Thursday, January 5, 2012

What Does Duck's Breath Smell Like, Anyway?

It's the 12th Day of Christmas today and I'm taking down the tree (the kids are campaigning to leave it up till Valentine's Day, an arbitrary deadline that I'm sure they'll try to extend to St. Patrick's Day) and so in preparation for this task I was bringing boxes down from the attic last night.  After my last trip I went back up and started looking around at all the Important Stuff that's stored there when something caught my eye:  my old dog-eared, well-thumbed copy of I Gotta Go by Ian Shoales.  I thought I lost this thing years ago.

I sighed happily and sat down for a trip through the 80s.  Where we're going we don't need a Delorean, just a funny bone and a high tolerance for feathered bangs.  Topics include (but are not limited to) college, "Beat It" jackets, "loud stupid songs about dogs and girls," the media, the media and the media.  This geezer loved the Ramones more than me which was quite a feat when I was a frosh.  While my eyes crossed trying to understand exitentialism's effect on post-60s sociology Shoales was calling Sartre "a third rate writer whose attempts at irony were done better on 'The Twilight Zone.'"  I didn't think my professor would appreciate my saying anything remotely like that but I snickered, at least.

Ian's alter ego, Merle Kessler, blogs infrequently here.  The "dbmt" is a reference to Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre, Kessler's comedy troupe that seemed to take over MTV and VH1 for a time in the 80s.  Remember Randee of the Redwoods?  He's also from DBMT.  Ian delivered rapid-fire promos, like the one below.  You all have a good day. 

    

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting!