Episode Report Card Djb: D | 14 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Yawn. Look, Another Penis.
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2000.08.16
Fade up on the artful public speaking acumen of one Augustus "So Long-Winded My TV Blew Away" Hill, who delivers a decidedly William Safire-esque homily on the numerous existing slang words for prison while decked out in standard issue black-and-white-striped jail duds and chains affixed to his wrists. Conventional wisdom has it that there is also a cannonball tethered around his ankle and sacks of money with dollar signs lying at his feet to complete this typical Everyprisoner ensemble, but the camera never pans down far enough to prove this hypothesis either way. He reels off several slang terms for prison, but wants very badly for us to know that his personal "favorite" is "the clink." ["Mine too, actually. I don't know why." -- Sars] I would beg shamelessly for Hill to tell us just exactly why this term gets his jones up so hardcore, but something tells me that my encouragement is not required for him to continue this address indefinitely. Ah, there he goes now: "That's because the word comes from the sound of chains made back in the 1400s. They had these big-ass, motherfuckin' iron chains. The prisoners weren't allowed to talk, so when they moved around the dungeon, all you heard was 'clink.'" Just for the record, my computer's thesaurus also suggests the words "hoosegow" and "pokey" as synonyms for "prison." I wonder why Hill decided not to include these terms. Perhaps he was worried that any more examples of slang terms for prison would cause his speech to run too long. Because if Hill's speeches share one common link from week to week, it's their brevity. But honestly, this lengthy period you and I have spent locked down in "the clink" of preachy introductory narration has provided time for me to muse on the many qualities of the prison uniforms of old, and how I think the authorities should consider bringing them back into vogue for today's inmates. They even come equipped with a little black-and-white striped hat. All Hill needs is a black mask over his eyes and a taste for cow's meat, and he would do well to consider a career as a kind of bad-ass Hamburglar for the new millennium. I mean, really. At least the Hamburglar worked silently.
Meanwhile, over in the Em City section of the Oswald Pokey (see how up on the lingo I am?), a guard announces the Gen Pop transfer of a significant batch of nondescript white men I've never seen before. A shirtless Adebisi (sorry, Dymphna, if you're still listening to this show on the blue radio that your cable has become) stands just a few steps off from the guard as if in a significant position of authority himself. When the transfers are completed, Adebisi offers a come-hither "pssst" to a black youth (he looks about fifteen) bedecked in a way-too-tight short sleeve polo shirt (is that, um, velour) that I think he saw me wearing in my junior-high-school graduation picture and stole out of my closet. Maybe it was that very theft that landed him in the pokey to begin with. See what I mean about those striped uniforms being a good idea?