So in these last few shows, I've pulled out a lot of "unfinished" pieces -- things we recorded or started recording but either didn't finish or get to use. You've been exposed to some of them now: The Militant Grammarian, Male Privilege, and the forgettable Little Spuddy piece.
Little Spuddy is nothing more than Idaho's anthropomorphised potato mascot, Spuddy Buddy. There was some trade mission to Mexico a few years ago that included Butch Otter, Larry Craig, and some other of our fine dignitaries, as well as some guy in a Spuddy Buddy costume. Apparently he was stopped at the Mexican border and not allowed to enter Mexico. Oh, the outrage that ensued. [good photos here] Here's a typically Idahoan and rather racist press release from the Idaho Potato Commission itself. Our Little Spuddy piece was completely unscripted and improvised, but based on these events. There was also the gawdawful National Potato Board song we were going to spoof, but didn't record that. At the time, the Mr Potato Head people had not gotten involved but have since adopted it as their own.
The Militant Grammarian was the first in what would be a series on Linguistic Imperialism. There are mistakes made all the time with idiomatic expressions (not to mention individual words), and this is the nature of language in its spoken manifestation. But we wanted to get at some tangential things going on in speaker's heads that influence the outcome of their utterances. In the Militant Grammarian that got produced, we didn't dig too deep, but managed to make a relaxed connection between black English and cultural appropriation by using the example "jibe with it" or "it doesn't jibe." Originally a sailing term, it got into vernacular use when people wanted to say "something's not quite right" ("that doesn't jibe"). Only recently, we keep hearing people say "that doesn't jive" -- and that, if you take it literally, means something totally different. Think jive turkey or jive talking.
Anyway, listen to the piece for the whole story. You can download shows 55 and on from our Show Guide page or podcast 'em.
