Harkenbak the Four

So, I wrote this a long time ago.  It still sort of amuses me, so I figure why not keep it public?  Anyway, this is what Dave was like in his early 20s.

Day: Prologue

A conquest. Or reconquest. Lemme tell you something great about it: I surely can’t tell if this mustache is ironic or post-ironic. Will ask Medicine Lou later, he may well have an answer.
Also, thought earlier I was made of string. This proved false when Dowager’s cat approached me and junked me straight away. Conclusion: am not string.

Well, looks like I should go conquer something back.

Day #2

Woke up late today.
Frankly, I’m frightened of Mtenda Lions pouncing as I exit my domicile/tent-icle.
I’ve started calling it the “tent-icle”. Ha. Chortle.

Anyways, we’ve got Jazz/Tap III at 10 this morning, and the girls are expecting me to provide the Randy Jackson. So I’ve got some catching up to do. This is really the soul of reconquering, the freestyle, funk-based dance routines. I’ve got a retinue, might as well use it, know what I mean?

Day #X+3

Boo. My parade got rained on. In a bout of good news, however, I developed a device that fixes the problems of ending sentences with prepositions. That’s what I built it for.

I encountered, in Lower Rebria, a donut so large, I had no choice but to go around it. Although I could have ordered the men to eat through it, or tunnel under it, or just pick it up. But we would’ve needed schematics and shovels. How anachronistic. I’m no floozie.

Day #6.5

Assessed the validity of prime fractions. This required a pot of coffee, for which I threw a rock at a helmet, and a bird brought my piping hot Joe straight away. Was relieved at Medicine Lou’s lack of forearm upon inspection, after drinking java.

Hate birds.
– Talk to whales today, they know about reconquering things. I saw it on a movie picture, anyway. Whoops.

Day #7

Seven layer noodle cake or seven layer pasta cake?
Frank said “oops! I dropped the ball” and I slapped him. Hope that was displaying strong leadership to the men & women. That’d suck if they started to fear me and shit. Maybe I can remedy this by reconquering something?

Whales were informative yester-half-day. They showed me how to use my blow hole and search out krill. I introduced them to Shanda’s sister, and I think they hit it off pretty well. We’ll know soon enough if we keep reading the whales’ live journals. (http://www.bloggerforhope.co.whale/)

Day #48

Viewed a Rod Steiger movie. What a guy. I respect him for more than his work: I respect him for his good ideas. Just like Chiefly Anne. I respect not only her, but her ideas independent of her. Like her calculated bear bag knots, those are good. Really good even. And her rickshaw carpet bomber. That was a strong concept. And her automatic Confederate-era tampon generator. Good, solid idea.
But what I can respect more than a good idea is a good swinging bunt, and I sure as heck had one of those today. Today being Cinco de Maio in this country, traditional day of infield hits and low-flying planes.
Palabra.

Day #36

Performed a commemorative strip tease for the first-born in camp today.
My pasties represented the holiness of words. My g-string stood for my good will towards the whale-people of Eastern Rebria. The unwaxed ass-hair many observed was there to signify the widening gap between my soul and my gullet. And the shaking in my hips was central because I respect myself.

Don’t talk to me about the pigeon fiasco, enough people are already asking me about it.

Day #3

Hit ’em fast.
That’s it.
I feel like there’s this weird tension between Cowboy Loretta and me. I can’t quite put my finger on it – she always calls me slow poke, but I always call her SlowBro, and I think she prefers Polywhirl. We’ve stopped slapping each other five every time we spur our horses. This saddens me because I was really grooving on her convertible boombox and her peach-lemon squares. Gosh those morsels are tasty.

Found some chitlins. Thinking about reconquering my father’s spilled seed. Those lil’ guys could be my sisters and brothers!

Day #13

Big trouble in camp today. Some no-goodnik posted a sign that look like this:

I, of course, tore it down and immediately yelped in pain, pain of the low abdomen. There’s where I felt it.
I held up the sign and asked Chiefly Anne,
“Who did this?”
She said, “You’re fat. Fuck off.”
Then I ate a whole cheesecake. It was blueberry.

Day #16

Imperative:
Invent a new kind of boating.
Call it:
“picture boating”.

Day #84

Got involved with a sack full of wolves today. I said, ‘Curiosity is killing me.’ They responded in toto, ‘You’re a sad sack.’ I was hurt.
Maybe wolf just doesn’t mean what it used to. Maybe colonoscopy doesn’t either, because the supposed colonoscopy I received from Medicine Lou’s aunt the other day was a poor, poor travesty of the colonoscopies I once knew and loved. This was like a fire – crackles up the ass and a load of Jimmy Buffet’s bong-water in the face. Gross-city.
Punctuate. Energetically.

