Frank Portman - King Dork

Cocksparrer(HOT-spur): working-class English punk band who could have been the Sex Pistols if they had played their cards right. But they didn’t.

cock tease(kok TAYCE): an attractive female whose behavior is erratic, unpredictable, or otherwise unsatisfactory.

collage(koe-LODGE-ay): a piece of paper with things cut out from magazines glued on it in an attractive or arresting pattern. Has replaced the expository essay as the preferred means for assessing a student’s academic progress in American public schools.

concupiscent(con-koo-PISK-unt): wide open and up for anything.

D and D(DAN-dee): a role-playing game played only by very cool guys.

dilettante(dial-TAN-tay): one who can never stick with anything for more than a couple of minutes. An unjustly ma-ligned lifestyle.

The Doors(duh DERZ): there is an extremely well-organized conspiracy among boomers to cultivate the fiction that this band doesn’t totally suck. The worst thing in the history of the universe.

Dr. Dee(der DAY): Queen Elizabeth I’s astrologer. He put a hex on the Spanish Armada, saving England and ensuring that, four hundred years later, the Beatles would end up singing in English rather than Spanish. He was also given a weird code by angelic beings he saw in a crystal, and probably needed medication that hadn’t been invented yet.

Dr. Who (dra-WOO): a more sophisticated, English version of Star Trek.

Bob Dylan(BAY-bee ZIM-er-mn): there was a time in my 336

life when I fervently wanted to be Bob Dylan. Then I realized that practically everybody else in the world wanted to be Bob Dylan, too, and that if we all got our wish, being Bob Dylan would be so common that it would be completely meaningless to be Bob Dylan, even for the actual, original Bob Dylan, and the world would essentially end up exactly the same as it was before. The alpha Bob Dylans would beat up the less alpha Bob Dylans, the female Bob Dylans would confuse the hell out of the male Bob Dylans, the teacher Bob Dylans would make the student Bob Dylans read The Catcher in the Rye, the parent Bob Dylans would call continual inane family discussions with the kid Bob Dylans, and the sadistic, psychotic structure of the universe would be more or less preserved. Nature is a bitch.

epigraph(a-PIG-rape): an obscure quotation at the beginning of a book designed to make the author of the book seem smarter and more well-read than its readers. An epigraph that doesn’t make the reader feel confused, small, worthless, and stupid is an epigraph that has failed.

Therefore, the best epigraphs have no discernible relationship to the contents of the books they adorn.

epilogue(EPP-ul-oh-gay): just when you think the book is over, there are suddenly like twenty more pages to go, because some writers just don’t know when to stop. Don’t read epilogues: it will only encourage them.

epitaph(epp-EE-toff ): an obscure quotation on a tomb-stone, designed to make the dead guy’s life seem less pointless.

Europe(YOUR-ip): we beat these guys in World War II.

Foghat(foe-GAT): the fifth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

Funkadelic(FUN-kee-assgroove-a-TELL-ick-ness): the funki-est band in the world, unless you count the Isley Brothers.

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genuflect(g-NU-fuh-lect): sometimes, the church only requires one half of a person’s body to be kneeling.

gifted and talented(gif-TED and tal-on-TED): gifted and talented students are those who have figured out that if you make a little effort to leave the right impression, very little will be expected of you in the end.

Gilligan’s Island (GILL-gan SIS-land): a television show, certain episodes of which contain the secret to the meaning of existence, concealed by means of coded messages and obscure symbolism.

Che Guevara(chee goo-ey-VAH-ra): a Latin American revolutionary famous for his sexiness and hip T-shirts. A cross between Elvis and Charles Manson. An inexplicably adored Holden Caulfield for the political-minded.

George Harrison(GORE-jer-us ISS-un): guitar player and Siddhartha-type. The hairiest of all the Beatles.

hemisemidemiquaver(HEE-mee-SUM-thin-ore-UDD-er): a sixty-fourth note. Many guitar players believe the object of the game is to play as many of these as possible, leaving as few spaces as they can for the entire song. It’s a test of endurance.

Hitler(HIL-ter): a thoroughly evil totalitarian mass murderer from Germany. Seriously, you can’t get more evil than him.

Admirers of other totalitarian mass murderers take comfort in the notion that at least their guy’s evilness doesn’t meet this standard; plus they point out that in their guy’s dicta-torship everyone who is not murdered gets free health care and education.

Humanities(hum-in-AN-uh-teez): the study of random things, characterized by self-admiration and extremely easy assignments.

homoeroticism(home-AY-oh-RAW-tick-iz-um): dudes being turned on by dudes, or dudes ridiculing other dudes by 338

behaving as they believe dudes who really are turned on by dudes behave with respect to those dudes they are turned on by, under the impression that this is hilarious or otherwise worthwhile. As irritating as this is for dudes who in fact are not turned on by dudes, it must be even worse for those who are.

horological(whore-a-lodge-ICK-el): related to clocks or time.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (in-WAY-shun off THE

BUD-ee SNITCH-ehz): no one has yet come up with a better hypothesis for why our society is the way it is. The third-greatest movie ever made.

The Jam(the JIM): fake-mod dolphins from around the eleventh century. Breaks the ice at parties. The twenty-third-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

Joan Jett(John JET-ah): guitar player for the Runaways, the fourteenth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

Johnny Thunders(joe NEETH-un-derz): the name of a Kinks song, and the guitar player for the New York Dolls.

The Kinks(thee KEEN-uck-ess): the third-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

KISS(nites in SERV-iss uv SAY-tan): considering the fact that KISS is four middle-aged guys in mime makeup, it’s extremely impressive that they somehow managed to swing becoming the eleventh-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

Timothy Leary(tee-MOTH-ee lee-AHR-ay): famous college professor turned drug fiend from the sixties.

Led Zeppelin(leads a-PEEL-in): hey, gang! Let’s all get stoned and head down to the Mississippi Delta and watch four goofy-ass English guys in wizards’ hats and girls’

blouses play “the blues” and teach us everything there is to know about elfin princesses; gossamer wings; the tooth 339

fairy; the land of Winken, Blinken, and Nod; the wise and dark and mystic pilgrim brooding in the mist; and Puff the Magic Dragon. Come on, it’ll be magical.

Lemmy(let-me): “singer” of Motorhead.

libidinous(LI-bid-IGH-ness): one of the many fancy-pants ways to say “horny.”

magnanimous(MAG-na-MIN-ee-us): if you are generous and kind of full of yourself, this word is for you.

Make-out/Fake-out(MACK-it FACK-it): a public humiliation technique that owes its power to the reliably universal desire to possess what one is not allowed to touch.