Go, you Chicken Fat, Go!

The final nail in the coffin of purity and goodness. Sigh.

More on the SpongeBob Squarepants outing…another organization has apparently confirmed
confirmed “Dr.” Dobson’s suspicions about our poor little sea creature.

From the article:

A "homosexuality detection expert" at the similarly conservative Family Research Council told the NY Times that words like "tolerance" and "diversity" are part of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual community."

I’m not sure which is creepier – that tolerance and diversity are bad words, or that an organization actually pays someone to be a homosexuality detection expert.

I detect it every day, for free, and I’m never wrong. Premature and optimistic in some cases, perhaps, but not wrong. Maybe I should be charging a consultation fee?

For all you busy mothers out there - Xavix Interactive Technologies has finally perfected technology to ensure that your children will never have to leave the house again! Now they can work up a sweat playing simulated versions of such American classics as bowling and baseball, without the risk that they might actually have to interact with a real person, especially one of another race.

Jesus, even I might actually get off my ass and drive to the bowling alley if I want to go bowling.

Poor LSBB is working so hard to make a better life for herself. She toiled for a year before being offered health insurance, and even excelling all that time she’s still low man on the totem pole. The latest insult is her new colleague Jessica the Hut, who waltzed in only to receive a better office and more smoke breaks per day than anyone else. As her nom de guerre might imply, she is ponderously fat – so fat that she informed LSBB that she didn’t even know she was pregnant (with her son-named-after-a-dog, Milo) until she was six months along. (Not being a medical professional I suppose I shouldn’t speak to such matters, but…wouldn’t you start to think something was up if you didn’t have a period for, like, two or three months?) When asked if she quit smoking during her pregnancy, she answered, “Well....................yeah, i mean, when I found out!" (Again, NOT a doctor, but…if you’ve already smoked for the first two trimesters, why bother quitting for the third?) The very picture of idealized motherhood, Jessica paid extra to have a c-section a week before her due date…so she could attend a PRINCE CONCERT.

Ms. Hut wears gargantuan Tori Amos concert t-shirts to work, apparently, and in fact has sent Ms. Amos several hand-crafted gifts, which she then follows up on via email to ensure that her gifts have been received and are being used for their intended purpose – say, as a door-stop in the studio or something. I’m CERTAIN Tori is touched by the thought.

As this week began with the most depressing day of the year, followed Tuesday by my singing at the memorial service for Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams – where her high school chum Mary Chapin Carpenter sang a tearful goodbye, followed by Ms. Williams’ young children eloquently reading Shakespeare, followed by her 8-year old daughter singing “Fields of Gold” with a mournful, grown-up-sounding voice – you can imagine I was ready for a pick-me-up. Which arrived in the guise of a video of the only remaining episode of Luci’s Toy Shop, the beloved local children’s television show that anyone growing up in Columbus, Ohio from 1960-1972 will surely remember.

I don’t know WHY there’s only one show left, but there is, and it’s not a very good one, and it’s from before I was born, but I delighted to see it just the same. Luci, then, was a perky Sandy Duncan-esque gal who wore a red- and white-striped pinafore dress (every little girl in Columbus had an exact copy!) and, obviously, hung out in a Toy Shop, joined by her puppet friends Stanley Mouse, Mr. Dragon, Walrus, Pierre Poodle, Wonder Witch, Baby Giraffe, et al. I myself had all the knockoff puppets there were when I was a lad, including Charlie Horse who had to be operated with two hands!

This episode has something to do with a circus, and Luci’s efforts to enlist her pals to audition for it, only everyone runs away to join a real circus, because they don’t know about the auditions, except they don’t really run away….something like that. I suspect the episode had been written, bleary-eyed, over a cup of coffee at the all-night diner, because Luci keeps looking desperately off screen for cue cards, and situations that are resolved one minute are still present the next.

The most surreal moments are when Luci reaches into the sky to beat an imaginary gong, which even though imaginary, is apparently located somewhere because she looks frantically for it, and acts as if there’s a risk it won’t be found. Once struck, the gong magically blanks out the screen for a few seconds, and when the picture comes back we are greeted by a new puppet friend, Chan Ten, a shocking Chinese caricature who says things like “Me rikey” and “Gorry”. I have no recollection of Chan, I think he must have been fazed out by the time I came along, but I’ll be sure to ask Code Dependent about it.

The rest of the show is spent dancing to songs from the Mary Poppins soundtrack, and trying to prevent Dragon from getting angry (because when he does so, he turns from a puppet into an adult man wearing a vaguely dragon-shaped bedsheet, with dress slacks and wingtips sticking out the bottom. And who wants THAT?)

And just when you think the fun is over, the tape keeps going….first comes a series of news clips talking about the anniversary of Luci’s Toy Shop, and what Luci’s doing now, and how another local children’s show had recently filmed a special reunion/tribute/documentary thingie about Luci.

And THEN…a Buckeye Potato Chip commercial from the 60’s, with a dancing cartoon female potato chip (it’s hard to explain).

And THEN…the actual reunion/tribute/documentary thingie! Mind you, all but the episode itself was completely un-heralded on the video jacket. You can only imagine my glee, and Jet’s revulsion, at the hours of enforced misery that lay before him!

Sadly, Luci passed away in October 2003. Sniff. I guess I’ll go back to being blue now.