Fiction_Chowder Higgins

There was only one name alternative radio listeners heard in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it belonged to Chowder.

Born Dudley Higgins, Chowder got his start in comedy at the age of eleven when he performed seven minutes of raw material at General Custer Middle School in his hometown of Boise, Idaho. With his spot-on impressions of Tracey Gacey the school’s principal, Deloris Farber the regular lunch lady, and Skip Connor the creepy janitor, Dudley took home the first place ribbon in the non-music category.

Dudley’s mother Shirlene Higgins immediately sent the young wit to Glamour Shots and began representing her comedic prodigy.

In the tenth grade Dudley stole the show at the Giggle Palace Open Mike Laugh Off in downtown Boise. He was seen his senior year as the Grover Cleveland Second Term High School morning news anchor. In the summer after his graduation, he began doing weekly commentary on the Channel 26 News with Chaundra Blue. Blue, an alum of Grover Cleveland, embraced the deep talent inside the spastic body of Dudley Higgins.

Foregoing a college career, Higgins enrolled in the Idaho School of Radio Broadcasting where he studied every aspect of radio, television, and print media. When the three-month string of courses ended, Dudley landed a gig as host of the public access kids show; Seafood Storytime. This children’s program reached houses only within thirty miles of the landlocked Boise, but somehow managed to teach boys and girls the great wonders of the sea.

It was here where Dudley would adopt the nickname Chowder.

He put his promotional skills learned at the Idaho School of Broadcasting into action. He made up Chowder business cards, glossy 8x10 headshots, and quickly became a birthday party/bar mitzvah/charity ward celebrity.

His motivational speeches were recorded for a live DVD under the name Chowder Chats - “Don’t Be A Clam”. That was Chowder’s first catchphrase. It almost came by accident.

At Martin Luther King Jr. High School one afternoon a young Negro child asked Dudley if he had any words of advice on how Blacks, Whites, Reds, and Browns could get along in this world of never-ending violence. With a straight face, cameras rolling, and PTA moms in attendance, Dudley Higgins looked the eager children in their eager faces and said, “Don’t Be A Clam.”

Of course the pun was missed by the kids, but Dudley’s playful teaching style reassured every man, woman, and child that they should always voice their opinions, feelings, and views, no matter what the situation or consequence. Don’t Be A Clam.

The phrase echoed off the face of t-shirts, highway banners, and school lunchboxes through the greater Boise area. Mothers spanked their children with the positive reinforcement message: “Don’t be a clam little Billy. Remember what Chowder says.”

The absurdity of such a lame phrase mattered not to these simple folk. They only wanted their own version of a fun mascot like Mickey or Barney. To their glorious delight they now  had Chowder.

Shortly after his twenty-fifth year on this planet, Dudley Chowder Higgins was offered a job as Mid-Day disc jockey at The Lazer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Lazer offered Chowder:

| Annual salary of $47,000

| Three weeks paid vacation 

| No commitment to weekend shifts

| The easy breezy daily hours of 10-2 p.m.

After discussing the gig with his agent/best friend/mom Shirlene, Dudley graciously accepted the position.

The city of Boise had a grand going away party for the young celebrity at one of his favorite comedy clubs, the Chuckle Bucket. Everyone loved the Bucket and would miss the innocent humor of their beloved Chowder.

With his family and handful of friends back in Boise, Chowder snagged a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Tulsa. $700 per month with utilities. He also purchased an English bulldog that he named Tampon because he thought, and still thinks, Tampons are funny. Tampon would later be kidnapped by a jealous girlfriend of Chowder’s, held for ransom, and killed by a black Toyota 4-Runner during the tradeoff.

“Welcome to The Lazer Chowder.” That was the voice of the station’s program director Doyle. The Lazer was the first radio station that Doyle ever ran. She still programs the songs to this very day.

“It is a real treat to bring Chowder to the Tulsa airwaves. His talent, drive, and quirky humor are just what these Oklahomans have been waiting for,” Doyle told the local Tulsa paper.

