Apple π

Paul Brömmer and Elliot Hunker

Key: plain text = The Deputy; italics = Captain Jitterbug

    Welcome to Apple π, the irreverent satire of the entirety of society.  My name is The Deputy and with me, as always, is my esteemed associate, Captain Jitterbug himself.  Greetings and salutations to all you kids out there in radio land.  CJ, there's no one out there in "radio land", as you so anachronistically put it.  This is a typed article for the school newspaper.  People are going to read it - not hear it.  So please try to keep in mind that no one will get your sound effect jokes, and keep your language smooth and appropriate.  Well if that isn't a damper on my day, you moon-faced assassin of joy.  Silly me, wasn’t it just this morning your mother was saying you have the perfect looks for radio?  Ha, how clever.  I'd forgotten how witty you could be when you steal lines from Bazooka Joe and co.  Yeah, but this article is about much more than you and I ranting back and forth about nothing - it's about us ranting back and forth about history!  What joy for you platonically beloved reader, another redundant no-answer opinion column with a new, however uninteresting twist.  In this instance, the Battle of Hastings.  Did it really happen?  Or is this just another French conspiracy to skew our outlook of Medieval Europe? 

    This is the best topic you could come up with?  I gave you three months advance notice that you'd have to brainstorm something for this - and you give me, "did it happen?"  Yep.  Well, given that our deadline is creeping up on us like a felonious banderstatch, we'll have to go with it.  Please, do begin the parlay.  Well, for starters, what proof can you give me, that definitively proves that this battle did in fact occur?  There's the Bayeaux Tapestry for instance, which definitively proves  that this battle did indeed occur.  Tapestry?  A captain of early twentieth-century dance, and the best you can give is a tapestry?  All right Gamma Wittingsfield knit, away your defense.  There's also the undeniable linguistic evidence of the Norman French influence on the English language.  Why do you think we spell island with a superfluous "s"?  For looks?  The American culture is becoming ever more aesthetically obsessed.  Judging from you, I wouldn't have guessed.  But besides the tapestry and mutilation of language, there’s the overwhelming lack of reason to question it happening.  Lack of reason!  Lack of reason?  Nostradamus.  Now there's a reason.  <Captain Jitterbug drops his jaw and stares befuddled into the ignorant eyes of The Deputy attempting to speak, but in the end remains silent> See?  Can't deny the Nos. connection.  I didn't say anything, TD, because I had no way of responding to that nonsensical buffoonery. How about just saying, "The Battle of Hastings never happened.  My name is Captain Jitterbug and I'm a big moron for ever disagreeing with the fancy-pants Deputy."  I cannot even believe you said that.  Your arrogance is deplorable.  And furthermore, is “fancy-pants”(a) a word or (b) a compliment?  I don’t know, and in Manitoba, yes. 

    I’ll rest my prosecution on this point: The French are famed worldwide for their history-changing schemes.  It would be to our advantage to stop this historical gerrymandering and put them behind bars.  What does any of this have to do with congressional redistricting?  Secondly, how do you propose we put the entire French population behind bars?  With a little help from the man upstairs – that’s right, the elevator operator.  <Captain Jitterbug proceeds to fall out of his seat and spasms in disbelief. >  Well on behalf of the Cap’n, I’m The Deputy, and that’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.  <From floor CJ responds: > Oh wonders, a noncommittal ending devoid of any ideas or substance.

Apple π

We really don't feel like doing this again

by: Paul Brömmer and Elliot Hunker

Key: plain text = The Deputy; italics = Captain Jitterbug

Come on Deputy, we've got a column to produce!  All right, all right, I'm well aware of the public's insatiable need for Apple π.  Yes, I do imagine the people want their apple π, both literally and again literally.  Fair enough, what's the topic of the day?  All right, let me rattle off some ideas for you: Bigfoot and the Yeti: are they related?  Chile an equatorial country:  hot-hot and spicy-hot?  The letter "c", does it have a reason to live? Take your pick Deputy.  Well you know I've always been partial to debating the family trees of mythical ape-men, but I just find it hard to muster up the type of chutzpah that would be requisite to an intelligent essay such as this.  Well could you muster up the chutzpah for a stupid one instead?  It's not like the standards are particularly high.  Well Captain, seeing as how we're already halfway through the school year and the Deputy having never been known to put an extravagant amount of effort into anything (including his own wedding to Michael Jackson's missing nose - another column in itself) I just don't want to put the energy into writing anything.  You said the same thing yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that was the day I dropped a cinder block on your head and I couldn't really understand you anyway.  Are you going for some sort of apathy record? 

Well CJ it's hard to explain.  It just seems that ever since my final year of high school has begun, I've been finding it increasingly difficult to find any sort motivation whatsoever.  And this doesn't just relate to school.  In fact over Christmas break, there was a five-day period where I didn't eat because I "finally found the perfect hammock position."  You didn't eat for five days?  Miraculous how unnoticeable it is.  Yes, but all cheap shots aside, I really have been willing to trade survival for comfort.  It's almost frightening.  What do you think is happening to me?  Probably just the natural extension of your way of life for the past seventeen years?  You, Deputy, have set records for sitting in one place.  My mom made me cut my toenails.  How else was I supposed to get into Guinness.  Accomplishing something?  Ah yes, the matter at hand.  Accomplishing something… That is the question.  You spent three dots coming up with that – a cheap overrated one-liner from Hamlet?!  Et tu Brute?  Yes, me too (ooh, surreptitious exposition).  I try to keep most of my seemingly inutile (You could have just said worthless, besides, erudite verbosity it my province.  There you go again, usurping.  Well Captain J-Bug, go right ahead usurp it all up [though my mother always told me to never usurp <I don’t think The Deputy knows what that means> my soup!!   If I were truly usurping, I would counter with a malapropism ridden run-on sentence that was equivalent to a scale model of Les Miserables in length, but since I’m not, I will end this sentence and tangent here and now wit - A RUSSIAN CIRCUS BEAR NAMED VLADIMIR BORRISTILTZKIN DANCING TO THE OBNOXIOUSLY CATCHY THEME SONG FROM ABC’s HIT 1980’S FAMILY SIT-COM, “GROWING PAINS”?!  No. comments as flamboyant as possible.

So your essential point is that you are willing to put effort into appearing flamboyant, but you won’t put effort into actually doing anything productive?  Well C.J., think about it.  Couldn’t worse things happen to the world than me not filling my potential?  Yeah, but…uh…you should still do your work.  <Captain Jitterbug’s face contorts into a quizzical grimace> And I would do that why?  Uh, parentally induced guilt?  Now what have fake chocolate coins got to do with anything?  <Captain Jitterbug presses his chin into his chest and stares at The Deputy in incredulity with his eyebrows raised like those of a Barn Owl>  Honestly, why do I continue in my attempts to motivate you?  Maybe it was dictated by that court order?  You promised you wouldn't mention that!  I still get hate mail from those raccoons.  And the point remains, you are impossibly lazy and you need to get a haircut!  But I just like bangs. 

I guess that wraps up this edition of Apple π.  <The Deputy coughs and nudges Captain Jitterbug>  Ah, yes.  As he has requested, The Deputy will conclude the column, somewhat to my chagrin, with a summersault out of the room…and there he goes.