Tonight, on "Biography..."

For the benefit of the potential billions of visitors to my humble blog who must wonder from whence I came, I respectfully submit the following brief biography (reprinted with permission from "Who's Who of 19th Century American Animal Husbandry"): Gadzooky was born the son of poor sharecroppers in Newark, NJ. As the eldest of forty-three children (forty-two if you count the conjoined twins only once), Gadzooky dreamed of one day escaping the toilsome tenant farms of Newark. Despite being almost completely illiterate until the age of four, the young Gadzooky began compiling a scrapbook composed entirely of clippings about a glittering, faraway Xanadu where the stores stayed open until nearly nine p.m. and the restaurants served bendy straws with every meal. This was, of course, Evansville, known throughout the world as "The Paris of the Southwestern Indiana Part of the Ohio River Valley, Not Counting Tell City." At the tender age of nine-and-three-quarters, Gadzooky ran away to join the circus, until he discovered that it was the kind that has clowns in it. Gadzooky HATES clowns, and he's never even read "It." And so he began his perilous and arduous trek eastward to the fabled city of Evansville. Perhaps it wouldn't have been half so perilous or arduous had Gadzooky realized that Evansville is actually WEST of Newark. Nevertheless, after a series of extremely interesting adventures that I'm far too lazy to think up, Gadzooky arrived in Evansville none the worse for wear. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "It's more lovely than I ever could have imagined! It even smells far lovelier than Newark!" Then, after leaving the sewage treatment plant, Gadzooky found that the rest of the city was even BETTER! But the big city holds many dangers for a naïve sharecropper's son. Gadzooky began indulging in self-destructive behavior, such as chasing his Pop Rocks with Double-Cola and holding his nose when he sneezed to see if he could make his ears whistle. Finally, after hitting bottom (one should always make certain that the elevator car is really there before stepping into the shaft), Gadzooky vowed to make a new start. Disguised as a mild-mannered graphic designer for a great metropolitan newspaper, he now fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and some way to fill every micron of white space in used car dealer ads with bursts containing words like $AVE!!! and SUPER SHARP SUVS!!! Eh, it's a livin'.