Bob Odenkirk
A Load of Hooey
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.”
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 toves 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).