A Load of Hooey Read online

  THE BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

  Zero Stars

  by MISTER EVERYMAN

  First let me say, I am a massive fan of all of King James’s writings. I love everything the guy wrote—and in the original language, too…OLDE ENGLISH!! But somehow, I’d missed this one. EVERYONE at my church said I “must” “absolutely” read this one—the “book of books,” I think they called it. So I sat down and I read it. Every word. And all I got to say is…“meh.” Uninspired sludge. As a book it makes a great doorstop! Nothing special. A lot of stuff about who is related to who and then some VERY QUESTIONABLE tall tales that, I guess, are supposed to make a point. The lead character of the second book has some magic powers, but I don’t think Harry Potter has to worry too much about getting bumped off the hero shelf—the only magic power the Jesus character had for me was the power to conquer insomnia!! What a waste of every Sunday for a year!! Save your money, buy a large brass dog to hold your doors open for you. You’ll thank me.

  HER LAUGHTER

  Before I married her, when Angelisse and I were first dating—furiously, ecstatically, hyperactively—the people of the town (New York City—look it up!) warned me that while my A’Lisse (short for Angelisse—I was always coming up with nicknames for her) was mesmerizing, enchanting, and overfull of sparkling qualities, she would also challenge me to my core with her single drawback. They told me this in whispered conversation, but also in a few e-mails, written in all caps.

  I will share her solitary dark spot with you in time, but first let me attempt the impossible—to describe my Angel’s positive qualities, a smorgasbord of human excellence.

  Her mind was a diamond of endless facets, while also being a steel trap that spun on the edge of a pointed stick. I only wish I was mixing my metaphors and not simply describing her actual mind.

  Her spirit—well, her spirit was simply un-put-downable. She searched out every chance of connection, refusing to walk past a single soul without grasping their essence with her eyes. As a result, we avoided crowds and summer fairs because it just took too damn long to get anywhere.

  Physically, my Angel was a specimen nonpareil, with large eyes in shapes an almond would envy and thin, delicate wrists that a champagne flute would fucking despise. She had big boobs, as well.

  And then there was her laugh. Her laugh surprised people, because when it came it came suddenly, and it made everyone hate her instantly. It wasn’t a cackle. A cackle would have been fine. Everybody’s heard a cackle, and you can usually get used to it. My thin-wristed Angie had a laugh that crushed hope. It made you want to drill your ears till they bled and then pluck your eyeballs out and step on them just for good measure. It destroyed all human goodwill and warm feelings, leaving behind a cold, smoking horizon of ash. The sound of her laughter left you feeling like you’d swallowed someone else’s vomit, which ended up having pieces of glass in it…plus a tiny, swallowable atom bomb.

  This, her laughter, was that single negative quality I mentioned earlier. Allow me to dig deeper into this massive black hole hidden within the very fabric of her twinkling firmaments.

  Her laughter kept her from getting jobs! No matter how good she was doing in an interview, that laugh would come out and suddenly there was no vacancy. The one time she did restrain herself from laughing, she easily won a job at a neighborhood tchotchke and hardware shop. On her first day, her boss attempted to tell a simple knock-knock joke to ease her in to her new workplace. She laughed. Then he told her he was closing his business for a little while because he suddenly didn’t feel so good. When she called to find out when he would reopen, she learned he had moved THAT VERY DAY and had sold the business to a scrap dealer. This was a family business we’re talking about! He was the fifth-generation owner!

  Her laughter dispersed entire crowds. Even crowds of people who’d paid for their seats! Once we went to a rock concert at one of those outdoor venues where you bring wine and cheese and lay out a picnic blanket, and they had a stand-up comedian open for the band. To everyone’s dismay, she loved the comedian and his offbeat japes. By the middle of his act, the massive lawn was empty except for Angelisse and me! The crowd’s wines and cheeses sat abandoned in little piles. People must have just said, “Fuck it, I’ll buy more wine and cheese, I can’t listen to another moment of that ear-raping laughter.” Then, to top it off, the band refused to go on. They’d heard her laugh, too! And this was a jam band! They weren’t even a good jam band—only two original members. The concert was a total wash. We didn’t even get a refund.

  Her laughter finally did us in as well. One time I saw a mother with a mohawk haircut pushing a baby carriage in Central Park and, without considering the consequences, I muttered, “Look out, Mommy’s on the warpath.” Angelisse laughed, the baby cried, two dogs jumped into the pond, a couple of boats capsized, and three horses went bonkers, tossing the policemen from their saddles. It was a nightmare scene that would have made Heironymus Bosch say, “You’re fucking kidding me.” At that moment, a part of me died—it was the exact part of me that had been tolerating her laughter all this time. So I turned to my “Gelisimahoney” and, with cold certainty, I declared, “Angel, my Angel…I have something to tell you, and I need you to listen to me and believe me. Will you do that?” Her willing expression told me she would.

  “I can never marry you.” This stopped her (and her laugh) in her tracks. An explanation was due, and not just any explanation—I needed the greatest explanation the world had ever seen. Inspired by her searching eyes and how much I hated her laughter, I went on.

