The Badger Dog of Courage / Wifetime Guarantee or Your Wife Back

“The Badger Dog of Courage” was Inspired by Stephen Crane’s novel “The Red Badge of Courage.” The novel is very odd. Most of the characters do not have names. That approach is not unusual; Joseph Heller’s flaming turd of a novel “Something Happened” (1974) reveals the names of the protagonist (Bob Slocum) and the names of his co-workers at the insurance company, and reveals the name of his mentally retarded 18 year old son (Derek), but never discloses the name of his wife, his middle child (a 16 year old daughter) or his youngest (12 year old) son. Pearl S. Buck’s “The Good Earth” is similarly lazy. Mr. Crane, though, adds a nuance to his lack of name dropping by calling his protagonist “The youth,” and not giving us the full name of his protagonist (Henry Fleming) until about halfway through the book.
What’s really odd about “The Red Badge of Courage,” a novel set in the American Civil War and known for its reality in its depiction of war, is the stark contrast between the characters’ nearly incomprehensible grade school level dialog (which is to be expected) and the equally incomprehensible narrator (who sounds like a pompous highfalutin academic type who is trying to sound intellectual but in our opinion falls comically short). It makes the novel very difficult to take seriously. I don’t think Mr. Crane ever had a Civil Wat veteran proofread his novel (at least without an interpreter present), as none of them would ever understand his gibberish. Mr. Crane should have kept his garbled narration out of this novel and let the characters do all the talking, and paint a picture in plain English that even his grade school level educated characters could understand. Maybe if Mr. Crane had done less “research” in dance halls, saloons and whorehouses and more real research at school and in libraries, he would have learned how to write properly. So the sketch here is a mashup of some of his more famous mishmash dialog and his mush brain storytelling. We have the complete list, but we’ll shield you from the pain of reading them all and just hit the highlights.
The “Wifetime Warranty” sketch was inspired by a troupe member of ours who was waiting for his oil to be changed, and how eerily similar it is to the waiting room in a doctor’s office; both have their outdated magazines and a trashy TV show blaring away so loud that you can’t even concentrate on reading those old magazines. So we could imagine in an auto shop/medical center superstore that a mechanic OB/GYN could be easily confused and walk into the wrong waiting room.

For more on the story behind the name TheTacoBadgerofCourage, see the “Pardon in a White House Wonderland” sketch. Dr. Jacob Adderall and The Corn on the Cob Agency, like TheTacoBadgerofCourage, are all names that have the letters “CoBaD” in them (in that order). As it turns out, this CoBaD channel will “magically” appear on our social media platform (along with a nifty looking green triangle badge) if we shell out nine bucks a month for their Premium service. For the moment, we here at CoBaD think our money would be better spent somewhere else. To quote the bandito in Blazing Saddles said, BADGES?! WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING BADGES!!" Indeed, we’re more in need of badgers than badges.

Voiceover: “Exiting his tent, fretting for an opportunity to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences, Private The Youth looked about to find the rear of his unmolested regiment in the proper mood, but kept from intercourse with his ejaculating companions as much as circumstances would allow him while they mouthed and their tongues ran on…” - Another fascinating facet of Stephen Crane’s narration, though this is not his fault. This line really illustrates how much the predominating definition of a word has changed over the years. This sentence is full of words (seductive, unmolested, intercourse, ejaculating) that Mr. Crane used in his 1900 war novel that would not be used in a similar novel today (not unless you want to instill a whole lot of giggling).

