“And at the other table, the Gang of Four...”
This week, from season four:
Episode 18 (Jan. 3, 1998) brings us Paul’s full story of his bridge partnership with Deng Xiaoping, briefly mentioned in a Listener’s Letters piece during season three. We also find the origin of the lost years in Paul's biography: the catastrophic New Year’s Eve party of 1989. (This is, of course, AFTER a stand-off with the LAPD, heart failure and deporation from Los Angeles...
And then in November from Mexico came some experimental bovine de-wormer that was purported to be a powerful psychedelic: Muco-methyl-psycho-propylacid-poly-phenyl-bio-presper-garbanzobine, El Quinto Caballero. It looked like one hit would be too much for two, so eight of us carved up this baby. And that's all I remember. I missed all of 1990 and 1991, waking up finally in October, 1992, in a Belgrade apartment with some Finnish money, a prescription, in German, made out to one Spurgeon Canetti, a charge card in the name of Fontinato, small twin incision scars on my groin, wearing a pair of shoes a size and a half too small, a tee-shirt from the Nelson Mandela election campaign, two odd socks, and extremely soiled underwear. Even then it took me five days to figure out something was wrong.
Episode 19 (Jan. 10, 1998) is a regular GE show, with Wordworks, a piece on current trends with Lawrence Royce-Hiscock and Geraldine Cumby, and a Political Panel. The Wordworks review of the Bachelor Cookbook is side-splitting:
PAUL: The bachelor's life. Look at this Take-away Vindaloo, a whore, and for desert a lifetime of regret ... oh hardy har har. KATH: Former hockey great Gary Yomp offers a pack of Contact-C washed down with Aqua Velva. PAUL: Photographed beautifully, curled up on a park bench. (sighs)
Finally, Episode 21 (Jan. 24, 1998) brings us several treats: Paul finally gets his misspelled tattoo from PoMo the Sailor Man, the Guy Gap is discussed from the “Guy’s” perspective, and Paul engineers the long-overdue reunion of Bonhomme Carnivale, the Michelin Man and the Pilsbury Dough Boy:
Bon: You are living in a dream world! You are a dough "boy" no more. Pils: Gasp! Mic: You are old and ugly. Bon: And there a few prospects for a dough "man"
Season 4, Episode 18
Season 4, Episode 19
Season 4, Episode 21
New Year's Eve, 1989
Wordworks (including the Bachelor Cookbook)
Bonhomme Carnivale