Station Identification: Confessions of a Video Kid by Donald Bowie

Author:Donald Bowie [Bowie, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

10. Naked City

One Friday afternoon Wexler and I were sitting in the lounge watching The Newlywed Game. Usually I didn’t watch The Newlywed Game because it reminded me of all the weddings my parents brought me to when I was a child. (As a rule I fell asleep while the group gathered around the piano sang “My Wild Irish Rose.” I always took home a piece of wedding cake wrapped in a paper napkin. When I retrieved it from the pocket of my jacket, a day or two later, the frosting on the cake was flattened and the cake itself had the texture and flavor of fingernails.)

Wexler said that when he was a kid he used to watch a show where couples actually got married on the air, and then received the usual promotional considerations as wedding gifts. I vaguely remembered the show, too. It was stylistically a little like You Asked for It, with an organ playing “Oh, Promise Me,” and I think a flowered trellis—and sometimes even double-ring ceremonies: two sisters, two brothers, best friends, Siamese twins joined at the hip. Wexler felt that The Newlywed Game was better because it was “one long Polish reception.” Watching The Newlywed Game, Wexler would periodically clang on a water glass with a spoon, like a Polish wedding guest clamoring for the bride and groom to kiss. What added to Wexler’s enjoyment of The Newlywed Game, and what persuaded me to sit down and watch too, was the pleasure of Dave and Debbie’s company.

Dave and Debbie were a campus couple who enjoyed acting married. They walked the byways of Bass with their faces expressive as the phases of the moon—changing, but always glowing—and their hands hooked into each other everywhere, so that their relationship appeared to be crocheted. On Valentine’s Day, Debbie wore her heart on her sleeve—literally. She wore a dress she had made herself. The dress was printed with her initials and Dave’s linked.

Dave and Debbie even celebrated their anniversary, though they didn’t say whether the occasion was their first date or what.

Wexler said to me and the Hermans that Dave and Debbie’s anniversary ought to be declared a legal holiday. To observe his own “Dave and Debbie Day,” Wexler sent out “Dave and Debbie cards” that were either paper dolls or paper hearts clipped from the pages of True Confessions. Encouraged by Tube Man, Dave and Debbie would compete with the newlyweds every weekday afternoon.

“Here come the newlyweds,” the show would open.

“Straight from the LaBrea Tar Pits,” Wexler would add.

“Oh, why do you always have to say that?” Debbie asked, the Friday afternoon I joined the little party.

“They’ve found a lot of stuff in the LaBrea Tar Pits,” Tube Man replied. “Dinosaur bones, Keepsake Diamond Rings, beer cans. And I’ve heard they set up a still there that produces a gallon of Brylcreem an hour.” He indicated with a directional nod a newlywed whose shiny black hair was swirled into a kind of wedding cake rosette.

“Oh, phooey on youie,” said Debbie.

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