The Left-Handed Gun

Pee-Wee Herman’s been enjoying a resurgence this year – his live LA stage show this past winter was consistently sold out – thanks to Generation X who, as we approach middle age, view the characters from our childhood through a lens of nostalgia thick enough to filter out just how Goddamned annoying they were. (See also Hasselhoff, David and ALF, Gofuckyourself).

For those blessed enough to be unfamiliar, Pee-Wee Herman was a character designed by actor Paul Reubens as an androgynous man-child, whose juvenile catchphrases and broad physical comedy was enthusiastically embraced and constantly imitated by every person in high school who I suspected to be a homosexual.

During the 80’s, Pee-Wee became hugely popular as he fronted two major motion pictures, a weekly children’s television program, and untold merchandising targeted at kids until he decided to eschew stardom for personal reasons… and by “eschew stardom” I mean “get arrested” and by “personal reasons” I  mean “getting caught jacking off in a public movie theater in 1991.”

I realize that this might seem like a minor infraction to you damn Millennials, but it was a big deal in 1991, particularly for a performer with a Saturday morning kid’s show. For some time-appropriate context, imagine, say,  police kicking a door down to find Dora the Explorer spreading Jif on her crotch and shrieking, “Swiper, start swiping!”

Anyway, after the arrest, Pee-Wee dropped out of sight for a short time – y’know nineteen years – before returning earlier this year with an successful L.A. stage version of his old Pee-Wee’s Playhouse TV show. Emboldened by probably realizing that an entire generation had passed since anyone had said, “Didja hear they dropped the charges against Pee-Wee? The evidence wouldn’t STAND UP in court! Get it?”, Pee-Wee has scheduled another run of his show on Broadway in November, where he will be disappointed to discover that Times Square ain’t the way it was in the 80’s.

So, older, wiser and grateful for a second chance, Pee-Wee Herman’s living quietly and allowing the past, painful as it might be, to remain the past. Right?

Nah.

Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation, the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand… I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was (masturbating) with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.

That sounds great, Pee-Wee, and it might play for your average 1991 Pee-Wee’s Playhouse audience who were too young to recognize that Chairry was nothing more than a horrifying de-anthropomorphized fecephiliac.

But it’s 2010 now, and you’re talking to an audience who is reading Playboy. In the Internet age, they actually PAID for pictures of naked women. Which means that not only do they know masturbation, they are urgently committed to it as a LIFESTYLE CHOICE.

And God knows I am not one of them, because I feel that any masturbation plan that includes a visit to the local convenience store will eventually end in 72 hours of psychiatric observation and having to introduce myself to my fucking neighbors.

So while I can’t vouch for Playboy readers, or indeed, for any other man, I can vouch for the the fact that while I don’t consider myself particularly ambidextrously talented, I have been known to crank it with my non-dominant hand. And my dominant hand. And sometimes with both hands clenched together. And once with a roll of duct tape.

So assuming Pee-Wee’s telling the truth about his “expert” witness, I can only suggest that the Masters and Johnson Institute should probably think about coming up with a new moniker, since their current one contains at LEAST two lies.

No matter how big a check Pee-Wee writes for his so-called “expert” testimony, the fact is that 49 PERCENT OF THE HUMAN POPULATION is ALREADY an expert on rubbing one out. Jesus, even 49 percent of the CHIMPANZEE population has a decent working theory on jacking off, and even they know that, dominant hand or non-dominant hand, your wrench it with whichever hand you’re not chucking feces with.

So assuming a jury of Pee-Wee’s peers as demographically balanced as his TV show (Minus, of course, Cowboy Curtis, who would need to recuse himself since his daughter is now in the “Make Guys Like Pee-Wee Jerk Off” business), the minute his “expert” said that no man masturbates with his stupid hand he would IMMEDIATELY ding five “guilty” votes, with the sixth coming in after as only long as it takes for that juror to mutter, “But that’s the only way it feels like someone else.”

