My Unauthorized Autobiography

I woo women with my sensuous touch, tear-stained poetry, beautiful non-wilting roses, and god-like kazoo playing. Dozens of women have pleaded to bear my progeny for the good of humanity.

I play classical music on an out-of-tune, five-string banjo with a broken G-string. I am famous throughout Appalachia for my soulful singing and incredibly talented mastery of the bluegrass didgeridoo. I once built a hammered dulcimer using tongue depressors, spark plug wires, and old automobile body panels. Its melodious sounds would bring a smile to the face of a deaf person.

I am an All-round Wizard and a true master of Time and Space, having cooked Thirty-Minute Brownies in 17 minutes, composed a two-hour opera on a thirty-minute lunch break, and driven my steam-powered VW minibus house-o'love from Asheville to Paris in 14 hours flat, just to visit the Louvre and get a loaf of fresh French bread. The laws of physics do not apply to me. I've programmed a computer for forty-three hours straight -- during a single eight-hour shift. I once learned ancient Greek, Hebrew, Sumerian, and pig-Latin during a 10-minute session on a tanning bed.

I was totally bored in school, yet still managed to learn not to correct the teachers too often.

I had my first web page on the Internet in July, 1437, and the hit counter remained at zero until early 1995, when it dramatically jumped to 4. The content was created on a Macintosh, of course.

I sleep twice a week for at most an hour or two, and when I do sleep, I sleep while driving on curvy mountain roads with no safety rails high above raging rivers and tumbled boulders. I've been known to drive through the Ocoee River gorge in fog as thick as pea soup and squeeze a car between the mountain side and an oncoming eighteen-wheeler by pulling in the sides of the car just from the suction of my butt cheeks on the car seat.

I taught Michaelangelo to sketch, Beethoven to play the piano, Napolean to play chess, Captain Ahab to chase whales, Abraham Lincoln to split rails, Hannibal to ride an elephant, Pythagoras to draw a triangle, Vulcan to smite iron, numerous Vikings to pillage, Einstein to do thought experiments, Webster to spell, and Elvis to move his hips.

I have enjoyed many brief, but torrid, love affairs with Viking chicks while dodging their slashing swords and avoiding the business end of their battle axes. Viking chicks in armour are hot! (...out of armour, they're even hotter!...)

I used to knit chain-maille lingerie out of steel. I have never been more nervous than I was the first time I had pliers in each hand, a nude woman in front of me, and created a chain-maille bra on her, one link at a time. She was pretty nervous, too, as I remember it.

Aphrodite sought my advice on how to be more beautiful and alluring.

Mae West became famous after learning how to deliver a parting line -- but I'm sworn to secrecy on where she learned how to do this.

Lois Lane told me she knew Clark Kent's secret, but didn't want to burst his bubble. After all, they're just stupid glasses and she's not a blonde.

I never perspire.

I am a left-brained artist, a right-brained analyst, a slow-handed, gentle caresser of lively wenches, and a ruthless bookie.

When I was younger, I was tough and ruthless. Now, in my geezerhood, I'm rough and toothless.

I was once caller number 106 and won tickets to see my own performance of Hamlet in the original Klingon.

One time, while playing horseshoes at a Fourth of July picnic, I got a ringer on the tail fin of a passing F-14.

Cats love me, dogs adore me, children trust me, my friends tell me all their secrets, and my enemies die of fright just from seeing me dressed for battle.

I have performed covert operations in a UFO owned by the CIA, and have driven big black Cadillacs while wearing skin-tight black neoprene to visit and intimidate abductees.

I'm on a first-name friendship with most of the Illuminati, and regularly have aliens visit me to discuss philosophy and physics long into the night while we drink black coffee and eat strawberry ice cream.

I know the exact location of every item at the local Wal*Mart -- even if they move things around at night -- and they've been doing a lot of that lately!

I once single-handedly defended a south Georgia town from an invasion by militant, compassionate-conservative, Republican fire ants using nothing but an RC Cola, a stick of bubble gum, two Alka-Seltzer tablets, a Trojan ribbed condom, three Popsicle sticks, a stapler, and a rusty machete.

In twenty-naught-four (that's 2004 for those of you who don't speek geezerish), I created (will create? will have created? what's the proper tense to use when speaking of a future event as a past experience from a different, alternate past???) a solution to the Y2K problem, but then I'll have to wait another twenty years before I get a workable way-back machine so I can go back to late 1998 and tell someone. You may thank me for solving this nightmare whenever it is convenient for you.

I once won an argument with a New York City cab driver, and then I took back my ten-cent tip.

Critics loved my new line of maille and leather evening wear.

I hate baseball, yet I still bat .415 and was offered a contract by the Atlanta Braves. I once stood in a room in the CNN headquarters on the floor below Ted Turner's office and ignored a sexy young secretary who pleaded to have her way with me before my meeting.

I once taught the same college course I was currently taking.

I've written books, programmed computers, and ridden mad bulls.

I taught myself how to play guitar and banjo, spent a summer torturing my neighbors by trying to learn to play a violin, drove a Ford pickup through the tops of twenty-three pine trees, got tendinitis from drinking coffee, paved roads, poured sidewalks, operated heavy machinery while taking decongestants, welded a bulldozer cutting blade with an electric welder during a thunderstorm and woke up a few minutes later with a headache.

