VL-IV 1: The country must be Germany, pgs 6/7/376

[Robin Landseadel]

Zoyd, still freaked out at the fern bar, makes a vain attempt to carry  
out
his faux protest for crazy money. Old buddy Buster, a fellow player
in the bygone “Six Rivers Conference” tries to talk Zoyd and a bearish
barfly down before the stoner-in-drag gets an un-requested fisting.

Speaking of queer issues:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/03/prop-8---the-musical-jack_n_147997.html

Anyway, Zoyd and “CHERYL”---his lady-like chain saw: "tough enough for  
timber,"
as the commercials said, "but petite enough for a purse"---are almost  
ready to tear
up “the original bar, carved back at the turn of the century from one  
giant redwood
log” when he realizes he really has been out of touch for a while,  
that the old
dispensations have been trumped by ”the new age.” Rip van Wheeler  
checks out
the refurbished drinking establishment:

	"Sorry, Buster, guess I did come to the wrong bar, I sure can't saw any
	of this stuff, not with the money you must've put in ... only reason  
I'm
	up here is is 'at the gentrification of South Spooner, Two Street, and
	other more familiar hellraisin' locales has upped the ante way outa my
	bracket, these are all folks now who like to sue, and for big bucks,  
with
	hotshot PI lawyers up from the City, I so much as blot my nose on one
	of their designer napkins I'm in deep shit anymore."

	"Well, we're no longer as low-rent as people remember us here either
	Zoyd, in fact since George Lucas and all his crew came and went there's
	been a real change of consciousness."

	"Yep, I noticed ... say, you want to draw me a, just a lady's size beer
	there ... you know I still haven't even got around to that picture?"

	They were talking about Return of the Jedi (I983) . . .

Note near the end of Vineland, on page 376:

	She lay paralyzed in her childhood sleeping bag with the duck
	decoys on the lining and saw that even in the shadows his skin
	glowed unusually white. For a second it seemed he might hold
	her in some serpent hypnosis. But she came fully awake and
	yelled in his face, "Get the fuck out of here!"

	"Hello, Prairie. You know who I am, don't you?"

	She pretended to find something in the bag. "This is a buck knife.
	If you don't---"

	"But Prairie, I'm your father. Not Wheeler---me. Your real Dad."

	Nothing that hadn't occurred to her before - still, for half a second,
	she began to go hollow, before remembering who she was. "But
	you can't be my father, Mr. Vond," she objected, "my blood is type A.
	Yours is Preparation H."

	By the time Brock figured out the complex insult, he was also feeling
	mixed signals through the cable that held him. . .

. . .echos of Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi (I983)

Oh yes, this is also the first of many references to both real and  
mythical movies,
made for TV movies and TV shows that, like background noise or “White  
Noise”,
fill all the potentially silent corners of Vineland.

This is followed by one of my favorite exchanges in Vineland [first  
Buster, then Zoyd]:

	"But underneath, we're still just country fellas."

	"From the looks of your parking lot, the country must be Germany." 
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