Cap'n Dave: "Name That Junk?" Sounds great.
Geraldo: Please stay tuned.
(Commercial)
Geraldo: We're in New York, talking with Cap'n Dave of Phoenix, who is promoting his idea that the 1980s should be called the Junk Decade. In your opinion, we've just completed the Junk Decade. It's your claim that every part of life has been turned into junk. Well, what about sports? Baseball, apple pie . . .
Cap'n Dave: The biggest sports trend of the Eighties was the reemergence of pro wrestling. If I had any spare cash, I'd be investing heavily at this point in roller derby.
Audience member: Cable TV?
Cap'n Dave: In addition to the trends I've already mentioned, the most influential junk addition to our viewing choices has been the proliferation of shopping channels. That is very highly evolved junk.
Audience member: Economics? Cap'n Dave: Supply-side, trickle-down, deficit-building Reaganomics. Before the Age of Junk, the homeless were called hoboes. Now they've got their own lobbyists in Washington, D.C.
Geraldo: Fashion?
Cap'n Dave: The hottest fashion trend in the last half of the Junk Decade is to encourage everybody to dress like junkies. Lots of black clothing, torn jeans, fake jewelry, pale faces, unlikely hair colors.
Audience member: Health and medicine?
Cap'n Dave: Of course the war on drugs is junk, because several generations in a row have been raised on the belief that drugs are sometimes a lot of fun. Without drugs, the incredible advances in salesmanship made during the Junk Decade would not have been possible. Without drugs, we wouldn't need cable TV. The war on drugs has become such a big deal because of the vast popularity of crack. Talk about a junk drug. It's cheap, widely available and instantly addicting. I'm convinced that a team of dope marketing experts invented crack.
Geraldo: At the top of the show, you promised to explain to me how certain people can be junk. Dave, who are the junk people?
Cap'n Dave: When you talk about kings and queens of the Junk Era, there's no point in working your way up from the bottom. If there was one person who perfectly characterizes our times, it's Ronald Reagan, the Junk President himself. His glamour- enslaved wife was our leading junkette.
Geraldo: Oh, come on now. You're saying that the most popular president of modern times, a man who survived an assassination attempt to make America proud of itself again, was junk?
Cap'n Dave: The key word there, Geraldo, is "popular."
Geraldo: Hmmm.
Cap'n Dave: For me, the most prominent visual image of the Reagan era is the President of the United States standing under helicopter blades with his hand to his ear, mouthing the words "What? Huh?" Without a TelePrompTer, this man stood naked.
Geraldo: That's not much in the way of evidence.
Cap'n Dave: How about Grenada then? Was that not a Junk War? Or the Junk First Lady, whose astrologer was allowed to run the country? It was Reagan who gave us Ollie North, the definitive Junk Hero. It was Reagan who made the Oval Office a real possibility for someone like Dan Quayle, the Baby Boom's first presidential candidate.
Geraldo: Okay. Who else?
Cap'n Dave: You want a list?
Geraldo: We're running short of time.
Cap'n Dave: Vanna. Vanessa. Imelda. Brooke.
Geraldo: All women?
Cap'n Dave: Arnold. Morton. Sylvester. Hulk.
Geraldo: That's it?
Cap'n Dave: I left a few out because I thought we were running short of time.
Geraldo: As indeed we are. Thank you for coming down today, Cap'n Dave.
Cap'n Dave: Hey, thanks for having me. This was the perfect place to discuss this topic.