I superglued my fingers to a bottle of superglue remover.

Nothing scares me because I've already been married, filed for bankruptcy, and won a fight with the IRS.

I've balanced five balls at once and juggled accounts.

No that's not right!! I juggled five balls at once and balanced accounts.

Just this summer, I juggled a concrete block, a 2.5 pound hammer, and a raw egg. Then I killed a six-pack just to watch it die.

I exercise by taking aerobic naps and watching nubile women performing Tae-bo exercises.

I work, I frolic, I knit, I smite, I sing, I swim, and I don't owe anyone any money. I set my own schedule. I once owned a toaster oven and two microwaves. I learned not to boil eggs in the microwave nor dry leather objects in the toaster oven.

I breed prize winning fleas, play full-contact musical chairs, put 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles together while blindfolded, compose arias while turning my compost heap, and teach others how to perform do-it-yourself brain surgery.

I never polish silver chains on a buffing wheel.

I have never been bored, but I've bored others. I have a sparkling wit and a magnetic personality.

I know what actually went on with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves when the blinds were closed.

Fireflies dance around me and butterflies land on my outstretched fingers. I've ridden a dragon, talked to faeries, mined with dwarves, and danced with elves.

I knew Victoria's Secret, but I promised never to reveal it to anyone. Then I slept and forgot it, dang it!

I redesign nuclear power plants in my spare time, redecorate mansions, and repair small appliances for the fun of it. I work with red hot metal, yet burn my hands while buttering biscuits.

I once ate hot peppers and cold ice cream together. It was almost a transcendent experience!

I can pilot a helicopter, fly an airplane, operate a manual shift transmission, tie a square knot, harden and temper steel, forge weapons, dress myself, eat a grapefruit without getting juice in my eyes, and cook a tasty meal.

I can differentiate between my left shoe and my right shoe and put them on the appropriate feet.

I am the subject of many documentaries, and receive fan mail from total strangers.

Interior decorators have shed tears over the beauty of my floral arrangements, and I have people waiting in line for me to redecorate their dining rooms.

I can tell the difference between shinola and a hole in the ground.

I have a brother, but we both grew up as an only child.

My parents adored me and were more than a little in awe of me, yet they still made me wash dishes and mow the yard, for which I received the princely reward of a shiny quarter as an allowance.

My mother always denied that she was secretly rich and buried millions of dollars worth of gold bullion and rare, ancient coins while I was a mere youth, to protect me from the dangers of growing up as a spoiled brat.

She never even told me which castle I should go reclaim! And I already have an army of friends with their own armor waiting to reclaim it!

(Just to bring a touch of reality into this weirdness, in late 2000, after 30 years of researching our family genealogy, my mother finally tied our family line into the O'Sullivan line, through the de Burghs, and back to more royalty than you can shake a stick at - see Overview, if you're interested.

In reality, I have ancestors who were granted castles and others who built them. I've always known I should have a castle, and this is just a little weird, finding out that we can trace our family line back to a variety of kings and queens, czars, and emperors, including Charlemagne.)

Weird, huh? Now back to the unauthorized autobiography...

Close cover before striking.

Offer void where prohibited.

Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this.

Your interest in this material may fluctuate with the prime rate.

We reserve the right not to serve idiots.

Spelling your name correctly is worth five points on the final exam.

Some parts of this autobiography are invisible and other parts are inaudible unless played backwards.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not being lazy.

You know you must have had one heck of a night when you wake up to find someone outlining you in chalk!

If you're so smart, how come you're not naked?

Some days when you wake up, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

I remember when 'safe sex' meant not storing fragile things under the bed and being careful not to bump your head on the headboard.

No man rages so loudly as he who would convince himself.

Death before dishonor, but nothing before coffee!

Leave it to a bunch of programmers to shorten 'Year 2000' down to 'Y2K.' Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?

The truth shall set you free, but only after it really ticks you off, and there is a seemingly-never-ending round of email flames and hurt feelings.

Never trouble trouble 'til trouble troubles you.

He who dies with the most things, is still dead.

I have learned through painful experience to let sleeping dragons sleep.

Two hours on the forge will save you twenty minutes with pen and paper.

I'm mostly enjoying my visit to this quaint little planet.

Your mileage may vary.

Just because the metal has quit glowing bright red and is now black is no reason to grab it with your bare hand!

Never bother sleeping dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

"Ya gotta work like you don't need the money. Love like you'll never get hurt. Ya gotta dance like nobody's watchin'. It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work." (I don't kow who said this first, but I like it.)

"The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play."

Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, the eyesight to tell the difference, and the memory to recall their names.

"to be yourself, in a world that tries, night and day, to make you just like everybody else - is to fight the greatest battle there ever is to fight, and never stop fighting" -- e.e. cummings

With thanks to Roy Wilson for the idea, and for some of the material I may have lifted from him in the telling. After all, truth should never interfere with a great brag!

This page is not powered just by hot air!

It is powered by matter/antimatter reactions channeled through the finest dilithium crystals available in the United Federation of Planets.

And, no, Marsha, I won't claim that I created Star Trek!
Civilized people have to establish a line somewhere that just isn't crossed.