The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Bob Adelman, �Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s�

Started May 15 � Finished August 1, 2005; 160 pages. Posted 11 September 2005

Well, as this book is chock full of sex, I may as well utilize the time to talk about an ex-girlfriend.

About six years back whilst working on the computers at the college newspaper, we used the lab technician�s computer and noticed he failed to log out of his yahoo user account.

This is something you never want to do in a room full of reporters.

This was also a time when online dating carried a certain stigma behind it. We soon discovered the technician created a personal ad. What was more surprising was he had a ton of responses.

Now, picture what your average computer technician in 1997 looked like: dumpy, nearly in a diabetic coma, dozens of empty lunchables boxes strewn around � that was our guy. The rest of us, being young(ish), strapping, and pathetically single couldn�t believe how many responses he had. He consciously only included pictures of himself above the neck so you wouldn�t notice that he was shaped like an hostess snowball with an egg on top, utilizing the fact that facially, he bore an amazingly similar resemblance to Ducky from Pretty and [Ed note: or in, whatever] Pink.

Supposedly. I�ve never seen that movie.

The three of us on a dare decided to put up our own personals, though I think we all had slight hopes that this would work. Since we were all in the room, however, we decided to put up sarcastic entries.

And I�m good with sarcasm.

I don�t remember exactly what I wrote, but there were vague literary allusions, mean-spirited jabs at the hoi polloi, and a general sense of fuck-all attitude. I guess I shouldn�t have been surprised when I got a response in kind.

But she was funny. After a few e-mails back and forth, I learned she lived in Mountain View, near where we were planning to do a story on a dive bar that was refusing to comply with California�s no smoking policy.

[Tangent: Now that I�m in Hawaii, I can smoke in bars again. Too bad I can�t afford cigarettes or alcohol.]

She showed up at that bar stuffed into a tiny velvet skirt. And she looked gorgeous. After a night of drinking and chess playing over whiskey and beer, it was obvious the only reason this girl wasn�t snatched up was that she was too fucking smart and intimidated most dumb bastards that are men. But I�m pretty fucking smart myself. We started dating almost immediately, though we never officially called it that.

There�s an easy way to point out how alike we were. While working at the college library, I walked past a book sale. Unnoticed and unsold underneath a table was a dictionary.

The fucking Oxford English Dictionary.

Not the two-volume OED with the type so small that it comes with its own magnifying glass. I�m talking about the 20-volume set. Actually, it was 21 if you counted the index, which I did. Hundreds of thousands of words defined. It was beautiful.

And they were selling this set for two dollars a volume.

I literally ran to the bank and back. I had to borrow a library cart to haul my purchase over to the newspaper room and it nearly snapped in half. It was so heavy that I had a hard time pushing the cart.

I called her to arrange picking up both me and my find. I was giddy with excitement, but she was absolutely ecstatic. While loading her car up with the books I had to come to terms with the fact that there was absolutely no place I could put these in my house. My shelves were spilling over as it was.

I gave them to her. I knew she would love and treasure them as much as I would. And it wasn�t a totally altruistic gift: she had to promise to buy me one of those enormous single volume dictionaries. Promises of even more sex than we were already having were also procured. She delivered on all promises.

But after a few months, enough to get over being all giggly around each other, certain things started to poke at the relationship. She had strong opinions, and had the reference to back them up, but seemed to capitulate to my views too easily. I didn�t want a yes-man, even if it was a woman who looked great in a velvet dress.

Plus, she stated she fully intended to get married before she was 30, which was rapidly approaching. Her intensity on this matter threw me off, as other little things started to whittle away at my feelings. While issues became more precarious, I suddenly found myself being relentlessly pursued by another girl on campus.

This other girl eventually won me over, only to turn out to be completely psychotic. There were many times after that relationship went sour that I mourned pushing the girl who had my dictionary away. She had only wanted to be nice to me, and for some reason I couldn�t handle that. Some people, like the psychotic ex-girlfriend, have faded nearly completely from memory, but I always had a great story about the girl who got away � with my 20-volume OED.

See, she moved shortly after we split, packing all of her things including the 21 volumes into a van and heading off to New Orleans. We stayed in touch, though there were some very long gaps at times. Usually when I heard from her, she had found a beau. She would tell me about her whatever new boyfriend she had, and the descriptions always seemed eerily familiar. He had moved into her place. He was perfect and gorgeous and appreciated good whiskey. He can play chess. There has been talk about marriage. Sprinkled into the various complements were endless repetitions of love, love, love.

And eventually she would admit that they had met about two weeks previously.

�Why do you do that?� I asked her last year when she came to visit. �You know that it�s your intensity that scares people away, don�t you? Give it a little time before throwing yourself so completely into something like this.�

She was unapologetic. �I�d rather give my all in something like a relationship. What�s the point in not doing so?�

I guess I really don�t have an answer to that.

Her rollercoaster continued and I watched her go through two more relationships, both first listing how happy and complete she was, eventually morphing into how devastated she had become. The last relationship for her ended a little over a month ago.

She said she had enough with her problems in New Orleans and was making arrangements to leave. Nearing the end of August, logistics forced her to stay in Louisiana for another six months.

Oh, don�t freak out. She�s fine. But the Oxford English Dictionary? Totally destroyed.

Here�s to new starts, baby. Hope you do well with them.


Rating: Worth used.

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