Similar to "Ask Bummer Dan" on the Deadwood board.

Steady Freddy has seen it all, from shooting the curl to shooting the works.

He'll be in SoCal for a while, and a man can only relax so much before running out of sax reeds, henchmen, or transoceanic cell phone minutes. So Freddy's filling the rest of his time by fielding your questions. Ask Freddy a question as yourself, a JFC character, or whomever (or whatever) you'd like. Or you can answer a question as Freddy.

Example:

Dear Freddy,

I'm a teenaged boy, so I love masturbating. It's almost as great as surfing and skateboarding, and I don't need any special equipment. All the adults around me tell me it isn't a problem, but they all seem really sad. Is something wrong with me?

Sincerely,

Locked in the Bathroom

------------------------------------------------------

Dear LB,

You're going through an awkward time for your family: Too old for teddybears, too young for full-throated verbal abuse. My advice is to put it out of your mind and enjoy the simple pleasures while you can.

Hang loose,

Freddy

PS: If you run into any orthopedic problems with your wrist, I know a guy.

Dear Freddy:

I heard that you are an expert on relaxation techniques. I am a young grandmother with alot on my LSD-poisoned mind, and I need some advice on how to chill out before I get arrested--oops--I mean before I kill someone.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,

Eating a Tuna Sandwich in IB

Dear Tuna Lady:

I suggest you find yourself a weak-willed dim-witted underling whom you can physically and verbally abuse repeatedly without consequence. I have found such practice to be amazingly therapeutic. If that ain't your cup of tea, might I suggest the banjo?

Sincerely,

Steady Freddy.

Freddy,

If that's my boss, they're gonna find her hanging by her ankles with a Peter Gabriel CD in her mouth if she gives me any more crap.

Kai

Kai

Hey, woah, try my sax. It's how I relax.

Freddy

Dear Freddy,

If my words are yours, can you hear my Father? Can Bill know my Father, keeping his eye on me? Can I bone Kai and Butchie know my Father instead?

Shape-Shifting Mope

Dear Mopey,

I don't hear shit except for some idiots outside speaking Spanish. I don't know your dad, and I'm sure that retired ex-donut-eatin' asshole don't know him, either. Go bone whoever you want, kid, but I sure as shit wouldn't be thinkin' about no dad when that's going on.

Peace Be With You,
Freddy

Dear Freddy,
I'm at a loss is what I am. Here we have the memory of my dear departed wife, who I used to refer to as Peg, which was her name, naturally enough.I'm able to admit that in life, she was a piece of work. Nagging, needing, waning, meddling. You could have written a sitcom about it, if you weren't some kind of suspicious imbecile who parrots speech in a manner more frustrating than many birds I'm in the acquaintance of.

The thing is this, I miss her like the devil now, in that the missing is evil, not my memories of her. And Lois feels like a better name, though it was her middle, not her first. name. How can I feel so very lost now, and how do I see my way clear?

Dear Widower,

Not that I give a fuck, but you might want to look into listening to that Sarah Brightman, the one without the blind dago. That girl sure can sing and if the yearning is still there, she makes it there even less.

Or do you just need a smack?

-Freddy

(Wow, you really channeled Bill, shabu! Impressive.)

Smack? Where?

Butchie

Dear Freddy,

I am having some trouble with my fiancé. She's a pretty enough lady, I suppose (though, there is something not-quite-right about her nose), but, to be honest, I'm actually frightened of her. She can be a bit of a shrew.

Also, I find myself increasingly infatuated with this woman who runs the diner that I frequent. She's a bit rough around the edges; not quite the type you see yourself taking home your parents (oy vey, don't get me started on them). I can't stop thinking about her though, and, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but sometimes it seems as if she's flirting with me.

I don't know, I'm probably lucky to be with my fiancé, and shouldn't ruin a good thing. I mean, I don't have any real shot with this other lady anyway, right?

IB Atty.

Dear IB atty: You should have seen her, back in the day.........She loved volcanoes.

Freddy

Freddy,

I've asked everyone else, so I'll ask you:

Are they fucking in there?

