Podcast Tuesday: "Drugs Are Bad, M'kay?"

Marta Kober on Happy Days.

I grew up during wartime, by which I mean the War on Drugs. Remember that dumb thing? I guess the government officially declared "war" (whatever that means) on mind-altering substances in the early 1970s when soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on dope. But the War on Drugs that I remember started in the 1980s, shortly after Ronald Reagan became president. I think we all remember Ron's wife, Nancy, telling us to "just say no" in some famously ineffective PSAs.

I was in elementary school at the time, and I can say that drugs were not a factor in my life at all. We kids were fairly bombarded with antidrug propaganda, but it was not needed in my case. Teachers would say things like, "We know you kids are under a lot of pressure to smoke pot and pop pills." Wanna bet? I certainly wasn't being pressured to do drugs back then. I wouldn't have even known where to get that stuff if I'd wanted it.

By the time I got to high school in the '90s, students were expected to go through a program called Drug Awareness Resistance Education or D.A.R.E. Drugs were still not a factor in my life because I didn't hang around with cool-enough kids. So D.A.R.E. was just kind of a goof to me. One of my favorite moments of my high school years was when our gym teacher asked the class, "Why do you think they call it dope?" and some wiseacre answered, "Because it's dope." Such a great line. I'm ashamed I didn't think of it.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're covering the obligatory antidrug episode of Happy Days entitled "School Dazed." The plot has Joanie (Erin Moran), now somehow a full-time teacher at Patton Vocational School, mentoring a troubled young student named Jesse (Marta Kober). Marta pops pills at school, causing Joanie to get all up in her business. Speeches are made. Tears are shed. Lessons are learned. You know the drill.

But is "School Dazed" any fun at all? Or is it just another useless sermon? Find out by listening to our latest episode, which is linked below.

'Mary Worth' and the shameful ballad of Tommy

Lower that eyebrow, mister!

This has truly been the summer of Tommy. Can there be any doubt? The last few months have simply been dominated by the saga of this sandy-haired ex-meth addict, as depicted in Karen Moy's syndicated comic strip Mary Worth.

I'm sure you've been following Tommy's adventures as closely as I have, but for you few stragglers out there, let me get you up to speed. Tommy is the twentysomething son of Iris Beedle, an attractive, blonde, fortysomething divorcee who lives in the same condo complex as Mary Worth. Iris used to date another of Mary's neighbors, pudgy, befuddled advice columnist Wilbur Weston. They broke up. It was a whole thing. Iris is with a younger, more successful guy named Zak now. And Wilbur? Well, Wilbur takes a lot of long walks these days.

Meanwhile, Iris has had her hands full with her fully grown, live-at-home son. Up to this point, Tommy's been what you'd call a ne'er-do-well. He ne'er does well. How often does he do well? Ne'er. He's been in jail on drug charges before, and he recently got addicted to Vicodin after literally attempting to move one piece of furniture. This guy is one end table away from perdition.

Anyway, Tommy's clean now and working at a supermarket, where he met his current girlfriend Brandy. Problem is, Brandy is sickened by the very mention of drugs or alcohol due to traumatic events in her own family, so Tommy's been afraid to 'fess up about his extremely sketchy past. The last few months have shown Tommy grappling with this problem, and I've been there to document it every step of the way.

Some of this I already covered in my last Mary Worth post just a month ago, but I've done so many more since that they warranted another post. As Tommy's story finally reaches its conclusion this weekend, let's look back on a summer of great memories. (NOTE: Click on the images to see them at full size. I can't promise it'll be worth it, but the text will be more legible.)

Since this is Mary Worth, Tommy went right to the source for help. It did not go well.

That's how I like my jokes: cheap.

Their conversation got intense.

And under those sweatpants? Nothing but support hose, baby.

Tommy, being a good Catholic boy, then took his problems right to the confessional, where I imagined that his old nemesis, Wilbur, was there to greet him.

Sorry, Wilbur, but that's Frasier Crane's line.

But it turned out Tommy was talking to a genuine priest. Talking a little too much to be honest.

Don't judge. Priests need their rest, too.

Tommy eventually had an epiphany, which I turned into a cheap pop culture reference.

Props to Allison Hayes, y'all!

Tommy's confession seemed like it would never end.

I don't even know if that's a priest he's talking to anymore.

Tommy emerged from his confession haunted by voices, one of which I imaged to be Zak.

How does he get his stubble so perfect?

