The Cerebral Catalyst

This week I present one from the vaults, a recently discovered column written circa December 12 and originally intended to be part of the 12 Days of Captain Fun. As you may or may not know, my computer was fried by a random power outage (all hail the mischievous gods of randomness, smote thee who shall be smote... at random with no willful intent, as is your want) and I was unable to complete the great masterwork. I didn't really take enough time to plan it out. Maybe Christmas will come in July... Presently I am suffering from the Gripe (as to why, you tell me when we're having the nicest weather I've ever seen in Pittsburgh) and hacking up layer upon layer of a green gelatinous phlegm-like substance that has seemingly filled my body since my conception, and shows no signs of stopping. The amount of imitation Nyquil and Tussin I've ingested over the past two days could not only have killed a horse, I dare say it would have made said horse enjoy Everybody Loves Raymond, as I did last night. Has anyone else noticed that Ray Romano is blue and has three heads and a pet creature not unlike Salacious Crum who perches on his shoulder providing the laugh track? Without further ado, the column. Stay well dear reader, for the Gripe is still among you and it strikes when least you expect it.

Today I got to thinking about grade school. I went to a Catholic grade school, not a middle school or anything like that. My time in grade school was split up between two different schools in Mt. Pleasant, a nice little city (once known as Hell Town; its zip code ending in 666) more populous than my good old village of Wooddale. Both of these schools are now defunct, closed by asbestos, the lack of funds, and as some would say, the devil himself. I have a lot of good memories from living in Wooddale. Simple childhood memories of streams, wildlife, lazy summer days…some darker memories of road kill, backward hicks, and rampant ignorance. I hated living there but it's something I've had to come to terms with upon living in a city, albeit a relatively small one like Pittsburgh. There's something calming about living out in the woods, something hokey, probably, about being in touch with nature or something. I suppose the calming part comes from the notion of the pastoral, sans Grecian urn in Wooddale.

As I sit here typing this, I'm still enjoying my freedom. Free from stuffy old relatives and the overzealous religious programs my mother watches. Probably a whole different column, full of things I shouldn't be saying, at least until I'm rich and famous. I've digressed, but I'll get to the point: We played Mad Libs at the bar last Friday, my idea. I thought there was something about bringing your own little game to a bar that I enjoyed, although I think few present did. But if you're a big goofball like I am, you love kitschy stuff like that. English majors enjoy wordplay, even though it's inevitable when booze is involved that every answer turns into "titties", "Quainice (I hope I spelled that right, Joe. It's like onomatopoeia) and my own "My whore wife". I don't have a whore wife, and I think that if I did, it wouldn't be all that funny, regardless of how much scotch I poured down my gullet. Mad Libs are still funny, and they contributed to one of the most uproarious events of my grade school career.

My obsession with Mad Libs started one heated afternoon in St. Pius elementary school, circa 1990-1991, in seventh grade. (I am old!) We got the excellent idea, my chums and I, to fill every blank with every dirty word we knew, regardless of the tense or part of speech required. Words like, "Cock", "Balls", "Shit", "Turd"...etc. Maybe there was some creativity present, maybe a "whoremonger" or "cock-knocker" here or there. To tell you the truth, I don't even remember what swear words were popular back then, but I know I was a pretty deranged child. As a matter of fact, I realize that I've always had a bizarre sense of humor. Anyone who knows me knows that. Like last Friday at the bar. I used to love the Unknown Comic. You know, that guy that did jokes with a paper bag over his head. Something about that concept really got me Friday, the anonymity of the whole thing. Maybe I've got some inferiority complex. Whatever. You've got to love someone who walks around with a paper bag over their head. How many of us have wanted to do that at times?

As for childhood, I used to go to the "Guidance van", which for the relatively normal kids usually meant playing Scrabble or some "Sharing is Caring" type of game. It was real "Psychoanalysis" under the pretense of playing board games. Probably some sort of mandate for Catholic schools or something, you know, at least try and give the kids the skills to deal with the amount of repression they'll accrue over the next sixty years or so. That sort of thing is trendy now. If a kid exhibits any sort of weird behavior, toss him into counseling. That'll straighten him out. And I'll bet you can only guess which way I went. The cheery woman who ran the Guidance Van with her bad predated perm had me draw pictures of what I liked. Every kid, at least every boy, goes through that phase where they're into playing war, or for those older kids, cowboys and Indians. I drew pictures of guns, what can I say? I was into drawing and they were relatively easy to draw. I had no intention of massacring my fellow classmates. This was years before Columbine. I don't think I even understood the concept of death and dying then, it didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong. All of the dirt they got on me in that van is probably sealed up in some vault in the Pentagon.

