Hee-Haw Hijack Hijinx!
Hell yeah… I am taking this bee-yotch as my… well… bee-yotch! For all the fans of the amazing Haw- I am sorry for the words you are about to read. This is going to hurt you much more than it is going to hurt me… and probably Paul most of all.
When I first saw that the comment section of the contest post had just a few remaining comments left until a winner was chosen, my palms got a little sweaty and that weird nervous twitch I get in the corner of my eye came back. If I’m not mistaken, I think I might’ve even spilled my beer. I honestly can’t remember… it was a whirlwind of emotions and nausea. Feverishly, almost in a trance-like state, I began typing comments as quickly as I could. I don’t know that my fingers have ever moved so quickly across the keyboard. My excitement at that moment was something akin to a child on Christmas morning… or the same child around noon on Easter after consuming a half dozen Cadbury Crème Eggs. Twitchy, jittery and ready to vomit.
You can only imagine my overwhelming joy when Paul emailed me with, “fuck, you win already… just stop the damn comments!” I know he was excited too. I could sense it in his words. He knew he’d gotten a worthy “winner”/ blog surrogate. The moment was almost electric. Seriously…
Once that first moment of bliss began to wear off, I suddenly began to ask myself “what the fuck am I going to write?” I mean, Paul/ Hee-Haw is a real heavy hitter now. I mean, Top 25, a member of the Beyond Madison Avenue crew, a contributor to the Madison Avenue Journal, exposer of the Kohl’s store fiasco and world famous potty mouth. Those are some damned big shoes to fill… even if he is a little guy.
Now that Paul has hit the big time and is “the next big thing” in the marketing world, it is important to keep the impressive reputation of The Haw in my thoughts. I mean, for fuck’s sake… this IS the Hee-Haw Marketing blog! Damn, that’s heavy on a guy’s mind.
So as I’ve been chewing on this piece of gristle since the 21st, I’ve been thinking of all the cool and fun things I could do. I thought that maybe I could do a music review of Kenny G, Yanni or maybe an old Backstreet Boys album. Something that would totally destroy his standing as a pusher of good new music. Then I thought maybe I could write some torrid love letter about the joys of spam email marketing. You know, something that would make Paul sound like one of “those” slimy marketers that give us all a bad reputation. I thought that might be kind of fun.
Then it hit me, I could something that Paul is guaranteed not to ever do (aside from use Spell-check); I could roast Paul and try to find good things to say about the kid. Not all gushy or anything, but a little praise for the little Dallas Diva we’ve all come to know and love. Oh yeah, and since Paul is usually far briefer than this, I thought it would be fun to write something really longwinded too! That oughta teach him a lesson…
Now that I’ve slurped down a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon… here we go…
We all know Paul as one of the most foulmouthed of all of us. Paul not only uses more exclamation points than the entire population of Rhode Island, but he drops more F-Bombs than an entire Marine brigade. It’s hard to imagine that he kisses his sweet mother with that mouth, let alone that he ever managed to find a job outside of the prison system. The thing is, damn the little fucker, he usually finds a way to use all those damned expletives to prove a fucking point. The little shithead has a fucking knack for using them in a way that highlights a point in an amusing way. Not only is he a foulmouthed, snot-nosed punk, but the son-of-bitch (no offense to Mom) is also pretty fucking smart. Damnit!
Outside of his closeted love for boy bands and sniffing glue, he’s also got a pretty decent ear for music. I almost hate to admit that out of all of his Tune In Saturdays, there have really only been a couple of selections of his that didn’t really get me toe tappin’ or head bangin’. Paul was super cool enough to send me one of his selections, Baboon, and the damned CD stayed in my car and got played almost non-stop for a couple months. For a kid who can barely manage to keep his fingers out of his nose, he actually appears to know something about good music.
If I were an Evil Marketer, one of those icky creatures who stuffs my mailbox or inbox with unwanted crap, or one of those idiots with no idea what it means to engage the customer and ask them what they want and how their experience could be improved (you know who you are), I’d be really terrified of Paul. In spite of his poor hygiene, he’s got a laser-like focus on sniffing out jackasses and exposing them as the frauds and hacks that they are. The proverbial “little guy” is well defended and cared for by Mr. Haw.
Paul, though frequently found stirring his martinis with his fingers (which, as I’ve said, are frequently up his nose), is also a very progressive thinker when it comes to politics and worthy causes. He’s probably as much of a bedwetting liberal as I am, but he’s pretty ballsy too. He’s not one to mince words or shy away from pushing an agenda- he’s more likely to swig a pint of dime store gin and head to his computer and fire off a fully formed and well thought out rant on a topic. Sadly, I have to admit that the kid does a damned good job of putting his thoughts together and combining his outrage and activism into actual action. That’s fairly rare these days and I admire his guts… even if I question his grammar from time to time.
Here’s the point; there’s more to the fact that Paul has gone over the 1,000 comment mark than just his contest and the fact that most of us who come here and read his blog are a bunch of raging smartasses. It’s because the kid writes simple, thought provoking posts that draw us in and/ or force us to think. For somebody who has probably been thrown out of all the reputable bars/ clubs in Dallas, he’s got a way with words and turns a phrase around and chews on it until he gets to the real meat of his thoughts. Those condensed and distilled thoughts come across powerfully sometimes. Other times they are fun or silly, maybe even insulting (to those he’s taking a shot at), but they are almost always spot on. All of us, who have taken the time out of our day to come see what kind of vitriol Paul has spewed, have gotten sucked in at least once. There will be that one line, one thought, one entire post that grabs you by the scruff of your neck and sucks you in to Paul’s strange little world. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the analysis of Super Bowl ads. Maybe it’s the near half-mad ramblings of youth railing against an authority that has got him pinned down and pissed off. Maybe it’s just the fact that he fucking swears like a horny sailor with too much to drink and too little else to do. Who the fuck knows?
Paul- as one of your more frequent readers and commenters, I’m really honored to get to be the person who gets to hijack your fucking blog! I hope that the fire in your belly continues to burn bright and that your rage never diminishes. We need more folks like you, frankly. I know that I often come here and find myself inspired. More than once I’ve thought, “why the hell didn’t I say that?” We’re all better off because you’re here screaming at the world. Don’t stop now, just because you’re a big fish in our little pond. Keep the flame burning and throw another rage log on the angry fire!
Happy 1,000th.