Deliriously Happy: and Other Bad Thoughts

Me: An Introduction

The first thing you need to know about me is you’re standing too close. Put the book down and take a couple steps back, all right, friend?

It’s for your own good. I am a man of powerful opinions, requiring strong gestures and sudden movements to make known, and I wouldn’t want to see you hospitalized unnecessarily.

If you know me—which you don’t, so don’t pretend to your friends that you do, until you’ve read further—you know one thing: I’m against the war. As this volume goes to press, that includes all those Muslim wars, which I’m counting as one war. If some new wars have started in the last couple of weeks, I’m against those as well. I opposed the Vietnam War as a baby, and I believe I would have opposed the Korean War; I’ll have to look it up someday and find out. Had I been around, I definitely would have opposed WWII. In hindsight, you can say it turned out all right, but we’ll never really know how many lives could have been saved had we given appeasement a chance.

Nevertheless, I’m not an anti-Semite. I am an anti-anti-Semite. Unless that makes me a Semite. Then I’m something else.

Another thing about me: I support gay rights, even though I’m not gay, personally or professionally. Or secretly. I mean, I’m so heterosexual I can’t even masturbate. But I believe whatever two guys want to do with each other’s parts is fine, as long as I’m not in the room, and two gals as well, even if I am.

Also, I won’t eat anything with a face that might recognize me. Neither will I eat anything with a name, be it Elsie, or Beauty, or Old Red. If I must eat an animal, I insist on being led to believe it died humanely, preferably by its own hand. I eat a lot of lemming (tastes like vole).

I won’t wear fur on purpose. I believe Fur Is Murder, on account of the clever internal rhyme.

As far as evolution goes, I don’t buy it. If chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our DNA, you should be able to mate with them, but you can’t. You really can’t. I have a theory that we are evolved from cows and sheep, but I can’t go into the details right now. It’s in peer review.

Oh, and global warming is our single greatest challenge today, I believe. Along with fresh water. Plus religious extremism and renewable energy. And AIDS babies, natch. Yeah, sure, oppression of women/breast cancer, too. Those are all our single greatest challenges today. This I believe.

Of course what I believe doesn’t matter. You just wasted a lot of time there. Because I’m a man of action. What I do is who I am, and I do a lot.

I don’t carry cash, but if I did I would certainly share my hard-earned money with panhandlers and vagrants and the like. In lieu of payment, I offer smart career advice and motivational sayings.

For the past couple of years I’ve Gone Zero, as many big celebrities are doing. To reduce my carbon emissions, I’ve carved my name on that tree over there, and several others around the neighborhood. There’s also this moss growing across my back and down my legs. I have to face south all the time, but I think our planet is worth it.

I recycle constantly. I eat out of garbage cans whenever there’s nobody with a whisk broom around. I am also progressing in my goal of achieving zero net biomass. Hence the jars. The technology is not yet there to turn our urine into gasoline and excrement into some other wonderful thing, but when it is, I’ll be ready. Also, it’s not easy to fart into jars, but I’m getting good at it.

I don’t wear hats. This is not a hat. It is my hair, woven into a porkpie. There’s a difference.

When you invite me to your next dinner party, you should know that in addition to the above, I am conversant in the following topics: funny Bill Murray movies. And fair warning: if you seat me next to a precocious, talkative child, there will be punching.

Joy

Fun Times!

Do your kids like to have fun?

Come to Fun Times!*

Do you like to watch your kids having fun?

Bring ’em to Fun Times!

Are your kids sullen, withdrawn, wearing a lot of black lately, and you, your life practically over, and for what?

For gosh sakes, get the whole family down to Fun Times!

Fun Times!’s fine amusement dining is the most fun you can have, legally, in the United States right now. Why spend thousands of dollars flying to Disney World when you can spend less than half of that indoors and malaria-free, within a day’s drive of most cities?

To find the Fun Times! nearest you, simply get on your favorite highway and keep going until you hear the fun! Park in any of our outer lots and hop on the Jolly Trolley,† or walk on ahead if you prefer. Once you’ve reached the Fun Times! intake office, you will be asked to fill out a few simple waivers and financial disclosure forms.

You’re moments away from fun!

Next you’ll purchase your children’s Fun Times! Happy Cards!, which can be loaded in twenty-dollar increments by Grumpy McPoops, or set to Unlimited Happiness! for kids whose parents would prefer to spend the money now, rather than later on therapy and make-goods.

You’re on the cusp of fun!

Release the children!