Voiceover: “Darting past General Sherman’s Salt the Earth Division, and making a sharp left at General Grant’s Drunken Aggravated Battery, Private The Youth bivouacked with the famous K-9th Interloping Colonialist Powers Infantry Division, home of the Fighting Meddlers, in a nearby wilderness.”
The K-9th “Fighting Meddlers” were inspired by a story about William Fly (1840-1893), a Private in the Civil War who fought for the South, and fought at Gettysburg. During a firefight at Gettysburg, Private Fly received the order to retreat. He ran until he could no longer run, then hid behind a log. He saw as Union soldiers jumped over and by the log in pursuit of the Confederates, not noticing him in the ditch. Once the coast was clear, he got up and resumed running…

“…but found that a German fighting as a Federal soldier was right behind him ready to plunge a bayonet through his back. However, another Confederate soldier put a bullet through the German. Mr. Fly remarked: ‘I did feel sorry for him; he was trying to his duty to his captain and he was loyal to the end.’”

Now what the hell was a German solider doing in the American Civil War? Was the war going so bad for the Union that they had to rely on a “meddling Colonialist power?” What were the Germans promised in return? Money? Land? A cut of the Union’s looting and pillaging profits? A reason was never given in the letter.

Note later in the skit that the Dachshund (Germany), Scottish Terrier (Scotland) Poodle (Germany/France), Portuguese Water Dog (Portugal) and Great Pyrenees (France) are all dogs from the European Colonialist Powers. The Dachshund and the Scottish Terrier are also included in the K 9th Fighting Meddlers because they are in fact badger hunting dogs (although “Scotties” are really more famous for killing rats).

TheTacoBadgerofCourage: “Oh my ears and paws! How late it’s getting! I must measure Knave Bell’s reconnoitering app and nonchalantly get in on the ‘Steal a Tart, Steal a Taco’ promotion! I hope I win. I certainly don’t want to rage in fierce argument like a well-meaning cow worried by dogs against any tacos I am chewing quietly and contently like one taking poison in despair knowing that the mindless surrendering of all my personally identifiable information to a corporation that will either turn around and sell it or lose it in a massive data breach was all for naught!”

A mish mash of Stephen Crane’s head scratching marbles-in-his-mouth narration from Chapter 3 and 5. Did any grade school level educated rank and file soldier from the Civil War era ever use the word “reconnoitering?” Probably not…
The most puzzling metaphor from Mr. Crane in this quote (and from perhaps the entire novel) was the “well-meaning cow” reference in Chapter 5:

“Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs.”

A well-meaning cow?! What the hell does that mean, Mr. Crane?! Are you suggesting there are diabolical bovine out there just waiting to pounce on canines at a moment’s notice, and the dogs’ actions were merely intended as a preemptive strike?

For more on the Knave, see the "Pardon in a White House Wonderland" sketch.

General MacJohnson: “Now, dae nae shirking, private. This be the time that comes when ye have to dae a mean thing to accessorize a kilt. Dinna think of anything 'cept what's fashionable, because there's many a gen’rl has tae bear up 'ginst sech things in these posh $100 a ticket formal times after 6:00pm, but the Immortal Bard will take keer of us all!”

Inspired by Ma Henry Fleming’s “kilt” line in Chapter 1: “I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when yeh have to be kilt of do a mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of anything 'cept what's right, because there's many a woman has to bear up 'ginst sech things these times, and the Lord 'll take keer of us all.”

General MacJohnson: “Aye, The…Cause, you see, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here…nor what we do here. It is rather for us to be here to take increased devotion to that cause for which we will give our last full measure of our legs…er, our devotion.” Borrowed from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

General MacJohnson: “That is what the world will take...with their meals... All else will be washed away. Now ye cannae expect the world to take them Union blue pills without washing them away with some of that Grape Emancipator-flavored Kool-Aid, now, do ye? Now, then, The, do I make myself clear?” – Inspired by The Rageaholic’s YouTube video “Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator,” claiming how President Lincoln abused his office and repeatedly violated the Constitution (e.g., arresting individuals and suspending habeas corpus), ruthlessly crushed dissent and pushed his Emancipation Proclamation, which, as Mr. The Rageaholic argues, had little to do with freeing slaves.

