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Esperanto

Late 19th century Poland was a place of division and turmoil. The population was incredibly diverse, but not in a happy, elementary school math book illustration way. Yiddish, Russian, German, and Polish were all spoken – mostly used to hurl slurs and insults at opposing ethnicities. At any given moment you could look out of your window to see a craven German strong-arming a miserly Jew, while a drunken Russian looked on in disgust, and a dumb Pole tried in vain to tie his shoes. One group’s success was perceived to be at the cost of another’s. The police force was prejudiced against people they viewed as interlopers. Street signs were growing problematically jumbled. Tensions ran high and violence ran rampant. A breaking point was at hand.

Sound familiar? It shouldn’t. That was a very long time ago. There’s no way you were around to see it. Unless you are a Crow, Lizard Person, or Dracula, of course. In that case – Welcome to the Podcast! Caw! Hissss! or Blah! to you! Don’t forget to check out the web page at theirrationallyexuberant.com for past podcasts, pictures, videos, and the transcript of this episode!

So, enter L.L. Zamenhof, a sensitive young Jewish lad with a penchant for peace and a yearning for learning. He also had, it is said, a yen for Zen, a lust for language, a dictate to abate hate, and a total boner for unity. He was, by all accounts, a great guy, worthy of respect, so shame on you for assuming that I was going to make some inane joke about LLs Cool J or Bean. Dismayed by his surroundings, he came to attribute the fractiousness of his homeland to what he later called “the heavy sadness of the diversity of languages”. He himself spoke Yiddish, Russian, German, French, Hebrew, Polish, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Lithuanian, Italian, English, and something called Volapuk, which I assumed was old-timey nerd language along the lines of Klingon, but was actually something of a precursor to what we are discussing today.
What are we discussing today? Esperanto. It’s in the title. Pay attention, Champ. Zamenhof’s solution to the problems he observed was a an easy to learn universal language, with a simple grammar and a vocabulary of root words that would be modified by standardized prefixes and suffixes, free from the irregularities that make a language like English so difficult to master. It was based on a combination of several European languages, as well as Latin, but, to this monolingual English speaker, anyway, sounds a lot like Spanish. He worked on the language for years while attending medical school and then practicing Ophthalmology, and finally introduced it in a book, the Unua Libro, in 1887, under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (meaning Doctor Hopeful). He called the language Lingvo Internacia, but no one liked that, so they called it Esperanto, which has a nice ring to it.
Now, constructed languages – languages created for an express purpose by a specific individual or individuals, as opposed to evolving naturally over time – have an estensive history that begins long before Esperanto and continues through modern times. They are rarely successful, as evidenced by the fact that the aforementioned Klingon is the second most successful of all time, behind Esperanto. The first known instance is the Lingua Ignota, created in the year 1200 by Hildegard of Bingen for “mystical purposes”. She didn’t bother to teach it to anyone else, presumably because she didn’t have any friends. In the 16th century, the alchemists and Kabbalists also constructed mystical languages of sorts. I’m sure they would have gotten on swimmingly with ol’ Hilde. Many others came and went after that, typically constructed by idealistic philosophers and would be magicians or wizards or witches or whatever. In 1982, author Suzette Haden Elgin created Ladaan, a feminine-centric language to test the effects of gender normative language. Today, most constructed languages are for artistic purposes. Even as we speak, someone is probably sitting alone in a sad little apartment, laboring away at teaching themself Dothraki. It is a strange world we live in, though apparently not strange enough for some people.
These examples are all, to varying degrees, selfish. Esperanto was a different kind of constructed language, one which has popped up from time to time, created not as an intellectual exercise or to bring some imagined power, but to unite the world and bring about peace. It was an objective failure in that regard, but, like Macaulay Culkin, showed some real promise at times and has stubbornly refused to die.
The response to Zamenhof’s book was surprisingly enthusiastic, though his first attempt at marketing didn’t catch on. In the back of the pamphlet which first presented his new language, he included coupons to be filled out and mailed to him as a pledge to learn the language, provided 10 million others did the same. Only 1,000 were returned. Esperanto, from the very beginning, was an unpredictable entity, and, much like the giant baby in Honey I Blew Up the Kids, refused to conform to its creator’s or adherent’s intentions.
Zamenhof’s dream was that the world would recognize Esperanto’s potential to solve all of its problems and the language would be taken up everywhere. This didn’t happen of course, as it was widely ignored by national governments, but small pockets of Esperanto speakers developed across the world, first throughout the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, then in Argentina, Canada – of course, then Algeria, Chile, Japan, Mexico, and Peru, on to Tunisia, and finally Australia, the United States, Guinea, Indochina, New Zealand, Tonkin, and Uruguay, all between its introduction in 1887 and 1905, which is extraordinary in an age of limited communication. Adherents corresponded by mail and via the 27 magazines that existed by 1905, and have met for a World Congress in various countries every year, with the exceptions of the years during both World Wars, since 1905. There were some serious movements to place Esperanto on a bigger stage. Prior to World War I, it was proposed that it would be named the official language of the territory of Neutral Moresnet, between modern day Belgium and Germany, though the war brought an end to that. The League of Nations proposed making Esperanto their official language. A French delegate vetoed the proposal, but the League did recommend that its members add it to their educational curricula.
Esperanto exists in much the same way today. It’s Wikipedia page estimates the number of fluent speakers at anywhere from one-hundred thousand to two million, which is preposterously unhelpful and imprecise, like telling a friend you’ll meet them for tacos between 6:30 and 2042. That taco date’s never gonna happen, bro. Its online presence suggests the higher side of the estimate. There are countless websites and organizations devoted to Esperanto speakers – many featuring lively speaker interactions, books written in and translated to the language, and a shocking number of Esperantist albums to be purchased on iTunes, most of which are predictably terrible. Some are featured in this very podcast. Movies have been made entirely in Esperanto, most notably the 1962 B-horror flic, Incubus, starring William Shatner. It’s not bad, actually – certainly better than the band of the same name. </code></pre>
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<pre class=”wp-block-code”><code>Esperanto has often been used as a neutral stand in for a foreign language in film – see The Great Dictator and Gattaca, amongst many others – and the United States Military has used it as a language for enemy forces in war games.
There are a few notable speakers and proponents of Esperanto. Billionaire George Soros is one of very few native Esperanto speakers in the world – anywhere from 350 to 2,000. Jules Verne and J.R.R. Tolkien spoke the language. Leo Tolstoy claimed to have learned it in two hours. Pope John Paul II gave several speeches in Esperanto and both Einstein and Fidel Castro were vocal in their support. Morrissey strikes me as an Esperanto guy, but if he knows it, he’s not telling anyone.
It hasn’t all been a slightly disappointing walk in the park for Esperanto, though. It’s had some heavyweight detractors. Hitler for instance. As with most things, he believed it to be a vast Jewish conspiracy and condemned Esperantists to concentration camps. In an incredibly sad twist, Zamenhof’s children all met this fate. There are stories of concentration camp prisoners teaching each other Esperanto. They told the Nazi guards that it was Italian, and the Nazi guards were too busy with hatred and murder to fact check them. Stalin initially studied and supported the language, but changed his mind so that Hitler would like him and had Esperantists killed, as he was wont to do. Noted academic and old crank Noam Chomsky has called Esperanto, quote, “not a real language.”
In all likelihood, Esperanto will continue to exist as it has for the last 128 years – as an idealistic fringe movement and curiosity. It doesn’t seem like there’s any threat of Esperanto becoming a unifying international language, but who knows? I don’t think anyone would have guessed in 1976 that Olympic Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner would become a reality star and wilted husk of a human potentially transitioning into a vibrant woman, but here we are. Like I said, the world’s a strange place.</code></pre>
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The Astronaut Has to Poop

Tuesday, June 15th, 2026. Zero hour, 9 am EST.