Like Wilbur before him, Tommy decided to go on a walk/vision quest.

I'm pretty sure Dorothy can hook you up with those pills, Tommy.

He eventually decided to spill his guts to Brandy, but the words didn't come easily.

Even Shatner might balk at that pause.

They went out running, which I spruced up with a cameo by Jay Johnston from Mr. Show.

Not pictured: Champion the Drinker.

Tommy made some pretty shocking confessions that day.

Brandy's father was into really long pauses, too.

We learned a lot about Tommy's own past.

Side note: doesn't Ivan Drago look great with long hair?

Brandy took the news very well, as you'd expect.

Her last words to him were "Meep! Meep!"

Meanwhile, Mary and Iris had a very odd, stilted conversation about Tommy.

One of these images is slightly retouched.

Eventually, Tommy and Brandy got things sorted out and spent a nice afternoon on the beach. An afternoon I decided to make just a little nicer.

Next problem: Tommy's Faberge egg addiction.

Iris was so proud of her son. Despite the evidence.

And you thought Iris was the only cougar in this family?

And now, Tommy and Brandy have a wonderful future in front of them, with no problems on the horizon. Well, maybe one problem on the horizon.

That's it, kids. Carpe diem. Carpe that diem all night long.

Let's have fun with the funnies! Part Two: Into the Worth-iverse!

Mary Worth: Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

There are comic strips I parody, and then there is Mary Worth. I am continually captivated by the saga of Ms. Worth, a sixty-something retiree who counsels the various misbegotten residents in her SoCal condo community of Charterstone. I do more Worth-related takeoffs than nearly all other comic strips combined, so I thought I'd gather some more recent ones into a post of their own.

Let's light this lavender-scented candle, huh?

Here's a York Peppermint Pattie commercial inspired by 'Requiem for a Dream' (really!)

Quick! Is this shot from a candy commercial, a harrowing depiction of drug use, or both?

File this under "too bizarre to be real, yet too random to be made-up." York Peppermint Pattie, a product of the candy kingpins at Hershey, has an ad called "Environmental Connection" which seems uncomfortably close to the famous, much-parodied "getting high" montage from Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky's bleak 2000 film about drug addiction. Judge for yourself, though. Don't let me unduly influence you.

Here's the ad:

And here's the corresponding scene from Requiem for a Dream:

It's not just me, right? This is totally intentional, right? The quick cuts, the gasping for breath, the close up of a dilating pupil. It's all taken directly from Requiem for a Dream. The message isn't really even all that subtle: "Look, fatty, we know that chocolate is your heroin. Don't try to pretend that you have free will. You're our junkie slave, and you know it! Now have another York Peppermint Goddamned Pattie!"

Shocking.

Notes on my incredibly glamorous and exciting life (including a trip to Onion HQ)

No, this isn't an outtake from Caligula. It's supposedly a picture of an Onion staff party. (Not pictured: me.)

"May you be happy in the life you have chosen."

-Scrooge's ex-girlfriend, Belle*

*She doesn't really mean it when she says it, but I think it's good advice anyway.

My life is, at least partially by design, uneventful to the point of almost total stasis. I can define myself by the (many) things I dislike: people, crowds, noise, disruption, spending money, following directions, traveling, making small talk, listening, trying to be nice, doing favors for people, and social interactions of all kinds. The extent to which I can successfully and temporarily avoid these terrible maladies is the extent to which my life is tolerable. Of course, this comes at a price. Boredom, alienation, loneliness, and stagnation are the occasional side effects of my chosen lifestyle, but they beat the alternatives: despair, frustration, humiliation, resentment, and an overall disgust with the world and every last person in it. In other words, a relatively solitary, quiet, and dull life is the only kind for me. I couldn't imagine any other way of existing.

So it's been a year. How am I?

(from left to right) Me as I appear now; me as I appeared one year ago. 

"So how have you been?"

