referred to as the "chinless wonders of the Universe" by unkind bloggers on the planet Mosheinia, which has historically produced the meanest bloggers in the galaxy). I spent a lot of time getting photographs of Mr. Leno, Carol Burnett (after her chin-implant surgery), Tori Spelling (or as the Grand Shovel called her, "Jackpot!") and any others of note. I remember that the Grand Shovel has quite a crush on Ted Danson for awhile, but that faded after Becker came on the air.

At any rate, on this particular day I arrived at what I was told was a movie studio in the valley. It was called "Mystery Films", and I have to say that it was truly an enigma. For one thing, the Grand Shovel had told me that it was an actual studio with hundreds of employees. In fact, it turned out to be a mail drop in a strip mall. As far as I could tell, "Mystery Films" had no employees, and indeed no one there had heard of it when I asked about it. The best they could do was direct me to a small building next door. They said that it had always been empty, but within recent weeks there had been mysterious, not to say "enigmatic" sounds coming from it. More than that they would not say.

I hesitated outside the closed door, but when I finally turned the handle it wasn't locked, and opened silently. I stepped inside, temporarily blinded by the gloom after the glare from the sun outside. There was nothing in the front room except for a desk with a pile of magazines on it. I tiptoed across the floor and looked at them, rifling through the top two or three on the stack.

I could not tell what the magazines were about. I was, of course, familiar with the general run of Terran magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics and Architectural Digest, but this seemed to have no purpose that I could determine. Page after page was filled with images of young Terran females --- very young Terran females --- dressed in revealing plaid jumpers, bending over to undo the clasps on what is called "hosiery", all the while smiling at the camera. I could not figure out the intent of the pictures, and yet after a very short time looking at the magazine I started to feel a tingling in the region of my mulktow. Before I could scratch the itch (so to speak), I suddenly heard voices from the back room.

"No, no, no, dipstick, you're doing it all wrong!" The voice was stridently male.

"How the hell can you do it wrong, you son-of-a-bitch?!" This time the voice was female, with a faint hint of an accent that sounded vaguely familiar to me. "I'm sucking as hard as I can, goddamnit! It's not mah damn fault if you can't get it up!"

"Sexual Intercourse you! I don't have to take shit like that!" Suddenly the door to the back room flew open and a Terran stormed past me. He was so angry that he didn't even notice me, probably because he was distracted by the difficulty of pulling his pants over an engorged mulktow. In a moment he had hitched his zipper up and darted through the front door, slamming it behind him.

Before I could move, a Terran female appeared in the doorway. She glared after the retreating male Terran, and shook her fist at his back. This caused the sheet she was clutching around her to drop to the floor, revealing that she was not a natural blond. Before I could move, she had spotted me.

"What the hell are you staring at, Shorty?"

I couldn't answer. It was obvious that she didn't remember me, but I could never forget that jaw! It was enormous! Leno-esque! Dwarfed only by her mammalian characteristics, which seemed to have mysteriously increased in size since the last time we had seen each other.

"Did Justin send you up here? What the hell was he thinking? This is a straight shoot, just blow and go. I mean, for Chrissake, look at you! It'd be like having it off with one of the friggin' Munchkins!"

"We ain't got time to get nobody else, Ms. H., " said a voice from behind the large-jawed naked woman. She looked speculatively at me, and I felt my mulktow shrivel. Finally she snorted.

"Okay, get your tiny ass in here," she said, and yanked me into the room.

My life continued . . .

. . . for the next several years as I did my apprentice work as a minion to the various Grand Shovels assigned to this plane --- err, part of the country. Life in California during the 1980s was everything that a minion could desire, actually, since it occasionally seemed as though actual space aliens were running the country. So those of us on minion detail felt right at home. Of course some of us had really cushy assignments during this period. I am thinking particularly of Minion Tom Cruise, who worked his way right up the food chain to become a Grand Shovel in what seemed like no time at all. Some of the others had a more difficult time of it. I am remembering poor Minion Kirstee Allee before she succumbed to the overwhelming plastic goodness of Hostess Cupcakes. It took her right out of contention for Grand Shoveldom, and for several years she disappeared from sight, which given her ultimate size was no mean feat.

But I was more of an average minion, always on the lookout for something that would impress my masters. One day in the late 1980s I was working with Minion Bronson Pinchot on the set of Perfect Strangers, something that passed for Terran entertainment at the time. I was always amazed that no one tapped Bronson as one of us, since he seemed pretty alien even to me, an actual alien. However, I had been delegated to assist him on a secret mission that had to do with Marki Post, and I was spending a lot of time on the set. It was there that I stumbled across the large-jawed woman again that I had last seen at the studio reception years earlier.

