A lot of people helped us make it to the top of the music biz, and we've forgotten about most of them. But every now and then somebody helps out in a certain way that you just can't seem to forget, no matter how hard you try. Ms. Irma Smoothaven-Kirkpatrick was like that. She helped to make us famous in high society. Thanks to her we are now equally at home with earls and churls, climbing up and down the social ladder effortlessly: skipping across the steps as nimbly as trained dogs in a circus, only we don't jump down into a pool of water when we get to the top, although we probably would if the price was right and it was done in good taste.
        Anyway, you've probably read about Ms. Kirkpatrick recently in your basic outhouse-quality scandal sheet, The International Snooper. She was in all of the tabloids after that affair at the Snobthistle Country Club. It was reported afterwards that she had checked into the Merryfield Clinic for an extended period of rest. Well, if anyone deserved it, she did.
        In the summer of 2005, it seemed like our band had conquered the world. We were so famous that we had to hire a bunch of guards just to run alongside of our limo to shuck the fans off. We couldn't as much as go out in public without causing a riot. Disguises were no good. Even those funny plastic glasses with the nose and the moustache attached didn't work.
        About this time I gathered the boys together for a little talk. They were all there, the ones you've heard so much about: the drummer, Frogstick Gutchins, a good old boy from my hometown; the bass player, Slug; Stink the lead guitarist, who generally smells gamier than bucketful of catfish heads; Egghead, our keyboard man, and me, Hootenanny B. Hootenanny. We were all sitting on my patio beside the ridiculously huge glass-enclosed pool at my palatial estate, enjoying the air conditioning and the hot sunlight, when I began to address them.
        "Men," I told them, "we've come a long way from the Guthchinville Dance Hall."
        "Indubitably," said Egghead. He's been to college.
        "Now, boys," I continued, "I have some good news. I received an invitation this week for us to play a different kind of gig: a gig like we've never played before." I paused for effect, then dropped the other shoe into my mouth. "Boys," I said, "we've been offered a job at the Snobthistle Country Club in Washington, D.C.!"
        Egghead's eyes widened. Frogstick likewise looked impressed. Slug drooled at the prospect. At least, I thought he did. Slug always drools, so it was hard to tell the difference. I flipped up his shades. He was sound asleep.
        "Slug doesn't look too thrilled," I said.
        "He's thrilled," said Stink, "look at his foot. It's twitching." I looked. Sure enough, it was twitching.
        "What about you, Stink?" asked Frogstick.
        "I don't know. Will I have to bathe?"
        "Only if you want to," I answered.
        "They'll serve fish eggs," chipped in Egghead, referring to the caviar.
        "Let's do it!" cried a loud, familiar voice. I turned in surprise. It was Slug, roused out of his typical torpor by the sound of his favorite dish. At such an unusually active response from Sluggy, our decision was already made. We would play the gig. We had finally made it to High Society!
        We arrived early at the Snobthistle Country Club on the night of the show. Our people had rigged the stage during the day and we were all decked out in our fanciest duds. Stink, who usually emits an aroma that can blister a brick wall, had washed his face and doused himself with some kind of cheap bay rum that smelled like an industrial disinfectant. His efforts were greatly appreciated by all of us in the band, even though his paint-peeling stench remained as a silent rebuke to his futile effort.
        We had barely finished showing our passes to the guy at the door and sauntering inside the big ballroom when a tall, elegant lady hurried over to us.
        "Who are you?" she demanded.
        "We're the band, ma'am," I replied.
        "Impossible," she gasped, "I hired a folk group, The Hootenannies."
        "We're the Hootenannies, ma'am," I replied, "and we play nothin' but pure-T, straight-ahead, rock-solid heavy country metal." I grinned at her like the possum that just ate the canary. "Of course," I added, "we throw in some Hank and Minnie and Buck and Roy, as a heart-felt tribute to our ethnic roots. Why ma'am, we're not a group of Bohemian bongo-beaters. We're nothin' but a bunch of stone-natural countrified Hicks."
        At my last word Ms. Irma Smoothaven-Kirkpatrick heaved a sigh and wilted to the floor, as limp as a cooked collard. She was out cold.
