By Laurence Gonzales
in "Playboy", December 1977
Back to the soul-sinking chronicle of fag jokes. I am Ixion. This is my wheel. If only I knew how to quit it.
The next few examples wouldn’t exist without Anthony Daniels’s performance as the android C3PO in “Star Wars”. A heritage of gay robot jokes is not quite the legacy any actor might hope to leave behind. Although George Lucas’s casting vision has to take some blame. Actually I was greatly tempted to give the following selections the overall title of “FAAAGS IN SPAAAAAAAACE!!!”, but that would be demeaning - to my childhood delight in the Muppets.
This parody is in the same vein as Harvard Lampoon’s “Bored of the Rings” and subsequent film parody franchises. Puns, heavy-handed sex jokes and contemporary life style references laboriously transposed into a science-fictionalised setting, while also deprecating the storytelling shortcomings of the original. Simply to cut down on space I left out all the Jewish and Yiddish jokes, though fans of Mel Brooks’s “Spaceballs” may feel deprived. The one atrocious racist joke I’ve left in for comparison.
Unsubtle probably best describes the overall impression. The title and picture pretty much let you know what to expect. Sissy gays don’t have wars, they have spats. I’m surprised they didn’t try to make Darth’s helmet look more like a penis, but then there are stories of Hefner getting weird about cartoons of penises in “Playboy”.
Discos, drugs, bitchy queens, s/m fashions, and hairdressers (“Mr” often being the title of choice for hairdressers). This is the contemporary Studio 54 lifestyle that the readers are expected to pick up on. With a “The Boys in the Band” allusion for those who can remember: “Who do you have to fuck....”
Suffice it to say this has never been collected in any anthology of gay science fiction.
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STAR SPATS
Will Luke rescue Princess Orgasma?
Can a gay android find happiness in a bit part?
Will the universe be saved?
Does anybody have a valium?
Funny you should ask?
The erratic course of the galactic cruiser as it blasted through the constellation Tsooris was hardly intentional. Its captain had been hard by the Jack Daniel's for three days running. Coincidentally, this course was avoiding the long streaks of energy striking out from the Imperial cruiser. One of the beams touched the staggering, lurching ship and blew away its curb feelers and fender skirts. Then another distant explosion shook the ship and peeled away a layer of red-flocked wallpaper in the corridor - but it certainly didn't feel distant to Little Bo Peepio, the gay android, and his side-kick Panchoo DeeToo. To look at those two, you would have thought Little Bo Peepio, the tall, wispy machine wearing nothing but a necklace that said BITCH and a Porsche chronometer, was master of Panchoo DeeToo, the stubby, swarthy pistolero robot in the Two Fingers Tequila T-shirt; but while Bo Peepio might have thrown an absolute snit at the suggestion, they were actually equals in everything except that Bo Peepio gave better head and Panchoo DeeToo was the only Panchoo unit in the constellation of Tsooris that was running off a turquoise-and beaten-silver laser system.
Other explosions rocked the galactic cruiser. The low humming note that had been giving Bo Peepio a splitting headache suddenly stopped. Finally. Bo Peepio spoke:
"Who do you have to fuck to get a valium around here?" he asked.
Panchoo did not comment immediately. His barrel torso tilted backward, his three powerful hand-tooled leather cowboy boot gripping the deck. The meter-high Mexicano droid was suffering from severe postnasal drip sustained while sniffing some Peruvian graphite dust earlier in the flight, A series of short, chirping Spanish invectives issued from his speaker. To even a sensitive ear they would have sounded like just so much Third World gibberish, but to Bo Peepio they formed words as dear as a tequila sunrise.
"This butch captain of ours is definitely on a macho trip,' Bo Peepio said in a testy voice, thrusting out his metallic hips petulantly and patting down his chromium skullplate. "We're fucked for sure now.”
Suddenly a band of Imperial Storm Troopers appeared and began firing their weapons. One blast of energy threw Bo Peepio into a jumble of shredded cables, where dozens of currents turned him into a jerking, mincing, limp-wristed display of acrobatics.
"Help!" he screamed. "My servopelvic Accu-Jac!"
As Panchoo extended his switchblade mechanism to try to help cut away the cables, Bo Peepio's tone turned ultra-bitchy:
"This is all your fault! I should have known better than to trust the logic of an albino graphite-snorting, hand-held half-breed vibrator!"
Panchoo cut loose with a series of searching Spanish curses usually reserved for those who gang-rape your mother. One of them made an allusion to Bo Peepio's ancestral link to the Water Pik.