All of this was before the Mad Libs incident. But I'll leave it. Call it character development. Yeah, that'll work. What happened is that we had the Mad Libs in class, and mind you, we'd almost filled the whole book with profanity, usually after class or during recess. I remember that I had kept them relatively clean, mostly abstract metaphors, until one of our friends, known as "Digger", coerced me into writing swears. He created a monster I suppose. Delved deep into my dark psyche, or some other nonsense like that. One of my other friends, I won't name him, kept shouting and was standing in the middle of the isle when our big sullen teacher, Mr. Borosky came over. There were about four of us, and he gave us this stern look, and said Clint Eastwood style, "Give me the book," He thought he was one smooth character. He dressed right out of the '70s, and was balding. As I remember it he also smelled like the skunk character from He-man, or maybe the poor bastard ended up getting sprayed by a skunk every morning. I wouldn't put it past him.

So we had to go to the principal's office. There, our principal gave us a dirty look, huffed and puffed, looking official. Hard to do when you had the girth of Grimace and were wearing the outfit and tres sheik perm of Ronald McDonald with a Master Nun's authority. She said something like "Your parents will be notified," real prissy like with wild hilarious exclamation points at the end of each word. She dug her job way too much. In the week that followed, she thought up a "suitable" punishment for us. We were to be counseled by one of our priests, Fr. Frank. Fr. Frank was huge. I mean he used to pant whenever he had to get up out of his chair, and he always had a handkerchief to wipe his forehead with. He used to sit in the chair for something like fifteen minutes after his homily. And even while he was giving that, he'd pant and pause after every sentence. You'd think he was dead, with his head propped down on his chest, supported by his three or four chins. I swear one time an alter boy put a mirror under his nose to see if he was still breathing. Or at least everyone in the church had that notion. I know I did. So one afternoon me and my three other friends had to meet with him in his office. I think there may have been a field trip or maybe a chance to ride on the back of a fire engine that day, and missing it was another part of our punishment. So we had to sit in his office and get a lecture. And the whole time I remember being so scared, cause they tell you all that bullshit like "it's going on your permanent record" and such. I wish it did, so I could remember it clearer. I guess I'll never be president. Oh well. At least I can pronounce words and spell them. (Most of the time.)

We all sat there, waiting for the axe to fall. I think he cracked some goofy joke before he got to business, air popping through his fatty nostrils and his bulbous frame wheezing like Darth Vader. I don't remember it this way, I may have missed it out of sheer terror, but someone told me years later that on his front wall he had a sign up that said, "I believe in the two party system. Party all day and party all night." Pretty out of the ordinary for a priest to have, but hey, he was hip, right? And we all know it was a good clean "Christian" type of party he advocated. No drugs or promiscuity, only a lot of beer and gambling on 50/50 tickets at the church bazaar. Goodbye to your college fund Billy, it's all gone to Jesus now. He stared all of us down and then said "Dickhead! Fuck! What does this mean?" his brow all furrowed and sweaty. He stared at us the whole time. It was like the inquisition, although I don't think as funny. "What do you have to say for yourselves?" he said.

We looked at him, then the floor. Him, then the floor. This went on for probably thirty minutes, I've lost track because I was trying so hard not to look at his outraged face, his meaty jowls covered with sweat and spittle. I felt like I would explode. I forced myself to think of martyred saints stoned at the gates, dead puppies, the onslaught of war, anything that made me feel shame for what I had done, or at least make me stop feeling so giddy inside. I had no right to feel that way; I had been a bad boy. He then launched into a big spiel about morality and decency and the importance of growing up rightly. I don't remember a damn word of it because I was still trying hard not to blow up in laughter and reeling from the fact our priest had said words like dickhead and fuck. So he had us apologize for what we did. And we had to apologize to the principal and our teacher, for bringing shame to the institution and being bad Christians or something. This was hard to do. I don't think any of us felt bad about it. Those were just words. No one was harmed in the slightest. What a load of shit, right? Some people have the most mundane hang ups, it's sad. Our teacher, Mr. Borosky, just chuckled. He got a kick out of it. It was big news back then with the kids too. They all figured we'd been sentenced to death. But we survived, with a hell of a tale to tell. Best field trip I ever had. So this weekend let's all raise our glasses to Father Frank, a true man of the cloth.

Visit Captain Fun's Swarthy Archives.

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Joseph L. Conty, Jr. wears a buffalo hide tunic and sips peach nectar from a chalice. Known to drink multiple flagons of mead for breakfast and chew bear fat for gum, he would like to remind the public that anyone else who dares to use the moniker of "Captain Fun" isn't fit to carry his merkin.

posted 04.18.05.

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