“Don’t Be A Clam. I love it. So good to have you on the team, Chowder,” Doyle said with a welcoming smile.

“You can call me Dudley.”

Behind a pair of bedazzled eyes Dudley stared with a nervous amazement at Doyle’s star-spangled office. His pupils watered at the shiny gold records held hostage in glass jails on The Lazer walls. He romanticized that it was him who was nestled in some photographic embrace with a musically gifted rocker on her desk. There was a Shel Silverstein book on the shelf, The Giving Tree.

“Just have fun out there today,” Doyle said. “Light up the phones and introduce yourself to your new family.”

Dudley let that statement sink in as he smiled and shook hands with his lovely new boss. As he  entered the on-air studio of The Lazer, Dudley repeated to himself; “My new family.”

He thoroughly enjoyed being inside a radio station, his first incidentally, since graduating from the Idaho School of Broadcasting. The microphones were the supreme conduit of his love, and the headphones acted like syringes, pushing the stimulating voice into his brain.

Dudley gawked at the massive size of the blinking control board. There was a record from Green Day spinning on the airwaves. Volumes of discs hung from the studio walls, some skipped from being spun so frequently, others were dustier than Gramma’s crotch. The Lazer was his new home and it was just about time for Chowder to introduce himself to his new family.

“You must be the new guy.”

Chowder looked at the door to witness the large frame of the morning disc jockey Cap’n Sack.

“It all begins today,” Chowder declared while extending his hand.

“I really shouldn’t be smoking in here,” Cap’n Sack replied. “But if it were my job to give a fuck I would have been fired in the first grade.”

Chowder smirked ever so faintly while the Cap’n, enthralled with his glorious wit, boomed out some fantastic laughs accentuated by his struggling lungs.

“Sorry for the phlegm,” Cap’n apologized. “You’ll be fine.” Cap’n left the dark mucus on the control board and began to spit into the mic.

“Rabies and jellyfiends hot dammnit its time for the Cap’n to set sail. Before I board my ship let me introduce the newbie. What is your name anyway?”

With a slight hesitation and odd feeling of shyness our boy leaned into the hot mic and whispered “chowder.”

“There you have it scabies and bellybuttons, the man replacing our faithful friend of fifteen years Killer Krendel is the famous Chowder from Boise.” Cap’n Sack stressed Boise with the heaviest sarcasm in the solar system.

“This pinky poo will be rocking you until two, ow oooh!”

“Thanks Cap’n it’s a real pleasure.”

“Call the station right now Lazeroids. Let’s throw this new meat into the burning fire. I’ll start the flame. Hey new guy are you gay?”

A silent pause clouded the future of Chowder as he briefly hesitated to reply. The awkward silence gave the Cap’n more than enough ammunition to reload and blast again.

“That is a YES babies and germs, new guy Chowder is a major faggo.” Before an actual reply could manage to spring out of Chowder’s mouth and save the situation, Cap’n Sack delivered his final sign off insult.

“Call now Lazerheads. Say hello to the new homo Chowder and hope to our good Christian God that he doesn’t suck balls ON the air as much as he apparently does OFF the air. This is Cap’n Sack, and I’ll be back, tomorrow.”

The red light above the control board fizzled out to a lifeless state. Cap’n Sack removed his headphones, grabbed the breathing cigarette out of its convenient ashtray and began to exit the studio.

“Have a good show pillow biter,” he said as he barreled past Chowder in a cloud of unlawful smoke.

The next few months were a trying time on the heart and mind of Chowder. He fell into a terrible routine of drinking, smoking, and exploring the wicked drug culture of downtown Tulsa at his favorite nightclub Cinnamon. He became a regular patron there and could seen at approximately 2:30 p.m. until last call every night of the week. Dudley began to leave the body of Mr. Higgins, now completely inhabited by the creation known to all Oklahomans as Chowder.