Every Wednesday afternoon at around 3:59, I pull into the parking lot of the Arlington Professional Center, an uninspiring complex of squat brown office buildings, in my battered, decade-old silver Cavalier and walk to Suite J for my weekly therapy session. I try not to arrive even a minute early, because I want to spend as little time as possible in the waiting room. Suite J of the Arlington Professional Center has the worst waiting room in the history of people waiting in rooms. Auschwitz had nicer waiting rooms than this place. It is a cramped and ugly space which, if anything, would deepen a patient's sense of hopelessness. There's a faded poster of a wolf on one wall and a table piled high with useless, glossy, oversized magazines filled with pictures of expensive furniture. Certainly, the room's oddest touch is a shelf with a hopelessly outdated and never-used boombox, along with a stack of never-played CDs (classical, new age, lite jazz) and even one sad, neglected cassette. Fortunately, my therapist's own office is much more inviting, with its soothing, dim lighting and comfy, tasteful furniture. Each week, at around 4:01, I haul my depleted husk of a body into this room and plop down on an overstuffed black couch. My therapist, a 50-ish Polish woman with spiky blue hair and the wardrobe of a bohemian artist, asks me how I've been that week.

"Oh, I don't know," I'll usually say. "The same, I guess..."

Et tu, Stretch? Another Armstrong admits doping.

Armstrong in his '70s heyday, a disturbingly pliable role model to a generation of children.

In retrospect, we should have all seen it coming. The freakishly elongated limbs capable of extending to many times their normal lengths, the ability to contort himself into elaborate, pretzel-like configurations, the mysteriously smooth and hairless skin, the apparent lack of a skeleton -- these were not traits which Stretch Armstrong acquired naturally through genetics or learned through years of practice.

And now, finally, the truth has come out. In a highly-publicized TV interview with Color Purple star Whoopi Goldberg, Mr. Armstrong has admitted to his use of a whole battery of performance-enhancing drugs, including Rubbernol, Stretchabunch, Twistophan, and an extremely dangerous bone-softening hormone known only as "Twang." During the course of the hour-long chat with Goldberg, Armstrong also owned up to dozens of cosmetic surgeries in order to maintain his youthful appearance. Despite Stretch's repeated denials in the past, fans had long suspected the muscleman of going under the knife, especially when he re-emerged in the 1990s with an alarming new look. A simple side-by-side comparison makes it obvious:

Armstrong in 1976 and 1993 respectively. Years of plastic surgery had clearly taken a toll.

"What can I say?" Armstrong told Goldberg when asked for his motives. By means of explanation, Stretch spoke of his humble upbringing as the son of a Wisconsin mill worker:

A gateway drug.

I was insecure. My parents named me Stretch, thinking I was going to be tall like my dad, who was All State in basketball when he was in high school. But I was this runty little kid, you know? I was never good at sports or anything. I mean, for one thing, I had these freakish, blobby hands and feet without fingers or toes. I couldn't even hold a football, let alone throw one. 

Then my parents took me to the circus, and there was this contortionist on the bill. I think he was from India or Pakistan, one of those countries. Anyway, I was transfixed. I knew then and there what I wanted to do with my life. Every day after school, I'd practice my contorting. I actually did get pretty good at it -- enough to be hired for birthday parties and car dealership openings, stuff like that. 

One day, a man from the Kenner Corporation caught my act and told me that if I was ever going to make it big, I'd need some extra help. That's what got me started on the whole doping thing. I mean, I'm not blaming Kenner. I was the one who first injected Elmer's Rubber Cement into my calves and forearms. No one put a Nerf gun to my head.

The news has saddened Armstrong's fans around the world,  particularly those in France, a country where he is known as "Monsieur Extensible" and has been widely hailed as an artistic genius. The Légion d'honneur is one of many honors of which Mr. Armstrong has been stripped in recent days, along with his 1976 Toy of the Year Award, his Nobel Prize for Achievement in Contortion, and a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award he nabbed during his 1990s comeback. Because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has no integrity whatsoever, though, Stretch will be allowed to keep the Golden Globe he won for appearing opposite Pia Zadora in 1982's Butterfly. He may need to sell it in order to pay the rent on the one-bedroom apartment he currently occupies in Pomona, California -- a far cry from the palatial Malibu estate he once shared with now-ex-wife Tawny Kitaen.

Indeed, the flexible image of Stretch Armstrong will likely never return to its original shape after these shocking admissions. But he is hardly alone in his use of performance-enhancing substances. Let us not forget, for instance, Underdog and his infamous "super energy pills." Then, of course, there is Popeye and his so called "spinach." And Captain America? Trust me, you don't even want to know what that guy has taken. It would be easier to list which performance-enhancing substances he hasn't used. That guy's testicles? Like raisins.

A day (vicariously) spent with Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer: Mathematician turned singer-songwriter turned mathematician again.

"One man deserves the credit. One man deserves the blame."

-Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer would scoff at the idea of being anyone's hero. This is part of the reason why he's one of mine.

