The 15 exercises
I previously mentioned are a great way to begin accessing the power of dumb, but they are only a start. Aside from sustaining a massive head injury, true dumbness cannot be achieved overnight. in his book, Reality
Is A Hairy Biscuit, Author Bernardo Castrato goes into incredibly boring detail on how he spent six years as a dopey disciple, living in an empty refrigerator box with a homeless guru named Leon Juan who imparted upon him the great dumbness that helped young Bernardo reach an extremely
high level of unenlightenment. Let me
read to you an excerpt from this tediously fascinating lump of words and punctuation:
My first night in the refrigerator
box with Leon was quite eventful. As I slept, he urinated on my feet. I assumed that this was his way of marking me as a chosen one...a worthy student. I found out later that he had just had to take a leak and
it was too cold for him to step outside. At approximately 1 a.m., I was awakened by strange guttural noises. In the dim light I could make out Leon, hunched over in the corner, bobbing up and down as if he was performing some shamanic ritual. Sputtering growls emerged from the
deepest recesses of his throat and he sounded
like he was channeling the untamed spirit of some wild beast. It turned out that he had just accidentally inhaled a lit cigar butt.
The next
morning, I followed Leon downtown to the garbage dumpster behind Denny's. He crawled inside and emerged minutes later holding a small gold key. I was in awe. Amidst a receptacle filled with trash, this unassuming bum
was able able to find some sort of mysterious treasure. After a brief examination of the object, he swallowed it. Was this his way of silently telling me that the key to what we desire is inside all of us? Or was he just very hungry? A
prolonged belch did little to clarify
the situation. We spent the rest of the day cursing at a fire hydrant.
That night
was extremely cold and i was grateful to Leon for keeping me warm by once again urinating on my feet. The day ws so eventful, that I had a hard time sleeping. Leon, on the other
hand fell right to sleep and after a
few minutes, he began to speak. I grabbed an old cotton swab to use as a writing instrument and by using my own earwax as ink, I began to transcribe Leon's
mutterings. although some of what he
said was unintelligible, I did my best to write down what I heard.
Quote: "Dawn
is the beginning of life and all who dwell in the cookie jar. Paste your doo-dads and give me a dollar. If you touch me I will...swing your na na's. Eeegy Eeegy poo poo. Put the
goat in a tugboat. Bartender, spank
me quickly. Dinky, stinky and stretchy. Who you callin' Captain Cuckoo. Eye, Eye. Pierce it right there, baby. Reality is a hairy biscuit." Unquote.
His last
sentence seemed to provide a complex answer to the simple questions I had been asking myself most of my life. Reality IS a hairy biscuit.
Bernardo Castrato disappeared
not long after his book was published. Rumors abound. Some say that today he lives as a hermit in the crawlspace of Nicholas Cage's summer home in Mitchell, South Dakota. Still others believe that
Castrato died along with Leon in an unsuccessful attempt to mug a jackhammer. No one knows for certain, but most people agree, Bernardo Castrato was fortunate enough to study under one of the true masters of dumb.
I was fortunate.
My father was one of the biggest idiots to ever successfully procreate. During the day, dad wrestled water moccasins at an old Florida tourist trap called Malaria Cove. At
night, he combed the swamplands, searching
for the Loch Ness monster. His ignorance was legendary and he lost his life tragically when his head became caught in a souvenir penny making machine. By the time they pulled him free, his face was completely flattened and he had
the deep imprint of a mermaid on the
back of his skull. I was only eleven when he died, but I still remember some of the foolish things he used to scream in my general direction. "Never tell a duck you can swim!" "Plaster is a gift from the almighty!"
"What have you done with my real son!" I
remember when I was about seven, he sat me down on his lap, looked me straight in the eye, then pushed me off on the floor. When I looked up at him with a confused expression on my face he laughed and told me "Son, telephones are
overrated. If you want to eat cereal in the dark, you don't have to call anyone and tell them about it!" I was puzzled by what he said and to this day, I have no idea what he was talking about, but it doesn't matter. That, in a nutshell, is
the simple beauty of dumb.
