The Stick..."We Hardly Knew Ya"

This will no doubt be a brief article...because frankly, I know nothing about the enigma, the mystery man...known only as "The Stick"...and it appears that I am not alone...nobody does...except God, "The Stick" himself...and possibly, his loved ones.

On IMDB, he is listed only as "The Stick"...in the closing credits for Student Bodies, he is listed as The Stick...there is only one other piece of work to his credit...a Nickelodeon show called "Out Of Control" [with Dave Coulier], of which it appears he partook in one episode...if you enter his name as a search in Google, you get tons of sites where the common question is..."Whatever Happened To The Stick?"...this is something many would like to know.

What do we know?...we know that "The Stick" is really only known for his role as "Malvert The Janitor", in the 1981 horror/comedy film Student Bodies. Malvert The Janitor, was truly a disturbing and memorable character...double jointed, as skinny as a rail...or a stick...and retarded to boot. The Stick as far as I am concerned, is the selling point for watching Student Bodies.

In surfing around on the net, for Stick info...I found that he may have died in the late 80's [info may have come from an interview with the director of the film, Mickey Rose, the source could not remember for sure]...but, that is not a proven fact. In my own frame of thinking...I see "The Stick" as mid to late 40's in 1981, when the film came out...that would put him near 70 today...I wanna think that he couldn't have been the healthiest guy in the world...so maybe it's true...but, I hope not.

If so...R.I.P. Stick...we will always remember that, "Malvert Pee Red."

Uncle Roy...

A Little Rod Stewart Confusion

Now before I go on...telling this tale of childhood confusion, I wanna warn folks...that a certain word...will be used, more than once in this...that word is, nigger. If it offends thee...close the page...go elsewhere on the Internet...go look at donkey porn...I don't care...just don't come crying to me.

Circa 1983, our next door neighbors son [who died from AIDS, a little while back], had a poster of Rod Stewart on his bedroom wall...[maybe that should have been a red flag...I mean, of all things to have a poster of on your wall in the 80's, when your a lad...I can see Farrah Fawcett or Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, or even KISS...but, Rod Stewart]...just sayin'.

One afternoon, whilst in his bedroom, playing with some Star Wars figures. I noticed this poster...hanging on the wall, stuck up there with tape...above the headboard. I didn't really think anything of it at the time...but later, I got up to look at it more closely...and there, at the bottom...in ballpoint pen...somebody had scrawled... "NIGGERS STINK"...right upon Rod's crotchial region. Rod was clad in red leather pants, a white peasants blouse and was accompanied by his band in the poster...all of them, in sexy pouting rockstar poses.

I am surprised now...that I could even read those words, let alone...the fact that I knew who Rod Stewart was...at the tender young age of 9...but I could and did.

For years, afterwards...until I started getting into music...I just assumed that what I had read was part of the poster...I had assumed that Rod Stewart, must have been openly racist...and had released an album entitled..."Niggers Stink"...and that everyone just overlooked that little tidbit, and he was this huge mega-star despite it. Hold on, can you imagine the audacity and gall it would take to do something like that...he'd be a ball-licking disgrace...he'd be spraying bowling shoes somewhere in Scotland.

Then, in 5th or 6th grade, I first heard the old urban legend about Rod collapsing on stage [from a kid named Todd MacMillan...who was your typical dumbass 80's rocker dude...jean jacket with resin stains on the sleeves, and a Goodie comb in his back pocket]...and being rushed to the hospital, where they discovered and extracted 2 gallons of semen from his stomach. This was also, just about the time when I heard about that mysterious girl that nobody ever knew personally, who stuck a hot dog up her twazzer, at the lunchtable...and broke it off...now, as far as I am concerned today, that kinda girl is marryin' material.

Anyway...I thought..."What the fuck?!"..."This guy puts out an album called "Niggers Stink"...and then takes a nose dive on stage because he's cum drunk...this is fuckin' nuts!"...he's either the ballsiest son of a bitch that's ever lived...or he's some kind of mental deficient...that needs to be locked away.

Well, of course...eventually I grew up, and figured it all out...that it was physically impossible for Rod Stewart, singer of the hit song "Maggie Mae"...to have 2 gallons of semen in his stomach, and that he never released an LP called "Niggers Stink". He wouldn't be performing today, if he had. And plus, that record would be one of the most notorious collectors albums of all time...it would be non-existent...at auction it would sell for 6 billion dollars...it would have been recalled, hunted like a witch and destroyed in a mass burnings, all over the world...people would have fled from the smoke that the melting vinyl generated...because they wouldn't have wanted to inhale it's black smoke of hatred and persecution.

