The Everlasting Phelps

“I don’t know why Congress thinks they can outsmart the banking industry.  Finance is their industry.  It’s obviously not yours — I’ve seen your budgets.”

Russ Martin, on the air.

Whadayadoin?

We need to have a talk.

I know that you are freaked out.  I don’t understand that, because this happens every damned year.

It’s real simple.  Most of the country handles this just fine.

First, turn on your lights.  Okay?  People are more likely to run into you if they don’t even know you are there because they can’t fucking see you.

Yes, I know that the almanac says that the sun is up.  Yes, I know that you can see well enough to make out the stripes on the road and that should be enough for anyone.  Turn them on anyways, okay?  You should really have them on any time you are driving.  You should especially have them on when it is overcast, sleeting and snowing.

Second, forget that you have a brake pedal when you are anywhere near a bridge.  I know that you are only hitting it a little.  See, the problem is, since you are an asshat to start with, there’s fifteen people stacked up behind you, and each one has to hit it a little harder.  Which means I’m having to slam on my breaks at the end of the line because you are a fucking dipshit with no spine.  Drive over the goddamned bridge.  It might have a little ice on it.  It doesn’t have lava on it.  It is very difficult for both to be on the bridge at the same time.  It’s an engineering nightmare.

Third, turn on your fucking lights.

Fourth, we need to talk about that stuff.  You know, the stuff that suddenly appears and causes you to carreen in random directions screaming like a three year old girl being chased by a clown whenever you see it?  Including around the passenger compartment of your car?  That stuff is not radioactive fallout.  It isn’t a secret government nano-car destroyer project gone haywire.  It’s snow.  Your car won’t explode if it hits it.  It doesn’t coat the road with teflon.  Unless you can actually see it once it hits the road, you don’t need to worry about it.  In fact, it is damned near impossible that enough of it will ever fall in Dallas that you need to worry about it, at least not in our lifetimes.    When you see this snow, the correct proceedure is to act like it is raining.  I swear.

Fifth, turn your fucking lights ON you fucking GOON.

Sixth, if your lights still aren’t on, pull over to the side of the road and shoot yourself in the head.  If you don’t have a gun, find a bunny board and beat yourself to death.

On a radio program that features:

• Two radio professionals
• A criminal defense lawyer
• A licensed realtor
• A psychologist
• An oncologist, and
• A urologist

The main subject of discourse so far this week? Using a dictaphone to record your farts.

I love this show.

If you are listening to the The Russ Martin Show and googled these phrases trying to figure out what is going on, here’s some pointers.

• Sorry Man (as Elvis): Bubba Ho-Tep
• Thank you, nice lady… nice ass.: Smokey and the Bandit
• The Oh No A Negro Song: The song Clansmen play when they need help
• I need unguent: Fargo
• “This is the worst day of my life”: The last thing you think when you fall out of plane without a parachute
• The closet at Dennys: One of the places Clo has woken up at after blacking out

If I think of more, I’ll list them.

Update:

• Pinball Machine: The Accused
• Cowpattie Daddy: Russ’ old CB Handle

“Clo, are you buying Jello from a colored man on the street?”

“Yes I am!”

Man. Clois is gone. I need to see Bourbon Street one day.

Amy: “Let me get this straight, you telling me to ‘spit on it’ is foreplay?”

Boy, Black Eddie on the Russ Martin Show has been hated on a couple of times by black women the last few days. First, there was a woman who was mad because Eddie says N all the time. I (and a few million of my closest friends) think it is hillarious, but she has a problem with it. She thinks that because Eddie makes fun of the word on the radio, that he is making black people look bad. I don’t agree. I think that you can use the word in jest, and take the sting out of it.

The word really can lose its power. When I was working at a black record label and hanging out with gangsta rappers, I still didn’t use it. I almost used it once, though. A bunch of us were hanging out talking about mamas, and it almost slipped out. At that point, my life was so saturated with the word, that it truley meant “person” to me. Eddie is reminding me that it doesn’t even mean that. It is an empty word. That is how it should be. (I only said half of it because I like my b-hole being poo sized, not Nike sided. I probably could have gotten away with one, being the beloved White Mike. If I made it a habit, I would have an ass whuppin coming.)

Today, though, it went too far. Just because Eddie pointed out that some of the people working in Michael Jackson’s house might have seen something but not said something just because MJ is a powerful person, she called him — well, she said “he would be one of those slaves who would run in and tattle on people, ‘massa, they doin this.’” That’s right, she called Eddie a House Nigger. Isn’t that a bitch? If you speak freely around white people, you are a minstrel clown according to the first woman. If you talk about how things really are between the powerful and the weak, you’re a house nigger according to the second.

And I’m telling you now, if you believe either one, you are a hater. I just don’t know why it is black women doing all the hating.