It was in the theater–YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN–I first fell in love.  My cousin and I sat in the very first row at the Coral Theater, way up close, and I watched Terri Garr’s six feet of cleavage in wonder and awe.  I felt I could let go of my seat, free fall into that heavenly, inviting crevasse.  Sticky popcorn butter and Ju-Ju-Bees held my feet down.  Arms wide and leaning like a ski jumper, post-Halloween candies whizzed past, ahead of a wave of laughter.  My cousin, two whole years my senior, caught me just as I was becoming airborne and hit me until my knees buckled, proclaiming my dorkhood in angry hisses.

I mean, wuddaya suppose to do wid a dead cat inna city? Not like you can dig a hole in yuh backyard and berry it. I got a small apahtment, on Wess Fourf street in Brooklyn, near duh bus that takes you tuh Canahsie. I don’t go tuh Canahsie. Dat place has changed, and not for da better. I stay right heah in Gravesend where I belawng. Good place wid good people. I can get my kwaffee and my newspapuh right on duh corner for tree dollars still, like innee old days. You can’t say that for a lotta places these days. Times has changed, for sure.

I would have liked to be born a very dramatic, very unnecessarily serious human being in Victorian England, but have instead found myself in the 21st century, which is so devoid of castles through which I can run screaming and moors onto which I may throw myself as I cry. Modern America doesn’t allow for histrionics, so I have instead crafted a life for myself that is very mundane and stoic and not at all theatrical or hokey.

Let me be the first to welcome you to Earth. And let me assure you right off the bat that I’m not too proud to beg for my life, nor to serve you in any degrading manner you see fit. I’m sure I can make myself useful to you in some small, yet indispensable way. I’m not particularly well informed or intelligent, but I like to think I have better taste and more common sense than the average citizen of our humble little planet. All of my modest abilities are at your disposal.

Are you seeking a soulmate and also fed up with your grime-covered home exterior? Well, lend Joe a power washer and get ready to be wooed by his encyclopedic knowledge of what some call “the golden age of hoisting mechanism jurisprudence.”