Des: Welcome to another
edition of the Chicago Bears football pre-game show. The Bears continue their
campaign against the AFC East after a tough overtime loss against the New England
Patriots. Will the Bears be able to defeat the Jets with a couple of minor
adjustments? Or will the Bears need yet another changeover of managerial staff
and philosophy, somehow revolving around Ishikawa fishbone diagrams, quality
control circles, and layer upon layer of Myers-Briggs surveys?
To answer these and similar questions is our panel of
experts: Concord Wainwright Peabody, Captain Silas Charles “idea shower” Red-beard,
Modre- the trans-logical guru, the Prissy Minion, Sally McChesty, and special
guest tailgater, Drunky McDumbAss.
Redbeard: ARRRH, mateys! Me
idea showers are always showers of pure gold! And, if that joke be not blunt
enough for ye, mateys, consider this joke: Bears special teams! The Patriots
scored two special teams touchdowns, leaving Chicago’s dreams of victory naught
but a smoldering pile of ashes not unlike the end result of me every engagement
against the British Navy. Curse ye to the darkest depths of Davey Jones Locker,
Admiral Nelson!
Des: Thank you, Captain. I’ll
pick dirty Beret del Mundo to block.
dirty Beret: Over the rivers
of molten cobalt and through the woods that surround a Chinese labor camp to
Grandmother’s hovel of unending alienation we go. The horse knows not the way
to guide the once proud matriarch to a nightmarish cylinder of ersatz
interaction with one’s abandoned spawn. Thus singeth the tuneless overlapping
denizens of Charlie Brown’s parents’ station wagon as they hurtle, unrestrained
by flimsy seat belts and the three to four panel sense of foreboding that
permeates every 1950 to 1970 Peanuts comic strip, to the You Tube studios of
this horrific dystopian alternate universe remake entitled For What Should We Be Thankful, Please Tell Me, Charlie Brown? And,
yet, be this truly an alternate universe, or merely an uncovered layer of this
world we wish we had never made?
Des: At last, dirty Beret,
you have accomplished what no one asked for, or wanted: A bridge between the
overt horror of Halloween and the covert horror of Thanksgiving. Concord
Peabody. You have some grumpy advice for Bears viewers?
Concord: Look on the bright
side, Bears fans: If the Bears suffer a mid-season slump, we can entertain ourselves
with mindless mumblings of some random White Stripes song, like Dodger fans do.
Des: Circle gets the square.
I’ll choose Drunky McDumbAss for the win.
Drunky: Irish Mist enfoggens
my noggin!
Des: Isn’t Irish Mist a
little pricey for you, Drunky?
Drunky: Not if it’s homemade
Irish Mist from Ellie Mae McGillicutty, which I’m led to believe is actually
Early Times Whiskey with crushed Honey Comb cereal stirred in.
Des: As you would expect, the
Prissy Minion inhabits the center square.
Prissy: Des, you’ll always be
my secret square. Or the Secret Squirrel to my Morocco Mole.
Des: Now I remember why you
were banned from the show
Prissy: Oh, Des, just because
I can’t shower you with praise the way Joe Buck does when he talks about Clayton
Kershaw doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the enduring genius of a cultural icon
who once wrote, “There’s no other place like the world/There’s no other place I’d
rather be/There’s no other place like the world/So sit right back and take it
away from me.” You can run from your cultural legacy, like Trubisky, or you can
stand in the pocket and throw it for a touchdown.
Des: Or, like most Bears
quarterbacks, I can throw it into the end zone, only to have it intercepted. Prissy,
this may be the only time you have ever referred to football in this football
pre-game show. Congratulations! Doctor Sally McChesty. What are your thoughts?
Sally: Apparently, I’m
supposed to be the angry feminist stereotype on this show, and I’m going to
rant about how Rose Byrne started as a feminist icon on Damages, but has now been reduced to a beleaguered wife in a series
of cookie cutter comedies. How is that supposed to be funny?
Des: It’s not. It’s supposed
to fulfill the third part of our show’s charter: “It’ll make you laugh, it’ll
make you cry, but, most important… it’ll make you think.”
Sally: Uh, actually, that’s
the slogan for Archie Andrews at
Riverdale High, the Archie title that desperately tried to tackle the
social issues facing the troubled teens of the 1970s and 1980s. It kept me from
drag racing. End transmission.
Credits: the “Drunky McDumbAss” character was created by my
cousin Jeff, whom I wish were here to make his creation funnier. And a million
other way more important things.