        "So much for the formalities," blurted Slug, "where's the fish eggs?"
        They got a doctor for the woman, who turned out to be the prominent person that she already was, only we hadn't known it until the doctor told us, which he did, and then we knew. It turns out that she had hired us through her secretary, who thought that we were beatniks because of our name. It just so happened that this shindig was a birthday party for some richly-oiled middle eastern potentate who liked folk music. This was real interesting to find out.
        "Boys, I began, "you can tell that this lady isn't accustomed to performers of our caliber. I think that we need to put on a special show tonight to show her that she picked the right band."
        Stink lurched from his chair and grabbed my lapels.
        "You don't mean the old Special Show like we used to do, when we did it, do you?" he splattered into my face.
        "That's right, Stinker," I said, turning my head away. His breath made my eyes water.
        "The Special Show?" shouted Slug, leaping to his feet. We gaped at him in amazement. He hadn't moved that quickly in years. "Oh boy, the Special Show!" he hollered, dancing a jig. We all grinned at each other. Tonight we were really going to give Ms. Fitzpatrick her money's worth!
        It was about time to perform now, so we located the dressing rooms and tuned up our instruments. The dressing area was right behind the stage, and I sneaked a peek at the crowd. What I saw was enough to impress a mannequin!
        I hope you don't mind if my pen leaks some poetical wax while I describe the crowd that was there that night. The men were all dressed up like dignified penguins, and the ladies were as colorful as a passel of wildflowers, festooned with diamonds as big as ice cubes. There must have been a mixed holiday assortment of over two thousand big cheese wheels there that night in that grand ballroom, all glittering and shimmering like a school of minnows in shallow water on a sunny day.
        When we were announced there was only scattered applause; this was not your typical country-western audience. But we aimed to educate them.
        When the spotlight hit me on the big stage, I signaled the boys not to kick into our first song.
        "Ladies and gentlemen," I said to the gathered bigwigs, nabobs, and high muck-a-mucks, "we are mighty glad to be rubbing heads and elbows with you all here tonight. But we wouldn't be here at all without the efforts of Ms. Irma Smoothaven-Fitzpatrick, the hostess of this big bash. Put the spotlight on her, please. Ms. Fitzpatrick?" She looked nervous in the bright light as she half-curtsied to the applause and surprised murmurs, while a few of the people threw some fresh titters onto the top of the pile. She still looked a mite pale.
        About that time our drummer hit a lick, and we crunched into the powerhouse intro to our big hit, "Who Shot Nelly?" We followed that one with "Too Dumb To Know Better" and then slowed it down with our mournful ballad that was number one at the time, "Stink's Lament." By now the crowd was getting merry from the food and the fizzies, and they were giving us a big hand in between the gales and gusts of laughter. Ms Fitzpatrick fluttered here and there among the people wringing her hands. She looked a bit nervous; I reckon she'd never seen a laser light show before. Now I signaled the boys and the spotlight hit me again as the place went dark.
        "Folks," I opined into the microphone, "you're in for a rare treat tonight. In honor of our friend Irma, I present "THE INCREDIBLE HOOTENANNIES!" From behind me I heard Stink's distinctive rebel yell as he dove off of the top if his stack of amplifiers and landed on his back with a splat at the front of the stage, kicking his feet into the air while he and the boys cranked into our heavy metal version of "The Wabash Cannonball."
        We did it all that night. We wailed and whined and shivered and shook that joint with our gruffest and grittiest tunes. Slug sang his number "Salted Slug" and finished it my popping his arms out of joint and imitating the same; Frogstick played the drum solo to "Wipe Out" blindfolded with his sticks on fire; Stink took on all comers and won a raw garlic eating contest, finishing in a flourish by breathing on a flower arrangement and causing it to swoon into a soggy heap. Then I cued our light man, Bip, to douse the lights, and Egghead began to roll a tape of our band playing "The Sweetheart's Waltz."
