Who is Henry E. Panky? And why should you, in particular, interest yourself in the fish-bony, skunk-cabbage bouillabaise of nonsense ladled up so enthusiastically in the following pages? The publisher insists that, “like it or lump it,” as editor, I have to come up with some believable answers. (One can only be consoled by the thought of how few people bother to read these things.)
To begin with, let me direct your attention to the carefully crafted drivel of the author biography. A lot of work went into that. And if a process of elimination is helpful, critical consensus is emphatic that Mr. Panky is not a Sedaris, Franken, Pynchon or Prairie Dog Companion fella writing under a nom de plume. Honestly, these jabs hurt Henry’s feelings a little. “How can they be so sure? Maybe I deliberately degraded the quality of the writing to hide my true identity! Or wrote with the toes of my left foot like Daniel Day Lewis.” [I nodded, and waggled my eyebrows and earlobes to acknowledge the excellence of his logic.] “Well, what about Mandy Patinkin or Janeane Garofalo or Crazy Guggenheim?” he whimpered. “Can I be them?”
To short circuit further sniveling, I heartily assured him he could.
Then, not long ago, the author suggested, if I understood him correctly (he was communicating via charades with pantyhose pulled over his face), that he was...the Kwisatz Haderach of Planet Dune! Which if true has significant ramifications. You may recall the Kwisatz Haderach as the messianic Deliverer in the futurist bestseller, "Dune", who drank the hallucinogenic sand-worm juice and then, in a sequel, became a giant worm himself. (Though that never rang true to me: I mean, come on! Who’s going to trade being a Messiah, swirling in his robes on the stormy mountain top with all the attendant power, glory and chicks, to be a humongous, eyeless worm? That's the problem with sequels: the inspiration is spent, but the money…she is good.) It may ring some bells if I mention that Kyle MacLachlan played the Kwisatz in the David Lynch film which also starred Mr. Sting as Feyd Harkonnen. More recently Mr. MacLachlan performed, with exquisite delicacy, as a serial masturbator in “Sex & the City.” (Messiah to doleful onanite: now there’s a career path I can empathize with.)
Oddly enough, I once had substantial, and I believe somewhat legitimate, hopes of being the Kwisatz Haderach myself. But the Lord had more important plans for his servant.
In any case, born into any previous age, Mr. Panky would almost certainly have been abandoned on the steaming midden for the hyenas and buzzards, or sold into slavery for a few copper rupees, or, if the family was pious, donated to the local, baby-eating deity in exchange for a bumper crop of garbanzo beans. In the unlikely event of his living to maturity, one might reasonably expect a public burning, impalement, stoning, flaying and/or defenestration to entertain the riff raff.
In fact, Henry barely avoided that fate under the Bush administration. (And, OK, I came close to defenestrating him myself over the holidays.)
This modest book of "tender mercies” was conceived in 2002 when Mr. Panky had the between-medications epiphany that everything in his life – the drug abuse and religious quackery, the sexual obsession and dysfunction, the brittle mania and sweaty paranoia – had been for a reason. He wasn’t, after all, just another mood-swinging, moral munchkin sliding, squealing with terror, down the dark, offal chute of life. No, something had moulded him, like a shivering ziggurat of Jell-O -- fruit cocktail mystically suspended in its glassy-green flesh.
To deliver a message!
That communication now lies, like a slouching beast awaiting only your hesitant poke to awaken, within these very pages.
In a few moments, dear reader, for the negligible price of a three-egg omelet, two side-meats and a small espresso beverage of your choice, Mr. Panky shall unstintingly heap the empty plate of your credulity with the bulging breakfast burrito of his own inexplicable wit.
And so, without further ado, I present to you the stories and parables, the letters, lectures and lunatic magniloquence of the new Kwisatz Haderach of Dune (candidate), Mr. Henry E. Panky!
Bon appetit! And welcome to the granfalloon!
Patrick M. Carlisle
Editor
March 2004
Introduction to the Revised 2010 Edition
“Look Mama, I’m dancin’ for you!”
I can think of no better way to begin our new journey than with the crazed wail of Samuel Jackson as the sweaty, spiral-eyed, crack fiend in Spike Lee’s "Jungle Fever". Trying to bamboozle his terrified mother out of a little spending money. Scuffling frantically and pumping his arms like Uncle Jed Clampett hoofing it to Purple Haze on angel dust, a desperate Rudy-Giuliani-on-the-campaign-trail rictus-grin lighting up his tortured features, Mr. Jackson just wanted to scoot back to his happy place under the overpass, light up a decent sized rock with his propane torch…and flap away into the soft, pillowy clouds far above this hard, crusty world. For as long as he could stay up there.
I, for one, cannot begrudge him that.
And Mama did indeed give him a few small bills as fair recompense for the honest entertainment value delivered. Though Daddy, a tough-love Republican and devout Christian church deacon – who looked a lot like Herman Cain in full-blown eruption of the righteous angries – later shot Mr. Jackson through the kidneys for stealing the family television. Which elicited an ecstatic howl of approbation from the GOP candidate-debate audience. Mouths gaping, faces flushed, eyes dewy, nipples hardened: a living, breathing simulacrum of “social-values” voters legitimately concerned with America’s moral degeneration.
I can only hope you respond half as well to this new edition of my book.
Henry E. Panky
Associate of Arts (candidate)
2011, Mount Kailash
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