It’s time once again for Six Degrees of Wikipedia! I do declare, Barbers and Barberettes, we have got one sweet waste of time in store for you.

Today’s installment of Six Degrees of Wikipedia will take us — via streetcar (*elaborate wink*) — from The Letter People of your youth to an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate! I know you’re eager to get started, so I’ll begin wasting your time immediately.

If you went to public school or watched PBS or had a soul in the 1980s, you know the Letter People. Specifically, you know Mr. M. and his trademark Munching Mouth. Yes you do. You know the song. But did you know the Letter People got their big break in St. Louis, Missouri?

Yes, picturesque St. Louis. Long before it got the best of Tom Waits, the city broadcast the Letter People television series on local PBS station KETC. Unfortunately, the Letter People are basically the only good things ever to come out of St. Louis (my great auntie M. and uncle H. emphatically excluded, of course). Nobody cares about the Gateway Arch, and even fewer people care about the subject of our next page: St. Louis native Tennessee Williams.

Tennessee is best known for writing excruciating plays. I wish I could say the connection to our fourth stop on today’s route (lobotomy) was a rogue editor’s suggestion for how best to enjoy Tennessee Williams plays, but the real connection is not nearly as satisfying. Apparently Tennessee’s sister Rose had an ill-advised lobotomy to treat her schizophrenia and it did not go well.

In fact, I bet Rose would happily have traded lives with psych-111 susperstar Phineas Gage, who was linked from the lobotomy page for obvious reasons. He’s the guy who lived for many years with a three-foot tamping iron stuck right the fuck through the front of his head. It’s just a hop, skip, and a click from there to our last bangin’ stop, without which Gage’s tragic accident would never have been possible.

That’s right: gunpowder. As I’m sure you know, the chemical equation for the combustion of gunpowder is 10 KNO₃ + 3 S + 8 C → 2 K₂CO₃ + 3 K₂SO₄ + 6 CO₂ + 5 N₂.

Thanks for riding, kid Barbers. Watch your step.

Hard times for beauty queens women who compete in worthwhile contests of skill and intellect.

But when life gives someone else lemons, I steal and sell them on the black market. I’m already hard at work on my screenplay, “Mis(s)count: What REALLY Happened to Miss California.” I don’t want to give anything away, but at least two psychotic middle-aged pageant moms and a chihuahua die in a knife fight before the end of the second act. Watch for it this spring on Lifetime.

Elsewhere…

Brotherly Love Returned: Gorilla drops some econ science on the music biz over at recordreviews.org.

Also we’d be remiss if we didn’t say how glad we were to have Grambo back.

Whoa.

Hey, Barbersketeers! Our corporate overlords have been after us to increase traffic to the site, and since writing is a lot of work, we’re testing out a new feature called Hitbooster. Here’s how it works:

1) We post things that appeal to a broader audience.

2) Millions of people flock to Barber College every three or four hours.

At least that’s what I told the BC board of directors at this morning’s meeting. I tried to keep it brief so I could snag a custard doughnut before that prick Miguel ate them all.

Anyway. Our research indicates that the masses are into adorable kittens, so here you go: