Paul Lynde – DAVID V. MATTHEWS

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #84: Paul Lynde Goes M-A-A-A-AD (May 12, 1979)

For the previous chapters of the Lynde Saga, see here, here, here, here, here, annnnnd here. (These two sentences don’t count toward the hundred-word total.)

At eight PM, the time this TV special started airing, my band The Splats stepped onstage at Guralski’s Bar to open for Highlife. Someone in the audience immediately shouted “Faggot!” and threw a beer bottle at me. It whizzed an inch past my head.

I got M-A-A-A-AD. I charged toward him.

A minute later, I lay on the floor, hearing Guralski himself tell my bandmates “No fuckin’ way I’m payin’ you for this. Now get the fuck outta here.”

“Awww,” I said with a mouthful of blood. “Can’t we see fuckin’ Highlife at least?”

Nope. That pissed off my bandmates.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #83: Paul Lynde at the Movies (March 24, 1979)

For the previous chapters of the Lynde Saga, see here, here, here, here, and here. (These two sentences don’t count toward the hundred-word total.)

As the howling, yowling fifteen-year-old lead singer for the first (and probably worst) band I ever belonged to, The Splats, I had no idea this TV special even existed; I’d long ago stopped watching TV, which I considered, as I put it in one of my songs, “Brainwasher Supreme.” I didn’t even read my mom’s favorite magazine, TV Guide. At the time, I considered her a pathetic tube junkie, but considering my stepfather’s dalliances, not to mention his homophobic disdain toward me, who could blame her for escaping into bullshit? (Also: Perversion of the Body Snatchers? I gotta see that.)

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #71: ’Twas the Night Before Christmas (December 7, 1977)

In this special, which of course I never saw, Paul Lynde plays an 1890s family man whose house gets invaded by wacky relatives on Christmas Eve. The special aired only once. According to more culturally-literate friends who have seen this on YouTube, Lynde delivers the campiest version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” ever. My thirteen-year-old self in 1977—a wannabe straight boy who air-guitared to sexist crap on the radio—would’ve hated this version, and so would’ve my Aunt Inez, with whom my family still lived, and who hated what she called “silliness.” Sometimes, I can see her point.