Tags
Adam & Eve, American Samoa, Caribbean, Delaware, Hawaii, Ibiza, Lawrence Welk, North Dakota, Pierre, Smaktakula's decades-old vendetta against the French, South Dakota, Travels With Tardsie
By Smaktakula
From His Wind-Whipped Prairie Exile, Tardsie Writes: "People Ask Me All The Time If This Job Gets To Me. Hell--You Can See I'm More Clip Than Zipper These Days; I Lost Track A Long Time Ago Of How Many Nights I Cry Myself To Sleep. But Would I Quit? No Way--I Love It Too Much."
We didn’t create Promethean Times so that we could do things the easy way. We believe first and foremost in solid reporting and fierce investigative journalism. It’s no great feat to cover the news in exotic locales like Hawaii, the Caribbean or Ibiza. But when a story reveals itself in a blighted, lifeless place where no reasonable person would want to go, the real journalists rise to the challenge.
Promethean Times’ Editor-in-Chief, Tardsie D. Bagg has been sent on assignment to the Dakotas. In such circumstances, it can be easy to exaggerate the inconvenience or degree of difficulty. However, we feel entirely justified in comparing Tardsie’s departure from our cozy coastal environs for the endless expanses of this half-frozen horizontal First Circle of Hell to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden.
He left this:
But Where You Live Is Pretty Cool, Too.
For this:
The Death-Knell Of A Cherished Way Of Life Will Be Sounded Sometime In 2015-2016, When Indoor Plumbing Finally Comes To The Dakotas.
You’re welcome.
As the Dakotas are, after Delaware and American Samoa, indisputably the nation’s most forgettable territorial possessions, readers might wonder just what’s happening on the prairie that could command the attention of a busy A-Lister like Tardsie. Instead, we ask you, what ISN’T happening in the Dakotas? We can’t tell you everything, but here’s a little bit of what our very special Special Olympian is up to in the land that time forgot.
- Investigating potential truths in the oft-repeated anecdotes about travelling salesmen and the nubile daughters of local farmers.
- Demanding to know why the Dakota Contraction has yet to be implemented.
- Petitioning the South Dakota legislature to have Teddy Roosevelt dynamited from Mt. Rushmore. Not in our America, Teddy.
- Party like ’tis 1899.
- Honoring the residents of Pierre (pronounced ‘peer’), South Dakota for their indefatigable efforts to mangle French pronunciation.
- Cow Tipping! Cow Tipping! Cow Tipping!
- Preparing the upcoming feature: How much tribal land can you get for $7.55 worth of beads and half a bottle of Old Granddad?
This Is What Passes For News Here In Terra Lame-O. Makes You Want To Give 'Em Something To Talk About, Doesn't It?
Promethean Times 
I drove through South Dakota a couple years back, and we stayed overnight in Rapid City which is in the same area as Mt. Rushmore. We walked over to a Walmart near our hotel (we’re classy travelers) to buy some snacks, and I asked the cashier what people do around there for fun. She said, “Ain’t jack shit to do once you’ve seen Rushmore and The Badlands. I suggest you keep it moving.”
It’s an incredibly beautiful place, but when the locals seems to have zero sense of pride in their hometown, you know you’re lucky you live on the West Coast.
Wait – isn’t Canada our most forgettable territorial possession? (oh, I’m in for it now!)
Looking forward to police blotter entr- I mean news articles on SDs first S & M club that I heard Tardsie was opening.
Thanks, Guap–you may be on to something with the club–heavy on the “M.” Each time he goes away, Tardsie comes back a little more broken down.
Oh, Hercules! Hercules! Hercules! I was hoping you’d post on your NoDak exploration (although you sure seem bent on a symbiosis between North and South Dakota). Given I hail from the northern half of your hybrid Dakota state, one might think I’d be offended. But I’m not. How can I deny any of what you’ve said when I’ve seen images of that barn up close and personal? And I grew up in one of the cities! I’ve also been snowed in during the month of May (rare, but it happens), been feasted on by swarms of mosquitos in the short summers, and endured years of closed stores on Sundays (in the state’s defense, the stores are now open on Sunday; but the liquor stores aren’t. And no, you can’t buy booze in grocery stores there). In fact, you know you are in trouble when getting stationed in North Dakota is considered one of the hardship locations (there were two Air Force bases in NoDak). We used to affectionately refer to those poor guys as “basers”.
