Living The Dream, Part III

A few weeks ago Rolling Stone magazine sent a reporter, Jill Villeneuve, and a photographer whose name we never learned out to interview me at New Lugburz. This is a transcription of that interview. The first post took place on the grounds of New Lugburz. The second post occurred during a tour of the Big House. This, the final post, takes place in a replica of the redundantly-named Nina's Coffee Cafe in the Big House. -- The Management

Hulles: Well, I'm back, even remembered to wash my hands. What did you end up getting to drink?

RS: This is chai with spicy pumpkin flavoring. Pretty good, really.

Hulles: Jesus woman, how can you drink that shit? I use the same stuff to wash my cat Mimi when she's been around the goats too long. This here's a latte that I've got -- compared to your chai this is a man's drink. [settles back] So what do you think of New Lugburz, now that you've had the tour?

RS: It's really something, Hulles. I found the tour very interesting and informative. I'm glad to finally get a chance to sit down after all that walking, though, but thanks to you pinching my ass every ten minutes sitting isn't all that comfortable either.

Hulles: You'll find there will be some discomfort and lividity for a couple of days, but that cute little hinder of yours should be good as new by the end of the week. Unless you decide to hang out here with us for a while, then you'll have yourself a decent callus in about ten days or so, haw haw!

RS: [muttering] Asshole. [aloud] So first let me ask you something that's had me curious for a while: are you the only man in this entire compound? I've seen nothing but gorgeous women running around this place since I arrived.

Hulles: No, Jill, I'm not the only man here. Sean, a kid of mine by some wife or another, can't recall which, works here as a goatherd. Somehow his mom managed to stick me with him early on, but we've grown quite fond of each other since and often say hi to each other when we happen to cross paths. Sean must be oh, I'd guess 20 years old or thereabouts by now.

RS: I can only imagine that a 20-year-old male must go crazy with all the hot women here at New Lugburz.

Hulles: Normally you'd be spot on, but I had Sean castrated when he was 12. Docile as a lamb these days. The goats like him lots, he's got a real gift when it comes to dealing with animals.

RS: Speaking of animals, I still haven't gotten over your Skeet Tzu range. How can you possibly do such a thing?

Hulles: Oh, it's not so hard really, but I did have to buy out the neighbor's farm, he kept complaining about bloody entrails landing on his young children while they were playing in the yard. That was before we came up with our dog loads; now we don't get many pieces much bigger than a Grape Nut.

Say, I have a cute little story for you. When we were first developing our Skeet Tzu flinger we had some calibration problems -- the hydraulic arm was a little too powerful for what we really needed. In fact we had a couple of the little rascals land on cars driving on the interstate west of here, not sure if you saw it from the chopper coming in. Anyway, people complained, you know how they are. But the funniest thing was when we first tested it last autumn.

On our very first trial of the flinger we slapped a Shih Tzu in the bowl and let 'er rip. The test Shih Tzu, Sparky as I recall, ended up grabbing some serious air. There was a flock of migrating Canada geese flying overhead at the time, and our little plucky little dog ended up right in the middle of their vee formation! I'm still not sure who was more surprised, Sparky or the geese. Guess they don't get that many flying Shih Tzus joining their fall migration! Just think of the story those geese had to tell when they finally got to Mexico or wherever the hell they go, haw haw! By the way, I just winged Sparky with my shot that time, not proud of it but there you go. He ended up landing in the testing yard of the Bed of Nails factory a few miles from here. Jeez, that must have hurt, poor little guy. I keep intending to put up a commemorative plaque for him on the skeet range but it always seems to slip my mind.

RS: [shuddering] Let's not talk about Skeet Tzu anymore if you don't mind. [looks at notes] What plans do you have for the New Lugburz campus in the future? Got any interesting projects coming up?

Hulles: Why, glad you asked, Jill. We're dabbling in genetic research in one of the pole barns I didn't show you, security and all that. We're developing a breed of hyperintelligent donkeys to write my blog for me on those days when I have other duties to attend to. So far they can only write blogs about their cats' screamingly funny antics of the day before but we expect them to be up to Hulles standards in another year or so.

RS: Hyperintelligent donkeys...? [groan] Oh no, you mean you're breeding sm-? No way.

Hulles: Way. Hey, you'll like this one! See, we're trying to boost our tourist throughput here at New Lugburz, get some of the herds of Japanese to come up here for a side trip while they're in the Twin Cities to go to the Mall of America. So young Sean came up with this great idea: every spring we're going to stage a Running Of The Goats, right here in New Lugburz. We're in the process of laying out a picturesque 1/3-sized village where the neighbor's farm used to be so we can pretend to block the streets off for the event. We decided to scale the village down so the goats look fiercer. In fact, next week we're going to start interviewing midgets to play the villagers. “We spared no expense,” as that one guy says in the dinosaur movie, the first one.

RS: Hulles, I hate to cut you short but I've got to catch a flight back to New York as soon as I round up the photographer. One final question, though: how can you afford all this? This place, New Lugburz, has got to cost millions. Where do you get the money?

Hulles: Well, Jill, I would have thought you'd know that from doing a little research prior to our interview. I blog. The Hulles blog – “sardonic postmodern humor and dessert recipes” -- has actually become quite popular recently. Tens of people have been reading it lately, and I'm expecting another one or two by the end of the year.

RS: Sure, I knew that, but blogging doesn't pay anything. Where do you get your income?

Hulles: Haw haw! Blogging doesn't pay anything! I like that, good one.

RS: But it doesn't.

Hulles: Sure it does! Doesn't it?

RS: Nope.

Hulles: Are you serious?

RS: Yep.

Hulles: Sweet Jesus! You mean I've been doing all this writing for nothing? Eleanor, have them fire up the Abrams, we can expect a large crowd of vicious and well-armed creditors at the gates any second! And load the emergency scotch and a couple of the hotter Commandos aboard the Apache, I just got called away suddenly on urgent business.

Jill, nice meeting you, gotta run.

-- Hulles