A few years later, I heard that they had found 2 gallons of semen in the stomach of Jon Bon-Jovi...I'm not gonna argue with that one.

Uncle Roy...

Naughty Occurrences on Kansas City Broadcast TV

As a young boy...coming of age in the 80's. One learned to be creative, when it came to finding material to use for ones...ahem..."self-pleasuring"...wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more.
I wouldn't speak of such things...but, I think it's an interesting story...and informative...really.
Sometimes, something as simple as the ladies under garment section of the JC Penneys catalog would suffice. The female caulking-gun slinger on a tube of Liquid Nails was kind of hot...and how could you dismiss the innocent face of Lil' Debbie...and her line of tasty treats., well...I guess that was more a love affair with the cakes, than Miss Debbie herself...no offense Debbie, I still think your Swiss Cake Rolls put Ho-Ho's to shame.
There were certain tv shows...that aided in the sinful duty...Benny Hill [of course...nothing sexier, than sassy, stacked, half-dressed British chicks, with horrid teeth...pronounced "orrid"]...my father was an avid viewer of Benny's show...much to the dismay, of my mother...the would-be prude.
G.L.O.W., "Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling"...was a wonderful display of women in wrasslin' tights...making complete asses of themselves, in the squared circle. While some of them were truly "gorgeous"...some of them were fucking "Husqvarnas"...a term favored by my papa.
There could be several hundreds of shows, and several hundreds tv chickies...if you really wanna get technical...with the likes of...Heather Thomas on "The Fall Guy" [Oh Yeah!], Jane Badler of "V", Daisy Duke, Ellie Mae, Marcia Brady, The Hee Haw girls and Connie Fucking Selleca...just name a few.
As useful as these examples were in the masturbatory elimination...still sometimes, on a few key occasions...something happened, so rare, that I could practically count the occurrences on one hand, something so beautiful...that one would break down and pray...Oh Lord...thou art grateful, for thine gift of free, and possibly unintentional nudity, displayed here-in this program...if it is your will...that the station be fined up the ass by the feds...than so be it...amen. The phenomenon in queue, full-frontal nudity on broadcast television.

KEKR Channel 62...was a reasonably new UHF station that signed-on September 12th, 1983 [I was there, perched in front of the boob tube when it happened]...they aired cartoons, re-ran sitcoms, religious programs, and films in the evening...the stations early incarnation was very lackluster...they only had 3 commercials on the first day, which ran during every break...and when they weren't showing the commercials...they ran a slide of their logo. The failing station was later bought out by Media Central Inc., of Chattanooga, TN. in 1985, and renamed KZKC "Super 62"...the new station added more sitcoms and cartoons...and lost the religious programming all together. At this time they also started their "Complete and Uncut" package. This got them into trouble...when they ran the film "Private Lessons"...with uncut, frontal nudity.
Information provides...that other films [including "Carrie", "Massacre At Central High", "Student Bodies", and "My Tutor" were shown on 62, uncut...in a practice the station referred to as "sweeps stacking"...eventually, a local school teacher reported KZKC to the FCC...KZKC Channel 62, became the first station to be formally charged with indecency in decades. Media Central Inc., denied the claims...setting the stage for a battle over KZKC's license. The station was sold again in 1988, and became KSMO TV 62...which it remains today.
One evening; I personally witnessed an airing of the film, "Summer Lovers" [1982...starring Peter Gallagher and Darryl Hannah] with all the nudity and sex included...I really could not fathom what I was seeing...believe me...I did not complain to the FCC...I did the fucking happy dance.
On 2 separate occasions I caught some softcore Cinemax-style action on our local PBS station, KCPT Channel 19....this was late at night, after their sign-off...and several minutes into the "bars and tones"...I remember for sure, that one of the films was Andy Sedaris's "Picasso Trigger." I do not recall the other.
I have toured Channel 19...and have seen their broadcasting booth...it can truly be a one man job at times...so, it's not that unbelievable that a sneaky, over-worked programmer could sit there and stick in a naughty film, just for shits and grins...late at night.
It was most likely around this period that I had my first "real" porn experience...when my buddie Ralphie stuck a tape in his fathers BETA player...a tape of the 1980's porno film called "Fashion Dolls."...I can still hear the housekeeper screeching at him to take it out...but he didn't...the rest is history.

