Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Chris, and I've been thinking, so let's get right to it.
[00:00:08] I love Kentucky Derby Day. If for no other reason, I get to start it off by cranking the underappreciated Stones gem Dead Flowers because for reasons I've been unable to fathom, it references Kentucky Derby Day.
[00:00:31] Making bets on a Kentucky Derby day?
[00:00:52] Pretty cool, isn't it? I love that song from the greatest Stones album there is Sticky Fingers.
[00:00:59] But I also like it because it's one of the few truly great sporting events that I can improve, some of which I'll explore in the next column.
[00:01:07] First would be Horse races could be improved if the jockeys had to weigh at least £320? Or would it be more compelling if there were no jockeys at all?
[00:01:17] And with so many races being decided by a nose, how come crafty breeders aren't breeding horses with really long schnozes?
[00:01:25] So let's get right to it first, and then we'll get to the back of that day in 2014 when I got the big dildo stuck in my head.
[00:01:36] For the good of the sport, the Triple Crown needs one race where the jockeys are jumbos. I'm proposing that horse racing, after its rules, alter its rules so that the Preakness tomorrow is run not by elf and athletes, but but by king sized couch potatoes who weigh no fewer than 320 pounds each.
[00:01:53] See, the Triple Crown races are among my favorite sporting events. Combined, they conclude in under seven minutes. The super bowl hasn't terminal commercial breaks in a door that long.
[00:02:03] I want one race to take as long as the Super Bowl. I want to be able to invest a full afternoon in watching the ponies sluggishly trot around the track, with the occasional need to stop to graze or access convenient water troughs for quenching swigs.
[00:02:17] A 320 pound jockey would ensure this.
[00:02:20] Note that the weight wouldn't include a cooler full of beer. Each jockey would be allowed to strap to the saddle.
[00:02:26] The weigh ins would be priceless viewing instead of traditional colors, each jumbo jockey would wear a shirt promoting his or her favorite saloon or bowling alley.
[00:02:36] There's not a tavern in the land that wouldn't feel three or four bar regulars worthy of consideration.
[00:02:43] I'm drinking buddies with tons of guys who qualify.
[00:02:46] Or it might be more accurate, I'm buddies with about five guys who, thrown in one big sack would weigh one ton and 320 is a good weight. It's ample enough to meet today's obesity standards, but not so much that many jockeys would make it without dietary supplements. Thus, pre game rituals might show plus sized jockeys scarfing down pockets of the Colonel's chicken in order to make the designated goal would flip on its head the unhealthy anorexic trends that ravage traditional diminutive jockeys obliged to starve themselves to meet the required 126 pounds.
[00:03:20] In fact, much of the pre race hype could be devoted to another rising American competitive eating.
[00:03:27] And Frank, representing the Outdoor Inn in Queens is going double fisted with a whopper with triple bacon and a dangerous extra cheese pizza that was blamed for the unfortunate cardiac arrest of Tubby Tommy, last year's weigh in. But Pam from the Smiling Hog Barbecue in Foam in Biloxi is coming on strong with a stack of baby backs dripping with the home team sauce now available online and in Piggly Wigglies all across the Dixie.
[00:03:52] Of course, nothing would match the excitement and the moment when the excitement when the moment with the loads are loaded into the starting gates. I'll read that one again. Of course nothing would match the excitement of the moment when the loads of are loaded into the starting gates. And they're off.
[00:04:09] Or not, I speculate. With a 320 pound jockey on its back, many of these thoroughbreds wouldn't even budge. And wouldn't that be exciting?
[00:04:19] Not one horse is moving. Not one is able to manage the first step at weight. And number four horse is staggering, staggering out of the gates. She's taken four steps. Five. Oh no. The fillies collapsed.
[00:04:31] Given those dynamics, it's likely that the 1 and 316 mile Preakness would take about 3 hours rather than the usual 2 minutes.
[00:04:40] The final sprint, and I'm doing air quotes down the home stretch, would allow gamblers plenty of convenient time for bathroom and smoke breaks before the action got down to the wire.
[00:04:51] Now, some animal rights activists might protest that the entire spectacle might be cruel to these huge beasts.
[00:04:58] They might say they're not fit enough to the race and exertion could kill the dumb animals.
[00:05:03] And they have a point.
[00:05:04] But then there's an easy fix for that.
[00:05:07] Just have them all sign waivers before the race.
[00:05:18] Hi, I'm. You know my name by now. It's easy to go where everybody knows your name when there's nobody in the place.
[00:05:25] How come cookies aren't called bakeys? The behavior is so common. We all know the word for a man who chases women indiscriminately. Just have sex with them. He's a womanizer. Does anyone know the word? From a woman who chases men indiscriminately just to have sex with any of them, the word is popular.
[00:05:42] I'm such a literalist. I get furious anytime I walk into a Best Western hotel and every television set is not turned into the man who Shot Liberty Valance.
[00:05:53] People ask what I do for a living, and I tell them honestly. I stare out a window. I do it for like an hour at a time. Then I type for three minutes. Then I resume staring out the window. That's what writing is. It's a lot of thinking time. But I can't put any of that on a business card. So years ago I decided to break it down. What do I do? I sell stories by the word. That makes me a.
[00:06:17] Prostitute. I practice prostitution.
[00:06:22] I guess the next step would be call myself an author.
[00:06:25] Hathor hi, I'm Chris. And I've been thinking.
[00:06:38] I'm uncertain how I got the giant dildo stuck in my head, but it. But I can assure you it didn't enter through either of my ears. Heck, I know better than to shove a cotton swab tip up my in there, let alone a big honkin dildo.
