January 28, 2010

STRAIGHT TO HAL: Random Selections From the Archives

Announcing Straight To Hal

Unless you’ve a fetish for intense, self-inflicted pain, don’t bother pinching yourself—you have indeed gone Straight To Hal. If you doubt my word, kindly check out the apocalyptic weenie roast blazing behind my head.

And so it’s damn the segues and full speed ahead as I explain why I was here
awaiting your arrival: I was offered the opportunity to host and write a column for fluidgroove.net. The format would be similar to if not a complete rip-off of “Dear Abby.” I rashly accepted. But all I’ve done since—up until these last desperate seconds—is to sit at my computer and stare at years of potato chip crumb accumulation and gummy wine spillage on my keyboard.

I should also mention that a work-week’s worth of acute sleep deprivation hasn’t help matters. Why, just the other day at the hospital I was slumped over my calculator, in a near-REM state, sinking into quicksand bogs of subconscious, psychedelic absurdity: “I can’t total those medical procedure codes because Kelly Slater doesn’t like chocolate.”

There was another mad dream as well, one in which my 10-key calculator skills were severely compromised when I suddenly found myself the only nude attendee at a lavish and heavily populated cocktail party.

What the hell, you ask? And rightly so. But I couldn’t have made that up if I’d tried. Unfortunately, I’m now incapable of making up anything. I am at the threshold of eternal internet iconoclast superstardom, yet I’m choking like a monkey on a chicken bone.

But please don’t leave just yet. I’m not very funny today, but this is: I recently watched The American Experience on PBS. The episode traced Jimmy Carter’s rise and fall from political power. One segment focused on the media’s vulturous assault on Plains, Georgia, right after Jimmy won the DNP nomination. A reporter arranged an interview with Miz Lillian, and when the two met, she smiled warmly and said how wonderful it was to meet him. During the course of the interview, the reporter asked Miz Lillian if it was true that her son Jimmy had never told a lie. She replied that her son told “white lies” all the time. When the reporter asked her to give an example of a white lie, she said, “Do you remember just a little while ago, when I smiled at you, and said how wonderful it was to meet you? Well, that was a white lie.”

Thanks for coming Straight To Hal. Y’all come back, because in the long run, my self-destruction could be epic. And send me some questions! That is the whole point.

The Crying Game Redux

Oh my God! After announcing the launching of Straight To Hal, the response has been overwhelming! Am I man enough for this? Let’s find out by tackling some readers' e-mail questions…

From STEVE: "What does it sounds like when doves cry? Somehow I don’t think it sounds like a pop rock riff played on a synthesizer."

Steve, dig if u will this answer: My Google search pursuant to your query was interchangeable with a dog chasing its own tail (or Morris Day chasing Prince’s coattails). But I’ll venture a guess that the sound of a dove’s cry is a prolonged “coo” dripping with either self-pity, self-righteous indignation, or genuine grief—it’s all about context. Whether or not a dove becomes lachrymose at such moments is a question best left for veterinary ophthalmologists.

As far as pop rock riffs played on synthesizers go: I took a shine to Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein (can’t deny a catchy hook) and even went so far as to buy the 8-track version of They Only Come Out At Night. It was my way of doing a small part to insure that Edgar would have the financial wherewithal to replenish personal specialty essentials like zinc oxide and wide-brimmed hats. I’ve felt better about myself ever since.

Dig if u will this question: What does it sound like when quails sigh? Who knows? Everything happened so fast. The quails were flushed from the scrub brush. Then the bald old man with wire-rimmed glasses and an unhappy face wheeled around in panic. A shot was fired. His companion went down. The unscathed birds probably heaved deep sighs of relief, but didn’t stick around for interviews. It was a bad day to be Vice President of the United States.

Dig if u will one more question: What does it sound like when Quayle sighs? I’d say it sounds like “p-o-t-a-t-o... e.” It was a bad day to be Vise Precedent of a United Staits.