Day #32

Dowager sent me up some schemes for installing a bathtub in his veranda. I call his veranda the “verand-oo”. Anyways, the plans were going for a sort of Thompsonian spigot and a Rustic basin, so I bet him I could design a better tub while piloting a rocket ship. Let’s just say he owes me a buffet.

Shaved finally, feels good to get the grime off of my back.
Oh, that reminds me, call my monkey friends down in East Repfearia and have them drop propaganda for the impending Reconquest – I’m thinking of the spooky flier of Lou on Lime Green, folded in camisoles… too much?

Day #29

Some kid called ‘Josh’ came to camp this morning to give a presentation on the future of the SoCal punk scene. His talk was titled, “So Cal, Where Do We Go From Here?”. I told everyone he probably has scabies. What a prick.
Really though, it smells so good around here, and I can’t figure it out. I mean, let’s be Frank. We charred most of the countryside last week in the toast flinging campaign against the Rebrians, and this town appeals to my nose like a hollow populated by pretty, pretty ponies. Maybe Anne is using some new body wash? I should ask her doctor, see if it would be suitable for me as well.

Day #10

Very interesting experiment today. Had the team construct a rainbow inside of Chiefly Anne’s heart. Olivier wielded the scalpel, he’s got such delicate hands, you know? I was in charge of spraying the food dyes of various colors into the chestral cavity (Lou had mixed the colors himself), and I got a lot of confidence from doing that.
Towards the end of the process, Olivier piped in about a gallon of sherbet to make everything congeal and cleanse the immune system’s palette. It was pretty beautiful, Anne looked like a living, breathing profiterole.
Actually I tried to eat her, and my guys, bless their hearts, held me back. With the reflux I’ve been having, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all tonight.

Day #41

Inconsistency is most vexing. I went to my glamour consultants this morning and asked, “What sort of product ought I be purchasing these days?” Some casual conversation followed, and my consultants connived me into acquiring “The Blond Mont”, a product for the geologist on the go. This afternoon, I went back to try to get an appraisal for this Nom D’oil, but no one was in the saloon. Some trifle about being “jacked” or something, I really don’t understand people much anymore. And besides, how can a guy make a buck when he’s got to spend all his time carrying around a tectonic suppressant? Gosh.

Hey, got some slides back. Guess who’s looking forward to the next pool party?

Day #6

It’s hard to know exactly when you’ve reconquered a thing. Medicine Lou and I were arguing just a bit ago about whether or not that lower bit of the far peninsula was ours, whether it had been ours, if we’d in fact carpet-bombed it, or if it was where Lou’s sister lived. As you might imagine, this caused a bit of temerity among some of the men-folk, so much so that Jerry and Ron plum lept into a boat, which was on some water.
Ha. Boy, their faces were red. You can imagine.

Day #3

Had Lee page Mr. Remington from the office today. Was very pessimistic, as previous encounters had led to seizures on part of Secretary Mme. Barkleton. This time, turned out okay, even with esteemed colleague, Dr. H Barklesworth on hand. He recalled, “Harkenbak, I shot you during FDR’s third term, but you still crack me up, you son of a bitch.”
I then commissioned Oslon to fix us some cool drinks. Suspecting tamping/tampering and shot him with a golf gun. Turned out he’d been hired by Truman to spy for Misters Heath & Blair. Those scamps.

Send congratulatory bouquets to each of them tomorrow, maybe that’ll get me in one of their wives’ pantaloons.
Anyways, Remington agreed I’m one sexy devil and I swore at his reverend. Boy, did I give it to him.

Day #22

Came up with a bold new Jethro Tull drill this evening. It came to me when the dusky light hit my eye, just there, like so. I was so moved that I threw down the bird I was choking and yelled, er, exclaimed,

“Dowager! My sketchpad!”

which of course meant that he pulled of his dinner jacket and shirt and handed me a Sharpie with which I could doodle all over his back.
This new drill though, it’s dynamite, and I’m trying to get Ian Anderson himself to be the drum majorette. Imagine the faces of those scampish Rebrians as we shoot past them with a flute-laden “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend were bad like me?”!!