A native New Yorker born way back in 1928 (one shudders to do the grim calculations here), Lehrer was a child prodigy who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19. Since that time, he has spent most of his career either teaching or lecturing about mathematics at some of America's finest academic institutions, including MIT and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He formally retired in 2001, but he's still listed at the Rate My Professors website with a student review as recent as 2005.

Latter-day Lehrer

What sets Tom Lehrer apart from other mathematicians, apart from his claim of inventing the Jell-O shot, is that he devoted much of his time in the 1950s and 1960s to writing and performing some of the darkest, funniest songs I've ever heard -- deceptively joyous musical theater-type ditties with droll, sardonic lyrics about such topics as sex ("I Got It From Agnes"), drugs ("The Old Dope Peddler"), violence ("The Masochism Tango"), religion ("The Vatican Rag"), death ("I Hold Your Hand in Mine") and war ("So Long, Mom") with a candor that set him far apart from both the singers and the comedians of that era. Today, comedians can joke openly about pornography, incest, cannibalism, bestiality, and necrophilia on prime time network television, but this wasn't true 60 years ago when Tom's records couldn't even be played on the radio during respectable hours.

As with much of the music that now clutters up my brain, the bizarre and sometimes brutal song stylings of Tom Lehrer first entered my life through The Dr. Demento Show. This was back in the 1990s, before the internet was any damned good, and it was difficult to come by information about Tom's life or career back then. I couldn't even find a picture of the guy! I knew instinctively, though, that he wore glasses. Somehow, that was obvious to me. His myopia was audible. 

Despite the apparent rudeness of his lyrics, Mr. Lehrer conducted himself with the utmost decorum onstage, using impeccable Ivy League diction, eclectic and impressive vocabulary, and carefully-curated grammar. On his records, he comes across as man far too smart to take life the least bit seriously. Lerher's musical career occurred during the Cold War when it seemed ever-more-likely that mankind would annihilate itself with increasingly-deadly weapons. This looming apocalypse is the topic of several Lehrer songs, and he treats it the way he treats all other subjects: with an air of detached amusement at the absurdity of it all.

Tom Lehrer's 1953 debut

Today, almost two decades after I first heard "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," (the song that made me a fan) I spent some quality time listening to virtually every Tom Lehrer recording available to the public. That's not a great investment of time, honestly. There are roughly three hours of Lehrer audio in total, nearly all of it consisting of Tom singing solo and accompanying himself on piano. 

His musical output boils down to two brief studio albums (Songs by Tom Lehrer and More of Tom Lehrer), three live albums (Revisited [a.k.a. Tom Lehrer in Concert], An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer, and That Was the Week That Was), plus a handful of miscellaneous recordings. He recorded a handful of his most famous songs with a full orchestra, for instance, plus he did a few well-remembered educational songs (like "Silent E") for a PBS children's program called The Electric Company. There are a few good CD compilations out there of Lehrer's work, but buyers should know in advance that the same exact songs from the two studio albums are heard on his first two live LPs as well. And I mean, they're note-for-note the same. If you buy the boxed set with his "complete" recordings, be prepared to sit through the same songs two or even three times.

In all instances, the live versions are superior to their (crude) studio counterparts. For one thing, Tom tends to put a little more oomph into his singing and playing when he's onstage, hamming it up for the benefit of the crowd. He was supposedly uncomfortable with live performances and had trouble remembering the words of his own songs, but you'd never guess that from these recordings.

Better yet, Tom's between-song monologues are little masterpieces of deadpan, spoken-word comedy. He does long, elaborate intros to his tunes, often going off on absurd tangents that have little to nothing to do with the songs. These little digressions are the source of many of Lehrer's best one-liners and bon mots. A particular favorite, from his description of a fictitious doctor: "His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school where he majored in animal husbandry... until they caught him at it one day." The audience roars at that joke, and the reaction of the crowd is another reason why Tom's best records are his live ones. There's palpable tension as the audience members decide how far they're willing to let Mr. Lehrer go in his pursuit of tasteful bad taste. You can practically hear them wince, for instance, when Tom gets to this couplet from "Bright College Days":

Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life.

I'll leave this little discussion of Tom Lehrer's brilliant career with one of the nastiest, truest, and most cynical songs ever written. It first appeared on his 1953 debut album, and when he reprised it on his first live LP, he dedicated the song to those in the audience who were still in love. If you are in love, I now dedicate this song to you:

HEALTH NEWS AND NOTES: I haven't done one of these updates in a while because, frankly, there's been nothing much to report. Taking meds and attending therapy sessions no longer feel like digressions from my life anymore. They're simply part of my life, as regular as a job. Speaking of which, my job remains simultaneously stressful and dull.