From WILL: “What is the meaning of life?”

Dear Will: I’ve answered this question about life’s meaning many times before by citing Conan the Barbarian: “To crush your enemies; to see them driven before you; and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

After all these years I still agree 100 percent with points 1 and 2. Mass slaughter and flagrant disregard for the articles of the Geneva Convention never seem to lose their luster as glittering guidelines for survival on the most dangerous planet in the known universe. But I have to tell you that listening to a woman bawling her eyes out has never appealed to me—specifically insane ululation en masse. There’s no dealing with it; seemingly no end to it. Pray ye that these wailing grievers are being whisked away to reeducation camps at breakneck speed. Otherwise, you’ll snap.

Traditional American/northern European feminine crying is a different matter. You can offer the sad sufferer a hug, a glass of wine, a tissue (or an entire roll of 2-ply Bounty quicker-picker-uppers if things are particularly bad). A kind word can be interjected.

So there you have it—two different approaches to life, each the other’s political and emotional opposite. Which will you choose? The hubristic croaking of a barbarian? Or the Zen-like simplicity of my soul man and fellow Virgo, Otis Redding, who even in death urges us all to try a little tenderness?

As for me—I’ve always favored the sample platter over an iron-clad commitment to a single entrée. Life is large, Will, with plenty of room for both broadsword and lover's tongue.

Goosesteppin’ To the Toilet Bowl

Two questions in my “straight2hal” in-box specifically involve politics and sex. Would you believe that politics and sex top my list of taboo subject matter? Believe it. Question: “What is about as ridiculous as trying to relieve yourself against a stiff wind?” Answer: Attempting a coherent, civilized political discussion. Enough said. Question: Can anyone out there name a theme other than sex (with all its censor filter freak-out buzz words) that’s more likely to set ablaze the hackles of corporate IT spooks? Answer: ... [I thought not.]

However, since that taboo list has previously existed only inside my head, it only seems fair that I should—just once, but at a later date—grant these two readers special grandfathered status and tackle their questions head-on. Meanwhile, ethnic issues of any nature and alcoholism are soon headed for that list. But first…

From JIM: Why Hal and why now? That's me question.

Dear Jim: Yes, me realizes that was a question. The question mark was the tip-off. Pardon me if I seem a bit snippy, but I don’t rightly cotton to being treated like a GEICO caveman.

From AUSTIN: What do people in China call their good plates?

Dear Austin: Does your question come with a heel click and a stiff right armed salute? Or maybe you’re just high from sucking dry several complementary steins of V-2 rocket fuel at a Sarah Palin retro-Nuremburg pep rally. Say it ain’t so, goosesteppin’ Joe. Your level of ethnic insensitivity is higher than a Luftwaffe bomb run over the Liverpool shipyard. But I would hate to find myself suddenly strangled with piano wire then hung by a meat hook, so—love ya, babe. Mean it.

From STEPHEN: Gatorade or more alcohol? [Stephen’s subject was “hangovers.”]

Dear Stephen: I normally view the writing process as a wide-open road to any and everywhere, with lots of thrills and a few spills; where knowledge and self-discovery can be plucked like fruit from a tree by those with eager paws and spongy brains (or whatever; I’m winging this shit on the fly).

Unfortunately, you seem to have had the opposite effect on me. I would prefer to kick you and your question straight out of Straight To Hal. But since I’m the one who invited you here—I feel compelled to toss aside my grimy goggles and jaunty motoring cap in favor of the dusty fedora of a reluctant self-archeologist. I am hereby charged to dig up the dirt, debris, and stones that have until now mercifully buried a life best left forgotten.

So let’s get this over with: The last time I tried Gatorade as a hangover remedy I soon found myself vomiting Niagara Falls—phosphorescent green with the backlighting of sunrise. (I once suffered a similar unhappy in pink ending with Pepto Bismol.)