Uncle Roy...

Memories of "The Outhouse"

Many moons ago...myself and one of my longtime compatriots attended a punk rock show down at the "world famous" Outhouse, in Lawrence, Kansas. The Outhouse had given stage to some of the bigger bands in underground music, at one time or another...to name a few...Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, The Jesus Lizard, L7, The Melvins, Primus and many, many others.

I never saw the heyday of The Outhouse, when bands like this played there...the majority of the ones I saw...were towards the end of it's music venue incarnation...it's last gasp for air...oddly enough..it would later be sold, and become a very skanky BYOB strip club...which it is currently.

The Outhouse, for lack of better description was a cinder block garage, in the middle of nowhere. The toilets only worked part of the time, if they hadn't been smashed all together...[seems I recall pissin' into an old pop machine, behind the building]. There was no security, very little lighting...it was out of jurisdiction for Lawrence police, so underage drinking was a staple. With no authority it was the perfect place to have a no-holds barred punk rock or metal show...with as much chaos you could to muster.

The main attraction of the place, was "the beam"...which was basically a steel ceiling girder that ran parallel to the stage...across the entire length of the building...kids would grab this beam and swing from it, over the crowd...kicking each other in the heads.

It had been raining a lot, the prior few days...so the Outhouse had about 4 inches of muddy water on the floor...there were electrical lines running it...a real hazard...kids were playing in it, splashing it all over each other...the lights were flashing on and off...the sound was fucked up...but, the show went on.The show in question...was a doozey, by Kansas City standards...Cretin 66, The Bubble Boys, Black Label, and some others...I don't remember.

During the show, I went outside for some reason...and see these 3 guttersnipe kids jumping up and down on my car [the late great '86 Buick Skylark, which I sold to a scrapyard for 60 bucks, after the block cracked...to buy weed...shame ;)]. They were kicking in the fenders and doors. Some big fat-fuck teenage skinhead, was jumping up and down on the hood, so hard...that the wing-nut that held the blower cover on, went through the hood. Still today, I can clearly remember what these fucks looked like...well, at least 2 of them...one was a tall, skinny kid...with a spiked belt and a black stocking cap, and the other was this great big mushy-assed faggot...wearing a wife-beater and red suspenders.

I shouted..."Hey, what the fuck!!!"...they just kind of glared at me, and scampered off, giggling...like fucking rats...snickering, fucking little shit-ass rats...It really didn't matter that much to me...in fact, it struck me as funny..."The Mighty Skylark" [named Edna...after Edna Garrett from The Facts of Life], was what you would call a "Party-Mobile"...it had been through Hell, and back...covered with stickers...it had many mechanical issues...many dents, lots o' rust, stains, scratches...hell, it even had a few "real" bullet holes in it...not the stick on kind, mind you...she looked like shit...but, she was reliable...not unlike The Millenium Falcon.

I went in to tell my buddy, what I had just observed...we then devised a plan of retaliation...a simple, plan...but effective.

These kids had arrived to the show...in one of their parents car...it was a big off- white Cadillac, with a cloth top...a very nice car...that they had sadly, left the windows down on. My pal and I, crept over to their car...me on one side, him on the other...we unzipped our trousers...whipped out our offending members...and let it go...all over the door handles, all over the seats, the dash, the steering wheel...everywhere...I had a full bladder of some shitty, cheap-ass beer...all of which, I left in the front seat of daddy's caddy. I hope they had fun cleaning that up...or hopefully, they never realized what had happened...and it got real foul in there. One day daddy's driving to work, when he starts to notice that aromatic scent of slightly used Natty Light permeating from the interior...and later, returns home to jump in juniors ass. Ah, revenge is sweet...but, it's all the more sweeter with the great taste of Old Milwaukee's Best.

After this...the bands played on...it seems that I recall the power going out a few times. When it came time to leave, I found that The Mighty Skylark, was mired in the muck...and when I set to stomping the gas...my wheels only dug in deeper. Just then a few friendly, saintly punk rock fellers offered to give me a push. As they positioned themselves behind the car, and began to push with all their might...I laid into to that gas...like a hungry prison dyke lays into fresh fish...and showered them with mud and shit. All I remember seeing in the rear view mirror as I peeled away...was 3 punks, who now resembled...Pygmy Mud-Men.