The world population holds its collective breath. Some of the world’s population. Most of the world’s population is indifferent, truth be told. These are hard times, and this mission is a naked attempt to inspire the increasingly un-inspirable. Humanity has, after all, thoroughly explored Mars via robot – years ago, now – and, of course, there’s nothing up there of any note. Nothing of any material consequence to anyone down here, anyway, and what matters besides material consequence?

But a few are still tortured by optimism and child-like wonder and it’s those few this is for. They are the ones projecting this scene in 3 dimensions from their iCubes, nervously changing the angles to catch every last detail.

What they see now is this: Lester Manly and his three crew mates, not important to this particular story, strapped to their seats, preparing to touch down on the red planet in t-minus five minutes.

What they can’t see is this: Lester Manly desperately has to take a shit.


Manly realized this was the case about 30 minutes ago. The euphoria of a dream fulfilled and anticipation of pioneering steps was interrupted suddenly by a profound rush of cramping and a wave of heat. He clenched his stomach muscles, put his hand to his gut, bent forward, and grunted slightly before remembering the cameras capturing him from every angle and straitening back up, hopefully cool and composed.

“It will pass,” he thought.

“I have trained for this,” he thought.

“I am a finely tuned machine,” he thought.

It did pass for a few minutes and he slipped back into euphoria.

He is 36 years old, a veteran of 3 vague and humiliating wars – wars with no names – an athlete and a scientist. He is trim and handsome. His wife is watching. His kids are watching. They are filled with pride and this makes him proud in a way he’s never imagined possible.

He made up his mind to become an astronaut when he was eight years old, in 1998, after watching Armageddon with his father and everything since has pointed in that general direction.

He is thinking of that movie – of how much he’d wanted to be Ben Afleck and now he kind of WAS and of that Aerosmith song, which still makes him tear up for all that it represents to him – when the second pang hits, harder than the first.

“Goddammit, not now,” he thought.

But it is now.

He could just shit, of course, he’s equipped for that, technically speaking. But is he really going to fulfill his dream wearing a diaper full of excrement? Is he really going to defecate in front of 120 ultra-def 3D cameras?

No, that is not an option.

So he tries to ignore the pain, the internal heat, the sweat beading on his forehead, the implications of his own foul humanity in this moment of godlike mastery over space and time – less godlike, now that he really thinks about it, now that his thoughts are tainted by physical need.

Why are they doing this? For what end? Hurtling through space in this clumsy vessel, held together by screws that were likely made on a conveyor belt overseen by sick, sad, underpaid, brown skinned kids?

And now he feels claustrophobic in his space suit and aware of the cameras and of course his kids are going to notice that something’s wrong – his wife definitely will – and when he gets home they’ll celebrate this for a day and then he’ll say something wrong and she’ll be mad at him like he wasn’t just on fucking Mars and this will all be behind him like it never happened and the world will go on like this never happened and then . . .

And then they’re making the final decent. He’s been doing his small part without conscious effort. The ship does most of the work.

And now he’s a little desperate, feels nauseous.
Feels like he might just stay in the ship if they’d let him, but of course that’s not possible.

He turns to the camera over his shoulder and forces a smile.

“Here we go,” he says.

He’s the first to go. The leader of this mission. He’s to say – he didn’t even get to choose, was told to parrot words from 60 years ago – “That’s one small step” and all that.

And he thinks, let’s get this over and done with, and that thought breaks his heart and he steps onto the vast deadness of Mars.

The End.

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Christmas Special: The Caganer

It’s a classic episode of The Irrationally Exuberant! This beloved Christmas episode is about The Caganer, a pooping man the Catalonians hide in their Nativity Scenes, for some reason. It’s fascinating, hilarious, features the first appearance of Foam Chomsky, and . . . there’s a beloved Christmas song, “Oh, Caganer”!

Listen, if you can watch the same five Christmas movies every year, you can damn well revisit this old chestnut.

Enjoy! And may god bless us everyone, everywhere!

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The Book of Platypus

In the beginning were only Steve the Infinite Tortoise and Karen the Infinite Chinchilla, and they were one, and they were everything, but they were only friends – Karen’s choice, not Steve’s.

But ye, after countless eons, Karen relented to Steve’s passive aggressive moping, and the Universe was born of his violent shudder.  And the Universe was infinite, and Steve the Infinite Tortoise was infinite, and Karen the Infinite Chinchilla was infinite, and they were one. And in the infinite area between the second and third toes on Steve’s front left foot was the Milky Way, and inside of it, Earth.  And Earth’s surface was a fiery ocean, teeming with goo.  And the goo did roil for many eons. And lo the goo, tired of roiling, began to fornicate – a real free for all – and the goo begat the fish as the fiery oceans ebbed of their own volition, and land emerged. And some of the fish were curious about the land, and grew legs and feet and crawled upon it.  And the largest of the pedal fish, whose name was Becky, spoke unto her brother, Dutch:  “If only we were bigger, we could further satisfy our curiosity.” And so, each unto himself, they all wished really hard and became huge, and they were dinosaurs. But some were slothful in their wishing and didn’t grow so much.  And lo, the winter came and it was cold, and the small, slothful wishers grew fur to protect themselves from the snow, and they were mammals.  And there were birds, somehow, and among the birds, ducks. All of the creatures lived happily upon the Earth and did multiply and change through dalliances and wishes. All around them – all around everything – Steve the Infinite Tortoise and Karen the Infinite Chinchilla lived too.  They were unhappy.  Karen, after much contemplation, made up her mind that their relationship was a mistake.  And many tears did fall from Steve’s infinite eyes, and they rained down over the universe and hardened in the cold of endlessness and crashed down upon the planets and the stars. And one of the tears made its way to Earth and crashed upon the surface, and from its iciness a wave of energy spread across the land. Multitudes were destroyed – the larger animals, unable to find cover, really got it good – and still more were changed by the wave.  All lost the power to wish themselves different and henceforth were slaves to the march of time. A great distance from the impact, a tribe of beaver-like mammals was engaged in a friendly mixer with a tribe of ducks.  And the wave did wash over them and the two became one, and the one was the platypus, and the platypus was confused. Now, the tear’s impact tore the land, which had been one, asunder, and formed the continents.  And the platypus found itself on a small section of the land which came to be known as Australia. And the platypuses agreed that they were hard to look at, and each ventured into the wilderness.  They grew noble in their solitude. It came to pass that a platypus was born to a mother with a pristine tail.  And she named him Gene.  And he was good.  And word of Gene the Good Platypus spread throughout the land and the others congregated once more to hear what it was he spoke. And Gene said unto them, “Why hast thou come to me?  Go back to minding your own business, for it is good.  But be sure to schtupp each other every once in a while, lest our kind perish.” And they left him and did of which he spoke, as they do to this day. And Steve the Infinite Tortoise and Karen the Infinite Chinchilla did mind their own business as well, unknowing and indifferent.  

