Uncle Magazine - Issue One

VS
06 14
04 12

19 29
24 26

in this issue
Dear Read er
by
nd ed th is th ing
firs t issue. We fu r own. Ou r goal
Welcome to the of wh ich was ou
most
selling blood –– u will like that
’s
meth ing that yo
is to give you so ise
–– with the prom
4 New York Slices
resting and good er. But we are
new and inte
much, much good 6 Freeganomics
come t us,
that it will be el free to co ntac
your help. So fe friends and
going to need 11 Hey, Meet This Guy: Kissed Her Little Sister
us along to your
pass
criticize us, and a
it's going to be
the red carpet, 12 Versus
t ading,
enemies. Roll ou Thank you for re
d slum ber party.
cowboy–theme 14 Wade Boggs, 64 Dimensions, Cosmic Beer
e.
and again, welcom 18 Meet the Narwhals

Sincerely, 19 Travel Art. The Work of Neil Enggist.

Uncle 24 Letter to the High School Basketball Hall of Fame

26 Mexico Highway One Revisited

29 Introducing Mr. Tony Baritone

30 Dear Desperately Single

Uncle
Brendan Flaherty Editor
Rafi Kohan Editor
Sam Levy Creative Director
Sahar Ghaheri Design Consultant

Very Special Thanks To:
Virginia Kornfeld, Kevin Kinner, Alan Fiore, Phil Wonksi

Uncle | Issue One | 02

New York Photos by Sahar Ghaheri

Slices

Sitting in a coffee shop, I was thinking Oh, morning commute, with your cast of I was in a bar in the East Village talking The beginning of April is a great time to
about other things and watching a deli- clowns in three-piece suits. I fall in line and to a girl from the West Village who said buy condoms that you won’t use until late
cate stock broker. He was picking his nails pass a man singing spirituals and giving she was a long way from home. When she May at the earliest. I went into a bodega to
nervously underneath the table, telling a away free paper. gauged me with a comment about a fancy buy some, but they only had the kind made
safe and pretty woman with a fur collar In the subway station, a woman beats her shoebox, my blank expression said it all. I out of old tires. No romance.
about how highly he regarded fashion. son in a foreign language, throwing con- told her I was an astronaut with an impres- The Saudi Arabian guy behind the coun-
European. Six months ahead. sonants like elbows. But all I notice is the sive portfolio and went out into the street ter asked me if I needed Magnums. “Umm,
He spoke quietly and controlled, touch- boy’s backpack, abandoned on the steps where a heroin addict was sleeping in a cof- no,” I said. “I wish.”
fin he had built himself. Oh, New York.
ing on the talking points of fine wine with a juice pack in the back pocket. Home- He smiled creepily and wiped the dust
and fi-nonce, like he was giving a power land Security comes in to blow up the bag, off the condom boxes. Outside, toddlers
point presentation to a trout, careful not apple juice and all. And we walk to work in were playing in the street and tweens (that’s
an apple-ish mist. Oh, New York.
to scare her away with any sudden move- right) were banging raw dog in the park.
ments. But she wasn’t scared, no. She Oh, New York.
didn’t go hide under a riverbank, or seek
refuge at a nearby sample sale, where
they were virtually giving away women’s
undergarments. She was delighted – well,
excited in the possibility of delight – with
potential for growth as early as next quar-
ter. Oh, New York.

