Lost in the Funhouse Read Online Free PDF

Andy!
    Okay …
(Laughing again—why?)
You know, this is just like a fantasy fulfilled for me. ’Cause I always used to want to be on your show.
(And again.)
And I thought that your show—you know, in Doodyville? That’s where your show was …
(And again—please don’t, okay?)
And I thought Doodyville was inside of the television. You know, like if television was this box—and if I went inside the box that was a television, I’d be in Doodyville. And I always wanted to be on your show. Now, here it is about, I guess, twenty-five years later, and I have
my
own show, and you’re on
my
show!
    That’s right, Andy….

    Kindergarten. Trauma.
    [As depicted in epic semiautobiographical novel always and ever in progress—these portions written October 25, 1979, one week after the author had wrestled women on
Saturday Night Live
for the first time.]
    Um.
    First day of class. Mommy had fed him breakfast, got him dressed neatly. “Hold it, honey,” she said, and fixed his collar and buttoned his top button. “There you go … fit as a fiddle.” Always hated top button buttoned. Mommy made him always. She waved as bus pulled away. He wanted to cry, but was too shy in front of all these strangers. At school, teacher goes around room asking each child to introduce him/herself. As it got closer to the little boy’s turn, he became very very extremely nervous, repeating his name in his head over and over again so he would get it right. Finally, when it was his turn, he couldn’t do it. A little voice in his head said, “Come on, just say your name,” and he wanted to very much, but no voice would come out of his mouth.
    “And what’s your name?” The teacher was looking directly at him. “No? Not today? Oh, all right.” And she smiled understandingly at him and directed her attention to the next child. “And what’s
your
name?”
    If he had ever felt like crying, now was really the time. He had never felt such embarrassment in his whole five-year-old life. He sat there, forcing his jaw to stay open, knowing that if he let it close, he would definitely cry and then be even more embarrassed than he already was…. As he sat there and saw all the other kids saying their names, he felt that they were all looking at him and saying to theirselves, “Look at that baby. What a baby! Well, I’ll never play with him! He should be totally ashamed of himself. So very very extremely ashamed that he should hang his head down so he’s looking at the ground and when he walks he should keep his head between his legs.” When he looked up, he noticed that no one was watching him….
    Well … some would watch when he wasn’t looking, when he wasoff alone/oblivious behind the school playground, obscured by the little cluster of trees, where he repaired to continue his riotous broadcasts. School had seriously interfered with his ritual of afternoon bedroom performances. Now at Saddle Rock Elementary, he relegated programming to lunch recess period; other children played amongst themselves; he played amongst himselves (for the entertainment pleasure of unseen millions as usual). Once he had reached first grade onward, he could compress his sprawling cavalcade to a solid solitary outdoor half hour of extravaganza, and he thrilled at his own ability to make it such a tremendous success. Out in TVland, his loyal viewership had come to adore his every song dance fall leap spin face voice character movement gyration yodel instrument solo symphony fight victory defeat commercial trick and tale. He was a smash! Huge and very very extremely famous. He knew this certainly and one day so would everyone else.
    Later, much later, after people, many people, certainly not
everyone,
had begun to sort of know who he was and journalists came to ask him about how he got to be the way that he
was—this was all according to master plan, of course—he
would recall his excellent work in the woods behind the school. He would conjure and reenact these