  “I can never marry you because I’m an illegal alien and I have AIDS and I am gay and I’m already married, twice, and I just took a job in another country as a…drug smuggler.” Without letting all that sink in, I carried on, “I know this is a lot to process, but you must believe me. I am needed in Colombia to smuggle cocaine so I can care for my other wives and afford the daily ‘cocktail’ that keeps my immune system strong and, in addition to all of that, I just signed up for a two-year art installation placing black flags in the ice of the Antarctic in a circular pattern. You’ll be able to see it from space.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, and then her laugh burst through again, bruising my soul and wilting the grass. I winced, everybody winced, and I said, “Also, I can’t stand your stupid laugh. You gotta stop that. I mean it.”

  And so we went our separate ways. Now I’m lonely again, making dinner for one. But I still believe in love, and dream of meeting a taciturn woman with a sour air, few delights, and the inability to laugh at anything at all.

  AN ANGEL OF THE LORD

  An Angel of the Lord came unto me. I thought that was cool. Worth mentioning, anyways. It told me that I could ask any question I had and I’d get the truth. So I asked: “Which religion is right and true?” He thought for a moment and said, “I cannot specify by name, but TWO religions are true.” “Two?” I said. “How can that be?” He shrugged and said, “What can I say…that’s the way it is.” I said, “Can you possibly help me narrow it down?” He nodded and said, “Okay, I shouldn’t do this, but—I can tell you that Scientology is NOT one of the true ones. Does that help you?”

  “No,” I said. “No, that does not help.”

  Famous Quotations—Unabridged

  “If you can dream it, you can do it. Not ‘you.’ I mean ‘me.’ I was talking to myself. Did you hear me just now? Forget I said that.”

  —Walt Disney

  MY EDUCATION, OR, THE EDUCATION OF A ME, OR, I NOT DUMB

  Everything I learned I learned on the streets. The streets taught me very little algebra and absolutely NO organic chemistry. Class was always in session, but there were no desks and no teachers responsible to check on attendance, so class may as well have never been in session. I’ll tell you what, though, I learned that adults are full of baloney and kids are little shits, and I don’t know how much more learnin’ is really necessary.

  At home I learned about love, and how
to dole it out in tiny increments that never deplete the wellspring of self-involvement. When you give too much love too freely, you inevitably find yourself caught up in other people’s messy lives. Yech.

  My fashion sense came from sorting through old laundry and choosing the stuff on top.

  Did I mention hip-hop saved my life? That’s because it did not.

  I owe my family for my sense of humor. I don’t owe them money. I don’t have any money. I’ve never been paid for anything.

  Whew…did they leave yet? Good. Actually, I’m very very rich.

  Famous Quotations—Unabridged

  “If you’re going through hell, keep going. But please stop screaming, it’s not good for morale.”

  —Winston Churchill

  LOUVRE AUDIO TOUR FOR HOMEOWNERS

  Welcome to the Louvre Audio Tour for Homeowners, English Language Version.

  The Louvre is the world’s most famous art museum and the most popular tourist site in Paris. With more than thirty-five thousand works of art and sixty thousand square meters of exhibition space, there is a lot to see. Choose any wing and start walking and this audio tour can begin.

  With more than two hundred thousand visitors tramping through every year, the Louvre has wisely chosen hardwood floors over carpet. Carpeting would have meant vacuuming. Constantly vacuuming. I mean nonstop vacuuming. Trust me, these wood floors take their toll in blood, sweat, and waxing, so if you think we’re getting off easy, think again. The notion of making people take off their shoes by the front door has been raised and dismissed numerous times. Can you imagine the disaster that would be? People taking the wrong pair of shoes, people forgetting their shoes and walking out into Paris with bare feet, people suing the museum because they got some disease from the gutters of Paris? Forget it, just forget it…not gonna happen.

  When you get to the end of the gallery, turn right—or left, whichever way you want, it doesn’t matter—and you’ll see that most of the halls are lit by natural sunlight streaming through skylights. Nice, right? However, that doesn’t mean this joint doesn’t use up frickin’ light bulbs by the case. How many frickin’ light bulbs? More than 120 a week, and they’re not easy to replace, either, my friend. Can you see how high some of these ceilings are? Those are some tall ladders we have to use. Heck, we’ve got guys who, all they do is change light bulbs. At least that’s how it feels sometimes. Cripes. I’m not complaining, but whoever has the light-bulb concession across the street from this place is rollin’ in it—it costs a pretty franc, I can assure you.

  In fact, it takes a staff of more than two thousand to keep this place up, and that’s not counting the security for all these paintings and statues and things. Have you seen the glass pyramid? I bet you’d hate to have to clean that! Trust me, you would, I’ve spoken to the people who have to clean it and they hate it. Guess how much Windex it takes to wash all of them windows? Tons. Two-point-two tons per year. We weighed it.

  Speaking of security, what’s to keep somebody from just walking over to a painting when things are slow and tearing it out of its frame, jamming it under their jacket, and wandering out the door, whistling all the way? Well, every single painting and statue is rigged with wires, and the slightest touch sets off an alarm. Plus there are more than two hundred cameras in the ceiling, all being watched over by guards in some room somewhere. Then you’ve got the guys who watch the guards and the guys who watch the guys who watch the guards. I’m joking, but it’s not that funny when you get the bill at the end of the month. Sometimes we wish we had paintings that weren’t so “special” or “rare,” but try selling that idea at a board meeting, trust me—you get shouted down real quick.