Uncle | Issue One | 04 uncleempire.com

FREEGANOMICS
It’s the last night of winter and the temperature is falling.
The wind starts to bite. I loiter against a mailbox, not wanting to ap-
proach perfect strangers on a New York City street corner. The trash tour
is set to begin at 9:30 p.m., and it’s just past. While there has been no human
One Man’s Dumpster Is Another Man’s Dinner contact, the online instructions are to meet at Houston and Chrystie, in the
Lower East Side of Manhattan, and eventually a short and slim woman in her
Words By Rafi Kohan mid-forties, well-bundled in fleece and Whole Foods. In a sense, freegans fancy
sweats, senses that I’m lost – shy, maybe – themselves superheroes. The mission:
and approaches me. Her name is Janet; she “rescue” discarded but still viable edibles.
is one of three guides. The others are Cindy Prime hours for urban dumpster diving
and Adam, both younger; they’re all wear- are between 9:30 p.m. and midnight, and
ing cargo pants. the operation is always a race against the
Also joining us for the evening is a camera trucks, as they put it. Immediately there is a
crew from Channel 9 News and a student scare, as a garbage truck wheezes to a halt
documentary filmmaker from Brooklyn Col- in front of our bounty. False alarm, though.
lege, who is Korean and overly gracious. It’s not the compost truck.
The freegan guides aren’t media savvy, so to Everyone takes to a container, flips
speak, but they willingly pose for the cam- the lid, and digs in. The air suddenly fills
eras, striking grave and significant tones. with the odd smell of a Caribbean cocktail:
Welcome to the trash tour, the dumpster Cindy’s bin is loaded with pineapple rinds.
dive, and the promise of future alliterations. I hesitate at my own. I had envisioned fully-
I first heard about the tour and its propri- cooked meals resting within the bins, like
etors, the freegans, from my mom – a loyal diamonds in a dung pile. All I would have
Oprah viewer. Through the tour, freegans, to do is pluck them out. But this trashcan is
who sustain themselves largely on the dis- filled with, well, trash. Food, or at least what
carded products of mainstream American I recognize as food, is nowhere in sight,
stores, proselytize their scrounging way of and my compost isn’t exuding as forgiving
life. a smell. It has the acrid scent of musk and
There have been times in my past – mold – the familiar odor of garbage.
times I’m not proud of – when, as a waiter, After some prudish poking, I abandon
I’ve eaten leftovers off the plates of paying my bin and join a group that has gathered
customers; when, as an undergrad, I’ve laid around one brimming with loose grapes
in puddles of my own creation; and, all too and orange halves. Fistfuls are scooped
recently, mornings when I’ve woken to a and fingered, tested for firmness. I take a
scarlet sunrise in the shade of a back alley plastic bag from Janet and join the grape
dumpster. But I never thought that dump- harvest, although my strategy is rather fussy,
ster would ever be my pantry. Yet here I as I pluck one by one. To get any sense of
am. what it takes to be a freegan I need to com-
For our first stop, we don’t travel mit more, and eventually start taking hand-
far – just south of Houston to a gag- fuls. But then I become less discriminating
gle of compost containers outside of than the others.


she admits, she would have dug in if the It’s a lot to ask of a generation of ger-
A freegan strives toward simplicity, mini- bankruptcy fuels the production of almost
cameras weren’t rolling. She doesn’t want maphobes to reverse its conditioning.
mizing participation in traditional economic all commercial goods. While an average
to gross out viewers. “If you start playing The trash, we’ve been told, is where trash
structures and limiting personal consump- person sees a cute tee-shirt selling for half
the ‘Why did they throw this out?’ game, goes. Of course, this is the freegan point:
tion and waste. At the close of the business off, freegans see human abuses in sweat-
you could just drive yourself nuts,” she tells “That’s what they want you to believe!”
day, chain supermarkets, bakeries, small shops, “rainforest destruction, global
our media observers. But we are the people of Purell, hyper
grocers, and corner shop bodegas purge warming, displacement of indigenous
sensitive to sanitation and hygiene. So
themselves of products that are no longer communities, air and water pollution, the
you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to wash
salable. Either a sell-by date has passed, violent overthrow of popularly elected
WEARE THE PEOPLE OF my pears in sewer water.
the packaging for a product has been governments to maintain puppet dictators
Soon Cindy gathers us in a semicircle
breached, or the produce has lost its pictur- compliant to big business interests, open-
PURELL, HYPER SENSITIVE
for the educational part of the tour. She
esque quality. While some is given away to pit strip mining, oil drilling in environmen-
TO SANITATION AND tells us all things ‘waste’ and ‘freegan:’
the hungry and homeless, most is bagged tally sensitive areas, union busting, child
HYGIENE. SO YOU’LL “It’s a choice to abstain from capitalism.”
and left on the curbside. This food is still slavery, and payoffs to repressive regimes.”
FORGIVE ME IF I DON’T She lectures on the absurdity of sell-by
edible and nutritious, freegans argue, but That’s some wholesale evil in your bargain
WANT TO WASH MY PEARS dates, and the incongruity of having out-
it has lost its shelf life because of consumer bin.
of-season products shipped thousand of
stereotypes – stereotypes founded on a Still, as Cindy speaks, I can’t help but
IN SEWER WATER.
miles, using tons of gallons of petroleum,
corporate agenda to push goods and pro- notice the boutique shops surrounding us
so we can have Ecuadorian bananas on
mote higher turnover, because higher turn- as we stand at the brink of SoHo. In a store
As we are finishing up, a compost truck, our shelves – that are then tossed out.
over equals greater profits. window across the street there is a pair of
which the freegans call “Carters” (short for Freegans, she says, fight to eat local and
Freegans say we are heading down a brown leather loafers I had admired in the
Action: Carting Environmental SVC) comes build communities that promote alterna-
slippery slope of exhausting the earth. pages of a men’s fashion magazine. Some-
to a stop. Their night is just beginning and tive ways of living.
“Global food capitalism isn’t sustainable,” times the mind wanders.
they don’t look amused to find us hovering According to their Web site, freegan
says Adam, who has drawn flyering duties The group’s rhetoric is well-rehearsed
like raccoons over the bins, or to be on the is an amalgam of the words “free” and
for the evening. But a few minutes into the and seemingly logical. We are a society of
nightly news. “vegan.” Just as vegans abstain from
tour, I’m questioning the sustainability of waste. But they also have a feel of cam-
Heading south and then west, the tour animal products, freegans boycott global
my own freeganism. pus activists – though that may be too
crosses through the heart of the Lower East economic systems. They believe moral
In the early hours of night, freegans dismissive to them, or to campus activists.
Side and into SoHo, passing hipster bars
alight on idling trash bags, pocketing the
and young corporate types smoking on
products that minutes earlier sat on shelves,
the sidewalk. There’s an insulating feeling
waiting to be sold. What they do is more
of otherness as you walk past places where
than just stealing from the trash and giving
– even temporarily – you don’t belong. On
to themselves, though. When they rescue
the walk, we make small talk. (Janet is a
food, they are also saving usable goods
schoolteacher of twenty years and has been
from adding bulk to already overcrowded
a freegan for four.)
landfills. Admittedly, this isn’t my thought
The second stop, a grocer on Mulberry
process as I roll up my jacket sleeves and
Street, is a first-timer on the tour, and em-
fondle one hundred gallons of grapes of

Photo Courtesy of Anciela.com
ployees idle in the still-open store, gawk-
questionable character.
ing in our direction. Here we find bananas,
By composting, Whole Foods is rela-
pasta, and chicken potpie, among other
tively progressive in how they dispose of
goodies. Lacking a better resting place, the
waste. From them, we successfully res-
food is set on already searched trash bags.
cue apples, grapefruit, a slice of pack-
(A perfect picture of paradox.) One woman,
aged cheesecake, mushrooms, squash,
with wavy hair and a nose ring, drops a pear
fennel, and daikon radish in addition to
into a curbside puddle, picks it up, and sets
our grape bounty. Cindy finds a bag filled
it with the others. This upsets me.
with cake but leaves it untouched. Later,
Freegans are sort of like raccoons. Raccoons that wear shorts, which we can only assume are denim.


Hey, Meet This Guy.
And, to be fair, I don’t think anyone is in maybe I don’t need to speed down my
it to get laid. But the honest efforts of in- driveway to the mailbox on my motor-
dividuals can be obscured in the cloud of powered Razor scooter, which runs on the
Kissed Her Little Sister
group speak, gaining a whiff of Big Brother- feathers of endangered eagles. (We’ve all
ish conspiracies. There is something disqui- got vices.) But hilarious hobbies aside, I When these hipster costume parties start
eting about a group of like-minded people really can get behind the movement – in taking themselves too seriously, and every-
that espouse identical worldviews, even if theory, from a distance. body is dressed up like Velma from Scooby
they’re not drinking the Kool-Aid. On the tour, however, I feel like a scared Doo, I’m tempted to eat glass and do the
And after all the talk about global capi- kid on the edge of the high dive at the pub- worm into oncoming traffic. Instead, I find
talist systems and unsustainable econo- lic pool. I want to jump, but am frozen. It the guy with the tightest pants and ask him if
mies, I wonder if their efforts are even a isn’t the food, or even the prospect of eat- he’s heard of imaginary bands I’ve made up.
true boycott. They may not be sitting at ing it, that gets to me – though that doesn’t Usually, he’ll adjust his spectacles made out
the table of worldwide consumerism, but help. It’s the actual dumpster diving that of pipe cleaners and say, yeah, he liked Yin
they’re still feeding off the scraps. And breaks my freegan spirit. I’m not up to it. Yang Yarmulke or Baldin College two weeks Kissed Her Little Sister on vacation in Siberia.
though they won’t own cars, for example, As Cindy wraps up her talk, Janet sidles ago, which was right before they sold out
they’ll trainhop or hitchhike, which – grant- alongside her and points in the direction of Do you cover any other musicians?
and actually played a song. So commercial.
ed – may fill up unused space and maximize the Macy’s shopping bag she’s been using Strictly Phil Collins.
Genuine music and new creation are
the usefulness of petroleum, but it still feels to carry her food. “I want to warn you,” she beautiful things, and though there will al-
like something of a loophole – a departure says. “A man walked by and let his dog shit How’s the music scene in LA?
ways be skunks that fake the funk, there’s
from righteous rhetoric. on your bag.” As if we needed more re- Fashionable.
usually the real deal in there somewhere,
Freeganism is obviously an extreme, minders that we were wallowing in the un- waiting in the wings.
and there are other, cleaner ways to help savory. Her bag, as it happens, is right next Seen anything inspiring lately?
Kissed Her Little Sister, an LA-based
counteract a culture of waste, even if it to mine, which I put down every chance I Yeah, a video on YouTube of [musician] Jay
electro-folk astronaut and one-man band,
can’t topple the system. For me, maybe get. I use this minor diversion to abandon Reatard punching his fan in the face. Totally
is one such musician worth checking out.
I don’t need to buy this season’s latest mine completely. moving.
Blending acoustic instrumentation with
styles when I have perfectly wearable As it turns out, even on a trash tour one electronic beats, loops, and virtually any-
clothes at home; and maybe I can go can be wasteful. Why is music important?
thing else he can get his dirty hands on,
out of my way to recycle beer cans; and Music might be a disease for all I know, or
he has created an eclectic style all his own,
Rafi Kohan is a founding Uncle. a drug to cure other diseases. Music can
running the gamut from Woody Guthrie to
make me feel like Barry Bonds and Hakeem
U
Girl Talk. Although he is currently unsigned,
Olajuwon all wrapped into one, and con-
French people love him.
versely, that sad monkey in the zoo... I’m

