And What Did You Do During the Blizzard?
The following is a highly edited and annotated transcript of an IM session I enjoyed. If that’s not your thing, there’s nothing I can do about it. Fine. Reject my advances. I’m trying to let you into my life! But walk away.
Turn your chilly back on mine and my friend Gene’s remarks regarding the Lawrence Welk Show.
gene: I'm snowed in and watching The Lawrence Welk show.
me: on PBS?
gene: Yes, on WNET.
gene: No, WLIW.
me: I'm also also snowed in, and working on my blog.
me: Which channel?
gene: 21.
gene: I watch this show a lot. It's preposterous and makes me feel like I'm an old lady.
(A dancing couple takes the screen, sporting cater-waiterish tux getups and black derbies. They are dancing to a big-band instrumental of New York, New York.)
me: Oh my God.
me: New York, New York.
gene: It's been on TV for 50 years, this show.
gene: So you never know what era you're going to get when you turn it on.
gene: I love the fucked-up white-girl muzak versions of pop songs from the 80s they do occasionally.
gene: This episode’s 1980. See the Chorus Line influence?
me: Oh yes, very Fosse Lite.
gene: There is so much Chiffon and big hair on this show.
gene: I wish they played reruns of Solid Gold somewhere.
(The backdrop for this number is a line drawing of a kind of bastardized Times Square comprised mostly of tracks of small light bulbs)
me: Dig that forced-perspective set!
me: I wonder if you can get Solid Gold on DVD.
me: I love Larry's faux-hawk.
gene: I love this show. It's retarded.
(A strapping, heavily made-up, whitebread blond male, wearing a puffy hairdo and tacky three-piece suit, appears onscreen next. He sings “Mona Lisa.”)
me: This guy! He's a Sears suit ad come to life!
gene: See? And nobody will ever watch Lawrence Welk with me. Even the biggest fags who appreciate camp think this is horrible. Beyond camp.
me: That's quite a rock-block, New York, New York then Mona Lisa.
gene: Beloved American craptastic entertainment.
me: It's homegrown surrealism, is what it is.
gene: The pure products of America go crazy!
me: Larry was from North Dakota, right? Was the show broadcast from there?
gene: I have no clue.
gene: There's a North Dakota now?
(The Sears Ad Man, only Nowadays, i.e. not in 1980, but Now, about sixty years old and on a porch somewhere, appears in a “weren’t the good-old-days great” commentary segue bit. He’s Larry Welk’s successor for the re-runs, I guess?)
gene: This guy is a major cheesy egomaniac.
me: Holy shit, is that the same dude, only now?
gene: Yes.
me: Still heavy on the Great Lash, he is.
me: And light in his loafers.
(Nowadays Sears Ad Man rambles on about Great Music, and how his mother had a wonderful record collection.)
gene: He keeps talking about himself.
me: And his mom.
gene: Probably a heroin addict.
me: And has Crohn's.
me: what's this asshole's name?
gene: Dirk McBoring.
gene: This is on TV EVERY SATURDAY. For 50 years!
(Back in 1980, a lounge singer with a bad piece croons “My Way.”)
me: What, this is a Sinatra-themed show?
gene: It's supposed to be a “celebration of male singers,” and that always means Sinatra.
gene: I love this song, actually.
me: Oh me too.
gene: Regrets, I've had a few . . . . that gets stuck in my head always.
me: Do you like the Sex Pistols version?
gene: THERE'S A SEX PISTOLS VERSION????
me: Yes, and oddly, it's somehow cheesier and more dated than this dude is.
me: By the way-- this man's toupee is in 2 pieces, it looks like.
gene: It's a dead rat.
me: Perhaps it's only sleeping.
me: He'd better keep it quiet.
gene: LOL
(A new number, and a new set of performers; two matching dudes in matching tuxes and two semi-matching ladies in matching taffeta ballgowns.)
me: Now there's a wedding party singing.
me: They escaped from a Knights of Columbus hall.
gene: Oh, those women. I love them. I seem to be the only person our age who even knows this exists. Or cares.
me: Hang on a second, are those dudes twins? me: Does the alpha twin get the bigger hair?
gene: Just brothers, I think.
gene: I've seen them in a dude ranch-themed skit once.
gene: How did Lawrence Welk ever get this job???? He's awesome. OH.... candyman. I sang this as a solo onstage in my second grade play.
gene: Now what song is this?
me: May to December, I believe it's called.
me: Have you ever heard Marianne Faithfull's version of this one?
gene: NO.
me: I love Marianne. Even especially since her voice got "ruined."