But even then, Pee-Wee’d have six female jurors who might possibly think that guys only play nice-nice with Kojak after they, the women, have either widowed them or have left them to go on some kind of international journey of self-discovery that they imagine will be in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, but which outside the candy-colored world of Chick-Lit is usually more like Recline, Regret, Scrub.

So why not roll the dice on even a hung jury, Pee-Wee?

PLAYBOY: Then why did you plead no contest?

REUBENS: Did I want to have all that revealed in court and then have to listen to Jay and Arsenio and others for another two weeks?

I’ve got news for you, Pee-Wee – if you’d gone to trial rocking the Myth of the Left Hand Jack defense, not only would the mockery have lasted longer than two weeks, but Arsenio would still be on the air on the basis of Pee-Wee jokes, and his fucking Dog Pound would still be swinging their arms around, only at crotch level.

You could get all the sex experts in America to testify on how unlikely it might be that you were jacking off with whichever hand the cop wrote in the arrest report, Pee-Wee. You could have Dr. Ruth as your lawyer and rest your case with Dr. Phil and even Dr. Fucking House each standing ankle-pantsed on the witness stand with their left hands full of cock shrieking, “OH CHRIST IT BURNS!” and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference once the arresting officer took the stand:

PEE-WEE’S LAWYER: Officer Schmo, you’ve heard Dr. Johnson Master testify that no man has ever masturbated with his left hand –

HALF THE JURY: *snort*

PEE-WEE’S LAWYER: – and yet your report describes my client as masturbating with his LEFT HAND! How you do explain this discrepancy?

OFFICER SCHMO: Look, I’ll level with you: I don’t know WHAT hand I saw –

PEE-WEE’S LAWYER: Ah HA!

OFFICER SCHMO: – because I was CAPTIVATED by the fact that I was face to face with Pee-Wee Herman’s sticky, half-flaccid and yet still twitching dork in a public place.

PEE-WEE’S LAWYER: Um –

OFFICER SCHMO: I mean, there I am, a humble public servant making 28.5 a year, eye to single unblinking eye with Pee-Wee’s slowly deflating wang. I couldn’t believe it! I mean, I’ve seen Big Top Pee-Wee – which I now know is a GROSS exaggeration because I’ve seen his pecker!

PEE-WEE’S LAWYER: Um, object –

OFFICER SCHMO: So yeah, under the circumstances, I don’t know WHAT hand I wrote in the police report. All I could focus on was Pee-Wee Herman’s hot dog tree… which I can describe to the court in EXCRUCIATINGLY HORRIFYING DETAIL.

Look: I’m obviously not nostalgic for Pee-Wee Herman, but I recognize that a lot of people are. And I don’t begrudge a second shot at success for a man who became richer than Jesus by imitating a kindergartner and yet couldn’t spring for a fucking VCR.

But for Christ’s sake, now that you’re on your way back up, now’s not the time to puff up like you’re the Nelson Mandela of public perversion and pretend that you only pled out to protect your dignity. Jesus Christ, you spent ten years making a living like a five-year-old with a Viagra boner and a sucrose IV drip; “dignity” shouldn’t be used in the same sentence with Pee-Wee Herman any more than “Academy Award.”

I’m sorry you had a rough decade Pee-Wee, but let’s face facts: you got caught doing something incredibly stupid and yet utterly hilarious. Don’t pretend you have “evidence” that could’ve gotten you off (Another pun not intended); what you have is a story that is BULLSHIT ON IT’S FACE. If the jerkhand story’s all you had in your corner, you’d have been better off pleading “I know you are, but what am I?”

Do you hear me, Pee-Wee? I’m LOOKING at you, Pee-Wee!

Yes, yes; “Take a picture; it’ll last longer.” I WISH. If there was photo evidence to go along with your mug shot, not only would Arsenio still be working, Alan fucking Thicke would still have a late night show.

Or, God help us, ALF.

[tags]Pee-Wee Herman, Paul Reubens, Playboy, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Pee-Wee Herman Show, dark humor, satire[/tags]