        As the spotlight followed me, I jumped down from the stage and walked across the floor to Ms.Fitzpatrick. I bowed grandly and extended my arm. With all eyes upon us, she could hardly decline. We began to waltz gracefully across the floor, tripping the light fantastically as we soared high, high above the cares of this world, leaving our troubles behind us along with our good sense. Now I felt a tap on my shoulder. Looking around, I saw that it was Egghead, and so I left her in his able hands, climbing back up onto the stage to watch them as they waltzed in the spotlight. Egghead sure looked classy. Irma, however, looked a little green around the gills; I could see that she wasn't used to so much excitement. When Frogstick cut in, she shivered, but when Slug politely took his turn she seemed a mite staggery. By now I was beginning to worry about her.
        Suddenly there was a stir in the crowd, and I knew that Stink was in position on the floor. You can always tell when Stink is around. Like Moby Dick, the great white whale, you can smell Stink before you see him.
        When she waltzed up to Stink, and the spotlight shone upon him, I guess that something in Ms. Fitzpatrick just snapped. Maybe it was his breath. Maybe it was his toothless grin. But, for whatever reason, she stopped dancing. She rolled her eyes, and her tongue lolled out. Then she let out a shriek that sounded like the steam whistle down at the Guthchinville Lumberyard. She reeled around like a drunkard, staggering over to the table that held the birthday cake.
        It was then that she saw the knife.
        She seized the huge, shiny cake knife in her trembling hands, and her eyes lit up as she turned back to Stink. She was grinning.
        Stink, being no dummy, sized up the situation in a flash. He turned and tried to run, but in the heat of his panic his feet found no traction. They skidded and floundered around like the wheels of a big old dragster; then all at once his size twelves caught hold, and he took off like a low-flying rocket. But, as swift as ary a greyhound, Ms. Fitzpatrick hove after him in hot pursuit. I stood up there on the stage and watched, my jaw dropping in admiration as I saw the events unfold.
        That lady could run! Like a buzz saw bearing down on a hapless squirrel she raced behind him, narrowing the gap with each lap that they took around the dance floor. Meanwhile, thinking that this was all just a part of the act, the crowd went wild. They laughed and hollered and nudged each other and slapped their knees, just as if they were normal people!
        Well, it was nip and tuck out there for a while. But I guess that old Stink must have more lives in him than a polecat. He somehow managed to stay ahead of the knife until a couple of big old security guards grabbed Irma. She gave them a fight; I'll tell you that. And as they hauled her away through the main entrance of the ballroom, the audience gave them both a standing ovation!
        So now you know how we broke into high society and became members of the elite. Of course, you've already been apprised as to what happened to Ms. Smoothaven-Fitzpatrick. She was out of the asylum in less than a year. I guess that all of the excitement just wore her out, which was too bad, because at the time I was seriously considering adding her to our act. We've held the job open for her ever since, just in case she decides to join up.
        As for Stink, his brush with death has renewed his interest in running. He works out every day now, just to stay in shape.
        So all in all I reckon that you'd have to say that our famous gig at the Snootthistle Country Club turned out to be an important event in our lives. In fact, I guess that you could say that the seeds of our Great Wilderness Adventure were sown that very night in Washington, D.C. You see, if we hadn't done that gig, we wouldn't have delayed that start of our next world tour, and we wouldn't have wound up getting bored, so we wouldn't have.......but, hey, I'm getting ahead of my own self here, and I don't want to leave myself behind, so I'd better slow down. Like Zeb says, "Hasty fish fry in time; one hand clapping refuses to rhyme." What he means by this, of course, is anybody's guess.
        Oh, wait, you haven't read about Zeb yet, at least not here. How should I describe him? Well now, you might say that Zeb is sort of a "wilderness adventure" in and of his own self, if you know what I mean. He went with us on our famous wilderness journey, and he really livened things up: riffing on his guitar, randomly ripping away with improvised, classically-rocky lines of hip, post-beat poetry, and generally being an all-around nuisance.
        To tell you the truth, if it hadn't been for Zeb, and for Franz Kafka.......aw, shoot, there I go getting ahead of myself again; if I don't look out I'll lose sight of myself in this crowd, and then where would we be? Well, anyway, old Zeb has always been in the thick of things with our band, ever since we met him. In fact, he was the one who gave us the big break that broke us into this business. It all began on the night of his by-now-famous appearance at the Okoa County Farm Festival, way up in Okoa, Georgia. It seems like it was just yesterday..........