(Note to readers: if anybody would like to buy me a recording of Marianne Faithfull doing Kurt Weill songs, I would like that.)
(During the next number, a female-choral bit, a fuzzy image of one chorine’s face is superimposed photographically onto the piano)
me: Hey, there's a lady trapped in that piano!
(Okay, so that wasn’t really worth the explanation, but I still think it’s funny.)
gene: Stepfords.
me: Where are those gals now?
genee: Doing this on cruise ships and family resorts.
me: Thank God for Branson!
(the next number is Hank Williams’s “Jambalaya” sung by a mincing male vocalist in pastel-colored western wear)
gene: This is the place where the heartland crosses paths with drag queens.
me: A holy alliance!!
me: This dude's pink kerchief signifies his country-music cred.
gene: Or his fetish for sucking assholes.
gene: I only know this song from Steel Magnolias, at the wedding party.
me: Really?
me: You New Yorkers.
gene: I don't know country at all.
gene: Loretta Lynn and Kenny Rodgers and that's it.
me: Well, you're halfway there.
gene: Well, Dolly too.
gene: Dolly goes everywhere.
me: Dolly transcends genre;
me: If a person doesn't know a good portion of the lyrics to 9 to 5, they aren't worth knowing.
gene: That’s right.
(The next performer is a luscious woman with enormous beauty-pageant hair, fuchsia lipstick, and a one-sleeved black flamenco dress printed with large hot pink roses. She has a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice.)
gene: She's so pretty.
me: She is!!!
gene: In the most fake way I've ever seen.
gene: But still pretty.
me: I swear to God somebody in Williamsburg is wearing that dress right now, with Ugg boots.
gene: You're right -- from a thrift store.
gene: It's so weird that these people can actually sing.
me: She gives good mic, kinda like Crystal Gayle.
(The singer switches from English to Spanish, mid mega-ballad!)
me: Ooh!!! Espanol!!
gene: Ohhh... that's so great.
me: Suddenly I just love her.
gene: The switch to spanish was so beautiful.
me: Truly!
gene: Plus a zylophone.
gene: I'm just cracking up uncontrollably right now.
me: I bet that now this lady lives in Del Rio and can occasionally be coaxed to sing at weddings when she’s had a few, and still looks and sings great.
gene: I've got the giggles hard.
(Another segue appearance by Nowadays Sears Ad Man)
me: LOOK AT HIM!!
gene: I can't.
me: Mock Turtlenecks; so aptly named.
(Nowadays Sears Ad Man regales us about “Katie,” the early-teenaged daughter of …somebody…for some reason. His kid maybe? Have any Welk-watchers evinced a curiosity about his offspring, I wonder? A photo of Katie—blond, brace-toothed, bedecked in butterfly-motif-ed clothing—graces the screen.)
me: Katie is the devil.
gene: It's like local news meets Branson.
(In 1980, Larry W. introduces an “Irish tenor,” a florid dude in a green tux. This tenor exhibits a facial morphology phenomenon that the great monologuist Suzanne O’Neill has described as “Irish Boiled Chicken Head.”)
Gene: I love you Larry!
me: uh oh
me: Irish kitsch.
gene: aw shit
me: This is why my gran enjoys this program.
me: I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS SONG.
gene: Me too.
gene: He's gonna have a big barrel-deep finish.
me: Oh I hope so!!
gene: tu ra lura laiiii….
me: The glockenspiel's a creepy touch.
gene: As it always is.
me: Or "glock," as they say in the biz.
me: He got his glock and he ready to roll!
me: Plus he's got hair like the Brown Cliffs of Dover.
gene: Brylcream.
me: Such a good product name…
me: ew look, it isn't even a real glockenspiel, it’s a man playing a synthesizer.
gene: I didn't expect him to go falsetto like that.
gene: I'm disappointed with him.
gene: I wanted deep power.
gene: Now his voice sounds like somebody playing a saw!
me: That's the thing with Irish tenors, dude, sometimes they go all fruity on you.