And so they remain.

Amen.

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Sink Australia

The platypus, as we’ve established, is certainly an odd creature, but it is by no means the only odd creature in Australia, or even the oddest. Let’s take a look at some of the other critters that share this bizarre continent.

The flying fox, or pteropus, looks like a Dracula’s nightmare, but is actually quite gentle. It is not, as the name would suggest, a fox, but a bat. Specifically, a subspecies of the suborder of megabat – a suborder which, if there were a god, certainly wouldn’t exist. It has a huge fox body. And huge bat wings. And large, death-brown eyes. And a lizard tongue. It flies. And, oh fuck me I just looked at a picture of one. They are truly terrifying. Their wingspans can grow to as wide as 5 feet and they stand, but mostly hang, three and a half feet tall, or down, however you want to look at it. They only eat fruit and nectar, but I wouldn’t risk it. Stay away from Australia.

Australian accents are like a drunk Texan feigning an English lilt and happily yelling at you about camping, insisting that you need to relax every time you ask him to lower his voice. It’s horrible. The similarly horrible Broadchested Orange Magoot has picked up that accent through years of contact with its garbage voiced countrymen. It is a kind of cross between a small bear and a parrot and it’s yowl, that’s the only real word for it, is heavily inflected by that sickeningly gregarious cockney twang. Australians are the worst.
Except for Naomi Watts. She’s an earth angel.

Discovered only last year, the Neon Doodlegoose is the brightest creature known to man. Visually, anyway. They look like feathered traffic cones under a black light, with a big, ugly, completely bald bird head jutting out from the hole in the top. By contrast, it’s extraordinarily dim in terms of intelligence. Monumentally stupid, really. They can fly, sort of, but have absolutely no sense of direction, and usually just pathetically flap about in small circles – when they’re not brainlessly diving directly into the ground like some kind of passionless, mush brained kamikaze pilot. They continue to exist only because they have been isolated for so long and will eat literally anything, gulping down papaya’s and kangaroo shit with equal, nauseating abandon. And they smell. Holy moses do they smell. Like someone vomited inside of a durian and heated it up in the microwave. Other animals won’t eat them because of the stink and, presumably, the deep sense of disgust and pity that the mere sight of one engenders. Also, their feathers are dusted with a poison that will irritate your skin to no end. Pretty much everything is poison in this god forsaken country. What a terrible animal.

Speaking of terrible animals, try this one on for size. It’s called the Giant Blood Moth. Can you even imagine? It’s awful. It has a wingspan of 8 inches – and it’s a moth, as if those things weren’t bad enough as it is. And its body is all furry and grey, like a moldy mummy. And – get this – it drinks blood. Blood! With its teeth. It has teeth! Like a fucking Dracula. A moldy mummy looking Dracula! The blood it drinks is mostly from cows, but still! It’s just flying around drinking blood. And these Australians seem like their always outdoors. You couldn’t get me within a thousand miles of this place. Like, what is your problem? We get it – you’re a very hearty and masculine people. But do you mean to tell me that you’re not at all skeeved out by a giant blood sucking moth? That’s not brave, that’s stupid. Bunch of god damned lunkheads over there.

Or how about this – you’re really going to love this one. It’s a kangaroo, right? No big deal. We’re all aware that they have kangaroos over there. They’re fun! They box! But here’s the thing – this kangaroo, the Ghost Kangaroo, they call it. This kangaroo is mean. Really mean. This kangaroo has four inch teeth – four inches – and red eyes and – are you ready? – 80% of them have rabies! Rabies! And they were mean to begin with! Give me a fucking break! On top of all of that nonsense, they are called Ghost Kangaroos because they are very quiet and can blend in with basically any surroundings. So, you’ve got a big, angry, foaming at the mouth, deadly, shark toothed marsupial that you’ll never see coming. What fun! When can I buy my plane ticket to this enchanting land where these diseased, jumping, glorified rats are just lurking around any given corner to give me rabies? I can’t get there soon enough!

And the water! Australia is surrounded by the stuff and it’s positively full of disgusting monsters. Like the Saltwater Bat. That’s right. Another fucking bat. In the water. It’s not really a bat, of course, but it looks a hell of a lot like one and it lives in the goddamn ocean in very shallow water, which these shit for brains Australians just splash around in like it’s a goddamn hotel swimming pool. I’m telling you, there’s something wrong these people. The Saltwater bat is very small – only an inch and a half in most cases – and its “fur” is really thousands of tiny sensors that can all move independently. I hesitate to even tell you this next part for fear that you might be eating, but, dozens of times each year people accidentally swallow these disgusting little things and – Oh, what do you know! – they’re poisonous, and can leave you completely paralyzed unless you get your stomach pumped within the hour. Surfs up!

Oh, let’s not forget the sharks. Australia has some real doozies, things that make Jaws look like Finding Fucking Nemo. I don’t even know where to start. How about the Megatooth Red Devil Shark. How’s that for a combination of words? If you need me to paint you a picture of how horrifying this thing is, you’re dumber than an Australian. And let me tell you, that’s reeeaaally fucking dumb. Like, we love Crocodile Dundee and Silverchair dumb. I mean, take any two, or even one of those words and it’s, like, get ready for the worst day of you life. Put them together and it just makes you want to set yourself on fire rather than live in a world where a thing like this exists. The fact that there hasn’t been some kind of concerted military effort to eradicate them all really tells you something about the Australian government. (Editor’s Note: Killing animals is wrong.)

Not afraid of sharks? That’s completely fucking illogical. But maybe something smaller can haunt your every waking moment. The Spikenosed River Worm, perhaps. I ain’t ascared o’ any worm I ever seent, you might be thinking. Well, this delightful creature is small enough to swim up your dickhole – and it does! Like, all the time. They love dickholes! Nothing pleases one of these little creeps more than swimming right up your urethra all the way up to your stomach so it can live there and lay millions upon millions of eggs which will all hatch and then the millions upon millions of worms inside your god-forsaken body will quickly turn your organs into goop! Do you understand what I’m telling you? They swim into your penis and eat your insides! I’m not saying there is a 100% chance that this will happen to you if you wade into an Australian river, but even if it were a .0000001% chance – and it’s significantly more than that, like a 4% – is that something you’d really want to risk just so you can tell your dumb friends that you went to Australia and post pictures of it to Instagram so people you barely know at all can think that your life isn’t a putrid garbage pile? Do you think any of those people will really come to your funeral after your insides are turned into worm shit? They won’t! How many times can I say this before you get it through your thick, bulbous skull: Stay away from Australia!

Let’s talk about monkeys. Cute right? Not on this Island of Dr. Moreau, they aren’t. The Blue Eyed Prowler Monkey has a pretty nice name, but trust me, if you see those deep cobalt peepers in the wild, it will already be too late. They are vicious. They only stand about a foot and a half high, but they travel in massive, murderous packs that can reach into the hundreds and they love nothing more than tearing unsuspecting tourists to shreds. And here’s the worst part – they will hold you down and rip off your ears, digits, and genitals first. A real bunch of sadists these things. And they’re smart enough to lay traps. One of these dastardly primates will dawn a hat – any kind of hat they can get there hands on – and pleasantly amble up to an unsuspecting victim who, disarmed by the presence of a hat wearing monkey will, invariably, reach out their hand for a good natured hand shake. Who wouldn’t, right? Once they are in the monkey’s vice grip, the rest of the beasts emerge from their hiding places and proceed with the torture. The really fucked up thing about these hairy creeps is that they are vegetarian. They don’t even eat these poor saps, whose only crime was to travel to the worst land expanse in all the world. They just rip them to bits, slowly and methodically and continue upon their merry way.

