Article by Brunk Edwards and Beak Wilder / Photos courtesy of the World Wide Web
Larry F. Whipple, a 57-year-old unemployed LaserDisc repairman, has used his private home garden on Standish Avenue to grow row after row of prize-winning turnips, which he uses to torment local stand-up comedians.
Whipple, a recovering alcoholic who spends most of his days completely shithouse drunk at any number of Quincy dive bars, can often be seen carrying a large brown sack of turnips. Turnips, of course, in addition to being absolutely revolting and inedible, are a devastating way to cut short any comedian's dreams of a career in barroom stand-up comedy.
“I can fire these bastards pretty hard,” said Whipple, who then launched a series of turnips off of a passing Red Line train, shattering it’s windows and causing it to jerk to an immediate halt.
Yelling over the screams of injured MBTA passengers, Whipple added, “Just imagine if that train was trying to tell some stupid jokes. I would have completed wrecked it.”
Whipple's turnip farm on Standish Ave., which is one of the largest backyards in the city.
Investing heavily into the then-up-and-coming LaserDisc business, Whipple nearly lost everything when, from out of nowhere, people began realizing that they wanted their video discs to be smaller than the size of a vinyl record.
After a short, ten-year stint in prison, Whipple was released, unaware of how to cope in a world that he no longer felt at home in.
"I had no idea what to do," Whipple stated, as he casually attempted to hide several questionable stains on the right leg of his pants. "I had no direction. I was living in a world I didn't understand, and there was no hope for me. That's when I decided to just start growing turnips and fucking tossing 'em at people. There's not much more to the story. I wish there was, but there's not."
Immediately adding more to the story, Whipple revealed the source of his hatred for comedians. “I had a cellmate named Bats McManus. He used to crack jokes all day. I never liked him. There’s nothing funny about jokes, I tell you.”
Harry Cheesedoodle, a bartender at Cagney’s, fondly recalled a time when Whipple’s bleak, depression-filled antics amused his patrons. "Some moron was on stage talking about the difference between cats and dogs, or somethin’. I don't know. Then, Larry walks in and rifles a softball-sized turnip right off the guy’s teeth. Boom, baby! Right off the son-of-a-bitch's teeth. The crowd went nuts.”
Whipple, riding on the crowd’s energy, managed to feel good about himself for a few hours. But a class action lawsuit filed against him by eleven assaulted comedians turned his confidence to dust. His lawyer’s defense was brave, but futile. Using books available at a local dentist office’s waiting area, Whipple was able to conclude that turnips were once used by the pilgrims as a substitute for rocks. This fact would prove useless as it was presented to the judge days after the trial had ended and mere minutes before he would swing from a crudely erected gallow.
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