The Yo! Gabba Gabba Reboot Gives Me An Excuse to Rerun the Very Strange Clickbait Piece I Wrote About It and Bottoming Out on Hard Drugs in the Late 1970s Punk Scene
Like Sesame Street before it, the classic children’s television show Yo Gabba Gabba! has a wonderful way of teaching young children important lessons while entertaining them at the same time. But the show’s lessons aren’t only for children. If, like me, you came of age and bottomed out on hard drugs in the late 1970s gutter punk scene and recently released a memoir called The Longest Island: Eddie “The Sleazebag” Connors on Heroin, More Heroin, Even More Heroin, Rehab & Relapse in the 70s Punk Underworld you’ll find that some of the cult show’s songs hit way too close to home and reflect your hardscrabble journey through life to an uncanny, uncomfortable degree.
7. Babies don’t like loud sounds
In the classic “Baby” episode, Foofa and Toodee accidentally scare Flex the Magical Robot’s baby niece Plexee with their excessive enthusiasm (They love babies! They just can’t help it!) and learn that babies don’t like loud sounds, and get startled easily, so you need to be quiet and gentle when playing with them.
I learned this lesson the hard way when I was crashing at my square buddy Judah’s pad. I came in tweaked out of my mind one morning at 3:30, and when I heard his baby crying, I thought it was an evil space alien who was challenging me to a screaming match. The earth would be destroyed unless I won.
Long story short: that crying creature DEFINITELY was an actual human baby, not a space alien or a monster, and Judah hasn’t talked to me in many years.
Foofa and Toodee, you need to be careful around fragile, vulnerable, helpless babies, and Judah, I’m sorry that I hurt you and your family in my addiction and also that I psychologically scarred your newborn in a permanently traumatizing way.
6. Don’t bite your friends
Muno gets too excited playing with his friends in “Together” and takes a big old chomp on Foofa’s arm. Silly Muno! We bite on healthy apples, not friends!
Muno is lucky to have his friends, particularly Flex the Robot, gently show him the error of his ways. Things played out differently for me. I was shooting H with Johnny Thunders in an alley outside CBGBs, and for some reason, his pale-ass arm started looking like a juicy ass turkey leg, almost like in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, so I just started going to town on the fucking thing because I hadn’t eaten in days and he fucking punches me, hard, in the face.
So yeah, definitely don’t bite your friends. I also hope Thunders has found peace in the afterworld and forgiven me for mistaking his limbs for food.
5. Don’t lie
In “Together,” Toodee tries to impress Brobee by telling him she has magic beans, can do magic, and can fly. She feels good in the short term impressing him with her wild boasts but quickly discovers the downside to lying: disappointing your friends and making them feel like they can’t trust you.
Toodee learns that it’s always better to tell the truth. I faced a similar situation around Thanksgiving of 1976 when I told my mother that I needed a hundred dollars to buy a big, beautiful turkey for the family dinner and then spent all the money going in on an 8-ball with Nancy Spungen.
While the Yo Gabba Gabba gang succeeds in making Toodee realize that her friends like her better if she’s herself and tells the truth, my mother started weeping uncontrollably when she found out what I did with the turkey money from my asshole brother-in-law, and now I’m not welcome at Thanksgiving or any other family function.
4. You need to wait your turn in line
In “Summer,” Toodee once again learns an important lesson when she cuts in front of Foofah in line for the slide and is reprimanded for her rudeness by Flex and the rest of the gang, who let her know that cutting in line is simply not acceptable.
I learned this lesson in a much harsher fashion when I tried to cut ahead of Smoker Jimmy in line at a crack house in Queens, and he shanked me in the leg and my ribs. It wasn’t fatal or anything, but I did bleed out quite a bit, and after making a makeshift bandage out of urine-soaked newspapers to stop the bleeding, I learned never to cut in line ever again or suffer the potentially deadly consequences.
3. Trying new things can be fun!
Yo Gabba Gabba fans know that Brobee is often reluctant to try new things and foods because he’s afraid he won’t like them. But when he DOES try them, he’s overjoyed to discover that he doesn’t just like them; he loves them!
Trying new foods is AWESOME!
In “Eat,” however, Toodee needs to be gently coerced into trying yogurt for the first time. But when she does, she is shocked to discover just how much she likes it.
I similarly was reluctant to try new things in the late 1970s, but instead of yogurt, I was reluctant to use needle drugs or freebase cocaine because I was worried about fucking up my arms with track marks or getting addicted, but my dealer kept telling me that if I only tried them, I would like them.
He was right! He was way too right, in fact. I got cross-addicted to freebasing and heroin. From 1976 to 1986, there was a never-ending narcotic party in my bloodstream until I got clean, for good, permanently, before relapsing shortly afterward.
Now that I think about it, the metaphor breaks down bad here but fuck it, we’re almost at the end, and I was told lists like this are great promotions for books, so let’s just keep going.
2. Too much candy will make you sick!
In the “Halloween” episode, the Yo Gabba Gabba gang has a blast going trick-or-treating, but they end up paying the price for their over-consumption of sugary treats when they all get stomachaches!
My compulsive consumption of heroin and cocaine, in both powder and rock form, pretty much killed my appetite for years. Unfortunately, I had a strong, insatiable appetite for nose candy.
All that nose candy made me sick, as did trying to kick the habit.
Booger sugar ruled and ruined my life for decades and made me sick in ways I can’t even articulate, but now I’m mostly sober some of the time and eager for people to buy my book, which is why I’m writing this list in the first place.
1. Hugs are fun
Brobee is feeling sad when Plex has a sure-proof plan to make him feel better. He introduces the little green one to a concept calling “hugging” that turns his frown upside down and sends him on a one way rocket ride to Happy Town.
I know all too well how in the right context, hugs can be not just fun but positively life-affirming. When I was coming down from heroin real bad on Christmas Eve, 1981, and I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone my mother came to the filthy motel room where I was staying with a home-cooked meal and the tenderest hug I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. She let me know that everything would be alright and that she didn’t judge me for all of the bad things that I had done.
I wouldn’t get clean for several more years, but that hug was more than just exactly what I needed: it damn near could have saved my life.
Nathan needs teeth that work, and his dental plan doesn't cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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