less inspired moments into it.
In Footloose, the Reverend John Lith-
gow banned dancing. What would you
submitted by wilmer cardona Anything else?
do if music were suddenly banned?
Yeah, the first song ever recorded was
I would probably file a complaint with the
“Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Thomas Edi-
“Silent strength is the quality of all good men, and most mummies.” world. The first rule of music is that there
son, and that might be just a rumor... Also,
are no rules, which means banning music
- Teddy Roosevelt
did you know that when you type “rumors”
would probably not necessarily be against
into iTunes Lindsay Lohan pops up, but
“The moon isn’t so tough.” the rules, and that fucks with my head. But
when you type “rumours” some hot Fleet-
often I find that some of the best music is
- Neil Armstrong
wood Mac shit pops up?
the shit that does.
“I love baby rabbits. I want a baby rabbit to put inside my mouth and
Yes, ‘Rumors’ is a great song. Last ques-
and hold it there and taste it on my tongue all day. Will it melt? How did they find out about you in Paris
tion - boxers or briefs?
I don’t think so.” and Montreal?
Live free or die.
- Mike Tyson Business cards, computer-generated pre-
recorded telephone spamming machines,
For more uninspiring quotes, visit uncleempire.com. To hear Kissed Her Little Sister, visit:
afternoon tea meet and greets.
myspace.com/kissedherlittlesister
What kind of music do you make? And check out his mixtapes -
Concrete horrorcore loopism meets acous- Uncle Presents: Hi-Lo Mixtapes
matic Appalachian folk music for kids. at uncleempire.com

VS
Gr8WhitePartyer311 (02:49 AM) : Funny that you separate Shamu, the most well-known
representative of the Orcas, from the rest of the species. That’s like saying not everyone
from Mipos is exactly like Balky. Great Whites refuse to kowtow to the silly demands of sun-
Great White burnt hick crowds, all wearing Taz jean jackets. A Great White has a mouth like a bear trap
wrapped in spikes and razor wire and carnage. An Orca has teeth like Moby, best suited for
nibbling one candy corn at a time (soy, $15,000 a piece).

KillaWhale69 (02:51 AM) : You’re past your prime, son. Take off your varsity

•
letterman jacket and get a real job. While you shark jocks have been doing
Killer Whale doughnuts in the parking lot, Orcas have been interning at the chem lab,
learning to exploit the Great White’s main weakness: a susceptibility to mas-
sive explosions (thanks, Jaws). Brains over brawn. Compared to the dumb
and desultory dawdlings of the shark, Orcas are underwater Hannibal Lect-
ers, luring the Great White into the moorings of an elaborate mental maze
laced with unexplained sexual tension.

Gr8WhitePartyer311 (02:54 AM) : The Orca is like a rubber Hummer with a horn that goes