Make no mistake: I am fortunate to be employed at all by anyone in any capacity, so I am very grateful to my corporate paymasters. I cannot forget that the insurance I have through my job is what's financing my treatment. Homer Simpson once memorably referred to alcohol as "the cause of and solution to all of life's problems." That's kind of how I feel about my job. It makes me miserable, but I'd be lost without it. 

My anxiety and depression have tapered off quite nicely over the last month, and the severe gastrointestinal problems that were once a huge part of my life have now disappeared utterly. I'm still isolating myself from the world, and I'm always in danger of disappearing into a sinkhole of solipsism or narcissism. I can spend entire weekends pondering the subjective nature of "truth" and "reality" rather than, you know, talking to other human beings or getting fresh air and exercise. Gotta work on that.

There's a fine line between breakdown and breakthrough

A scene from last night's episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Did you catch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia last night?

The Marx Brothers: Terrible people

I did, and I might have laughed harder than anyone in America at it. For the uninitiated, the show revolves around "the gang," a group of five horrible human beings who somehow remain friends. The main characters are bratty, unduly confident siblings Dennis and Dee Reynolds; their stepfather, Frank, a lecherous lowlife; and two other companions: musclebound lunkhead Mac and twitchy neurotic Charlie, easily the show's most complex character. In each episode, the members of "the gang" make reckless, terrible life choices and end up hurting themselves, each other, and innocent bystanders. The characters are largely defined by their negative traits, including vanity, stupidity, and selfishness. 

Without being too pretentious, I see Sunny as the modern-day equivalent of the Marx Brothers, because those classic comedians of the 1930s also portrayed deeply flawed, often aggravating individuals who treated each other badly and yet maintained a curious camaraderie. These people are loyal and disloyal simultaneously. Like the Marx Brothers,  the members of "the gang" on Sunny never learn anything from their experiences. They simply act upon their instincts, consequences be damned, for their own amusement and ours.

Like most episodes of the series, last night's installment of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia had a self-explanatory title: "The Gang Gets Analyzed." That's exactly what happens in it. The entire episode takes place in the office of Dee's therapist, beautifully played by guest star Kerri Kenney-Silver of The State and Reno 911. The office depicted on the show was very much like the one I visit each week, right down to the soothing artwork and the various knickknacks, and the demeanor of Kenney-Silver's character was very much like that of my own therapist. This was incredible serendipity: one of my favorite shows was depicting events currently unfolding in my own life!

Of course, Sunny turned the entire experience into a grotesque farce. The plot had Dee inviting her four companions along with her to therapy so that the therapist could settle a petty dispute: who should wash the dishes from one of the gang's recent dinners? Frank had actually brought the dishes with him and dumped them on the floor of the stunned, yet admirably composed therapist's office. Kenney-Silver then proceeded to analyze "the gang" one by one. Inadvertently, each one ended up revealing a great deal to this woman. Mac is gullible and delusional. Dee is a liar. Dennis is egotistical and condescending. Frank has deep psychological scars from his past. And Charlie? Well, Charlie carries a dead pigeon around with him, which may offer some clue to his mental and emotional state. 

As per usual for Sunny, nothing is "solved" during the episode. The characters reveal themselves at their worst and then just carry on with their lives. I like that a lot. Too many TV shows offer trite homilies and facile speeches to their viewers. Sunny is just about venting negativity and letting that negativity stand, untouched and unfixed.

All Day by Girl Talk

Meanwhile, I had something of an emotional breakthrough yesterday. In brief, I can feel sadness again! For me, that's remarkable. I've spent the last few weeks not feeling much of anything. It was so gratifying to have an actual strong emotion after such a long period of evenness. And it was the damnedest thing which brought it on, too. I was running to the commuter train station from my office in downtown Chicago. It was a few minutes after 5:00, and I'd just worked a very long, stressful shift. 

I decided I needed a little music to pep me up, so I listened to my iPod as I ran. The song which came up was a track called "Jump on Stage" by Girl Talk, which is the pseudonym of a DJ named Gregg Gillis who creates long, elaborate audio collages by combining snippets of various pop, rock, hip-hop and soul records in a number of unorthodox ways. It is not uncommon, for instance, for Gillis to mix the vocals of a song from one genre with the musical backing of a song from a completely different genre. "Jump on Stage" is a track from his most recent album, 2010's  All Day, and for a few glorious moments, Gillis combines the vocals from "Hey Ladies" by the Beastie Boys with the music from Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life." 

