O P I N I O N
By Keith Howard
Pompous Jackassery and Mortal Concerns exists because I’ve failed at every other literary form.
Novelist? Barely passable. Journalist? Unfit. Poet? Please. Essayist? Marginally above average—which is just enough to crash and burn among the illiterati.
A sensible man would accept his creative fate and spend his evenings trying not to stare into the sun or eat too many crayons before dinner. I am not that man.
Instead, I’ve decided I am a monologist. A playwright of one voice. Why? Because on stage I can do what books never manage: surprise even myself.
Socrates complained that the written word always says the same thing. Each time you open a book, there it is again, repeating itself like a dull party guest who won’t leave. He had a point. So when I got tired of reading my memoir Unclaimed, But Loud aloud, I stopped. I turned scenes into monologues and let them loose. What emerged was part confession, part farce—existential comedy with its pants around its ankles.
That’s the spirit of this column too: not just words, but words that perform. So rather than tell you more, let me show you. Here’s one of those monologues, straight from the stage, where it belongs.
Kindergarten (Performance Script)
(lean forward, conspiratorial tone)
Let’s start with kindergarten. That’s where I first discovered the magic of being noticed—loudly, in public.
By five years old, I’d already embraced my philosophy: existence as disruption.
I proved I was alive by keeping the rest of the world from doing whatever it thought it wanted to do.
Jennifer—my sister—was peace and harmony.
Me? I was chaos and rebellion.
(beat, smirk)
Take Cathy Palmer. She sat beside me at story time. Legs folded neatly under her plaid skirt, hands laced together like a tiny nun. She smelled like grape juice and Crayolas. Her shoes were so polished you could see your face in them—if you were the sort of kid who cared about seeing yourself.
One April morning, Mrs. Granger was reading some dull, sugary story about the joys of sharing. Cathy sat there glowing with goodness. Too good. The scene begged for an interruption.
So I shifted in my seat. Nobody noticed. Not even Mrs. Granger. The edges of the moment were closing in. I had to do something. Anything.
(beat, drop voice lower, as if confessing a crime)
I stood up. Pulled down my pants.
Nothing.
So I pulled down my underpants.
Cathy’s mouth fell open. Her face went crimson. She started crying like she’d just stared into a nest of cobras—when all I’d shown was one terrified inch: One-Eyed Willy the Wonder Worm.
But it wasn’t about Cathy. Not really.
It was about Mrs. Granger. About her gasp loud enough for the kids in the back row to hear.
About the way the room went instantly silent… and then cracked open into whispers and giggles.
“Keith!” Mrs. Granger’s voice shook, like she couldn’t decide whether to be furious or just confused at me.
(pause, stand there, hold the silence)
And me? I stood there with my pants around my ankles and thought: This is it.
They’ll remember this.
For one perfect moment—I existed. Completely.
I didn’t care about the punishment. I didn’t care about the disappointed looks. I didn’t even care about the long, silent ride home with Mom, her knuckles white against the Volkswagen Bug steering wheel.
What mattered was the way the room had stopped breathing.
The way every single face had turned toward me.
(look around the audience)
The way you’re looking at me right now.
And don’t worry—I’m fully clothed this time.
Mrs. Granger called my mom later. Suggested I stay home for the rest of the year—what was left of it.
Officially, I’d mastered the kindergarten curriculum.
But the truth? Mrs. Granger had had enough of me.
And I had only just gotten started.
That was my first lesson in what this column is all about: existence as disruption, comedy as survival, and the occasional flash of Pompous Jackassery. If Socrates was right that books never change, maybe this is my answer—words that won’t sit still, words that jump off the page, sometimes with their pants down.
Publisher’s Note: This is a new series of columns by Keith Howard – you know him from his Tiny White Box series, and as former Executive Director of The Liberty House and Hope for NH Recovery. You can read his previous column here. His new memoir, Unclaimed, But Loud: The Memoir of a Shy and Retiring Boy Who Was Neither, is available for purchase on Amazon.