WEDNESDAY, Feb. 25th!
==PRESENTED ON OUR ALL-NEW STAGE==
AT
The Famous Chez Poulet Gallery-Cabaret
where SHOWTIME— more or less– BEGINS at around
=9:00 PM=
THE SLAPDOWN— Admission: $ 10-ISH
(Cheap! NO ONE turned away! A BARGAIN!)
3359 Cesar Chavez St.
(Army) Street between Mission and South Van Ness. Just on the
edge of Bernal Heights. The old Odeon Neighborhood.

The Dr. Hal Report    
Vol. IX                                                                  No. 16

“Whatever begins, also ends.”
                                           –Seneca
“You’re searching, Joe, for things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings — there are no such things. There are only middles.”
                                                      –Frost
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”
                                                       –Lazarus Long
THIS WEEK:
EVICTED! – COUNTDOWN TO DOOM – RADIO REJECTS – GRASPING AT STRAWS –
MANT – PART MAN, PART ANT – KING SIZE CANARY – ANT MEN IN ANCIENT
TIMES – THE FRANK CHU STORY, PART 3; CONCLUSION – CAPPY’S  MASTER PLAN –
PETE GOLDIE ‘S STARRY WISDOM: IN SEARCH OF UNSEEN EARTH -LIKE WORLDS –
HOUSE RULES RULE – QUESTIONABLE ANSWERS – SOCIAL NOTES – HILLBILLY DENTAL
PROBLEMS – BUS RIDE TO SAN JOSE & LOOP! STATION – NEW LOOP! STATION CD –
PARADE OF PULCHRITUDE – … FRENCH KISSING THE DOG… – KrOB’S FILM FARM
RETURNS; MORE BUS RIDES, DOUBLE FEATURES, MATCHING DESTINATIONS – YOKED
EVEN MORE WITH YOU TUBE – PUZZO’S NEWEST CLIPS –

 IT’S our last show in February & sixteenth episode of Ask Dr. Hal! in our current run.
But these shows are coming to an end. Who says so? Chicken John. He‘s going off to play with boats
in Europe–and once again, since the show is in his house, there’s a problem. Though everyone else in
our cast would be quite happy to keep on with a “guest host” (such arrangements have been made
successfully before), Mr. Rinaldi doesn’t want a crowd of people there while he‘s away and unable to
prevent them from invading, shuffling into his sanctum sanctorum, stealing his silverware, Fabergé
Eggs and collection of framed hunting prints, rifling through his drawers and “borrowing” (permanently)
his beloved arsenal of power tools. So, that’s it; we‘re (soon going to be) out of there, it’s been swell, and
now we begin our dreaded…

COUNTDOWN TO DOOM!
It’s still not clear how many shows are left in this cycle. Certainly we‘ll run through March, maybe do a
few in April. Who knows? Not Chicken, not yet. But when he firms up his plans, we will let you know
right in this space the exact diminishing number of opportunities remaining to experience the awe and
mystery, the wonder and bemusement, the savagery and splendor, we call the Ask Dr. Hal! Show.
BUT… WE‘LL CONTINUE AS BEFORE ON PIRATE CAT RADIO, RIGHT?
Wrong. Dr. Hal, KrOB, even Astronomer Royal Pete Goldie, have been permanently booted off SF’s
popular pirate FM station by station manager Dr. Monkey. Because we asked him not to advertise our
radio show when we weren’t there, confusing and disappointing our listeners, but he ignored us
despite repeated requests, Chicken got involved– and you can guess what happened next– he exercised
the “Nuclear Option–” that is, insulting Monkey so much that PCR‘s chief factotum blew a gasket– and
now that grossly insulted individual (flamed as only Chicken can do) never wants to see any of our sorry
phizzes again– in short, none of us can e’er return.
FAINT GLIMMERS OF HOPE?
There do exist a few slight shadows of hope for doing some sort of post-Chicken performances, even
some sort of (non-Pirate Cat) radio. But ‘twould be ill-advised to comment prematurely. As mighty
KrOB Sabrepop himself would tell you, at this point we can ill afford another Klendathu. So keep
watching this space to see if the idea of a Chicken-less Dr. Hal Show somewhere else is a false hope–
or instead one with an ever-so-slight chance of becoming real. Meanwhile, we‘re determined to make
history in our own way. We‘ve carried the show on for many years now– and are always refining it a degree
or so further, trying to ascertain what “works” and what we have to conclude never will. KrOB’s on the job,
as always, brewing up new surprises. And he‘s got a real winner this week, as for the very first time ever the
Monster Clip will bring you the hideous tale of a grotesque cross-phylum mutant, part man and part ant, as…