The first thing you’ll want to do upon entering the Fun Times! Game Dome is stagger over to the Grown-Up Pagoda and purchase a pair of ear plugs. They cost a little more, but we recommend Westone ES49s, the kind Pete Townshend uses to preserve what’s left of his hearing.

Now take a look around.‡ Was there ever anything this much fun when you were a kid?

Maybe there was, and your parents lied to you about it.

But you’re not them, and you don’t have to be them.

Just one look into your children’s glowing, jittery eyes will tell you how much cooler you are than they ever were.

That may not happen right away, but rest assured your kids are in here somewhere, enjoying video-game graphics almost as good as the ones at home. While you’re waiting, why not check out our costumed entertainment? We are proud to host the Medi-Cools, a cartoon menagerie developed by Hanna-Barbera for the National Institutes of Health in the seventies. Feel free to arm wrestle with Mike O’Cardial or shake hands with Whiz and Wee, the Kidney Twins, because, for the most part, the children won’t go near them.§

Don’t bother yelling; your kids can’t hear you.

Maybe you should eat something. There’s a restaurant in here, too, in the direction of the smell. For the little ones, we have pizza, fries, and chicken shapes. And, for you, six sizes of beer!

We strongly advise against searching for your kids down the Console Canyons; they’ll find their way out long before you do. What we recommend is that you pick one place and stand there.

But not there!

You’ve been Goob™ed!

Don’t worry, that was gallons and gallons of totally natural fun,** which won’t ruin any fabric developed after 2005. That slight burning sensation is not humiliation, so relax and enjoy the laughter of hundreds of children, all because of you!

And, look: here come your kids now, laughing like they’ve never laughed before, and apparently unharmed. They just want you to hold on to the six hundred game tickets they’ve accumulated so far—almost halfway to a Frog Clacker!—and then they’re gone again, into the fun.

Did they call back, I love you, Dad, as they slipped into the neon darkness? We think they did.

Me v. Big Mike

He was the end of my pompom. I’m the cheerleader.

—Remark made by former Disney chairman Michael Eisner about his protégé, Jeffrey Katzenberg, as revealed in court proceedings.

$60 zillion.

—Amount of settlement suggested by Mr. Katzenberg’s attorney, as quoted in the Hollywood Reporter

Now comes the Plaintiff, Larry Doyle, and for his First Complaint against the Defendant states unto the Honorable Court as follows:

1.   That the Defendant, BIG MIKE, was at all times relevant to the above-entitled cause of action, a student in the fourth grade at St. Mary’s Elementary School in Buffalo Grove, in the County of Cook, State of Illinois.

2.   That the Defendant, BIG MIKE, was also known as BAD MIKE, BIG BAD MIKE, MIKE THE GIANT, GIANT MIKE, THE JOLLY GREEN MIKE, MIKE THE MIDGET KILLER, and THE POUNDER.

3.   That the Defendant was then, and has remained, large for his age.

4.   That the Defendant is now the owner and operator of BIG MIKE’S ACURA, in Palatine, in the County of Cook, State of Illinois.

5.   That the Defendant, at all times relevant to the above-entitled cause of action, controlled the fourth grade through a reign of terror in his capacity as Bully.

6.   That the Plaintiff served the Defendant in the capacity of Sidekick, from approximately September 11, 1967, until November 13, 1967.

7.   That on or about May 19, 1999, the Plaintiff recovered memories of unimaginable conscious pain and suffering inflicted by the Defendant, as well as of a breach of contract.

8.   That recovered memories, as are those of the Plaintiff, are recognized as real and legitimate by several hypnotherapy and anti–satanic cult groups, and have become an instrument of standard legal practice in the circumvention of statutory limitations in the filing of lawsuits (cf. Roseanne v. Everybody).

9.   That the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional amount of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), and that the amount of Plaintiff’s damages in this case exceed Sixty Zillion Dollars ($60,000,000,000,000 … etc.)

COUNT I

Intentional infliction of emotional distress, physical intimidation, extortion, and bodily injury on the part of Defendant.

10. That on or about September 11, 1967, the Defendant chose the Plaintiff from among several candidates to be his sole and exclusive Sidekick.

11. That the said Plaintiff understood or was made to understand that his Duties as sole and exclusive Sidekick to the Defendant would include but not be limited to: establishing and maintaining the Defendant’s reputation for violence; taunting the smaller, weaker, or more infirm of the students under the Defendant’s purview; scheduling Poundings on behalf of the Defendant; collecting milk and other monies on behalf of the Defendant; seconding the Defendant’s remarks, laughing at his jokes and insults, and otherwise bolstering the Defendant’s selfconfidence.