Uncle Roy...

Roy and The Prophet of Doom

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Memories of a Man Named Steve...

These are just a few anecdotes, about a man I met during my short [1 year] career in the railroad industry...a man who would greet you in the morning by dumping a hand full of gravel and bolts down the back your underwear...a man who you would see up on a tanker car with his pants down around his ankles, spreadin' his ass cheeks at you, whilst relishing in your disgust...a man who would wait for you to go to the Porta-John to take a dump, and then throw a big rock down the stink-pipe chimney, so the blue turd-water would splash on your ass...this was a man named Steve Davis...one of the most mischievous fuckers...I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

7:00 AM,...the Kansas City morning air, pushed it's way in like a blast of Indian food diarrhea to the face, the shitty smelling sewage treatment plant, just over the horizon made breathing a fucking chore. It was like the entire Kansas City Eastside, took a mammoth crap all at once. It did not help, that this days temperature was around 95 to 100 degrees...with ozone warnings...and no sign of cooling down in the near future...swamp-ass was inevitable.

I walked in the front door of the double-wide that served as our business office. My boss, Mike tells me immediately to "Help, Steve"...jokingly...I said "Who'n the fuck is Steve?"...as far as I knew, we had no Steve working there at that time...we were a crew of 13 to 15 guys, including 3 or 4 niggas, 5 to 6 honkeys, some spics, a Cuban, an accident prone Filipino, and one dyke...who reeked of male testosterone and Skin Bracer...which had told me one time in passing, "That she'd came out of mommas pussy, swingin' her dick". One of those statements you could go your whole life without hearing...unless your me.

Mike then explained to me...that Steve Davis was a certified tank welder from the home shop in Atchision, Kansas...he had come down to fix the interiors of a few tanker cars, that developed pits in their floors. We had no certified welder in our own shop...and since fixing the pits was a very delicate procedure, somebody with the experience was necessary...as it was very easy to over weld, and burn a big-ass hole through the tank. I was to man the body wench, that was hooked to Steve, via a crotch harness...in the event he should be over taken by carbon monoxide fumes, from welding in a confined space.

I said "ok...no problem". I had no issue with sitting my fat ass, on top of a tanker car, while watchin' some dude weld inside...to make sure he didn't die.

So I got all the shit together...the wench, the harness, the welder, the air quality tester, the drop light...etc...I was ready to do this shit.

I waited 25 minutes, there in the train yard for this yahoo to show up, amongst the ungodly noise, sparks flying and occasional outbursts of profanity...it was common place for someone to slice off a finger and squirt blood all over the place like a geyser, or burn big cavernous fucking holes in their flesh with hot slag...a beautiful place, for sadists and masochists to work together in harmonious dischord.

And then, from the brown curtain of dust, that hung thick in the breeze...the yard was literally like a dustbowl that day...walks this goober of a gent...I mean seriously, the dude was like a fucking cartoon character...resembling one of The Hanson Brothers from the movie Slapshot...big nose, big glasses, long blond hair and an old red hard-hat, that had seen better days.

He introduced himself...we talked about the process for minute...he was cool, kind of quiet and a little country. It was sure no indication of the man to come.

We got all the shit up on the car...16 feet in the air...lowered all this shit into the tank...Steve put on the crotch harness, and climbed down the ladder. The crotch harness hooks to a steel tripod, above the porthole of the tank...and has a crankable wench on it...which pulls the victim to safety using a steel wire rope. Nice piece of machinery, but heavy and cumbersome...I think we both refered to it as "that piece of shit".

He was now down in the car...I could hear grinding, and see the flash of welding arc. Smoke started to rise out the hole...but the levels were not dangerous...yet.

I was sitting there, almost half asleep...when I hear the sound of a man enraged...I look down in the hole, and see the welder fly all the way across the length of the car...and then, "STUPID GOD DAMN SON OF A BITCHIN' MOTHER FUCKERS!!!"...came echoing up out of the belly of that beast. I hollered down..."What's wrong?!"...he hollered back..."FUCK YOU!!!...I FUCKIN' BURNED MYSELF.", I sat there for a second, kind of dumfounded...and then I hollered down..."FUCK YOU TOO, SORRY!!!"...". Hours later, after he was finished, he came up and apologized...and we had big laugh.

Another incident...Steve and myself would do lunch together a lot...one particular day we chose Dairy Queen...it was close, and the food was fair. We got there, and it happened to be "Take Your Retard to Lunch Day"...or so I coined it.