Is that enough for you? Have the Bono colored glasses finally been ripped from your eyes? Are you ready to join me in refocussing America’s ire from those poor Arabic people we’ve been hassling for the last couple of decades to this truly heinous continent and it’s disgusting inhabitant, both beastly and human? If you are – and god help you if you’re not – please go to www.SinkAustralia.org and sign my petition to end this nightmare once and for all.

If we don’t, I ask you – who will?

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Jim Krokowski’s PLATYPUS EXPERIENCE!

Are you tired of brushing your teeth eeeeevery morning?
Sore from walking around on only two legs?
Sick of incubating your young inside of your body?
Had it up to here with having nipples?

If you said yes to any of these questions, then, boy, have I got an opportunity for you!

Hi! I’m Jim Krokowski. Teacher, inventor, spokesperson, erotic author, and, now, Lifestyle Camp director!

If you need a break from being human, why not come join me at Jim Krakowski’s Platypus Experience! The only camp for people of all ages who want to be a platypus for awhile!

At Jim Krokowski’s Platypus Experience we’ll give you everything you need to make all of your duckbilled dreams come true.
At our sprawling 2 acre campground on the outskirts of beautiful Detroit, Michigan, you’ll find all the accouterments that a platypus enjoys in its native habitat. Like a small, algae rich body of water, filled with bugs and shellfish, and surrounded by dense vegetation and nature’s other various detritus! And – well, that’s about it! You’ll basically be a platypus – what else could you need!
“But Jim. Won’t I just be sitting around like a giant human asshole?”
Absolutely not! We’ll make you feel like a real platypus with our state of the art platypus simulation outfits. They come equipped with a a hard plastic bill, fur suit, scuba fins for your hands and feet, and a big ol’ rubbery tail! If you’d like to be a male platypus, we’ll even strap a detailed replica of a platypuses spike on your back right foot and fill it with real live poison! And if you’d prefer to be a lady platypus, we’ll give you some eggs to bury in natures detritus!
It’ll be exactly like being a platypus!
But don’t take my word for it. Let’s here from some of my satisfied customers!

“I attended Jim Krokowski’s Platypus Experience and I guess it felt pretty much like being a platypus. I mean, I can’t really imagine anything else they could have done, besides letting us actually mate in the suits, which I guess they didn’t specifically say we couldn’t do, but it would have been cool if it would have been, I don’t know, encouraged.”

“Jim Krokowski’s Platypus experience was a living (DREAM!).”

There you have it! Jim Krokowski’s Platypus Experience is a hit!

Make your reservations today by calling 1-800-PUS-LOVR. That 1-800-P-U-S-L-O-V-R, or log on to www.puslover.com, to join me, Jim Krokowski, at Jim Krokowski’s Platypus experience – where dreams come true!

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Platytudes: A Song

Parent: Listen up boys and girls! Can I have your attention, please? Gertrude, honey, can you lay off your birthday tapas for a second and come here? Alright. Unfortunately, the Existential Magician we had booked for the party came down with a case of the Mondays, but he was nice enough to send a replacement who’s going to sing us some songs. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Children: (quiet)

Parent: Well. (clears throat) Um, lets have a big hand for, um, I’m sorry, what was your name sir?

Roger: Roger. Roger Toledo. I sing kids songs.

Parent: Right. Let’s hear it for Roger Toledo. The one man band!

Platypus don’t need your platitude
He’s gonna
Swim around and eat bugs and shit
If it’s all the same to you

He’s got
Lots of fur
no teeth
Poison spur on the back of his feet
so the

Platypus don’t need your platitude
He’s gonna
Forcibly penetrate a mate
If it’s all the same to you.

He’s got
Fatty tail
Electric beak
Platypus is a fucking freak

But the
Platypus don’t need your platitudes.

Platypus comin’ out of the water
Gonna have
A son or a daughter
But it don’t come out a pussy or pouch
Platypus gonna shit an egg out
And the

Platypus don’t need your platitudes
Sing it with me!
Platypus don’t need your platitudes
One more time!
Platypus don’t need your fu-cking platituuuuuuuuuuuuuuudes.

(Children cheer)

Roger: Thank you and goodnight.

Narrator: The song was a hit, and Roger Toledo went on to become the most successful children’s entertainer in the history of time, earning 8 platinum records, 14 Grammies, 32 Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice awards, a Presidential Medal of Honor, and hundreds upon thousands of millions of dollars before being gunned down by police outside of a record store after a Crystal Methamphetamine fueled robbery that would have netted him a total of $12 and a Captain Beefheart album.

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OK Soda pt. 2

Script

In 1998 something wonderful happened.  I found a two liter of OK Soda in the back of a refrigerator at a church.

I’d been pining for my long lost favorite beverage ever since it’s discontinuation three long years prior, so the occasion was momentous.

The church was Hope Lutheran North, the church of my youth, and I was in the kitchen doing something with the youth group, of which I was an active and enthusiastic member.  I believe we were washing dishes for some reason.

No doubt bored and off task I perused the fridge, moved aside some ancient industrial grade Ranch Dressing and . . . there it was, shining like a fructose diamond.

I exclaimed, blasphemously, “Oh my god!  It’s a two liter of OK Soda, the preferred drink of my slightly youthier youth!  Dave! It’s OK Soda!”

Dave Newman was there. You know Dave, right? He was also excited.

We were about to drink it, when cooler heads prevailed.  We didn’t know the shelf life of this stuff and posterity was to be considered.  We would hide the two liter bottle of OK Soda for future generations, a kind of obscure time capsule.

We hid it.

But I do not recall where.

I want that two liter of OK Soda, future generations be damned.

And so I intend to find it.  This is the story of my quest.

I woke up in a comfortable queen bed, top floor of the two-story stack of wood and love I call home, next to a mysterious woman I’d married five years earlier, feeling like a twice baked potato on its third time around.

I’m not getting any younger – none of us are, of course – and I’d slept more fitfully than a speed-freak in a bed bug motel.

I’d been dreaming.  Nightmares, if you must know, of a bittersweet nature, like a snickerdoodle cookie dipped in chew spit.

My nightmares were of that twistedly wistful nature, the kind that make a fella pine for the past and dread the future and maybe feel a bit squeamish about the present to boot…hopeless and dark.  They were dreams of cola – OK Soda, to be precise – and I’d been having them a lot lately.  It seems I was being stalked by some kind of ironic, sticky liquid ghost, and he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Duane “The Rock” Johnson after he’s been shot with the laser that made the baby so big in Honey, I Blew Up the Kids, the sequel to the hit film, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids starring Rick Moranis.

“I can’t go on like this,” I whispered to myself, staring at the darkly handsome reflection in my bathroom mirror.  “These minor disturbances are getting me down a little.”

The dreams, I knew, were the result of some unfinished business, an end from the past hanging looser than re-wrapped roll of cheap gas station bathroom toilet paper, and just as dirty.  Slightly less dirty, maybe, if I’m being honest.

