The Bar Jester Advice Column Greatest Hits Vol. 1
(Photo: “Bar Jester as Friendly & Caring Advice Columnist.” Credit: Q-C Paparazzi)
Rock Island, IL
Editor’s Note: Supply for the Bar Jester’s Complete Collected Syndicated Advice Columns has had difficulty keeping up with demand. To meet some of that demand, the publisher, Radon House, recently issued a cheap first volume of the Greatest Hits. Herewith, a sample (excerpted with permission from the publisher):
Dear Bar Jester,
I am a college senior thinking about graduate programs in sociology and/or cultural studies. Do you have any advice for me?
Sincerely,
Socially Constructed
Dear Socially Constructed,
It is true, as the Lord Hamlet said, that the Almighty hath fixed his canon ’gainst self-slaughter, but in your case I’m sure He would make an exception. Good luck.
Dear Bar Jester,
Since about 1995 I have been living a homosexual lifestyle. Is this wrong?
Sincerely,
Snake Handler
Dear Mr. Handler,
Wrong? Are you kidding? Unless you’re writing for Glamour magazine, “lifestyle” is always the wrong word. You are as confused as those quack physicians who think you can change your lipid profile by changing your diet and “lifestyle.” Here are a few rules to write by: Farmers don’t choose the agrarian “lifestyle.” Union electricians don’t have blue-collar “lifestyles.” Only people on the cover of People have lifestyles—women who “accessorize,” men with “product” in their hair, you get the idea. My advice is that you avoid using words that don’t appear in the first edition of the OED.
Dear Bar Jester,
I read somewhere that drinking beer is unhealthy. What do you think?
Sincerely,
Barley Hoppin-Anymore
Dear Mr. Hoppin-Anymore,
Quit reading until you can find more suitable material.
Dear Bar Jester,
I am a member of the Gender Studies Department at a liberal arts college, but I don’t seem to be having much of an effect on the students. Some semesters hardly anyone enrolls in my classes. As a successful teacher yourself, I wonder if you could give me any advice?
Sincerely,
R.M. Pitt-Hare
Dear Professor Pitt-Hare,
For the moment I will leave aside the question of whether Gender Studies is a liberal art and offer two pieces of advice. First, learn what a dangling modifier is; second, don’t end declarative sentences with a question mark. But do be of good cheer: if you have nothing to say, you probably also have no clue how to say it, so it’s unlikely that you’re doing much damage—unless you’re wearing sleeveless tops and gesticulating a lot.
daer bar jseter,
i read yr writin u say txting & selfones r bad well im using 1 now & drivin 2 soccer so thare.
mandy
Dear mandy,
I’m looking in my crystal ball right now and this is what I see: your thumbs get plenty of exercise, so they’re fairly slender, but you have an ass as wide as the Trans-Siberian railroad. I know you have a busy “lifestyle,” but try to keep your eyes on the road when you drive. I’d hate to read in the paper that those evenly-spaced kids, MacKenzie, Taeler, and Dylan, sustained injuries because you got yourself all in a Twitter and drove your Yukon through the front window of the Starbucks.
Oh, and now your husband is coming into view. The convention is over. He’s sucking down a scotch & soda at the hotel bar and playing footsie with that floozie from R&D. I think I can even hear the muzak. It’s one of his favorites: “you came and you gave without taking. . . .”
Dear Bar Jester,
I’m under a restraining order because I’ve been stalking my favorite writer. This is embarrassing, but I can’t help myself. It’s not only that he’s so hot (which he is). I just love the way he writes. Sometimes he uses really BIG words, like “quarantine”! Help!?!
Dear BG,
Have you actually graduated from the New York State School for the Blind or are you still enrolled there?
Dear Bar Jester,
The other day I drove by a place called “Heritage Church.” The sign out front said “Real People. Real Faith.” This sounds too good to be true. I’m thinking about joining. What do you think?
Sincerely,
High on Cheese Sauce
Hi, High:
Yes! By all means! Heritage is vital to ecclesial life. It’s good to know which Ecumenical Councils approved drums and electric guitars—and for which parts of the liturgy. As you probably know, the word “heritage” itself derives from the medieval Latin, hereditagium, and suggests in the user a sophisticated understanding of Church history. And, in my experience, linguistically adept people who feel the need to congratulate themselves on being “real” are realer than bread and wine for sure. I bet you’ll even be able to tithe by using your American Express card (don’t leave church without it!) or by the pay-roll deduction plan. One cautionary note, though: be sure you have some pre-ripped blue jeans and a good t-shirt to wear—because above all you want to be real.
Dear Bar Jester,
I follow an electronic journal (it’s really a blawg, but the “writers” there don’t want to admit it) that makes me depressed all day every day. The contributors focus on everything that’s bad in America, like the banking crisis, environmental degradation, and coffee-stirrers. But what about the good things no one ever writes about? Can you help me think of some?
Sincerely,
America! Love It Or Leave It!
Dear ALIOLI,
I assume you’re referring to several of those qualities we share with the Roman Empire right before its collapse, such as a widening gap between the rich and the poor, agricultural decline, political corruption, imperialist motives, and an addiction to entertainment. Or do you have in mind that political observation of Chesterton’s—that the first sign of death is not that a body shrinks but that it bloats? Or maybe you mean to draw attention to our moribund band of journalists who, like other adolescents, are incurious about everything save the latest portable gizmo—you know, that iPod-toting Sibling Society Press Corps comprised of ageless pre-teens who believe that democracy can survive without jugular-seeking journalists. If you are talking about the pole-barn stores and churches squatting beneath the vigilant billboards that stand guard over—and beautify—our landscape, you’ll get no argument from me. Or maybe you mean our rates of soil and water depletion, our air quality, our diet, and our unassailable commitment to those two transcendent values, “choice” and “low prices.” All these may be added to our impressive abortion and divorce rates and the money we’ve spent on suburbia, which is a living arrangement with pretty much no future. But maybe there are some good things I’ve failed to imagine. What, specifically do you have in mind?
