Hi Katy - Issue XXV [Return from Lunacy]

By Katy



That's right. As many of you are aware, I had a bit of an anxiety break when upon completion of the XXIV issue of Hi Katy I slipped into a three day coma wherein all previously answered questions attacked my dreaming slumber ala a Dilbert comic strip. No words can express. But I've come to terms with my ill-fated and oddly animated station in life, so here's a return of everything you've been somewhat maybe curious about reading a little.

Hi Katy,
My aunt is on heroin. How do you throw an intervention?
-Intervention Irene

Hi Irene,

I've spent enough Sunday evenings shotgunning PBR while watching four straight hours of A&E's Intervention to be pretty much an expert on this subject. Pay close attention:

1.) The key to a properly run intervention is MASS DECEPTION. Get anyone and everyone that liked your aunt at any time before she inevitably ruined their lives and book yourself a Motel 6 conference room. I'm not entirely sure that Motel 6 has conference rooms, so the lobby will do. This will be your intervention destination.

2.) Usually on Intervention they've made up some lie that they're video taping the addict for a documentary of some sort, and they're led to the intervention destination with knowledge that they're completing their final interview. (This is the moment where the music gets so dramatic it's hardly bearable.) Unless you've chosen to video tape your aunt for a week under these pretenses, you will need to consider a new mode of deception. Tell her she's been invited to a surprise Pampered Chef party; I'll give you that one for free.

3.) Once inside, she'll be infuriated when she realizes she's not going to get a life-time warranty pizza stone, so block the door and make her sit next to the people she's hurt most. Humiliation is second best to deception.

4.) Ask everyone to write down all the horrible things your aunt has done to them sequentially from kinda-dick-ish bad to David-Lynch's-Mulholland-Drive bad. Make sure everyone gets the opportunity to read these things out loud and to your aunt's tear-streaked face.

5.) Demand change. At this point she'll have but the shell of an emotional core remaining, so getting her to agree to anything is way easy. Just make her promise to stop. If you happened to have several thousand dollars sitting around, send her to a rehab clinic she'll likely leave a month later. Intervention: success.

Or, if you'd rather get someone else to pay for all of this while exploiting your aunt's extremely personal struggles as well as your families misfortunes and private problems, feel free to contact Intervention in hopes they'll save your loved one. I look forward to watching you and your aunt fall apart on cable TV in the coming months.

Hi Katy,
Who is better at rapping: MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice? I think it's time that you finally set the record straight.
-Rapping Ronald

Hi Ronald,

A question of this magnitude should really be handled by a hip hop aficionado. I have thus requested a guest spot from aboveGround Magazine's founder and editor-in-chief Tyler "Excuse Me" Hakes to properly school you hoes:

Ah, the age old debate. Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) versus MC Hammer (His name isn't nearly as comical) in a head-to-head throw down. This exact pair were once pitted against each other in Steve Huey's review of Vanilla Ice's To The Extreme.

"Ice's mic technique is actually stronger and more nimble than MC Hammer's, and he really tries earnestly to show off the skills he does have. Unfortunately, even if he can keep a mid-tempo pace, his flow is rhythmically stiff, and his voice has an odd timbre; plus, he never seems sure of the proper accent to adopt. He's able to overcome those flaws somewhat in isolated moments, but they become all too apparent over the course of an entire album," he wrote.

It's clear that with the acute ear of a well-versed music reviewer you can discern two things while listening to these two rappers:
1.) Vanilla Ice sucks
2.) MC Hammer sucks even more

Only a fool, however, would jump to the conclusion that this marks Mr. Van Winkle as a clear winner in the best-of-the-shittiest-rappers-ever competition. MC Hammer had a wild card somewhere in his overly-flamboyant attire: audacious spending habits. Although his rhyming was even more lackluster than Vanilla Ice's entirely-matte flow, his innate ability to burn through cash was unrivaled. Luckily for us as listeners, MC Hammer's exceptional excessiveness managed to break his bank and punctuate any serious attempts at career recovery in mockery.

With that, MC Hammer helped to rid himself from the airwaves, and removal of shitty rap is worth more points than any amount of additional shitty rap that Vanilla Ice continued to put out. Therefore, MC Hammer is the better rapper.

