Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 24 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a satirical magazine known for irreverent humor. The first section is a lengthy editorial rant attacking Palm Beach, Florida as a shallow, artificial resort town for the wealthy. The author (identified as a minister's son) criticizes the ostentatious displays of wealth—fancy pets, manicured nature, cigar smoke—and calls Palm Beach a "painted, pampered prostitute of Florida" with a "do as you damn please" ethos. He leaves by midnight train to escape moral corruption. Below that is a brief joke titled "Froth Pulls This One," playing on the name "Buoy" (homophone of "boy"). Belle questions why respectable Clarice associates with a common grocery delivery boy. Buoy's punchline—"unless it's because he delivers the goods"—is a double entendre suggesting sexual favors, mocking both the grocery boy and Clarice's virtue. It reflects period-typical class snobbery and crude sexual humor typical of 1920s men's magazines.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
22 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang ing, golfing, yachting, sporting, and parading high-priced dogs, cats and monkeys whose men- tality and morals are often higher than their owners'. Even Mother Nature here is togged out in society form, laced and corseted. Trees and flowers are trimmed out of all picturesqueness; natural curves give way to geometrical squares; lawns are imprisoned in concrete curbs; the air is perfumed with the balmy fragrance of cigar- ettes and cigars; there in no rest found beneath palms, fruit trees or among plants and flowers on account of the stinging swarms of society gnats. Florid Florida folders describe Palm Beach as “paradise,” but the attractions to me were outside of the garden. Everything is over-estimated. It is very far from the lux- uriance of Hawaii, the sport of Monte Carlo, the beauty and history of Mediterranean resorts. It takes more than a railroad and a big hotel to beat them. Palm Beach pauperizes and provokes. Her short season sickens and shames. She is the painted, pampered prostitute of Florida. “Do as you damn please” is her motto. This was no place for a minister’s son, so I stood not up- on the order of my going, but went by the first midnight train—before I lost all my money and morals. * * * Froth Pulls This One Belle—I don’t understand why Clarice lets that common grocery boy play around with her? Buoy—Neither do I, unless it’s because he delivers the goods.