So the “free-thinking” historians depicted in the waiting room scene who took the blue pills and washed them down with “Grape Emancipator” flavored Kool-Aid (i.e., lauded the blue-uniformed Union Army as the good guys and extolled Lincoln as the hero who freed the slaves and preserved the Union in spite of the mountain of evidence to the contrary) are nothing more than a personification (dogification?) of what The Rageaholic calls “Lincoln’s Increasingly Irrational Defense Force.”

General MacJohnson: “…now, then, private, get going with that hull kit-and-boodle Russian Wolfhounds…”
Private The Youth: “Borzois, sir.”
General: “Borzois…”

Borzois, also known as Russian Wolfhounds, were kept by Russian noblemen as far back as the 15th century because of their ability to hunt wolves. In 1861, when the Russian feudal system collapsed and the serfs were freed, the nobles’ kennels were emptied, presumably because the nobles were too freaking cheap to pay people to look after their dogs. The Borzois were very nearly wiped out in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution because of their ties to the Russian nobility.
General MacJohnson: “...It’s time we put them mouthpieces where their money is, by ginger! Cause ain’t no sidewinding, bushwhacking, hornswoggling, cracker croaker, is going to ruin my biscuit-cutter! Ravid!” - Based on a line from Gabby Johnson, the mumbling and quite mad prospector from the 1974 movie “Blazing Saddles.”

Private The Youth: “Alright, you Czarist tools, you heard the General … uh, you may not have understood darned mother word he said, but you definitely heard him…Get a goin’ all-to-oncet…er…I mean, all at once! Go on, Timsky, Bennylov, Laurenovich! Ya old willful blind dogs! Go hound and badger that “gift horse in the mouth” rabbit hole badger like he’s a...uh...kitten chased by boys…. Geez, now I’m startin’ to talk strange…Anyway, go on, sic ‘em!”

In a 05 September 2024 podcast, Rumble broadcaster The Quartering provided an update on a Department of Justice indictment against Tenet Media. In the DOJ indictment, podcasters Tim Pool and Benny Johnson (and possibly others, specifically, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Matt Christensen, Tayler Hansen and Tucker Carlson) allegedly accepted money from Tenet Media co-founder Lauren Chen; some of whom were offered outrageous sums, such as $100,000 a week or even a flat fee of $5 million dollars. The money turned out to be from a ten million dollar money laundering scheme instigated by two Russians who were attempting to persuade the aforementioned podcasters to spread information that would alter the 2024 presidential election to the benefit of Russia. There is no evidence that the podcasters were knowing participants in this scheme.
Nevertheless, whether it was a Russian plot, an FBI “honeypot,” an undercover investigation by the media or even a plot hatched by the Democratic National Committee, it was clear to us here at CoBaD that these conservative podcasters (who should know damn well in this day and age that they have targets on their backs) took the money and failed to do their due diligence and “look a gift horse in the mouth.” That is to say, none of the above podcasters appeared to ask “Why the hell are you offering me so much money?” and “What’s the catch?” Note these individuals are famous podcasters who are doing well financially (Tim Pool, for example, has 100,000 subscribers who each pay him $10 a month) and don’t necessarily need the additional money, yet they willfully took it anyway.

Whomever was behind this may not have succeeded in putting these podcasters behind bars, but they did succeed in discrediting them for taking money without questioning its source, which is even more damaging. It means (to us here at CoBaD) that these are podcasters are greedy and can be bought.

Compare that to podcaster Sebastian Gorka; he reportedly pushed Ms. Chen repeatedly to reveal the source of the money. When Lauren revealed the source (a “Mr. Eduard Grigoriann”), Mr. Gorka tried to look up the Mr. Grigoriann, but found no internet footprint on him whatsoever, leading Mr. Gorka to believe that the name was a cover. Mr. Gorka refused the money.

