I resume again my Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan fiction treatment of Johnny Pez’s Isaac Asimov fanfiction “Safety First”. Not that we’ve got there yet; there’s a lot of shorts padding out this story, and we haven’t got to the main feature yet. Soo, I promise.
The line about the White House “at just $25,000 a night” references a late-90s scandal in which the right wing decided President Clinton sold nights in the Lincoln Bedroom to donors. Otherwise, not much in obscure references this segment.
I feel Crow’s confusion about snakes and asps captures a particular style of absurdity he’d get in.
>
>
> 2/15/96
JOEL: Do you guys remember where you were on February 15, 1996?
TOM: Yeah.
CROW: We were here, being forced by the Mads to watch bad movies.
JOEL: Oh, right.
>
> President Bill Clinton
TOM: Of the starship Enterprise.
> White House
CROW: At just $25,000 a night.
> Washington, DC 20500
JOEL: The *very* belated sequel to "Hawaii 5-0."
>
> Dear President Clinton,
TOM: [ Sexy feminine voice ] "You were right, we looked behind the sofa and found –"
[ JOEL puts his hand on TOM’s shoulder. ]
>
> Enclosed please find a copy of my book
CROW: If you could autograph it "To my best pal ever, Ken" I’d show everybody on my block.
> entitled "Model
> Mechanics: A New Interpretation of Nature."
JOEL: The book’s a great Revell-ation.
TOM: It’s got some fantastic work in HO gauge theory.
CROW: Finally we unite gravity, electromagnetism, and Heidi Klum!
> Also, enclosed is a copy
> of a paper entitled "Eliminatiing The Duality Concept with New
> Interpretations of Past Experiments".
TOM: Read the Marmaduke comic. It’s a howl.
> I will be presenting this paper
> at the March meeting of APS in St. Louis.
CROW: Snakes are meeting in St. Louis?
JOEL: That’s *asps*.
CROW: Asps! That’s even worse!
> The theory of Model
> Mechanics has been in existence for almost 10 years
TOM: They’re the guys who fix up the diorama of the F4D planes approaching the aircraft carrier.
> but it was never
> published or reviewed by mainstream physicists.
CROW: Coincidence? Read the book.
JOEL: We can’t, it wasn’t published.
> I had made dozens of
> attempts to have it reviewed or published but I was totally ignored.
TOM: I thought it was particularly gratuitous when the editor of Physical Review Letters covered his ears and shouted, "LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!"
> In those cases where there were replies the standard short answers
CROW: And a few nonstandard medium answers like "yes, please set my beard on fire."
> were that Model Mechanics was too speculative, too ambitious and that
> quantum mechanics and relativity had been confirmed countless times.
JOEL: Plus, who would really want Kathy Ireland fixing their ’75 Volkswagen van?
>
> I will be applying for funding from the National Science
> Foundation to develop a mathematical model for Model Mechanics.
TOM: A Model Mechanics Model Mathematics Model?
CROW: He needs the cash to buy extra M’s.
> I
> expect that I will be getting the same short standard rejection
JOEL: Aw, you should think positive, honey!
> since
> all the funding requests are being reviewed by mainstream physicists.
CROW: This is kind of passive-aggressive activism, isn’t it?
JOEL: Fund my project or I’ll abandon this box of kittens in the street!
>
> The present funding system cuts out the ideas and concepts of
> 99% of the population.
TOM: As long as we’re ignoring the people who pay to see Joel Schumacher movies, that’s fine by me.
> This is OK if only private funding is used.
CROW: What if it’s not private, but it is very discreet?
> Since public fund is sponsoring almost all of the mainstream research
> at the various universities and institutions,
TOM: Oh, and those other places, you know —
CROW: The ones with the, the, the —
JOEL: Right, with the bells and the copper, the silver —
CROW: Yeah, you know, the stuff with the corned beef —
TOM: No, no, the other one, the —
JOEL: I got it, right. Them.
TOM: Right, them.
CROW: I got it.
> these mainstream
> physicists should be obligated to review some of the fringe ideas of
> the population.
JOEL: I take it he means outside of Silly Breaks.
> Under the present system, the only tool available to a
> fringe player is to write down his idea and concept on paper
TOM: In my system, we’ll also be able to write it in spray cheese!
> but if
> the establishment refuse to review or publish it then his idea is
> forever buried.
CROW: You could always sell it to "Star Trek" — they’ll buy anything.
> I think that’s when the frustration will set in.
JOEL: See, you get into a good lather, rinse, and repeat, and that’s when the frustration sets in.
> Clearly, this is very unfair.
CROW: Nobody should be frustrated.
> One remedies is to modify the present
> funding system as follows:
TOM: First, we all get naked.
>
> The government should set up two separate funds.
JOEL: Call them "Oliver" and "Marybelle." Write stories about them.
> One for the
> mainstream group and one for the fringe group.
TOM: And one for the wishy-washy guys in between.
[ to continue … ]
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Another Blog, Meanwhile 
TOM: A Model Mechanics Model Mathematics Model?
GYPSY:(as Gilbert and Sullivan) I am the very model of a modern model mathematics model.
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It’s a good premise. I’ve just felt burned out on Modern-Major-General jokes so have dropped out on those myself.
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