NTMP 52: Mighty Mighty Moss Chickens
You and me punk rock farmer
New-to-me Phrases, February 5, 2023
Fuckcoffee * Cloacitis * The Wellness to White Supremacy Pipeline * Queer punk rock farmers * Meat Twinkie
The Phrases, With Context
A shorter list this week (it happens), with profane brown pills, crusty bums, Hostess hot dogs and more.
But first! Some housekeeping!
I decided to add paid options for New-to-me Phrases. There are no extras for subscribing. What you do get is the good feeling knowing you’re supporting the effort it takes to gather phrases and write about them each week. You can subscribe monthly, annually, or as a Founding Member. Check it out:
If you’ve already signed up for a paid option, you have my heartfelt thanks. If you haven’t, that’s cool too—all are welcome, and I appreciate that you read NTMP!Also, here’s the January 2023 Favorite Phrase poll!
Let’s get to it!
1. Fuckoffee
While on a Zoom with my friend Tom (one of the founders and hosts of the Mac Admins Podcast), he held up his bitchin’ mug emblazoned with this word and said, “By the way, I thought you’d appreciate this.”
You thought correctly, Tom!
The link to the Fuckoffee shop isn’t working, but if it was, I’d absolutely have purchased a mug for myself.
Sidebar: I don’t have space for a proper office in our current home, a midcentury modern beauty I have taken to describing as “perfect for us, if we could change nearly everything about it.” Despite my complete lack of carpentry or construction skills or spatial reasoning abilities, I keep threatening to build a shed, into which I will disappear and never return.
My husband has dubbed this my “Fuckoffice.” As in “fuck off,” not “let’s do the nasty in the shed out back,” though I’m sure he’d appreciate that as well.
2. Cloacitis
If you’re not following the Kākāpaō Recovery Instagram account, please rectify that immediately. Once body-shamed as “the world’s fattest parrot,” the “mighty moss chicken” is probably more famous for the “Shagged by a rare parrot” video where one of these New Zealand flightless parrots humps a photographer’s head. (I’m pretty sure I’ve shared that video here before but it’s always worth another watch.)
I’ll assume you’re not as much of a bird nerd as me and I’ll explain what a cloaca is: A dual-purpose exit portal for female birds, whereby both eggs and poop/pee are ejected wherever they damn well feel like doing so. A couple of the resident Kākāpaōs contracted cloacitis, also known as “crusty bum.”
Everyone’s okay, I was just completely charmed by the phrase “crusty bum.”
3. The Wellness-to-White-Supremacy Pipeline
This is a weird one, because I can’t seem to find the source. Furthermore, I think I might have made it up as a riff on an excellent Maintenance Phase episode called The Wellness to QAnon Pipeline (transcript available, highly recommend listening/reading). See also: Their two-part series on Aussie celebrity chef Pete Evans. Part 1 and Part 2 (both with transcripts! yay!).
I could’ve sworn the hosts used this phrase in the Pete Evans episodes but a search of the transcripts turns up nothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s also an excellent feature in The Atlantic called The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline that describes this cultural phenomenon, where people seeking alternative health and lifestyle solutions end up cozying up to far-right groups. I saw this when a yoga instructor I knew shared that “Plandemic” disinformation video. Blocked!
4. Queer punk rock farmers
If you want to craft a phrase that will garner my immediate enthusiastic attention, this would be it. This phrase is part of the Instagram bio for Ramshackle Farm, based in Harvard, Illinois. I don’t do new year’s resolutions (remember those?) but I am going to make it my mission to befriend these people.
They’re hosting a punk music fest! Featuring eight bands! When I’ll be out of town. :( And I literally don’t go anywhere, ever!
The name of the event? Trans-farm-ation:
Join us for a full day of music, art, friends, food, and all the queer joy you can handle. All proceeds go towards gender affirming care.
But will they serve meat Twinkies?
5. Meat Twinkie
My pal Rebecca and I don’t text about much besides her sending me cool shit and me adding it to this newsletter. Here’s this week’s gem:
The best reply to this: “Who hurt you?”
The NTMP Random Files
Because we have a short week, I thought I’d share a couple of funny things:
1. Nemo would prefer not to.
My local library has an aquarium outside the children’s library with a clownfish named Nemo who likes to play dead in a front corner of the tank. So they made a plaque to reassure patrons that Nemo is okay, he’s just kind of a drama queen who likes to flounce in the corner.
2. Dicks inside where?
My husband sent me this image of a billboard for a former local grocer in Galena, Illinois that used to crack us up. 👀
That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the phrases and other randomness. Remember to stay curious and remain furious!
Fellow bird nerd, so I appreciate all the bird stuff!!