Then a violent explosion shook the corridor.
Two meters tall. Bipedal. Flowing black robes and a simple string of cultured pearls. Hair by Sassoon. Face forever masked by a black Tiffany breathing creation stunningly punctuated by pear diamond and rough-cut emeralds. A Dark Lord of Sith was a daunting shape as it snapped its tight little buns back and forth, heading down the corridors, glancing self-consciously at its reflection in the mirrored walls. Solidly into S/M, it normally sported heavy leather-and-chrome manacles and a set of expensive Spanish handcuffs. Once-resolute rebel crew members ceased resisting at the sight and threw themselves al its feet, crying:
"Where did you get your hair done?"
As it turned down another passageway, they could hear Mr. Darth's heavy breathing through the Tiffany mask. But who could resist?
Elsewhere, Bo Peepio and Panchoo were entering the lifeboat hatch. The explosive bolts fired after a loud warning and the pod ejected from the crippled fighter, sending the two droids to the surface of the planet below. Like much of the Promised Land, it was pretty grim compared with Fire Island.
Soon after Luke Starfucker had come into possession of Bo Peepio and Panchoo - and for no explainable reason - they were all fast friends, as if they'd known one another for eons. While Luke was valiantly trying to repair Panchoo, however, the little Latin pervert became horny and began showing dirty movies with his silver turquoise laser.
Luke who was only 20 years old, had lived a sheltered life and, consequently, was watching with rapt attention as Panchoo, who was a bit weirded out on some unnamed droid crystals, unabashedly flashed holographic movies of a beautiful young girl and her trusty exercise 'droid. She kept mumbling something about somebody's Kenobish.
"Boy," Luke said in awe, "look at the Kenobish on that dude."
Panchoo mumbled something in Spanish and kept showing the dirty loops.
"Oh, help me," the girl pleaded. "Slip me some Kenobish, Ben!"
"Who is that?” Luke asked Bo Peepio.
"I really don't know. She was a passenger on our last voyage. Had her own dressing room. A movie star of some importance, I think. Bitchin' wardrobe."
"Some movies," Luke allowed. Then suddenly, Panchoo ended the performance. "What kind of shit is that?" Luke asked angrily, jumping up.
Panchoo screeched and bleeped in incomprehensible but dearly obscene Latin aphorisms. Bo Peepio winced and translated some of them.
"He says before she got into heavy S/M movies like this, she used to co-star with the stud of the entire constellation of Tsooris, one of the last surviving Jewish Knights, Bennie Wadd Kenobish. He also says you can pay him fifty Imperial monetary units for an instant re¬play or else blow it out your Imperial ass."
"Bennie Wadd Kenobish," Luke said with a puzzled expression. "He's an old man now. He couldn't possibly get it up. And what in blazes is a Jewish Knight?"
"Don't ask me, deary,” Bo Peepio said, rolling his eyes seductively, "but if you know this Wadd character, I think I'd like to tag along."
Inside the bowels of the Imperial battle station, Princess Orgasma – intergalactically famous porn star - was being treated to the thrill of her life with a set of chromium molybdenum shackles by Mr. Darth.
"Tighter, Darth! Tighter!" she moaned, as one or Darth's minions moved forward to increase the pressure of the shackles on her pale wrists.
"You are my prisoner," Mr. Darth said, swirling his cape and fingering his strand of pearls. "I think what you need is a Farrah Fawcett cut."
"No, not that! Anything but that!" Princess Orgasma cried.
“How about a Linda Ronstadt?"
(omitted assorted Jewish stereotype jokes........)
Without even asking for any trouble from these Jewish Knights and gay robots, Luke suddenly found it in the middle of a real mess. He was out; riding toward Moishe Eisley Spaceport, a pretty nasty place according to Kenobish. It was imperative that they not be suspected by the Imperial Storm Troopers while searching the spaceport a pilot who could take them to rescue Princess Orgasma. But, as Kenobish had explained, the Force would be with them if they got into trouble.
(omitted Jewish Force jokes.........)
.
"Double Shirley Temple," Luke said across the bar.
They had entered the underground cantina and while Kenobish was scouting around for a pilot, Luke busied himself surveying the clientele. It was a sight like none he had ever seen. Lined against the bar three deep were men in hideous Palm Beach and Brooks Brothers suits. some of them with lethal-looking Bell System beepers attached to their alligator belts in case the hospital called for an emergency Caesarean section. Others carried American Tourister attaché cases. And all of them were knocking back deadly martinis without blinking an eye.
