The Dick Dialogues

These panels taught me ... that the creative contextualization of a play like The Vagina Monologues can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition. This is a good model for the future. Accordingly, I see no reason to prohibit performances of The Vagina Monologues on campus, and do not intend to do so. -- Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President, University of Notre Dame

LIKE THE DISTINGUISHED, BEFUDDLED, AND OUTFLANKED Father above, I too -- in a fit of "creative contextualization"-- seek to bring "certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue" here at American Digest. To further that mission, I hope I won't be telling tales out of school if I reveal that, of late, a secret evening of drama has been taking place in numerous undisclosed locations about the nation. We are all aware of the unstoppable chunk of mummery and flummery known as The Vagina Monologues, but few know -- and few deserve to know -- about the blowback (so to speak) that is "The Dick Dialogues."

This play is usually performed on the down-low in the basements of sports bars, carefully darkened car-repair garages, and the deepest forest amphitheaters of the Bohemian Grove. Attendance is strictly male and strictly invitation-only since in many states the mere thought of giving a performance of "The Dick Dialogues" would constitute a hate-crime.

Modeled on the successful NPR series "Car Talk," a typical episode of "The Dick Dialogues" consists of two men, traditionally named "Plick" and "Plack," slumped in Lay-Z-Boys in a nondescript Rec Room. Here they field calls on a speaker phone from a series of male and female and neuter voices. The actors, clad in the traditional garb of jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps and army boots, respond to the questions on the spot during an extended half-time at a fantasy football league's Super Bowl. The cost of admission is a donation that is suggested to be equal to one month of the attendee's child support payment.

Spontaneous, unrehearsed, and always faintly pissed-off, the "Dialogues" continue to gather fans and acolytes in the secret Royal Order of Meese (Named after the Sainted Ed Meese, blessed be his Attorney General's Commission on Pornography.) in cities here and abroad wherever non-gelded males still are to be found -- either in captivity or free-ranging.

Last summer I attended a performance of the Dialogues in the greater Seattle area. At first it was to be performed at a used fishing boat warehouse down near the locks at Lake Union, but the proximity of the locks to the University of Washington and its vast stocks of neutered males made this a security risk. So it was moved to a secret location in the model rooms at a Renton superstore with the code name AEKI. While waiting for the show to start, early arrivals were entertained with classic skits such as "If You Really Loved Me, You'd Buy Me a House," "Darling, You'll Never Guess How Much I Saved Shopping Today," "Please Pay Off My Credit Cards Again," and "What the Frikin' Hell Are 'Window Treatments' Anyway?"

The performance began at midnight with sacred de-estrogenation rituals involving the burning of large numbers of cigars, the consumption of local malt beverages, and ten choruses of Kumbaya topped off with a coordinated group belch.

I am forbidden to disclose the full text of that evening's Dick Dialogues, but one particular exchange does stick in the mind. Halfway through the evening, the phone rang in the "Rec Room" and a reedy, frustrated female voice asked:

While we're on the topic of Dick use and abuse, I've recently returned my vintage Dick to the general Dick pool, but find I still need one from time to time for the small chores and larger tensions of my life. I'm reluctant to buy a new Dick outright in this market? Do you know where I can rent one? Or would leasing one be a better deal?

The evening's official Dick Dialoguers rolled their eyes, did a Jagermeister shot, popped open a Bud, took a big hit off Ghengis Bong and answered as follows:

Plick: "Lady, Dick rentals-- especially in Seattle and other major cities -- are chancy at best. While this was once a very dependable option, these days you need to know where and by whom your Dick has been rented in the past before you rent. Outside of the extremely high-end dicks that don't get a lot of traffic, like, say, the Paul Allen, rental dicks are rented to all sorts of people who tend, like bad horse trainers, to ride them hard and put them away wet."

Plack: "Yeah, and don't be taken in by all the propaganda coming from the big Dick rental firms, especially Hurts, about Pre-Owned Pre-Certified Dicks. Certification of safe rental dicks are extremely suspect these days, what with corruption being so rife in City agencies charged with certifying your that rental Dick is clean, responsive, fully fueled, and comes with a functional airbag."

Plick: "Right. I even advise that, should you decide to really blow some cash and rent the high performance dicks, you should deploy the airbag before starting it up."

Plack: "Even then, you have to bear in mind that certification is a flawed policy in any event. In this era of 'Don't ask. Don't tell.' full disclosure is a sometime thing.

Plick: "He's right. Your rental Dick can be certified in the morning after it is returned from, say, a fully fanatical fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton... "

Posted by Vanderleun at February 24, 2015 10:36 PM