She had changed in many ways. There was a harder glint in her eyes, and it was clear that she didn't remember me when she came past pushing the concessions cart for the crew's break. It was the oddest thing. She would pour a cup of hot coffee for each person and then hold it out. I noticed that many of the male crew members wouldn't get too near her, but instead wait for her to safely deposit it on the buffet table.

"What is going on, Bronson?" I asked my fellow minion.

Bronson was gloomy. He was always gloomy while working on that show; back on our home pla --- err, back in France --- Bronson had been a star of the legitimate morplat performances, and it hurt his dignity to appear on the Terran show.

"Oh, she was arrested last week for tossing hot coffee onto the old geezer she married. The fight like likvars and pollulas all damn day and night. I think he might have heard about her work out in the Valley."

"The Valley?"

Bronson looked at me with disdain. "Don't you know about that? It's where people who can't act go to make movies."

"They let them make movies even though they can't act? Gosh, Bronson, I had no idea Hollywood was such a nice place!"

"Yeah, it's peachy. And to make it even better, the movies are only run in certain theatres, or better yet, you can actually buy them on VHS. That way the fans of individual performers can make sure they only see their favorites."

"Does she, " I indicated the woman at the concession cart, who was now doing very peculiar things with a banana for the entertainment of the crew, "have many fans?"

"Her? No, not really. But she gets work, just not top billing. She's what you might call a lady of the chorus, Illuminati."

I studied the large-jawed woman with fascination. Our paths had been crossing since we arrived in the City of the Angels. How would they intersect now?

What happened at the dinner next . . .

The girl with the enormous jaw left the closet, leaving me in somewhat of a bind. If I was to fulfill my mission, I would have to get into the party for the visiting sovereign, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would accept me as a waiter because of my small stature. And so I darted into the kitchen and doused myself with water when no one was looking. I then struck a pose atop a silver serving tray and slid myself into one of the sub-zero refridgerators. As I closed the door behind me and settled dopwn amidst the crudites and dips, it occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. What if no one ever opened that particular frozen comestible unit?

Not to worry. Sixty chilly minutes later I was taken from the refridgerator shelf by a young waiter named Esteban, who struggled to lift me on the tray. By this time the water had hardened into a glittering sheen, and my disguise as an ice sculpture centerpiece looked as though it would work! In fact it worked too well. I was placed directly in front of the visiting sovereign, who peered at me in amazement and then gave me a sharp rap with a spoon.

"Philip," the visiting sovereign said, "look at this damned thing. It's the ugliest one I 've ever seen. What on earth do you think it's supposed to be?"

"No idea, Lilibet!" Her companion's answer was a little garbled, as his mouth was filled with guacamole. He reached over and poked my extended hand with a knife. "Isn't that interesting, the way they managed to make it look as though there is something colorful in the middle of it. Can't say I like it. Don't like table ornaments to have faces, even if they are blue." Have I mentioned that it was very cold?

I have no idea how much longer I would have been able to keep up the pose, as my teeth had begun to perceptibly chatter, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I was going to take pictures with my arm frozen in front of me (I had cleverly chosen a pose akin to a small jockey, a favorite statue on many of the earthlin --- err, Californians' --- lawns.)

Fortunately I was spared the trouble of finding out when the girl with the large jaw appeared over the visiting sovereign's left shoulder balancing a tray of lobster. At least she was trying to balance it, but her attention was obviously fixed upon the visiting sovereign's tiara to the exclusion of the task at hand. With a free hand, she reached out and touched it.

"Are them diamonds real?" She asked the question in simple wonder. Her speaking voice was nasal, and heavily influenced by the southern region of the northern continent in the western hemisphere. It made her a bit hard to understand, and the visiting sovereign turned to her in surprise.

"I beg your pardon, were you addressing me?"

"Ah was jes' askin' if them sparklers was real!" In her excitement, the large-jawed girl's voice began to change. And as she leaned forward, one of her primary mammalian characteristics popped free and smacked the visiting sovereign in the eye. At the same time the girl dropped the lobster tray and reached for the tiara. For a moment everything was a blur, as lobsters cascaded over the visiting sovereign (two of them had claws hooked to her ears like some kind of demented seafood earrings!), and the two women began to tug at the tiara, one trying to pry it off and the other hanging on for dear life.

"Lilibet!" The visiting sovereign's mate leaped to his feet and threw his arms around the large-jawed woman. "Unhand my wife, Mr. Leno!" His hands met and cupped her primary mammalian characteristic. "Oh my God, what's this? Jay Leno is a woman?!?"

