Stupid Tuesday Questions: Nathan Detroit Edition
Damon Runyon Elementary School exists.
This is rather hilarious to me. Damon Runyon was an Pre-WWII sports journalist and short story writer. All of his stories feature the demimonde and low-life of pre-WWII Times Square. His characters were gangsters, gamblers, showgirls, pickpockets, and bootleggers, all out for a good time and the next easy buck. Runyon’s prose was famous for a lack of contractions and always being in the present tense. Damon Runyon himself liked to pal around with gangsters and others in this demimonde.
Two of his short stories were adapted to become the musical Guys & Dolls.
The good people of Littleton, Colorado did not seem to wonder whether it was appropriate to name their elementary school after this most-colorful writer. They probably thought it was just a local boy made good kind of deal.
So today’s Stupid Tuesday question: What is the most inappropriate  but hilarious name you have ever seen on for a institution and why?
The “Shining Path” preschool in the L.A. neighborhood of Mar Vista, which catered to Spanish-speaking families. I drove by it just before the holidays — it’s closed now.Report
On a somewhat related front (though this is more one of those lost in translation things) I always supress an inappropriate giggle when there is news about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.Report
Runyon was a very entertaining writer, with a strong and infectious style. Would you object to Ecole Victor Hugo because he wrote about thieves and prostitutes?Report
I don’t think Saul is objecting, so much as he is noting in wry amusement.Report
You’re not my real doctor! You can’t ask me stupid Tuesday questions! I hate you! Waaaaah!
Seriously, where’d Doc Saunders go? Did he abandon us when he got his Daily Beast gig?Report
Saul has a juris doctorate degree, so technically he is a real doctor.Report
Real doctors give you lollipops after they draw your blood.Report
All I know is that giving the patient a lollipop would be the least the doctor could do after a prostate exam.Report
Maybe take you out to dinner first.Report
“Moooooon River…”Report
Lee,
Friendly warning–never say that in a crowd of academics. đŸ˜‰Report
Lee,
you should see the folks who teach the medical doctors (a substantial portion of whom don’t actually have a medical doctorate…).Report
“Saul has a juris doctorate degree, so technically he is a real doctor.”
Tell that to your mother.Report
Saul also has an MFA so he should have masteted something just not spelling.Report
To be fair, spelling is a tough thing to achieve mastety over.Report
@james-hanley, your just angry that we lawyers get to earn our doctorate in three years or four if you go to night school.Report
And we can do it without learning to get our contractions quite right. Its great!Report
I’m a Ph.D — Phony Doctor.Report
Lee,
Oh, not angry at all. We do our master’s degrees in only 2 years.Report
@brandon-berg While the Doc is technically still part of the OT team, the laws of economics state that if he has time to write it will almost always be for the DB.
The same is true of Rose, Elias, Elizabeth, Conor, E.D., Kyle, and others. Part of the problem with having great writers is that they tend to get noticed by people who can actually pay them.Report
Hey!
What are you saying about the rest of us?Report
Fair enough. I guess I could just go over there and read his stuff, but then I wouldn’t get to feel all hurt and betrayed.
After all I never did for him!Report
http://wikimapia.org/11791444/James-Brown-Soul-Center-of-the-Universe-BridgeReport
I do support the effort to rename the Bay Bridge after Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Lord Protector of Mexico:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_NortonReport
It’s a place, not an institution, but I’m saying it anyway: Wanker’s Corner, Oregon.Report
Which, oddly enough, is just a stone’s throw from Boring.Report
Tennessee has a Buck Snort and a Defeat.Report
I just drove by Toad Suck Park northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas. My favorite, though, is probably Bong Recreation Area south of Milwaukee. Guess what the kids do there, amirite?Report
Then there’s Heinie Recreation Area (which actually does have a waterfall, it’s pretty nice.).
They renamed it at some point…Report
FTW… Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky. As G-d is my witness, it’s located on Beaver Road between the towns of Beaverlick and Rabbit Hash.Report
As George would say, Oh my…Report
“The” Ohio State University. There are about a dozen other state universities in Ohio.
Runner up: “The U,” when said by Miami football players, for most of whom its doubtful they actually attended the University.Report
Related, many years ago at the University of Texas at Austin I had my first encounter with window decals that simply said “The University” in orange Old English font. I understand other schools have adopted this practice these days.Report
The former Trenton State College changed its name to The College of New Jersey, and uses the initialism TCNJ.
This is insulting because they are attempting to place themselves above the other directional colleges.Report
The Alferd Packer grill at the University of Colorado student center in Boulder. Packer was a miner who was part of a late-season attempt to cross the Rockies and survived by eating the bodies of some of his companions.Report
“The Donner Diner”Report
I used to think that The Donner Party was the name of a spectacularly unsuccessful political party. Like the Whigs, but not as successful.Report
They kind of cannibalized their own talent.Report
The Donner Party was never politically successful because some of its members said some really stupid things and then took “foot in mouth” too literally.
Too soon?Report
“Stand up yah voracious man-eatin’ sonofabitch and receive yir sintince. When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrats. But you, yah et five of ’em, goddam yah.”Report
The man should have a national holiday named after him.Report
Staying in Colorado, Nederland’s Frozen Dead Guys festival, in honer of “Grandpa” Bredo Morstoel. When Bredo, a Norwegian, died, his frozen body was entrusted to descendants living in Colorado. After a couple of intermediate stops, the sarcophagus wound up in a shed in Nederland packed in dry ice. When the story came to light, Nederland passed a law against storing bodies, but Bredo was “grandfathered” in. The body is still there, with the dry ice replenished monthly. This year’s festival runs for three days in March.Report
At school we had a lovely bit of 50’s architecture called Donner Hall. It’s a truly awful building, with various nefarious things buried under the floorboards.Report
Highland College of Montana Tech of the University of Montana is the name of a junior college.
Before that, I would have answered Montana Tech of the University of Montana, which is full University.Report
Relatedly, Florida International University makes me think of an airport, while Florida Atlantic University sounds like a business park for-profit institution. The should have gone with Miami State and East Florida.Report
I always thought Monty Python could do something excellent with the University of Great Falls name. Yeah, it’s a real school in Montana.Report
Nice.Report
I always thought there was something particularly cruel about parents in Oklahoma that send their kids to Pansy Kidd Middle School. Might as well just buy them goth makeup and be done with it.Report
They appear to be the Pansy Pirates. Now we just have to figure out Johnny Depp’s connection to Oklahoma.Report
Not an institution, but the Dodge Ram always amused me.Report
As did the Ford Probe for me.Report
NJ 23 runs from the suburbs of Newark all the way up to High Point. In 2008 it was named after Robert Roe, who represented NJ 8 (Paterson and its suburbs) in Congress from 1969-1993. He also championed transportation issues and was instrumental in getting 287 built through NJ.
Problem? In 1993 he was convicted of DWI from an accident where he injured a woman and her 15-year-old daughter.
New Jersey eventually took Roe’s name off the highway.Report
My hometown has at various times used various naming schemes for its street grid – numbers, letters, names of locally or nationally important people, areas with themes (degrees of nobility from Duke St up to Empress St, etc.)
This leads to there being a Rusholme and P intersection.Report
In about an hour, I’ll be going to Pho King for supper.Report
Hackensack has a Fu King Smoke Shop.Report
Would you rather it be called Harris – Klebold School? #TooSoon?Report
1) Pancho Villa State Park in New Mexico
2) Lee’s Ferry, a point along the Colorado River near the beginning of the Grand Canyon. It’s named after John D. Lee, who was executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.Report