There isn't a chance I would have been able to answer that better. Kudos Ty.

Hi Katy,
Can you explain the health care debate to me? I'm a 20-year-old single mother going to community college near Charlotte, North Carolina. Right now I make too much to be covered under Medicaid but private insurance for me and my son is too expensive. Will this help me at all? And will my son, who has downs syndrome, asthma, autism and gout, have to go before one of the death panels before he gets treatment?
-Worrying Wanda

Hi Wanda,

I've started to answer this question five or six times by this point. I really don't know where to go with it. Essentially, the debate in its purest form is this: Do we have a poor health care system? It seems silly to ask the question when studies, polls, and reality make it so evident that we do. High premiums, sky-high medical bills, and poor preventative care are among the several reasons people are struggling with health care in this country.

The debate goes on and on to include whether or not we should have a public option, a government run health care meant to act as an affordable alternative for the people as well as a economic competition for existing private health insurance firms. I could make a poor attempt to write a multi-page explanation of the mess we're currently in with this bill, but I'd much rather talk about your overly-diseased son.

From the standpoint we're at now, I'll say no. This will not help you nor your son. The public option is like a strip of saliva dangling from the mouths of the un- and poorly insured souls of our nation and Congress is preparing to slap that spit right off our mouths and give it to the insurance sectors. I think I lost what I was saying in that analogy, but I think my point was well proven. The best you can do as an American is voice your plight in attempts to convince the Right that it's not just a Liberal myth that we're falling behind in duty to our citizens. But don't bank on the sympathy vote.

Hi Katy,
What's the point of taking a bunch of pictures? My girlfriend keeps trying to take a bunch of pictures of us and a bunch of pictures of things around us. I'm not against pictures per se, but I don't see the point. I've never even owned a digital camera (unless you count a webcam). Why do people take pictures of each other? This is a philosophical question.
-Picture This

Hi Picture,

I will do my best to answer this philosophically.

It's been oft said that we are now a people of instant attainability. We have instant coffee, instant messengers, instant MP3s, and the Plan B pill. I don't mean this in relation to an instant digital camera, though I suspect that lends to the capacity of pictures people can now take, but with all these instants we're losing a great deal of long-term memory.

As soon as something happens to us, say we share an hour long instant message chat with a friend, instead of reveling in the beauty and companionship we've gained from that person touching our hearts and our lives, we've already moved on to four other instant message conversations while preparing a frozen burrito and watching Leno. It's just too much to cherish. Thus, one of the main uses of photographs is to remind us we exist. Yes, we were there. Yes, I thought that hairstyle reflected my personality at twenty-three. Yes, we did to go to the Grand Canyon. Yes, I did drink one too many tequila sunrises and dry hump that forty-three-year-old all night. It's right here, in the picture. I took barely a photo the whole time I was working on my associate's degree and quite frankly, I'm not sure I've ever been to college.

Another big reason we love the photo so much is because it lets OTHER people know we exist. They can relive our bad hair cut decisions. They can go with us to the Grand Canyon. They can even dry hump misguided middle-age men right there beside us. I might have met your sister last week, but I wasn't sure until she updated her photos on Facebook.

We need this evidence to connect as people and to people. We need it to be our memory for us in all times; good, bad, illegal, ceremonial. It's part of our culture and it's part of US. You might not understand photos, but I'm afraid if you don't partake in the snapping freezy while the freezy is good, you're soon to not understand yourself.

Hi Katy,
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS!!1
-BHB

Hi BHB,

In a way, aren't we all responsible this? Does every human being not have an inherent purpose to better the world and those around us? When we succeed, do we not succeed together? When we fall, do we not bring others down?

We can continue blaming an ill-fated education system as it is continuously given the backseat treatment of importance, but shouldn't we all have some hand in educating the children of tomorrow and even each other?

I say it's time we leave our petty excuses behind us. It's time we stand up together and finally admit: we responsible this.

Now let's fix it.

* * * * *

Thank you to all kind enough to let me into your lives and submit judgment upon them. If you're at all interested in Hi Katy continuing beyond a 25 issue streak, e-mail me your questions and prayers and save me another comatose-inducing realization of my failing superiority complex.