Roger Kenny

I know I'm the only one amongst us who remembers an old and very obscure show from the toddler days of Ted Turner's Superstation (only it wasn't called that then, it was Channel 17) called "Tush." It starred Channel 17 stalwart Bill Tush, and a cast of lovable loonies. It was sketch comedy, had a budget of about $2.50 per week, and made me laugh my ass off. (And by the way included in the cast of lovable loonies were funnywoman Jan Hooks and Bonnie and Terry Turner, who created and wrote "3d Rock From the Sun.")

Bill Tush went on to become an entertainment correspondent at CNN, until he retired a couple of years ago. In an amazing turn of events, Thursday night I not only found a person's blog and website that had some links for downloadable files of the old shows, but was directed to a site for Bill Tush himself. I'm totally chuffed over that, and especially over the fact that Bill keeps a blog.

Anyway, my sister and her then-still new husband were also great fans of the "Tush" show, and so certain little bits of the thing stayed with us and they pop up even today. One of those things is "Roger Kenny." Roger Kenny came about when one of the sketches was of a talk show and Roger was one of the stars. You must understand this was in the early 80s, when Kenny Rogers was king and could do no wrong. So when he was introduced, out came Roger Kenny, a guy with white hair and a white beard, who basically just talked about all the money he'd made and all he'd bought with it. In fact, he'd brought clips of things he'd bought, and introduced us to his two kids he'd bought. For some reason it sticks in my mind that he was especially proud that one kid was Asian. That might be my imagination. When it came time for him to do a song, he looked into the camera and sang about two lines of a song, 10 or so seconds, that was basically the title of every Kenny Rogers song strung together. I remember it ended with "If Ruben James' a lady, then I'll take my love to town."

But even today, when someone starts to brag about or show off something they have, they'll have the epithet hurled at them: Roger Kenny! And so today, I'm going to be Roger Kenny.

My folks got in from Florida Wednesday. Thursday morning they came by to visit at work. My mom (or "Gwanny" you may call her if you wish, many do) came into my office and gingerly plopped a baggie down on my desk. She said, "Here, I bought this for you at the rummage sale for a dollar." The park where they live in Florida has a rummage sale every year where they basically get out all their shit, put it on tables, and trade it around to each other for quarters and dollars so that next year different people can get out the same shit and do it all over again. I'm sure if you stay in the park long enough, eventually you'll buy your own shit back. They have a ball down there in Florida.

So in the baggie was something wrapped in a brown paper towel. And protruding from the end was a clear round thing, which I took to be one of those rubber sucky things that holds stuff to a window or tile wall. And I thought, "Oh, dear," because as much as I love my mother, she can buy things sometimes that are, well, quite unfortunate. So with trepidation I started to unwrap her dollar find.

Imagine my total shock and surprise when I realized that the clear round thing was not in fact a rubber sucky thing, but the bottom of a shotglass. Of which there were three more. It was a set of four Jagermeister shotglasses, with the logo on the front and the fill line on the back, and, well, they're just wonderfully exquisite and I love them. Just looking at them makes me want to put on my ugly red dress and party with the Sauerkraut Band like it was Oktoberfest all over again.

I'm posting a picture below. Thanks, Mom! Ein Prosit!