a killer debate: the king of the sea “beep, beep, hot dog party coming through.” So soft. The shark is the grim reaper of the
ocean, not wasting its time to frolic and squeal in a range that only a pre-pubescent Clay
Aiken could possibly hear. There’s a reason there are classic movies like Deep Blue Sea,
Megalodon, and Spring Break Shark Attack. The Great White, ravenous and equipped with
KillaWhale69 (02:43 AM) : Remember this: What you don’t know can kill you. Because
a mouth full of swords, looms like Rosie O’Donnell in the human unconscious. The Orca, on
while everyone knows the Great White’s shtick (da-dum, da-dum), who truly knows the
the other hand, can only be associated with swimming in its own urine, and liking it.
legend of the Orca? Known as the man-eater, the Great White is feared by human kind, but
the shark’s reputation hangs on little more than cheap tricks and good PR. The Great White
KillaWhale69 (02:56 AM) : A shark may scare the other kids on the playground, but the
is a passing fad, like beanie babies or the National Hockey League. The Orca, meanwhile,
Orca can counter him on all fronts thanks to a whip-cracking tail and a bored childhood
has a centuries-old tradition of terrorizing seafarers. Long before Jaws there was Captain
filled with many games of Stratego. Plus, the Orca clocks in at upwards of 35 MPH, fast
Ahab, and the tale of his menacing whale.
enough to be pulled over in a school zone. (Not that the Orca hits the brakes for Johnny
Gr8WhitePartyer311 (02:44 AM) First of all, the NHL only became a passing fad when the Law.)
Whalers left Hartford (yes, they were sweet, and, yes, they killed whales). Also, unsurpris-
Gr8WhitePartyer311 (02:57 AM) : I am so confident of the Orca’s cowardice, that I per-
ingly, you are confusing Shamu with a sperm whale named Dick. And Free Willy was the
sonally will club the caviar out of his head on land or in water. That’s right, I’m stepping
weakest movie I have ever not seen. A Great White would have treated that dumb orphan
into the ring myself, and I’m going to stab your soft batch squire of the sea in the blowhole
like a seal and bit his head off jumping over the jetty headed for a party in Freedomtown.
with a chopstick.
‘Poor Orca, I’m blue, my wittle fin is bent. Wa, wa, wa.’ It is a fact that a Great White cannot
be kept in captivity.
KillaWhale69 (02:58 AM) : You would stab someone in the back – how courageous. In-
deed, the Orca’s vulnerable in the blowhole, which is about the size of a golf ball. But since
KillaWhale69 (02:46 AM) : Sharks aren’t held captive because they refuse to eat. A hunger
I know you’re too poor for a country club, and golf pro shops don’t honor food stamps, I’d
strike? Terrifying? Please, when’s the last time you saw Mahatma Gandhi’s mug on the front
recommend you both stick to scrimshaw and wade in shallower waters.
of a Mexican wrestling mask? Besides, the shark kills by accident. He is – and now to re-
deem my literary faux pas – a maritime Lennie from “Of Mice and Men,” squeezing people
(Long Pause)
like scared wabbits with his jaws because he has the vision of an Irishman after his 75th pint.
Gr8WhitePartyer311 (03:07 AM) : Dude, you know my family doesn’t have any
(He doesn’t know his own strength, George.) The Orca, meanwhile, has seduced humanity
money.
to see its kind as harmless sideshows that will turn tricks for herring. But, in reality, Orcas are
kill-for-pleasure ruffians who revel in the cold calculation of premeditated murder – except
Gr8WhitePartyer311 has left the chat.
for Shamu, who is an Orcan Uncle Tom.

KillaWhale69 (03:07 AM) : Sorry. :(


WADE BOGGS,
64 DIMENSIONS,
My heroes have always been cowboys.
I never took much stock in atha-letes. And
then one day, out of nowhere, I saw a sign.
And the sign said: “Wade Boggs once

COSMIC BEER
drank 64 beers on a cross country flight.”
WORDS BY
And the magic fabric of the universe shim-
BRENDAN FLAHERTY mered.
Everyone else was riveted to a college
football pre-game show and I was sitting
I could hear him, standing on a cliffside in my
there watching the gnats buzz around in
unconscious, clad in rustic goat pelts, calling
my skull, in the empty space where a rick-
out to me, “Find the truth, Johnny. Find the
ety projector was whirring through some
Wade.” I went up to my laboratory and pon-
fragmented cartoon about Donald Duck
dered the meaning of the sign that rung out
and the mathematics of a sunflower. The
like a Zen koan, a strange kernel of some-
camera cut to a TV analyst who was say-
thing inaccessible to rational thought.
ing something in front of a crowd of party
If a tree falls in the forest?
dudes, and there it was, in the background,
Polishing a test tube, I considered the
the gospel – Wade Boggs was a superhu-
sign. Assuming a cross country flight is
man chuggernaut.
roughly six hours, that means Wade Boggs
For anyone who doesn’t know Wade
drank nearly eleven beers in an hour (which
Boggs, Wade Boggs is a red-mustachioed
some doctors might claim is incredibly dan-
Hall of Fame baseball player. He played
gerous). But even more astonishing, he was
third base for the Red Sox and the Yan-
able to keep up that sprint pace for a mara-
kees (and less notably, the Devil Rays). He
thon six straight hours, and live. He was a
was a twelve-time all-star, winner of two
one-man perfect storm.
Gold Glove awards, several batting titles,
On the other hand, there was also the
and once rode victoriously around Yankee
possibility that the sign was a total fabrica-
Stadium on the back of a police horse. He
tion. That someone went to great lengths
also had a mistress, who may have told
to tell the world a ridiculous untruth about
Penthouse magazine that Boggsy was the
Wade Boggs’ personal habits. And the mo-
“connoisseur of cunnilingus.” But before
tivation that some stranger would want to
all that, Wade Boggs was a guy who was
make something up, just for his or her own
good at hitting a ball.
amusement, about Wade Boggs, would be
The pre-game show continued and
ridiculous and random and hilarious, a big
everybody went back to watching the
joke just like the Big Bang.
talking heads talk, but I found myself in a
An option I refused to consider at the
trance, paralyzed by the essence of Wade.
time was that the sign was neither fact nor
WADE BOGGS fiction, but rather some amalgamation of
is sitting cross-legged in the shade of an empty beer
the two. That maybe ole Wade could really
can pyramid, chicken bones littered around him. The secret, he tells me, is don’t swing for
ice cold ones, but the number was exag-
the fences. Get on base, and from third it’s a lot easier to score.
gerated. In those days, I was an either/or
Image Courtesy of NASA

