Friday, November 04, 2005

Coded messages in Radio Broadcasts?


Hell yes. In fact, I put ‘em there myself.

Well David Brooks needs a serious flogging as it appears he has just up and gone AWOL from his right mind entirely, and the ongoing saga of the Mandate Eating Virus that is Karl Rove is a cornucopia of delights, but for this very late evening, light fare and a bit of fun.

File this under: How I saved Mo Rocca and National Pulic Radio from infamy. Well, more infamy.

This is a true tale, s’welp me Jebus, and hope hearing it gives you the same, secret, conspiratorial, chuckly smile it gave me doing it.

Where to begin?

Today was a long day, and the latest in a long series. It’s really starting to wearing the treads off of my kittenish self, but tonight I got two -- count 'em, Two! -- little treats.

The first was from-me-to-me as I broke the exchequer and bought myself a single round of Johnny Walker Blue at a Loop hotel bar after work. Which I then sipped decadently and at my leisure as I sat and scribbled away with (gasp!) pen and paper. JW Blue is the stuff that’s a minimum of $30 a shot (and made a liquor cameo on "The West Wing"), and I'd always wanted to know what that tastes like.

It was…OK, but not orders of magnitude better than, say, a 15-year-old Abelour, a whole bottle of which can be procured for about what a shot-and-a-half of JW Blue'll set you back.

But WTF -- twas once in a Blue moon -- and it also put me on just the right bar seat just in time to hear the funniest damned banter between a young woman waiting on a lawyer and an moneyed old wolf waiting for just such a one as she. It was terrific fun to listen to them fence, but more delightful still since I was fiddling with a dating essay, and what the woman was saying could (and maybe will) be dropped word-for-word into the particular paragraph I was going over.

A gift to me from the Gods of sexual Parry and Thrust.

From thence I hied my ass over to the venerable Chase Auditorium where a friend of mine had gotten a couple of tickets to the taping of this week’s episode of “Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!” as a late birthday gift to me. I like the show, and it tapes in Chicago, and Adam Effing West is the guest which week, so how cool is that?

Anyway, the show is live in front of a studio audience, but taped, so it’s only sort of half-live; sorta like Dick Cheney, but without the heart trouble and a hard-on to lay waste to half the globe.

So live-ish it may be, but afterwards they do a few “re-takes” where they re-record do-overs of some of the boo-boos, which is where the whole “me saving Mo Rocca from ignominy” comes in.

See, the “Prediction” for next week that the panel was asked to come up with was something like “What more prison-appropriate nickname will I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby now be using?” on which Mr. Rocca riffed for a little bit on a name based on a “Scooter gets prison raped by a muppet” theme.

Perfectly funny and entirely inappropriate, so they made him do it over, and he suddenly couldn’t think of a thing that would work…

…which is when he turned to the audience for help.

There were many calls for “Hooter” and “Looter” and so forth, but nothing with, um , zazz! And because I cannot keep my mouth shut in these situation (and because with Adam West as the guest, I was of a mind to ask myself, “What would Batman do?”) I waited for a lull -- because timing counts -- and shouted out, “Call him “I. Diddy!”

Which, I must humbly admit, did bring the house down (Although on mature reflection, I actually like the one that popped into my head on the way home -- "Lewis Leaky" -- better), and which Mr. Rocca adopted like rich, childless WASPS going after Chinese babies. So when you hear it this Saturday morning on NPR, you’ll know that your ol' pal driftglass snuck one over the plate.

Would I ever do such a thing again?

Hard to say. So much more satisfying to go Kaiser Sose after popping my head out: “And then, like that, he's gone. Underground. Nobody's ever seen him since.” :-)

But either way, as Paul Harvey says, now you know…the rest of the story.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Following in the wake of the immortal Rude Pundit, driftglass will bring his live blogging perfomance to auditoriums across our fair land. His imagination, fueled by the finest Single Malts and LLL's, never ceases to thrill and amaze audiences with his witicisms and sharp invectives aimed at the GOP cancer whose very tendrils are coiled around the US Constitution. Leave the children home as driftglass spares no one, nor any word in the English language, to communicate the dire truth and hopeful possibilities of our times."

Anonymous said...

Cool beans - as always - a treat. Me - I kinda like Jameson's - it definitely warms the cockles of my heart on those cold winter days.

Charles Perez said...

Two fingers of Morangie for me... Nectar of the gods, that.

"I. Diddy." Beautiful. Out of the park.

Anonymous said...

USBlues - aka 'Peter Sagel' - Well Done!
Driftglass - Nice Hit! Good one dude.

I once had a house mate whose life became fulfilled after he 'marked' some Phish CD concert recording by screaming his lungs out during some song. I thought, 'Whatta dope'. I call that a 'foul ball'. But this little gem is up there with Sammy Sosa knockin 'em clear, as weekend NPR shows are about as close to religion as I get. Well played!
-skunqesh

Anonymous said...

Weekend To Do list:

Change oil on car
Rake Leaves
Buy Groceries
-be sure to buy extra tinfoil
-send Mr David Brooks a tin foil ass hat in the shape of my fat ass.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, "I. Diddy" is going to get some play from me. I'm going to spread that as far as, well, never mind.

Anonymous said...

drifty- going to a Scotch tasting tonight, the entire line from Glenfarclas! The owner of the distillery is in town from Scotland (been in the family since the early 1800's) to share the goods and give us the skinny on his excellent product. I'll think of you while I can still remember, there are 6 Scotch's in the line, and I may not be too clear after we taste #4. :-)

Kevin Wolf said...

Man, this was funny.

Hey, the details of your residuals deal with NPR? What are they?

jurassicpork said...

Dude, like I said, I would love to riff a movie with you sometime like Mike and 'bots did on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Both prison bitch names for Libby (I already did one on Kos for prison names for DeLay) were brilliant but, on reflection, I have to agree with you that "Lewis Leaky" is slightly more brilliant, evoking the famed archeologist. The best ad libs, as every wit knows, always arrive half a dozen beats too late.

Kinda reminds me of a story about the late Robert Lowell. As he was slipping into one of his already-famed manic attacks, someone made the mistake of taking him to the Great White Way. This was about 1965 and at one point in the play, the script called for a gun to be shot offstage. At the report, Lowell stood up in his balcony seat and screamed one word: "OSWALD!"

To this day I still think that's a fucking riot, even though the ordinarily mild-mannered Lowell never would've said such a thing while in his right mind.

driftglass said...

No writing gigs offered. No residuals.
No baseball coach leaping to his feet as a lad in the stands bare-hands a line shot and yelling, "Sign that kid up!" :-)

us blues,
I hope you dreamed of Celtic women :-)

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