Ask Dr. Hal's Tenth Triumph
"Some of us feel like, why should we change the book club meeting
because of Dr. Hal? ...and, it takes longer to read the whole Dr. Hal email from Chicken than
to walk from Berkeley to (Geekboy)'s house!" --"Whiny Joe" Riefer
"Go to Dr. Hal, if you wanna..." -- Stuart "Twisted Times" Mangrum
"I paid for a full subscription to Twisted Times and never received a single issue!" -- Pete "Holding a Grudge" Goldie
THE DR. HAL SHOW WEEKLY-DISPATCH COURIER-SENTINEL-TRIBUNE-INTELLIGENCER-PICAYUNE-TIMES-CLARION-BANNER-CITIZEN-BUGLE-REPORTER-OMBUDSMAN
INCORPORATING THE DR. HAL REPORT
Vol. VII No. 11
SPECIAL TEN-STRIKE EDITION
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"ASK DR. HAL!" COMMANDS 10TH SHOW!!
ALL- NEW INQUIRIES & RESPONSIONS, MYSTERY GUESTS
WEDNESDAY
November 22nd
St. Kennedy's Day
- This Week
- "Ask Dr. Hal" Presents his Pre-Thanksgiving Blowout :
- The Return of the Phororhacos (or, if you must, the Phorusrhacos)
- The gigantic ground bird Phorusrhacos was nearly 8 feet [24 cm] tall with a skull 23 inches [58.42 cm] across. See it in action!
- YES, THE FEATHERED FURY IS BACK-- JUST IN TIME FOR THANKSGIVING!
- AND Special Appearance by
- Mr. (or Ms.) Mysterioso (or Mysteriosa)
- OUR MYSTERY-SHROUDED GUEST STAR
- We can't announce our Mystery Guest this close to press time. For "special reasons" of his own, showman Chicken John is keeping his (or her) identity a complete secret. WHO might it be? You'll just have to come in and find out for yourself!
- IT'S AS IF WE WERE ALL STILL AT THE ODEON!
- MYSTERY GUEST(??)
- COOL PRIZES!
- AGUA GIVEAWAYS!
- CELEBRATED SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM:
- Avant -garde ASTRONOMY
- Dazzling DEMONOLOGY
- Erudite ETYMOLOGY
- Encyclopaedic ENTOMOLOGY
- Paideutic PALEONTOLOGY
- ALL BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!!
GAGS! GROANS! GOOF-OFFS! GIRLS! GIGGLES! GRANDIOSE GRANDILOQUENCE!
-------------- YOU are invited: -------------
Join Dr. Hal & the gang as we celebrate
OUR TENTH TOWERING TABERNACLE OF SHOWMANSHIP
WEDNESDAY NIGHT
NOV. 22nd!
BEE THEIR OAR B SQUARE
COMPLETELY FREE? HELL NO-- IT COSTS SEVEN DOLLARS!
It costs seven dollars. A bean burrito and beer, or the rough equivalent. And this tatty, tawdry seven dollars will admit you to...
A FABULOUS CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
INCORPORATING
Prophecy, Pedantry, Poetry, a Multi-Media Barrage, Mind-breaking Special Effects, Fabulous Opening Acts, a Giant Miocene Rudimentary-winged Fowl, a Mystic Mystery Guest, Science, Sorcery and Sophistry. Get food & Drink-- enjoy our freshly made Pizza. Come one, come all. I, Dr. Howland Owll, deny that I have any "magic powers" whatsoever, though people will believe what they will. But I do promise and hereby affirm that I shall answer any question asked from the audience. How do I do it? I employ a synthesis of SubGenius doctrine and esoteric communion with the ghostly shadows of the universe. That should explain it. And-- it's not mandatory that YOUparticipate-- you can just come and... watch, if you want. So come to the show, and prepare yourself for answers, rants, Side Notes, Internet Oddities, Bardic Recitations, Speed Rounds, Gorilla Suits, Agua Giveaways-- and, melded deftly into the entire gestalt:Pete Goldie's Science Report!
