Growing up a sensitive genius orphan in the conservative small town of Jews, Confederate Flag, it was evident to all around me from the beginning that I was destined for grander circumstances. In one of my earliest recollections, I am six years old, reciting from memory the complete works of Francois Rabelais at Show-and-Tell as my howling classmates bash the top of their desks with oversized hammers in rage and confusion and hurl tractor engine parts at me.
I remember how brightly the stars shone at night. As I laid in a barren field beside the county highway, on a makeshift cot of steel wool and discarded fast-food napkins, gripping a pocket knife to fend off the feral possums grown snarling and beastly after drinking from the radiation-poisoned Taintstain Creek nearby, I would gaze up at the constellations, vowing that I would one day perform stand-up comedy on a regional cable access television showcase, and join that tapestry of immortals above.
