NTMP 107: DIKFAB

It's Raining Meat 🥩🎶

New-To-Me Phrases, April 21, 2024

Surf Dracula * Kentucky meat shower * Co-Oompa-Loompa * Fart Walk * DINKWAD * Don Poorleone * Peewag

Photo by Kojirou Sasaki on Unsplash

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The Phrases, With Context

This week we have a great TV show idea, mystery droppings, and updates to phrases shared in earlier editions.

But first: Poll results

The favorite-phrase-for-March poll ended in a tie, so we did a tiebreaker last week and Fupacabra (a nickname for a cat’s floppy belly region) edged out Midwestern Spaghetti Void (a fake cat breed) to claim the top spot:

I also did a poll asking readers how often I should write NTMP, because when I took a couple of weeks off, I really missed it. Here are the results, and I love the number of smartasses who weighed in. I see you. 🦄

It looks like more of you would like to see NTMP weekly than not. Which: Gosh. Thank you. Here’s where I’ve landed—I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and if I need a week off, I’ll take it. Which is exactly how I’ve always done things here. But! It was good to work through this and to hear from readers like you, so thanks for the feedback if you sent it.

However, you came here for phrases, and phrases you shall have. Let’s get to it!

1. Surf Dracula

I love TV. I used to feel embarrassed about this when I was younger, probably because smart people in my orbit felt it was a lesser medium. These days my attitude about TV is like Buddy the Elf: “I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!” So I was extremely into this post by

brian grubb

, who was recently laid off when yet another media outlet (UPROXX) decided that the creators whose work makes that outlet valuable are not themselves valuable. 🙄🙄🙄 If you dig TV, you’ll want to read his Substack.

In the post, Grubb argues that TV has a “Surf Dracula” problem, and that we need more more fun shows. To which I say “Hell yes!”

For context, the phrase originated in this tweet:

First of all, I would watch the shit out of Surf Dracula. What if he made a deal with a mummy or werewolf that allows him to be out in the sun doing what he loves most? And then in exchange he has to run errands and do odd jobs for them and he ends up solving crimes or seeking Robin Hood justice for underdogs? I volunteer as showrunner!

Second, as Grubb points out, this tweet is an incisive critique of the state of TV in recent years.

Here’s his thesis:

This relentless quest to make the next big fancy prestige drama or highbrow/goofy comedy — both terrific when done well, both Groan City when they whiff — has stripped away a valuable kind of show: the fun little thing to watch an episode of before bedtime. 

These shows go by a few different names, such as “laundry folders,” “comfort TV,” or the sort of “Blue Sky TV” that the USA Network was known for—Burn Notice, Suits, Psych, Silk Stalkings, etc. When done well, they have just the right mix of cheesiness, cleverness, humor, and chemistry among characters and they strike a balance between being cheesy and not sucking. They offer an escape from the everyday and maybe a few laughs. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need every media experience to be smarter than me or the most life-changing, mind-blowing work of art.

My immediate go-to Friday night/Surf Dracula show was Grimm. It was never going to win any Emmys, it was cheesy as hell but self-aware of its cheesiness, and it was the perfect sort of entertainment to watch before falling asleep. A more recent delight is Resident Alien—for which Alan Tudyk truly deserves an Emmy. Leverage is another example that I really liked—I love a caper show! (Leverage Redemption is kind of embarrassingly bad. And yet, we’ll still watch it.)

What’s your favorite Friday night TV show?

2. Kentucky meat shower

Man, I really wanted but also very much did not want this phrase to be a sex thing. And it isn’t. Thankfully? But it’s almost worse (I think?).

Depths of Wikipedia posted about this on Instagram and the full Wikipedia entry is a wild ride:

The Kentucky meat shower was an incident occurring for a period of several minutes between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. on March 3, 1876, where what appeared to be chunks of red meat fell from the sky in a 100-by-50-yard (90-by-45-meter) area near Olympia Springs in Bath County, Kentucky.

To me, the most compelling aspect of the story is that a couple of dudes reportedly tasted it to determine what kind of meat it was. How did that initial conversation go? “Hey, Harrison; I found some mystery meat in my front yard. Do you and Arthur want come by and taste test it?”

I know how I’d end that convo.

Samples of the “meat” were supposedly sent to scientists to study, and prevailing theories are that either vultures egested it or that a type of bacteria called Nostoc was activated in the soil, forming clumps that resemble meat. Extremely gross either way.

3. Co-Oompa Loompa

A downside to taking time off from phrase gathering is that if they appear during a news cycle, they’re old news by the time I get around to writing about them. But maybe that’s a good thing, because then we get to relive entertaining news stories.

You may remember memes and articles about an extremely sketchy Willy Wonka experience held in February in Glasgow, Scotland. Images and video from the event went viral, showing the threadbare “immersive” environment (an empty warehouse) populated by dejected actors.

Aside from the “sad Oompa Loompa” memes, a writer calling one of the actors a “co-Oompa Loompa” might be the best thing to come out of this story. Despite the outrage from parents at the Glasgow event, the show is coming to L.A. later this month.

4. Fart Walk

Walking after a meal is just a nice thing to do and I don’t believe we have to optimize all of our lived experiences. But it’s pretty great that you can add the word “fart” to just about anything and make that thing 100% funnier.

5. DINKWAD

At a family event, an adult relative called my Hag friend Wendy and her partner DINKWADs. Wendy initially wrote this off as “a weird homeschooled girl insult”—a low-key, chef’s-kiss burn.

Anyway, it turns out that DINKWAD stands for “Dual Income No Kids With a Dog,” which is accurate in Wendy’s case. And it’s catchy as hell.

I guess that makes me a DIKFAB - dual income with kids, fish, axolotl and birds.

6. Don Poorleone

This phrase trended on Twitter last month when Donald Trump was ordered to pay a $464 million bond amount that was subsequently lowered to be more affordable for him. Because somehow, consequences don’t appear to stick to that putrid festering waxball.

At least, as Rolling Stone reports, he’s big mad about his courtroom sketch artist and media coverage documenting his inability to stay awake in court.

7. Peewag

Try saying “peewag” aloud several times without giggling. It looks like an old English word for makeshift underwear from the 1700s that soldiers wore under their uniforms.

In reality, peewag is actually spelled pewag and has nothing to do with pee, nor is it intended for use on or near one’s wagger.

This glorious typo appeared in an engaging Outside Online article about plowing “the most dangerous road in America”:

The ­seven-bay garage at the begin­ning of Highway 550’s ascent from the south end of Ouray brims with bull plows, rotary blades, chin-high tires, and Peewag chains for increased traction.

Ever furiously curious, I had to know what a “Peewag chain” was. Google informed me that it’s actually spelled (and capitalized) pewag. pewag, Inc. has manufactured chains since 1479 (!!), where the first foundry was built in Austria. I love a good typo as much as I love learning new things.

NTMP Updates

Occasionally, I find stories related to phrases covered previously at NTMP, so here are a couple of updates.

1. Safe passage for animal frens

I previously wrote about green bridges, which provide safe animal crossings over or under highways. Here’s a great article about the State of California building a green bridge over Highway 101.

2. Disco birds

Related to recent posts about the disco chicken (aka peacock) and minor league baseball team the Danville Dairy Daddies, NTMP reader Jared mentioned the Carolina Disco Turkeys, Winston-Salem’s minor league ball club.

Here’s their logo:

Shop their amazing swag here.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.