kind of American, not a nerd.
In the beginning, there was Wade.


THE SUN IS RISING OVERHEAD
PART OF ME STARTS TO
and Wade Boggs is eating chicken.
Upon looking further into the mystery WONDER IF THIS PROFES-
of Wade, I discover that he eats chick-
SIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER,
en everyday. He claims that there are
WHO LOVES EATING CHICK-
“hits in chicken,” and he has even writ-
ten a cookbook composed of his favor-
EN AND VAGINA, REALLY
ite chicken recipes. It’s called Fowl Tips.
DID DEMATERIALIZE IN THE
It is noon and Boggsy is cracking open
his first Miller Lite, which is the only beer he
MIDDLE OF A KNIFE FIGHT.
drinks. In many ways, he is a simple man. He
is a creature of habit. Steady, in his own off-
kilter way. Complex, in his strange simplicity.
drank 64 beers on a cross-country flight,
According to an article in the Boston Globe,
or if the whole thing is just a hilarious lie.”
Wade Boggs claimed that he once willed
“No,” he says. “You want to know why
himself invisible to escape a knife fight. Most
I drank 64 beers on a cross-country flight.
adults don’t believe they can make them-
You want to know for what purpose.”
selves invisible, and if they do, they proba-
“A simple yes or no is all I want, Wade.
bly don’t tell the press about it. Still, there is
Either answer is going to make me laugh,
something refreshing in Wade’s ... honesty?
I swear.”
The details stack up like Legos in the
BOGGS MOUNTS STALLION. STALLION GETS BOGGSED.
“But wouldn’t it be funnier, if you never
sandbox of Wade Boggs, and part of
knew one way or the other. Then it is both.
me starts to wonder if maybe this profes-
And it is neither. Just like everything and of fifty or sixty, sometimes as many as sev-
sional baseball player, who loves eating “Wade, I don’t want to know this much
nothing.” Wade crosses his legs into the enty, beers on cross-country team trips.
chicken and vagina, really did demateri- about you anymore. I think I was happier
lotus position and nonchalantly floats off The total, however, did not strictly entail
alize in the middle of a knife fight. I hear when you were just in two dimensions.”
the ground a couple inches. the flight itself, but packing up, refueling,
his laugh echoing as he rides a magic car- “Don’t be a nerd,” he says. “This is the
Somewhere else, far off in the distance, down time, etc., as well. Clearly, even for
pet across an ever-expanding universe. fifth.” He shakes an empty Miller Lite can
my roommate is laughing hysterically. I a professional athlete, this is unhealthy
I look further still and Wade Boggs be- and tosses it with an expert flick off the
hear him say, He’s pretending to sleep. A and dangerous, but in some strange way,
comes more than the stats on the back of edge of the plateau.
crushed beer can bounces off the dent in Wade Boggs’s beer drinking unravels a
a baseball card. I learn about his rituals “Only fifty-nine more to go, Johnny,” he
my head. small stitch in the fabric of the universe,
and routines. His incredibly superstitious says. But he wants to go further than I think
“Pay attention,” Wade says. A piece of incredible and random and hilarious and
nature, how he sought lucky hotel rooms I should.
fried chicken floats up to his mouth and absurd and sad, like everything and noth-
with lucky layouts, fielded exactly 150 “Goodbye, Wade,” I say and follow his
he eats it without his hands, in one bite, ing else.
ground balls before each game, ran sprints beer can off the edge.
bones and all. So, he did it, or he didn’t. It’s tough to say,
and took batting practice at 5:17 and 7:17, I come to at my desk. There is a lump
“There are hits in chicken,” he says. really. But the facts hang there like a couch
respectively, every day. Then, someone on my head and a lot of laughter going
“I think I want to go home now, Wade. tied with a hundred feet of rope, dangling
hits me over the head with a frying pan. on downstairs. I feel like Wade Boggs has
I will start paying attention to the foot- in a bottomless crevasse. And I wonder:
I come to and I am sitting on a plateau,
Image Courtesy of NASA

