A Load of Hooey (2 page)

Etiquette is a beautiful thing. It's what separates us from the animals. (The things that separate us from the animals, in order: etiquette, elaborate fences, long cigarettes, whalebone.)

So, ladies, remember all I have taught you. I wish you all the best of luck with both your reading and toiletry endeavors. Godspeed. Now I have to remove a kidney and replace it with a diamond.

BEGINNINGS, OR, A BEGINNING, OR, HOW THIS BOOK BEGINS

       
“Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves

       
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe…

       
but this time, ye slythy toves weren't fuckin' around.”

—from the trailer for
Jabberwocky 3D, the Movie
(2015)

H
ow does one begin a book? A letter, a word, soon a sentence, then another, and suddenly, a paragraph is begotten—a two-sentence paragraph.

Dickens, Melville, Odenkirk, all have faced the same question, and only one has failed. Melville. “Call me Ishmael.” Talk about giving up.

I was born in Berwyn, Illinois. At the time, the doctors declared, with deadpan gravitas, “Boy, six pounds, eight ounces.” I was circumcised and remain so, unable or unwilling to grow a fresh foreskin in the years since. Unable, actually, as I have tried—I've used creams and pills and all manner of massage, but it's no use. Fresh foreskin forsakes me, it foils me, it fails to flower on the face of my glans. And that's the final bit of poetry in this book.
*
You're welcome.

But enough about me. That's the problem with biographies, auto- or otherwise. They're all me, me, ME… How about other people? When I pick up a biography of President Harry S. (Sissilopolus
*
) Truman, I want to read about Winston Churchill! Immediately! All this “Truman did this, Truman did that”! Enough! I want variety! Give me choices, change the tune, throw some Harriet Tubman into my
Trump: The Biography
. It's not my fault—I have ADD; I got it from a toilet seat, the best place to write or read a book, despite what the finishing-school scolds tell us.

Anyway, I have, somehow, begun, and escaped Melville's curse…please read on.

*
except for the poems

*
I think.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

H
e has never been interviewed. He refused to meet, do a phone interview, or sit still for this profile. He has never made a film or painting, nor has he written a poem, taken a photograph, sculpted a bust, or “tried” to make “anything.” And yet he has fascinated the art world and captivated New York society in the past year. He's been praised as “unfathomable at worst” and “bafflingly circumlocutory at best” by
Scene There, Done That
magazine. He scored a 12 out of 10 on
BaffleMags's
“Scoring the Downtown Scene” and has been crowned a “Notable Nelly” in
ArtScrape Magazeen
's middle-of-the-year wrap-up three times (in the same list).

When assigned to profile him by
BUTTLESCUT
magazine, all I knew was rumor and scuttlebutt. But investigating him only caused the rumors to solidify and the scuttlebutt to harden. All quotations below are from an info sheet distributed by his PR representative and are not in any way to be “construed as true.”

He's a man of habits, believing they “simplify life and make room for brainstorms.” As such, he wakes each morning at exactly 7:43 a.m., catnaps throughout the day, and goes to sleep at precisely three o'clock in the morning.

Every day he wears the same “uniform”: moccasins, tuxedo pants, and a variety of pajama tops designed especially for him
by L.L. Bean. On his face he wears his signature duck-billed hockey mask.

gone missing!

He wears the same pair of underwear for a month, then puts a fresh pair over the old pair until he has twelve pairs on, at which point he knows New Year's is right around the corner.

Every day for lunch he eats two hot dogs sans buns, a slice of lemon pie, and half a bottle of Yoo-hoo drink, room temperature. He pours it all in a bowl, microwaves it, eats it like a porridge, and says it makes his mouth taste like “a food closet.”

He puts a Christmas tree up once a week and decorates it, then takes it down the next morning and puts it on the street. He is hated by his garbage man.

He doesn't observe Tuesdays. He wears a watch he smashed on purpose at exactly 12:00. As a result, he famously missed his own birthday by three months.

He's had the same assistant for ten years—his cat, Rodolfo. He pays Rodolfo in crickets. His East Village apartment has been condemned for cricket infestation three times in six years.

He reads the Bible in Aramaic to himself through a bullhorn every night. “It's the perfect mix of the old and the new,” he reports.

The artist has been baptized, circumcised, exorcised, and bathed in the Ganges—all within a hectic month of “self-discovery,” though now he calls all religion “too literal to be believed.”

He has three children by four women whom he has never met.

He adopted a man older than himself, whom he affectionately dubbed his “grandbrother” and with whom he trades birthday cards three times a year.

He claims to hate “all drawings.”

He votes Republican, and claims to have loved Ronald Reagan “primarily for his silhouette.”

His favorite TV show is “
Mayberry RFD
with the sound drowned out by a Grateful Dead live bootleg from Madison Square Garden 9/4/79…second half of the show only.”

