The Culture Bunker
23 Short Columns About Filling Magazine Space
by William Ham
Illustration by David Coscia
I miss my old job. I was the one who came up with all the catch-phrases for big-budget Hollywood movies. It was a pretty sweet ride for a while – phrases like “I’ll be back,” “Say hello to my little friend,” and “Look out! There’s a circular saw-wielding maniac in a bloody tutu mere feet behind you! (from the straight-to-video cult classic Massacre at Swan Lake)” rolled off my tongue like detachable taste buds. But then the slump came. Schwarzenegger was a tough customer – he’d reject some of my best work out of hand, like “I need a handtowel,” “Do these come in beige?” and “That darned post-nasal drip won’t seem to let up.” Finally, I gave up and went over to Columbia, where I painted my masterpiece for Forrest Gump. The original phrase was altered slightly – it was actually “Life is like eating Lucky Charms straight out of the box. You never know when the marshmallow-to-crunchy-cereal ratio might not be in your favor, or if the 3-D baseball card inside every specially-marked package is of a player who has had a relatively low ERA in recent seasons.” Still, I think I left my mark.
Consider the plight of those less fortunate than you. Done? Okay, let’s get some burritos.
Rock Deaths So Far Today: Moss Sphagnum, lead ocarinist for Moss Sphagnum and the Pathetically Undercompensated Session Hacks, of complications following an interview with Details, at age 27… Paddy O’Furniture, pennywhistle/nickel oboe player for Drunken Toothless Micks, of cirrhosis of the liver paté, seven months shy of his twenty-eighth birthday… Tupak Chopra, backup scowler for Niggaz With Melanin, of a self-inflicted gangland-style slaying, halfway to age 54… and in a related story, Jagged Rocks mainstay P.F. Flyer, sentenced to death for exceeding the federally-imposed time limit on bass solos, has had his execution postponed after three consecutive lethal injections yielded only the comment, “Yeh, ‘s awright, but have you got anything stronger?”
Q: Knock-knock.
A: Who’s there?
Q: Barry.
A; Barry!? I don’t know anybody named Barry! What do you want? Get away from my door! I’m gonna call the police! My brother-in-law’s a disgruntled mail carrier! I’ve got a shotgun! I swear to God I’ll use it! Why are you harrassing me? I’m too young to die! Mommy… I want my mommy… (faints)
– from Jokes ‘n’ Riddles for ’90s Kids
Free Tibet (while supplies last).
I think I have a product idea that just can’t miss. The world’s first athletic shoe for writers and intellectuals… Air Udite. Specially padded to bounce springily back when you kick the wall out of creative frustration; woven from a space-age fiber that absorbs beer, coffee, whiskey and unconstructive criticism; feels like you’re pacing impatiently on air! I can see the ad campaign already: Oscar Wilde enters America for the first time, greeted by the customs officer, who inquires: “Do you have anything to declare?” “Yes,” Wilde says, “these shoes rule!” Then he jumps ten feet in the air and high-fives his muse. Fade out.
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. The garden weasel I sank into their skulls probably didn’t help much either.
A priest, a rabbi, and a gay penguin walk into a bar. They do not move.
– from Waiting For the Punchline: An Anthology of Existentialist Humor
Men are from Mars, stick it in Uranus.
The following books have been recommended by the American Dental Association:
The Bridgework of Madison County
The Floss on the Mill
Molar Flanders
One If By Land, Two If Bicuspid
I still don’t understand why I can’t use the assisted suicide defense just ’cause that family of twelve didn’t ask first.
A theological question: If an agnostic prays for something, does he only get half?
I guess I failed as a radical. Quite a shame, really – it had been my dream since I was a kid, when I led my toys in an armed seige against my sister’s room. We kidnapped Holly Hobbie, locked her in the closet, and brainwashed her. Now she’s known as Tania Hobbie and looks so much better in a beret and an “OUT OF THE CABBAGE PATCH AND INTO THE STREETS” T-shirt than she did in that dumb dress with the hat that covered her face. Together, we ejected Malibu Barbie and her fellow oppressor Male Chauvinist Ken and reclaimed the Dream House for the masses. It was beautiful. But the adult world has different rules and standards, as my regrettably brief sojourn with the Backless Front proved. So I didn’t quite get the meaning of the words “in effigy.” It’s not like the mayor can’t afford those skin grafts.
Answer to Last Month’s Scrambled Band Name Puzzle: X.
I’ve tried writing erotica, sure, but my stories tend to be over after a couple of paragraphs. Some guys I know can write all night, sometimes two stories at once. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe my sentences aren’t long enough.
Unsubstantiated Conspiracy Theories of the Week:
1. An entire master race of aliens from Alpha Romeo landed on Earth in 1994, took up residence in L.A., and are responsible for most of the programming on the WB
2. John F. Kennedy was not, in fact, assassinated, but merely had an exploding head (a phenomenon which occurs in one in every 30,000 Irish Catholics).
3. The Surgeon General has not determined that smoking may be hazardous to your health. It was just a ruse to distract people from the fact that he is really only an Intern Corporal.
4. While you’re reading this sentence, Cubans are rummaging through your closets and loosening the buttons on your favorite shirt just to fuck with you.
There are two types of people in the world. One is scrupulous, organized, and keeps good track of everything, and I forget what the other one is.
Everything I know about life I learned in kindergarten. That’s why I take naps every two hours, do a lot of fingerpainting, and eat nothing but paste.
A little advice for you would-be philanthropists out there: Investigate thoroughly before you invest in something. Take it from a man who has a hundred cases of Raw Pork Snack Treats in his bedroom that he doesn’t know what to do with.
If meat is murder, does that make vegetables manslaughter and fruit assault and battery?
This portion of “The Culture Bunker” is brought to you by an abject lack of anything better to put in this space.
People seem to think that I’ve written the column this way because I’m creatively impoverished, have lost the ability to sustain an idea for more than fifty words, and am desperate to fill this space with anything. Personally, I think they’re crazy. They’re right, of course, but I still think they’re crazy.
To all of those who have supported this column over the years, the author would like to say “thank you.” At least that’s what it sounded like. He’d also like to tell you to thank your dog, go thank yourself, and thank off, you thankin’ motherthankers.
