My Brother Is A Blockhead

A "Human Blockhead" to be precise.

That means he hammers nails into his nose. And people clap and stuff. (Or throw up.)

But he's still a sweet boy.

He just goes by Donny Vomit now, is all.

(You know, because of the throwing up thing.)

The Donny List:

1. Donny wants you to think his favorite movie is all edgy, like Pi or Requiem For A Dream.

2. But it's really The Three Amigos.

3. His go-to karaoke song is Suspicious Minds by Elvis.

4. But if you get him on a happy day he'll do Madonna's Like A Prayer (..."let the choir sing.")

5. When we were kids he'd cry and scream and beg beneath the crack under my (locked) bedroom door to play He-Man with him. I would finally agree if I could control the bad guys in Skeletor's camp (who had the Skull Mountain home base which was kick ass.) Whereas the only somewhat interesting thing in He-Man's crew was a mossy-skinned guy that smelled like Pine-Sol.

6. I always thought Donny looked like Elliot in E.T. or Kevin in the Wonder Years, and should have been a puppy dog-eyed, heart-throb child star.

7. But he just wanted to be Steve Martin.

8. When he was twenty-five he moved to New York City to become an honest-to-goodness sideshow performer.

9. Since then his handlebar mustache and fast-talking boardwalk voice have become mainstays at Brooklyn's world-famous Coney Island Sideshow By The Seashore where he performs side-by-side with snake charmers, fire eaters and human oddities. He has appeared on television's Cake Boss and Samantha Brown Weekend. He has taught journalists and Ivy Leaguers how to swallow swords at "sideshow school." He's toured the country with a burlesque troupe (three pinup girls and Donny crammed in a tin-box trailer). And he's even had a beer label named after him.

10. Eight-year old Donny would have been deliriously happy to hear that his future persona involved the word "vomit." And while it may have not fit my nostalgic vision of a boy-next-door brother complete with a gravely Joe Cocker cover of "Get By With A Little Help From My Friends," it would, and has, served our family's affinity for the dramatic.

Kevin from The Wonder Years? Eat your heart out.

More Donny stories:

- what happens when Donny babysits in Uncle Donny
- when a Donny Vomit stunt goes wrong in our Family's First Trip To The Sideshow
- an outing is anything but boring with Kathleen & Donny in A Simple Outing