Back in Black (Really New)

Posted By:	Maddy Bonham
Posted On:	Wed Aug 29th, 2007

Though many of you are unlikely to remember me, I was once a semi-regular player on this team. I was all of 15 years old, in fact, when Uncle Bone first threw me out there to pinch hit for him. Sure, I was nervous and intimidated – kind of a Little Bo Peep running with the big dogs, but my life was all out ahead of me then. It really hadn't even started ... to go downhill ... like a big, sputtering, clown-piloted, crazyplane on fire – plummeting in mad spirals toward certain doom. Luckily the whole insane freefall only lasted 8 years. My, how time flies ... when your husband's in prison. I do keep tabs on the gang – cheers me up to look in on zbone and the boys, which is how this little redux came about. I noticed that Adam had been a tad MIA as of late, so I figured this might be an opportune time to see about getting my spot back on the roster. I should add parenthetically that my life has not ceased to be funny in spite of the tragedy, I've just stopped making it a matter of public record – until now. So I stopped over to Uncle Bone's to see if I might be welcome to trot back on the field anytime soon and, well, let's just say I was right about the timing.

Visiting Uncle B's
While it's true that Uncle B. is as Caucasian as most Utahns, when I asked him about helping out with the writing he turned into Will Smith.

"Oh hell yes – you can. C'mere and sit your not-as-skinny-as-it-used-to-behind down right here at the computer and make with the funny. Sweet Cheezits, I'm glad you came by, Adam's computer went tits-up and I'm holdin' this puppy together with bailing wire and fortune cookies. Want one? They're made from real cigarette butts?"

"No, thanks – are you alright?"

"Oh yea no, y'see I've been trying to give up soda, but the Indy moved their deadline up a week, so I drank 14 Squirts and some diet Costco Coke and I've been freaking out. Are you still funny- because I'm starting to see things? I don't think I can write in this condition – that grapefruit is a wicked mistress"

(This, incidentally, is all just BS. He must have seen me pull up.) He did switch to Squirt when he parted ways with the 3.2, claims it packs a meaner buzz, but he just doesn't like writing if he doesn't have enough time. I've seen him put in a week's worth of eight-hour days on one piece – says anyone can be funny if they play around with the English language for 40 hours. It felt good to see his old song and dance, though, and since I "did" come for the gig I let him play me. "How much time have I got?"

"You don't wanna know – have you got anything in the can?"

"I think I've got a good angle on that Miami antichrist guy?"

"Y'know what, we better not go there again already. I think I've done, like three anti-christs in a row. Seriously I've all but beaten Revelations into the ground."

"The old Armageddon carried away?"

"How's that?"

"That's one of your old lines, ‘Armageddon carried away with all this judgment day business.'"

"Yeah? Hmm. Y'know they say I used to be pretty darn funny, before the accident."

"The Accident?"

"The accident – it made the family newsletter – the neck replacement? Sheer luck we were able to find a donor like that – young Eskimo kid, awful whaling mishap. Great neck though, preserved as it was by the icy ocean brine." (This is followed by a demonstration of his same old neck except for the tiny scar from his cervical fusion surgery which I'm guessing is what set him off on such a stupid tangent. He's all giddy now that he's off the hook, so I play along.) "Seamless work eh? That's primo neckage – hard to come by, that nice a neck. Unless you're willing to go, y'know ... to the dark side. That's just not me. For all my unbridled irreverence and lightmindedness, I'm not a cutthroat. How might I hold my head high among my people, with a neck thus misbegotten? Woe betide one capable of such foul bidding. Should it come to that, I'd just as soon go neckless. Grow my hair out, wear a beard, like the great men of old."

"Don't look now, but you do have long hair and a beard?"

"Hello – I have an Eskimo neck? Anyway, better hold off on the Bible thumpin' a while, all that doom and gloom and end of the world stuff, people are liable to think I'm some kinda weirdo. Out there wandering the Boulevard packing a big REPENT NOW sign. Sound advice though."

"I went out with a guy who repented every night."

"You two weren't . . . petting?"

"I think he knew himself in that way."

"And then he'd repent?"

"Every Night."

"Vicious Cycle."

"I wouldn't know."

"The Flesh is weak."

"Yea verily."

"Bad form to repent too much - God is the wrong guy to annoy."

"Best to lay low, pick your spot."

"Get in, get out - it's not like it's news to him."