But now that I am a big city girl in Ohio 😉 , I can better appreciate my roots. Those frigid temperatures and barren terrains are what made me hardy enough to withstand the verbal lashes of bloggers who hail from more sophisticated locales. 🙂
Next time you visit the state, go to one of the big “cities”. My hometown just got an Olive Garden (which sadly made the national news, another tidbit that doesn’t support my cause).
Is it really all that surprising that we’d conflate the Dakotas? C’mon, it’s not like we’re talking about the Carolinas, here.
With one exception, I’ve always found North Dakota to be quite beautiful. Although surrounded by stark beauty to the North, South, East and West, the flaw lies in the center. There, the blighted city of Minot rises like an infected boil from the face of the prairie. I’ve been to Camden, New Jersey and Paris, France, so I’m no stranger to a powerful stink. But pungent Minot took my olfactory senses to strange and terrible extremes of odor overload. And the people? Jeez, talk about a genetic sinkhole! I’ve heard that a man can become his own father after spending less than a week in the city. When the cows (which run freely through the streets of Minot, as they do in parts of India) are more highly-evolved than the citizenry, then you know you can’t be anywhere but Minot, North Dakota.
I kid, I kid. It’s just that from the clues provided, I have you pegged as a Minotaur. In the .000037% I’ve guessed incorrectly, substitute ‘Bismark’ for ‘Minot’ and my bases are covered.
I’ve been through Minot, but haven’t spent any time there. Also, I may have been exaggerating about the odor.
And if I’m being honest, I’m not any more citified than many North Dakotans. The picture I included actually is where I live, although you can’t see the town behind that last row of hills along the bay. Minot, Bismark and even Dickinson (Dickinson!) are multiple times the size of my town. My entire county is only about 20% larger than the Fargo-Moorhead metro area. And yet, when North Dakotans find out I’m from California, they’re almost apologetic, as if they’ve disappointed me somehow. “Everything must seem really small to you.”
“Not really,” I tell them, but they don’t seem to believe me.
I am truly frightened by your insight. Yes, indeed, I was born in Minot. BUT, I only lived there for a short time. Then I moved to the more populous Eastern end of the state, where I enjoyed the rich city life.
But I’d still grow up in NoDak if forced to do it again. And I’d still leave. But like you, I have been around the world enough to know location does not determine outcome. 🙂
I’m wondering if perhaps Tardies has time he could investigate the ominous, but obvious, connection between warmer weather, colorectal cancer, and the outbreak of uncontrollable gangs of alleged shop-lifters.
This comment wins the “Jen and Tonic Award” for its hilarity. You won’t get a cash prize, and it’ll do absolutely nothing for you, but it’s something to brag about around the water cooler.
I’ll take it as long as it doesn’t involve writing 7 endearing things about myself and then passing it along to 7 bloggers.
It involves drinking as much vodka as possible until you pass out during a Law & Order marathon on TNT.
I play the non-alcoholic version with “Two and a half Men.” True, there’s no vodka, but it ends the same–vomit and tears of regret.
As long as there’s vomit and tears it counts.
Holy crap – I’ve won this award every tuesday for the last six years?!?
Hats off to you and your bionic liver, El Guapo
Brilliant, Alex! The connection is this: Shoplifters have their heads up their asses, which can be uncomfortably warm.
I certainly hope this makes up for the whole ‘Whitney Houston’ thing.
I think people live there because they were on their way somewhere else and just ran out of gas. No other option but to settle down there. I believe it’s the same case for folks in Wyoming.
As a one-time resident of Delaware I wholeheartedly confirm your evaluation of it!
We’re just glad you made it out! Thanks for stopping by.
American Samoa might be small, but it’s soccer team is certainly on the up.. see my blog for a report of their progress.
Since you called by it’s internationally recognized name ‘soccer,’ and not the confusing term ‘football’ (employed mostly by the deranged), I’ll do just that. Thanks for stopping by!
Haha, thanks for the reply. The link to the article is here in case you couldn’t find it: http://drawley.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/american-samoa-the-last-perennial-losers/