Learn'd Astronomer and Boffo Boffin Pete Goldie will bring us tidings, as always, of newly discovered aspects of the cosmos. A quondam NASA consultant, Dr. Goldie is a delver into mysteries of natural philosophy. The well-known bon vivant and astro-science specialist gives us astonishing pictures from worlds never before viewed by human eyes-- transmitted by robots who are now busily exploring our Outer Solar System. You'll be spellbound as, with their assistance, Pete will whisk you, say, to the transits of Mercury or Venus, or guide you among gas giant super-planet Saturn's planet-sized weird and monstrous moons, where mountains may be made of ice, volcanoes spewammonia, and the sky rains methane. Special probable appearance by the simian "Brazilian Astronaut!"
K-Rob's Mesmerizing Movie Monstrosities Marathon...
Actually, it's uncertain what they are. They aren't movies, though they might've been... once. But once you look into the pulsating, whirling vortex, you'll be his. Yes, K-Robtakes no prisoners. And on stage at his Command Console, he pipes in an astonishing sonic smorgasbord to accompany the show's variations, ruminations and fulgurations.
Chicken John, Yeoman of the Showmen...
From his secret atelier, impresario Chicken John, last of the great Ringmasters of Outré Arts, hatches his plans to conquer new worlds. On the show, however, he's fairly affablemost of the time, a dispenser of homilies and Agua, the coca-leaf based so-called "Miracle Liquid." The scratchy-voiced, oft-bibulous Chicken is the Opener of the Way as well as the Goodnight Man, the Alpha as well as the Omega. Sometimes he puts everybody at the show on his bus and drives off with them in search of rare and secret entertainment...
Dr. Howland Owll...
Sees all. Knows all. Tells all. Scientific, educational. Healthful, revivifying, nutritive. Take cum grano salis. Results may vary. Does not (usually) stain clothing. No complicated machinery to buy. Anyonecan play. Fun for the whole family (if, that is, the whole family is of legal drinking age). Pencils, envelopes, instruction booklets and question slips provided free of charge. No pushy salesman will call. Quotes the poets. Witty, bawdy, topical. Will tell you your Totem Animal. Hypnotic and horrific. Reads tea leaves and T-shirts. Foretells the future, casts spells, locates missing objects, heals, sickens, communicates with the Spirit World, knows the Meaning of Life and the secrets of human hearts in this world and the next. Will design your tattoo.
David Capurro...
IJ (Internet Jockey) Capurro, also known for his alter-identity Yo-Yo Pro, one of the original Monsters of Yo-Yo and Master Yo-Yo Manipulator extraordinaire, keeps the show connected to the digital world, all the while scheming to bilk Chicken of as many free shots as his inserted questions can receive, as they are rewarded in this fashion for their excellence and entertainment value. I guess you really have to be there to appreciate this...
Frank Chu...
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. An impassioned prophet. A crank. A lunatic. A man with a message. A featured regular in his segment of the Ask Dr. Hal! show.
Mr. (or Ms.) Mystery...
This week Chicken isn't being all that forthcoming about our featured Special Guest performer. To be blunt, I can't get the name out of him. Not Extreme Elvis, though, so the first three rows won't require splatter shields. Nor will it be Michael Peppe, so ditto. Don't expect a repeat of last week's balladeer, Toshio Hirano, or surprise guitarist Eric McFadden.I can also confidently assert that it won't be Janor Hypercleats. It won't be Cookie Mongoloid. You know, it's harder to write this thing sometimes than it ought to be...
For Immediate Release:
San Francisco-- As Ask Dr. Hal! prepares for larger and larger audiences at 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission Street near 22nd, excited patrons are "going ape" from all theannounced improvements for next Wednesday night's pre-Thanksgiving outing, the penultimate show of this eleventh month of Year 2006. No "turkey," however, the night promises holiday felicities galore in store for this latest iteration of the award-winning (in the Bay Guardian) show's current rampant revival. The production commemorates the43-year anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, And take note: our new and improved show promises to be at Ten PM sharp, a time fewer people profess to find more than ordinarily inconvenient.
Attack of another Phorusrachid!
