Once again, dredged from the slushpot of discarded Pigdog Journal article categories comes an old favorite made new again: THE ASSMAN AWARD.

God, I just walked outside for a smoke, and it's stopped snowing and it's absolutely transcendental out. It's midnight in Lubbock, TX and it's totally silent and there's icy-crystal snow everywhere -- on branches, on little Mexican pottery garden gnomes, on dumpsters and fenceposts and tumbleweeds like Christmas ornaments for spider people. And I'm stuck here waiting for parts for my broken-down Citroen and it's beautiful and prosaic and still beautiful anyways and I feel inspired to make fun of people named ASSMAN.

This is my first Assman of the Week article and so you have to bear with me a bit. I kinda resuscitated this idea which Tjames abandoned a long time ago, so I'm still trying to figure it out. Dig: Bill and Linda Assman are not your typical Assmen. Like, usually, the Assman of the Week is some creep who calls himself "The Assman" and actually acts like a big ASS(man) all the time on his stupid Web site, and Tjames makes fun of them. And it's funny as hell.

But Bill and Linda, like, their NAME is Assman. Like, they're descended from a long line of Asspersons from the frozen wastes of North America, and they have this name with the word "ass" in it, and they probably get a lot of ribbing from people about it, but they bear up pretty well and they're used to it and kinda smile in an understanding and world-weary way when the new wag in the local diner says, "YER NAME HAS ASS IN IT! HAW HAW HAW!"

So I know they'll understand that I needed to use them for a new article. They're nice people, if a teeny-weeny bit bitter. It's not easy being an Assman when you're not really a big ASS. Like, people who call themselves THE ASSMAN and are really named Leonard Wong get a big kick out of it when people call them an ass. "I know!!" they say. "I love some a that ASS all the time! That is why they call me the ASSMAN!" And when the person explains that, no, in fact, they are actually an obnoxious ASS, the average Assman will not quite get it. "Right! That's my name!"

But Bill didn't choose to be the Assman. He didn't call himself Assman; his parents, when he was a wee baby child, named him Assman. This is a heavy load to place on an infant child. Rarely if ever do people name their tiny boy-children Fuckhead Johnson, but Bill Assman's parents were OK with giving Bill that burdensome sobriquet. Hell, they'd been Assmen for as long as they'd lived, and they knew that any scion of their hardy stock would be strong enough in spirit to carry that weighty name. Good for them, say I.

Linda Assman, well, that's a different story. She fell in love with a nice guy named Bill, and maybe he didn't have that potbelly stove there back in the day, but he was a good man and he'd make a good husband. He had the intestinal fortitude and gutsy prairie style to go by Assman and not change his name to Atman or Essman or something. She'd gotten that ol' Bill under her skin, and the day she became Mrs. Assman was the happiest day of both of their lives. It just goes to show that some are born Assmen, some achieve Assmanness, and some have Assman thrust upon them. I dunno which one Linda was, but I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt and praise her for the womanly woman she is.

Bill and Linda run a hardware store and shop supply thing. They could have called it "Fort Pierre Shop Supply" or "South Dakota Hardware," or something like that, but it'd be the coward's way out, and you don't get to be the Assman by taking the coward's way. No sir! So they called the store "Assman's", and that's how everyone knows it, and that's what the ads say, and if you think it's funny you're just an immature jerk.

Which I am. Like, I'm the kind of dickhead that can look at a picture like this one and just laugh and laugh and laugh. And, like, a phrase along the lines of, "Linda spends most days on the road, in the Assman truck" is just music to my stupid jerkoff ears. It's a goddamned shame. I'm a Leonard Wong Assman at heart, in fact. Hell, I mean, my name is "Mr. Bad" for God's sake. WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME?!?!

So anyways, here's to the Assman of the Week for the first week of February, 2002. Hail to thee, Bill and Linda! May you continue to wave the Assman flag high!

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tunafish@pigdog.org