Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, February 1922 · page 5 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #30 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous travel narrative by "Bilious Billy," the persona of Captain Billy's Whiz Bang magazine. The piece satirizes the wandering American traveler, mixing complaints about domestic hardships (expensive coal in Minnesota) with frivolous vacation plans (Cuba, Miami Beach, Montreal). The humor relies on exaggeration and non-sequiturs: Billy can't decide where he's going, complains about high heating costs while fantasizing about tropical leisure, and makes absurd comparisons ("sun was hot tamale"). The reference to being "like a wandering Jew" reflects period casual stereotyping. The tone mocks both the restless American urge to travel and the class privilege enabling it. Mentions of "fast horses and saintly senoritas" in Cuba suggest both adventure-seeking and patronizing stereotypes about Caribbean destinations common to 1920s American humor. This is primarily satirical commentary on American leisure culture and travel anxiety rather than political commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 3 Drippings From the Fawcett Gentle readers, wet your lips, for whilst with dry tongues thou art yearning, your obedient servant, Bilious Billy, is in the land of liberty—personal and otherwise—basking in Cuba's sunny clime, in Havana, sucking soda through a straw! Soda! Sure, soda with a dash in it. When we grow tired of fast horses and saintly senoritas, it will be back again to the big pines of northern Minnesota for the fishing season at Breezy Point Lodge. You know, folk, in the winter we Minnesotans can't fish, as our Norwegian friends would say. *** WELL, boys and girls, here I am on the road again—just like a wandering Jew. In making my present departure from Robbinsdale, I didn't know whether I was coming to Montreal or going to Cuba. The high cost of coal in Robbinsdale made me long for summer at Miami Beach, where there is no charge for hot rolls in the sand and a little chicken nearby. Then again I was reminded of having seen Willie and Mollie playing in the sand, indulging in youthful folly. The sand was terribly hot on Willie's back and the sun was hot tamale. Woke up in Chicago with an ice-pack attached to my fevered brow, and appreciating that the United States is the land of personal