Some 20 odd years ago I’d hidden a treasure, and ever since that treasure had been calling out to me from whichever nook of Hope Lutheran Church I’d stashed it in.  I’d forgotten the exact location due to the slow creep of father time, a couple dozen pounds of Pan’s Spinach, and a whole ocean of old Uncle Sloppy’s Fun Fun Milk.

Also, you know, it was a fairly minor issue in the grand scope of things. Like, when you really think about it.

But it was time. Time to revisit the old haunts and track down that liquid sugar nugget like a mad hunter on the trail of the ever elusive chupacabra, consequences be damned.  Time to creep back inside of the sand brown brick walls and bland early 90s Protestant décor of the church I’d frequented in my youth, a church that held countless other secrets, undoubtedly, like, well, none come to mind.  Lutherans, you know?  But I was sure they were there, and wrapped in those other unspecified secrets would be my treasure – an aged 2 liter bottle of OK Soda.

Why did I need this particular 2 liter bottle of soda?

Why indeed. 

I’m a wistful man, always have been. Don’t like it, you can beat feet, that’s what I say.  And when a wistful man latches on to a thing it becomes more than a thing, more than a billion billion atoms smashed together in the shape of a soda bottle or a McDonald’s toy or a worn old t-shirt.  It becomes a part of him, a reference point, a seed from which various, unanticipated tendrils can grow, tendrils that claw their way into his psyche and sprout unimagined flowers, flowers that disseminate pollen and a stink, but the good kind of stink, and cause more seeds and more tendrils and more good stink and occasionally a bee will come by and . . . I’m getting carried away. What I mean to say, if you’ll humor me just a bit longer, is that the wistful man is always seeking to explain himself to himself and to do that the wistful man must go back to the seed and trace the tendrils.

Why does the wistful man seek to explain himself? Ego and all the rest of that nonsense, I suppose, but also a sense of something greater in the world, something magical, transcendent, and if the seeds can be explained – catalogued and repossessed, understood – if that can happen then, well, maybe they’ll be some explanation of all of the rest of this rotten, good for nothing, scabies addled street bum we call life.

Anyway.  I kissed the wife and kid goodbye, threw on my coat, and hit the pavement to hunt down a ghost or chupacabra or seed or whatever I was calling it a moment ago.  It ain’t easy juggling all of these metaphors and similes.

I rolled my beat up old silver Ford Taurus – the one that looks like a million other silver Ford Taurus’s in this ranky dank town, dents and all – northward, like an obese, forlorn goose trailing the vee by a stretch on its way to Canada for the sunny season, over rivers of blacktop, past split level ramblers and old elm trees, towards my youth, like a time traveler, except it was only like 10 minutes away.

I began to see the sights burned into my subconscious – Fargo North High School, Hornbacher’s Foods, my Mom’s house, some gas stations I remember, a baseball field or some such thing.

And then I was pulling into the parking lot of Hope Lutheran Church, the haystack from which I hoped to withdraw my needle.  I parked, full of trepidations.  What mysteries awaited me?  What truths would I be confronted with?  Would I have to engage in small talk with someone I barely remember?

“Fuck it,” I snarled, exited the car and strode up to the door.

I took a deep breath, centered myself, grabbed the door handle and pulled.

It was locked.

Oh, well, just a bottle of soda. No big deal.

I went home and took a nap.

The end.

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OK Soda pt. 1

Script

I was 11 for all but two days of 1994.  It was a momentous personal era – formative – and youth time is approximately 42 times longer than adult time.  The things I remember from that year – events, movies, tv, products, friends, the basic minutiae of life – seem to be more than 365 days could possibly contain.

I can think of a few explanations for this.

  1. That’s just the way memory works.  Certain years imprint on you more than others.  11 years old seems to be a common time for that to happen.
  2. My family moved.  Just a few blocks away, but when you are young, your neighborhood is your world.  Friends are based on proximity more than anything, so moving means new friends, more often than not, and new friends can mean a wholly new lifestyle.  This was the case for me.  The move from 27th Avenue North to Woodcrest Drive marked the change from the Courtney Shattuck years to the Jeff Edlund years.
  1. In early 1994 I was in sixth grade at Longfellow Elementary School, the “good” public elementary school.  We were very wholesome.  Kids. The biggest scandal that year involved Scott Winjum being suspended for igniting a single match in the boy’s bathroom.  Then there was summer and the move.  By the end of the year I was in Junior High School, and the so called “kids” from Horace Mann Elementary were finger banging each other and smoking cigarettes. It was a real shock.
  2. My tastes were changing.  I was shifting away from consuming whatever, culturally, appeared in front of me to seeking out particular things, developing taste.  I went from Richard Marx singing about waiting for his beloved over synths to, mostly, guitar heavy songs about being sad. I’m still not sure that was an improvement.

So the beginning of 1994 and the end of it really seem like two different lifetimes.  Lifetimes which carved many lasting wrinkles in my juvenile brain meat.

Here’s an incomplete list of things I remember, which I’m setting to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start” the fire, even though that’s a little on the nose and a total cliché.  That song was a big part of my life in 1994 – Billy Joel was so omnipresent at this point, he seemed like a neighbor – so I think it fits.

All right.  Here we go.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire”

Bill Clinton, Special K, hot pockets microwaved
Courtney Shattuck, Jeff Edlund, Longfellow.

Rock and Cindy Messerschmidt, mini van, television
Chad and Ryan, mom’s cryin’, Super Nintendo

Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, Mugsy Bogues, Cal Ripkin
Forrest Gump, Goldeneye, Airheads, True Lies.

Elementary’s ending, Junior high, I’m a tween,
Lite Rock 105, family moved to Woodcrest Drive

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

Full House, Family Matters, Step by Step, TGIF
Hulk Hogan, Bryan Adams, not a good Woodstock

Quiz Show and the Crow, I gave jerking off a go,

Green Day, Offspring, alternative rock

Simpsons, Frasier Crane, Sister Sister, Major Payne
Sleep Overs, Duckman, Ace Ventura, Kerrigan

Harding, Gingrich, Ross Perot, Make a Wish
Mountain Dew, Big League Chew, I got my own room

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

Peter Paruccinni was my friend, so were Erik Vosseteig,

Paul, Cody, Josh, and Tony, Jake Schaan and Ben

West Acres, Hornbachers, moldy fruit in my locker

Kurt Cobain, suicide, Jeff Edlund bought Insesticide

Buddy Holly, Weezer, baseball with Peter
Juji Fruits, husky jeans, swimming in a white t

U2, Wisconsin Dells, Stephen King, Dad yells
Watched scrambled porno, read Crichton’s Congo

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

Grisham, REM, Mr. Discher teaches gym
SNL, Lutherans, Wings in the basement

Computers, Castlevania, Jim Carrey Mania
Ben Franklin Junior High, I was still pretty shy

More kids, school dance, some kids say they’re having sex,
Sixth grade, I got all a’s, I also did in seveth grade!

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

This song has too many verses
I bought Pearl Jam’s versus,
Farley, Spade, Myers, Saturday Night Live
Cute girls take a pass, Wes Staton’s in my class

“Wheel of Fortune”, Billy Joel, Metallica, Tootsie Roll
Lego sets, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
The year is gone,

But it still lives on thanks to this song

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

I didn’t start the fire
I was only eleven
just a passive observer
I didn’t start the fire
All in all
94 was a good year

Anyway, I tell you all of that to get to this.  Somehow, OK Soda is a kind of synecdochye, a part of a thing that wholly represents all of it, for 1994 and my experience within it.