There was a table, behind us...that must have been the residents of a nursing home and their caretakers. The table consisted of several mentally challenged individuals...but the one that stood out, was this young girl...probably in her teens...who had a very peculiar malady.

The young girl would strike herself in the forehead, as hard she could...and then let out this almost inhuman noise..."AAARRRGHHH!!!"...as loud as she could [believe me...typing this noise out, just doesn't do it justice...it was a truly hideous sound] The caretakers would try to quiet her...and she would calm down for a minute but then, it would happen again...BOOM!..."AAARRRGHHH!!!"...This went on through our entire lunch break...possibly 30 or 40 times. I had my back to her, I never got to see the full show...Steve on the other hand, saw the whole thing..and being the nice guy, he actually was...he kept quiet...at one point, he even muttered to himself..."poor girl". I thought, "wow, this cat's ok".

Later on, back at the train yard...all was fairly quiet...nothing much going on...I think a group of us may have been standing around talking...and then from out of the blue...you see Steve Davis, up on the end of a tanker car...standing there?!...you wonder "what horrors are we in store for"...and then, with one fail swoop, he struck himself in the forehead...and went "AAARRRGHHH!!!", as loud as he could. I laughed until almost pissed myself...and then I did it back...BOOM!..."AAARRRGHHH!!!"...this went back and forth several times...like it was our own private mating call. Yeah, I know...

Over the next few weeks...you could hear Steve, off in the distance somewhere, making this noise...or he'd be on top of the garage doing it. It stuck with ya.

Steve had always wore a hardhat, or a welders cap...at least when I saw him. But then on one of those hot-ass summer days, when we were all suffering...he comes up and takes off his hat...to cool down...

The sum bitch took off his American flag welders cap, and all be God damned if he didn't have the most luxurious blond locks I had ever seen...Heather fuckin' Locklear would have been green with envy...if she had witnessed this unveiling. And this was not like just regular old straight blond hair...it was fucking princess hair...it was Prell hair...like he'd just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. I think time slowed down at that moment...and the breeze caught his locks, like a chick in a Whitesnake video...somebody said..."Steve, your hair is magnificent"., to which he replied..."I know, and my sperm makes great babies". What the fuck!?

Through much observation...my fellow co-workers and I discovered that Steve Davis could literally, fall asleep anywhere...on any surface. You'd come back from lunch, and Steve would be asleep on a pile of bricks, with his head on a big rock...like some narcoleptic that just falls down, where ever they are, and goes to sleep.

A bunch of us would stand there and throw rocks at him, trying to wake him up...thinking about "How funny it would be to nail him"...but then being afraid, because you knew if you hit him just right...his big crazy redneck ass would fly up, chase you down and shove his fist in your mouth...his fist, if you were lucky.

He saw me one day...wiping sweat of my face, with the bottom of my shirt...he then looked at my girth and screamed..."That looks like my wifes ass!!!"

Uncle Roy...

Show Review: Anal Cunt...Friday May 1st, 2009

Friday May 1st, 2009...those masters of wonderfully tasteless grindcore Anal Cunt, rolled into The Riot Room...to assault the crowd, like their ears were assholes.

Here's an amusing bit...my wife and I were not even in the door 3 minutes...and Anal Cunt's guitar player stumbled up to us and asked "What city am I in?"...Steph and I just kind of looked at him...and she said "Kansas City"...he said, "oh"...we asked him where he was from and he said "Boston"...I thought, man...that's a long way from home to not know where yo ass is at the present juncture...and various times in the evening he would ask people..."Have you seen my drummer?"..."I need my drummer!"..."Do you know what my drummer looks like?"...this dude was fucked...not sure if he was just drunk, or on some kind of shit...all I know is, he was having his own kind of party.

Opening the evenings festivities was local HC punks, Circle Of Trust...with my pal Lumpy shoutin'...and Buddy Lush of "The Buddy Lush Phenomenon", on drum duties...they bashed out some pretty tight, heavy punk rock.

Up next was local metal-heads Meat Shank, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a little while back, on the set of Jordan Rogers show, KC Anthem...I gave them all the chance to bat my junk around, with a sledgehammer...who could turn down an offer like that?...Attack On Uranus was set to play this thing...but they had some internal difficulties that night...so it didn't happen.

