CRACKING THE PUPA
OF THE NEW SELF

Seven Half-Baked Habits for Transmogrification
A Trans-Mog Workbook & Tool Kit

In the summer of 1982, deeming the moment propitiously and pendulously ripe, I abandoned an immensely prestigious position in publishing (bookstore clerk) to tie the fierce pony of my ambition to the runaway stagecoach of unconstrained venality. This involved many, almost insurmountable challenges, such as losing my foot-long ponytail, dangling from a rocky cliff by one hand while reading “Dianetics,” and replacing my lacto-vegetarian macramé belt and Ked’s All Stars with products made from the brutally murdered and tanned carcass of the gentle bovine-herbivore. I resolved to face these challenges and others yet to come, with a wild, reckless courage, an unconquerable will to succeed, and a fat, creamy dollop of delusional optimism plopped right down on top of my favorite, highly caffeinated beverage.

Unwittingly, I had stumbled over the first Half-baked Secret!

1) The best metaphor for Ambition is: a) the metamorphosis of larval pupa into a bulb-circling moth, b) an aged wiener dog doggy-paddling frantically in the backyard turtle pond, c) the ponytail swinging like Cousin It from my rear view mirror, or d) a feisty pony, donkey, burro or wild ass

2) When is the best time to make one’s intrepid move for greatness? a) when the moment is ripe, b) subsequent to a clean sweat, c) as soon as possible after a triple-shot, mocha cappuccino, or d) while the Missus is away at her Women Who Run With The Wolves convention in Cabo

3) After John Hinckley’s assassination attempt on President Reagan, Secretary of State Al Haig is famous for saying: a) “Where’s the beef?” b) “I suspect hanky panky!” c) “I am in control,” or d) “Uh oh, Spaghettios!”

4) Macramé is: a) a delicious macaroni and organ meat dish native to Cornwall, b) a once popular, grime-collecting, hippy handicraft involving knots, c) a sexual euphemism for large numbers of people linked together by mouth and genitals, or d) all of the above

From reading the inspirational memoirs of great business titans – such as “The Solid Gold Toilet Seat: Decorating the Tyco Way” by Dennis “Tyco” Kozlowski, and “Don’t Look Now, But I’m Still a Billionaire!” by Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay – I knew my immediate concern, after finessing my bogus claim for unemployment insurance, was to “lube the Weed Whacker of Self Love & Gratification™.” Then, per established Reaganomics, my arrival within the top 1% of egregiously unjustified compensation would ultimately trickle down to the immense benefit of the brutish, sub-minimum-wage slaves hired to serve me drinks, cheese doodles and sex out by the pool. This is known to congressional Republicans as the Big win/Little win Paradigm.

The next audacious step in any great quest of self actualization is called Cage Rattling™. I stared hard at the bathroom mirror while holding up the oven rack and pretending there was an earthquake. With grim satisfaction, I noted that, though badly spooked, my resolve was not shaken. Then I took a viciously candid self inventory: 1) I was a white man who briefly attended the Ivy League. Check! 2) I loved pizza with good friends, the mischievous eyes of laughing schoolchildren, crisp autumn days playing touch football with Kennedys and golden retrievers. Also: slack-mouthed supermodels in silk teddies and high heels. Check, check and double check!

A light bulb flash of inspiration exploded inside my head: it was Michelob time!

After the six-pack, snorting the quarter ounce of crystal meth purchased with my last unemployment check seemed like a superbly contrarian strategy. “L’audace! Toujours l’audace!” (“Audacity! Always audacity!” The heroic military philosophy which has served the French so well for the past 188 years). Half a dozen, septum-eating lines later, I was seized by the unshakeable urgency to watch all 28 of the Triple X Barely Legal video series in order (To thine own addictions be true!). By the time I crawled out of that chrysalis of prostrate degeneracy, it was almost Thanksgiving and the days were growing short and chilly.

1) The keynote of Chapter 2 might be summarized as: a) cream, like white people, is white and rises to the top, b) if you be nice to Mama, Mama be nice to you, c) the mysterious synergy of men + alcohol + drugs + pornography = the unfathomable parabola of utterly lost time, or d) Want success so speedy? Unleash the Power of Yes Indeedy!

2) The Barely Legal adult entertainment series is: a) not as good as the Bring Um Young franchise, b) a self-love opportunity of right-wing talk radio proportions, c) a heaven-sent occasion to pit moral pieties against biological imperatives, or d) Satan’s cankerworm eating your immortal soul like a rat inside a honeydew

3) The best way to exceed expectations is: a) low expectations, b) speaking in tongues at the company Christmas party, c) offering an early bird discount, or d) asking yourself, “What would Admiral Poindexter do?”

With the onset of winter, I retreated within the cocoon of my sleeping bag to mind map, action plan and puzzle out one particular scene in Barely Legal 12 where the arms and legs didn’t add up to an even number. Slowly, yet inexorably, the coarse, crumbly coal of “I Don’t Really Wanna” was being transmogrified into the bright, hard rhinestone of “Maybe Do.” Each Monday without fail, I mailed a résumé to Ed the mechanic who lived in the studio apartment below me. On Wednesday afternoons, I followed people around the A&P parking lot pointing to my ears and tummy, barking and distributing hand-printed cards (“I am deef & my doggie is hungry ?”). And when the weekend finally arrived, I washed my pj’s, wet-sponged my armpits and erogenous zones, and praised the Lord for his munificence. Jesus was mi co-piloto!

Around this time, or perhaps during the video marathon, I’m not exactly sure, Jeannine unflinchingly implemented a unilateral Reduction in Force on our relationship, and then proceeded to redefine The Unforgettable Customer Experience with three strapping members of the Greek Olympic Team. Ha! Perfect! Women were so predictable. Check! I was traveling light now, loping through uncharted territory like Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli on the foul, trampled trail of the fighting Uruk Hai, those beefy, super-orcs with the dental hygiene issues, who kidnapped the annoyingly foolish hobbits, Pippin and Merry.

I could smell, I could almost taste the end of the quest.

1) The end of the quest smells like: a) fresh pj’s, c) tuna fish, c) a nice toasty hobbit hole, or d) a nicely toasted hobbit

2) Who’s the best co-piloto on a long drive? a) Gimli the dwarf, b) Jesus the Christ, c) Ed the mechanic, d) Jeannine, or e) crystal meth

3) The malignant Mother of all Spiders appears in: a) the dank, stinking tunnel to Mordor used by Gollum, Frodo and Samwise, b) the Stephen King novel about a clown who lives in the sewers of a small town in Maine and makes blood spout from toilets, but is really an ancient alien arachnid, c) the beloved children’s sex education primer, “Show Grandpa!” or d) the office of the Secretary of Defense

1983 dawned dewy and pellucid with the revelation of a daring, new Quantum Renewal Achievement Plan, or QRAP™ (read my bestseller, “Who Stepped on the QRAP?”): from now on, I would contact companies directly regarding the possibility of employment. Using Ed as a middleman had been a shrewd and innovative tactic, not to mention contrarian, but it hadn’t panned out! I leapt up and flapped around the room! Cockle-doodle-doo! I crowed.

As these new tactics bubbled on my Mental Hot Plate™, I grew lean and mean on Anti Plaque & Hairball Weasel Kibble™ (the food bowl of Ed’s long-tailed weasel, Limbaugh, was just barely within reach via the cat flap of his kitchen door. Unfortunately, my subtle hints regarding the vital health benefits of wet food went criminally unheeded.). Within sixteen months – right on schedule! – I became the proud, new Cafeteria Engineer on the Fucht-Tup Systems team. Undeviating devotion to the 7H-HHFT Program had built for me a dinghy to launch, Huck-like, upon that wide, warm Mississippi of gravy called success!*

[* Footnote: though not a great lover of gravy – something I attribute to the way I was raised (Mom never made much gravy) – here gravy is a metaphor for something extra special, that one might, if raised in the American South, inexplicably pour over a biscuit.]

I’ll never forget how “Call me Chilly Willy,” the V.P. of Operations, pumped my hand moistly, squeezed my biceps and slapped my boyish crupper with his quirt. “We Ivy Leaguers have always done well at Fucht-Tup.” He liked my hungry look, the glossiness of my pelt, and my commitment to doing “whatever it takes: clean toilets, wash dishes or … play horsey” for a job. Introducing me around the department to hostile faces pinched and dubersome, Chilly Willy blithely yodeled that I was “A-1 Fucht-Tup Pogey Bait!”

Then taking my elbow, he gently steered me behind the closed door of his office, and I got down to work.

1) If gravy is a metaphor for something extra, what is a giblet a metaphor for? a) Transcendent Godhead, b) the little man in the boat, c) a subsequently braised piece of offal found inside the chest cavity of the cleaned and dressed “dinner bird,” or d) this little piggy, who went wee-wee-wee all the way home!

2) Which is not a part of the Trans-Mog Triathlon™? a) dinghy sailing, b) coughing up the hairball of low self esteem, c) playing pony-boy with the boss, d) the River to Rohan Uruk Hai marathon, or e) the Nordic luge

3) On your first date with the attractive Jake or Delilah, you choke upon a six inch strip of flank steak and have to be rushed unconscious to the Emmy Award-winning show “ER,” where they tear open your shirt, shout “Clear!” and then apply cardiac defibrillators to your naked chest (this causes your limp body to convulse two feet off the gurney). When you open your eyes, what do you see? This is an essay question.

By Henry E. Panky

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