It was rather fitting that The Quartering broke from this story to do an ad for a company where he said “It’s rare when I get to do an ad for a product that I use every day and that I love.” In our opinion, it suggests that most of the products The Quartering pushes on his show are products he doesn’t use every day and that he hates. Or even when Candace Owens in one of her podcasts chides Trump for failing to understand that those who give you money are only trying to control you. It’s easy to find her critique of Trumo; it’s in the 45th minute; about 10 minutes after her commercial pitching a lotion and two minutes before her plug for a refinancing company. It just goes to show that the more money podcasters take, the more bankrupt they become.

The “kitten chased by boys” line was a reference to Chapter 17: “Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be against him, he had hated it, little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not going to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he said.” A god-hating and man-hating man who refuses to be badgered like a kitten chased by boys…er, okay, whatever you say, Mr. Crane.

Doctor Adderall: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must dash off to see the Duchess….”
Mr. Other Andmissus: “Oh, I didn’t know you were a masseuse.”

Doctor Adderall: “I’m not. I’m stripping the Duchess for a 100-hour inspection. Her students are really putting a lot of hours on her. And riding her rough to boot. Plus it’s about time for me to pull her counter rotating props.”

Mr. Other Andmissus: “Um…won’t your wife be concerned?”

Doctor Adderall: “Not at all. The Duchess is very professional; she will not lead me astray. She has no asymmetrical yaw, you know.”

“The Duchess” here is referring to a twin engine aircraft manufactured from 1978 to 1983 by Beechcraft, not the Duchess from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” or from the “Pardon in a White House Wonderland” sketch. Get your minds out of the gutters, people.

The Red Badge of Courage theme song, “Soaring,” was courtesy Apple iMovie. The closing theme, “Gunn Control” by Ryan Scott, was courtesy PremiumBeat.com (we realize this song is a pastiche of the Peter Gunn theme, but this song definitely sounded more James Bond than the James Bond pastiches available).

References:

Carter, C.B. 26 November 1940. Personal History of William Fly. Montana Writer's Project.

Flaim, D. 09 April 2024. Borzoi History: Behind the Breed’s Hunting Heritage. https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeds/borzoi-history/

The Rageaholic. 14 January 2023. Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZG7snE7tU

Rumble.com. 05 September 2024. Tim Pool & Benny Johnson SMEAR CAMPAIGN Fails Hilariously! The Tenet Media Scandal Is FAKE! No Proof. The Quartering. https://rumble.com/v5ds6ad-tim-pool-and-benny-johnson-smear-campaign-fails-hilariously-the-tenet-media.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Rumble.com. 16 September 2024. URGENT: Trump Must Drop JD Vance To Avoid Another Assassination Attempt | Candace Ep 65. Candace Show Podcast. https://rumble.com/v5f6oid-urgent-trump-must-drop-jd-vance-to-avoid-another-assassination-attempt-cand.html

Scripts.com. Blazing Saddles. https://www.scripts.com/script.php?id=blazing_saddles_4245

Wikipedia. Beechcraft Duchess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Duchess

Wikipedia. Dachshund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachshund

Wikipedia. Gettysburg Address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address

Wikipedia. Scottish Terrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Terrier

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Convulsions of Birth and Death (CoBaD) is a comedy sketch troupe founded in September, 2022 that posts skits on social media covering varied topics such as music, history, art, science, sports, literature and events encountered in everyday life. The title was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849), an essay written as a protest against the U.S. government taking his “gift” (i.e., his taxes), and wasting it in ways in which he did not approve (e.g., war and slavery). CoBaD writes sketches in the spirit of Thoreau, but instead of strictly casting its nets outwards towards governments and figures of authority, it projects its protest inwards by taking a humorous, lightheaded look at humanity and specifically those who take the greatest gift of all, life, and senselessly and stupidly waste it on greed, narcissism, self-centeredness, petty-mindedness, arrogance, opportunism, power-grabbing, quid pro quo, the status quo, ulterior motives, and the most despicable waste of all, social media.