As for the hair of the dog: If you have no obligations that day, a minor case of shakes’n’woozies can be alleviated somewhat by ditching your morning coffee in exchange for a serious belt or two, or six. But unless you feel like wasting the next day as well, I’d steer clear of firewater entirely and opt instead for a combination of the following: carbonation, sugar, grease. Unlike the treacherous, backstabbing triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, this trio gets along swimmingly. It can be easily and inexpensively obtained with the purchase of any McDonald’s value meal.

You can also sweat out a modest hangover with exercise: light jogging, heavy sex, or anything in between. Just be sure to not get carried away with prolonged French kissing. One sudden, untimely “purge” by your partner and you might swear off kissing for the rest of your life.

As long as I’m totally miserable, allow me to extend my counsel by saying that you seem utterly oblivious to the other side of alcoholism’s double-nasty coin—the spiritual sewer.

Heed my word, sonny boy: One morning you will awake in a pool of grime and
grit, source unknown. Nothing new there, and neither will be the headache and the urge to purge. But then, for the first time, a small tinge of self-loathing will creep into your marrow. You’ll experience that first-ever bout of doubt as to what stupid thing you might have said to whom the night before. And then another first—the undeniable, crushing realization that you are a worthless jackass. “Never again!” you’ll scream inside your head. But you’ll eventually realize—time after time after time—that your contrition is as sincere as John McCain’s post-debate handshake with Barack Obama. Consider yourself warned.

Dain Bramage & Hello, Mr. Spaceman

Hello out there. It’s been a while. Many of you who read my last offering might’ve thought that I was still stuck up in the clouds with the Luftwaffe over Liverpool, admiring the splendor of my own shadow racing across the shimmering Mersey below. Not quite. You should've imagined me as Marion Crane, wrapped in a shower curtain and stuffed in the trunk of my Ford as it ker-ploop'd beneath the goop of the bog just down the road from the Bates Motel.

What did me in was the question I’d mentioned in my last post—the one pertaining to sex. I was ill prepared for its staggering one-two punch of thinly veiled vulgarity and mind boggling complexity.

But I refused to just hack out some 750-word skeletal structure for a greasy flesh of filthy jokes. I began to troll for ideas by projecting myself into some of the raunchy carnal scenarios envisioned by the question’s seriously disturbed author. The resulting side effect was that I became as horny as I’ve ever been in my life. And let me tell you—there’s no greater distraction from responsibility than unrequited lust.

My mind was grits. Days passed. Then I recovered somewhat and decided to focus
on the question’s complexity. And that’s when trouble really began. About eight or nine different opening paragraphs were conceived, typed, then deleted. The yet to be written beast began to take on the fearsome magnitude of a doctoral dissertation.

My mind was grits again. More days passed. So I decided to flush the question down the john. (Actually, it’s just on temporary hold.) Now let’s get to some easier readers' questions:

From WILSON: How do I overcome a little brain damage and not look like an idiot around my peers and friends?

Dear Wilson: I’m not a neurological researcher and I’ve not recently patronized Holiday Inn Express, so I have to go with my gut and say that when it comes to brain damage—if you’re soliciting my medical advice, you truly are brain damaged.

Then again, miracles do happen—by the grace of magic candy offered by
pharmaceutical pond scum conglomerates. If you can’t afford it, join the club. But here’s some advice at no charge: To prevent further damage to your brain, you might want to politely say no thanks the next time you’re invited to be the designated swimming legs in the Kama Sutra position “The Crab.” It’s bad enough that all your blood would rush to your head. But if alcohol is involved, you might suddenly find your skull is a 12” demolition bit because your crazy partner decided “The Crab” would offer a better orgasm as “The Jackhammer.”

Remember (if you can) to keep sex simple: your lingam; her yoni; pair of tongs.

Well, I feel my mind turning to grits yet again. Before even more days pass, let’s get to your friends: Are you serious? They don’t know? Bang them upside the head with any cast iron object within your reach. Then ask them if they understand now.