By now guards were rushing the scene and I decided that it would be a good time to make my escape. I began rocking back and forth until suddenly the ice shattered and I was free.

"Dieu et mon droit!" I heard the visiting sovereign cry just before she fainted dead away into the hors d'ouevres. "The lawn jockey is alive. It's aliiiiiiiiiive! Oh my!"

"That's Oma," I heard the large jawed woman snap as I scampered away.

And it was!

Those first carefree days in Los Angeles were a delight! He explained so much to me, and although I have later learned that not everything he taught me was exactly the truth, at the time it all seemed to make sense. For example, I now know that dog collars and leashes are usually reserved for Terran canines, but then it seemed quite natural when he asked me to wear one around the house. He also introduced me to an amateur photographer he knew who took some really amazing pictures of me jumping over campfires, laying on the back of Terran equines, and wearing manacles. I actually wore the manacles around the house a lot, anyway, because "Daddy" told me that all "good little boys" did this. No matter how much I protested that I was a grown minion, he would just chuck me under the chin and wink.

Things could have continued like this for a long time, but my idyll with "Daddy" came to an abrupt end on the night he forced me to sneak into an event disguised as a waiter. A visiting sovereign was having dinner at one of the major factories that produce the flickering light images that enthrall so many people here, and virtually every major performer was going to be there. "Daddy" insisted that I disguise myself and sneak in with a hidden camera and get pictures because, as he said, "inquiring minds want to know." So I was dressed up in black pants, a white shirt and black tie, and really spiffy shoes with high heels to make me look taller. It didn't really work. One of the security guards stopped me on the way in and said, "What are you doing here, sonny?" I told him that I was one of the oldest surviving performers from a classic flickering light image entertainment called The Wizard of Oz, but he just chuckled and told me to move along.

I was upset, because I knew that if "Daddy" didn't get his pictures we would have to play "Kick the Midget" that evening, and I was still a little sore from a vigorous session the night before. So I hid in a broom closet in order to ponder my next move.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the closet was already occupied! And by someone I knew! Although I have to say that at first I didn't recognize the innocent girl with the big jaw that I had last seen meeting her own "Daddy" at the Los Angeles bus station. She yelped a bit when I came into the closet because she was half in and half out of her own waiter costume, and she was definitely not amused when I snapped a quick picture.

"Hey, shorty, I get paid for those!" she barked.

"Great Orbs of Orando, you're a female human!"

"What the hell did you think I was?" She struggled into a pair of high heels; without them she stood level with me.

"Jay Leno." "Daddy" had told me explicitly that he wanted pictures of this human, and how to recognize him. I was confused. Could there be two people on this wretched planet with a jawline that big?

So there I stood . . .

. . . just arrived, and not knowing what to do with myself. I knew that I was destined for great things on this planet --- err, LOS ANGELES --- but I didn't know how to get myself started. At that time there were no Grand Shovels to point the way to my future greatness, so I had to figure things out on my own. Anyway, while I was standing there I was approached by an older gentleman who cast a speculative eye upon me, as if sizing me up to determine what use I could be put to. As I said, I was simply dressed in a jumpsuit from home. It was constructed of a shimmery, rainbow colored pattern. I suppose I looked young and innocent in my finery, and since I stand only four feet tall, perhaps the older gentleman mistook me for a child. At any rate, his first words were, "Do you need a Daddy?" As he spoke his words were instantly translated by the Universal Communications Device implanted in my head (you call it a pocket dictionary here in California), and I smiled back as I understood him to offer to be as a father to me. Indeed, the bus station seemed filled with older gentlemen approaching those of us just off the bus --- I saw a girl holding all of her worldly goods in a feed sack also meeting one. "Gosh," I thought, "Los Angeles is much friendlier than we knew back home!"

Life is not fair!!!!

I am starting this blog because I have been subjected to the defmatory and libelous attacks of the Minion Known as Daryn, and I am not going to take it anymore. I want everyone to know of my suffering, so I suppose the first thing to do is tell my story.

I used to be a Leader of the Theta --- of the people where I am from. I was born in a simple bioprotection unit thiry-five dodats ago, to a poor but humble birth matrix. I mean family. Yes. Family. I was always different from the other clones, I MEAN CHILDREN, and when I was a very young sprog, it came to the attention of the Leaders of Theta, I MEAN SCHOOL BOARD, that I had powers and abilities that were far beyond those of my peers. So I was assigned to Eart --- I MEAN I MOVED TO THE UNITED STATES --- and began my career. How well I remember when I stepped off the spacesh ---- I MEAN CONTINTENTAL TRAILWAYS BUS --- in Los Angeles with nothing but a simple jumpsuit, jetpack and a paper bag filled with my toys from home.

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