KrOB, San Francisco, Presents:
MANT! THE INSECTILE ABOMINATION!

Unspeakably horrible is this eructation of perverted science– the metamorphosis of Homo sapiens into Homo
myrmex. Before your traumatized eyes you will see sights which will seize your quivering brain in gleaming,
razor-sharp chitinous mandibles and send it skittering off into a necrophagous abyss of suffocating,
night-black horror down endless subterranean corridors of hexapodal madness. Oh, that KrOB. Nearly all ants
have a unique gland found on the petiole, the linking segment between thorax and abdomen (we were classically
trained) or, as they say today in Ant Science or Myrmecology, the altitrunk and gastor. Yes, yes, insect fans– we
know that the altitrunk is considered the distal component of the pre-petiolar thorax. There’s just not space to get
into that here. Anyway, we are speaking of the metapleural gland. Most importantly, this gland has been shown to
contain antibacterial and antifungal chemicals which are essential for survival in the humid, dark nests your typical
ants construct in the ground or rotting vegetation. This gland secretes an antiseptic substance, or “gleet,” that at
times acts as a repellent to attacking organisms. It is also thought that the metapleural gland releases certain special
pheromones for communication. But, you know, that’s pretty small compensation for a guy who finds himself slowly
turning into a man-ant, or mant. Hence, the drama, the pathos. You know the drill. So, for unique, bulbous Big Bug
thrills, get a load of what the indefatigable KrOB‘s prepared for this week! Yet another in a series of unforgettable
KrOB “Edits!” Scientific! Educational! View it all on our Giant Screen (or, if  you prefer to, on our “size-challenged”
screen). But, before that…

WE START…  WITH A KLASSIC KARTOON !
We like to start the show with a bang– and we do. Just before every performance begins, we screen a great animated
cartoon, lovingly selected by KrOB– eight minutes of the best theatrical shorts ever committed to film. Last week we
brought you, as promised, one of the best works of our all-time favorite cartoon director, the late Bob Clampett, whom Dr.
Hal and his sister Martha were privileged to know personally. Now we‘re going to give you another of those great MGM
cartoons directed by Clampett‘s pal the legendary Tex Avery. This time Avery’s sex-mad wolf character doesn’t come into
it, though. Instead, in King-Size Canary (1947), the subject is typical cartoon animals (bulldog, alley cat, mouse and
canary) who throughout the picture just grow– and keep growing– to enormous, monstrous size. This is a trope that Avery,
the master of exaggeration, typically carries to an extreme. Simply, it’s a great cartoon. In fact, in 1994, King-Size Canary
was voted #10 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time by members of the animation field. So join us at the good old
Chez Poulet Gallery Cabaret this Wednesday night, won’t you? –in time to catch up with yet another treasure of your
Nation’s once-flourishing but now (that the Conspiracy has dumbed it all down) mostly vanished popular culture.
Remember, our show will start right up at the very moment the cartoon ends.

