A Partridge in a Deck Chair

Halt! Hold it right there, sawed-off, freckle-faced, not-an-actual-bass-player Daniel Partridge: I hate to burst your bubble gum, young Citizen Shite-For-Brains, but your embarrassing attempt at defiance 'board the the bloody Love Boat® impresses no one, least of all Yours Truly Dooley®. If I were mum Shirley Partridge, I’d bend you over my knee and beat you like the red-headed stepchild you surely are, for there is no way you are a blood relation to the lovely, lithesome harmony vocalist Laurie Partridge, nor the equally enchanting, man-crushing, lead-singer Keith. I’ll venture out onto a partridge tree limb and posit 'twas band manager/commercial voice-over artist Dave Madden who supplied the genetic sausage that gave you life, as you bicker like father and impudent, teenaged sonny boy. I’ll edge out further on the limb with my belief that Ruben, or rather Dave, also sired the doltish sorta tambourinist sister Tracy, but I've no clue who was responsible for fake drummers Chris #1 or #2 — possibly guest EMT Bobby Sherman? — for neither bears resemblance to the lot of you. I say this out of no disrespect for your bus-driving, keyboard-ticking cutie pie mum, for she was deserving of gentlemanly company after husband Jack Cassidy went up in flames in that unfortunate West Hollywood apartment incident. As for your "one fingered salutation" from the lido deck chaste lounge, you are cruising for a bruising, laddie. Flipping the partridge bird does not a tough guy make. Your antics shame your mum and dad, your stepbrothers and sisters, your fans and, above all, the studio bass player whom ABC TV contracted to play your parts on the Partridge Family Album. Straighten up, fly right and perhaps one day you’ll land a douchie — Bonadouchie — reality show about your battles with demon alcohol, the missus and, one supposes, human growth hormones.