That big battling bird, the Phororhacos is back (I still can't get used to Phorusrachos) and angrier than ever. Side note: Phobosuchus, Dinicthyis, Brontosaurus, Eohippus...and Phororhacos. Perfectly good names, but now we have to say Deinosuchus, Dunkleosteous, Apatosaurus, Hyracotherium and so on, and, since this is supposed to be some sort of scientific entertainment, Phorusrachos. Well, OK. Phorusrhacoids, of course, were huge, carnivorous flightless birds that were among the dominant predators inSouth America during the Miocene Epoch, a period of time that extends from about 23 to 5.3 million years before the Ask Dr. Hal! show began. These fowls were 1-2.5 meters tall; Titanis walleri, one of the largest species, is known from North America, marking one of the comparatively rare examples where animals that evolved in South Americamanaged to spread north after the Isthmus of Panama land-bridge formed. The ancestors of T. walleri have not been found; however, it is always possible that more North American species await discovery. Only a few bones of this monster bird have been discovered at scattered locations in Florida and at a site along the Texas coast. No complete skeleton exists of North America's only known Phorusrhacoid. Well, how did these big bruisers come to exist? Left over from the dinosaur days? Not hardly, folks.Many questions remain, but a general picture of bird evolution is emerging. It is my (somewhat scientifically controversial) belief, not shared by the feathers-on-dinosaurs crowd, that birds, which like many other groups, underwent an initial Mesozoic adaptive radiation of archaic types, were submitted to a late Cretaceous demise and subsequentbottleneck, and underwent a dramatic reorganization in the early Tertiary, perhaps with initial land-bird and shorebird descent. This explosive evolution paralleled that of mammals, producing all the modern lineages of birds within about 10 million years, yielding modern orders by the Paleocene and Eocene, modern families by the late Eoceneor early Oligocene, and modern genera by the Miocene. A second phase of explosive radiation produced myriad passerines by the late Tertiary. If this picture is correct, then scores of papers attributing modern bird biogeography to drifting continents will have to be redrafted, and molecular clocks based on these assumptions must be reset. Now, we showed Ray Harryhausen's depiction of this bird quite recently (see the Dr. Hal Weekly-Dispatch, Vol. VII, No. 9) but this KrOB edit comes from Czech auteur filmmaker Karel Zeman (1910-1989) and his extraordinarily rare motion picture Cesta do praveku. In the clip, a kid in short pants, wandering through some high brush, encounters one of these magnificent, fearsome prehistoric birds, which squawks, wheels and chases the terrified tyke. It's too good. Where else in the world could you see such a thing? It's part of our show, Wednesday night at 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission St. near 22nd. If you missed seeing one of these giant extinct birds the last time, brought to life by ingenious stop-motion animation, well, Pilgrim, you have one more chance... catch it this time...
Social Notes
Ask Dr. Hal! opened with a surprise performer, musician Eric McFadden, an unannounced "extra" as a treat for our faithful fans. After a few tunes, Frank Chu's tirade, Chicken'smonologue and Pete Goldie's Astro-Science Summary (bookended by an appearance from the Brazilian Astronaut), the questioning and answering began-- there weren't that many side notes, so maybe the answers were satisfactory to the likes of peripatetic Paul Pot, man-about-town Moses, dashing David Kaye and beefy Bram Kinnard... We were up against The Dark Room's "Bad Porn Night," which scythed a swathe out of our attendance; fortunately Behind the Green Door mattered less than what was behind the door of 12 Galaxies to rock-jawed Ron Dalton and voluptuous Vicki Engels, sterling Shboopie and date juniper-fresh Janay Growden... Early on I saw the one and only Lloyd Mongoloid, who'd made the rafters ring at 12G at his band's well-attended last appearance there... Beauteous Bronwyn, fellow-traveller on September's Chicken John Bus Tripto Big Bend Hot Springs, slummed stylishly at our show. Beckoned on stage by cheeky Chicken, she received the full-blown Whippet treatment... Other über-femmes prominently were present, some coming in quite some time before the show got rolling-- among these ravishing Robin Frohardt, who came directly from Bangkok, stowing her luggage in the club, comely Colleen Sudafed, malapert Mable Syrup, luscious Lena Strayhorn, and