” The ultimate anthropomorphic macrophilia cartoon. In layman’s terms, the best Big Animals clip! ”
                                                                                    — Ralph Fielding Snell, Jumbo-Gro & Cinematic Apotheosis

THEN…
THIS MAN TURNING INTO AN ANT THING — ANY TRUTH TO IT?
Well, how ’bout a being well known to the ancients which was part lion, part ant? This was the Myrmecolion, described
by the learned Authors of the Physiologus and other unimpeachable authorities. Gustave Flaubert described it in this way:
“…lion in its foreparts, ant in its hindparts, with the organs of its sex the wrong way.” Such a creature, the author of
Madame Bovary noted, is short-lived. Isidore of Seville, who calls it a Formicoleon, says of it that “…it is the lion of the
ants, or at least ant and lion at the same time. For it is a small creature that is very hostile to ants. It hides itself in the
sand and kills the ants as they are carrying grains. And it is called lion and ant because it is, as it were, an ant to other
animals, but a lion to ants…” (Brehaut, 1912). Of course, “Izzy” was just talking about the doodlebug, or Antlion
(Dendroleon pantheormis) a well-known insect. The closest living relatives of antlions are the owlflies (Ascalaphidae).
But we have Scriptural authority for the full-sized hybrid. “Eliphaz the king of the Temanites said, ‘The ant-lion
perished because it had no food.” The Physiologus said: “It had the face (or fore-part) of a lion and the hinder parts of
an ant. Its father eats flesh, but its mother grains.’ If they engender the ant-lion, they engender a thing of two natures,
such that it cannot eat flesh because of the nature of its mother, nor grains because of the nature of its father. It
perishes, therefore, because it has no nutriment. So is every double-minded man; unstable in all his ways…” This
typically moralistic Bestiary entry derives from monkish mistransliteration errors, we believe– too bad there isn’t enough
space, once again, to cover it properly. But in Ancient Greece (as one might expect) we hear, through blind Homer (not
Simpson) of that lost tribe of ant-men commanded by Achilles during the Trojan War. It seems their eponymous ancestor
was Myrmidon, a king of Phthiotis who was a son of Zeus and “wide-ruling” Eurymedousa, a princess of Phthiotis. She
was seduced by him in the form of an ant. (Boy, we‘d pay to watch that– or David Capurro would, at any rate.) An
etiological myth of their origins, perhaps, simply expanding upon their supposed etymology? The name in Classical
Greek was interpreted as “ant-people” from murmedon or “ants’ nest” and that from murmex, “ant-man,” was first
mentioned by Ovid, in The Metamorphoses: in Ovid‘s telling, King Aeacus of Aegina, father of Peleus, pleaded with Zeus
to populate his country after a terrible plague. Zeus said his people would number as the ants on his sacred oak, and from
the ants sprang the Aegina people, the Myrmidons. Remember, William Blake said, “Any Thing that is Possible to be
Believ’d, is an Image of Truth.” So, Wednesday night, courtesy of KrOB, we’ll see if the concept is far-seeing– or just
far-fetched. Narrated, as always, by Dr. Hal.

HOVERING HILLBILLIES !
In a tiny, tinny, run-down, beat-up, two-bit trailer suspended above our Ask Dr. Hal! stage dwell the rustic Po’bucket
Family, authentic mountain people from whom Chicken has apparently been illegally collecting rent for their minimal
share of his cavernous domain. It’s whispered that they pay not in money but in the product produced in their concealed
“meth” lab. We choose to disbelieve this canard– that trailer’s just too small. Even hillbillies couldn’t pull such a thing
off in such a reduced amount of space. (The term hillbilly is commonly used in non-Appalachian areas as a reference in
describing socially backward people that fit certain rusticated characteristics. In this context, it is often, though not always,
derogatory. Although the described persons may not reside in a region that has hills of any kind, it is substituted in place of
more disparaging terms like white trash. In urban usage, it is sometimes used interchangeably with Redneck.) No one in
fact has yet been able to determine just how  many there are of these folks at Chicken‘s. But be warned that quite often the
sound of an ongoing show, audience laughter, etc. –will bring them out of their stereotypical lair like a frenzied swarm of
Appalachian ants, hayseed hornets, sodbuster skeeters, backwoods bees or countrified cockroaches. When this happens,
the show may suffer a momentary interruption. We‘re used to it by now, after all this time. But we can’t tell you just to
“ignore them,” as that is beyond anyone’s powers, when the family suddenly erupts in mid-show. Just proffer a big, friendly
Howdy-do! to Family Units “Big Jed” Moses, “Daisy Duke” Spy and (of course) li’l Lucky.

