I haven't done this in a while - posted a piece I've recently performed in its entirety. It's a rough monologue I included in the show that Maher, Olsen and I put up last weekend. After performing it three nights in a row, I feel it's not particularly cohesive, and seems more like an excuse to list a bunch of absurd things. Actually, it basically is a series of previously existing nuggets strung together, with a little new padding around it. So here it is for the blog - try to imagine me in a white tanktop doing a lame Deniro impression and enjoy.
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Uh, to start, I should tell you that my name is Frankie No-Pants. You wanna know why they call me Frankie No-Pants, go to Weehawken and fuckin' ask Tony Has-My-Pants.
I am here tonight as part of my participation in the Riker's Island Rehabilitainment Program. Rehabilitainment is basically a combination of the words Rehabilitation and Entertainment. It is my goal to rehabilitain myself and others by giving back to the community in laughter and entertainment, something equal to which I have taken from them in money and blood.
For the second half of my third of tonight's show, instead of wowing you with another one of my cat-related monologues, of which I have dozens, I thought I would instead talk about someone who is very near and dear to my heart. Whom I lost recently. A young man who taught me that when life gives you lemons, you gotta put those lemons in an oversized tubesock and beat the living crap out of adversity with it. This young man's name was Little Petey.
I met Little Petey at a meeting for subscribers of Vicarious Astronaut Bi-Monthly Magazine, which is basically a magazine for people who enjoy daydreaming about being astronauts. He and I had both developed an intense interest in imagining we were astronauts during periods of inactivity. Little Petey had taken to daydreaming about being an astronaut during his long and painful hospital stays, and I had taken to daydreaming about being an astronaut during the many nights I had crouched in the backseat of some S.O.B.'s car with a nail gun. Whatever. This meeting is where we connected.
The main point of the meeting was to clear up the confusion as to what "bi-monthly" meant. The room was evenly split between people who expected 24 issues a year, and those who expected 6 issues a year. Neither side was satisfied, since we were in fact receiving 15 issues per year.
At any rate, as everyone was yelling and screaming and throwing styrofoam moons, which was the free giveaway the magazine had provided, I noticed this little boy across the room, about 10 years old. His head and hands were wrapped in bandages, and he had a bowl of ice water in his lap, into which he would periodically dunk his head. He was watching the whole scene with a bemused expression, as if to say "you're complaining about THIS?" Because you know he was obviously crippled or something.
I went over to him and said "Hey kid". He said "Hey." "What's your name," I said. "Little Petey," he said, "what's your name?" "Frankie-No-Pants" I said. "Why do they call you Frankie No-Pants?" he rejoinedered. So I told him the hilarious story about why they call me Frankie No-Pants. 'Cause I figure quid pro quo, you know, so I ask him - "what's with the bandages and the constant dunking of your head in the ice water?" So he tells me he has this condition that he was born with, wherein his brain is constantly overheating. And sometimes it heats up so much that unless he cools it off with ice water, his head would explode. He didn't use those terms exactly, but you get the drift. I says to him, "And I Thought I Was A Hot- Head!" We laughed and then he winced and stuck his head back in the water. Then I said "Man, that must be pretty tough, having to live with a condition like that." He said "You haven't heard the fourth of it!" He then went on to describe an additional three conditions that he was afflicted with, any one of which would render each of our lives unliveable, but which this kid was somehow able to troop along with.
1. Thermal Craniosis. The aforemention hot brain thing.
2. Manual Rotation Perpendiculitis. Due to a crossed-wire in his head or some shit like that, his hands couldn't properly follow what his brain wanted them to do. Basically, whenever he wanted to make a turning or twisting motion with his hand, like to turn a cold water faucet, he would instead make a violent poking motion.
3. Specific Visual Swapping Syndrome. Incurable. When a person always sees one specific thing when in fact he is looking at one specific other thing. In Little Petey's case, whenever he thought he was looking at a cold water faucet, he was in fact looking at the tail of a large dog.
4. Half-Inch Differential Binocularity. That's when whatever you're looking at is actually half-an-inch higher than where you see it.
So, often times. Whenever Little Petey's brain would overheat, and he was in desperate need of cold water with which to cool his head off, instead of turning a cold water faucet, he would often instead poke a large dog directly in the ass.
Little Petey and I became fast friends after that meeting. Here was a kid for whom life was even more dangerous and unpredictable than mine. I felt protective, you know? I had never felt that kind of fatherly instinct before, not even towards my own alleged children scattered across the tri-state area. And Wyoming. I sorta became like his older connected brother, you know? I'd take him places, do stuff with him, things a little crippled kid wouldn't normally get to do without some muscle backing him up. I still remember Sea World. He loved Sea World. We'd sit in the front row during the Shamu shows...he was so carefree during those times because of all the splashing. We'd play astronaut, lunar lander, mission to the moon, whatever you wanna call it. Except the moon was a Korean grocery. He'd wait out in the Lunar Lander - my Ford Explorer, and I'd run in and bring back "moon rocks". Sometimes several cartons worth. And the moon men would come out of the store yelling "you come back here porice, porice!" "Oh no, Captain Frankie has accidentally swiped some menthol moon rocks!" was one thing Little Petey said once.
We lost Little Petey just a few weeks ago during a field trip with the
Make A Wish Except For The Wish To Get Better Foundation to Central Park. It was a hot day, and Little Petey's ice water bowl had been spilled during a particularly spunky game of Hope Tag. Hope Tag, it's a fun game for the terminally ill. "Tag - You're Still Here!" Anyhow, Little Petey was starting to have one of his hot brain episodes just as we passed the dog run. Oh man - "Look at all the frolicking cold water faucets!" He yelled. "I'm gonna go turn them all on and fill my bowl from as many of them as I can!" And off he ran. "No Little Petey, No!" We shouted. "Remember your four conditions!" But we were too late - the dog run exploded in a flurry of dogtivity. I almost got to him before he got to the Great Dane. But it was too late. The great beast was so startled by Little Petey's sudden act of intimacy that he dragged Little Petey completely across the dog run. By his finger. Unfortunately, the Great Dane was not fast enough to outrun the other angry dogs that continued to rend at Little Petey.
Little Petey was not the first friend of mine to die an early death. Not by a long shot. But he was the first friend of mine to die where I couldn't say "he kinda had it coming." What kind of a world rewards perseverance and courage with doom? How come I'm alive and well, a total scumbag, but peachy keen Little Petey has to die? What fucking incentive is there to try at all, to even attempt to rehabilitain oneself when somewhere out there, there's a Great Dane's anus waiting to drag you across the big dog run of life. By your finger. Metaphorically speaking. I ask myself these things. But then I remember something Little Petey said to me once. He said "Frankie. You often seem surprised at the spunkiness with which I approach life. The gusto, if you will." I'm paraphrasing. "Well, that's the greatest gift you can give yourself. Effort. Just try. From start to finish. Just try."
He was a smart kid.