From JOE: Mr. Hal, with the negative extra terrestrials in the fourth dimension slowly losing their grip on our human intelligence, and with kindness taking over, which is powered by the positive extra terrestrials, how will the human race look and live once the new age of Aquarius arrives?

Dear MISTER Joe: I feel with unflinching certainty (please stop me if you’ve heard this one before) that the newly restored kindness and intelligence will be juiced up by the billions of naturally occurring sub-atomic collisions during the dicey transfer process between the NET’s and the PET’s. So—provided the collisions don’t trigger an earth-vaporizing mega-gigaton event—the human beings will no doubt enjoy pleasant changes in their outer appearances.

With a greater capacity for wisdom, patience, and old-fashioned good manners, we can all say goodbye and good riddance to the red of face; the ink-smeared eater of words; the ghastly sight of feather-lipped eaters of crow; and the pitiful visage dripping with yolk. Life will be bliss because panties will no longer wad; nary an ass or neck shall suffer pain derived from the irritating actions of a persistent nuisance; and n’er shall the urine of a contentious acquaintance befoul your cornflakes..

How Hight the Moon, How Low the Gutter

From MARTHA: According to Mama Cass' words, the darkest hour is just before dawn. But that hardly seems right. I mean if dawn is approaching, surely the darkest hour would not be just before dawn, things moving slowly as they do with those kinds of things. Don't you think the darkest hour is sometime after dusk but way before dawn?

Dear Martha: Reowrrr, pussycat. In the rush to prove your expertise in earth-sun geometry, your claws ripped up a sacred pop metaphor then just swatted it aside as though it were a mouse. Okay, you’re an expert already. And I'm feeling quite unnecessary now—like a fine stud of a man whose woman has coldly cast him aside in favor of a vibrator. Donovan wasn’t kidding when he sang “electrical banana is bound to be the very next phase.”

How would you like it if the shoe were on the other foot? Let's give it a try: Dear Martha: Is it true The Stars Fell On Alabama? I mean even one star, given its unimaginable gargantuan mass and nuclear power, probably couldn’t drift to within 500 million miles of our solar system without scorching then vaporizing it to nada. Dear Martha: Is How High the Moon really a valid question? I mean shouldn’t the moon’s height above the earth actually be expressed as the distance from a specific point on the moon’s surface to a specific point on the earth’s surface? Wouldn’t a better question be How High Was Nancy Hamilton when she wrote that silly song? Pretty damn high I would imagine—given all the blow and weed circulating in those secretive little jazz circles.

Thanks, Martha, for your patience in allowing me to act out my gloomy, wintertime obsession with being the world's biggest asshole. Maybe my fever will break when we switch back to daylight savings time. Hey!—isn't this the time of year time to plant tulip bulbs?

From TYLER: I want you to answer the age old question that plagues men. The one thing that controls our entire society. The real reason we have wars and anti-gay marriage bans and religion and wives. The reason our economy is failing. Does it make you gay to go to a gloryhole?

Dear Tyler: To avoid getting bogged down in a war of semantics, with no viable exit strategy, let's assume that you intended the phrase "make you gay" to be interchangeable with "indicate that you're gay," rather than suggesting a sudden transformative experience—a la Saul of Tarsus during his fateful ride from Jerusalem to Damascus.

Proceeding under this rule of engagement, my answer to your question is absolutely not. I fail to understand how visiting a gloryhole—the last hope of any sort of sex life for hermaphrodites with abscessed teeth, or the manic-depressed with their unappealing quirks and limited conversational skills—makes you gay. Going to a gloryhole might make you sad, lonely, and desperate, and most likely makes you a fanatic of early John Waters films: a creepy, celluloid world of slick hair, pencil mustaches, long fingernails, and seemingly elastic people who could bend and stretch to pleasure themselves in ways that made me want to vomit the first time—which was also the last time—I saw Pink Flamingos. I mean hell, it was all I could do just to sit through Behind the Green Door for the eighth time.