He throws a Super Bowl party every year the day after the Super Bowl and locks the doors once the prerecorded game “starts,” unlocking them only when the game is over and the post-show recap has been capped. He invites only one person to the party: himself. He records himself receiving the invitation, sending in his RSVP, receiving the RSVP, greeting himself at the party, eating chips, and cheering on his chosen team. No one has ever seen these recordings and, according to him, “no one ever will—they're for me and my personal edification.”

When asked to comment on his life and work, the artist's father, a retired plumber from Nyack, New York, simply shook his head and muttered, “That guy's a fraud.”

The Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls Edition—Unabridged

“
The Wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them
, a blind child; a blind child who himself is lost. This child will have no sense of direction, and one leg shorter than the other—so the route shall be circuitous. The child shall have red hair and halitosis. The hair is insignificant; the halitosis less so. The child shall be dim of wit, incapable of complex thought, and unable to acknowledge contradictory truths or hold complex opinions. However, he shall have a kind face, for whatever that is worth. A kind face and an ability to compartmentalize—perhaps he will have some brain damage, that's not for me to say. But so it will be, for the last shall be first. They should turn the line around and face it the opposite way, for at the back end will be an intelligent, thoughtful, experienced, grown man; an expert at making progress. But that won't happen, for the expert will be despised. Anyway, everyone will die going in circles following an ignoramus. It will not be pretty.”

“DIDN'T WORK FOR ME”

If you're ever feeling poorly about yourself, about your lack of achievement, your utter inconsequentiality, your ridiculous little life lived in the shadows—take a moment and write some Internet reviews of other people's work
.

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

One Star — Didn't Work for Me

by
MisterEveryman

First of all, I am a HUUUUGE fan of Twain. I've read every one of his books and loved them all, yet somehow I'd overlooked this one. Well, everyone in my “book club” at work told me I “
had to
” read this “
awesome” “classic
.” So I splurged on a library card and gave it a go. SPOILER ALERT—it's TERRIBLE! A long river-ride to nowhere!! Literary masturbation at its most onanistic! What was Twain thinking?
He wasn't!
Huckleberry Finn, a nasty character, takes a freed slave down a river in a not-very-well-made raft. They see some things, almost tip over, blah-de-blah…the end. And it's all written in pitiful childspeak. Was Mr. Twain's keyboard broken? Sad. I returned it late and had to PAY a FINE! I ripped up my library card as well as the receipt for payment. I want my couple of hours back!

THE BEATLES' WHITE ALBUM

Zero Stars — Didn't Work for Me

by
MisterEveryman

Let's be clear: I am a GINORMOUS
The Beatles
fan! I am! I have every one of their albums, including reissues AND their funny, funny Christmas messages to fans. I have over 60 bootlegs! But somehow, after all these years, the one album I'd never gotten around to was this infamous “unnamed” double set. When a temp at my workplace saw me wearing my
The Beatles!
tie and commented on it (she liked it), then found out I'd
never
heard the “
White
” album, she INSISTED I hear it immediately and ran down to get it from her car. I couldn't wait to plop it into the CD player, eager to hear more “The Beatles” brilliance. All I can say is: “I hate you Beatles, oh yes I dooo”! Spoiler Alert—It's TERRIBLE MUSIC! My ears almost jumped out of their sockets! I challenge anyone to find a melody—you can't! From the monotonous “Blackbird” to the
pointless Beach Boys ripoff
“Back in the USSR” to the
mean-spirited
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” to the what-were-they-thinking-oh-no-they-weren't-thinking-they-were-riffing “Honey Pie,” this album
aspires
to claptrap. No wonder they refused to put their faces on it!! Now I know why it has no title and is called “The White Album”—because you can't put the word “SHIT” on the cover of a record album. I tried to return it the next day, but the temp who lent it to me had prematurely quit, probably thankful she had finally stuck someone with this musical bogey!

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S THE GODFATHER ONE AND TWO

½ Star — Didn't Work for Me

by
MisterEveryman

First of all I like and/or love ALL of Frank Coppolo's oeuvre: from JACK to SWORDFISH to GODFATHER 3—but somehow I'd overlooked these two. Everyone at work told me I had to see Francis Coppolo's “GodFather Number One and Two.” Why? “Because!” they screamed at me, “It won some Oscars!” FOR WHAT?—TEDIUM?!! It's a mishmash rehash of stories that stumble and start and stop and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, there is a MONTAGE of VIOLENCE!! (BTW—“
montage
” is a French-derived word for “a filmmaker throwing up his hands and shouting, ‘I dunno—YOU figure it out!'”) And what was that baptism stuff about? Was that supposed to SIGNIFY something? Methinks someone's been hitting the ol' vino a bit too hard. GF #2 is MORE OF THE SAME…not good, kinda sloppy, pointless, and too “ethnic” for my taste—if I want a history lesson I'll go back to grade school! The only reason I give it half a star is because it spawned the excellent GODFATHER #3! See that one, miss this one, thank me, and
you're welcome!