Even typing the words OK Soda fills me with oceans of sticky sweet nostalgia.

Ok Soda was a soda.  A pop, as most folks call it up here – it’s shameful what we’ve done with language – made by the good folks at the Coca Cola Corporation, dreamed up by the same ad wizards that created New Coke, the Coke that tasted like a Pepsi. Full caloried sodas were all the rage back then, as the boomers hadn’t yet caught the health food bug.  It was wreaking havoc on everyone as has pretty much everything the boomers did and didn’t do. Also many things they kind of did. As a result, everybody in 1994 was hideous – bloated and pallid, capped by fluffy hair, wearing either long sleeve, white collared polos with pleated khakis or Big Johnson t-shirts and jeans so grotesque you wouldn’t believe me if I described them to you.

Ok Soda was created for one purpose – to obtain the spending money of the cynical slackers known a Generation X. These plaid clad sneering lay-abouts were hip to the wiles of the advertisers thanks to such rabble rousers as John Cusack, Howard Zinn, Chester Cheetah, and their droll, aged but fearless leader, Kurt Loder, so a new tact was needed.

The tact was this: go meta.  Gen X loved meta.  They wore shirts that said loser and zero, for cripes sake.

So, meta the Coca Cola Corporation went, as far as a massive multi-national corporation can go, anyway, which is to say, they designed some interesting packaging and pushed out a few droll commercials.  Also, there was a phone number, which we’ll get to.

The advertising campaign went something like this: It took the form of a fifties commercial – a cheery male voice and some upbeat Tijuana Brass style background music. But, instead of doing you the tremendous solid of informing you of the many health benefits of Lucky Strike cigarettes – and they’re so Smooooooth! – the voice was, gasp!, telling you that nothing matters and everything is artifice, but not even that matters and things are going to be OK.  Irony, I believe it’s called, though, you know, let’s not get into the definition of irony.

Here’s a clip of one of those commercials:

(commercial)

God, don’t you just want to drink whatever soda it is they’re selling?  To hold a cold or even room temperature can of that unremarked upon beverage in your prepubescent fist and be a part of that blissful indifference and hip cynicism? I do.

And the packaging!  My god, it was and is something to behold.  I have an empty can sitting on my shelf and I still get lost in its studied, market tested, expensive lo-fi coolness.  There’s a Daniel Clowse drawing on it!  Daniel Clowse!  He’s a guy from the underground that people know! It’s silver with black print and a few red highlights, so Coke basically, but cool Coke.  The Clowse drawing is of a dazed looking young man staring right at you with blank, hypnotized eyes. Another can has a bored looking man with, blank, unhypnotized eyes.  Yet another can has a dazed looking woman with blank, gypsy eyes.  Yet another has a sort of Picasso type face and yet another has a weird red man in a bowler hat. Collect ‘em all!

On the back there’s a UPC code over a guy’s face as if to say, “We’re all just products in corporate America.” Whoa. And then on the top it says “Ok Soda says, “Don’t be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything,” with just a few more quotation marks than you might expect. Sooooo, subversive. 

There are also a couple of comics panels – the bland, vaguely sad hip graphic novel type that maybe make people think, not the fun kind that make people happy. Very thought provoking. Very deep. As if that weren’t enough there’s a numbered coincidence, to make you feel like you should probably find a way to hear about the other coincidences.  Mine says:

(coincidence)

And if you look really closely there are all kinds of wry nods at anti-commercialism on there!  Easter eggs, I guess they’d be called today. I adore anti-commercialism and will pay any amount of money, buy any product, to make that known!  I’m such a 90s kid!

I’d love nothing more than to kick back on a Friday night and crack open a sixer of OK Sodas with my pals Eddie Vedder and Pam from the Real World San Francisco and talk in low tones about how much we hate corporations while seated in a tucked away corner of a party we’re too cool for! And I realize that this probably comes off as sarcastic, but I promise you that this sounds like heaven on earth to this old Dad’s ears. As a 90s kid, I simply cannot help but sound sarcastic at all times. It’s a real burden.

There was also a phone number, as I mentioned, 1-800-IFEELOK.  You could call and leave a message about some wild coincidence that occurred while you were guzzling OK Soda or just listen to the messages of other dedicated consumers, in case you were feeling alone in your fandom or just in general, I guess.

Anyway, for all of my life, right up until just moments ago, I assumed this was a national campaign. But I was wrong.  Turns out, Fargo, where I live and lived, was a test market for OK Soda, which might be why it imprinted so strongly, not just on me, but everyone my age give or take from around here.  We’re not a test market for a lot of things, as far as I know.  We had OK vending machines and the grocery stores were fully stocked with cleverish OK displays.  There were radio ads.  Television ads.  Newspaper ads.

The target marketing was so effective because it was pointed right at me, like a diabetes gun or a childhood obesity crossbow or a cavity axe.

Well, maybe not right at me.  I think I fell a bit short age-wise of their target market, but I also don’t think the target market fell for their campaign.  I didn’t have quite as many defenses up.  Just about no defenses, actually, outside of a lack of funds.

Now, it’s entirely possible I only drank OK Soda a handful of times.  It wasn’t around for long, I never purchased anything on my own, and I can’t imagine my parents were keeping it stocked.

But it feels like I drank it all the time.

And somehow it felt like a revelation.  A soda is a strange place to first experience counter culturalism in a meaningful way, but combined with everything else that was happening around that time, this was how I met the resistance.

Wry and disillusioned felt right to me.

The drink itself was completely beside the point of course, although I liked it.  Tasted like Suicide, where you pour all of the options in a fountain machine into one cup, which I was already doing regularly.  They hardly mentioned the actual product in the ad except to call it fruity and curious, whatever that means.

But the ad campaign spoke to new possibilities that I’d yet to consider.  I called the phone number constantly, mostly from the payphone at El Zagel golf course, where I’d often play a sloppy 9 holes with friends.

I’d also attempt to call phone sex numbers, specifically one called 1-800-WET-BUTTS, which we all found hilarious because it is hilarious.

I was so enthralled with OK Soda that I set out to co-opt it to fund a boat I hoped to make, for some reason.  Jeff Edlund and I had decided we should have a boat to sail down the Red River, a raft, to be more precise, which would be powered by a motor I’d make without any knowledge of motors from a toy motor kit I’d received for my birthday.  It would never work, but no one told us this.

Jeff’s mom Patty bought us all the OK Soda you could fit in a Sam’s Club cart and we set up a soda stand – kind of like a lemonade stand but with soda and helmed by two homely tween boys far too old to be doing such a thing – and went about raising the funds for lumber.

We made a surprising amount of money, but I’m not sure what happened to it.  There was never a boat, which is probably why I’m still alive to tell you all of this.  The strong currents of the mighty Red surely would have sent us to our great reward.

Like my attempt to build a boat, OK SODA was a non-starter and was discontinued in 1995.  Apparently the gen-xers were too busy smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer to go in on a dubiously flavored soda.

I think they made a terrible mistake, but they also gave us Pavement, so I’ll let it slide.

Anyway, I’m not sure I’ve successfully explained why OK Soda is so ingrained in my very being.  A foundational text, laser printed on aluminum.  But we’ll get there, I hope, in the thrilling prologue to all of this, next time on The Irrationally Exuberant.

