Mental Shrapnel: Slambasket – Column

mentalshrapnellogo200Mental Shrapnel: Slambasket

Lollipop has a long history of making fun of stupid people, stupid trends, over-hyped movies, TV shows, bands, and anything else we see.

There’s no end to the things you can make fun of if you can stop giggling long enough to scribble a one-liner on one of the shut-off notices lying around. That’s what they’re there for.

This column used to be called Garbage Pail. The title stunk, but the contents didn’t. It was a “catch all” for random weirdness scribbled on bar napkins and pizza boxes. It was also an excuse to commission illustrations that, let’s face it, would never exist otherwise.

Mental Shrapnel is a collection of the the weird mental connections you make and riff on with your friends and laugh until you pee.

Email a Top Ten list, pitch sitcom plots we’ll never see, ponder what classic movies would’ve been like if Ashton Kutcher stared in them, whatever.

Do your friends think you’re a riot? Well, that’s why they’re your friends. Send in your brain farts anyway.

by Chris Adams
Illustration by Dave Dawson

mental-sandwichphotoSlambasket

Listened to the radio today. All was shit. Fukkit, I’m gonna cave. “If ya can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” And your services are urgently required.

I intend to form a rap-metal acoustic band called “Slambasket” whose entire shtick is old-skool Young MC “sensitive rapper” style “slow jams” dedicated to the worship of good sandwiches. First album will be Slambasket Picnic. Features the crossover hit “Getcher Slam On, Cheese” (lyrics: “A sandwich is a sandwich/but a slamwich is a meal”). Don’t even get me started on our lighters-aloft epic closer, “Slamon Salmon Bagel Blast.”

In addition to yr fine raps, you’ll be The Thighmaster of Ceremonies. It’s a duty I would gladly perform, but I’m gonna be the Jack Lord of the Dance.

Sample Rap: The epic “Tuna’s Lament”:

“You can tune piano
Oh, you can tuna fish
You can tuna tuning fork
To the tone of tuning dish
You can tune your glasses
To the tone of tuning spoons
But you can’t tune my albums
BECUZ DEY AIN’T GOT TUNES!”

I’ve got it all planned out. Press-worthy breakup will ensue when drummer abruptly departs to form his own band dedicated to breakfast, “Hollindaze.” Despite their chart-toppers, the foppish tea-time whimsy of “Host With the Toast,” off the risque Muffinmouth, and the Southern-fried boogie of “Macon Bacon,” the band ultimately fails. Shamefaced, the drummer rejoins the original band, and we cause a shock when we reveal the homosexuality beneath the sandwich “metaphor” and change our name to “Burger Queen.”

Of course, the reunion falls apart when I find religion with my side-project “Crack-Baby Jesus.” Guest singer Madonna’s explicit bikini wax during the Super Bowl halftime show is a brutal blow, only slightly offset by the heartfelt rendition of my “personal” ballad, the winsome “Gospel of Thomas’ English Muffinmouth Brunchbitch,” which attempts and gloriously fails to meld religion, breakfast, hoes, and cured lunchmeats into a cohesive musical meal. My listless solo album, Sausage of Aquarius, is the final death knell. Then we just laze around, collect royalties, and wait for VH1 to call about the inevitable Behind the Music TV special.

You in?