When the first year away from Boise passed, Chowder made a conscious decision to eliminate all contact with his past friends and family. He decided that it was more important to drink, fuck and fight everything around him. He had not yet found his real voice, as it were, in the growing city of Tulsa, but his ratings would contradict that statement tenfold.

His ratings were rapidly reaching great heights.

The raucous new behavior elevated his show to audio perfect territories. The adorable young hick from Idaho was now a full fledged loudmouth bastard on the radio and every set of working ears creamed for more.

Letters, phone calls, emails from his mother Shirlene went without response. He even went to absurd lengths to lie about her “untimely death” during a bit that gained the scathing jock national press. Shirlene was to hear about the unpleasant news when it spread across the Associated Press wire like an Ebola epidemic.

The perks off the air began to widen. Drugs became available at no cost. The girls who wanted to experience the DJ’s dial were lining up at his door. Soon he was flying off to Frisco to see bands perform at the Fillmore. Weekend getaway remote broadcasts were aboard the ritzy cruise ships that rocked and docked in Cancun.

His wardrobe improved drastically. That is not to say that the old Dudley Higgins would have worn rags or hand me downs, but the new gear he flossed came fresh off the European runway. High-profile lifestyle clients sent free wear every week just  so their logo could be seen on the body of The Lazer’s new number one DJ.

The fame raced straight to Chowder’s head. He became erratic towards his fellow jocks. It seemed as though the transformation was making Dudley into his own monster. Some ego maniac radio twit with a four-hour smidgeon of power that rammed out the of the urethra of a 100,000-watt tower.

Friends, those who were once considered and considered themselves friends, began to give up.

Invitations for the celebrity blowhard to fly back to Boise for family holidays were shredded in a fancy three hundred dollar shredder, given to the Chow-Man during an on-air promotion.

His reflection was no longer that of himself. When he gazed into the expensive mirror that was erotically stuck to the roof of his bedroom he saw a different human being. Chowder became someone he always hated. That brash know-it-all who forgets where he came from and all of the people who helped him along the way. More importantly, Chowder found himself friendless and soon fanless.

At his twenty-seventh birthday bash, held in the dark VIP room of Cinnamon, Chowder celebrated by snorting an 8-ball of cocaine, drowning a bottle of Cristal champagne, huffing an ounce of Northern Lights, and gobbling two pockets full of mixed colored pills that would send him and his boisterous mouth to the emergency room. His stomach needed to be pumped twice. The tragedy of the evening for Chowder, the radio station, and his biggest fan Doyle, was that the entire incident was aired via live broadcast.

Every foul mouth word that the Federal Communications Comission later fined him and the station for was heard clear and loud through the obliterated voice box of a maniacally destructive Chowder. Every sexual advance towards the bartender, account executives, wives of national sponsors, college interns, and Doyle was played back in an Oklahoma Supreme Court two months later. The hearing took place in the same room where Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death.

Dudley “Chowder” Higgins still owes the Federal Communications Commission, and the parent organization of The Lazer (Howser Broadcasting Company), seven hundred thousand dollars in fines. He was sentenced to three years of probation for ingesting illegal substances during a live broadcast with the intent to “dope up young people and rape them rotten” according to District Attorney Gavin Speckles, who also added at the sentencing that this “terribly afflicted mongrel” would be better off never going within three hundred yards of a live microphone, radio or television station, or even a public movie theater until completely rehabilitated and depleted of all fatal narcotics.

Killer Krendel is back on the airwaves 10-2 p.m. on The Lazer, preceded by the station’s self-proclaimed “non gayest, most kick ass, undumb dude in Tulsa”, Cap’n Sack.

Dudley Higgins refuses to respond when called Chowder, cannot stomach soups from Manhattan or Boston, and has yet to speak to his former agent  and beloved mother Shirline.

He currently works the graveyard shift at Sal’s secondhand record store, located twenty five minutes outside of Omaha, where he earns $6 an hour.