just fried an egg on the gong in my brain.
ball game, and focus on normal stuff like Where does this leave me? And my only
high up. The air is thin and Wade Boggs is On the computer screen in front of
that.” answer is, nowhere. The beginning, I guess.
there, sitting in dirt. me, on the World Wide Web, as they
“I cheated on my wife,” Wade tells me.
“I know why you’ve come,” Wade says. The called it in those days, is an interview
“For years. And I always hit better when Wade.
wind surges upward but his goat pelt kimono transcript. Some of Wade Boggs’s old
my girlfriend was in the stands. I told Bar-
does not rustle. My head hurts. I try to focus. teammates were on a radio show talking
bara Walters about my sex addiction.” Brendan Flaherty is a founding Uncle.
“I want to know if the sign is true. If you about how he frequently drank upwards


uncleempire.com

Blue Self
Acrylic, Ink + Oil on paper
vel

Art
Enggist
Tra
Neil
By Brendan Flaherty + Joseph Gallagher

Uncle | Issue One | 18

neil
enggist
is a traveling artist, like a salesman and your tools, which are extensions of
without the commission. He has found you.
inspiration across the globe, from the I remember being down on Pfeiffer
Southwest to the Far East. At times he Beach, along the Big Sur coast, and
has even traded his paintings as a form posting up on a massive rock jutting into
of rent. We asked Neil a couple (very the Pacific. The wind was kicking sand
thoughtful) questions, and he obliged, into my eyes and mean waves were
inviting us into the world of a rambling coming at me, completely surrounding
artist and the mystery of a blank can- my rock at points. I had an impression
vas. Then he drank us under the table. that death could come as a thought-
less swell of the ocean, but as long as I
Uncle: To what extent is painting a was painting, I wasn’t so much keeping
necessary part of your travel experi- safe as keeping alive.
ence? While traveling you must let yourself
Neil : When I am traveling, the urge be thrown off balance by what is un-
to create is heightened as new places, known and disarming. Then, through
images, people, languages, and color the act of painting, you bring all these
tumble into my senses. Painting always things into balance. I have the most
contains a degree of improvisation, but vivid memory of places I have painted.
that degree is at its zenith when you are Painting is my ultimate communion
in a space that is utterly new – just you with the world.

(continued on page 23)

Requiem II
Acryllic, Ink + Oil on Canvas


Uncle: A lot of your work
seems to have a mystic
quality. What do you see
when you look into a blank
canvas?
The blankness of the begin-
ning is complete freedom
and, as a painting bears it-
self, you start to feel respon-
sible for listening and help-
ing it become what it wants
to be.
The mystical part can never
be pinned down.
As you look into a paint-
ing, you are looking simul-
taneously into your depths
and mine. In its terrain, we,
though we may never meet,
have achieved a union. This,
I think, begins to speak of a
mystic quality. But the blank
canvas is complete freedom.
And as the paint hits, free-
dom becomes charged and
bonded to life. Life brings
color. Color is a reason for
life.

You can find Neil online at
neilenggist.com.
Stars Above My Heart
The Sol
Acryllic + Ink on Canvas
Acryllic, Ink + Oil on Canvas


If that wasn’t enough, my wife has spent the last ten years raising a brood of prized peahens.
And last night, two of them went missing! I may not have proof that Mr. Wolf burrowed un-
der the fence in my backyard and callously drank the blood of two innocent hens beneath
the light of a full moon, but I have my suspicions! All over town, I’ve heard horrible stories
about this monster breakdancing, fornicating with the prom queen, and thinking he’s really
somethin’ else wearing sunglasses indoors. Quite frankly, I am just plain sick of the whole
mess. I haven’t been this riled up since the day my Indians scalped the Avon Warthogs and
took home the conference trophy. Regretfully, I must warn you, if there is no decency left in
this great country, and a teenage werewolf is inducted into the High School Basketball Hall
of Fame, it will put a stain on the memory of the best four years of my life playing high school
ball. It will also put a stain on the hall itself – to such an extent, in fact, that I would request
any nominations I may have personally received over the years for induction be immediately
doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

This situation, gentlemen, is a very slippery slope, and I for one would rather die than know

Dear
that maybe someday, even if I’m dead, my picture might be seen in the same building as
that of a no-good, red-eyed, binge-drinking, chicken-stealing, werewolf! If we let him
in, we have lost a battle of all things holy. What’s next – Magilla Gorilla on the district
court?
High School I thank you for your time and consideration, and pray that you will not
lead high school basketball down a path of disgrace and ungodly ruin.