A YOO-HOO TO FRANK CHU!
Yes, Frank is back! And we‘ve got him! The Emperor Norton of our own time regularly appears at our show to deliver
his Message! And the tangled tale of Frank Chu (born March 24th, 1960) now concludes in these pages. We‘ve covered
the basis of his Weltanshauung and even given an account of a significant event in his past, which, in a single night,
created the person familiar to all of us today. For all this, go to our two previous  installments. Mr. Chu has been holding
street protests against former U.S. Presidents, corporations and the vast extraterrestrial cabal of The 12 Galaxies in
San Francisco and nearby locales since at least 1995. We also know that his uniquely derived ideology of
Zegnotronics holds former president William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton responsible for directing the CIA to withhold
payment to him during the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, payment for having starred on a “reality” TV
show, “The Richest Family.” broadcast during the administration of the first President Bush. He and his family, Frank
says, were secretly recorded and their daily lives fully covered by this show. Because of this, he won’t cease his protest
until paid his “$20 Billions.”  And we learned of that fateful night when a furtive Frank took 11 members of his family
hostage in his home in Oakland. The police arrived in force, and Chu took a shot at them, firing a .38 pistol at one
police officer who came to investigate, but missed, lucky for him. The police responded by cordoning off a ten-block area
for three hours. Frank surrendered and survived the encounter, and has been a familiar sight carrying his sign in all winds
and weathers ever since. He allows idiots to bait him and never loses his temper. All he wants is to keep exposing his
special message to the world. Now, whether or not Frank‘s “delusional,” there’s no doubt that he has evolved a perfectly-
suited method of dealing with whatever trauma originally set him on the course he now follows. Much so-called mental
illness, in fact, is a one-size-fits-all diagnosis which ignores the utility of the custom-crafted world view to the individual
subject. Most people instinctively realize that agreement with Frank is preferable to opposing him. Those who have
not come to this conclusion not only tend to be clueless jerks, but also don’t understand that if they ever did succeed in
shaking Frank from his Zegnotronic sanctuary, in doing so they would be endangering him– and, it’s not unlikely,
themselves. And howsoever this may be, we will always welcome Frank Chu at Ask Dr. Hal!

COMPUTER FREEBOOTER!
In a cloud of swirling incense, David “Yo-Yo Pro” Capurro, a mainstay of our show for lo these many years,
provides a running visual commentary to all that is said and done as the show goes on. It works like this: we
mention a topic, David operates his keyboard, and almost instantly there’s a related image up on the screen. I.J.
(Internet Jockey) Capurro, also known for his alter-identity Yo-Yo Pro, one of the original Monsters of Yo-Yo and
Master of Yo-Yo Fu extraordinaire, is a multi-talented, accomplished baker and a competent guitarist– but he really
lives for but one purpose. His main delight in this life is to ask an anonymous question at Ask Dr. Hal! and get
Chicken, unknowingly, to pour him a free shot of Fernet. And in this, strangely enough, he always succeeds.

PETE GOLDIE CUTS TO THE CHASE– IN SPACE!
ADH Science expert Pete Goldie will lead attendees through the endless reaches of the Universe in his continuing
segment, ” (The) Waste(s) of Space.” Pete will be on hand this week too, to present more of the newest discoveries
made in the eternal realms of the unfathomable void. Hey, kids! Ask Pete about NASA‘s Kepler Mission to hunt for
terrestrial-sized ‘exoplanets’ lying in the habitable zones of their own solar systems! The $591,000,000.00, 3-and-1/2-year
voyage, the first of its kind, is set to launch from Cape Canaveral on March 5th, the day following the first Ask Dr.
Hal! Show of that month. Kepler‘s orbit will follow the Earth‘s around the Sun, surveying more than 100,000 stars at
distances ranging from 30 to 1,000 light years. And, despite the abusive sallies of Chicken, as sure as Entropy,
Pete (when not interrupted by a rampaging rogue gorilla, a giant, dancing human-sized chicken or an unseemly
eructation of roof-dwelling hillbillies) is going to be telling each and every one of us al-l-l-l about it.