By contrast, if you’re dropping your drawers for some anonymous creep of unspecified gender and/or unspecified species on the other side of the sheetrock—the fact that you're wearing the blackest and most badass #3 Dale Earnhardt t-shirt with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Greatest Hits blasting away on your Walkman doesn’t necessarily make you not gay. It only makes you willing to go to great lengths to unintentionally present yourself as an idiot. I emphasize these obvious truths because you seemed confused in your Straight To Hal question, with your suggestion that homosexuality was defined by sexual depravity, rather than the fact that it only means having a sexual preference for members of one’s own gender. (It's a small world after all. Learn to share.)

A simple way to determine if you’re gay or not is to browse through issues of People or Us, then ask yourself WHO makes your pants tighter—Brad or Angelina? The answer will determine your sexuality. Next, take an honest look at yourself in the mirror. If your face is not an insanely hideous miscarriage of nature, by all means try to cultivate a few basic social skills, because there’s a reasonable chance that you could one day, for free, have sex in a bed—with John or Jane, it does not matter as long as you're happy.

From Virginity to Velleity to Vulgarity

From PAT: If given the opportunity would you rather make love to a vile mythical beast knowing it would be the best most amazing lay of your life? Or choose whatever female you desire knowing the ensuing sex would be lackluster at best?

Dear Pat: I wept openly and without shame as I read your question. My lips puckered and I whispered a prayer for your wilted ganglia and unsightly gummata. Confidence in this diagnosis stems from my morbid obsession with the case study of Al Capone—a certifiable syphilitic loony toward his end. With the clear and present manifested symptoms of your acute paralytic dementia (strongly associated with the terminal stages of neurosyphilis), there is no time to waste in addressing your miserable and ghastly two-pronged ultimatum.

Part 2: Lame is as lame does. I’ll take my chances with boredom as I sprawl across satin sheets with Ashley Judd, Gretchen Mol and Elizabeth Hurley.

Part 1: The vile mythical Succubus had her way with me several times at the onset of puberty. She always came at night, as I slept, so that I could not view her hideousness, and so that I would have no say-so in the matter. I recall always awaking to both an immense feeling of satisfaction, and an inexplicable mess.

But the phrasing of your question indicates that I would have a choice in the matter. Off the top of my head I can think of but two vile beasts of mythology that would possibly give consideration to participating in your ugsome fantasy: Sheeva the Shokan and Medusa the Gorgon. To both I politely say no thanks. I’d rather go back to the days of Succubus. But alas I’ve outgrown her. That being the case, I would opt for a quiet evening with the corpse of Mrs. Bates down in the cellar. The single bare bulb would provide light aplenty for me to pour through back issues of Playboy, as Mrs. Bates sat silently and continued to rot. I’m not a deep breather by nature, so any lingering reek could easily be rationalized as overly ripe yams.

I wish things had been a tad more lame and considerably less vile the night I lost my virginity, and that I’d lost it to a virgin... she and I gently pilfering each other’s innocence. Instead, I gave it up to a real-live man-eater who’d probably surrendered hers years before to a tanned and leathery 40-year-old creep with a pencil mustache, sharkskin suit and pink ragtop Caddy.

On that special night of loss, the splendor of a full moon was lost on me down below as I writhed on a gummy blanket that took to sand the way fly paper took to flies, while the man-eater’s impatient huffing and militant hands nipped ecstasy in the bud. But it was mercifully over before too long, and in retrospect it wasn’t all that bad. It sure beat cruising around McDonald’s parking lot with a car full of guys. This I know, because that’s exactly what I was doing two hours later—enjoying a victory lap beneath the glow of the Golden Arches, bragging about my recent and sudden transformation from virgin to lady’s man as I sucked down a McMilkshake and scraped the ketchup off my double cheeseburger, all the while wishing I was back on the gummy blanket with my man-eater, who at that very moment was probably honoring a pre-arranged assignation with a dark stranger behind the bowling alley.

Good luck, Pat.