  Let’s look at some of the paintings. What’s the first thing you notice about the paintings in the Louvre? That’s right: the frames are fancy. Some of them are nicer than the paintings! Guess what else they are? Dust magnets. It’s crazy. It’s like they generate dust! These things have to be dusted, gently, like every three weeks. You can’t use Pledge on them, either, you have to use this super-gentle approved wood-oil concoction or they’ll rot. I’m not making this up! It’s a real pain in the ass. Still thinking of starting your own museum? You must be crackers.

  Have you seen the paintings on the ceilings yet? Some of these rooms have as many paintings on the ceiling as they do on the walls! How did they get them up there? They have these giant scaffoldings and they have to put them together each time they check or clean or change a painting. The paintings are so far away you can hardly see ’em anyways. Plus, at least twice a year some French guy has to poke around up there with this long broom-handled duster or it would be cobweb city!

  You may be wondering as you wander these halls, why did they have to make it so fancy? Let me tell you something, bub, people long ago, they had a lot of time on their hands. If I had lived five hundred years ago I wouldn’t have spent my time carving a bunch of wood so it could be hung forty feet in the air somewhere, I would have been trying to invent air-conditioning.

  Well, that’s the basics of this place. After you see it, you have to admit, the Louvre is a heckuva museum—a real piece of work. If you find an open bench, grab it. Here’s how many benches there are in the Louvre: not enough. I’ve suggested they put in a bench for every painting that’s boring or just “eh,” but no one listens to me or any of my “ideas” anymore. Whatever. You’re probably pooped by now. Believe me, I know how you feel, I work here.

  I think I’ll play you some music now. Au revoir.

  P.S. There’s a Starbies in the lower level—see you down there.

  PUTTING IT OUT THERE

  If I were running for president, the first thing I would do is hold a press conference and get all my skeletons out of the closet and onto the table. A skeleton table, if such a thing exists—big enough for a couple skeletons.

  Before I announce my candidacy for president of the United States I want to comment on some rumors and accusations that I’m fairly certain will come to the fore as my campaign gains steam. I will warn you, I’m going to be more open than any candidate has ever been, so please usher the children out of the room now.

  The first and foremost accusation will be that I have cheated on my beautiful wife, Betty.

  I have cheated on my beautiful wife, Betty.

  I have cheated on her more than once. More than twice. More than three times. I could go on like that, but you get the gist.

  I have cheated on Betty in brief, one-night affairs, and a few long-term ones. I have cheated on her with men and women, and groups of men and women, and one person who was kind of an “either/or,” if you know what I mean.

  My beautiful wife, Betty, doesn’t know about this, but we will be discussing it in private soon after this press conference ends, and then, later, in public, and finally, possibly, in a court of law.

  Now, I have not always been a willing participant in these—how shall I characterize them?—“sex games.” Sometimes I was drunk. One time I had a blindfold on. Twice I was paid. Once I did it on a dare. But in at least thirty instances that I can recall I was cooperative and willing, so don’t get the idea that I’m a quick lay or easy to blindfold. In fact, I put that blindfold on myself! The media will, no doubt, suggest that there is something weird about me wearing a blindfold while having sex with two people I’d only met a few hours before, but I assure you that I was on Ecstasy and I would have tried almost anything.

  darn these ol’ books!

  Now, a further word about my beloved wife, Betty. I have been married to this same wonderful, understanding, occasionally oblivious woman for thirty-two years. Through it all—all the sex with other people, all the awesome nastiness—I have stayed married to her, with a quiet pride in myself and what a good guy I am. In all these years I have married only one other woman, and had but one second, secret family, and this was in another state, more than thirty miles away—and believe me, the added responsibility, as well as the commute, was no picnic. My enemies will try to tw
ist this and accuse me of polygamy, but it’s not polygamy because neither wife knew about the other wife and I think polygamy usually means the wives know about each other, right? I’m not sure if I’m right about that, but I’m sure I will find out soon after this press conference and I will get back to you with a definition clarified by a court of law.

  So there you have it. I have committed adultery, pickpocketing, and general scumbaggery on a semiregular basis, and now you know. Did I fail to mention my pickpocketing? Well…I’m a pickpocket. I do it all the time. Can’t help myself. I’m sure with the Secret Service around I’ll be forced to cut back on that exciting little hobby. Then again, maybe they’ll make it easier—it might provide cover for me…yeah, this is going to work great. Vote for me, and let the pocket picking begin!

  Famous Quotations—Unabridged

  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Also, if you see your friend’s face mutate into all four members of the rock group the Beatles, that’s a sign as well.”

  —Narcotics Anonymous Saying

  MY MANIFESTO

  If you’re reading this, then I am dead. If my plan has been carried out with any degree of success, then there are more than a few disgruntled people left in my wake, as well as a few disgruntled people AT my wake*—for reasons that will become obvious later in this document.