thinglets: The Dungarees v. The Suits

Who would've thought that class warfare could be so elegantly reduced down to a two minute video clip from a 1980's television comedy? I looked for a transcription of this and, as I couldn't find it, devoted 10 minutes to transcribing it myself. Who needs Marx and Engels when you've got Tarlek and Nessman? This clip is an allegory for all that's gone bad in society... well, maybe not, but then again, I wear dungarees.

HERB TARLEK:

The whole world is in revolution. And not just here, but everywhere. And you know who's at war? It's The Dungarees v. The Suits. The whole world is in two armed camps. Over here you have The Dungarees and over here The Suits.

Remember the rise in the 50s? It was The Dungarees v. The Suits. And then Watergate. Those guys arrested were wearing dungarees and who suffered for it?

LES NESSMAN:

The Suits.

HERB TARLEK:

Exactly.

LES NESSMAN:

There are issues Herb.

HERB TARLEK:

The issues, Les, are a smokescreen.

Now listen. When a son disobeys his father, what's he wearing?

LES NESSMAN:

The son? um... dungarees!

HERB TARLEK:

And what's the father got on?

LES NESSMAN:

Probably a suit!

HERB TARLEK:

You see what I mean Les? And you know what's worse? The fathers are beginning to wear dungarees too!

LES NESSMAN:

That's right!

HERB TARLEK:

So are the mothers!

LES NESSMAN:

It's just like the Body Snatchers.

HERB TARLEK:

Exactly! The Body Snatchers! The Dungarees are forcing The Suits right off the face of this earth! 

But we can't allow this to happen!

LES NESSMAN:

What do we do Herb?

HERB TARLEK:

We've gotta get tough. I've got an idea that'll turn this whole thing to our advantage. Get us back some of the jobs that we used to handle around here. I mean Travis cannot cut us out of everything.

LES NESSMAN:

I'm with ya Herb!

HERB TARLEK:

Good. Let's go see the Big Guy.

LES NESSMAN:

Herb, you know who I think is behind all this?

HERB TARLEK:

Who?

LES NESSMAN:

Levi Strauss.

HERB TARLEK:

Could be.

thinglets: Venus Flytrap Explains the Atom

WKRP was one of the greatest sitcoms of all-time. One of the best scenes in the series is Venus Flytrap (the overnight soul DJ) dropping some science on this gangbanger. Venus had befriended his mother, who was a cleaner at the radio station, and she was worried her son was dropping out of school.

The scene you don't see, after the end of the clip, is Venus breathing a huge sigh of relief after the kid leaves that he's still in one piece. Even better, Johnny Fever (the morning rock DJ) wakes up from a pile of boxes across the room complimenting Venus' teaching abilities.

Who says you needed Schoolhouse Rock to learn in the 70s? Venus was da man!

thinglets: 10 Minute Stream of Consciousness Trip to the Cucumber Club

Sometimes stream of consciousness is the order of the day tripper from the heights of sanity to the bend around the Credence Clearwater Revival churchgoing folk never thought well of the young buck from Arkansas but soon found with a little bit of grooming he could become the astronaut we always thought he could be.

Signs pointed west, but signs will often do that when black is orange and orange is grape and there aren’t enough hostess potato chip bags in the world that could be simultaneously crinkled to quash the din of the baby crying in the booth across the restaurant.

Maybe if there was a time and a place the place could be venus and the time could be swiss and we’d chat gaily of the wandering secret agent who lost her memory amidst the culmination of a black box mission set down by the powers that be for the defence of the people by the people for the people made of people – soylent green.

So I ask you young psychotic blithering tattletale of the night – are you up to the call of the man in the pink suspenders and crying behind curtain number two the 86 year-old Monty Hall fan who sits in Beckett-like fashion waiting for a deal to be made and an appearance to be imminent and an autograph book to be signed somewhere between Bob Eubanks and Chuck Woollery.

I remember the days of wine and hosers when men were men and women were lite brite illusions on the battlefield of playtime when the vast ocean of meandering opened up its arms and said “Give it to me straight Doctor. I can take it,” without a second glance or thought or premonition about the forces at work or the elements at play.

Surely there must be semblance. Surely there must be coercion. Surely there must be a recipe that includes semi-sweet chocolate chips, because the semi-sweet chocolate chip lobby has been doing their work and putting out their 365 day tear-off calendars for the world to see and without their efforts the civilization would have faltered long ago and without their efforts the typhoons would have raged eternal and without their efforts the ghost of TS Eliot would have risen in April and decried the he was a pair of ragged claws on some beach-like region.

Oh sure, you may weep for the downtrodden with your tears made of copper and your heart made of glass and your Debbie Harry affections with consummate incredulity. You may weep for the death of the bison and the culmination of the cataclysm of the crisis of the caucus of the collapse of the cacophony of the Cucumber Club.

Oh Moose.

Oh Beaver.

Why have you forsaken us?

cucumber club