Once A Year (Whether We Need It Or Not)

I’ll bet you thought I forgot all about it, or that I’d let it pass without comment. Well, you’re wrong, dammit.

I’m talking about Socktoberfest, of course. This weekend it’s all about the socks. Well, okay, it’s also about the beer, and the buxom wenches, and the non-stop partying, but it’s mostly about the socks. To celebrate socks and Socktoberfest tomorrow, I plan to party like they’re on sale for $19.99.

It’s not that I’m a sock fetishist or anything. (Some people are, apparently.) In fact, mostly I don’t think about socks at all, unless one of mine gets a hole in it, or I need something to stuff into a partner’s mouth during Loud Sex. That’s why Socktoberfest is such a big deal to me: it’s the one weekend a year when I can pay homage to my little cotton friends and not feel too weird about it. And when I pay homage, believe me, homage will be paid and then some.

This year, to celebrate Socktoberfest, I considered going to a sock museum. There is quite a reputable one in Yokohama, Japan, called the Sock Museum. I just recently learned of another one located in Serbia. Oddly enough, it is also called the Sock Museum. It’s like having two Louvres, I suppose. Unfortunately, I had to rule both pilgrimages out because I can’t afford the airfare. For that matter, I can’t afford bus fare to the airport. Perhaps next year….

I think the United States needs a sock museum. We suffer enough from world opinion without the ignominy of having no sock museum. Maybe I can get a grant of some sort to start one. This would meet several needs at once – America can at last proudly hold its head up in the hosiery world, Saint Paul would get a much-needed tourism boost, and yours truly could skim a bunch of money off the grant. I’ll keep you posted.

The U.S. used to have a sock museum. It seems that Nero, New York, once called “Sock City,” had one, but they lost it in the ‘70’s (just like I did). I quote from You Can’t Go Wrong, Stories From Nero, New York & Other Tales:

“The 1970s renewal of Nero was fraught with poor ideas - an unpopular sock museum, a downtown hotel with a leaky roof and a parking garage prone to flooding.”

I guess the Nero museum must have housed a substandard collection of socks; that’s the only reason I can think of for it being unpopular. They should have hired the curator away from the museum in Japan. This would have caused Japan to lose face in the sock world, while at the same time giving the Nero museum the much-needed boost in expertise to establish its collection.

It’s no use crying over spilt milk, I suppose. (I can, however, cry in frustration over my word processor continually changing ‘spilt milk’ to ‘split milk’.) I guess I’ll just have to drown my shame in beer this weekend. At least I won’t be partying alone. It’s the biggest weekend of the year for my sock puppets, so it’ll be zany times at the Hulles household for sure. Woo hoo!

- Hulles

The 50th

If I’ve counted correctly, this is my 50^th blog entry. Happy anniversary, Hulles. Thanks. Thanks also to the people who have encouraged me in my writing. You know who you are.

This will be a short one, but one that’s important to me, and one that I seem to be unable to stick anywhere else. It’s a quotation from the book Justine, by Lawrence Durrell, and is spoken by the title character:

“You have the soul of a clerk.”

There is no worse insult in my book. If you use it yourself (and I have), please use it with care. Ironically, for someone accurately described by the above sentence, it’s probably not horribly insulting at all.

- Hulles

Is That Your Porsche?

All throughout adolescence and a good part of my adulthood I was painfully shy. If I had the opportunity to address an attractive woman, I would usually just keep my mouth shut; if I said anything at all it would invariably sound inane and inappropriate to my ears and embarrass the hell out of me.

No longer. These days I am, as they say, a silver-tongued devil. I not only kissed the Blarney Stone, I took it to orgasm. Four times. Now, when I address an attractive woman, I am the wittiest conversationalist I can possibly imagine. “Glib” and “facile” are words that leap to mind when I reflect upon my ability in this regard. All of this is a result of a dramatic change in attitude that I had at some point – I decided I didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought about what I said and from then on I would simply say whatever the hell I wanted to. The arrogance implant I had didn’t hurt, either.