By the time the 3rd band rolled around, I was shitty drunk...so their set was all a blur...I don't even know what they were called...I could find out...but I'm not going to.

And then it was finally time for Anal Cunt...or A.C., as those not willing to use the words Anal or Cunt, have taken to calling them.

I love the band...but, I would be lying if I sat here and said that I knew every song that was played that night...I know I heard an a Capella version of "I Just Saw The Gayest Guy On Earth"...this was during a string change. "You Look Divorced" was played...and they finished the set with their kick ass version "Gloves Of Metal" by Manowar.

There was a bit of a skirmish right before "Gloves Of Metal". Some assholes were throwing cans and cups at the drummer, so he got pissed, and jumped out from behind the drums...and got one of the fuckers down on the floor, and was kind of hitting him. It wasn't like a major brawl...but he was pissed...and rightly so. The rest of the band then invited everyone that wanted to fight them, to come up to the stage...nobody took them on up on that offer. I will say that the singer Seth, looks pretty good for a guy that laid in a coma for 3 months...a little gimpy, but no too bad...stay of the crack, brotha.

My buddy Brett, got the fight on camera...and he took the photo above.

All in all, it was a goodtime...what I recall of it.

Uncle Roy...

Hugo: Man of 1,000 Faces

You know when you vaguely recall something from your youth, something that you try for years to remember, but just can't come up with it...something that you can only recollect pieces of...pieces that have been blurred by time, the puberty years and loads of marijuana.

This is a story, something like that...the story of Hugo: Man Of 1,000 Faces...a toy that I have tried to find for many years...but didn't know what it was called...until now. In all likely hood, Hugo is the contributing factor to why I had a fear of bald men, until I was in my teens...and why I shave my scrotum today.

Second Grade class at John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary School was like any other classroom of the very early 80's...stuffy, annoying and full of rowdy little shitheads in C-3PO t-shirts,...little rapscallionous buggars that smelt a bit like dookie balls [a very common term in that class, that, and poppin' forts]...myself included, I'm sure. The teacher for this class escapes me [save for the fact, that she was an African American lady], so we won't trip on this detail.

Anyhooo...in said classroom, we had a toy chest full of crappy, city donated toys to play with during recess. This toy chest was in a coat closet...which was behind a partition, that served as a bulletin board for handprint turkeys, crayon drawings and other scholastic ephemera.

One day, I went to hang my little coat in the closet, on a brass hook...just one, in a long line of coated brass hooks. That's when I first noticed him...peering out of the toy chest...a tiny little plastic man, in a blue peasants blouse, like a hippie might wear...he had a shiny, bald head...and a placid, almost unassuming look on his puss, but with something in his eyes that said "I am not to be trusted". His eyes followed you, as you moved back and forth...not unlike the eyes in the painting above the old widow Crenshaw's fireplace mantle...that of her late husband, Col. Jebediah Crenshaw...the cut-throat Civil War traitor.

This was to be my initial encounter with...Hugo: Man of 1,000 Faces.

I can think of many comparisons as to what Hugo looked like...for example...Fantomas, the French movie villain [if he had been a healthy flesh color and not blue], The Dave Bowman Space Fetus in 2001 a Space Odyssey, Uncle Fester...etc...there are many others.
I was not immediately terrified by Hugo. Yes indeed, I thought he was somewhat disturbing, but he didn't scare me...I just chose to avoid him/it, when I went into the closet to get a toy or my wrap or my nap mat, I did not look at him. And this worked...out of sight, out of mind.

Time went on...and it seemed that nobody ever played with Hugo, he was always at the bottom of the toy-heap...not unlike that lowly kid, last picked in dodge ball, you know, the scrawny kid with boogers in his hair...who probably grew up to become the CEO of some Fortune 500 company...or more plausible, the cat that guns down 15 from a church bell tower.

Then came that fateful day...the day when Merle Taylor came runnin' like some demon sent from Hell, out of the coat closet. Like a hades-spawned hellion-child if you will, with an unsettling gleam in his eyes and a devilish smirk about his crusty lips. And who was with him at the helm?...Hugo, that God damned son of bitch Hugo...whom Merle was now holding out in front of himself with both arms, as if Hugo was the ghastly figurehead of Satan's pirate ship, sent to destroy everyone and everything in it's path. He had discovered Hugo, for the first time...and like a boy with a new puppy or a little girl with a big piece of birthday cake, Merle was in love.

I guess the old adage...that says "There's somebody for everybody" is true. That evil little cocksucker Merle Taylor had found a playmate...and in turn, the toy Hugo, who had fallen by the wayside, was now loved. And this unholy union would last over the next few weeks of school...much to every ones dismay.

Merle Taylor for lack of better terms, was a mess. Unfortunately, the boy always smelled of hickory because his family didn't have a modern furnace, they relied on old fashioned wood stove heat...this earned him the cruel monikers of "Bacon Boy" and "Smokey Joe". Suffice to say, years of this torment, screwed him up a little.

On a daily basis, Merle would run to the closet at recess...and dig out Hugo, whom he had by now hidden somewhere, part of their pact I would imagine. Then, he would run out...screaming in some ancient form of dialect, that only a schizophrenic could understand. Shaking Hugo, out in front himself...he would do laps around the classroom, thrusting the doll into the kids faces...and the teachers face as well. Sometimes he would bash Hugo's hairless cranium into the tables or the walls, and even the fish tank. And the most frightening thing, you could even witness Merle talking to Hugo, in whispers...conversations about slaughtering the class...killing the teacher...setting the school ablaze...robbing banks...putting firecrackers in cats asses...who knows.

He took extra measures, when it came to torturing me...because some shit-ass had informed him that I was not fond of Hugo. Every lap he would make, he stuck that ugly fucker in my face, sometimes even hitting me with Hugo's head...laughing his ass off, so hard...that tears ran down his cheeks...the boy was insane. This scene played out everyday, for about two weeks.
Then one day...recess came...Merle charged into his dark, musty, coat filled labyrinth...30 minutes of pure insanity was set to begin...time passed...the other children sat quietly, awaiting their demise...I lay, curled into the fetal position under a table, praying that this would be the day when Merle tripped, and was impaled on a pair of safety scissors. You could hear stuff being thrown about, in the closet, as if a desperate search was underway...tensions mounted...muffled cussing could be heard...and then...he emerged...the usual shenanigan bent face, was now a face of disbelief and sadness...because even at 7 or 8 years old...he realized, he'd just been fucked over by the man. The teacher had initialized a coup...and Hugo was gone...forever.
Merle went into hysterics...threw a big bawl-baby tantrum, and his mother had to be called down to control him...which in those days meant...that he was gonna get the paddlin' of his life, right there in front of everybody...and he did...I saw it happen. And at that moment, for the first time in my young life, I tasted vindication...and it was sweet...like the milk of a teet.

Nobody ever pondered what had happened to Hugo...nobody cared. It was a general consensus amongst the wee ones in room 206..."That Hugo was a crappy toy", and that "He smelled funny"...which is no surprise, I mean...he was the best pal to a little rat that smelled like he bathed in a tub of Liquid Smoke every night.
Merle got over it...the memory of Hugo passed into the ages...all was well in the world. As Merle grew up, he was not nearly as much of jerk, as he was in second grade, well...he was still a jerk, but so was I, and birds of a feather shall flock. We actually started walking to school together, because we both liked to throw empty beer bottles at cars and break the windows out of abandoned houses. I followed Merle through school, up until about the 8th grade...and never saw him again.
That agent of chaos...Hugo, was most likely transported by a big burly janitor...out to the rancid smelling...sour milk saturated dumpster, beside the building, and is now quietly decomposing in a landfill somewhere...all accept for his head.
Years later...I have developed a somewhat twisted concept of reality...I like to imagine Hugo, still there...haunting the halls and rooms of that old grade school...scaring the piss out of lil' bastards like me...lookin' up ladies skirts...spittin' in the mashed potatoes...watchin' little girls go to the potty and calmly planning a massive world domination. Ocassionally thinking about the boy, who once loved him...for a few weeks...back in 1982...a boy, who would now be in his mid-30's...and fully transformed into a piece of hickory wood.
Hugo: Man Of 1,000 Faces was a toy/game...put out by Kenner in 1975...he was made to be sort of a Lon Chaney Sr. if you will...he came with a variety of facials applications, wigs, glasses and other things...and he also came with a glue stick, so you could glue the pieces onto his head and face...I am told by some folks that had one...that it worked, but slightly half-assed.
Hugo was the brainchild of special effects artist, Alan Ormsby, who directed the film "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things".
He was featured as a prop, in the original Pee Wee Herman stage show.
As much as I hated Hugo's ass then...I would love to have one now.

Uncle Roy...