[00:06:52] Blame the Oxford English Dictionary. That's up in my head too. And it's way, way bigger. 135 pounds than your common love story. Love toy.
[00:07:03] See, I'm a word guy. Words fascinate me.
[00:07:06] I enjoy knowing where they came from and when they reached a point of critical mass. And someone decided, well enough people are using this word so we ought to explain it and stick it in a dictionary. The word dictionary, by the way, dates back to 1480 and translates and means a book which explains or translates. Unusual.
[00:07:23] Let me go back again. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages, giving for each word its typical spelling and usage.
[00:07:35] A little verbose, isn't it? But who can blame the dictionary for being, well, wordy?
[00:07:40] Here's another quibble. I contend if dictionary publishers were serious about their mission, they'd call dictionaries definitionaries.
[00:07:49] But I still love them, in spite of their occasional incompetence.
[00:07:52] I mean, who am I to cast stones in that realm?
[00:07:55] Anywho, I keep two of them on my desk. A 150,000 word hardcover American Heritage and a duct tape paper bag. 70 paperback, 75,000 words. And I've held that in my hands nearly once a week since 1979.
[00:08:11] Guess what? There's still not enough. I need more bigger enhanced girth and yes, we're still talking about dictionaries. We'll get to the dildos.
[00:08:21] But for the true word sleuths, there's nothing like the Oxford English Dictionary. It has the definitions of 600,000 words. My ardor for it is all encompassing that one year.
[00:08:34] My order for it is so all encompassing that one of my failed years, and I'm about over 25 in that regard, was devoted to trying to create a word and whoring it out so compellingly that the word would earn Oxford English Dictionary recognition in record time.
[00:08:50] At the time, I was seized by an idea that the only thing easier than writing one book a year was writing one word.
[00:08:57] And yes, to emphasize my fecklessness, I even wrote a book proposal about the word how words become words in a mad, mad, mad, mad dash at dictionary recognition, a contrived and deliberate act of trying to mass manipulate popular culture to an individual whim.
[00:09:17] So how come I have a dildo on the brain?
[00:09:20] Blame Jason Priestley.
[00:09:22] I saw the old Beverly Hills 90210 actor making the rounds and instantly thought, dildo. Not prick, cock, pecker, wang, dork or dong.
[00:09:32] Just dildo.
[00:09:33] Priestley starred in a well crafted SNL skit, the life and times of Johnny Hildo from 92 Cast. Hartman, Rock, Spade, Myers.
[00:09:42] Wow.
[00:09:44] The premise was Priestley was Hildo, who in three acts is ridiculed for having a name that sounds like dildo. Classmates, prospective dates, professors who all thoughtlessly call Hildo Dildo until he blows up. It's Hildo, damn it, it's Hildo.
[00:09:59] The shot cuts to a mock newspaper headline under the title, under the headline, Crazed Dildo Kills seven.
[00:10:06] He's then shown being marched into a cell where he's greeted by his cellmate, Kevin Nealon, who extends a hand in friendship. Hi, Hildo. Nice to meet you. Hildo is floored. Did someone just call him Hildo?
[00:10:18] That's your name, isn't it? Says Neyland, who completes the introduction by saying, my name is Larry Larry Bagina.
[00:10:26] And that's why the site of Priestley sent me scrambling for the online dictionary. I had to know, how old is Dildo?
[00:10:33] Hold on to your hats. Dildo is 421 years old.
[00:10:37] This is bound to sound sexist, but I have thought that women folk back in 1598 would have been too busy cooking for the men, cleaning for the men, and laying down on the straw for the.08 seconds it took to satisfy a man too busy to enjoy what I've heard referred to as the external hard drive.
[00:10:55] The idea that anyone back then had time for recreational sex while I guess there were still one or two dinosaurs roaming the neighborhood seems preposterous.
[00:11:04] Who knew sex was fun before the 1960s?
[00:11:07] Oh, and it took. And did you know the band Steely Dan took its name from a strap on dildo and the William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch.
[00:11:15] Sorry for all these silly diversions, but once I get going on word origins, I'm apt to get off on tangents.
[00:11:22] And what story about dodos would be complete without a little getting off?
[00:11:31] Hi, I'm Chris and I've been thinking. I'm nostalgic for the days when you'd hear somebody say hey, do you think those are real?
[00:11:39] And you knew they were talking about the waitress sporty breasts and not the leader of the free world's latest stab at diplomacy.
[00:11:47] Let's go pens. Let's go.
[00:11:50] Let's go pens.
[00:11:52] I don't think they have it tonight. Cut to picture showing a table full of pens.
[00:11:58] Me juggling. Hear the juggle sounds?
[00:12:01] Beanbags.
[00:12:03] You should see me do it with cats.
[00:12:06] I'm referring to the beanbags. We can all agree the truth will set you free for sure. But there's something about telling a really elaborate whopper of a lie that makes it worth risking additional years on your prison sentence.
[00:12:17] It's got to be challenging selling bulletproof vests once you can say you've stopped a speeding bullet, what's left?
[00:12:23] Try our vests now with mosquito repellent.
[00:12:28] I'm Chris and I've been thinking it's a full time job.
[00:12:34] Hi, I'm Chris.
[00:12:42] That's all for today. Enjoy the Kentucky Derby and thanks for checking out the podcast.
[00:12:49] I'm on YouTube and a couple other places I've been thinking that's getting great reaction like share, subscribe and have a great weekend. Thanks.