CHICKEN JOHN SEZ:
“Hey, everybody– come see the Ask Dr. Hal! show in a brand new location: my living room. It’s 4 guys doing
improv on 4 different levels. It can be amazing.”

NOT A BAR— BUT YOU CAN DRINK!
So there won’t be any booze for sale, OK? We don’t do the show in a bar any more, so, though it’s OK to drink, you
need to BRING YOUR OWN. We encourage you to. Of course, good questions will still be rewarded in the traditional
manner— with that old standby, Fernet Branca, TM –the “Miracle Liquor.” That’s how Paul Pot and David “Cappy”
Capurro (see above) do it (see above) –and that’s the one way you can still get a drink at Ask Dr. Hal!

SOCIAL NOTES…
Whew! Attendance at ADH was, to our relief, better than normal when we last convened, since the rain & bad weather
had withdrawn back to th’ caves of Aeolus. A nice, dry nite– & the outpatients were out in force. A gaggle of gadabouts
had been galvanized into going, perhaps spurred on by (true) rumors of our show’s demise (see above)… Our quondam
visitors the Po’bucket family were not in evidence, but provided a video of their latest adventures, entitled, “A Visit to the
Dentist.” Later on, shapely Spy Emerson did manage to join us– some come early, some late. That applies to leaving,
too, when others can’t stay until the end… Like Loop! Station’s ravishing Robin Coomer, f’rinstance… We were waiting on
the stairs to go on, people were coming up and down the stairs & we were trying to give ’em room, when one turned out
to be resplendent Robin… There’s nothing like getting an embrace & some last-minute encouragement before you go on,
for a morale builder– we know it helped our performance, & certainly did wonders for us personally… Radiant Robin may
be shedding more lite because the new Loop! Station! CD, Love vs. Love, is on its way. In fact, it’s here! The songs on the
album are all new, & rhapsodic Robin‘s voice has never been finer. Some of this music, the song “All you Want” & 2
others, played live for the first time by red-hot Robin and stoked Sam Bass, will have a public debut with Ballet San Jose
in 4 performances of The Way we Fall, choreographed by artful Alexsandra Meijer, running Feb. 26th to March 1st at the
San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd. at Park Ave. in downtown SJ… Charged-up Chicken’s driving
there in the Odeon Applause Bus– get aboard if you’re planning to attend this fantastic show– that’s on Saturday the 28th of
February @ 8:00 PM. Meet at the Jean Poulet Gallery-Cabaret– the Bus will leave @ 6:30 PM… “We’ll all go to the ballet,”
asserts chivalrous Chicken, “and then we’ll take a nice drive or something. It’s an hour’s drive. We go home the back way.
Stop in Oakland. Cause trouble.” Sounds like a blast. Tickets to the ballet– you have to buy them in advance– start at $30
& go to $85. Get them– it’s easy– at http://www.balletsanjose.org/HiddenTalents.htm Also, chauffeur Chicken wants
between 10 & 20 bucks for driving you there, around & back. “The show starts at 8:00 and is in the real world– it’s not bar
time,” notes chiding Chicken. “No, it’s not cheap. Yes, it’s worth it. If enough people wanna go, I can do multiple nights.
Please write me an email [ chicken@chickenjohn.com ] & tell me if you’re coming.” Folks, the CD itself will be available
for the first time there at the ballet– you can get your own copy from sales-professional Sam & retail-friendly Robin. Later.
seize these CD’s at Fry’s Electronics, who also carry the band’s first 3 CD’s– this is the 4th. And, you can also try clicking on
cds@cdbaby.com/loopstation4 –get more on all this at www.loopthis.com — we’ll just say 1 more thing abt. Love vs.
Love: this CD was worth waiting for. If you love their music as we do, you know what it is to hear rapturous Robin
Coomer’s unmatched voice fusing with sanguine Sam Bass’s expressive cello playing through those compelling loops &
variations. At one point on the disc sensational Sam plays on the Vaslin composite Stradivarius Cello, made in 1730… Once
again at ADH the part of the Giant Chicken was played by curvaceous Cherry Zombrowski, whose 1-woman show of her own
at The Marsh this March (plug-ola!) is “Reading my Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog– and Other Sordid Confessions
of a Born-Again Party Girl” (see Social Notes, The Dr. Hal Report, Vol. IX, No. 14), taking over the crucial & significant
megalo-chicken-impersonating chore from charitable “Chicken Dawn” Stott, who was in the house along with stalwart Stu
Sands, peripatetic Paul da Plumber, striking Starshine Moon Child, Junoesque Julie Holabird, & for the first time this run,
joyous Janay Growden, who it’s always a delight to see… Princely Puzzling Evidence shot more of the show for You Tube
placement (see below)… Jovial Jimmy Cross, resplendent Rochelle, redoubtable Richard Sheehy, righteous Rico (of Blanche
& Rico fame), admirable Aiko Michot, kinetic Kate & vital Vlad, masterful Mike W., dashing Don Paul Swain & jocund Julian
Shirley, as well as buoyant Byron Shirley, enjoyed both the show & the after-party… One great bunch of parties coming up
features more Bus Trips with challenging Chicken at the wheel– for a limited time KrOB’s Film Farm on the Bus is back! Yes,
each Monday, March 9th thru the 30th— the last four Mondays in March, meet in front of Ritual Roasters on Valencia at 7:00
PM & board the Big Green Bus. then hold on for the ride as “Columbus” Chicken pilots the famed vehicle, while KrOB’s Movie
Show unrolls on two separate screens, one in front & one in back. Each show’s a Double Feature– the first (March 9th) will be
X – the Unheard Music, followed by The Future is Unwritten, featuring the late Joe Strummer. The trip will be to the Albany Bulb
for a Punk Rock Campfire with music, laughter & much mischief. We’ll all be back ’round Midnite. The whole thing is a
bargain– just ten measly bucks… the fun & folly continue to cascade…