12. That the Plaintiff was led to believe that by performing these Duties he would be exempt from the reign of terror visited upon the fourth grade by the Defendant. In fact, despite the Plaintiff’s best efforts to fulfill his Duties in a competent and timely manner, the Defendant focused a majority of his Bullying activities on the person of the Plaintiff.

13. That the Defendant did intentionally and maliciously inflict emotional distress on the Plaintiff, in the following particulars, by way of illustration, and not limitation:

a.   Intentionally and maliciously subjecting the Plaintiff to ridicule by frequently alluding to the Plaintiff’s then small stature, applying to the Plaintiff such appellations as Shrimpo, Tiny Tim, Jr., Butt-Munchkin, and Kneehigh to a Grasshopper Turd;

b.   Intentionally and maliciously humiliating the Plaintiff by requiring him to answer to the name Midge, a shortened form of Midget, in a high, girlish register, under threat of a Pounding;

c.   Intentionally and maliciously defaming the Plaintiff with the creation and performance of a mock television program, sometimes entitled I Hate Larry and at other times known as That Little Midget, which involved the Defendant’s walking on his knees while producing flatulence sounds with his mouth, said portrayal being an inaccurate and slanderous depiction of the Plaintiff;

d.   On several occasions, in front of peers, drawing attention to the Plaintiff’s boner when none was present.

14. That on or about September 30, 1967, Defendant conscripted the Plaintiff, on a Saturday, outside and beyond the terms of his employment as a playground Sidekick, into indentured servitude in the building of a Fort in the backyard of the Defendant. On this occasion, and with no provocation, the Defendant flung with extreme force the Plaintiff’s father’s good hammer into Poo Pond, so named for its adjacency to a sewage treatment plant. The Defendant then ridiculed the Plaintiff for his subsequent uncontrolled weeping, fostering in the Plaintiff an inability to cry as an adult, limiting his emotional range and diminishing his enjoyment of romantic motion pictures and other popular entertainment.

15. That while the Plaintiff was solely responsible for scheduling Poundings on behalf of the Defendant, and conscientiously arranged for such Poundings to occur after school hours or during recess, the Defendant nevertheless did inflict innumerable unscheduled, impromptu, and unprovoked Poundings on the Plaintiff. These Poundings, which ranged in severity from Sluggings to Pummelings, were visited upon the Plaintiff for such minor infractions as insufficient milk money collection, looking at the Defendant askance, and failure to schedule another Pounding for that day.

16. That by way of extreme and outrageous conduct the Defendant visited ritual tortures upon the Plaintiff, including Indian Burns, Dutch Rubs, Pink Bellies, Wet Willies, Noogies, and, completely without regard to sanitation and safety, Swirlees, in which the Plaintiff’s head was forced deep into the bowl of a toilet, which was then flushed, causing the toilet water to swirl about the Plaintiff’s head and face in an alarming manner.

17. That on or about November 13, 1967, the Plaintiff’s ninth birthday, Defendant said he had a special present for the Plaintiff but in fact used the occasion to commit a deliberate and heinous act on the Plaintiff. Reaching into the Plaintiff’s trousers from behind, the Defendant gripped the elastic waistband of the Plaintiff’s briefs and yanked upward with a violent motion. Yelling, I’m a cheerleader! You are my pompom, the Defendant did wantonly and recklessly raise the Plaintiff into the air, supported solely by his briefs, and proceeded to thrust his arm out violently several times under the pretext of giving the Plaintiff birthday cheers. As a direct result of this assault, the Plaintiff was transferred from St. Mary’s to a public school, where he received an inferior education.

COUNT IV

Breach of contract on the part of Defendant.

18. That the Defendant stated on several occasions that the Plaintiff, for his services as Sidekick, would receive his share of milk and other monies collected.

19. That on the sole occasion the Plaintiff inquired about his aforementioned share he received payment in the form of a Pounding.

20. That the Plaintiff estimates that he collected no less than Seven Dollars and Twenty Cents ($7.20) on behalf of the Defendant.

21. That Ten Percent (10%) being a reasonable share, based on established show-business practice, the Plaintiff was then entitled to Seventy-Two Cents ($0.72). With interest of Six Percent (6%) per annum, and irrespective of any compensation due the Plaintiff as a result of the conscious pain, fright, shock, and anxiety then caused and mental pain, anguish, and sorrow which continue to be caused by the Defendant’s actions, Plaintiff is now owed Four Dollars and Sixty-Five Cents ($4.65).

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