(A nifty red-tuxedoed bandleader leads a big red-tuxedoed band in a swinging rendition of “Mac the Knife.”
gene: Yay!
gene: Snap along!
me: OK!
gene: I guess the bandleader as celebrity got replaced by the dj.
gene: He looks a little like Joel Gray--
gene: just a little.
me: The oldest son of Joel Grey and Chief Dan George.
me: You'd look awesome in a red tux!
gene: I'd look like a Chinese waiter.
(The next performer is a tapdancing man, and the dialogue here is pretty self-explanatory I think.)
gene: See through shirt alert!
gene: Go cat go!
me: No, *you* are lighter on your feet all the time, announcer man.
me: Whoa, a pyramid of green-clad Mormons.
gene: Pistachio.
(Return of hated Nowadays S.A.D, who, after gazing wistfully at an American flag, starts declaiming…)
me: OH.NO.
me: Not a 9-11 reference!
gene: Jingoistic horror!
me: What is this a segue to? Why’s he going on and on about this?
gene: “as a vet and a xtian!”
me: AAAAAGH! “AS A CHRISTIAN???”
me: Larry never woulda editorialized so terribly. me: Gah, no, mister, please don’t tell us about your first trip down to ground zero.
me: What the hell business did he have down there?
gene: Giving blow jobs to rescue workers.
me: Heeheehee!
gene: Such a red state ending.
gene: Give me tiny bubbles!
me: “God bless you” indeed. May God forgive you for the speechifying and mock turtleneck, mister.
gene: And wasted existence!
(And on that note:)
**FIN**
Turn your chilly back on mine and my friend Gene’s remarks regarding the Lawrence Welk Show.
gene: I'm snowed in and watching The Lawrence Welk show.
me: on PBS?
gene: Yes, on WNET.
gene: No, WLIW.
me: I'm also also snowed in, and working on my blog.
me: Which channel?
gene: 21.
gene: I watch this show a lot. It's preposterous and makes me feel like I'm an old lady.
(A dancing couple takes the screen, sporting cater-waiterish tux getups and black derbies. They are dancing to a big-band instrumental of New York, New York.)
me: Oh my God.
me: New York, New York.
gene: It's been on TV for 50 years, this show.
gene: So you never know what era you're going to get when you turn it on.
gene: I love the fucked-up white-girl muzak versions of pop songs from the 80s they do occasionally.
gene: This episode’s 1980. See the Chorus Line influence?
me: Oh yes, very Fosse Lite.
gene: There is so much Chiffon and big hair on this show.
gene: I wish they played reruns of Solid Gold somewhere.
(The backdrop for this number is a line drawing of a kind of bastardized Times Square comprised mostly of tracks of small light bulbs)
me: Dig that forced-perspective set!
me: I wonder if you can get Solid Gold on DVD.
me: I love Larry's faux-hawk.
gene: I love this show. It's retarded.
(A strapping, heavily made-up, whitebread blond male, wearing a puffy hairdo and tacky three-piece suit, appears onscreen next. He sings “Mona Lisa.”)
me: This guy! He's a Sears suit ad come to life!
gene: See? And nobody will ever watch Lawrence Welk with me. Even the biggest fags who appreciate camp think this is horrible. Beyond camp.
me: That's quite a rock-block, New York, New York then Mona Lisa.
gene: Beloved American craptastic entertainment.
me: It's homegrown surrealism, is what it is.
gene: The pure products of America go crazy!
me: Larry was from North Dakota, right? Was the show broadcast from there?
gene: I have no clue.
gene: There's a North Dakota now?