Day #38

Invented snow dancing. Sort of a cross between steamy ice dancing and a cool water ballet. Will have Oscar and Chiefly Anne try it out next week, out beyond the tarmac. Best to get them a little liquored up before and after so that they don’t leak my moves to anybody else, particularly that crazy ol’ Medicine Lou. He’s taken to riding around on his helmet and calling out Bingo numbers as a way to scare up the young ones. There isn’t a round singing about dogs for miles. I’d have to take a train to hear a nice, staggered “ruff” chorus. Anywho, my big move is the “toejammer”, in which Anne goes on one knee past the edge and Oscar comes back home. I see a great future for these endeavors.

Day #13

Blogged well today. Threw up, got up, got down. Took of my pants. Did a dance. Hoo-ee.
It was late when I went to bed last night. I debated dropping some more pronouns, but decided I was too tired. At some instead.

So Big Tom and Chiefly Anne sauntered in to camp this afternoon, arms locked, smiles up, I think you know what I mean. I did what any right-minded reconquerer would do and escorted them to the paddle-tennis facility. They played a fine few rounds. That Anne’s back/forehand is a Tom-crusher for sure.
Reconquered Lower Sandwichshire.

Day #9

Ran into a hun. Hun, that is. Jumped with him. Subverted his dominant paradigm. Threw an apple at his grandmother. Hope that worked.
You know, I’ve gotten sort of nervous over here. There’s this guy in camp who keeps looking at me. I want to know what his deal is. Maybe I smell. Ask Medicine Lou for some underarm product. And a diploma from his crash course in leaves. Oh, there goes a shark!

Day #8

All Saints’ Day.

Had the women listen to All Saints’ second album. Boy, they had talent. Talentio. Tal-ant.

Day #9

I will call this “Prelude to a Number Crunching”

My peon and former mentor Diamond Franny stopped by today. She dropped off some tokens I didn’t use when our class visited the gaming museum. I took them and put them in a pouch. We had a nice lunch of venison and slaw, and then I took out the pouch and threw it at Medicine Lou’s head. Boy, did Franny teach me something.

Day #23

To do:
-requince
i.e. eat another quince, they’re delicious
-find non-eternal salvation
-fuck that, discover non-eternal salvation
-reconquer reality (-ies) and dignity. Particularly for Anne’s sake, things are getting desperate.
-go for a walk with a pony that you love
-fuck that, reconquer non-eternal salvation
-register early for Soft Shoe Madness XIII, to be held next summer in Cherbourg, I think.
-write thank you note to the computing peasants of New Coastal Texania
Reconquering – you know, it’s just what I know.

Day #39

Can’t seem to reconquer anything. What the hell? I mean this really steams my clam.

This pervert came into the squad meeting and offered us sex toys and Cuban loot, and I sent him away. But this episode made me so misty-sad; I just want to get back the corner of the lube market we used to hold with a hard, wet fist. I was crying pretty hard, and Dowager put a blanket around my shoulders. Remember to give him a prize, would ya?

Day: Night

Super Dooper.
I just met my biggest fan! He’s a short fellow, tasseled hat, Shetland Pony. He rode into camp today and volunteered his expertly trained army of throwing rats for the reconquering effort. I said, sure, we’d like to have all the rodents we can get our hands on, and he offered me a nice guinea pig ravioli. I respectfully passed.

Anywho, these rats are sure something. I saw one of them smoke a whole pack of cigars and another throw a chair clear from the Sierra Occidentals to the Sierra Orientals. Maybe I’ll put them to work with the baleen flinging whales who joined up last month…

Day #3

Was Gandhi short for anything? Was he short?
I’ve been dealing with my penis, which seems like it ought to be clean on this Reconquista, and I think it’s cleaned up now. Talked about foreskin goo with some of the folks in camp. Some peoples’ eyes were so intense as we talked, especially that guy with the broken ankle? Wonder what his name is. Maybe I’ll figure it out in an authoritative manner.
Will have the kids pick apples as an act of rage tomorrow. They ought to sing a tag while they do it. I’ll offer a finger to any of my staff members who can win my heart with a kiss or vegetable.
Little mouths and horticulture.

I’d like to be published.

Day #45

Tried to apply lessons learned from that documentary on Rollerball. Not an overwhelming success. Went to Florida to purchase some collard greens, took Anne’s balloon. That thing flies real nice. We got there and got out of the basket, dried off, worked out a little, and then went off to find the market. We were shopping and this guy Tito knows recognized me and pulled out a silver dagger. I parried with my silver platter and stuck him with my silver spoon. Lycanthrope training is totally under practiced. I set up a jungle gym just for this task out by the tent-icle.
Incidentally, too much corn with the greens, gotta watch that in the future.

