A Load of Hooey Read online

  A LOAD OF HOOEY

  Mc SWEENEY’S

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Copyright © 2014 Bob Odenkirk

  Cover illustration by Tony Millionaire.

  All rights reserved, including right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any form.

  McSweeney’s and colophon are registered trademarks of McSweeney’s, a privately held company with wildly fluctuating resources.

  ISBN: 9-781-94045-066-7

  www.mcsweeneys.net

  THE ODENKIRK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

  This is one of a series of humorous books written by diverse authors and each blessed and approved by the nondeceased (yet) American comedy person Bob Odenkirk. Volumes in the OML include satire, cartoons, Black Humor, Gentle Humor, and Total Humor, and they cover a broad range of subject matter, united only in their tendency to provoke laughter and warm feelings of distraction. No textbooks or pornography will be included in the series (yet).

  To Naomi. Thank you for indulging me.

  Please continue to do so.

  “Don’t waste your money on that book—it’s a lot of hooey.”

  —from Merriam-Webster’s definition of “hooey”

  CONTENTS

  Preface: One Should Never Read a Book on the Toilet

  Beginnings, or, a Beginning, or, How This Book Begins

  A Portrait of the Artist

  “Didn’t Work for Me”

  Her Laughter

  An Angel of the Lord

  My Education, or, the Education of a Me, or, I Not Dumb

  Louvre Audio Tour for Homeowners

  Putting It Out There

  My Manifesto

  I Think I Just Met God

  Politician’s Promise

  Hitler Dinner Party: A Play

  My Speech to the Graduates of This Fine Institution

  What I’m Looking for in Another Man

  The Phil Spector I Knew

  Meaningful Poem

  Martin Luther King Jr.’s Worst Speech Ever

  Free Speech for All!

  A Hazy Christmas Memory

  Baseball Players’ Poems about Sportswriters and Sportswriting

  The Origin of “Blackbird”

  I Misspoke

  I Found a Jackson Pollock!

  Abs

  Shakespeare in the Park

  What to Do in Case of Fire

  The Second Meeting of Jesus and Lazarus

  Actual-Factual New Jesus Facts

  So You Want to Get a Tattoo!

  A Vision of the Future

  Obit for the Creator of Mad Libs

  That’s Quite Enough of You, Odenkirk

  Other Books by This Author

  PREFACE

  ONE SHOULD NEVER READ A BOOK ON THE TOILET

  By Miss Sally Penberton, of Miss Sally’s Finishing School and College of Internal Medicine

  Hello!

  Hello!

  Now I am pausing for you to reply, “Hello, Miss Penberton, of Sally Penberton’s Finishing School and College of Internal Medicine!” Very good, girls—except for you, Violet Madison. You sound like a cow. How many times do I have to tell you: one should never speak with one’s mouth open! It is rude for a man to see your tongue before the wedding. Why buy the cow when you can see the tongue for free?

  If you are reading this, you have opened and/or purchased Mr. Odenkirk’s book, A Load of Hooey. I am delighted for you, as I’m sure it will guarantee a slew of laughs and between a galette cup and an oyster cup (approx.) of titters. Before you wade in too deeply, however, I would like to remind you all of the golden rule: One Should Never Read a Book on the Toilet.

  There are as many reasons One Should Never Read a Book on the Toilet as there are appropriate forks to use at a purebred horse’s wedding (thirty-seven). Posture may be the most important. There are appropriate postures for both reading and for defecating, and neither is compatible with the other. The ideal reading posture is brutally erect, in full dinner corsets (keep tightened to eight inches), one foot up on an ottoman made out of a deceased family dog’s pelt, the book balanced on the tips of the pointer and ring fingers. No other fingertips may be involved. Three fingertips to read a book? HAHAHAHA GOOD JOKE, GIRLS!! I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING!

  Conversely, the ideal defecating posture is the Rosebud. You pull your dinner or lounging corsets (whichever are made of the rarest whalebone) tighter and tighter until the feces are squeezed half inch by half inch out of your dainty anus (daintus). If you need to ask your mother or lady-in-waiting to help, feel free. Not everyone can get the Rosebud right every time! (P.S. I am still laughing about using three fingertips to read!! When would you ever need that many!!!)

  Ideally, however, you shouldn’t be on the toilet at all, let alone reading on it. Remember: there is no man to open the lid for you! Ladies should go through doors only if a man has opened them for her, and ladies should use a toilet only if a man has de-lidded it for her. For what is a toilet lid but a door for your asshole? I am not just an etiquette teacher and doctor, but a poet as well.

  Properly utilizing a toilet requires certain steps that should not be changed. Do not arrive late to your toilet. Fold the toilet paper into an elaborate swan (lengthwise, then widthwise, make a tip, add real swan meat to taste). Attempt the Rosebud. Write a thank-you note to your butthole on the swan paper. Make sure to use proper penmanship—even if the note is to your butthole! “Thank” your butthole by wiping it with the note. Flush, using only the pinkie, or the thumb, which is nature’s pinkie.

  Now, I am usually more than a little distrustful of sending My Girls to traditional physicians (i.e., people who have not graduated from my school of internal medicine). It is much more polite not to hang an indiscreet, impolite, “braggy” diploma on the wall, or, better yet, to have never graduated from medical school in the first place (itself the biggest brag of all). But don’t be afraid to call your local physician if the Rosebud goes poorly. I have seen more than a few women who, while attempting to defecate with politeness, have “popped” ( science term??) an internal organ. I may not be a doctor, but I am an unlicensed doctor, and I can tell you that the Rosebud is worth it!

  There are so many other places for you to read this book. YOU DO NOT NEED THE TOILET. That should be your mantra, along with “My dowry is not a toy.” You could read this book in a townhouse that your husband bought for you! You could read this book on a yacht that your husband bought for you! You could read this book on the toilet!

  O ho, did you catch that?! That was a test! You CANNOT read this book on the toilet! I am not just a poet, but a trickster as well.

  Ho HO!

  I don’t want to scare you, but some very bad things have happened to women who do not respect the proper etiquette of toiletry and who Read This Book on the Toilet. Take, for instance, Miss Amanda Maple of New York. She was rumored to have bought this “haha-book,” and could not wait to void herself before she began reading. She gave herself paper cuts on her small treasure to the extent that she could not bear children. Due to this fact, she was promptly put down behind her house by her husband. Was it worth it? Of course not. She didn’t even get to the good part of the book (pp. 32–36).

  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 tov
es weren’t fuckin’ around.”

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

  How 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

  He 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!