(The Sears Ad Man, only Nowadays, i.e. not in 1980, but Now, about sixty years old and on a porch somewhere, appears in a “weren’t the good-old-days great” commentary segue bit. He’s Larry Welk’s successor for the re-runs, I guess?)
gene: This guy is a major cheesy egomaniac.
me: Holy shit, is that the same dude, only now?
gene: Yes.
me: Still heavy on the Great Lash, he is.
me: And light in his loafers.
(Nowadays Sears Ad Man rambles on about Great Music, and how his mother had a wonderful record collection.)
gene: He keeps talking about himself.
me: And his mom.
gene: Probably a heroin addict.
me: And has Crohn's.
me: what's this asshole's name?
gene: Dirk McBoring.
gene: This is on TV EVERY SATURDAY. For 50 years!
(Back in 1980, a lounge singer with a bad piece croons “My Way.”)
me: What, this is a Sinatra-themed show?
gene: It's supposed to be a “celebration of male singers,” and that always means Sinatra.
gene: I love this song, actually.
me: Oh me too.
gene: Regrets, I've had a few . . . . that gets stuck in my head always.
me: Do you like the Sex Pistols version?
gene: THERE'S A SEX PISTOLS VERSION????
me: Yes, and oddly, it's somehow cheesier and more dated than this dude is.
me: By the way-- this man's toupee is in 2 pieces, it looks like.
gene: It's a dead rat.
me: Perhaps it's only sleeping.
me: He'd better keep it quiet.
gene: LOL
(A new number, and a new set of performers; two matching dudes in matching tuxes and two semi-matching ladies in matching taffeta ballgowns.)
me: Now there's a wedding party singing.
me: They escaped from a Knights of Columbus hall.
gene: Oh, those women. I love them. I seem to be the only person our age who even knows this exists. Or cares.
me: Hang on a second, are those dudes twins? me: Does the alpha twin get the bigger hair?
gene: Just brothers, I think.
gene: I've seen them in a dude ranch-themed skit once.
gene: How did Lawrence Welk ever get this job???? He's awesome. OH.... candyman. I sang this as a solo onstage in my second grade play.
gene: Now what song is this?
me: May to December, I believe it's called.
me: Have you ever heard Marianne Faithfull's version of this one?
gene: NO.
me: I love Marianne. Even especially since her voice got "ruined."
(Note to readers: if anybody would like to buy me a recording of Marianne Faithfull doing Kurt Weill songs, I would like that.)
(During the next number, a female-choral bit, a fuzzy image of one chorine’s face is superimposed photographically onto the piano)
me: Hey, there's a lady trapped in that piano!
(Okay, so that wasn’t really worth the explanation, but I still think it’s funny.)
gene: Stepfords.
me: Where are those gals now?
genee: Doing this on cruise ships and family resorts.
me: Thank God for Branson!
(the next number is Hank Williams’s “Jambalaya” sung by a mincing male vocalist in pastel-colored western wear)
gene: This is the place where the heartland crosses paths with drag queens.
me: A holy alliance!!
me: This dude's pink kerchief signifies his country-music cred.
gene: Or his fetish for sucking assholes.
gene: I only know this song from Steel Magnolias, at the wedding party.
me: Really?
me: You New Yorkers.
gene: I don't know country at all.
gene: Loretta Lynn and Kenny Rodgers and that's it.
me: Well, you're halfway there.
gene: Well, Dolly too.
gene: Dolly goes everywhere.
me: Dolly transcends genre;
me: If a person doesn't know a good portion of the lyrics to 9 to 5, they aren't worth knowing.
gene: That’s right.
(The next performer is a luscious woman with enormous beauty-pageant hair, fuchsia lipstick, and a one-sleeved black flamenco dress printed with large hot pink roses. She has a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice.)
gene: She's so pretty.
me: She is!!!
gene: In the most fake way I've ever seen.
gene: But still pretty.
me: I swear to God somebody in Williamsburg is wearing that dress right now, with Ugg boots.
gene: You're right -- from a thrift store.
gene: It's so weird that these people can actually sing.
me: She gives good mic, kinda like Crystal Gayle.
