How to do the wrong thing right
So, what is the official definition of “thanksgiving” anyhow? Well, glad you asked, pilgrim: Upon consulting three reliably official sources — The Webster Handy College Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary and the “Type Here to Search” feature on my new Dell — I discovered all three define the term with near identical verbiage: Both dictionaries refer to it as, “The act of giving thanks, especially to God,” whereas Dell calls it, “The expression of gratitude, especially to God.”
Neither feasting nor food, apparently, are anywhere to be found among the definitive meanings, leaving one to conclude what has always been suspected from reading between the lines of our American history books about Capt. John Smith and his passengers, but never dared say aloud: That among the smattering survivors of The Mayflower cultists’ first winter — in thanks that following autumn once the crops were safely in — those still standing all merrily went on an orgiastic, four-day-long bacchanalian bender, expressive of their God-fearing gratitude for Him (perhaps especially choosing to kill off those other shiftless, varmint-heathen sect members, instead of them), with the tradition-birthing legend of pumpkins, roasted turkeys and wild cranberries virtually serving little more feasting-function than our current-day equivalency to happy hour bar snacks would.
Fast-forwarding 400 years, and up here inside my Dallas sky aerie office, adjacent to my writing desk of its rather puritan-ish antiquity (a two-seater partners’ desk, ornately replete with carved American chestnut claw feet and a varnished, dark green leather velum writing top) reposes a 180-degree-turn of contrast in modernity, strictly utilitarian of function, and designed to be nothing more than what it invisibly is: just a plain ugly, blandly beige, boxy metal filing cabinet, which invariably inspires me to always refer to it, grandly, as “The Ask Howard Gay Archival Library Canon Repository.” In other words, all it does is store my column’s queer-bait queries, filed alphabetically, according to subject matters that only gays have much interest in, and sometimes even that’s not much.
Case in point: Nary a question filed within said archive may be accused of suffering any Thanksgiving gluttony. Hell, even such fetish/extreme obscurities as the “necrophilia,” chastity,” “teratophilia” and “K-9” folders pique a far girthier gay interest than do any homosexual’s “nutritional concerns.”
In sorry truth, I have amassed, during an accumulation of nearly 14 years now, precisely four questions pertaining to food—four! Moreover, fully half of these rare delicacies were published at least half-a-dozen years back, and the other two never were, nor will be, at all.
Of the exactly two food questions I’ve published, the first was actually more of a detective request, involving my tracking down some cryptically rare recipe, of vaguely Eastern/Tibetany origins, for a penis enlargement poultice that requires only seven ingredients, yet guarantees “any man show large always, as ever like the horse, when apply to the member for one turn of hourglass.” Surprisingly, Inspector Hercule Howard actually sleuthed this mythical recipe out — it really does exist. (Albeit, oddly missing are any affirmational testaments to its transmogrifying powers of permanently turning light switches into horses within just an hour.)
As for the other remaining ancient history question, it hit publication jackpot, via just straightforwardly asking (major yawner), “How many empty calories are there in an average ejaculation of sperm?” (Yes, this, above all others, is the one question I’m constantly having to answer at least once a year since Ask Howard’s long ago, Bush Era inception.) By far, still, it’s my most popular query: God only knows scurrilously why.
Which takes us now to those remaining two questionable food queries that didn’t get published, and why not? Well, the first inquired, “Out of the myriad of all phallic-shaped fruits and vegetables, Howard, which ones wisely need always be peeled, first, prior to anal insertion; or, should one jadedly just assume nowadays that even ‘organic’ can’t be trusted anymore to truly be pesticide-free, either?” Yeah, exactly, sweet readers: Enough said about some dude’s cucumbers, zucchinis, eggplants and bananas. Who the hell gives a juicy funk anyhow when they’re that horny? Right, bois? Organic is as nonorganic does.
And lastly, for this year’s Thanksgiving column, we arrive to that (also unpublished) fourth “dietary concerns” question. In all honesty, it’s one of my favorite questions asked ever, which, as you’ll shortly see yourself, is the exact same reason why it was never published:
“Dear Howard, Ice cream or cake? — Sweet Tooth”
And that was all there was to it: Nothing else. Just a mouthwatering question asked in four simple words. Hence, with this being as good a Thanksgiving column template-guide as any, a simple rifling through Howard’s Gay Archival Library Canon Repository quickly unearths brevity pay-dirt, filed under (appropriately enough) a tab titled, “one-sentence wonders;” thus, guys, pardon the turkeys, please, and let’s thankfully just get right to the quick-and-short of it.
Dear Howard: Do you ever get love notes from boys? — Shy Guy
Dear Opey: Love notes from boys? Where are you composing this blushing Valentine’s from anyhow, Ophelia — your fourth grade recess monkey bars? No, I can’t recall having ever received a love note, per se; now lust notes, certainly… if you want to politely call such truck stop-esque graffiti “notes” of love. Additionally, more than several notes have I received with passionate sentiments expressed to me of a burning hate-and-loathing; subsequently, where love is concerned, well, I’ve always more preferred it be verbally expressed, rather than penned, but then I’m old-school like that . . . and from men, though, not boys.
Dear Howard: Why is it that there are, you think, so few gay male professional chefs? It seems such a natural fit. — Meat and Taters
Dear Chateaubriand & Pommes Frites: For the same reason, you think, there are so many gay female professional golfers? Ask a bigoted cliché, and you’ll get answered more reflectively than if strung upside down with diamonds wearing a green Masters’ blazer to the James Beard Awards.
Dear Howard: I’m already a self-professed gambling addict, and now I’m beginning to also question my bedroom habits. Could sex really (wink, wink) be addictive? — Benny and His Jet
Dear Electric Boots: Sex, addictive? Hmmmph! Of course, it’s not addictive; hell, I oughta know — I’ve been doing it for years!
Dear Howard: I’m a beginner crossword puzzle enthusiast — it keeps me out of trouble: What is a four-letter slang word meaning, “To accidentally knock over?” It a gay term? — Stumped in Silver Dollar City
Dear Queen of the Silver Dollar: A “gay” term? Honey, what kind of respectable Southerner are you anyhow, that you’ve never heard of the oft hysterically-used word “tump” before? “Stop, Suzie-Jean . . . now, Miss Priss, you’re a-fixin’ to tump it over!”
Dear Howard: Not that it’s any of my faggoty business, but are you a creationist or a Darwinist? — Walt
Dear Disney On Ice: An amusingly mediocre anthology of fairytales, the Book of Genesis is.
Dear Howard: Is it possible, for real, to become sexually attracted to an inanimate object? — Beaux (the ‘x’ is silent)
Dear DumBoXXX: I dunno, Bo, why don’t you pull open that drawer full of dildos next to your bed and ask whichever one of ‘em’s the greasiest.
PS: Dear Sweet Tooth: Cake. Every time, cake: I’ve never met a slice of cake yet that I didn’t enthusiastically welcome to come on inside, sweetie, and join me!
— Howard Lewis Russell
Have a question about love, sex, etiquette or anything else hat needs a special spin from Howard? Send your problem to AskHoward@DallasVoice.com and he may answer it.