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Iceberg Slim

Reid discusses Iceberg Slim and whether a white person can portray the black experience with his guest co-host, Foam Chomsky, a puppet.

Script:

Welcome to The Irrationally Exuberant. On today’s episode we’ll be looking at the life of Iceberg Slim – and for you white people in the audience, no, that’s not some kind of lettuce based diet.

FC: Jesus. What are you doing?

Ladies and gentlemen, that disapproving voice you’re hearing is my guest co-host for the first portion of this episode – Foam Chomsky, the skeptical puppet.

FC: Full disclosure. I’m not really a puppet. There’s no puppet here. I’m just Reid doing a dumb voice to represent his own doubts and insecurities. It’s not a very original gimmick.

Oh, wow, Foam Chomsky, I didn’t think we were going to reveal that to the listeners.

FC: You wrote it into the script, champ.

Right. Now, you were asking what I’m doing. I’m introducing the topic of the show. Iceberg Slim, real name Robert Beck, a notorious pimp from the 1930s and through the 50s who eventually became a prolific author and activist.

FC: Yeah. What are you doing?

A comedy podcast about Iceberg Slim.

FC: You, a middle class white 35 year old male living in Fargo, North Dakota are going to do a COMEDY podcast about an African American PIMP. You, Reid Messerschmidt, are going to make COMEDY about sexual violence against women, human trafficking, and racial stereotypes – in 2018 – without any black folks or women contributing? Just you and me, a dumb gimmick that is also just you.

That was my intention, I guess. I’m the only one that ever contributes to the show. It’s my show. And I just read Slim’s book, Pimp, and thought it was really interesting and bizarre and funny in its own horrifying way, so I wanted to talk about it. Sure I’m all of those things you said, but I recently read A Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Murder of Joe Louis and Whoreson by Donald Goines and Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward and I watched What Happened Miss Simone about Nina Simone and Dutchman by Amiri Baraka. I tried to cram in a lot of black culture and I think I’m pretty sensitive to the plight of women in an ostensibly patriarchal society – I consider myself a Feminist. So I think I’m . . . I think I’m good.

FC: You think you’re good, huh? Was that list meant to impress everyone?

Kind of, I suppose. But I did . . .

FC: You think that reading a bunch of books is somehow going to give you an inside track on the black experience?

I’ve watched The Wire twice.

FC: EVERYONE HAS WATCHED THE WIRE TWICE! Let me ask you this: How many black friends do you have? REAL friends.

There’s Torie at work, I like her a lot, and Robert that I used to work with, and I’m always happy to run into Peterson. I dated a black girl once. There are several I really enjoy on Facebook.

FC: REAL FRIENDS, REID!

None. But I live in Fargo! The options are limited! And I don’t make new friends easily.

FC: Right. But no black friends. So what gives you the right to make comedy about any facet of the black experience?

Well, I like to think that it’s the human experience.

FC: But sometimes you are very, very dumb. Remember when you thought that Michael J. Fox sang “For the Longest Time”?

I was just a kid! But I suppose that the fact that I had any opinion or thought about “Longest Time” proves how white I am.

FC: Wrong! Your opinions of or response to Billy Joel have nothing to do with race. Everyone knows about Billy Joel. You think black people don’t know about Billy Joel? I guess an argument could be made that Billy Joel is white culture, but you don’t think that black people know about white culture? How could they possibly avoid it? They’re drowning in it!

Well . . . did you notice that I watched Dutchman? Not even for the first time! That’s, like, advanced studies. And I really think I get it! It’s about how white culture – liberal, liberated white culture – sexualizes and gaslights black folks, drawing them in and pushing them away, criticizing them for being both not white enough and not black enough. And then punishing them when they act out in a way the way that we’d been goading them into the whole time. I see myself in it, see my own flaws. I’m culpable. It’s chilling stuff, Foam Chomsky.

FC: But you’re still making this COMEDY podcast about Iceberg Slim, and you’re going to dwell on the parts that adhere to atrocious racial stereotypes because that is what he’s primarily known for. Oh, sure, maybe you’ll have a few seconds where the music maybe gets a little slower and you’ll talk about how he changed his ways and became something of a force for civil rights and a good guy. Why not do the show about Amiri Baraka, if you’re so taken with him, or, better yet, James Baldwin?

Well, I don’t find them very funny. It’s hard to make comedy out of people you hold up on a pedestal.

FC: Well, why don’t you do one on Roy Orbison? He’s hilarious and right in your wheelhouse.

I’m working on an episode about Roy Orbison. But I don’t want this just to be a parade of white guys. It’s a double edged sword, if I may use a cliché. May I use a cliché, Foam?

FC: I’ll allow it.

Either this show is 100% white people, which seems wrong, or I, as a white man, am representing a group that I don’t have the right to speak for, which is wrong.

FC: Are you aware that there’s no law on the books stating that every white guy that finds himself amusing has to have a podcast or “be heard” by the broader public?

I am. But . . . I’m really funny. And I like doing this. And people seem to like hearing it. What if, say, Philip Roth had never put pen to paper just because he was a white male?

FC: Oh, lord. First, Philip Roth was a Jew. Second, Philip Roth was a genius. You’re no genius. Third, the answer to your question is nothing. What if Philip Roth had never put pen to paper? Nothing, probably. The world would go on almost exactly like it is now.

That’s fucking depressing.

FC: That’s nothing. If we never heard from one of you ever again, I’m pretty sure we’ve got enough to last a lifetime. Between Roth and Updike and a thousand Jonathan’s and literally almost every popular artist of all time, I’m pretty sure we’ve got our understanding of the white, male, middle class experience wrapped up.

But that’s why I want to do Iceberg Slim! It’s outside of that experience!

FC: Fair enough, but reading a couple black authors is not the same as understanding something, and I think we’re seeing what reacting to a thing without a full understanding of it will get you in this day and age. And we’ve barely touched on the glorification of sexual violence and human trafficking implicit in this story. That’s a whole other bag of potatoes.

But I read all the books and watched the things!

FC: And you enjoyed them, right?

Hmmmm. (whining) Yes. Very much so. The black community has truly given the world most of its greatest art. There seems to be an almost biblical sense of peril and magic running through Ellison, Baldwin, Baraka, and Simone. (sigh) You’re very wise, Foam Chomsky. Alright, I guess I’m going to do an episode about Roy Orbison – right after a commercial break!

Stay with me!

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Irrationally Exuberant Merchandise Is Now Available!