Having said that, at one point my pal Unca Don and I were both working in Toronto. Neither of us really knew anyone there socially, so I was constantly exercising my conversational talents with strangers of the female persuasion. It is not too much to say that Don was awestricken at my ability to win over young ladies with my charm, frankness and self-deprecating wit. As a case in point, we were sitting in the cocktail lounge of a hotel, and I wagered that I could make the lovely woman sitting by herself at a table come and join us in ten minutes or less. Not only did I win the bet, she enjoyed talking to us so much she blew off the wedding rehearsal dinner which had brought her to the hotel in the first place.

Of course, as with all arrogant people, I eventually had my comeuppance. Unca Don and I were sitting in a small bar on Queen Street in downtown Toronto drinking Belgian microbrewery beers at the time. His back was to the window onto the street, but I sat at right angles to it and could (and did) watch the passersby as we talked. At one point, a gorgeous brunette with a phenomenally cute ass walked by the window. She was wearing skintight blue jeans; I could read the date on the loonie in her pocket. As she walked by, my head obviously tracked her passage as I sat there chatting with Don. She noticed me watching her, walked in the door, walked up to me, stood next to me, and said to me, “Is that your Porsche outside?”

Now there are two words that could have been created specifically to describe me at this exact point in time: ‘dumbstruck’ and ‘poleaxed’. My brain flatly refused to believe that this totally hot woman would come in off the street and start flirting with me. “That’s it,” said my brain. “I’m out of here until reality starts up again.”

Don later said he thought to himself at this point, “Here we go. This will be like shooting fish in a barrel for Hulles.” As a few moments went by, however, he noticed my stricken look, and incredulously heard me say:

“No.”

And silence reigned.

At this point, Don figured out that I was completely stunned by this whole thing, and began struggling hard not to laugh at my obvious discomfort.

This plucky woman was not to be deterred so easily, however. After a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence, she looked at the Belgian bottle in my hand and said, “How’s the beer?”

“Good,” I replied.

After a few minutes more of silence, she turned and walked out of my life forever.

Freed from restraint, my putative pal Unca Don began rolling on the floor laughing.at me. Me, I just sat there and quietly whimpered until my brain turned back on. Color me chastened.

I felt then, and feel now, that such an incredible event as this beautiful stranger walking in off the street to chat me up will never happen to me again. But if it does, I’m ready. I have about 20 Porsche lines prepared, and I’ll buy her as many Belgian beers as she wants if I have to steal from church collection plates to do it.

Come back, dear. I’m better now.

- Hulles

The Importance of Being Less Earnest

“Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert….” – Shelley, “To A Skylark”

I arose this morning to greet the rosy-fingered dawn with a song on my lips and a tongue in my cheek. After dressing, pulling my sandals onto my comely feet and girding myself with my rapier wit, I left my room looking like an immortal god.

“What can I do today to make the world a better place for all creatures great and small?” I asked myself as I strode confidently out into the new day. “I’m pretty crispy with two-fisted justice meting; perhaps I can think of something else that would serve as well.”

Consequently, I arrived at the coffee shop this beautiful Monday morning brimming with energy and full of determination to somehow enhance the American zeitgeist (as if that were possible). “How can I accomplish this glorious mission?” I pondered. “Perhaps I can pursue my avid interest in neurosurgery and lobotomize some of the freaks in this café so that the rest of the patrons can actually read the newspaper in peace.” After looking into it further, however, I realized that this was not feasible. Due to some management oversight, the coffee shop in question did not have a skull saw or surgical gloves available to its patrons.

My next thought was to distribute alms to the poor. Then I recalled overhearing about “Dutch Alm Disease”, which I assumed was something that first reared its ugly head in the Netherlands, afflicting those unfortunate souls who were unlucky enough to have their entire lifestyle supported by the government with no need to work whatsoever. I would not wish this upon the poor of our country; besides which I’m poor and seem to be between alms right now.

