Chamblee54

PG has been reading Even Cowgirls Get The Blues , and needs to return it to the Chamblee library today. However much he enjoys the tail tale of the cowpokettes, it is not worth an overdue fee. Add to this a book, unopened, about the tales behind popular rock songs, and you have a double delinquent charge, which the owner of this non revenue producing blog can ill afford.
This is the second time around the block for the tale of Sissy Hankshaw Gitche. The first time was in 1978, a couple of years after publication. The action of the story takes place in 1974, more or less. As the newsman on the peppermint colored portable radio said, the world situation is d******e as u***l. Today, this is as true as ever before, and the radio station does not play a polka tune to follow.
In 1974, Richard Nixon was on his way out, OPEC was in control of the world’s oil, and economic disaster seemed to be just around the corner. Mr. Gitch looks forward to the 1976, and the election of a liberal democrat to put things back in order. While few non republicans would call Jimmy Carter a liberal ( even then, the squabbling twin sisters, liberal and conservative, were spending way too much time with each other)…, smiling Jimmy, despite the best of intentions, and the lust in his heart, did not make everything ok.
One of the things that was a fevered vision in 1974 was amazon . A computerized book seller, with a cash register in every back pocket telephone, was just too fantastic for those more innocent times. It was just five years after man walked on the moon! Back to amazon, they have a web page dedicated to sales of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues . See, if you don’t believe me, just double click on the link. It will open in a separate tab, and you can go back to reading the aromatic tale of the “Rubber Rose” ranch.
If you look down the page of the Amazon thingie, you will see two lists of “key phrases”. Now, the key is a decidedly masculine device, and ECGTB is, at the core, a book about the historic role of females, i.e. running the whole doggone show. Of course, the key needs a lock to do it’s chore of controlling access, to whatever is behind the door. There is all of three part religion ( father son holy doober, yin yang tao, curly larry moe) in a form that we can all understand…key, lock, door. And you wonder why people some worship doorknobs.
When PG was a kid, there were relatives of in laws who wanted to word to use as an insult. The only trouble was, this word could not be profane, referring to either body parts, body functions, or deities. The word that these people chose as an insult was “dirty doorknob”. Somehow, that just doesn’t have the same punch as calling someone a body part.

Ok, back to the key phrases. ( If this sort of verbal derring do is confusing, unenjoyable, or makes you wonder who is winning the world cup, then maybe ECGTB is not the book for you. The author, Tom Robbins, goes off on all sorts of tangents and wordplay. When paddling upriver, his canoe never met a tributary he didn’t want to explore. To people like PG, this is great fun. However, there is always the first sentence, of the first comment on the Amazon page…”This book is not for everyone.) There are two types of key phrases listed here…Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs) and Capitalized Phrases (CAPs).
As per the help page on CAPs : “Capitalized Phrases, or “CAPs”, are people, places, events, or important topics mentioned frequently in a book. Along with our Statistically Improbable Phrases, Capitalized Phrases give you a quick glimpse into a book’s contents. Click on a Capitalized Phrase to view a list of books in which the phrase occurs. You can also view a list of references to the Capitalized Phrase in each book.”
The first CAP listed is “Rubber Rose”. We are going to ponder this phrase, end this post, and eat lunch. PG walked to the hong kong supermarket the other night, and bought a bag of dried beans. After the requisite soaking, the beans were cooked for a half hour on a gas stove. After lunch, it is time to walk to the library and return the books. You need not worry about the inevitable by product of the beans, unless you are behind PG when he gets to the library.
If you click on “Rubber Rose”, you get a list of books that use that phrase. The first is ECGTB, and the second is a book about Tom Robbins. The third is a book about movies, possibly referring to the movie version of ECGTB, which is reputed to be unwatchable. The fourth book to use the phrase “Rubber Rose” is Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides (Left Behind No. 4). On page 379, the RR word is used.
The simple unadulterated truth is the a “Rubber Rose” is a douchebag (spell check suggestion:debauchery ). One of the key characters in ECGTB sells female hygiene products, and the RR is a key player in his band. To use baseball language, in the batting order (odor) of the Countess, the “Rubber Rose” is the fourth batter, the clean up hitter.
One of the more curious developments of the last 32 years is the use of the word douche as an insult. Yes, it packs more of a punch than dirty doorknob, but why is a hygiene appliance considered a dirty word? Could it be the use of this device with two body parts, connected by the taint?
Ah the taint. The first chakra (spell check suggestion:chakra ), the bottom of the torso, the spot between the devices nature intended for elimination and reproduction, shipping and receiving, helter and skelter. Why, the taint was recently in the news. As worldclassstupid (spell check suggestion: upperclasswoman ) tells the tale: “An ad on TV just promoted tonight’s news with the line, “At this year’s G20 summit, rioting taints talk.” I’m gonna make sure to watch it. I didn’t even know taints were there.”
Pictures for today’s entertainment are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” . The bug eyed copyright mongers at Random House have not replied to a request for permission, hence there are no quotes from ECGTB.