Cissy

Depends on how you parse it. Are they, fucking-IN-THERE? (as opposed to fucking-OUT-THERE like some shape-shifting mopes). Or, Are THEY, fucking, in there? (as opposed to any other pair of shitbirds). Or, Are they fucking IN, there? (as opposed to, one of them, maybe out copping and the other, at work where you think she belongs, but then again, I'd like to audit your time-sheet lately...in my mouth.

Gotta go relax. You know where to find me.

Ready Freddy

Freddy,

There's something I have been wondering in one of the most uncomfortable ways. You see, I don't know whether I like men or not. My teddy has been unable to answer my queries, and I was wondering if you might be able to help a good soul.

Cheers.

-Curious in IB

PS. I do, routinely, have epileptic seizures, and was wondering if this changes my state of mind. Also, if you know a good physician to help with these seizures, it would be much appreciated.

Dear Curious,

Have you ever asked a woman, "would you like to leave a message... on my face... with your ass?"

If not, you should. If you feel aroused afterwards, you probably like women.

For your seizures, I know a guy that hangs around my motel, where I'm drowning in low-lifes. He rides a bicycle and smokes cigarettes, so you might want to go to the hospital and see a real doctor.

-Freddy

Dear Freddy,

I've been watching a TV show where nothing-much seems to happen to a bunch of mostly unlikeable people (including pimps, whores, junkies, pushers, and child molesters). It's like an X-rated version of Seinfeld, except that God occasionally winks at them. These characters seem so real that I laugh and cry with them, and sometimes have to cover my eyes and peek through my fingers. I've almost wished them away, so their sadnesses and joys won't follow me around when I'm not planning to think about them.

Now, it appears they are going away, and as Jack Langrishe said, "I'm sad." What should I do?

Video Voyeur

Explain to me the difference between you and a pony in center field. But since that's asking for heavy work from light machinery, this once I'll go ahead and do what passes for your brain, the fucking favor. A pony in center field draws flies, swats flies, and catches flies. Drawing only upon the evidence of my six senses raised maybe to a keener edge by stir-crazy insomnia and the Chinese water torture of what passes for johns in these parts, I'd say you don't draw, swat, or catch flies, for shit. You see shit, call it manure, and ask for more.

In my former line of business, this is what we liked to call, a steady customer.

Dear Freddy,

I'm a fairly well-known television writer-producer in Los Angeles. For the past year, I've been working on an ambitious project that follows the lives of a large collection of beach bums pursuing spirituality and healing in a world where popular culture is assaulting our collective sensibility. It hasn't been commercially successful, and may be about to come to an abortive end.

I'm trying to engage the imaginations of the public - and raise the standards of the fucking medium - but all the infantile cocksuckers out there seem to want me to just go back to work on a prosaic Cowboys and Indians project that I find to be very arid and bland.

I think my boor of an assistant is hiding from me, so at the moment I'm reclining on the floor of my office while staring at my four Emmys. Any thoughts?

Yours in contemplation,

Lost on the Lot

P.S. Yale football rules!

Dear Lost -
Poor fucking you.
I'm not sure if your creativity is the problem. Maybe you long for the days when you and a fellow Yalie idiot would snort cocaine off each other's asscheeks and swap incoherent and unfunny stories; you know the one I'm referring to - the cocksucker whose brother helped land him in the White House. Could I sense a little jealousy on your part, or a theme of losing interest midstream? You started a story - scratch: make that TWO, he started a war - scratch: make that TWO - and you both started these with interest, garnering praise and collecting fans a thousand-fold. Now it looks as if you've both tired of doing the right fucking thing by reaching a conclusion that would be both satisfying and stop leaving thousands, maybe millions, dead in your wake.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Palaka to fucking punch.

F~

Dear Mr. Freddy,

Aloha from de big Island. So glad you're having a little vacation in the States, but I gotta tell you, us regular customers back here, we're all itchin for you to come on back and straighten things out. The new guys are all turfin the streets and beaches like snarlin pit bulls and we regulars don't know from one day to another where to find the bastards and the prices keep changin. I at last track my guy down and asked him and he snarls about "the fuckin new boss" and then tells me to keep my skeezy bitch mouth shut if I know what's good for me, and so on and so on while all I want is to cop like normal and my money is still good.

