Origins of Shame

ByGabe WollenburgMy name is Gordy MacPharpenStien, and in a very limitedway, if you really think about it, I’m famous.Seriously. You’ve probably seen the thing I’m famous forhundreds, if not thousands, of times. See, when I was 12, I wasgood at making puppets.Not like, stupid stuff like sock puppets and folded over paperbags and shit like that; I made real sculpted puppets, completewith metal armatures and springs and mechanics. It wassomething that my great aunt taught me to do, and something thatI liked do to with my dad. She taught him how to do it too. It wassomething that we’d do together.I was kind of a late bloomer, ok? It’s not that big of a deal. Ihung out with my dad and made puppets, ok? More kidsnowadays would benefit from spending the kind of time with mydad that I did when I was 12.And it wasn’t weird shit like you find nowadays, either.Nowadays, you never know if a guy makes a puppet because he’screative, or if he makes it because later, while he’s dialed into theinternet, he’s going to beat off with it or something.It wasn’t like that with my dad and I. We’d make theseelaborate stories up and would spend months putting togetherthese incredible puppets and then put on shows for my sister,Rosa.

Dad and I would perform whatever we wanted to. We wouldtell fairy tales, and heroic adventures, and pirate shows, rivetingdramas and even soap operas.I’m getting to the limited kind of fame that I enjoy. Be patient.My mom died when I was 13. Right about the time I had myaccident. Actually, shortly before.See. I have powers. I’m hesitant to call them “Super Powers,”because I don’t find them particularly “Super,” and I don’t fightcrime or anything. Besides, my powers don’t particularly playinto why I’m famous in limited way. They just don’t.Do you know that kid’s show that used to be on Channel 10?The one that used to comes on about 2:30 in the afternoon? It’swas this hopelessly dated show that the local news channel put onevery day at 2:30. Remember? It was called “Captain Carl’sCartoon Show.”Because of a weird quirk in the way that the station waslicensed, the show has been on, like, since the advent of TV.Nobody really watched it, but at the same time, everybody kind offelt like it would be really sad if it wasn’t on anymore.And then, Captain Carl was brought up on charges sexuallyabusing of one of his daughters. But the show wasn’t canceled.The station just changed Captain Carl’s, and never mentioned “theincident.”The Captain Carl, whose real name was Carl, by the way, wasacquitted on a technicality. And the daughter killed herself shortlyafter that; I think I read in the newspaper. I don’t really remember.Anyway, right about the time they were bringing on the newhost, my dad came home with a stack of flimsy, curly papers forme to look at. I don’t remember what exactly the papers said, but Ido remember I thought that it was really cool paper. Today, Iknow it was thermal fax machine paper, but back then, I’d neverseen paper that was so think and yet so glossy. It was my firstexperience with a non-permanent kind of paper.Plus, dad never brought home anything for me from work—he was a copy editor at the local newspaper, and he worked aweird shift, so it was unusual for a couple of reasons. He rarelywas home at night during the week.

Dad told me that the papers were a contract and that he’dsigned them in all the right places. Dad explained that he wasgoing to take the whole family out for pizza at the place with thebig pipe organ.Later, at the pizza place, dad told me that one of the guysfrom the entertainment desk said that they were looking to livenup the Captain Carl cartoon show with a little more liveprogramming. Cartoons were getting to expensive to license, sothe new captain was going to produce more originalprogramming and show fewer cartoons.In place of the cartoon segments, the new captain was going toput on little skits using puppets that would teach the boy and girlviewers about life and about good behavior.So dad had made a phone call to the producer of the program(the TV station and dad’s newspaper were owned by the samecompany) and the producer and he hit it off.Anyway, the long and the short of it was that dad sold ourentire collection of puppets for like, $500.Even then, we were a little disappointed with the amount ofmoney, because it amounted to only a little over $40 per puppet,but dad said that it would pay off in the long run, because wewould get a cut of all the future merchandizing deals.Only, six months later, the replacement captain, whose namewas also Carl, oddly enough, was killed after he got drunk andcrashed his Mercedes into a pregnant 12-year-old. You’d thinkthat was horrible enough, but it turned out that while the captainwas killed instantly, the 12-year -old was only brain-dead. Thebaby was saved.The captain’s show was put on hiatus. About the same time,the FCC changed the way it licensed the TV station, andultimately the show was canceled. Dad told me once that it turnedout that his company had lobbied to get the stations deed changeda couple months before the accident, and was waiting for the righttime to announce that she show was going off the air.Dad said that he wished he’d have read the contract morecarefully. Dad cried to me a lot around that time. He cried and