[Greg Anos]

CONCORDANCE


Post 1

Mrs. Slocum - Mature lady in the BBC show Are You Being Served? Known in the show for always talking about her cat at home in a less-than-genteel manner.

Silencered .22 - According to Raymond Chandler, the use of a large caliber handgun was the mark of an incompetent pistol shooter. While the author disagrees, he decided to maintain the Chandler tradition.

.22 BB Cap - A specialized .22 round, designed for extremely short ranged target shooting. It consist of a single BB, held in place by a crimped cartridge end, without a powder charge. The charge is only the .22 primer in the rim.

Pearl beer - Known to be the cheapest, vilest beer in South Texas. Drinking it was considered a clear sign or either lack of money, lack of taste, or a lack of brains.

Ralph von Wau Wau - A German Sheperd dog who had been surgically enhanced to have an I.Q. of 180 and the ability to talk. Created fictionally by Philip Jose Farmer in his parody of Kurt Vonnegut's writing in the book Venus On The Half-Shell, which was ascribed to Kilgore Trout. For more history about Ralph von Wau Wau, please see Doc Savage, His Apocalyptic Life, Addendum 1.

The Bird - Not the Jazz musician. A fictionalization (by various authors) of Harlan Ellison's derisive psuedonym, Cordwainer Bird, which he used when he feels his scripts have been modified without authorization. See also notes on Ralph von Wau Wau.

Big Ear - Generic term for a parabolic microphone. Used to listen to conversations at a distance.

Wadcutters - Square-edged bullets, designed to create the most damage in a soft target. The author does not believe that .22's have ever been loaded with wadcutters.


Post 2

What cooks? - A friendly greeting.

Hey, I can take 'em off, but I can't put them back on. - Pointing out that once a dog has been neutered, he can't be unneutered.

The Golden Coprolite - Totally ficticious. I invented it as a prop for the story. DixieGal had been talking about fossil dinosaur coprolite. As an exercise, I tried to make as many alliterative psuedonyms for the Golden Coprolite as I could, while staying within the realm of good taste. Well, acceptable taste. Ok, non-censored taste. No taste at all?


Post 3

The Mudhen - A group of 3 juvenile book centering around a lazy student at a boarding prep school in the 1930's. Cheese was his main antagonist.

Redneck - Derisive term for blue collar outside worker in the Southern US. Rednecks, of course, have developed pride in the term and sneer that the groups that gave it to them.

Only when he's happy. - A line used to describe Trapper John Mcintyre in the book M*A*S*H.

Good money in the deal, Angel. - A slight modification of a line out of the movie, The Maltese Falcon.

Remind me to give you a fire hydrant for your birthday. - A rather biting comment, it you remember the linkage between dogs and fire hydrants.

Mannie the Pigfarmer - Pinwheel is a ficticious Kingdom. Since the person using the Zelda Pinwheel avatar lives in Paris, France. I needed a place in France for a Kingdom. Luckily, an American fantasy writer had run into the same problem a century ago, and had created Poictesme as his fictional place in France. It was used in an 18 volume series, known as The biography of Manuel, the story of Manuel the Swineherd, who becomes Manuel the Redeemer, who will return someday to save Poictesme. I merely raised it from a County to a Kingdom, as a fit place for the elegant Queen Zelda to reign. But I did not forget my predecesser, but mentioned (in translation) it's origin.

eyeshade-wearin' - an Americanism for a cost accountant.

could carve up any 10 French bladesmen - From the obscure who-done-it Have Trenchcoat - Will Travel by E.E. Smith PHD, which was not published until 2001. It does not follow the rules of who-done-its very well, but it's still a rattling good read. It means the character is a superb knife fighter. The avatar used always protrays some shot of Xena, Princess Warrior, who had a more that casual familiarity with various sorts of knives...


Post 4

at the Winter Carnival - Also from the book M*A*S*H.

blend in smoother that a deer with it's tail down. - Deer are very well camoflagued. The flash their white tail patch as a distraction when they start to run for cover.

Silverfish Inn - One of the posters of MobileRead had been stuck in a cheap hotel with silverfish munching on the wallpaper. Hence the Silverfish Inn.

McFarlin Diamond (54 carats, canary yellow) - Real diamond, real theft, and real result. From the Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas in 1967. At the time, the largest canary yellow diamond in the world.

Bonzo's Backfire - Fictious bar - Bonzo from Bedtime for Bonzo, starring Ronald Reagan, and Backfire from ... well ... flatulence.

It was a high class place, no chicken wire anywhere. - In the mid 20th century, a rural bar would have a cheap band for dance music. the clientele was usually drunk and rowdy (or violently obnoxious), and would tend to throw beer bottles at the band for any playing oversight. To protect the band, they were put behind a heavy steel mesh screen, known locally as "chicken wire". A high class bar of the times did not have such a protection, and used paid bouncers to eject troublesome patrons.

Robert Earl Kean's Merry Christmas from the Family. - Robert Earl Kean is a only modestly successful South Texas singer songwriter, whose songs are very local to the region. If you want to get a feel for life in South Texas, listen to some of his music. Merry Christmas from the Family is absolutely real, and ridiculously funny, at the same time. It starts - Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk, there at the Christmas Party... A good CD to start with would be No. 2 Dinner - Live.


Post 5

It's as good as you get in Chicago. - Chicago is known for it corrupt politicians for over 50 years, and before that, gangsters. Many, many times charges were dropped due to intimidated witnesses. Hence, no convictions, despite many arrests. As Sean Connery said in The Untouchables , "that's the Chicago way."

calaboose - Western slang for jail.

Monsieur Claude Vutton - If this story was going to carry baggage, it might as well do it first class....

Bozo - From the character Bozo the Clown - slang for a oaf or a jerk.

Poo-Bah - From the play The Mikado - Lord High Everything Else. the play is still a hoot, even after 120 years.

Foggy Bottom - Wall Street Journal term for the US State Department, which handles all diplomats.

St. Helena - A volcanic island in the middle of the South Atlantic, rarely visited. it's consider to be about as remote as you can get.


Post 6

get back to our rat killin' - A south Texas slang for "to return to the matter at hand."

shoe leather afterburner - An RSE original phrase, meaning to give a kick to a backside, usually as an editorial comment.

Diplomatic Passport - The rules of diplomacy are funny. A diplomat on foreign soil is not subject to the laws of the country he's in. Just the ones he from. So if he runs over a kid in a foreign country, he's not subject to arrest in that country. Only back home, if back home want to prosecute. This can lead to some really annoyed countries.

Diplomatic Pouch - In order to pass information, and sometimes booze, to diplomatic in foreign countries, there is a long standing convention that bags with diplomatic materials are allowed unopened transit between the home country and the field and vice versa. it's self policing, becaues if you open somebody's elses bag, they'll open yours.

Back when Dudley was doing the job - Dudley is the character Cary Grant played in the movie The Bishop's Wife. See the movie to get the joke...

the football - In the US, where ever the president goes, there is an officer carrying the communication equipment and nuclear codes for the US nuclear deterrent. It has been christened "the football" over the years.

chocolate football trophy - The Scotsman's avatar alway's mentions chocolate, and since the key to get the Golden Coprolite was with "the football", putting the Coprolite in a "football" trophy was a rude gesture at the security of the Kingdom...