As a last result, I decided I would create a brand-new web log on the Internet dedicated to promulgating sweetness, light, charity and good will towards men (and men-like people). “There can’t be anything like that already,” I confidently thought to myself, as I clambered aboard the 54 Mbps express train to the wonderful world of blogging.

Boy, was I wrong. It seems the blogverse abounds with sincere, earnest and well-intentioned middle-aged Christian white women (with cats) who have created blogs dedicated to turning all the rest of us into sincere, earnest and well-intentioned Christians (of any age or race) who are just happy as hell all of the time and skip about through life doing good deeds and praying for people’s immortal souls. The saccharine tenor of these web logs makes the Reader’s Digest seem like Satan’s own tool on Earth.

It’s then that it struck me: the good deed I can do is to give these poor fuckers some marketing advice. The problem with nearly all these sites is that the only people who would possibly read anything on them (besides me, of course) are people who are already identical in nature and intellect to the people writing the blogs. I imagine what results is sort of a “sweetness and light” competition, with each blogger trying to outdo the next in syrupy sayings and Holly Hobby images. What they really need, if they want to make a difference in the world with their efforts, is to lure the profligate and the profane (like me, of course) to their web logs so that they can make someone “have a nice life” who really needs it.

I propose that these people start writing blog entries like “Anal Sex the Right Way” and “Fellatio Techniques of the Ancients”. Once they sucker us in, after a few lurid sentences they can start inserting things like “nice girls don’t get fucked in the ass” and “no matter what your boyfriend says, Jesus doesn’t really want you to swallow.” By the time we realize that we’ve been had, it will be too late. We will have been exposed to the lily-white values of better people than us, and we might just start to question our lifestyles and turn into smugly self-righteous pantywaists ourselves. “Should I really go with this drunken, horny and voluptuous 27-year-old brunette to the bar parking lot and screw her to within an inch of her life, or should I just leave this den of iniquity and go home and listen to ‘Ultimate Yanni’ and drink chai?” you may find yourself asking. “Maybe I’m not really cut out to be a crack whore”, you’ll think to yourself. “Perhaps I’ll start doing good works for the Lord and collecting ‘Hello Kitty’ figurines instead.” Just think of all the lives that can be turned around if my marketing suggestions are implemented.

So get on it, you blogging Christian zealots. You can make a difference after all. And if it turns out that my advice indeed proves useful, you can throw money at me via the email address in my blog bio section. How much? Let your conscience be your guide.

- Hulles

The Mailbag

Steve Thurmond of Cincinnati, Ohio writes:

I am an avid fan of your blog. In your bio, it says you are a consulting iconoclast. What’s it pay? Can I be one too?

Thanks for writing, Steve. Becoming a successful iconoclast is not as simple as one might think. First, you have to attend a small liberal arts college and study cynicism, sarcasm, self loathing and Oscar Wilde. After you graduate, you can apply to take the rigorous examination (the “boards”) from the American Association of Professional Iconoclasts (AAPI). If you pass, you can begin calling yourself an iconoclast.

Note that, as established by several recent court cases, you cannot call yourself an iconoclast unless you have passed the boards and belong to the AAPI. If you should falsely call yourself one anyway, we’ll send a couple of guys over to pop a cap in your ass then sue your mangled corpse.

Once you’re an AAPI member, you will need to spend what will seem like several lifetimes as a corporate iconoclast. Only then can you open your own practice and become a successful consulting iconoclast like me.

As an aside, for some reason many new AAPI members are disillusioned attorneys. This group is the only class of newly-frocked iconoclasts that we routinely haze. We wait until we have a sizeable number of these ex-lawyers, then we get them naked and run the herd through the Federal Building. No point to it, really, but it makes us feel better.

Finally, to answer your question about pay, it doesn’t pay for shit, which is why I’m so poor right now. Thanks for asking.

Hayley Mills of Brienz, Switzerland writes:

I am an avid fan of your blog. My cute blonde friends and I are curious: what’s your favorite imaginary public works project?

