On Jan. 31, 1961, when Mercury-Redstone 2 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., NASA launched the first hominid, Ham the Astrochimp, into outer space. But something else was launched that day, the repercussions of which have been felt in offices, amusement parks and corporate headquarters around the globe — from McDonald's, DisneyWorld, Johnson Wax and Starbucks to Madame Tussaud's, Weight Watchers and The British Egg Information Service.
If it weren't for that lever-pushing chimponaut, we might have been deprived of one of the greatest prank letter writers of our generation: Sterling Huck. Huck is the man who complained to Goodyear that a German man with a monocle was tailing him in the Goodyear blimp; the man who wrote to Chicago's Field Museum warning them he might have impregnated one of their mummies; the man who wrote to Oregon's Crater Lake Resort informing them that during a stay there, he would be required to stay in character and costume for his upcoming title role in New Line Pictures' The Adventures of Foghorn Leghorn.
Huck is the alter ego of Nashville Renaissance man Bill DeMain — music journalist, songwriter, one half of the pop duo Swan Dive, raconteur-in-chief at the Walkin' Nashville Music City Legends Tour. And of course, prank letter writer extraordinaire.
DeMain tells the Scene he first got the idea for the Huck letters after reading an article about Ham the Astrochimp in 1995.
"Years after his flight," DeMain says, "he had been buried on the grounds of the space center in New Mexico. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to pose as a scientist who specialized in simian intelligence and request an in-person examination of Ham's brain. If that that wasn't possible, maybe they'd let me exhume his body. When they responded and took me quite seriously, I thought, 'Wow, this could be a lot of fun to write these prank letters.' "
So the fuse was lit, and in 2002, The Sterling Huck Letters, a 256-page paperback, hit bookstores. Oddly enough, it was released by Thomas Nelson, the world's largest publisher of Christian literature. (In retrospect, DeMain says it probably wasn't the best choice of publishers for a book of prank letters: "As nice as some of the folks there were, some didn't ever really get the humor. I remember one of the editors asking me to explain what 'poontang' meant.")
A couple months ago, DeMain released a follow-up eBook, The Return of the Sterling Huck Letters. Here's an excerpt from a letter to talent agency Tabletop Productions in which Huck is pitching his Brewer and Shipley tribute act, Toker & Jointly:
When we sing 'One Toke Over the Line,' you are transported back to the spring of 1971, when women were wearing hot pants, Joe Frazier was beating Muhammad Ali, Nixon was pardoning Calley for My Lai, and of course, the weed was bountiful and cheap. ... We do 'One Toke' in a note-perfect rendition, then we do a 'One Toke Around the World Medley,' where we toke — sorry, take — the song through arrangements from German oom-pah to ska to Burundi tribal chant to gangsta rap.
Another gem is Huck's letter to DisneyWorld's Hall of Presidents saying he thinks he spotted their animatronic John Quincy Adams walking through downtown Nashville:
I circled around the block to catch another glimpse of 'Old Man Eloquent' (yes, I know my presidential nicknames). As I came up from behind him, I observed a strange stiffness to his gait and carriage. Almost as if he was some kind of robot or automaton. Then it hit me! Robot ... animatronic ... The Hall of Presidents ... escaped ... must tell DisneyWorld ... save exhibit. ... I'm sure he didn't get far. Perhaps he's enjoying one of the fine BBQ restaurants. ... Or maybe he's practicing law again. Wouldn't that be a fine barrel of apples?
Some of the responses suggest the recipient didn't get (or didn't appreciate) the tongue-in-cheek humor. But some of the responses are pretty great. In response to the Foghorn Leghorn letter, the owner of Crater Lake Resort warned him that it would be duck-hunting season. Tabletop Productions' owner declined representing Toker & Jointly, noting that even the real Brewer & Shipley wouldn't draw a crowd.
And then there was the time Huck wrote to Amoco, informing them he was planning to open a ham superstore chain called Hamoco. "I expected one of their lawyers to warn me off, which happened," DeMain says. "But then we got into these very warm, personal exchanges where we were talking about everything from favorite pork dishes to mutual back problems."
Has he ever written a letter he regretted?
"I once invited Lou Ferrigno to a low-rent TV monster convention in Joelton," DeMain says, "requesting him to speak and also to sing an original song I'd written about the Hulk. Lou's wife sent me a handwritten letter, asking if I might be able to afford to pay Lou a little more. Obviously, he was in a career lull. Also, I didn't realize that Lou was 80 percent deaf because of a childhood illness. So singing wasn't really an option. I felt pretty bad about that one."
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
