Ouchy Wrists—A Birthday Piece By Fake Larry
Pretty Larry, ink drawing by Kelly Eddington, 2023. From The U2 Night Sky.
Ouchy Wrists—A Birthday Piece by Fake Larry
Starring PJ DeGenaro as Fake Larry
Howya. Fake Larry here. I am relieved to inform you that PJ, our Poet Laureate In Perpetuity, is not feeling very poetic just now, and so has authorized me to use this space to say whatever I want for me very own birthdee. Fair play to the oul’ wagon.
Pleased as I am to escape being immortalized in another of her unstructured “pieces,” in which I am a metaphorical house builder, or an aloof baby-of-the-family, or some falling-apart geezer distributing Halloween sweets with ouchy wrists, I was still hoping that someone would be available to help me celebrate.
Unfortunately, Bono and Edge chose to recover from their Woody Guthrie Prize triumph by buggering off to the Shetland Islands, and are now celebrating Halloween in Funzie, so that Edge can finally see the Funzie Conglomerates — rocks that formed between 480 and 390 million years ago when an ocean called “Iapetus” closed and the continents on either side collided to form a huge mountain chain. Yer man’s been rattling on about this for years. Bono agreed to follow Edge on the Funzie trails, provided they are relatively level and not too dangerous. I happen to know he’ll be feckin’ panicking all the while because you have to take an airplane to reach the nearest pub. (Doesn’t sound Funzie to me.)
After that, it’s another quick wee flight to San Marino, where Bono will accept the 2025 Marinara Literary Award for his memoir that I have still not finished reading.
At the same time, Adam will be lending his plummy tones, endearing lisp, and mustache to the narration for a documentary on the life and work of Gerhard August Schplitzengraber, whose name I can’t pronounce, but who is one of the lesser-known German Expressionists. There’s an Irish connection, of course — he once sprained his ankle in Temple Bar and had to spend a fortnight in Dublin. Did he paint something while he was here? Spoiler alert: I do not care.
But what about poor me? How am I spending me 64th birthdee? I have come up with the following three options, and am opening this up to AchtoonBaby’s legions of readers to help me choose:
Option 1: Drunken Father Brown marathon: In which I steal me daughter’s Britbox account, grab a bottle of double cask Macallan, and delve into the oddly non-Anglican English village in which someone is murdered every week, the cops always arrest the wrong guy, and only the local Catholic priest — who is always on scene when the murder happens — can figure things out. “I believe Lord Pantyweather was poisoned, and the scent of almonds would suggest cyanide.” There are 12 (twelve) seasons of this, so I can probably make a decent night of it.
Option 2: Take over U2’s X account, pretending to be Bono:
Option 3: Cake and an early night.
I’m leaning toward Father Brown. Also cake.
Who am I kidding? It’s Halloween, and I will be spending the evening distributing sweets (with me ouchy wrists) to the privileged children of Southside Dublin. And because I am so inherently evil, I’m going to leave you with something terrifying. Click if you dare!
Good night, God bless, and happy birthdee to me, of course! - Larry x