Odd you should ask that, Hayley. I was just thinking about that very thing the other day. My favorite imaginary public works project was first proposed in the ‘70’s by Donald Kaul in his Des Moines Register column, “Over The Coffee”. Mr. Kaul suggested that we make Des Moines an international seaport by dredging out the median of Interstate 80. I’m sorry to report that this project has not yet been undertaken, to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps with the recent destruction of much of the Gulf Coast this plan will be reconsidered.

Thanks for the photo. Don’t you and your friends get cold in the Swiss Alps, dressed like that?

That’s it for the mailbag today.

- Hulles

Gleanings

After a hard day’s work meting out two-fisted justice in the dog-eat-dog streets of Saint Paul, I like to head to a local “internet café” and search random blogs looking for interesting stuff. As a result, I read scores of inane blogs every day so you don’t have to. Here are some of the bits I’ve gleaned from bloggers around the world.

The first item is ripped from an entry posted by Prudhvi Narayana in a blog called “HAIR TONICS ADS, WITH MODELS WEARING WIGS.” Note that this is not simply the title of a blog entry, but the name of the whole damn web blog (hairtonics.blogspot.com). It seems that someone is not amused at the irony of models wearing wigs in hair tonic commercials. In the latest HTA,WMWW entry, Prudhvi asks the interesting question,

"Do they think that we hold cabbage flowers in our ears all the time, to think that these products will grow hair on the scalp?"

Judging by the quality of most hair tonic commercials, I’d have to say yes, Prudhvi, they do think we hold cabbage flowers in our ears all the time.

On another blog called “4malmal”, it appears that “Malmal” is the affectionate nickname of Malcolm Sim Yong Jun, born 18 April 2004. One presumes that the blog is posted by his parent(s). Malmal seems to have it pretty good for a two-year-old. In a recent entry, we learn that

"It had been 1 week 2 days since Mal started bathing in Stout, to be more precise, it is Guinness Stout...."

Dang. I’m moving to Singapore. Of course, I’ll probably only get to bathe in Coors Light or something, just my luck.

Speaking of luck, I was fortunate to run across Chris Hurst’s blog, called “Chris Hurst”, appropriately enough. Apparently, Chris likes discovering weird shit on the Internet as much as I do. Here a couple he found that I hereby shamelessly steal:

From the New York Times we get:

“In an interview two years ago on the Web site Suicide Girls, [Max, son of Mel] Brooks was asked, ‘Are you one of those guys that whenever you’re in a house and you see lots of glass windows, you think that would be a bad place to fight off zombies?’ His reply: “Oh yeah.”

I get asked that question all the time and I always have to think carefully about the answer. From now on, however, I’ll just quote Max and say “Oh yeah,” and save myself the trouble.

From Pitchfork:

“Post-hardcore band the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower have announced that they will call it quits after their fall tour.”

I like this band name as much as Chris does. If you go to their web site, they tell you they are San Diego’s best punk band. With a name like that, they ought to be good. As an aside, I intend to get a tattoo of their logo even if they do call it quits.

So thanks to Chris Hurst for the harvest of odd little bits from the net. By the way, I also like Chris’s byline: “Not Giving Up His Day Job.”

The current frontrunner in Hulles’ Best Nom de Blog Contest is “The Ego Has Landed.” I like that a lot. If that’s original, good work, Ego.

My final nugget is from the ambitiously-titled blog “Every Thing About Science And Space”, by Dimake in Bucharest, Romania. He notes that:

“The world's booming shark fin trade is killing up to 73 million sharks per year—about three times more than the official catch number reported to the United Nations, a new study concludes.”

Now that’s a lot of sharks. If we assume that the average length of these sharks is six feet, if you laid all the dead sharks end to end on the equator they would circle the earth 3-1/3 times and smell really bad. Assuming the average weight is 32 kilos, if the dead sharks were made out of cocaine they would meet the American demand for coke for 7786 years. If all these sharks were put into a swimming pool, I wouldn’t go swimming in it.

- Hulles