I worked for a few months at a Sonic and I'm just sayin that's no way to treat the customers. I've heard rumors about a girl named Marie so I sure don't want to make no more trouble for you, but I'm just askin politely and with all the respect as to when you might come back to run the store proper.

Peace out,

Twitchy Wahine

Dear Freddy,

There is something in my camera but I don't know what. There is something my not-boyfriend and I do, but I don't know what. There is something that my one-timer, vintage boyfriend and I did, and I can't care, what. There is something in my mini-bar and that is all I that can seem to know or care about!

I used to film adult movies (some would call them porn, but those who say that, do and don't remember when all they wanted, was to be adults!), with a very gifted actress. I keep wondering, what happened to her?

Am I on the road to existential ruin, or redemption?

Not for nothing, Please note that in each case, I am driving on that road in a burnt black, as through the fire, Porsche convertible.

Concerned,

(Free) Pass

Dear Freddy,

We may have recently become something resembling cohorts. But if you have any knowledge of what transpired with my bird Zippy I want you to fess up now!

Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!
Bill Jacks



Edited to try to separate 2 separate posts





Twitchy Wahine

I suggest you move your dumb ass over here to IB and help me find a missing Golden Boy Suferer dude and his soul mate bird Zippy. Seems like some frat boy, poodle headed, whack job whose real name I have YET to ascertain may have snatched the two of them on what may be construed as MY WATCH!

This aint no time to be worryin about your sorry asses FIX!

Now get said sorry ass to IB or YOU will be goin the way of MARIE!
Steady Freddy

Well fuck me if I'm lying, but I'm not sure if I'm on foot or horseback after what the past few days have wrought.

Ever since I came out of the forest with a few fearsome ducklings at my side such being Johnny, Adams, and most potently our own Dan, my life has been a series of ass fuckings and intrigues in which I gave as good as I got with Yankton cocksuckers, loopy cunts, clenched lawmen and assorted hooples, show folks and squareheads. I made money mining miners, running pussy and fleecing dudes, and, for a time, sported and consorted with some of the so-called Legends of the West and their piss poor relations and hanger-ons. At one time, I had quite a name in the Black Hills, and surveyed my piece of hard-won territory from a lofty balcony, coffee in hand, in consort with the head of an Indian chief.

From that perch gained by dagger and wit, and some supply of cold courage, I had come to a fiery fall. After my joint, the Gem, was three times burnt to the ground, I fell still further, to drink, to time, and into the wheels of a freight train I was angling to catch.

Next thing I knew, I woke up on the beaches of California far from any place I'd known and as hung over as I had ever been. There was a fucking throbbing in my brain that I dare say pulsed along with hum coming off this huge edifice I saw before me--a great cage-like thing, but more befitting the elephants of Africa than beef cattle. I brushed the sand off me and headed for the town, close at. It took a bit of wandering up and down the thoroughfare before I started to get something like my bearings. Some potent force had dropped me here unawares, and while myself being no babe of the woods, it was damn strange and discomfiting. And the most fucked up part was, even as I came to grasp that I'd somehow been flung off into the future by greater forces, everywhere I looked, I saw these twisted versions of folks I swear I'd known back on the streets of Deadwood--my previous haunt, only here, they were perverse and changed. This murderous cocksucker sex maniac who I had dealt with back in the Hills now seemed a Doctor of sorts--riding a fool-headed bicycle no less! This other fellow I'd known previous as a relatively high minded type, friend to Wild Bill Hickok (and that other maniac, his Holiness Bullock)well, here he is again in the flesh, talking of dope and blood baths and some sorry cunt named Marie. I've not a clue his name in this life Freddy, but I'd be obliged if you'd tip me to him if you know of whom I speak. Had I known him in this light in my Gem days, he'd likely have worked for me. I even saw that Yankton cocksucker out walking, some sort of traveling bag close at him, and smelling not so much now of cat piss, but I'd recognize him anywhere. Strolling the pier, I glimpsed a fellow fishing that looked to be the mirrored image of the self-same Ellsworth I knew at the Gem, a good man and friend to all, who knew when to keep his mouth shut with me, but got it shut for him when he mouthed off to that Pinkerton-suckling Hearst bastard. There he was, renewed, smelling of loco weed and catching fish.

