Archive for the 'Oklahoma' Category

Heeeeeeeere's Zazzie!

Published on August 13, 2006 in 1996 and Oklahoma. 7 Comments

Enterprise Square, USA, on the campus of the Oklahoma Christian Bible College, is a Disney-esque (that’s being charitable) theme park dedicated to the glorification of free enterprise and the excoriation of government control. Visiting this spawn of big business and the religious right, built in 1982 and apparently not remodeled since then, was like taking a time machine back to our childhoods under Reagan’s first term: that sunny, unapologetic Cold War jingoism, that pre-Japan confidence in the American Way, and all the high-tech wizardry that 1982 had to offer. Audio cassettes! Games with paddles instead of joysticks! Beta!

Resistance is futile: Derek and Pete embrace capitalism?Our little tour group was greeted in the lobby by a videotape of Bob Hope. Bob, who apparently owed some of his chums in the military-industrial complex a favor, started to read some platitudes about Enterprise Square off his cue cards, when suddenly he was interrupted by a “news flash” from that well known journalist, Ed McMahon.

Had Bob won the Publishers’ Clearing House Sweepstakes? Was he a contestant on Star Search? No! Aliens from the planet “Flabjab” had crash-landed right on the campus of the Oklahoma Christian Bible College! And before Ed could say “heeeeere’s Zazzie!” the aliens themselves–Bubbin, Zazzie, and their long-suffering robot yes-man, Quonk–came down through the ceiling.

Here the plot took a bizarre postmodern turn. It seems our aliens–in truth they looked more like low-rent Muppets–needed replacement parts for the spaceship they’d just totalled. But how to pay for them? Nobody on this planet would accept their “Flabjabbian Blaffle” as legal currency, and the aliens, who obviously come from some weird Muppet culture with high taxes, gun control, and socialized medicince, didn’t have a clue about how to make any Earth dough. “I know!” said our teenage tour guide, the poor dumb “Worth the Wait”-pledging bastard gamely playing out the same script he’s probably done a thousand times. “Why don’t you, uh, Flabjabbians join our tour group, learn the wonders of capitalism, get respectable jobs, and save up enough Blaffle to get home?” And here I was thinking they’d just enslave our race by laying eggs in our brains. But the capitalism thing works, too.

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Breakfast in America

Published on August 11, 2006 in 1996, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin. Closed

When I was young it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle...It’s not just the title of a Supertramp album, it’s a way of life. While New Yorkers and Californians pick away at their sissy little yuppie breakfasts of yogurt and double lattes, in the heartland a nation of truckers and farmers and people with two first names is mowing down acres of hash browns and home fries and mountains of omelettes and griddle cakes and rivers of bottomless coffee. As you ponder the question, “Is it really a good thing to get steak and eggs for less than $2?” here are some side orders from the great pancake houses and truck stops of Cholesterol Nation.

Conway, AR: Paula, Paula, Paula. We had a lot of great waitresses on the trip, but your first love is always special, and Paula was one waffle jockey who could bring home the bacon and fry it in a pan. We weren’t the only ones who liked the sling of her skillet, neither. The truck driver a couple of stools down from us actually used such pickup beauties as “Are your eyes botherin’ you, Paula?” “No.” “Well, they’re drivin’ me crazy!” And later, studying the menu intently, “Paula, you know what I need?” “What’s that?” “Your phone number and three hours of your spare time. At least.”

Oklahoma City, OK: Our Waffle House waitress April Mae (get it?) was no Paula, but she did play the Waffle House theme song repeatedly on the jukebox, and sang along every time. (You probably didn’t know the Waffle House had a theme song–several songs actually. Or a jukebox.) Eating here felt like being in the opening credits of a Nashville Network sitcom.

Brownfield, TX: The truck stop here had the can’t refuse slogan: “Eat here even if it kills you–we need the business.” The food wasn’t really lethal, although the plates and mugs might have been: they were as chipped and ancient as Olduvai stone tools. Brown Town was another good place for downhome waitress-customer repartee. “Well, well, well,” said our waitress when a trio of rangy-looking cowboys (not us) sauntered in off the playa. “That’s an awful deep subject,” said one of the cowboys without even breaking stride.

Madison, WI: Derek had never been to the International House of Pancakes, and we all enjoyed saying “IHOP” (“IHOP. IHOP. IHOP.”–yep, still fun), so we’d kept a lookout for one from the start of the trip. Finally, on our second-to-last day, we found one. What exactly makes the IHOP–in some ways the most quintessentially American of restaurants–”international”? Is it like the United Nations? Do they have summits there? Do the employees have diplomatic immunity? Could we claim asylum? The bored-looking janitor we pestered with these questions didn’t have any answers for us. You have to be discreet to work in diplomatic circles.

Oklahoma: The Git N' Go State

Published on August 11, 2006 in 1996 and Oklahoma. Closed

“No beer is needed here!”
–anyone remember what this is from? anyone?

Thirty beers (or “thirty beer,” as we say in Canada) for under thirteen dollars (or “thirteen dollar,” as we say in movies about the Vietnam war) is pretty astounding to us Canadian boys, but better yet is the fact that you can buy said beer at an Oklahoma gas station called “The Git N’ Go.” Give me a yee, give me a haw. That was about an hour’s worth of driving humor for us right there.

You-Had-To-Be-There Moment #23

Oklahoma City is, like the song says, oh so pretty. We hit the Motel 6, and were offered a great deal on hot jewelry by a dissheveled lady living out of her car in the parking lot. Her sales pitch was great (one diamond engagement ring for thirty beer), but her demographic targeting left a little to be desired. Once in the motel, we set about drinking that beer, and got out Derek’s guitar to write some musical accompaniment to our adventures so far. This got stupid even faster than you might imagine, particularly because Derek’s muse (or the heat) required him to wear only his paisley undies.