nonpareil Nieves Hagmeier who also took the waters at Big Bend. I didn't see her constant companion Dan, the Rock God of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there-- I actually miss a lot of people, as I have to tell those of you who complain that I left 'em out of this column... There was no missing curvaceous Cloe Ashton or bodacious Babs, however, who was trying to throw Dr. Hal with her provocative queries, or fabulous Fan Ameke, who's now finished detoxing and, from the way she punished the sauce, is busy re-toxing... Toshio Hirano brought his plaintive interp. of classic musical Americana to the 12G stage, wowing the crowd with that great Jimmie Rogers tune, Mule Skinner Blues, which has been covered also by Dolly Partonand other big talents... Doughty doorman Sebastian announced a name change-- rather than be known as "the Doorman Formerly Known as Sebastian," he's opting for the more euphonious Chris. Bribers take note... Item: Mable Syrup had a suggestion for a kinky Dr. Hal show moment: she thinks Janay "should consider politely asking Cheryl[a.k.a. Mable] to tie her up and spank her silly," all, one assumes, right up on the Ask Dr. Hal! stage. Whew! I'd buy that for a dollar! But who could concentrate on the show? Sister Mable adds that it'd be therapeutic. That it would be, at least for me, anyway... must go take cold shower now. After the show it was Pizza downstairs and Whippetsupstairs for the lingerers, the protracted post-show finish to yet another episode of Ask Dr. Hal! For more details, go to our wild & wondrous web site at
Have you seen Chuck Cirino's Weird America site? For a great little segment presenting the show in the old Odeon bar days-- go there and click on the Dr. Hal icon on the right, or just go right to...
For sizzling still shots, get a load of nosy newshound-shutterbug Scott Beale's pix shot right at the scene with digital diligence. To ogle his complete, sequential photo-record/slide show of the spied Show, go-go to
For a memorable clip of Chicken and Dr. Hal dancing, go (especially if at "work,") to
For a glimpse of me speaking at the dedication of the Neverwas Haul (steam-age Victorian house-on-wheels seen at Burning Man), go to
For my (truncated) speech on Satan vis-a-vis the Church of the SubGenius at the Satan Show not too long ago (courtesy of Bug Girl), go to
For another fragment, this one an excerpt from a presentation on Monsters and the Nature of Evil (at Tentacle Session No. 19, 2/18/01) also courtesy of Bug Girl), go to
I've now got DSL, thanks to uber-fan & patron Matt Richards of Phoenix-- Phoenix Maryland, that is. Fans take note: My e-mail address has changed to
Remember! We are perpetually endeavoring to improve our presentation, and adjusting our new format for the convenience of our dedicated friends and patrons. And it seems that we're finally, after all these years, learning how to get it right. We entreat our old fellow-travellers to remember that, these days, contrary to their previous experience and expectation, the show actually will start on time. These days that means ten sharp. We don't want to get our audience fired by their bloodsucking Plutocrat-Capitalist "bosses"when Thursday morning they come stumbling & bumbling into their day jobs, sleep-deprived on account of us. Remember, if in the past we've been late in raising the(metaphorical) curtain, that has been partially your fault. Y'see, when enough people start coming earlier, we don't have to delay things. But for the rest of it we have to take responsibility-- otherwise there's a very real tendency for showtime always to lag while we go through endless permutations of sound checks, trapeze-rigging, KrOB cajoling, last-minute gorilla and/or bear training, Giant Robot maintenance, backstage dressing room hysterics or what have you. And this forthcoming time might be no different. So do come early, not late-- even if we are delayed it gives y'all time to schmooze & socialize, hang out, drink, laugh and swap lies. It's a party. An oasis of Slack in your week that it just doesn't make sense to miss. While you're waiting, enjoy a KrOB Video-- and a freshly-made, piping-hot Pizza, straight out of the 12 Galaxies oven.
BE THERE NOVEMBER 22nd-- THE TENTH SAVORY, STEAMING SERVING OF THE ALL-NEW "FREE RANGE"
ASK Dr. HAL!
White meat down to the drumsticks...
Wednesday night
at 12 Galaxies
2565 Mission St. near 22nd
10 PM
ASK Dr. HAL!
White meat down to the drumsticks...
Wednesday night
at 12 Galaxies
2565 Mission St. near 22nd
10 PM
Wednesday, 22 November, 2006
Starts at 09:00 PM
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