At Long Last, Sir, Have You No Penis?

This is Harry. I run into Harry a couple of mornings every month when I’m buying smokes and Robitussin (for the smoker’s cough) and coffee (to counter the guaifenesin in the Robitussin). Harry’s a Mt. Washington “character”—to the extent that you can find anyone up here on the Overlook who is discernibly more nearly a living cartoon or an ambulatory performance art installation than everyone else. In a neighborhood where eccentricity is a competitive sport, there are no absolutes. Distinctions are rated in decimal scores and degrees-of-difficulty.

Usually, Harry’s at the coffee bar by the news-rack, scanning the political pages in what’s left of our local rags. Occasionally, he’ll wave an editorial cartoon at me and say something like “At least this dumbshit gets it.”

Harry likes to talk about politics, a subject on which he seems eminently sane, funny, informed and passionate. He’s also the first to admit that it’s all totally fucking absurd, and that sometimes absurdity is the only weapon that common folk can wield in the fight.

I knew from our conversations that Harry enjoys tweaking our local City Council on a regular basis. I knew that he is genuinely upset by what he sees as rich White politicians perennially gaming the local Black community, and Black civic leaders who seem, at times, only too eager to play along. But I didn’t know until yesterday that Harry’s on YouTube.

Whether it’s Truth or Static, I’m not sure, but Harry isn’t afraid to speak whatever it is to Power. More importantly, he has contributed a rallying cry that I hope will echo across the Intertoobz.

(PS: I’ve added one of the photos Harry’s holding below the fold. And yes, it’s the former president of our local PBS affiliate (WQED) dressed as Tinkerbell at an awards event with major GOP mover/shaker Elsie Hillman in the role of Peter Pan.)

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/06/10 at 11:21 AM • Permalink

Categories: Knee Slappers • Politics • YouTubidity •

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Strange, what can be said when Diane Arbus’s subjects are excoriating WeeGee’s subjects? Certainly, your headline is another of those questions that answer themselves.

However much rarified Mount Washington air—or Robitussin—can be blamed for a certain condition of picturesqueness, Harry is the member of your depicted trio of Picksburgers least deserving of the Youtube designation “funny gentleman.”

Comment by Mrs. Polly on 03/06/10 at 12:27 PM

Polly, I report…you decide.

Alas, in a city where cognitive dissonance is treated with free handouts of Stereopticons and the tectonic plates of politics do not so much grind against each other as fuse into gooey, bubbling, and infinitely-accommodating fault lines, I have to give Harry credit for at least bothering to be an irritant, and doing it without once invoking Hitler or conspiracy theories.

I think of Harry as an old-fashioned, analog-style blogger who has to take a bus to his Home Page and sign in with his real name. Kind of how politics used to be…right, wrong or just plain crazy.

He made me think for a minute about what I do as a blogger. But maybe Saturday is the wrong day for think-pieces. And humor.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 03/06/10 at 01:13 PM

Since my husband is pretty involved in local politics and has forced me to watch City Council open hearings on our Channel 8 on many ocassions, I can say that I’ve seen several people take the crazy in their allotted 3 minutes a lot higher. (Zoning issues bring out the especially batshit ones.) But I think this was probably in the best cause. Did the topic of discussion that night have anything to do with what he was talking about? Not that that’s a requirement with these things.

Since those are the “Elsie” awards, was Elsie Hillman the inspiration? And what is her motivation for requiring public humiliation not only of herself but of the rest of the participants?

Comment by marindenver on 03/06/10 at 01:44 PM

Mercy, Strange, I was referring to the YouTuber’s designation of Harry as a “funny gentleman,” when he seems to be making much more sense than the pillars of society he is pillorying. Your piece is entirely welcome, delightful, and my comment was badly written.

Now let me measure my length, such as it is, in the dust, which shall fill my mouth as I wail. I am abjectly sorry, and if I must adorn my writing with smileys so as to make my intent clear, then so shall it be. Your charming portrait of your fellow Mt. Washingtonian rates a full :^) and my comment a %^p at best.

Comment by Mrs. Polly on 03/06/10 at 02:56 PM

Appy-Polly-loggies for misreading you, Mrs. P. If you were watching the back-office, you may have seen me struggling to frame the context for Harry’s clip, since there’s no visual difference between a casual weekend nutter and an intentional Agent of Chaos, unless you know the backstory. I had to think about it seven or eight times before I pulled the trigger.

I read my own apprehensions into your comment, and I was wrong. I only wish now that I’d realized that before I banned you for life and published your real identity on Craig’s List.

Oh, and DON’T open the UPS box when it arrives on Tuesday. Seriously. Just pitch the whole thing, or give it to a neighbor you despise.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 03/06/10 at 03:21 PM

@marindenver—I suspect that Harry brings his own agenda to the meetings, regardless of the topic at hand…although I think at that point we were still discussing the Big Casino Deal that was (theoretically, on paper) going to pump huge bucks into some of our poorer communities…as long as we all overlooked the death-smell of Casino projects as the public-policy-fix-of-last-resort.

The Elsie Awards are named for Ms. Hillman, who is a philanthropic fixture hereabouts, and a factor in anybody’s political calculus.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 03/06/10 at 03:30 PM

Wow! That UPS expedited delivery is something!

Marin can have my steel-ribbed feather fan, and Strange, the copy of Anatomy of Melancholy on the chifferobe in the RR is yours if you want it. Sorry to have kind of hijacked the thread. In my current state, it’s difficult to collect myself, but could we go back to analog blogging, or how lime green frocks suit Public Television presidents? Or the Harrys that used to be found reliably scribbling letters to the editor at the back booths of coffee shops around the country?