WISHIN' AND A HOBAN

Ever heard of Hoban?

Of course not. But every obscure sci-fi and kiddie author deserves favour.

In both cases, the writer is appealing to a nerd who has never grown up. The nerd can't forget about some kiddie book that was actually pretty stupid when he read it at as a six year-old. AND, the same nerd is easily led into dreaming about other worlds and civilisations, because his own schoolmarm life is so incredibly dull...and he still has the mind and genitalia of a six year-old.

Dahl ain't enough for ya? Go fall in love with THIS dead guy:

What could be nobler than to spend one's time and energy "keeping the spirit alive," by joining a Farcebook page, or contributing to a FAN WEBSITE about your favorite obscure little drone-author?

Each day you ponder the dead man's witless quotes like you'd tongue a loose back tooth. You always find some reason to fret and fuss about the author's lame symbolism. You re-read the books over and over, and try to out-do others in the newsgroup by name-dropping characters or making annoying allusions to specific scenes. You show photos of your "shrine" of his books and memorabilia. You drive others away by incessantly insisting YOU have theories on "what he really meant."

If you have enough fetishes (why not ALSO be the webmaster for a failed rock band...) you can have a life outside of your schoolmarm work and your boring relatives and wife. Life is a beret, old chum.

Yes, you guessed it. Roland Butter, aka Rolling Queer, aka Puppy-Nosed Weasel-face, is a BIG fan of Hoban. He's also a BIG FANNY (in either the British or American slang sense). Here, he indulges himself in a self-referential reverie about a time he was reading a Hoban book, not far from the rubbish can he lives in.

Er, that IS a picture of where he lives. Isn't it?

Why show a photo where the most prominent feature is a GARBAGE container?? And a park bench? He spends most of his life HERE and HERE? And like any bum, he only wanders away to forage for chewy nuggets he can find discarded on the street, or hanging out of Barry Gooker's anus?

Here's the beginning of Weasel Face's memoir on reading a Hoban book.

There isn't room to contain the entire verbose and self-referential threnody.

He most certainly thinks his atribilious amphigory is worth a prize.

Who wouldn't be rapturously entertained by his long-winded delusion that slurping coffee and reading crappy fiction would make him the envy of any passing female?

On THIS blog, quantity is not mistaken for quality, so we condense the rest of his palaver into a few paragraphs.

Here, edited down, is the rest of his anecdote:

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Imagine my surprise, as I gripped my Americano, and held by book, to find a lady with a little too much jaw and a Louise Brooks hair cut, coming on to ME, a man with no jaw, and no hair to cut. I wrinkled my ferret-like button eyes, ran a stained finger over my stubble-covered cheek, and wiped it against my wet pug nose. I grinned like a coquette and dipped my beret over one eye ala Veronica Lake.

"How can you read a book with one eye, Fuckface?" she asked with a lilting laugh. "Ever read "The Owl and the Pussycat? I have."

Aha, she gave me a knowing Lear! She was clearly the pussycat, and I was, of course, the wise old owl. And so I said, "Who?"

"You, you idiot," she replied. "Ever read anything by Edward Lear? He's a damn better writer than Hoban." She glanced downward. "Enjoying it?"

"My Hoban book?"

"No, the way your Americano coffee is dripping onto your crotch. Can you feel it, numb nuts?"

"Shine on!" I ad-libbed, wiping the shimmering wetness with my tweed sleeve. "I think, saucy wench, I must disappoint you and rebuff your advances. I'm afraid I already have a sexual partner and one is enough for me."

"Right hand, or left hand?"

"However, I do get a certain risible penile twitch out of being admired for my cacafuego, hircismus, and of course, my microphallus which resembles a tie-clasp microphone. Do you realize that for less than 600 pounds, I can arrange for you to attend a Boko Harum concert in Iceland?"

I could tell by the way her face turned a whiter shade of pale, that she was surprised to realize that I was, indeed, the FAMOUS webmaster for those gallant musicians who have spent the past 50 years singing their one hit song. As her face turned even more pale, I explained my offer:

"The 600 pounds includes the bus to the train and then the bus to the airport. It includes the airfare. All you pay for is the ticket to the show and an extra 200 pounds for the beer and buffet afterward (to which we treat our Commander, lead singer Barry Gooker free, and to which his cover band pays half price). I will throw in a vintage Hoban paperback that my wife used for a menstrual pad in 1972. It's fairly dried now, and only a few pages are illegible."

She gave me another amused glare, and said, "Enjoying it?"

"The book?"

"No, being a pretentious twit. By the way, this isn't a Louise Brooks haircut at all," she said. "It's a Moe Howard."

It was then that she poked me in the eye.