I’ve read some really good books lately (“Reading Lolita in Tehran” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” among them) but for sheer enjoyment, John Hodgman’s “The Areas of My Expertise” takes the cake, the hobo cake that is. Actually the book’s full title is, “AN ALMANAC OF COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE COMPILED WITH INSTRUCTIVE ANNOTATION AND ARRANGED IN USEFUL ORDER BY ME, JOHN HODGMAN, A PROFESSIONAL WRITER, IN THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE, WHICH INCLUDE: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Hobo Matters, Food, Drink & Cheese (A Kind of Food), Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels, Haircuts, Utopia, What Will Happen in the Future, and Most Other Subjects.” Technically, I think the title goes on and encompasses much of the book’s introduction, which is cleverly printed in small type around the cover, the spine, the back of the book and the front flap.
Though the book claims to be an almanac of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, I believe that Hodgman, in fact, made most of it up. I’m fairly certain he did.
I found out about this literary treasure while watching The Greatest Television Show in the History of the World, also known as “The Daily Show with John Stewart.” Stewart, who is apparently an avid reader and a very clever guy, often invites authors onto his program. He also likes to talk to these authors as one author to another. Stewart, as I’m sure you know, helped pen the brilliant literary masterpiece, “America: The Book.”
Anyway, as I’m watching the “Daily Show,” Stewart introduces his next guest, a writer for the New York Times Magazine: John Hodgman. Then this really tweedy, nerdy guy comes out, looking kind of shy and uncomfortable. Stewart, with a completely straight face, starts talking about the book as if it’s some ordinary almanac containing, well, COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE. And then he mentions that Hodgman has written quite a bit about hoboes.
I knew at that point that I would buy the book. Or at least put it on my Christmas list. Which is what I did. And my dear mother did purchase it for me. I’ve been laughing since I tore off the wrapping paper.
Among the highlights of the section entitled “Hobo Matters” are these gems:
• “When in the spring of 1932 great masses of unemployed veterans descended upon Washington to urge the passing of the Bonus Bill, hoboes came with them. Under the leadership of Joey Stink-Eye Smiles, they infiltrated the White House, pocketing sandwiches and replacing Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills with one of their own, Hobo Joe Junkpan. And across the country they began a coordinated reign of terror: soiling featherbeds, salting the cornfields, and dancing manic, heavy-footed jigs on parlor floors while ordinary citizens looked on in horror. In Kansas City, a hobo declared himself Duke of All the West and began demanding tithes. They wanted cheap beer and warm hats. They wanted bent nails and pieces of string. They demanded half barrels of swallowfeather sauce, and no one knew what they were talking about.”
• There is the story of “… Mindbender Steve, the hobo poet, who scratched out tales of boxcar life in the margins of the newspapers he had fashioned into undergarments.”
• And, of course, there is the story of Joey Stink-Eye Smiles, the hobo king, who was discovered as an infant by a group of hoboes with a blind, kingsniffing dog named Punch. The story goes like this: “That is when they first saw Gordon junior sitting upon the stair, fashioning with little hands a miniature bindle stick and wearing a full beard. The hoboes immediately knelt before him. … The child instinctively identified the three items that had belonged to the dead king: a snuff box full of dead flies, a chain of paper clips, and an unfinished pork chop.”
• Also, as advertised in an orange box on the book’s front cover, Hodgman also includes 700 hobo names. He offers, by way of advice, “… if you do decide to take to the rails, you should choose for yourself a proper hobo moniker.” Among those hobo names are such gems as Stewbuilder Dennis; Mr. Wilson Fancypants; Wicked Paul Fourteen-Toes; The Damned Swede; James Fenimore Cooper; Senator Cletus Scoffpossum; Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins; Niles Butterball, the Frozen Turkey; Chrysler LeBaron, The Fishin’ Physician, Slo-Mo Deuteronomy; The Personal Secretary to Jed; Nick Nolte; Honey Bunches of Donald; Stingo the Bandanna Origami Prodigy; Gooseberry Johnson, Head Brain of the Hobosphere; Rumpshaker Phil; Blind Buck and “Woozy,” the Invisible Seeing-Eye Dog; Sssssssssssssssss, the Hisser; Reasonably Priced Motel Reese Unger; El Boot; Huge Crybaby McWeepy; Poo-Knickers Elias; Not-Only But-Also Pete; Caboose-Fouling Ferris Ntz; Hot Gnome Jimmy Jackson; my-e-hobo.com; Overload-the-Dishwasher Mac; Transistorized Maximillian, the Hobo Cyborg; Bum-Hating Virgil Hate-Bum; Packrat Red and his Cart o’ Sad Crap; Myron Biscuitspear, the Dumpster Archeologist; Douglas, the Future of Hoboing; El Top-Hat Swindlefingers; Chicken Butt, Five Cents a Cut; Uranus John, the Star-Traveler and Sanitized-for-Your-Protection Eddie Summers. And those are just a few of the 700.
How much fun did this guy have writing this book?
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