Day Off

Lou and I went to the costume shop. I got a giant profiterole outfit and he got a canoli outfit. People keep askin’ us if Halloween is early or something. Mostly we just wanted an excuse to dress up and hammer each other with baseball bats. It’s a new game we call “Cocoa Dulce”.

Day #31

New campaign:

develop skills in the children to get Oscar drunk

It’s not that he’s not already pretty loose, I mean he’s downright tight, dude. He just bugs me sometimes and I overheard someone talking about skill sets and ostinati bass figures, and I didn’t know what the second one was. So Oscar, prepare to lift up your coattails and shit out your child-poisoned liver.

Maybe we can marry Oscar’s dead liver to Loretta’s lame haircut. Chumps.

Day #62

eh.

We busted up a ring of cleverly disguised Rebrian drug pipes, I think this was one of the biggest accomplishments of this quarter. These perps were real good at what they did; I saw a bong made out of a peach pie (it was warm, too!), there was a shiv made out of a taco, a crack pipe inside of a strüdel, and the most beautiful wedding cake hookah with five tiers. Pretty breathtaking, eh?
So we’ve got these chumps in our holding pen for the moment, and Dowager’s been having to hold Chiefly Anne back from cutting them up, she’s pretty big on abusing prisoners ever since we took out her heart and made her delicious on the insides.

Day #37

Orchestrated a conjugal visit for Oscar and Olivier’s Grandpa.
They met on the tracks, by the run down fishing platform. I had Loretta film their encounter on Super 8, and we’re going to hijack the Repferian public television networks and show it tomorrow after prime time is done.

This whole orchestration has reminded me how lonely I, H to the muthafucking F am. Someone called me a “horse-fucker” today and that hit a little too close to home. I’m not so lonesome I could cry, but I do hear that lonesome whistle blowing, and it ain’t blowing me. I just want a Shetland Pony of my own to hunker down with, to share with me the stresses of Reconquering. Really I want a sacrifice victim into whom I could channel my pain and whose youth I could syphon off. Or whatever.

Day #69

Breeze blowin in
Breeze blowin out

Had an interview with Charlie Rosenwinkler from Entertainment People. Over piping hot joe (as fixed by Superstar Noriega, the new joe piper), we reminisced. We shared. We ratted. About older days which have now gone on by.

At the bottom of a barrel of Johnnie Walker (brown label), I found a kitty cat. I picked him up, licked him off, and nursed him back to health on rare St. Bernard meat. I think he’ll be Puss’n’Boots in no time.

Day #90

Ordered Little Harry a cheese muffaletta. I think he’ll really like it as soon as he learns how to eat.

Day #17

Dwee, doo doo doo dwee-dum!
Buzz, bah, buzzbedoopoodwah!

Sure am awake now!

Ate a good corntastic fresh out of Dowager’s cat’s skillet-enclosure, and that hit the spot. Evaded detection too; the tracking device on my ankle is set to go off when the cornstarch levels get high, but we managed to rewire it to some poor unsuspecting tree-frog community in Repferia.

If I were making a movie of this all, I would have just cut to the tree frogs, but instead this is just kind of awkward. Yup. Nothing more to say about it.

Day #83

Toast of the town.

Chiefly Anne drenched the whole camp in garlic, oregano, butter, and mozzarella cheese and turned up the heat before she realized that Dowager and I are lactose intolerant!

From beneath the spiced dairy blanket, we were clutching each other, letting out gas something fierce, crying from gastro pain, and consistently eating.

Meanwhile, Oscar was having an eminent domain argument with those tree frogs to keep Anne’s camp-sized Texas Toast properly zoned in the delicious sector.
In the end, we celebrated my new stomach lining over Hennessy and pork fritters, which Dowager’s cat coated with spicy tuna.

Day #61

Someone had a crazy idea to make a movie with a soundtrack of people speaking. She called it a “talkie”. I said as in a “walkie-talkie”? She screamed, “I’m getting out of here, no one understands me, etc.”
Turns out her name is Eleanor and she’s been working undercover for the Rebrian Authorities. After she huffed out of camp, we saw this flier on a tree near the clearing with her face and the word “WANTED” on it. So we had a laugh at that. I mean that shit is fucking funny, no?

I called Pal, my liaison on the inside of the Rebrian Front, and Pal said he’d never seen the flier before. I said, oh, that’s too bad, it’s a remarkable likeness. And her décolletage, it’s gorgeous. And really the “WANTED” is so striking. Pal used to dabble in typography.