"Gotta keep it real though, the Man can spot a phoney."

"Word. And a brown- noser."

"Which is worse, a phoney or a suck-up?"

"Neither."

"Pray tell?"

"Putting it off."

"True that. Speaking of which, I've got some jokes to write."

"That's what I hear; that totally sucks."

"Yes it does. So no anti-Christs or Eskimos – any other no-nos?"

"Y'know what, don't sweat the Eskimo thing, I'm over it. You gotta loosen up – remember this is a Web site, not reality. Do whatever you want. Catch, Pitch, pinch-hit, pinch-run, put a pinch between your cheek and gum. Y'know if I were you, or . . . Elvis, I believe I'd just bite the bullet and lash together a nice little tell-all about the whole Pretty Boy Floyd saga Call it ‘So I Married a Salad Tosser?'"

I pretended my feelings were hurt just to see if he'd fall for it. "I'm sorry, Mad – I didn't mean to come off like I don't care whether or not you throw in the bit where he tried to escape by threatening to kill himself with the taser?"

"Are you kidding me – that'd be my closer."

"You do know how to pick 'em, girl."

"Nothin' to it – just got to be incredibly stupid and cursed."

"Hey come off it – you're not cursed?"

"Ah, Unk, you say the nicest things.

"You Damn Skippy." (Tapping his heart twice, to complete the Will Smith effect.) "Damn Skippy."

THE BONE CALL
"Hey, Unk, man, I'm hatin' life – for some reason writing about Fink Floyd isn't coming out funny. I've approached it about four different ways and they all suck."

"Here's what you do. Go back before you were married. Start with the time you found him in grandma's garage with the shammy. Come out of the blue with that – BAM – then re-introduce yourself and she'll roll out at your fingertips just like magic. I don't know why I'm telling you this? Seriously, you've written stuff that humbles me – both funny-wise and wise-wise. Remember you're making people laugh at "you," not Floyd. It isn't funny that Floyd is the creepiest freak whoever found his way into the bosom of the American penal system. Funny, is that you went and married the guy, anyway – even after you caught him in the garage with the shammy."

"I know, I know – it's just weird thinking back when I was writing a lot, y'know, when I was really cookin'. I remember it as being glamorous and exciting, not sad and humiliating."

"That's the good thing about memories – you can edit them."

"I hate when you do that."

"What?" "Well, I pretty much think of you as this crude, fat, old guy who's not as funny as me, and then you say something smart like that and it fouls up my whole world view. I just hate to think we were destined to be so co-pathetic."

"My bad."

BONE GETS FINAL CUT

"Look, you're only 27 years old, you're a kid. When I was 27, I thought I still had a shot at being in the Beatles. You think your life has been nothing but heartache and shame, but that's how just about everybody feels. I mean look at me – my hair turned gray when I was in Jr. High, 8th Grade!"

"Completely gray, or salt and pepper?"

"Does it matter?"

"Hardly the end of the world?"

"Billy Joel was there for me, anyway."

"How's that?"

"Only the good dye young?" (Damn, cola products were not meant to come out of your nose – bastard – I thought as I wiped away my Coke snot.)

"Please, Uncle Boneyman, tell me again about this mystical place you call "Jr. High?"

"You mean back when the radio played Led Zeppelin and the Stones."

"And David Cassidy and Donny Osmond – I wonder how much those posters would've been worth today– a mint condition Bobby Sherman?"

"Probably enough to download you some Clay Aiken or Taylor Hicks,(giving himself a couple mocking fist taps on his heart.)Soul Patrol,"

"At least he doesn't try to hide the fact that he's gray. Come on out of the closet Uncle Bone? Everybody's doing it – even your musical hero Lance Bass is out."

"Ouch, damn – sometimes I wonder if Floyd didn't volunteer for prison."

"Right – he wanted to go prematurely gay." (Got him. Squirt squirting out of both nostrils – touché Misseur Bonet.)

"Maybe his cell-mate will turn out to be his soul-mate?"

"I hope so. Why don't you just dye it brown?

"It is brown."

"Brown my butt, it's so black it's blue. You make Trent Reznor look like Richard Gere. I mean, who do you think you're fooling with that blacktop – Roy Orbison fans? You're like the Barry Bonds of the mid-life crisis set. Someone should make you tattoo an asterisk on your neck."

"That's Eskimo neck to you, asterwipe. Shouldn't you be writing about your pathetic life?" (to be cont)