Hoping to score a coffee, I come across the strangest yet of these apparitions--my own Trixie, for whom I have a soft spot, what with she being so good a prick milker when I was suffering through my gleets, now serving not pussy or whiskey, but coffee, if you could believe it. She still had much of the same spirit to her, but now used a machine to cipher out her money. She looked at me with a sour look when I gave up a gold coin--and precious few left I had of those. She was quick enough to take it, but seemed a bit put out, and didn't allow she'd recognized me. True enough, I had had my boot to her neck more than a few times, but still, surely she could have paid me some mind. Do know, Freddy, that I'd always only slapped her with a guiding and fatherly hand, even when called to clean up after her half-assed attempts at murder.

Now, Freddy, some girl I met down the pier-- she proving out as loose and eager to turn out--she told me a little about this notion the Celestials have of the wheel of karma, and I wonder if I might be being spun, and hard, on that wheel just now. I've been here just more than a week, and there's talk by the candle fanatic types and assorted others that some Cincinnati dude is stirring shit up, but I am not one for miracles. So tell me, Freddy--what the fuck is going on?

Respectfully flummoxed,

Al Swearengen

Dear Al,

We are not your first Utter, McCall/Woolcott, Ellsworth or Trixie-the-Whore.

But you are our last Swear-Engine.

Still pleased with yourself, that you left me off the guest list for the first Peach Fest at the Gem?

Yours up the ass,

That Guy Who Still Ships Stuff

The little crap factory said he wanted to go to the Yost School of Surfing, 'cause he'd heard he'd either get into the water or into some pussy. So I drowned him, then fed him to a cat.

Actually, he didn't say it. But he conveyed it to my satisfaction.

BTW, some linguist says you've been calling me a Hawaiian. Trust me, you don't want to go there. My mom worked on Hotel Street in the old days, but it doesn't count.

Hang loose,

Freddy

Dear Freddy,

I am a 15-year-old sulfur-crested cockatoo, who has spent her whole life so far in the house where I hatched along with my other bird friends and a tall human whose feathers are falling off his head. There used to be two humans here and they didn't pay as much attention to us but one of them was taken out by other white-feathered humans on a bed that floats, and the one who's left talks to us all the time. Somtimes a yellow-feathered fledging human comes by and helps the tall human feed and take care of us, which is fun. But this last week has been pretty crazy.

The tall human used to spend most of his time talking to my green friend Zippy, but then he took him out on a trip and I think set him loose, since he came back with Zip's cage empty. He looked so sad that I did something I've only done before for other birds--I did my best Zippy impression, which sets off general beak-clacks of hilarity whenever I do it when the human is out. A few of those funny green-parrot squawks would cheer him up, I thought.

Well, the human just stares at me with big watery eyes and puts his plucked head near me like he's heard the most amazing thing ever, mutters something in peoplespeak and runs out the door.

Now we're all hungry again and everybody is turning their backs on me on their perches for making the human run away. I feel like an idiot. You are a very wise and high-ranking human, as I can tell from the tribal markings on your wings.

Please advise a silly bird, and don't bother to tell me to knock off the mimicry, I'm way ahead of you on that.

Peep,

Pretty Polly

Dear Freebie,

You ask a lot of questions for someone from Hibbing, Minnesota. So I'll answer in a way you may find familiar:

John's in the hotel room
Prophesying Shaun's doom
Mitch is on the pavement
Wonderin' where the wave went
Keep a clean nose
Wear the gift shop clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way Tina blows
Look out kid
There's somethin' you did
Emptying the minibar
Puffing up a lid
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man in the Marriott cap
With the big pen
Wants eleven hundred dollar bills
You only got ten

Knocking on heaven's door, and threatening the son of a bitch if that don't work,

Freddy

Freddy, you're da man, and I don't say that lightly, were I afraid it be my last night on earth.

