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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
An old box of randomly labelled cassette tapes is liberated from a garage sale and into the hands of a journalist who begins sifting through the contents and discovers random interviews with the citizens of a remote town known only as Bootstuck, a distant former military base in Ontario's northernmost region. The characters that occupy this abandoned outpost are colourful to be polite, unstable, unpredictable, or erratic to be direct but have all bypassed their obvious intellectual shortcomings to suss out an existence in this wild and challenging place.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
TAPE 7 - Boob Tubes, Murder and the meaning of Whoop!
Tape 7 brings us a double feature: two interviews spliced together, each raising more questions than answers. First up is Don who’s starting to sound less like a local and more like someone with real pull in town. Then it’s the return of Hat Guy, ever the unreliable narrator of all things Bootstuck. The two of them discuss a place called the Tube Store—oddly specific for a town that barely seems to exist on a map.
In the second half, Hat Guy is on the move, possibly driving, which hints that Bootstuck might be reachable by road… though, as always, no clear directions are offered. Things take a turn at the 1:30 mark when the tape glitches—and in the static, there’s a voice. Did someone just say “There was a murder”? Or am I imagining it?
Press play and decide for yourself.
www.bootstuck.com
Like
SPEAKER_02:that.
SPEAKER_00:Like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or
SPEAKER_02:sometimes like this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We had a tube company in Bootstud that I remember. They sold all kinds of tubes, inner tubes.
SPEAKER_02:Did they have outer tubes?
SPEAKER_00:They just had plain tubes.
SPEAKER_02:What's the tube that goes inside the inner tube called?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, the inside inner tube.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then they had tube tops. I like tube tops. Oh, and you could buy an album there. You had music, a tube in your belt.
SPEAKER_02:Tube socks. I had tube socks.
SPEAKER_00:Didn't last very long, though. I think they got in trouble the one time that they offered boob tubes.
SPEAKER_02:Boob tubes is not the same as tube top. A tube top, and then you got boob tube.
SPEAKER_00:I don't even know what you do with boob tube.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. Boob tube.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Boob tube.
SPEAKER_00:Boob tube. Yep. Store's gone now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's too bad. The yogurt's probably expired.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think the way down to tubes. Yep. I should take that back.
SPEAKER_02:That was a good office joke. You could put it in the little tube that goes upstairs. Like that. Put that joke in the tube, and then... Take it to London. They also have a tube. And you can put that tube joke in the tube, in the tube, in London. There you go. I don't know about that. Wait, it's all wrong. There it is. Are you there now? I've been here since I called you. Sorry, when I call up the audio recorder, it cuts out for a short little while. Beep, boop, bop, bop, bop, boop, boop, bop, bop, bop. Like that? Yes. Wow. So
SPEAKER_01:what
SPEAKER_02:are you doing? Well, you know what? Yesterday I got a new cab. I went to the store. And the boy gave me a cap for free. Free cap. If they gave it to you late in the day, would that be a night cap? I think there's a joke in there somewhere. Yeah, that was fun. I like that. Do it again. I don't want to say it again. All right, I'll do it. So if they gave you a hat at night, is it a night hat? That's funny. I like that one. You're on your way to a meeting. Is this a bootstuck thing, like a council meeting? Well, I left bootstuck about 4.30 this morning, got in the car, and started driving away. Well, I didn't get very far. Yeah. So I'm just going to turn around now. You've been driving for five hours and you didn't get to where you're going and you're just going to turn around? Yeah, I didn't have much gas. I'll push the car down into Petro. No, I had a nap. Yeah. Anywhoos. Oh. What is that you guys do there? Is that like a... Oh, whenever you see somebody from Boots, you just go whoop. They say it right back. They'll look at you and go whoop. Is it a word, like a verb or a greeting? Yeah. Lingo. You know what I'm saying? Lingo. Lingo. Lingo.
UNKNOWN:Lingo.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that guy was on a motorcycle doing at least 220. Holy scheissers. Look at him go. Scheissers? He's doing a whoop. It is a fur. Well, it's kind of like the F word, Derek, where you can say it for pretty much anything. I was climbing up to the top of the whoop, and the hill over there fell down. Whoop. So you can kind of use it as you please. I wouldn't put it in a soup. Uh-huh. I asked the man at his table there, what's the soup du jour? And he said, well, sir, that's the soup of the day. And I said, well, it sounds tasty. It was Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01:Was it? Wednesday soup?
SPEAKER_02:Not sure. Tastes like a Monday. I don't know. A lot of things I don't know. I don't know much about submarines. Well, I know about the submarines that you go and put the ham into turkey, but that's about it. I've learned a lot already today. I know that kind of submarine pretty good, but that's about it. Introducing a new conditioner that goes... I love the flavor, but that smell.
SPEAKER_00:Mmm, watch this.
