Exposed

Weird facts, stories, and thingamajigs about Ken Napzok, volume I.

* When I was eleven I dressed up like Pee-Wee Herman for Halloween. I went all out. My Mom trucked me around from thrift store to thrift store until we found the perfect gray suit and bowling shoes. I found a bright red bow tie. I had props like an oversized novelty toothbrush and trick gum. For my birthday party, we made our living room into Pee-Wee's playhouse... stuck eyes on couches, pretended stuffed animals could talk, and someone, maybe even my sister- I can't remember, pretended to be Jambi the Genie. It was fun. So, much fun I decided to do it again the next year. Which was probably less fun and a tad more creepy for the same friends.

* I am actually 5' 8 1/2" in height... the same exact size as Bono. I also weigh 308lbs... the same exact size as that small car with the naked chick painted on it in the European version of the "One" video.

* For years I refused to make left turns at uncontrolled intersections. I would plan my driving route around this phobia... often going far out of my way to find a right turn going my way or a turn light. This, oddly enough, ended shortly after I started having sex.

* I didn't have sex for a very long time. Twenty-eight years or so. Some people don't believe me. I think that's because they didn't meet me before I had sex. It's a chicken or the egg thing.

* When I was in the seventh grade a major league baseball player, California Angel back-up catcher John Orton, showed up randomly at our Arroyo Grande house to buy my parents dinning room table. I heard the conversation from upstairs while I played Commodore 64 games and started freaking out. My Mother asked, "Ken, do you know who John Orton is?" I yelled back, pretending I didn't know he was there, "Yeah... he hit his first major league home run against the Yankees." I heard laughter. (It was Orton's sister and brother-in-law, minor leaguer Reed Davis.) "Well, he's in our living room." My Mother made me come downstairs. I stood before him and suddenly became so embarrassed and uncomfortable for absolutely no reason. I turned red and started sweating. A lot. I think I scared Orton and I'm convinced that's why his career never took off. Almost as if he thought, "If this is what being a major leaguer does to kids... I'm out!" It is, what I believe to be, my first documented outbreak of the social anxiety that still plagues me to this day. I thought about getting treatment once, but then I just went back under my covers.

* While it is well-known among my close friends, loved ones, and select audience members from a few early stand-up shows that I came very close to killing myself twice... close as in I just had to take one more step out or pull the trigger... it is not well-known, or at least it is often overlooked, that I have generally tried to stay alive every other day of my life. I don't get enough credit for that.

* Yes. It is true, America. I have fallen asleep while taking showers.

* I am not a thief, but I can finally admit to stealing an arm from a robot shaped pencil eraser toy that belonged to my friend Isaac in the fourth grade. I felt so bad about it that I never stole anything again in my life. Unless you count the time I steal from my job when I get to work and the first thing I do is check my fantasy baseball teams, Facebook, and gossip sites to see if any celebs of note have flashed their engines to any Paparazzi cameras. Oh, and I also stole those Who CD's from my old radio station and still, to this very day, don't feel bad about it... even when I listen to them. I think Pete Townsend would understand.

* If I have the chance to look back at my life before I die, I will always regret not working harder at my radio career. Best. Medium. Ever. Too bad it is dying. Actually... it's just plain dead.

* There was a GI Joe vehicle called the Devilfish (it was a boat) and when it debuted in the comic books I did everything in my power to hide that issue from my Mother because I didn't want her to see the word "Devilfish" on the printed page. To this day, she's never seen it. Phhhheeewwww.

* Sometimes when I get onto a freeway... particularly the 101 at night... I pretend to be in a spaceship about to launch on some important mission. I pretend to talk to a control tower and my fellow space ace freedom fighters. When I exit the freeway I pretend to launch a big missile at some, as of yet, undetermined target. Thankfully hands free became a law and now when I do it people in other cars just think I'm having an animated bluetooth conversation with my agent.

* I don't have an agent.

* I'm a huge Beatle fan, love U2 passionately, carry the Oasis torch even when it's not cool, hate you for not liking Dan Wilson and Semisonic, can't understand why Ryan Adams is not considered a modern day legend, and won't listen to your reasons why Liz Phair sold out, but, really, if I'm being honest, my all-time favorite song could very well be Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway."

* I once caught an old roommate masturbating. What upset me the most was that he was doing it on an old computer chair I had just given to him... not that a naked man was sitting in front of fat lady porn with nothing but a napkin in his lap. This strikes some as off-balanced.

* When I was a little kid I saw the 1982 movie version of Annie in theaters and developed a pretty serious boycrush on Annie (played by Aileen Quinn). I'd often have dreams where I was in a different version of the movie. In it Annie and I kid-dated and I helped her escape from the orphanage. Looking back... that would have been stupid because then Daddy Warbucks would never have adopted her and she would have remained poor. I would had to get some stupid job down at the five and dime. She would have had to pick-up extra shifts down at the diner and our lives would have been lame and underwhelming. Stupid, stupid me.

* I have a weird obsession with office supplies and have been known to just walk into an OfficeMax or Staples and buy $100 worth of stuff that I don't really need. And right after that I will pretend to not have enough money to pay for lunch.

* As the security director of the Farmers Market in Hollywood, I once challenged a drunk guy to a fight in the middle of Fairfax Ave. at lunch time. We even stopped traffic. To date: one of the coolest things I've done.

* Not one of the coolest things I've done: Missed work at the same job because I crapped my pants while getting dressed and had to call in sick for something most first graders don't miss school for. Now... most people in my circle know that story... but what's not known is that I crapped my pants again only some six months later. I never told any one because I thought once was a funny moment worthy of a great story, but twice seemed like a serious medical and/or psychological issue that I just didn't want to deal with.

* All of this is true. Very, very true. We'll do it again some time.