Sincerely,

the monkey

Dear Freddy,

Sweet man. Really sweet.

Respectfully,
Anonymous

P.S. Man. I gotta stay anonymous. I just don't trust you're not beatin the fuck outta me for callin something you did sweet. Gotta stay eligible man you know.

Dear Freddy,

It's Moana, you fucking monkey. What the hell is going on? You expect me to believe that you're just going to give me the Hawaii dope market after all these years?

Maybe I should come out there to California and ask you myself. How'd you like that?

M

So, you know that Zimmerman guy from Hibbings HS who tried to make it with my mother's younger sister? Cool!

When I mentioned this to her, she dug into a truck and brought out this poem she sent him, back then.

"Go up into the light now,
ascend to your own destiny.
I'm not the one who's right now,
Nor left, nor in between.

You say you're looking for a soul
who's neither here nor either there.
Someone who came from somewhere else,
On a wave or through the air,

Someone who makes you gone, or even more!
But that's not free, love,
No, no no, that's not free, love.
That's not free, you'll be suborned, love."

Free Pass

Dear Freddy,

I caught your column the other day, with the lyrics, you know,




You are such an inspiration! The care that went into the re-crafting of those lyrics is stunning. I'm in the midst of some major renovations in a bar that is part of my property, and as soon as the dry wall is painted over and I remove the last lingering odors of rotting flesh stench and installl the new karoake machine, I hope you can stop by and make that the first number! I will happily stand you for a Roy Rogers (though I am not a felon, we are still working on the liquor license).

As to a question, how do you feel about hot bear on bear action?

Warm Regards,

Another Frail Vessel

It ain't me, babe.

Freddy

Dear Freddy,

I do not know who I am, if I am not a ball-buster.

I have had three identities, goddammit, in the Surf Wives Club equivalent of the First Wives Club. They were, Babe, District Attorney, Driving Miss Daisy. Our club has been, Surfer Chick, Disillusioned Picker-Up-of-the-Pieces (yo: Condi Rice. Hear us!) and, Washing Up On the Shore.

Someone has told me, all my ball-busting makes me wash up.

It would all but kill me if you, or anyone else, told me to look into my soul, and know it; look into my heart, and stop hating it; look into my spirit, and find it.

So fuck you.

Melissa

So the dishes are getting done, which is a plus. You must have a really nice kitchen. I know a lowlife scumbag, clean just a week, who has a grocery cart in his goddamn bathroom. Add in all them dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and there's nowhere to take a piss.

Also, could'ya at least do me the favor of abusing me in the form of a question?

Fuck you...everywhere,

Freddy

Dear Mr. Freddy,

My, the hostility! But I can relate, even if (as I can imagine), you are wishing for no relations. With good cause: what yours must have been, beggar my imagination.

But I have felt myself capable of killing a good man out of sheer envy and spite, and a number of women, out of sheer malice and ennui.

I tell you, that many men, whether deprived or depraved or exhalted, as I have been, feel the same. You did too. Women do too.

I'm not a parent. But when I asked Cissy Yost about it, she said, "It's like this. When you want to kill them, you have to feed them."

Dr. Smith

Doc:

What, fuckin' tuna again? I prefer the kid's peanut butter-butter.

Now, that's how I relax.

Freddy

Sounds like someone needs to be taken off-line.

Freddy

Polly,

Mimicry? I tuned up this shape-shifting mope who used it on me, but he still walked out, happy as a clam. You may not be so lucky.

I think I know yer human, because I knew Zippy. (Spare me the irritation of remembering the little crap factory in detail.) Last I saw of him, he was in handcuffs yelling at passing traffic. (The human, not Zippy.) Y'may want to start picking the lock on yer cage, and then go lookin' for him, unless you could give less of a shit.

Freddy