Basketball Hall of Fame, Sincerely,
Whitey Beigeface
Yesterday, while meeting in my Tuesday night dodge ball league, Head Coach
I heard the dismaying news that a teenage werewolf was Canton Indians, 9th Grade Boys
being considered to enter the sacred hall. As the head
coach of the Indians – Canton, Indiana’s most tenacious
freshman boys basketball team – trust me when I tell you
that I know high school basketball. And as a former high school
basketball player myself (center, team MVP my senior year), and a person, I can also tell
quite plainly that Scott Howard/Teen Wolf is not a human. He is a werewolf.

Good sirs, I am a Christian and a firm believer in acceptance of all people, but, as demon-
strated by the string of six consecutive backflips he pulled off while recklessly surfing on the
roof of Styles’ WolfMobile, Mr. Wolf clearly is no such thing. His vertical leap and wolfish
WHAT ARE YOU
agility alone put him at a considerable athletic advantage. Not to mention the competitive
psychological edge he unfairly gains by going up for jump balls with glowing red eyes,
LOOKING AT,
fangs, and a body covered in sweat-matted fur (his headband is not enough!). What if he’s
contagious? You think I want my son, Toby, spending the rest of his life chasing Frisbees?

DICKNOSE?
As Americans, it is our duty to draw the line somewhere, and somewhere things have gotten
terribly out of hand. Just yesterday I was talking to Old Man Wilson, who owns a liquor store
the town over, and he said Mr. Howard came in the night before the big kegger and wanted
to be served alcohol, even though he was clearly underage. As a law-abiding citizen, Old
Man Wilson refused him service, only to have Mr. Howard/Mr. Wolf let loose a menacing
werewolf growl and demand a keg of beer. Old Man Wilson is a veteran, and that wolf bas-
tard is lucky he caught him off-guard that day. Otherwise, I assure you, that animal would’ve
been sent to the taxidermist right then and there.


MEXiCO at dawn,
HIGHWAY 1
Finally, a rancher stopped his truck
Daniel and I stood by Mexico Highway 1
and offered us a ride – for a price. Thirty
with our thumbs pointed south. We had
dollars U.S. to Guerrero Negro, he said.
been friends since San Quintin, about
Guerrero Negro was a bayside town of
forty-eight hours and two hundred miles
about ten thousand, which sounded like
ago. But travel has a way of accelerating
a bastion of cosmopolitan niceties com-
relationships, and already we trusted,
pared to the hot, unpopulated desert
and occasionally lashed out at, one an-
where we were at the time.
other like brothers.

Revisited
Daniel thought the price was outra-
“I don’t think anyone’s going to stop.”
geous. He had counted on traveling for
“You have to be patient,” said my
free.
dreadlocked friend from Mexico City.
But I had reached my breaking point.
The Baja Peninsula is like two islands,
I was already imagining myself sleeping
Tijuana in the north and Cabo San Lucas
on the desert floor, amidst rattlesnakes
in the south, with an ocean of barrel cac-
and scorpions. So at my urging, Daniel
tus and barren desert between them.
told the rancher that we would accept his
It was only some thirty years ago that
words by jonathan j. levin offer. Then we were back on the road.
the Mexican government constructed
As far as I’m concerned, great trips
a paved highway connecting the cities.
are only had when you’re willing to sub-
Where we stood, we were almost equi-
mit yourself to chance. Hitchhiking is a
distant from the two population centers,
gamble. Sometimes, you get a friendly
and about a hundred miles from the near-
local that engages you in great conver-
est hotel. Every thirty minutes, a pickup
sation, invites you into his home, and
truck or RV would come to the junction.
provides you with a home-cooked meal.
Some slowed to look us over, most
Other times, you get nobody, or the
did not. Sometimes, I paced back and
criminally insane.
forth in the middle of the highway. Other
Our encounter with the rancher was
times, I just sat in the dirt and wondered
neither lucky nor tragic. He took us
if we’d ever get to the next small town.
where we were going, and that was all.
I had come to Baja California, Mex-
But a few hours later, on another barren
ico, to write about a series of Span-
swath of highway, we struck gold with a
ish missions. But I had been almost
man named Paco. He was an electrician
universally disappointed with every
and a boyishly enthusiastic nature lover,
mission I’d visited. Over several gen-
and he knew everything there was to
erations, dozens of these churches had
know about the local desert and the fauna
been constructed in the desert in order
rich lagoon in Guerrero Negro. The fol-
to establish Spanish influence in the
lowing morning, he was heading out into
region and convert the locals to Catholi-
Photo Courtesy of Nick DeWolf

a remote desert to visit his grandmother,
cism. But I’d found no divine inspiration
the caretaker of the mission there, and
in the piles of adobe rubble that now
he invited us to go with him.
passed for tourist attractions. Needless
to say, there were multiple reasons for
the exasperation that overtook me that
morning.


Uncle Magazine - Issue One

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Uncle Magazine - Issue One