[This edition of Blow by Blow comes to you courtesy of the active mind and imprisoned body of Ram Venkataswaran. (I hope I’m spelling that correctly as the permanent hiatus has deleted it from our collective internet memory. Where’s your Google Cache now?
In any case, today’s clash features a washed-up former child star in a men’s washroom, a handful of exotic and illegal substances and a combative phone call to a manager who wishes he had majored in something other than Business Statistics and Bus Maintenance. Enjoy.]
(After concluding his 15 minute “gig” as opening act for the “Feathered Friends of Florida” exotic bird show at Chagoonga National Park, Keith Partridge returns to the men’s washroom that has been temporarily converted into a dressing room, huffs heavily from a small baggie and calls Dave Madden.)
Dave: Dave Madden.
Keith: Reuben, thank God I’ve reached you. It’s Keith.
Dave: Keith?
Keith: Yes, Keith.
Dave: Richards?
Keith: What?
Dave: Who the Hell is this?
Keith: Keith, Keith Partridge.
Dave: (Under his breath) Fuck.
Keith: You need to get me out of this Florida gig, Reuben. You really messed up this time.
Dave: Keith, stop calling me Reuben. My name is Dave. And for the last time, I’m not your manager. I never was.
Keith: (growing incensed) You’re damned right you’re no manager. No manager worth a shit would book me in as an opening act to a damned peregrine falcon and a handful of cockatoos, parakeets and fucking macaws. Mom is not going to be happy about this. Reuben.
Dave: (exasperated) Keith. I didn’t book you into anything. If I was going to it would be the ‘Tigerbeat” home for fucked up former teen idols. You and Leif Garret could share a room. And for the record, your mother was never happy. She was the most difficult woman I ever met – and I worked with Charo. Now stop calling me.
Keith: The owls are the worst, Rueben. They’re like fucking paintings. No matter where I go there eyes seem to follow me everywhere. I think they’re out for me. And the shit. They shit on everything. I’ve gone through three jumpers this week alone.
Dave: Jesus, Keith….
Keith: (More huffing) And the humidity is playing Hell with my shag. I’m not happy, Reuben. You need to come down here and get me out of my contract. Send the bus Rueben, send the bus. What was that? (Screams)…Oh, never mind, it’s just my hand.
Dave: (Takes a deep breath) Keith, listen to me. I have never been your manager, your agent, your friend or particularly given a shit about you or your career. Now leave me alone, I’m expecting a call from Celebrity Apprentice.
Keith: (pause) For me? Am I being considered?
Dave: I’m hanging up Keith.
Keith: Thanks Reuben. I knew you’d come through. Send the bus, and I’ll start packing.
Dave: Whatever.
Keith: (Singing) I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream/ Like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain/Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head/And spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread…
I think I love you!!!!!
Dave: Good Christ…(hangs up)
Stage Manager Enters: Two minutes Keith. And try not to swear this time, there are kids out there for fucks sake.
-submitted by Ram V.
Dead To Me 
13 responses to “Keith Partridge vs. Dave Madden”
Shirley Partridge was unhappy? And difficult? Oh what the fuck! All of my childhood fantasies are always just being torn to shit!
And I’d think that Keith would have been happy about any gig at all. The last time I saw him it was in South St. Pete and he was on his knees, desperately searching for something he must have thought he dropped. (I think he may have been on the smokable cocaine stuff) Anyway, do you know what he was huffing?
This site is where childhood fantasies come to die. Like that mock graveyard I build with the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny tombstones. You can’t turn kids brutally cynical too early these days…
I’m not sure as to what he was huffing. It’s kind of been left open to interpretation. It can be whatever you want it to be! Like gold paint. Or leftover placenta.
Reuben was always so useless. If you wanted results, you talked to the plucky, wisecracking, red headed little brother – he was always up to something.
Keith, smarten up – call Danny!
Call Danny what?
I usually call him a drug and booze abusing blowhole with a penchant for beating up transvestite hookers. Or, Dan, for short.
My point is, he gets results. They’re not always the desired ones, but… um, well, you can’t even get a Reuben sandwich out of Reuben! And that’s just sad. And pathetic. I’m not sure which one more so. Let me get back to you on this.
I await your clarification.
In the meantime, I move that we refer to Danny as “abusive blowhole.” We can table this for the moment to see if we can’t work the word “cunt” in there somewhere.
Ha!
Let’s go with abusive cunt-hole.
Hey, that was surprisingly easy! And super fun!
You know what else is surprisingly easy? Large groups of promiscuous people.
Well… I guess it’s not that surprising.
But it’s still highly amusing.
Large people are also funny. Because they’re fat. I know, I know, that sounds cruel… But in these trying times, I’ll take any cheap laugh I can get.
It’s the economy. Laughs, like anything else, need to be cheap if anyone’s going to enjoy them.
I should rename the site “Cheap Laughs.” At least until the economy improves.
I have to be honest…I had to Google both these guys. I thought Dave Madden was a shoe designer (turns out that’s Steve Madden) and Keith Partridge was that guy on the Surreal life who married that potty-mouthed model half his age(turns out that’s Christopher Knight).
Charo was still an abusive c-hole*, though.
*”c” being that word I shouldn’t say because I’m a girl. (You know…that “cunt” word.)
Anyway, now that I’ve spent the better part of the work morning setting myself straight, I can truly appreciate this for the masterful dialogue that it is.
And knowing what I now know about Keith, I think it’s safe to say that there were drugs in that small baggie.(But don’t quote me on that.)
I hear you on the way-back-machineness of these two combatants. I recognized the Patridge brand but thought Dave Madden managed New Order or Boyzone or something.
You really can’t insult Charo enough. That may be due to the language barrier, though. It’s like insulting a heavily-made up, bubbly brick wall.
This just in:
“Bschooled, having spent the early part of her workday wasting company time and bandwidth has gone on the record with the following statement:
‘Off the record, I’d say Keith had drugs in that bag. Hardly shocking, I admit, if we’re talking about a Richards, but I am, in fact, talking about a Partridge.’”
corn furnace
Keith Partridge vs. Dave Madden | Blow by Blow