AMUSING PUZZLING EVIDENCE YOU TUBE CLIPS!
Did you know you can watch some of the show right this minute? Well, thanx to Puzzling Evidence, you
can! Go ahead– scope out a few of the hi-lites from previous episodes of Ask Dr. Hal! —on You Tube! It’s easy!
It’s fun! It’s time-consuming! And it’s technologically au courant, and absolutely the next best thing to being there
in person! How? How, you say? You do? Why are you talking to your computer? Go ahead– just click, clickety-click,
on these handy URLs.

Scope out outré out-takes from our December 17th serendipitous show:

Take in tantalizing tid-bits from our December 10th show. Try clicking on this:

Peer at picturesque portions picked from our December 3rd show. Click on this, or, if that doesn’t work, just cut and
paste it into your browser:

Audit choice fragments from our November 26th show on You Tube, courtesy of Puzzling Evidence. SEE Chicken
unfairly berate KrOB. HEAR Dr. Hal as he wanders farther afield even than usual in his meandering “answers” to
several questions.
Just go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NVLPHyiExc

See selected clips from November 19th‘s show. Warning to Parents:
Chicken really ladles out those cuss-words.
Go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixlk8linoEs

The endless-seeming Election Period is now, at last, behind us. For those who would like to indulge themselves in one
final wallow, check out this ultra-entertaining (Adult-themed) Puzzling Evidence video clip from the ADH Pirate
Cat radio show featuring Dr. Hal, KrOB, Pete “Savant” Goldie and the additional appearance of special guests
Presidential Candidate John McTaint and vivacious wife Sindi McTaint.
Go to:

See you Wednesday night!