Want to support the show or just look goooooood?  Visit my TeePublic store to get your gorgeous Irrationally Exuberant t-shirts and sweatshirts in all sizes, as well as totes and various and sundry other necessary items.  Choose from two breathtaking designs! A portion of all sales goes to the show.

http://www.teepublic.com/user/theirrationallyexuberant1

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Float Tanks

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Taco John’s, flutes, Oakley brand sunglasses, the Minnesota Vikings, John C. Lilly, coon skin caps, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, dolphins, Altered States, Paddy Chayefsky, William Hurt, Mexico, AIDS, Joe Rogan, Fargo, The Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon”, Steve Erkel, Bowzer from Sha Na Na, Loggins and Messina’s “Danny’s Song”, mole rats, and Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

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Eddie Vedder

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Eddie Vedder,  cruel wizards, Ten, Fargo, AIWA stereo equipment, Candlebox, Dishwala, Better Than Ezra, The Refreshments, Eels, Bush, Goo Goo Dolls, “Heyfoxymophandlemama, That’s Me”, Pearl Jam, “Last Exit”, The Virgin Mary, Green Day, Tupac Shakur, Yield, “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’em” by MC Hammer, “Stay Sick!” by The Cramps, “The Earth, A Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken” by REO Speedwagon, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Boris Yeltsin, Home Alone, MTV, VH1, Soft Rock, John Mellencamp, Gloria Estefan, Sade, “Pump” by Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Longfellow Elementary School, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, “When She Cries” by Restless Heart, “Lightning Crashes” by Live, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Metallica, Guns ‘n Roses, The Melvins, Hit Parader, Circus, Scott Weiland, Don Dokken, Blackie Lawless, Rolling Stone, Spin, Grunge, Tad, Fig Dish, Vitalogy, Bono, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Sharpie, Saturday Night Live, Alanis Morrissette, Dr. Zhivago, Potato Days, Bob Dylan, Arthur Rimbaud, Kermit the Frog, Roy Orbison, Neil Young, Dead Boys, Split Enz, Van Halen, The Ramones, Otis Redding, The Byrds, The Beatles, The Who, Daniel Johnston, Arthur Alexander, Tom Petty, Lucinda Williams, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Brad, Hovercraft, Bob Marley, No Code, Mike Watt, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, Ben Harper, Frank Black, The Pixies, Binaural, Belle and Sebastian, Riot Act, Fleetwood Mac, The Harlem Globetrotters, No Doubt, WWF Wrestling, The Shrine Circus, Weezer, Bright Eyes, Charles Bukowski, Russel Crow, the Chicago Cubs, The Wizard of Oz, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, The Fargodome, and crossing the road like butterflies.

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Are You OK?

A new feature on The Irrationally Exuberant – Guaranteed 96% true short stories from the life of yours truly.  This first edition is a story about a time maybe ten years ago when I should have known I had a problem. This is the story of the time I found myself in front of the Fryin’ Pan at three in the morning, drunk, wearing a bloodstained suit and a backpack full of potatoes.  This is the story of the time a grizzled old hobo asked me if I was okay.

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Gravity House

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Swing, hobos, Jim Crow, Herbert Hoover, The Great Depression, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Rose of Sharon, Prince, Okies, scurvy, Washington, California, Gold Hill, Oregon, The Vortex, Zune, tuberculosis, Sherlock Holmes, John Litster, Scotland, Pubetron Fergleven, San Quentin Penitentiary, Barstow, Emil Jannings, Tillamook Indians, Clarence Birdseye, Forteans, Edward Fort, Gravity Houses, Peter Venkman, Draculas, H.L. Menkin, Theodore Dryser, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Booth Tarkington, ectoplasm, the scientific method, cocaine, opium, syphilis, steampunk, the Victorian Era, Hoot Gibson, Bluto, Popeye, The Nobel Prize, Albert E. Page, Atlantis, plums, feta cheese, Post-grunge, Bird Flu, Duncan Sheik, mini vans, John Popper, Dharma and Greg, Ross Perot, Pearl Jam, The Wisconsin Dells, The Wonder Spot, Soul Asylum, Mt. Rushmore, geodes, Hutterites, Saver’s, Subway, Michael Jordan, Superman, and Chocolate Twizzlers.

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The Caganer

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Christmas, 9/11, George W. Bush, Chemtrails, Noam Chomsky, Jesus, Catalonia, Klaus Nomi, The Bible, King Herod, the Census of Quirinius, Christianity, The Virgin Mary, Jerry Lee Lewis, John the Baptist, Nazareth (town), Nazareth (band), Neptune, Lutheranism, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Blockbuster Video, Radio Shack, Bennigan’s, Where’s Waldo?, Martin Hanford, David Beckham, Barack Obama, G.G. Allin, Etsy, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, WHAM!’s “Last Christmas”, Simon and Garfunkle, “Joy To the World”, Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Charles Dickens, Chevy Chase, Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Die Hard, Frosty the Snowman, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, Jingle All the Way, Tim Allen, Tastee Freeze, Fred Clause, Hungry Man Frozen Dinners, Britney Spears, “Chocolate Rain”, Canadian Mist, Schnapps, and Eddie Money.

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Johnny Appleseed

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: The Old West, The Bible, Soren Kierkegaard, apples, Maine, New Hampshire, Manifest Destiny, Dracula, Disney, Massachusetts, Ohio, Emmanuel Swedenborg, Jesus, Yeti, Indiana, dysentery, Harper’s Weekly, Merry Melodies, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, A-No. 1, Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Jackson, UPS Stores, Great Clips, Anytime Fitness, Blockbuster Video, Bigfoot, Transgender rights, cave paintings, the Apaloosa Tribe, and “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” by Patty Smyth and Don Henley.

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Crows

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: The Beverly Hillbillies, ornithology,  The Crow, the Ojibwa, minstrelsy,  “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”, Juggs magazine, Central Park, ninjas, Reptilians, Father Time, Confucius, Stonehenge, ghosts, Homer (poet), the Trojan War, Aesop, John the Baptist, Ted Kaczynski, Christianity, Islam, B’hai, Mandaeism, Hollywood, Merlin (wizard), King Arthur, Vlad Dracula, Bram Stroker, Grigori Rasputin, Prince Felix Yussopov, St. Brendan, Psalms, Aztecs, racism, Tuna Helper, the National Football League, 7-eleven, El Caminos, drones, chemtrails, The MTV Music Video Awards, The Black Crows, The Counting Crows, H. Ross Perot, Mt. Rushmore, Y2K, the Millennium Bug, Britney Spears, Facebook, Google Earth, Vladimir Putin, Mormons, Social Security, Medicare, John F. Kennedy, Detroit, artisanal moccasins, the United Nations, Alec Baldwin, and The Garden of Eden.

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Chris Gaines

References and allusions include, but are not limited to:  Bono, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Steve Erkel, Screech, Jim Morrison, Patrick Ewing, Buzz Aldrin, Verne Troyer,  Chris Gaines, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Bilbo Baggins, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Scottie Pippen, Oprah Winfrey, Janet Reno, Emeril Lagasse, Steven Spielberg, coyotes, Garth Brooks, Saturday Night Live,  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Clark Kent, Tony Clifton, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sasha Fierce, Lady Bugs Bunny, Stephan Erkel, Big Mama, Hannah Montana, Richard Bachman, Larry “Grandmama” Johnson, Larry the Cable Guy, Barak Obama, the New York Mets, the San Diego Padres, Kent Hrbek, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Kansas City Royals, VH1, Behind the Music, NBC, YouTube, the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, Trisha Yearwood, Don Was, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Matchbox 20, Eagle Eye Cherry, Tom Robbins, Bryan Adams, Richard Marx, Don Henley, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Lite Rock 105, Ryan Adams, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, “Get Together” by The Youngbloods, Kenny Chesney, Pornograffitti by Extreme,  Chris Angel, Pubetron Fergleven, Kentucky, Donald T***p, the KFC Yum! Center, AC/DC, Prince, “Friends In Low Places” by Garth Brooks, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Kanye West, Green Day, Michael Bolton, Western style shirts, Halloween, bolo ties, Randy Travis, cocaine, and Scrooge McDuck.