Dear Bar Jester,
My doctor says I have only one month to live. What should I do?
Sam in Arkansas
Dear Sam in Arkansas,
Find a four-hundred pound snaggle-tooth woman who lives in a single-wide trailer with seven or more children. Move in with her as quickly as possible. This may sound like odd advice to you, and it probably won’t cure you of what you’ve got, but it will be the longest month of your life.
The Bar Jester’s Advice Column Greatest Hits Volume 2 is available for pre-order at http://www.americanmisanthropic.com/ or at 1-800-GET-BENT. Operators are standing by.
Dear Bar Jester,
I see Sabin’s cigars arrived safely.
I’m older now. As I have traveled down/up the rocky road of life I’ve participated in any number of habits (oh hell, addictions) that are not conducive for a long life. As a result I am bald, paunchy, cranky and have one eye, one ear, one knee, one shoulder and frequent urination.
Should I pursue a career at Wal-Mart (maybe door greeter, where I’ll shout, “There’s a whole lotta consumin’ goin’ on here!”) or should I teach a course in Masters and Johnson’s “Human Sexual Response” to warm thighed, nubile college girls (though for the life of me I can’t remember why this would be fun). And, do you recommend a public university or a good Catholic college?
Gettin’ older, but tryin’ harder!
Dear Bar Jester,
I am approaching that point in my life known as “The Midlife Crisis,” or “The Red Ferrari and a Girl Roadtrip,” or “The Backpack Across Europe Sleeping in Hostels While the Family Wonders Where I Am,” or the “Mark Sanford Argentina Cruise.” My particular crisis arises from a curious dilemma. Should I chuck it all, give up my job, put my life savings into buying the decrepit old feed mill across town, turning it into a microbrewery where I can produce the fine vintages known as Weasly Pilgrim Pale Ale™ and Pasty White Boy Coffee Stout™, or should I keep my current career, which amounts to driving a desk and toggling little on/off switches in some computer somewhere while slowly growing in girth and shrinking in inseam, preparing for understudy roles as the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Michelin Man, Mr. Stay-Puft, and Moby Dick?
Weasly in Pittsburgh
Dear Bar Jester,
I should have known better, having dealt with one or two of your links before but I couldn’t help myself and so clicked upon the “Batavian Groupie” of Mr. Kauffman and as soon as the alarming visage hit my extra large screen, a certain pair of trouser oysters were sucked inward at such a velocity that they ricocheted off the top of my esophagus and careened dangerously out both ears, one breaking the wife’s beloved Wedgewood Brandy Decanter and the other blinding the dog in one eye. Which should I do first, take the dog to the emergency veterinary clinic or buy a replacement decanter? As to the missiles, I am still looking under the sofa and the dog seems to be licking its chops ominously. Please make sure to include a parental warning next time.
Sincerely,
Vienna Boys Choir Fan
Dear Gettin’ Older, Weasley in Pitt, and Vienna BCF:
Good questions all, and all would receive more sustained answers were I not beaten down this very night, and demoralized too, by the massive indifference of The Average Undergraduate to the life and work of the divine Ed Abbey.
But faithful interlocutors deserve faithfulness in return.
Gettin’ Older, the first time you have to sustain a ten minute conversation with a silk-thighed nubilly, you won’t give her a second thought. Go for the Catholic U, but take a job on the grounds crew. Meet Jesus in the falling leaves. They don’t dispute grades, “text” during class, or treat Abbey dismissively. Instead, they glow in the autumnal sun and at last crunch beautifully underfoot. Would that undergraduates did.
Weasley, you need a mid-life Chrysler. I suggest an ‘83 Dodge Ram half-ton short-bed slant-six four-speed pick-up truck. If you do nothing more than sit in it and smoke a corn-cob pipe you will feel better about driving your desk. If you do open that brewery, and I hope you do, I’ll gladly part with my best recipes: “9-5 Stout” (for the nine pounds of malt per five gallons of water), “Jude the Obscure Barley Wine,” and “Northern Comfort IPA,” guaranteed to … well, you know, obviate the need for the Ferrari, the girl, and the roadtrip.
Vienna BCF, forget the heap of glittering fragments, trust the one-eyed dog not to step on it, find those oysters, and get yourself post-post haste to a soft-handed surgeon. Wives will find other decanters, and dogs can live full rewarding lives half-blind on three legs, but a man with no oysters is … well, he’s a fan of the Vienna Boys Choir, and for him “O Holy Night” will forever mean something entirely distasteful.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Bar Jester Advice
CalumnyColumnistAs a lover of ladies, Ed I’m sure would be bemused by the fruits of the wimmins Lib movement. Rather than create equality, it created confusion. I caint rightly imagine what ole Ed woulda thunk of this latest generation of tweeting, Facebook-paging, IPod wearin, tuned out but not turned on youngsters. I do know he would have admired the scenery but , like Hayduke, he’d likely rather truck with horned toads than horned coeds. 60 seconds of electronic ebonics and he would have elected to find a Cat or two to run off the rim instead of attempting to divine the sense of these “empowered” yet essentially product-driven tempting lovelies.
The young men seem to have surrendered the field to them, opting out and finding happiness within the status rung of the beta female. So, in short, Wimmin will rule the world but nothing whatsoever will change. We might come to see codpieces on micro-minis in the fullness of time though. They shall be zippered for lipstick and mascara. The men will no doubt start competing in Bouffant Hair Mousse Competitions with the most elaborate dishabille hair frenzy winning.
But,…… youth……ahhhh.
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