As you probably know, one of the Beasties, Adam Yauch, died of cancer earlier this year. But in the sample from "Jump on Stage," he sounds young and vibrant and alive again, even though all he really says is "hey." Add to this the fact that "Lust for Life," which Pop co-wrote with David Bowie, is about the singer's recovery from heroin addiction. I can't exactly explain why, but the combination of these two songs -- both jubilant, by the way -- had a seismic emotional impact on me. By the time I reached the train, I had tears in my eyes. I thought about trying to fight it, but then said to myself, "Fuck it. Just let it out." It was great to be so sad. Paradoxically, my desire to live was incredibly strong at that moment.

Then, as will happen in a city the size of Chicago, a man dressed like Indiana Jones boarded the train and somehow snapped me back to reality. This was not a costume. You could tell it was his regular, everyday look. I immediately stopped crying and spent the rest of the 40-minute train ride in contemplative silence. If you're curious, here is the track which provoked such a strong response from me. The relevant portion begins at roughly the 5:18 mark.


HEALTH NEWS & NOTES: For those who live with depression and anxiety, sleep can be an issue. Cheap over-the-counter sleep aids usually work for me, but these are relatively weak and may take a couple of hours to work. While I was in the behavioral health center, my doctor prescribed Restoril for me and told me to take it at my discretion as necessary. 

Let me tell you, this is some serious shit. Restoril will kick your ass. At least it did mine. I was used to taking sleep aids well before bedtime, and I thought I could do that with Restoril, too. But that drug has me sound asleep within an hour. The problem with this is that I might wake up fully rested at 2:00 in the morning, which screws up the rest of my day. So I'm trying to avoid using it unless the "nuclear option" is mandatory. 

Meanwhile, I'm a little concerned about my lack of physical exercise. I got a lot of exercise over the summer months, but this was almost entirely based around running and walking at a nearby park. When the temperatures dropped, my long walks stopped. I don't think it's coincidental that my depression spiked when the chilly weather arrived. I have to think of an alternate exercise routine. My psychiatrist just told me to join a gym, but I'm not really a "gym" guy. For one thing, I'm very self-conscious about my body and appearance. Plus, frankly, gyms cost money, and I'm a cheapskate. If you have suggestions in this regard, please leave them in the comments section.

More Funday Sunnies

Artwork from Crankshaft; dialogue by me.

Artwork from Mark Trail; dialogue by me

George Stover: Not just an actor but a fine dancer as well!

making gifs

As it turns out, pills are not candy.

Thanks to the good folks at the Long Island Regional Poison Control Center, here's a fun little PSA from 1983 featuring a vocal quartet comprised of singing pills. I wonder if this is what went on in Judy Garland's head all the time.

And in case some of those lyrics sound awfully familiar even though you didn't grow up in or near Long Island during the 1980s:

The true origin of a popular catchphrase

It didn't start with this guy, that's for sure.

"Bow chicka wow wow."

That little bit of onomatopoeia has slowly infiltrated the English language over the course of 20 years. Urban Dictionary defines it as (among other things) a "verbal means of referencing a sexual encounter" or "a poor imitation of pornographic like music." So the term BCWW can refer to sex itself or to the bass-heavy music heard in pornographic films, particularly those of the 1970s. The term has become so commonplace that there is even a song about it -- "Bow Chicka Wow Wow" by Mike Posner featuring Lil Wayne. 

But where did the phrase originate? Who came up with the idea of verbally mimicking the music from 1970s porno flicks? I distinctly remember the phrase first being used as part of a stand-up comedy routine in either the late 1980s or early 1990s. With a little "Google fu," I think I have tracked down the creator of this concept: a stand-up comedian named Jordan Brady. He performed this routine on an early 1990s stand-up show called The A-List. 

Jordan Brady doing his famous "bow chicka wow wow" bit.

This comedy routine was widely seen in the '90s, and kids started imitating it at school pretty quickly. But, somehow, Brady's name is no longer attached to this famous catchphrase. Hopefully, this article sets a few people straight.

ZOMBY encounters some sort of stoner aliens

This seems like the kind of thing that Comedy Central would normally be playing at 2:00 on a weekday afternoon.