I am just making this up right now, so fuck off

I punched Knute Rockne in the face so fucking hard, his teeth feel out. I used all my might and all my mind. And then Cowboy Billy Shatner came in and stuke a poker through my nutes. Youch.
I conducted a terribly moving rendition of Einstein on the Beach today, in which Ursula from Under the Sea: The Little Mermaid III had to jerk Einstein off, except he wasn’t expecting it.
To cap it off, Dowager scraped some “juice” off of a box of laced SnoCaps he snuck into the country, and we were pretty zoned after for a while.
I FUCKING WON!! So that’s why today is called, “Whole Entire Week Off, Part VI: The Reckoning starts back into itself before getting stabbed in the leg”. We know that I can count to 4, 6, and 8, and we know about weasels. We know about armaments, and we know about Italian, and we fried the new PepBoys mind like six times over. We have worm wrist warmers that go to our elbow, and we have whispered, “I love you, and I want your arm.” And we have heard the non-George Martin version of The Long and Winding Road and fired the whole orchestra. I love revisionists. His fucking teethe came out. I don’t know how much longer I can keep my feelings to myself.

Day #36

I had a strange confrontation.

I went down to the local FBS affiliate to meet some journalists who were thinking of endorsing the campaign. These people seemed pretty nice, they played a pretty good bebop, too. But for some reason they were asking us for all these concessions – like educational refurbishment and new weather balloons, and then I started stammering. For some reason, an executive named after a Cutex brand I will not name here started attacking my character and insinuated I was being spoon-fed by the counter-Trotskyites, which is clearly ridiculous. I left in a hurry, before the news hour you know, but I wish I could keep the counter-movements of South Taqueria straight, it’s a real pain. I might get shot at or something, and no one wants that.

Day #74

Rewrote the book.
Crunched some numbers and realized I need some work done on my dentures. Usually I let the numbers sit for a while in the milk, and then they’re all soft when you eat them, but some siege alarms were going off and I didn’t get my usual allotment of time for brekist. I’ll have to take some time from Little Harry’s breakfast play date with Amelia on Sunday. He doesn’t need that anyway, he’s still pretty overjoyed with that cheese muffaletta. He’s been using it as a basketball.

Day #78

About to earn my sea legs.

Steamboat Captain Earl stopped by with is new yacht on its way to the Vatican, and I asked I could spin it. He said,
“Have ya got yer sea legs?”
and I said nope.
So he put me out in the middle of the bay and parachuted back to shore while I worked the choppy seas around me into a manageable downhill slope.

Then I took the blindfold off and they’d made a cake for me! What swell guys!

Day #35

Found a miraculous place –
a natural bath on the side of Unamed Jurist Mountain that contained instead of geologically warmed water piping hot soy sauce.
It looked like bubbling tar. I sent the kids in with their water wings & flippers to check out how fun it would be, and turns out we marinated them just nice.

Day #17.5

There are three stages of baking in making a traditional cowboy hoe-down.

The first is when you turn the oven on, and it first becomes flaky and interesting. This is known as the “germinal” stage, or “désolé”.

The second, usually conducted over the Gulf of Bothnia, is the “Swiss” stage, in which the white duck juice starts turning brown – that’s how you know it’s authentic.

The third is when you rush it up the stairs, still piping hot, and hide it under your partner’s bed. This is known as “walk off”.

Day #26

Dowager presented me with the number from our samovar research. Really some sacrosanct stuff coming out of that department.

He wanted me, mostly, to hold him tight and never let go. I cleared my throat, adjusted my tie, and told him very politely that that would be overstepping the bounds of the reconquerer/salad preparer relationship. I hope he understands, because I would hate to have cut the conduit to all those baby greens.

One of the big samovar innovations is putting caraway seeds in with the steeping tea.

Day #49.5

This charming zombie walked into camp today with a killer zipline.

Have you ever seen an undead with a shark-tooth suit on with his tongue out, being transported through the air with the meager security of his two zombie hands, suspended over a baracuda infested channel, on his way from one island to another? His tongue is usually flapping in the breeze.

Day #92

Dominated at water polo. Threw a running hand mixer in the other team’s pool and they got pretty charged up.

Created a dance mix for the after party. Successful. Full of success.

Will wash my rubber ducky tomorrow, just after I change Shanda’s aunt’s linens, she pays me pretty well for that particular service, if you catch my drift.

Tired though, been a busy week.

And then it just kind of peters out… I think he went after some ponies on a prolonged re-reconquest, he was pretty spaced out after the third full month…