(The singer switches from English to Spanish, mid mega-ballad!)
me: Ooh!!! Espanol!!
gene: Ohhh... that's so great.
me: Suddenly I just love her.
gene: The switch to spanish was so beautiful.
me: Truly!
gene: Plus a zylophone.
gene: I'm just cracking up uncontrollably right now.
me: I bet that now this lady lives in Del Rio and can occasionally be coaxed to sing at weddings when she’s had a few, and still looks and sings great.
gene: I've got the giggles hard.
(Another segue appearance by Nowadays Sears Ad Man)
me: LOOK AT HIM!!
gene: I can't.
me: Mock Turtlenecks; so aptly named.
(Nowadays Sears Ad Man regales us about “Katie,” the early-teenaged daughter of …somebody…for some reason. His kid maybe? Have any Welk-watchers evinced a curiosity about his offspring, I wonder? A photo of Katie—blond, brace-toothed, bedecked in butterfly-motif-ed clothing—graces the screen.)
me: Katie is the devil.
gene: It's like local news meets Branson.
(In 1980, Larry W. introduces an “Irish tenor,” a florid dude in a green tux. This tenor exhibits a facial morphology phenomenon that the great monologuist Suzanne O’Neill has described as “Irish Boiled Chicken Head.”)
Gene: I love you Larry!
me: uh oh
me: Irish kitsch.
gene: aw shit
me: This is why my gran enjoys this program.
me: I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS SONG.
gene: Me too.
gene: He's gonna have a big barrel-deep finish.
me: Oh I hope so!!
gene: tu ra lura laiiii….
me: The glockenspiel's a creepy touch.
gene: As it always is.
me: Or "glock," as they say in the biz.
me: He got his glock and he ready to roll!
me: Plus he's got hair like the Brown Cliffs of Dover.
gene: Brylcream.
me: Such a good product name…
me: ew look, it isn't even a real glockenspiel, it’s a man playing a synthesizer.
gene: I didn't expect him to go falsetto like that.
gene: I'm disappointed with him.
gene: I wanted deep power.
gene: Now his voice sounds like somebody playing a saw!
me: That's the thing with Irish tenors, dude, sometimes they go all fruity on you.
(A nifty red-tuxedoed bandleader leads a big red-tuxedoed band in a swinging rendition of “Mac the Knife.”
gene: Yay!
gene: Snap along!
me: OK!
gene: I guess the bandleader as celebrity got replaced by the dj.
gene: He looks a little like Joel Gray--
gene: just a little.
me: The oldest son of Joel Grey and Chief Dan George.
me: You'd look awesome in a red tux!
gene: I'd look like a Chinese waiter.
(The next performer is a tapdancing man, and the dialogue here is pretty self-explanatory I think.)
gene: See through shirt alert!
gene: Go cat go!
me: No, *you* are lighter on your feet all the time, announcer man.
me: Whoa, a pyramid of green-clad Mormons.
gene: Pistachio.
(Return of hated Nowadays S.A.D, who, after gazing wistfully at an American flag, starts declaiming…)
me: OH.NO.
me: Not a 9-11 reference!
gene: Jingoistic horror!
me: What is this a segue to? Why’s he going on and on about this?
gene: “as a vet and a xtian!”
me: AAAAAGH! “AS A CHRISTIAN???”
me: Larry never woulda editorialized so terribly. me: Gah, no, mister, please don’t tell us about your first trip down to ground zero.
me: What the hell business did he have down there?
gene: Giving blow jobs to rescue workers.
me: Heeheehee!
gene: Such a red state ending.
gene: Give me tiny bubbles!
me: “God bless you” indeed. May God forgive you for the speechifying and mock turtleneck, mister.
gene: And wasted existence!
(And on that note:)
**FIN**
posted by sarahfisch at
4:00 PM
3 Comments:
I couldn't tell you exactly why I loved all of that, but I did. It was so much better than if I had to actually watch that crazy show myself.
My grandparents used to force us all to watch the show.
Now my parent force us all to watch the show. They truly enjoy it - and not for camp value.
My favorite was always the one couple who dances, and also that pretty lady who sings in spanish and english - so culturally diverse, that Lawrence Welk.
I always did enjoy the bubbles though.
Girl, we're the Beavis & Butt-head of Saturday afternoon television.
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