Let’s Blow This Joint (minicast)

Welcome to another mini-podcast of A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Imagine that you spent a few hours someplace with your friends and now you’re ready to take your leave.

What do you tell them? I’m out of here? Gotta run?

Maybe you prefer another phrase, one that someone recently called us to chat about.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Noreen from San Diego.

Hiya, Noreen. Welcome.

Hello, Noreen.

Hi.

I have a question about an expression that I’d like to know about.

I was a Girl Scout leader working a Girl Scout site sale, cookie site sale in front of a Starbucks, and the leader went in to buy some drinks and handed me the money.

And I turned to the other Girl Scout that was standing there and said, you know, kind of being funny, like, we’ve got the money now, let’s split.

And she just cracked up laughing.

Did you?

And said how funny I was, etc.

And I said, well, if you think that’s funny, how about let’s blow this pop stand.

She just about rolled on the ground laughing hysterically.

And I thought this girl’s got to get out more often.

Did you abscond with the money?

No, we did not.

But when the leader came out, I said what had happened.

And the leader is from New Jersey.

And she said, I always heard it was popcorn stand.

I’m from New York, Long Island, and I’ve never heard that before until I went to Ohio, and my brother-in-law said pop stand.

So now I’m wondering, is one way correct and one way not correct?

Or is it a local thing or an East Coast thing?

Or where did this all come from?

Well, I’ll tell you, the digging I’ve done on this, because this has come up before, is kind of curious.

In 1973, it suddenly appears, and before that, I find nothing.

And where it appears is interesting because it appears in three different places and two different forms in such a way that you could easily say that this is the moment at which, whenever it started, it caught fire and other people picked it up.

You ever heard of the author Jim Harrison?

He wrote the book Legends of the Fall.

Oh, yes.

He also wrote a book in 1973 called A Good Day to Die.

He uses it in there.

Now, that book is a very macho book full of adolescent acts and a lot of tough talk and stuff.

And it strikes me as probably the kind of book that young folks were reading, college kids and the sort.

In the same year, 1973, do you know the comic strip Funky Winker Bean?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

It was also used as pop stand and Funky Winker Bean.

Now, both those sources use it as pop stand.

Now, a little bit later in the year, there’s an actor by the name of Michael Sklar.

You probably don’t remember him, but he was a Warhol hanger-on, and he appeared in some of the Warhol movies, you know, these arty flicks and stuff.

And there was an interview with him in the L.A. Times because he was kind of an odd man, actually, a bit of a designer and kind of a flamboyant personality.

In any case, he used it, but he said popsicle stand.

And so here we have in the same year two different forms showing up at once.

Popcorn stand shows up a few years later, taco stand a few years further still.

I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of this, Noreen, but I suspect that there was something, a television show or a movie of the period that used some form of this, and that’s how it caught on.

It is possible that Jim Harrison’s novel was the source, that everyone was reading his book, but it wasn’t on the top ten bestseller list for 1973.

It did get widely reviewed in a lot of newspapers, which strikes me as indicating that people cared about the book, but I don’t know.

You know, I would have thought that it was much older than that.

I don’t know.

What do you think, Noreen?

I would have guessed that it was some kind of, you know, 1920s kind of college slang or something.

I don’t know why.

You know, I keep picturing people in raccoon coats and, you know, let’s blow this pop stand.

Well, the year I first heard it would have been 1978, and my brother-in-law would have been in high school.

Very interesting.

And he was the one from Ohio.

Yes.

Well, you know, one interesting part of this we’re talking about is you said blow the pop stand, right?

Blow this pop stand?

Let’s blow this pop stand, yes.

Right.

And blow in that use is really interesting because most people would probably recognize what you’ve said and get that it means, at least anyone over 17, get that it means let’s leave in a hurry.

But a lot of people would know probably blow this joint, let’s blow this joint, let’s get out of here, right?

But blow, meaning to leave in a rush or to leave in a hurry, actually dates back to the late 1800s.

Oh, wow.

So whatever place you’re blowing, a joint, a pop stand, a popsicle stand, popcorn stand, or taco stand, we’ve been blowing it for more than 100 years.

All right.

Cool.

So in other words, nobody was incorrect.

All of those versions have been floating around.

It’s just that the younger generation apparently hasn’t heard them yet.

Exactly.

I think you should do your best to popularize it, Marie.

I guess I will.

Thank you for the answers.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, now it’s time for us to blow this pop stand or taco stand or whatever you want to call it.

But you can still call us anytime at 1-877-929-9673.

Or write to us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

And stop by to speak your mind on the discussion forum of our website.

That’s waywordradio.org.

Thanks again for listening to A Way with Words.

Peace out.

Thank you.