Day 221: Meet My Crazy Uncle.

The "centerfold" of the 22-page booklet I received from my uncle today. He used blue string to literally weave a binding.

I began to realize my uncle was nuts when he started wearing his clothes inside out ("I don't like the way seams feel"), stopped cutting his hair, beard and mustache ("I want to live a completely natural life"), and proudly declared that while he loved sucking women's toes, his lifelong ambition was self-fellatio.

That was 30 years ago, and he's only gotten crazier (he's been talked into two or three beard trims in all this time, and recently claimed to have, uhm, achieved his ambition). His manifesto of sorts, which came in the mail today, is one of the strangest, funniest and most disturbing documents I have ever received.

Snippets from the booklet I received today. My uncle changed his name to "Magic Rat Boon" (M.R. Boon for short) when he was in his 20s.

I haven't seen my uncle since 1988, when I attended my grandfather's memorial down in Virginia. My grandmother had died several years earlier, so there was no one left there except my uncle - and it's not like I could have visited him even if I'd wanted to. After living in my grandmother's basement until she died and then my grandfather's basement until he died, he proceeded to bounce from one strange living situation to another. He was in a tent in someone's back yard until he was kicked out, then lived in a trailer with two obese lesbians until they kicked him out. I'm not sure exactly where he lives now.

My uncle hates to travel and doesn't like leaving Virginia, which is a good thing, because he hasn't been allowed to visit my family's house since 1984. Over the course of that fateful 5-day stay, he got caught sawing several huge limbs off a prize elm tree ("I wanted to dry my hair by burning freshly cut wood"), constantly smoked pot in the attic (which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that he inisted on extinguishing his joints by repeatedly spitting on them), hit on one of my friends in an unseemly fashion, bathed in the pool with soap, shampoo, and conditioner, and unscrewed the brass globes on either side of the fireplace screen and proceeded to "bowl" in the room that held my mother's antique asian vases and other irreplaceable valuables.

He once made noises about visiting me in California, but blessedly, it's too far for him to consider (let alone afford). He would, however, want to move here permanently if I had a basement for him to move into (again, quite blessedly, I don't).

Even when I was 6 and he was 16, I knew my uncle was somehow, well ... different. He was smart, snarkily funny, and (back then) terrifically handsome, with long blonde hair, bright green eyes, and high cheekbones. But he was always a little bit "off." He angered easily, had problems functioning socially, and flunked out of even the cushiest junior colleges. My grandmother refused to admit that her only son was severely troubled, so instead of getting help, my uncle was coddled and protected until she died. There was only one instance in which he was observed by professionals, in 1986, and he was immediately diagnosed as a schizophrenic. He refused all help and went on his way.

I was surprised to receive something in the mail today. For 25 years, my uncle has only sent me things on Christmas and my birthday. He uses old food cartons as boxes (presents stuffed inside, say, an empty box of Saltines), and these days, the "presents" are either old family junk he's had squirreled away or off-brand sugar-free cookies he finds at the 99-cent store.

A sampling of the old family junk I've received over the years.

For many years he sent me the pot pipes he made (and was always trying to sell), but he stopped making them a while back, and that was that.

Just a few of the many pipes my uncle has made me over the years. My all time favorite, though, is the rhinoceros. My grandmother brought the carving back from Africa, and my uncle dug a bowl in its belly and bored a hole in its ass to fashion a pipe.

The gist of today's communique seems to be that he wants me to turn one of his ideas into a movie or TV show. If I do this, he says he will give me 50% of the riches it reaps. While I fully realize that my uncle is a character worthy of a story, book, TV show, or film, I think my take on why he's so interesting is a bit different than his.

Then again, his letter is sprinkled with self-awareness (amid the overall delusion), so who knows?

In the bottom corner he writes: "Poor Boon He's so Dilluded"

Interspersed with his basic plea to turn his ideas into Hollywood gold are various (and unrelated) musings and commentaries. Some are insane, some are kind of weirdly brilliant, and some are both.

I suppose every family has at least one oddball, be they a simple eccentric or someone with a severe mental illness. And there's no denying that my uncle's story is riddled with very funny details. But what guts me in the end isn't that he's a schizophrenic, it's that he's led such a lonely life. He hasn't seen me since 1988 - and we speak maybe three times a year - and yet I'm the one he sends his hopes and dreams.

Yeah, my uncle's story is pretty damn funny ...

Right up until the part where it breaks your heart.