The bartender looked at him strangely when he placed his order but served it up anyway. Suddenly. Luke noticed that he was the subject of some unwanted attention. It must be these beige robes, he thought, and tried to ignore the stares. Something shoved him roughly nearly knocking him over. He turned angrily and then stopped in astonishment. It a little, stooped-over Polish janitor, myopically pushing a broom, trying to clean up some of the cigarette butts and peanut shells left behind by the rowdy business lunch crowd. Luke motioned to Kenobish and the wily old Jewish Knight deftly whipped out his sacred shotgun and blew the pushy little fucker into a thousand pieces, splattering brain and bone across the cantina floor.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Kenobish ushered Luke over to a table where an enormous monkey was sitting with a young man who was somewhat older than Luke.
"Who's the shvartzer?” Kenobish asked the man, indicating the monkey, as they approached the table.
"That's my monkey," the man said. "Leave him alone or I'll have him pull your head off. I'm Solo."
"And I'm Hetero:' Luke snapped.
"Listen. you little starfucker," Solo said, reaching across the table, "if you want to get to diddle the princess, you'd better watch your star mouth or you're going to be in for some star difficulties."
However, in spite of that thorny first encounter, the entire entourage - Kenobish, Luke, Bo Peepio, Panchoo, Solo and one big fullback type badly in need of a haircut - took off for a rendezvous with the Death Disco, a planet-size night spot that even now housed the Imperial cruiser commanded by Mr. Darth and a large number of rotating punk-rock groups.
Once cruising in Solo's speedy starship, the Millennium Chicken, in the calm of hyperspace and free of pursuing Imperial cruisers, Kenobish had a chance to give Luke some lessons with his newly found sacred weapon. "Pull!" Luke called and a clay bird flew out of the trap and smashed against the interior walls of the intergalactic cruiser before he could shoulder the shotgun.
"No, no, no," Kenobish was saying in disgust.”Here, put this on," he said, taking a large trash can from nearby and placing it over Luke's head.
"Mrgf! Gnlt butlts hbthblwsh!" Luke's Screams were unintelligible from inside the container.
"See,” Kenobish said, "You're already learning a new language. Ah, the Force."
Luke called for another bird and began firing wildly, scattering hot leaden revolutionary death all over the interior of the ship and sending everyone diving under tables and chain.
Having counted on the eternally inferior intelligence of people who wear Tiffany breathing devices and their armies and strategists in much the same way Pentagon generals counted on what they referred to in private as "gook stupidity," the star entourage entered the Death Disco and rescued Princess Orgasma by tantalizing her with her favorite sexual foreplay: a group grope in a warm garbage bath. Then, having hidden the architectural plans for the Death Disco - somewhere on her person - they headed back to the Millennium Chicken, using the “ancient Eskimo" plan of escape. This calls for taking an elderly member of the tribe and setting him on an ice floe until the polar bears are distracted and eat him, thus saving everyone else. In this case, alas, it was the noble Jewish Knight, Bennie Wadd Kenobish, who was attacked by Mr. Darth and chafed to death by Spanish handcuffs.
Luke hung back at a safe distance while fighter after fighter was chewed into molecular bits by Imperial energy weapons. As a matter of honor, he let his best friends go first. And even though they were getting dusted by the score, they were doing serious damage to the Death Disco, and finally Mr. Darth, seeing that Luke was coming in for the kill, boarded his own combat fighter to chase him down and, as he put it, “slap that bitch’s wrists but good.”
But once Luke's friends were all dead, he knew one thing for sure and no limp-wristed hairdresser was going to stop him. Visions of that first pornographic hologram of Princess Orgasma swam in his head as he homed in on the planetoid. Back at command center, Orgasma was hunched over the radar screen, watching Luke's progress. He was confident of the Force that he wasn't even using his computer aiming device. He just placed a trash can over his head, as Kenobish had taught him.
"Don't worry”' Orgasma’s voice came over the radio, "Solo has returned and he’s, um, right behind me," she panted, hunching more eagerly over the radar consol.
"That's right, kid," Luke heard Solo say, “I had a change of heart. And I'll keep things warm back here while you shoot your load."
And then, in unison, Luke could hear their voices cheenng, "Go, go. go, deeper, deeper, put it in, ye, “ until – trash can totally obscuring his vision - Luke made a slight miscalculation in his steering and rammed a gun tower, disintegrating into microscopic silvery fragments.
"Tough shit, kid," Solo said.
END
