Close Encounter at the Safari Club

Item: Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker at this year's Safari Club gun convention. "The SCI convention will also feature comedian Larry The Cable Guy, The Marshall Tucker Band, Pure Prairie League, Elvis impersonator Matt Lewis, NASCAR team owner Richard Childress and conservative commentator Michael Reagan."

...a really great time. As most of you already know, I'm Dr Larry Rudolph, President of the Safari Club. In just a few minutes I'm going to bring out Pure Prairie League, but first I'd like to share a few anecdotes about my latest big game hunt in Africa. I was there just a couple weeks ago, camped out in the jungle, and on the very first night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What it was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know...

Hey, guys, sorry I'm late. I was just trying to get a word in with Sarah...

Well good luck with that, brother, old Ricky Childress has been trying to snag her attention for the last half hour without any luck. I tell you, the chick is as cold as ice.  That honey bear has a little too much of a taste for herself, Mister Reagan.

The thing that galls me is that after all the support I've given her, she won't give me the time of day. I thought I had her ear for a couple of minutes, but I don't think she heard a word I said.

Huh. Little Miss 'Too Good to Have a Drink with the Tuck'.

Shucks, that ain't right. Even old Elvis is willing to have a drink with you.

Yeah... That would all be very special except for the fact that you aren't Elvis.

Hell, son, you ain't the Marshal Tucker Band, neither, you're just the only one of those guys that's left. You wasn't the leader, you wasn't the singer, and your name ain't even Marshall Tucker.

Oh, look who's got an opinion now, Conan the Proletarian. For your information, I was one of the original founders, and I was the other singer. Furthermore, there wasn't anyone named Marshall Tucker in the band.

There was nobody  in the band named Marshall Tucker? Why, that's outrageous. I've never heard of such a thing.

Sure you have, brother. There's no Savoy Brown in the Savoy Brown Blues Band, no Jethro Tull in Jethro Tull.

Ain't no Floyd in Floyd, neither.

Oh... Show biz thing. Got you.. So, I guess there wasn't really a Captain Beefheart either, was there?

Yes, yes there was, but the important thing is that we all dig us some Marshall Tucker.

Hiya fellas! I've been trying to work my way over here but everybody is just clawing at me like I'm some sort of piñata or something...

So, like if there wasn't a Marshall Tucker in the band, how the heck did you come up with the name? I bet there's an interestin story there.

As a matter of fact, there is. Back when the band was first starting out, we rented this old warehouse in Spartanburg...

...anyway, I was just having the most interesting conversation with this Reverend, he packs a pistol when he's giving his sermons, just in case he needs to protect his flock or something, and we were talking about Tucson and how terrible it was that I was dragged into the whole tragedy cause of some of my freedom of speech, and...

So Marshall Tucker was the name of an old piano tuner that had rented the warehouse before you guys?

Imagine the odds on that... Got to be like one in a million.

At least. At least. But see, we didn't know that, we just though it was like Smith & Wesson or McCain-Feingold, we didn't know it was a real name. So Tommy, rest his soul, said that wouldn't be...

...and so I had this little flash of empathy, I said to myself gosh, this is just like what I did to Barack Obama, you know, drag his name through the mud because of little coincidences and chance associations and you know, innuendo...

So you guys ran off with the guy's name, huh? I bet that was one pissed off piano player.

How bout you, Larry - why did you start calling yourself The Cable Guy?

I'll bet you used to be a cable guy.

Nope, nope, you'd lose that bet, partner. Course when I was growin up on a pig farm in Pawnee City, Nebraska, bein a cable guy was somethin to aspire to. The truth is...

...bottom line is, if I can incorporate these insights, I can use them to make myself a more forceful and effective personality, don't you think? And heck, maybe candidate too, right? I mean, like being able to focus my accusations for the maximum negative impact would be cool, you know? ... Okay, gotta run, guys!

...which is why I can relate to Elvis, here, since he said he used to be in a Journey cover band. The Cable Guy was just one of the characters I used to do when I was comin up through the circuit, but he's the one who ended up puttin the beans in my bowl.

Just like Tucker's done for me. How about you, Reagan? How did you come up with your name?

Oh, that's my real name. Maybe you've heard that my dad used to be the president, but before that he was an actor, and the day I was born he was taking a meeting with Michael Rosenstein at Paramount...